Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Papyrus, wait!" I laugh, running after him and tugging on his arm, "I... Don't think you should do that. Humans lash out when they're afraid. I don't want you getting hurt. "

"I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, HURT?" He scoffs, pulling away and beginning to jog away again.

"Papyrus, seriously! Come back!" I say in a much more sober tone, and run after him again, this time grabbing both his arms and leading him back.

"I WILL BE FINE! I SHALL NOT SCARE THE HUMANS, I SHALL CHARM THEM WITH MY INCREDIBLE CHARISMA AND IMPRESSIVE INTELLECT! I, THE GREAT AND MAGNIFICENT PAPYRUS, HURT?" He scoffs again, turning around once again and attempting to make his exit.

"Yes! You, the great Papyrus, can get hurt! Just like Asriel, your prince, could get killed!" He stops, and I can see him tense at the tone, void of all the joy I usually imploy when talking with him, and the mention of their prince clearly spooks him, but he doesn't turn around.

"He died, Papyrus, because of my people. Because they were afraid, and they lashed out. And he had a human soul in tow as well. You've just got... You. It's... It's not an insult, Papyrus. It's concern. Diplomatic concern, if you can't stand the personal stuff." Papyrus finally turns as my voice softens, and he returns to stand by the ledge with everyone. If he had a tail, I swear it would be between his legs. He doesn't even defend himself further, simply gives Asgore and Toriel a nervously apologetic look, ignoring me completely.

Probably a good thing, because if anyone had been looking they would've seen the tears gathering in my eyes, the way my hands and knees shook, and my teeth worrying at my lip.

Asriel... Flowey... Everything that happened back underground... All those people... Even you, Papyrus... He took you too... And you don't even remember...

"diplomatic concern?" Sans whispers to me, cutting off my train of thought as well as the horrific images that came with it. I wipe my eyes inconspicuously, under the pretence of tucking my hair behind my ear.

"If word reached the queen that a monster was free and rampaging through villages before I can convince her that monsters aren't dangerous... You'll all be back down there, kept at bay by technology rather than magic, perhaps, but you'll be stuck again. I know he means no harm, but..."

"they won't see that." Sans finishes, nodding gravely.

"Quick to judge, slow to change, hard to love, easy to hate." I say, more to myself than anyone else.

"Well... I think we should probably try and make our way to that castle!" I say, sounding far more sure of myself than I feel, "Toriel, Asgore, you were once ruling the Underground together, it would probably be best if you work together again. You know far better than me what monsters need and want they want. You'll be far better Ambassadors than me." They look to each other, and Asgore looks slightly scared. I'm pretty sure I've never seen Toriel more annoyed.

"You're renouncing your title? Then I shall take your place!" Undyne exclaims confidently.

"No, I'm not." Undyne sags, "I'm getting a new one. I can mediate. I've seen both worlds, and while I don't know everything about either, I know enough to see our differences and similarities. I can stop the negotiations from becoming a warzone, but you, and whoever we're negotiating with, will have to do a lot of the work. Do you... Think you're up to it?" I realise that I've been taking control here, and try to fade back into the shadows a little, afraid of what I might do with that control.

I got everyone almost killed.

"Yes, child. We're both adults, we can work together." Toriel says, at the same time as Asgore.

"Yes, Frisk. I'm sure we can find a way to work together." Asgore says, at the same time as Toriel.

Giggles run through your group for a few moments, before they're all silenced by the glares from both injured parties.

"W-well th-then... Um... Papyrus?" The skeleton stands smartly to attention, "D-do you th-think you c-could... Well, um, with Undyne's help, of course..." The fish lady looks in my direction, "K-keep everyone underground? Just until m-me an-and Toriel and Asgore f-find you all some-somewhere to g-go?"

"You want me, and him, to hold back the entire monster race from what has been their only wish for who knows how long?" Undyne says, shoving her face right into mine, making me painfully aware of how sharp her teeth are and how many she has.

"Y-yes?" I stutter.

"Sure!" She says, cheerily, walking back to where the Barrier used to be, grinning from gill to gill.

"I SHALL FULFILL MY DUTIES AS ORDERED." Papyrus says, before saluting me, Toriel, and Asgore, and marching robotically after Undyne.

"You and Alphys keep them in check, okay? M-make sure they don't hurt anyone?" I say to Sans.

"you betcha." Sans says, nodding to me and following his brother.

"I-I'll do my b-best." Alphys says, giving me a slightly shaky smile and following her girlfriend.

"Your best will be more than enough." I mutter softly, and turn to the sunset for a moment.

It's been so long since I've seen the sky. I never thought I'd miss it this much.

The firey colours, blending and mixing, fanning out across the sky... The thought of seeing this again every evening fills me with something not quite determination. Peace and perseverance maybe, but I'm all out of determination.

I eventually decide that it's the will to see this through, mixed with a bone-deep need for a warm bed and a hot mug of something sweet.

"Let's... Let's go." I say to the two ex-lovers, and start making my unsteady way towards the castle.

"Hold on! Don't you want to go home and see your family first?" Toriel says, grabbing my shoulder.

"I... Don't really have a family." I shrug my shoulders as carelessly as I can, giving away my weakness when I bite my lip, "C-could... Could I stay with you instead?"

"Oh Frisk... You really are a funny child. If you had said that earlier, none of this would have happened. It is a good thing you took so long to change your mind." She laughs, and gives me a well-deserved hug. Maybe I don't need a bed and a hot drink. A few hugs might just be enough.

"If you really do not have any other place to go... I will do my best to take care of you, for as long as you need." She says just as she pulls away.

Your best will be more than enough. 

"I'm sure." I feel tears prickling at my eyes, and turn away before she or Asgore can see them, "W-well, l-let's get going!" I point to the path that seems may eventually lead to the castle, and take a few steps toward it.

"you want to be there this century, right?" Sans peeks his head out from behind a nearby rock, and I almost tumble off the cliff edge.

"Y-yeah..." I say, after regaining my balance.

"follow me. i know a shortcut." Sans says, and despite the illogicality of his statement, I follow.

"Sans, have you even been up here before?"

"nope. I wasn't alive before the war, buddy." Come to think of it, how old is he?

"Not too surprised. How old are you?"

"twenty-eight. papyrus is twenty-two." He replies, answering the question I was about to ask.

"And you guys?" I say to Toriel and Asgore, who seem to be trying to set each other on fire with their eyes.

"Hm? What was that, child?" Toriel says sweetly, as Asgore puts out a small fire beside one of his horns.

"How old are you two?" The two glance at each other, and then back to me. And then they do it again. And again. And again.

"we're not pyschic, people, as cool as that would be. just answer the question." Sans says, and it occurs to me that these two goats are royalty. And Sans is sassing them. Hell if that ain't impressive as fuck.

"Well... As long as it won't change the way you look at us..." Toriel pauses hesitantly, before Asgore nods and she continues, "I am three-hundred-and-twenty-six, and he is three-hundred-and-thirty-two."

"Woah." I whisper faintly.

"woah." Sans whispers loudly. Does he even have lungs? Certainly not vocal chords, I'd be able to see them... Monsters are weird.

"How... How old were you when the barrier was made?" I ask, barely louder than my whisper.

"It is three-hundred years old. I was twenty-six, and he was thirty-three. Or, it was three-hundred years old, before today." Toriel smiles comfortingly at me, and I return it only just.

I turn back around, to watch where I'm going, and see halls of polished stone where a path of hard rock used to be. I yelp, but clap a hand over my mouth to stop it from being audible.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to this. How do you even know this? You've never been up here!" I whisper, half-angrily and half-amusedly, to Sans.

"i feel it in my bones." Is his only reply, before he turns around and disappears into the shadows.

For fucks sake Sans.

I wince at it, but, as Sans himself would point out, I'm smiling. Behind me, Toriel is suppressing laughter unsuccessfully. I shush her, and take a moment to look around.

The grandness of it is impressive; tall stained glass windows catching the light clumsily and throwing it at the room, sending it scattering across the polished floor in an array of colours and shapes as if it's been sent through water rather than glass. Spires of marble winding upwards into the rafters, were beams of wood criss-cross over a high, curved ceiling, just the height of it making my knees tremble from vertigo. Suits of armour line the room, staring silent disapproval at us, while their meticulously polished metal tosses bright, focused sunlight at us. 

The whole place is more of a cathedral than a castle.

"I... I'll going first. I'll explain it to her, and then... Only come in when I say, okay? She won't be ready for it otherwise. Who knows what might happen. Try... Try to stay hidden. If... If someone does find you... Run, but... But don't hurt them. It'll only make things harder in the long run." I say nervously to them, before stepping out, eyes closed, into the throne room.

"What is this child doing in my castle?" Calls a normal-sounding woman. I peek open an eye, and see a rather normal-looking woman sitting behind a normal-looking desk, filling out normal-looking paperwork. If I didn't know better, I'd say she was an accountant at work. Her hair is a natural platinum blonde, and the little I can see of her face is pointed and bird-like. She seems to have three piercings in her each of her ears, and none of them are in her lobes.

"I... You... We... Well... You see... Erm..." I take a deep breath, and remind myself of that sunset. It's right out there, waiting for me.

"You know of monsters, right?" The queen nods distainfully.

Of course she does, you idiot!

I wince physically at the words Flowey said to me, repeated out of my own mind in a voice not-quite mine.

"Well... Um... The Barrier... The one that kept them in?" I look up, knawing on my bottom lip.

"I am aware of it, yes. It keeps us safe."

Oh, the lies we've been told...

"It's kind of broken. And they're kind of not dangerous. And their leaders are kind of around that corner. They... We want to negotiate with you." The queen's face falls from distain to pure horror, and I can't tell if under it is fear, or anger.

"How did this happen?" If I'm not careful, I get the sense that she might just order her guards to kill me.

"Well... Erm... I don't really know. No one remembers. There... There was a... A... A monster, he just appeared, and he looked like a flower, and then... Then the Barrier was broken. No one remembers exactly." It's a boldfaced lie, but it's the best I can do with no one else being able to back me up.

"So... So now the entire monster race has been freed." The woman pinches the bridge of her nose, and leans back into her chair, sighing, "And you say their leaders are just around that corner?"

"They aren't dangerous. None of them are. Even if they tried, they can't harm you. You're so much stronger than them. All humans are." I reason as politely as I can. Unlike with Asgore and Toriel, it's hard to forget she's the queen, even if she looks like an accountant.

"Well then... If it's all already done... Bring them in." She snaps her fingers, and I for a moment fumble over a curtsey before scampering back out into the hall.

"I think she's willing to talk. Just don't... Don't push. Wait for her to catch up, or who knows what she might do. Remember, her whole world has come crashing down as well. And that the victors write the history books." I whisper to them, and they nod in response.

The queen shrieks when she sees them.

"They are harmless?" She screams, knocking over her chair as she attempts to run away. Her guards lift her back up, and she is flushed red when she comes to stand in front of us.

"Y-yes, your magesty." I stutter, and glance behind my shoulder to see Asgore and Toriel both leaning back, looking terrified.

"They could rip either of us in half!" Squealing, she looks like a child afraid of a dark room or an unfamiliar toy, and I have to swallow a giggle.

"N-no, your magesty. They-they're made of mostly magic. We are m-mostly water. Y-y-you see, magic can't-"

"-I don't want to hear excuses!" She takes a step back, and shakes her head as if to clear it, "J-just... Just tell me what you want."

I turn back to Asgore and Toriel, "I don't know what you need, or what you want. I'm here as a buffer, not to make decisions."

"Well..." Toriel and Asgore say together, ending the word with a firey glance at each other.

"For now, all we really need is a place to stay. We can get everything else we need from the Underground." Toriel says, evidently trying to sound kind and calm, even though her paws are trembling.

"And where am I supposed to get that? Unlike you, I can't just conjure up whatever I need! I have to have time!" She yells, and I suddenly realise that no one was ready for this. The queen is angry because she's scared, and Asgore and Toriel are hesitant because they're petrified. Now they both jump a few centimeters in the air as the queen screams.

"P-perhaps we should sit down somewhere? And give everyone some time to catch their breath?" I offer quietly, and everyone swings around to look at me, as if they forgot I was there.

"Maybe that is for the best." The queen says, pinching her nose and shaking her head. I make note of the nervous ticks.

"Yes, child. Thank you, I think everyone here needs it." Toriel says, giving me warm eyes that could melt my heart if it wasn't already goop.

Asgore simply stands there, stiff as the suits of armour in the hall, and nods his head.

"Do you have a dining hall? Somewhere we can all sit down and talk about this like adults." I suggest.

