[He's lying on his back on his bed when the video message comes in. The watch chimes, but he doesn't reach to answer it immediately; there's a small mass of otter curled up on his chest and snoozing away, and frankly he'd be perfectly fine with just sitting there and watching her for hours and hours. The impulse is there, right in the beginning, to drop everything and reach for it — something might be wrong, someone might be in trouble, it might be urgent and maybe he'll need to roll out from under her and run...
But he makes himself stop, and tries to tell himself that five minutes isn't going to make any difference, he's not shirking anything and anyone who might be calling him right now is either competent, has other people to depend on besides just him, or some amalgamation of the two.
So he breathes, slowly, and counts them as he does, watching the way she rises and falls along with his lungs filling and contracting. One hundred breaths, and then he summons Star just long enough to grab his watch for him and deposit it in his hand, and he flips it open and watches the message left for him and —
...
Very nearly snaps it shut again, honestly, but what stays his hand (of all things) proves to be something he's actually called her on before, but that turns out to be the right thing to say to make him stop and reconsider, this time.
If I don't know, how am I supposed to protect you?
Should she have said what she did? No. Being pissed off...he has every right to do that. But she also didn't do it from a place of awareness of anything; she didn't know why having it screamed in his face might've set off deep-buried things he keeps to himself, why it dug in deeper and stayed when it should've struck but glanced off.
He's had his reasons for the things he's done, too. Some of them have been justifiable reasons, even if they haven't necessarily been good ones. But that doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt people. That doesn't mean you don't still own up to that, and say you're sorry.
...So.
She's trying to do the right thing...right?
Closing his eyes with a sigh, he fiddles with his watch and returns the call (she's awake now, right? maybe she'll pick up), focusing on the weight of the sleeping mass of otter on his chest while he waits for his cue in the form of the sound of her voice.]
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But he makes himself stop, and tries to tell himself that five minutes isn't going to make any difference, he's not shirking anything and anyone who might be calling him right now is either competent, has other people to depend on besides just him, or some amalgamation of the two.
So he breathes, slowly, and counts them as he does, watching the way she rises and falls along with his lungs filling and contracting. One hundred breaths, and then he summons Star just long enough to grab his watch for him and deposit it in his hand, and he flips it open and watches the message left for him and —
...
Very nearly snaps it shut again, honestly, but what stays his hand (of all things) proves to be something he's actually called her on before, but that turns out to be the right thing to say to make him stop and reconsider, this time.
If I don't know, how am I supposed to protect you?
Should she have said what she did? No. Being pissed off...he has every right to do that. But she also didn't do it from a place of awareness of anything; she didn't know why having it screamed in his face might've set off deep-buried things he keeps to himself, why it dug in deeper and stayed when it should've struck but glanced off.
He's had his reasons for the things he's done, too. Some of them have been justifiable reasons, even if they haven't necessarily been good ones. But that doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt people. That doesn't mean you don't still own up to that, and say you're sorry.
...So.
She's trying to do the right thing...right?
Closing his eyes with a sigh, he fiddles with his watch and returns the call (she's awake now, right? maybe she'll pick up), focusing on the weight of the sleeping mass of otter on his chest while he waits for his cue in the form of the sound of her voice.]