—the most dangerous thing is to love

Sebastian knows his own patterns a little too well - he knows what the shortness of breath means and he knows what an anxiety induced depressive spiral looks like. He can tell the feeling of guilt in his chest is there but it’s also fake, magnified by insecurity, and he knows that the way his thoughts are tangled has a lot to do with trauma. Despite it all, he can’t help but feel vulnerable and rejected and small. Despite Parker’s words, despite his knowledge of himself, despite the way his logical mind is screaming to stop… He doesn’t. He keeps staring at his fingers in his lap, shoulders pulled up in a defensive stance as he tries to parse through what he wants to say. 

“I don’t… Know what to say,” he talks in the end, voice small and breathy, barely there - an admission of impotence, a confession of weakness. “Like… I’m just…” He swallows hard, breathes, and the panic rises and rises. “I didn’t like… Make you think you didn’t have an option, right?” 

“n-no,” parker refuted quite strongly & immediately,  “that’s not-”  that’s not where he’d intended to direct the conversation. he didn’t think sebastian did anything wrong, not at all. he was just so overwhelmed by the event, and he knew it was  unfair  to take it out on his friend— but he was so terrible at understanding his emotions and much less explaining it. 

Sebastian likes when things are neat and clean and simple - numbers and sharp lines and question free things. He doesn’t like feeling like all he holds is questions and no answers and he doesn’t like unsettling things just for the sake of it. Despite it all, he knows the words that just escaped his lips are none of those things - they are messy, needy, vague. He sits in silent horror with himself, trying to listen to Parker and something in the way the brunet speaks makes Sebastian feel anxiety clogging his chest. Real anxiety, not just nervousness, the type of panic that usually sends him spiralling. He breathes slowly, trying to anticipate his own feelings despite the way his thoughts swim.

He ruined it.

He doesn’t know why he tried in the first place or why he thought there would be a different outcome.

He messed it up and he can’t take it back and it’s always like this and it’s always his fault.

“Sorry,” he chokes out, vision blurry with tears, fingers shaky as he intertwines them and squeezes his hands together. “I didn’t mean… I just… I’m sorry,” he repeats in the absence of any other words. He can feel the panic inside consuming him and all is dread and all is guilt.

parker hadn’t expected tears; nonchalance at  BEST  and indifference at worst had been his subconscious expectations. however, sebastian’s quivering & almost  TIMID  guise completely caught him off-guard. he had absolutely no idea what to say— his prior anger had just muddled into  confusion. 

“I— I’m not  mad  at you,”  anymore  he blurted out. his fingers twitched up & down but he quickly closed them into a fist in his attempt to keep his nervousness from showing, eyes averting from the results his vexation & words seemed to have on his friend. 

Sebastian doesn’t have to ponder about whether him and Parker have been thinking about the same lines when it comes to their project, because Parker is… Struggling. For the entirety of their at times tenuous relationship, Sebastian hasn’t seen Parker this unsettled. Of course, he doesn’t look it, but Sebastian can see it. His complexion is slightly pale and his words sound scared to leave his lips and his gaze is flighty and… 

“Shoot,” he mutters as he watches Parker spill some of the drink. He springs into action by habit, always ready to offer help when needed, and in a few moments he’s back with a clean tea towel. “Here,” he offers, with a smile that is barely credible. He doesn’t know what to do know, so he stands and watches Parker fiddle with the tea towel and he tries to emote - he feels like an alien whose language doesn’t include words or expressions or feelings and is something entirely different altogether. He parts his lips, trying to find something to say, before he feels the frustration in his chest suffocate any words that might have lined on his tongue. He sits back down and takes a sip of his energy drink and… Perhaps he’s tired or maybe it’s because he feels like he’s sitting on pins and needles or maybe it’s the caffeine and sweetener in the energy drink, but he finds himself speaking before he can stop himself. 

“Are you really uncomfortable around me now?” 

He knows he asked the question, he heard himself say it, but at the same time he didn’t and the constant whooshing of blood in his ears and the sound of his own heartbeat and anger and frustration almost deafen the entire world around him, including Parker. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to hear the answer. 

the brunette quickly patted down the spot on his leg with the tea towel sebastian offered. parker loathed himself for how  CLUMSY  he could be when he got nervous; or maybe he was just overanalyzing everything he deemed short of  perfect.  it felt like every slip-up was a giveaway to what he was hiding under the covers. 

“Are you really uncomfortable around me now?”  sebastian’s words rung in his ears even after he spoke them. the question had caught him offguard— he’d been really hoping to avoid  that.  direct confrontation had never been one of parker’s  strengths.  

