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Jenson received a message from Seb on a Tuesday afternoon.
It said, Mark was cheating on me.
He stared at the cursor blinking in the input box, once, twice. He wanted to type down nothing and everything at the same time before finally hitting send.
—— How did you find out? Too blunt, deleted.
—— Is the same person I saw in the Ritz? Too presumptuous, deleted.
—— I still love you. Very funny, that shall direct his attention away from this shit, but would it?
Do you want to take a walk? He finally managed to dig out the most proper and satisfactory answer from his messy mind. He'd rather face the sorrow directly and help him process, than write plain texts carrying no tone at all.
After not hearing a confirmation or rejection from Seb for too long, Jenson began to fidget and pace back and forth in the living room. He decided if he hadn't heard from him in the next ten minutes, he would rush to his house, regardless Mark was there or not, then drag him out of the place full of emotions he must've been too vulnerable to categorize.
Before Jenson went for his shoes, with car keys in his hand, his phone pinged with Seb's reply. Meet me by the sea in 10 minutes.
Seb must have arrived there way before he replied Jenson. Because the Brit left the house as soon as he received the text. As he strode down to the beach, the younger German was spotted with the least effort. The blond curls wind-blown though wearing thin, his shoulders narrow, his gaze shooting beyond the horizon. All those features reminded him a lot of the mischief and menace in Jenson's memory. But now he looked so tiny, Jenson wanted to cocoon him in a blanket and never let him go.
He didn't know whether he should call out his name first, for that one-and-a-half syllable dangling weakly upon his lips, or join the trance silently, as if the company per se can teleport any kind of consolation, either way with the risk of startling him out. He never wanted to look at him like a deer caught in the headlight. But he yearned to touch him so bad, just to feel the warmth on his body, to evoke something he could have had, years ago. So he laid his hand on the small of the blond's back as he crouched down, gently rubbing up and down to soothe the rigidity under his palm.
If Jenson noticed a tiny shiver traveling along the spine, or a subsequent low and soft sigh heaving out of the younger man's chest, he didn't say a word about it.
After almost an eternity of time, Seb seemed to be comfortable enough to break the track and turned to him for the first time. Jenson was met with that familiar pair of blue eyes, only with a faint brush of mist and pensiveness. It was astounding, after all these years, that the same pool of lagoons can still take his breath away every time he was too head over heels to not drown himself in.
The blond was not ready to talk, and that was fine by Jenson. He shifted his gaze down a bit on his own shoulder, the blond followed his subtle motion of eyes and got the hint after a few seconds lagged behind. With a gentle bump on his shoulder, Jenson felt a rush of warmth swarming in the pit of his stomach. The younger man's head rested perfectly on the crook of his neck like the last piece of a puzzle, and Jenson leaned on it, secretly savoring the ticklish feeling triggered by the unruly golden strands and taking a deep inhale, they smelled like nothing but the salty breeze sweeping across the sea.
He would die willingly as a rock on the beach right now, if only he could shelter the man in his arms from all the torments he has been enduring on his own.
The bell tower was chiming five, not too deafening to blot out the sound of waves, lapping one after another against the beach. For a brief second, he thought the blond dozed off on his shoulder, as his right side slouched marginally lower than the left, or maybe he was only getting old. Before he decided to draw an inch closer to check on him, when the gap between them was already impossible to reduce anymore, the stature next to him sniffed and wiped the corner of his eyes wordlessly. Next second the crooked angle of his shoulders restored their balance, and Jenson felt so, so empty again.
"Sorry," The word, barely audible, made Jenson frown on instinct. He'd never expected an apology as the first word coming out of the blond, and he wondered what on god's heavenly earth had he got to apologize for, "I must look horrible."
"No, you just seemed," the older man paused for a blink of a second, for he had hastened to retort him, yet failed to dig out the appropriate word to describe his current state. Finally a word he settled with, "tired."
Seb stared at him, silently blowing out his cheeks. His usually unruly curls were messed up tenfold by the wind. The effort of running his fingers through the hair to tone them down was in vain.
