For my precious Ink –

You've saved me from the shadows,

More times than I can count.

I love you.

1: Before and Now

The wind raced through the tree lined avenue, dragging with it last month's newspapers; bold headlines shrieking the words made to tear people down, destroying everything.

Sebastian Grey paid no mind to the wind or the newspapers, focusing on going home and studying. Studying was good, mind-numbingly easy. Unfortunately, not as distracting as one would have hoped. His now non-existent social life had quickly led to "outstanding" grades, which were particularly easy when you had nothing better to do than read ahead in the textbook and one had gone from extended classes to applied work in a year. His parent's had "suggested" it, not wanting to "stress" him out after the last few "traumatic" months.

With a sigh, Sebastian kicked the doormat, picking up the mail as he walked to the door. Before, Sebastian was never home in time to pick up the mail. Now, Sebastian stood at the door to his pristine suburban house and flicked through the mail until a letter caught his eye.

It was a rather crumpled envelope. An envelope with suspiciously familiar spiky cursive scrawled across its face. This scrawl was easily identified by Sebastian as his boyfriend's scribble. There was one slight problem. The letter was addressed to Sebastian's parents.

His mother and father had told him some months ago that they had been receiving letters from Jesse (Sebastian had been writing to Jesse too, but his parents hadn't {and still weren't} aware of that fact). Fearing it would reopen old wounds, they didn't let him read them, but they hadn't told him that Jesse was writing to them too. Said boyfriend—well, ex-boyfriend as far as his parents were concerned—was in a land far, far away.

Questions and confusion now tumbled through Sebastian's head, like ash caught in the wind. Questions such as why is Jesse writing to my parents? and why haven't they told me about this? Sebastian's parents always told him the truth, they liked to believe it fostered trust, but here was evidence that they obviously weren't telling him everything.

Ever since Sebastian could remember he'd known where babies came from and the answer to the question that all parents are loath to hear, Mummy, why is that animal not moving? Well, any trust that Sebastian had with his parents vanished in a puff of smoke. They knew how important Jesse had been (and still was) to him. The barely healed scars on his arms were only testament to that fact. And still they withheld information. Instantly Sebastian's confusion was replaced with a fiery anger.

How could they hide this from me? Sebastian raged, do they just not give a shit about my feelings anymore? With a growl Sebastian fumbled with his ring of keys, jamming the shiniest one into the lock and stalking into the front hall of his house, dropping the rest of the mail on the stand. Sebastian stormed up to his room, slamming his door and slumping on his bed, the crumpled envelope held in shaking hands. There was no point trying to fool his parent's into thinking he hadn't seen it when he stepped over the 'Welcome' mat, so it was time for Sebastian to start keeping some secrets of his own.

Sebastian quickly tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter, skimming over the lines of familiar handwriting, before throwing it down in disgust. Nothing of interest, just Jesse's apologies and explanations with a few scathing remarks here and there. Sebastian knew his parents were worried about him, and would be even more worried that he had read Jesse's letter, but Jesse and Sebastian both knew that the only reason Sebastian would be having any trouble would be a result of Jesse leaving him being sent away. His parents were stupid.

Sebastian sighed and stood up, grabbing his cigarettes and matches from their hiding place, lighting up with a cupped hand. Sebastian stalked over to his window and exhaled a plume of smoke into the icy winter air. After he finished smoking the last dregs, Sebastian stubbed it out on his scarred windowsill. Sebastian turned and tossed the now extinguished cigarette into a zip lock bag filled with the remnants of other now illicit pleasures.

Before the whole incident that resulted in the discovery of their not-so-innocent interests, Sebastian and Jesse would spend the quiet evenings up here while his parents were out working, smoking cigarette after cigarette, occasionally indulging in more dangerous pastimes. After Jesse had been taken away all fun was forbidden.

Sebastian collapsed back onto his bed rummaging in the gap between his bed and the wall, before removing two small notebooks. They both appeared identical, black and leather bound. Appearances were deceiving. The book that Sebastian wanted was the book that held all the secrets. The other book held secrets too, just not ones Sebastian wanted to remember. Lies, they were all lies, scaryterrifyinglies he had made up to scare himself.

Secrets Lies that Sebastian liked to keep hidden away in the dark recesses of his mind.

Sebastian pried open the fragile book, slowly rereading the journal he had read time and time again. He probably had it memorised by now, but reading the familiar words in the familiar scribble bought back memories. The good ones. The book kept secret all their adventures, the completed acts and all the ones that were yet to come. Everything was dated, plans drawn, what they needed, how they would do it, when they would do it. What these coldly drawn out plans didn't, couldn't, explain was the emotions that came with the completion of the act. How good it felt.

There was one entry in the book that Sebastian didn't want to couldn't look at. The last plan. The plan to end all other plans. The half complete plan. The plan that took Jesse away.

The sound of the front door slamming caused Sebastian to jump, tossing the books under his bed again. He quickly poked his head out of his door.

"I'm home!" came the warm cry of his mother. She walked up the stairs, still dressed in her work clothes to come and give Sebastian a hug and a dry kiss on his cheek. This hadn't been a part of their daily routine until a few months ago, when Doctor Lindale (Call me Marie, please, she always insisted. Sebastian was yet to comply) had suggested to his parents that it was a good idea to try and "reconnect" with Sebastian and illustrate "positive attitudes". The result had been one parent arriving home from work earlier, fake smiles and Small Talk. Sebastian hated this idea, but grudgingly put up with it for his parents sake. The small freedoms he got from reassuring his parents of his wellbeing were almost worth the pain of having to see them every day.

"How was your day?" his mother asked, keeping up the Good Mother act.

"Boring." Sebastian grumbled. School was definitely a waste of time; especially when teachers had to waste their time teaching people what a quadratic and the black plague were. They were in their penultimate year of school for fuck's sake! Sebastian didn't even know how half his year had managed to last this long.

His mother nodded and gave him a sympathetic smile and another gentle hug, before heading back downstairs.

"Dinner's in two hours!" she called up at him, thankfully out of earshot of his not-so-pleasant reply. Yet another change instigated by the Irritating Doctor. Before, dinner involved Jesse (before, everything involved Jesse), a cocktail of alcohol and drugs, along with the occasional order to a fast food outlet, eaten in a tangle of limbs on the couch.

Now, dinner involved home cooked meals eaten in awkward silence around a dinner table. Now the only drugs involved were the ones that were supposed to stop Sebastian going crazy. He didn't think they were working.

A/N: Fiction Press is a pain for not uploading my strikethroughs, so you lose some of my epicness. Words after strikethroughs are now bolded so you get my emphasis.

Obsessive fact: My USB is name Verity. Nia is busy relapsing again, so if I get pissed with you, I'm sure I don't mean it, please forgive me, my brain is turning to shit.