[ For a long moment, as Dion remains silent, Joshua wonders if, perhaps, he has said a bit too much a bit too fast. They only just agreed to courting, after all. Despite Joshua's feelings that have built over time, perhaps... Perhaps Dion needed more time than this.
But just before he moves to pull back, lips already parting to apologize, Dion speaks. And the tightness in that whisper, the pain so clear in two breathed out words, stops his apology in its tracks.
Instantly, he understands. Maybe not entirely, but he does. For he knows half of the household Dion has likely lived with for the last eighteen years, because that half of it was part of his own. For all that his mother doted on him, he had been nothing but a trophy to tout around, and she never once uttered those words to him. It would have been worse for Dion, he thinks - Dion was not of her bloodline. And that is to say nothing of what Joshua still has yet to learn about him.
His heart aches for Dion, for the pain so evident in his heart, and rather than pull away, he holds the man tighter. Tucks his nose against the side of Dion's head, as though he can single-handedly smother out the shade that haunts him. ]
You are welcome. Forever and always.
[ He will say it however many times Dion needs to hear it, whenever that happens to be. ]
no subject
But just before he moves to pull back, lips already parting to apologize, Dion speaks. And the tightness in that whisper, the pain so clear in two breathed out words, stops his apology in its tracks.
Instantly, he understands. Maybe not entirely, but he does. For he knows half of the household Dion has likely lived with for the last eighteen years, because that half of it was part of his own. For all that his mother doted on him, he had been nothing but a trophy to tout around, and she never once uttered those words to him. It would have been worse for Dion, he thinks - Dion was not of her bloodline. And that is to say nothing of what Joshua still has yet to learn about him.
His heart aches for Dion, for the pain so evident in his heart, and rather than pull away, he holds the man tighter. Tucks his nose against the side of Dion's head, as though he can single-handedly smother out the shade that haunts him. ]
You are welcome. Forever and always.
[ He will say it however many times Dion needs to hear it, whenever that happens to be. ]