Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s a cut on your thumb.

Absently, you bring the appendage to your mouth, sucking on the wound as you continue to place the culprit of the incident within your backpack.

The knife, stained now with the smallest splotch of red, gleams almost audibly in the illumination your nightlight gives off, and you have to pause for a second if only to twist the blade and watch its refraction shift. (For all that it just hurt you, it’s really quite pretty.)

You can’t waste your time, though; only allowing yourself a brief moment of admiration, you fully place it within one of the smaller pockets, confidently zipping it up. You think you’ve done a good job of packing up so far; for one, you’ve already assigned a compartment for necessities (the main part of the bag, of course), packing it with food as well as water. You’d feel bad about taking from the pantry, but. It can’t really be helped. Can it?

(Patting at the can of peaches through the canvas to make sure it’s still there, you manage to smile at the pun before the rest of your thoughts catch up to you.

You can’t waste your time on guilt, either.)

Your phone is turned off but tucked in your shorts anyway. You’ve seen from stories that people can track you by its signal, so you’d rather not keep it on unless you have to, but you really might need it in some way after all, so it’d be sillier not to take it.

The knife was given its own paper-padded pocket at the front of your bag, but you’re not sure whether you should put the flashlight with everything else or open up another zipper.

You’re also not sure what to write to Toriel.

One of these problems seems more severe than the other, so of course you compromise and do neither by sitting on your bed instead. The pack jostles slightly when you alight beside it.

It’s not a bad room - though when you think about it, you don’t really have much reference to go off of there or anything. But it has plenty of space, and the bed is comfy, and you have a little bedside drawer that your little bedside lamp goes on. It’s as perfect as it could be.

You don’t know if you belong here. (Especially not without your SOULmate at your side.)

Restlessly, you shift off of bed sheets that you feel the need to smooth over despite having barely rustled them. Pacing away back to the desk, you pick up the lined paper you had torn off your notepad and left atop the wood and the pen along with it, staring down at it again as if it’ll have changed since the last time you looked. It still only says “To”, because you’re not even sure whether to call her ‘Mom’ or ‘Toriel’, and you’re pretty certain an essay would be easier to write than this.

Really though, you think as you idly twirl the ballpoint between your fingers. How do you explain to your adoptive parent that you’re planning to run away from home?

No hard feelings, but I need to go somewhere. It’s not you, it’s me.

I have someplace to be. I’ll try to come back.

Ideas come and go, dropping in and out of your mind. There has to be something to say. Something easy, because this really isn’t because of anything she’s done. It’s just on you. It’s always on you.

What could you possibly say to put everything into perspective? You bare your teeth a little at the paper before you; you hate this.

In the end, despite everything you agonised over, you don’t write much at all.

To Dear Toriel M Tor Mom,

Sorry.

Please don’t come looking for me.

You wish you didn’t have to do this; everyone is already worried about your change in behaviour.

(Papyrus noted that you’d been acting kind of aggressive, the past few days. You did not resist the caustic urge to say, ‘Wow. How’d you figure that out?’)

Taking a breath to empty your lungs of the irritation trying to choke you just even thinking about it, you smooth out the paper beginning to crumple in your hands, setting it back on the desk where it can be easily seen by anyone walking into the room; there’s a stain of rust barely visible through the other side where your injured finger had touched the paper while you hadn’t been paying attention, and you wince at your carelessness. The obvious solution would be to simply make a new one. You don’t know if you can make yourself write it again.

In the end, you guess it doesn’t matter. You’ll be gone by the time she reads it anyway.

The last thing you can afford is to stall for time, and yet you still find yourself checking and double-checking the contents of your backpack despite yourself. Maybe it’s because you’re nervous (nothing new), or because you’re frustrated (when aren’t you), or -- no. If you went down the entire list of faults that cause you to act the way you do, then you’d really never leave. (You’d still be here come morning when Toriel wakes you up, and entertaining the look that might be on her face to see you like this, leaving her home again, isn’t something you want to do at all.)

The weight of the backpack is reassuring when you finally sling it over your shoulders. You’ve carried heavier ones on your way to school, but it’s still more than you brought with you the last time you made a trip like this. Although-- the feeling of purpose that had begun to settle in your stomach turns queasy at the thought. Last time, you hadn’t brought anything with you because you knew, deep down, that it didn’t matter.

