[09:27] == 0sw1n [[email protected]] has joined #th3w1-f1

IT’S RARE THAT THEY GET LONG QUIET MOMENTS LIKE THIS. they duck in and out of each other’s lives. clara disappears on adventures he can’t even imagine. he works long hours at e corp now, and then longer hours putting together useless presentations that will be nothing but ways to pass time, watching some executive tap away at their phone while he tries to explain to them how to protect themselves. they don’t even give a shit about the company that gives them everything they didn’t earn fairly. if he had a better sense of humor, he might say that at least they’re consistent about not caring, but it’s fine. he’s not here to defend companies.

he can see a new scar along clara’s arm. some adventure he wasn’t on, probably. it looks like some kind of burn, extended out, thin. healed but fresh enough that it’s still visible. laser fire, he thinks, or something like it. something that glanced across her arm, close enough to harm but not close enough to cause permanent damage. he hasn’t reached over to touch it. they’re crammed together on her bed, facing each other, laying on their sides. it’s a kind of picture perfect movie shot in his head. if he could imagine pulling out, further, up towards the ceiling, hovering a foot away from the wall that the bed is up against.

less picture perfect things: the layer of dust on everything. the staleness of the air. the emptiness of the cabinets. there’s a sort of feeling in a place that hasn’t had someone in it for a long while, like even the movement of your body through it is disturbing something elemental. sometimes even places you live in can become uninhabitable. they become unfriendly to even your own presence. he would know.

he noticed it when getting the medical kit out from clara’s well-stocked medicine cabinet, her sitting on the edge of her bed and watching him. elliot could ignore it, in some ways, just passing through the apartment. he could look the other way from the piles of paperwork. his apartment isn’t exactly neat. the old books that pile up. the clothes piling up on the floor near the closet door when he can’t quite make it over to the hamper. hypocrisy if he pointed out, but he saw it. notes. sketches. scribblings. her apartment a home for something that wasn’t her.

standing in front of the sink, he drew a finger through the layers of dust on the mirror and watched it come away coalescing grey on his fingertip.

he stitched up one of her wounds in silence, the one he saw that almost sent him climbing over a barrier, about to do something, about to do anything, about to do the kind of violence that he always almost thought he was above. he would’ve done it. it was somewhere between his younger self, the one he doesn’t like to look at, who used to throw his whole body into hitting back, even when he almost fell over, even when he cracked his jaw hard enough on the pavement that he saw stars, and this self, an older one that should be wiser but isn’t.

once, when going through the motions of stitching things together, needle and thread and pull just tight enough, he watched a sliver of his eye and his cheek in the swipe of clean glass over her shoulder. he could feel clara’s gaze skating over his shoulder, her head at a level where her gaze was fixed on some old piece of linoleum on the wall behind him. no words, then. just the sound of their breathing.

like this, too. it’s new york summer, so it’s humid and the air conditioning barely works. the sheets and the covers are rolled back towards the end of the bed in a messy heap.

he watches clara’s lips move. in a moment like this, his head sluggish with heat, it almost feels like he’s hearing the words a quarter-second behind.

@consequntial said: “tell me you love me. lie if you don’t mean it.”

he thinks again of that angle. the ceiling. the voyeur, catching dust motes floating through the air, kicked up by the slow motions of a rattling ceiling fan, the way that one of clara’s legs is halfway off the bed, dangling close to a stack of papers.

( you don’t have to be here for this, you know. yeah. i can see you up there. she can’t, of course, but i can.

we’ve already said that to each other. and… i mean, does she think i was lying? should i ask? i don’t think she wants me to ask. she’s giving me that look, like when all she wants to do is to hear me say it back. is that what love is? sometimes, do you just say what the other person wants to hear with no conditions?

lying gets you nowhere. and i’m not lying, when i tell her that. but it’s the idea that maybe i am. maybe i don’t really know what that means, not really. maybe i don’t know what love is. i didn’t exactly have a good example when i was a kid. i could just like someone who pays attention to me, or who shows me things that are actually interesting. who wouldn’t want to escape the drudgery of a life like this? who wouldn’t fall in love with it?

but that’s not true. i knew her before i knew about the traveling.

so i love her. i love her. i’m saying it to you to practice, because i don’t want her to think i’m lying. i want to sound certain, and i don’t really know – i’m not good at this kind of thing. at people. i don’t trust them, so i don’t try to get them to trust me unless they’re one of a select few.

… why do you want to see this? can’t you just – ? )

clara says his name, and her voice is aligned with her mouth, her tone rising into a question. her eyes are wide, watching him, waiting for him to say the right fucking thing.

