satisfied ⋆｡°✩ chapter twenty-two: kiss me under the light of a thousand stars read it on ao3 | past chapters
-> synopsis: robin invites hadley to dinner. the slow burn finally catches ablaze ;) -> word count: 4.7k -> tags: jealousy, pining, alcohol use, smoking, sex, mentions of cheating, mentions of past controlling relationship, brief depictions of domestic violence, parental estrangement, self worth issues
-> A/N: Shout out @cranberrystorm for beta reading and letting me bounce ideas off of her at all hours.
Seb leaned in a fraction of an inch, but hesitated. His eyes flicked back up to meet hers. She saw the question there and it terrified her. She had known, and had been avoiding, the sheer size of her want for weeks now. It was like she’d been remapping the cityscape of her brain, rerouting her thoughts any time they ventured too close to the truth: that she had fallen for him, and fallen for him hard. It was easier to exist in the negative space, to float in whatever limbo they’d settled into. It was easier to believe that he didn’t want her. That the late nights they spent together and the mornings she woke up beside him didn’t mean anything at all. To leave it uncomplicated, unrealized. But there was gasoline coursing through her veins right now and Seb was holding a match.
❝kiss me under the light of a thousand stars place your head on my beating heart❞
-Thinking Out Loud, Ed Sheeran
----
Hadley sipped idly at a cup of tea and turned the page of the journal entry she’d been writing — both suggestions from her old therapist.
She’d gotten back in touch with her this morning, only to learn that she was no longer accepting new clients and didn’t have space for her. But not wanting to leave Hadley to the wolves, she’d offered up a few tips for self-reflection and self-care and gotten Hadley in touch with a colleague of hers who was accepting new clients. The first appointment opening was weeks away, but it was a start. It was progress.
Between her conversation with Abi and actually scheduling a therapy appointment, Hadley was starting to feel a bit lighter — but only slightly. Her thoughts were still piled in heaps she did not have the energy to begin pulling apart. That’s what the journal was meant to be for, but there were some thoughts she was still struggling to voice on paper.
Talking to Abi had been easier. The words were there and gone, taken by the wind. But there was something awfully real about seeing the words written out in pen.
So she wrote about the farm, and her grandfather, and her parents, and how different the Valley was from the city. She wrote about her new life here and how for the first time, she felt like she was building something good.
She put the pen down and stared at her jumbled handwriting.
It had been a few days since she had seen Seb, and while she wasn’t avoiding him, she wasn’t actively seeking him out either. She was terrified that, having now voiced the thought to Abi, Seb would be able to see it written across her face. And she wasn’t ready for that, not yet.
Abi had been quick to tell her that hiding was no better than running — but even if she was right… Hadley was taking it one day at a time.
A knock at her door pulled her from her thoughts.
She shut her journal and carried the mug of tea with her to the door.
She had half-expected it to be Abi — her friend had been making an effort to check in on her daily, though it had mostly been through texts. But instead of Abi, Seb stood on her front step, like Yoba himself was mocking her.
She schooled her features and made a show of glancing at the clock.
“I think it’s four PM,” she said. “Not AM. You’ve got your times mixed up.”
Seb rolled his eyes. “Ha ha, very funny.”
There was a nervousness to him that was not helping sate her own. Hadley gripped the mug tighter in her fingers and shifted her weight between her feet.
“What?” she asked. “Your vibes are… weird. You’re freaking me out.”
“You sound like Abi. Anyways, I come bearing an apology and tragic news.”
She raised her eyebrows, unsure if she should laugh or be genuinely concerned.
“My mother,” he said, taking a large breath and looking at the sky, “has not so humbly requested your presence at dinner tonight.”
“She…” Hadley started. “She what?”
He sighed. “She has sent me to invite you to join us for dinner.”
“But… why?” Hadley asked.
“The hell if I know. Probably something to do with the ‘party’ she walked in on in the kitchen after the festival. Her words, not mine. But she got it in her head to invite you over and wouldn’t leave me alone until she practically shoved me out the door.”
