Just Stay (26 page)

"Sorry," he says sleepily. "I'll move."

Evan smiles tiredly.

"Don't worry about it," he says. "You're too cute to stay mad at."

Ten minutes later, the two of them crawl into bed, and Seb lies down flat on his back, closing his eyes. The lights are out, and it's silent for several seconds, before Evan suddenly speaks.

"You ever want to get married?" he says, and Seb frowns in confused surprise, suddenly wide awake.

"Evan," he says. "If this is a proposal, I swear to god."

"No, you dick." Evan laughs in the darkness, and Seb smiles. "I mean, generally. You ever thought about it?"

Seb thinks about it then.

"I don't know," he finally says, truthfully. "Not really. Maybe. I guess it never really occurred to me. Why, you?"

"Me?" Evan says, and makes a thinking noise, before sighing. "I suppose it's every little girl's dream. White dress, string quartet, the whole shebang."

Seb rolls his eyes and groans, as he senses the sarcasm.

"Alright," he says, sinking deeper underneath the covers. "Okay."

"Flowers and a cake," Evan continues, his tone now more obvious in its blatant joking and girly excitement. Seb groans again, pulling the covers up over his face.

"Stop it," he says, but Evan doesn't.

"And there'll be crying," he says, even more obvious still. "And vows and a party."

"I swear to god, Evan," Seb says warningly, his voice muffled underneath the covers.

"There'll be pigeons!" Evan exclaims enthusiastically, rolling over and landing half on top of Seb. "Hundreds of them!"

"Doves." Seb's voice is still muffled, the covers covering even his eyes. He can't see Evan, but he can practically sense him frowning.

"What?" Evan says, and Seb peeks out from underneath the covers. Evan is hovering above him; he can just barely see his expression in the dim darkness.

"Doves," Seb repeats. "Pigeons are gross and shit all over everything."

"And
doves
don't?" Evan says, raising his eyebrows pointedly.

"They do," Seb admits. "They just get away with it, 'cause they're pretty."

Evan smiles.

"Fine," he says. "No doves
or
pigeons at our wedding."

"We're not having a wedding, Evan."

"But then what about all that cake?" Evan says in mock offense, kissing Seb's cheekbone. "And the band, and the dress?"

He kisses Seb's other cheekbone.

"What about
the pigeons?"

"I will murder you, Evan," Seb practically groans, muffled, his mouth still under the covers. His eyes are closed now.

"Right,
doves
," Evan corrects himself, before kissing Seb's forehead. "Can't have shitty pigeons everywhere."

Seb just groans again as Evan keeps raining kisses all over his face, or at least the part that isn't hidden underneath the covers.

"You're such an ass," Seb says, and this time, Evan actually laughs.

"I know," he says, the joking, girly enthusiasm gone. "But you love me, anyway."

Seb sighs heavily.

"God help me, I do," he says, before opening his eyes. He can see Evan grinning at him in the dark. Then Evan pulls down the covers and kisses him on the mouth.

"Good thing we're on the same page."

Seb rolls his eyes, but he smiles as Evan uses his fingers to push his dark hair back from his forehead, like he always does. Their gazes lock.

"Your family seems nice," Evan says after a few moments of silence, his tone sincere. Seb cocks his head.

"Yeah, I guess," he says. "Sorry about Jim, though. And the whole... Olivia thing."

He adds that last part with some apprehension, and Evan glances away for a moment.

"It's alright," he says. "We all have our baggage."

He looks back at Seb and quirks a smile.

"I kind of like Jim, though," he says. "He's alright. In a douchey, asshole-ish kind of way."

"You'd be surprised how often I hear that," Seb says, and Evan chuckles. Then he kisses Seb softly on the lips, before placing his head against his chest. Seb automatically starts pulling his fingers through that light brown hair, and Evan sighs tiredly.

"He can come to our wedding," he murmurs, and Seb chuckles, but doesn't answer him. Instead, they just lie there, together, slowly drifting off to sleep.

Chapter 17

Home

×

Two months ago

"Have you seen my shirt?" Seb calls, digging through a pile of clothes on Evan's couch.

