Pairing: Doc Roe/Liebgott
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Like, nothing.
A/N: Sorry about any typos in advance. There's a little bit of French in here, but I don't know any French. (I took German, okay?) Oh, man. I wish more people wrote this pairing. Anyway, beware of choppy, confusing writing ahead. A lot of it's vague and confusing because I didn't really establish a solid plot.
Warning: Explicit sexuality and some offensive language. Slash. If that offends you, leave while you still can.
Review, please. :)
I loved a lot when I was a kid. I loved everything—all the seasons, all the mud after the rain, my mom and the clean water and food she always came home with, the stories I was told—true or not—and everyone. I loved everyone.
I can't remember ever understanding the concept of hate. I was satisfied with my love. I didn't need to know hate.
But no one told me it was like wearing my nerves on the outside. Hate was protection, and while I still didn't want it, I knew it. I knew why it shadowed so many people—because they let it, because it was easier and there's just this barrier between you and the pain. When I got that, when I realized, I held onto what I loved even harder than I used to. Maybe it made things hurt a little more for me. But it was mine and it felt true. I would never trade it for hate.
Fatigue is itching at the corners of his eyes. His face feels heavy and numb, and he's tired. He would sleep if it weren't for Gene. He's here, and Liebgott wants to stay awake for him. They're alone, and nobody is hurt, so Doc doesn't need to be anywhere else with anyone else right now.
Gene is his.
He doesn't like how possessive he's becoming, and he especially doesn't like that he can't understand why...
He grimaces to himself, feeling the itch of discomfort all over his body, and he wishes to God he could have a smoke. He would give anything.
He notices Gene's eyes on him now. Sleepless dark eyes, brimming with a silent inquiry.
"I can't keep anything to myself when you're around, Doc." he remarks, half-sarcastic, but not really.
Gene looks confused for a moment. His eyes are narrowed and his lips are pursed, something Liebgott has by now observed that it's something he does whenever he's thinking about something.
He blinks once, finally understanding. Liebgott stares as those lips form an 'O' as he nods. Gene looks a little concerned with his realization, and Liebgott can't understand why.
"Sorry," he murmurs quietly, like their conversation is exclusive and secret now. "I won't ask."
But Liebgott knows that he wants to, knows those eyes are silently probing him for answers even if Gene says he isn't because he knows better than to pry, but he can't help but wonder. He would rather not say anything about it right now. He wants to be home, a place he hasn't made yet, and he wants Gene with him in places closer than just his thoughts.
He wants to tell him that, because he's tired of having so many thoughts and so little to say, but he won't breathe a word. There is more to lose than his dignity or his reputation, which he doesn't give much of a shit about anymore, anyway. So much to lose. More to love; more to mourn; more to live or die for.
It is what Gene offers him.
He breathes a quiet word of thanks to the medic, who, instead of simply dismissing it, scoots toward him. Gene is in front of him, stiff limbs drawn up to his chest. They're mirroring each other. Symmetrical.
Gene is looking a little somber as he places a bare hand on Liebgott's knee. He doesn't know what it means. He wants to ask him to stop holding his knee like that; he wants to tell him to stop, as his fingers get more daring and brush the inside of his thigh; wants to ask him to stop because even though he likes this, he knows there is no reason that this should be happening.
Loneliness, maybe. Craving for the touch of another person, something affectionate to combat the war that's making his head sick. Liebgott can justify it that way as he leans into Gene. He feels one arm lock around his waist, bringing him on the other man's lap, so that he has to part his legs to fit just right. It's a little warmer.
Gene's other hand is fluttering around the waist area of Liebgott's trousers. It's happening sort of fast. He can feel the rushed breath against his jaw where Doc's lips hover but don't touch, and forgotten warmth is making him dizzy. He has been missing it, he realizes, and his thawing nerves are remembering. Gene is breathing life into him.
He wants to feel this on his skin. He wants to be somewhere warm and isolated, curled up naked with this man, and he wants to live by 'why not', and act like the stigmas and fear don't exist when they're feeling like this. Nothing else will matter. Nothing else does matter.
Maybe he will ask why later, but not now, in light of the warmth while Gene is starting to kiss the base of his throat lightly. He feels such a strong reaction to being touched by another human being like this. War has taken it from him, kept it locked away. Gene found it and he's giving it back. It's both crazy and thoughtful.
