entrancelogs | and in the end if i don't make it on the list [ open ]

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and in the end if i don't make it on the list [ open ]

Who: Tim Wright and YOU! ...and guest
Where: It's a Wonderful Wonderlandland
When: January 19th - January 23rd
Rating: PG-13 probable
Summary: Tim's ideal world is simple. Incredibly simple. Except for the part where it's impossible.
The Story:

19th - 20th ; fantasy ; give me a boost over heaven's gate

Once he gets over how he has to shade his eyes against the diamond reflection of a too-bright sun, of the pumping lights and blinding colors of what looks like what might've been the end result if Lisa Frank took a couple tabs of acid and decided to start her very own apocalypse, he figures, correctly, that there's probably more to it than this. He prowls the edges of the bubble of increasingly absurd imagery, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It does.

He turns a corner, and there they are.

Sarah's hair falls back in a dark curtain as she laughs at something Seth just said. A little further - he can swear that's Jay there too, squirrely as ever, and the broad shoulders of a silhouette that couldn't belong to anyone but Brian.

But most startling, terrifying, unnatural than anything else, than the fact that they're there at all, is the way they all laugh and grin and joke freely and without abandon.

It's in the way they all look happy.

He doesn't breach that perfect world just yet. If this is his chance to watch what the world might have been without him, then why would he spoil it a second time? He can see them all like this, like they were meant to be, and no matter how thickly the nostalgia might build in his chest, how blindingly the ache of longing might tighten its stranglehold around his throat, he doesn't draw any nearer.

He simply settles down on the grass, draws his knees up beneath his chin, folds his arms around them and...watches.

21st - 23rd ; but i'm a missile that's guided to you;

Of course it wasn't real.

Apparently music is how you're supposed to destroy the things, but he's kind of lacking the instrumentation and an additional pair of willing voices for the sake of the three-part harmony that's supposed to be the kicker here. And, frankly, in his adrenaline-soaked, survivalist state, he doesn't have much of an instinct for memorization of lyrics from the Top Ten Hits From the Nineties listings in an off-brand version of a world not unlike his own.

It's kind of hard to be scared of zombies at this point, though. He'll give Wonderland that much; it sure knows how to desensitize.

He's not doing too badly, all things considered. You'll find him perched just alongside a sluggish river of viscous, rainbow-tinted water, having deftly dug a trench out from the sparkling earth and filled the bottom of the ditch with knitting needles, points up, to catch any one of the slavering horde that decides he looks interesting enough.

It's not a permanent measure by any means, but it's only until he can figure out how to get the busted karaoke machine he's been tinkering worth to start working again.

wildcard ; you're the one habit i just can't kick

[If you want a closed prompt with either Frisk or Tim, let me know here or at arrpee! Just because this is initially a Tim log doesn't mean I can't toss Frisk in if you wanna do something with them! I will match prose or brackets!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Fuck, that’s— right. Alex was her— but she never knew him like this, not really. Does it have something to do with the tall man she saw in Tim’s head, the one that she only sees the moment she’s convinced herself she doesn’t—

Man, they’ve gotten this messed up.

“We have to go.” She doesn’t realize one of her hands has made it into her hair too, half-mirroring his movements. “No more of— any of our bullshit, we have to go.” Her voice shakes, a quiver she isn’t proud of. “No more of this shit haunting us, not— now.”

All she really can is try to will it back. Tap into that determined nature of hers, push through, and through, and through.

For once, he finds himself in able agreement. Whatever the hell this is, whatever confused amalgamation of what they're dealing with - he doesn't want it, and he's certain Shepard doesn't either. All it's doing is dragging them both through the dirt, reliving things they don't want to relive.

"Let's go," he says, voice taut. "I dunno if this is, is me, or you, or both, but - "

He shoots one final, frantic look at Alex Kralie and shakes his head.

"C'mon."

He says go, and she’s already trying to move. But she reaches back, takes his hand before she does. She’s not escaping without him, especially if she’s likely (mostly) responsible for whatever this place is. If it thought it could scare them into submission— well, it might’ve worked, if Shepard wasn’t such an ass about throwing herself headfirst into pain.

“C’mon. Fuck this event.” She has no idea where she’s going in the way the landscape has shifted, but out, she knows she is pushing out, and if this place is controlled by will, out they should go.

It means they can agree on something, and it means he doesn’t have to strain himself over this shit any further. He’s done. He’s done with all of this.

“Yeah.” Just pick a direction and start moving - purposeful, unilateral, and unflinching. Alex says something else; he doesn’t catch it. It’s not important, because he said it isn’t.

“Don’t look back,” he adds, for good measure.

That’ll only make it harder.

She tries not to listen as well, to ignore the landscape as a whole, to focus on Tim and Out and not much more. Before, when she was fighting off her own demons, just running worked after a period. But she had to fight them first. Shepard’s hoping it’s not going to be the same here.

