Make It Stop (Lyric/Quinn - The Astronomy Tower)

[Trent Frey]

He just wanted it to end. He couldn't take it anymore, and though he'd had the same thought a thousand times, he knew that this time it was different. This time as he stood on the edge, he didn't see himself falling. He saw the world as it would be without him, and how much better it would be for everyone else.

His mother would miss him, but she'd get over it, she'd move on. He'd hurt her far more living than he could ever hurt her by dying. Jory wouldn't even notice. His bed was already empty most of the time anyway. His trunk would go home, but his mom wouldn't need it. She could get rid of everything, and she'd have that much more room.

What would he miss? He tried to think of something, anything, but fell short. He wouldn't miss anyone, really. All he had were regrets from things he'd done, things he hadn't done, and people he'd hurt. He was ruining Quinn's life and they'd only met twice.

His eyes were blurred with tears he refused to shed as he stepped up onto that familiar ledge, dropping his duffel bag and his trench coat to the ground behind him. His box was in there, the security spells down for once, and a piece of parchment attached to the lid with a sticking charm. Quinn, 6th year Gryffindor. The dragon she'd given him was tucked inside, wrapped in a note that said to throw everything else away.

It was cold, but it didn't matter. He couldn't feel it anyway as he latched Melody's strap around his neck. It still had the film from his birthday in it, whatever pictures Jory took and whatever pictures he couldn't remember having taken of Jory still waiting inside.

He took a slow breath and tried to find that clarity he'd found so many times, but it wouldn't come. His mind was too jumbled, and he couldn't catch any real thoughts. He was going insane, and this was the only way to shut it all off. Death didn't frighten him, and even if he believed in hell, it couldn't be worse than this. He closed his eyes and leaned forward, that thought repeating in his mind. Make it stop. Make it stop.

[Quinn Ashwinder]

It had taken a long time to find out where Lyric had been hiding. After the twins had harrassed her she'd been looking for him everywhere, worried that something might have happened to him, someone might have hurt him. But she'd heard rumors, rumors of a boy with spiky long hair that had been hanging out on the astronomy tower. There had been a fight of some kind between him and a Slytherin girl who had been crowing, whether or not she'd won, Quinn hadn't heard.

She hadn't been sure it was him, not until she'd chanced on Madison, and mentioned that she was looking for someone. Madison had seemed interested until she had heard a description of Lyric. After that she'd been less pleasant about it, telling Quinn that he wasn't worth her time, that he was a jerk and that he had issues.

Quinn supposed she knew all of that already, but she also supposed that if she didn't work so hard against it, it would be easy to fall into that position herself. She had the memories of wonderful times with her sister and shared smiles to get her through the worst times, and she wasn't sure that Lyric had anything like that. She still didn't know enough about Lyric, and from what Madison had told her she might not have much time to get to know him.

So she had planned to head up to the astronomy tower, where the rumors had placed him, what she hadn't expected was to see what she was seeing. When the door opened, she froze in her place, her breath escaping from her lungs as she died a bit inside. The rumors hadn't prepared her for this, "Lyric," she said just loud enough for him to hear, but she prayed not loud enough to push him that next inch. Her voice was laced with her terror and a pain that she was to familiar with in her more isolated moments.

[Trent Frey]

Lyric's heels returned to the stone wall with a muffled sound that was stark in the stillness of the air, and his head turned sharply. His eyes caught Quinn's over his shoulder, pain he couldn't handle visible in every fallen line of his face, the hurt in his eyes palpable in the air. He'd heard her voice, he saw her, and part of him recognized her, but it was all distantly. He felt like he was outside himself, beyond himself, and only watching himself look at her. It didn't register beyond that vague recognition.

He turned back toward the edge, and though he didn't lean forward again this time, he still couldn't hear his thoughts. He still couldn't think of a reason why he shouldn't. Quinn being here would just make it easier. He didn't have to wonder who would go through his bag before she got his box. She'd liked it, so he could let her have that much of what he owed her back.

[Quinn Ashwinder]

Quinn watched in dazed horror as Lyric turned back towards the air that signified something more and less than safety. She stepped forward, knowing she couldn't, shouldn't touch him, he wouldn't want that, couldn't handle that, but she saw on his face what he'd never let her see. When he'd been with her it had been about forgetting not about remembering, and she knew that was what was happening right now.

"Lyric, please don't." How did you tie someone to you when they were thinking about things like this. "Talk to me instead, I'll listen. I'll understand. Please just give me a minute." To try and call him back to this world. She was standing closer to him, not close enough to touch, or to impede, she was hoping to God it was enough to get him to listen think long enough to give him a moment.

She knew that she shouldn't feel for him the things she was feeling, knew it was to soon, to hard to deal with for both of them. Yet, Lyric made her feel alive in a way no one else could, even if they knew what had happened they would never know and she was pretty sure that he would. He would know, and she would bear her soul to him if it meant saving him. She would reveal every flaw and guilt she knew that she held for Kiley's death.

