lifeaftr | I Think I Got Too Many Memories Getting In The Way Of Me

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I Think I Got Too Many Memories Getting In The Way Of Me

Who: Anyone willing to deal with an armed, violent-prone child having a tantrum
What: Chara's horrible, no good, very bad day. Someone's getting stabbed! Potentially multiple people! Someone's getting punched in the face! Potentially multiple people!
When: 11th to the 13th of April
Where: everywhere
Warnings: violence, stabbings, generally please don't tag into this if you're not into your character being physically or verbally attacked f-ff

11th - Even At The Best Of Times I'm Out Of My Mind | Islet One

They aren't the type of child who seeks out others, when something happens. Something awful, something utterly out of their control. They do not want to talk about it. They will not cry, nor sulk. There will be very few, if history has proven anything, who will even realize they have been slighted in some way at all.

And then there are those who are on island one when Chara walks up to that now empty abode. And perhaps, they will also not realize that anything is out of the norm-- but they'll certainly take stock of the suddenly flaming knife in their hand, the very same one that embeds itself in the cottage with four, additional rooms added to it, the one with no owner.

The knife, still on fire, remains embedded in now smoking wood. Calmly, Chara takes out a second knife.

And up in flames that one goes, as well.

11-13th - You Only Get What You Grieve | E4

According to some, setting houses on fire is not a healthy outlet for stress.

Which, realistically, is probably fair. The solution to this problem is not to stab inanimate objects, no sir. So how about some animate ones, instead?

The fact that the centipuppies are kind of cute doesn't mitigate the issues they cause- a pack of the creatures could go after a singular target with ease. A cute nuisance. A potentially dangerous nuisance. There would likely be one or two people not too keen on the burning carcasses they've left strewn about the place, but centipuppies aren't docile. They're not a rare creature upon Enso, either; ridding the beach of a single pack isn't problematic at all.

Not even slightly.

If anything, the ordeal becomings something of a mind numbing task, child walking up and down the stretch of the beach, watching out for stragglers. For the next two days, it's all they're going to do. Walk. Wait. And when the situation calls for it

Lash out.

13th, closed to Frisk, Lup, and Tim - Are You Smelling That Shit? | Islet 3
[Their flowers are wilted.

Three days without attention, and Chara should have expected this, really. It's not as if the plants themselves are going to die; they're sturdy enough to take a bit of thirst, a slight amount of burn at the edges of their petals from a harsh sun. The majority of them will love; there are even more shoots to grow, ready to take the place of those that won't.

But there are those that won't.

Frowning critically, Chara considers- the various things they could and should be doing, at this point. Carefully pruning the leaves and picking off the wilted buds, mixing the earth with some more most soil. Watering them all. It's a sizeable enough patch now that it should take a few hours for just the one person- plenty enough to keep them moving until they're tired, ready to find... perhaps ready to collapse into their hammock, after a few days of sleeping outside.

And yet, they don't move just yet. There's so much to do here- and moreso, if they would pay attention to anything else. They haven't been looking for food, the past few days. Haven't been collecting resources to trade with Lup and Taako. Haven't been to the new island past a brief, cursory look; the familiar, tell-tale itch of curiosity absent. Haven't spoken to Frisk or Tim since he-- since this started. There is a great deal to do.

They don't move just yet.]

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[It's too late. It's too late for anything, for the adults to come in and do something, except when they've both messed up and now they need to be punished. Handled. Be quiet. Stop it. Bye.]

[Tim compresses them against his chest so hard that it's hard for them to breathe, hard like the tacky pull of flower-sap, like bones caging them down with speared tips. Nothing hurts as badly as Chara's words. None of it is new, but all of it means more.]

[It's fine. It's okay. Whatever else, before he left, too, Sans did teach Frisk one thing --]

[They know when to QUIT.]

I know. [They say, breathless, toneless. They've stopped struggling against Tim, they're not looking at Lup; they stare down at the sand.] I think you should.

[They don't complain about it. They don't cry about it. Why should they? Turnabout is fair play.]

[It's been game over for a long time.]

[If it were just him - ]

[If it were just him, there'd be no way he'd get them apart. Lup more or less has to drag Chara away, and for once, he can be grateful, stupidly and selfishly grateful, that there's someone here to slam the fucking brakes on, someone that both the kids seem to like and trust well enough, present circumstances notwithstanding. Someone they seem to like willingly, and not out of convenience, not because it was yoked over their souls.]