It does, now.

As if you needed another reason to be terrified of failure.

You hadn’t thought to check the weather reports for the coming week, so you’re pleasantly surprised when warm night air greets you as you just straight up jump down from your window, no hesitation, no pause. You don’t even care. You’re ruthless. You hadn’t thought to check what was actually outside your window either, so you’re a little less pleasantly surprised to find yourself ass-deep in Forsythias. Struggling to stand without making too much noise, you spit out a mouthful of golden flowers, yellow on your tongue, buttercups in your throat. It’s only once you’re squarely on your feet and catching your breath that you realize: actually...

You eye a stem of flowers for one second. Two.

When you walk away down the route you’ve memorized, not letting yourself look back, refusing to turn around when you never did before, it’s with a handful of sweet-tasting flowers in your pockets.

You’d say it’s not your fault that it happens, except. Yeah. It’s entirely your fault.

Everyone loves to preach about how risky it is to walk alone at night, but it’s hard to be very afraid when you’re at least as dangerous as anything else out there. It’s incredible how people will tend to avoid you as long as you just act like it. Sure, you may be a not-large preteen out long after dark with a backpack on their shoulder, but you’re walking like you’re going somewhere. As long as you cater to humanity’s natural tendency to want to keep to itself, you’ll be fine.

Mostly.

The person walking towards you on the sidewalk has their head down, and the tinny sound of Katy Perry’s voice would tip off the earphones in their ears even if you couldn’t see the white cord snaking to their pocket from around their neck. They don’t hear you. They don’t see you. You keep your eyes forward, grip tightening on the straps of your pack as you grow closer, and--

Their sharp intake of breath as your shoulders collide would have made you startle in sympathy if you hadn’t already been expecting it.

“Shit, my bad, dude,” they mumble, already ducking their head again to walk away. They make it a few steps before you catch them muttering “...watch where they’re going? God,” under their breath, and you don’t bother waiting to hear the rest of it.

They fall frustratingly easily when you push them. The oomph they make when they hit the pavement is pretty satisfying, though.

“What the fuck!” they cry, voice ringing. Their earphones have fallen out, the too-loud music still playing as you stand there, waiting, waiting, hoping--

but nobody came.

“Seriously?!” they ask, nursing a skinned elbow as they struggle to their feet. “What’s your fucking problem?”

You raise your middle finger in what’s probably the only answer you could give them that they’d actually understand, and then you turn and bolt down the street. (You stop running a block down, once you realize they’re not chasing you. If anyone wanted to know who you are as a person, all they’d have to do is look at the disappointment rising in your gut at the realization.)

Somehow, you manage to get to the bus stop early.

Biting down the urge to take it all out, you palm the change sitting in your pocket as you wait. You’ve already counted enough times to be sure you have the money to pay for all the buses you need to take and then some, but the thought of having something to busy your hands with is tempting, and you end up shoving your hands under your armpits more to spite yourself than anything. You can’t stop yourself from pacing, though. It takes four steps to walk from one end of the bench to the other -- six, if you walk toe-to-heel -- and you resign yourself to counting your steps instead.

The bus can’t come quickly enough.

You never expected it to be empty. You’re pleased to find there’s barely anyone else on it at all, though, and make a beeline straight for the seat closest to the exit, tucking your transfer ticket into your pocket as soon as you’re off your feet. Your bag gets the window seat. No one can say you’re not considerate to a fault.

Haha.

It’s only when the sprawling town your family’s made a home for themselves in is already well on its way to receding quietly behind you that you realize you forgot your bandaids, your finger smarting in your lap.

Chapter Text

The pebble-encrusted path crunches with each step, every sound feeling amplified and seeming to almost echo around the mountain; a serene, all but absolute silence broken by the blundering of man. Honestly, it’s so quiet other than what little noise you make that you seriously wonder if Mt. Ebott even has any wildlife living on it. (You don’t think you had heard anything rustling other than you the last time you had been here, either.)

