postictal | ic inbox; lifeaftr

[Despite every horrible word the shadow said, there was one valuable message it gave her-

That I'm okay is meaningless when it's coming out of Tim's mouth. It's not true, if that weird thing is teetering on the edge of his consciousness. It's not true, because he's never been okay. That's what it told her and-

She believes it more than she believes him right now.

Her hand balls into a fist around the shells and she moves to shove it into her pocket for safekeeping. Then stops and drops down to dig a tiny hole in the ground instead, letting them just sorta drop in when it gets deep enough.]

You don't have to say 'I'm okay' to me if-

[Your heart is sad, a phrase that'll make his future shadow cringe in anger again.]

Something hurts.

[Does it hurt?]

[It hurts in the same way most things do - a dull, reverberating, constant ache that plateaus into a routine sort of numbness that he's never really been able to shake, it feels like. Maybe, in those moments of absolute extremis, when he's let that burst from him like a blister and cry like the child he no longer is, but aside from that, what is there?]

[Why is she here?]

I'm not hurt.

[Not physically. And internally, well, he's a goddamned wreck and always has been. Nothing anyone can really do about that.]

Okay.

[I'm not hurt and that's-

If that's what he says, then it's fine. It doesn't erase what she knows and if I'm okay is something he wants to hide behind, she'll let him. Just like always because that's how it is.

And if he changes his mind-if he wants to say I'm not okay to her, then she hopes he remembers.

Nothing else comes out of her mouth right away. She looks pretty focused on the star she's making into the sand over the buried shells.]

You can dig here later and pick one out. That's okay to do. The pretty ones are under this star and-

[She stands up straight, pointing further down the beach.]

There are more down there. I can look for a special one for you.

[Tim breathes out, a long, steady gust of smoke that doesn't really make him feel any better, or any more present, or any less likely to fuck this up.]

[So why bother pretending. He's a liar, and if he hasn't had enough reasons to unlearn that, maybe he should start here. Maybe he should start with this, this kid who apparently has standards so achingly low that, even now, she doesn't have anything better to do than talk to him, of all people.]

Why are you still here?

[That question makes her stiffen. It sounds like something that might come out of his shadow and she has to quickly remind herself that they're all gone. That it's safe to answer this with-

I want to be with you and I'm worried and I want to play and-]

I missed you.

[The actual Tim. The one that turned away when it was too much. The one she avoided out of concern and fear and-

The feeling may not be mutual and while Hey sounded like a chance to stay, it's hard to shake that it wasn't now that he's asked that. He might have loved her once, but it could have changed over the course of the last week, with everything that happened. He might-]

Do you want me to go away?

You shouldn't.

[What can he do but tell the truth? You shouldn't. She's already ruined, thanks to him, and she probably doesn't even know it. Maybe she does, and just doesn't care. That arguably makes it worse. No, wait - it definitely makes it worse.]

[At least everyone else he knew had the sense of self-preservation to know that he was bad for them, that he exuded a radius of misfortune that would see all of them dead. Not that it saved any of them in the end.]

[He takes another slow, deliberate draw from his cigarette. Probably shouldn't smoke in front of a kid.]

[There's a lot of things he shouldn't do in front of kids, but does anyway. Why hide from it?]

You know I'm not any good for you. Right?

[It's hard to shake it-the memory of the other Tim throwing a lighter to the ground, the same one that may have been used to light up that cigarette.

You know I'm not any good for you carries more weight than ever. It's not him-it's the scary thing lurking in his heart, that he can't control, that he never asked for, that hurts him. That thing isn't good-not for anyone. Especially him.

But it doesn't change how all his small actions have felt big to her over the year and-]

You're 'good for me'-you do a lot of things that make me very happy and-

[It terrifies her to say this, suddenly, and she has to resist the urge to reach out and clutch his hand to keep him in one place. I love you and Family sent him sky-rocketing in the woods. She doesn't want that to happen again, though she's sure he must know she's thought-]

You're my friend.

