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Which one, he almost huffs. The one involving home grown terrorism and an Equalist coup? The civil war with the Northern Water Tribe and a Dark Avatar that almost ruined their world and the spirit world? The one in which The Red Lotus killed the Earth Queen and threw the whole world into chaos again setting the stage for Kuvira? Or Kuvira herself when she took that power and ran her golden vision of unification in the wake of tragedy into violent, extremist dictatorship. And after all of that? He came here. Into a dreamworld apocalypse and now a brand new world run by ancient, powerful beings and blooming with even more problems. When, Mako? When would he talk about it.

It's not like Bolin has been waiting in trenches to fight to the death so he doesn't feel like he has much to talk about. Mako was there too and he isn't complaining. Why would he?

He hasn't been in corpse strewn battle fields, what right does he have to be upset. What right does he have to think about how that might affect him. How can he sit down and think about all the times he nearly died - all the times he would have died if someone hadn't saved him. About the people he's hurt in the heat of battle and the people who have hurt him and his loved ones.. They lived, didn't they? If he thinks about that darkness too much it will consume him. Better to just.. set that aside in a cave and not poke it too much.

Even now that he's directly confronted with it.. look how upset Mako is getting. He doesn't want that. Mako always takes the brunt of everything for him and it isn't fair to keep presenting him with problems and bad feelings. Which... really just makes more bad feelings and argh! It's a mess.

So he plays dumb. He's good at that.

"Well.. what's there to say? We got through it."

Sometimes the seeds you planted grow terrible, bitter-tasting fruit.

Those words could have come straight from Mako's own mouth. They have come straight from Mako's mouth, back when Korra disappeared, when he died and the world spun slightly off its axis. When Wu died, and Mako realized exactly how powerless he was in the face of everything Deerington and its inhabitants could do to each other. He'd snapped them at half the people who tried to tell him to deal with his own feelings until Kristoff had sat him down and told him he was being an idiot and even then—

Hearing it from Bolin's mouth is different. Mako still believes it. He knows the world is an unfair place and that feelings don't change anything: he can hate the injustice and that won't make it any less present. He can miss their parents, but that doesn't bring them back. Getting food into their hands mattered. Putting a roof over their heads mattered. Mako's personal feelings about stealing from someone? About ducking his head against Zolt's smooth words, accepting that he was becoming exactly the kind of person who killed their parents?

Irrelevant.

But he's never applied the same measure to himself as he does to Bolin, and so he reaches out, focused on his brother as always, which means they're never going to get off this river because Mako won't ever bring his own problems to the table while he has Bolin's to solve. He squeezes Bolin's shoulder again, sadness welling up hard and fast, tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"It matters what you think about it," he says, quiet and earnest, a crack in a rock that has stood for centuries. Maybe, sometimes, feelings do matter. "Matters to me."

See that? That right there? Break's Bolin's big, bleeding heart. So much so that it wipes the wind out of his deflection sails and he sighs.

There's a moment where looking Mako in the eye is so overwhelming that he glances back out to the bank and immediately regrets it. Why is all of this so hard and awful! Is this even the place to be talking about it? Probably. He doesn't want to... but probably.

And Bolin not wanting to talk about something is.. hm. But this is a big deal and it's Mako and it's complicated even though it should be the easiest thing in the world.

He takes a breath and looks back, sighing slowly.

"It's just.. it's a lot. You know, you were there. I mean, I try.. I try really hard not to let anything bother me but when you put it all down together it's one thing after another and it's staring you in the face like.. Well, like that-" he says and gestures to the riverbank without looking again.

"It's difficult to acknowledge the part I played in hurting so many people. I really thought I was doing something worthy and giving back and really helping the world. So much that it put a wedge between me and everyone I care about and in the end I was wrong."

Another pause to breathe. Get to the point, Bolin.

"I just. I feel stupid. And naive."

"You were pretty naive," brutal, maybe, but Mako isn't going to pull punches. Not with this. It doesn't help Bolin any to tell him he didn't fuck up when he so obviously did, even it if hurts him. Mako sucks in a breath, making himself look back up Asami-and-Korra, twined together and rotting there. "It... sucks. Hurting people, even when you didn't mean to. The reason doesn't matter. Even if you thought you were doing something good, and helping, if you hurt someone you care about in the process—" he pauses as a raven cries out, rusty and echoing off rock and water.

Maybe he's never talked with Bolin about this. Maybe that's the problem.

"You, uh. You know after I broke up with Korra, when I was... living at the office?"

He nods, ready to move off his own jagged truths and talk about something else. He's hoping this means talking about something else. It is what it is. It hurts and it festers and it aches but at the end of the day it's just another layer of their shitty past settling on top of them like a snowdrift.

Maybe come spring that snow will melt a little and won't feel so heavy. He sure hopes so.

"I'm still not totally sure why you did that but.. yeah?"

"Because I was trying to hide from shit," Mako says tersely, watching their bodies sway together, rotten and awful. "Because I hurt both of my best friends really badly, and I didn't want to face up to what I did, and it ended up hurting them more. I... spun up this whole thing in my head about how they probably didn't want to see me and even if they thought they did they were just being nice, and how it was better if I just... let them drift away. But that wasn't even what I was doing. I was pushing them away because then I didn't have to deal with any of it. And it didn't help. At all."

Bolin listens, nodding softly. That had been such a mess and to be honest it's amazing Mako made it out alive.

"I guess it probably didn't help when Korra lost her memories and forgot you broke up."

He sure remembers that. He sure remembers keeping his mouth firmly s h u t on that one.

Mako winces at the reminder. "Yeah. It... didn't. What was I supposed to do? I mean. Tell the truth, but everyone was... I didn't want to have that conversation in front of everyone. It was stupid. The whole thing was... stupid."

Bolin hums in agreement and nods solemnly.

"It was, but I'm not sure what else you could have done. That definitely wasn't a conversation to have in front of everyone... but for what it's worth it all worked out in the end and now everyone is happy. So you can't beat yourself up about it."

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