The conversation's inevitably edging into darker places than he’d have liked it to - places that're never far from his thoughts - and it's the abject defeat in Nick’s breaking voice that dampens that slow-smouldering anger. A part of him wishes it didn’t. A part of him wants to stew knowing he’s justified in it even if he might be the only one who understands why, at the end of the day.
But the pain and unhappiness of friends and loved ones always trumps his own, cries for help never failing to reach him in some way. And he hopes they always will. Even if he doesn’t always have the right, most comforting words for difficult situations; even if he doesn’t always know how to handle them. Even after twenty years of knowing Nick and sometimes feeling like he had spent half as many years just trying to pull him out of ruts and not knowing, at points, if he even wanted to come out and see the light of day and grasp at a world of possibilities waiting for him. Maybe that frustration and exhaustion he was inclined to feel around Nick when they weren’t laughing or strumming guitars made him a terrible friend.
Luke’s frown softens and he meets his eyes with some effort, his own gleaming dully, achingly honest.
“I know –“ His voice is low, roughened by emotion. “I jus’ –“ There’s supposed to be more but he gives up mid-sentence with a shake of his head. “…I know.”
But it’ll eat at him, little by little, day by day, until he’d wake up one morning and there’d be nothing left of him but a dead man walking. He can’t help it any more than an animal caught between the jaws of a trap could help struggling viciously and bright-eyed to live. He just hopes, when it happens, that he won’t remember a time when he had the capacity to feel something other than a static, buzzing numbness.
“Stick close to Jane. A’right?” It’s a necessary remark. Not because he thinks Nick won’t -- but because he won’t let him walk past him and slip out of his life again without a piece of advice to take with him. Without something more in the ways of an answer than a helpless glance back. He thinks it might take some out of the sting out of not having the chance, the luxury, to say goodbye for the third time if Nick bled out in that Cornucopia. But then again, maybe it’s just wishful thinking as always.
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But the pain and unhappiness of friends and loved ones always trumps his own, cries for help never failing to reach him in some way. And he hopes they always will. Even if he doesn’t always have the right, most comforting words for difficult situations; even if he doesn’t always know how to handle them. Even after twenty years of knowing Nick and sometimes feeling like he had spent half as many years just trying to pull him out of ruts and not knowing, at points, if he even wanted to come out and see the light of day and grasp at a world of possibilities waiting for him. Maybe that frustration and exhaustion he was inclined to feel around Nick when they weren’t laughing or strumming guitars made him a terrible friend.
Luke’s frown softens and he meets his eyes with some effort, his own gleaming dully, achingly honest.
“I know –“ His voice is low, roughened by emotion. “I jus’ –“ There’s supposed to be more but he gives up mid-sentence with a shake of his head. “…I know.”
But it’ll eat at him, little by little, day by day, until he’d wake up one morning and there’d be nothing left of him but a dead man walking. He can’t help it any more than an animal caught between the jaws of a trap could help struggling viciously and bright-eyed to live. He just hopes, when it happens, that he won’t remember a time when he had the capacity to feel something other than a static, buzzing numbness.
“Stick close to Jane. A’right?” It’s a necessary remark. Not because he thinks Nick won’t -- but because he won’t let him walk past him and slip out of his life again without a piece of advice to take with him. Without something more in the ways of an answer than a helpless glance back. He thinks it might take some out of the sting out of not having the chance, the luxury, to say goodbye for the third time if Nick bled out in that Cornucopia. But then again, maybe it’s just wishful thinking as always.