entranceway | [video/text]

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[Chara's outside. They have their device on the ground, propped up against a rock, so their hands are free. They're crouched down in the mud, on the shore of a pond somewhere - there's a bush of purple flowers in the background, mostly obscuring the maze of massive tree-trunks. They're out having some kind of childish adventure, presumably. Two things sit by their feet: a thermos of something-or-other and a freshly-gathered bouquet of white flowers.

They're washing that favourite old switchblade off in the water. Must have cut the flowers, not picked them. They flick it dry, click the blade shut, and pocket it. Pick up the bouquet, hold it up so their face is all but hidden by the lovely white blooms.]

Pretty, are they not? Narcissus. A member of the daffodil family. They get their name because... well, I'm not entirely familiar with the myth, actually. I know Narcissus was some guy who loved himself. He loved himself so much, he died.

[A very abridged version, and they might be wrong, but they think they've got the base details down. They shrug, smile, start to neatly divide their bouquet: a pile of flowers on this side, and they pluck all the leaves off and set them down on the other side.]

It is a tangent, Wonderland, but I wonder. Could you get me up to speed on what we know about the mirror side? Can we cross to that side if we want to? Can the mirror folk cross the barrier as they please? If not, is there someone or something in charge of the decision? I'm curious.

[Their flowers sufficiently... de-leafed... they pick up the thermos. Ginger tea, sweetened with honey. Good for queasiness. Honey makes it taste better, soothes a sore throat. They think, fleetingly, of Asgore. Because they think of Asgore, they think of Toriel. Don't... quite know how to approach the topic of Asriel. Don't want to talk about it. Don't want to think about it. Don't want to bear acknowledging they live in a world without him again. But is anyone else... checking on them?

...Couldn't hurt. Maybe. To just... maybe not about him, can't utter his name. To just... say hi.

They cut the video feed. Reach for their phone, type some texts out.]

[Private text to Asgore]

I was going to attach a picture. I've started work on a sweater - pink again, if that is okay. It's back in our room, though, and I don't think I'll be back there for a couple days.

I suppose I just wanted to let you know you'll have something to look forward to. =)

[Private text to Toriel]

I know it is unkind to gossip, but perhaps you ought to know that Sans took poorly at the end of this last event. I am aware he is a friend of yours, so I feel you should be aware. Perhaps he would feel better if someone came to check on him? Company always makes a hard time easier.

Here is a joke that the both of you might like:
Why did the pie go to the dentist? Because it needed a filling.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Okay.

[Subdued, still awkward. Wonder how to follow it up. Admit they've punched a mirror before too? Ask a bunch of questions about if it needed stitches, if Frisk remembered to tweeze the embedded shards out, if they know all the right first aid for - of course they know all the right first aid for cuts.]

Don't ever touch me like that again. It's gross. I think your nail scratched my tonsil.

[...That's not funny. That's just nasty. That's the kind of quote-unquote joke that just sets them feeling queasy all over again.

Death is messy, huh? Unromantic. Blistered and sweaty and putrid. Living is kind of messy, too. They sort of wish they could be made of magic and wishes and thin air like monsters are. Be something pure, ephemeral, diaphanous. Not this horrendous bag of fluid and filth, not this ugly, mean-spirited thing. Wish they could scrape the stain right off their skin.]

We'll feel better after a bath. For certain definitions of "better," anyway. Do you want to stop at a tearoom first? We could get some ice for your hand. More ginger tea. Maybe... lie down. For a bit.

[Not that they want to admit to feeling shivery or wobbly or any of the other fun adjectives that attach themselves to "sick," particularly. So much to do, to get themselves all sorted and neat and cute to look at again, but god, this is hard.]

It's a whole lot of work, staying.

Okay.

[Frisk nods. No more touching Chara like that again. Wonder how long it'll take for them to break that little promise, huh? Gosh. Gee. They wonder. But it's not like this should be something that crops up with any frequency. Then again, regular discussions about the people they've killed and the things they've destroyed have cropped up with a disturbing regularity, to the point where it's almost no longer disturbing. So maybe they shouldn't rule that one out.

