Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The day began as it always did. A root, a stumble, followed by a long fall and finally a loud thump as their body hit the patch of flowers marking the entrance to the Underground. The human stood up and dusted off their jumpsuit. They started walking, sure their spectral friend was taking their daily reawakening about as well as could be expected.

The human walked down the usual hallway and passed through the same old archway they always did. The usual flower gave them the usual speech about showing them how things worked around there.

If anyone knew how things worked around the Underground, it was Frisk. Hundreds of resets had brought them to the point where they knew what anyone would say at any given time, down to the tone of their voice. Of course they did. There was barely any variety to the things they said. Frisk could kill as many Ruins monsters as they wanted and come back to Toriel coated in dust, and she wouldn’t even bat an eye. The only ones who had any fluctuations based on specific kills were Undyne, on occasion, and Sans during what Frisk dubbed Neutral endings.

Through all their experimenting, they’d learned the loathsome truth: that their world was dreadfully limited.

And that flower thought they were the confused one.

Frisk shook the bitterness from their thoughts. They weren’t here to brood! They cast their gaze back over to Flowey, whose eye appeared to be twitching from impatience. They realized they’d forgotten to progress the dialogue. For whatever reason, Frisk almost always had to make a gesture of acknowledgment when a denizen of the Underground finished a sentence. They nodded to signal Flowey continue and mouthed along to the words they’d memorized.

White “friendliness pellets” materialized around the bullet board and Frisk ran into them without a second thought. It was the fastest way through the encounter, and the bullets hurt them about as much as food here made them less hungry.

Frisk waited for Flowey to yield the typical dialogue about killing and death and whatnot, then watched with a blank expression as more bullets encircled their soul. They swiftly moved towards the bullets, knowing Toriel would, once again like clockwork appear to heal them.

Instead, Frisk watched their HP drop to zero. Their soul shuddered once then cracked down the center and they heard a too-familiar voice calling them to stay determined.

This was new. Flowey had never been able to actually kill them before. Even when they’d tried skipping through his dialogue to speed up the encounter, Toriel always arrived exactly right before they died.

Finally, some change! They skipped right through Asgore’s encouraging speech, humming along to the music, and reloaded their save. Who knew how Flowey would react to this?

Based on previous interactions, probably not at all. They weren’t going to set their hopes high. Frisk walked forward expecting nothing out of the ordinary. Chances were they had just waited some perfect amount of time to trigger something new. A fluke. Nothing really special at all.

They sighed and stepped forward.

“Howdy! I’m Flowey, Flowey the flower!”

Just as they thought. Great. Even though they had been expecting this, they still couldn’t stop themself from feeling disappointment. In early timelines, there had been so much new dialogue to find, but at this point a single new line took hours of work, and even then most work was worthless. They shouldn’t have been surprised. All they’d ever get was the same old dialogue.

“But you already knew that. In fact, you know exactly what’s going on here, don’t you?”

That… wasn’t the same old dialogue. It was a good thing Frisk was so good at hiding their expression, because they could barely keep a grin off their face at the joy of this newfound discovery.

“Don’t try to hide it, I know exactly what you did. I don’t know how, but your power over the timeline… it clearly surpasses mine. You stole my power! The power to overcome death itself… But don’t get too cocky. You still have a human soul, which means I just have to make you give up once. Ready? Here we go.”

Despite wanting to see where this would end, Frisk also wanted to milk this new series of events for all it was worth. They let Flowey kill them again—the dialogue was the same as always and Toriel still didn’t interrupt. This time when they walked back into the room after reloading their save, however, they were immediately sent into battle. After a few repeated runs, they grudgingly admitted Flowey had the right idea. Frisk was getting bored, and what they’d learned of Flowey gave them the idea that despite his outwardly impatience, he fostered more stubborness than they could manage.

Frisk conceded defeat. They reloaded their save for what they planned to be the last time. Flowey must have noticed the surrender in their posture because he said his lines with a lot more enthusiasm than usual. Dumb cheeky flower.

They reached for the pellets with a false expression of disinterest. They wouldn’t lose their soul, not forever. And according to what Asriel had told them a few resets ago, not to mention every “True Pacifist” timeline, they would have control over whatever form they took. Flowey, smart as he considered himself, clearly couldn’t think logically when he was faced with an opportunity such as this.

Frisk lightly touched the circle of bullets. Their soul shuddered. Once. Twice. Their narrator finally decided to speak up, only to ask one thing: “Do you give up?”

Oddly, there were no options. Usually down here, Frisk would have two options to choose from in these sorts of questions. But there weren’t any. They tried to speak, and strangely they could despite not currently being connected to vocal chords. They chalked it up to magic, as they did most things here and responded.

“Yes.”

Frisk’s soul stopped shuddering. Vines wrapped around it and they felt a sharp jolt as their soul was absorbed.

Chapter Text

Flowey was elated. Well, no, he reminded himself, he couldn’t be elated without a soul …which he currently had in his possession. Flowey was in fact truly elated for the first time in the entirety of his second life. The thought made him giddy—yet another emotion he could now feel!

And his new soul didn’t just come with the ability to feel emotions. While he didn’t have the sheer power of the combination of a monster soul and a human one, he had the latter and stronger of the two now. Such might would surely have some perks, ones he hadn’t had the chance to explore the last time he’d absorbed a soul.

