fic: like o, like h
Title: Like O, Like H (1/3)
Rating: NC-17 eventually
Word Count: 2,844 so far
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.
Sebastian
It’s a wedding day. It’s his wedding day. It’s their wedding day.
Sebastian bites his lower lip so hard he tastes blood. No one’s around to see. He’s glad, even though he shouldn’t be. He shouldn’t have those opinions.
The water’s hot and soothing as it falls through his hair. The shower’s not large, but neither is he, so they’re comfortable together. Home. His apartment. The place he’d chosen for himself, three years ago. Wide windows and pale walls and space, the luxury of space, room unshared and not meted out by a suspicious government with secret-police eyes. His piano and the garish joyful splash of nineteen-fifties science-fiction paperbacks on the shelves. Music and sentences like optimistic song.
This is his place, and he’s going to lose it.
He bites his lip again. It hurts. He probably should stop that. His Dominant won’t approve of him showing up injured. At least, not injured through his own doing.
His Dominant…
That thought hurts as well. The water splashes onto his shoulder in sympathy. It can’t do a thing about the situation, but it’s trying.
He doesn’t have any reason to think that Christopher Robert Evans will be cruel or careless with him. The opposite, in fact; everything he knows about the man suggests that Christopher will be kind. Sebastian’s seen the YouTube videos, the interviews. Christopher (“call me Chris!”) is thoughtful and genuine and occasionally goofy, an artist with expressive hands and complicated eyes, blue and green and brown, the ocean tugged by tides over sand. Chris Evans has not let the fact that one of his rough sketches recently sold for nearly five hundred thousand dollars at auction go to his head. Chris Evans laughs like sunrise and touches people constantly, unthinking assertion of physical presence and power.
Chris Evans will, after today, legally own him.
He’s aware that that’s hardly politically correct phrasing these days. The Dominant/submissive contract is a mutual one, equally entered into. Both parties say yes. There’s a ceremony. A priest. He does have recourse if Christopher is abusive or vicious. Submissives can file for divorce, though that’s controversial, and only ruled legal a handful of years ago. He’d have to provide undeniable evidence of the abuse. He’d have to find someone willing to listen to a submissive without laughing at the idea that his Dominant could do anything he didn’t secretly want.
His stomach ties itself into knots. More knots. Joining the ones already present.
He could say no. He could walk away.
But it’s too late for that.
He touches his throat with a fingertip. Wonders how it’ll feel under a collar.
He’d been happy. He’d known it couldn’t last, and he’d been happy.
Not all the world’s population identifies as Dominant or submissive, of course. More than half, but not all. His mother and stepfather don’t. They’re happy, too. They’d agreed to let him go on pretending, if that was what he wanted. And he had, he had, he’d built a life and a career out of the black and ivory of piano keys and the exhilarating joy of concerts, the moment when the audience fell away and left him alone in eternity with his music-
He’d made one mistake. Perhaps two. Getting caught visiting a certain club. Satisfying specific needs.
He brushes fingers across his throat again. Maybe he can stay here in his shower forever. Never leave. His shower won’t mind.
An unclaimed submissive is considered available. Open for the taking. Legally he has the right to say no; legally he also has no recourse when men and women come up to him after performances and suggest, grinning, that he kneel.
Submissives are in general more rare than Dominants. Sebastian, a sub who’s gone years without being claimed, who’s got a career and a certain modest amount of fame-more so in the wake of the Academy Award nod for his film score for America’s Captain, the previous year-and who can on good days admit that he’s not unattractive, long legs and faded exotic accent and a mouth he’s been told too many times is made for sucking cock…
Sebastian’s unusual. Practically unique. He’s had suitors falling over themselves to request his contract. Some of them even tactfully.
Chris Evans hadn’t been the first. Not even in the first wave. But had sent a letter, painfully polite, to his mother, inquiring very properly about terms and compensation. Sebastian’d only been surprised because he’d known the name; he’s seen that art in galleries, in special exhibits, at museums. He’d always thought, gazing at the sweep of ink on paper, that Chris Evans knew about loneliness. That someone who could create such art had to be a man who understood anxiety and apprehension and the terrifying courage needed sometimes to wake up and walk into the day.
