Who: Alexander and Sevastian Where: Las Vegas airport and Alexander's house When: Friday evening What: Sevastian comes home after seven awful weeks on family business in Russia Warnings: Mild profanity
Sevastian hated flying. He really loathed flying from Vladivostok especially, because Vladivostok felt like the ass end of the world. For all the joke said that it had everything Petersburg had, only less of it, it was about the most miserable outpost Sevastian could’ve been stuck at. It was cold as hell, the temperature stuck in the single digits most of the time he’d been there, and he’d been delayed there an extra two weeks for good measure, missing Christmas with Alexander and the girls completely. And what a miserable two weeks it had been. He’d run out of his medication, and managed to have a seizure on his last night there. Mercifully, he’d been in the hotel, out of sight, but it was still disturbing to wake up on the floor next to a puddle of his own vomit. It was something he tried to avoid, as a general rule. At least no-one had seen him. That was a mercy.
That had been last night. And then the interminable flight -- from Vladivostok to Seoul to Vancouver, nineteen hours in the air, and then, for some inscrutable reason, to Detroit before he could finally get a connector back to Las Vegas, something about weather that Sevastian was too exhausted and miserable to understand. It had meant four and a half hours of trying to sleep in the Detroit airport, waiting for the next flight. And then, there were two crying infants on the last jag from Detroit to Vegas, and somewhere between Seoul and Vancouver, he’d taken an awful chill that he couldn’t shake. Even in first class, all he could do was wrap himself up in a blanket and shiver, praying for the five hours to go swiftly, and he was an atheist. He just jammed his noise-cancelling headphones on and waited, thinking about the gifts he had stashed in his suitcase, about getting back to Alexander’s house, getting something warm to drink and sinking into bed. He hoped Alexander was well enough to just let him sink into bed. It had been nearly 29 hours since he’d been somewhere other than an airplane and an airport. He was ready to be home, even if Alexander’s house wasn’t technically his home. It felt like it, far more than the apartment he kept. He was hardly there, anyway.
Pale in his black fleece, heavy black coat, and rumpled jeans, Sevastian dragged himself out of the baggage claim, carryon slung over one shoulder, suitcase rolling behind him. He squinted at his phone, trying to get the messages to come up so he could figure out if Alexander had come for him or if he needed to call a car. It was seven at night. Alexander had work, surely. Where was that last message?
There was the faint honking of someone trying to get the attention of someone exiting baggage. It sounded as if it was happening in another world until Sevastian’s phone started vibrating in his hand. A call from Alexander. That was good.
“Are you here?” Sevastian croaked into the phone, his head swiveling around like a demented owl, the sound of the horn catching his attention.
“I am right in front of you!” Alexander said into the phone, a little exasperated. “Get in the car!”
Sevastian straightened up and blinked, a confused expression on his face. “Oh!” The line went dead as he made a beeline for the dark SUV that was, in fact, right in front of him. It wasn’t a terribly large vehicle, but it had been chosen for the demands of children and groceries and all the trappings of middle-class life, and how relieved Sevastian felt to see it now. He popped open the back seat door to haul in his suitcase. “God, I’m glad to see you.”
Alexander smiled, something thin in his expression, but he looked glad to see Sevastian anyway. “Long flight?” he asked lightly. “Or flights, I should say. Welcome back, Seva.” He reached over with one hand, a reassuring gesture of affection as he put his hand over Sevastian’s. “Where are we going?”
“Home,” Sevastian said with clear longing, and he turned his hand to catch Alexander’s, clutching tight, his grip cold. Then, he seemed to realise what he’d said. “Yours, I guess, yeah, sorry, yours.” He pulled away, and popped open the passenger door to climb in once everything was stowed away.
“The girls will be so glad to see you,” Alexander said, as if nothing odd had happened at all. “They have asked me every day since Christmas if it was time for you to come home yet. Be prepared to be bombarded with love.”
