Chapter Text
"Sebastian..? Sebastian, are you listening to me?"
Sebastian raised his eyebrows a little more, cocking his head to the side as he looked at his mother. "Of course I am. I'm just waiting for you to laugh so we can move on from whatever horrible prank you're trying to pull on me."
Robin closed her eyes and exhaled a very long breath. "It's not a joke, Sebby. This is just how things have to be. I can't afford to pay the rent for a whole year on an apartment just for you in the city."
"I would pay you back." Sebastian ventured, leaning forward a bit on the table. They were sitting in the kitchen. Demetrius and Maru were in the lab. Everything was perfectly normal...
Aside from the conversation he was currently having with his mom.
Where she had just told him that he was going to be moving into an apartment with Alex Mullner for a year.
"And that's very kind of you, I appreciate it, but I couldn't afford the upfront cost of it even if you paid me back in full immediately at the end of the year." Robin rubbed her temples and shook her head.
"Why don't you let me try and find my own roommate?"
"You wouldn't last a week trying to live with a stranger. You specifically marked yourself out of having a roommate the entire time you lived on campus. You used every scrap of your savings paying the difference between a shared room and a single room to avoid having to live with someone." Robin spoke every word of that so matter-of-factly that it left no room for argument.
"This is safer." She continued after a brief pause. "Alex isn't a stranger, and it means that we're all helping each other out. The Mullners can't afford to pay for Alex to live on his own either."
"And you think it's safe to cram two people who can't stand each other into an apartment for an entire year?" Sebastian looked steadily at his mom, trying to find any sort of logic in this decision. Something that made it easy for him to understand why this was the answer. Him and Alex having to share a fucking apartment together because they were both from Pelican Town and both interning at the same company.
…Okay, if he was truly honest, he did see the logic in that. But it was also pretty logical for two people who hated each other to just stay the fuck away from each other. Not try and cohabitate.
"The decision has already been made, Sebastian. You need to do this internship to graduate. Alex does as well. You live together for the year you're doing it. We're all going to go to Zuzu this weekend and find an apartment for you two. We'll leave Friday night, stay over in a hotel and come home Sunday afternoon."
"Can't wait," Sebastian said sarcastically, sitting back in his chair.
"If you can find a way to pay for an apartment on your own before this weekend, I will happily cancel the trip and the plans," Robin said just as sarcastically as she got up from the table.
Sebastian watched her go, then shook his head as he exhaled a long breath and got up from his own chair. He went downstairs to his bedroom, closing and locking the door behind him as he pulled out his phone and sent a text to Sam.
Sebastian- My mom just informed me that she and the Mullners decided that Alex and I are going to share an apartment for our internship year. Don't suppose you've found a job yet and a place in the city I could crash in instead of this absolute fucking hell I'm currently being signed up for?
Sebastian tossed his phone onto his desk, then sat down at his computer. The sticking part of this was that he could, actually, make enough to afford his own apartment. He just couldn't earn enough money and do the hours that the internship required, even if it was part-time.
The computer sciences university he had chosen had all of their students do a 'fifth year' after the standard requisite four years of in-class studies. An internship with a company in the department that the student studied in- you couldn't graduate without successfully completing that year. Sebastian would be interning in the programming department, and Alex would be in IT and networking.
At no point did he think this would be a problem. It was just a requirement from the school, it was just part of the education he was getting. His mom had told him herself that she'd pay his rent and some of his living expenses for that year because it was part of the curriculum.
He never considered that he'd get thrown into an apartment with Alex fucking Mullner as part of the deal. Sebastian hadn't even known the cost was a problem for his mom until today when she brought it up. Had he known sooner, maybe he could have done something to offset the cost.
Or done something else, literally anything else, to keep him from this absolutely horrendous excuse of a social experiment.
Throwing the fucking King of the Himbo Jocks together with the 'Emo Goth Boy Loser' (as Sebastian and Alex had named each other) into close quarters and saying 'let's see what happens!' was definitely a social experiment, and one he did not want to take part in.
Sebastian's phone pinged and he picked it up to read the reply from Sam.
