Work Text:
It might have happened in one of a thousand ways, on a thousand summer days.
One
In the last days of August 1995, two women find themselves in labor at a hospital in Washington D.C. quite unexpectedly.
One woman is nearly a week overdue and all she wants is to be home in Ohio waiting for her water to break. Unfortunately her husband has insisted she accompany him on his trip. He feels if he’s going to make a real run at State’s Attorney someday he needs to start building that sort of family-man image with his constituents as early as possible. Her labor starting right when she’s shaking hands with the President isn’t exactly what he had in mind though.
The other woman still has three weeks ‘til her due date, and so is understandably shocked and a little scared when her water breaks during the annual Air Force Ball she’s at with her husband, who’s been newly promoted. It ruins the dress she’s wearing, one she had to have specially tailored to her expanded form, and she is secretly a little glad because it made her feel like a whale. Her husband is less than thrilled since it cost half a month’s pay, but he’s smart enough not to mention this out loud on the ambulance ride to the nearest hospital.
There is a moment, after the pushing is over and both women are finally resting, when the two boys are being carried down opposite halls to the nursery on the third floor. At the last moment the nurse wheeling baby number 2 in his little plastic crib hears a page over the intercom, and turns around to take baby back to mom instead. It seems mom decided she wanted to keep him in her room until they are transferred back to base.
Two
The summer Sebastian turns seven his parents have a rare moment of desire to actually try and be an All-American kind of family, and book a trip to Disney World. The week before the trip is supposed to start his mother catches his father with the babysitter, who coincidentally is only babysitting for extra cash until her Disney internship starts at the end of the month. She’s going to play Ariel. Sebastian never does end up at Disney.
That summer Hunter’s dad gets stationed on a base in Pensacola. Even though it’s nearly a 6 hour drive Hunter’s mom takes him and his little sister to the World every weekend to try and make it up to them that they’ve now moved 3 times in a year. They only live in Florida for a few months, but during that time Hunter meets every princess in the parks, though he insists it’s just because his sister made him. Ariel is his favorite.
Three
The summer before 8th grade, lacrosse is all anyone talks about - at least in two specific households on opposite sides of the country.
In California, Hunter is finally settling in for the first time in years. His dad’s had a surprisingly long stint at Beale and Hunter’s had the chance to make some actual friends. Even as most of the kids in public school are trying out for soccer, on base the sport to play is definitely lacrosse. Hunter’s pretty naturally athletic, and when he starts picking up the plays faster than anyone else he finally feels like the leader his dad is always pushing him to be.
When at dinner one night he mentions shyly to his parents that the middle school coach is already talking about making him team captain in the fall, his dad jumps onboard whole-heartedly. Before he knows it, Hunter’s got a spot in the Nike Lacrosse Camp in New York for two long summer weeks, and he can’t stop smiling.
In Ohio, Sebastian spends his days watching every video he can get his hands on of games from high school through college, researches the summer camps all over the country, and practically stalks the 8th grade coach with all of his questions and excitement. When he finds the perfect camp, Nike’s got one in New York he really wants to go to, he asks his mom if she can get him in.
Unfortunately he asks during her weekly luncheon with her ‘book club’, four gin and tonics in. A week later he gets his activity schedule for soccer camp in New Haven. On appeal, his father refuses to lose his deposit and tells Sebastian he’s lucky to be going anywhere at all. Besides, Mr. Smythe says, it all looks the same on a college application. Sebastian goes to soccer camp, though he throws every game in protest.
Four
When Hunter is 14 he sits his parents down and tells them he’s feeling like he might not be completely straight. Two weeks later he’s got an army duffel over his shoulder and a one way plane ticket to Colorado where he’ll be spending the summer at a ‘camp’ in a small conservative town just outside of Boulder, before enrolling full time at the military academy in Colorado Springs.
The first week of the camp he is terrified of putting one more toe out of line because this already feels like hell. He puts on a tough front during the day still, but at night in the bunks he feigns sleep when some of the more daring kids start making plans to sneak out. While they hitch into the city and dance at the gay club in a desperate attempt to remain themselves in the face of the daily conditioning, Hunter spends sleepless nights on a hard cot promising himself that if he can survive this he’ll never let anyone in again.
Sebastian spends his 14th summer with his hippie aunt in Boulder while his parents tour Europe without him. It is the best summer he can remember, as he has almost total freedom and for once no one is breathing down his neck about what ‘proper young men’ behave like. In celebration he goes dancing every night.
He’s a hit at the clubs, and not just because he is a good looking kid. Most of the regulars at the clubs in town tend to treat him more like a little brother than a sexual object, taking him under their wings and introducing him to their world. Not that there aren’t plenty of guys interested in him sexually, and for that Sebastian is intensely grateful because he is basically one big ball of hormones and eager want.
