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But Loving Him Is Red
chapter two
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The next time it happens, it doesn't start with a kiss, not even with the slightest hint of a touch.
He sits idle at his regular table at Azure, drinks two whiskey sours before that room key invitation –number 7– gets sent his way. He enters the room first, Sebastian following a few minutes later, and while he has trouble breathing, while the single exit starts sputtering around the edges to be noticed, he fights his impulse to run; if only to catch the lack of that same instinct in Sebastian's eyes.
It's confirmation. It's affirmation. Most of all, it's permission.
Green eyes read the heavy rise and fall of his chest, the set of his shoulders, and must find all that amusing, because a smile curls mischief into Sebastian's features.
He doesn't move.
Neither of them does.
But there's no mistake. They're both here for the same thing.
A cold sweat trips up the back of his neck, a hint of nausea. An animal aware it's trapped.
Sebastian tosses his pack of cigarettes on the bed, eyes a playful request for something in return. His move.
Uncertain of the game they're playing –who caves first, who surrenders– he pockets his watch.
Sebastian huffs a laugh, the predator pleased to have found a playmate, and shrugs out of his jacket. Cocks an eyebrow.
Oh.
His jaw clenches as patience gestates below his skin, making his feet lighter. In a way they're consigned to this, to the secrecy and immorality of the act. The repetition they risk. The deadly game they've started. But that doesn't make him comfortable. They're only ever bodies in this small tucked-away room, their names don't matter, but Sebastian gives him far too much space to think.
To backtrack.
To doubt.
"Come on, Anderson."
One of Sebastian's hands slides into a pocket of his jeans, palming at his groin, unknotting a detail he'd almost forgotten: there's a pay-off. He's not here for Sebastian, not his name, but his body.
"Rude to keep a guy waiting."
He licks his lips. Pulls his black Henley over his head and discards it on the floor.
"Good boy."
Anger hooks beneath his skin, even more so when Sebastian's eyes take note of the clench of his fists and that same sly smile nears cocky; he's not someone's pet, not a marionette Sebastian can make dance to his tune. Yet the tug at his sternum, of the inescapable, of Sebastian between him and his only exit — that's his greatest weakness.
And when Sebastian's shirt comes off in a lithe movement all his conscious mind can reach around are Sebastian's hips. He wants those slotted between his thighs again.
His eyes trace over the delicate rise of collarbone along Sebastian's shoulder, five dots tattooed there.
Four arranged in a square. One in the dead center.
"Juvie," Sebastian offers by way of explanation, but doesn't go into detail, or explain the other tattoo over his ribs, the line of scar tissue below his ribcage.
He unbuckles his belt, undoes his trousers, discarding the small gun holster at his ankle. Soon he's stripped down to his boxers. Naked. Exposed. About to be ensnared.
Sebastian pulls his belt free. Drops it to the floor.
His throat runs dry.
"Never said I'd play fair." Sebastian winks, hands at his hips. "Your turn."
He should run, he should get out of there before Sebastian's games spin him into the same pitiful creature. Before he starts liking what they're doing. But the thought of running doesn't scare him near as much as not getting what he came here for; Sebastian's hips, his mouth, his body. He wants all of that.
Without another thought he strips out of his boxers, stomping them out with his feet, and he shivers, he writhes beneath Sebastian's hot gaze tracing down his chest, scrutinizing every inch of him while wetting his lips, the curious tilt of his head more animal-like than human.
"The things I want to do to you, Anderson."
Hairs at the back of his neck stand on end.
The things he would let Sebastian do to him.
His hands fail to settle anywhere in particular so he keeps them at his sides, clenching and unclenching, unable to ignore the interested twitch below his waist when Sebastian loses his pants. No underwear.
He envies Sebastian his calm, his exuberant ease with being stark naked, telling of a life lived in the light; he doesn't hide like a creature afraid of the sun, but he's far more comfortable in the shadows, wrapped in layers and secrets so people might never divine what makes him tick. Being naked like this in front of Sebastian, a man meant to be his enemy — no, a man who is his enemy, might be the most arduous demand anyone has ever made.
"How many times have you done this?" he dares ask, swallowing around the misconception that it would matter, that it would change his mind, that it would in any way make a shred of difference. He's here body and soul, and he couldn't run if he tried. Sebastian could've slept with a hundred different men and it would make this easier. He'd be another notch in his belt. Nothing more.
Sebastian chances a step closer. "This?"
"Me."
He closes his eyes.
"Guys like me."
"I think it's safe to say there's never been a guy like you," Sebastian says, followed by a warm hand touching his cheek — it chases any apprehension he'd held onto out of the room, on the heels of his dignity, his pride.
Not his shame.
That's alive hissing at him in the recesses of his mind.
His eyes open to a smug smile, a thumb rubbing circles into his jaw. "Does that scare you?"
One of Sebastian's fingers curls under his chin, the fox casting its come-hither spell, and he shudders at the mass it leaves on his chest; he's scared to death of how much he wants this, how the conditions of his surrender include Sebastian's equal willingness to be here with him, to self-annihilate, to destroy one another.
He's terrified he might actually need this.
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When Sebastian's not with him he's a runner for his father.
In the olden days of numbers games a runner collected policy slips and cash and crossed the distance between the betting parlors and headquarters — Sebastian still collected bets, ran cash between the casino and several of his father's clubs, and made sure people made good on their money.
Sebastian rarely got his hands dirty, had a way of outsourcing that to people like Hunter Clarington, or people he could pay off, and he definitely had a charm about him that demanded respect. A charm that enchanted, tore down walls, made people put their trust in him.
Sebastian would make a great businessman. Just like his father.
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"You didn't wash your hair," Sebastian says the moment he exits the bathroom — as if he hadn't ordered him to shower thoroughly fifteen minutes ago.
Sebastian stripped out of his jacket, the top buttons of his shirt undone, while his thumbs and index fingers rub together at his sides; he edges to the balls of his feet every few seconds.
Maybe he had taken his time, scrubbed at his neck, his stomach, his ass; all the places Sebastian might venture. Maybe he didn't want to leave Sebastian with the impression he could be bossed around. The small victory shouldn't give him the satisfaction it does either, since he's here all the same showing little to no resistance, and his body burns with all the things Sebastian could have planned. All the things Sebastian could do to him.
