He could hear music coming from within, and gathering his courage, he knocked. He adjusted his hold on the bouquet and couldn’t help but fidget. The door swung open. Gabriel stood in jeans and a open-collared shirt. Will didn’t have to look closely to see the shadows under his eyes, though his shoulders relaxed as he took in Will. Eventually his eyes went to the flowers.

Will went red. “These are for you.” His voice was stiff.

Gabriel let out an amused breath. His smirk grew into a smile as he took the flowers and pressed them to his nose. “Thank you.” He stepped aside to let Will into the room. It smelled strongly of onions and garlic. In the living room, a little girl’s voice shouted little girl curses of damn, god, and shit.

“Language.” Will corrected, off-hand.

Sarah shot him a smile. “Will! Look! Uncle got me a playstation!”

Will did look. A brand new PS4 was hooked up to the TV. “Is it your birthday?”

“Nope.” Sarah’s attention was fixed back on the TV. Will gave Gabriel a questioning look, and found his back as he filled a jug of water for the flowers.

“She asked while I was distracted.” Gabriel told him after putting the flowers down on the counter. “I got you something too, actually.”

“Really?”

“Don’t get too excited, it’s not a PS4.” Gabriel warned him. He went into the living room and got a shopping bag from next to Sarah. Back in the kitchen, he pat the stool at the counter and Will obediently took a seat. Out of the bag came a royal blue scarf, gloves and woollen hat. Gabriel pulled the hat down over Will’s ears and then assessed him.

“You were really cold yesterday.” Gabriel explained.

“I’d just come in out of the rain.” Will felt the gloves and smiled. “Thank you.”

There was a pause, where Will reckoned they were both figuring out what to say. Will knew he needed to go first. “I mean what I said earlier. I was intending to come back and talk to you. I just fell asleep.”

Gabriel nodded, his dark eyes studying Will. “Your colour is much better today.”

Will waited as Gabriel sat at the stool opposite him, and took particular notice of the way his hands stayed buried in his pockets, strictly away from Will. Gabriel had usually kissed or hugged him by this point. Though, Will could hardly blame him for keeping his distance given his reaction to being touched yesterday. “Yesterday, I didn’t explain why I was upset very well…” Will began. He took in a deep breath before continuing. Gabriel was patiently waiting for him. “I…” He hesitated. There wasn’t really a way of explaining it without bringing up what happened at Dunes. Will wanted to lessen the severity of his reaction to the food, but if he did that it would shift the blame onto Gabriel’s actions, and Gabriel’s touch. “I’ve been getting my calorie count a bit wrong.” Will couldn’t help but cringe. It sounded like a bad, bad excuse.

Gabriel looked uneasy as well.

“I had a certain amount I was eating every day at home, and I’ve stuck with that diet, but up here I’m working out a lot more, and I have longer days, so I guess I should have increased the amount.” Will dropped his gaze to his scarf, and he rubbed the fuzzy tassels on the end between his gloved hands. “I’ve been over-dosing on coffee everyday, so I didn’t feel any energy drop, and… I didn’t notice. When I was breathing in the smell of the food, I was so hungry I felt like throwing up.” He grimaced. “And needing to throw up is familiar so it made me think of all the times when I’d do it intentionally, and while I was stuck remembering that you were trying to talk to me, and I’m sorry, but it was too much at that exact second. But you were making it about our relationship, and whether or not I wanted to when it really wasn’t about that at all—”

Gabriel caught his gloved hands, and freed the end of the scarf from his death grip. “I understand.” He said.

Will didn’t hear the relief he was anticipating in Gabriel’s voice. He dragged his gaze up, and found Gabriel studying Will’s hands with a frown. He rubbed his thumbs over the back of his gloved hands in a light caress. Even through the woollen material, the reassurance behind the gesture came through to Will. Should he tell him what happened at Dune’s? If he was already worried then Will didn’t want to make it worse.

“Will,” Gabriel drew his gaze up. His seemed to realise that Will hadn’t told him everything. “You don’t have to force yourself. If it’s not something your comfortable telling me, you don’t have to.”

Will met his eyes. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, I just don’t want you to worry.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed slightly. He rubbed his chin, and Will could see the thoughts racing across his face. Will guessed they were along the lines of: ‘tell Will it’s okay’, or else ‘something happened that would worry me.’

“You spent the night at Dune’s, right?” Gabriel said uneasy. “He’s someone you’ll let take care of you so…” he shrugged. “It’s okay.”