Chapter Text
By the fourth curtain call, Tobias was sure that he was dying. The audience was rapturous, on their feet, demanding another bow, then another. Under better circumstances, he might have been flattered, but by the end of that night, he’d spent more consecutive time on a stage, in front of a crowd, than he’d done in his entire stint as a company member at MBT, a lifetime ago.
The unrelenting, frying heat of the stage lights, the roar of the crowd, echoing on all sides, the acute awareness that he was being watched, at every second from every angle — it was a nightmarish sensory overload. Breathing was like trying to scream underwater. In through the nose, out through the mouth:
I am not going to ruin this moment for Gabin.
And he wasn’t. Tobias knew, better than anyone, how desperately Gabin deserved every bow, every cheer. He was keenly aware of how much this unending standing ovation would mean to him, so he fought back the panic attack, tingling like an itch at the top of his spine, digging his thumbnail into the side of his finger hard enough to draw blood.
He decided on a grounding exercise.
Something he could see: not much, thanks to the thousand-watt flare shot through his line of sight. The stacks of balconies were a blur, stripes of red and gold smeared across his vision on the horizon, vibrating dots of people in the crowd like a half-pixelated picture.
Something he could smell: only sweat, really. The other dancers had joined them onstage by then, relishing the applause, and the air between them was thick, salty and sour.
Something he could hear: Gabin’s name, if he concentrated hard enough. Disembodied voices from the mezzanine, when he could isolate them from the whoops and whistles, were calling out ‘Gabin! Gabin!’ Tobias was delighted each time he heard it, a swell of entirely unselfish pride. That was new.
Something he could taste: Gabin’s lips, still, his mouth, his tongue.
Something he could feel: Gabin’s hand, in his, squeezing little pulses, like he was trying to talk to him in morse code. He was trying to get his attention.
When Tobias looked over at him, Gabin was not, in fact, milking the crowd, standing poised and godlike at centre stage, absorbing the attention. He was gazing at Tobias, staring into him, like he was the only other person in the world.
Their eyes met only briefly before they were bowing again, squinting out over the orchestra, past the spotlights. With his eyes fixed on the balcony, Gabin spoke low through his teeth, his mouth still bent effortlessly into that charismatic smile.
“Do you want to get out of here?”
“Yes,” Tobias blurted out, too quickly and too loudly, with none of Gabin’s discretion or subtle charm. Tristan and Mishi, both close enough to have heard the whole thing, exchanged a look and giggled.
When the folds of gold curtain finally settled over the stage again, Gabin decided he’d had enough, and he dragged Tobias by the hand into the wings. They stood backstage amidst the crush of bodies — busy stagehands making way for the mad rush of dancers, the brush of tutus flitting past, hollow taps of pointe shoes across the floor — close enough to feel the heat of each other’s breath.
Gabin was certain they were about to kiss again, was hungry for it, when Tobias opened his mouth to speak, an inch from his face.
“Meet you outside the dressing room in five minutes?” Then, breathless, he pivoted and disappeared through the crowd.
Gabin was glowing from the inside out, an impossibly bright feeling, like his skin would be warm to the touch, sunlight leaking out from every pore. He couldn’t hear a single thing anyone said to or about him in the dressing room. He hung his costume, combed through his hair, and bathed in a fine mist of cologne with a dumb, pink grin plastered across his face. He ignored the giggles, playful whistles, the knowing eyes, raised eyebrows watching him in the mirror.
Once he was ready, he paused to scroll on his phone — it had only been three and a half minutes, so he lingered, trying not to seem too eager — and opened it to a few dozen notifications, and counting. One, a picture from his roommate, which was actually a screenshot of a snapchat from his roommate’s boyfriend’s sister, showed the courtyard outside the Palais Garnier: absolutely packed with rain-soaked spectators. It was a sea of umbrellas, picnic blankets, teenagers on their phones — it looked more like Deauville Beach on the first day of good weather than a stormy night at the ballet but then, he saw it. In the background, just over his roommate’s boyfriend’s sister’s friend’s shoulder, was the massive screen. Him and Tobias, kissing, three stories tall.
He was then, for the first time since he’d met him, relieved that Tobias rarely bothered to look at his phone. He emerged, nervous now, into the hallway, at the exact moment that Tobias was rounding the corner.
“Hi, sorry, I had to talk to Dominique about the lighting, there were a couple of cues that were off at the end and it was too blue, like, way too blue, it washed you out, and I wanted to make sure she had the changes before tomorrow or I wasn’t going to be able to think about anything else — oh you changed! You look nice.”
“You… went all the way up to the control booth, gave them your notes, and got back here in — four minutes?”
“Yeah, and I got stopped by one of the ushers on the way back — she said that when I leave I should go through the side door, the one they use for props and stuff, but she wouldn’t tell me why.”
Gabin had a feeling he knew why but he didn’t say, just shrugged his shoulders innocently. They set off down the corridor together but after a few strides Tobias stopped and turned sharply towards him.
“When you said, ‘get out of here,’ you meant together, right? Because I sort of assumed we would go back to my apartment? Not to — I mean, I’m not trying to be presumptuous, or anything, I just really don’t want to be somewhere where Geneviève might find me right now, and technically she does know where I live but at least if she comes by to yell at me I can pretend I’m not home.”
He’d started walking again, his hands flapping about as he spoke.
“We could go out, too, if you wanted, if you know a place with less noise and less people and where Geneviève definitely would not come looking for me? But my place is nice, I guess — you’ve been there, you’ve seen it — it’s comfortable, and I have food, I think, and water and maybe some wine. And I have a shower, too, if you want a shower — not saying that I think you need a shower, just if you wanted one. And not with me — obviously — I’m not asking you to take a shower with me, or saying you’d want to, of course —”
“I — would,” Gabin choked out a surprised laugh, but Tobias was already several paces ahead of him, showing no sign of slowing, and it was clear that he hadn’t heard him.
“To-BI-AS! I have been dancing. All night. I don’t feel like going for a jog.”
Tobias turned back, embarrassed, and waited for Gabin to catch up to him before they headed out into the damp evening air. They walked together in silence, Tobias carefully measuring his pace against Gabin’s, close enough for their hands to brush each other softly. Neither of them reached out to lace their fingers together, but neither of them pulled away either.
Gabin practically floated the whole way, his shoulders warm like Tobias was still holding him, phantom handprints seared into his skin. He thought back to that messy, drunken evening after his disastrous gala: the cargo shorts, a remnant of his failed photoshoot, still a crumpled pile in the corner of his room, his face lit only by the blue glow of his phone. He’d watched @Larry_Dances instagram story on a loop, thumbs hovering over the screen, pausing, restarting, for maybe an hour already.
