fic: like honey to the bee, baby [2/2]
Title: Just Like Honey To The Bee, Baby [2/2] [part one here]
Word Count: 3,870 total; about two thousand words for this part
Rating: PG-13 for all the desperate emotions and Chris saying fuck a lot; vague hints at D/s dynamics but not explicit, mostly just the way they naturally interact
Warnings: Chris’s anxiety (derailed before a full-blown attack), unspecified past reasons for Sebastian to be afraid of doctors
Notes: title courtesy of James Taylor's “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” because Chris and Scott were singing “Fire And Rain” for fun.
Summary: The sun pounds down. The asphalt sizzles up. Someone yells cut at last, and Chris heaves in a breath, lungs grateful-
And Sebastian drops to his knees. Right there on the spot. In the street. Fingers brushing weakly at that stifling Winter Soldier mask.
Sebastian coughs, blinks, gulps in air. Blinks a second time, looking up at Chris, lying in Chris’s arms on a broken freeway under sunlight.
“Oh God,” Chris says, dizzy, crying.
Sebastian’s eyebrows tug together. Bewildered. “Chris…?”
“Don’t fuckin’ talk-!”
“What…”
“Don’t talk, I said,” Chris protests, “you-God, Seb, you-oh fuck-” and Sebastian’s asking weakly, “Are you okay, what’s wrong, Chris, please-” and the paramedics finally at last show up, along with both Russo brothers and the entire population of downtown Cleveland, and start in with professionally competent questions, checking Sebastian’s pulse, inquiring about his name and the date and whether he knows where he is.
Sebastian looks up at Chris again. Chris keeps arms wrapped around him. Tightens them a fraction.
At which point Sebastian throws a glance at the onslaught of medical concern, and then curls into Chris’s hold: face tucked into Chris’s chest, shivering a little, very plainly hiding and seeking strength.
Chris, disbelieving-Sebastian’s clinging to him, Sebastian’s turning to him for support-and awed and honored, glares at the gaggle of onlookers: medical personnel, directors and crew, Anthony Mackie. All of them curious about Sebastian. All of them ogling. No wonder Sebastian, having just woken up, needs comfort.
A few of the more ghoulishly interested crew shuffle feet, abashed, and wander away. A few stay. Chris runs a hand over Sebastian’s hair. It’s long and dark and soft, lighter brown highlights where it’s been seduced by winsome sunshine. Sebastian makes a tiny sound and tries to get closer to the petting.
“Sebastian,” nudges the first paramedic, gently, “we do need to talk to you, we need you to answer some questions, okay? If you can’t talk, if you feel disoriented or you don’t know where you are, we need to know.”
“Seb,” Chris says. Heart rattling his insides. Shaking loose rib-cage and bone. “Sebastian, baby, you gotta talk to them, okay? If you can. They need to know you’re all right. I-we need to know. Come on, kid, please, I’ll hold you, just try to answer, it’s okay if you can’t, but try for me, please?”
Baby? Kid? What the hell, he demands of himself. But those words’ve just leapt out, like his mouth’s been waiting to say them. Too late now.
But Sebastian nods against his chest. Whispers, “I’m sorry…”
“For what?” Chris and the gentle-voiced paramedic exchange apprehensive silent gazes. “Nothing to be sorry for, you’re all right, just breathe.”
“The film…this scene…” Sebastian’s trembling. “I’m so sorry, Îmi pare rău, I didn’t mean-I just wanted to be good-is everyone-”
“Nobody’s mad at you.” Chris strokes his hair. Chris’s nerves are fraying apart: adrenaline, fear, complete out-of-depth treading-of-water. He’s never seen Sebastian fall apart like this. Not Sebastian: hardworking, earnest, easygoing in the face of script changes and wardrobe demands, tentatively mischievously teasing Chris over coffee only a couple hours ago.
Chris is the one who gets anxious and distressed. Chris is the one whose brain shouts too loudly for his own good. Sebastian should forever be competent and unruffled and excited by the existence of such treasures as cheesesteaks and peppermint mochas in the world.
The aforementioned world quakes and lurches. Foundations rocked.
Sebastian’s accepted protective arms as if that’s an instinct: when hurting, seek shelter, seek Chris.
