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Is it though?

[Frisk plucks at the stub of the spoon that's now firmly mired in the batter that's definitely more approaching "cement" on the viscous, rapidly-setting end of the spectrum. Extricating it from the batter is turning out to be a much more complicated endeavor than they realize.]

Do we want splinter-flavor in there?

[Splinter-flavor. Of course there's - it doesn't just snap off cleanly. There's bits of wood in there. Sharp little thorns that will tear up your inside.

It's not safe to eat.

It's contaminated.

It's poisoned.

Why didn't they think of that? It's obvious it's no good, why didn't they think? They were gonna bake it up and serve it and anyone who trusted the enough to eat it would... ha ha, they would...

Their throat feels like it's clamped shut.

He's sick, he's going to die, they'll have murdered him after everything he did for a human, for one of the creatures who killed his friends and drove him Underground. Asriel's crying and Mom is furious and they know what happens when you make a parent angry. All they can think is finally, it's finally happened, this was all too perfect to last and of course you ruined it all, they're a land mine and they've stepped on themself and set themself off and their throat is so, so tight that every breath feels like nails scraping against their esophagus, like a drowning body trying to claw its way out of quicksand. They're staring at the floor in New Home, at the grayish hardwood in the hall, and the air smells like sickness and Pine-sol and why are they fixating on something as stupid as that at a time like this? Asriel would never have done anything this bad on his own, it's because of them, it was their doing, he's sick and he's going to die.

There's a horrible rigidity seizing them, and they have to duck their head because their eyes burn and it's awful and humiliating and their smile is a tense awful thing. Don't breathe so loud. You're breathing too loud. Don't do anything weird, don't make it weird, don't be so dramatic. Always thirsty for attention, always overreacting. It's a perfectly innocent remark about a perfectly innocent mistake and none of this is a big deal so just be normal, why can't you be normal about this? Nobody's sick, nobody's going to eat it, it's not a pie, this is supposed to be fun!! Why can't you let this be fun?

Chara starts to giggle.

You put in butter this time. You double-checked. You did it three times over, repeated it so you were really sure. It's not a pie. You tried this time. (It happened anyway. It wasn't enough.)

They keep laughing, maybe a little too hard. Maybe it isn't as funny as they're making it out to be. Big, raw-throated laughs, heaving ones, the kind that are turning into airless little hiccuping spasms and that's not normal, that's creepy, stop doing that. Stop it. Put the brakes on - on all of yourself. Stop!

They - they were asked a question. Answer. Stop laughing and answer. Stop making this about yourself, stop sucking all the fun out of the room.]

No!

[It comes out weird, strained, only yanked out of them through a supreme effort, because their stupid selfish attention-starved body doesn't know how to breathe anymore, keeps sabotaging itself, tries to insist on locking up and laughing and straining for air and talking at the same time and none of it seems to be working, nothing's working.]

No, we - don't want that!

[Something's wrong.

They know something's wrong because even if there's been that thin veneer of caution veiling everything the both of them have done, the delicate stepping around of pointed subjects (buttercups instead of butter, dust instead of flour, dirt instead of chocolate), something's just catapulted this from innocent to not-so-innocent. It's stark in the way Chara tenses up, their whole body locking into place, shaking, shaking, shaking, laughing in that loud and pained and juddering fashion that hurts, it's like claws dragged across their ears.

Frisk puts the bowl down. It clicks quietly on the countertop. Frisk pushes the broken half of the spoon away. It rasps as it scrapes over the flat surface.

There's not a modicum of control to the way the words burst from Chara's throat, and Frisk knows panic. They know panic because they've seen it, they've seen it dozens of times before, felt it during their very worst days.]

We don't have to.

[They keep their voice pitched low, the words soft, as they turn to face them. Offer their hands, palms upward and open, if Chara needs them.]

It's okay.

It's just butter and flour.

[They should have known. They should know better. Why are they like this? It's just butter and flour! There are hands in the periphery of their vision, extended hands, but they jerk away from them. Don't touch. Don't touch. Clumsily stagger back, away from the counter, somehow lurch toward a table, a chair. Sit. Collapse into it. Want to hit the floor, want to curl up under the table, head between knees and huddled and hiding and small, but that's weird. That's creepy. Can't stay standing, throat's not working, they're breathing too too loud.

