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[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?

We'll have to move into the woods outside Snowdin. Only, we don't have any parents who'd bring us packed lunches, so we'll have to be like Snowy and mooch off of everyone else.

[Teens, man. That's how it works. It's science. They keep their back to Frisk, but they inject that mocking, just-kidding air into their voice again.]

We'll be officially too old to use "we're just kids" as an excuse.

You can be a teenager and a kid, right? Some people here are way older, and we must still seem like kids to them no matter what.

[Like Sans. They're not sure how old he is, or how old skeletons can get to be anyway, but he's got that world-weary disposition that most adults have, so they just kind of assumed he was basically an adult. And like Undyne and Alphys and Papyrus, though Papyrus seems more like a big brother than an adult in a lot of ways.]

Speak for yourself. I'm mature for my age. I don't think I've ever seemed like a kid to anyone.

[Not even themselves, honestly.]

Maybe we won't be allowed to wear striped shirts anymore. Wonder what the uniform is for teenagers. Plaid, maybe?

Polka-dots.

[Frisk grins at the mental image.]

Or heart-shapes, or teddy-bears.

[They look down at their shirt. Blue stripes on teal today. They don't want to give up stripes; they really like stripes. And they're pretty sure Chara doesn't want to give up stripes either.]

If those socks were your way of hinting that the teenager pattern of choice is going to be skeletons, then I'm already renouncing teenagerhood forever.

[You'd think they'd like wearing something as morbid as a skeleton, but considering their company around here... they think of the stupid smug jokes Sans would make, and how Papyrus would probably excitedly decide to wear little human patterns on his own clothes, and... they let out a short-lived little snort of laughter, more a puff of air than an actual giggle.]

[Oh dear, is Chara, the "enjoy-less demon," expressing amusement? It totally counts as a laugh. Frisk is counting it.]

Maybe that's the secret we've been missing all along! Humans - descended from skeletons, just like Papyrus said!

I mean... I guess you could argue that all humans become skeletons once they grow up enough, could you? You might be onto something.

[If anyone ever tore up that bed of golden flowers and started digging, they'd probably find out Chara's a skeleton right now - whoa. Whoa, too morbid. Way too morbid. Kind of gross. Reverse. Undo.]

Don't tell Papyrus.

[Really morbid, yeah, but Frisk is pretty bent on turning everything into a joke right now. It's that kind of lighthearted day.]

Why, there might even be a skeleton in the same room as you. Right now.

Nah. I doubt it. If there was, it'd smell a lot more like tomatoes.

[Stale crusty ketchup stains, marinara sauce dabbed behind an ear(?), take your pick. They let themselves uncurl again, return to lying on their back. Maybe kind of glance in Frisk's direction.]

I bet that's what your birthday cake will be. Cold spaghetti congealed into a cylinder, slathered in ketchup frosting.

Don't say that!

[But they're snickering as they say it, because well, that's exactly the sort of thing Papyrus would make.]

If that's my birthday cake, it's yours too. That means we both have to finish a delicious slice!

I'd love to, but alas. I am a demon, and demons cannot taste.

[At last, their cunning ruse comes to fruition.]

Anyway, I already know I'm not getting one. I don't need any worthless pity!

Oh, please. You'll get a chocolate something on that day. Everyone knows you like the taste.

What? No they don't!

[They got chocolate ice cream the date they came here. They asked for cocoa after they died. Was that enough of a tell? Did Max tell Souji tell everyone else, arrive at the shared consensus that Chara liked a thing? Or did Frisk go and blab?]

Nobody else saw the chocolate in Toriel's fridge. Nobody else knows I have a stash here. Nobody else ever heard me say no chocolate.

[Right? They're feeling embarrassed, they think - their face is feeling hot - but they can't even begin to guess why this is embarrassing.]

You're always carrying those bars around like we're gonna have a chocolate shortage at any minute!

[Maybe it was subtle at first, but they know quite a few people who happen to be more observant than either of them give them credit for.]

Our friends have eyes you know.

Since when were they "our" friends?!

[Chara rolls over again. This time, flipping onto their stomach so they can bury their face in their arms. They can duck behind their bangs or wear an inscrutable smile or use deceptive words all they like, but there's no undoing the tell of a far-too-rosy face.]

That's just - it's for emergencies. It's normal to keep something to eat in your inventory, right?

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