written for Seblaine Week 2015, prompt: free day. can be considered the same 'verse as Maybe, We'll See but can also be read as a standalone. maybe a little bit inspired by this (first time) Sex and the City marathon i'm having. title taken fromI Miss You by Blink182.
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& In The Night We'll Wish This Never Ends
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Of all the small art galleries in all of New York it figures he'd run into Sebastian at this one. Six weeks had gone by since their uncertain parting and the two of them hadn't spoken since. He'd nursed his heart with buckets full of Chunky Monkey and a steady flow of both romantic movies and tissues, but nothing prepared him for the inevitable reunion. Six weeks or not, Sebastian had a sway over him no other man ever approximated and had broken his heart in the same breath.
Their eyes catch across the room and his chest pops beneath a distinct sense of dread, anxiety dancing over his skin. Did it have to be tonight? Did it have to be here? Couldn't the universe have provided some warning sign he'd run into his ex-boyfriend? Somehow he managed to stay friends with Sam and Julian, but Sebastian became a different story a long time ago.
Were they ever even boyfriends?
Overwhelmed by unchecked thought Blaine decides it might be time for him to leave; he wouldn't know what to say to Sebastian if he had another few months, but he can't do this, not here, not now, so he collects his coat and heads outside.
Electricity pervades the late night air, and when he breathes in the city tastes crisp and moist, the calm before the storm brewing over Manhattan. Thunder already sounds somewhere in the distance.
"I miss you."
It's the only warning sign that alerts him to Sebastian's presence, another pop in his chest nearly sending him down on his knees. Sebastian misses him now? After six weeks of silence the guy who broke up with him suddenly misses him? He shoves his hands inside his gloves.
"You don't get to say that to me," he says, raising a hand at a taxi that flashes by too fast.
That's it, that's all. If ever there were a time for them to talk it might be right now, lay all their problems out on the sidewalk outside a small gallery, but his shoulders have tensed under the same weight that's been breaking his back for the past few weeks. He doesn't know why. He doesn't know what their problems were. Sebastian never said.
"I'm sorry."
A first raindrop touches his cheek, and his heart jumps at it more than it does at Sebastian's apology, not too sure where to go from here. Part of him refuses to give Sebastian the satisfaction of seeing him cry again, another part wants to scream so hard the entire block knows what Sebastian did. There's power in this quiet standoff; if anyone's going to say anything it'll be him, since he's the one who hasn't gotten any say in the when and how of their breakup. And he hates that Sebastian accepts that.
Big wet drops catch in his eyelashes by the time a cab pulls up to the curb... and looking back over his shoulder proves to be his undoing. With the rain steadily pouring down on both of them and Sebastian's puppy eyes, how can he leave Sebastian standing there?
Something unwinds in his shoulders. "Come on," he says, any reluctance disappeared at the thought of sitting shoulder to shoulder with Sebastian, if only one last time. Sebastian did have a hold on him, for better or worse, and it's easy to take pity on him when he's drowning in a localized New York downpour. He's not a monster.
Sebastian glances to his right and to his left, before his eyes ask for permission: Can I? Should I? Haven't I messed this up beyond repair?
And he sort of likes that Sebastian considers all that.
He shrugs. "It's just a cab."
He climbs into the car first, followed closely by Sebastian, who safely locks them off from the rainstorm once inside. Their shoulders brush as he tells the cabbie his address, and his skin crawls, the way it's done around Sebastian since he was fifteen years old. How did it ever get this far? Where had he gone wrong? They'd gone from friends to lovers without any obstacles, it's something they quite literally fell into one late night after one of Sebastian's shows, an innocent passerby knocking them closer, and there'd been no going back. His love for Sebastian had been brewing for ten years straight and to find him the same man he'd met one summer so long ago had been more than he could've hoped for.
Sometimes he likes to fantasize that someone must've bottled Sebastian just for him, mixed quick wit with good looks, humor with brutal honesty, resulting in a spicy cocktail that hadn't lost his interest for a single moment. Maybe their relationship had been mostly physical, he'd never had someone take care of him the way that Sebastian did, see to it that his every need was met, kissed and licked and sucked and–
Now look at them. Who ever thought their shoulders brushing while they shared a cab would become the highlight of his night?
Because he doesn't kid himself. He still has feelings for Sebastian.
They don't talk though, Sebastian gives him all the power and he holds his cards proudly. What would he even say? What would he ask? Why did you break up with me? What was so wrong with me that you had to get out without even so much as an explanation?
He's not sure he's ready for that answer.
Yet when it's time for him to get out of the car, to climb the three floors to get to his apartment, his fingers linger on the door handle. What if this is his last chance?
"Blaine–" Sebastian says softly.
He bolts out of he car before he can blink.
"Blaine, wait."