They try holding their breath. If you can't do it right, you don't get to do it at all, so better smarten up! Just get rid of it entirely if it's going to be too loud, too lurching, too wheezy. Doesn't work. Starved body defies them, erupts into some kind of horrible too-loud gasp. Sounds like a dying animal. Sounds like they're dying. Are they dying?

Why are they so dramatic? Why are they thinking that, why are they acting like this? Don't be so extra, Chara. Don't be the reason we can't have nice things. What kind of histrionic spoiled brat goes all to pieces because a stupid half-assed midnight cake doesn't go perfectly? Oh, wah-wah, poor Chara! Your first world little life is so hard, huh? Losing your damn mind over cake! Cake! Making Frisk shower you in pitying little its-okays because you didn't get your way!]

Throw - it - out.

[It's a herculean task to spit those three syllables out. They want to make it sound bored, like they've just decided this isn't interesting anymore. They want to tack on a joke. They want to be normal, for the love of God, just be normal! Why can't they just shut themselves up?!]

[Frisk retracts their hands the second Chara flinches back. No touching. Not right now. They suck in a quick, tight breath, backing away. There's nothing - they don't know what there is to really do when things get to be like this. Sometimes it all just comes roiling out, and all you can do is sit and wait for it to pass.

Throw it out.

It sounds like an unbearable effort for Chara to get their voice to work, just to say that much, just to pull everything together for long enough.

Frisk reacts immediately, without hesitation.

Scoop up the bowl in both hands, carry it to the trash. Drop the whole thing inside with a satisfying clunk. They don't care if they're throwing out the bowl too - Wonderland will compensate, and replace it all later. And then they cast down the broken pieces of the spoon, any extra ingredients scattered around, just for good measure.

The white powder scattered over their shirt and hair still feels too much like the strange, staticky cling of dust. There's nothing to do about it right now. So Frisk pulls up a chair and sits opposite Chara, speaking quietly.]

It's okay. It's okay, Chara. It's gone. It's all gone. It's never coming back.

[They don't look up. Just try to lock onto the sound of a heavy bowl thudding into the trash. The clatter of splinters being erased from the room. The scrape of a chair. Frisk's voice. Their breathing feels louder than all of them, feels like it's drowning everything out, feels like they can't hear themselves think, like they must be driving Frisk up the wall with the racket they're making. Ha ha, why are they putting Frisk through this? Taking away their fun, forcing them to play the comforting butt-patter again!

This is stupid. This is such a stupid thing to get worked up over. What kind of stupid person decides to act like this over nothing at all? They squeeze their eyes shut, clamp their hands over their head, like they can just... just crush all this horribleness. Close themselves up so tightly none of this humiliating, manipulative, downright unstable distress can possibly leak out.

Talking's too hard. Cannot fight, cannot think, can't move your body. They just stay put, trembling and rigid and frozen, for - they don't know how long. It feels like years, but it could be minutes, seconds, hours? Just... stay put, curled up, not existing, insisting to themself that it's gone, Frisk said so, it's gone, it won't hurt anyone, nobody is going to get sick, until their breathing starts to regain some regularity.]

[All they know how to do is wait it out. It'll pass. They know it will. They wish they could offer something useful - a hug, a hand to cling to, anything, but they know better than to reach out and try. That might simply spook them further, might end up doing more damage than healing.

They're not sure what else to do, though. Sitting on a chair with their knees drawn up, trying not to stare and make sure Chara isn't about to bury their fingers into their arms as if that might shred the skin from the bones in a single shearing motion. They consider each possibility for what to do next and discard it in turn, until they settle upon something...ha, something harmless. Maybe.]

Hey. Chara.

[And they try to smile, faintly - not hopefully. They don't have to smile back. They just have to keep them here for now.]

What do you call bees that make milk?

[The more this irrational stupid oversensitive terror ebbs away, the more humiliation creeps in to take its place. Why are they like this? Why are they like this? No wonder you have no friends, kid, if this is how you act when they try to have fun with you!]

Freaks of nature?

[The answer is muffled. They curl in on themselves, knees to chest, forehead pressed against their kneecaps. Willing the inexplicable dampness out of their eyes before it can form itself into tears, because what is there to even cry about? They never cry. They have no reason to cry. It's just a cake. Who even cares? Stop being so weird! Don't make this more uncomfortable than it already is!]

No.

