This. Is. So. SAPPY. But I don't care, since everything involving PH seems to make me really depressed lately, and I needed this like whoa. It makes me kind of sad that the only way I can write these two in a happy situation is in a complete alternate universe with no seal and no death and pretty much about 1% of canon material, but I'm winging it, man. /shuts up now, sorry
Lyrics are "Make You Feel My Love" covered by Adele.
prompt: 413. heart within the eyes
.nine
/
i know you haven't made your mind up yet
but i would never do you wrong
i've known it from the moment we met
no doubt in my mind where you belong
/
Oz is in your bed again, wrapped up in white and nestled into the pillow, and he's listening to you tell him everything you've never had the chance to say. It would take you centuries, surely, to get out every word and thought that's been brewing and curdling over this entire lifetime with him, and so you paraphrase the best you can, even when each point seems to sizzle on the tip of your tongue from finally being relieved upon its release. Your hands are just within touching distance; you're both weary and yet oddly riled, quietly buzzing.
"What was the hardest part?" Oz asks, curled up on his side and facing you. He reaches up to scratch his cheek for a moment, and leaves a faint trace of pink in his wake that fades within seconds. "The worst year…what was it?"
"All of them," you say without hesitation. You reach out and stroke the pad of your thumb over where he had scratched. "No year was ever better than another. At the same time…no year was worse than another, either. They were all just…"
"A blur?" Oz finishes for you, eager to give your dizzy thoughts shape and meaning.
But it's not quite right. "Not a blur," you murmur, turning your head to fix your gaze on Oz's collarbone winking at you from just above the flap of his shirt. "More like…those years are almost too vivid. Too sharp, rather. I feel like I would cut my hands on them if I ever tried to reach out and…touch them."
You have absolutely no idea what you're trying to get at here, but the words roll off your tongue in thoughtless little spirals that curl like strips of ribbon passed between scissors, winding around themselves and unable to straighten out sensibly. You can only hope that Oz understands, hope that you're not scaring him.
"I never stopped feeling guilty," you admit on a whisper. "It was the one and only thing that didn't change over those ten years. The guilt."
"I don't believe that." Oz's voice is as soft as his eyes as he wriggles a bit, making himself comfortable within the cocoon of wool draped over his body. "Was that really the only thing that stayed the same about you, Gil? Nothing else?"
You give a small, tired smile at that question. "Well," you sigh out, "it's more like…anything in my mind that involved you never changed, while anything involving me…" With a shake of your head, you roll over onto your side as well, facing Oz but avoiding his eye all the same. "Looks like I'm just as rubbish with words as ever, huh."
"You're silly in a lot of ways, Gil." Oz's mouth lifts in a little curve of a smile; you watch it, quietly transfixed. "But none of them are bad, not like you think."
That tender smile is overwhelming. You expel a long, unsteady breath through your nose and close your eyes in a meager attempt to calm the erratic thumping of your pulse as it rises to the space at the base of your throat, hot and uncomfortable. Oz's eyes are still on you – you can feel them. "I just wish I could block it all out," you mumble on a pained shudder. "All of it, I just want to forget all of it…"
Oz is silent for a moment, and you're just about to assume that you've gone and messed everything up yet again before you feel him shift beside you and move closer. The sheets rustle at the subtle movement, as do your nerves as you open your eyes and look at him. He looks tentative and oddly bashful, but not in your fashion of blushing and fumbling for your words; it's in a quieter sense, and would likely go unnoticed were anyone else to look at him, anyone that hasn't seen this boy at his best and brightest no matter how forced that smile can be or how shadowed you know that heart truly is. Your breath catches in your throat at the sight of his guarded, thoughtful eyes and soft mouth parted just so, as if he's ruminating on something very crucial and needs a moment to figure out how to go about answering it. The expression is strangely piercing in its openness, and you find yourself holding your breath for fear of snapping Oz out of it and ruining the illusion.
But it's not an illusion, is it? Oz attests to this with a slow lift of his hand, fingers tentative and reaching, before he settles his palm atop your head, touching your damp hair with deft fingertips. You don't dare breathe, too spellbound by the quiet contemplation in his eyes to even consider a sound or a movement of your own. After a moment's stillness, Oz furrows his brow in a light knit of concentration as he relaxes his hand and slips his fingers through your hair, just barely grazing along your scalp. You shiver in spite of yourself; it feels nice, and Oz is so close after years of being so far away. "Your hair's still as soft as ever," he murmurs, "just like it was before I left you."
You're afraid to close your eyes now. You want to keep looking at him, even as your face flushes warm and your eyes lid. "You didn't…leave me."