By the end of the summer Sebastian has lost his virginity, and Hunter has learned to promise he is no longer ‘even remotely bi-curious’, and sound like he means it.
Five
Sebastian’s parents decide that the best way to give their son an edge on his education is to have him spend a year studying in a foreign country his sophomore year. He’s pretty sure it’s actually just their way of getting their very gay son out of the public eye the year his dad plans to run for office, but he also really kind of wants to live in France so he keeps his opinions to himself.
He has a puddle jumper flight from Columbus to JFK on the first of September, and then a four hour layover before his flight leaves for Paris. When he lands in New York he nearly takes the wrong AirTrain to the main terminal until a surprisingly helpful fellow passenger sees the Paris guidebook in his hand and points him towards the international terminal instead. The next four hours are completely uneventful, though he gets to flirt with the cute guy working the register in the airport bookstore so that’s a plus.
On the first day of September, Hunter is heading back to Colorado after a week vacation in New York City with his parents. His flight isn’t until the evening, but his parents’ flight is first thing in the morning and his mom had insisted that they all go to the airport together.
After their flight departs Hunter seriously considers sneaking back into the city, seeing if he can get a last minute ticket for a Broadway show or something because he has literally a whole day to kill. Ultimately he discards the idea, sure his dad will somehow find out. His dad would flip if he knew his son wanted to see a musical, and Hunter’s already planning on pushing the man’s limits by joining the Academy’s glee club this year. So instead he finds himself wandering around the main terminal of JFK for nearly 8 hours, bored and lonely in a way that is starting to be very familiar.
+1
It might have happened a thousand different ways over the past 17 years of summer days. How it actually happens is this.
Two weeks before the start of his senior year, Hunter packs his bags one more time. He’s been transient his whole life but this time, for the first time, he’s actually going somewhere he wants to be. He’s still not quite sure how he managed to win the scholarship that is allowing him to go to Dalton, let alone how he convinced his parents to let him leave military school for a fancy prep school where singing was as prized as athletic ability, but somehow it’s happened and he is nervous and excited in equal measure.
This time he won’t be travelling alone either. Next to his duffel is a carrier for Mr. Puss, an early birthday present from his little sister. He’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to be bringing a pet with him to boarding school, but if military school has taught him anything it’s how to project authority so he figures he can probably just intimidate anyone who tries to stop him. Besides, he’s already kinda attached to the thing.
When Sebastian arrives at Dalton there are only a select few students already moving into the dorms – namely anyone who wants to remain a Warbler this year. In a tradition going back further than Sebastian can say, Warblers have been expected to move in the week before classes start, to maximize their chance at using the empty halls and classrooms for performance practice. It helps to learn the steps in an empty room before trying to duplicate those steps during impromptu concerts around campus throughout the school year with students all around.
The campus should be mostly empty for the next few days, so he’s understandably a little surprised when he gets to his room and finds that his mystery roommate has already arrived. He’s even more shocked when instead of a person all he finds inside is an evil looking cat that has already managed to shed all over both beds and hisses at him when he tries to cross in front of it.
By the time he heads to the first Warblers practice he’s got a line of scratches down his forearm and is ready to make somebody cry so strong is his wrath.
As soon as he steps into the room he’s being tackled by an overly enthusiastic Jeff who shouts “Sebastian!” at the top of his lungs before hugging Sebastian within an inch of his life. It helps cool his anger a bit, but when he’s prying the boy off him he can’t help but snark.
“Watch it Sterling, I’m fucking bleeding here. Some idiot thought it would be a good idea to bring an actual hellcat to school with him and I’ve yet to have the chance to inform him of just how big a mistake he’s made.”
Jeff grabs his arm to start examining the marks, but Sebastian is distracted by a very new, very attractive face in the room. Said face (which is, as luck would have it, attached to an equally attractive body) is already approaching him too so Sebastian is pretty sure this day is looking up.
“Sebastian,” he says by way of greeting, holding out his hand to the new kid. He thinks about adding one of his usual pick up lines but he doesn’t quite have a read on the kid yet and after the Blaine debacle he’s truthfully been a little off his game.
Hunter’s stomach flips when he sees the smile Sebastian is aiming his way. It’s a feeling he hasn’t had in years, a feeling he’s tried to brutally stamp out of himself, this reaction to a pretty boy. It scares him that he’s feeling it again, especially when he’s just starting out in a place that might be really good for him.
When he answers he’s already wearing a cool smirk that he hopes screams ‘not at all interested’ to make up for the way on the inside he’s feeling so very off balance.
“Hunter Clarington. I believe you just insulted my cat.”