boywhoflew | [Darrow: Set for March 18th]

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[Darrow: Set for March 18th]

Carson had been camped out at a small table by the back wall of the library when his legs started getting that sensation of pins and needles, and with a sigh he had pushed away from the table to stretch and twist, popping his back with a satisfying crack. Glancing around he noted that while not empty, the building was beginning to quiet and empty out. He knew that there were several more hours before closing time came, but between his headache and the growing realization that he hadn't eaten since noon, he supposed he had reached the point of concession and it was time to pack up and head back to the apartment.

With one last stretch he hung his glasses from the collar of his t-shirt and began packing up his things. He took his time organizing his books and homework before shoving them carefully into his book-bag, and grabbed the few books he had been reviewing to place them back on their shelf.

It wasn't until he was back in the stacks, a neat and cozy nook in the back corner of the non-fiction section that he even thought to look at his phone. His focus had been on making sure the history texts were replaced with careful consideration in order to ward off the ire of the librarians, but when he idly checked the time on his homescreen he paused.

Six new voicemails.

With a surprised frown, he tried to remember if he had even heard it ring.

He checked his call log and noted there were no incoming calls for that day, and with a growing sense of confusion and irritation he clicked onto his voicemail and stuffed the phone between his ear and shoulder, juggling the last of the history books and hiking up the strap of his book-bag.

The book missed the shelf and hit the floor when he heard his mother's voice.

The exasperation was almost tangible, and despite not hearing his mother's voice in over a month it was suddenly so familiar that he had to choke back the urge to roll his eyes and laugh. Alternating rushes of hot and cold prickled his skin, but he tuned it away and found himself pulling the phone away from his ear to stare at it in surprise. He wasn't sure how it was even possible, but there was no mistaking it. Somehow even from a dimension away he could apparently still rely on Sheryl Phillips to call him up and give him shit.

With a stunned curiosity, he clicked to view the next message.

The initial curiosity began to bleed away, and something uncomfortable began to tighten in his chest in its place. His mother hadn't sounded like that in years. She sounded hysterical, and not in the way that she'd had too much wine and mixed her medications. If anything, it reminded him of the night his father had left. Of watching her scream and cry and throw a bathrobe at a retreating car. It was frantic and emotional, two things she was normally too sedated to muster the energy for. With a disconcerting sense of dread, he fumbled for the next message.

Afterwards he would wish he hadn't.

The first thing he heard was an inarticulate scream of frustration that made him wince. What followed was so much worse. His thoughts slowed when he heard the hitched breathing of tears, his heart stuttered and beat loudly in his chest when she stumbled over her words. But what really made him trip was the gasp of cops and say you're dead. It doused over him like ice, cold and prickling before giving way to a sense of acceptance he couldn't fight. He couldn't fight because of course he was dead. He had known, had been so sure before he had found his limbs working and his lungs breathing a month ago on the sidewalk.

The next message was begging. Shameless and desperate and tragic. It made his chest pinch and his mouth dry and he had to squeeze his eyes shut and try to make himself not feel anything. He didn't need to feel anything because it didn't matter.

The last two messages were just the muffled sound of heavy breathing and crying. Carson listened to them under a sweeping blanket of numbness. His bag strap slid off his shoulder and he followed it down to the ground, a roaring in his ears as he tried and failed to take in a steadying breath and caught his chest hitching painfully instead.

It shouldn't have mattered. He had suspected the moment he had arrived that he must have died, as nothing else bore any explanation. He had heard the thunder and smelt the rain, he had seen the bright flash and felt something sear and everything stop. But seconds later he had been lying on his back in Darrow, a buzzing in his ears and a promise for a new start and a new life. It hadn't occurred to him to wonder about how true it was once he had begun rebuilding and starting over. A new life he had been promised. But here he was, sitting on the floor in the back of the library, trying and failing to breathe because his mother was crying. His mother who ruined his life and made a mess of everything she touched was somewhere sobbing because he was dead. Him. The kid she often joked would have been better off as an abortion.

He pinched his eyes shut, and to steady and gather himself he pressed his face to his knees and grit his teeth. He could feel the roiling of warring emotions in his chest and he pushed them down and away, chased after the numbness and the safety of not caring, tried to ignore the stinging of his eyes when they threatened to water. With a shuddering breath he pulled his knees in close to his chest and tried to breathe, to push everything away and not care. He shouldn't care because he wasn't dead.

Except that he was. And if it was as true as those messages painted it to be, it meant that he wouldn't ever be going home.

