*Smells familiar.

[dustless]

[warning for child death, gore, general trauma]

Chara's dead. Chara-and-Frisk.

Slice across the throat. Just the one. Still bad. It makes their own hurt like their scar's peeling open.

But they've got a job to do now, because--Frisk just can't leave them there. To rot. For other people to find.

So they don't.

Takes a lot of work, figuring out how to move their body. Dragging's horrible, even when they thought about using a blanket or something. Carrying them fails, because they're literal dead weight, even if they're pretty scrawny.

In the end, they manage to shift them around until they've got the corpse on their back. The most disgusting and macabre piggyback ride, and Frisk needs to keep being hunched over uncomfortably for it to work, but. It does.

It also leaves them completely covered in blood, especially the half where Chara's head ends up lolling, sending rivulets of red down that side and makes a trail all the way from the bottom of the stairs to the garden. Frisk's not really aware of that. Frisk's not really aware of anything except the steps they need to take.

Bring the body outside, to the garden. Not far from where their body and the first Chara's were buried, actually, though a little more concealed behind a stand of trees. Go get a shovel. Dig.

They won't be able to dig as deep as six feet alone, and they can't build a coffin. Doesn't matter. Frisk just needs to make it big enough for them to fit under the dirt.

Chara-and-Frisk will be back soon enough.






Addendum: one more body, one more burial.

Comments

[boogerman]

"No." he says firmly, feet planted in the dirt. Make him. What will you do, Frisk, try to beat him to death with the shovel? "Nowhere better in the whole wide world to be right now." Hah. See the joke? Shame they're trapped in the same small space with the Nightmare King.

"Should I? Who would you prefer, him or me?"

[dustless]

There probably is, actually. With that other Chara. With anyone else who saw that body before them. Not that Frisk is about to point that out.

"Neither. Go. Away," they repeat coldly. They don't know how to get him away without taking drastic measures, and they shift their weight in front of the body.

[boogerman]

He steps forward, left foot much closer to the body than his right... "No. Answer the question first. Jack Frost, the one who would think you're a beast for killing another child... or me? The one who doesn't care or judge at all?"

[dustless]

They straighten up move, getting close.

"Nobody needs to be here! Not you, not him, not anybody!" They want to tell Pitch he should care, but they want him gone the most.

[boogerman]

So he steps sideways, circling around to keep some distance, enough that he's sure he can count on his reflexes to prevent a careless touch.

"Life isn't fair. All this time you've wasted talking, as if I'm really what's keeping you from digging. Ready for me to toss the garbage over the edge yet?"

Keep getting nastier and nastier, Pitch. Soon the kid will feel a chill just from seeing his shadow, once he's part of their trauma. It'll be grand.

[dustless]

They stop, standing in front of the body again. A guard for as long as they need to be, no matter what level of sense it might or might not make.

"You said that already and they're not garbage! You're in the way, get out of here!"

[boogerman]

Arms wide, he laughs to their face--"How am I in the way? All I've done is talk! Besides, you know it's garbage. The freak and the parasite will be back good as new."

Gee, when you put it like that, Pitch, it's not comforting at all.

[dustless]

"You're too close! Go--go find--Jack Frost if you're gonna, already," they say bitterly, maybe with an edge of desperation. They want him to be quiet, they want him to be gone so they can get their job done.

[havesomefun]

Jack has...not been up for dealing with people, as of late. It helps that the general background level of stress and fear and pain in the air had been lessened, once everyone had changed back. But he'd still been left feeling filthy and tainted and confused, and most certainly unworthy to be around the very children he was sworn to protect.

But this...there was a foulness in the air that he couldn't ignore, even in the midst of his own misery. A pain beyond mere injuries. so he'd gone looking.

And this was what he found.

Jack touches down on the grass beside Pitch without a sound. It freezes instantly at his touch. He grips his staff tightly and glares up at Pitch with a force that makes the air between them start to mist over.

"Get away from them, Pitch."

oops

[boogerman]

A tiny, useless step backwards. Heh. He amuses himself. (There's no one else to amuse.)

"Better? Enough room now? I'd say so." He grins, too pleased, clutching his gigantic scythe. "Dig, you. I'll be quiet. I'll stand guard. Look at me, the guardian!"

