I think you vastly underestimate my affinity for self-preservation.
[ It's said carelessly, as if it's really that simple and not tied up into any further number of things - and as if it's not the truth in many ways. Ones Sylvain hasn't exactly seen beyond flashes and hints of it here and there like in a sharp rock edge against his throat and the later admission that perhaps his childhood had been a bit dangerous. He doesn't mean it callously to that sentiment he's being offered sincerely; it's simply that Claude also feels there's more behind it than that alone.
If the crease before had been a sign Claude was contemplating something, it becomes an outright furrow with more of what Sylvain's said and he drops his hand to rest on the other man's shoulder instead while studying him. It's not as though he disagrees with what's said when there's plenty of truth there which can't be refuted, but it's what's beneath it which Sylvain isn't saying as if it'll go unnoticed. As if it's not something he would piece together over all this time spent in each other's company through terrible things and far better ones. ]
You're important to me, too, which is exactly why I don't want you to feel like you have to take on something that hurts you for someone else's sake. [ There's an obvious example there in conversations that've been had when it comes to Sylvain shouldering something painful, an injustice - but Claude doesn't feel he has to voice it aloud for the other smaller pieces of it threaded through everything else to be equally apparent. ] I don't want that for you even if I can't top you from doing it. And I won't ever think less of you for it, either.
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[ It's said carelessly, as if it's really that simple and not tied up into any further number of things - and as if it's not the truth in many ways. Ones Sylvain hasn't exactly seen beyond flashes and hints of it here and there like in a sharp rock edge against his throat and the later admission that perhaps his childhood had been a bit dangerous. He doesn't mean it callously to that sentiment he's being offered sincerely; it's simply that Claude also feels there's more behind it than that alone.
If the crease before had been a sign Claude was contemplating something, it becomes an outright furrow with more of what Sylvain's said and he drops his hand to rest on the other man's shoulder instead while studying him. It's not as though he disagrees with what's said when there's plenty of truth there which can't be refuted, but it's what's beneath it which Sylvain isn't saying as if it'll go unnoticed. As if it's not something he would piece together over all this time spent in each other's company through terrible things and far better ones. ]
You're important to me, too, which is exactly why I don't want you to feel like you have to take on something that hurts you for someone else's sake. [ There's an obvious example there in conversations that've been had when it comes to Sylvain shouldering something painful, an injustice - but Claude doesn't feel he has to voice it aloud for the other smaller pieces of it threaded through everything else to be equally apparent. ] I don't want that for you even if I can't top you from doing it. And I won't ever think less of you for it, either.