How to Make a... Future | Sebastian Sallow x F!OC| One Shot Collection

Here Comes The Sun

Author's Note: Hi, and welcome to my little collection of Sebaura oneshots! Each chapter is its own short story, most of which were written for discord writing events. However, I wrote these weeeellllll before I finished the main story of How to Make a Villain, so please excuse any continuation errors or stuff that just doesn't make sense with the main storyline lol. Think of them as AU's if that helps. Anyways, enjoy!

~x~

Sebastian Sallow had landed himself in a predicament so dire that despite applying every ounce of his impressive mental facilities to finding a solution, only two viable options were clear to him: he could fake an illness and flee back to Scotland, or he could throw himself off the cliff he was presently stood atop and drown in the Mediterranean Sea below.

Unfortunately, as an apprentice Healer and a rather magically adept wizard, there weren't many illnesses he couldn't cure with a wave of his wand or a well-brewed potion (unless cheese poisoning was a thing, in which case, the French were most certainly trying to kill him and death was imminent), and cliff diving was... well, perhaps a little extreme.

Still, the desire to distract himself by doing something impulsive was as deeply ingrained in him as were his freckles or his untamable brown curls; brashness was a Sallow trait, one his father had possessed in spades and one which, as much as he'd like to believe otherwise, he was very likely to pass onto his children one day — if he lived long enough to father them, that is.

Sebastian's stomach twisted into nervous knots as he picked his way along the cliff side, and he wondered vaguely whether the pain au chocolate he'd eaten for breakfast might just kill him yet. He was grateful that the sun had yet to rise; cloaked in purple twilight, his racing pulse, wobbly knees and shaky fingers were hard to spot, but soon the horizon would turn golden, and the morning sun would blaze across the ocean to illuminate his panicked state in acute clarity.

And when that moment finally arrived, he'd have nowhere left to hide.

'Come on, Sebastian, we're going to miss it!' Aurélie's gentle voice pulled him back from the precipice of both the rocky cliff and his internal implosion. Her accent was stronger after almost a month in France, but her hand on his elbow was as familiar as it had always been; a small, warm anchor that, under normal circumstances, was the only thing that kept his feet on the ground and his anxious thoughts under control.

But today was not normal. Today was different.

With a deep, steadying breath, Sebastian touched the small box concealed in his pocket, wiped his clammy hands on his trousers, then turned to face the girl whose presence in his life was as brilliant and warm as the sun itself.

'And whose fault will that be if we do?' Though he longed to touch her, he knew that if he drew her against him now, he'd have to explain why something as benevolent as a sunrise was making his heart smash like fucking mad against his ribcage. Except, of course, it wasn't the sunrise that was inducing a panic attack, but what the dawning of it symbolised.

'It'll be your fault, of course.' Aurélie grinned at him over her shoulder, her long red hair dancing in the warm ocean breeze. He stumbled along in her wake, wondering how in the name of Merlin's old knickerbockers he'd ever lived a day in his life before her.

'Mine?' he said, feigning innocence. 

'Yes, yours!' she laughed. 'You with your "just one more kiss before we get out of bed". It's never just one more kiss with you, and now we're going to miss the sunrise. Again.'

Sebastian's nerves lightened just enough to allow a single, strangled chuckle to escape him. 'You weren't complaining about my kisses an hour ago,' he teased, resisting the urge to scoop her up and march them right back to the bed they'd gotten very little sleep in the night before.