Chapter Text
“Guys, we need to play a game!” Seb hears someone say, and then sees Carlos look over at him with fear in his eyes. Sleepover games tend to get into very uncharted territory uncomfortably fast, especially when everyone in the group is drunk off of soda and pizza, sitting in someone’s family’s basement at nearly midnight. It’s just not a good combination, Seb finally realizes. He’s done enough of these sleepover things to come to realize this.
Carlos seems to agree with him, if the look in eyes are anything to go off of.
“Of course we do! Can we play truth or dare?” Someone else cries, and Seb feels someone next to him shift around on their makeshift-ten-person-bed-on-the-floor. Seb groans.
“Come on, guys, we’re not in middle school anymore! Can we play something else? What about...seven minutes in Heaven?” Seb swears he hears half of the group groan at that idea, too.
There’s a small lull in the conversation, and then someone finally speaks up, as if a saving grace. “Never have I ever!”
Seb shifts around, and he observes the group. Everyone seems to enjoy that suggestion, if the mood shift is any indication. A few people are laying on their respective sleeping bags, some are cuddling—Howie and Big Red, but what’s new?—are cuddling together, and others are sitting up properly, waiting for the game to start.
Not too long later, Nini is the first person to speak. “Okay, guys! Let’s start with some rules—everyone has to hold up both hands. When it gets to your turn, you say something you’ve never done before people, and whoever in the group has done that thing puts a finger down. You have ten chances to have...not done those things. First person with all of their fingers down loses—or wins, I don’t really know. Who wants to go first?”
E.J. jumps at the chance. “Never have I ever gotten drunk!” He shouts immediately, and Ricky looks across at him, a stunned look on his face.
“No way E.J.’s never gotten drunk before.”
E.J. pauses. “Wait, it has to be something I’ve never done?”
A few people groan, but Seb only laughs to himself. Of course E.J. would mess it up, first round. Of course. “Didn’t you listen to Nini explain the rules?”
“Seb, I didn’t need that sass,” says E.J., looking over at Seb as soon as he finishes speaking. “And yes, I was listening. Fine—never have I ever not gotten drunk before.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I think it’d be, like, put a finger down if you’ve never been drunk?”
A couple of people—including only Ashlyn and Seb—groan, and put a finger down. They’ve all been to the theatre group’s parties before—and, honestly, seeing some of these people drunk can be really funny—but it’s not really either of their thing, which is fine. None of the older kids in the group have ever forced either of them to do anything they don't want to.
Seb’s mostly just mad he has to put a finger down already.
“Your turn, Ricky,” someone says, pointing at Ricky, sitting right next to E.J..
Ricky ponders for a moment, looking at his ten fingers all still proudly up. “Never have I ever...been part of the ensemble in a show,” he says, and everybody in the group—aside from Howie and Red—puts a finger down. A few people groan and complain about how that’s completely unfair, but Ricky just shrugs it off. Not his problem. Ricky’s smirking. E.J., right beside Ricky, hits his chest. Ricky laughs.
“Not everyone is as secretly talented and charismatic and hot as you are, Ricky!”
Kourtney yells in opposition, “Ricky’s not hot!”
“Who’s next?”
“I’ll go,” says Red, and Seb quickly looks over at him. “Never have I ever…” he starts, and Seb watches him look around the room idly, trying to come up with what he’s going to say. He sees Red pause on Carlos—more specially on Carlos’s hands and dark nails—and then starts again, “Painted my nails!”
Seb’s heart drops. He sees all of the girls complain about putting their fingers down, and then looks at Carlos whose jaw is dropped in mock-offence. Everyone’s laughing at his reaction. “I can’t believe you’d do this to me, Red. I’m next—never have I ever had red hair!”
Red rolls his eyes back at Carlos, putting down his first finger.
“Wait, Red, you’ve never had your nails painted?” Says Ashlyn from across the circle. “I swear I’ve painted your nails before.”
“You’ve never done that,” he says, shaking his head.
“Ricky, come on, put a finger down. I’ve definitely done your nails before, too,” Nini says, and Ricky rolls his eyes, putting down his first finger as well.
“It’s a crime that E.J. and Howie both have never had their nails done. Can we change this tonight?” Says Gina, shooting a hand across the circle to point at the two boys mentioned, her mouth agape. “Does anyone have nail polish?”