❝ … listen to me, okay? ❞ his thumb runs along her jaw, gentle. ❝ i love you. and i’m not fucking lying to you. i wouldn’t be here stitching you up if i didn’t. ❞

that has to be enough proof. that has to mean something. it feels like he’s scrambling for better answers and doesn’t know where to find them.

it doesn’t feel like enough. it’s not quite panic that’s bubbling up in his chest. it’s not anger either. it’s just – fear, maybe. she’s saying that like a person who wants one last reassurance before they break everything. ❝ i don’t get close to just anyone. okay? i don’t fucking get close to people, clara. it’s just you. now it’s just you. ❞

( fuck. i shouldn’t have said it like that. me and darlene argued and now she’s gone, and angela’s busy with her e corp job, and shayla’s gone and it is just –

me and her. it’s just me and her, isn’t it? me and her and you and…. mr. robot.

she is the only thing between me and myself, but i can’t just say that. )

his voice catches on that something in his throat. the fear. the apprehension. ❝ so just don’t… think i’m lying. i’m not. ❞

time is nothing. it is absolutely nothing. it is there, at all times, pressing in like grains of rice filling your pot. it sits there, surrounding you, muddling everything into an opaque white that you pretend you’ll be able to clear completely. you know from years of trying that the clouds will always persist, even when you convince yourself they’re not coming out of the grains any longer. you become numb to that fact.

clara oswald has become numb to time. 

there’s only so long you can live a life like this until that becomes your truth. people live and die and become blips. people run and escape or they dawdle and die or they run and die and it all blurs together like those curling clouds. clara has been aware of this fact for so long. they see it whenever they close their eyes. they see the words that should go on the next pa--

--ges are scatters across their apartment. on the book shelf, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, on the floor, in their closet on their mirror. some have collected the dust, others are what disrupts the grey sheen they saw elliot push his finger through. there are splashes of of of of of of of reds and blues and yellows and so many more reds after that. there are browns and greens and oranges and purples, mixed with water and smeared into figures. 

a small girl who isn’t a girl any longer. a man made of metal. a man with a soft smile, wearing a pink button up. a beast, with a serpentine body, a woman’s face, twisted arms, a hidden maw.

they are all labeled. they are all described, in their entireties. sticky notes add to the page with whatever they missed in the first go around. 

entire chapters sit around, all scrawled by their hand. clara is stagnant here, when they’re not focusing on that scrawling. they are the cereal that you didn’t close right, the water in the chipped mug that has been sitting next to your bed for too many days. this world, this slow, cloudy world is so stale and boring. it is so stale they can taste the beginnings of acidity dancing up on their tongue. acid, acid, acid, acid, acid, it is all so bitter. even with elliot there. the linoleum is peeling.

the numbness drops for a moment to let the bitterness in. fear comes in instead.

clara’s always been good at that. fear. it bubbles in their stomach and pukes itself out in  --

                                     tell me you love me. lie if you don’t mean it. 

he’s said it to them before. they’ve believed it, but they believed danny, too--and the doctor. they’ve believed so much of the love that the warmth of it has burned them alive. they know elliot loves them, they do. they know it. they know it. the water in the chipped mug next to clara’s bed has dust floating as a film on top. he doesn’t respond. the warmth turns to burning again. they burn and they burn and they burn. 

clara doesn’t know if his name tastes like fire in this moment or if it tastes like that water, gulpped desperately at night, acidic.

... what do they look like in that moment? watching him speak like that, watching him try to reassure them? do they look engaged? are they leaning into the touch of his fingers on their jaw? do they look like time out of order, eyes emptying like cigarette smoke leaving his mouth? a smoke darker than that, maybe?

any way it appears, clara watches him. listens. the air in the room is hot and clara’s skin is burning. the air in the room is hot and clara is burning.

clara loves him, too. they really, honestly do, and that scares them quite a bit. if it wasn’t for him, they don’t know if their feet would ever touch the ground. elliot grounds clara, he quite literally brings them back to an earth they cannot comprehend on their own anymore. an earth with less danger and less running. an earth with a man who loves her and a dog who is waiting for them to come back upstairs.

clara oswald is numb to time, but they are by no means numb to elliot alderson, or the hurt in his voice. he sounds so afraid, and that tastes heavy and metallic on their tongue, like a strip of lead. they hate it. they caused this, and it makes them want to scream, and they probably would if they knew it wouldn’t scare him. instead, they switch tactics.

clara’s stomach and arm do their own screams when clara forces themself to sit up, pushing their way into the position, to get face to face and really, properly look at him. clara talks so much, so fast and so loud, so often. but this isn’t one of those times. there’s not enough air in the room for that, or maybe there’s too much. they keep it simple.

‘alright. i won’t.’

three words, that they mean with everything in them. he’s lied to them before. they don’t think he’s lying now. they lean in, gently, and press a kiss to his lips. it’s not desperate or hungry and if he bumps their nose it’ll all be over, but it is there. it is there and it is a promise that they will trust him on this. 

they let their forehead rest in his shoulder. they ignore the crying of their arms and stomach and side. they have something else to say, something that tastes warm and secure.

‘thank you.’

clara loved darlene the moment she set eyes on her. it’s a bit cheesy, but it’s true. the moment she was introduced to darlene, clara saw her, nodded to herself, and knew that this woman was going to be her sister and that she was going to love her.

clara learns how to do video games in hanging out with darlene and that results in elliot seeing some downright massive mario kart battles.

clara and darlene go out for breakfast food quite a bit when clara’s alive. clara gets bacon, hash browns, eggs, and pancakes, and darlene eats off her plate.

        “does that hurt?” the words are soft but there’s a hint of nervousness in her voice as she works on cleaning clara’s wound. she’s tended to her own here and there out of necessity when she had no other options, but it wasn’t something she did a whole lot. it was very different when she was doing it for someone else. y’aleda reaches for the gauze and bandages beside them, preparing to finish dressing the wound. “can you tell i don’t do this often?” she asked with a hint of humour to her voice.

      alright--she knows this sounds terrible, she really does; but, in all fairness, she spent far too long as some sort of unfeeling, barely-if-even alive zombie. she savors feelings now, the burn of the sun and a mug pulled out too quickly from the microwave, the freeze of a barely started shower, the gnawing of hunger, and (yes) the pain of, well. pain.

