"Sweetest Goodbye" by Cayster
Summary: Sebastian is moving to London to head his father's European headquarters and Kathryn is left in New York City to get her PhD in psychology. Will their feelings clash one last time or will their secret affection for each other be left in the past?
Disclaimer: I do not own Cruel Intentions…
Author's Notes:
Hey fellow Sebastian/Kathryn shippers! Well, after I finished "Only a One Time Thing" I was pretty stumped on what my next story would be about. Basically, writer's block hit me by surprise. Anyway, it wasn't until I was listening to Maroon 5, Songs About Jane, for about the millionth time when I finally found some inspiration. Their song "Sweetest Goodbye" was playing and that was basically the root to my new found storyline. And each time I write a story there's a song behind it or even a chapter. So 'Sweetest Goodbye' by me came about because of Maroon 5's "Sweetest Goodbye" just to give credit where credit is due.
Okay, other than that I need to say that right now I'm saying this story will be 2-3 chapters long. It could even go to four depending on how many more plots I'll be able to weave into it smoothly. So, there's not much left to say other than I hope you all enjoy this!
Dedication: To all of the Sebastian/Kathryn shippers who feel deprived of fanfiction for this couple…
Chapter One: Champaign Coercion
The elegantly decorated ball room was full of bashing businessmen, proud family members, and drunken friends. The party, nay, the celebration was being held in his honor for his final night in America, namely the Big Apple. Smiling faces and rowdy cheers were seen and heard once the guest of honor entered the room looking fashionable and sleek, much like his usual self. His smirk defied them all, but no one noticed its maliciousness or chose to overlook it.
Sebastian was both apathetic and appalled about the idea of going over to his father's London-Euro office to head the corporation. He didn't want to be here; he'd rather be in his apartment getting laid by two of his father's secretaries. But his father demanded he had better show up if he wanted to make a good mark on society early on and this was the golden ticket. So staying up late to listen to nameless people congratulate him or reminiscence about "memories" he'd rather not hear. Though, he was there anyway like a good little boy obeying his father's wishes.
The crowd separated into large crowds once he started to walk back towards the farthest corner table where he was reserved to sit. People clapped as he passed as if he were some kind of candidate trying to make a difference of some sort. He didn't pay them any attention though; he had tunnel vision to the back table where his closest family and friends were seated as well.
His father was standing motionless but smiling contentedly, which surprised him slightly. His father rarely ever smiled at him—he couldn't even remember the last time his father smiled directly at him. Then to the right of his father stood his petite step-mother; she was absolutely beaming, which was quite hilarious in Sebastian's opinion. Then to her right was her daughter, Kathryn, and did she look absolutely gorgeous!
Sebastian was mesmerized by her was he finally made it through the entire crowd. She was smirking like he had been when he entered this hell hole and he couldn't blame her really. This whole thing was humorous and rather cheesy. The odd thing though was how she was looking at him through her deep brown eyes. They were darker than usual and more passion-filled than they normally were, which intrigued Sebastian greatly.
He took the empty chair to his father's left and sat down. People were still staring at him happily as if expecting him to start flying around the room. Soon though, they all started to turn away and walk back to there predestined tables and immerse themselves into pointless conversations about the stock market or sports, petty.
His father turned to him with a merry expression succumbing his usual sternness. "Son," he paused trying to control his happiness, "I can't tell you how proud I am of you. Top marks in Dartmouth! Top!"
Sebastian forced a smile to try to please his father.
"I can't wait to see some progress in the London office; the idiot who ran it last time couldn't make out a dollar from a pound." His father's comment seemed to tickle himself more than it did for Sebastian. But like many times before, Sebastian did what he had to do so his father wouldn't feel inadequate. "Now, I hope this party will give you many memories to cherish into old age."
Sebastian leaned forward slightly and took a sip of his Champaign that had been poured into his glass only moments before. "I'm sure it will," Sebastian said after he swallowed the alcohol.
At that moment, ironically, his eyes connected with Kathryn's. She had been in a stalemate of a conversation with her mother. He knew that Kathryn was pretending to be animated and agreeable for her mother's sake like he always had done for his father's—it was the proper thing to do everything gave them.
He didn't know if she was just trying to tease him, but she had this seductive gleam in her eye she always got either when she was very attracted to a guy or when she was specifically trying to get a rise out of him. Sebastian though wouldn't let it bother him, so his signature smirk slid on to his lips smugly. Her gleam stayed causing his interest to escalate to analyzing it. But that was cut short when his childhood friend Thomas Jax, also known as T.J., came over and sat down next to Sebastian in an unoccupied seat. T.J. had become a top insurance salesman in New York and his success was complemented with his new found love for cocaine.
