lifeaftr | December Undercurrent: Opposing Viewpoints

December Undercurrent: Opposing Viewpoints

DECEMBER UNDERCURRENT

Who: Everyone!
What: Oh, inverted world...
When: December 3rd to December 20th
Where: Everywhere!
Warnings: Nothing of note; please mark if anything comes up!

I Wish You Could See the Wicked Truth

The island of Monsun is known for the split down its middle, and how it tends to bring out people's best and worst sides, depending on which side you're on. Some might remember it from previous appearances, but if you've never been, you can read up on the island's details on our Locations page and get yourself caught up to speed! Just like with the previous month, the Water is taking it upon themself to summon the island to the archipelago. And just like with the previous month, this will entail some effects upon the local populace: you.

Given that Monsun hosts the avatar of Balance, don't be surprised if things start to get a little inverted, a little out of balance, a little flipped, a little turned upside down. What do we mean by that, exactly? Well, it can mean all sorts of things. And you get to pick how many of these inversions if any, are going to be affecting you and yours for the duration of the month, at least until Monsun surfaces...and how much each one affects you.

Starting on December 3rd, adventurers may find themselves influenced by any of the effects listed below. You are free to vary the intensity and level of each, as well as how many end up being relevant to you. They can start as a slow build and ramp up gradually through the month, or emerge at full force right out the gate. You can be affected by multiple at once, or one every few days, and so on. The only limit is what you're willing to do!

[ ♆ ] Friendflipped: Do you have someone that you love in your life? Perhaps a best friend, a significant other, a member of your family? They might even be on the island with you. That just makes what's about to happen even more unfortunate, if that's the case, because all of a sudden, you're going to learn that you can't stand the sight of them. That's right: your best friends become your most hated foes. You'll find yourself positively despising those you would ordinarily get along with, all with a vicious, unchecked enthusiasm. Perhaps even more unfortunately, that goes the other way, too: your worst enemies are now your best friends.

[ ♆ ] Casual Obsession: One of the critical aspects of having any sort of hobby or preference is balance. It's always good to not go overboard! Which is why you might find yourself losing all inhibition. Your likes, dislikes, hobbies, desires, and so on will become utterly stripped of any balance the might have had. Do you have a mild sweet tooth? Well, now it's a full on sugar obsession. Do you dislike golf as a sport? Now you hate it with a fiery passion - and all those jerks who play golf, they can go to hell too!

[ ♆ ] One or Nothing: Most people will agree that emotional balance is something we should all strive for. That's about to get a lot more difficult. You might find yourself experiencing only one emotion for an extended amount of time, with only varying degrees of intensity to indicate any actual shift. Alternatively, you find yourself experiencing no emotions at all: a complete, deadened shutoff of any emotional instincts you have.

[ ♆ ] Skill Swap: Hobbies are one thing. But what about your personal skill-sets? Well, those are about to get some serious remodeling. Are you a talented musician? Now you can't read music, much less play it. Are you good in a fight? Not anymore, you're not! Now you can barely throw a punch without bowling yourself over. You'll find that your abilities have become seriously scrambled, to the point where you've lost any natural or trained skill you might have in certain areas. This can extend to magical knowledge, technological know-how, or even basic proclivities like stealth or how light you might be on your feet. The flip side of this is that you might find yourself preternaturally skilled in other areas that you've never so much as touched before. Maybe now you're a pro at climbing, or intensely good with social charisma and persuasion. In general, these swaps will work with a one-to-one ratio; one skill will suffer and another will be boosted as if in compensation, but you're welcome to experiment! Maybe you just want to make your character a completely useless loser for a few weeks. You're certainly free to do just that!

[ ♆ ] Interface Screw: In case it wasn't opposite day enough, you've also got the chance to have your personal orientation of the world completely reversed. By which we mean: left is right, right is left, up is down, down is up, and so on. This might manifest in varying ways. Maybe the sky looks like the sea, and the ground is so far above your head...and you feel like you're walking on thin air, even if to everyone else, the world appears more or less normal. Maybe this isn't even a purely perceptual thing as opposed to a literal one, and to everyone else, you're actually walking upside down. How this manifests is ultimately up to you, but you can interpret it as you like.

