Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Frisk hadn’t meant to lie.

When they left the house that morning, signing to Toriel that they were going to stop by the school to see Asgore for a little while, they hadn’t meant to be dishonest. They were going to go to the school that Saturday morning, they were going to see Asgore and keep him company for a bit while he tended to the grounds. That was the plan, that was the idea, until they cut through the woods for a shortcut.

In the shelter of the trees, hidden from view, Frisk began to walk slower and slower. They kept looking off of the path, letting their gaze wander to something, something deeper in the foliage. And soon, without really thinking about it, they let their feet carry them away from the well-worn path and further into the trees.

It’s only for a little bit, they told theirself, Just a little exploring. Then I’ll go see Asgore.

The further Frisk went into the forest, the more distracted they became. Avoiding the real path, having to make their way through sticks and rocks, climbing, ducking, made it all the more fun.

The sun rose higher and higher in the sky, warming everything around them, and Frisk soon found the jacket they were wearing to be too hot. They shrugged the bright purple fabric from their shoulders and tied it loosely around their waist, then continued their ascent.

The sun had just peaked in the sky when Frisk came out of the trees and face-to-face with a terrestrial wall. The cliff face, run through with roots and rocks, was just a few degrees short of completely vertical. Though the height was a bit daunting, Frisk could see the top of… whatever this bit of land was called. Mountain? It wasn’t nearly the size of Mt. Ebott…

The thought filled them with determination.

If they could climb Mt. Ebott, this little hill was going to be a piece of cake.

Step by step, grasp by grasp, using the roots and rocks as handholds and footholds, Frisk inched up the cliff. The first few times, their seemingly-sturdy supports gave way, and by the time they really started making progress, they were covered in dirt and had a fair amount of scrapes on their arms and legs. But they kept going, kept climbing, even as sweat caused their grip to struggle, even as the phone in their jacket pocket thumped against their leg with every shift, they kept climbing until they reached a place where the cliff leveled off.

Resting for a moment, Frisk looked at how much farther they had to go. It looked like the next part of the incline was the final part, but the easily-climbable dirt wall from earlier was covered in patches of near-sheer rock.

They considered going back. After all, they’d been gone a while, and Toriel would worry if Frisk came home late. But they were so close! It wasn’t that much farther. So Frisk shook out their jitters, wiped their hands on their pants, and kept climbing.

The second part of the climb was much harder than the first, and Frisk used a lot of energy just to keep from slipping down. Their whole body was shaking by the time they reached the last few feet, and they took a chance by climbing harder than they had before, pushing up and grabbing for support just over the top of the cliff’s ledge. One hand grabbed onto a rock, and the other grabbed ahold of something thin and flimsy. As their momentum carried them up, Frisk caught a glance of yellow petals, an anomaly this late in the year, and for just a second, could have sworn that there was something else there. But then, gravity took effect, and as the rock that they were holding proved unstable, the flower stem snapped, and Frisk’s mouth formed a silent “Oh” as they fell.

Toriel came home to a quiet house, but the two skeletons following her soon filled it with noise. As the three began unloading groceries, Toriel called.

“Frisk? Frisk, Sans and Papyrus are here! Do you want to help with the groceries?”

She frowned when there was no response and pulled out her cell phone.

“Hello?”

“Asgore, is Frisk still with you? I thought you’d have sent them home by now.”

“… What? What do you mean?”

Toriel sighed, rolling her eyes. “Is Frisk still there? They-”

“I haven’t seen Frisk today.”

Toriel paused. The brothers stopped unloading the bags when they noticed her silence, both stepping a little closer.

“Are you at the school? Frisk left this morning and told me that they were going to see you while you worked. If you decided to play hooky-”

“I’m just leaving the school now. But Frisk hasn’t been here at all. What’s going on?”

But by then, Toriel had put the phone down. Asgore’s voice was but a tinny, hollow sound.

“Frisk? Frisk! Come on, get up, please…”

They opened their eyes and saw ground. A long way below them, there was the ground. A sharp intake of breath was all they could manage.

“C’mon, Frisk, you have to move!”