When he’d first seen the video — Tobias, there, in New York, rehearsing with Cheyenne — his heart sunk. His face flushed hot, feeling stupid, ridiculous, jealous like a petulant child. But it wasn’t the envy, the heartbreak, the self-destructive tendencies that kept him watching, clicking back and through the blurry, ephemeral footage again and again. It was the choreography. The pas de deux was sensual, romantic even, unexpectedly so. He watched Tobias, watching his dancers, and wondered if that intimate, erotic sequence he’d choreographed had come from someplace true. When Tobias held his lovers, did it look something like that?
Between swigs of wine straight from the bottle, he watched through narrowed eyes, Tobias’s intense focus, his precise guidance, the specificity with which he placed Larry’s hands on Cheyenne’s waist, and he wondered if that was how he, himself, liked to touch, be touched. Not in his wildest, sloppiest fantasies from that night (intoxicated, touching himself to a shaky video of an eight count of contemporary ballet, not his proudest moment) could Gabin have imagined how it would really feel when Tobias kissed him.
Tobias felt uncharacteristically content, relaxed, his moderately embarrassing centre stage confession and very public display of affection that evening notwithstanding. He was propelled forward, as always, by a restless, anxious momentum, but now his shoulders were loose, resting low, muscles slowly unwinding.
He’d kept himself painfully guarded since Gabin’s return to the company, suppressing every flirtatious smile, avoiding prolonged eye contact, maintaining a cool, flat tone when he spoke to him. He was still nursing the heartache from Gabin’s absence, his recent shortcomings, while Gabin was fervent, relentless in his pursuit of forgiveness, and a tension had been building between them that was both passive aggressive and sexual in nature. Now, Tobias felt something uncoiling, a taut rubber-band finally going slack. When they reached his floor, the merciful silence of the empty hallway, he let out a deep sigh before unlocking his door.
At the threshold of the apartment, they made neat piles of their shoes and jackets, and Gabin watched, affectionately, while Tobias made himself busy, his eyebrows knitted together in concentration. He gathered up scribbled note pages that had been strewn across the dining table, the coffee table, the arm of the couch. He collected dishes from the sink and placed them in the dishwasher with great care. He switched on — Gabin counted maybe six? — different lamps, reconsidered one, switched it off. When he was done, he stood across the kitchen from Gabin, his hands, suddenly without a task, making loose, restless fists at his sides.
“You danced it beautifully,” Tobias said, cutting through the charged silence with that same dispassionate tone he used to give corrections during rehearsals (“your foot was sickled on the arabesque” “you were too slow coming out of the pirouette, try it again”). It wasn’t a line, an attempt at seduction, there was no hint of romance to it. Tobias had delivered the compliment without agenda, like it was an objective, obvious statement of fact.
Gabin’s chest swelled. He choked out a laugh, putting on the usual air of bravado. “I know,” he said with a smirk, shrugging his shoulders in an effortful performance of nonchalance. But he couldn’t bring himself to meet Tobias’s gaze. He forced a slow breath and blinked back the salty heat beading at the corners of his eyes, struck by the fact that a lifetime of chasing praise and validation had not prepared him to actually accept a compliment.
Tobias watched him closely then — he was shifting his weight from one foot to another, eyes searching the floor, the facade of arrogance beginning to crumble. He took a step forward and pressed on, measuring his tone, trying to convey his sincerity, acting on a swift compulsion: he had to make sure that Gabin understood.
“No — Gabin, I’m being serious. You were beautiful, you were perfect.”
His voice climbed in pitch, words spilling out faster, he was desperate to get the point across.
“There is nobody else who could have danced that part — and I mean nobody, believe me, Geneviève threw every male soloist in the company at me while you were gone and it was like, I don’t know, trying to mix oil and water or trying to fit a square peg into a round hole — god that expression sounds really obscene when you say it out loud — but it just didn’t work, none of them understood it, they didn’t feel it, not the way you do. — Well, and some of them quit. Antoine quit in less than thirty minutes which I thought was a bit of an overreaction — ”
Gabin hadn’t actually seen him pause to take a breath yet.
“ — But it makes sense because the part was written for you, I mean the whole piece really exists because of you. — I mean, the old piece and the new piece, tonight’s piece. — And I think that you walk around the National with a chip on your shoulder, always trying to prove yourself, pretending like you think you’re better than everyone else there and not actually believing it but… god I really wish you knew that it was true.”
Tobias’s fervent rant came to a halt when something in Gabin’s demeanour began to soften. He fidgeted nervously with his hands, bit his lip to stop it quivering. His eyes were glassy, looking everywhere in the room except at Tobias, his shoulders folded forward, his posture crumpling. It was the smallest he had ever looked.
In an instant, like the gravity of the room had turned on its side and pulled him in, Tobias was across the kitchen, Gabin in his arms. He kissed him gently this time, held him like he was a wilted flower. Eyes still closed, foreheads pressed together, Tobias spoke again, barely more than a whisper this time.
“I mean it, you were perfect.”
His voice was all sentiment now, not matter-of-fact but feverish. It was less a compliment than a plea — like he was begging Gabin to really hear it.
Gabin couldn’t take it anymore. He pulled Tobias into a tight hug, muffling a quiet sob into his neck. He felt him tense — he knew he wasn’t usually one for hugging — then slowly start to thaw, melting their bodies into one soft shape.
Tobias could feel his eyelashes fluttering against his skin, leaving damp spots like dewdrops. He considered that very few, if any, other people had ever seen Gabin like this, seen behind the mask of haughty hyper-confidence he donned every day, and he stroked his back with a soothing hand. When he did pull away, Gabin wore a crooked smile, forcing a laugh as he wiped his face dry with his sleeve.
“God I’m always such a mess after a show. It’s all the — what do you call it?”
“Adrenaline?”
“Right, that.”
Tobias followed Gabin’s lead, lightening the mood.
“You’re probably exhausted, which is my fault,” he turned to the kitchen, reaching for some glasses on the shelf. “Have a seat wherever — I can get you some water, or some wine, or something I bought at the corner store last week that I thought was kombucha but is definitely not — oh you can probably read it, tell me what it is. I also have some —” he bent to open the fridge “— well just cheese I guess. I could order something in? If you’re hungry? There’s a good…”
The sound of his own voice faded to the background while his hands felt around the kitchen, and Tobias’s mind began to race. He was stalling, grappling with the fact that he really didn’t know what was about to happen, a state of uncertainty which was deeply uncomfortable.
