[Funny, isn't it? They'd made such a point of being beyond accepting anyone's kindness. Just like Flowey, they didn't want any worthless pity. If their SOUL allowed them to feel love, then that was gone, cracked and splintered and scattered like dust ages and ages ago.
And yet starving fingers snatch the locket away from Frisk, swift and alarmed, like the very second they reach out they expect Frisk to yank it away. It slides around their own neck in a way that's painfully familiar, despite the stiff, trembling clumsiness of their hands.
* Right where it belongs.]
I'm not sorry. I won't say thank you.
[But still, they clutch it. Like the subtle pulse and residual warmth are things they could take into themselves, somehow.]
...I chose mercy once. Just to see what would happen. Do you remember?
[Were they even awake enough to? When they had gone down that particular path... Chara's voice had only grown stronger and stronger, and Frisk's had grown more subdued. There was a point when Chara stopped listening entirely.
They were so confused when they awoke. Uncertain why they were here. What purpose there was to their existence. Perhaps, they supposed, it was to be to Frisk what they'd tried to be to Asriel so many years ago. Just close your eyes. You don't have to do anything. I'll kill all of them for you. I'll be strong where you cannot.
But they saw, too, each time Frisk chose to Spare. Fighting against a monster who wished them harm, fighting against Chara's insistent tug towards hitting back. And so. The confusion persisted.
It didn't matter, really. Just one more try out of countless attempts to win. But the words settled in all the same:]
* Sans is sparing you.
[Chara's smile creeps back now, in stilted, crooked little jumps. Was it their own choice to reach for mercy? Frisk's, overpowering Chara's will in one last, desperate reach for help? The two of them reaching together? In some of those timelines, Chara has a harder time separating what was "I" and what was "you."
Whatever the case. They remember. Mercy was a trap. Mercy was a cage. Some people are too evil to ever get forgiveness. A SOUL broke, and Sans had crowed with unbearable, derisive smugness. Laughed at their naivete. To think they could be forgiven, after everything they had done.
So they look at Frisk with wary, fatalistic anticipation. Just waiting for the trap to spring. For whatever string might be attached to the locket, because Best friends forever was obviously a lie, and this must be a lie too.]
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And yet starving fingers snatch the locket away from Frisk, swift and alarmed, like the very second they reach out they expect Frisk to yank it away. It slides around their own neck in a way that's painfully familiar, despite the stiff, trembling clumsiness of their hands.
* Right where it belongs.]
I'm not sorry. I won't say thank you.
[But still, they clutch it. Like the subtle pulse and residual warmth are things they could take into themselves, somehow.]
...I chose mercy once. Just to see what would happen. Do you remember?
[Were they even awake enough to? When they had gone down that particular path... Chara's voice had only grown stronger and stronger, and Frisk's had grown more subdued. There was a point when Chara stopped listening entirely.
They were so confused when they awoke. Uncertain why they were here. What purpose there was to their existence. Perhaps, they supposed, it was to be to Frisk what they'd tried to be to Asriel so many years ago. Just close your eyes. You don't have to do anything. I'll kill all of them for you. I'll be strong where you cannot.
But they saw, too, each time Frisk chose to Spare. Fighting against a monster who wished them harm, fighting against Chara's insistent tug towards hitting back. And so. The confusion persisted.
It didn't matter, really. Just one more try out of countless attempts to win. But the words settled in all the same:]
* Sans is sparing you.
[Chara's smile creeps back now, in stilted, crooked little jumps. Was it their own choice to reach for mercy? Frisk's, overpowering Chara's will in one last, desperate reach for help? The two of them reaching together? In some of those timelines, Chara has a harder time separating what was "I" and what was "you."
Whatever the case. They remember. Mercy was a trap. Mercy was a cage. Some people are too evil to ever get forgiveness. A SOUL broke, and Sans had crowed with unbearable, derisive smugness. Laughed at their naivete. To think they could be forgiven, after everything they had done.
So they look at Frisk with wary, fatalistic anticipation. Just waiting for the trap to spring. For whatever string might be attached to the locket, because Best friends forever was obviously a lie, and this must be a lie too.]