merry christmas; i could care less [ open ]

[postictal]

Who: Real Tim, Mirror Tim + YOU / Real Frisk, Mirror Frisk + YOU
Where: All the heck over my guys
When: 12/13 - 12/20
Rating: PG to start with, will edit for anything higher
Summary:
The Story:

[Just kidding starters are in the comments.]

[Let me know if you want something closed cooked up special, etc., or hit me over at arrpee. I will match prose or brackets!]

Comments

[voidfished]

Now it’s her turn to let her smile widen, increments of letting herself shine through the person she’s made herself to be. “If you have created a problem… I think you owe it then to make it right. I could not feel right making space for myself in a world that required me to get rid of others’ to do so.”

She doesn’t know if she has some sort of special power, in a way she can quantify. She supposes she used to, when they travelled between worlds, when death was no longer permanent. Lucretia knows how Magnus felt about it as he threw himself to the wolves time after time to save people without a promise of their survival. Knows how Merle felt, heading to his end with the enemy cycle after cycle. But it’s hard. Facing that, especially removed but not quite, is hard.

“I simply look to protect my family and amend the wrongs I have done. For the good of the world and those I love.”

[determinedest]

“...you can’t fix everything.”

Stupid. She’d know that, wouldn’t she? She’s older. Wiser. Probably seen more than some kid ever has. What are they doing, acting like they have any authority on a thing like that? Isn’t it admirable that she’s trying to make amends at all, regardless of how successful that might be?

They sink, slightly. Head bowing. Ashamed.

“Sorry.”

[voidfished]

She lowers her eyes a bit in turn. Of course, it would be foolish for her to assume she could. But she can try, can’t she?

“No, it’s… it’s alright.” She puts a hand near them, gives them a small smile. “It is important to keep those limitations in mind, but… well, I am aware no plan can come out perfectly.”

Lucretia swallows, a little harder than she wanted to. “But I feel it is better to act than to have done nothing at all. I have been… both people, before. One who has done too little, and one who has done too much. In the end, I think I am happier to have been the person who took the initiative. Who started something, instead of letting it lie in the tension of what it was before.”

[determinedest]

"So have I."

Or rather, they've felt what it was, to be both. They've felt and seen what it was, to be the person who ACTs no matter what, and does something that might resolve everything, only for it all to crumble over their face. And then they've been the person who ACTs, who does something for the sake of doing it, because doing nothing at all has only ever gotten you killed.

A special power, and the total lack of responsibility in using it.

Their chin tips up, one eye shuttering open; a dark crimson slit.

"What if you do the wrong thing?" It's bluntly stated. Not judgmental, not cruel, but...curious, maybe.

As if they haven't quite worked out what comes after.

[voidfished]

Oh, she thinks she understands that, too. Just having a bit more knowledge, foresight, drive to do something impossible. Horrible. To cut herself from everyone she had ever loved, so they could find some happiness while she fixed the world. Maybe it wasn't an action she'd have needed to take, if it hadn't come to where it did. If she hadn't been left alone.

There's nothing she can do to take it back. But with the consequences only finding her now, she's thinking about it a lot lately.

"I... don't know." She wants to laugh, but it's not funny, and she's never been good at deflecting with humor. "I'm not sure if... any one action is fully wrong. But perhaps I just want to hope that, so everything I have done means something. If none of it was anything, in the end..."

Lucretia closes her eyes, shakes her head a moment. No. It's worth something, it has to be. "I have not gotten that far, either."

[determinedest]

You can mean well. You can mean nothing more, nothing better, than to see everyone get the ending where they all live happily ever after, but you can resort to the worst means possible to do it. Does it matter, in the end, if they won't remember it - if the only person who remembers the things you did to make it all happen is you?

If they don't remember the horrible things happening, does that make them okay?

Maybe it just means you don't have any right to complain when you have to live with it after.

"That's okay," says Frisk, quietly. They try for it - a faint twist of a smile. It's wavering and vague, but it's there. "I don't think anyone has."

[voidfished]

Seeing them smile makes her own mouth quirk upwards in return; it’s infectious like that. Some part of her will always feel weary for her actions and her choices, but there’s no going back now.

“Maybe… we’ll find it.” If there’s no choice but to go forward, there must be something along the path. “I suppose that’s the purpose of continuing to move ahead. Eventually, time will have passed. The world will move forward. And we will find something on our own roads, whatever that answer or consequence may be.”

[determinedest]

“You can be free here. For a little while.” Free of the cycle, of things always pressing up against your head. Different events demand your attention, here, but in a different sense. It’s removed from the troubles of your own world. Enough so that you don’t have to think about it too much. Not right now.

(Running from consequences again?)

“You can give yourself time to work it out.”

[voidfished]

She makes a little ‘hm’ in recognition. If only it were that easy. “I… would like to. But I’m not alone, from my world. While there is little I can do to change the state of things here, I have a feeling they already know how it turns out.”

Maybe too vague. But explaining it would take hours, and she’s too old for that. “But I do suppose we’ll need to learn to… live. I haven’t had this kind of down time in years.” She gives them a cheeky little grin. “Maybe I’ll pick up an instrument.”

[determinedest]

"Try kazoo." Without missing a single beat, paired with the most deadpan of thumbs-ups. Are they sincere? Are they joking? Who can say. Either way, you can be certain that if she takes them up on that suggestion, they will be undeniably delighted.

If there's one thing they have here, it's time.

Time enough to learn something new about yourself, maybe.

[voidfished]

The suggestion takes her by surprise, and she snorts in laughter, just trying to picture it. Oh, Lup would probably love it. Taako would die. Magnus… well, if she got Magnus in on a kazoo, she kind of doubts she’d ever sleep again out of pure noise pollution. She puts a hand over her mouth as she laughs, but the smile she gives them after is less tight, more free.

“Well, I’ll have to try it.” She looks down at the half-finished drawing, back up at the ukulele. “Do you want to finish this, while we’re here? I did promise you.”

[determinedest]

That's...that's right. They're getting too distracted. They settle down with interest anew, cross-legged, and regard her far more attentively than they were before. No more jokes. No more distractions.

Just a drawing. A nice drawing of a ukulele.

(Haven't you taken up enough of her time?)

They smile.

"Okay," says Frisk.