Eleanor Monarch-Sparke is the Black Canary (skree) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-07-20 18:25:00
Who: Nell Monarch(-Sparke) and Sebastian Vance-Price What: Shenanigans. Misbehaving. The usual. When: Thursday Night, a few hours after their conversation and Nell’s Post Where: Ghostbar Warnings: None. Does the fact that Nell’s friends going to be very disappointed in her count?
The view was breathtaking. High above Vegas, Nell took in a lungful of the desert night air, forcing herself to appreciate the sight. It really was a spectacular view, she knew, both on the rooftop and out to the horizon. Vegas had come to life once the sweltering sun had finally gone down, patrons pouring onto the streets to make full use of the Thursday night, but there was still enough heat in the air to make temperatures rise and inhibitions fall.
And that was precisely why Nell was here. After the disastrous conversation with Sebastian she had had by the pool, Nell had ran home, slapped on a short colorful miniskirt and sheer cover up over her bathing suit, and gone straight to the rooftop bar. It was an provocative outfit, she knew, but she had come here looking for a distraction, and needed to put her best foot forward. Hence the stupidly public post on the journals. Eleanor Monarch was throwing caution to the wind tonight. It was a better idea than some of the others she had had as of late.
She spent the evening meeting new people, dancing, and putting some serious hurt on the bottles at the table. Not to where she would lose control like last week, but just enough so that she was relaxed and happy as she danced with strangers, thoughts of Sebastian boxed away for a later day. There was something about this atmosphere that made Nell feel like the world and all its problems were on hold, which was why she had spent the better part of the last year partying like a college co-ed, even if it had made her tabloid fodder. Nights like these helped keep Nell sane, and as she leaned against the railing, catching her breath from 55 stories over the flashing lights, the smile that lit her face was almost genuine.
Sebastian knew quite well that he shouldn’t be here. This wasn’t his scene, had never really been his scene, but with plans of dinner out the window, it left him with little else to occupy his evening with. Despite all of his reservations and misgivings, very little could have prepared him for the view the roof bar offered the patrons that night. The breeze was slight, dry air that had lost some of the heat it had gathered throughout the day, and with a drink in his hand, Sebastian felt almost relaxed. That was, at least, until he caught sight of Nell.
She was less than four yards away from where he stood, his back against the railing, one arm folded over his middle, the other gripping his drink loosely. He didn’t say anything, did little to try and catch her attention, but it was hard to hide the fact that he had eyes for only one person there in the bar that night. He had a good idea of the sort of things Nell needed to hear, but he just couldn’t find the words to say them. How did a man tell someone that they were having doubts about the wedding? That they were no longer sure they were making the right decision? Sebastian wasn’t sure if there was a future with Nell, wasn’t brave enough right then to commit to even attempting it. But he was intelligent enough to know that things could not continue on like they were forever.
Just as Nell decided she had cooled down enough to venture back towards either her table or the dance floor, she felt a hand on her back. It was a man she didn’t know, sweaty, smiling, all neat rows of white teeth and dimpled grin. He was young, dressed well, and he was offering to buy her a drink. Basically, he was exactly what Nell had come out looking for. Smiling, she turned down his offer for a drink, pointing at her own full glass, but being sure to continue the conversation. They leaned in close out of necessity, the loud thumping music from the dance floor making it hard to carry a conversation at a normal level. He was dentist, and he was out to relax after a nice day. Not that Nell cared much for the particulars. They chatted about this and that, using the forced proximity as an excuse for contact. Her hand on his shoulder as she told him a funny story. His arm around her back as he leaned down to point out something across the bar. It was an elaborate song and dance that was leading towards a very specific, very obvious conclusion.
He asked her to dance, and after finishing her drink Nell followed him into the crowd, dissolving into the sweat slick mass pulsating on the dancefloor. Song after song went by as they danced close, Nell’s heart pumping to the beat of the bass. His hands snaked around her hips, and he turned her around in his arms to crush his lips against hers, the writhing crowd around them all but forgotten. Nell kissed him back enthusiastically, not worrying that she was acting like a drunk 18 year-old at her first club, not caring that she was about to go off and have something that was halfway between rebound and hate sex. When the dentist pulled her off the dance floor and back to the balcony rail for more space, Nell went along without question. They were well passed words, the two of them. The only thing left to decide was if they were going back to his place or her suite at the Bellagio.
From his place against the railing, Sebastian watched the story unfold, and it was only a massive amount of willpower that kept him where he was. She wasn’t his, and he had no right to butt in, to shoo the man with the too-white teeth away to wherever he came from, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to. His drink was finished, a second halfway gone by the time she and the man arrived back to where they started, coming full circle so as to present him with the fruits of their meeting. The familiar way his hands roamed over her body, the way she kept looking up at him, and there came a point when it was simply too much.
Abandoning his spot on the perimeter of the bar, Sebastian approached with slow, even steps. He didn’t say anything, but the pace of his approach gave Nell plenty of time to see him. Coming up behind the other guy, Sebastian lifted a hand, tapped him twice on the shoulder firmly, and when all attention was on him, he gave him a long look, brows lifted. “Mind if I cut in?” he asked, flashing a smile of his own that was predatory in nature.
