* Despite everything, it's still you. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
determinedest) wrote2016-02-01 10:14 pm
determinedest) wrote2016-02-01 10:14 pm
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You've reached Frisk. If I'm not answering my phone, please leave a message or find me on the second floor, Room 12.
( text | audio | video | or literally anything )
BOY HOWDY
[Every time they reached for a save point, were reminded of things that filled them with determination. Every time they desperately wolfed down a Cinnamon Bunny, a Hot Cat, a Starfait. It got rid of the damage, didn't it? Hid the hurt under long sleeves, under a soothing patina of healing magic. Blipped it right out of the timeline with a LOAD.
But that didn't necessarily make it better.]
They know things about you that even I don't know.
[Their approach is sort of faltering, hesitant, like they're not sure if Frisk wants anyone near them or if closeness is something that will comfort. Slow, uncertain steps that sort of bring them just... standing next to Frisk's bed, pausing before any more steps occur. Waiting for permission.]
I saw it, and I... it felt like the Surface felt.
[Only there wasn't a "but nobody came," right? They should feel all better, because look how many people care about them! Came to save them! Love fixes it! There's future-goo and friendship, so it's over now. Bigger problems to worry about. Onto the next crisis to fix, right?]
I don't think it feels that "okay" at all.
oFF TO A GOOD START
Chara draws closer with that slow, precise way that indicates they're not about to do anything without Frisk's say-so. Not about to draw closer. Frisk shuts their notebook with a quiet snap of aligning edges, shifts to the side in tacit invitation for them to sit beside them.
Felt like the Surface felt.
Again, the muscles in their face twitch as they attempt to smile, but it's cracked and bitter and as wrung-out as they feel.]
It's...not. You're right. It's not.
[They wrap their arms around their chest loosely and try not to feel like that's the only thing keeping them together.]
They knew exactly how to make it hurt. Didn't hesitate. Enjoyed it.
[Their gaze flicks back up to Chara, bizarrely apologetic.]
I wish you - you shouldn't have to have seen that.
no subject
[Nothing is worse than having it happen in secret. Can't tell anyone, feel inexplicably like you're the one who has to feel guilty about it, not the ones doing it. Sorry my pain is so untidy to look at! I'll keep it neatly put away, promise!
The notebook's shut, the graphite void all tucked out of sight, and there's a space for them now, so Chara sits. Leans against Frisk's side, another one of those half-steps. Always trying to feel out the boundaries without crashing into them. Touch that's easy to escape from, that doesn't involve grasping hands on tender skin.
Chara hesitates, lost on what to say next. It's just a mirror, an imitation, no different from all those other Frisks they met - not their partner, just trying to take away every blank Frisk finally allowed themselves to fill. But that iteration, those memories, that pragmatism... they're all a Frisk that Chara once followed. Once helped wholeheartedly, fixed on cutting down whatever dared to hurt them. Maybe there was a time when Frisk was exactly that - hated the parasite that pulled towards the FIGHT button, despised that loathsome violent creature, was bent on making sure nobody thought they were like that thing at all.
Is it hypocritical of them to hate that mirror so vehemently, but love Frisk so much?]
Frisk... how did it happen? Why didn't you...
["Run away? Call me? Cry for help?"
It pangs bittersweetly. Reminds them of shaking hands taping a bandage to their sliced-open face, reminds them of laughing sharply as they viciously dragged their fingers through their hair, tore the matted, clotted strands apart.
They abandon that sentence. Refuse to finish it. This was not Frisk's fault.]
I don't understand that mirror at all. They believe so firmly that they haven't sunk as low as I sunk, but neither you nor Asriel were in their way. You did nothing wrong. There was no reason to hurt you. Hurting you was just... it was a reason in and of itself.
["Do you really hate yourself that much?"
They don't need to ask it.
They know what the answer is.]
no subject
They shrug with one shoulder, limply.]
I don't think it mattered, whatever they might believe. They knew that if anyone died - if anyone did anything to protect me, I'd feel guilty about it. I think they just wanted to prove how much of a...how bad I am at...
