Curiosity is good. It's familiar to the Cat, but familiar to see it on Edwin's face, too, and it's still nice to be under his scrutiny despite the rather tense circumstances. He's always found Edwin's interest addictive, even if it was an interest bourne only from a lack of further exploration and understanding, like the interest in his body had been back in Port Townsend, like the interest Edwin had shown — albeit briefly — in his truth magic.
Not only that, but the Cat can see the ever so slight softening of Edwin's features in the way his eyes are wider than normal, the way the set of his brows is tighter in the middle. He's not foolish enough to read too much into it, but his heightened senses will take it and bottle it up and keep it safe— and use it now, to keep him steady as the energy around them tries to find an in to carve out more than he's willing to give.
His breathing is laboured now, coming from him in heavy pants that shake his shoulders as the cup gets halfway full. It's always a struggle, the final stretch, and normally this is where Esther would make some stupid fucking comment about this whole thing taking too long and being too dramatic and make him feel embarrassed and small and therefore angry and eager to lash out to shut her up.
It doesn't happen, because she's not here, but frustration sets in as he realises he can't stop fucking thinking about her. She's gone, she's probably never coming back, but he's keeping her alive every time he pictures her face in his mind and God, if that isn't a big allegory for some masochistic tendencies, then he doesn't know what is. Something tells him it all would have been so much easier if he'd had claws to keep her quiet, if the size of him alone and the warning of a lashing tail would have kept her from demeaning him.
It's irritating, he's irritating, and he breaks eye contact with Edwin to screw his eyes shut against the feeling, grunting in frustration and in pain as he digs his claws into the meat of his upper arm out of a loss for what else to do.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2025-09-20 12:54 pm (UTC)Not only that, but the Cat can see the ever so slight softening of Edwin's features in the way his eyes are wider than normal, the way the set of his brows is tighter in the middle. He's not foolish enough to read too much into it, but his heightened senses will take it and bottle it up and keep it safe— and use it now, to keep him steady as the energy around them tries to find an in to carve out more than he's willing to give.
His breathing is laboured now, coming from him in heavy pants that shake his shoulders as the cup gets halfway full. It's always a struggle, the final stretch, and normally this is where Esther would make some stupid fucking comment about this whole thing taking too long and being too dramatic and make him feel embarrassed and small and therefore angry and eager to lash out to shut her up.
It doesn't happen, because she's not here, but frustration sets in as he realises he can't stop fucking thinking about her. She's gone, she's probably never coming back, but he's keeping her alive every time he pictures her face in his mind and God, if that isn't a big allegory for some masochistic tendencies, then he doesn't know what is. Something tells him it all would have been so much easier if he'd had claws to keep her quiet, if the size of him alone and the warning of a lashing tail would have kept her from demeaning him.
It's irritating, he's irritating, and he breaks eye contact with Edwin to screw his eyes shut against the feeling, grunting in frustration and in pain as he digs his claws into the meat of his upper arm out of a loss for what else to do.