lifeaftr | they say the captain goes down with the ship [ OPEN ]

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they say the captain goes down with the ship [ OPEN ]

Who: Tim Wright, and whoever wants to deal with him
What: The Gang Has A Fucking Breakdown
When: 8/12 and onward
Where: Islet 4, library, generally around Ensō
Warnings: Preemptive warnings for grief and self-loathing. The first prompt also has a warning for self-harm, and the second for smoking.

i. islet 4 ; i got troubled thoughts
It's a weird thing to get used to - the fact that he's in a bed. He was thinking about building bedframes, trying to make that come together, but it's been slow going. He knows exactly who he has to thank (to blame?) for that, and exactly how he's going to have to repay them. They got him an actual, real bed - probably the both of them. A mattress, a frame, a pillow, gray sheets, the whole bit. It's still a shock.

Only this morning, when he sits up, there's a soft crackle underneath his pillow.

Something's been left behind, underneath it.

It's a note. Several notes.

He reads them in silence.

He lets the hollow pit in his soul expand, slowly, like effluvium, until it presses up at the roof of his mouth with all the rancid stickiness of bile. His eyes flick up, staring numbly at the hammock that both children share - shared. A galaxy-print jacket. A blue jacket. A red sweater, knitted by hand with love and care. They've been there from the start. They've been there from the very start, and he wants to reach out, catch the threads of one of those old keepsakes and draw them close to his chest and cling to them, like they might remind him of what was once there.

He can't. He can't. Those aren't his to cleave to. He'd just double over them, and get his tears and his snot and his sick all over those things that don't belong to him. What he has is a locket, a golden lump underneath his shirt, which his hand falls to automatically. The little word printed across the front. Friend.

Come to terms with two things in quick succession, Tim Wright.

The first: they're gone. They're gone, and there's no guarantee they're coming back. They said they would, but -

But here's the second: you didn't know them nearly as well as you thought you did. He never realized. Never even thought that they'd have come up with this kind of strategy. Never once picked up on the fact that they were doing this daily, that they cared enough to - no. That's not true. They always cared enough to do it. It's just whether or not they wanted to express that care, or knew how to express it. And they did. They did, but only as a last resort. Isn't that always the fucking way.

He didn't know them as well as he thought he did. And part of that's a good thing. It means he's drawing away from the part of him that knew them too well, that could use that knowledge for the worst. The temptation, now, is there - to seize upon any threads of coal-red determination that he can find, wrench them to the forefront, because he doesn't know, anymore, how to live without it in his life.

They said it, is the thing. They said they'd take him with them.

They wouldn't just say that. They never just say things. They always mean them, from the bottom of their heart and SOUL.

Knuckles thud against stone. Tim's fist slams against the wall of the shack that, for two years, he shared with two kids that, like it or not, made a home in his soul. He had no plans for where he might end up, as long as it was with them. Smiles and the cut of knives and eyes rust-red and the taste of ozone in the back of his throat. Memories couched in the smell of cinnamon and the tingle of magic and the soft rustle of crushed flower petals. They said they wouldn't go. They said -

Well, what right does he have in acting like they he had any call over where they went? They didn't mean to. He knows they didn't mean to because they put it down in writing and that's when his eyes start to press together, when the breath hitches in his throat, when the heat starts to slide down his cheeks.

The world rocks from side to side, unsteadily, and all he has is the anchor that's the locket around his neck. He clings to it like the lifeline it is, driving a fist repeatedly against the exterior of the house until his knuckles blister and bleed, until he can feel the aftershocks jolting up the bones of his wrist and all the way to his shoulder.

He only stops when there's the soft nudge of something at his ankle, and he looks down.

The house's tigerlily - once Buttercup, once Soylent, now tentatively Butternut and a thousand other titles besides - bumps their head against his foot again with a soft, inquisitive sound.

He has nothing else to do, and nowhere else he can go.

Tim slides down the wall with a choked sob, his hands cracked open and bleeding at the knuckles, buries his face into the tigerlily's side, and does the one thing he's always been able to do most reliably, better than anyone else in this house, despite being more than double the age of everyone else in it.

He cries.

ii. outside the library ; and the self-esteem to match
Tim withdraws his tenth cigarette from his tin, lights it up, and breathes in deep. The tears haven't stopped coming, but they're pouring out with less frequency now. It's harder to smoke when every breath is cut with sobs, with a stutter of not being able to breathe for the weight on his chest.

