Title: Quiet Time
Author: an-alternate-world
Rating: K
Characters/Pairing: Blaine Anderson/Sebastian Smythe
Word Count: 827
Summary: Sometimes, with no rhyme or reason that Blaine could figure out, Sebastian would come home and his hair would be a mess and his eyes would be wild and his breathing would be ragged. Sometimes, Blaine just needed to hold Sebastian together before he fell apart.
Warnings/Spoilers: None.
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with Glee, FOX, Ryan Murphy or anything else related to the FOX universe..
Anonymous on Tumblr prompted a fic with: Can you write a story based on that gif where the boy is getting his hair stroked? and have that boy be Sebastian? please?
You can find the gif on my Tumblr or linked on the AO3 version of this story.
Sometimes, with no rhyme or reason that Blaine could figure out, Sebastian would come home and his hair would be a mess and his eyes would be wild and his breathing would be ragged. Blaine often found himself wondering if Sebastian had gotten caught in a miniature tornado, something he'd had to violently rip himself free from and that was why he looked like he'd been ravaged by something unworldly.
It had taken him a while to realise that holding out his arms for Sebastian to sink into wasn't enough. At first, Sebastian had seemed to cling to him, nuzzling into his neck and inhaling deeply until the shaky breathing had begun to even out. Blaine had felt useful despite failing to understand what it was that rattled Sebastian so badly on an infrequent basis. A bad day at work? An unfortunate encounter on the train home? He'd thought Sebastian was doing okay holding onto him.
Except then he'd begun to realise that in the days after Sebastian would return home as a rattled shell of himself, his boyfriend wouldn't sleep. He'd toss and turn, huffing in frustration, tugging the sheets from Blaine's body, as he attempted to relax. Sometimes Sebastian would leave the bed entirely and Blaine could hear the quiet creaking of the apartment as he padded around, seemingly in endless circles that were possibly carefully measured.
Blaine had often considered going to Sebastian, questioning him on what bothered him so much, but he didn't want to spook Sebastian. He didn't want his boyfriend to become aware of the fact that Blaine fretted so much, observed so much, but understood so little. Whatever it was which made Sebastian so unhinged for a few days was maybe something Blaine didn't need to know about in the first place.
It was, therefore, entirely an accident that Blaine discovered a way to soothe Sebastian's raging emotions in a way which ultimately improved his sleep as well.
Ordinarily, Sebastian was in control of what happened when it came to the more…physical side of their relationship. Blaine never minded, never complained, because he liked having Sebastian over him, around him, within him. Maybe even better than the strength of his orgasm that Sebastian always tried to beat was getting to cuddle onto Sebastian's shoulder and listen to the thumpedy-thump of his boyfriend's heartbeat begin to slow. He liked inhaling the traces of Sebastian's cologne beneath the smell of sweat and sex, the slip-slide of their skin as he basked in the afterglow and accepted the loving kisses Sebastian brushed against his lips.
But, entirely unexpectedly, he discovered on one of the days that Sebastian had come home as a wreck how beneficial it was to invert the cuddling role. He still let Sebastian lead the sex - Sebastian never seemed wholly present on the crazy days but leaving fresh hickeys on Blaine's skin or grasping at his waist seemed to be something Sebastian enjoyed more than usual - but one time he was too exhausted to move and Sebastian was too spent to try tugging him onto Sebastian's chest.
So Sebastian had slumped against his.
He'd hooked an ankle around Sebastian's calf, his left arm folding along Sebastian's spine and his right hand threading through Sebastian's hair. It was mostly an unconscious reaction to skim his fingers through Sebastian's hair, from the nape of his neck to the tip of his forehead, but he'd noticed the increasing weight of his boyfriend against him, the unspooling of anxiety that seemed to spill from Sebastian's pores, until he realised Sebastian's breathing had levelled out and his breath was steadily tickling across the span of Blaine's torso.
It was the first night Sebastian had come home in a state and slept through the night.
Blaine insisted on running the experiment again when Sebastian next came home as a bundle of energy, nerves and - he was loathe to acknowledge - fear. Once again, Sebastian appeared lulled by fingers trickling through his hair, nails scraping lightly at his scalp, and the steady cadence of his heart in his chest.
It became an easy way of settling Sebastian in the future - on the crazy days and even just on semi-normal days - and he didn't complain. He liked being able to hold Sebastian against him, feel the way that his boyfriend's body sagged against him and the way his muscles and bones slotted into the gaps until they were sandwiched together. He loved knowing he had a purpose, a reason for Sebastian to keep him around which was far more useful than he'd previously been simply holding Sebastian until the quaking in his shoulders faded.
And sometimes, on the crazy nights when Sebastian let his guard down and just before he faded to sleep, Blaine was rewarded with the quietest, faintest, "God, I love you" which seemed to make nothing else matter other than keeping Sebastian against him for the rest of the night.
~FIN~