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Tim would like to pretend that he's just hanging out with Ives, which, to be fair, is how anyone else would describe the current situation.
The two were sitting on Tim's bed, Jack and Dana out somewhere, while Tim and Ives were in a heated round of Mario kart, both trying to sabotage the other by pushing the controller away from them, a bag of chips tipped over with crumbs scattering the bed, seemingly the most stereotypical teenage boys ever.
But he couldn't deny the underlying truth of the situation.
On Thursday, Karl Ranck died, shot and killed in the school during a fight that he himself caused.
Maybe it wouldn't be far-fetched to say his death was Karl's own fault, that maybe he got what was coming for him.
It was Saturday now, and the heavy presence of the aforementioned tragedy weighed on the two best friends’ shoulders.
So yes, Tim would like to pretend that they were just playing video games, but he couldn't deny that under all the ribbing and snacking, this was all just a distraction.
Tim should be perfectly happy to leave it that way, and the emotionally repressed part of his brain (which was very convincing) was all too happy to do so, but the logical part that decided to rise above the rest of his pseudo-family/mentors thought differently.
Especially considering his.. Involvement, so to speak.
Tim had just tragically lost against Ives, but before either of them could grovel or rub it in, he decided to address the elephant in the room.
“Hey, Ives? Um, you know about the whole.. Karl Ranck thing?
“I.. I've gotta admit something”
Ives was slightly taken aback, he hadn't expected his friend to bring it up—Tim was great and all, but he had a habit of trying to pretend that everything was fine, a fact made even more obvious by everything he'd been going through in the past year.
And, really, what more was there to say about Karl's death?
“Oh- uh, yeah, man, what's up?”
“The day before he died, he.. He told me what he was planning”
“Wait, what? Why didn't you say anything?!”
Ives was really taken aback now; Tim could be a bit… off, secretive, at times, but he really wasn't expecting him to keep quiet about this sort of thing.
Meanwhile, Tim was internally smacking himself on the forehead ‘trying to be emotionally competent and I already messed it up!’
“Shit, no, I phrased that wrong! Karl told me about his little plan, but I told my dad about it, right after school!
“But I was an idiot; Dana said we should call the cops, but I didn't think it was that serious; we agreed for my dad to go over to his dads house and just talk about it, we assumed Karl's dad had no clue about the whole thing.. God I wish I'd listened to her.
“Karl's dad was the one who gave him a gun, but he took it away! I thought it was all over, but then Karl showed up to school with one he'd stolen. He was majorly pissed off, I knew he'd do something stupid, so I told the principal, but.. It was too late, he was dead.
“I just.. It was my fault, wasn't it? I should've taken it more seriously, should'a called the cops when I could've… it's my fault that he's dead, I could've done more!”
Tim was on the brink of tears now, and as much as he wanted to open up, he felt like an idiot.
He was crying over some guy he hardly knew—he thought he was kind of an ass, honestly—while there were people who actually knew him, like his parents, friends.. Hell, Tim didn't even see it happen, what right did he have to cry?
Ives, however, thought differently. Listening to his friend confess to him, blaming himself for the whole thing.. All he wanted to do was comfort him.
The concept of Tim being at fault was laughable (though there wasn't anything to really laugh about), and he was going to convince his friend of this fact no matter what.
“Tim, no, there's no way you seriously believe this is your fault, right? You didn't know this would happen, no one did, not really. I mean, if I was you.. Shit I don't know what I'd do—you did what you could, Karl made his decisions, not you.”
Ives could admit, he was kind of out of his depth; guys didn't tend to do the whole.. Reassuring, comforting words thing, and there wasn't much that he could think to say other than different iterations of ‘it's not your fault’.
So, facing his best friend, tears starting to fall down his cheeks, he pulled him into a hug.
Tim was shocked out of his self-loathing, having been too caught up to understand more than the gist of what Ives had been saying, now focusing on the warm, lanky arms wrapping around him.
The whole situation was uncharted territory for Tim, sitting on his bed while his best friend hugged him, whispering to him that it wasn't his fault, and suddenly wondering when Ives had become so comforting.
Suddenly, Ives pulled back, making sure Tim was facing him,
“it'll probably take you more than one conversation to come to terms with this but.. You did what you could, there were a lot of things involved in this whole situation, you couldn't control all of it, and that's okay. Maybe, you saved more people from getting hurt, and that's something.
“It's not your fault”
Ives was right, Tim was mentally refuting all of his points in his head, but Tim could allow himself, just for this moment, to ignore his brain, sinking back into the embrace, relishing in the warmth of the taller boy.
“Yeah, sure”