you are what you love [ open ]

[determinedest]

Who: Tim Wright + your beautiful self, and/or Frisk + your beautiful self!
Where: All over!
When: April 7th - April 10th
Rating: PG-13 probably though I'll warn if it goes higher
Summary: Maybe, with what little power you have...
The Story:

[Starters are in the comments. Let me know over here or at arrpee if you want a closed starter or anything! I will match prose or brackets!]

Comments

[mypartnerintime]

Max waits for them to finish- and she wants to say something about how good it was, how much she admires Frisk's singing, how much she wants Frisk to open up and not feel so alone anymore. But something else comes out. She sings without quite realizing that it's happening, and her voice is small but steady.

"Balancing on one wounded wing
Circling the edge of the never ending
The best of the vanished marvels
Have gathered inside your door

Sleeping for years, pick through what is left
Through the pieces that fell, and rose from the depth
From the rainwater well
Deep as a secret nobody knows

Less than forget, but more than begun
These adventures in solitude never done
To the names of our wounds
We send the same blood back from the wars

We thought we lost you
We thought we lost you
We thought we lost you
It will all come back

I know you want to
Run far away from one more
And that it's coming at a bad time
Some cold place, heartless ways
For all we know...

I know you want to
Breathe through, come back, come to
But it's coming at a bad time
Old scarred face, survivor's guilt
For all we know..."

She clears her throat, snapping out of it, and then laughs.

"Huh."

[determinedest]

Survivor's guilt.

We thought we lost you.

Whether it was a song for herself or a song for them, they can't really say. It doesn't matter, they don't think, in the end; it's just something that couldn't be contained, and had to bleed out into the open air.

"...you've got a good voice," Frisk offers at last, which isn't the kind of warming compliment they'd normally apply, like an option to * Flirt. But it is something.

[mypartnerintime]

Interestingly it could apply to either of them. But Max lost her partner in crime a long time ago... That wound has had its time to heal, however effectively.

The song was for Frisk. While she feels like she doesn't understand their situation, she also feels like she should. They've both lost partners. The lyrics bubbled out of her, an attempt to say she feels for them.

Subconsciously, anyway.

"I was about to tell you the same thing. This isn't the first time I've heard you sing, and so far you're two for two."

[determinedest]

"I didn't mean to this time," says Frisk, shoulders lifting in an incremental shrug. Not that it matters. A lot of things seem to happen beyond the realm of their control, these days. That was the hardest thing to get used to, when they first woke up here, and it still hasn't gotten easier.

It should have gotten easier.

"I guess it's an event."

They don't sound very concerned.

Not much concerns them anymore.

[mypartnerintime]

"Yeah..."

Max stares at them, once again struggling to find the right words. It's often like that with Frisk. They'd been making good progress toward being more open with each other, but then...

Then Chara left. Max sighs lightly, sad at the memory.

"At least it's not a bad event. So far."

[determinedest]

“It will be.” They don’t sound terribly concerned over the possibility, that’s for sure. They don’t sound concerned about much, these days. Emotional asystole, the dredge and drag of days sliding by - what’s the difference, when there’s no change from the background noise?

“This isn’t me,” Frisk puts in at last. “The singing. I don’t think it’s me.”

Mettaton, maybe, but...they doubt it.

[mypartnerintime]

"...What do you mean it's not you?"

She leans down a little, as she normally does to be closer to Frisk's level.

"It sounded really sweet. And you're sweet." It's a straightforward compliment, and the sincerity of it shows in Max's voice. She smiles at them. "I'd buy a Frisk album."

[determinedest]

“It isn’t from home,” they clarify, far too late. “The singing.”

Why is she being...like this? Nothing called for it. Nothing was particularly...did they just look like they needed it? Someone’s - someone’s worthless pity? Why? Because she’s Max, and she’s kind, even and especially when she doesn’t have to be. Even when she shouldn’t.

It’s easier to speak as though she hadn’t said it at all.

“I don’t know whose event this is.”

[mypartnerintime]

Ah. Awkward. "Oh." Max grins at them a little sheepishly, though it falls flat in the face of Frisk's stoicism.

She racks her brain for something to say. Something nice, that will cheer them up. Nothing easily comes to mind.

"Uh. Frisk?"

[determinedest]

They're...not really doing a whole lot to help this, are they? Just...singing fragments and spurts of things they can't buckle down, can't lock beneath the fierce, unrelenting pressure of their own expression. Waiting for a bough to break, for a dam to give.

She's trying really hard. She always has, for them.

Don't they owe her for that?

Again, they look up, this time, trying - trying to seem a little more open, humming their acknowledgment. "Mm?"

[mypartnerintime]

She catches that slight shift in attitude and it emboldens her to push on.

"...We're friends, right?"

It sounds like a dumb and silly question. But she wants to ask it. For a while it felt like the two of them were headed in that direction, and she thinks they made it all the way. But these days she wonders if Frisk feels the same.

[determinedest]

“Yeah,” says Frisk, their eyebrows lifting, as though the answer should be obvious. It is, right? Or maybe it’s...because they haven’t been acting very much like a friend should, huh? That’s probably it. They’ve not really been treating anyone as they should.

No wonder she needs to question it. To double check. To make sure. They add, firmer, as if that may be enough to make up for it:

“Of course we’re friends.”

[mypartnerintime]

She regards them for a moment, digesting their answer. Then she smiles, small but sincere- and this time she actually gets down on a knee and holds her hands out, hesitantly.

"I think... this is a hug moment?"

She understands that Frisk usually doesn't like physical contact like this- but they've done it before, and... And she really hopes they'd be open to it again. For her sake as much as theirs.

[determinedest]

Hugs are hard, usually. They mean having to tense and wait for the constricting of arms around your ribs, something gentle turned into a ruthless trap. That hasn’t happened, though - not since they got here. And Max has never hurt them on purpose, the way most monsters have.

It’s weird to think that. That humans have never hurt them in some ways, when monsters have. Weren’t the latter supposed to be the kinder option, the better one?

They don’t hesitate for very long. They wrap their arms around her, even if they come up short, and bury their face in her front.

[mypartnerintime]

Max holds her arms outstretched even through the awkward moment when they don't come close. They don't make her wait- soon she wraps her own arms around them in a hug, holding them only as tight as they hold her, resting her cheek on their head.

It surprises her how small they are. It probably shouldn't...

She once read that you should never be the first to let go when hugging a child. So she holds on, easing into it as time passes, relaxing into the arms of her friend. She'll let go when they do.