[Well, they don't need to say it. It shone through pretty clear and obvious, didn't it? There's still bruises and ribs that hurt and scratches on their arms and their face, welts hidden by their hair. Their hands work, but the words that were said, the people that still hurt - that can't ever really be fixed. No matter what they say or do.]
Not that they really needed to. They kept telling me to FIGHT back.
["Fight back," the Mirror snarled with a swipe of their Dagger, aiming for the Real's midsection.
"No," said Frisk, neatly stepping back to avoid the arc of the blade as it carved through the air.
Their face was wholly unrecognizable, its expression contorted and enraged and hateful as they practically spat the words out, "FIGHT BACK."
"No."
But in the end, it hadn't mattered. They got to them eventually. No amount of sparing or pleading or arguing had put a stop to what was inevitable.]
And I kept telling them I wouldn't.
no subject
[They ask, even if they know they should be well above asking right now. All the timelines where Frisk fought back weren't the real ones, the ones that count. They haven't gained a shred of EXP since they came here, since there was objective proof that it wouldn't be Chara's influence on the body.
They already got shown this lesson on a flowerbed a long time ago. A monster who did nothing wrong got struck, and struck, and struck. He smiled and quietly accepted death. The kind of person who really could free everyone, who could be so good they deserved their own name, would only ever ACT. Never MERCY like Toriel's, only trying to wear them down into running. Nodding quietly and letting their SOUL keep cracking. Telling Asgore he's killed them too many times to count.
Good people don't defend themselves.
Self-preservation is selfishness.]
You still could have spared them. You fought back against Flowey, but you didn't kill him. You fought back against Asgore, but you tried to spare him.
[They argue anyway.
They hate seeing this. Hate Frisk getting hurt for no reason.]
Was it really worth proving a point?
no subject
[They smile, short, sharp, and bitter. As if it really needs saying. To FIGHT back, even to protect yourself - that is a heinous act, something that strands you behind barriers of judgment and misery and bad endings. And there was always the lingering fear, of - of how that was exactly what the Mirror wanted. To grin and laugh and say they knew Frisk had it in them! But they already knew that they did. What would they prove by exposing that again, that hard edge, that capability for destruction?]
I could've, maybe. But it was like -
[They raise one hand as they try to illustrate something they know can't be outlined.]
Determination vs. Determination. You know how it is. I don't know how long we were just...overwriting each other. But they were willing to do...more than I was. Willing to hurt me more than I was to hurt them.
[Couldn't risk it. Not even to defend themselves. Frisk's shoulders hunch, and their hand drops.]
And I couldn't know if they were - if that was what they wanted. If me killing them was what they were after all along.
no subject
They don't think there's any use in trying to beg them to do anything differently. Carry a weapon and don't give it away. Keep things in your inventory. Don't drop your guard. So the answer's... be the badness for them. Be the ferocity that will keep Frisk safe for Frisk, right? It's not like they believe Frisk is helpless, is incapable of doing anything but hiding behind anyone, but... if they're defenseless by choice, then...
They don't want this to happen anymore.
Chara exhales, tries to focus on the warm weight against their shoulder. Propping each other up.]
Then, Frisk... do you forgive them?
no subject
[It scares them a little, to say it out loud. They don't know. And they don't know. They've gotten so used to wearing the bandages on their hands, after weeks of the same, weeks of different injuries being inflicted upon those fragile fingers, that they think they might just leave them there indefinitely. Just because they can.
They breathe out slowly, brow furrowing.]
I can forgive them for hurting me. I'm not sure I can forgive them for hurting everyone else. They are...they're me. They're a me who existed. They just chose not to deny it and change it like I did.
I don't know if I - if I can forgive that, does that mean I forgive myself? After everything I've done? Everything they've done. Everything they did and laughed while they did it, I -
{They always knew, of course. They always knew that unpleasantness was boiling away under the surface. That was what everyone had been afraid of, rightfully so. They were cruel and horrible and had to be constrained. But it's different to see it. To come into contact with it so directly, so barefacedly. To look into what you are and know that you hate what you see but being unable to bury it beneath layers of flat expressionlessness or laughter or playing along with whatever wacky scheme Undyne and Papyrus have concocted next.
