[That's the tempting thought, anyway - and in the dark, washed and changed into a set of night clothes that chafe at their skin like fire ants, Frisk can't come up with a good reason to argue it. Except for the reason that always is. Determination. That same old force, beating inside them with a familiar rhythm that still feels sideways. They feel too small for it, now. Like it doesn't belong.]
[In the dark, Frisk breathes into a pillow. Breathes. Can't remember how they got there beyond the faded recollection of an embrace marked by hard bones, a blurred skull with a crack in the ocular ridge. The twin drops of gold they could feel beating, always just off their periphery. Vision fading in and out like swatches of light in a dark hall. An attic. A room. Gravity, careful and deliberate and far from their SOUL, laying them carefully down in a bed of golden--]
[No. That didn't happen.]
[Stay determined, a king in the mountain rumbles. A low-throated sound as Frisk rolls to their side, propping themself on their elbow to shake him off. To shake off the ache deep in their bones, nothing like the pain of a toxin drilling wire into their blood, but the Queen's dark court must not have been kind to the shells of its subjects.]
[OK. They're up.]
[They're determined.]
[Frisk pushes themself into a sitting position, blankets falling from their shoulders and pooling around the small of their back. Frisk sighs, rubs the heel of their palm into their eye. The other hand strays automatically for the lockets around their neck, and it's a cold reminder when their fingers close around empty fabric instead of metal.]
[Twin snaps of tension before a black portal. A monster with his phalanges twisted in the chains, in their collar, because he didn't want to let go.]
[A rush of activity, pending the actual ability to think. Chara leaves Frisk's side with clear reluctance, quietly making note to Sans that their new...room, once that's been proposed, won't be the best place for Frisk tonight. There's talks to be had. Decisions made.
The game has changed and along with it their priorities. The main one is...
The main one is in Sans' bed, sitting upright and staring blankly at the wall. Groping at their neckline with the stray force of habit and a downward twitch of their lips- something Chara can fix, if they choose to do so.
And they- do. Choose to do so, The door clicks shut behind them, announcing their presence well before Chara makes the careful journey towards the bed, wanting to be close but- not too close. Still waiting for a blink, one fraction of a second where they close their eyes, and this is gone again.
They don't simply regain what they've lost. They never have. This aberration of permanency doesn't sit right. And yet if it's real, if it's actually real, what they wouldn't give for just one-
[Perhaps it's telling, that Frisk greets the noise of a door clicking shut with surprise - their head whips up (a bit too quickly, their equilibrium complains) and they blink at Chara for an uncomprehending heartbeat. Confusion, when they can't correlate their Partner with the sense of being startled by an unknown entry into their space. Should always know when it comes to them. Should always feel it beating.]
[Their SOUL...]
[Frisk's eyes are quiet as they watch Chara approach. There's a weight heavy like guilt in their limbs, detached entirely from whatever abuses their body went through while it wasn't theirs. Their instinct is to move, to shorten the gap as quickly as Chara's strides do, but something warns Frisk away from getting out of the unfamiliar bed (that still smells like bones, like faux and ketchup). Perhaps it's the way their Partner moves carefully, like they're afraid that Frisk is a delicate reflection, and a wrong movement will scatter them from Chara's sight like glass dust. Perhaps Frisk is afraid of that, too.]
[So they wait, patiently. Their Partner comes close but - not too close. A clink of metal in their fingers, and Frisk nearly loses their breath in the way their SOUL twists in greedy Determination.]
[I believe these belong to you...]
[to us.]
[Partner.]
[Frisk gives a low sigh, a breath of warm tension leaving their body, and reaches forward with an upturned palm to receive the lockets. Should Chara's touch linger over theirs even a moment, however, Frisk will find it fit to bring their other hand up, cupping their Partner's fingers gently between theirs.]
[A moment of contact. Warm skin. A heartbeat- or at least they can imagine it. If they were to grip Frisk's wrist, hold it very still, they would likely feel it too; blood pumping through their veins with every inhale, the steady tedium of a body unconsciously continuing to function- despite everything.
Just for a moment turns into something else, of course. Snatching fingers that grip around Frisk's own, palms pressed together with metal pressing into the flesh, leaving imprints that will linger, the longer they're connected. Chara takes a seat on the edge of the bed, seemingly composed.
Their hand is shaking. Or Frisk's hand is shaking. This close, it's hard to tell.
[For several of those heartbeats they just stare, really. Unfocused eyes settled on the pale hand pressing into their own. Tracking; even if the rest of them isn't quite all there yet, following the movement of their Partner to the bed, turning slightly to accommodate and keep the contact alive.]
[Alive.]
