He’d regretted asking it before he even saw her face, had not thought through what she would take from it - that he didn’t believe her feelings. That wasn’t it, of course; how could he doubt her, after all this time? But all the same Tybalt didn’t want her to have to give things up. All the same, the complexity of their situation was suffocating, and the question had felt like a way to provoke... something. Anything. A way to release some of the pent-up frustration, maybe.
A bad way, he realised, but only as Elsie halted him in his tracks before he spiralled too far. She might’ve managed it in a million different ways, with a hundred different words, but a shake of her head worked just as well to convince him. And the kiss: well, it might be the most efficient way to stop him thinking.
(Thinking seemed to do him very little good. The more he thought, the worse he felt.)
And it had been so very long that he had almost forgotten how good this felt, being in her company, being at total liberty for a moment to feel how they did, and even act on it for once. Her news had plummeted him into such pensive gloominess - toeing the line of a dangerous sort of desperation - that he had nearly forgotten to revel in the miracle of it.
“Sorry,” Tyb breathed, still close enough after she had kissed him to whisper it and feel his breath exhaled against her cheek. Sorry for the question and his quietness, sorry that she might even think he doubted her, or that this wasn’t worth it. Because it was, and would be, and even if it all turned out terribly at least he could kiss her again now, lean in and try to make up for the rest of it, to find a bright side here. He wrapped his hands around her waist to pull her in close, hoping, as she just had, that he could explain all those pent-up feelings more fervently without words.
A bad way, he realised, but only as Elsie halted him in his tracks before he spiralled too far. She might’ve managed it in a million different ways, with a hundred different words, but a shake of her head worked just as well to convince him. And the kiss: well, it might be the most efficient way to stop him thinking.
(Thinking seemed to do him very little good. The more he thought, the worse he felt.)
And it had been so very long that he had almost forgotten how good this felt, being in her company, being at total liberty for a moment to feel how they did, and even act on it for once. Her news had plummeted him into such pensive gloominess - toeing the line of a dangerous sort of desperation - that he had nearly forgotten to revel in the miracle of it.
“Sorry,” Tyb breathed, still close enough after she had kissed him to whisper it and feel his breath exhaled against her cheek. Sorry for the question and his quietness, sorry that she might even think he doubted her, or that this wasn’t worth it. Because it was, and would be, and even if it all turned out terribly at least he could kiss her again now, lean in and try to make up for the rest of it, to find a bright side here. He wrapped his hands around her waist to pull her in close, hoping, as she just had, that he could explain all those pent-up feelings more fervently without words.