"Hello Sebastian," he said without looking at him and leaning forward on his knees watching the other tables with mild excitement.
Suppressing an audible huff, Sebastian didn't look at his new companion either. "Hi T.J.," Sebastian said in a monotone fashion hardly disclosing his boredom.
T.J. finally looked up at Sebastian with an expression of shock, "Are you telling me you're bored with this sort of party?" Sebastian neither nodded nor shook his head. "You were never the party go-er, so my surprise shouldn't be met with shock at all." At this he sniffed loudly and rubbed his nose quickly; paranoia had become his sixth sense—he always thought his big wig employees were going to see the very obvious symptoms of his cocaine addiction.
"Don't worry Thomas; no one saw," Sebastian teased quietly causing T.J. to become edgier than he was before.
After a few minutes of silent observation of the other tables and their body language, T.J. finally initiated another topic.
"So I suspect you're lovely step-sister's habit is still continuing," he said nodding his head off in Kathryn's direction with a mischievous smile dancing across his lips.
Sebastian started to trace the neck of his Champaign glass with his fingertips. "Actually," he said taking his eyes off the glass and looking over at Kathryn, "she quit after Annette and I were getting serious." His eyes happily feasted on her delicious body. "So about four years ago was when she finally gave the shit up."
His friend seemed to be baffled and utterly shocked at this revelation. Thomas's mouth was hanging open slightly and his eyes were wide at the thought. "B-but…she—no way," were the only legible words Sebastian could make out of his friend's babbled sentence.
"Seriously T.J.," Sebastian said in a low voice as if consulting him on a secretive plan, "you should really try to quit using—look what it's doing to your speech."
T.J. knew Sebastian long enough to know that Sebastian was taunting him through a falsehood of compassion. In turn, Thomas stood up and looked down at Sebastian and said loudly enough for the entire party at the table to hear, "I so glad your father gave you the opportunity to go over to London for business," he said amiably. "I'm really going to miss you my dear friend," T.J. continued with malicious attacking 'dear' quite plainly.
The desired effect T.J. wanted was for Sebastian to retaliate, but that didn't happen. Sebastian merely smirked in his seat and took a sip of his Champaign, which he saluted to Thomas. Seeing this, T.J. turned and stomped away enraged that his plan was foiled and that he had made a complete ass of himself for nothing.
After two Champaign glasses later, he saw Kathryn get up and walk around the circular table and take the empty seat next to him.
"My," she started with sarcasm already evident, "I bet my good-natured step-brother is enjoying his bo voyage party." She laughed openly, "I bet you can't wait to corner the V.P.'s daughter and seduce her just to play with her daddy's head."
Sebastian remained silent to the typical attack.
Seeing that her choice of topic wasn't getting a response, Kathryn changed it. "So, what are you going to do over there?"
"It's called 'work' actually," Sebastian said sitting up straighter in his chair to smoothen out his sleek black Armani tie.
To his great surprise Kathryn didn't make a wise-crack to his remark like he was planning on her to do. Instead she smiled sweetly and watched his right hand trace his Champaign glass subconsciously.
"You know what I mean," she said finally looking at him properly. "It's not like over here; it's far more uptight and proper—you'll definitely piss off a lot of Brits."
Sebastian somewhat shrugged in response. "I'm not too sure actually. Probably busting my balls each night with major deals with foreign countries or going to board meeting after board meeting about who's selling what and how we need to overcome that product." Sebastian's eyes were staring steadily onto Kathryn's lips. All he could remember since he knew Kathryn was kissing her and his eyes were always drawn to her lips. Unconsciously he licked his lips slightly, but immediately he came back to reality breaking from his lustful thoughts.
She seemed to know fairly well what he was thinking, after all, Kathryn was a master at reading people accurately. But she was used to his hormone based thoughts by now because Sebastian made her endure them each time he wagered a bet with her about getting into some girl's pants, which was basically every other week since their high school days.
"Hmm…" Kathryn let out softly as if his answer puzzled her slightly.
Sebastian was interested with her unexpected in depth thought process. "'Mm,' what?" He questioned out loud with some unintended anger embedded deeply.
Kathryn shrugged, got up, and announced to the entire table, "Well, I'm going to head back home for the night." She looked down at Sebastian, "Goodbye Sebastian. I wish you the best of luck in London."