Is the wind even rustling the trees? Maybe it’s magic at work. You pause for just a second, because busy or not you need to figure out this mystery, straining your ears and looking around at the tall trunks looming overhead.

… There’s nothing. That’s creepy.

You shake your head like you’re trying to throw off any hypothetical tiptoeing fears crawling and wriggling - niggling, almost - at the base of your spine. You don’t know why it’s only now that this place is making you uneasy - not when you already know the kindness of the more than rumoured monsters below. Not when you already know better than to think there’s anything deliberately malicious here.

Stubbornly, you hunch your shoulders and keep walking, eyes down and focusing on pushing your feet forward, keeping them steady upon parts of the incline that are relatively free of debris and won’t end with you slipping, falling, landing in a ditch and wishing you had gotten Life Alert for good measure before you left.

You thought it wouldn’t take that long once the last bus dropped you off to get to the open area where the Barrier once stood; it certainly hadn’t seemed that far when you had been coming down with all of the monsters. But you supposed, once you were climbing it alone, the journey suddenly seemed to take twice as much time because the only company you had now were your own thoughts. (Just your thoughts. Now that you’ve experienced otherwise, it feels terribly empty. Maybe it’s not just your surroundings that seem too quiet.)

When your feet finally scuff and slip out from under you, inattention and perhaps also, partially, ill-fitting shoes getting the best of you, your first thought is: Great. This better not break my phone.

Your second thought is, I knew I should have worn boots.

It’s not like you’re not used to falling. You’ve taken more tumbles than you maybe should have, and this time is only slightly different in that you’re not wholly apathetic to the possible consequences of doing so on the side of a precipice like this. Even with more motivation than instinctive survival having you grasping for anything that will hold your weight, tearing up fistfuls of grass and dirt that get into your mouth - and you’d say gross but honestly it’s not like you haven’t eaten that before either - the thing that breaks your downwards plummet after all (and maybe your ribs, honestly) is the unforgiving surface of a pale white boulder.

The impact knocks any remaining breath you had caught in your throat right out of you, and your immediate reaction to it all is to curl up into yourself, coughing and wheezing slightly. You rest the side of your head against the rough stone beside you as you’re forced to rest and recover, eyes watering, chest heaving, heart pounding hard alongside it. The momentum you had gained being firmly halted with a jarring stop had done your body no favours, and you really hope you didn’t twist your ankles or break your legs in the process.

Because that would be just your luck, wouldn’t it? Cosmic irony dictates nothing but, because you’re on urgent business and alone and you can’t afford to dawdle, so clearly the universe’s first step has to be to cut your feet off at the base, or something. (You’re already wasting time now by just leaning on this dumb rock.)

Experimentally, you wiggle the socked toes peeking out from the top of first one pink sandal, and then the other. They bend and twitch at your command as they should, and you nod in satisfaction. Time for step two: placing one hand on the slab that has been supporting you so dedicatedly, you rise to your feet, backpack clinking and rustling noisily while you do so. Both of your ankles bear your weight with much aplomb, and you’re honestly a little proud of how much pain they’re not in.

However…

You frown down at the scraped skin upon your open palms. Friction and gravity have still taken their price from you, and even if it’s not as terrible as hurting while you walk right now, that still sure is blood and scratches on your fingers - did the grass do that? How dare they. It stings like paper cuts, and the parts that don’t are just throbbing. You don’t want to walk into Mt. Ebott like this. (Not that you have an appearance to uphold or anything, but you’d rather be at full HP when you stroll in.)

This is a really unfortunate time for you to realise you didn’t think to bring any monster food - mostly just some cans, and a pack of instant noodles that weren’t from Alphys. You know there’s little-to-nothing in your personal Inventory, but you check it anyway just to be sure; you find the stray hairs of what is doubtlessly that one little white dog having once again taken a nap inside, but as you expected, it’s otherwise empty.

Tapping your foot against the stone, you remember one last place you have yet to check. Licking away the few stray pebbles stuck to your palm, you stick your hand in your pocket and take out your phone. Maybe its inventory will hold something of use? It’s worth a look, anyway; and if someone really is trying to find you with its electronic signature or whatever, you can just turn it off again. You click straight to its inventory before you have the chance to see how many messages have piled up.

