For a moment, that's all Dan says as he tries to figure out how to approach this subject. It's not that he wants to be misleading. It's not even reluctance to talk about these sorts of things. It's that he truly doesn't believe Bunny will understand where he's coming from, won't realize how difficult this is for Dan, won't see the sacrifice Dan's made for Bunny as a gift.
Because it is both a sacrifice and a gift, Dan deciding not to affirmatively hasten his own death. For most of his life he's been able to ride out the worst, darkest times with the knowledge that he probably won't live long enough to deal with problems down the line; he's been able to believe that pain is temporary because life is temporary and can be shortened. He never tells Bunny he thinks of death as like an escape hatch, its own safety measure, not a threat but the answer to one.
He gave that up to be a good partner to Bunny. He dedicated himself to sticking around, to dealing with the consequences of his years of bad decisions, to subjecting himself to the ravages of time while married to someone who will never age a day. That shouldn't feel like a sacrifice, but it does, and he knows it'll hurt to acknowledge the reality that it only feels like a sacrifice and the greatest gift he could give someone to him.
"I ain't been hiding nothing terrible. I ain't dying. Far as I know I ain't got cancer or any missing limbs or nothing." He starts to work at some fur that got burned at the base of Bunny's ear, teasing out singe. "I'm just turning forty. That's all."
no subject
For a moment, that's all Dan says as he tries to figure out how to approach this subject. It's not that he wants to be misleading. It's not even reluctance to talk about these sorts of things. It's that he truly doesn't believe Bunny will understand where he's coming from, won't realize how difficult this is for Dan, won't see the sacrifice Dan's made for Bunny as a gift.
Because it is both a sacrifice and a gift, Dan deciding not to affirmatively hasten his own death. For most of his life he's been able to ride out the worst, darkest times with the knowledge that he probably won't live long enough to deal with problems down the line; he's been able to believe that pain is temporary because life is temporary and can be shortened. He never tells Bunny he thinks of death as like an escape hatch, its own safety measure, not a threat but the answer to one.
He gave that up to be a good partner to Bunny. He dedicated himself to sticking around, to dealing with the consequences of his years of bad decisions, to subjecting himself to the ravages of time while married to someone who will never age a day. That shouldn't feel like a sacrifice, but it does, and he knows it'll hurt to acknowledge the reality that it only feels like a sacrifice and the greatest gift he could give someone to him.
"I ain't been hiding nothing terrible. I ain't dying. Far as I know I ain't got cancer or any missing limbs or nothing." He starts to work at some fur that got burned at the base of Bunny's ear, teasing out singe. "I'm just turning forty. That's all."