Another month, another chapter, I guess?
I really try to post more frequently, now that my school-life is finally over and I can focus on the things that actually are fun.
Thank you for all your kind reviews! I really appreciate them :)
I hope you'll enjoy this chapter, we finally get to know our characters better :)
Charlotte opened the front door to Sebastian's home as quiet as possible and she even succeeded in passing Robin's counter without producing more noise than necessary. Sebastian and her had decided that it would be best if Charlotte slept in his room for the night so nobody, would need to worry about his wellbeing – Actually, they only thought of Robin not being able to stop bragging about how her firstborn who finally managed to find a girlfriend, if Charlotte had stayed the night in her own bed. And maybe they wanted to avoid the awkwardness they would need to face once they had to sleep together in one small room.
It was when she had put a foot on the first step downstairs to Sebastian's room when the light started flickering on and she heard a calm voice behind her.
"Sebby, honey, where have you been?", Robin asked her. Robin's hair wasn't in her bun as usual but fell over her shoulders lightly. She also wore a long fuzzy bathrobe and her feet were bare. She looked like she just woke up, which had probably been the case.
"Oh mum, you don't always need to wait for me to come home.", Charlotte said and turned around hastily and tried to go downstairs when Robin came closer to her and touched her shoulder.
"Sebby, both of us know that I'm not much of a heavy sleeper and both of us know just as well how I can't stop thinking about horrible things when one of my children doesn't come home. Well, today those things weren't horrible. Quite the opposite, to be honest. Do you want some coffee?", she asked and Charlotte wondered if this was something Sebastian and his mother did in the middle of the night when Demetrius and Maru were asleep. She smiled lightly. Drinking coffee between waking up and trying to fall asleep again. Charlotte nodded and followed the woman in the bathrobe into the kitchen.
"So... you and Charlotte, hm?", Robin asked while filling up two cups. She had ignored Charlotte's request who didn't want to consume the caffeine right before going to bed. Robin had simply shrugged and pointed out how she always drank midnight coffees with her mother. She needed to ask Sebastian what else he and his mother did on a regular basis she wasn't aware of.
"I wouldn't... necessarily say that. I mean, I brought her some tools over.", Charlotte tried to explain and Robin rolled her eyes.
"Nothing to be embarrassed about. Well, I could imagine that it hasn't been easy to come closer to her. She doesn't seem like that type of girl.", Robin said while stirring her beverage. Charlotte perked up. "That type? What do you mean?", she asked and felt her cheeks reddening when she noticed that she might have sounded a little bit too forcefully. Robin rose an eyebrow and laughed.
"I don't mean it in an offensive way. More like a way that tells you that you're not the... well, you simply don't care what you look like and I had always thought she had a thing for Alex, you know?", Robin explained and Charlotte sighed. "When was the last time you had a shower, anyway? Since you started to dye your hair black again, it always looks kind of streaky.", she added and Charlotte blew a bang out of her eyes. Even Robin had noticed that Charlotte has had set her eyes on Alex and yet, there hadn't been one single chance the sportsman himself would have noticed. She had decided it wasn't anything but a crush like the ones she has had in school but she was annoyed that it had been this obvious.
"Let's not talk about her.", Charlotte suggested and Robin shrugged.
"She wasn't the reason why I wanted to talk to you, anyway.", Robin said and pointed at an envelope next to her cup of coffee, Charlotte hadn't noticed to this point. She didn't know how to react when Robin grabbed it and let it fall into the hands of her son. It wasn't opened, yet she felt something was about it when she let her fingers run over the letters. "When have you started writing your father?", Robin asked and Charlotte blinked.
"Father?", she whispered and Robin let her fingers run through her hair.
"Yes, Sebby. He sent you a letter from Zuzu. I mean, I have always been the one who told you to keep the contact up... But you were the one who didn't even care to send him cards for Christmas.", she stated and Charlotte felt something in her stomach turning. She didn't sign up for this, she didn't want to be included in this kind of drama and the worst on top of everything was the fact that she knew exactly that Sebastian didn't want her to witness any of this. She took a big gulp of coffee and looked at Robin. She needed to say something. Something to make Robin feel better because when she looked at the carpenter, she had noticed the big bags under her eyes which indicated not only sleepless hours but only some filled with at least small tears shed over her son's secret plans.
"I actually have no idea why he sent this. Don't worry.", Charlotte tried to reassure the woman in front of her. "I bet it's nothing personal but only something he wanted to tell me about the city. I guess, if it had been a secret thing, he would have sent me an e-mail or something.", she explained and Robin nodded slowly. Charlotte emptied her cup hastily and moved on her chair uncomfortably. "Really, mum. There's nothing to worry about. I'm going to bed now, I have to get up early, tomorrow.", Charlotte informed the carpenter who had started smiling lightly again.