“I’m good, Gina,” E.J. assures, groaning slightly. “I really don’t need my nails done.”
“Me too—”
A few girls—and Carlos—groan. “It’ll be fun!”
“Wait, Seb, you’ve never done your nails either?” Someone asks, and Seb whips his head over to the sound, his eyes wide. He quickly makes sure to drop the shock, though, because he doesn’t really want to be suspicious about it.
He can’t tell anybody. He doesn’t want to tell anyone about how he’s done it so many times before, how he used to paint them clear nearly every day when he was, like, ten years old. How he once tried to paint them for the last time, over three years ago, and then dropped the bottle into the sink, shattering the glass and spilling both the polish and the secret to his mother. That’s a memory he’d rather forget, and he tries his best not to think about it as much as he possibly can.
He and his mom haven’t talked about it since. He doesn’t want to, frankly, so he’s fine with it.
“No,” he says, but maybe it’s a bit too fast, a bit too defensive. He really hopes not.
“Why did nobody do them for you for Sharpay? Her white nail polish was kind of iconic,” Carlos says, looking over at Seb, his eyes narrowed slightly.
“I don’t know.”
“I have a bunch of nail polish of my mom’s upstairs. I’ll go get it and bring it down. Boys, we’re doing all of your nails!”
True to her words, Ashlyn runs upstairs and grabs her mom’s nail polish collection, bringing it downstairs and back to the group only a few moments later. Seb knows his face is probably completely drained of colour at this point, and he doesn’t want to do this—but he doesn’t want to tell them all what’s happened with him and nail polish even more, so...he has to.
Kourtney gets the chance to do Seb’s nails as soon as Ashlyn comes back downstairs, and soon after, they quit the game they were previously playing, opting rather to idly chat about whatever comes to mind while the girls are in concentration.
“What colour do you want, Seb?” Kourtney asks, looking to the basket sitting in the middle of the circle. There’s many different pairings breaking off around the room, and Seb’s actually pretty glad he got Kourtney out of anyone he could’ve gotten—especially Carlos. Carlos scares the hell out of him sometimes—no matter how big of a crush Seb (secretly—very secretly) has on him—and he’s really not sure if he’d be able to sit still for as long as it’d take him to sufficiently paint all of Seb’s nails. He’d be shaking way too much!
Maroon, maybe, he thinks, deep down in his mind, but he doesn’t say it out loud. He can’t do that. “Choose for me.”
Kourtney leans over, accidentally falling down onto one of the sleeping bags they’re sitting on, and Nini gasps at her friend, nearly tipping over Nini’s bottle sitting on the floor right next to her. “Careful, Kourt!”
“Sorry,” she says quickly, and grabs a random bottle from the basket without even looking at the colour. “You get a random colour. Hope you like it.”
She ends up grabbing a bright red bottle of nail polish, and Seb’s shoulders slump slightly. He had half-wished that she’d just grab an ugly colour—like orange or something—so Seb doesn’t deep-down want it as much, but it’s a really pretty colour—very Marilyn Monroe-esque—and his heart soars a bit as he sees it. He doesn’t want to like it as much as he knows he will. Maybe avoiding looking at it would help.
“Is it able to come off quickly?” He asks once Kourtney’s situated in front of him, the bottle already being uncapped in her hand.
“It usually takes a couple weeks for it to all chip off,” she says, shrugging. “Why? Do you not want to go to school with it on?” She asks hesitantly.
Seb’s eyes flicker up to Kourtney’s, and he feels like all of it is silently explained in their short moment of eye contact. “I mean...it’s not really the best to have on when you work on a farm. Chipping and stuff?” He lies, though, even if he’s sure she probably knows she got it partially right with her first guess, anyways.
“Fair enough,” she says, and then grabs both of Seb’s hands. She sets to work.
“Guys,” someone says once most of the girls have fallen quiet into concentration. “It’s way too quiet for this group.”
“Does anyone have any music to play?”
“I do!” Ricky shouts quickly, and then gets reprimanded by Nini for moving too fast and smudging her polish. “Can someone grab my phone? We can play some Jackson 5.”
Seb sees Nini reach over and grab his phone, and she enters his passcode. They’re really close for, well…
Exes, he supposes. He thinks they work good as best friends, though, too.
She starts to play his music quietly, setting his phone in the centre of the makeshift-bed. It fills the silence.