They were on the leveled-off area, half of their body hanging over. An errant root had snagged the jacket and kept them from falling the rest of the way, but the jacket was slowly slipping off.

“You gotta get up, you gotta! Please, Frisk!”

Who was talking? Why do they sound familiar?

“Take my hand. Come on, grab my hand and pull yourself up!”

Frisk willed their body to move. With more and more success, they were able to grab towards where the voice was coming from, but rather than meeting a hand, they just grabbed another root.

But they held on with all their might.

“That’s right, yeah, hold on tight! I won’t let you fall, but you’ve got to hold on!”

Frisk wanted to pull theirself up, but gravity was having none of that, and just as they tried to shift position, they began to slip away. They looked up as their body fell over the edge, looked up to see their could-be savior, and saw an impossibly familiar face.

“Frisk!”

They reached to grab hands, but just where their palms should have met, Frisk felt only air.

“… And you say they were wearing a bright purple jacket? Okay. I’ve got it… yes, Alphys, I’m doing an aerial sweep. I’ll see what I can find.” Mettaton said. He flew over the city, passing over the neighborhoods and following the road to the school. “We have to consider all possibilities,” he said, flying up high above the city so that he could take in everything. “They could’ve been kidnapped, or…” Something registered in his vision. He zoomed.

A bright purple jacket was caught on a root that protruded from a cliff.

“Oh.”

Mettaton flew down and inspected the jacket. He only had to examine the surrounding area for a moment before he saw the body of a child at the base.

“Oh, no.”

Chapter Text

“Frisk! Frisk! Hey, come on!”

“Hold on, darling, we’re going to get you help.”

“Can you hear me?”

“Dear, please, open your eyes.”

“Frisk… I’m sorry.”

“Come on, punk! Cut it out!”

“I tried to help. I tried.”

“HUMAN! THIS HAS GONE ON LONG ENOUGH! YOU MUST WAKE UP!”

“Please don’t leave me.”

“H-hey, don’t- don’t disturb them. But, uh, p-please…”

“Please don’t leave me alone.”

“Please…”

…

…

…

“hey, kid, we’re all waiting for you.”

…

…

“Frisk?”

They opened their eyes.

Or had they? Everything was still dark.

Where were they? Frisk reached hands around but contacted nothing; their feet weren’t even on the ground. They were floating in space. Floating in nothing.

“F-Frisk?”

Or not.

Still floating, they turned to see who was speaking, though they already knew. They’d heard that voice not long ago, impossibly, seen that face peering over the edge of a cliff.

“I’m so glad you’re awake!” the monster child threw himself at the human, wrapping them in a tight hug.

Frisk hugged him back, but so many questions. Where were they? Whap happened?

How was Asriel here? They didn’t want to care, though. They just wanted to enjoy it, enjoy that the one they couldn’t save, the one they missed the most when they were alone, wishing that something more could have been done, the one who managed to be a true friend despite all of the bad things.

“Do you remember?”

They thought. Yes, leaving the house, exploring in the woods, climbing, falling. They remembered.

Asriel let go, looking at Frisk’s face. “Mettaton found you and brought you to the hospital. Everyone’s here, waiting for you to wake up.” He laughed, though it wasn’t a funny laugh. “You’ve been out for a while!”

Frisk tilted their head, a questioning look on their face.

Asriel shrugged. “I don’t know how long. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up, but I don’t know how long I’ve even been here, heh.”

Frisk latched onto one thing that Asriel had already said. Hospital? This wasn’t a hospital. This was a void.

“Um, I mean, your body’s in the hospital. We, we’re technically there, too. But, um, also not exactly. We’re here, but we’re not.”

None of this was making sense. They were in the hospital, but they weren’t? And how did Asriel know this? And how was Asriel here?

“I’m sorry, I’m not making sense. It’s just, um, we’re in your head. This is your mind. So we’re here, but we’re not really here.”

Frisk shut their eyes. They wished they could stop the thoughts bumping around, because they were pretty sure where this was going.

“I have something else to tell you, Frisk,” Asriel said nervously.

