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we decided it would be fun to go camping, now it’s raining and we can’t set up the tent
The car trunk slamming echoes through the wilderness.
Even though it’s 10PM and pitch black out here, Chris is pretty sure the people in the spot next to theirs are watching, pointing, and laughing. Look at Captain America, they’re probably saying, he can’t even put up a tent.
“Let’s just sleep in the car tonight,” Sebastian, from beside him, unhelpfully recommends.
Stepping directly into a puddle, Chris sets his mouth in a resolute line, and drops their bundled up tent onto the wet ground. He can fucking do this. He was in the Boy Scouts for six weeks. Last year he trained every day for a eleven months. This is kindergarten shit.
“We’re sleeping right here,” Chris advises, bending over to reach for one of the poles. “Help me.”
Seb, arms crossed over his chest and shivering, walks around the deconstructed tent until he’s on the other side of it, facing Chris. Chris frowns at the object in his hands, and starts piecing the first pole together. It isn’t rocket science: you just put the poles together, and then you put the poles in the tent fabric.
...except the pole Chris is holding in his hand is about three feet long, max. Where the fuck does a pole this short even go?!
“This is some fancy shit, what the fuuuuck…” Seb says to himself, trailing off as he realizes there are about ten different components to their tent set up. As Chris puts the last few pieces of his first pole together, Seb uncovers three different pieces of tent fabric from inside the plastic tote bag everything came wrapped in.
Sighing, Seb takes a step back and tries to put the pieces into some kind of order. Once he’s got everything laid out, he steps back, into the same puddle Chris stepped in earlier, and presses all the wet hair back from his face.
Chris, meanwhile, sets his three foot long fully assembled pole to the side, and reaches for the next.
It’s fucking cold. Oregon doesn’t fuck around with the rain; he’s getting soaked all the way through, damp sticking to his bones even though he’s got about three different layers on. They’re going to have to figure out how to dry off before they can even get into their as-of-right-now unmade tent for the night.
“Alright, this… is coming together,” Seb announces ten minutes later. They’ve figured out all the little poles are for the waterproof cover that goes on outside the tent - if they were doing this by anything brighter than the headlights of their rental car, they would’ve figured it out a while ago.
Hopefully.
They shuffle around, rain pouring on their backs, until they assemble six different poles and argue over which piece of tent fabric goes with which. All in all they have: the main body of the tent, the waterproof cover, a front porch kind of thing, and an optional room divider.
It takes them forty minutes to erect the fucking tent. By the time they’re done, neither of them are speaking to the other, and they have to sit inside the running car for an hour to dry off. They sit shoulder to shoulder, slowly warming up with the heat running, and watch their finally gloriously assembled tent get pelted by rain.
Chris finally extends the olive branch. He offers up half the pie he bought in a McDonald's drive through about five hours ago.
“Thanks,” Seb murmurs, eating the pastry in two bites.
Afterwards, they leave their socks to dry on the dashboard - hopefully the sun will come back out when daylight breaks - and take a momentary break in downpour to hustle between the car and tent. Chris unzips the door, lets Seb stumble in, and then falls in behind him, getting it zipped back up in about thirty seconds flat.
As if on cue, rain begins to pour outside.
Inside the tent is decidedly better than outside the tent. Even though it’s raining it’s not overly cold now that they’re mostly dry, so they strip out of their clothes and leave them in a pile Chris promises he’ll deal with in the morning.
“Romance,” Seb grins, once they’re finally tucked into the air mattress, with an unzipped sleeping bag underneath them and a heavy blanket on top.
Chris laughs and then sighs, stretching one arm across the air mattress so Seb can get all up in his side. When Seb snugs up, shoulder fit under Chris’ armpit, Chris leans down as best he can to press a kiss to the crown of Seb’s head.
“Yeah,” He murmurs, smiling.
sorry, i get super sappy when i’m stoned
“Your hair is so short now,” Seb reiterates, running his hand over the crown of Chris’ head again.
Beside him, Chris tilts his head back and blows smoke up into the air.
“It’s been this short before,” Chris grins, leaning over to offer up the joint again and press a kiss underneath Seb’s eye. “But we weren’t fucking then. Didn’t matter.”
Making an ‘mmm’ noise, Seb nods halfway through another drag. He holds it in til he has to cough once, and then exhales, angling the smoke into Chris’ face on purpose. Chris laughs and opens his mouth like he’s catching a facial.
“You like it when I blow in your face,” Seb grins, mouth crooked.
Laughing, Chris settles back, one arm still loose around Seb’s shoulders.
