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Chapter 4

Her phone starts to go dark and she thumbs the screen again, staring down at the message like it’ll change if she looks away, turn into something different, suddenly mean something else.
I have her. Bringing her to the loft.
It’s short. Vague. It could mean anything… except that it doesn’t. After weeks of fruitless searching suddenly, impossibly, Seb just has her.
It’s a joke. It’s easier to prepare for a joke – for Seb being unintentionally cruel – than to let herself hope for the improbable.
Dawn’s hands clench the battered surface of the table as the rest of the group starts to filter in: Sean catching his eyes and nodding with a shaky sort of smile that would echo Dawn’s feelings perfectly if she wasn’t forcing himself to think joke joke it’s just a joke; Lily and Maya coming in together, expectant and excited respectively. When Kara gets there she barrels across the room and wraps Dawn in a firm hug before pulling back shyly, murmuring, “We’re here for you, you know, whatever…”
Somehow, that’s what makes it real. Seb might be cruel to Dawn, but he wouldn’t do this to the rest of them.
There’s a lump in her throat and she suddenly can’t meet anyone’s eyes. She falls back from the table, from the phone and the text she’s been compulsively refreshing for the past twenty minutes, retreating to sit on the stairs, hands clasped.
They settle into an uncomfortable silence, and wait for Seb and the witch.
.-
He doesn’t get out of the car. Doesn’t move, doesn’t so much as take his hands off the wheel until Sean comes out and asks why he’s not coming up.
He feigns a smile he doesn’t feel, nodding toward the backseat, and says he’s been waiting for some big, strong guy to come and carry her up for him.
Sean smiles back and, for a second, Seb thinks he’s going to get away with it. But then he’s clasping his shoulder and saying “It’ll be ok, man. Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it. ”
“Yeah,” he grins back, too brightly. “I’m cool. Getting my feelings back, right? What’s there to be nervous about?”
.-
The witch is still bound, no longer gagged, sitting in a flat-backed chair and staring around the pack more like she’s confused by her predicament than anything.
“The price was agreed upon,” she says slowly, like they’re school children “And it has been paid.”
She’s definitely not as malicious as Seb’s memories made her out to be… which makes sense, really, since she’d been the one who helped them save the town all that time ago and all. Still, she’s spent the better half of the past year just being “that b… uh, witch who messed with Seb’s heart” so he guesses it’s understandable that they ended up in this place.
“Yeah,” Seb says, because he has to be the one to say it, “and now we’re asking for a refund. Sorry, size doesn’t fit, color doesn’t match my eyes, and I’m not taking store credit so don’t even try.” It’s screwing with my brain and turning me into someone that freaking scares me goes unsaid, but might filter through in the tension in his tone.
She frowns slightly, actually seems sympathetic, as her gaze floats around the room to finally land on Dawn. She’s still perched over on the stairs, where she’s been all evening, hands clenching, jaw tight as she frowns down at her knees determinedly. The only time she moved since Seb walked in was to get up, grab some duct tape and shove it in Sean’s hands before returning to her perch. She hasn’t met anyone’s eyes once, and it’s starting to drive Seb crazy.
“It was for that one, wasn’t it?” Finally Dawn’s eyes flick up. She looks like she’s physically clamping down on a snarl. The witch only smiles faintly, distantly, watching her with unfocused eyes like she’s seeing something other than her face. “I see. You didn’t realize it was returned.” Then she’s looking back to Seb, a brow arching. “But I don’t see why this affects our bargain. I do clean work; I plucked your emotions out by the roots. Her feelings should have no bearing on your own. So break ties and move on. The price has been paid.”
“Then unpay it,” Sean’s saying, stepping forward. “It wasn’t fair to ask that from him in the first place.”
“But he agreed regardless,” the witch’s voice is smooth and toneless. “This is the way things are now. You should accept it. You’re only hurting yourselves by attempting otherwise.”
“There’s no ‘moving on’ here. We’ve got to deal with this somehow, and you’re going to help us.”
“So you wish to rescind our previous bargain? Sacrifice the town?”
That stalls everyone.
Seb backs up a step, glancing at Sean. Dawn finds herself rising, her gaze caught on the witch.
“So those are our options? We take back Seb’s feelings and you’ll destroy the town out of spite?”
There’s nothing malicious in her returning look; she hasn’t been malicious once tonight, even after waking up tied to a chair.
“By taking the boy’s feelings, you would be destroying the town. Ripping away the anchor keeping the spell of protection in place. Why did you think I requested the sacrifice in the first place?”
