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Everything to nothing, and back to everything again.
Tears. A face. A movie projector, somewhere in the back of his mind, playing a reel in a theater.
A voice in the back of his mind. A friend. Friend.
Where was he? Angela? F— no, E Corp? Wait, which was it? And why’s Darlene here—
She had tears in her eyes, and that grounded him. The room suddenly came to focus; the steady beeping of hospital equipment, the scratching bed sheets, his own injuries. And her face, suddenly going from twisted up in tears, to realization. She leaned closer, searching him. He held his breath.
“Hello, Elliot.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Tick.
Elliot dug the bare quicks of his nails into the arm of the chair, feeling the cheap styrofoam meet exposed flesh. He’d been biting them so much, he didn’t want to suddenly look down in the middle of the meeting and see blood. Again.
You look coked up, rocking back and forth like that
.
Shut up, Elliot pushed back. Not
his
fault he was so anxious.
Maybe it was.
He’d brought this all on himself, hadn’t he? Elliot could feel his skin prickle all over the surface, as if ants were crawling along his neck, up to his hair, down his shoulder and collarbone, itching and tingling and—
“I’ll see you next week, then.”
He looked up to see the previous patient leave, a nervous smile on her face. Elliot listened, hearing rustling of papers, a file drawer open and close, then padded foot steps to the door.
“Elliot?”
He shot out of his chair as if electrocuted, and turned to her, slapping a friendly smile on his face. “Hello.”
Krista frowned back at him. She looked worried, which, given their history…
very
much made sense. She gestured for him to enter, and he sat on the small couch along the opposite wall of her chair. This new office was small, cramped, and filled with cheap furniture. It felt temporary, or at least Krista seemed to hope so.
Rug’s worn. I think that’s blood—
Arright, stop. Let him think. Give him some space.
Elliot closed his eyes, breathed and counted to five, then opened his eyes again, steadying himself as he smiled at Krista. Shit. He probably came off as creepy like that. Fuck.
“It’s been… a bit. How have you been?”
“Alright.” Automatic response. Right. Therapy. Open up. “Well, not great, per se, but getting by.”
Krista looked vehemently at him. “Elliot. You sent an email that…definitely made me concerned. On top of… previous things.”
He remembered sending an email to set up an appointment, but not the details. Probably for the best.
“Krista, I— Okay, there’s… a lot to explain. The first thing is… something Mr. Robot would like to tell you.” He paused, hesitating at her slightly affronted look. “Well, a request. I don’t… remember the last…
incident
, as he called it. And he wants to keep it that way, at least for now. And he’s asking you to respect that.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “You don’t remember?”
“No, because—” Elliot rubbed his palms on the knees of his pressed jeans. He looked out the window, feeling it all slip away…
“Elliot?”
He looked back. “Sorry. I— I’m Elliot.”
“Yes…”
“No, you— You have never met me before. Not properly. The “Elliot” you knew was… someone else.”
“A different alter?”
“Yeah. I was dormant for… well, almost a year now. I’m the primary host, or at least I was for a while. Until he sort of… took over.”
“And… who is he, if not Elliot?”
“The Mastermind.”
A flash of something crossed over her face. Elliot expected fear, but if anything, it seemed more like amusement…
“Nice to meet you properly, then, Elliot.”
“Thanks, nice to meet you, too. Properly, that is.”
Krista seemed to make a mental note of that. “Alright. And now, you’re back. After about a year? How much do you remember?”
“...Bits and pieces. I think I came to the front once, maybe twice, but mostly I had no idea anything about reality. Ever since I’ve come back, it started coming back a bit, and Mr. Robot’s been helping me fill stuff in.”
“And how do you feel about being dormant?”
“I—” his breath caught. He choked slightly. Sniffed. Caught himself. “I hated it. I hate it now, the fact that I just. Was gone. From my own life. And no one knew. And now I’m back, and my whole life—” No. Don’t go there. Not now.
It’s okay. We’re here.
No. No going down that rabbit hole, not any time soon. “I might go back any second. Every time I want to space out, dissociate, let someone else take the wheel… I can’t. I won’t. I don’t want to lose my life again.”
