[L wouldn't have ever guessed that he'd draw a strange sort of comfort from being told by someone roughly 60% his age that he had growing left to do, but here they are. I ruined myself, and let others help, he might as well have said, I may have ruined others... but here they are.
He desperately wants to not ruin Paul. People instinctively seem to know that he is a ruiner, so they treat him the way he deserves, with caution and revulsion. L thought Paul would have realized, by now, but maybe he was intentionally and selfishly poor at communicating it. Isn't it nicer, after all, to have potential and promise, and to be told so?
His haunted eyes are wide and uncertain for a moment, but L recognizes fundamentally that he could live his whole life in Trench inside the glowing walls of this sanctuary, dreaming in a soft cocoon. It would be a lot like the life he'd led before, but if he wants more out of this new life, as well as connections worth having with others? He's poorly equipped for it, as things stand, and recognizes it.
He reaches forward, fine narrow bones catching the rippling shadows of the glowing chamber as he gingerly initiates contact, touching the heartbeat he might have mistaken for his own.
His eyes slide closed, and it could be his own... except it isn't. His is somewhere else, out of synch with his mind and his breath. His body exists and survives, scrabbling through with no rhythm or harmony beneath a mind that is detached and truly above it all.
It's a terrifying several moments and he has to actively fight the urge to break away and peel the skin away from his shoulders and ribs in tattered, bloody rags. He'd willfully let the knowledge stay hidden for a long time, but when he opens his eyes, it lives behind them, new and uneasy and repulsed.]
Let me try again... it caught me off balance, at first. Listening like that...
[An understatement. He still wants to shred his skin with his fingernails, and it's a testament to his willpower that he's managing not to.]
cw: basically the worst case DARE scenario lmao
He desperately wants to not ruin Paul. People instinctively seem to know that he is a ruiner, so they treat him the way he deserves, with caution and revulsion. L thought Paul would have realized, by now, but maybe he was intentionally and selfishly poor at communicating it. Isn't it nicer, after all, to have potential and promise, and to be told so?
His haunted eyes are wide and uncertain for a moment, but L recognizes fundamentally that he could live his whole life in Trench inside the glowing walls of this sanctuary, dreaming in a soft cocoon. It would be a lot like the life he'd led before, but if he wants more out of this new life, as well as connections worth having with others? He's poorly equipped for it, as things stand, and recognizes it.
He reaches forward, fine narrow bones catching the rippling shadows of the glowing chamber as he gingerly initiates contact, touching the heartbeat he might have mistaken for his own.
His eyes slide closed, and it could be his own... except it isn't. His is somewhere else, out of synch with his mind and his breath. His body exists and survives, scrabbling through with no rhythm or harmony beneath a mind that is detached and truly above it all.
It's a terrifying several moments and he has to actively fight the urge to break away and peel the skin away from his shoulders and ribs in tattered, bloody rags. He'd willfully let the knowledge stay hidden for a long time, but when he opens his eyes, it lives behind them, new and uneasy and repulsed.]
Let me try again... it caught me off balance, at first. Listening like that...
[An understatement. He still wants to shred his skin with his fingernails, and it's a testament to his willpower that he's managing not to.]