He remembers that this is wrong...maybe—but so is war, and maybe he will still somehow find a nice woman to meet and marry and have babies with—he could, but he won't, not even if he survives this, because that is out of the question to him when he already knows Gene this way. Whether it's right or wrong is one thing; whether it's true is another.
He wonders if Doc has known. Maybe he knew before Liebgott did. Maybe it doesn't matter. He just hopes that Doc is doing this because he wants to, at least. Not because of some fucked up convoluted logic in his brain that somehow justifies this type of thing as simply tension relief, because that is not all that Liebgott wants. He feels selfish, wanting more than what is being given to him. And it is a lot being given to him. Doc is inexperienced; he can tell by the way he hesitates with every touch, but it is very provocative all the same. His body is already warming and aching for it.
The combination of lingering anxiety and enlivening sexual arousal heightens the longer Gene's fingers brush against his lower abdomen, as he breathes against his throat like this.
"Is it this?" Gene murmurs as his palm rubs against Liebgott's strained member. His eyes widen as pleasure rips through him—Holy Mother of Christ, it is so good. "Has this been bothering you that bad?"
Not completely, he thinks, light-headed from his ragged breathing. That's not all it is, and Do you know what you're getting yourself into? Because there has been something else to his frustration. Nothing is ever as simple as he'd like it to be with Gene.
He watches in confusion as Doc draws back and puts his shaking hands together, rubbing and flexing his fingers. His eyes flicker up to Liebgott's every so often, and he looks a little timid. He's breathing into his hands now, trying to warm them as best he can, and Liebgott is still left in a confusing limbo of wanting to be touched and warmed again; wanting to feel good and wanting to share what is all of right now with him.
Gene stares at his hands thoughtfully for a few seconds before touching Liebgott again, with hardly any hesitance in his fluid movements. His fingers are tracing the edge of Liebgott's waistband. He feels his arousal straining for touch. He wants stimulation. And he wants Gene; that's all he wants. That's all he's been wanting.
He thanks him in his mind when Doc reaches inside and grasps him; thanks him for warming his hands a little first. How thoughtful. He would be laughing at the irony of it if he weren't so consumed with the onslaught of relief and pleasure.
His eyes flutter shut, but that's okay, because he can still feel Gene, his chest rising and falling against Liebgott's with each intake of breath. He can't keep himself from rocking into that hand. His nerves are frazzled. His mind can't keep up with his body.
He isn't aware of the sounds he's making until Doc's lips are by his ear and he's whispering, "Shh," and he knows he's losing himself in this, and he's afraid he won't be able to get out.
"D-Doc, I'm..." he breathes, not sure why, because he can't think of what he could possibly say right now that would make the situation somehow clearer or not so insane.
He seems to be really absorbed with what he's doing. He's throwing himself into it. Liebgott can't ever remember being doted on like this. Gene is stroking his throbbing arousal without any hesitance or clumsiness in his motions anymore, and Liebgott finds himself bobbing with the movements. He feels Gene's other hand pressed tight against his chest, as if he's trying to calm Liebgott's heartbeat. He can feel Doc's fingers curl into the rough fabric clothing him; groping, trying to keep himself from clawing at it because he wants to feel the bare skin underneath.
He is holding and touching him just right, too careful with everything for this to be as simple as he feared it was. He doesn't care about why they shouldn't be doing this; he's happy and actually a little warm, because even though he's crushed into a tiny hollow in the icy ground, he's curled into Gene, too. He'll be damned if he rejects this extension of help, of selflessness, for the sake of age-old beliefs that have never made as little sense as they do now.
The stimulation is too much. He's trembling, body and mind centering on one thing as the pulsing and touching and heat slip beyond the point of being overwhelming, and he can't hold on anymore.
"I-I can't—" he groans against Doc's neck in a half-nervous, half-elated warning.
"It's okay," Gene mumbles. His voice is mostly calm; a little breathy, and Liebgott finds himself relaxing a little before it feels like his entire body tightens and is washed in euphoria and light-headed relief. He shudders, releasing into Gene's hand, trying to keep himself quiet.
Lips brush against his; barely a kiss, but he knows it is one, and it's strange that he doesn't think twice about whether or not he wants it.
