look at all that which surrounds me [ open ]

[determinedest]

Who: FRISK and YOU and/or TIM and YOU
Where: Mostly outside tbh like just generally gonna be in the woods
When: 2/09 - 2/11
Rating: PG-13; general cw for mental health shit for Tim in particular
Summary: Frisk climbed a mountain. Tim's lost time. Neither of them is particularly okay.
The Story:

[Just kidding starters are in the comments again so I don't spam the log comm lol. Anyway if you want closed starters just smack me here or over at arrpee. Also feel free to use either prose or brackets and I'll match you.]

Comments

[postictal]

A little boy. A boy like him. But - but not like him, he knows, because he's not like anybody. He's something that the doctors still puzzle over. But it's okay. It's okay. They're going to find the right medicine and it'll fix him and it'll be okay.

Mom's going to make it okay.

"...'s this Rosswood?" Tim ventures at last, brow dimpled into a frown. Maybe...maybe this kid got lost too? Maybe he's from the hospital too. Maybe he woke up like Tim did. Maybe.

Maybe he's not really alone.

[screwedontight]

Seth's nose screws up and he kind of shrugs. "I don't think so. Don't know any place called that. Where is it?"

He moves a few steps closer, frowning at the other boy. "You know there's a house where there's no dinosaurs, right?"

[postictal]

"They're not real," he says automatically. He doesn't. He doesn't know the address. Not specifically. Maybe...maybe he can figure it out, though? "I mean, they can't be. Right?"

He's just...he's just crazy. He's just losing his mind. The way that he does. That's something - they all know it. The doctors know it. He knows it.

[screwedontight]

"Really? So why don't you just run up to one of them." It's a petty challenge, and one that's intended to get someone hurt. One way or another. "Lots of things can't be real. Doesn't mean it's safe, right?"

He shrugged, folding his thin, soot tinged arms over his chest. "Am I not real either?"

[postictal]

"'M not supposed to." He drops his gaze away from the other boy, glancing away, sidelong, shuffling his weight so the leaves rustle underfoot. Are these real, too? They feel real. Most things that aren't real feel like it, though. He knows that. He knows that. He's not stupid.

Is he alone here? Is the other boy not real either? Tim looks back to him, dubious.

"...maybe."

[screwedontight]

"You have rules about taunting dinosaurs?" He can't even help that he's laughing at a bit at that. "I bet you're afraid of them. You can admit."

He'll mock you for it, but you can admit it.

"So, what? If I punched you, that wouldn't be real either?"

Sadly, Seth really didn't learn how to play well with others.

[postictal]

"They can't be real. They're not..." They're not supposed to be. It's just him being crazy again. Being, being crazy and he's supposed to be better than this, he's supposed to be getting better. "They said I was getting better. They said I - I wasn't supposed to be seeing this stuff anymore."

Is he afraid of them?

He supposes he is. He's afraid of a lot of things, himself included. HIs shoulders hunch in something almost like shame, his gaze dropping.

[screwedontight]

"Not supposed to be seeing stuff... okay." And with that Seth took on huge step backwards. "Ooookay then. So if they're just you being cr... you seeing things, why you hiding?"

cw: internalized ableism

[postictal]

Crazy.

He knows that's the word that he was gonna say. Of course it was, because - because he is, isn't he? He's crazy. Look at him. He's a little kid hiding from things, saying they aren't real, and he doesn't sound wholly convinced of it by his own standards, even.

"'Cause - 'cause I'm crazy," he says, halfway defensive. Halfway defensive, halfway scared. "'Cause I'm crazy."

[screwedontight]

"Well, you're the one saying it," Seth points out, shrugging. "Nothing wrong with that. Unless you stay out here and get smashed by a dinosaur. I mean, is that how you want to die?"

Because he's been thinking about that a lot lately since surviving a fire.

He takes another step forward, offering his hand. "Come on, get up. Let's get inside. I'm told the closets somehow give you anything you want. Ice cream and cake for dinner?"

[postictal]

He's offering to let him - to let him touch him? See if he's real? He can see if he's real. This isn't like a doctor, grabbing him, holding him still, trying to make him listen and sit quietly and do what he's told, like a good boy. He has a hand, extended, and Tim hasn't learned to eschew that kind of contact just yet.

His fingertips brush against the other boy's, snatch back, and then - close gingerly around his hand in earnest.

Real.

He is real.

"...closets?" says Tim. "I haven't, um. I haven't been - inside. They always say to stay where you are. Stay where you are so they can find you and bring you back safe."

[screwedontight]

"Yeah, inside. It's weird, and crazy I guess, but then that's this place, right? Because, well, dinosaurs."

Because to him that is the definition of crazy. Anything like that was the true definition of nuts.

"Who are they? The people that told you that you were crazy? Them?"

