Title: Synchronicity
Summary: Steve doesn't tell Blaine his secret, yet. Early morning musings and the effect of a simple gesture. Follows Catching Time.
Rating: PG/K
Category: Glee, Avengers. Staine.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: As noted in my other Staine fic, I first posted these fics on tumblr. I am now slowly uploading them here. But feel free to come find me there (jaylie12).
...
Steve doesn't wake Blaine the next morning, doesn't tell Blaine his secrets.
Instead, he lays in bed staring at the non-descript ceiling of Blaine's studio as the sunlight creeps into the room. Blaine's asleep, his head resting on Steve's shoulder and his breath warm against bare skin. Blaine's hair, to Steve's surprise, is escaping the careful styling from the night before, and the curls along his forehead and neck spring haphazardly in different directions. Steve tilts his head to brush his cheek against the mess of curls, hearing Blaine sigh in his sleep and nestle closer.
Blaine's hands still rest where they settled early this morning as they fell asleep-one tucked against his abdomen and curled over his side, his fingers just grazing Steve's where they remain firmly around Blaine's hip, and the other splayed across Steve's chest. Every now and then his fingers curl in, the fingertips pressing gently against muscle and sternum, only to relax a moment later. Steve finds the unconscious tick comforting, as if Blaine is holding onto him, making sure he's still there.
Since he came back, sleep has often eluded him; the irrational part of his brain frantic with the idea of shutting down and closing his eyes, fearful that if he did, more time would be lost. Time. Time is what keeps him up late at night, as he tries to reclaim the time lost and hold on to the time he still has. His nightmares always center on the struggle, on how time escapes him and he is trapped somewhere outside of it, watching it go by. It's hardly different when he is awake. People come and go on the streets as he makes his way to Stark Tower every day, going about their lives as if time hadn't simultaneously frozen and sped past him for the last 70 years. They hurry past, time speeding them along and leaving him behind. He wonders when he'll catch up.
Blaine's fingers flinch, bringing Steve out of his swirling thoughts. Steve holds his breath, waiting for Blaine's fingers to slacken again and when they do, he slowly lets the air out of his lungs. Time is slower with Blaine, comfortable. It neither lags nor speeds, and neither does he. He has only known the other man for a week, only gone on one date, and now he's lying in bed with him. Steve huffs quietly at the contradiction-they've done so much in so little time and yet, he feels none of the panic over time passing too quickly by him or the numbing fear of being lost outside of time.
The sun peeks over the window ledge. Steve blinks against the bright rays and shifts his gaze down just as Blaine's fingers tighten again. But this time when they loosen, his palm slides over Steve's heart. Steve slips his hand under Blaine's and watches as Blaine's fingers wrap around, the sleeping man sighing contentedly.
Steve lets his eyes slide shut. For once, fatigue is not the cause, but rather the surety that he will not float away or disappear, and that there is someone there to keep him in this time. There are things he wants to do, things he wants to tell Blaine, but now there is time. And as unconsciousness quickly blankets him, for the first time since being thawed out, nightmares don't follow him into sleep, nor does he fear that they will chase him into wakefulness.