It's different when it's real.]
no subject
So... that's the question, isn't it? Can you forgive yourself?]
You've done awful things, but you are not the one who snapped your fingers. I know it... may not be right to draw lines, to only focus on certain things, but I'm only talking to a Frisk who is LV1 right now. Do you understand what I mean?
[They don't think either of them will forgive themselves for the sins burying their past in ash and dust. But what they want to talk about... it isn't what you did but what was done to you. Chara knows it's the easiest thing in the world to get Frisk fixating on what was their fault, what they shouldn't have done or should have been able to prevent. They think the mirror knows that, too.
They have no intention of letting it have what it wants.]
They may be what you once were, but they are not what you have shaped yourself into. What you choose to be - what Frisk is. And if... you forgive them for hurting you, then you do forgive yourself, don't you? You must recognize that you are not like that anymore.
no subject
And it is, isn't it? Might be LV 1, might be LV 14, but that capacity to hurt, that capability to do horrible things is still there. All they have is choosing not to give in to it, and continuing to choose it. There's no period where they stop being that hateful thing. No period where they stop being the thing that killed everyone.
They will never forgive themself, they think. They don't think they should. All they can do is hope that they can lessen the grief they've inflicted, the pain they've caused, knowing it will never truly redeem them.]
Maybe I'm not like that where everyone can see, but I'm...I'm still them. Despite everything, right?
[Didn't matter how many monsters they killed. It was always still them in New Home when they looked into that mirror, unless they well and truly committed to tearing the entire Underground apart. Then someone else would take up that mantle of self-hatred in their stead, wouldn't they?
Their hands pull into fists, bandages blunting the bite of nails into skin.]
Of course I'm still them. Why do you think they went for the hands?
[Because that's where Frisk always goes first.]
no subject
I'm... I don't think I'm saying this right.
[They don't know how to comfort. Never did, really. Only how to parrot other people's words.]
A buttercup has the potential to hurt you, but only if you eat it.
[Maybe that's too morbid.]
Asgore had the potential to absorb all six SOULs and lash out at you with the full force of 80 AT, but he chose not to. You, too, have been... what was it that you said? Being good is a choice, and it is one you have made far more consistently than the mirror version of you seems to have.
[...They don't know if that's helping at all. They shake their head, bite back a stab of irritation at... at themselves, probably?]
I'm not letting you use this as an excuse to beat yourself up, too. You've done quite enough of that already. This is about your mirror's decisions, not yours.
no subject
[Liar.]
I do.
[Liar.]
But it's...not that easy, right? I mean, would you believe it if I said the same thing about you? About how you've got the potential to be bad but you're also good? You...I could never be afraid of you, not the way I was of my Mirror. Still am afraid.
[It's...maybe it makes sense. Maybe it does. Maybe Chara's right. But can they really afford to take a chance if they aren't? Can they afford to pretend that they can be good, can play along, that they're not a ticking timebomb waiting to self-destruct at the mildest inconvenience?]
But if I told you that, that same thing was true about you...would you believe it?
no subject
But... no matter what they say here, they can't answer without proving Frisk right, can they?
They can't... they can't be a hypocrite. Can't try to argue something they don't believe. Can't fake like they don't believe some people have been so corrupted by what was done to them that they're forever unclean, impure, unfixable. Can't act like there's no such thing as just being born all wrong when they're the walking definition of born wrong.
So they lapse into defeated silence. Say nothing at all.
They know fake cheeriness is just annoying. Know that "but I like you" doesn't cure viral self-loathing.
They're glad they smashed the mirror. This feels a lot like losing to the mirror-Frisk.]
...Frisk.
