#yes... actually

A tock, then a tick, and a tock—and a spring flew out.

Landing near the foot of your chair.

Another sigh, now bearing the edge of long brewed frustration. Closing his eyes, Dankovsky rubs the temple of his head, before getting up, dusting off his coat, with the intention of crossing the room to retrieve the piece. The very same one now resting in the middle of your palm, with you standing up next to him, having abandoned your semi-comfortable seat.

"Daniil..." Your tired eyes are met with equally exhausted ones, "operating a machine isn't the same as understanding how it works." You peer into the inner mechanical guts of the clock, ones usually hidden behind the wooden panel. Squishing the spring between your pointer and your thumb, you click it back into place.

There's a newly formed glint of hope in Dankovsky's eyes, "Do you—"

You shake your head, "just a lucky guess." A white lie; this isn't your story to resolve, but his. Whatever abstract responsibility this broken clock clearly symbolised, it was his to process. A lesson that must be learnt.

There's irony in the way his hands were more steady resting against the trigger of a pistol than the delicate pivot of a clock. Observing the jungle of mechanical parts and gears, you don't envy his position, although it must look less intimidating for someone far removed from the picture than he is.

After all, you can merely interfere from time to time, before retiring back to your chair. You could always step away whenever it became too much, but he couldn't, for the play you absentmindedly watched was the life that he's living.

While it's your first time experiencing this, he's relived it all more times than he could count, heard all your lines over and over, time after time. The spring was new this cycle around, he admits, yet the clock itself is more tangled than he's ever seen it. The dread of the possibility this might’ve been his last rewind forms a pit at the bottom of his stomach.