Me and the Devil: Sebastian Sallow

Chapter NINETY TWO - 1890 Sallow Family Christmas

(Stars Will Fall - Duster)

Giddy hearts and craving souls tucked quietly into bed that night. 

Excitement palpable but eyes too heavy to hold consciousness, all four of our minds drifted to dreams among the warmth of the crackling fireplace. Each pop snapping possibilities, futures and aspirations through traced palms and held pinkies.

Funny how the dark can swallow the shadows of realities and capture the light of daydreams in the night.

I expected to wake to flurries behind the window panes and the eager taps of holiday anticipation but was instead woken to imperfect, passionate, soft kisses across my cheeks. The smell of cedar wood and quill ink threading through my fingers and squeezing gently.

"Merry Christmas beautiful."

A whisper to my heavy eyelids.

"Merry Christmas my cabbage." I grinned through the haze of sleep.

Sebastian pulled me to his chest and laughed quietly.

"That's my line."

I nuzzled my nose to his neck, breathing him in and smiling against his pulse. He rested his cheek against the top of my head and hummed a wavering rendition of a song I vaguely recognized from the holiday books back home.

We laid like that until the sun peeked up over the window's edge, gold light seeming to sparkle with something deeper than magic this morning.

Sebastian sighed and pressed a hurried kiss to the top of my head. "Ok enough laying around, I want to open presents." 

I giggled as he released my tired bones and the two of us sat quickly from the mess of pillows and blankets on the floor.

Somehow we were up before the lovebirds. Ominis' was on the floor, chest facing the couch, arm propped up on the edge and fingers outstretched to Anne's who were only an inch or so away. His mouth was pressed into a small smile in his sleep, usually slicked back hair drifting over his eyebrows and tickling his high cheekbones.

Sebastian had somehow been shocked to find Ominis and his sister, lips locked and giggling under the stars last night. I wasn't sure if he hadn't seen the signs or had just chosen not to pay them any mind, oblivious in nature. On the roof, he'd rifled through all the emotions beneath my hands. Confusion into a short lived flicker of anger, doused into a glimmer of sadness before dripping into happiness. 

"I'm never going to let him live it down..." He'd whispered to my fingers, a spark of excitement in his eyes as I watched the wheels begin to turn.

Ominis was definitely in for even more endless teasing,

but somehow I knew he wouldn't mind.

Sebastian had begun to make a bit of coffee and was now searching through his book bag in the corner of the room. He pulled a new sketchbook from its depths and shamelessly sat on the counter, eyes flicking from paper to the sleeping two and back again as he drew.

I imagined this was the start of "never letting him live it down".

I hopped onto the counter next to him, cold fingers beneath my thighs and head on his shoulder, watching the scene in front of me form on the parchment below.

Just as the smell of warm fresh coffee begun to drift through the room, Ominis snorted awake. Wiping a bit of drool from his opened mouth and sitting upright. Anne also stirred and I pretended not to notice the way their fingers seemed like magnets in the glow of the fireplace - promptly looping through each other's.