// If the world was ending, I'd wanna be next to you //
His assurances to her don't seem to land with the same weight he intended, and the pillow hangs between them like a buffer, a means to smother him if need be. Every ounce of meaning and fiber of feeling that he gathered up into the phrases, feeling like the weight of an entire world when he let it slip free his chest, seems like little more than a bubble popping against her understanding instead of a planet's gravity tugging her along.
It has some effect, if the color on her face is any indicator—such a rare, lovely thing to see bloom over her cheeks. The confusion quickly returns though, that uncertainty still ringing in her voice, the heat of his hands paling to the hearth and the sweater. Shit. His hands curl tighter, thumbs absently stroking back and forth as she stumbles through her thoughts aloud, or so it seems with their broken cadence and wavering ends.
Now it's his turn to shift to a shade of red as her last admission lands. It settles like salvation, easing every knot he's tied around himself, just enough that he can move beneath the cage of his own making. "You did?" he asks with a touch of awe, like a child seeing magic for the first time in a world that's mundane. A fragile smile creeps in against the burn of his cheeks. "I never—I mean, I thought that I was always the one with a crush on you. So when the first kiss we were drunk...and the other one we had just survived the attack, I didn't think they'd been real to you." He'd cherished them all the same, but each one had this cloud hanging over it that made them feel like mishaps, rather than moments that spilled with all their unspoken affection.
He'd not have that again.
He twists to roll her under him, much like the night on the boat, but now there's only apple cider at fault and nothing unclear between them, not in this moment. She's beautiful in her halo of red, adorned in his sweater, vulnerable in a way he can scarcely recall her permitting. He'd not let it sink back into doubt. "Mel," he breathes, caught between her legs still, gaze trailing the line of her lips with shameless appreciation. He leans over her, one arm sinking into the space near her head, the other slipping up to her cheek. "You are everything I've ever wanted," he murmurs, soft with reverence but not lacking in strength of conviction, one which he presses against her mouth with his own, trying to seal it there, for both of their sakes.
It has some effect, if the color on her face is any indicator—such a rare, lovely thing to see bloom over her cheeks. The confusion quickly returns though, that uncertainty still ringing in her voice, the heat of his hands paling to the hearth and the sweater. Shit. His hands curl tighter, thumbs absently stroking back and forth as she stumbles through her thoughts aloud, or so it seems with their broken cadence and wavering ends.
Now it's his turn to shift to a shade of red as her last admission lands. It settles like salvation, easing every knot he's tied around himself, just enough that he can move beneath the cage of his own making. "You did?" he asks with a touch of awe, like a child seeing magic for the first time in a world that's mundane. A fragile smile creeps in against the burn of his cheeks. "I never—I mean, I thought that I was always the one with a crush on you. So when the first kiss we were drunk...and the other one we had just survived the attack, I didn't think they'd been real to you." He'd cherished them all the same, but each one had this cloud hanging over it that made them feel like mishaps, rather than moments that spilled with all their unspoken affection.
He'd not have that again.
He twists to roll her under him, much like the night on the boat, but now there's only apple cider at fault and nothing unclear between them, not in this moment. She's beautiful in her halo of red, adorned in his sweater, vulnerable in a way he can scarcely recall her permitting. He'd not let it sink back into doubt. "Mel," he breathes, caught between her legs still, gaze trailing the line of her lips with shameless appreciation. He leans over her, one arm sinking into the space near her head, the other slipping up to her cheek. "You are everything I've ever wanted," he murmurs, soft with reverence but not lacking in strength of conviction, one which he presses against her mouth with his own, trying to seal it there, for both of their sakes.
ISKRA
// I'd wanna hold you just for a while and die with a smile //