As it turns out, there is something there. (Which is strange in and of itself, because you certainly didn’t put it in.) Its name makes it even more ominous: a ‘Bad Memory’. You take it out anyway, because if you’re in some sort of horror story you at least want to see what it’s about.

It’s-- Difficult for you to truly say it looks like anything. You can see it in your hands, undulating slightly, looking like the polar reverse of the Dreams you’re far more familiar with. But that’s about all there is to say about it. It’s honestly not even, like, dark-looking or something -- though the sensation it gives you, a tension in your wrists and deep in your stomach like you’re clutching a looming, dreary feeling, dread sinking against your gut, is certainly more than apt for the name it was given.

Then again. Was it really fair for you to say that you were anything but unaccustomed to bad memories as well? The thought sounds like it should sink you further into some sort of uneasy miasma, but it instead encourages you. You’re used to things like this, you know what you’re doing. If it’s like a Dream, you can eat it, right? So--

Without taking another moment to consider whether or not this was the best idea you’ve ever had, you shove the consumable in your mouth and swallow it whole.

the buzzing of static, high and low and sinuous, winding, whining in your ears-- terror, helpless, never again you thought but here you are here we are; syllables die on your tongue, words dripping b[l]ack into your throat. you hold your silence.

Your hand grips your sweater right over the SOUL shuddering in your chest, trembling and beating and racing like a frightened animal. You feel even worse than you did before.

(You really don’t know what you were expecting other than that, honestly.)

Fishing out a Crab Apple hiding in the back of your phone’s inventory, you finally shut it off again. That’s the end of that-- except it’s really not, is it. Even as your aches fade with each decisive crunch of the apple in your hand, the healing magic does nothing to warm the chill of disquiet that has made its home along your spine.

Where the hell did that come from?

Part of you doesn’t want to think about it. It’s like a reflex; burn your fingers on a stove once and you’ll keep your hands to yourself unless you’re looking for trouble. The tang of iron you swear you can still taste on your tongue only serves as a reminder of your most recent bad time. Despite that, though, you can’t seem to shake the thought that you know who, exactly, that unpleasant memory belongs to.

It really doesn’t help matters at all.

Glaring at the ground under your feet as if daring it to pull itself out from under you again, you resume your upwards trek, the silence around you growing heavy once more.

By the time you finally (finally) reach the top, the mid-afternoon sun that had followed you on your upwards journey has already begun its descent. You’re reminded, ironically enough, of the last time you stood here; the sun is at its reciprocal, and the colors are all off -- warm purples and reds instead of gold highlighting everything it touched -- but even so, you still can’t help but draw the comparison. Is it irony? Maybe it’s just funny.

Just like last time, you’re not alone.

You stop dead at the end of your heel-turn towards the mountain’s entrance. Of all the scenarios you’d played out in your head, you’d failed to take into account the possibility that you’d meet so soon, or out here. The surprise is enough to make you pause.

Flowey’s eyes are the trademark wide of someone who can’t believe what’s right in front of them. He recovers far more quickly than you, though (or at least is much better at faking it), if the speed with which his eyes narrow into slits is anything to go by.

“I knew you’d come for me eventually,” he spits, baring teeth that he by all rights shouldn’t even have. “You just couldn’t help yourself, could you? Well you’ll never catch me alive!” He pauses. “Or dead, which I guess I kind of am.”

And then, before you can get a word in edgewise, he sticks his tongue out at you (which he also shouldn’t have, like, really) and is gone.

...Well. Only one thing to do.

Sitting out on the ledge, you tear open a pack of instant noodles as you watch the sun set the rest of the way.

Tastes pretty good.

As you make your way inside the mountain, you come to realize it’s not just its surface that has become eerily quiet.

You suppose it’s to be expected; even though it’s hardly been a week since the barrier was destroyed, practically every single monster who once called Ebott their home found they couldn’t leave its shadow fast enough once they got a taste of fresh daylight. It’s not really a surprise there’s no one left.

Still. The only noise is your footsteps on the dirt, the ever-present hum of magic infused into every rock, and...

You’d wonder if another intruder has found its way into your inventory, but you know the only bad memories plaguing you now are your own.