That’s Chris’s instinct too, to hold him just like this, but Chris is petrified inside, because he doesn’t know why Sebastian’s so ready to accept. More injured than they know? Wounds from landing hard on uncaring ground? Older bruises, physical or emotional, newly aggravated?
Further petrification. Stones in his stomach, in his chest, heavy and awful. But Sebastian seems to be listening, unless that’s just a head-tilt for more hair-petting. More, then.
“Nobody’s mad at you,” he repeats. Joe Russo nods: nobody is. Not for this. “Maybe at your costume designers, you couldn’t breathe, right? That’s not your fuckin’ fault. You’re fine, I swear, we got this scene, you don’t need to worry about that, don’t worry about anything. Not now.”
Sebastian flinches at that. Something wrong, something else wrong, Chris’s said something-so fucking stupid, so wrong-footed when it’s important-
He bites his lip. Stinging pain. Grounding in the now. “We got it,” he says again. If Sebastian needs to know that, then he’ll say so. It’s true, anyway. “You know we did, you were there, you felt it just like I did.” And then he says, with no forethought at all, words ready on the tip of his tongue like his tongue knows what lost blue eyes need to hear, “And you were good, you’re so good, I mean that, so believe it, all right? I just-we just-want you to be all right.”
“I’m all right.” Sebastian doesn’t move, though. Defeated by the admission: if he’s okay he’s going to be asked to prove it soon.
“I know you are.” Chris strokes his hair again, rubs his back. Sebastian seems to relax somewhat at this evidence of lack of anger. “Want to look at me? Talk to the nice doctor people?”
A heartbeat, two; Sebastian nods slowly. Sits up more-Chris’s arms around him just in case-and answers questions about mental awareness with miserable eyes. The sunlight hovers around them, fretful. One of the personal assistants brings water; Chris takes it and holds the bottle to Sebastian’s lips for the first sip, and then wonders what the hell he’s doing, unthinking proprietary actions and reactions.
But Sebastian doesn’t object. Chris has no clue what that means, other than maybe that Sebastian’s out of it enough to permit all kinds of overprotective hovering liberties. (Chris wants to believe that he knows what it means. Chris doesn’t believe that it can ever mean what he wants it to. Not for a second. Surely not. They’re friends. Sebastian trusts him. No.)
The paramedics eventually decide that their Winter Soldier’s mostly fine, the causes obvious-that smothering mask, mild asphyxia, dehydration, exhaustion, punishing heat-and then suggest that while he needn’t check in to a hospital he should go home and take things easy for a day or so. Sebastian tries to apologize again. Anthony Russo waves a hand and tells him they’ll film some long shots, they’ll use his stunt double, maybe get some close-ups of Mackie. Mackie says, “I am awesome, we could use more close-ups of me, not a problem at all, should be thanking you, man.” Sebastian almost smiles.
They decree that Sebastian shouldn’t be alone, in case he ends up lightheaded or unable to breathe, in case he does need a ride to the emergency room. Sebastian attempts, feebly, to say this isn’t necessary; Chris announces, “Nope, no way, you’re stuck with me,” with false brittle cheer. Sebastian starts to reply, hesitates, breathes out. “If you don’t mind.”
“I get an afternoon off, why would I mind? Can you stand up? I think some people want to take your metal arm away.”
“Oh…yes, that would be a good idea…I can stand up. I’m fine, really, water and breathing and you-what you said. Thank you.”
“Me?” Chris gets an arm under his shoulders, easing them both upright. Sebastian’s not as okay as he’s pretending; better than earlier, yeah, but that’s like the way being not-dead is better than being deceased. Even his lips’re pale. Colorless. “What’d I do?”
Sebastian, despite temporary fragility, magics a smile into existence. Genuine and fond. “Chris…” Plus a small one-shouldered shrug, as if to say: you’re Chris. That’s enough.
It sounds like an answer. It sounds like Chris is the answer. It sounds like Chris being there is everything.
It’s that kind of smile. That kind of breath, in the sunlight. Shared.
Chris, buoyed up into weightless courage by that smile, reaches over with his other hand. Tucks a strand of escape-artist hair behind Sebastian’s ear. Lets fingers linger: skimming skin like a catch mid-inhale, like a shimmer of heat, like a mutual admission.
“I am all right,” Sebastian murmurs, hushed, not breaking the spell. “I promise.”
“You’re kinda not,” Chris whispers back, half-grateful, half-serious, “and I’m still coming home with you.”
