THE ̧̕͝SEC͢͠͠O͏N̸̢D̵ INVE͘Ś̷̶T͏̛I͞GA̕҉T͟͡IO҉̢N̴͘

[strangerpeople]

T͝҉̡H͝E̵̢ ͝͝S̶Ę̡͞C͜͡҉OND̵̴ ̢I̶͢N͏V͝E͏̨̛ST͞I͢͞G̴͏A̛̕T͡ÌON͟

[The day has come.

..Valentine's Day, of course! Or should we now call it...ValITine's Day? Well, it doesn't matter. It's a Friday.

Hopefully, the Strangers got through this week without killing. But perhaps it's best to be sufficiently paranoid and check first, hmm?]

Comments

[unwittingking]

[...damn it...]

Please...next time, get me, okay? You don’t...you don’t have to go through this alone anymore. I promise.

[incendiarize]

You were busy.

[unwittingking]

And I can put things off if I need to. Or someone else can check over the body. I’m fine doing that if it means helping you, I swear.

[incendiarize]

...I promise I won't go poking at time by myself. But, King, some of the stuff I've seen - I couldn't recover from on my own, and I'm good at picking up and moving on! What're the others supposed to do if I get something that bad and someone's watching with me?

Watching alone isn't....it's not the hardest part.

[unwittingking]

I...don’t know. It’s hard, to cope with trauma. I can understand that well enough. I’ve been through enough to know how hard it is, from my normal life to what happened on the train. Getting over it is probably one of the hardest parts, if not the hardest part.

But the worst part, I think? Getting over it alone. For the longest time, I tried dealing with things by myself, and while I was able to deal with things, I couldn’t stop it from spilling into my personal life. Trying to deal with it by myself for so long, that when it did come out...I nearly lost my wife. My best friend was about ready to beat me to death. I nearly lost everything.

Watching alone may not be the hardest part, but dealing with it alone? That might be the worst.

[incendiarize]

I know that. That's why I don't need you to watch it with me!

It's afterward that I might need help. The worst one I got at the mansion, I saw alone - but Eric came running. The worst I've had here, I watched alone, but Kurama was right there.

So, I promise not to go looking completely by myself. But it's not gonna do any good if you're stuck reeling because you can't think of anything but potatoes, too.

[unwittingking]

[...okay, the potatoes thing gets him to pause for a second, but...he’s looking down when he answers, sounding defeated.]

Okay. I’ll stop bothering you about it. Just...please promise me that you’ll be careful when you can, and don’t hesitate to get me if it’s that bad, okay? Just...promise me that much.

[incendiarize]

[Trust him, King, you do not want to know.]

I will. I promise.

[unwittingking]

[He nods.]

Alright. I’ll...I’ll leave you to it, then.