After the End Ch. 05

He leaned down to kiss me again, bracing himself so I could fuck him deeper. Damn, it was satisfying that he wanted this so much. It was a gift I never took for granted. Being allowed, even invited, to penetrate his most private place, to force a sizeable part of myself through such a small and sensitive opening, turned me on like nothing else. I enjoyed it mentally almost as much as physically. The helplessness inherent in being fucked seemed to excite Avery; it certainly excited me to take him this way.

I put a hand to his cock so he could share in the pleasure. Once again, I didn't draw things out, sensing that tonight his desire was for consummation. When he reached climax, squeezing hard against the shaft inside him, I quickly followed. We stayed together for a few moments, both breathing hard in the blind dark, until Avery removed himself.

Soon he lay against me again, and when I reached for his hand, he laced his fingers through mine.

"I just want you to know that I'm here, Avery," I told him quietly. "If there's anything you want to say, or ask me...anything that you need from me, it's yours, ok? Tonight, or anytime."

He swallowed, took a breath, and nodded against my shoulder.

I lifted his hand and kissed his fingers gently, then waited to see if he would take me up on my offer.

Several silent breaths went by before I heard him whisper, "I love you."

"I love you too," I replied, surprised. Avery didn't offer verbal affection very often, least of all when he was feeling this fragile. If that was what he was able to say right now, who was I to complain?

By the end of the week, his mood swings were wearing me out. He'd been extra on edge that morning, getting unduly upset over a minor mistake and yelling at his team for not catching his oversight. He arrived back at the command center early in the afternoon fuming and nursing his wrist, which he'd somehow managed to injure on a routine trading mission. I was meeting with our community's five-member governing council when I heard him on the other side of the building, snapping at his best friend, Rowan.

"Nothing's fucking wrong! I'm fine. Just leave me alone."

"No problem," Rowan shot back and turned on her heel. "Don't know why I bothered."

I stifled a sigh. Incidents like that were becoming frequent, which, as Avery's superior officer, made them my problem.

I tracked him down as soon as the council session ended. "Report," I instructed.

"We found the guys with enough refined silicon to repair our solar panels, but they demanded more than we paid last time."

"Did you get it?"

"Fuck, no! I told them to shove it. Greedy parasites, trying to fill their stomachs off our sweat and blood."

"We need that power to run our med center, if nothing else."

"I'm not trading with terrorists," he retorted. "You want to give away the farm, do it yourself."

I glanced toward the others who had gone with Avery to the nearby village. His tone was pushing the boundary of decorum, and everyone could hear him.

I nodded toward the bandage around his wrist. "What happened to your arm?"

"Nothing."

"Avery." My tone sharpened into a reprimand. "I can see that you're injured. Did your disagreement with the traders come to blows?"

"God, I said it was nothing. Lay off the inquisition."

That was decidedly over the line. "Outside," I commanded.

The guards standing by exchanged looks. They'd all learned to dread my use of that icy register. But Avery was in rare form today. He smirked contemptuously and sauntered out the door. When we beyond earshot, I rounded on him.

"What has gotten into you? Do you know how it looks that I have a discipline problem with my own boyfriend? I'd lose everyone's respect if I allowed anyone to speak to me like that when I'm in command. You're no exception."

Arms folded, he stared past the canvas and plank structures that made up Fort Laurel to the rough fence that encircled our home. "Sorry," was all he said, more sullen than apologetic.

I crossed my own arms and addressed him sternly. "Do I need to reassign you? Jade can take over supply runs if you can't handle it."

That seemed to catch his attention. "No, I can. I just...had a bad day."

I wished that were true. "You've been testy for two weeks. Whatever personal issues you're having, I expect you to address them privately and not to jeopardize the safety of our community. Do you understand?"

He nodded toward the ground, but that wasn't good enough. I kept my gaze fixed on him until he glanced up and read my raised eyebrows.

"Yes, I understand," he said, respectfully this time.

I appraised him a moment longer. "I'm not sure I should take you on rounds anymore, if you're going to act this way. It'll demoralize the guards if I'm seen to reward your insolence."

Avery looked alarmed. "No, J-" He cut off as several civilian community members passed by. "Delta," he corrected himself, calling me by my public name. "I won't cause any more trouble. Please don't go without me."

