The Mods of LifeAftr (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lifeaftr_mods) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
lifeaftr2017-10-30 03:03 pm
lifeaftr_mods) wrote in lifeaftr2017-10-30 03:03 pm
Entry tags:
- final fantasy xv: ardyn izunia,
- fragile dreams: ren,
- hyper light drifter: the drifter,
- marble hornets: tim wright,
- mass effect: commander shepard,
- original: chip abaroa,
- original: mira delacroix,
- pokemon sun & moon: guzma,
- pokemon sun & moon: luna,
- undertale: chara dreemurr,
- ✖ disney: mickey mouse,
- ✖ ffxiv: tataru taru,
- ✖ marvel 616: wade wilson,
- ✖ off: the batter,
- ✖ okami: amaterasu,
- ✖ osomatsu-san: karamatsu matsuno,
- ✖ rwby: jaune arc,
- ✖ rwby: weiss schnee,
- ✖ the adventure zone: lup,
- ✖ the order of the stick: roy greenhilt,
- ✖ undertale: frisk,
- ✖ undertale: muffet,
- ✖ undertale: sans the skeleton,
- ✖ world of warcraft: maridian,
- ✖ yuki yuna is a hero: karin myoshi
October Aftermath: Crystal Clear
Who: All!
What: You're back, for better or worse. Time to recover.
When: Backdated to the 24th and beyond.
Where: The Monkey Compound, Islets, etc.
Warnings: Mark as you go.
No matter where you are on the morning of the 24th, things will very abruptly go dark.
Unless you're dead. In which case, things are already dark. And you do not see this.
For the rest of you, however, the Storyteller appears only briefly. Gone is their seemingly indifferent nature; as the rabbit hops too and throe, the pages of their tome flick back and forth in an erratic pattern, stopping on a blank page for only a moment, before continuing on. Despite the pages always turning in the one direction, there seems to be no end to them, not at all.
"I'll keep this brief, for the moment. All of you have now been removed from the caverns below," A haggard sigh- and a reluctant addition. "Those of you still alive.
"Your efforts have allowed me access to what lies below. I have sealed off the entrances- from now, the responsibility of cleaning up the mess is upon me."
And that appears to be it. Darkness returns, along with the sensation of lying upon the sand. Birds call out from the jungle, joining the rhythmic shift of the waves. No matter where you were on the island; underground, or above, you awaken upon the shoreline near the Storyteller's temple, along with the rest of the survivors.
"For what it is worth, I am truly sorry."
[[If you have yet to do so, make sure you confirm your character's death here!]]
What: You're back, for better or worse. Time to recover.
When: Backdated to the 24th and beyond.
Where: The Monkey Compound, Islets, etc.
Warnings: Mark as you go.
No matter where you are on the morning of the 24th, things will very abruptly go dark.
Unless you're dead. In which case, things are already dark. And you do not see this.
For the rest of you, however, the Storyteller appears only briefly. Gone is their seemingly indifferent nature; as the rabbit hops too and throe, the pages of their tome flick back and forth in an erratic pattern, stopping on a blank page for only a moment, before continuing on. Despite the pages always turning in the one direction, there seems to be no end to them, not at all.
"I'll keep this brief, for the moment. All of you have now been removed from the caverns below," A haggard sigh- and a reluctant addition. "Those of you still alive.
"Your efforts have allowed me access to what lies below. I have sealed off the entrances- from now, the responsibility of cleaning up the mess is upon me."
And that appears to be it. Darkness returns, along with the sensation of lying upon the sand. Birds call out from the jungle, joining the rhythmic shift of the waves. No matter where you were on the island; underground, or above, you awaken upon the shoreline near the Storyteller's temple, along with the rest of the survivors.
"For what it is worth, I am truly sorry."
Closed to Cottage 3: Asriel, Sans, Tibia, Tim, Wade
After an hour, perhaps more, they return- lest Sans come to collect them.
Their eyes are red rimmed. If Chara’s aware that the tear tracks are stark against their cheeks, they make no mention of it. Without a word, they collapse onto the mattress offered, curling into a ball. They don’t sleep. They don’t look at anyone. They don’t bother removing their knife from it’s sheath at their hip, or keeping a hand up their sleeve around yet another handle.
They just don’t move at all.
The next day
The next day….
They’re still alive. Sitting in the open doorway as the sun rises. If it rises. Hard to tell, when it’s raining so hard.
But it’s fitting, isn’t it?
It’s fitting.]
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[If the only person anchoring him here just up and - ]
[Well. No. He is a liar. That'd be false to say, because he didn't take that route either. For reasons beyond the scope of what he was willing to examine at the time, and even now.]
[So where does this leave him now?]
