Blow It All Sky High

[ Sky – Master Post ]
Title: Blow It All Sky High
Fandom: Sky
Characters: Sin & Sebastian
Rating: T
Warnings: Kissing and cursing
Notes: This one's some more of 1980. Sebastian's adapting pretty well to living with Sin, but he hasn't asked for another kiss. Yes, I got lazy with the naming.

"Sin, I don't understand why you're not a novelist. You write the weirdest shit. And the way you use words… Are you sure there was no opium involved in this?" Sebastian tossed the six-page thesis section onto the coffee table.

"C'mon, how long have you known me? I don't need opium to do that. I just need to get pissed off." Sin leaned against the rickety typewriter table, with a cup of tea in his hand.

"You get pissed off? Now, I know you're kidding me." Sebastian picked up his own tea and leaned back on the couch.

"Yeah, I get pissed off. You just don't recognise it. Very few people do, when it's not aimed at them. It looks kind of like that." Sin pointed to the papers on the coffee table. "It's bitter and rancid and full of unsightly adjectival phrases."

"I'm amazed that a history major knows an adjectival phrase from a prepositional clause." Sebastian's tongue was firmly wedged in his cheek.

"I passed my language and lit requirements, thanks. And I passed them well." Sin shrugged. "Patterns of people were just more interesting. History repeats itself, so I can see the future if I know what happened last time."

"So, you've gone from general-purpose lunatic to lunatic fortuneteller?" Sebastian raised an eyebrow.

"Hey, that's well-written lunatic fortuneteller," Sin protested. "And, no. I don't tell fortunes, and I won't, unless you count teaching upper-division history classes."

"Have I mentioned, this week, that I think I hate you? I can't wait to finish my degree and get away from these pompous assholes. I'll be lucky if they let me teach high school with just a BA, but I can't imagine doing more of this crap. Regurgitating other people's bullshit ideas for a grade is not critical thinking, no matter how you dress it up." This was pretty standard fare from Sebastian. He and academia had a standing disagreement on the finer points of the purpose of education.

"Yeah, it's just because you're not me. I hate to say it, but it helps." Sin tried to sit on the edge of the table, but it squealed in protest. He sat on his heels and leaned on the wall, instead. "I'm not going to change the convictions of an institution, but I can at least position myself to be heard. I pick my classes with the professors in mind, as much as I can — who can I actually learn from, who can I impress –"

"Impress. Yeah, that's one word for it." The words came out more caustic that Sebastian had intended. He hadn't really thought that was possible. "Sorry. I know you're actually smart. You're a goddamn genius. I know. It's just that thing you do."

"I try to avoid doing 'that thing'," Sin made finger quotes, "as you so succinctly put it, to my professors. It would really impair any accurate judgement of my other abilities."

Sin drank his tea and Sebastian stared into the grain of the panel over the old fireplace. There was a long silence.

"You know that truth is more important to me than pretending to be right." It was a reminder of something that Sin really took for granted, between them, since Sebastian was the only person he really trusted to tell him the truth.

"Yeah, but how do I know that you aren't fucking with my head?" Sebastian had never asked, before, simply taking his own perceptions at face value.

Sin looked straight at Sebastian. "Batty, I want to have sex with you."

"What? No. What?" Sebastian looked horrified. "Are you serious? What does this even have to do with the conversation at hand?"

"Not even flattered? Ouch." Sin grinned. "That's how you can tell."

"Wha– Oh. Yeah. Excellent point." Sebastian sipped at his tea, contemplatively. "Well done, et al, but you can't just say shit like that. I think my heart stopped. Jesus."

Sin looked slightly ruffled. "I think I've just managed to offend myself. I started it, but … not even a flicker?"

"Sin, I sleep in your bed. I don't punch you if you touch me. You know me well enough not to expect much more," Sebastian sighed.

"Do you even have a sex drive? I don't think I've ever heard you rhapsodise outside of a literary context. I don't think I've even heard you mention a girl's name in a strictly social way."

"No, I don't. I don't really find people appealing. They're dangerous, disgusting, and grotesque. Why would I want to get that close to one?" Sebastian spilled tea on himself as he shuddered. "Ow! Shit!" The cup ended up on the coffee table. "You're not people. You're relatively pleasant, and I don't think it's because you pity me."

"I think if I pitied you, you'd kick my ass."

"I think that's an extremely likely sequence of events, yeah." Sebastian waved the hem of his shirt, trying to cool the tea on his shirt and pants. "Towel?"

"I don't know, I was rather enjoying your attempts to dry yourself without one." Sin rocked forward, letting the momentum carry him into standing. He sipped his tea while fishing through the laundry closet with one foot.

"Another minute and your wit will be the only dry part of you," Sebastian drawled, wringing his shirt onto the floor.

Sin dropped a brown towel on Sebastian's head, as he passed the couch, again, still sipping tea. "What's got your panties in a twist, all of a sudden?"

"Possibly the fact that I've just burned my leg." Sebastian blotted at his pants with the towel. "And very nearly some other much less pleasant parts."

"Don't get dramatic while you're holding hot tea, and you'll stop having this problem." Sin leaned back against the fireplace.

