almost_knightly | To bear with unbearable sorrow

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[phdr]

To bear with unbearable sorrow

Having spent more than enough time in bed of late, now that he's allowed to sleep in his own room and now that he has a pair of crutches, Break has been wandering around the mansion as best he can, trying to reclaim his own mobility. By rights, he really shouldn't be out at the moment -- Liam is elsewhere -- but one of the Hatters is shadowing him, he knows, and he's having one of those moments when he wants to manage things all by himself.

And in his defense, he's being sensible about it, stopping whenever he feels even slightly like he needs to. Such as now. He's resting in one of the sitting rooms, his injured leg propped up on a coffee table. It's pajama pants and socks with grippy bits on the bottom, today, and around his knee, there's a strange black brace -- something Liam had helped Canterbury to put together, to keep it from moving too much as Break shifts.

It makes him terribly nervous to be out and about alone, truth be told. But at least he's doing it. He has some notion that if he hides himself away in his room, it will only hurt Shelly worse...

[Private to

bittynightrage and his puppy. Takes place after this thread. <3]

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The quietness of the room is shattered just as Elliot and Edgar dash into the room. Edgar is all whimpers and whines and her tiny master is tearstricken yet angry.

They both see Uncle Xerxes at the same time and run at him. But at least the pair have the sense to not pounce on him like they've done during play sessions. Edgar runs to hide under Break's chair while Elliot tries climbing up the arm to pull at the man's sleeve. The little Nightray's voice is all choked up and he can't say anything proper, so he just bawls and presses his face into Break's arm.

...oh, good sweet Lord, what is this?

Break braces himself as they approach, because the boy and the dog are both rather rambunctious kids, and he's accustomed to being tackled when they zoom into his presence like this. But then the whimpers register, and the tears, and then Elly is just crying all over the sleeve of his hoodie and Break has no idea what to do. He's never seen Elliot like this, and --

"Elly! Good God. What is it? Come on, love; come up here."

Attempting to guide the boy gently up into his lap -- because cuddles always work, right? -- Break just hopes that if something is chasing them, Hatter is dealing with it. Like this, he isn't useful as anything but a human shield.

He climbs and collapses onto Break, curling right against his chest and clinging to him tightly. His tears make big blotches of dampness on Break's hoodie. When Elliot squeaks, he's choking and hiccuping on his sorrows.

"N-N-Nessa, sh-sh-she-!" He cries again and hides his red face into Xerxes again.

"Easy, mate. Deep breaf."

All Break can really do to comfort him is hold the boy close and pet his hair, so he does. Bloody hell; please tell him there wasn't another murder, or if there was, that Elliot didn't see the body...

He pulls back and manages to take a few deep breathes. But he rarely breaks like this, so soon enough, he's crying again. But at least he's spilling everything out.

"N-Nessa an' I were play-playing piano and I wanted to, to, to have Edgar talk to her b-but, she called Edgar evil and-!" He's bawling once more.

"Oh."

There's an undeniable amount of relief in the word; the way things have been going around this place lately, a sibling issue is almost a breath of fresh air. Still, there's a child crying on him, and a very sad puppy under his chair.

Leaning over a little, he drops his hand down so that Edgar will be able to see his fingers and says, "Edgar, love. Come out, sweetheart. She didn't hurt eiver of you, did she? Just said somefing awful?"

Elliot goes back to crying on Break's chest; even if it seems like a light matter to Xerxes, to Elliot, it really does seem like the end of the world.

Edgar noses Break's fingers and crawls out before standing on her hind legs to peer over the arm of the chair. "Elly wanted me to talk, but I just howled because I was playing..." The puppy whimpers again. "And wh-when I did, his sister got really scared and told me to go away. She thought I had hurt Elly..." That was what had hurt her the most.

"Well," Break says, rubbing behind the dog's ears as he knows she likes. Then he stops for a few moments. How in the world do you comfort a talking dog...?

"If it's the Vanessa I'm finking of," he says slowly, recalling the way she'd behaved when she tried to kill him in the kitchen that day, "she's...got quite a lot on her mind, I daresay, and...well. Perhaps if you give her a bit of time, she'll realize she's overreacted."

Well, telling her she's a good dog and giving her ear scratchies is a good way. ;;

"R-really?" Elliot asks, looking up with his big, tear-stained eyes. "Wh-what if she still doesn't like Edgar?"

"She might not. Sometimes people just don't like ovver people." While it's the truth, this is probably not the right thing to say, exactly, but he only realizes it after it's out of his mouth. Hurriedly, he adds, "But she can certainly learn to see that Edgar isn't evil. Why, she spent all that time recently protecting my room for me, and if she'd ever hurt you, surely your sister would have found out about it already. That's just logic, right?"

Xerxes Break: Knowing exactly what to say to crying children since never. But maybe his words will help by accident; he gets that, sometimes.

Elly lets out a small whine at that; he wanted 'Nessa to like Edgar!

He does nod, though, still clinging to Break's hoodie. "Yeah... Edgar's a good dog..."

"She is a good dog," Break agrees, shifting Elliot to the side a bit and patting the thigh of his uninjured leg for Edgar.

There's room in his lap for two, if they're careful.

Edgar snorts in understanding before walking over to Break's good side. She crouches, leaps, and scrambles to sit in Break's lap after Elliot helps pull her close.

"I shouldn't have told her you can talk..." Elliot hugs his puppy close after she licks his tearstained cheek.

"I'm sure she'll be more understanding if you give 'er time to fink on it," Break says, settling in to have the both of them sitting on him for a while. "If not, let me know and I'll sass her for you."

If it is the Vanessa he's thinking of, he hasn't heard anything much of her since That Time, so he's assumed she and her Chain have been sealed and all that. Still, it'd be good to check up on her.

"Okay..." It's not like he hasn't seen his siblings fight before or even get physical. Gilbert comes to mind...

"Did you ever fight with your siblings?" He wasn't sure if Break had mentioned his siblings in the first place.

"Oh, me and my brovver never got on at all," Break says easily. "We didn't hate each ovver or anyfing, just...we were very different people."

Past tense, though Elliot may be too young to pick up on it.

He doesn't.

"Oh... did you guys have swordfights and stuff?"

"No, which was part of the problem. I always wanted to run and fight and horse around, like you and I do, but he didn't like those sorts of games. We liked different sorts of stories, too."

"Oh..... you mean boring stories?"

"Exactly."

Break pulls a face, but secretly, he's gratified that Elliot understands so well.

"He liked stories about people who went to school and stuff. Not a knight or a pirate or a monster to be seen in any of his books. A lot of the stuff I like scared him.""

"Bleh!" Both bitties say and pull a face (in Edgar's face, she just sticks her tongue out and flattens her ears against her head).

He's inclined to agree, and he scritches behind Edgar's ears until they stand up again.

"He wasn't a bad sort. We just...weren't interested in each ovver at all. That's the fing wiv families; sometimes you wind up having to be wiv people you'd never have been friends wiv if you'd met them ovverwise."

They quickly do as the puppy shuts her eyes and licks her nose happily.

"Ohh, I get it. My big brothers all fight a lot, sometimes... but we're still family..."

"Family's what you make of it."

He isn't quite sure he believes all that "blood is thicker than water" nonsense. Not when he has the Rainsworths, and Liam's family, too. Not when he had the Sinclairs, once, all treating him as though he were theirs. Not when he's seen what siblings will do to each other.

But he won't trouble Elliot with such things. He knows how the Nightrays are.

"Anyway, I'm sure she'll come around eventually."

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To bear with unbearable sorrow

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