postictal | ic inbox; entranceway

[...]

[That's ominous. But her tone is businesslike that it gives nothing away and - he did say she could let him know, if she needed help with everything. That's pretty serious. Warrants this kind of heavy message, right?]

[Probably. Probably.]

[Regardless, he answers with text. That's easier.]

hey
what's up

[Well, she does need help with something. And it is serious. Maybe. She's hoping not.]

You remember that weird psuedo event from a little while back?
That scientist doing the experiment that let us sleepwalk into each other's heads?

I need to know what that thing you, Jay, and Alex was talking about looks like.

[No.]

[No, no. No no no no god no not her please not her not the one damn person in this mansion who's lived through more than enough. She doesn't need this. She doesn't need this thing, this nightmare preying on her thoughts and leaching at her mind and tearing at her periphery, saturating the texture of her skull in paranoia that'll burn just as easily as it'll boil.]

no

[It's a knee-jerk response, and immediately he wishes he hadn't bothered. She knew the signs - knew enough to know to come to him, rather than Jay.]

[Better than her going to Alex, at least. He's pretty sure that, if presented with the viable choice, she'd go to him instead.]

you went in my head

[Well that's not a good goddamn sign.]

Not on purpose.
Sorry, kid.
Didn't suspect anything until I saw you.

[Truthfully, if Alex had still been here, she probably would have. He's seen her more beaten down than anyone, and she's seen him deal with paranoia over this thing. But now Tim's her best contact, and... they agreed to look out for each other, as sappy as that was.

Not that she really wanted to say anything, but-- well, now that she's probably pissed off Hearts, she should get her ducks in a row on what shit might be hunting her out of the corner of her eyes.]

I know you don't wanna talk about this.
But I think I might be a little more involved than I was previously.

[No. No, of course she didn't. No matter what comes next - he breathes out a long, shuddery breath - he thinks he can believe that. He thinks he can believe that she wouldn't have ventured, if she'd known. It's not like he was able to control it himself, either. He ended up in people's heads at random, with no way out. Seeing far more than he should have.]

[Breathe.]

[Breathe.]

[And answer.]

Tell me everything you saw.

[It takes her a bit to compose this properly. It's hard to remember dreams, even harder to remember through how much it fucking hurt. That's part of what concerns her the most; how clearly she can remember the physical pain, even if it was gone by the time she woke up.]

It was a tunnel.
You were there, too, and so was... something.
Tall, faceless. Come to think of it, I think wearing a suit.
At one point we were underwater, and then somewhere else, but.

[Ugh how does she phrase this.]

Alex told me it effects electronics.
Causes static and distortion.
My body is literally half synthetic.
Hell, skeletal structure is all metal.

What I'm saying here is I've died before and I think that hurt worse.
Sorry.

[No. No, no, no, goddamnit, no.]

[Not her.]

[Not her.]

[Please not her oh god oh fuck. She felt It. She felt It up against her head and she stood there the way Jay did and she felt it snapping her apart piece by piece and she's half synthetic and It absolutely ravaged her, it completely tore her apart and he can just be fucking grateful, at least, that It wasn't physically there to make it all happen but she could still feel it and she might've even woken from that feeling it, the aftershocks that always remain because you can't ever cure this you can't ever cure something that's seeded into your very soul that's stitched into your atoms that's threaded into the fabric of your consciousness because this, this, this is what you are and this is the poison that you inflict on others and you should have damn well known it would end this way it always ends this way Alex was right ]

[He was right.]
[He was right.]

[He's poison.]

[He's poison, and this is what he gets for it.]

I did this to you
I'm so sorry

I went into your head.
It's my fault.
I shouldn't have pried.

[I just wanted to protect you, she wants to say. I've taken worse than this. I can take this, if it means taking it from you.]

This isn't your fault, alright?
It's Wonderland's.

... And I probably could've phrased this better.
Sorry about that, too.
Evelyn just got done chiding me over sounding like an ass.

you didn't know
no one ever knows they don't go in knowing what i am and they just

[They just go in expecting some nice, normal, surly asshole of a guy and instead they get the freak of their nightmares. They go in thinking that this is normal, and then their memories are pulled from their scalps and their thoughts are bisected by bright bars of static and they start seeing things, because this, this is him, this is what he does to people, this is what he does to people and they can never be free of it once he has them.]

[Nobody goes in knowing.]

[If they did, no one would go in at all.]

Hey.
It's not what you are.
You didn't do anything, Tim.
I've been asking these questions a long time.

[She holds no malice to him for what happened. It wasn't even him in that dream that attacked her. Why would she have reason to make him responsible?]

I don't blame you, alright?
I don't blame you for any of this.

you should

[She and Alex knew each other, right? She knew him. She knew him and she knew the thing that fucked him up was something dangerous and unknowable and evil. And now, right now, she has the chance to dive into why.]

[Because she's talking to it. She's talking to it, right now.]

you knew alex
you knew he was messed up
who do you think did that to him

Well, bets are on the faceless thing that turned me into a fish fry.
Funny, if you were gonna do that, I would've expected it to be sooner.
You aren't just a culmination of things that have happened to you.
You're a person.
And you didn't hurt me.

I’m the reason It comes for people.
I’m the reason It came for him.
I’m the reason It will come for you.

Tim. You didn't bring anything to me.
I went where I shouldn't have.
I got myself into this.
But I need you to help me know where we're going from here, alright?
If I'm gonna figure this out, I need your intel.

theres no stopping It
y ou saw what it did to alex

now youren ext

I can handle it.
I've had things that got inside my mind before.
I know it's a hard ask for you to believe me right now, and I know you've been fighting this thing for a long time.
But you're not alone.
I can do this.
We can do it together.

no
you cant
it ruined alex and he wasnt even part machine
It ruined jay
It ruined me
imagine what It could do to y ou

Tim? Come on, breathe. Breathe for me, okay? Five in, five out.
Part of what I do is be prepared for everything. And if I don't know the first time, I figure it out.
It's not here. And if you think it's coming, we still have time.
I can't promise nothing bad is going to happen, but I need you to believe me.
I won't give up.

iT IS
ITS HERE BECAUSE I'M HERE

STOP ACTING LIKE ITS OK

[She groans a bit, drags at her face. She can't fuckin' do this on text.]

Are you in your room?
I wanna see you.
Not like this.

[He may or may not be on the verge of hyperventilating at this particular moment. There's a long moment in which there's no answer, nothing at all, until he can finally force stiff fingers to press into the keys.]

no

[It's a lie. That's exactly where he is.]

I'm coming to see you.

[And she is, whether he's going to let her in or not. She'll talk through the door. Fuck it. She gets there quickly, raps on it with two knuckles, and speaks before waiting for a response.]

You don't have to come out. But I want to talk, Tim. Really.

[Of course that wouldn’t be enough to truly deter her. He suspected as much, but he’s a bit too caught up in his own whirlwind of panic to respond with anything beyond a desperate, tearing cry of:]

Go away!

[She lets out a slightly exasperated sigh, turning a bit in the hall to press her back to the wall, slowly sliding down to the floor. She's not blocking the door. But she is gonna sit here like an asshole until he talks to her.]

I'm not leaving, Tim. I'm not gonna break your door down but you can't make me leave.

ic inbox; entranceway

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