Do you forgive your parents?
no subject
Silence. Silence. Silence. Chara tries to protest, opens their mouth, and comes up empty. It feels wrong to have thrown that at them, to have flung their own hatred and loathing of who they are back in their face. It's exactly what the pair of them do. Love each other, even if they can't love themselves. Forgive each other, seek out the goodness in each other, even when it seems like there's nothing forgivable inside them.
Can they keep doing that forever? Keep going that way, propping each other up, sufficing for believing in each other because they can't believe in themselves?
But what're they doing now, exactly? Leaning on each other for support, sharing words for comfort. Words that neither of them believe.
Frisk tenses, hates themself for tensing, for their muscles clenching up and going rigid like they're back in those homogeneous rooms, their Mirror hiss words they both remembered.]
I don't really think about them.
[They don't consciously think about them. Their mind still defaults to that fried circuit, though, still reminds them that they will never truly be free of that which made them...this.]
I don't ever really wanna think about them, [they amend quietly.]
no subject
Doesn't Frisk forgive everyone who hurts them? Isn't that what goodness is? They forgive their mirror for hurting them.
Chara doesn't forgive theirs. Still hates. Still seethes with a feeling that might tear them to pieces when they think of the righteous punishing anger on their faces as they hit a child, hit a monster who carried their body back home. Still can't sleep for all the nightmares, all the paranoid memories of roving fingers and a weight creaking their mattress - still feels, even with someone at the other side of the room and a door that locks, like each noise of the mansion settling is someone ready to creep into the room.]
I'm just like mine.
[An admission that makes them sick.
That's... that's as close to an argument as they can offer. They became what their parents were. In their case, they'd been doomed from the start of it. Born in their image, molded to their liking. It wrenches in their gut, rakes over their back like Toriel's screeching, pained laughter as she cried that they really are no different than them!]
Maybe that's why I can't forgive myself. Because I'll never, ever forgive them. I hate them.
I hate them.
I don't... I don't care about forgiving everyone who hurts me. I don't forgive your mirror at all.
no subject
[Again they go stiff, shifting, wanting to flinch and stare at Chara and hold their shoulders with both hands and shake them, shake that awful thought out of them.
They're not sure if they...if they've given their parents, those people, enough thought to consider whether they would forgive them. Why...why should they? Do they hate them? Do they? Isn't it just easier to not think about them at all, not spare them their hatred or their anger or their frustration or their guilt, for not being the child they must have wanted, the one that deserved their love and appreciation and understanding?
They don't think about them. Don't like to think about them.]
You're not like them. My mirror, or your parents. You don't - you don't hurt people just because you can. You hurt people only when you got hurt, and then you just - there was nothing else to do, it felt like, but hurt them back.
[Their breath has gotten tight, too bright and too rapid, fingernails picking at the cloth of the bandages with a renewed fervor.]
'Cause the world, it...'cause everyone fought you, and hurt you. So you, you had to protect yourself. There's no shame in protecting yourself. You had to. You had to. And when monsters...we didn't know. We couldn't have known.
[That monsters were good, that intent means everything, that they would FIGHT back but never would have felt like they had to if humans hadn't put them there in the first place. Right?]
no subject
[They'd lived among monsters for - for years.]
* This monster is too timid to fight.
* It seems evil, but it's just with the wrong crowd...
* It's so excited that it thinks fighting is just play.
* Mistakenly believes its lava can heal people.
I knew, but I hurt them all anyway.
[They can't hide behind an excuse, can't plead ignorance. They knew better, but they chose that anyway. Played along, embraced the lesson that had been written in the dust wholeheartedly. They'd already been shown that it's better to be ripped to smiling pieces, go to ashes all over the garden, than to so much as scratch anyone who harms you, but that didn't stop them. Didn't keep them from listening to everything Flowey pushed them to learn, didn't keep them from hunting down every last monster, spreading their roots all over the Underground and reducing it to a cherry-red number that ticked lower and lower.
They sit like dead weight against Frisk's stiff, uneasy side. Smile at nothing in particular.]
