Sebastian | Oliver (trickarrow) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-06-25 18:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | green arrow, rose red |
Who: Sebastian & Sera
What: An offer of hospitality
Where: After this phone call
When: This weekend
Warnings/Rating: None
Sera had not expected to hear from Sebastian. She had not seen or heard from him since the last time they had spoken on the journals, and she did not expect to hear more from him now, not with how things had gone when she had seen him in the Aria. She would be lying if she didn't admit that this hurt, this end of things. She had loved Sebastian with all that she was, and she had not been enough for him. Like with Angelo, she had only been a shadow of the person that he truly wished to be with, and this was still an wound upon her cuore. She wondered if this is what she was destined for, if this was her fate.
She had not believed in fate as a child, but she believed in it now. She was not a dreamer, not idealistic, and she had not grown up believing that the stories in fairy tales would come true. She knew that the Mermaid died, and she knew that the girl in the red hood did not survive the wolf's hunger, and she knew the Beast was not turned human once more. She knew these things, and yet she believed that life had stones set out, steps to travel, and she traveled the ones she wished to travel now. No longer did she carefully tread where her adoptive parents wanted, or where Carlita would have wished.
When Sebastian called, she considered many things. She considered her pride, and the fact that she should tell him no. She considered Angelo, who slumbered in his room, breathing quietly enough that Sera could only hear if she pressed her ear to his porta. She considered Sebastian, and whether he deserved this help from her. Pride, Angelo, and Sebastian himself, they were all reasons not to open her doors to him. He had hurt her, and there was no escaping this.
But, she accepted because she wished to do this. It was for no other reason. It was not even truly for Sebastian. She chose this for herself, and she called a private doctor and had him waiting by the door when the gate called that Sebastian had come.
The estate was tucked behind a black, wrought iron gate, which opened when Sebastian's car appeared. The estate, for it could not be called a house, was in the Italian style. Cream stone walls and cool, dark tile underfoot. It encircled a courtyard which housed a pool with water as blue as the Amalfi coast, and it was in the jacuzzi that abutted that pool that Sera had been when Sebastian had called her.
Now, she stood near the door, a rich, russet robe tied securely around her waist, her skin still damp beneath, and she waited, having already instructed the doctor to lead Sebastian to one of the rooms in the East Wing, where she and Angelo did not reside. She would stay back for this treatment, and she would hover in the doorway, but she would not do anything but this until Sebastian was safely treated and into a bed.
When the car pulled close to the estate, she sent two servants out to assist, in case Sebastian needed help getting inside and to the room.
The cab was taken to Sera's home in Summerlin, and every minute that passed had him drawing a little quieter, a little more subdued, the emotional rush from the conversation with Nell washing away, leaving him numb in its wake. Later on, he might look back and realise that he had not handled this the best way possible, but for the moment, he saw no other way to approach things. He should have told her, yes, but he hadn't, and he had his reasons for them, but none that would smooth over the wound he had caused upon their relationship.
When the car finally pulled up outside Sera's home, the cab driver had to rouse him to get him out of the cab. He paid, reluctantly so, and then hauled his suitcase out of the trunk, pausing at the sight of the two servants who were there to assist him, but he didn't make any arguments against that. Pride was swallowed in favour of the help they offered, and it wasn't so long before he was in the guest room with the doctor that Sera had called. There wasn't an ounce of protest in him as the doctor divested him of the blood-stained shirt, then saw to his arm with gentle and steady hands. A heavy dose of something that left him warm and tingling swept away the rest of the pain, and before he realised what had happened, the doctor was gone and he was tucked into a bed that was entirely too plush to be proper. Left bicep was heavily bandaged, then bound with further wraps of white gauze to keep it immobile lest he open the stitches yet again and do further damage to tissue that couldn't afford it.
The world was a fuzzy thing, warm lights and soft edges, and all the stresses of earlier were temporarily swept aside by the time Sera saw herself in.
Sera quickly asked the servants to leave them, and she paid the doctor and thanked him in warm Italian before she turned to Sebastian. She smiled a smile that did not truly reach her eyes, and she crossed the room and sat on the edge. She had not gone to change. Instead, she had hovered in the doorway and watched everything, as if this could help things go better. Now, she looked upon Sebastian with that same look, a question in her dull blue eyes. She had been smiles once, but she was not this now. "You will stay until you are better," she told him. There was no question there. She did not care what had occurred with his famiglia. She only cared that he was no longer bleeding. He could speak to her if he wished, and he could tell her the things that had occurred, but she was only curious about one thing: Why was he with her? Even if Nell had cast him off because of whatever this was that he had done, why was he with her, when he had not sought her out in months.
Her fingers touched his good shoulder. "You will rest," she said, and this time there was at least a hint of a question, the possible invitation to tell her things, if he should wish it. Then slowly, she pulled her hand back, and she tugged the belt of her robe closer to her belly. "I'll tell my fratello that you aren't to be bothered. No one comes to this side of the house, so you won't be in the way." He didn't even know she had a brother. They had never spoken of the bad things in her past. That was not who she had pretended to be for him, and it hadn't been what he wished of her, and she had been so eager to please once.
Sebastian was quiet and still until they were alone in the room, and the privacy they were offered seemed to let a bit of the feeling come back, emotional and physical in equal doses. The mention of her brother was noted, but not questioned, taken as simple fact to a mind too emotionally worn to deal with questions. As Sera moved her hand away, he reached out with his good hand for her's, seeking out her fingers to give them a small squeeze, blue eyes tired, dark circles smudged beneath them. "You should have told me to leave you be," Sebastian murmured in Italian, his voice threaded through with a bone-deep exhaustion. "I throw our relationship away for her, and she tells me she can no longer trust me. Where am I now? Begging for help from the woman I left for someone else." His eyes drooped shut, a soft sigh escaping him. "I am sorry, Sera."
Sera ascoltato. She listened, and she looked down when he reached for her fingers. She didn't pull her own fingers away. She didn't make him chase them beneath the blankets. She made no point in this. She didn't make him work for this. She looked down, and then she squeezed his fingertips once they twined with her own. She smiled at the Italian, because it was a bittersweet knife, the bloody edge of a razor. It hurt, and it felt like warmth around her heart, and she closed her eyes a moment and remembered things she had not allowed herself to forget. Forgetting, it didn't ease ache, and why should she let memories go, when she had already allowed reality to leave? You'll sleep," she repeated, soothing and strong, and she'd always been able to sound more capable than her small stature and heart-shaped face had suggested. She leaned down, and she pressed a chaste kiss to his temple, an almost sisterly and affectionate press of lips. "And you'll stop apologizing." She squeezed his fingers again as his eyes drooped shut, and then she tugged her fingertips free and stood. For a moment, she watched him, and then she turned with a sigh. "Sleep well, amato."
At the touch of her lips against his temple, Sebastian settled further into the plush mattress, some of the tension leaving his face, his forehead smoothing out. It was more than he could have hoped for, considering all that had happened, but he wasn't one to question things such as this. Instead, he let the drugs, sweet, warm, and heavy, pull him down to the depths of a sleep where he did not dream.
And perhaps, that would be for the best.