Network; @XXDARK_STARXX

[omniavincit]

WHO: William and WHATEVER STUPID HANDLE YOUR CHARACTER IS USING
WHAT: Breaking in the network.
WHERE: The information...two-lane country road.
WHEN: Whenever you like (pre- or post-event...or lmao during...is fine)!

[ If one of the handles William selected at random from his phone's perplexing contacts list belongs to you, congratulations! That device you slipped in your pocket? Or squinted at in confusion? Or immediately fumbled, if you're William and can't seem to shake your current spell of bad luck?

It makes a noise. ]

FROM: @xxDARK_STARxx

What do the shadows look like to you?

Comments

[omniavincit]

Tell me about him?

[itselbitch]

He was the most generous soul I'd ever known, always willing to sacrifice for people he loved. He knew me in a way no one else did.

He was soft spoken compared to most others, and he pouted a lot when people talked over him or corrected him. It was really endearing. I liked him from the start. We used to stay up late drinking and talking about nothing important at all when everyone else had gone to bed. Life was so simple then. The universe had other plans, though.

There was another life we had. Another timeline, where we grew old together, far away from everything else. He was so beautiful without the burden of the world on his shoulders, and I loved him more than anything else. He loved me too because no matter what we always had each other.

He wanted that for us too. In our current lives. But I broke his heart. Because I was afraid.

one small breakdown later...

[omniavincit]

[ The wait's even longer this time around, William reading and rereading the words on his shitty phone. In this place scrubbed clean of language. He remembers the little book he gave Dolores, trying not to smear the ink or break the binding as he wrote out the inscription. He hasn't seen her in the shadows—wonders why that is, if it means he doesn't love her enough.

Is she thinking about him? Does she think about him? ]

That was you. The other world, whatever we're calling it. You're that person. Maybe you fucked things up here, but you made him happy somewhere. That's not nothing. It's a lot.

Is that what scared you? Happiness?

🤖🚫❤️😔

[itselbitch]

[ had it really been though? it seems impossible when he'd clearly had patience in that other life when he couldn't even let q's hope in their current timeline last for more than a minute. if he had really been so true to quentin, enough to make him happy, then how had it all gone so wrong? he'd even been selfish, using their friends' wishes to mask his own desire to keep q from being trapped for eternity to entertain an unspeakable yet childlike evil, far away from the rest of them. and to what end? instead of merely being held apart by something tangible, it had ended in irreversible death.

his own hands had done the work in dismantling whatever possibilities there could have been. as always. that was the problem. ]

It's a nice thought, if true. But in this timeline, that's all it is. It can't change anything.

I don't know that I can be afraid of happiness if it simply feels out of reach. It's been so long since I've even considered the likelihood of it. I don't remember all the details of the other world, but I imagine it had been sitting in my lap long before I realized what it actually was and that I could do anything with it.

I guess it's best put as I mastered the art of self-sabotage at a young age when I didn't even know the meaning of the word, and I've never known how to stop.

Maybe if I could see what I did right in that other life I'd have an answer. But that's never how it works.