Ophelia McCarthy (breatheoutside) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2018-11-14 17:23:00 |
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Entry tags: | #november 2017, ophelia, ophelia x sebastian, sebastian |
Who: Sebastian and Ophelia
When: Monday, Nov 20, early evening
Where: home
Status: complete
Ophelia had done her best not to completely float around on a dream cloud all throughout school. She honestly tried to pay attention in class and keep her wits about her in the hallways, but it had proven very difficult. All she wanted to do was daydream about Greg. Kissing Greg, slipping naked into bed with Greg, making love to Greg, how it had felt to wake up next to him in the morning, how they had struggled to stop hugging and kissing and actually part company when she’d gone home. All of those things she couldn’t get enough of already. Having lunch with him had been wonderful, but it had kind of made her predicament worse for the rest of the afternoon.
There were some things that drew her back down to earth -- a couple of nasty looks thrown her way, some invasive questions about her brother. News had spread like wildfire that Sebastian had come out and he and Hunter were a couple. Phee tried to listen for anybody being really shitty about it, but if things like that were being said, they weren’t being addressed to her. Still, it was kind of worrisome.
So after school, once she knew they were both home but their parents were busy with other things, Phee made her way to Bash’s door. She wasn’t sure she could help him much, if he was even feeling bad about any of this, but it never hurt to check, right? To try and be a good sister and all. Phee put her ear to the door for a brief moment, then knocked softly.
Sebastian had tried his best to go about his day like normal, pretending that nothing had changed, when in reality he could feel it all around him. He could feel their eyes on him, friends and acquaintances casting sideways glances during quiet conversation. Then there were times that conversations seemed to stop upon his approach, leaving him to wonder what he'd interrupted and why they didn't always continue. Were they talking about him? Or was his appearance so jarring that they'd lost track of what they were discussing? Neither was exactly settling and his mind provided a host of possibilities that were likely worse than knowing the truth.
He preferred the people that asked him to his face, despite the discomfort, because at least he knew where he stood with them. Occasionally someone would cross the line and ask something they had no business asking and by the end of the day he flat out told them so. The worst of the day was football practice, post season spent lifting weights and running, and Sebastian took the fastest shower he'd ever taken in his life in an effort to get out of the locker room. He was making everyone uncomfortable just by being there; he could feel it and snide comments from Kyle definitely weren't helping.
After play rehearsals, he went home and disappeared into his room, well aware that he had to talk to his mother sometime soon. He'd tried to the night before and just... chickened out. The timing never seemed right. Was there ever a good time? It made focusing on homework next to impossible and he realized he'd been reading the same passage for twenty minutes when someone knocked on his door. "Come in," he said, taking a deep breath. He could do this. If he didn't tell her soon, someone else would.
Phee twisted the knob and opened Sebastian’s door enough to poke her head and one shoulder in. She looked at him, trying to read his expression. She’d caught glimpses of him throughout the day -- it was hard not to in a school that size -- but Phee hadn’t felt like she got a good sense of how he was doing just from passing one another in the hallway. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d felt guarded all day, at the very least. “Hey,” she greeted, hovering where she was just in case Bash wanted to be alone. “Got a few minutes?”
Sebastian relaxed as soon as he saw it was Ophelia, breathing a little easier. He needed to talk to his mother, he had to talk to her, but he’d much rather talk to Phee first. “Hey,” he said, setting his book aside. “Yeah, come on in.” Anything she wanted to talk about was better than being stuck in his head at this point. He could tell when he was making things worse on himself, but he wasn’t very good at stopping it. Distraction usually worked best, but the key was finding something good enough to take his mind off whatever was plaguing him.
Phee stepped into her brother’s room and closed the door behind her, then walked over to perch on the foot of his bed. She pulled her bare feet up and crossed her legs, giving him a wan little smile. “I just wanted to check on you,” she told him. It wasn’t the best way to distract him, probably, but Phee was genuinely worried about how he was handling all of this. Saturday night had been strange, really weird, and if Bash had felt the same way she did, he’d been acting impulsively. As good as coming out could be for him, it was probably super scary too. “How’d it go today? Do we need to put curses on any dickheads?” Phee tried to keep her tone light.
