Chapter 10 #3
“Love you too.” Fox was still a little out of it, basking in the afterglow.
The words tasted bittersweet alongside the lingering saltiness of Gael’s cum on his tongue.
In the morning Gael would leave, and tomorrow night Fox would be in this bed all alone.
He would no longer have the simple comfort of waking up next to the person he loved most in the world.
His arms tightened involuntarily, unwilling to let Gael go. Unwilling to fall asleep just yet, because if he did, tomorrow would come much too soon.
Gael’s thumb rubbed over the whorls of Fox’s thigh tattoo absently, following the path his life had taken.
It had become a habit of his since their reunion, as if Gael could learn every part of Fox’s being by touch alone.
The wavelike swirls wrapped Fox’s thigh in bands of a story: little foxes traipsing through floating symbols of things that mattered.
A pair of children curled up together, for their time on the streets.
A hawk soaring overhead, for joining the Siren crew.
A piece of honey candy, for the night Henri had saved his life in a tavern brawl.
All floating down the inked current of his life.
Occasionally Gael’s fingers would brush one illustration or another and he would say: Tell me about this, and Fox would recount the story as Gael caressed his skin.
Fox couldn’t look him in the eye during those times.
He didn’t like the raw yearning he found there, the regret Gael would always carry with him that he had not been there to share those adventures together.
Now, Gael’s fingertips found a section where the lines were broken, which he had never had the courage to ask about before.
“This is where I left you,” he said, voice low.
It was a small gap, the threads of ink simply disappearing and reemerging on the other side of some invisible barrier. But it threw the entire tattoo into disharmony.
“Yes.” Fox didn’t have to look to know where Gael’s touch lingered. He knew it well. That blank space, severing his life into before and after. It sat pride of place right on the front of Fox’s thigh, a constant reminder.
Sometimes, in the six years they’d been apart, he’d catch sight of it while being fucked by some other man, and his mind would disconnect from the pleasure his body wanted to give him.
His emotions would go dull and distant. And in the back of his mind, he’d wish it was Gael touching him instead.
More than once he’d considered filling up the space, erasing what Gael had done, but it was as much a part of him as the joyful memories.
Without Gael leaving him, Fox would have never joined the crew of the Siren—he would never have found the place he was meant to be.
It didn’t matter now. They were together again, and even though Gael was leaving as soon as they ventured from this bed in the morning, Fox knew he would always come back to him.
Now Gael’s gray eyes held that yearning again, that soft sorrow of time lost. A brief hope lifted Fox’s heart that Gael would choose not to leave tomorrow, that he would choose Fox. But that was selfish. He couldn’t keep Gael here any more than Gael could make him leave.
“Can I ask you something?” Gael said quietly.
“Hmm?” Maybe Gael would finally ask about that time, but Fox wasn’t ready to tell. He didn’t want to ruin the night by airing out his suffering. The lowest of low points in his life.
“Will you be okay while I’m gone?”
Fox frowned slightly. “I told you I’ll work on it. I’ll miss you terribly and think of you every moment, but you don’t have to worry about me.”
“No I mean…” Gael trailed off, as if unsure how to continue. His thumb pressed a little harder into the gap in Fox’s tattoo. “I mean sexually.”
“Sexually?” Fox roused from the last of his glowing stupor to look Gael full in the face. “What do you mean?”
Gael’s other hand fidgeted with the edge of the pillowcase. “I mean, will you be satisfied with just yourself while I’m gone?”
Fox froze, Gael’s words like a stone in the pit of his stomach. Did Gael think so little of him? That all he thought about was sex?
“I’m not planning to cheat on you, if that’s what you’re asking.” Fox’s tone was cold. He pushed slightly out of Gael’s embrace.
“No, no.” Gael hugged him back to his previous position. “That’s not what I meant. I just…I mean…” He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, collecting himself. Fox wiggled in the silence, previously blissful mood now soured.
“Fox, I love you so much,” Gael began, meeting Fox’s green eyes with his gray ones. “I know me leaving is going to be a burden for you. I just want you to be happy. I want what you want so…If you need to sleep around while I’m gone, I’m okay with it.”
