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[scourgingstars]

Comments

[scourgingstars]

i don't know. i suppose it's worth a try, but i do not think it to amount to anything. more likely it would just start another argument between us somehow.

[carbungle]

what starts the argument?

[he's no therapist, but basic problem solving is just getting to the root of things. like conflict negotiation or something. he had some royal training, whatever the public might have thought of him.]

[scourgingstars]

it's a difficult thing to explain fully. oftentimes i feel as though my words completely fail to reach him past some imperceptible wall he's constructed around himself. worse yet, simply being around him seems to shorten my temper and test my patience in ways i'm far from proud of.

[carbungle]

ok so

letter

[don't have to see his face, don't have to be around him! a two for one.]

i think the wall's because of the ring, that thing's good for building walls

you were in angelgard all those years, and he was in the ring. it must have messed you both up in different ways

you have to remember how to be people again

[scourgingstars]

which is something i am painfully aware of, yes. but even just looking at him, i have doubts on if he realizes the same. or even if he wants to be a person again at all.

[carbungle]

i mean

obv i can't speak for him but if i'd done to my family what he did, i wouldn't be able to go back to how i was before

[and it isn't comparable, but he can understand that, to an extent. he's been irreversibly altered by his own experiences. the child he was before the Marilith attack is a person he can never return to, no matter how many times people tell him how he used to act. horrible life experiences can change a person, and sometimes there is no going back.]

is it bc you think he doesn't want to, or bc you don't know how to deal with how different he is from what you remember

[scourgingstars]

i have no definite answer for that. you're right that in word and action both he feels like a complete stranger, but by that same thread of logic i can not make any confident guess as to what he would or would not desire. all i have are vague thoughts and uncertain doubts.

i don't even know him anymore. in a way, perhaps that fact in itself frightens me.

[carbungle]

it's ok to be scared no one would blame u

bet he's in the same boat tho. like he doesn't know what to say to you. all he ever talks about is destiny and helping the world like he's not allowed to exist outside of that

it's not anybody's job to fix him or whatever but i think he needs help and even he doesn't know it

[scourgingstars]

i think so, as well. it's as i said; despite everything between us, i worry about him. this person he's become, it doesn't feel right. like either some elaborate act or he's entirely forgotten himself even more so than i have.

but i do not think i can help him. even if i could, he surely wouldn't allow it from me.

[carbungle]

[there's a much longer pause between Noct's reply this time, silent and strained, as he takes those words to heart.]

are you gonna give up on it

[on him

he'd chosen text for the same reason he'd suggested a letter; easier to get the words out when they're not spoken aloud, when tone of voice or wobbling words can change how a response is interpreted. he's glad for that instinct now, though. he can't imagine how he'd have sounded if he'd had to voice that question.]

[scourgingstars]

if that were ever an option to me, none of this would be the concern that it is. no matter what happened, no matter how furious i am or how long it has been, i am his elder brother still. to give up on this and write the whole matter off would be to sacrifice the fact that it was once my role to protect him before any other.

even if i can't help him and even if he detests me, i still have enough of myself left to want better for him than whatever he's made himself into.

[carbungle]

ok

good

hey u know what

that's a pretty good thing to put in a letter

[scourgingstars]

i don't think he would believe me.

[carbungle]

what if he does tho

what if its exactly what he needs to hear

[scourgingstars]

i did not say that i wouldn't do it

only that i fail to believe it would affect anything.

[carbungle]

even if he's different you're still the one who knows him best

& you still matter to him hes just a dumbass

you should believe in him

[scourgingstars]

hard to believe in someone that planted a sword in my chest

i'm just afraid, i think. because i can't predict what he'll say or do as i used to.

[carbungle]

...ya fair

like i said it's ok

i just hate this. people can disappear any time. what if you go, or he does

what if any of us go and that's it, no more chances

don't u guys have enough to regret already

[scourgingstars]

i should have disappeared a long time ago, noct. both of us should have.

[carbungle]

maybe, but you didn't

and we should hate you but we don't

you should hate US but you don't

2nd chances can be good

[scourgingstars]

you haven't done anything wrong

i presume he thinks he didn't either, the same as i would

i didn't want a second chance at all, and i don't always know what to do with one

[carbungle]

[he hates that they're going around in circles; he hates that he doesn't have the right answer for this. it's infuriating.]

can we

i mean

is there anything we can do

[scourgingstars]

i don't know

we've already more than troubled you enough with out careless fighting. i would not wish to make that any worse.

[carbungle]

shut up about that

i WANT to help, come on

[you and your guilt complexes!!]

[scourgingstars]

i don't think it possible, noct

one way or another, i fear this is something he and i will have to work out on our own, if ever it is to be solved at all.