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Sebastian dreams of Chris Evans. It’s nothing special, nothing particularly heated or poignant, it’s just about Chris being near. About Chris being close enough that Sebastian can touch him if he wants to. About Chris thinking that Sebastian is special.
He likes to think that he’s got his feelings under control these days, that he’s become good at keeping them in check over the past years that they’ve spent evolving from tentative strangers to colleagues to friends, but he dreams of Chris and he wakes up drowning in a wild, ferocious ocean of those same feelings again. It’s as though the sensation of being close in the dream – of being near and breathless and on the verge of being happy – wakes up with him, clings to him and fogs up the air until it feels humid and impossible to breathe in. A non-existent body heat radiating off of the mere thought of Chris being there.
He dreams of Chris, the way he so often does because the man frequents his waking thoughts too much to ever really leave Sebastian’s consciousness, and he wakes up with his emotions scattered all around him, tangled in the sheets and ruining the calm that he has been careful to build up since the first, fateful day when his heart – his entire body – fell in love with Chris Evans.
It’s been many years; it’s not news. Isn’t the aftermath of an innocent dream that will fade as the day goes on. It’s a worn in, matter-of-fact kind of thing that’s simply been shaken loose from its perch in-between Sebastian’s ribs, from its nest upon Sebastian’s clavicle, from white blood cells and all his anxious nerves and from beneath Sebastian’s tongue where it’s been forced to keep quiet and still for so long.
He sinks bare feet down onto his bedroom floor and thinks; I’m in love with Chris. He gets out of bed and into the kitchen and whispers, startled and scared and joyous to the coffee maker; I’m in love with him. He sits with his cup on his tiny balcony and realizes; I don’t think I’ll ever not be.
New York City doesn’t care – isn’t aware that today is the worst possible day for unsolicited feelings to have broken loose and roam wild on - because the city doesn’t know that Chris is going to be in it in a couple of hours. Sebastian knows, though, and sips his coffee while he watches New York’s morning traffic and thinks that home is about to feel even more like it – even more like something he belongs to.
*
It’s not too long of a walk from his apartment to the hotel. He listens to music, and tries not to think about anything but the warmth of sunshine across his face and how his leather jacket finally feels like a good enough protection against the springtime temperatures and city noise around him. At Starbucks they’re playing music he’s never heard before; he makes his order and grins gratefully at the barista, slips his headphones back in and hums along to the melody of Monday Monday in an attempt not to jitter out of his skin in pure anticipation.
He doesn’t get lost exactly – isn’t so caught up in his own, breathless need to finally see Chris again that he can’t navigate a hotel corridor that he’s been in before – there are just a lot of white doors that look exactly the same. The carpet is navy blue and spilling out like an ocean from beneath his scuffed shoes and he’s just about to tread the fabricated water back to the elevator when a safe harbour appears, gracefully rounding the nearest corner.
Chris Evans, probably staying in this very hotel and currently heading for the right white door, stops in his tracks when his gaze lands upon Sebastian in the corridor. His sweater is a lighter blue than the carpet and his eyes – his face, his entire body really – brightens with that brand of surprised, unstoppable joy that Sebastian has been stunned by so many times before, on red carpets and in corners of backstage convention areas. It’s as though Chris never expects Sebastian to be there – maybe never ponders the possibility of Sebastian being anywhere.
He looks happy now, though, where he radiates a warm kind of welcome and tilts his head towards his left in indication, saying, “Seb, it’s over here.”
There is a sign near that very door, exclaiming ‘meeting room’. Sebastian can just about see it behind the fog of his own, wild infatuation before the rest of the world fades away and it’s only Chris left; Chris’s arm reaching out for him, bringing him in for a hug.
And there it is – the proximity. Chris close and real and right there, holding Sebastian close, breathing against Sebastian’s neck and making Sebastian’s entire body ache pleasantly because every nerve within it is suddenly so aware. Aware of how nicely he fits under Chris’s palms and aware of how easy it would be to just melt into Chris’s chest and spill all his secrets into the embrace.