“Quietly bombarded?” Sevastian asked hopefully. “It’s been a really, really long twenty-nine hours or so.”
“I’m sorry,” Alexander said, his tone softening immediately, “I’ll go first and try to keep them quiet.” He hesitated, then asked, uncertainly, “are you okay? Your usual supplies are in the glove box.”
“Oh, you’re amazing,” Sevastian said with feeling. He reached immediately for the glove box, popping it open to grab the familiar orange pill bottle. He shook out a dose and popped it in his mouth, grabbing the water sitting in the center console cupholder without asking permission.
“Thought so,” Alexander said softly as he queued the car to exit the airport and drive back to his lovely suburban home. His leg ached with the effort of driving, but it always ached. “So the return home was hellish, was it?”
“I got re-routed to Detroit. I had a layover in Seoul. And four and a half hours of waiting in Detroit. Did you know they put dividers between the seats in the waiting areas so you can’t lay down to sleep? And that the first class lounge was closed for repairs? And there were crying infants. It just ... God, it was rough, Shura,” Sevastian sighed, and he eased down into the passenger seat, still cold. He pulled his coat more tightly around himself.
“I am so sorry,” Alexander said sincerely. “I kept getting phonecalls with your updated itinerary, at least there was that. You’ll be home soon. Do you want me to pick you up something to eat, or do you just want to crash?”
“I can’t even think about food,” Sevastian said. “Maybe some tea, but I cannot think about food. I need to refill my meds, though. I ran out about ten days ago.”
“Jesus, Seva,” Alexander chided him softly, “I’ll call it in. There should be enough in the house for it to wait until tomorrow, at least.” He didn’t have a drive to the pharmacy in him, he was pretty sure. He just didn’t think he could do it. It felt stupid. But he’d be in the car over an hour by the time they rolled home. And he hurt already. But everything hurt. “You worry me.”
“Believe me, it wasn’t ideal. I paid for it,” Sevastian told him, curling into the seat. He was reasonably tall, but thin, and if he folded himself carefully, he could mostly fit.
“You should really think about going to see a doctor,” Alexander suggested gently. “This isn’t good for you, I don’t think.” Well wasn’t that an understatement. He fidgeted uncertainly, drumming his fingers on the wheel as he drove. Sevastian had more or less fallen off the radar the past few weeks, and Alexander was full of questions, but he knew better than to ask. Sevastian had stayed in Russia longer than he’d expected. He’d come home as unexpectedly, and that meant all kinds of things Alexander could only guess at, but made him nervous.
“I’ll get there,” Sevastian said. “I did, however, do some digging and I think there’s a traumatic injury clinic at UCLA that might have something helpful to say for you. I’d just need to send over your records. If you sign off on power of attorney and waive your HIPPA rights, I can take care of it. It just takes a signature on a form I can draw up and have notarized.”
“You did some digging,” Alexander repeated, trying not to sound incredulous. This was not a good sign. Sevastian was trying to distract him from something. And it felt premeditated. “How did you have time to look up clinics at UCLA?”
“I couldn’t sleep in Detroit,” Sevastian said with a shrug. “They have good people. I looked into it. Having someone evaluate the damage and give a better pain management outlook for your treatment to bring back to Vegas might be better for you.”
“They’ll say the same thing everyone says,” Alexander said. An old argument. His leg was never going to get better and he had to learn to cope with it, or people might threaten to cut it off again. The idea still sent cold chills up his arms. If he couldn’t manage the pain they might just take his leg away entirely. “It’s just an expensive trip to hear the same old things.”
“I’ll pay for it, I don’t care. I think the pain management aspect alone might help. A better course of treatment for the pain would make such a difference, Shurya,” Sevastian insisted.
“I’ve seen pain management specialists,” Alexander tried again. “The codeine is a temporary winter thing. I’ll be back on something sane in a little bit.”
“I don’t think they’re good enough,” Sevastian returned, adamant. “If nothing else, it would be a nice little trip to LA. We could go to the beach. And maybe we could get you some better news, yes?”
