lifeaftr | October Intro: Aftermath Mingle

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October Intro: Aftermath Mingle

Who: All!
What: Now that you've all committed monkey genocide, it's time to clean up and go home.
When: Evening of the intro log- and onwards!
Where: The Monkey Compound, Islets, etc.
Warnings: Mark as you go!

Congratulations on effectively reversing the tables, adventurers. As the hunted become the hunters, the remaining simians begin to retreat into the jungle, disappearing from sight as the drumming dies down, before extinguishing entirely.

It appears that you have won.

Now it's time to clean up.

Those still in the Monkey Compound may wish to begin scavenging what they can, from multiple coconut guns to rudimentary spears. There's a flock of Bludroc happy to be herded to a new home, several stashes of fresh fruit to be found... and a rather large iron pot, for the particularly bold.

Others may be more concerned with returning to the islets and securing the personal belongings that were left behind. There are new people to settle in, as well; and undoubtedly, a few injuries yet to be healed.

Reunite, rejoice, recover. And perhaps, should you see the Storyteller about- ask a few questions.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Link SOULs.

Wow. Wowie! That's super not something he wants to be dropped and just left at that! That's a REALLY VAGUE WAY to describe THE MOST WORRYING PHRASE HE HAS HEARD IN His LIFE. Something tight and cold - no, hot - no, so hot-cold it's like the numb moment of shock before the pain sets in - something is clamping down on his chest, his windpipe, the empty space inside of him where something should be beating.

"That's not possible," he squeaks.

Asriel Dreemurr doesn't have a SOUL.

How do you link with nothing at all? There's no possible way that Tim would have treated this like something he can't talk about in front of people if - if the Asriel he knew was before Chara even died. There had never really been a single ounce of tragedy or shame in his life before Chara died. Little childish accidents, nothing more. Even if what Tim knew was only Flowey, he - that - the whole point was that he didn't have a SOUL!

"What - what does that even mean?" He squeaks again.

Did he... steal this man's SOUL...? Is that... did he absorb a stranger like he did Chara, like he did six kids who never even had a chance? Did he sink so low, go back to being another Flowey, let all that inner ugliness seep back in... did he regress back into the kind of person who would rip someone else's SOUL from their chest just to have power?

"It means we knew...stuff. About each other." It's heavy. It's tired. He doesn't know how to explain it in ways that a kid will understand - he barely understands it himself. "We could sort of...it's hard to explain. It was like sharing a soul, I guess? Just, you couldn't block it out. You couldn't stop it. It happened, and we couldn't hide anything from each other, so I - "

There's no polite or good way to say this. It wasn't polite. It wasn't neat and clean. It was abrupt and horrifying and invasive, and now Asriel has to bear the repercussions of a life that wasn't even his.

"I'm sorry."

The words hiss out nearly inaudible. His hair, unkempt and long from months of survivalism, almost falls over his face, but he shakes it aside.

"I know...more about you, and your world, than I should. Than I ever meant to. And you didn't deserve that. You - still don't."

But that doesn't change it. Does it?

It's agonizing, how vague he's being. He's implying he knows things, but holding back what those things are. He's just dropped the bombshell that he apparently knew an Asriel with a SOUL, that Asriel somehow regained the ability to be himself, to love and be loved, then lost it all over again, and offering absolutely nothing else on that matter. Asriel wants to scream. Asriel wants to rip the fur from his head.

But that's... not nice, is it? This must be hard for him to talk about. Asriel's asking something really unfair of him. This is obviously putting a huge strain on this man's shoulders.

"I know I'm being cruel," he chokes out, empty paws again seizing the front of his shirt. "I know it's harsh to ask you to do this. I... I'm not angry at you. But please... how much do you know?"

The plan? The secret he showed to nobody but Frisk? The one last thing he could do to protect Chara, to honor their sacrifice, to be sure that the world only remembered Chara for who they were - selfless, loving, protective - and not what a single choice far bigger than any child could possibly make might have lead them to become. Nobody can know that. Nobody can know that they - that they tried to erase themselves from existence. It's not his right to give that to a stranger, to one of the humans they hated so much, whether it's on purpose or not.

Flowey? What kind of person he really is, what he becomes as soon as his life stops being charmed, perfect, always going exactly in Asriel's coddled, sheltered favour. The horrible, twisted, utterly inexcusable acts that he did, just because he could do it without repercussion? The sick, vile sort of person who doesn't care that they aren't doing the right thing, just because they know they won't get caught... that's what he is, deep down. Maybe this man knows that.

