[ Krouse could live inside the warm bubble of Noelle's nice. He would get almost sick over wanting it, in the early days, a pleasantly unpleasant lurch in his guts every time he'd do something he thought she might like and glanced at her to find out if he'd gotten it right. When he blew it, as he often did, it'd eat at him for days, but when he got it - he could walk on clouds.
However shitty the question she has for him is, it can't take away from this flickering moment. Even when it's this question.
But it does throw him, and it throws him because of what it implies. He stares up at her with his mouth half-parted for a second, then flushes, cheeks darkening more starkly than usually in his sun-starved complexion. He has to look away for his own privacy, this time around, studying the river like it's going to tell him how to answer that. He clasps his hands behind his back, feels stupid about doing it, doesn't stop. ]
I'm okay with that.
[ It shouldn't be so easy to agree, but it's a shouldn't he's pretty much moved past. If he cared that much about the damage the clones do, he'd have done things differently a long time ago. Besides - ]
I mean, it's not like there's much damage they can do anyway, if they don't listen.
[ They're not hiding anymore, on the run. They're not accountable to the capes that hold whatever city they're in. There's no one left on the team for the clones to fixate on, except the two of them, and Krouse is still thinking around the subject of who the clones will be. Like there's some outside possibility that Noelle could be talking about cloning anyone else, which only happens if -
He squeezes his hands together, his stupid heart tripping at the top of a flight of steep stairs. He should feel guilty twice over, for wanting anything, and for wanting it after he already let her kill one. He is guilty, a slimy coil twisting in his stomach. But guilt isn't enough to stop him from wanting. ]
no subject
However shitty the question she has for him is, it can't take away from this flickering moment. Even when it's this question.
But it does throw him, and it throws him because of what it implies. He stares up at her with his mouth half-parted for a second, then flushes, cheeks darkening more starkly than usually in his sun-starved complexion. He has to look away for his own privacy, this time around, studying the river like it's going to tell him how to answer that. He clasps his hands behind his back, feels stupid about doing it, doesn't stop. ]
I'm okay with that.
[ It shouldn't be so easy to agree, but it's a shouldn't he's pretty much moved past. If he cared that much about the damage the clones do, he'd have done things differently a long time ago. Besides - ]
I mean, it's not like there's much damage they can do anyway, if they don't listen.
[ They're not hiding anymore, on the run. They're not accountable to the capes that hold whatever city they're in. There's no one left on the team for the clones to fixate on, except the two of them, and Krouse is still thinking around the subject of who the clones will be. Like there's some outside possibility that Noelle could be talking about cloning anyone else, which only happens if -
He squeezes his hands together, his stupid heart tripping at the top of a flight of steep stairs. He should feel guilty twice over, for wanting anything, and for wanting it after he already let her kill one. He is guilty, a slimy coil twisting in his stomach. But guilt isn't enough to stop him from wanting. ]