“I want you to,” Sebastian says, smile growing, eyes more eager by the second. “I wanted-when Mackie said you wanted to see me, this morning, I knew you couldn’t be thinking what I was but I couldn’t help picturing-imagining what you might want, with me-”
“Yeah? What makes you think I wasn’t thinking too? Tell me all about what you-no, wait. Sit down.” They’ve just tried taking a step. Sebastian wobbles on his feet. Chris’s gut goes from pleasantly astonished and thrilled to lead-lined and sick. “Don’t move. Look at me. Focus. Good, okay, keep looking at me, just like that…” He’s pushed kitten-limbs and white skin into the closest director’s chair. He takes Sebastian’s chin. Tips it up. “Can you breathe? Just nod.”
“…more so now.” Sebastian scrunches his eyes shut, but opens them before Chris can move or hyperventilate. “I only felt…off-balance…I can hear my heartbeat, I think…well, that’s disconcerting…”
Chris presses fingertips to pulse-point. Too fast. Dangerous rapids. Peril ahead. “Here. Water. Drink more.” One sip, two, rationed to keep Sebastian breathing in between. His hand clenches too tightly around plastic; a few drops splash Sebastian’s chin.
Sebastian starts looking less pale, inhaling and exhaling more evenly, after most of the bottle and a few minutes of sitting very still. Chris serves as cup-bearer and shifts position awkwardly beside him: stand and bend down to the chair? Kneel at his feet? Kiss his feet? Bundle him up into luxurious blankets and swear that nothing’ll hurt him ever again? Where might luxurious blankets come from, mid-afternoon on a film location in Cleveland?
“Chris?”
“Huh? Oh…shit, sorry-” He’s holding an empty water-bottle to Sebastian’s lips. “I. Um. I’ll send…um, Steve-” Young twiglike Steve the intern, who happens to be the nearest pretending-not-to-eavesdrop body, tosses back a thumbs-up and sprints off. “-for more. Are you, um…not okay, but…”
“Better.” Sebastian reaches up and takes the empty bottle away and sets it on the chair-arm. Chris’s heart flips over: relief, anguish, grief at present helplessness, a love so clear it hurts all through, light spilling from diamonds in his chest.
He needs Sebastian to be safe. He needs Sebastian to smile at him one more time. He needs Sebastian to take water bottles out of his hand when he forgets he’s holding on to them. He needs Sebastian tucked into his arms again: long-legged and small and sweet and trusting, being strong enough to lean on Chris when the leaning’s necessary. He needs to build himself into a fortress with wide stone walls and weatherproof book-lined wings, so Sebastian can wander around the world delightedly as Chris keeps him snug and dry.
He thinks: baby, I said. Kid. Mine. I was saying mine. Mine to cherish, to do every fuckin’ thing for, not because he needs me but because I want to. And he didn’t say no.
In the midst of this sun-gilded revelation, wardrobe assistants and extra water appear. Chris steps aside so they can peel and twist and squish Sebastian’s arm out of the constricting metal-trimmed sleeve. The sounds are wet and slick, and his body wants to react inappropriately but he also isn’t touching Sebastian at the moment and that’s not okay. He hears every low-voiced question as assistants tug, as Sebastian replies, as Sebastian gasps at a particularly sudden slide of weight coming free. The sky hangs like disemboweled sapphires overhead, bleeding gold.
The assistants’ve brought privacy drapes and a change of clothes, no doubt liberated from Sebastian’s trailer. Two more show up with the same for Chris. He strips off the Captain America suit with increasingly frantic motions: get it off, get clothing on, get back to Sebastian…
Who’s too quiet now. Who must need him, who did need him, who doesn’t fucking say anything when dying of asphyxiation and heatstroke behind a mask-
And oh, that’s an arrow going in, a fatal thud home: Sebastian could’ve died, Chris might’ve never seen him again-
Sebastian might’ve never woken up, gone even while cradled in Chris’s arms. Sebastian might still slip away, if not today then tomorrow or the next day, dizziness while descending hotel stairs, a moment’s inattention while crossing a road, a misplaced kick from Chris himself while practicing a fight sequence-
The world spins. His chest feels tight. Colors blur like watercolor paint in rain. Too much noise.
“Chris.”
Sebastian’s voice. Full of stories like bronzed flower-petals, layer upon layer of memories and kindness. His compass-north. He opens his eyes.
