He had figured the first week would be the hardest. Being alone in their apartment for the first time in over a year with no way of knowing how Jeff was doing had him freaked out before he'd even been released from the hospital. But Sebastian had told himself, as long as he could get through this, it would make the rest of this whole ordeal easier.

In all fairness, that had been nothing but wishful thinking.

He had fought over were Jeff would spend his "recovery" time. If he wanted to remember as much as possible, it only made sense for him to be in the safety and (before the crash) familiarity of his own home. But even the doctors had said that might be too overwhelming in his. … condition. So Sebastian had begrudgingly agreed to Jeff staying with Nick (because he couldn't remember the man he'd been in love with since senior year, but he apparently had no problem being around Nick. That was an excellent confidence booster.)

Nick had promised to keep him notified on how Jeff was doing, and had been true to his word. Still, it wasn't the same. Sebastian hadn't realized how accustomed he was to sleeping and waking up next to Jeff until he had to face every morning knowing that, not only was Jeff not there, but he didn't remember any of the days Sebastian had memorized every last detail of.

So when Sebastian got a text from Nick saying now might be the time to jog Jeff's memory, he had been over the in an instant with a box he'd already prepared.

Nick had been kind enough to give them privacy, with a quick note to Sebastian not to push him too far (again, thanks for having so much faith, Duval.) It had been three weeks since the accident, three weeks since he'd been able to hold Jeff and touch Jeff and kiss Jeff. Hell, even the week between now and the last time he'd actually seen Jeff felt like too damn long.

But the absolute worse was sitting here, literally inches from Jeff, and not being able to just reach out. God knows he wanted to. A part of him thought that it would be better if Jeff had forgotten everything about him. But no, he remembered everything up until junior year. So he knew who Sebastian was, he knew him as an excellent friend. Just not as a boyfriend, and definitely not as a lover.

"Alright, what about this?" Jeff watched Sebastian pull yet another seemingly random thing out of the box he'd brought over with him. He felt the object being pressed into his hands, and gave Sebastian a confused look.

"Tickets?"

"Tickets from the movie we saw on our first date." Right. The movie they'd randomly decided to see one night because rehearsal ended early and they wound up having to rush to the car afterwards because it started to downpour. And Sebastian couldn't be bothered to care that he hadn't gotten so much as a goodnight kiss, let alone the make-out session he'd anticipated because he had had a genuinely good time with Jeff. That was the entire reason why he'd wanted to ask Jeff on another one. Sebastian had always told Jeff he was insane for keeping all these useless things, but he was suddenly grateful. Something here just had to kickstart Jeff's memory.

He looked at him hopefully, but one small shake of that blond head instantly dashed that. Despite trying not to, Sebastian couldn't help but frown. He didn't want to do this anymore, he just wanted to hold Jeff like he usually did and that always seemed to make him feel better. Even with the row of still healing scraps and bruises on his face, Jeff was still one of the most gorgeous men Sebastian had ever dreamed of.

Jeff placed the crinkled tickets back on the table next to the rest of the now useless things Sebastian had hoped would do the trick. This had to be the fifth thing in a row that had proved to be useless. And true to himself, Jeff looked unbelievably guilty for not recognizing any of them.

"So let's try this." He was bordering on x at this point. He dug in the box, pulling out things at random and holding them up to Jeff. Still, nothing. He reached into the bottom of the box, feeling for what he was looking for and carefully prying the photograph out. The overly-cliché picture Jeff had insisted they took in front of the Eiffel Tower when they'd gone to Paris to meet Sebastian's grandparents.

He looked at it for a moment, wishing he could get to cause that smile on Jeff's face again beforr handing it over. "Three years ago, right before we started our sophomore year. You told me if I didn't take the picture, you'd make sure the trip was boring as hell for me." AKA, Jeff threatened to cut him off from sex, but he felt like adding that part might have been in poor taste.

His eyes scanned across Jeff's face as he took in the picture. For a second, that smile Sebastian had come to love once again appeared, and it looked like recognition was flashing through Jeff's mind. But just as quickly as it'd appeared, it was replaced with an apologetic look and the photo was being handed back to him. "I'm sorry, Sebastian." God, how he was sorry.

Slowly, Sebastian took the photo and held it in his own hands. He didn't bother looking at it, just flipped it upside down and pushed it to the far edge of the table. Exhausted, he buried his head in his hands and let out a heavy sigh.

He felt a light weight on his shoulder but didn't look up. He didn't have to; even if they hadn't been the only ones in the apartment, he would have recognized Jeff's touch anywhere. "Sebastian… I really am sorry. It's… great that you kept all these things, but—"

"No, Jeff, you kept all of this." Sebastian quickly cut in, stoppinh Jeff from apologizing again. "You said I'd be glad you did one day, and I have to tell you, you were right. Just… this is basically the last five years of my life and it kills that it means nothing to you."

"It does mean something. It… to me, to this me, it means I missed out on a lot of amazing memories with a great friend." Once again, he was stopped by Sebastian, only this time, it was with a shake of his head. Sebastian tried not to look over; that guilty expression would only make this harder.

Taking a second to compose himself, Sebastian pushed the box aside and reached into his pocket. "This, then." He said, taking out the stupid 50 cent plastic ring Jeff had gotten at some store for the hell of it one night. He held it between his fingers, looking at Jeff with desperation. "You gave this to me a few months after we started going out. And a few hours after that, after we had dinner and went back to your room, that's the first time we had se—made love." Sebastian had always hated that term, but Jeff insisted on using it when they talked about that night. "And every time you see this, you get this smile on your face and say you can't think of a time you were happier."

Jeff's eyes widened, and Sebastian knew he should have waited to say all that later. Jeff had been a virgin up until that point, and in his amnesiac mind, he still was. But Sebastian needed this to work. He needed something to work. He took Jeff's hand and pressed the ring in to his palm, then curled his fingers around it. "Jeff, please, just… tell me this does something for you. Hell, lie to me if that's what it take, just say it means something."

"Sebastian…"

Before he know what was going on, he felt Jeff's hand cupping his cheek and the feel of it all was enough to spread a feeling of warmth through his chest. Jeff looked into into his eyes briefly, then leaned in to press their lips together in a soft kiss. It was so gentle it made Sebastian's heart physically ache, and his mind flashed back to the first time Jeff had ever kissed him. Right before leaving for Christmas break their senior year, and they'd been on enough dates to constitute something more than friendship but Sebastian had been too afraid of fucking everything up by doing anything to make Jeff uncomfortable to make an actual move. So Jeff came to his dorm right before they were both meant to leave and kissed him. It had been tentative, almost like Jeff was afraid of it. But then he'd pulled back and seen Sebastian smiling and had instantly started grinning himself.

This felt so much the same as that first kiss. Gentle and scared and God, Sebastian had almost forgotten how sweet Jeff's kiss was. It took all his self-restraint not to deepen the kiss, to place his hand on Jeff's thigh and strip them both bare right in the middle of Nick's living room so he could prove to Jeff just how much he loved him.

Instead, he kissed back as softly as he could, and didn't protest when he felt Jeff pull away. Sebastian opened his eyes, smiling that same smile from five years ago and waiting for that same grin to show up on Jeff.

But when he saw the sad eyes and the slight quiver of a lip and a shake of the head that felt like a stab to the chest, he wasn't smiling anymore.

"I'm sorry, Sebastian."

This came from a prompt I received on Tumblr, and I honestly really loved what I came up with. It physically hurt to write, and listening to Next to Normal might not have helped, but it was an excellent mood setter. Not much more to say, but I hope you enjoyed and please let me know if you did. Or why, if you didn't.