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

Entry tags:

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

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!]

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She wasn't quite looking him in the eyes, but now she's definitely not, for just a moment as she centers herself.

"Yeah, I guess so. Doesn't feel right not doing... anything. Feels like I went from a hundred to zero getting dropped in the middle of a war to this place." Just keep moving, keep doing something, so the nothingness doesn't catch you. "Not that I had a lot of orders to follow back home."

From a middle of war to the middle of a peaceful mansion where the only thing you can really do between events is wile away the days, waiting for something to happen, for someone to die, for something dramatic to hit the network.

His expression drops away, shadowed with something he's not eager to define. Regret, maybe. Guilt.

"No wonder you and Alex got along."

[Well that... wasn’t what she expected. She quirks an eyebrow, but just slightly, as she tilts her head back towards him.]

He did always seem like an action kind of guy.

[That feels almost like an understatement.]

I try not to be one of those rush in without a plan people. Doesn’t always work very well.

He always did, huh? He was the guy who said "action," usually, or he - maybe he always would've been that guy, if Tim hadn't happened along.

(If he'd never stopped to audition, if Brian hadn't urged him, if he hadn't folded to that gentle pressure, that easy smile and the hopeful gleam beneath the brim of Alex's baseball cap -

- would any of them be where they are now?)

"Yeah. No." He forces himself to nod, stiff as the motion is. Caught in the tarlike mire of the nostalgia he himself created. "He kinda...Jay has that problem too, actually."

She reaches up again, hand at the back of her neck out of an absence of words, just... thinking. "So all of your friends are the act first, ask questions later type? Sounds like it would be harrowing."

She's had teammates like that, yelling at her while she thinks on the fly, but they usually fall into pace. Not that she thinks it would feel at all comfortable to simply be strung along for the ride in the fray.

He flinches, slightly, at friends. Friends. As if either of them were quantifiable in that sense. As if any of them counted as friends before. As if they count as friends now.

"...yeah." He manages it at long last, albeit faintly. "Yeah. I guess it is."

It's what got them all killed, isn't it?

Going into a firefight together has a way of quantifying someone as 'friends', at least in her report. Not every soldier above or below you will be, but it's hard not to be behind scrappy cover, yelling plans between two people and taking out an enemy platoon solo without coming out bonded. Maybe it's why she's so free with the word.

Maybe it's because she just trusts too easily.

"Yeah I, uh, I know the feeling. Most of my best teammates are reckless at best." A pause. "Also, y'know, massively bigger than me, which makes stopping them from doing shit really complicated sometimes."

He almost laughs at that, or he would, if he were capable of a thing like that. As it is, he merely huffs, a faint little snort of something that could be construed as amusement.

"How'd you do it?" How'd she keep them from potentially killing themselves? If she did at all?

'Cause that sounds like a really applicable life skill Tim could use right about now.

She can’t help but smile even as Tim doesn’t laugh; even a small affirmation, some nod in the direction of happiness or humor, is good enough for her.

“I’d like to say I leveraged the respect they have for me as a commander, but that would just be a lie.” The only people on the Normandy who still respect her enough to be afraid of her are the ones she’s never met. “The secret to leading any group of people, I find, is to be transparent about what’s going on. Let them know you feel their fear, and apprehension, and you’re gonna stand with ‘em through the danger. It’s really all you can do, a lot of the time.”

She sighs, a little heavier than she wants. Nothing’s foolproof. She’s managed to keep most people alive, but… there’s always sacrifice somewhere. “Most people just don’t wanna be alone.”

Ah. So don't lie.

Tim grimaces faintly at that. No wonder things with Jay went so damn poorly, then. Jay was always the de facto leader of their investigation, in a way, but even with the agreement that they'd share whatever they had to with one another, it didn't always quite play out in kind.

Prove you can be trusted.

"What if, uh..." He kinda doesn't wanna finish that sentence now that he's started it. Whoops. Except he can't not now. So. "What if that's kind of a burned bridge? And trust isn't really...easy?"

Just, uh. Hypothetically.

She smiles, but it's sympathetic, and knowing. This isn't the first time she's had a conversation like this. This conversation, for her, is simultaneously the quiet reassurance of taking Garrus down from the grief of losing his team, and the passionate words between her and Miranda mid-firefight, plowing through the Collector base with shots ringing past them both. It's what it means to be a leader, and that's never an answer she perfectly knows how to give.

"Personally, I don't think honesty and trust is the same as transparency." Which is why she chose that word, specifically. "Honesty for me implies tripping over yourself not to tell a lie. Going out of your way to make the truth apparent. Transparency... it's more about making your team trust that whatever you're doing, it's in their best interest."

She pauses, tries to formulate her thoughts, and continues. "It's like the difference between action and intent. Action, saying what you're going to do, that's honesty and truth. It's laying it out on the table so they can see it rationally. But transparency is about the emotion behind it. It's the feeling behind the fact, stopping the desperation so they can do what they need to do. You don't have to trust 'em. But they have to trust you."

Maybe the two have become too easily conflated with one another in past exchanges. He is a liar. He is a liar, and no matter how much he'll try to help, that will never change. It just makes him more liable to hurt someone when that betrayal inevitably comes.

"So which is better?" And which is less likely to incur Jay's fatal paranoia? His intent had always been clear - he'd thought it was. "Or should you always just...shoot for both?"

Should he ask?

Maybe there's no point.

