do you love me?

“You’re making that face again.”

Her body turned away in a dismissive manner,  head shaking with an exasperated tone coming from her mouth. 

“I don't know what you’re talking about.”   Myles considered herself a good read. More than capable to understand the intent behind one's words or actions but Ares was someone she had always been uncertain with.  Such uncertainty aggravated her,   no one has been able to offset her ability to know like he has.

It’s why even now when he says something like this,  her face cringes in minor frustration. Her feet take a step forward as if she was looking to flee yet a hand slightly larger than her own takes hold of her wrist.  

At first,  it’s an uncertain touch but quickly locks up. Binds her in place.   “Myles?”

Stop looking at me like that.

She doesn’t say it but Myles was very close to outright snapping it out. 

Another squeeze to the wrist earns the slow turn of her head,  eyes vacantly gazing back at him. “Don’t pretend to be unaware.  You’re fully aware of what it is you’re doing-”  She comes to a stop,  voice uncharacteristically quickening in speed until it abruptly halts. Her wrist even squirmed about in his hold.  

“Ah.” His voice completely lacks any ounce or shred of emotion. Of any tone he’s been shown to possess, and yet she knows what this sound means. She sees the lightbulb practically going off in his head and it makes her scowl. Makes the inside of her twinge in almost discomfort at his realization of the subject matter. 

“Does it upset you that much?”

“It d–  I’m not upset.” 

“Huh.”

“You have no tact.”

“I believe this means you’re upset.”

“I’m not.”

“I don’t like it. That’s what this is about.” She may be pouting. Looking towards him but not directly at him. If she sees those eyes of him it might be enough to push her over the edge.  A slow inhale,  to go back to her usual collectedness.  It’s uncanny for her to be like this. 

“I always stare at you.  You don’t complain then.”

“It’s different.”

“How is it diff-...”

“Ah.”

“Can you stop with that ‘Ah’ crap? Do you have to announce your realization everytime?”

Ares' silence was deafening. Her shoulders are shaking,  head is turning away with the slow burn of a flush rising to her ears with every gradual passing of seconds he doesn’t speak. He has a simplemind. She knows what's' brewing in that stupid stupid head of his.

Her breath hitched seconds after he felt him squeeze onto her. It’s suffocating. “I’m looking at you with love.”  It was hard to process what she was going through. “Is that it,  Myles?”

“You’re putting words into my mouth.” She’s muttering under her breath yet nothing about the way she spoke was convincing. It lacked its usual cadence of certainty. The way she’s closing in towards herself,   limbs yearning to turn or close into herself was enough of an indicator of what she was trying to avoid here.

“Myles,”

“You love saying my name, don’t you?”

“Myles.” Though this time it’s louder. As if trying to win back her attention.

“What?” And she caves in. Can’t stand the way he says her name either.

“Do you love me?” He asks so bluntly. Debatably, with no thought behind those ugly eyes of his. 

“....Excuse me?”

“I asked if you loved me.”

“What does this have to do with anything? Didn’t I-” She was cut off.

“Do you-”  Ares wasn’t unaware of her mannerisms fully. He’s aware to an extent. No ones’ spent longer watching her than he had even though there was still a lot about her he couldn’t pinpoint. Maybe even understand but her body language now was enough for him to feel he may take a little risk. 

He pulls her back,  gently of course,  but enough to face him. Enough so that he can lean in a little. Can look at her with the supposed gaze she had been trying to escape for however long this mood of hers has been transpiring. He knows what awaits him but there’s this sense of unfamiliar giddiness rumbling deep within at the notion of her possibly feeling this way towards him.

“Love me?”

She’s stunned into silence. Only met with the look that was whittling down her brain.  Vulnerability was not a comfortable look on her but in this moment she was wrought with it.  “You’re an asshole.” Not even said with full intent but her lip trembles. 

He watches her ball her hand into a fist.  It looks like it’s to hit him-  which it does but it’s not hard. Not to the full strength it could’ve been. It’s a mediocre collision to his chest. As if she’s trying to swat him off like some annoying fly in her ear. 

“I don’t think that's the answer I was looking for.” 

“Do you think you’ll hear it?”

“I don’t know.”  A pause. A long one at that.  “But I hope I do.”

Myles goes silent and even stiffens up.  Once again,  he’s put her in an unfamiliar place.  Putting her through emotions she was more than aware of the concept yet everything about it was foreign to her.  It felt wrong but the ache of his uncertainty in that reply hurt far more.

Her hands lower,  stop putting up a fight until she herself was slumping into him. Her face finds solace against his chest. A shield to hide a face that was unraveling expressions she never brought to life until now. “I don’t…”  She trails off in a shaky tone.

“You don’t…?”  He’s anticipating whatever this was. His grip on her shifts,  both arms coming in to wrap around her. Embracing her as if she was something fragile. 

“Ah,”  Something she seems to have picked up from him. “I don’t know how to tell you that.” Every syllable uttered came alongside the shake of her shoulders. “I don’t understand it. I don’t get where it came from. I don’t know why of all people-  why of everyone I’ve ever met-” A rush of words,  no time to breathe in between. “Why is it you,  Ares?”

“You don’t know?” He’s not upset. Not surprised in the way one would think but his brows lift unexpectedly. His eyes widened only a little before they returned to their usual state. He went through his thoughts until finally he settled on this simple response. “I don’t know what it was about you that I fell in love with either, Myles.”

“But all I did come to terms with was the fact that what I felt for you was love.” 

“It was undeniable.”

Ares gives her a firm squeeze in his arms. “Why try to complicate the way you say it? Keep it simple as we always have.”

“I love you, Myles.” He pulls away from her slightly to shift their positions. His hands leave her hips to move up to cup her cheeks. Hold her face between his hands and gaze at her in an uncharacteristically soft way. A gaze reserved alone for his wife.

“Do you love me?”

Myles lips part yet no sound escapes from her. All she can do is listen to him go on-  quite literally the most she might’ve heard him ever speak but it’s different from all the other times. How she was talking to her. She’s never felt such warmth in his tone before like she was now.

She’s never felt such warmth directed at her before in the first place. It feels disgusting yet she’s not recoiling. She’s pushing into the palms of his hands,  daring to even nuzzle into them with a trembling breath.

 …If he doesn’t know why, like she didn’t know…  There was the possibility for them to learn that reason together. Such marriage was supposed to be faux. Ares was supposed to be a temporary bandage and somehow he developed into the permanent bearer of said spot.

Taking the role of her heart. 

Everytime he would appear it’d beat. Say her name and it responds. When he held her,  looked for her,  stubbornly appeared or chased her down. When he agreed to such a flimsy marriage in the first place.  Ares was constant,  consistent. Ares was someone who invaded her even if she wasn’t privy to admit to it. 

How many times had she heard him say this?…

She cracks open her eyes,  glossed with tears barely managing not to leave the corner of her eyes. 

“I love you too,  Ares.” She doesn’t know if this feeling that washed over her is happiness. She’s never felt such a thing until after he entered her life.

“I love you so much. It’s aggravating.”

“I love you.”

“Ares,  I get it…”

“I love you, Myles.” He’s leaning his face in closer.

“You’re so…”  She breathes under her breath before she leant in to silence him with a kiss. Not of their usual raunchy nature but one that was indicative of the repetitive subject matter. 

…A kiss with love behind it. Ew.

She was starting to sound like him.