BOYS OF SUBURBIA [boy x boy] [Wattys 2018]

✗ FIVE ✗

Sebastian's brain felt like it just died.

His whole body ached and the vertebrae popped in his neck when he craned it as his first movement in the past eight hours since the alcohol kicked in and helped him pass out. His hands lifted, limbs creaking as he shifted them to rub the salty crust out of his eyes so he could peel his lids open. "Jesus," he moaned, as his eyes adjusted to the sunlight streaming in through the windscreen.

Sebastian realised he was in a car...and a car he wasn't familiar with. He looked across from him and saw a dark-haired boy curled up against the steering wheel, a packet of stashed rolled up weed on his lap. With thrumming beats of his heart, the memories from last night came flooding back. What was the last thing he remembered? Drinking, smoking, until everything settled in his idle brain and his weariness took a toll on him. He must've passed out in the boy's- Niko's (the name slipped in easily like it was meant to be etched in his brain)- car. What time is it?

Sebastian's hand flopped around for his phone, managed to find it in the pockets underneath his heavy sweater inside the pocket of his flannel, took it out and clicked it at the side to check the time. 8: 15 a.m. Seventeen text messages from his mother, thirteen missed calls from his stepfather. God, he was so perfectly fucked. He needed to get his fucked arse home now.

"Niko," Sebastian's voice was a tremor in the prolonged quietness, "Niko!"

"Hmm...mmm?" Niko groaned, squeezing his eyes, as he rose from his seat. "What?"

"I need to get home."

"Wha- what?" Niko yawned as he rubbed his tired eyes. "Wha- what's up?"

"My parents are freaking the fuck out," Sebastian hissed with alarmed urgency, "I need to get home, like, now. You owe me."

Niko picked up the empty vodka bottle, which was lodged behind the accelerating pedal- it must've fallen down after they had drawn into their deep slumbers- and dryly said: "I thought I already did," he shook the bottle.

"You promised me a ride," Sebastian pointed out.

Niko chuckled, "Alright, mate, whatever."

"And hide the weed."

That earned a louder laugh but nonetheless Niko obediently complied by shutting it into the glove compartment, leaving it to be what it was- a secret they both shared. Sebastian's eyes trailed to the bag of weed as it disappeared into the shelf.

Sebastian's lungs were still buzzing from that high he had last night, buzzing from the taste of the illicit- he desperately wanted to do it again, to try it again, one more time, just one more time but Sebastian was hooked. That was sort of the point, Sebastian figured, but all Sebastian hoped was that it would happen again. It never did, though. In Sebastian's experience.

Niko gunned the car into life, revving it up the streets of their suburban neighbourhood, rolling down the lanes that were all too familiar to Sebastian, places he wanted to escape and areas he wanted to get rid of. Nearly fifteen years in this goddamn prison and all Sebastian wanted to do was to burn it. Burn it like it was a cigarette.

"Where did you live?" Niko casually asked as they lumbered into a peaceful halt behind a traffic light.

"Uh...around Charborough Road," answered Sebastian.

"Holy shit, mate," Niko's eyes widened, "I lived just like fifteen minutes away."

Sebastian knew. Now he knew why Niko looked familiar- not just from team pictures of the rugby team but because Niko was the boy who accompanied Roger Salsky on his morning walks to the bus every day before school, the boy who was Roger Salsky's best mate. Sebastian's insides shuddered at Roger, both in quaking fear and darkening hatred. He hated how he had to take a long way round to the other bus stop so he would avoid Roger's smirking face, Roger's lashing fists, Roger's snide remarks.

"Yeah," Sebastian hollowly said, swallowing, "I- uh- guess."

The grocery store Sebastian worked at was not too far so the drive was only a few brief minutes. Once their car was in motion from the traffic lights, Niko's vehicle eased into the streets they were all familiar with, houses that all looked the same. Niko hummed to himself merrily as he drove up to the kerb and pulled the car into a stop. "Is this it?"

"Yeah," Sebastian squinted at the road signs, "This is the street. I lived in No. 34."

"Cool," remarked Niko, then smirked devilishly, "Now I can officially close my investigation on the mission to stalk you."

Sebastian cracked a dry smile at this weird boy, this quarter Japanese, quarter Filipino, and half white boy, who was a total world away from him, smirking, teasing him and next to him. The boy whose car he just passed out in, smoked weed in and drank till his liver burst with.

"Whatever," Sebastian grumbled, moving his shaggy fringe out of his eyes as he collected himself and prepare to clamber out. "My name's Sebastian, by the way."

"Sebastian, eh?" Niko was saying, playing his name on his tongue. Sebastian shivered at the calling of his name on Niko's tongue.

Sebastian swallowed, "And I'll- uh- I suppose I'll see you, yeah?"

"Yeah," said Niko, and much to the total obliviousness of the two boys, it was the start of something new.

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