Honey wherever you go, I know
For a long moment he can’t breathe. Not from the day, not from the rounds they’ve teased out of each other, not even from the thundering of his own heart knocking against his lungs. It’s her words.
He blinks over at her, hair fluffing around her hand with the motion, cheek puffing up around her finger. His expression is a little dazed, which might just be the portrait of a man thoroughly drained in every possible manner, but his is earned by the uncertainty of whether he just misheard her or not. The sheets and the sweat and the way she looks at him, still aglow with profound bliss, they seem to have blurred into some dream too good to survive waking.
“You—” The single syllable stalls, splintering into disbelief. He laughs once under his breath, not because it’s funny, but because he’s overwhelmed. His hand lifts without thinking, covering hers where it rests on his face, pressing her palm harder to him like proof. Her smile, her touch, the certainty in her voice, it floods him until he feels like he’ll burst. He thought he knew what it meant, all the other I love yous they’d tossed between them before, but this is different. This is the sun breaking through after so much gray, and he soaks it in like he’s pale and starving for the light.
“Flora…” His voice roughens around her name. He shifts her further, erasing any distance that could remain, and chases her lips for a kiss so deep with reverence he might need to say her last rites. “I’m so in love with you, Flora Grace Kaito-Taliesin,” The words tumble out quiet and unpolished, caught with the pounding of his pulse, but they're truer than anything he’s ever said.
As he breathes her in though, some of the wild edges soften. The day presses back in—the grief, the storms, the unraveling, the way they’ve wrung themselves dry in every way possible. He knows she’s glowing still from the aftershocks, floating on euphoria, everything heightened and dangerous. He doesn’t doubt her, not for a second, but it'd land different to hear it stronger than a whisper he could barely catch, and it'd last longer to be offered it on a night where he hadn't almost lost her. He doesn’t need her to etch them into stone, or sand, tonight.
“Sleep,” he murmurs after a moment, gentle now, voice weighted with a surrender that pulls even at his own lashes. “We don't have to make this night last forever this time.” His thumb strokes along her jaw, his hold staying tight even as his head nestles against hers.
He blinks over at her, hair fluffing around her hand with the motion, cheek puffing up around her finger. His expression is a little dazed, which might just be the portrait of a man thoroughly drained in every possible manner, but his is earned by the uncertainty of whether he just misheard her or not. The sheets and the sweat and the way she looks at him, still aglow with profound bliss, they seem to have blurred into some dream too good to survive waking.
“You—” The single syllable stalls, splintering into disbelief. He laughs once under his breath, not because it’s funny, but because he’s overwhelmed. His hand lifts without thinking, covering hers where it rests on his face, pressing her palm harder to him like proof. Her smile, her touch, the certainty in her voice, it floods him until he feels like he’ll burst. He thought he knew what it meant, all the other I love yous they’d tossed between them before, but this is different. This is the sun breaking through after so much gray, and he soaks it in like he’s pale and starving for the light.
“Flora…” His voice roughens around her name. He shifts her further, erasing any distance that could remain, and chases her lips for a kiss so deep with reverence he might need to say her last rites. “I’m so in love with you, Flora Grace Kaito-Taliesin,” The words tumble out quiet and unpolished, caught with the pounding of his pulse, but they're truer than anything he’s ever said.
As he breathes her in though, some of the wild edges soften. The day presses back in—the grief, the storms, the unraveling, the way they’ve wrung themselves dry in every way possible. He knows she’s glowing still from the aftershocks, floating on euphoria, everything heightened and dangerous. He doesn’t doubt her, not for a second, but it'd land different to hear it stronger than a whisper he could barely catch, and it'd last longer to be offered it on a night where he hadn't almost lost her. He doesn’t need her to etch them into stone, or sand, tonight.
“Sleep,” he murmurs after a moment, gentle now, voice weighted with a surrender that pulls even at his own lashes. “We don't have to make this night last forever this time.” His thumb strokes along her jaw, his hold staying tight even as his head nestles against hers.
Kaisel
I'd give up half of forever, just to be with you
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