He’s done this for years though – has kept his feelings in check and knows how to keep doing it even despite the collapse of his careful walls this morning, so he re-tucks the majority of his emotions beneath his tongue and only leaves the usual, inescapable amount of them lining his smile when the two of them part. Only enough to alert the entire country of how he feels.
Chris is grinning back at him, warm and happy and kind and a little amused where his head is slightly tilted. Sebastian admires it, the tilt and the line of Chris’s neck and those eyelashes when Chris blinks at him and – and realizes that he hasn’t said a word yet.
He gapes for a moment, right there and then while his mind spins out of control in search for the right word under Chris’s continuous, amused gaze, and stumbles past hello and straight into; “Coffee for Chris?”
The question-mark is there, invisible yet tugging at his tone and making it sound high and doubtful. He doesn’t know why; he’s been in this position a hundred times before. Has stood with his arm outstretched on early morning sets, and night time shoots, and during the vast moments in-between. Presents offered in the form of caffeine because it’s been the best he’s been able to come up with without spelling his infatuation across rows of trailers or between the lines of their latest script changes. He offers coffee, even though there’s always enough to drown in anywhere they go together, because anything bigger and he would have given a piece of himself away, too, and nothing would be left for Chris to save upon blue hotel carpets anymore.
“I’m Chris?” Chris murmurs in reply, through the softest of smiles. Not bothered by Sebastian’s awkward nature, but seemingly touched by this simple gesture as though it still amazes him every time. Sebastian wants to buy him coffee forever.
Despite the question, Chris is reaching out between them. Sebastian presses the right cup into that awaiting hand, savours the way their fingers brush at the exchange, and finds his voice soft and fond when it expresses, “Well, obviously.”
Chris is ever so bright, beaming over the plastic lid of his gift and letting his eyes carry the beauty of his joy when he takes a first sip. Sebastian feels a bit more settled into his own skin at this point, eased into his place in Chris’s vicinity and ignoring the way his lungs ache to breathe Chris in the way he didn’t have to pretend not to do in his dream.
When Chris indicates that they should move, Sebastian moves. When Chris presses a steering hand to the small of Sebastian’s back, Sebastian exhales shakily and forces himself to move forward through the door instead of leaning back into the touch. When Chris asks him casually how he’s been lately he throws an easy grin over his shoulder and can feel entirely honest when he says that things are good. They are, with Chris.
The meeting takes place. Marvel people talk in tongues and Sebastian soaks up what little he gets to know; says few but valid things that make everyone laugh and revels in Chris’s chuckles next to him.
Chris talks, too, and Sebastian watches the way those wide palms move with the words – is captured by the invisible patterns those fingers draw in the air as though they’re painting the very brilliancy that lies in Chris’s thoughts.
There’s more laughter and even though he tells himself to get a grip he doesn’t find one – can’t keep himself steady simply by grasping at his own hands because he fell a long time ago.
*
They’re done just past lunch time. Mackie has sent Sebastian a text saying that his flight has been delayed – that he’ll arrive just in time for dinner and drinks with everyone else tonight if nothing else disrupts his travel plans – and Sebastian’s thankful for the days of events that they have ahead of them because it makes the hours they miss out on today seem like a smaller loss.
He throws his empty Starbucks cup in a trashcan on his way out and catches Chris’s gaze over the familiar blue of the carpet out in the corridor. The doors seem less confusing now, less willing to lead him astray when he’s already been where he was going – or perhaps when he has someone near who wouldn’t leave him behind to save himself.
As though he’s been reading Sebastian’s mind, Chris steps closer and grins mischievously. “Want me to help you find your way home?”
“Fuck off,” Sebastian counters, in love. “I think I know my way around my own hometown.”
“You have no sense of direction,” Chris hums happily. “You’re the only one I know who can get lost on a red carpet.”
“It was as blue as the one we're standing on now.”
“It was a straight line,” Chris goes on, “all you had to do was follow it.”
Sebastian got caught up in the enormity of the moment, then. Was swallowed by the sheer thrill of meeting his fans face to face and finally getting the chance to give them something back. He was proud and happy and the only person who can break through to him at times like those was already way ahead of him, reaching a stage to the sound of excited screaming and applause.