          ‘it does hurt. thank you.’

    see? a response you’re not supposed to have when your cute traveling companion is wrapping you up like a mummy in the flatbed of a truck. ... oh well. she’ll repress her feelings about _that_ later. 

FOR A LONG MOMENT OF SILENCE, HE MERELY EXAMINES THE BOARD. then he nods. the chair creaks a little. chess is really, in the end, something that they – as in the system as a whole, not clara – use to communicate. it’s a proxy to work out problems. the way that the board unfolds, especially in their own head, tends to match the things that they’re trying to avoid. so if he were to work this into a metaphor, what does it mean? well, it means that no one else seems to be aware of the clear and present danger. or maybe they are, and they don’t give a shit. and their lack of care means that he loses, no matter how many times he tires to force the point with everyone.

maybe he’s already lost since minute fucking one, since elliot decided to chase and sam didn’t try to stop him, didn’t intervene, just got even more involved.

looking at clara makes something ache in his chest, like some kind of sympathy pain with no sympathy behind it. an understanding of what he did, of how he put the knife between two of her ribs and felt the blade scrape up against solid bone. elliot insists that he made things worse; that his action is what made them so much more miserable, but in the end, he doesn’t fucking regret it. clara could put a knife in between their ribs, and yeah, he might regret it a little then, but not enough to apologize.

he doesn’t apologize.

nor does he give in.

he and sam sometimes play pointless games of chess. it’s an exercise. their goals are, in many ways, diametrically opposed. he cares less if elliot is happy, although that matters to him too, and more if he’s safe.

so this is, in some ways, a good metaphor. easily applicable.

❝ good job, ❞ he says lightly. ❝ you’re not half bad at this. ❞ now that he’s managed to make it into something else, he can’t even bring himself to be that sore about losing. instead, it just feels fitting. not like he was destined to lose, because chess isn’t about that, but like it just makes everything slot together. he looks at her for a long moment. they aren’t at the same kind of odds that they used to be. clara doesn’t recoil when he gets close, or otherwise assume that he’s just looking for something sharp to use against her.

so, just like that, he begins setting up the board again. he barely has to think about it, with how many times he’s done it. the line of pawns, and then the rest of the pieces working inwards towards the center. every one of his movements, precise and orderly. ❝ we should play again, ❞ he says. ❝ you’ll need the practice, when it comes down to it, in order to not completely fucking embarrass yourself. which, in this case, is basically the same thing as blowing your cover. ❞

a little amusement at that. such high stakes on a chess game. that usually only happens in the kind of high society circles that make his teeth grind together until it feels like the motion should be taking away layers of the jawbone.

not his scene. clara fits in better, all things considered, but she’s like that. chameleon out of necessity, because it allowed her survival. maybe that’s the one thing he unequivocally likes about her. how viscerally she attempts to survive, all the way up until she doesn’t. the latter days could be equally worrying to him, because if she risks herself, then she risks the other two.

he wishes it was less of a risk. he doesn’t care much about the risk to herself, but again, the fact is that it would more than affect the other two. so they’re his responsibility, and now so is she, not that clara needs to know that.

she remembers playing with john.

it happened throughout their partnership or relationship or whatever you’d call it, came with higher and higher stakes, but (no matter what) the same routine would unfold: 

              • clara, taking piece after piece, would begin moving in for his king               • john, watching this play out, would lose more and more of his smile               • any talking allowed, seldom allowed towards the end, would die out               • his moves, not all that great to begin with, would get sloppier               • her king, _inexplicably_, would be left open

he always won their matches. that is--he did unless he didn’t. he’d annoy her earlier that day day, she’d decide not to throw the match, and then, suddenly, he would be gone and missy would be the one "handling” her that week. it’s funny how that all works, how expected that chain of events came to be, and how it changed the last time she decided to secure her win.

her palm still aches sometimes. it consumes her.

the matches with elliot and his alters are different. she appreciates that, _them_ even.

sam, elliot, mr. robot, all of them mean something to her, more than something. sam and elliot are obvious, yeah, she’s trusted them for a while now and loved them almost as long, but mr. robot is different. the appreciation there, the care and the communication, their entire dynamic--it’s as stark as the scrape of metal on bone or blood on calloused skin.

her lung still aches sometimes. the ache isn’t bad, though. she can ignore it.

she can’t help but smile at mr. robot’s chirp; she feels a certain warmth in her chest at his version of a compliment (baby steps, oswald) and at how quickly he goes to set up the board. 

‘not half bad yourself,’ she says, and the smile turns into a grin. ‘and you know i’m up for beatin’ you again.’

his version of compliments, and his version of helping her--she likes both of those developments between them. sam and elliot aren’t the only parts of the system she enjoys being around. it’s nice having him too.