He rolls his shoulders back. "Should I have?" he asks, his shirt too big with the sleeves unbuttoned, a pinch of cold against his warm skin where his shirt hangs upon — he put his boxers on again too, and no, he hadn't washed the gel out of his hair, hadn't so much as let the water touch it. Perhaps it would have been a concession too many.
"No."
Sebastian closes the distance between them with a few languid strides, his shoulders set wide like he lacks the space to breathe properly, and for a moment or two he's convinced Sebastian will simply take what he wants, have him like he's had him before, outline his territory with teeth, fingers that bruise, crush into his chest and curl up there like a misshapen heart.
But Sebastian stops short of his claim, a gasp at the back of his throat when Sebastian's lips –his mouth, his tongue– resist the urge to dirty his a bloody red. A thumb catches at his bottom lip, sweeps across it, blurring the lead pencil lines between Sebastian's desire and his own, eyes intent on the action.
Heat draws down his body, along the edges Sebastian plays with, the distance they shorten every time they meet. Sebastian teases closer, his breath staining his lips and draws back shy of a kiss, over and over, carbon copying his frustration onto him.
His fingers knit into Sebastian's waist, right where the desperation lives, Sebastian's body wound so tight the wrong touch might make him snap — he can't stop to wonder what might be wrong, what may have caused this irritation, because that's touching too close to a pressure point he wouldn't want exploited either.
He digs his nails deeper while teeth snap at Sebastian's lips, earning him a self-satisfied grin he means to tear to pieces.
"Up against the wall," Sebastian growls before he gets the chance to, but he winds long fingers around his throat and guides him there, their lips coming together as his skull connects with the wall — nerve endings crack with the most minute kind of pain, and he moans into Sebastian's mouth as his hands are forced over his head.
Sebastian pushes the length of his body against his, and when he tries to lower his arms Sebastian slams them back, leaving bruises along his wrists. So he keeps them there, even as Sebastian's fingers scale down his arms, the lips tearing down his throat threatening to rip it out, lips and hands too everywhere for any coherent thought to come — lips at his nipples, teeth corroding his skin, a hand not too gently shoved inside his boxers and a rhythm, a pace, that would drive any man out of his mind.
He doesn't touch Sebastian. He has no need to. Not with Sebastian in control, Sebastian making the decisions. His desire in the hands of an enemy.
"Turn around," Sebastian commands, falling to his knees, and he gives way without any protest, even though he longs to feel Sebastian's mouth around him, hips bucking into tight heat chasing his release.
Gently, almost caring, Sebastian lowers his boxers down his hips, bites at his ass, and he braces against the wall with both hands, hot breath knitting into the wallpaper. Sebastian squeezes his ass and pushes kisses along his cheeks, drawing lines from his hips down to his thighs to get him to relax.
No one has ever done this to him, but he's thought about it, thought about someone's mouth on him, inside him, slowly opening him up. It'd been nothing but a shameful fantasy, because what man would relinquish control like that? What kind of man would drop his guard? A weak man, or a strong one?
Sebastian spits and circles a finger around his hole, and it's all he can do to keep from crying out. He punches the wall, his skin crawling from the exposure; vulnerable, shaking, an animal lured away from the rest of the herd about to be picked off by the apex predator. It's shameful how he needs this, the gentle caress of Sebastian's finger, fantasy come to life.
No control. No more exits. No time to run.
Sebastian licks over his hole, leaving him boneless, spineless, too weak underneath the weight of the entire world bearing down on him.
He's a body, not an Anderson, in this room.
His knees nearly give out, Sebastian's tongue hot and greedy, one of his hands coming around to jerk him off; he pushes back against Sebastian's mouth, reaches around and scratches at Sebastian's scalp, so hard it draws blood.
Red underneath his fingernails.
The inescapable snuggling near the base of his spine.
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An hour before bed, Rachel's taken to practicing the violin.
It quiets his parents, soothes his mother's tears, and lulled him into a false sense of security that allows him to sleep for at least a few hours. His time with Sebastian leaves him exhausted, his skin split down to the bone, corrosive and aching. He's primed for action every moment he's with Sebastian, and even though Sebastian's body offers release, offers the eye rather than the storm itself, the trigger rather than the bullet, at some point something will have to give.
His body.
His spirit.
Maybe even his life.
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Condensation traipses up the light curve of the car windows, their labored breathing fogging up the glass. They can't crack any of the windows or the doors, else they might be discovered, and they've taken such care despite the danger they invoke. They're parked behind a club Sebastian's uncle owns in an unmarked car with stolen plates, the doors locked, keys in the ignition. Just in case they need to make a quick run for it, race out of town so neither of their families can exact the death penalty.
It's overly cautious. But anything could happen.
The Corridor has become their playground, two miles of boardwalk lined with clubs and bars and storefronts, neutral places where their names aren't Anderson or Smythe, not Blaine, not Sebastian. They're bodies instead, flesh and blood.
Ash, and dust.
It's how he justifies it, in any case.
Sebastian works his hand up and down, while he does the same to Sebastian, their lips caught together as they sit side by side, Sebastian behind the wheel, he in the passenger seat. The position fails to do much for either of them, but they hadn't dared risk the backseat while the club was packed, so they've set this maddening pace instead.
As if to test who will break the rules of this game first.
Ten minutes ago he would've sworn it wouldn't be him, but then Sebastian's hand started on him warm and slow, working lewdly up and down his length, pausing for a few moments, squeezing around the tip, and surely coiled him into a mess that ached and throbbed and hurt.
He hates that Sebastian has this power, but not nearly as much as he fears breaking ties altogether.
And while Sebastian had begged, "Grab it tighter," no six seconds ago his resolve wavers in pursuit of his release, the escape of his sin at the thought of coming all over Sebastian's hand and feeling Sebastian drip all over his, and he can't take it anymore — he grabs around Sebastian's wrist and pulls it free from him, twisting in his seat so he can fall forward into Sebastian's lap.
Maybe he gives up control. Maybe he takes it.
He can't see beyond the thick blurred lines inextricable and tangled between them anymore.
Sebastian gasps as he puts his mouth on him, his head lolling back against the headrest. "Anderson," he sighs, and bucks up into the heat of his mouth, winding fingers into his hair, unleashing his carefully groomed curls as he's done so often. He closes his eyes and sucks, tries to ignore how his own body screams to be touched.
"Just like that," Sebastian breathes, followed by a groan and hum and the sound of one of his feet tapping out a tuneless rhythm; he must be as far gone as he is, ready to spill into his mouth any moment, ready to give himself over to this release yet again. Their shared need for shame.