“Guys, let's go around! Who does everyone like?” Someone says, and Seb’s hands flinch a bit once he hears it. Kourtney grabs his hand a bit more firmly, as if to tell him not to do that again.
Does this really have to happen?
“What, are we in sixth grade or something?”
“Come on, it’s fun! We’ve all been too preoccupied with the show to actually talk to one another, and now it’s finally over!”
“I like Howie!” Says Red excitedly, and Seb sees Howie look over to Red with this look in his eyes. They’re stupidly cute. E.J. and Carlos both fake-coo at them.
“I like Red!”
“There’s a really cute guy in my Calc class, and I don’t think I know his name, but I just know we’re going to get married someday,” says Kourtney, and Seb looks up at her, giving her a small, knowing smile. “Oh, don’t look at me like that! If you saw him, Seb, I think you’d think he’s hella cute, too.”
“I doubt it,” he says defensively, rolling his eyes. “I don’t like anybody.”
Kourtney snorts. “As if.”
“I don’t!”
“Seb, with all due respect,” Carlos says from across the room, “I don’t think anybody believes you.”
Seb frowns. “Why not?” He looks away from Kourtney still working on his fingers up to Carlos, painting one of E.J.'s hands. He’s not even looking at Seb.
“You’re, like, kind of in love with everybody,” E.J. points out, and he hears a few people laugh and hum in agreement. “Like, how excited are you for Valentine’s Day?”
“I guess there’s...maybe this one girl,” Seb starts after a moment of silence, of contemplation, continuing to look behind Kourtney’s shoulder to Carlos. He doesn’t know why he needs this dumb boys approval so bad. “In a few of my classes, and, um, she was in theatre.”
Nearly everyone who wasn’t paying attention to the small exchange before is now, especially with the addition of Seb saying she’s in theatre. God, he’s fucked up, hasn’t he?
“Really?” Says Carlos, above everyone else, from across the floor.
Seb's heart sinks. “Uh, sort of?”
“Who?”
“Obviously I’m not going to tell,” says Seb finally, rolling his eyes. Kourtney giggles quietly to herself.
“Will you tell me?” She whispers, and someone yells about how sucky the new song is, rushing to change it immediately.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s…”
“New?”
A boy. “Sure, we’ll go with that,” Seb says, and he sort of starts to feel that icky feeling you get when you lie to someone really important—or, rather, a huge group of really important people. He doesn’t like this, but, God, he knows he’d hate telling everyone it’s Carlos even more.
Kourtney only hums. He feels like she knows more than she should.
Moments pass in comfortable silence within the room before someone finally speaks up again. “This is kind of therapeutic.”
“But it also smells like ass in here, so is there a window we can open?”
“Sure, I’ll go open one.”
Now that the basement has all of the windows open, it’s gotten sufficiently more cold—thanks to the fact that it’s the middle of winter in Utah!—which equals more blankets, less drying time and a spilled bottle of niall polish. Seb sees it fall, and he stays quiet the whole time. This whole situation that’s going on is...kind of a lot to deal with. That godforsaken day had been repressed into the darkest depths of his mind for so long, and now, all at once, it’s being brought to the forefront once again. This sucks.
“Can we see everyone’s nails yet? Is everyone done?” Nini asks after the group has split into smaller groups, waiting for the boys nails to finally finish drying. Seb’s been quiet nearly the whole time, trying his best to simply concentrate on anything but his nails. It’s proving to be more difficult than he’d expected. A few people from the crowd hums in agreement once again, and everyone shifts so they’re sitting in a big circle on the floor of blankets, waiting for the boys to show off their new nails.
“Well, since nobody wants to go first, these are mine,” Carlos starts jokingly, waving his fingers at everyone in the middle of the circle.
“Cheater,” Gina says. “You already had yours done.”
“I know, but they’re good, so why shouldn’t I show them off?”
Seb cracks a smile.
“I think we should start with Seb, ‘cause he’s smiling to himself like a crazy person,” Carlos says after a moment of quiet. Seb’s eyes quickly widen and shoot up to meet the boys.
Kourtney lightly nudges Seb from his left, and he just about nudges her back, but he doesn’t want to seem too suspicious. Clearly she knows something Seb didn’t think she would—or should. That thought makes him ever-so-slightly ill to the stomach. “I am not.”