Silence met his words as Fox struggled to comprehend what he was hearing.
When had he ever given Gael the impression that he couldn’t go without sex?
That he missed sleeping with a different person every night?
Tears burned the back of his throat, and he swallowed them down.
Gael should know by now that Fox was more than the happy-go-lucky slut that most people viewed him as.
Yet here he was assuming that Fox couldn’t last a few measly months without his lover.
The thought should have made him angry, but that small spark of anger was smothered by an all-consuming sadness instead.
Maybe Gael didn’t know the true Fox beneath the outgoing facade. Maybe…
He extricated himself from Gael’s embrace, curling up so as little of his naked body was visible as possible. “Is that what you’re going to do?” he asked quietly. Gael was loyal to a fault. At least Fox had thought he was. Now, many previously true things seemed up in the air.
“N-no, of course not!”
“Then why would you think I would?” Fox snapped.
Gael reached for him instinctually, then thought better of it. His gray eyes softened.
“I’m not enough for you, Fox.”
“When have I ever made you think that?”
Gael sighed, dragging his hands down his face in frustration. “This is not how I wanted this to go.”
“Did you expect me to be happy that you’re springing this on me the night before you leave? Did you think I would happily climb into someone else’s bed as soon as you were gone? You must think so little of me.”
This time when Gael reached out, he grabbed Fox’s hand and held on tight.
“That’s not it. I swear it’s not. It’s…” He sucked in a deep breath.
“It’s actually the opposite. You’re so full of life.
And I love you so much the thought of you being alone and sad hurts.
You’re my whole world, but I’m just a small piece of yours and…
” He tugged Fox’s hand to his lips, murmuring the next words into the backs of his fingers.
“I just didn’t want my leaving to hurt you as much as it’s already hurting me.
I’ve never deserved you, Fox. I never deserved your forgiveness, and as much as the past year and a half has been the happiest of my life, I feel like I’m on borrowed time.
I feel like one day you’ll realize I’m not good enough for you. ”
Oh. Gael was such an idiot. Such a beautiful, sweet idiot. It wasn’t Fox he thought little of; it was himself.
Maybe Fox should have made Gael work harder to come back into his life.
Made him feel like he’d earned it. But Fox was, after all, a bit of a slut at heart, and he’d allowed Gael back into his bed and his heart as soon as Gael apologized.
Now Gael wanted to return Fox’s gesture of good faith, letting Gael go on this adventure as first mate of the Sweet Mercy, with a gift of his own—the freedom to satisfy his needs without repercussions.
The freedom to take comfort in Gael’s absence.
Fox had a wealth of experience. He had many people—even on this ship—that would jump at the chance to be with him again.
Yet Fox found the thought of sleeping with anyone else after Gael held no sense of excitement for him.
His heart had only ever belonged to one person, since that day when they were five and he’d found Gael crying on a stoop, and brought him home.
Gael was enough for him. Gael was the person whose absence in his life had left a space that could never be filled by anything else.
How could meaningless sex with strangers or acquaintances compare to even the most tame night with the man he loved?
“Foxy?”
Gael’s voice was quiet, expectant.
Fox wanted to say all of that, but his mouth couldn’t catch up with his mind.
He squeezed Gael’s hand, and placed Gael’s fingertips back on the blank space in the tattoo.
“There’s no other blank space, because losing you was like losing part of myself.
I gave my body to all of those people, because my heart wasn’t free to be given.
It was with you. Whether you believe it or not, you are enough for me, Gael. No one else ever could be.”
Some semblance of relief came over Gael’s features. He drew Fox a little closer, reverently kissing the inside of his wrist like he didn’t deserve to kiss his lips. “I’ll work hard to be the man you think I am.”
Fox frowned at him. “You already are.”
Gael said nothing. He pulled Fox back into his arms, and Fox let him, still frowning a bit. Gael hadn’t taken back his offer. Fox wanted him to take it back, but he had a feeling Gael wasn’t going to.
Gael smoothed Fox’s sex-mussed hair back from his forehead. Their eyes met, gray and green like a forest in a storm. “I will return to you. I promise,” Gael whispered.
“I know.”