Sam- Dude. That is the worst fucking thing I have ever heard. Do any of them actually KNOW YOU and Alex? Have they ever been around you before? Like are you sure that was REALLY YOUR MOM who thought this was a good idea? No job yet. So obviously no chance of a place. Sorry man. I wish I could help.
Sebastian- Hadn't thought about the possibility of a body swap with my mom. ;) And it's alright. I know you would have told me if you did get a job. Long shot. Wanted to ask anyway.
Sam- You're gonna be the first to know, I swear. I'm sooooo ready to take anything that someone offers me for work. I don't want to be stuck in my room in my parents house any more!
Sebastian smiled, turning his head to look around his room, understanding exactly what Sam meant.
Through high school, his room had felt private and separate from the rest of the family. He and Sam and Abigail all gravitated to hanging out at his place because it felt like the rest of the world was so far away from them.
But now, after four years of living in the city in the university dorms and away from this room and this house and this town entirely, it didn't feel anywhere near as private as it used to.
Sebastian- Maybe I can come up with some money somehow. So that when you do get a job I can just fuck off from sharing a place with Alex. Not like he's going to pitch a fit if I leave.
Sam- Now we're on to something. Really fucking sorry, tho. No matter what you're going to have to live with him for a while. I can't believe they just decided this shit without you. Did Alex know? Was he consulted?
Sebastian- Finding that out would require me talking to him.
Sam- So you have no clue. ;)
Sebastian- Maybe I'll ask him this weekend. We're going to the city to look at apartments with him and his grandparents.
Sam- Luck. You'll need it.
The only good thing Sebastian could say about this weekend apartment hunting trip was that his mom and the Mullners weren't stupid enough to try and force them to carpool.
So at the very least, he got to sit in the relative private of the passenger seat of his mom's truck, looking at the Mullner's car ahead of them with Alex's head in the backseat.
"I'm surprised George wanted to go." His mom said, squinting and ducking her head to peer through the windshield to read a sign they just passed.
"You don't need to read the signs. The Mullners are ahead of us, just follow them." Sebastian said, refusing to engage in speculation as to why Grandpa George had decided to come along this weekend.
Honestly, with everything going the way it was, he welcomed Grandpa George's rather negative way of looking at things and his way of just saying whatever the hell he wanted to. It suited his own mood just fine.
"We've got two places to go and look at before we check into the hotel," Robin said, glancing at Sebastian next to her.
"Fine." He said. Because what exactly was he supposed to say to that? What was there to say?
"We've picked all the places to look at in the price range we feel we can afford. But you and Alex will be the ones to ultimately choose which one you like."
Sebastian snorted at that, then looked at his mom when she glanced at him questioningly. "If you honestly expect Alex and me to be able to choose something that suits us both, that we both agree on, you are absolutely out of your mind."
"Sebastian…"
"You can say I'm being overdramatic all you want to, but the fact remains that Alex Mullner and I have never said anything to each other that wasn't in some way insulting, contrary, or inflammatory."
Sebastian spoke matter-of-factly, not dramatically, because he didn't need to be dramatic. What he was saying was the Yoba's honest truth. He and Alex had never even said anything neutral to each other, let alone something complimentary. The idea that the parents-slash-grandparents all thought that somehow this was a good thing to do was laughable.
Even his mom now looked over at him slightly uneasily. Like somehow she had forgotten this part, or truly thought that Sebastian was exaggerating. But all she had to do was think back to town events, parties, anywhere that she might have had a chance to see Alex and Sebastian cross paths to know exactly the way they spoke to each other and treated each other.
Both of them lapsed into uneasy silence, and the rest of the trip passed without further argument.
Or statement of fact.
Robin maneuvered the truck into a parking space behind the Mullner's car in front of a four-story, rather dingy looked apartment building.
"Just… Try and keep an open mind." Robin said, looking at Sebastian plaintively. "Please?"
He shrugged, uninterested in making a promise he didn't know if he could keep.
Alex looked over at him as Sebastian and his mom moved to join them and head into the building as a group. For a second, it looked like Alex was going to say something, but then he clearly changed his mind and walked forward, leaving Sebastian to be the last one, walking slightly behind the group.