Why did Gabin agree to come to my apartment? Does he want to have sex with me? What if he only wants to be friends — don’t French people kiss their friends? And if he does want to have sex with me, how is it going to happen? Or if he doesn’t want to be only friends but also doesn’t want to have sex, how can I ask him to stay anyway, romantically but not sexually, and sleep in my bed but only on the left side? Is Geneviève going to fire me? Wait, can she actually fire me?
While Tobias rambled about how the Chinese food selection in Paris paled in comparison to that in New York, Gabin had sat himself up on the edge of the dining table, legs spread unnecessarily wide, feet dangling, leaning back dramatically into one hand while he combed back through his hair with the other. His attempt to appear seductive was not at all subtle — he had himself perched just so, posing like one of those models on the cover of the filthy gay magazines he’d hoarded under his mattress when he was fourteen. He thought about unbuttoning the top button of his shirt but didn’t have time before Tobias turned around with a glass of water in hand.
Surprise, lust, embarrassment all splashed briefly across his face before he handed the cool drink to Gabin, who accepted it with a mischievous grin.
As he sipped the water, Gabin’s eyes roamed the apartment, taking stock. He’d only seen it in a flash that afternoon he’d come by to play pest control. He smiled at the collections of barely legible post-it notes (‘buy bananas’ ‘genevieve meeting thursday?’ ‘whoosh after jeté : wrong’), the laundry hung out to dry, organised by color, a postcard he’d bought at the Louvre which he’d subsequently been using as a coaster, judging by the fresh, sticky coffee rings, before he landed on the blueish glow just over his shoulder on the table.
“You have a fish,” he said, with a hint of amusement.
“Yeah, and it’s remarkably resilient,” Tobias replied, offering no further explanation.
“What’s his name?”
Tobias answered with an exasperated eye roll: “God the French are so sentimental.”
“You haven’t named him?”
“I have no way of knowing whether it’s a him.”
Gabin reached backwards to put his drink down at the far corner of the table and watched Tobias with a flirtatious smirk, leaning back onto his elbows, his torso stretched taut, back arched slightly, visible contours of tendons and veins tracing the length of his beautiful neck, his jeans riding up, pulling tight in all the right places —
Tobias looked away nervously. “Why don’t you name him if it’s so important to you?”
“Why don’t you come a little closer?”
It was delivered with a wink, like a playful dare, but Tobias felt himself following Gabin’s instructions, his aching body straining against the torrent of uncertainty swirling in his mind, like he was in a trance. He stepped towards the table, between Gabin’s knees, and let his hands wander his thighs, gingerly at first, then grabbing at them roughly when Gabin sat up and ambushed him with a deep kiss.
Without breaking the crush of their lips, the swirl of their tongues, Gabin unbuttoned his own shirt with nimble fingers. But before he could peel it off, Tobias had him pinned down, back pressed flat against the table, his soft shirt sliding up against his bare chest. Tobias was rolling his hips against Gabin’s, pressure mounting, tempo accelerating, and Gabin fought to hold back indecent, desperate noises.
He wasn’t close, not yet, but he could feel his body starting to surrender to the rhythm, something building. He forced his way up and off of the table and, with effortless grace, refusing to let their lips part, he began inching them both across the flat, towards the bed.
Tobias let himself be led, by a hand sliding low down his back, a tug on his sleeve, the magnetic pull of his tongue, deep in Gabin’s mouth, until he realised where they were headed. Defiling the kitchen table was one thing, but the bed — the bed had specific implications. They hadn’t talked about it — Tobias hadn’t recalibrated, mentally prepared, reapplied deodorant, changed the sheets — but here it was, already happening.
With quick reflexes, Tobias grabbed Gabin by the open collar of his now thoroughly disheveled shirt, pivoted him, and thrust him against the wall by the bathroom door. It wasn’t hard enough to break the floor-length mirror hanging there, or damage the wall behind it, hopefully, but it was rougher than Gabin had expected from him, and he couldn’t stifle a soft yelp at the sensation of the cold glass pressed against the back of his neck, of being at the mercy of Tobias’s strong hands.
Tobias felt hot from the inside out — the growing desire, accompanied by a rising panic, burning inside of him like a fever about to break. It wasn’t so much that he was nervous about sex, in fact, under the exact right circumstances, he excelled at it. He could recount the handful of times in his life when it had been exceptional, otherworldly, when former partners had told him as much through gasping post-coital confessions — “holy shit, that was the best I’ve ever had,” “where the fuck did you learn to do that?” “jesus christ, I think I love you.”
He wasn’t ashamed about sex, either, gay or otherwise. He’d been raised by a couple of New York liberals who sent him to a charter school for gifted young artists and took him to see Broadway shows and R-rated foreign films. He’d come out when he was twelve years old — announced it over dinner in the same breath that he’d called the revival of Fiddler on the Roof ‘pedestrian’ and told his mother he did not care for her green bean casserole.
He’d entertained a few casual hookups, dipping a curious toe in during his teens and early twenties. But it wasn’t until about the seventh or eighth time with his first boyfriend, a classmate at Juilliard, that something clicked: he realised that sex could be done well. It could be timed perfectly, executed proficiently, it could say what he wanted it to say, it could be transformative. Bodies in conversation, a rhythmic sequence, a physical manifestation of indefinable feelings, ideas — it was a dance. And so, he set about perfecting it.
It was all about the conditions: the right place, the right lighting, the right temperature, adequate noise level and a pre-screened playlist, if music was involved, clean sheets with an acceptable thread-count, a tolerable height difference between himself and his partner, compatible preferences, and plenty of foreknowledge about exactly how to please the other person. Improvisation, the heat of the moment, no longer suited him. It wasn’t prudishness that had kept him from fucking on the first date anymore, but a matter of practicality.
When it wasn’t done correctly, sex involved a great deal of talking. The sound of Tobias’s own voice: asking questions, making suggestions, providing constant feedback which lovers did not, typically, appreciate. But he couldn’t help it — he was wholly uninterested in expending energy on something that wasn’t executed flawlessly. And with Gabin here, in his apartment, breathing into his mouth, face still damp with sweat and tears, he was desperate to get it exactly right.
Gabin, on the other hand, was preparing himself for his second successful show of the night. Sex, more so than even ballet, was something he was practiced at, something he’d been blessed with a natural talent for, and something which he knew himself to be, indisputably, the best at.
He bit Tobias’s lower lip and tugged, delighting in the way it elicited a jolt down his spine, an involuntary jerk of his hips. Tobias’s breath hitched and his voice spilled out, gravelly, cracking and uneven, and just a touch too loud.