“What is this really about?” Alexander asked after a moment. “If you want to go to LA, we can just go one weekend, maybe I can get a few days off of work, there’s another dispatcher who works weeknights sometimes.”
“I just want you to feel better. The treatment options in Vegas haven’t done it. Why don’t we get more aggressive? I can be aggressive. I’m good at aggressive,” Sevastian replied. He coughed a little and huddled down further.
“Sevya,” Alexander tried softly, but he didn’t dare look at Sevastian, he had learned never to take his eyes off the road, no matter what was happening behind him, and he just kept driving. The silence between them felt tense, awful, like a wall. “I’ll sign anything you want if it makes you feel better,” he said at last. “You sound like you’re coming down with something.”
“I’m fine,” Sevastian said, shaking his head. “I’m fine. It’s been a miserable forty-eight hours, and I have a bunch of shit to send out to be cleaned and ... I’m tired of these long business trips. I meant what I told my dad, I’m ready to be done with this part of the business. I’m happy to be legal council and let the rest of it go to someone with an appetite for it.”
“We’ll send stuff to the cleaners tomorrow,” Alexander said steadily. It was hard to know what to say, sometimes, with Sevastian. Sometimes it was easier not to say anything about the fraught, strange territory of Sevastian’s parents, the Russian business, the whole mysterious decision to become a lawyer. “You just need to take care of yourself and rest.”
“I want to sleep off the weekend, if I can,” Sevastian allowed. He coughed again, and snuffled miserably, trying not to wipe his nose on his sleeve (filthy habit). He wanted a cigarette, but it sounded like it would burn his throat. “I’m just glad to be home. God, I am. It’s been a miserable what, seven weeks this time? Six? I started to lose count.”
“Something like that,” Alexander agreed. Not that he’d say he’d counted, six and a half weeks, six and a half misery-inducing weeks of trying to make dinner every night before work and trying not to let his daughters know he could barely manage things himself with his leg acting up. “Tissues are in the glove compartment, go to town, if there are any left. Melanie came home with a sniffle today. She always gets the sniffles after Christmas. She’s so excited about Russian New Year, though, I doubt it will slow her down.”
“I’ll tell Mom, she’ll make soup,” Sevastian said, going to dig for the tissues, and when he found them, blew his nose with something like relief. “Maybe for both of us. I hate airplanes.”
“Oh, God, your mother is coming,” Alexander groaned. “The house is a mess. There’s still Christmas trash.” That was embarrassing, but true. The Christmas tree hadn’t moved -- where was it supposed to go? He couldn’t even get it out of the stand, let alone drag it upstairs back into the attic. “She’s going to fuss. Do you think we have the weekend to ourselves or will she be driving down twelve hours from now?”
“Depends on if I’m actually sick. Mom doesn’t care about the state of the house. She knows you’ve been on your own. I can help get the thing stowed away tomorrow if you’re worried about the tree and shit, though. Besides, it’s not Little Christmas yet, you’re still in the safe zone,” Sevastian said.
“I really need to keep the house in better order,” Alexander muttered. “God, what must the girls think about it all? They’re going to go off to college and be nightmare roommates who leave things strewn everywhere.”
“Shura, it’s fine, they’ll be fine,” Sevastian told him, bunkering down a little further. The lights hurt his eyes. He closed them.
“We’re almost home,” Alexander muttered. Worry was already working its way through him, a bitter taste in his mouth. What if Sevastian had a seizure in the car? That was some kind of worst-case scenario. He could feel his heart rushing to catch up with the sudden thought, carrying with it an agonizing stab of pain along his leg. “We’re almost home, here’s the turn-off.”
“Good,” Sevastian said. “I’ve got one hell of a headache.”
Probably from starting your medication suddenly, and the strain of travel. For a moment, Sevastian felt like he was talking to himself. Only his internal monologue was no longer in Russian. It was British. That was faintly alarming.