Not before Sebastian draws a hand down his back, inching his fingers well past the waistband of his boxers and kneads at his ass, circles a finger around his hole — he damn near crawls out of his skin, lips tightening around Sebastian and as the pad of Sebastian's finger settles below his balls he loses any control he might've had, feels all control seep from Sebastian's body at the same time, hot on his tongue, thick citrus and copper bitter down his throat.
He swallows and thrashes and as his forehead lands on Sebastian's thigh, as he lies catching his breath in the stifling confines of the space their world allows, he swears he sees it again.
Red.
In the corners of his eyes.
Sebastian forces his long fingers into his hair, as if another good boy, well done, another lie he spins so he doesn't take it as a thank you or anything more loving he wouldn't know how to decipher. He lingers for exactly three seconds, before he decides he's not a pet curled in Sebastian's lap, and sits up.
Unlike many other of their elicit meet-ups, so carefully conducted in the shadows, reality comes crashing back surprisingly fast; music from the club filters into the car as Sebastian cracks a window, the cool night air catching at the sweat on his skin.
The car had been a bad idea.
They both clean up as best as they can, tug themselves back into their pants, and zip up.
Sebastian starts the car. He can't think why. It's not like they can go somewhere and share a drink. That isn't something they'll ever be able to share. No nightcaps without locking the doors. No public appearances lest their fathers catch on.
It's late now.
He should head home.
"Hey," Sebastian calls.
It starts a pressure behind his eyes.
He knows Sebastian means to beg a kiss, bookend their night together, but he can't bring himself to face him. His shame blurs his vision in the form of tears.
Sebastian's fingers brush his cheek. "Why are you here if you don't want to be?"
"Why are you?"
It's not a denial, but it's not exactly an avowal either. Truth is he's been where he wanted to be since that night Sebastian failed to take his revenge, and it's an insult for Sebastian to believe him an unassuming agent. Some of his agency lies in the alluring lines of Sebastian's body, no doubt, but it's the way his body crashes into Sebastian's that keeps him coming back.
An affair isn't an affair without two willing participants.
His shame stems from his quick lies, from the ease with which Sebastian slithered into his life and made him want this.
Sebastian lay bare a part of him that had never seen the light of day, and if he's not careful he'll die from exposure. His bullets will ricochet and take them both out.
"What makes you think I'm not exactly where I want to be?"
This time he can't control it. He looks at Sebastian sideways, the fingers on his cheek brushing over his lips, and he turns blind, deaf and mute, because things like this should never be spoken.
What they're doing is forbidden.
"Does that scare you?" Sebastian asks, fingers playing over his mouth.
It scares him senseless.
But even if he'd somehow found the strength to answer it wouldn't have mattered; Sebastian's gaze falters and his fingers fall away — he stares out into oblivion, hands at the wheel, feet at the pedals. It's surprising to find Sebastian capable of making mistakes too.
He steps out of the car.
Shuts the door behind him.
Watches Sebastian speed away.
And he can't help but shudder. Sebastian's committed to this completely, his shame and want are at war and each of their trespasses encourages him, emboldens his actions. How long can they keep that up before there's no going back?
Where is their point of no return?
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"You're late," his father calls, but doesn't spare him a second glance as he makes his way over. The basement of the new high-rise development smells of cement and glue, warm and thick like the spaces he claims with Sebastian.
He rights his tie and rolls his shoulders, Sebastian's fresh teeth marks raw against the fabric of his shirt. At least no blood will show through the black.
His father won't expect an apology; now that he's here he's expected to follow orders, put the family business first, think, though not entirely independently. That's how it works.
There's a man bound and gagged at their feet whose face he doesn't recognize, but then he rarely knows the strangers his father wants dead, never bothers learning the names of the souls he ferries.
Cooper once asked if that made it easier.
He hadn't answered.
But it didn't.
"What do you want me to do with him?" he asks, and watches the man grab at his father's shoes, sniveling and whimpering, as if it might delay his execution. Fool.
His father takes a prompt step back.
"Mr. Roderick here took it upon himself to inform Sue Silvestri of some of my new business ventures."
Small bloody footprints paint themselves over memories of that night in the field. Even after all these years, the name stands his hairs on end; Sue Silvestri, the matriarch who escaped his father's wrath.
"Take care of it," comes his father's order.
There'd been a time, one he can barely remember, where the orders came more clearly, were delineated by the proper noun for the act, for murder, for execution, for the lead of his bullets. Now he needs but a few referential cues.
Death, then, he thinks, for the rat in their midst.
Landon Anderson leaves, and Blaine waits for his father's footsteps to die out before he unearths the 9mm from the small of his back.
The man on the floor turns on his stomach and pulls himself forward on his elbows, trying to escape his reach, both his legs helpless sacks adding too much weight; someone must've taken a bat to them before bringing him here. There was really no point in running; there's no one around to register his screams, nowhere to run to, and no one who will hear the gunshot.
He follows behind the man, the next notch on his belt, and pushes a foot between his shoulder blades once he catches up.
The man screams.
He breathes in deep.
Pulls the trigger.
His peripheral vision blurs to green, then gray, then a stark black he's intimately familiar with, all over again.
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Sebastian sinks his teeth deep into his shoulder as he inches inside him one shallow thrust at a time, opening older marks that never even got the chance to heal. He's grown used to the scars Sebastian leaves, much easier to carry than the ones etched on the inside of his skin, living tattoos crawling, sniveling and whimpering. Names he never bothered to learn. Compared to those he carried Sebastian on his skin with a disgusting modicum of pride, a dirty secret his alone.
He's never had anything his alone that didn't ache like a festering wound.
Having a Smythe there, one he tries his best to reduce into a nameless faceless stranger, shouldn't give him any satisfaction; Smythes are the enemy, the West to the Anderson East, yet he cowers at the thought of having no enemy at all. Who would he be, without that gun in his hand?
Better to hate Sebastian and take his fill than linger on thoughts that have never been relevant. That gun will always be in his hand, growing ever lighter — at least when he's with Sebastian he doesn't have to think about it.
Their trespasses were going to lead to this no matter what, his final bare-naked surrender, his body played with and opened up and sunk down over Sebastian's dick. He hadn't had the strength to face him, so he'd turned his back and opened his legs like a prostitute, leaned back on both arms for support, letting Sebastian thrust up into him.
