fic: like o, like h (4c/4)
Title: Like O, Like H (4c/4) (chapter four part b here, part a here, three here, two here, one here)
Rating: NC-17. all the sex. yes.
Word Count: 4,861 for this part
Summary: Chris made an offer. Sebastian said yes. And today’s the day they sign the contract.
Notes: AU world in which D/s dynamics are an accepted cultural element, with all attendant rituals thereof. The beginning of the Like Sugar (Spell It Out) series.
He’s spent the morning being alternately more elated and terrified and anxious and hopeful than he can ever remember. It’s a rollercoaster of emotion with no safety belt. He’s afraid he’s barely hanging on, working from instinct and years-ago orientation classes and intuition. But Sebastian’s here with him, wanting to be kissed, wanting to be, God, spanked-
If he’s barely hanging on, at least he’s doing that much right. Sebastian’d said as much: I don’t go down that far that fast, ever. Except with you. It’s different with you.
Sebastian’s so lovely, and so complicated; just looking at him waiting there makes Chris’s chest hurt a little. Sebastian likes being held, being touched, he’s learning; Sebastian got on his knees without being ordered and accepted Chris’s previous decision regarding denial without a hint of complaint. Sebastian flinches sometimes-he probably thinks he’s hiding it, and he’s not bad at concealment, but those wide eyes give emotions away-when Chris says something idiotic without thinking.
Sebastian promised to be here and let Chris touch him. Grounding in the face of panic attacks.
Sebastian asked about his tattoos, inquisitive fingertips sliding across bare skin and making Chris weak-kneed while lying down.
Sebastian had flinched. When Chris had told him about Matt.
Chris doesn’t know what to think about that. He’d said the words because Sebastian had asked. Because Sebastian was being so damn brave, trying so hard, opening up one bronze-petal layer of humor and kindness at a time because Chris’d asked. So Chris had clumsily tried to give him that much in return.
Sebastian’s nothing like Matt. Matt had been straightforward and unhesitating, certain of whatever he wanted, whether that meant a new dirt bike or true love; Matt would’ve laughed for hours at the suggestion that Chris could actually take care of him, all the while sneaking a hand to the back of Chris’s neck for an unprompted massage in the face of interview-related apprehension. Matt would’ve never looked down and said yes, Chris while wanting to say no. Still…
Still, he thinks, they’d’ve gotten along. Something in the quirk of Sebastian’s smile when it’s allowed freedom. In the way Sebastian listens to his inept lumbering sentences and then comes up with the exact right reply, about fairy-tales and princes and heroic choices. Matt would’ve understood that fairy-tale story without needing to say a word; and then, a heartbeat later, would’ve asked him about dirty jokes in Romanian, smirking. Sebastian, Chris suspects, knows a few.
They’d likely both tell him right now to stop thinking too much and start doing.
He looks back at his submissive, spread out across the bed and awaiting his touch.
“I want you,” he says, even though he’s fairly sure Sebastian can’t process non-command words through omnipresent floating bliss. The tone of voice might get through. And he needs to say it. “I just want you to know that. You’re beautiful, and I don’t want to hurt you, and I want you to smile at me, and I want you.”
It’s not an order, so Sebastian simply gazes at him, lips parted, not comprehending. Chris breathes in, holds the breath in his lungs, lets it out. “I said I wanted to see what would happen if I spanked you. And you said yes. Tell me first where we are. Color.”
Sebastian blinks once, slowly. “Green, sir.”
Chris watches his face. If there’s any indication that that’s untrue, whether consciously so or not, he’ll stop. But those pale-horizon eyes are calm.
“Okay. Only-” He throws a glance at the clock. Cringes. Time’s too swift. “-four. We’re not punishing you, you didn’t do anything wrong, I just want to try this, okay? Tell me if it hurts in a way you don’t like.”
“Yes,” Sebastian says. “Sir.”
“Okay,” Chris says one more time, because that yes, sir in that folklore-tinted voice is decimating his vocabulary. “Hips up.” And then he briefly panics, because what if Sebastian doesn’t know what he’s asking for; but long legs bend and pull up, presenting an absolutely splendid portrait of submission.
Chris’s mouth goes dry with want. His cock, despite having been relieved once already this morning, aches, hard again and unsubtle. And his hand tingles, imagining the first encounter.
The sunbeams have traveled smoothly off the bed and onto the floor. They tickle his bare toes. He’s memorizing every breath, every sensation, every shift of his own weight into a better position, every still short soft hair at the back of Sebastian’s neck.
He lifts a hand.
The impact makes them both gasp.
He hadn’t been holding back, or not much-Sebastian did say yes-and the mark’s red and immediate, blooming carnations across fairness. The print of his hand, on Sebastian’s skin.
Sebastian’s breaths fall shaken, but even and serene.
Again. The other side, matching.
This earns a groan, shuddering as if his submissive can’t help it. Chris scratches nails lightly over stinging marks. Sebastian whines, every muscle tensing, hips jerking forward. Chris slips a hand beneath him, finds his cock, grins. Sebastian’s stiff and dripping copiously across his hand, over the bed, slick with desire.
“Can you come from this? Like this?” He wraps his hand around his submissive’s cock, stroking purposefully slow, up and down, unhurried. “While I spank you?”
Sebastian, more or less face-down amid pillows, hands knotted into feathery fluff, nods.
“Then,” Chris promises, “when I say four, you can,” and Sebastian whimpers quietly in acquiescence.
Three. He keeps his other hand toying with Sebastian’s cock, mingling pain and pleasure. Sebastian’s panting, sweat beginning to shine in the hollow of his back. Chris wants to kiss him, to lick at his skin, to taste him; amazed, he remembers that he can, and so he leans down and touches lips to the fading bruises of his fingernails, swiping his tongue over searing indentations.
Sebastian makes a sound. Chris can’t even begin to describe it. Desperation, need, pleading, surrender.
One more. His hand snaps down over Sebastian’s ass, even harder this time; the collision leaves shockwaves both tangible and not all through his body, and he rubs his thumb along the underside of Sebastian’s cock, over the slit, coaxing out more moisture; and he whispers, “Four,” and Sebastian comes on a gasp that might’ve been his name or no word at all, hot pulses of climax pouring out over his hand and spilling onto sheets beneath.
Sebastian’s legs give way. Chris shoves him flat on the bed, kneels over him, rubs hands over burning expanses of skin, fits his cock between those superheated curves, rocking into him. Sebastian moans, lost in exquisite anguish and ecstasy and use; Chris pants, “Not gonna fuck you-not gonna hurt you, not like this, I just want-I’m going to come all over you, on you, all mine, you hear me?” and Sebastian moans again and that one is his name and a yes-
Chris comes all at once, at that. Lightning, striking without warning, coiling up and bursting outward. His come splashes Sebastian’s skin, his own handprints. White over red finger-lines. He nearly comes again, or maybe that’s just more, dwindling spurts pulled out of him by the sight.
