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[traumaticus]

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[conflictresolution]

Fine.

[traumaticus]

[oh. that's it? richard did make the statement first but there still is something very hurtful in just one word like that.

so he's really fine him not being there? or is this another of those "outs" that silco offers him? should he stay or leave?

a moment passes before richard begins to type again.

"do you really mean--"

"what about your con--"

"don't you want me--"

but he falls back into his usual habit of withdrawing away, although this time it is over text and not spoken words. so he will just leave silco on read for now.]

[conflictresolution]

[True to his word, Silco stayed away until the next night, having worked himself through the emotions of his world falling out from under him. He returned to his house with the albino boar following along, having not seen the point of chasing the animal off.

He walked around the house looking for Richard, but perhaps his lover was working late at the inn. Yet, he noticed essential items missing in his walk about. He avoided Jinx's areas of the house for the moment.]

Are you coming over and staying tonight?

[traumaticus]

is that your wish?

[conflictresolution]

We've been consistently doing so for the last month, so yes. Do you wish to?

[traumaticus]

[...]


yes.

[conflictresolution]

Good. I won't be awake much longer. It would be pleasant to have you here when I retire.

[traumaticus]

i take it you're of better mood, then.

[conflictresolution]

Not particularly, but I'm too tired to be able to focus. Tomorrow will be better.

[traumaticus]

very well. i shall be there shortly

[there is then a brief pause before he continues]

am i right to assume that rejection was not in your intention last night?

[conflictresolution]

Good. Whitey is already here.

No. I needed a night to myself, nothing more. Did you think I was rejecting you?

[traumaticus]

i was not sure.

[conflictresolution]

I wasn't. I would make it very clear if I was.

[traumaticus]

you have previously sought out to give me different ways 'out' of this agreement.
i would did not know whether you were doing it again or not.

[conflictresolution]

You also told me that you never wanted to hear such things from me again, so I don't say them.

[traumaticus]

understood. i shall take your word for it, then.

i do not wish to sleep alone again.

[conflictresolution]

Did you sleep last night?

[traumaticus]

at the break of dawn, yes.

[conflictresolution]

When it is light outside.

Come, I will be with you in the dark.

[traumaticus]

[This time there is no reply. Richard feels like he has said all that there is to be said and just closes the tablet, tucks his paper work away into the drawer and makes his way to the apartment, which he had taken a residence for a nearly month now.

And as the twilight has began to covet most of the sky, Richard arrives and immediately goes to seek out Silco.]

[conflictresolution]

[Silco moved around his house and neatening the place up to keep his hands busy and to stave off the drag towards a chair or the bed. He shed his jacket then his tie then his vest.

By the time Richard arrived, he was leaning his forearms on the back of a dining room chair - the one Jinx sat it most frequently - and was trying to read from his book. He turned his head to spy his lover, looking tired and pale. He shut the book and set it on the table and slowly pushed off the chair he had been leaning on.]

[traumaticus]

[Sometimes you really do not need words to know what needs to be done. Silco looks like shit - pale skin and tired eyes making him appear almost like a ghost at the dining area's lighting. So different from his usual composed self that sought to have control of each moment. And Richard already knows why. He can't relate, of course, not his own estranged relationship with his own child and memory of his own father, that was colored with worship-like yearning and despair, but that didn't mean he couldn't sympathize.

Without removing his own cloak or the jacket underneath it, Richard walks up to his lover, wraps one arm around Silco's back while other one reaches up to the back of his neck - pulling the other man into his arms.]

[conflictresolution]

[He did a little crow-hop to turn as his injured leg was fatigued and painful from being on it almost constantly for the last twenty-four hours. He was intent to say nothing at all and just go to bed, sleep until the early hours of morning and get up to continue with life with the idea his daughter was gone.

Richard apparently had other plans, and he stood momentarily stiff when his lover pulled him in for a hug. He dropped his forehead down onto Richard's scarred shoulder, his arms remaining at his sides for awhile before he lifted them to set his hands on Richard's hips and slowly allowed some of the exhaustion to slump his shoulders.

He said nothing; he didn't want to talk right now.]

[traumaticus]

[The silence worked better than well to Richard, who often found himself betrayed by his own words - never quite able to dress his feelings in them properly. So, Richard kept holding Silco close as the quiet, paused moment filled the room around them. He could notice the stillness slowly transforming into tranquility as the bigger body relax against his.

He allows yet another moment of comfort to pass before he pulled away, just enough him to be able to look at his lover's eyes.]

You have injected the medicine already, correct?

[conflictresolution]

[He took solaced in the silence, closing his blue eye as he rested there. His mind was fuzzy from exhaustion, both physical and emotional, but the throbbing behind his eyes slowly settled while in Richard's arms. He drew in a breath and held it, reminding himself that life went on because it had to.

He had to let go of her with Jinx disappearing. A lifetime of making amends completed and now he was alone with nothing more than people who would be glad to see him dead now that Jinx wasn't here to create interference. No, no, that was the paranoia of the exhaustion playing.

He pulled back when Richard, preparing to do another crow-hop so they could head to the bedroom. It wasn't often that he wanted to lay down, but this was that moment.

Until Richard mentioned his eye medication, and a still stiffness returned to his frame. His fingers twitched and lifted instinctive to stroke the scarring beneath the mutilated eye. The job she insisted on doing was now his again permanently; she wasn't even here to nag him to do it at the same time every day and any hope of that died with her network tag disappearing. Jinx was gone.

He pulled away from Richard and began to limp away.]

I need to sleep.