in my heart i can fly.

[oleanderknife]

Hasibe chooses not to accompany Henry to his workplace, though she probably will at some time or another--she is genuinely curious about it, but Huan requires soothing, so she takes the time to settle him in once she's alone at the house.

Comments

[beingtwofold]

Henry, 'the disciplinarian,' puts Huan in his bed in the washing-room when he gets back (after taking in the scene of woman, dog and wineglass, at which his expression was half fond, half consternation; thus the dog is away and not bounding merrily around the house), then returns to sit on the couch with Hasibe, letting the movie flicker in front of them in companionable silence for a few minutes before he finda whatever they have that passes for a remote and shuts it off with a sigh.

Hasi knows him well enough by now to know there's something on his mind, and there are a lot of somethings this particular late evening, one of which actually is the little girl and her dead thing (he couldn't see it, but he could feel it, and that's something to think about on its own, like having one pair of eyes open while numerous others stay closed), but it isn't his most pressing concern. After a while he stirs himself out of this wordless reverie and loops his arms over her shoulders, a familiar gesture for an unfamiliar conversation

[oleanderknife]

She can definitely tell there is something going on, but assumes it was the scene in the bar, too--when he sits with her she curls against him automatically with a little smile, their greeting wordless, fond, her lips brushing his cheek at one point in a gesture of absent affection. But then he does speak, and she pauses, one hand on his knee, dark hair now loose (one of the first things that she did when she got home) and brushing the back of the sofa when she shrugs.

"Just the nuances of the Nexus, I suppose, and what I can't really do about it. It's not too pressing, though, I think I'm mostly not thinking about anything."

She actually sets her wine glass down on the end table nearest so she can focus on him and their conversation; it's not entirely a coping mechanism, because if it were she would have automatically gone for something harder, but it is definitely telling, all the same. "What's on your mind?"

[beingtwofold]

As is so often the case he doesn't answer quite immediately, even though he knew the question was coming there isn't an easy way to answer, and he has spent enough time trying to find one to know anything that resembles 'easy' is also not very true.

"Before I say anything I want it noted that this isn't a snap observation I'm making," he starts, which ...surely heralds nothing heavy, not with an opening like that, "I have weighed the merits of discussing this for a while, and I'm bringing it up because--you are so important to me, you're the most important thing in my life, so I promise I would never try to make you feel guilty about anything, but I think you should know that I'm starting to worry about how much you drink."

He does manage to maintain eye contact for having delivered ...all of that, it seems fair. "I hope this doesn't seem like I'm blindsiding you, or that I'm upset with you or--anything, I'm not. I just--I need you to be around, and to be okay, and I want to be able to be honest."

[oleanderknife]

Hasibe is quietly attentive throughout this, but she does (notably) stiffen up somewhat when he gets to the crucial bit there. She understands that he is just concerned, but she looks visibly taken aback by this, and after a moment pushes down her bizarre instinctively defensive response. She glances from Henry to her wine glass and back again, as though a solution lies between them. Still, her instinct is to reassure; she can tell by how carefully he's saying this he's also worried about bringing it up

[beingtwofold]

Henry is presumably not privy to all of this, especially not now that he's working again and keeps regular, reasonably reliable hours. This was notably not the case with his last job, but then he wasn't consistently coming home to anyone either, even when he was in a relationship. So he only has what he's noticed to observe, and relevantly a significant portion of their time together thus far has been wrapped up in his very large problem, which was not one that exactly required a lot of careful option weighing: it was immediate and obvious and not even remotely avoidable, the way a problem like this in its early stages can seem

[oleanderknife]

Hasibe frankly has to take a moment to think about that; she would kind of like to change the subject, and she briefly thinks about trying to distract him, but that would be manipulative and unacceptable and that's not how they run their relationship, they made promises toward honesty. So: she takes a deep breath, and says, truthfully, "I think I'm just used to it. I didn't realize it was that much--I knew you weren't totally comfortable, but

[beingtwofold]

The problem is there that Henry would struggle with not letting himself be distracted, as previously mentioned he doesn't want to be having this conversation at all--no one wants to have this conversation; presumably no one sane leaps out of bed enthusiastic at the prospect of telling his or her partner they're concerned a chemical dependency is in the process of developing. And it's also been noted he finds her problems easier to surmount than his, thus making them easier to talk about, but this is not something they can fix by discussing it, at least not in its entirety

[oleanderknife]

She is quiet for a long time, recognizing how difficult this is for him--and she wants to talk about that, too, because she feels like they have done too much for her, lately, all this stuff about how she feels and her past when he's been just as traumatized as she has, but she always gets like this whenever she feels too much focus is on her. Possibly this is kind of an issue in and of itself, but the matter at hand is another one, so she, too, focuses on that. Hasibe reaches out to tilt his chin up so he can meet her eyes, unwilling to let him look away from her for too long

[beingtwofold]

