How to Make a Villain - [Sebastian Sallow x F!OC]

[twenty-six]

A/N: Welcome to chapter twenty-six in which I've officially lost all control of my characters, lol. Please direct any gripes you may have to Sebastian Sallow who, despite this chapter not even being in his POV, demanded that I write the following events. (I'm not kidding, he wouldn't take no for an answer.)

Content warnings: this chapter earns its mature rating with some non-explicit smoochy smoochy at the start. (Aurélie had her eighteenth birthday off-page).

~x~

Pain came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Aurélie knew this from experience. Sometimes it was small, dripping into one's awareness like an unexpected shower on a summer's day: a hurt feeling, a bumped toe, a niggling anxiety. But sometimes it was big and all-consuming, like a cloak of grief, a black ocean of homesickness, or rapidly spreading spider venom that made every muscle stiff and weak. But in the dark, silent infirmary that night, there was no pain so profound as Sebastian's. Curled around her with his hands pressed flat to her spine, he held onto her as he splintered to pieces in the narrow bed, clutching her exhausted body like it was the only thing keeping him together.

'I shouldn't have lied to you,' he moaned into the crook of her neck, his voice almost inaudible with despair. 'I should've told you about Solomon but I — how could I —'

Sebastian smelled tangy, and when she reached up to touch his hair, she found it matted together in clumps, sticky with sweat and dried blood.

Her blood.

She held him tighter.

'You killed him?' she whispered.

'I had to.' His fingers dug into her waist, pulling her closer. 'He was attacking us. He wouldn't stop.'

'But you used the killing curse?' Too tired for shock or anger, she simply asked the question like they were practising exam revision: Explain your reasoning for using an Unforgivable Curse over another, less harmful spell.

Sebastian was silent for so long that she wondered if he didn't want to answer, but eventually, he lifted his head. His eyes were dark, and there was blood on his face. She tried to wipe it off with the end of her sleeve.

'I don't know...' He averted his eyes. 'I tell myself it was self-defence, but...'

But. 

The unfinished sentence hung over them like a spectre, haunting the infirmary with unspeakable truth.

Failing to scrub the mess from his face, Aurélie reached for her wand and uttered a cleaning charm instead. 'Are you sorry?' she asked as she siphoned bits of blood and dirt from his hair.

Sebastian frowned at the question. 'I'm sorry it came to that,' he said slowly, leaning into her touch, 'but I'm not sorry for protecting my sister.' He closed his eyes and dropped his voice to a whisper. 'Do you hate me now?'

In a bed too small for their bodies, there was no space for lies between them — so she spoke the truth instead.

'When I first came here,' she whispered, 'everyone told me to stay away from you.'

'I know,' he said brokenly.

'I should have listened to Garreth — to Ominis. They warned me.'

'I know.'

'That curse killed my parents —'

'I know.' He buried his face in her shoulder.

'And yet,' — she took a deep breath, — 'I think even if I'd known it from the beginning, it wouldn't have made any difference.'