trans_9 | The worms crawl out...

Give it up. You lost. Get out of my head.

"No."

Really. Be reasonable. You have to climb out every three days and hang out in your swimming pool, or you're going to die. It's been two and a half already. Climb out like a good little slug-thing, and maybe I'll talk Brainy into building you a nice Habitrail.

"Maybe. I'm not taking that chance."

So--what? You're going to use my greymatter as your deathbed? Gross. Do you things rot in there, or do you ooze out when you die. Because rotting slugthing in my brain is just not something I want to deal with.

"I'm about to starve to death, and this is what you're worrying about?"

Don't expect me to be sympathetic. You took me over with no intention of ever giving me control of my own body again, and tried to kill my friends. I'll probably do a jig on your sluggly little grave.

"And here I thought you weren't going to turn into that psycho in your future."

I'm not--I won't.

"Delighting in the slow and painful death of another sentient creature? I don't know--sounds a lot like him to me."

...Why yes. Tim is strapped down to his bed, and it really does look like he's talking to himself.

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"It wasn't how I did things, either." And look where it got him.

He just fixes his gaze.

"Is it working for you?"

Really?

Tim meets his gaze for a beat, then sighs, and looks away.

"Not really."

Edited 2009-04-01 08:10 (UTC)

"It wasn't your fault, you know."

"Yeah," he says unconvincingly. Only--he was so stupid. And there were so many times he could have been free if he'd just tried hard enough.

Yeah, he's definitely blaming himself.

He knows better.

"It wasn't your fault."

"Yeah, I know, Kon. I've been on the other side of this conversation."

"And I know how that went on my end, anyway."

"Yeah, and what's that?"

"I'm still guilty. You are ten times worst at that than I am."

Tim grits his teeth. "I could have fought harder," he says finally. "There were opportunities. I could have--been better."

"No, you couldn't have," says Kon. "You fought as hard as you could--and it was enough. And even if it hadn't been enough, it wouldn't have been your fault."

He takes a deep breath, and says what it took him this long to finally, finally figure out.

"When the bad guys do stuff like this, it's never the fault of the people they do it to. It's never their fault for not fighting hard enough, or for 'letting' it happen. It's not mine. It's not yours. It's always theirs."

A wince.

"And even though that's true, it still sucks. And you still feel used. And it takes a long time for that to go away."

It still isn't gone.

Tim's fists clench a few times, and he looks at Kon again, a bleak expression on his face. "How--how do you deal?" he asks, because if anyone can answer this, it's Kon. Tim just--doesn't know how he can deal with this.

"If I knew that, I probably wouldn't have hid on the farm for so long," Kon says, but then he really thinks about it.

He takes a deep breath.

"You just enjoy being free, being able to do the things it wouldn't let you do. Punching a bad guy in the face is kinda ten times more satisfying now after..after Luthor tried to turn me into one. It feels good every time I'm what he didn't want me to be." A good guy.

Taking pleasure in teen rebellion--it's a Kon thing.

"You let yourself be miserable for a while. Not dwell in it, just... it takes times to feel better, and in the meantime, you don't have to do fake smiles and pretend everything is all right. No one expects you to be perfectly fine after that, so there's no reason to expect yourself to be. Just don't dwell and obsess over it either. Try to have fun, try to get over it; eventually, you'll be able to pick yourself up again. But in the meantime, the only thing worse than feeling like crap is trying to fake you're fine on top of it. I managed to do that for, like, three days, before Ma told me I didn't have to put on a show for her and Pa."

What had Aunt Martha said? Something about letting himself process it, but then letting it go? He hadn't really listened, and he should have.

"And most importantly, you... you remember that everyone cares about you. No matter what what you are, no matter what you did. It makes it easier to stop being mad at yourself when you realize no one else is."

He gestures to himself. "Like, I'm not mad. At all. If anything, I figure now we're just even, on the 'getting mind controlled and trying to kill each other' end. Sucks to be us, huh?"

That's said with a tentative, gentle grin, one he's always used when trying to joke during situations where it may not be appropriate but are sometimes good to hear a joke during anyway.

Tim lets out a small laugh. "Yeah, it does." The joke... isn't that funny, actually, but it's nice to be able to laugh a little at something.

He nods to Kon. "...Thanks. I'll keep it in mind." And... it's good, kind of, to know that he doesn't have to be okay. Because because he still feels raw inside, and violated, and--whatever Kon said... he still feels responsible. That's just... going to take time.

Time, and a chance to heal.

"Look," says Kon, "If you really need some time alone, that's cool. I just wanted you to know that afterward, I was, y'know, here, and stuff."

No hiding? No stuffing it away? He's just...here, for whatever Tim needs, whether it's companionable silence or distracting joking around.

"Although you should probably get that hand fixed up before you do anything."

The one with the knuckles bleeding from punching the stall apart.

Tim makes a face and glances down at his hand. "...Yeah, probably." Property damage is Hell on your skin. He looks up at Kon again. "And--thanks. Again."

Kon makes that face he does when he wants to do something unmanly, almost doesn't, and decides to go with it anyway.

And a second after, he pulls Tim in for a manly hug.

"Don't beat yourself up over it, okay?"

A noncommittal noise. "I'll try," Tim says finally, hugging him back.

"And we never speak of this hugging again."

There's almost a smile there. "Never."

The worms crawl out...

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