[Paul's capacity for caring for anyone outside of himself is scraped down to the bone, in this particular isolated hour, so it's fortunate that Oscar exists inside of him. Paul reaches out with a quieting pulse of assurance at Oscar's flinch and fall, the mechanism that he uses to calm his own fears activating at the sensation of someone else's.
It's still disorienting. The feedback loop is distorted and slowed, the milliseconds long difference between the response he expects and the one he receives just enough to throw him, but he can adjust. He can always adjust.]
It's not -
[He swallows, shaking his head, and focuses inward. He constructs a blackboard, like the ones in the Archive, and on it he imagines lines of chalk forming.]
no subject
It's still disorienting. The feedback loop is distorted and slowed, the milliseconds long difference between the response he expects and the one he receives just enough to throw him, but he can adjust. He can always adjust.]
It's not -
[He swallows, shaking his head, and focuses inward. He constructs a blackboard, like the ones in the Archive, and on it he imagines lines of chalk forming.]
It's not like that.