His hands are fluttering around Doc's waist even before the aftershocks completely wear off, but the medic brushes him off before he can do anything. He feels like he wants to. But when he looks at him and sees his eyes wide and paranoid, flickering around the area to see if anyone's awake (or if anyone is hurt), Liebgott doesn't push it.
He just watches, dubious and feeling too heavy to move as Gene squirms out of the hole scuttles off without a word, other than a rushed, "Bye."
Liebgott isn't really sure what to do with that.
It's the feverish heat that comes in sweltering waves, pushing in and out of his pores and messing his blood and god, he just wants to tear himself open to let it all out. And he wants to keep his memories somewhere else; he doesn't know; he just doesn't want them to fall out when his skin breaks. His bones keep it inside. They hold his frame up, memories intact, and his skin and rope-like muscle fibers wrap everything inside.
But his body is leaving him.
His moments are broken with some clarity. He sees that and is more confused. Lucidity is brought by Gene, roused by the hot-cold feel of a spoon prodding his lips, and something to warm his empty stomach, vile pills and bitter syrup that make him feel sleepy and stuffy.
His fogged brain feels like useless mush caking the inside of his skull. He wants Doc to fix it. He wants Doc to use his hands instead of the worthless medicine—and he does what he can with them. Liebgott knows that. But he wants more, more than he's probably entitled to, but that doesn't keep him from wanting. He wishes Doc would touch him and keep touching him even when the pain is gone.
He wants to ask for it.
He sees Gene looming over him, assessing with Bastogne-cold eyes, even though the war is almost over, but Bastogne is still here. And he's asking what he can do, and all Liebgott wants is to tell him. Touch me. Touch me.
He says nothing instead and slips in and out of sensing fingers tracing invisible lines on his face and dotting his closed eyes. He wonders if Doc is trying to get him to fall asleep, because it's working and he's already too deep into it.
He wills his feverish skin to remember this, and his mind quiets down to a faint whisper.
He wonders how Doc did it.
"Will you come with me?" he asks one day when his lungs and voice are working again.
Gene's answer depends on everything.
The medic stares at him almost helplessly for a second, and Liebgott is a little sorry to have put him in this position, but he thinks that the war will never end if he doesn't.
"Where?"
"I don't know," he answers tonelessly, though San Bernadino hovers in his mind. "Will you?" he repeats his earlier question.
He's quiet for several moments. He looks at Liebgott like he actually doesn't believe he's crazy.
"Okay," he finally breathes. "Sure."
Liebgott stares widely ahead, thoughts firing, wondering if Doc is saying it because he wants to believe that there is a promise of tomorrow and the rest of his life; of their lives.
It's something that plays in his mind during dreams and nightmares, and he thinks about it when he's awake, even though it's not clear what side the wish draws desire from.
He would ask Gene, but he's pretty sure he doesn't know, either.
It smelled like a book does after it has been opened for the first time in years. Aged and stale. The apartment didn't boast of much. There was a haunting loneliness that thickened the air of every room.
Liebgott didn't like it. It was lifeless and impersonal. It still is in some places, but it is usually okay. It's lived in now.
Nobody says anything about the two living together, but he thinks it's just that everyone is too plagued by their own lives to really care at all. No one cares to speculate. Their landlord doesn't care much about anything, really, except for getting his payments on time. What else would a landlord care about, after all? And no one else knows them, or would particularly like to know them, but that's okay, because the apartment doesn't smell so much like an old book anymore, and they don't need anyone else to fill it.
We're enough, Liebgott thinks. And he believes it.
So far, he hasn't liked it back on earth. No one understands. (And no one should. No one should have to understand war how it's understood firsthand.)
No one can relate, except for Gene. But it's always painful to remember with him. He has to think back and remember to not even three months ago, when waking up was a virtue not to be taken lightly.
He remembers breaking at Landsberg. After that, he told himself it wouldn't happen again. Not away from home, at least. He could feel it all after the war, whether Gene was with him or not. A part of him hoped he wouldn't be, because he's seen enough.
But attachment got the better of him, and now he's coexisting with Doc. He likes it this way usually, except for when he's reaping the past, and Gene is trying everything he can to fix him, even though he's feeling it, too. He pretends not to. Liebgott thinks maybe it's because he believes he won't feel it anymore if he simply tells himself he doesn't.
It hasn't worked yet.
