There are so many answers to that question. Edwin sticks with what's simplest.
"Yes." A pause, and he weighs the extra things he could say. "I'm a warden now, but I came here as an inmate, because... I was someone worth hating. I don't remember it, there are reasons I don't, but it still happened. What happened to Charlie, I'm still responsible for it, even if it feels like someone else's fault. I don't want him to hate me. I don't like it, but-- I was someone worth hating."
It takes Noel a great many seconds to find good words, and he's aware that they probably aren't very comfortable seconds for the kid, but he's... honestly not even sure how he feels about this. What he's taking from the vague shape of the explanation is that maybe the boy will grow up -- or would have grown up -- to do something really awful to Charlie, or something like that in some order, and so sharp protective indignation is struggling against... other things. An attempt to be level-headed.
He's still perceiving Edwin as a child, though, and it makes him gentler.
"I guess I can't... say anythin' about it on his behalf," he starts, awkwardly. Please don't read a few tags back in the conversation thank you.
"If you don't mind me sayin', though -- even if you were a real grade A prick, you- you don't wanna keep repeating it to yourself. Trust me, I used to uh." An embarrassed, apologetic shrug. "Yell at people, run around causin' trouble. I still ain't proud of it. But it wasn't thinkin' about how bad I was that helped, that- that just made me think I couldn't be anything else. What helps is thinkin' about... who you want to be. And why."
Edwin had been in the middle of untangling a kitten, but he listens. He listens, and then looks up at Noel, eyes wide, kitten and yarn snared around his fingers.
"What if-- What if it's to remind me what I don't want to be? What I know is wrong?"
Oh boy that's a tough one. Noel blows out air, thinking.
"Well, uh... there's rememberin' it for that reason, and then there's rememberin' it to hurt yourself. It's figuring out which kind of remembering you're doing that's the, the trick." And he realises he's assuming a lot about a kid he doesn't know, and adds: "Maybe you already got that fact figured out, I- I dunno."
Well, if he looks at Edwin when sharing that last addition, he'll find the kid giving him puppy eyes to rival the actual dogs in the room. No, Noel, he had not gotten that fact figured out, he didn't even know that was a fact in the offing.
Oh boy, that look. It's so earnest, and it makes him feel like he's actually helped some, and makes him want to help more. It breaks his heart, sometimes, that he'll never get a look like that from a child of his own. He loves Charlie, don't get him wrong, but that doesn't mean he never tried to do things the way you're supposed to, or that he doesn't long after... you know. Children. A wedding. A white picket fence. It is what it is.
He gives the boy an encouraging smile, a warm one, while he fiddles with his own section of the yarn.
Edwin finally looks down at the closest kitten again. He touches its ears as delicately as he knows how, to watch the way they bend with barely any pressure.
"I... It's so-- It's so complicated all the time. Being... accountable and remembering what I used to be and remembering what he did, but not... not hating myself for things he did and remembering that I'm me because I didn't want to be him, that I chose to be something different, and also not forgetting the things I did wrong figuring that out, because I don't want to do them again."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
"Yes." A pause, and he weighs the extra things he could say. "I'm a warden now, but I came here as an inmate, because... I was someone worth hating. I don't remember it, there are reasons I don't, but it still happened. What happened to Charlie, I'm still responsible for it, even if it feels like someone else's fault. I don't want him to hate me. I don't like it, but-- I was someone worth hating."
no subject
It takes Noel a great many seconds to find good words, and he's aware that they probably aren't very comfortable seconds for the kid, but he's... honestly not even sure how he feels about this. What he's taking from the vague shape of the explanation is that maybe the boy will grow up -- or would have grown up -- to do something really awful to Charlie, or something like that in some order, and so sharp protective indignation is struggling against... other things. An attempt to be level-headed.
He's still perceiving Edwin as a child, though, and it makes him gentler.
"I guess I can't... say anythin' about it on his behalf," he starts, awkwardly. Please don't read a few tags back in the conversation thank you.
"If you don't mind me sayin', though -- even if you were a real grade A prick, you- you don't wanna keep repeating it to yourself. Trust me, I used to uh." An embarrassed, apologetic shrug. "Yell at people, run around causin' trouble. I still ain't proud of it. But it wasn't thinkin' about how bad I was that helped, that- that just made me think I couldn't be anything else. What helps is thinkin' about... who you want to be. And why."
no subject
"What if-- What if it's to remind me what I don't want to be? What I know is wrong?"
no subject
"Well, uh... there's rememberin' it for that reason, and then there's rememberin' it to hurt yourself. It's figuring out which kind of remembering you're doing that's the, the trick." And he realises he's assuming a lot about a kid he doesn't know, and adds: "Maybe you already got that fact figured out, I- I dunno."
no subject
no subject
He gives the boy an encouraging smile, a warm one, while he fiddles with his own section of the yarn.
no subject
"I... It's so-- It's so complicated all the time. Being... accountable and remembering what I used to be and remembering what he did, but not... not hating myself for things he did and remembering that I'm me because I didn't want to be him, that I chose to be something different, and also not forgetting the things I did wrong figuring that out, because I don't want to do them again."