Sebastian: The Complete Series (43 page)

Harry and Leigh stood, both giving me gentle hugs and kisses before we said our goodbyes. Apparently their shift was finished and it was over to mum, which I didn’t mind at all… now. Yeah, when I first woke up, it was a different story.

I had to explain
a lot
. Okay, so I skimmed, but they both got the general idea of what I’d been up to and they didn’t like it one bit, but due to my health, and me playing up the sob story, I got away with it. Well,
then
anyway. I was pretty sure once I was out of the hospital, I would be in for a rant big style, and I wasn’t looking forward to it, so every time she came to visit, I made sure to apologise and let her know I was a good boy now who’d learned my lesson.

Their biggest concern considering the job I'd been doing and then… then… then I’d been taken by him, was that I'd contracted some terrible STD or—I’d clutch my pearls if I had any—HIV. Yup. I know, right? The big one. I’d been tested before when I first joined the agency and gone through all the tense turmoil while I waited for the results, but in my heart, I knew they’d come back okay. This time… I wasn’t confident in the slightest they would come back clean. God only knew what I'd caught, and for the first time in a long time, I prayed for those tests to be negative. I didn’t deserve that, no one did who had been…

I was clean and safe before the dickhead took me, but afterwards? Yeah, that was another question entirely. Not being in the right mind when I first got back into the world, I'd relied on the doctors who looked after me to check that all out.

It was only a day ago when I'd been given the all clear. They’d done tests on not just me but on
him
, and both showed up clean. It took a weight off my mind, and everyone else too. It appeared at least he’d been safe with everyone apart from me. He’d obviously wanted to take that special gift away from Robert, and enjoyed spoiling me for him. I’ve no doubt he would have loved to leave me with some disease for the rest of my life, but that wasn’t going to happen, and I was relieved over hearing a bit of good news at last.

According to my parents, the only good thing to come out of the whole experience was Robert. They both liked him a lot, and I wanted to keep it like that. Robert and I had talked, and we’d decided how we met should never be spoken about to my parents. Well, they knew we’d met through my job, but she and dad wouldn’t know he was my first client or that somehow he’d set me on this journey. I wouldn’t have them blaming him for anything. After all, I led him to believe I was out on the streets and he felt I would be safer at the agency. If he knew he’d been my first, I have no doubt the following months would have been very different.

As I ate, chatting about how she and Robert’s parents were getting on, I noticed how she still smiled when I took a bite and munched on it. Seeing me eat always pleased my mum, and I understood why. After so many years of encouraging me to eat, sitting beside me and crying, begging me to just take one bite, it seemed so much easier now than when I was fifteen.

“Your blood tests came back.” She took a drink of water while she eyed me up.

“Did they? Which ones? There’s been so many I can't keep up. I'm surprised I have any blood left in my body with the amount they’ve taken. Bloody vampires. I swear there’s a dungeon in the basement full of the blood-sucking monsters, wallowing around and waiting for their next meal.” I swallowed and then shrugged. “And? Don’t keep me in suspense. It’s killing me.” The test I'd been waiting with bated breath for was my HIV test and no other test could possibly fill me with as much fear, so whatever she was going to say, I’d deal with.

She gave me a patronising look which mums pull off so well. “You're malnourished.”

“I eat, Mum.”

“Yes, but you eat crap.”

“McDonald’s isn’t crap.”

“Robert said he’d seen children starving in Africa with better results than you. Whatever you’re eating, it’s no good.”

I sighed heavily. “Robert’s come up with a new diet already. This is only going to spur him on to make me follow it.”

“You should want to be healthier, Sebastian. I think Robert’s right to be stern about this. You and food have never been friends, and even though you eat, you make bad choices.”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t going to win this argument, there was no point trying. “When I can I go home?”

“Well, that’s one thing me and your dad wanted to talk to you about. By home, do you mean our house, or back to the apartment you shared with Harry, or… here with Robert?” She played with the hem of her shirt, obviously wanting me home with her, but not wanting to put any pressure on me.