[It's only once Lup has left with Chara in tow that Tim lets his grip go slack. Lets them go.]

[Breathes.]

I'm sorry. I'm... ["Sorry" doesn't cover it. "Sorry" doesn't alleviate what's been said between them, the feeling of fists tangled in hair and bruises against ribs.]

[He says it anyway, because not saying it would be incrementally worse.]

Hey. How bad is it?

[He's not sorry. They don't believe him. He's not sorry -̙͉-̺̻̠͖͝]

[Their Partner is gone, carried off; cleaved off from them like a limb, like an entire other half, and all it serves is to give Frisk someone else to swing at that -- that -- they can't, because --]

[They jerk away from him with a wordless whimper that pinches off in their throat. It's Tim, some part of them supplies, and it calms a part of them that wants to keep swinging -- instead they push violently away from him, not realizing he's already let them go, and grab their wrist, bringing it close to their chest.]

No.

[They struggle free with a flail of limbs, and he lets them. Thinks briefly of Chip, battering at him with tiny fists and scabbed knees, screaming for him to let them go before their brain caught up with their body and they lapsed into panicked sobs instead.]

[He sits back, maintaining distance.]

[They've earned that.]

Frisk. I just need to know if you're hurt. If you need someone to...if you're bleeding, anything like that.

No.

[They step back again, but there's a distance in their voice that hadn't been there before, like the negatory isn't exactly an answer to Tim's concern. Unclenching their bloodied fist, they extend it out in front of them, vaguely, staring at the space between them and Tim as though -- there might be something there. As though there might be something they can touch.]

[Their hand closes.]

[But nothing happened.]

[Frisk gives a sharp little intake of breath, and there's a burst of scattered light that brightens over their sweater, similar to a sparkplug spitting and dying. Finally they look to Tim again, and their gaze is steady; if blank.]

I need... I can LOAD. Just give me a minute.

You don't have to.

[Here's the thing.]

[He's spat on the equilibrium. He's upset the balance, just by interfering when he did. Can't just live and let live anymore; he cut into the middle of an argument that had nothing to do with him, and that's going to recontextualize everything he does from that point on. He can't just be the idle observer, the cover story, the fly on the wall.]

[He lost that right when he intervened.]

[So when he says: you don't have to, it comes with a painful awareness of the fact that this doesn't come from a neutral party any longer. It's no longer just a suggestion. It's interpretable as a threat, a demand, a protest, a worry - and therefore something that will affect the decision.]

[He's not sure which is worse: the fact that he's starting to understand how Jay must have once felt, or the fact that he grasped it far quickly than Jay himself ever did.]

What you two just...you can take it slow for once. If you need to.

I...

[It's more than their SOUL, pounding inside them like a feverish palpitation; they continue staring at Tim, and a line of faint confusion draws between their eyebrows. The disconnect of him being there. He's not warm, cinnamon-burnt fur or hard and unforgiving bone. He's not a scar-lined hand, small and similar, folded into theirs. The things they still remember, associate with --]

[That tone of voice.]

[Closer pieces lock in, the more recent memories of a dark and dusty room of some other world's ruin. Tim. The man from the Castle in the Mist, whose memories survived what nothing else about him did. His dark, haunted eyes, rings and shadows; an adult voice using words that were for a child. For them. Like almost nobody else ever had before.]

[You deserve someone in your corner.]

[Frisk looks at him, and feels the staunch line of their mouth crumple, and their eyes stinging, because...]

[That's where he is now, isn't it?]

[Frisk feels their chest heave, and drop their face into their hand.]

T... they hate me.

Oh, kid.

[There it is again: that jag in his guts, that curling up of an instinct he wasn't aware still existed, a festering den of live coals that's every hand he's never held and every hug he's never had and every pant leg he never got to cling to. That urge to offer what was never offered to him. They can be an implacable wall, an impossible and irrevocable fucking weight of red-hot iron and immovability, small and compact like a black hole.]

[But looking at them now, he wouldn't know it. They're so damn small, hunched there, defeated. Looking like the kid that they really are and always have been. Looking like the kid who's been told not to cry too much. If you're tough, you won't get hurt all the time.]

[He can't just reach out. He hasn't earned that, after what he did to pull them away. His hands open outward and then curl back in again, because he can't - ]

I think they're really...really hurt. And I think they were...told they shouldn't cry.