[It leaves the most awkward reunion of lost and straggling souls, or Sols, that he has possibly ever witnessed. The third kid in a string of them, a skeleton and a mercenary whose memories of Tim he knows would turn unfavorable in an instant if they knew the truth of "Kidwun" and his role in how things are now. His role in how things set themselves up in the present moment, up until "Kittu" had made a decision.]
[Everyone's exhausted, tired, hungry, beaten down to their cores. He can step around subjects lightly, and circumstances work to his advantage in that regard. Chara is hardly in a position to care one way or another.]
[For that, he can't exactly blame them.]
[There's enough lingering instinct here, or enough of the people who are genuine in their sympathy for a lost, grieving little kid, for them all to ride it out. For none of them to quite question it, the familiarity. He should hope. He should hope.]
[His lighter spits on-off in a rhythmic jerk of his thumb. Not knowing how to broach the subject. Any of the subjects. Not knowing if he should.]
heck I posted this in the wrong place
He's the only one who remembers it. The experience of being...them.
So perhaps he can imagine what it's like, to once again be them on their own.]
...It's going to run out.
[And then he'll have to waste part of a story, getting another. A nuisance, rather than disaster.
Speaking of disasters- looking at him for the first time in multiple days is a good reminder, pushing their hand into their pockets, until their fingers meet something that rattles. The pill bottle is held out- perfectly unharmed.]
Perhaps you should hold onto this, from now on.
how dare you, heathen
[No. Well. It's more than that.]
[They're tired of being responsible for him. They're tired of being responsible for other people, seeing as the last person in their care, was - ]
[He swallows, hard. Tries not to grimace. Looks from bottle to hand to the face of the one bearing it.]
[Control is being taken away from you.]
Are you sure?
I have sinned. Ban me.
[They could have caused a further disaster. Brian may have ceased to show to their daily medication meetings, but Tim could be as much of a danger, could he not? And the two of them together- one acting out would undoubtedly feed the other.
Failing to acknowledge that had placed him in a very difficult situation. Besides.]
As it stands, I have no reason to wait for Frisk to return.
[Not when they could be waiting forever.]
forever years dungeon
[His gaze slides away from them briefly, and then - back again. To them, and not the bottle they hold in their hands.]
That doesn't mean you've gotta be alone.
finally, also CW: discussions of suicide, mental health
[If he's not going to take it, then Chara will simply lean forward, placing the bottle on the floor at his side. There. Was that so hard?
With that done, they can slump back against the doorway again with a tired exhale.]
...What's it like, Tim?
To reach an age you never expected to live to?
cw continues......
[Now there's a bottle set down beside him with a quiet click. He picks it up out of absent rote and turns it over between his fingers. There's the soft rattle of the capsules along the edges of the orange plastic, and his fist closes around it firmly, tightly, as if by tethering himself to it he might wipe all of it away.]
[What's it like?]
Didn't feel like much of an accomplishment. [He tried to close the door more times than he could count. Broken glass, medication, a bed spring, the blade he pried out from a plastic pencil sharpener after weeks of careful planning, careful insertion of himself into the daily art classes. Every time, it wasn't his own hand that stopped him. It was the hands pinning a needle to the crook of his elbow or the deft looping of clean white bandages over the scores he left in his wrist, the mandated sedation and watch time that followed, and the nervous, too-polite conversation of everyone stepping around him, as if by treating the attempt like nothing more than a blip on the radar, that might force it to be as such.]
And once I was out...I mean, out of the hospital, it was like it was the one thing I could always stick to. If things got bad again. If there was no other way out, at least I had one last thing.
[At least you always had that back door. Even if it failed, even if it wasn't guaranteed - that was the one thing in his life he could control, when he'd never had anything resembling it.]
and continues
[Achievement unlocked: still alive, despite everything. The state of his SOUL was something Chara would never forget- too similar to their own. Too tired, too angry, too resigned.
But still there. Indisputably still there.]
If it was the one thing you could always stick to, why didn't you?
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[It’d be nice if he had some sweeping rationalization that brought it all together - some bold and profound statement that makes everything up until this point miraculously worth it.]
[They both know better.]
It was...little stuff, I guess. Like I made it this far, right? Or just - knowing there was someone, something out there that made it kind of worth it.
For a little while, anyway.
[Just for the next day. And the next. And the next.]
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Chara gives him a flat smile. It's nothing like the usual, sharp edged things that find themselves upon their face so regularly. It's tired- and understanding, all in one. Perhaps tired simply because it conveys understanding.]
For a little while.
But then, those things always vanished, didn't they? So where does that leave us?
To what end do we still continue?
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[By the end, he'd had no idea. The idea that - that Jay would've wanted him, would've wanted Jessica, to continue to carve out some kind of halfway normal lives for themselves - for a while, that was enough too. It's a damn stupid thing, in retrospect. You can't disappoint the dead. You can't upset them. That's the point of it all; they're dead.]
