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

[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.

"Okay, to begin here..." She assembles her thoughts as best she can, resting her hands on her lap, now, too. "The fact that my first response here was to get weird and defensive probably does mean it's...not great. I'm not an alcoholic, I know I'm not, but--I can dial it down to wine with Friday night dinners or when we go out, and anything harder...I don't know, maybe just if I go to a party or something. Or I don't know what you'd prefer there, because--this is the second thing--"

She pushes her hair away from her face again. "A lot of this relationship is stuff that I will always want to do, that I will always be okay with, and that's when it's easier and fun, but--even though we're not doing a twenty-four-seven thing where you control everything I do, because that's ridiculous and not our style--there is also a side to it where if you absolutely say no to something...yes, I will probably go along with it. The safeword we have is not just for sex, you know? It's for other stuff, too. And I don't want to distract from the topic at hand, but I want you to know that even if I don't like it, I am giving you this, if you want it; this kind of control extends in a few ways other than just sexually. But if you don't want that to be an aspect of things and want to keep it just bedroom, that is absolutely okay, too."

[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.

Speaking of which, it may be the certain defined aspects they are secondarily discussing at play here, or it may just be the fact that both of them are enormously physically affectionate (at least with each other; Henry still doesn't really touch anyone else): either way it is apparently impossible for this conversation to continue until he tugs her into his lap, for nestling purposes. It's warm and important and gives him space to think, as does furthering this by tugging the fallen blanket over them, because he does not really provide much in the way of body heat anymore.

"Sometimes I wonder who's really in charge here," he murmurs, and he is entirely kidding, but: there is some meat to the idea that ultimately he requires she give him permission to exercise the kind of control they're discussing, and any permutation thereof, so. (The one who's really in charge of their house now is Huan, by the way.)

"Agreed as we are that neither of us is interested in total power exchange, then," man, he is awesome at this terminology now, "because realistically, I just don't have time--I understand sometimes in those cases one partner determines what the other wears, and it would take me a weeks at a stretch just to catalog your wardrobe," levity! ...yes, "then if you're comfortable with extending me that, then so am I. And what that means in this situation is that we can compromise, but it may be temporary."

He bumps his chin on the top of her head, thoughtful. "Right now I'd prefer that you don't drink unless I'm with you, and we can see how that goes. Can you live with that?"

[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."

Hasi tips her head up again to kiss the side of his jaw, as though this seals it.

"And I don't want to drink anymore tonight, either--well, no, I want to, but I won't."

[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.

When he comes back he sits next to her, although his lap is available 24-7, that's just a thing with them. "Thank you, by the way--very much. I weighed this for so long, I thought if it was just me being overprotective then there was no point, and we have to see how things wash out, but I--so much has happened sometimes I think the only thing left for me to be afraid of is losing you."

So ...there's that. "And I promise I'll help you, if you need it, or even if you just want me to. Anything, okay?"

Factually speaking a lot of the focus may be on her, lately, but he asks a lot, too.

[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 push."

[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?"

When Hasi starts back to school (a concept to which Henry stubbornly refuses to apply 'if'), their schedules may become disparate enough that they'll have to do things like that anyway, but they'll make time for each other. Of the things he takes it into his head to worry about, that is pretty low on the list. Maybe even underneath the subject (or subjects, or one subject with many smaller ones branching off) she's just brought up, and as she has correctly surmised, he is not exactly eager to go there.

But this does work both ways. He puts his hands on her waist, lightly, which involves some tangling with the blanket and yet does not deter him at all. "I know you're here. If there's something you'd like to talk about, though, now is--well, we're here already."

In the talking place, apparently.

[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 stuff to be out, it needs to not be secret so we can deal with it, or when it's things I can't know or help you with for whatever reason, at least have it...you know, expressed. Somehow--I just know that you have a lot of guilt, for what happened to those other people, and--and with me, but I know you also have other stuff, too."

[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.

"Well...you know that I am not normal. And unlike most people who are also not normal, I was always like this, I was born aware of the difference. I don't know what I am, it's never really been documented or pinpointed, but I do know there are a lot of people out there who aren't straight-up human; they live lives like anyone else, but they are something supernatural. There's a market, though, like I think I've said, where you can get added to, or augmented, or taken away from, like an black organ market but with pieces of people who aren't human."

She meets Henry's eyes, steady; there is a flare of anger underneath, hidden and muted, but it isn't directed at him.

"I think that whatever chemicals Pentex gave you had some kind of supernatural genetic material, or the spiritual version thereof. So, no, I don't know what sort, exactly, but--uh--if I had to guess, I'd say something animalistic." There's a pause. "...not that I mind that, but that's not the point. The point is, I think they were trying to use you to refine that market, because as it is it's messy and invasive, and to a degree you succeeded, but you are changed in the process. So I don't know what you are, but I do know who you are, if that helps, and...I have been through this, so I will help you adjust to these new abilities however I can."

[beingtwofold]

Henry knew some of this already, which is probably useful at this juncture, because he can only handle so much of what feels like the innate necessity of destruction, sometimes; they clearly have to talk about how much he's dealing with internally, but some of that is just being civilized, some of that everyone endures on a daily basis.

