hangman hooded, softly swinging; don't close the coffin yet, I'm alive
She is like sunshine—and for someone who has loved his life nearly entirely in the shadows, it is nearly blinding to look into it. But he doesn’t turn from it. He doesn’t shield himself from the light. Instead he just lets it wash over him, feeling that sensation build in his chest and rise up his throat. He feels it wrap around him and nearly pull him under, and when he slides from her, he feels only peace.
The kind of peace that he has never truly known.
She comes to him nearly immediately, and he wonders at the softness in the moments after. The way that he can rest next to her so easily—the way she twines around him and he feels no immediate need to leave. He just feels something precious in his chest, something that bubbles up, and he pulls her closer, closing his sharp yellow eyes and breathing in the honeysuckle of her as she rests her cheek against him.
The words are said softly, but he still feels them like a punch in the gut. They’re words that he had never said easily—and hadn’t said for centuries. They were words that had meaning and he had made a reputation for only dealing with words that had none. A reputation for throwing out barbs or words that could slice up an opponent as easily as a haphazard, crooked smile or a twist of his fang.
But he doesn’t want to say meaningless words, not to her.
So he just smiles softly, a rare genuine one, and he reaches to kiss her forehead, feeling a heat in his throat at the importance of such a casual gesture, at the sweetness of a moment stolen.
“I love you too, Ry,” he whispers.
And wonders why it has taken him so long to admit it.