The building was okay. No more or less run down than the dorms at the college, but Grandma Evelyn seemed to feel it was absolutely out of the question for them to live there.
"Filthy." She called it as they looked around the foyer and the mailroom. "And no elevator. George and I won't even make it up to look at the apartment. We couldn't help them move, and we couldn't come to visit."
Sebastian flicked his eyes to Alex, finding him looking rather embarrassed at the outburst from his grandmother, but honestly, Sebastian thought it was fine with him that she didn't like the place.
They left without going upstairs, and Sebastian's mom was silent as they drove to the next place. He had a feeling she was now feeling a little bit uncertain about things and what was going to happen that weekend, based on how Grandma Evelyn had reacted to that first place.
Good.
The next place was a ground-floor apartment in a two-story building that had obviously been a store at some point and converted into apartments. Sebastian immediately hated it.
He didn't want to be on the ground floor in the city. It made it feel like you were part of the fucking street even when you were inside. He could hear footsteps and voices as people walked by the front windows of the place and he was singularly and wholly distracted by it the entire time they were in there.
He was trying to formulate the words to say why this was absolutely not an option without sounding like a petulant ass when Alex spoke up.
"I don't think this one will work. Being on the ground floor on the street? We might as well be sleeping on the sidewalk. It just doesn't feel safe."
Sebastian turned his head to look over at him in slight surprise. He had been pretty sure that Alex wasn't going to be the one to say anything negative. That he was going to make himself out to be accommodating and generous and understanding, so that in contrast Sebastian was going to look like an asshole.
But apparently not.
"It is sort of loud," Robin said almost timidly, clearly not wanting to make waves but also unsure about this place.
"But it's accessible for George and I." Grandma Evelyn said staunchly.
"It is. But we did agree that Sebastian and Alex would be the ones to make the final choice in their apartment." Robin said gently. "And since you.. ah… we didn't even let them look at the first apartment, I think it's fair to let them say no to this one."
"Sebastian?"
That was Alex. Speaking directly to him. And Sebastian raised his head to look at him in question. He didn't look friendly, but he didn't look wrathful either. "What?"
"You want this place, or no?"
"No," Sebastian said, furrowing his brow as he glanced at the big front window again. "We'd never even be able to open the curtains without everyone on the street staring in at us."
"Oh. I hadn't thought about that." Grandma Evelyn said, walking over to the window. She pulled the curtain open, then just stood there watching as people walked back and forth in front of it. A lot of them turned to look at her, and she made a face, yanking the curtain closed again.
"Tomorrow we'll see some better places." She said, smiling tightly at Alex and at Sebastian as well. "Maybe we'll have another look tonight and see if anything else has come up that we can add to the list."
Alex pushed his grandpa's wheelchair back out of the apartment, and Sebastian heard the elderly man mutter that it smelled like cats in the apartment, and 'who cares' if he could go and visit or not because the 'young lads' likely wanted their space and freedom.
Sebastian smiled a little bit, looking over at Grandpa George with more than a little bit of appreciation. When he looked up, he found Alex's eyes on him and he immediately turned away.
They all went and checked into their hotel. Robin, being sane for once, had gotten Sebastian and herself their own rooms, while Alex and his grandparents were sharing one.
"What's wrong with sharing?" Grandma Evelyn said when she watched Robin pass Sebastian his own keycard.
"Nothing is wrong with sharing," Robin said, slightly taken aback. "But I want some peace and quiet and Sebastian probably wants to watch TV and call his friends. This is what works better for us."
Grandma Evelyn looked at them both, then up at Alex. She sniffed a bit, but didn't say anything else.
It was weird to see her so on guard and so snippy. She was generally the kindest and most easygoing person in Pelican Town. Ready with kind words and patience and cookies… Not harshness and judgement and whatever else was going on here.
They were all staying on the same floor, and once Robin confirmed what time they would meet the next morning, everyone walked to their respective rooms and went into them.
Sebastian closed his door behind himself, locking it and then walked into the room to let himself fall face first onto the mattress of the bed. He made a long noise of absolute frustration and then stayed exactly where he was for a long time.
