AN: So I found this poem by Haley Hendrick on tumblr and fell in love with it. And because I'm me, all I could think of was Captain Swan. Enjoy!
"He whispered in my ear last night before we both
drifted off that I needed to promise not to leave him."
He wakes from a nightmare with all the calm of a hurricane, gasping and flinging himself up in bed, eyes darting around wildly.
"I'm right here." she tells him in a whisper, her hand already soothing a path down his chest. His heart pounds hard against her palm, and the waves of the ship beneath them rocks him closer to her.
In a cracked voice, without opening his eyes, he whispers, "You swear it?"
"I don't think I've ever packed that much passion
into a string of words leaving my mouth, passing
by my lips and into his ear like a virus; an infection
that can only do good, that can only plant seeds
in the middle of his chest where other people have
only jerked out roots."
She opens her eyes, though, looks into his hard-lined face, at the years of hurt carved into his features. "Yes," she breathes, but it's resolute as the word leaves her lips. His eyes finally flutter open, and when his blue gaze locks on hers, she can see his real age written in them.
Her voice is an exhale, but she vows with all she has, "I'm not going anywhere."
"He is windows open wide on
a May morning. He is glass, he is a kaleidoscope
that, when looked through, you can only see the
good in this world. You can see him, and he is
the good. He feels he's a burden, space wasted,
filling the openness of his shoes and feeling like
he's filling the Grand Canyon with worry."
The promise reveals something in them both, cracking open their hearts for the other to witness. She sees him -for what is a rare occasion- stripped bare of all bravado. Vulnerability hangs heavy in the air surrounding them, but his gaze is so steady that she doesn't look away, couldn't even if she wanted to.
She knows he doesn't believe he's enough for her, and she's content to lay there, hand over his pounding heart, until he finally understands that he's more than that.
(She wants to grab him by the shoulders and kiss that look from his face, because, Christ, he is so very enough).
He is all the good still left in this town. He is the wide-eyed hope of the Truest Believer, he is the friendship that blossoms between a former queen and a would-be princess, he is the once-orphan that finds she can now call this place 'home'.
"I want to be the house he runs to when he wants
to feel at home. I want him to rest his legs inside
of my veins, take a break from the world and listen
to the rush of my blood; it is throbbing through my
system with such force because I anticipate his
touch even when he's nowhere near."
She wraps her fingers around his arm. She loves him, from the wounded shadow of his past to the burning light of his future. She wants to be everything all at once just to see him happy. She wishes her magic was strong enough to keep his demons at bay, all the time.
She loves him, present-tense, from the hard edges to the softer corners, and it is so much more than any magic could ever be.
"He is not an unfortunate soul. He is just beginning.
And I want to begin with him."
She touches her palm flat against his chest. She knows him, from the hammer-against-steel beating of his heart to the rise and fall of his breath. She knows the touch of his fingertips and the tug of his hand, the curve of his smirk and the brush of his lips, the yearning in his eyes and the needing in his soul.
She knows he is home, and she will never (not ever again) stray too far.