[Does this feel like the right thing? Does the right thing feel like the right thing? How sustainable is this - trying to not hemorrhage into everyone's lives like the parasite he is? Hasn't he already ruined everyone? Aren't they already doomed, every single person that's ever known him here? And Denny - god, and of course. Of course he'd build something whose primary function would be to bring people together, god. Was that him? Was that his instinct? Was that something else, something trying to work its way into him, trying to motivate him into something that he wasn't certain was a good idea, oh god - ]
[He can't look at her, because he thinks she might be crying. Or close to it. And he can't look at her because he knows he is, because he cries so goddamned easily, he cries far too often because he never really learned not to.]
I don't do anything, not in - I don't - you have people who are -
She isn't with them. They aren't here. It doesn't negate all the kindness the islanders have shown her, but every single one of them is special, holds a place in her heart and he's included in that.
And if he followed that same logic-looked at her and thought about all the people who were kinder, smarter, braver-filled with all the qualities she lacks-
Would he turn her away? For that reason alone? It's hard for her to believe he would. That he'd turn any kid or person in need away because they're not good enough. And he should know how it feels to beat yourself up over not meeting imaginary standards, parameters, and all things in between. Enough to know that being like that, thinking like that, is cruel.
She hasn't lowered her arms, even though it's starting to hurt. She doesn't want to touch him, in case it scares him. Some people are like that. She was like that before affection became so commonplace in her life. Before cuddling by the fire or morning hair braiding sessions.]
You're special because you're 'Tim.'
[She repeats, trying to get that simple message across.]
I want to look at you and listen to your voice and sit by you and-
[It's not like he has anywhere to go to, does he? That was the issue in the first place. No point in trying to hide away, and there's nowhere to hide away to. There's no point in trying to cut and run when he has nowhere left, nowhere he can really expect to be left alone indefinitely.]
[He told Alex, he told him, that it didn't have to be like this. Is he just proving him right, by giving up? Waiting for a light-speed hurdle off the edge of existence, the warm cast of gleaming metal and the bright guttering torch that supported a structure that had such incredible, terrible power, a creation that could wipe away entire lives and leave nothing but fragments in its wake, spun-glass memories so fragile that the faintest brush could rouse only disorder and confusion. It was a goal that he can't hope for anymore, can't put his stock in, and maybe it was a lie to claim that he ever really had. He should have, maybe. Should have poured more of himself into that, into furthering that goal, except that it would have come at the expense of two of the most incredible, brave, endlessly determined people he'd ever met.]
[Is it abandonment or a missed opportunity? Is it turning away, or refusing to look back? Is it giving up, or choosing not to?]
[There's a heaviness in his heart, the fog of words at his back.]
[He doesn't have a clear picture of when it happened: when she left, and never re-entered his life. He remembers the touch of a hand through his hair and the smell of perfume and cigarettes and the way she adjusted the strap of her purse and the slight fade of a tan line where she stopped wearing her wedding ring and the buzz of static through the tinny-sounding hospital phone lines. She was in his life, and then she wasn't. She was his mother, and then she...was never really around to ask, why he had to grow up in isolation, in four white walls, alone but for imaginary friends and doctors that never really addressed him in a way that wasn't distant and professional.]
[Are you going to do this? Are you really?]
[There would be a clear image, if he did. The set of his shoulders and the conversation that faded into nothing and the sting of a cigarette on his fingertips and a clipped, terse refusal to let her any further in, and tears - plenty of those, between the both of them. Does that make it more or less of a cruelty: the finality of it?]
[The one thing you try to do is make sure no one lived with this alone, the way you did.]
[If he does this, it flies in the face of everything he is.]
[As always, he's poised on the edge of another precipice - a cliff, a gun, a flaming building, a fistful of pills, an ending that he wants but can't ever have - and lacking the courage to take the single, stupid, tiny step that would take him off of it.]
[He can't move. Can't think. Somehow manages to grind out, low and nasal and cracked through:]
[Enduring every silent second is a trial she's never experienced before. It doesn't matter that she's spent her life waiting and this is another time she has to wait-to watch and watch and hope it doesn't come to the point where she has to clutch the hem of his shirt until her knuckles turn white because she's scared. Terrified that none of this will change anything because-
They're both used to that. The inevitable. The way words can be meaningless when they're sent to battle against secrets and how it won't change anything becomes the most powerful barrier to protect yourself.
She couldn't blame him if he resorted to that. Tries to will something in her heart to reach him-keep him from thinking he has to and-
Raises her hands until she's lightly touching the outer part of his sleeves, like he's going to poof out of existence if she grabs him. And it's weird, suddenly, to see him like that. As if there's nothing she can do to keep him from vanishing, like he's the same as the trail of smoke leading out of his cigarette.
