Imprints

Hammer my heart into the shape it needs to be; the shape it's allowed to be. To miss him. To take joy in him and with him. But not to relax into that too comfortably.

It's been three months since he said he'd talk to his lodge and to CJ about talking to my clan.

Only three months: I tell people often that the ways of the tribes move slowly, and, especially for us, there's no real need for haste...

But then he speaks about how his assets would be divided by his sept if he should happen to die, as if we'd never spoken of any other way things might be. Could it be that he'd simply forget? I sometimes forget, myself, that he's still under treatment for neurological disorders.

I forget, also, that I'm not so sure about all of this myself. Maybe it's best to leave it as it is. Enjoy what we do have, and hold back enough that...

... that it doesn't tear me apart.

I have a life, kin, work, and other friends. There are connections there to maintain. I've been ambivalent enough about this that I couldn't really blame him for being less than certain himself. And talking about that again could too easily lead us to end something that was doing... just fine. Don't poke at it: enjoy it for what it is.

I'd been willing to take a mark for him.

And I will take his marking again, just as soon as we make some time alone and I can persuade him that he doesn't need to hold back this time.