Galahad fixes his unblinking gaze on the mirror, on his own face -- which he finds less than pleasing whenever he studies it, all sharp lines and hollows, with none of the softness of Claudius' lips and cheeks -- and his wild hair, for the moment flattened and tamed by the bathwater; at the lock of it held in Claudius' hand, like a length of silver links in a chain, a precious thing to be studied and appreciated before being divided; at Claudius' face, which he's beginning to be able to understand, at the thoughtful expression Claudius wears as he speaks, the eyeroll, the faint pitying smile that means he's judging his former self, and probably his present self as well. The flame inside Galahad's chest flares with love for all the subtleties of that face, the ones he knows and the ones he can't yet read, the quirks of that full mouth, the depth of feeling in those brown eyes. He imagines looking in Claudius' eyes for hours, ticked by on his watch, while Claudius speaks: imagines all the tiny lines of darker brown that radiate from his pupil, a corona, bleeding into the lighter warmer brown of his iris, bounded at the rim by a final band of dark -- he could study Claudius' eyes infinitely, like a psalter, reading the joyous hymn of his precious face. He reads the couplets of the line of Claudius' jaw, which is less severe than his own; the slope of his nose, the shape of his brows, the faint dark stubble beginning to show on his cheeks, the loose lock of black hair that always falls into his face when he's working on something (and which Galahad, and only Galahad, knows he dyes to prevent the silver strands from showing). The faint bruises under his eyes from never sleeping enough, which he covers with cosmetic; his long dark lashes, his forehead with the nonexistent lines he frets about at his vanity.
Galahad likes it when Claudius talks. He's always been better at listening than speaking, and when Claudius speaks he wants to do nothing but sit and listen -- like a disciple on the mount, hearing parables and sermons, charged with working out the meaning of them. There's so much to try and understand in the things Claudius says, the spaces between words, the inflections and pauses, the occasional hand signs when he wants to emphasize something for Galahad. Claudius' speech and his face work together, adding further complexity that Galahad can't yet untangle, but he believes he will someday.
He looks in the mirror, which holds all these things within it right now, and says, "I like thy face soft."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2023-12-27 03:45 pm (UTC)Galahad likes it when Claudius talks. He's always been better at listening than speaking, and when Claudius speaks he wants to do nothing but sit and listen -- like a disciple on the mount, hearing parables and sermons, charged with working out the meaning of them. There's so much to try and understand in the things Claudius says, the spaces between words, the inflections and pauses, the occasional hand signs when he wants to emphasize something for Galahad. Claudius' speech and his face work together, adding further complexity that Galahad can't yet untangle, but he believes he will someday.
He looks in the mirror, which holds all these things within it right now, and says, "I like thy face soft."