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Entry tags:
- coco: héctor rivera,
- critical role: beauregard,
- final fantasy ix: zidane tribal,
- fragile dreams: ren,
- marble hornets: tim wright,
- mushi-shi: ginko,
- original: chip abaroa,
- the adventure zone: kravitz,
- undertale: asgore dreemurr,
- ✖ fullmetal alchemist: edward elric,
- ✖ okami: amaterasu,
- ✖ red vs. blue: agent texas,
- ✖ warriors: yellowfang
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 thoughtsIt'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 matchTim 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 catchIt'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.
no subject
"...Doesn't it?"
It's a genuine question.
cw: self-harm
He punctuates the word with a sharp jab of the lit cigarette into the skin of his arm. It can join the dozens of scars clustered along the dark skin, the whorls of burn scars that now creep down the back of his neck and along his spine.
Burn it all off, for all he cares.
no subject
"They made an impact on you, didn't they?"
no subject
Sorry, buddy, but ask a stupid question, and this is what you get. Another long, hissing drag of his cigarette, and he scrubs at his face, at the tears that are inevitably welling up there. Press it into the crook of his elbow.
It doesn't really help.
"I'm doing this for fucking kicks."
no subject
He's not so cut off that he doesn't wince when Tim burns himself again.
"That's what I mean. That's why what they were to you when they were here still matters. It wouldn't hurt so much if that stopped mattering once they were gone."
If not knowing if he'd ever see Henry, or Heather, or even Tanyuu and Adashino again meant they stopped mattering, he probably wouldn't put so much effort into trying not to think about them. And the efforts he did make would probably work better.
cw: suicide ideation
Why he got up in the morning. Why he didn't just sit his ass down in the sand and give up. Why he kept fighting, day after fucking day, to stay alive despite every other part of him wanting nothing more than to just lie down and die. Why he built Denny. Why he brought a tigerlily back to the home they shared. Why he learned how to carve wood and be useful and be something, anything more than the dead weight inconvenience bitter reminder that he was in Sol.
"All of it, it was for them. So that they could be - "
What, Tim?
Happy?
What a joke.
The joke is that he thought he could make anything better to them. What, Tim? You? You? When their lives were barbs full of people that they shouldn't have trusted, things they shouldn't have said, and adults that inevitably betrayed them, and you thought they were going to put stock in the liar?
What the fuck else does he say? They were why he tried at all. Because he owed them. Because he wanted to help them, even if he'd burned them before. Because he knew how it felt to want to walk off the edge of the damn world and never have to look back for anything. Because he wanted that easy out, that scouring of every consequence, but more importantly, he wanted them to walk away from that edge on their own.
Because he had a million things he never said to either one of them, like how they were more than just symbols or paths they walked, because they were kids first and foremost. That they deserved a world that doesn't make them feel like they have to erase themselves to preserve it.
That he'd do anything he could if it meant seeing them smile like they really, really meant it.
That -
That I love you.
But no.
He never said shit about any of it.
Never had the guts.
no subject
But his situation doesn't measure up to Tim's. He can guess that much.
"...I'm sure they appreciated it." It seems like a safe assumption, all things considered. "And if they do come back, they'll want you to have still been looking out for yourself."
no subject
Too much, too fast. That's never been his style, but he wasn't much good at that either.
"They didn't need it. Not from me."
no subject
He can understand, well enough, how Tim may not feel like he was the right person to look after those kids. But at least he was doing it. As long as Tim was looking after them, they weren't just getting thrown aside to fend for themselves.
no subject
Frisk. Lup. Wade. Ren. Asgore. Guzma. Muffet. A dozen others besides, probably. They were trying to avoid attachments the whole way, he knows, but despite that - of course they were going to make a rash of them anyway. People who grew attached despite themselves.
"People who were..." Better.
Lup, who didn't need to impose herself upon them to grow close. Wade, who they loved enough to turn to explosive, destructive fury in his absence. Ren, who they didn't want to leave behind.
To say nothing of Frisk, who didn't have to do anything at all to inspire the love and adoration of others. People loved them easily. Everyone loved Frisk easily - everyone except Frisk.
no subject
"Then, even if they had support already, you were still adding onto it. That's still valuable, even if you don't feel like you were doing much."
no subject
He has no idea. None.
He doesn't know Tim's life.
He doesn't know about how meeting Tim at all is enough to ruin someone for good.
no subject
It's not quite like the very intentional, compensatory gentleness he'd approached Tim with, but there's no more wavering when he answers, no flickers of guilt or fear or stifled distress in his expression. He's not quite cold, or expressionless, either - but his voice stays steady, his face marked only by the occasional crease of his brow as he picks his words.
"But I do know that just because a kid has some support doesn't mean they won't benefit from more. Especially in dangerous circumstances, like in these places."
no subject
"Two kids living on their own means people ask questions and poke into their business and stop by to check on them. If they live with someone older, nobody gives a damn. That's why they kept me around."
It was convenience. It was necessity.
It never had to be anything else.
no subject
"Maybe that was how it started out. But it doesn't seem like things stayed that way - and that was probably better for them than if you hadn't gotten closer to them."
no subject
At least Tim's not crying anymore.
He flicks his cigarette to the ground and grinds it under one heel.
"Fuck you. I'm done."
aaand that's probably a wrap
The time to back off might have been a while ago, for all he knows, but he definitely won't be doing any good by hanging around now.
Ginko nods, slowly, and takes a step back, then another. "...I'm sorry."
He leaves without another word, back the way he came. His own business here can wait. ...Preferably until Tim has left.