entrancelogs | + Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright!

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+ Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright! | OPEN +

Who: EVERYONE (if they want to live)
Where: EVERYWHERE (inside the mansion, knocking on doors)
When: 6/24 - 6/27
Rating: PG-13?
Summary: The Summerween Trickster has made his decree - Trick or treat...or die! This is a mingle log for Trick-or-Treating!
The Story:

On the morning of the 24th, everyone will find that the mansion was inexplicably decorated for Halloween...sort of. The idea behind the decorations is mostly the same, except that every jack-o-lantern is made out of a watermelon instead of a pumpkin. No, this is SUMMERWEEN.

For the first day it will be harmless enough, just a change in décor and a little spooky summer fun. However, by the second day there will be sightings of the Summerween Trickster, a creepy fellow made entirely out of unpopular loser candy, and he is not happy. In the entrance hall, there will be a giant jack-o-melon container with a counter and a count-down clock ticking away to the end of the event.

Your job, Wonderland, is to trick-or-treat for your lives. You have until the end of the event to deliver one million pieces of candy to the jack-o-melon before the end of the event, to appease the Summerween Trickster.

What was that? You'll just sit this out and wait for the event to end? I wouldn't do that if I were you. You see, the Summerween Trickster could be lurking around any corner. If he catches someone not fully embracing the spirit of Summerween (refusing to trick or treat, not wearing a costume, etc), they will not survive the experience. The Trickster will kill them and swallow them whole, making them part of his horrible loser candy body.

More details about trick or treating can be found here. This is a mingle post for trick-or-treating, if you'd rather use this than make a post! [Brackets] or prose are both welcome.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Why don't you talk about your before you fell? You didn't have anyone in your head then, and that wasn't an issue at all!"

They're... just getting awful again, aren't they? Sharp. Jagged. Mean. They pull the halo off their head (it isn't funny anymore) and clench both hands around it. Think about how hard they'd have to pull to tear it in half.

"It wasn't a problem when you never wanted me here - no one did, right? Wasn't a problem when you didn't even know I could be here. You obviously are capable of doing just fine on your own. Missing me was optional." Everyone else sure figured that out, huh? Asriel found a replacement, a superior model. So did Toriel. Asgore only missed one child to begin with.

"It's only a problem because you're deciding to make it a problem," Chara blurts, even if they know how that sounds. "You could be perfectly happy without me if you actually tried."

"Just fine?" Frisk stares at them, aghast. "Just fine? I was lost without you! I didn't know what to do! You think I ever wanted to be just, just alone like that, without you? I - you're my friend, my best friend, I don't wanna - I don't know how to be alone!"

There's a tremor in their voice again, that halting shudder as they struggle gamely not to burst into tears. Why do they have to be such a crybaby? Couldn't live without that clamor in their head, or that clamor outside of it. Couldn't live without Chara. Chara, just being Chara, whether they're laughing and giggling or giving them chocolate and a juicebox or throwing ketchup bottles at windows or curling up and crying and pretending they're not crying because big kids don't cry or trying to be brave or trying not to panic or slicing their way through undead monstrosities or clinging to Frisk as they lay there trembling on the floor, snarling that Frisk isn't a burden.

"I love you, you butt."

They... they don't like this. Any of this. Frisk is upset, Frisk is close to tears, and Chara... doesn't like that. Doesn't like that they're saying horrible things, and Frisk says I love you.

They're right. They're sure they are. There was a time when Frisk wouldn't have missed Chara at all. And... and instead, all this everything had to go and happen. Their one, single job was to let go, and instead, they bent everything around so they... so this... so they care. No, not right. Doesn't have to matter if they care about Frisk or not. They can care and still let go. They can let go because they care now, because it matters that Frisk gets to be happy. But they didn't mean to... to make Frisk love them.

Love's still too fragile. Too scary. Not real.

They stare at their hands. Could break the fake halo they're holding. Could clench the pitchfork balanced against their shoulder. ...Reach one hand out, instead. They only really know how to speak in the kind of touch that's only meeting halfway, that's just an invitation to be taken or refused. In the kind that's easy to just lean away from. They're pretty sure what Frisk really needs is probably so much more than that. An I love you that can be returned. Hugs that aren't too tight and too brief and too scared that even a human being could turn to dust in their vicious, dangerous arms. But... extending a hand is really... it's all they have.

