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

✗ FOURTY-NINE ✗

Niko's alarm clock failed to go off the morning after and the only thing that ended up stirring him awake was the morning light and a cold breeze blowing through the window he didn't even bother to close the night before.

His whole body hurt and the vertebrae popped in his neck when he lifted it to rub the salty crust out of his eyes. His hand flopped around for his phone, and read the notification that popped up, a message from Sebastian. His heart burst into palpitations in anticipation. He swiped past the lock screen and read the message.

He's gone.

Niko couldn't breathe. He couldn't-

He closed his eyes. Red hair and pale skin. Denise staring down at him; her face in a myriad of pieces all over the dark canvas of his mind- pills and white powder clouding his vision-

He opened his eyes.

This had been happening too much, too...

He yawned and ran a hand through the mess of dark hair on his head before lugging his dead weight out of bed and rummaging around in his drawers for a clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He needed to see Sebastian. He need to know what happen. What the fuck did he mean by 'He's gone?" Or maybe Niko knew exactly what Sebastian meant, and he was doing everything in his willpower to deny the reality of the situation and how he was the one who handed him those-

No. no.

It took Niko ten minutes to get out of his flat and headfirst into the chilly summer morning. It was weird how different a landscape can appear from night to day. He walked this same stretch of the neighborhood almost every day for the last seventeen years of his life; it was the streets that breathed so much history. From the happy ice-cream days of running down in his skateboard with Mika to tumbling down drunk and high with Sebastian, feeling his mouth and kiss and wanting that insignificant white shirt of his off, and reminding himself once more how much he loved, wanted him.

But he also noticed how Sebastian appeared so sweet, so pure before; a white flower, but like all things good, had so much darkness inside.

Sebastian might singlehandledly be the most fucked up fucker he had come across. At least when Denise died, Niko couldn't sleep properly. He couldn't flinch without seeing a redhead. He couldn't meet the gaze of Rae's eyes when she discussed about it after seeing it on the news. The worst part of this wasn't getting caught, it was the silence. There was no knock at his door, there were no interviews or confrontations, there were no whispers or accusing stares- there was only silence and forced smiles that could only symbol naiveness.

But Sebastian?

Sebastian was fine. He was cool, calm and collected. There was no signs of guilt underlying his innocent, precious smiles, or shaky demeanour when Niko held his hands through the school hallways. The healthy, glowy appearance of the boy indicated he had been sleeping well. How the fuck you do it, Sebastian? Niko wanted to scream. How the fuck do you stay sane after what we did to Denise? And how do you even go on with what I feared you might have done?

He crossed over to the other side of the road and noticed two police cars and an ambulance parked outside of Sebastian's house. Niko watched numbly as he saw Sebastian's mom, Juliet, sobbing into Violet's shoulder as Violet stared down the cement road. Her eyes were red-rimmed with mascara tear tracks down her cheeks but they were hard. There was no sadness in them.

Niko swallowed hard as he saw Sebastian watching the two paramedics wheeling off a limp corpse on a trolley into the back of the ambulance, allowing himself to realise that Sebastian's last memory of Greg was to be a bulging blanket lit by flashing blue bulbs.

"How are you?" Niko asked, his voice hoarse, dry, cracked. He did it. Sebastian did it.

"I'm fine," Sebastian coughed up, placing his head on Niko's shoulder. Niko could fear wetness leaking onto his shirt, Sebastian's head shaking profusely.

He was crying- but not out of guilt or grief.

He was crying out of relief. 

-

dedicated to vanflogh

don't you love how gay and twisted this all is?