[They sit. Maybe he shouldn't take that as an invitation to sit too, but looming over them like a shadow is too - ]
[It's not the kind of thing he associates with the good parts of his life, few and far between as those are. He lived with silhouettes cutting prison bars over his face, casting him in perpetual dark. He lived with doors opening to tall figures with white coats who wouldn't tell him what was wrong, leaving him to press his ear to the door while they whispered. And he knows, because the memory doesn't belong to him, that some children live with silhouettes far more visceral than that, because they were real. Because it wasn't some unknowable nightmare, but something that loomed regardless.]
["He'll kill me."] ["Don't let him kill you."]
[He crouches so he's at their level. Not next to; just across. Gapping that distance between them, allowing that cushion of space and breath.]
It's okay to cry.
[The words are quiet. He's the adult here, between the three of them, tied together by a frayed shoelace of a secret that wasn't meant to be a problem in the first place. He's the adult, and they're the children, and yet - he's maybe cried more in his life than either of them. He's done it too frequently. Messily, between panicked gulps of breath while Jay filmed him and stood there not knowing what to do.]
[Chara smiles too much, and Tim, not enough.] [Tim cries too much. And the kids...]
[If you're tough, you won't get hurt. If you're tough, you won't cry.]
I mean...Kidwun can tell you that I do it all the time. [It's not perfect, in terms of levity, but - maybe it's something.]
no subject
[It's not the kind of thing he associates with the good parts of his life, few and far between as those are. He lived with silhouettes cutting prison bars over his face, casting him in perpetual dark. He lived with doors opening to tall figures with white coats who wouldn't tell him what was wrong, leaving him to press his ear to the door while they whispered. And he knows, because the memory doesn't belong to him, that some children live with silhouettes far more visceral than that, because they were real. Because it wasn't some unknowable nightmare, but something that loomed regardless.]
["He'll kill me."]
["Don't let him kill you."]
[He crouches so he's at their level. Not next to; just across. Gapping that distance between them, allowing that cushion of space and breath.]
It's okay to cry.
[The words are quiet. He's the adult here, between the three of them, tied together by a frayed shoelace of a secret that wasn't meant to be a problem in the first place. He's the adult, and they're the children, and yet - he's maybe cried more in his life than either of them. He's done it too frequently. Messily, between panicked gulps of breath while Jay filmed him and stood there not knowing what to do.]
[Chara smiles too much, and Tim, not enough.]
[Tim cries too much. And the kids...]
[If you're tough, you won't get hurt. If you're tough, you won't cry.]
I mean...Kidwun can tell you that I do it all the time. [It's not perfect, in terms of levity, but - maybe it's something.]