voice | murder .9

[heltersskelter]

[he doesn't post to this forum very often, but when he does there's always some meat to it. Tate likes to see what people will do, he's a provocateur, digging at a wound to see what it'll look like as it bleeds and the reaction it'll get.

this is nothing like that.

his hands are trembling and he's bitten his nails down to the quick. there's something raw and volatile in his voice, and it shakes when he speaks. less like tears and more like fear.]

I can't find— I can't find Hayley.

Comments

voice;

[cons]

[ there's a long pause, like maybe she's trying to think of something else to say, but- ]

If you figure it out, you know where to find me, Tate. [ but now her mouth's dry, stupidly nervous for no good stupid reason ( okay there's a reason but she doesn't know ) and maybe it's because she knows how this feels from a long streak of losing more and more people each jump ] You're not alone here, don't forget that.

voice;

[heltersskelter]

You don't get it.

[because Hayley understood, that darkness. she wasn't afraid. and now that she's gone, there's nobody left. nobody who isn't afraid of him.]

She wasn't afraid.

voice; encrypted 80%

[cons]

I think I might, actually.

[ which is her way of getting around saying 'i think she wasn't afraid because she trusted you wouldn't hurt her'. which really just makes her wonder why exactly that was ]

She protected you, you know.

voice; encrypted 80%

[heltersskelter]

[tate doesn't think he needs protection, doesn't think of anything Hayley did had protecting him so much as protecting their interests. He doesn't know exactly what she's getting at, so he stays silent, wait for her to go on because she's the kind of person who will]

voice; encrypted 80%

[cons]

She told me a story about you. The truth.

[ a truth that she never believed, but she doesn't have to specify. she feels- feverish? all of a sudden? like the kind of nerves that make you face turn hot because she's not sure she should even try and poke at him for the truth right now, considering he's just lost someone, but she's doing it because she's not sure she'll get the chance to ]

Maybe she protected you because she knew people wouldn't treat you the same if they knew.

voice; encrypted 80%

[heltersskelter]

[this is probably meant to scare him. he doesn't actively think it, but the problem is that his caution is gone. a state of inactivity isn't good for something vibrating at such a high frequency. maybe it's been too long.

or maybe Hayley was the catalyst.

either way, his voice is low when he speaks.]

How would you know what truth is?

voice; encrypted 80%

[cons]

[ that makes her grin, not that he can see it, but the huff of 'oh, irony' is probably heard ]

Truth's all I got now.

And I saw you in that house. [ might've been a fucked up version of him, like Little Rock was in her fog world, but still ] I saw how angry and scared those kids were. They were looking for you, weren't they? It matched up with what she told me. [ SO THERE'S THAT it's a shot in the dark ( fuck your puns ) but she's taking it because the opening is there ]