These effects will all die down by the time December 20th rolls around. Again, you can choose the rate at which this occurs, and whether it's a slow and steady decrease or a complete shut-off all at once. Either way, by the 20th, you'll all have been restored to whatever passes for your mental and emotional equilibriums, and Monsun will resurface on the archipelago!

But I Settle For a Ghost

Of course, there's a lot going on in the background as well. You're free to use this log as a catch-all for the duration of December's Undercurrent Event, as well as any of the other minor events listed on our Monthly Rundown post. You are very, very free to let your dreams about magical mistletoe and snowgoons become reality, and you are always free to create your own individual logs and posts as needed.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them over on the Questions header on our Monthly Rundown post!

December Timeline

[ ♆ ] December 1st: "Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snowgoons" begins and lasts until December 31st
[ ♆ ] December 3rd: "Opposing Viewpoints" begins and lasts until December 20th
[ ♆ ] December 10th: "Mistledon't" begins and lasts until December 22nd
[ ♆ ] December 20th: Monsun returns to the archipelago
[ ♆ ] December 21st: "Breath of Cold Air" begins and lasts until December 31st

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As far as Tim's concerned, it's a normal, ordinary day. Shit sucks, and the day is slightly less ordinary for the people that have been slipping out of his life and keep slipping out of his life - alone again, just like you never wanted to be - but feeling like shit is nothing new.

He treks out into the jungle for a reason, that reason being an excuse to get away from the yoke of his own grief that feels like it's soaked into the grain of the very fucking wood in every plank of that place. He's used to emptiness. Used to feeling alone, to being alone. It's fine. He just needs to suck it up and deal with it. He can do that, can't he?

Hence why he's out here. Combing through the undergrowth on the hunt for something he can use as an excuse. Sometimes the wild plants that grow out here are worth gathering. (Onions. Leeks. Chinese cabbage. Still remembers the names of all the things he found the day he uncovered the place that would become the site for Denny. Jack hadn't been the first to vanish, but Tim's memory of him is so hazy that he might as well have been. She'd been with them, then. Muffet.)

(A lot of things had been different, then.)

He picks up on someone muttering something or another, not far away. Straightens up, frowning, trying to figure where it's coming from. For half a second, he can't pick up on who he's looking for. Then his eyes settle on a familiar shape hunched against a tree, and -

The wave that breaks over him is abrupt and unmitigated. It's so complete that he has difficult recognizing the emotion; it clots behind his teeth like acid, has a taste like something molten and dripping down the back of his throat. It's impossible to ignore. It's nothing like the muted gray that's become of most of his thoughts these days, and it's because it stands out that it takes him entirely off guard, so he doesn't recognize the complete lack of a filter when he snarls out, apropos of nothing:

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

It's the tone that hits them more than the words--a complete disgust that throws them back for a moment into a small closet, throat tight with fear and their limbs refusing to move. But it breaks, long enough to realize who is there, and an uneasy lump settles into their gut.

Is this it? Has he finally had enough?

"I'm...my head hurts. I keep...feeling people? And it won't stop." Chip pushes themself as far up against the tree as they can manage, while Sunny warbles with concern. "I was just...trying to get alone."

There's a palpable dissonance to the words, to the viciousness of them, the way it comes out of nowhere. Some part of him is cognizant of this, struggling to grasp why this swell of anger was so explosive, where the fuck it even came from. But most of him has been eaten alive by the bright red mist of it, until eventually he doesn't feel terribly inclined to examine why he's acting the way he is.

"Oh, like that's any different from usual, with you," he snaps. "Half the time it feels like you're running from everyone, and you're so goddamn scared of yourself on top of it. How the fuck is anyone supposed to figure out what's going on with you if all you do is run away every time someone tries to help?"

