[Leslie doesn't intend for her expression to broadcast that she doesn't buy his claim that she needn't be concerned with me, but even through the rest of the emotions, it is not difficult to read that she doesn't accept the idea that she shouldn't be concerned about him. In a better time, she might even have said so, but this is not the time. Not for her, and not for him.]
Okay.
[She can't know that he's thinking about wishing to go back, too. She can guess it, though. She wonders if she should feel bad that she's relieved he, at least, is still here among the people she's shared a house with many times longer than she's lived with anyone who cared about her in her life.]
[It's not enough to make the hurt of the current loss go away.]
[Maybe it would be easier to ask something like this if it had been Hubert who'd left first and Edelgard was the one telling her. She's hugged Edelgard before. Maybe it would be easier if he had asked something of her and she wasn't the only one asking for things. But it's not either of those situations, and there is still something she needs -- wants, she corrects herself, incorrectly.]
Marquis Vestra.... [That was a brief toe-dipping into Huberting.] Can I...ask for a hug? It's okay if you don't want to. I'll be okay.
[The last part is tacked on very quickly, as it doesn't even occur to her that such a thing might be something Hubert might want or need. She's not even sure if those kinds of affectionate physical gestures are part of his repertoire. She can maybe see him doing so with Edelgard, or Byleth, if the two were not also restrained in such gestures. But anyone outside of that? She's not sure.]
[cue two months later on the couch when leslie better not come downstairs]
no subject
Okay.
[She can't know that he's thinking about wishing to go back, too. She can guess it, though. She wonders if she should feel bad that she's relieved he, at least, is still here among the people she's shared a house with many times longer than she's lived with anyone who cared about her in her life.]
[It's not enough to make the hurt of the current loss go away.]
[Maybe it would be easier to ask something like this if it had been Hubert who'd left first and Edelgard was the one telling her. She's hugged Edelgard before. Maybe it would be easier if he had asked something of her and she wasn't the only one asking for things. But it's not either of those situations, and there is still something she needs -- wants, she corrects herself, incorrectly.]
Marquis Vestra.... [That was a brief toe-dipping into Huberting.] Can I...ask for a hug? It's okay if you don't want to. I'll be okay.
[The last part is tacked on very quickly, as it doesn't even occur to her that such a thing might be something Hubert might want or need. She's not even sure if those kinds of affectionate physical gestures are part of his repertoire. She can maybe see him doing so with Edelgard, or Byleth, if the two were not also restrained in such gestures. But anyone outside of that? She's not sure.]
[
cue two months later on the couch when leslie better not come downstairs]