“It’s alright, Elliot. Start slow. You said you don’t want to lose your life…”
Elliot paused. “Well, no. Not
only
mine. It belongs just as much to the others. But they
choose
to front or not front as much as they want. I… I didn’t even…”
Tell her.
No.
“Elliot?”
“
There’s something to tell…
I just hate everything. Sorry. Sorry, spaced out for a sec.”
“It’s alright, Elliot.”
He heard a scoff in his head. Sorry, he thought. But I need to be here. I don’t… I can’t…
“What was the hardest thing about coming back?”
“Sorry?”
He looked at Krista.
“You were gone for almost a year, as you said. Were you somewhere else? How was it different from reality?”
“I…”
…
“Elliot?”
…
“You don’t have to talk about that yet, Elliot. Just listen to my voice, you are alright. Elliot, you are here in my office, look around. Take into account what you feel, your body sitting in that chair, how the air feels, how—”
“
Stop.
”
“...Elliot?”
“I’m done today.”
“We can stop now, and you can leave if you would like, but I ask that you at least stay for the rest of the session. We don’t even have to talk about anything in particular.” Krista paused, letting them have room to breathe. “You don’t have to answer this; in fact, you don’t even have to respond, but I am curious as to who is currently here.”
A pause.
“I—I’m not Elliot. Or the Mastermind. I won’t tell you my name, though.”
“Fair enough. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable; whoever you are, nice to speak with you. How has your day been?”
A blink.
“We aren’t doing this. I’m not going to speak to some shrink—no offense. I understand that you believe your practice to be…
legitimate.”
A sneer.
“But I won’t partake. I won’t stop this when it isn’t me, but if I have to be here… no.”
The look Krista was getting at that moment was one of a piercing gaze that was as sharp as a knife, slashing and searching Krista for any red flags or signs of danger. Krista sat there, letting herself be analyzed. The whole system had to know they could be safe, at the very least in this room. Not that that had always been true in the past…
“That’s perfectly alright. I’m never going to force you to talk in therapy, especially if you aren’t ready. I said we could start slow, in fact we don’t even have to dive in at all yet. Even just meeting is a start. I am glad you are just here with me, today.”
A few minutes passed, and the two fell into a surprisingly comfortable silence. While their searching gaze had never lessened, there seemed to be an additional understanding gained. A look, somewhere underneath the harsh exterior, that Krista felt was beginning to understand the lack of danger. The session came to a close, and they stood and walked to the door, before turning back to Krista.
“
Your dress looks nice today.”
And then they were gone and out the door, leaving Krista behind to furiously scrawl everything into her notes.
A blur of the door, stairs, and a trail of murky carpet, and by the time the cold air hit him, Elliot was back. He looked to the side and spotted Darlene, leaning against a wall, smoking and typing away at her phone.
“Hey.”
She looked up at Elliot and lowered her sunglasses to study him. After being seemingly satisfied that he was alright enough, she grinned and threw an arm around him, stamping out her cigarette on the concrete.
“Hey, asshat, how’s it hangin’?”
“You didn’t have to pick me up from Krista’s.” He paused. “But thanks.”
“No problemo, dude. ‘Sides, I wanted to get some McDonalds with you. I’ve been craving their horrific fries all day.”
“I’d love to.”
They walked in silence to the nearest McDonalds, Darlene occasionally commenting on how rich this part of town was while Elliot listened. They got their fries, and Elliot leaned into the comfort of the worn red seats as Darlene began talking about what she’d done that day; cleaning, job applications, checking online forums for updates, watching the news…
And it struck Elliot that this,
this
, was perhaps the first moment of true normality he (or the entire system) had experienced in perhaps a year. Even when he took over fronting again, it had been hell trying to recover mentally and physically. Even out of the hospital, on days where the attacking migraines weren’t as horrific, and he could hold onto reality a little bit better, and he wasn’t paralyzed in terror and panic, and he wasn’t on the floor, a grieving mess, he was trying to deal with Darlene, figuring out where they could stay, where was safe, what on earth to do with the rest of their lives.
