[ A little playful tick of his head, raise of his brow, concession to a point well made. But his attention is already elsewhere, and the levity does little to disguise his once-over— twice-over. Because for as long as it feels as though they've been separated, Damian doesn't seem to have changed a bit.
Some of the blank slate calm of the walk over ripples, plain paper turned still waters turned choppy, and there's a twitch in the lazy ease of his expression.
He hadn't allowed himself to think about it past those first few days of mourning, transforming loss into the work it left behind. But he realises now, with the sudden dropping away of the floor of the carefully-hollowed cavern of himself, that he'd thought that was it. There had been something so final about it. An email that felt like a will. ]
True. It could've been.
[ Stephen himself is not the same. The whole extent of the change is for later, but there are a couple of surface elements. Up from under the collar of his shirt creeps an angry lichtenburg figure scar that snakes up from his left collarbone, jagged lightning tendrils printing little claws out over his throat before disappearing around the back of his neck. That scar seems to replace something else, the absence perhaps less immediately noticeable even with his rolled sleeves: his hands are unmarked by even a single scar.
One side of his mouth tugs up without any control, more spasm than smile, brow losing some of its stubbornly retained effortlessness as relief wars with the desire not to be made helpless by anything, not even his own emotions. ]
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Some of the blank slate calm of the walk over ripples, plain paper turned still waters turned choppy, and there's a twitch in the lazy ease of his expression.
He hadn't allowed himself to think about it past those first few days of mourning, transforming loss into the work it left behind. But he realises now, with the sudden dropping away of the floor of the carefully-hollowed cavern of himself, that he'd thought that was it. There had been something so final about it. An email that felt like a will. ]
True. It could've been.
[ Stephen himself is not the same. The whole extent of the change is for later, but there are a couple of surface elements. Up from under the collar of his shirt creeps an angry lichtenburg figure scar that snakes up from his left collarbone, jagged lightning tendrils printing little claws out over his throat before disappearing around the back of his neck. That scar seems to replace something else, the absence perhaps less immediately noticeable even with his rolled sleeves: his hands are unmarked by even a single scar.
One side of his mouth tugs up without any control, more spasm than smile, brow losing some of its stubbornly retained effortlessness as relief wars with the desire not to be made helpless by anything, not even his own emotions. ]
Welcome back. Again.