It's a surrender in its own right in its lewdness, but he wouldn't know what to do with himself should he meet with the light in Sebastian's eyes, a temptation inviting him ever closer, down the rabbit hole where there's a language he can't speak. He won't.
A language Sebastian spoke to Adam.
No. Better to be owned and taken and cut open to the bone, where there are compound fractures the shape of his shame and pride. All indistinguishable now.
Hands on his ass Sebastian drives up into him at a torturous pace, and their combined gasps and moans do little to stifle his need for more, for something harder that'll erase his train of thought, that'll weaken his ties to the world as he knows it.
Sebastian's an escape, if anything.
Then, at one fell swoop, Sebastian sits up and stills their movements, while one of his hands caresses down the length of his spine in an almost loving gesture.
He shivers.
"Beg me for it," Sebastian says, breathing heavily.
He blinks a few times, eyes opening to a stifling dark.
Beg him? His enemy?
In his mind's eye he struggles free, leaves Sebastian high and dry, but in reality the words near pour out of him, Please, Sebastian, and it's that very fact that traps them behind his teeth. He won't do this, yield this power to Sebastian like he's yielded most everything else, he won't be another puppet in another game, even if it's one he helped start.
It's been three months of this sweet agony and it'd be a lie if he said he wished it to end, but this—
He won't become less than who he is.
"Beg. Me. For. It," Sebastian enunciates, each word underscored by a swift angle in his hips, while his chest settles against his back, his hands everywhere, his languid body gravity and oxygen all at once. The trouble is Sebastian charts the outlines of his desires all too well, chips at his resolve with fingertips growing ever more careful, ever less whimsical, carving out new pathways of their own.
But no, this command borders humiliation, this nears hunkering down onto his knees and praying. He won't beg. He'll leave before he begs.
"Come on, Anderson." Sebastian grabs around his throat, forces their bodies closer together and continues his other hand downward, where he folds fingers around him and gently jerks him off. He bears his hips down and rolls them, all in pursuit of more friction, but Sebastian barely budges.
"Let me hear you say it," Sebastian whispers, teeth snapping at his ear. "We both know you want it."
He does want it; he wants it so shamefully bad he can't even bring himself to admit it, for the amalgam of quicksilver in Sebastian's veins to flow through his own, for his toxicity levels to rise until his blood vessels silt and turn liquid, filling with the ecstasy of sensory deprivation.
He grabs back and rips at Sebastian's hair, drawing bloody lines his hands have learned too easily. Sebastian's hips snap up sharply, and they cry out in unison, their stillness having set underneath their skins.
"God damn it, Anderson, you're eager," Sebastian hisses, and musses a hand through his curls for good measure, loose and sweaty against his skull. "Do you want it?" He pants. "Tell me how badly you want it."
A whine escapes the back of his throat, and he pushes back into Sebastian's body, but all Sebastian does is lie back against the sheets, kneads at his ass as if he'd be content to remain like this, stare up at him naked and exposed. Gloat over his total and fatal control over him.
He gives into it.
The weight on his shoulders and his heedless desire has him turning his head, and he twists his body around like a contortionist's, all in pursuit of what only Sebastian can give. His lips part. His hips roll. His arms start shaking.
For a moment or two, he watches Sebastian hesitate — his gaze skips from his eyes to his lips, and a tentative hand strokes at his hip, before Sebastian meets him halfway. Their tongues meet, and they lick at each other open mouthed, their breathing growing heavier, but any weightier demands dissipating.
He can't think of it as a power he holds over Sebastian in turn, like somehow an attachment has grown between them that gives him influence over his actions, because frankly, that's too terrifying a thought to have. He holds no care for Sebastian but over his body, and it's the same for Sebastian.
At least he hopes so.
He lies back draped over Sebastian's body at an odd angle, a hand closing around his throat and Sebastian reduced to groans, and sighs, and small sputtering breaths as hips pick up their previous pace.
"God, you're a sight, Anderson," Sebastian breathes and bites at his jaw, sucking another mark into his skin.
What a sight they must be, indeed.
Afterwards, he lies back on the sheets, stares up at the ceiling, lulled into a restless calm by the sound of the shower running. Sebastian never takes long, never seems to have quite as much sin to scrub at. Or maybe he wears it with pride.
So little about Sebastian ever makes sense.
By the time Sebastian makes it out of the bathroom, snags his pants off the floor and buttons up his shirt again, he's sitting up, staring at the door.
Wondering when it ceased to be a plausible exit.
When he stopped needing it to be one.
"You want to know why I'm here, Anderson?"
His lips pucker around the butt of the cigarette Sebastian lit for him, the question one he'd pondered weeks ago. He smiles when he recognizes the frustrated sigh Sebastian expels at his unresponsiveness, but he manages to wipe it clean. A power they don't share.
Sebastian reaches down and grabs around his chin, forcing him to meet his eye.
"You're the only one who understands."
It's not hard to translate Sebastian's words, but he averts his eyes nonetheless. They're both caged animals expected to serve, expected to follow orders. Expected not to sleep with their enemies.
What little left of those rules is what keeps them enemies, keeps them strangers to a certain extent. There's still a line between them, and though blurred, he won't cross that. Maybe of all the boys in all the world it had to be Sebastian to rip him to pieces. But pieces they'll remain.
"You think you're like all the others?"
"Others?" he dares ask.
"The other boys I invited into my bed?"
He shudders at the use of the past tense — Sebastian his alone, and he Sebastian's.
Months ago he told Sebastian this couldn't be more than what it was, and he still won't be considered different than any other of Sebastian's conquests. But how can he not be, his name being what it is? How can he deny that name, especially around a Smythe, simply because they decided to make it so?
How has this whole thing not been a lie from the beginning?
They started the most dangerous game. They signed their own death sentences.
He swallows hard, but whatever it is goes down like acid.
Sebastian chuckles, a disrespectful sound. "You want to be, don't you?"
This time, he does beg.
"Why can't you let me be?"
This would be so much easier.
Sebastian leans in. He closes his eyes and lets himself be kissed, seduced once more by the fox casting its spell, grown stronger yet. In so many ways Sebastian draws strength from his weakness, a trade implicit in their interactions. Sebastian takes and he gives, or maybe it's the other way around; he's never bothered tracking the boundaries of his own weakness.
Even though he should.
"I'm not the one who chose this."
Sebastian stands and shrugs into his jacket, grabbing his nr°7 key before unlocking the door. Disappears through it.
And he agrees.
