Sebastian Sallow Fucking Sucks

Chapter Ten

[Author's Note]

I've been thinking about theme songs for SSFS lately, and right now the one that's really sticking in my head is Please Be Rude by Gigi Perez. I feel like it's a nice balanced opposite to the chaos happening in the narrative. I'll likely change my mind, but damn that song is sooo good. Can't stop listening to it. There's a second song, but they're a smaller band with only like 250k listens on Spotify so I'm afraid of this fic popping up in a google search of them if I say it haha. So I'll hold off for now.

We've finally reached the end of the flashback chapters so enjoy the best one for last!!!!!!!! Happy reading!

ALSO - I was not paying attention to how freaking LONG this chapter is wtf. I should have split this in two. My bad. Future chapters won't be this long lol

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We raced through the halls, and with our dress shoes clicking we sounded like a herd of mooncalves in the empty quiet.

"Could you have thrown that cake any harder?" I bunched the bottom of my dress in my hands. It was much more difficult running in a dress than I'd realized. Was this why people always acted so stuffy in formal wear? Better well-behaved than face-planting?

"Oh please, you liked it," Sebastian said over his shoulder.

That was beyond the point. "She was bleeding."

Sleepy paintings shot us curious glances as we passed, and I turned my face away from their piercing gazes. All we needed was some overzealous slab of paint running to Professor Weasley.

"Do you know how many spells there are for flesh wounds?" Sebastian scoffed, tossing me a very Ravenclaw-esque look before he returned to scanning the halls. "She'll survive."

"She's going to set a hoard of chomping cabbages on us next time we're in herbology."

"Maybe you can pitch one of her plants over again."

"I didn't—" I pursed my lips at his raised eyebrow. "She deserved it."

He laughed, and the dim sconces danced off him in splatters of gold. In his dress robes, it made him look like he was straight out of a book that I desperately wanted to mark up the pages. I tried averting my attention from his ass for the third time and failed. A painting of a woman sipping tea winked when she caught my wandering gaze.

He stopped short, and I smacked into him.

"Shh." He pressed a finger to my face, nearly poking my eye out. I debated biting it when voices echoed somewhere far off. A door creaked closed.

"This way." He slipped down the opposite hall.

The further we crept, the darkness of the castle thickened like a sprouting storm. As if the merriment of the Yule Ball couldn't stretch this far. Even Sebastian couldn't hide his nerves, each smile chased promptly with a furrowed brow. He could joke all he wanted, but the anxiety rose off him.

We squeezed down a tight stairwell for the dungeons—the indirect path in case there were any professors sullenly patrolling the halls.

"Almost there." Sebastian picked up speed.

"You're mumbling to yourself."

"Considering we're currently dangling on the edge of discovery, I'd say it's warranted."

"You're beginning to sound a bit too much like me."

He whirled on me, walking backwards. "If I sounded like you, it'd be a lot of, 'Fuck that,' and, 'Isn't this hamlet right out of a storybook?'"