     ❛   you should get your money back.   ❜   sean moved to sit upright, the wooden picnic table giving a gentle grunt beneath her. the lit cigarette in her fingers settled between her knees, smoke curling upward in a few thoughtful whisps of gray that stood out in the moonless night.   ❛   seriously, whoever sold you that line is full of shit.   ❜   

     she took a drag, appraising clara with a familiar brand of self-practiced apathy. it didn’t work. not always. there were instances, like this one, when it seemed to come with a conscientious voice, softer around the edges ( like glenn ). looking away, she tapped ash into the summer grass.   ❛   sometimes they have no choice.   ❜   with the filter between her knuckles, she moved her arm, wiping the side of her nose by the dip of her wrist.   ❛   sometimes they want to scratch it so that itch’ll just go the fuck away.   ❜   like it never existed; like it was never there.

          clara never really smoked. she’d tried it before a handful of times, at various points in her life (albeit, generally *bad* ones) but it’d never really stuck. something had always been off, the flavor too chemical, the headache too nauseating, and she’d stop again for a couple years. looking at sean, though, she reconsiders. there’s something a bit entrancing on how it’s resting in her hand, how the embers fall, how the secondhand smoke curls up, that nearly gets clara asking for a hit. nearly.

        ‘well, what do you suppose the difference is? between wantin’ to tell it or needin’ to or a mix of both?’ she’s got her own thoughts and feelings on the matter but she still wants to hear sean’s, to see where she draws her lines. ‘no matter what the endin’s the same: more people know about the secret than before.’

THEY STUTTER. all of them, collectively, for different reasons. elliot’s pen scratches to a halt on the page, in the midst of cross-hatching some shadows. sam looks up from the page. mr. robot swears a little under his breath, almost fumbling with the cigarette he’s been dangling idly between his fingers for the past few minutes. clara and elliot have been talking a little, the other two as informal audience members, mostly there to make comments and keep elliot company in the particular silences that inhabit conversation. to keep him from feeling like he has to speak in the silences.

then sometimes clara says something like that, especially when he isn’t expecting it, and all of them look at her. elliot wonders if she can feel it – the pressure of three sets of eyes even if it’s just one, the different intensities. ❝ oh, ❞ he says. his mouth is abruptly dry. why does this scare him so much? why does he feel fear and relief at once? fear of what that means. fear of someone relying on him when he’s barely even known who he is for a while now. and relief, too. relief that this all does in fact mean something; relief that she feels the same way about him that he feels about her. comfort in reciprocity, maybe, as ridiculous as it sounds for someone who is used to having experiences that he cannot communicate.

the system is hung. for a moment. then another moment. if he imagines hard enough elliot can almost hear the whir and strain of a system at peak load. they are, all of them, struggling for some kind of response. not even clawing for control. just reaching for an after-this moment, a moment where they know how to respond. but it isn’t that easy.

elliot sets down his pen after a moment, his sketchbook flipping closed the second his hands move back from the pages, and he smiles a little shakily. ❝ sorry, ❞ he says after a moment. ❝ i just – that’s a lot to hear. ❞

when he and darlene were younger, it was mostly darlene who was taking care of him. she would hold his hand when he didn’t know what was real. she would bring him coffee on some mornings when he couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed and their mom had headed out to work. it was always her taking care of him, because they were family and they loved each other, and that was it. but this is different. this is different than being family.

this is someone who doesn’t feel a sense of responsibility towards him, telling him that she only wants him. that this is between the two of them and that’s all. no doubt in clara’s voice. like clockwork, he knows mr. robot is looking for some sense of doubt to pry at in clara’s tone, some flaw in it. but he doesn’t see anything, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees mr. robot lean back in his chair with something like a sigh, and rubs at his eyes for a moment. resigned. nothing aggressive. no eager look in his eyes like he’s found something to pull at and make the whole thing unravel.

after a moment, elliot smiles so brightly that something in his face hurts. maybe he’s just not used to smiling like that at anything. ❝ i mean. i’m okay with that. we’re – all okay with that. it’s weird, i think, for me especially. but… i think i’m good with it. ❞

a pause. he reaches out just a little. ❝ come here, ❞ he says with a laugh. ❝ now you made me feel all fucking sentimental. i don’t know what to do with that either. ❞

   ya know, sometimes clara swears elliot’s got extra eyes hidden somewhere on his face. maybe it’s that he’s certainly got excess of the feature or maybe it’s because, on a certain level, she’s right in thinking his eyes are not the only ones looking at her, but still--it’s off putting (and, before you think it, not really in a bad way, just an oh wow i’ve had quite the day at work and now i’m walkin’ into my flat and i set down my purse and click on the lights and suddenly a rather large group of my favorite people are jumping out and screaming surprise and i remember it’s my birthday and i’ve got to equip myself for company that i love but was unprepared for nonetheless sort of way) enough that she nearly jumps at the way his gaze shoots to her. she adjusts, and quick (she’s at a party now, she has to) at that, but she can’t say his little oh in response to her baring her soul for a second helps.

     then a second passes.

     ... and another.

     ... and another, and the anxiety that just loves to bubble in clara’s stomach since she’s started, well, you know, *bubbling* again starts going and she’s so close to changing the subject or maybe even, god forbid, continuing on this one when a lid is put on the boiling over pot ----  sorry. i just -- that’s a lot to hear.

    she studies him, and he looks so anxious but... the bubbling’s stopped. slowed, at the very least, at the change in his posture. in his voice. she can take a breath in and she doesn’t have to hold it more than a few seconds. progress, yeah?

  she breathes, and she watches him, and then something beautiful happens. he looks around for reassurance, for sam or mr. robot, maybe, and he finds it. he smiles--no, better than that. he beams. she can’t help but laugh at it, let him hear the joyful, little relieved noise that bubbles out in place of the anxiety eating at her only seconds ago, and that noise continues as he reaches for her.

