swear i heard the angels cry, pray to god no more may die

[delicateMachine]

((Nothing was beautiful and everything hurt.))

Ha, that was clever, wasn't it, Daniel? That was funny, wasn't it, Daniel? You took the iconic line from a book you read and liked once and messed with it so it would be all dark and gloomy, to fit your current circumstances, and your mental state, and your surroundings, and heck, let's throw your soul into that list too, why don't we, Daniel? Huh, Daniel? Are you even listening, Daniel?

Of course he was. He could hear everything. He could hear water dripping somewhere down the tunnel and he could hear his own ragged breathing and he could hear the click of the flashlight gripped in his shaking hands as he switched it off, and on, and off, over and over; letting the coal-pitch void surround and consume him so he could pretend to know what it felt like to be dead like he probably deserved to be, in all honesty.

Every time he started getting used to the darkness, not in the sense of being able to see because he was far below where the sun could ever hope to help, but in the sense that he had accepted that seeing things was over; he'd flick the light back on; and his eyes would burn out of his sockets but that was okay! It was okay because feeling pain meant that he was still alive and being alive meant that he could live to feel pain for a while longer, and that was what he probably deserved for being so useless, and he didn't deserve to die, not yet, because he hadn't spent enough time in Hell yet.

If he kept doing it for long enough, maybe the flashlight would stop working altogether, and after that happened maybe he'd just sit down there in the darkness for a thousand years, or maybe he'd just feel along the walls to get back outside, or maybe he'd fall into a shaft and die. That'd all be fine!

Brandon was long gone, and Daniel didn't even know why. Or how. Or when. Maybe he'd just ditched to try and find someone more competent at being alive? Like Maxwell? That made sense. Yeah. 'Cause like, in all their days of searching? Nothing. No one. Like, yeah, they'd probably found someone, realistically speaking, like, there was only so much room on the island even if everyone was already dead, but none of it mattered, and no one would remember it.

And Rachael - Rachael - Rachael, Kris, Rachael, he'd seen one of them, Rachael and Kris, but not the important one, but maybe it had been the important one, but he couldn't have known it was important, not then, and Keiji had been with her, and he trusted Keiji, and he still trusted Keiji, but Keiji wasn't dead and Rachael was so like, what happened there, right, and maybe if he'd listened to Brandon, with the gun, and the miming, maybe Rachael wouldn't be dead right now, and even if that meant Kris would be dead, or Daniel would be dead, that'd be okay, right, or maybe Brandon would still be here because Daniel would have at least proven he was a step above useless, and

Oh, look. He was crying again. Haha, wasn't that weird? He thought that was weird. He'd already cried like, ten times that day. That was weird. Wasn't it Daniel? Was he feeling dehydrated? Maybe. Was he feeling? Maybe. Was he crying? Yes.

[Wham Yubeesling]

The previous night had done a lot more to deter him than Saachi's words had, honestly.

Because it was only after a while that the insecurity began to set in. It was only when the hours left him to himself that he began to question his previous actions, ask himself why he did what he did, why he said what he said. Why he had let himself separate from the only person left he could protect. Why he had decided to walk out, challenge, threaten Saachi. Why he had elected to not help Ramona, why he had waited until after she had died to make himself known. Why he had made his declaration, why he had stated his aim of pitious… not even heroism, at this point. What he said to Saachi back at the cabin, the plan that he intended on trying to fulfill, he couldn't call it heroic. He couldn't call himself a hero.

He couldn't say that he was planning on fulfilling Paris' wish.

At least, not anymore.

He was just a… brat, he supposed. Someone who wanted to ruin everything for the people running this just because he couldn't get his way.

Someone who talked himself up and then turned tail the moment someone attacked him.

That was what he was.

That was what this island had turned him into.

And he supposed that was why he was down here. Walking through these tunnels, once again. Even though he couldn't see himself, even though he once again had no idea where he was, he supposed that was partially welcoming. He supposed it was good that nobody could see him while he walked around aimlessly, tried to figure out what he was going to do. Find a time where he could finally answer all those questions he had stuffed into his head like-

Light filled his eyes. Turned the black around him to white. Gave him pain and sting and who was it why was there light why

Darkness, again.