If she couldn't stop him, she supposed it would mean that she had failed again, and someone that felt close to her would die. She would be responsible again. She knew he was struggling, but she was hoping to stop that, was hoping to offer him something more, but she'd been slow, she'd thought he needed slow, wasn't that what he needed?

[Trent Frey]

Lyric was silent, and still Quinn felt too far away to have any real impact. He wasn't even in his body anymore, so what did it matter where she stood? He was a shell, and he was so far outside that shell that he knew he'd only be watching himself fall. He wouldn't feel the pain, and it wouldn't matter what came after because he'd be gone. It would all be gone, and he'd have that peace he wanted so desperately.

He felt his throat close, but he didn't feel the trail of wet heat slide down the side of his face. He wasn't aware of the brief path of his tongue moistening dry lips, only of the insistent pounding of his brain and all the thoughts that swirled around, with so few that he actually heard. "It won't matter once it's done," he thought aloud, his voice soft and shaky, an insecure echo of the boy he'd been just a few months ago.

[Quinn Ashwinder]

Quinn's head shook in a silent negation of his words as she stepped even closer, praying she didn't startle him, praying that she could get close enough to him to make him listen. Just listen she cried in her head. I'm here with you, I feel it too. She did, she knew she did, the need sometimes to just not exist anymore had been a constant companion for a while. It had gotten worse when no one had talked to her for months, and she'd felt so insignificant. But whether it was under some influence or not, she'd felt like she'd meant something to him, and it had meant something to her.

Quinn was standing just off center behind him now, close enough to touch or hopefully grab him if needed, but not obstructing his opportunity to step down on his own. "It will matter, it will matter to me. Lyric you matter to me. You. No matter how screwed up we both are." She felt less screwed up around him, almost as though she could function just a bit more normally.

[Trent Frey]

"You don't even know me," Lyric said, the words soft and absent. It was a response, however small, but he was only distantly aware of it as he looked toward the ground. "I'm breaking you." He broke everyone he knew somehow. He'd seen his mother break down over him, Jory had gone from shy and happy to hurt and demanding. He'd ruined whatever innocence Quinn had when she'd found him.

He closed his eyes and breathed in, trying to feel alive for just a moment before he let go, but he didn't feel it. It was automatic, and there was no sense that he'd had any control of it. He hadn't even been living. He didn't want to do it anymore. He wanted to be alone. He leaned forward onto his toes again, halfheartedly debating how long it would be before she'd give up and walk away.

[Quinn Ashwinder]

If that were the truth Quinn thought to herself, than the solutions to her own issues were easy. "I was broken before I met you." Her voice was haunted, "and I want to know you. More than just this side of you, but all of them." She took a deep breath, still terrified, but wanting Lyric to know she meant what she said. To know that he wasn't alone.

"My sister dying, it was my fault Lyric. My fault. I was the reason my twin sister died. She should be the one standing here not me. The only reason I'm not on that ledge with you is because I took her life away from her, and I have, I have to keep what's left of her alive." She hoped it was enough for him to realize that she wasn't his responsibility, she wasn't breaking because of him. He was the one offering her a way to view and deal with the pain, she hadn't dealt yet, and she still wasn't ready to.

[Trent Frey]

Lyric looked over his shoulder again, then down at Quinn, part of him holding on to what she'd said. His own pain was still there, and the remnants of self-hatred that had him standing here ready to end it all, but her words pulled at him just enough to feel a newly dampened tearstain on his cheek.

"Why is it your fault?" he asked softly. It was a lifeline somehow, and he clung to her scars as a distraction from his own. His mind still spun, still tore at him, and the edge still called to him that silent peace was only a step away, but some tiny frightened part of him that he didn't even see dug its claws in and held tightly.

"What did you do?" He couldn't imagine how Quinn could do anything to kill someone, but the part of him that was steeped in anger wanted to hear that she'd done something worse than he'd done. He wanted to know that he was better than someone.

[Quinn Ashwinder]

Quinn had to look away from Lyric for a moment, her eyes filling with silent tears, "do you remember how I said that my step-father wasn't a great man." She knew he hadn't seen her scars when they had been together, and she would not reveal that part of herself to him, she wasn't ready for that yet. Maybe if they could get through this it would be something they could talk about.

She looked up at Lyric, her own eyes shimmering in pain and loss. "I knew what he was, I was always the one of us to stand in the background and just do what he told me. But that day. That day I didn't. He asked me to do something and I refused. It wasn't something I hadn't done before, but that day I said no." She restlessly tugged at her hair, "I said no, and I knew what it would do. I knew what he would do. But I said no anyways. And then he started."

