„You’re still very young.“, Seb’s voice is clear, though it is evident in the way his eyes glaze over that he is not quite in the present, „I remember being your age, I think I was in Italy doing my specialization.” A blink is all that it takes to bring him back, and once again he looks at Eirik with a curious smile on his lips, “Yes, seventeen is the age we all start doing shit that drives our parents crazy. Still, that’s… you were very young.”, his eyes follow the cap Eirik flips in his hand, a less than subtle show-off of his skills. It’s obvious he has grown more relaxed around Seb, and with his secret out in the open, things are surfacing – things Seb is glad to see because everyone else lacks those curious habits that he always liked to observe in different people, “I was four years off then, when I profiled you – I was certain you were 25 or older – and I rarely make such mistakes.” His eyes return to Eirik’s then, intense and playful, as if to say ‘you can’t distract me, I’ve already seen it all’.
“Yes well, they all do in the beginning, and then they realise just how boring prison is, and they want the attention back on them.”, Seb states dryly – it’s mere facts, no personal emotion to them, no intention to hurt. Had it been someone more haughty than Eirik, he might have poked and provoked some more, but you didn’t have to be a genius to see that Eirik didn’t care so much about the attention of the world once he was locked up, but rather about the attention of people he cared about – people who seemingly didn’t visit as often as journalists did. A smile that comes to Seb’s lips then is a reassuring one, a understanding only an even stranger person can offer, “There’s something wrong with all of us, some just act upon it, and some pretend.”, he nods towards the shelf then, voice filled with some strange sort of longing, a happy one perhaps, “My sister loved Baudelaire as a child – she was a strange girl, never quite fit anywhere. I think it was because he once said that there could be no beauty without strangeness.”, he shrugs with carelessness that indicates deep emotion behind it, “You can’t expect ordinary people to understand you, it’s beyond their capabilities.”
“I know what you’re thinking.”, Seb says as he strolls across room towards one small, worn couch in the corner of the room, a smile easy on his lips, “Who in their right mind would get engaged to me.”, he laughs at the very idea himself, but the doesn’t dwell on it any further. Yes, he once used to ask that himself, but then he grew up, and he realised this persona he had been building – charming and manipulative and lying – it was a front put up for the world, an idea of himself he had created. He didn’t voice the thought though, because that had been once, long ago before everything that had happened to him – and now he has truly become the mask he once wore to protect himself. He hauls himself on the couch, taking most of the space up with his long limbs and the way he positions himself, and his eyes trace Eirik, a grin on his lips, “Yes well, you probably would’ve ended up in my bed had you been older and in England. I had a bet with a friend back then, for a month I had to fuck only blue eyed boys.”, it’s easier this way, to distract Eirik’s attention from the talk about his fiancé, direct it to something more flippant, less honest. There is an intake of breath and he shakes his head, smile offering sympathy, “Ouch, bad move Eirik. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, trust me.”, he lets out a breathy laugh then, only slightly surprised, “Four months. Well if she was that boring, I honestly don’t know why you stuck around that long anyway. It’s better to just do them and move on – spares you the inconvenience.” He shrugs nonchalantly then, as if whatever he just said doesn’t make him seem like a total asshole – but in all honestly, he doesn’t care, and he didn’t care back then. It was amusement for him, bets and games and conquests, he himself never thought he’d ever be mature enough for anything more. But time has a way of changing people, and so do those silly games fate plays with us all.
“I think mine were in love too… for a while. Or at least they convinced themselves they were.”, he laughs at the idea of his parents and the way their marriage worked despite the way they loathed each other, “I think father did love her nonetheless, she was that kind of woman that made men run after her, taunted and played. She was a bitch, but hell she was really good at it.” His eyes return to Eirk’s then, and a smile falters as he observes him, head slightly inclined to one side, “That’s not smart, that’s cold. But I guess it’s only fair we’re both this fucked up with our darling mothers.” His eyes then dart to the notebook in Eirik’s hands, soft red leather worn from years of use, pages turned yellow in a way that tells a history. He takes a moment looking at it, remembering the way Henry carried it everywhere, writing his songs in it, sketching his signature all over it – he wanted it to be perfect, every letter an intricate working of ink on paper. He used to tell Seb it was obvious he was going to be a doctor by the way his signature was just some doodle that looked like a two-year-old discovered pen and paper. There are memories that tell history in that notebook, sketches of Seb hanging from a tree back when Henry and him were sworn enemies, songs about girls that slowly morphed into songs about one guy he loved to hate, pages torn out only to be filled with messages and then neatly folded and put in a secret pocket at the front. Seb has to swallow some strange emotion before he speaks, voice a bit hoarse, despite his attempt of sounding casual, “Nothing interesting. I write down some of the stranger cases that were never solved, analyse the symptoms – things like that. The first half of the book is filled with some stupid teenage bullshit.”, he says the word carefully, as if it burns his tongue, a lie that oddly doesn’t come easy to him, “It wasn’t mine when I found it.”
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