More. Because Sebastian makes him feel more. Because with Sebastian he is more.
He’s inclined to collapse, himself-he feels shaky everywhere, like a newborn colt-but he has the presence of mind to flop sideways onto the bed and pull his submissive into his arms and stroke dark hair with one exhausted hand. Sebastian’s crying softly, but not in a bad way, he thinks, insofar as he can think with all his brain cells having been replaced by orgasm.
“Are you,” he starts, and forgets words. “You. Color. Order.”
“Green,” Sebastian whispers. And, to his everlasting surprise, lips brush his collarbone in a kiss. “Yours, Chris.”
“Did I. That was. Good?”
Sebastian nods against his chest, not crying now, or not as much.
“Good.”
“I think…sir…I like…you trying things.”
Chris laughs.
And in that second, Sebastian cradled securely against his body, the ebbing tidal wave leaving him drained and euphoric and fulfilled, Sebastian’s smile-and that is a smile, Chris can feel it-curving along his skin-
He knows he’s in love.
He wants to laugh again, or, inexplicably, weep. He wants to pull his heart out of his chest, where it’s no longer contained anyway, and put it into Sebastian’s hands.
It’s kind of a disturbing mental image, but it’s true nonetheless. He spares a second to wonder about his brain, and then that turns into wondering how he can get Sebastian to be in love with him, most likely not by means of offered-up internal organs.
He runs the not-sticky hand through Sebastian’s hair again. Sebastian makes a contented kittenish noise and sticks his nose into Chris’s neck. Chris ends up grinning broadly at the ceiling. It grins back. It’s given them this space. It’s done its job.
Of course Sebastian doesn’t love him, not yet. But Sebastian’s not in love with anyone else, either; and did agree to marry him. That gives him some kind of advantage. A starting-point.
He knows some things those winter-gemstone eyes enjoy. Blueberries. Chocolate. Folklore. Music. Being spanked and held down and claimed and wanted, in bed. He can do all of that. He’s not naïve enough to believe that’ll equal love, but it can’t hurt. At least he can try.
He kisses the top of Sebastian’s head. His submissive wakes up enough to say, “Mmm.”
Chris nudges tousled dark hair with his nose, just because. “Are you awake? We’ve sort of got…oh God, thirty-two minutes, fuck, fuck, can you get up? Or-no, no, wait, don’t move-”
He eases Sebastian down into the bed. Sprints to that chest. Flings items around. Ah.
Sebastian’s up on both elbows, though still on his stomach, eyes regaining focus and interested. Chris grabs a towel. Runs back. Flips open the top of the bottle. “Hold still. And let me clean you up first. I sort of…”
“Came all over me?”
Chris chokes on a nonexistent dust speck. “…yes. Fuck. Don’t say things like that unless you want me to jump on you. Again.”
Sebastian’s lips curve into that wonderful impish expression. “I shall have to remember that in the future, sir.”
“You said my name,” Chris says, hands busy, warm water and cloth gingerly wiping dried come and sweat from tender skin. “I like that. Maybe use that more. Less sir. If you feel like it.”
The smile turns surprised, reflective, wondering. “Yes, Chris.”
“I definitely like that. This might feel cold.”
Sebastian sucks in a breath. Hisses something in a language Chris doesn’t know. “What-”
“It’s meant to be cooling. Healing. I told you I don’t want to hurt you. Better now?”
“I think yes…oh yes. Thank you.” The creamy green scents of aloe and mint and arnica drift up around them. Sebastian’s skin accepts restorative salve readily, as Chris’s fingers rub it slightly guiltily over bruises. For good measure, he smoothes some over Sebastian’s shoulder, the one that’d had the close encounter with the bathroom door. Sebastian smothers a laugh in pillow-fluff. “I’d forgotten about that…”
“The only bruises on you should be the ones we both want there,” Chris says mock-sternly, and blue eyes surface from the pillow to sparkle at him. “I can live with that.”
“Well,” Chris says, lost in the sparkle, “good,” and proceeds to forget that he has salve on his fingertips as he tries to close the bottle, consequently loses his grip, tries to hold on tighter, and spills half the contents over the sheets and Sebastian’s hip. “Oh, fuck-sorry, sorry, hang on-”
“Sorry,” Sebastian offers, valiantly trying not to laugh, though his lips’re twitching. “I expect I should be offering to clean up in place of you doing so…”
“I told you we’re not traditional,” Chris says helplessly, looking around for the lid, “and I like taking care of you-”
“Not because of that. Because I’m beginning to be afraid you’ll injure yourself on a bottle-cap. Here.” Sebastian holds out the lid; those eyes’re playful, but open and warm beneath. Unexpectedly beckoning tides.
Chris breathes out, says, “I’m not the one who walks into doors,” and plucks it out of his hand. “Can you get dressed?”
“Are there clothes?”
“They should’ve…ah.” Both bags, his own and one he doesn’t recognize that must be Sebastian’s, are sitting discreetly in a corner, placidly awaiting notice. “You did bring clothes, right? Besides your suit. Not that I mind you in your suit. I like you in your suit.”
“You like me out of my suit, Chris.”
“That too.” He brings Sebastian’s bag over, mostly because he doesn’t want his sub to have to get up yet. This is bordering on overprotective and he knows it, but Sebastian only gives him a half-amused, half-appreciative glance and starts pulling out black jeans. Chris sighs, and goes to unearth his own clothing. At least that’s uncomplicated.
When he turns around, Sebastian’s fully dressed, if that’s the operative term. Chris literally feels his mouth fall open, not of his own volition.
Sebastian blushes. “I got dressed in a hurry, yesterday…”
“…and that’s a bad thing?”
Skinny jeans, clinging to infinite legs. White cotton t-shirt, loose and billowing, tucked in on one side in a thoughtlessly stylish way that Chris could never pull off in a million years. Simple and casual. Shouldn’t be that heartstoppingly flawless.
But it is, Sebastian is, Sebastian’s perfect, dressed in black and white and bathed in afternoon-sunlight gold.
Sebastian blushes more. “I may have forgotten underwear.”
“Oh God,” Chris says.
“Hardly. I’m not terribly comfortable.”
“Oh…sorry…”
“I didn’t say I minded. Are we ready? Do we need to do anything else?”
“I don’t think-yes. Oh. Um. Yes.” One more thing. He can’t believe he’d almost forgotten, though in his defense the vision of Sebastian Stan in body-hugging jeans and minus underwear would divert bloodflow away from anyone’s brain.