“So — um —”
It was that high-pitched register, that anxious pace, words tumbling out faster than his brain was processing them. Gabin braced for the familiar, breathless stream of questions or manic, desperate over-explanation, waited for the stiff shoulders, restless pacing, and wildly gesticulating hands which usually accompanied it. But Tobias stayed glued to him, their faces never more than an inch apart. His body seemed to be on a different wavelength than his brain, like it was possessed of a burning desire stronger than his own penchant for derailing a moment with a runaway train of thought.
The effect was dizzying — Tobias’s body moved with rhythm, purpose, his hands dragging down Gabin’s spine, along the contours of his waist, hips grinding in perfect time, tongue swirling, but every few seconds he’d interrupt the building swell of pleasure: between deep kisses and frenetic, disjointed breaths, his voice, laced with panic and dwindling coherence, broke through the surface.
“So does this mean you want to —”
“Or what — what do you like to…”
“I mean — I need to know how you want to —”
Gabin wanted to laugh, wanted to put Tobias out of his misery with an answer — yes, yes I want to have sex with you right now please, please I want you to fuck me, please, please god — but found himself unable to speak.
He was sure that Tobias’s rambling half-questions constituted one part a clumsy but well-meaning attempt to get clear consent, and another part a pragmatic plea to get some grasp on the logistics of the sex they were about to have — to plan ahead, to visualise it, to begin choreographing the tangle of their bodies. It wasn’t sexy, not exactly, the white hot passion interspersed with bouts of anxious fretting, but there was something so earnest, so uniquely charming about it that he found himself growing flustered as well.
By then, Gabin was drunk on desire. He felt lightheaded and sparkly, like he was on his third glass of champagne. His insides were going soft, brain foggy, skin electric, feelings all close to the surface like he might laugh or cry at any second. He grasped for an answer to Tobias’s questions, imagining quick flashes of every and any possible configuration of sex with him until his knees began to buckle.
He wrapped his arms around his lover’s neck, bracing himself, and when Tobias felt the sudden shift in his weight, he brought his arms down to Gabin’s waist and pulled him close so that he was still standing, but just barely. With their hips flush against each other, he could feel how hard Tobias was, how much he wanted him, and finally, Gabin’s reply came from low in his chest. An exhale, his words slurring —
“Tobias, you can have me any way you like.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Gabin opened it again, waiting, praying for Tobias’s tongue to fill it, but he could feel Tobias’s body start to slow, growing still.
Gabin couldn’t stop himself picking up speed anyway, kissing him with an intensifying hunger. A floodgate had been opened after months of pining, yearning, coveting every fleeting second of eye contact, savouring every lingering touch at rehearsal while Tobias corrected his form, staring down at him, into him, with a hand on his shoulder, the top of his spine, the small of his back. Confessing, admitting to this burning ache, after all this time, was an exhilarating release of its own, a catharsis. He wanted to tell him everything: I want you, I want you, I need you, I think I might love you.
After another ragged breath, Gabin heard his own voice again.
“Je suis tout à toi… I’m all yours… You could do anything you wanted to me… anything…”
He trailed off as their mouths melted back together, but Tobias stopped suddenly, like Gabin’s response had stirred him from his restless state of half-panic, half-passion. He brought his hands up from Gabin’s waist, placing them firmly on either side of his face, and pulled away. He stepped backwards, no more than a couple of inches but enough to break the intoxicating crush of their hips, and Gabin dropped his arms to his side and straightened his spine, sobered by the abrupt shift.
He held them like this, close but not quite touching, and Gabin’s whole body arched against his steadying hands, mourning the loss of connection. Tobias’s body was perfectly still, and it occurred to Gabin that he had remarkable self-restraint.
From this new vantage point, Tobias’s dark eyes searched Gabin’s face with an urgency that left him feeling raw, exposed. It was the same way he’d looked at him after he kissed him on stage. Beneath the intensity of that singular focus, that burning gaze, was something warm. Lust, affection, but also an earnest, breathless disbelief. Part romantic, part deer in the headlights.
Gabin realised then, with a jolt of embarrassment, that he may have been too honest, come on too strong. That in all likelihood, Tobias, who was often oblivious to the feelings of others, was only just now realising how deeply, desperately, Gabin wanted this, wanted him. He dropped his eyes for a moment, grappling for something else to say, something light, cool, casual, until he met Tobias’s gaze again and found him still waiting — for clarity, for permission.
He stared back, eyes desperate, pupils impossibly wide. Shrugged his shoulders and shook his head in a gesture of complete surrender and repeated himself:
“Anything.”
Tobias studied Gabin’s face, his cheeks flushed with a rosy heat, eyebrows pinched into knots. He was biting his lip, trying to suppress a whimper with a shuddering breath.
It was a display of desire, of vulnerability, so intimate, so unexpected, that for a brief moment Tobias wasn’t sure how to respond to it. He still held Gabin’s face at a distance, firmly but carefully, like he was something fragile. Like he was holding something precious that he’d just realised he could break.
Gabin hadn’t answered his question, not exactly. He still didn’t know whether he preferred to top or bottom or something else entirely, but his honesty had unlocked something between them. Beneath the lust, something heavier. Tobias felt like he might collapse under the weight of it.
His heart pounded, his chest tightened. He felt warm all over. He had the sensation that he was falling — weightless, liberated, terrified. He tried to process the intensity of Gabin’s feelings for him, his trust in him, to internalise it, to meet it. He resigned himself to this new spontaneity — sex, touching, feelings, all improvised, unfolding without a plan.
When he’d given up searching for the right words, Tobias decided to let his body do the talking. He loosened his shoulders, let out the breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding and — much to Gabin’s relief — slowly pressed their bodies together again.
Flattened between the cool of the wall and the heat of his lover’s body, Gabin felt the almost imperceptible shift in Tobias — a softening, a tenderness, but with it a renewed intensity. He was present, no longer distracted by anxieties, and there was a thoughtfulness to his every movement, measured and intentional, like he was being careful with him.
He brushed a loose ringlet of hair from Gabin’s face and hooked one hand behind his head, his fingers grabbing a gentle fistful of curls, and with the slow, deliberate thumb of his other hand he traced the curve of Gabin’s lips, feeling him tremble beneath his touch.
Gabin watched Tobias’s eyes, narrowed in focus, concentrating on the outline of his bottom lip like he was a sculptor, forging him from marble, carving every detail in his image, until finally, finally, he leaned in to kiss him again, so slowly and so deeply that Gabin moaned into his mouth.