"Thank you, Dear Abby. I still hold you responsible for this," Sebastian grumbled.

"Put down your tea."

"I'm holding a towel, not tea. I'd think you could tell the difference."

"It was a warning." Sin grinned over his cup. "D'you want me to kiss it and make it better?"

Shock prevailed. Then horror. Somewhere amid the racing adrenaline and the urge to shout was another slightly perverse and self-destructive voice. Sebastian latched onto it, and turned his gleaming eyes on Sin. "Yes. Yes, I think you should."

"If you say that one more time, I will," Sin warned. "I will take you at your word."

"Come over here and kiss me while I'm sober," Sebastian demanded — a slight modification to the first instruction, but still the most idiotic and poorly thought-through thing to make it out of his mouth, without the addition of several drinks.

"I warned you," Sin sang out, setting his tea on the narrow mantelpiece. He stepped forward, nudging the coffee table out of the way, with his foot. Kneeling, Sin leaned forward and dropped a quick peck on Sebastian's lips.

Sebastian grabbed Sin's hair, eyes closed. "No, do it right."

"I don't know that this is a good idea, Batty. I don't want to do anything you're going to regret, later." Sin sat straight, resisting the pull.

"Look, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not going to blame you for anything." Sebastian paused and let go of Sin's hair. "But, if you're not doing it, because you don't want to, I can live with that. I'm sorry, I just figured you didn't really think anything of it."

"I don't think anything of it." Sin got up and sat on the couch. "You're my best friend. I don't want to break you or something. You want stupid? I'm worried about kissing you because I care. If I didn't give a shit, you'd be half-naked in my bed, already."

"I'm half-naked in your bed, most nights." It was a witless, wiseass response, but Sebastian hadn't processed the bulk of the commentary, yet.

"Yeah, not like that." Sin ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back off his face. "Look, I'm going to say some awkward shit, and then I'm going to go get a beer. Tea is just not cutting it for this discussion."

"I'm not drinking anything until you stop talking," Sebastian replied, sensibly.

"I don't even know where to start. I've never done this, before." Sin closed his eyes and yanked a lock of his hair a couple times. "Okay, hard part first. I love you. I think you know that. You live with me, you sleep in my bed, and I don't treat you like candy."

"I can see that being love. I've said it before, you're all the family I have." Sebastian shrugged.

"I don't know how to say this without making things weird. Things are already weird." Sin sighed and slumped, resting his forehead against the side of Sebastian's head. "I don't know if family is the most accurate description of how I think of you. It's a motivation — I'll protect you like my own brother — but I can't say it's the motivation. I like you, but it's not why I introduced myself to you. It's an aftereffect."

"Yeah, why did you introduce yourself, anyway? I never got past the idea that it was all a prank gone horribly … I'm not sure if the word I want is 'right' or 'wrong'…" Sebastian licked his teeth and stared at the coffee table, for a moment. "You might've noticed, people don't just talk to me, unless they have to or they're looking to ruin my day."

"It wasn't a prank. It — you're never going to believe me. It's why I never told you." Sin actually turned colours. He looked at the floor and the far corner of the room — anything that wasn't Sebastian.

"You should know by now that you'd have a very hard time lying to me, so if you tell me the truth, I'm really not going to have a choice but to believe you. Besides, I don't think you would lie to me, unless I accidentally guessed some part of your shocking plans for the evening, that I wasn't supposed to know about."

Sin laughed. "Hang on. Beer first."

He jumped over the back of the couch in both directions, once to get a beer and once more with one. Setting it on the table, he peeled the tab off, counted to three, and drank about half of it, before setting the can down, again.

"I fell madly in lust with you, the minute I saw your face." Sin gritted his teeth and waited to be punched, but Sebastian just stared like he was waiting for the punchline. "I just wanted a fling. A one-nighter. But, then I met you — really met you — and then I just wanted to keep you around, because you're stable and brilliant. And you're an asshole. A complete and total irredeemable asshole. And I love every minute of it."

"So, you wanted to have sex with me, but then you decided I was great, even though I'll never do anything of the sort?" Sebastian looked suspicious. "I'd think you were trying to wear me down, but I moved in with you by accident. I want to be suspicious, but you never hit on me. In fact, this is the closest you've come since day one, and you're telling me this to explain why you won't kiss me, so I don't think it counts." There was a long pause. "I have absolutely no idea what the hell just happened, other than the part where you love that I'm an irredeemable asshole."

"I think that was the important part."

"Fantastic. Are you going to kiss me, or would that be more weird?"

"I think that's an 'and', not an 'or'." Sin leaned in and kissed Sebastian — a long, lingering, gentle kiss.

"Good answer," Sebastian replied, blinking, and then leaned back in to repeat the process. "Well, it doesn't make my brain explode when I'm sober, but I think I like this kissing business."

"It doesn't make your brain explode, because I'm being nice. I could do that, if you want me to," Sin defended himself.

"No, I think I like what I've got, for now."

"Excellent. Does that mean you can finish editing my thesis?"

This time, Sebastian did punch him.