Lark has considered their options. They really have. They’ve tried everything - messing with the past, messing with the future, making as much of a fuss in the present as they can - but nothing has changed. Nothing important, nothing unimportant, nothing at all.
Everything remains just the same as it always has, and they can’t take it any longer. They aren’t sure how they thought they could or how they made it this long before they hit their breaking point. Everyone’s got one, don’t they? That little line that everyone toes along when they’re trying to keep their lives balanced between normality and despair.
Well, they’ve been shoved over to the other side of that line for years now, and they are tired of trying to get back to where they were. If that’s even possible. They’re tired of everything, really. The world is dull and gray and awful and they don’t want to play any part in a timeline that forces them towards an awful, inevitable ending like the one they saw a little over two years ago. Two years, ten months, a week and three days. Twenty two hours and seven seconds, eight seconds, nine seconds…
Maybe… maybe it’s time to try something a little more drastic. They swallow around nothing, their throat terribly dry, and they look down at their hands. No, not just their hands, they won’t lie to themself. They’re really looking at the gun that rests in their palms, the metal warm in their grasp. The metal was once well-polished but is now scratched and scuffed, and they take a grim satisfaction in scoring a new line through the black paint with their thumbnail.
They rub a thumb over the - what’s it called, the handle? - smoothing over the scratch again. The woman they stole it from isn’t someone they want to think about, but she’s too tied up in all of this for them to just forget about her entirely. Unless, unless, unless. Unless this works. They aren’t really sure what all is in this thing, but they’re sure it would be enough.
This is too much. It’s the opposite of what they want, really. But maybe - maybe, maybe, maybe - the paradox might be enough to send everything crashing down, just like they do want. Maybe it would mean they could be free, in some way.
Just as they think they might have finally gathered the courage to raise the gun, they hear a soft chime and another hand presses it back down, flat against their lap. It’s a familiar hand, pale, long-fingered, scars criss-crossing the back of it. They don’t look up to see its owner, but the voice reaches their ears regardless.
“No.”
Tears well in their eyes, falling down their cheeks in salty lines that they don’t bother trying to wipe away. They’re too tired to fight, too tired to do more than blink in a futile effort to clear their vision. They keep their head down, even as a worn gray hoodie and silver hair shift in their periphery, the bed dipping as the person sits beside them.
“Not today, not ever. No,” the voice repeats, firm. They know themself, though, and they can hear the undercurrent of something else, something understanding or maybe uncertain or maybe just sad. Lark sobs, feeling terribly young and terribly confused and so, so tired and lost. Everything is terrible, and they don’t see any way it’s gonna get better. Ever, ever, ever.
“But if I-” their voice wavers, quiet and too low and they hate it, they hate it, they don’t have the control their older self does and it takes so long to learn but they can’t if they don’t have time- “I could- it would stop.”
They’re pleading, now, self-consciously aware of how young they sound, how young they are. Too young to deal with this crap, as their older self might say. A rough hand cradles their cheek, wiping at the still-falling tears with their thumb. They still have a grip on the gun, but it’s not going anywhere. Despite the gentleness of the touch holding it down and away from where it could hurt anybody, they’re all too aware that if it came down to it they wouldn’t win this fight. They never could.
A gusty sigh rocks the figure sitting beside them, and they feel it more than see it as their shoulders slump and their head dips in consideration. “Yes. You could, but it- it isn’t the right way. It isn’t what you want, not really.
“You want the pain and the not-knowing and the knowing to go away, I know. But this isn’t the answer, it can’t be. I wouldn’t be here if it was.”
“That’s the point!” They finally snap, jerking their head up to glare at the tired teenager slouched against the headboard. The exhausted pity in their eyes stops them in their tracks. It puts out the fire they just rekindled, and they’re left with nothing but soggy tinder and a desperation to make it different, this time. “You wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t have to- to- to follow this stupid loop, and march to my death!”
The darkness presses in around them and they can’t seem to get enough air, their breath coming short and their head aching. “If I-” they gulp down a breath that feels like nothing, but their lungs still inflate. They're still alive, and isn't it awful that that's the metric they measure everything by? “If I die here, then I don’t die there, and this whole thing unravels. It never happened, so this never happened, so then it did happen except it didn’t. A paradox, a big one. Everything goes away.”
“You don’t know what it would do,” the older teen says, shaking their head slowly and shifting to sit upright. But they still keep their hand over the firearm. They haven’t forgotten, or gotten distracted, or gone off script. Not even once. Not in all the time Lark has known their eldest self for, and that time covers their whole life. “I don’t know what it would do, but I know it wouldn’t be good. For anyone, not just us.”
They gesture with their free hand to the apartment around them, though Lark can tell they’re indicating something much bigger. “You have to keep going, even though it’s hard. Even though some days you want to lay down on the ground and never get up again, or set everything on fire and then walk into the flames. Living is the hardest thing anyone will ever ask you to do, trust me. But you can’t stop moving forward. I know you can do it. I’ve been there, and we got through it, and we are going to make the most of the time we do have.”
Lark looks down again, sniffling. They shake their head with a small, helpless sound, freeing one hand to rub at their face. They press their palm hard into their eye, until they see starbursts behind their eyelids.
“There is so much you have left to do. People you’ll meet, and places you’ll go, and things you’ll get to do.” Their voice picks up strength the longer they go on, ringing with undeniable truth. “You still have to meet the love of your life, and drag your dumbass friends out of the way of their own stupidity, and climb the Great Pyramid just to watch the stars and get yelled at by security. You wouldn’t want to miss that, now would you?”
Despite themself, Lark feels a watery laugh bubble up as a gentle hand runs through their hair, working through a tangle with delicate precision. And they can’t do it anymore. They don’t think they ever could. They release the gun with a huff and a sniff, and their older self pulls the weapon away. They don’t see where they put it, and they don’t care.
Their laughter turns to sniffles, and then they’re sobbing in earnest, wailing like a lost child. Like now that they’ve started they don’t know how to stop.
They curl their fingers into soft, dry fabric as it encompasses them. It takes them too long to realize that their older self has pulled them into a hug, and another long moment passes before they register the hand carding through their hair. Stubby fingernails scritch at their scalp, smooth their hair down, rub at their back. Always in motion, always full of momentum like they aren’t sure they’ll be able to pick themself back up again if they stop for even a moment.
“It’s going to be okay. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, kid.”
They feel sleep pressing in on them as they’re rocked from side to side, slowly, listening to the faint hum of a familiar tune that they remember their mother singing, what feels like a lifetime ago. It’s a relief when the oblivion of unconsciousness rises up to meet them, even if it wasn’t the oblivion they thought they’d be facing tonight.
It's better this way, they decide even as their eyes slide shut. Much better.
(That night wasn't the last time they'd turn their back on dying, but it might have been the first. Trying to cheat their death only brought them to one closed door after another. Figuring out how to spend their life, on the other hand, now there was a road they were eager to walk. There were miles between them and the horizon, back then, so many secrets to uncover and trails to blaze. Years to burn, before they had to climb that cliff again.)