Tobias was clearheaded, possessed by a sudden steady self-assuredness, following his instincts. He gave Gabin’s hair a gentle tug, tipping his head back, and began kissing along his jawline, every freckle, every inch. He worked his way down his neck, where he could feel his quickening pulse, and with his other hand he helped pull Gabin’s shirt the rest of the way off, exposing the soft skin of his shoulders, the sharp curves of his collarbone. He placed a firm palm between Gabin’s shoulder blades and held him still, feeling his muscles twitch as his soft kisses turned to biting, sucking, leaving in his wake a constellation of love bites.
Gabin was panting, clawing at Tobias’s back, stammering.
“Tobias I —
— y-you know I have to be on stage again tomorrow night, right?”
I know, exactly, Tobias thought wildly, surprising himself and hoping instantly that he hadn’t accidentally spoken it aloud. He drew a sharp breath and pulled himself away, inspecting the mess of bruises he’d left from Gabin’s jaw down to the delicate tattoos beneath his collarbones. He felt a swell of pride, an uncharacteristic possessiveness, followed immediately by panic.
“Oh — oh shit.”
But before he could finish saying, “I’m sorry,” Gabin was kissing him again, through a wide smile, thinking greedily that he couldn’t wait for everyone to see. Please, finish the job, cover me in damning evidence, hang a sign around my neck saying ‘Tobias Bell fucked me.’
Gabin grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and spun their bodies so that Tobias fell on top of him onto the bed. He grasped unsuccessfully at the layer of fabric pressed between them until finally, Tobias pulled his shirt off, a wave of static sending his hair askew.
He took a moment to settle back down onto Gabin, acclimating to the electric heat of their skin, pressed together, until his watch buzzed against his wrist, quick sharp vibrations.
“Oh my god what now?”
It was just a health notification, alerting him to his accelerating heart rate and reminding him to breathe. He had to figure out a way to disable those. He unsnapped the watch and tossed it across the room, wincing at the sound it made when it hit the floor and then realising immediately that he didn’t care about it.
He kissed Gabin’s shoulders, his chest. Grazed his nipples with his thumbs, his lips, his teeth. He worked his way down to the button on his jeans, the zipper, his boxers, until he could see all of him, every inch of Gabin, sprawled across his bed.
Tobias roved his hands over him slowly, deliberately, like he was reading braille, all the while observing his reactions. He could read him, here, just like he could in rehearsals — could follow his body when it flinched against a movement, or surrendered to it.
He traced delicate fingertips along the outlines of his tattoos, like he was trying to commit them to memory. He lingered on the very small, very faded cross, inked low on his hip.
“Are you religious?”
“Not exactly.”
The truth was that Gabin had been irrevocably marked by his Catholic upbringing. He’d learned in the church, for instance, that he was definitely going to hell, he’d learned how to carry guilt, hot and heavy in his chest, and he’d decided, when the priest had informed him that he was probably not well-suited to become a man of the cloth, that he’d become a world-class ballerina and an accomplished homosexual instead, out of spite. He’d gotten the tattoo, as well, to spite his mother after she’d called him a godless heathen the year he’d started attending advanced technique classes on Sunday mornings instead of mass, with her.
He fidgeted now, feeling like he was splayed out under a microscope, Tobias’s eyes burning a hole in him. There was no faint twitch of a muscle, no sharp breath, no twist at the corners of his mouth, that Tobias didn’t notice. His fingertips teased every erogenous zone, pausing to gauge his response, like he was conducting research. There wasn’t a freckle anywhere on his body that Tobias hadn’t kissed. The tenderness, the care, the frighteningly close attention — it was like nothing Gabin had ever experienced.
Nothing had ever been this intimate, this real.
Sex for Gabin had begun as a series of sloppy missteps with deeply closeted boys from around the neighbourhood: a chaste kiss with another altar boy who, from that day forward, refused to ever be alone with Gabin again, a few rushed handjobs in the school bathroom with an unusually cruel classmate who had compensated for these lapses in his masculinity by tormenting Gabin relentlessly in front of the others.
(Gabin, once an effeminate child who danced ballet and started near-constant fights he couldn’t finish, was no stranger to being bullied, and he spent much of his youth marinating in the knowledge that, for one reason or another, he probably deserved it.)
Eventually he grew up, came out, and went home with all sorts of men, cruising them in parks, shadowy hedge mazes, along the banks of the Seine. And once he got the hang of it, sex became a thrilling performance. He showed his lovers exactly what they wanted to see, embodied their desires, then basked in the glow of their enjoyment, the thrill of their fantasies being fulfilled. He’d learned to survive on that brief, fleeting high of making another man come without the burden of ever being seen or known himself.
None of Gabin’s lovers had ever pursued a relationship with him, which had suited him just fine until now. Like a magnet for trouble, he’d almost exclusively attracted the emotionally unavailable: older men who were navigating complicated, often doomed open marriages, younger men who were busy, angry, or closeted.
Until recently, just before the swap, before he’d become infatuated with Tobias and unable to even look at anyone else — unable to come without picturing his face — he’d been entertaining occasional hookups with Henri, the “straight” football fan who lived three doors down in his building. Gabin had clocked him right away, checking him out in his tight dance shorts in the laundry room one evening, eyeing the contours in a decidedly un-straight fashion.
In the weeks that followed, whenever PSG won a match, or suffered a particularly devastating loss, he knew that Henri would be watching the game with his mates, drinking himself sick, until the blend of adrenaline, testosterone, and liquid courage led him stumbling down the hall to knock on Gabin’s door. Most of these nights, Gabin would invite him in, let himself be fucked a little too roughly, watch Henri leave mumbling something about “I’m not really a queer, like that, you know,” and then wallow in self-loathing until class the next morning, where he’d stretch himself too far and push himself too hard until everything hurt.
But now here he was, his pride threadbare, breath ragged, squirming under Tobias’s penetrating gaze, his thoughtful touch. There was no hiding from him, no pretending. With the way Tobias was watching him, studying him, he found it impossible to perform, impossible to even guess at what it was Tobias would want him to be — impossible to be anything other than himself.
Tobias grabbed him by the waist, thumbs pressing in under the jut of his hip bones, and pulled him closer, towards the edge of the bed. After careful consideration, he chose a soft spot on the V-shaped groove where Gabin’s abdomen met his thigh and went to work marking him again. He gently sucked another reddish bruise to the surface, this one only for his eyes, and with little warning, he took Gabin’s cock into his mouth.