Well, it's something at least. A nominal promise. "Promise" is probably the wrong word. They're starting to hate that word, to the point that it's right up there with "sorry."]

I...yeah. Get cleaned up. Eat something that isn't leaf water. Take care of our meat prisons.

[A weird giggle bursts out of their throat, horrible and strange and wrong. They read that somewhere, and it felt way too correct, and it probably shouldn't have pinged as deeply with them as it did, but here they are.]

Sorry. [There it is again. They hate it.] Don't know why I - I just remembered it from somewhere.

[Frisk starts laughing. So does Chara. Just because Frisk is laughing? Because "meat prisons" is hilarious, especially when you consider Chara totally pulled a jailbreak off and it just meant being shoved into a new prison? Because laughing's the only thing their body can even think to do after all of this?

It's a bad idea. That last little line between "crying" and "not crying" had been dangerously frayed mere minutes ago, and it never quite leaves as thoroughly as you want it to. Their throat aches, feels raw and horrible. Isn't cut out for this, not now. Whatever noise they're making turns all jumbled and awful, because it doesn't even know if it's laughing or absurd stupid baby tears or a strained, painful coughing.

They don't even think that tired old line from the script. They're sick of it. So, so sick.

They just... laugh. Or whatever this is. Can barely get themselves under control long enough to form two coherent words, gasped out and sort of raw at the edges:]

Don't 'pologize.

[They're laughing too! It's funny! If you can still laugh, then you're doing fine, and maybe this isn't a bad kind of laughing?

They muffle it behind their sleeve, let it die down, remember how to breathe. Almost walk smack into the mansion door, because they're leading but they have their sleeve over their face. Mess, they're a mess. They hardly even know how they manage to stagger to the nearest tearoom they can, snatch a little cushion off a fancy couch, clutch it like it's a substitute for the touch they want but don't but can't have. Sit down on the floor, because they'll really get it if they get mud on the nice furniture. Scrub their red, watery eyes again. Red from laughing, red from coughing, just plain old red.]

Meat prisons. That's good. You're real funny when you try to be. What does that make us, cellmates?

[Chara starts laughing, set off by that tiny, stupid giggle. And...and then Frisk is too, not just snickering but actually, genuinely laughing, and it's tired and exhausted and they're tired and exhausted but it spills out and out and out of them, the floodgates torn open and all the stress and outrage and panic and pain from the last few days just funnels out in raw, horrible, loud shrieks of sound.

Tears run down their face. Their head hurts, their sides hurt, their hands hurt, everything aches, but they can't seem to stop.

It sounds terrible. It sounds weird and distorted and loud and Chara's laughter might be crying, it might be hacking up their lungs or more throwing up whatever's in their stomach, but Frisk doesn't know. The tension is rolling helplessly off their shoulders the longer it echoes in their head and in the overly-warm air, cheeks streaked with tears and flushed with exhausted, miserable mirth.

Frisk nearly crashes into Chara when they jolt to a stop in front of the mansion door, brace their hand against it as their shoulders quake and they try to stop laughing or crying or both long enough to answer.]

I...I guess so, huh? [Solitary confinement for the pair of them!] St-stuck in our stupid meat prisons together!

So this - this was just a failed jailbreak!

[The raw, strained note in their voice creeps in further, because it comes out louder, they're positively beside themselves with the hilarity of it. They keep scrubbing their sleeve over their face, and it keeps not really doing any good. Just muffling their voice and leaving a smudge of mud on their cheek and ew, disgusting, they're probably adding snot to the mess they've made of their sleeve.

Are they taking it too far? Is that horrendous giddy momentum going to ruin something again? They're just making their horrible incomprehensible noises, their hoarse achy laugh-sob-hiccup-coughs, like every single thing possible wants to pour out of them all at once.]

Tried to dig our way out, hit a sewage pipe, and now we've got another year tacked onto our sentence!

