The Raven and the Snake (Sebastian Sallow x Ravenclaw MC)

At Last

(A/N: it isn't a long scene, but the fic does earn its M/explicit rating this chapter, so you've been warned)

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Sebastian was heartbroken to see Clora cry, but he hadn't been surprised to see those inevitable tears start forming and falling. And it didn't matter if she cried, anyway, because he was there to comfort her, and ask her if she was alright, and to make her feel better somehow—anyhow—if she wasn't.

But what Sebastian had been surprised to see was her sudden laughter; light and breathless and airy and completely at odds with their surroundings and their circumstances. Yet even the surprise of that couldn't have prepared him for the shock of what came next.

"I love you, Sebastian."

He stared at her.

Stared at her bathed in the warm glow of the sunset, the same way she'd looked when he'd told her the very same thing, and as he stared at her, and continued to stare at her, he could have sworn she was glowing.

And that's all Sebastian did, and continued to do. Stare. His mind was wiped clean, and if you'd shaken him, and told him he'd only just killed a man moments prior, and that his body was only mere metres away as proof, he still wouldn't have believed you.

Because the only thing he currently had space for in his mind and his thoughts was Clora across from him, looking up at him with a tearful smile, with her rosy cheeks and her rosy lips that were moving and telling him that she loved him.

But Sebastian knew it must be a misunderstanding, just like he'd misunderstood her so many times before. Yet even as he thought so, that didn't stop his traitorous, over-eager heart from hammering wildly in his chest as he stared down at her with his mouth open dumbly, and he closed it only so that he could swallow dryly.

"Not sure I heard you properly," he tried lightly, attempting to keep his tone casual and playful, though the utter bewilderment he was currently experiencing didn't lend very well to that endeavor. "Mind repeating that?"

Clora smiled, laughing again. "I love you. I don't know why it took me so long to say it, and I'm sorry for that. But I really am in love with you—I love you so much, Sebastian," she repeated with fervor, though her voice began to lose its firmness as it warbled at the end, and she hastily wiped her eyes, her tears rolling down her cheeks once more for a seemingly new reason.

Despite still feeling and looking as gob smacked as he was, Sebastian took a step forward, his hand hesitantly taking one of her own as he looked down at her.

"...Not as a brother, right?"

Another laugh burst out of Clora at the question, a true laugh, and the volume surprised even herself.

"No. Not exactly like a brother," she assured, the same way he'd clarified for her at his own confession as she sniffled and smiled and wiped at her face. "What I feel for you is definitely not platonic."

Sebastian gaped at her for even longer, and at his prolonged, dazed silence, Clora seemed to suddenly remember herself as the confident set of her shoulders softened.

"I—just needed to tell you, so that you knew," she said, quickly and quietly as she took a step back from him, pulling her hand out of his hold. "I'm aware you told me to forget about what you said, so if you still want to remain—"

Sebastian didn't let her finish that sentence as he took a quick step forward, all of his daze and awe and confusion at her sudden confession gone.

He didn't want to hear her even utter the words 'remain as friends', because the phrase itself was a torture akin to the Cruciatus curse, let alone the torture of actually having lived it, and of loving her and being in her presence and yet unable to do anything about it.