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I know it isn't easy, and that it will take time.
The most importance changes are, and do.

I think he feels those things.
But it might be even harder for him to say them.
So giving him an out and telling him you don't expect him to say them back might be a good idea.

[ Then, after a pause: ]

And since we're talking about honesty here.
I should practice what I preach a little.
I'm proud of you, Onni. For everything you're trying to do to make things better between you and Lalli.
For keeping going even when stuff's really hard.

That's true.

I don't know about that. I think I've made his life a great deal more difficult than it had to be, and hurt him a lot more than I realized. I don't know if anyone in his situation would be able to feel those things about me, let alone say them.

[Letting Lalli feel the way he's felt for so long out of negligence seems, to Onni, a little unforgivable.

Maybe it's because of that feeling that a surge of guilt overwhelms him when Reynir says that he's proud of him for trying to improve things between himself and Lalli, even when it's hard. Guilt, and shame, and self-consciousness.]

I don't know that it's anything to be proud of me for. It's what I should have been doing all along.

[ Reynir wishes right then, so desperately, that Tuuri were here. Onni would listen to her. She would straighten this out, get her brother to realize how wrong he was...

...or, maybe, she wouldn't. After all, a self-loathing like this can't be new. It had to pre-date Tuuri leaving, Tuuri dying. She hadn't solved it, before. Hell, she might have added to it.

Maybe what Onni really needs now is the perspective of someone outside his family. Someone more objective. Someone like Reynir. ]

Onni, you trust me, don't you?
You know that... most of the time, I don't lie?

Please, listen to me. You didn't mistreat Lalli.
Families hurt each other, that's part of the deal. But I've seen you two around one another.
You treat him so much better than... than most parents would, not to mention most cousins who had to become parents way too young.

So yeah. I'm proud of you. And I'm right to be proud of you. You might not be able to see why, but you're too close to it all.

Edited 2019-12-12 22:36 (UTC)

[Onni isn't sure there would be anything anyone could say to pull him out of this, right now. Thinking that Lalli was afraid of him, or that he'd hurt him, the images of how he'd handled his cousin when he was fighting against the treatment Onni was trying to give him are vivid in his mind. Lalli crying in the tub is just as fresh and vivid a memory, so thin and fragile and sick, crying because Onni had finally convinced him that he was loved, and always had been.

It hurts, to know what he's put his cousin through. It's going to be hard to let go of the idea that he'd done wrong by him, unforgivably wrong.]

I trust you. I don't think you would lie.

But I don't know that it's true that I treated him better than most parents would. I don't think his mother and father would have made him think he wasn't loved. His mother was so demonstrative with him, she would call him pet names. I don't think he could doubt how she felt about him.

He's alive, and he's strong, and he can take care of himself, but that isn't enough. He shouldn't have spent twelve years feeling like he was less valuable to me.

It doesn't do any good for you or Lalli, comparing yourself to his mom or blaming yourself for not psychically knowing what he was feeling.

He finally told you. Now is the important time, to change things.

You can't do that if you spend all your energy obsessing over the past and hating yourself. Because Lalli's gonna pick up on that.
If you look at him and start thinking about all the ways you think you fucked up in the past, you're gonna get sad.
And do you know what that looks like, to Lalli?
'When Onni looks at me, he gets sad. I make Onni sad, because something's wrong with me.'

You have to find a way to look into the future and let go of the past, for his sake, and yours.

[Beyond everything else, the way Reynir says so directly that there's no point in beating himself up over the past and that now is when they need to change things, that if he dwells on that and is sad when he sees Lalli, Lalli will think he's what's hurting Onni...that cuts through the thick, exhausted fog of guilt and self-hate.]

Letting go of the past is harder to do than it should be. I've always struggled with it.

It's hard to look at the future, too, because I don't know where to go from here. I have no idea what the future holds, and I don't feel like any of it is going to be good. But the least I can do is not make it worse for Lalli now.

Well. I'm here to help you do it, however I can. And perhaps with a little more practice, it might get easier. At least a little bit.

Not knowing what the future holds is scary. I get that.
Some of it will be good, Onni. I promise, some of it will be good.

Okay. I'll try to remember that.

Thank you, Reynir.

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