“I made it there in the end,” he finds himself concluding, finishing his thoughts and forgetting to shed the emotion that he associates with them when he speaks. “You made sure of it.”
They’ve stopped in the hallway, in front of an elevator, with Chris’s thumb lingering on the button that has just called for transport. Halted, held at gun point by Sebastian’s poisonous affection and the way it slips in unwarranted wherever it can. He doesn’t know what Chris is thinking, if the barely-there implication of Sebastian’s love was enough to put a crack through everything they’ve built up together, through everything they’ve finally become. But then Chris smiles and it doesn’t look forced, doesn’t look like the source of it has been compromised.
Sebastian exhales, runs fingers through his hair and then his palm along his jaw before he drops his hand to his side again, nervous and desperate and hopeful. “We’ve got time until dinner. Do you want to grab lunch or something?”
They step into the elevator; Chris pushes the button for the floor below their current one where his room must be located, and says, “No –”
And the thing is that Sebastian likes to think of himself as understanding. Empathetic. Someone who can see all sides of a situation and understand the other person’s point of view even if he doesn’t necessarily agree with it or thinks that it makes much sense. He has moments, though. Bouts of irrationality, his therapist has called them. A way of over-thinking, a habit of ignoring that understanding part of himself and dredging up an insecure one to go with instead – a worrying, anxious trait that takes over and makes him jump to conclusions.
No.
It doesn’t have to mean much – sometimes it doesn’t. Chris probably says it multiple times per day, in passing and without any weight to it. He has said it to Sebastian like that, without bigger meaning and without any intent to hurt or weigh down. Sebastian knows this, understands this, because he has known Chris for many, miraculous years now and he knows that Chris is one of the kindest men alive. He knows that Chris doesn’t want to trouble anyone with negative thoughts or emotions. Sebastian knows and he understands, but he does other things, too. He worries and he jumps to conclusions, and today he woke up stirred and it makes it a bad day for emotional hurdles.
No.
It’s a two-lettered word in a river of many coming out of Chris’s mouth as they step into the elevator. A fish in a sentence, in a shoal. The word flies out, and it’s weightless and about to fly away, but Sebastian mixes metaphors and jumps to conclusions and lands upon that word – puts his own bodyweight to it and sinks with it. It’s a stone when it hits. A meteor crashing into the bottom of his stomach, splintering his insides and painting everything an instant shade of sadness.
Then the elevator is stopping, one floor below. Chris squeezes his shoulder and says more words that don’t register before he walks out, and Sebastian can feel last night’s dream growing on his skin, sticky and suffocating where the memory of it taunts him with parallels of reality. Of losses and longing, and of having a heart that never settles for what it gets.
*
He grabs a quick bite to eat on his way home, changes into sweats and goes for a run to clear his head of all the jagged thoughts that whirl around in there. No headphones; it’s just him and the rhythm of his feet as they hit the ground. Bits of sadness lingering on windowpanes and infused in the grey upon the sidewalks. He can’t seem to run away from any of it.
Once he’s showered he swaps the towel for his duvet and slips into bed, somehow leaving his thoughts to evaporate with the lingering, hot water in his bathroom.
He slumbers, on and off. Drifts in the peripheral of his own consciousness, content. There’s no thinking there, no feeling, just warmth inside the cocoon he’s created out of his duvet, with early evening sunlight exploding in soft oranges across his bedroom walls, locking watchful beams with itself in the mirror that is tilted in the corner of the room. The one that sometimes awaits Sebastian’s dubious expression – that self-deprecating gaze that he’s hiding behind his eyelids, now, though he opens them every now and then, ever so aware that he’s not fully asleep.
He checks the time on his phone, and considers it to be on his side where it urges him to drift onwards – to continue not thinking some more. Messages go ignored; musts don’t feel urgent enough to stir for quite yet. He tightens his hand in the duvet a fraction more, tucked beneath his own chin, and sighs softly to himself just to fill his lungs up with the scent of his own detergent a moment later. The air and its scent is warm, too, where it dances in and weighs him down.