Such as limbs. He had limbs now! Flowey wasn’t exactly able to look in a mirror at the moment, but he could feel actual arms and legs instead of roots and leaves. He still didn’t have horns, but some things couldn’t be helped. Frisk’s body was lying immobile and vine-covered to the point of near invisibility on the ground—Ha! They were the one without control of limbs now—and…

Frisk? The human certainly hadn’t had the chance to tell Flowey their name, but for some reason that name seemed right. He’d chalk it up to an effect of absorbing their soul.

It was time to get moving. No way of knowing how monsters would react to a human down here. Flowey smiled—and golly, that was entirely a new experience with facial muscles—and took a step forward. Or rather, he tried to do so. His legs refused to follow the command. A few seconds later, they started moving on their own, in the opposite direction.

Flowey panicked. Last time he’d had a human soul, control had been split 50-50. But that was back when he had a soul himself. Without a soul of his own, he must not have enough power to gain control, which meant…

“I hope you don’t mind,” said a smug little voice inside Flowey’s head. “I kinda need this body. To move.”

Oh, you had got to be kidding. Just Flowey’s luck. The human he got his soul from had to be the obnoxious type.

“I do mind,” Flowey said, or rather thought hard, trying to maintain an outward calm. “So if you could give me back my body—” Flowey tried to force his way into control again. Come on, just a step.

Nothing.

“Hmm… No, I don’t think I will.” Frisk was not this talkative before. What Flowey would give to wipe that dumb smirk he could hear in their voice off their face. 

But of course he couldn’t do that, because he couldn’t control his own body.

He hated this.

Frisk marched him back to that patch of flowers that Chara—that they must have fallen on at the beginning. He wasn’t sure why they were backtracking. Sure, this place was important to him, but Frisk had no such attachments. Were they doing this to spite him with their lack of progress? They must be.

They paused at the flower patch. Were they just going to stand there?

They made a small gesture, pointing briefly at the flower patch. What was that for? Did they… want to show off the way their fall had been cushioned, or—

“Golden flowers. They must have broken your fall.”

There were more of them?

And… that voice sounded strangely familiar… Why couldn’t he place it? Something felt off. He didn’t like it. It felt like a string was being held right in front of him, but it was too thin for him to grasp. No matter how many vines he tried to wrap around it, it slipped away. 

He was sharing a body with not one, but apparently two other beings now. Evidently that came with yet more issues beyond those he’d considered. It didn’t matter, anyway. The owner of that voice surely wasn’t anyone important. 

It wouldn’t hurt to ask, though.

“And who are you?” Flowey said, tone accusatory to mask his genuine curiosity.

“What?” the voice asked, caught off guard by the question.

“I said, who are you? You’re not F—the human, and you’re no one I recognize. What are you doing in their head? And my head?”

“I am not certain. I woke up sharing a body with this human, and was promptly confronted by a certain flower with an ego problem.”

“Hey!”

“Okay, okay, no need to fight, body-mates,” Frisk piped in.

“Shut up,” Flowey and the voice said in unison. 

“Hey, what did I do?” Frisk complained.

“Easy to say ‘don’t fight’ when you get control over my body,” said Flowey angrily.

“It’s my soul. You shouldn’t have stolen it!”

“I needed your soul!”

“For what, exactly?”

“For—for reasons!”

“Is it necessary to think with so many italics?” the voice chimed in.

“I second that.”

“Yes!”

Before Frisk or that dumb other person could reply, Frisk—and consequently, Flowey—stiffened up. 

“What—”

“Shh,” Frisk hushed Flowey. “Do you hear that?”

“I don’t hear any—”

“Shush.” The other voice this time. “You will not be able to hear anything if you are incapable of preventing yourself from speaking for longer than five seconds.”

“I can—”

“Shhhhhh,” the two said in unison. Flowey was getting ganged up on. Not fair. Still, he acquiesced and tried to listen. There was a crunch of footsteps, and then a voice spoke.

“Hello? I could have sworn I heard something. Is someone there?”

Oh. It was her. 

“How much of that did I say out loud?” Frisk muttered. 

Evidently more than they thought.

“Great going,” Flowey said, annoyed. “Now we have to deal with her. Good luck with that.”

“Who is this ‘her’?” the other voice—he really needed a name for them—asked with a carefully hidden underline of nervousness. Buried gold to Flowey.

He had an edge on them, and Frisk! Fine, he had little-to-no control or power, but he had the power of knowledge!

…Those timelines spent watching anime with Undyne had clearly rubbed off on him more than he thought. Whatever.

“Wouldn’t you like to know? Say, F—human, maybe if you give me control…”

“That won’t be necessary,” they said-thought.

Oh, come on! “Are you sure? I know all sorts of things! Surely you don’t want to go through an underground cave full of bloodthirsty monsters without any idea what you’re dealing with, do you?”

Frisk was completely unphased, almost like this somehow wasn’t new to them. “I think I’ll manage,” they said.

So the human clearly had a death wish. Well, he’d show them when he used his power to…

Do nothing. Frisk held the power to reset now.

Flowey really was powerless.

“Hello?” that same voice called out again. Right. She was still here. Well, hopefully she would think it was nothing and leave. Wait, was Frisk’s corpse still—no, he’d mostly hidden it before he absorbed their soul and Toriel would have reacted differently had she noticed. So hopefully…

“Hi!” Frisk called out, decisively not in their head.