He knows why Chris asked. The public also regards uncontracted Dominants with some suspicion, as if they might pounce on the nearest warm body and demand surrender. And Chris’s career will benefit from the appearance of stability in his life. What he doesn’t know is why Chris asked for him.
What he doesn’t know is what Chris expects of him.
Chris had, in defiance of accepted practice, written to him as well. It’d been an awkward note, clumsily and hurriedly phrased. Containing mostly apologies for the awkwardness, and a small miniature sketch, more or less abstract: music notes curling upward and turning into stars and spirals and dancing swirls, in hues of blue and silver and gold. Colored pencil on paper, with torn edges.
Sebastian’d run a finger over the sketch, feeling pencil-dust along his skin, standing alone beside his kitchen table in his sun-bathed apartment, the rest of the mail tossed heedlessly aside.
He’d written back a single word: yes.
And now they’re here. With Chris’s generous compensation already paid to his parents-and that’s another reason for the yes, a reason he’s not prepared to talk about, not when he can barely think of it in the privacy of his own head. With their wedding looming ahead. With himself standing in his shower, shaking abruptly everywhere, shaking head to toe, taking a step back and colliding with the wall and sliding to the ground-
He buries his face in his hands. He’s not crying. He’s only breathing. It’s hard to remember how.
He said yes and he’s getting married and he’s going to belong to Chris Evans. He’s going to kneel and bend his head and vow to surrender, to obey his Dominant’s commands, to accept punishment when meted out. To, in a word, submit.
He’s always known, about himself. He’s known what he needs. He’s been discreetly to those clubs. Has held out arms for handcuffs, and moaned out loud when shoved to the floor and fucked hard and used.
Chris will use him. Tonight. Consummation. And he’s not certain whether the airlessness, on the floor of his shower under the burning spray, is fear or desire or some tangled knot of both. Artist’s hands, his own contracted Dominant’s hands, on him.
If Chris wants to touch him. If Chris is happy with him. If not…
He can’t think about the if not. He’ll never get up.
And he has to get married.
So he does get up. And he scrubs shampoo through his hair and makes himself whistle fragments of Tchaikovsky, Sinatra, Four Seasons tunes. Who loves you, pretty baby. Who’s gonna help you through the night.
He even laughs.
When he gets out of the shower, his skin’s pink from the heat and from scrubbing. It won’t matter, not especially. He’ll end up getting the ritual cleansing at the temple in any case, and won’t that be marvelous. He sighs. Eyes his suit. At least Chris isn’t a terribly hidebound traditionalist; he could be wearing transparent linen robes and veils, or nothing at all.
He has to laugh again. Chris might take one look at him and run, in that case. He’s not the chubby twelve-year-old he’d once been, discovering the delights of American fast food and the novel abundance of supermarkets; but he’s hardly the sort of person who turns heads across a crowded room. Legs too long, smile too wide, eyes too big, hair too fluffy unless he flattens it into good behavior. He’s just too…everything. Chris Evans no doubt expects a shy demure submissive, not a gawky science-fiction enthusiast who has lingering nightmares about dead-eyed men in government uniforms and who occasionally forgets the correct English words for what he wants to order in restaurants.
He sighs again. Pauses, towel around his waist, to scribble a line or two of notation on the notepad that lives near his sink for those brilliant shower-ideas. It’s a forlorn wry little melody, tattered and laughing about it.
His hair drips on the paper. He considers this for a second, then works the spot in as a quarter note. Maybe it’ll be a score for some romantic comedy, someday. Something with a happy ending. He does like that idea. Maybe there’s a counterpoint, an equally longing self-sufficient song, and they’ll fill in each other’s gaps…
Half an hour later, his hair’s standing up in multiple directions and the towel’s entirely dry and he puts the pen down, stretches, catches a glimpse of the wall clock, and swears.
In three different languages. Loudly.
And then he throws on jeans and the first t-shirt that comes to hand, grabs his suit for changing into after ritual cleansing, forgets to grab any kind of food at all, and runs.
Chris
“What if,” Chris says, as his mother brushes imaginary lint from his shoulder, “he doesn’t like me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, and pats his bicep. This, while nice, does not offer any sort of factual reassurance.