“I don’t know. I'm pretty sure the apartment’s a no go. Harry’s not there anymore. He’s with Leigh and they’re going to be staying down south. I don’t want to live there by myself, and without the rent being subsidised I can’t afford it anyway.” I took another bite from the wedge I was holding and looked into her eyes. “I want to come home. It’s not like I'm running away. I know this is tough for you both and right now you want me under your care full time, but I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t want to leave Robert. I need him.”

I hadn’t said how much I needed him, but the way my fingers began to shake just thinking about not having him by my side made my mum reach over and hold my hand.

“Lovey, I'm not asking you to leave him. I was just thinking while you recovered it would be nice to have you home, but I can see how much you need to be here.” She kissed my cheek tenderly. “He’s someone I trust, and he’s a doctor, which helps me worry less because he knows how to care for you better than I could, but I just need to be with you while you’re hurting.”

“I’m not hurting too badly now.”

“I know, baby, but…” Her blue eyes met mine and I saw the sadness, the concern, the fear and dropped my gaze to my lap. “You’ve got a lot to go through yet. You can’t pretend this isn’t happening, Sebastian. You’ve been through so much, and just pushing it aside and pretending you don’t care—”

“I don’t care.” I took in a sharp breath, my ribs aching with the movement. “I'm not stupid. I'm not trying to act brave. I told you, I don’t remember a lot of it. I was drugged up. It’s not as bad as you’re thinking even though I’ve tried hard to let you know I'm not damaged in some way. All I want is to move on and just let that cunt rot in jail for the rest of his life.”

“Don’t use the c word, Sebastian.” My mum smiled despite herself, and then shook her head. “You’re brave, and I don’t think you’re lying to me, but I do know you’re lying to yourself.”

“Aw, Mum. Drop it.”

I wasn’t going to let the prick and what happened rule my life. It happened. There was nothing I could do to change that. The only thing I could control was how I moved on with my life. I wasn’t going to whine and moan. I wasn’t going to live in fear. No way. That wasn’t me.

I was going to go on as if nothing had happened.

R
obert was standing outside my room talking to the doctor who’d been looking after me. They knew each other—from where, I don’t know—but they seemed friendly, and because of that I got a little extra nice treatment from him and the other staff. I liked to think it was because of Robert and not how they were pitying me, because that was something I didn’t want.

After my mum left, Robert came in with a woman who I instantly knew was some sort of psychiatrist just by how smiley and condescending she acted around me. I hated it and Robert knew I would, which was probably why he was there for the introduction. He and other concerned people, my parents mainly, thought I should speak to someone before I left, and so I found myself alone with the mouse while she made me go through it all again.

I could tell she didn’t like how I went through my little speech. It was all facts, just like I told the police officers who took my statements. I droned on and on tediously, telling her how it happened, what had happened—well, the parts I could remember. I told her how Robert and Jacob came and rescued me, and then the story was done.

I'm usually one for adding humour and jokes into any story, trying to make a bad thing better, but with that story, I just stuck to what facts I could recall and got it quickly out of the way, hoping she’d fuck off away and leave me to bug Robert about going home.

“But how did it make you feel?” she asked. “When he said what he would do to you, when you found out what he’d done to you, what did you feel?”

I threw out a few emotions—scared, drugged up, hazy. Okay, I was out of my mind on hallucinogenic drugs a lot of the time, so I don’t know how she expected me to feel differently. “What do you want me to say? Do you want me to make something up just so you can feel better about the whole thing? Do you want tears and tantrums, to see me break down and cry?”

I wasn’t going to do that. I didn’t do it front of the fucker who took me, and I was sure as hell not going to do it afterwards. Fuck that! That would just mean he’d won, and I was never going to let that happen.

“There’s nothing wrong with opening up, Sebastian. It will feel better to talk about this now than hide it away for years.”

“I won’t. I'm not.” I folded my arms across my chest and tried to ignore her prattling on about groups and helplines, how she and other people could help. I didn’t want help. I just wanted to go home.

She finally gave up and left the room where she, and other medical staff, probably wasted valuable time which could’ve been spent on people who really needed them, oh, and Robert too more than likely.

Robert came in the room. I could tell in an instant he wasn’t happy, and that made me grin because if he wasn’t happy, that meant I would be. “You got your way. You're being discharged. Medically, apart from feeding you up and taking care of your pain relief, there’s nothing more they can do here.”

