[He looks stubbornly down as Héctor speaks, silently wondering why this conversation is still going. He says it's not just him, and that he's made himself worse by pushing too far, too fast, but -- but it wasn't the same. Héctor had been in Hell. He'd been forced to adapt to something horrible, even with the good things he'd found there. Cliff's situation was just...something stupid. Something uncomfortable that he avoided, but it wasn't like it was hurting him like the other things he'd tried to handle on his own before. Besides, he wasn't even on his own in this! Héctor understood him. It's not the same at all. He doesn't need to --
Cliff's eyes flick up with something like surprise, like Héctor's handed him a new epiphany -- because he has. There's a vulnerability there, too, not as underneath as he'd like it to be. How can he trust that? How isn't it a trick just to make him do what someone else wants? But he'd never thought of it in that way, and he thinks it makes sense, sort of. It wasn't a big deal for him to push through, but...was it such a big deal to do something small like this, if it made everything else easier? He glances away again, only briefly, and lets out a slower exhale.]
no subject
Cliff's eyes flick up with something like surprise, like Héctor's handed him a new epiphany -- because he has. There's a vulnerability there, too, not as underneath as he'd like it to be. How can he trust that? How isn't it a trick just to make him do what someone else wants? But he'd never thought of it in that way, and he thinks it makes sense, sort of. It wasn't a big deal for him to push through, but...was it such a big deal to do something small like this, if it made everything else easier? He glances away again, only briefly, and lets out a slower exhale.]
Yeah. Okay.