He didn't choose this either.
Over two decades ago, they were both born into this.
.
.
There's a gun to his head.
There's a gun to Sebastian's head.
Time will catch up eventually but they keep going anyway, a futile attempt at evading fate.
.
.
His days pale in comparison to his nights with Sebastian; not every night, but a few times every week they meet up at the club, or wherever one of them might be along the Corridor at any given time. They each buy an untraceable burner phone –Sebastian's idea– so they know when and where to meet, and if anyone ever asked, having a burner phone on him wasn't an oddity.
Adam hasn't noticed, or if he has he chooses not to say anything, and he does question why Sebastian can suffer this with him and not Adam. Was it that Sebastian still loved Adam and couldn't stand the thought of dragging him into their world? Or did Sebastian like the danger of his body, the idea that they were both trapped and they shared this secret? If it ever got out, they were both doomed, no matter what happened.
Mutually assured destruction.
Madness.
It's an addiction more than anything. He doesn't need the bullets and guns nearly as much as he needs Sebastian's body. Not nearly as much as the disrespect they show two empires erected by mortal sins.
He stops saying no altogether, gives into Sebastian every time he calls, and makes his own fair share of requests. They screw behind a local convenience store, his legs around Sebastian's waist as he thrusts into him, leaves a bite mark over his collarbone that won't heal for days. Sebastian meets him at an abandoned warehouse where they blow each other between empty crates of fish and shrimp, the scent so strong he needs to change at home and throw away his clothes before having dinner with his parents. He straddles Sebastian's lap and rides him in some back office of a nightclub Sebastian took his fiancée, smuggling him in through a back door.
And it always ends, like it usually does, with the crippling shame of knowing he surrendered again, that he proved weak in the face of his darkest desires, all those Sebastian fulfilled, and all those he had yet to.
Hot water and soap dissolved the muck of murder, of blood, of his own weakness, but no matter how hard he scrubs his skin after he shares a bed with Sebastian, some of the taint remains. Some of Sebastian remains. Bruises on his thighs. Bite marks over his ribs. His ass sore where Sebastian got rough.
The way he liked it.
What he keeps coming back for.
Sometimes at night he can still smell Sebastian on his skin, the ghost of a hand down his back, lips at his neck, a body heavy over his, and he wishes he did sleep.
If only for the momentary reprieve.
Every time they smash together it becomes worse. They risk so much for each other's bodies alone and it would be laughable if they didn't tempt their own self-destruction time and again. Sebastian can make him come by playing with his ass alone, or they watch each other jerk off, or Sebastian secures his hands to the headboard with his tie, his to do with as he pleases. Sebastian's had him every which way; with his legs around his shoulders, on top of him, on the floor, the backseat of his car, the shower, anywhere they knew they wouldn't be caught; on his back, on his stomach, on all fours.
On his knees.
Begging and cowering.
He tasted Sebastian in his mouth, swallowed and spit, felt semen drip down his chin, his stomach, out of his ass into the sheets, and he– he can't give it up anymore. Not the release. Not the specific body providing it.
He'd denied himself many things for as long as he can remember, hadn't made any connections because he didn't know how. Who would've taught him? No one ever told him his desires were allowed, no one taught him how to love, how to be with another man. He mostly stuck to his own hand, the few times he did sleep with someone meant to be experimental, to figure out what he liked and what he didn't like — and he didn't like the idea of willingly giving himself over to a stranger, relinquishing the control so meticulously holding his skin together.
Yet that's exactly what he does when Sebastian calls.
It would be easier to walk away if Sebastian left him a shell of a man, a shadow even, but when they're together he doesn't think. He surrenders to his lust, to a man determined to take his control from him and mold it into sin. Something red. So red.
Sebastian owns and takes and dominates and never leaves any room for doubt. In Sebastian's hands he'll be teased, Sebastian will ease back and leave him wanting, make him beg, but he'll never deny him the pleasure of the most exquisite pain.
.
.
"You look better without any gel in your hair," Sebastian says in a haze of cigarette smoke.
He leaves Sebastian's remark unanswered; his opinion hardly matters. It's bad enough he feels more exposed with his curls loose than he's so far felt in Sebastian's presence, that Sebastian's fingers root through his hair as often as he can, just to taunt him.
He straps his backup gun to his ankle and puts on his pants, buttons up his shirt in the hopes it might chase away some of Sebastian's scent — the room's still drenched in it, a mixture of them both, and he doubts that it will ever leave him again.
"What made you this way?" Sebastian adds, almost as if an afterthought, one that hadn't occurred until he chose to ignore him.
Punishment. In a way.
"This way?"
He sits down on the bed, stepping into his shoes, carefully avoiding Sebastian's question; they're always too direct, always with the intent to reveal, expose, leave him a little more naked than he's been up until now.
Purposely teasing around pressure points an enemy should never be able to locate.
Sebastian pushes a kiss to his shoulder. "A killer."
His fingers shake around his shoelaces. How can Sebastian speak the noun so callously, like he'd made a conscious choice, like it was ever a choice to begin with? Circumstances made him into this. Their world forced this onto him.
"Someone tried to kill me when I was ten," he says, the man's face delineated with molten charcoal lines in his memory. All he ever sees is the gun, the deafening sound of the cornfield giving way to a body, Rachel's arms around his chest so tight it cut off his breathing. "I killed him first."
Five seconds tick by between the breath Sebastian draws in and his next question.
"Was it a hit?"
Was it us? the question echoes, Was it my father? but Sebastian can rest assured that if it had been a hit ordered by the Smythe patriarch, few of them would still be standing.
"The Sylvestris."
His father tore through that crime family like napalm, burned down houses with people inside, cut up bodies even though he didn't usually get his hands dirty, flayed the skin off their patriarch.
When your enemies go to ground, one should take the ground they run to. Sun Tzu's Art of War.
His grandparents' house wasn't only a safe haven for him and Rachel, but for his father too, for Cooper. The Sylvestris had sought to destroy that. Much of their past with the Sylvestris lay tainted with blood and bodies, tumultuous since both the families settled here over a century ago. His father had underestimated their greed.
Our fathers know jack shit.
Sebastian's words echo deep in the depths of his own mind. Perhaps he was right all along. What do their fathers know? What do their transgressions matter in a world of blood and guts and untimely death? The handshake that sealed their truce with the Smythes grew weaker the more time he spent with Sebastian. What did it mean?
"I'm sorry," Sebastian says, a sudden gravity to his voice.
