fulllifeconsequences

[His phone buzzes. He realizes what he's done and there's a response and... it takes awhile. He sits in the grass, staring at the device, as if that one little tiny buzz was the most insulting thing to ever grace his presence. His locket's still on the ground, and a few crumbs of pie he was alive now he did have to eat, all next to that phone.

His arms wrap around himself and he's shaking, snuffling, on the verge of tears again what a crybaby! and it's hard to see the message at first, through blurry eyes. One claw moves to shakily grasp it, fumbling with it, and he almost drops it again as a finger hovers over the keyboard.

How long has it been, has it really been? Aside from the resets, all those children, the bad timelines, the good ones, the okay ones over and over and over.

Chara's alive. Really, really alive. They responded. He has to say something.]

hjow are yoou

[He hits send before he can reprimand himself for seeming like a sniveling mess.]

Edited 2016-06-13 03:22 (UTC)

["How are you?"

They wonder if it would be rude to answer with "lol." It's exactly the sort of question where they'd laugh instead of answering, because a laugh obviously means something good, so nobody has to think about it.

They're not okay. He was everything to them, and now that he's here they're slowly pulling themselves to pieces. They've unravelled so badly it's making Frisk's edges fray too, smothering them under unlivable pressure to fix an insurmountable mess. This family seems too broken, too hopelessly ruined. How are they even supposed to... this is stupid! What, they're just gonna have inane little small talk? After everything that's happened? After everything Chara's done?

They're impeccably skillful at faking it. But they just... they can't fake it. Not right now.]

You must be terrified. Your typing is a mess.

[Ha! Terrified! Haha! He's shivering with fear. But he can't let Chara know. Not again. Can't be desperate or pleading because it makes them mad. They turn the knife on him. Can't remember what happens next but he just wakes up again.

Always the same.]

I Im fine.

[Stick to text for now. They'll see where he is. Come after him. He doesn't want that. Not yet.]

You don't have to lie to me.

[Fine. Yeah, okay, sure. He's probably doing great right now.]

I know you're scared. I have not forgotten what I did.

[Of course they wouldn't. He hasn't either. Why does it need to be said? But he doesn't... know which timeline Chara's from. They could be from the bad one. They could be just before his own final moments. Or when he encouraged the both of them to go haywire on the entire Underground.]

im nnot scared. cant be.

[He doesn't have a SOUL, right? Can't feel anything, right? So why was he shaking so much?]

are you ok

[How are you? Are you okay?

All these questions there's no happy answer to. Why even bother asking them? This time, they really do just...]

lol

[It's not funny.

They send another a moment later, even if they think they really shouldn't.]

You were scared when you were empty. You cried when you were empty. You cared about Frisk when you were empty. You asked me to let them be happy when you were already empty again.

[He remembers it all. It's not like he could fool Chara, say he didn't, be as good as--

No. Not manipulating. Knowing the right thing to say. But he doesn't remember that last part. Asking them to let Frisk be happy? Maybe a timeline he hadn't encountered. A glitch, a bug, something.

How much did they know? How careful did he need to be?]

you were there.

[Too blunt. Too soon. But he sends it anyway, before sending another;]

or maybe you're not from that time. i dunno. i ssaid a lot of stuff.

I am from the same timeline as Frisk. I'm their Chara.

[Theirs. Like they're a possession. (Ha. That's a pun.) Like there's a filing cabinet crammed full of demons who come when people call their names. Like maybe they're not Asriel's Chara, or they weren't the previous Asriel's Chara. They don't even know if the flower who was here before and the boss monster that were here now are the same person. Maybe one is from the other's future. Maybe he's only a True Reset away from becoming one or the other.]

Whatever they told you they remember, that is what I remember. Our last timeline was the perfectly happy one.

[Fantastic. So they know. They know every word of what he'd said and his claws shake even more, barely able to keep hold on the phone.]

tthey said you were r eally there the whole toime and not in the bad ones but the good ones too and you still

saw me

at the end

[Thanks, Frisk. Really did a great job on that "don't tell him" promise. Gave him all the juicy gossip, didn't you?

They sort of consider lying. Maybe it's already too late for that. Just admitting they were there had been enough to drive him to shut them out utterly when he was here as Flowey. It's surely going to happen again. Maybe it would be easier to just... let him decide, and agree with whatever his interpretation was. It hasn't actually helped, has it, to let the lines blur? Maybe everything would have been so much less painful if they had fought harder to keep insisting they were the one who did the bad things and Frisk was the one who did everything good.

Well. What's done is done now, right?]

They were telling the truth. You were the last thing I saw.

i said a lot of stuff imm sorry i'm just

i hadn't seen you in so longn and

when i did you were

sccary

[Ha. He's panicking again, isn't he? Desperate. Just spouting out words. He should leave them alone, stop responding, just. Stop, altogether. Flowey had disappeared before, hadn't he? Maybe somehow he could do it again.]