More than just Flowey. The legendary being made up of all the souls in the Underground. The absolute GOD of hyperdeath. Someone who doesn't CARE that he's hurting his best friend, so long as he can keep them around. Someone who thinks he can rip their happy ending away and do this all over again, and again, and again, because he can exploit their desire to give their friends a happy ending.

"Don't think of that as really me," he'd begged. Like somehow he was completely separate, like he just wasn't there for all the moments Flowey had spent observing, tormenting, beseeching, helping Frisk. Like he can just cut away every part of him but the perfect ones, the parts that only ever did the right thing. Like he can pretend he's still innocent.

Ha ha.

Of course that's already impossible.

"Could you... tell me everything you know about... flowers, for example?" He ventures, his voice tiny, thin, so strangled it hardly even sounds like him. Just - just asking about an innocent, average noun! "Or... or maybe about SOULs."

"You're not." Maybe if he weren't so tired, he'd be at his wit's end too. He'd be clutching his hair and burying his face in his hands and trying not to scream with all of this, this dead memory that won't QUIT. But he's tired. He's so fucking tired. He doesn't have it in him anymore. "You're not being cruel, kid. I - I don't know how to explain it. Please, just..."

He has to sit down. Remembering this shit in little dissociative bursts is easy. He's hardly all there anyway. But when recollections have to be plied from the mortar-bricked bedrock he doesn't turn over, it starts to spin his head. Remembering the doubled sensation of being covered in fur and not, of ears that fell and framed his face and tickled his cheeks even if he wasn't the one with them.

He has to sit down, breathe. Breathe. Close his fingers into fists and flex them out again.

"Flowey, right?" The words are as heavy as his lungs, as the slump of his shoulders. "Flowey the flower. What happens to someone that's neither human nor monster. What happens to someone that lives without a soul, and what...and not really knowing what happens after death."

Breathe. Breathe.

Do for him better than you ever did in the past.

"Every soul in the Underground, and you tried to set it all...back to the start. Right?" He's breathing heavier now. There's sweat glistening on his brow now, and not just from the heat. There's a reason he tries not to remember this. The dissonance echoing in his skull is more than he knows how to bear; his head's already overfull with one set of thoughts and memories more than it should have, and piling on the lifetimes and lifetimes and lifetimes that two children endured sure as hell didn't help. Pulling it all to the forefront had nearly caused him to tear himself apart.

When it was Chara, it nearly tore him apart.

The effort to drag it forward without submerging himself into it entirely in a gesture that will surely echo with the same consequences that still thrum in his soul, even now, leaves him trembling on the dirt-and-sand floor.

"You were scared. And you were alone." And he just wanted...to bring it all back. To have those happy memories within his grasp once more.

To bring it all back to Zero.

"And you didn't want to lose them again."

Them.

Your best friend.

Look what you're doing, Asriel.

You're hurting him.

He's sweating and panting and shaking like he's swallowed buttercups. Like you're helping him get sick. You're putting him through something that hurts, and for what? Just to satisfy your curiosity. Just because you "have" to know.

Are you happy?

You disgusting creature.

Whatever's inside of his chest drops, shatters on the ground like porcelain. There it is. Exactly what he didn't want to hear. This stranger knows everything. Every single thing that he is, that he holds close, that he has some little sliver of control over... his memories of them. All of it has been ripped away before the game even started. All those tenuous, fluttering hopes about second chances or starting over or being a good person this time... in a single instant, they all go to dust. Did you really think that maybe you could be around people after all?

What an idiot.

This is exactly why you were right to stay away.

You were scared, you were alone? You were a parasite. Because you were hurting, you thought it was okay to rip things away from others. And you're doing it all over again. Look at what you've done.

Asriel staggers backward, stumbling clumsily against rubble.

"I-I'm sorry."

He's sorry. He's so, so sorry.

"I should never have come here."

He's sorry. He's sorry.

"I should never have put you through this."

"You didn't - it wasn't something anyone meant to happen." He has to press it all down again. Pack it away into little green-yellow boxes, compartmentalize it into something that doesn't fall beneath the realm of Timothy Wright. Every association with golden petals, every smile made up of too many teeth, every mocking laugh at a child in a striped shirt. It's not his. It's not his.

So put it away.

Put it away. Piece by piece.

"It isn't your fault."