Sewage pipe - oh my god.

[They're nearly doubled over, cheeks aching from the distortions of their laugh and their smile. That's so disgusting Chara, but it's so true, it's true, it's true it's true it's true because the place stinks after they were done with it!]

I guess it really - really stinks for us, huh?

[They clutch at their midriff with their free hand, not caring if they're staining their shirt further, getting sick and blood and spit all over it, because they're already a mess and how much more of a mess can they get, really? They're already so broken and ugly and torn up and disgusting, and it's just so funny.]

[They think they might be crying now. But not really, because it's not crying if it's laughing so hard you cry. They don't cry, not really, not ever, not because of pain or losing Asriel or being prepared to throw themselves into the abyss. They just laugh it off, like they're both laughing it off now.

God, they're laughing it off. Someone almost died, and they're laughing. Haven't learned. Haven't gotten better at all. Proves they're unfeeling, doesn't it? They think this is funny! They think this is a big joke!

They cover their face with their hands. Shake as they try to cram the laugh-sob-cough-heaves back down, silence them. They fail completely. It won't stop.

Finally, in a thin, tiny voice:]

Don't tell anyone what I did, or we'll really be in deep shit!

Chara.

[They manage to inject the word with a faintly scandalized air, even if it takes every shred of self-control they have to keep from bursting into peals of yet more rapturous, uncontained laughter.]

You did a swear.

[But they don't sound the least bit angry about it. Contrarily, they would positively delighted. Like sneaking cookies out of a jar while the adults aren't looking. You'd be in so much trouble if an adult were here, a real actual adult! But it's just them, just the two suicidal kids who messed up big time! No one's gonna tell, unless Frisk slips up and spills the beans again!]

Tortellini and fettuccine I cannot believe-

[They don't even finish, don't even manage a proper punchline. Just dissolve into those horrible everything-at-once noises, even if they're starting to get squeaky, hoarse, so strained they don't sound human anymore. Can't seem to manage anything but hiding their face in their hands until they taper off into silence. Clear their throat. Hurts.]

Why... Frisk, why are we...

[It's messed up, right? Laughing about it? Joking like it's all just fun?]

We're reacting all wrong.

[Every reaction is wrong. They try not to react at all, and it's creepy. They try to react with anger, and it's wrong. Sorrow, it's wrong. Humour, wrong wrong wrong.]

Does this mean it's better? We're over it? Or does this... are we jerks? Why are we like this, Frisk?

[They swear in the same way Frisk tried to once, with Ford, in that way that was genuinely fun and with pillowfights and stealing each others' phones and - and it makes their heart hurt and their whole SOUL ache in wistful remembrance of something that had seemed so comparatively simple even if hadn't, really. It hadn't been but it felt like it had been and -

Frisk almost feels sick again by the time they're done, trying to find a clean spot on their shirt to wipe their tears off on and, failing that, abandoning their face to look like a blotchy mosaic of mud and dirt and tears and blush in their cheeks.]

I - I don't know. [They say finally, choking back yet another inappropriate chuckle.] I just...I don't know - how else are we supposed to live with it? Being like this? Just being - this?

[Another hitch in their throat, another hot streak of salt down the slope of their cheek.]

I guess - I guess this is why Sans smiles so much, huh?

Yeah. Smiling is easy.

[Takes less muscles to smile than to frown! Fake it until you make it, even if that means faking for the rest of your life! Even if smiling at the wrong times turns your smile into your "creepy face."

Their voice comes muffled and subdued behind their fingers, but it does nothing to really hide the snivelling hitches and hiccups, the definitely-just-laughs that they should be better than. None of it's right, none of it's normal, none of it feels like the correct, proper way to be. Maybe nothing would feel right, if somebody wrong's trying to do it.

They can't look at Frisk. Can't look up. But the giddy, hysterical spillover fades, and they just feel empty, aching, too dirt-smeared and exhausted to be human at all. So they sort of... lift their hands away from their face, hold them out halfheartedly.]