At last, he seemed sincere, so I relented, but with a warning. "Another outburst, and I'll send you straight back here."

"I won't," he repeated.

He stuck close to me the rest of the day, and he didn't so much as raise his voice.

When we got back to our tent that evening and into bed, Avery moved in to kiss me, but it felt forced. Like he was trying to distract me from the day's turmoil.

After a minute, I stopped him. "We don't have to do this tonight, if you don't want to."

"I do," he insisted. He renewed his efforts to arouse me, but I couldn't get there when I could tell he wasn't into it. I caught his shoulders again. "You don't need to pretend. I'm alright."

He huffed out a breath and sat back, a little apart but facing me, arms wrapped around knees, one wrist still bandaged.

I leaned against the headboard and wondered how much longer we could go on this way. "Look, earlier -" I started, but Avery cut me off.

"You don't have to say anything. I know it was my fault."

"I wasn't going to lecture you. I'm not your commander now, Avery." I studied the lines of tension in his face and continued more gently. "You've never relaxed since last week, even after we talked about the sex. If that's still bothering you..."

"It's not."

"Am I doing something else, then?" I asked. "Because if so, it's unintentional, and you should let me know."

Avery shook his head. "No, you're...not." There was a brief pause while he made an effort to normalize his expression. "Just - I'm fine."

I hated knowing he was in pain, and more that he felt the need to bury it. I reached to offer my comfort, but he flinched away.

Frustrated, I dropped my hand. "It's obvious that you're not fine. What's going on?"

"Nothing," he shrugged. Another brief silence. "I just wanted to do better this morning, and I didn't."

With a sigh, I cast my gaze to our belongings strewn against the dusty tent wall. "I wish you wouldn't lie to me. I understand that you don't like to share everything, but it's very stressful to watch you suffer alone. I can't just ignore it."

"I'm sorry." His throat was tightening. "I'm not trying to stress you."

That made me feel worse. I softened my tone as much as I could. "Babe, I don't want you to be sorry. I want to know what's wrong, so I can help."

Avery seemed to struggle with himself for a minute, chewing the inside of his mouth. When he finally replied, it was very quiet. "You can't."

"How do you know?"

"It's just how it is."

I searched his face for any clue as to the source of his anxiety, but he kept his eyes down. "You remember back at Sabine Ridge, when I came to your tent that first time?" I asked finally.

His gaze flickered to me, then away. "Course."

"I could see how nervous you were, and I know I'm not the most approachable person." I considered my words for a moment. "But I told you then that I wanted you to feel safe with me, and I've done my best to show you that you are. Yet somehow I'm still failing. So I'm truly sorry for that, Avery. I hope at some point you can explain why."

"Don't say that." Avery's hand tapped anxiously against his shin. "You're not failing." Abruptly, he moved to sit beside me, but turned so I couldn't see his face.

Thankful to be allowed contact, I received him with one hand on his arm. The other I rubbed across his shoulder blades, trying to soothe the escalating stress in the curve of his back.

"It's me that's failing," he continued, his voice disturbingly near breaking. "I don't know how to do this."

"This - you mean, talk to me?"

His reply was almost a whisper. "No...I mean...this relationship."

Fear chilled my blood, and I sought for some way to reassure him. "It's ok. I wouldn't expect you to when you've had no practice." I stroked his back again and entreated, "Just tell me what you're struggling with, and we'll figure it out."

Avery shook his head, and I could hear tears starting to choke him. "Don't want you to know."

"Why?" My circulatory system shifted into overdrive at the depth of his distress. "What would happen?"

He swallowed hard, apparently too upset to speak, and I broke under the torture.

"Please, Avery. I can't stand seeing you like this." I was desperate, frantic, to find him relief. "I can deal with my own pain, but not when it's you. Please, I'm begging you. What don't you want me to know?"

Another excruciating hesitation, then finally he forced out some broken words. "How terrified I am all the time."

"Of what, babe?" I asked, more alarmed than ever.

Avery's entire body was rigid. "Losing you."

I couldn't make sense of it. "Why would you lose me?" Did he mean because he was about to break up with me?