She shook her head, "I could have stopped it, if I had just done what he said. If I had just done it my sister wouldn't have stepped in. She stepped in to stop him, to save me. And I still could have stopped it." Tears could not be checked any longer, and the pain, stress, and terror she was feeling let loose like a dam, rolling one after the other down her cheek. "Instead I hid when he was distracted, I hid and I watched her take my punishment, I watched what should have happened to me, and I let it. She was the only thing in my life worth anything and I let it happen." She hadn't meant to, but even now she could hear the striking of flesh, the wincing, and Kiley telling her to be that selfish girl who hid.

[Trent Frey]

Lyric could feel a dull ache somewhere, and though he still felt distant, it affected him. "I let someone hurt me," he said, unable to say it all even now, not after how badly Jory had turned against him for whatever reasons. "I let him and I liked it. And I hated it." And he hated himself so much for letting it happen. No one can hurt you without your permission. He was still sick in so many ways from letting it happen to him.

"I lie, and I steal. I hurt people and get them addicted, and I'm not sorry for it," he went on as his tears went on unnoticed. "My mom forgives me, and I still hurt her and I still take because she's stupid enough to let me, and I hate her for it. And I hate her for letting it happen, but I hate myself more." He choked on the words. He felt the pain, but held on to numbness with everything he had left. "I can't stop hurting people."

[Quinn Ashwinder]

She got it, she did, "when I woke up the next morning, I hated that she was gone. But I was vibrantly happy I was alive, even if it meant she was gone." The admission was torn from her throat. "I get the intellectual stuff, about how I should hate him, and I do, but I hate myself more." She shook her head as she looked up at him, her hand reaching out to him, but not quite touching, wanting it, but knowing his needs too.

"No one in this world is perfect Lyric. We all make the choices we make knowing the consequences." She looked up at him, "I may not know the details, but I'm not stupid, I know there's something off about what we do, Jory and Markise told me enough. But I still choose for myself. Like your mom chooses to help you, forgive you, even if you don't think you deserve it, something in her thinks you do. And just like I didn't deserve what my sister did for me, she did it, because she loved me, and it was her choice."

Quinn kept one arm extended, but she inched closer to the edge of the castle, looking over it to see what he saw. "Death isn't a solution to stopping the hurt for anyone but yourself. When you go, it ends for you, but everyone behind you still hurts." She looked at that dark ground, and then up at Lyric. "They'll live the rest of their lives thinking it's their fault you're up here, that somehow, they hurt you." She didn't want to add him to the list with her sister, she wanted him to come down and talk to her, really talk, cauterize the wound, forget about it, or scream out the injustices, just to react to them somehow.

[Trent Frey]

Lyric hesitated, but the tears went on. They'll live the rest of their lives thinking it's their fault. Would they? Would his mom hate herself the way he hated himself? Would he keep hurting her from the grave? His thoughts spun unnoticed now. Even the prodding to jump, to end it and shut things off was spinning too quickly to hear, leaving his mind as numb as the rest of him.

He looked at Quinn's hand, and his own rose, reaching for it. He couldn't touch her, though. He hated himself so much, and touch was just a reminder of everything he'd let happen. It was a reminder of how tainted he was and how he couldn't help that sick enjoyment of it all. He wanted to, but he couldn't. His fingers curled into themselves, and he pulled his hand back, but he turned on the wall to face her. "I don't want to do this anymore," he whispered. But how could he go back after this?

[Quinn Ashwinder]

Quinn almost cried in relief, but that would mean that she'd have to quit crying the other tears first. She saw the gesture that Lyric had made, and thought it was a start, the beginning of something good. It was a gesture he'd never made before. What didn't he want to do anymore, hate himself, hate others, die slowly every day from the inside? They were all valid choices.

"There are days I don't want to either. Then I wake up and I'm glad at least for the moment as the sun touches my face that I made it to the next day. I'll be here to help you on your bad days if you think you might be able to help me on my bad days." She shrugged as she tried in vain to wipe at her eyes, "One day I hope that I'll know that it wasn't my fault I couldn't avoid it, like everyone says. And one day, I hope the same for you. Maybe we won't ever know it, but maybe we can live with it. I want to try, I want to prove to that bastard that he can't control my life anymore, ever again."

[Trent Frey]

That brought the ache Lyric felt to another level. Wasn't that what he'd been doing? No one could control him like this. He was out of control, and that was what he wanted. He raged so hard against everything and anything he thought was trying to control him, and he told himself he was free. No one could hurt him the way he could hurt himself. No one could get through to him unless he let them.

"I can't help you," he said. And they're all bad days. There was no moment in the sun for him, and he didn't want one. He didn't believe in them. The ones he'd had were so short-lived, and they'd all ended in confirmation that he didn't deserve happiness. He deserved constant reminders that he wasn't good enough, and that pain was all he was worth.