Don't touch me. Don't hug me back.

[Fingers where they shouldn't be. Feel queasy all over again.]

But... can I...?

[Just... have something to hold onto. A literal anchor. Feels like they're going to lose their shape entirely, just fizz apart into an incomprehensible gray smear. Like even being might be a challenge.]

[Frisk says nothing in response, simply dips their head in a little nod. Of course they can. Don't spread their arms wide, don't move, don't do anything. It's not about their own comfort right now - it's about Chara's. Chara's need for a tether, and who cares if they're both stained with various...fluids and grimy and sweaty and gross right now? Can't possibly get any messier than they are already.

They stand where they are, and accept the...well, it's not really a hug, because it's not reciprocated, purely on Chara's request. But they haven't earned the right to step over that boundary. Or re-earned it. Whichever.

Frisk sniffles once or twice, again uncertain - were they just laughing, or were they crying?]

What's the one about the kids who played in a muddy garden?

[* You hold on to your hopes.

They wrap their arms around Frisk's grubby, stained middle. Don't bother to fret over what's too tight, what's lasting too long, what's hurtful and horrible and bad. They just hold on.

Smells... well, doesn't smell great, honestly. The two of them are an awful tangle of soil and sickness and sweat. Better to not consider smell at all. But under that fact, there's the smell of the other half of their room, the scent of a body that they had to share for loop after loop after loop. A little grubby, wearing a bandage that had already been used several times, dirty from a long hike up a mountain. Damp from Snowdin and Waterfall, sticky from Hotland.

Just for a minute, they pretend they're still just a whisper inside of that shell. Pretend they don't have to exist. They press their face against Frisk's muddy shoulder, don't say a word.

...It's not fair. That's not a fair reference. Ancient cracks of sunlight filling the throne room tickle at the back of their mind. Bring back memories of weightless, carefree giggles. He'd said something about how Chara was lucky they didn't have fur, because getting mud off of skin was so much easier. Chara didn't feel lucky to have skin, but they smiled, and it wasn't a smile.

They remember the smell of his fur. He was so soft.

It's not fair.]

They loved each other with all their heart and soil.

[It's a little too tight, makes their breath a little short, but they don't mind. They don't mind at all. Chara's present and here, hugging them tightly, even if they've forbidden Frisk from hugging them back. Even if they can't touch them, that's their own fault, but it's also what they wanted, what they needed, because they've the power to SAVE and wipe out an entire world at their whim, watch it all burn or facilitate its ascent to the surface, and despite watching and causing and creating so much death with their own hand, they could not bear to watch them die.

Whether that speaks more about Chara's nature or Frisk's, they cannot say. They don't know. They don't care to examine it.

Chara's face buries into their shoulder, even if it can't smell or feel very good, damp and muddy, but they've seen the best and the worst of each other and endured past it and continued to stay at each others' side anyway, and that's got to speak for something. Something they can't say.

Their shoulders shake silently in a soundless, mirthless laugh.]

More than they could bear, sometimes. Hurt. But they couldn't change it, no matter how they tried.

[They feel the laugh instead of hearing it. Cling so tightly, lean so wholly on them that the twitch in their shoulders feels like it ripples through Chara, bounces back like an echo in the form of a sob.

Not a sob. Don't cry. Haven't been crying over this. Aren't crying over this.

Whatever it is, it hurts. Their throat is clenched as tightly as their desperate fists, and the noise strains its dry, scratched surface. Too many leaves. Drank down too much sap.]

Thought they had the power to change everything.

[Not everything. Not quite.

* Despite your best efforts, you continue to be yourself.]

He told me he loved me. Here.

[In Wonderland. While he lasted. When he was within reach.]

But he was so scared of me, he couldn't put his name on it. He had to... he sent it anonymously.

[In case they... in case they got mad at him. In case their silence drove him somewhere painful again. In case if they... in case if...

That's not what love's supposed to look like, is it?]

Frisk, is he better off without me?

