( week 5 ) monday morning, dirk

[wristbands]

[it's been close to a full twenty four hours since dipper and mabel's disappearance, and the twins still have yet to be located. a lot of things about yuggoth have broken her resolve at this point, but even so, chie wants to believe that they're okay—they have to be okay. they never deserved any of this in the first place.

chie remembers how desolate dirk had been when the hands had suddenly taken the twins, the way he desperately clawed at the ground as if he could tunnel into the earth and fight through hell itself to bring them back himself. he clearly cared about them as much as she did herself... maybe they can find some common footing, she thinks.

wherever he is on monday morning, chie approaches him, waving her good hand in greeting with a weak smile to accompany it.]

Hey... remember what you told me about being careful about tetanus? Karma decided to bite me in the ass.

Comments

[splinten]

[It has been dragging on Dirk, making him anxious. Only promises to others have made him resist leaping into the sewers to see if he could find them there.

When he sees her, he doesn't smile—he isn't that expressive, for all that he's emotional—but there is a verbal 'Hah.']

Is that what happened? Nature's cruel as all hell.

[wristbands]

[she clicks her tongue sardonically, gritting her teeth afterward.]

If you can call freaky supernatural forces "nature," sure. Places around here are locked for a reason, I guess... sucks I had to learn my lesson the hard way.

[splinten]

[YIKES] Burned building?

[wristbands]

The locked room in the hunting lodge, actually.

[she realizes now how dumb that idea sounds talking about it]

[splinten]

[....well.]

I did a burned building. Acidic frogs vomited on me.

[HE HAS NO PLACE TO JUDGE]

What did you find?

[wristbands]

[YIKES RIGHT BACK AT HIM??]

U-um, a... bunch of dead American guys and their cursed equipment?

[splinten]

...Was the American part relevant? Like, I'm picturin' them attacking you with the stripes and stars and wavin' around deadly McBurgers.

[wristbands]

[how do you keysmash irl]

Kind of? Heather found a list of people who were part of the hunting lodge when it was... a normal place, I guess. Their names all sounded like the kinds you'd expect old white men to have. Their bodies were all in there.

[the white dude name detail is actually almost verbatim from the modmeta]

[splinten]

[Oh my god]

Like Jefferson Bucannon Beaufort kind of crap? [Wow.] Did they attack you?

[wristbands]

Exactly. One of them got Akira—that's where his skeleton arm came from. This, though—[she shakes her right arm a little]—was... not them. I got stabbed by, like, a rusty old possessed knife. I-it got infected, I think, and... well.

[splinten]

Fuck. [That is brutal] I'm glad you came out alive.

[wristbands]

Me too.

[she pauses, then... drops the weakly confident act. on her face now is just exhaustion.]

But to tell the truth, now, I... I'm just tired of it all. So much we've done for trying to save everyone, right?

[splinten]

Yeah. [He thinks about the kids. He hopes they're safe. He hates that he can't find them.]

I want to break this place and I can't figure out where the fault line is.

[wristbands]

It's breaking us.

[and god, does she want to be defiant, but clearly any gods in their favor have died with them.]

[splinten]

It is.

One time, when I was feeling like an arrogant asshole, I told someone that I splinter, but I don't break.

[Ha ha.]

Mostly, I just don't have any hope to start with. It makes things easier.

[wristbands]

[she actually looks up at him in surprise regarding that last bit.]

You had enough to say you wanted to save everyone a couple of weeks ago.

[splinten]

That wasn't hope, dude. That's why it's still true.

[It's a calm statement, perhaps in its deadness.]

I don't think I can save anyone, and I sure as fuck don't think I can win. But I'm going to go down doing everything I can to do that anyway. At least I can do some damage before I lose.