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You forgot?! How could he be so easily defeaaaaaated!

[Hots Coolguy. Chara pls.]

Wow, Coldman Browbeats, don't take it so personally. We can't even get the hang of remembering our own names.

I guess you've got a good point.

[They sit up straight, and what's this? The notebook is ~gone.

Well, no, it's under their bed. But for all intents and purposes, it's ~gone.]

Was that you forgetting Heats Flamesman half the time, or me?

[What to heck ????

Did they cram it into a Dimensional Box? WHAT SORCERY IS THIS. Chara's... totally not casting looks all over the floor or anything. They're subtle. Super subtle.]

It didn't change anything if you remembered Fires Grillguy or not. Unnecessary information. Why waste time on it, right?

It clearly mattered to him.

[They can't help but be a little amused that Chara's so clearly trying to pick up where they left off, but Frisk crosses their legs and sits there, perfectly innocent.]

Anyway. You excited for your birthday?

[They narrow their eyes suspiciously at Frisk. Have they just been outsmarted? Bamboozled?? Tricked?! Where did it go.]

...Nah. It's not really my birthday, right? We're just pretending I have one.

Right! So it's like your birthday either way!

[Can't argue with logic, Chara! Logic.]

Whatever. Birthdays are stupid, anyway.

[They say, lying through their teeth.]

If you get invited to a birthday party, and the present you bring isn't good enough, then you have to let the birthday person go to your house and take YOUR stuff. And if it's your birthday, there's a tradition called the birthday bumps. They pick you up, and they swing you a bit, and then they throw you down the stairs.

...I don't think that's true.

[Frisk cocks their head to one side. It's true they haven't had a lot of fondly memorable birthdays, but "birthday bumps" sounds a bit much.]

Your birthdays weren't like that, were they?

It's definitely super true.

Anyway, I told you: I don't have birthdays. I willed myself into existence at age... what did I say? 200? As a demon, I have actually existed since before time itself came into being. I merely adopt a new name and face, and therefore a new identity, when I am summoned. You know, for kicks. Because variety is the spice of life.

[Frisk rolls their eyes. Fine, fine.]

Then I guess I'll have to try super hard to make your birthday extra-special, since it's your first one yet. Right?

Your birthday. ...Our birthday.

It's going to be the first real one you've had, right? Shouldn't you be concerned with making it special for yourself?

It'll be special! It'll be special because I've never had anyone to celebrate it with before.

[There it goes, Frisk's saccharine delight frothing out all over again. Except it's one hundred percent genuine.]

...I still find it so strange to think you didn't have friends before you fell. All you ever do is please people. I don't think anyone here dislikes you even a little bit.

[They lie back down on the floor, look at the ceiling. Easier to fix themselves on than Frisk's sugary-sweet sentimentality.]

I bet it was like Papyrus. He talked like he didn't have friends when you first met him, but he had Undyne and Sans and... actually, pretty much everybody loves him.

[All it took was killing him, after all, to ensure an ending where monsterkind was not willing to greet future fallen humans as friends. Right?]

It was harder to make friends on the surface. Not a lot of people...um, not a lot of people wanted to listen to anything a little kid had to say.

[It's painful to admit it, painful to think about, but...well, Chara understands where they come from, a little bit, they think.]

[They consider asking about other little kids, people their own age, but...

You're not like other kids, Chara, their parents tell them, and it turns out to be true. Sometimes the things they talk about are creepy to other kids. Like the normal, everyday things that happen to them are incomprehensible, frightening, abnormal. They can't join the soccer team, because uniforms and cleats cost money, because the very notion of your parents picking you up and dropping you off is laughable.

Your parents don't like the idea of you being too far from their supervision, and you're such a little hellion, so you're grounded all the time. Even if your presence only ever seems to be a bother, a burden, an annoyance. Can't go out on weekends, have to come straight home from school, they go through your backpack, dig through your room, read your emails.]

You just... can't talk to people, right? You can't do sleepovers, summer camp, can't go to the movies... you miss out on all the things they talk about. Even when you're around them, you can't think of anything to say.

[Ha...ha. Yeah. Frisk pulls their knees up to their chest and wrap their arms around them, propping their chin atop one kneecap.

Somehow they knew Chara would get it. Their words resonate with them a little too fiercely, too closely, too firmly, but they don't mind talking about this with Chara, so much. Chara understands it.]