He was trying to quit. He wanted to quit so that they wouldn't have to deal with this habit, this disgusting fucking habit of his, and that had been overly optimistic. He'd figured - something to work toward. Being a better person, being even a slightly less useless and slightly less unbearable person to be around, for their sake, would mean that they'd have a reason to keep him around. Idiot. You fucking idiot, Tim. If they didn't want you around, you wouldn't have been there.

The notes are folded-up squares clenched in one scabbed fist. He sucks in another long drag of his cigarette, squeezing his eyes shut against the welling of tears slipping down one side of his face. He reaches up, scrubs at it.

He can't just fucking lie down and give up, now, can he? Chara'd never forgive him for that. Frisk would forgive him too easily. But neither of them would give up, never have, so fuck it if he doesn't at least try to pick up the pieces of whatever's left of him in the wake of this.

He has to start with the obvious, and the obvious is that the garden outside the shack that they shared needs someone to look after it.

Someone has to take care of these flowers.

They told him to be good.

The problem is that he doesn't know a thing about gardening. He always just assumed that the kids would be there.

Without meaning to, he'd just thought that they'd always fucking be there.

Goes to show what he knows, huh.

He doesn't know how to ask for someone else's help without alerting them to what's happened. And besides - he's not sure he's ready to confront people just now. So he'll figure it out on his own.

Eventually, he'll enter the library and make it happen.

Just after one more cigarette.

He was trying to quit.

iii. all around ensō ; what a catch
It's possible that you'll run into him at some point - at Denny, on the farming islet, or just generally about the island of Ensō. It's also possible that you won't really be running into him at all, but more...uncovering him. Hunched against tree trunks, curled up in corners, sat down on the beach with his knees drawn up and his face in his hands, like he was in the middle of some important task only to become overwhelmed with a wave of something so crushing that he had to sit down.

That's more or less what's been happening, as time wears on. Even if you don't see him, you might hear him, catching hitching breaths and soft choking sobs.

He can't help it. Tim's always been a crier. Usually, he has a means of stopping before it wears on for too long.

He's lost friends before. He's been the reason he's lost friends. He's been the reason people have died. He thought that body counts were simple, that he could measure them up to others and come out on top, but he knows well enough now to know it's not like that at all. Nameless shadows, unidentified viewers, mere possibilities - they're nothing like cleaving down someone who believes in you wholeheartedly, someone you once knew as a friend in another life. He only ever lost people by accident, despite his best efforts. He never killed anyone he loved on purpose, no matter how much he felt like he could in some moments.

Souls humming in parallel to each other. The worst possible first impression. Dragging those memories and sensations to the forefront just to survive another day, and then consenting to having those thoughts cut out, even if it killed him.

Waking up on an island, months after the fact. Two children who had been forgotten by most - but not all. Two children who changed their names and hid their faces and didn't want to be remembered, but were remembered anyway.

Two children who stood at the edge of the cauldron to hell.

Two children who held his heart in their hands, who loved him.

And despite everything, who he loved right back.

Without meaning to, he clung to them.

And now he has no idea what to do, or who to be, without them.

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"With what? Crying? 'Cause I think I'm managing pretty well on my own." It's devoid of much bite. Tim's too worn out, too tired, too empty, to manage much of anything in the way of bite.

He flicks the butt of a spent cigarette onto the ground and immediately draws out another, lighting it up with an uneven inhale.

Tim might actually be smoking more than Ginko himself did back home. Ginko watches him light his next cigarette, then nods toward the library, because he's guessing that Tim isn't here for the sole purpose of crying.

"I was thinking more about... whatever you're here for." Ginko might not be any expert on unwanted displays of emotion, but he can't imagine picking a public place for one - unless he had something specific he set out to do in that place.

Right.

He probably shouldn't go in while he's smoking. His lungs are aching. Even at his worst, he never smoked this much - never went through the equal to a pack a day. But the tin refills until September, and then he'll have to renew it.

He wasn't going to. He was going to quit.

"Gardening." The words sound more than a little nasally, thick with snot. "I gotta...there's some flowers I gotta take care of."

"Gardening." Just a quick confirmation, accompanied by a nod. "Should be able to do something about that. How much do you know going in?"

How much does he know? Too much. Not enough. Memories of hands digging into soil, ripping up fistfuls of yellow cups of flowers, the way they stung and blistered bare skin - pale, too pale, not his hands.

