[Empathy]
@empathiiquc
"Sometimes I wonder if anyone on the outside is looking for me--parents halfway across the country, roommate expecting me to up and leave any day. My co-workers were the only people that would have noticed if I just disappeared, but--" He folds his hands, a smile staining the corner of his lips. "--they're the ones who left me up there in the first place. What would it matter to them?"
‘Hey, There has to be someone looking for you, people don’t just turn a blind eye to disappearances, especially if four disappearances happened at once you know? I think we’re being looked for- YOU’RE being looked for,’ Her hand raised for a moment to touch his own in a reassuring way. it was a difficult situation being stuck thinking that you were abandoned out here by coworkers or the worst case scenario that you were completely forgotten. She wondered too if her parents who lived in Montreal still were looking for her, it wasn’t like they talked often, they were probably busy with her younger siblings and hadn’t even noticed the stretch of time. A weak smile filled with a mix emotion was directed at him, it was both of her own anxious thoughts and wanting to console his own thoughts.
‘You know those kinds of people aren’t worth thinking about, they’re a drain to be around and a drain on emotions,’ She had learned this the hard way too, after being ditched too many times by people all throughout elementary to her college years. Being abandoned by people who were supposed to be there for you was the worst feeling but sometimes it was best to forget about the people who pretended to like you only to leave.’If it were me I wouldn’t have left you if that makes any difference….’
“Four people go missing without a trace…” Dwight can’t help but muse into his knuckles as he warms them against the dark bristles he’d begun to bear under his nose from how lengthy a stay he’d already spent in a realm that grew not only patches of trimmed hair back in due time, but also–his life, as if it were just as simple a variable for the Entity to regenerate as it was for time to tend to his chewed-down fingernails. With the comfort of the campfire close by, he knows he should soak in every ray of ease it provides them for the short duration they’d usually dwindle away with patching wounds and collecting the small comforts of company from around them. The interesting meals Jake often scrounged up could only settle his stomach so far, and so far--everyone had curled up into their own corner of the camp, unusually silent in quiet reflection and preparations for whichever challenge they’d face next, Dwight assumes. It takes the light graze of her fingers finding his to make him realize how much of their precious recuperation time he’d already wasted on worrying about the lives they had been plucked from so senselessly for reasons he’d yet to figure, and doubted he ever would. “I mean, I’m no FBI agent, but--it sounds a bit like an impromptu road-trip. Like, anyone who’s read Paper Towns is not going to think four people just fell off the Earth. Not at first, anyway. At least, not until they figure out we’re complete strangers.” The thought gives him pause, paving the way for a softer smile to settle behind his hand he drops in favor of placing his palm over the back of hers.
“It’s kind of funny. Between the people I thought I knew for so long, and three complete strangers, I feel more at home with you guys.” Heeding the hesitation that threatens to heat his cheeks until they’re just as red as his old pizza delivery uniform, Dwight finally exhales, comforted by the firelight chasing the gloom out of their conversation. “But I guess none of us are really strangers anymore, are we?” Not wanting to worry her anymore than he already had, Dwight dips to the side in the hopes that a playful nudge from one shoulder to another could help diffuse the tense tone that had settled between them. “Even if you couldn’t come back for me for--whatever reason, it makes all the difference in the world just to hear you say that you would. Believe me. The feeling’s mutual.”