He looks down at the brush of fingers on his chest and his expression is unreadable save that it contains love. He still doesn't say it very often, almost never, in fact, but now that Phillip knows that it exists more as a given, as a fact, than as something in debate in Gustavain's head, it's easy to see everywhere.

Gustavain isn't sure himself, what he's discarding this time, not really. The Warrior of Light is definitely part of that, any part of him that Hydaelyn has touched with it-- symbolically if not in full fact. It's not so much that he thinks that any of this walks him into Darkness, or even that she wouldn't approve, but it's more that he goes seeking somewhere before Hydaelyn. Phillip has known him, before, and whatever it is that feels empty and yearning in his chest since he picked up that stone and knew, it won't be discovered if he just asks Phillip something like What was I like?.

The answers lie somewhere deeper. The questions he needs to get at them do as well.

He had said that he wasn't looking for answers and that's a lie, but also not one at the same time. The answers he's looking for are more complicated, more complex, than just thinking about them will get him. He needs to feel them. And the moment Phillip's lips touch his skin and he looks down and sees that ache, he knows part of what he needs to ask.

It's not quite the time, though, not until his hands slide into the band of his lower layers, smallclothes, not until he's pushed everything down and away. He's still scarred and bruised from the last fight-- the healers have seen to him, but he's refused too much deep healing, has wanted to carry the reminder at least a little longer.

Remember us. Remember that we lived..

The bruises will fade, but until then, he'll wear them in both pride and penance. He reaches down and curls his fingers in Phillip's hair, tips his face up so he can lean down and kiss him warm to his toes.

"Bed," he says softly, and it's hard to say what, but there is something different about him.