“Everyone likes you,” Scott observes, straightening his own tie. He’s somehow managing to look more stylish than Chris at Chris’s own wedding. There ought to be some sort of law about younger brothers and attractiveness, Chris decides. “Babies like you. Little old ladies like you. Everyone’s mothers like you.”
“But what if he doesn’t?”
His mother stops dismissing the imaginary lint and takes his chin in hand the way she used to when he’d been five years old. He instantly feels that way again. “He said yes to you, Chris. He must’ve had his reasons.”
This brings up a whole new set of worries. “What if I’m not a good Dom for him? What if he-what if I’m too likeable?”
Scott starts laughing. Chris kicks him in the shin. Ineffectively so.
He’s serious about asking. He looks around the temple’s waiting room desperately. Quiet wood, smooth and golden as honey; simple and plain and designed for calming nervous fidgeters. He wants to pace. It’s inconveniently not large enough.
He’s not allowed to see Sebastian before the ceremony. His submissive will be getting the customary ritual bath and inspection by temple acolytes, pronounced clean and worthy of him, and then brought to him before the priest. He’s trying not to think about Sebastian Stan naked and wet and anointed with oil. This is an impossible task. Sebastian Stan is beautiful, all endless legs and enormous eyes and that slow curling kitten-smile at the corners of a breathtakingly wide mouth.
Chris hadn’t known who he was, not really, before the Academy Awards the previous year; Sebastian hadn’t won, but had been nominated as the composer of the America’s Captain soundtrack. Chris, idly watching the awards circus with his siblings, throwing popcorn into his mouth and at them, had stopped chewing mid-bite and sat up, staring at the fantastically gorgeous person on his television screen.
Fantastically gorgeous, wonderfully gifted, and shyly sweet. Chris had unabashedly bought all the classical-music records, hung on every word of interviews, of behind-the-scenes footage and movie extras. Sebastian blushes and then gets amazingly excited whenever anyone asks him questions; those aquamarine eyes light up-the oh you want to talk to ME? practically neon signs in all that blue-and then dive into discussions of mood and tone and the collaboration of composing. Sebastian always gives everyone else the credit. His orchestra, the actors, the director. All sincere, delivered in that New-York-cityscape-via-wild-green-Romanian-forests lilt, faded accent caressing vowels and consonants like lovers.
Chris hadn’t been able to believe the news when it’d first broken. Sebastian Stan, pianist and composer and, apparently, well-concealed submissive. Uncontracted. Available.
He’d known the offers must’ve been pouring in. Had sat at his desk on repeated nights thumping his head against agreeably thick wood. How could he offer, what did he have to offer, just a kid from Boston with no college degree, pizza and beer and prank wars with his siblings and pick-up basketball on weekends; what could he bring to lay at the feet of all that exotic skittish elegance?
He does have art. And people seem to like his art. He’d not known what Sebastian might like, but he’d thought about his favorite songs, the simple ones from Sebastian’s live concert recordings, the bright pensive spill of piano-language into the air.
He’d sent the formal offer, as proper as he could make it, to Sebastian’s mother; she’d be accepting suitors on her son’s behalf, as the only blood relative. Sebastian’d mentioned a stepfather, casually, in interviews; maybe it’d mean something that Chris knew that, had done research, was taking care to follow customary forms. Not that other Dominants wouldn’t do the same. He was sure they had.
He shouldn’t’ve written to Sebastian himself. He couldn’t not.
And he’d gotten the single-word note back, delivered by courier. Yes.
And now he’s here. Getting married.
He’d taken the heavy creamy sheet of notepaper with that single word and put it very carefully into one of his sketchbooks, slid between pages. Safe.
He wishes he knew why the yes. He wishes he knew what had made those huge turquoise eyes pick him. If he could know, he could try to do it again.
He’d snuck into one of Sebastian’s concerts, two weeks previously, three days before the yes. He’d paid, of course, having bought a ticket; but that’s a drastic violation of all the rules and customs. No influencing the submissive’s choice while options remained on the table. No contact.
He thought maybe Sebastian’d seen him. Those winter-river eyes had flicked his direction, scanning the crowd, then returned. But that might just be imagination. He’s not certain Sebastian would know his face. No reason to.
His mother pats him on the arm again. “He’ll adore you.”
“That’s not helping, Mom.”