Mastermind, it seemed, hadn’t really planned on actually being able to live that long. Darlene, even if unintentionally, seemed to share that sentiment. Maybe that was why they had gotten along so well. All Elliot could do most of the time was worry about the future; those two only cared about the present.
But now, in the comfort of the McDonalds, the shitty cracked seats and sticky tables and greasy food, Darlene’s chatter, the AC blowing down the back of his neck; it still managed to be a moment of bliss for him. Alright, maybe not
bliss
… but definitely peace. And he could take that.
Start slow. A moment of peace. Not much, but… a start.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Rain. Rain, pouring down his face. Endless, torrential rain that gushed from the heavens above to the profane below. Earth meeting the sky at last, in this wet in-between that he was stuck in. A car roared past with its angry engine, and he sucked in a breath, shoving his hands deep into his pockets, wishing he had his coat with him. At least,
a
coat at all would suffice in this weather.
Elliot had been caught in the rain, no jacket or hoodie to shield him, and Mr. Robot’s best guess was that the sounds of the billions of droplets, distant rolling thunder, and cars slushing through the puddles on the street had all overwhelmed him. And what was Mr. Robot here for if not getting shit done.
He finally stumbled into the dim apartment building, holding onto the railing as he hauled upward to the fifth floor to the room they were sharing with Darlene. After all the events of the previous year, both were forced to pool their resources together to get a place to stay. It was small and dingy, but Mr. Robot still thought it was an improvement on their last place. At least they had curtains pulled back on sunny days, another person present, smoother bed sheets, no random morphine on various surfaces, a microwave that actually didn’t smell of burning electric parts at all times…
Darlene was still at work until late that day, but Mr. Robot was nonetheless greeted by an eager little ball of fur.
“Heya, Flipper. Want some treats, girlie?” He put down his bag by the couch and grabbed the box of treats they kept on top of the fridge. “Had a rough day? You and me both, girl. Here ya’ go.”
He sat on the floor, legs criss-cross as Flipper eagerly ate the treats and licked his face repeatedly. Despite being completely exhausted, Flipper’s endless enthusiasm soon made Mr. Robot start smiling, and the two sat on the floor together, Flipper resting her head in Mr. Robot’s lap as he ran his fingers through her fur. They sat in the calm for a while, Mr. Robot trying to soak in every second of calm until his phone rang. Darlene was on her way home, and picking up dinner on the way. Dinner, of course, meant a night of Wendy’s to break up the endless ramen; Mr. Robot couldn’t help but remember their college days.
College for their system had been… interesting. It had just been him and Elliot for a while, although they didn’t quite know the difference, even by then. Magda had shown up right before college started, and they’d had to deal with that. They hadn’t known about being a system, or even what the hell that was. But Elliot often got “spaced out”, and then suddenly had exponentially more confidence and charisma; Angela had referred to it as his “energy days”. She’d been the one to run to Elliot after a particular psychology class and shove her textbook in his face.
“It has a name…”
he had said.
“
I
have a name…” Mr. Robot had thought.
“I’m not a monster…”
Magda had murmured, from the depths of their mind. It was one of the first nights in weeks she hadn’t tried to hurt them.
Elli had shown up shortly after; an outlet for Magda’s hatred, and for Mr. Robot’s pain. Elliot had a migraine that lasted almost a week, and suddenly Mr. Robot wasn’t the only one who remembered certain things. Elli had been the one to actually start trying to build their inner world; Elliot had been reading up on dissociative disorders, trying to figure it all out. Elli saw information on the inner world and got to work, while Elliot was still miles in self denial.
“I’m making it all up, I don’t just become someone different—people would have noticed. I shouldn’t self-diagnose.”
Mr. Robot had rolled his eyes. Ever since they had found out about DID, it all had made infinitely more sense; and of course Elliot was in denial, he barely remembered anything those days. But Angela still talked to Elliot, and Elliot still wasn’t always Elliot.