[Freaks of nature, ha ha, like us. But they don't say it. Instead they shrivel up, hands scrunching into the fabric of their shorts in preparation for this stupid, stupid punchline.]

[They can't keep the smile from their voice, though when they deliver it, leaning forward hopefully as they whisper it out like it's a bad word:]

Boo-bees.

[It's such a stupid joke. It's so stupid it's hilarious, and they giggle faintly, even if it's bad form to laugh at your own jokes. They almost add something like, don't tell Toriel, but that'd be...that'd probably make things worse.]

[Honestly, the secretive conspiratorial delivery is somehow funnier than the punchline itself.

They bite their lip, because they're a little afraid of what might happen if they start laughing again. Like maybe it'll rev them back up, and they'll turn back into a mean-spirited horrible giggling idiot.

It coaxes a snort out of them nonetheless.]

That's awful.

[They shift a little, scrub their sleeve over their eyes just in case, but they don't really need to. Their eyes are dry. They're in control.]

Do we still have the frosting? We can just eat that, maybe.

[Frisk snickers again. Yeah. It's a terrible joke. They think they found it a joke book in the library. It made them flush the first time, but they don't mind it. It's a little snort, and it's better than nothing.

They get up and retrieve a few tubs of the frosting, without any further prompting. They take a little longer to get some spoons from the kitchen than maybe necessary - because they glimpsed the familiar brush of a sleeve against eyes, and it's always better not to let anyone see.]

Chocolate or rainbow?

Rainbow.

[Asriel loved rainbows. And - and they don't want to be predictable. I could never predict you, Chara! They're not the chocolate kid. They're the knife kid.]

I guess this isn't fun anymore, huh?

["Sorry."

What's the point of saying it?

How do they... justify this behaviour, then? How do they explain away behaving like some kind of animal?

"I was just trying to annoy you for kicks." Just looking to get a rise out of people. That Chara, always wrecking stuff on purpose! How do they bend it so it's not something that makes Frisk try to defend them?

"I was just being attention-seeking." Because that's what it was, wasn't it? But their face burns with shame at it, the confession turns into a weighty anchor pressing into their stomach.]

Baking's kind of dumb, anyway.

[Maybe they never told Frisk they find kitchens comforting. They - god, they've been here so long they can't even sort out what their partner knows and what they've kept buried. But it's believable, right? Maybe they don't like cooking things at all. Maybe it's stressful and it's just work and it's not soothing at all. Chara likes destroying things, not making things.]

Let's do something less boring next time.

[The rainbow canister of the stuff is handed over with an accompanying spoon, and Frisk keeps the chocolate for themself. Just...because they feel like chocolate. They settle back into the chair opposite and dig their spoon in the same way they would a tub of ice cream. It's sugary and makes their eyes water with how sweet it is, but it tastes good, and they don't feel like sleeping anyway.]

It's okay. I really don't mind.

[And they mean it. The casual deflection tactics are ones Frisk recognizes well enough, having employed them many times in their own favor before.

They hesitate before continuing with what they plan to say next. They don't know how to comfort someone after this. They just know how to be there and be a nameless anchor, mostly because they spent so much time wishing someone would do the same for them. Hugging their arms tightly around their middle because no one else was going to do it. Both craving and rejecting any and all contact offered to them, hypothetical or otherwise.]

It's...okay, too. For feeling that way. Sometimes you can't know when this stuff happens.

[It's okay. It's okay. All they ever make Frisk do is say "it's okay," like one of those pull-string dolls. They just stare down at the white frosting, count the little faint dots of color, appetite completely gone.

They don't understand.

They're supposed to have control. Self-control so fierce, so disciplined, that they're an inscrutable wall of poise and intimidation. If something happens, then it must be because you wanted it to end up that way. So why are they like this?]

Fat lot of good LV 8 seems to be doing me, huh?

[They should have - outgrown this. They should be better than that. They have no reason to be overreacting so much!]

Aren't you sick of living in a minefield all the time? This... we didn't even do anything bad. We were just playing around.

[Why'd you go and ruin it, Chara?]

[Frisk shrugs as they lick some of the chocolate icing off their spoon. They might need to wash this down with something, they think. Water, or milk, or maybe tea. Tea is good for when you're coming down from something like this. Sugar might just make you more jittery.