“We’ll get you home and put you in bed,” Alexander said. “You look so strained. I’ll tell your mother to hold off until Monday, I suppose, give you a chance to sleep it off.”
“That ... that’d be good,” Sevastian agreed, coming up out of his own skull, to the present, to the reassuring sound of Alexander’s voice. He thought about it for a moment, then said: “We sound married sometimes.”
Alexander didn’t seem to react at all to the words, at first, nothing changing in his face as he drove. “I guess old habits die hard,” he said, “people have been saying that since we were in college. Though back then I think I was the one who did most of the fussing.”
“We trade off on fussing,” Sevastian said with a considered nod. “I guess I need it occasionally? I try not to.”
“Your mother thinks you are a delicate hothouse flower who needs constant attention lest you wither, and she always rewarded me richly for agreeing with her.” Alexander said, his smile a little wry as he pulled into his driveway and parked the car. “Be prepared, the girls are standing at the window waiting for you to come back. I think they missed you.”
“God, I missed them,” Sevastian agreed with a groan. “This feels more like home than anywhere else, this house and those two faces in the window.” The words tumbled out. On surprising retrospect, Sevastian found they were even true.
Alexander sat a moment, feeling the spikes of pain moving through his leg now that he wasn’t pressing on the gas pedal, from the mind-numbing cold dead spot above the knee through the bright, knife-like stabs in the knee. He tried to think of something to say. His heart was racing in his chest, a painful rhythm like running. It was the pain, he reminded himself, making him short of breath, making it hard to speak. A beat before the silence sitting between them would have been unbearable, he turned his head, and said, “you always have a place with me.”
Sevastian looked at him for a moment, unfurling in his seat like a slow-blooming flower, then reached out for his hand. “I know. That’s the thing I can come home to. Dependable like clockwork,” he said softly. Sleep deprivation and headaches made him prone to saying all kinds of things, stupid things, emotional things -- every lover he’d ever had complained that he only had emotions when he was half out of his skull. “You just ... I’ve missed you, Shurya. So much.”
“I missed you too,” Alexander said softly, his fingers tightening around Sevastian’s hand. His eyes shut as a well of nausea coursed through him. “Time for another dose of codeine, I think,” he said roughly, before he squeezed Sevastian’s hand and let go. “Let’s get you inside and taken care of.”
“And you, too. Think we can con the kids into hauling in my suitcases?” Sevastian asked with a wry kind of smile as he unbuckled his seatbelt and eased his way out of the car.
Getting in and out of the car was always a struggle. Alexander unbuckled himself and pushed the door open, before he grabbed onto the top of the car and pulled himself out by his arms, the good leg going down first before he slid gingerly, tenderly, onto both feet off the seat. He wobbled a moment -- he always wobbled -- before he let go of the car, pulled his cane out of the car, and pushed the door closed. His daughters were tumbling out of the front door, now, eager cries of excitement as the two redheads were mobbing around Sevastian, shouting Happy New Year as they swarmed him. In the rush and the noise, Alexander breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “What is this, a riot? Why are you mobbing him?” he called at the girls.
“But Dad!” Alya protested, in the middle of a frantic hug that Melanie had foregone for standing somewhat aloofly to the side, leaning on the car with a grin, “it’s been weeks and weeks! I haven’t seen him since last year.”
“Z No'vim Go'dom, kotiky,” Sevastian told them, hugging the girls in turn, and their voices made his head hurt and his heart swell -- how strange to have them happen at the same time. He couldn’t stop smiling, kissing the tops of the red heads, forgetting in that moment all about the unpleasantness of travel. He was home. That was enough. “Who’s going to help me with bags so your dad doesn’t have to play the hero?”
“I’ll get them!” Alya said eagerly, tearing away from Sevastian to rush towards the back of the car.
“You can’t even pick them up, they’re probably full of presents!” Melanie called after her sister, hurrying behind.
