Mm. [ tseng shakes his head very slightly, more a shift back and forth than a proper denial. ] Not a disaster. A phenomenon. A force to be reckoned with.

[ astonishing and terrible and unstoppable. beautiful, too, especially to someone like tseng, who very much likes to watch rufus wrap his hands around the throat of the world. this boy-king of the entire world, no one could stop him if he wanted to wrap his hands around its throat. tseng would never try. he only wants to be there to support rufus in the trying.

of course, being told that rufus doesn't deserve him makes tseng's brow furrow and his eyes blink open again. his fixes rufus with a gaze that's half incredulity, half real confusion, all of it too apparent and unfiltered through the lens of the painkillers. (how many more times will he use the morphine as an excuse? just you wait and see.) ]

Deserve me? [ that there might be anything rufus wants that he doesn't deserve has never crossed tseng's mind. ] Of course you do.

[ rufus' fingers lift, touch gently to tseng's cheek. brush down along the line of his jaw and press there, unbearably tender. surely he can't know what it does to tseng for rufus to touch him like this. he's long since contented himself with the role he is allowed to play in rufus' life, and even the tiny spark of foolish hope in his breast is enough to make those boundaries ache painfully. ]

Don't... you'll get my hopes up.

[ all he needs is to be allowed to stay at rufus' side, as long as rufus will have him. be realistic, tseng; don't let yourself dream too big. you're too old for this. and yet, that traitorous little beat in his heart telling him that he's never seen rufus touch anyone the way he's touching tseng right now. ]

I don't need the world. [ that first part is true; the second, he'll blame again on the morphine. ] All I need is you.