it’s difficult to see him this way: exposed with his insides hanging out. she’s been gutted before—- she knows what it looks like both literally and figuratively. her hands that are trying to stem the blood flow are shaking when they reach out to him. knowing she shouldn’t because she’s always broken everything she’s tried to be gentle with. wanting to try for him since he’s done it so many times for her is ripping her in two; the insecurity that nothing she’s doing is good enough is daunting.
he deserves so much better than her clumsy attempts at comfort. words spoken that she’s never really believed in are offered because he does. he needed to hold onto his faith and she needed him. with that thought in mind she can’t help but wonder—- is this being selfish or selfless?
( not that sure she knows the answer, or even wants to figure it out. thinks that it might be somewhere in between the two—- perhaps it’s one of those lines they’ve drawn. )
seems like they’ve made quite a lot of them, yet she can never manage to find where one started and another ended. they’ve been navigating around them for so long that she doesn’t want to consider what will happen if they stop. if she had to take a step back and try to regain her objectivity. pretty much said goodbye to that when it came to him a long time ago.
for some reason she’s still waiting to regret it. for the promises he’s made her to be betrayed since they always are when someone says them. all she’s ever been able to depend upon is a person’s worst nature—- nine times out of ten they don’t have a best. he does and she’s grown to trust it. trust him. a terrifying concept in itself since she doesn’t trust carelessly.
the few she befriends are kept at a distance, given only impartial and insignificant details to satisfy curiosity. not anything that can be used against her but at the same time it prevents anyone from really knowing her. he does and she’s not repulsed by that. when instinct tells her that she should be, it’s easy to ignore it.
he moves away and she expects him to withdraw from her—- shift away or remove himself from her grasp. a hand on his cheek or a kiss to his brow is far more intimate than she’s been with someone else in a very long while. that she had initiated that contact isn’t something she wants to consider just yet. knows she will later once she retreats back to her own room.
considers whether she shouldn’t do so right then. leave and let him get some much-needed rest. it won’t look as dark tomorrow once the long night’s gone. it feels like abandonment though. that being in here might be helping him and if she goes, all the progress they’ve made will be for naught.
he draws back but he’s still close. the same as the last time they were in a situation like this—- when she’d asked him to stay and he’d left. lingered near her and said he would return but he still went. he laughed and the knot in her stomach only tightens. it’s nothing more than a sound pushed out through his mouth and it’s strange to think she missed that lightness in his voice.
she tries at a smile, faint and forced as it is, it’s purely for his benefit rather than her own. tells herself that if she accomplishes nothing else tonight, at least she had made him laugh. which meant it would be worth it, once they go back to their respective corners. carefully avoids the fact that she was entirely too familiar with him just now. almost loving. “hey I listen—- may not seem like it all the time but I do. I’ll always listen to you, even when you have nothing to say.”