Frisk reached out and grabbed Asriel’s hands, feeling the fur and the warmth and the comfort, the anchor of familiarity in a scary, unknown situation.

“…and you’re not going to like it.”

They looked Asriel in the eyes and shook their head.

Don’t take this from me.

“I have to.”

Frisk let go and curled up in a ball, pressing their hands to their ears. But that wouldn’t be able to stop what was coming. Frisk knew this. They knew, deep within theirself, what Asriel was about to say and why they couldn’t do anything to stop it.

“I’m not really here either, Frisk. I’m just in your head.”

Chapter Text

In a void, time didn’t mean anything.

Frisk had no idea how long they’d stayed, curled in a ball, clutching their head. Asriel, for his part, had let them alone to deal with this however they wanted, or maybe, since he was apparently nothing more than a figment of Frisk’s imagination…

Not real

Not real

Not real

Maybe Frisk had made him go away.

Eventually, or soon, they opened their eyes, uncurled, and just let theirself be. Much in the way that lying on cool grass in the sun and thinking about nothing can make one feel as if they are one with the ground, Frisk began to feel theirself dissolving into the nothingness around them, becoming in tune with the void, until…

They heard a sound.

Frisk snapped to attention as the void around them, that suffocating darkness, began to give way to definition and shapes. The sounds became sharper, more clear, and they were looking up, up at something dark and patterned with squares.

Dark, until a light cut across it.

“Toriel, darling, you really should get some rest.”

Frisk turned their head to look towards the voice, but the light behind the silhouette hurt their eyes and their head. But they knew. They knew that voice.

“Mettaton, you know I can’t leave them.”

Frisk found a different place to look; they turned towards Toriel’s soft, warm, familiar voice and saw her sitting in a chair just a short way from the bed. If they reached, they could just barely reach…

“Nothing’s changed yet. Go home and get some rest; I’ll tell you if something happens.”

“Hmm…”

Wait, Toriel was going to leave? Frisk sat up, suddenly panicking. She couldn’t! They reached towards her, wanted to speak, wanted to say no, don’t go, but they slipped from the bed and didn’t land on the floor.

They felt ill, but not the physically sick sort; no, they felt as if their entire soul was suddenly struck by something. Neither Mettaton nor Toriel had noticed them. Slowly, slowly, Frisk turned back to the bed.

They were still in the bed, bandaged and attached to monitors.

Frisk sank through the air to the floor and came to rest on their knees.

This was a dream. This had to be a dream. None of this was real, and they would wake up in their bed soon enough.

“No, Mettaton, I’m going to stay.”

The robot walked over to Toriel, so close that Frisk could touch them.

They didn’t. They didn’t want to know what would happen. Would their hand just go through?

They shuddered.

“Then, at least let yourself sleep, darling. I’ll watch over them.”

Toriel nodded and let her eyes drift closed. Mettaton’s metal feet clicked and clanged against the floor as he walked over to the side of the bed.

Frisk was still looking at Toriel when they felt something cool on their forehead. They looked to the bed. Slowly, they straightened up and stood, surprised when their feet were stopped by the floor. They walked over to the bed, standing next to Mettaton.

He was gently stroking their forehead, and a soft sound, like music, was playing from him.

“Blooky told me you liked this song.”

Mettaton’s other hand was hanging at his side, and Frisk reached up to take it in their own. Of course, they couldn’t actually move Mettaton’s hand, but just making contact helped.

“You’re a star, darling,” Mettaton whispered. “Don’t burn out so soon.”

Sunlight began to shine through the window. Frisk had long since moved from the bedside to the floor next to Toriel’s chair, leaning against the monster’s legs. Though they hadn’t slept, they had closed their eyes and let their mind drift, not quite registering the weight that pressed into their other side until long after it had appeared.

Toriel shifted in her sleep, in turn jostling Frisk and, as consequence, Asriel. He sat up straight and grabbed Frisk’s hand.

“Come on,” he said, pulling them to their feet. They looked confused and reached back for Toriel, but Asriel was insistent. They had to leave then, before Toriel would wake up and Frisk would be too attached to go. Asriel pulled them towards the window.