"What's there to be sorry for?"
His trauma isn't Sebastian's, it's not even Rachel's; he got broken, something split his heart and soul in half so that everything that came after could never be like it had been before. He carries the weight of that night, the consequences of his actions, and he'd do it every single time. He'd choose protecting Rachel over preserving his sanity for all the days to come.
What would his sanity be worth without Rachel, anyway?
"Shit, Blaine, you were ten years old."
Sebastian sits up beside him, dressed only in the sheets they soiled, speaks his name like they're familiar with each other the way that friends are, the spaces their bodies occupy mundane and everyday, like it's a conversation between any two guys with normal lives who've started an affair that'll lead somewhere. But they're enemies. Sebastian doesn't know him, never will, won't learn the outlines of his trauma the way he's come to understand it — just like he won't learn the depths of Sebastian's relationship with his family, simply because that would be considered treason on both sides of the Corridor.
He doesn't care about Sebastian.
He never will.
"I did what I needed to do."
Sebastian fishes his pants from the floor and quickly steps into them.
"Is that what you tell yourself?" he asks, standing tall in front of him, looking down on him, demanding answers he doesn't have. He couldn't say what drives him beyond the darkness colored inside his chest. "What, when you're out there shooting people? When you shot Hunter?"
He stands up, too short to match Sebastian's height, so he turns his back, shoulders his shame, the souls, death personified while Sebastian's question imposes itself.
There's his pressure point.
His blind obedience to his father's orders.
"It doesn't give me any satisfaction if that's what you mean. I'm just–" He buttons his sleeves to busy his hands, "–good at it."
His training kept him focused, exhausted him to the point where his nightmares disappeared if it meant recharging after a heavy day — all so he could start over again the day after. He didn't sleep for a year after the shooting, insomnia spun into his everyday routine, into his bones, up at all hours to learn more, become stronger; hand-to-hand combat, gun training, something that passed as homeschooling.
"It's the day you went color blind, isn't it?"
His shoulders tense under an icy chill, even though Sebastian draws closer, his chest to his back, and his hands squeeze around his shoulders.
Lips push against his hair.
How has he given Sebastian this power? How has Sebastian figured out all these things about him when they haven't talked, they haven't shared anything but each other's bodies, and he's certain the Smythes don't know about what happened at his grandparents' house? If they even knew about the house at all.
If he weren't so convinced Sebastian's shame mirrored his own, he'd think him a spy.
He's let him too close. He risks too much.
He forces his pistol between their bodies, where it settles snug and reassuring at the small of his back. "I wish I could hate you."
Sebastian's hands fall away. "You do."
He takes a deep breath. "Not enough."
And then he leaves, closes another door, one he'll find himself coming back to in due time.
Sometimes he wishes Sebastian had pulled the trigger, that he'd had the strength to say no to him, that they did consider each other a mortal enemy and stayed away; Sebastian encompassed all his regrets and all his desires, his loss of control all spun into a single body.
If he truly hated Sebastian he'd have the sense to walk away, to draw his gun, push it against Sebastian's forehead and pull the trigger for ever assuming he could force him down to his knees.
But he comes back for more, all the same.
When he enters the house, the front door unlocked while security cameras register his every move, the first thing he hears are Rachel's pleasant giggles touching every corner of the house. He smiles, adopting the ease of home, and tracks his sister's mirth to the living room.
And finds her locking lips with her violin teacher.
He averts his eyes, initially, until the hard crash of another's mouth imprints on his own lips and he looks again, the kisses Rachel trades with Jesse short and sweet, interspersed with both their laughter. A hand caresses lovingly down his spine, and he shakes his head, turning around to find no one there but a memory. A sin.
A gun falls weighty into his right hand; the six-shooter his grandfather forced into his hand.
What made you this way?
"Blaine?" Rachel calls.
He startles but a moment, before he's hurrying up the stairs with Sebastian's question nipping at his heels.
In rare moments of clarity he can see it bright as day, how that night didn't make him a killer, he did that all by himself, through his training and his inability to see anything but the darkness of the cornfield. A reflection of his own fears.
Despite the shrinks his father paid for, despite all the therapies he tried, that night haunts him.
He walks over to the bed and slips his Smith & Wesson underneath the pillow, sitting down to disarm completely. His mom had no care for guns and would prefer them gone from the house altogether, but the only courtesy he and his father can give her is keeping them out of sight.
His fingers shake around his ankle holster, recalling how his hands had been tied together over his head no half an hour ago, Sebastian's fingers curling inside him, his mouth hot and greedy all over him.
His feet start tapping out a nonsensical rhythm.
"Blaine?" comes Rachel's sweet singsong voice, and he thought he'd berate her; he had a mind to yell at her for being so stupid with her music teacher, for drawing another boy into their world who doesn't belong and who'll end up breaking her heart.
But then something else Sebastian said comes to mind.
You're the only one who understands.
Maybe in some twisted way it couldn't have been anyone but Sebastian. He has no right to judge Rachel when she'd kill him should she find out about Sebastian, should she learn he's been questioning his reasoning and every excuse that keeps leading him there. He's so far down the rabbit hole he should consider learning that new language.
But he's not sure he could even if he were to try.
It's the day you went color blind, isn't it?
He buries his face in the palm of his hands.
"What's wrong?" Rachel asks, settling down by his side.
Sebastian had questioned his sanity like he had for years. How can he be anything but insane after what happened? After seeing what he saw? After having lost what he had? He'd been ten years old and he shot a man, one of the men who'd stalked into the safest place on earth and killed his grandparents. The people who raised him.
How can he be anything but insane?
"Do you think I'm broken?" he chokes out. Untouchable. Unlovable. Split in two.
"I think you've seen too much." Rachel's hand lands on his back, rubbing circles that unspool some of the hurt, whisk away the demons if for a moment. "And you expose yourself to it every time dad orders you to."
"It's my duty," he says, a word he's been conditioned to fall back on. "My birthright."
"Now you sound like him."
Yes. They are his father's words.
Rachel draws an arm around him, her head landing on his shoulder, and he turns into her; her undeniable warmth and affection, things he could never give her in return.
"That night changed us, Blaine."
Blaine, you were ten years old.
It seems centuries ago that he and Rachel ran around in the open fields behind their grandparents' house, playing tag or hide-and-seek, sitting on their grandfather's lap. Those parts are harder to remember, because all he sees is a man in their room and Rachel's pristinely white nightdress.
