Charles feels surprisingly large and out of place, but he manages to feel himself when he's lounging with Sebastian, steeped in the sort of decadence that he rarely allowed himself to fantasize about when real life seemed so very dreary. There is money and alcohol and no sense of responsibility about any of it, though Sebastian laments how the world is falling down around their feet. Charles crawls occasionally around those self-same feet, nuzzling at Sebastian's bare ankles until he laughs too long to protest the way things are, instead pulling Charles up on top of him and tugging him down for a kiss.

It's the kisses that make it worthwhile, Charles thinks to himself as he surrenders. Sebastian is petulant and childlike, wanting everything and doing nothing to deserve it, but the taste of his tongue and the feel of his lithe body pressed hard against his own make Charles forgive him most everything. Sugar and champagne and strawberries melt on his tongue the way Sebastian's mouth melts into his, they way their bodies tangle behind closed doors and on the roof, moaning the desire for more into the countryside.

He's unsure why Sebastian refuses to go further than their fully clothed kisses, the shift and grind of their bodies together near to the point of release and relief and then no more. Charles is aware that Sebastian has no such restraints back at school and that he's willing to do far more than he's offered Charles with little thought at all. It stings a bit, and he wonders what it is about him that keeps Sebastian from dragging Charles into his room and doing what Charles has only dreamed about.

Still, Sebastian refuses, and so Charles denies him even his kisses as summer wears on, leaving Sebastian annoyed and impertinent, spurning Charles and leaving him to his drawing and painting while Sebastian sulks in Nanny's room or with Aloysius on the rooftop. Occasionally Charles sees him slip inside the church and he longs to follow - to sketch or paint Sebastian's angelic visage bathed in the gem-filled light of the stained glass windows - but he refrains, holding his brush tighter as he slides it over the rough canvas under Julia's critical eye.

"You needn't bother about him, you know." Julia moves over to the lounge and relaxes, her dress flowing around her like water, slipping over the riverbed of her hips and legs. "He'll come 'round eventually. He just needs a good pout." She lights a cigarette and blows blue-grey smoke in his direction. He wants to capture this moment too, the swirl of color and nothingness. "Whatever it is that he's sulking for, it'll eventually be forgotten. I love him dearly, but Sebastian isn't exactly known for his perseverance."

"However would you know if he was truly wounded, I wonder." He knows he's been at Brideshead too long when he realizes he no longer cares to be achingly polite.

"Sebastian is never truly wounded. He would have to have some depth for that to happen." She laughs, the sound light and musical. "You must think me a horrid beast. Of course I don't think such things about poor Sebastian, but you must admit that my dear brother is not known for his constancy. His entire life's goal is to be an embarrassment to us all, getting up to all sorts of mischief."

"Perhaps he's looking for something."

She sits up; smoke still hovering around her head, wreathing her like a ghost. "Beyond attention, you mean?"

"I would think that Sebastian garners plenty of attention without an effort at all."

"Yes, I suppose." Julia gets to her feet and moves over to the window, watching as the distant fields wave golden back at her, the copse of trees obstructing both her view and his. "He would no doubt be happier if he could be content with simply being wealthy and gorgeous, but instead he feels he must be scandalous and childish as well."

"I don't think he would." Charles turns his gaze from Julia back to his painting. "I think he wouldn't feel alive without being all four at once."

"And a drunkard and a homosexual?" Julia's voice is sharper than before, daring him, Charles thinks. "Would he be happier without that, do you think?"

"I don't think he's happy with any of them, Julia. I don't think Sebastian is happy at all."

"A poor little rich boy, you mean? Everything he could ask for with little to no fear of reprisal…"

"Except from you."

She ignores him soundly. "And we should feel sorry for him."

"There you're wrong, Julia." Charles carefully sets his palette aside and turns to cleaning his brushes. "It's not sorry that I feel for him."

"So." Sebastian is all insouciant smiles and gestures as he sprawls on Charles's bed. "You spent the afternoon with Julia."

"You rather left me to my own devices." Charles buttons his shirt with careful precision, not looking at Sebastian at all.

"And heaven forefend that you spend a day alone amongst the riches of Brideshead. Much better that you let yourself be subject to the loosening of Julia's venom tongue." Sebastian smiles still, nothing like real heat in his voice. "She rather wishes I would go away, I think. Disappear somewhere. Not for the money, though I imagine eventually there will be little enough of that, but for the rest of it. I embarrass her, I think, though she was once my partner in crime. Too often were we the scourge of all Brideshead, but now I think I bear the title alone."

"I don't think you mind, to be honest, Sebastian."

He laughs softly, delighted. "No. I suppose you're quite right." He stays sprawled, lifting one hand over his head onto the pillows as the other splays across his stomach. "She fancies you."

"I think not."

"Oh, I think so, and for good reason. Look at you. You're quite a specimen to be fancied, Charles." Sebastian's smile isn't quite sincere, though his eyes are dark as they move down Charles's body. Charles feels the dangerous spark heat his blood, and he turns, leaning against the bureau to look at Sebastian.

"And how am I a such a specimen, Sebastian?" Charles offers a smile of his own and lets his gaze wander as aggressively as Sebastian's does. "What do I offer to Julia that she cannot have in a hundred other men, all of them far more able to offer her the finer things in life?"

