// Start a tiny riot //
The hush of the late hour and the careful stillness they maintain only seems to heighten every sound, every motion that slips free. The glide of her leg against his hip. The supple roll of her spine along his hand. The drift of her fingers from chest to hair. Each one is a ripple disturbing the pond where he's kept her sequestered as a friend—deliberately, willfully, and maybe foolishly.
He doesn’t think, not yet. He just tries to keep his breath steady and his heart from knocking too embarrassingly loud. He lets every detail soak in. The moonlight filtering her lashes, the curve of her lip just before it moves, the way she looks at him like nothing else could ever matter. He holds her seaglass gaze, lets himself get lost in it as her face drifts close enough that their breath mingles. The entire time he's waiting for an answer—from her, from the world. He thinks maybe he has it then, when it's just the shape of her in his arms amid the dark, drawing closer still when it seems there's no more distance to erase.
So her words surprise a small smile to his features. The wash of relief is so instant and monumental that he feels like he must have been empty before it. Yeah. They can escape here, together, whenever they need to shut out the world for a bit and just be with each other, because that always seems to make everything feel better, somehow. They can—
Her lips are on his.
For a second, he doesn’t breathe, doesn’t blink, doesn’t move—afraid that if he does, the kiss, the warmth, the yeah will all vanish like a dream pressed too hard between waking fingers. Then, his fingers twitch against her back—curl tight. He presses back into her, a breath deeper, a shade firmer, ruining some of the delicacy she maintained because he wants to make sure it's real, wants her to feel everything he can't say yet.
Gods, he doesn’t know what this kiss means, what comes next, what happens when duty and distance and exes and cousins and dates come back to remind them that this moment isn't built to last—but all he can think, over and over, is please, let me keep her. He wants the mornings where her hair’s a mess and she steals his socks. Wants the half-laughed arguments and her curled beside him on the couch while the world falls apart outside. He wants the kind of life where she’s there. Where they make the hard days softer, just by being in them together.
If this is the only moment he ever gets—it still might be the one he loves most.
He doesn’t think, not yet. He just tries to keep his breath steady and his heart from knocking too embarrassingly loud. He lets every detail soak in. The moonlight filtering her lashes, the curve of her lip just before it moves, the way she looks at him like nothing else could ever matter. He holds her seaglass gaze, lets himself get lost in it as her face drifts close enough that their breath mingles. The entire time he's waiting for an answer—from her, from the world. He thinks maybe he has it then, when it's just the shape of her in his arms amid the dark, drawing closer still when it seems there's no more distance to erase.
So her words surprise a small smile to his features. The wash of relief is so instant and monumental that he feels like he must have been empty before it. Yeah. They can escape here, together, whenever they need to shut out the world for a bit and just be with each other, because that always seems to make everything feel better, somehow. They can—
Her lips are on his.
For a second, he doesn’t breathe, doesn’t blink, doesn’t move—afraid that if he does, the kiss, the warmth, the yeah will all vanish like a dream pressed too hard between waking fingers. Then, his fingers twitch against her back—curl tight. He presses back into her, a breath deeper, a shade firmer, ruining some of the delicacy she maintained because he wants to make sure it's real, wants her to feel everything he can't say yet.
Gods, he doesn’t know what this kiss means, what comes next, what happens when duty and distance and exes and cousins and dates come back to remind them that this moment isn't built to last—but all he can think, over and over, is please, let me keep her. He wants the mornings where her hair’s a mess and she steals his socks. Wants the half-laughed arguments and her curled beside him on the couch while the world falls apart outside. He wants the kind of life where she’s there. Where they make the hard days softer, just by being in them together.
If this is the only moment he ever gets—it still might be the one he loves most.
Kaisel
// Stop being so goddamn quiet //
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