Sebastian Stan in body-hugging jeans, wearing a nearly transparent shirt, minus underwear, and carrying Chris’s handprints across his backside, hidden beneath concealing fabric. Chris’s cock announces its interest all over again.
“One more thing-” Sebastian stops talking. Face colorless. Comprehension. “I forgot-”
Chris takes a deep breath. Without looking away from that shocked gaze, fumbles around in his bag until the box comes to hand. Holds it out. It’s not heavy.
Sebastian takes it with one wavering hand. “You’ll have to open it. I can’t.”
“You can,” Chris says.
“I mean I can’t.” Sebastian looks at the box, then up at him. And Chris realizes abruptly that his submissive’s terrified. “I can’t-I know I have to, when we walk out of here I have to-but I don’t know how to do this, I can’t-mi-e frică, vă rog sa nu-ni fac-”
“English,” Chris pleads, heart shattering. “Please. You-you’ve never worn a collar for anyone, have you? Even in the clubs?”
“Never.” Sebastian’s shaking. “I said-I don’t remember what I just said. I think I asked you not to make me…but you can’t, we can’t, I have to. Don’t I?”
“I’m sorry.” It’s all he has. He’ll say it forever if that’ll help even an infinitesimal amount. “I’m so sorry. I know you never wanted this. You can take it off as soon as we’re home. It’s just in public…is that what it is? Being public?”
“Partly.” Sebastian’s getting his voice under control. Like an instrument, Chris thinks. Like stumbling back to a dropped melody through sheer force of will. “I’ve spent thirty years not being public…I don’t know how to change that. Besides the obvious. Inside.”
“I’m sorry,” Chris says again. “What can I do? D’you want me to pretend it’s broken or something, or, hell, actually break it, so you can’t wear it? I will.”
“That won’t solve anything.” The lilt and sway of the music’s full of resignation. “We’ll only have to deal with it the next time we go out. And you can’t keep on making excuses. People will talk.”
“I don’t care.” He does, it does matter, but not right now. Right now he doesn’t care one whit. “Can I touch you? Please?”
Sebastian blinks. Surprise comes back into those eyes, which is better than dread. “I thought…yes, I said yes. Unless I say no. Yes.”
“I thought I should ask.” He holds out a hand, not with any real hope. Sebastian looks at him, and then unexpectedly steps closer and buries his face in Chris’s chest, arms folding around his waist.
Chris, heart overflowing with awe and love, holds him close. Kisses his hair, rubs his back, waits while ragged breaths even out. Thinks: this is perfect, even though it’s not, I could do this, I could do exactly this always.
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian murmurs to his collarbone. “Îme pare rău. I know it’s not your fault. It’s mine. It’s me.”
“Maybe.” He rests his cheek in wistful dark hair, letting it tickle his mouth. “But if it’s you then it’s us. So we’ll figure it out together. You said partly, earlier.”
He feels more than hears Sebastian take the breath. “I’m scared.”
“About letting people see what you are?”
“About…not knowing who I am.” Before Chris can begin to form words, Sebastian goes on. “If I put this on, once I put this on…I told you I’ve never felt like this with anyone else. I haven’t. I didn’t know I could. What else don’t I know? Who do I turn into, once I’m yours?”
“Oh,” Chris says, because he doesn’t have any words, because you say oh when your heart snaps in half.
Sebastian swallows. Breathes for a pair of heartbeats, in and out, exhales like tiny cataclysms over Chris’s neck. And then shifts weight, takes a step back. Chris lets his arms loosen. Not holding on.
Sebastian doesn’t step all the way back. Chris’s hands fall to his waist, and stay there.
Sebastian looks at his face. And one side of that mouth lifts, wry and hopeless and hopeful. “You look the way I feel.”
“I’m so fucking sorry.”
“I’m…I don’t know.” The box is lurking on the bed. They both side-eye it. Sebastian shrugs with both eyebrows, and is smiling a bit more when Chris hesitantly catches his gaze. “I think I needed to say that. And now you know. I’m scared and I’ve told you and all I know now is that I don’t know how I’m going to feel. So we may as well.”
“I could still pretend to break it…”
“You could, but…I think I’d rather not.” Sebastian takes his hand. Studies Chris’s fingers, playing with them. Then lifts them to his lips. A kiss. Chris blinks back tears and wonder and love.
“I still can’t,” Sebastian says, ever so slightly self-mocking, “so you’re going to have to open it, sir.”
“Um. Okay.” He does. And the infinite universe gets quiet, holding its breath.
It’s a very simple collar. Black. Basic. One O-ring at the front. He’d not been sure what Sebastian might like. But there is one addition, because he’d not been able to resist. The inside’s blue, butter-soft suede as close as he could get to the unmatchable shade of those wide eyes.
He can’t hear whether Sebastian’s breathing, through the rush of blood in his own ears.
Sebastian puts out a finger, tentatively. Touches black leather.
The universe, sun and moon and all assorted galaxies, is running out of air.
Sebastian looks up. “You picked this for me.”
That voice is unreadable. Not emotionless. Chris just doesn’t have a clue which emotion. “Yes?”
“So, then.” Sebastian looks back at the leather. “Yes.”
“…yes?”
“Yes. Before I change my mind.” But that’s conviction, stone under waves. Chris can hear it. “Go on.”
There aren’t words, there aren’t any words, so he just picks the collar up. It slips around Sebastian’s throat like it knows it’s found a home.
Sebastian closes his eyes as Chris steps behind him, tugs leather through the buckle, slips a finger underneath to check the fit. He doesn’t use the lock. Leaves it and the leash-he’d argued against that, but it’d been a set and the salesgirl had made some good points about public appearances and he’d given in-in the box without mentioning either.
One of them has to talk, eventually. Sebastian isn’t. So Chris does. “Too tight?”
“No,” Sebastian says without opening his eyes.
“Are…you…okay?”
“I don’t know. Ask me again.”
“Um. Are you okay?”
Sebastian opens both eyes. “Come here. Where I can see you.”
Chris circles around to stand in front of him. His heart’s battering itself against his breastbone. He’s starting to be afraid he’s going to have an anxiety attack on the spot, and he can’t, he can’t, because Sebastian’s scared and has admitted to being scared and needs him to be strong…
“Touch me,” Sebastian asks, voice finally showing cracks and splinters. “Please.”
“Where…how should I…”
Sebastian reaches out, picks up Chris’s right hand, and sets it at the side of his throat, low enough for most fingers to rest nervously over leather, high enough for his thumb to skim across Sebastian’s jaw.
“I’m still scared,” Sebastian says, barefoot and dressed in black and white and Chris’s collar, “but I think I can do this.”
So many words spring to his lips-I love you, you’re magnificent, I’m scared too but I think I won’t have the anxiety attack after all because you’re looking at me just like that and I can maybe remember how to breathe when you’re looking at me like that-that his tongue gets snarled up in all of them. What comes out is, “You can. You can do anything.”
