Title: Precious Moments
Author: an-alternate-world
Rating: K+
Characters/Pairing: Blaine Anderson/Sebastian Smythe
Word Count: 2,944
Summary: Sebastian loves having a few precious moments of time to himself before Blaine gets home, but there are other moments he loves too.
Warnings/Spoilers: Cavity-inducing fluff.
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with Glee, FOX, Ryan Murphy or anything else related to the FOX universe.
Sebastian loves it when he gets home before Blaine. He likes being able to toe off his shoes without Blaine pestering him that it's bad for the shoes and he'll wear them out faster. He likes shrugging out of his jacket and picking the buttons of his shirt undone as he approaches their bedroom to swap into a t-shirt, fabric fluttering from his shoulders to the floor which he'll pick up when he's changed. He likes kicking his slacks in the vague direction of the clothing hamper and rinsing the light coat of gel from his hair so that the strands are loose and damp when Blaine gets home.
He likes being able to flop onto the couch and breathe an enormous sigh of relief that he survived another day in a job he's beginning to resent. He likes being able to stare at the ceiling for a minute, or five, and feel the tension unravel in his shoulders. He likes being able to flex his feet as his toes remember how to breathe again without uncomfortable leather shoes crushing them. Blaine often jokes that if he could have a job where he spent the day in jeans and a sweatshirt and no shoes, he'd be happy. He hasn't corrected Blaine yet. That job sounds perfect.
Sebastian loves having a few precious moments of time to himself before Blaine gets home because it means that when Blaine bustles through the door with Maddy on his hip, Sebastian can swoop in to collect their daughter and decorate her face in kisses while she squeals and grabs at his hair with her stubby fingers. With one arm supporting Maddy's weight, his other hand slides over Blaine's waist to pull him closer and kiss the tension from his husband's shoulders - at least until Maddy gets impatient that neither of her daddies are paying any attention to her.
He eases Maddy to the floor when she gets too squirmy and their precocious three-year-old toddles off to the playpen in the corner of the living room to fiddle with the coloured blocks and rings.
"Hey," he greets Blaine, drawing his husband in for a hug that leaves Blaine's cheek pressed to his chest. He loves that he has the ability to shield Blaine's body with his own, to offer a source of height and strength for Blaine to shelter against. He's pretty sure that the way Blaine's fingers wind into his shirt and the way he noses at Sebastian's collarbone is evidence enough that his husband likes their height difference too.
"Let me change and we can start on dinner?" Blaine mumbles, sounding tired at the close of a Thursday. Somehow he's always more exhausted on Thursdays. Sebastian suspects it's because Blaine spends most of the day thinking about how close Friday is.
"Let me help you change and then we can start on dinner," he amends, kissing Blaine's temple as his husband droops against his shoulder with his eyes closed. He wonders if Blaine is on the verge of getting sick - it's unusual to see him this fatigued.
He leads Blaine towards the bedroom, aiding his descent to the edge of the bed while Sebastian finds a pair of grey sweatpants and a worn Dalton tee he knows Blaine adores because it was once his. He observes Blaine carefully, the practised ease of his fingers unknotting his bow tie, the nimble curve of his knuckles as he loosens the top button and eases his collar away from his throat to expose his Adam's apple and the hint of a collarbone that Sebastian enjoys leaving marks on.
It still really shouldn't turn Sebastian on as much as it does. He presumes it's because he's so intimately familiar with Blaine's fingers, as well as his throat. He also knows how much Blaine likes to lean into the touches he bestows against his neck, a not-so-secret erogenous zone of his husband's that he'd discovered very quickly.
"I'm so-" Blaine's sentence gets cut off by a yawn. His shoulders sag. His eyelids are flickering, struggling to stay open. Sebastian has a feeling he knows exactly how the sentence would have ended anyway.
He steps forward, cradling Blaine's neck as he pulls the strings of the bow tie away, unbuttons the rest of shirt until it's loose on his shoulders. Despite how tired he is, he can tell Blaine preens under the attention and care.
"Rest, babe," he murmurs, guiding Blaine under the sheets and blankets. There's definitely something more going on when Blaine doesn't even attempt to mount a protest against the actions. "I'll sort out dinner. Can I get you anything?"
Blaine tilts his head towards the side that Sebastian usually lays on, perhaps seeking out the scent that is stamped all over the left half of the bed. "Don't burn down the apartment," he whispers and Sebastian's not sure whether it was meant to be a sleepy reprimand, an amused warning, or the rambling of someone so drained he's no longer aware of what he's saying.
He kisses Blaine's cheek and leaves the door ajar for some light to filter in, but not enough to give Blaine a headache while he rests. Maddy has abandoned the blocks and rings in a haphazard pile to play with her Ken dolls. They currently look like they're kissing and he fights back a snort. Blaine would probably coo if he saw it.
"Hey Mads, are you hungry?" he asks, crouching beside her and running his fingers through her spiky brunette hair while the dolls get danced across the carpet towards the blocks. They sort of look like misshapen city blocks.
