With that conclusion reached, the silence sinks in again with the age-old question of: what do you do, after. He doesn’t want her to feel unwanted; similarly doesn’t want her to feel like he’s too needy, too clingy. God but it’s a difficult balance, and Stephen’s always been atrocious at handling it. By mutual agreement, he’d ejected women from that sterile penthouse apartment in Manhattan; had never lingered at theirs himself; until Christine, until it was someone he had to see at work the morning after and realised he wanted to see her again and again and again.
(Oh god it’s going to be the same for Gwenaëlle, isn’t it— he’s going to see her around the Gallows, in the infirmary—)
There’s probably a subtle panic about this question looming just over the metaphorical hill, but Stephen stubbornly looks away from it. That’s a problem for later, probably. He exhales against her shoulder; pivoting again, his thoughts always ping-pong around, but she’s good at keeping up:
“Okay. So, just for the sake of saying it aloud: you can stay if you like, and ordinarily I’d quite like you to,” he says, “but if the goal was discretion in getting back to your room…”
It’ll get more difficult, as the rest of the household wakes up and dawn eventually breaks and she’s not found back in her room.
no subject
With that conclusion reached, the silence sinks in again with the age-old question of: what do you do, after. He doesn’t want her to feel unwanted; similarly doesn’t want her to feel like he’s too needy, too clingy. God but it’s a difficult balance, and Stephen’s always been atrocious at handling it. By mutual agreement, he’d ejected women from that sterile penthouse apartment in Manhattan; had never lingered at theirs himself; until Christine, until it was someone he had to see at work the morning after and realised he wanted to see her again and again and again.
(Oh god it’s going to be the same for Gwenaëlle, isn’t it— he’s going to see her around the Gallows, in the infirmary—)
There’s probably a subtle panic about this question looming just over the metaphorical hill, but Stephen stubbornly looks away from it. That’s a problem for later, probably. He exhales against her shoulder; pivoting again, his thoughts always ping-pong around, but she’s good at keeping up:
“Okay. So, just for the sake of saying it aloud: you can stay if you like, and ordinarily I’d quite like you to,” he says, “but if the goal was discretion in getting back to your room…”
It’ll get more difficult, as the rest of the household wakes up and dawn eventually breaks and she’s not found back in her room.