[He's quiet. It takes a few minutes before he even finds the first words to speak.]
After...you were gone...
After you were gone I was...scared. I thought...I thought if I managed to succeed in breaking the loop it meant that you'd...that we'd never...
[He swallows the lump forming in his throat and continues on, skipping over the obvious implications.]
I...wanted to keep myself...sane. Had to believe I'd see you again so I...
[He releases her for a moment and reaches into his shirt. He grunts a bit and she'll hear a snap; twine being broken. Whatever it was, he'd tied it to himself. What he pulls out of his shirt are...a bundle of letters. Stained with grime and blood but letters nonetheless. Weeks worth.]
I wrote these. One a day...
[He holds them out to her.]
[What she'll find are all of his emotions poured out on the page. The fears he had when he had Diluc burn her remains and give her a proper funeral. The nightmare of the blood flood and the collapsing Staywell. How he'd done everything in his power to keep the building from being swept away even if it meant drowning himself.]
[The horrors of his abduction. How he was picked apart. Tested. Made to feel like the freak he always feared of being because these beings wanted to put him through his paces. Even now, his body is criss-crossed with hairline scars like a garrote mummy.]
[How he remembered his promise to his brother. To be a great hero. And how he'd ran from it all his life. Only to claw his way out of his sealed grave to find devastation and failure.]
[The last few pages aren't notebook paper. It's paper he'd desperately transmuted himself. It's uneven and looks more like patchwork leather than anything, but it was filled with remorse. How he'd broken. Taken to killing the gravedigger because she kept interfering with his work. How he'd slain his double. How he was waiting for the end of the loop any day because he thought he'd get to see her again.]
[And through it all, he never once forgot to write 'I love you' to her. Every letter it's written without fail. Even as the handwriting becomes more disjointed and broken, as the pages are stained with mud, blood, sweat, and tears, that one single flame continued to burn for her.]
[When he hands the letters over, he lifts her off of him and sets her on the bed so he can go sit in silence in the corner of the room. No doubt she'd read them and he didn't care if she read them in front of him. He just...closed his eyes and waited.]
no subject
After...you were gone...
After you were gone I was...scared. I thought...I thought if I managed to succeed in breaking the loop it meant that you'd...that we'd never...
[He swallows the lump forming in his throat and continues on, skipping over the obvious implications.]
I...wanted to keep myself...sane. Had to believe I'd see you again so I...
[He releases her for a moment and reaches into his shirt. He grunts a bit and she'll hear a snap; twine being broken. Whatever it was, he'd tied it to himself. What he pulls out of his shirt are...a bundle of letters. Stained with grime and blood but letters nonetheless. Weeks worth.]
I wrote these. One a day...
[He holds them out to her.]
[What she'll find are all of his emotions poured out on the page. The fears he had when he had Diluc burn her remains and give her a proper funeral. The nightmare of the blood flood and the collapsing Staywell. How he'd done everything in his power to keep the building from being swept away even if it meant drowning himself.]
[The horrors of his abduction. How he was picked apart. Tested. Made to feel like the freak he always feared of being because these beings wanted to put him through his paces. Even now, his body is criss-crossed with hairline scars like a garrote mummy.]
[How he remembered his promise to his brother. To be a great hero. And how he'd ran from it all his life. Only to claw his way out of his sealed grave to find devastation and failure.]
[The last few pages aren't notebook paper. It's paper he'd desperately transmuted himself. It's uneven and looks more like patchwork leather than anything, but it was filled with remorse. How he'd broken. Taken to killing the gravedigger because she kept interfering with his work. How he'd slain his double. How he was waiting for the end of the loop any day because he thought he'd get to see her again.]
[And through it all, he never once forgot to write 'I love you' to her. Every letter it's written without fail. Even as the handwriting becomes more disjointed and broken, as the pages are stained with mud, blood, sweat, and tears, that one single flame continued to burn for her.]
[When he hands the letters over, he lifts her off of him and sets her on the bed so he can go sit in silence in the corner of the room. No doubt she'd read them and he didn't care if she read them in front of him. He just...closed his eyes and waited.]