His bloody footprints on their bedroom floor.
Rachel looks up, smiling. "Your curls."
"I–" He stutters. "Yeah."
You look better without any gel in your hair.
He hadn't counted on getting caught in his room before he'd taken another shower, hoping to not only wash away Sebastian this time, but the bitter taste of their conversation. He should learn Sebastian's pressure points too. Maybe then Sebastian wouldn't get to him so easily.
"Rachel, what are you doing with Jesse?" he asks, both as a means to change the subject and as a question he needs to ask. He's seen her moon over a boy before, and the heartbreak that'd followed he'd felt as his own. There's nothing he wouldn't do to protect Rachel, even from her own choices.
Rachel casts down her eyes. "I like him."
"After Finn–"
"Jesse's different," Rachel says, her hazel eyes burning with a conviction he's scarcely witnessed. "He won't run."
Finn Hudson had run. There are boys out there who don't even talk to Rachel because they fear their father, or him, or their entire organization. Why would Jesse be any different? He doesn't know the bodies that lay the foundations for this empire, the people who had to die for their name to start striking fear in those who heard it.
You're the only one who understands.
"Maybe we'll elope instead," Rachel jokes.
"Don't say that."
"I know," Rachel sighs, "Daddy would chase us to the ends of the earth."
No. Their father would probably let her leave; their mom would make sure he did. But he can't stand to hear it from his twin sister, his one tether to a gentler world, one he stains with his blood-red hands.
Unlike him, Rachel remembers each one of his victims.
"But maybe it'd be worth it," Rachel adds, a rebellious afterthought, one their grandmother would've dared utter too.
"What would be worth it?"
Rachel looks at him long and hard, brushing his curls away from his forehead. How can running be worth it if rewarded with being pulled back into this world? Why would she take the risk if she thought their father's wrath that great? Why would she tempt danger, if the outcome would be—
"Being free," Rachel whispers, and stands again, headed for the door that's not an exit, not an escape, but a viable option for her to take.
I wish I could hate you.
No. Deep down he wishes for something a lot more terrifying, something he denies himself consciously, something he can't ever have.
Who would he be, without the injury of that night?
.
.
He receives a text from Sebastian –Azure. 10:30 tonight?– in the middle of one of his father's amicable business meetings. There were a few of these every week, short half hour talks his father had with the proprietors of some of the bars he owned, high-ranking politicians he paid, people with stakes in the business.
The purpose of these meetings, if they can be called that, was to put people at ease, give status updates on projects, and gauge his employees' contentment.
He'd been privy to these talks as far back as he can remember. His clearest memory was of one meeting where his brother sat on his father's lap while profits were being discussed, and he sat next to his father's desk playing with Lego bricks. He can't have been older than two.
Back when his father didn't consider him broken.
"Blaine," his father calls.
Blinking a few times, he sees the room's been cleared and he's certain he shook a few hands, but it's all passed him in a blur. He texted Sebastian back –11:00.– because he promised Rachel he'd take her out to dinner. He'll have to do his best not to focus on what's coming later tonight, when he'll sit down at his regular table at Azure, have a drink or two, and then disappear in the back.
Sebastian's set under his skin like mercury poisoning and he doesn't want a cure.
"Are you alright, son?"
"I haven't been sleeping very well," he says, an old truth regurgitated to fit his purposes.
"I'll ask your mom to get you those sleeping pills again."
His father stands up behind his desk, urging him to come closer.
"I need you well rested," his father says, and eases a hand over his shoulder, a gesture so rare he turns into a ten-year old again. His father had kept him close after the death of his grandparents, closer than he'd ever kept Cooper, but their relationship changed in the weeks that followed. The same carefree boy who'd run into the cornfield with his sister hadn't come out, and hadn't shown since.
Why this sudden turnaround, then?
"I'm visiting one of our developments in two weeks," his father says, his dark eyes pinning him down, a force of nature to be reckoned with like his grandfather before him. "I'd like you by my side."
There was a time he desperately needed to hear those words.
A time long past.
"Of course, father," he answers still, because he's not allowed any other.
"You can go." His father squeezes his shoulder. "We're done here."
Not for the first time he exits his father's office with a voice whispering near his ear; what would the great Landon Anderson do should he find out whose bed he tumbles into? Rachel might escape with her picture perfect violin teacher, who kisses her nose sweetly and whispers love confessions while she plays the strings.
But he never would.
.
.
He sits at his usual table at Azure, neglecting the whiskey sour Adam had brought him twenty minutes ago. He'd waited to hear from Sebastian all day, to savor the anticipation of their next hungry act, but no texts came, and each one of his had been ignored.
After three, he'd given up.
Yet he finds Sebastian idling in that same corner at the club. Why hasn't he heard from him? Why is he here if not to unwind? And what better way to do that than in the backroom they've appropriated for all their offenses?
He catches Sebastian's eyes and makes a show of placing his phone on top of the table, but Sebastian ignores the hint.
Is it another game? Is he meant to beg?
He downs his drink in one go, cracks his knuckles.
At a complete loss for what to do.
This hasn't happened before. Sebastian doesn't reject, he never says no, he's the instigator of all this, and he shouldn't be allowed to dismiss him. They're both players in the same game and neither of them can opt out, not after everything, not after stripping naked in front of each other.
It's maddening to think Sebastian's asserting power he's consciously given him.
He can reclaim it.
He has to.
For the first time in all their meet-ups at the club, he sends Sebastian's decoy a key.
"Number 7?" Adam asks unprompted, the key resting on the serving platter subtly lowered to the table. "You two seem to be getting along."
He wonders if Adam's selectively blind to what's been happening right under his nose, if it has anything to do with the power his name and Sebastian's holds, or if they're honestly fooling the world. Maybe a Smythe and an Anderson hooking up sounds as absurd to everyone else as it would their fathers.
Adam winks. "You know, you might consider exchanging phone numbers."
"Are you tired of seeing me, Adam?"
A hint of fear flashes in Adam's eyes.
"My father wouldn't approve," he amends, because Adam's been good to him, kind, maybe even a little flirty, and he doesn't deserve getting caught in the intricate web he's been weaving for months.
"That I understand all too well."
And as Adam speaks, he watches the Brit's eyes slide across the room toward Sebastian. Is that the lie Sebastian served Adam, then? That his father didn't approve of their relationship? Clearly Sebastian's nighttime escapades don't bother Smythe senior that much; Sebastian may be engaged to a proper lady, but that hasn't stopped him from frequenting Azure, from flaunting his lifestyle up and down the Corridor with little regard to who took notice.