This was absolute torture and part of him still couldn't believe that he was even in this position in the first place. He was still waiting on some level for someone to say that it was all a joke and no one was actually expecting him and Alex to live together.
Eventually, he turned over and lay on his back on the bed instead of on his face. He stared up at the ceiling and thought for a few more minutes before he pushed himself up and went out onto the small balcony that was attached to his room and lit a cigarette.
He leaned over the railing, looking down as he exhaled the first breath of smoke he had taken in, watching the people on the street below.
In the few days since his mom had told him about the plan that she and the Mullners had come up with, he had been thinking and thinking and thinking about what he could possibly do to earn enough money to let him leave this potential nightmare and move in with Sam as soon as he got a place.
Coding was the obvious one. But he wasn't sure how many jobs he could take while still doing the hours the internship required. It was only part-time hours, but with having to travel through the city by bus... Time would get eaten up quickly.
There had to be something else, though. Something he hadn't considered, some angle he hadn't even thought of.
He finished his cigarette and stubbed it out in the outdoor ashtray before he went back inside. He took his phone out as he sat on the bed, opening DoorDash to find some place to order dinner from.
A bonus of being in the city he was going to use. He missed DoorDash every single day on every single vacation he had from college in the past four years.
In the middle of scrolling through the nearby restaurants, someone knocked on his door. He got up, still looking at his phone, assuming it was his mom as he opened the door, then left it open as he walked back to sit on his bed, figuring she'd come in as well.
"I'm ordering dinner. You want something as well?"
"Nice of you, but my grandparents ordered room service."
Sebastian startled when a masculine voice answered him from the door way and he looked at the door to find Alex standing there.
"What do you want?" He asked after a few moments, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"We gotta talk, Sebastian. This entire situation is a fucking mess, and you and I at least need to talk about it."
"I don't want to talk to you about anything. Thanks anyway."
"Yeah, well, I don't particularly want to talk to you either." Alex hesitated, then walked through the door and closed it behind himself. "In fact, I would rather be running drills up and down the hotel stairs than try and talk to you about anything."
"Good. Go and do that and leave me alone." Sebastian pointed at the door, then looked back at his phone to continue searching for dinner.
Alex pulled a chair from the small table in the corner and set it in front of the bed where Sebastian was, sitting down in it as he looked at him very pointedly. "We have to at least figure some very basic shit out." He said, fixing his eyes on Sebastian.
"And what exact shit are you proposing we figure out?" Sebastian said, setting his phone down on the mattress next to him as he looked at Alex.
"What we want in an apartment? What we're both willing to compromise on and what we aren't? That way we aren't as likely to argue in front of my grandparents and your mom and potentially have the choice made for us. If we look like we're on the same page there's a better chance of them actually letting us make a choice on our own. We fight like little kids and we're going to end up in a shit hole that both of us hate."
Sebastian took in a breath and held it for a few moments before he let it out again slowly. It made a lot of sense, the stuff Alex was saying, but he was loathe to admit to that.
"No fucking ground floor apartments," Sebastian said, deciding to just jump into the discussion rather than acknowledge anything about Alex's line of thinking being smart.
"Yeah, no problem there," Alex said, leaning back in his chair. "I think it'd probably be pretty important that our bedrooms not share a wall as well. I don't know how likely that will be, but a place that does have the rooms separated would likely be better for us."
Sebastian nodded, because that was really good thinking. "I'd like a balcony." He said, looking at the one he'd just been out on. "I won't smoke inside the apartment, and it'd be nice not to have to traipse all the way through the building to go outside."
"You could also, I dunno, quit," Alex said, raising an eyebrow. "The apartment would always smell gross if you're smoking."
"You could also, I dunno, fucking mind your own business about what I do with my life," Sebastian said back to him sharply. "Did you miss the whole point of the balcony? And me saying I wasn't going to smoke in the apartment, which is strictly for your benefit and not my own?"
"It's disgusting. I don't know why you'd even want to smoke." Alex said, glaring at him.