Tim sways slightly on the spot as he blinks, shakes his head, as though displacing some violent thought. His answer comes out slightly dazed, and not entirely certain.

"I don't remember."

Ginko's ears droop, and he takes a tentative half-step closer. No further, though; as much as he wants to be ready if Tim can't steady himself, he makes no move to touch him.

His voice is another shade quieter and gentler when he replies. "Then we'll start with the basics. There should be books covering that inside, and I can fill you in on what I know. Just let me know whenever you're ready."

"We, huh?"

He tries to access the part of them that might ordinarily protest, or argue. Distantly, he's aware that he might turn away from the suggestion that he have company while he's going through...this.

He's not really capable of feeling any particular way about it.

"Unless you'd rather I left."

It's that simple, really. Ginko wants to help, absolutely - but, if Tim doesn't want him to, pushing it won't help anyone. He may have something of a stubborn streak, but... he'd rather save it for when his involvement seems more necessary. Tim can probably research gardening on his own, and whatever's causing this to begin with is probably well outside of Ginko's area of expertise.

"What d'you get outta this?"

He doesn't answer the tacit question. He just...turns to face Ginko, blinking rapidly, as if that might clear away the fog of tears that still clings to his eyes. He still looks like he's been crying.

"Why're you...bothering?" He doesn't know him all that well. He doesn't know anyone here as well as he knew the two people who just left.

For some reason, people keep asking him that. He supposes he can kind of see why, actually; there was definitely a time when he would have wondered the same thing.

That doesn't really make it any easier to answer, though.

"...If you want, you could call it a matter of peace of mind." He doesn't exactly smile. It's just the faintest twist of one corner of his mouth, and then it's like it didn't happen. "Or self-gratification. Whichever makes more sense to you."

So it's pity, then. Pity, or a sense of obligation.

They'd hate that. They always hated it - the presumption of pity. That was the largest insult they could think to lobby at him, when their souls fizzled into collusion and he screwed it up every step of the way -

"I can't help you with that," he says. "I can't make you feel any better by being some...project for you."

Ginko winces, almost imperceptibly. He guesses it shouldn't be any surprise that the cagey bullshit answer wouldn't always go over great.

"...I know that. Meant it when I said you could think of it that way." He shifts as he speaks, pressing his hands as deep into his pockets as they'll go to hide the way his fingers keep pressing together, pulling at loose threads. "Sorry. I think I've gotten... more cynical than I'd like about what people will and won't believe."

Again, some part of him protests. Twinges, like a poked nerve, but every part of him feels raw and exposed and he can no longer track what part of anything he's meant to be paying attention to.

"Good for you," he says, without much enthusiasm. "Look, just...tell me what you want, so we can get it over with."

The problem with the realization that the bullshit answer won't work here is that Ginko... doesn't really have a better one. Certainly not one that Tim's likely to accept, from the sound of it.

But he guesses about his only option at this point is to go with the truth, even if that may well also go incredibly badly.

So it's only after a moment's pause that he replies, quiet and straightforward, without any of the wryness he'd shown before. "I don't want anything."

"So why're you...?" Why is he bothering?

He said self-gratification, peace of mind, whatever. So that was bullshit. Fine. A lot of things, currently, are bullshit. The fact that Tim is currently burning away the culmination of six months' worth of trying and failing to quit smoking because there's no longer anyone to quit smoking for is bullshit, but he really should've seen this coming.

He should've seen a lot of things coming.

"...Why shouldn't I?"

He guesses that's a lot of what it comes down to. He can't imagine why he wouldn't help Tim, especially not with something as simple as researching gardening. Especially not when Tim is clearly struggling. He might as well try to make this one thing easier.

His fingers are shaking again, when he takes another drag from his light. His breaths are shuddering. He can't look at anything in particular, eyes flicking restively this way and that, and when he speaks it's with barely any idea of what he's saying, what he means to be said -

"Like you got any reason to care. Like you got any reason to give a shit. Sure, it'll be a fun way to pass the time. Sit with the guy who can't stop crying like a goddamn kid, 'cause you don't have anything better to do."

Fun. He wouldn't call it that. Just like he wouldn't call it a matter of self-gratification, or trying to get people indebted to him, or... any of the other things people seem to find easier to believe than the truth.