What's the likelihood that he'll believe that? What's the likelihood that he'll walk away from this feeling good about any of what transpired here? He didn't deserve to have that hidden from him; Tim might be a LIAR, might have the words emblazoned across his very soul, but to children?

They've all done things they regret. His list is no longer or shorter than anyone else's, in some respects.

In others, he's not sure anyone will ever match it.

Not his fault.

Ha. Ha ha. Maybe this guy would like to suggest they just... not think of that Asriel as really him?

That's not funny. That's really mean-spirited. He really wants to just make this worse for this guy? What good is shooting the messenger going to do? This is a stranger. The first thing he's gonna do here is just pick some random bystander and drive him to this shivering, agonized extreme? Wasn't it bad enough to have poisoned him with all those hateful, cruel memories? He's stuck with every single vicious thing Flowey ever did rattling around inside of him. Look how hard that is to live with. Look how painful it is for him. Making it worse is just... is just unnecessarily cruel.

How cruel that all over again, Asriel's the one who's escaped consequences. He gets to survive what killed Chara twice over, when they were the one who really deserved to stay. He gets to stand here like he's innocent, like he didn't do anything wrong, while this human looks ready to throw up under the sheer toxicity of the things Asriel crammed into his head, then demanded he drag back up again.

"I won't make you hurt like this again."

He can't even Reset this. As soon as it's time to use that power for something selfless for once, it's not there anymore.

"I'll leave you alone. You - you won't see me again."

That's for the best. It's better that way. He can't undo it, but he can at least make sure he isn't a constant, inescapable reminder of all that seething hateful emptiness. He can at least make sure he doesn't drive an innocent human to his knees with the sheer weight of what an abomination he really, truly is. It's better if they never see him, right? He'll just break their hearts all over again. Everyone he's known has only been set back by him.

Hurts, doesn't it?

"Please, forget you ever met me."

How many other people here has he made suffer like this? How many other lives has he lived? How many times has he had a shot at happiness, only to have all hope of a SOUL ripped away? How thoroughly did he turn this all to dust without even realizing that this brand new surface was paved in ashes? How - god, how many crimes does he have to repent for now? He can't remember - he can't remember doing this to this man, let alone anything else he might have done to ruin this world and the people in it.

His blind backpedaling bumps him against a crumbled bit of stone. Frantically, he pivots on his heel, vaults over it. He doesn't even know where to bolt to, only that he just - just has to go... somewhere. Anywhere. He just has to go away. Let everyone be happy.

"No - Asriel." The word breaks raggedly. His knapsack thumps into the ground as it slips from his shoulder, abandoned like the hatchet still caught in the ruins. He can allow only a fleeting thought, a vague hope that no one will think to creep in and steal those precious supplies in the meantime. That's all he has time for before Asriel scrambles over the dilapidated walls and starts to run. Tim's lungs haven't been treating him well, between the smoke and the exhaustion and the running, but he still does his best to tear after.

"Kid, listen." His breath wheezes as he stumbles after, one hand flapping limply, uselessly, at the air. "It's not that - it's not that simple, all right? You didn't mean it. You had a right to know."

He had a right to know what someone else knew about him. He had a right to know if something was being kept that would affect him. Just as Tim did. Of course he'd be angry. Of course he'd be furious. Wouldn't anyone?

Tim had been too, when he learned what he did about himself. Through someone else's digital journal, a log of videos that were never intended to be seen by some separate source of information like him.

He's clumsy on his legs, exhausted, and his strides are only a fraction the size of a full-grown man's. But this man's already out of breath, and he's just as worn out from a long, dangerous day. Should he keep running? He might make it. He might lead this man, gasping and tired, out to whatever wilderness the nearest mana pool can take him to, and lose him there. He might strand this person without the supplies that he's left behind.

"Go away!!" He yells, ducking behind a roofless skeleton of a building. "Just - just leave me alone!"

Isn't fleeing supposed to be a form of MERCY? Why go after him at all?

"You KNOW what it was like when Flowey woke up, don't you?"

Alone in the garden. No sign of Chara anywhere. He couldn't feel his arms or legs. Mommy! Daddy! Help me! He cried and cried. Called for help... but nobody came.

And then... he found out why.

