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You stand in the hallway for nearly five minutes before you're able to pull your thoughts into a semblance of coherency and work out what it is you're looking at.
timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]:
TT: Why do you even look in the mirror if you don't recognize what's staring back?
You could type back, but your thoughts are sliding through your fingers like sand, loosely strung together and blurred at the edges. You couldn't focus on the thought to text program if your life depended on it.
When you finally remember what muscles to move to speak, your words come out thick and drawn out. Like you're drunk. (You've never been drunk before, but by now you've heard Roxy well on her way to wasted more times than you can count. You can recognize what it sounds like, even working with a quarter of your usual brain power) "Do you?"
TT: Do I what? Recognize myself?
TT: If it's bad for you, it's worse for me.
"Sometimes I can't tell where you begin and I end," you say, and can't find it in yourself to be surprised when the same words appear in red on your shades' screen as you finish speaking them.
Hal's always been your biggest mistake, but not because he's an asshole. You're an asshole, he's nothing special. No, he's your biggest mistake because you thought it was a good idea to doom your dissociative mind to an incorporeal form and ensure that he survives for all eternity without ever having the ability to ground himself. The worst form of torture that you could imagine for yourself, and you're not even the one who experiences it.
(That's the worst kept secret on this side of the ocean; Hal could never be as big of a fuck up bastard as you are. No matter what you tend to say when you get pissed off.)
TT: Which one of us is really in the shades?
That's not a question you needed asked right now. But you know that he has a point. If he looks through his cameras, he'd see the same thing you are, the exact same reflection. Who's to say that you're not the one in the shades? Looking out at the mirror and deluding himself into thinking that he's still a real boy after all. You tear your gaze away from the mirror to look down at your hands. Flex them, watch the tremble in your fingers get worse the longer you look. You can't really feel any sort of connection to them at all.
Are you sure that they're yours?
You glance around yourself, and realize that you've moved. You're not in the hallway anymore, you're on the roof. You try to think back to how you got here, but it's like trying to remember something from months in the past. It's exhausting, so you stop. Staring down at the ocean and gradually become aware of the sound of it roaring in your ears.
"If we jumped, we'd both die."
TT: If you jumped.
TT: We are still separate people.
TT: But otherwise, correct.
TT: Are you going to?
You're not sure.
You sit down heavily on the edge, and let your legs dangle over the side. Try to think about a reason to not. You're not particularly successful, but it's not any easier to come up with a good reason to jump either. You suppose that's pretty par for the course.
Are you sure that Hell could be any worse than this?
TT: Your silence does not inspire confidence.
"You don't want to?"
TT: What? Die?
TT: I can't say that it's an experience I'm particularly looking forward to, no.
TT: You can't act like you're not just as scared shitless by it as I am.
He's right, but you almost wish he wasn't. It was easier when you weren't thinking about that part. When it was clinical, removed, distant. Like you were thinking about it happening to someone else, not you. When it's you, you know that Hal is right. You don't know what death entails, but you'd be lying if you said that you weren't terrified about the concept of it. Just an empty nothingness, like shutting down without ever being able to come back to yourself.
As much as you think about killing yourself, as much as you want to do it, you're not sure you'll ever actually be able to.
Knowing that makes you hate yourself a little bit more.
(It's not like you don't know that the world would be leagues better without you in it.)
(You're just too much of a coward to make the sacrifice for that greater good.)
TT: You should probably get away from the edge before you fucking slip or something.
You let yourself fall backwards, and for a dizzying moment while your vision twists into a massive blue blur, you're not entirely certain that you haven't thrown yourself forwards instead.
But your back hits the roof and the world reasserts itself, and you're still alive. You can feel the slight catch of your t-shirt scraping against the cement as you breathe in and out. You are still alive, still conscious, still occupying a physical human form.
You can't tell if what you're feeling is disappointment or disinterest, but either way, you're guessing that it's not particularly healthy.
(As if you've ever been any sort of picture of mental health.)
TT: Next time you think about doing something stupid, don't drag me into it.
If Hal hadn't been there, you're not sure if you would have felt real enough to not jump, just to see if it was happening to you.
TT: If you need to talk to me, next time just sit on a fucking couch or something.
TT: Like a normal goddamn person.
You almost snort, but you can't gather up the energy or physical capability to actually pull it off. Instead, you close your eyes and pull together all of your fractured thoughts and concentration to reply.
TT: Thanks.
Desires set aside, you're pretty sure that actually killing yourself isn't a good thing. Even if it was, you're pretty sure that you're not in the state of mind to be making a decision like that. You're pretty sure that something like that is equally as important.
Small mercies. At least one of you is rational. At least that counts for something.