So they get up and start heating up some water, again keeping their movements slow and composed and steady, keeping their back turned for more than necessary so Chara can make those manifold minute adjustments you make after nearly passing out from the sheer weight of your own breathless anxiety. They know the system. Wiping at your eyes, straightening your sleeves, rearranging your expression into something deceptively normal.]

It's not your fault. I know it feels like it, but it's not.

[LV 8. It's not even halfway to the ceiling, though. It's enough to hesitate. It's enough to do more than hesitate.

LOVE isn't so nearly cut and dry as they think Chara thinks it is. As Frisk thinks they still think it is sometimes, when they catch themselves longing for it. Wishing they had it. Wishing they could...but, no. They're not going to do that to everyone again.

They've made their peace with that.]

[There's... there's something Asgore-ish about the way they move. Looking away more than is necessary, so Chara can take moments to do something other than smile. Try to get themselves back together, try to be a reasonable mimicry of a composed, put-together human being. Shuffling off to... ha ha, they recognize those routine sounds. To make tea.

Knowing just how to comfort. Knowing exactly what will help.

They try to breathe deep. Uncurl. Sit up straight.]

You really do understand, don't you?

[Not the "I love you but I'm scared because I don't understand this" Asriel had done his absolute best with. Beyond even that. Someone who knows because they've lived it too. Someone who makes it feel like inhuman, incomprehensible, just-born-all-wrong, because it's possible for another human being to feel that way, too.

You're the only one who understands me.

Again, the dull pulse of guilt. They said that about Asriel. Now they're saying it about Frisk.]

You might understand even better than I do.

[A limp little laugh as they straighten out the hair their terrified pressing hands knotted into disarray. When did they let themselves get so untidy?]

[Do they? They...don't really know how much they understand. They understand panic, to a certain extent. They understand why it happens when they're lost and scared and upset and start hyperventilating on the floor of their room because it's all just so much and their hand is bleeding, and a Mirror is telling them about all the bad things their best friend apparently did. But that's one thing. They understood that. It sucked, and it hurt, and it was like an ironclad fist clenched in their gut, but they understood it.

They guess maybe they understand this too. Buttercups instead of butter, and dust instead of flour. Some things default into other things, and then your head latches onto that track with an alacrity you can't control.

They look through the array of tea tins that they've got at their disposal. Loose leaf and bagged and all sorts of different brews. Loose leaf, they decide. Takes longer to brew. There's a whole soothing ritual to it. There's a lavender blend in here that looks good for nerves and things.]

I used to get them a lot. On the surface.

[They say it simply, without much gravitas. It's just...something they do. One more broken thing about them.]

Still do, sometimes. Doesn't always make sense why. Just...too hot, or too cramped and - uh-oh, there goes Frisk again. Freaking out over nothing.

[They punctuate it with a wry twist of one side of their mouth. It wasn't always nothing. But it still felt like were getting gutted with a spoon anyway.]

[On the surface.

They admit it so... so candidly. So frankly. It's a little funny, right? The things that are "on the surface" are the things they bury deepest.]

Tantrums.

[That's what the surface called them when Chara did it.

And that's what they are, isn't it? A kid making a lot of irritating noise. Causing a scene because they aren't getting their way. Making a theatrical display of distress just to get attention. The kind of bad behaviour you have to fix with discipline, so that the kid knows better than to act like that in public.

And they do know better. They're better now. Hair tidy, eyes dry, sitting up straight. Hands at their sides. Hands gripping the chair. Hands neatly folded in their lap. Hands scrunching and crinkling up their sleeves. Hands squeezing their arms, hugging themself. Digging in, like they have to wrestle themselves into submission, like they have to cage themselves up, pin themselves down - no, wait, no. Not too hard, not too hard, don't do anything that might rev you up again. Treat yourself like a skittish wild animal, because you're not really human, so maybe you're a beast, huh?]

Acting spoiled. Looking for attention, fishing for pity. Grow up, right?

[They try to laugh, but it comes out more as a dry exhalation. It's not funny. It's just humiliating. Shameful. Just... aches. Like the surface always does.]

[Tantrums. Freakouts. Acting out. Must be doing it for attention, must be doing it because they were feeling left out or angry, and not because they were terrified because their chest felt tight and their head felt like it was spinning and their heart felt like it was pounding so hard it might burst. Just overreacting. Just Frisk being like that for no reason.