At a later time it is probably something they'll need to get into; Henry perceives all of his own trauma (and he is not especially good at recognizing it as such) as self-inflicted (which ...it was, even if he had no way of knowing what he was getting into) and therefore less valid than virtually anything that's happened to Hasi, who has been dealing with experiences not of her own choosing by dint of various unchangeable aspects of who she is for her entire life. But separately to that he would, extremely predictably, balk at the idea that there is too much focus on her, since as he is fond of stating there is nothing more important to him than her. The current issue(s) at stake are as noted enough to navigate on their own, however, and presumably they have time for all of the other aspects of just staying alive and healthy and maintaining a successful relationship

[oleanderknife]

He may be somewhat lacking in body heat these days, but she is always a couple degrees above normal, and with the blanket they'll average out just fine, Hasi feels. She curls into Henry automatically, cheek against his shoulder, hand catching in the material of his shirt. His first comment, flippant as it is, makes her tip her head up slightly in a playful grin, but it's dimmer than it might ordinarily be--because while she is reacting okay, she does feel a little bit caught out there, still, and furthermore it's not appropriate to get too teasing right away.

"You should let me decide what you wear," she suggests, innocently, and...okay, apparently that much playfulness was necessary, but she continues on soon enough, "but okay, yes. That much control is yours, too, and I will abstain unless we're together, and go in moderation at the same time. I don't think I've been really drunk since we got together, but...like you said, that's not the point

[beingtwofold]

"Let me up for just a second, if you would." Assuming she doesn't object bodily and strenuously to this he will kiss her temple and leave her on the couch for as long as it takes to empty the contents of her glass in the sink--it's only half-full, hardly a dealbreaker, but: that kind of hair splitting in the shape of 'compromise' is the top of a very steep, very slippery slope, and as much as Henry intrinsically gives Hasi pretty much anything she wants, he knows it would be a harmful step

[oleanderknife]

"I know." She smiles at him, and--there was a moment there where she twinged, she wanted to say I have self-control, I won't automatically drink it but she knows that's not what's going on. It's symbolic, emptying out that wine glass; no crutches, not between them, not around them, they don't need that anymore. So she slides forward onto his lap again, blanket tucked around her shoulders, Hasi's bare legs on either side of Henry's waist, a way they've been many times before but never seems to fade in its appeal.

"I love you," she tells him, "and I love that you want to protect me. So--even if I don't seem very grateful, I am glad you brought this up, I am thankful, and I will presumably be more thankful when I've had some time to process it."

She rests her hands on his shoulders, blanket slipping back a little bit.

"You're always there for me, but I want to remind you that I am here for you, too, and we don't have to do it tonight, but at some point there is some stuff with you we need to talk about too, okay? And that I will

[beingtwofold]

"You didn't get much warning," he acknowledges as far as processing time goes and failing entirely to object to the rehasification of his lap. "The next time we need to discuss something with this much weight to it we can arrange a time in advance, sound fair

[oleanderknife]

"Very fair."

Now, however, Hasibe has to come up with a good way to describe certain things she has observed in him--and it has required close watch, because he's pretty internal with most of his issues, as they have previously noted, but Hasibe is very determined to keep that from happening again. She's been in his mind, so she knows his coping mechanisms, and she knows where this went awry before, although she does have perfect faith that they won't go down that road again...it doesn't mean those behaviors are good.

"I know that...you tend to be--uh, very much a guy with this stuff, in that you don't really like, break down, and you don't like to talk too much about when you're hurt or when you're dealing with stuff you can't deal with in an academic way, 'cause with that intellectualization, there's--some distance. But," and she is serious about this without being too somber, speaking quietly to Henry in their house they share, "with everything that has happened, that is not always possible or a great idea. So we need this

[beingtwofold]

Henry listens to all of this, quietly, face impassive and then less so; on some levels it is still a little disconcerting to be known this well, but then--it's a relief, too, not to have to hide, and so there's some surprise there, too, because a lot of this is behavior he wasn't precisely aware that he was doing. Even when he was he had judged he wouldn't worry her with it, but he should know better by now than to think he can do that for long, and as such he laughs a little, rueful.

"You know me so well." For a little while that's all he says, but it doesn't really answer any of what she's observing, so he takes a stab at that, briefly. "Hasi--do you know what I am now? Because...I don't."

He hasn't actually said that out loud before. And he doesn't really expect her to have an answer, but all the same it'd be nice if she did.

[oleanderknife]

That question takes her aback, for a moment, but not in as harsh a way as when he confronted her on the drinking--she hesitates, but it's not because she doesn't want to tell him so much as she is not absolutely certain. There was a point when potentially she could have found out, but it wasn't the concern, at the time, and furthermore she wasn't anticipating being around to see what he became afterward. Still, she might have guessed; Hyde was completely inhuman, and Henry is, like most things in human costume around this world they inhabit, somewhere in between