Sebastian laughs, more a taken-aback little huff of breath than anything else. “I don’t know about anything. I’m not very good on airplanes. But…thank you.”
“Airplanes,” Chris says, keeping his hand in place, drinking in every word.
“I take trains when I can. I am nervous about take-offs and landings, mostly. Not especially convenient when one has meetings in Hollywood on a regular basis.”
“I can hold your hand. Next time. Every time. If you want.”
“I might,” Sebastian says, lifting his hand, putting it back over Chris’s, “want that, Chris.”
“I want that too,” Chris whispers, and they stand there looking at each other as the world gets back to rotating, as the galaxies spin, as the future unfolds.
A knock interrupts the glass-blown fragility of the next inhale. Chris turns, and growls, “Yes?” at the traitorous door. Sebastian does that not-quite-smile expression again.
“Er,” says a timid voice from the other side, “are you, er…finished? Only we need to…um…”
Chris opens his mouth to yell at the boy. Sebastian, before he can, interjects, “Yes, James, come in.” Chris promptly closes his mouth, and wonders when the acolytes got names, and why Sebastian knows them.
Come to think of it, he’s not surprised. They’re probably all in love with Sebastian too.
He drops his hand from the collar as the door opens, but wraps it around the closest articulate Romanian wrist. His.
Sebastian hides the smile in the corners of his mouth, but it’s present in his eyes. “Hi, James. Yes, we’re ready. Well. In fact I could use my boots. Which I see are over there. But otherwise yes. I take it you need us out of the room.”
“We sort of need your sheets,” the shorter boy agrees, blushing. Chris isn’t sure why-surely they’ve seen the mornings-after innumerable times before, serving here-but then is illuminated when Sebastian adds, “And I promise I won’t forget about sending you the music, either. Shall I just direct it here, or do you have another address?”
Chris leans in and whispers, “Music?”
“He likes my soundtracks,” Sebastian stage-whispers back. “Even if he thinks The Pact is a tolerable film. He should watch Midnight Swan.”
“Hey,” the boy says. “I did. I know you were remixing Tchaikovsky, and it is every kind of unfair that you weren’t awards-eligible for that, and how’d you get the kind of electronica club sound out of a violin?”
“Oh,” Sebastian says, looking delighted, “well, if you look at classical composers, Mozart especially, and some of the high notes, and then don’t actually tune the-”
The other boy, the taller one, clears his throat the second before Chris can. They both have the sense to look abashed.
“Sorry,” James says to his fellow acolyte.
“Sorry,” Sebastian says to Chris.
“I’m learning new things about you all the time,” Chris notes, and threads their fingers together. “You’re good with kids.”
Sebastian looks horrified. “I am not.”
“I’m not a kid,” James protests. “Thirteen. Almost. Can I have your email?”
“Oh, of course-oh, you do have a pen, thank you-”
“You’re not even supposed to be talking to him,” complains the taller boy. “Don’t get attached.” And they proceed to collect stained linen without further comment-Chris, out of everyone, is the one who blushes-and whisk themselves out the door for, presumably, DNA verification of consummated marriage.
“Well,” Chris says, holding Sebastian’s hand, holding his husband’s hand, “shall we go find your place?”
“I-”
The taller boy puts his head back around the corner. “Mr Evans?”
“Hi,” Chris agrees, rather nonplussed.
“We like him. Hurt him and we’ll kick your ass.” And the head vanishes.
Chris turns to look at Sebastian, who apparently has been forced to sit down on the now-bare mattress, laughing too hard to stand.
“Oh, sure,” Chris grumbles, heart completely light because Sebastian is laughing, “be entertained that I’ve been threatened by a pair of adolescent boys, are they even allowed to do that, what did you do to them…”
“I have no idea! I was only polite!” Sebastian lets Chris take both his hands. Lets Chris tug him to his feet, face to face, merriment filling up all the spaces. “I am quite confident you could take them if necessary, sir. Seventy-thirty odds, at least.”
“Seventy?”
“Perhaps eighty? There are two of them. And even combined they are younger than you.”
“Oh,” Chris says, and moves hands, curls them around both of Sebastian’s wrists, squeezes, “you are so getting spanked for that, sub.”
“Very well,” Sebastian agrees demurely. “Ninety. I do enjoy your muscles.”
“You do?” He squeezes harder. Feels the elegant bones of Sebastian’s wrists under his hands. Sebastian’s eyes shine in reply. Chris grins. “You do. Come on.”
He leaves one hand around Sebastian’s right wrist. Picks up both bags with the other one. Muscles, indeed. He’s not surreptitiously flexing at all, either.
Maybe a little. Sebastian’s watching.
They go down the stairs-not back through the temple, but the other stairs, where their priest nods at them from his office. Chris isn’t entirely sure what that means, but he guesses that they’re good to go, and also that the man is well aware that Chris might be holding a permanent grudge about the aphrodisiacs. Which is exactly true. And deserved.
Sebastian opens the side door. The world’s waiting beyond. Streetside bustle, taxicabs, New York skyscrapers and brick blocks and bewildered tourists and a cacophony of music and voices and car-horns. The scents of street food and construction and blue skies. Color in joyous punk riots and stately nineteenth-century splendor.
And so many pairs of eyes. They’ll look at Sebastian and Chris, and they might see an Oscar-nominated musician and a beginning-to-be well-known artist, they might see a couple holding hands, but they’ll definitely see a collared submissive and his Dominant.
Chris taps fingers over that wrist where it’s encircled in his grip, asking the question. Sebastian looks down the street, up at the sky, down at the grey flat sidewalk. Touches his collar with his free hand, a quick unthinking speaking gesture.
“Sebastian,” Chris says, mostly just to say his name.
“Chris.” Sebastian looks up. Smiles. It’s a private kind of smile, small and inward. But it gets brighter as their eyes meet. “Home?”
“Yes,” Chris says, and thinks that of course he’s the one saying yes, even if Sebastian’s the one who’s vowed to be his, who’s his on paper and in the gaze of the world; Chris belongs to him, Chris’s heart belongs to him, and so that’s a yes, that’s a yes forever.
He thinks about blueberries and chocolate and hand-feeding Sebastian in bed. He thinks about hearing Sebastian laugh every day. He thinks that maybe he can get Sebastian to fall in love with him, Chris Evans; and in that moment under the city sunshine with Sebastian’s smile lighting up the world, he thinks that might even be possible.
He says, “You’re going to have to tell me where we’re going, because I did sort of look up your address when I wrote to you but I honestly can’t remember the street name, I’m sorry, do you want me to get us a cab?”