.-
“So there’s no way.” Dawn finds herself speaking first, while the rest of the group gape in varying states of shock at the witch. She’s been prepared for this, prepared for it not to work since Seb first suggested it.“The emotion wasn’t just your price; it was a component in the spell.”
“Great magic requires a great sacrifice. The boy’s love is holding closed the tear caused by the Nemeta. To return it to him would—”
“Put us right back where we were eight months ago.” Dawn doesn’t have to look to the others before shaking her head.
The witch seems to be going for sympathy as her brows crease.
“It was a powerful emotion. You should feel proud to have inspired it.”
His eyes drag to the right and Seb is already watching her, expression raw with frustration, with disappointment, with want and for a second Dawn can almost convince herself it’s for her. But it’s a secondhand feeling. Seb wants to want, wants to feel this thing the witch is describing, this emotion clawing bloody streaks in Dawn’s chest.
She blinks her eyes closed and keeps them that way, squeezing until she can hear the pressure in her ears, until the dampness in her lashes could just be from the strain.
This wasn’t a surprise. She’d expected this.
Distantly, behind the clenched teeth and the blackness of her lids and her own attempts to clear her thoughts, she hears the witch announce:
“Though it may have been unfair of me to take what I did so quickly. I cannot return what is gone without risk to your town, but I can give you one moment if you’d like. An echo of the emotion. Would you like to say goodbye?”
And Dawn’s eyes are open, going wildly from the witch to Seb.
An echo, a moment, a goodbye.
Seb smiles, nods.
“Do it.”
.-
For a second he doesn’t feel anything. Still just the same old Seb living in his same old Seb brain. Which is… kind of disappointing, actually. Maybe his love for Dawn hadn’t been all that—
Dawn.
It hits him all at once, shuddering through him, flooding out across every inch of him. He loses sense of everything outside his emotions, would hit the ground if a pair of arms didn’t catch him. He quakes, gripping at the form desperately, sobbing out a wet, aching breath into the fabric of the shirt.
“Seb… you ok?”
It’s Sean. Sean he can handle. Sean he can think about without feeling like tiny bits of his soul are dying. His eyes squeeze shut and tears bleed out into the t-shirt and god, he hadn’t realized he’d been so empty before.
“Sean, I don’t… I didn’t know…”
“Seb,” Sean says softly. “Talk to Dawn.”
That’s right. Dawn’s in the room. Dawn’s not just a feeling in his heart, in his head, racing through him and leaving him weak, desperate, terrified. She’s here.
And his eyes are shooting back open because who knows how long he has, how long the ‘echo’ bouncing around inside of him will last, and pushes shakily back from his friend’s chest, scanning the room for…
“Dawn.”
She’s standing about eight feet away, isolated from everyone else, shoulders drawn in and jaw tight, looking so scared and hurt and hopeful. It’s enough to wrench another sob out of Seb, a thousand words clawing at his throat. All that comes out, thick and broken, again, is “Dee.”
He’s moving forward without thinking about it, stumbling the five endless steps to reach her.
And he’d never said anything, never done anything when it really mattered. When he’d still really felt this. Why the hell had he wasted all that time? Why had they both?
He’d never kissed Dawn like she was his whole world, never gripped her close and taken comfort in her warmth, never told her how much she matters and how much she deserves to be happy… and now Dawn’s looking at Seb like she’s terrified of him, like she might run away if she weren’t too paralyzed to move, and when Seb gathers her in his arms she’s so tense. Trembling. She doesn’t move to return the embrace and…
Damn it, this is all wrong. Dawn’s held onto him before, Dawn’s kissed him and breathed longing words into his skin and he remembers it, remembers it enough that his legs feel weak with the need for it. But now it matters, now it means everything, and Dawn’s gone cold.
It’s Seb’s turn.
“I love you. I do… Dawn I-I…” That's as far as he gets before he breaks off. A tear falls onto Dawn’s face and he kisses it, wet and messy, sniffing hard and drawing back fast.
He’s a wreck. Sobbing, his eyes puffing up and, great, he has who knows how many more seconds of caring what Dawn thinks of him and he’s gonna spend them a blubbering mess? He sucks in a hitching breath and feels Dawn’s arms tentatively close around him.
It’s like they’ve never touched before. When Dawn’s face dips to bury in his neck he shivers harder. His whole body’s quaking now, eight months of emotional catch up and guilt, god, the guilt…
“Shh,” Dawn’s breathing against him, hand going to cup his neck, still so tentative, like this is a dream that’ll disappear if she holds it too hard.
