Work Text:
love burned through your chest, fierce and protective and hungry.
it surged through your veins, settling into every crack and crevice and trying, pushing, prying its way out of your throat.
the urge to spill praises and promises almost consumed you.
the dim light of his phone filled the corner he was sitting in, catching on his cheeks and dancing in his eyes, painting the white streak of his hair an almost-blue as he read whatever was on his screen.
he was thumbing at the damaged corner of his phone case, fully engrossed in what he was doing and looking like a movie scene. something put together by an artist, something to capture a painfully human moment and leave the audience with a haunting mixture of belonging and yearning and something in between the two.
it succeeded, that sense of humanity and reality and mundanity and love filling your entire being as you watched him breathe.
you wrote and rewrote entire monologues in your mind, sitting on the floor of your hallway: lengthy, poetic pieces for the man in front of you.
rosy sweet descriptions of beauty; warm musings on what it meant to be truly alive and how he, despite everything, managed it; passionate speeches about how much love he deserved and how desperately you wanted to give all of it to him and then some. almost too much for you to contain.
then, when his eyes- more blue than green in the light of his screen, but as dazzling as ever- flicked up to meet yours, you scrapped every word you had stitched together. none of them could even hold a candle to the aching in your chest, to the way his brow furrowed in concern.
“you okay?”
the words came surging back, hitting the back of your teeth and begging to spill out into the cool night air and make him understand what you thought. how much you felt. how all-consuming it was, in that moment, to look at him and have him be alive and yours.
but he would shut down, pull away, too full of his own emotion and baggage.
if it was rage burning through you, he would take that without hesitation. if it was sadness consuming you, he would let you cry against him until he drowned.
but after everything, you knew that he wouldn’t know how to carry all of your affection.
not yet.
all that escaped you was a rich “i love you,” short and sweet and simple, which painted a smile on his lips and tugged a chuckle out of his chest.
“i love you too.”
those four words were like gasoline to the blaze in your heart, carrying you across the hallway and pushing you into his side.
he wrapped his free arm around your shoulders and lowered his phone slightly. “seriously, is everything alright?”
“better now."