"Don't say stuff like that. Don't cry." It's not a comforting answer, not the kind of answer that's supposed to come with offering to intertwine fingers, but big kids don't cry. Love isn't supposed to make you cry. Not if it's real love. Good love. The kind that fixes it. Right? "I... got. Um." They missed Frisk. They don't want a future without Frisk. They don't want a mother's love if Frisk can't have it too. They want to share whatever little goodness life has left for them with Frisk.

"I guess I got... bored without you, too, but... look, you're upset. All caring about me does is lead to you being unhappy. Is that really a good thing?"

Again, forcing Chara into the role of comforter. Supporter. God, Frisk, can you go ten minutes without turning everything inward, and making them have to drop everything and come to your aid? Abandon their problems, and fly to yours.

Don't cry, says Chara, and Frisk swallows the lump in their throat, chokes it down and flattens their features like they used to. Trying not to panic, trying not to break out sobbing, because then Chara would feel guilty and that would be cruel, to put them through that now, when they're trying, and being helpful, and, and Frisk doesn't want them to feel this way.

Got bored without them, as if they weren't streaked with scratches and cuts and grime when they ran into Frisk in the library, disheveled and likely starving.

"Caring about anyone hurts," says Frisk at last, choking out a hiccup of a laugh. Do they just not know how to love very well? What kind of person says that they love their friends and then guts them all, carves them to pieces, turns them all to dust. What kind of love is that?

"Love is, it makes you happy, but it also makes you sad. Like, like now. B-because you don't think that, that you're anything special. But you are."

They retract their hand. Look away, distract themselves with dangling the halo off one of the tines of their trident instead. If an invitation isn't taken, they shouldn't push. All they ever do is push people into things they shouldn't do, ha ha. Pushing a shared body to fight back against things that hurt it, because that's how demonic possession is, right? Pushing Asriel into a plan that's cruel, wicked, that would only start wars and they should have known that.

...Pushing Frisk to not cry. And they don't, even if that laugh is dangerously close to a sob, and they're trying to not react, trying to wear the poker face that carried them through the Underground. They didn't actually make Frisk less upset. Of course they didn't. They're just... teaching Frisk the sort of things they taught Asriel.

Really aren't good at this at all, Chara.

Really aren't good in general, Chara. Aren't special. Used to think they were, right? The angel who'd seen the surface! Someone who survived a fall for a reason! The demon that comes! Someone who had been reawakened for a reason, intentionally, by someone who needed them! They... they think they just want to back out of this. It's just like everything else trying to care has fooled them into thinking. The more they buy it, the more they make others love them, the more... ha. The more they'll all be set back by Chara, right? Life actually is that unfair for some people.

"Look, I'm not gonna leave you anymore. You don't have to convince me to stay. Save the sappiness for someone who's actually going to buy it. I've doled out plenty of hurting already, haven't I?" Hurt everyone so much, there were almost no survivors! Ha ha ha! Asriel sure learned that caring about anyone hurts, didn't he! Hurt real bad when the asshole next door got the rifle, and their parents hurled rocks and vengeful words and the wrong pronouns, and the president of the PTA courageously went in with a Louisville Slugger, and....

...There isn't really a punchline to this joke.

"Just... don't..." Love me? Kind of a stupid thing to request. Won't get them anywhere, will it? "Don't work yourself up over it."

Edited 2016-07-05 02:49 (UTC)

Why are they...like this? Why do they keep doing this to themselves and everyone else? Dare to get close, then snap away, because they don't deserve anyone's love or patience or attention, not after all they've done to hurt people and get away with it. What are the consequences? Shouldn't they suffer those consequences? Be...alone? But how do they be alone? They haven't been really alone in so long. Not since they first fell, and...how long ago was that, really?

"I hurt you too," says Frisk. "And back there, we would've both...we'd've just done that, if Toriel hadn't...and I wasn't gonna stop us. I just wanted it to be over."

