[ Hei blinks, something like shock blooming dully in his chest, even as a quiet epiphany falls together for him. It is just that blatant, a slow-motion lightning strike fusing a dozen loose fragments together into something he can see and understand from all sides. She's here because she wants him. His company, his comfort -- or whatever else she can lay her stubborn claim on. ]
[ It fills him with a wistful gratitude -- but also a regret. Because she shouldn't want these table-scraps of his attention. Because he doesn't deserve these sweet dollops of hers. He'd wanted much more for her. He doesn't know what, but at least something better than this. More than years of tentative trust spun together, then torn apart by his own carelessness, more than tiresome days and lonely nights, with no-one at her side to watch as Mai grows up, more than heartache piled upon heartache, disappointments and traumas accrued because she'd dared to show kindness to a murderer -- and definitely more than himself. ]
[ Yet because he has wanted more for her, Hei finds himself unable to refuse her. His hand stays linked through hers; he feels like a man clutching at friable rope or else he'll be sucked out into an airlock. ]
[ He is only a man because he loves her. If he forgets that, he forgets himself. He forgets everything. ]
[ Thumbing the soft thrum of her wrist, he lifts her hand to his mouth. Kisses the palm -- a gentle scold, not a seduction. ]
You're no good at holding your liquor than you ever were.
[ Just reminding her of the legitimacy of her own choice. ]
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Date: 2015-07-12 12:56 am (UTC)[ It fills him with a wistful gratitude -- but also a regret. Because she shouldn't want these table-scraps of his attention. Because he doesn't deserve these sweet dollops of hers. He'd wanted much more for her. He doesn't know what, but at least something better than this. More than years of tentative trust spun together, then torn apart by his own carelessness, more than tiresome days and lonely nights, with no-one at her side to watch as Mai grows up, more than heartache piled upon heartache, disappointments and traumas accrued because she'd dared to show kindness to a murderer -- and definitely more than himself. ]
[ Yet because he has wanted more for her, Hei finds himself unable to refuse her. His hand stays linked through hers; he feels like a man clutching at friable rope or else he'll be sucked out into an airlock. ]
[ He is only a man because he loves her. If he forgets that, he forgets himself. He forgets everything. ]
[ Thumbing the soft thrum of her wrist, he lifts her hand to his mouth. Kisses the palm -- a gentle scold, not a seduction. ]
You're no good at holding your liquor than you ever were.
[ Just reminding her of the legitimacy of her own choice. ]