An afterimage.

A shape, right in front of him. One familiar. One he had met, way back then, when he had walked into the front room of the cabin all so sure of the path he would take in the game. All so sure he would be the one that won.

Oh, how time changed things.

Oh, how everything seemed to go back to where it started.

"...Daniel."

[delicateMachine]

Holy crap there was a dude there.

Daniel was so startled by the sudden appearance of Maxwell's silhouette (had there been footsteps? Probably. Had Daniel's sobs drowned them out? Probably.) that he actually forgot to be sad for a moment. "Muh-Maxwell? Uh, uh, um... hey?" Guy looked a lot worse for the wear than he had when they had met in the cabin, but like, who didn't? Daniel's eyes were all red and puffy and his hoodie was all sweaty and had a bunch of dirt and crap on it, and his hair was greasy, and he was starting to grow a bit of stubble which was really less than ideal. At least it was dark, and nobody was judging probably, which was good even though he felt like a gross filthball.

Ah, right there. Could that be the bridging point? Yeah, Daniel's brain had been given enough of a break, walking on a stupid tangent like he was just spacing out in precalc or something. Who did he think he was? Anyway - he felt like a gross filthball, which was what he deserved to feel, because that matched his moral character, because he was cowardly and useless and, worst of all, wasn't doing anything about it, even though he know full well his failings as a human. Perfect. He was sad again. That's the way things needed to be, wasn't it, Daniel?

"Dunno who or what you're looking for, but I don't think you're gonna find anything down here," He said, glumly staring back down down at the flashlight in his hands. Ha, 'glum' was a weird sounding word, to use there wasn't it? It had almost, like, a playfulness to it, like he was just sulking over a lost soccer game or something. You can do better than that, Daniel. If you make Maxwell feel bad enough, he'll probably leave you in the dark again, and that's the ideal outcome, isn't it?

"I haven't seen Brandon in... a long time," He said, despondently staring back down down at the flashlight in his hands.

[Wham Yubeesling]

"I… wasn't really looking for anything."

And that was only typical wasn't it? Instead of being brave, instead of being the hero that he, that Paris had wanted to be he was hiding, staying down here, letting the darkness cover him as the game freely continued above him. Instead of being strong, instead of trying to find all the people that he had lost track of over these past few days, he elected to hide, he elected to not search for them, he elected to just rot in here in hopes of not having to find someone, not having to talk to them, not having to hold himself accountable for what he did. Daniel. Brandon. Michael. Felicia. Yumi. They were all out there. They had all worked with him. They had all been used by him, manipulated for his own end, his own survival.

And even when he was trying to hide from them, here Daniel was, right in front of him.

Even though he wasn't even trying to do good, it seemed that he would fail regardless.

Which was typical.

Somewhat befitting for him.

Oh well.

He supposed he would have had to face the music at some point.

"Me neither," he said, allowing his posture to relax as his eyes began to adjust to the darkness again. "Not since… our first day here. When we were on the cliffs."

(when you made a promise to Paris that you haven't been able to keep)

(when you tried to kill a girl for what she did to him)

(when you enjoyed that)

"How have you been keeping on?"

[delicateMachine]

For a single confusing, blissful moment, Daniel questioned his very sense of reality. He had spent the past five days on this island, right? Most of his friends and classmates were dead, right? He wasn't like, just asleep and hallucinating back in the cabin with Yaz, right? 'Cause, like, sure his head would be on fire again when he woke up, but that was fine, because basically anything was preferable to living in a world where Rachael was dead and he wasn't. Honestly, it was excruciating how tantalizing that stupid, ridiculous possibility was. He dug his uncomfortably long fingernails into his hands a little bit, to make absolutely sure he got rid of that fraction of hope.

