They say love is blind and truly I think this must be so. After all, why else would she look at me the way she does? She looks at me as if I mean something and not just a mere something either. She looks at me as if I mean the world and I surely think she must be blind to feel that at all. She speaks about these things she does at night, seeming to seize upon my suggestion that laying food about might somehow lessen my apparent desire to wake her at unholy hours and summon her to the kitchen like I am from the stone age. What is that if not love? Duty- perhaps, to an extent. Maybe she feels simple duty to care for a creature lesser then she and yet I am loath to think that. Besides- it is not what I see in her eyes. There is an obligation, to be sure, a need within herself to care for me and yet it is beyond mere need. I am assured of that in all my selfishness. I know love when I see it, even if he does not or can not. I have seen it in Raven, in Nadya and in Aiden. Each of them possess a different type of it of course, though it exists. After all it is human to care. Is that not the very definition of humanity? To possess an ability to care. It need not always been shown with words or actions I suppose. There are other more subtle ways. I merely wish he saw more of them within those around him. It is difficult, sometimes, to reside within a man whom understands so little about how easily he hurts others. He does not man too, not truly, that I know and yet more often then not my words cannot find him and he is left blundering in the dark. Such a curse I am afflicted to and yet it returns to the point I am given. Love is blind. How else could she love me like she does? So entirely.

"I shall try to keep that in mind, but God only knows how long it will remain there."

I smiled softly, easily, content to take humour in what we surely knew was the inevitable. He would not remember that request and yet I could try all the same, if only because she asked it of me. I felt her hand take my own, my gaze drawn downward as her thumb moved to run over the skin there with a delicate precision I found myself relaxing in to. It was a pleasant touch, a soothing one and one it seemed we both remembered on some level- her words bringing my attention to her once more as she offered an explanation of the touch. I was content, on some level, to find such a touch afforded my other self this same sensation and yet truly I wonder at what level of rage I might reach that requires Raven to hold my attention upon her long enough to dispel it. I am not truly an angry creature, not really. Frustration, I think, is a form of anger though perhaps less violent in its force and less destructive as a whole. Frustrated is perhaps a better word though it does displease me to think I allow others to see it so readily. I suppose though, when you have nothing else, no other way of communication you can hardly be blamed. Ha, what a creature I am to consider myself in such a fashion.

"I do enjoy your touch."

It was an easy admittance, the soft, deep baritone of my voice a sound I truly took pleasure in as I sought to take perhaps a little more touch from her. I was careful, in each action, I knew how delicate she was when it came to this. After all, something can only be broken and put back together so many times before the cracks begin to show. Each time it heals it leaves weak spaces. I hardly think of Raven as broken, indeed there are few so strong- but I know of her weak places, the anxiety that lingers beneath when even my hands rest against her. I know, truly, it is not my hands she fears- but the mind is a fickle thing in its desires and its shadows and sometimes.....it is difficult to see in the dark. My lips trail smoothly along her jaw and to her neck, affording it such gentle caresses before my teeth find purchase on her skin. I wore much the same wound own my own neck, Tetradores mark for the single and only fight we had ever had and yet in that I could hardly fault him. That one- I deserved. This however, was something far different. An almost possessive gesture that truly I should probably be ashamed of and yet one I could hardly bring myself to refrain from. The soft sigh on her own lips only further pleased me and truly had I my way I would have enjoyed trailing my lips further- but not yet. Not tonight. That she did not know why she enjoyed it saw a smile pull across my lips as I moved back from her.

"It's because I'm your very sexy boyfriend."

I allowed a soft chuckle to hum within my chest and throat, surprised at my own words, this cheek and playfulness and yet not truly regretting them either way as Raven moved to reposition herself across my legs, leaning against my chest, her mention of my apparent likes and dislikes seeing my lip quick slightly once more, lashings of dark hair falling into my gaze. I needed a haircut too.

"Mhm."

I simply murmur my agreement, her blush and her hair sufficiently satisfying to myself in either form I was sure, my gaze drifting skyward a moment, content to leave her laying against me as she was before the thoughts of my own mind found themselves questioning far more then they probably should. Love is not an easy issue, not for anyone and yet if he is the custodian of my life and I of his I hold some hope that he cares for my emotions as much as I aim to hold back his own. He is capable of love, I believe that, after all, I am him and if one is capable then why not the other? His understanding of it however, is not as my own, perhaps not even as Ravens- the tone to her words seeing my gaze turn to her own- an uncomfortable grip within my chest at this realization that she had damned herself to spend eternity with a man whom may never return that affection, that love, that generosity. How can she offer so much when I offer none in return? Although, it would seem, that is not what she believes. If there was ever an award for optimism I believe it most surely belongs to my Raven. For someone whom has in her own time been so badly injured, I know, far more then he does, I know what she has seen- yet she seems eternally capable of offering those things never offered to her in turn. That, I think, is truly rare. Her hand moved from my cheek to my own hand, holding it, as if seeking to assure me this lack of love somehow mattered little to her in the wake of it all.

I could have almost laughed, perhaps I would have, if I knew how to make the sound- at her belief she had never been loved. Love truly is blind then. In every way. Her mention of water distracts me from my thoughts, if only briefly- my features frowning slightly in an effort to tug at memories lost even to myself.

"I was....stuck in it, when the building fell in. I hurt my head trying to get out. When I see the water I remember being unable to breath."

It was truly all I could recall of it, at least for now, the details vague and little more than snapshots of memory and yet it was not that I wished to speak off in this singular moment. Even if that- that water, somehow, was the reason for why he existed at all.

"Raven- you are loved."

I spoke it suddenly, if only because I need not think of the words to know their assurance entirely. That she would believe she has not ever been loved, at least, in the traditional sense is so....so far removed from the truth of it. The golden touch of my gaze turned to her own once more, meeting it now as I moved to bring my lips to her own once more, affording her that simple kiss, pulling back merely enough to offer her the words.

"I love you."

madness, as you know, is like gravity: all it takes is a little push