Nell was a little too busy with the tonsil hockey to notice the familiar shape approach. Awareness of anything outside the moment she was sharing with the dentist came only when he pulled away suddenly. She opened her mouth, either in protest or question, but snapped it right back shut when she saw just who had interrupted them, the low voice just barely audible over the music. Nell stared directly at him, her eyes boring into him the thousand questions she couldn’t yet vocalize. The dentist, who had initially been annoyed, caught the look on Nell’s face and looked back and forth, trying to suss out just what it was he had stepped into and whether it was worth his time after all. “Am I missing something here?” he finally asked, unable to make heads or tails of the situation.
“I think that’s better answered by the lady, here,” Sebastian answered, taking a long drink from his glass, his attention on the man though his eyes were on Nell.
“No,” Nell said firmly, trying to pull the man back towards her. But he had had enough. Throwing his hands up he apologized, saying that he didn’t want to cause any drama but he wished things could have ended differently, before slipping back into the crowd. Nell gritted her teeth as she watched him ago, realizing that with him went the distraction she had come here looking for, and in his place stood the very person she had come here trying not to think about. To make matters worse, the dentist had gotten her all sweaty and worked up, her libido a flashing beacon that could be spotted from a mile away. Mother fucker.
“Dammit, Sebastian. What was that about?”
Sebastian watched the man go away, giving his departing shape a look before he glanced back towards Nell, suddenly unsure why he had even done that. A possessiveness that had no foundation, a need that he shouldn’t have been experiencing. And with the guy gone and all of Nell’s attention on him, he suddenly didn’t know what he was doing. The rest of his drink was downed, the glass sat on the nearest surface, and after raking a hand back through his hair, he gave Nell a look with no words to accompany it.
He stayed like that for some time before action took over and he moved closer towards her, too tempted by that flushed skin and mussed hair, and while it would have been so very easy to give in to all those base needs, he simply let his hands come to rest against the curve of her hips, leaning down so that foreheads met. “I miss you,” he finally said, the words barely audible above the thumping of the music. “I miss us.” And that was full of truth that he couldn’t even think of feigning.
Nell focused on regaining control of her breathing as he stood there just looking at her, desperately trying to push away the toe-curling desire that her time with the dentist had unleashed. Her body was at a point where she would have happily jumped the first person who looked non-diseased, and with Sebastian standing in front of her, it took every ounce of willpower to listen to her mind instead of her body.
Of course, Sebastian made that a lot harder, especially when he moved in close, his fingers blazing fire trails where the lay. She looked at him as he spoke softly, the words striking her straight at her core, jarring her in a way she wouldn’t have thought possible in her current condition. He was telling her the truth, Nell knew that as well as she knew anything else, and standing there inches away but barely touching, her skin aching for human contact, she couldn’t help but press in close until they were chest to chest, hip to hip, toe to toe. “Dammit, Sebastian,” she whispered, lifting her hands to his face, fingers grazing the hair above his temples in that ever-familiar way. “You make it so hard to think.”
He really had no concept of the effect he had on Nell, but Sebastian was more than familiar with how he felt with her around. It was this sensation of everything being ‘right’, something he hadn’t experienced since Seattle, no matter how many times he lied to himself that he had. As she drew in close, his hands laced together behind her, their position intimately close. Leaning in to the touch of her fingers, Sebastian turned his head to press a kiss to the inside of her wrist, lips lingering there against her pulsepoint for some time, unable to pull himself away. He could have gone on living happily had he never met her again, gotten married, had children, and he was positive he would have been content with the hand life dealt him. Things could have been much worse, after all. But no, she had to go and waltz her way back into things again, and suddenly, what seemed perfect before was now tarnished in comparison to how he felt now, with her.
“That goes for you as well,” he said softly when he finally drew his lips away, pressing their foreheads together as he squeezed his eyes shut tightly. “Impossible to think.”
Standing there in the warm night air, Sebastian’s face so close to hers, Nell wanted to give in to the throbbing in her veins and pull him the rest of the way in. It would be so easy. She pulled his jaw towards, her angling him closer. And it would feel so right. Her lips were only a hair’s breadth away from his now, her skin already tingling with the anticipation of his hands on her. They could make up for lost time. She stepped backwards, pulling her with him until the only thing between her back and the Las Vegas sky was a metal bar and Sebastian’s embrace. All would be right with the world. Her eyes fluttered shut.
Until tomorrow morning.
Nell’s eyes flew open as she realized what she was about to do. “We can’t do this, Sebastian,” she whispered, her breath warm on his lips as she spoke. “You know that, right?”
Sebastian couldn’t find the words to say anything for the longest time, stepping back with her until the cityscape became their backdrop. He was ready for refusals, for anything that might come from her lips, so when she finally spoke, that whisper that was for his ears only, he closed his eyes and gave a small shake of his head. “We can do this,” he said firmly, opening his eyes to look down into hers. “We can try to do this. You and me. We were good together, Nell, you know that.” There was this thread of fragility in Sebastian’s voice, words on the edge of simply shattering.
