As Percival leans down, Essek's hands slide to the back of his neck, holding him close as they kiss. He presses his lips against his husband's with fierce tenderness, filled with the sort of devastating, soul-deep love he'd once scoffed at. Perhaps because he truly did not think himself capable of it.

His heart aches for the hopelessness Percival expresses, his resignation to a half-life where he could not conceive of pursuing the things he wanted for himself, questioning his own worthiness. Essek looks at him and sees him, and is all the more determined to love him. He summons all the sincerity he is capable of and steels himself against the uncomfortable vulnerability of honesty.

"I...still often feel undeserving of this. Of you, and the comfortable existence I have found in Whitestone," he admits, his soft voice even quieter still between them. "Yet, if my presence is what has helped you to breathe again...how can I question it? You have asked for nothing, yet provided me with a home and a future when I believed I had lost both."

There is a fevered desperation in his eyes, a need for his husband to hear the words he is saying and believe them.

"You are a remarkable man, Percival, in every way that matters to me. Anything I can give, I give freely, because I believe you deserving."