“Chris,” Sebastian says again, somehow right in front of him, and then puts both arms around him. Breathes into Chris’s ear, Chris’s throat, the heartsick aching hollow under Chris’s jaw, “I’m here.”
How did you know, Chris tries to say. How did you know I needed to hold you, to feel this, you feel so real, I can taste your hair, I love you. He can’t talk yet. Sebastian’s still shirtless and keeps hugging him like there’s no such phrase as letting go.
“I’m here,” Sebastian promises again, leaning back enough to look him in the eye. Unremoved eyeliner smudges his lids, his lashes: underscoring winter-blue for emphasis. “I’ll be fine.”
“You can’t know that…”
“I can. You’ll take care of me.”
While Chris’s heart and brain are busy processing that serene assertion and beginning to tingle with sparks, Sebastian adds, “I am sorry,” and Chris demands, “For what?” instead of any of the other words he’d meant to say. “You don’t have to-”
“Not for that.” Sebastian glances down, nibbles his lower lip, looks back up hopefully through brave eyelashes. “You said-you did say I was-was-”
“Good. You are.”
“Thank you.” Sebastian’s actually blushing now. It’s a happy kind of blush. Chris wants to see that shade of pink on him more. Not only because of the vertiginous rush of reprieve at the return of color. “I…believe you. If you tell me so. But I meant I’m sorry for not saying anything. I didn’t want to slow us down, but-I knew something was wrong. I should have asked for a break. And you’re hurt and that’s my fault.”
“I’m not-”
“Chris.”
“I can’t lose you,” Chris whispers.
“You won’t.” Sebastian leans a little more weight on him. They’re standing half-naked behind privacy screens and holding each other in the forest of off-camera scaffolding and lighting rigs and crew-ferrying golf carts. Steve the PA is calling a car to take them back to the haven of the hotel. Sebastian’s lips are warm as they skim the corner of Chris’s mouth, a tease of a kiss as they vow, “You won’t.”
“Because you’ll let me keep you safe.”
“Because I wanted you to hold me, when I was scared, and you held me. I’ve never liked doctors. Hospitals. Ever since-I’ll tell you why someday.”
“Whenever you’re ready. Because I want you to feel safe.”
“Because you tell me I’m good,” Sebastian says, smile like happy endings, not painless but earned and right, “your sweet kid, your good boy, and when you say it I want to be good for you. I’ve always felt safe with you. Sometimes I just look at you and want to belong to you, to be yours. Because it’s you.”
“Oh my God,” Chris says. “Yeah? Yes. I mean. Oh my God.”
“Sometimes I forget how to talk and have to run away. Like this morning.”
“I tried to ask you to wait.” He leans down. Bumps Sebastian’s nose with his; and the thing is, the crazy wonderful shocking thing is, he can. “I’m sorry too.”
“For…what, again?”
“For not taking care of you today-I know, I know. But,” he adds, at Sebastian’s wry mouth-quirk, “I know more about action movie fight scenes and how much that takes out of you, and you’re…um…my good boy and so I am fuckin’ sorry, anyway. And also for not kissing you sooner. Should’ve kissed you, like, months ago, I don’t even know.”
“You still haven’t kissed me,” Sebastian points out helpfully, looking healthier by the second, as if romance really can cure every last ill, and also looking like he knows exactly what he’s asking for. Chris is still going to make him lie down the instant they get back to the hotel, and that is not (yet, his traitorous body suggests: not yet) a euphemism for sex. No exertion. No matter how pert that adorable mouth gets. Not…yet. “And you could have. I’d’ve loved it. I always thought you knew and were politely ignoring the whole idea.”
And the thing is, this is a patently ludicrous statement. So Chris attempts to kiss him, to swear out loud, to say you thought I KNEW?!, to dazedly inquire loved? and to announce but I love YOU! Which means that what in fact spills out is, “You know I love you!”
Oh fuck. (And he doesn’t regret it. He does regret it, of course he does, too soon and too much and too sudden, too overwhelming given what’s just transpired, Sebastian can’t possibly, Sebastian’s going to cautiously inch away from the crazy person any minute now, but: he doesn’t regret it. He loves Sebastian. Truth at the core of his world.)
Nevertheless: oh fuck.
“Well,” Sebastian says brightly, “I didn’t know, but I think I might now, and I love you too,” and kisses him with no hesitation at all.