[He told them he loved them. That...that must be the closest thing to an I'm sorry they can imagine, that he could imagine. He hadn't known they were there to hear him talk about them, about how they weren't the greatest person, never caught on to how it's rude to talk about someone who's listening. And maybe...forgiveness, for the way the plan ended.

They doubt Chara would ever ask for his forgiveness. They wouldn't think they deserve it. They never think they're deserving of anything good.

They wish they could ask him. They wish they could confirm it, tell them something, anything, that might be soothing or offer some degree of closure. But Asgore was easy to lie to - he didn't know them the way Chara knows their mind inside and out with an intimacy they're not sure even should be possible but don't care because they wouldn't have it any other way. But Chara's harder to lie to. Hard to lie to someone who knows you that well. So they don't even try.

Slowly, hesitantly, they shake their head.]

I don't think so. I know he...he missed you. He mistook me for you a few times here. Again, can you believe it? Texted me by mistake. Saying thank you, saying sorry...

You were his best friend. And maybe - maybe he said you weren't the greatest person, but I'm not the greatest person either, am I?

[Look no further than today! Crammed their filthy fingers down their best friend's throat, manipulated them into that state of vulnerability and then slammed the door in their face, as if they haven't suffered that exact same scenario over and over again!]

[Saying thank you, saying sorry. All wrong. They're the one who should have said it. If he meant that for anyone, he should have meant it for Frisk. They try and try to suppress the painful sounds, don't let another please-don't-call-it-a-sob escape. Smother themselves down to mute little jerks, pressed hard against a mass of muddy blue-and-pink.]

That's not what I'm asking.

[They had carved it into the dummy variables they'd claimed for themselves. Couldn't say it out loud, so hacked it into the very taproot of the world like they were etching a heart into a tree.

demonc
You're my brother.
I love you so much.
demond

Is it still there? Can he reach it, somehow, even now?

* Did you hear me calling you?]

I'm not asking about friends, or good or bad. I'm asking if he's better off without me.

[They pine so wildly for each other that even death bows away, averts its eyes in quiet grief. Time and space and life and death fray at the edges as they reach so hard for each other that their straining fingers claw the fabric of reality out of the way. They love voraciously, intensely, like a supernova. Like a black hole.

Maybe it was love, but did it really help more than harm?]

Will he be happier if he can just move on?

[* Just forget about me. Go be with the people who love you.

* Please don't think about this anymore.]

[Can't step around this. Chara's asking a question, and Frisk doesn't know the answer. Go ahead, Frisk. Pass judgment on a relationship you're only vaguely familiar with, vicariously, via the same, repeated day you shared thanks to Chara lingering in your head, feeding certain memories to you but withholding others in an ebb and flow that may have been entirely unintentional, and do so in a way that doesn't end up hurting Chara or contradicting anything Asriel may or may not have said.

Simple, right?

Frisk winces under the pressure of an abrupt and unanticipated spike of sympathy for Sans.]

I...I don't know, Chara. I don't know. I don't wanna say that you should - you should make everything you are rest on someone else. Be dependent on their living to keep living too. But -

[Ha-ha, but. Aren't they exactly the same way? Aren't they both of them guilty of just that?]

I don't know if we'd be happier without that. If we'd be better. I know I don't want that, and I don't think he'd want that either, but I don't - I don't know. I don't know him like I know you.

[And even then, they don't always feel like they know Chara very well at all.]

[They try and try to bite down the sharp, bitter pang that lances through them. Frisk doesn't know. Frisk's what he wanted, the friend he dreamed of, what he'd rather have had the entire time... and they don't know him. They can't tell what he used to have bad dreams about. They don't know what he looked like in his royal robes as a kid, not a projected grown-up fantasy-self. They don't know what his favourite lunch was, they don't know what he wrinkled his nose at and tried to hide in his napkin, they don't know what he wanted to be when he grew up (Chara could be the ruler half the time, obviously, so that way they could both be what they wanted to, just part-time, right?).

