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[When Ingo says this, this is when it comes together for Emmet. How Ingo hunted, and how that kind of Pokemon interacted with creatures smaller and more skittery than them.]

[There is an obvious moment that it 'clicks' on his face.]

Thats it? You do realize your dog is a literal walking piece of cake.

[Flatly:]

I am a carnivore, Emmet.

[That is why he has a dog that is made of cake!]

Do you not eat cake anymore? I still eat cake.

[Emmet says this amazingly flatly.]

I have always wanted to bite an Alcremie and never have. I have licked each in the Vanillite line because I refused to accept it didn't taste like soft-serve.

I do not feel an overwhelming urge to storm bakeries! But I have hunted and killed animals!

[Ingo is almost immediately getting annoyed! Why is Emmet acting like this is a joke!]

And I think that you should take an active threat to your dog's welfare more seriously!

I actively wonder what your dog would taste like. Because it is a cake. I have literally wondered if it would have the same mouth-feel texture as a cake.

But I know when I start badly craving a slice of cake dog I should go get an actual slice of cake.

[What Emmet is trying to say: he is so used to living around a crazy number of Pokemon that look like food- and food that looks like Pokemon. That it only makes sense you would naturally get cravings for things and learn how to redirect.]

Would you eat a Pokemon that looks like sushi? Or at least go 'That looks like a nice piece of sushi'

Yes? Probably? That is what you make sushi with in the first place!

[Ingo has eaten Pokemon that just look like Pokemon! This is how hunting works???]

Emmet. This is not like wanting cake. I need you to understand that very often when I see your dog, I feel a powerful drive to pounce on her and break her spine.

Then we treat it like an Arbok is on your team situation. Supervision around the dog, when the sensation to do that arises we try and satisfy that urge in another way. Careful observation, and trust in your Pokemon's ability to want to be around its team members.

[Emmet says this flatly.]

Being a dog doesn't make it any more special than any other animal we eat and hunt. Being my dog doesn't make it immune to the horribleness of this place and what it influences us to do. We control what we can, and the rest is up to the will of Ryslig.

[His voice is getting rough from talking so much! He hates it!]

[And Emmet's bleak outlook on their situation has made it where he isn't blind with rage and frustration. That he has to accept that this place, perhaps, as he read in one person's thread on the network, is a suffering engine- and try to figure out how to adapt.]

[What he can manipulate here he will, but he refuses to fight the things he doesn't even understand how to face. Not until there is an idea- or something...]

I do not understand. I have just told you that I am untrustworthy -

[Ingo stops himself, closing his eyes. He's angry, but he's directing it at the wrong person. It just - Emmet is acting like this is a simple and easy problem. Like it's normal and fine for him to have to arrange his life around his brother's murderous impulses.]

She is your dog! Of course that makes a difference! What if I stayed on the third floor instead? We could set up a gate, and I would come and go via the balcony.

I do not want you to do that. I like sharing the downstairs with you. It would be too lonely without you.

[Emmet would not be willing to bend around someone else's life. But Ingo's- he was, easily and willingly do that.]

Being nocturnal already makes it hard to see you regularly.

Maybe that is a good thing! I don't understand why you want to spend more time with someone who wants to kill your pet! I have long thought that you must have greater standards for how the people around you behave, but really, Emmet, it is not right that you should have to live like this!

[Though. He's sort of letting the third-floor idea drop a little bit because he also does not want to do it.]

[Emmet felt like those words were supposed to hurt him. Perhaps it is because he did have that bit of a break and a short nap on the floor afterward, he just doesn't feel it.]

I don't think you would willingly do it.

.....no. Of course not. But that will not matter very much if it happens.

And do you forget with how Ryslig is, there is the very real possibility that next month everyone suddenly decides we have to cannibalize one another just so the Fog God can have a good morning, or make a skin suit out of someone or whatever?

I hardly see how that makes it any better.

[Actually seems to do the opposite!]

This is not like that, this is just - what I am now. I - I'm not good for you, Emmet, I wish you could see that. You are already acting as if my violence is for you to manage!

No, I trust you to manage it. I trust you would help me help you with that.