It's hard to not dig her fingers into the fabric covering his arms, but she doesn't. Keeps her hands there as a reminder he's still there no matter how far away he is now, but-
I don't want to either
And she has to blink keep blinking because the tears prickling against her eyelids are distorting her vision of him and she has to keep looking at him. Needs to make sure she doesn't miss whatever remaining opportunities there are because-
He's trying. She can see that and she's trying. She's really trying to-
Be someone else, for a second. Be someone else. Be an Aunt. Be someone strong. Find some kind of blaze she can ignite her heart to keep this going because I don't want to either isn't synonymous with I won't. Because he wants to protect, to save, to help, to be together and there's a part of him that stabs against his heart to keep him from thinking he can. It's what makes this hard, so hard.
I don't want to either doesn't feel like hope. She gave up on that years ago and pretending that it exists is a painful remind of why it doesn't for her. Why it might not for him. But even if it's not hope, hearing that statement is-
It makes her want to be someone else she can be someone else for once she wants to be someone else that keep him warm and safe and happy and why can't she be someone else and-]
I want to-
[Her fingers twitch against his sleeves, like they want to curl in and it's taking all her self-control to keep herself from doing that.]
I want to be with you.
[We can be friends]
I wish I could be 'someone better' and-
[We could be family]
I can't keep people safe. I don't know-I'm not good at things like that, but-
[Feather-light touches to either side of him. He's trying not to listen, but there's nothing else he can do. Too cowardly to run. Too cruel to turn around and listen. Somehow, incredibly, she's still here, and still talking to him like there's something about him that's worth this. That's worth holding onto, and pulling back, and anchoring in place to keep around forever. What's he do that anyone else can't? What's he offer that's remotely useful? What is he, aside from a cautionary tale, some morose, distant excuse for a person that makes routine, stupid mistakes, has an incomplete understanding of what children actually need and actually want, and more or less ended up in this role out of bitter circumstance?]
[He ran away rather than admit anything. To love, to family, to attachment. It was easier to run, and maybe now he can understand why Brian did it. Why Brian did any of it. Denying, outright, that the attachment still lingered, that any of it was still there, even when all evidence spoke to the contrary. Because it was easier.]
[But lying to himself only works when there isn't a literal twin of all his best qualities, running around and spitting out hidden truths to anyone who'll listen.]
You're not the one who has to be someone better, kid.
[He doesn't need to lie to her. Because she knows if her words could contain the same raw confidence that flows so easily out of her Aunt's mouth, that if she could channel that visceral sort of strength that Chara can, or even if she could muster up the energy to pull truths out of the air like Guzma-
If she were better, she could reach him. If she were stronger, she could stop him. If she were anyone else, anyone different, she would know the right way to hold on please hold on don't leave.
But maybe that's why she marked as a failure to begin with.
So she doesn't answer. Keeps blinking those tears out of her eyes, trying to keep her head upright and strangle the cries in her throat so he can't hear. Spends a few seconds appreciating the one blessing she has-that he's rooted to the spot.
And he's listening, maybe. The stern edge to his voice must've been wiped away the moment he pressed his hands against his eyes. He might hear her. It seems like he can hear her, but true his caring nature, it's only now-when she speaks about being better because it's the truth and he wants to save her from that negative thought.
For a second, she holds onto his sleeves, lightly, gently, and with no grip so he can pull away, like she expects him to do.]
Do you remember playing with the nail polish?
[Does he remember who organized that?]
And 'fireworks?'
[Just to see a smile on the faces of a bunch of kids.]
And 'dabbing' in the snow?
[When he made the silliest pose possible, earning claps and stars and excited yells from multiple people.]
[His lips press together, an attempt to stifle something that doesn't want to be stifled. She's still holding onto his sleeves, like that alone will tether him in place. Maybe it will. He's never felt so much like bolting, and he's never been so utterly, completely unable to.]
Anyone could've done any of that.
[Nothing about him is unique, or interesting, or special - the most compelling things about him are the things that have happened to him, the uneven chemistry that fires off his brain in irregular, fizzing bursts.]
I messed up. I'm still here, and I shouldn't be. I shouldn't have ever been.
[There's only one way to do that, to commit to that kind of slow, backwards erasure, a finger drawn over a line of chalk dust until every last inch of it is eradicated, and no one even remembers that there was a line there in the first place. There's only one way he knows, and that door - it may as well be closed to him, now.]
[Rendering all the problems he's made, all the things he's built, irrevocably tied back to him.]
[Never free of the consequences, of course. Not really.]
And the longer I'm here, the worse it's gonna get. For everyone.
You're the one that asked the bunny for those things and made everyone smile.
[Every comment she makes is met with an instant refusal on his part, but she doesn't stop. No matter how many retorts come out of his mouth-it's the truth. An undeniable truth that even his heart knows because that Tim-
That other Tim, who's far more like the person in front of her than he realizes, stated as much too.
But there's no way he can know how much painting terrible designs on his shoes and dabbing colors across his fingernails meant to her. What it felt like to see the glee on everyone's face and how pretty she felt with her cat designed nails-
How nice it was to give Taako a wish because she wouldn't use them.
She should've saved one for Tim too.
