And the Epilogue for Amateur Cartography is also now up, so it is 100% complete! Gosh. Go us. :D :D
Go read the Epilogue, which is full of our trivia and head-canon for their future, at AO3 here, or read chapter 13 (the last real story-chapter) first--I’ll use part of that one as the preview below.
Epilogue here at AO3!
##
Sebastian, left alone in his room with the promise of Friday dangling like a present, touches his leg again. Lifts the corner of hospital blankets. Wiggles around for a better angle. So many bandages and dressings. So many scars.
So many ways he’ll not be the same. Inside and out. No going back.
He traces fingers around the edges of white fabric, where it guards his thigh. His skin shivers: not yet pain, but a warning. The outside’s more sensitive now. Other places’ll be dull, but not there.
A sound. In the doorway. He drops the blanket, turns.
Chris breathes his name a second time, eyes huge. Sebastian realizes that Chris has just walked in on silence and himself contemplating, even poking at, his injuries. “I’m fine, come in, come here--”
Chris comes but sits down gingerly, as if afraid one wrong move’ll land them both in quicksand. He’s holding a copy of Andy Weir’s The Martian because Sebastian’d expressed interest in the book; he’s changed and showered and even trimmed his beard, as if getting ready to meet with a world-renowned dignitary in a hospital room. Sebastian’s stupidly ludicrously head-over-heels in love with him.
Chris takes his hand. “Sebastian…?”
“Is it being vain,” Sebastian asks, “if I’m not sure I like them? The scars.”
This prompts a baffled stare. “No?”
“It’s only…I don’t know how to say this, it’ll sound terrible…I’m used to being--it’s why I was so good at--” He sighs, shrugs a shoulder. Doesn’t know how to put that one into words: he is used to being pretty. Part of who he was, what he did, what he thought of as himself. And now he’s not.
It’s an odd kind of mourning, and a bizarre thing to feel hollow about given that he’s alive and Chris is alive and moments ago he’d felt like dancing on rooftops. But.
He won’t be able to dance for a long time. The livid weals can be covered by clothing, and the bruises on his face and throat’ve already nearly healed, so that much won’t’ve changed--but he won’t look the same, naked.
Pretty. Chris once called him so. Even young Amber said it: good thing you are.
He knows Chris won’t care about the scars.
And this makes him feel more ridiculous for caring, even a miniscule amount; he glances away, eyes the tranquil wafting balloon, which knows very little about beauty.
“It’s not that I even mind--” he adds at last, right at the second Chris starts in with, “Sebastian, you know I don’t care about--”
“I know you don’t, never mind--”
“No, but you do. It’s important to you.” Chris lifts his hand, brushes a kiss over startled knuckles. “It’s not being vain, and it’s not stupid. It’s a piece of you.”
Okay! Final Amateur Cartography chapter** up now! Contains happy endings all over the place. We also suggest you go listen to The Weakerthans’ song “Aside” as a soundtrack, because, well, that was pretty much our theme song for this fic, and never more so than here.
**there’ll be one more chapter, technically, but it’ll be essentially just a list of our head-canon and trivia and ideas about their future and where they go from here and what they do now. I’ll put that up after I get back from teaching tonight. But the main story-part is done as of this chapter. :D
Read at AO3 here! Teaser below.
##
Friday morning. Start of visiting hours. Chris comes bounding up the stairs and down the hospital hallway. Waves at the nurses at their station. They wave back. One of them’s grinning. Must be in a good mood.
Chris is in a good mood as well. Sebastian’s doing fantastically well--better than they’d expected, even given his first real physical therapy appointment yesterday. Tuesday’s had been mostly evaluation; Thursday had left him worn out and shaky and sweaty but glowing with elation. He’s managed weight on that leg, actual walking, stretching, being up and around in defiance of healing craters. They’re both thrilled.
