@smytheandco didn’t ask for a thing, but got one anyway
One week of going cold turkey. One week since the unimaginable happened. It was fine. Great even. Cooper was great at everything, the best even. He was going to be the best goddamn quitter there had ever been. He’d done worse things, harder things. He’d given up carbs once, for example. Two months without bread and he hadn’t killed a single person. #dedication. Sebastian Smythe was just a new kind of bread. The kind of bread that wasn’t bread at all. The kind of bread that woke you in the middle of the night struggling to breathe because you missed them so much.
Sebastian Smythe was nothing like bread. That was a stupid fucking analogy he’d never be making again.
Sebastian had taught him that word. Analogy. Because Sebastian knew words like analogy and actually used them in his daily life. Once again, nothing like bread.
For six days, since it happened. The big reveal. The awkward ‘meet the parents, oh shit that’s my real dad’ moment. Cooper had spent most of his time drunk, trying to forget the resigned look on Sebastian’s face, the way he pretended not to care as Cooper packed up his things. The way they’d tiptoed around one another, afraid to touch, afraid to look at each other the wrong way, because it wasn’t right, because everything they’d had, everything they were had been tainted in a matter of seconds.
They were brothers. Half brothers sure. But brothers all the same.
If his acting career didn’t work out, Cooper figured he could probably write a pretty good porno with that storyline. This was the stuff of teenage wet dreams but their fucking nightmare. So he’d gotten drunk, again and again and posted consistent passive aggressive tweets. He’d managed to start twitter wars with at least ten people and every morning, couldn’t remember why or what he’d been doing.
All he remembered, was that he was waking up in a hotel room, an empty space in the bed next to him. All he remembered was the one thing he didn’t want to remember. That he would never kiss Sebastian again, he’d never be overly affectionate and embarrassing just to watch the other man attempt to hide his amusement. He’d never feel those hands in his hair, on his body, inside him. He’d never watch through hooded eyes as Sebastian, usually so put together, completely fell apart. He would never hear the reluctant and terrified I love you’s, ever again.
On the seventh day, he started stalking. It was social media, did it really count as stalking? It wasn’t as though he was following his ex boyfriend to work or standing outside what had been their apartment. No. He was just checking Instagram and if he happened to stumble on Sebastian’s, well that wasn’t even really his fault. What he didn’t expect was the picture. Of Sebastian, his arm around a man that had a face just begging to punched. What he hadn’t expected was to feel an irrational surge of anger before he’d even checked the date on it, or who he was. What he hadn’t expected was to find himself opening the door to their apartment with the key he still had, breathing heavy as he attempted to control his anger.
“Honey. I’m home.” He called bitterly, anger coursing through his veins, making him completely incapable of rational thought. Not that rational thought was his go to in any situation. “I suggest you tell your little play thing to leave, I’ve come to rescue you from a lifetime of mediocre sex and a terrible haircut.”
His hands were shaking as he reached for door handle, terrified despite his words that he was going to find Sebastian with ugly Instagram guy. Terrified that Sebastian had managed to move on in a week, that he was fine and happy, when Cooper was completely miserable. He was terrified that Sebastian was thriving, whereas Cooper was falling apart. Terrified that Sebastian was going to move on and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. But he was even more terrified that Sebastian was completely miserable, that he was also falling apart. He was terrified that Sebastian wasn’t going to move on, that he was going to be lonely and bitter, refusing to let anyone in once again and there was absolutely nothing that Cooper could do about it.
Trying not to love Sebastian was just as confusing and conflicting as loving him in the first place. Although at least with the latter, Cooper managed to get some fantastic sex out of it.
With a sigh, he pushed open the door. He’d planned to create a scene, planned to spew more angry words, hidden in humour. He’d planned a lot of things, including spending his life with the most sarcastic and frustrating man in the universe. Cooper figured out a while ago, his plans never went to fucking plan. Maybe there was some sort of clever irony in that, or maybe his life was just destined to be a series of disasters. Either way, he should really learn to stop trying to make plans. Because as soon as he pushed open the door, as soon as his eyes met Sebastian’s he couldn’t breathe again, could do nothing but choke out a few words.
