when i go towards you it is with my whole life.

[heorte]

You came to the side of the bed and sat staring at me. Then you kissed me—I felt hot wax on my forehead. I wanted it to leave a mark: that’s how I knew I loved you. Because I wanted to be burned, stamped, to have something in the end— I drew the gown over my head; a red flush covered my face and shoulders. It will run its course, the course of fire, setting a cold coin on the forehead, between the eyes. You lay beside me; your hand moved over my face as though you had felt it also- you must have known, then, how I wanted you. We will always know that, you and I. The proof will be my body. — louise glück

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[heorte]

Is that enough? Ellis laughs softly, unable to stop himself. He cannot think of any scenario in which Wysteria would be the one who fell short between them.

"You will always be enough."

Even if she decides that she wants more than Ellis could give her, a husband and all that would bring along with it. (She should have that. He wants her to have that.) Even if in a week, a month, a year, she decides that she has had enough of him. It seems to Ellis that between them, Wysteria is making the bigger compromise. What is Ellis doing but passing into her hands something that has always been hers?

And Ellis thinks she deserves to hear those words regardless of whether his hands are on her or not. It is a very straight-forward thing, without qualifiers or conditions. She is enough, just as she is.

"It's enough," is only repeated for clarity's sake, to make his position clear knowing Wysteria will mark it. His fingers resume their progression back and forth along the hem of her cape.

[heirring]

To hear it one time at the tail end of that relieved kind of laughter might be flattering, but it's not promising. But to hear it a second time—the repetition turns a theoretical thing into fact. She does mark it. It is visible in the way her expression narrows and in how her jaw briefly sets in a flash of stubborn pride rather than jabbing insistence.

"Then you may kiss me again," she announces, like it is a thing she will wait for.

Instead Wysteria tips her face up expectantly, and rises a demanding half inch.

[heorte]

Instead of bending immediately, Ellis considers her for a moment. He needs to fix this moment in his mind. Wysteria's cheeks are flushed and her hand is warm at his collarbone where she's taken hold of his tunic and her expression is so determined. He can feel the way his expression softens in the course of his study, thumb flexing over her knuckles. His hand leaves off it's study of her cape's hem to set gently at the small of her back to keep her cinched close when he finally dips towards her mouth.

He kisses her, softly, deliberately. There's some indulgent edge in this moment, to kiss her thoroughly, to only break to draw breath and rest his forehead against hers. He draws a breath, but instead of speaking, drops a second, light kiss to the corner of her mouth before gathering himself enough to consider practicalities.

"I'd ask you again, but I've already made you late," Ellis says softly. Which he expects she'll remember, sooner or later.

And it occurs to him, in the wake of their agreement, this compromise, that he considers he'd like to do this properly. Whatever properly looks like to Wysteria.

[heirring]

As far as second kisses go, she imagines it to be a fairly good one. Though were someone to interrogate her on the subject, she might have more to say for the broad shape of his hand at the small of her back than the gentle shape of his mouth or the rasp of his beard. But there is a moment where, in reply to that lighter kiss, she begins to turn her head toward the bristle of—

Wysteria balks. With a dismayed squawk, she punches him in the collar with the heel of her hand and twists free. A flurry of papers must be swept up, shoved into the waiting folio at comically off angles. There is a crunch of bent corner and edges as she snaps the thing shut and shoves it into his arms.

"Oh—! Damn! Really, Mister Ellis! Your timing could scarcely be worse."

The waiting scarf is thrown haphazardly about her shoulders, hat and gloves smashed under an arm. She snatches back the folio, pausing just long enough to regard him and exhale a singularly exasperated sigh before turning toward fleeing the room.

—And then she rears back.

"You will have dinner with me this evening. And then you will read something to me and we will discuss it, and then you will go back to the Gallows. Best luck on your watch duty. Goodbye."

And then she really is going, bursting back out into the garden with such enthusiasm that it sends chickens scattering in every direction.