[[Carson's item is a series of voicemails from his mother confirming his death, which you can view here. He is determined to Not Care, so enjoy that.]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm here because Carson dragged me, nearly kicking and screaming. I need to be at work in an hour, but the application deadline for Barton is coming up and Carson will not let me forget it.

I have to admit, most of the application isn't even all that hard once I've sat down long enough to actually do it. Much like the first time I have to do this, the hard part is in the essays. I feel like a different person from the kid I was in high school so I don't feel like I can really fall back on what I used then and can't really remember it anyway. So I'm basically starting from scratch and it's not easy.

Carson disappears at some point, off to look for some book or article I'm pretty sure he'd have an easier time finding if he just Googled, but I think he likes the act of being in a library more than anything and I kinda get that. It's like me being comforted by an ice rink or a kitchen. I won't judge him.

Or at least I won't until he's been going a lot longer than it should take to find any book.

Of course, wandering through the basement stacks of a library is the start to at least half a dozen horror movies, especially in this city, so my heart is going about a mile a minute before I finally find him and he... oh, goodness.

"Carson?" My voice shakes a little, honestly not sure what's happening, visions of Saw and I Know What You Did Last Summer flying through my head. "Carson, what's the matter?"

Breathing was harder than it should have been. Carson could feel the drumming of blood roaring in his ears and his chest was tight, his eyes were burning, but he didn't want to feel it, didn't want to care. She may have been his mother, and he may love her despite all of her faults and fuck-ups, but more than anything at that moment he just wanted to be angry. Anger was a safe emotion to get lost in. Hell, he had spent the majority of his life angry, whether at her or his dad or at Clover in general, and it wasn't fair that he was finally making some sort of headway only to have her come along and fuck it up again.

He just didn't want it to hurt. He didn't want to feel disappointed that there wouldn't be anything waiting for him if he ever disappeared back home, but apparently that was all he was ever going to feel.

Deep down he knew it was petty and perhaps even childish, but he just couldn't escape the feeling that it wasn't fair.

When he heard Eric's voice he tensed. He had gotten so lost in the phone calls and the repercussions of listening to them that he had outright forgotten that he had dragged the other boy to the library with him. For a split second he wanted to raise his head and scream at him to leave. That he wanted to be alone and not have to share the moment, but his breath was still caught painfully in his chest and his eyes were still stinging. He wasn't sure he could have screamed as much as he wanted to. Instead he lifted his face from his knees and tried to brush away the threat of tears, to be as stoic and empty as much as he wanted to feel. It pissed him off to realize that it wasn't going to work.

"I--" He hesitated. He licked his dry bottom lip and glanced down at the phone he was squeezing in his fist. He hadn't realized he was still holding it. "My mom called."

Carson has a look on his face I'm absolutely sure I've never seen before, not even on his very first day when I found him lying flat on the ground with a scatter of papers all around him. He looks... broken in a way I never would've imagined Carson of all people could ever look. He's all curled in on himself, knees drawn up with his phone clutched in one hand and... and I don't know if he's been crying, but his eyes are all red and bloodshot and I just can't get over that look on his face.

My heartbeat kicks up a little with fear and I hunch forward as I glance back over my shoulder, half expecting something bloody and horrible to be standing just behind me.

There's nothing there, but Carson is still a mess and... and what he says doesn't make any sense.

"What do you mean?" I ask, frowning as I step closer and slowly crouch down next to him. "Unless she's here, she can't have called you. Darrow doesn't work that way."

"She called!" He snapped, the anger threatening to boil over in a split second. He reigned it in immediately after his outburst and forced himself to take the deepest breath he could, in through his nose and slowly out his mouth. The frustration that had twisted his face settled back into something blank and smooth and he tried to find the numb feeling again. Part of him wanted for Eric to go away and let him stew in this, to let him process and internalize until it didn't mean anything anymore. But his skin was prickling and his head was cloudy with confusion, the phone a taunting weight in his hand. He glared down at it, the space between his eyebrows creasing into a frown as he tried to figure it out.

But really, there wasn't anything to figure out. He was dead, and somewhere back in Clover his mother knew.

With another deep breath he thrust the phone out at Eric, the screen lighting up and a series of blocked numbers on the small screen of his voicemail. "She called and she left me messages." He insisted, but he was rational enough to know that there was something wrong with that, because Eric was right and Darrow didn't work like that. But the voicemails were real, he had heard them, and he honestly wasn't sure if he would be able to forget.