[For some time now.]

So I missed you. That's how it works.

[His expression pinches, creasing into something pained. Friend. He had one friend who called himself that, who said it easily, like it wasn't a shift so drastic and unanticipated that it had sent Tim's entire world rocking, straight to its foundations.]

[But that's not true, is it?]

[What about that locket around your neck? Is that really more of a noose than anything?]

My friends don't tend to last very long. [The words are whispers, split through with misery. Knowing he can't change it. Can't alter the course now that it's been taking. He can't protect any of them from this, can't keep it from being hewn to pieces, can't possibly fix things when the only thing that needs fixing is at the core of it.]

[Him.]

I still want to be friends.

[Revisiting what that shadow said about his pasts friends-about what happened to them, isn't something she wants to think about. It hurt and she doesn't know how to channel that pain into words. There's no way to express any kind of sentiment over that sort of loss.

She can only say what she knows. What she feels, deep in her heart.

The kids that live with him are his friends, right? Family? And they seem okay. Seem happy.

And it wasn't like she was going to last for very long anyway. Something-

She probably shouldn't bring up. Not right now.]

It's okay.

Is it?

[One hand goes up over his face, raking through his hair, and he can't look at her, can't look at anything, he just has to bite his tongue. He wants to laugh. Some part of him wants to laugh and the only reason he knows he shouldn't is because he knows that part of him isn't really him so he doesn't.]

[That, and it might be - unsettling.]

I should've known better. I should have. God. Why? Why do you even...

[He finishes the sentence with an awkward jerk of his free hand, an opening of his palm in the absence of finding any way to verbalize any of it, that tightness in his chest and the pressure over his heart.]

Because I like you.

[Why does she-?

The bigger question-the biggest one of all, actually, is why did he reach out to her.

The first moment they met, he was trying to comfort her. He didn't need to speak with her after the memory showed itself, didn't need to bring up his own past experiences dealing with it, didn't need to try everything to placate her, even though she said she was okay. Giving her a birthday, despite her protest. Teaching her music, even though he has far better things to do.]

Because-

[His heart is good. Kind. Warm. Things he doesn't want to hear, but they remain true regardless.]

You make me really happy and when you're by me, I don't feel lonely. I want to do that kind of thing for you.

Doesn't everyone?

[Maybe that's cruel to say. He doesn't know. Does it matter? Could he possibly be crueler than anything that's already happened? Those were parts of him, like it or not. They still exist.]

[Fucked, right. That he's fine with the Shadowy bits, but can't handle the Light.]

You're friends with everyone that I know, you're friends with everyone period. I don't give you anything that they don't. I don't - I'm not -

[He's not anything special.]

[Nothing about him is. Nothing about who he is is notable, to anyone. It's always what's happened to him, what's been done to him. He's the only other one left from Sol. He's the one who knows what it's like to grow up under a doctor's watchful eye.]

[It's just what happened around him.]

[It won't matter to him. He gets it, but doesn't and-

She knows its her fault, a little bit, because she can't figure out how to get across. How to express what it means to find someone that-]

No one knew I liked music. I don't think I knew either.

[The little melodies she came up with, the one song she repeated and repeated and repeated over and over and over until her throat got scratchy, was only that. She never associated it with a deep interest, until-]

You saw that. It's not something I'm supposed to learn, but you taught me anyway.

[And it might not mean anything to him. It a gesture from long ago, but she remembers how it felt to get a flute, to learn about notes, how it made something in her surge to life. How she wanted to get better and learn more and she had never felt that way before.]

You give people birthdays and help them be happy, even when they're not supposed to have them.

[One of the best days of her life, even if she never makes it to a second one.]

You're the only one that understands what it's like to-

[Be in that scary, horrible, terrible place, as bad as it is that's a commonality between them.]

You're the only one who can see into someone's heart and tell when they're afraid, even when their hands aren't shaking.

