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Pre rev lib sebinsky angst 7 I love 2 die???

7 - “What you did was stupid and dangerous and scared the hell out of me.” / Sebastian/Vincent [Liberté] [Sequel to this piece]

He knows something is very wrong when he wakes up to a rattling ceiling. Flashes of toppling furniture. Blinking lights and the fire and the screaming Sebastian gasps and wrenches himself away from it, lurching over to the side where a void the exact size of his body awaits him. This void is pitch black and full of blankets. It’s not as funny as it sounds, because he was already having a nightmare before he woke to this one and this place - this container - it keeps rattling all above and around him, indifferent to his terror.

If he wasn’t screaming before, he’s screaming now.

“Sebastian!” Then a pale face is peering down at him, familiar and panicked, glancing rapidly back and forth between him and the road ahead. A van beeps loudly beside them and Sebastian buries his head into the seat, his cries smothered by hard, panting breaths. “Sebastian, calm down, it’s me! Here, let me pull - fucking bastard! (In reference to the van.) I’ll pull over, okay?”

“Let me out. Let me out!”

“I can’t when I’m driving!” Vincent’s voice is trembling but Sebastian barely notices, too terrified to think of the present. No wonder; he’s woken up trapped against his will in a vehicle which has just enough space for his body, something he hoped he’d never have to endure again. “We’re nearly home, Sebastian. Please hold on. I can explain.”

But Sebastian is incoherent. Until Vincent turns into a random neighbourhood and parks along the curb he can barely see straight, and the first thing he does when the car stops is to hurl himself towards the door. “All the way down the street, then left, then down the first fork in the road takes you to Saint-Ouen.” Vincent says quietly when he’s halfway out of the car. Sebastian stares back at him with wild eyes. “You know how to get home from there. But I’d like to ask you hear me out before you go.”

“What you did was stupid and dangerous and scared the hell out of me!” He’ll regret those words later, hissed out with a level of venom quite inappropriate for anyone (let alone one’s host). “What reason could you possibly give for stealing me in the middle of the night? When I was asleep, no less!”

Vincent’s voice is ever softer and filled with tears. “It’s not often you do that.”

“What?”

The engine shuts off and silence settles in. “You remember last night. If you walked back home now, what do you think you’d see?” Sebastian stares at him, then at the back seat, where he now sees two thick blankets and his favourite pillow laid out for him. “Friends, I expect. The people whom you don’t want knowing about the nightmares.”

The night air is icy in his lungs when he gasps. “How do you-”

“You don’t sleep when we have people in the house. I hear you at night, Sebastian. If there’s anyone else but me there, you’ll hold on and not sleep. And even when you do sleep, I’ve never seen you get in more than five hours, usually it’s more like two or three.” A small smile crosses Vincent’s lips. “But this car… you drift off as soon as you’re in this car, for some reason. I fooled myself into thinking it was either the car or me, I suppose, when it was probably the silence that helped.”

“…”

“It seemed a choice between letting them walk back in the dark, letting you go sleepless-” His smile becomes very sad. “- or this. I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t know how to respond to that. How can he respond to that? Sebastian stays in place, still holding the door halfway open. His anger has burned out, replaced by disbelief and bewilderment - as well as guilt, towards his host and everyone who’s sleeping over. Vincent’s home is warm and welcoming, but the general area isn’t; it’s not a place to send their friends out walking in the middle of the night. Some don’t even have warm welcomes waiting for them back in their homes. That’s not Vincent’s fault.It’s not Vincent’s fault that Sebastian is suffering, either. He’s had plenty to question since coming to France, but his host’s manners have not been one of them - until now. And even then, it feels like he was more angry with Vincent because this was so unlike him, not because he really thought Vincent was up to no good. But the memories are vivid and the pain is real and nothing can compensate for that, not even the best of Vincent’s intentions.

He bites his lip. Enters the car again, slowly. Sits down.

“Sebastian?”

He doesn’t know where to go from here.

“You’re due for work in three hours’ time, right?” Vincent taps the dashboard clock, showing two-twenty in the morning. Sebastian last remembers curling up in bed at nine. Already he feels so much more rested than he has in weeks. “If you want me to... keep going... then I’d be happy to drop you off there at five thirty and head on home. I’ll take you home if not. I’ll never just steal you away like this again, I promise.”

Sebastian breathes out hard. Admittedly, the prospect of trying to sleep with dozens of people nearby doesn’t appeal to him at all, and Vincent sounds more than remorseful enough. Actual forgiveness would be better negotiated later, but he doesn’t know how to say it without making it sound like a guarantee.

In the end, he makes do without the words, and wraps himself in a blanket. Sebastian looks up only then, bright blue eyes staring above the woollen surface, brooding but open to wherever Vincent would like to go.His host thinks about it for a moment. Smiles with more relief. “We’ll stop by at that boulangerie before you go to work. Oui?”

A small, uncertain nod. Vincent starts the car, ready to cruise once more.

“Thank you.”