"I don't--" Chip snaps their mouth shut suddenly, a sick feeling rising in the back of their throat. Much as they try to find some reason, some excuse, every possibility slips away. "I'm not trying to--I just--!"

What can they say? That they don't want to be in the way? That they don't know what else they should do? None of it is enough, none of it is worth even their breath. It's all wrong, it's all wrong--!

"You think I'm any help? Any help at all? I don't even know if you like me half the time, or if you just feel bad for me or what. But y'know what? I don't actually care. I don't, I really don't. Welcome to the story of my goddamn life."

Now that he's started speaking, he doesn't seem capable of stopping. Everything pours out in an unbroken and unfiltered stream and he can't seem to shut himself up.

He's stepping closer, more or less looming over them. He's not even thinking about it.

"None of that changes that I don't know shit about you even after over a year and I can't even say that's strange because you're not even the first kid to act like you're so grateful while not bothering to tell me anything."

It's an odd dissonance that hits them, like a bad note cutting through or a burst of feedback--but they don't quite realize what it is. Everything about this is too frightening, too raw and new (and yet so very much not) in too many ways for observations to properly catch hold. Instead they're backed further and further into the proverbial corner, back pressed against the tree until they can feel every crack in the bark--until there's nowhere left to go.

"Why would you care?!" It comes out a shout, louder than Chip ever allows of themself, sharpened by fear and hurt. All of a sudden they're standing, fists gripped tight enough their nails have started to bite into their skin. "No one cares, no one's supposed to care about me, I'm just NOTHING! I'm useless, I'm just a waste of space, I just cause TROUBLE! Just shut UP, Chip, get out of the WAY, before someone sees you and figures out what a stupid, rotten, dirty, sinful FREAK you are!"

Tears are streaming down their face, but Chip barely notices from where they glare up at Tim, daring him to strike out at them, to jam a quartz point into them, to do SOMETHING, to get it OVER WITH. "If you hate me so much then what do you WANT out of me?!"

"When've I ever, ever said any of that to you? Huh?"

There's no consistency to what points he's grabbing onto and he's aware that this isn't right, he's aware on several levels, all but the most accessible ones, but he just - he has no idea how to access the underpinnings of why it might be wrong because no part of this is controlled or controllable.

But on some level, some part of him winces as the words scrape raw over something he never wanted to hear.

He's no better.

Of course he's not. He knows he's not. He knew it when he had to drag Chara away from the edge of a cliff and he knew it when he tried to drag Karako away from the thing that might kill him and he knew it when he had to wrench Frisk away from the person they trusted and loved like no one else in this or any other world. It's by virtue of what he is and what he is - what he's always been is no better than the woman who said she loved him and lied as she said it because he never saw her again and she left him there and it doesn't matter who he claims to love or why because he only ever shows it like this: with fists into cloth and with arms holding struggling children back and with loud voices barked in an intentional way to shut down any and all argument.

And some part of him flinches away from the comparison because he wasn't supposed to be like this and even if he knows it hearing it said aloud is somehow so much so much so much worse.

"You just see me the same as literally every other shitty person in your life, don't you?" he says, and the words tremble because he can't help it; he's always cried when his anger gets the best of him because that, too, is just who he is. "Why should I even bother trying to be any different?"

"I DIDN'T WANT TO!!" The words tear out of their throat before they can even think, and the rest tumbles out before they fully realize what they're saying. "I wanted you to be different, I wanted you to be a friend! But no one is, no one ever is, and you never said it so you I thought--I knew you were just hiding it until I got too much, until I was too much trouble and I wasn't worth trying to make into a good kid!"

As soon as they've said it they know they've crossed a line. That's not the sort of thing you're supposed to say, never admit the dirty things everyone sweeps under the rug because then what will you have to fall back on, Chip? At least these people try, at least they make the attempt, but what have you ever done? Just a little brat screaming and crying, wanting affection and praise without having to earn it first.