The familiarity of Parker’s response in his request for coffee makes a small smile pull at his lips. Some things really don’t change, he thinks as he gets up to make the coffee. Sebastian is half convinced that Parker has started talking to him because he always makes his customers’ coffees just a tad stronger than his colleagues. If everything else is unsure or lost, at least he’s sure of the fact Parker won’t find coffee quite like his. Parker’s curt words do an alright job to fill the silence in between the sounds of the coffee machine and Sebastian tries to settle down his nerves and just… Be normal. He hums under his breath and leans slightly against a kitchen counter as he speaks: 

“Yeah? I haven’t heard anything but like… This prof’s always kinda disorganised with the projects and coursework,” he says, his face screwing softly in a displeased expression. Sebastian likes knowing what his schedule for the day will look like, he likes consistency… And this professor is really not the best at maintaining that. “Whatever, I’d rather get it done early, you know?” he comments, turning to finish off the coffee, before pouring it and bringing it over to Parker. He takes a seat on the couch next to the other with a sigh, before unlocking his laptop again and pulling it into his lap. “Cool…” he sighs, staring at the screen, eyebrows furrowed slightly as he tries to regain his train of thought before Parker came and almost made him unravel. “Got any direction for this?” 

sebastian was doing an  effortless  job at appearing calm parker’s eyes. in fact, it made him wonder if he felt uneasy at  ALL.  parker quietly takes in seb’s responses without having much to say, in the attempt to keep his nerves from exposing themselves. he was glad to hear that seb preferred to also be ahead of time just in the likelihood that mark (their professor for engineering design) decided to have the projects submitted beforehand. not to mention, parker didn’t want to come across...  tenacious.  

albeit, when he is handed the craftfully-made iced coffee, his guise threatens to come undone by the shakiness of his fingertips. a little bit of the drink spills on the pants over his thighs, however he manages to firm his grip before he loses it entirely. 

Their string of short, awkward text messages stay the same even as the hours tick by and two days turn into barely minutes left until their meeting. Sebastian is tired and, to calm himself down, he has spent his morning off cleaning everything. There’s only one pan and a bowl in the sink, from when he made himself ramen for lunch. Now, as the afternoon is hurrying towards the evening, Sebastian is sitting on his couch, awkwardly. Even his furniture feels uncomfortable, as if it grew in size - or perhaps Sebastian is feeling especially small right now. He tries to focus on his open laptop, takes a swig of his energy drink and almost chokes on it when he hears the knock on the door. He runs a hand through his hair nervously as he walks to the door, letting out an unsure breath before opening it.

“Hey,” he says and he knows the smile he’s wearing is not a sincere one. He can’t even lie to himself about it. “Come in,” he offers, closing the door after Parker, before making his way back to the couch. “So… I started already by looking some of the notes, I got like a general idea for it,” he speaks, trying to plaster over the inevitable cold silence that will sit between them. “Do you want anything, like water or an energy drink or whatever?”

“hey,” parker responds, hoping sebastian would equate the blush on his face to the afternoon sun. in attempts to hide his own nervousness, parker often masked a guise of  DISINTEREST  or  nonchalance,  wether knowingly or unknowingly. parker was hoping they’d meet up in a cafe or the university’s study room, wherever he didn’t have to  RECALL  what happened the last time he was in sebastian’s bedroom. unfortunately for his own sanity, he wasn’t able to find a good enough reason to turn down this venue in time. 

‘coffee,’  he wanted to say, but he didn’t want to seem too demanding, “water is fine.” settling down on the chair, he removed the rolled up sheet he’d been working on. throughout the process, he was certainly avoiding  meeting  his friend’s eyes. he couldn’t tell if that was making the tension better or worse. 

The anxiety tastes bitter on his tongue and he feels his heart drop in the depth of his chest as he reads the following messages. All of the sudden, he feels self-conscious about the speed at which he’s texting back. Should he wait a few minutes? Did Parker see him typing already? Is he just being polite out of necessity? What felt solid and grounding just a few days ago now feels like a foundation that has one too many cracks in it. 

Text to:  Parker ✨

tomorrow works okay for me

im working all day today :( 

He pauses, bottom lip tucked under his teeth as he considers his next text message.

are you oka

He thinks twice about sending the message he typed out, instead deleting it and typing again quickly. He doesn’t want to look at the answer - not right now. Gladly, one of his co-workers is waving at him to get him to help. 

where do you wanna meet?

RELIEF  &  disappointment  simultaneously emerged upon learning that he had a day’s time to prepare himself before they met again.  before replying, parker watched the three dots on the left corner of his screen move back & forth, indicating sebastian’s indecisiveness. when it came to a half, parker texted back. 

Recipient: Sebastian (ED) cool