Damn it.

A fluffy, white boss monster entered the room and gasped when she saw… Frisk? The collective body? Flowey didn’t even know what his form looked like, let alone what to call it. 

Whatever the form did look like, it clearly caught the old hag off guard. 

“Is something wrong?” Frisk asked, the epitome of innocence, their acting skill almost to rival Flowey’s. That woman fell for the obvious facade, of course.

“Certainly not! Forgive me, I was merely startled by your… erm, no matter that! I am Toriel, guardian of the Ruins. I pass through this place every day to see if…”

And, the human was mashing through her dialogue. Were they trying to prevent him from seeing the first new dialogue he’d seen in years? 

That did sound like something they’d do. Flowey barely managed to catch a few pieces of her speech—something about guiding humans through the catacombs. Nothing he didn’t know already.

And then she offered to guide them.

It wasn’t like Flowey didn’t expect it, he knew how this always went with humans, but that didn’t stop the bitterness in his throat.

Which he could actually feel now that he had a soul. He knew what that weird feeling meant.

 Flowey quickly swallowed. Not happening on his watch. Whether he had a soul or not.

What was happening was the body moving under Frisk’s control. He must have missed the last bits of Toriel’s dialogue. No matter, he’d just reload and—

Right.

Nevermind. It was probably just a rehashing of things Flowey had known hundreds of runs ago. 

He’d still like to know, though.

Whatever. What did it matter what Toriel had to say? She was nothing but a dirty, unfaithful liar who couldn’t even protect a single child from leaving and dying. In fact, she probably wouldn’t even break that record here. The human was obnoxious as hell, but they were determined. They didn’t strike Flowey as the type to just stay somewhere for very long. And yet Toriel was still definitely still holding up hope that this human would be the one…

Pathetic. That’s what she was. A pathetic old hag and nothing else.

Toriel moved forward and waited patiently for Frisk, who seemed… disappointed? It was hard to pinpoint exactly where the feeling came from but Flowey assumed it was yet another side effect of sharing Frisk’s soul. Along with emotions, being possessed, and…

“Despite all common sense, you decide to keep Toriel waiting.” …that weird voice. What did they want, anyway?

“Coming!” Frisk called out, running toward Toriel. They froze. “Huh. Neat.”

What? Why would this be “neat” to them? Sure, it was rather phenomenal to Flowey—Legs! No longer would he get dirt in his face when he had to move—but as far as he knew humans tended to use their legs on the regular.

Before he could puzzle it out, Flowey realized Frisk had already moved and had asked Toriel something. He quickly listened—no way he was missing out on dialogue this time.

“Catacombs? Yes, these ruins are known as catacombs. The reasoning why goes quite far back into written monster history. It is actually quite the fascinating tale—you see, these ruins were built by…”

Toriel proceeded to detail a story Flowey had learned before he even died the first time. Hell, he'd memorized it in one of his earlier runs. And here he thought he might get something new. The story was far less complicated than Toriel made it out to be, the gist of it being that the Ruins were in part built before the war by humans who planned to use them as tombs. Of course, the monsters were forced to do most of the real building; the humans weren’t going to give them something finished. But while it did explain the choice in location for monsterkind’s imprisonment—and the symbolism was clear and would be rather admirable, if it wasn’t for the fact it was planned by humans—it wasn’t particularly interesting.

Frisk seemed to disagree, however, as a sense of awe emanated from their soul. Were they acting like this to spite him? But no, somehow that awe felt entirely genuine. And then they proceeded to listen with pure, attentive interest, on the edge of their metaphorical seat, as Toriel gave them a long, boring lecture about the history of the Ruins.

Bootlicker. 

“Toriel continues to inform you about history. You demonstrate your immense ability to stay awake.”

Even the voice agreed!

…he really needed a better name for them. Well, Toriel was still talking and didn’t seem like she wasn’t planning on shutting up anytime soon. It seemed as if Flowey would be here for a while.

“You still didn’t answer my question, you know.”

“Pardon?” the voice responded, off-put. “I do not recall you asking a question I did not answer.”

The voice was annoyingly formal. Figured that Flowey wouldn’t just be stuck with one obnoxious kid, he had to settle for two.

“I asked who you were!”

The voice paused. “That is correct.”

After a second of silence, Flowey realized they weren’t going to continue talking. Like a pawn on a chessboard, they were only going to make steps as small as they could. Flowey had to push them. Fine. Flowey was nothing if not persistent. He’d move that pawn step by step as long as it took to get the answers he wanted.

“Well, who are you?”

“…is that truly important?”

“It’s important to me.” Flowey paused for a second, let that sink in. Of course, the reasons why it was so important was for the purpose of sating his own curiosity, but the voice didn’t need to know that. “I-I mean,” he continued, feigning defensiveness, “I’m gonna be stuck with you, so I might as well get to know you. Right?” 

There. Make himself look vulnerable, give someone the illusion of an upper hand, and then before they knew it they’d be spilling their guts. Usually metaphorically.

The voice responded. “Is that really your best attempt at getting information? You make more of an effort than I’d think, flower. Though I suppose your attempt is somewhat endearing…”

Flowey growled. “Can I at least get a name?”

“Hmm…” the voice hummed, mockingly. “No.”

Child of a—

“I’ll just give you a name then.” Something stupid, like…

“Voicey the voice?”

