He smiles a little β a rare expression in that it's meant purely for himself, though it unfolds across his face for her to plainly see. His features only shift again when she speaks up, when she finds what she wants to say, because you didn't like me very much β despite the very broad boundaries drawn by his prompting β hadn't been very high on the list of things he'd expected her to hear.
What's also unexpected is the faint sense of guilt that accompanies it. She doesn't say it to scold him, hence the second part of her lead-up, which pries a laugh from his mouth, but he feels that twinge nonetheless. To be good still doesn't come completely easily to him, but he better understands the reasons why someone would choose such a path, rather than considering it outright foolish, as he once had.
So he looks at her in the firelight, at the loosened braid of her hair, the terribly earnest way in which she regards him, and says, ] Can you not tell?
[ Once, he thinks, he would have loathed answering a question like this, would have sidestepped it or supplied some sugar-coated lie. Every other question that occurs to her would have been preferable to having to confess or feign affection or care.
To that end, he understands his initial answer to be almost cruel, considering that she's given voice to something that ... to say she was worried about it would be to oversell it, and to say that she cares, well. It begs something more concrete, doesn't it? His gaze drifts into the fire, that small smile coalescing again on his face β his voice is soft, as though betraying some sort of secret. ]
Of course it has.
[ A breath catches in his throat, as though he's stopped himself from saying anything further. From saying, do you think I would still be here if I did not care for you?
Instead, wry, a tease to set him back on a wavelength closer to his usual self: ] I find you quite tolerable, now.
π
He smiles a little β a rare expression in that it's meant purely for himself, though it unfolds across his face for her to plainly see. His features only shift again when she speaks up, when she finds what she wants to say, because you didn't like me very much β despite the very broad boundaries drawn by his prompting β hadn't been very high on the list of things he'd expected her to hear.
What's also unexpected is the faint sense of guilt that accompanies it. She doesn't say it to scold him, hence the second part of her lead-up, which pries a laugh from his mouth, but he feels that twinge nonetheless. To be good still doesn't come completely easily to him, but he better understands the reasons why someone would choose such a path, rather than considering it outright foolish, as he once had.
And he better understands her, most importantly β that what he'd taken for naΓ―vetΓ© is instead a sort of strength. She's gotten them all this far, which is no mean feat, even if one accounts for an unusual helping of dumb luck.
So he looks at her in the firelight, at the loosened braid of her hair, the terribly earnest way in which she regards him, and says, ] Can you not tell?
[ Once, he thinks, he would have loathed answering a question like this, would have sidestepped it or supplied some sugar-coated lie. Every other question that occurs to her would have been preferable to having to confess or feign affection or care.
To that end, he understands his initial answer to be almost cruel, considering that she's given voice to something that ... to say she was worried about it would be to oversell it, and to say that she cares, well. It begs something more concrete, doesn't it? His gaze drifts into the fire, that small smile coalescing again on his face β his voice is soft, as though betraying some sort of secret. ]
Of course it has.
[ A breath catches in his throat, as though he's stopped himself from saying anything further. From saying, do you think I would still be here if I did not care for you?
Instead, wry, a tease to set him back on a wavelength closer to his usual self: ] I find you quite tolerable, now.