Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

* You wave at the ocean.

* The ocean waves back.

Frisk smiles at the serene and whimsical view before them.

They marvel at the feeling of their toes sinking into dark, muddy, ocean-damp sand. It's not half as uncomfortable as it sounds, funnily enough; An enamored giggle leaves them at the foreign sensation of the countless grains beneath their feet, like standing in quicksand yet somehow never sinking. A full laugh wells up from them when the water becomes particularly playful and splashes all the way up to their torso, as if sentient and playing an innocent game with them that the both of them were in on.

Although they soon regret laughing, at the taste of the sea salt making its way in their mouth.

At that, Frisk coughs and splutters, nose wrinkling at the taste. Another harder wave crashes against them, as if jubilantly laughing at their predicament, and they close their eyes fully - already squinting by default, it wasn't like much water got in anyway, but that didn't mean they wanted to be scrubbing sea salt and sand out of their eyes for the next hour.

Maybe as well as the ruffled striped aqua and rose-colored bathing suit they liked, they should've also grabbed their goggles before leaving home: But Papyrus, bless his soul, could unintentionally be quite the task-maker when they had somewhere to go and an ideal time to be there... with Undyne at his side even more so. So though he was oblivious to everyone else's tension at the rush, they'd kind of been home one second and out on the road in the blink of an eye the morning they'd left for the trip.

So much so, in fact, that the tall skeleton quite literally had basket-balled Frisk (Monster Kid as well, who at their parents' agreement was tagging along) into the air in the driveway while making some frenzied and discombobulated comments about how they should've left one hour ago and nobody can find Sans and they were thus late for their very first surface-bonding-activities ever and he heard Mettaton was on tour in their designated location and they had to leave leave PRONTO!

Undyne faithfully caught them mid-air, then proceeded to casually yeet the children over her shoulder into the car via the backseat window.

The fish and skeleton then spent the next half hour getting an earful from Toriel before they actually had hit the road: Meanwhile, Sans (A.K.A, 99% of the reason they'd been late in the first place, naturally) was finally found by a snickering Alphys and befuddled Asgore, napping in the trunk with his face in a duffle bag of fresh laundry.

Including that blasted sock, Papyrus had lamented.

If ridiculous pictures of a sleeping Sans with a faceful of sock hat just so happened to end up on the Undernet an hour later, well, Alphys had denied all connection to the matter.

Frisk, though disappointed they had been hurried out and thus missed out on their goggles, still hummed in amusement thinking back on the moment: Personally, they thought Undyne was a trained professional at yeeting small children. She demonstrated so all the time in gym class… but they refrained from pointing this particular fact at to Toriel at the time.

Back in the present, though… seagulls chirped into the air in the distance. The breeze was soft and content - the atmosphere welcoming and still. The sensation here at the head of the ocean breeze... waves and all... it was hard to describe. It was head-to-toes and ethereal. It felt spiritual, even. Vertigo; That was also a close word for it, maybe. The harder they tried to stand their ground against the waves, the more dizzy and weightless they felt. Yet, somehow they didn't feel sick at all.

If anything - salty water to the face aside - they felt... peaceful within.

"ouch; good luck not getting as'salt'ed by the waves over there, huh, kiddo?"

And then of course Sans' head decided to float into their line of view, and that was the first thing he said.

The pun was the first part that registered in their mind, so they began to snort- then, they actually eyed the short skeleton's head in shock. And realized it was literally floating in the middle of the ocean apart from his body.

Their eyes froze, wide dark brown on white eye-lights.

". . . 'sup?" Sans tried, grin a bit too wide for comfort.

Frisk proceeded to shriek for almost a full minute in horrified confusion, to the point where it sent Papyrus over to scold Sans for frightening the human. Sans, if nothing else, had the decency to look sheepish and say sorry following the incident.

Once they got their heart to actually start beating again, Frisk told them not to worry. They just thought...

... 

...They were just startled, is all.

Thus marks the day Frisk learns why the skelebros don't swim.

"TRULY ONE OF US SHOULD'VE WARNED YOU THAT US SKELETONS COULD DO THAT IN ADVANCE... YOU HAVE MY EARNEST APOLOGIES FOR THE SCARE, HUMAN-FRISK!" Papyrus apologized yet again, patting the kid upon their head and ruffling their damp hair-

""-ERM-?"

His bony fingers waded through the chestnut brown hair consolingly, but… momentarily, the digit got snagged at a joint on a loose strand.

Frisk flinched back a tad uncomfortably at the pull on their scalp; At the utterly done with life look on Papyrus' face, though, they couldn't help but snort in light-hearted, if rueful amusement as Papyrus had to take at least twenty seconds to untangle himself from the offending hair, all while murmuring about perhaps reconsidering whether growing some flowing blonde locks of his own would truly be a wise choice or not...

Sans, mid-screwing his head back onto his neck, made some pun about 'getting out of the Frisk's hair' - because why wouldn't he, who do you think this is - causing his brother to become distracted, Papyrus pretending to scream and declare war on Sans' offending sense of humor and doubling the untangling process by another two minutes.