Maybe it’s unfair of you to say you’re entirely alone anyway.

You catch occasional flashes of yellow at the corners of your vision even while making a point to not look behind. You have to stop for a moment in Hotland, because while the elevators may still be working it’s hot and you’re tired and even you can recognize when it’s best not to push your limits, sometimes. A familiar voice cackles something you can’t make out as you take water from a cooler that is, somehow, still full. You make a point to ignore that, too.

It’s funny, but you can feel his frustration grow as you keep walking. You don’t know what else it could be that has him popping up around you more and more when both of you know full well he could easily watch from places you couldn’t see. You start counting down the seconds when he finally loses his patience, and your counter hits zero at Snowdin. (Just like the temperature, you’re sure.)

He burrows up a couple feet ahead of you through a thin patch of snow. You don’t say anything. Neither does he. He just watches you, swiveling to face you as you continue on past him, and you feel his stare on your back long after you leave.

You stop seeing him entirely once you step through the Ruins door.

Enough time has passed that you know Toriel has to have read your note by now, and you duck your head as you walk through Home so you don’t have to look at the bare shelves, testaments of the newest home she’s made for herself on the Surface. A part of you can’t help but wonder, though: what would happen if you knocked over a chair? The table in the next room? Who would notice if you tore holes in the walls? Would anyone?

The silence that greets you when you head deeper into the Ruins is a familiar one, and so are the puzzles - for all that they can be called “puzzles”, anyway. All the trouble they might’ve given you had become negligible after the first time you went through them, and even now it’s no different.

Peeking into the room just in case, you’re surprised to find that someone had refilled the candy bowl, placing it back on its pedestal. You like to think you’ve learned your lesson from the last time. You only take two.

When you step into the hall, it’s silent in a different way.

Your footsteps are muffled here, and you walk slowly, trying to be quiet even if you don’t really get why; the only people who could possibly be around to disturb are the ones who you came here to do so in the first place. It’s the feeling of the place, you guess. No matter how many times you walk through here, you still can’t quite manage to stomp out the tiniest measure of awe.

Placing your pack lightly on the ground beside you, you settle next to the bed of golden flowers and close your eyes to wait.

Chapter Text

“Ugh, Chara, what gives.”

For a long moment, you do nothing. You can’t quite help the sharp intake of breath at Flowey’s words, though, and you can see the smugness in his smile at the reaction even from behind your still closed eyelids. It’s enough to keep him talking.

“You know, when I saw you, I thought for sure that you were coming up here for me. What else was I supposed to think when you’ve got a backpack that big on you? I thought, ‘This is it! They couldn’t even last a week before they came crawling back for an even happier ending!’” He pauses. The smile grows. “But that’s not what’s going on here, is it.”

His voice moves from in front of you to behind, bouncing off of the cave walls until it’s almost impossible to tell where it’s coming from in the first place, and you can’t tell if you’re disgruntled because it’s just annoying, or because it works.

“You’re planning something!” he crows, uncomfortably close. “There’s something down here you need. Something you can’t get up on the Surface. Golly! I wonder what could possibly get you running all the way back here?” He cackles, and it’s a wonder you don’t flinch considering he still hasn’t moved from talking right into your ear. “So, what is it, huh? Don’t have anything to say to your old pal? Chara.”

He’s smiling when you open your eyes. Not that you expected anything else. Taking a breath, refusing to look away first, you lift your hands from your lap.

‘Haven’t you ever heard of personal space?’

“No,” he says. He leans back, though, a frown on his face, and you resist the urge to smirk back at him in turn.

...Mostly.

“Why are you here,” he asks, still frowning, but it quickly gives way to another disarming smile. “It couldn’t be just to see your best friend Flowey, could it?”

There’s no real wind in the Underground. You think it would’ve made the next few, long moments of silence more bearable if there was one to rustle the flowers on their stems, or something. Considering the circumstances, maybe that’d just be morbid. You wouldn’t complain either way. As it is, you take your time contemplating Flowey with your chin propped on a hand, letting him stew in it. (You’ll admit that it’s mostly a product of spite on your part. He did keep you waiting here for a while, after all.)

‘Chara is gone.’