Mr. Robot had known Angela nearly his entire existence, and still cared about her deeply. They still endlessly talked to one another on the green space on their college campus, picked up coffees together at horrendous hours, pulled all-nighters together during stressful points in the semester. They had grown up together, been best friends, shared secrets and wishes, all whether or not Angela had ever realized it.
And now, Angela was gone.
The street. Footprints in the snow.
Huh?
Mr. Robot checked internally, and wasn’t too sure who had spoken, but there weren’t that many that readily had that memory. It was old, so old. Not exactly
blocked out
for the others, but just two years after…
his
death, and most of the system didn’t usually ruminate on that time. Elliot and Mastermind seemed to be aware of the end of
his
life, and then high school, maybe getting into college, and then moving to New York. Little Elli, though…
It was night.
We weren’t supposed to be out that late; but I was eleven, and Angela was about to turn ten. We were supposed to go home, and Angela was walking with me—us— since she’d promised to see Darlene. The street we lived on was unusually quiet, no screaming children, or screaming adults. Not even a car engine, or dog barking, and our own footsteps muffled by the snow.
The snow. It was falling, large wispy chunks all around us. I wanted to turn it blue and make snow cones. The sky was usually blue-ish in the evening, but it had shifted purple as snow took over. Street lights began to blur, becoming orange halos above us. For a second, it was almost as if we were somewhere else entirely… Angela had a halo, too. She smiled and held our hand, and we looked around, because Mom hated it when we held hands. But no one was around.
Mom had taken us to church a few times, mostly for her side of the family. She sure didn’t believe in any God, but the few times we saw our extended family were paired with images of stained glass reaching up all around us. Angels, saints, Gods…
God. Those churches only showed one of those dudes.
Then why did they talk about three-in-one? But anyways, all the people looked so… hole-y.
I- Nevermind.
And that’s how Angela looked. For a little moment, I thought maybe… Maybe she was an angel from one of those Gods, and maybe… maybe she would come and rescue us. Darlene and me. And we would all go far away, maybe to New York, like in Angela’s favorite book. And maybe it would snow every day there.
And Angela and I held hands, and even skipped down the street. Angela started twirling around and wouldn’t relent until I did it, too. I tripped at one point, and fell into the soft snow beside the road, already piling up. Angela collapsed next to me, and we just laughed and laughed and laughed… And I wanted to name the day. It was so special, shouldn’t it get a name? And Angela just laughed more, but she wasn’t mean, and she said we should name it Black Licorice Day. I think she’d had some of that earlier, and I stuck out my tongue at her, because that shit’s gross.
Big language alert.
Big language needed, black licorice is awful.
It
is
. Fair use.
Anyway, I tried to say it wasn’t a holiday. It wasn’t just something we celebrated, but it was special to
us
. Like a person. So it should have a name like a person. At the very least, like a pet.
So we named it Clementine, but I secretly named it Clarence. Clarence is a colder name, and the cold felt good. And we got home, and because Angela was there, Mom didn’t yell too much. Darlene was already asleep, but Angela stayed over, and we fell asleep in the living room.
What did we wind up watching?
Matilda
. Angela kept talking about how pretty the teacher, Miss Honey, looked, and how she wanted to be like her when she grew up. I thought about how I wanted to have a Miss Honey in my life, someone to give me books and whisk me away. But I have you, and I think that’s a pretty neat situation.
Thanks, kiddo. I think you’re pretty cool too. Neat memory.
Yeah… Definitely softer than the rain.
——————————————————————————————
Darlene and Elliot just ate the Wendy's in relative silence. It wasn’t tense; Darlene occasionally mentioned how her new cybersecurity job was doing alright, how the guy at the corner cubicle kept reminding her of Ollie, and how he was so obviously gearing up to try and
talk
to her… Elliot just leaned into the portion of the couch beside her, eating and listening to his sister's voice. She’d dip into a silence, and they’d sit, and then she’d mention Dom’s recent call. She was in Austria at the moment, in the middle of nowhere. Apparently, she was making her way to Munich, and then maybe Italy.
Elliot heard the twinge of something in Darlene’s voice; not entirely sad, but certainly alone. Missing her. Glad that she was out in the world. Still longing.