And he doesn't understand how powerful it was to see explosions in the sky and not be afraid. To experience color, sparkles, to hold stars in her hand-to know there was a time when the only stars she ever saw were on the tattered wallpaper over a window she wasn't allowed to look out of. When she tried to stand on towering blocks, cupping her small fingers around the fading images and know that she'd never see them with her own two eyes-
And he was the one to put them in her hand.
And it's impossible to express how everyone cheerfully playing in that snowy wonderland, ignoring the darkness they knew was coming, ended up being one of her fondest memories. One she'll think about when it gets hard for her to breath, because Tim seemed happy, the elves were playing, Chara told her their name and-
And the longer I'm here, the worse it's gonna get. For everyone.
Makes her choke back more tears.
Because she can only associate him with the good on the island. Despite his shadow's confession. Because of his shadow's confession. He's fought and fought and fought and-
He brought them together. Made people happy, over and over, without a second thought.]
If you weren't here-if you vanish, people would look for you. I would look for you. You're in my heart now and-
[It's a desperate sort of ramble-one that won't be able to probably take nick off the mountain that's Tim's denial, but she's going to try and try. Just in case I shouldn't have ever been becomes a horrible reality. ]
Even if I had to look on a scary island or it got very dark or the ocean got mad, I'd look for you. I'm not as good as Seto, but I would keep trying.
[Until her chest feels like it's going to explode and her heart pounds, pounds, pounds until she can't wake up.]
[But, see, that's ultimately just the worst part of it. The part where he's grown into people's lives like a mold, like something cancerous and inescapable, growing into all the spaces that he shouldn't be. Should've cut him out. Should've spared everyone the agony. Should've been strong enough to just do what he had to do, do what Alex suggested, except that he'd never taken Alex's advice, he'd just kept going like maybe it was out of spite or maybe it was out of feeling like he owed him like he owed Jay like he owed Brian like he owed Jessica like he needed to prove that it was possible that you could walk away from certain death and pick up your life and piece it back together so it wasn't in shambles any longer.]
[It wasn't like that. It isn't like that. He never really escaped it. He never really escaped It. It's in his lungs, in every neuron, in the texture of his nightmares. It's in every inky word that must have seeped out of his Shadow's mouth, honey-smooth and whispered and sweet as arsenic, until it wasn't.]
[One hand flexes at his side, pulls into a wrist. The knuckles gleam, bone-white.]
[It feels like the slide of a blade into flesh gets easier each time it happens. He's not up to the hundreds, yet. He's not that far gone. How long will it be until he is?]
You shouldn't. [It's the same denials he keeps forcing out, but they don't mean anything. They don't do anything. She just keeps going on and refusing them, but she doesn't offer any counterpoint, doesn't offer any claim as to why it wouldn't work - but maybe he's not giving any rationale either.]
[It's not like he could expect any of this to make sense. She's just a kid.]
[And he's hurting her.]
I'm sorry. [He rubs one hand up over his face again. Like that'll smear away the lump in his throat.] I'm doing this...all wrong. Not making any sense.
[She debates on whether to return the apology, but it sounds like giving up. As if saying two words will negate every single protest she's made and if there's the slightest chance of that happening, she won't take it. Despite their circumstances, their sometimes similar trains of thought, they're unable to meet and-
It's okay, for right now, if they can't. His shadow made all his anger and distaste apparent about her ultimate goal. Not that it's going to stop her from trying over and over and over again, until he starts to accept a small part of him is good and set him down the path to see the whole truth.]
You don't have to say 'I'm sorry' for talking. You can do that here.
[No matter how every moment of self-deprecation hurt to hear, knowing full well that's not him.
But he's not running, the tension is starting to dissipate and there's a small window of opportunity. He won't hold her hand, even if she tries. He might have, at one point. He used to-the problem is, it's risky. When every bit of affection has sent him on the defensive, words or otherwise. So she clutches one of his sleeves with both hands. It's close enough.
And she opens her mouth to speak again, but-
Nothing comes out.
Because her words won't change anything, but maybe small actions will. One step, one day, one week at a time, concentrating on doing everything she can to make him understand all the good he offers.]
[He pivots, abruptly, and steps back, forming a distance gapped between them before her fingers can latch onto him any tighter. He can't do this, not right now, and not when there's something he needs to know, he really, really needs to know in full.]
You met the other one of me. The...nicer one.
[The better one, he doesn't say.]
Did you meet anyone else before that? Another me?
[He warned her about those, about doubles of himself. He'd been so certain that's what it was before, when she talked about an older version of himself, but it didn't make any sense. He'd been too nice, and hadn't even done anything.]
[But this - this might make sense. This might make entirely too much sense.]
[And again, he's gone. All she can do is drop her hands back to her sides, playing with the hem on her poncho because every answer out of her mouth is a match heading towards a fuse. The memory of him running away from the good and-
The way she ran from the bad.