“Good.” I sat up, already swinging my legs off the bed. I was fully dressed and raring to go, but he took hold of my arm and stilled me in my tracks.

“Seb…” His brown eyes pleaded with me.

I turned from him, tense and agitated when I shouldn’t be. He was only trying to help. “I just want to go home.”

“I want you home,” he purred back softly.

“It doesn’t sound like it.”
Oh it does! You're just being a dick, Seb.
“I can go back to my mum’s.”

There was a pause, and then a heavy hand was laid on my shoulder. “Don’t blackmail me, Sebastian.”

“I'm not. I'm just saying if it’s a bother having me—”

His low growl and quick movement from my side made me stop talking, and I ran my fingers through my hair, watching him standing in silence, looking out of the window by the bed.

I moved to him, wrapping my arms around him and pressing my chest to his back. “I'm sorry. I just hate it here. I hate everyone talking to me about shit they shouldn’t be. I don’t like this big pity party everyone keeps inviting me to as their guest of honour. I'm not ignorant of how
they
feel
I
should be acting, and I get they think I'm hiding behind my humour, but I don’t want another moment of my life to be spent thinking about him or what he did.”

Robert let himself relax as I spread soft kisses around his neck. “I just don’t want you to think you have to be brave all the time. It’s okay to rant and rave, to be mad. I'm fucking mad. I’ve not slept because of the rage inside me. Talking about it has helped.” Robert held my hands, lifting one to his lips and kissing it softly. “That’s why I want you to know you can talk. You haven't opened up to me or your mum, not even Harry or Leigh could—”

Breaking him off quickly, I stepped back, frowning as I stood as tall as I could beside him. “You invited them here so they could trick me into opening up? Would they even have come if you hadn't—”

“Seb, please. Nothing could stop Harry from being beside you when he found out you were awake.” His thick fingers played with his hair while he took a breath. “I hoped you would talk to him, that was all. Just like I hoped you’d talk to Caroline.” He must have noticed my blank look and shook his head. “The psychiatrist.”

“Oh, her.” That nosy bitch. “Yeah, well, I
did
talk to her. I told her
everything
. I mean, words were coming out of my mouth, words which made sense this time. So, unless she was
severely
retarded in some way, she knows exactly what happened. Just like every other fucking person in the world seems to do. Maybe I should just take out a full page ad in
The Times
, or get a banner on one of those planes, and then everyone will know. It’ll also save me the bother of repeating myself a million times.”

“Not everyone knows, but I know it feels like that right now. She was only trying to help. We’re all only trying to help.” Robert went to touch my shoulder, but I slapped his hand off and began ramming my phone into my pocket and pulling on my coat.

“I know what she wanted. She wanted to see me break in two.”

“Baby—”

“No!” I spun around, glaring into his eyes. “She did. She knew what happened to me, I could tell. No doubt she’d read the police reports. She didn’t need to hear the finer details of my time with him. She wanted to see what was in here.” I slammed my hand over my chest, breathing hard while Robert and I stood motionless in the heavy silence. “Well, I wouldn’t give her that. I don’t have control over anything, there’s nothing in my life I feel I own. Even my body. I can't decide what I want or do. Every little thing is handed to me like I'm some special needs case who can't do anything except lay there and watch in silence as life happens around me.” Robert blurred in front of me, and I realised it was down to the tears unknowingly cascading down my face. That just made me even angrier. “Fuck! The one thing I thought I could control just got taken away. Thanks.” I wiped my face gruffly with the palms of my hands and chuckled. “Hey, maybe you should call her back. You and her may feel better seeing me cry, huh? As long as
you’re
happy, then…” I stopped. This wasn’t right. Nothing was right. “I'm sorry.”

Robert took me in his arms and rocked me softly.

“I didn’t mean that. I know you want to help. I don’t… This part of me, the emotional side, that’s all I can control right now. My body’s reliant on the drugs to keep it pain free. I eat and sleep when they want me to, talk to who they want. My friends can only come when they’re allowed to. I’m told what to do, where to go. I don’t have any choice in anything.” I fisted my hands in his coat and choked back a sob. “I might as well have never left that fucking basement because I feel like I'm being held hostage here, like I have no say in anything. Like I'm being continually forced to do things I don’t want to. I'm not going to break here. If I do, it won’t be for anyone else to see.”

