How strange that they would have once been together in Tephra. The idea that she would have called his home her own—that he would not have had to venture outward to find her. It makes something spark and then glow in his chest. Something that is both beautiful and painful, almost too bright for him to look at directly when he thinks of all of the almosts and should have beens in his life. Everything so close.
His lip twitches into an almost smile then, thinking so deeply that he almost misses her question.
A muscle jumps in his jaw at the suddenness of it, the pain that presses sharply between his shoulder blades, and it takes everything within him to still at the touch of her on his forehead. “It’s a long story,” he offers, trying to keep the edge from his voice—an edge that does not belong directed at her but rather at himself. An edge that burrows beneath his skin and cuts at all of the loneliest parts of him.
“Maybe one day,” he softens and there is a question in the furrowing of his brow.
Will she be okay giving him this mystery?
Will she be okay letting him keep these skeletons in their closet just a little longer?
He lets the ghosts die in the back of his throat as he watches her, letting al that she is burn away the fog as he she kisses him—as her mouth claims his like she knows it. He smiles against her lips, against the quickness of it and the pulse that rises in him demanding that he lengthen it.
Instead he listens, feeling his heart clench in his chest at the idea of her. It overwhelms him, this idea of her being young and this idea of her explorer’s heart. “I like that,” he says, pulling her close when she ducks into him and pressing a kiss onto the pieces of her that he can reach. “Maybe one day you can show me your secret spot and I can see the world through your eyes.” There is a second that is still, and his young and foolish heart pounds when his voice drops, husky and low so that only she can hear.
“You are the first to reach me,” he confesses, closing his eyes and kissing her neck. “The only.”
He can only hope she knows what he means.
BRIGADE
when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache
but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake
@[Kensa]