"Animalistic," he echoes, not exactly--pleased, but it feels like the answer to a riddle he heard so long ago he forgot, and so the awareness is age-old and new at the same time. "Yes. It's--something like that."

Having a place to start does help, and part of him would like to seek out this underground she's talking about in the pursuit of more information, but he has to prioritize certain things here, and he can ascertain that is not something she would want ever, even if it didn't also strike him as a hideously unsafe prospect. (Never mind that the fact that he himself is somewhat significantly more unsafe now is part of the issue.)

Since that's out as an option, there are only certain other ways to deal with this. "Give me time." The tone in his voice could be pleading, but it's ...not. "To figure out--if you know who I am, then--good, I'll believe anything you say, but I still feel most of the time like there are two of me."

[oleanderknife]

Hasibe's reaction to the idea of Henry even approaching that world would probably be stronger than he's seen her react to much, actually, so if he does bring that up they might be in for yet another discussion. In the meantime, she keeps her hands on him as though it tethers her to reality, her to him and him to her. Although they are settling in admirably to their new life together, she does get a little clingy, sometimes, because she doesn't forget how close she came to losing him. (And how close he came to losing her afterward, but--her perspective on that is different.)

"I thought you might," she admits, "but--you are developing more of yourself after a long time of keeping yourself stuck, so it's going to be harder, and those psychic sutures, of a sort, that I put in, those aren't totally gone yet. Everything has happened so quickly, but it'll take us twice that time, or more, to put things the way we need them."

Hasi smiles slightly, reassuring but a little sad at the same time, and leans forward to rest her forehead against his.

"But we have all the time in the world."

[beingtwofold]

One of the most difficult things he's doing right now is staying out of danger when every new sense he has craves it; he wants trouble, adrenaline, something to put motion and swinging grace to the developing forms in his mind, and they will probably get to that in this conversation, actually, but--it is ultimately more important that they stay safe for each other, at least right now, so he has inclinations, but he doesn't necessarily have to follow them.

By the same token they can be totally clingy for....virtually ever, the possibility of that kind of loss will do that. "Are you actually as certain as you sound, or are you saying this for me? Not that they necessarily have to be mutually exclusive, but I feel sometimes--you know, I'm older than you," and he's mildly facetious about this, grin slanting briefly, "but you're the one with all the answers."

[oleanderknife]

Their almost decade-long age difference so rarely even occurs to Hasi--by the time you're in your mid-twenties that's not really a big deal at all, and while she knows he's older than her (he's got grey in his hair, after all, which she totally loves, mind you, it suits him a lot), she so rarely feels just twenty-four that her own youth often goes unrealized. She laughs, a little, and nudges him gently. "I'm certain, but I also want to say this for you because I think that if I say it enough, we'll both be certain. Or at least I hope so."

She shrugs one shoulder.

"But I don't have all the answers--or I would have realized how much I was drinking, or a lot of other things. Plus, and I'll let you in on a little secret, don't tell anybody or I'll do something drastic--" Hasi leans in to speak into his ear, voice low, breath soft. "Most of the time I just go by instinct. I guess this means mine are pretty good, huh?"

[beingtwofold]

Henry pinches her on the hip, affectionate but serious about it, brows up. "Except when they come to you, sometimes. It would be enormously hypocritical of me to tell you not to feel guilty about anything when I know that's--impossible to help," the discussion of which regarding his own issues is still yet to come, appropriately, "but despite how I am frequently astonished by how much you see, you can't always expect yourself to see everything or anticipate any possibility. I noticed--because I like nothing better than just looking at you...well, maybe a few things, " ......haha, "but that's the point of this, isn't it? We can see things about each other that we can't always see ourselves, because first person perspective is necessarily limited."

Enjoy that bizarre literary reference, he's weird. "And I've overused that verb to the point of absurdity now."

[oleanderknife]

"We do manage to match up pretty well in that regard," she says, thoughtfully, "I've noticed that, too--and we keep taking care of each other, because bi tanem, left to your own devices I do not know what you would get up to, you are so male about everything."

Although she pretty clearly...you know, likes his maleness (...ahem), what kind of girlfriend would she be if she didn't troll him about it on occasion, and with playful gusto. Hasibe smiles at Henry, fondly. "It's a good observation, and something we'll have to keep in mind, the ways we--is 'complete each other' really cliche? Because I thought it, but even if it is cliche, I don't care, it's just true.

"Also, I sure hope there are a few things, Henry."

[beingtwofold]

"Any number of them," he is cheerfully unrepentant, and immune to trolling (lies), "but there are these moments that catch me, sometimes--I think most of it is related to housework, so you should assume that's because I enjoy living with you and not because if you're doing housework that means I don't have to do it."

...speaking of trolling. "If that answers your question about what I'd get up to in your absence, but do not make me find out." Which throws the conversation at least a little into deep serious waters again, but in this state of comfortable nonchalance, they can veer easily from one to the other without so much as a breath, frequently.

Sometimes this is because they're using all available breath to make out, but the point stands.