Work Text:
Walton looks straight into Victor's deep, brown eyes, “I want you.”
Victor blinks. Once. Twice. He says nothing and Robert's heart falls in his chest. “If you are ruined - so rapt by guilt that you cannot experience any human pleasure- oh Victor, if you are ruined, then there is no hope for me because my happiness relies on yours,” Robert places his hand on Victor's knee, feeling the tears form in his eyes, “Victor. If my desire repulses you then…”
Then what? Robert dares to look at Victor's face, his lips parted and dry, his skin still pale and eyes sunken.Then he'd let him go back into the Arctic alone? Victor would indubitably die as soon as he took two steps into the cold. If Victor said the words, ‘I do not want you back’, would he stop being in-love with him? Robert was not going to lie, not here, not whilst offering himself to Victor in defiance of God. What would be the point of lying then whilst already so vulnerable?
Walton touches; with the same fingers that received communion and turned pages of novels and embraced his sister and held his father's dying hand; Robert feels the pounding of his heart under his chest.
“Let me have you, Victor.”