And Sebastian tips his head against Chris’s shoulder, still smiling, and says, “I can tell you where we’re going, yes, please find us a cab.”
Rating: NC-17. all the sex. yes.
Word Count: 4,861 for this part
Summary: Chris made an offer. Sebastian said yes. And today’s the day they sign the contract.
Notes: AU world in which D/s dynamics are an accepted cultural element, with all attendant rituals thereof. The beginning of the Like Sugar (Spell It Out) series.
He’s spent the morning being alternately more elated and terrified and anxious and hopeful than he can ever remember. It’s a rollercoaster of emotion with no safety belt. He’s afraid he’s barely hanging on, working from instinct and years-ago orientation classes and intuition. But Sebastian’s here with him, wanting to be kissed, wanting to be, God, spanked-
If he’s barely hanging on, at least he’s doing that much right. Sebastian’d said as much: I don’t go down that far that fast, ever. Except with you. It’s different with you.
Sebastian’s so lovely, and so complicated; just looking at him waiting there makes Chris’s chest hurt a little. Sebastian likes being held, being touched, he’s learning; Sebastian got on his knees without being ordered and accepted Chris’s previous decision regarding denial without a hint of complaint. Sebastian flinches sometimes-he probably thinks he’s hiding it, and he’s not bad at concealment, but those wide eyes give emotions away-when Chris says something idiotic without thinking.
Sebastian promised to be here and let Chris touch him. Grounding in the face of panic attacks.
Sebastian asked about his tattoos, inquisitive fingertips sliding across bare skin and making Chris weak-kneed while lying down.
Sebastian had flinched. When Chris had told him about Matt.
Chris doesn’t know what to think about that. He’d said the words because Sebastian had asked. Because Sebastian was being so damn brave, trying so hard, opening up one bronze-petal layer of humor and kindness at a time because Chris’d asked. So Chris had clumsily tried to give him that much in return.
Sebastian’s nothing like Matt. Matt had been straightforward and unhesitating, certain of whatever he wanted, whether that meant a new dirt bike or true love; Matt would’ve laughed for hours at the suggestion that Chris could actually take care of him, all the while sneaking a hand to the back of Chris’s neck for an unprompted massage in the face of interview-related apprehension. Matt would’ve never looked down and said yes, Chris while wanting to say no. Still…
Still, he thinks, they’d’ve gotten along. Something in the quirk of Sebastian’s smile when it’s allowed freedom. In the way Sebastian listens to his inept lumbering sentences and then comes up with the exact right reply, about fairy-tales and princes and heroic choices. Matt would’ve understood that fairy-tale story without needing to say a word; and then, a heartbeat later, would’ve asked him about dirty jokes in Romanian, smirking. Sebastian, Chris suspects, knows a few.
They’d likely both tell him right now to stop thinking too much and start doing.
He looks back at his submissive, spread out across the bed and awaiting his touch.
“I want you,” he says, even though he’s fairly sure Sebastian can’t process non-command words through omnipresent floating bliss. The tone of voice might get through. And he needs to say it. “I just want you to know that. You’re beautiful, and I don’t want to hurt you, and I want you to smile at me, and I want you.”
It’s not an order, so Sebastian simply gazes at him, lips parted, not comprehending. Chris breathes in, holds the breath in his lungs, lets it out. “I said I wanted to see what would happen if I spanked you. And you said yes. Tell me first where we are. Color.”
Sebastian blinks once, slowly. “Green, sir.”
Chris watches his face. If there’s any indication that that’s untrue, whether consciously so or not, he’ll stop. But those pale-horizon eyes are calm.
“Okay. Only-” He throws a glance at the clock. Cringes. Time’s too swift. “-four. We’re not punishing you, you didn’t do anything wrong, I just want to try this, okay? Tell me if it hurts in a way you don’t like.”
“Yes,” Sebastian says. “Sir.”
“Okay,” Chris says one more time, because that yes, sir in that folklore-tinted voice is decimating his vocabulary. “Hips up.” And then he briefly panics, because what if Sebastian doesn’t know what he’s asking for; but long legs bend and pull up, presenting an absolutely splendid portrait of submission.
Chris’s mouth goes dry with want. His cock, despite having been relieved once already this morning, aches, hard again and unsubtle. And his hand tingles, imagining the first encounter.
The sunbeams have traveled smoothly off the bed and onto the floor. They tickle his bare toes. He’s memorizing every breath, every sensation, every shift of his own weight into a better position, every still short soft hair at the back of Sebastian’s neck.
He lifts a hand.
The impact makes them both gasp.
He hadn’t been holding back, or not much-Sebastian did say yes-and the mark’s red and immediate, blooming carnations across fairness. The print of his hand, on Sebastian’s skin.
Sebastian’s breaths fall shaken, but even and serene.
Again. The other side, matching.
This earns a groan, shuddering as if his submissive can’t help it. Chris scratches nails lightly over stinging marks. Sebastian whines, every muscle tensing, hips jerking forward. Chris slips a hand beneath him, finds his cock, grins. Sebastian’s stiff and dripping copiously across his hand, over the bed, slick with desire.
“Can you come from this? Like this?” He wraps his hand around his submissive’s cock, stroking purposefully slow, up and down, unhurried. “While I spank you?”
Sebastian, more or less face-down amid pillows, hands knotted into feathery fluff, nods.
“Then,” Chris promises, “when I say four, you can,” and Sebastian whimpers quietly in acquiescence.
Three. He keeps his other hand toying with Sebastian’s cock, mingling pain and pleasure. Sebastian’s panting, sweat beginning to shine in the hollow of his back. Chris wants to kiss him, to lick at his skin, to taste him; amazed, he remembers that he can, and so he leans down and touches lips to the fading bruises of his fingernails, swiping his tongue over searing indentations.
Sebastian makes a sound. Chris can’t even begin to describe it. Desperation, need, pleading, surrender.
One more. His hand snaps down over Sebastian’s ass, even harder this time; the collision leaves shockwaves both tangible and not all through his body, and he rubs his thumb along the underside of Sebastian’s cock, over the slit, coaxing out more moisture; and he whispers, “Four,” and Sebastian comes on a gasp that might’ve been his name or no word at all, hot pulses of climax pouring out over his hand and spilling onto sheets beneath.
Sebastian’s legs give way. Chris shoves him flat on the bed, kneels over him, rubs hands over burning expanses of skin, fits his cock between those superheated curves, rocking into him. Sebastian moans, lost in exquisite anguish and ecstasy and use; Chris pants, “Not gonna fuck you-not gonna hurt you, not like this, I just want-I’m going to come all over you, on you, all mine, you hear me?” and Sebastian moans again and that one is his name and a yes-
Chris comes all at once, at that. Lightning, striking without warning, coiling up and bursting outward. His come splashes Sebastian’s skin, his own handprints. White over red finger-lines. He nearly comes again, or maybe that’s just more, dwindling spurts pulled out of him by the sight.