Word Count: 3,870 total; about two thousand words for this part
Rating: PG-13 for all the desperate emotions and Chris saying fuck a lot; vague hints at D/s dynamics but not explicit, mostly just the way they naturally interact
Warnings: Chris’s anxiety (derailed before a full-blown attack), unspecified past reasons for Sebastian to be afraid of doctors
Notes: title courtesy of James Taylor's “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” because Chris and Scott were singing “Fire And Rain” for fun.
Summary: The sun pounds down. The asphalt sizzles up. Someone yells cut at last, and Chris heaves in a breath, lungs grateful-
And Sebastian drops to his knees. Right there on the spot. In the street. Fingers brushing weakly at that stifling Winter Soldier mask.
Sebastian coughs, blinks, gulps in air. Blinks a second time, looking up at Chris, lying in Chris’s arms on a broken freeway under sunlight.
“Oh God,” Chris says, dizzy, crying.
Sebastian’s eyebrows tug together. Bewildered. “Chris…?”
“Don’t fuckin’ talk-!”
“What…”
“Don’t talk, I said,” Chris protests, “you-God, Seb, you-oh fuck-” and Sebastian’s asking weakly, “Are you okay, what’s wrong, Chris, please-” and the paramedics finally at last show up, along with both Russo brothers and the entire population of downtown Cleveland, and start in with professionally competent questions, checking Sebastian’s pulse, inquiring about his name and the date and whether he knows where he is.
Sebastian looks up at Chris again. Chris keeps arms wrapped around him. Tightens them a fraction.
At which point Sebastian throws a glance at the onslaught of medical concern, and then curls into Chris’s hold: face tucked into Chris’s chest, shivering a little, very plainly hiding and seeking strength.
Chris, disbelieving-Sebastian’s clinging to him, Sebastian’s turning to him for support-and awed and honored, glares at the gaggle of onlookers: medical personnel, directors and crew, Anthony Mackie. All of them curious about Sebastian. All of them ogling. No wonder Sebastian, having just woken up, needs comfort.
A few of the more ghoulishly interested crew shuffle feet, abashed, and wander away. A few stay. Chris runs a hand over Sebastian’s hair. It’s long and dark and soft, lighter brown highlights where it’s been seduced by winsome sunshine. Sebastian makes a tiny sound and tries to get closer to the petting.
“Sebastian,” nudges the first paramedic, gently, “we do need to talk to you, we need you to answer some questions, okay? If you can’t talk, if you feel disoriented or you don’t know where you are, we need to know.”
“Seb,” Chris says. Heart rattling his insides. Shaking loose rib-cage and bone. “Sebastian, baby, you gotta talk to them, okay? If you can. They need to know you’re all right. I-we need to know. Come on, kid, please, I’ll hold you, just try to answer, it’s okay if you can’t, but try for me, please?”
Baby? Kid? What the hell, he demands of himself. But those words’ve just leapt out, like his mouth’s been waiting to say them. Too late now.
But Sebastian nods against his chest. Whispers, “I’m sorry…”
“For what?” Chris and the gentle-voiced paramedic exchange apprehensive silent gazes. “Nothing to be sorry for, you’re all right, just breathe.”
“The film…this scene…” Sebastian’s trembling. “I’m so sorry, Îmi pare rău, I didn’t mean-I just wanted to be good-is everyone-”
“Nobody’s mad at you.” Chris strokes his hair. Chris’s nerves are fraying apart: adrenaline, fear, complete out-of-depth treading-of-water. He’s never seen Sebastian fall apart like this. Not Sebastian: hardworking, earnest, easygoing in the face of script changes and wardrobe demands, tentatively mischievously teasing Chris over coffee only a couple hours ago.
Chris is the one who gets anxious and distressed. Chris is the one whose brain shouts too loudly for his own good. Sebastian should forever be competent and unruffled and excited by the existence of such treasures as cheesesteaks and peppermint mochas in the world.
The aforementioned world quakes and lurches. Foundations rocked.
Sebastian’s accepted protective arms as if that’s an instinct: when hurting, seek shelter, seek Chris.
That’s Chris’s instinct too, to hold him just like this, but Chris is petrified inside, because he doesn’t know why Sebastian’s so ready to accept. More injured than they know? Wounds from landing hard on uncaring ground? Older bruises, physical or emotional, newly aggravated?