          ‘reckon i’ve got an idea for those feelings,’  it’s a dorky sentence, it really is, but she convinces herself she’s pulled it off in a totally sexy and intriguing way by the time she’s moved from her end of the couch to a spot hovering over him, bringing his lips to hers. he tastes like the orange sherbet melting in the bowl on the coffee table. she loves the flavor. she loves him, really, and she’s voicing it the moment their lips part.

       a small kiss lands itself on his nose, and their foreheads press together. she grins.

we’re playing words with friends. sitting in mutual silence, her at the diner counter making tea and me in one of the booths with my own long cold cup of tea. i couldn’t drink it. i don’t know why. clara’s been reluctant to do this kind of thing, ever since what happened. i can understand why. i did have to focus on something, though. i couldn’t just walk through that building and look at what was happening, and all i had was the solid glowing rectangle of my phone, pouring light across my hands even as they got bloodier and bloodier. tunnel vision, you see. if i focus on something i can block out everything else.

like screaming, or the extended snap of bones breaking and warping, the slosh of my shoes through blood and every other kind of bodily liquid, the wet slap of flesh hitting something solid, and the gentler, more extended sound of something perhaps less wet and more dry, like a layer of outer skin, sliding down to pool there on the floor, among clothes and the shredded remains of a shoe. 

imagine those times when you wake up in the middle of the night, perhaps crammed uncomfortably on a friend’s couch, with some kind of cramp in your ankle, crawling down to your toes. on instinct the toes curl, trying to stretch out the muscle and loosen the pain. think about the phalanges and the metacarpals folding, joints bending, and then those small delicate bones pushing up and through the skin and out. there were holes in one pair of fine black leather shoes i walked by, a series of five, aligned with the toes, ranging from small to large, little pieces of flesh stuck as if they had scraped off against the edges of the puncture from the bones. i cannot imagine with how much force those bones must have been broken, severed from the rest of the foot, and pulled up and through. 

like they were suspended on strings.

so how can i blame her? for being frightened, and silent because of fear, and distant? i can’t. i hid myself for a while too. how worth it would it be, to turn on the spot and disappear?

i frown down at my phone. after a moment, i play adjudicator and send it, turning off the screen. for a moment, barely visible in the dark pane of glass, i see it smiling back at me, waiting.

i look up at clara so i don’t have to keep seeing it.❝ you can sit down, you know, ❞ i say quietly, finally just turning the phone over and consigning my reflection to press flush against the table instead. ❝ when the tea’s done, of course. i’m not trying to hurry you. ❞

there are certain things, after they are seen, that a person is bound to remember the rest of their life. 

there are bloody rabbits, both shredded and crushed, masses of blood-matted fur and flesh popping out like biscuit cans, discarded on the sides of roads. there are red, bubbling letters that pop up out of skin with a sizzle and the wretched stench of meat being seared on metal that will alert others to some message or button. there are young sailors whose bodies are meticulously broken down, each vertebrae separated from the spinal cord and all 20 feet of small intestine pulled out and laid into a neat snake and skin and fat and muscle and bone and marrow all displayed in a lovely and flawless dissection.

there is also something else that can be added to that list. 

shoes and socks, squishing through a slurry of utter carnage, filling to the brim with each step like a sopping, oversized sponge, making wet little noises until she peels them off in the solitude of her room, dripping with chunks of sinew and tissue and blood and every other kind of bodily liquid–as you so gently put it. 

there were drips running from her palms down her forearms to the floor that night. she would have vomited if she could.

that add-on could all be a random scenario you thought up in your guilt. you can’t be sure about that though, can you? you hid after, didn’t drag yourself out of your room with your tail between your legs until after ashildr had gotten her into bed. you can only guess at what she felt that night and the morning after; or, maybe, you can pay a little more attention to how clara* has been this past week.

how many words has she* said? how often has her* body been her* own? what eyes are behind the counter in this moment? have you even learned the names of the people in her* body, the ones who ooze out and grab at and wrap around her* throat like a green stripe of ribbon when she can’t handle this any more? have you tried?

the body making tea at the counter doesn’t respond to you for a few moments. there’s a carefulness in the tone when they finally do. the face reflecting off the napkin holder in your booth is grinning too wide despite your weak effort in stopping it.

‘i’m alright. reckon i’m gonna head back to my room once i’m finished here.’

@consequntial sent: maybe it’s all gonna turn out alright. i know that it’s not, but i have to believe that it is.

i know what this is.

clara is asking for permission for hope springing up through the cracks, like it does. like i’ve discussed before. despair is easier. it’s a fall from a railway bridge into the dark water below, with the voice telling you to jump, again and again, incessant, every single ledge an opportunity. i’ve found that it is, in fact, lazy, as often as i fell into it myself. it was why i chose what i did. i couldn’t keep holding onto my despair. it weighed me down. it kept me from managing to fly out of my body.

when i choose something, i’ve decided, it’ll be because i have no choice.