But even that is giving it more power, so she shakes her head a bit, focuses on dispelling the thoughts.

“… Sorry.” It feels pointless, under the situation, under the weight of how badly this went and is still technically going. But she thinks it’s important to say. “Shouldn’t have brought him into this.”

Tim grunts without look looking up. Without looking back.

“Not like you meant to,” he mutters. She seemed just as distraught to see Alex Kralie as Tim himself was. Regardless of whose memory brought him into the fold, he should’ve stayed buried. As buried as everything else from home.

He nearly bites back what comes next - nearly. He’s not fast enough.

“I guess you really miss him.”

Of course she didn't. He was... gone. Supposed to be gone. She hasn't seen him in over a year, why can't she just let him go?

"... He needed help." She finally responds, feeling almost choked up. "Gave me some back."

Isn't that enough, in the end? Help, going both ways, affirmations of something better? It's certainly all she could give. "I know I couldn't save him. But I couldn't just leave him."

"What the hell kind of help did he give?" Forgive him for being skeptical, if you will; Tim has reason to believe that Alex Kralie's version of "help" is the kind that leaves people bleeding out on the ground, or, worse, burning in the cocoons of their own homes.

It's less venomous and more - startled.

As if he can't quite believe that Alex could've offered her anything. Figured it must've been a one-way street. Shepard gives a shit about people, especially people who don't deserve it.

But Alex?

It's not much of a surprise. Most people in Wonderland didn't like Alex. The response when he left was a silent agreement, a polite good riddance. It was hard for her to find anyone who cared at all. But when the overwhelming preference of Wonderland is to forget, to give up, it makes her hang on harder. Even now his words in that cramped tank echo through her head; Just get to the next minute. And the next one. And the next.

"He... knew what it was like. To fuck up and keep going." Which she's sure Tim does too. "He was... scared. I was too. He came when I was down, so."

How does she explain it? He might not have been so significant if circumstances had been different. If he didn't leave where he did, how he did. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered so much.

"I guess I gave him hope. Or something."

Maybe it would’ve been enough, if he could remember it. The thought of Alex Kralie, he knows, will never fill him with anything but overwhelming guilt and sickening regret. At least with Jay here, he can....amend some of what he never got to. Fix things that broke long before he happened by. Clear the air. In theory, anyway.

But Alex?

He’ll always be a stain that Tim can’t wash off.

“Did he give you hope too?” He’s genuinely curious, but the words emerge like a challenge. “Or was he just some...someone like me?”

Some self-pitying hateful scrap that people like her pick up off the ground out of the kindness in their hearts, or, more likely, their affinity and fondness for things that have been broken?

Finally, she tilts her head back, just so she can look directly at him.

“What, like you’ve never saved me when I needed it?” It’s not really a jab, but she does sound like she thinks his statement is funny. “Unless you forgot some feathery asshole who lit a cavern on fire and had to be dragged out. Hell, I think you’ve done more for me than I have for you. Seems like whenever I show up I just make it worse.”

Shepard gestures a hand idly to behind them, as if to make it an example.

"You saved our lives first," he starts, ready to be a self-righteous asshole about it before he realizes how ridiculous that would have to be - batting back and forth in some stupid game of who fucked up more, huh? Stupid. Stupid thought.

And he's even worse for not being able to claw back what comes next, what spits out like venom.

"Don't give me that," says Tim, growling it out wearily, utterly resigned. "You like broken things, Shepard. You like things you can pick up off the ground."

"I like helping people that're where I used to be, Tim."

She looks at him, also a bit resigned to this conversation. "I'm not so blind that I don't know why I end up with people just as off as I am. I want to help. I went through shit, so as far as I'm concerned, I can stop it from happening again. I've walked through hell. I know the paths. If I can make it in and pull someone out, I should."

Finally, Shepard averts her eyes with a sigh. "Not a straight line, I know. I just... wanted someone back then. Feels wrong not to be there now."

As if, somehow, she's out of it. As if she's the shining example of a functional, happy person.

As if.

"Where you used to be?" It's not that he doesn't get it. He gets it, he knows he does, he knows that's just - that's one of the reasons he can look at someone like Clem and want her to have a million chances that he never did. An adult she feels she can turn to, an absence of shame things fall to tears, a sturdy shoulder that won't mind giving her a hug.

But he's never pretended that he's any better off.

"That's never gonna work. Not when it comes at your expense."

"Everything comes at my expense." It's accompanied by a little chuckle, like her destruction is some sort of joke, because it... kind of is. Half the universe wants her dead. They have no other options. She has a job to do. And the next one, and the next one, and the next one...

"I already know I'm messed up. I know how to take those hits and walk out. If I can do that, I'd say it's worth it." With of course, the implication that carries. That she doesn't matter. That none of her does.

"Yeah, 'cause you choose that. And you keep choosing it, even when it's completely fucking unnecessary." Did she need to set everything aflame? Was that subconscious? Some death wish made manifest? "God, not every story has gotta end with the hero going up in a cloud of fucking smoke, even if you seem to think it does. Do you want that? Is that it?"

