filesnotfound:
maybe it’s cowardly of him, but tyrell starts with the easy part, once he’s back untouched in negative space: ‘ i guessed as much. ’
the money, he means - he’d cycled through a few burner phones until he realised no one tries to call or look up or hack dead people, and then - the alert in his account, too. even on the other side of the world. it could only have meant a few things, and - it had kicked him out of some pleasant inactivity. started him listening again; the news, the police channels, but -
they’d left out the part about the nuclear plant, or at least the part where elliot was there, and something twists uncomfortably in tyrell’s ribcage. ( nothing to do with it. there’s no one to rattle or threaten or hurt or pressure and he doesn’t know how else to help. if elliot even wants that, after everything. )
why are you here is the on the nose question that eats at him, too, and the honesty that comes on its heels even startles tyrell: ‘ because i’m selfish. ’ a twitchy shake of the head. ‘ i thought: go somewhere no one knows who i am. but then that stopped working out. ’ he had the privacy and the stability and the routine of prescription refills and being able to sit out in the sun without looking over his shoulder but: in the end he’s selfish, and hateful, and still found himself wanting things he couldn’t have.
maybe it’s just easier to torture himself up close. ( but he should have stayed gone. maybe that’s what elliot’s really saying. tyrell’s jaw works, wishing elliot would just come out with it, then. ) quietly: ‘ do you want me to leave? ’
i don’t know what to say to that. selfish, and innumerable heavy implications that come with it, the idea that the selfless thing would’ve been to stay away. to stay away from elliot. my brow creases, and then he shakes his head. tyrell doesn’t have to go. which isn’t exactly the same thing as wanting him to stay, but — maybe the difference doesn’t matter.
“ i need to go back inside. ” it’s too cold, he’s been stood up too long. “ i’m in pain. i asked them not to give me morphine. ” does he even know i’m an addict ? does tyrell know - much about me a lot about me, anything about me ? it’s not a criticism, in elliot’s head; just a question, that - i don’t know if i’ve ever told him anything. and in the after, working my way through mr robot and the old elliot and my mother and the young elliot, and darlene, and krista, all of it — i feel like now it’s over, there’s nothing else to do but talk. we tried to kill someone together and spent all night walking through the woods and i’ve never said anything to him except i think you’re the only person i know that actually likes me. “ so i just ... need to go back to my room. you can come. ”
hands tuck into the grey hoodie pockets, and he starts to move away from the bench, from tyrell, but - looking back at him, when he does. waiting for tyrell to either follow him or walk away in the opposite direction. and stops, feet scuffing on the dry, hard ground halfway to the door and shivering. “ what does selfish mean, here ? i don’t get it. ”