“Come on,” he repeated, “Let’s go out and play.” Frisk put a hand against the wall and pushed, knowing that it would not budge. They demonstrated to Asriel that they couldn’t leave. They couldn’t manipulate their environment. They couldn’t just go wherever they wanted.

Asriel looked at them with a serious expression. “Close your eyes,” he said, and when they did, he took their hand. There was a pause, and then Frisk was floating up, forward, past the wall, and out into the open air.

Frisk opened their eyes then and, seeing how they were flying, tugged on Asriel’s hand. He saw their expression, felt their pleading to be let down, put on the familiar solid earth, and so they landed some distance from the hospital. Frisk smiled, relieved, and Asriel smiled back, an expression that very nearly put all worry out of Frisk’s soul. For once, he led, and they followed.

Back at the hospital, Toriel was awakened by a chill. She looked around the room; Mettaton was standing near the door, and Frisk was still in bed, not having moved at all since the night before. She hugged her arms around herself, stood, and shut the window.

Frisk and Asriel were moving faster and faster across the ground, faster than any human could move. Grass and twigs and dirt and rocks blurred together beneath them as they ran, unbound by some laws of physics. Frisk would catch up to Asriel and tap his shoulder, and Asriel would then chase Frisk until he could manage to tag them back. Sometimes, one of them would trip, maybe falling into the other, and they’d roll around in the grass, laughing, enjoying the sunshine. Frisk could almost forget their situation. They kept telling theirself that this was a dream, that they should enjoy it, and only in the deepest, smallest part of their soul did they know that that wasn’t quite true. But Asriel’s company, his smile, their fun, all but overshadowed that tiny voice.

They ran and chased each other farther and farther, faster and faster, until suddenly, Frisk lost sight of Asriel over the crest of a hill. Laughing silently at their new game of hide-and-seek, Frisk rushed to the top-

And froze.

Asriel was nowhere to be found, but that wasn’t what caught their attention.

In the midst of their playing, their running, their chasing, they had wound up at the top of Mount Ebott. They knew this place all too well.

Without moving, Frisk somehow came closer and closer to the place where they first fell. They looked down, down, down into the mountain.

“Why did you come here, Frisk?”

They hadn’t meant to. Asriel had been the one leading. They hadn’t meant to.

“No, I mean the first time. And the second. And the third. And every time after that, but this one.”

Frisk didn’t have an answer.

“Why did you do this over and over and over again? Why did you try so hard to give everyone a happy ending?”

They just kept staring into the darkness.

“When you were the one who could take it all away.”

They couldn’t.

They couldn’t.

“When you were the one who did.”

They could.

“Why did you come here, Frisk?” Asriel asked again. “Why, when you knew that children who climbed Mount Ebott never came down, did you decide to make the same mistakes?”

Silence. No response. Frisk couldn’t answer this for theirself.

“… You know what I think it is?”

Frisk wanted to turn and yell and beg Asriel to stop, but when they did, they were facing the God of Hyperdeath. He opened his maw and spoke with a volume that shook the world around him.

“GUILT.”

And Frisk fell down.

Chapter Text

Darkness again.

It wasn’t bothering Frisk much, not anymore. This was all just a dream, wasn’t it? They’d wake up soon.

Were their eyes closed? Were they open? It didn’t make a difference.

They blinked.

They blinked again.

Something was changing, coming out of the darkness.

They stopped a short distance away, these disembodied hands, and began to sign.

Frisk didn’t move. Were the hands referring to them?

Innocent. Naïve. Immature.

They frowned.

That is what you are.

Frisk wanted to retort, to be indignant, but they found that they couldn’t. They couldn’t move, or maybe they just didn’t think they could, but they were paralyzed.

Did you think yourself immortal? Did you think yourself immune?

There was a long pause. Did the hands want them to respond? Hadn’t they paralyzed the child?

You cannot forget. You can forgive, but you must never let yourself forget.

The hands began to retreat. Frisk was confused. Forget what?

If you cannot remember, I cannot help you.

Forget what?

Forget what?

They were surrounded by softness. Something gentle was stroking their head and running fingers through their hair.

Frisk opened their eyes.

