you can call me a liar and that would be true [open]

[postictal]

Who: Tim, and also you, if you so choose
Where: Around Wonderland
When: 6/19
Rating: PG-13 for suicide ideation, allusions self-harm, recollections of past trauma
Summary: It's June 19th - Tim's birthday. The day before he posted the final entry.
The Story:

gardens; does the blank stare scare you more than the frown?

He wakes with the muted realization as to the day. It's June 19th. He knows full well what the day is, even if the day following this one strikes him as subtly more important, unbeknownst to anyone else here. Jay would have no clue. None whatsoever. Tim's throat contracts in a hard swallow as his eyes drift across the contours of the room. Does Jay remember the significance of the day, back from those pilfered medical records?

He never mentioned the day. Never brought any undue attention to it. What reason would there be for it, and what cause for celebration would there be? It's hard to be grateful for the day of your birth when you've spent every other day bitterly wishing it simply never occurred.

The morning's routine plays out by tired rote. Coffee and a cigarette to rouse himself a little more completely, a weary surveying of the pieces of himself that have made it this far. Considering the merits of shaving before deciding that he doesn't very well trust himself with a razor today. The rough partial beard darkening the lines of his jaw will simply have to persist until he's feeling a little less likely to peel the skin from himself like an orange. Give way to the fleshy insides that were opened crossways, diagonally, a long, carving slash. He can move a little easier now, as the days have crawled by.

By noon, the clamor in his head has refused to cease, clanging sickeningly around his skull in a desperate plea he can no longer ignore. Again the urge bristles at his fingers, a frustrated inability of knowing what to do with his hands. He sinks to the only impulse he can think of to stay his own hand. Concentrating on his closet with a furrowed brow until finally he opens it, and his hand closes around the bridge of a ukulele.

With Tim attachment, drifts a half-remembered voice across the ridges of poorly suppressed memory. There's a scant handful of songs he can still recall, but muscle memory turns out to be far more adept than anything else.

The sun rises high as Tim folds himself onto a bench in the gardens. It's easier than the wooded areas surrounding. His fingers dance across the strings in aimless tones, noodling a tune out idly with as little direction as the man who plays.

It's not much at all. It doesn't count for a celebration. It's just music.

But it's been months, years even, since he's allowed to think about something as mundane as a song.

kitchen; watch my actions, or lack thereof, negate the person i said i was

[There's a candle stuck in a pint of vanilla ice cream. It's unlit, at the moment, largely because the man who put it there is finishing off a pack of cigarettes, hissing smoke out between his teeth, regardless of who might want or not want the smell of nicotine clouding the vicinity. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter much at all, the memory of a hospital in which a nurse would give him ice cream after the third week in a row that his mother said she would be visiting, she promised she would, and then had simply never showed. It was like a consolation present. As if that would make it better, or numb it entirely.

A fitting celebration, then, to acknowledge the turning of an invisible clock that doesn't hold any damn weight here. Can't you try a little harder, Timothy? Try for me, okay? You must not want to get better at all, if this is still weighing you down.

Tim snorts to himself. Watches the ice cream soften in its cheap cardboard cylinder, watching it sweat onto the table. Stares at the candle that perches at the top of that stupid mound of white, quietly mocking him.

His shoulders hunch. What a stupid idea.]

woods; you can call me a coward and you'd be correct

What a stupid idea.

It's late, now. The last of the sunset has died on the horizon, threads of milk-white fading with the last fingertips of sunlight, giving way to the purpling of dusk. The imprint of the trees is still stark and black against the fading blue, and through the woods he stumps, as if that will mean anything.

There's nowhere else for any of it to go, is the thing. It boils out in rising and falling pieces, in the ragged quality of his breath, in the tautness in his lungs. Prickling at his fingertips. Stiffening his shoulders. Clinging to the back of his throat, slick and hot as bile. He shouldn't be out here, particularly after the last conversation he and Jay had, but what, then, is the point? If It's here, then It's here, and It should damn well have Its way with him. Get rid of him for fucking good. Just fucking finish it. It should have been him. It should have been, and it was simply the cruelest fucking twist of fate possible that it wasn't.

His breath rasps out like a snarl as he halts in the middle of the tangle of black trunks, turning on the spot in a slow, continuous revolution. Sweeping frantically about for any sight of the thing, the blot of faceless white that will surely rise, leering at him. There's nothing shielding him now; no synthetic safety in his pocket, no lens of a camera in his hand or strapped to his chest.

Tim's head jerks back as he glowers into the uniform dark.

"Come on!" he bellows. Waits for an answering stab of pain to his temples, but none comes. "What are you waiting for?"

If It wants him so bad, maybe now, at long last, It can fucking well take him.

wildcard; distant but rational, bringer of rage to get to a level where i will engage

[Want a specific starter? PM me or hit me over at arrpee! It's going to be a Day for old Timothy here. I will match prose or brackets!]

Comments

[choosetruth]

[Georgia can't really judge other people for being paranoid, though she doesn't think it counts when there's ample evidence to suggest they really are out to get her.]

From what I've heard about your world, that's probably not unreasonable.

[postictal]

[His expression darkens into a scowl for a moment, one corner of his mouth twisting.]

Yeah, except...I dunno. It can get a bit much sometimes, even for him.

[choosetruth]

[Her head dips down slightly.]

Ah, he lets fear rule him. Sounds like ninety percent of my world's population. [Blood tests so many times a day it's rare that your fingers don't sting. Bleach shower constantly. Most people don't even go outside when they can possibly help it.] That is unreasonable. And likely to backfire.

