In another world perhaps he might have reacted with more incredulous surprise, is that what this is about,

except that he is sometimes just as vain as her, in complementary ways. Worrying about his unlovely hands, his overnight grey streaks. As she hides her face in his shoulder, voice small against his skin, Stephen’s own voice is a little muffled and mostly spoken into her hair, but audible enough.

“If you need someone to say it out loud, Gwenaëlle,” he says, no archness or humour buried in it anymore, just solid patience, “you are still an absolute smokeshow. The scars tell a story. The gold eye makes you intimidating in a frighteningly sexy way; I’ve always thought so. If you could roll with the idea of tentacles, I’m more than fine with the wings. Plus they’re, I don’t know, colourful? Pretty? It’s not like they’re demonic bat wings or anything; although for the record, I would love you even with demonic bat wings, too.”

What was it she had said?

Warmly: “To steal some words from someone far more eloquent: I like everything about your body. It’s a roadmap that brought you to me.”