Mom was missing. There were seven coffins in the basement, and six of them were full. New Home was little more than a haunted house, empty, frozen in time, heartrendingly lonesome. He'd given up everything trying to keep six SOULs from being harvested, and... for what? It was always going to involve taking SOULs. There had never been some perfectly happy, simpering alternative to that reality. His father now stood before him with blood on his hands - and just to make it the ultimate cruel irony... it was the blood of six kids who'd climbed a mountain and fallen down, just like Chara. He killed one of them, with bouquets of flowers and with a refusal to act in the fact of an angry mob, and so he'd doomed all of them, hadn't he?

He found Mom, eventually. There was no comfort to be had in her arms. His room was anybody's room. No pictures of him or Chara. No tokens of a small boss monster. A box of shoes in a disparity of sizes.

Once, Chara had asked him if he ever worried about his parents getting sick of them. If maybe one day they'd disobey them, or they'd wear out their welcome, and they'd tell Chara to get out and never come back. He couldn't even fathom the thought! Mom and Dad are the nicest people in the world, and they love us - they love you, Chara! They would NEVER throw a kid out to fend for themselves. Nobody could ever be that cold. If you love someone, you can always forgive them.

How wrong he'd been. His choice - his oh-so-precious right thing - had turned his mother into someone who would do just that. She was miserable, lonely, ignoring all the subjects who needed her, and for what? For a revolving door of kids to replace him and Chara.

"You know what it's like to wake up in a new world and already have ruined it. You know what it's like when you can't start over, and it's all your fault. You KNOW that, because you TOOK it from me."

He almost lets it get to him. Almost lets it derail everything the same way Chara's soul did, red and burning and like a hot poker to the gut. He'd spiraled then, miserably, crashing into a daze of the same self-pity that always apprehended him and held his thoughts hostage. Lost in a frantic scrabble to bury himself in that cocoon through which nothing could penetrate, because his own hatred for everything he represented was so all-encompassing, so overwhelming, so insurmountable.

He almost lets it get to him. A bright stab of YOUR FAULT emblazoned on a mirror. Your fault. Your fault. Everyone is gone, because of you!

"Asriel, stop!" It cuts out desperately. The kid's fast but he moves clumsily, like he's unused to walking around in that sort of body. If you lived in a world where all you had were roots threaded into the soil, of course you'd be disoriented. Tim's foot catches a long, smooth rock and it nearly sends him sprawling; he catches himself on the wind-worn and weather-smooth stones of the nearest building.

"You aren't alone here, all right?" Is this guilting? Is this what this is? Hell if he knows anymore. "You don't have to be alone! Just - just stop, please. Think!"

It's already been a day. They had expected, at some point, for the uneasy peace they had enjoyed to end- that at some point, scavenging for food and exploring this place would be the least of their troubles.

In the end, they didn't even get to kill all that much- late to the real fight, wasting time running over the island, finding stragglers. Even then, they've got enough blood on them to stain their shirt red, splashes against their cheeks dried and peeling like some cheap, morbid paint. They want to check on Frisk. They want to clean off. And then they want to be alone.

It figures things would get worse before they can reach that point.

As Asriel races out from behind the building, Chara's already there. Holding out an arm to block his way- grasping, if they can manage it, for the sleeve of his sweater, to yank him behind them as they stand tall, eyes meeting Tim's the moment he catches up.

In their free hand is a knife.

And this particular expression is one that has never been directed his way before, LOVE bubbling in the back of their throat, slowly counting down in their mind, muscle in their jaw twitching.

"You have two seconds, mister Wright."

Two seconds, because people like him can look at demons like them and pick them up off the ground, despite having demons of their own. Because people like him are liars. People like him know how to patch roofs. It gives him an advantage, over other people.

It gives him two seconds.

"Explain.".

It gives him two seconds.

Too bad his lungs aren't his friend right now. He's almost doubled over, grappling at the building's crumbling walls to fucking breathe, because he's been running and chasing and panting and breathing smoke for the entire day, and at last, at long fucking last, it's catching up to him. As all things inevitably do.

As someone who has seen the very worst of him inevitably does.

Palm pressed over his thundering heart, Tim strains to find his breath and his words in time not make this even worse than it already is.

"He's different...from before..." His eyes flutter shut. "I didn't know...he ask...asked how I knew him and he - he asked, so I told him...I remembered..."

He told him that he knew the texture of his soul, because he had the misfortune to live in a Castle in the Mist at the same time as a snowy-furred Boss Monster with too many Bad Memories, and noplace else to put them.

This is all your fault. You're the reason any of this happened. Everything that's happened is your fault. And it's not gonna end until you're dead.

He should have done the right thing, and burned to death.