Two hours pass like that: not quite thinking and not quite sleeping but simply squinting at time and space before diving out of it again. Then eleven minutes past seven hits, and he finally thinks again, anew. Considers the heaviness in his bones, the settled way that they’ve sunken into his mattress, caressed by his duvet, and thinks of the word again. No. Thinks of trying it out, maybe – of talking around it or perhaps sending it in an apologetic text that announces that he won’t come tonight.
Mackie will be concerned, but hide it behind a joke about Sebastian being a grandpa that always has to go to bed early to make it through the next day, and Sebastian will send a joke back that holds the subtext that he’s fine, that they’ll see each other in the morning. He knows this; knows that Mackie won’t make a big deal out of it, but simply say it in passing to anyone who might be near enough to listen at the restaurant.
Yes, Sebastian thinks about it. Weighs it. Thinks that it might be a good idea, that appearing with newly awoken thoughts that still tremble from the uncertain aftermath of saddened contemplation will be worse than not arriving at all – that it’ll end with him disappointing people no matter what he does. Better to stay at home, and to –
The front door protests, lifting any remains of slumber and quiet from the bed and disrupting the wildly growing branches of his decision-making in their attempt to snare him. Loud knocks take over the entire apartment. Three times, firm. He curls his fingers again, reluctant to slip them out of the safety of his duvet and check the time on his phone once more.
He briefly wonders how he’d ever conjure up the bravery to reach out and type in a guilt-ridden excuse of not coming. He’ll have to go – can surely dress up in jeans and sweater and a smile, something somewhat comfortable that can mock the way his skin would have felt much better if it was still wrapped up in his sheets.
The knocking picks up again, insistent. Seven times this round, though less rhythmic and even harder. Sebastian worries about the wood of the door, thinks of protective extra locks and how he doesn’t have all his excessive Bucky Barnes bulk left anymore, how there’s nothing protecting him but a pair of boxers over his hips and the fabrics curling in his bed if someone’s about to – but the building is safe. No one can come in unless –
He gets his foot caught in the duvet, tripping over freshly bloomed thoughts of accidents and panic, of events that might have happened and of threats of loss that all spikes even more when another bout of knocking begins.
His breath catches in his throat, his eyes uncomfortably wide and trying to blink away the sleep-addled blurriness that clings to their corners as he stumbles into a pair of pyjama pants and out through his hallway. The rest of the apartment is cold, chasing goose bumps across his torso, but he doesn’t feel it. He only feels the wood of the door beneath his fingers, the rapid pulse in his veins and every click of a lock opening up echoing through his entire body, and then – then he falters. Loses that final bit of air that was stuck in his throat because it’s Chris out there, visibly shaking on Sebastian’s non-existent doorstep.
“Chris,” Sebastian breathes out, tremulous, with his voice forgotten on his bedside table. “What—“
He’s interrupted. Stunned. Not awake enough to fully grasp anything when Chris moves closer and fills up his entire field of vision, bringing body heat with that proximity that Sebastian has dreamed and dreamed and dreamed of while it’s been gone. Heat and scent and a steadiness in those wide, expressive palms that are now fitting themselves to Sebastian’s shoulders, one immediately migrating towards Sebastian’s throat, to his jaw.
“You’re okay,” Chris exhales, and sounds relieved as though Sebastian shouldn’t be, as though worries have clambered in where they shouldn’t be and torn up Chris’s reality.
“I’m… yes,” Sebastian gets out, hushed. He can feel himself frowning, trying to find his footing and some sense to lean against. “Chris, yes, I’m okay.”
Not entirely truthful – there are definitely still troublesome clouds circling in Sebastian’s consciousness, edging in even further now that the fogginess of sleep is starting to ease again – but it’s important to let Chris know and assure him that the sight of Sebastian framed by his own doorway is true, that Sebastian isn’t sick or hurt, not like that. Important to make the worry in Chris’s eyes disappear because that alone actually is causing Sebastian pain to see.
He puts his hand over Chris’s on the side of his own neck, hoping to bring comfort.
“You’re okay,” Chris repeats, more of a hum now, a reassurance to himself while his eyes calm down and drink Sebastian in. “You weren’t answering Mackie’s calls, you — why didn’t you show up?”