“Show us!” Nini says excitedly, motioning to his hands. “Kourt is amazing at everything beautiful.”
Seb raises his now-dry hands from his lap, the fluorescent, yellowing lights—as if decaying —shimmering off of the bright red, shiny polish finish. A couple girls commend Kourtney for how good they look, and someone else mentions about how Seb has really good nails. He shrugs and pulls them back into his lap as soon as they’re finished.
The rest of the group goes by in a blur, and before Seb really knows it, everyone’s rearranging themselves on the floor to watch a film on the small television provided in Ashlyn’s basement. It’s nearly eleven already, and Seb sort of wonders how the time has gone by so fast. Soon enough, it’ll be time to sleep and then wake up, and he’ll be able to go home. He loves his friends, really, and he adores spending time with them all together like this, but this event has quickly taken a very sharp turn for the worst.
God, he doesn’t even know why it’s affecting him so much. Because he’s scared? Because he doesn’t want to be...different? Different from who? From nearly half—at least—of the group surrounding him right now?
It’s not even like he ever used to be against doing his nails—like, obviously he never was, and he still loves the idea of getting to do it to this day—but he really doesn’t want to face what that really means for him. He’s not even taking into consideration the fact that he totally likes Carlos, too.
“I hope everyone’s fine with horror films,” one of the girls says, and when nobody makes any direct opposition to her, she picks a random film—some old Stephen King one that Ashlyn had sitting in a CD case on the television stand. It starts momentarily, and Seb, out of the corner of his eye, notices Red get up to go shut the lights off.
Somehow, Carlos and Seb ended up sitting right next to each other, and Seb, over the course of the next two films, ended up becoming very familiar with two very present facts: Carlos doesn’t like horror films at all, and he loves to cuddle into whoever he can when he’s scared.
In short, the night was spent with Seb’s heart racing nearly the entire time, but not from the jumpscares and profuse amounts of blood on the screen.
After the second horror film ended, it’s well past two in the morning and nearly everyone—including Carlos—has started to finally fall asleep. Seb doesn’t, though, and can’t.
Seb grabs his phone after God-knows-how-long of sitting and staring off into the darkness of this basement filled with his friends and turns it on, glaring at the bright light from the screen, then looking at the time. God, it’s already almost three?
He can see his red nails from the corner of his eyes as he lowers the brightness on his phone. He sort of wants to pick it all away until there’s none left.
“Seb? Is that you awake?” He jumps slightly, shutting his phone off and letting it fall to his chest.
“Uh huh,” he says softly, squinting through the darkness to try and see where Kourtney is. “Where are you?”
“Over here,” she says, turning her phone on. Seb spots her immediately. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” he whispers. “I just haven’t gotten to sleep yet.”
“I mean, like, are you alright? You acted weird the whole night.”
Seb rolls his eyes, even if she can’t see it. “Is anyone else even up right now?” He asks, and he’s met with absolute silence. If anybody is, they’re not speaking. “Why are you up?”
“The truth?”
“Obviously, yeah.”
“The movies sort of freaked me out,” she admits carefully, quietly. “I didn’t want to oppose anyone who was excited to watch them tonight, but I kind of hate horror movies.”
Seb chuckles quietly. “Carlos too, apparently.”
“Right, uh huh,” she says slowly, turning her phone on again so Seb can see her face. She doesn’t look very impressed. “Y’all were cuddling the whole night.”
Seb frowns. She had noticed? “He was scared, I guess?”
“You like him, don’t you?”
Seb’s heart misses a beat, as if it had just forgotten how to work for a moment. Why had she just said that—in this room full of people?! How had she even figured it out? Did she really not buy the theatre crush thing?
“The truth.” She says finally.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kourt.”
“Seb,” she says, her voice clipped, hushed. “Do I have to spill another one of my secrets to get you to tell me the truth? I really thought the horror movie thing would be enough.”
Seb sighs. “Okay, okay, fine. You’re lucky it’s so early and that I’m not thinking right.” He says, pausing. He sort of wishes these blankets would consume him entirely. “Maybe a bit, but, like, nothing significant. Honest.”
Kourtney doesn’t say anything for a moment. His heart races. He’s never told anybody this before, and, sure, there’s a couple of queer people within this group, but…
But this is all completely new territory for him. He tries not to think about all of this as much as he can in his day to day life.