"Where daddy?" she says, holding out the Ken doll that she'd crayoned to make the hair black a few weeks ago while watching Saturday cartoons.
"Daddy's really tired," he replies, taking the doll that he knows is her representation of Blaine and fighting back an amused grin at the way his daughter imitates his life with Blaine. "What were you doing with your dolls?"
"Ken likes Andy," Maddy explains, waving her own doll around with a soft 'zoom' noise. "They're like you and daddy. They kiss lots!"
He laughs and kisses Andy's dark hair, handing the doll back when Maddy makes grabby hands for it. "I'll be in the kitchen, poppet. Don't wake daddy, okay?"
She pouts a little but finally nods because she'd once run into their room far too early and Blaine had revealed his lack of morning skills with a grumbled tirade and pulling the blanket over his head. Since then, Maddy had always knocked first and poked her head in to see if she could join them.
He moves into the kitchen to make an easy meal of spaghetti bolognese with the leftover mince from the hamburgers Blaine had made two nights ago. He hums to himself as he drifts around the kitchen for ingredients, keeping an eye on his daughter after Maddy had crawled onto her seat when he started organising the pasta. He half-listens to her babbled conversation between Andy and Ken that he guesses makes perfect sense to her. From time to time, he kisses the top of her hair or tickles the back of her neck and then returns to cooking, mindful of leaving anything too long that it starts to burn or turning his back on her and she gets injured.
When he sets the table, Maddy puts her dolls to the side and stares up at Sebastian with big green eyes. "I wake daddy now?"
Sebastian thinks about the extent of his husband's exhaustion. Though he knows Blaine should eat to keep up his strength, he also knows that if Blaine is coming down sick, he needs to get as much rest as possible. Blaine was capable of sleeping like the dead in the early stages of illness.
"I can warm up dinner later if he's hungry," he says, making sure all the hotplates are turned off as he strains the pasta and places a small serving in one of Maddy's dinosaur bowls. She grins at him and picks up her purple plastic fork, squirming in her seat once she starts stabbing at the noodles.
"Love pasta!" she says around a mouthful of spaghetti and he huffs a laugh as he sits beside her.
"You love everything, my hungry little monster," he teases and she giggles and chomps through another mouthful.
As much as he loves his precious moments of stillness before Blaine gets home with their daughter, he also loves these precious moments of getting to sit with her and marvelling at how grown up she's becoming. He remembers how small and grey she'd been when first born, and the blossom of pink to her skin as she'd gasped in her first breaths. He remembers the shrill crying that had left him and Blaine prepared to gouge out their eyes as payment for a cure to her restless sleeping. He remembers the bottle of red wine he and Blaine had split when she'd finally slept through the night uninterrupted at three months. He remembers so many things of those early years - first steps, first words, first smiles, first giggles - and yet Maddy is no longer a small, helpless baby but a small, functioning human. It scares him that she'll be starting kindergarten in no time. Once that happens, she'll be off to elementary school and then high school and college and getting married and-
"Papa?" Maddy taps his hand impatiently with her fork, her bowl empty even though Sebastian had gotten so lost in his thoughts he'd only managed a few mouthfuls. "More?"
For all the similarities between their appearances, Maddy was definitely Blaine's child with her insatiable appetite. Sebastian had learned quickly of Blaine's ability to eat through a mountain of food, especially when he was stressed out. He retrieves a second bowl of spaghetti for Maddy and sets up the DVD player with Beauty and the Beast playing quietly. Enthralled by the bright colours and singing, Sebastian leaves his daughter with her bowl of pasta to check on Blaine.
It's immediately obvious that Blaine is coming down with something because the sheets and blanket are twisted around his legs and hips. Generally Blaine was only this restless if he was sick, because his muscles would be wracked with pain that made it difficult for him to get comfortable.
He sighs as he creeps into the room and lowers himself to the edge of the bed, brushing his fingers against the sweaty curls stuck to Blaine's forehead. His husband is definitely starting to run a fever. His skin feels as hot as the sun.
"Seb," Blaine whines when he stirs through the haze of exhaustion, reaching out a wobbly hand for his wrist. He flips over his hand and threads their fingers together, letting Blaine know he's here even if his husband can't quite open his eyes.
"I told you that you were working too hard," he teases, pressing into Blaine's side to kiss his temple. For weeks, Blaine has been working feverishly on a research project for his Masters in Music Education while juggling his part-time job of coaching two different choir teams and privately tutoring elementary school kids in playing piano and guitar. "What can I get for you?"
Blaine makes a pitiful croaking groan that causes Sebastian's satisfaction that his husband has, in fact, gotten sick get swiftly replaced by sympathy. He likes taking care of Blaine, likes being a doting husband and encouraging Blaine to slow down for a little while, but no one enjoys being sick and no one enjoys seeing their other half feel terrible. He also knows Blaine will probably pass this on to Maddy and then he'll probably get it - and despite how much his mother used to say he was a terrible patient, a sick toddler was even worse than a sick Sebastian.
