Roomies in Arms - Part 11

Everyone in this story is 18+

-------------Asher’s POV------------

“Gentlemen,” Brady declared, sprawled like a Roman dissident across the IKEA rug. “I’m going to do something morally questionable if we don’t cause chaos within the hour.”

Dan didn’t look up from his phone. “Is this going to be like the time you shaved your chest to impress a Canadian?”

“That was an exchange student. And she said I had noble pecs.”

Cameron tilted his water bottle thoughtfully. “How are you planning to misbehave tonight? Arson or alcohol?”

“Alcohol first,” Brady replied. “Then arson, if things go well.”

He grabbed his phone and fired off a text.

“Nick. Jax. Your place. Booze. Immediate and excessive.”

A beat passed. Then:

JAX: yeah.
JAX: shit went down here today.
JAX: distraction sounds perfect. bring tequila and trauma.

Brady sat up, victorious. “The gates are open, boys. We ride.”

◆◆◆

Jax greeted us with a tired wave, shirtless and damp-haired, like someone who’d showered in 5 minutes. Nick was behind him, drink in hand, smile wry.

“Come in,” he said. “But fair warning: we’ve already hit peak emotional dysfunction and it’s not even midnight.”

Lex emerged from his room, hoodie half-on, holding something in a suspiciously yellow-glowing glass. “Finally. I was about to start drinking alone and watching tentacle porn ironically.”

“You say that like it’s different from your usual Tuesday,” I muttered.

He grinned.

Brady threw himself onto the couch, Dan claimed a beanbag like a squat philosopher, and Cameron hovered by the counter, already managing the music like some benevolent DJ with a minor God complex.

Someone passed me a beer. I took it.

It began as these things always do—too many voices, too much music, and just enough alcohol to smooth over the week’s edges.

Jax and Nick were retelling Stepbro-Gate, as it had apparently come to be known. In vivid detail.

“And then,” Jax said, “Bryson walks in. Underwear. Smug. Like an Abercrombie model with a misdemeanor.”

“He almost outed us,” Nick added. “To our dad. While Sebastian stood there holding toast.”

“Legend,” Brady said, raising his glass.

“I’m fairly certain he was shirtless,” I noted.

“Oh, he was,” Nick said. “And annoyingly symmetrical.”

“Anyway,” Jax continued, “Lex saves the day by pretending to be Nick’s boyfriend. Which honestly… might’ve worked too well.”

Lex raised his can. “I play all roles. Racoon, tech-goblin, hentai scholar, emergency boyfriend.”

“Stepbro sitcom,” Dan muttered. “It’s getting hard to keep track.”

◆◆◆

Some time passed. The music got louder. The drinks got stronger. Brady was attempting to balance a beer on his head while twerking. Everyone was pretending not to notice.

And I… drifted. Not because I wasn’t enjoying myself. I was. In the general sense.

But my attention kept returning—inevitably, involuntarily—to Sebastian.

He wasn’t quite present. Not in the way he usually was, which admittedly was never fully. But now… there was something different in the tension.

He moved through the room like a ghost with a purpose—adjusting coasters, refolding a blanket that no one had actually used, straightening the napkins near the sink.

He wiped down a surface I’d just seen Jax clean. Then re-arranged a stack of books. Then checked the time on his phone and made a small noise of disapproval, as though time itself had personally disappointed him.

He wasn’t mingling. He wasn’t brooding either. He was… hovering. As if staying in motion was the only way to keep some inner fault line from shifting.

I watched him for a moment too long.

Then—

“Sebby!” Lex called, perched on the sofa like a cat who’d just learned about chaos. “Get over here. I need you to weigh in.”

Sebastian turned, cautious. “If this is about that sock again, the answer is still no.”

Lex grinned. “Not that. Come here.”

There was a pause—long enough to register—and then Sebastian crossed the room.

I don’t know what I expected.

Maybe more posturing. Maybe that faint aristocratic stiffness he wrapped around himself like a blazer. Maybe the usual dry repartee.

What I saw instead was… him.

Not the polished heir or the repressed exile or the neat-freak.

Just… Sebastian.

He sat beside Lex without hesitation. Not overly close, but not tense either. Lex handed him something on a phone screen, and Sebastian leaned in, brow furrowing in concentration. Then—

“Oh, that’s nothing,” he said. “Kazuya doesn’t reach peak bisexuality until episode twelve—when the exorcist gets possessed and the cursed kimono comes back. It’s all very metaphorical.”