So he wasn't dreaming, and that meant it wasn't weird to be weirded out, because Maxwell sounded like a guy who was living outside their present situation. 'How're you doing' wasn't a question you casually asked when you knew the answer wasn't gonna be good, and boy, it wasn't good. Did he want to hear what a crushed, broken shell of a human Daniel had become, every little bit of trauma he'd been through? Or was he just falling back on old instincts, awkwardly making small talk even while their world was basically dead? Well, Daniel wasn't very good at lying or small talk, so he'd just have to make do.

"Well, uh, you see, a few hours ago I heard that someone killed my girlfriend, and ever since then I've been sitting alone in the dark and crying, so like, I think you can extrapolate a little from there?" Daniel said, marveling at the bitterness in his voice. What a revelation! If he focused on being annoyed at Maxwell for being kind of a rude dude, he could stop using all his brainpower to tear himself to pieces and rebuild himself, but slightly wrong so existing hurt just a little more, and then tearing himself to pieces again, but like, metaphorically, in his mind, over and over again.

[Wham Yubeesling]

The bitterness — the annoyance surging up within him — had to be forced down, repressed.

Because being angry at Daniel, biting back at his words would be unfair to him, would it not? It seemed as if he had been through loss, grief - more of such than Maxwell had had, so even though Maxwell honestly wasn't sure of what he said that made Daniel angry, he'd… back down, was probably the right word. Let Daniel give his bitterness, his anger. If Maxwell got angry in return, if Maxwell bit back, then he stood the chance of Daniel attacking, Daniel leaving him.

And if he supposed the former happened, one of the two would be as good as dead.

And if he supposed the latter happened, then that would give Maxwell more guilt over Daniel. More regrets about what he'd done to him.

So it was best to stay quiet.

Give… as good an apology as he possibly could, in this situation.

"I'm not sure if apologizing would be enough, given… what's happened."

He paused.

Looked away from Daniel for a moment.

"But in the case that it is enough, I'm sorry."

[delicateMachine]

Once Maxwell apologized, the rising current of bitterness within Daniel instantly turned to ice, shattered, melted again, evaporated, and the empty space was quickly refilled by Danielness. The groundbreaking discovery of spite had been nice for the minute or so it had lasted, but it was a surprise to absolutely no one that it had been swept away at the first sign of resistance.

Daniel sighed, heavily. Giving Maxwell the common decency of looking at his face when he spoke would be the right thing to do, so of course Daniel didn't have the strength to do it. Instead, he continued to stare down at the flashlight in his hands - guiltily, this time.

"Don't worry, it's fine - uh, I mean, it's not fine, but you're fine? It's not your fault? Yeah. That was unfair of me." Great, now that was out of the way, and Maxwell knew that it wasn't his fault and that Daniel didn't hate him, and that meant there was nothing to stop Daniel from hating himself again, except with a bit more vigor than before because he'd gone out of his way to be a jerk to a guy who hadn't done anything wrong. Maybe that shouldn't have been enough to tip the scales even further in the direction of 'you are bad, Danny boy' but other people were important, and so were their feelings, and Maxwell was another person and he had feelings. Probably.

"...Were you headed anywhere in particular? I should probably. Not be down here anymore. If you don't mind." Might as well toss on another pebble of badness onto the pile, because Daniel was making the executive decision to impose on Maxwell even further and ride his coattails out of purgatory, for all the good that'd do.

[Wham Yubeesling]

The apology was accepted.

And that was… good, Maxwell supposed. Even though it didn't make up for abandoning Daniel back when this game had started, even though it didn't make up for everything else Maxwell had done, everything else Maxwell had said, he supposed that it was adequate for now. Daniel wasn't angry at him, and although he might be when it turned out Maxwell had left the cabin for his own selfish reasons, although he might be because Maxwell had helped allow Yasmin to die, he supposed he actually had the opportunity to explain himself now. He supposed that even if Daniel became angry again, even though Daniel likely wouldn't him, Maxwell would at least have that. Maxwell could at least say his words.

And honestly, even if it resulted in the two parting ways, Maxwell supposed that that would be right, in its own way.