If you can tell a thing like me that there's no shame in protecting yourself... what about you, Frisk? How can I believe that at all when we both know you chose not to FIGHT?
no subject
[And even with the knowledge Chara fed them, the descriptions of monsters that must have had homes and families and people that loved them, Frisk had cut swatches through them anyway. Simply because they could, and because they could, they "had" to.]
Maybe 'cause I...'cause I wish I did FIGHT back. Not the monsters. My...
[The word sticks there, clotting in their throat. It's wrong. It's wrong.]
My p-parents. I wish I'd...done something. Anything. Not just sitting there and taking it. Running away, and then coming back because I always - where else was I gonna go?
[It hurts. Hard to talk about, think about. Why they never talk frankly about this.]
Did me just...just sitting there and letting them do whatever they - did that make it okay? If I'd said something, done something, m-maybe they would've stopped. Maybe they would've seen how bad it was. But I never did. I never said anything. I could've, but I -
[Little children who aren't willing to fight for what they want... deserve what they get.
They must've always had it coming, hadn't they?]
continuing trend of cw EVERYTHING POSSIBLE
[They spit it furiously, vehemently. More sure about that than they've ever been about anything, because they had every second of trying to live like that carved into them. It isn't okay. It's not. It's hell to live that way. Nobody should ever have to.]
...I... tried it your way. Before I...
[Fell. It comes out faltering, stumbly, in fits. Like they can only vomit up the poison one heave at a time.]
I called out for help.
[Spare the rod and spoil the child. I'm sure they still love you, Chara, I'm sure they have your best interests at heart. It won't happen again. But they're such nice folks, Chara. You really are a difficult child, inventing stories like that. Don't you know the kind of trouble you could cause for your family?
Frisk knows how it ends.
* But nobody came.]
I tried running away.
[Loitering in diners until the waitresses got suspicious, trying to avoid eye contact with the truck drivers who asked what a girl like them is doing out so late at night, because only girls wear makeup, because girls can say they're 16 when they're nowhere near that, not even close, but 16 year old girls can get away with sneaking out at night, and it still feels like a slap to the face every time someone pins that word against their flesh.]
I tried begging, pleading. Tried to be so good I never made them mad at me. Tried to be so quiet and out of the way they never tried to- to love me.
[Wish they really could have been an angel, because wings would have made them light enough to tiptoe across those eggshells without ever breaking one. But when they know you run away, they don't let you lock your door. They search your room. They never take away the scissors or count their disposable razors, because they don't notice or don't care, but they take away the food you try to hide, the change you try to save up to get out of this place, the pamphlet you slid up your sleeve during a church retreat. They punish you all the same.]
They always had power over us, didn't they? Never showed an ounce of MERCY, no matter what pathetic little token resistance we managed to put up.
...You know what happened when I tried to FIGHT.
[Just six. Six who deserved it, hateful, wretched creatures who had crimes to answer for. Who should have been grateful that their evil existences would be able to accomplish one good thing, at least, would be able to atone in their last moments. Buy themselves a place in heaven. Vanish, and leave room for the good, compassionate monsters they locked away.
Ha ha.]
It just made us tall enough that I could look into my father's eyes as he took a swing.
[Locked immobile by Asriel's will, feeling every ounce of his-their-our horror and fear and disgust, hearing his screams, our screams, his tears, none of them would listen, none of them cared about how much the child had loved those flowers. One of them trod on the limp corpse in the scuffle, and that, not the pain, made him kneel down and pick it up and smile - no, and smile - and walk sadly away.]
None of it was enough. None of it freed us. The only thing - the only thing that made us safe from them was...
[Why would you climb a mountain like that, Frisk?]
no subject
You call out for help.
They told you to stop lying.
You begged for MERCY.
They told you do not deserve it.
Maybe they didn't say so out loud, but they said it with their dismissive words, with the way they could go weeks and days without ever exchanging a word with the people who were saddled with a child they didn't want, a child they couldn't afford, a child they didn't know how to take care of. A child they left at a bus stop, saying, with a reassuring smile, that they'd be right back. A child that got left outside a fire station because the people there would surely know how to take care of them, even if they leered and milled around and ignored the quiet child that sat there, poking at weeds with a twig and pretending they were stronger and bigger than they were.]