But as it turns out, they're really, really good at dying. Even when they're not supposed to. So good at dying, it's like the only thing they think they should ever do. So good at it, and - and they can't keep thinking like this.

"Sorr - um," they abort the apology before it gets all the way out. Chara doesn't like apologies. "I didn't mean to make this a whole - a big thing. Where I cry, and you don't like it."

What was their point here? That they don't hate Chara, and they don't ever want to let them go? But they knew that already. Or maybe they hear it and keep saying Frisk can't mean it. They don't know.

"I just don't wanna lose you," they finish, clumsily, "that's all."

Where I cry, and you don't like it. Don't cry. Not because big kids don't cry. Because Chara doesn't like it? Because... Chara will get mad? They're really glad they hung that halo up. Just like them jabs like needles into the back of their neck, and they're sure they'd have twisted it beyond recognition if they'd been holding it.

Maybe they're just... looking for excuses to sour this. Just being... you know. Like this. They don't even know, right? They aren't in Frisk's head anymore. Don't get to be the voice announcing how Frisk feels. Weren't always accurate even when they were in Frisk's head, were they? Maybe they just want this to hurt, so they're making it hurt before Frisk can dig in the knife.

"Reset," they blurt, and it's not funny at all. The opposite of funny. Not the kind of word that should be joked about, right? "We're just... tangling each other up, I think. Start over."

It's not at all like a LOAD. Doesn't pull the leaden, thorny sensation out of their stomach. Pointless to even talk about do-overs. "You're not gonna lose me. Not... here, anyway." While Wonderland lasts. No promises about anything beyond Wonderland. For their own good, they'll eventually have to lose Chara in their own world, right? But here, it's... it's different. "We... it's just better when we're together. I know that."

They leave that sentence unfinished. Drop it on the floor, kick it away. "But I don't... I'm sick of being the reason you're not happy, okay?" Let Frisk be happy! Even if they no longer know how to do that. Even if they're so, so bad at this. Even if history has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that Chara's love takes away everything people treasure, turns them into bitter, lonesome shells of their former selves, and that's inescapable. That's going to be what will happen to Frisk, too. "I'm not trying to make you cry on purpose, I just... there are things I don't want or need, so - so how am I supposed to know what to do with them?"

Reset. Scrub the slate clean, start over. Deep breath. Frisk nods, gulps down the lump in their throat. Let Chara talk, even if it feels like they might be fumbling over the words a little bit. But that's all right. They've both been fumbling, floundering. Don't know how to really love all that well, maybe. Don't know how to express something that isn't expressable through grand, self-sacrifical actions.

So reset. Not RESET, just...reset. Let's start from the beginning.

"You're not why I'm unhappy," says Frisk, head ducking in embarrassment and sheepish acknowledgment. "I don't know why I'm not always happy all the time. I think that's just 'cause I remember too much. And I don't like remembering it. Don't know what else to do with it, so I just - cry, sometimes. Or, or I say or do stupid things, 'cause I dunno - how's it supposed to be? How're kids...how should we be - "

How should they be handling things like this, always walking around with that guilt weighing in their SOUL. How's it supposed to be, with kids? How are they supposed to act or think or feel? Neither of them are paragons of normality, not really, but Frisk doesn't know a single person who is, back home or in Wonderland.

Funny, right? It's so far out of their reach that they don't even know how to ask.

"I don't know," Chara answers. "I was born 600 years old, remember?" And it's a joke, it's more of that oh-so-tiring edgy demon trash they're always spouting... but it's kind of how they feel, too. Like they were born too old and weary. Seen too much. Lived too much, even before their age hit the double digits. Like they've always been kind of... paradoxical? Out of sync with normal, right, comprehensible.

So, that's what makes it weird, right? That... "I get what you mean, though." They don't cry, of course, but they know the feeling. They know acting so irrational, so impossible, not at all like a human being, because you don't know what sort of shape you're supposed to give to something so overwhelming. "But whatever kind of love I've got, it's not the kind that fixes it. Look... look what happened when the Dreemurrs loved me. Look what happened to... maybe my real parents were nice, too, until they had me!" It writhes under their skin, every time they attach the word "real" to the wrong set of parents, but they deserve that. They deserve it.