“There’s a few that could use a castrating,” Sebastian said with a little smile. “Not that I know how to do that, but it’d serve ‘em right.” Even though he’d expected it, it was still hard to swallow, even in small doses. Sebastian had never been a target before and hoped that he’d eventually build up a little thicker skin. Because this sucked. “It’s hard,” he said, wrapping his arms around his knees. “The girls aren’t so bad, but some of the guys… It’s like they don’t quite trust me anymore. Even when they’re being cool, I can tell something’s different. I don’t know how to make ‘em see that I’m the same person I was last week.”
Phee’s brows rose when he mentioned castration, because that was pretty extreme even as a joke, but she still looked bemused. She wanted to snuggle him just by virtue of the defensive way he was sitting, but Phee would give him his space, nodding along sympathetically with what he said. “I don’t know if you can,” she said, making a pained little face. “They’re just gonna have to ... see it for themselves, you know? That you’re not gonna like, stare at their junk or try to grope them in the locker room or anything. You know how stupid people can be. And if some of them like, don’t ever get back to normal, that’s their own shitty fault. And their loss, because you’re awesome.” She knew that was way easier said than believed, but she would be there to remind Bash all the time if it helped.
It might have been a bit extreme, but some of the things said to him had been cruel, crude, and extremely personal. And Sebastian’s tendency to blush when embarrassed didn’t help. If Greg had heard them, he knew there would have been punches thrown, but he didn’t want it to come to that if he could avoid it. He didn’t see those guys coming around and honestly didn’t care. He’d rather just avoid them, if at all possible. “I didn’t before, so why would I start now? They’ve gotta know I’m way more uncomfortable than they are.” He knew that time was the only real solution, but that didn’t make it easy. It kept him on guard, which was exhausting when it was constant, all day, every day. And this was just day one. “Thanks, though. It really means a lot.”
She had to shrug at the first question, though it was probably rhetorical. Phee didn’t understand homophobia, or why guys in particular acted so stupid about it. She couldn’t pretend that their brains made much sense in general. “I doubt they’re thinking much about how you feel,” she said ruefully. “Dudes like that just suck at like, empathy. Hell, maybe some of them even think you’re super sexy and they’re scared of it or something.” She shrugged her shoulders. If she was a dude and gay and not related to Sebastian, she would think he was hot. “Is Hunter happy about it at least?” she asked with a little smile, aiming for some optimism.
Sebastian laughed a little at the idea that those guys found him sexy. He knew, deep down, that it was their own problem, that they felt unreasonably threatened, but he hated that just existing in their space seemed to be enough to generate such feelings. It wasn’t like he was flirting with them. “Yeah,” he smiled softly. “He’s happy, but he’s worried because I’m stressed. But, like, we can go on real dates now, so that’s kind of a big deal. I just, like, need to get in a better head space so that I’m any fun to be around.” He imagined that a date with him right this second would suck. He was distracted and worried about everything, not quite sure what was a legitimate problem and what was just in his head.
At least she’d made him laugh a little, that was something. All of it kind of made Phee wish that Trip was there. He always seemed to know what to say about stuff, and she knew he would help handle their parents on Bash’s behalf. At least Phee was pretty sure he would. She guessed that role would just have to fall to her. “It’ll get better,” she told her brother, glad that she could sound pretty sure about that. “Once things are settled with like, Mom and Dad, you’ll feel better.” She knew that was the part he was the most worried about, and if their parents accepted it okay, he would probably care less about everybody else.
He knew on some level that she was right, that once he told his parents he’d at least know where he stood and that the uncertainty was worse than anything else. Except outright rejection. And, as much as he feared it, he hadn’t actually received it yet. “But what if… what if I’m not… enough,” he said quietly, eyes dropping to the bed. He wasn’t sure if he was picking the right words, but they captured the worry he felt at not being able to live up to their expectations. In almost every other case, he’d always been able to push himself a little harder, a little farther, and at least pass. “I can’t fix this. I can’t change it. If they’re not okay with it, I don’t… I don’t know what to do.”
Phee honestly couldn’t even imagine their parents deciding that Sebastian wasn’t enough. He was smart and popular -- and would stay that way for the most part, she was sure -- and a football star and all that shit that parents were supposed to adore in their teenagers. He’d never been in real trouble, he was even good at magic already, he had real Prospects in the world and everything. It made her mad just to think about them rejecting him, and if they did, they would be putting up with two angry teens in the house. “They’re gonna be okay with it,” she said, some of that ire creeping into her tone. “Even if it takes them a little while to adjust, they’ll get over it. Because they love you and you’re like, perfect in every other way, so I mean ... you can only be who you are, Bash. And if that’s not good enough for them, they’re shitty parents.” She reached over to give his arm a squeeze.