"Because there was never any reason for you to be with me in the first place."

His words hit me with the force of an earthquake. I scrambled for footing, for any rational interpretation of what he'd said, and came up blank.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, trying to turn his shoulders so I could at least get a hint from his expression.

He fought my grip, so I gave up. "Don't act like you don't know this, Julian."

"I swear I don't." My mind raced through possibilities while I stared at the back of his head. "What, because of my rank? My age?"

"Everything!" Avery exclaimed, pitch rising, and anguished words poured out at last. "You're like some mythological hero, with divine powers and the body of a fucking Greek god: stronger than anyone, perfect at everything, completely in control... You're not even human. Meanwhile I'm just...useless. I have these stupid meltdowns, I'm afraid of everything, I can't do anything right - I can't even manage looking at you most of the time. I'm not nearly good enough for you."

I'd thought I was shocked before. This seismic revelation shook my foundations along a fault line I didn't even know existed and left my head spinning as nearly half a year of my life cracked and shifted.

"That is not how I see you at all," I said when I could reconnect my brain to my tongue.

"Well it's how I am." Avery was still facing away from me, but his voice ached with misery and despair. "You'll get tired of it, and you'll move on, and I'm trying to accept it and not ruin this, but I need you so much -" Emotion choked him off, and finally, finally, I grasped what he was telling me.

This was the answer to all the riddles. From the start, all those times he'd masked what he was thinking or feeling, refused to meet my eyes or answer my questions, it came back to this: he'd been hiding what he perceived as his disqualifying inadequacies, trying to be someone he imagined had a better chance with me, someone worthy of my attention. I'd tried so hard to make him feel cared for and secure, and instead he lived in constant terror of being abandoned. A pang of agony hit me at the toll that must have taken.

I barely knew where to start unraveling his misconceptions, but I had to allay his most immediate fear first.

"No, Avery, babe -" I lay my hands on him again, soft with love. "Hey, I'm not going anywhere. Definitely not for any reason you just said. Please come here - don't be afraid."

He didn't resist me this time as I gently turned him toward me. I brushed the hair out of his eyes, and he curled against me, knees drawn up, head lowering onto my shoulder.

I drew him in tightly. "God, I feel terrible that you've been worrying about this, and I had no idea. You're not going to lose me, ok? I want and need this just as much as you do. I'm so sorry for whatever I did to make you believe otherwise."

Avery last fortification had collapsed, and he lay in my embrace completely defenseless, soft as a crab that has shed its shell. I caressed him almost reverently, overwhelmed by the strength of his feelings for me and the courage it had taken at every step just to be here. If either of us was undeserving of this relationship, surely it was me.

I felt his chest expand with several slow breaths, and I allowed myself one too. "Oh Avery," I sighed against his head. "Despite what you think, I am human, one hundred percent. I can ignore my emotions better than you can, maybe, and I don't always express them, but they're not less real than yours."

I stroked along his arm, slow and affectionate. "When you're here, when you want me to hold you like this...I'm happier than I've ever been, at any time in my life. It means everything that you trust me. That you choose me. That it calms you to be near me." I released another long breath. "It calms me too."

"You never told me." Avery's quiet voice was a confession rather than an accusation.

"No," I agreed, "and I see that I should have." I ran my hand down his arm again and considered how to explain. "You've always been so...wary, of letting me know you, of getting too close. I was trying to respect your limits. You're so quick to run away, if you feel exposed at all."

"I don't mean to." It was the same tone of quiet honesty. "This is just really scary for me."

I nodded and tightened my arms around him for a moment. "I understand that better now. But, you know, it's scary for me too."

"It is?"

How did we get this far, with Avery genuinely believing I had no fears?

"Of course," I replied. "Do you think it's easy for me, having no idea what's going on in your head most of the time? When you run, never knowing whether you'll come back? I'm always afraid of misreading your signals, making the wrong guess, doing too much or too little. Any mistake could be fatal."

My fingers traced the curve of his skull, the temple that housed the elusive brain of my beloved. "Apparently I erred on the side of too little. I never meant for you to doubt that I care for you deeply."

He took another deep breath, still sheltered in my arms.

"But haven't I been telling you that I love you?" I asked. This mystified me the most. "Did you think I didn't mean it?"