[That tired little smile of theirs pulls something answering out of him, faint and wavering at its corners.]
I stopped waiting around for things to get better a long time ago. [And he knows - knows they did too. He was proof of that. That things do not, in fact, get better.]
You're about ten times stronger than I ever was, buddy. If I can make it this far, I think maybe you can too.
cw: more suicide because we never stray too far from that ding dang tree in hecksville
[Because they don't really think it does. Letting their head fall sideways, leaning up against the doorway- it's not a usual pose, for them. It's not Chara, to lean up against things. They don't seek support. They don't enjoy the idea of conveying it, either.
But they're just]
I'm so tired, Tim.
[Their eyes close.]
I don't know how old I am, anymore. How many more times can death reject us outright?
[How many times are they expected to deal with their miserable existence on their own?]
Is it not enough, to allow everyone their happy ending? Even those who do not deserve it? [They laugh.] We might be at the epicenter of death, but I was hoping to spare you this misery.
It might be like this for as long as we are together.
[It's hollow.]
just for this whole thread tbh
[Never has it been more obvious that, even now, they still find themself looking for a reason not to go through with it - because to do so for their own sake will never be enough.]
[They look like they might sink through the floor and surrender themself to the drag of gravity, to let the dirt creep up over their skin and eat away at their bones and once again let their body turn to dust, turn to earth, just for the sake of ensuring that no one else suffers as a byproduct of their presence.]
[He doesn't have much. He has a hand, palm up and open. An offer for something to hold to, if they need it.]
Death isn't the only thing that defines you. I know sometimes it feels like... [The words die as he loses momentum, but only for a moment.]
There are a lot of people here who are better off for having met you. Who are alive, because of you.
Nothing about any of this is okay. Nothing about any of what we had to do up to this point is okay. But I guess in this...stupid, selfish way, I'm still kinda glad that a lot of it happened. Not all of it, but -
If it hadn't, I wouldn't have met you.
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How many times in the past had they wished the ground would just swallow them up? That they would go to sleep and never open their eyes again? In a surprising twist, seeking death had initially been somewhat terrifying. It was terrifying, to run towards a hole in the ground. Terrifying, to feel their throat burn and bleed until they could no longer see, no longer breathe.
The difference, between wishing and action, was always motivation. Always.
But death doesn't define them? An exhale, close enough to laughter for him to understand they disagree. If it isn't them, it's someone else. Death is a constant- in dreary, underground caverns. In castles in the mist. On islands far away from anything they've known. He should already know this- he's already died because of them.
So why is he glad?
It's too difficult, to find a response to that. Chara's absolute first instinct is denial, sharply pushing him to remember every, horrible instance that had transpired since. Except Tim is well away of all of those things- a fact they, in turn, cannot deny either.
Their eyes drift down to his hand- palm out in offering. It's not-
Wordlessly, they look back out to the rain. It's not acknowledgement, but...
At least they aren't denying it, either.]
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[It's not very much at all.]
[But it is something, yeah? It's fucking something, and if it can ease the heaviness on their shoulders for just a fucking second, it's worth it. It's worth admitting that maybe his life wouldn't have gone the way it had, without this - this strange, smiling, well-spoken child who took the course of his world and diverted it, because the resolve to change fate is just something that comes naturally to them.]
You have every right to it. To be - angry, and bitter, and just - and pissed that this is the hand you were dealt.
[Because it was dealt to them. It was handed to them and they were expected to carry it without complaint.]
[And, well.]
[Fuck that.]
But you deserve to be happy.
#icon keywords
[They don't understand. Why he feels he has the right to say that- why he feels something like that is even worth believing. They have every right? On the contrary, Tim. They do not.
They have never had the right. And the fact that everyone else didn't either is a poor consolation. What they've done- what they are? It's difficult to consider the idea that they'll ever, truly be sorry for it.
But what they are is wrong. Chara understands and accepts that fully. The right to be angry, to be bitter- to be happy, it's ludicrous. And the only thing that stops them from laughing is an utter lack of energy, the pure exhaustion of facing that fact each and every day. The very same exhaustion that has them curling in on themself now, knees drawing up to their chest as they wrap their arms around them, seeking something. Yet another thing they don't deserve, probably.
They want to sleep, Tim. They want this to be over.
Do they have a right to that, yet?]
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Which is why, when he returns to the cottage with Wade and a kid in tow -- and another unpleasant and unwelcome surprise in the form of the source of no end to misery -- the first thing Sans does is boil water.
Then he's handing out wads of cloth to Wade, to Kidwun, scraps of cloth that were parts left of a butchered t-shirt, and some of the soap the residents of the cottage had made with water and campfire ash. Mixed with coconut oil, the lye had made more than serviceable soap, if a little astringent.
He's no chemist, but monsters learned how to make a few things with the few resources they had. Soap was pretty easy, and he'd done it with help from--well. It was before they lost half their household.