“Like, a family dinner?”
“The whole shebang,” Seb said. “My mother, my sister. My dick of a step-father.”
“Oh, please no,” Hadley said.
“Unfortunately my orders were less of a ‘go invite Hadley over’ and more of a ‘go get Hadley and bring her here.’”
“She just assumed I’d say yes?”
“Do you… have other plans?” Seb asked.
Hadley’s cheeks colored. “No, I’m just…” She trailed off and motioned to herself, where she was still wearing last night’s pajamas. She huffed. “Ugh.”
Hadley stepped back into the kitchen and ripped open the fridge, riffling through its contents. Seb took a single step into the house and let the door close behind him. He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame, raising his eyebrows.
“Yeah, so actually, the whole point is that we’ll be eating there,” he chided.
Hadley shot him a look. “I know. I just don’t have anything to bring.” Her fridge was overflowing with blueberries from the end of summer harvest — she’d sold the majority of them, but even then, she had more than she knew what to do with. Already she’d made a pie for Marnie, some jam for Elliott, gave Linus a whole basket, and froze a large carton to use in smoothies. She wished she had enough time to bake another pie, but she didn’t have any dough made.
She pulled out a carton of blueberries and then reached above the fridge for her grandmother’s cookbook. She flipped through the dessert section with alarming speed before stopping on a hand-written recipe for berry cobbler. Perfect.
She nearly forgot Seb was there until he spoke. “What are you doing?”
“Baking,” Hadley said. “Now can you make yourself useful and grab the sugar and flour from the cabinet to your left?”
“You really don’t have to bring anything,” Seb said. “My mom is cooking.” Despite the protests, he opened the cabinet drawer and rifled through it until he found what she’d asked for.
Hadley shot him yet another look. “You can’t just show up someplace empty-handed, Sebastian.”
He stopped what he was doing. “Sebastian?” he repeated. “Ouch.”
“Shut up and give me the flour, please.”
It took twenty minutes to prep — though it would have taken less, were it not for Seb spending half the time sassing her and making her pause what she was doing to bite back a sarcastic remark. Once she had the pan in the oven and set a timer, she wiped her sticky hands on her pajama pants.
“I need to shower,” she said. “Can you make sure the house doesn’t burn down in the meantime?
“You know, there were things I planned to do after inviting you over.”
She gave him a small shove and left the room to shower.
After a quick rinse, she threw on some mascara and eyeliner and pulled her hair back into a loose braid. She pulled a sun dress from her closet and ran the fabric between her thumb and forefinger for several moments before deciding it was probably trying too hard for a family dinner. She opted instead for a pair of black jeans and a loose-fitting long sleeve.
When she walked back into the living room, Seb was pulling the cobbler from the oven.
“Thank you,” she said.
He smiled in response and set it on top of the oven to cool before they headed over.
Dinner went about how Hadley had expected, though it was somehow both better and worse than she feared. Robin was all smiles and was overjoyed to have her join them, though the sentiment wasn’t exactly shared all around.
Demetrius was clearly trying to be polite, but then he’d asked Hadley what brought her to the Valley. After explaining that she had traded the corporate world for the farm and was therefore no longer utilizing her degree, Hadley had seen the shift in his features. She’d never considered herself to have his respect in the first place, yet she saw it drain from his eyes anyways.
Maru mercifully changed the topic, and the conversation continued on. Robin asked after the farm, Demetrius prattled on about his most recent experiment, and Seb watched it all through nervous eyes.
When they’d finished eating, the conversation lulled.
“How is your freelance work going this week?” Robin asked, turning towards Seb.
He shrugged. “Picked up a new client. And the bookstore I’d been helping reached out to-”
Demetrius scoffed. “Maru, were you able to collect those samples I asked you for?”
Hadley bristled. And though she knew she shouldn’t cause tension at someone else’s family dinner, she couldn’t help herself. She cleared her throat. “What about the bookstore?” she asked, a little louder than necessary.
