a/n: so if you've ever seen doctor who, you're gonna recognize elliot's monologue. I was inspired by this monologue and wanted to put my own twist on it. Also, thank you to none other than the incredible Erin for helping me tremendously on this
The Suns of New York
"Wakey wakey." Elliot could hear the faint taunt just outside of the screeching buzz in his ears. His head throbbed, warm liquid dripping down from his forehead. His eyes opened without his permission, taking in as much of the blurry view as his sight would let him.
He tried to account for his last known whereabouts but the memory had been knocked out of him with whatever had plunged against his skull. His jaw ached as his tongue ran over his teeth, recognizing the familiar and dreaded metallic taste of blood.
His hands were bound behind his back, he could feel that much. Tied to a chair with rope or something that was digging into his skin. His shoulder blades burned from the tension of being pulled tightly behind himself.
He blinked, realizing that hateful eyes were smirking at him.
"Wheatley…" he managed to mumble.
"Don't worry, we're not here to kill you," Richard responded, running his fingers along the gun he had confiscated from Elliot. "Or maybe we are, it's still being decided."
We?
There was a long list of who 'we' could be. Too long of a list for his liking.
He blinked a few more times, instantly growing cold with fear. Behind Wheatley stood the other man. He tried to clear his vision more to see if it was true. There stood the man who had taken Elliot, or better yet, 'Eddie' into his confidence. A man who had found that to be the wrong decision only after losing everything.
"You remember Reggie Bogdani, don't you?" Wheatley grinned, stepping back to allow both men into Elliot's field of vision. "Or… maybe 'Eddie Ashes' does?"
Shit.
The memories start to come back now. Now that the blood is coming back to his head, he's waking up.
He knew how heartbroken Reggie had been when he realized he had been screwed to the tenth power. Everyone was just fucking gone now. Those who were left behind were just that: left behind.
Besa only seemed to apply to those at the highest levels.
Elliot's squad spent days searching for the remainder of those loyal to Kosta and Briscu and the Bogdanis. In that time, not a single attorney had been sent in to council those in holding. It took most of them a maximum of three days before they realized that Kosta would rather let them drown than send for help. That was when the public defenders started pouring in. After that, almost everyone that Reggie knew was behind bars, dead, or in the wind.
Now, Elliot wasn't sure where he was or how he'd gotten here. He wracked his brain for any semblance of a memory, but there was a wall up in his head and it was impenetrable.
"Hey, stay awake." He heard Wheatley say as he felt the carbon of the gun tap his cheek. He forced his eyes open and tried to focus past the blur. In his near-sight, he saw Richard kneel before him and cock his head. "You're probably full of questions. However, I'm a pretty reasonable man, I'd be willing to answer a couple of them."
There's a catch. There's always a catch, he thinks. His eyes narrow but his mouth stays shut. There's no way of knowing that an answered question won't result in a bullet to the knee. A price to pay for everything.
"You're wondering where you are, aren't you?" Wheatley smiled. "You have your secret hiding places, I have mine."
He tries harder to remember, but it physically aches. He was standing in the bullpen. Not his, the 16th's. Olivia… he remembers Olivia. Such a halcyon moment, so small and insignificant but it was a moment where the clouds of work had parted.
They were going to grab a quick dinner; maybe even talk about life. It was his idea. An offer to apologize for how he'd shown up at her door in the middle of the night. Not that a burger and a beer really screamed 'I'm sorry I was acting like a drugged maniac in your lobby,' but it was a start.
He'd bailed.
Why?
Now he was even more furious that he didn't remember. The disappearing act was becoming too frequent. Whatever had happened, it hadn't been his intent to leave her by her lonesome.
Think, Stabler. Think.
It wasn't his kids. It wasn't his mother. They were all fine.
A text. His eyes shoot open, staring at Wheatley. "You sent me a text."
The smile staring back at him widened.
He was an idiot. An idiot who never seemed to learn from his past mistakes. An idiot with a seemingly unbreakable habit of diving in headfirst. He hadn't run to Jet to try to trace the text. He'd followed the coordinates without a second thought — leading him to what could very well be his demise.
"I was fascinated to see the news about a particular task force aiming to take down the KO. Only… you thought you were in the clear now, didn't you?" Wheatley stuck his nose up.
"Since when are you so familiar with the Kosta organization?" Elliot rasped, not bothering to consider the consequences of what his question could bring.