Then... oh, hell, a little snowflake playing hero. He does step back now, prepared to strike back and slice the twit in two. Pitch knows what's coming. And yet... he isn't fleeing. Fight, not flight.

"Or?"

[dustless]

Frisk bites their lips on a curse, fingers blanching around the handle. This is exactly, completely what they didn't want!

"Bothofyougoaway! I don't need help!"

[havesomefun]

Jack spares Frisk a glance. Just for a moment, he doesn't trust Pitch if he looks away that long. But a moment is still almost too much. He hastily looks away, going - if possible - even paler. Oh god so much blood. He hates blood. He wonders what happened...but whatever happened, he knows Frisk wasn't responsible for the blood. He can still trust that.

"We're going away right now," he says instead, glowering back up at the other spirit. The sight of the scythe doesn't even make him flinch, anymore. Not after everything else. "Either you agree to that, Kozmotis, or I make you."

Jagged ice and biting frost gathers around the crook in the staff, around Jack in a freezing aura that outright kills the grass around his feet. He looks about as violent and ready to fight as Pitch will have ever seen him, even with the assistance of the other Guardians at his back. The last month or so has left him tired of a great many things, and rather more short-tempered.

[boogerman]

He's about to swing, bending back in a fluid boneless way... and then blinking, bemused. "Cosmos? What?"

Already the name is fading. Deep inside him, the dark ones are stirring, shushing him and telling him to forgot...

forget us forget before forget you kosmotis s h h h h

The confusion taking over his expression deepens. Where was he? What was he doing? What just happ--ah, right, Jack caught him tormenting some idiot kid. That freaky little stalker who never got a clue.

He raises the scythe again...

[dustless]

Kosmotis. Weird enough word that they might remember it. Later. Right now they're not paying attention.

"No no no no no NO! Don't--don't fight just--go! Go already!" They take a warning stomp forward, expression cracking. They just wanted to give their friend a grave to rest in, and now there's these spirits and all their old Guardian business and dumb grudges.

[havesomefun]

Even now, that look of dawning puzzlement on Pitch's face tears at Jack's frozen heart. Because he understands a little more, now. He knows the sound of that whispering. He knows how insidious it is, how easy it is to forget even if he doesn't know a fraction of everything Pitch has forgotten.

But that pity fades when Pitch goes right back to trying to kill him.

His expression hardens. And later on he'll regret ignoring Frisk, but for now there's nothing on Jack's mind but bitterness and anger and pain and fear and wrongness...and the swing of that scythe giving him the excuse to vent all of it.

He pounces, moving in fast enough to blur beneath the blade of that scythe, darting in under Pitch's guard. Then he attacks in a flurry of icicle blades and blasts of frost and a few good, solid whacks with his staff for good measure. He attacks as though it's his life on the line, not just a funeral...and in a way, it feels as though it is.

whoops fell asleep

[boogerman]

If he hadn't been distracted by... something. What was it? What did Jack say?

If if. Then he wouldn't be screaming, blasted over by the ice and rolling backwards ungracefully, unable to stop himself. The sand-scythe wisps away into nothingness, and he's flat on his back in the dirt, empty-handed. With an enemy right there, a Guardian.

Maybe playing dead will work, until he can suck in a breath and say something. He lays there, motionless, staring at the sky. Miserable bratty snowflake. All he wants is fear.

reasonable

[dustless]

Pitch lands right where they were going to make the grave and Frisk's tiny final scrap of patience is gone.

The shovel clangs to the ground beside Chara-and-Frisk and this Frisk throws their arms out. Like a hug. Except not at all. Can't believe you're doing this, I can't believe you two, I don't believe in you and they charge, screaming and sobbing, aiming to go right through them both. Maybe then they'll stop, maybe then they'll leave!

[havesomefun]

All he wants is fear. Jack knows what that's like, and he hates that he knows. He knows now how easy it is to just leave everything else behind and focus on that hunger. He hates thta that knowledge is in him now, and Pitch is the easiest person to blame for that.

So Frisk charging through them both is perhaps the only thing that would stop him attacking in that moment. It does, and suddenly Jack is...nowhere, and nothing, and he pulls himself away from both child and enemy with a startled cry of shock and pain. He stumbles and staggers back, holding his staff up defensively in front of himself, before his vision clears and he focuses on Frisk and for a moment Jack looks betrayed.

