black then white are all i see in my infancy [closed + open]

[determinedest]

Who: Frisk and a few closed prompts + a few open ones!
Where: Alphys's lab, by the vendors, maybe more?
When: 11/01 - 11/08-ish (may be subject to change)
Rating: PG-13 for children in peril, suicide ideation, depressive mindset, and bad decisions
Summary: Shit happened. Someone give this cast an intervention.
The Story:

[A hot oil-slick of numbers running through their mind in a burning cacophony does not lend itself to anything but pain, bright and blazing. It cuts into their teeth and their tongue and the inside of their cheeks - or maybe that is simply them biting deep into the flesh in their mouth to taste the warm tang of it to remind themself that they are not simply numbers they are not simply numbers they are not simply numbers they are real.

It crests in a burgeoning wave. There is no tide there is no pattern there is no regularity there is no respite it simply is and it tears through them, every jerk and wrench of their body shuddering in its place like hot marks shearing them open.

They can taste blood.

Is it yours?

Or mine?

It does not matter.]

Comments

[determinedest]

I don't know. I thought I liked chocolate, maybe. But it doesn't taste like anything.

[So no one's going to eat the bar lying there, abandoned on the table. That seems oddly...sad? Like it's lacking something. Maybe they should try eating it anyway, just so it doesn't feel alone? Instead of putting it on the table and saying they'll be right back, throwing it away like the piece of trash it is?

Distantly, coldly, some part of them registers that this is ridiculous. A chocolate bar doesn't have feelings.

Neither does Frisk, right now. They don't have much of anything.

So they blink again, and nod slowly. Because...this seems to be what's expected? This is what Chara wants. And that's...good.]

Okay.

[fulllifeconsequences]

[...How unfair, that Frisk should inadvertently achieve everything Chara was only pretending to have. The inability to feel sadness or compassion or regret. So much distance that they cannot even taste. Seems they've found a shield far more effective than even LOVE could be.

Chara wonders, idly, what will become of the DT Extraction machine, now that it has served its purpose.]

Then it is agreed.

[They don't bother to remind Frisk they like licorice better. Seems pointless. One of their friends can do that. Time has passed, Chara is not the only one who would think to ask that anymore. Would not be right to continue to force Frisk to be dependent on them for answers. They push their chair back, stand up.]

Our contract is annulled.

[determinedest]

Contract?

[Contracts involve lots and lots of pieces of paper with lots of lines to sign, don't they? Complicated paperwork, stuff that gets shuffled together into big buff-colored folders? When did they sign a contract?]

What contract?

[There's...them being friends, maybe, but that hadn't been a contract, had it? They'd just been friends. There's no contract there, is there?

Maybe there is. Maybe they're just too stupid to figure it out.

Either way, they don't have the means to truly pursue that line of thought.]

[fulllifeconsequences]

[Pointless question. Irrelevant. They ignore it, like the unnecessary dialogue it is. Frisk has already agreed to this. Has no objections or misgivings. It was... it was easier than they thought it would be, actually. But it's a good thing, surely, that Chara is so easy to let go. That things can return to how they were supposed to be before Chara's meddling: I never wanted you here. No-one did.

The path is clear. Frisk is free. They can recover from this mistake without risk or danger of relapse.

Chara merely walks away.

They have packing to do.]

[determinedest]

[Oh. Okay. They're leaving now. Frisk watches them go blankly until finally dropping their gaze back to the chocolate bar, left abandoned on the table. They try to summon...something, anything. Any particular strong feelings on the matter.

Nothing occurs to them.

Frisk sits there and continues to sit there for some time after, simply because it doesn't occur to them that they should do anything else.

It doesn't matter very much anyway.]