He's thrown off course with the sudden jerk to his person, but he lets Tidus push and pull. He lets him slam his balled up hands against his chest, he listens to every word spat and screamed to his name. Roland is fully aware of what this might look to anyone who happened upon them from the nearby village, but there was no stopping any of it. He doesn't want to.
Zanarkand was real!
Roland recalls checking every day, there can't be a heart next to his name, he refuses, he won't let it. And this has been the most fire he's seen out of Tidus in a quite some time. He won't stop it. And Roland believes every word, though the struggle to keep up with his rage was real. Undirected, no control. I can take it.
But the more Tidus lashes out, the more his words meet their mark, the more Roland begins to reciprocate by a margin. Thick eyebrows begin to furrow, his trademark frown becoming deeper and deeper. That's it. You're almost there, aren't you Tidus? Where you need to go. What you have to do.
You don't know what I am!
"Then show me!" Roland mimics the energy overflowing, shrugging Tidus's hands off of him so he could grab the sides of his arms, firm and unrelenting. He peers in close, matches his gaze where dark brown meets bright blue, and Roland's conviction does the rest. He could shake him. He does, once, though with the bulk of the athlete's build, it hardly comes across as anything but a vibration.
"So you're a coward. So you don't deserve anything anyone's ever given you. I get it. I hear you loud and clear." As Tidus screams, Roland responds with quiet, but there is a grit there that was absent before. There is something there beckoning him closer, challenging in the way he refuses to break eye contact even in this proximity.
"So it was all your fault. So you didn't try hard enough, you didn't try at all to save them." Roland feels his voice grow thick, a lump forming at the back of his throat. His breathing grows labored, but he keeps going. "You failed Zanarkand." He has to hear it. The grief would never let him go if he didn't. "I see you. I get it! " His pitch crescendos into a fevered volume, his grip against Tidus's arms tightening at every turn.
But as soon as he reaches that zenith, an overflow of emotion threatening to consume them both, Roland relents. The clench in his jaw disappears. His breathing does not slow.
1/2
Zanarkand was real!
Roland recalls checking every day, there can't be a heart next to his name, he refuses, he won't let it. And this has been the most fire he's seen out of Tidus in a quite some time. He won't stop it. And Roland believes every word, though the struggle to keep up with his rage was real. Undirected, no control. I can take it.
But the more Tidus lashes out, the more his words meet their mark, the more Roland begins to reciprocate by a margin. Thick eyebrows begin to furrow, his trademark frown becoming deeper and deeper. That's it. You're almost there, aren't you Tidus? Where you need to go. What you have to do.
You don't know what I am!
"Then show me!" Roland mimics the energy overflowing, shrugging Tidus's hands off of him so he could grab the sides of his arms, firm and unrelenting. He peers in close, matches his gaze where dark brown meets bright blue, and Roland's conviction does the rest. He could shake him. He does, once, though with the bulk of the athlete's build, it hardly comes across as anything but a vibration.
"So you're a coward. So you don't deserve anything anyone's ever given you. I get it. I hear you loud and clear." As Tidus screams, Roland responds with quiet, but there is a grit there that was absent before. There is something there beckoning him closer, challenging in the way he refuses to break eye contact even in this proximity.
"So it was all your fault. So you didn't try hard enough, you didn't try at all to save them." Roland feels his voice grow thick, a lump forming at the back of his throat. His breathing grows labored, but he keeps going. "You failed Zanarkand." He has to hear it. The grief would never let him go if he didn't. "I see you. I get it! " His pitch crescendos into a fevered volume, his grip against Tidus's arms tightening at every turn.
But as soon as he reaches that zenith, an overflow of emotion threatening to consume them both, Roland relents. The clench in his jaw disappears. His breathing does not slow.