#sebelliott

Elliott leaned back in his chair, rocking it back slightly onto just two legs. He stared at his calendar, pinned above his writing desk and scribbled over with a myriad of notes and dates. At the end of the month, circled just about a dozen times and with little hearts doodled around it, was his and Sebastian’s two-year anniversary.

He still hadn’t decided on a gift.

What do you give someone, who has brought you absolute joy for 224 days? Who has been a light in a storm you didn’t even realize you were in? Who was willing to change to make things work and who helped change you? Who has become one of your most cherished treasures in the world?

What do you give someone?

The sappy, romance-adoring part of himself had an idea.

He’d been thinking about it for a while.

The letter from Lewis, Welwick’s vision at the fair, and Gunther’s recent book recommendations certainly did not help… but they just made him consider the idea more seriously, rather than passerby daydreams.

A mermaid’s pendant.

He may not have grown up in the valley, but the stories were not kept secret from him. And when he and Sebastian had been more open with their relationship, when others discovered how long they had been together already, it was soon that people began asking not a matter of if but when. Robin’s teasing questions, Evelyn reminiscing with Elliott on the mornings he visited her garden for inspiration about her and George’s proposal, Sam and Abigail poking fun at Sebastian good-naturedly.

Elliott would watch Sebastian, anytime someone brought it up.

In the beginning, he would bluster and his face would tinge pink but he’d roll his eyes, would say “yeah, right” or “we haven’t been serious for that long” and Elliott was never hurt, really, by these statements, because he understood and Sebastian was right, and while of course he had hoped everything would work out and they’d live happily ever after… even he knew one could not predict the future.

But as of late, Sebastian’s face would not tinge pink and he would not roll his eyes and he would not bluster. Lately, Sebastian would grow quiet, and not his usual quiet, but more contemplative, like when he visits the docks on a rainy day and looks out into the distance and just thinks. Lately, his face would bloom a deeper red and he’d look away.

Sometimes, he’d shrug and say “maybe” or “we’ll see where things go”.

Elliott hadn’t figured out a good way to broach the subject, just yet. He was terrible with this, talking about his feelings and discussing big changes. He remembered confessing to Sebastian and how he had nearly screwed that up, tripping over his words and almost making Sebastian think that Elliott didn’t even want to be friends anymore. But, well… he did hope that maybe, possibly, Sebastian would want to get married.

There was one little problem, however.

Literally.

Elliott glanced around his cabin. His bed tucked against the wall opposite his desk, his piano swamping about a fourth of the room. His bookcase takes up even more of the floor.

He didn’t have much, and for one person it worked out perfectly fine.

But if there were two people…

He sighed, leaning forward again, his chair hitting the wooden floor with a loud thump that reverberated through the cabin. He didn’t even have a kitchen, or any sort of appliances to actually cook. He usually swung by the saloon for dinner, or shared dinner with Willy or Leah. It wouldn’t be practical to have another person move in when, really, his cabin was barely big enough for one person.

He wouldn’t be able to move in with Sebastian’s family, either. He had no doubt that he’d be welcomed - Robin already did her best to make him feel at home when he visited, or was invited to dinner. Maru was easy to talk with, when it came to topics of sci-fi or medicine. And Demetrius was Demetrius - a little standoffish, he didn’t quite seem to get Elliott, but he was polite and still welcomed him for dinners or when he visited Sebastian. But their home was already constantly bustling, and there wasn’t much space for another person there.

And, most important of all, Elliott knew Sebastian already didn’t wish to remain there.

Elliott would never ask him to stay somewhere he didn’t want, and it would be cruel, he thinks, to ask Sebastian to somehow fit Elliott into the home he already wanted to leave just so they could be married.

He sighed heavily and slumped onto his desk, resting his cheek on his arm. What to do…

-

It was by chance, the next day that he found himself walking up to Sebastian’s, the memory of Robin offering to renovate his cabin anytime hitting him earlier in the morning and with a text from Sebastian that he would be at band practice all afternoon, but would stop by Elliott’s this evening. Much as he loved Leah, and she too had offered multiple times to help expand or decorate his cabin, even she conceded that Robin was more skilled when it came to architecture.

And besides, there was more than one thing he needed to ask Robin.

One thing at a time, Elliott reminded himself, knocking on the door before opening it - because no matter what Robin said about always being welcome, he still had manners - and returned Robin’s smile when she caught sight of him.

“Elliott! It’s so good to see you,” she rounded her desk as she spoke, enveloping Elliott into a tight hug. “I’m sorry, but Sebby’s not here. He’s with Sam and Abby right now in town.”

“I know,” Elliott reassures, extracting himself from her hug.  “I actually came here because I needed to speak with you. I was hoping to ask you about home upgrades?”

“Oh? Well, by all means, take a seat!” She pulled one of the chairs from the wall and moved it to her desk, gesturing for Elliott to take a seat. “Yoba, I remember building that cabin of yours, let me pull up the layout. You haven’t changed it since then, have you?”

“Not really, no. Nothing besides furniture of course.”