"Water," Blaine rasps, clinging to Sebastian's hand so tightly that he isn't sure how he's meant to leave to get a glass. He offers a soft kiss to the back of Blaine's hand and his husband apparently remembers to go. He slides from the bed to retrieve a glass from the kitchen and steal a couple of mouthfuls of his cooling spaghetti.
Maddy has abandoned her empty bowl on the coffee table and wrapped herself in the blanket from the couch while she watches the movie, swaying along with the music while her lips mouth the words she understands. Sebastian hopes they aren't raising a singing drama queen like Rachel Berry. As much as he accepts Blaine's friendship with her, and is grateful for the opportunity she gave them, he's not sure he'd ever forgive himself for failing to intervene in his daughter wanting to become a singing sensation. He's not sure he could tolerate a teenage diva living under his roof without reverting to the harsh, snarky teenager he'd once been.
As he lets the glass fill in the sink, he grabs a clean hand towel from the linen closet and dampens it with cool water to lay across Blaine's forehead. Humming along to the song on the TV, he enters the dark bedroom to see a Maddy-sized lump curled up on the bed beside Blaine.
"Maddy!" he hisses and her eyes glitter in the darkness. Even from here, he knows she's peering at him guiltily with big wide eyes she's learned from Blaine. She knows Sebastian will do anything when he's met with wide, hopeful hazel so she's started doing the same thing when she wants a new toy, or an extra half an hour before bedtime, or another scoop of ice cream.
"It's okay," Blaine whispers, cracking an eye open to look at Sebastian as his arm shifts around Maddy's shoulders to keep their daughter against his chest. "She just wants to cuddle."
Sebastian has no problem with Maddy wanting to snuggle up against her daddy. Maddy might be biologically his, but they'd long since decided that the biology part didn't really matter. They share equal parenting responsibilities in raising their daughter so their daughter cuddling their daddy isn't a problem.
His problem stems from exposing Maddy to Blaine's impending flu because she spends additional time breathing in his sickly exhales and possible sneezes which will only increase her odds of getting sick, and subsequently his own.
"You're going to make her get sick," he complains, shifting onto the other side of Maddy to lay the damp cloth against Blaine's forehead. His husband grunts in appreciation, tilting his head towards the cup Sebastian presses against his lips.
He can still hear Beauty and the Beast in the living room when Blaine's crackly breathing evens out. Maddy keeps very still as she watches Blaine in the low light, almost as if she knows he needs to rest and she can't explode with the bundles of energy that rival Blaine's. When it begins to approach her bedtime, he ushers her from the bed and helps her in the bath and dresses her in her pjs before tucking her into bed.
"Is daddy gonna be okay?" she asks, her mouth downturned as her fingers smooth over her nebula bedspread. Sebastian opens the book of fairy tales that Blaine and he have been taking turns reading to her, searching for the story of Cinderella he started a couple of days ago.
"Daddy will be okay after he gets some sleep, kiddo," he promises, kissing her forehead as she cuddles under his arm to see the words and the pictures. He's been slowly getting her to recognise the easier words like 'the' or 'and'.
"I love you, papa," she whispers in the middle of him reading a sentence, her eyes drooping too much for her to stay awake much longer and her head heavy against his chest.
He smiles as he closes the book and leaves it on the beside table, brushing his fingers through her hair before settling her head on the pillow. "I love you too, sweetheart," he murmurs with a kiss to her forehead. She snuffles as he adjusts the blanket around her shoulders, making sure he turns on her spinning star nightlight as he leaves.
After switching off the TV, doing a quick cleanup of the kitchen, and swapping his jeans and sweatshirt for a pair of sweatpants, he climbs into the bed beside Blaine. His husband seems to be breathing softly from his mouth, probably because his nose has already become too congested. He tries to mentally prepare himself for several nights of waking up to Blaine snoring quietly and wriggling around when his muscles ache.
"Rest well, killer," he breathes, loosely spooning his body behind Blaine's and pressing light kisses to his neck.
And when Blaine has to take four days off work to get better, and Maddy misses three days of pre-school, and Sebastian grouches about drinking tea and soup for a week, Blaine at least manages to look contrite as he takes over the nursing responsibilities.
When he finally feels recovered, he kisses Blaine more fiercely than Maddy's Ken or Andy dolls know is possible and enjoys spending the night making out quietly with Blaine, a difficult feat when he has to keep Blaine's noises concealed from their daughter.
"I love you," he whispers as he noses at Blaine's cheek, joining their hands together and rubbing his thumb against the cool curve of Blaine's gold ring.
"I love you too," Blaine whispers back, squeezing his hand and nuzzling at Sebastian's jaw as they soak each other in.
And sometimes he loves these precious moments too.
~FIN~
Author's Note: There are some drabbles written this week which include Maddy. You can find them on my Tumblr by searching my writing tag. I will also cross-post them here when I am home from holidays next week. Thank you for reading x