#yes this is an actualy lyric from rent go listen to it

[a-very-sparkly-nerd]

love heals when pain's too much to bear

Here's the follow-up to will i wake tomorrow from this nightmare? - Overall pretty fluffy! Also, I'm in the mood to write a lil clauderry, so send me prompts!!

Rayla burrowed in tighter to him, trying to lose herself in him the way it’d always been so easy to do but was proving impossible now. “Just… Just be Callum for me. Please. Just be you.”

He chuckled a little. “I think I can do that. I’m very good at being me.”

“The one and only.”

Callum’s chin rested on top of her head, not minding the sticky tears that dripped onto his lean chest. “Tell me whenever you’re ready. I’ll always listen. Or- or don’t. You don’t have to. Just… you’re not alone, okay? You never will be. You know that, right?”

“I knew you were coming,” Rayla breathed, fisting her hand over his heart and looking up to watch his eyes, to drown in that sea of concern and anger–not at her, she knew–but more than anything else, love. “I knew you were coming. It was-” She cleared her throat, remembering that horrible feeling she’d fooled herself out of afterwards that had filled her stomach while dangled over the side of the Sea Legs, knowing that he’d come for her. That he’d always jump after, no matter what. “It, um… it got me through a lot.”

Tears pooled in his pinkened eyes, and he furiously peppered kisses all over her face– her nose, the tips of her ears, forehead, cheeks, and extra-careful ones over her face markings. “Gods, Rayla. I’m sorry you had to wait at all. I’m sorry I wasn’t here so many times. I’m sorry you were on your own.”

She shook her head furiously, gripping his waistband because that was the only thing she could find purchase on and trying to ignore how heat rose in both their cheeks at his hot little grunt. “No. No, Callum, it’s not your fault. It’s mine. Mine for trying to make myself think I’m already dead when I’m not. But, um… I’m actually pretty alive, it turns out”–they choked out identical laughs–“and I kinda like it this way. So, um… I’m alive. I’m alive with you, Callum, and that makes it worth it. Sorry if that doesn’t make sense.”

He cupped her thighs instead of her back, snorting a little. “When do we ever make sense?”

Rayla leaned up for a soft kiss he pressed into, warm and firm and inseparable with him holding her tight. He’d never let her go, never do wrong by her. She couldn’t find it in herself to have ethical problems with it at the moment, just wanted… him. Everything he’d give her.

“Ray?” he asked, pulling back to thumb at her cheeks, and Rayla realized she was crying some more.

“I’m okay,” she assured him. Just terrified of losing him because she’d been all too mortally reminded of their fragility, just like when she’d been fifteen and drenched like this and made the worst mistake of her life. “I’m okay.”

“I’ve got you,” Callum assured her. “I’m right here, always will be. I’m here.” Said for himself as much as her.

And just like on that other godsdamned boat–Sources, she really hated boats–Rayla was wiping away tears and struggling to hold herself together. But unlike then, she could tell him she loved him now and hold him–his gaze and his hand and his heart and whatever else he offered–and let them be whatever they wanted to be. Whatever they could be.

Whatever they could be felt like the most beautiful thing in the universe.

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