He was so pissed at his mom. But he didn't want that to be the last way he ever heard her voice. He didn;t want the confirmation because for the first time being ignorant had been better.

I can't help but flinch when Carson snaps, recoiling slightly as he curls tighter in on himself. It's been a long time since anyone really yelled at me like that and, for a second, I'm strangely reminded of morning checking practices with Jack. At least in tone; the situation is completely different.

It's not hard to see that Carson's upset isn't really directed at me though and I force myself to take a breath and relax, to listen instead of push. He holds the phone out to me and, carefully, I take it from him, scrolling through the list of missed calls with attached voicemails. It doesn't seem possible, honestly. Nobody from home can call in just as we can't call out, but there isn't a part of me that doubts Carson. He may be rude and condescending and abrasive sometimes, but he's not the pranking sort. And I doubt he's much of an actor -- I can't imagine he's making this all up.

Frowning a little, my finger hovers over one of the messages and I glance up at him. "Can I?"

Carson wasn't sure which was more irritating at that moment; the fact that he had gotten the voicemails in the first place, or that Eric didn't believe him. For all of his negative traits, the ones that he was honest enough to be aware of even if he made the conscious decision to not give a shit, he wasn't a liar. With a glare he shoved the phone into Eric's hands, but even as it passed from one palm to another he had the short-lived hysterical thought that maybe he had somehow hallucinated it all and that it might not be real. It was impossible, but that didn't keep the small flutter of hope from igniting in his chest.

He stamped it down quickly. Hope had never gotten him anything but disappointment.

Any pipe dream he had ever entertained of waking up at home was a pointless waste of time. He wouldn't see his mother or grandmother again (and god, don't think of her, don't think of how much you miss her) or be seeing Malerie. He wouldn't wade through two years of bullshit at Clover Community or finally be readmitted into Northwestern. If he had on any level been viewing his time in Darrow as something to occupy his hands and mind until his real life started over again, it was a lost effort of futility.

Darrow was all he had. And what made it sting the most was that bullshit and insanity aside, somehow as much as he had wanted to go home, his time here had been better. Somehow that felt like an even bigger disappointment.

He doesn't really explicitly say yes or no, but given the look on his face, I decide not to push it, taking his shove as yes enough.

Carefully, I tap the one with the oldest date stamp, though it's only a few seconds older the next one. There is, unmistakably, a woman's voice on the line. I have no idea how it's possible, but I don't doubt that this is Carson's mom, just as he's said, and she sounds... goodness, she sounds terrible.

The message is short so I listen to another one, and then another, and I feel something in my stomach bottom out when I realize just exactly what's going on. It's almost like what happened to me only a couple weeks ago. Only Carson isn't getting a broken oven or a ton of new memories. He's getting this, his mother's frantic, desperate voicemails and the knowledge that...

Oh good Lord, but I hate this place sometimes.

Thumbing his phone into sleep mood, I drop to my knees, my heart aching as I hand the phone back to him. "I'm... I don't," I start, feeling overwhelmingly useless. How do you even begin to comfort someone who just found out they're probably dead? Worse, had to find out by listening to voicemails their devastated mother left behind. "Oh, Carson." I don't even know if I should hug him. I never have before and he doesn't seem the type to really welcome physical touch, but I don't know what to do. "Do you... Should. Do you wanna go outside and get some fresh air? Or. Or anything?"

He didn't bother to watch as Eric listened. As much as he had the insane notion to hope it was all fake and imagined, he knew with a rational mind that it was too good to be true. Instead he turned his head away and closed his eyes, focussed on his breathing and leveling it out. He pretended he couldn't hear the whisper of his mother's voice through the tiny speakers of the phone when she shouted just loud enough for him to hear, and instead just curled his fingers into the denim of his jeans. He breathed in and out and let his fingers tense and uncurl in succession, and just waited.

He didn't know what he was supposed to do next. He still had schoolwork to finish, he would still have class on Monday, and somehow despite the fact that somewhere he had died he was still very much alive. Life continued on.

At the very least, it did in Darrow.

By the time Eric spoke and returned his phone, he had gotten himself somewhat back under control. The threat of tears had passed, but his eyes still burned from it and his chest was no longer tight, but there was a heaviness sitting behind his ribs that hadn't been there before. He knew it would pass, but it couldn't possibly come soon enough. "I don't know." He admitted, feeling hollowed out and tired. Compared to the rage and hurt, it was a welcome change. With a deep breath he ran a hand through his hair. "I think... I think I'm just going to sit here for awhile." He looked at the phone in his palm and then blinked up at the other boy. "You can head home if you want."

