#argonathian

“Give me one more night, huh?” Seb asks, sounding a little more pitiful than one should while talking to a dog.

Dodger cocks an ear and tilts his head.

~

“He couldn’t be that bad,” Chris laughs later that night, making fun of Seb through Facetime, “Put him on.”

Seb is stretched out across the couch wearing only his underwear, and Chris wants to talk to the dog.  He pauses Cosmos, which he’s watching on Netflix for the thousandth time this year, and pushes Dodger’s head away from his dinner plate.

“I’m not putting the dog on the phone,” Seb intones, grimacing into the front facing camera to make sure he gets his disgust across.

Laughing, Chris makes a noise and then wheedles, “Come on, please?  Just for a minute.”

“The dog doesn’t want to talk to you,” Seb lies, because Dodger is staring up at him like he actually knows what’s going on. “He wants to eat my chicken and sleep on my side of the bed.”

“Just like meeee,” Chris exclaims, leaning really close to the phone, until his forehead is taking up the majority of the screen.  When he talks again, his mouth is way too close to the mic, “Did Dodger move out with his girlfriend?  Is that why you’re pretending not to let me talk to him?”

That actually makes Seb laugh.  There’s a big fat bulldog who lives down the street.  She’s white and they see her on a skateboard with her owner every now and then.  

They’ve also written a backstory script about Dodger’s ongoing relationship with her; it’s a whole thing that sounds insane to anyone who isn’t either of them.

“No,” Seb finally relents, and then says, “Dodger, here.”

Chris talks to the dog through the phone, making all kinds of stupid noises to try and get Dodger’s attention.  As Seb is predicted, Dodger is more interested in the chicken Seb is eating for dinner, and uses the phone on Seb’s bare knee as a reason to get closer to the coffee table.

“I told you,” Seb moans, as he turns the camera back on himself and pushes his plate further into the center of the table, “Not interested.”

Sighing, Chris leans back and says, “Guess I’m just gonna have to talk to you then.  At least you’re shirtless, gives me something to look at.”

Seb frowns and raises one hand up to cover a nipple, which makes Chris laugh.

~

Happy birthday, Seb texts the next day, below a picture of himself and the dog, We really miss you.

~

Chris gets back late - like, two in the morning late - the day after his actual birthday.

He was up in the air all day and missed pretty much all of his happy birthday messages, except for the one from Seb, which arrived just as he got to the airport.  After 25 consecutive hours of flying, Chris is dead fucking tired and ready to crawl into bed and die.

Leaving his junk in the hallway, Chris checks the house alarm and climbs the stairs, pulling himself along by the railing.  Dodger woofs quietly from just inside the bedroom door; Chris “shh”s automatically and lets the door creak open.

Seb is passed out in bed, head tipped back against the pillows and mouth wide fucking open.  Chris grins and bends down to pet Dodger on the head, settle him back down into rolly-eyed sleep before he wakes Seb up by accident.

A shower can wait until the morning.  Chris loses all his clothes - best thing about being home is sleeping naked - and crawls into bed.  Seb wakes himself up when he feels the mattress dip.

“Just me,” Chris murmurs, tugging at the covers, “Go back to sleep.”

~

Chris wakes up, and stretches himself out along the length of Seb’s back.

So far, being 35 is fucking awesome.

Even though he’s jet lagged, he feels awake enough.  Better than he did when he stumbled through the door six hours ago.

Yawning against the back of Seb’s head, Chris slides his hand up over Seb’s stomach and chest.  He blinks sleepily, Seb’s hair getting in his eyes, and thumbs at the chain hanging around Seb’s neck.  It’s good.  35 is good.

Seb wakes up a few minutes later, likely directly related to Chris grabbing at him and pressing a hard-on into his ass.  But he wakes up slowly, brings Chris’s hand up to his mouth to kiss, and then groans before rolling himself over, taking half of the sheets with him.

“Next year,” Seb murmurs, voice deep and raspy with sleep, “Me, you, Cabo.”

This time next year both their asses will be fully entrenched in filming.  They both know it, but Chris smiles and nods anyways, kissing down the side of Seb’s face.