Wouldn't be wrong, either, right? Their surface parents had lots of friends! People who liked them! Who refused to believe anything some problem child might come up with. Weren't they always the ones who said Chara made them do things like that? Chara just liked to make them suffer, behaving the way they did. What did they ever do to deserve a demon child?

Ha. How's this for talking about their "before they fell?"

...Not fun anymore. Wasn't fun to begin with. They juggle their toy pitchfork aimlessly, hoping to distract their hands. Doesn't work. Scratch their arm uneasily. That does work. "I'm just... maybe you shouldn't hand that kind of power to just anyone, you know? It's not gonna work out the way you think it will. It never has."

Look at them. Look at the pair of them. Castoffs, unwanted things, fleeing to leap into a pit in the ground because the alternative was too terrifying to comprehend, too hateful, too horrifying. It should be wrong for kids like them to feel like this, empty and bereft and...tired. Tired before their time. Hard to know how old Chara really is, but it's not difficult to imagine them older. Taking the lead so easily, so much more assertive than meek, too-quiet, too-stammery Frisk.

"That's not you," says Frisk, and bile swells in their throat for a horrible moment. "Not your fault." Real parents. As if parents like that deserve the word "real" as a prefix. They don't remember much from something Chara so viciously blocked out, but there was that surging hatred, that angry, bitter loneliness associated with humanity. Or maybe those were Frisk's memories. Things shattering, the anticipatory tensing of your shoulders before the other thing happens. Slip a knife from a cabinet so no adult gets to come close to you ever again, not without your say-so.

Humans can really suck sometimes. Anyone that provokes that reaction from a kid, makes them run and hide and see a long drop and just let it all fall - maybe there's enough hatred in their heart for that. For people like that.

"I don't love you 'cause I think I'm gonna get something out of it," they say, the corners of their mouth twitching as they struggle to smile but don't quite make it. "I don't love you to make anything happen. I love you 'cause I do. I can't change that, even if I wanted to."

It's all your fault. It's all because you MADE THEM love you. All that time you spent listening to them... encouraging them... caring about them...

They really haven't learned a thing, huh. Frisk didn't always love them, but now they do. And now that it's there, they don't know how to erase it. Neither of them do, right? They just set down a road there's no coming back from. Maybe love, like LOVE, can't be undone. Not without a RESET. Maybe it's a consequence, too? If even the tiniest increase in LV locks them out of an ending, maybe the tiniest bit of love locks them into something too.

"I know. Good people don't have ulterior motives. I know someone with no EXP to speak of can't just up and decide not to miss a person." Also know how to fix that, but they're positive Frisk's never gonna hit LV 8. That's not who Frisk is. "But it's worrying."

Two lovers, the cauldron of hell. Still doesn't fit. No lovers, no boiling magma far beneath them. But... a sense of scaling toward disaster. Mutual destruction. They already came close to it, didn't they? Almost walked out of existence hand in hand. "I can't see a way it will end happily, Frisk. I can't. I don't care how it sounds. I wish you never loved me at all."

Maybe it'd be lonelier in the short-term, but in the long run, it would be safer. They wouldn't get hurt. Not like Asriel's been hurt, Toriel's been hurt, Asgore's been hurt. If there's no love, no attachment, then they'd surely never be willing to trade their SOUL away. Maybe they could divert a fate that still feels inevitable. If Chara can't change, then maybe they should have at least... at least tried to steer Frisk in the right direction?

Good people, says Chara. Good like Frisk is, and like Chara isn't, based on numbers and values alone. No distance, no tearing away. No EXP. A LOVEless existence. Whereas Chara...did they have a loveless one, before they fell upon the Dreemurrs? Was it fate? asks Asriel, his voice wavering, uncertain, watching Frisk as they stood there, not answering his question, not answering anyone. Why would you ever climb a mountain like that, Frisk? Why would someone as good as you ever do something so horrible?

So endeavor not to be broken, Frisk. Endeavor not to be so torn at the seams. Endeavor to be the friend everyone always wanted, the perfect pacifist, the ideal human. Patch yourself up while no one's looking, and continue to be good.

