[closed] I can't get a grip, but I can't let go

[gainedlove]

Who: Frisk and Chara
When: July 6th
Where: The gardens
What: Eventually, everyone reaches a breaking point. Sometimes you're lucky enough to have someone to pull you back from it.
Warnings: self-harm, mention of suicide, will update if needed


Everything is falling apart. The ship, their family...Frisk had thought they'd had things figured out now. They had managed to start actually helping people again, SAVE them where other people couldn't. They'd been doing so well...

But it hadn't been enough. They couldn't get enough people to listen, to try and prevent any more harm or death. The Cadeucans hadn't wanted peace at all, and Frisk couldn't figure out how to make them back down in time. Really, they had barely tried at all--as soon as the attack began they'd frozen. And Papyrus...

Frisk should have taken those bullets, not him. It should have only been them to die.

Their newly-glass body felt like a sick joke, a reminder of how easily their family had been mowed down. They had tried to keep Frisk from realizing, but it hadn't been hard to figure out. Not with the way Toriel's gaze would slide away, not with the sins weighing Asriel's tiny shoulders down. Not with Sans missing, and not even a whiff of him anywhere in cryo.

It should have been them.

Curled up near the crystal tree in the gardens, it's hard to notice Frisk at first. Only their uniform makes them stand out among the glass, their body as clear as half of the ship has become. They sit cross-legged and stare down at their hands, feeling numb and listless, not quite real. Grief and sorrow and a misery so deep they couldn't stand it...

They don't really remember calling the Dagger out of their inventory, gripping it so tightly in their hands. Frisk stares at it for several long seconds, and then back down to their palm. There are cracks there, tiny and thin but slowly spreading. For a few long moments Frisk does nothing...but then they set the point of the blade into one of the cracks, and start to push.

They're just doing what the mountain could not, aren't they?

Comments

[heart_breaking]

"... Frisk?"

It's the moment of putting a foot over open air and hanging suspended before the fall: part of Chara still hasn't understood the tension they're seeing, and the rest of Chara knows the way Frisk's elbows are tucked. Every molecule in the world has turned to ice.

"Frisk, put that down, now!"

Words lash out like a whip, and Chara is storming over with only one thought: taking the knife away. How dare Frisk even think about doing this? How could they be so stupid? Why would they scare Chara and everyone else, why would they--would they try to hurt--

It's all happening very quickly, but recognizing the look on Chara's face doesn't take much time. They're furious.

[gainedlove]

Chara's words are like a slap in the face; Frisk flinches, startles and looks up and around, eyes wide and their delicate hair crackling against itself. Parts snap and fall off, shattering with a delicate sort of sound that contrasts sharply with the gravity of the situation.

Frisk meet's their sibling's gaze with wide eyes, confused and scared and frozen in place. Just like that first time Flowey attacked, or Toriel made her ultimatum, or Undyne appeared from the shadows...

The knife is still stuck in the cracks of their hand. They're too confused to even try to hide what they had been doing.

"Ch-Chara--?!"

[heart_breaking]

Boney fingers grab the part of the knife just past Frisk's grasp. The glass tinkling down from Frisk's ears feels like the edges of Chara's own mind, and they have a wild impulse to stab Frisk proper through the chest, or maybe themself.

They do neither, instead yanking the knife back, throwing it down a walkway as hard as they can, and watching it clatter. There. It helps a little, and that's not a lot but it's more than before. Chara rounds on Frisk again, throat tight.

"I don't--... I don't believe this!" They grab at Frisk's hand, trying to lift it up to the light. Shadows shake: their own hand is trembling.

"Frisk, resets don't work here. You stupid--you do remember that, don't you?!"

[gainedlove]

The knife is ripped easily out of their hands, a crack ringing through the air as another fracture appears in Frisk's palm. They wince, curl inward, duck their head, make themself as small as possible, maybe they'll be overlooked--

Chara's hand around their wrist is a focus, something that clears the edges of Frisk's panic and gives them something solid to latch onto. They didn't realize until that moment that they were shivering, and they look up at Chara with eyes that would be brimming with tears were Frisk's body only able to shed them. Frisk's palm falls open, revealing the hairline fractures reaching out from the larger crack in the center of Frisk's palm. Some of them nearly reach up into Frisk's fingers.

"I..." Strange, how they could feel like they're choking when they don't need air in their lungs. "I was..."

Frisk chokes out a sob, and they try weakly to tug their hand back. "I don't...I don't deserve this...! I-I can't help anyone!"

[heart_breaking]

"Frisk!"

There's a distinct sense of helplessnes to the way they press Frisk's hand between their own, as though the pressure might fix the cracks. Their eyes are burning, and their lips tremble. How can Frisk not see what is so obvious? Chara recognizes some of it, because they can hear their own voice in Frisk's, but it's also different. Whoever hurt them was a horrible human being that was mean to a good person. It was wrong.

Chara chokes out, "Frisk, you already help people." Frisk looks like they're falling apart in more ways than physical, and Chara pulls them into a careful, hovering hug.

"You didn't do anything wrong. You help me. It's okay... We'll just--we'll fix this in the next reset. Okay?"

[gainedlove]

Their chest hurts, a clenching right where their SOUL sits, glowing and beating and so very, very Determined but it doesn't do anything, does it? They're slipping and failing, and it's only a matter of time before people see.

But Chara's arms go around them, and for a moment they can't even breathe. Chara knows, they know more than anyone what Frisk should have been able to do. What they'd wanted to, what they'd been struggling for, the only reason they were...

'You help me.'

The words sink in slowly, and Frisk's breath hitches and hiccups strangely. Their eyes burn, and it feels like there should be tears but they just won't come.

"I-I...!"

Frisk clings onto Chara tightly, burying their face in the other child's shoulder. Trembling, sobbing, please don't let go.

"I-I don't know what t' do, Chara...! I-I don't know how t' fix any of it!"

[heart_breaking]

"Sometimes you just can't."

They're mumbling against the side of Frisk's head. Frisk's usually soft fringe is now made of delicate slivers of glass, and Frisk's hold has a weight that it never used to have. Chara sniffs and holds them closer.

"F-Frisk... you can't. But, you can fix it later, you just have to--you just have to figure it out. I'll figure it out. Then we'll get resets back, and we'll just rewind the whole thing. We'll fix everything, but for now--... for now just don't do that, okay?"

[gainedlove]

Their hair bends slightly around Chara's face, clinking and grinding where it doesn't. Frisk can't find their voice, robbed away by their grief and hurt, but the tightening of their arms and a tiny nod are response enough to Chara's reassurances.

They can figure it out together. The two of them...they've always been a team. Partners. Even if things are bleak now...they can find a way back. They can work it out together.

Months ago, Frisk would have been worried that Chara would try to run off with the power themself, do horrible things and hurt people while Frisk could control nothing. But now...it's like home. They're together again, hand in hand and it's right and it's such a relief to have them back again.