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[howtheyshine]

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[howtheyshine]

[There's a long, long silence before he replies.]

I haven't spent a single day that I remember free.

Not one.

But people like Richter who hate me for no reason get to be wardens in this stupid fucking place.

What's the point.

[greatoldjohn]

[ There is a looong pause. Consternation. Mostly because he's not sure How to tackle the complete...

Ahem. ]

"No reason"?

Edwin.

That's bullshit and you know it.

Your feelings of powerlessness do not erase the harm you can do or the harm that you have done to people.

[howtheyshine]

Fuck off.

[greatoldjohn]

No.

Because I know you're better than this.

[howtheyshine]

What the fuck do you want from me?

[greatoldjohn]

I want to know what's hurting my brother and I want to make him feel better.

I want him to let me help him.

I want him to know I love him and I know he's having a rough time and I want to know how to help him through it.

I just don't think this is it. I think that eventually, you will regret and it will hurt you and I don't know what to do.

[howtheyshine]

And if I don't regret it? If I never do?

[greatoldjohn]

I'll still love you.

I'll be sad, because I think you'll miss out on things, but I'll still love you.

[howtheyshine]

Why?

[greatoldjohn]

Why do you love me?

[howtheyshine]

That's different and you know it.

[greatoldjohn]

It's not.

I wish you knew that.

[howtheyshine]

[He doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything. Again.]

[greatoldjohn]

Whatever the reasons you have are, mine are probably very similar.

And just as hard to define.

[howtheyshine]

Everything inside is a fucking mess.

I hurt. All the time. The places that burned when I used them for Larson.

I hate--

I hate everything. I hate everything.

[greatoldjohn]

[ There's no answer, just a change in the connection, a slow feed of warmth and light and affection that starts to fill the connection between them. With it comes a strange tonal music that might make something inside of him ease, just a little.]

I love you.

[howtheyshine]

[He almost resists. Fights the comfort, pushes back. There is, for a half a second, the sense that he might.

But he doesn't. He doesn't relax, but he doesn't resist.]

I love you too. I love you.

I love Jedao. I love Arthur. I love Hunter and Flapjack. I... I...

[greatoldjohn]

[ John doesn't say anything else. He's just going to keep loving him. Let him talk. ]

[howtheyshine]

[There's a few more half-formed syllables, then:]

I don't know what's happening to me.

I don't know how to stop it.

[greatoldjohn]

Do you want me to come to you?
Do you want me to call Hunter? Or Jedao?

[howtheyshine]

P... Please. Come?

[He's at least in his own cabin now, time out blobby and all.]

[greatoldjohn]

[ There's a knock on the door within five minutes. ]

[howtheyshine]

It's a little harder to open it when he can't just pop out of the blobby to reach, but Hunter already helped with a stopgap there--a stool, just to one side of the door. So that is where the little fox-that-is-Edwin is sitting when he pushes the door open enough to invite John in.

[greatoldjohn]

John thought he was ready for this.

John thought they'd talked and he'd spent time with Arthur and he was ready. He could differentiate. He wouldn't feel anything unexpected as the door opened and the sensation of Edwin, of his other half, flooded in.

He's as surprised as Edwin might be how his image flickers to another, to the blood and the tears and the bruises. How the memory rises so intensely that he's glad he doesn't have to breathe because he can't for a moment.

He has to force it back to normal. Focus on something.

"Why are you red?"

That's something.

[howtheyshine]

He backs up fast enough that he almost falls off the stool when John's image changes. He certainly slips, back paws briefly sliding off of it and onto the topmost rung.

"H... Hunter gave me a new body. I-- it's... I can't use any... any abilities in it, or... leave it unless he lets me. Unless I ask."