Avery kept his voice soft. "I just...don't understand...why you would."

I thought back to what he'd said, about me being some divine hero who was too good for him. That he felt expendable, with nothing to offer. I hated myself for somehow not communicating how vastly untrue that was.

Tenderly, I stroked through his hair again. "Avery, if you see me the way you said, don't you trust my judgment at all? Why did you think I was with you, if not because I admire and value you?"

"I don't know."

"Please, babe. Don't do that. I won't be able to convince you unless I figure out where I went wrong."

There was a long hesitation. Finally, Avery lifted and dropped his shoulders, then said quietly, "Just...you liked being around me." A shorter pause. "Sleeping with me."

Would the horrifying aftershocks ever end? "Sleeping with you," I repeated. "You mean sex."

He confirmed with a nod.

Fuck, that hurt. It felt like I was being crushed beneath the rubble this time. I held on to Avery as my chest throbbed, memories crashing around me, countless moments of intimacy shared with this precious boy who believed I could love his body but not the person inside it. It was unbearable to think he ever might have used sex as a way to earn my affection.

"Julian?" Now he was worried about me. He sat up so he could see me but stayed close, propped again my bent legs.

I swallowed and pulled myself together. "It's very painful to hear that. But thank you for telling me."

He fidgeted with his hands, self-conscious but not anxious. His gaze flitted to my face and back. "I'm sorry I'm not better at...telling you things."

"It's alright. I know it's difficult. I just never want to hurt you, even accidentally. And I must have, if you thought this still could have been about sex, after all this time."

Another brief glance through those dark brown irises, and I pushed away my own pain so I could attend to his.

"Look, let me try to explain this," I said. "Six months ago, I was about to leave the community, and you had no idea I was interested in you at all, right?"

He nodded.

"But you wanted to be near me badly enough that you were willing to face your fear and embarrassment to ask me for it. So was that because of my mythological hero powers, or my success in command, or what gods you think I look like?"

Avery was catching on, but I wasn't going to risk any more misunderstandings by not spelling it out.

"It might be part of why you're attracted to me, but my background, abilities, body - I can't control any of it. I could have those exact qualities and be someone you wouldn't even like. I think you want this -" I nudged him to indicate our close contact - "because of choices I do get to make: how I use my knowledge and strength; how I relate to you and how I make you feel."

By his thoughtful expression, I hoped I was getting through to him.

"Is that true?" I prompted.

"Yeah."

"So it's the same for me, babe. Yes, your emotions can be volatile, and you're untrained, and you're terrified of vulnerability. But despite all your fears and all you've been through, you choose to be courageous, resilient, generous, loyal, hopeful... Someone I respect and am proud to share my life with. You're actually a much better person than me." I lightened my tone. "Just ask any of your friends."

That got a smile. Avery lifted one of my hands and held it in his lap, using his other hand to explore as if he'd never seen it before: tracing the shape, toying with my fingers. I grew warm under his casually affectionate touch.

"And to be clear," I added, "sex with you is incredible. But it only works so well because of our emotional connection. I enjoy sex with you because I enjoy you, not vice versa."

He played with my hand a little longer, then he fit his palm against mine and secured his fingers around it. There was always something special about the way Avery held my hand, as if it meant more to him than other traditionally intimate activities, like kissing or sex or even cohabitating. He kept his gaze on our hands, no longer because he didn't know how I felt, but because he did.

"Anything else on your mind?" I asked.

He shook his head without looking at me, sweetly shy.

"Then there's just one more thing I need to tell you."

He knew what was coming. He gripped my hand a little tighter, nervous to step into this unknown territory, even with me. But in his eyes, when he showed them to me, was an unfathomable hunger to hear the words I was about to say and finally to believe them.

I held his gaze for one perfect moment and gave him the only divine gift I possessed. "I love you, Avery."

Fear left him. Still staring into my eyes, he brought his other hand to my face and gently brushed my cheek, something I'd done with him plenty of times, but he'd never done with me. God, my heart almost burst from the pure adoration in his touch. Then he kissed me, desire and devotion amplifying each other to a triumphant crescendo. We abandoned ourselves to it and didn't surface until we were thoroughly sated.