Seb shifted. “Uh, they really liked the database I built them, and asked if I could take on another project for them.”
“That’s great!” Hadley said.
Demetrius looked like he might genuinely roll his eyes. “He needs a real job.”
“He has a real job.”
The statement was met by a terse silence. Hadley’s cheeks heated, but she wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment or anger causing it. She took a breath and forced herself to break the tension by changing the subject.
“The soup was delicious, Robin,” she said, softening the edge to her voice. “Thank you for inviting me.”
Robin smiled. “Thank you for coming. Shall we start getting dessert ready?”
It was a cleverly disguised excuse for her to walk away from Demetrius, but she would take it gladly. She lifted the napkin from her lap and placed it neatly on the table. She followed Robin to the kitchen.
Once there, she busied herself with the motions. She turned the oven on, pulled the lid off of the baking dish, and placed it in the oven to warm. Beside her, Robin set about washing some of the dishes from dinner.
“Can I help?” Hadley asked.
“Nonsense,” Robin said. “You’re our guest.”
But the anger still simmered within her, and Hadley needed something to busy her hands and siphon off the energy. She grabbed a dish towel and took a clean dish from Robin’s hand to dry.
“I don’t mind,” Hadley said. “Really. I’d rather help than stand here and watch.”
Robin smiled at her and handed over another dish to dry. They worked in tandem for a few minutes while the cobbler warmed up, quietly cleaning one dish after another.
Hadley got the sense that Robin was watching her, or otherwise grappling with something to say. She felt like a child waiting for her parent to scold her; surely Robin was about to admonish her for speaking to her husband like that. She’d barely raised her voice, and yet it sent her back to a childhood of slamming her bedroom door and screaming at her father through the walls.
Robin picked up another plate and ran it beneath the water.
“He’s different around you,” she said, her voice low.
Whatever Hadley had been expecting, it wasn’t that, and the words shocked her so much, she nearly dropped the plate she was holding. She set it to the side with a stiff hand.
“Oh,” she said, the word feeling clumsy in her mouth. It was a stupid thing to say, but her heart was hammering so badly that she was afraid to give voice to anything else.
Robin finished cleaning another plate and handed it over. “He’s lighter,” she said. “Happier. I’ve never seen someone bring out that side of him.”
Hadley’s cheeks burned. She focused all of her attention on drying the plate and returning it to its shelf.
Yoba, she should have expected this. She couldn’t keep sneaking in and out of this house in the dead of night and not expect Robin to notice. Robin noticed everything.
Robin shut the sink off and turned to her, giving Hadley no choice but to stop ignoring the weight of her gaze. She stepped forward and placed a motherly hand on Hadley’s cheek.
“You’re good for him,” Robin said.
As suddenly as the moment started, it ended. Robin stepped away and rehung the dish towel on its bar. She opened a drawer and pulled out an oven mitt to retrieve the cobbler.
And Hadley hadn’t said a damn thing besides “Oh.”
“We’re not…” Hadley started.
But Robin shot her a look that ended her sentence. “I wasn’t born yesterday, Hadley.” The scent of blueberries and crystallized sugar flooded the air as Robin pulled the cobbler from the oven. “Grab the ice cream and some bowls, will you?”
“I…” Hadley said. “Yes.”
Robin took the cobbler and rounded the corner back into the dining room, leaving Hadley alone in a kitchen that wasn’t her but was starting to feel like it, her heartbeat stuttering wildly in her chest.
⋆｡°✩°｡⋆
Seb spooned at the bottom of his bowl, collecting the last dredges of melted ice cream and cobbler crumbs. He lifted the spoon to his mouth and let the sweetness sit on his tongue, dissolving slowly. Fuck, that had been good.
He held the spoon in his mouth, savoring the last hints of flavor, until he glanced up and realizing Hadley was staring at him.
He put the spoon back in the bowl.
