叫醒 - jiàoxǐnɡ

[getsome_sleep]

I

[There is a very long pause. At last, Huo's handwriting appears, painstakingly slow, not entirely steady.]

I do not know what more I can do.

Comments

[lingeringlegacy]

Then bide your time and think about it longer. You are hardly alone in that, Huo-gē.

[getsome_sleep]

We do not have the ti

[His pen slips. He knows that her use of the address is meant to comfort, but all it does is remind him yet again what lies at stake.]

[lingeringlegacy]

Say we do not, do you want to spend what's left of it lashing out at everyone? At yourself?

[getsome_sleep]

ā-Stella Stellaris-mèi

I am sorry. This was a mistake. All of it was a mistake.

[lingeringlegacy]

The grey man's most of all. Not ours. Not yours.

[getsome_sleep]

No - I have made nothing but mistakes, and this writing the worst of them all.

[lingeringlegacy]

You are

Where are you right now?

[getsome_sleep]

At the house. But [he begins to write something, but blots it out before it can become more than a stroke of the pen. He does not want her to come, but...]

I am not fit company.

[lingeringlegacy]

I will be there soon. Yell at me then if you must.

Are we taking this to a quicklog? ^^

[getsome_sleep]

Yelling at you has never seemed an attractive option.

We can...

[lingeringlegacy]

[She is already on her way to Melee Island, shouldn't be too long as she hailed from the Housekeeping Petal.]

[suddenly quicklog!]

[getsome_sleep]

[By the time she arrives, Huo has drowned the worst of his frustrations in working on the roof alongside Hawk, but has not returned indoors. He sits on the veranda in the rain, harboring a seed of a revelation - not a happy one, but still all he has.

He raises his eyes to see her approach with mild surprise.] You should not have, [he murmurs.]

[quicklog]

[lingeringlegacy]

[Stellaris' steps are in haste, her expression decidedly unhappy. There are plenty of words she'd like to say to Huo, but first of all she want to tell him that she wouldn't leave. So she steps up to the veranda and, swiftly, without warning, throws her arms around him in a hug, her response buried in his shoulder.]

Bonds are not created just by everyone doing what they have to.

[quicklog]

[getsome_sleep]

[Without warning indeed, she catches him completely off his guard; the instinct that tells him to hug her back is silenced, somehow, and he merely sits there, his heart hammering so that he is certain she can feel it. Words are sharp now, difficult, as they force him to think and respond to them. This physical act breaks through all of that.

All that he thinks of is that he does not want to lose her.

His head slowly drops until his forehead rests against her hair. His eyes close tightly.] I might hurt you, as I have done to others...

[quicklog]

[lingeringlegacy]

I don't think I am that easy to injure. Or push away, anymore.

[She can confidently say that now, a strange byproduct of knowing one had everything she holds dear taken away in another time. Loosening the hug but still resting her hands on his shoulder, she tried maintaining full eye contact as she told him what she had in mind.]

It is hard to accept, trust that I understand, that feeling like you should've been able to do more and yet haven't been able to. But please know that everything is not lost despite that.

[quicklog]

[getsome_sleep]

[Something in her tone reaches him even more than her words; he looks up at her with biref surprise replaced by realization. A memory. She says that she understands, and he believes her. But it makes things no easier.]

If there is hope, it is beyond my sight, [he rasps,] I will be nothing but happy, to learn that my sight is limited.