Lex beamed. “Right? I told you the kimono had symbolism.”

“I still think the ghost gladiator arc was overkill,” Sebastian added. “But the dialogue did improve. Slightly.”

They were off. Spiraling into what I could only assume was hentai critique. I didn’t follow a word of it. But I watched all the same.

His hands gestured animatedly, eyes sharp, voice quicker than usual. He laughed—really laughed—and Lex leaned into the sound like it was gravity.

He forgot the coasters, forgot the blanket, even forgot, for just a moment, to hold it all together it would seem.
And I? I let the truth settle in like fog, I wasn’t the one he lit up for. Not now. Perhaps not ever.

What we had back then—Eton, shared glances across library desks, late-night walks under frostbitten trees—it wasn’t love. Not really. It was proximity. Survival. A quiet holding pattern in a world that didn’t want either of us to exist honestly.

I was his first safe place.

But Lex?

Lex was the first person who made him unsafe in the right way. Messy, challenged and clearly alive.

I smiled, quietly. Took a sip of my drink.

◆◆◆

The evening… devolved.

Lex had found the tequila and, worse, the Marmite.

“Wait, wait,” he said, crouched in the kitchen like a gremlin before a dark altar. “What if—what if—you use the Marmite toast instead of the lemon?”

“No,” I said immediately.

“Absolutely not,” Dan added from behind a cupboard door.

Sebastian, already tipsy and flushed at the cheeks, looked both horrified and morbidly intrigued. “That’s culinary heresy.”

Lex grinned. “Exactly.”

He slammed the shot back like it owed him money, then chomped directly into the corner of a Marmite sandwich.

A pause. “Could be worse. Might be a war crime. Still, it low-key slaps.”

Brady leaned in. “Give me one.”

“I’m cutting you off,” Sebastian muttered, snatching the sandwich with the sternness of someone who had once witnessed Lex use mayonnaise as a vape refill.

But then—he laughed. An actual laugh, bright and unguarded, it hung in the air longer than expected.

Cameron blinked. “Was that… Sebastian?”

“It was!” Lex crowed. “It lives!”

Sebastian blushed, smoothing the front of his jumper as though he could iron the emotion out of it.

Brady was pouring another round. Music thundered. Lex had now climbed onto the couch and was attempting to beatbox through a Pringles tube. Sebastian didn’t stop him. He just leaned against the counter, sipping something ginger-coloured and deeply alcoholic, watching with exasperated fondness.

Lex was now busy dragging Brady into his lair—Mother, as he called her, blinking neon from the back room.

“Come, child,” Lex intoned dramatically. “Let me show you hentai enlightenment. She boots in under ten seconds and screams if you open too many tabs.”

Brady followed like a weirdly entranced disciple.

Sebastian lingered in the kitchen. I joined him. He looked up, slightly startled. “Oh. Hello.”

“Your roommate’s feeding Brady animated porn,” I said.

“I assumed as much.”

I leaned on the counter beside him, watching the condensation slide down the side of his glass.

There was a beat.

Then: “You and Lex.”

He blinked. “Pardon?”

I turned toward him. “It’s obvious. You’re different around him.”

He made a face. “Oh dear.”

“Don’t ‘oh dear’ me.”

Sebastian fidgeted. “It’s just… He’s chaos in a hoodie. I’m… this.” He gestured at himself like a nervous butler.

“Yes, and it’s sweet,” I said, surprising even myself with the honesty of it. “Lex is a feral raccoon with an internet connection. But when you’re around him, you stop trying so hard. You stop wiping things that are already clean.”

He huffed a soft laugh.

“I mean it,” I said, voice quieter. “It’s real, I think. You should see where it leads.”

He didn’t answer at first. Just stared down into his drink.

Then, softly: “Maybe.”

Another beat.

Then he looked at me—properly—and said, “Thank you. I… that means a lot. From you.”

I gave a small nod. “Well. I was never the one, was I?”

“You were the safe place,” he said. “And the sharpest tongue I knew. Which is a compliment, I promise.”

“Accepted.”

From the hallway, Brady screamed something about tentacles.

Sebastian winced. “I should probably go retrieve him before Lex inducts him into the Cult of Kazuya.”

“Godspeed.”

He hesitated, then gave my hand a quick squeeze before slipping away toward the madness.

I stayed there a moment longer, listening to the laughter, the music, the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

And for once, I didn’t feel like the outsider.

Just someone who’d finally let go.