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“Those things are going to kill you, y’know.”
Sebastian startles, lit cigarette falling from his hands onto the grass below as he turns to see the source of the voice. The orange embers glow bright against the ground in the low evening light, and he curses, stomping it beneath his boot before it has a chance to set fire to the forest. “Yoba above, Sam.”
Sam grins. “Aw, did I scare you?”
Sebastian lifts his boot from the now-crushed cigarette, letting out a soft sigh of relief at the sight of the burnt-out embers. “Yeah, and nearly burnt down our whole town with it.” He pulls his lighter and the half-empty pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lighting the cigarette before stowing the items back in his pocket. Sam frowns. “You didn’t come all the way up here at 10 pm to tell me to stop smoking, so — what’s up?”
“C’mon, you don’t know that, maybe I’m just concerned about my best friend’s health!” Sebastian breathes out a cloud of smoke over the lake, watches it dissipate into the chill night air. Sam punches him lightly in the arm. “I am , by the way,” Sam says, voice dancing the line between sullen and teasing. “One day you’re going to die from coughing so hard you asphyxiate and I’m going to give a sad, sorrowful speech at your funeral about how I warned you of the dangers of cigarettes and you didn’t listen to me.”
Sebastian takes another drag of his cigarette. He gives Sam a wry smile. “Yeah, if you can make yourself coherent through the ugly sobs.”
Sam pouts, the outline of his pursed lips and furrowed brows barely visible in the silvery moonlight. “Okay, low blow.”
“You want a drag?”
“I just told you to stop smoking, what makes you think I’d start ?”
Sebastian can feel his smile tug into an involuntary grin. “I’m just that powerful and persuasive.”
Sam punches Sebastian’s arm again.
“No, dickhead,” Sam says, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his worn blue hoodie. “It’s because you only come out here to smoke when something’s bothering you. And I overheard your mom telling my mom that this is the third day in a row you’ve been out here, so.”
Sebastian blinks. He’s not sure what he had expected Sam to say, to justify him trekking up the mountain to Sebastian’s house this late, but that — hadn’t been it. He’s — touched. Just a little.
“I hate moms,” is what he says instead, which elicits a small laugh from Sam. “Always gossiping. I’m fucking twenty, what does it matter to them if I’m out smoking?”
He breathes out another cloud of smoke, and Sam’s eyes trace it up into the dark sky until it dissipates between the glimmering stars. “Maybe they’re just concerned about you, I don’t know, getting lung cancer ,” Sam says, and his voice is more teasing than it is concerned, but Sebastian can’t ignore the notes of worry that slip into his voice. “So. What’s driving you to ruin your physical health forever and always?”
Sebastian rolls his eyes at Sam’s insistence on making sure Sebastian knows exactly how bad the cigarettes he smokes are for his health. It’s always been like this — Sam tells Sebastian that they’re going to kill him, and Sebastian ignores him. They banter, they battle, their wit flashes in a sharp, practiced tango — and they end at an impasse, unchanged, no matter the day or debate.
“First of all, my physical health is perfectly fine,” Sebastian says, ignoring Sam’s teasing protests, “and secondly, my mom’s been getting on my ass about ‘getting a real job’ again, so. That’s always fun when you’re trying to meet another deadline.”
“Ah.” Sam doesn’t respond for a bit, blue eyes staring across the lake in front of them, the lake Sebastian’s nearly memorized at this point from living near it for so many years. “Would you ever move to the city?”
Sebastian taps the ashes of his cigarette out, making sure to grind them against his boot and kill any potential embers sparking amidst the grey dust. (He learned the hard way that when smoking without a proper ashtray, you need to be particularly careful to make sure all fire is contained to the end of your cigarette, and the end of your cigarette only .) “Maybe,” he says, putting the cigarette back against his lips. The glowing end dances in the dim light as he speaks around it. “I don’t want to get sucked into the corporate rat race, but the independence would be nice. Having the nearest tech shop be only a couple minutes away, instead of a couple hours.”
Sam scuffs at the earth beneath them with the toe of his boot. “Yeah,” he says, “yeah. Me too, I think. More — opportunities. Less prying moms and town gossip.”
He looks towards Sebastian, and his eyes are terrifyingly intense. Sebastian knows better than any other that Sam is an intense guy — loud, cheery, stubborn to a fault, and so intensely passionate that it almost hurts to look at, like the centre of a flickering fire, like the sun — but the emotion drawn across Sam’s face right now is one Sebastian can’t fully read, and the way Sam’s eyes pierce Sebastian’s sends a chill racing up his spine. He isn’t fully sure whether to be scared or awed. “What if we moved to the city together?”
All Sebastian can get out is a small, startled, “What?” before Sam has grabbed Sebastian by his shoulders, spinning him so that they’re standing face to face, Sebastian trapped by the piercing intensity of Sam’s gaze.
“We move to the city,” Sam repeats. “You can focus on your coding stuff the way you want to, with opportunities you’d never get by staying here, and I get to do more than just play gigs with Abigail and you in the Stardrop Saloon every other Friday for my parents and their friends.”
“Right now?”