"Which one?" Evan murmurs sleepily from the bed, and Seb looks over at him.

"The Vader one," he says, and Evan squints, thinking. Then his face breaks into a sleep-drunk smile.

"I remember that one," he says, and Seb frowns.

"What?" he asks.

"You were wearing it the first time you came over here," Evan explains. "I remember. You were so cute."

Seb glances away, actually blushing, a small smile on his face. It has been about four months since that night, but it still makes him giddy to think that Evan thought of him that way, even then.

"Yeah, well," he says. "I need it. Can't go to class like this, now can I?"

He gestures down at his naked torso, and Evan cocks his eyebrows.

"Well, I don't mind," he says, and Seb glares at him. But Evan just smiles.

"You know," Seb says, resuming his rummaging. "It would be a lot easier if I just had a drawer, or something."

"Dude, even
I
don't have a drawer," Evan says. "I've got like one closet. I can barely fit my stuff in there. And it's not like I've got a drawer at your place."

"No," Seb admits. "You've just invaded my place with other stuff."

"Like what?" Evan says defensively, and Seb rolls his eyes.

"Like leather bracelets and guitar picks," he says dryly. "I even found a random bandana under my desk the other day, and I've never even seen you use one."

He straightens and looks at Evan, an incredulous frown on his face.

"And who needs that many guitar picks?" he says, throwing up his hands. "Seriously?"

"What?" Evan half-shrugs under the covers. "I like keeping one on me at all times."

"One is fine," Seb says, holding up his finger. "Fourteen is pushing it."

Evan shrugs again. It looks funny, when he's lying down.

"They might come in handy," he says, and Seb shakes his head.

"Yeah, if you say so," he mutters, turning back to the pile of clothes. He exhales.

"Seriously," he breathes, shaking his head. "Where―"

It's the faint rustling of fabric that makes him turn his head, and he looks over at Evan, who is slowly picking something up from the floor. It's a black t-shirt, that has apparently been hidden underneath a pair of jeans, right next to the bed. Evan slowly pulls the t-shirt up and in underneath the covers, eyes on Seb; the print on the shirt's front is unmistakably the silhouette of Darth Vader.

"Really?" Seb says, narrowing his eyes but unable to help but half-smile. "We're doing this?"

"Doing what?" Evan says innocently, pulling the t-shirt to him so that it disappears completely underneath the covers. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Is that so?" Seb says, making his way over to the bed. Evan keeps his eyes on his.

"Yes," he says, and Seb leans down over him, placing one knee against the bed's edge for support. He slowly puts one hand on the mattress, so that Evan is looking up at him, as Seb looms over him. Seb tilts his head.

"Give it back, Evan," he says, but Evan just raises his eyebrows.

"Make me," he says, and Seb tenses up a bit at the low hoarseness of his voice. He licks his lips.

"I'm gonna be late," he says, and looks down as he feels Evan grab onto the waistline of his jeans.

"Why?" Evan asks. "I'm not stopping you. Just take the shirt and go."

Seb looks up at him again, up into those green eyes that are currently anything but rejecting. He feels Evan's hand tug at his pants, pulling him down just the slightest bit.

"Just give it back," Seb says, his voice a bit lower, as he finds himself moving down lower, so that he leans with his elbow against the mattress, rather than his hand. Evan's eyes skim over his face.

"Just take it back," he retorts, and Seb looks at him for a few moments. Then he gives a breathy chuckle and shakes his head.

"Fuck," he murmurs, smiling, before leaning down to Evan's mouth and kissing him.

Evan doesn't waste a second. The hand that's gripping Seb's jeans tugs downward roughly, and Seb moves so that he's straddling Evan, leaning down with his lower arms resting on either side of Evan's head. He feels those hands move to his hips, as Evan starts grinding against him through the covers, their lips moving together in the most wonderful way. Seb feels Evan's hair against his fingers, and sighs as one calloused hand starts trailing up along his bare back.

"I really need to go," Seb murmurs between kisses, and Evan groans.

"No, you don't," he says against his lips. "It's a trap."

Seb laughs.

"
This
is a trap," he says. "And a pretty obvious one, at that."

"And yet, you fell for it."