“If you’re worried you’re not strict enough, just be stricter,” Scott offers, as if it’s that easy. Scott is currently entertaining offers from at last count six interested Dominants, and happily refusing to make a choice. Chris sighs. Aims. Kicks.
“Ow!”
“Don’t kick your brother,” his mother says mildly, “on your wedding day.”
Both of his sisters seem interested at this. Carly inquires, “Is it just today, then? Can we kick him tomorrow?”
“I’ve raised feral children,” his mother mourns. “I tried. God knows I tried. I’ve given up. Chris, listen, all right?”
“Um. Okay?”
Her gaze is steady and proud and sure. Chris remembers open doors and welcoming ears, spare bedrooms where any friend or acquaintance in need could turn up for a night or a week, no questions asked. “Listen to him, when he talks to you. He’s never been contracted to anyone. He’s been keeping this a secret-and wouldn’t you, if you knew you’d have to give up your own independence, if you had his career-and he’s probably just as nervous as you are, so just…remember to listen to him, okay?”
Chris nods. Breathes out.
Scott comes over and fixes his tie, too. “And, hey, remember, he can leave you, these days. If he gets a look at your ugly face up close and decides, hell no, he’s out of here.”
“Thank you,” Chris says, “so much.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m gonna call the most annoying one of your prospects, the one who keeps leaving bad love poetry and red roses on your car, and tell him I’m accepting on your behalf.”
“You’re not allowed. Mom’s still our Family Head.” But Scott actually hugs him and adds, “You’ll be fine, you’ve had a crush on the guy for ages, just be yourself, ’cause that’s weirdly endearing, it’s like this bizarre magical thing you’ve got going on. Despite your face.”
“Thanks.” But it does help, as much as anything can. He’s here and he’s got his family and they think he’s not going to screw this up too badly. The quiet walls of the waiting room seem to think so, too, or at least they’re withholding judgment.
And Sebastian Stan said yes. Sebastian looked at his gift, accepted his offer, and said yes.
And they’re getting married. And Sebastian will be his. Kneeling at his feet. Vowing to obey him. Wearing his collar. Belonging to him.
That thought, despite all the nerves, sends a shiver of crackling anticipation down his spine.
Rating: NC-17 eventually
Word Count: 2,844 so far
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.
Sebastian
It’s a wedding day. It’s his wedding day. It’s their wedding day.
Sebastian bites his lower lip so hard he tastes blood. No one’s around to see. He’s glad, even though he shouldn’t be. He shouldn’t have those opinions.
The water’s hot and soothing as it falls through his hair. The shower’s not large, but neither is he, so they’re comfortable together. Home. His apartment. The place he’d chosen for himself, three years ago. Wide windows and pale walls and space, the luxury of space, room unshared and not meted out by a suspicious government with secret-police eyes. His piano and the garish joyful splash of nineteen-fifties science-fiction paperbacks on the shelves. Music and sentences like optimistic song.
This is his place, and he’s going to lose it.
He bites his lip again. It hurts. He probably should stop that. His Dominant won’t approve of him showing up injured. At least, not injured through his own doing.
His Dominant…
That thought hurts as well. The water splashes onto his shoulder in sympathy. It can’t do a thing about the situation, but it’s trying.
He doesn’t have any reason to think that Christopher Robert Evans will be cruel or careless with him. The opposite, in fact; everything he knows about the man suggests that Christopher will be kind. Sebastian’s seen the YouTube videos, the interviews. Christopher (“call me Chris!”) is thoughtful and genuine and occasionally goofy, an artist with expressive hands and complicated eyes, blue and green and brown, the ocean tugged by tides over sand. Chris Evans has not let the fact that one of his rough sketches recently sold for nearly five hundred thousand dollars at auction go to his head. Chris Evans laughs like sunrise and touches people constantly, unthinking assertion of physical presence and power.
Chris Evans will, after today, legally own him.
He’s aware that that’s hardly politically correct phrasing these days. The Dominant/submissive contract is a mutual one, equally entered into. Both parties say yes. There’s a ceremony. A priest. He does have recourse if Christopher is abusive or vicious. Submissives can file for divorce, though that’s controversial, and only ruled legal a handful of years ago. He’d have to provide undeniable evidence of the abuse. He’d have to find someone willing to listen to a submissive without laughing at the idea that his Dominant could do anything he didn’t secretly want.
