Everyone, whether they were forty or fifteen seemed to want to be tougher or act tougher than they were. He'd always guessed it was a byproduct of normal society falling apart. Survival of the fittest and all that, but he just couldn't see a twenty year old as anything but just barely a kid. "Thinks he's tough, huh?" Mostly a rhetorical question, since the few run ins that Silas had had with Lucas told him the kid wanted to be seen as a tough guy. "Only sometimes? 'Cause to me it sounds like you're used to carrying all the weight on your shoulders." Things he couldn't relate to, since he'd been an only child and the youngest of his cousins; he was always the one growing up that was sheltered, if you wanted to put it that way. "But you shouldn't have to. No one's making you do it."
"But I barely count," he teased, though he had known what she'd meant by the statement. It was different being a complete wreck around strangers or people you barely knew than it was around a friend. "I'll just be like furniture; there, but ignorable." He didn't commonly take himself too seriously, so saying something like that to lighten the mood wasn't a big deal, and if it got a smile, well, even better. He wasn't going to tell Rae she needed to be happy, she deserved to mourn, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to try and make her smile either. Selfish as that might be.
Cleaning up after roommates didn't sound like that much fun to him, but then, he didn't have Rae's personality either. "Ever think he does that on purpose?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her. "Just to see how many times you'll clean up after him." He didn't have anything against Rae's cousin, but he couldn't figure him out either. Like why he had such a problem with him, as far back as Silas could remember he'd never done anything to Lucas personally.
The muscles in his jaw tensed at her admission. it was familiar guilt; he had never promised to protect Mike, but it had been an unspoken thing, watching each others backs. "You're only human, and he was only human. You can't control the decisions people make." But he knew how hard to believe that was, especially when grief was still there, when all the what-ifs were still there. Almost a month later and he was still working through losing Mike. "You can just do the best that you can, and hope that's enough"
Oh, she was definitely someone who carried a lot of weight on her shoulders, if that statement was anything to go by. He didn't want to seem like he was just parroting back everything she'd said to him, but those were the only things that kept springing into his head.
"Don't say that," he said, trying to be as gentle as possible, though inside he was irritated that she was even put in a position where she was questioning things like that. "You aren't responsible for everyone, and all the bad things that happen, that have happened, they aren't your fault." He brought his free hand up to rub at the back of his neck. "Someone like you, well, they aren't meant to be alone." But how could he really make her believe that.
With a sigh, he fell silent for a couple seconds before he stopped walking and turned in towards Rae, looking down at her. "Elliot and David made their own choices," he started again, hesitating only a little with the first name. "You did your best to keep them safe, but they were adults, Rae and they made their own decisions. Elliot didn't die just because he knew you, and David didn't disappear just because you were in his life. You can't take those things onto your shoulders." He wanted so badly for her to believe that. "You can't hold yourself responsible, it'll kill you in the end." Hadn't she been the one to say that guilt wasn't healthy? Or maybe he was imagining it, but it felt like something he'd heard before.