— I'll break you a hundred different ways —
He watches her sometimes, when she isn’t looking – when she is being herself, or when she is with their children.
He is afraid of suffocating her, afraid that if he is always there then she will find that he is too much, too close, and that he will drive her away. Such a peculiar thing, for a man like him to worry about. The man that had once cared only for solitude, the man that once was afraid of growing accustomed to what the warmth of her body felt like next to him, and so he had made sure to always leave before he could memorize her.
And now – now, he cannot imagine a day or night without her, or their children. He had gone from being alone to being nearly smothered, and stoic though he may be, he wouldn’t trade them for anything.
And so he watches her, the darkness of his eyes caressing her curves from a distance, knowing that if he wanted, he could meet her at the surf and drag her to him. She was his, just as he was hers. These moments apart were rare, and though he ached for her, from the marrow of his bones, he appreciates the way she looks from where he stands. The same way she had looked when he first saw her, red and white against the turquoise of the ocean, with sea-green eyes that had looked straight into him. The same way they do now, when she turns her back on the waves and looks at him, her beautiful eyes colliding with his guarded gaze and crashing right through.
“Always,” the word is spoken in his rough, graveled voice, but the sound is softened by the crooked smile on his face. She knew full well he was only looking at her; the sky could have been falling behind her and he wouldn’t have noticed.
He meets her half-way, reaching for her the moment she is close enough. His neck rests over the top of hers and he pulls her into his chest, pressing his lips into any skin he can find and breathing her in. “I love you, too,” he had never expected those words to be so easy to say, but for her, they fall from his lips like rain. His nose remains buried in the waves of her mane, reveling in how she smells like the sea, like him, and like their family. And for a moment all he does is breathe, letting the serenity that she brings settle into the wildness of his veins. Finally, he breaks their quiet, asking with a bemused curiosity, “It’s awfully quiet. Where is everyone?” With six children – Choke, the quadruplets, and Despoina – any sort of quiet was a rarity, and as he had learned with this particular group, not always a good sign.
— and I'll make you remember my face —