He rounds a corner. Maybe he skips a little. He’s a grown man on the way to see the love of his life, who is going to be absolutely fine and wonderful, and they’re going to read science fiction and hold hands. So he can skip down the corridor if he wants to.
He swings into the private room at the end of the hallway, and--
Stops.
Heart pounding. No. Heart stopping too.
The room’s empty. Bed tidily made. No presence left. No books or balloons or get-well cards from the school. No Sebastian.
No Sebastian--
“Oh God--” Chris chokes out. The unoccupied bed dances before his eyes. Flirting with black spots. With airless collapsing of lungs.
A hand touches his shoulder. He practically jumps out of his skin.
The nurse who’d grinned at him earlier advises, “He’s fine, we all knew about this, he said we should tell you to check the bed if you didn’t think of it,” and then pats him reassuringly a second time.
“He…said…wait, you knew…”
“Here.” She crosses over to the bed, picks up a note. Brings it back to him. “Need to sit down?”
“Yeah…thanks…” The note’s simple. Written on expensive creamy notepaper, heavy, with artistically torn edges. It says, Hi, Chris! First, I’m fine, so remember to breathe and tell Tina if you’re not okay, please.
“Hi,” his nurse says. “I’m Tina.”
“Oh…hi…um, I’m Chris…”
“I know, sweetie.”
Second, the writing goes on, I’m allowed out of here now, so I thought we should have a proper date. And I believe it’s finally my treat. And I love you.
Chris sniffles. Blinks back tears. Wants to hug Sebastian’s note to his heart. He knows it’s Sebastian’s handwriting even without having ever seen it before. Sweet and slightly spiky and a little messy, tall loops of letters and angles, but flawlessly readable, when given as a gift.
So, Sebastian concludes, first clue: peanut butter and honey and bananas. Go.
Peanut butter and honey--
“I’m guessing,” Tina summarizes, beaming, “that you know what he means.”
“I do--I mean, yeah, I think--”
“Then why’re you still here? Go!” Other nurses wave arms at him: shooing him out the door.
Chris laughs, lurches to his feet, clutches his note possessively. Sebastian. Sebastian; and Chris loves him so damn much; and his feet take wing and fly him all the way across town to his apartment, where he crashes through the door shouting “I love you!” and laughing like a lunatic, light-hearted and free. “Sebastian?”
And here you go, people who were excited! Have some Amateur Cartography. In which Sebastian and Chris finally get to say that I love you to each other. :-) One chapter--plus probably a little epilogue in which we just list all our head-canon thoughts about their future--to go! :D :D
Read at AO3 here! Teaser below. (Just fyi, while Sebastian IS pretty badly hurt, it looks worse than it is, and it’s not what Chris is imagining.)
##
“Oh God,” Chris says again, hands hovering, hands fluttering uselessly across him: so much blood, bandages, nakedness, bruises…blood everywhere, stomach and legs and streaked higher and lower, and Sebastian must be so badly injured, must be--but he’s talking, saying he’s here and alive, how can he be, how can that be true--
Sebastian lifts a hand. Fumbles for Chris’. Chris grabs cold pianist’s fingers. “I’m here, I’m right here, I love you, oh, Christ, Sebastian…”
“You love me.” Sebastian stops to catch breath. His face is white, but his eyes are clear. “You. Chris. You love me.”
Chris nods, while tears fall from his face to Sebastian’s. He holds that hand, presses it to his cheek, closes his eyes.
“Chris.” Sebastian’s fingers brush his skin. “Look at me? Please.”
Chris wakes up cranky and sore and tied to a chair. This is not a common occurrence in his experience, and he panics, tries to flail arms, realizes he can’t, and nearly tips the chair over. A hand catches the back. Steadying him.
