Work Text:
*crash*
The bear’s eyes widened as he turned to the source of the sound. He heard his friend Sniffles start screaming. That overly-hyper squirrel had clumsily dropped the beaker he was carrying, causing sharp glass to fly up into the anteaters leg. Nutty ran off to grab something, hopefully a towel or bandage, but Flippy’s heart was racing.
His mind went back to his friend Sneaky, who had received a similar injury in the war. While running from tiger soldiers. He remembered him screaming, not wanting to get captured by the enemy line and be tortured for information.
Flippy felt himself losing it. But today, something different happened. The blood made him feel more queasy than it did scared. He felt himself become dizzy...
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Flippy stirred slightly, before opening his eyes. He felt arms around him. Looking up, he saw his alter ego, Fliqpy. He looked angry, as he held the bear in his grasp.
He didn’t try to scream. He was dreaming right? Things felt like a dream. Fuzzy with odd sound..
“Who...who did it???” his alter snarled staring straight ahead, despite that the two of them were in a seemingly white empty void. Flippy hadn’t seen his alter this clearly since the time he took all those sleeping pills. He had strongly hallucinated his evil doppelganger attacking him and even crashed his Jeep trying to “escape” from him. He didn’t feel scared now though. He wasn’t hallucinating at all, he was simply asleep.
The Green bear was very confused as to why he wasn’t currently being strangled. And who did what? Despite it being a horrible idea, he forced the words out of his mouth
“What are you doing..?” He wanted to think that if he could make peace with his evil side, he would never flip out again. But the idea was laughable at best.
The intimidating bear just widened his eyes, slightly jerking back.
“You can hear me??!?”
Flippy just lay still in disbelief.
“You can talk..?”
There was a long pause of silence. Flippy never heard his alter speak from that one “battle” he had with him.
“What? Of course I can talk! What kind of question is th-”
There was slight anger in his voice,, but he didn’t finish his sentence. He looked down and seemed to be trying to recall something. Then he made a strange face, as if he just realized that he never actually spoke during that long battle he had, and that he was just laughing maniacally the whole time.
“I mean...yes…”
Flippy looked to the side and slightly blushed. Why the hell was he being held like this? He didn’t dare want to imply anything gay, but he did have another question, one he felt was much safer to ask. His evil half had been fixated on the same spot, ever since he woke up.
“What are you staring at..? Or better yet, where are we???”
“Your eyes.”
Flippy wanted to laugh, but his response was somehow terrifying as well.
“I...so you’re staring at-”
“Yes. Your eyes. I mean not your physical eyes obviously. That’s just...wh-what I...call it…”
Fippy just remained silent, the most confused he had ever been since the outcome of the first time he flipped out.
“Outside! I’m looking….outside....”
The soldier was getting weirded out. He turned his head to look behind him, but the saw the same thing. Blank space. Nothing physical to be seen. He thought he heard low drowned out noises coming from above.
“Evil, please, can you tell me where we are?”
He had no idea where that “nickname” came from, and he was scared of the response. But the stronger soldier just set him down. Flippy saw he wasn’t even standing on anything, just more white.
“I...I live here.”
“What???”
His evil alter just but a hand up to his forehead, and frowned. As if he didn’t know how to explain wherever they were.
“You...you’re knocked out. You fainted. So….I don’t get to go killing right now…” he said matter of factly. He paused a bit after he explained and glanced behind him. Just waiting for a response. Flippy was still confused untill something clicked
“Is this….are we inside my head???”
Evil shrugged. “Yeah. I mean kind of. Not literally though.”
“So you just hide in here and wait for me to get scared so you can take over and kill people!?” Flippy shouted. He realized he had some anger in his voice, but he did lose a lot of friends because of his flip outs.
“It’s not like that….I mean, I guess i’m messed up, but tha-”
“Why do you do it though? Why can’t you just stay in here?”
“It...doesn’t work that way Flip. You can’t ignore me. I...want to come out...every once in awhile….” It was surprising for Flippy to hear his evil self speak so casually to him. And to call him something as friendly as “Flip”.
“I don’t understand…..aren’t you me?? Aren’t I you??”
Evil was completely silent and stared down at the non-existent floor, not sure what to say. It was silent for a while until he answered.
“I...I don’t think so...I think i’m....someone else? But...I just look like you…I’m not actually you…”
The soldier didn’t know what to say to this. He seemed to notice things fading around him. He thought he heard Sniffles’ voice in the distance and distinctively looked up. His evil half copied the same action.
“Guess you’re waking up.”
Flippy returned his gaze down. He was in disbelief. Was his evil self really someone else entirely? How did that even make sense? Could he get rid of him to stop his flip outs?
“Flips...i’ll take it down a notch on the killing ok?”
What in the hell. Was he serious?
He didn’t have time to think about it any further.
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“Flippy? Are you alright?”
The war soldier's eyes fluttered open slowly, and was soon able to make out the anteaters face in front of him. He felt like he just awoke from a deep sleep; very drowsy. Flippy leaned up in the bed he was in.
“Sniffles?”
“Nutty went home. You kinda fainted when you saw the cut in my foot. Guess I got lucky huh?” Sniffles smiled teasingly, placing a hand on his shoulder. Out of all his friends, Sniffles’ was probably the kindest about his flip-outs and PTSD.
“You ok now Flippy? Anything wrong?”
Flippy just stared at the wall. He couldn’t tell that to Sniffles could he?? He would sound completely crazy, more crazy than he already was. Why risk that with one of his only friends? The bear also remembered his alters's parting words. Maybe he wasn't joking? What if he could befriend his alternate self? Feeling slight hope, he turned to Sniffles.
"No. I'm feeling pretty alright actually..."