"That's why I ran away," says Frisk quietly. "Trying not to love anyone. I said awful things to...everyone. But they just kept loving me anyway. And I got so mad." Their hands ball into fists at their sides, all thoughts of trick-or-treating forgotten. "Why couldn't they see how horrible I was? Why couldn't they accept that I'm always gonna - even in the happiest ending, there's always that chance that I'll just, I'll take it all back. And I told them that. Kept telling them that. And they wouldn't listen."

Why wouldn't they just listen?

Frisk breathes out shakily, trying to funnel out that rage before it spills over, but it...doesn't quite go away.

"Wow," they say, vaguely hysterical, "we're pretty messed up, huh?"

They... it's rude to stare, especially when you've got creepy eyes and a creepy smile, but Chara stares. Really looks. Tries to see.

They understand this completely, and that worries them.

They... saw Frisk mad at them once, conjuring every last emotional weapon they could grasp. It had been righteous anger. For everyone's sake, for the greater good. For everyone's hearts beating as one, or whatever Undyne's all about. But this is... a very Chara kind of anger? It is anger, right? Frisk is angry. There's only one feeling in the entire world Chara actually understands, and it's anger.

"You wanna be punished," they venture quietly. "You know you deserve to. You know it's coming eventually, because it always is." Karmic retribution, a declaration over an unmarked grave that you weren't a good person, whatever. "When they don't get mad, it just... feels like the calm before the storm." Like they're all just waiting for you to stop holding your breath, so it'll hurt more - and the constant throb of guilt always trails on the heels of that wariness, because what kind of mean jerk assigns those sort of motives to good people?

They... hold out their hand again. Don't even know why, because they're pretty sure Frisk's not feeling much like being touched right now, and it's a waste of effort to repeat the gesture. Just... don't know what else to do, they guess. "Because of your own impulses or because of the way people respond to you... you don't feel like anything happy can actually last."

Not supposed to be angry, are they? They're the Good One, who never fights back, never hurts anyone, even those who attack them first. That would be unforgivable. But here their hands are trembling subtly, their shoulders hitched up to their ears, their mouth pressed into a hard, thin line as they try not to let it come boiling out and over.

Chara's staring. Maybe 'cause they've only seen Frisk really angry a handful of times, and those were those moments of high stress, high stakes, emotions and manipulation and trying every possible avenue available to them just to get Chara to relinquish the Real Knife. Maybe they're too good at this. Too good at stamping it all down. Maybe that's why it churns out at inconvenient times in the form of tears, broken, childish sobbing.

There's a hand reached out to them, and Frisk takes it. Clutches it tight. Maye too tight.

"Why would it last?" they say weakly, blinking away the heat and moisture in their eyes. "Nothing else does. Just pull it all away. That's my fault. I choose that. Choose it every time. Maybe if I keep choosing, I get to decide when they hate me. So I keep thinking that they should hate me, and they keep saying they never will."

Not even Sans. Not even Sans, who looks at them blank-eyed and intimidating even when they've harmed not a single SOUL. Sans who remembers and knows they won't EVER be happy.

Let them grip tightly. Let them squeeze. Chara's not made of dust and compassion. They're something hardened, impossible to really destroy. (Believe them. They've tried.) They just squeeze right back.

It's... a logical conclusion to reach, right? Easy for Chara to assume they're the Bad One, so surely everyone only meant them when they claimed death was the human's only chance at redemption, when they said kids like them should be burning in hell. When they offhandedly claim someone's opinion of them is a little murder-y, when they laugh and joke about how they all tried to kill the child at one point or another.

...But they were never the only one listening. They ought to know better by now than to try and pick and choose what applies to whom.

"They keep loving you, and after a while, it feels like..." They draw in a breath. Let it out slowly. Heavily. "If everything's been your choice. If you're the one with control over how things go. If you're the one with a special power. Maybe you're... tricking them." You ought to have the power to make them hate you, same as you made them love you. If you want something bad enough, your determination makes it happen, right? Why aren't you trying hard enough? Why does it hurt when your dad only speaks of one child, when your best friend says you weren't what he really wanted at all?

