Arthur carefully backs into the bed and sits there to listen.
Fun fact: this is the first time someone has written him a poem in years, and the last time it happened was when he was a boy trading limericks with a family friend, which has quite a different emotional tenor. This is more like the Sonnets (not, all right, not in quality, if he was to sit down and analyse it joylessly, but—) and it strikes at Arthur's heart just as the Bard must once have struck at his fair youth's.
There's a danger, when you fall in love quickly and deeply, that you will sometimes feel silly and demanding, and as if you want more from your partner than they can give (more than any normal person, who doesn't cling so tightly, would want). Crichton's poem is like a treatise to the contrary. It's Arthur's own feelings, mirrored. And there's the fact that Crichton wrote this, anyone else's opinions about whether it was manly enough or not be damned. It fills Arthur with pride and with a warm and overwhelming fondness.
Tl;dr: Arthur thinks both Crichton and this poem are hot shit.
(At the same time, there's a strange kind of terror that comes with having someone so good in your life, when everyone good in your life gets snatched away. When your affection for them is practically a black spot on their future. But— a few years, at least. Please, at least let them have a few years, please.)
When Crichton finishes reading, Arthur's holding himself on the edge of tears, and when he starts to answer it's game over.
"No, it's," he starts, and then has to sniff and rub his eyes as the tears burst out. His smile is wide, lest there be any doubt that these are happy tears. "S-sorry," he adds, embarrassed. "I'm being silly. It's…"
He gets his spilling emotions under control, but is no less sincere and moved when he says: "It's good. Thank you. Thank you. It's— it doesn't suck in the slightest."
no subject
Fun fact: this is the first time someone has written him a poem in years, and the last time it happened was when he was a boy trading limericks with a family friend, which has quite a different emotional tenor. This is more like the Sonnets (not, all right, not in quality, if he was to sit down and analyse it joylessly, but—) and it strikes at Arthur's heart just as the Bard must once have struck at his fair youth's.
There's a danger, when you fall in love quickly and deeply, that you will sometimes feel silly and demanding, and as if you want more from your partner than they can give (more than any normal person, who doesn't cling so tightly, would want). Crichton's poem is like a treatise to the contrary. It's Arthur's own feelings, mirrored. And there's the fact that Crichton wrote this, anyone else's opinions about whether it was manly enough or not be damned. It fills Arthur with pride and with a warm and overwhelming fondness.
Tl;dr: Arthur thinks both Crichton and this poem are hot shit.
(At the same time, there's a strange kind of terror that comes with having someone so good in your life, when everyone good in your life gets snatched away. When your affection for them is practically a black spot on their future. But— a few years, at least. Please, at least let them have a few years, please.)
When Crichton finishes reading, Arthur's holding himself on the edge of tears, and when he starts to answer it's game over.
"No, it's," he starts, and then has to sniff and rub his eyes as the tears burst out. His smile is wide, lest there be any doubt that these are happy tears. "S-sorry," he adds, embarrassed. "I'm being silly. It's…"
He gets his spilling emotions under control, but is no less sincere and moved when he says: "It's good. Thank you. Thank you. It's— it doesn't suck in the slightest."