Gabin gasped, clutching panicked fistfuls of sheets and blankets. Sharp inhales through the nose, a stream of incoherent cursing on every exhale. “Putain — fuck Tobias.”
Tobias had one hand gently tugging his balls, the other stroking him with a slow, counterclockwise twist. He sucked, lightly, before flicking his sensitive tip with his tongue.
A wild, jealous accusation almost left Gabin’s mouth — Why are you so good at this? How often do you do this? Who taught you this? — but his brain was short-circuiting. The English words had left him, so it was just garbled, unintelligible French that Tobias paid no attention to.
Gabin couldn’t see straight. He reached out, hands searching for Tobias, and he slipped his fingers through the curtains of dark hair that framed his face, clinging to him like he was a life raft. But the moment he had wrapped his hands behind Tobias’s head, he could feel his mistake. Tobias flinched, his shoulders creeping up. He didn’t stop, not right away, but Gabin saw his spine going rigid.
Merde. Of course he wouldn’t like that.
Tobias was spiralling. Claustrophobic, no control, walls closing in. Oh god I’m about to ruin the moment by having to explain to Gabin why he can touch me in some ways, some times, but not like that, in that way. He’ll be offended. He’ll think I’m insane and neurotic and —
Before he could finish the thought, Gabin had already pulled his hands away, and he was looking down at Tobias with concern. He reached for Tobias’s hands instead and laced their fingers together, brought one hand up to his mouth and kissed it softly. He gave a warm, subtle nod, a knowing look in his eyes, no hint of judgement on his face.
Tobias felt safe then, understood in a way that warmed him from the inside out. And more than that, he burned with a desire to make Gabin feel the same, to give him everything he wanted without him having to ask for it. With featherlight fingertips he traced the veins along the insides of Gabin’s arms. He stopped at his wrists, wrapped his hands around them, middle fingers just meeting his thumbs, and he tightened his grip. Gabin’s back began to arch off the bed, he bit his lip, his hands melted into loose fists and Tobias felt him surrendering them to his control.
Tobias returned his attention to Gabin’s cock, working him faster with his mouth, and he pulled on his wrists, forcing a stretch in his arms, an even deeper bend in his back. He heard him struggling to hold back quiet moans, watched his toes curl, felt his hips begin to buck upwards. A hitch in his breath, a twitch in his leg, and before the words “I’m close” had actually left Gabin’s mouth, Tobias had already stopped.
He caught his breath, licked his lips, and placed a flat, firm hand low on Gabin’s stomach, feeling him breathe, feeling his muscles spasm as he struggled to calm himself, gently stroking the trail of hair beneath his navel with his thumb. He spoke with a quiet authority:
“Don’t. Not yet.”
Once he had reoriented himself, forced down the pulsing pleasure, dragged himself back from the edge of the orgasm threatening to break him apart, Gabin begged for Tobias. “Please, please come up here.”
Tobias stood to undress so quickly that Gabin was briefly startled. He shifted himself to the middle of the bed, his head in the centre of the heap of pillows, and he watched Tobias strip away his socks, his trousers, waiting with bated breath to (finally) see his dick, feeling not unlike a horny teenager again.
There were hungry, undignified noises when he did see it, the size of it, and when Tobias joined him on the bed there was a skittish moment of hesitation, a delicious, nervous heat in the air between them, before they finally pressed their bodies against each other, kissing, feeling.
For a few blissful moments, they were like one person. Hot, shared breath. Bodies like streams, rolling over each other, limbs melting together. Pouring desperate sounds into one another. Gabin had to pull his hips away to stop from finishing right then.
“Please, please Tobias — I want —”
“What?” Tobias answered, breathless, eyes still closed, lashes dragging across Gabin’s temple. “Anything.”
“I need — I need you to fuck me, s’il te plaît, please, please.”
Tobias pulled away, planted a kiss on Gabin’s forehead, and reached under the bed, pulling out a crumpled shopping bag from an English pharmacy. He spilled its contents onto the duvet — two different bottles of lube and three different brands of condoms.
With his usual methodical seriousness: “Are you allergic to latex? Or, I guess, anything else I should know about?”
Gabin let out a startled laugh — “No?” — but felt an ugly churn in his gut, a mean, sharp jealousy cutting in at the corners of his voice.
“Why do you have so much… stuff?” Are you fucking other people? How many other people are you fucking? What are their names? When were they last here, in your apartment, in your bed?
But on closer inspection, the stash of supplies were all still sealed, unopened.
Tobias’s face remained unchanged, as if nothing were amiss.
“Well, I grabbed a lot more than we would need, obviously, but I didn’t know if you had any allergies or preferences and I don’t really know any of these brands so I had to do a lot of googling but I — what? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Gabin was smirking — more like beaming — his eyes alight with a playful arrogance, a hand placed over his chest with dramatic flair. “So you bought all of this, just for me?”
“… No.” It was entirely unconvincing, and Tobias knew that Gabin would never let him hear the end of it.
Truthfully, Tobias didn’t know what had possessed him, on that crisp afternoon, to spend forty-seven British pounds on an obscene supply of sexual paraphernalia. He’d finished his coffee alone at that London cafe after Kevin left him, feeling a simultaneous weight lifted off of his shoulders and a rock, sinking in the pit of his stomach. He had never broken up with someone before — technically, he still hadn’t — and he was exhausted by what had barely even qualified as confrontation.
He’d ordered another espresso and wandered back towards the station, ducking into a Boots on the way. (He’d figured that even if they lacked American brands of sunscreen and mouthwash and shampoo, then at least all of the labels there would be in English.)
After about ten minutes of shopping he’d meant to leave with only a new tube of chapstick in his basket, but he felt himself being pulled towards the sexual health aisle, propelled, like he was in a sort of trance. He felt ridiculous, like a hopeless, eager teenager — not sure what to look for, doubtful he’d even get any use out of them — so he grabbed the first box of condoms and bottle of lube he could find and pivoted towards the checkout line before —
What if Gabin has a latex allergy? It’s rare but certainly not outside the realm of possibility and it would be so inconvenient to — wait, stop.
It was the first time he’d admitted to himself that he wanted a sexual relationship with Gabin (well, the first time consciously, he was pretty sure that dreams didn’t count). Obviously, when he’d boarded the Eurostar that morning to (attempt to) break up with his long-distance boyfriend, he’d been chasing a feeling. A charged current in the air between him and Gabin in rehearsals, the way he’d grown fond of (okay, addicted to) the smell of his cologne, something in the way Gabin’s voice broke when he’d told him “I danced this for you.”