And it will. Fuck, it will. What the hell had he agreed to?
“This isn’t fair. God, I’m such a dick, I shouldn’t have said yes. I’ll be fine in five minutes and you’ll be—”
“I love you.”
Seb cuts off, jerking backward to stare. Dawn lifts her head, and her eyes are wet too, red-rimmed and watery.
Seb’s throat catches. It’s beautiful.
“You’ve never said that. I mean, I knew, but you never…”
Dawn’s lips press together, part again. Her eyes are still so scared, scared and sincere.
“I wasn’t going to say it when it didn’t matter. Now I had a chance to.”
Seb’s hands lift to clutch Dawn’ face, thumbs trailing across those open features: soft and honest and... love. Now he knows what it feels like to be loved.
To love back.
“I am so sorry.”
Dawn leans in. Her lips brush Seb’s cheek, kissing away a fresh tear, and Seb’s eyes flutter. He doesn’t let them close, though. He needs to see every second of this.
“I love you.”
They blurt it together, tripping over the words in a rush to get them out. Like it’s the most important thing in the world, like it’s all that matters.
And Seb does have a thousand other things to say – how Dawn has to move on, how she shouldn’t let anyone treat her the way Seb has been treating her. How she deserves so much more, and Seb is so sorry, and he just wants to stay here, hold onto this forever.
“I love you.”
His lips brush Dawn’s now, just barely, and they both stop to gasp at the sheer sensation of it, and
“I love you.”
Kissing deeper, slower than Seb has ever let them move before. All slowly dragging tongues, aching emotion and silent promises of forever that neither of them can keep. He doesn’t want to let go, doesn’t know how much time passes before they’re forced to break away, gasping for air and
“I love you. I love you, Dee. My love’s holding a whole fucking town together, you understand that? You do that to me. You have no idea…” His cheeks are sticky, salty with tears that could come from either of them because Dawn’s gasping in a harsh breath and dragging their cheeks together like she needs to feel literally everything in this moment.
It’s familiar, the rough, raw heat of the contact, but it’s never been this good before. It’s never meant this much before.
And Dawn’s voice is a low rasp of raw emotion as she breathes “I know, I know. Seb, I—”
They’re kissing again and it’s faster this time, desperate and urgent because any second now this will be gone, and he needs to make sure Dawn feels it. Needs to kiss her so hard it reverberates through her, so it touches each piece of her stupid, self-deprecating soul. So she remembers when all this is wrenched away again that she was loved, that she deserves to be loved.
It’s hard and it’s messy, and it’s broken by both of them gasping hitching breaths into it… and Dawn’s actually crying for him. Near-silent, hitching sobs that shudder through both of their bodies and Dawn loves him.
Dawn loves him.
He’s known it for months and he’s never once appreciated how amazing that is. It shouldn’t be possible, after everything Dawn’s gone through. After her nightmare of a life, every time she’s been lied to and hurt and abandoned, after all she’s lost… it should take a miracle to let Dawn love. It should take something so special, someone strong and worthy and beautiful… but somehow she has it in her to love Seb.
Stupid, impulsive Seb who wished his love away without a second thought.
“You deserve better,” he breathes as they stop again for air. He presses their foreheads together, looking into those green eyes and watching the colors shift and blend through the tears. Dawn’s clutching his waist and caressing a hand down his nape and he’s never felt safer, more grounded, in his life. How can this feeling ever go away? How can there ever be a moment when this isn’t everything?
“I deserve you,” Dawn forces back. Seb’s lips twitch. Dawn just admitted she deserves something and damn, if that’s not progress, he doesn’t know what is.
He presses in slow and soft against Dawn’s lips, and hears a quiet, contented noise that could’ve come from either one of them.
“Yeah, you do.” He draws back, grinning dazedly, trailing his fingers down Dawn’s face. “You deserve happy. I’d make you so goddamn happy, Dee.”
A tear catches in Dawn’s eyelashes and hangs there, impossibly suspended. The lashes are so thin, so fragile; they shouldn’t hold all that weight.
He watches the teardrop until Dawn leans in and brushes their noses together.
Seb laughs and the choked, guilty feeling in his chest loosens. He can almost pretend they’re just hanging out together in Dawn’s loft, not surrounded by staring friends and a witch who’s just counting down the seconds until she can tear all this away again.
Can pretend that he’s anything more than just an echo right now.
His hands clench nervously, but he manages to keep his expression steady and light. He’s going to hold onto this, damn it.