Ashes to ashes.

Dust to dust.

He hates the way his name sounds on strange lips. Asriel, this man calls, like it's familiar, like he's Asriel's babysitter or guardian or friend, and he just wants to scream over and over I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOUR NAME. How could be possibly be trying to act like he understands how Asriel feels? What gives him the right to act like he knows best? Asriel wants to rage and mock and seethe and do a thousand different horrible, Floweyish things. Whatever it takes to put a safe layer of space between himself and this invasion, thus crumbling of walls before a house has even had a chance to be built.

He doesn't do that.

What he actually does is sort of awkwardly almost pitch forward and faceplant, only held upright by an iron grip on his sleeve. The sound of a voice has him planting his feet, has him grinding to a complete and utter halt, but he's too used to only being stem and roots: the rest of him still pitches forward with all the same momentum, wrenched sharply back only by the tether that voice's owner has on his sleeve.

This... this is all just a dream, isn't it?

This can't be real.

He lifts his head, looks to the person holding him still.

In his nightmares, Chara's there. Sometimes, they look down at a golden flower, small and empty and changed, and they're disappointed in how weak and useless he is. Sometimes, he's in that village. Each blow struck on him scatters golden flower petals and seeds. Each time he's struck, the wound appears on Chara's body instead, because he knows he's making them feel this, he's paralyzing them in an unresponsive shell and making them suffer dying all over again just when their pain had finally stopped. Sometimes, they're calling for him, and he can't answer. Sometimes, he rushes to them, arms wide, and they recoil in horror and disgust at the unfeeling creature he's become.

Sometimes, they're like the very last time he saw them. Blistered and cracked lips. Pale face coated with a clammy sheen of sweat. There's blood everywhere. It dribbles from their mouth when they're too weak to sit up and cough and retch, and he has to lift them up so they don't choke. It splatters down their front. It coats the hands they try to clamp over their mouth. He'd been terrified how much blood they had in them. He'd been horrified how much a human body could force itself to endure before it finally, finally gave up. It felt like watching all the colour run out of their SOUL.

They're standing here now, spattered with drying, darkening SOUL-red, speaking in a red voice, and he goes hot-cold-numb down to the tips of his toes. This has to be a dream. It's just one of those bad dreams. He'll wake up, and this will all be gone.
He can't start hoping.

Even so, wavering and thin as pollen in sunshine, a single word rises up out of him.

"Chara...?"

Really, Tim? Their expression turns flat; anger still visible even as their judgement turns from potential retaliation to irritated judgement. After the day they've all had, this is his idea of a conversation that needs to be had, is it?

"Of course. Today is the best day to let someone know of a grievous invasion of privacy, to be sure. I can see why Asriel appreciates your honesty."

You are a liar, aren't you Tim? What precisely made you decide the truth was so valuable that it was necessary to expose it so soon?

Any lecture they may have in store is waylaid, however, by a small voice at their side. One they know too well- they hate it. Psst, Chara...

I don't like this plan anymore.

It takes a few moments, for them to look at him. Expression carefully blank when they do so- but the force of their grip doesn't ease. They can feel the way his sweater fits against his fur, an entirely different sensation than cloth against skin. More pliable. More likely to shift.

He's always had the softest ears. It's a stupid thing to think about.

"...Asriel." An exhale, and their grip lightens, if only slightly. There's no room for him to make them let go. "If you're amenable, then I would prefer you join me in locating Frisk. This is a discussion they should take part in.

"Your attendance is also required, mister Wright."

Edited 2017-10-09 15:21 (UTC)

"He...asked. Had a right - to know." He manages to sound, for the briefest moment, something that almost approaches irritated. He asked, and Tim's initial reaction had been too obvious for him to smooth it over with a lie. And if Asriel deserved something out of this rotten set of circumstances - he deserved to know at least something of what was going on.

It never pays to learn those things. It never pays, and it always hurts. But it's better than being kept forever in the dark.

Unlike their gentle proposal for Asriel's sake, he can recognize full well that, directed at him - it isn't a question. It's a command. And he's never been much of a leader; always floundered on his own.

What point is there in arguing? He made their brother cry.

"Fine," he says, palm pressed to his chest. "I think...I saw them in the compound. I don't..." The ache building in his skull is growing impossible to bear, all over again. Brian. The name rings like a bell, dully, and he snaps the thought aside.

"...a lot of old friends showed up."

This - this is too much. All of this is too much.