His stomach ties itself into knots. More knots. Joining the ones already present.
He could say no. He could walk away.
But it’s too late for that.
He touches his throat with a fingertip. Wonders how it’ll feel under a collar.
He’d been happy. He’d known it couldn’t last, and he’d been happy.
Not all the world’s population identifies as Dominant or submissive, of course. More than half, but not all. His mother and stepfather don’t. They’re happy, too. They’d agreed to let him go on pretending, if that was what he wanted. And he had, he had, he’d built a life and a career out of the black and ivory of piano keys and the exhilarating joy of concerts, the moment when the audience fell away and left him alone in eternity with his music-
He’d made one mistake. Perhaps two. Getting caught visiting a certain club. Satisfying specific needs.
He brushes fingers across his throat again. Maybe he can stay here in his shower forever. Never leave. His shower won’t mind.
An unclaimed submissive is considered available. Open for the taking. Legally he has the right to say no; legally he also has no recourse when men and women come up to him after performances and suggest, grinning, that he kneel.
Submissives are in general more rare than Dominants. Sebastian, a sub who’s gone years without being claimed, who’s got a career and a certain modest amount of fame-more so in the wake of the Academy Award nod for his film score for America’s Captain, the previous year-and who can on good days admit that he’s not unattractive, long legs and faded exotic accent and a mouth he’s been told too many times is made for sucking cock…
Sebastian’s unusual. Practically unique. He’s had suitors falling over themselves to request his contract. Some of them even tactfully.
Chris Evans hadn’t been the first. Not even in the first wave. But had sent a letter, painfully polite, to his mother, inquiring very properly about terms and compensation. Sebastian’d only been surprised because he’d known the name; he’s seen that art in galleries, in special exhibits, at museums. He’d always thought, gazing at the sweep of ink on paper, that Chris Evans knew about loneliness. That someone who could create such art had to be a man who understood anxiety and apprehension and the terrifying courage needed sometimes to wake up and walk into the day.
He knows why Chris asked. The public also regards uncontracted Dominants with some suspicion, as if they might pounce on the nearest warm body and demand surrender. And Chris’s career will benefit from the appearance of stability in his life. What he doesn’t know is why Chris asked for him.
What he doesn’t know is what Chris expects of him.
Chris had, in defiance of accepted practice, written to him as well. It’d been an awkward note, clumsily and hurriedly phrased. Containing mostly apologies for the awkwardness, and a small miniature sketch, more or less abstract: music notes curling upward and turning into stars and spirals and dancing swirls, in hues of blue and silver and gold. Colored pencil on paper, with torn edges.
Sebastian’d run a finger over the sketch, feeling pencil-dust along his skin, standing alone beside his kitchen table in his sun-bathed apartment, the rest of the mail tossed heedlessly aside.
He’d written back a single word: yes.
And now they’re here. With Chris’s generous compensation already paid to his parents-and that’s another reason for the yes, a reason he’s not prepared to talk about, not when he can barely think of it in the privacy of his own head. With their wedding looming ahead. With himself standing in his shower, shaking abruptly everywhere, shaking head to toe, taking a step back and colliding with the wall and sliding to the ground-
He buries his face in his hands. He’s not crying. He’s only breathing. It’s hard to remember how.
He said yes and he’s getting married and he’s going to belong to Chris Evans. He’s going to kneel and bend his head and vow to surrender, to obey his Dominant’s commands, to accept punishment when meted out. To, in a word, submit.
He’s always known, about himself. He’s known what he needs. He’s been discreetly to those clubs. Has held out arms for handcuffs, and moaned out loud when shoved to the floor and fucked hard and used.
Chris will use him. Tonight. Consummation. And he’s not certain whether the airlessness, on the floor of his shower under the burning spray, is fear or desire or some tangled knot of both. Artist’s hands, his own contracted Dominant’s hands, on him.
If Chris wants to touch him. If Chris is happy with him. If not…
He can’t think about the if not. He’ll never get up.
And he has to get married.
So he does get up. And he scrubs shampoo through his hair and makes himself whistle fragments of Tchaikovsky, Sinatra, Four Seasons tunes. Who loves you, pretty baby. Who’s gonna help you through the night.