"Okay," I reply, nodding stupidly. It seems as good a response as any, though I immediately shake my head when tells me I can head home, still frowning.

"No, I don't need to," I tell him. "Unless you'd rather be alone, of course. But I don't have anywhere else I need to be right now and if you want me to stay, I will. We don't have to talk about it or anything else. We can just sit here for a bit."

I'm reminded, strangely, of doing something similar with Jack only a few weeks ago, standing quietly in the alley just outside the diner after Jack saw himself on TV. It feels different, of course, because I've known Jack a lot longer than I've known Carson, I have much better idea of what's needed in a situation like this. I really know almost nothing with Carson.

But I do know I want to help. If I can. If he'll let me.

To be frank, Carson wasn't sure what he wanted. He had the general idea that he wanted the past ten minutes to have never happened at all, or that he had just deleted the messages without having listened to them, or that any number of things could have happened. But on a realistic level he wasn't sure. So as opposed to answering he just let his head fall back against the stack of books behind him and focussed on breathing, on steadying himself in every manner he had ever practiced. He tried to count in his mind, but his thoughts were a jumbled mess tangled with emotion, and he wanted to avoid that as much as possible.

Thankfully Eric was present but quiet, and for a few minutes at least he could just let himself drift.

The longer he sat though, the more solid the impact of his mother's last words to him became, and the unease returned, if only muted. None of it mattered anymore, but it was difficult to stop himself from dwelling when it was still so fresh. After several minutes of silence passed, he carefully wetted his dry lips and spoke.

"I remember that first day, you know." He said, thoughtful and quiet. "When you almost tripped over me. I was leaving school and it was starting to rain. The news had been broadcasting a big storm was coming in, but it hadn't really hit yet. Just heavy clouds and some thunder in the distance. I was just walking to my car and then there was this flash and everything..." He trailed off, head tilting and a frown pulling at the corner of his lips. He wondered what would have happened if he hadn't stayed late after school. If he hadn't waited to talk to Malerie, or had stopped to write his last story for his grandmother. No amount of if's would change anything, though. "And then I was hitting the sidewalk and there you were."

It's not really a comfortable silence if I'm honest. I suppose we don't know each other well enough for that, plus I can only imagine what it is Carson's feeling right now. My chest feels heavy, tight, anxious over the fact that I can't help him even a little bit, that I have no idea how I even could. I know I don't want to leave him alone, though. I may not be able to do anything else at all, but I have power to make sure he isn't alone.

When he speaks again, his voice is surprisingly calm and quiet. I glance over at him, brow furrowed, listening. His mom's voice is still ringing in my head, her words.

"Not the best thing to see after such a traumatic event," I tell him with a quiet, self-deprecating laugh. "And you're not. I mean, I know it's not the same back home, but you're alive here. That-- this doesn't change that." Except it probably does, for him. I'm not sure how I would deal knowing I'm dead back home.

My lips curl into a deeper frown and I add, "Or at least it doesn't have to."

Carson frowned as Eric spoke, and even with the hazy cloud of shock and disappointment blanketing his head he was tempted to laugh. He was tempted if only because once again, he was caught looking deeper into things that others did and he couldn't escape it. He knew he was overthinking, that if he was smart he could just not think and appreciate the fact that he was alive.

But there were so many questions, and the only answers he could think of were even more depressing than the questions themselves.

"Eric," he said, letting his head tip back against the shelf again, but turning his head just enough to watch the other boy's face. "My last day at home was March fifteenth. When I arrived here it was what, early February? Now it's March eighteenth and..." He glanced down at the phone in his palm, his thumb idly sliding across the dark screen. "And now she calls. I'm not sure if that means anything, but I think it does. I think it means that for at least three days... " His throat tightened. "I had wondered when I got here if anyone noticed I was gone. I didn't really understand how this worked yet, and I still don't. Not fully. But I guess that's my answer, huh? Three days." He wanted to be angry, but if anything he just wanted to roll his eyes because of course it would take his mother having a visit from the cops to notice he was gone, or that something was wrong. Why look for him herself? Why call the police on her own if her son was missing?

It was telling. And it told the same story that had been told pretty much his entire life; Sheryl Phillips might love him, but if left to her own devices she would forget he even existed. He wondered how much time could have passed with her sitting on her ass, idly wondering if something was missing had the police not come along.