[It's instinct that twines their fingers together; recalling the distant memory of a song about lighthouses, spinning in the dark. A world painted white. Dark, dark, yet darker, say the afterimages pulsing behind Frisk's own eyes, but all they see is gold. Gold and red. As their hands fold together, identical chains spill from the gap between their palms; wrap like vines around the tangle of fingers. Binding them together with leaves of gold. That's OK. Frisk doesn't mind. They squeeze back, feeling the imprint of metal in their hand, and thinking about how much better it feels than the grip of a knife.]
[Chara's hand is shaking. Or maybe it's theirs. Or maybe it's both of them, weak in body or SOUL, it doesn't matter. It's still us. Two children who carved a path of dust together, who survived a castle in the mist together, who fell to the flowers together, because do they really know how to be anything else, anymore?]
[Do they have the time to justify?]
[Frisk breathes. A tremble in it, because their shadow never needed to.] [maybe someday they'll be able to think it over calmly, in a place brighter than this, full of --] I'm sorry.
Chara's lip part in silent laughter, shoulders barely rising with the exhale of breath. They're sorry. They've already said that, of course; but it wouldn't be them if they didn't concentrate it, make sure that every person they feel they've crossed is aware- they're sorry. For all their transgressions on this world, for every sin that started with walking up a mountain for not very good reasons. They're sorry. Like the world shouldn't be apologizing to them. They're sorry.]
Don't.
[To everyone else, fine. Let them think they deserve that, if they must. Let Sans hide safely in the knowledge that Frisk will never turn an accusing gaze on him. But don't- don't do that to them.
They don't want it. They don't deserve it.
They should have kept them safe.]
I'm the one who owes you those words. Not the other way around.
I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me, Partner. For not being where I should have been.
[What's it like to be on that side. Frisk has killed and been killed, smears of dust clotting blood, but they've always been the sole determinant. The responsibility is always theirs. What's it like, to make a promise like that? To be responsible and fail, not by their own hand, but because...]
[Time is something none of them can control any longer. They have no choice. They go.]
[Frisk sighs, and it's a heavy imitation of Chara's soft laughter.]
Stop.
[No. There's nothing to forgive. Frisk's hands ache with sticky sap; their lungs feel tight. They did this to themself. They did this to Chara and Sans and Mom (--and Asriel.) They close their eyes and see twin pinpricks of light in a haunted skull, shaking and gripping them close; a smell of ozone and oil and a beating they can feel in their palms as if -]
They laugh. Breathless as they shake their head, as their shoulders lift along with it. Could almost be seen as freeing, except they close their eyes to it all, blocking out the sight of Frisk's own closed off expression, the creases at their eyes. The guilt.
The game has changed.]
I don't care.
[They don't care anymore. About the rules, or the process. The running current beneath it all, a prompt or suggestion, words written into code that shape their lives into what they are. Softly singing birds. Beautiful angels.
None of it matters.]
Since when have the rules ever mattered to creatures like us? No.
[They argue. Frisk rarely argues, rarely takes that risk, but this is their Partner and even though they always understand, Frisk needs them to feel it. The new rules. The reason for the faint itch of absence at their hip, where it had easily once been a heavy weight.]
[It's not supposed to matter. But it does.]
[Frisk can feel it beating. They felt a song in their SOUL, fire and cinnamon, white worlds. Game Over. Continue?]
[They have no choice.]
[With a quiet inhale, Frisk untwines their fingers from Chara's; excessively gentle for their slight tremors. They tug at the chains looped around their Partner's fingers, pulling them loose, and return both lockets to their rightful place around Frisk's neck. They dangle over Frisk's collar, untucked. And stay there.]
[Two children sit sallow-faced and hurt in an unfamiliar place, protected only by the smell of oil and fire and bones. One takes the other's hands once more and draws them into their lap, shoulders sloping in a low sigh.]
[A pink glow flickers to life between them. And a little red SOUL materializes, thudding in soft rhythm, as if it's been there for all of time. ... somewhere within, a music box begins to play.]
[They argue. And to their credit, Frisk must have already known- Chara wouldn't argue with them. Regardless of how they feel, or how wrong it sounds, they won't argue. There's a knife in their draw with a black hilt coated in the soft fluttering of butterflies, and they're too afraid to give it back yet.
They won't argue.
Chara watches as they remove their hands from their own, fastening small pieces of history to their chest, like they've always belonged there. And perhaps they do, because the sight of it brings something almost reassuring with it; one sallow-faced child sitting across from another, hurt in an unfamiliar place. Protected only by the smell of oil and fire and bones as they abandon their search for something akin to achievement, the hunt over. It's just them. Just kids.