More. Because Sebastian makes him feel more. Because with Sebastian he is more.
He’s inclined to collapse, himself-he feels shaky everywhere, like a newborn colt-but he has the presence of mind to flop sideways onto the bed and pull his submissive into his arms and stroke dark hair with one exhausted hand. Sebastian’s crying softly, but not in a bad way, he thinks, insofar as he can think with all his brain cells having been replaced by orgasm.
“Are you,” he starts, and forgets words. “You. Color. Order.”
“Green,” Sebastian whispers. And, to his everlasting surprise, lips brush his collarbone in a kiss. “Yours, Chris.”
“Did I. That was. Good?”
Sebastian nods against his chest, not crying now, or not as much.
“Good.”
“I think…sir…I like…you trying things.”
Chris laughs.
And in that second, Sebastian cradled securely against his body, the ebbing tidal wave leaving him drained and euphoric and fulfilled, Sebastian’s smile-and that is a smile, Chris can feel it-curving along his skin-
He knows he’s in love.
He wants to laugh again, or, inexplicably, weep. He wants to pull his heart out of his chest, where it’s no longer contained anyway, and put it into Sebastian’s hands.
It’s kind of a disturbing mental image, but it’s true nonetheless. He spares a second to wonder about his brain, and then that turns into wondering how he can get Sebastian to be in love with him, most likely not by means of offered-up internal organs.
He runs the not-sticky hand through Sebastian’s hair again. Sebastian makes a contented kittenish noise and sticks his nose into Chris’s neck. Chris ends up grinning broadly at the ceiling. It grins back. It’s given them this space. It’s done its job.
Of course Sebastian doesn’t love him, not yet. But Sebastian’s not in love with anyone else, either; and did agree to marry him. That gives him some kind of advantage. A starting-point.
He knows some things those winter-gemstone eyes enjoy. Blueberries. Chocolate. Folklore. Music. Being spanked and held down and claimed and wanted, in bed. He can do all of that. He’s not naïve enough to believe that’ll equal love, but it can’t hurt. At least he can try.
He kisses the top of Sebastian’s head. His submissive wakes up enough to say, “Mmm.”
Chris nudges tousled dark hair with his nose, just because. “Are you awake? We’ve sort of got…oh God, thirty-two minutes, fuck, fuck, can you get up? Or-no, no, wait, don’t move-”
He eases Sebastian down into the bed. Sprints to that chest. Flings items around. Ah.
Sebastian’s up on both elbows, though still on his stomach, eyes regaining focus and interested. Chris grabs a towel. Runs back. Flips open the top of the bottle. “Hold still. And let me clean you up first. I sort of…”
“Came all over me?”
Chris chokes on a nonexistent dust speck. “…yes. Fuck. Don’t say things like that unless you want me to jump on you. Again.”
Sebastian’s lips curve into that wonderful impish expression. “I shall have to remember that in the future, sir.”
“You said my name,” Chris says, hands busy, warm water and cloth gingerly wiping dried come and sweat from tender skin. “I like that. Maybe use that more. Less sir. If you feel like it.”
The smile turns surprised, reflective, wondering. “Yes, Chris.”
“I definitely like that. This might feel cold.”
Sebastian sucks in a breath. Hisses something in a language Chris doesn’t know. “What-”
“It’s meant to be cooling. Healing. I told you I don’t want to hurt you. Better now?”
“I think yes…oh yes. Thank you.” The creamy green scents of aloe and mint and arnica drift up around them. Sebastian’s skin accepts restorative salve readily, as Chris’s fingers rub it slightly guiltily over bruises. For good measure, he smoothes some over Sebastian’s shoulder, the one that’d had the close encounter with the bathroom door. Sebastian smothers a laugh in pillow-fluff. “I’d forgotten about that…”
“The only bruises on you should be the ones we both want there,” Chris says mock-sternly, and blue eyes surface from the pillow to sparkle at him. “I can live with that.”
“Well,” Chris says, lost in the sparkle, “good,” and proceeds to forget that he has salve on his fingertips as he tries to close the bottle, consequently loses his grip, tries to hold on tighter, and spills half the contents over the sheets and Sebastian’s hip. “Oh, fuck-sorry, sorry, hang on-”
“Sorry,” Sebastian offers, valiantly trying not to laugh, though his lips’re twitching. “I expect I should be offering to clean up in place of you doing so…”
“I told you we’re not traditional,” Chris says helplessly, looking around for the lid, “and I like taking care of you-”
“Not because of that. Because I’m beginning to be afraid you’ll injure yourself on a bottle-cap. Here.” Sebastian holds out the lid; those eyes’re playful, but open and warm beneath. Unexpectedly beckoning tides.
Chris breathes out, says, “I’m not the one who walks into doors,” and plucks it out of his hand. “Can you get dressed?”
“Are there clothes?”
“They should’ve…ah.” Both bags, his own and one he doesn’t recognize that must be Sebastian’s, are sitting discreetly in a corner, placidly awaiting notice. “You did bring clothes, right? Besides your suit. Not that I mind you in your suit. I like you in your suit.”
“You like me out of my suit, Chris.”
“That too.” He brings Sebastian’s bag over, mostly because he doesn’t want his sub to have to get up yet. This is bordering on overprotective and he knows it, but Sebastian only gives him a half-amused, half-appreciative glance and starts pulling out black jeans. Chris sighs, and goes to unearth his own clothing. At least that’s uncomplicated.
When he turns around, Sebastian’s fully dressed, if that’s the operative term. Chris literally feels his mouth fall open, not of his own volition.
Sebastian blushes. “I got dressed in a hurry, yesterday…”
“…and that’s a bad thing?”
Skinny jeans, clinging to infinite legs. White cotton t-shirt, loose and billowing, tucked in on one side in a thoughtlessly stylish way that Chris could never pull off in a million years. Simple and casual. Shouldn’t be that heartstoppingly flawless.
But it is, Sebastian is, Sebastian’s perfect, dressed in black and white and bathed in afternoon-sunlight gold.
Sebastian blushes more. “I may have forgotten underwear.”
“Oh God,” Chris says.
“Hardly. I’m not terribly comfortable.”
“Oh…sorry…”
“I didn’t say I minded. Are we ready? Do we need to do anything else?”
“I don’t think-yes. Oh. Um. Yes.” One more thing. He can’t believe he’d almost forgotten, though in his defense the vision of Sebastian Stan in body-hugging jeans and minus underwear would divert bloodflow away from anyone’s brain.
Sebastian Stan in body-hugging jeans, wearing a nearly transparent shirt, minus underwear, and carrying Chris’s handprints across his backside, hidden beneath concealing fabric. Chris’s cock announces its interest all over again.