...only for a moment, though. Then he comes to his senses.

"Get out of here, Pitch."

[boogerman]

Feet. Little child feet are stomping through him, sucking all the warmth and goodness and self out of the world. He hadn't managed to sit up in time. They're walking all through him, his legs his stomach and chest his face--

He's not real. Real things are solid. You can't walk through beds, tables, and walls. Pain he can handle. Slammed into walls, pulled apart by evil vines, burned and crushed by light, bones shattering? Not a big deal. This feeling of being hollow, turned inside out... nope. He's making a wheezy whining sound which is probably meant to be a shriek.

Then he's scrambling up, clumsy as a drunk, and collapsing into the shadows like a dying black hole. Time to go submerge himself at the bottom of the underground lake. He doesn't breathe and no one will ever find him there. Pitch is out.

:'I

[dustless]

Frisk twists and circles around them both, not watching Pitch disappear, even if the sound he made makes their chest tight despite everything.

(It's still you.)

They stop and stoop by Chara-and-Frisk's body, picking the shovel up. "Sorry," Frisk tells them, because the shovel landed on their arm. They can't feel it, probably can't hear it, but they don't care. Feels better than not.

Jack's still here, and they don't want that. They step around again, too late, standing protectively in front of the corpse. Blocking it. "You too," they demand roughly, holding the shovel the same way he does his staff.

[havesomefun]

Jack doesn't notice Pitch leave, at first - he remains huddled on the ground, shaking the way any other being would in a gust of freezing wind. But even when that shock fades, it only leads to him being free to feel the equally icy force of Frisk's glare.

He looks up at them, and has just enough time to register that Pitch is gone before he hastily has to look away again. Jack opens his mouth, closes it, gulps, then tries again.

"...can I stay? Please? I...I want to help. Look," he adds hastily, and holds up a hand. Ice crystallizes above it, taking shape, spreading out, until it forms a shovel as well. "I can help you dig."

[dustless]

"No!" they snap viciously, chest constricting. He wasn't supposed to be here! He wasn't supposed to see this. He...

...he looks so scared. Of them. Of what they did.

And still, he wants to help them.

"No," they repeat, quietly. "You...you shouldn't--" their voice breaks off into a horrible sound, a rusting doorhinge and a wounded dog.


"Please. Please go 'way, Jack."

[havesomefun]

He should. He should just go, they've made themselves clear. But...they also look to be in so much pain. He can't turn his back on that so easily.

Jack ran away too, once. He thought he wanted to be alone, but...he was still so grateful later that Baby Tooth came to look for him.

His expression flickers like he's just been slapped, when they make that noise. But then Jack gets slowly, carefully back to his feet, and creeps a few paces closer.

"...you shouldn't have to do this alone, either." He bends down a little, to better look them in the eye. "It's okay, to need help. I want to help. That's supposed to be what I'm for. I'm not...I'm not mad at you, Frisk. I know you just wanted us to stop." He wants to offer a hand, but...both of them are occupied. So after a moment's wavering hesitation, he jams his staff down into the dead grass to wait on him for a little while.

[dustless]

He's a blur blue and white in front of their eyes. They can't tell exactly how close he is that way. They lean back, though, because they don't...actually want to do it again. Go through him. There's no reason to. Yet. Not trying to touch Chara-and-Frisk. And--even if he did, he wouldn't...throw them away.

It'd be easier if he was mad. It'd be easier to yell at him to leave some more.

Frisk moves the shovel so the scoop's hiding their face, and hiding Jack from them too. "J-Jack you--you--you--d-d-don't--" but they can't get anything else out.

[havesomefun]

He would never throw them away. He would never condemn them to sinking through emptiness, discarded and left behind...like he was. Even if it wouldn't be forever. It wasn't for him, either.

Funerals are important.

Jack reaches out when Frisk hides their face, but stops himself. He looks between them and the bloody, motionless body left on the grass. Then he takes a deep breath, and makes a decision.

The dirt makes a very satisfying sound when he drives his shovel down into it, just next to Chara-and-Frisk.

"This spot okay?" He looks over to Frisk for confirmation, before he lifts any soil free.