One slow stupid blink. Then another.
He’s still disbelieving that it could be her but the longer he stands there with his heart thrown hard against his chest in the morning light, hoping against hope, that it just might be her.
Unknowingly, he’s lived every moment since the last for this one right here. This painfully stark and beautiful and achingly raw moment. It stuns him; he can feel the truth of it scour his bones clean as if their love had been grains of sand fallen from the fingers of time itself. He’s loved her since the moment they met. Even after promising he’d never love again after that first foolish fling his heart had had in his youth.
(it’s taken forever to get over being forgotten by a queen who preferred her kingdom and its king to him. he almost doesn’t feel the sting of it any more)
He is staring breathlessly at skin and hair that is all copper and dark night blue. Remembering: how she smells, how she looks and most of all, how she feels against him. She could become all the food and drink he requires if he could but taste her on his lips one more time. Just one more painfully beautiful time.
(Mandan realizes there is as much pain in loving someone as there is pleasure)
Until she breathes his name into the air —
He shatters from the frozen shock of seeing her there as a thousand emotions run through. Except he holds himself back from touching her - not yet! He’s close but not close enough to let himself do that right yet. Let the slow burn of her just being real sink in a little further. Then he’ll touch. No - too sweet, too simple; he’ll devour her in all the best ways possible.
His name exiting her mouth again and that quiet smile settling in its place is enough to smooth the scowl from his handsome but older face. He’s not yet brought himself to touching her as she throws his question back in his face and a smile tugs at the corners of his gruff lips. It doesn’t matter if either of them is real or not because she insists that they both are the moment she pushes against him a dm sends all his senses reeling out into the ether.
Only she grounds him as much as she makes him spin out of orbit. She claims him in a breathy tone of possession that he fails to shrug off or ignore. The truth of it is too strong and holds him there fast and sure. He can feel every inch of his skin come alive as she reclaims him bit by bit from chin to jawline. Still he’s not let his mouth stray all over her though a hunger to do so builds in him.
She snuggles into him - apricot and indigo to his dark and wild bay - and his resolve crumbles. He noses deep into soft springy mess of her hair against her neck. Giving off small snorty inhales as his lungs fight for her scent to be plastered all over them. Her scent alone could replace air and he’d be just fine, he thinks. His resolve gathers itself again and pulls his face back to hers just as she asks him to stay. This is delicate - a wrong move, a wrong word and everything could be shattered in a heartbeat.
That same heartbeat swells inside him and forces out his answer as her lips find the corner of his mouth and magic happens - her magic. Her particular gift of life and healing that fills him just not as completely as the mere sight of her does or better yet, the press of her against him. “Forever.” he vows instantly in the wake of that small blue flicker and the movement of her lips against his. “Forever,” he promises more vehemently as he drags her closer with his neck until they’re skin to skin and fit snugly together.
“I don’t want to be without you any more.”
He admits, thinking the admission would be painful but it wasn’t. It was liberating and he hid a smile in her hair as he buried his face there until he couldn’t smell the world any more - just her, just his lovely wild Exist.
@[exist] ❤️