Sebastian blinks. “I'm sorry, what are you — it’s not eight yet, is it?”
“We were meeting at seven.”
“… oh.”
“Oh,” Chris agrees, swallowing visibly. Time seems to stand still for a couple of seconds, held in place over Sebastian’s threshold by Chris’s hand on Sebastian’s skin, until Chris finally exhales a wave of relief so forceful that it lowers his shoulders and makes him add, “Fuck, you scared me.”
“Sorry, I — I’m sorry. I was… not sleeping, but almost. Drifting,” Sebastian tries to explain, sent off kilter by the crack in Chris’s voice. “Not thinking, or at least trying not to. I didn’t mean to... it wasn’t my intention to forget. I try not to – I’m usually good at being on time—“
“You are,” Chris confirms. He looks concerned, now, stood in the staircase of Sebastian’s building, his shoulders wide enough to fill the entire door frame. He tilts his head, careful. “Trying not to think about what?”
Sebastian stops breathing again, halted. He feels like he’s been caught in glaring headlights and is about to be split open by his own recklessness because there’s no way he can avoid a collision – no way he can lie or make excuses and pretend that everything is okay when Chris is standing right in front of him, looking at him. Perhaps through him.
He hesitantly meets Chris’s eyes with his own still bleary ones, and recognizes the instant moment of realization on Chris’s part when their gazes lock and things fall into place. The truth must be written all over his own face, now, transferred and landing with Chris, with no shields between them to hide behind or use as a weapon.
Sebastian’s aware of the threshold, though; the line separating them and making sure that no ties are tied. Chris can leave. Can turn around and walk away and doesn’t have to –
“Sebastian,” Chris pleas, not leaving. His voice is nothing but a whisper; his eyes a painful shade of blue. “What did I do?”
His hand on Sebastian’s skin falters. Sebastian lets it slip away and tucks his own behind his back, both of them, baring his torso along with his entire soul because it’s all spilling out of there anyway, wordless. He averts his eyes, finally, tilting his head down in an attempt not to cry right there and then from the very onslaught of emotions that have been unsteadily kept at bay by previous sleepiness.
“Nothing,” he rasps out with conviction, shaking his head because Chris hasn’t, not intentionally. It’s not Chris’s fault that Sebastian feels this way about him – that Sebastian is so sensitive in response to everything Chris says and so hopeful for the things that he greedily wishes for. “Chris, you haven’t done anything.”
Chris considers this. Is quiet and hovering with all his warmth and concern in Sebastian’s doorway, and Sebastian still longs for him, still wants more of him, is never satisfied with what he gets. It’s awful and painful and human, he has learned that the hard way – is still fighting terribly not to see it as a deficiency anymore. He looks up again, with that knowledge at the forefront of his mind, meeting Chris’s gaze once more just as Chris breathes in.
“What didn’t I do, then?” Chris asks. “What should I have done?”
Sebastian shakes his head again, and backs away from the doorway because he can’t have this conversation here – is already too exposed. “Nothing. Never anything you don’t want to do.”
Chris follows. Shuts the door. Looks confused all of a sudden, as though the universe no longer makes sense, and says, “But I want to do everything with you.”
Sebastian closes his eyes. Feels small and stupid and embarrassed because despite everything there’s still nothing he wants more than to lean into Chris’s chest and be held close. There’s still nothing his skin aches more for than to be touched by Chris’s hands. Being locked into the privacy of his own home isn’t helping, isn’t making the situation unfold into some kind of clarity because everything is still difficult and he’s still terrified to let go of the truth like this.
“Not lunch,” he manages to point out, because the collision did happen and he is bleeding invisibly all over his hallway carpet and his toes are cold and his voice is so, so quiet. He thinks his cheeks must be bright red.
Chris looks struck when Sebastian finally looks up at him, as though realization can be that forceful.
Sebastian doesn’t like it, the way it makes Chris look anything but happy, and tacks on, “Which is fine – you don’t owe me anything. I’m just a fucking idiot as usual.”
“You’re not.”
“You’re late for dinner,” Sebastian tries to deflect.
“So are you!”
