vecna | ☣️ midwestern mayhem inbox.

[He didn’t have to. Maybe in this, their thoughts are starting to align. Where their hands meet, he becomes distinctly aware of the contact.

He examines her face again, thinking to himself that turning around makes her harder to request one more slow-burning want, but that is a what if. This, she promises him.

He turns back around on his other side.]

[ maybe it would be better to slip from the bed now and delay what is about to happen. she isn't so stupid not to realize. this isn't her first turn around the block.

Henry rolls over and she lowers herself down. every motion feels especially deliberate; bend her knees, curl her arms, drape her tail. again, the weight of her legs firms up against his back, and her forehead against his nape, and this time, one hand sliding around his middle. he has... a very slender waist. mmn. ]

...I don't think we lost.

[ for what very little it's worth ]

[Her presence beside him might as well be the only thing in this room. He is cued into all of it: the firmness of her legs against the small of his back, what he believes to be the twitch of her tail, and then... her arm around his middle. Her words fan across the back of his neck.

Henry can't help himself. He lifts one hand up to curl around hers. Strange how he had been so tired just moments before, and now, he thinks it might take some manner of miracle to get him to go back to sleep. A tingle of excitement runs up and down his spine, and though he's entirely inexperienced compared to her, he knows what that means. It isn't his first turn around the block, either.

Uh oh.]

A very small silver lining. But if we can take some good out of a bad situation, we should, right?

Henry Creel, optimist.

[ what a funny idea...

she exhales out a small sighing laugh, too, because it's nowhere near accurate, but he's correct. they need to take what they can from this smouldering wreckage, every single time, or else what comes next and comes next and comes next will destroy them. this game is a new precedent. she isn't so naive as to think things will be better for them going forward. ]

[Optimist? What a funny idea, indeed.]

I guess I'm just feeling more hopeful than usual right now.

[And though he means in ways... not entirely related to the game, he would otherwise agree. They have to grasp onto things that make them happy, instead of always drowning themselves in anger and the need for revenge--

Wait. No.

He squeezes her hand a little tighter. The contrast between what he feels now and how euphoric he had been when his mind wasn't his own threatens to settle in again, ruining the moment, and he refuses to let it.]

Hey, Sprezzatura...?

[ this is what has left him hopeful? he must meant that it's over, or that they are alive, or that he's of his own mind again... it can't be that he feels idealistic about the future here... after that.

for her, the need for revenge burns all the hotter.

tugs her hand. ]

What is it, O hopeful one?

[And with the blunt-force application of a man who has clearly never had to express himself in this way in a very, very long time-]

I really like you.

[It's how a thirteen-year-old Henry would have said it; it's how adult Henry says it now.]

[ ...hhah, so he is the same way as her. another short, low laugh, exhaled into the cut of his collar. it's weary, but not without just a hint of warmth. ]

Of course you would say this now. [ when the both of them are broken down, mentally, and physically wrecked. that aching maw so hungry for something to fill it besides more wallowing, of course it would be now. she wends her hand higher, then, even with Henry's clasped on top of it, curving her fingers around the front of his throat. her lips, parted, press down on the back. ] So all of that was not so far from truth after all.

[Her laugh almost sends a shiver up his spine, and her lips make it a reality. Henry swallows hard, and she'd feel that, too, under her fingers. Even the subtle ticking of his pulse, its tempo a little too high for someone having just pulled himself from sleep, is obvious beneath her touch.]

I didn't- [How to say it?] I don't think it was that obvious to me until now. When my mind wasn't my own, it had been so much. I'd never felt like that before.

[A beat.]

But now that the game's over, it isn't completely gone. A small part of it is still there -- it had been there, even before.

[ what does it say of her, that what she felt when out of her mind was very little any different from what she feels when in it?

exhales again... no reply.

at first. ]

That little girl sank her claws into you, didn't she.

[His shoulders wobble with a very light chuckle, barely audible.]

I guess she did.

[When all the vulnerable parts of them connected, it never felt like they disappeared. They only grew stronger, his curiosity driving him forward to get to know her better. To spend time with her.

And though she lies next to him, holds him, it's not as though she's said she feels the same way. He still recalls, of course, how she remarked that he wasn't her type. It's hard to reconcile these two realities.]

Am I wasting my time? Feeling that way.