"I left you all by yourself for the longest time," Oz whispers, his gaze misted and lost. "I made you go through that all on your own…"
Your throat is starting to tighten, something heavy welling up in your chest. Is Oz talking about those ten years? Or is this something that stretched out longer than that, spiraling into the time long after he'd returned? The regretful distance in Oz's gaze as he strokes your hair tells you it might just be the latter case after all, and that both relieves and hurts you at the same time – relief for the fact that Oz is finally seeing, but hurt for the fact that it pains him so, and perhaps that pain renders the revelation unworthy; anything for your sake that hurts him isn't what you want, no matter how your heart twists and seems to soar up to the ceiling at how he's touching you, how he's near you and with you and safe in the face of this realization. There are endless other places he could be right now, but he's nowhere else but right here in your bed, in your creaky, cold apartment, in this nook of a city where the people stay alive on coffee and count their blessings on one hand and where the tenants' laundry is hung out on lines between the brick buildings, waving and fluttering like white flags when there's a breeze. The snow takes so much longer to melt here, what with the shadows of the alleys preserving it and keeping it safe from the sun; now that Oz is here, and now that all the horror and confusion has tided over into something much like peace, he'll see that, won't he? He'll be able to stay here with you for as long as he can bring himself to, and if that's for five thousand years or just five minutes, then by god, you'll hold onto every second, just as you always have.
"I can't say it," Oz whispers, and there's a wild little laugh bubbling up from beneath his words that tells you he's trying to brush off this turn of the heart just as quickly as it arrived. But there's no hiding from the faint glow of tears that glaze over his eyes and color them four shades brighter, his cheeks touched with pink and his lower lip quivering as he tries to smile. The hand lightly buried in your hair shakes a little, fingers still awkwardly slipping through messy locks and sending your bangs tumbling sloppily over your forehead. Is he trying to cover your eyes? Let him – you can still see him through the spaces between unruly black, can see how he's struggling to speak but is still so very afraid. That's all right, you think with a tiny, wobbly smile, that heaviness in your chest swapped out for a dizzy sort of lightness that makes your head spin. You don't have to say anything. It's okay.
Oz's meager Adam's apple bobs in a hard swallow. You watch it, more and more aware of how he's growing, how he's grown over this past year. Does he see it in himself? Now that everything is quiet and has slowed down, will he finally have the time to? You hope so, hope with everything you're made of; it's all you've ever wanted for him – to have time, and to see himself as you see him, and to live, not for you, but for himself.
"You…you know what I'm trying to say, right?" There's that quiet cover-up of a laugh again, and the quiet ruffle of sheets as he shifts beside you. "Because…there's a lot of people I want to say it to, but you've always been the hardest and I don't know why that is, but…"
It's not like him to babble. Your lips are trembling in the midst of your smile, and you hope you don't start crying like a moron, but how can you help it? Oz is finally seeing, finally admitting, even as he wages wars with himself to say the things he's always been so scared to utter. You expel a sharp breath that curls away into a shaky laugh of your own, tentative to move closer to him just in case he still wants that safety net of distance between you two; if he does, that's okay, that's okay, but god, you want to hold him so badly that your body all but burns for him, burns to reach out and gather him against your chest and revel in the closeness that you've both denied each other for years on top of years.
But you don't have to wish a moment longer, because within the next blink, Oz is mumbling something incoherent beneath his breath and shakily scooting forward until you're both chest to chest, his arms stiff by his sides and eyes cast downwards – a complete contrast to how languid and warm you've become in his presence, eyes misty and lidded as you gaze at him from behind your bangs. He bows his head and settles the blond crown of it right atop your scar, only half-concealed by loose, open fabric, and you can feel his breath puffing out in short, uneven little exhales, a subtle portrait of his uncertainty, his need to understand overriding his longing to run away. Your throat tightens again as your eyes close; that tremulous little smile never falters from your lips.
"I want to say it," Oz mumbles into your chest. He reaches up and places his palm on your shoulder, hovering before it for just a moment before letting himself touch you. You instinctively lean into him, ever shivering. "But…something keeps holding me back and I just…I want to say it, Gil, I really do."
Why are you crying? Is it because you're overwhelmed? Is the relief too much? There are too many things whirring through your mind and through your heart for you to keep track of, and all of them speak of love – from wild and flashing love, to love as silent and soft as gathering snow outside the window, and you feel it all, all at once, complete and unstoppable and finally being given a place to belong.
Whatever the case, perhaps it doesn't need words to validate itself. Perhaps, you think as you wrap your arms around Oz's broadening shoulders and breathe him in, Oz doesn't have to say anything at all, because it's already there, warming you from the inside out as the details begin falling into place after so long of being scattered.
"It's okay," you murmur, everything weak and warm. "You just did."