Why does it cut so deeply when your mom doesn't want you, even if you tell yourself that's what you deserve?

"It's terrifying, to be loved." Not understanding how anyone sees something of worth. Not feeling like you've earned it, because your presence being tolerated has always been something you've had to buy. Earn your keep. Prove your usefulness. "It's different here. Not about the worth of your SOUL or the weight of your power. And that shift is... hard to fathom."

Should it be easy to let go, they wonder? Everything they've been told? Now that they're in a better place, now that the rules have changed, now that they fell into another world... shouldn't they shed every bit of what they used to be? It's not happening now, so stop being sad about it now! Get over it, kiddo!

Frisk huffs out a laugh-sob of a sound, relieved and broken-up all at once. Chara...knows. Of course they know. Why would they ever doubt that they did? They know how it is. How much it hurts, other people's love, more than they can bear. That heavy, visceral ache in their SOUL and their bones, skittering away from kind touches, shying away from compliments and familial warmth. Far easier to see yourself for what you are: a tool, a thing, a stepping stone in the monsters' freedom. Just a human SOUL, the seventh, the last necessary to free all of monsterkind. All that affection couldn't possibly be for any reason. It's because you're special and scary to them, and one day they'll see you for what you are. And it'll hurt. It'll sting so badly, and you'll cry and sob and want to die. So it's better, isn't it, safer, isn't it, to cut them out of your life and do it all yourself, prune them back, like a finger through dust, wiping all the thoughts clean. Feel nothing. Tear yourself from them so it hurts less, and you're the one doing the hurting. You're the one in - since when were you the one in control?

"Figured out the right things to say," Frisk mumbles to the floor, to their feet, feet that say nothing in response. "Just worked out the right...formula, to get people to love you."

You MADE them love you.

It's your fault.

You did this, Frisk. You made them love you, you acted in just the right way, and now they're all going to suffer because of you.

Chara's right. It is scary. It's the scariest thing in the world. Scarier than creepy faces, red text, distorted voices through the receiver. Scarier than adults can be, sometimes. It's scary, because you can't drag yourself out of it no matter how hard you try. You're trapped. Forever. Until they let you go, or you rip yourself out.

They know the feeling. How long will it last? How long until everyone figures out you aren't human, you're just pretending to be one? How long until they're bored with you because you've stopped being unpredictable, or they've gotten tired of you because you still aren't fixed yet? How long until you slip up, wreck everything, use buttercups instead of cups of butter? Makes so much more sense to skip right to the inevitable conclusion. Don't waste hope on puzzles and stories that don't even need to be resolved. Don't feel at all.

And Frisk... has power, they know. Power Chara didn't have until the two of them met. The kind of power that Chara had called out before: does anyone really love you if you've only shown them what they want to see, Frisk? Does anybody know you at all if you go back and pick the answer that they like best instead of the answer you really want to? The pretending can last so much longer, with power like that.

They think again about... about their birthday. Try not to think about how it ended. Focus on the odd sensation of knowing you're the one who knows when their birthday is. Being the person who gets asked what a good present would be, because everyone knows about getting Frisk to join in on things they like - spaghetti and anime and puzzles - but nobody really knows what Frisk likes. Think about falteringly announcing they don't want Frisk to be alone either, and realizing how... how absurd that sounds, when everybody likes Frisk, when Frisk's never met someone who they didn't become friends with, right?

"You don't have to pretend with me," they mumble, even if it feels redundant at this point. The one constant who remembers no matter what, the presence who follows along whether the road is pristine or dusty, the leech that cannot be pulled off. "I've seen it all already, right? There's no formula." Not a problem to be solved, not here to be SAVED, not a variable to be set to its proper value. It's got to be vexing, how often there is no right answer when dealing with Chara, but maybe... not imposing the expectation of a right answer can be a relief, too?

"But... you see why I don't want to call this love. Why it's so..." Why they're scared of it. Deeply, utterly, wholeheartedly afraid.

