"I want you to know I think of you as my brother, Ed."
Perhaps you do.
But when you're stumbling over your words, Caspian, when you've spent weeks looking at me as if you want to eat me alive, when your reticence and tone and inability to look me in the eye as you say it lend credence to the idea that you mean something else entirely, then forgive me if I remain unconvinced.
You keep using that word "brother", Caspian. I don't think it means what you think it means.
Or not what you want it to mean, anyway.