One takes the other's hands once more and draws them into their lap, shoulders sloping in a low sigh. And one is incapable of not answering when they're called.
And for the first time, amidst the soft dulcet chimes and subtle glitches and jars of broken hearts and the heavy weight of guilt that spans across decades, for the first time in four months, built up in two to be broken down in another, Chara feels like they've finally, finally
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
achievementhunter) wrote2016-03-01 01:56 pm
action;
[That's the tempting thought, anyway - and in the dark, washed and changed into a set of night clothes that chafe at their skin like fire ants, Frisk can't come up with a good reason to argue it. Except for the reason that always is. Determination. That same old force, beating inside them with a familiar rhythm that still feels sideways. They feel too small for it, now. Like it doesn't belong.]
[In the dark, Frisk breathes into a pillow. Breathes. Can't remember how they got there beyond the faded recollection of an embrace marked by hard bones, a blurred skull with a crack in the ocular ridge. The twin drops of gold they could feel beating, always just off their periphery. Vision fading in and out like swatches of light in a dark hall. An attic. A room. Gravity, careful and deliberate and far from their SOUL, laying them carefully down in a bed of golden--]
[No. That didn't happen.]
[Stay determined, a king in the mountain rumbles. A low-throated sound as Frisk rolls to their side, propping themself on their elbow to shake him off. To shake off the ache deep in their bones, nothing like the pain of a toxin drilling wire into their blood, but the Queen's dark court must not have been kind to the shells of its subjects.]
[OK. They're up.]
[They're determined.]
[Frisk pushes themself into a sitting position, blankets falling from their shoulders and pooling around the small of their back. Frisk sighs, rubs the heel of their palm into their eye. The other hand strays automatically for the lockets around their neck, and it's a cold reminder when their fingers close around empty fabric instead of metal.]
[Twin snaps of tension before a black portal. A monster with his phalanges twisted in the chains, in their collar, because he didn't want to let go.]
[...]
[What a mistake.]
and backdated to the start of July, to boot <3
The game has changed and along with it their priorities. The main one is...
The main one is in Sans' bed, sitting upright and staring blankly at the wall. Groping at their neckline with the stray force of habit and a downward twitch of their lips- something Chara can fix, if they choose to do so.
And they- do. Choose to do so, The door clicks shut behind them, announcing their presence well before Chara makes the careful journey towards the bed, wanting to be close but- not too close. Still waiting for a blink, one fraction of a second where they close their eyes, and this is gone again.
They don't simply regain what they've lost. They never have. This aberration of permanency doesn't sit right. And yet if it's real, if it's actually real, what they wouldn't give for just one-
A clink of metal in their fingers.]
I believe these belong to you...
[You can feel it beating.]
Partner.
yes that <3
[Their SOUL...]
[Frisk's eyes are quiet as they watch Chara approach. There's a weight heavy like guilt in their limbs, detached entirely from whatever abuses their body went through while it wasn't theirs. Their instinct is to move, to shorten the gap as quickly as Chara's strides do, but something warns Frisk away from getting out of the unfamiliar bed (that still smells like bones, like faux and ketchup). Perhaps it's the way their Partner moves carefully, like they're afraid that Frisk is a delicate reflection, and a wrong movement will scatter them from Chara's sight like glass dust. Perhaps Frisk is afraid of that, too.]
[So they wait, patiently. Their Partner comes close but - not too close. A clink of metal in their fingers, and Frisk nearly loses their breath in the way their SOUL twists in greedy Determination.]
[I believe these belong to you...]
[to us.]
[Partner.]
[Frisk gives a low sigh, a breath of warm tension leaving their body, and reaches forward with an upturned palm to receive the lockets. Should Chara's touch linger over theirs even a moment, however, Frisk will find it fit to bring their other hand up, cupping their Partner's fingers gently between theirs.]
[Just for a moment.]
[Just because they can.]
no subject
Just for a moment turns into something else, of course. Snatching fingers that grip around Frisk's own, palms pressed together with metal pressing into the flesh, leaving imprints that will linger, the longer they're connected. Chara takes a seat on the edge of the bed, seemingly composed.
Their hand is shaking. Or Frisk's hand is shaking. This close, it's hard to tell.
They don't let go.]
no subject
[Alive.]
[It's instinct that twines their fingers together; recalling the distant memory of a song about lighthouses, spinning in the dark. A world painted white. Dark, dark, yet darker, say the afterimages pulsing behind Frisk's own eyes, but all they see is gold. Gold and red. As their hands fold together, identical chains spill from the gap between their palms; wrap like vines around the tangle of fingers. Binding them together with leaves of gold. That's OK. Frisk doesn't mind. They squeeze back, feeling the imprint of metal in their hand, and thinking about how much better it feels than the grip of a knife.]
