Sebastian silently slid into his seat in the dining room, warming his icy hands on his fifth mug of coffee of the day and groaned when he saw how the table was set out. His day had definitely taken yet another turn for the worse. Amelia was home for dinner.

His parents had the Perfect Daughter. The Perfect HouseJobLife.

Before, Sebastian had been the Perfect Son. Before he turned 15, 16, 17. Before, he did extended classes, got Perfect Grades and was Perfectly Behaved. Now, he was the Not So Perfect Son. Now, he did applied classes (he still got Perfect Grades, but it was applied classes, so it didn't really count), opened up his skin with blades and ate too many pills. Don't even get them started on the fact that he liked the Wrong Gender. (But for the sake of their image his parents had to be Understanding and Accepting.) All these things added up to one Not So Perfect Son.

The Perfect Daughter was two years older than the Not So Perfect Son, doing the Perfect Parents' dream degree, medicine. She also had the Perfect Boyfriend, doing the other perfect degree, law. Luckily for Not So Perfect Son, it didn't appear as if Perfect Boyfriend was coming tonight. Perfect Boyfriend had a habit of enquiring into Not So Perfect Son's life. Or lack of.

Sebastian slumped into his allocated seat and resigned himself to yet another painful dinner. (In Sebastian's opinion, all dinner was painful; particularly the ones where he was expected to eat Actual Food.) Dinner was served, and yet another idea incorporated into Sebastian's life by the Irritating Doctor, meant that unfortunately dinner wasn't eaten in silence as it used to be. Now it involved the dreaded Small Talk. It was apparent that his parents didn't really enjoy this change either, but as they were the Perfect Family the doctor's suggestions had become law. This meant the questions were always the same, in the same order and completed right at the beginning of dinner so that his parents didn't have to suffer.

Parent of the Evening: So, how was your day?

Not So Perfect Son: Fine.

Parent of the Evening: Did you learn anything at school? (Or, if it was the weekend) Did you go out?

Not So Perfect Son: Shrug and stare at table. Yeah. (Or, if it was the weekend) No.

Parent of the Evening: Do you need any help with your homework?

Not So Perfect Son: No, it's fine.

Parent of the Evening: That's good to hear.

Parent of the Evening: Return to eating, intersperse with generic questions at other spouse, finish eating and leave.

Lights fade out, curtain close. No applause.

This dinner was much the same, only there were more questions, fortunately aimed at Amelia, who was delighted to answer them. Sebastian ignored both questions and answers, finished enough of the Actual Foodthat his parents wouldn't protest, returned his plate to the kitchen, made another cup of coffee and returned to his room and stared blankly at his wall. Blank walls were excellent for staring at and had mind-numbing powers. A numb mind was just what Sebastian was after.

Unfortunately the mind-numbing Wall Staring was interrupted by the opening of his door and turning on of the light. Sebastian groaned and covered his eyes, silently cursing the door-opener. Eventually Sebastian's eyes adjusted to the light and Sebastian found himself staring into the face of his elder sister. She still had the same brown eyes and brown hair, but had managed to collect some freckles since her last visit, Sebastian noted. Sebastian blinked owlishly at her too close face and waited for her to get to whatever it was that she wanted.

"You're killing them you know, you're so fucking selfish," Amelia announced.

Sebastian blinked, surprised. He had expected some kind of rebuke, but not one so harsh, not from the Perfect Daughter. Amelia appeared to be waiting for a response, but Sebastian didn't have one. That only seemed to anger her more.

"Just get over him, you're only seventeen, it's not like there aren't other guys out there." Again, Sebastian just blinked. Amelia glared. Sebastian returned to his wall staring. Amelia harrumphed in frustration and stormed out. Intervention over.

Wall Staring continued, eventually eliciting unwanted thoughts. Thoughts of Jesse and before and what now would be like if everything had gone the way it was supposed to. Of Max. Of what He Did and what happened After. When Sebastian realized he was thinking about exactly what he didn't want to be thinking about, he reached into his cupboard and took out a well-kept secret and used that to numb his thoughts. The Irritating Doctor said that the drugs (she was talking about the Prescribed Ones) were supposed to help with the unwanted thoughts, prevent them from becoming overwhelming (life was overwhelming) and that one day he would be knew the best he could ever hope for was numb (the Non-Prescribed Ones helped with that). Hoping for anything more was just plain stupid.

A/N: Chapters are a bit shorter after the first one, but I'm trying to make them longer for you guys. Obsessive fact: I write only in Calibri font, size 10, line spacing at zero and zoom at 100%. Not happy with this chapter, feels a bit filler-ish to me. Help?