[It may not mean a thing to him. It probably won't. But at the very least she can express it-the importance of his presence in her world, even if he can't see the bigger picture around him. Even if he never understands how valuable he is here.]

You're special.

[Presented with evidence that's impossible to ignore, what does he do? He runs away, mostly. He runs away from her, from the Light part of him he didn't want to outright deny but couldn't accept as something real and actual, couldn't accept as anything else but a fucking - trick, or whatever the hell else.]

Why don't you care? That knowing me is...

[That he's poison.]

[He's poison. He bleeds into everyone's lives, and sears into their hearts, and then - how do you get away from that, once it's inside you? Once it's inside you, and it is, of course.]

[Now it's inside you too.]

[Isn't it?]

[Why don't you care that knowing him will destroy you, the way it's destroyed everyone he's ever met?]

[Without the shadow's context-without spending that horrifying afternoon in the woods, listening to every hostile secret it spouted out with glee, she wouldn't understand what he meant by knowing me is.

Because she didn't forget. It would be a discourtesy to his friends' memory, to all the ways Tim suffered, if she had. Knowing him and knowing what's inside him are two different things. The being could appear and take him over in the blink of an eye and it's terrifying because she's-

Really scared for him. Doesn't want him to ever isolate himself, suffer alone, because of something he can't control. That he never asked for. That he never wanted. If enough people are aware, then they can help-she really thinks they can definitely help. He burnt down an entire building to escape and-

She gets it. Understands that kind of desperation, even if she never acted on it because it was pointless for her. And he he should get a chance to live-to be free in every way he couldn't in his world.

Tim's heart, despite everything it went through, continues to go through, still holds a genuine warmth to it. Even if his doctors couldn't see it, she can. And if even if she can't speak for the other thing in him, she knows this is true.]

You're not scary. You're not bad.

[There's a pause, and-]

Knowing you makes me very happy.

I am. I am, okay?

[It sounds like he's trying to convince himself just as much as he is her - he's not consciously dangerous, because it's not anything he does, necessarily, only what he is. Until he leaned into that with a vengeance, that capacity to do hurt, that conscious fucking desire and ability to raise hell. Literal hell, tearing the world apart with fire, because that's the only way he knows how to fight anything.]

[It's what he is. Capable of terrible things, and not much else.]

Everyone that knows me just...

[They die. They die, and worse.]

You don't deserve that. You don't.

[There are quite a few things she doesn't deserve-

A warm home, a family, caring friends at every corner of the island. A God that spends time to look for her medicine, even if it's meaningless in the grand scheme of things. People who teach her music, how to cook, how to play violin and dance and draw and spend countless minutes with her because they want to.

She doesn't deserve any of it, but now that she has a taste-she doesn't want to let go. She doesn't want to let Tim go.

For whatever time she has left, a few weeks, months, years-she wants to spend it trying to show him it's okay to be happy. The same thing he's taught her over the year.]

You don't 'deserve' to be alone.

[Her toes start to dig into the dirt near her star pile.]

You're allowed to have friends too. That kind of thing is okay here.

[How do you know that.]

[She doesn't. She doesn't, because she's just a kid, and she simplifies because that's what she wants to have happen, and it doesn't work like that. It isn't fair, of course, that he has to be the one to insist that this is just how things work. Does it even matter? Will she even listen, if she doesn't want to hear it?]

No, kid.

[He drops the words quietly, a whisper cut with the hard stops of the consonants.]

I'm not. It's not.

That's just how it is.

[The childish, stubborn part of her wants to keep protesting, despite the amount of walls he's building between them. It's like she's talking to a pile of bricks that increases with every word that comes out of her mouth.

She kicks up more of the sand, averting her eyes from him and-]

Before I met you, I thought 'I'm not allowed to have these things.'

[Before the elves, before Kravitz, before Guzma and Drifter and Chara and all the people that give her life some meaning. That continue to be treasures she holds close to her heart.]

