Something— eases, a fist around his heart unclenching, hearing the reassurance which he both needed and would have stubbornly insisted he didn’t need. Her Orlesian accent creeps in and the corner of his mouth flickers upward, fond despite the context, irrepressibly fond in the middle of all this. He leans in and brushes his lips against the top of Gwenaëlle’s temple, lingering.

“Thank you,” Stephen says, simple but sincere. “I didn’t realise I needed to hear that, but— I appreciate hearing it. I love you too. And it’s not… I really truly didn’t want to make it about me, because you’ve far more right to be fucked-up about this.”

But it’s not not about him, either, because what touches Gwenaëlle inevitably ripples to him as well; it’s about them. This is the entire stupid contract of letting yourself care about someone. Levering open your ribcage and leaving your heart vulnerable to things like this.

There was a reason he did real relationships so rarely; an incessant ability to fixate, to go full-tilt once he finally committed, to not be able to let something go. I love you in every universe. He could have seen himself pining, in her shoes. It was easier to distantly remember the one who got away; more complicated, finding a way to build a life with the one who’s here.

“I’m sorry this entire situation is so goddamn bizarre for you to navigate.”