He even laughs.
When he gets out of the shower, his skin’s pink from the heat and from scrubbing. It won’t matter, not especially. He’ll end up getting the ritual cleansing at the temple in any case, and won’t that be marvelous. He sighs. Eyes his suit. At least Chris isn’t a terribly hidebound traditionalist; he could be wearing transparent linen robes and veils, or nothing at all.
He has to laugh again. Chris might take one look at him and run, in that case. He’s not the chubby twelve-year-old he’d once been, discovering the delights of American fast food and the novel abundance of supermarkets; but he’s hardly the sort of person who turns heads across a crowded room. Legs too long, smile too wide, eyes too big, hair too fluffy unless he flattens it into good behavior. He’s just too…everything. Chris Evans no doubt expects a shy demure submissive, not a gawky science-fiction enthusiast who has lingering nightmares about dead-eyed men in government uniforms and who occasionally forgets the correct English words for what he wants to order in restaurants.
He sighs again. Pauses, towel around his waist, to scribble a line or two of notation on the notepad that lives near his sink for those brilliant shower-ideas. It’s a forlorn wry little melody, tattered and laughing about it.
His hair drips on the paper. He considers this for a second, then works the spot in as a quarter note. Maybe it’ll be a score for some romantic comedy, someday. Something with a happy ending. He does like that idea. Maybe there’s a counterpoint, an equally longing self-sufficient song, and they’ll fill in each other’s gaps…
Half an hour later, his hair’s standing up in multiple directions and the towel’s entirely dry and he puts the pen down, stretches, catches a glimpse of the wall clock, and swears.
In three different languages. Loudly.
And then he throws on jeans and the first t-shirt that comes to hand, grabs his suit for changing into after ritual cleansing, forgets to grab any kind of food at all, and runs.
Chris
“What if,” Chris says, as his mother brushes imaginary lint from his shoulder, “he doesn’t like me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, and pats his bicep. This, while nice, does not offer any sort of factual reassurance.
“Everyone likes you,” Scott observes, straightening his own tie. He’s somehow managing to look more stylish than Chris at Chris’s own wedding. There ought to be some sort of law about younger brothers and attractiveness, Chris decides. “Babies like you. Little old ladies like you. Everyone’s mothers like you.”
“But what if he doesn’t?”
His mother stops dismissing the imaginary lint and takes his chin in hand the way she used to when he’d been five years old. He instantly feels that way again. “He said yes to you, Chris. He must’ve had his reasons.”
This brings up a whole new set of worries. “What if I’m not a good Dom for him? What if he-what if I’m too likeable?”
Scott starts laughing. Chris kicks him in the shin. Ineffectively so.
He’s serious about asking. He looks around the temple’s waiting room desperately. Quiet wood, smooth and golden as honey; simple and plain and designed for calming nervous fidgeters. He wants to pace. It’s inconveniently not large enough.
He’s not allowed to see Sebastian before the ceremony. His submissive will be getting the customary ritual bath and inspection by temple acolytes, pronounced clean and worthy of him, and then brought to him before the priest. He’s trying not to think about Sebastian Stan naked and wet and anointed with oil. This is an impossible task. Sebastian Stan is beautiful, all endless legs and enormous eyes and that slow curling kitten-smile at the corners of a breathtakingly wide mouth.
Chris hadn’t known who he was, not really, before the Academy Awards the previous year; Sebastian hadn’t won, but had been nominated as the composer of the America’s Captain soundtrack. Chris, idly watching the awards circus with his siblings, throwing popcorn into his mouth and at them, had stopped chewing mid-bite and sat up, staring at the fantastically gorgeous person on his television screen.
Fantastically gorgeous, wonderfully gifted, and shyly sweet. Chris had unabashedly bought all the classical-music records, hung on every word of interviews, of behind-the-scenes footage and movie extras. Sebastian blushes and then gets amazingly excited whenever anyone asks him questions; those aquamarine eyes light up-the oh you want to talk to ME? practically neon signs in all that blue-and then dive into discussions of mood and tone and the collaboration of composing. Sebastian always gives everyone else the credit. His orchestra, the actors, the director. All sincere, delivered in that New-York-cityscape-via-wild-green-Romanian-forests lilt, faded accent caressing vowels and consonants like lovers.