[postictal]

You don't say. [Immediately, he has to duck his head, pressing his lips together. She's trying to help. Don't bite her head off for that.]

I mean, he...it's not like he doesn't have a reason to be afraid. Just hard to tell when he's gonna decide he should be scared of you on top of everything else.

[choosetruth]

Should he be? [She raises an eyebrow. Tim's made it pretty clear that he's not the most trustworthy person out there.]

[postictal]

[It's not that she doesn't make a good point. Tim gestures loosely at his midriff, as if either of them need reminding to the bandage job he required just a few weeks ago.]

When I can't even walk up a flight of stairs without needing a break halfway through?

[choosetruth]

[A corner of her mouth tilts up, almost a smile.]

There are other ways to be dangerous than physically. But point taken.

[postictal]

[Yeah, he doesn't need reminding of that one.]

Guess it's not so much that he shouldn't be paranoid. More like...he doesn't really know what to do with it aside from assume everyone's out to get him.

[choosetruth]

[Ah, she gets that. Fear isn't inherently bad. Fear tells you to run when something that wants to eat you is chasing you, to stop running when you're at the edge of a cliff, to stay alert when you're in danger. But if you take it too far, it's terror. Terror says never go outside. Terror says take a blood test every five minutes because there's a very, very slim chance you might spontaneously amplify. Fear says don't trust easily. Terror says don't trust anyone.

She nods.]

Well, I'm not sure how much I can help with that. My strategies don't necessarily translate well.

[postictal]

[Fear always thinks it's protecting you. But sometimes -

Well, he said it once, a frantic protest to a man who wouldn't listen. It's not protecting you. It's controlling you. Cutting a hard, fine line between the two is a difficult task, and Tim knows full well that he's consistently failed to do exactly that.]

Honestly? I dunno how much anyone can help with that. He's spent years like that. It's gonna take...time.

[choosetruth]

Well, that's the one thing we have here, at least.

[She wonders if it can ever be enough. Will time make her nightmares go away? Make Shaun stop talking to the voices in his head? Will she be able to go into rooms with white walls again after enough time has passed?

She hopes so. She wants to be better. She just isn't sure even Wonderland has enough time to make it happen.]

[postictal]

I guess.

[That's a bit more hopeful than he think he has the capacity to trust - Wonderland's penchant for the unpredictable and illogical isn't exactly conducive to rehabilitation away from rampant paranoia.]

Just...let me know if there's...if you need help, I guess.

[Not that he can always give it. But the offer's there, at least.]

[choosetruth]

I will. [She means it. She's nothing if not good about using the people she has as resources. Maybe if she weren't so good at it, she'd be a better friend, but that's never been something she's allowed herself to prioritize.]

And same to you.

[postictal]

[If he needs any help. He's a little too tired to start scrambling to decrypt that sentence and speculate over whether it might be code for something else.]

I mean, you're kind of...helping already. With Jay.

[Just by looking after him, in a sense.]

[choosetruth]

[She shrugs a shoulder.]

Believe it or not, I'm not doing it for you. Kid's heart's in the right place. We just need to work on his brain.

[He reminds her of herself in too many ways for her to ignore. He's a mess, but it seems like it's mostly because he doesn't know how to go about doing what George does professionally. Her parents didn't give her much, but they gave her a top-notch education and they gave her Shaun. Without that, maybe she'd have been as lost as Jay.

It doesn't let him off the hook for his mistakes. But it does make it worth it to try and teach him to be better.]

[postictal]

[He snorts at that. It doesn't quite count as a laugh and it's certainly devoid of humor, but it's uttered with such frankness that it's a bit bracing, in its own way. At his most painfully polite, Tim could draw attention to the fact that Jay lacked any sort of definitive plan rather than calling him stupid and reckless.]

I guess it doesn't always occur to him that the stuff he does is...I dunno. Not really in a vacuum.

[Maybe he just wasn't used to being able to effect that kind of change.]

[choosetruth]

[George is nothing if not exceptionally frank.]

He'll learn. If he wants to keep this job, anyway, and he really does seem to.

[postictal]

Well, he wants to be doing something with himself.

[Even if that "something" is being pursued by faceless entities, running from old college friends gone murderous, and generally doing a poor job of snooping into people's histories. Because even then, he'd found that preferable to the life he lived before he crossed paths with an old box of tapes he never should've unearthed.]

[choosetruth]

[Don't they all want that.]

There are worse things to do than news. Believe it or not.

[postictal]

[Believe it or not. Tim shoots her a look that's a few degrees short of withering.]

News is fine. I don't have anything against news. [As long as he's not the headline.]

[choosetruth]

[She raises an eyebrow behind her sunglasses.]

Really.

[It's the strength of the response that surprises her more than anything else. She could believe he didn't have anything against the news. She had not suspected he'd have strong feelings about it.]

[postictal]

What? I don't.

[Maybe that's a little defensive. He folds his arms, trying to play it off with a shrug.]

I just...think there's some things that reporting doesn't help.

[choosetruth]

A lot of people think that.

[Usually because the secrets involved are their secrets, and because the people who think that are the ones who will lose power if the secrets get out. She knows Tim's situation is complicated, but still. It's hard not to draw the parallels.]

[postictal]

Guess so.

[It's probably self-serving to the point where George figures it's not worth listening to. Which is...fair. He just doesn't wanna be the guy to resurrect this argument again.]

Well, it's your...station, or company, or whatever. You do what you want.