As he's still a little lost in thinking about Alice, when that shock of pure raw-edged envy and sympathy hits him, it hits hard. He loses his breath in a sharp exhale as if he's been physically punched, one hand clutching tight to the couch cushion next to him, the other pushing down on the arm of the couch, tensed and ready to disappear in the blink of an eye. It's so strong it almost feels like a threat, like a weapon, but it's gone so quickly, it takes him a few moments to convince himself he'd really felt it.
He can't risk getting any closer, just in case, but as he relaxes slowly back onto the couch and uncurls his fingers from the tears in the cushion beneath him, he chases that bolt of emotion and he can't find it, it's nowhere near the surface, not even in any of the upper layers. She's wrapped now in a smothering blanket of supreme indifference, it's coating every word, and while he wants to know how she can have such intense control over her emotions, he's getting a lot more curious as to why.
And then she asks him that, she asks it of him and looks him straight in the eye as she does it. He honestly cannot tell, no matter where he looks, whether or not she cares if the answer is yes. She doesn't know, but she also doesn't care.
"In my many years of hearing that question in all its permutations," he says quietly after a few startled moments of silence, "I have not once felt someone ask that of me and care so little about the answer." He tilts his head, the startled expression now softened into something curious. There's still not a hint of fear in her, not one thread of it. She knows what he can do, she'd watched him do it to one of his tormentors.
"Surprised you made it all the way inside without being drained dry?" It's polite, that same wry humor, but there's some anger underneath it. If she'd come all the way out here because she'd predicted her death at his hands… "I told you, ma'am. I don't do that anymore. Unless pushed."
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He can't risk getting any closer, just in case, but as he relaxes slowly back onto the couch and uncurls his fingers from the tears in the cushion beneath him, he chases that bolt of emotion and he can't find it, it's nowhere near the surface, not even in any of the upper layers. She's wrapped now in a smothering blanket of supreme indifference, it's coating every word, and while he wants to know how she can have such intense control over her emotions, he's getting a lot more curious as to why.
And then she asks him that, she asks it of him and looks him straight in the eye as she does it. He honestly cannot tell, no matter where he looks, whether or not she cares if the answer is yes. She doesn't know, but she also doesn't care.
"In my many years of hearing that question in all its permutations," he says quietly after a few startled moments of silence, "I have not once felt someone ask that of me and care so little about the answer." He tilts his head, the startled expression now softened into something curious. There's still not a hint of fear in her, not one thread of it. She knows what he can do, she'd watched him do it to one of his tormentors.
"Surprised you made it all the way inside without being drained dry?" It's polite, that same wry humor, but there's some anger underneath it. If she'd come all the way out here because she'd predicted her death at his hands… "I told you, ma'am. I don't do that anymore. Unless pushed."