[The time it takes Carl to compose himself gives Coil the moments he needs to sort through his own thoughts. It's not something he's used to feeling--at least outside of a few very specific cases. It takes him a minute to sort through it himself.
He huffs out a tense, irritated-sounding breath at the question, but it's clearly not in annoyance at Carl. He's upset, but it's about something else.
After looking away while he puts his words together, he meets Carl's gaze again to sign with short motions. "I could have made that better." Which doesn't exactly explain what he means, so he belatedly tacks on, "if I had been there."
And maybe that's the thing. If Coil had been there, he could have cleaned up that wound into something that maybe wouldn't be bothering Carl so deeply. Or maybe he could have helped in a way that would have prevented it from happening at all. But instead, they'd gotten separated across time and space, and Carl had gone through something that Coil can picture with too much sympathetic clarity.]
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He huffs out a tense, irritated-sounding breath at the question, but it's clearly not in annoyance at Carl. He's upset, but it's about something else.
After looking away while he puts his words together, he meets Carl's gaze again to sign with short motions. "I could have made that better." Which doesn't exactly explain what he means, so he belatedly tacks on, "if I had been there."
And maybe that's the thing. If Coil had been there, he could have cleaned up that wound into something that maybe wouldn't be bothering Carl so deeply. Or maybe he could have helped in a way that would have prevented it from happening at all. But instead, they'd gotten separated across time and space, and Carl had gone through something that Coil can picture with too much sympathetic clarity.]