This is what he'd rather have. This is what better looks like. Better to not know anything at all than to be like Chara.

Doesn't matter. Not the time. Not Frisk's fault, right? Even if Frisk MADE him love them, same way they made all monsters love them with all the time they spent listening to them, encouraging them, caring about them... it wasn't like they asked for this. Chara's just... looking for things to be unpleasant about, huh? Just getting upset about every single thing they could possibly be upset about.]

Guess it doesn't matter anymore, anyway.

[No choice but to let go. He's back. He's a flower. He thinks Chara only existed in the bad timelines, so he'll beg them not to ruin Frisk's good ending, and that will be that. They'll both let go. The end. Can't reach him from here, anyway. Can't hold on if there's nothing to hold on to.

...They've been clinging to Frisk for too long, they think. Frisk probably wants to go, wants to get cleaned up, wants to eat something that tastes a little less nightmarish, wants to be able to actually breathe without vicious arms clamping down on them.

They don't want to let go. Feels like there's not enough of them left to stay standing without something holding them up. Like they'll let go, and just sort of fall to bits like a badly-made sandcastle. Like their feeble jelly legs will fold in on themselves, like their hollow imitation of a soul isn't a sturdy enough support anymore.

They let go anyway.]

Maybe he's not coming back again. He won't remember, anyway. There are only True Resets here. He won't remember your favourite movie, or your birthday, or your secrets. He won't remember me in any timelines but the one where he begs me not to kill him. We can't really SAVE our progress at all.

...Lucky him. He got to win after all. Everything's been brought back to zero.

[It does matter. It has to matter. It matters because it matters to Chara, it definitely matters to them, and anyone with a passing familiarity with their history can see that, but...

Chara lets go. Frisk decides to let go too. They push the door open gently, start moving through the hallway carefully, slowly. Going too fast might make their overtaxed, under-rested muscles ache, and if that's what it's like for them, they can't imagine how it must feel for Chara. Chara, who would push themselves to their absolute anyway and never admit to anyone that they were doing it.

They consider offering their hand, but Chara just told them not to touch them, so they don't. And that's fine.]

I don't know. I think...I think he's a lot more like us than we realized.

[Like us. As if that's a good thing. As if that can be in any way a good thing.]

I mean, he's - he's lived the same kind of stuff we have. And he still blames himself for it, even though he didn't have a SOUL as Flowey. 'S why he didn't wanna see anyone. Not Toriel, not Asgore, not you - just me, 'cause I guess he knew I could beat him?

[Ha. That wasn't even just Frisk. They'd had help. Of course they'd had help.]

I had to tell him it wasn't just me. He didn't know. He didn't know you were there for every one. I guess he just...couldn't see.

I know.

[Dully, dispiritedly, as they tag along behind Frisk. Not the one leading this time, but they don't really care. Just letting their heavy, dragging feet keep going forward.]

It was like that both times.

[Couldn't see them. Saw violence and called it "Chara." Saw someone who wanted to free everyone, couldn't think of that as Chara at all. Didn't want to believe Chara was there, maybe. Didn't want to see Mom and Dad, if it would just break their hearts all over again.

They think they understand it. Wouldn't feel his absence at all if you didn't know he was here. They hadn't noticed he left the first time around, because he was hiding from them.

It's always easier to just not.]

He felt safe with you because you SAVED him. You're the friend he wants. It didn't count when you hurt him.

[Maybe those timelines were Chara, too. They know how he draws that black and white line between Asriel and Flowey, between good and bad, but they don't know where he draws the line between Chara and Frisk.]

Maybe he doesn't... maybe he didn't realize you're like me. That we're like us. He didn't want to be like that.

[Don't think of that as really him.]

Who would ever want to be like us, right?

Why would it not count when I hurt him? And you know he...always thought we were the same, in the beginning. Always called me by your name. Didn't matter how good or bad we were.

[* Chara, are you there?
* It's me, your best friend!