Sebastian was stunned senseless; the whole event had happened too quickly for his slightly intoxicated mind. He watched his step-sister weave throughout the tables in the ballroom at a fast rate. Quickly, Sebastian downed the rest of his Champaign and got up for his chair abruptly. Everyone at the table looked over at him questioningly. Sebastian smiled awkwardly and mumbled a quick goodbye and thank you to his father.
As Sebastian started to go through the tables though, it was a difficult task since various people started to grab his arm drunkenly and start rambling on about the most random stories, but Sebastian kept on his pursuit of his step-sister; he wanted to know what her 'hmm'-ing was all about. Finally he made it on the other side of the hall, where he had entered earlier that night, and walked fervently out into the hall looking to see if he could see Kathryn; he did. She was standing in front of an elevator probably waiting on it to ascend the twenty-second floor. Sebastian walked hastily over to her until he was standing right beside her and exactly at that moment the elevator door opened to admit them.
When they both got on, Sebastian looked over at Kathryn threateningly. "What did it mean?"
"What did what mean?" Kathryn spat back at him without looking at him.
"Don't bull shit me, Kathryn—what did it mean!" Sebastian demanded feverishly. He didn't know why it meant so much to him, but something in the back of his mind wanted to know the reason. The Champaign must've went to his head.
The elevator's bell dinged for the twenty-first floor.
Kathryn laughed quietly at this mad questioning. "Sebastian," she continued to laugh, "have you really resorted to know the basis behind petty meanings about small, offhanded comments?"
"I don't know; you tell me, you're the psychologist!" Sebastian said leaning against the back wall of the elevator like an immature child.
Again, the elevator rang and the light on twenty came up.
A smug smile was planted on her face, "You're hopeless."
"And you're a hypocrite! You always thought shrinks were useless—and now look, you're one of 'em." Sebastian said exasperatedly while folding his arms across his chest.
"Do you really want to know?" Kathryn asked fiery as she leaned against the wall adjacent to the wall Sebastian was leaning against.
For some reason, Sebastian didn't know how to answer. It was as if she had set a trap for him to fall in and he did; he wasn't sure if it was to humiliate him or to finally push him to do what he had been yearning for since he was a teenager. Her usually cold and indifferent eyes would give away the hint of mischievousness, but they were not doing so right now. They were bright and excited as well as earnestly saying something. Instead of licking his lips, Sebastian's mouth went dry and his heart started to race.
The elevator dinged nineteen now; they had descended two floors without even knowing it. Kathryn seemed taken aback by that.
"Oh, hell with it!" Sebastian whispered with a mixture of want and trial as he lunged for Kathryn and kissed her.
She seemed shocked by this since she was still for the first few seconds that Sebastian kissed her, but slowly she leaned into the kiss too. He could taste Champaign on her lips and it enticed him even more. Finally Sebastian broke from the intoxicating kiss and looked down at Kathryn in wonder while breathing raggedly.
Kathryn was also breathing somewhat raggedly as well, but she had a mischievous smile on her face as if this was exactly what she had wanted to go down. She grabbed Sebastian's black tie and brought his head down closer to her face and looked playfully up at him. "That's what I meant, Sebastian."
"I always hated psychology," Sebastian replied softly while smiling goofily down at her.
"Just because I manipulated you, the womanizer, doesn't mean psychology used against you is terrible." Kathryn said impishly while playing with his tie. "It has its advantages," and at that moment, she looked up at him implying that his longest fantasy would finally come true.
Sebastian was taken slightly off guard by this remark, but the shock wore off quickly and he bent down and kissed Kathryn more tenderly than the first time.
The elevator lit up the number three and their kiss was broken immediately because they would be getting off very soon and if anybody they knew saw them kissing one another, it would be the scandal of the year. They reattached from each other; Sebastian rubbed the lipstick off of his mouth while Kathryn did the same and fixed her hair.
"I suppose you're apartment is all packed away now?" Kathryn questioned as she made sure there were no wrinkles in her black dress.
"No actually, it isn't." Sebastian muttered in response to her question. He stared straight at the gold-plated elevator door.
Neither of them said anything else because there was no need of it. Both of them knew exactly what was going to happen as soon as they got to Sebastian's penthouse.
Author's Notes:
Well, I hope you all liked this chapter; I did! I'm favoring this story more than my first Sebastian/Kathryn fanfic, but that's just me. For some reason, I think it fits more. Thank you to everyone who actually took the time to read this; I can't tell you how much that really means. Please, please, please review—I'm begging you to. :-P