Nothing really counteracts it. For now, he cuts hair like his grandfather did, and Gene heals people like his grandmother did even if he says it's not really the same, but they're always living war in their minds. He hopes the smoke will clear soon. He's tired of waiting.
When he comes home long after dark and sees Gene curled up and asleep on the foot of the bed, he isn't sure what to do.
Wake him up and get him to sleep like normal? Because Gene is barefoot, those sweatpants are a little big on him, and he isn't even wearing a shirt—no, not for this weather in an apartment with erratic heating, and sometimes none.
But Gene doesn't look particularly cold. Maybe he's just used to extremes by now since Bastogne. Liebgott can't understand it because he can't relate.
So, maybe leave him; sleep on the sofa—no, fuck it; make some coffee and stay up even though he's already jumpy enough without the added stimulants.
Okay. So let Gene rest.
No, no...he's stirring. Why? he thinks furiously, staring. Did I close the bedroom door too loudly?
Sun-starved skin shifts over the the sharp bones of the man in sleeping-and-awake limbo as he inhales deeply. His eyes open, then fall half-lidded again and he murmurs something in French that Joe doesn't understand, but the soft syllables slip into his ears and linger until a picture complete with sound clings to his brain, and he's sure it is permanent.
Gene blinks against the lights of cars and the city flooding in trickles through the curtained window, and for a small, anxious moment, he looks lost.
Liebgott approaches him slowly. His hands are shaking at his sides, and he's elated and nervous when Gene finally looks at him with clear eyes and a small, almost wistful smile. It's like what the hell happened today; don't even remember what led up to this and he can blame it on long hours and unpredictable traffic and little sleep, but that's not what it is, not now, because the whirlwind of cataclysmic thoughts in his crowded brain always seem to find a center in one person, and that's why.
Gene's hand is slender, all thinly stretched skin and tendons and blue veins lining up and down his wrist filled with healthy blood, and Liebgott feels the life in it, in his touch when Eugene pulls him to bed beckoning eyes and a timid hand.
He smells faintly of hospital disinfectant and orange soap. He touches the tips of his fingers with Liebgott's. Liebgott fights against the last of today and welcomes this, because there is not a guarded film over the eyes of the Good Doctor like there always was before, in the middle of the violence and war between men of the same worth.
He remembers the moment before he jumped down to Normandy. He felt himself being sucked through the sky. He remembers the feeling he's having now, like he's falling. But there is no air washing over his body, only Gene's breath ghosting over his lips; and there are no sounds of gunfire.
Not much sound of anything, because Gene hasn't breathed a word.
He moves closer, nudging Doc's cheek with his lips because he doesn't want to wait any longer, and he thinks maybe that's just perfect what he's doing because Gene is shifting and leaning for a kiss, the first real one today. Liebgott tries to coordinate himself with this. He's trembling a little, and his face and the back of his neck where Gene is touching with his fingertips feel flushed.
He tastes so richly clean. Not sterile. Just clean. He wonders if any of the smoke and winter has clung to his skin or not, and if Gene can tell. Doesn't matter. It feels like it's all just falling off as Gene's palms slide down his stomach, thumbing the hip bones, breathing his name against his neck—his welcome home.
He kisses chastely at first, as if his hands aren't making their way down Liebgott's waist; as if there isn't heat washing over death and cold and whisking it away. He feels excitement budding everywhere and he groans as Gene works at him with his lips, mouth pursing at his trachea.
He shivers, and happiness and longing are set on his features. He never tries to hide that anymore when he's alone with him. That longing is for him to send away or keep, just for Gene.
He always keeps it.
He looks at Doc, feels him breathing against his chest and the rapid heartbeat, and sees that black hair messier than it has ever been, he's sure.
There's a stunning vibrancy in Doc's eyes. His gaze is wild and just laced with softness to make it so much more unique and his. He thinks it is his favorite thing about Eugene right now. That, and the slight curving of his lips into a rare smile that says he understands completely what Liebgott is thinking right now, that he feels the insistent heat of his blood underneath his skin so acutely right now, too; that he wants to be touched and be united skin-to-skin, and to feel good.
Excitement is stirring in his groin, pulsing heat and warmth all over. He's hard. When did harmless affection and lust get so confused with each other they're almost the same thing for Liebgott? He should probably be ashamed that it's only been a day without Gene, that he's weak and he can't last long at all without this, but no, he can't be ashamed when he feels Gene's member stiffening through those thin pants—loose and currently descending when Liebgott finds himself pawing at it clumsily.