“One more thing-” Sebastian stops talking. Face colorless. Comprehension. “I forgot-”
Chris takes a deep breath. Without looking away from that shocked gaze, fumbles around in his bag until the box comes to hand. Holds it out. It’s not heavy.
Sebastian takes it with one wavering hand. “You’ll have to open it. I can’t.”
“You can,” Chris says.
“I mean I can’t.” Sebastian looks at the box, then up at him. And Chris realizes abruptly that his submissive’s terrified. “I can’t-I know I have to, when we walk out of here I have to-but I don’t know how to do this, I can’t-mi-e frică, vă rog sa nu-ni fac-”
“English,” Chris pleads, heart shattering. “Please. You-you’ve never worn a collar for anyone, have you? Even in the clubs?”
“Never.” Sebastian’s shaking. “I said-I don’t remember what I just said. I think I asked you not to make me…but you can’t, we can’t, I have to. Don’t I?”
“I’m sorry.” It’s all he has. He’ll say it forever if that’ll help even an infinitesimal amount. “I’m so sorry. I know you never wanted this. You can take it off as soon as we’re home. It’s just in public…is that what it is? Being public?”
“Partly.” Sebastian’s getting his voice under control. Like an instrument, Chris thinks. Like stumbling back to a dropped melody through sheer force of will. “I’ve spent thirty years not being public…I don’t know how to change that. Besides the obvious. Inside.”
“I’m sorry,” Chris says again. “What can I do? D’you want me to pretend it’s broken or something, or, hell, actually break it, so you can’t wear it? I will.”
“That won’t solve anything.” The lilt and sway of the music’s full of resignation. “We’ll only have to deal with it the next time we go out. And you can’t keep on making excuses. People will talk.”
“I don’t care.” He does, it does matter, but not right now. Right now he doesn’t care one whit. “Can I touch you? Please?”
Sebastian blinks. Surprise comes back into those eyes, which is better than dread. “I thought…yes, I said yes. Unless I say no. Yes.”
“I thought I should ask.” He holds out a hand, not with any real hope. Sebastian looks at him, and then unexpectedly steps closer and buries his face in Chris’s chest, arms folding around his waist.
Chris, heart overflowing with awe and love, holds him close. Kisses his hair, rubs his back, waits while ragged breaths even out. Thinks: this is perfect, even though it’s not, I could do this, I could do exactly this always.
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian murmurs to his collarbone. “Îme pare rău. I know it’s not your fault. It’s mine. It’s me.”
“Maybe.” He rests his cheek in wistful dark hair, letting it tickle his mouth. “But if it’s you then it’s us. So we’ll figure it out together. You said partly, earlier.”
He feels more than hears Sebastian take the breath. “I’m scared.”
“About letting people see what you are?”
“About…not knowing who I am.” Before Chris can begin to form words, Sebastian goes on. “If I put this on, once I put this on…I told you I’ve never felt like this with anyone else. I haven’t. I didn’t know I could. What else don’t I know? Who do I turn into, once I’m yours?”
“Oh,” Chris says, because he doesn’t have any words, because you say oh when your heart snaps in half.
Sebastian swallows. Breathes for a pair of heartbeats, in and out, exhales like tiny cataclysms over Chris’s neck. And then shifts weight, takes a step back. Chris lets his arms loosen. Not holding on.
Sebastian doesn’t step all the way back. Chris’s hands fall to his waist, and stay there.
Sebastian looks at his face. And one side of that mouth lifts, wry and hopeless and hopeful. “You look the way I feel.”
“I’m so fucking sorry.”
“I’m…I don’t know.” The box is lurking on the bed. They both side-eye it. Sebastian shrugs with both eyebrows, and is smiling a bit more when Chris hesitantly catches his gaze. “I think I needed to say that. And now you know. I’m scared and I’ve told you and all I know now is that I don’t know how I’m going to feel. So we may as well.”
“I could still pretend to break it…”
“You could, but…I think I’d rather not.” Sebastian takes his hand. Studies Chris’s fingers, playing with them. Then lifts them to his lips. A kiss. Chris blinks back tears and wonder and love.
“I still can’t,” Sebastian says, ever so slightly self-mocking, “so you’re going to have to open it, sir.”
“Um. Okay.” He does. And the infinite universe gets quiet, holding its breath.
It’s a very simple collar. Black. Basic. One O-ring at the front. He’d not been sure what Sebastian might like. But there is one addition, because he’d not been able to resist. The inside’s blue, butter-soft suede as close as he could get to the unmatchable shade of those wide eyes.
He can’t hear whether Sebastian’s breathing, through the rush of blood in his own ears.
Sebastian puts out a finger, tentatively. Touches black leather.
The universe, sun and moon and all assorted galaxies, is running out of air.
Sebastian looks up. “You picked this for me.”
That voice is unreadable. Not emotionless. Chris just doesn’t have a clue which emotion. “Yes?”
“So, then.” Sebastian looks back at the leather. “Yes.”
“…yes?”
“Yes. Before I change my mind.” But that’s conviction, stone under waves. Chris can hear it. “Go on.”
There aren’t words, there aren’t any words, so he just picks the collar up. It slips around Sebastian’s throat like it knows it’s found a home.
Sebastian closes his eyes as Chris steps behind him, tugs leather through the buckle, slips a finger underneath to check the fit. He doesn’t use the lock. Leaves it and the leash-he’d argued against that, but it’d been a set and the salesgirl had made some good points about public appearances and he’d given in-in the box without mentioning either.
One of them has to talk, eventually. Sebastian isn’t. So Chris does. “Too tight?”
“No,” Sebastian says without opening his eyes.
“Are…you…okay?”
“I don’t know. Ask me again.”
“Um. Are you okay?”
Sebastian opens both eyes. “Come here. Where I can see you.”
Chris circles around to stand in front of him. His heart’s battering itself against his breastbone. He’s starting to be afraid he’s going to have an anxiety attack on the spot, and he can’t, he can’t, because Sebastian’s scared and has admitted to being scared and needs him to be strong…
“Touch me,” Sebastian asks, voice finally showing cracks and splinters. “Please.”
“Where…how should I…”
Sebastian reaches out, picks up Chris’s right hand, and sets it at the side of his throat, low enough for most fingers to rest nervously over leather, high enough for his thumb to skim across Sebastian’s jaw.
“I’m still scared,” Sebastian says, barefoot and dressed in black and white and Chris’s collar, “but I think I can do this.”
So many words spring to his lips-I love you, you’re magnificent, I’m scared too but I think I won’t have the anxiety attack after all because you’re looking at me just like that and I can maybe remember how to breathe when you’re looking at me like that-that his tongue gets snarled up in all of them. What comes out is, “You can. You can do anything.”