But now there's no taking it back, and the pump of panic and pain rises and hardens tight in their chest, a bomb bare seconds from going off if they don't do something, anything, but they don't know what--

He's trying to laugh, but the sound warps and twists in his chest. Laughter isn't him. He doesn't laugh. His eyes are burning and blurring instead, and that's just fine. That's better, even. He needs it that way. He needs to do something right for fucking once and he needs to not drag parts of other people's memories forward just because he can't bear to sit around in his shitty, insufferable brain for another minute longer.

"Well, you were right about one thing," he works out between clenched teeth, despite the fact that he can tell his resolve is flagging and he's audibly coming apart, Christ. "I'm a shit person. I've literally hurt and fucked up everyone I've ever met, so congratulations on figuring that out! Figured it out kinda late, but hey, at least we've got confirmation that you never even liked me in the first fucking place, never trusted me, never gave a shit."

He steps back, rakes his hands up through his hair, and breathes out, sharp and pained.

"God! At least you're admitting it! You got no idea how no one ever does."

"I never said you're bad, dumbass! You're not listening!"

Something's wrong. Something is horribly, horribly wrong here and Chip can't figure out where it begins or ends. Confusion, anger, and a horrible cut of betrayal turn their mind into a whirling mess, and all they can think is that they have to do something.

"I'm the bad one, I'm the one that's left behind! That's how it's supposed to BE!" But no matter how much they shout it's never enough, it's not right because Tim can't understand, he can't understand unless they make him, they have to make him--

In a sudden burst of movement Chip rushes at Tim, a foreign energy crackling through their hands as they slam against his torso, and without knowing how or why they push some ephemeral part of themself into him, through him, smearing their own self against what lies within like a sticky, cloying mass.

...they shouldn't be able to do this.

Before he can react, before he can say or do anything, they're moving straight for him. And - you know what? Fine. He can take it, whatever they think they can throw at him. Make it easy, go on. He can probably pick them up and throw them like a ragdoll and they won't have to forgive him for that. At last, something about him that's truly unforgivable, and not just vaguely uncomfortable or bitterly halfway.

He can take it, he tells himself - before his soul shudders in his chest in a familiar jolt.

He can actually gauge this sensation as familiar. Familiar in its end result, though not in the way it's being enacted. A soul humming alongside his. He knows how it feels, but he hasn't had to fight this in so long - hasn't had to fight back the tidal wave crash of someone else's consciousness cascading into his. He'd gotten so much better at ordering the disorder in his mind. He had it all packed away, all those separate packets of memories that were his and that weren't his and the thoughts that shouldn't belong to him, even after years since it's happened, and those all come flying off the proverbial shelves.

He sees white.

Then he sees red. Red like the soul he knows he has, because this isn't the first time it's happened -

- sensation of having long ears that drape down the sides of his head and paws fringed with soft white fur and the feeling that he should be swarmed with thorny vines as his face distorts into something fractalized and horrifying with far too many teeth as it shrieks in a voice louder than god: NO!! NO!!!!! YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO OBEY ME!! -

No, he thinks he manages to realize fuzzily. That's not him.

His mind snaps into a different direction as he focuses all the more intently -

- remember ripping a blade free from another man's neck as he screamed and then tearing at him with a yell and bringing his fists wetly over his face over and over and over and OVER until he couldn't bear it and he curled over on the ground retching and quailing under the unimaginable pressure of the thing that buzzes in his skull like a tin rattle of static and he looks up and he sees It and he can feel Its malice or whatever it feels that passes for malice and he starts to scream -

- all the more intently on who it is he's supposed to be because he knows -

- they want to smoke but they're too young to want that and that is how they know that the thought is not theirs and they want to die but there are too many barriers at work for that end goal just yet and as unbearable as it is that they have been shackled to this pitiable creature perhaps the greatest insult is that he presumes to know them just because of that wretched and damnable circumstances as if he has any idea any idea at all and he acts like he has some kind of hold over them because his life has been so terrible oh it has been so terrible has it? perhaps he will learn now to spare them his worthless pity -

- because he knows this isn't him -

The next time Tim's cognizant of his surroundings, he's on his back, his chest heaving, trying to keep a lid on the panic threatening to froth out of his guts.