A scene so wrong to feel so fond of, yet his heart pounding louder than sirens, or whatever creatures living under the sea.
He reached out his hand, combing the curls over his forehead, once, twice, until they magically stayed under the larger palm, then gently tugging the same lock of hair behind his ear. His cheek grew hotter and hotter under the intent and twinkling gaze. Did it make him a selfish man when he knowingly lingered a slightly longer on his cheek with the heel of his hand? He shifted his eyes to look into Seb's, searching for an answer. Nothing was said, but Seb visibly relaxed into the pressure of his palm. Which made them two.
"What happened to your headband?" Jenson broke their eye contact first and noticed his everyday accessory missing, which explained their joint frustration over the hair.
"It snapped." Seb ducked away before mumbling out the misfortune of his beloved piece of fabric.
"How?" Jenson understood by heart how important the headband meant to Seb. He used to make jokes about how it made him look like a tennis player, or Luka Modric, sans the athletic part. In return, Jenson would deservedly earn himself a smack on his upper arm, or a nudge against the shoulder from Seb. The corner of his lips curved up stupidly a millimeter when those harmless banters floated in his mind, but he repressed it so hard to return the focus back to the younger man.
He shrugged like it was no big deal, "How does anyone break anything anywhere?" Then he laughed dryly, turning back to Jenson, who still looked apprehensive yet waited patiently for him to proceed.
Seb gave a dismissive wave of his small hand. "It really was nothing, some pulling and tugging, and 'pop' it just snapped. Can you please stop looking at me like that?"
In Jenson's head something nasty was pictured, about what exactly kind of pulling and tugging can cause a break of the headband. Did Mark hit him? Did Seb fight back? Did they have angry sex afterward? Were there any bruises left on their bodies?
Since Seb wouldn't let him go that far, he will keep his thought at bay, for now.
Jenson cleared his throat, the lump didn't make past it anyway. Regretfully he said, "But you love your headband."
Seb lowered his head, looking deflated. "I loved a lot of things."
"Fair enough."
The silence dawned on them again, only this time Jenson didn't feel obliged to start a futile conversation, definitely not going to talk about Seb's feelings.
"You know the funny thing, about this beach," Seb lifted his hand, trying to touch his hair out of habit, but dropped it when realizing it stayed obediently behind his ear. "Is that despite I came here with Mark countless times, first thing came to my mind was you skinny dipping and I buried all your clothes under a sandpit."
Jenson's heart felt light, "Yeah, you can't top that, you little shit."
"I didn't encourage you, did I? The skinny dipping part." For the first time since they sat on the beach, the smile reached to Seb's eyes, and he was so proud of himself for being the cause.
"No," Jenson flashed a grin with all teeth, "but you challenged me for drinking in the first place, that's why I got so dizzy and hot. I just wanted to take my shirt off, splash some water or something."
"Right, and the next minute you lost your pants too. What a show-off." The blond shook his head fondly, reminiscing the night they were talking about with a tad shade of pink creeping up on his cheek.
"Show off to whom, Seb? There were barely anyone!" Jenson attempted to let this topic slip, as the atmosphere started to turn weird, at least from his side.
Oh did he remember that night all too well. He drank a few shots, nothing more than his usual portion, not too drunk to forget about every detail. Seb though, who claimed was a only bit tipsy, had plastered himself to Jenson's side, all the way out from the bar, down to the beach. That was why Jenson felt hot, not from the alcohol, but from Seb, the fireball.
He settled Seb on a rock to sober up a bit, and left to sober himself up as well. When he smashed the soaked T-shirt on his face like a man who'd been living in drought for three years, he felt refreshed again. Whatever wrongful thoughts that had been sprouting in his mind coming from either misperception or wishful thinking shall give way to the fact that guide him to the bar in the first place.
He turned his heels to hoist Seb up, but there he was, perching upon a rock, eyes heavy-lidded, cheeks vermillion from the effect of alcohol, tongue poking out to wet his lips. Nothing should be this obscene, from a drunken man. The older man stilled for a split second, or maybe longer, cursing under his breath, as his pants suddenly became too tight around his dick. He then walked back to the sea, with a clearer head, vowing not to look back, shrugging off his pants and underwear, diving straight into the sea, just to cool things down, to be swallowed as a whole.
