castaside | Seasons Inbox

"Maybe start less with you both talking to either one about problems and just doing something together? Anything? A movie night? Or going for a walk together? Grooming the rabbits? Just spending time together could be a start."

"I don't know, maybe." He doesn't sound very optimistic. "The whole time all this crap would be hanging in the air."

"You said it yourself, you get him and he gets you. Maybe I just don't get him."

MK is quiet for a moment.

"My Warrior. You two got each other before. I don't know if you can find your way back there or move forward to something similar or not but...you won't know if you neither of you try. Him or you. It's that or you both hang on waiting for the other and that sounds awful. Your room is still there, in the rabbit house."

"So Cole needs to reach out, you do, you both keep waiting, or you say goodbye to each other. I don't know what is going to happen but it's one of those three."

"Maybe we didn't get each other before. Maybe I just needed someone to hear me and I never really got him."

"He wants to help, but he doesn't want my help. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to react to that other than how I am."

It sounds like Macaque thinks they already said goodbye.

"When did he say he didn't want your help? You didn't say anything like that before..."

MK hears it and it hurts his heart.

"After my heart game, in that simulation, a guy named Max came around. He offered me a deal to go to Cole's world and help him and his friends. He even promised to make sure I was safe all the while. But Cole told me that there was no other outcome for that other than me getting killed. That he didn't want my help. So I got the deal revoked."

That, and he's trying to think of a time when Cole came to him with one of his problems. He's coming up very blank.

"Oh. Sharp teeth? Different color eyes? He sings at the Dealer's Den sometimes with this woman in a white dress and black hair. Everything Cole's told me about his world makes it sound scarier than ours. Like the Jade Emperor is a robot or something and it's super evil. I know he'd be scared you'd get hurt. Even if Max said he could protect you."

"I do understand that."

"But I'm also sitting here trying to come up with a single time he came to me for help and coming up empty. The only time I think I ever helped him was communicating with his big rabbit, and he didn't ask. He flinched, actually. But I did it anyway."

"Maybe we were just never as close as I thought we were."

"He flinched when I tried to touch him too when he came back. Something reset his touch aversion back then. Something that happened in his world. And he asked you originally to help him with his nightmares. To cuddle him when he was scared, right?"

"No, never. Again, I just did it."

"But in order for you to cuddle Cole, he'd have to start it. He was touch adverse when he got here. Like from the get go. I remember because I couldn't touch him when I flew his stuff and him home on the cloud when we first met. So him starting it was him asking for your help because he trusted you."

"He didn't start it. I sat on his bed and just didn't ask. And you know he's not touch averse after nightmares, even then."

"But he let you. I mean...I don't know that? I didn't cuddle him after a nightmare until after you started to."

"Well, he isn't. Wasn't. In any case, he didn't ask. Didn't ask for me to move in, didn't ask for post-nightmare comfort. Maybe he would accept my help, but he never asked for it."

"So you just moved into his home, his safe space, without his permission or anything? Like him going, I like having you here? I think this is a good idea?"

"Basically. His roommate had left, so I said I'd stick around. It was only supposed to be a few days."

"So then what happened to make it last longer than that?"

"I just didn't leave. It's not something we discussed."

"Would him asking for your help uh help how things are then? Hearing him ask?"

"I couldn't possibly tell you, kiddo."

MK thinks for a moment but realizes this might be one of those moments he can't help. So...

"Okay. Do you want to just talk it out and I listen? See what you feel after you talk more, if you want to?"

"Isn't talking it out what we've been doing?"

He sighs softly.

"I swear I'm not trying to be difficult. Nothing would make me happier than if Cole and I got right again. I just think maybe I missed my window."

"We are. I guess I got a little worried I was trying to focus on the help part and less the listening part."

"Isn't the only way to know that to ask? Either of you to ask the other?"

"I guess I just don't understand why I'd ask about something that was made pretty clear to me."

"I don't know. ...Is there a chance you maybe misunderstood even a little? That would open up a lot of like stuff that could happen, right?"

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