[ The whole time Klaus is speaking, Tim's kind of silently begging him to say something that isn't so heavy, so when he mentions the shrimp Tim practically leaps on it, moving over to the table and dropping down into a seat. He places his wine glass very carefully on a coaster, avoiding looking at Klaus while everything else he said rests quite heavily in the air between them, a presence he can almost feel.
It's hard for Tim to engage with people on this kind of level; he did all of his growing up in situations where people just don't talk to each other like this. No time for feelings. He was never especially open as a child, but almost a decade in the army plus a few years being raised exclusively by his father after his mom got sick – those things will change a person. He wonders if he would have been any different if he hadn't enlisted. Probably he would've. Either way, he would've gotten out from under his father's thumb, probably gone to college somewhere and grown up normally. He's bitter, sometimes, and annoyed at the non-existence of this hypothetical Better Tim, who can express his feelings properly, who doesn't clam up so tight around people he likes, who maybe wants things like dates and boyfriends, who can sleep past six thirty and doesn't have to regiment his life strictly enough that sometimes it feels like he's living in a prison he made for himself.
To distract himself from all of that, Tim picks up a fork, stabs a single shrimp on the end of it, and eats it. ] This is good, [ he says, which isn't an answer to anything Klaus said, except maybe that last thing about the shrimp. It takes more effort than he'd be willing to admit to clear his throat and add, ] What d'you mean, you died?
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Date: 2020-02-14 06:27 am (UTC)It's hard for Tim to engage with people on this kind of level; he did all of his growing up in situations where people just don't talk to each other like this. No time for feelings. He was never especially open as a child, but almost a decade in the army plus a few years being raised exclusively by his father after his mom got sick – those things will change a person. He wonders if he would have been any different if he hadn't enlisted. Probably he would've. Either way, he would've gotten out from under his father's thumb, probably gone to college somewhere and grown up normally. He's bitter, sometimes, and annoyed at the non-existence of this hypothetical Better Tim, who can express his feelings properly, who doesn't clam up so tight around people he likes, who maybe wants things like dates and boyfriends, who can sleep past six thirty and doesn't have to regiment his life strictly enough that sometimes it feels like he's living in a prison he made for himself.
To distract himself from all of that, Tim picks up a fork, stabs a single shrimp on the end of it, and eats it. ] This is good, [ he says, which isn't an answer to anything Klaus said, except maybe that last thing about the shrimp. It takes more effort than he'd be willing to admit to clear his throat and add, ] What d'you mean, you died?