[It happens faster than he remembers it. Grant sends the thing flying in Red's direction and he has to fight the bone-deep spike of horror, even from the sidelines. And then it's done, and they're gone. And he's got the real thing at his side, as he always does, now, while the memory of it goes about the motions of murdering him.
The second the cool air of the bay hits him, he drops the Transistor to the familiar pavement of the alleyway to catch Red as she flinches backward, pulling her toward him to hold her against his chest, as if to shield her from what comes next. (Do a better job of it, this time.) Won't help much, really. She'd lived this already, had plenty of time after the attack at the set to memorize it.
Takes all of them a moment to really recover from the show, though. Unsurprisingly. For his part he clutches Red close before she has a chance to do much else. It's a first for him, from this perspective. To see from the wide angle and with his wits about him what it looked like for her while he was coming to terms with being not quite as dead as he could have been. To hear his own voice through the modulation in the Transistor, as Red stumbles her way through her bearings, folded in on herself to look small, weighed down by the ridiculous length of her dress— The sight of it is heartbreaking. He closes his eyes against it, ducks his face into Red's hair with a sick rush of vertigo and a creep of cold shame as Richie collapses next to them.
All this—shouldn't have happened. And what is there to say about it? That it's over? That they're fine (he's...fine. He's not alive, exactly, but he's...it could be worse,) that it worked out for them in the end (sort of, better than he'd allowed himself to hope, once—) And there's nothing he'd like to do more than to pull her away from the empty city as it's pulled apart around them again, the panicked prattle that he'd never meant for her to hear. The fear in his voice when he couldn't find her. The slow desperate realization that came with it. I'm here. I'm over here, I'm over here, I'm... still here.
Quiet, if not as steadily as he would've liked—]
Hey. That's not— [It's not real, that's not them, not anymore. It's over, it happened, and there's nothing to do about it. Nothing left to fight for, here. No one left to rail against. Nothing they can do to roll back the clock. Hey takes a breath and tries again.] It's over. You're okay. And me, I'm... I'm right here. Both of us.
[Three of them, actually. Remembering Richie, he lifts his head again and finds him looking pale and rattled several feet away. In the near-distance, past-Red approaches the flickering blue-green light of the blade with her arms wrapped tight around herself, and his chest clenches again.]
C'mon. We shouldn't— [Shouldn't do this. Stand here and watch it all play out like it'll be any different this time. Drag Rich along with them. How much longer, before the Process start showing up?] ...Lets not stick around.
update: richie is cancelled before we even get to clown town, bye
The second the cool air of the bay hits him, he drops the Transistor to the familiar pavement of the alleyway to catch Red as she flinches backward, pulling her toward him to hold her against his chest, as if to shield her from what comes next. (Do a better job of it, this time.) Won't help much, really. She'd lived this already, had plenty of time after the attack at the set to memorize it.
Takes all of them a moment to really recover from the show, though. Unsurprisingly. For his part he clutches Red close before she has a chance to do much else. It's a first for him, from this perspective. To see from the wide angle and with his wits about him what it looked like for her while he was coming to terms with being not quite as dead as he could have been. To hear his own voice through the modulation in the Transistor, as Red stumbles her way through her bearings, folded in on herself to look small, weighed down by the ridiculous length of her dress— The sight of it is heartbreaking. He closes his eyes against it, ducks his face into Red's hair with a sick rush of vertigo and a creep of cold shame as Richie collapses next to them.
All this—shouldn't have happened. And what is there to say about it? That it's over? That they're fine (he's...fine. He's not alive, exactly, but he's...it could be worse,) that it worked out for them in the end (sort of, better than he'd allowed himself to hope, once—) And there's nothing he'd like to do more than to pull her away from the empty city as it's pulled apart around them again, the panicked prattle that he'd never meant for her to hear. The fear in his voice when he couldn't find her. The slow desperate realization that came with it. I'm here. I'm over here, I'm over here, I'm... still here.
Quiet, if not as steadily as he would've liked—]
Hey. That's not— [It's not real, that's not them, not anymore. It's over, it happened, and there's nothing to do about it. Nothing left to fight for, here. No one left to rail against. Nothing they can do to roll back the clock. Hey takes a breath and tries again.] It's over. You're okay. And me, I'm... I'm right here. Both of us.
[Three of them, actually. Remembering Richie, he lifts his head again and finds him looking pale and rattled several feet away. In the near-distance, past-Red approaches the flickering blue-green light of the blade with her arms wrapped tight around herself, and his chest clenches again.]
C'mon. We shouldn't— [Shouldn't do this. Stand here and watch it all play out like it'll be any different this time. Drag Rich along with them. How much longer, before the Process start showing up?] ...Lets not stick around.