[It would be easy, he realizes as Polnareff hugs him tight and he clings tight right back even more emphatically with his scaly clawed hands than Polnareff's small pink human ones, it would be easy to only hear the failure in what Polnareff tells him. To his ears, there is a failure there, a kneejerk one: Polnareff got hurt, he cut off my legs and threw me into the ocean, and if he weren't a failure he would've prevented that. That much is simple. That much is obvious.
(There's another part, too, a lesser part, that whispers why does this happen to everyone close to me, is it me, but that comes fleeting and miserable and doesn't linger long.)
What's all but impossible, though, is digging past that to catch hold of what Polnareff wants him to hear. He knows that it's there, knows exactly the words. It's just three of them — don't blame yourself. That's what all the rest of it really adds up to, the not your fault and not your responsibility and you're the reason I survived and don't insult me. That's what it all comes down to.
Because it doesn't have to be his fault for him to blame himself.
It's Dio's fault that his friends died, Dio's hand that threw knives and ruptured organs. But he blames himself, even now. Maybe he does it because he's going to be miserable either way, and at least if he's blaming himself then he knows why he's miserable.
It would be all but impossible, he thinks, to break that tendency. It feels impossible, the notion that he might actually be able to stop feeling like this.]
...I just don't want to lose you, too. Not you too.
[They've done a lot of impossible things together on their adventures, him and Polnareff.]
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(There's another part, too, a lesser part, that whispers why does this happen to everyone close to me, is it me, but that comes fleeting and miserable and doesn't linger long.)
What's all but impossible, though, is digging past that to catch hold of what Polnareff wants him to hear. He knows that it's there, knows exactly the words. It's just three of them — don't blame yourself. That's what all the rest of it really adds up to, the not your fault and not your responsibility and you're the reason I survived and don't insult me. That's what it all comes down to.
Because it doesn't have to be his fault for him to blame himself.
It's Dio's fault that his friends died, Dio's hand that threw knives and ruptured organs. But he blames himself, even now. Maybe he does it because he's going to be miserable either way, and at least if he's blaming himself then he knows why he's miserable.
It would be all but impossible, he thinks, to break that tendency. It feels impossible, the notion that he might actually be able to stop feeling like this.]
...I just don't want to lose you, too. Not you too.
[They've done a lot of impossible things together on their adventures, him and Polnareff.]