“I’m not going,” he decides, there and then. He can’t, not after this mess of a conversation. He embarrasses himself often, it’s nothing new, but this is something else entirely that feels much more intimate. He can’t have Chris sending him concerned looks from the other end of a table all night; he’ll end up drinking himself even stupider just to cope.
Chris strides up to him, then, determined and encompassing like a storm. He’s a breath away after two quick steps and lets his gaze trace every inch of Sebastian’s face while he touches his hand to the right cheek – lets his thumb run softly in a line across it that must have been pressed there by Sebastian’s pillow.
Sebastian shivers. The apartment is cold and he’s only dressed from the waist down, but it’s the touch that causes him to tremble. The contradicting warmth that always radiates off of Chris is washing over him in one continuous wave along with that familiar scent, and all he can think is that he’d never been nostalgic for a person before he met Chris. Has never been as affected by someone since that day, either. Chris is every skipped heartbeat, and every completed one. Every dream and every breath drawn while awake. Chris makes him lose what little cool he otherwise has – makes him tremble in his own apartment, unable to run or leap forward.
Chris’s thumb brushes over Sebastian’s cheekbone, then. Fingers curl in Sebastian’s hair. And Chris’s eyes are as warm as the rest of him, attentive and undeniably fond where they refuse to take their aim away from Sebastian’s features.
“Sometimes it hurts to look at you,” he says, smiling softly while his thumb continues to savour. “You take my breath away and it hurts and I’m not as brave as you are. Sometimes I say no because I’m scared of what will come out if I don’t.”
Things settle all at once. Sebastian’s lungs fill up with hope while he tentatively blinks at Chris and sees that the extra layers of clothes on Chris’s body don’t cover the way Chris is bleeding honesty onto Sebastian’s carpet, too. Sebastian has known Chris for many, incredible years. Has been in love since day one, and been so caught up in the terrifying rush of it that he hasn’t realized that Chris has been there next to him – that he hasn’t been the only one who’s second-guessed every show of emotion.
“You save me from hotel corridors and colored carpets,” Sebastian says, curling fingers in the front of Chris’s shirt.
“That's 'cause I don’t want to lose you," Chris murmurs.
“You’re still late for dinner.”
“I’m not going if you’re not,” Chris tells him, sliding his thumb down to Sebastian’s chin just to tilt it up. “I love you.”
Sebastian doesn’t feel small or stupid anymore. His heart alone feels seven sizes too big and present in the fingertips that kiss Chris’s shirt, in lips that are stretched out in an amazed smile, and in eyes that surely must shine with the pure happiness that suddenly blossoms within him, beneath Chris’s touch.
“I love you,” he murmurs back, and only manages one quick, blissful chuckle before Chris is parting his lips with a thumb and fitting their mouths together, swallowing it all up.
Chris kisses him deep right from the start, like sunshine and coming home and belonging. There are no restrictions now; everything has been pushed to the side and Sebastian gets to push in. Gets to finally melt against that broad chest and know what it truly feels like when Chris encompasses him, holds him steady with wide palms and affection while he licks into Sebastian’s mouth. This is what it feels like to be wanted in return.
He makes a noise, high and desperate at the back of his throat, which makes Chris laugh – makes him lean back despite Sebastian’s additional noises of protest and look at Sebastian like… like he always has. Open and warm and happy and fond: like he’s in love with the man before him.
All Sebastian can do in return is slip his hand around the back of Chris’s neck and pull him into another kiss – try to bite his own love into Chris’s bottom lip so that it will bleed into everything Chris will ever say in the future.
He uses the hand he’s got wrapped in Chris’s shirt to keep himself steady, depends on Chris’s chest when his knees threaten to give in, and doesn’t manage to lean back from Chris’s mouth when he attempts to form words again. Every vowel is pressed to Chris’s skin – every syllable pushing at Chris’s bottom lip when his own moves under the words, “We’re definitely staying in tonight.”
Chris nods in reply. Kisses him another two, three times. Touches every inch of bare skin that he can reach and consequently makes Sebastian shiver. Says, “The not thinking thing you were doing in bed before I got here? I’d like to try it.”