The night hangs thickly over the Earth, broken only by the ghostly face of the moon and punctured by silver-white stars.
The curtains are wide, the window open. We can see the whole world from his small, rickety bed.
Silence.
Silence apart from the rise and fall of his breath, like the roll of waves on the shore. I slow my own breathing to match.
The watery light from the delicate moon has stained his hair an inky blue-black, like that which flows like music from a quill.
With a touch as soft as a butterfly's wing, I brush the dark strands from his forehead. From his scar.
He shifts in his sleep, pressing his head against my fingers.
My breath catches in my throat.
I let my hand fall, grazing his cheek with my knuckle, to his chest. His heart beats against my palm. His fragile, breakable body kept alive by this terrifyingly weak muscle. I trace my initials over its rhythm.
A smile flickers like a flame over his sleeping face and my chest swells with emotion.
Mine.
Even as he sleeps he makes my pulse race for him.
I cup my hand over the arch where his neck meets his shoulder. An arch my tongue has followed and my cheek has rested on. An arch which was made, he says, exclusively for me.
I smile and press my body to him, laying my head on his shoulder. I fold around him like honey. He sighs in his sleep and one of his arms curls round me like a flower.
It's warm.
He's always so warm.
I press my feet against his.
Somewhere, a clock is ticking; a soft, soothing pulse as the minutes drift by.
But we can't feel them.
Wrapped in his bed, in this small, familiar room…
We're immortal, him and I.