[It's the smart thing to do. Logically. Oxytocin dulls the symptoms, hopefully enough to keep him from lunging for her throat. Maybe even enough to give him a chance to think clearly enough to reevaluate how he's handling this—something that chasing her off doesn't accomplish quite as easily.
The quiet settles, and the hunger damps down to less-than-overwhelming. It's still there, gnawing, but the constant consuming and targeted cravings dial back enough to think about literally anything else. He takes stock. The distant aches from carrying himself so tense, the way he hasn't really slept in days. Hasn't had this kind of quiet in longer. The intrusive part of him that was weighing the ways to wait Lucina out and take her life to sate his own hunger eases away and just leaves him sick and bitter all over in the wake of how sensible it had seemed at the time. It's not gone. (It feels, in the vaguest of ways, a little like the worst of his aftershocks from the pit. The way it feels like it seeps down into the worst parts of you and feeds them. Gives them life. But this is invasive, alien, different. It is not feeding any part of him, it is just drowning him beneath itself.) But it is better.
Enough that when he feels her hand close over the back of his own, it prompts a corner of his mouth to twitch upward wryly.
That bad, huh.
It's reason enough to open his eyes again and refocus. Seeing clearly for the first time in a while. Funny how he hadn't really realized just how bad it had gotten until it was too late to think past it. Like putting a frog in a pot of water and slowly setting it to boil.
This isn't going to work.
Even with her loath to break the silence, sitting here and feeling sorry for himself isn't getting them anywhere, either. He knocks his head back against the door and relaxes by inches and steels himself to break the peace and quiet himself. Okay.
Before he can get a word out, the doors behind them fly open with a rattling bang, spilling them both out into the hallway beyond. And they're definitely not alone.]
I can't dignify this overwrought thread by taking it seriously oocly
The quiet settles, and the hunger damps down to less-than-overwhelming. It's still there, gnawing, but the constant consuming and targeted cravings dial back enough to think about literally anything else. He takes stock. The distant aches from carrying himself so tense, the way he hasn't really slept in days. Hasn't had this kind of quiet in longer. The intrusive part of him that was weighing the ways to wait Lucina out and take her life to sate his own hunger eases away and just leaves him sick and bitter all over in the wake of how sensible it had seemed at the time. It's not gone. (It feels, in the vaguest of ways, a little like the worst of his aftershocks from the pit. The way it feels like it seeps down into the worst parts of you and feeds them. Gives them life. But this is invasive, alien, different. It is not feeding any part of him, it is just drowning him beneath itself.) But it is better.
Enough that when he feels her hand close over the back of his own, it prompts a corner of his mouth to twitch upward wryly.
That bad, huh.
It's reason enough to open his eyes again and refocus. Seeing clearly for the first time in a while. Funny how he hadn't really realized just how bad it had gotten until it was too late to think past it. Like putting a frog in a pot of water and slowly setting it to boil.
This isn't going to work.
Even with her loath to break the silence, sitting here and feeling sorry for himself isn't getting them anywhere, either. He knocks his head back against the door and relaxes by inches and steels himself to break the peace and quiet himself. Okay.
Before he can get a word out, the doors behind them fly open with a rattling bang, spilling them both out into the hallway beyond. And they're definitely not alone.]