Because honestly, he supposed that saying his piece would achieve more good than he'd done these past few days.

But he still had to be with Daniel to say it. The two had to be together with one another if Maxwell ever wanted a chance to say his piece, so if Daniel left for the light, if Maxwell stayed and wallowed in the darkness, then there would never be a chance of the two meeting again. Someone like KK or someone like Saachi or even someone like fucking Bunny, he didn't know would kill one of the two and then that would be that. Daniel would become like Lyndi. Like Jason. Like all those other people he had left and would never, ever be able to come back to. Daniel would just be one of them. Another mistake. Another set of sins that he would never make up for.

And he knew that if he followed Daniel then he would go back into the light without a plan.

(what's the point of this?)

But he knew that if he didn't, then there would be no way for Maxwell to say his piece. To possibly make up for what he had done to Daniel.

(why do you care so much about him forgiving you?)

And he supposed that if he tried to do that he would have that plan he came down here to search for. He supposed if he followed Daniel he would finally be able to face the light.

(why do you care so much about being the good guy, maxwell?)

And he knew that Daniel wasn't the only mistake he needed to fix.

And he knew that just leaving like this would mean that his plans, all the questions he needed to answer would keep rotting further.

But he supposed that he could push it back.

At least for another day.

"Well, I was planning on staying here to… think about things," Maxwell said, finally replying to Daniel's question, "but I suppose that if you're leaving, then I have no choice but to follow you."

[delicateMachine]

Nope, nope, this was gonna stop right here because Maxwell had to be the guy with all the choices, because Daniel could probably live with himself if Maxwell - out of his own free will and the overwhelming generosity of his thankfully beating heart - allowed him to hang around; but if it turned out he was forcing the guy with sighs and sad eyes to accept Daniel's presence (okay let's be real, it's lack of presence, but saying that makes it sound like Daniel wasn't there at all, as opposed to being there and not really mattering) that'd be real bad.

"Wait, uh, it's... fine? I mean, if you wanna stay down here longer that's cool, I don't mind, and I think, like, I didn't really say what I meant? 'Cause, I think what's really going on is that I really don't wanna be alone right now, and being down here in the dark was a good way to be alone, so those two concepts kinda got inextricably, uh, linked in my mind, but you're here now so I'm not alone anymore, obviously, so everything's cool. If you don't mind me being here. Yeah."

In truth, Daniel super hated being down in the tunnels, now that he'd been forcibly dragged a couple inches towards the surface, not literally, well, maybe literally eventually, but for the moment the weird substance that was below the surface was wallowing inside of his own head, so the surface in that metaphor would be... not being a sad, mopey mess?

Let's try that again. He hadn't been fine with being in the tunnels, but he'd spent the day not wanting to be fine, so the tunnels were a fine place to be not fine. Now that Maxwell was here, a few small factions of Daniel's messed up feelings were thinking that maybe it was time to try out the concept of being fine again, not like, as a commitment, but just something to think about, maybe he'd get a warranty in case he wanted to be sad again later, but at least now he had options.

Assuming Maxwell didn't just tell him to shove off, which was entirely reasonable and within his rights.

[Wham Yubeesling]

Maxwell was… confused as to what Daniel was saying, to say the least.

Oh well. So long as Daniel still wanted Maxwell to be with him, so long as Maxwell still had a chance of achieving this particular goal, then the details didn't matter. So long as Maxwell still had his chance of admitting his sins to Daniel, all was good enough, honestly.

"I wouldn't mind us being- travelling together," Maxwell said. "Admittedly you were one of the people I was hoping I'd find."

[delicateMachine]

"Thanks," Daniel said, not exactly sure what he was thanking Maxwell for. Letting him stick around, like... okay, a lot of sticky things existed in the world, and most of them were unpleasant to have on or around you, so he didn't have to think too hard about what variety of textural fingernail-chalkboard personified him the best. The point was made and also not especially interesting in the first place.

