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Sometimes, he gets that far-off look in his eyes, and you know that his mind has gone out to lunch with no intention of returning anytime soon. The look, you’ve decided, is like one of those crappy blue signs with the little red clocks that flaunt when a store owner will return to open the store, but then they never actually show up. It’s as if those fuckers just think that they can skip out, throw the sign in front of the shop, and then decide that lunch break is till 2 pm the next day, not the same day. It’s a big fuck you to all that will pass in the “welp, sucks to be you, those signs don’t have a date, I’ll get back whenever the fuck I feel like it” sense.
Whenever you see him with “Shop closed, be back soon” eyes, you know that Tavros Nitram is far too gone to do anything, and it’s just about as infuriating as those goddamned signs. When he runs to lunch and decides to take a detour at Depressing Thoughts Depo, for all his angsty thought-building needs, you feel like you have lost him and all you can do is wait. He’s sunk somewhere into the black recesses of his mind, back into Troll Murder, Death, and Raps-So-Shitty-They-Should-Be-Considered-Leathal-Weapons-Because-God-Fucking-Dammit Town, and he can’t crawl back out. He just stares through you with an expression so blank that it’s terrifying, and it’s far too hard to fix a broken troll (What do they even need? Is that when the pails come in to play? Fuck if you know.) What you do know is that when those huge eyes shine up at you, unfocused and desolate, it breaks your heart. Not in some cliche your heart has been ripped out of your chest way and you want to go replace the hole with gin and vodka, letting the bottle sing all your worries away kind of heartbreak. No, it just pulls at you, begs you to do something about it.
You’ve never been good with emotions. You’ve never been good with other’s emotions, and you certainly have never been good with your own. Rose always told you that was a problem and you, promptly, always told her where to stick her opinion with a biting remark that would just push you further down the ladder into her psychoanalytical bullshit (If anyone could find homoerotic subtext in everything, it was her). As far as you were concerned, it was hardly a problem. You would sooner hide behind a straight face or a biting remark than actually deal with the issue at hand. But Tavros Nitram just does something to you. And, in moments like these, your words have far too much bite. It would be like sending a hardcore punkbitch in to patch up a kid’s scrapped knee. It is unnecessary. You need something softer; you need a secret weapon. When he looks up at you as if you aren’t even there, when he looks right through you as if he could piece himself together with blurring you and reality and every little fucking thing together into this concoction that should make sense, it’s then, and only then, that you do it.
You reach out and tickle him.
It starts out soft at first, and his reaction starts out slow. His eyes begin to focus a little better, and, although you wouldn’t verbally acknowledge such a thing, it always fills you with relief. It’s when he starts to crack a grin that you really let loose, pushing him back against the bed, or the floor, or wherever the fuck two cool kids like you want to hang out, and it’s perfect. It’s perfect because the laugher overrides all of his 100 yard stares, his insecure slouches, and his labored breathing. It quashes everything. Instead, he just clings to you, rolling from laughter, begging you to stop, and you grin until it hurts.
When he calms down- although it always takes a while for such violent laughter to subside- he clings to you and you to him and he buries his face in your chest. You run your hand through his hair, and he shivers beneath you, tightening his grip around you. He always says the same thing, in the same exact way. He always tips his head up, resting his chin on your shoulder, careful so his horn doesn’t hit you.
He thanks you again and again, each murmur of gratitude falling into a calming cadence, and you close your eyes, listening to it as if it were the best song you’d ever heard.
And it is.
Not that you show it. Normally, you just snort, ruffle his hair, and smile gently. But from time to time, you pull him closer to you, pressing your chests flush together and kissing his forehead, and you tell him how much you needed it too.
When your eyes meet his again, you’re so glad you could bring him back to reality with you. You sink into his warmth and the moment looms over the two of you, your fingers running through his hair as he continues the beat underneath you with his words. They fall with a gentle pitter-patter one-two sway and you want to record it, remix it, and use it in everything you ever lay down. You never quite hear what he says, but you know the sentiment is the same as yours, and that's really all you need.