Alexander didn’t care that the girls were on the verge of squabbling. They’d started squabbling a lot in the past few weeks. He leaned into his cane as he started towards the house. “I think they have the bags,” he told Sevastian. “Come inside, do you want a cup of tea or to go upstairs straight away?”
“Tea, I think, which I will probably carry up to bed,” Sevastian said. He was suddenly grateful that he’d made sure Alexander always had a proper, working samovar. A selfish present that he frequently enjoyed. Points all around, he supposed.
“A cup of tea then, more lemon than anything else,” Alexander agreed with a faint smile as he moved through the open doorway. There was the cat, the enormous and aptly-named Fluff Machine, who flicked his fluffy gray tail in the air and immediately began winding around Sevastian’s legs. “I think he missed you,” he said mildly. “We all missed you.”
“There’s the monster,” Sevastian said with fondness, scratching the top of the large, fluffy beast’s head. The house smelled as it ought to, the indescribable-yet-perfectly-familiar mixture of laundry detergent and familiar meals once cooked and traces of the girls’ legion of perfumes and cleaning supplies and all of it, the perfect, unreplicatable cocktail of home. Sevastian sighed, hanging up his heavy coat and letting it all wash over him. “Too long, this time. Too long.”
Alexander was still limping his way towards the kitchen. Once he stopped moving, that would be it, he’d be done. He didn’t even dare sit down. if he sat, it’d take him ages to get back up again, and there were things to do. The girls were coming into the house now, arguing about who’s bag was heavier, but he didn’t really care. Tea. The girls had made a big ceremony about turning the samovar on for Sevastian’s return, but now Alexander was glad. At least the water would be hot. “I hope it’s not so long again, you seem really worn down.”
“I am not a fan of Vladivostok. I am less of a fan of touring oil fields in Siberia,” Sevastian said. “And New Year’s in Russia is insane. I don’t think I’m a fan. And I’m sick of caviar, and of French food, and heavy cream sauces.” He slowly made his way into the kitchen, bright and warm, the samovar just where it ought to be. “I actually really want one of Mom’s dinners at this point.”
“Wait, what?” Alexander turned around, his expression one of mock incredulity. “You want a whole fish with roasted beets and that potato salad and so much fermented cabbage you leave complaining your insides are pickling?”
“Kind of, yes?” Sevastian admitted, coming over to get his cup of tea. It was reassuringly warm in his hands, the boiling water steaming and opening up the smoky scent of the concentrate. He stirred in some sugar, not much, just enough. “Lemon’s in the fridge?”
“As usual,” Alexander agreed. He moved on autopilot, picking up dishes scattered by his daughters and dropping them in the sink, each step more painful than the last, but he kept moving. He had learned the key was just to keep moving, as long as possible. The girls were starting to crowd into the kitchen, full of questions and noise. “Sevastian is tired,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over their chatter, “Russia is a long way away from here, you need to keep it quiet.”
“But --” Alya started, then she sighed. “Sorry,” she said in a quieter voice.
“When I’ve slept about twelve hours, I promise, I’ll be up for talking, okay? So this weekend,” Sevastian said, closing the fridge once he’d poured in his lemon juice. “I’m going to take my tea upstairs and crash.”
“Don’t crash literally,” Melanie said, “that’d be messy, and then you’d be covered in hot tea.”
“He could put the tea down first, and then crash,” Alya replied. “Problem solved.”
The argument about the proper way to crash with a cup of hot tea would be fierce, Alexander could tell. “Say goodnight girls,” he said, cutting them off quickly. “I have to go upstairs and take my medication but if you both are quiet and show me your homework in the morning we can all have waffles.”
“Waffles!” Alya replied with immediate enthusiasm. And then, equally quickly, she quieted down, saying, “okay, then, goodnight!”
“Don’t stay up too late,” Alexander said, gesturing for both his girls to come closer so he could kiss each on the top of the head. “I will know.”