With a sigh he turned to stare at the bookshelf ahead of them. "I know that doesn't mean anything here. It shouldn't mean anything. I'm alive. I'm finishing school. But somewhere it took three days. How pathetic is that?"

If I'm honest, I hadn't made that connection. I suppose there's no real way I could have given what little I'd heard in those voicemails. In fact, all I can really remember even now, is the sound of Carson's mother's voice, her wailing, devastated sobs.

"How could it have taken three days?" I reply, confused more than anything. How could his mom sound like that if she hadn't even noticed Carson was gone for three whole days. "Maybe you were... did she think you were out with someone? Or busy with school?"

Except Carson has made it clear to me already that he didn't really have any friends back in Clover, that he didn't really want them, even. And even if he had been busy with school stuff, he probably would've gone home for that. There's no way his school or even the public library was open all hours of the day.

How could a mother not notice her own son missing for three days?

"Carson," I breathe, my heart crushing under the weight of this as I reach over to rest my hand on his arm. "That isn't pathetic. That's... that's negligence." Carson isn't a child, I know. He could survive three days on his own, but for his own mother to not even worry about him until the cops showed up on her doorstep, I just... I know my own mother would be out of her mind with worry. Heck, she called me nine times after Samwell's first snowstorm my freshman year. And that was just the weather.

Suddenly, everything I've learned about Carson in the past month or so is making a lot more sense.

For a split second Carson genuinely wondered what it would have been like to be as naive and optimistic as Eric. He imagined that there was a degree of comfort that came from the ignorance of it, but if anything he also imagined it would make life's bullshit all the more painful. At least with his own cynicism nothing surprised him. He could hope and dream for better, but when the shit hit the fan he couldn't honestly say that on some level he hadn't expected it. That was just life. And apparently his life was an even bigger stew of bullshit than he had originally thought.

Three days. No Northwestern, no second chance at proving himself and making his dreams come true. Just Darrow.

"Three days is a long time to be at school," he snarked half heartedly, frowning at the bookshelf ahead of them. He knew that Eric was trying to be reassuring, but honestly, how was anything supposed to be reassuring at this point? He had died. Seventeen, a few months from graduating high school, and he had died. In Clover High's student parking lot of all places. All his mom would have had to do was drive down to the school looking for him and she could have found him herself.

On second thought, given her usual state of mind, it was probably a good thing that she hadn't. He wouldn't have put it past her to kick his corpse when her fear that he'd abandon her had been realized.

"Don't they pretty much go hand in hand, though?" He questioned, looking down with a start when he felt Eric's hand on his arm. He frowned and gently moved his arm out from under the unfamiliar touch. Sprawling one of his legs out straight as it began to cramp, he picked at the side seam of his jeans. "A pathetic parent commits negligence. A kid's life is pathetic from being neglected." He dug his fingers into the denim, the bitterness building. "God, I hate her. Three days and she has the balls to act like her life shattered apart. Where was she?" Probably too deep in her cups and own self pity to even notice.

I'm not surprised or hurt when Carson pulls away from my touch, just curl my fingers away and rest them in my lap instead as he stretched out a leg and picks at the outside seam of his jeans. Despite the anger in his words, he's being surprisingly calm, I think. I'm not sure what I'd do if I found myself in his situation, but I think sobbing might be at the top of the list.

Then again, I suppose I never could be in this situation. I was lucky enough to be born to a mother who cares.

"You're not pathetic, stop saying that," I tell him, my voice firm but quiet. "I don't know your mom, obviously, and I hate to speak ill of someone I've never even met, but judging by what you've told me and what I've heard, I'm fairly certain she's just... not a good mother. That's not your fault, Carson, and I think you have every right to be angry with her."

With the sound of mom's wracked sobs still ringing in my ears, it's easy to believe she was genuinely devastated. However negligent or downright horrible as I'm sure she'd been to Carson, she hadn't been acting in those voicemails, I don't think. She really seemed completely distraught.

"But her failings as a mother don't say anything about you as a person," I continue, staring down at his hand and still wishing I could do anything that might make him feel better. "And, well. You're here now anyway. Whatever's happened back home, you're here. She doesn't have to mean anything more than you let her mean anymore."

"You wouldn't be the first to." He quipped, aiming for wry and perhaps falling just a little short. "And it could easily be argued that who you have as a parent says everything about who you are as a person." For years Carson had seen the looks he got from people around Clover, as if they were amused and saw something lacking because his mother was the mess she was. No one would walk into a store and see a woman in a bathrobe and sunglasses with unwashed hair and think I bet her kid will get far in life. Being seen in public with Clover's resident trainwreck had never earned him the slightest favor in anyone's eyes. He was smart enough to know what they thought, what they expected.