[postictal]

"...doctors. Mom." He's not going to cry. They like it so much better when he doesn't cry. When he's a big, respectful, polite boy who doesn't make too much noise and doesn't make a fuss. So he doesn't. He doesn't cry.

He pulls himself upright, slowly, careful not to use too much of the other boy's weight to counterbalance himself.

"'S what they say."

[screwedontight]

"Doctors are totally lame," Seth says, believing that to be the truth. He's avoided them as much as he could, to the point of fighting with his father over it.

"Yeah well, why are you believing them. Are you? Not what they said," he says, giving a jerk his head, turning to head for the house. "What do you think?"

[postictal]

"'Cause - 'cause they're the only people who can help me, Mom says." It's a mumble, somewhat shamefaced; the other boy's easy confidence as he proclaims that doctors are useless is said with enough certainty to sway even that bastion of conviction that all children have, in regards to their mothers. She said they would help, and so she was right, because she had to be. He had to trust that, because grown-ups are always right.

He starts to follow, moving at a slow, hesitant step by step. His progress might be painful, but at least he's moving.

[screwedontight]

"Yeah well... my mom left, so I'm going with how they treat my brother, and naw. Besides, this place isn't your home. Is it?"

He asks the last with a little more uncertainty than he's shown. If only that he's not from here, so he assumes from what he's heard, no one else is either.

"You sure one of them dinos didn't get you?" Because he looks bad. Seth's just been through a fire, and he worries about this other kid. Course, he fears showing pain or fear or he'll be hit, so that might be part of it.

[postictal]

His mom left. He refrains from the hard bite of sympathy that almost ekes out an obligatory I'm sorry. He got that from the other kids and grown-ups whenever the subject of his dad came up. He didn't like hearing it then; he doubts this kid will like hearing it now.

"No," he says at last. "To, um...both. I just hid so they wouldn't see me, and I think 'cause I wasn't moving, none of them came after me."

He pauses, shooting a nervous glance over his shoulder.

"...d'you think they'll chase us now?"

[screwedontight]

"Naw. Why would they. We're tiny. There's adults running around out here. They would totally want to eat them more. More food, right?"

And he totally believes that.

"Besides... Won't let them have us," he says, sliding his hand back under his jacket. The pistol he has is too big for his hands but he holds it steady. "My dad taught me how to use them."

[postictal]

He has a gun?

Tim stops dead at that, startled despite himself. He's...lots of people have guns, he knows, growing up in Alabama, though it hasn't really been made clear to him why. But he's never seen someone so young have one.

"Why...why?" he manages to stammer out at last, once he's found his voice again. His mom wouldn't let him near anything like that, he's sure, in a hundred, hundred years. The doctors don't even want him near shoelaces or broken glass. How does a kid get a gun?

[screwedontight]

Sadly Seth's upbringing was bad and abusive, and he's doing the only things he knows to do.

"Because my dad told me that I had to defend myself. I know how to take it apart and put it back together." In under a minute, and over and over. He is used to being told he can't eat unless he does things right.

"Like I said, the closets will give you anything you ask for. I watched someone else do it."

[postictal]

"Why not just run?" His voice has pitched upward into a horrified queak. Maybe, on some level, some distant part of him can register that it makes sense to be able to fight back, but - but that's not what kids do. That's what grown-ups are for, aren't they? To chase away the monsters. To tell you that it'll be okay. To make sure nothing actually hurts you.

That's what Mom said. She said she would. And the doctors - she said they'd try too.

[screwedontight]

"Because you can't run from everyone."

When Seth says that his voice is different. Softer, more childish, remembering how hard it had been for him to run from his dad. Parents made it hard to run.

"Trust me. You just can't. Also, pretty sure running from dinosaurs is deadly. Or staying near them. Also, dinosaurs are deadly."

[postictal]

"Guns are deadly!" How has that not registered? Even if you're holding it, it's still - he could aim wrong, or it could just go off, and the longer he thinks about it, the more he just wants it gone. Guns are real, tangible, in all the ways that this strange place isn't. Dinosaurs, magical closets; those can be dismissed as products of a crazed mind, unable to sort its way through the fog of hallucinatory sludge and discern the reality.

But a gun?

There's no questioning the reality of that.

[screwedontight]

"So are dinosaurs! Also the people my dad brings around the house," he points out, not sounding the least bit upset about that. He knows what dangerous is, and it's not the gun. Not in Seth's mind.

"I'm going up to the house. You want to stay out here and get stomped on, that's your choice, but I'm not getting dead out here."

It seems nothing changes with Seth. Not ever. Stupidity and no death.

[postictal]

"Are you gonna sh-shoot me if I don't?" That's panic, pure and plain and simple. It doesn't make any sense that he would, considering what he just said, but rationality isn't part of his thought process just now.

All he knows is that there's someone here with a gun, who apparently knows how to use it.