"Haven't you learned yet?" Wheatley moved in closer, enough for Elliot to see the intricate patterns in the man's irises. "I own this city. They don't interfere with my business, I don't interfere with theirs. However, I like to keep a close eye on everyone. And how could I resist lending a helping hand to the person whose life you ruined the most? Just… like… mine."
The annunciation of the last three words sent chills down Elliot's spine.
"Sorry I couldn't rally more of them to come pay a visit to you. Rikers' is so hard to break into these days." Richard laughed at the sound of his own voice. "But then I managed to track down my new friend Reggie here. Turns out he didn't very much like the cold weather, and he really didn't think you deserved to get away with tearing his life apart."
Elliot gulped, trying to ignore the tangy taste of blood between his lips.
"See, that's the funny thing about a manhunt," Wheatley started again, stepping away from his kneeling position at Elliot's knees and turning back towards the men behind him. "He's looking for you. You're looking for him. Sometimes it takes divine intervention to cross those paths… and here I am."
Manhunt?
For once in his life, Elliot was thankful for the calm and collected demeanor his enemy expressed. For all he knew, Wheatley's composed conduct was the only thing keeping the Albanian man behind him at bay. Otherwise, he'd probably already have his tongue hanging on the wall just like Kosta had taught them.
"You were looking for him, right?" Wheatley asked, giving Elliot a curious smirk.
Stupid son of a bitch. Against his greater judgment, yes, he was trying to find Reggie. Juggling two lives at once, one that was supposed to hate Reggie for being a dirty criminal and the other one who was supposed to love him like a brother; they didn't coexist. So, when WITSEC had carried Reggie away, all he wanted to know was where he went. After all, Reggie did build his case for him. The least Elliot could do was make sure the guy was alright wherever he was.
How did Wheatley know that?
"I found it a great fortune that one day when I was freezing my ass off in the tundra, someone showed up to help me and my efforts to show you all the same hurt you showed to me." Reggie growled from across the room.
Now that, Elliot did not know about.
"Reggie," he breathed cautiously. "You don't wanna do this, alright? You—"
"Shut up!" Reggie howled, raising his gun at Elliot. Wheatley smiled as if he were proud to see his plan falling into place. "I am done with you telling me what I am and am not supposed to do!"
"He took everything from you," Wheatley turned calmly towards his new partner. "Your dear sweet mother, she's in the pits of a dirty prison because of this man. All of your family is gone because he wanted to see you become the village idiot."
The gun trembled in Reggie's hand as he took misguided and anxious steps. Elliot tried to focus on him, putting Wheatley out of his mind. He knew Reggie, he knew what made him tick and what made him calm. He could talk his way out of this.
"I never meant to hurt you, Reg." Elliot rasped. "Look at me, look at me. I never meant to hurt you. I wanted to get you the hell out of the city before shit hit the fan. You and Agnes both."
"Don't you fucking dare say her name!" Reggie shouted at the top of his lungs. Sweat dripped down his brow, wiped away with the hand that held the gun. He winced when he finally looked back at Elliot. "I trusted you! I took you under my wing! All for you to just fucking lie to me? To destroy my family? You didn't even fucking bat an eye over any of it either."
Wheatley piped up. "It's almost as if… he's the bad guy. Sure, we've all done things the law would frown upon. But this man? This man didn't even question how his actions would crush you, Reggie. He just barrelled into your life and left it all in ruins."
"I'm the bad guy?" Elliot asked Wheatley, his incredulous tone turning into anger. "You killed my wife, and you want to stand there and lecture about who does what and who it hurts?"
Reggie seemed taken aback. Only a flinch, but enough for Elliot to see it. Reggie looked down at the floor, the gun still trembling in his hands.
Maybe he had a way in.
"You hear that, Reg? That man, he killed my wife." Elliot focused on the nervous man in front of him. "He blew her up in a car bombing. He didn't even think twice. In fact, he made other people do it for him. So he didn't just destroy my life, he destroyed the lives of a lot of other people by putting blood on their hands."
"He's lying," Wheatley interrupted.
"You know I'm not, Reggie. You know I'm telling the truth." Elliot urged. "You can feel it when you stand next to him, can't you? You can feel the evil radiating off of him. You're better than that. He feels no remorse, he is loyal to absolutely nobody. He made his own wife kill mine. So when he stands there and tells you all about how bad I am, think about that!"