“Mom used to do this when I was sick or hurt. It made me feel a lot better,” Asriel said.

Frisk’s first instinct was to get away; hadn’t Asriel turned, earlier? Hadn’t he caused them to fall? But looking at the monster child’s face now, Frisk could find no trace of that terror monster.

“You’re okay. I’m okay. Do you want to get up?”

Frisk nodded, and Asriel helped them up. They looked around.

This was where they had first fallen. They were on the flowerbed.

The journey, in that moment, became clear to Frisk. In the back of their mind, they knew. They understood. They had to leave the Underground, in the same way as the first time.

The thought filled them with determination.

They began forward, took a few steps, and then turned back.

Asriel was where he had been, on the flower bed, not moving.

Frisk returned to him and took his hand. He looked at them, looked at their face, with an expression that was meek and questioning. Frisk smiled, welcoming the monster boy to join them. Asriel looked shocked at first, but then smiled back.

“Okay,” he said, “Yeah. Let’s go.”

Hand in hand, no one leading the other, they entered the ruins.

Frisk tensed as they passed over where Flowey had been, but the flower did not make an appearance before them. However, if, when they left that room, Frisk had turned behind, they would have seen something yellow duck beneath the ground.

The Ruins were empty. No Froggits, no Whimsuns, no Loox. Even in the “Four Frogs” room, when Frisk went to check the hole in the wall, the tiny Froggit was gone.

It was… harrowing.

Asriel squeezed Frisk’s hand. “Come on,” he urged, giving them his brightest smile, “Let’s keep going.”

In the midst of all of this unknown familiarity, Frisk was glad that Asriel was with them.

That changed when they reached Toriel’s house. The second Frisk crossed the threshold, Asriel’s hand disappeared from their own, and they were alone once again.

Frisk wanted to call out, to find him, but Asriel had disappeared. So instead, they just entered the house.

Everything was much the way it had been left, albeit a bit dingier upon first inspection. However, as Frisk entered each room, touched items long forgotten, something changed. The dinginess faded, revealing the bright, homey, comforting air that Frisk had come to know underneath. A sort of life came back into them.

As the rooms became brighter, so did the child.

It was a slow process, but they took their time. They had time, didn’t they?

They went to the kitchen, the living room, and then down the hallway. But they passed by each door, nearly subconsciously, until they came to the mirror.

There was nothing reflected back at them.

It was unsettling, and Frisk stared for a long time at the image, wishing and wanting their face to look back at them, but there was nothing there. Nothing happened.

When they were finally able to tear their eyes away, Frisk felt suddenly very, very tired. They went back to the room where they’d taken a nap that first day in the ruins.

They climbed in that familiar bed and let the sense of warmth and comfort fill the room and encompass them, and Frisk fell asleep.

“…hey, kid.”

Sans sat beside the hospital bed and looked down at the child’s still body. His expression was stormy, sadness and concern and determination mixing and swirling and resulting in something dark.

He took a deep breath.

“papyrus is really worried, y’know, ‘cause you haven’t changed since he got here. and undyne was here, earlier, but she got kicked out because she was making a fuss and trying to fight the nurses because they couldn’t wake you up. pap’s with her now, tryin’ to calm her down. alphys started to freak out when that happened, so mettaton’s taken her home for a little bit. toriel went outside to get some air, i told her to because she looked like she needed it, and asgore’s gone to get everyone drinks for when they come back later today. and you’ve had a lot of people sending you stuff; you should see the room, it’s full of balloons and flowers and toys and stuff. but right now, it’s just you and me.”

He sighed again.

“you’re not getting better, kid. the docs, they say to be patient, but right now, it’s touch-and-go. and everyone’s trying to be optimistic, but this is taking a toll on everyone. it’s… it’s getting harder for everyone to keep smiling. so, listen to me, kid. if you can hear me, if you need to reset or load a save, i won’t hold it against you. i promise.”

There was a silence, a deep, powerful silence, like Sans was waiting for the world to end. He was.

“then, if you’re in there, if you’re listening, stay determined. you stay determined, kid…”

Sans stood.

“and so will we.”