[Claude, for his part, does his best to pull Grant as deeply into his arms as possible. He can't will himself bigger, but he does his best to fake it to the best of his ability, with Grant's (sub?)conscious collusion in shrinking himself. Sometimes, you need to be held, and it's not easy to be the holder when you're a lot smaller but Claude isn't going to fail for lack of effort here.]
Hey, hey. [His voice is soft, soothing.] You don't have to defend him to me, okay? I know Sylvain's a sweet guy, and you're important to him. I'm sure he was as good as he could be to you. And he's not here. So he's not on trial, okay? What's important here is you and how you're feeling. Which is obviously not great. So how about we talk about that, if we're gonna talk about anything?
[He rubs a hand over Grant's back.] When Sylvain came back to us, after six months of being away...I wondered if how he'd feel for me had changed. He hadn't seen me in all that time, after all...and he'd been through a lot. Plus, you know me - always feeling like an outsider. I was lucky in that his feelings hadn't changed, so...I got reassured. But I bet you felt the same way as I did, for the same reasons...and you didn't. You got the opposite.
It sounds like his reasons weren't actually to do with his going home or being away from you, so much as a problem that had been there from early on that maybe he hadn't gotten around to addressing until now. But...the timing on it was awful, right? It might not be anyone's fault that it's awful, but you took that punch right in the stomach and you don't deserve to be hurting like this, Grant. Okay? I don't have to blame Sylvain to say that this shouldn't be happening to you.
I can tell you it's going to get better, and I know you know it's going to get better, but...you can just let yourself hurt right now, instead of pretending you're not. And Dimitri and I will be here to help, okay? So fall apart as much as you need to. We'll hold you together.
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Hey, hey. [His voice is soft, soothing.] You don't have to defend him to me, okay? I know Sylvain's a sweet guy, and you're important to him. I'm sure he was as good as he could be to you. And he's not here. So he's not on trial, okay? What's important here is you and how you're feeling. Which is obviously not great. So how about we talk about that, if we're gonna talk about anything?
[He rubs a hand over Grant's back.] When Sylvain came back to us, after six months of being away...I wondered if how he'd feel for me had changed. He hadn't seen me in all that time, after all...and he'd been through a lot. Plus, you know me - always feeling like an outsider. I was lucky in that his feelings hadn't changed, so...I got reassured. But I bet you felt the same way as I did, for the same reasons...and you didn't. You got the opposite.
It sounds like his reasons weren't actually to do with his going home or being away from you, so much as a problem that had been there from early on that maybe he hadn't gotten around to addressing until now. But...the timing on it was awful, right? It might not be anyone's fault that it's awful, but you took that punch right in the stomach and you don't deserve to be hurting like this, Grant. Okay? I don't have to blame Sylvain to say that this shouldn't be happening to you.
I can tell you it's going to get better, and I know you know it's going to get better, but...you can just let yourself hurt right now, instead of pretending you're not. And Dimitri and I will be here to help, okay? So fall apart as much as you need to. We'll hold you together.