daemonized | RECOLLE IC CONTACT.

[waking up that morning, Grell knows exactly how important it is, even if he wants to keep it quiet. so he can't escape her coming up behind him and gently humming "Happy Birthday" as her arms wrap around him. when she finishes, she presses a kiss to his shoulder.]

You're not allowed to work too hard today.

[an echo of words he told her months ago.]

[There's no escaping his birthday when he's living with Grell, it would seem. But there's no agitation or exasperation on his part when she wraps her arms around him. He leans back into the embrace, grinning. Ardyn turns his head to catch her expression in his periphery, and of course his response is something flippant, something teasing.]

Oh? And why is today any different than the rest?

Because it's the day you came into the world years ago, and there is another year you have gone through victorious, another year full of possibility before you.

[there's nothing but a sweet fondness in her face, and she's happy on his behalf. a birthday, when it's not hers, is an occasion for well wishes.]

A day which I believe is entirely your own. You can't have thought I'd forget.

[How can she say that, and expect him not to suddenly appreciate this day more, only because it makes her speak about him so very fondly? He turns around so that he can face her properly without truly pulling away.]

I had thought that maybe, if I didn't mention it, it would go unnoticed. But how naive of me to believe that. You never forgot my birthday even when we were just friends.

[A fact that had made him inordinately glad in those years past. Almost embarrassingly so.]

Unnoticed, when I've been waiting for at least two months? Are you that afraid of your new age? My dear, turning twenty seven is hardly something to make a fuss over.

[she's grinning, knowing how many years she just knocked off. but his ego deserves to be coddled every now and then.]

[Twenty-seven? Good lord, if he were that age again. He laughs at her obvious attempt to flatter him and... well. It works. Consider his ego coddled, which is all well and good because let's not at all think about how thirty-eight is just two years away from forty.]

Turning twenty-seven is terribly frightening, Grell. It means that thirty is just around the corner, and how very old I'll be then.

Old? Nonsense. You'll be distinguished, and that's quite different.

[close to forty or not, she thinks it's nothing to worry about, since he's still himself. he has the advantage of being in a comfortable range, age wise, and should rejoice in her eyes.]

Besides. The years have only improved how you look, made you more full of wit and charm and intelligence. Are they really so terrifying?

[hypocrisy, thy name is Grell. she threw a fit before about this.]

[Ardyn is not sure he would equate it to a "comfortable" age range. Comfortable in regards to what? In encroaching upon being officially middle-aged, and all that implied? He is not always a vain man, but there are times in which that vanity spikes and certain offenses are difficult to overlook -- the change of his hair color, for one. And now? Being closer to 40.

But considering that isn't what's being explicitly brought up, he only grins at her. Her flattery works wonders, even if he does think that she may be-]

I think you may be a bit biased, hm? But if I look better improved, more full of wit and charm in your eyes, then that's all that truly matters.

[And perhaps that's true, in this exact moment in time. If there's one person who Ardyn does care about how he is perceived by, it is Grell.]

Though I will remember these words of yours when your birthday comes back around, Grell.

[Hypocrisy... is not to be judged, considering who they are, but it also doesn't go unnoticed.]

Then I must do my utmost to ensure you forget them by that point.

[her birthday's different??? it's totally different?]

But I am biased. It's hard not to be, with you, and how with each year that's passed you've grown more in my esteem. From amusement to adoration.

[How. How is it different. Ardyn is dubious of this.

Or he would be, if such a thing were voiced. Instead, she's just making affection flare up, burning bright as it always does. Adoration, she says, and Ardyn thinks to himself how backwards that is. He's the one who should (who does) adore her with no restraint, in absolutely every way.]

And from adoration to... hm, something shaped a bit like love?

[It doesn't even need to be a question and he knows it. But he never will tire of hearing it from her. Truly the best sort of birthday present.]

To love proper, nothing pretending to its shape except what it is, my heart in your hands. Myself and my heart as yours.

[she has a present for him, of course, something small, but even better is being able to be the complete romantics they are, and she hopes he feels the same.]

That was the natural progression of events.

[How? How can she say such things again and expect for him to respond in a way at all coherent? Ardyn can hear it a hundred times and it won't be enough. These kind of professions will always make it clear how much he loves her in turn, so much that it absolutely aches.

Of course he feels the same. A hundred times over. Words just aren't enough, even if he parses them down to something simple:]

I'm not always sure what I did to deserve you, but I refuse to question it. I love you, and seeing you here is a gift of its own to my twenty-seven year old eyes.

[she laughs at that, leaning in to kiss him on the corner of his mouth.]

Will you feel the same once we have to start pretending you turned thirty?

Thirty, forty, fifty...

[He gently cups a hand against the side of her face, tilting his head at her fondly.]

And then some. Forever and always.

[she leans a little into his hand when he puts it there, and it's a wonder how content a simple gesture can make her.]

There's another reason to not shy away from the years. Each one brings you closer to that word forever.

[how he could say it so easily, she didn't know. so easily and confidently declaring such a thing as an absolute. she knew she wasn't entirely cured of her apprehensions, but it was easier, thinking of it as a day by day process. him still being there, each day, was proof enough.]

When you put it like that, how can I complain? Forever is a very long time, but it's nothing without the years at our backs to push us forward. To bring us even closer than before.

[If such a thing were even humanly possible at this point.]

You've convinced me. I'll officially recognize today as my birthday, if only for that alone.

RECOLLE IC CONTACT.

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