All her responses are pushing him away, though the answer to his question might be all too clear by the way she hesitates. Nervous, pulling at loose threads, looking at him only because she wants to see where he is.
But he asked and lying about that-there's no point.]
[Eyes shut, hands pulling in. The memory of flesh caving in beneath knuckles and then the scream of something dying, and he breathes through his nose and tries not to lose himself down the avenue of that memory. He can't discard it that easily; he never could shake the memories he didn't actually, consciously want to keep.]
[Focus. Focus. He forces himself to - focus.]
What did he tell you.
[It's not really a question. He just needs to know.]
[There's no good way to answer that and she twists her fingers around each loose strand of thread, tearing it off, moving to the next. Maybe it'll be easier if she counts one, two, three pieces instead of looking at his face because-
She really doesn't want to say it. Doesn't understand why he's asking or if it's even the right thing to admit, but she's able to push out short, terse responses. Tries to watch the expression on his face as she does so.]
The scary thing.
[A blaze that took out an entire building, so he could escape.]
A fire.
[About how he doesn't like hearing about pretty hearts and cats. About how he doesn't like himself. About a multitude of other things that makes her twist, twist, twist because there's no one's hand to clutch.]
[A fire. The word shoots a chill through his veins. Always have to bring that up, don't they? Scary thing. There's only one thing that could be. What, specifically, though?]
[A lot.]
[That's vague. She can't afford to be vague. His face has grown taut, intent, his breaths low and shallow and rapid.]
[She doesn't understand why. Why it needs to be brought up, why he's making her repeat it, but that's something he always does. Has her say things out loud, forces her to face it, to turn things she wants to ignore into reality and she hates it.
But he says I need you to tell me and she knows that deep down it's not a secret. Not to him. He knows, definitely knows, has to live with this knowledge every single day and can't afford to shove it under layers and layers of other thoughts, like she does.
She's out of threads to pull and wishes, really wishes, he would let it go and she knows he won't let it go because it's his life-it's something he can never get away from. So he might have to step forward, or maybe he can hear her just fine with the silence around them, but she's not speaking any louder and repeating herself is out of the question.]
He said you killed them. He said-there's a dark thing in your heart that does that and-
[Do you feel better, Tim, now that it's all out in the open? Now that you've made her say it out loud? Does it feel better that it's out there and you know exactly what it said to her?]
[Not really. Nothing about this feels good, just necessary in the way everything in his life becomes a series of necessary, shitty patterns he doesn't want to go through with committing to. He does anyway.]
[He closes his eyes.]
Okay. [The word is nearly soundless.]
[But, of course, the interrogation isn't done. It's never done. He's worse than Jay. Worse than Alex, worse than Brian. He honestly, truly is. None of them brought that thing into anyone else's lives, and made it their problem to deal with, and then promptly refused to take responsibility for it.]
Did he hurt you?
[In more ways than just the verbal, he means, though he doesn't specify.]
[Hurt is a strange way to describe what happened and she looks at Tim with an unsure expression on her face, shifting between confusion, concern and-
More than anything, she was scared for him. Terrified of the erratic shadow once it started to fixate and spew out everything it could. All she knows is that he was hurt. Has been hurt. Continues to hurt. That he hurt others, on accident and on purpose, because of fear, maybe. That's what she thinks.
And despite all that, he's still asking if it hurt her?
She shakes her head, suddenly grateful the shadows have vanished into the sky. Back into their hearts. Wherever they spawned from to begin with, because with every twist her head makes, she's reminded of what it said. How she can't register hurt because-
[The short answer to that is yes, it does. Not in immediate ways. It's not like a gunshot to the kidneys, or a blade jammed in the throat, or a spine bruised and busted after a long and painful fall and crash face-up on the concrete. It's in all the oblique ways; the ways he can't ever dispel the shadows in the back of his mind, the way he has to swallow down the little white capsules that keep his brain from fizzing off in spasmodic bursts of irregular discharge, keeps the other-faced him muzzled and sedated and never coming out.]
[It's just something he lives with, and eventually you can grow numb to it.]
No, all he did was talk a lot. He didn't do anything to me.
[And she listened for however long she managed to stay put before bolting to safety or whatever place she could hobble to hide from the clones. Not that it worked. It never does. For how often she resorts to that, this place has a way of making all her attempts null.
But it doesn't really matter and his attempt to pass the buck to her doesn't go unnoticed. It's always like that and it doesn't particularly matter.]
Yeah, complicated. Look, I need to know what else he said. What he told you.
[If he seems anxious, fraught with tension, it's because he is. Prying at something he doesn't want to have the answers to. He's not Jay. He doesn't want answers, most of the time. He doesn't need to know. He just needs to stop things before they get any worse.]
[It's always too late for that. Always too fucking late.]
[Because it was trying to make a point and in typical Ren fashion, it was difficult for her to stay silent with that verbal onslaught against someone she cares about.]
About how something in you killed people-friends.