Yoba, he could barely look at her right now. It was one thing to hang out with her on his own, but to have her here? With his family? Asking Maru about the robot she was building, asking his mother how work on the community center roof was doing, hell, she’d even asked his damn step-father how his experiments were going. She made all of them smile and laugh like it was easy, as if every conversation he had with them himself didn’t feel like he had to line up each word carefully and fight for the smallest sliver of a smile.
And she did it in a way that even made him look good. She led the conversations and tugged him along with her, teeing him up for lines that even had Demetrius giving him a small nod of approval.
Until the end, when Demetrius had done what he always did and decided to be a dick. Except Hadley hadn’t just taken it — she’d stood up to Demetrius. He’d been so shocked, he’d barely been able to answer her question.
Whatever pieces he was missing, Hadley filled them so seamlessly. She fit here. With him, with his family. In a way he was terrified that even they noticed.
Whatever Hadley was, it was indescribable. But he was just so happy he got to stand in the warm glow she cast upon every room she entered.
Across from him, Hadley gathered her hands atop the table. One of her fingers twitched. Her eyes met his with a glimmer of conspiracy.
She stood from her chair and looped around the table. Her deft fingers wrapped around the top of his chair and she leaned down, her breath hot on his ear.
“Smoke?” she whispered.
The nearness of her, the way her breath traveled across his ear and down his neck, sent a shiver down his spine. When he stood, it was mostly just to shake the feeling. But still, he nodded.
She followed him out of the dining room.
“I gotta grab them,” he said, turning to head towards his room, but Hadley placed a hand on his arm and tugged him to a stop.
She walked to the front door, where her coat was hanging on a hook, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
I love you, he thought, equal parts joking and serious.
He followed her, matching her step for step, as they walked to the lake. She handed him a cigarette and lit her own before handing him the lighter.
Darkness had settled across the Valley at some point while they were eating. They came to a stop on the far side of the lake — the same place they used to run into each other sometimes, on their late night walks — and sat.
The first stars began to blink into life above them — and across from them, as well; small pools of light reflected back up from the lake.
“Thank you,” he said.
Hadley snorted. “I’ve bummed enough from you in the past.”
“No. For dinner.”
Hadley’s gaze flicked to his. “It was just dinner,” she said.
“It was more than that. We’ve had family dinners every Sunday since Demetrius first moved in. And every. single. one. has made me feel like I was dying a slow, painful death.” He flicked the ashes off the end of his cigarette. “Except that one.”
“I do make a mean cobbler,” she said.
Seb bumped his shoulder against hers, rolling his eyes.
“I would have made a better pie, though. Someone just didn’t give me enough warning.”
“It was perfect,” he said. “After this, I might have to go eat another six slices.”
“I can make you another,” she said, laughing. But she added, quickly, “I have more berries than I know what to do with right now.”
“If you start baking for me, you are never going to be able to get rid of me,” he warned.
Hadley turned towards him, smiling in a way that made his heart hurt. “Good, because I’m not trying to get rid of you.”
The butts of four cigarettes sat in a pile between Hadley and Seb’s feet, long since extinguished. The stars had come out in full now, and Hadley traced their patterns in the mirrored reflection of the lake with her eyes, mentally naming one before hopping to the next.
“Cassiopeia,” Seb whispered, pointing.
Hadley followed his indication upwards to the sky, where his finger drew a line to the constellation. She gave him a look of surprise.
“You remembered?” she asked.
“Give a guy some credit,” he said. “I remember most things you say. Or at least I try to.”
Yoba, that night felt like so long ago. A million moments seemed to stretch between then and now, and Hadley could feel the weight of each and every one.
“And Ceppeus?” he asked, pointing a little lower.
“Cepheus,” Hadley said. “The king.”
“And queen,” he added.
Hadley leaned back to take in the entirety of the night sky. She felt imbued with the starlight and Seb’s presence beside her. Him remembering the constellations she’d pointed out was just another item to add to the list of things that made her weak for him.
Not weak, she corrected herself. Just… something else.
She leaned back further to find Draco and her neck pressed against Seb’s shoulder. She relaxed into him, letting his steady presence support her.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
She felt the words as they rumbled through his chest.
