He doesn’t know how it came to this — your weight nestled on his lap, your hands in his hair, your mouth trailing kisses along his cheekbones, his jaw, the place just under his ear that makes him forget how to breathe.

You’re kissing him like he’s not dangerous. Like he’s not cursed.

Like he’s worthy.

Your touch is light, but your presence presses against every quiet part of his soul he thought he had sealed off long ago. He doesn’t stop you — can’t. Not because he’s frozen, but because something in him aches when you touch him like that. He wants to hold you. Wants to deserve this.

He remembers the blood.

How it splashed across your skin when he stepped in front of that Specter. The moment you collapsed. The way the world stopped. The way his heart stopped.

He’d sworn never to let his poison harm another innocent. Yet it had happened. Again.

Only… it didn’t.

You didn’t wither. You didn’t die. You lived.

And worse — or better, he’s not sure — you smiled at him after. You reached for him. You sat beside him like he was something warm, not something to fear. And now, here you are, curled close, peppering him in affection like you’ll never run out of it.

Your lips press to the center of his forehead.

He almost pulls away. Almost tells you to stop, to not come closer, to be careful — like he always does.

But then your hands rest at the back of his neck. And he lets his forehead fall against your shoulder. Just for a moment. Just to pretend.

You smell like lavender and home. You’re small in his arms, but you hold him like he’s the fragile one.

Perhaps he is.

Because in this moment — with your warmth seeping into his chest, with your heartbeat so close — Albafica of Pisces lets himself think, maybe… maybe I don’t have to be alone anymore.

And for the first time in a long, long time…

He hopes.