[ It seems there was no choice in asking or not to hear it said aloud. It's not you that I don't trust. A handful of words, a complete thought - one he'd assumed, but hearing it aloud presses the air from his lungs as it slides in as painfully as any blade. Like a jewelry box toppling from its hiding place out into the open, like any attempt he'd made to even more things to match before giving up when it hurt move than leaving them there. Whatever composure Claude has left is rapidly slipping through his fingers as he gaze glances over Sylvain's in passing before he looks away as if that's going to conceal anything, but with how he's reeling he can't bring himself to care or to listen to the barely started explanation which sputters out in the same breath.
This feeling isn't one he can compartmentalize away as easily as the rest to be tucked away and examined later when it's more convenient and in solitude. It demands to be felt, forces him to look at his own failures here in the light of day instead of dissected on any number of late nights as he's done over and over. It slips beneath any number of his masks and pries them away to sink its claws in to take hold, and Claude closes his eyes when Hilda speaks again. To listen, he tells himself, to really listen when what she says is still more denials, more fears. Ones he can't fault anyone but himself for.
And not for the first time the question's crossed his mind, not for any lack of wondering if this isn't his own selfishness he wonders: is it not kinder to let her go if that's what she really wants?
Again Sylvain moves to action first, and Claude opens his eyes to stare at the wall without really seeing it or anything else around as he listens while still processing the rest of what Hilda's said. The ever present temptation to rebuild armor lurks about the edges of things as usual and grows ever more difficult to resist - but he does, because it was giving into that which caused part of this in the first place in his own self fulfilling prophecy. It's unfair to hold back when both of them are reaching out with their fears in hand, and looking away's impossible for too long between Hilda's tears still falling and the deliberate rhythm of what Sylvain says.
Some of the missing pieces in the disconnects fall into place as they're revealed by their owners, and it's not just the jewelry box which comes to mind but all of those I don't knows he'd received as a response to what he'd asked. They were the wrong questions, it turns out. There were too many unknowns in his conversations with both Hilda and Sylvain, and even this one here. For all that's said, there are still loose ends and ones which deserve to be pointed out if this does end up being the only chance they'll get to ever talk about this. ]
Neither of you are disposable or temporary. Not to me, and if there's anything I want most out of this it's for both of you... no, all of us to stop thinking that or at least trying to convince ourselves of it because we've been thinking it in various ways to ourselves all along. And if the thought wasn't quite so explicit, we've found ways to convince ourselves of it through other methods, but it doesn't change that you're enough to me. You are, and you are for exactly who you are right now and not for you who think you should be or could be. You're both more than enough.
[ It's not the most eloquent way he's ever tried to start a thought even as he's practically begging his mind to shape this into something better - something that will be the right words to serve as a salve to wounds they all have both self-inflicted, from each other, and from pasts which won't serve them for the future. The hand he'd wanted to place on Hilda's shoulder before he does now though he lets it rest tentatively on her back in case it's not welcome, and he reaches with his other one to curl fingers around one of Sylvain's wrists again. ]
I meant what I said before and I'll expand it now to say if any one of us leaves because it's supposed to spare someone's feelings or is somehow the right thing to do: it won't spare anything, and it's not. Whatever time where that might've been possible is long past, because I think all three of us can admit that it'll cause far more pain than it's supposedly avoiding. I'm asking you both to not do that, and I don't want to do that to both of you either.
Even for all this discussion, I don't expect for that trust to be there right away. It'll be something we have to learn when none of us have ever done this before. But stumbling blocks or challenges have never kept me from wanting something before with all the good, bad, and painful parts to them that can be included, and this is no exception. If something in this gets messed up - and it will, because that's inevitable and that's just life - we'll still have each other to lean on and figure it out.
no subject
This feeling isn't one he can compartmentalize away as easily as the rest to be tucked away and examined later when it's more convenient and in solitude. It demands to be felt, forces him to look at his own failures here in the light of day instead of dissected on any number of late nights as he's done over and over. It slips beneath any number of his masks and pries them away to sink its claws in to take hold, and Claude closes his eyes when Hilda speaks again. To listen, he tells himself, to really listen when what she says is still more denials, more fears. Ones he can't fault anyone but himself for.
And not for the first time the question's crossed his mind, not for any lack of wondering if this isn't his own selfishness he wonders: is it not kinder to let her go if that's what she really wants?
Again Sylvain moves to action first, and Claude opens his eyes to stare at the wall without really seeing it or anything else around as he listens while still processing the rest of what Hilda's said. The ever present temptation to rebuild armor lurks about the edges of things as usual and grows ever more difficult to resist - but he does, because it was giving into that which caused part of this in the first place in his own self fulfilling prophecy. It's unfair to hold back when both of them are reaching out with their fears in hand, and looking away's impossible for too long between Hilda's tears still falling and the deliberate rhythm of what Sylvain says.
Some of the missing pieces in the disconnects fall into place as they're revealed by their owners, and it's not just the jewelry box which comes to mind but all of those I don't knows he'd received as a response to what he'd asked. They were the wrong questions, it turns out. There were too many unknowns in his conversations with both Hilda and Sylvain, and even this one here. For all that's said, there are still loose ends and ones which deserve to be pointed out if this does end up being the only chance they'll get to ever talk about this. ]
Neither of you are disposable or temporary. Not to me, and if there's anything I want most out of this it's for both of you... no, all of us to stop thinking that or at least trying to convince ourselves of it because we've been thinking it in various ways to ourselves all along. And if the thought wasn't quite so explicit, we've found ways to convince ourselves of it through other methods, but it doesn't change that you're enough to me. You are, and you are for exactly who you are right now and not for you who think you should be or could be. You're both more than enough.
[ It's not the most eloquent way he's ever tried to start a thought even as he's practically begging his mind to shape this into something better - something that will be the right words to serve as a salve to wounds they all have both self-inflicted, from each other, and from pasts which won't serve them for the future. The hand he'd wanted to place on Hilda's shoulder before he does now though he lets it rest tentatively on her back in case it's not welcome, and he reaches with his other one to curl fingers around one of Sylvain's wrists again. ]
I meant what I said before and I'll expand it now to say if any one of us leaves because it's supposed to spare someone's feelings or is somehow the right thing to do: it won't spare anything, and it's not. Whatever time where that might've been possible is long past, because I think all three of us can admit that it'll cause far more pain than it's supposedly avoiding. I'm asking you both to not do that, and I don't want to do that to both of you either.
Even for all this discussion, I don't expect for that trust to be there right away. It'll be something we have to learn when none of us have ever done this before. But stumbling blocks or challenges have never kept me from wanting something before with all the good, bad, and painful parts to them that can be included, and this is no exception. If something in this gets messed up - and it will, because that's inevitable and that's just life - we'll still have each other to lean on and figure it out.