The terror and confusion and panic of a near brush with death. The exhaustion of running, of expending every bit of magic he could muster. The overwhelming hugeness of being plopped down on the Surface, expected to survive among strangers in a world he knew absolutely nothing about living in. The staggering despair and violation of knowing his soul (What SOUL?? Ha!!) had been turned inside-out by a total stranger, that everything was already ash and rubble before he even took his first step here, that he was guilty of crimes a self he couldn't even remember being had committed. The - th...

Chara.

Oh god, Chara.

Their first words to him after so long are so stiff. So distant, so formal. Even the shock that they somehow know Frisk only feels like a dull thud after so many blows have already sent him reeling.

It's funny, right? Over and over, across the endless timelines, the uncounted years... he'd keep himself going by imagining what he'd say to Chara if they ever met again.

Golly! We're still inseparable, after all these years!

Don't worry, my little monarch. What I have planned isn't regicide.

Are you there, Chara? It's me, your best friend!

Did you hear me calling you?

All those things he practiced saying. All those things he did say, but to the wrong person entirely. All of it... it's gone from his head in an instant. It's all too much.

Chara probably expects a reasonable answer, but Asriel - he - it - this is just - he can't bear it. He can't bear this. Asriel just begins to sob hysterically.

A lot of old friends showed up. They know; go to say as much, as well as advise him that they've taken care of it for the time being. Used the temporary leash in their arsenal as early as possible, for as long as it lasts.

But Asriel becomes a heavy weight, buckling under his own hysteria- and their attention is tunneled. They're too tired- too tired to keep themself upright, too tired to keep him up too. They're so tired.

"You're not going to be a crybaby about this now, are you?" There's no knife hidden in their words; just a tired reiteration of a very old script. Guiding him down, they crouch in front of him, knife sheathed so they can brace him with two hands, holding his shoulder. Attempting, in some manner, to keep him steady.

He was gone. Again, he disappeared, leaving nothing but disappointment behind, the bitter taste of what if and why with no answers to come of it. They want to shake him as much as they want to keep him close, sit down in the dirt and just let this happen. Let him have his time.

Give themself something that feels like a break. Like they don't have to be the strong one, for once.

But that's not the way the world worlds. Their SOUL continues smoldering with ugly, red fumes. You keep going because you can.

And because you can, you have to.

"Did I ever tell you what a coconut is? It is a round fruit, but the skin is as hard as wood. They're full of milk, and the edible part is white."

Why is he allowed this, when they have never been allowed this once in their life? Why is he allowed this after everything he's done?

It's so unfair. They keep biting the inside of their cheeks between sentences, until they taste copper.

"There's also blackberries... whole bunches of them, down by a lake to the south. You could pick as many as you want, and there'd still be more to pick.

"How good, don't you think?"

He's intruding.

Asriel starts to sob, and the word crybaby worms into his head by unwanted association. Grimly, sullenly, he shoves it aside, kicks it beneath the proverbial bed, piles as much around it as he can. These aren't his thoughts and this isn't his life; just because he's the one who can't pick apart which thoughts are his, who's become so muddled and unwilling to mire himself into who he knows he was doesn't mean he has the right to inflict that on everyone else.

So now? Now he's intruding. And that leaves him with one job left to his name, and one thing he can do to ease this way. Even slightly.

"I'll find them," he murmurs. "And I'll be back."

Find Frisk. Not because they need yet another one of Tim's problems lumped onto their shoulders, but because Chara asked him to; because Frisk, too, has a right to know.

He's had too much of himself denied, too many of his secrets kept in the ears and thoughts of someone who was not privy to them, to fathom hiding things from either of them. Not that he could. You don't roll away from someone else's soul wholly intact. You don't scrape yourself back up and find that all the pieces fit nicely back into their original slots.

That's just the way of it.

He needs to go. And he needs to find Frisk.

And then, harder than either of those steps - he has to return.

They hold on to him. Guide him down to solid earth. He sinks, quivering and wailing, and they call him a crybaby.

It's true. He was always so much weaker than them. They were always the one who had to bear the extra weight, had to be strong, had to be the one to carry their own limp body mere moments after leaving it. Even now, they're telling him about the surface, about the strange and wonderful things that exist up there. You'll love it, Asriel. I'll show you a sunset. I'll show you real stars. I'll tell you the names of the flowers. We'll make it, and we'll do it together.