"She has the finer things in life, Charles." There's something melancholic to Sebastian's tone, but he doesn't look away. "They're not at all what she wants. She wishes for what being a Flyte cannot offer - a small home, children, relatives that do not embarrass her in any way. She wishes that she were anyone else but her, though I doubt she'd manage at being someone at all." He sighs and shrugs, looking away. "You are quite perfect for her."

"I think not." Charles moves over to the bed, settling on the edge of it and trailing his fingertips over the back of Sebastian's hand. "Because the life I have, Sebastian, is so not the life I want. I would trade our lives if I could, but I could not bear bringing someone into mine."

"I think you would look most ridiculous in Julia's frocks." Sebastian's laughter is real again and Charles leans in and kisses him, uncertain if, before this, he's ever pressed the advantage. It is too sweet, this moment, to have Sebastian where he wants him, to have the soft swell of his lips opened and to be able to press his body down and feel the mattress give way. None of the trappings of Sebastian's life and childhood are in this room, and so Charles moves over him, settling between Sebastian's spread legs and deepening the kiss.

Tongue against tongue and body to body, Charles rolls his hips down to Sebastian's and groans into his mouth. Sebastian rises up to meet his thrust and suddenly whatever restraint there had been is gone. Fingers seek and find buttons and stays until they are both divested of their clothing, naked from the waist up with the duvet beneath Sebastian a nest of wrinkles. There are no words between them, just whispered noises muffled with kisses, the whisper of fingers and cloth, of skin on skin. Charles slips a hand between them and rests his palm against the heat and bulge of Sebastian's arousal, squeezing lightly until Sebastian's teeth find Charles's lower lip, biting and sucking on it until the entire world fades away.

"Charles!" Julia's voice and tap on the door break through just as Charles manages to get his hand inside Sebastian's trousers, to find the hot, velvet flesh with his hand. "Charles!"

"A m-moment, Julia." He sounds as if he's been running, breathless, but his blood is pounding and desperate. Sebastian is arching into him, lost somewhere buffeted by desire, and Charles can't help but continue stroking him. He wants so much more than this, but Sebastian is spread out beneath him and he's offering up silent prayers to God to keep Charles's hand moving that Charles can't deny him.

"Charles!" Julia opens the door and stills, the sound of her breath catching almost identical to the sound of Sebastian's as he spills himself over Charles's hand. The door slams shut, barely louder than the pounding in Charles's ears. "Sebastian. How…how dare you."

"Julia…" Charles starts to speak, but he's silenced by the sharp glare in her eyes.

"No, forget my question, I know exactly how you dare, Sebastian." She stands with her hands on her hips, her anger directed somewhere into the small space between himself and Sebastian. "You should leave, Charles."

"He's my guest, Julia." Sebastian's voice is not quite itself, dry and hot from his arousal, and the argument Charles would have expected seems not to be there at all. "Not yours."

"He should go, or I'll have little choice, Sebastian." She finally looks at her brother and there appears a silent communication that, even if he had heard what they wanted to say, Charles imagines he would not have understood at all. "Dinner is served. I'll ask that they postpone it a few moments. I'll call for a car for Charles in the morning." She turns on her heel and stalks out of the room, carefully closing the door behind her, the quiet catch of the latch loud in the silence she leaves behind.

"Come with me."

Sebastian shakes his head and eases from beneath Charles's unresisting body, heading to the basin to clean himself up. He is in complete dishabille and he puts his clothes to right slowly. "I can't."

"You can."

"I mustn't."

"You want to."

Sebastian turns and looks seriously at Charles, whatever impish and devilish delight he normally has gone from his countenance. "I'll see you back at school, Charles, when term begins again."

"So I'm being punished?" It's a ridiculous notion, especially given that he is Sebastian's guest, but it is exactly how it feels, being run from their house. "Is that it, Sebastian? Punished for what we both want?"

"I'm not what you want, Charles." Sebastian sounds infinitely sure, which angers Charles so that he nearly dislodges a button from his shirt completely. "Not really. A means to an end, and where I end is not where you'll want to be." He walks over and leans in, resting his forehead against Charles's, his eyes closed. "Let me, for once, not be quite so selfish. If you go now, this…" He gestures around the room, not looking at the walls and furniture, the opulence and grandeur encompassed by his gesture. "This might be my legacy to you. Your heaven instead of my own personal hell."

He stands outside Brideshead before dawn the next morning, the little dinner he managed while sitting across from Julia's disapproving glare sits hard and uneasy in his stomach. He looks up at the house, surprised at how foreboding it all seems in the darkness. None of the windows are lit and, for the first time, it seems lifeless and empty.

He closes his eyes for a moment and remembers it as it was when he arrived - drenched in sun and possibility - and a perfect counterpart to Sebastian himself. Opulent rooms and hundreds of hidden secrets, lush grounds and everything seemingly ripe for the picking. Shuddering a deep breath, he casts one last look upward to Sebastian's window. It is just as dark as the others, but there's a hint of movement and then Sebastian is there, his blond hair reflecting distant light and his hand pressed to the glass.

Charles raises a quick hand in farewell as he climbs into the car and turns his attention to the road in front of him. He doesn't look back as he leaves Brideshead and the Flytes behind, and he refuses to wonder when and if he'll return to either of them again.