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[If there's the slightest chance she could get out of this - doesn't he owe her that? Doesn't he owe her the sanctity of a life untainted by the things swarming in the corners of his vision, the things that creep and claw and swallow you whole? She's lasted so long - so much longer than he would've expected.]

[Is this how all that ends now?]

Look, it's - it's hard to explain. It's...

I'm the source, all right?

[Don't cry. Don't - make this worse than it already is.]

It's my fault. It came from me. I bring It to people, and then there's...you can't get rid of It.

[It takes conscious effort to shove down the anxiety and listen to what Tim's telling her. Even then it takes her a moment to digest it.]

So now It'll... follow me around, or whatever. [She's pretty sure she understood that already. Kind of like... like the more you know about It, the more vulnerable you are. The more likely it will show up at your window. And having seen it is definitely a step up.]

But how are you "the source"? Did you make it, or, or like, did it come out of you?

I've been seeing It - long as I can remember. Since I was a kid.

[Maybe if he'd just let himself stay shut inside, away from everything else, then that wouldn't have been a risk. If he hadn't selfishly longed for the life he didn't deserve, didn't take the requisite effort to really carve out in earnest - maybe the entire story never would have happened.]

[He has no way of knowing that for sure.]

It never would've gone after anyone else if I hadn't brought It to them.

[She's quiet for a while. The whole thing is so strange and alien that she doesn't know what to say. What to feel, even, except for the anxiety.]

...You were a kid.

[He was a kid.]

[Maybe he was too young to understand what was happening. Too stupid to truly grasp it. Too distraught, too uncertain about the nature of reality, too fragmented and torn in every direction by doctors that only wanted best for him, to know what It was and why It chose him. To understand any of it.]

[That wasn't his crime.]

[His crime was in thinking he could try to insert himself into the lives of regular people, normal people, and assume there wouldn't be consequences.]

It's always been there.

[Since the very beginning.]

[Because some people are just born wrong.]

[After the awkward times they've spent together, Max likes to think she has a feel for Tim's mood. And while he's always been hard to read, she can make out the powerful current of emotions underneath his tone.

She doesn't know what to say. Is there even anything she can say, knowing now what he's had to deal with for his whole life? For, what, twenty years?Max has had a shitty two years. Just two. And it's already too much.

When she finally speaks, it's soft, her voice having lost all of the annoyance and anger.]

...I'm so sorry, Tim.

[So what's that do about it?]

[What's that fix? What's that do, for someone like him? Hearing something like that - what's he supposed to say in response? His mouth opens and closes again, silently, and he can't - he doesn't - ]
[Because no one has ever told him so before.]
[A long silence elapses before he can finally speak again, with a faint, trembling edge.]

You shouldn't be. I spread It to you.

[She lets out a huff. Almost amused. Almost.] I should probably just learn to... stop walking through every effing door. [But life's kinda shit sometimes, most of the time, and... shit happens. She has no idea how to deal with this new thing. And it fucking scares her. But what can either of them do?] You couldn't have done anything about it. Everyone was up in everyone else's mind palaces.

It doesn't make any of it better. It's not like anyone walked in there knowing -

[Fuck. And anyone could have walked in there at any point, huh? Any point at all.]

...shit. [The word escapes in a breathless, horrified burst of air.]

Wha-? [She trails off, confused by the sudden shift in sentence... and then she reaches the same conclusion. Anyone could have seen that.]

...You need to find out who else saw it. Can we even find out?

I didn't even know you saw It until you said something.

[Goddamnit. He had no idea how to gauge that sort of thing. And if It's rife through Wonderland - the more people who know about It, what It can do...]

[They're fucked.]

[She spends a few moments thinking about it, but comes up with basically nothing.]

What do we do? You could go on the network and ask if anyone's been in your head, but...

[But that would be excruciating. Putting it out there that there's something wrong with your own brain or memories, actually asking around to know who's invaded your innermost privacy... Painful.]

With the questions people have been asking lately? People're gonna think I'm hiding something.

[Which he is, but it's for a good reason - not that he expects anyone to believe that. So, yeah, no way in hell is he venturing even the remotest possibility that there's something wrong with him with the crowd that there is lurking around here. He's already been quarantined by the contents of his own head when he was still in the single digits, and he's in no way eager to repeat the process.]

[The irony is not lost on Max]

But- But you are!

