BOYS OF SUBURBIA [boy x boy] [Wattys 2018]

✗ FOURTY-SEVEN ✗

"You know what I have to do."

Sebastian's whispers found him in the dark. In the cold eerie of the woods, they sat deep in the forests. Never mind of haunted tales and gory murder, Niko found comfort in the encroaching buzz of crickets and bugs and the deep abyssal anonymity that came with the towering oak trees of the coniferous forest. He didn't even light a fire and he was glad he didn't because he didn't want to see Sebastian's sweet-natured, small face glowing in red embers. Especially when they were discussing this.

"It'll be easy. We just have to mix the sleeping pills in his drinks. And it's believable because he's been prescribed them anyway. It's not the most unbelievable thing if they think that he had accidentally taken too much with alcohol-"

"That's not the fucking point, Seb," Niko snapped, blowing out cigarette smoke, "You're suggesting something fucking bonkers here. Can't you just tell the police what's happening?"

"I tried that before," replied Sebastian seriously. "The police showed up but Greg acted fine, pretended everything was normal and forced my mother to cover up her bruises with makeup or not he'll leave and take all our money since my mother put up a joint account with him. If I told my mother to just take everything and leave, he'll dry us of our money before we get anywhere. And if we tried to take the money before we leave, he'll know what we're trying to do."

"Seb, what you're asking is..."

"Please, you don't have to do anything. Just get me those pills."

Niko's face hardened, tight and waxy. "We're already have blood on our hands. What you're suggesting is...I'll be an accomplice, Seb. Fuck, we just finished our IGSCEs and you want to start Sixth Form with actual murder?"

"It's not murder," Sebastian replied quickly, "It's self-defense. You saw that day. You saw what happened. I can't...let him do this to her. I can't let this continue."

Niko was silent. They were in this one spot deep in the woods that had really tall, spindly trees with branches reaching out in all directions that were great for climbing, and they could spend hours at a time sitting high above the ground, straddling the tree's limbs and holding cigarettes to each other's mouths. Niko loved this place; it was dark, lonely and cold but with Sebastian there, all he felt was warmth and sweet serotonin bliss. However, every time he closed his eyes and he's engulfed in darkness, there's Denise standing there. Right in front of him. She's lovely, expensive and about fifteen, with her pale cold skin and her long hair cascading down her small, delicate face. Her hair was a colour he couldn't really name, couldn't ever put his finger on- persimmon, cherry, scarlet- dripping down her spine as if somebody had poured paint on her head, shimmering and twisting and magnificent. Her eyes donned a mocking, sneering, jeering gaze that threatened to inundate him, the sound of her Cheshire-mouthed sniggers ringing in his ears, engulfing him whole. Blood dripped down her lips, like some kind of sick twisted version of Lady Macbeth, and he opened his eyes to dispel the image, trying not to let his demons catch up to him. 

No matter what Sebastian said, no matter what people told him, he still felt like it was his fault. Breath rattled hard through his anxiety-wracked chest. He had to exhale out hard, forced himself to calm down, to not let the panic set in.

He opened his eyes and looked at Sebastian; beautiful, gorgeous Sebastian and felt bad. This boy was innocent before Niko met him; a creature of untapped youth, a boy who always excelled in classes. Sure, Sebastian was lonely but he was also ignorant. Ignorance was hard; ignoring isn't the same as ignorance because with ignorance you had to work at it.

Sebastian didn't know about this world, didn't know about drugs or alcohol, or Denise or dealing with girls like them. And now Sebastian was in too deep, with blood underneath the grit of his fingers and guilt staining his conscience. Niko didn't understand how Sebastian could deal with it- how he seemed fine, despite just three months ago they saw a girl foamed at the mouth and collapsed on the hotel floor, dead.

How could everything be so normal? How could Sebastian still smile and be his beautiful normal awkwardly social self? How could Sebastian still curl around Niko and hold his hand around the school, dealing with the idea of coming out as a couple, while ignoring the fact that they had- indirectly- contributed to a death of a teenage girl? How could Sebastian still walk around with his head held high without not even a grimace of visible guilt? Niko didn't (couldn't) understand, and it was driving him nearly insane.

Because he obviously he couldn't do it. He couldn't be a murderer and not have remorse, he couldn't suddenly forget that he killed someone and smile on as if life was all rainbows and sunshine.

Niko couldn't sleep without seeing Denise's face in his dreams. He couldn't remember a night where he jolted awake, drenched in the saline remnants of the tempest of his consciousness, gulping down night-stale air into starved lungs as his throat burned with muted screams and his fingers were fear-frozen, cramp-stiff. Niko couldn't sleep and spent hours staring up at the ceiling, staring up the mottled beige and the peeling paint flakes of his bedroom, counting down the seconds until light as shaky breaths escaped him through his water-clogged nose. He couldn't stopped the fact that every time he sees a redhead, his body practically hyperventilate on its own without him.

"Niko, I know what I'm asking of you is...dangerous. But please, help me." Sebastian's pleading gaze levelled with his own brown ones, pressing his clammy hands against Niko's warm velvet skin, and Niko shivered, wanting to light himself on fire with how alive he felt Sebastian made him feel, how he want to dissolve himself into Sebastian's soft lips. "Help my mom; I can't watch her do this to herself by staying with him anymore."

Sleep was digging its claws into Niko and he was fighting with every ounce of strength he had to wade off the temptation to sink into sleep; he just want to avoid this whole conversation, head back to the car, kiss Sebastian good night and coil his own body into the warmth of Sebastian because he always loved looking at Sebastian as the last thing he sees before he fell prey to unconsciousness. Somehow, Niko felt he also be okay with him being the last thing he saw if he got caught. Niko squeezed Sebastian's hands, glanced over to the side- a cover of darkness across branches and trees of the forest and Denise's face hovering in mid-air- and turned back to Sebastian, looking at the curve of his jaw under his ear, and memorising every detail, every acne scar, every red bump, every imperfect blemish. 

Then Niko started to speak: "Okay. I'll try to help you."