(Trying to figure out which him he's supposed to be.)

It's barely a moment to breathe before they're swept away in the tide of selves, echoes and not. Angry static crackles in their nerves and they reel away from thoughts they've never had; memories collide and they know this feeling and don't, can feel their soul beating in time with another while they shove every pill down their throat, feel the smooth wood of a mask pried off their face, an unrelenting and far too massive pressure bearing down on their psyche that they can't escape no matter how far they go.

And at the same time they feel pieces of themself slip out of their grasp -

- the milky blue crystal burns like lemon in a wound, but they know as soon as Grant takes it from them there will be no mark left behind for him to suspect, yet he still frowns and watches them with concern, and a sick fear curdles in their gut because they know they can't keep this secret forever -

- small slivers and splinters of their core that fall away no matter how hard they try to hold it back -

- the necklace hangs heavy around their neck, each bead a point of white-hot pain they can't ignore and leaving their skin pale and clammy but the teacher simply glares at them as if it's their fault they've 'fallen sick' and it is, because if they had kept their temper then they wouldn't be punished like this -

- Chip can feel his fear and pain and they never wanted this they never meant it -

- their feet pound against the pavement and their breath burns in their chest, but they have to run, to get away from what they've done and the blood on their hands, even if all they could remember was Foster kneeling over Grant and grabbing the knife from him they knew they knew -

- and they don't even know anymore whose tears are running down their face.

Tim hits the ground and Chip backs away with a horrified scream, their back hitting the tree again and scraping past. Pricking bushes tear at their skin but the inhuman piece of them knows that distance won't fix this. Every wrench of power only sinks the link deeper into them both, no matter how hard Chip wills it to dissolve. Even with their magic twisted around they still can't fix anything.

By the time Tim comes to, Chip has fallen to the ground curled up on their side, tears rolling in fat drops across their nose with hiccups and whimpers shaking their frame.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...please, sir, don't..."

His head's fucking spinning. Everything's all scrambled up and he's seventy percent sure that he's Timothy Wright but the rest of him isn't so solid on that account, due to failing to recognize the kid huddled on the ground and, even worse, fail to recognize the lurch of disparate emotion associated with them.

"Fr..."

No. Wrong name. Try again.

He blinks. His vision's gone blurry with tears. When did that happen?

Does it matter?

He blinks harder. Screws his eyes shut and tries to remember their name, remember anything about them -

"...Chip."

Right?

He thinks that's right. He knows too many kids who have been hurt by too many people but he only knows two who would break down and cry and plead not to be hurt and only one of them is human, or at least looks it.

He thinks.

They flinch inward when he says their name, but it's hard to think past the immediate reactions. For a moment they wonder briefly why the floor isn't sterile white laminate, then look up expecting cold stone walls or a dark brick wall of an alleyway. And they see--

It's not him.

It's not...him. Not any of them. Just...

Just Tim.

Right.

Their breathing hitches, still shaky and uneven, and they try desperately to focus on him. But their attention keeps pulling past that, deeper within something else that's too raw and personal and sacred and they wrench themself away as hard as they can to bury their face in the dirt. Their shoulders quake, and all they manage to get out are two words that seem like they barely hold meaning any longer.

"I'm sorry..."

He coughs a little bit. God, his head hurts. He's used to that, has had to get used to it by necessity for most of his life, but that doesn't mean it feels great. His mouth feels dry and his heart is squeezing painfully in his chest with an irregular rhythm.

The good news is that he doesn't feel like he's bitterly, bitingly angry at people just for existing. Maybe it just took a little soul therapy to fix that.

God.

God.

