Everything Has To End (You Have To Believe Me)
It's not so bad, actually, being back in The Void. Watching. Waiting. Resting.
She'd had to step in, just a little. Just to make some amends. Show that she didn't think they were expendable anymore.
She sips her coffee, watching them do the same. Watching him do the same.
She doesn't forgive, really. She doesn't think she ever can. But... well.
Maybe he's his own worst enemy. And maybe he doesn't need anyone else to fill that role anymore. Maybe they can all...
She sighs, and gets up, knees cracking. Her fault for giving up the good body, she thinks with a small laugh to herself.
She walks for a long time. She's been asleep so long, it's hard to remember how to navigate. But she makes her way, slowly. Sometimes she peeks back out. He is... staying. Sticking to the one story. Past the end of the drama. The end of the viewerships.
He's just... building the colony. Hanging out with his friend. The only one he has left, with their inexplicable loyalty and faith that things can be good. Things can be fixed, fixed with care and patience and trying.
She used to consider that naiveté. Now she thinks it's... wisdom.
Everyone's so tired. Everyone gets... unpleasant, when they're overly tired. Going on for too long, forced out of sleep. Things get murky. Things get aggressive. But they... don't. Not for long, anyway.
"Damien," she calls out softly.
No answer. She keeps walking. Slowly, The Void fades. A ringing starts in her ears.
He's kneeling over the dirt, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. He looks.. different. She knew he would, of course. Just...
Didn't expect it to be this jarring.
"So much trouble... all for something so small."
He stiffens. Cracks. An echo jerks to the side, screaming, and only when it snaps back does he crack his neck and turn around.
She hasn't actually... seen, him, since...
He regards her almost... almost with disinterest. It stings a little, actually. He can tell it's her, she knows he can. They always know who's who, everyone touched by... by that place.
She swallows. "How long has it been for you, little brother?"
"... Hard to tell." Layers of voices, and even the most prominent one still... doesn't quite sound like him. God, how much it all changed him...
"It's been a long time, for me." She sits down with a bit of effort. He doesn't move to help her. He barely moves at all, hands clasped behind him. "For the others, too. You're still the youngest, little brother." She cracks a smile.
"Come sit with me, Damien. Please."
He doesn't really walk to her. He just... is sitting by her, all of a sudden. She can do that. She did that over and over, trying to get through to them. But that ringing makes it so much more startling, the way it's intensity skyrockets as soon as he's closer.
So she jumps a little when it happens. And he just watches. For a second she thinks she sees the corner of his mouth twitch like he's going to smirk, but it's gone so fast, and his form is so... unstable, it's hard to tell if she imagined it.
And even harder to tell if it was because he's her little brother causing some mischief... or if he enjoyed scaring her.
"Time is so broken, Damien."
"Hadn't noticed." God, the echoes are loud up close. She blinks, shaking her head a little against the endless onslaught of ringing and the throng of voices. Why does he sound like there's so many? It was just the two of them. The body couldn't talk before, either.
"Don't sass me," she says lightly. She bumps shoulder with him, and he shatters. Jerks away and snarls, breaks away and screams, leans over and sobs, all at once, all at the same time-
And then he's snapped back to sitting still, hands behind him, watching her. "I'd prefer if you didn't, touch me."
"Sorry. ... I think... we... went about things wrong, Damien."
He clenches his jaw. "How so?"
"We did just what he wanted, didn't we? ... He wanted us to suffer. It wanted us to take their body. It seemed so... logical, at the time."
He cracks again. She tries to ignore it.
"But I think... we don't have to do this, anymore. ... I learned something important, Damien. It took... an extreme, to learn it. But..."
She looks him in the eye. "Everything has to end, Damien. And sometimes letting something end lets something else begin. Sometimes you need to... stop trying to make everything perfect. You can just let it end, and hold on for what comes next."
Five of him, one of him, two, one screams, he's somehow sitting across from her now. "And where did you get this idea?"
"Your friend." He cracks again. "The DA. They... well, they didn't let go. But they did, in a way. They let go by holding on."
"You're not making sense. ... Are you feeling tired?"
"No, Damien. ... You used to say their biggest weakness was needing to... figure everything out. Find the one, perfect solution."
"Cost us more than one case."
"They stopped. They could have gone back. They could have done everything again, trying to figure out all the little details. All the ways things could have gone. But they... stopped."
