I've learned to live with these fatal gifts
and still you're mine
He does not sleep. Not in the normal way of sleep. And so the echoes of her nightmares reach him before her eyes ever open. She may not know when they had started again, but he could count the days. Every time it tears him apart. The raw and aching desire to shield her from them is impossible to deny. The helplessness of knowing he doesn’t have that power gouges holes deep into his very marrow.
The only thing he can do is pull her close, his whispers of love in her ear, against her skin, the only defense he has against the demons that torment her. Demons he is powerless to confront.
He has not told her how much he truly knows. Cannot bear to see the inevitable shadow of guilt in her eyes if he did. So he does not. He allows the softness of his name on her lips to soothe the ache squeezing his chest, lips pressing against the satin of her skin, the luminous yellow of his gaze shuttered behind lids until he can chase the ferocity from them.
“Briseis.” Her name is a prayer on his tongue, uttered with every ounce of love and devotion that exist within him. “I am here.”
He would always be here. An inalienable fact. One she cannot be ignorant of, for all the times he had uttered it to her over the years. And yet, it never seems enough to dispel her fears. Never seems enough to dispel his own. There are times he wishes he could open his heart and soul to her in better ways. To let her feel just how deeply he loves her. To see just how impossible the idea of him ever leaving truly is.
But the shadows are his only true gift, and they do not possess this power. The only weapon he has against her demons are his words, as insufficient as they are.
“I love you.”