Just another generation of trainwreck. But he had been fighting tooth and nail since elementary school to prove how much better he was than that. How much better he was than anyone in Clover. He'd had huge dreams and enough focus and ambition to make them come true. He'd had the intelligence and the drive to fight for success, rather than to just be another loser in a small town.

And instead he died. He died and she had sobbed so miserably. As angry as he was, as bitter and resentful, he hated it when she cried. She was his mother and as selfish and fucked up as she was, he hated seeing her so far into her own misery. He hadn't heard her cry like that, not ever. Not when his grandfather had died, not even after his dad had skipped out. She had been wrecked and somehow, he found it ironic that she would suddenly give that much of a damn after he was dead.

"Every time I take a step forward, she tries to pull me back," he admitted. He dug his fingers in deeper, deep enough he could feel the dull pressure turn just slightly painful even through his jeans. "I mean," he paused and sat up a little straighter. "I've worked so hard. I'm... I was one of the top students in Clover. I never got in trouble with the law. Never did drugs or drank or partied. I took care of her most of the time. I was a go--" He paused, blinking in surprise at himself as his thoughts caught up with him. "I was a good son. I did everything right. And the first time she honestly gives a shit is when I'm dead."

He looked down at the phone and frowned. "Even if I can have a new life here, what should I honestly be expecting after the disaster Clover was? I never got anything I wanted. I worked so hard and I got nothing. Instead I spent my whole life chasing dreams and cleaning up after my own mother, and then I died in a parking lot. Maybe this is a second chance... but maybe it's also just a chance for life to crap on me some more."

I keep quiet as Carson speaks, at least reasonably sure he needs to vent, to let it all out, to maybe throw some things and scream a bit. He has every right to be angry, I think. Angry about how his mother treated him, angry about working so hard and having nothing to show for it, angry about being here, angry about being dead. I can't even imagine the depths of despair, if I'm honest. I've never had to face anything like what he's going through right now. I'd never want to.

It's only after he falls quiet again that I open my mouth.

"Do you think your mom is the reason why you missed out on so much?" I ask him, quiet and tentative. Curious. "I know you can't just move on and forget about her. I know that's not the way it works at all. But maybe this could be a new chance. Darrow isn't Clover even if is a prison all its own. But at least it's a prison full of all new people and opportunities.

"I mean, you've already taken a step," point out, motioning vaguely at the shelves of books in front of us. "You're in school, you've applied to Barton. I know it's not Northwestern, but it's the only school that matters here. You're making connections already, meeting people despite yourself."

I trail off a little then, certain I'm probably not really helping anything. "What is it you want?" I ask instead. "If you could have anything here in Darrow, what would it be? And what's stopping you now from getting it?"

If he was honest, there was an entire mess of reasons he had missed out. His mom, his dad, and Clover being the cesspool of mediocrity it was. Himself. He had never fit in, and had given up on any attempts to early on. It didn't even feel like he had missed out on anything of substance. He had no interest in going to the school dances or hanging out with a group of idiots on a Friday night. He didn't want to date anyone or go to the football games. He had just wanted to leave. And his mother had stolen that from him when she threw away his acceptance letter to Northwestern.

Now he had left, but it was because he had died.

"Maybe," he admitted, but he knew he couldn't blame her for everything. He could spite her for so many things but in the end, he had been independent for a long time. They might have shared a house and she might have been the one with the money, but he had taken care of himself. He'd had to.

Eric's following words, while obviously well intentioned, weren't particularly moving. Once again he was trapped. He was settling. It tasted like defeat, and as intent as he was on attending Barton, he didn't like stopping to remember why he needed to be accepted into the university. It was easier to keep his mind one tracked than to let it wander.

As for what he wanted? He wanted so many things. He wanted to beat his head against the wall and scream. He wanted to go home, and simultaneously never set foot in Clover again. He wanted his mom, but he also wanted to smother her with a pillow. But trying to decide what he wanted in Darrow was harder. He wanted all the same things he wanted back home, but scaled down to fit his new environment. "I," he hesitated, not sure what to say. "I want to be a journalist. I've always wanted to be a journalist. I want to finish school and go to college. I want to graduate and get published professionally. To start my magazine and kick ass at it." I want today to have never happened. I want someone to care about me when I'm alive instead of when I'm dead. He took a shaky breath and scrubbed his hand over his face. "I just want things to go right."