[And it doesn't sound real as it comes out of her mouth and it's terrible confession to voice after proclaiming her desire to be friends too, but-
She clutches fabric on her pants, twists her fingers into it.]
About the bad thing inside your heart. That thing is-
[He almost laughs, almost, because that sounds just - that sounds a little too charitable of the thing, to have put it that way. Maybe it was talking about the other him, the him that likes running around with a mask on at night, or maybe it was talking about something else, he doesn't - ]
[Maybe she's trying to make it sound nicer than it was.]
I did that. I did, it wasn't something else, it was - it was me. [The words are high and uncontrolled, the sound of frozen air in the middle of an abandoned, burnt-out hospital while the camera rolled and he tried not to scream.]
[She knows. No matter how hard it is to wrap her mind around, it's a revelation she won't forget. And now he knows she's aware, is proclaiming it again, not so different from the shadow spewing that information to begin with.
And no matter how many times he says it was him-
It doesn't feel sound like him at all. Not the Tim she's come to adore. And someone who lives with the guilt, self-loathing, and pain his shadow was eager to talk about-
He can't be bad.
But if it was him, really and truly him, like he's claiming then-]
Because that's what I am. That's the person that I - I didn't want to, but I was just -
[I'll kill you!]
[And he had, hadn't he? It had been a slip, a misplaced hand, a fall, a crash. He'd taken no time whatsoever to mourn the nameless soul he'd sent plunging to their death, had only dug in through their pockets at once, choking down a precious white capsule, before deciding to unmask them, once and for all.]
[Hadn't known he wasn't dead yet. Hadn't known, hadn't cared, had still been full of the same furious adrenaline that spurred him to charge the bastard with a fucking wrench.]
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[He can't look at her, because he thinks she might be crying. Or close to it. And he can't look at her because he knows he is, because he cries so goddamned easily, he cries far too often because he never really learned not to.]
I don't do anything, not in - I don't - you have people who are -
[Better.]
[Better than whatever he has to give.]
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She isn't with them. They aren't here. It doesn't negate all the kindness the islanders have shown her, but every single one of them is special, holds a place in her heart and he's included in that.
And if he followed that same logic-looked at her and thought about all the people who were kinder, smarter, braver-filled with all the qualities she lacks-
Would he turn her away? For that reason alone? It's hard for her to believe he would. That he'd turn any kid or person in need away because they're not good enough. And he should know how it feels to beat yourself up over not meeting imaginary standards, parameters, and all things in between. Enough to know that being like that, thinking like that, is cruel.
She hasn't lowered her arms, even though it's starting to hurt. She doesn't want to touch him, in case it scares him. Some people are like that. She was like that before affection became so commonplace in her life. Before cuddling by the fire or morning hair braiding sessions.]
You're special because you're 'Tim.'
[She repeats, trying to get that simple message across.]
I want to look at you and listen to your voice and sit by you and-
[Desperately-]
I don't want you to go.
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[He told Alex, he told him, that it didn't have to be like this. Is he just proving him right, by giving up? Waiting for a light-speed hurdle off the edge of existence, the warm cast of gleaming metal and the bright guttering torch that supported a structure that had such incredible, terrible power, a creation that could wipe away entire lives and leave nothing but fragments in its wake, spun-glass memories so fragile that the faintest brush could rouse only disorder and confusion. It was a goal that he can't hope for anymore, can't put his stock in, and maybe it was a lie to claim that he ever really had. He should have, maybe. Should have poured more of himself into that, into furthering that goal, except that it would have come at the expense of two of the most incredible, brave, endlessly determined people he'd ever met.]
[Is it abandonment or a missed opportunity? Is it turning away, or refusing to look back? Is it giving up, or choosing not to?]
[There's a heaviness in his heart, the fog of words at his back.]
[He doesn't have a clear picture of when it happened: when she left, and never re-entered his life. He remembers the touch of a hand through his hair and the smell of perfume and cigarettes and the way she adjusted the strap of her purse and the slight fade of a tan line where she stopped wearing her wedding ring and the buzz of static through the tinny-sounding hospital phone lines. She was in his life, and then she wasn't. She was his mother, and then she...was never really around to ask, why he had to grow up in isolation, in four white walls, alone but for imaginary friends and doctors that never really addressed him in a way that wasn't distant and professional.]
[Are you going to do this? Are you really?]
[There would be a clear image, if he did. The set of his shoulders and the conversation that faded into nothing and the sting of a cigarette on his fingertips and a clipped, terse refusal to let her any further in, and tears - plenty of those, between the both of them. Does that make it more or less of a cruelty: the finality of it?]
[The one thing you try to do is make sure no one lived with this alone, the way you did.]
[If he does this, it flies in the face of everything he is.]
[As always, he's poised on the edge of another precipice - a cliff, a gun, a flaming building, a fistful of pills, an ending that he wants but can't ever have - and lacking the courage to take the single, stupid, tiny step that would take him off of it.]
[He can't move. Can't think. Somehow manages to grind out, low and nasal and cracked through:]
I don't want to either.
