That ache deepens, twists, gnarls in his chest again, his skin burning with that gentle touch trailing along his forearm. He’s never really had anyone see and acknowledge and understand all the connective tissue before; he’d never let them be privy to all the pieces.
“Exactly,” Stephen says. “And then you go through yet another door, and close that one behind you too, and you get further and further from that starting point. Intellectually, of course I’m aware that every step and every brick built led me to who I am today — and here, to you, to which I’m indescribably grateful — but it’s also…”
He’s never had to think about this part before, let alone articulate it aloud.
“I’ve been to your Hightown estate. You could theoretically show me the lake in the Greatwood where you swam. I can’t do that. It’s yet another door removed. I’ve told you about Wong because there’s a fleeting chance a version of him might show up here. But the farm in Nebraska, it’s long-gone people you’d never meet and yet another door removed, an impossibility — although I guess you did get to see Earth, sort of, in the Fade.”
And thankfully that, too, counts as the things that matter. The Sanctum, his closest thing to a home which he’d chosen and taken and made his own, his love for it seeped into every creaking floorboard.
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“Exactly,” Stephen says. “And then you go through yet another door, and close that one behind you too, and you get further and further from that starting point. Intellectually, of course I’m aware that every step and every brick built led me to who I am today — and here, to you, to which I’m indescribably grateful — but it’s also…”
He’s never had to think about this part before, let alone articulate it aloud.
“I’ve been to your Hightown estate. You could theoretically show me the lake in the Greatwood where you swam. I can’t do that. It’s yet another door removed. I’ve told you about Wong because there’s a fleeting chance a version of him might show up here. But the farm in Nebraska, it’s long-gone people you’d never meet and yet another door removed, an impossibility — although I guess you did get to see Earth, sort of, in the Fade.”
And thankfully that, too, counts as the things that matter. The Sanctum, his closest thing to a home which he’d chosen and taken and made his own, his love for it seeped into every creaking floorboard.