Flowey felt what probably would have been his cheeks blushing if he was actually in control of a corporal form. Stupid human soul emotions.

He hadn’t even come up with his name, really!

It was a spur-of-the-moment thing!

It wasn’t his fault, he’d had to come up with something and the name worked!

And besides, Papyrus liked it.

…okay, Papyrus was Papyrus. But still! Flowey was a fine name, thank you very much.

“No!” Flowey said quickly. Just because his name was fine didn’t mean… 

Well, his name was still good!

“Actually, I was thinking of…” Well, now he couldn’t do anything stupid. He could come up with good names, and he’d prove it!

Flowey could not come up with a good name.

Come on, he had to think of something! He could just… pull one out of a book, or something! How would a random annoying head-voice-thing know? He racked his brain, (which he actually had now, weird) for a name, any name. Wasn’t he told about some old human myths a while ago? Could he steal a name from one of those? Flowey didn’t see why not. How would the voice know? But what names were there? Flowey frantically grasped for one and settled on the first that came to mind.

“Alcestis!” Flowey said at a perfectly acceptable volume.

The newly dubbed Alcestis gave the impression of an eyebrow raise. Somehow. “I was not aware that you were a fan of human mythology.”

“Why’s that so surprising? I’ve had eons to learn all I needed to know about your little human stories.” A slight exaggeration. And he hadn’t even heard that particular myth since… But Alcestis didn’t need to know that.

“Eons? But how…” they puzzled. “‘Power over the timeline’…Ah.”

It took them that long to figure it out? Ha.

“You must have died a lot, then. Doing that for eons?”

Alcestis was completely and absolutely insufferable. “Okay, it wasn’t eons! And I don’t—didn’t even have to die, always—You don’t even get how the power works!”

“Care to explain?”

And lose the edge he had on them? Yeah, right.

Before Flowey could prove to them that he was much too intelligent to fall for their weak attempt at manipulation, Frisk started moving.

“I apologize for speaking so long. It has been quite a while since I have had someone to talk with.”

“It’s fine, Mrs. Toriel. I haven’t really had any good conversations like that in a long time, either.”

Frisk was still a total suck-up. Of course, they’d made one mistake. Toriel wouldn’t take too kindly to that.

Sure enough, Toriel’s smile tightened. “Just Toriel is fine, my child.”

Frisk continued to smile at the same intensity. “I’d really rather be polite, Mrs—”

“Toriel. Just Toriel.” The old monster cut them off, struggling to maintain what could barely be called a smile at this point.

“You got it, Just Toriel.” Frisk said, grinning.

Hmm. Perhaps Flowey had judged them too harshly.

They were still plenty obnoxious, though.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Chara had many questions. 

Since when did the Underground have flower monsters, for instance. What in the Angel’s name happened after their death, as another example. Why were they back, what this power they seemed to possess was, who this human was, where their brother was, why this flower’s name sounded like Asgore came up with it.

At the moment, however, the most pressing question on Chara’s mind was why their mother was, seemingly alone in the Ruins, attempting to guide a random child through them. Where was their—er, the king? Though this had been the Dreemurr’s old “vacation” home (it wasn’t really much of a vacation, if you asked Chara), and it was perfectly logical for Toriel to be here, something felt off. Gone were Toriel’s regal robes—and where was her crown? Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. What had they missed after their death? They couldn’t just ask—that flower would latch on to any odd thing they said, and Chara got the feeling he would not let go of any perceived advantage.

Not to mention that Chara had no desire to share their identity with anyone. They were not exactly an unknown figure in the Underground, last time they checked, and they hardly wanted to draw attention to themself.

No other reason to hide their identity.

The flower had given them a name, anyway, even if it was… an odd choice. They needn’t tell him their real one. 

Alcestis… a little-known figure from Greek mythology, a wife who gave up her life for her husband, only to be brought back to life by the god of death himself. An oddly fitting name given Chara’s current predicament.

Though, of course, their sacrifice had failed, Chara thought bitterly. And yet death had coughed them back into the world as a cat did a common hairball. And for what purpose? The idea of a second chance would make them want to laugh if it was even near enough to possibility to warrant consideration. A second chance? For them of all people?

It was far more likely that the universe had simply decided it wanted to spite Chara. Force them to be tied to a human. And watch that human be accepted by Toriel… taken in… given the love Chara lost. 

The love Chara didn’t deserve in the first place. Look at where love got them. 

Where were they? Ah, yes, their given name. They liked it better than the first, at least.

The choice was still quite odd, though. They certainly would not have pegged the flower as a fan of Greek mythology. And the fact that he, out of all the names, chose Alcestis, such an obscure figure… Considering the person they’d told specifically about Alcestis…

But, no. Firstly, Chara was fairly certain that their brother was not a flower. Secondly, the flower was just about the opposite of their brother, personality-wise. 

Though, thought Chara fondly, the two were just about the same level of obnoxious.

“Cut the speeches and get to it, old lady!” Flowey yelled at Toriel (perhaps forgetting that she could not hear him).

Okay. The flower was much more obnoxious.

Where was Chara’s brother, anyway?

Probably 6 feet underground by now.

That was not helpful.

Surely, if Chara was alive again (albeit in someone else’s form), their brother had to be as well? Surely. It was just logical!

But how could they ask without giving themself away? They couldn’t. What Chara needed was to get home.