The footsteps behind him on the pavement tell him enough; Sebastian followed him out of the cab.
"No." He shakes his head. "You said what you needed to say. I don't want to hear 'I miss you' after you decided you–"
Never mind last chances, never mind reasons or accidental shoulder brushes. What about him? Doesn't he get a say in all this? Hasn't he earned the right to have a voice in this whirlwind relationship of theirs? What started as something physical turned into something more; they ate Chinese food on the floor of his apartment, they talked about art and Sebastian's photographs, they took baths together or cuddled on the couch. And that meant something. That was real.
Why had Sebastian thrown that all away?
"What exactly did you decide, Sebastian?" he asks, tears touching his eyes. "Because you haven't told me why."
But I miss you?
Really?
"You don't get to miss me."
Sebastian faces away, hands in his pockets, as thunder rolls in the distance. The storm hasn't reached this part of town, not yet, but he has a feeling it won't be long.
"This would be the perfect moment for you to explain, by the way," he says. It's hard to admit, but Sebastian's 'I miss you' dug into whatever soft spot he had left, the part of him that still loved Sebastian and wanted all those good times back; early mornings losing time in bed, quiet breakfasts where he made them blueberry pancakes, silly dates people their age shouldn't go on anymore.
"I'm too old for you, Blaine."
His heart stops.
"What?"
"We don't want the same things," Sebastian says. "You want a relationship. A boyfriend. And you're amazing, Blaine, but I'm not what you want."
All he hears is a new excuse in a different setting; once upon a time in suburbia he was too young, Sebastian too old, and that excuse was cute. But this– this is nonsense. The kind of nonsense he expects Santana talked into Sebastian's head, the kind of drivel he hears in movies that make too big a deal out of every single tiny aspect of a relationship. The kind of nonsense that somehow manages to affect Sebastian.
It used to be that he was too young.
Now he's too idealistic.
And he won't hear this, Sebastian's thirty-four years old, nine years his senior but in no measure too old for him. He had a boyfriend, he had a wonderful guy who didn't care about their age difference, that he still had another year of college to go, that he had a tiny apartment in a bad neighborhood like most guys his age, that he didn't make much of anything at the shop he worked. None of that made him naïve. None of that made him blind. Twenty-five or thirty-four didn't come with a predetermined set of instruction on how to be, how to live, who to love.
To hell with that.
He won't take this lying down.
"That's not really your decision to make," he says.
Sebastian finds his eyes, and he might as well have been nailed to the ground. He can't move. He won't move.
"I know what I want, Sebastian."
Sebastian draws in a deep breath. "You think you do."
"Don't." He throws up his hands. "Don't make my decisions for me. That was fine when I was fifteen years old, but that was ten years ago. I grew up."
He wasn't the same boy who'd thrown himself into Sebastian arms and demanded his first kiss, not the shy kid who thought running away from his problems would be a mistake, who almost picked another year of public school over Dalton Academy. God, he grew so much he wonders if he'd recognize that boy.
"You get to leave me over a fight, or because you don't feel the same way," he says, "but don't ever think I don't make my own choices. I want to be with you, Sebastian. I want what we had. What you walked away from."
He leaves Sebastian little room to reply; either Sebastian loves him and they give this another shot, or it was all in his head –the late night talks, the 'I love you's' spun in between Sebastian's words– and this is the last time they'll ever talk.
He's too afraid to think about option number three: Sebastian loves him, but feels too insecure to be with him.
"Why would you even say you miss me?" he asks.
Sebastian shrugs. "Moment of weakness."
He turns around and heads towards his front door.
"Because I do," Sebastian calls, sighing deeply. "I miss you. I want to be all those things for you."
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, the memory of Sebastian's breath at his neck, his lazy smiles in the morning, the easy charm.
"Then let yourself," he says, facing Sebastian again. He closes the distance between them, each step harder than the next. What if it's all an illusion? What if he takes one misstep and it will all disappear? He couldn't bear to lose Sebastian a second time.
His fingers curl around the lapels of Sebastian coat and their bodies sway closer together, the way they always have. Looking up into green eyes he can't remember a time Sebastian wasn't in his life or a time where he didn't want him there. He wants to share a life with Sebastian, and that's as scary a thought to him as it is to Sebastian.
"I'm in love with you, Sebastian," he says. "And I don't want to stop."
Sebastian lowers his forehead to his, arms circling his waist, trapped in a dance they started ten years ago. "I don't know how to do this."
"No one does, Sebastian." He closes his eyes. "Just be with me."
And when Sebastian's lips find his they're endowed with every 'I miss you' he hadn't dared to utter, every 'I love you' yet to come, every time they will screw up and make a mistake, every future fight about his job prospects or Sebastian's busy schedule, every discussion they have about whether to adopt or try surrogacy.
They kiss until the rain finds them again.
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