"I'm well aware. Both of it being a filthy habit, and that you wouldn't understand why I'd want to. But considering it's my habit and my life? You can keep your opinions to yourself."
Alex didn't say anything back to him, but he did glower at him like he wanted to.
"I think it should have an elevator. For your grandparents, that seems important to your grandmother." Sebastian said after a long silence where neither of them seemed to want to say anything.
"Okay." Alex shifted a bit in his chair. "I also would personally prefer to be farther out from downtown than closer to it. I know it will make travel time longer, but I really hate downtown. It's so loud and so noisy all the fucking time."
Sebastian wanted to say no to that because he wanted to have as much time as possible to work on coding jobs outside of the internship. He didn't want to waste extra time travelling back and forth.
But he could also see what Alex was going for and why that would be kind of nice. If they lived further out, things would be a lot quieter in general. Which wasn't a bad thing, he hadn't exactly loved how insane it was downtown.
Besides, his ultimate plan was not to stay there long term. He'd move just as soon as Sam had a place that they could share. What did it fucking matter to him if Alex wanted what was going to end up just being his apartment to not be downtown?
"There's a chance we could get a much nicer apartment further away from downtown," Sebastian said slowly as he thought it all through and realized there was the potential for a few more benefits in this. "Prices are probably better because it's a farther trip to get to everything."
"I hadn't thought of that," Alex said, shifting from leaning back to leaning forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. "No one said we couldn't look at places online for ourselves, right? Want to?"
Sebastian shrugged his shoulders, but he picked up his phone and went to the site he knew his mom had been using to look for apartments.
He put a filter on the price, then adjusted the location he was looking at to exclude anything downtown and just looked at everything that was on the edges of the city.
"There's a lot of places." He said as he started to scroll through the listings. "Really a lot, actually… Most of them are way under the budget they've set."
Alex got up from the chair and sat down next to Sebastian on the bed so he could see what he was looking at.
Silently, and trying not to be aware of Alex sitting next to him because it was irksome and he didn't want Alex to know he cared, Sebastian scrolled and clicked on listings, looking at the pictures that were included and reading the descriptions. Alex did the same, reaching out to tap the heart at the bottom to favourite a few listings and Sebastian did as well.
"Hang on," Sebastian said, swiping away from the browser app to open his texts instead. "I think we need to debrief my mom at least. Otherwise, we're going to blindside everyone tomorrow, and that's never good."
"Yeah. On par with just telling two people they have to live together without actually asking them if that's a good idea or giving them a chance to figure something else out."
Sebastian snorted a bit as he typed a text to his mom to ask her to come to his room. "So no one asked you either. I wondered if I was the only one being thrown to the wolves."
"Nope. Just told me they had already decided on it."
It felt a little better to know that he wasn't alone in how things had gone down. But only a little.
After a few minutes where they had continued to scroll and look at apartments, Robin knocked on Sebastian's door, then pushed it open.
"Oh…" She said in surprise when she saw Alex there as well. "Sorry, I thought this might be about dinner."
"No. We can talk about that too, but really this is about the apartments." Sebastian said as Robin sat down in the chair Alex had vacated. "We've talked some. About what we want and what's important…" He paused and glanced at Alex, then back to his mom again. "There's one big thing that we decided was important, which sort of alters what we've seen so far…"
"And what's that?" Robin said, her tone making it clear she was expecting something unreasonable and all she intended to do was pretend to humour them.
"I said that it was kind of important that we don't live downtown," Alex said, clearly deciding to answer for himself.
Integrity move. Not that Sebastian would tell him he thought so.
"I hate the noise and hate how busy it is. When I said that, Sebastian pointed out that we'd probably be able to get a nicer place if we lived further out. So we looked and he was right."
Probably the first and only complimentary thing Alex had ever said about him.
Robin looked a little bit taken aback, then leaned over to take Sebastian's phone from him when he held it out. "Those are the places we favourited that looked interesting. Most of them are under the budget you set for rent."
She didn't say anything, but she did take her time looking at everything they had favourited.
"These are a lot nicer than any of the places we had pegged to look at. And cheaper. You're sure you don't want to be downtown?" She raised her head to look directly at Sebastian since Alex had been the one to voice his preference.
