Some of those are acceptable features, I guess. [He purses his lips, subtly kissing her finger while it's there, just because he can.] It's nice to know you'd miss me, if my brain got taken over by a crystal.

[His voice wobbles a little at the end there, trying to accommodate their usual banter with the... okay, yeah, the trauma of what he'd just gone through. He prefers not to openly dwell on his problems overmuch, and his excuse would be that they have talked about it in depth already; time and distance will do him the most good going forward, alongside her crystal embedded in his chest. He wants to depend on this normalcy, too, even in sparse moments here and there for a while. He can relax and be taken care of, but coddling won't fix his problems.

He hopes it doesn't count as running away. He's not trying to, not exactly.]