Nell pulled back an inch, until she could see the look in his eyes. She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes, shaking her head at the impossibility of what he was asking for. Her hands curled into fists at his shoulders, as she let out a groan of frustration. “We were good together when we were eighteen. We haven’t spoken in six years. We barely know each other anymore.” She looked back up with him, her eyes filled with all the sadness of what-ifs and if-onlys. “You’re in love with your fiancée,” she said softly, running the pads of her thumb over his cheekbones. “Your lovely, beautiful, sweet fiancée.” Nell had never seen the girl but knew just what she would be like, the perfect creature that was destined to end up with this glorious, unattainable man.
“Then we get to know one another again,” Sebastian said by way of counter, his own hands unlacing from behind her and coming up to gently cup her cheeks, fingers threading back into her hair to simply hold her. “And what would you say if I told you that how I felt about you? How I feel right now seeing you again? Is nothing that I ever felt with my fiancée.” He let out a breath, shaking his head slowly back and forth. “You make me lose my words, Nell. I can’t think when I’m around you. It all just... it doesn’t make sense.” There was a laugh then, and he started to pull away, an expression that was almost pained crossing over his face. “I love you, Nell. Six years, six months, six days, hours, whatever. I’ll feel the same tomorrow and next year. The same in a decade. But-” He shook his head, withdrawing completely and moving to lean against the railing, fingers laced together as he stared out over the Las Vegas cityscape. “I can’t make you feel the same way. And I won’t blame you if you don’t. Like I said...”
Sebastian cast a glance back towards her. “I’ll leave you be. If that’s what you’d prefer.”
Nell closed her eyes as he pulled away, replaced by the night air that was cool in comparison to the heat between them. She swallowed hard, still not believing the words she had just heard. How could he possibly love her after all these years. Her, with all her damage and tragedy, a girl so much more shattered than the one he had fallen in love with. “That isn’t what I want.” She finally said, looking over at him, his profile outlined against the Las Vegas sky. “What I want is for you to be happy. To not leave your perfect future for someone who’s damaged and broken and...” she paused, biting her lip as she searched for the right words. “I’m not that sweet, innocent kid anymore. And I don’t think-- I couldn’t bear to see you live with that regret for the rest of your life.” That’s what it was. Sebastian was talking about giving it up, throwing it all away, and if it ended up being the wrong decision, Nell would be the reason it all went to hell. “What if you give it all up and it turns out I’m not the girl you love after all?”
His foot tapped against the ground beneath his feet, rocking slightly back and forth against the railing as he soaked in everything that she had to say. He had counters for nearly everything she had to say, but it was hard to bring any of it to voice because he knew, he knew she would refute every word. So instead, he decided to address her last words, that doubt that hung so heavily in the air. “What if it turns out you’re not that girl?” Sebastian finally asked, glancing back towards her as he straightened, pushing away from the railing. “I say fine. I’ll deal with that if it happens. But I’d at least like to know, because, dammit. Nell.” Sebastian shook his head and moved towards her again, drawing her in towards him, arms wound around her. “Because what if you are?”
Nell leaned against his arms as she looked up at him, the weight of his words dawning on her. “Are you willing to throw away certain happiness to find out? That isn’t a risk I can ask you to take.”
“Nothing is certain in this world, Nell. Not happiness with Serena, not happiness with you. There’s no guarantee that we even have tomorrow. But I would rather take a chance now, while I can make the decision with as little pain as possible, than to regret not taking a chance.” He swallowed hard, leaning down to press a kiss against her cheek, his lips lingering. “And you’re not asking me to do anything, Nell. You just need to let me.”
Nell’s eyes closed as he pressed his lips to her cheek, and she kept them that way for a moment, pushing out the loud nightclub for just a moment. She realized that her heart will still pounding away loudly in her chest, but it wasn’t lust she was feeling anymore. No, this was something else. Adrenaline, excitement, and dare she say it... maybe even a little bit of hope. Nell hated the idea of getting her hopes up after the way Stefan had crushed them to bits, but maybe a little bit, a teensy little bit couldn’t hurt.
“What if I said yes?” she asked softly, her words barely audible over the thumping beats. “What then?”
The simple fact that she did not immediately say no was enough to give Sebastian a sliver of hope. This was a step over the edge of something either magnificent or disastrous, and he wouldn’t know which until he took that leap of faith. His own heart throbbed in his chest, and when she whispered those tiny words, that small flicker of hope came alive. “Then we figure out how to make this work,” he said softly, leaning in to press his lips against the shell of her ear, making sure not a single word went missed. “And I’ll call home. I’ll tell her the truth. I won’t do to her what someone did to you. It’ll hurt, but I’ll be honest. And whatever happens after that...” Sebastian let out a soft breath against her ear, lips closing around her earlobe for a moment, unable to stop himself. “It’s up to us.”