standing on the edge of my broken dream, searching for some kind of peace [OPEN + CLOSED]

[determinedest]

Who: Frisk, some closed starters, and then YOU
Where: By the Rabbit Hole and then in gay baby jail
When: 12/27 and onward
Rating: PG-13 and up for a suicide attempt
Summary: The world turns on and on without me. This I know well. And yet I wonder. Despite seeing the same places, the people are never in the same spot. The only thing that remains is ȟ᷾̚ö͎᷆w͒̽̎ I̟᷿᷃ f̸̴᷾ͧ̑᷾͘e̯̮͖̓᷾ͧ͊l͈̭̼̟᷅̕͞l͏̶͆ͭ͊͌ͅ.
Story:

                                * Alphys might work faster.

* But the old Royal Scientist, Doctor ██▓░ █▓▓░▒▋?                         

* One day, he vanished without a trace.

                                                                                                * They say he shattered across ti̶͉̐me̺̻᷇ and s͕̥̃p̈́̾̇á̪̤c̨̙̿e̐̒͑.

                                          * Ha Ha...how can I say so without fear?

                                                                                                        * I'm holding a piece of him right h̷͔͖e̮̻̍re̲̾͟.

Comments

[eatsyourscience]

[Souji doesn't really understand what's happening, like he hasn't up until now. He's out of the loop, but he's here, and that has to mean something. It has to mean something for Frisk, when nothing else seems to have meant anything so far.

What a selfish way to look at it.]

Frisk.

[Not a demand for their attention and not really a question (You really are Frisk, aren't you?), it's a soft acknowledgment of their existence. Of their right to exist.]

[determinedest]

[Maybe he figured it out. Maybe Sans told him. Doesn't matter, in the end, which one it was. Frisk is at the room's corner, fingernail picking absently at a bandage across their knee, and when he speaks they don't look up. They simply still, laying their arm across the tops of their knees, staring dully across the length of the room.]

Heard the news, I guess.

[eatsyourscience]

[He nods, but...] I don't really understand it.

[Or at least he's going to say so.

He moves closer, then crouches down. He's so much taller than them and huddled like that, they seem particularly small. He doesn't want to tower over them.]

[determinedest]

[Joke's on him. Everyone towers over them. Some part of them shrinks away, faintly, before remembering there's nowhere to shrink away too. Hold still. If you hold still, no one comes at you.

Head bowed. Don't have to look at him.]

No one told you? [Resume the picking of the bandage across their knee. It's dirty.] I'm a danger to myself and to others.

[eatsyourscience]

[He'd figured as much, with the locked and barred room. But he's not sure he believes it, at least not the latter part of the statement.]

What were you doing?

[He keeps his voice low, on the soft side. He doesn't want them to feel trapped, though that's probably impossible in this room, and probably impossible since they've put themselves away in the corner like this.]

[determinedest]

Going away forever.

[It wouldn't even have been death. It shouldn't have been. But maybe that's just not how it would have worked. They'll never know now. No one's ever going to trust them with anything again. Promise-breaker and ruiner of things, so why do people fight so hard to keep them around?

Who knows.]

[eatsyourscience]

[No wonder. The room makes more sense now, though he still doesn't like it. It feels cruel and impersonal.]

What will you do now?

[There's clear worry in his voice, odd for someone normally so neutral and even-keeled.]

[determinedest]

[And now they've got him worried. He can join the legions of other people they've tricked into loving them, worrying about them, being overly concerned about someone so ungrateful that they can't recognize love when it's thrown at them.

A fractional shrug of their shoulders, as impersonal as the room they're trapepd in.]

Whatever they want, I guess.

[eatsyourscience]

[Souji gives a slight shake of his head and settles down to sit on the floor facing them.]

Is it okay with you if I stay here for a little while?

[He knows his presence won't do much good - it hasn't so far, the last few times he's seen Frisk - but the core of him is made for service to others. He has to try, even if he knows it's a battle he'll lose.]

