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He watched her for a moment, weighing his words carefully. He had no idea about her past traumas or what sort of mental war she was waging with herself, but he could sense he was edging into a minefield all the same with this discussion, and that it would be wise to watch where he stepped.

"That it was an old bed?" he offered at last. Hell, it squeaked when HE sat on it...

He reached up, itching at the usual imaginary spot behind his ear that was his personal traitor for betraying his unease. "I guess..." he began, trying to figure out how he wanted to word it. "....it might help to know a little about it?"

He let it linger a moment, and then realizing it might sound like he was prying, he spoke again. "I mean, you don't have to. I just...don't know that I'm gonna be much good to you if I don't understand what it is we're dealing with."

The 'we' had slipped out unnoticed as he listed a bit onto his side, propping his head under one hand to look over the side of the bed at her. The distance between them, right now he found, was comfortable. It wasn't close enough that it felt stifling, and it wasn't far enough away that anything he said might seem contradictory.

When she began to speak, his ears pricked, ready to listen as he braced himself for whatever tales she was about to tell him. When, instead, he was offered the album, Kendall blinked in confusion.

He accepted the photo album from her wordlessly, wondering as he situated it in front of himself how this was going to explain things.

.....and then it did. In a much more precise way than words possibly could have. His eyes flicked from one photograph to the next, watching as, in each, she seemed to waste away right before his eyes. Curves and angles that most teenaged girls would have been proud of became jutting, angular lines, bones showing gauntly against her skin in what looked to be an obscene parody of herself.

Yet in each, she was smiling bigger. As if she'd done just a little more to convince whatever was forcing her to do that to herself that she was happier for it.

He swallowed through a dry throat, and then he -did- progress beyond the page spread he'd been presented with, watching as time seemed to work itself in reverse. Bit by bit, she came back from the wraith she'd become until she resembled moreso the girl he'd met for coffee a few months back to discuss answering her call for housemates.

By the time he reached the end of it, he felt like he'd been punched repeatedly in the stomach. Now it was his turn to feel guilty. He'd spent the entire weekend miffed and out-of-sorts that she was making such a big deal out of the bed breaking, assuming she was just off throwing some sort of girly tantrum. He'd really had no idea just how deep it all ran.

He closed the album quietly, unsure for the moment what to say.

He nodded, if only to let her know that he was, in fact, still listening. He wasn't, at least, experiencing what Tourma worried he might be. It was just....a shock to think you'd figured someone out, just to have it revealed that you really knew nothing about them at all.

"I had no idea..." he said at last, his voice a little hoarse. He stopped the accompanying I'm sorry before it could leave his mouth. It would be a stupid thing to say, and it would sound like he was pitying her.

What he felt wasn't pity as it was moreso a pained sort of confusion. How could she have not thought she looked fine before doing that to herself, metal skeleton or no? What had driven her to that? He wanted to ask, and yet was afraid to.

As she explained, his ears snapped down against his head in an unexpected roil of anger. Not at her, however.

....what kind of ASSHOLES did that to someone? Not that he was the best judge of interacting with others, but it seemed like it just went without saying that you didn't get in someone's face, who had nothing wrong with them, and convince them that they did to the point of them destroying themselves trying to make you happy.

"You shouldn't have HAD to do anything." he said, reaching down to take one of her hands in his own. "I don't know what kind of dickheads you were dealing with, Tourma, but anybody who's stupid enough they can't tell the difference between body weight and metal density hasn't got any ******** place making an example out of other people."

His tail swatted the neatly-made bed behind him as it lashed as the period to the end of his sentence.

"No, I guess not..." he agreed. That didn't make it excusable, though. She'd likely had coaching to get beyond the people who'd buffaloed her into her eating disorder, but as it was the first HE'D ever heard of it, he was livid with them. ....whoever they were.

Futile anger was the worst sort of anger.

He remained where he was for a long moment, watching her toy with his hand before shifting to slip onto the floor to sit closer to her again. He didn't particularly like the look into her baggage she'd offered him, but at least, if nothing else, he understood things a bit better now.

"How long have you been in here?" he asked, deciding to change the subject back to the present.

"That was...." he paused to think. "....almost four days ago." he said, letting her rest her head on his shoulder and, after a slight hesitation, moved to drape his arm around her shoulders. He wanted to ask if she really hadn't left the room in all that time, but there were indicators that kept him from needing to.

Her hair, usually vibrant and holding its own natural spring, clung to her head in a greasy mess, and her clothes looked like she hadn't bothered to change them since throwing them on.

The silence began to span, and the wheels of his mind turned. It felt like the ball, at some point, had been batted into his court and the situation, if it was to better itself, was waiting on him.

"....so why don't we go out someplace? Get a drink or something...."

It might have seemed funny that the tables had turned from HER trying to get him to go out and socialize to him now making an awkward attempt at doing the same. The irony was lost on him, however, as really, he would just be happy to see her NOT in a heap in the corner.