Sebastian isn’t fully sure why he says that — it makes no sense, considering it’s past 10 pm already and there’s no way they could fit all their stuff onto Sebastian’s motorcycle, the only vehicle either of them have access to, but — there’s something intoxicating in the fervor pulsing through Sam’s voice, the passion in his eyes that draws Sebastian to him, moth to flame.
Sam seems to break from his fiery stupor, laughing lightly at Sebastian’s shell-shocked face. “No, dumbass — I don’t know when. Whenever we can, I guess.” He pauses, eyes drifting from Sebastian’s face as he thinks. “But — we could just go to the city now, anyways. To visit.”
Sebastian mulls it over. He lets his cigarette fall to the ground beneath them, stamping it out beneath one large black boot. He nods. “Alright. Let’s go to the city.”
Sam blinks in surprise. “Wait, really?” Sebastian nods again, and Sam’s face splits into a blinding grin.
It doesn’t take long for Sebastian to pull his motorcycle out of the garage, handing his helmet to Sam — who, to his credit, only protests for about two minutes before accepting the helmet, grumbling all the while that he’s not going to be responsible for when Sebastian cracks his head open on the highway to Zuzu City — before swinging a leg over his bike and taking off, Sam’s arms wrapped tightly around his torso.
+
As dangerous as it probably is, Sebastian loves the highway at night. Nothing but the chill night air and the distant lights of the next vehicle on the road, the stars twinkling brightly above them as they slice through the countryside in a quiet, contented hum.
This isn’t his first time travelling to Zuzu City — he went once before with his family to watch a gridball match that none of them quite enjoyed, and once with Sam and Abigail when Sam, the youngest of the bunch, finally turned eighteen. They were supposed to go to a bar, and ended up buying strawberry wine and soju from a nearby liquor store and playing drinking games in a shitty motel room until they all passed out.
But — it’s his first time going this late, and his first time going with just Sam. His first time riding his bike, with Sam’s arms wrapped firmly around him, the warmth of Sam’s body pressed comfortably against his. Sam mutters directions into Sebastian’s ear every now and then — he used to live there, of course he knows the route to return — and Sebastian obeys, the hour-long drive fading into minutes beneath his fingertips, between Sam’s constant monologue and the purr of his motorcycle’s engine beneath him.
The city is — overwhelming.
It’s bright. Loud, constantly, even though it’s the dead of night. There’s neon signs and vendors on every street trying to convince Sebastian to try the newest market product, and more cars on one block alone than the Valley would have even if they were given one for every resident.
Sebastian absolutely loves it.
Sam directs him once again, lefts and rights and curving roads until they hit a smaller side street. “It’s where we got the strawberry wine,” Sam says. Even though there’s a thick blanket of night covering the whole street Sebastian can feel the sight of it ringing a few bells. “There were some other shops here — a tattoo one, I think, and a flower shop across the street. And a bookstore — maybe they’d have those shitty sci-fi novels you love so much.”
“They’re not shitty,” Sebastian replies, scowling before he can stop himself. “You just have bad taste.”
“Okay, Mr. Space-aliens-fight-in-big-ships-for-400-pages,” Sam teases, and Sebastian can feel his scowl shifting to an exasperated smile, the same kind that never seems to leave his face when Sam’s around.
“Firstly, that’s redundant,” Sebastian says, “all aliens are from space. Secondly, it’s not just fighting in big ships, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sam says, beginning to walk down the small street towards the bookstore, “tell me that the next time you text me about some big alien ship exploding in your next shitty sci-fi novel.”
Sebastian starts to follow him, but stops walking almost immediately. Sam doesn’t realize until he’s halfway down the street, and turns back to face Sebastian, opening his mouth to tease, but the words never make it out of his mouth. “Hey, Sam,” Sebastian calls forward, voice almost hesitant, brows pulled together in the perfect picture of pensive thought, “why’d you take us here, on our first trip to the city?”
Sam’s mouth is still open, and a shocked laugh leaves it. “What?”
Sebastian gestures around the small street. There’s nothing hugely noticeable about it — it’s not a tourist destination, or somewhere advertised in travel guidebooks. So Sam had to have known it, somehow. “Why here ? Why not the thousands of tourists traps downtown? Why not the biggest mall, or the indoor waterpark?”
Sam gives Sebastian a soft smile. “I used to live here,” Sam says. “In that building down there. I, uh. I guess I just wanted to show you and Abby the Zuzu City that I used to know, not — whatever the other Valley folk think it is. The bookstore where I got my first copy of Guitar for Dummies . The tattoo shop my dad said I’d only be allowed in when I was twenty-five. The flower shop where me and Vincent and Dad would get lilies for my mom on her birthday.”
Oh.
“Oh,” Sebastian says, and it slips from his tongue as soft and wondrous as it felt in his head. Sam looks — embarrassed, and Sebastian wants nothing more than to wipe the sheepish look off his face.
He takes a step towards Sam. Watches his eyes flicker, blue flame, under the neon lights. Holds out a hand.
“Show me more,” Sebastian says. “More of your Zuzu City.”
Sam takes his hand and grins.