Dentis 28, 2718 ✽ Evening
He shouldn't have ever expected anything else. There were those in his life who had taken an interest in him, those who grew obsessed in continuous frustration, but none of them had ever treated him like a person. Bennett never took him seriously until the end; Clover took small interactions too seriously, and easily Lars had figured out that even those who wanted him in some form still didn't really want him. Not really.
Perhaps they just liked the idea and found the reality of his comforts and affections - hugs, gentle touches of the hand - underwhelming.
So when Niamh reciprocated the gesture, wrapping her arms around his slender, injured form, he could do little with the silence in his mind. It hadn't occurred to him that it might actually do well; that this girl might return the comforting embrace he had always been denied.
Why was it so important? Why was it something he lingered on so? It had always been that way and he should have accepted it as truth from the very start - why he even tried to hug this girl was a mystery in itself, but the greater one by far was why she didn't leave. It brought a discomfort to steely eyes, an almost tingling sensation that led him to blink rapidly for a few seconds in protest. Still it came; a redness painting the skin beneath his eyes and gliding up his high cheekbones, a liquid shimmer filling his faraway gaze that, for the moment, was oh so present. He swallowed the lump in his throat, ignoring remnants of blood-soaked pain and sputtering, his hold firm around the girl's shoulders.
"Um," was all the passive managed at first, voice coarse before he cleared his throat. Why was it that her words affected him? Professor Moore had said similar things, had made clear many times how distasteful he found the mistreatment and abuse of passives, had proven to Lars that he was truthful in his compassion... but this was different somehow; more personal. Whereas the professor had made clear his sympathy for all passives, his want for all passives to have equal treatment, his desire to help and assist all passives, Lars hadn't felt singled out in a word of it.
Why he wanted to be singled out was beyond his current mind, why the fact that the professor was representative of all of his kind disappointed him, but perhaps that was what finally let glimmering tears fall from the passive's eyes.
"No, um," he started again, voice cracking, "it - it's nothing to be sorry for," Lars was careful not to jostle the girl as he reached up to his face and wiped his tears, afterwards returning his arm to its position around her, "it's just th - the way things are, it's um,"
The servant took a deep breath, one of his hands absentmindedly moving to pet Niamh's hair, as if the strands were somehow curious to the Hessean and a good distraction from the situation, "why are you being so kind?" he inquired quietly, a genuine wonder in his voice. Gone was any hint of annoyance or frustration he might've felt for the girl, and replaced they were with confusion.
"Y-you don't even know me, I don't - I don't know why you're being s-so kind. It... it feels l-like some kind of joke."