Oh, hell. They really need to stop meeting like this.
There's always a surge of panic when the waterworks come on. Especially more so when Doc is the inadvertent cause of it. He quickly stubs his cigarette out so he doesn't burn either of them or start a fire and shuffles in closer, gets down on the one knee so he can wrap one arm around Klaus and cup the side of his head with the other hand, hold his head against his chest. This has always worked in the past. Surely it should work now.
It's okay to fall apart. That's... what Doc has agreed to be here for. He has no reassurances to offer on that front. At some point in time they have all been made to feel useless in this place, belittled and sometimes humiliated by the way these external influences outside of their control have been treating them. What consolations could he give? That they are not all useless? That everything they do working towards their common end goal of leaving is not going to be all for nothing? There are no certainties on that front. Only the assumptions and the lies they keep telling themselves so that they have a reason to wake up in the morning and go about their day.
So he lets Klaus have his moment, patting him on the arm, rubbing his back. He does not have the same strength of character to wear his heart on his sleeve so openly. To allow others to take parting shots at it, like this. He respects Klaus's resilience enough to let him despair, and agonise, and weep. And then he tries to pick up the pieces after.
"Being some kind of-- conduit for the dead is not the only thing that defines you. Nobody in this house can do what the two of you do. We're all just ordinary people, helping each other out. Sometimes - and I know it sounds like a whole lotta nothin', but. Sometimes all you can do is tell someone you're there. He will deal with everything, in his own time. He will come back to you. I promise."
no subject
There's always a surge of panic when the waterworks come on. Especially more so when Doc is the inadvertent cause of it. He quickly stubs his cigarette out so he doesn't burn either of them or start a fire and shuffles in closer, gets down on the one knee so he can wrap one arm around Klaus and cup the side of his head with the other hand, hold his head against his chest. This has always worked in the past. Surely it should work now.
It's okay to fall apart. That's... what Doc has agreed to be here for. He has no reassurances to offer on that front. At some point in time they have all been made to feel useless in this place, belittled and sometimes humiliated by the way these external influences outside of their control have been treating them. What consolations could he give? That they are not all useless? That everything they do working towards their common end goal of leaving is not going to be all for nothing? There are no certainties on that front. Only the assumptions and the lies they keep telling themselves so that they have a reason to wake up in the morning and go about their day.
So he lets Klaus have his moment, patting him on the arm, rubbing his back. He does not have the same strength of character to wear his heart on his sleeve so openly. To allow others to take parting shots at it, like this. He respects Klaus's resilience enough to let him despair, and agonise, and weep. And then he tries to pick up the pieces after.
"Being some kind of-- conduit for the dead is not the only thing that defines you. Nobody in this house can do what the two of you do. We're all just ordinary people, helping each other out. Sometimes - and I know it sounds like a whole lotta nothin', but. Sometimes all you can do is tell someone you're there. He will deal with everything, in his own time. He will come back to you. I promise."