All he does is stare. He freezes, almost completely, and for a second you’re absolutely sure he’s going to flip his shit on you when he says, “I can see that!” You blink, then, but he continues on before you can say anything. “You’re wearing socks with fucking sandals, Frisk, do you think my sibling would let you wear that fashion apocalypse if they were here? This is the worst!” He sneers at you. Or your feet, more like. “Why are you doing this to yourself.”

You take a moment to really think it over.

‘Aesthetic.’

“This is literally the worst aesthetic I’ve ever seen. Please change it.”

You honestly can’t believe that you told him his sibling was missing, and his first reaction was to criticise your choice in footwear. Briefly, you consider maybe punching him a little.

‘Have you seen them?’ you ask instead. He grins like someone who’s just won a prize.

“So that’s why you’re here. I knew you wanted something.” His smile falls into something better described as patronizing. “Why would I know where they are, idiot? You’re the one they’re bound to.”

You maintain his gaze for several moments before looking away, the flowers unmoving. ‘You’re the only person I could think of who might know.’

“You really are an idiot.” There’s no bite in it, though, and he seems more contemplative than anything when you glance over. “And they’re really not here, huh?”

‘I woke up one morning and they were gone,’ you explain. It’s a lot harder to keep your hands steady than you thought it would be, but this is the first time you’ve actually talked to anyone else about what happened, and you’ve always done a fantastic job of failing under pressure. ‘I thought maybe they were just mad at me because we’d gotten into an argument the night before, but.’ You shrug helplessly. ‘I know what it feels like when they’re just being quiet. This isn’t it. They’re just...gone.’

Flowey studies you for a moment. When he speaks, his voice is dripping saccharine. “Oh, that must have been so hard for you. Y’know...Frisk. Maybe you’d be better off accepting that maybe they finally managed to, I don’t know.” He rolls his eyes, and you brace yourself preemptively. “Move on?”

Eyes narrowing to slits, your hands fist into the fabric of your shorts. It’s a good couple of moments before you can bring yourself to pry your fingers from the denim, and the ache radiates into your palms. You ignore it. ‘How can you say that? They’re gone! Don’t you care?’

“Why do you think I’m saying this!” he snarls, teeth by all rights he shouldn’t have glinting. “Look at me, Frisk. Look at Chara. Both of us are dead!” He jerks his head towards the flower patch, and you couldn’t stop your flinch if you tried. “I know better than anyone else that- moving on? It’s a fucking gift! Much better than being stuck in this miserable half-existence for the rest of forever. After everything that happened, I know that now.” His smile is not kind. “It’s not my fault if you’re too selfish to realize it.”

The words drag a hiss from between your teeth, not unlike if you’d been punched. As if you hadn’t considered this before. As if you haven’t wondered if maybe it’d be better for you both if you’d just let them go, but-- no. You can’t. You won’t. You’re angry, because you’re always angry, and it’s easy to fall back on when you have nothing else. You sign with enough force that your hands would send him flying across the room if he were a couple inches closer. That’ll teach him about personal space.

‘They didn’t move on! I know they didn’t! I found this--’ you fumble for your phone, chucking it on the grass next to him so you can continue signing unimpeded. ‘There was something called a Bad Memory in there, from the night they disappeared.’ You don’t know that for sure, actually, but you can feel it in your gut strong enough that it has to be true. It’s good enough for you, anyway. ‘It was Chara’s. They couldn’t have moved on willingly if they left something like that behind.’

Flowey peers suspiciously first at the phone and then at you, and you bare your teeth at him as if daring him to question your logic. He just sighs instead.

“You’re really set on this, aren’t you?”

‘I’m not giving up on them,’ you say, ‘and you shouldn’t either.’

“...Jeeze, fine, alright, god,” he groans, and you don’t put much effort into stifling your smile this time. “Even if you’re wrong and I’m right, at least helping you figure out how that stupid item got into your phone will be more fun than just sitting here watching you run around like a spider with one of its legs cut off.”

You perk up a little at that. ‘Do you know what it is?’

“Not what it is,” he says, frowning like the fact personally offends him, “but I know where it comes from.”

You wait for him to continue. He doesn’t. ‘Well?’ you prompt, trying to not let your impatience show.

