Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I was so happy I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t sleep. I was so happy that it broke through everything I kept away, tore itself a place in me in the form of a wide, toothy grin. Bumblebee buzzing melting into swathing heat, growing in my chest till it felt like I would split open and release a swarm of delight into the world.

The words were so simple, coming from him. Like fact, honest and steady. I haven’t spoken a word to him in years—at least two years. Yet, he speaks those words, makes a fool out of my heart with such ease that I thought it would kill me. I told him with text and emotion I did not think I would ever be brave enough to verbalize, to give form to any of the thousand thoughts in my head. I told him that, guilt heavy and choking and yet a lingering sweet happiness rising in me, because I knew he would always accept me as I was. That was the measure of my trust in him, even as the guilt of it swallowed me whole.

I told him. Then, he told me, smiling with that glint in his eyes, that fondness he tried so hard to hide away, “If it’s you, all that I need is the memory.”

Does he understand how heavy those words are? How they slammed into me like a thousand trucks, a hundred tidal waves, a rock slide of emotion that came crumbling down atop me? A hurricane of feeling that became hotter and hotter and bigger and larger until I could not see past its enormity? I did not ever know that I could be happy like this. It never seemed possible.

I only ever spoke to him once or twice, in quiet tones I hardly remember myself. He tells me that he remembers, if vaguely, those rare words. He tells me that those few moments shine like gold in his memory.

I am so happy I do not think I will ever stop smiling. I am so happy that I don’t know what to do with it, so happy that it builds up behind my eyes and comes out in a euphoric flood. It makes no sense, that something like this could make me so happy.

Something so simple, so easy, and yet it leaves me crumbling into honeycomb pieces, sweet honey oozing from the cracks as if it were my blood.

Years and years and years and years. Over half a decade. I never gave this hesitation a thought in my head, fearful of what it meant. I never gave that strangled feeling a name, petrified at its reality. I never even dared to express my desire for silence, for words are a necessity in this loud world.

He told me, face pressed against my shoulder as he leant into my side, “You make me into a fool.”

He told me, frustration deep in his eyes yet nowhere near as harsh as it should be, “You idiot, it doesn’t matter because it’s you.”

He told me, bloodied up to the elbows in the aftermath of battle, grey eyes gleaming in the sunlight like something I didn’t have a name for but Lord if I didn’t want to kiss him in that moment, “You are wonderful,” and I dared to believe him.

I don’t have the words. I don’t think I will ever have the words—they keep running away from me. But I can think them, I can think them. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. The words repeat themselves and become a messy flood of sound, a staccato that rises and lowers and shrieks and rumbles until all that remains is the heavy beat of my own heart, thick blood rushing through my veins.

I will never have the words. He has always known my emotions well. A smile, a smile, one I cannot give a name to. Small and sweet and I cannot bear it, I cannot handle it. Hot tears well up and I try to breathe past the immeasurable emotion. I try to breathe past it.

His hand, on mine. It’s something so simple. It’s something so lovely. I lean in, press my forehead against his shoulder to hide my face—always hiding, bone-deep habit—and I breathe him in. He fills my lungs with savory smoke, lingering even when I breathe him out.

Gently, he leans into me. Normally he would recoil, disgust warring with that terribly soft contempt as he tried to wipe the tears from the expensive fabric, all offended-like, a prissy black cat mad about a raindrop. But, Lord, how he leant into me, let me lean into him. Something so terribly small was blown into something larger than the world, larger than life, larger than anything I’d ever known.

Years and years ago I was told that love is one of the worst emotions to feel, for it could kill in one swift strike. I was told that it took bravery, that it was a choice to make, deciding to risk the murder of a self. Pa wasn’t wrong.

This choice, this choice I dare to make. I dared to lean in, breathe him in and swallow up the scent of smoke, feeling as if I were choking to death on the lack of it. The Gunslinger is awfully tight, cinching the fabric of his shirt until little tears began to wear through. And yet, not one word of complaint. I could feel his gaze upon me and not once did it feel negative.

This choice I dare to make. Love is a choice, a moment, a memory. Something to be remembered and chosen again and again.

Something so important shouldn’t be so simple. He sighs, a soft sound I hear through the blood rushing in my ears, and presses a slim hand wide against my back.

Never before has something been so easy.

Chapter Text

It's early in the morning, and I always wake up early. Earlier than him, for sure.

I need to get up. There are things to do and things to build and things to think, none of which I can do here. His arm is around my waist and it's so tight of an embrace that I spend a moment wondering if he's awake, If his eternally keen senses jolted him awake the second my breathing changed.

I wouldn't be surprised in the least. But the way he holds on, thin gangly limbs wrapped around me like a great big spider, it's impossibly sweet. Warmth hollows me out in moments. I don't ever have the heart to get up, but I can damn well try.

I think that. Lord, I think that. I manage to get halfway into sitting up before a soft trill of displeasure follows me—and, really, I can never decide if the man is more birdlike with his habits or more catlike—slim grey eyes cracking open. Sometimes I can't believe that I once never cared for those eyes, so striking and lovely. He's tame like this, so ruffled and gentled that it is as if he has dulled his edges, just for me.

Still, he deigns to press his face into the middle of my chest, relaxing the moment I still. The gesture of trust, that relaxation, the way I know that his face is his own in how it smoothens and brightens in tiny increments, it strikes me with a bolt of lightning. Trust is such a beautiful, delicate thing. That he gives himself to me like this, hands himself over with the knowledge that he will be given back just as he was before, if not better… I will never have the words for it.

Lost in thought, I almost miss his words, slow and quiet in the morning cold. “Five more minutes,” he whispers softly, half-muffled by the fabric of my shirt. It sounds like a fragment of yearning, pleading for one moment longer.

I can never make myself run from him. What kind of fool I am to love a Spy, I have no clue. He makes a soft sound as I settle back into bed, sweet and lovely beyond any words I have, filled with contentment. Five minutes isn’t enough, I decide. It won’t ever be enough.

I’ve never met a man so good at making me happy like this, in such a simple and quiet way. Nothing grand has ever been necessary; for the longest time, it was simply the two of us, together. Was a label needed? Of course not. Emotion is emotion, and while labels were good to iron out the details, we both knew each other well enough to know that what we had did not need a label. Hell, it didn’t even need a name.

It was just us. Just us, the two of us, hand in hand, swallowing back tears, laughter so rich it burns in my lungs, quiet moments so long I thought they would last forever. There is something special about existing together, two people becoming one thing in the silence.

Five more minutes will never be enough. A decade, a century, the rest of my entire life. A lifetime of this. I am not religious and I never intend to be. But I pray to whatever god listens for one simple thing; a lifetime, please. One long lifetime with him.