"Were you here all along, Chara?" He's still sobbing, sniffling, trying to talk in big heaving gasps. Their name is all stretched out by his hiccups - Cha-a-a-raaa. "I looked everywhere for you. I called and I called your name. I waited so long!" Had they gone somewhere he couldn't reach? Is this where you go when you die without a SOUL? If you try hard enough to repent for your mistakes, do you eventually get sent to a place full of sunshine and flowers, where your loved ones are waiting for you?

"You must have been so scared," he hiccups. This place is full of humans. This place is full of dangerous people who try to boil you alive because you look different. There's none of the safety and comfort of Home, New Home, of a room that's all yours. "You must have been so lonely!" They don't make friends very easily, he knows that. Trusting is so hard, so scary. After you've been hurt enough, you start feeling like no one understands you. No one's fun to play with anymore. There's no point to even being around anyone else.

"Did they hurt you too?" He asks, holds out his arms, pauses right where he is, paws hovering in the air near them. It's... he's not forgotten anything about his best friend. He wants nothing more than to grab, to cling, to comfort them like Frisk comforted him, to reassure himself that they're solid and real and not going to disappear again. He wants to cling for his sake, though. For Chara's sake, he waits, looking for an invitation or a shake of the head, a choice, a boundary that they control. "I-it was so hot, and there were guns and spears everywhere, and it was just like - just like -"

Don't say it. Don't finish that thought. Don't let that thought even exist.

He hasn't even noticed Tim slipping away. His world has shrunken down to one person - his world has always been just one person. They're here. They're really, truly here.

Edited 2017-10-10 05:31 (UTC)

Tim's departure is acknowledged with a distracted nod- belated and unseen. They know- that they need to speak to him about Brian. They need to check up on Frisk. They need to confirm that Sans has recovered from the hallucinogenic effects of that plant creature. They need to make sure Wade is safe. Tibia. They need to see Frisk- and multiple other people, if only in passing. Long enough for a cursory glance, long enough to prove they're still here, still in one piece.

Things never stop, do they? Asriel's voice assaults their ears, question after question that he doesn't give them the time to answer as he holds out his hands, seeking out physical comfort. Heaven for him and hell for them. There's too much to think of, to much happening, and Chara's only response for a moment is a high strung giggle, fingers twitching away from him as if some magical barrier has been erected.

There's a tinny ringing in their ears, again, accompanied by the fierce, near painful rush of their blood, pushed through their body by a heart that keeps going solely out of spite to the person it keeps alive.

It was so hot, and there were guns and spears everywhere, and it was just like-

Don't. Don't say it. Don't finish that thought. Reaching up, they catch his furred hand in their own, drawing them back down. A compromise.

"How am I supposed to answer if you keep asking so many questions?"

Two questions, and he's asking too many. He giggles a bit, even if it's syrupy and hiccuping. Chara's trying so, so hard not to show it. They're trying to be strong. They're trying to be brave. They're trying to be here for him. But... they know each other better than anyone else, right? Best friends forever. He knows what that flinch and that laugh mean. He knows what that calm deflection means.

"Sorry. I know I'm being too much," he murmurs, punctuating it with a long, gross sniff. Yuck. He's so gross. Stupid, snotty crybaby. "I'm sorry for - for everything, Chara." If they were almost boiled alive too, if they were cornered by strangers with hateful, assuming faces, if they cried into the darkness for help... he can't go acting this coddled. He can't assume he's the only one who needs comfort. He has so, so much to make up for. How can he make this about his own stupid feelings when he doesn't even have feelings? You're not really bothered by a village full of violence, Asriel. You don't feel anything at all about it.

"I'm sorry for not saying no until it was too late. I'm sorry for making you suffer. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you - or - or if I was, I'm sorry for not remembering it." He doesn't - his understanding is still so vague. The man Chara called Mr. Wright says he's familiar, already known, but he can't make the connection between this vague Castle and this place, can't even begin to guess what he's ruined, what he's lost, what else is already over before he could even reach it.

"You don't have to hold on if it doesn't help you. I'm sorry for grabbing."

Of all times- after so much time

Why now?

Why is he apologizing now?

It's a struggle, to try and hide their response. To attempt to keep it off their face, smile slipping until they force it back into place. They give his paws a squeeze- so he won't feel the tremor in their fingers. Despite his offer, they don't let go.

They were never as good at it as he is.

They can't. They can't do this right now. In fact- they can't do this. Ever. He thinks them as brave and in control, but for once, they're going to take the coward's option. Consciously, Chara opts to only focus on as much of his words as they feel they can answer.

