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"You may well be the strongest person I've ever known."
"Hm," Lune says. Her voice is neutral, but Verso can see something hardening in her stare, something closing in her expression.
"You didn't like that," he comments.
Her gaze leaves his face to surveil the horizon. Always on guard.
"No," she agrees.
"Is it because you've had to be strong, and you wish you hadn't?"
Her eyes flicker back to his face, before returning to the land before them. "You’re surprisingly insightful, sometimes."
"Sometimes?" Verso asks, teasing.
"And sometimes very dense," she says flatly, turning her back to him to check the perimeter.
The corner of Verso's lip lifts slightly, but he says nothing, turning the opposite way to keep watch on Lune's blind spots.
The fur of his coat tickles the top of her back as he moves, more distracting than it strictly should be; and yet she doesn't move away. There's warmth emanating from his body, and the night is cold. It's only practical.
"I get it," Verso speaks up again, voice lower.
"Do you," she says flatly.
"I think I do. It's exhausting."
"You talk a lot," Lune says, turning back towards him. "But never about you."
He glances back at her, without changing position. "You've asked about me plenty. I've replied."
"Barely. It's like pulling teeth out of a Gestral."
"Gestrals don't have mouths."
"Precisely."
Verso looks away again with a sigh, arms crossing. "I'm just not that interesting."
"Bullshit."
He turns his face back to her with a teasing half-smile. "You find me interesting?"
"You have a lot of—knowledge," Lune backtracks.
"About myself?"
"Among others."
He gives a last glance at his side of the camp before turning back towards her, face suddenly more serious. "There's knowledge you don't want to have," he says.
"I would rathet make that determination for myself."
"Just trust me on that."
"That's the thing," Lune says, taking a step forward. "I don't know that I do."
It's one step too close, she realises as soon as she finishes her sentence. They're almost chest to chest now, almost nose to nose as he looks down at her with those disarming—disarmed grey eyes.
He has such an expressive face for someone so secretive. She can see how lost he is, how tired, how full of longing. Her chest constricts, a little, and she fails to take in a measured breath, hiccuping a little instead. His warmth feels almost like a physical thing now, this close, like it has a shape, like she could touch it. He doesn't reply, expression open and vulnerable, waiting... waiting for what?
She knows for what. She shouldn't pretend ignorance, not even to herself. They have so little time—she has so little time. He has forever, and the pain of it etched into his features.
To each their own burden.
Lune doesn't have the luxury of pain. There is no time, not enough. There never was. It has always felt so distinctly clear to her, this silent countdown bringing her ever closer to the Gommage— she has always felt the seconds leaving her body like grains of sand, escaping the broken hourglass human lives have become ever since the Fracture.
"Why?" she whispers.
She feels oddly protective, suddenly, of this broken man in front of her, this man who will more than likely watch her die, and still remain. She cannot imagine the weight of the pain he is carrying.
She cannot imagine adding to it.
"Why?" he repeats daftly, as if he didn't understand.
She lifts a hand to tuck a stray strand of white hair behind his ear.
"Why," she repeats calmly, "do this to yourself?"
She doesn't expect a real answer. Only one of his usual evasive replies—but he seems mesmerised by her face, or her stare, or the touch of her fingers still hovering by his ear.
"It gets lonely," he says simply, almost whispering—unless it's just his voice cracking.
And since this, she can tell, is finally a true answer, she kisses him.