You, she thought. Always you.
“Not really anything,” she said instead. “Just… existing.” She twisted her neck a bit and looked up at him. His dark gaze met hers, and the constellations reflected back at her from his eyes. “My brain is always quieter out here,” she said. “With you.”
A dangerous admission, but one that was worth it because of the resulting soft smile that played on Seb’s lips.
Hadley closed her eyes and let herself just exist in the moment, absorbing the warmth and the now-familiar scent of him. He was such a steady, reassuring weight beneath her. The night felt limitless with him by her side. She could say everything or nothing and it didn’t matter, because he seemed to always know what she was thinking, anyways. She wondered how she ever existed without that feeling; that knowledge that someone else understood her on such an intrinsic level.
“Don’t go falling asleep on me,” Seb whispered.
The corner of her mouth pulled upwards into a smile. “Would that be so bad?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “Because then I’d either have to stay out here all night or risk waking you up and dealing with a cranky Hadley.”
“I’m not that cranky.”
Seb snorted, causing his chest to shake beneath her. He leaned back into his arms and looked up at the sky.
Still leaning on his shoulder, Hadley looked at him instead. This close, she could see the stubble beginning to form on his chin and the soft freckles that dotted his cheeks. He was so familiar to her, in a way she wasn’t sure anyone else had ever been.
His gaze cut to hers.
There was so little space between them now — barely a few inches. Heat flared across her chest.
Whatever the air around them had been made of, it seemed to shift into something else, something new. Energy flooded into the empty space where her breath should have been, because she wasn’t breathing. Not now. It was as if time as she knew it had slowed, and now the past few months were catching up to them.
She watched the muscles in Seb’s throat bob as he swallowed. His gaze flicked down to her mouth.
Her pulse pounded so loudly that she was sure he must hear it. It blocked out everything else — the hum of the cicadas and the rhythmic singing of the frogs; all of it was replaced by the echo of her own heartbeat in her ears.
Hadley swallowed.
Seb leaned in a fraction of an inch, but hesitated. His eyes flicked back up to meet hers.
She saw the question there and it terrified her.
She had known, and had been avoiding, the sheer size of her want for weeks now. It was like she’d been remapping the cityscape of her brain, rerouting her thoughts any time they ventured too close to the truth: that she had fallen for him, and fallen for him hard.
It was easier to exist in the negative space, to float in whatever limbo they’d settled into. It was easier to believe that he didn’t want her. That the late nights they spent together and the mornings she woke up beside him didn’t mean anything at all. To leave it uncomplicated, unrealized.
But there was gasoline coursing through her veins right now and Seb was holding a match.
He lifted a tentative hand to her cheek, his thumb tracing a gentle curve across her skin. He took a shaky breath.
Hadley’s resolve was crumbling. But no matter how badly she wanted him, she needed him to be the one to make this choice. Because she couldn’t… she couldn’t be the catalyst that ruined this. Because she ruined everything. And-
Seb leaned forward. He closed the last breath between them and pressed his lips against hers.
It was timid. Testing.
He tasted like his cigarettes and something sweet, something wholly him.
And he pulled away far too soon.
There was a single second of silence, during which the breeze from the lake snaked its way into Hadley’s hair and erupted her skin in goosebumps. And then reality caught back up to her and she was burning.
She tugged at his hoodie and brought him back towards her, pulling his mouth into hers.
Seb’s fingers pressed dangerously against her cheek before winding their way into her hair. He pulled her closer, his mouth desperate against hers. Hadley gasped into his lips. The sound elicited a low groan from the back of Seb’s throat. She threw an arm around his neck, pulling at him, needing him closer, needing…
“Wait,” she said, breaking the kiss. She felt drunk, but she couldn’t…
Seb took a strangled breath. When he looked at her, his pupils were wide and blown out, and his cheeks glowed pink in the moonlight.
Yoba, he’s so fucking beautiful. It took everything in her not to kiss him again.
“I…” she started.
