Elena... I -- If something happens. It isn't your fault.
[He probably should have said so before they started this. But it belatedly occurs to him. It belatedly dawns on him he should warn her. He's feeling the fragility, the hope, coming off her. That's what sparks it. If the... blood... triggers anything in his head, she has to know it isn't her fault.]
[Something is broken in his head. Not hers. She shouldn't suffer because of what he can't fix.]
[When she lifts her hand to her mouth, he's struck by how alien the entire process is. Alien like Allura's shape-changing. Or the way the Balemerans communicate with their world. It isn't as... horrifying as he'd expected, from her trepidation. Otherworldly. Bizarre.]
[But maybe he's been around too many aliens to be completely appalled by this.]
[--on the other hand, he's glad he warned her. It isn't long before the smell of blood hits him, and, for a second, the world turns to hot lights and sand. A line of pain scored deeply across his face, the blood of it sticky and blocking his mouth and nose and --]
Right.
Okay.
[Focus. And lean forward. Hesitantly touching his mouth to her wrist in a gesture that feels entirely too intimate for what it is.]
no subject
[He probably should have said so before they started this. But it belatedly occurs to him. It belatedly dawns on him he should warn her. He's feeling the fragility, the hope, coming off her. That's what sparks it. If the... blood... triggers anything in his head, she has to know it isn't her fault.]
[Something is broken in his head. Not hers. She shouldn't suffer because of what he can't fix.]
[When she lifts her hand to her mouth, he's struck by how alien the entire process is. Alien like Allura's shape-changing. Or the way the Balemerans communicate with their world. It isn't as... horrifying as he'd expected, from her trepidation. Otherworldly. Bizarre.]
[But maybe he's been around too many aliens to be completely appalled by this.]
[--on the other hand, he's glad he warned her. It isn't long before the smell of blood hits him, and, for a second, the world turns to hot lights and sand. A line of pain scored deeply across his face, the blood of it sticky and blocking his mouth and nose and --]
Right.
Okay.
[Focus. And lean forward. Hesitantly touching his mouth to her wrist in a gesture that feels entirely too intimate for what it is.]