Further petrification. Stones in his stomach, in his chest, heavy and awful. But Sebastian seems to be listening, unless that’s just a head-tilt for more hair-petting. More, then.
“Nobody’s mad at you,” he repeats. Joe Russo nods: nobody is. Not for this. “Maybe at your costume designers, you couldn’t breathe, right? That’s not your fuckin’ fault. You’re fine, I swear, we got this scene, you don’t need to worry about that, don’t worry about anything. Not now.”
Sebastian flinches at that. Something wrong, something else wrong, Chris’s said something-so fucking stupid, so wrong-footed when it’s important-
He bites his lip. Stinging pain. Grounding in the now. “We got it,” he says again. If Sebastian needs to know that, then he’ll say so. It’s true, anyway. “You know we did, you were there, you felt it just like I did.” And then he says, with no forethought at all, words ready on the tip of his tongue like his tongue knows what lost blue eyes need to hear, “And you were good, you’re so good, I mean that, so believe it, all right? I just-we just-want you to be all right.”
“I’m all right.” Sebastian doesn’t move, though. Defeated by the admission: if he’s okay he’s going to be asked to prove it soon.
“I know you are.” Chris strokes his hair again, rubs his back. Sebastian seems to relax somewhat at this evidence of lack of anger. “Want to look at me? Talk to the nice doctor people?”
A heartbeat, two; Sebastian nods slowly. Sits up more-Chris’s arms around him just in case-and answers questions about mental awareness with miserable eyes. The sunlight hovers around them, fretful. One of the personal assistants brings water; Chris takes it and holds the bottle to Sebastian’s lips for the first sip, and then wonders what the hell he’s doing, unthinking proprietary actions and reactions.
But Sebastian doesn’t object. Chris has no clue what that means, other than maybe that Sebastian’s out of it enough to permit all kinds of overprotective hovering liberties. (Chris wants to believe that he knows what it means. Chris doesn’t believe that it can ever mean what he wants it to. Not for a second. Surely not. They’re friends. Sebastian trusts him. No.)
The paramedics eventually decide that their Winter Soldier’s mostly fine, the causes obvious-that smothering mask, mild asphyxia, dehydration, exhaustion, punishing heat-and then suggest that while he needn’t check in to a hospital he should go home and take things easy for a day or so. Sebastian tries to apologize again. Anthony Russo waves a hand and tells him they’ll film some long shots, they’ll use his stunt double, maybe get some close-ups of Mackie. Mackie says, “I am awesome, we could use more close-ups of me, not a problem at all, should be thanking you, man.” Sebastian almost smiles.
They decree that Sebastian shouldn’t be alone, in case he ends up lightheaded or unable to breathe, in case he does need a ride to the emergency room. Sebastian attempts, feebly, to say this isn’t necessary; Chris announces, “Nope, no way, you’re stuck with me,” with false brittle cheer. Sebastian starts to reply, hesitates, breathes out. “If you don’t mind.”
“I get an afternoon off, why would I mind? Can you stand up? I think some people want to take your metal arm away.”
“Oh…yes, that would be a good idea…I can stand up. I’m fine, really, water and breathing and you-what you said. Thank you.”
“Me?” Chris gets an arm under his shoulders, easing them both upright. Sebastian’s not as okay as he’s pretending; better than earlier, yeah, but that’s like the way being not-dead is better than being deceased. Even his lips’re pale. Colorless. “What’d I do?”
Sebastian, despite temporary fragility, magics a smile into existence. Genuine and fond. “Chris…” Plus a small one-shouldered shrug, as if to say: you’re Chris. That’s enough.
It sounds like an answer. It sounds like Chris is the answer. It sounds like Chris being there is everything.
It’s that kind of smile. That kind of breath, in the sunlight. Shared.
Chris, buoyed up into weightless courage by that smile, reaches over with his other hand. Tucks a strand of escape-artist hair behind Sebastian’s ear. Lets fingers linger: skimming skin like a catch mid-inhale, like a shimmer of heat, like a mutual admission.
“I am all right,” Sebastian murmurs, hushed, not breaking the spell. “I promise.”
“You’re kinda not,” Chris whispers back, half-grateful, half-serious, “and I’m still coming home with you.”