"Yes... Yes. Yes! The dining hall! Guards, follow us. Make sure they don't do anything suspicious." The queen says, as if waking from a stupor, and clicks her fingers to summon her guards.

Halls of polished stone, suits of armour glaring at me from their stations by the walls, brandishing their swords and pikes menacingly, windows gleaming with the light of a fading sunset, servants scampering to and fro, cleaning or tidying or carrying things, jumping as they see us passing, but continuing with their duties.

"Alastair, confiscate all technological devices from all workers, and keep them all here until they have sworn a solemn oath to never reveal what they saw today. Word of this must not reach ears beyond this castle." She snaps her fingers again, and one of the guards steps away from the procession and begins talking to someone on a walkie-talkie.

Once in the dining hall, I sit everyone down. Asgore seems more willing to speak up, Toriel seems to be trying to figure out how best to be nice to the queen, and the queen herself seems to be trying to comprehend the whole situation.

This isn't going to work. Not like this.

"How about we start with introductions? My name is Frisk, I'm eighteen years old, my parents died three years ago in a car crash. I have no siblings, and for the past three years I've lived with my aunt and uncle... Hm... My first pet was an octopus named Jilly. My father ran a acquarium while he lived, and I believe it is still in business: I sold it to one of my neighbors when my parents died." I sit down, and gesture for the queen to stand.

She stands, looking around, as if she expects one of us to suddenly attack her, but takes her turn, "My name is Sophie, I'm twenty-four years old, and my parents are alive but retired. I don't have any siblings either, although at one point I was going to have a baby brother. He was a stillborn. My first pet was a horse. Her name was Layla, and I still ride her when I can." She sits down, and seems to be blushing. I motion for Asgore to go next, and he stands.

"Well... M-my name is Asgore. My parents... Well, that doesn't really matter, and my siblings don't either... neither does my first pet... Erm... Well, I am currently the King of the Underground, although I suppose the Underground isn't really anything anymore... Erm..." He half sits down, looking confused and unsure, and I laugh a little as I nod for him to sit fully. Toriel stands.

"My name is Toriel. My parents and first pet don't really matter, but I do enjoy baking in my spare time. And... And writing jokes." She seems to be blushing through her fur at the last sentence. Monsters are the best.

"Well, now that we're all acquainted... Um..." I glance around at everyone, and no one seems any more ready than they were before, "Look... I know, everyone is freaked by this, and you're all more than a little scared of each other. But..." I turn to Toriel and Asgore, with an expression of pleading sympathy on my face, "Humans can be... Difficult. They can be annoying, stubborn, arrogant, careless, selfish, and whole host of other things. Quick to judge, slow to change, hard to love, easy to hate. But don't think that's all they are! When you have their loyalty and their love, when you have their trust, they will turn that stubborness into a sheild, and they'll use it for you, rather than against.

"Sure, some humans, once this is all over and you can live amongst them, won't trust you even after they've been told by everyone they know that you're not dangerous. I don't want you to think that these people won't exist, and that things will be all sunshine and rainbows, but you shouldn't think that these people make up the entire population. Probably a minority, in fact. I just hope... I just hope that, while you probably can't stop them from being quick to judge and slow to change, that with your help, your kindness caused by three centuries of pain, you can help them become easy to love, and hard to hate." Toriel is smiling at me now, and she seems to finally realise that I'm not a child. I return the smile, easily, as last, and look to Asgore. He's still looking at the queen in fear, but it seems to be tainted by a will to help.

Maybe one day they can have tea together.

"And... Sophie. I know they look bad, if I hadn't been close to death and already terrified, I probably would've screamed the first time I saw Tori. To you, it looks like they just took everything you had, like they've trodden on your whole world; but tell me... All those years ago, was it right to banish an entire race out of fear? After all you've learned since then, about racism and sexism, about homophobia and transphobia and all of that... Can you sincerely tell me that your people were treating them any differently than you feel they're treating you now?"

"You're taking their side. You're referring to humans as 'my people', but they're yours too!" Sophie says, but I can see through the cracks in the anger. The shame, and the guilty realisation. She hates monsters more than ever, for being in the right and for making her so horribly wrong.

"No, I'm not. I refer to both monsters me humans as 'they' and 'your people', because I am here to mediate. I cannot have any preference for either culture. I take their side no more than I take your side." I smile softly at her, the way Toriel smiled at me, with sympathy and understanding, and am careful to keep any pity away from my gaze. 

"The monsters may blame you, and all humans, for what happened. After the amount of pain you caused them, after the strength you showed, it's hard not to think of all humans as cruel gods, with no weaknesses and no pity. Many may want to live away from humans entirely, and while this may seem like a temporary solution, it will almost undoubtedly cause more hysteria than ever. Both cultures need to learn to remove the blame. This is no one's fault, at least no one who is alive today. Tell me, do we have any people alive today who could've fought against them?" Sophie shakes her head, and I see her eyes soften slightly, like ice melting under the light of a heat-lamp, "And while there are a few monsters who could have fought back then, even our history books record that not one of our soldiers died. So the blame belongs to no one. It is not yours, and if you are to convince the monsters of this, you need to accept that fact yourself. You are not to blame, and neither are they." With those final words, her icey hate melts to empathy, and (perhaps slightly chill) comprehension.

"Well, now we're all properly acquainted, and have gotten over our initial misgivings, shall we start the negotiations?" I say cheerily, and I am almost blinded by the sunlight smiles of everyone in the room (maybe even a few of the guards).

There are moments after this when I fear it may all fall apart, where the terror of both sides threatens to tear everything away, but with a quick word here, a quietly spoken point of similarity, everyone sits down again and breathes deeply. I don't know how long it lasts, but by the time arrangements have been made for accomodation for all the monsters, the stars are twinkling softly through the windows, and I have a headache worse than I've had in years.

"M-maybe we sh-should continue this another day. Some time tomorrow?" I offer as I clutch my head.

"Yes... Tomorrow sounds reasonable. Noon?" Sophie says, rubbing at her temples.

"I don't see why not." Toriel says, with a slightly wavering smile. Asgore just nods, his head against the table.

"I'll have my people set up tents. You will have to stay there for now. I cannot give you all permanent homes tonight. I am sorry." Sophie says, snapping her finger to a guard behind her and returning the smile of Toriel very waveringly.

"To simply be out in the real world shall be enough for today. In perhaps a few weeks, maybe only a week for some, they may become restless and will wish to be given proper homes." Toriel says.

"We'll have to work quickly then. Laws will need to be in place by then." Sophie says.

"I'll call Sans, and we can get back to the mountain. Hopefully it's not too bad up there." I say, pulling out my phone and realising I don't have Sans' number, "Toriel, you've got his number, haven't you?" I point my phone towards the former queen, and she types it in.

"Sans? As in Comic Sans? The font?" Sophie laughs as my phone rings. It takes me a moment to remember what that font looks like, but after that moment I laugh and nod.

"who is this? how did you get this number?" I hear Sans' voice, and he sounds almost tired. And is that... Yelling I can hear behind him?

"It's Frisk. Toriel gave it to me. Negotiations are done. Can we come back now? The queen is having her people set up tents for everyone to stay in for now." I tell him.

"well... i'm kinda busy right now." Sans says, and I hear a crash and bang distantly through the receiver.

"Sans, what's going on there?" I ask, starting to worry.

"well... it turns out..." More crashing and banging, "that holding every monster underground..." Bang, "is a rather difficult job." crash, bang and silence.

"Sans, I need to be over there right now. Right now. Me, Asgore, and Toriel. They're authority figures. I'm the one who supposedly broke the Barrier. They'll listen to us." I speak with confidence, even though I have no idea if they'll listen to anyone at this point.

"supposedly?" Bang bang, crash crash, "i'll be there in a sec."

Click.

"He'll be here in a sec." I say to the ex-lovers, and drop my head to the table.

"Is he a friend of yours?" Sophie asks, her voice muffled apparently from the table also.

"Yeah. He's one of my best friends. Oh god... It's been so long since I've talked to any of them!" I suddenly stand ramrod straight, and begin hopping from one foot to the other, chewing on my lip and glancing around as if the answers to all life's questions are in this room.

"Whadya mean? You just talked to one of them." Sophie says, lifting her head a little.

"Not them! My human friends! I haven't seen them since I fell into the Underground!" I stop panicking, and say in utmost seriousness, "Do you have any reports of a missing person?"

"Probably, if you haven't been seen for a while." Sophie yawns, and snaps her fingers. A guard leaves the room, "How long were you down there?"

"Two months? I dunno, maybe one, maybe three." I shrug, and sit down to fidgit in my chair.

"Bit vague there kiddo." Sophie says, and leans back to stretch.

"I'm only a few years younger than you!" I say, playfully indignant to hide my creeping fear.

"So? I'm the queen. I can call whoever I want 'kiddo'." She laughs back.

"Is that a legal right?"

"You bet it is." Sophie smiles at me, and I wonder about something.

"I think you and Sans would get along wonderfully. If you can get over your fear of monsters." I muse, leaning back and yawning. How late is it? And what the hell is taking Sans so long? He said he'd be here in a second, and for him that could be literal.

"I... Don't think I'm so afraid of them anymore. They don't seem like the evil creatures from our history books." She says softly, looking at Asgore snoring on the table, and Toriel staring smugly at him.

"The victors write the history books. They don't write them in favour of the other party." I say, and Sophie nods almost sadly.

"What's taking Sans so long?" I break the sleepy silence, worrying again.

"He's got to come all the way- yawn -all the way from the mountain, doesn't he? Won't that take him a while?" Sophie says, and I smile again.

"I think his form of magic is opening wormholes or something, cause he got us here in half a minute. He'll walk you round a corner, and th-th- yawn -then you're a mile away. I've tried asking him about it. He just calls them 'shortcuts.'"

"We're just passing it between us, aren't we?" Sophie laughs, and I do too.

"What are you passing?" Toriel asks, tearing her eyes from Asgore.

"A yawn. Come to think of it, you haven't been infected. Is it a monster thing?" I ask her. Monsters are really weird.

"Infected? Is it a disease? What's the cure? Oh, you aren't dying, are you?" Toriel exclaims, standing from her seat to come and inspect me, opening my jaw and examining my teeth, closely peering into my eyes, turning my head to and fro.

"No! It's not a disease, it's-it's- yawn -it's that!" Sophie laughs, and Toriel takes an embarassed step back from me, apologising profusely while me and Sophie cackle away, and Asgore shoots upright at the noise, looking around confusedly.

"Wh-wha's goin' on?" He asks, still half asleep, and me and Sophie laugh even harder.

"da fuck?" Sans says, suddenly appearing from the hall, flanked by a guard with a laptop.

Sophie stops laughing.

"Sans! Mind your language!" Toriel says, in the most motherly way imaginable.

"You're kidding me." Sophie says, taking a step back and leaning on her chair, "You have got to be kidding me!" She looks him up and down, up and down, up and down, taking in every inch of him, finally fixating on his teeth.

"you know, it's rude to stare." Sans says, raising an eyebrow. I realise that he doesn't have eyebrows.

"B-but.." Sophie looks to me, as if for confirmation of her fear.

"He's no different from Toriel or Asgore. Or at least, you shouldn't treat him like he's a different species. They just all look a bit different." I shrug, unsure of how else to explain it.

"Oh... Okay... Erm... Sorry, Comic Sans." Sophie says, formally, as if she's speaking his full name. Me, Toriel, and Sans all burst into laughter, Asgore following after a moment's confusion.

"Did I say something wrong?" Sophie says, and her equally freaked guard puts the laptop on the table.

"my name is sans, not comic sans." Says the skeleton, still smiling.

"Oh. Right. Sorry. I'm just... A bit new." Sophie scratches her neck, and sits down to work on her laptop, "I'll look for a record of that missing person for you, Frisk?" She says, looking up at me questioningly.

"Yeah, that'd be great. Thanks, your magesty." I almost sneer, and she giggles as she begins typing.

"if you're all done, we can go?" Sans asks, sounding uncharacteristically concerned. We all nod, and I hear Sophie gasp just before the marble halls give way once again to rough rock and explosions.

"Asgore, can you handle this one? You're their king." I say, taking a step back, and Asgore takes a confident step forward.

"STOP!" He bellows, and if I hadn't seen him a minute before dozing on the table, I'd be absolutely terrified. Apparently everyone else is, as the chaos pauses.