She hums a bit as she thinks. She's... well, she's always been the sappy type, someone who's latched on too closely to everyone who shows her kindness, wanting to protect the world from itself. But she's always been better at action. Keeping up the act of her command, of being transparent as a soldier, but not as a person.

"Both is better, I guess. Leaves less opportunity for someone to get you later. But gives 'em more of a chance to get you then." Because it's all about opening up, about putting yourself on the line. "I guess it depends if their trust is important to you. If that thing you're doing is just someone you're never gonna see again, or if you're helping someone you care about."

She fidgets, thinks about ending it there, and speaks again instead. "Sometimes it depends if you can let 'em in. No matter what, it's about making yourself vulnerable. And that's the hardest part."

That's...yeah. She can say that again, because Tim reaches up to swipe a hand through his hair, his shoulders dropping slightly. If you can let people in, if you can let yourself be vulnerable to them, that's where trust is generated.

And that's where he always fails. A tape sequestered in a pocket. A secret hidden away in a clinic he doesn't go to. Appointment times lining up and being dashed, just to eliminate the risk that he would.

"Guess it would be," he says carefully. As if it hasn't been proven to be exactly that.

She knows his movements, can guess that what she’s saying is going to be difficult for him. Honestly, all of this is beginning to feel like such deja vu it’s hard not to comment on it, even if he wouldn’t know why it’s taking her back. But she looks at him, and sees herself, young, in basic, with Anderson and a hand on her shoulder, a whispered statement of they won’t trust you if you don’t let them, and you’re going to rise above this.

“You don’t have to be great at it every time. Like I said. Intent, you know? Trying means something.” She wants to do the same, put her hand on his shoulder, be that person, but she doesn’t know if she can stand where Anderson stood yet. Instead, she tries to do what she’s saying- be transparent. Try. “I’m not always fantastic at it either. Can’t be perfect when you’re not perfect. But I believe in you.”

He'd...laugh at that, if he could. But that'd be kind of mean-spirited; she is trying after all, as hopeless as it is. He has to lift his eyebrows at that, skeptical despite himself. Despite the obvious sincerity there.

After what he did to Alex - what they did to each other - why the hell would she think he deserves her attention, let alone her earnest support?

"You'd be the first."

"Someone ought to."

It comes out a little too quickly, faster than she would've wanted for the conversation they're having. But that's the thing about being transparent, about getting used to being honest. It comes out of you even when you might not want it to.

"I... I mean. That's how you get better, or be better. Help from people."

Someone should. As if - what? He deserves it? As if he's done anything to earn it? What's he done in his life besides leave others damaged in his wake, worse off for having known him at all?

The immediacy with which she says it has more to do with her than it does him. He knows that without thinking very hard about it.

"Better to start with something doable," he says. Hopefully light enough to be construed as a joke.

She can't help but laugh a little bit, as if this is some joke they're both in on, how much she keeps attracting broken people that she'll hold together with every part of her heart.

"Believed in Alex." She's not quite looking at him, but she's smiling, as if that's added to this unspoken humor. "Don't see why I couldn't believe in you."

Believed in Alex. She and Jay - they've got the same fatal flaw. Never stopped believing in Alex Kralie, despite all the evidence that they shouldn't have gone down that road in the first place.

The difference being that Alex wasn't the cause of all this. Never was.

"More complicated than that." It always is. "But, uh. How 'bout I make you a deal?"

It's not quite a smile, but it's not his typical dour expression that weighs down at the corners of his mouth and the edges of his eyes.

"You help me - and I'll help you."

Shepard has to resist the urge to choke back a laugh, because isn't this how it always goes? She tries to reach out, look after someone who needs it, and they see right through her.

Hah. Transparent. How great.

"You don't have to if you don't want to." God, she knows how ridiculous she sounds, but she's always felt like she should come with a warning. "I've got some good advice, but pretty often it's more of a do as I say, not as I do sort of thing."

"Wouldn't have offered if I didn't want to. Trust me."

Except that, right there - that might've been the funniest thing Tim's ever said in his goddamn life. Trust me. Because he's just so damned trustworthy, isn't he? And she's born full witness to how trustworthy he can be on top of everything else.

What else does he say? That she could've sold him out and didn't? That meeting those basic criteria for not being quite as bad at friendship as one Jay Merrick makes her noteworthy?

...

Kinda, yeah.

She can't help but arch an eyebrow at his wordage, but she won't push it. The sly smile already tugging at her mouth has probably answered for her though, and she's likely out of time to play this off.

"Alright. You got me, kid." She holds out her hand, not quite like a handshake, but more like an arm-wrestle grasp. "I'm in if you are."

Handshakes. Because people like...that. They like to solidify things with touch, as if that might affirm their reality. There's a hesitation - unavoidable, almost cursory - but eventually he reaches forward and clasps her hand obligingly.

"All right." It's not quite a smile, but it's the closest Tim gets. "Deal."

She doesn't hold it for longer than it needs. Just a moment. One gesture she can remember when the future gets dark.

"Thanks." She knows it's not right to force the sort of movement she's looking for, or used to, on someone, but that's her level of vulnerability. "So, uh. You probably wanna get back to your music, or something."

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postictal - 2017-08-27 22:02 (UTC) - Expand

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

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i just realized i changed styles entirely in that last tag SORRY

lol it's cool man

my brain just left the planet apparently

IT HAPPENS TO ALL OF US

SOMETIMES THINGS HAPPEN

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