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Here's the thing. Elliot doesn't do well with anger but he vibes much less with confusion and something about this whole mess just isn't adding up. He's not stupid, he never was, he just learned far too soon that it was better to be pretty and act dumb than to ever let people actually know he could see right through them. A decoy is a deception made out of lies, and people are much the same.
But then there's time, the most vicious force in the universe. It only ever takes, it bleeds everyone until they have no time left. Elliott thinks of time as a spectre, a looming, roiling shadow, endlessly patient because time only has to wait.
In time, his mother will die. In time, she will expire piece by piece and the thing that claims her body to be buried in the ground will not be her anymore. Time has already taken Evelyn Witt, snatched away the moments she thought were hers and left only fog in its wake. Time is killing her, as it does all things, but with a brutal, heartless edge.
He hasn't accepted it but he has learned to live with it. Learned to live with the howling accusations that she does not recognise her own son before her, numb now to the harsh words of anger that slip from his dying mother's mouth. Evelyn Witt loved her sons - the monster in her brain claims not to know them.
And Elliott sees time painted on the face of those he surrounds himself with. Renee, who is trying to remember time that is hidden from her, as scared of the barrier between herself and her memories as she is to break through it and Ramya, for whom time happens so fast. Just a kid with an age of weight and expectation upon her. Ramya should simply not be, but time gave her nothing except brevity, and she is a broken person wrapped in the humour and untruths that can barely keep the years at bay.
Makoa too, with his cheerful words and friendly smiles, the weight of the time lost to another behind the bars of a cell etched into the corner of his eyes. Bloodhound, who knows time is their master and falls in line, over and over, one tragedy to the next like an appointment to keep.
Octavio, who experiences time in bursts of speed, stopping and starting again, scared to slow down and let time catch up with him. And Ajay, who carries all those lost moments in her heart like poison, bleeding out the strangest kind of love to make sure Octavio never need stop running.
The simulacrum, who has seen time coil back on itself like a snake, who has lived too many lifetimes and ended countless more. The chemist, on borrowed time, coughing out minutes and spitting bloodied seconds into the sink.
Loba, who thought she only ever needed time enough to claim her revenge and found that she needed more, because her heart sang for it when Anita fell into her world and Anita herself, in a limbo, where the time it takes to find her solace is too much, far too much.
Kairi, living on the edge of the past, claiming freedom from it but never quite able to let it go and the robot, who could live forever if he chose. The only one among them not beholden to time until it takes its final revenge and anhiliates all. Pathfinder's time is spelled out in rusted joints and memory files of long lost friends. Loneliness awaits him, and nothing more, and Elliott cares about that because he cannot live forever.
And then there is the girl, the one who doesn't have to worry about time because her life is so alive. Natalie will age, she will die, but her life will be a roadmap of all she has done, all she could do, outside of time because she does not fear it. When time moves in so soon it makes itself smaller, and loss after loss before she had even known how to hold her own head up cannot touch her anymore.
But Elliott.... Elliott only has time. Times. Times that are like thorns in his heart. Time is at its most cruel when it pervades as memories, and memories are all he has left.
A memory is dead time. Long ago time that means nothing. Does not change or alter. Memories stay the same.
He remembers his brothers like a static tableaux, the same scene over and over because he cannot make any new ones. Time takes and it takes without conscience. It has taken everything from him.
He sees Mary, who knows she will win a small victory against it at the cost of her own humanity, and he does not envy her. All the knowledge she has never shared because time is fickle and breakable and brittle. All that she knows, all the stories and memories told to her and yet she is silent. One day Mary will conquer time, take back what should never be taken but with it is the burden of knowledge. She sees Makoa's father injured with hindsight, sees the three elder Witt brothers board their transport to Gaea with silence, knowing they will not return as she comforts their little brother in the future and says nothing. Elliott does not envy her, but he does understand.
Walter is time. Hard learned lessons and gruff truths that only time can explain completely. Experience under layers of knowing that it means fuck all when your life is one punch after another. Walter knows that time will happen, and all a person can do is hope to endure.
Elliott isn't usually so philosophical. He doesn't have the energy. The dead are dead and dying soon behind them, regardless of love. Love and time are enemies, and love always loses in the end.
Taejoon is love. Taejoon is a man who does not have much time at all. Elliott sees him and hears him and understands that there is a deadline to him, an end. It may be soon. Time cannot touch Taejoon because he has simply stood against it. As long as it takes is as long as it takes. Taejoon will turn grey and become feeble, but he will never stop.
Time cannot touch him, because Taejoon does not exist in years. He exists in seconds, moments. Fleeting reality that is always subject to change and he will not indulge time by letting it take root.
Elliott kisses him as a fleeting second of weakness ensnares him.
Taejoon kisses him back but then the moment is gone and Taejoon is somewhere else.
Elliott falls in love slowly. Taejoon simply wakes up one day and realises it is so.
Elliott is the worst kind of burden, because he is time for Taejoon. Time wasted, time lost, time he cannot afford indulged in things he gave up long ago. Elliott stands still and waits for time to crash over him like a tidal wave. Taejoon drags him up gasping in the shallows.
Taejoon runs ahead of time's sharp, penetrating fingers. He blindsides it, moving on without stopping and Elliott doesn't know how to live like that. For Taejoon, time is the thing there is simply not enough of so he doesn't waste a single second. Elliott sees time as a comfort and a bastard. Every second in Taejoon's arms is a gift, tainted by the warning that nothing good can last.
They're in love, in a way, but it's the hollow kind. Elliott adores Taejoon and Taejoon worships him, but Elliott is an obstacle in the way of a far more important thing. Forever family means forever, and time has no authority in a place where it can not exist. On and on and on. Elliott's family were temporary, and he is picking up new pieces of the concept to keep the idea going but Taejoon? Taejoon will bring his sister home, in time.
Years slip by. Elliott hasn't seen Taejoon since the day the first tendrils of grey laced through his curls. Time to move on, Taejoon had said with weeping eyes and aching heart, and Elliott was alone again.
Closing time. He locks the doors to the Lounge and longs for his bed. Hours have been longer than usual today.
There is a faint tapping on the glass, keeping rhythm with his heart.
Taejoon stands before him, older now, tainted by the time he cared not for, relentless and persistent to change him nonetheless.
Elliott kisses him, because there is no more time to waste.
Taejoon pledges all his remaining hours to Elliott. He's done, it's over. Time has laid a claim to Taejoon's life and however it turned out is unchangeable memories now.
Elliott takes him in his arms and breathes out for the first time in years.
Time is impatient and unforgiving. It's gone before it even drew notice but time comes in many forms. Anticipation. Healing. Fear.
And waiting. Time spent waiting is still time spent, and Elliott was always waiting for Taejoon.