"Please, my people. I apologise for making you wait. We needed negotiate with the human's leader to find you all homes. In a few weeks, you shall have them. For now, the humans are setting up temporary homes for us. Please, I beg you, do not leave this place until you have a permanent home to go to. Laws are not yet in place, and the humans may lash out in fear if they do not know who we are. We are not dangerous, but they believe us to be. Do not prove them right, and do not feed their fears. Please, my people, for the sake of these stars above our heads, allow yourselves to be patient for the next few weeks." At times, he sounds commanding, but it is always combatted by the kind look in his eye, or the reassuring words that follow.

Some monsters protest, others simply pick themselves up, but all eventually begin tidying up the mess. Out of the crowd, Papyrus, Undyne, and Alphys approach me. They all look... Rather worse for wear.

"HELLO, FRISK. THINGS GOT... A LITTLE OUT OF HAND. BUT, OF COURSE, I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WITH THE HELP OF MY GREAT FRIENDS-" He waves his arm dramatically towards Undyne and Alphys, and I see that the bone on his lower arm has a rather noticeable crack in it, "-HAVE MANAGED TO KEEP IT... MOSTLY... IN HAND!" He exclaims proudly, but the look on his face is that of a dog caught knocking over a precious vase. I resist the urge to hug him, for fear of dislodging other fractures in his body.

"Yeah, well... Sorry we couldn't quite handle them all. I never really appreciated how many monsters there are in the Underground." Undyne says, rubbing her neck awkwardly, and I can see a rather nasty burn on her gil, and her eyepatch looks as if it's been snapped and re-tied with string.

"S-sorry... I... Well... Me and Sans... I couldn't... Sorry..." Alphys mumbles nervously, and I give her a pat on the back as I give the others a small encouraging speech.

"It's alright. I shouldn't have asked so much of you for so long. I didn't expect to be there until nightfall. It's my fault, not yours. No one, not even the greatest, could keep every single monster underground." Another boldfaced lie (two is company, let's hope it doesn't become a crowd). I met someone today who could. Sure, with the help of every single monster soul, but he still could.

Asriel, I wish you could be here too...

"well then, now that the capabilities of our friends are no longer in doubt, shall we head for the temporary homes?" Sans asks us all, with as much sass as he can muster. Which turns out to be rather a lot.

"To the campsite we go!" I declare dramatically.

"CAMPSITE? NO ONE TOLD ME ABOUT A CAMPSITE! WHY ARE WE GOING CAMPING? I KNOW YOU ENJOY YOUR DOWNTIME, SANS, BUT NOW REALLY ISN'T THE TIME TO BE TAKING US ALL ON HOLIDAY!" says Papyrus.

"it's always a good time to be on holiday with your skelebro!" Sans slides up to his brother, and pulls him down into an awkward non-consensual kind of hug. Papyrus struggles for a moment, but Sans has a grip of steel.

"It's not a holiday, Papyrus. It's a-a- YAWN -a place for everyone to stay while more permanent accommodations are being arranged. Everyone will be staying in tents for the next few weeks." I say, and try to ignore the huge yawn and the exhaustion it makes me very keenly aware of.

Today I kept my soul together through sheer willpower... That's bound to take a toll on someone.

"ARE YOU ALRIGHT? ARE YOU INJURED? DID THE FOREIGN QUEEN HARM YOU? DID SHE PUT YOU UNDER SOME STRANGE SPELL? WHAT IS THE CURE TO YOUR ILLNESS? HOW DO I UNDO THE CURSE?" Papyrus is suddenly yelling in my ear. Apparently Sans' grip of steel softened greatly after I finished speaking. Papyrus is gripping my jaw, as Toriel did earlier, and examining it's function, opening and closing it as if to see if it's rusty, while peering both at my mouth and my throat. I can see Undyne and Alphys gripping each other to resist bursting into raucous laughter. Sans is smirking at me.

He can prob ably feel me blushing.

"I's no' a' i'ne'. I's a 'awn." I try to say, unsuccessfully.

"WHAT WAS THAT? IT IS AN 'AWN'? WHAT IS AN 'AWN'? IS IT CONTAGIOUS?" He inquires, but almost absently, as his attention seems to have passed from my yawning to my jaw specifically. He's pressing hard on it, feeling along the bone hard enough to bruise. It feels like someone's pressing metal bars onto my face. Only... Strangely warm metal bars.

"Payrus? What are you doing to Frisk?" Toriel says, coming over to us. I hadn't even noticed her leave.

"SHE APPEARS TO BE CURSED BY THE QUEEN OF HUMANS. SHE PERFORMED SOME APPARENTLY INVOLUNTARY ACTION, AND CALLS IT AN 'AWN'. DO YOU KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS MYSTERIOUS 'AWN'?" Papyrus asks her, still not letting go of my face. His fingers have completely forgotten about my yawning, and seem to be attempting to break my jaw. My mouth is still help open, and I fear that I may be beginning to drool.

"Papyrus!" Toriel splutters, in between intense laughter. Undyne and Alphys join her, and finally Sans. I blush even harder, and even Papyrus seems to gather some shame from the depths of his being, blushing a little.

Finally, my face is free!

As soon as he lets go, I snap my mouth closed and am delighted to find that I had not, in fact, drooled. I then press over my jaw, and find... Yup, those are the beginnings of bruises.

"WHAT... WHAT DID I MISS?" Papyrus asks, pleadingly to them and to me, and any anger at the face-feel evaporates. I grin at him, and laugh with everyone else.

"SERIOUSLY... WHAT DID I MISS?"

Chapter Text

"I STILL DON'T BELIEVE IT." Papyrus indignantly insists as we head down the mountain track, led by a few concerned police officers. They don't speak, but I can see them glancing at each other, and at us. They seem to escpecially judge me.

Undyne and Alphys actually made their way back Underground, to fetch something Alphys wanted to bring to her new home, and they took with them a small crowd of other monsters, returning for their livelihoods, their children's toys, old keepsakes and the like.

Asgore is bringing up the rear, while Toriel and Sans move among the procession, making headcounts and explaining the situation in more detail than Asgore's speech gave. Everyone seems quite pleased to welcome back their old queen, although most are surprised by her constant use of puns (mostly skeleton-based). The ones who aren't surprised are shocked. Everyone seems to know Sans already.

How many jobs does he have? Surely even three wouldn't bring him in contact with every member of the population?

That leaves me and Papyrus, leading the party, and wondering about what we're going to be doing with our futures on the surface. Or at least, we were, until Papyrus decided to fill a temporary lull in conversation with his queries about human physiology.

"What, exactly, don't you believe?" I say, exasperated.

"THAT HUMANS WILL SIMPLY... UHINGE" He says the word as if he were describing his most hated enemy, "THEIR FACES AND BREATHE LOUDLY TO EXPRESS A WISH TO SLEEP."

"'Unhinge our faces'? Really?" I laugh, and shake my head, more to clear my head than to show my dismay. Good lord, am I tired.

"AND..." Papyrus starts, but doesn't have the will to finish.

"not got the BACKBONE to ask the real question, pappy?" Sans hops down from the branches of a passing tree, and smirks his ungodly smirk at us. I, once again, almost tumble off the cliff, and Papyrus only just catches me. By my waist. He instantly let's go, but not before Sans wolf-whistles at us. He turns on his heel and heads back to join the line. I raise a finger at him, and, without even looking at me, he responds in kind.

Papyrus very conspicuously puts himself between me and the cliff-edge, and avoids eye contact until I speak again.

"How the hell does he do that? There's no way he actually climbed that tree." I say, brushing myself off and continuing on. The policemen whisper to each other until I silence them with a glare. Maybe they think I can shoot fire from my eyes like Toriel can.

"I BELIEVE IT HIS HIS BRAND OF MAGIC." Papyrus says, and no more.

"Eager to change the subject, much?" I make to elbow him in the side, and then find that he has no side that I can reach. Unless you count the side of his spine. I don't, and move away again. To try and elbow him in the ribs would be far more trouble than it's worth.

He's so damn tall.

"WHAT WAS THAT ACTION INTENDED AS?" He says, and, again, no more.

"I will not answer any of your fake questions until you ask me the real one." I deflect, and he looks away, as if pondering what sort of excuse he could have for ending the conversation.

"DO... DO YOU HAVE BONES?" Papyrus asks, and I can see very faint spots of colour on his cheeks. Green. I hadn't expected him to blush green.

"Yes, I do. I have an entire skeleton, it's just underneath all this." I gesture to myself, and Papyrus stares at me in... Awe?

"YOU ARE LIKE ME, THEN. JUST WITH EXCESS. AND MUSH." Papyrus says finally, and turns to face the backs of the policemen.

"Mush?" I laugh, not letting him get out so easily.

"YOU ARE... MUSHY." He says, and waves his hands in an abstract gesture, as if to enlighten me further.

"Soft, maybe, squishy, perhaps, but 'mushy'?" I wave my hands as well, and he seems to realise how little sense his sign-language makes.

"SOFT AND SQUISHY, THOSE ARE THE WORDS I WAS LOOKING FOR. NOT THAT I FAILED TO FIND THEM. THEY SIMPLY... FAILED TO FIND ME." He looks away again, and I hug him, as gently as I can so I don't injure him more. We have to keep walking, so as not to slow down the group, and that makes it an awkward hug full of shuffling and stepping-on of toes, but I enjoy it nonetheless. Papyrus seems to as well.

We stay quiet for a while, and Papyrus looks at the stars while the trees envelop us. I've never seen him look more calm.

"What are you wishing for?" I whisper to him, looking up as well.

"FOR A FAST RED CAR, LIKE MY BED, BUT A REAL ONE. AND TO BE ABLE TO DRIVE IT." He adds the last part almost as an afterthought, and I giggle, "WHAT ARE YOU WISHING FOR?"

"A nice, soft, feather bed, with silk bedsheets, layers of thick, fuzzy covers, and mountains of pillows." I say, and Papyrus giggles.

"AT LEAST I WAS REALISTIC."

"Pfft." I wave my hand carelessly, and we walk on in silence through the forest. Somewhere along the track, Papyrus's foot catches on a tree-root, and he falls with a squeal. I lean down to try and catch him, and I get him by the shoulders, but my legs quickly give out and we collapse onto the forest floor in a tangle of limbs.

"geez guys, can't you get a room?" Sans walks up behind us and starts conducting the traffic of monsters away from us. I have a good mind to slap him, if I could get my arms out from under Papyrus.

"WOULD YOU MIND TERRIBLY IF YOU ROLLED OVER SLIGHTLY?" Papyrus says, rather distressed, and I realise I'm on top of his arm, and the cracked one at that. I roll over as best I can, and the knot that was previously us comes untied.

"Sorry." I say, and he dismisses it with a wave of his hand, the action counteracted with his wince of pain.

"IT IS ALRIGHT. I AM ALRIGHT. I AM PAPYRUS. I CANNOT BE HURT BY A MERE TREE-ROOT." He says, standing valiantly, while also clutching his arm. I scan the crowd for Sans. He seems to have disappeared.

"That fracture was there before we fell, Papyrus. You weren't injured by the fall, you were injured by... Whatever injured you." I laugh for a moment at my incompetency with words, "Hold on, I think I might have some monster food in my pockets..." I root around for a moment, and Papyrus looks at me with pleading eyes. There's nothing in my pockets except dreams.

"Sorry, Paps. Maybe Toriel has some? Stay here, I'll be back in a minute!" I run off into the flood of people before he can protest, and the last I see of him before monsters engulf me is him leaning sullenly against the tree that tripped him up. If he had lips, he'd be pouting.

Chapter Text

"Tori! Tori! I need to ask you something!" I push my way through many put-out monsters, as Toriel gently discourages a small child from climbing the mountain.

"Ah! Chi- Frisk! What do you need to ask me?" She says happily, and the child's parent collects them from the ledge.

"Do... Do you have any... Any food? Monster food. The... The stuff that heals people." I pant, leaning on my knees. I've been running back forth along this line for what feels like hours (probably no more than thirty minutes), and I am more than ready to pass out.

"I am afraid not. Are you hurt? Did you fall? Did someone hurt you?" Toriel says, starting off as a concerned mother, and shifting into a monster on the warpath.

"No. Not me. Papyrus. He- yawn -he's got a fracture on his arm, and is probably hurt in other- yawn -other places as well." I unhinge my face, and though I'm not panting any more, I stay leaning on my knees. A bone-deep lethargy consumes my every movement, and even unhinging my face takes a tremendous amount of effort. My eyelids droop, and my head swims, but I stay awake through sheer willpower. Just like I kept my soul together through sheer will earlier today.

"Well, darling, I'm certain he is fine. He didn't complain about it before, did he?" I shake my head in response, too tired to speak, "Then I'm sure it isn't too serious." She says it finally, and with total confidence. I almost laugh.

Oh Toriel, you don't know him at all, do you?