“I do, actually,” He agrees, watching as Seb pinches the cherry off the joint and sets it to the side, along with their half drunk beers. “I like everything about you.”
Making a noise of disbelief, Seb leans back against the wall, and looks up at the stars. Huge. Space is huge.
“You don’t like…” Seb trails off, pinching one eye closed as he thinks, “When I leave all the cupboard doors open. I also didn’t put gas in your car the other day. Which I used without asking.”
Chris grins and shakes his head. “Didn’t work, I still like you.”
“You’d miss me if I didn’t leave everything open and use up all your gas,” Seb laughs, patting Chris on the cheek as Chris leans in, pressing their mouths together. Seb makes a noise and then adds, talking mostly against Chris’s chin, “You’re fucked up.”
Sighing, Chris nods and leans back with a grin on his face. His fingers curl against Seb’s shoulder and then relax. “Strong shit.”
“Yeah,” Seb agrees, looking for his beer again. “We should get room service.”
Chris laughs, eyes still closed, and asks, “Are you gonna hide in the bathroom this time?”
“Maybe,” Seb grins, vaguely remembering the day he got too paranoid and had to sit in the bathtub until Chris brought his pancakes in. They ate in the bathroom, and haven’t wake and baked since… though that day hadn’t exactly been without its merits.
Chris seems to remember the exact chain of events at the same time. He laughs, looks up at the twinkling sky, and sighs, “We fucked for like three hours afterwards. Best birthday ever.”
“That wasn’t your birthday,” Seb cackles, shaking his head. He reaches for Chris’s hand and pulls it into his lap, fingers tangling as he grins. “We were on set for your birthday. You got drunk at dinner and told the sound guy how much you loved me.”
Sighing, Chris admits, “I don’t make very good choices when I’m drunk.”
“No,” Seb agrees, adjusting so he can rest their hands on his stomach. He starts laughing, and then adds, “There’s also a reason we don’t smoke with other people.”
Fucked up as he is, that, Chris understands.
He looks down at their bodies: hands twisted together on Seb’s stomach, legs closest to one another pressed from thigh to knee, feet touching. Chris wiggles his bare toes and wedges his big toe in-between Seb’s.
“I’m tactile,” Chris nods, leaning his head to the side. He rests it on Seb’s shoulder. “You are too.”
Seb rests his head on top of Chris’s, and looks out at the glittering city spread before them.
“Yeah,” He sighs, smiling. “We’re the worst.”
everyone thinks i’m your sugar daddy
They’re in Thailand for two weeks, because somehow their schedules overlap for maybe the first time in their combined careers.
Before they leave the hotel for the day, Chris throws on a pair of sunglasses. With the beard and the recent haircut, no locals have clocked him since he left the airport in Boston - likewise, Seb looks totally different when he doesn’t have an extra sixty pounds of muscle on him.
It’s kind of a fantasy, but for the next two weeks they could just be another gay couple from Gaytown, USA.
They get to see a lot of cool shit in Thailand - temples, beaches with water the same color as Chris’s eyes, elephants, street food, and old-world architecture. By the time they’re down to their last couple days, Chris is full up on foreign knowledge and ready to spend an afternoon by the pool, followed by some frivolous spending.
He doesn’t do it often, but when he lets his inner clothes horse shine, he participates thoroughly.
“Drinks,” Chris announces, setting his blended ice behemoth and Seb’s usual bourbon on the rocks down on the folding table between them. “Got some food coming, but they’re gonna bring that out.”
Seb levels him with a careful stare over the top of his sunglasses, and asks, “Some food?”
“I ordered one of everything off the lunch menu,” Chris admits, sounding half exasperated and half defensive. He plops himself down into the beach chair next to Seb and frowns, “When’s the next time we’re gonna be back in Thailand with nothing better to do than eat?”
And that - Chris is not exactly wrong about that. With a shrug and a frown, Seb thumbs his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose, and settles into his chair.
Later that night, they’re drunk at the hotel bar. Chris is laughing - loudly - one hand on his chest as he leans back in his seat and cackles, eyes the shape of half moons. Seb grins, enjoying Chris’s reaction to his story, and reaches for his near empty drink.
He barely has his fingers on the glass when a hotel employee swoops by, replacing his empty with another. Seb stumbles his way through a warm ‘thank you’ in Thai, and nods a few times when the waitress grins and nods, saying something he doesn’t understand.
After their meal Chris picks up the tab, mostly because he gets his wallet out of his back pocket before Seb has a chance to return from the bathroom. As the waitress disappears with his credit card, Chris notices her looking at him with a funny expression on her face - like she knows something he doesn’t, and is deeply amused by it.