“Well, anyways, gotta get some sleep before getting back on that capitalist grind tomorrow!”
Elliot rolled his eyes with a smile as they pulled out the two mattresses they’d shoved in the corner for day storage. Darlene went and showered while Elliot laid out the covers for their twinning twin-sized mattresses. He smoothed out the sheets and fluffed Darlene’s pillow before his, and then changed into his sleeping pants. Elliot lay in his makeshift bed, trying to fall into a relaxed state as Darlene came back into the main room and collapsed into her bed. She was out cold in under a minute, and Elliot smiled a bit. She’d been working hard at her new job, despite how much she hated it. Even with how much Darlene ranted against it, she’d taken the steady job that Dom had recommended her for over the freelance work Elliot was now doing. Elliot looked at her, with her formal business attire and—
employee ID, for fuck’s sake
—he marveled at the fact that, for the first time in possibly her entire existence, Darlene had stability.
She seemed miserable with it, sure, but still plenty better than what the previous year had been like. Elliot shuddered, a flash of queasiness hitting him like a truck at the thought of the past year. The sheer
stress
that all those months had been filled with, even if he wasn’t quite sure about the specifics, all the pain and loss and death and—
Since when had he spent time at his mother’s house?
The blood suddenly rushing to his head created a roar in his ears. Elliot’s body suddenly started shaking, going cold, then numb, then shaking again. Something rushed through his mind, several
things
, a face he could finally put to the name…
He crept to the bathroom trying not to wake up Darlene. He balanced on the edge of the bathtub, opening the lid of the toilet in case he threw up… He’d been in
prison
, how could he have forgotten
prison
. The images of him in a house with his mother were still there, but he knew they were nothing but a façade, and he could start to see the truth behind them. Steel bars, menacing sneers, a face behind the chattering Seinfeld enthusiast he knew as “Leon”. Violence. Chess. Vomit and Adderall and
fear, fear, fear, fear
—
It’s over now. You don’t have to worry about it.
“
Worry about it???
” Elliot nearly spat out, anger and rage pooling into the mix of terror. “I spent all this time, glossing over those memories, completely forgetting our own mother being in a home for
years
,
I was in
prison
, I have a fucking
criminal record
because some part of me that I can’t fully control decided to fuck over
my life
, just for… for what, the hell of it?? I applied for
jobs
without remembering that! It would have been fucking nice to know
one goddamn thing about my own fucking life
—”
Not your life.
“Fuck. You.” Elliot ripped off his shirt, jamming on the water in the shower. His hand shook as it hovered over the temperature knob.
Burn.
He shoved it to the hottest side, stripping and trying to bury himself in the scalding water. He stood in it for almost a full minute before he watched himself turn it to a milder temperature, and then slowly to the cooler side. He felt himself shaking in a body that suddenly didn’t feel like his own. Everything ached, head hurting from dry sobs that would not yield tears. He felt too numb to actually cry.
Shhhhh. Here.
Elliot stood in the shower as hands shampooed his hair, gently washing it clean. His chest and throat ached, eyes stinging from tears that would never fall, and his hair was being rinsed. He finished showering, and felt wrapped in the towel. The world felt as if filled with cardboard cut-outs, depth suddenly filled with flat shapes, and Elliot sighed.
Let’s get you to bed.
Elliot looked in the mirror at a face that surprised him. He wasn’t sure who he was, or
what
he was, but Elliot watched as he brushed his teeth and leaned heavily against the counter. How could
this
be the worst part of it? Every flashback, panic attack, moment of absolute terror and feeling as if falling into a sheer abyss, felt… almost
better
than this. Because as Elliot slid back into bed, Darlene none the wiser, he felt completely fine. Numb. Like he was never upset. No reason to be. Why had he overreacted? He felt completely stupid for it; Elliot almost wished for the feelings to come back. In the nothingness, it felt like there was no reason to be upset in the first place, and he had almost made it all up. But he knew he’d been trained to dissociate at any sign of stress his whole life. They all had been. And now he was stuck feeling nothing at all, longing for the agony from before. At least he would have known it was real.