Sebastian's sole true secret is him; everything that happens in that backroom, everything that transpires while their bodies clash and tear at each other until they bleed. Another reason it had to be him. An affair can only survive by the graces of how well both participants keep secrets. They both stand to lose the same things. Their complicity in their acts lives on equal ground.
"Thanks," he says, and gets up, heading to the back of the club, to the long dark hallway that leads to a dozen or so rooms; who else might hide behind these doors? Who else locks their exits to the outside world once they step through?
He inserts the key into the door labeled nr°7, turns the lock, soon inside a familiar dark room.
He locks the door behind him. House rules.
His shoulders crawl with an odd sense of foreboding, and he starts pacing the room in order to shake it.
He takes off his jacket and drapes it over a chair in the corner, loosens his tie around his neck. Sebastian is all he can think about, everything they've done to each other in this room, everything they might still do. Will it ever be enough? Will it ever be over? Will he reach his fill before they can't go back?
Where is Sebastian?
A full twenty minutes have passed by the time he hears the lock snap in the door, and he's still convinced it's all some elaborate play to get him all wound up, to get him frustrated to no end so the release can be all the sweeter.
But Sebastian leaves his key dangling in the door without locking it.
That's not how this goes.
"We're not doing this tonight," Sebastian says, his shoulders sloped, buckling underneath the weight he means to throw off every time he steps through that door.
"Then why are you here?" he asks, coming dangerously close to that question he's been trying to avoid at all cost. He's here for Sebastian's body, and he means to take what he wants, closing the distance between them with a few steps.
Sebastian pushes at his chest. "Not tonight, Anderson."
He laughs, because for once, it's amusing. Sebastian started this, and he's getting exactly what he wanted. Blaine Anderson served to him on a platter. Putty in his hands. There are many who wished they could have the same.
He moves in closer again, reaches a hand for Sebastian's belt, but Sebastian catches his wrist.
"I'm not in the mood," Sebastian says, while his eyes and face falter and he idles over to the bed, where he runs a hand through his hair, brings his elbows to his knees, and settles like a statue.
If he's not in the mood then why is he here? Why did he step through the door?
Sebastian sighs. "I thought–"
He easily decodes the layers of Sebastian's short reply. He thought to erase his responsibilities, thought to defy his father, even though no one will ever find out what they got up to in here. If Sebastian helps him fend off his demons he gives Sebastian something in return. An excuse, perhaps. A way out, even if it would be a horrible one.
Sebastian has the same gun to his head his father keeps cocked against his.
"You know I've never killed a man." Sebastian taps his foot impatiently, staring holes into the door, as if any moment the cavalry could break through it.
Not an exit. But a spot marked X for others to find.
He sits down on the bed, unable to read the melancholy that's taken over Sebastian. What would it matter to him that Sebastian's never killed? He'd already guessed he was an amateur at firearms, and there was little technique to his hand-to-hand. So Sebastian wasn't a fighter. He would never consider that a bad thing.
"Sebastian"—he speaks the name in a foreign tongue, because they're not familiar with each other the way that friends are, and this isn't any conversation between two random guys who happen to have started an affair—"what happened?"
"My dad and I had a long talk this morning." Sebastian draws in a deep breath. "About the future. About my duties once I–"
It dawns on him the way it only could on people like them, sons close to their fathers' fortunes, cursed by the inevitability of heritage.
"Once you take over."
Sebastian on his father's throne. The patriarch of the Smythe family with a wedding ring around his finger. Quinn Fabray at his side. Ruler of the West.
"You'll be able to order people to kill for you."
"People like you."
He expels a breath for the sole purpose of the bodily function. When his eyes meet the boy's next to him Sebastian's shine with what he loathes to recognize as tears. Their relationship doesn't extend to this, this pitiful excuse of understanding, of measuring in which ways their lives are the same. It hurts to think about, how wonderfully different their lives have been up until now and how terrifyingly identical — he the killer, Sebastian the runner, both unlikely heirs.
His father will never give him his throne, not after all that's happened, but he might have, once upon a time. And Sebastian's brother, Alexander, might not step aside without a fight.
"He's sick," Sebastian says. "My dad."
He stops breathing.
"He's getting treatment but the doctors don't know if it'll help."
Sebastian's gaze falters in favor of staring at his hands again; he shouldn't be telling him this, it's not his place, it goes against everything they've been taught. He shouldn't listen so attentively, either, because there's no thought in his mind that considers betraying Sebastian's confidence and telling his father.
Because he gets it.
Sebastian feels the unbearable weight of time breathing at his neck. Like Cooper must have.
Soon, perhaps far sooner than either of them are ready for, Sebastian will take his father's place, he'll be the one shaking hands with Landon Anderson. Sebastian won't just be an enemy; he'll usurp his father's sins as he ascends his newfound place in the world order.
Sebastian will be the one who killed his brother.
It all leads to one simple conclusion.
"We have to stop, don't we?"
Sebastian buries his face in his hands. "It's too dangerous," he says, the word incongruous with all their trespasses, not quite right to describe the tin and taint of all the wrongs they've done. It couldn't last. He knew that before even entertaining the thought of his body melting into Sebastian's. He thought he'd be the one to destroy it, stain it charcoal and ashen until Sebastian realized he wasn't worth the trouble.
It couldn't last. Sebastian must've known that too, before ever kissing him in that alley.
They've tempted self-destruction long enough.
Sebastian doesn't apologize. He doesn't accuse him of only wanting his body. It's been clear what this was from the beginning, ever ending. This will be a far less violent ending than the one either of them had envisioned.
They sit side by side, staring out in front of them, for close to an hour. Even if he were the type to talk he wouldn't know what to say or how to say it; he wants to tell Sebastian it's okay, that they both knew this was coming and shouldn't have started this in the first place, that it lasted for as long as it could because they both ignored who they were, where they came from, and what their last names meant around here.
He's an Anderson.
Sebastian's a Smythe.
Any interaction between a Smythe and an Anderson that isn't business or murder is unthinkable.
Sebastian leans in and pushes a kiss to his temple.
Then he leaves, without a word.
He lets the imprint of Sebastian's kiss linger for another hour, a small eternity in this room, before he too stands up and leaves the room.
Locks the door behind him.
For good, this time.
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t b c
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