[ Claude needs a moment, on the other hand, and after Sylvain lies back down he closes his own eyes. All of those learned and long practiced efforts to keep everything tucked away somewhere come in handy now as he sits still. Calm, even, anything but on the inside even if the outside gives no hints of it.

If only that would make any of it better. It gets worse when Sylvain speaks and he takes a deep breath. Opens his eyes. Wrangles his composure back into place. ]

He's not here. [ Claude says it quietly even as he knows that makes no difference to what a mind that wants you to relive something over and over can do, that sometimes there's no stopping that wheel from turning, even as he wraps an arm around Sylvain's shoulders and rests a hand on his head again to keep him there. As if touch alone can sooth it away as he takes another deep breath. ] Only you and I are. I promise that, too.

[ That ache inside him from the request for a promise hasn't stopped. Maybe it even outranks all the others piling up with the magnitude of this one overtaking the number of the others. Nothing Claude wants to examine closer as to why in favor of letting his thumb run gentle circles meant to comfort around Sylvain's temple. ]

Stay awake with me until you're ready to try sleeping again, even if it's not for a while. Okay?