"He- YAWN -wouldn't complain even if it was life-threatening. D- yawn -do you know who might have something?" I beg her, looking at her with my best puppy-dog eyes.

"Alphys and Undyne could probably bring something from the Lab. You could try calling one of them." She offers.

"If Undyne has a phone of her own, I don't have it's number, and I don't have Alphy's either. She's called me before, but this phone doesn't let you call someone back unless you have a contact. And it doesn't have any logs to tell you what a previous caller's number is..." I pull out my phone and try pressing random buttons, seeing if I can find a way to call her back... Nothing.

She said she'd upgraded it!

"This is so stupid... Hold on... Wait! I do have a way to contact her! I'm friends with her on UnderNet!" I grab my phone again, and rifle through it to find the app. It takes me a while (this is the strangest interface I've ever seen, and everything is organised under the strangest categories; all the music apps are under "G" for "Good sounds", and all the games are under "T" for "Time Wasting"), but I eventually find it. I type out a quick comment on Alphys's latest post ("Omg some people ACTUALLY ship Mew Meow? I mean COME ON GUYS IT'S INCEST JUST BECAUSE THEY SQUABBLE SOMETIMES DOESN'T MEAN THEY HAVE TO HAVE ANGRY SEX AFTERWARDS"), asking her to get something that can heal wounds, and hope she reads her notifications.

The message says, "Can you get some monster food or general healing stuffs from your Lab now pls I don't want to have to come all the way down there for a spider donut or some shit". I quickly reply to that message with, "not literal shit"

"Well... Thanks anyway, Tori. Goodnight." I say, and turn to leave.

"Hold on, my child!" Toriel calls after me, and I turn back to face her.

"Take care of him. Take care of him well, and thoroughly, and forever." She says it as if there's some greater meaning, beyond his current injury.

In my state, I'm too tired to care about greater meanings, and so simply wave her goodbye as I wander back through the river of people. Most of the line has passed me by now, so I hope to any and all gods that Papyrus hasn't moved from his tree. I'll definitely pass out if I have to run all the way to the front of this line.

Luckily, he hasn't. He's still standing there, glaring sullenly at everyone who passes. I walk right past him, pretending to be part of the crowd, and I see him do a double-take as I pass.

"HEY! FRISK! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" He sounds almost... Sad. Sad that I didn't stop the second I saw him? Sad that I seemed to not notice him? Sad because he though I was ignoring him?

"I'm not going anywhere. I wanted to see how you'd take a bruise to your ego like me ignoring you." I lean against the tree beside him, and shove his shoulder gently. It's the next best thing to a elbow in the side.

"AND YOU WILL FIND I TOOK IT VERY WELL." He says, apparently very interested in a rock on the other side of the path. Away from me. Payback, I guess.

"I will." I laugh at him, and check my phone for a reply, even though I know I'll get a notification. What if she doesn't know who I am? I quickly reply with, "It's me Frisk", to my original message. Realising that she might think I'm calling her Frisk, I reply to my last reply with, "I mean I'm Frisk", And then reply to that reply of a reply with, "Papyrus has a broken arm pls reply or get the stuff pls I'm a worried goat mum", and then reply to that reply of a reply of a reply with a final, "I'm not Toriel".

"WHO ARE YOU TEXTING?" Papyrus asks me, abandoning his staring contest with the rock.

"Not texting. Trying to get Alphys to get you some healing stuff. Through UnderNet. I don't have her phone number." I say, and put my phone back in my pocket.

"OOH! UNDERNET! I'M ON THAT! DO YOU KNOW ME? ARE YOU MY FRIEND THERE? ARE YOU A CREEPY STALKER WHO LIVES VICARIOUSLY THROUGH WATCHING MY EVERY MOVEMENT?" Papyrus narrows his eyes while raising his eyebrows in a way I've never fully appreciated. He doesn't have eyes. And he doesn't have eyebrows. He's moving his skull around in a way that should look very unnatural. Then again, all of him should look unnatural. None of him does.

"No. At least, I'm not a creepy stalker of you ." I give him a smile, I grab my head as a sickening pain shoots through it, and before I know what's going on, I'm sitting in a crook of the tree roots and half-asleep.

"WAKE UP! IF YOU MUST SLEEP, DO IT AT IN YOUR TENT!" Papyrus yells at me, lightly tapping my cheek.

Smooth way to get another feel of my face.

"Mm?" I say, and pretend he's not there. He taps my cheek harder.

"PLEASE WAKE UP. I CANNOT CARRY YOU." He sounds almost worried. Now, I can't have that.

"Gimme a sec... YAWN..." I stretch my arms up, and glance around. Papyrus is crouched beside me, looking as worried as he sounded. I give him my weakest grin (it's the best I can do at the time), stand shakily on my feet, start stumbling along the path, and almost fall into the trees.Papyrus takes my hand, and carefully leads me back onto the track. Everything from then on is a dizzy dream of exhaustion and half-seen images. I see monsters pass, staring, I see children laugh and play and point at little things everywhere, I see adults bump into each other from staring at the sky, and at one point I'm certain I see Toriel and Sans giggle together, pointing at Papyrus and me holding hands. If I'd been thinking at all, I would've yelled something at them, and blushed. As it was, I waved, and Papyrus blushed for me. Again, a green. So unexpected. So... Strangely fitting.

When we reach the campsite, we're at the back of the line, and Asgore picks me up and carries me to a tent. The last thing I hear before total, sweet blackness is someone whispering to me, and the last thing I feel is a gloved hand gently squeezing mine.

"I NEVER KNEW THAT THE STARS WERE SO FAR AWAY. I THINK I PREFER PEOPLE TO STARS. THEY'RE SO MUCH CLOSER, AND THEY CAN MAKE YOUR WISHES COME TRUE."

Chapter Text

"WAKE UP, FRISK! THE SKY IS... IT'S GOING LIGHT AGAIN! I THINK THIS IS A SUNRISE! MY FIRST SUNRISE! AND YOUR FIRST SINCE YOU CAME UNDERGROUND! COME ON FRISK, GET UP! COME SEE THE SUNRISE!" Papyrus yells from outside the tent, at an ungodly hour. I moan, and roll over. On any normal day, I'd be tired and a bit grumpy, but pleased at his happiness. Today, after all that happened the day before, I am beyond furious, and can't bear to even consider humouring him.

"Will you shut up already! It's too early for this!" I snap at him.

"FRISK! DONT BE GRUMPY. IT'S OUR FIRST SUNRISE! COME SEE! YOU HAVE TO SEE! IT'S SO... SO... COME SEE!" I hear his footsteps approach, and hear the door-flap of my tent open. He doesn't sound the slightest bit bothered by my anger.

"Go away Papyrus! Let me sleep! You don't know what I did yesterday!" I snap again, this time looking over my shoulder and glaring.

"YES I DO. I WAS PRESENT FOR MOST OF IT. YOU MET ASGORE, AND BROKE THE BARRIER. THEN YOU DID SOME NEGOTIATNG WITH THE QUEEN OF THE HUMANS, AND FELL ASLEEP." Papyrus recites joyously.

"Papyrus, fuck off for once." My voice is full of poisonous warning, and finally Papyrus notices that I'm not happy.

"ARE YOU ALRIGHT? YOU DO NOT SOUND VERY WELL." He inquires, kneeling beside me on the floor. 

"I'm fine, just go enjoy your sunrise without me." I brush him off, and try to go to sleep again, expecting the conversation to end at my word. I should've known better.

"BUT I CAN'T ENJOY IT WITHOUT MY FAVOURITE HUMAN FRIEND." Papyrus wines like a little kid, and on any normal day I would laugh and join him, sprinkling apologies along the way. Today isn't a normal day.

"I'm your only human friend, you idiot. Now go away." I tell him, as finally as I can. If I'd been myself, I would've noticed how like Flowey I sound.

"NO. I WILL NOT LET YOU WASTE AWAY YOUR FRST SUNRISE IN HOWEVER LONG THROUGH SLEEPING. COME, HUMAN." Papyrus says, tugging on my arm, seemingly forgoing wining in the place of just plain ol' carrying.

"Get off me!" I yell, whipping around and giving him my most disgusted look, "You have no idea what happened to me yesterday! No idea! You're just a stupid little monster who doesn't remember! I had to save you from a fucking god! All of you! I had to hold my soul together through sheer determination! If I hadn't you'd all be dead! And you don't remember! You don't remember anything that I've done! You don't know me! You don't know who I was before I fell down here! So shut up, watch your fucking stupid sunrise, but leave me alone!" I breathe heavily for a moment, before my vision comes back into focus and I see the look on Papyrus' face. It's fear. A horrible fear, tainted by confusion and... Something I can't place. Something kind, sunlight-bright and sugary-sweet.

"FRISK..." He starts, unsure but reaching out a hand.

"Papyrus I am so sorry! I... I don't know what came over me." I take his hand, and feel the beginnings of tears misting the edges of my sight. I ignore them along with the painful lump in my throat, and the hellish throbbing of my empty head and overused soul.

"IT-IT IS ALRIGHT! TH-THE GREAT PAPYRUS AL-ALREADY FORGAVE YOU!" His smile wavers, and his voice trembles despite what seem to be his best efforts.

"Doesn't stop me from being sorry, does it?" I say as softly as I can, my bottom lip shaking in the most embarrassing way.

"N-NO, I SUPPOSE N-NOT." He stutters, and I can't stand the terror in his eyes. Even if he doesn't have eyes. I push myself up fully, and wrap my arms around him, nuzzling into his neck and whispering repeated apologies. He relaxes, and wraps his arms around me in turn.

"Let's go and see that sunrise?" I suggest, pulling back, shimmying out of my sleeping bag and standing. Papyrus' face clears into the normal level of exuberance, as if nothing happened. He's brushing it all over, and he's doing it with a skill. 

Perhaps a well-practiced skill? What's happened to him that he's had time to practice pretending things are alright? What happened in this man's childhood?

"OF COURSE, MY HUMAN FRIEND!" Papyrus extends his arms for me, and again I notice that sunlight-bright stare. I wonder how long it's been there.

When we leave the tent, I realise that I've never seen a sunrise before. Not in person. The massiveness of the sky is still taking hold, making the whole scene beyond magnificence. I see suddenly why people have believed for centuries in deities and gods, in spirits that dance in the sky. It seems almost alive, the colours that dance and play. It's similar to a sunset; identical, in many ways, but there's something else in the air that defines it. Pinks and blues come in swathes, flowing into each other over the sparse clouds, fading into a deeper, more uniform blue, and finally meeting the twinkling of the dying stars; little white christmas lights holding on to the last breaths of life, waiting to be enveloped in sunlight. 

"We need to wake everyone." I whisper.

"WHAT? WHY?" Papyrus whispers back.

"They need to see this. Come on, help me." I walk over to the nearest tent without hesitation or another sound, and see out of the corner of my eye Papyrus shifting from foot to foot, nervous and conflicted, before finally jogging over to another tent. I try not to stare at how his oddl pyjamas move over his frame, showing off bones I didn't know existed.

No checking out your skeleton friend. He's a monster, and a skeleton, and a friend, and no.

I hurry to pretend I was just looking at his clothes. Yup, just his clothes. His weird fashion choice is rather stare-worthy. Today, or perhaps this is his normal night-wear, he has an ordinary shit, and surprisingly normal matching trousers. Both items are shades of pink, the trousers being darker than the shirt, and striped. The stare-worthy thing about these items of clothing are what Papyrus has done to change this outfit. The shirt appears to be tie-dyed (only in varying hues of blue), although only on one small spot of the front and the back of it, allowing the original colour to peek through. The same is done on the bottom of the trousers, reaching halfway to the knee. It looks... Good. The colours work, and so does the placing. It doesn't make it any less stare-worthy. I have no idea how he pulled it off, but it doesn't look like a shop-bought print.

Enough fawning over his clothes. Get inside as wake the monster up.

"Hey! It's our first sunrise. Wake up, or you'll miss it." I open the door-flap, a hand over my eyes for the privacy of whoever's there, and speaking loudly in the hopes of waking them up.

"mmghf. don't care. need sleep." Says a lazy voice I recognise. Taking my hand away, I see that it is indeed Sans, lying on the floor, without a sleeping bag, and in what seem to to be his night clothes. A plain white t-shirt, and plain black shorts that come down to passed his knees.

"Sans, get up, now. Papyrus will throw a fit if you're not up to see the sun rise. Come on." I bend down next to him, and tug on his sleeve. He grumbles, and rolls away, "Sans." I send him the stern word, and he moves just enough to see my face, then flops back down.

