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Language:
English
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Published:
2025-02-05
Words:
388
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1/1
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17
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Let Forever Be

Summary:

And how does it feel like
To breathe with everything?

Notes:

Originally written in request to an ask from spurious about why ControlTime makes me so crazy on my Tumblr. I still can't articulate, but hopefully this goes towards doing so. And yes, Quantum Break is tagged because come on now.

Thanks to The Chemical Brothers and Sam Lake's brain.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

You'll come back for me? Hah. Maybe.

He would, he would, he would, and he crawls through another television to another Him and Her.

—

Time wasn't a loop, he learned that early on. It was a spiral, on some days; plainly linear others; a corn maze he remembered from childhood on others. Nothing surprised him anymore, because how could it?

He thinks of her, of letting forever be - but the promise had been unspoken and The Master of Worlds would be the answer to end it all and for them to have their Happy Ending.

What was that again?

The television responds, and through he goes again.

—

You're so beautiful.

You're a cheeseball, stop.

No, you are, you're something impossible.

I'm real, stupid.

Is…this?

What?

Nothing.

It wasn't Nothing, and he stays in this World longer than he should, clutching her red-hair covered head to his chest in moments of absolute still.

—

Beth recognises him, Jesse does not. Lisa loves him, and he loves her back until it's time to go, and he feels each one of their souls pinching his own like a vice.

This is what you chose.

No it's not, but that doesn't stop him trying again and again and again and again.

—

The Master of Worlds is found, and he wonders if its too late to save himself. The romance of The Red Headed Woman, of his mission - but The Master goes down with nary a fight and an air punch of satisfaction like this was The Way it Was Supposed To Be.

He dreams of her, of circles and triangles and polyhedrons; in a grassy knoll where his exhaustion decided was a perfect place to do so.

Finally, he wakes - there's a river, and a television, and he breathes deeply.

One more time, because they still had time to find each other - and, by some perfect circle closing, he bursts into the RECquarters in a blaze of light.

Her coffee cup shatters on the ground, the brown liquid spilling across the floor as she runs into his arms in a swirl of black clothing and the type of hair colour that was something of long-thought out false memories.

"You came back for me," she whispers, and he clutches her like a vice.

"We're awake now," and he closes his eyes, happily.

-

Fin.

Notes:

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