Yeah. Once you do go out...there's nothing to do, is there? You always have to go back anyway. It's like there's no point.

Why even try, right?

[Frisk... agrees. Understands. It's... they don't know how they feel about that. Don't look over. Just keep staring at the ceiling.]

I thought it didn't work for me because I was mean. Bad. Whatever. Nobody wants to be around someone who's awful, right?

[That smile doesn't fool anyone. You're not nice, or polite, or cheerful, you're just pretending. Being a liar, a sneak. Two-faced. But Frisk... they do it right, don't they? They're optimistic, they're sunny, they're sweet. They get along with people. They try really hard to understand people. The idea that they didn't get understood back, even despite that, is...]

It's... is it different here, though? Are people any... I don't know, easier to...?

Humans are...humans are weird.

[They laugh. It sounds so ridiculous. Humans are weird. But they are, aren't they?]

They get mad when you try to fit in, and they laugh at you when you don't. Sometimes they're all awful together in a group, and it's okay for them to be, but when you say anything back to them it's wrong.

I guess...a lot of them are better here, right? Like Dipper, and Mabel.

[They laugh too. It's a dead, heavy sound. Asriel says monsters are weird, because they care about you so much even before they know you. Frisk says humans are weird, and... haha, they're exactly right. There's never a right answer around humans. They're justified, they're right, and you're fundamentally just... wrong. Made all wrong. You deserve what they do to you.]

Dipper's... not awful. I guess.

[They don't mention Mabel. They're not so easily won over.]

They didn't just... leave without me, after you... back in the caves.

[They should be used to saying "died." Should be so used to death they don't even hesitate anymore.]

I don't really get why. Everyone was scared of me. I was dangerous to them without you keeping me leashed.

[Not awful. Well, in Chara terms, that's practically a commendation.]

Because they care about you, I think. And you must've been...hurt. And scared. And you didn't hurt them at all, even if I wasn't there.

[They don't want to spell it out, lest they jinx it, but...that sounds an awful lot like something Chara did all on their own, not hurting anyone.]

[Silence. Trailing ellipses. They... don't know how to answer.

They can't wrap their head around the idea. They care about Chara? Not a chance, right? Not a chance. Chara... was hurt? No, that can't be right either. Chara was scary. The biggest threat in the room. The one last obstacle to everyone making it out of this okay, just like every other timeline. They can't even begin to pick out how they felt, to try and assign order and clarity to that moment. It's... there were names being said, they think, and they recognized people being scared, and there was a hand on their shoulder.]

They care about you. I'm... I'm pretty sure about that. They tried really hard.

...Always the human children who have to keep it together, right?

I don't know what happened after I died. I wish I could say, but...I think that they wouldn't have tried to help you if they didn't care a little bit, right?

[After all, Frisk was dead at that point. They were dead and there were no appearances to be maintained on anyone's behalf. No pretending to care, no pretending not to hurt people.

And still, everyone else got out all right. That's a good thing, right?]

[They don't know, but... they sort of think if the Pines hadn't been there, it would have been easy. Easy to cut down Alphys for not saying Frisk's name, for shirking away in fear from them, for their own wild misplaced fury and bewilderment that the whole entire world just ended, in Chara's eyes, but it all still kept going. That nobody mourned the human child, that nobody stopped. Easy to cut down Sans for failing to keep his promise, just like he always fails to keep it, for every time he wears that stupid smile has he says they haven't died even once, right? Easy to be furious that he waits for them to go back like it's their job to fix it, like it's all just about a timeline where Papyrus is fine, like it doesn't matter what dying feels like for Frisk, because dying is their job.

They shift a little. No more being sprawled out on the floor, wide-open. They roll away from Frisk, curl in on themselves.

They want to ask Frisk if being dead felt different that time. If it was lonelier. If they heard anyone trying to pull them back, trying to keep them determined, or if it was only darkness and silence and wind rushing around them.

They don't.]

Gonna invite them to your birthday? They're turning 14. They're not growing up either, but they're already teenagers.

'Course! They're our friends.

[They're turning fourteen. Aging is weird here. Never mind the questions of how old Frisk and Chara are, really. They can't really say, so they stick with twelve. Except they'll be thirteen.

A teenager.]

I guess we'll be teenagers too, huh?

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