"I'm not perfect," Sebastian said, but the conviction in Phee's voice made him smile a little. "I hope you're right. I can handle them needing time to adjust, so long as they eventually come around, you know?" It was flat out rejection that scared him, the idea that they wouldn't love him anymore over something that he couldn't change. He tried so hard to be everything they wanted, to meet the bar his older brother had set, but he couldn't keep faking such a big part of who he was becoming just to keep them happy. It wasn't worth it if it made him miserable in the process. "I kept thinking there would be a better time for this, but... it never seemed like a good time." He’d been getting there, he thought it would be soon, just not now. “I can’t believe I told Kyle,” he said, shaking his head. “Greg kept saying we were drugged, but I didn’t believe it till it started to wear off.”
“Yeah, same here,” Phee agreed, twisting her mouth to the side briefly. Everything had felt weird. Intensely good, but too intensely. And everybody kept saying things that they probably shouldn’t say. Phee hadn’t made the connection to what Victoria had said to her until that moment, and her eyes widened briefly before she got a handle on her face. “It was all just ... really weird. Did yours go away kind of around midnight? Mine did. And then I cried because Victoria Chapman was a bitch to me.” And then she’d had sex for the first time, with her brother’s best friend, but that didn’t seem like the kind of thing she ought to tell him at the moment. Or maybe ever.
Sebastian nodded, thinking that midnight had been about right, but it was her last comment that really caught his attention. “What the fuck did she say to you?” he asked with a frown, assuming it was something she said. It was always something she said. As another one of the people he’d gone to school with since preschool, he’d seen both sides of her, the fun-loving cheerleader who threw awesome parties, but also the super-bitch who loved getting under people’s skin. Usually she wasn’t outright cruel to people’s face, he doubted she’d have any friends at all if that was the case, but it wouldn’t surprise him if she was. It did surprise him, however, that she’d targeted Phee. Sebastian usually left Victoria alone, but they were going to have words if she was making his little sister cry.
If it had been more than just words, there was no question Sebastian would’ve already known about it. As it was, Phee hadn’t wanted to bother him complaining about it, since she’d complained to Greg enough. Plus she hadn’t really seen Bash until now anyway. Phee sighed and reached up to tuck a bit of hair behind her ear. “She was just ... I dunno, running her mouth about Greg,” she said with an eyeroll. It had gotten under her skin at the time, of course, because how could it not? But after Greg had confirmed zero interest in Victoria and then they’d consummated their relationship, it hadn’t seemed nearly as important. “That like, he should be tired of me already and just give it time, he’s such a player, the girls call him Bulldozer too for nasty reasons, blah blah, that kind of stuff.”
It would have been bad enough if it was just Phee that Victoria had been attacking, but it was also Greg, and Sebastian’s desire to come to their defense and throttle the bitch just about skyrocketed. There was no one he could blame for his own situation, no one but himself, but Victoria was stirring things up just for the hell of it and she didn’t even know what she was talking about. “Fucking bitch,” he snapped, his anger simmering. “She doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about. She doesn’t know Greg, she doesn’t know you, and she wouldn’t know a healthy relationship if it bit her on the ass. What she’s got going with Todd is a joke, he’s as bored with her as she is with him, and she just loves to tear other people down to make herself feel better. Don’t let her get to you, Phee. She’s not worth your time.”
The heat behind Sebastian’s words too Phee a bit off guard. She’d seen him angry before, of course, plenty of times, but it was rarely on her behalf or against a girl. Victoria was a special kind of girl though, she supposed. The defensiveness made Phee feel all warm in the chest, just like it had from Greg, and she couldn’t help but smile a bit. It was also pretty satisfying to hear that Victoria’s relationship sucked, though she knew that was a much more petty emotion. “I know,” she told him. “But thanks. She’s just an asshole, and I’m sure just sees me as like ... a fat band nerd who doesn’t know her place or something. Just petty crap. Greg was mad about it too. She just better not start like, spreading rumors or something. I kind of blurted out that we hadn’t had sex yet.” She made a pained face, still hating that whatever drugs they’d been on had made her share something so personal with Victoria.