They're right. It is both. It's terrifying, leaves them floundering and directionless because there's no right answer, and there's no wiping clean the slate, because they remember everything. And then it's, it's a relief, because Chara - they've seen the best and the worst of Frisk. They've seen them burn every book and read every book, value everyone and treasure everyone, and they choose to stay by their side anyway. They tell people they're friends. They are friends, despite...hah, despite everything, right?

And they don't want to be alone. Neither of them do.

"It's scary," says Frisk, nodding. Toriel is right to be wary of them, and there's that not-so-small part of them that believes, completely and viscerally, that if anyone else came from that horrible timeline, where they cut everyone down without a second thought, their reactions would have been similar. And they would've been justified. If they could just see Frisk for who they are...they wouldn't love them so much, would they?

"I don't know what else to call it," they say, with a weak little laugh. "But you...we've seen each other at, at our best and worst. Right? And we, we don't...we just keep caring about each other anyway."

Isn't that how love is?

"I don't know what else to call it either," they have to admit, an air of defeat in their words. What do you call it when you want to get to know a person so much, you even want to see the ugly, dark things you aren't supposed to want to know? Their anger, their sadness, their mistakes. Their before they fell. What do you call it when a moment when they're overflowing with life and excitement makes you grasp at the empty space where your heart should be? What do you call holding hands and never wanting to let go? Sort of even liking how solid and fierce a too-tight grip around their own hand feels.

Still feels... feels foreboding, to give that name to it. Like it... dooms the pair of them. Like it cements the idea that they're going to drag Frisk down, inflict pain whether it's intentional or not, contaminate them like toxic waste buried in a clear pond.

"We could call it fate," they offer shakily. A nicer word for a scary reality. Why did you climb that mountain? For an unhappy reason. But maybe.... maybe if you just say it's foolishness, or it's fate... maybe then you can pretend it wasn't a death sentence, right? "But I don't want to call it love. I want it to be something that lasts longer than love. No tricking each other or having to earn it or... anything that makes love scary. I just... want us to be us."

Fate. A nice word, soothing, but not the least bit true. Not now that they know how things go. Someone forces their hand, or they simply...happen. It takes someone like them to have that resolve, the will to change fate, so-called. But not really. The pieces fall into place, and Frisk will have always fallen down, and Chara will have always been dead, and Asriel will have always been a flower. There's no altering what's already been set in motion. Just the steering of things into a better outcome.

Love without calling it love. Or even LOVE. Just...the way things are, now. The way things have always been. The way things will continue to be. Persistence, determination - that's their bread and butter, isn't it?

Frisk nods.

"Okay," they say at last. "It's just however things are, then. We don't have to pretend anything otherwise."

It's imperfect, and clumsy, and they don't know always how to resolve whatever crops up between them. But it's also their anchor, and they wouldn't trade it in for anything else.

It's probably cheating, not calling a spade a spade. But whatever short-lived understanding Chara ever had of love... this maybe is better than that. No tally marks. No tormenting yourself with how you're ever going to really measure up to what the Underground thinks you are, how you're going to be as perfect as the family who took you in are, how there's only one thing about you that doesn't feel worthless, so that's... what you have to give, isn't it?

Maybe it's not different. Maybe it's exactly the same. But it's kind of nice to lie to yourself. Pretend that you have the same predictable, constant standards everyone else does. That you can have promises that are kept, that you can have relationships that don't turn to dust. It's not really hope at all if you're just covering your eyes and pretending not to see how doomed love feels, but... it's kind of close, isn't it?

"The more I try and put words to it, the more formless it seems to get," Chara laughs. Shoulders their trident, tugs Frisk along to continue the quest for candy. They don't want to be the first to let that hand go. Small touch is... it's not... uncomfortable. Not skin-crawling, not suffocating. They can be okay with some things. They can be okay. "But... secure. That's one worth aiming for, is it not? Stable. A constant. That's what I'd like to... I want to stay with you, right?"

No more scares. No more alone. Just one thing that's real. That... can be safe for Frisk, even if Chara could never even begin to call themselves safe.

Chara leads, like they always do. Frisk lets them. Ever the assertive one, the one who forges ahead. The resolve to change fate. Frisk follows, hands still clasped tightly. Back to the task at hand.

