"What I want," Erath says, "does not supersede what you want. Do you understand that?"
Sidney swallows. He opens his mouth but his voice is gone, trapped somewhere between his throat and the place where his ribs are aching in a way that has nothing to do with old injuries. He stares at Erath and Erath stares back and the fire crackles and the underworld hums and Sidney cannot find a single word.
Erath tucks a strand of blond hair behind his ear. The gesture is gentle and unhurried and familiar, the way you touch someone you intend to keep touching for a very long time. He says, with the ease of someone stating an obvious truth, "I am content just to have you."
Sidney tries to process this and struggles. He has been with men who wanted his body. He has been with men who wanted his compliance. He has been with men who wanted him on his knees and against the wall and under them and never once asked what he wanted in return. He has been told he was too much and not enough in the same breath. He has been told that wanting to be held without being fucked was unreasonable, that wanting to say no was ungrateful, that wanting to be asked was a waste of time. He has learned, through years and repetition and the kind of teaching that leaves marks you can't see, that his wants are secondary. That his body is currency. That love is something you earn by giving and giving and giving until there's nothing left, and even then it's not enough.
And here is Erath, who is older than the earth and stronger than anything Sidney has ever encountered and could have anyone or anything he wanted, saying I am content just to have you. Not your body. Not your compliance. Not whatever you think you owe me for the safety and the food and the home and the hands that heal you. Just you. As you are. On your terms.
He feels desperate. The feeling surges up in him with a violence that startles him, the desperate need to argue, to push back, to find the catch. There has to be a catch. There's always a catch.
"You don't even sleep," he says, and his voice comes out petulant. "It's stupid for you to come to bed just to hold me."
Erath shrugs. The motion is easy, unhurried. "I like it."
Three words. He says them the way he says everything important. Simply. Without fanfare or elaboration or the need to convince. He likes it. That's all. That's the whole reason. Not because Sidney asked him to, not because the bond requires it, not because he's bored or lonely or using Sidney's warmth as a substitute for something he actually wants. He likes holding Sidney while he sleeps. He likes it the way you like the soundof rain or the weight of a good book in your hands. Easily. Naturally. Without needing to be convinced it's worth the trouble.
Sidney doesn't know how to deal with a man who gives him everything and asks for nothing in return. He doesn't have the tools for it. Every relationship he's had has been a transaction, an exchange, a careful ledger of what he owes and what he's owed and the balance always tipping against him.
He doesn't know what to do with generosity that doesn't come with strings. He doesn't know what to do with hands that hold him and don't take.
Chapter 20
Sidney is pacing.
Back and forth across Erath's bedroom, his hands in his hair and then at his sides and then in his hair again, too wired from the day's revelations to sleep. His body is tired but his mind won't stop, and Erath can see it in the set of his shoulders, the tension in his jaw, the way his feet keep moving because if he stops moving he's going to have to feel everything he's been holding at arm's length.
Erath is on the bed, sitting against the headboard with a book he isn't reading, watching him. He doesn't tell him to calm down. He doesn't tell him to come to bed. He just watches, the way he's learned to, giving Sidney the space to arrive at wherever he's going on his own terms.
Sidney stops pacing. He turns and looks at Erath and his eyes are dark and bright at the same time and his chest is rising and falling with breaths that are too fast for someone who's just been walking in circles. He crosses to the bed without a word. He puts his hands on Erath's shoulders and pushes him down onto his back, and Erath goes, lets himself be pushed, settlesagainst the mattress and looks up at Sidney standing over him. Sidney climbs on top of him, one knee on either side of his hips, and sits there on his thighs, looking down at him. His hair is falling around his face, loose and messy from running his hands through it.
Erath waits. He can feel the tension in Sidney's thighs, the way his weight is braced forward on his hands, the way his breathing hasn't slowed. Sidney's jaw works, and his eyes move over Erath's face like he's looking for something. Permission. Or the absence of a reason not to.
"I want you to fuck me," Sidney says.
His voice is rough. Direct. But there's a tremor underneath it, buried deep, that Erath hears because he's learned to listen for the things Sidney hides beneath the things he says.
Erath's hands come up to Sidney's thighs. They rest there, thumbs against the inner seams of his jeans, not gripping. Just present. "Yeah?"
Sidney swallows. His fingers curl into the fabric of Erath's shirt at the shoulders. "I want to feel it. After. I want to feel you later."
The words land somewhere in the center of Erath's chest and detonate quietly. His hands tighten on Sidney's thighs, involuntary, and then ease. He sits up. Sidney doesn't startle. He shifts his weight back as Erath rises, settling into his lap, their chests close, their faces level. Erath's hand comes up to the side of Sidney's neck, thumb against the hinge of his jaw, and he pulls him in and kisses him.
Not gently. Not carefully. He kisses him the way the moment demands, desperate and deep, his mouth open against Sidney's, tasting the urgency and the want and the fear Sidney is trying to burn through. Sidney makes a sound against his lips, something raw and unfinished, and his hands come up to Erath's face and hold him there, both of them breathing hard through the kiss,Sidney's hips rocking forward in his lap in a movement that might not be conscious.
Erath pulls back just enough to speak. His lips brush Sidney's when he asks, "Do you want to stay on top?"
Sidney hesitates. His fingers are still on Erath's jaw, and Erath can feel the fine tremor in them now, the one Sidney is working very hard to suppress. His eyes search Erath's face, and the war behind them is visible. The part of him that needs control, that needs to be the one setting the terms, that has learned through pain and repetition that vulnerability is a door you don't open because you can't control what walks through it. And the part of him that wants to open it anyway. That wants to trust someone enough to let go.
"I don't know," Sidney says. Quiet. Steady. The tremor only in his hands, not his voice. "I want to trust you with this." A beat. His throat moves. "But I don't want to lose my mind in the middle of having sex with you."
Erath kisses him again. Slower this time, but no less deep. He kisses him like an answer, like a contract signed with his mouth, a promise pressed into Sidney's lips that he will be worthy of what he's being given. Sidney exhales against him, shaky, and his hands slide from Erath's jaw to the back of his neck and hold on.
“We'll play it by ear,” Erath tells him. “You tell me before it's too much and I'll change course.”
Erath's hands move to the hem of Sidney's shirt. He pulls it up slowly, giving Sidney time to change his mind at every inch, and Sidney lifts his arms and lets him draw it over his head. It drops to the floor. Erath's eyes move over him, the lean muscle of his torso, the pale expanse of his skin interrupted by the faint scars that Erath's healing didn't reach because they were older than their meeting. A thin one along his ribs. A raised line near hiship. He doesn't ask about them. He presses his mouth to the one along Sidney's ribs instead, and feels Sidney's breath catch.
He undresses Sidney the rest of the way with the same deliberation. Jeans unbuttoned, unzipped, worked down his thighs while Sidney lifts his hips to help. Nothing underneath. The sight of him bare and flushed and hard in Erath's lap makes Erath's hands tighten on his waist, and he takes a breath and loosens his grip. Careful. He needs to be careful.