[Big kids don't cry, right? You have to be tough. People who hurt are always trying to teach others how not to. ]

So when you're not allowed to break, you try and break other things instead. You lash out. When you're that angry...

[...]

Sometimes you say things you don't mean.

I did mean it, [they say fiercely, the cracks and creaks in their voice making it as strong as the lie. Maybe it's obvious, from the simple fact that they don't realize he was talking about Chara. They turn away from him suddenly, their face flushing a dark red under their brownish skin, suddenly aware and ashamed of the hot tears boiling at the corners of their eyes. Their nose aches and drips, with blood or snot, they're not sure. It doesn't matter, because they're gross. They're wrong. Everything is so wrong.]

[Everything. It dawns on them with cold confusion, and their shoulders go rigid again: everything right now is wrong. Their next words are a question, high-pitched and uncertain.]

Why did you... stop us? Why did you take me away? We were - it was --

[It was their consequences, like always. It was Frisk's and Chara's burden to bear. To sort out, to judge, to jury and execute like always. This is... it's not normal. Nobody's ever stopped them like this before. Not even people who were supposed to. Not Asgore, not Toriel, not Sans. What the hell are they supposed to do with this? What do they do when someone actually stops them from doing something bad?]
[Stop them gently; not with bones; not with blood.]

Nobody is supposed to get in our way.

[Screw-up. Always doing the wrong thing. They did mean it, but have they ever been in a fight they didn't intend to end? Have they ever just...lashed out, and not expected the other party to die because of it? What's he doing, cutting in the way he does? Too much strangeness in his head, seeing the point in intercepting. Loose bolt in a complete machine.]

I'm pretty bad at doing what I'm supposed to.

[Should just lay low, and keep your head down, and not get involved. Should let this all be someone else's problem. Should just run. Should fucking cut and run, and leave it all behind. Should follow someone else's lead blindly, and without question.]

[Should just put the gun to your head, Tim, and do what Alex said you lacked the courage to.]

I think just 'cause you're both hurt, you don't need to hurt each other.

S-... stop.

[Little cracks in their voice that are always there, in a way - the soft-sandpaper sound of vocal chords hovering at an eternal cusp of pubescence, one they'll probably never see, but now they're frozen and brittle and painful in Frisk's throat, and breaking. Gouging holes in their voice, their throat. Them.]

[Everything's broken. Everything's breaking. Frisk's and Chara's fault, but mostly Frisk's.]

[And Tim's trying to fix it. Why does he get to try and fix it? Why doesn't Sans, or their mom, or their dad, or Toriel? Why does he care and they don't? Why --]

[Frisk sinks down, burying their eye into their palm, and hug their elbow meekly. Their knife feels like an anchor.]

Stop telling me how not to hurt!

I'm not -

[Close his eyes. Breathe. You are. Yes, you are. Stop inserting yourself into the goddamned narrative, Tim. You have to take everything, like you took their words and their determination and shaped it into something you could use. You used them. You're using them now.]

[You're making another goddamned mistake.]

I just - Frisk, when was the last time you fought anyone and the stakes weren't...everything? When was the last time you fought anyone and it wasn't to the death?

...

[Their hand lowers from their eye and goes to their other elbow, and that's the silent answer that he receives at first: Frisk hugging their elbows, staring at him quietly with now-unchecked tears down their face. Their eyes are a sharp red against the dark flush of their face, but the confusion in their brows is unmistakable, as calm and fragile as the kid in the back of the class who doesn't understand the question they've just been called on to answer.]

[When? Has that ever even happened? As long as they can remember, before the grooves of the knife hilt became familiar, when it was a stick, a glove, a frying pan. Fire - spears - bones - dust - wait. Wait, wait. Bones. Not ones washed in golden light, but - they do. They do know, and they respond with a shallow croak, like they're not sure the answer is the right one.]

... Papyrus.

[Papyrus. He doesn't know their timeline - he doesn't know how many times over the same points have been repeated and tripped over and wiped away. But Papyrus is an early point. And how long has it been since then?]

[Give or take a few years to accommodate a Castle in the Mist, a war between shadows and light where the stakes were absolute because they had to be, they always had to be, and where does that put them in terms of what should have amounted to a schoolyard brawl?]

How long ago was that?

The first time, [they say mechanically, their gaze moving past him] And the last.

