[It does hurt, further, to have L recoil from him. It's a painful, perverted reminder of home, an involution of the nostalgia he's clung to in his darkest days in Aefenglom.
He sinks back to sit on his hocks, lifting both hands to hide his face. (Like his blindfold had slipped; like that self-inflicted scarring is what had driven L back from him.) Ears and shoulders both droop as he tries to breathe through the desolation of the moment and set his own emotions in order.
Depending on the catalyst, L had said, and there's at least something in there to grasp at as evidence that maybe he isn't just dissolving for no reason.
His voice is muffled when he speaks again:]
What is it, then? [And then,] --breathe, Linden. This hasn't killed me yet; you've time to breathe.
[Even if L has halfway turned on him, he's still Myr's Witch, and his sole lifeline out of this in the moment. Myr can lean back into the patterns they've laid down over months and borrow words from them even while he's struggling to feel anything more than self-eradicating despair.
no subject
[It does hurt, further, to have L recoil from him. It's a painful, perverted reminder of home, an involution of the nostalgia he's clung to in his darkest days in Aefenglom.
He sinks back to sit on his hocks, lifting both hands to hide his face. (Like his blindfold had slipped; like that self-inflicted scarring is what had driven L back from him.) Ears and shoulders both droop as he tries to breathe through the desolation of the moment and set his own emotions in order.
Depending on the catalyst, L had said, and there's at least something in there to grasp at as evidence that maybe he isn't just dissolving for no reason.
His voice is muffled when he speaks again:]
What is it, then? [And then,] --breathe, Linden. This hasn't killed me yet; you've time to breathe.
[Even if L has halfway turned on him, he's still Myr's Witch, and his sole lifeline out of this in the moment. Myr can lean back into the patterns they've laid down over months and borrow words from them even while he's struggling to feel anything more than self-eradicating despair.
(That's what you train for, Shivana.)]