"Fine then. Let's do this the hard way." I sigh (it really is too early for this), and roll him so he's lying on his back. He grumbles a bit more, but stays put. I then sigh a little more, and scoop him up in a bridal carry. It's quite easy, actually. He's shockingly light.

"the fuck, frisk!?" Sans cries out, squirming in my arms as I turn to leave the tent. I laugh, but don't answer him.

Is he blushing? Really? And it's blue?

I drop him onto his feet once we're out in the open, and his face goes from a bashful rage to pure awe. I give his shoulder a pat, catching the light blue tears  a leaking from his eye sockets out of my periphery, and move onto the next tent. It's the Nice Cream rabbit (is it offenivea to call them a rabbit if they're really just a rabbit-shaped monster?), and they're far more cooperative than Sans was. After a minute, and a few more wake-ups, they even agree to help wake others up. With me, Papyrus, NCR (which is what I mentally dub the Nice Cream rabbit), and a handful of others, everyone has a chance to see at least the tail end of sunrise. Most seem to be quite pleased with that, though many promise that they will be up before dawn to catch the next. By that time, my exaustion seems to have completely evaporated. Once I step back inside my tent, however, I find that the idea of simply lying there and failing to sleep was only that: an idea.

"Pap, I'm going to sleep! This time, don't wake me up until ten, will you? I'll try and not yell!" I inform the skeleton from the opposite side of the field (he's chatting with some monsters I've never seen), and fall into a blissful sleep, where beautiful worlds made of sunlight and Papyrus' sugary-sweet stare are all I dream of. And maybe the odd murderous Flowey, but what can you do.

Chapter Text

When I wake up again, I roll over and move to put my pillow over my head. I find that I have no pillow, and move to put my covers over my head. I find that I have no covers, and wiggle deeper into my sleeping-bag. Someone next to me, with very sharp elbows, seems to notice my movements, and sits up.

"I SEE YOU ARE AWAKE." Papyrus says, far too loudly for the time of day. I curl deeper into my cucoon.

"Papyrus, you got me up at four in the fucking morning. Lemme sleep." I moan at him.

"THAT I DID, AND YOU ENJOYED THE SUNRISE. NOW IT IS TEN O'CLOCK, JUST WHEN YOU ASKED ME TO WAKE YOU UP. YOU MUST BE UP SOON, OR YOU'LL BE LATE FOR TODAY'S MEDIATION." He says cheerily, shaking my arm and trying to pull me away. Normally I'd laugh, not because he said anything funny, but because it's him and he's adorable. Now, I feel pain dancing around my whole body, focusing on my head, and where I used to say only my heart dwelt, where I now know my soul resides.

"Ow! Ow ow ow! Stop!" I squeal, and Papyrus drops me in an instant, moving his face right in front of mine to assess the damage.

"WHAT IS WRONG, HUMAN?" He asks, and I can feel his hands hovering over my shoulders, my face, my own hands and arms, wherever he can see but doesn't care to touch in case he hurts me.

"I-I'm okay... J-j-just... Tired." I breathe, give him a pathetic mockery of a smile, and Papyrus once again uses his "nothing ever happened" ability.

"OF COURSE! NOW, WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN ME IN MY DAILY EXCERCISE ROUTINE?" Papyrus stands back, and helps me up.

Where did he learn this? Where was he that he had to learn this?

"Sure. Gimme a minute to get dressed, and then we can go." I turn around, looking for my dayclothes, and find that I'm still wearing them. And remember that I don't have any to change into, except the pyjamas Toriel gave me in the ruins.

"Erm... I don't really have anything to wear, actually. Sorry." I say, and take the moment to look around the tent. There's only my sleeping bag on the floor, and nothing else.

"AH, YES. I DO NOT REQUIRE A SLEEPING BAG. I DO NOT MIND THE FLOOR." Papyrus notes my gaze, and tells me in complete certainty.

"Wait, you're sleeping here too?" I whirl around, confused. 

Doesnt he have his own tent?

"YES. THERE WERE NO MORE TENTS, AND SINCE WE WERE AT THE BACK OF THE LINE, WE WERE THE ONES WHO HAD TO SHARE. WELL, NOT THE ONLY ONES. SOME OTHERS DID, TOO. ALPHYS AND UNDYNE, METTATON AND BURGERPANTS..." Papyrus begins listing them off on his fingers, and I laugh quietly.

Old Burgerpants and Mettaton, sharing a tent? I'm sure that went down well.

"ANYWAY, REGARDING EXCERCISE GEAR... YOU CAN BORROW SOMETHING OF MINE!" He seems to notice my wandering attention, and disappears from the tent without another word. I take the time to take a proper look at the outside world.

The sun is shining, birds are chirping, children are playing... And police are lining the streets of tents. A few are chatting with each other, and one I can see is even talking to a monster, but the majority are radiating thoughts along the lines of "They shouldn't be here."

Time to go correct them.

And considering how grumpy I am from lack of sleep, it's going to be a sadistic correction.

"Hey!" I approach an officer with all the friendliness Papyrus normally displays, but with a hint of sinister intentions.

"Hello? Do you need help with something? Are one of those things harassing you?" She calls them "things" so easily, so casually...

"No, no. They're all really quite nice people when you get to know them." I put careful weight on that word, but don't say any more.

"Then why are you talking to me?" She ignores the bait.

"Well... Quite frankly, because I noticed you and some of your friends seem a little... Uncomfortable? With the monsters." I cock my head to the side, ensuring to remain cheery despite the falseness of my smile.

"They don't really belong here, do they? We can't be blamed for noticing that." She speaks as if she's voicing a thought everyone's been thinking, and some of her fellow officers nod slightly.

Gotcha!

I send a too-bright smile at everyone who nodded, and all those who seemed like they would, but knew better. Everyone stills. Even some of the playing children move to another part of the tent-city.

"May I ask your name?" My grin widens, and I lean closer to her.

"H-H-Helen, miss." She looks away, presumably to another one of her fellows. I follow her gaze, and that guard looks away.

"Miss"? Really?

"Well, H-H-Helen..." I mock her, "I suggest you change that opinion. This world is as much theirs as it is yours." I then take a step back, and examine her. She's absolutely trembling, and I can't help but break the persona by laughing.

"Wh-what?" She seems confused, and moves back a little, as if expecting me to attack.

"You! You're-you're quivering! It's hilarious!" I wipe my eyes, and stand up straight again, putting on a reasonable amount of friendliness, and sticking out my hand.

"Name's Frisk. I'm the mediator between the Monsters and Humans. Sorry about all that, I just thought you needed a real reason to be afraid. But, really though, this world is not just yours, and they aren't asking for it to be all theirs, they just want a place on the planet that is theirs in part, and in the sunlight. But it's not your fault what happened to them; neither side can afford to shoulder the blame. If the blame must be placed, which I don't think it must, everyone should shoulder it together. Don't be afraid of them. They're people, like you. Just people with some different powers, who might look a little scary." I give her a genuine smile, and take my untouched hand away, "The victors write the history books. We think they're evil because no one would ever willingly make their history, 'We slaughtered our helpless prey by the thousands. It could hardly be called a war. We did it out of fear, a fear that wasn't real.'

"Although, to be fair, they didn't know the fear wasn't real." I laugh slightly, and shake my head at fate, "Faults on both sides. The humans were scared because they didn't know, and the monsters should have told them. The monsters were killed because they were scary, and the humans shouldn't have lashed out in fear." I look up again, and widen my smile, though it remains a real one, "It's not your fault what your ancestors did. They might be angry at you for what they think is your fault; don't get annoyed, and don't get defensive. They've been taught that you're evil, and you've been taught that they're evil. It's okay." I give her a pat on the shoulder, and as she and her fellows stare at me in disbelief, I turn around to walk back to the tent.

And walk right into Papyrus's ribcage. Maybe they weren't staring at me in disbelief.

"HELLO, MY FRIEND. HERE, SANS TOOK SOME OF THE CLOTHES FROM MY CLOSET TO THE SURFACE. AS RUDE AS THAT WAS, I AM GLAD. THE TREK BACK TO SNOWDIN WOULD HAVE NOT BEEN PLEASANT. ANYWAY... HERE ARE YOUR CLOTHES!" He takes a massive t-shirt (reading "PAPYRUS IS THE COOLEST!") from a pile he's holding, and presents it to me. It's at least five sizes too big for me, but I take it anyway, and hold it up to my chest. It reaches down to my knees.

"AH. PERHAPS SANS' CLOTHES WOULD FIT BETTER." I hand the t-shirt back to him, and he folds it neatly and puts it back in the pile. My wide smile turns to a grin.

"May I come with?" I ask.

"WITH WHO? WITH ME? YOU NEED TO BE MORE SPECIFIC." He sounds legitimately confused.

"With you, bonehead." I almost try to elbow him again, but at the last moment make it a shoulder-punch instead.

"OW." He rubs his shoulder, and looks at me with puppy eyes. His arm doesn't have a crack in it anymore.

"Alphys got my message, then?" I point to his healed arm.

"HM? OH, YES. AFTER WE REACHED THE CAMP AND YOU FELL ASLEEP, UNDYNE AND ALPHYS AND THE GROUP ARRIVED. SHE GAVE ME SOME STEAK. IN THE SHAPE OF METTATON'S FACE." He adds the last bit a little sheepishly.

"Do you know why she didn't reply to me?"

"ALPHYS SAID THAT HER KEY-PAD WAS BROKEN AND SHE DIDN'T HAVE TIME TO FIX IT." Flipphones are the worst. Then again, she was on a trip with her new girlfriend. She could very well have been occupied at the time.

"Ah." I nod, and we continue on in silence. For around five seconds.

"SO WHO WERE YOUR FRIENDS BACK THERE?" Papyrus asks, failing to be casual.

"They weren't really friends. I was trying to explain to them why they shouldn't be afraid of monsters. I gave one of them a pretty bad scare, pretending to be some sort of psychotic maniac for a bit, and then gave them all a speech of sorts." I laugh, still remembering Helen's face.

"THAT SOUNDS LIKE THE START OF A GREAT FRIENDSHIP." He declares happily. I suppose if we can be friends after he tried repeatedly to capture me, it shouldn't be too difficult to befriend Helen. Then again, Papyrus isn't like any human or monster I've ever met.

"It might be, if I really try." I ponder.

"HELLO, SANS. I BELIEVE MY CLOTHES ARE RATHER TOO LARGE FOR FRISK." Papyrus jogs over to greet his brother, who is sitting at a camp table with Toriel, sharing tea, a book, and a smile. The book appears to be Toriel's diary.

"they were for her?" Sans glances at Toriel, and they both giggle, "so, you're already swapping clothes? i'm proud of you, bro. only known her for a few months, and you're already at domestic second base." Toriel giggles louder.

"According to the base system I know, second base is hand jobs. I can, as I would have been a witness to any such occurrence, confirm that this has not happened." I counter.

"HAND JOBS? BASES? IS THIS SOME SORT OR GAME YOU'RE ALL PLAYING?" Papyrus asks, looking pleased, if very confused.

"Ah, but you see... The base system I and Sans have created is about the domestic and romantic side of relationships." Toriel is giggling like a schoolgirl.

"first base: sharing food. second base: sharing clothes. third base: domestic bribery. fourth base (home): domestic bribery, children edition." Sans says, smiling.

"Aw! No fair! If home is domestic bribery with children, you've gotten rid of home runs!" I say, falsely indignant.

"HOME RUNS? IS THIS AN EXCERCISE ROUTINE?" Papyrus looks between us all, furrowing his non-existant eyebrows.

"home runs in the world of domesticity should be achieved within the first year. it is still plausible, though ill-advised." Sans smiles.

"Uh-uh, no way, nuh-uh, I will not allow it. Home runs typically mean first-to-fourth in one night, and in your version it should be achieved within one month, at most! I will not allow this order of things! You must change it!" I waggle my finger in Sans' face, and our grins both widen.

"then why don't you and paps go and demonstrate a new fourth base? or the old one, that'd be fun to watch as well." Sans says smugly, wiggling his eyebrows (that he doesn't have) suggestively. My jaw flops open.

"You utter cock!" I yell, and parents around us gather their children back inside tents, and give me disapproving looks.

"Language!" Toriel's humour dies in a moment, and she employs a completely serious finger-waggle at me.

"Sorry, mum." I say, and her humour comes back, if only slightly.

"WHY DID YOU JUST CALL MY BROTHER A MALE CHICKEN?" Papyrus stares at us all, as if we're all a different species. It's strange to think that I am.

We all laugh, and when Papyrus exclaims about how he's given up on us all, and starts walking away, I jump up and lead him back to the camp table, where we all discuss the topic of cussing (a surprisingly debatable subject, when you look closely and objectively) over a game of cards. Papyrus and I never do get to do his morning excercise routine.