Not one bit of Carson's response is surprising. It's all stuff he's already told me or, at the very least, alluded to. And maybe I understand a little better now exactly why he's so driven, but his goals haven't changed in the least. He's not like Jack who's been essentially forced to give it all up, held back from the one thing that's ever really mattered to him.

"Well, there's no reason that can't happen," I tell him, still watching him carefully. "Every single one of those things is possible here. It'll never be completely like home, I know, but you can still get an education, you can still be a journalist and start a magazine and rule this city with the written word. There's nothing holding you back."

Nothing, I suppose, but the knowledge that, somewhere in a different dimension, he's not even alive.

I'm not sure how much that changes a person, but I suppose it's pretty damaging for someone like Carson who hardly seems to have been valued at all while he was alive. Not even by the one person who should've cared for him above any other.

"For what it's worth, I'm glad you're here," I tell him because I feel like that's both something he needs to hear and something I need to say. "I won't lie and say you're always the easiest person to get along with, but I do like you. You... you push me to try harder. To be better. Even if I wanna fight you tooth and nail sometimes."

Carson slowly raked his fingers through his hair as Eric talked. It was a mindless action, but it kept his hand busy and let him think. The other boy was right, and it was as reassuring as it was frustrating. If he didn't have anything else, he had Darrow. He had the potential for a future even if it wasn't quite the same picture he'd painted for himself years ago. It wouldn't ever be the same, but it was something.

Something other than being dead. He wondered how much of his arrival had been chance, or some sort of unpredictable shift of destiny. He wondered if he was supposed to be there, or if he had just gotten lucky at the right moment. He had come so close to just being a corpse on pavement, and instead he was on the floor of a library trying to valiantly fight off a mental breakdown.

As lucky as it was, it still sucked.

"I don't want it to go wrong again," he admitted bitterly. He needed to finish school and attend college. He needed to become a professional journalist. He needed those things as much as he needed to keep breathing. Without them, he genuinely had nothing. "It got all fucked up before. It needs to go right this time. No distractions, no excuses. There's no room for failure." He glanced down at his phone again, and with a grimace he tightened his hold. "That's what this is, isn't it? Another distraction. Either my mom or the universe or some bullshit like that is trying to distract me and make me fail again." It was paranoid, but it felt accurate. The only thing he had ever managed to some success had been the literary magazine, and that was only because he had stooped to blackmail.

With a heaving sigh he rolled his neck to look over at the other boy pensively. "You don't have to throw me a pity party, you know." He shrugged one shoulder. On some level it was noble of Eric to make the effort, but Carson didn't think he needed the sympathy. He didn't want sympathy. Honestly, all he had ever wanted was to be left alone. "Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the idea. But I know I drive you crazy."

It's hard to tell whether anything I've said is actually helping. Though, honestly, I'm not sure there are any words available in any language that can help someone get through something like this. If I were in his shoes, I'd probably be having a complete mental breakdown. Heck, I nearly did only a few weeks ago and that was only me getting bombarded by memories, not finding out I'm actually dead.

Still, I frown when he sighs and looks over at me, clearly still utterly miserable even as he brushes me off.

"You don't drive me any crazier than I do you, but here we are," I point out with a shrug. "Honestly, I wouldn't even be applying to Barton if not for you. And I don't mean because you have to keep hounding me to fill out the application, but that I wouldn't have even tried starting it at all if you hadn't pushed me into it.

"And that's-- I realize that sounds like you're pressuring me into something I don't want which really isn't the case," I rush to add, fidgeting at the hem of my jeans. "As much as I put up a fight, I'm glad to be doing this. A little scared, yeah, but glad. I need to do it like you said. I don't really wanna be baking at Semele's until I can't even stand anymore. It's not gonna be the same as home, but I should at least try to make a life for myself here. And you should, too. Whatever... whatever happened back home doesn't even matter anymore. Not really. Not for either of us. What matters is we're here. The opportunities aren't quite the same, but we still have some available to us. That's a start, right?"

John is shelving books when he sees the boy slide to the floor and he puts his work aside to go over to him. He looks stricken a bit, and John, being sensible and British gives him a slow once over. He sees the phone.

"There's no calls inside the library, please," he says sedately, offering the boy a hand up.

