Having gone over all of this in his head for such a long time, Zephyr had been more or less set on failure. No matter how many times they'd been through similar situations, no matter how many times he'd come out of screw-ups with Zeke still by his side... he really thought he'd lost this time. But Zeke's kiss said otherwise.
Allowing himself to respond to it, Zephyr was careful as he placed his hands on Zeke's back, gently pulling the other man closer. As opposed to how things usually were, where this would've just been the automatic reaction, things felt so very different this time. Almost as if they were back on square one, as if it was the first time they met like this. Zephyr had no idea whether Zeke felt the same, but that was his own sensation. Everything felt new. And he was careful with it.