19. Chapter 19 #3
But the question that's been sitting in the back of his mind all day, the one he's been chewing on since the hallway, since the kiss, since the look on Erath's face when he said I've already let you in, is pressing against his teeth and it wants out.
It wants out now, while his defenses are down and the dark is around them and he can blame the late hour if it goes wrong.
"Why don't you ask for more?" he asks quietly.
Erath is still beside him. "I don't know what you mean."
Sidney hesitates. He's warm against Erath's side and his eyes are half-closed and the words come out before he's decided to say them, pulled from somewhere deep and unguarded. "I've never been with someone who didn't want to fuck me."
The silence that follows is not empty. It's full. It's full of everything Erath isn't saying and everything Sidney is trying to say and the distance between the two, which is smaller than Sidney thinks but bigger than he can see.
Then Erath says, quietly, "There's a difference between wanting and taking, Sidney."
Sidney stiffens. The sleepiness burns off in an instant and he turns his head to look at Erath, much more awake than he had been a moment ago.
Erath is looking down at him. His expression is open in a way that Erath's expression rarely is, the stoicism set aside, the composure loosened, and what's underneath is not desire, though Sidney can see that too.
It's care. It's the deliberate, conscious choice to put what Sidney needs above what Erath wants, and the fact that it doesn't appear to cost him anything, that it doesn't look effortful or strained or begrudging, makes something crack open in Sidney's chest.
"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 sound of 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.