"Don't listen to him, Reggie. He ruined everything good in your life. He's gonna say whatever it takes to get to you." Wheatley pleaded at Reggie.
"It wasn't even a year ago. Did you see it on the news, Reggie? About that wife of a cop who was killed? It was all over the TV, you must've seen it." Elliot leaned forward as far as the chair would allow. "Tell me you saw it."
Reggie took a beat to answer, but his head curtly shook. "Yeah, I saw that."
"That was my wife," Elliot stared dead into Reggie's eyes. "My wife. Mother of my children. He slaughtered her in cold blood and she died scared and alone on an operating table, over 4,500 miles away from home."
He couldn't tell if it was sweat or tears in Reggie's eyes as the man shifted his weight between his feet. Elliot was cracking him, he could feel it. "You're better than that."
"Oh come on now, Elliot." Wheatley laughed. "She might have worn your ring but she wasn't the one wearing your heart on her sleeve. Why do you think we've brought you here to begin with?"
Ice ran through his veins. No. No, he wouldn't. He couldn't.
In his eleventh hour, he could finally admit to himself that the possibility of losing Olivia chilled him worse than losing Kathy.
"Don't you dare." Elliot warned.
Wheatley bent forward in front of him. "Strike a nerve, did I?"
Elliot's teeth ground down so hard he feared they would break apart in his mouth. "I don't care what you do. What either of you do to me. But you leave her out of this."
"Reggie, you remember that woman I told you about, yes? You remember how I told you that hurting her would hurt him more than anything in the world?" Wheatley asked, turning away from Elliot. Reggie nodded nervously, readjusting the grip on the gun that was held out towards Elliot. "See that? That is the man that the much esteemed Olivia Benson loves," Wheatley laughed.
"No, I'm not." Elliot answered quietly, refusing to blink as they stared at him.
The man squinted at Elliot, taking a dangerous step forward. "You know I'm right, Elliot." Wheatley smirked, standing so close to his face that he could smell the foul scent of Richard's breath. "You're the man who loves Olivia Benson."
"Yes. Yes, I am. I won't deny it. But nobody ever said she loved me back." he straightened his posture, trying to regain any semblance of pride. "She's Olivia Benson. She doesn't go around falling in love with people." There was something in his voice, something sardonic to match the broken glare shooting in Wheatley's direction. "And if you think she's anything that small or that ordinary, then you don't have the first idea of what you're dealing with."
It was laughter; the missing element in his own tone that he couldn't put a finger on. He was laughing in the face of the man who thought Olivia Benson could be so… mortal.
"I assure you, he is the perfect bait," Wheatley grinned, turning to the man behind him. Reggie's eyes flashed between both of the men in front of him. Wheatley's smile expanded as he slowly rotated back to face Elliot. "When this man is in danger, Olivia will always come. Like a lost puppy searching for —"
"Oh, you are a moron!" he shouted angrily, tears starting to sting in his eyes. He felt like an idiot under their gaze. "No, she won't!"
Wheatley stepped closer, laughing at the cop. "I'd bet she's already here."
He wanted to plead with him, to make him understand exactly what he meant. "No, she isn't! Of course she isn't!" his voice raised higher, sticking his neck out to stare closer at Wheatley. The words slipped off of his tongue with a truth behind them that he believed wholeheartedly.
"She's probably outside of this building!"
"Well, go on, search it then! Go on, why don't you?" He cried out, anger coursing through his veins. His head darted from side to side as he let out a sarcastic and bitter laugh. "Brown eyes, a captain's strut, you can't miss her!"
He thought back to Gitano and the gun pressed to his head. Memories of everything after that night swirled within him. He'd said it himself, there was no choosing each other over the partnership. She took that to heart, she took it with her to Oregon. "Go on, check the whole damn building! She's not here! She's not coming!"
She wasn't. She wasn't five feet away from him, eyes interlocked as they came to terms with their potential last moments. She wasn't staring him down with apologetic eyes, knowing that her tears would haunt him for the rest of time. He was alone.
Too many times. Too many times neither of them were there when they prayed their every last wish that they would be. But too many times it was all for nothing. Pointless begging to the universe, and a painful rise in their hopes.
He had left her once before. He'd set his direction for Italy without thinking twice about her. There was no love left in her for him. How much of a fool could he truly be to think that she would be here? He meant nothing to her, he had learned that as soon as he stepped foot in New York.