His coordination and motor skills are completely shot when Gene is nudging his lips open, kissing and begging with his lips. He must have been feeling this all day, too. The constant need, god. Goes more beyond much of anything. Liebgott has fantasies infecting his head more than he'd like to admit. Fantasies of everything; Gene's voice and his Cajun accent and the French he lets slip through every so often and understanding all of it; his mouth and sobbing breath as he shudders through each kiss; making him feel good; all of this never aging so that it can go on forever.
He is obsessed. He is dependent. He doesn't know if it's a sickness in the brain or a cure for his sickness in the brain, but either way, he doesn't want Doc to fix it.
He feels hands on him, ridding him of his stifling clothes in the same awkward manner. Useless clothes fall to the foot of the bed. And both of them fall back, tangled. He is trembling something fierce as Gene pulls away from his mouth finally, to breathe and smile.
The air feels thick around them, but not in a bad way. To Liebgott, it feels isolating. There is this, and there is the rest of the world. But there would be no rest of the world for either of them if there wasn't this.
Gene's whole body feels so warm and breathing and alive against his. He's flushed with arousal. But there are so many things infusing this, as well as the wanting lust, and it's hard to keep up with it all.
Doc is grasping his hand. His trembling fingers are tracing the ridges of Liebgott's knuckles, and Liebgott subconsciously returns the gesture. He feels the bone structure of those hands, those hands for healing; traces the surface of the skin and marvels at the warmth and life.
Eager anticipation spikes sharply when he feels a hand slipping between his bare thighs. Parted and welcoming the touch, he whines lowly in his throat as those fingers trace the sensitive skin before grasping his member. He is fully erect, now pulsing insistently as Gene touches him with adoring fingers.
"M-Mhnn..." he hums, shaking. Pleasure is surging through him, through a body memorized by this touch, and Gene knows, because everything Liebgott can process right now is reflected in those eyes. Hazed, half-massed and shining with everything, because it isn't dangerous anymore.
He's captivated by the pleasure and the sight of Eugene, kneeling over him and panting as word fragments and Liebgott's name escape his parted lips in sighs and breathy moans. His thighs are juxtaposed with Liebgott's sides, and all he can think about is the skin-on-skin, sensation everywhere, and Gene pressing lingering kisses up and down his collarbone and across his chest. He's almost frantic tonight. So fervent in his touching, like he doesn't trust the promise of tomorrow.
It has been hard to after coming home.
He finds himself guiding Gene's head upward with a shaking hand, and Gene is looking at him with a question in his eyes, as if he's wondering why. And Liebgott has all the reasons in the world, and he recites them in his head when he makes one from two and ensnares the other man in a long, languorous kiss. It's wholly satisfying; makes him so hypersensitive—he feels the sheets creasing under his back as he writhes, all the amazing things Gene is doing with his amazing hands, sensation of the kiss almost going numb as the pressure increases.
Gene's lips are already parted for him. He nibbles and sucks a little, liking the feel of the soft warmth as he grows lax against him.
Liebgott finds himself almost unconsciously rocking his hips against Gene's. He is slow with his rubbing and grinding at first, but the feeling becomes dizzying with the mounting pleasure and Doc moaning and breathing so unevenly against his lips, and he grows more fervent as his arousal demands more. Gene is responding eagerly; there is no uncertainty anymore as he grasps and pumps their lengths together.
Liebgott arches into him, breathlessly relieved. He feels delirious, and he locks gazes with Gene. He sees heavy-lidded eyes, warm and smiling with his small, lazy grin.
Any semblance of rational thought quiets to a silent whisper as he becomes more absorbed in the feeling of Gene's palm sliding against his length. He groans loudly and shudders against him.
He winds his arms around his bare waist and brings him closer, mouth meeting his wetly. Gene is so responsive. He arches against him, groaning against his parted lips. Their noses graze. They move together sweetly; smoothly, like they've been doing this for years. They always come together like this. It's a unification they never seem to tire of or shy away from. Even in frozen weather and bloody behavior they forged it, kept it warm between the two of them even if everything said it was destined to fall. Everything else has fallen; what does it matter? It's stayed stable so far.