[In-between - it wasn't a matter of their life and death. But that still counts. Frisk swallows again, realizing a few beats later that it doesn't answer his question, not fully - that was far, far back, in the Underground. Before castles, with Queens, and shadows, and portals, and islands with caves and crystals --]

Before everything else.

[Most people don't get used to that kind of thing. Or - they shouldn't. But it's not like Frisk needs to hear what most people are like; they spend enough time hearing about how they're so unforgivably different from everyone else that there's no salvaging it.]

[How do you phrase something so that a kid knows it's not their fault, when they're so used to the onus being on their shoulders?]

You've almost never been allowed to be anything else. It's always...all or nothing. Right? You or them?

[The faraway look they'd had snaps away from them; they're focused on Tim again, and their face goes dark and still. They squeeze one of their elbows and say tonelessly:]

Yes. Kill or be killed.

...

That's what some people used to say to me.

[But they never really believed that. Not the first time, anyway. Maybe not even the other times. Maybe not even now. It was never kill or be killed; not so much as it was SAVE or be killed.]

[They hate it either way.]

That's not how it has to be. Not anymore.

[They've probably heard this before, too. Is there anything he can offer, anything he can say, that isn't exactly what they've heard a million times over? The same fucking words, the same fucking life lessons? You don't have to be this. You don't have to do this. You don't have to give everything away, open-palmed and empty-eyed, until there's nothing of you left. Right?]

But learning not to be that is...hard. You can spend so much of your life just surviving that you can forget how to do anything else.

I don't care.

[Tim doesn't deserve to be talked to like that. They know, they know with that same alarm bell that shrills in the back of their mind, that they're being too rude and it's not okay; the closer, more cognizant understanding that he's just trying to help. Tim is always trying to help. Always trying to be someone that it's too late for them to have - someone they don't need anymore.]

[But he cares enough to try. And that's good. And they care, too.]

[But not right now.]

...

I didn't forget. We talked about this before. You said - you were always going to hurt.

I'm not talking about me right now, Frisk.

[His hurts are things he's lived with his entire life. Sometimes he can ride them out, like a wave broken up against a cliffside. Cut the taste of his meds with the smell of salt, the spray of ocean water on his lips, the scent of flowers. Borrowed memory from sparking neurons, tuning-fork souls.]

[It's one of the reasons he can shrug that away. Anger is a strange color on them. He won't begrudge their capacity to use it a little more than they historically choose to.]

[They licked the pad of their thumb and rubbed it at the slate to clean it all off, chalk dust and ink. Rubbed it all out, except you could still kinda see what still written on it before.]

[But try as you might, ]

What about you?

[Try as they might ,]
[their choices don't matter.]
[they can't stop the tears that carve quiet paths down the dust on their face.]

... that's what I mean.

I told you what someone always said. That I should FIGHT back. He thought it would make me hurt less, but it doesn't. It just makes me hurt like him. I don't want that. I don't want to hurt people when I'm hurt.

...

It's harder than just killing.

[All or nothing. Kill or be killed. Is that meant to be a mercy?]

Can you forgive yourself if you do?

[You can't thumb this away, Tim. You haven't earned that right. Not when you barreled into the two of them, cut them apart with an act that was a violence in and of itself. He can't - but that doesn't mean they have to be alone in it, right?]

...do you think you can walk right now?

[They stare up at him steadily, with an expressionless, tear-marked gaze.]

I've forgiven everyone.

[Frisk glances away from him, scrubs their sleeve up over their eyes, thumbs away some of the blood gummed up in their nostril. Then they nod without turning their gaze. Yes. They can walk. Forward, relentlessly.]

[Privately, he thinks they could stand to forgive a little less. But they already do, in a sense. Selectively. He holds their gaze for only a fraction of a second longer than he has to, then glances in the direction of the house.]

Probably best to get inside, you know? Warmer in there.

[And there's a tigerlily that could probably do with the company. Of course.]

... OK.

[For a few breaths they stay like that, looking at the ground. Their thumb rubbing circles into their wrist through fabric, where Chara grabbed them. Then their eyes skate back up to Tim, and they let go of their arm and reach their hand up towards him, almost imploringly. It halts, and it hovers, for a heartbeat.]

[Just for a heartbeat.]

[And then they start to lower it, and turn towards the shack, and begin walking.]

I Think I Got Too Many Memories Getting In The Way Of Me

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