"Only anything alive." Seb broke his track of rewind, voice smug and a bit hoarse. He wondered if they shared the same memories about that night, or if he was making up stuff.
The night when they announced their engagement, was the same night that string of events happened.
It was true he used to have a huge crush on Seb back then. As embarrassing as he would admit, until Seb decided to tie himself down with Mark, he was convinced that his affection was reciprocated. He wondered what went wrong along the way, he really did.
He didn't RSVP their invitation. He didn't return either of their texts or phone calls. He just wanted to drown his sorrow, preferably alone and anonymous. But apparently holding a glass and drinking solo at the bar was some kind of magnet drawing an endless succession of strangers hitting him up.
It was flattering at first, to be appreciated and wanted by someone else, to be the sole focus in someone's eyes. Few glasses down, talks turned to lame one-sided compliments that did not come from the bottom of their hearts, jokes too stale to pretend to laugh, at least he wasn't the one to get into someone's pants. The interest died out bit by bit, mirroring the fixed smile on his face. He didn't even flinch when a hand was laid self-righteously on his upper arm as a supposedly welcoming reaction to a quote from Little Britain.
All he thought about was how he would have enjoyed the touch ten times more, if the palm was smaller, the laughter more silvery, and most of all, the owner a certain blond German who smiled with a lot of teeth and the most innocent pair of azure eyes in the world.
Great, once the image he had been struggling to rein in unraveled, there was no distance left to run. On second thought, it might not be too late, or too pathetic to retreat to the little bubble of euphoria of the new couple and be a beholder. Just to see the look of a man who was genuinely happy that he found the love of his life, and to accept it once and for all. Here wasn't the right crowd, and there wasn't the wrong crowd either. He could find himself nowhere in between. How very absurd.
The only person that could tread back and forth between these two territories, like a ball being juggled by a professional clown, who can turn the wrong crowd into the right one, suddenly showed up as the wildest dream he had ever dreamed of.
"What are you doing here?" The blond approached him and sat on the stool next to Jenson without asking. He wondered every time when his self-remorse was unceremoniously interrupted by the younger man, did it make the latter an intruder or a savior, like the ray of sunshine unavoidably peeking through the crack between the drapes, no matter how hard you drew them altogether?
"What are you doing here?" The older man lifted up his eyes, to simply reassure himself that the dream was, in fact, a reality.
"You were supposed to be at the party." The uninvited guest asked matter-of-factly. God, wasn't no reply a reply already?
"Yeah, your party. Yours and Mark's." Jenson said sourly, hand clutching to the glass where the last drop drained down his throat before Seb showed up.
"Then why did you text me in the middle of the party?" Seb looked and sounded so perplexed, but not at all exasperated by Jenson's out-of-nowhere message.
"I did what?" He almost shattered the glass by putting it down with too much force, which made Seb turn around to make sure they were not the center of attention.
Then the phone screen was laid in front of him, on it, the text read, Computer says no... to getting hitched. Cheers mate.
It was, actually a quite coherent message from a person who cannot think straight, whose head was full of Little Britain quotes after using one of them to flirt with what's-his-face.
He rubbed his forehead, trying to trace back when and what drove him to send such a clueless message, but failed cluelessly.
"Just to congratulate you on, you know, tying the knot." He amended, to pretend that he, that they, knew where their actual places were, that the person in front of him did not end up here out of a meaningless text sent by him.
"Ok," the blond hung his head defeatedly, "Thanks."
The dim light in the bar had blended others into the background, all the distant laughter dissolved into pure white noise. If Jenson squinted his eyes harder, the sight of the person in front of him seamlessly overlapped with the image etched in his mind from their first encounter, as if time had brought them back full circle.
"Why are you here Seb?" He didn't know whether it was the alcohol per se or the dodging look on the runaway betrothed's face that Jenson found compelling to ask for his real intention. He won't push though, if here was the place where he'd rather be.
