[The familiarity of this worms deep into his chest and stays there. He's not surprised it still hurts, but he is a little surprised how much it still does so. The little '...' dances across the screen as Varian types, deletes and retypes his answer. He doesn't share his past with many people - he's trying to walk away from it as much as he can, here. To let himself heal and have an at least vaguely happy life.
...But walking away from it doesn't make it any less apparent in the rearview mirror. ]
Just because he downplayed it or just because no one took him seriously doesn't make him any less failed. It doesn't matter that it makes sense that he slipped through the cracks. He still did and that's something we're all going to have to try and make right. It's on all of us.
You won't feel it right now. And you'll feel it even less if he doesn't survive this, but word of advice? Burning the world down never works as well as you think it does. Even if you... if you cremate everything around you, even if you raze every inch of the world until it's just ashes, it doesn't help. It won't bring him back, it won't fix anything. And maybe at that point you won't want it to be fixed - maybe you won't care that there's nothing left.
...But eventually that aftermath will come and all you'll feel is empty. And maybe... maybe that's better than feeling sad and scared about what's happened to him. Because anything is better than that. But it's really, really not. That empty feeling doesn't last half as long as you hope it would. And then all you're left is the exact same pain you're feeling now, except there's no longer any way to make it stop.
[ But he doesn't know anything about that! SO! ]
...So, yeah. I'd rather the second thing, too. So I guess for all our sakes, we're gonna have to find a way to make this work and save your boyfriend's life, huh?
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...But walking away from it doesn't make it any less apparent in the rearview mirror. ]
Just because he downplayed it or just because no one took him seriously doesn't make him any less failed. It doesn't matter that it makes sense that he slipped through the cracks. He still did and that's something we're all going to have to try and make right. It's on all of us.
You won't feel it right now. And you'll feel it even less if he doesn't survive this, but word of advice? Burning the world down never works as well as you think it does. Even if you... if you cremate everything around you, even if you raze every inch of the world until it's just ashes, it doesn't help. It won't bring him back, it won't fix anything. And maybe at that point you won't want it to be fixed - maybe you won't care that there's nothing left.
...But eventually that aftermath will come and all you'll feel is empty. And maybe... maybe that's better than feeling sad and scared about what's happened to him. Because anything is better than that. But it's really, really not. That empty feeling doesn't last half as long as you hope it would. And then all you're left is the exact same pain you're feeling now, except there's no longer any way to make it stop.
[ But he doesn't know anything about that! SO! ]
...So, yeah. I'd rather the second thing, too. So I guess for all our sakes, we're gonna have to find a way to make this work and save your boyfriend's life, huh?