Helo! The previous Li/Seb poly anon is back!😅 I'm pretty sure you're bored of me, but your writing of them is so addictive! Soooo, can please have another Li/Seb poly prompt? I don't know which one to request tho, so can you pick for me and write whichever you want or something?
Hey, guess what, my arm doesn’t hurt today! So I decided to write. :D Anyway, here’s a little bit of a different flavor of the poly than usual, which is me leaning a little more heavily on the parts of myself that are similar to Sebastian and also indulging in some fun pining. I didn’t link this to any particular prompt from the list, though, and this is longer than 10 sentences. Just started writing and this is what happened. I hope you like it!
(Also, anon, I am never bored of you. I love getting asks for this game and in general.)
“They’ve always been like this,” the Seer said one day as she handed Sebastian a mug of coffee, both of them watching as Li and the Speaker constructed a plan one fragmented sentence that the other would finish at a time, sitting cross-legged on the floor, knees touching, and yet never once hitting each other as they gestured (like a single body rather than two). And it suddenly made so much sense.
“It,” of course, meaning why Sebastian always felt like he was intruding when it was the three of them together, why it always felt like more than his height that kept him from walking perfectly in step with either of them. Why he couldn’t, for once in his life, be honest about his intentions. (Having these stirring feelings for them both only made it worse--or maybe better. Maybe, at least this way, he knew that they were both good for each other, that they would both be happy, that he could walk away knowing they would both be treated with as much care as two people in love could manage.)
(It wasn’t actually better, but he told himself it could be.)
He really wasn’t sure what to do, then, with the fact that there were also moments when Sebastian forgot to realize he didn’t belong. When Li picked up some thread of his dry humor and and wove it into something like banter, or when the Speaker relied on him like trusting Sebastian was as easy as breathing. Talking himself out of flirting with them--either or both--in moments like that was incredibly hard, especially when it wasn’t like he wanted to disrupt what they clearly already had (even if neither, apparently, was able to say it aloud). Sebastian didn’t want to come between them but to go with them. To be a part of the world they sometimes pulled him into with those gestures and not wonder if he was the alien.
No, stamping down on these feelings would be so much easier if he was just jealous like any normal person. Jealousy was aggressive and vile and easy to condemn, an easily-identified toxic byproduct, but longing? Longing was a subtler poison. It hurt no one but him, after all, so long as he had the self-control not to act on it.
For a second, the room fell silent, and Sebastian blinked, wondering if someone had asked him a question. But the woman on the couch at his side wasn’t looking at him, and neither was Li or the Speaker, who were instead staring at each other, eyes wide and cheeks lifting into matching grins.
“--the banana rug horoscope trick!” they both said suddenly, at the same time, only to immediately fall into laughter. Sebastian looked at the Seer, who thankfully didn’t seem to understand any better than he did. He wondered if the look on his face was as fond as hers.
“Incredible,” Sebastian muttered to himself as the two of them seemed to argue about whether whatever they meant before would really work.
“You know all of that stuff about how when AIs talk to each other, their language evolves too quickly for people to keep up after a few minutes?” Seer asked quietly, a sly little quirk to her lips.
Sebastian huffed out a chuckle. Yes, he said without speaking. If he didn’t already believe it, those two would have convinced him.
In another instant, the Speaker rushed from the room and up the stairs, just as Li leaned backwards, flashing a lazy grin in Sebastian’s direction. He returned the look with an unimpressed, raised eyebrow, face already having lost its amusement if only for the purpose of telling Li how unbelievable the two of them were.
“Don’t pretend like you aren’t part of this,” Li said, and Sebastian had to remind himself that Li was talking to both him and the Seer, that it didn’t mean what his heart wanted it to.
What passed his lips was, “We all know we’re stuck with you.” What he held back was, I want to be. Li kept smiling at him, even when the Speaker returned with a bundle of something under one arm, squeezing his shoulder on the way past, and Sebastian felt warm.
He knew better than to let his feelings get in the way of work, but this didn’t hurt. Not them, not anyone they were meant to help, and (Sebastian realized with a breath of relief) not even himself. So maybe it was alright, for now, to let the whole thing be. He could sit by and keep longing so long as it was unobtrusive...so long as it meant he could enjoy that warmth.
For all that Sebastian could rationalize emotion, he would not convince himself it was a bad thing if his heart fluttered seeing the two people he cared for most being in love and happy.