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They're both used to that. The inevitable. The way words can be meaningless when they're sent to battle against secrets and how it won't change anything becomes the most powerful barrier to protect yourself.
She couldn't blame him if he resorted to that. Tries to will something in her heart to reach him-keep him from thinking he has to and-
Raises her hands until she's lightly touching the outer part of his sleeves, like he's going to poof out of existence if she grabs him. And it's weird, suddenly, to see him like that. As if there's nothing she can do to keep him from vanishing, like he's the same as the trail of smoke leading out of his cigarette.
It's hard to not dig her fingers into the fabric covering his arms, but she doesn't. Keeps her hands there as a reminder he's still there no matter how far away he is now, but-
I don't want to either
And she has to blink keep blinking because the tears prickling against her eyelids are distorting her vision of him and she has to keep looking at him. Needs to make sure she doesn't miss whatever remaining opportunities there are because-
He's trying. She can see that and she's trying. She's really trying to-
Be someone else, for a second. Be someone else. Be an Aunt. Be someone strong. Find some kind of blaze she can ignite her heart to keep this going because I don't want to either isn't synonymous with I won't. Because he wants to protect, to save, to help, to be together and there's a part of him that stabs against his heart to keep him from thinking he can. It's what makes this hard, so hard.
I don't want to either doesn't feel like hope. She gave up on that years ago and pretending that it exists is a painful remind of why it doesn't for her. Why it might not for him. But even if it's not hope, hearing that statement is-
It makes her want to be someone else she can be someone else for once she wants to be someone else that keep him warm and safe and happy and why can't she be someone else and-]
I want to-
[Her fingers twitch against his sleeves, like they want to curl in and it's taking all her self-control to keep herself from doing that.]
I want to be with you.
[We can be friends]
I wish I could be 'someone better' and-
[We could be family]
I can't keep people safe. I don't know-I'm not good at things like that, but-
[She loves him.]
Please stay with me.
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[He ran away rather than admit anything. To love, to family, to attachment. It was easier to run, and maybe now he can understand why Brian did it. Why Brian did any of it. Denying, outright, that the attachment still lingered, that any of it was still there, even when all evidence spoke to the contrary. Because it was easier.]
[But lying to himself only works when there isn't a literal twin of all his best qualities, running around and spitting out hidden truths to anyone who'll listen.]
You're not the one who has to be someone better, kid.
[He's the one who's never really been...enough.]
[For anyone.]
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If she were better, she could reach him. If she were stronger, she could stop him. If she were anyone else, anyone different, she would know the right way to hold on please hold on don't leave.
But maybe that's why she marked as a failure to begin with.
So she doesn't answer. Keeps blinking those tears out of her eyes, trying to keep her head upright and strangle the cries in her throat so he can't hear. Spends a few seconds appreciating the one blessing she has-that he's rooted to the spot.
And he's listening, maybe. The stern edge to his voice must've been wiped away the moment he pressed his hands against his eyes. He might hear her. It seems like he can hear her, but true his caring nature, it's only now-when she speaks about being better because it's the truth and he wants to save her from that negative thought.
For a second, she holds onto his sleeves, lightly, gently, and with no grip so he can pull away, like she expects him to do.]
Do you remember playing with the nail polish?
[Does he remember who organized that?]
And 'fireworks?'
[Just to see a smile on the faces of a bunch of kids.]
And 'dabbing' in the snow?
[When he made the silliest pose possible, earning claps and stars and excited yells from multiple people.]
Do you remember those things?
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Anyone could've done any of that.
[Nothing about him is unique, or interesting, or special - the most compelling things about him are the things that have happened to him, the uneven chemistry that fires off his brain in irregular, fizzing bursts.]
I messed up. I'm still here, and I shouldn't be. I shouldn't have ever been.
[There's only one way to do that, to commit to that kind of slow, backwards erasure, a finger drawn over a line of chalk dust until every last inch of it is eradicated, and no one even remembers that there was a line there in the first place. There's only one way he knows, and that door - it may as well be closed to him, now.]
[Rendering all the problems he's made, all the things he's built, irrevocably tied back to him.]
[Never free of the consequences, of course. Not really.]
And the longer I'm here, the worse it's gonna get. For everyone.
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[Every comment she makes is met with an instant refusal on his part, but she doesn't stop. No matter how many retorts come out of his mouth-it's the truth. An undeniable truth that even his heart knows because that Tim-
That other Tim, who's far more like the person in front of her than he realizes, stated as much too.
But there's no way he can know how much painting terrible designs on his shoes and dabbing colors across his fingernails meant to her. What it felt like to see the glee on everyone's face and how pretty she felt with her cat designed nails-
How nice it was to give Taako a wish because she wouldn't use them.
She should've saved one for Tim too.
And he doesn't understand how powerful it was to see explosions in the sky and not be afraid. To experience color, sparkles, to hold stars in her hand-to know there was a time when the only stars she ever saw were on the tattered wallpaper over a window she wasn't allowed to look out of. When she tried to stand on towering blocks, cupping her small fingers around the fading images and know that she'd never see them with her own two eyes-
And he was the one to put them in her hand.
