Chapter 6: Genetic Déjà Vu
The echo of his own footsteps was the only sound Robert heard as he navigated the maze of Soundstage 7’s back corridors. The read-through had left him agitated, a low-grade electrical current humming under his skin. He’d needed to move, to walk the phantom limbs of the studio until his mind settled. The hallway was a service artery, all function and no flourish: exposed conduit snaked along the ceiling, LED panels flickered with faulty connections, and the air carried the metallic tang of welding from earlier in the day.
He rounded a corner, his head down, and the world narrowed to a single, shocking frame.
Twenty feet ahead, pressed hard against a steel support beam, was Anthony. And Sebastian Stan. Sebastian’s body was angled into Anthony’s, one hand cradling the back of Anthony’s head, the other fisted in the fabric of his black crew shirt, twisting it tight around his torso. Anthony’s arms were locked around Sebastian’s neck, pulling him closer with a raw, urgent need.
They were kissing. Not a stage kiss. Not a polite peck.
This was all hunger and heat. Sebastian leaned in, his mouth devouring Anthony’s, a low groan vibrating in his throat. Anthony responded with equal fervor, his hips pressing forward, pinning Sebastian to the beam. The wet, slick sounds of their mouths moving together filled the narrow hallway, obscene and intimate against the industrial backdrop. Sebastian’s free hand slid down, palming the curve of Anthony’s ass through his jeans, pulling him tighter still.
Robert froze. His breath hitched, trapped in his chest.
He saw Anthony’s fingers dig into Sebastian’s shoulders. Saw Sebastian break the kiss to trail his lips down Anthony’s jaw, his breath coming in ragged pants. “Fuck, Tony,” Sebastian muttered, his voice rough. “Been thinking about this all goddamn day.”
“Then stop talking,” Anthony gasped back, his own voice thick with desire. He captured Sebastian’s mouth again, his tongue sliding past his lips.
It was a collision of bodies, of want. Robert should have turned away. He was an intruder here, witnessing a private, carnal truth. But his feet were cemented to the floor. He watched, a strange, coiled tension winding inside him, as Sebastian’s hand moved from Anthony’s ass to the front of his jeans, cupping him through the denim. Anthony’s head fell back against the beam with a soft thud, a sharp, choked curse escaping him. “Seb… right there, fuck…”
That’s when Anthony’s eyes, heavy-lidded with pleasure, flew open. They looked straight over Sebastian’s shoulder.
And locked with Robert’s.
For a fraction of a second, there was only the hum of the lights, the pounding of blood in ears. Anthony’s face, flushed and wanton, underwent a brutal transformation. Horror flooded in, wiping away every trace of heat. His body went rigid. He shoved against Sebastian’s chest, hard.
Sebastian stumbled back, confused, his lips swollen. “What the hell?”
Anthony couldn’t speak. He stared at Robert, his identical eyes wide with a panic so deep it was animal. He straightened his shirt with jerky, futile movements.
Sebastian turned, following Anthony’s gaze. His own expression shifted from dazed lust to stunned professional alarm. “Robert. Jesus. We were just… rehearsing a… a thing.” The lie was pathetic.
Robert finally found his voice. It came out flat, detached. “Looked like a very convincing read.” He couldn’t look away from Anthony. The boy’s—the young man’s—chest was still heaving.
“It’s not what you think,” Anthony blurted, the words harsh in the silent hall.
“I don’t think anything,” Robert said, which was a lie so colossal it almost had weight. He thought of the mirroring stance. The shared cadence. The offer of a lab. And now this: his son, wild and wanting against a beam, looking so achingly, devastatingly alive. A possessive, confusing thundercloud gathered in his gut.
Sebastian, sensing a disaster that had nothing to do with him, held up his hands. “I’m just… gonna go. Check on… my trailer.” He sidestepped, giving Robert a wide berth, and hurried down the corridor, the sound of his retreating footsteps swallowed by the ambient buzz.
The silence he left behind was thicker, hotter. The ghost of what Robert had witnessed hung between them: the press of bodies, the frantic hands, the filthy, excited language.
Anthony leaned back against the beam, as if his legs wouldn’t support him. He ran a shaky hand through his hair. “You have a fucking talent for walking in at the worst possible moment.”
“A lifetime of practice,” Robert replied, his tone still dangerously even. He took a step forward. Then another. Closing the distance. The air felt charged, used. He could smell Sebastian’s cologne, and underneath it, the sharp, clean scent of Anthony’s sweat. “He calls you Tony.”
“It’s my name.”
“Not to him.”
Anthony’s jaw tightened. A flush still painted his neck. “What do you want me to say, Robert? Sorry you saw me getting my dick felt up? It’s a free country.”
The vulgarity was a shield. Robert recognized the tactic; he’d built a career on deflection. He stopped a few feet away, well inside Anthony’s personal space. “Is this a thing? With him?”
“Why?” Anthony shot back, his eyes flashing with defiance and embarrassment. “You writing my biography now? First chapter: ‘He likes guys, and sometimes they’re famous’?”
Robert ignored the jab. The image was burned onto his retina: Sebastian’s hand on Anthony’s ass, the desperate arch of Anthony’s back. It stirred something in him that was not purely paternal. It was a recognition of that same fierce, reckless hunger that had lived in him for decades. A hunger he saw now, reflected back at him in this younger, sharper form. “I just saw you,” he said, his voice dropping. “I saw you. Not a crew member. Not a shadow. You.”
Something in Anthony’s defiance cracked. The bravado leaked out, leaving something younger, more exposed. He looked away, focusing on a flickering LED panel down the hall. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just… it’s just a thing. A distraction.”
“From what?”
“From this!” Anthony’s gesture encompassed the two of them, the stage, the unbearable weight of the unspoken truth. “From you looking at me like I’m a puzzle you’re afraid to solve. From everyone on set whispering. From feeling like I’m suddenly living in a fucking fishbowl with a ghost!”
The words echoed, raw and true. Robert said nothing for a long moment. The hum of the lights was the only sound. He studied the line of Anthony’s throat, the pulse jumping at its base.
“You’re not a ghost,” Robert said finally, the words quiet. “I’m the ghost. Haunting my own life.” He took a final step, now directly in front of Anthony. He could see the fine stubble on his cheek, the faint scar above his eyebrow—a childhood accident Claire had never mentioned. “What you do… who you do it with… it’s yours. I’m not here to judge the chaos. I invented the blueprint.”
Anthony finally looked back at him. The horror had receded, replaced by a deep, weary confusion. “Then why are you still here? Why didn’t you just walk away?”
Robert didn’t have a clean answer. The possessive feeling, the unwanted spark of witnessing that raw sexuality, the sheer, staggering fact of his existence—it all coiled together into a single, unshakeable truth. “Because you’re here,” he said, simple and insufficient.
He reached out then, not to touch Anthony, but to the cold steel beam beside his head. His arm brushed against Anthony’s shoulder. The contact was electric. Anthony flinched but didn’t pull away. He just watched, his breath shallow, as Robert’s hand rested on the metal, framing him.
“The lab is still yours,” Robert said, his voice barely above a whisper. “If you want it. No strings. No questions.”
He pushed off from the beam and turned, walking back the way he came, leaving Anthony alone in the hallway that still seemed to echo with the sounds of what had been, and the heavy silence of what was yet to come.