“I want you to,” Sebastian says, smile growing, eyes more eager by the second. “I wanted-when Mackie said you wanted to see me, this morning, I knew you couldn’t be thinking what I was but I couldn’t help picturing-imagining what you might want, with me-”
“Yeah? What makes you think I wasn’t thinking too? Tell me all about what you-no, wait. Sit down.” They’ve just tried taking a step. Sebastian wobbles on his feet. Chris’s gut goes from pleasantly astonished and thrilled to lead-lined and sick. “Don’t move. Look at me. Focus. Good, okay, keep looking at me, just like that…” He’s pushed kitten-limbs and white skin into the closest director’s chair. He takes Sebastian’s chin. Tips it up. “Can you breathe? Just nod.”
“…more so now.” Sebastian scrunches his eyes shut, but opens them before Chris can move or hyperventilate. “I only felt…off-balance…I can hear my heartbeat, I think…well, that’s disconcerting…”
Chris presses fingertips to pulse-point. Too fast. Dangerous rapids. Peril ahead. “Here. Water. Drink more.” One sip, two, rationed to keep Sebastian breathing in between. His hand clenches too tightly around plastic; a few drops splash Sebastian’s chin.
Sebastian starts looking less pale, inhaling and exhaling more evenly, after most of the bottle and a few minutes of sitting very still. Chris serves as cup-bearer and shifts position awkwardly beside him: stand and bend down to the chair? Kneel at his feet? Kiss his feet? Bundle him up into luxurious blankets and swear that nothing’ll hurt him ever again? Where might luxurious blankets come from, mid-afternoon on a film location in Cleveland?
“Chris?”
“Huh? Oh…shit, sorry-” He’s holding an empty water-bottle to Sebastian’s lips. “I. Um. I’ll send…um, Steve-” Young twiglike Steve the intern, who happens to be the nearest pretending-not-to-eavesdrop body, tosses back a thumbs-up and sprints off. “-for more. Are you, um…not okay, but…”
“Better.” Sebastian reaches up and takes the empty bottle away and sets it on the chair-arm. Chris’s heart flips over: relief, anguish, grief at present helplessness, a love so clear it hurts all through, light spilling from diamonds in his chest.
He needs Sebastian to be safe. He needs Sebastian to smile at him one more time. He needs Sebastian to take water bottles out of his hand when he forgets he’s holding on to them. He needs Sebastian tucked into his arms again: long-legged and small and sweet and trusting, being strong enough to lean on Chris when the leaning’s necessary. He needs to build himself into a fortress with wide stone walls and weatherproof book-lined wings, so Sebastian can wander around the world delightedly as Chris keeps him snug and dry.
He thinks: baby, I said. Kid. Mine. I was saying mine. Mine to cherish, to do every fuckin’ thing for, not because he needs me but because I want to. And he didn’t say no.
In the midst of this sun-gilded revelation, wardrobe assistants and extra water appear. Chris steps aside so they can peel and twist and squish Sebastian’s arm out of the constricting metal-trimmed sleeve. The sounds are wet and slick, and his body wants to react inappropriately but he also isn’t touching Sebastian at the moment and that’s not okay. He hears every low-voiced question as assistants tug, as Sebastian replies, as Sebastian gasps at a particularly sudden slide of weight coming free. The sky hangs like disemboweled sapphires overhead, bleeding gold.
The assistants’ve brought privacy drapes and a change of clothes, no doubt liberated from Sebastian’s trailer. Two more show up with the same for Chris. He strips off the Captain America suit with increasingly frantic motions: get it off, get clothing on, get back to Sebastian…
Who’s too quiet now. Who must need him, who did need him, who doesn’t fucking say anything when dying of asphyxiation and heatstroke behind a mask-
And oh, that’s an arrow going in, a fatal thud home: Sebastian could’ve died, Chris might’ve never seen him again-
Sebastian might’ve never woken up, gone even while cradled in Chris’s arms. Sebastian might still slip away, if not today then tomorrow or the next day, dizziness while descending hotel stairs, a moment’s inattention while crossing a road, a misplaced kick from Chris himself while practicing a fight sequence-
The world spins. His chest feels tight. Colors blur like watercolor paint in rain. Too much noise.
“Chris.”
Sebastian’s voice. Full of stories like bronzed flower-petals, layer upon layer of memories and kindness. His compass-north. He opens his eyes.