“How will you know?” Melanie replied. “You’ll be asleep.”
“Fathers always know,” Alexander returned.
“He has highly-developed radar. Top-line technology, very hush-hush,” Sevastian offered helpfully. He even managed not to smirk.
“Right,” Melanie said, rolling her eyes. “Radar.”
“They installed it with the metal rod in my leg,” Alexander replied. “Goodnight, girls.” He pushed off with his cane, making for the stairs. Five years later he lived in a house with stairs. That had been a stupid decision but it hadn’t been much of a decision at all. He began to drag himself slowly up. The codeine was at the top of the staircase. That was reason enough.
Following behind him, Sevastian suggested in soft Russian, “Shurya, maybe it’s time to think of a place without a staircase? Maybe?” He knew the struggle that was coming. He could read Alexander’s limp like a book, really.
Alexander didn’t reply immediately. That would have involved breathing. He was trying to make sure he kept doing that. He tried to think of something other than walking, something that might take his mind off moving. Maybe talking would help. Maybe he could talk his way through it. “The house is fine.”
“I know it’s difficult for you. We could find something, you know, we could find something better suited to the leg,” Sevastian offered, right there behind him, his hand almost at the small of Alexander’s back.
Halfway up the stairs. Alexander knew there was a point to Sevastian’s question. He couldn’t keep up this way. He’d spent the better part of the past five years trapped in one half of the house or the other. And yet. “The house isn’t the problem,” he insisted. He wished sometimes it had been his hand that had been crushed. At least walking wouldn’t be so damn hard.
“Well, no, nothing’s really a problem, we could just make it easier. The traumatic injury clinic at UCLA would also be useful here, you know,” Sevastian replied. “It’s just a thought. I mean, hell, I’d help you, you know I would. I spend more time here than at my own apartment. I barely even keep clothes there.”
At the top of the stairs, Alexander wobbled a moment, it seeming like he might topple down the stairs which he’d just scaled. But he straightened, and began the slow movement down the hallway. Everything felt strange and distant from his body, like he had somehow become unattached from the white pain that almost seemed to buzz in his skin like an electric charge. He drifted, like a dream, towards the master bedroom and the bottles by his nightstand. He hadn’t even realized he had never answered Sevastian.
Sevastian didn’t press. He just came up close behind, his hand finally drifting to the small of Alexander’s back, and walked with him, pacing his steps and still holding tight to his cup of tea.
Alexander shuffled slowly into the master bedroom and lowered himself on the bed. He was white with pain, sweating profusely as he tried to open the orange pill bottles. He hated child safety caps. God did he. After a moment he looked up at Sevastian. “...God, you said something, didn’t you? And I never even replied. Sorry.”
“Shh, shhh, it’s fine,” Sevastian told him immediately. He took the bottle without a word, setting aside his tea, and opened it. He was going to focus for maybe fifteen minutes more, and then lay down, and sleep. Sleep like the dead. “Here, it’s okay. I just said that maybe it’s time to think about looking, and of course I’ll help.”
“We’ll see,” Alexander said, neither yes nor no. Leave his house? It wasn’t a great house, admittedly, just a place he and Alys had picked. But it had been his home for such a long time. He swallowed down the medication, draining most of the water bottle that had been sitting by the bed. He tried to relax against the pillows. Soon he wouldn’t care about the pain, which was a kind of improvement. “Talk to me about it tomorrow, maybe.” He stared at his feet. The prospect of taking off his shoes seemed utterly overwhelming. Maybe he could just sleep fully dressed. Had that ever killed anybody?
Sevastian knelt down and started to unzip Alexander’s boots. They were a bit scuffed, and the ankle boots had seen better days, but they were entirely familiar. “Alright,” he agreed softly. One by one, he pulled the boots off and set them aside, just under the bed, out of reach. He straightened up, and hesitated. “You want any more help?” he asked.