"It really doesn't matter to me either way, but if we can get a nicer place out of it, then I'm fine with it."
Robin sighed, then handed Sebastian his phone back. "I assume you're telling me so that I can change my list of places and you don't have to deal with your grandparents?" She asked Alex, then smiled a bit when he nodded.
"I'll take care of it. Text me the links to the places you definitely want to see, Sebby. I'll call around tonight and set things up."
"Thanks, mom." He said, smiling at her faintly as she got up from the chair. "You want dinner?"
"Order me something. You know what I like." Her words were succinct, but she smiled at him as she left the room again.
Once he and Alex were alone again, Sebastian exhaled a low breath, glancing at him and then back to his phone. "Is that everything?"
"Yeah, think so," Alex said, getting to his feet as well. "Oh… Just… Sorry for my grandma. She hates the city, and being here just makes her stressed and angry. So if she's got an attitude, it's just the atmosphere."
"Got it." Sebastian nodded. "I'll send my mom the links."
"Great. … See you in the morning, I guess."
Alex let himself out of Sebastian's room, and Sebastian flopped down on the mattress on his back again.
Awkward. So fucking awkward. Even if they had managed to have a partially polite conversation for the first time ever, that was still unbelievably awkward.
And politeness wouldn't last. At the moment they were weirdly banded together in a situation where it was them against their parents and grandparents. Trying to find some way to push back against the situation.
But once this was over and they were on their own in a place they were supposed to share, politeness wasn't going to be any good at all.
Sebastian slept fitfully that night, never good at sleeping in new places, and acutely aware that he had to get up at 7:30 the next morning.
He was grouchy and trying to hide it as he and his mom joined the Mullners at a table in the hotel restaurant for breakfast.
Thankfully, no one tried to talk to him right away, and once he'd had a few cups of coffee, he felt a bit better. More alive, anyway, and less likely to snap at someone who spoke to him.
"You like your coffee." Grandpa George said late in the meal, nodding approvingly when Sebastian looked up at him. "Coffee's good for you. Makes it easier to take the day."
Sebastian blinked a couple of times in surprise, then smiled a little bit. "Yeah. I'm not sure I could function without it."
"You and me both, boy. That grandson of mine won't touch the stuff."
Sebastian snorted a bit, looking down since there was no fucking way Alex hadn't heard that.
"Pretty sure it's bad for athletes," Sebastian said, trying to be polite even though he thought that Alex and his way of living was horrendously restrictive.
"Glad I'm not an athlete then. You and me are the smart ones!" Grandpa George said with a laugh.
Sebastian chanced a look up towards Alex and found him smiling at his plate, but not looking at anyone. He took it as a good thing that Alex didn't appear to be mad that his grandpa had basically said he wasn't one of the smart ones.
He was waiting through breakfast for his mom to say something about the change in plans of what places they were looking at that day, but it never came up.
"We kept our lists separate once we confirmed we hadn't doubled up on any listings." His mom said once they were in the truck and following the Mullners to the first showing of the day. "I figure it's easier to just act like this was always my list and nothing changed with it."
"Probably a good idea," Sebastian said, settling back in his seat.
The first four places they went to that day were picks from the Mullners' list. All four of them were downtown and they were kinda shitty. Especially when compared to the apartments that Sebastian and Alex had looked at together the night before.
One of them was another ground-floor unit that they said no to immediately. Grandma Evelyn didn't even protest after the one the day before had shown her what ground floor really meant. But Sebastian could see she wasn't happy about it, owing to the lack of accessibility in some of the other places.
Not a lot of buildings downtown had elevators. Something Sebastian hadn't known himself, but was learning quickly as he, his mom and Alex all walked back down three flights of stairs to where Alex's grandparents were waiting for them. That was the fourth place, and it had mildewed walls that were so bad Robin steered them right back out again as soon as she saw them.
"Well, this is proving difficult." Grandma Evelyn said, looking at her list after Robin had told her about the mildew. "There are two more places I have here scheduled for tonight. But now I'm thinking we'll have to call more."
