This is where the flinch comes. It comes as a clutch, an arm tightening around the gathered stillness of John like he can gather it still further, hold him anchored down to a singular point. Something sparks in his eyes, a flint in the dark.
(There's another world, a different world, where empathy would be unkindness enough. To see, to be seen. Such a terrible thing to do, even to such a terrible thing.)
"But there are things that still can be helped." He presses his own voice down low, pinned to the back of his throat. "Here. Back there. Two worlds - and two of us."
The flame-flicker lilt of a smile comes back, amusement sharp and iron, fleeting as smoke: "Almost like fate, isn't it?"
"You belong with your world. You belong to it." But the heat stays, fervent and insistent. "And it is intolerable to me to see you kept from it. I failed you once as your navigator. Would you bear me trying one more time?"
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(There's another world, a different world, where empathy would be unkindness enough. To see, to be seen. Such a terrible thing to do, even to such a terrible thing.)
"But there are things that still can be helped." He presses his own voice down low, pinned to the back of his throat. "Here. Back there. Two worlds - and two of us."
The flame-flicker lilt of a smile comes back, amusement sharp and iron, fleeting as smoke: "Almost like fate, isn't it?"
"You belong with your world. You belong to it." But the heat stays, fervent and insistent. "And it is intolerable to me to see you kept from it. I failed you once as your navigator. Would you bear me trying one more time?"