He’s going to give Dawn this memory.
“I think you possess the capacity for cuteness. And I’d really enjoy you being cute again.”
Dawn drifts in closer, brushes the tips of their noses together, and then rolls in close and proceeds to kiss Seb so thoroughly he loses track.
Dawn smiles, but it seems like an effort suddenly. Her eyes flit away toward the witch, and she’s going guarded again, like she’s just remembered how close this is to ending.
Seb knows she’s terrified of the deadline, possibly more than any second after. That moment when she’s still holding onto Seb, still open and vulnerable, and Seb just stops caring.
He silently swears to himself that he won’t go stiff suddenly, that he’ll stay loose against Dawn and let them ease out of it, do you hear that, emotionally stunted future self? Dawn deserves that much. A second to recover, to compose herself, to reset the walls Seb would do anything to tear down permanently.
And Seb feels a flutter of panic too. He needs to say his Important Things, and gets as far as “Dawn, when this is… don’t let me…” before Dawn cuts him off with a firm headshake and a fresh kiss. Seb groans into it, faint and needy.
“I’m going to hold onto every second of this,” Dawn breathes when their lips break. “I don’t want to remember you worrying.”
“Well tough, Dee. I’m gonna worry. That’s what love is.”
His heart breaks a little when Dawn’s lip trembles.
Dawn’s been hurt enough, damn it. Seb should be here to look out for her, to keep her safe. But since that's not possible, best friend tag team will have to do. He clears his throat.
“Sean, buddy. You listening?”
Sean’s voice floats over, high and embarrassed.
“Uh… kinda can’t help it, dude.”
“Good. Ok, listen: don’t you fucking dare let me mess with Dee anymore, got it? I give you full permission to threaten, blackmail, or body-check me into being less of a douche.”
Because he won’t want to stop. He knows himself enough to know that. He’ll remember how amazing everything in this moment feels. He’ll hold it up as a template for every future relationship, hold up Dawn’s devotion and the way they feel curled around each other right now and the way his heart’s aching with a desperation bordering on panic for it never to end. And he’ll come back to Dawn looking to feel it again, to recapture some small fraction of it, every time another relationship falls short.
And how can they not fall short? How can any new relationship be measured against this slowly built bond between him and Dawn? The years of circling, fearing and wanting and loathing and learning to trust, learning to care… And you know what, maybe Seb does believe in true love just a little bit, and if it’s out there, Dawn’s his. No future substitutes will fit the bill.
“Sean.” He needs to hear it. Especially because Dawn’s already shaking her head like she’s disagreeing, like she knows she’ll come back and take whatever small shred of Seb she can get.
“Yeah, yes Seb. I promise.”
Seb nods. He knows he can trust that. Sean’s promises are golden.
But the look in Dawn’s eyes is scaring him.
“Hey,” He runs a hand down her cheek, down the line of her neck. “Dawn, you promise me too, ok? You love me, then you listen to me. You said you deserve me, right? Well that guy you’ve been with? He’s not me. At least when it comes to you. And you deserve someone who loves you like I do.”
He leans forward until their foreheads touch again, trails a hand down until it’s hovering over Dawn’s heart, until he can hear it pounding fast into his palm.
“Don’t insult what we have here by going back to that guy.”
Dawn lets out a small, broken sound and tries to smother it in a new kiss, and Seb grips her neck and holds her gaze and—
“Oh, let the town burn, I say.”
The new voice falls on the room like a physical weight. Seb knows the exact instant when Dawn registers what she’s heard from how she clenches Seb hard before going frighteningly limp against him.
If Seb weren’t holding her, she would’ve stumbled.
“Pete?”
“What did I tell you? Human love. It sparks spells, it guards cities.”
Dawn swallows, and Seb trails a soothing hand down her side.
“Well, if you all aren’t willing to allow Faulkham Town to collapse as a testament to your love, I suppose we’ll have to make another trade instead.”
Seb spares a glance toward Dawn, but Dawn’s eyes are locked on Pete.
She burrows her forehead against Seb’s neck, and feels his fingers stroke, fast and soothing, across her nape.
The witch narrows her eyes thoughtfully but Dawn’s the one who speaks up, voice barely a whisper.
“What other trade?”
Pete smiles, light and wry.
“I was never much cut out for family, Dawn. Honestly, do you have any idea how much looking after you require? But free me of my ties and I’ll be able to go on with my life without the nagging urge to check up on you constantly.”
