CH861

The scolding was long, everyone who’d healed him had their piece to say but the walk home was worse. At least among everyone else, he could enjoy the more positive reactions a bit among the more expected words about valuing his safety more and not putting himself at risk but going back through the empty streets of Stonewall was just himself and Thera, with his girlfriend’s silence feeling far louder than anything else and only made worse for his new mental structure, able to perceive a depth to the time that he never would have before.

“Um, Thera?”

“No.”

“Okay, but-”

“Nope. I’m not in the mood, I don’t want to hear it.”

“…Alright.”

Considering that he’d almost killed himself in front of her he understood why she was so mad but he didn’t know how to make it better other than giving her some space and delivering his most heartfelt apology in the morning, leaving him quiet until they’d made it home and putting out an offer so he could do exactly that.

“You want me sleeping on the couch tonight?”

“Try it and you’ll get to see just how much more unbelievably pissed I can get.”

“Got it.”

Wow, I am doing shockingly bad at this right now.

With no other options presenting themselves he followed her to their room, laying down beside her while she turned away from him with the only feeling coming being one of barely contained mana threatening to leak out as they both laid in silence, time passing by but neither getting any sleep as it went, leaving him to try just once more to smooth things out.

“I’m sorry.”

When she didn’t immediately respond he assumed he was being ignored, left to wonder just what to do from there before she finally spoke up, sounding tired and hurt.

“It doesn’t matter, I can’t even tell you to not do it again because I know you absolutely will if you think you have to. You just put yourself in danger and don’t think about if that’s going to affect the people who love you.”

“Thera, I-”

“Can you think about how I felt, having what was the first really nice, peaceful time with friends and family in ages only to feel your body twist and jerk as it started tearing itself apart? And yeah, in the past I’ve let it slide because I can see when you genuinely haven’t had a choice but you knew something was going to happen and you couldn’t even bother to warn me and you’re just going to keep doing the shit so you can try to get stronger so you can go off and get yourself killed and… It doesn’t matter. Unfortunately for me, I care about you so I’m just going to have to put up with every way you might go and kill yourself and I don’t know why I’m even bothering because you’re not going to stop but… Just go up and bother your god, Ben. I’ll be less mad in the morning.”

He didn’t though, hearing what he’d put her through without considering how it would affect her, he rolled over and took her in his arms, speaking gently as he did.

“You’re right, I’m going to keep doing things that might be dangerous-”

“If this is you trying to make up then you’re about to get your arm broken.”

“But I am sorry about the way I did it,” He went on. “I can’t just stop trying to grow but I should have given you some sort of warning about what I was going to do, even if I needed to be light on the details. I promise, if I ever think I ever need to do anything dangerous like that again I will make sure I tell you so it won’t be a surprise and I’ll find a way to make it as safe as I can.”

“…Yeah, you’re the worst,” She sighed as she rolled over, finally facing him. “Genuinely, the reassurance you should have been giving would be telling me you won’t do anything as insane as that again. You do understand that, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m not going to lie to you. But maybe that’s worth something and you could find it in your heart to forgive me?”

“Pfff, we can work on forgiveness in the morning. I’m still too angry to sleep so you’re spending the next few hours trying to make it up to me.”

“Yeah, I’ll do my best.”

“Huh, that’s interesting,” Ben muttered as he reached his god’s realm in the early hours of the morning, getting the three already there to jump as they rushed to his side.

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“Ben, what the hell happened down there?” Myriad asked him. “I mean, I know what happened down there, you blocked us somehow, but-”

“Oh, so that really did keep everyone from seeing, huh? Neat, that means I almost have privacy again, minus the grey and all.”

“We couldn’t see or contact you since I couldn’t even find you despite knowing exactly where you should have been. What happened when you went back down there?”