"God only knows where she is right now, but I promise you, she's doing whatever the hell she wants and not giving a damn about me!" He cried out, the flow of tears falling from his cheeks becoming a steady river. "And I'm just fine with that because I have to be! I have no other choice!"
The lids of his eyes suddenly felt incredibly heavy, and hope was draining from him fast. His shoulders were sinking into themselves and the reality started to hit him; she wasn't here. There was no sniper waiting over Wheatley's shoulder, ready and willing to pull him out of this mess. Not like Gitano. He was in this alone.
He stared at Wheatley, realizing how close he was coming to pouring his soul out into the presence of a criminal. A criminal who had repeatedly made it known that Elliot wore his feelings for Olivia outside of the vest he held close. His voice was weak and tired, losing all of its threat from the previous yelling match. "Because, when you love Olivia Benson, it's like loving the stars themselves; you don't expect a sunset to admire you back!"
Wheatley stared at him, taking in every word slipping from his tongue. He was watching Elliot in the moments of embracing his greatest weakness.
"And if I happen to find myself standing in danger, let me tell you, Olivia is not stupid enough, or sentimental enough, and she is certainly not in love enough to find herself standing in it with me!"
"Put the gun down." A familiar and lethal voice hit Elliot's ears. He watched as Wheatley's eyes bugged for a split second, feeling the barrel of her glock against his skull.
Olivia.
Elliot breathed a sigh of relief. And then another one of constriction when he realized she had heard every word.
Reggie's arms went up on instinct, a seemingly calm wave wash over him as his own gun fell to the ground.
The gun in Wheatley's hand had been confiscated, passed off to one of the many officers behind Olivia. "Richard Wheatley, you're under arrest for unlawful imprisonment and the assault of a police officer. You have the right to remain silent —"
Her voice faded out as Elliot stared at her, watching her slap cuffs around Richard's wrists. She passed him off to one of the uniformed officers standing by before she rushed over to where Elliot was tied up.
"Are you alright? Are you hurt?" She asked, pushing a stray piece of her ponytail out of her face before working on the ropes he was tied with.
"Just a couple of bumps and bruises. I'll be fine," he breathed, avoiding eye contact with her. He didn't want to ask the burning question, fearing her answer may only add insult to the injury of his second love confession. "How'd you know?"
For a moment, she didn't answer. He looked past her, seeing Reggie standing idly by as Wheatley was taken away. He grew more confused seeing them leave the second man behind.
"We can go into details later, but for now, all you need to know is that you and Reggie are square now." Olivia answered, releasing the last of the rope around Elliot.
He stood up, wincing as he stretched his arms. Olivia stood in front of him, staring down at her feet. "Liv—"
"I called her," Reggie spoke up, taking a careful step forward. "Well, actually I called the Marshal in charge of me. I let them know that Wheatley had come to me with a plan to hurt your partner; a plan he wanted me in on."
Elliot's mouth hung agape. "Wh-why? Why would you do that?"
Reggie gulped, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "You scratch my back, I scratch yours."
"Agnes Bogdani is being released as we speak, she and Reggie are going back into WITSEC in return for helping us catch Wheatley in the act of a crime he can't talk himself out of." Olivia pursed her lips, looking up at Elliot. "You were never in any real danger, Wheatley had Reggie acquire the weapons, none of them were even loaded."
"As much as I absolutely fucking despise you for lying to me," Reggie stepped closer. "I knew that I wouldn't have gotten out of my bid without you vouching for me to go into Witness Protection. I also know that my mother was the one who got herself out of that same deal. I just needed a chance to get her out of lockup."
Elliot stared at the both of them, completely dumbfounded. Reggie, the family's weakest link, had managed to pull off a triple cross. "I uh — I don't know what to say."
"Say thank you and then promise me that you'll be out of me and my mother's lives for good." Reggie replied.
Elliot stuck his hand out, offering a handshake to the other man. "Thank you, Reggie."
"The Marshals are waiting outside for you," Olivia said.
"Thank you, Captain Benson." Reggie nodded at the both of them, finally shaking Elliot's hand with the least amount of compassion he possibly could. Even through the coldness, Elliot still found himself incredibly grateful for that man.
"Reggie," he called out just before he was out through the door. "I meant what I said. I never meant to hurt you."
Reggie stared at him for a moment, exhaling deeply before turning the corner.
