Darling please, just give us some time, and I swear we'll be alright
Through it all, when she dares to lift her gaze away from their hands, she can see the lines of contempt that crease into his face. His distaste for Sunjata has always been readily apparent, and for reasons Hotaru had understood even with love clouding her logic. She can't help but fear the backlash, the 'I told you so', even though she knows he would never do that when she is beaten so low. It's what gives her the ability to lower her defenses to reveal all that has happened, and her own unfortunately ridiculous inclusion in it all. Admitting her wrongs has never been an ingrained talent of hers. Still, it's a necessity if she wants to purge the rotten feeling festering away underneath her skin.
The gentle squeeze of his hands brings a tremulous wobble to her lips as she falls quiet, enough for his words to wash over her. It's like sinking beneath still water, muffling all sound and holding her gently from all sides. A redemption she didn't know she needed. Assurance that helps to heal the lacerations left behind by Sunjata's words. "I know," she responds weakly, squeezing his hands back. "But for him to say it...at least I know how he sees me."Incapable, something to be sequestered away and protected instead of trusted to stand at his side. The cage he intended to keep her in may have been fashioned from some version of love, but it was a cage all the same.
The words take everything out of her. So much to say, to share. An eternity wrapped up into the length of a season with no regard for how much a single person could take. Until she'd stepped through the portal to the biting cold of Halo, Hotaru had not felt as if she'd been given a single moment of reprieve. But it was not until now with Deimos to shield her from the world that she felt safe enough to let everything come pouring out, walls lowered and tired heart vulnerable. Their shared moment of pride for her revenge bolsters her enough to get her through to the end, and then she is simply incapable of holding on any longer. Like a marionette with severed strings, she folds, articulated joints haphazardly cradled up against his chest and porcelain cracked from the strain of holding all this inside.
His silence is not accusatory, and as such she is given the time to think over it all just as he is. The melodic crackle of the fire wraps around the two of them like a shawl, lulling her as she presses her cheek to his chest to feel and hear his heart beating through his shirt. This is a sound far more soothing than the fire could hope to provide. Steady and unyielding, a metronome of his continuing existence. Here, she is not alone, and she knows if she says the word then she will not have to be for the foreseeable future. When Deimos speaks she feels that too, all along her skin where they are pressed together, and she hides in the thunder of his voice; the perfectly compatible source for her own lightning soul.
"What was there for him is gone now," croaks free of her lips, as sure of his as she has ever been when it comes to her own muddled feelings. Hotaru is no model of emotional maturity, but a betrayal of this level requires no further contemplation or rumination. Those strings have been severed and singed, impossible to tie back together. "I would stay for Nate. But I know that they love each other, far more than they individually love me. I thought I could accept that, honor it, so long as we were all together. But now..." trailing off, she bites her lip, trying to find the right words for all this if they exist at all. "Nate will forgive him, and they will move on without me." Reaching for his hand, she grips it tight and brings it in to cradle in the minuscule space between their bodies. "And that just leaves us. Back at the start." No Amalia. No Rexanna. No Nate or Sunjata. Just the two of them, tossed aside toys trying to gather enough spare parts to function anew.
The gentle squeeze of his hands brings a tremulous wobble to her lips as she falls quiet, enough for his words to wash over her. It's like sinking beneath still water, muffling all sound and holding her gently from all sides. A redemption she didn't know she needed. Assurance that helps to heal the lacerations left behind by Sunjata's words. "I know," she responds weakly, squeezing his hands back. "But for him to say it...at least I know how he sees me."Incapable, something to be sequestered away and protected instead of trusted to stand at his side. The cage he intended to keep her in may have been fashioned from some version of love, but it was a cage all the same.
The words take everything out of her. So much to say, to share. An eternity wrapped up into the length of a season with no regard for how much a single person could take. Until she'd stepped through the portal to the biting cold of Halo, Hotaru had not felt as if she'd been given a single moment of reprieve. But it was not until now with Deimos to shield her from the world that she felt safe enough to let everything come pouring out, walls lowered and tired heart vulnerable. Their shared moment of pride for her revenge bolsters her enough to get her through to the end, and then she is simply incapable of holding on any longer. Like a marionette with severed strings, she folds, articulated joints haphazardly cradled up against his chest and porcelain cracked from the strain of holding all this inside.
His silence is not accusatory, and as such she is given the time to think over it all just as he is. The melodic crackle of the fire wraps around the two of them like a shawl, lulling her as she presses her cheek to his chest to feel and hear his heart beating through his shirt. This is a sound far more soothing than the fire could hope to provide. Steady and unyielding, a metronome of his continuing existence. Here, she is not alone, and she knows if she says the word then she will not have to be for the foreseeable future. When Deimos speaks she feels that too, all along her skin where they are pressed together, and she hides in the thunder of his voice; the perfectly compatible source for her own lightning soul.
"What was there for him is gone now," croaks free of her lips, as sure of his as she has ever been when it comes to her own muddled feelings. Hotaru is no model of emotional maturity, but a betrayal of this level requires no further contemplation or rumination. Those strings have been severed and singed, impossible to tie back together. "I would stay for Nate. But I know that they love each other, far more than they individually love me. I thought I could accept that, honor it, so long as we were all together. But now..." trailing off, she bites her lip, trying to find the right words for all this if they exist at all. "Nate will forgive him, and they will move on without me." Reaching for his hand, she grips it tight and brings it in to cradle in the minuscule space between their bodies. "And that just leaves us. Back at the start." No Amalia. No Rexanna. No Nate or Sunjata. Just the two of them, tossed aside toys trying to gather enough spare parts to function anew.
HOTARU
