The knock came just as the sun dipped below the tree line.
Sebastian glanced up from the motel bed, where his legs were tangled in a too-thin blanket and a bag of trail mix rested on his chest like some kind of sad consolation prize. The room still smelled faintly of bleach and mothballs, with that undercurrent of mildew every cheap roadside motel managed to ferment into permanence.
Another knock. Two this time.
Polite. Rhythmic. Not urgent.
Not hostile either.
He considered pretending not to be here. Then sighed, shoved the trail mix aside, and rolled off the bed. The floor creaked beneath his bare feet as he padded toward the door.
When he opened it, Carlisle Cullen was standing there in a dark coat and an expression too careful to be casual.
Sebastian blinked.
"Either I forgot a dentist appointment, or you're really scraping the barrel for house calls."
Carlisle smiled faintly. "I don't think you've ever seen a dentist in your life."
"Touché."
Sebastian stepped aside without being asked, and Carlisle entered like someone who'd done this a hundred times but didn't want to presume. His gaze swept the room, not judging, exactly. Just observing. Like a doctor cataloguing symptoms he didn't yet have a name for.
"You sleep here?" he asked after a moment.
Sebastian flopped onto the bed again, arms folded behind his head. "Define sleep."
Carlisle didn't laugh, but the corners of his mouth twitched. "Seriously," Sebastian said, watching him from across the room. "What brings you to the kingdom of peeling wallpaper and questionable stains? I didn't think vampires did welfare checks."
"I heard about the altercation."
Sebastian raised a brow. "Wow. Word travels fast in Forks. I didn't realize the supernatural rumor mill had push notifications."
Carlisle stepped closer, his expression gentling. "Was anyone hurt?"
Sebastian tilted his head, mock-thinking. "Well, I may have damaged a bush. And possibly the self-esteem of one very dramatic bloodsucker."
Carlisle gave him a look. Not stern, but not indulgent either. Sebastian's smirk faded a touch. "I'm fine. He was barely a threat. Just one of those roaming loners trying to look intimidating with his 18th-century thrift store aesthetic. It was… annoying."
"Still," Carlisle said quietly, "it was dangerous."
"Danger is relative," Sebastian replied. "To you, it's a newborn with bloodlust. To me, it's emotional vulnerability and motel breakfast sausages."
Carlisle sat in the single cracked vinyl chair by the window. It groaned under his weight but held.
"I wanted to ask you something," he said.
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. "This your version of truth or dare?"
"It's about your power."
Sebastian groaned, throwing an arm over his face. "Of course it is."
Carlisle was silent, waiting.
Eventually, Sebastian peeked at him through his fingers. "You're not going to leave until I cooperate, are you?"
"No."
"Figures."
He sat up and swung his legs off the bed. "What do you want to know? I can bend gravity. Fold dimensions. Give vampires a gentle concussion if they jump me in the woods. It's not exactly classified."
"I'm not interested in surveillance," Carlisle said gently. "I'm interested in understanding. You clearly have control. But you use it like a blunt instrument."
Sebastian narrowed his eyes. "And you want me to… what? Give you a demonstration? I'm not a science fair project."
"No," Carlisle said. "But I do think you're holding back. On purpose."
The words hung in the stale air for a beat.
Sebastian leaned back again, eyes on the ceiling. "It's not that I'm holding back," he said eventually. "It's that when I don't, things break. People break."
Carlisle's voice was soft. "You've hurt someone before."
Sebastian didn't answer. Didn't nod. Didn't shake his head. Just stared at the ceiling like it had answers.
Then, almost too quiet to hear: "Not always by accident."
Carlisle didn't flinch.
That, more than anything, made Sebastian sit up again.
"You're not afraid of me."
"No," Carlisle said simply.
"Why not?"
"Because I've seen monsters," Carlisle said. "And you're not one."
Sebastian laughed once. Sharp. Unbelieving. "You don't know that."
"I know you ask permission before using your strength. Even when you don't need to. I know you treat a broken vampire like a therapist instead of a target. And I know you're scared of how much you care about someone you've barely met."
Sebastian stilled.
Carlisle's gaze didn't waver. "So no, I don't think you're a monster. I think you're someone who's trying very hard not to become one."
Sebastian was quiet for a long time.
Then: "That's a hell of a leap for someone who just met me."
"I have good instincts," Carlisle said. "And several hundred years of practice."
Sebastian looked at his hands.
He flexed them once. The air in the room shifted, just barely, like it was denser, slightly off-center.
"I could show you something," he said.
Carlisle didn't move, but something in his posture changed. "If you want to."
Sebastian stood, moved to the center of the room, and closed his eyes.
A hum started, not sound, exactly. More like pressure. Like the atmosphere recalibrating.
The lamps flickered. The shadows in the corners of the room lengthened, then bent slightly, not toward him, but around him. Like they were orbiting something they couldn't define.
Carlisle didn't breathe.
Then Sebastian opened his eyes, and the motel room was gone.
They were somewhere else.
Or maybe not a place at all, more like a pocket of reality folded in on itself. The space was both vast and narrow, starlit and dark. The laws of physics felt optional here. The air shimmered. Time slowed.
Carlisle stood, astonished.
"This is…"
"Mine," Sebastian said quietly. "My space. My head. My… escape hatch."
He looked over his shoulder. "Don't worry. We're still technically in the room. Just… not completely."
Carlisle turned, taking in the strange landscape. It shifted as he moved, responding to his presence but anchored to Sebastian's will.
"It's beautiful," Carlisle murmured.
Sebastian looked tired.
"It's heavy."
They stood there for a long moment in the surreal stillness.
Then Sebastian exhaled, and the room snapped back, gravity settling, lights stabilizing, time catching up like a breath held too long.
Carlisle sat down again, slowly.
"You built that."
"No," Sebastian said. "It built me."
Carlisle looked at him with something close to awe, not for the power, but for the restraint.
"You're afraid of what happens if you let go completely."
Sebastian nodded.
"Maybe you don't have to let go all at once," Carlisle said. "Maybe just… choose where you land."
There was silence. Then, at last, Sebastian smiled, small, crooked, real.
"I still think you're insane for coming to a teenage motel room at dusk to ask a guy about his cosmic damage."
Carlisle stood and walked to the door.
"I've done worse."
He paused with his hand on the knob.
"For what it's worth," he said, without looking back, "Alice was right."
Sebastian blinked. "About what?"
"You're not what you seem."
Then he was gone, the door swinging shut behind him.
Sebastian sat on the bed again.
For the first time in a while, he didn't feel like the room was closing in.
END OF CHAPTER 19