"I want to stay with you too," says Frisk. Like selecting an option, with Toriel. I want to stay with you. They mean it. No more running away, no more pretending that things are okay when they aren't. No more breaking promises. No more making unilateral decisions on anyone's behalf and acting like they've got the right to do it. No more breaking promises.

No more breaking promises.

"We really are like twins," they laugh, then, because it's like Mabel and Dipper are, practically inseparable, joined at the hip. And Dipper looked torn when he said he had to live a week without Mabel, said he didn't know how to be alone, never thinks about it, never talks about it. Sounds familiar. Strikes a little chord, doesn't it? Not sure how to be alone. Not sure they want to know how to be alone. Alone is terrifying, and they've got someone who's gonna stand beside them. And they'll have their back too, whatever it takes. "Like Mabel and Dipper are."

"Except Mabel and Dipper are nerds," Chara points out, grinning.

It's... sort of an appealing idea, though. Like twins. Some Lost Souls were so closely intertwined, cared so much about each other, that Frisk didn't have to utter a word to them. Watching the other soul be SAVED was enough to bring them back too. They can see the comfort in that, a little, right? The idea of not needing anything. Of it being enough to experience things... vicariously? To just see someone else be happy. Being able to love someone so much that it's completely unselfish. That "you" doesn't matter at all.

It'd be nice, they think. If they could be that kind of person. Not manipulating, not controlling, no ulterior motives, no forcing people to feel things or think things or do things. Wishful thinking, but... as long as they're resigned to the fact they care, right? Might as well go wild.

"I guess... I mean, that kind of proves it's fate, right? We aren't related at all, we were born years apart, and we're still practically twins anyway."

Oh, like they aren't both nerds. Chara knits, Frisk spends their time doodling and writing in their notebook, and the two of them bend the fabric of spacetime on a semi-regular basis. If that doesn't make them nerds, Frisk doesn't know what does. They keep following, mirror Chara's smirk with a wide grin of their own.

"I guess it might be," says Frisk, though they can't scrub the dubious note from their voice. "People already seem to think we're related. Some people even mix us up sometimes!"

There's certainly quite a few similarities, right down to their preferences of wardrobe. Asriel wouldn't have mixed the two of them up the way he did otherwise, after all. And it wasn't just him, either. Toriel doubtless saw Chara, and six others, in the footsteps of the eighth human who fell, and Asgore looked at them with a sort of fond melancholia as he spoke of the same hope in their eyes.

"It's probably the haircut," Chara giggles. They know it's definitely not the personality. One pulls inward, the other projects outward. Hard to mistake those two coping mechanisms! But... maybe it makes sense for twins to be opposites? Kind of strange to think it could be differences instead of similarities that make them fit together in people's minds, Chara thinks, but... they maybe don't have the greatest understanding of anything but the darkest side of human behavior. If they'd been normal, if they'd been like everyone else, if they understood things... they'd probably never have fallen at all.

"If I'd done everything right..." They mumble, the idea seeping in all of its own. "Or if I'd been able to SAVE like you could... we'd never have met at all." A... a weird thing to think. Right? "The Underground might've already gone empty the good way, so everyone who believed the legend about Mt. Ebbot... ha, it'll be like everyone else who climbs it after you. You'd just have... you'd have fallen into an empty pit and smacked against the ground and..."

Fallen like Chara did. No flowers breaking falls. Only there'd be nobody hearing them cry out for help. Nobody would come.

...Wow! Listen to yourself, Chara! They... got like this again. Took a perfectly cheerful conversation and turned it incredibly morbid. Their smile fades and they pale a bit, realizing a minute too late that discussing the grimmest possible outcome of Frisk's attempted suicide is... what are they even going for with this? All the suffering and heartache their plan caused was totally worth it if they get to hang out with Frisk? Cripes!

"Anyway!" They spit out, fumble, avert their head and busily distract themselves with knocking on a door. They hardly even register what they get, just shove it into their sack. "I'm... I'm glad you didn't... I'm glad we met. That's what I... um. Let's keep going, shall we?"

+ Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright! | OPEN +

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cw abuse mentions

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