You are the night-time fear
His hands feel like fragile things there upon her shoulders, her shrug like an earthquake through them: he wonders if he should let her shake him off, if she means for him to take his compassion, his empathy, and go.But that is not who he is. Not then, not now, even though he knows how much it can hurt.
So he stays, half-invited, stubborn, heartbroken; she doesn't know, and he doesn't either. He knows what he would've done with—
(there's just static)
—Mabel's bigger, though. He wants to pull her against him, wrap his arms around her and hold her until she feels safe (if ever), but he doesn't dare to, is shaken out of it before he can make up his mind anyway. Her eyes swim up from the depths of her despair, and his answer gets stuck in his throat, won't come out of his mouth.
For he doesn't know either. He doesn't know how to chase the fear from her face, how to dry her soul, how to help her find her sister, how to move on. He wants to say, you keep fighting, but it feels flat, hollow, insincere, as if she deserves nothing short of the perfect answer, and he doesn't have it.
".. no," he admits, soft, hushed. "I was merely turned off." He knows nothing of the pleasantries of death, of the Voice's little soul retrieval, except that it had somehow fallen to him to lead them back to life.
He is grateful for it.
You are the morning when it's clear
AAMU
