ic contact.

[brainiest]

"Hello, Hermione Granger here. I must be busy, so please leave a message. Thank you very much!"

ic contact for hermione granger at drift fleet.
(text, voice, video, action;)

Comments

[exothermia]

[This was an appalling way to tell someone happy birthday, he thinks. By dumping his problems on them. At least he'd given her something she truly did like first.

He has to look away after a moment, though he nods. The idea of being like this for years on end is almost suffocating. It's why he hasn't tried to look to the future - he doesn't know what can lie there except this great emptiness that's been punched through his soul. Digging a nail into the counter, he speaks again, words a little rocky.]

It's been three months, since my wife and daughter were killed. I don't know that I can live up to what I was with them.

[brainiest]

That's because you can't.

[ There's no point in being anything else but blunt and honest with him, really, and she doesn't mean to be cruel - but she can't help herself. Tilting her head up, she breathes out. ]

If you're comparing yourself to a person you were with them then... You're never going to be able to move forward, Erik. You'll be stuck, because... They're not here.

[ Hermione doesn't hesitate to reach out, to take his hand into her, to hold onto it gently. ]

You can't constantly compare yourself to who you were with them, because you'll never be able to move forward. You'll never be happy again.

[exothermia]

[He lowers his head, feeling the weight of those words. He knows, of course, that he'll never be like that again. In a way, the person he had been died that day with his family. 'Henryk Gurzsky' perished months ago. But moving forward? He's tried, so many times. It doesn't seem to work. And he doesn't know that he wants to move forward from them.

Even though time will do that inexorably, no matter how he fights it.

His hand is rough, skin coarsened from years of hard labour. After a moment, he lets out a breath and curls his fingers around Hermione's.]

This isn't what I had in mind when I came over.

[brainiest]

[ It might not be what he had in mind, but Hermione thinks it might be what he needed. He's surrounded by people who want him to be better, to be happy, to be - good, and okay, but she knows that it's not that easy. Hermione has experienced that herself, and the pressure you can put on your own shoulders can be too much.

Turning her head back, she squeezes his hand, holding onto him gently. ]

That's alright. I think you probably needed this. I don't mind at all.

[exothermia]

[He lets out a laugh; a short, quiet huff.]

I don't know what I need anymore.

[brainiest]

Well, I think you probably needed to talk to someone. I'm glad you could talk to me.

[exothermia]

[He's spoken to people, in fits and starts. Not so much lately; when he was fresh and raw from coming back to the Fleet, it had spilled out of him more, not yet confined by his own natural inclination towards silence. None of his conversations have been quiet like this, though. No one has told him outright what be believes is true.

There's value in that, bitter though it might taste at times.]

...thank you.

[brainiest]

[ Hermione imagines talking to people isn't the same as having someone empathise and lay things down in the way she had - there was no beating around the bush, and perhaps that had felt wrong, at first, but... Evidently it had been the right thing to do. She's been through enough that she knows idle kindnesses like that often weren't exactly welcome. ]

Of course, Erik. Any time.