kenkaosky reads

"One day," he promises her, "I'll tease you and you'll like it."

She could make this work. She would make it work.

"You think I'll only love you if you do something, or don't do something, or are or aren't a certain way. There's no because in my love. You exist, so I love you."

It's not entirely why, but it is a factor in InuYasha's eyes straying her way more often. It makes him start hoping for things he can't manage to put into words.

And even though he's never been lucky before, somehow his luck holds right now, because he's still human, and more than that, she hasn't left.

He didn't think Kaoru could look any happier, but she does. She lifts her head and he kisses the tip of her nose and then her cheeks and her chin and she's giggling by the time he gets to her mouth and it's the most wonderful thing, kissing and laughing all at once.

"If it will make you happy, you can have anything of mine to destroy. I deserve it all. But even if you tear every piece of me and my life to shreds and the only thing left is my heart bleeding on a boardroom floor, it'll still be yours."

"It wasn’t quite what it might have been... but that made it no less beautiful."

The hand in her hair moved to her face; the pads of his fingers drifted along her eyebrows, her cheekbones, her nose, then slowly caressed her lips, the touch so gentle it was almost reverent.

"This wasn’t a dream, was it? Was she really here before him? Was he really allowed to feel this kind of love? Is happiness really this simple?"

Ben stared down into his wine, searching for the right words. “She’s a whole sky of stars,” he said finally.

Over the years, she has often felt like this, like she can never be physically close enough to him, that even this, skin on skin, is not enough, and it breaks her heart in the most exquisite way. She would not have it any other way.

"That's how you make enemies too, he realizes: by existing in the world as a woman with the audacity to be beautiful but not quiet."

But then it happens again. And it’s a little more dangerous, a little bit more unbearable. He is the one who wants to save the world, Hawkeye is concerned with smaller things, like his breathing, all the blood he’s lost, the soft skin of his cheeks smeared with smoke and dirt and tears of anger.

His son fluttered under his hands twice more than night, until the cold outside drove them inside the house, and Kenshin's heart was full in spaces he hadn't known were empty.

His urge to lace their fingers together was tempered by his desire to lengthen the fragile, rare moment. He needed to memorize it after all, her fading pink cheeks, her other hand fitfully tucking in wayward strands, but most of all her defiant eyes facing the lowering sun.

"It’s with reluctance that she turns around, but she feels his gaze fixed on her as she traverses the empty, silent corridor, and it’s like she’s floating, like the floor doesn’t exist and every step is spun from air and darkness, and when she falls asleep that night she dreams of oceans, starlit and lovely and still."