[ The world teeters on the edge when Verso's smile fades. Clive, dripping droplets onto Verso's collar, watches the planes of the other man's face shift and settle, and wonders if the unseriousness offended― if it somehow read as callous or dismissive of the depth of Verso's current state of emotion.
But the hand tangled in his hair stays, and Clive is kept where he is, poised over Verso in freezing snow, waiting for a verdict―
―which is I love you, misting from that beautiful mouth.
It almost doesn't register. Blissful dissonance: the statement is at once too obvious and too blindsiding to digest. The three words that have defined Clive ever since they first kissed in witness of black-and-gold. That vague Something, flourishing under pressure and heartache.
For a moment, Clive forgets to breathe, bowled over by the substantive enormity of what they both knew to be evident. The ache in his chest is sweet, and paralyzing, and reaches far beyond what human physicality should allow for. ]
―As do I. [ Finally, on the tail end of a held inhale. ] I love you too, Verso.
[ Does it feel liberating to say it? Not quite: it feels like an unraveling. Clive unfurls, and god, he's sentimental about it. ]
Mon étoile. [ Hands still bracketing Verso's face, thumbs along the corners of both of Verso's pale, pale eyes. ] I love you.
[ His voice scrapes in the back of his throat; he's never said this before to anyone but Verso, and he wonders, briefly, if he can be believed. ]
THEY DO!!! i'm neither sane nor normal about them
But the hand tangled in his hair stays, and Clive is kept where he is, poised over Verso in freezing snow, waiting for a verdict―
―which is I love you, misting from that beautiful mouth.
It almost doesn't register. Blissful dissonance: the statement is at once too obvious and too blindsiding to digest. The three words that have defined Clive ever since they first kissed in witness of black-and-gold. That vague Something, flourishing under pressure and heartache.
For a moment, Clive forgets to breathe, bowled over by the substantive enormity of what they both knew to be evident. The ache in his chest is sweet, and paralyzing, and reaches far beyond what human physicality should allow for. ]
―As do I. [ Finally, on the tail end of a held inhale. ] I love you too, Verso.
[ Does it feel liberating to say it? Not quite: it feels like an unraveling. Clive unfurls, and god, he's sentimental about it. ]
Mon étoile. [ Hands still bracketing Verso's face, thumbs along the corners of both of Verso's pale, pale eyes. ] I love you.
[ His voice scrapes in the back of his throat; he's never said this before to anyone but Verso, and he wonders, briefly, if he can be believed. ]
I love you so much.