The panic of what that means hits him like a jolt of lightning down his spine. He feels the muscles in his back lock up as he tenses, and tries to flip himself back to his feet. He's too dizzy. He can't manage it.

"Shit. Fuck. No. No, no, no, not again, fuck."

Chip flinches again and pushes themself back, getting their feet under themself but still curled up in a defensive ball. His panic cascades against their own, but something in them refuses to try and escape. They deserve it, whatever his rage or fear bring down on their neck, it's what they've earned, but more than that--

They have to help. They have to fix this, this and anything else. The need rages in the back of their mind with an alien ferocity, and that wish alone is enough to send a spark of their warped power down the link and into Tim. A wave of calm, of stillness--not enough to last, but maybe enough to steady him.

Some foreign cascade of pathological calm swims into his soul with a suddenness that feels like an intrusion. It can't belong to him, can it? But who - he only associates calm with the tang of blood and the acceptance of something grisly that he does not want to do and yet will do anyway, but he knows that doesn't belong to him (that's theirs) so he wads it up and shoves it into as deep a corner as possible.

It's taken him years to try and structure his head after he fucked it all up. It wasn't even structured to begin with. He's always had a disordered mind. Ha. Disordered. In more ways than one. But he made the effort, after it happened those two times. He made an effort to shelve away the shit that wasn't his and never dredge it up again, because doing that was an insult to the kids who had been so wrung out and used up by a world that hurt them over and over and over again that the least he could do was try not and follow suit.

He tries to force himself to breathe.

Don't panic. Don't panic don't panic don't panic. Fuck. He fucked this up, didn't he. He really, really fucking fucked this up - don't panic. He's not panicking. Don't panic. God. Fuck. God. Don't panic, you piece of shit, don't panic, don't panic stop it stop it stop it calm down just calm down you fucking useless piece of shit just

He rolls onto his side. The movement helps him actualize a little better. Reminds him of which body is his. Grown adult. Human. Not a kid. Not a monster. Not anything besides what he's always been.

A dumbass and a selfish piece of shit and a freak, but not a kid. Never was one, really.

He has to start with the obvious. How much did they see? But first he has to start with the more obvious. He takes care to make his voice as steady as possible, though he can't quite iron out all the shakes.

"Sorry. I must've really...freaked you out, huh?"

The joining of two selves like this--the human mind isn't meant to sustain something like that. There's a reason that 'soul mate' took on a second meaning, turned into a warning call against ill-thought deals. But Chip's mind isn't human--at least not fully. And it's that other side to them that keeps them from being completely pulled into the spiraling thoughts, and now given the chance by their mutual distraction is able to push the link to a faint remove.

Chip watches (and feels) Tim go through the whole process, the half-out of pace beating of the both of their hearts in Chip's chest like some sort of hideous metronome--in and out, in and out, they mimic Tim's breathing without realizing it. But the sick fear of what they've done, the dread of Tim's inevitable rejection, it weighs heavily in Chip's chest and turns their limbs to lead.

Even with their blood flipped to a better side, they still mess everything up. There really isn't any running from it all.

"...'s not your fault." Why would it be? "You didn't do anything."

God, he could laugh at that one. He could. But he won't, because that instinct isn't him. He knows it's not. He doesn't laugh at shit. Why would he?

"I fucking...I yelled at you. I was gonna hurt you. Nobody deserves that."

Will it make a difference that he says it? They probably believe it anyway. Most kids in their situation - most kids that have all those tells that he recognizes - tend to believe that kind of shit. It sits unevenly in his guts. You can't save them from that.

After what he's just said and done to them, what he attempted, does he even have the right to try anymore?

The words nearly crack when he says them. He seizes the guilt that threatens to choke at his throat, knots it up, shoves it down and away. That's not fucking helpful anymore. That's not going to help anyone.

Was...going to? Something about it doesn't parse quite right, even if they understand at a surface level. Why...why isn't he mad? Why shouldn't he be?

"But nothing you said was wrong!"

"No."