Sebastian raised a brow at that last little bit of information, not sure whether he was surprised or not, since he generally didn’t put a lot of thought into his sister’s sex life. Normally he’d know by now if Greg was having sex with his newest girlfriend, but that was a topic he was happy to take off the table when that happened to be Phee. “That’s none of her business, but I suspect her experience is that guys aren’t interested in her unless she puts out. Which has more to do with her than them.” He was probably being a little bitchy himself right now, but the urge to bite back at her was a little too strong to ignore. Taking a deep breath, he made an effort to calm himself, his mind ticking back to something else she’d said. “You’re not, you know. A fat band nerd. Don’t talk about yourself like that.”
The thing was, that fact had changed roughly a couple of hours later, so it was kind of moot. And so far Greg was still very into her, if their text exchanges and the way he’d kissed her today said anything about it. Not that Bash needed to know that. Victoria was just wrong, and probably shallow and jealous, like Bash was saying. “You’re probably right,” she snickered at her brother’s assessment, kind of pleased that he felt so defensive of her. Not that he’d given her much reason to think he wouldn’t be, she’d just been so under the radar most of her school career that nothing had really come up to inspire that sort of protectiveness. Phee shrugged and leaned over to bump her shoulder against Sebastian’s. “I am though, but that’s okay. It’s not a bad thing to be, no matter what bitches like Victoria say,” she said. And mom, she added silently to herself. That was a whole different issue though. Phee could ignore Victoria Chapman, it was harder to ignore her own mother. “It’s better than being like her. Maybe she’s such a bitch because she’s like, hungry.”
Sebastian knew his sister wasn’t thin, but he also knew she wasn’t some kind of a glutton. He’d always thought she was beautiful in her own way, that she had an absolutely fantastic smile, and that her personality made up for the few extra pounds she might be carrying. Not everyone wanted to work out like he did and he respected that. “I’d rather be with a girl that eats like a person, not a bird. If I liked girls, I mean,” he smiled as he shrugged. “I don’t know why she is the way she is. Maybe it makes her feel better about herself, but that really doesn’t excuse it. People that are popular just because other people fear them isn’t really popular. They’re lying to themselves and at some point karma’s got to come back at her.”
Phee smiled faintly at the bit about liking girls -- at least he didn’t have to pretend that was the case anymore, that had to be a relief, right? She would think so, anyway. She shrugged again at what he said about Victoria. It had bothered her at first, and she knew she would be really upset if it turned into more trouble down the road, but Phee was determined not to give a shit about that girl anymore. It was amazing what actually having a boyfriend had done for her self esteem. “Oh well, let her be miserable and stupid,” she decided for the both of them. Phee flopped backward onto Bash’s bed to relax some more, pulling one of his pillows over to hug. “You don’t let her get to you either, if she tries to start. Or anybody else. I think it’s totally awesome that you’re out, and like, I’m the most important person ever, so.” She grinned up at the ceiling.
“I think I can handle Victoria,” Sebastian said with a little smile. “If she really tries to start something, I’ll sick Jules on her.” Because, when it came down to it, Jules probably had more power over Victoria than he did. He could give her a piece of his mind, but Jules could probably do more. “I think I’ll be happier eventually, when things calm down, and I don’t feel like everyone’s watching me, and mom and dad know, and… And I just stop worrying about it so much.” Knowing that it was his own anxiety didn’t really help him manage it, but at this point all he could do was keep pushing forward and hope that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. “But thanks,” he grinned back at her. “It’s nice to know a few people think it’s a good thing, and you are the most important of people.”
“I am,” Phee agreed heartily, giggling a bit. “And I command you stop worrying about it so much. This, Queen Ophelia decrees!” She put on a wavery falsetto and a bad English accent for that last bit, then swung the pillow in her hands to hit Sebastian with it. It wasn’t like she could dole out good advice about coming out to their parents, besides just reminding him that she would be there for him no matter what. Maybe she could help more by being stupid and taking his mind off of things. Leak some of her happiness onto him or something. Gods knew he deserved it.
It was a horrible accent, but it made him laugh, which was really what he needed at the moment. He grabbed a pillow to fight back, momentarily forgetting about the rest of the day and what he had ahead of him. He would have to deal with it, there was no question about it, but right this second he needed a break from the stress more than anything else.