And then saying that they were somehow different, somehow unique, separate from Chara. As if they wouldn't stoop to some arbitrary level. Except, ha-ha, joke's on him, they did exactly that. They worked together to achieve their ends, every end. Maybe they fought each other for certain steps in the journey, but neither of them could ever truly shuck off the cloak of what and who they were, neither of them could dismiss that truth outright.

Partners.

Together forever.]

Because he cared about you more than anyone else.

And it's easier to pretend, isn't it? Pretend that someone can be pure good or pure bad. Makes it way simpler. He never knew if I was a good person or not - I've made mistakes, I keep messing things up, I can't keep promises and I lie to people and I do things wrong all the time...

[They trail off, and try to pull their point back together. This isn't about them.]

It's like... [They cast around for a metaphor that would make sense to both of them, a comparison of some kind.] Like that kid, the one without any arms. They'd follow us around, talking about how cool Undyne was, how she could do no wrong, how she was so perfect. And they realized that, maybe, she wasn't as cool as they thought she was. Wasn't always a great person. Didn't mean they started hating her, though, right? Didn't mean they didn't still like her.

[They just latched onto someone else. Someone who seemed, comparatively...much kinder.]

I don't know why it doesn't count. Ask him.

[Oh, wait, they can't. He's gone. Left them behind. See no use in Frisk trying to argue it, anyway. They can say whatever they want, but they walked away the friend he'd rather have. They never heard "please don't kill me." And if that's what Asriel thinks, then... well, it may as well be the truth. What Asriel thinks is more important than the truth.

So what does that make what Frisk thinks?

...They decide not to wrestle with that. They're not... used to having more than one friend, ha ha.]

Guess it's a fitting simile. We never bothered to ask that kid's name, either.

[Why would they? The kid was a stepping stone to get to their end goal. Free EXP. An annoying tagalong who couldn't take a hint and notice they weren't wanted.

Really is a fitting simile, isn't it?]

Undyne never knew their name, either, huh? Just "that kid." Think she even knew what she lost out on?

...yeah.

[They never asked people a lot of questions, did they? Why would they? No one likes a kid who asks questions. No one likes a kid who doesn't do as they're told. Answer questions. Only speak when spoken to. No one else wants to hear your garbage.

They hadn't asked the names of a lot of the monsters in the area. Just the ones they'd decided were arbitrarily important by way of frequent interaction.]

Yeah. They...they meet Papyrus and figure, hey. He's perfect, and Undyne's not. He's kind, and she's not. He must be the...the hero that kid's always wanted, huh?

[It's not a perfect analogy, and their voice trembles a little as they say it, but it's...the closest thing they can come up with. And maybe it's not such a stretch. Papyrus, for all his assets, was never flawless. He hinged his popularity on a child whom he beat within an inch of their life numerous times, and couldn't bring himself to lie to Undyne, even to protect the child that befriended him, was and still is overly forgiving to a fault...]

[Chara doesn't know how to convey it. That it doesn't matter if Asriel's wrong, because even when he's wrong, he's right. Whether it's inaccurate or not, it's rejection, and going without his approval is like going without air. Doesn't matter if breathing would be justified or not - they just need it. Why can't Frisk get that? Why don't they understand too? They won his approval. He adored them.

It took Chara that long to even realize that Frisk may not have considered "the friend I really wished I had" as an absolute reward, gratification, proof they deserved to live. Let alone...]

Frisk... did you even like Asriel?

[Stupid question. Rude. Mean. Of course they like Asriel. Frisk likes everyone. They spared Flowey. They forgave Asriel. They comforted him. They looked for him, scoured every inch of the Underground. He was the reason they went all the way back to that patch of golden flowers, right?]

Did you have fun together?

[It was so easy to imagine how things were supposed to be, back when he first came here. Back when Chara fled. Frisk would be teary-eyed with relief, elated they could be around the friend they'd wanted to SAVE. They'd be nearly inseparable. Smiling, laughing, joking, sharing all the things they liked. Doing things kids did.]

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