[Chara's hand is shaking. Or maybe it's theirs. Or maybe it's both of them, weak in body or SOUL, it doesn't matter. It's still us. Two children who carved a path of dust together, who survived a castle in the mist together, who fell to the flowers together, because do they really know how to be anything else, anymore?]
[Do they have the time to justify?]
[Frisk breathes. A tremble in it, because their shadow never needed to.]
[maybe someday they'll be able to think it over calmly, in a place brighter than this, full of --]
I'm sorry.
[They grip tighter. They don't let go.]
Partner.
no subject
Chara's lip part in silent laughter, shoulders barely rising with the exhale of breath. They're sorry. They've already said that, of course; but it wouldn't be them if they didn't concentrate it, make sure that every person they feel they've crossed is aware- they're sorry. For all their transgressions on this world, for every sin that started with walking up a mountain for not very good reasons.
They're sorry. Like the world shouldn't be apologizing to them.
They're sorry.]
Don't.
[To everyone else, fine. Let them think they deserve that, if they must. Let Sans hide safely in the knowledge that Frisk will never turn an accusing gaze on him. But don't- don't do that to them.
They don't want it. They don't deserve it.
They should have kept them safe.]
I'm the one who owes you those words. Not the other way around.
I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me, Partner. For not being where I should have been.
[They weren't there.
They should have been.]
no subject
[What's it like to be on that side. Frisk has killed and been killed, smears of dust clotting blood, but they've always been the sole determinant. The responsibility is always theirs. What's it like, to make a promise like that? To be responsible and fail, not by their own hand, but because...]
[Time is something none of them can control any longer. They have no choice. They go.]
[Frisk sighs, and it's a heavy imitation of Chara's soft laughter.]
Stop.
[No. There's nothing to forgive. Frisk's hands ache with sticky sap; their lungs feel tight. They did this to themself. They did this to Chara and Sans and Mom (--and Asriel.) They close their eyes and see twin pinpricks of light in a haunted skull, shaking and gripping them close; a smell of ozone and oil and a beating they can feel in their palms as if -]
... I get them now.
[The game has changed. It's clear as day.]
The new rules.
no subject
They laugh. Breathless as they shake their head, as their shoulders lift along with it. Could almost be seen as freeing, except they close their eyes to it all, blocking out the sight of Frisk's own closed off expression, the creases at their eyes. The guilt.
The game has changed.]
I don't care.
[They don't care anymore. About the rules, or the process. The running current beneath it all, a prompt or suggestion, words written into code that shape their lives into what they are. Softly singing birds. Beautiful angels.
None of it matters.]
Since when have the rules ever mattered to creatures like us? No.
None of it is supposed to matter, Frisk.
...It's not supposed to matter.
[The stakes have changed.
That matters all too much.]
no subject
[They argue. Frisk rarely argues, rarely takes that risk, but this is their Partner and even though they always understand, Frisk needs them to feel it. The new rules. The reason for the faint itch of absence at their hip, where it had easily once been a heavy weight.]
[It's not supposed to matter. But it does.]
[Frisk can feel it beating. They felt a song in their SOUL, fire and cinnamon, white worlds. Game Over. Continue?]
[They have no choice.]
[With a quiet inhale, Frisk untwines their fingers from Chara's; excessively gentle for their slight tremors. They tug at the chains looped around their Partner's fingers, pulling them loose, and return both lockets to their rightful place around Frisk's neck. They dangle over Frisk's collar, untucked. And stay there.]
[Two children sit sallow-faced and hurt in an unfamiliar place, protected only by the smell of oil and fire and bones. One takes the other's hands once more and draws them into their lap, shoulders sloping in a low sigh.]
[A pink glow flickers to life between them. And a little red SOUL materializes, thudding in soft rhythm, as if it's been there for all of time. ... somewhere within, a music box begins to play.]
[It's not supposed to matter. But it does.]
We do.
no subject
They won't argue.
Chara watches as they remove their hands from their own, fastening small pieces of history to their chest, like they've always belonged there. And perhaps they do, because the sight of it brings something almost reassuring with it; one sallow-faced child sitting across from another, hurt in an unfamiliar place. Protected only by the smell of oil and fire and bones as they abandon their search for something akin to achievement, the hunt over. It's just them. Just kids.
One takes the other's hands once more and draws them into their lap, shoulders sloping in a low sigh. And one is incapable of not answering when they're called.
And for the first time, amidst the soft dulcet chimes and subtle glitches and jars of broken hearts and the heavy weight of guilt that spans across decades, for the first time in four months, built up in two to be broken down in another, Chara feels like they've finally, finally
come home.]