when they’d first met, gwen had been convinced gwaine was the most confident man she’d met, if not the most confident man alive. but the longer they’ve known each other, the more gwen has seen that facade slipping. he hardly seems to think anything he’s done is worth of mention, no matter how brave or selfless that act is. it makes her wonder – it always makes her wonder – what his life was before, that he finds himself so unworthy of anything now.
her hand drifts to slip into his, raises it to kiss his roughened knuckles, the act purposeful and gentle. ❛ you’re right. ❜ it’s strange, then, that gwen feels as though they might have lost more than they know. not half a day ago she watched a man lose the love of his life in the middle of camelot’s court. who will remember them but those present? and gwen had looked for arthur as he had looked for her and she knows he was thinking the same she was – but she hardly knows that it matters anymore. does anything matter anymore?
❛ you know i love you, gwaine? ❜ gwen thinks she might have made it seem obvious, but it strikes her that she’s never said it aloud. ❛ you’re as dear to me as elyan. i – i need you to know that. to know that i value you just as much, and that losing you would have devastated me just as much. ❜ she thinks perhaps people don’t tell gwaine, enough, how loved he is. she thinks, perhaps, that too many of them have let too much go unsaid.
𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓. 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓'𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐌 that permeates through every interaction, every thought & cause he has to move. gwaine was loved, that much he was certain. loved by his mother, though her memory turns to water through his fingers. she had become distant in the wake of his father’s death. the others ———— only regret seems to lay in the thick of it. they are siblings. they are a clan. they’ve weathered through the storm after caerleon & then gwaine had wandered.
( * there is something to be said for the wound on his chest. it is no small thing. it cannot be sutured or cauterized. it must be tended to, every single day. little by little allowing it to heal rather than fester. constant attention, constant vigilance, constant trials. )
❛ don’t let arthur hear you say that, ❜ he laughs, avoiding her gaze & hand starting to shake. he wants to take it from her grip, insist that he’s not worthy of her blessings, but he hardly has the strength for that anymore. ❛ i know you do, gwen. you’re the type of person who’s got a lot of love in her heart. it’s what you do ———— anyone’d be lucky. ❜
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