@etreprobi SENT : ❝ i’m sorry. ❞ for Benedict / HARD TO HEAR.
"Don’t be.”
He rolled his knuckles against the inside of his other palm, kneading the muscles in his hand. Though Matias’s honesty came with the reality that he’d been hiding his truths through lies of omission, he was not deeply hurt by this reality. Everyone was hiding someone, to varying depths, and simply because his was deeper than the shallow waters of mundane society’s secrets did not make him any more the villain for hiding it. In fact, it seemed he had more reason to, more justification to slip on a mask that was not so different from the one Benedict wore. A smile, a lazy, casual countenance to avoid anyone prying into his unknown. He shied away from a critical gaze though none could be more critical than his own -- and still he was terrified to be discovered a sham, for someone to actually go searching for the real Benedict Bridgerton, to want to get to know him the way he’d always craved, and for them to find that he was nothing more than the second son with a silver spoon, and nothing more.
He was more. Wasn’t he? God, he hoped so.
He pulled the cigarette out from between his teeth, his voice freed as he blew out a cloud of smoke. Brown eyes closed momentarily, breathing in the open air with its hazy London taste. “I cannot say I know much about honour,” Benedict began quietly, looking unseeingly at the ground before his gaze shifted to Matias. He paused, sighing through his nose, appraising the other with a long, focused expression. It had only been a few seconds since he’d spoken, but it somehow felt like an eternity. Was this how Dante -- no, Matias -- felt every day? Or was it simply the reverse, that an eternity could feel like only seconds? How ... Lonely. How terribly lonely an existence. Benedict might not have understood it, but he did not need another thought to make that conclusion. He was lonely in his own, plain life -- to live with what Matias did, felt like an unmanageable weight.
"Matias. Dante. Whomever you are, or even wish to be, it does not signify to me.” A bit of colour graced his expression, lifting the mood out of the lines of his face, easing it from its pinched resting place to a half smile, a little crooked, teeth showing, and creases around his eyes forming. He did not think himself a forgiving man, but only because he found little to forgive. Whatever the man’s trespasses, they were not against him, and somehow his heart knew it. “Provided ...” He faltered a little, eyes flickering back and forth between his, gauging. There were some whose minds he could read in their faces, but Matias was not one of them. “Provided we are still ... Friends?”
