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

[screwedontight]

Seth shifts nervously then, rolling his eyes to look up before planting his hands on his hips to look at Tim. "My dad. Who would have my ass for this place and for being afraid, and if I wasn't prepared." Which explains maybe the gun.

"But he's not coming because he's dead, I guess. But Richie will come and he will find me and we'll figure this out because that's what Richie does." Even as children he knew that, even if he felt he had to be the mouth, the voice, the attitude, to take the brunt of the abuse.

[postictal]

He’s dead.

It’s said just offhandedly enough for Tim to shudder, staring at his feet in an attempt to distract himself from the thought of it. Of someone being dead - gone. Well and truly and utterly. How do you even come to accept that? How do you brush past it like it doesn’t even matter?

“He’s dead?” he ventures at last, hating the tremble to the words. That’s when something far worse occurs to him. “Did you shoot him?”

[screwedontight]

Seth starts to open his mouth before closing it. He stares at Tim for the longest time, silent, lips pressed tight. It almost looks like maybe all that bravado is about to just crack. Which it may be because he looks away.

"No. He got drunk and dropped his cigarette when he passed out and the house caught on fire." He's fighting hard, and despite that his voice cracks and he folds his arms tightly over his chest. "And if it wasn't for Richie, I'd be dead in that house too but he got me out and then I was here so I don't know. I guess he's dead because he wasn't moving. So no."

He sneers the word, staring at the dark woods behind Tim. "I didn't shoot him," he says in mocking tones, obviously trying to pull himself together again.

[postictal]

That's more than he expected. He shouldn't have asked - shouldn't have pried. It's clear that the question shook him enough to rattle some information loose. Information neither of them wanted to hear aloud, and, he suspects, that neither of them suspected.

The house caught on fire. He could have died in there. He could have died, burning alive, and Tim's heart seizes in his chest.

There might be nothing else in the world he can think of that would be so terrifying.

"But...the gun didn't, didn't help you," he manages, weakly. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Why can't he just shut up?

[screwedontight]

Seth doesn't answer for a long time. It will be literally a lifetime before he learns the truth, learns that his brother set the fire intentionally.

Instead he's alone and he's convincing himself it's all okay and so he rolls his eyes.

"No, but I'm not dead and don't plan to be here. So I'm going to the house. You coming or you staying out here for the dark and the dinosaurs and whatever else there is?"

[postictal]

The options don’t look great. Stay with a kid who has a gun, who doesn’t know him, who he doesn’t know either, or risk getting trampled. It’s goijg to get dark and cold, and he might even need to climb a tree again just to keep safe from everything out there. All the scary sounds, and monsters hidden in the trees.

Better the devil that you know.

“I’m staying,” he says, with more confidence than he feels.

At least out here, he knows where he stands.

[screwedontight]

Seth stares at him for the longest time. Like he knows he has to have heard him wrong. At length he rolls his eyes, a look that hasn't changed in thirty years, and turns away.

"Good luck then. Try and not die." He isn't staying out here. He isn't risking his life staying out here. Even if he hates leaving the kid behind but screw this. He wants to live.

"Later. Maybe."

[postictal]

"...bye," Tim says at last, because that seems polite, at least. He doesn't wish the boy ill will, exactly, but he knows better than to just...trust someone he doesn't know. Maybe it's different, if it's a kid, but he's carrying a gun, and despite the similarities between them, he can't risk leaving.

Not when Mom's looking for him. The doctors, too. They have to be. They have to be out there.

He just has to wait for them to find him.