The word rasps, even if he can barely put that much strength behind it. It takes his breath away for a second. His eyes flick shut as he breathes for a minute, tries to get some control over the overworked bellows of his lungs, so he can continue.

"It was. Nobody sh...should talk to a kid like that. For any reason."

It hurts even worse because they know he isn't lying.

They don't get it. Even with how many times the idea is expressed to them, how much the people around them assure Chip that they shouldn't have to fear those sorts of reactions...how much they know that their step-father's hate had been entirely unearned...it never processes. It never filters through all the little cracks and scars, the foundations in their understanding of the world, concepts that were built so long ago that they can't conceive of anything else being right. Because if that's wrong, if what they've understood their whole life is nothing but a lie, then...

Then...?

They can't face whatever lies at the other side of that question. It's too much, too heavy, too...too raw and painful for them to even understand fully why they're so scared of it. All Chip knows is that so many people that they've come to trust and love, people that by by nearly every standard they grew up with have every right to degrade and push away someone with their heritage, refuse to do so. Insist over and over again that Chip deserves love, and compassion, and deserves to just...exist. And they can't understand why.

"Why...?"

Their eyes burn, fresh tears welling up again and their chest tightens as if to choke their voice into silence.

"Wh-why're you so..."

Abruptly, they wail and break down entirely, curled up on themself and screaming out a pain they're far too young to articulate.

Why are you being so nice to me?

Not his memory. Not his words. He's having difficulty shuffling everything around still, when it was dredged to the forefront so forcefully. He can't exactly be anything but thankful, though, when that was the thing that managed to jar him back into acting less like an unrepentant jerk.

He closes his eyes. It's not much, but it's the only privacy he can afford them while they...well, they do the only thing they can do to get it all out. He knows how it is. How when you're backed up against a wall, there's nothing left to do but rip yourself apart over the unfairness of it.

"It's okay," he whispers, because that's all he can do right now. When he gets up, it's slowly, grunting slightly, but he only does so to sit up a little higher and shuffle back. Try to give them space. "It's okay. Just...you're allowed to feel that right now, okay?"

They don't really hear his words, too soft to be noticed past their own screaming filling their skull. But the sentiment echoes down the link and they latch onto it like a lifeline, clutching onto that feeling just as tightly as they hold themself.

The painful knot in their chest only seems to tighten more and more the longer their fit goes on. All the frustration, pain, and confusion they shoved down boils to the surface, shatters, turns into something that feels like they want to tear everything apart, scream at the world for everything they carried for so long. They scream and scream and scream for what feels like an eternity...until it starts to peter off.

Almost as suddenly as they'd begun Chip quiets into soft wheezes and sniffles, limp and drained and dirty. Their vision is still blurry from tears, but they don't need to see Tim to know he's still there. They should...say something, probably. Apologize, or try to undo this, or...something.

But they don't.

It'd be nice to have something on his person. Anything. Some water, a blanket, some small comfort he could hand off to them so that he doesn't have to worry about the potential of his touch upsetting them - because that's not a safe thing to be around, because he's not a safe thing to be around, and he knows it. They're alone and upset and in pain, and he's only going to aggravate that if he pushes things in the wrong direction.

But he can't just sit here. And he can't just leave. Call Erika, maybe? She might know what to do. Except Chip might not want her to see them like this, but he doesn't know. It's not like he had much in the way of shame for crying in front of adults as a kid. He did it too much to care one way or the other.

He digs around in his pocket and finally comes up with something. It's not much. A scrap of cloth, probably cut away from an old blanket or an article of clothing he couldn't use anymore. It's about all he's got in the way of a handkerchief, though. So he holds it out.

"...here."

December Undercurrent: Opposing Viewpoints

flipped turned upside down :)

:) :) :)

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cw references to child abuse BOY THIS IS HAPPENING NOW HUH

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cw: heavy dissociation, derealization, references to suicide

cw: confusion of identity, child abuse/neglect, reference to graphic assault

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