HE WANTED TO TAKE PITY on the boy before him, to repair the damage he wrought by sharing his bed, but doing so would cause more damage than dion understood. he meets dion's eye and listens for that flightless heart; for its hope to die in the gilded cage he made it. "you cannot expect a fractured creature to make you whole, little bird," he meant it to be some kind of solace, a relief, but his tone betrayed him. he was all smoke-sulfur. kindness had a way of rotting in his mouth before it ever made it out.
stay; not a question, not a plea, but denied all the same. sebastian's life was not his own and perhaps he should have told him, how little he had to give, how even now, these moments between them took something out of him. or more, they forced something inside, a flicker of something much more dangerous than desire, something warmer than rage, sweeter than violence. that flightless bird, that restless heart and all it's hope, was starting to burn a hole through him.
sebastian returned to the frame he turned on it's face earlier before speaking again, "I cannot save you, dion." what he meant to say was this boy, this magician with the sun in his hands, could not save him. "I will burn through you long before you've noticed you're on fire." he picks up the picture frame once more and sets it upright, dion and his family smiling back at him. all that light, bright and sweet and golden in color, was long gone in him. a soul replaced with flint. a shiny black rock of nothingness.
he half turns, his eyes set on the door to his escape, his freedom. he makes the mistake of looking at him, catching the soft glint of water in dion's eyes. Sebastian, not for the first time, wondered if he placed the boy's hands on his chest, and asked him to set him ablaze, could he burn the rot out of him? and for a second more, he wondered when the smoke cleared, what would be left of him.
"go back to your family, dion. live your life," something clings to his throat, salt maybe, "I have nothing more to offer you."