[ the silence builds between them— it makes jayce's chest taut with subtle grief. all he wants . . .
is what he has now. it finally spurs him to continue the conversation on his own, stimulates his brain in a way that he very much needed, deprived of. the viktor in the fire would never talk back to him, no matter how much he cried. ]
You know, [ he starts, soft as his working hands, ] I hear cogs do the trick.
[ it always reminds him of that one time—
a couple times.
. . . many times, that there'd been a cog in their lives. one of them was a keepsake. another nearly took someone's eye out, and still he remembers the innovator's competition with affection, now bleeding into the way fingers massage at the other's scalp. ]
no subject
is what he has now. it finally spurs him to continue the conversation on his own, stimulates his brain in a way that he very much needed, deprived of. the viktor in the fire would never talk back to him, no matter how much he cried. ]
You know, [ he starts, soft as his working hands, ] I hear cogs do the trick.
[ it always reminds him of that one time—
a couple times.
. . . many times, that there'd been a cog in their lives. one of them was a keepsake. another nearly took someone's eye out, and still he remembers the innovator's competition with affection, now bleeding into the way fingers massage at the other's scalp. ]