And it's impossible to express how everyone cheerfully playing in that snowy wonderland, ignoring the darkness they knew was coming, ended up being one of her fondest memories. One she'll think about when it gets hard for her to breath, because Tim seemed happy, the elves were playing, Chara told her their name and-
And the longer I'm here, the worse it's gonna get. For everyone.
Makes her choke back more tears.
Because she can only associate him with the good on the island. Despite his shadow's confession. Because of his shadow's confession. He's fought and fought and fought and-
He brought them together. Made people happy, over and over, without a second thought.]
If you weren't here-if you vanish, people would look for you. I would look for you. You're in my heart now and-
[It's a desperate sort of ramble-one that won't be able to probably take nick off the mountain that's Tim's denial, but she's going to try and try. Just in case I shouldn't have ever been becomes a horrible reality. ]
Even if I had to look on a scary island or it got very dark or the ocean got mad, I'd look for you. I'm not as good as Seto, but I would keep trying.
[Until her chest feels like it's going to explode and her heart pounds, pounds, pounds until she can't wake up.]
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[It wasn't like that. It isn't like that. He never really escaped it. He never really escaped It. It's in his lungs, in every neuron, in the texture of his nightmares. It's in every inky word that must have seeped out of his Shadow's mouth, honey-smooth and whispered and sweet as arsenic, until it wasn't.]
[One hand flexes at his side, pulls into a wrist. The knuckles gleam, bone-white.]
[It feels like the slide of a blade into flesh gets easier each time it happens. He's not up to the hundreds, yet. He's not that far gone. How long will it be until he is?]
You shouldn't. [It's the same denials he keeps forcing out, but they don't mean anything. They don't do anything. She just keeps going on and refusing them, but she doesn't offer any counterpoint, doesn't offer any claim as to why it wouldn't work - but maybe he's not giving any rationale either.]
[It's not like he could expect any of this to make sense. She's just a kid.]
[And he's hurting her.]
I'm sorry. [He rubs one hand up over his face again. Like that'll smear away the lump in his throat.] I'm doing this...all wrong. Not making any sense.
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It's okay, for right now, if they can't. His shadow made all his anger and distaste apparent about her ultimate goal. Not that it's going to stop her from trying over and over and over again, until he starts to accept a small part of him is good and set him down the path to see the whole truth.]
You don't have to say 'I'm sorry' for talking. You can do that here.
[No matter how every moment of self-deprecation hurt to hear, knowing full well that's not him.
But he's not running, the tension is starting to dissipate and there's a small window of opportunity. He won't hold her hand, even if she tries. He might have, at one point. He used to-the problem is, it's risky. When every bit of affection has sent him on the defensive, words or otherwise. So she clutches one of his sleeves with both hands. It's close enough.
And she opens her mouth to speak again, but-
Nothing comes out.
Because her words won't change anything, but maybe small actions will. One step, one day, one week at a time, concentrating on doing everything she can to make him understand all the good he offers.]
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[He pivots, abruptly, and steps back, forming a distance gapped between them before her fingers can latch onto him any tighter. He can't do this, not right now, and not when there's something he needs to know, he really, really needs to know in full.]
You met the other one of me. The...nicer one.
[The better one, he doesn't say.]
Did you meet anyone else before that? Another me?
[He warned her about those, about doubles of himself. He'd been so certain that's what it was before, when she talked about an older version of himself, but it didn't make any sense. He'd been too nice, and hadn't even done anything.]
[But this - this might make sense. This might make entirely too much sense.]
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The way she ran from the bad.
All her responses are pushing him away, though the answer to his question might be all too clear by the way she hesitates. Nervous, pulling at loose threads, looking at him only because she wants to see where he is.
But he asked and lying about that-there's no point.]
Yes.
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[Eyes shut, hands pulling in. The memory of flesh caving in beneath knuckles and then the scream of something dying, and he breathes through his nose and tries not to lose himself down the avenue of that memory. He can't discard it that easily; he never could shake the memories he didn't actually, consciously want to keep.]
[Focus. Focus. He forces himself to - focus.]
What did he tell you.
[It's not really a question. He just needs to know.]
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She really doesn't want to say it. Doesn't understand why he's asking or if it's even the right thing to admit, but she's able to push out short, terse responses. Tries to watch the expression on his face as she does so.]
The scary thing.
[A blaze that took out an entire building, so he could escape.]
A fire.
[About how he doesn't like hearing about pretty hearts and cats. About how he doesn't like himself. About a multitude of other things that makes her twist, twist, twist because there's no one's hand to clutch.]
A lot.
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[A fire. The word shoots a chill through his veins. Always have to bring that up, don't they? Scary thing. There's only one thing that could be. What, specifically, though?]
[A lot.]
[That's vague. She can't afford to be vague. His face has grown taut, intent, his breaths low and shallow and rapid.]