"Early? Like noon?", she asked and Charlotte smirked. She grabbed the letter fastly and turned around. What had she gotten herself into?
When she entered Sebastian's room, Charlotte let herself fall onto the small sofa next to the door and sighed. She noticed shivers on her arms, the open window had cooled down the small basement room more than she had anticipated it. Charlotte let her hands run through the black bangs that hung into her face and she kicked off her shoes. She got up slowly and stretched like she usually would before going to bed but she noticed soon how hard it was for her. She decided to change as fastly as she could and simply sleep. Maybe she would even be able to sleep in a bit. She rubbed her eyes before opening Sebastian's closet where she tried to find something like pyjamas. There was no way she would be able to sleep topless in a room this cold. She grabbed a simple shirt and stripped off the hoodie she was wearing. She felt the cool air on her back and let her gaze fall at the mirror next to her that showed off a rather big, dark blue trail leading from a bit under her armpit to her back. She followed it with her eyes and acknowledged some geometric forms that were spread all over her upper back. They ended under her neck and she couldn't really sort what it was that Sebastian had tattooed on his back, but she decided that it looked beautiful in those blue and purple tones. She hadn't expected Sebastian to be tattooed, probably because she thought he was a rather quiet and maybe a bit fearful person. She let her fingers run over the trail but as soon as she felt the warmth of Sebastian's body under her fingers, she let go and grabbed the shirt she had placed on the cupboard next to her hastily and took it on. She fastly opened the buttons of her jeans. Charlotte closed her eyes while changing and made her way to the bathroom where she tried to comb the black hair on her head and brushed her teeth. So Sebastian also dyed his hair? Charlotte smirked while spitting out the rest of toothpaste that had gathered on her tongue. She wondered which hair colour he naturally had. When she looked at her lashes, she decided his hair colour was probably a lighter shade of brown. He must've dyed his eyebrows as well.
Sebastian had a hard time trying to fall asleep. He looked over to the alarm clock, which told him that he probably needed to wake up in four hours if he wanted to help Charlotte with her chores and finish the project he was recently working on. He turned around and yawned, yet there was still no way he would be able to sleep. There were simply too many thoughts rotating in his mind. What if there was no solution to this situation? What if the wizard would drink himself to death before he would have the chance to swap them back into their own bodies? The hair that fell into his face tickled annoyingly and he tried to brush it away but it would always come back. He wondered, how long it would take for his mum to acknowledge how weird her son was acting recently. Or if she even noticed. And if she did, if she even cared. Charlotte probably was a better child than he was, hell, he was an old loner creeping in his mother's basement and works for companies as a freelancer because he had never been able to step out of his comfort zone and go to college or something. He felt his fingers tickle and the thoughts of his head even accelerated. He wouldn't sleep this night, anyway.
Sebastian got up slowly and reached for the jacket next to the front door of Charlotte's hut. It wasn't a thick one, but he wouldn't need more. He wanted to go to Gus' where a cigarette machine was waiting for him next to the front door. There wouldn't be another way to make his mind shut down for a second. He took on the jacket and opened the door. Reflexively, he closed the door as lightly as he could and let his hands crawl into the pockets of the jacket. It was when his fingers brushed something in his right pocket when he stopped for a second and looked down. He grabbed the small round object on his pocket and pulled it out. It looked like a coin, the moonlight reflected on it. Sebastian couldn't tell where the coin was coming from, there were big letters of it. He didn't even know if it was money from a foreign country or one of those tokens one got for vending machines. He let his fingers run over it and entered Charlotte's house again, slowly and backwards, not letting his gaze off the object in his hand. With his other hand, he switched on the light. With the flickering of the naked light bulb that hung from the ceiling, Sebastian let himself fall on the chair next to Charlotte's table. He usually wasn't a person to sniff around in other peoples' businesses, but he couldn't stop his eyes from reading whatever was written on the coin.
He didn't know, what he had expected when he turned around the coin with his fingers but he had never seen a token like this before. There was a big 13 written on it. It was surrounded by small dots and smaller letters. It took a while for Sebastian to figure out what exactly it said.
"Zuzu Unity Service", he read out and turned it around once again. "Recovery is Priority" it said and Sebastian shoved the coin back into the pocket. He felt a sickness rising into his body, he had invaded Charlotte's privacy more than he had ever wanted to because he was too curious. He went over to Charlotte's bed, let himself fall onto it and pulled the blanket over his head. There was no way he wanted to know why Charlotte had a token like this. Well, he actually knew what this meant but he simply didn't want to save this information in his head. Because in exactly this moment he found out about a serious secret of Charlotte, he couldn't stop thinking about what else had happened in her life before she had moved to Pelican Town and it felt so wrong to do so. Because if he thought about her in that way, he had to acknowledge that might somebody else could wonder about him as well, which was a thought that wouldn't let him fall asleep, even if his life was dependent on it.