Some things are just - some things really don't change at all, huh?
[Their voice is wobbling, even if they try to say it like it's a joke, or an inane observation. But it bites deeper, deeper than they could imagine, and their hands are sunk into fists again. Can imagine what it's like, all too well. Monster flesh is so fragile. It probably felt like tissue paper, caving beneath the knuckles of someone who must have relished the excuse to exert violence on another living creature. Especially if it was one that could fight back but simply chose not to.
Revulsion. Anger coils in their gut, hot and thick. They'd wanted that. That LOVE, that power. That feeling that no one, no one would be able to control them or tell them no ever again. Eradicating their enemies, never able to hurt or be hurt again. Not with LOVE hardening their heart, not with 99 ATK and 99 DEF at their beck and call, immune to even the most determined of humans or monsters, the most desperate of pleas.]
I still hate them, sometimes. [The words emerge a whisper, low and cold and furious.] I hated them even before I - before I knew how bad they hurt you. Before I knew you at all.
I know I shouldn't. Supposed to be the perfect...supposed to be the savior everyone says I am. But I - I hate them. For hurting me. For hurting you. For every human out there, for every kid that might've fallen because they knew they wouldn't be missed, for every kid that, that actually did fall, I -
[Their throat is too taut, their eyes hot with unshed, furious tears.]
I hate them so much.
no subject
[Spat viciously, coldly, with all the long-festering resentment and venom born of years and years of being born wrong, growing up wronged, dying wronged. The aching, searing injustice of an empty coffin, an unmarked grave, of knowing that the humans who destroyed everything probably celebrated themselves as righteous, justified, heroic. The slow-crawling poison of realizing it happened again and again, seven more times.]
They're not sorry. None of them are sorry. None of them even tried to understand!
[Why else did they cut down a monster before they had a chance to explain? Why else did they drive child after child to want to disappear? Why else did Frisk - Frisk, who's just a kid, just a hurt, lonely kid - grow to hate humanity?]
I don't care how imperfect it makes you. They haven't even made a single attempt to earn your forgiveness! What's the point of forgiving someone who doesn't care that they hurt you?
[Their hands are mirroring (ha ha, another loaded word) Frisk's, clenched into fists, nails trying to stab into flesh. They - they want to wrap their arms around Frisk right then and there, cover them like a blanket, like a suit of armor, like they can retroactively shield Frisk from the... from the things that make a child feel this way. But they don't, but they can't, these tense furious arms might grip so hard Frisk goes to dust, might just feel the way that an adult's arms do.]
Fuck the other cheek! Forget that stupid stuff about how it gets better if you just wait it out or karma will reward you someday! That's just supposed to make you feel happy with being trapped! Like it's any kind of consolation that the only way out is oh, they're in a better place now!
Save your forgiveness for the people who deserve it. Not... not them. Not your mirror. Not the people who drove you up that mountain.
no subject
But monsters...monsters are better, aren't they? Chara's anger is vicious, blazing, as dense and uncontained as they are. And they...they feel it dragging at them like a razor blade over skin, the cherry-bright and crescent-shaped like a smile or the apposed edges of flesh and muscle that come from a throat slit open with one clean stroke.
Does it make them a bad person? They're trying to be good. They're always choosing to be good, continuously choosing it, even if they mess up sometimes.]
There are lots of Floweys out there.
[The words are quiet and strange and controlled, more even than they should be.]
Lots of people who...who'll kill or be killed. And if I didn't choose to go with her, with Toriel - where would I have gone? Back there?
[How long would that last before someone threw something that landed too heavily, struck their temple too hard, left them outside too long, or just plain couldn't take the incessant whining of a little child anymore? Only they wouldn't say "child." They'd say all the words that they hate, terms that weren't them, while the other kids would say, matter-of-factly, how h▒▒ Mom and Dad didn't want h░▒. They'd never want a broken thing like h▒░.]