Of course! Asriel and their d—the king were probably at the castle right now! And they’d sent Toriel to find Chara. But she’d gotten sidetracked with this other human. And since Toriel didn’t know that Chara was in the human, somehow, she had no way of bringing Chara back home.

It was the only possibility that made sense.

The only possibility.

“Hello? Voice? Al… Al something?” It was the human, their voice (mind-voice?) bringing Chara out of their thoughts. 

“What do you need them for?” the flower said before Chara could respond, in the forceful, self-centered way they were beginning to expect from him. 

“I was hoping they could read this sign for me? I can’t read monster writing.”

“And you expect them to be able to read it? And not someone who’s from the Underground himself?”

As a matter of fact, Chara could read monster writing. Though it had been quite confusing until they realized monsters were sealed underground in the late middle ages, and because of that their language was merely English, but with considerably less complicated spelling rules.

“It says—”

“It says get a move on,” the flower cut Chara off (something he seemed rather fond of doing). “We don’t have all day for you to sit around and read signs.”

“Don’t we?” the human said. “I mean, what’s the rush? What do I have to worry about? ‘Bloodthirsty monsters?’ For some reason, Mrs. Toriel doesn’t seem very threatening.”

The human had obviously never seen the monster queen after Chara made a mess in the kitchen.

But “Mrs. Toriel” did remind them of something they’d rather not think about. It could have just been politeness or an attempt to get friendlier with the human, Toriel had asked the same thing of Chara.

But she hadn’t been so stubborn when she asked Chara. And that look in her eyes…

Nothing to worry about. It was nothing to worry about.

“You thought Toriel was the only monster down here? There are hundreds. Thousands, even! You think all of them are going to be as friendly as Toriel? You’ve got something called a ‘human soul.’ Monsters would kill to get one of those. Literally. I know I did!”

Nothing to worry about. The flower was exaggerating. Lying. Killing humans for their souls… Asgore wouldn’t let that happen. Toriel wouldn’t let that happen.

Unless Toriel wasn’t there to stop it.

No. No, that was… it was crazy thinking.

Chara needed to distract themself.

“Only the fearless may proceed,” they read off the sign, imperially. “Brave ones, foolish ones. Both walk not the middle road.”

“It means don’t step on the middle buttons,” the flower bluntly stated. “Not that you need that for the puzzle, because Toriel already solved it. And you don’t want to keep her waiting, do you?”

Gradually, Chara became aware that the human was smiling. The flower seemed to realize this at the same time. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing’s funny,” the human responded. “It’s just… Well, you’re so worried about me dying when, as far as I can see, that won’t be a problem.”

The flower cussed. Loudly.

To be honest, the flower was quite a puzzle to Chara. On the one hand, he seemed like he knew more about the Underground than Chara and the human combined. And he was clearly capable of causing harm; he’d killed the human after all. He was definitely more villainous than the average monster. But on the other hand, if Chara took his words as truth, trying to kill humans was normal in today’s underground. And for all the flower’s talk, besides what he’d done in the first five minutes they’d met him, he didn’t seem all too dangerous. More like a brat who wasn’t used to being powerless than an actual threat. Still, Chara didn’t want to drop their guard. He acted like he had things to hide, things that could very well pose a danger.

The human, though… if the flower was a puzzle, they were a 20x20 Puzzle Cube with pieces missing. Who were they? Why did they climb the mountain in the first place? Why was Chara connected to them at all? To be fair, Chara had just met them. But Chara knew next to nothing about them, and given that they were the one in full control of the body, it was logical to be wary of them.

“What? Were you hoping to see me die easy?” the human said cheekily.

“No! No, this… this suits my goals much better.” The flower muttered the last part darkly, perhaps forgetting that the human and Chara could hear him perfectly.

The human chose to ignore this. “Okay, what about you? Al..Alstis or whatever.”

“Alcestis,” said Chara quietly.

“There’s no way I’m going to remember that. I’m calling you Al. Are you just not going to talk unless I tell you to?”

“I do not see anything to add.”

“Fair, but… Come on, I know nothing about you. Even your name is just something Flowey made up! Tell us something, anything.”

“Oh, please. I already asked. They’re not talking.”

Great. Now Chara had to say something. Just because they didn’t consider the flower a threat didn’t mean they didn’t feel the need to aggravate him in any way they could.

But what could they reveal about themself that wouldn’t compromise the secrecy of their identity? 

They had an idea, albeit a rather childish one. The last time it had mattered was back in elementary school. Which seemed to be the human’s general age, so perhaps it would matter to them.

The flower would likely be unamused, but the idea of that occurring did not worry Chara.

“…my favorite color is yellow.”

The human nodded as if asserting that this was information enough. “Informative.”

“Are you kidding me?” the flower said incredulously. “You’re gonna take that? That told us nothing!”

“It told us that yellow is Al’s favorite color. That’s pretty important.”

“You’ve gotta be—”

“Well, don’t want to keep Toriel waiting!”

“Screw you.”

…the flower had a mouth like Asgore, too.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Frisk was totally, absolutely, not at all worried.

Sure, they couldn’t see that single save point that was supposed to be there… But they never used that save point anyway! And they’d reloaded before, hadn’t they?

They’d reloaded before losing their soul to a talking flower.

That may have complicated things.

But, in earlier timelines, the only times they’d lost their power were when Flowey absorbed the other human souls and got more determination than them—or at least, that was what they’d gathered. But they were still the most determined being in the Underground, right? So what gave?