What else? The reminder that other people still existed and could like, think about him was was nice. Like, he'd been worried sick about Maxwell, that first night when no one had returned to him, and while that worry got numbed a lot lot over the course of the next few days where Maxwell managed to not, it was good to see him, and good to hear that he hadn't forgotten entirely about Daniel, despite having all rights to do that thing, because let's be real, he wasn't incredibly noteworthy.

"It's... good to see you too, dude," he said, even if it was a little late in the conversation for that to sound natural. He meant it, and that was the important bit, right? "Whenever you wanna leave, or however long you wanna stay down here, or wherever you wanna go... it's all cool by me."

[Wham Yubeesling]

"It's good to see you too."

And there was nothing more to say. No more need for this conversation. The two had joined up with each other once again, Maxwell had his chance at explaining his actions, so there was nothing else that needed to be done. No reason for the two of them to be bathed in the darkness of the tunnels. They could now move. They could now find their exit. They could now put themselves in the light, ready to face the dangers this island, this game threw at them. Ready to do whatever plans they felt needed to be accomplished. Ready to-

(what plan, though?)

…

Honestly, he wasn't sure at this point.

Because that was who he was, wasn't he? He wasn't the hero, he wasn't the grand, magnificent being he had thought he was going to be the last time he had entered these tunnels. He was just a talker. A chatter. He was one of those people he hated back then, one of those people who blustered, who acted like they could do anything despite the fact that they knew they didn't. One of those people who bragged about what they did and what they were going to do despite the fact that they'd done nothing, that they were nothing. That was him. He had talked. He had acted as if he was a hero, as if he was going to fulfill the wishes that Paris had wanted him to, as if he was going to beat this game, make it end the way he wanted to, but would he? Had he done anything?

No.

He'd done nothing.

He was nothing.

And now he was prepared to storm the breach. Exit the tunnels without a plan. Keep on acting the way he was right now. Let down Daniel, just like he'd already had. With Felicia. With Baxter. With Paris. With Ramona. With Zubin.

With Daniel, back at that cabin. Back when he'd manipulated him to let him leave the cabin, for reasons only selfish.

Back when he had helped Yasmin to die.

But he had a second chance now, right? Daniel was with him. Daniel wanted to travel with him. Now that he was with him, maybe he could use that second chance. Tell his sins. Start an alliance with Daniel anew.

And maybe he could use that second chance for others, as well. For Paris. Be that hero Paris wanted to be. Be that hero Paris knew the island needed.

And maybe he could use it for himself. Do the things he'd said he'd do. With Saachi. Back at the cabin.

Beat this game.

Make it end the way he wanted to.

And admittedly, he knew that work was a thought in process. Admittedly, he didn't know how he would go around being a hero, beating this game. What he could do to make it end the way he wanted to.

But it was a plan.

It was better than nothing.

And at the very least, he knew he could face the light. He knew now that he could leave these tunnels. He took a step. Turned to Daniel.

"I'm… fine with leaving now. Once you're ready, we should go."

((Maxwell Lombardi, continued elsewhere))

[delicateMachine]

((The coward in blue fled from the tunnels, and the dapper Brit followed-))

Well, actually Daniel was following Maxwell, because Maxwell was already a couple steps ahead of him and they weren't in so much of a rush that Daniel had to like, cut right past the dude or anything, but he was already messing with that one iconic line from that one book, y'know, that one, by making the second descriptor two words instead of one, and they were two pretty gross words, weren't they, seriously, but it was hard to have a one-word descriptor that wasn't boring or inane if you were just a regular human student guy, especially if it had to a "the" word, like, putting it as "and his companion followed" would flow a lot easier and would be a lot less gross, but that would also butcher the formula, so was it really worth it?

Ugh. Daniel. Self. No one else cares. Like, that's kind of obvious because you are finding the time to think this in your head and you're not saying it out loud or anything, but even if you were saying all that garbage out loud, no one would care. Legitimately. Wholeheartedly. Seriously, you've already ruined the moment. Sheesh.

((Okay, okay, they got outta there.))