Elliot stood beside Olivia in silence for a moment, neither of them sure what to say next. "So, this was a setup?" he asked, breaking the awkward moment.
"It's enough to get Wheatley back where he can't hurt anybody. At least for now," she answered. Olivia turned to face him completely. "I couldn't tell you, and I'm sorry. I just needed you to go with it."
"It's uh — it's okay. I trust you. Always have, always will." Elliot tried to swallow away the lump in his throat. He knew now that she had heard everything, likely through a wire that Reggie was wearing. He couldn't sit and pray that she had walked in at the very end, hearing nothing from before. It was too unlikely. "So, maybe we should talk —"
"Let's get you home first. Clean those cuts and bruises up."
The car ride was consumed with a thick silence as the both of them replayed the last events in their heads.
Once upon a time, she pretended not to hear him when he said those three unspeakable words. After all, Kathy was barely even cold when he'd said them. It wasn't as hard as she had expected to put them out of her mind.
However, with time, it happened more. The touches, the looks, the increasing tension. It never helped when Wheatley was around to say it out loud for them either. But as time passed, forgetting those three words became more difficult.
Maybe it was because suddenly, the blurted out "I love you," actually had shown some semblance of truth. He wasn't just saying it, he was meaning it too. In any usual circumstance, that would return hope to her heart; seeing someone prove that their admission of love was truthful. With Elliot, nothing was ever under a usual circumstance.
She gripped the steering wheel tighter, driving through the dark roads that were lit by passing neon signs.
She was certain that he was sitting beside her, wondering what thoughts were clouding her mind. She knew because she was wondering too. She'd heard every word he had said, every poetic breath admitting just how much she changed his world. What was she supposed to think? Was there even a right answer?
What she did know was that hearing his words had taken the wind out of her sails. He had truly thought that she didn't care about him enough to burst through the door. That… well, that broke her. How could she not care enough? Nearly thirteen years, nothing had changed. She'd always be on the other side waiting to save him. Whether she hated him or loved him all the same, she took her oath as a partner seriously.
She is certainly not in love enough…
Her bones ached. The arguments in her head were growing tired of fighting. The small voice within her that often held back had suddenly started screaming. Maybe I am.
Finally, after two decades, the answer wasn't a forceful 'no'. It wasn't a lie begging to be the truth. It was just a whisper, a dangerous whisper that had given up on pushing him away. Pushing her feelings away.
Because in the end, that whisper was right. There she was, standing on the other side of the door. She had found herself tangled in his trouble. Willingly. Happily.
But nobody ever said she loved me back!
Those tears in her eyes, they burned when she heard that.
Yes, I do.
There had always been a million roadblocks between them. They were always made of glass, they could see one another standing right in front of them. But miles and miles of reasons and excuses stood in their way. Some bad, some amazing.
First was the badge and its shimmering gold honor. Then there was the wife he was supposed to love. The four children who needed their mom and dad together. Then, the wife was gone but her roadblock had been replaced by other women to occupy his time. Then, the fifth son who knit them all back together. Every bullet fired, every promise made, it kept them stuck together like glue all while being as far away from each other as possible.
Now, in a terrifying twist of events, those roadblocks were falling down. Just like that, she could see him and reach out to touch him without any real reason not to. Navigating a path without reason was scary, but they were walking that road towards each other.
You're the man who loves Olivia Benson.
Yes. Yes, I am. I won't deny it.
In some ways, hearing that was scarier than the time he'd said it to her face. Maybe it was because he had nothing to lose. When he'd said it to Wheatley, he had no clue that she could hear him. And he'd said it with such… truth.
An exasperating sense of truth and confidence. He loved her. There was nobody left on earth preventing him from saying it. Not even himself. It scared her because even when she could trust nobody, she could always trust that he would be able to control his emotions for the both of them. When she was too weak to deny that she loved him, he was the anchor that kept them both safe.
The anchor was floating away. It seemed that he would be the one to choose truth. She would be the one to choose consequences.
Or at least she used to.
Times were changing. So were the roads in front of them.
"Sit still!" She chastised him, pressing the damp cloth against the open wound where he'd been pistol-whipped. He'd been squirming for the past fifteen minutes as she bandaged him up. Some things never changed. "Alright, I think you're all good."
"You sure? No more third-degree burns you wanna add to my face?" he laughed, taking a sip from his bottle of beer.