Robin nods as she opens a large book, flipping through the first couple dozen pages before stopping. She pushes it so the book is between them, and Elliott sees the blueprint of his cabin, exactly as she had shown him when he had first come to town and needed a place to stay.

“Alright, you said you were interested in home upgrades? What did you have in mind?”

-

Back and forth it went, Robin pulling out another book to sketch their ideas into as they spoke. She would ask questions upon questions, from how large he wanted a room to be, to the color or style of the walls, if he wanted to change anything about the existing room. She took meticulous notes, and Elliott truly lost track of time as Robin engrossed him further into the process of working out the details.

Eventually, the questions about the house renovations tapered off, and Robin began to create a new blueprint for his cabin that she said she would place into her book, once the renovations were complete. The questions grew more casual as he watched her map out the new blueprint.

“So, what sparked you to upgrade now?” she eventually asked. “You’ve lived in Pelican Town for a few years, but are only now expanding.”

“Well,” Elliott started, and he could feel his face warm just slightly from nerves, “that’s actually something else I wanted to talk to you about.”

Robin paused in her drawing to look up at Elliott, tilting her head, and Elliott couldn’t help but notice that this, this is where Sebastian gets his curious look that he tries so hard to stifle around others to feign disinterest, but has been so open with Elliott for so long now. “Oh?”

“Yes.” Elliott took a deep breath. He prayed to Yoba his words would come out clear, that he wouldn’t push the wrong idea across. “You see, I’ve been thinking about Sebastian and I, and where we are in our relationship. I’ve heard about a certain tradition in the valley, and, well… my cabin is too small as it is, if it were to ever fit two people…” he trailed off, realizing suddenly that he had looked away from Robin with a steadily warming face, and he snapped his eyes up.

He was greeted with her hands covering her mouth, but behind them he could see what he could only describe as a beaming smile.

She cleared her throat and dropped her hands, but didn’t manage to stifle her grin. “So, you want to marry-”

Robin was cut off by the door swinging open, and Elliott jumped as it hit the wall, not terribly hard but loudly. Robin’s mouth shut so fast and eyes grew so wide, that Elliott spun around to see who had entered only to find-

Sebastian, standing in the doorway of his own home, keyboard slung over his back and blinking in confusion at Elliott sitting in front of his mother’s desk.

Silence, for about thirty seconds, and Elliott could see Sebastian trying to work out what was going on before he had a chance to ask anything else. When he finally did speak, it was slow, the gears still turning in his brilliant head.

“El, what… are you doing here? I thought you were gonna be home?”

The warmth which had been on his cheeks since he started speaking with Robin only grew deeper as he stood, unsure really on what to say, because he hadn’t been planning on telling Sebastian just yet that he was hoping to upgrade his home. And, he usually did tell Sebastian when he would be stopping by, and rarely did he ever come up to the mountains on his own terms unless it was to the spa.

Before Elliott could think of anything to say, Sebastian’s eyes caught sight of the desk and his eyebrows rose. He stepped closer to get a better look, and a minute amount of tension bled out of Sebastian but upon seeing the blueprint of a different layout of the cabin he was growing so used to, confusion plagued his face once more.

“You’re renovating your cabin?” He looked up to Elliott, head tilting the way Robin’s did just a few minutes ago, puzzled but determined to understand the situation presented to him.

“Um, yes! I ah, it was a bit of a spur of the moment thought, really.”

“You never mentioned wanting to upgrade it,” Sebastian said, not accusatory but still something in his voice was off - a little hurt, if Elliott had to guess, and his heart clenched. “You’ve said before you liked how cozy it is.”

“Well, yes, of course-” Elliott stammered. “And I do love it the way it is now, but-”

“But Elliott stumbled across some cookbooks this morning at the library, and came up here wanting to discuss getting a kitchen,” Robin chimed in. “I convinced him to upgrade a liiitle more,” she said with a small laugh. “It was all very ‘spur of the moment’, as Elliott has put it.”

“I was going to mention it later when you came over,” Elliott added sheepishly, thankful also that Robin did not mention the true reason he was seeking to renovate his cabin.

The hurt that had creeped into Sebastian’s eyes dissipated at this, and Elliott could see even his hold on his keyboard strap relaxing. He even chuckled slightly after a moment, shaking his head and looking again between the blueprint laid out on the desk and Elliott. “Of course you’d randomly decide to renovate your place because of some cookbooks.”

Elliott laughed even knowing his cheeks were flushing a deeper red, and he nodded to the blueprint. “Would you like to see what I have in mind? Your input as well would be very valuable, if you wouldn’t mind sharing.”

And - there it was, a spark in Sebastian’s eyes that Elliott loved to see, a glittering of happiness at being asked to join a discussion, to share his thoughts. Elliott vowed the first time he saw it to at any chance return it to Sebastian’s expression, and he was filled with pure joy each time he managed it. The spark was only emphasized by the soft smile Sebastian gave in return to the invitation.

Robin was already pulling up a chair as Sebastian nodded. “I’d love to.”

Sitting back down, side-by-side with Sebastian and across from Robin, Elliott figured he would broach the subject once more with Robin another time.