"-YES, AND AS I WAS SAYING. AHEM. FRISK! AS IT WERE!" Papyrus cleared his throat, as if about to make a dramatic statement: "…WATER AND BONES DO NOT MIX. MY SINCEREST CONDOLENCES."

"but, hey. 's all well and good, squirt. nothin' to lose your head over."

"SANS I WILL GIVE YOU SWIMMING LESSONS. VERY FORCEFULLY."

An audible wink from the shorter skeleton. An even more audible cry to the skies of exaggerated disillusionment and defeat from the taller skeleton.

Frisk just giggled - and remembered to cover their mouth, this time.

Chapter Text

"NICKY YOURE… WHAT?"

"…What."

Flowey's voice was as dead as a doornail. And in a minute what's left of his fragile brain cells would be too.

If he had to listen to one more minute of the Monster Kid's off-key singing to the radio, or watch Frisk lip-sing into a fistful of Takis like a microphone while dancing so much in their car seat that they kept knocking an elbow to his flower pot, he'd dump himself out the window.

"NICKY YOURE… WHAT?" Papyrus, confused, craned his body 'round his seat in the middle of the truck to look into the back at Flowey's pot, not-so-much-whispered to the golden flower in search of answer.

"What?"

"CHARMING? FUN? WHIMSICAL?" Papyrus rattled off adjectives as a bunch of guesses, as if that meant anything.

Squinting at the skeleton in irritation, the flower still didn't get from that what the doofus was going on about. Something about the singer Nicky Youre? The meaning didn't yet register - but it rarely did at first glance with Papyrus.

Flowey always has supposed that made Papyrus the most interesting. His mind works on another, more enigmatic level than most monsters; It made him… fun. Unpredictable. His mind is a bunch of spinning cogs and wheels that sometimes grind together the wrong way or spark in odd directions every now and again, yet never really stop turning.

(The thought brought to mind resets upon resets of playing 'fun' games with the skeleton. Making a twisted puzzle out of the puzzle-maker himself; Ironic enough. Toying with life. With lives. And he hadn't stopped with just one either-)

(The flower, sure enough, buried the dull stinging feeling that came with the dusty memories. It's not like he has a soul to care, after all.)

"WHAT DO YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS, FLOWEY?"

"I still don't know what you're babbling about."

"THAT FELLOW WITH THE NAME UP THERE AT THE RADIO! SEE?"

Papyrus pointed his arm and pointer finger back at the truck's dashboard display - still wearing his bright red mittens in the middle of summer despite otherwise donning his 'Jog Boy' tank top and ripped shorts with boots, because screw fashion rules apparently we die hipsters in this household.

But the skeleton's pointing still accomplished heck all, because Flowey couldn't see three rows ahead and even if he could, they were at a red light and Toriel was blocking the way arguing over the faulty GPS directions on a shamefaced Asgore's phone.

"No, Papyrus, I don't see." Flowey, much more effective in keeping an inside voice, replied to him very simply and monotone. "'Asgore's Clone' is in the way?" He said mockingly of the nickname.

"AH - INDEED SHE IS. WELL, IT READS… 'NICKY YOURE…' … BUT WHOEVER WROTE THE TEXT NEVER FINISHED THEIR STATEMENT! NICKY, YOU'RE WHAT? WHAT ARE YOU, OH NICKY??? THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME!" Papyrus' eye-sockets turned wide, tearful and comically googley. Just for emphasis.

"…"

Flowey inhaled slowly.

"LADY ASGORE? DO YOU KNOW WHAT NICKY- OH, NEVER MIND. YOU ARE BUSY. FRISK? FRISK! M.K! WOULD EITHER OF YOU KINDLY CEASE YOUR ADMITTEDLY VERY LOVELY SINGING FOR A MOMENT AND TELL ME ABOUT THIS 'NICKY' FELLOW-"

"La-da da da, la dadada- I got my head out the sunroof!-"

"...ALAS, POOR NICKY, WE HARDLY KNEW YE- …SANS? SANS, HOW CAN YOU BE SLEEPING AT A TIME LIKE THIS, WAKE UP! THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A FAMILY ROAD TRIP, NOT A FAMILY SNOOZE FEST-"

Papyrus chastised a napping Sans' sluggishness for the third time today - not bad for the lazy lump of a skeleton's usual track record, really - while Toriel proceeded to get honked at holding up traffic in a debate with Asgore over whether or not they had made a wrong turn on Glenwood road. Or whatever road they were driving down currently. Far be it from Flowey to care.

Simultaneously, he could hear Alphys still sobbing at her latest anime of choice on her tablet due to her favorite character in the cast dying a gruesome death as a misunderstood antihero beneath a hydraulic press in the fifth chapter; Undyne's been consoling her for fifteen minutes straight and Flowey can't foresee it getting any better from here.

To cap it all off nicely, M.K is still shattering his non-existent eardrums with that freaking song at the top of their lungs like the sound of a car engine backfiring.

…Frisk was laughing though. More so than he's seen them since taking on all their duties as ambassador, at least.

"…"

…Sometimes Flowey really does wonder why Frisk decided snatching him out of the underground was a good idea.