But it was still so ill-defined, shapeless, something on the horizon that was just coming into focus. The feeling had been following him, close on his heels, for weeks but hadn’t quite caught up with him — until, maybe, just then. In a caffeine-induced daze in the deserted aisle of an unfamiliar drug store, he’d decided: I want him. In that way. In every way.
Tobias turned back and grabbed a box of latex-free condoms. Paused. Checked for any incompatibility with the type of lube he’d already grabbed. Did some research. Grabbed a different bottle. Read some reviews online. A lot of reviews. Grabbed a third box of condoms. Forced himself to flee before he could give in to the compulsion to grab just one more box to make it a nice even number. He breezed through self-checkout, his face flushed with — embarrassment? anticipation? — and he considered throwing them all away in a bin at St. Pancras Station before reluctantly boarding his train with the bag in his lap.
“Sorry — what?”
“Tobias!” Gabin was giggling then, grinning up at him. He was like a schoolboy with a crush — putting on a show of swagger but unable to hide the giddy thrill that the feeling might be mutual.
“I asked you when you bought all of this. How long ago was it — your little, what do you call it, shopping spree?”
“I don’t —”
“Was it today, before the show? — No, no. I bet it was the day you met me. You just couldn’t resist this could you?”
Another exasperated eye roll.
“I knew it. It was! It was the day we met, wasn’t it?”
“It was the day before you got arrested. Okay?”
It came out snappier, harsher than Tobias had intended, and Gabin flinched like a hit dog. He instantly regretted bringing it up and fumbled for something else to say — it’s okay, I forgive you, I was so fucking worried about you, I missed you, please never do anything like that ever again it was miserable and humiliating to try to explain my relationship to you to the clerk at the police station via google translate so I could bail you out— but his mouth couldn’t form the words.
Gabin watched his face — apologetic, panicked, drowning in the choppy silence — and he reached for a witty comment, a joke, something light to ease the tension.
No. Say something real.
“I —” he cleared his throat. “If I had known then that you… If I knew this was waiting for me… I — I would have stayed out of trouble.”
It worked. Tobias swept everything off the bed save one bottle of lube, which he placed on the nightstand. He knelt beside Gabin and kissed him, deeply, slid a hand under his knee and bent his leg up towards his chest, bracing himself against it as he leaned over him. Gabin had barely noticed him pause to grab the lube and coat his fingers before they were gently teasing his rim, cold and slick.
“Is this okay?” Tobias breathed as he pushed one slow, careful finger inside of him.
“Yes… yesyes…” Gabin pulled his face close again, trying to kiss him but managing only hot, uneven breaths against his mouth.
Tobias worked him open diligently with a finger, then two. He felt Gabin’s body tense and relax and he followed the ebb and flow, riding it like a wave. He watched his hands trembling, making tight fists, grabbing at the blankets. With his free arm, Tobias swept his hands up and pinned them on the soft den of pillows, pressing his wrists together just above his head. It wasn’t necessarily a forceful restraint — it was grounding, an anchor to stop him slipping away — but Gabin savoured the feeling of surrender.
He moaned and turned his face down towards his shoulder — his skin a deep red, his lips pressed into a thin line.
“Tobias please — please just fuck me already,” he whined.
“Not just yet.”
“Why not?” Gabin could hear himself growing pathetically impatient, petulant.
“You’re not ready.” His voice was low, soft, but with a hint of irritation, like this conversation was distracting him from an important task.
“I am — I’ve —”
“Gabin, I know you. I’ve spent hours in rehearsal with you by now. I know how much you can take, how far you can go. I know when you’re in pain, and when you’re lying to me about being in pain, and I know when you’re ready or not. Now try to relax.”
It wasn’t like Tobias’s other self-righteous rants. There was a heat to it, an edge, his voice crackling, thick with lust, shallow breaths building a rhythm between his words. Oh my god, Gabin realised, this is getting him off.
Tobias was right, obviously. In the studio and here in his bed, he knew Gabin’s body better than Gabin knew it himself. And it turned him on — watching him, pushing him, testing him. He wondered: Did he ever feel this way in rehearsals? Did he want me, like this, while we were working on my solo, alone together in the room with the red piano?
Gabin began reimagining all of their rehearsals together, but dripping with filth. He thought back to the way Tobias always paced the room, following his every movement while he danced, but now he imagined him hard and wanting. Every correction, every instruction, sounded carnal when he replaced the usual monotone with this new voice, a live wire sparking with sexual charge, and Gabin played them all over in his head.
“I’ve already sized you up.”
Tobias was relentless, curling his fingers deliberately, finding his prostate, stroking it —
“I know you can get your leg higher on that développé, let me see it.”
— the pressure was too much at first, then it was devastatingly light, his touch so soft, so slow, that Gabin’s legs were shaking —
“Again from the top, full out. You can do it one more time for me.”
— Tobias was pushing a third finger in.
Gabin was overstimulated, falling apart at the seams, a mess of pleasure and pain. He wondered, delirious, if Tobias could bring him to orgasm just by watching him rehearse one of their numbers — by making him run through the same eight count over and over and over until he was drenched in sweat, until his legs gave out, until —
“Okay. Turn over.”
And then it was finally happening, and the world blurred. Gabin, on his knees, face in the pillows, listening to the careful shuffle of Tobias selecting which box of condoms to open. Tobias, sitting behind him on the bed, letting Gabin slowly lower himself onto his lap. Thumbs tracing hypnotic circles on the small of his back, patient hands while Gabin let his body reshape around Tobias, inch by inch.
Gabin, pushed forward onto all fours, Tobias’s hand at the hinge of his hips, the other at his mid-back, bending him into a sharp arch — spine curved, ribcage flush with the bed — moulding him like he was clay. When he was impossibly bent, collapsed onto trembling elbows like in a desperate prayer, Tobias held him, immobile, and pressed into him. Slow, unbearably deep. And then he stopped.
Tobias was perfectly still, his grip on Gabin’s hips like a vice. There was not a centimetre for Gabin to retreat, to pull away from him. Nothing for him to do except take it. He choked out a desperate groan.
Tobias’s voice came dark and syrupy now, pouring over him like honey.
“Tell me again, how much you wanted this.”
Gabin was a stuttering, cock-drunk mess, white knuckles clutching at a pillow, a gasping breath between every word.
“I’ve want — needed — for months — I wanted this, you — I need it, please, please god I need you.”
Tobias felt new. Gabin’s vulnerability, his surrender, Gabin wanting him, like this, had loosened something in him. Awakened latent tendencies towards control. A realisation that, if Gabin let him, he could make this perfect. He could give Gabin everything he needed, everything he wanted, and withhold it too, stretch his desire, his patience, pace him, make him last all night.