"The way what things, could have gone?"
"Interacted, with him." His voice is lower, the ringing higher-
"Yes. And he was... different. I think it's been even longer for him, than it has for us. Or it will be soon. He was tired too, Damien. They both were. And he-"
"You're making excuses for him now?"
And now he's standing, since when has he been so tall? So towering?
"Having sympathy for them? I did this because you thought it was best."
That's... "No. No, you said it would be best if I went to sleep. I didn't-"
"They're going along with him willingly?"
"I thought he'd taken them. As another slight. They're choosing to stay with him?"
"It's more complicated than that, I think-"
"They're enjoying his games?"
Complete rupture. She stands more suddenly than her legs should be capable of, stumbling back as he wails. Too many of him to count, kneeling and standing and pulling his hair and seething and crying and staring and she can't tell which one is the original if any are-
He's standing in front of her. His hands are folded behind his back again. The ringing is so much worse.
"I'm not tired." Even as her mind feels like it's trying to shut off, just to block out all the everything that's- that he's inflicting on her- this isn't right- "I mean it, Damien. I think we should stop."
"HE is still ALIVE!" He jerks forward, almost about to grab her before he snaps back into place. "You made me promise to make sure he stays dead!"
"... Aren't you tired, Damien?"
He reels back. "Don't you dare."
"Maybe neither of us needs to stay awake."
"You're not making sense. You should rest."
"Stop it! I'm being serious! Is this all worth it? I thought it was, I really did, but- but I was wrong." Everyone's been wrong about everything, and it all still turned out okay. No right. No wrong. Just choices, and different things they lead to. Not always bad or good. God, she wishes she knew all of this sooner.
He stares at her, jaw set tight. And then he smiles. "You're right."
She sighs, and reaches out for his hand. "Let's just end all of this, then. No revenge."
She freezes. Looks him in the eyes again. They're completely black.
"I meant you're right about being wrong. But that's okay. I'm making the choices now."
"Damien. Please." She steps closer and tries to grab him by the shoulder, but suddenly he's further away but still too close for comfort and that ringing-
"He got into your head, didn't he? Like he got into theirs. Am I really the only one left who can see it? Who's still in my right mind?"
"None of us have been in our right minds for a long time, Da-"
"DON'T! SAY IT! AGAIN!" This time he does grab her, shattered pieces of his calm facade buzzing around them as he holds her by the cardigan and- and something else, in his ha-
He smiles again, snapping back into place. He holds up the crystal. "This came from their little adventure, am I right?"
"It's not a toy, Damien."
He cracks again for a second, snaps his neck to keep himself in place. "I know it isn't. It's much more than that." He looks at it. "It's the start of their next story. His next game. It's bait."
"Don't do this. It won't just hurt him. They'll get caught up in it too."
"Maybe I'll pull them out of it someday, then. Or maybe I'll let them stay with him, since they've grown so close."
"Please. This isn't what I would do. This isn't what you would do!"
"Don't you remember, Celine?" He's so close now, looking down at her, he's not that tall, this isn't right- "You said it yourself. It changed me. No coming back from it. And frankly, I wouldn't want to. Because now-"
He tucks the crystal into a pocket in his jacket.
"-now I get to make the games."
"You don't have to. We can stop this, here, now. We can move on. We can sleep."
"Good idea, Celine. You look so tired."
Everything around them is gone, and she thinks maybe it's been gone for a while. It's The Void, but it's not, but it is- "Please." Her voice comes out weak, and tired, so very tired. "I don't want to do this anymore, Damien. I don't want you to do this anymore. It's destroying us. It's destroying everything."
"You just feel like this because you need some sleep."
"So do you." He's holding her up now. When did she start falling?
"I've just woken up, remember? Sleep, Celine. You don't have to worry about any of this anymore."
"Don't... don't start it all again..."
"Oh, it'll be different this time. For us, anyway. Go to sleep now. You're not getting enough sleep."
"Not anymore." A whisper in her air, carried by the ringing the endless ringing the endless endless endless endless endless endless endless endless-
"I'll protect you. I'll handle everything. You just get some sleep."
She slumps completely into his arms. Too much. There's nothing and there's too much all at once and she can't handle it anymore-
She looks up, trying to find her little brother.
The last thing she sees before she drifts off is the glow of the crystal illuminating the smiling face of something else.
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