Broken Boulder you only hold me up like this 'cause you don't know who i really am

TAKE TWO

immediately he recognizes alarian's admission and feels silly at himself for not realising sooner. he can't help his frown but it is not scolding, rather empathetic and a touch regretful -- echoes of a conversation they'd had months ago only in reverse order beat around his skull. 

there is a pause before he speaks again, his voice softer. "hey," he tries, "don't be sorry. i understand fogged pretty well, i think." still gentle he moves closer again, seeking to lick his cheek below his ruined eye, groom carefully there. delight wishes he had not brought up avoidance at all, or at least framed it in better terms instead of letting his panic rule him. unfortunately for both of them he is a panic ruled creature. "you've been through a lot," he murmurs, "it's okay that you feel tired or -- or anything else about it, really. i think you've earned the right." after all, delight has only been present through a fraction of alarian's trauma and that alone would be enough to throw weaker wolves into distemper, let alone the boundless unsaid things that the chancellor has only caught glimpses of. perhaps if he'd met alarian when he first came to the teekons, his family's demise still fresh in his mind, he would have been a lot less self absorbed about the whole thing. 

"thank you for staying," he says as he pulls back -- only a little, still noses touched if allowed. "you don't have to talk about -- anything if you don't want to, not yet, but... how are you feeling? besides tired?"