His arms are tied--expertly, he’s sure--behind the back of the chair, which is wooden and splintery, smug at its own successful discomfort. His legs aren’t tied, which is...interesting, but given the shadowy shapes around the room and the lurking hand at his back, he guesses he wouldn’t get far. The sack’s off his head, which is good, but he’s thinking of his mother now, of Scott, of his sisters--of no escape, of no body, even, he’ll just go missing, never found--they’ll never know, and every awful possibility he’d thought of the first night he’d given Sebastian shelter crashes back through his brain--
No. He’s alive. Which suggests they want him alive. Whoever they are.
He remembers to breathe. For now.
The room itself glowers like every bad mobster-movie cliche. Old wooden table. Single swinging light-bulb. A chair across from him, not yet occupied. Metal walls--aluminum? Some sort of warehouse or storage facility? The place looks like someone’s gone down a Menacing Location Checklist, and Chris cares nothing about the light-bulb or the chair or his own arms, not when he’s here but--
“Sebastian,” he croaks. His throat’s dry. He’s not gagged, so he can talk. “Where is he?”
The shadows don’t answer, but after some rustling a door opens and closes and a man comes in. The light doesn’t reach his face; he’s tall and broad-shouldered, and extremely quiet in motion.
Chris, now that there’s a person, repeats, “Sebastian. And,” he throws in, inspired, “I’m not telling you anything until you tell me what you did with him.” It’s a bluff with no cards--he’s damn sure he can’t stand up to organized well-practiced torture--but maybe it’ll be convincing.
“What we did with him?” Melodic, refined: the same rippling rivers present in Sebastian’s voice but stronger, tides instead of undertones. “Why do you believe you are here?”
“Because of him.” As if the answer could be anything else. He twists his wrists. No give at all. Roughness rubs along his wrists and forearms, stinging. “Or you really want a mostly-broke unknown artist to redecorate your walls.”
The man lets out a breath that sounds genuinely amused, albeit in the manner of an assassin entertained by a kitten pouncing on his shoe; and then he comes over and sits down and leans forward into the light, and. Oh.
The man is Sebastian’s father.
Chris isn’t certain whether or not he’s meant to guess as much, but it’s stamped in their features, in their shoulders. They look--not alike, but similar. Marcus sits in his chair with the casual knowledge that he’ll only have to give any order once to see it obeyed. In Sebastian that aristocratic arrogance’s tempered by self-directed weary cynicism plus hints of wistful wanting like crocuses poking through snow.
They have nearly the same eyes. Cool rare-flower blue, less and more calculating: son versus father.
Chris should probably be intimidated, is intimidated. “Sebastian,” he demands. That’s all that matters. “Is he okay?” And then he adds, “You fucking bastard,” because he’s just realized what Marcus ordered done to his own son and he’s incandescent with rage. “Did you want to hurt him?”
....making an Amateur Cartography playlist, at least so far, up through the current chapter; if you have been paying attention, you will know when each of these songs appears...and which one might be a spoiler for the next chapter, at the end...
The Weakerthans – Aside
Tegan & Sara – I’m Not Your Hero
Winnie-the-Pooh – Theme Song
Cole Porter – Let’s Misbehave
Frank Sinatra – Autumn in New York
Frank Sinatra – I’ve Got You Under My Skin
Frank Sinatra – Come Fly With Me
Keane – Somewhere Only We Know
Maroon 5 – Won’t Go Home Without You
Maroon 5 – Love Somebody
Chopin – 4th Ballade
Steven Cravis – Through the Kaleidoscope
Frank Sinatra – As Time Goes By
Frank Sinatra – Night and Day
The Pixies – La La Love You
Elvis Presley – Jailhouse Rock
Spacehog – In the Meantime
The Little Mermaid – Under the Sea
Metric – Help! I’m Alive
Mussorgsky – Boris Godunov
Third Eye Blind – Semi-Charmed Life
The Four Seasons – December 1963 (Oh, What A Night)
Beethoven – Ode to Joy
Frank Sinatra – Strangers in the Night
Gluck – Morte d’Orphee
Neil Diamond – Sweet Caroline
Avril Lavigne – I’m With You
Billy Idol – White Wedding, Pt 1