Seb’s head shoots up sharply. He can’t seriously mean that…
“The spell… the most important thing… The thing you love most is yourself.”
White teeth flash.
“That might be true, but that doesn’t preclude a bargain. You must learn not to always take things at face value, Dawn.” He glances back to the witch. “Both of them, will that do?”
She tilts her head, stares at him, through him.
Both of them. Maya.
“I think it might.”
“No,” Dawn snaps, falling away from Seb, taking a sharp step forward. She’s looking at Pete like she’s never seen him before. Seb feels unbalanced, standing on his own again, and Pete looks his way, eyes dancing.
“Would you rather lose your boy again, Dawn?” Dawn’s grasping Seb’s arm in an instant, tugging him forward until he can feel Dawn’s heat against his side. “I thought not.”
“Dawn…”
“The echo’s fading.” This from the witch, and Dawn’s hand moves from Seb’s arm to his waist, tugging him closer. “A replacement sacrifice could be arranged, as long as it’s something the bearer finds truly precious.”
“He doesn’t.” Dawn’s lips thin. Then to Pete. “You don’t.”
“He does,” Seb finds himself breathing. “He tracked down the witch for us.”
Seb glances to Peter.
It isn’t happening the same way this time around, the emotions washing in and out as the echo slowly fades from him. He whimpers, throat tight. He doesn’t want to go back to the way he was, doesn’t want to lose this.
But Pete is Dawn’s family. Her last tie to her childhood. She’d been so broken when Pete left that she’d fallen into Seb’s arms even when she’d known better.
“She needs you too.” But Pete just rolls his eyes.
“I’ve given you all months to adjust to my absence. You seem to have dealt well enough with life without me. Now, stop arguing and allow us all to get what we want.” Dawn makes a soft noise of protest, muscles jumping in that way they do when she’s about to dive into trouble headfirst, make some big, stupid heroic sacrifice. And Seb’s heart clenches because he couldn’t take that. He couldn’t take it if he was on the other side of this, if Dawn started looking at him with blank eyes, like he barely existed.
Assuming he'd be Dawn's sacrifice.
“I want this freedom, Dawn. I want to leave this town in the dust and never look back. Do you understand?”
Dawn just stares, but when Pete turns back to the witch, she doesn’t move to stop him.
“Now, I want it to be them, you understand me? I don’t want to find myself giving up my cleansing regime or turning into a clumsy-tongued simpleton.”
“That won’t be a problem.”
“And the boy?”
“Your sacrifice will replace his. He will be as he was before he surrendered it, as he is now.”
Dawn’s breaths are coming out sharp and fast. The witch starts to lift her hand and she spits out sharply, “Pete.”
The witch pauses, Pete turns. Dawn’s still gripping Seb like a lifeline, but he shifts slightly in his grip, nervous and unsure. Her mouth opens, closes, before:
“I forgive you.”
Pete’s brows go up.
“I don’t know if it’s even possible for you to mean that, but I appreciate the sentiment. I’ll treasure it fondly for the next several seconds.”
He turns expectantly back to the witch, and she lifts a hand.
.-
Pete’s gone ten minutes later. Though as adamant as he was to leave the town behind him forever, Seb thinks he’ll probably veto any attempts to contact the man again.
He’s Dawn’s boyfriend. Dawn is his girlfriend. And that thought’s never going to stop bringing a dopey grin to his face, and he’s 100% okay with that.
He changes all of his passwords to “Dawn” because he knows it would make Pete’s eyes roll. They spend lazy afternoons lounging in each others’ arms, and way too many nights making out in Seb’s Jeep even though they’ve got a perfectly good loft handy. And when they tell his parents, just a few days after everything, he just sighs, says “it’s about time” and drags Dawn away for long, private talk that Dawn comes out of looking more flattered than anything.
And they’re in love. With each other. At the same time. And they both know about it.
And enemies attack and werewolves try to take the town but…
They have each other.
Basically, things are perfect.
.-
“You know, this town only still exists because of two people’s love for you.”
Which is pretty awesome, all things considered. Physical proof, no way Dawn can deny it.
Dawn’s eyes are soft and light as she leans in to brush their lips together.
“Mine would hold the state together.”
“Yeah? How about the country?”
Dawn's lips go to his ear, hands heavy on his hips.
“The world, Seb. For you.”
And Seb smothers a grin in a long and slow kiss, promises of forever neither of them know if they can keep... but they both intend to try.
“Let's just hold the world in one piece together.”
Dawn smiles.
"Fair enough."
Because some things have too high a price.