lifenet | 8th || Sharing is Caring!

[There's no such thing as "accidentally" calling everyone on the Far Stones. One must have consciously made the decision to speak to everyone, like a walkie-talkie that can't be turned off on the receiving end. So when Chara speaks to- everyone, it is with full awareness that they are, in fact, speaking to everyone.]

Poisonous flowers are curious things, did you know? [Which is why they start off on such a chipper note!] For many, it is the act of ingesting them which causes illness or fatality. For others, however... the simple act of prolonged contact is enough- toxins are absorbed through the skin.

Death can take anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks. [By golly, they sound happy about this.] So it's a frightfully good idea to invest in some gardening gloves, should you wish to transplant any flora from Ziziphus to another locale. It could be the difference between a new garden and your rather unfortunate demise.

[Anyways everything's totally chill. Chara's totally fine and absolutely nothing is wrong ever, they just like making these kinds of announcements for kicks. It has Absolutely Nothing to do with failing to request gloves of their own.

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Precisely. The symptoms haven't progressed to that stage yet, but they will.

[Right now, it simply feels as if their skin is on fire; their hands (their cheek, where they hadn't paid attention, lifted one of the pots up, allowed the plant to brush their skin) tacky, red from burning.]

Look on the bright side, Partner.

We'll finally be even.

[At that, they bark a laugh, familiar only in the way it was behind flying fists, and for a miserable few moments Frisk]

[just doesn't know what to do.]

[Because Chara hates them. Frisk knows they do, because Frisk said they hated Chara, and it doesn't matter if they meant it or not because for Chara, being hated is the only certainty. It's the only determination that they can expect or accept. Frisk doesn't get to RESET this. They don't get to fix it.]

[They are, as ever, not above consequences.]

[Their voice starts up again, and it's a little watery this time, the dull edges chipped away by sheer exhaustion. But though it wavers, they don't. They cut to the heart of it. They still don't know any other way.]

Did I make you do this?

Always willing to take credit for everything. [It's...almost fond, if not exasperated. Why wouldn't Frisk attempt to take the blame for this one, when they've already caused so much damage? That's just the way things work.] No. You didn't make me do this.

...It was an accident.

[There's a pause- a lag in the conversation where Chara doesn't know quite what to say. To the person they used to feel they could say anything to.

Isn't that nostalgic?]

I don't mind it, Frisk. Dying. But I didn't intentionally seek it out, this time. I-

Don't know. If I really want to, anymore. Seek it out.

[There's silence for a few seconds. Frisk isn't sure what it sounds like, or what they mean it to. Cold? Indignant? Bitter? That Chara is allowed their crisis, now, that Frisk had ruined everything by entertaining a few steps too early?]

[The temptation to be angry is there. But in the end, they can't be. Not when the memory of poison crawling in their veins like wire and fire ants pulses in their head with empathy. They can't hold on to that bitter, petty anger when someone they don't really hate at all is suffering. Frisk finally responds, and it's a slow exhale, like maybe they don't really believe Chara. One way or another. But if that's what it means, they don't say as much.]

It wasn't the poison that did it, you know. Back in the castle.

[Sans, clawing at blighted hounds with bones, his eye sockets wide and flashing as their vision filled with red light and shadows --]

You don't have to QUIT just yet.

Then maybe I won’t. [Would that be something. Chara Dreemurr, doing their very best not to die? The world must be ending. Hell has frozen solid, leaving two children to stare into the cauldron to hell in utter bewilderment.

Haha. They’d be laughing, except they aren’t. Tightening their grip on their stone and staring off into nothing, stuck on what to say now. Frisk hates them. They should be angry about it- about that and everything that’s come before it, but they aren’t. Maybe they’re too ill to be angry. Too tired to bother.

A good portion of them is distracted, trying to figure out if they want Frisk here, or want to be left alone. What’s the words, here? What do they want to say? I miss you? Just leave me be?

The second doesn’t sound right. The first--
they might never be capable of saying.
They’re not ready.]

But then, since I don’t ask enough-

Would you prefer I die? Or do I have your approval to stick around?

[They laugh. It's soft, and utterly humorless, but it's not really angry, either. They never really did master the way of communicating themself through torrid peals of laughter the way their Partner did.]

[It's just a noise. It's still just them.]

Aren't you tired of following me yet?

[They are. They're tired of making the wrong decisions.]

I would prefer you have a choice.

At least once.

[Torrid peals of laughter never sound right when you're tired, anyway. Frisk's answer is silence, at first- just the gentle, repetitive tapping of a fingernail against stone whilst Chara stares off into the distance, considering their answer.]

My choice

Is Frisk. No more Kittu. No more Kidwun, at that. If you're truly set on letting go of that dream, then we embrace our consequences.

[The consequences of being- them. Frisk and Chara; the child who freed the Underground. The future of humans and monsters. Angels, demons-- just kids.

And everything that's come from attempting not to be.]

All of them, Partner.

[All of them.]

[Hopes and Dreams. Warped into their best nightmare. Even now, with the memory of mottled, bitter purple, Frisk feels like... they think... they did the best they could. They really, really tried. They just wanted everyone to be happy. Themself. Chara. Everyone.]

[Sans.]

[They were all going to be free.]

I know that, [they say, sharply, with something that cuts them more sharply than it leaves their tongue. At least it feels that way.]

[They get it now, maybe; but it's the lesson they're not sure that they ever really get. Because they just seem to keep learning it over and over. Everything has consequences. Even when they try to do everything they can to make everyone happy, it still comes with consequences, a thing that bleeds when they tear it open. Because a part of them is still being selfish. Is that ever going to stop? Are they just... ?]

[...]

Chara.

I don't know how to make everyone happy. I keep thinking I do, but I'm wrong all the time. I don't know what I want for everyone.

I don't want you to die.

[Do they really?

No, Chara thinks. Not nearly well enough. If they truly understood it, they wouldn't be discussing things as they are. They don't know what they want, Frisk says, for everybody else. Is it cruel, to correct them?]

I'm not asking about everyone. Just us. [Chara corrects regardless. They are so, so tired of this. Of owing everything to someone else. Doing everything, for everyone else. Being told what they are. What they should be. And every little contradiction that's come with it. They're so. Tired.
They are far beyond the point of pretending they can control more than that. If the world wishes to know what they want for others, it can ask. Frisk could ask.

It won't.]
[They won't.]
The rest of the world- since when has it cared about either of us? The future of humans and monsters? Our future? Our Angels. Did it ever care what we wanted? Did they?

Forget the world, Frisk. It never remembered us, ever. And if I'm to live, it shall be because I decided to. Because you want me to.

Let the world take care of itself, for once. I'm done taking responsibility for it.

8th || Sharing is Caring!

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