The water finishes heating, and they add the leaves into the kettle to let it steep. It smells nice. Lavender and a mix of other things, soft and gentle and soothing.]

'Cause kids can't feel scared or upset about things like that. Kids don't understand anything, so they just act out 'cause they feel like it.

[There's a bitterness there, one that wells up without their really thinking about it. They're...they're still angry at those people for making them think that. And they still hate that they feel that way sometimes. That they shiver and shake and feel like their head is outside their body and their lungs can't pull in air and the room is spinning and they can't breathe. Sometimes for a good reason. And sometimes for no reason at all.]

They made it feel like it was your fault. But it's - it can't be. Can't control it. We wouldn't feel like this if we could avoid it.

My actions are my fault. If I'm not responsible for what my body does, who is?

[Right? Isn't that how it works? Accidents are excuses. There's no such thing as "it just happened." Those devil-made-me-do-it excuses are a weak mind trying to worm its way out of the punishment it deserves. It's even more important to own your body when you've shared it with other people, right? Chara was the one who picked up their body and carried it past the barrier - Chara was the one who did the wrong parts, not the right parts. Chara was the one who killed everyone. Who had control during the wrong parts. They'd owned it then too, right? It's me.

See, Chara? You like it, don't you. You're enjoying this too. Your body says yes.

That's just how the world works, is it not?]

If we could avoid it, I wouldn't feel anything at all. That may not be the best metric out there, ha ha.

[LOVE had been such a wonderful thing, hadn't it? An unbroken promise. LOVE would not lie or cheat or pull the rug out from under you at your most vulnerable moment. When they knew what it was, what it stood for...was there any reason to not pursue it? To not gather as much close to them as possible, hoard it, clench it tightly in their fists and never let go?

The more you hurt others, the less you hurt too. Better you than them. Better to never risk it. Never chance it.]

No one's responsible, Chara.

[They pour the tea out, aliquot it into two ceramic mugs so they can carry it over. They don't drink theirs, not yet. They don't do much of anything with it, but they have it just to hold it in their hands, softly steaming.]

I know you...hold yourself accountable. That's what you do. But maybe there's things that - you can't blame anyone for. Can't change if it rains, right? Can't change what makes you scared, or panicked. It just happens.

[Nobody's fault. Nobody's fault? Can that really be right?

...How far, they wonder, does that go? Was it nobody's fault when a parent gets into one of those moods, flies into one of their unpredictable rages, smashes a glass against the coffee table? Was it nobody's fault that everyone in the village took away the wrong message from a body being gently laid to rest among its favourite flowers? Is it nobody's fault that seven human children were tucked into coffins in a basement?]

Where does that line exist, Frisk? When does a person stop being a helpless victim of their own circumstances? Determination is all about having the resolve to change fate.

[They look down, accept the mug gratefully. Soak in the warmth against their grasping hands, breathe in the scented steam.]

Is it better to be at fault, or to be so powerless you don't even have control over yourself?

You have to be one or the other?

[If they're allowed to forgive some people and not others, if they're allowed to be angry at some and not others, if they're allowed to be mad about some things and bitter about some things but not about others - why should anything else be any different?]

Is it my fault if I panic at a bad time? It's...easy to blame myself when it's happening. Think it's stupid. But how was I supposed to stop it? How're you?

[But then what's the alternative? Simply avoiding everything that makes you afraid? If they did that, they never would have left that patch of golden flowers. Or they never would have even climbed the mountain in the first place.]

[How? Boy, if only they knew. They try and try to bootstrap it. To suck it up. To shout themself into place, to keep the leash so tight it strangles, and still it isn't enough.

It is weakness, they wonder, if they don't accept that it must be a lack of willpower? Is it giving up if they stop thinking that, gee, guess you don't want to be normal badly enough?

What would Toriel say, they wonder? She's maybe the wisest adult they've ever known. Knows best for you.

Well, they know what Frisk would say. They have their partner's guidance. Carefully, blowing on the mug, they venture a sip. It teeters on the border of too hot, just barely shy of scalding. Good.]

Ha. The flesh prisons strike again, huh? Sometimes the roof just caves in arbitrarily, I guess.

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cw flashback, panic attack

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cw continues whoooo

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1/2

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(a very hidden) csa allusion cw

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abuse allusion cw also This Kid Is On A Roll

please help these kids

PLEASE