you are what you love [ open ]

[determinedest]

Who: Tim Wright + your beautiful self, and/or Frisk + your beautiful self!
Where: All over!
When: April 7th - April 10th
Rating: PG-13 probably though I'll warn if it goes higher
Summary: Maybe, with what little power you have...
The Story:

[Starters are in the comments. Let me know over here or at arrpee if you want a closed starter or anything! I will match prose or brackets!]

Comments

[rightcall]

Clementine nods. The static looked- looked unlike anything she's ever seen before, but he definitely didn't seem like himself- not wholly, not fully. Like the darkness had come over the rest, she breathes out, shaking her head at his attempt at a joke.

"Not a bad thing to be miserable at," she says softly even if it's shitty to hurt people accidentally. In some ways, it may be even worse, because it's not something that you can take ownership of. It just... happened.

She can feel her own awkwardness creep up again briefly even if her words are so genuine. "But you help too. I know it's all blurry but you've helped me so I wanted you to... remember that part at least."

[postictal]

"No, I - I do." It's not the remembering that's the hard bit, there. It's the admitting it to himself, the accepting of what she's just said. Not just friends, but - something that not even his mother was eager to impart, like the moment she knew her child was some broken thing, she was already preparing herself to sever those ties, drawing back.

He can't remember that word ever being used before. At him, for him. If she ever said it, it was when he was too young to recall it in earnest.

"You, you, uh...you c-called me..."

He can't say it. He can't fucking say it, even now.

[rightcall]

"Family."

She fills it in without any hesitation at all once he brings it up himself. Despite her inexperience in general with expressing emotions, it's how she feels. It's what she would want him to know too. The words aren't words she gives easily.

She can't remember the last time she did. They're not words she feels towards- towards hardly anyone, but she feels that way about him. It's why she moved right into trying, trying at something she's never done before in the hopes it might bring him back- that it might be enough (and even more miraculously, it was).

"You're family to me."

[postictal]

"No one's, uh."

He's struck with the notion that he doesn't know where he should be looking, because eye contact feels like an insurmountable obstacle just now. Staring at the floor, at his hands, at the walls, at anything but Clem, who has just said something he can't remember hearing in his life.

"No one...says that," he manages at long last, the words feeling choked and fuck, fuck this, and fuck him for being the kind of person who cries way too fucking easily.

[rightcall]

"Well, I fucking do."

There's something Tim asked her when she first showed up again in Wonderland after being gone as long as she was. It's what she wants to ask now, because it meant a lot to her then and-

Her throat kind of locks up, because he should have heard that as a kid at least. That's the- the bare basics anyone should have when they're growing up ( a family).

"Can I give you a hug?"

[postictal]

"...yeah." It's a weird reversal of things, and it's not lost of him, that parallel. Maybe that's what does him in, what shuts him up and practically glues his throat shut, to the point where he can barely nod, barely work the words out.

"Yeah. Yeah, 'course you can."

He feels about ready to break down right in front of her, if he's honest.

Which is kinda what he's been doing already.

[rightcall]

Clementine nods when he gives the permission, moving forward, winding her arms around him to hug him tightly. She presses her face to him, and she doesn't say anything else, because she doesn't want him to feel like he has to say anything at all either. There's just no requirement- not for anything.

It's quiet but it's good.

It's okay.

He doesn't have to do or be anything other than who he is right now, what he feels like doing.