"I... care because you're here. You're stuck here, just like the rest of us." He can't know if Tim will believe that. Maybe he would have saved some time after all by just sticking with that first excuse. "If this place has screwed you over again, I doubt I can do much about that. And I doubt it's my place to ask what happened. But if you're struggling with something, I don't think you should have to push through everything else on your own."

"You don't even know me." He knows all the parts of Tim that Tim hates. He knows that he grew up in a hospital. He knows that he's fucking - that he's crazy, that there's a million things wrong with him, that he cries too much and doesn't know how to stop it. And people have stopped him to ask what's wrong, to try and get him something to eat, to give him a handkerchief, to offer some measure of comfort, but they at least have some idea of what's going on.

He didn't even bother to ask. It's like he doesn't give a damn. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe he shouldn't. But if he doesn't, then why is he even fucking bothering with pretending that Tim's worth his time?

"Do you even goddamn care? Or is it just - self-gratification, right? I can't fucking help you with that."

"I told you, that's not--" Ginko's tail thumps involuntarily against the ground, and his hands curl tight in his pockets. Don't. Don't get frustrated, don't get upset, not now of all times. "I guess I did tell you you could look at it that way, since it... might've been easier to accept. So, if you really don't believe me, you can stick with that."

Damn, he's screwed this up. He hesitates, something passing over his face - not irritation so much as hesitation, maybe guilt. Maybe he shouldn't have come over, and maybe he really shouldn't say what he's about to. "I... don't see why I have to know you to care," he admits. It is an admission, uncertain and uncomfortable. Maybe this is something he's already supposed to understand.

"I know I'd like to know you better than I do, but this doesn't... seem like a great time for that." It's never a great time. If he has nothing to offer, he doesn't know how to approach, how to explain to Tim why he'd like to talk to him. If he does... "So I just want to help."

Bite back the urge to laugh. Bite your tongue until it bleeds. That urge doesn't belong to you and you know it, so don't fucking go off that edge, Tim. Don't you fucking dare go off that edge. Nothing good can come of reviving an old tomb that you promised not to breach again.

He said he'd take their secrets to his grave. That promise doesn't go away just because they're not here to enforce it.

"Lemme be honest here." That's a fucking laugh in and of itself, huh? Honest. "I'm pretty sure that you've only ever seen me when I look like I'm something that needs to get scraped up off the fucking ground, so how 'bout you spare me your pity for two seconds instead?"

Somehow, it's that, of all things - that accusation of pity, Tim's complete disbelief that there could be anything else to Ginko's actions - that really strikes him, buries in his chest like a knife. But showing that is probably the last thing Tim needs.

Anyway, he’s already embarrassed himself enough. What’s a few more confessions that Tim won’t even believe?

“...I don’t pity you. Actually, I... kind of like talking to you.” He falters, like just getting those words out takes more air than it should. But that’s all.

And, if he’s accepting that this conversation is falling apart anyway-- “What happened? If you... don’t mind telling me.”

Tim, a stimulating conversation partner. What's he ever done to merit that kind of judgment? Their conversations have always been - fucked up, because they're always in relation to how Tim's fucked up. As if Ginko needed further proof of what Tim is. A liar, a selfish bastard, a paranoid asshole, a disgusting, sobbing, pathetic, self-pitying, dysfunctional fucking nightmare.

"The kids," he says - roughly, but only because his throat is rasping with an emotion he doesn't want to acknowledge but can't not. "They're gone."

He doesn't think he needs to elaborate over what that means.

Ah.

That... would make sense.

The part where Tim is answering him and not telling him to fuck off is a bit of a surprise, but the answer itself explains... a lot. He didn't know the kids Tim lived with - probably hadn't talked to them even as much as he's spoken to Tim himself - but he'd seen Tim with them, if only by coincidence. It wasn't hard to see how much he cared about them.

"...I'm so sorry, Tim."

"Yeah."

That's the only answer that he can think of to say. That's the only answer that lands in his gut in time for him to say it.

"They're gone. Fuck if I know if they'll ever come back."

Two years. Two years is a long time for someone to put up with him. Two years is longer than he can remember most people being willing to put up with him. And they didn't just put up with him - they celebrated his birthday and told him that they were grateful he was there, and then wrote him a note for the occasion when they left. Set up a contingency so he wouldn't be caught off guard.

They were never an exception. He shouldn't have assumed they would be, to the idea that people could just disappear one day without any resolution.

Even when they were already an exception to so damn much already.

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