“Chris,” Sebastian says again, somehow right in front of him, and then puts both arms around him. Breathes into Chris’s ear, Chris’s throat, the heartsick aching hollow under Chris’s jaw, “I’m here.”
How did you know, Chris tries to say. How did you know I needed to hold you, to feel this, you feel so real, I can taste your hair, I love you. He can’t talk yet. Sebastian’s still shirtless and keeps hugging him like there’s no such phrase as letting go.
“I’m here,” Sebastian promises again, leaning back enough to look him in the eye. Unremoved eyeliner smudges his lids, his lashes: underscoring winter-blue for emphasis. “I’ll be fine.”
“You can’t know that…”
“I can. You’ll take care of me.”
While Chris’s heart and brain are busy processing that serene assertion and beginning to tingle with sparks, Sebastian adds, “I am sorry,” and Chris demands, “For what?” instead of any of the other words he’d meant to say. “You don’t have to-”
“Not for that.” Sebastian glances down, nibbles his lower lip, looks back up hopefully through brave eyelashes. “You said-you did say I was-was-”
“Good. You are.”
“Thank you.” Sebastian’s actually blushing now. It’s a happy kind of blush. Chris wants to see that shade of pink on him more. Not only because of the vertiginous rush of reprieve at the return of color. “I…believe you. If you tell me so. But I meant I’m sorry for not saying anything. I didn’t want to slow us down, but-I knew something was wrong. I should have asked for a break. And you’re hurt and that’s my fault.”
“I’m not-”
“Chris.”
“I can’t lose you,” Chris whispers.
“You won’t.” Sebastian leans a little more weight on him. They’re standing half-naked behind privacy screens and holding each other in the forest of off-camera scaffolding and lighting rigs and crew-ferrying golf carts. Steve the PA is calling a car to take them back to the haven of the hotel. Sebastian’s lips are warm as they skim the corner of Chris’s mouth, a tease of a kiss as they vow, “You won’t.”
“Because you’ll let me keep you safe.”
“Because I wanted you to hold me, when I was scared, and you held me. I’ve never liked doctors. Hospitals. Ever since-I’ll tell you why someday.”
“Whenever you’re ready. Because I want you to feel safe.”
“Because you tell me I’m good,” Sebastian says, smile like happy endings, not painless but earned and right, “your sweet kid, your good boy, and when you say it I want to be good for you. I’ve always felt safe with you. Sometimes I just look at you and want to belong to you, to be yours. Because it’s you.”
“Oh my God,” Chris says. “Yeah? Yes. I mean. Oh my God.”
“Sometimes I forget how to talk and have to run away. Like this morning.”
“I tried to ask you to wait.” He leans down. Bumps Sebastian’s nose with his; and the thing is, the crazy wonderful shocking thing is, he can. “I’m sorry too.”
“For…what, again?”
“For not taking care of you today-I know, I know. But,” he adds, at Sebastian’s wry mouth-quirk, “I know more about action movie fight scenes and how much that takes out of you, and you’re…um…my good boy and so I am fuckin’ sorry, anyway. And also for not kissing you sooner. Should’ve kissed you, like, months ago, I don’t even know.”
“You still haven’t kissed me,” Sebastian points out helpfully, looking healthier by the second, as if romance really can cure every last ill, and also looking like he knows exactly what he’s asking for. Chris is still going to make him lie down the instant they get back to the hotel, and that is not (yet, his traitorous body suggests: not yet) a euphemism for sex. No exertion. No matter how pert that adorable mouth gets. Not…yet. “And you could have. I’d’ve loved it. I always thought you knew and were politely ignoring the whole idea.”
And the thing is, this is a patently ludicrous statement. So Chris attempts to kiss him, to swear out loud, to say you thought I KNEW?!, to dazedly inquire loved? and to announce but I love YOU! Which means that what in fact spills out is, “You know I love you!”
Oh fuck. (And he doesn’t regret it. He does regret it, of course he does, too soon and too much and too sudden, too overwhelming given what’s just transpired, Sebastian can’t possibly, Sebastian’s going to cautiously inch away from the crazy person any minute now, but: he doesn’t regret it. He loves Sebastian. Truth at the core of his world.)
Nevertheless: oh fuck.
“Well,” Sebastian says brightly, “I didn’t know, but I think I might now, and I love you too,” and kisses him with no hesitation at all.