love is my religion. i could die for that.
She is soft and gentle and he wants to cradle her close, wants to curl her into his chest so that he can protect her forever—cherish her and never let her go. Instead he remains content to be by her side and to let his purple eyes wander over the bright green of her face. “I would love to see that,” he says quietly, thinking of an island perpetually caught in the grips of winter. “It must be magical to experience.” His voice remains hushed, recognizing the stillness in her own, the way it barely rises, pressing into his palms with a steady kind of confidence: a gift, he thinks. Everything she says must be a gift.
But the conversation moves forward, and he doesn’t fight it—never fights the changing of the tides.
She says she is glad he is here, and he lets the smile in his dreamy eyes do the speaking for him.
He brushes his lips against the youthful crest of her neck, innocent kisses and friendship in the touch as he watches, feeling the fever burn beneath his touch. When she admits her illness, even going so far as to speculate its origins in the playground, there is no surprise or disdain or fear in his eyes. Instead he just makes a soft noise in the back of his throat. “I suppose I will get sick too then,” His lips pull down as he looks to the horizon. “What a strange world. To fail at finding a cure to only be inflicted with the disease.”
An elegant shrug that belies his clear youth.
“It matters not.”
He’s survived worst, he doesn’t say. Survives worst every day with a body that has tried, and failed, to kill him from birth. The lethal poison in his blood hasn’t claimed his life; this sickness surely won’t.
“I am doing okay,” he says at the touch of her to his cheek. He leans into it.
“I am much more concerned with how you are feeling. Do you need to rest?”
i could die for you.
@[Evenstar]