“I think they know who we are,” Chris says, as Seb settles back down into his seat.
Seb immediately sees that Chris has already brought their meal, and frowns.
“I’m picking up the wine when we get back to our room,” He says, first, and then, “They don’t know who we are, babe. They just think you’re a dirty old man who pays me to have sex with you.”
“What?!” Chris sputters, almost dropping his drink. “We’re practically the same age!”
Seb shrugs and raises his eyebrows.
“I guess it’s a thing here,” He says, clearly stoked on himself, endlessly pleased that he’s the young and paid-for ass in this situation. “Lots of sugar daddies on vacation with their… sugar… children?”
Chris kicks him gently underneath the table.
“Don’t say that, come on,” Chris sighs, but then he’s laughing again. “Anyway, I don’t believe you - there’s, there’s no way.”
Laughing, Seb leans across the table, entertained as fuck as he explains, “When we were shopping yesterday, and you spent a fuckin... fortune on clothes? The guy behind the counter winked at me.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Chris replies automatically, throwing back the rest of his drink. “He was probably hitting on you. Which I also don’t approve of.”
With a shrug, Seb admits, “Well, yeah - maybe. But I guess I have him a weird look, so - did you see your receipt after?”
“No, I left it in the bag,” Chris replies, thinking back to that store. He did spend an awful lot on clothes there. Seb also ranted about customs the whole way back to the hotel.
Cracking up again, Seb explains, “He wrote ‘good job’ in Thai on it. I googled it! And he wasn’t the only person who assumed that, either - I’m pretty sure our waitress here thinks you just bought my ass with a meal.”
“Didn’t I?” Chris intones, reaching for one of the two mints set carefully on their receipt.
Seb kicks him this time, then says, “It took more than a meal.”
“I don’t believe you,” Chris maintains, shaking his head. He unwraps his mint and pops it into his mouth, then adds, tonguing the mint, “I’m gonna look at that receipt.”
Laughing, Seb shrugs and says, “Be my guest,” and then, leaning forward, adds, “Maybe I should ride this out. Got any investments you wanna give up?”
The look Chris levels at him over the table just makes Sebastian laugh even more.
our air conditioning is out, and it’s the middle of summer
“FUCK,” Chris swears passionately, as he fumbles both the nut and the bolt he’s been trying to screw back together. Each piece goes bouncing off into oblivion, leaving Chris to stand there holding the air conditioner cover together like an asshole. To the empty kitchen, Chris tips his head back, eyes pinched closed, and reiterates, softer now, “Fuck.”
As if on cue, Sebastian rolls in a few minutes later, with his keys still in one hand and the day’s mail in the other. He wanders right into the kitchen and then double takes, eyes blinking wide as he silently watches Chris trying to wedge the air conditioner back together with willpower alone.
“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Seb cheerfully greets, setting his things down on the kitchen island. “What are you trying to do, anyway?”
Chris groans and tips his head back, and then finally lets go of the air conditioner cover. The plastic door flops open and stares at him sadly, like a limp dick hanging off the wall.
“It stopped working so I googled it, and then I tried to fix it, and then I made it worse,” He explains sadly, pulling up the bottom half of his shirt to wipe off his sweaty face. “And then I lost both bolts that hold the front cover on.”
Grinning, Seb leans against the kitchen island countertop with his elbows, and nods.
“Your shame is on full display,” He explains, looking between the broken air conditioner and Chris, standing there in a pair of basketball shorts and a sweat stained tank top. “Fuck, and it’s like a hundred degrees in here. Should I go back outside and come in? We can pretend you’re the repair man and I’m the lonesome trophy husband.”
Seb arches his eyebrows and grins wolfishly.
“I fucking stink,” Chris complains, before his brain actually catches up and parses the last few sentences that came out of Seb’s mouth.
Once it computes, a wicked grin creeps across Chris’s face from cheek to cheek.
Without saying anything else, Chris reaches for the bottom hem of his shirt, and yanks it up over his head.
showers are the perfect place for sex
Chris tips his head back, letting the hot water hit him in the chin and throat.
Fuckin’ steam showers, man. Best invention since 1991. Nothing beats SNES.
He’s spitting out a mouthful of water and thinking about Super Metroid as the glass door slides open and Sebastian steps inside, looking bag-eyed tired and so sleepy he’s malleable.
“Muscle man,” Chris greets, immediately reaching out to wrap an arm around Seb’s Bucky-size shoulders and pull him close.