And then I thought 'I'm bad if I have these things'-

[A hole forms under her feet and she starts scraping the sand back into it, slowly kicking her foot back and forth. Being this open with her thoughts feels weird, but it's an emotion he clearly understands. That he feels. That he gets. It's not that much of a confession.]

I don't think that anymore, so-

[Maybe if he won't listen, she can show him.]

I want you to feel that way too. You don't have to say 'Ren, we're friends,' but I still want to be with you.

You can't fix this, kid.

[No one can. There was a way out, once, and god but he wishes it was still tenable, finding a way to just - quietly erase every instance of his influence from everyone's lives. Sweeping away the ceiling of impact that broke each and every one of them.]

[That's not in their docket anymore.]

[He wishes he could be happier about that.]

Some people are just -

[Some people are just born wrong. And there's nothing you can do to save them.]

It's not something you can just make go away, because you want it to.

Fixing that kind of thing-I can't do that.

[It's impossible for her to cure him-that's true. She can't cure him, can't help in that respect.

But if someone like her can find happiness, can have people smile at her despite all the things wrong with her, then he should be able to have the sense. It doesn't make sense otherwise and something isn't clicking-nothing that's making her want to agree. There's too many people that care about him, who he's helped, who would be happy to just-

Be with him, so loneliness can't crush him, even if everything else tries to.]

Being being able to sit by someone and hold their hand and say 'I'm scared' to them-

[Being friends, having friends, might ease the burden.]

When you can 'run' to someone, it helps. That's all.

You're just a kid.

[It's said dully, devoid of judgment. It's just a simple fact of the matter. She's just a kid, and there's no reason she should think that she can be, should be, the person that he turns to because he's scared. As if he's not scared all the time. As if there's any preventing that.]

[He rubs his hands over his face, over the charcoal smudges underneath his eyes from teh lack of sleep that's been stalking him since he was born - more so now, naturally.]

I should've known better. I really should've known better, god.

[He hadn't banked on her, or anyone else, actually liking him back. Actually deciding there was something about him worth giving themselves up for.]

[The only saving grace is that his light said love, that she helped sometimes. Implied she's not a hindrance or a nuisance and it's why she can stand there, listening to him say I should've known better as if-

He shouldn't have spoken to her to begin with.

But she's glad he didn't know better.

She stares at him for a long time, watching the way he rubs his face. As if he can wipe away the conversation, this entire discussion, this whole week.

As much as she wishes the same, the terrible confessions allowed her to understand a bit more than she had before. To take his words seriously and know he comes from a place far darker than she could have ever imagined. Beyond whatever held Shin down, even.]

Do you-

[Want to hide. Want to leave.]

Want to hold my hand?

[She already knows the answer and extends her arm halfway to him despite that. That's always been something he did for her anyway and she knows he probably won't take the offer.

But it's the only thing she can think to do in the face of I should've known better.]

[Does he?]

[Probably.]

[But he shakes his head regardless. That doesn't change anything. Close contact doesn't make anyone feel better, or - if it does make her feel better, shouldn't she get used to the fact that he shouldn't be someone she turns to? Shouldn't he have been better at this from the start?]

[But you're not.]

I can't.

[He draws his knees up to his chest, folds his arms across the tops of them, an unconscious pose he submits to more often than he realizes, born from too many nights when a childish instinct had him desperate for something as simple as a hand on the shoulder, a hand on his cheek, a hug - something he'd never get.]

[I can't isn't a no.

He's not leaving and that surprises her. The expectation was he would turn his back to her again and take off for the woods. Maybe try to impart some cruel half truths his shadow seemed eager to dole out.

But all he does is hide. Pulls into himself, as if his legs are a barrier from the world and she-

Follows his lead, dropping to her knees, then leaning forward so she's laying on her stomach across the sand, both arms outstretched towards him.

Both hands resting by him, if he decides to take her up on the offer.]

You can. It's okay. You can squeeze both of them very tight for a long time.

[She wiggles her fingers for a second, then lets them rest against the ground.]

They're right here. I won't move them.

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