HELLO, MY OLD HEART. IT'S BEEN SO LONG;

[dishearten]

CHARACTERS: Graham, + Loki, Sieglinde, Giorno, and Emma, tiny open prompt at the end!
DATE: in Oska
WARNINGS: possible talk of mind control/sexual abuse
SUMMARY: get grandpa a heart! let's go!


GIORNO.

It's been a long time coming, longer than it ought have been. Without his heart Graham grieves its absence less — like a child born in the desert yearning for snow when they've only heard of it, it's an idea more than a reality when it exists in a place so very far away.

Though that's not entirely the truth, is it? Graham has reasoned with himself over his missing heart, and it is hard to want something that could potentially bring as much pain as it might happiness. He functions without, he exists fairly well without. Why bring back emotions he's better off not feeling?

Well, for starters, because it will be the first step to really living again. The first step toward a possible future, instead of an ending. So he asks those that have offered him aide to finally set the plan in motion. Better late than never.

The start of the plan is to procure a vessel, living muscle and not stolen from anyone else. Graham has been rather particular on that. Luckily there's a member of Audentes capable of such a feat, and he's exactly the one Graham is waiting on. When he hears a knock, the huntsman does not stall in the fingers scratching under the scruffy jaw of his brother. "It's open," he says instead, and it is. Giorno was expected, there's a book holding the door open. Really reverent use of a book, Mr. Cracker.

LOKI.

The scientific side of the process is complete. The heart made, tested, finessed. Ready for implantation, and enchanted to maintain itself even outside of a body. It's eerie to hear it beat in its quiet wooden box, beating as if it always had. That a cedar prison was just as pleasant a home as a cage of bone. Graham can't feel the extent of the emotions the heart promises, not without it being placed in his chest, yet even without it he seems unsettled by the sound.

He's heard a choir of heartbeats, laid to rest in cold wooden boxes. Just one shouldn't unnerve him as much, yet it makes him think of his own, how long ago he'd lost it. The fact he can't even remember the tempo that had once sounded so familiar.

The library is absent as he waits for Loki. There's the promised book in front of him, though Graham doesn't have much interest in thumbing through the pages. He knows that story, how it started, how it ended. He's not interested in what is written, he's more set on what might yet come. He is quiet as he waits, as Loki is the sort of person that does not run by the demands of a clock.

He will arrive exactly when he intends to, no sooner and no later.

EMMA.

It's been a long day.

Graham can't even feel the worst of it, honestly, and that's for the heart still thundering in a box instead of his chest. Perhaps he'll feel it soon, the weariness of someone who has existed on the fringe for so very long, suddenly reeling in the weight of everything he'd been missing. It'd be a bit of a lie to say he's excited, and that's not just because the emotion seems a little hard to manage heartless. Rationally, and at the moment that's the most he can do, rationalize — he supposes that he is afraid.

He is afraid of the dark that lingers and haunts him even without a heart. He is afraid that feeling will overwhelm him, that it will change him back to the man he looks back on with regret. He is afraid it will change things, yet it has been more than long enough for him to fear what will happen if he doesn't more. Having a heart is a part of living, an unescapable and vital part of really and truly living. Graham cannot claim to want a future without being willing to truly live it.

There's one person that has pushed him to that conclusion more than anyone else could have hoped to, and she's the last stop on this wearying process. First, and middle, because it'd been her job to enchant the heart so it could stay preserved outside of a body during the preparations. Now all the work is done, there's nothing left but inserting it, and unfortunately that task is placed at her door, too. Graham wouldn't have asked it of her if he had another choice, but he doesn't. She'll have to hurt him to help him, at least one last time.

He knocks at her door with one, uneasily holding the beating box in the other. It's finally time to end all this — or, perhaps, in a sense? Start it.

SIEGLINDE.

The morning after, the whole world feels different.

It's overwhelming, mostly. The weight of the world has found its way back onto his shoulders, and as expected, it's not as easy to carry as emptiness. Despite the fact he's healthier than he has been in decades in this moment, with a heartbeat stirring under his breast, in many ways he feels as if he has fallen when he was meant to step forward. The shame he feels in this fact is a revolution in and of itself. Everything is a bit of a revolution, lately.

He's considered canceling the check in with Sieglinde, yet he knows the assurances that he is well won't be believed until she has a chance to see for herself. So when she knocks at the agreed time, he forces himself from bed and goes to answer. Despite the early hour, he's meticulously dressed, every button in place, even though he'll probably need to remove quite a few layers for her to appropriately evaluate him.

The first thought that comes to mind is he looks tired, and that his eyes don't seem to land on hers when he opens the door. Brother grants a far more enthusiastic hello, bounding closer and slowing only when he nears — a learned habit, from nearly knocking her over in the past. "Come in," Graham finally says, and even his voice seems a little different, now. Almost everything is different now.

OPEN.

Having a heart is perhaps not as easy as it sounds, though it is not always as horrible as he expected it to be. Those that spot Graham around Oska might notice something unusual, at least for him.

He eats ravenously at the cafeteria, for once, when he's only been seen picking at his food before. When he visits the stables to sweet-talk the horses he wears a muted but genuine smile on his face. Most alarmingly, visiting the squidges he all out laughs when a pair of them take a tumble over a log. Those that know Graham will know he has barely managed a restrained chuckle in all his time in ALASTAIR.

The good is painted with the bad. Graham can seen far more often running the castle grounds, only stopping when his body forces himself to, looking pained at that.