[determinedest]

[Is it okay with them? He's asking, but they know it's a lie. People keep asking what they want, as if they've the choice to refuse what they offer. They never do. It's always a lie.

It's always a lie.

So why FIGHT it?]

If you like.

[eatsyourscience]

[He has to take that at face value. If he starts to second guess them or himself, this might get even worse than it is.

He closes his eyes and sits in silence for some time, just breathing. Just being in his friend's presence. If his words don't mean anything, if that's the only thing he can do, then he'll try it.

He can't expect to fix everything, he knows that. It just feels like failure if he can't even help.

That's still so selfish.]

cw self harm

[determinedest]

[His sits there, and doesn't say anything. They hadn't expected him to genuinely stay and not speak, whether to convince them of one thing or another, or to tell them what they should do or what they should know. To tell them what they should or should not be doing.

They pick at their bandages, and the skin at their knees, and they don't say anything either. He stays because he wants to.

Eventually the silence stretches into an unsustainable thinness. They hate being the one to break it. It's not to ask a question, but rather to state a fact, plain and simple.]

I've hurt you.

[eatsyourscience]

[Souji opens his eyes and considers his answer. He's hurt and it's because of Frisk, but Frisk didn't hurt him. Besides that, it isn't his hurt that matters right now.]

You're hurt, too.

[From the knees on inward.]

[determinedest]

[You're hurt too, he says, as if that matters.]

I've been hurt before.

[They're used to it. It's their job. They suffer the blows and endure the same deaths, over and over again. It's what they're made for. Refusing. Doing the impossible.

Except for when it makes everyone upset. Then it's wrong.]

[eatsyourscience]

That doesn't necessarily make it's okay now.

[He doesn't point out that he's been hurt before, too. They aren't analogous. All pain is relative and shouldn't be compared. Besides, this isn't about him.]

Sometimes it's not necessary.

[It's hard to know when that is, though.]

[determinedest]

Being hurt doesn't let you hurt other people.

[Isn't that something they're meant to have learned? Hurt people hurt people, don't they? But it doesn't allow them to do it, doesn't give them a free license. They can be as hurt as they want. Doesn't make any of it better or excuse their behavior when they mess up, inevitably.]

[eatsyourscience]

Do you think you've failed at something?

[Or failed someone. That's what it sounds like - that they were meant to be or do something and think they haven't lived up to it.]

[determinedest]

[They almost burst into laughter. Failed at something? If only it could only be one thing!]

Everything.

[eatsyourscience]

[Souji shakes his head. He can think of one thing.]

You're a good friend to me.

[Although...]

You might not believe that. But I feel that way.

[determinedest]

A good friend doesn't make someone feel like he should be hurt for their sake.

[If you have to hurt someone, make it be me, he once said. Offered to be the sacrifice under their proverbial blade, in hell. They doubt it was out of a masochistic desire to suffer at just anyone's hands, no. It was to help them, specifically, because they made him feel that way.

Disgusting. Truly.]

[eatsyourscience]

[Souji can guess what Frisk is referring to - Quor'toth had burned a lot of things into him.]

I believe you would have done the same for me.

[Had their positions been reversed, Frisk likely would have made the same offer, at least tacitly. They had been hurt, they said, and some of that had to have been voluntary, from what Souji can imagine.]

[determinedest]

Yes. But that's...

[The excuse dies in their throat. That's different. But they - it has to be. It's what they've been...it's how it's always been.]

I'm used to it. I'm the one with the special power.

[eatsyourscience]

Where I'm from, that's me.

[Sure there were other Persona users, but he stood out among them. In the end, he was the one who saved the world.]

[determinedest]

I'm the one with the power to do things over.

[They know he's got those other voices inside him, not quite like how Chara was in their head, but something unique to his world. But here, they're the one with the SAVE and the LOAD and the RESET. They're the one who must Continue.]

[eatsyourscience]

That means it's okay for you to be hurt?

[Over and over and over?]