Dated Monday, August 8th, post ageswap

[noonelaughed]

The weekend was fucked.

Chris remembers all of it, though. He remembers waking up as a kid, he remembers being little again and not knowing where his mum and and dad were. He remembers, even as a little kid on the island, liking the fish in his hut most of all, all the bright colors of the tropical ones and how they fit in with the duller colored-ones. He'd been worried about missing cubs, and about whether or not he'd be able to get his knots right when he was stuck on an island and not able to practice properly.

It's all fucked, and when he wakes up as himself again, the age he's supposed to be, it's all still stuck with him, the fact that just twenty-four hours ago, he hadn't remembered about Peter, or his mum or his dad or any of it. In some ways, he kind of wishes he could have stayed that way, not remembering how everything'd gone for him. Maybe he could have lived it over again and done it right this time and not been such a fuck up.

It's back to normal now though, and Chris decides to head up to the compound to see try and find people he knows, to make sure they've all changed back as well. At least that's one good thing about when the island decides to fuck around with them all: it's generally good about putting things right in the end.

He doesn't make it far though, before he sees it.

It's sitting there behind his hut like it belongs there, stone and solid, and if it had eyes it'd be staring back at him, it would.

Peter Miles
Brother, Son and Angel

There's even a bunch of flowers on the ground like his mum's just been there. Like somehow, she's found Peter's grave on the island but didn't think enough to come and shake him awake to say 'hi' to him. Everything's back to normal, alright.

Chris doesn't even remember walking towards it, or sitting down on the ground there, but the next thing he knows, he has. Before he knows it he's rolling a joint, remembering again how his little fingers were never able to do the knots properly, but how they've always been able to at least do this.

Comments

[floozyfacade]

It was a difficult weekend. Somehow that doesn't register with Olive until it's over, she's so wrapped up in taking care of her friends, looking out for Eduardo, checking in on Chris. Trying to juggle it all, it was tough, but she managed, telling herself it would end eventually, and in the meantime, they'd needed her. She's never been able to say no to that.

When she wakes up a teenager again, she's more grateful to be eighteen than she's been since her birthday, but her responsibilities aren't at an end yet. She doesn't head out to Chris' right away — there are things to do at home now that everything's not all messed up, and admittedly, for a little while, she's not thinking about anything she should be doing elsewhere — but after breakfast, it's one of her first stops. He doesn't answer the door when she knocks, though, so she steps back, calling "Chris?" She nearly leaves before she catches sight of him as she's walking off, swerving in her course at once. "Hey."

[regenerated]

The island seems to breathe a collective sigh of relief that morning, everyone's bodies returned to normal— age, sex, and all. Claire knows that comparatively speaking, she's had little to deal with. Sure, waking up as Maxxie threw her for a loop, but the shock of it quickly pales when one considers people who had age lumped on top of everything else. Whose minds hurtled back in time, whose memories erased. If there's anything Claire can't imagine, it's the stress of that, of having forgotten lessons learned long ago. (Or, even, simply the burden of having that weight rushing in again.)

Which is why, after a minute of basking in being able to wear her own clothing again, Claire sets out to look for Chris.

If there's one thing she doesn't expect, it's to spot him sitting next to a grave.

Walking over and not saying a word, Claire sinks down to the ground next to Chris, eyes grazing over the name— and that's all she really needs to know.

[little_moons]

Another fuckin' gravestone. Anybody who doesn't think the island's fucking sadistic, at this point, is lying to themselves. It's almost impressive, how efficiently it continues to fuck us all over.

"Who was he?" I ask, sitting down beside him and handing over a lighter. I guess it's a stupid question to ask. The age on the headstone, the dates, the name, the epitaph. But the fact is, I know next to nothing about Chris. I had no idea he had a brother, let alone one who died.