“I can probably manage,” Alexander said. He smiled a little at Sevastian and shut his eyes again. “You should get some sleep now.” He tried to remember if he had cleared everything out of the second bedroom. He hadn’t put the Christmas crap there, had he? Maybe he had. What if he had? Anxiety buzzed at him.
“Oh. Right,” Sevastian said. The other bedroom. Where he slept. He should go sleep there. Why had he thought, so stupidly, that he could just collapse into bed here? That was dumb. He was very dumb. He blamed the travel, the exhaustion, the meds. He should pick up his tea.
“Actually,” Alexander said, forcing his eyes open. “I think I hid your Christmas presents in the spare bedroom. Uh. Don’t go in there.” He shut his eyes again.
“Oh,” Sevastian said. He hesitated again. “Do you ... should I sleep on the couch?” Not that Alexander ever wanted him to sleep on the couch, but it was the right thing to offer. Seven minutes. He was going to collapse in seven minutes.
“Why would you sleep on the couch?” Alexander replied. “Drink your tea and sleep here.” There were nights, especially when the pain was bad and the nightmares came in quick succession like thunderclaps in a storm, when the emptiness of the bed, the silence in the room, seemed as ready to drown him as the promise of falling asleep in an overfull bathtub once had. “There are pajamas in the dresser that will fit you.” As if Sevastian didn’t know that. As if there was anything in this room Sevastian didn’t know.
Sevastian picked up the tea and brought it round to the side of the bed he largely identified as his, inasmuch as it wasn’t Alexander’s. He took a large swig of it, then set it aside, fumbling out of his own shoes and the layers of clothes -- black fleece, black t-shirt, belt and jeans and socks -- stopping at his white t-shirt and grey shorts. He should find pyjamas. But the dresser seemed so far away as to be another country, and he was shivering again, violently. He made some kind of noise of agreement, and instead, just crawled miserably into bed, coughing a little.
“Hope you’re not getting sick,” Alexander mumbled, trying to ride the waves of pain without vomiting. He ought to scramble under the covers. Maybe after the codeine kicked in. The trip to stoned always felt like falling a very, very long way. Or perhaps like standing on the edge of a jump, waiting to jump forever, and then jumping all at once after the wait had become unbearable. “Get some sleep, Sevya.”
“I don’t want to leave,” Sevastian confessed as his eyes started to slide closed. Three minutes. Dreaming was pulling at him, hard and insistent. “Not ever.”
“Then don’t,” Alexander said, as if that was an answer to the problem, as if life ever got to be that simple. Sevastian was probably coming down with the flu, if he was talking about his feelings. It was an unflattering truth, but Alexander had learned to accept that conversations about what Sevastian wanted and didn’t want almost always preceded vomiting for one reason or another.
Sevastian forced his eyes open and lifted his head. Two and a half minutes. He looked at Alexander, pale and lovely, his brown hair a mess. Then, without much thinking about it, he leaned over and kissed him solidly.
Alexander’s heart fluttered wildly, excitement or anticipation or surprise, they all felt the same in the end. He brought one hand up to press against Sevastian’s cheek, trying to summon energy to do something other than return the kiss gently.
“I missed you,” Sevastian whispered, the Russian affectionate, intimate, startlingly so, punctuated with another kiss, soft and sweet. “God, Sashenka, I missed you.”
Alexander’s heart was starting to ache in his chest, too fast, so fast it was going to start skipping beats in a minute or too. It all felt so strange. But that was codeine. The whole thing was probably codeine. He leaned his forehead against Sevastian’s, and whispered, “I know. Go to sleep.”
Sevastian nodded, and flopped down on the bed, one arm draped across Alexander. Without much preamble, without another moment of reprieve, his eyes slid shut, and almost immediately, he was sound asleep.
Alexander sighed heavily, and shut his eyes. Who could tell what Sevastian was thinking or doing? He didn’t know, and at the moment, he could hardly care. The codeine would carry him off soon enough, into a kind of sleep, and for now, that was good enough.