A burden? His use of the word confuses her to the point where she has to lean her head back just a little to look at him properly, astonished. "You could never be a burden," she says, quietly, seriously.
When she leans into him again it's not to kiss him, though the closeness between them in those moments is a balm on a sore wound right now, instead her arms tighten around his shoulders and she rises onto her toes, compensating for their difference in height so that she can hug him properly, holding him as close to her as she can. "Stay with me, we can be as close as you need." Aerith doesn't want to say it and end up being the burden herself while he's in this state, but the last thing she needs after that ordeal is to be left by herself, without someone to hold onto.
She's been left alone before and though she can get through it if he needed his space, she wants to be as near to him as he'll let her get tonight, deciding that whatever warmth and happiness they might be able to scrounge up once the rawness of the moment was dulled would be worth it. He matters to her, what they have between them matters to her - as previously unthinkable as it may have been - she wants to protect him and shake off what she can of the chill of what they had to do.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2022-11-11 02:07 am (UTC)When she leans into him again it's not to kiss him, though the closeness between them in those moments is a balm on a sore wound right now, instead her arms tighten around his shoulders and she rises onto her toes, compensating for their difference in height so that she can hug him properly, holding him as close to her as she can. "Stay with me, we can be as close as you need." Aerith doesn't want to say it and end up being the burden herself while he's in this state, but the last thing she needs after that ordeal is to be left by herself, without someone to hold onto.
She's been left alone before and though she can get through it if he needed his space, she wants to be as near to him as he'll let her get tonight, deciding that whatever warmth and happiness they might be able to scrounge up once the rawness of the moment was dulled would be worth it. He matters to her, what they have between them matters to her - as previously unthinkable as it may have been - she wants to protect him and shake off what she can of the chill of what they had to do.