❝ hey, ❞ i say delicately. my voice must sound outright rotten like this.

then again, i feel rotten. it’s raining here in london. the rain still inevitably reminds me of eskew, and there is a piece of me that is always terrified that it will never, ever stop. that i’ll turn another corner and black umbrellas will greet me, the fashionable accessory of every eskew inhabitant, and that maybe the umbrellas will close as they see me, and that ring of people i saw every so often in their black coats will surround me and begin to beat me down with the umbrella, hissing curses and spitting as my legs give way under the crack of their makeshift weapons against my knees.

the things they would call me, i’m sure, with their pale faces and empty black eyes. outsider. interloper. can i fault them? no. they are technically correct. i was an outsider. i was an interloper. i resisted, and look at what i finally did.

to distract myself, i take a breath. ❝ chin up a little. come on. i don’t think that’s true.  i mean that… it’s not going to turn out alright. it might not turn out quite happily. things often don’t turn out happily, at least not around me. so maybe that’ll be on me somehow. but i just don’t think it’s absolute anymore. not if you refuse to give in. hope always springs up. good things… even when i was in eskew, and things were bad, sometimes there were still wonders. in between all the horror, and all the very, very bad things… there were still wonders. ❞

what am i? some kind of new age preacher? i don’t mean to sound like it, or even like a psychiatrist. i had two of them once, so i know the speech patterns well, and i don’t think i sound like one of those. the first had a voice with more ups and downs than my general monotone, and the second chittered far too much, its mandibles scraping against each other like rusty hinges.

a pause. ❝ i don’t believe in aimless suffering for no reason, i guess. i think it’ll turn out alright, but only because if there was suffering, there’s usually some reason behind it. even a vague one. like god, or a higher power. there is always a use for suffering. sometimes it’s just letting other people watch yours. ❞

perhaps i shouldn’t have said that last part. how very eskew of me. suffering for someone else to observe, like it was a commodity that you could sell and trade for the scraps of whatever kindness the city had left. maybe it was. maybe when i was praying to the city to listen to me, not knowing just how much it was listening to me already, i was saying that: hurt me now so i can be alright later. it sounds depraved if i say it like that.

then again? behavior matches place.

can you see it in her face? the guilt? the fear? you’ve known her--parts of her, at least--since before all of this, do you know her well enough to see it now?

you speak, and that rottenness in you shines through, just as you feared. did you catch that? she just flinched, almost. she hears your shine. nevertheless, you continue--you’re always continuing. from place to not place, from not place to place, in this wretched and destructive cycle, and one day this cycle is going to end. 

have you figured out what side you’re going to end up on? 

she’s taking in your words, it’s obvious in her face that she’s listening. maybe she’s thinking of, tasting the bitter tackiness that’s settled into the shoulders of the umbrella-wielding men and their putrid grins, even though she can’t pinpoint those exact images you’ve got in your head. maybe she’s ignoring it, hanging onto the bit of hope you’re telling her to have. maybe she’s

                                          ---- wonders.

oh, you’ve hit something there. the moment you say that, something sparks in her eyes and she is pushing it down, you know her well enough to see that. her eyes have widened, her act at being human, that controlled breathing she does to put you and everyone else at ease, she’s dropped it. what’s that in her eyes right now? it’s not hope, no. maybe fear? maybe anger? but what of and what for? you’re continuing on, you have to finish this thought, but you ought to take note of that. you’ve hit a nerve.

clara oswald, getting jostled that badly with one little observation. hm.

she’s swallowing now, letting you finish up, getting that humanity thing back in check, but this is not forgotten. 

you’re finished now, and clara takes over. a smile gets plastered on her face, that scar that runs up her cheek from under her collar shifts with it. how familiar are you with her voice? you’ve been traveling together for over a year now, but some things can’t exactly get changed, not easily. not with someone like you.

‘yeah, i suppose you’re right, this can’t all be for nothing.’ her voice is slightly wrong, like when the audio of a movie never synched right with the film underneath it. the smile she’s giving you isn’t quite right either, maybe that’s it. oh well, it’s something that can be ignored. this isn’t unusual, it’s simply her lying to herself, you’ve seen that enough before. 

that reflection of yours certainly has.

she’s moving on now, though, and’s speaking up again, saying something that actually seems quite honest about how i have to believe that, for my own sake and besides, i trust you with at least 20 percent of me, we’ll make it through this alright and do what we can.

“   c’mon  ,   ”

there’s a barest flush of boozy pink which rolls up the back of tim’s neck  ,  up his cheeks  ,  across his nose  ,  as he extends a jovial arm and takes the hand of the other.      the grin spread crookedly  ,  sweet and sticky as jam  ,  across his lips  ,  is sincere if audacious  ,  and his voice is thick with warm  ,  encouraging laughter.

standing in the haphazardly cleared space and swaying to no particular melody  ,  there is a quiet elation to timothy stoker.     he’s a good dancer  ,  really ought to be considering how long he’s been doing it  ;  but as with all the best things in life  ,  it’s far ,  far less fun doing it alone  ,  especially with a prospective partner already so nearby  —   even if they don’t yet know  ,  they’re dancing too.

“   it’s really not so hard as you think  ,  just put a hand on my shoulder  ,  mmhmm—   just like that—-   look  ,  you’re a natural.   can even step on my toes if you like—   ”

it smells like vanilla in her flat. not because of anything like cooking or baking, she’s never been any good at things like that, but rather the candles dotted throughout, bathing the both of them in a warm glow. the power had dotted out ages ago, the little flames acting as a solid, almost atmospheric substitute. there’s something sweet about it all. this night is the first bite of a soufflé.