Maybe...maybe it's okay if we don't. Maybe it doesn't make us bad. If people hurt us, and never changed, and never said sorry, never tried to make it better - maybe it's okay if we don't...
[It sounds so wrong in their mouth they have to swallow and try again.]
I forgave everyone I met Underground, for everything they did. But, but that's because they - they were hurt by humans, and they fought back because they had to. And then, then they felt bad, and said sorry. But those people, those humans, they - they never even tried to make anything better.
[Are they allowed? Allowed to hate people? They've mentioned such things, obliquely, tentatively, to Mettaton and to Sans and to Alphys, and not one of them passed a judgment that made them feel worse for it.]
Maybe they're not worth it. Our forgiveness. Our thoughts. Any of it.
I don't wanna hurt them. But I don't - I don't think I - I don't think I wanna forgive them. They don't - I don't wanna ever think of them again.
no subject
That kind of life kills you. They can't go back to that life. They can't.]
Some things are better off erased, are they not?
[Their smile is brittle and calcified, a strawberry-sweet lid clamped over the years and years of locked-away helpless fury still churning in their gut.]
We keep being told... loving someone isn't a conscious choice. Just... an accident. A thing that happens by itself, whether you will it to or not.
["It just happened." Like that's any comfort at all. Nobody wanted this, Chara just made them care. All they do is make people do and say things they never would have if that little parasite had never been born.]
Maybe hate's like that, too. We can't just go... "oh, you know what, I think I'm not gonna feel that way about you anymore." Can't wake up one morning and decide "yeah, that's enough, I feel totally fine with what happened to me now!" I don't even... I don't think we should have to.
[They're never going to look back on it and think it's okay. Never going to be able to dredge up the feeling of Asriel's pain and terror as he clutched that limp corpse and think "it all happened for a reason" or "it was part of God's plan for you." Never going to accept being curled up under the bed, face pressed into a pillow so nobody could hear or see your sobs. Big kids don't cry.]
You should be mad. It was an injustice. You didn't have it coming, you didn't - you didn't ask for it. Your mirror, your parents... they just hurt you because they had power over you and wanted you to know it.
no subject
Is it their responsibility, to like everyone? To love everyone and SAVE everyone and appreciate them and listen to them talk about their issues and solve their every problem flawlessly? They've met humans, incomprehensible as it sounds, who are good and kind, who have become trusted people, friends, family. And they can no sooner choose to mistrust them than they can choose to hate them.
Frisk's tightly-clenched fists relax, fingers opening once more (fingers that snapped so easily, got caught in car doors like the Mirror must have remembered they did, got left inside the locked car with the heat and the thick air and the nothing, nothing, nothing that came when they called for someone to remember they were still inside), folding across their lap.]
Don't have to forgive anyone. Don't have to SAVE anyone just, just because I can. I can, but I don't have to, do I?
[They've never turned that statement around like that. Regarded it for the positive as well as the negative.]
Maybe I don't have to hurt them. I can - I can choose what I do with, with how much I hate them. Even if that's doing nothing.
But I don't have to say it's okay, either.
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[It's another of those moments where they have to forcefully bite down a feeling they don't really understand. Frisk's the crybaby, not them.
They're still uncertain. Don't trust any of their ideas or opinions to be good, no matter how much they might fake it. Not sure if it's really okay to teach Frisk that they're allowed to hate. Shouldn't they be the one trying to be more like Frisk and Asriel are? Maybe this is just... just dragging Frisk down to their level. Pulling a feather or two out of an angel's wings.
But... they know it's not that black and white, don't they?]
You're not an angel.
[That prophecy was never about either of them.]
You're not perfect. But I...
[The word claws in their throat. Love. Too difficult, too raw, still an open wound.]
I like your imperfections. I don't want an angel. I don't want those spaces blanked out. You don't have to be a flawless pristine snowbank, or - or an empty canvas everyone else can write their worries on. You're Frisk - my Frisk - and you have the right to hate what happened to you.
It's okay to not be okay, right?
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