They couldn’t have lost their power. They couldn’t have.

Flowey must have just had different save points than them. Yeah, that was it. That made sense.

Frisk had no reason to be worried. No reason at all.

This was a bad train of thought. There were better things to think about. Things like… ooh! How about the fact that they could run? Boy, were they tired of having to walk everywhere. They weren’t sure what had brought on this change—they’d figured the lack of a run option was just another Underground-monster-magic thing they didn’t want to waste energy trying to figure out—but they couldn’t care less. And just think about the other things they could probably do, that they hadn’t discovered yet! 

Not to mention they could talk to people without being prompted. It was almost like life on the surface all over again! It’d been so long since Frisk had been able to do things like that. How many resets had it been, again? Eh, more than they could count. A lot more. The same dialogue. Over and over. No rest.

Geez, their thoughts were dour today. And why? This timeline was shaping up to be top five at least. Even if some dialogue was the same, there were so many new options available to them. They skipped forward into the lever room. Toriel said something about a puzzle, Flowey said something about—oops, that was new, they should’ve listened to that. Could Frisk reload to hear it again? Nope, it was Flowey. Darn it. True Reset? But then they’d have to match exact conditions and they weren’t exactly certain…

Wait, they could just ask, now.

“What was that? I didn’t quite catch it.”

“I’m not going to repeat myself—”

“He said it’s an easy puzzle.” Al, always helpful. Frisk regretted not giving them a name themself, sooner. Frisk had only really referred to them as the narrator. They didn’t really consider them a character, which had been kinda stupid of them, now that they thought about it. Even the random encounter monsters had personalities; of course the narrator would have a character beyond their role too.

Why there was a narrator in the first place, Frisk did not know. Underground magicky stuff strikes again.

“Thank you.” Frisk said. 

“Oh, tell them all they want to know, huh?” Flowey grumped.

“They” replied Al magnanimously, “Are not a little shit.”

“Wh… Very funny,” said Flowey, like he’d just swallowed a pound of lemons (which would probably be cannibalism). 

Frisk couldn’t hold back their snickering. They had a right to be righteous, that flower was a pain.

“…My child? Are you alright over there?” came Toriel’s voice from around the corner. She approached Frisk and tenderly grasped their hand. “Come now, we have quite a ways to go and I would like to bring you home before it gets dark.” 

Huh, Flowey wasn’t the only one who overused italics after all. That must have been where he got it from. The family resemblance was striking.

“Alright.” Frisk said simply. Based on what they knew about Toriel, it was usually best to just agree with her about things. 

“Yeah, with this human? Right, Toriel, that’ll happen,” Flowey deadpanned. Which was totally unfair.

“Hey, I can move quickly!” they brain-said.

“You spent around ten minutes in the last room alone.”

Which was fair. Frisk conceded.

“Fine. I’ll move faster, then.” Frisk was used to speedrunning, anyway. Hopefully they wouldn’t miss anything new this way.

They let Toriel lead them forward at a snail’s pace. Hmm, actually, that gave them time to consider something. They realized that they had yet to choose a route. Who to spare, who to kill? If anyone. The best option would probably be a usual True Pacifist route. Who knew what would change now that Flowey wasn’t a factor?

What would change? Was a True Pacifist route even possible? Without Flowey around to absorb everyone’s souls, the barrier might not even be breakable this time around.

Not like it really mattered, though. The surface wasn’t exactly a consideration. A pacifist run was fun, and it had the most content. Pacifist it was.

They’d agreed to move faster, but Toriel’s pacing was unbelievably slow. They’d known that; it’d taken forever for her to guide them just through the spikes; but that had been half a room. Frisk was still at the lever room! Flowey had a point, they really did need to pick up the pace if they were going to finish this run today. 

Come to think of it, had they ever finished a run in more than a day? Maybe that was something to test in a future run…

Frisk was getting derailed. It didn’t matter for this run. A good experiment was only supposed to have one changing variable, right? They couldn’t change too much, they liked this timeline. Besides, it was bad to dawdle. They had to get moving!

Toriel let go of Frisk’s hand. “To make progress here, you will need to trigger—”

Boring. Frisk walked to the switch and immediately flipped it before Toriel could even finish. She gave them a strange expression, annoyance coated with approval. “Ah. You solved the puzzle without even my explanation? You are a natural!”

Flowey gave the impression of an eye roll. Frisk did not question how. “Please. All she’s giving you is empty flattery. I mean, look at the signs on the levers!” There were, in fact, very brightly colored arrows pointing enthusiastically towards the levers. “A baby could solve that puzzle. Overkill much?”

Frisk didn’t respond. They thought the same thing. Of course, they were nice enough to not say it out loud (or the mental equivalent of talking out loud, whatever) unlike someone. Al had Flowey right, he was a total buttface with the tact of a howler monkey. 

Frisk kept walking and flipped the first switch they saw without thinking. They didn’t realize until the switch was already flipped that there was no label next to it.

“…I stand corrected. Apparently a baby could not solve this puzzle.”

“Congratulations! You are superfast at being wrong.”

Frisk sighed. As exciting as it was, this was gonna be a long timeline.

