Work Text:
"I want to be just like you"
"Can we be like you when we grow up?"
"You're the coolest"
I hear that often from the kids I help, the countless "I wanna be like" yous and its variants. It gives me endless joy to hear it, like who I am is a goal deemed worthy by the youth, but how do you tell them that the 30 something year old in front of them isn't such a role model?
That the person who smiles and teaches you how to take care of yourself and your friends let their girlfriend kill herself in front of them? That for every one of them helped, they had to let 2 others die, that those "birthmarks" aren't actually birthmarks.
You don't, you smile and say "of course you can", and hope the universe isn't cruel enough to take you literally. You just hope that 20 or so years down the line you don't meet those grown up children in a bar somewhere and ruin that hero they used to admire as kids when you tell them a little too much about your life.
Maybe if they met their hero, laid bare to be judged, they'll still say that you're their hero, and that you haven't let them down, and that they're glad they met you.
I know I still saw him as a hero, how could I not?