He nods, mouth pressing into a thin line for a moment.] I think that's how people change. When things don't go well. [Not that he's suggesting his brother needed to change, though. What he means is,] Things have to escalate, before people can see the problem in front of their faces. And sometimes even then, they don't want to act on it.
[He's seen it countless times, people letting themselves be bullied, simply because fighting back seems scarier than the bully. He doesn't actually blame them, but it's just never been how he could live. He's never been good at walking away, even when it's not his fight.
His lips to quirk up at the sudden question - ] Can't help it - I'm already ninety-six.
[Joking aside, though. He's actually willing to answer the question seriously, after a moment, as the joking smile fades.] No. Not really. I think I've always known, since I was a little kid, that old age wasn't gonna be the thing that gets me.
[Before, he just assumed he'd die from the asthma or the pneumonia or some other illness that finally knocked him too flat to get up again. He didn't like it, but he was stubborn, not blind. After... he's a soldier. Soldiers die in the line of duty. It just gets more likely, the longer you put yourself in that line of fire, and he never did plan on retiring.]
Maybe it's better that way. [He thinks of Peggy, slowly losing her mind, herself, in that nursing home. It makes him sad, like he's already mourning her loss while she's still alive, even though he feels lucky, in a way, that she lived the long, happy life she had.]
[Private]
He nods, mouth pressing into a thin line for a moment.] I think that's how people change. When things don't go well. [Not that he's suggesting his brother needed to change, though. What he means is,] Things have to escalate, before people can see the problem in front of their faces. And sometimes even then, they don't want to act on it.
[He's seen it countless times, people letting themselves be bullied, simply because fighting back seems scarier than the bully. He doesn't actually blame them, but it's just never been how he could live. He's never been good at walking away, even when it's not his fight.
His lips to quirk up at the sudden question - ] Can't help it - I'm already ninety-six.
[Joking aside, though. He's actually willing to answer the question seriously, after a moment, as the joking smile fades.] No. Not really. I think I've always known, since I was a little kid, that old age wasn't gonna be the thing that gets me.
[Before, he just assumed he'd die from the asthma or the pneumonia or some other illness that finally knocked him too flat to get up again. He didn't like it, but he was stubborn, not blind. After... he's a soldier. Soldiers die in the line of duty. It just gets more likely, the longer you put yourself in that line of fire, and he never did plan on retiring.]
Maybe it's better that way. [He thinks of Peggy, slowly losing her mind, herself, in that nursing home. It makes him sad, like he's already mourning her loss while she's still alive, even though he feels lucky, in a way, that she lived the long, happy life she had.]