"We're not even close to done for the day," Robin said, smiling politely but seeming a little tired of the way Grandma Evelyn was acting like her opinion and her apartment choices were the be-all and end-all.
So they started on Alex and Sebastian's choices that we're now masquerading as Robin's list and left the downtown area to drive further into the edges of the city.
The first place was unfortunately a no-go. It was well under budget, had an elevator, and the building was nice, but the apartment was so tiny that even with two bedrooms it didn't even seem big enough for one person, let alone two.
The next was nice. Quite nice, really, but the bedrooms were right next to each other.
They didn't say yes or no, which meant they had their first 'maybe', which seemed to brighten Grandma Evelyn considerably.
In fact, just being out of the downtown area seemed to have lightened her mood and made her far more herself than she had been during this trip.
Pulling into the third place, Sebastian had to duck down to get a proper view of the building, which was absolutely enormous.
They parked in a couple of visitor spaces in the lot, and Sebastian got out, immediately looking around a bit more. One side of the building was close to an insanely busy road. It was incredibly loud and obnoxious, but the other side faced the lake that Zuzu City was built on the shores of.
The building entry was clean. Incredibly so, and even Evelyn remarked on it as they crammed into an elevator that took them to the 19th floor. One floor down from the top, but they were told that the top floor had the penthouse, and it didn't take up all of the 20th floor. There were technically no upstairs neighbours in this apartment.
Already the positives were stacking up.
On principle, Sebastian tried not to like the place, since he didn't plan on it being his for very long, but it was hard not to.
They were down closer to the lake end of the building, and between that and being so high up you couldn't even hear the noise from the obnoxiously busy road.
It was bright and spacious, and had a large balcony that faced towards the lake.
The bedrooms were separated by a closet as well. So while the doors faced each other on either side of a small hallway, there were no walls that they actually shared.
It was maybe not the full separation of personal space that they wanted, but it was better than nothing at all.
Alex commented a very great deal on what they were seeing, everything that worked well and the small few things that he didn't like.
Sebastian still said nothing.
Not that he didn't like it, he just… Didn't want to comment. Because now that it came right down to it and they had clearly found a place that worked for them, he could no longer escape the fact that this was...
This was actually happening.
That he was going to have to share a fucking apartment with Alex. Hopefully not for too long, but long enough.
They were going to be left alone in it. With no mother or grandparents to act as a buffer. No friends or teachers or crush of students to get between them. They were going to have to share space and interact, and have to do really fucking weird domestic things.
Like figure out who did what when it came to cleaning.
Take turns buying paper towels and taking out the trash.
Up to that point, in Sebastian's mind, there was still the possibility that he could somehow find a way out. That he wouldn't actually have to do this.
Now, though... Now it all seemed so fucking real. And he was fucking petrified of what this actually meant.
He suddenly wished he hadn't had a single room through all of college, he wished he'd gotten a roommate then to at least make this seem doable from a logistical standpoint, if not a personal one. He hadn't ever had to share space with someone who wasn't his family. And considering his room and a bathroom were in the basement at home, he barely shared space there.
"Sebastian…?"
He roused from his spiralling thoughts, hoping like hell no one could see the panic he was currently trying to stomp down on.
Everyone was looking at him, and he realized he had missed whatever the conversation was. He looked helplessly at his mom to catch him up, but it was Alex who actually stepped in for it.
"What do you think? Does this place work?"
No. No, it fucking well didn't work. None of this worked.
"Seems great." He said weakly, raising one shoulder in a half shrug like he didn't fucking care one tiny little bit about what was actually going on. Like he wasn't already in a tailspin over the very idea of all of this.
Alex's brow creased a bit at his response. He looked at him like he didn't believe him.
Which was fine. Sebastian sure didn't believe himself.
"Then that's settled." Grandma Evelyn said with a smile that didn't hide her relief that this ordeal was over with.
For her, anyway.
For her, it really was over. She could go home and back to her house, and her life and everything would be exactly the same.
But for him… The real ordeal was just beginning.
No more chance of escape. No other lifelines to grab onto.
He was moving in with Alex fucking Mullner.