Chapter Text

After “solving” the unbelievably easy lever “puzzle,” Frisk walked blankfaced towards the next room, clearly masking their embarrassment at their inability to press a clearly labeled switch. Obviously they’d forgotten about the flower technically in possession of their soul and capable of feeling every single one of their emotions in graphic detail. Not to mention Alcestis, but Flowey wasn’t too clear on what their connection to Frisk was.

That switch back there… it really was a shame that Toriel had fixed it. Frisk could've been stuck going through a whole different Underground. Well, no, an entirely new Underground-up-to-the-end-of-Snowdin. Even so, it would be tough. The Dark Ruins’ minimal magic lighting had gone out years ago when most monsters living there decided to slowly seep out into Snowdin. Nowadays, only creatures who somehow enjoyed the darkness lived there. Snakes, rodents—oh, and the odd bat monster—that sort of thing. It would be fun to watch the human stumble through the dark.

He’d be doing the stumbling too. On second thought, maybe it wouldn’t be too fun.

Lower Snowdin was about the opposite. Since the last human had gone through there, defenses had markedly increased. The royal guard hadn’t anticipated the human going through there last time, hence the singular, incompetent guardswoman barely standing in the sixth human’s way. This time, though, they were more than ready for a human on both routes. The only substantial change going this way was that Frisk now had to go through Toriel.

Shoot, they had to go through Toriel. They had to go with Toriel. They’d been in no rush this entire time—maybe there was another reason for that. Were they planning on staying with her? The possibility became more and more likely the more Flowey thought about it. No… something had to be done about that. He’d lost his chance at the souls once, he refused to let that happen again.

He had one shot at this. He had to get Frisk to stay away from Toriel.

Carefully. He couldn’t just reload and try again the way he was used to doing.

“You really trust Toriel, huh?” he said casually.

“Is there a reason I wouldn’t? She’s been nice to me so far,” Frisk replied, crossing their arms.

“Hmm… Maybe you’re right. But then again, I seem to recall someone else offering to help you out, and you know what came of that. What makes you think she’s any different?”

“Well, she hasn’t thrown bullets at me yet.”

“Yet is the key word here. I’m just saying! I’d keep my guard up if I were you.”

“And we should certainly listen to your advice,” Alcestis butted in, “Considering you attacked us prior to even meeting Toriel, you must be completely credible.”

“I never said I was. But I happen to know this place just a tad bit better than the rest of you.” Flowey smirked internally. He didn’t have to do much more. He’d—for lack of a better metaphor—planted seeds of suspicion. He didn’t have to do much but water them occasionally, and Frisk would do the rest of the growing themself. Even Alcestis seemed slightly off-put and on-guard.

“The idea itself is preposterous! The Underground cannot be so corrupted that Toriel is suddenly evil,” they said, conviction starting to waver.

“Can’t it?” That “suddenly…” Paired with Alcestis’ ability to read signs in monster script, this sold it. Alcestis was a resident of the Underground. And if they’d known Toriel before… Just how old were they? They must’ve been a ghost monster. Which would explain how they were following Frisk around! Ghost monsters could possess physical things; a human probably fell into that category. He’d never tried getting possessed before himself—it might mess with the ability to reset, and he wasn’t willing to reset. But he knew what they were now. Ha!

Alcestis didn’t respond. Finally, he got them to shut up. Between them and Frisk, they were clearly the smarter one. But it seemed like he had even them fooled. Why wouldn’t he? This was what he was good at! Deception ran through his roots. It had helped him through countless other timelines, and it was the only thing that was going to get him through this one.

Flowey’s plan was simple, really. He needed those human souls. He’d always wanted them. But that coward monsterkind called a king wouldn’t even show them to him! Even when he put on Asriel’s mask and displayed the most innocent of attitudes, Flowey wouldn’t get a glance. It was like the king thought he’d steal them, or something! To be fair, that was the goal. But if he’d let Flowey see them, would it really be stealing? The king didn’t deserve those souls, anyway. If he wasn’t going to use them, what was the point? Flowey would be putting them to a purpose this way. He was going to be the hero the king was too scared to be. And the power that came with those souls? Well, it certainly wouldn’t hurt.

As for how he’d actually get the souls, Flowey… wasn’t too sure. But he’d figure it out when he got far enough. The Underground had plenty of bridges already, what was another one to cross when he got to it? Frisk’s days were numbered. And they’d be the one burnt down in the end.

They would be, as long as Flowey got them out of the Ruins. Which, based on the time they wasted in every room, would take a while.

Where was Frisk now? It seemed like they’d moved on to the next room, which was where Napstablook liked to spend time. If Flowey was remembering correctly. The Ruins were the most boring area in the entire Underground. And Flowey had once spent a week in the middle of the godforsaken desert. Even without resets, the place was unbelievably repetitive. Toriel especially. How she didn’t get bored doing the same routine day after day was one of the Underground’s greatest mysteries.

Point was, the Ruins were boring. There was nothing to do there anymore. So you couldn’t blame him for not visiting in forever. And not knowing every single detail about it.

Flowey should’ve known this, though!

Forget it! There was a dummy up ahead, which—he remembered now, ha—Napstabook had been halfheartedly possessing last he checked.

Toriel began to speak. “As a human living in the Underground,” she began. Living in the Underground.

It wasn’t surprising that she’d want Frisk to live with her. He knew she’d want Frisk to live with her! Flowey knew that it had happened with the last seven humans. He’d seen it happen dozens of times. It didn’t change anything that Toriel was talking about it. But he still found himself gritting his teeth—meaning, he realized, he must still have some degree of control over the body. Good to know. Now, if only he could stop before the others—

“Hmm. Someone is upset,” Alcestis said accusatorily.

