Oh, no, then I definitely don't want you to tell me.
( a breath in, audible enough that it's obvious billy's going to go off on a tangent-- )
What if you tell me we find a way to take out Mother, we get Tommy back, and things with Teddy and I turn out... better, and then I go back home and I'm just the wrong shade of too confident about the outcome and I mess everything up and ruin it for everyone? What if me knowing how things go just makes everything go even worse? Or even worse - what if it's a lot brighter, but it's not brighter in the way that I think it would be? What if Teddy and I just don't work out but he goes off and gets engaged to someone else and I'm fine but I'm fine on my own which is--it's fine, I'd be happy for him but I'm totally not ready for that, I don't want to hear it. What if we handle Mother but we lose people in the process? What if I know that, and I go into it trying to save them, and then ruin everything? What if you tell me and it changes nothing except now I'm just sitting here imagining a happy future that I might never get to live because while you're now Earth 616-A David, I'm Earth 616-B Billy, and while this place can temporarily snap us to and from realities it's never permanent and I end up stuck here for forever while Earth 616-Prime Billy is off having a happy life and all I can do is sit here and know that somewhere, it exists?
( another breath in, because he'd gone through all of that without taking one. )
Your boyfriend?
( see, david! you have a boyfriend here, it's been eight years, clearly that last scenario has plenty of weight behind it. )
no subject
( a breath in, audible enough that it's obvious billy's going to go off on a tangent-- )
What if you tell me we find a way to take out Mother, we get Tommy back, and things with Teddy and I turn out... better, and then I go back home and I'm just the wrong shade of too confident about the outcome and I mess everything up and ruin it for everyone? What if me knowing how things go just makes everything go even worse? Or even worse - what if it's a lot brighter, but it's not brighter in the way that I think it would be? What if Teddy and I just don't work out but he goes off and gets engaged to someone else and I'm fine but I'm fine on my own which is--it's fine, I'd be happy for him but I'm totally not ready for that, I don't want to hear it. What if we handle Mother but we lose people in the process? What if I know that, and I go into it trying to save them, and then ruin everything? What if you tell me and it changes nothing except now I'm just sitting here imagining a happy future that I might never get to live because while you're now Earth 616-A David, I'm Earth 616-B Billy, and while this place can temporarily snap us to and from realities it's never permanent and I end up stuck here for forever while Earth 616-Prime Billy is off having a happy life and all I can do is sit here and know that somewhere, it exists?
( another breath in, because he'd gone through all of that without taking one. )
Your boyfriend?
( see, david! you have a boyfriend here, it's been eight years, clearly that last scenario has plenty of weight behind it. )