‘timothy stoker, you’re gonna take us both down with that swayin’.’ 

the words are brighter than the flames, and her laugh even warmer and there’s no malice behind either, no annoyance, just a soft laughter and a grin to match as she lets him pull her up. one hand stays clasped in his, the other moves to his shoulder. her thumb runs over a spot there.

HE LETS HIMSELF IN AFTER THE BROADCAST IS DONE. tomorrow is the one night per week where there is no signal spilling forth from the old radio tower, no songs and no stories from callers. just silence, and in some ways it makes it the most dangerous night of the week. not if you’re him, of course. but it is very much the case for everyone else. after a long moment, he pauses and listens. takes a moment. something nudges him slightly – not in the way that he feels impulses from the thing below the station, but a warmth, a something that draws the eye in a certain direction and says there.

thank you, he murmurs up at the ceiling, and then he goes, descending down the short staircase and towards the kitchen.

sodium light. the warmth of the kitchen. the smell of coffee brewing. he lets his shoulders drop by a few degrees, shuffling over behind clara. apparently he walks too quietly. he’s had complaints, not that he cares much. he’s never known any other way to move, the residual effects of a household where presence could cause ire. 

this isn’t like that, of course. but some habits can’t ever be shaken, not even after so long.

he slides an arm around clara’s waist and lets his chin rest against her shoulder for a moment, certain that he won’t startle her no matter how quiet he is. he closes his eyes for a moment. ❝ the broadcast went a little longer tonight, ❞ he murmurs after a moment, eyes still shut. ❝ you didn’t have to wait for me to make coffee. ❞

still, he sounds grateful. little creature comforts make things easier on a day to day basis. 

there are pros and cons to being alive, she’s found. some pros she’s taken note of since coming back to this state: the hunger, the restlessness, the sensation. some cons: the hunger, the restlessness, the sensation. she missed all of it when it was gone, and she savors every second of each now that she’s back, but given elliot’s... work schedule, it can be a bit difficult. 

this isn’t the first time she’s pulled an all-nighter to greet him in the morning hours, when the airwaves settle, but this one was, for whatever reason, particularly tough. her eyes are bleary, and her head aches more than a little bit, but she’s ignoring it in order to focus on the mild reprieve of making cinnamon rolls and coffee. breakfast for the both of them, an activity for her, something to occupy the hour or so between the ‘good morning’ said gently to his listeners   ( her, especially, she feels when he says it for her )   while he signs off for the night and the sound of his boots against the linoleum of the tardis’ kitchen.

he comes in and he settles against her and she lets her eyes close and she rests her head against his and all the while dough-sticky hands come up to cover and hold the collection of bone caressing her waist. he is home and she feels loved. there is coffee in the air.

‘i figured as much, i was listenin’ in,’ she says, but it isn’t necessary. she knows that he knows, and he knows that she knows he knows. it’s a mime of normalcy, and it’s one that comes as easy as the kiss she presses to the side of his head before resuming her rest there. 

❝ IS THAT SUPPOSED TO SCARE ME OFF OR SOMETHING? ❞ 

it’s good to joke about the things that are true. disguises the truth. the night is late. it’s so late that even new york is relatively quiet. there are still pedestrians, still people out and about because there are never not people out, but it’s the closest the city gets to silent. they aren’t arguing, precisely. they don’t really argue in the way that most people do that often. maybe he’s gotten too good at arguing in his own favor. maybe clara just figures that he’d enjoy it too much, and doesn’t want to give him the visceral satisfaction. instead, they have moments like this, of genuine vulnerability so disarming that elliot isn’t really sure what to do with it. it’s worse if it’s coming from him, of course. he tries his best to not be vulnerable in front of anyone, even his fucking therapist, as much as he’s learned that he can be by now. there’s… something. some sense of comfort. some admittance that rather than shouting, they can admit the things that they’re scared of.

or that scare the other person.

elliot knows that he can’t really scare clara. anything he does that might be marginally frightening is so genuinely meaningless compared to the shit she’s used to. hacking isn’t even something that she’s worried about. but she is very capable of scaring him, and that’s something he hates. he can feel it – the panic, the anxiety, when she admits that she can push too hard. she means pushing herself too hard. she means disappearing on the adventures that always seem to make her so happy.

there’s a poisonous thought that he hasn’t vocalized to anyone. not to krista. not to clara. not to darlene. it stays with him, though, and between him and sam and mr. robot. they’ve talked about it sometimes. they’ve considered it from all angles, argued every side, and the question still comes up: what if it isn’t enough? what if they can’t do enough? clara can do and see all of this, and maybe it’s not for him. it shouldn’t be. he doesn’t think it would be good for him, to have the ability to escape his life like that and look the other way. he has worked so fucking hard, after everything, to make his life finally his in a way that means something.

and if he starts running away from it now, he’d probably just disappear. he can imagine it. opening a door. walking through it. going away. 

that’s why he doesn’t go. it’s why he stays, and works, and buries himself in normalcy even on nights when clara’s gone. sometimes she’s gone for five minutes but ends up in the wrong apartment. one time, horrifyingly, she was gone for an entire fucking week and he just didn’t really get updates. then she was back and it was like nothing happened.

but you don’t just say you’re scaring me to someone without the full repercussions mapped out. especially when he sometimes feels like it’s so fucking irrational. it makes clara happy. he should support it, but he just can’t. all he can see is an endless number of hypotheticals where she says goodbye and then she disappears. 

