It feels surreal, this moment, and he sinks readily into it. It is so easy, too easy, to think that this will be everlasting. That they will be here in the cocoon of silence in the aftermath of chaos and be able to relax into the moment with no repercussions. But he knows better than most that this would be just the eye of the storm. He knows that the anguish she had just felt was only the beginning of it. There was more to come. There was more that she would have to work through. More that she would have to feel.
More apologies to make and sins to atone for and they wouldn’t be to him.
But he doesn’t focus on that now—can’t. Not when she’s pressed against him and they are tangled together, not when for the first time ever, they are exchanging these truths to one another. It is a relief to be honest with her finally, to be able to tell her what he is actually thinking instead of the lie that he has made up in the hopes of driving her further away. Instead, he is scrubbed raw, completely vulnerable.
So he doesn’t flinch away from the way his heart clenches in his chest at her affirmation. At her saying that she really is glad that he’s here. His head nearly swims with it and his pulse pounds slowly. She is still beneath his cheek, the heat of her intoxicating, but he doesn’t move at her question. He just smiles against her, laughing sorting so that his breath fans out over her unmarred skin.
“You’ve always been worth staying for,” he admits, before continuing. “But I think for the first time, I am maybe someone who is worth staying.” It eludes to their earlier conversation, to the confession he had made when he had been so desperate to bring her back that he would have confessed anything—would have given up any truth to break through the ice around her. “I think I am finally good enough to try.”
He swallows, hard, a soft tremble racing through him.
“I would try, for you, Maze. I would.”
His mouth opens to say more and then closes, heart racing.
so as our grief falls flat and hollow upon a billion blooded seas
all our worst ideas are borrowed (you do and don't belong to me)