It's not that he can't understand it. He can. He's the same fucking way, the same fucking vein, the kind of person who doesn't trust himself around a weapon because he knows which side of it he should be on.

"Or was that just what people kept teaching you, until you walked away believing it?"

Do you want that. Hah. When doesn't she.

"Nobody taught me anything about sacrifice. I learned it." Shepard thinks about Anderson, thinks about the people who mourned her death, but... they got over it, didn't they? They got over it. She rubs the back of her neck a bit, not really sure how to put this into words.

"What am I actually gonna do when this is over? Yeah, people need me now, but I'm gonna run out of missions. Better to quit when I'm ahead. Go 'till I can't."

"So get a goddamn hobby. Jesus christ." He doesn't wanna be here either, half the time, but he's still managed to stick around, despite more than a few moments of profound weakness, of just wanting it to be over, of just - tipping back a handful of pills or holding his breath and preparing for the room to begin filling with water, and god knows what else.

He's still here. He's still managed it.

If he let himself fade out now, there's no telling what shit Jay would get into without him.

"You're not just some fucking paragon, all right? You're a fucking person too. Or do you just not remember what that's supposed to feel like?"

A person. Yeah, sure, in theory.

"It's just gonna sound sad if I tell you not really." Even though it's the right answer, she thinks. Shepard has no clue where they're walking to at this point, but it hardly seems to matter. "Been trying to find things to do here, but it's hard when there's never gonna be real progress. I'm gonna go home and probably die."

She sighs, dropping her hand. "I know I have to live in the meantime. But it's not gonna matter."

"Probably isn't definitely. That was my - I was all set and ready to - "

He cuts off whatever he's about to say. Not important, right? Or is it only important when it doesn't apply to her? Is that the fucking solution here? Never let things cut into his own life, never allow her the window to diverge away from herself? How the hell do you manage that?

"You have no idea. People here have died and come back as clones, as - as zombies, or as god knows what else. You're from the future." Does she expect him to believe the possibilities aren't fucking endless?

"I already had a clone. She tried to kill me and steal my life. Didn't work out so well." Not that it's an answer too all of it. Ultimately, she's putting her stock in that it will; or at the very least, someone will let her stay dead this time.

"I got brought back once, too. Was dead for two years. I just... I don't have a normal life. Won't get a normal death." But at this point she's still looking for an out, like seeing the sun on the horizon after a long night. "I know you'rd trying to help. And I'm sorry about that, too. Should be able to handle myself."

"Can you fucking listen to yourself for two seconds? If I was the one saying that shit, you wouldn't just let that slide, Jesus." Is it really so fucking different when she does it? Is she really such a big fucking exception to the rule? Everyone here is an exception to too many rules.

He swipes a hand up through his hair with a low growl of frustration, trying to look at her, failing, because the defeated slope to her shoulders is too fucking close and too fucking familiar for him to weather it just now.

"If you gave even half the amount of shit you give about other people to yourself, we wouldn't be having this conversation - but you don't, and at this point, I'm not convinced there's a way to make you."

He's still trying. It's... not what she expected, honestly. All she's ever done is try to worm into his problems and make them worse. Then again, seems like that's the story of most of her crew. Just a bunch of disasters rocketing through space, saving the world.

"It's easier to care about other people. They don't live in my head all the time, you know?" But this is chipping down at her heart, his words affixing themselves in her mind. Can't be around to help if you're dead. But she's got to die eventually, right? Can't let them get so dependent. She can't carry the universe forever. "It's just... complicated. I don't have a lot of time to think about myself. Too many people need me, here and back home. Universe falls apart if I stop. And I mean that literally."

“It isn’t falling apart now. And if it is, it’s not on you to fix it.” Responsibly, accountability - he knows what that’s like, how it feels for that to sit heavy and flat across your guts. But even he stopped driving himself to a standstill after a certain point. Even he managed to scrape put a happy medium that straddled fixing everything you’ve broken and not sticking around to make things worse.

It’s bullshit. He has no right to be somehow more well-adjusted or self-aware than a fucking space marine.

“Just give yourself a fucking chance to not be whatever you think everyone else wants you to be. Maybe you’ll fucking learn something.”

Her instinct is to push back, to come back with some snappy something that proves her right. But she's not sure she has one for that. Is there anything she has that isn't built off someone else's opinion? She's an icon. A hero. Not a... person, really.

It's probably not the best to be continuing like that. But where do you build that identity she feels like she hasn't had in fifteen years?

"... Well, I. Guess there's always something to work on." She relents, quietly, an admission of something she doesn't really know how to quantify. "Don't know how much of me there is to that."

and in the end if i don't make it on the list [ open ]

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cw: suicide ideation

continuing that one right along

just slap that cw for the rest of this thread probablyyy

yeah let's be real

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