He knows what Myr could mean by that, and what he does mean. Both of them send the same kind of writhing sensation through his gut, one he can't interpret or place but for the understanding that it is a mixed bag indeed.
(He steels himself again to look up at Myr's face, holding that image in his inner vision and reminding himself that he's thought about it plenty before. His mind, in return, supplies embellishments that aren't there, sketching in a torn and rotted cheek with teeth showing through under the empty socket. He loses his nerve.)
But Myr's voice is the same as it ever was, quiet strain notwithstanding, his movements still conducted with that familiar athletic grace, the lines of his body smooth and clean and beautiful. You're welcome to look, if you want, because he knows how Simon will have been yearning to look, because he knows Simon can.
He knows Myr too well now to think that his starry-eyed conception of his friend as a man of infinite and unshakable confidence is true. There's nobody for whom it ever could be. He knows why that offer is barely audible, even when they're alone in the room.
He looks up, from where he kneels on the ground by Myr's sodden clothing; he drinks Myr in from the floor upward, every inch of fascinatingly smooth skin, every muscle he already knows by feel, everything else he's imagined at great and detailed length when he should never have allowed his mind to touch on it. He swallows, tremulous, and it's no easier now to keep his fingertips to himself than ever it's been before.
"I'm glad for the permission," he says, his voice every bit as conspiratorially soft. "I've got to confess that I didn't quite wait for it."
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(He steels himself again to look up at Myr's face, holding that image in his inner vision and reminding himself that he's thought about it plenty before. His mind, in return, supplies embellishments that aren't there, sketching in a torn and rotted cheek with teeth showing through under the empty socket. He loses his nerve.)
But Myr's voice is the same as it ever was, quiet strain notwithstanding, his movements still conducted with that familiar athletic grace, the lines of his body smooth and clean and beautiful. You're welcome to look, if you want, because he knows how Simon will have been yearning to look, because he knows Simon can.
He knows Myr too well now to think that his starry-eyed conception of his friend as a man of infinite and unshakable confidence is true. There's nobody for whom it ever could be. He knows why that offer is barely audible, even when they're alone in the room.
He looks up, from where he kneels on the ground by Myr's sodden clothing; he drinks Myr in from the floor upward, every inch of fascinatingly smooth skin, every muscle he already knows by feel, everything else he's imagined at great and detailed length when he should never have allowed his mind to touch on it. He swallows, tremulous, and it's no easier now to keep his fingertips to himself than ever it's been before.
"I'm glad for the permission," he says, his voice every bit as conspiratorially soft. "I've got to confess that I didn't quite wait for it."