[ She hates getting I'm sorry for things like this, little trenches dug where the wounds already lay, so she doesn't offer verbal condolences either. He hurts, but it's an old hurt. Mentioning the loss doesn't always rebreak the heart, after all, no matter how fragile she feels now, and Jaime... well, he's not the one falling to pieces over dog collars and photographs, is he? With his apology, she shrugs her shoulders, noncommittal. Another time and it wouldn't be so bad. It isn't his fault. But without being guided to talk about anything else, she doesn't know what to say.
Touch takes her by surprise. Not in a startling, jolting way, not in a way that makes her freeze up, or tense — not that she could get much more tense than she is anyway. But it is a surprise, enough that even that simple squeeze forces her to exhale, to try pushing some of that tension out. It's been a long time since casual affection has been common for her; she can name and count the culprits on one hand, from arriving in this world, and years before besides. Maybe it doesn't feel different to Jaime, but it does to Ruka — nobody treats her like this. It's always all or nothing. Rua with his formerly mirrored proportions, the shape of a hug that hasn't changed in ten years; Karkat with their complete absence of boundaries, smoothing hands across each other's backs and combing hair and murmuring through the worst of the darkness; Eridan, whose easy strength and careless treatment always felt like being smothered, being crushed; not even the other Jaime, who'd been this age when she'd lost him, but she'd still been so much younger, and smaller, so easy to fold up and hide away under layers of coat and flannel.
It doesn't remind her of any of them.
He'll feel the residual tremor through her arm, where his hand rests against her shoulder, but it fades, and she doesn't pull away. Instead, she tilts, and sinks, filling up that residual space between them on the couch so her head can find his shoulder — and maybe it's selfish, when he's still in his work clothes, so there's no barrier between the heart on his lack-of-sleeve and where she rests her head, but she's allowed to be selfish once in a while, isn't she? It's an anchor. It's shore. ]
What do you usually watch? [ It comes after delay, quiet. ] I don't even have a TV at my place.
he's HOPELESS (they're both hopeless)
Touch takes her by surprise. Not in a startling, jolting way, not in a way that makes her freeze up, or tense — not that she could get much more tense than she is anyway. But it is a surprise, enough that even that simple squeeze forces her to exhale, to try pushing some of that tension out. It's been a long time since casual affection has been common for her; she can name and count the culprits on one hand, from arriving in this world, and years before besides. Maybe it doesn't feel different to Jaime, but it does to Ruka — nobody treats her like this. It's always all or nothing. Rua with his formerly mirrored proportions, the shape of a hug that hasn't changed in ten years; Karkat with their complete absence of boundaries, smoothing hands across each other's backs and combing hair and murmuring through the worst of the darkness; Eridan, whose easy strength and careless treatment always felt like being smothered, being crushed; not even the other Jaime, who'd been this age when she'd lost him, but she'd still been so much younger, and smaller, so easy to fold up and hide away under layers of coat and flannel.
It doesn't remind her of any of them.
He'll feel the residual tremor through her arm, where his hand rests against her shoulder, but it fades, and she doesn't pull away. Instead, she tilts, and sinks, filling up that residual space between them on the couch so her head can find his shoulder — and maybe it's selfish, when he's still in his work clothes, so there's no barrier between the heart on his lack-of-sleeve and where she rests her head, but she's allowed to be selfish once in a while, isn't she? It's an anchor. It's shore. ]
What do you usually watch? [ It comes after delay, quiet. ] I don't even have a TV at my place.