Ren. I need you to tell me.
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But he says I need you to tell me and she knows that deep down it's not a secret. Not to him. He knows, definitely knows, has to live with this knowledge every single day and can't afford to shove it under layers and layers of other thoughts, like she does.
She's out of threads to pull and wishes, really wishes, he would let it go and she knows he won't let it go because it's his life-it's something he can never get away from. So he might have to step forward, or maybe he can hear her just fine with the silence around them, but she's not speaking any louder and repeating herself is out of the question.]
He said you killed them. He said-there's a dark thing in your heart that does that and-
[That he lives with the unbearable guilt.]
That it spreads. That you won't be happy.
[Maybe because it spreads and-]
That sometimes my voice is 'noise.'
[And naturally, the creme de la creme of it all.]
That you burned down that scary place.
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[Not really. Nothing about this feels good, just necessary in the way everything in his life becomes a series of necessary, shitty patterns he doesn't want to go through with committing to. He does anyway.]
[He closes his eyes.]
Okay. [The word is nearly soundless.]
[But, of course, the interrogation isn't done. It's never done. He's worse than Jay. Worse than Alex, worse than Brian. He honestly, truly is. None of them brought that thing into anyone else's lives, and made it their problem to deal with, and then promptly refused to take responsibility for it.]
Did he hurt you?
[In more ways than just the verbal, he means, though he doesn't specify.]
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More than anything, she was scared for him. Terrified of the erratic shadow once it started to fixate and spew out everything it could. All she knows is that he was hurt. Has been hurt. Continues to hurt. That he hurt others, on accident and on purpose, because of fear, maybe. That's what she thinks.
And despite all that, he's still asking if it hurt her?
She shakes her head, suddenly grateful the shadows have vanished into the sky. Back into their hearts. Wherever they spawned from to begin with, because with every twist her head makes, she's reminded of what it said. How she can't register hurt because-
Well, it doesn't matter. She's fine.]
No, but it hurts you, right? All the time?
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[The short answer to that is yes, it does. Not in immediate ways. It's not like a gunshot to the kidneys, or a blade jammed in the throat, or a spine bruised and busted after a long and painful fall and crash face-up on the concrete. It's in all the oblique ways; the ways he can't ever dispel the shadows in the back of his mind, the way he has to swallow down the little white capsules that keep his brain from fizzing off in spasmodic bursts of irregular discharge, keeps the other-faced him muzzled and sedated and never coming out.]
[It's just something he lives with, and eventually you can grow numb to it.]
Did he do anything to you?
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[And she listened for however long she managed to stay put before bolting to safety or whatever place she could hobble to hide from the clones. Not that it worked. It never does. For how often she resorts to that, this place has a way of making all her attempts null.
But it doesn't really matter and his attempt to pass the buck to her doesn't go unnoticed. It's always like that and it doesn't particularly matter.]
Complicated?
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[If he seems anxious, fraught with tension, it's because he is. Prying at something he doesn't want to have the answers to. He's not Jay. He doesn't want answers, most of the time. He doesn't need to know. He just needs to stop things before they get any worse.]
[It's always too late for that. Always too fucking late.]
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[Because it was trying to make a point and in typical Ren fashion, it was difficult for her to stay silent with that verbal onslaught against someone she cares about.]
About how something in you killed people-friends.
[And it doesn't sound real as it comes out of her mouth and it's terrible confession to voice after proclaiming her desire to be friends too, but-
She clutches fabric on her pants, twists her fingers into it.]
About the bad thing inside your heart. That thing is-
[Scary, but she's not afraid of Tim.]
He said that stuff until I ran away.
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[He almost laughs, almost, because that sounds just - that sounds a little too charitable of the thing, to have put it that way. Maybe it was talking about the other him, the him that likes running around with a mask on at night, or maybe it was talking about something else, he doesn't - ]
[Maybe she's trying to make it sound nicer than it was.]
I did that. I did, it wasn't something else, it was - it was me. [The words are high and uncontrolled, the sound of frozen air in the middle of an abandoned, burnt-out hospital while the camera rolled and he tried not to scream.]
Do you get that? I killed people.
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And no matter how many times he says it was him-
It doesn't feel sound like him at all. Not the Tim she's come to adore. And someone who lives with the guilt, self-loathing, and pain his shadow was eager to talk about-
He can't be bad.
But if it was him, really and truly him, like he's claiming then-]
Why?
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[I'll kill you!]
[And he had, hadn't he? It had been a slip, a misplaced hand, a fall, a crash. He'd taken no time whatsoever to mourn the nameless soul he'd sent plunging to their death, had only dug in through their pockets at once, choking down a precious white capsule, before deciding to unmask them, once and for all.]
[Hadn't known he wasn't dead yet. Hadn't known, hadn't cared, had still been full of the same furious adrenaline that spurred him to charge the bastard with a fucking wrench.]
[Not the case with Alex.]
That's what I am.
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