[ Jacob looks at him, hard, jaw set but he doesn't move away from the warm hand that settles on him, doesn't fight away from the reality of the words. He saw, he saw the aftermath too, stayed with Anduin even if his heart was actually with Hellboy, wherever he'd gone in the cold dark hours. Whatever he'd put himself through before they'd both found their way back here. And Jacob knows he will never, ever make peace with himself for not having gone back to Hellboy, for staying with Anduin instead, but he'd been unable to rip himself in half to watch over both of them. Hellboy would have told him to go to Anduin, and so he had, but he knows it was not the decision he wanted to make.
His eyes don't even flicker when the stone hand lifts from the thin mattress, they don't leave Hellboy's face, trying to understand. He can't, because he doesn't know, he hasn't been told what the real story is behind that hand, what Hellboy's fate is supposed to be apart from some sort of doom-bringer. He's removed enough from the facts that they make no impact on him, and even if he knew them, it wouldn't make a difference. Maybe Anastasia knew, maybe she had all the facts, and saw beyond them anyway, to this man who deserved love and kindness just as everyone else does, or maybe she didn't, and loved him because she saw who he was.
As he looks into Hellboy's eyes, if Hellboy looks into his, maybe he can see the waiver in them, the water gathering in them, the hurt in his heart. Jacob has never, at any point, been able to keep a bloody thing he cared for. His mother, his grandmother, Pearl, the man he thought Roth was, that damn bird, his freedom. He has lost every single thing he felt he could keep ahold of, and he won't allow something else to be taken from him. He won't let it come to that.
He doesn't say the words, because Hellboy will tell him no, will tell him that it has to be this one way. As an assassin, Jacob knows that the death of one saves the lives of many, and he has resorted to it so many times over the last decade. But those people were evil people, people who saw others as things that needed to be controlled, people who saw others as a way to gain power and wealth. People who, in short, did not see others as people at all.
And Hellboy is someone that for so long so many didn't consider a person.
It takes a moment of slow, deep breaths to try and get himself under control, to let the blood return to his fingers where he's squeezed his knuckles white, not to let the tears escape. Eventually, he swallows all of that, trusts his voice not to tremble. ]
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His eyes don't even flicker when the stone hand lifts from the thin mattress, they don't leave Hellboy's face, trying to understand. He can't, because he doesn't know, he hasn't been told what the real story is behind that hand, what Hellboy's fate is supposed to be apart from some sort of doom-bringer. He's removed enough from the facts that they make no impact on him, and even if he knew them, it wouldn't make a difference. Maybe Anastasia knew, maybe she had all the facts, and saw beyond them anyway, to this man who deserved love and kindness just as everyone else does, or maybe she didn't, and loved him because she saw who he was.
As he looks into Hellboy's eyes, if Hellboy looks into his, maybe he can see the waiver in them, the water gathering in them, the hurt in his heart. Jacob has never, at any point, been able to keep a bloody thing he cared for. His mother, his grandmother, Pearl, the man he thought Roth was, that damn bird, his freedom. He has lost every single thing he felt he could keep ahold of, and he won't allow something else to be taken from him. He won't let it come to that.
He doesn't say the words, because Hellboy will tell him no, will tell him that it has to be this one way. As an assassin, Jacob knows that the death of one saves the lives of many, and he has resorted to it so many times over the last decade. But those people were evil people, people who saw others as things that needed to be controlled, people who saw others as a way to gain power and wealth. People who, in short, did not see others as people at all.
And Hellboy is someone that for so long so many didn't consider a person.
It takes a moment of slow, deep breaths to try and get himself under control, to let the blood return to his fingers where he's squeezed his knuckles white, not to let the tears escape. Eventually, he swallows all of that, trusts his voice not to tremble. ]
I won't lose you.