[Markus returns his hand to his lap, and his fingers flex gently as he regards Noctis for a quiet moment. He still feel the uncomfortable tingling of raw skin at his knuckles, the dull pain a constant reminder of what he had done.

There’s a multitude of ways to reply to Noctis. Many of them couched in some variation of I’m fine or There’s no need to worry about me. Worry about yourself instead. Yet Markus owes the young man something more than that — after what he’s put him through, if this is what he wants to hear, then so be it.

A part of him thinks this would just be easier if he were mad at him.]

I hurt you, Noctis. It doesn’t get much more straightforward than that. I hurt people who wanted to help me, I hurt someone I’m supposed to protect, I lost patience, I started fights. I let myself fall into anger, when I’m supposed to be stronger than that. When that isn’t me — not the part of me that I want clawing itself to the surface like some... spurned monster.

I lost control. I’m not the sort of person that’s supposed to lose control.