It is a strange kind of difficult, to accept her forgiveness. He, of course, wants to pick that wound, ask over and over again are you sure? because of course he knows that he does not deserve her forgiveness, he knows that she is too good for him.
He also knows trying to save her from that made everything worse.
So he does not prod, only closes his eyes for a moment and swallows, as if the forgiveness was communion placed on his tongue.
“Thank you,” he says, the words murmured into the skin. He can say that much.
(He doesn’t deserve to be forgiven. He doesn’t deserve any of the things she’s given him; just as she did not deserve what he did to her. And yet, here they are, still.)
“I missed you too,” he says, briefly ignoring her other comment. It’s easier to lay here beside her and drink in every piece of her, the scents and textures and radiating warmth. He wants to ignore it entirely, but his mind, never his strongest ally, drifts back to what he had done. Yet he finds the memory smudged, hazy – he knows he went to Carnage, begged, offered himself, offered anything. And Carnage had agreed – but why? What had Garbage promised him, in the end?
He can no longer recall.
Anything, he had said. But what had they agreed on?
Carnage had taken that memory, too.
“I went to the mountain,” he says, finally, because he will be nothing but honest now, he doesn’t want to deceive her in any way, not even by omission.
“I found Carnage there. I asked – begged. But…” he pauses, trying again to conjure the memory, “I can’t recall what I promised him. Everything gets fuzzy after I said I would give him anything. I think he…buried that memory. Or did something to hide it. I don’t care what it was, it was worth it.”
