Always You - Sebastian Stan x Female!Reader

Chapter 11 - World's on Fire

Brooklyn, New York - April 2020

Y/n was cleaning her apartment for the third time that day. She never thought she would hate having too much time in her hands, yet there she was, scrubbing the floor for the third time that day, trying to pass the time. The world was under a horrible nightmare. Never in a million years y/n thought she would witness and experience something like the coronavirus pandemic.

New York City was in lock down. Everyone was trapped in their homes except for healthcare workers and public service workers like the police. For the first two weeks it was like heaven for the introverted y/n. She loved not having to go out to work and meet people. She finally had time to catch up on her reading. She also watched a lot of movies, catching up on those she didn't have time to see when she was busy working. But after two weeks she started to become restless. The government said the lock down would only be for two weeks, but a month had passed and it was extended for yet another two weeks.

Despite being an introvert, she could still feel lonely sometimes. Because she was living alone, she quarantined alone, and the loneliness had started to bother her. She wished she had listened to David when he asked her to quarantine with him. David was her boyfriend. He worked in an IT company in the same building where y/n was working. They had been dating for six months when the lock down happened. David lived in Brooklyn too, not far from where she lived. They truly could have quarantined together but y/n was an idealist. She thought it would be much safer to quarantine alone. Who knows. Either she or David could've caught the virus and was becoming a symptom-less carrier. So she decided to do the quarantine alone.

She and David stayed in contact everyday, texting and calling each other. They had set up a certain time each day to video call each other. Something she and her best friend Sebastian also did.

Sebastian lived in Soho and he was also quarantining alone. He was in the middle of shooting the latest Marvel series The Falcon and The Winter Soldier when the whole world went into lock down and he was flown home immediately from Prague. Like y/n he loved being alone and having the time to catch up on reading and watching movies. But also like y/n after two weeks he started to become restless. He told her about it and they made video calling each other become a daily routine for them. Something to ease the loneliness they felt.

Being able to see David and Sebastian everyday and talking to them became the highlight of y/n's daily quarantine routine. He called David every afternoon around 5 and the call usually lasted an hour. After that around 6 she usually had the call with Sebastian which lasted an hour sometimes more.

She finally finished scrubbing the floor. She looked up at the clock and saw it was almost 5, time to call David then Sebastian. She put away the brush and pail she was using, washed her hands and decided to change her clothes and checked herself in the mirror. Sure enough, she looked awful after scrubbing the floor that long. So she brushed her hair then put on some powder on her face and lip gloss on her lips. Satisfied with how she looked, she went to sit on a working area she had set up in her bedroom.

Her apartment wasn't big so there wasn't a special room for her to work. She had set up a small table and chair in the corner of her bedroom. Her laptop was put on top of it. Books, magazines and newspapers could be found scattered on the table. Even though she was staying at home she was still required to work and submit news pieces everyday. Thus the state of her working table was full of newspapers and magazines. She picked up all the scattered newspapers, magazines and books and piled them all on the corner of the table. She then opened her laptop and turned it on. Just as the screen flickered to life her cellphone buzzed. It was David on the phone, making her confused. He usually used zoom to video call her and not through his cellphone. And he was also making a regular call not a video call. Feeling curious on the difference of his method of contact she picked up the phone.