"To check on you," He waved dismissively before Jenson sent him off, "no one will notice I'm gone."
The doubt barely escaped his mouth, as the dizziness made it ten times harder to articulate the ridiculousness of Seb's remark. He held the man's arm to prop up a bit, only to find his weight made the latter wobble too.
"I'm fine, off you go." Yet he didn't let go of the grip on the blond's forearm.
Seb stood up, for a second Jenson thought he would turn around, go back to his happy little engagement party, and leave him all behind. But his hold didn't feel empty. Instead, he sensed him shift closer, straight into Jenson's force field, like he always can. "Then why didn't you check on me?"
"What?" Jenson resisted the urge to rest his head against the younger man's stomach, as no amount of clarity would suffice to explain an act this intimate.
"Why didn't you check on me?" The repetition of this question didn't make it any easier for Jenson to comprehend, nor did the perspective where Seb looked down on him, the crown of his hair resembling a halo, sanctified as a cherub, indicating that every wrong could be redeemed, but he was no saint either.
"Does it matter anymore?" Jenson bowed his head. Now he was the one who looked defeated. How the tables turned.
Seb's words came feebly above, "It still would, you still matter."
He didn't know he should be relieved or regretful to hear that. All he sensed was the dizziness becoming double in his eyes, and cold sweat all over his back. He might be shaking, but it could be just the drumming in the ears. "Then why did you say yes to him?"
"Will you want me if I didn't?" To answer the question by throwing another question, classic Seb.
"Doesn't matter anymore." the words came out of him more like a sigh than a real answer, "Go, Seb, enjoy your party. Congratulations again."
"You know what," Seb sat back down, and gestured the bartender for another drink. "You just interrupted my rave and you need to stay with me until I say when."
"You got it, sunshine." His foggy mind turned clear again, and he was rather glad that Seb helped him screen off all the unwanted suitors by being a persona non grata himself. "But I don't want to hog you all night to get Mark all pissed off."
"Can we pretend he doesn't exist for now?" He took a gulp and turned to Jenson, downtrodden like a kicked puppy, "Like what he did to me tonight."
"Wha--"
"Starting now." He didn't wait for Jenson onboard to take another mouthful of whatever he ordered himself.
He felt silly not to ask, he felt even sillier to throw a question that will come back to him intact. So he tried to talk Seb off drinking, but what's his place to say, among all people, when he was doing the same thing? If that didn't make him a hypocrite, then longing for an engaged man must do. Wouldn't hurt to be a compliant company, if that role was failed by Mark fucking Webber.
"I gotta go back now." The blond stood up, his figure against the hues of orange and gold painted by the setting sun appeared so small and fragile. In a blink of an eye, dialogue from every corner of the bar faded into soft whisper of the ocean. Jenson found himself surrounded by the wind and sand again.
He got up and followed Seb's trail hastily, as if the latter would be blown away under his neglect. "Go back for what?"
"To get things straight, maybe?" He turned back to face Jenson, but refused to look at him in the eyes.
It should be Seb's and his decision only, he reminded himself, so that the thin line between sense and protectiveness shall not be crossed arbitrarily. If Seb had made up his mind, he can only respect that. "Are you sure you're ready? For whatever you'll hear from him?"
"I don't know." He buried his hands in his hair, the curls ruffled again, which added another layer of frustration to Jenson's tangled mind, as if someone crumpled up a piece of paper he just meticulously smoothed out into a ball again.
They stood there in silence, until Jenson reached out his hand and found it wrapping around Seb's. "Look, I won't stand in the way if that's what you want. But you only got one shot, promise me you'll sleep on it."
"I'm not in the mood for sleeping on anything." The blond was going for a joke but the punchline came out all bitter and pale.
Instead of laughing at his bizarre sense of humor like old times, Jenson pulled him in for a hug, hand roaming up and down on his back to pet him. Before letting go of the man in his arms, he turned his head sideways and pressed his lips on the younger man's temple, muttering solace against his ear that he wished to drift away with the wind if his wish could never be granted.
"I will build a whole fortress for you on the beach, sunshine."