"It was antiseptic, not acid." Olivia retorted with a chuckle, sitting down beside him on the couch.
Another moment of silence hit the both of them, leaving them to realize that the silence would go away after they cleared the air. Neither of them were keen on the idea of deep-diving into that conversation. But the awkwardness was growing too painful.
"Y'know… since Kathy died, I've felt like I've been walking in a minefield." He spoke first, staring down at the bottle in his hands. "There are so many lines not to cross, I get them mixed up. Suddenly all of these invisible walls are down and the directions aren't so clear anymore."
"That's understandable," she whispered.
"So, things that I feel, I guess I just don't know how to feel them. Or when to feel them. For so long, there was this straight and narrow path that I knew how to walk. But when the world stops turning, your feelings don't go away. The only difference is that there isn't that wall there blocking them."
She knew what he was trying to say. However, she also knew he couldn't just come out and say it. Hey, my wife died, I'm finally allowed to feel the love for you that I've always felt. Kathy was gone and now the familiar appropriateness of his thoughts had shifted into something else. There was no more guidance telling him what not to think, but a new kind of guidance urging him that it was always going to be too soon.
"You know… the day we went looking for Eli was strangely the most normal day I've had in a long time." Olivia whispered
"Really?"
"Yeah," she exhaled. "I wasn't a cop. I wasn't looking for some nameless, faceless victim. I was a friend. I was a confidant." She looked up at him, her eyes meeting his to say something she couldn't say out loud. I felt like a mom.
He set the beer down on the side table, wanting to focus on just her for the moment. "It was certainly… different, having you there for that. Not in a bad way. More like a comforting way." For once, his mother or his older children weren't shouldering the weight of raising his son. For the first time in months, it was another parent. A maternal figure who only wanted what was best. A friend to hold his hand. He hadn't forgotten about that either.
Sometimes, in the dark of the night, he could feel a whisper of where her hand grabbed his.
She was growing bolder with time. Her smiles around him were more often, and a little more sparkly. Her heart didn't beat in fear but rather more in excitement. She enjoyed the banter that she had once taken for granted; back when she truly thought he could never leave her.
What Elliot hadn't realized was that the entire time he had been focusing on his grief, she was focusing on her own. The moment she had told him about Tucker's death was eye-opening. Finally, he could stop searching for validation from the wrong people. The wrong woman. The answer had been right in front of his eyes, he had just been too blind to see it.
And hopefully, maybe, she felt it too. In front of her stood the man who knew her better than she knew herself, and now he finally knew that she was grieving too.
She returned to her whispering state. "I am small and ordinary, Elliot."
He let go of a deep breath, scrubbing his palms against the parts of his face that weren't bruised. "So, you heard that."
Her eyes didn't leave him as she inspected the lines of age that had come after his departure. "I've spent so much time wanting to be the opposite. Wanting to be an unbreakable force. But when I'm with you… I'm not. I'm just not."
She didn't say it with disdain. She said it with relief. A relief he had never truly heard in her. And now he knows that she realized that when they had spent the day fighting for Eli.
He looked towards her, seeing the swell of unfallen tears in her eyes.
"I wa— I want to be small and ordinary."
She liked the normalcy that came with him. The breezy domesticity and the way that looking at him felt like looking at the embodiment of comfort. When she was with him, she could ditch the cape and the superhero suit. Being just Olivia was a privilege that came with him. In fact, it was only ever with him.
His hand rose, moving that same pesky strand of hair from earlier out of her face. The vulnerability in her eyes was something he had never seen before. It was the most damning sight he could see. "You, Olivia Benson, will never be small nor ordinary to me. Even when you want to be. Even when you try," he whispered.
"Well," she breathed, "you were wrong when you said I wasn't sentimental."
I am all the things you said I wasn't.
Because I am absolutely, completely, madly in love with you.
He finished the rest of the sentence in his head. Stupid enough. Sentimental enough. In love enough.
Neither of them had realized that his hand was still on her cheek and his lips were mere millimeters away from her own.
His words may have shaken, but he meant what he was saying. "Enough to find yourself standing in danger with me?"
Close enough that she could feel the breath of his words on her lips. "Enough to know that the sunset admires you back."
He had kissed all the wrong people in his lifetime. For the first time, he knew what it truly felt like to kiss the right person. To kiss the universe, and to have the universe kiss him back.