[ did she not claim to consider it disappointing time-filler? all those things that attraction could herald—company, desire—invariably leads to a stifling sense of suffocation and obligation instead. if she were a kinder, less selfish woman, now is when she would promptly answer with, yes. spare yourself that heartache.

instead, in a sleep-heavy murmur, she says, ] I don't... know yet...

[ it's certainly a choice for him to. ]

I told you already that girl is gone. You will never find her.

[“I don’t know” is still infinitely better than telling him that yes, he is. It means there’s still a chance — still hope that she could one day maybe like him back.

Hopeful one, indeed.]

I think there’s still a small part of her in there. And besides…

[He’s going to flip back around again, sorry. This seems like something he should say to her face-to-face.]

I like you for who you are now, too.

[ stiffly, ] Well, I do not.

[ again, she pushes to sit... putting her back firm to the headboard. knees to her chest.

she's fundamentally powerless. grieving. humiliated, trapped, and worst of all—nursing a heavily bruised ego. she sees herself in all that she does and hates that woman.

that never used to happen. ]

So leave your compliments behind your teeth, where they belong.

[He aches when she retracts from him, but there's something so withdrawn about her body language that he doesn't think it's a good idea to purse. So, Henry just props himself up on an elbow, pressed into the pillow, looking up at her. The light through the window grants her a strange, unearthly halo.

To not take compliments, to not preen at them -- that's unlike her. He wonders how long she'll feel raw and vulnerable, how long these wounds will heal. If she'll ever forgive him.]

You know... [He begins, hard to hear.] I feel awful, too. This is the second time the game's made me feel bad about who I am.

[He just hasn't shared it with anyone, not really. Kept close to himself, buried down deep; and unearthed again, even worse than before.]

[ forever.
never.

she doesn't know. ]

Hhah. [ colourlessly ] And why should we let it? Hm? More likely than not, this is its goal.

[If half of his face wasn't pressed into his pillow, he'd tilt his head at her.

Gently, but... pointedly-]

I don't know. Why should we let it?

We shouldn't. We should be angry. Angry enough to kill.

We should.

[And he is; he always is. That seems to be the issue when the game puts his anger's opposites into stark contrast. Nothingness. Happiness.

But if she doesn't ask after it, he won't say more on the matter.]

So why does it seem like you feel ashamed?

[ sharply, though not shrilly—sharp the way a lion's paw is sharp, not a needle— ] I am not ashamed. I am fucking furious.

[He sighs, then shifts to lie on his back, staring up at the shadows splayed across the ceiling.]

You can be both, Sprezzatura.

[ who is this person talking to her? reaching into her for her shame when all she wants to hold onto is her anger? this isn't the Henry she thought she'd glimpsed after the death race—this isn't even the Henry she met as a pitiful girl.

shame will paralyze her, destroy her insidiously, make her foundations crumble until she's small and helpless as Eunoia and Selcouth want her to be. too meek to be a danger to them; too guilty to build herself up to be something again. why would he, so emphatic of grasping her anger then, want her to admit to that seed of contrition now? has death changed him so completely? but... why not her, then? why did he find love when all there was for her was more hate?

why could he eat and, in that, feel a connection, when for her, there was only her hunger all the more keenly?

it's not fair.

the colour of the room is... cold.

thump. her tail against the bedframe. Sprezzatura exhales long and painful, too, lowering her face into the cradle of her knees. don't cry. don't. ]

Maybe... you do waste your time. [ just a croak ] I can't have answers for you.

[Because his anger feels rotten inside of him now, in the wake of happiness. How long since he’s felt that way? How long since he’s loved anyone? That game gave him the one thing he desired the most in the world, more than even breaking it, and now it’s gone. He feels shame, too — this is just another reach for connection.

In time, the anger will solidify. Become like tempered steel again. But for tonight, he just feels molten and weak, and trying to tell her that much seems to only drive her further away. He doesn’t understand. He wishes he was better at this, sincerely and innately, without having to delve into her mind. In a way, that frustrates him, too.

But chancing a glance at her, her face obscured by her legs, sounding the way she does, saying the things she does, Henry thinks that right now, maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe he’s missed the point of her even coming to visit him. Isn’t that her… reaching out, in her own way?

He sits up, back against the headboard, too, and extends an arm out to wrap around her and gently draw her back in. If she allows for it.]

No. It’s not a waste, I’ve decided. You don’t need to have any answers for anything right now… I just want to be close to you tonight. Will you let me have that?

[ his arm around her. it's suffocating— ]

[ s...

it's... suff... it's. it. ]

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