Seb makes a noise in the back of his throat as he settles in, both hands going to rest against Chris’s hips. They share the hot water and stand forehead to forehead in the stream, unmoving until Seb tilts his head an inch and presses a kiss to Chris’s mouth. Chris automatically brings a hand up and brushes it through Seb’s half wet hair, enjoying the bit of extra length shooting provides.
Good handles, and all that.
Both happy to sink into the quiet of the steam, Chris groans a little in the back of his throat before he reaches for the shampoo. He’s already washed his hair, but Seb hasn’t, so he squirts some into Seb’s hand, and then reaches for his own body soap.
They stand hip to hip as they shower, Chris’s eyes closed against the shower spray, and Seb’s head tipped back as he washes his own hair. Once Chris has rinsed himself off, they switch spots without saying anything - Seb rinses out his hair while Chris soaps Seb’s body up, shoulders and stomach, hips and legs.
Working for the same employer really does have its perks: namely, having the same time on the callsheet.
Chris makes another soft noise, and then wraps his arms around Seb’s middle. It’s comforting, to press his face against the muscles in Seb’s back while Seb rinses himself off. They stand together in the heat for a couple more minutes, enjoying the feeling of their bodies pressed together.
“Remember that time in San Diego,” Chris murmurs into Seb’s shoulder, which immediately gets a soft huff of laughter in return - Seb doesn’t need to hear anything else, he already knows what Chris is talking about. Chris smiles into the hot skin at the side of Seb’s neck and continues anyways, “We tried to fuck in the shower and fell.”
That… wasn’t the highlight of Chris’s adult sexual career. 450 pounds of raw man hitting the ground made it sound like they were about to go right through the tile floor and into the suite below.
Since that fateful afternoon, there had been a ban on shower sex.
“I can blow you real quick,” Seb offers, tilting his head down to bite at the back of Chris’ wrist.
Chris groans and lets his hips grind forward, into the small of Seb’s back.
man cold
“This is the,” Chris is interrupted by a violent sneeze, “The fuckin’ worst.”
Somehow the stuffy nose makes him sound like he’s never left the Boston city limits before. Seb laughs, entertained, and hands over the box of tissues without saying anything else. He also sets a bowl of fresh made ciorba down in front of him.
“Eat it,” Seb commands, accepting the used tissue when Chris’s cold-addled brain can’t figure out where to put it. “I’m going to buy you some flu stuff. Don’t die while I’m gone.”
Groaning again, Chris tips his head back against the pillows, and burbles, “No promises.”
It takes Seb no more than half an hour to get to Rite Aid and back. A pap gets a picture of him going through the automatic doors - in turn, Seb looks forward to the inevitable stories about him buying a ~secret pregnancy test when he wakes up tomorrow.
He does not buy a pregnancy test. He does buy: a box of extra strength flu pills, a bag of cough drops, a tabloid because Chris secretly lives for them, and two things of orange juice since he’s pretty sure he drank the last of theirs this morning.
The guy at the counter doesn’t seem to recognize him, but asks, “Sick girlfriend, huh?”
“Big time,” Seb smirks, handing over his cash.
Back at home, Chris has fallen asleep propped up against his pillows, soup half eaten and cold in front of him. It’s also dangerously close to spilling in his lap. He’s snoring - loudly - because on a good day Chris grunts in his sleep, but today it’s practically primeval.
Seb laughs. He can hear it the minute he gets back through the front door.
“I don’t want to wake you up,” Seb says, jogging back up the stairs to the bedroom and throwing his hoodie against a chair. “But I do want you to eat some of these pills. They’ll probably fuck you up.”
Chris tries to say, “I don’t need pills,” but Seb pretends he can’t understand what he’s saying.
After Chris is plied with medicine, orange juice, and is forced to eat some more soup, Seb allows Chris to talk him into taking his clothes off and getting back into bed. Seb can think of worse ways to spend a Thursday, so he kicks off his jeans and gets in.
True to form, Chris reacts to any kind of medicine like a small child, and is deeply fucked up after about twenty minutes pass.
“It’s too much,” He groans, closing his eyes and tipping his head away from the TV mounted on the wall across from their bed. “Change the channel. Oh god.”
Seb looks up from his phone, and laughs when he sees it's a commercial for dog food - a bunch of puppies all butt to butt in a line, eating from bowls. He changes the channel as Chris groans again and leans fully against Seb’s side. Chris closes his eyes, and loudly sniffs back a noseful of snot.
“That dog,” Chris is stuck on saying, “That dog. He didn’t even know.”
Because Seb isn’t Satan, he chooses not to tape Chris stoned on flu pills.
But he does come very close.