[ Whenever he looked at you -- in the past, before this very moment, since that very first time his heart had realized before the rest of him caught up that he'd begun to look for you, worry how you were and everything else that comes when the fall takes you down, down, down -- he had to deliberately turn his eyes from the clock above your head, because every fluctuation, every dip and year or decade lost had clawed at him.
You two would never have enough time, is the thing he could never wholly, truly admit out loud. You two would be lucky to have five years together, maybe a generous ten -- but not the twenty in the illusion offered by the Dark Hour: the children he'd wanted to raise with you ( Lyle Shinta-Brennan, with your eyes and the smile he shares with Cindy, who you'd both agreed would be Jessiah Vice's godson because wasn't it Vice Technologies that helped make him possible? ) or the years spend hand in hand on the battlefield and off, always coming home to whatever safe space either of you carved out for yourselves; a home in the West District of Falner, among family and friends.
He had been reluctant to admit it out loud, that he'd wanted so much, because even selfishness had it's limits ( here and now, he'd said at some point or another, live in the moment, take it as it comes -- what a goddamned lie ) even if all he could ever want in the world was to stay by your side for longer than a mortal lifespan; to wake up and see your face in peaceful repose as the sunlight crept past the curtains, warming the wooden floor.
What else is there to admit? Plenty, as far as he's concerned. He'd buried his feelings away, shut them tight in a box all the what-ifs, all the possibilities held out in the open hand of something beyond him. The desire for more, for everything he could ever want because wanting shouldn't be wrong it just is.
In those moments when the blade of Liliana Panilio-Frostholm's hungry ghost had them all caged in that little glade, he had lifted his eyes and thought: I don't want this. I don't want to walk out of this with one less thing. So when the static came to fill his mind and the voices that had shared his headspace had been silenced in favor of an echo of his own -- he said 'yes', soldiering on, believing that he was right--
--headstrong and stubborn shunting aside everything else.
He's crossing to you as quick as his feet can take him, dropping to his knees; hands reaching for yours.
There are no words he can say to make any of this better. He was wrong, he is sorry, he was selfish and what's done is done. ]
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You two would never have enough time, is the thing he could never wholly, truly admit out loud. You two would be lucky to have five years together, maybe a generous ten -- but not the twenty in the illusion offered by the Dark Hour: the children he'd wanted to raise with you ( Lyle Shinta-Brennan, with your eyes and the smile he shares with Cindy, who you'd both agreed would be Jessiah Vice's godson because wasn't it Vice Technologies that helped make him possible? ) or the years spend hand in hand on the battlefield and off, always coming home to whatever safe space either of you carved out for yourselves; a home in the West District of Falner, among family and friends.
He had been reluctant to admit it out loud, that he'd wanted so much, because even selfishness had it's limits ( here and now, he'd said at some point or another, live in the moment, take it as it comes -- what a goddamned lie ) even if all he could ever want in the world was to stay by your side for longer than a mortal lifespan; to wake up and see your face in peaceful repose as the sunlight crept past the curtains, warming the wooden floor.
What else is there to admit? Plenty, as far as he's concerned. He'd buried his feelings away, shut them tight in a box all the what-ifs, all the possibilities held out in the open hand of something beyond him. The desire for more, for everything he could ever want because wanting shouldn't be wrong it just is.
In those moments when the blade of Liliana Panilio-Frostholm's hungry ghost had them all caged in that little glade, he had lifted his eyes and thought: I don't want this. I don't want to walk out of this with one less thing. So when the static came to fill his mind and the voices that had shared his headspace had been silenced in favor of an echo of his own -- he said 'yes', soldiering on, believing that he was right--
--headstrong and stubborn shunting aside everything else.
He's crossing to you as quick as his feet can take him, dropping to his knees; hands reaching for yours.
There are no words he can say to make any of this better. He was wrong, he is sorry, he was selfish and what's done is done. ]