Carson's head rose slowly at the intrusion of the voice, and he glanced up in surprise at the man standing over him. Somehow he had gotten so lost in his mother's voice, in hearing the words cops and you're dead play over and over in his own head that he hadn't even heard the man approach. His breathing still hurt his chest, and his heart was beating too fast and too slow at the same time, and everything at that moment was just too much and he wanted it to stop.

It wasn't fair that somehow, someway, his mother still managed to find ways to fuck him over. Even from a dimension away.

"I..." He cut himself off and stared at the outstretched hand, then looked down at his own knees from where he was still curled up on the floor. In an instant he felt embarrassment flash through him, because of course he was still in public. He was still at the library, and their were workers and patrons there. And of course, him. Having a mental breakdown like a twelve year old girl in the midst of the stacks. "I wasn't making a call," he said, and despite it being true it was lame to his own ears.

"Oh, alright then," John says with a gentle smile. "It's just a matter of quiet, you see. We just ask that you go to the lobby or outside.. You look a bit shaken, are you alright?" he asks, delicate fingers lightly brushing the boy's shirt back into place to square him up and make him presentable. He does look a fright though John's not about to point it out any more than he already has.

It was instinct, but at the foreign touch he automatically leaned to the side out of reach. Everything was just so fucked at that moment. The messages, his mother's voice, the crushing wave of feelings he steadfastly did not want to feel at all. Now an oddly calm and tactile stranger was thrown into the mix and Carson's head was spinning. He was confused and nauseas, and at that moment he wished he could have been somewhere quieter, somewhere more private. He had the hysterical notion that he would have preferred being locked in his own apartment than anything else.

"I know the rules," he offered, his tongue thick and clumsy in his shock. He looked down at the phone in his hand, and just to be sure he hadn't imagined it, he keyed the screen back to life if only to confirm. When he saw his voicemail still open, and the list of new messages, his stomach churned.

With hesitation, he glanced back up at the stranger. Part of him wanted to tell the man to go the hell away, but he was in the library. Even in his current state he knew he didn't want to risk getting banned. But even more so than that, he just wanted for things to make sense again. He wanted to go back in time, as little as ten minutes, and have things be simpler.

"My mom called," he said instead. "From ho-- from before Darrow. She said I'm dead." He blinked, because saying it out loud was weird.

John's eyes widen and for a moment he's not sure what to say. What does one say in an instance like that? One never knew if being dead were a good thing or a bad thing. The boy could have had some horrible disease, or maybe he'd had depression and committed suicide. Or maybe it was a surprise- it seemed to be- but one never really knew and John didn't want to misspeak.

"How very unexpected," he said quietly. "Not what one expects on any random day. Do you have anyone here whom I could call for you? Or would you like some tea? I'll be happy to escort you into our employee lounge..."

To him tea seemed the sensible option. Tea was always the sensible option.

The man's calm against his own turbulence was jarring. It threw Carson off center and for every spinning thought or the nervous nausea he was trying to stamp down it also left him oddly suspended. It was quiet in the corner of the library they found themselves in, and if it hadn't been for his own unsteady breathing or the presence of the stranger it would have been easy to close his eyes and attempt to suspend all mental thought. He could have just shoved everything away, bundled and twisted it into a small ball and hid it deep down where he wouldn't have to deal with it anymore.

No such luck. Of course.

"I don't have anyone to call," he muttered, because it was true. He supposed he could have called Eric, but he doubted it would have helped at all. They barely knew each other, and he didn't want to share this. It was unimportant anyway. It didn't matter. He might have died, and his mom may have been a pathetic mess as a result, but none of it mattered because he wasn't there. "I don't--" He didn't know what he wanted. Wetting his dry lips, he gripped his knees roughly. "I don't know. I don't see how tea would help." It probably wouldn't hurt. Taking a deep breath he shrugged one shoulder. "But if you're offering, then yeah?"

"Of course," he replies calmly. It seems to him that with the boy as upset as he is, maybe more than he's letting on, John ought to keep a level head. And he never really gets excitable about anything anymore. Not with the narcotics in his system all the time. And so he keeps calm and carries on, like those old posters from the war that were now all the rage among the denizens of the internet.

John escorts him to the front, around the circulation desk and back through a door to the employee lounge. In there is an electric kettle and an obscenely large selection of teas. He switches the kettle on and grabs two mugs.

"Would you like to choose or shall I? I'm fairly well versed in tea," he says in a voice that is both quiet and sure. To think that a Londoner wouldn't know his tea is a thought that makes him chuckle softly.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Darrow: Set for March 18th]

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