Chris hadn’t been able to believe the news when it’d first broken. Sebastian Stan, pianist and composer and, apparently, well-concealed submissive. Uncontracted. Available.
He’d known the offers must’ve been pouring in. Had sat at his desk on repeated nights thumping his head against agreeably thick wood. How could he offer, what did he have to offer, just a kid from Boston with no college degree, pizza and beer and prank wars with his siblings and pick-up basketball on weekends; what could he bring to lay at the feet of all that exotic skittish elegance?
He does have art. And people seem to like his art. He’d not known what Sebastian might like, but he’d thought about his favorite songs, the simple ones from Sebastian’s live concert recordings, the bright pensive spill of piano-language into the air.
He’d sent the formal offer, as proper as he could make it, to Sebastian’s mother; she’d be accepting suitors on her son’s behalf, as the only blood relative. Sebastian’d mentioned a stepfather, casually, in interviews; maybe it’d mean something that Chris knew that, had done research, was taking care to follow customary forms. Not that other Dominants wouldn’t do the same. He was sure they had.
He shouldn’t’ve written to Sebastian himself. He couldn’t not.
And he’d gotten the single-word note back, delivered by courier. Yes.
And now he’s here. Getting married.
He’d taken the heavy creamy sheet of notepaper with that single word and put it very carefully into one of his sketchbooks, slid between pages. Safe.
He wishes he knew why the yes. He wishes he knew what had made those huge turquoise eyes pick him. If he could know, he could try to do it again.
He’d snuck into one of Sebastian’s concerts, two weeks previously, three days before the yes. He’d paid, of course, having bought a ticket; but that’s a drastic violation of all the rules and customs. No influencing the submissive’s choice while options remained on the table. No contact.
He thought maybe Sebastian’d seen him. Those winter-river eyes had flicked his direction, scanning the crowd, then returned. But that might just be imagination. He’s not certain Sebastian would know his face. No reason to.
His mother pats him on the arm again. “He’ll adore you.”
“That’s not helping, Mom.”
“If you’re worried you’re not strict enough, just be stricter,” Scott offers, as if it’s that easy. Scott is currently entertaining offers from at last count six interested Dominants, and happily refusing to make a choice. Chris sighs. Aims. Kicks.
“Ow!”
“Don’t kick your brother,” his mother says mildly, “on your wedding day.”
Both of his sisters seem interested at this. Carly inquires, “Is it just today, then? Can we kick him tomorrow?”
“I’ve raised feral children,” his mother mourns. “I tried. God knows I tried. I’ve given up. Chris, listen, all right?”
“Um. Okay?”
Her gaze is steady and proud and sure. Chris remembers open doors and welcoming ears, spare bedrooms where any friend or acquaintance in need could turn up for a night or a week, no questions asked. “Listen to him, when he talks to you. He’s never been contracted to anyone. He’s been keeping this a secret-and wouldn’t you, if you knew you’d have to give up your own independence, if you had his career-and he’s probably just as nervous as you are, so just…remember to listen to him, okay?”
Chris nods. Breathes out.
Scott comes over and fixes his tie, too. “And, hey, remember, he can leave you, these days. If he gets a look at your ugly face up close and decides, hell no, he’s out of here.”
“Thank you,” Chris says, “so much.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m gonna call the most annoying one of your prospects, the one who keeps leaving bad love poetry and red roses on your car, and tell him I’m accepting on your behalf.”
“You’re not allowed. Mom’s still our Family Head.” But Scott actually hugs him and adds, “You’ll be fine, you’ve had a crush on the guy for ages, just be yourself, ’cause that’s weirdly endearing, it’s like this bizarre magical thing you’ve got going on. Despite your face.”
“Thanks.” But it does help, as much as anything can. He’s here and he’s got his family and they think he’s not going to screw this up too badly. The quiet walls of the waiting room seem to think so, too, or at least they’re withholding judgment.
And Sebastian Stan said yes. Sebastian looked at his gift, accepted his offer, and said yes.
And they’re getting married. And Sebastian will be his. Kneeling at his feet. Vowing to obey him. Wearing his collar. Belonging to him.
That thought, despite all the nerves, sends a shiver of crackling anticipation down his spine.