A few more lingering seconds he held them there, watching Gabin breathe, and then he began.
His rhythm was restrained at first, unhurried. He kept a steady, diligent pace, building gradually, his speed increasing in perfectly timed increments, like they were eight counts of swelling music. Each time Gabin got comfortable with the tempo, hungry for more, Tobias’s body answered, gathering momentum, building intensity.
When Gabin got loud it was a muddled blend of French and English. Tobias followed the sound, the begging, as best he could, giving him more, faster, harder. When it got to be too much — he had nosy neighbours, thin walls — Tobias stopped and shushed him gently, his cool breath, a “shhh” down Gabin’s spine while he shivered, regained composure.
Minutes passed. Many minutes. Gabin right on the edge, Tobias holding him there, unflinching. When Tobias finally reached around and took him into his hand, hard and throbbing, stroking him in time with every thrust, Gabin had to bury his face in a pillow to muffle the noises in his throat.
When he felt himself getting close, a dam about to break, cracks in every direction, he felt the strange, panicked urge to tell Tobias, to ask his permission.
“I-I’m close — I’m so close I—”
“Ask nicely.” His tone was gentle, sweet even.
“Fuck — please, please Tobias — please can I —”
The sound of Gabin’s frenzied, pathetic whimpering sent Tobias’s body liquid. He couldn’t tell whether he wanted to pull him into a safe, warm hug or throw him onto the floor and fuck him senseless.
With only seconds to spare before Gabin could hold it off no longer, he finally answered, practically panting now — “You can come — I want you to.”
Gabin had never heard Tobias like that — he was coming undone, his voice pulling apart like frayed rope — and he spilled over his hand, warm waves of pleasure pulsing through his body while Tobias moaned softly, the most noise he had made all night.
His hips were still moving, slower now, but Gabin could feel in the way his legs trembled, the effort in his restraint, the desperate heat of his breath at the nape of his neck, that Tobias was getting close too. Gabin was seized by an immediate and overwhelming desire: he had to be able to look at Tobias, to watch him when he came, if for nothing else then to have the memory of it etched into his mind forever.
He had pulled away and rolled onto his back before Tobias had the chance to groan at the break in connection, and he reached for his shoulders, trying to drag him back down.
“Please, please I want to look at you. I need to see you,” he breathed, and the desperation in his voice compelled Tobias to oblige. He hitched one leg up, feeling smug about how effortlessly high he could get it, and he eased Tobias back into him.
While he found a rhythm again, Gabin stared up at him, lightheaded, enraptured, riding out the aftershocks of his own orgasm. That ecstatic, tingling feeling lingered, still swirling in his head, his gut, his heart still caught in his throat, muscles deep between his legs still pulsing, like some final release was holding back until Tobias finished too. Gabin began believing in all sorts of nonsense he would have scoffed at an hour ago: a psychic connection, an empathetic pleasure, like they were the same person, like it would be twice the bliss when Tobias finally came inside of him.
For those brief, hot seconds, it was Tobias who was the mess. He’d lost his cool, measured demeanour, his breath going shallow, his hands grasping, clawing at Gabin’s back, fingers raking raw over his skin like he was afraid he’d slip away. Carefully, Gabin reached up and held his face, his thumbs slicking sweat and loose strands of hair behind his ears.
“Is this okay?” he asked, terrified that his touch might violate some other boundary, might stir Tobias from his euphoric, frantic state.
“Uh-huh” Tobias slurred, barely articulate anymore, and he screwed his eyes shut. His rhythm grew disjointed, uneven, his pace quicker, until it was almost too fast for Gabin to take.
Through gritted teeth, struggling to handle Tobias’s (frankly, insane) tempo, like it might split him open or shake him apart, Gabin begged: “Non, regardez-moi —” a gasping breath, “look at me.”
It was piercing, intense. Foreheads an inch apart, Tobias looked as if the frightening intimacy of the eye contact, the building pleasure, might send shattered pieces of him across the bed were it not for Gabin’s hands, holding him together.
“Kiss me,” Gabin said. Not asking this time, instructing.
And when Tobias obeyed, it was pure bliss. He kissed him when he came, lips desperate, quivering, his body trembling, a shuddering breath before he whimpered into Gabin’s mouth (a sound which he had already committed to memory and would play over and over again in his mind on lonely nights, during stale morning rehearsals, even in the wings just before going on stage, to give himself a boost of heady confidence).
And Gabin did feel something then: a thrumming, fluttering, low in his belly, a static warmth washing over him, one last cascading pulse of pleasure while Tobias was still rocking inside of him. He convinced himself, in that dreamy, liquid state, that they had, in fact, shared something supernatural, something sacred.
From the limp, sweaty tangle of limbs, Tobias’s breath into his neck, faint, raspy:
“Please stay over.”
For the rest of the night and into the small hours of the morning, something new opened up in the space between them, something beginning to blossom.
In the shower, while he massaged his shoulders with a thick lather of body wash, Tobias noticed an odd scar near the back of Gabin’s neck — a strange, hyper-pigmented pink, shaped like a cigarette burn. He didn’t ask what it was, but he felt the chill down Gabin’s spine when he stroked his thumb over it, so he planted a gentle kiss there and didn’t mention it again.
At the dining table, over steaming containers of midnight takeout from the only Vietnamese place in the neighbourhood open that late, Tobias explained that he’d actually been a vegetarian since he was eleven.
“Let me guess: something about the weird texture, contaminants, deadly diseases? You had one gross bite of chicken and never looked back?”
“No. I just felt sad for the animals.”
The way he said it was so unexpectedly soft that Gabin stood from his chair, crossed the table, and pulled Tobias into a deep kiss.
“Oh wow I — okay, so — if you were planning to do that again — which is fine, by the way — then I’d really prefer that you brush your teeth first. After eating meat. Before you kiss me.”
At some point, the fish was fed, the lamps were clicked off one by one, and Tobias had pulled his phone out of the heap of discarded clothes on the floor and scrolled past an avalanche of notifications to see that Geneviève had added “Meeting with HR, bring Gabin :-)” to his google calendar.
In bed, after Tobias had changed the sheets and individually fluffed each pillow, he combed his fingers through Gabin’s damp hair, twisting one perfect ringlet curl next to his face.
“No one’s ever… wanted me, like this” he said, quiet and scratchy, sleep rolling in like a rising tide. “I’m not sure what to do with it.”
Gabin smiled, a deep yawn pulling his eyes closed until the morning sun. “You’ll figure it out.”