Someone Else's Life - Evanstan AU

I

If there was any part of New York City that never slept, it was the streets of Lower Manhattan. Never quiet and almost always moving, someone with something to do no matter what time it might have been. It's three in the morning now and it gets a little quieter as Sebastian heads towards the river that skirts the west side of the city. Leaving the constant orange glow of the streets behind him and headed towards the reflection of New Jersey in the water that was never blue.

Sebastian's mouth was still dry from the second-hand smoke that always seemed to fill the apartment whenever Chace came around. Made all their heads a little lighter and laughs last longer but then it left him with the bitterness of a lemon on his tongue that he couldn't quite get rid of without sleep. Something that never comes easy when Chace is over and he hears their moans through the walls. The muffled noises of fucking that he'd rather not listen to. The sounds of the streets of SoHo are nicer, the hums of a stirring city let him pretend he hears something else other than Chace.

It had been Chace that introduced Sebastian to Del, wouldn't stop going on about the room and how perfect it would be for his friends to live together. Sebastian had asked him why he didn't just move in if it was such a great place but he'd been answered with shrugs and grumbles of nothing. But Chace lives quite nicely off whatever allowance he's sent and when he comes over, eats food he's not paid for. Sebastian's fine with it. Because it's Chace. And because he'd rather not eat too much anyway. This is fine too, out walking when he should be sleeping.

It's cold, the morning stings at his cheeks and he'd feel it on his fingers if they'd not already gone numb. Tucked into pockets that are far too small and way too thin, hoping that the blood would come back soon. Or maybe stayed in other places a little longer so he could dig his nails into the palm of his hands with nothing much but half-mooned aches.

Sebastian stops thinking when he sees someone already sitting on his bench. Head down at the screen of his phone. Recognises the navy of the app and sees his own body made from pixels before it moves onto a stream of messages they'd shared. Sebastian knows he could still walk away if he wanted, head home and hope that it's quiet again. But he's here now and sort of hard from the memory of the things they'd written to each other without knowing who they were. Sharing photos of skin and words about the marks they'd leave on it.

"Uh, Ben?" Sebastian asks, clears his throat a little once he's finally spoken through the dryness in his mouth. When the man turns around, he doesn't think he could manage to say anything else, the face he sees is nothing like the one he'd imagined. Much better and more rugged and definitely familiar. The light makes it hard to make out the real lines of his features, blending with the orange and hidden by the shadows.

"Sebastian?" His voice he knew, had shared a few recordings from a place that echoed. Making his words last a little longer as he spoke, bouncing around the empty and through to Sebastian from the speaker of his phone.

"Yeah, I'm him. That's me." Fuck. That's why he likes to be quiet, tongue can't get ahead of him if he doesn't let it move. Is much better doing something else with it, anyway, keeping it busy with something that draws noise from others, and he's forced silent. How he likes it.

"You're not what I expected," Ben says as he stands. Sebastian knows he had his height on his profile and that they measure the same in meters and feet, but Ben seems so much bigger, somehow. Their mouths line up perfectly, Ben's breath warm at Sebastian's as he offers a hand for him to shake. Not something he's done before as part of a casual encounter for sex, or whatever, but Sebastian takes it all the same.

"Should I apologise?" Sebastian asks with a hint of a smile, not sure where to look but wanting to take all of him in. Study him a little longer and hope he remembers where he knows him from. For now, he's just a name and a man that Sebastian has pieced together from the secrets they shared that are probably not secrets at all. Just things they've said to get what they want until they don't want it anymore.