Seb pulled back an inch. Something flashed across his face, there and gone in an instant too quick to read. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. He moved to pull away entirely. “That was-”
Hadley grabbed him, forcing him to stop. “Wait.” Her cheeks burned. She swallowed hard. When she spoke, her voice was small. “I don’t want to ruin this.”
“Okay,” Seb said.
But he still wasn’t getting it. She searched his face, trying to find something, anything, but he’d already walled himself off so completely.
Now or never.
“This would be real for me,” she whispered. She couldn’t charge blindly into this, not after what happened with Sam. “And I can’t… I don’t want…” She paused, forcing the words out even as her cheeks burned so badly she felt sick. “If it’s not, for you…”
A crease formed between Seb’s eyebrows. He blinked at her, and then he reached for her hand. “Hadley…”
Slowly, he opened her palm and pressed it flat against his chest, right over his heart. She could feel the pressure from his pulse beating ceaselessly between her fingers. It was racing so quickly that she could hardly make out the space between the beats.
“It’s real for me,” he whispered. “It has always been real for me.”
She stared at him, unsure what words could possibly come close to explaining the way she was feeling.
Seb reached up to cup her jaw and ran his thumb across her cheek.
“I have not been able to think about anything but you since the moment I met you,” he continued.
A small jolt surged through her.
The entire time, she thought. He…
“But-” she started, the full implications of that statement hitting her.
“I’m not proud of it,” he breathed. “You just…”
His thumb grazed another line across her cheek, and Hadley leaned forward and kissed him for the sole reason of trying to convince herself that she could. That she was allowed to now. Probably always had been, and yet…
His mouth was hot against hers, and he was everything. He was fire and water and the breath that made up all of the stars above them, and she needed every atom of it. She tugged him closer and kissed him frantically, afraid that she would blink and all of this would disappear.
When they finally pulled apart, it was only for want of air. Seb pressed his forehead against hers, and his ragged breaths fanned across her face. She closed her eyes and leaned into him. She was certain she could spend an eternity here, chest to chest, their heartbeats an unsteady call and response to one another’s.
A soft breeze blew across the lake, and she shivered.
“We should go back inside,” Seb said.
But all she could imagine was walking back into his house and Robin being able to read everything that just happened from the look on her face. Her cheeks burned at the thought. “Your mom cornered me in the kitchen earlier,” she whispered.
“Oh?”
“Yes,” she said, cringing. “I think her exact words were ‘I wasn’t born yesterday’.”
Seb laughed, heavy and real, and the corners of his mouth spread outwards into the kind of grin that he seemed to reserve exclusively for her.
Hadley continued, “I really don’t want to face her right now.”
“We could go back to yours and watch Buffy,” he suggested. He stood and outstretched a hand, which Hadley took, and he helped her to her feet.
He didn’t let go of her hand as they walked the path back around the lake and towards the mountain, where the trail turned back to her house.
Another breeze tugged against Hadley’s skin, and she shivered yet again.
“Where’s your coat?” Seb asked.
“I left it at your place.”
He dropped her hand and tugged off his characteristic black hoodie, handing it to her. Her heart stuttered.
“Stop it,” she said.
“You’re cold.”
“And we’re only a couple of minutes from my place. I’ll survive.”
But he gave her a look, and her argument was mostly for show, anyways. She tugged the sweatshirt over her head. The fabric was thread-worn to the point of softness, and his scent was so deeply embedded in it that it was the only thing she could smell. The sleeves went down to her fingertips, half-drowning her.
Seb tugged at the lower hem of it, pulling her closer to him.
“My reasons are mostly selfish, anyways,” he confessed, his voice low and rough. “Mostly I wanted to see what you’d look like wearing that.”
“And?”
His eyes darkened. He snaked a finger under her chin and tilted it upwards before placing a rough kiss against her lips.
He pulled away just far enough to speak his next words. “And you look even hotter than I thought.”
Hadley laughed against his lips. She stepped back, grabbing his hand and tugging him down the path.
“Come on,” she said. “Buffy awaits.”