closed starter for holden: @holden-garrick
How could four little words encompass all the emotions he was feeling in this moment, Galen did not know. For a long while the one that dominated them all was fear, almost all consuming. Fear of what he was becoming since he’d been doomed. Fear of losing himself to these strange abilities. Fear of what the Doom brought with it, the strange creatures that came in its wake. Yes, he had been afraid far longer than he dared to admit to himself and after the battle as he’d spent days at Holden’s bedside his fear only grew, it felt as tangible to him as those monsters had been and it was threatening to swallow him whole. But even in his weakest moments, Galen had one thing going for him, one quality that seemed to always see him through. He cared and he loved. Too much perhaps. His love was as devouring as the fear and so after so many days walking around aimlessly, the events of the attack replaying in his head constantly as if he was stuck in a waking nightmare he’d found something to remind him of that love. The ring he’d had made for Holden months ago, the ring he’d kept for another time, when they would both be ready and by the Gods was he ready. Despite the loss of Beau, despite the fact that he felt adrift in this world the one thing he was certain of was his love for Holden. He’d asked him once to marry him and he wanted to again. He wanted Holden to know how much he meant. He’d almost lost him, he could see it clear as day. Holden could have easily been one of the people murdered in that hall. So what was the point of waiting another day to tell him.
He stared at the ring in his hands playing with it and as the door swiveled open he looked up, a small smile blooming on his lips. There was no hiding it now. “Well, I had a whole plan, see. A speech. And this wasn’t really supposed to make it’s appearance until the very end.” He said holding up the ring as he stood up, shrugging. He’d never been great with surprises. “I don’t think I need a speech. I can say what I need to say in a few sentences. I am madly in love with you, if you haven’t noticed. Mad enough to follow you into a bloody battle if I had to, mad enough to follow you across the world if that’s where your work takes you. Wherever you go I’d follow. I just would. I can’t imagine my life without you in it, when I think about my life before you it feels incomplete, it feels like the life of someone I couldn’t possibly be again. I feel like I become a better man with you. You’ve changed me, and I want to keep changing and growing with you until we’re both grey and old. And I hope you feel the same way.”
Holden had his notebook in his hand when he opened the door, not really expecting anything of note behind it. It had been raining all day, and he was soaking from his work out on the now muddied and entrenched battlefield, and now he was downright filthy. He had been perusing his notes, along with the musings of Elodie that he had jotted down, his mind elsewhere. Most of his other students and coworkers didn’t seem interested in the corpses of old just yet - he knew they would come around, but it was still awfully fresh in everyone’s minds. So, it had been somewhat lonely work out there, avoiding any thieves that decided that plundering was still an option, until the rain had come. He had stayed a bit longer than the graverobbers, but only because he was a stubborn man. The rain would surely wash away the more delicate materials of cloth or rot the wood of ancient shields that had still managed to resist decay underground. He had come home fully expecting to get chastised for staying out so long, for coming in dripping like a raggedy old dog that had rolled in something it shouldn’t have, or he hoped to heat the kettle and run a hot bath, maybe have Galen sit beside him and read a little while he picked twigs from his hair.
The act wasn’t surprising in of itself. Galen had done this once before, and it was Holden who had dug in his heels, not quite ready to relinquish what they had had. He was somewhat recalcitrant, he knew that flaw about himself. But it was never, ever unwanted. It was just surprising that it was right now. When he looked like a damned mess!
The ring in Galen’s hand twinkled in the light, and Holden was frozen in place, one hand on the door, the other barely holding onto the notebook. Holden’s eyes held Galen’s and drank him in. Galen looked beautiful. He sounded beautiful. He was like the sun, and the moon, and the stars all combined into one, and he filled the room, the whole damn house with radiance. It didn’t even matter what came out of his mouth, because Holden only had a single answer for him.
Holden, almost in a daze, stepped into the room, his coat dripping water across the floor, his boots caked in mud, and dropped his notebook carelessly to the ground. He looked at Galen, his eyes wide and serious, and he took Galen’s hand in his own. “I will always feel this way, and I will always love you.” He said earnestly, a sharpness in his tone. He needed Galen to understand perfectly what he was trying to say. “I will spend my days, my nights, my sunrises, and the rest of my sunsets with you. I promise that.”
And he leant down and captured Galen’s lips with his own, sealing his promise with a kiss.
