#tw romance

The Count steps forward.

An inch, three, it didn't matter. He steps forward and it feels like the world is compacted with him, like the world for a moment becomes smaller, small enough to house just the two of them.

Birch does not step backward.

“May I kiss you?” The Count asks.

He always asked, that's what Birch was reminded. In words or in tiny pivotal gestures, the Count always asked. Permittance, a hesitation that Birch always felt like was disguised as courtesy. A last moment before a jump, poised to spring. A choice, because it was always a choice, given so freely that even now it steals away a slate of foundation from Birch's stance. Birch could refuse, here and now and the Count would respect it, retreat in a graceful slide back like he wasn't leaving his heart where he once stood. The Count leaves room for it, so even under the weight of years and decades, Birch could still refuse.

He doesn't.

“Please,” he whispers. “Please, yes.”

The moment after is an aching, silent and wanting thing. Birch's eyes don't close, but in the second it takes the Count to move he feels distant noise echoing in his head and the ground under his feet sink and shift, unsteady.

And then a hand curls delicately just under his jaw and nudges there, not a drag or a draw, but a simple tap, another ask, another bid of permission.

Birch goes.

The kiss is soft.

Gentle is not the right word. It is a brush, barely a touch at all, quiet and simple and breaking. The pressure rolls forward and rolls back, too quick and too little and Birch has never been so gentle, and he's never been soft.

When Birch reaches forward, he slides his fingers under the Count's suit collar like an arrow slides in the gaps of a knight's armor. Sure and precise, and pulls.

The Count goes, as willing as anything, and presses back.

The second kiss is harder. Hard enough that through the push Birch can feel the outline of fangs, hard enough that it finally feels like they are getting somewhere.

It isn't until the second of the Counts hands slides up and cradles the back of his head that Birch opens his mouth. The Count lets out the tiniest sigh and curls forward, succumbing to a gravity he's been fighting for eons and oh that's much better.

It's a wonder Birch still remembers how to do this. It's a wonder that he remembers the best way to tilt his head and angle it just so, it's a wonder he remembers how to slide his hand up to splay between the Count's waist and back, an anchor point. It's a wonder he remembers any of it, but as the second kiss turns to the third, and the fourth, he could not be happier.

It's only past the point of when his knees have turned to mush that they separate, and even then neither of them can stand to go very far.

Birch feels drunk off it, the joy and excitement and relief bundled together and falling over themselves in his chest hard and fast enough to burst. When he opens his eyes again the sight that greets him is one that makes a curl of a smile slink across his face.

The Count's eyes are heavily lidded, mouth the slightest bit ajar and his whole face is flush with pink, burning from his cheeks and neck to the tips of his ears.

Birch pulls the hand he'd buried in the Count's hair forward in a slow drag, and hooks his thumb and first finger up until the Count's ear slots nicely in his hand and he can rub the pad of his thumb lightly under the Count's eye.

The Count seems to gather himself a little more, but when he looks up, his pupils are blown out, wide and deep and black, and his ear flutters like a moth in Birch's palm.

He cannot stop himself from letting the words fall out, into this small space between them, into the world enclosed with just them inside.

“I love you.”

The Count's gaze sharpens, focused and heavy, and Birch swipes his thumb under a piercing eye again, just because he can.

He cannot remember the last time he said it. He hopes for a moment that the Count does. Birch hopes that in the years they were apart the Count had those words to hang on to, because they were true then, and they are true now.

He can feel, in the crook of where his thumb meets the rest of his hand, the Counts returning, growing smile. Birch can feel the ends of his mouth move up, and as it goes he cannot stop his own, smaller grin that starts to take up his face.

“Irrevocably so.” Birch says, and adding words to those three is easier than saying them, so he does it again. “Decisively so, inescapably so.”

The Count makes a small noise that sounds as if a laugh just stuck just behind his lips before it turned into a sob, but he's still smiling, and Birch can't stop either.

“Enduringly so, assuredly so, and god,” Birch laughs, quiet and true. “Am I going to have to find a thesaurus, or are you going to kiss me again?”