[He sighs. Voice rough.]

I'm trying to...accept this place is horrible. And makes us do horrible things, and want horrible things. If I hold everyone accountable for what this place forces them to do, I might as well give up on even trying to survive here because what would be the point? I would be trapped here with people as horrible as me because I am not above the influence, I would be disgusted with them and not the cause.

What is the point in surviving at all, when we are this?

[A foolish question - the point of surviving is that they'll only return hungrier if they die. Ingo knows that. If he didn't, he would have died well before now. It's just an angry outburst, one he quickly digs his claws into his pawpads in silent reproach over.]

...you are speaking too much.

Because I like to think, you would miss me if I were gone.

[Just a simple reason, and obvious to Emmet.]

Ah - of course I would! I did not mean - ah, nevermind.

[Obviously he wasn't talking about Emmet. But it does no good to say these things; he oughtn't to have said that to begin with.]

Though if you ever get the chance to leave this place, you must take it! I would be happier to know that you were somewhere safe.

I would miss you if you were gone too. But I would be happy if you were somewhere safe.

[Emmet is trying to explain how he feels, and it is hard.]

Because it hurts me when you're hurting, and I want you to be as happy as we can. I used to be able to help you- if you had an idea, I could follow through. Here...I can't follow through even though I try.

[Because you're not allowing him too.]

On Pasio, you wanted to introduce something like the Battle Subway there. I knew how to get it going, I knew what to do. It makes me happy to see you happy. Which I can't do.

Emmet...

[He's said this before. It seems plainly obvious. But he needs to be patient - he'll try and rephrase.]

It seems wrong for me to try and be happy, when I have this blood on my hands. Why do I deserve happiness any more than the people I have killed did? At least if I am unhappy, I am paying for it somehow.

[Emmet lets out a frustrated sound, move forward and clings to his brother.]

Then explain why it would be right for me to be happy- which you want. Explain why you think just because you're 34 minutes older, you are much more importantly the big brother to carry this. Explain why- when I have been killing people longer than you have, and eating them for much longer, I am exempt and you're not.

[He moves to rest his forehead on Ingo's shoulder.]

You're mean, and stubborn, and stupid, and a hypocrite.

[Emmet, master wordsmit of insults here.]

[Ingo lets out a surprised bark of laughter. Emmet's never insulted him before! Not outside of the red fog, at least - it feels very much like relief! The way Emmet always goes on about how good he is...it was like he was seeing someone who isn't here.]

I don't know. Because I love you. And - I think you feel the hunting urge less than I do. You never would have gotten an animal if you were like me. But -

[Well. Would he feel differently if Emmet were more like him? Probably not. He thinks that would be frightening, but even then, more for Emmet's sake than anything else.]

- I love you. [..........] And I am at least five years older than you, technically.

[Of course he felt the hunting urges less, one he was a lizard and they are not known to be on the hunt often, and two- his following people tends to help him disperse the urges better.]

[Give into them small and all that.]

And I think the same of you for the same reason. It hurts me to know you are hurting and I can't do anything for you.

[All Emmet could do was love Ingo when Ingo didn't love himself.]

[And it felt like Ingo wasn't allowing him to.]

Thats not important, me in the future is still 34 minutes younger.

I will be hundreds of years older by then!

[And like, definitely long dead. But Ingo isn't thinking of that; he's trying to be a little lighter. He doesn't feel light. It's a shivery feeling, like he could break down in either laughter or sobs all at once, at any second. He lets out a long shuddering breath and drops his chin onto Emmet's shoulder, finally bringing his arms up to hug back.]

I don't know. I don't know what to say. It is - all the time. If it is not the hunting it is something else. I cannot sleep, I cannot relax without - clawing or something - I'm sorry, I do not want to make things worse for you! I know that you have your own troubles!

I can handle them with your help like you can handle yours with mine. Because you may have things that seem big to you that are not for me, and it goes the other way.

[He said softly.]

Then we will find a way to help with that. Because you only make things worse for me when you allow yourself to suffer. When you carry everything when I can help. There are two of us after all.

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cw: suicidal ideation

cw: suicidal ideation

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