[ Bastien hasn’t been keeping account, so he doesn’t realize until the moment after he hears Byerly says it that it’s a first. Not the first I love you, but the first one that isn’t accompanied by fears and doubts about whether it’s love at all, or said in a dream, or shared with someone else. The first one that’s simple.
It feels like a fist unclenching, at least partway, so the thing that was hidden safe and crushed inside it can spread out a bit further in his chest. ]
Thank you.
[ —which is a stupid thing to say, but he means it, and he needs half of his wits just to resist a series of impulses: to pull back into the safety of a joke, like a coward; to say like you said when exactly and pry more words out of Byerly, get everything in me in writing, to make him go first into the dark room (again), also like a coward; and to crash forward, to say I’m breaking my promise, here’s my whole heart, do whatever you like with it—
Not like a coward. But possibly like someone who’s made a life out of being what people want. Who gets tangled in it sometimes. He can’t trust it not to be a lie until he knows he still feels it when he’s alone.
So he nestles closer, and he says what he is sure of, mumbly because his mouth is pressed against Byerly’s forehead: ]
no subject
It feels like a fist unclenching, at least partway, so the thing that was hidden safe and crushed inside it can spread out a bit further in his chest. ]
Thank you.
[ —which is a stupid thing to say, but he means it, and he needs half of his wits just to resist a series of impulses: to pull back into the safety of a joke, like a coward; to say like you said when exactly and pry more words out of Byerly, get everything in me in writing, to make him go first into the dark room (again), also like a coward; and to crash forward, to say I’m breaking my promise, here’s my whole heart, do whatever you like with it—
Not like a coward. But possibly like someone who’s made a life out of being what people want. Who gets tangled in it sometimes. He can’t trust it not to be a lie until he knows he still feels it when he’s alone.
So he nestles closer, and he says what he is sure of, mumbly because his mouth is pressed against Byerly’s forehead: ]
I love you, too. And I’m proud of you.