Hey. [ What can he do, to wrest Alex free of her doubt? Though no physical distance remains between them, she's still out of reach, the softness of her hands pushing against his chest despite the way her chin sinks into the scarred and open palm of his hand. And where he might have shifted away to grant her space, he finds her fingers have curled into the lapels of his coat, and so...!

While he does move, rising in a precise economy of motion to his feet, he takes her right along with him. Scooped up into and neatly supported by his arms, he whisks her right into the air, standing at his full height of six-foot-two as he holds her high, shifting her perspective. ] I'm bothering because you're the one who's looking out for me, here in the cold and the snow.

[ But it's no longer quite so cold, is it? Not with the heat radiating from the crystal within Asura's chest. It melts any dustings of snow which might have collected on Alex's coat or the fringe of her hair. ]

And more than that... [ Though he smiles still, his carries with it a somber edge, a solemn note: ] I've carried it once before, too. The guilt of not being able to save someone.

[ Many someones. The lives which he'd been forced to take, the people who would still draw breath if not for him; if not for the whim of his once-Keeper. And lo: he's revealed that he's not too good to be true, because... he's walked the very path which Alex faces now, and they are not so different. ]

It'll eat you alive, if you let it, and it's my selfish wish for you to avoid that fate. [ Selfish? But ah, ah, how could that be? ] Because without you...

[ And here, there's a theatrical pause. A cheeky huff, before...!: ]

Who's going to sing while I play the flute? [ ??? What, Asura??? ]