[There's exasperation in her voice, but it's more directed at the whole situation than at Tim... though he might not realize that. She sort of gets it. It's a lose-lose. They might not agree on which is the bigger lose, though.]

People could actually die if we don't find out. Maybe it doesn't have to be obvious. You can just... I dunno, ask if someone was in your head.

Yeah, and the last thing we need is this getting out even further. He told you how it spreads, right?

[The words are sharp, clipped, tense - because Alex was right, in the end. He was always goddamn right about all of it. And Tim really should have taken matters into his own hands before he ended up here, and trapped everyone in his personal hell with him.]

[He...?

Alex.

If Max knew that Tim was thinking along the same lines that Alex thought... that would scare her. Friends with Alex or not, the man had crazy tendencies, and she knows it.

And as much as she hates to admit it... Tim might have a point. He's the expert here, and she can't think of any resolution to their situation. She lets out an exasperated and resigned huff as her only response.]

[All he gets is a frustrated sigh, and he knows there's no options here. No options but equally shitty ones that'll get them nowhere but the same place he always ends up.]

[When Tim speaks again, it's tired. It's achingly, endlessly tired, and it sounds slightly muffled; his face is planted firmly in his hands.]

If I knew a way out - don't you think I would have taken it?

I do-... [Max replies quickly, keenly aware that her own frustration is pointed at the situation and not the victim. She tries to make her empathy apparent in her tone, reigning in her more negative emotions for now. Or trying to, anyway.] Believe me, I do. And I wish I was more help. If you need anything...

I'm pretty sure that's my line.

[He's the one who's been living with it. Like it or not, he's the one most closely tethered to all of it. He can hear it, the specter of it pinned beneath her wavering tone. Straining to make itself heard. Trying to be nice, because for the first time, maybe she can conceptualize a fraction of what he's been through.]

[Of what Alex did his damnedest to live with, until he decided that he shouldn't bother trying to live at all.]

[And took everyone he could with him.]

I just - need to know. If you see anything else. If you feel anything else.

[And the truth is... she does feel bad for him. Not that she needs an excuse to be nice to people. Max has always ever been naturally good to people- something Chloe never let her live down. After all this mess, it's hard to remember why she was so mad at Tim in the first place, but she does.

That video of him beating up a restrained Alex. That one event in the forest at night, when Tim was a child, and Max discovered with certainty that she could still rewind.

Everyone's dealing with their own shit. Tim's happens to be more than most. And she should cut him some slack. But balancing that against her initial dislike for him... Well, it leaves things awkward.]

Yeah, of course. You'll... be the first to know.

[And the only one. But that's a sad thought.]

And let me know, too, if there's anything...?

Edited 2017-10-23 11:56 (UTC)

[...well.]

[There is something.]

[There's a shift of cloth on wood as he straightens in his seat abruptly, and his tone sharpens, more intent.]

Yeah, actually.

[It's more of a do not than a please do but you know what? It counts. It absolutely counts. There's a fine line he's trying to straddle here without straining anything or breaking anything irreversibly, and he's gonna do his best to damn well walk it.]

I wouldn't...talk to Jay about any of this. I mean, it might be fine, but - he and Alex kinda had some things in - common.

[Like the way they ultimately chose to deal with the things in their lives. The things that would not, could not, fully understand.]

Huh. [She knows very little about Jay, but she wouldn't have thought he was like Alex. She tends to assume that people aren't mean like that.

But this favor is something she can totally do. Even if Tim hadn't asked her to outright.]

Trust me, talking to Jay is way at the bottom of the list of things I'll ever do. [That comes out a lot meaner than she meant it to, so she backtracks.] No offense... I just don't wanna dig myself in any deeper.

No, yeah. That's - probably a good idea.

[There's no knowing what Jay would do with that - or how, uh, insensitive he might be. How much he'd push for answers that Max does not, in all likelihood, have.]

If anything else comes up - if It starts showing up places it shouldn't?

That's the first hint.

...Are you saying there's a place where it should be? [She's not mocking- it's an honest attempt at humor, but she's tired. So tired.] Don't worry. I already promised I'd tell you.

[It's an earnest attempt, but it falls flat. There's a long moment of sustained silence, where Tim says nothing, and nothing issues from his end but the quiet cadence of his breathing - no longer quite so ragged, but just as exhausted.]

[Until...]

I'm sorry.

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