Flowey took a deep breath. “What do you mean?”

“Please. Cease the crap. Your anger is nigh tangible.”

That stupid soul. If he’d known this would happen, he would’ve just let Frisk go. They would do the same exact thing with or without his interference. Why didn't he just let them go?

And, he’d missed Toriel’s dialogue again. It was fine! Flowey doubted he was missing anything too important.

“I was just surprised, is all! Didn’t think Toriel would really care enough about someone like that human to take them in. Though, now that I think about it, it might just be the easiest way to catch you two unawares.”

“You truly must insist on her malevolence, mustn’t you?”

“Just trying to keep us all safe! It’s for our mutual benefit, believe me.”

“Which you’ve proven time and again to care about.”

Hey, Flowey cared about at least a third of it! He turned his attention away from Alcestis and toward Toriel, who was chattering out an answer to some question Frisk asked her. Darn it! Why’d he keep getting distracted? Without a save file, he was completely and utterly barred from any dialogue!

This was why he needed those souls! As soon as he got his power back, all would be well. He’d get his dialogue.

Until then, he needed to quit fighting with those two. Obviously it was achieving nothing but wasting time, and he needed to get on their good sides, or at least their okay sides, if he wanted to finish what he intended to do.

So he sighed internally. “Like it or not, I’m stuck with you and you’re stuck with me. Could we please try to get along?”

“Hmm…” Alcestis pretended to ponder for several seconds. Flowey grew antsy. Come on, they were doing that on purpose! “There is unfortunately not a very high probability of that. Though I suppose it is dependent on the agreeability of a certain flower that this human and I have been regretfully saddled with.”

Flowey growled. “Seriously? I’m trying to help us all—”

“Already failing on the agreeability front, I see.”

“I am not—”

“Yes, I am afraid there may be simply no way we can get along. Quite unfortunate.”

Flowey, through a magnificent feat of pure willpower, managed to restrain himself from responding. Dialogue. Do it for the dialogue.

He turned his attention back to Frisk—no getting distracted this time—to find they had approached the dummy and encountered it. The world was painted in tones of black and white.

Frisk stared at the dummy. Their hand gripped a stick tightly, like it was some kind of weapon. And then they paused, and gestured to the dummy. “Check.”

“What? What do you want us to—”

Alcestis cut him off with a satisfied smirk in their voice. “DUMMY ATK 0 DEF 0. A cotton heart and a button eye. You are the apple of my eye.”

“Poetry? Seriously? Seriously? Is that what you wanted?”

“Yep, pretty much!” Frisk responded cheerfully. “Check.”

“You literally just—”

“DUMMY ATK 0 DEF 0. A cotton heart and a button eye. You are the apple of my eye.”

“You just said that—”

“Check.”

“DUMMY ATK 0 DEF 0. A cotton heart and a button eye. You are the apple of my eye.”

“You rhymed eye. With eye.”

“Check.”

“DUMMY—”

“Don’t you have anything BETTER to do?”

Frisk paused, and groaned. “Check?”

“DUMMY—

“Don’t you have anything BETTER to do?” Flowey repeated. He’d figured it out. They were messing with him weren’t they? Playing with him. Well, fine, he was DONE playing their game!

Frisk counted something on their fingers, then shrugged. “Check?”

“Don’t you have anything—”

Alcestis snickered.

“WHAT?”

“It is of no concern. As I am certain you agree.”

Flowey sulked. No concern. Yeah, sure. But he had to stay quiet. As much as he wanted to talk, he couldn’t. No matter how much his ego suffered. Getting these two to trust him enough to get away from Toriel was more important. He just had to stay focused, and not let them get to him.

“Check.”

Ugh. The two were in cahoots, he swore. Cahoots on a mission to waste his time. If he had his own body, he’d be halfway to the castle by now! Frisk themself could have gone through this so much faster if they didn’t have to fight random dummies, and wait for someone to solve stupid puzzles for them, and have their hand held. This was all Toriel’s fault! He really needed to get rid of her. As soon as he could. And he had to get Frisk to quit checking the stupid dummy! They liked rhymes, huh?

“DUMMY ATK 0 DEF 0. A c—”

“A cotton heart and a button eye. Now can we leave and walk on by?”

There was a moment’s pause, and then Frisk spoke again. “I don’t really see a reason why.”

So that was the way they wanted to play? “Well, you’re boring me so much that I want to die.”

“I’m super exciting. I think that’s a lie.”

“If we keep going forward, Toriel might make us pie.”

Acestis butted in. “That does make your orders quite hard to defy.”

Frisk agreed. “It’s not something I want to deny.”

“But are we sure that it’s true? For this flower is sly.”

“Believe me just once, I won’t lead you awry.”

“Then I guess I’ll just leave? It’s worth a try.”

“Adieu then, fair dummy, we bid you goodbye.”

“Right then! It’s time to show you my merc…eye??”

The dummy, evidently as disgusted by Frisk’s horrible attempt at a rhyme as Flowey was, floated away.

“Dummy tires of your aimless shenanigans.” Alcestis paused for just a moment. “…Away it does fly.”

Toriel stared at them for a long moment. “The next room awaits.”