Don't apologize.

[They're so sick of "I'm sorry." They hate that it's coming from him when he isn't even the one who messed up. He was the one who had good intentions, right? He was the one who didn't want to hurt anyone. He was the one who knew it would just start a war. He was the one who got to make up for it, break the barrier, set everything right again. Why is he apologizing?

...Fear, probably. Still begging, still thinking he has to be useful to Chara. Pathetic, right?]

You were right. You are right. I'm not at all surprised my actions lead to this conclusion.

[Not now that there's been think to think it over. Not after two soulless beings looked to Frisk for guidance, asked them to prove that "kill or be killed" wasn't the answer, that it was possible to find an answer that didn't mean heartbreak and loss. Not after Frisk really did prove it.]

[He's scared of Chara. This is stupid. Chara wa-- is his sibling. His best friend. To fear something meant you hated it, and he could never hate Chara. He might not have agreed with their plan, what they both did at the time, but nothing after that was any better. Kill or be killed. Tormenting so many, murdering them just because he was curious.

Again and again and again. Chara was just there, probably either helping Frisk or guiding them down the path to destruction. And the latter had been because he'd welcomed it, encouraged it.]

no. no i'm the scary one.

always the flower that tries to kill you when you wake up.

always laughs at you when you almost do.

[Calmer now. Think. Think it through.]

probably pushed you enough to do it.

then we get to the eend

[They're... afraid. No, not afraid. They left fear behind with all their other emotions. But there's a sick, suffocating feeling squirming through their insides. They dread this. They feel like they're standing on the brink of that yawning, bottomless pit, only this time there's nothing happy waiting for them at the bottom. This time, they just fall forever. Never landing, never achieving that bone-shattering impact. Just falling.

Chara doesn't think they can do this right now. But they... ha ha. Being fragile is a luxury. Being a crybaby is a luxury. They don't get to make excuses. They don't get to not be strong enough. They aren't above consequences. They don't get to pretend "but I didn't reach a timeline where" or "but I haven't yet" mean anything. Those are right up there with "I didn't mean to" or "I'm sorry." Stupid nothing-words that don't alter the results of your actions. No looking away from what your choices have wrought, are creating, will someday in your inevitable future come to pass.

They think of a story they once loved. Two lovers, the cauldron of hell, ha ha. The copy in their backpack, the one that the first Asriel to arrive here gave to them.

I wanted it to end, and quickly, but for now I would go see Yuichi. Hear everything he had to say, in detail. But what good would that do? What could come of it? It was not a question of hoping for anything. It would mean being flooded with an even more gigantic despair. Utterly devoid of hope, I rang the doorbell.]

The dustiest timeline.

Tell me what happens. Tell me what I do to you.

[He can never remember. He never knows if he dies or the whole world is just reset but it all just stops. Sometimes he thinks he can feel the knife coming down, ripping his tiny little flower body into bits and pieces. He doesn't even scream. Or maybe that's just those weird timelines where Frisk spares everyone else but kills him, in the end.

No matter what, he always comes back. He always remembers.

But here? Strange. Terrifying. Annoying.

Again, the text scrolls very, very slowly.]

Please don't kill me.

[Creatures like us, he tells them, wouldn't hesitate to kill each other if we got in each other's way. And he's right. Thorny vines, lasers, bullets rip them apart over and over, rapid-fire, saved and reloaded in such rapid succession they can't even keep count of the times they die.

Each time you die, your friends forget you a little more, he tells them. Your life will end here, in a place where no one remembers you, he tells them. And he's right. Nobody but him says their name. They die and they die and they die, until their name is nothing more than faded letters on a coffin that doesn't even contain anything but a few old bandages. They die, and nobody in their village remembers that the bed of golden flowers was their favourite. They die, and Asriel forgets them too, finds what he was really wishing for all along.

You've probably heard this a thousand times already, he tells them, even though it's the first. He's not right, but he is right, isn't he? They will hear it again. They will do everything he thinks they will. They won't let go, won't let anyone be happy, because people like them will NEVER be happy.

Some timelines, they choose Fight over Mercy. They impose that painful, pointless fate onto him, too. Forget him a little more. End his life in a place where nobody remembers him. Attack, because he stands between them and escaping. His smile is resplendent with glee as he crows that he knew they had it in them. He doesn't beg for his life. He's only afraid when it's... when...

They do not allow themselves to look away. They sear those words into their brain, even when their hands shake too badly to read clearly. This is different from those timelines. This is the timeline where he's sure it's them. No other timeline matters. Nothing anyone has said to them here matters. Nothing in the world will ever matter except for the four words that stare up at them until the phone clatters uselessly from their hands, bounces off the floor.

This is what you really are, Chara.]

[There is no message sent in response.]

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