Chapter Text

Sans escorts me, Asgore, and Toriel to the castle at noon (I question him on how he does it, and he uses the same pun he did last time. Toriel still giggles, though less enthusiastically than she did before), and disappears into the shadows just as he did yesterday. This time, I'm certain I catch a very small, very faint flash of blue light before he's gone.

Hm..

"Hello, your magesty. I bring the ambassadors." I say, only semi-jokingly (she's still the queen, even if I've seen her terrified, angry, and half-asleep), and gesture behind me to Toriel and Asgore. When she looks up from her laptop, Sophie seems more closed-off than she was yesterday, more thoughtful, and maybe even more nervous.

Does she look a little... Older?

There are bags under her eyes, her makeup is sloppy, her clothes are disheveled, and her hair looks as if it's been finger-combed neurotically.

"Toriel, Asgore. Follow me to the dining hall, and we can begin today's nnegotiations" Sophie stands from her computer, nods to both the monsters, and leaves the room without a glance at me. I try not to feel offended, and follow her like a puppy told to heel.

"So... You alright after last night? It was pretty late. I'm super tired, but I was woken at four in the morning to watch sun rise with one of my buddies." I aim to sound casual, hoping to rekindle the spark of friendship we seemed to have after the hours we spent in the dining hall. Was she just in some odd high because of diplomatic success? Is that something diplomats get? Was she really just too shocked by everything to process what she was saying to me? Did she find something about me while she was looking up my records and now decided that she doesn't want to be friends after all?

Did she find out that it really was my fault my parents are dead? Does she hate me because I'm a murderer?

I physically shake my head to clear it of the thoughts I've been working on getting rid of for three years, and look to the back of Sophie's platinum blonde head. It is a rather stunning shade, and appears to be natural too.

"I am fine, thank you." Sophie says, curtly.

Yup, she hates me.

Again, I push away the annoying self-hate, and walk a little faster so that me and the queen are in step, and try my hand at making conversation again.

"Yeah... Well... Did you... Did you find a missing person record? Was I declared dead?" I half joke, as a creeping fear crawls over me, like a massive wave in a stormy ocean, rising up and just about to crash down on some poor, lonely fishing boat.

"Yes. In fact... I was wondering how to tell you. You were declared dead." She turns to me at last, and the wave of terror comes down on my head, leaving a shell-shocked person behind it. I feel the blood drain from my head and my heart, and deep into my stomach and toes. I can't think as the freezing cold envelopes my mind, and only vaguely here Sophie continue, "They filed the cause of death as suicide. You had recently stopped counselling, released because everyone believed you to be mentally stable again. It did seem a little sudden, but you had been reclusive for weeks prior, and had a will written when your room was searched."

When she stops moving and puts her hand on my shoulder, it hits me fully.

Everyone thinks I'm dead. Everyone I know, all my family that's left, all of my friends, everyone who cares about me... They think I'm dead. All the people who cared... They think I'm gone forever. When my parents died we had people I had never met coming around to the house, leaving flowers and claiming to be high-school friends. So many people, all hurt.

Ben.

The name knocks the wind out of me as I stare blankly into Sophie's face, cogs turning in my head before I swing around without warning, and head back to the throne room.

"As we speak, I have my people writing to your family-" Sophie was saying, kindly and reasonable, but stopping suddenly when I walk away, "Hey, wait! I know it's not the best situation, but it'll be okay!" She calls as she follows. I hear her footsteps, but don't turn to look.

They won't be okay if he's dead.

I drop into her seat at her desk, and begin searching her laptop for the records on everyone in the country. As soon as I find them, I search for the record of a man named Ben Skeels, and find a result imediatly. Creepily, I find a few people under that name, but only one under Benedict. I forgot how many things that name could be short for.

"I'm sorry, but you can't do that!" She doesn't sound sorry at all, and even tries to pull me away. I stay in her seat, and brush her off.

"I just need to check if he's alive." I say, and Sophie shuts up.

Click.

Scroll.

Scan.

Re-read.

Re-read.

Re-read

There's a birth record, but no death record. My first childhood friend, adoptive brother, current best friend, and hub for all knoweledge regarding dating advice (although much of it comes with the warning label, "Dunno if it'll work on straight guys tho"), is alive. I heave a relieved sigh for a moment, and then jump upright again. Just because he isn't dead yet, doesn't mean he won't be soon.

"Sophie, I need you to get me to this address!" I point of the one on screen, where it says Ben currently lives. It's the same place I remember it being, and it's the queen's computer so it surely can't be outdated.

"Frisk, we're right in the middle of very important diplomatic-" She tries to reason, but I just shake my head.

"-No. No, no, no. This isn't just any old drop off, I'm not asking because I want to go hang out with an old buddy and avoid my responsibilities. This is about his life. You can read it here; he has a long history of depression and self-harm. There was one near-attempted-suicide. 'Near' because I found him before he could. No, that one isn't on the records, but I don't fucking care. It's not on the records, because he was a damn good liar. Not even his counsellor found out. He knew everything but that, and I don't know why he never said, but I don't care. I don't care about diplomacy, or negotiations, or inter-species relations; right now you are going to take me to this address because I need him to see me in person, and not to be told by email that his best friend and sister isn't dead." I rant, but by the time I've finished Sophie seems agreeable. There's a look in her eye of painful softness that I don't much like, but the fact that she nods convinces me that perhaps there is a chance for our friendship.

"Erm... Frisk, dear... What are you talking about? Where are you going? Who is this man?" Toriel asks delicately, and I laugh too high and too loudly for too long. There are tears in my eyes that have nothing to do with Toriel's lack of understanding.

I don't want the blood of anyone else on my hands.

Chapter Text

I bundle myself into the back of a sleek, black car, not taking any notice of the pristine cleanliness on both the outside and the inside. Sophie sits in after me, giving the driver directions before staring at me out of the corner of her eye. I can feel it, but make no move to reciprocate or even show that I know.

Back in the castle, Toriel and Asgore are sitting the dining hall, doing who knows what. Toriel objected to me going out into a strange city without her, but me and Sophie convinced her (with many, "But diplomacy!" from the queen, and many, "I'm an adult!" from me, and many, "We know the city better than you!" from us both) to stay quietly behind. Asgore let me go with a simple pat on the shoulder and an encouraging look.

I stare out the window, blankly, for a long while before I decide that I need to apologise for being rude earlier. I swing around suddenly, and find myself nose to nose with the queen.

"Are you-" She starts, looking startled.

"I'm sorry-" I start, mortified.

We both flounder for a while, and I can practically hear the driver's smugness. I'd snark at him, if I wasn't trying to be polite, and the queen wasn't here. After Sophie and I finally finish our messy apologies and "Oh, you go first,"s, I speak.

Really? You think you're superior to her? She's the queen, and you're speaking first! How dare you, insolent, worthless, murderer.

I shake my head to clear these thoughts, and wonder for a moment when I can next see my counsellor.

"I'm sorry for being rude earlier. I... Was panicked. Terrified, in fact. It's... I've seen him... In some... Bad places." I trail off, vaguely gesturing to the air in front of me as if that might help.

"It's alright. I know. I've never known anyone who came anywhere near what you and your brother have been through, but I do understand. Although... Perhaps it might be best if you don't use my computer without permission?" She smiles kindly at me, and I wonder what deity I have sold my soul to in extange for this kind of queen.

"Yeah." I laugh, although it's more of a shaky exhale than anything else, "Wait, didn't you have something to ask me?"

"Yes, actually. Are you alright? You seemed... Ruffled by what I told you." She says, awkwardly glancing at the driver. He must be under some sort of oath to never reveal anything he overhears in this car, but it's nice of her to respect that I don't want everyone knowing about my private affairs. Not that me not being dead is really a private affair...

"I'm fine. Now. I was a bit... Well, it's quite a thing, and he's... Well... He's quite a... I do love him, but we worry about each other a lot. We've both had... Well, I've had a brush with cutting, but he's had a brush with suicide. He caught me just after I started. Well, three months after, but it could've been a lot worse. I didn't actually stop until about a month after I started counselling. Ben made me go. It was a returned favor. I caught him just before he attempted suicide a few years before..." I ramble, then trail off, and look over to the driver. If he was a cat, his ears would be fully turned backwards. He's listening. Not in a malicious way, I hope, but more in the way you can't help when you don't have anything better to be doing.

Sophie sees my gaze, and calls over to the man, "Aren't you a little bored? I think you'd better listen to some music, or a podcast, or an audiobook." it's phrased like a suggestion, but the tone makes it very clearly an order.

"Yes, Ma'am." The man responds obediantly, and slips on a pair of headphones. After a moment, I can hear the muffled sound of music playing.

"Thanks." I say to her, and she shakes her head.

"All my driver's are under oath, but it's best they don't hear anything at all if it's something private." Sophie smiles, and I smile back.

Knew it.

The ease with which that voice can change from hateful and mocking to smug and proud is unnerving. Escpecially since the voice stopped sounding like my own. That was around the time Intelligence into the Underground, although I've had more important things in my mind to distract. Now, also with more important things to consider, I shove the not-quite-me voice away.

"Still, thanks." I take a deep breath, and wonder how to start. Should I even tell her? Ben's story really isn't one that everyone needs to know, and certainly not one he wants everyone to know.

"If you don't wish to tell me, that's fine." Sophie puts a hand on my shoulder, much in the way one of my other friends would when they see me upset.

"I don't know. If... If he wants you to know, he'll probably tell you himself. Erm... Sorry." I give her a pathetically apologetic look, and she snorts.

"Truly, it is fine." A royal hand is waved dismissively, and we sit in a mildly tense silence for the rest of the journey.

The tension is all coming from me, and my pitiful attempts at blocking out the memories of my history with Ben.

We met when we were very young, and back then it was simple. I was quite popular in the very beginning: I had my nails painted, and I wore little buckled shoes with an inch-high-heel. That, apparently, made me very cool. Oh, what I would give to be that young again, when my only problems were what I had in my lunchbox.

Anyway, Ben was just one of the kids who befriended me, but he was one of the few who stuck around. No one seemed to like him much, but I never understood that. He was awkward and sweet, and scarily independent. Maybe a little odd, scuffed around the edges, a bit desperate and clingy, but I loved hugs too, and had always seemed to have an attraction to the damaged.

One thing had, from the very beginning, struck me as odd. The way he looked at my parents. The sad, lonely look he shot my mother as she let me get a piggy-back ride home, while he walked back to his house alone. The miserable, longing stare that my father received whenever he told me how beautiful my little crayon doodles were, even though they weren't. The mystified gaze that he sent my way whenever I told him a ridiculous story about what happened when my family went on holiday. Looking back, his eyes were saying, "Is this what a family looks like?" . At the time, I thought of it as no more than something Ben did. The sky was blue, Ben's nose scrunched up when he laughed, and he looked oddly at me and my family when he saw them. Irrefutable facts that I did not question for years.

Only when we started growing up did I notice the bruises, the scars, the cuts. He had a plethora of excuses for them, but in a few years I'd heard them all. I started to wonder, to question and to push, but every time I did he'd sink away. Looking back, it was a shitty defence mechanism, to hide away and look sad when he was asked uncomfortable questions, but it worked. I pulled away, and didn't push. I let him be, and I let the wound fester. There's a thousand reasons that our lives shouldn't have gone the way they did, but they did.

Why us? Why him? It wasn't his fault, and he was always the most kind kid of us all!

That voice sounds like me.

I sigh out loud, and Sophie glances my way. A shake of my head, and a suspicious nod from her, and nothing more is said.

Ben always had trouble making friends, but keeping them seemed near impossible. Every time he managed to get close to someone, someone who could overlook the lack of social skills, they would invite him around to their house for sleepovers and the like, but he'd never ask them back. Then the other person would leave, find another friend group, and Ben would be left alone, with me. I would sometimes find other friends, and then Ben and them would be forced into friendship by association. That often scared the other people away. Ben and I ended up mostly solitary, and as he seemed to have a knack for it, I learned from bitter experience.

Oh, everything could've been so much easier... If I'd just made him talk...

This time I don't sigh, just close my eyes and press my forehead against the window. People outside don't seem to know this is the queen's car. They just walk right past. On with their lives. It's terrifying how normal everything is, always, even when the most horrific thing has happened to you.

One day, Ben finally invited me around to his house. He'd been feeling obviously guilty about it for a while, even though I assured him I didn't mind. When I arrived, his father greeted my parents coldly, and the smell of alcohol hung heavy in the air.

That day is one I remember very clearly.