He tenses up, suddenly too hot in his own skin. He's on the brink; so close, so...close, and everything is quiet for one breathless moment. And then he meets the point of climax with Gene. He hears his name being whispered hoarsely against his skin in a way he has never heard it said, with longing and awe and almost disbelief at the feeling.
He collapses on his side, still entwined with Doc, and they're both still shaking a little. He tries catching his breath. He tries calming himself, clearing his head, but he ends up falling into a deeper fog. He feels so sated right now. He sees it reflected in Doc's eyes, the way he's relaxed and not wandering in any other world but this one.
It feels centered and fixed. They're both here. They've both promised themselves to this, and there is no choice but to stay.
He wonders how long Doc was waiting until he finally fell asleep.
Sometimes he doesn't want to be touched. Sometimes the stimulation is too much.
But he tries not to flinch when Gene traces the shell of his ear with his finger. It isn't suggestive; his eyes are merely curious, but it doesn't numb the uncomfortable seizing of Liebgott's composure bubbling threateningly under his skin.
Sometimes he really does enjoy it very much. But he is somewhere else today, feels like Landsberg again, and all its sickness and horror.
He hates that it's a part of him. He hates that Gene can see it, and he knows Gene can when he is not being touched anymore, when Gene looks at him with a guilty sort of understanding.
A memory suddenly winds through his brain—a thought that brings pictures of damp hair and skin, half smiles, sharing breaths, and after-sex conversation. Doc told him about his grandmother and traiteurs; faith-healers, all the details, because they had time finally. Wanted minutes. Needed moments.
He has never professed to have the touch, but Liebgott really believes he does when he thinks again about everything that's been said, and most importantly what hasn't been said, with a man that is a part of him now.
He finds his hand guiding Gene's back to his face, this time to his feverish cheek.
"Traiteurs don't usually touch unless they're asked to. The sick have gotta ask for help to get help." he remembers him saying.
Gene's eyes are wide and uncomprehending for a moment, and the tendons working shaking fingers go tense under Liebgott's hand.
"That's hard enough for some people, I think."
He feels that sinking feeling again, and he's breathless, like the skin of his own neck is strangling him.
He doesn't let go of Gene's hand. He doesn't let him pull away. He's tense all over, almost fatigued and dizzy, and then he realizes it's fear. He's afraid.
Gene realizes it, too. And he's quick. Because he realizes everything else that's congesting the moment right now. He hears the unspoken question, Liebgott's plea for his hands. Healer's hands.
"Oh..." Doc breathes, voice deep and full of wonder and distress as he pulls him snug against his chest, and he's never done that before, with a certain urgency he's never felt Gene use before. Has he been waiting for this?
Has he been waiting for me to ask?
"Don't know if I can," he murmurs against Liebgott's collarbone, sounding a little afraid as his fingers wander up and down delicate places; neck, lips, eyelids when they fall shut. He can see through Gene's fingers. "I don't know..."
Liebgott shivers. His skin is awash with pleasure and memories of everything good and bad, head still light and dizzy.
"I do know." Liebgott says, voice unsteady but sure, surer than Gene's.
"No, but I don't know how," is the whispered protest. But Liebgott is sure he does, even if Gene doesn't know it. He really hopes it doesn't hurt to take someone's pain away. He tells himself that if it does, he'll take it back. He'll take it all back, because he won't be a parasite to the Good Doctor. He won't, not to Gene.
But he doesn't worry about that so much as the desperate moments tick by and turn tranquilized, and Gene's breathing is even through the words whispered against Liebgott's temple. Doc's lips brush against his skin with every word.
It is a mix of a lot of French and a little English at first, strange, sort of enchanting and Liebgott can't keep up with it very well, but he loves its sound in deep, rich tones.
"Là où il y a de la haine, que je mette l'amour...and, and..." and he continues with growing smoothness and fluidity as Liebgott noticeably relaxes. His muscles feel weak from being so knotted and tense, but Gene has got him.
"Ô Maître, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to...to be loved, as to love..."
The English Liebgott understands perfectly. He thinks maybe someday he should look into what those other words mean, but he understands enough for now.
Still, he carries on, and Liebgott thinks maybe it's more for his own sake this time.
"With all my heart,"
He listens to the whisper of a prayer and pretends that these words are the last he'll ever hear.
"With all my heart."