"Maybe I wanted to," Seb says, his voice low, getting the words out in the brief moments their lips are apart from each other. "You're not as cunning as you think, you know."

Now Evan laughs.

"I have no illusions of how cunning I am," he says, one hand moving in underneath Seb's jeans, down over his ass. "I just want to fuck you, that's all."

Seb groans against his lips, deepening the kiss.
Damn it
. He hates it when Evan talks like that, because it means that there is no going back, hooking Seb completely. It pulls him in and makes him forget about anything else he should be doing, and it's dangerous.

"I just wanted my shirt back," he says in mock lament, his hands gripping Evan's hair and smoothing down over the naked skin he can reach under the cover that separates them. "Dammit, man. I need a drawer."

"Or we could just get our own place."

Seb freezes up. He can feel Evan stiffen underneath him as he does, and he slowly pulls back, so that he can look at him.

"What?" he says lamely after a few moments, sounding a bit stunned, and Evan swallows. He suddenly looks a bit nervous.

"I―" he says, opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish. "I didn't―"

He swallows again, closing his mouth. They just stare at each other for several seconds.

"D'you mean that?" Seb finally says, and Evan glances away, clearly uncomfortable.

"I don't know," he mutters. "Maybe. I mean, I've thought about it..."

He looks back at Seb, green eyes a bit wide and a bit scared.

"But if you don't want to," he adds hastily. "I mean, if you―"

"No," Seb says, cutting him off. He feels his own eyes widen just a bit, surprised, scared and excited, all at once. "No, I mean... I've thought about it, too. Sort of."

He swallows, and Evan mirrors him.

"Really?" Evan finally asks, and Seb nods.

"Yeah," he says. "I have. I just..."

He glances away for a moment.

"I just figured you'd think it was too soon," he says. "I mean, we didn't even know each other a few months ago."

"So?" The one word is simple, unwavering, and Seb looks at Evan, sees the utter conviction in those eyes.

"So?" Seb mirrors, and Evan cocks his head a bit.

"Yeah," he says. "I mean, I know it hasn't been that long. I know we haven't even known each other for more than a few months."

He looks down at Seb's chest and shoulders, tracing the bare skin there with his fingers.

"But," he says, "with the risk of sounding really cliché... I feel like I've known you forever. And I wanna be with you. I'm sure of that."

He looks back up and meets Seb's eyes, his expression oddly tentative and scared. It makes Seb's heart skip a beat.

"Me too," he says, in lack of anything else; Evan just said everything he was thinking, after all. And neither of them says anything else for a few seconds, just stare at each other. Then, Evan smiles crookedly, in that nervous, but somehow cocky, way of his.

"So," he says. "You wanna move in together?"

Seb just stares at him for another second or so, before he smiles.

"I'd love to," he says, and Evan's smile widens. He chews at his bottom lip for a moment, as though thinking, trying to contain himself.

"Awesome."

It isn't big, this place, the apartment they have found. It has two rooms, apart from the kitchen and bathroom, and is on the third floor. The building itself is on campus, at the edge, not too far away from where Jake and Sophie made their new home. That wasn't on purpose, though; bigger apartments are just all kind of bunched together, intended for students living together, just like all the dorms are bunched together, intended for students living alone. But it's just fine. It will do.

It didn't take long for Evan and Seb to find a suitable apartment. Just a couple of weeks after their rather impromptu decision to move in together, they found this place, with its reasonable rent and size, and reasonable distance from the school.

Seb is really excited about it. He has never had his own place before, apart from his measly dorm room, and neither has Evan. And now, they are going to have one together, and share a home. It's terrifying, but exciting, at the same time.

Jake and Sophie help them move, carrying boxes and such (thankfully, the elevator in this building is actually working), and Sophie even gets them a cactus as a housewarming gift. It isn't man-sized, but it's a clear jab at Seb's offer to get her and Jake one, back when they moved.

Both Jake and Sophie were surprised, but at the same not, when Seb and Evan announced their plans on moving in together. It seemed that they long ago, even before Seb and Evan were even aware of how they really felt themselves, apparently, accepted that the two of them were anything but conventional, anyway.