[ There's a split second where it occurs to Claude too late that this isn't the best choice. For a lot of reasons, the largest of which is it being months where he could have initiated this and hadn't. Not for a lack of want or wanting to, or even chances to, but because doing so felt like adding another tangle to all the knots tied between them lacing so much together. It's a silly thought now and one he would take back if he could, he thinks vaguely, though he can't do anything about that now.
Maybe it's best to not think at all. Far less complicated to lean into something they know well and nothing he's ever forgotten, something he couldn't have ever managed that even if he'd wanted to try, when her hands find their way into his hair. Easy to follow the invitation of space to be eliminated - of the physical kind to begin with with a silent request for the rest to follow - by letting his hand trail down Hilda's back until he can wrap an arm around her waist.
The kiss deepens and Claude chases it further, wills it to somehow transfer over all the words always strangling themselves in his throat. I missed you. I care about you so much. You've always been important to me. I don't know what I'd do with you. I didn't know what to do when you weren't here. All things he should have said without them being wrapped up in anything else or layered in fifty different disguises. All things he should have said years ago when they were only the weight of a feather, of a pebble, instead of the boulders they've become now. But it's thoughtless to ask for something not reciprocated when there'd been all those years where it could have been; where for all that this had become soothing in its consistency, it never had changed, had it?
Things could be different here. Claude pulls Hilda closer to cradle her against him like it'll block the rest of the world out, like there's not a hallway where anyone might walk by, like it'll absolve him of his past wrongs as an alternative to asking for forgiveness. It's not so insurmountable when it comes to the two of them - it can't be. Nothing is. This is proof. ]
no subject
Maybe it's best to not think at all. Far less complicated to lean into something they know well and nothing he's ever forgotten, something he couldn't have ever managed that even if he'd wanted to try, when her hands find their way into his hair. Easy to follow the invitation of space to be eliminated - of the physical kind to begin with with a silent request for the rest to follow - by letting his hand trail down Hilda's back until he can wrap an arm around her waist.
The kiss deepens and Claude chases it further, wills it to somehow transfer over all the words always strangling themselves in his throat. I missed you. I care about you so much. You've always been important to me. I don't know what I'd do with you. I didn't know what to do when you weren't here. All things he should have said without them being wrapped up in anything else or layered in fifty different disguises. All things he should have said years ago when they were only the weight of a feather, of a pebble, instead of the boulders they've become now. But it's thoughtless to ask for something not reciprocated when there'd been all those years where it could have been; where for all that this had become soothing in its consistency, it never had changed, had it?
Things could be different here. Claude pulls Hilda closer to cradle her against him like it'll block the rest of the world out, like there's not a hallway where anyone might walk by, like it'll absolve him of his past wrongs as an alternative to asking for forgiveness. It's not so insurmountable when it comes to the two of them - it can't be. Nothing is. This is proof. ]