"Whaddya want?" Mr. Skeels said, lumbering over as Ben heaved the door open. The man leaned on the frame, staring at me and my family with half-lidded eyes.

"Erm... You texted us yesterday, expressing your son's wish to bring our daughter around to play?" My mother told him, politely confused as my father looked at him with suspicion. Mr. Skeels and my parents had extanged contacts months ago, although this was the first time Mr. Skeels had been the first to talk.

"Di' I? Son, did you use mah phone? I don' remember tex'ing you folks." He slurred, and the look he gave Ben sent shudders down my spine. Pure fury. It looked as if he would hit the kid if we hadn't been there.

"Y-yes. S-s-sorry, f-father. I-I didn't th-think you'd mind t-too much... I'll m-m-make sure we a-a-aren't messy!" Ben stuttered, flinching towards me and my parents as much as he could without leaving the threshold of his house. He sounded more scared than I'd ever heard him before. I resisted the temptation to hug him on the spot for fear of Mr. Skeels.

The gray-haired man rolled his eyes, gabbed a finger at his son's chest, and said in an awfully commanding tone, "You better, brat, or else." Ben quivered, and I ran over to my friend, holding his shoulders and wrapping my arms around his chest. Mr. Skeels went from threatening to deadly in seconds, and I whirrled Ben around so that he was behind me, and I was like a human shield in front of him. I half expected to feel a knife coming through my chest. Instead, a handful of my hair was taken by rough, unyeilding fingers, as Ben's father pulled me towards him.

"Whatcha think yer doin'? Get yer hands off my son!" He spoke closely to my face, and he spat on my face as he talked. He smelled like something putrid. It was a mixture between drink and vomit, and I couldn't help but scrunch my face. That only made his grip stronger, and his open-mouthed scow deeper.

"Father, no! Don't hurt her! It's my f-f-fault..." Ben runs and pulls at his father's arm, but falls helplessly to the ground when Mr. Skeels looks at him.

"Sir, I demand you unhand my daughter at once! It is not your son's fault, he was simply trying to spend time with his friend in his own home! Perhaps he shouldn't have used your phone without permission, but he's just a child!" My mother cries, pulling the man away from me, as my father tugged Ben to his feet and crouched down to check that he was okay.

"Mama!" I squeeled, running into her embrace as she said something angrily to Mr. Skeels that I didn't care to catch.

Ben looked to me, and I saw tears glinting in his eyes. He didn't say anything, and neither did I, but in that moment, looking at his oddly bruised face, pale enough to make a vampire proud, framed by tufts of unkempt black hair, I understood. It all made sense, and I was kicking myself for not realising.

It took us a few years to convince the police there was reason to investigate the Skeels family.

He was in an adoption centre in days.

He was in our house, gazing happily at our parents, and smiling so widely, within a month.

And the smiles faded about a year following.

I wish the afterglow of new joy never faded.

"Are you certain you're alright?" Sophie startles me. I jump an undignified height, and she giggles. It's kinda... Cute? She's the queen, but her giggling and snorting is cute. It sounds almost similar to Alphys.

"N-no. But... I'll be fine?" I didn't intend it to be a question.

"I'll leave you be, but if you need help with anything or need to talk..." She motions to the driver, "He's still following my order."

"Right. I-I will." I nod, and turn back to the window. I didn't realise how close we were to Ben's house.

Oh, how much he loved our house. He was the one who inherited the shop when mum and dad died. He always loved the fish, ever since the first time I brought him around to see the house (it was a sleepover, and the only time he cried was on his way home. He never said why). He would stare at them for hours on end, while I talked to him about the different species and how to take care of them. I never had the same fascination with them as he did, but it was an opportunity to show off to someone I cared about, so I took it.

When he moved away, after our parents died, he made sure to stay within walking distance so he could still visit the acqarium. Even after he sold it away because he couldn't take care of them, he was neurotic about making sure our friend was tending them properly.

"We used to play in that graveyard." I say, pointing out the window. I hear a quiet, "Oh." from Sophie, and we fall into the terrifyingly gentle cradle of silence.

It's so easy to stay quiet, and so hard to speak out.

The kids at school made fun of him for liking boys. They beat him up. Just when all the injuries from his father were healed, he got new ones from the children around him. His smiles faded again. We almost forgot what it was like to be happy. When they hurt him, I'd defend him with all my might. But I wouldn't hurt them back, so they just hit me, too. We were fourteen when Ben almost attempted suicide.

Even after all these years, you still remember it like it was just yesterday. Wouldn't it be better if you just forgot?

Perhaps. But to forget the day your brother and best friend tried to take his own life, in his room with the blade of a whittling knife you got him for his birthday, is a rather difficult task

Fourteen.

He was fourteen.

His birthday was hardly a week before.

We stayed up all night, and most of it was spent with me crouched over him, pinning him onto the bed with his hands above his head, us both sobbing uncontrollably.

Don't.

I struggle with myself for a while, to not remember that night. I've been fighting the memory for years now, so kit comes almost easily to bury it deep, deep down, in the darkest depths of my soul.

"You're shaking. Are you certain you want to do this?" Sophie's voice sounds like Toriel's, and her hand is back on my shoulder. I'm nearly crying. I nod my head, and then shove it into my hands to muffle the quiet cries. By the time the car has stopped, my lungs hurt, but only a few years have forced their way out of my eyes.

"Thank you, sir. Please wait here until we return." Sophie tells the driver, who nods curtly and closes his eyes, apparently infatuated with his music.

"Must be a... Pretty good song." I say, all breath and no voice.

"He knows that at any point he may be asked to avert his hearing. He has all his favourite songs on standby." Sophie tells me. I take a deep breath at we both stand and stare at my brother's house.

It's beautiful, the garden lively and bright, with honeysuckle growing up the walls and tickling the small windows. The roof is hatched, the walls criss-crossed by black wooden beams, seemingly holding the structure together. The door is heavy oak, and the handle in the shape of a a flower bud. The whole thing looks like something out of a fairytale. Wrought-iron bars cover one of the upper windows, and I almost laugh. The last time I was here, it was to help with the removal of those bars on all the other windows. It was an exhausting process, and in the heat of the summer almost torturous. We stopped for a drink, just before we finished extracting the bars over the spare-bedroom window, and once we'd had our full of lemonade (homemade by another friend), me and my brother lay out in the garden, on the grass, and talked about what we thought was under M.t Ebbot which made people disappear from it's slopes. It was then that I decided that I would try to climb the damn thing.

We fell asleep out in the grass, and only woke up when it started to rain.

"I... I forgot how... How pretty it was... It's so... I'm so glad so made him buy it." I tell Sophie breathlessly, feeling a sudden hatred to the bars on the spare-bedroom window.

"Does he do the gardening himself?" She asks, in awe, "I've seen far grander, but not typically by only one person..."

"No, we have a friend who runs a local flowershop. She tend the garden for him, as long as she gets to pick some of his wildflowers. She's... remarkable." I laugh, and then walk up to the front door, my eyes half-closed, feeling along the winding path and avoiding as best I can from stepping on the flowers licking at my toes.

Knock once, then stop. Knock twice, then stop. Knock once, then pause and knock thrice.

It's an old pattern, one we came up with as a secret handshake when we were little (back then it was clapping), and for the past few years we've been using it whenever we knock on each others doors. If he's still in there, and still alive, he knows it's me.

"Who is there?" Asks a tired voice, speaking through the small gap with a metal cap that serves as a letterbox. Ben, certainly. I gasp happily, and press my hand to my Jotun to mutter the ridiculously high-pitched wail.

He's alive! Oh god, he's really alive!

"Who'd you think? Who else knows that knock?" I ask mockingly, my voice ruining the effect slightly by trembling. There's a sudden thump on the other side, as if something heavy and soft fell to the ground, and then a scrambling sound as keys jangle, feet patter, drawers open and close and an uncountable amount of small things clatter to the floor. Then, without warning, the door to the fairytale cottage opens, and there is my brother, pale as a ghost and as frail as the wind.

Shock runs amok over his normally steady hands, and disbelief dances painfully in his icy blue eyes. Black hair falls messily over his forehead, uneven in length as is he tried to cut it himself. His mouth, thin and birdlike, open in a mix between terror and joy. His clothes, always so perfectly tailored to fit, and taken care of so well, are crumpled and mismatched. An thin, old, hand-knit jumper (one of my earliest attempts at knitting if I remember correctly), and a pair of unsightly lime-green and pink striped shorts. I think I got those for him as a gag, once. His watery eyes are red and puffy, and his cheeks seem rubbed raw. His features have always been reminiscent of foxes, with sharp, inquisitive eyebrows, a thin, slightly off-centre nose, and lidded eyes make him seem suspicious, someone to be reckoned with. Truly, he's much more of a puppy than a predator in red. Today, his sharp nose seems droopy, and his lidded eyes seem despairing. He's a sad fox today. Judging from the new lines on his face, I'd say he's been a sad fox for a while.

"It can't be. You... You're dead." Ben squeaks, and when the tears come they come fast and strong, a tsunami neither of us were prepared for.

"I know I might not look my best, I've hardly seen a mirror for the past three months, but... I'm not dead." I shrug through the sobs, smiling despite it all.

As suddenly as memory returns, Ben's arms are around my neck and his little weight almost pummels me over. The jumper is thin, but not enough that I should be able to feel his ribs. He wasn't always this skinny. He probably hasn't eaten in a while. I've never labelled him as one to develop an eating disorder, but perhaps in my absence... Or perhaps he simply lost the will to live? Perhaps he simply couldn't find even the will to search for a quicker end to his life?

Stop worrying. He's your brother, not your son. It's your job to be his friend and his consort, not to worry and panic at every little thing.

I scold myself, just as words begin to form amidst Ben's helpless cries.

"J-Just t-tell m-m-me o-one thing, p-please, F-F-F-Frisk... T-t-tell m-me y-you're r-real...I d-don't c-care if-if it's a l-l-lie, or i-if I've died and g-gone to heaven or hell, I-I-I don't care if I-I-I'm halucinating o-or d-d-dreaming... J-Just tell m-me you're r-r-real!" He weeps into my shoulder, as I weep into his.

"I'm real... I-I'm n-not l-lying, a-and you're not dead, an-and neither am I... You're n-n-not halucinating, a-and th-this isn't a d-dream... This is r-real, and I'm r-real, and we're both al-alive..." I assure him. He just cries harder.

We stand like this for who knows how long, just crying and crying as wave after wave of desperate joy hits us. We lap it up, like it's water in the desert. Sophie doesn't utter a word until Ben finally pulls back, his face split with a smile wider than I've seen in years.

"I think now may be a good time for me to leave. Call Sans when you are ready to return to the negotiations. You may have the day off, if you wish." Sophie tells us, smiling kindly and turning back to the car, "Oh, and Frisk?" She whips around, "If you want to tell him about everything that has happened in these past three months, you may. But only if he swears an oath to you that he will not reveal anything. I trust that you choose your brothers well enough for him to keep that promise." She turns back to the car, with a slight warning smile in place.

"Hey, wait! I-I-I..." Ben runs after her, calling out before stopping as it hits him. I came here with the queen, "Erm... I n-need to th-thank you... F-f-for... Erm..."

"Nonsense." She waves a hand, and before either of us can say any more, she's inside the car and driving off. A few people walking past stare, and whisper to each other as they see her leave, but don't say anything to us.

"S-so... W-wanna c-come in an-and h-h-have s-someting to-to drink?" Ben walks backwards, staring at the car as it recedes into the distance.

"Yeah. You always make the best hot chocolate." I pull him around, and we walk back into the house with our arms linked.

"No, I don't. You just don't have taste buds anymore." He laughs.

"Touche, my brother, touche."

"...I've missed hearing that."

"What? 'Touche'?"

"No. Th-the... The other thing."

He then bursts into tears, sliding down the wall as I lock the door. We sit there, on the floor, surrounded by broken porcelain from our previous collection of antique knick-knacks, crying our hearts out while laughing our heads off

Chapter Text

After an unreasonable amoung of time spent crying on the floor, we stood up and made our way, wiping out eyes and sniffling, in the direction of the living room.

The hall is coated with a burgundy wallpaper, with an intricate flower pattern repetitively winding itself in golden tendrils off of the walls and onto the ceiling. Three old-fashioned ceiling lamps hang from there, just low enough that a reasonably-sized person could hit their heads off them. The foor is heavy stone slabs, and our shoes click clack on it loudly as we pass, the sound absorbed by the thick walls but leaving no room for silence. To the immediate left is a dresser, previously covered in little pieces of pottery, delicately painted and glazed, of an eclectic range of styles, colours, meanings, and origins. Now they're knocked over, if I on the dresser at all, with a many being smashed on the floor. The drawers are in quite a state themselves, the contents strewn messily within and around. Ben loves everything to be tidy, in it's place, and well-cared-for. Probably comes from living in a place where nothing is tidy, nothing has a place, and nothing, not even him, is well-cared-for.

