Chapter Text
She is needy, though she will never debase herself by dignifying her needs with words. Rinoa craves the electricity between them; magnetized to his side and recharged by an arm 'round his bicep or a head on his shoulder. Squall is never quite sure what to do, always under the assumption that whatever he does is simply not enough - all the love in the world, not a single action nor word worthy of representing it, not a spacewalk nor a simple reassuring glance. He will never accept that oftentimes she is satisfied (elated, exuberated, ecstatic) by the mere fact that he is there at all, never asking for more than his company and for him to accept her forfeiture of agency. She will become small, voiceless, unable to give for a time.
And then she will rise from the ashes, wings spread out and ready to take to the skies once more.
He is needy, and it is a pain in the ass to accept that. It is enough of a hassle to walk himself through his own struggles and verbalize them (still doesn't like to talk about himself or his feelings, though now not for a belief that he cannot) without the extraneous burden of admitting something so childish, so weak. More often than not, Squall repeats Rinoa's voice in his head before he is able to give rise to his own: You missed out on all the good things in life. You've missed out on so much. He is unaccustomed to it, and likely always will be - but he needn't go without. The conversation rarely lasts for more than a few minutes at a time and Squall is almost offhand in how he lends voice to his struggles, worrisome of the weight it may place on Rinoa - but she always knows what to say, even if it is nothing at all. Sometimes he craves the scarcest commodity in a lifetime of solitude: sometimes he just wants somebody to listen. Sometimes he just wants to be heard.
And then he will lick his wounds and reclaim his pride, stalking forward into the world with his head held high.