#but hopclair makes my brain go oHJdjd

[megatronmayfield]

The hopclair hug at the end of vol 2 GETS me, for two main reasons:

1. the look Lucas gives her beforehand.

2. El's face during the hug.

The first one especially gets me, because Lucas, without knowing El was there with him that night, gives her this look of true understanding.

He doesn't know that she tried just as he did to save Max. He doesn't know that she holds just as much guilt as he does over her current condition. He doesn't know the many reasons as to why what they are feeling is so similar in that moment.

All he knows is that El cares about Max just as much as he does, and that she must be feeling just as awful as he is. In his mind, their only point of connection is their love for Max, and he's right. Their shared love for Max is what motivated them to try as hard as they possibly could to protect her. It's what fuels their guilt over their "failure" to do so.

Lucas knows that he misses Max, and he knows that El does too, and that knowledge is enough.

It's enough for him to find more comfort in the girl who he met less than three years ago, than he does in the two boys he's known almost his entire life. The two boys he met long before the name Max first entered his minds.

Because they don't understand. They can't. Not the way El does.