The walls are bare, except for a mirror hung loosely and lopsidedly right above the dresser. It's a simple thing, with no frame and a no-nonsense rectangular shape. Ben's a minimalist, where I haven't gotten to him. I don't think that has anything to do with his upbringing, it's just a part of who he is. The wallpaper was my doing (it came with the house, and I loved it too much to let him get rid of it), and the collection of pottery statues were a drunken bet made a year ago that neither of us has let up on. Although, now that he's inherited practically everything I owned, I suppose he's won the bet.

Peering into the mirror, I almost gasp. It's the same reaction I've had every time I've looked into a mirror since I fell into the Underground, but this is worse than any of those. The first time, in Toriel's Home, I looked disheveled and half-mad, with blood and mud clotting my hair and smudging my face, but a quick shower solved that problem. The second time, in Sans and Papyrus's house (or more specifically, their bathroom), I looked shell-shocked, half-frostbitten, with the snow on my head and shoulders constructing awfully to my tanned skin and dark hair, but I was about to use their shower, so it didn't bother me quite as much. The third time, on the monitor in Alphys's lab, I was gaunt, damp and covered in dust, but too terrified to really mind. In the True Lab, the same goes, only minus the dampness. The fourth, in Asgore's Home, I was almost skeletal, completely sordid, and with blood dried so thickly in so many places that it would take about an hour to get it all off, but I was heading into certain death so it wasn't really at the top of the adgenda.

Now, I look... Quite frankly, like I've been fighting in gladiatorial games for the past three months, and have hardly eaten anything for all that time. Which just happens to be exactly what has happened.

"And you hugged this mess?" I say, without looking to him, examining a particularly noticeable knot in my hair.

"I thought you were dead. If you were dripping with literal swamp-muck, I would've still hugged you." He tells me, and I can hear the smile widen as he adds, "The shower's in the usual place, as are the towels and all your preferred products. Cleaning items aren't the most usual keepsakes, I know, but I'll take what I have."

"Thanks, you're the best!" I shoot him a grin as I trot upstairs.

The staircase is just past the dresser and the mirror, the wallpaper disappearing and being replaced by a deep red paint of a matching colour, which seeps into a pastel pink as you wind upwards. It spirals tightly, the banister of heavy oak like the door, painted to match the colour change. Even the stairs themselves aid the gradual fade from Old Country Cottage into Minimalist Pastel Dream, by starting as a stony grey and ending as a pure white. The idea of a staircase like this seemed ridiculous when he proposed it, but now that it's finished... I first described it as, "Like walking from a cave into the clouds," and I still stand by that statement.

From the landing of the second floor, you can either go left or right. To your right are the main bedroom and the spare bedroom, main on the left and spare on the right. If you turn left, then the bathroom door is the first on your left, and Ben's workshop is on the right. The towel box is in Ben's room, so I head inside there.

The walls up here are all the same uniform pale pink, and the floors are all the same uniform white. The doors are a faint purple, with a single yellow flower winding around the base of the door handles. He painted them on himself, by hand. The ceiling is a baby blue, wonderfully calming. The small, cramped corridors seem light and airy, and the low ceilings rise to meet the sky of a similar colour.

Ben's room is just as pale, a bed in the center of the room being the only decorated thing, with handpainted flowers in pastel colours growing their way up the bedposts, and coming together into a bouquet in the headboard. We did that together, when he first moved in.

A closet of all sharp, clear lines with an in-built mirror stands directly on the left when you walk in, and the towel box of equal sharpness stands directly to the right. There's an in-built bookcase running along half of the far right wall, but beyond that the room is empty. Clean, but empty.

I grab a towel with all the grace of an ogre, dropping the lid and scrunching up my face when it bangs shut with a noise like a gunshot.

"Fuck you too, box." I grumble, shuffling back along into the hall. The lights here are featureless spheres dangling precariously from the ceiling off thin silver wire. As I pass the room next to Ben's bedroom, I take a moment to just stare.

I said he was a minimalist, right?

Not in his workshop.

And explosion of colours, textures, and light sources. A desk is lopsidedly pushed against the left wall, with papers and fabrics strewn across it. A large lamp sits beside the desk, shining honey-yellow light over the desk and a few feet to every side, but not much beyond that. Mannequins stand against the right wall, with finished and half-finished and barely-started work pinned on, the fabrics bright and saturated. In between each wire-mesh person is a lamp, like the one beside the desk, throwing light carelessly at whatever they can reach. The floor is a maze of paper, some patterns finished and some not. From the ceiling hangs the odd light, adding a blueish sheen to everything beneath them, along with many supplies: bolts of fabric in colours as saturated as ocean in the sun, ribbons of similar value, and many pairs of scissors. The walls themselves are coated in cut fabrics, pinned there against the corkboards that he lined the walls with when he first moved in. You can hardly see the dingy brown of the cork now.

There's an odd beauty to the room, in its darkness and it's clutter: there's a sense of life that his house in general lacks. It's clean, yes, but it's empty. Here, in this room, the room he calls his "office", everything has a purpose and a place, everything is alive with care and function and future.

I close the door once I'm done looking.

The bathroom is decorated entirely in shades of pale green and pink. A tiled floor the colour of mint fades in small, scratchy lines into a cherry blossom pink on the walls, with the ceiling (also tiled, and though I've asked him why he's never given me an answer) being a gentle pea-green. The sink is a rose pink, and the toilet (to my constant dismay) is a pea-green only slightly darker than the ceiling. The bath-shower hybrid which is built into the far wall has a curtain of pure white, being itself a calming cherry blossom.

"I swear, if you're wedding bouquet is any colour other than pink and green, I'll smash that bathtub with a sledgehammer until it's no more than dust." I'd said to him when he first announced the colour scheme. He just laughed.

Dropping my towel to the floor on top of the bathmat (a lovely flower pattern, of pink and green) I peel off my clothes and dump them in a muddy pile by the door. I cringe when I see how his pristine floor becomes covered in specks of dried blood, but ignore it and step into the shower, pulling the curtain closed behind me.

Just as Ben had promised, all my usual products are there. A shampoo that claimed to smell like honey, though I think it smells more like honeysuckle. A shower gel that said it was a moisturizer as well, though I didn't believe it. A conditioner that proclaimed loudly in a manly font, "THE LADIES CAN'T GET ENOUGH!". I certainly can't. It makes me smell like strawberries.

Hmm, warm, adjustable water... God, this is great.

The shower in Snowdon had been cold as ice, Toriel's like lava, and Alphys'snan unsteady mix between both, fluctuationing between them.

I was probably in there for an hour, judging by how I pruned. My fingertips became little yellow raisins, and my toes massive ones. It had taken me almost thirty minutes to just get all the dried blood out of my hair, and half a bottle of the shampoo. Large, black clumps fell to the floor with wet plops, and smaller pieces peeled away to melt and due the suds red. It took me a further ten minutes to get the thick layers of dirt and blood off the rest of my body. After that I just stood and sang, letting the warmth and familiarity of this house flow over me. So long I've wondered, not knowing if I'll live to see another day, every moment looking at something different and new, it's euphoric to just be at home.

I only step out when a voice in my head begins to speak.

Oh come on, stop being lazy like that stupid comedian. Get out and go do something productive. Like kiling Ben.

I try to laugh it off to myself, but there's a creeping feeling in my back, like something is crawling there, just under the skin, that doesn't let me.

"Don't worry Ben, I'm not dead!" I shout to him the second I've got the door open, wrapping my hair towel more firmly, and tripping over something soft at my feet.

"I wasn't worrying!" His voice breaks, along with my heart.

Peeling myself off the floor with a scarily practiced movement, I find that I tripped over a pile of clean clothes. A well-worn shirt, a fuzzy hand-knit jumper (this was one of my more successful attempts), a pair of ripped jeans and some of my less lacy underwear.

"Hey, thanks, but now come you've got my clothes?" I call down to him, starting to get dressed, not bothering to step into the bathroom again. We've seen eachother naked enough times that all he'd do is raise his eyebrows if he happened to head upstairs.

"You left them all to me, remember? In your will?" He called back.

"Oh yeah!" I say, and pull the jeans up to find them a size too small, "Wait, even my underwear?" I laugh.

"Well, yeah, I guess. I just asked them to bring it all over. I just stuck most of it in the spare room, and didn't actually look through it." He tells me.

"'Them' being?" I ask him, and pull the shirt over my head. It's always been tight-fitting, and even though it hangs a little looser, I notice something about my abdomen.

Oh hell yes...

"Sarah? James? All the family?" He says, seemingly unsure of the answer himself.

"Who's James?" I ask, and run my fingers over the shape under my shirt. No, I'm not halucinating.

"Oh, he's my boyfriend. He was one of the people who came around to give condolences. Apparently he was a friend of yours when we were little. You know, back when you were the talk of the town with your painted nails and 'high heels'." The blush is audible.

"You met your current love through my death? Well, at least something good came out of it. What's he like?" I say, and wrap my dirty clothes in the towel, tuck it under one arm, and march downstairs with my jumper over my shoulder.

"He's sweet. When he came around, he was stuttering and had a bouquet. He'd already out some at the foot of the mountain. Oh, that's where people layed their flowers. You know, the way they do after car crashes, laying them at the place where the car crashed? Well, they did that but at the mountain. And he came around to give me flowers. He actually came by the next day too, and the next. He was trying to make me feel better. It didn't much work, but after a week I came around to watch a movie at his house, and I just cried on his shoulder for a while. It kind of... Escalated. We've been an official thing for two months... Are you really warm or something? I think it's freezing." He was leaving the kitchen with two jugs of something steaming and chocolate-scented, but stops to comment on my lack of the jumper, looking me up and down for a moment before heading into the living room.

"Nope, I think it's freezing too. Take a look at my tummy." I throw the towel and my clothes intonthe washing basket my the door of the kitchen, and point to my stomach area. The shirt is sheer enough that you can see the flow of my skin beneath it.

"Oh-kay..." He puts down his mugs, and squints at me, "Wait... Wait! WAIT JUST A SECOND- IS THAT A SIX-PACK?" He peers for a moment, before bursting into a yell that shakes the foundations themselves.

"Yes it is!" I wiggle proudly.

"Since when did you have a six-pack?" He keeps staring, as if his eyes might be decieving him.

"Probably got them some time during the past three months. I haven't really been paying enough attention to the state of my body to tell you anything more accurate." I say, lying. I have been saying attention to the state of my body. Mostly to the fact that it's still all in one piece and functioning as a body should.

"Hm... What have you been doing the past three months? And how the heck did you end up getting driven around by the fucking queen?" Ben asks, pulling back so his pointed nose doesn't get taken off when I pull the jumper on. It really is freezing.

"I guess I have a lot of explaining to do." I take his hand and we walk to the living room together, and plop down onto the couch.

This room is blue. The hardwood floor is a deep ocean, the walls pouring into the ceiling a high palace of ice, growing lighter as it reaches for the sun. A bookshelf tucked away in each corner, both made of glass-like plastic, one filled with old books and the other filled with old DVDs. The TV sits atop a glass stand, simple, straight and to the point. The couch is an old and sagging four-seater, with blue and gold patterning. The gold part of it is embroidered flowers.

"Yeah, you do. Start." Ben says, picking up his mug. It's one of a large set. Plain and beige, with a thick handle and smooth edges.

"You've got to make an oath." I say, picking up my own, an equally boring beige.

"Sure. I swear upon the graves of my parents that I will not reveal anything you tell me until what you say has become public knoweledge." He takes a sip of his drink, the puts the mug down to put a hand over his heart and turn to face me.

"That'll probably do." I say, shrugging, and begin to tell him the tale of how the Underground became empty.

Chapter Text

So sorry. I'm still working on this, but my time has been absorbed lately. On top of that, the app I use for writing these crashed and all my work was lost.

All of it.

Every.

Single.

Word.

Not just the stuff I'm going to post soon, but the stuff that I've had in the works for a while. Future chapters, little and big. 

All of it is gone.

I'm super sad about that, and tired from my birthday walk up an almost-mountain (my own choice, which I only slightly regret).

Expect me to not be posting for a while as I gather my soul and determination. I'll do what I can, but... That chapter was nearly done, and it's really got me out of spirits. I will keep working as best I can, though.

Well, that's all the excuses I can give. My apologies, and... Enjoy?