❝ i know, ❞ he says quietly. ❝ i know you do. and it does.. worry me. ❞ there we go. that’s a milder synonym. a kinder one. his whole life has been spent trying to find ways to whittle down the anxiety and the fear into something kinder. he still rarely believes in goodness. but he knows what happens when he tries to push people away. it doesn’t work. ❝ i just don’t think you should try and change yourself just because you can tell i’m stressed. i’m always fucking stressed anyway. that’s not fair to you. ❞

then what’s the fair arrangement? disagreement forces change. a stalemate only lasts forever in chess games and worlds that aren’t like this one, where they’re different people ❝ we’ll figure it out, ❞ he says. he reaches for her hand and squeezes it. ❝ we always do.  ❞

jokes are good. they’re always good. she doesn’t care about linda’s scolding or her dad’s little puzzled looks or laura’s professional concern or her gran’s personal one--joking helps. in the face of danger it helps you see clearer, and after horrible things it helps you bring light. she doesn’t really want to think about what jokes mean for them right now. 

but jokes are always good, right?

‘you could use a little scarin’--i am very scary, mr. alderson.’    an attempt at a laugh forces itself out of her throat, even as her hands tremble. she wants them to work out, maybe more than anything else she wants, but there’s a but hanging in the air and it has been for ages and tonight she’s finally, finally poking it like it’s some sort of massive eye. she’s afraid of what her poke is gonna do. it’d started small, with a talk about the latest trip she’d gone on, then grew to a mention of something she’d done, something that terrified her and made her think.  ( even if only for a moment )   that she might not come home, then it grew more and more until they were here.

she can’t tell if he’s looking at her. she refuses to look at him. she squeezes back with a married ease. the air is a sick yellow.

‘i think... i think we need to think about this. about us. about whatever the hell will happen if i can’t stop this course that i’m on,’    she says, her face looking more aged than usual. her birthday was a couple months ago; however, she doubts it was accurate. according to known time, she’s supposed to be 28 right now, give a couple months, but she knows, deep down, she knows. the last four or five years haven’t been four or five years. elliot’s known her since november of 2010, it is february of 2015, he has known her a little over four years, she’s known him a little over ▇▇. she looks in the mirror sometimes and wonders what face she’d see if she never met the doctor. ... she can’t imagine it.

she can’t image anything without the doctor. she thinks she was able to, at one point, but those memories are hazy. time and distance are amazing things. there are other explanations too, but   ( there are so many bloody  ‘but’s  in her life right now she wants to scream )   that’s not what matters, she just--she can’t let it matter. letting it matter means thinking about it and right now that is 

not the bloody focus, clara, get it together.

her breathing shakes. she’s got to get back to the current considerations. she still can’t look at him. the air is a sick yellow.

she can’t imagine anything without the doctor. that’s where she was, right? she can’t imagine anything without the doctor, because he has become essential to her. she’s tried to quit, five times she can remember when she thinks about it, but it’s never stuck, she doesn’t want something like that to stick when she loves him like she does. her love for the doctor does not and will not negate her love for elliot but, in the few moments she lets herself honest with herself, she lets herself acknowledge that the love is there. maybe not romantic, but deep. lasting.

the doctor is a part of her life, the tardis is a part of her picture of home, their travels are just her. when she’s in that tardis, she is seen and she is essential and she is allowed to bear witness to countless wonders. the last two on their own would be hell to quit, but she doesn’t know if she’d ever be able to fully quit the first. even in those times she really, earnestly tried to stop this life, she allowed herself to picture him coming over for family dinners and holidays and lovely, little drop ins; she saw him staying him and her growing old and their friendship never ending and she would fuss about grey hairs and wrinkles and he would stare and study and see her for several moments before awfully, honestly, earnestly going clara oswald, you will never look any different to me and breaking the silence that will follow those words with a question about her day or some derogatory comment about her blouse. she loves elliot, but she will never be able to give that future up.

i love elliot,    and   i will never be able to give that future up.

she swallows. she feels like static. her head is woozy. only a beat or two of silence have passed since she last spoke. the air is a sick yellow.

‘i’m not unaware of how much this all hurts you, okay? i’m not stupid. you are... god, it’s hard to even bloody describe.’    how long has her voice been strained? how many tears have spilled since they first began this talk? she didn’t notice when either of those began, she’s only barely noticed them now. the concrete stairs they’re sitting on are pressing into her thighs.    ‘you are a wonder. you’re more than a wonder, more than any i’ve ever gotten to see, before and after the doctor became a part of me.’         not of my life, of me.         ‘you make me happy, you make me feel safe, you make me feel loved, you make me smile, you make me think that i’m as full of wonders as you are.’   

the hand not in his wipes at her cheeks and she’s still not looking at him in the utter new york silence that follows. the eye demands to be poked. 

‘but,’ she’s beginning to hate that word, she really fucking is, ‘i also know me. i know the me i was before we became us and i know the me now and i am so sorry, elliot, but i don’t think i’ll ever be able to fully stop this life. maybe the running away, i can’t do that forever, but...’

the doctor.

his name is unspoken, but it’s still hanging there, along with how she can’t give up seeing him, even if the wonders are put on pause or stopped, he’s her person, he knows her in an intrinsic way she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to describe to anyone, including herself. she loves elliot and she loves the doctor, and she’s not sure exactly how different those loves are from each other. there are no ‘but’s left in this entry.