❛ &. ┊ Love never quite dies, regardless how often it breaks one’s heart; the way she curls up into herself in the other man’s lap reminds him of times gone by where she would do the same in his, and where it still meant something, anything at all. It feels distant now, her perfume in his lungs, his fingertips in her hair. He asks himself almost inevitably whether it took her as much time as with him to open up, to give him the permission to hold her in the most vulnerable situations. But regrets he the question as soon as he’s uttered it in his thoughts, clenches his jaw when Ezio’s eyes flutter open and catch him standing in the door frame, lost somewhere in his own memories. The way the late afternoon sun tickles his skin, has him glow as if he were not the devil incarnate. He couldn’t care less about the shape of his sleepy mouth, the drowsiness of his lashes -- he says to himself in the same breath as he promises a heated mind that he’s not jealous. That jealousy is absolutely inappropriate.
Thumb absentmindedly brushes over the ring he wears day in day out as he leaves the scene to enter the kitchen, eyes desperately skimming the furnishings for some sort of distraction. But it helps little; the sound of a soft thud as her dozing body is placed on the mattress instead and the terribly ear-deafening steps as Ezio approaches catch his attention in an instant. Gaze is cast over his suit-clad shoulder, eyes beyond expressive albeit he forced his voice to remain steady as he asks, “ Couldn’t sleep? ”