"You're hardly accountable for not remembering things you never took part in. Forget what he said," A slight pause. "It doesn't matter."

"I'm sorry anyway," he answers, still hiccuping pathetically. How can it not matter? He still has to deal with the fallout of it. Still has to deal with an unfamiliar adult having a horrifyingly intimate knowledge of him and everything he ever wanted to just keep all to himself. Still has to know that - that he had a SOUL! He had a SOUL for that stranger to resonate with, and now he has to live with the knowledge that he was whole and complete and fixed and had it ripped out of his hands?

How can it not matter, if it might have affected Chara?

"That man... he knows everything," Asriel whimpers. "He - he might know about the plan, and it's all my fault." What if he blames Chara? What if he takes those stolen memories about their insistence that they unleash their power, fight back, defend themselves, take six by force if they have to, and he assumes that makes them dangerous? What if he poisons this whole place's view of them? Chara... hated humanity. Why, they never said, but they felt very strongly about that.

Given that little glimpse of humanity he had, given what they did to Chara and Asriel - and claimed it was for Chara, righteous, what they would have wanted - he... he can't rule out that they would protect themselves in the exact same way here. He can't completely trust that they wouldn't turn hostile on an outsider, a threat, a bad person. He knows what the Underground thought about a person who was willing to kill even once. (Who gets to LV2 on accident?) He knows what he thought about - about... ha ha. Hey, Frisk, he did the right thing, didn't he? He doesn't regret it. It was Chara who wanted to unleash their power. It was them who hated humanity, Frisk!

He's poisoned people's thoughts about what kind of person Chara is. It's all his fault.

"I only just got here, and I've already made things worse for you, Chara. How can that possibly not matter?"

"He already knew about it." And maybe that's not the most reassuring comment to make. It's certainly not something they're happy with, even now; there's no urge to explain that further- to confide in how Tim had treated their own SOUL, when given access to it.

Like a crutch. A thing to use for his own purposes. They wonder if that's how it had felt for Asriel, when they picked up their own body, and walked through the barrier. Into the sunset, towards their death.

Ha ha.

It's no wonder that he stopped caring about them.

"However he explained...the connection between the two of you. I also experienced the same with him. He's aware, whether we like it or not." And that's all there is to it.

I only just got here, and I've already made things worse for you, Chara.

Yes he has. The situation simply grows more complicated, with each new arrival who knows them. His disappearance had been-

It had been. There wasn't anything else to take from it, past the relief of losing one more threat to their plans. They had no more room for anything else. No time for it.

"...You make things more complicated." Their lips twitch, some shade of a genuine smile. "But since when was that new?"

Asriel gasps quietly, breath sticking in his throat sharply. That man... he did it to Chara, too.

He remembers what they felt, when the two of them strode out onto that flowerbed. Their emotions had been all bleeding together. Chara hated humanity... and at the root of that hate? Under the tangled, thorny brambles of fury and disgust lurked fear. Revulsion at being rendered powerless, at knowing that the authority around them could and would wrench consent and control away from them on a whim.

That man... he took that from them, too. Asriel can't even begin to guess how much more invasive, repulsive, horrifying it must have been for them. Nothing distresses Chara more than to have someone else rip control away from them.

(Ha ha. Look who's talking.)

"I'm sorry," he says again, even if it feels woefully inadequate. "I can't even imagine how horrible that felt. You've had enough things taken away from you already."

He has to force himself not to tug a hand away to wipe his sleeve over his dumb gross face. It feels like if he lets go now, he'll never get to hold on to them ever again. It feels like if he lets go now, his arm will fade away into dust and leave nothing behind but thorny vines. It feels like...

Like he wishes that just once, his still being here could make things better.

"...I guess it really isn't anything new," he agrees. "But that's... okay, right? Is it okay? We - we can be together again. We can play like we used to. We can stay up past bedtime whispering to each other, and eat snacks with our bare hands, and share our toys... even if they don't really interest you. Even if - I guess we don't really have toys anymore, do we?"

All the things he thought he had to say goodbye to. The things that used to make Chara smile like they meant it. Maybe they can have that back, after all...? Maybe... maybe it isn't as completely ruined as Asriel feared it was. If he can be with Chara again, then he'd put up with anything. If he can just have his best friend back, then nothing humanity can try to impose on him can hurt him, right?

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DID SOMEBODY SAY "YOUR FAULT"?

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