“Liar. You’re super whipped, Sebby.”
“I—shut up!”
“And about that theatre girl…”
“Un...she doesn’t exist? I kind of figured you’d already figured that out…?”
“I definitely did, yeah. You’re not slick, dude.” She says, and both of them laugh quietly. “But, uh, what about the whole nail polish thing? Is this why you were all weird about it? Because I know…I know how you feel, Seb, I know how you felt with Sharpay. I thought it was a bit uncharacteristic of you to be so against someone doing your nails. Don’t you remember what you told me that day at the theatre? I didn’t figure you’d told anybody else that.”
Seb’s heart races once again.
He didn’t ever figure he’d have to tell somebody this. He thought he’d be able to go his entire life without having to bring back that shitty, god-awful memory of his mother catching him with nail polish on and him stuffing his hand into his shirt.
“I don’t think anyone else is awake, Sebby.”
“I do remember, and it all still stands, what I said. I…I felt really good with Sharpay. I’ve never told anyone what I told you, even if it probably didn’t seem like a really big deal. It definitely was to me,” Seb says tentatively, quietly, and Kourtney hums. “Uh, and it doesn’t, not really. Or...maybe, kind of? I’m not really sure yet…” he trails off, shifting around in his sleeping bag uncomfortably. Finally, he gives up and sits up like Kourtney. He sighs. “I—fine. Okay. I used to paint them all the time. A couple of years ago, my family came home really early one day when I had decided I was going to paint them a really noticeable colour, unlike usual, and I accidentally dropped the bottle into the sink when I freaked out hearing them, and it shattered and spilled everywhere. I still haven’t talked to my mom about it since that day. I think it traumatized me a little bit.”
Kourtney turns her phone on, and then turns on her flashlight. “You’ve never told anyone any of that?”
Seb only shakes his head and squints at the flashlight shining out at him. “I haven’t, no. And today…”
“I’m sorry if we pressured you to do something you’re not comfortable with doing anymore. I can probably look around and find some rubbing alcohol if you want?”
“I’m good. Maybe it’ll be good for me.” He says, shrugging silently. He ponders a moment. “I think it was the first thing that I discovered I could do that really made me feel like myself. And then Sharpay, and her costume, and your makeup…”
“You feel more at home with yourself that way?”
Seb smiles to himself a little bit, and looks down at his lap. He sees his fingernails shimmer underneath Kourtney’s phone flashlight. He does sort of feel at home. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Why haven’t you told anyone about the makeup thing?”
“I don’t know,” Seb replies honestly. “I don’t know why I’ve never talked about it before. It’s just a weird thing to talk about, I guess.”
“Why?” Kourtney asks.
Because he’s a boy, and boys aren’t meant to like makeup? Because there’s rules? “I’m a boy, I guess,” he says finally. “And boys have rules, just like girls do, but, like, more? Or—it’s more severe if you break them.”
“Maybe you’re not a boy, then.”
Seb shrugs. Sure, maybe his mind has wandered there once or twice, but he really didn’t think so. “I don’t think I’m a girl.”
“You don’t have to be either,” Kourtney says. She opens her phone, and the flashlight turns off for a moment. “Like, maybe you’re non-binary or something. In that case, there’s really no rules.” She turns the flashlight back on, and Seb’s not looking at her anymore. “I get it, though,” Kourtney says finally, after she realizes Seb probably isn’t going to respond. “But nobody here would care about the rules, whatever you are or decide to like. Do you think Carlos does, care about stupid rules?”
“I…I guess not. I’d never really thought about it like that.”
“It might explain why you care so much about the rules. It doesn’t have to, but it might.”
“I’ll think about it. I promise you’ll be the first I’ll let know.”
Kourtney hums. “I’m glad you trust me, Sebby.”
“I’m glad you listen so well to me.”
“That was adorable, but what the fuck is that flashlight still on for? You turned if off before and I had hope for a moment—like, guys, it’s way too early for this,” Ricky grumbles sleepily, and both Kourtney and Seb burst out laughing.
“Okay, grumpy! We’ll try to go to sleep. I was just scared by the movie...”
“I didn’t hear any of that, by the way, Seb. Or—I mean, I’ll keep it to myself. Scout’s promise, or whatever?”
“I sincerely hope you weren’t awake the whole time…”
“Sorry, dude. What’s the mashup name?”