Back when things were a little less complicated, when Newt was thatching their roof, and Wade and Sans and Clem were putting together three extra rooms spanning out from the original central one. But Newt is gone and so is Clem. Instead there's a grieving child without a sibling, there's a young prince who ruined Sans's life, and Wade...
God, Wade. He's taking it hard.
Besides making them scrub off the dirt with bits of homemade soap and heated water and rags, there's two double beds, complete with sheets and pillows and blankets, and rooms for privacy, albeit they don't exactly have doors yet.
Sans otherwise uses the pot once more, to make a kind of stew of fish and foraged greens, seaweed, and coconut meat. It's vaguely creamy and smells sweeter than it tastes. He ladles out a bowl and approaches the kid who had looked so small when they had been curled up on the bed.
Later, he'll have one to bring to Wade. ]
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But as always, it's when they don't want him to try when he puts the energy in. They've noticed the absence of two occupants of this household. They know why Wade is seeking his own space. Tibia refuses to come near them, and last they saw of Asriel, he was an awkward, miserable lump by the door- staying on the off chance that they'll call for him.
He should know full well that they won't.
They can smell the broth from here- it hits them with all the salty tang of sea tea; another reminder of a home that isn't theirs and a Partner that isn't here. He's helping, because for some reason, he's decided to put in an effort.
It doesn't make them resent him any less. If anything, they resent him more.
Why didn't he do this before it was too late? Why are they suddenly worth the effort, now that they're a child he doesn't know?
Why wasn't Frisk.]
I'm not hungry.
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[ Just the sight of them makes something in his bones twist in a not entirely unfamiliar way. Can't place when he felt that before, but he decides that it doesn't matter, setting the bowl down by his side as he sits.
Right there, in arm's reach but no closer, that steaming bowl between them like a wall.
For a change, his first instinct to attempt to poorly lighten a dreadful atmosphere with a bad joke goes thoroughly ignored. ]
I know. I, uh. I had a brother.
[ Of course, you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?
But Sans doesn't. And he makes an effort, because he doesn't remember a lot of things. Like how he's the noose around their neck, the dealer who fed them bullets for the gun they used to try to end it all, them and their partner.
He doesn't know. But he does know loss. ]
Pretty sure your twin wouldn't like it if you starved to death, so just eat, ok?
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Wonderful. When things could not be any lower, it's excellent to know we can always resort to guilt tripping via reference to the dead. [That's generally something reserved for their own, personal motivations, rather than something they're willing to take from outside sources. Listlessly, their gaze drifts to the soup, watching the steam rise and curl, fading into the air.
Pretty sure Frisk wouldn't like it if they starved to death.
Yep. That sure is just as appetizing as it was two seconds ago.]
...What do you care?
I'm no one to you. My sibling was no one, to you. I highly doubt you have any personal investment in my continued existence, sir.
[They know he doesn't. That was the whole point of their actions; the whole point of what they'd done. Even if the results hadn't been quite as expected- that much had worked out for the best.
And yet, he keeps involving himself anyway.]
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He sits there by the bowl, points of light in empty eye sockets fixed on the kid. ]
Yeah, you're not wrong, kid.
[ His shoulders hitch up, shrugging. It's true, all of it -- they're no one, just a kid, stuck here with the rest of them. A fiercely independent and competent kid, but still, well, a child. ]
I may be a skeleton, but I ain't heartless. Anyway, I'm not doin' this for, uh, your gratitude, or anything.
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[Finally, they sit up. But it's less to move towards the bowl of food than it is to continue fixing them with a hard stare, unyielding in it's judgement.
That's always what it comes down to between them, in the end. Unyielding judgement.]
And yet you aren't the kind to go out of your way either, are you? No. You're the kind of person who sleeps their way up a mountain.
This has nothing to do with your heart, sir. Given the option, you'd undoubtedly do nothing.
So what, pray tell, was so important that you felt the urge to stop a child from achieving the death they were clearly intent on seeking out?
whoops screwed up format
[ So sue him. ]
Whaddya want me to say? You got your whole life ahead of you? [ From the guy who was pretty much throwing in the towel from day one in this place? Even Sans has to huff a bitter little chuckle. ] Look. If you're really, uh, determined to go, just wait a bit.
Maybe someone or something'll come along that makes you change your mind.
[ Like it did for him. ]
shhh it's fine
How much they did. And now, there's no reason for it, not at all.
Fancy him, telling them something like this.]
That ship sailed long ago, sir.
[Something already came along. Multiple times, things have come along; people. A sibling. A family. A Partner. People they cared about. People they were responsible for.
None of it has ever culminated to anything. None of it has ever equated to more than misery, for all involved. It's simply to be expected, from a child who's hurt everyone they know, simply by being around.]
What does a 'happy ending' look like, to you?