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Posted by

portolan

The fact that this is the mirror of David sharing with him is the only thing that keeps him from protesting. He honestly feels out of arguments as to why none of that applies to him, why he doesn't get to have emotions, why it always ends in more pain. Which is so good for him. His heart aches at what David is offering, but it may as well be on the other side of a glass pane.

"I don't know how," he admits, but he's settled firmly in David's lap, still clinging to him.

Posted by

helpdesk_hero

"You stay here. Let your heart hurt the way it hurts. Stay here tonight and I will take care of you. Whatever you want, whatever you need. I'll be here. Just... Just let me be here."

Because it feels like Balthier doesn't want to let him do this.

Posted by

portolan

That's exactly what he wants. The kind of support he's only dreamed of. And he feels like an utter fool because he has no idea how to accept it or begin to say what it means to him. The only thing he knows to do with big emotions is freeze.

"Yes," he says. "I -- please keep me near you. I'm sorry I -- sometimes I come off as though I want to be left alone. I don't. Especially not from you."

Posted by

helpdesk_hero

"Pushing people away is a defense," David answered.

Which was true of David too.

"It's what ended me and Nori. It's what makes things hard back home."

Hard with Tommy. One day he'll have to mention Tommy.

Posted by

portolan

"David, I'm trying," he pleads. He doesn't know what else to do, and coming here, sharing, pushing through when he wanted to shut down -- that's all already been a lot for him.

Because he doesn't hear any empathy in it, just criticism. That's the way he's been trained.

Posted by

helpdesk_hero

Yes, but he needed to know. To understand that David needed more than this.

"I know you are, and I'm so proud that you'd open up like this to me," he says, his fingers curling up to stroke Balthier's hair.

Posted by

portolan

He didn't know how to be more than this. Didn't know how to be enough to be loved. He was always too much or too little and he never understood why.

David's words are soothing, at least, and that touch in his hair is good.

"Thank you," he says again. He means it. Almost doesn't believe this is happening. Is terrified what the fall out of it is going to be. But he's trying so hard to believe David and to just be here with him. That has to count for something, doesn't it? The trying?

That's all he has to give.

Posted by

helpdesk_hero

"I'm sorry that he did this to you," David said, his voice soft. "It will take time to recover. But over time, you might find the path to your happiness and healing."

Posted by

portolan

He hates that it will take more time to recover -- hasn't he been recovering for years now? -- and hates more that recovery is a maybe. If he hasn't done it by now, then what if he's just broken?

It still helps to hear David reiterating that this is something that happened to Balthier, not because of him, and while he doesn't entirely believe it, or entirely believe that David believes it, he is trying to hear it.

"I don't talk to anyone about this," he says. "Except Fran." Who may be dead, and even if she isn't, he suspects he isn't ever going to see her again. Yes, the Confluences pull in people from overlapping worlds, but the grand majority are worlds similar to this. He doesn't know why he's an outlier, but he doesn't expect it to strike twice. And even if it does, they could be from different versions of home.

He hasn't felt this alone since he got here.

"I didn't expect to be heard." Explaining, thanking, pleading. He knows David thinks less of him now, whether it's for continuing to hurt over this or being unable to control his emotions or for not sharing sooner, whatever it is, he knows he's failed.

The piece he hasn't figured out is that he's still holding onto his father's lies about him, laid down so young that they've always been there.

Posted by

helpdesk_hero

Poor man, no one has ever told him it's okay to be here with his pain. To recognize that healing takes time. That life takes time. He carefully kisses the man's brow, the contact tender and lingering before he answers.

"I will always hear you," David said. "And that you fear not to be tells me that your father, and perhaps others, have been quite cruel to you. You deserve better than that, my dear. But it takes time, to change from old patterns of behavior."

Posted by

portolan

No one has except Fran, and he's managed to tuck her into her own category. More older sibling than peer.

The tenderness of that touch, though, and David not growing impatient with him are calming him. At his words, Balthier exhales, letting more out than just his breath.

It's not going to change in one night. But he's bled off a little of the poison, and that's how healing happens, a bit at a time. Maybe more importantly, he's starting to realize David isn't going to push him away.

"I love you," Balthier says into David's neck. And what he means is, and I feel loved by you.

Posted by

helpdesk_hero

Really, Balthier is lucky to learn today that it's okay to let some of it out. Because a carefully controlled trickle is far better than the whole damn failing later. And this might seem like a dam failure, but... Well, it's not. At all.

"I love you too," David says, his voice soft and full of suck emotion.

Love, so freely given and openly accepted. It that almost made David cry all on its own. To be so loved is intense for him too.

Posted by

portolan

A trickle feels like a dam burst when you're used to only shedding drops. He needs to recalibrate, much more than he knows, and today has adjusted those expectations a little.

He hears the emotion in David's voice though, and it's his turn to hold the other man tight. It's as much to comfort as to affirm how safe that makes him feel, that his offer of love matters, especially right now.

Because that's the other side of not being loved: the fear that his love never mattered either. And he can tell it does to David.

When he's calmed a little more he pulls back to press his forehead to David's. "I will take you up on staying here." More like, would have to be forced out, really. "But maybe let's move to something made for sitting."

Posted by

helpdesk_hero

It matters so much. In a lifetime of abandonment or partners who were very uncomfortable with the displays of affection, in a life time where he was rarely claimed and felt like it would hold, well... it mattered.

"Alright then," he says, slipping from under Balthier and rising to his feet. He offers his hands down to pull Balthier up.

"There's a couch in my bedroom. Or the bed."

He wasn't going to put Balthier in the living room when he was vulnerable.

Posted by

portolan

Balthier has the empathy to understand why being loved would matter to David, and Scions if he doesn't want to pour that affection onto the other. He just doesn't quite have the experience or affirmation to put together that David wants to do that for him in the same way.

He nearly protests David pulling away, even though he's the one who suggested moving, but then that hand is there and he's giving David an adoring smile, even with tears bright on his face.

"I want to rinse my face, put on something soft that smells of you, and have you hold me. I don't care where." He flushes a little as he says it, because he still feels uncomfortable being so direct about his desires. But David keeps meeting openness and boldness with affirmation, so he's trying. David makes him feel safe enough to try.

Posted by

helpdesk_hero

"You can head through to the bathroom," he suggest, "and I'll lend you my bathrobe. Then I'll hld you as long as you want."

Those desires, given so freely, will absolutely be met with action.