Gabriel wasn’t sure how long he had been awake for. It was possible he’d drifted off to sleep at some point in the night before his brain violently shook his body awake, screaming,this isn’t real, don’t close your eyes or you’ll miss it.
After spending upward of sixteen hours at the office so he wouldn’t suffocate in the silence of his condo, Gabriel had come home to find Joel huddled in the shower, and for some reason he was covered in mountains of dish soap bubbles. Gabriel had held him until both of their breaths had returned to normal and then tucked Joel into his bed, where he’d promptly fallen asleep.
Gabriel wanted to shake him and demand answers.
Why are you here?
Why did you come back?
I can’t love you like this anymore.
It’s going to kill me.
Joel stirred, burying his face in Gabriel's side.
“I think we need to talk, Little Red,” Gabriel whispered, pressing a kiss to the top of Joel's hair, noticing the color had faded from bright red to reveal streaks of a more natural reddish-blond color.
“Do we have to?” Joel looked up at Gabriel with one eye that was puffy and red around the edges, but still a bright and vibrant blue. Gabriel unwrapped his limbs from Joel's small body and nodded.
“I’m going to go make some coffee. You can meet me in the dining room.”
Once in the kitchen, with a full pot brewing, Gabriel sat down at the dining table and waited. And waited. Joel eventually emerged from the bedroom in a pair of Gabriel's lounge pants and a white undershirt. Gabriel appraised Joel, from the way his pants slipped under Joel's heels because they were too long, to the way his undershirt hung loose, covering the lines of Joel's chest and shoulders.
Joel lifted his chin defiantly. “What? You have a problem with me going throughyour things, stalker?”
Gabriel shook his head. “No, Little Red, quite the opposite.”
Visibly deflating at Gabriel's acquiescence, Joel slid into a seat opposite him, immediately bringing a finger up to nervously trace the wood grain of the table. Gabriel sighed and stood up, moving into the kitchen to pour two mugs of coffee. He set one in front of Joel and took his seat again. And went back to waiting.
Joel raised the mug to his mouth, taking a tentative sip before swallowing a mouthful and raising his eyes over the rim to assess Gabriel. He set the mug down and picked it back up, setting it down one more time before putting his hands under his thighs and forcing his eyes to meet Gabriel's intense stare.
“I want the things we talked about before,” Joel finally said, voice barely above a whisper.
“What things, Joel?” Gabriel's voice cracked.
Joel had walked out on him two weeks ago without so much as a goodbye and Gabriel, more than once, had worried he would lose his fucking mind. He had spent the past year following Joel so closely that to cut himself off cold turkey the way he did was a shock to his system. But after having Joel in his house, in his bed, Gabriel couldn’t go back to watching him from afar. Worse than the pain in his own heart, he was acutely aware of how he’d hurt Joel, and he’d sworn to himself that he would give Joel the distance he’d silently requested with his tearful departure. Gabriel would wake at night, covered in cold sweat, wanting to go check and see where Joel was, to make sure he was safe, but Gabriel forced himself not to do it. Instead, he lay awake, his thoughts running wild.
The idea of Joel out with other men infuriated Gabriel beyond words, but those fantasies simultaneously aroused him to the point of pain. He would squeeze his eyes shut and imagine another man holding the door open for Joel at a restaurant, and then he would think about breaking the other man's hand. He would picture Joel lying back on someone else's duvet as a faceless figure pressed kisses to the soft arches of Joel's feet, and Gabriel would imagine breaking the man’s jaw before pinning Joel down, rutting into him with no lube, fucking him into submission while reminding him no one would ever love him the way he did. By this point in the fantasies, Gabriel was always painfully hard, throbbing and pulsing, so he would jack himself off with no lube, imagining the tight squeeze of Joel's ass, until he painfully came all over himself. Then he would open his eyes and realize he was still utterly alone.
“I want to be yours,” Joel repeated, bringing Gabriel’s thoughts back to the present. Joel walked his fingers across the table, gently grazing a fingertip across Gabriel's tense hand, and added, “I’ve always been yours.”
Gabriel pulled back. “You deserve someone who can love you better than me.”
“No!” Joel's voice was louder now, laced with fear as he pushed back from the table. “You love me better than anyone ever could, I see it! And you loveme, Gabriel. You have a pretty fucked-up way of showing it, but you love me. You saw me, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted. Someone to see me, in here.” Joel was on his knees now, after forcing his way between Gabriel's legs. Joel pounded a fist against his own chest as tears slipped from his eyes.
More than anything, Gabriel wanted to take Joel’s declaration at face value, but he couldn’t lose Joel a second time. It would kill him.
“You’re trying to tell me that after two weeks, you suddenly don’t care about any of the things we talked about last time we were here at this table?” Gabriel wrapped his fingers around Joel's hand, pulling it away from his chest. Joel shook free and pushed himself farther in between Gabriel's legs, grabbing tight onto his thighs.
“I don’t, Gabriel. I swear. I thought I did, but I don’t.” Joel's eyes were huge now, imploring Gabriel to see the truth behind them. Gabriel brought his hands up, pushing the length of Joel's hair behind his ears, then softly dragging his thumbs across Joel's damp cheeks. “When Davis showed up and tried to get me to go out to dinner with him again, I realized I didn’t want to go to dinner with anyone but you.”
“Davis showed up?” Gabriel’s jaw ticked. Had he not been clear enough when he sent his last text? He tried to push the protective rage to the back of his mind so he could focus on the quivering boy between his knees.
“He came to the store, and tried to get me to go out with him again, and I thought about it,Gabriel, but I couldn’t see it in my head. I mean, I saw it, but he wasn’t who I wanted. I want you. It always comes back to you. Gabriel, I don’t want to go back to how I felt before you.” Joel reached up, grabbing Gabriel's hands in his own. “Can you please give me another chance?”
“A chance for what, Little Red?” Gabriel blinked slowly, his voice raspy with unshed tears.
“A chance to loveyou, the way you deserve.” Joel brought Gabriel's hands to his mouth, kissing every knuckle, every fingertip, over and over. “Let me love you back, Gabriel.”