Sebastian laughs, more a taken-aback little huff of breath than anything else. “I don’t know about anything. I’m not very good on airplanes. But…thank you.”
“Airplanes,” Chris says, keeping his hand in place, drinking in every word.
“I take trains when I can. I am nervous about take-offs and landings, mostly. Not especially convenient when one has meetings in Hollywood on a regular basis.”
“I can hold your hand. Next time. Every time. If you want.”
“I might,” Sebastian says, lifting his hand, putting it back over Chris’s, “want that, Chris.”
“I want that too,” Chris whispers, and they stand there looking at each other as the world gets back to rotating, as the galaxies spin, as the future unfolds.
A knock interrupts the glass-blown fragility of the next inhale. Chris turns, and growls, “Yes?” at the traitorous door. Sebastian does that not-quite-smile expression again.
“Er,” says a timid voice from the other side, “are you, er…finished? Only we need to…um…”
Chris opens his mouth to yell at the boy. Sebastian, before he can, interjects, “Yes, James, come in.” Chris promptly closes his mouth, and wonders when the acolytes got names, and why Sebastian knows them.
Come to think of it, he’s not surprised. They’re probably all in love with Sebastian too.
He drops his hand from the collar as the door opens, but wraps it around the closest articulate Romanian wrist. His.
Sebastian hides the smile in the corners of his mouth, but it’s present in his eyes. “Hi, James. Yes, we’re ready. Well. In fact I could use my boots. Which I see are over there. But otherwise yes. I take it you need us out of the room.”
“We sort of need your sheets,” the shorter boy agrees, blushing. Chris isn’t sure why-surely they’ve seen the mornings-after innumerable times before, serving here-but then is illuminated when Sebastian adds, “And I promise I won’t forget about sending you the music, either. Shall I just direct it here, or do you have another address?”
Chris leans in and whispers, “Music?”
“He likes my soundtracks,” Sebastian stage-whispers back. “Even if he thinks The Pact is a tolerable film. He should watch Midnight Swan.”
“Hey,” the boy says. “I did. I know you were remixing Tchaikovsky, and it is every kind of unfair that you weren’t awards-eligible for that, and how’d you get the kind of electronica club sound out of a violin?”
“Oh,” Sebastian says, looking delighted, “well, if you look at classical composers, Mozart especially, and some of the high notes, and then don’t actually tune the-”
The other boy, the taller one, clears his throat the second before Chris can. They both have the sense to look abashed.
“Sorry,” James says to his fellow acolyte.
“Sorry,” Sebastian says to Chris.
“I’m learning new things about you all the time,” Chris notes, and threads their fingers together. “You’re good with kids.”
Sebastian looks horrified. “I am not.”
“I’m not a kid,” James protests. “Thirteen. Almost. Can I have your email?”
“Oh, of course-oh, you do have a pen, thank you-”
“You’re not even supposed to be talking to him,” complains the taller boy. “Don’t get attached.” And they proceed to collect stained linen without further comment-Chris, out of everyone, is the one who blushes-and whisk themselves out the door for, presumably, DNA verification of consummated marriage.
“Well,” Chris says, holding Sebastian’s hand, holding his husband’s hand, “shall we go find your place?”
“I-”
The taller boy puts his head back around the corner. “Mr Evans?”
“Hi,” Chris agrees, rather nonplussed.
“We like him. Hurt him and we’ll kick your ass.” And the head vanishes.
Chris turns to look at Sebastian, who apparently has been forced to sit down on the now-bare mattress, laughing too hard to stand.
“Oh, sure,” Chris grumbles, heart completely light because Sebastian is laughing, “be entertained that I’ve been threatened by a pair of adolescent boys, are they even allowed to do that, what did you do to them…”
“I have no idea! I was only polite!” Sebastian lets Chris take both his hands. Lets Chris tug him to his feet, face to face, merriment filling up all the spaces. “I am quite confident you could take them if necessary, sir. Seventy-thirty odds, at least.”
“Seventy?”
“Perhaps eighty? There are two of them. And even combined they are younger than you.”
“Oh,” Chris says, and moves hands, curls them around both of Sebastian’s wrists, squeezes, “you are so getting spanked for that, sub.”
“Very well,” Sebastian agrees demurely. “Ninety. I do enjoy your muscles.”
“You do?” He squeezes harder. Feels the elegant bones of Sebastian’s wrists under his hands. Sebastian’s eyes shine in reply. Chris grins. “You do. Come on.”
He leaves one hand around Sebastian’s right wrist. Picks up both bags with the other one. Muscles, indeed. He’s not surreptitiously flexing at all, either.
Maybe a little. Sebastian’s watching.
They go down the stairs-not back through the temple, but the other stairs, where their priest nods at them from his office. Chris isn’t entirely sure what that means, but he guesses that they’re good to go, and also that the man is well aware that Chris might be holding a permanent grudge about the aphrodisiacs. Which is exactly true. And deserved.
Sebastian opens the side door. The world’s waiting beyond. Streetside bustle, taxicabs, New York skyscrapers and brick blocks and bewildered tourists and a cacophony of music and voices and car-horns. The scents of street food and construction and blue skies. Color in joyous punk riots and stately nineteenth-century splendor.
And so many pairs of eyes. They’ll look at Sebastian and Chris, and they might see an Oscar-nominated musician and a beginning-to-be well-known artist, they might see a couple holding hands, but they’ll definitely see a collared submissive and his Dominant.
Chris taps fingers over that wrist where it’s encircled in his grip, asking the question. Sebastian looks down the street, up at the sky, down at the grey flat sidewalk. Touches his collar with his free hand, a quick unthinking speaking gesture.
“Sebastian,” Chris says, mostly just to say his name.
“Chris.” Sebastian looks up. Smiles. It’s a private kind of smile, small and inward. But it gets brighter as their eyes meet. “Home?”
“Yes,” Chris says, and thinks that of course he’s the one saying yes, even if Sebastian’s the one who’s vowed to be his, who’s his on paper and in the gaze of the world; Chris belongs to him, Chris’s heart belongs to him, and so that’s a yes, that’s a yes forever.
He thinks about blueberries and chocolate and hand-feeding Sebastian in bed. He thinks about hearing Sebastian laugh every day. He thinks that maybe he can get Sebastian to fall in love with him, Chris Evans; and in that moment under the city sunshine with Sebastian’s smile lighting up the world, he thinks that might even be possible.
He says, “You’re going to have to tell me where we’re going, because I did sort of look up your address when I wrote to you but I honestly can’t remember the street name, I’m sorry, do you want me to get us a cab?”
And Sebastian tips his head against Chris’s shoulder, still smiling, and says, “I can tell you where we’re going, yes, please find us a cab.”