“Even me?”

I paused, holding him tightly. He was hurting more than I was. He was there to protect me, and he’d known the prick for years. He felt guilty because he’d been with Leo for so long and not seen anything. He was in pain, frustrated and angry with himself. The blame he placed on his own shoulders for what the disgusting prick had done to me, and others, weighed on him constantly and I hated to add to it in any way. “I know you’re here for me if I need you, but this rage building up inside you, it has to stop.”

“I can’t let it go just like that.” Robert held me tightly before second guessing himself and relaxing his arms around my back, still worrying over the cuts and bruises left there as a physical reminder of what he did to me. I couldn’t lie to him and say they didn’t hurt, he knew better than anyone what I was going through, so I just let him stroke my hair, kissing my jaw line before our lips met and he softly pressed them together for a few short moments until he stepped back, blowing out a big breath of air and smiling. “I guess it’s time to go home.”

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear those words.” Moving to pick up my bags, Robert sidestepped me and took them from the floor. “I can carry them myself.”

“You’ll heal better the less you do. Just accept that and let me help.” Robert’s furrowed brows showed he wasn’t going to back down, so I sighed, letting him deal with my stuff while I thought about my parents.

Although I loved them and enjoyed having the honesty back between us, the thought of going back to Robert’s and having them there made me feel slightly off. “Are my mum and dad staying with us?”

“No, I thought since they’d settled so well with my parents they could stay there. She said they’d be over tomorrow after breakfast to see how you’re settling in. We still have a lot of things to talk about before they leave. Your studies for one.”

“I'm not behind on my courses.”

“I know, but you’ve not attended any classes since you’ve been here. It’s time to decide if you’ll be moving back to Leeds and continuing, or staying here… with me.” A small smile reached his lips, and I grinned back at him, happy to see even the smallest glimmer of happiness in him. If even the thought of me staying with him made him happy, then there was no way I would leave.

“You don’t have to use my education as a reason for me to talk about moving in with you. I'm not planning on going back to Leeds. Not unless it’s to pack up my stuff and move down here. I can transfer my courses to a uni here, probably a better one. If they’ll have me, that is.” I was still doing well, but not as well as I had been before I took up my escort role. I’d worked hard in the past month or so and caught up, but I wasn’t the A star student I knew I could be.

“I don’t want you to leave. I can’t imagine you being so far away all week. It’s not like I have a nine to five job and can take every weekend off to catch up with you. But don’t let me pressure you into making such a huge decision. Think about it.”

“I have thought about it. I'm okay staying here. This is where I want to be, and I don’t mean London or the big house you own, I mean you. You're where I want to be, Robert.” I rolled the r and t and got a chuckle back in response, one which I'd not heard in a while, and I kissed him quickly. “I want to be right here.”

“I want that too.”

“Well, not right here. Can we get out of this place now or what?”

“Let’s go. I have plans for your welcome home dinner.”

“Is it McDonalds?” Of course he’d say no, but it was worth a try, wasn’t it?

“No.”

“Awww.”

“Not a chance.” He raised a brow and offered a crooked smile my way.

“I love you.” I pouted up at him as he wrapped a big arm around my waist and hugged me.

“And I love you, but
because
I love you, I won’t be letting you eat that shit so often.”

“So often? So I can have it sometimes?”

“Yes, but not for every meal, Seb.”

“I'm not used to being told what to do.” It grated slightly on my nerves, but his bossiness came from his love and need to care for me, and I understood he’d be super alpha when I got home because he was so concerned over me.

“Get used to it… and quickly.” He grinned down at me before placing a kiss on my forehead as he opened the door. We walked out just in time for my doctor to grab us and give me one last talk—mainly regarding my food and my health, and how I should call the
rape
helpline if I felt the need. I fucking hated that word and the scowl I threw his way when he said it made him stumble over his next words. I'm pretty sure if I had some Darth Vader-style mind powers, his head would have exploded in front of us, causing gooey brain matter to cover the hallway, but… as I didn’t…