[ She can't imagine, at sixteen or seventeen - or maybe she can. This, though, she knows, goes beyond what she'd felt then or even what she feels now. Somewhere out there is a version of her who absolutely does understand that the world is shit and that bad things sometimes have to happen whether by someone your own ineffectiveness or your own hand, but Claire now is not that girl there. He was so young, and to have your mind made up about something like that at that kind of an age spells out a lot of concepts that have no strong tethers, allowing them to flap relentlessly in the back of her mind.
He offers her something else to concentrate on, thankfully, which is still a branch of the conversation itself but which doesn't address him so directly, doesn't make him the focal point. That in turn means that she doesn't have to stop and consider the fact that she is literally in bed with someone who has killed people and how it still doesn't matter the way people would want or expect it to.
Claire feels her eyebrows crease in the center, a little, not confused but trying to search for the answer in his face when she doesn't even know the options. All she has is the question. ]
How much younger?
[ She still has her thumb pressed to the mouth of the skull, but she slides it down to press the entirety of her palm into his forearm, wondering how big the mark is by comparison. ]
no subject
He offers her something else to concentrate on, thankfully, which is still a branch of the conversation itself but which doesn't address him so directly, doesn't make him the focal point. That in turn means that she doesn't have to stop and consider the fact that she is literally in bed with someone who has killed people and how it still doesn't matter the way people would want or expect it to.
Claire feels her eyebrows crease in the center, a little, not confused but trying to search for the answer in his face when she doesn't even know the options. All she has is the question. ]
How much younger?
[ She still has her thumb pressed to the mouth of the skull, but she slides it down to press the entirety of her palm into his forearm, wondering how big the mark is by comparison. ]