Heron Lake Plateau My unicorn got run over by a tractor

Quixote wasn't afraid of her responses, and he watched her with an even but still kind of vulnerable gaze -- he pretty much assumed things would eventually go wrong, but would continue to act like they wouldn't.  It would be his fault if it did, after all.  Things always were.  Quixote was a little bit broken.  So much of his life had been pointed at fighting that he'd missed some of those key bits of socialization that'd probably would have made this go a little bit more typically. Quixote didn't like admitting things that made him seem even tentatively weak or confused, even if he would have been willing in a different life, and he was further stumbling over the preconceived notion that relationships were supposed to take ages to develop and that anything less was doomed to failure.

But when Quixote spoke, he couldn't keep his eyes on her, uncertainty making him looking away more and more as he went on, Yeah.  Uh.  Not my usual... What is it?  Modus operandi or whatever.  But I guess, uh, none of this is. 'If it wasn't obvious enough.'  Quixote wanted to talk himself up, to make her want to stay, despite his own numerous flaws that his brain was keen to bring to the forefront.  He didn't want to try again to find someone else, partially because he was pretty sure that he'd gotten lucky in more than one way with Raven.  There was no saying that the planets would align that way again.  How would he say what he wanted to without maybe scaring her off?  Maybe he just shouldn't have brought it up and they could just exist in limbo.

He huffed, frustrated at himself and his apparent inability to figure out how to express what he wanted to say.  I just.. Uh. -- I'm kind of an idiot so I'm sorry if I made things needlessly complicated... Or if I end up messing things up later.  But -- but I did say I'd stick around as long as you'd keep me.  I'll stand by that -- or uh, you.  By then he could barely look up, brow furrowed in concentration, only peeking her way just for a second at the last word.  Good job, Quixote, throwing the ball back in her court, but it was probably as close as he could come to admitting that she'd made him happy.  And not just in a "yeah I guess this day is passable" kind of way, but actually, legitimately happy to be existing at that moment because he wasn't trash or a cog in a machine.  Maybe it was too much or too hormone-driven, sure, but he'd take the chance.