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It’s hard for me to look at you.
It’s not the first time nor the last that I’ve seen the two of them, wrapped in the same opaque black that holds the Dark Worlds together, the protean fluid inside of every structure. When I gave into temptation and learned what becomes of you, of us, I knew then I would need to commit every thought, every resource, every day to ensuring the worst case scenario never comes to pass.
Becoming one with me.
Noelle, I wish I could put a stop to it.
I have suffered this timeline again and again. And again.
I have gone through the motions so many times that I don’t react to them anymore.
I used to struggle when Queen had us captured. I used to have passion, when it would happen. I used to jump when things were meant to be surprising. When you’ve seen them as many times as I have, you don’t get surprised anymore. It’s like playing through your favorite game for the umpteenth time. Maybe it’s been twenty-five times, fifty, a hundred. I don’t know anymore.
Quantification would just be depressing.
The timeline is reborn, and so are we. It begins the same every single time, until I succumb to the temptation of knowing and a chance to save everything. I haven’t forgotten the first time, Noelle. I haven’t forgotten what you mean to me.
It begins the same every single time.
On your sixth birthday, we sit in the grass by the graveyard after they ditch us, where Gerson Boom’s bench is built after his death in a few years. You wrap a blade of grass around my left ring-finger and call it marriage, because you’ve just found out what marriage is that morning.
In your innocence, you never questioned that it’d been precisely what you wanted despite that I was different from everyone else in Hometown. You never questioned whether it was the best thing for you. Of course you didn't. We were six.
You wanted to be together forever. We didn’t know how any of it worked, but there was rarely a day when we didn’t see each other. I’d prank you with a lot of silly crap I shouldn’t have. I’d make you cry. Dess would beat me with her hollow bat to get me to stop, and it’d only work for a couple of hours before I had to torment you again. Nevertheless, it never took you more than a few minutes to forgive me. I didn’t deserve it.
It was paradise, Noelle, but you were the paradise above them all. I hear steel pan synth in my head whenever I see you. You gave me such vital belonging, in a place where most of the monsters couldn’t look me in the eyes. I was young. And so goddamn dumb. But I still wanted to give you forever, if it were possible.
I couldn’t even give you our childhoods.
When I gained the knowledge of the previous timelines again, I learned that you were born for martyrdom. You were groomed to take responsibility for everyone and everything from a very young age, because you were the apparent Holiday heir; Dess wasn't meant to be. I'd trade my life for yours an infinite amount of times over, if it meant that you could live, create and nurture to your heart’s content, and be happy with someone whom you love.
It could never be me, Noelle.
Together, we become something more rotten than anything you could find in a dumpster.
More rotten than anything you could find in a month-old grave.
Together, we doom ourselves and everyone else in a way that cannot be undone even with the reset of a timeline. Together, we become destruction instead of performers. Together, we make the entire setting go empty, even if it’s fake with everyone we’ve ever known.
Love will find its way to you, Noelle.
It could never be mine. It can’t be mine.