“Welll,” he drawls. “I could tell you...” He winks, and you feel your stomach sink. “Or I could show you!” With that, he pulls himself under the ground by his roots, and you barely have the time to move before you hear his voice echo from the next room. “Catch me if you can, loser! Hee hee hee!”

You only drop your face into your hands once you’re absolutely certain he’s gone.

Stupid asshole flower.

...However begrudgingly, you have to admit that he’s given you the most substantial lead you’ve had since this entire thing started. You’d be lying if you said that didn’t reassure you at least a little bit. Stretching, you snag your phone and stuff it back into your pocket before you climb to your feet, pulling your backpack over your shoulder once again. You’re sure you can manage to humor the stupid asshole flower for at least a little while.

You make to turn away before pausing, eyes caught by the yellow at your feet. Slowly, you lower yourself to a kneel, and you let out a long breath that has the flowers whispering movement before you.

‘I’m not giving up on you.’

...

When you leave the room, the flowers are still once more.

When you finally catch up with Flowey the Fucker again, he’s obviously been waiting for you. Winding sinuous as a snake around the base of the bar that stretches from the snow-packed dirt past the short little bridge to the other side of the snow-packed dirt, it feels like a taunt and extravagance all in one for him to have found the time to do that when you weren’t exactly loitering as you went after him - but then, he’s basically been doing that this whole time.

Staying just within your eyesight sporadically, so you knew he hadn’t run rampant through the empty, echoing streets of the Ruins that had held little people for far longer than the rest of the Underground hadn’t, he had darted through the earth under the earth, slipping through cracks in purple bricks and a royal-shaded path. The fact that he had stopped now rather than continued on his path made you briefly wonder if this was it, if somehow the culprit to Chara’s disappearance had fallen down the ditch in-between one part of Snowdin Forest and the other--

Your musing guesses are broken when he calls out to you, voice high with something approaching delight despite what was very much at stake here. (Again, you think about pinching him or something. Maybe a kick? Would that kill him? He seemed fine with being uprooted when Toriel had knocked him away that one time...)

“You know, I’m glad I’m not that predictable this time around! You can’t just ignore me and go where I’m headed when you don’t know where I’m going, huh! Now you have to humour me! Not that there’s much humouring to be had,” he continues slightly mockingly, loosening his coil around the sanded wood and ducking away as your steps crunch their approach in the glistening, frozen white.

(Your socks are getting wet again, and it’s kind of disgusting.)

“I mean-” He shoots up at the other side, shaking snow off his petals and waiting for you to stomp along the stony surface of the bridge, the soles of your sandals slapping with your steps. “Honestly, you’re so slow that it’s almost boring. Can’t you go any faster?”

Flowey waits for your indignant expression - the way you start going at more of a jog than a walk because no shit you can go faster, what pace does he think you’re actually going at? You’re sure not running after him, that’s for sure - before he flashes sharp little fangs, so much more dangerous-looking than the ones that had hooked out of his muzzle as a Boss Monster, in a laugh. “I meant while you were walking, genius! But gosh, I’m sorry--

“Of course you can’t, not with those sorry excuses for footwear you’re using to walk with!”

Your own mouth parts slightly, and you’re sure you’re the picture of offended shock right now, because you’re definitely feeling it. Is he seriously still going on about your flip-flops?

Stiffly, back as raised as your hackles and twice as prickly, you deliberately slow back down again just to spite him; but you don’t answer his words. You refuse to be goaded into a debate about this with a flower that doesn’t even have feet to wear shoes with. Yes, really.

…

You give Flowey the middle finger as you pass him.

He just snorts before bounding (flower bounding, which mostly involves him shooting in and out of the dirt at more intervals than he needs to) off ahead of you again.

“So-- What were you and Chara arguing about?”

You can see the taunt bubbling at the tip of his tongue (and again, you wonder why exactly he has that), the temptation to make another jab at what he can’t leave well enough alone. But whether out of respect for you (ha!) or the acknowledgement that you’re far less likely to answer when you’re irritated with him, ‘at the tip of his tongue’ is where the unnecessary comment stays.

In return, you loosen your grip on your backpack, fingers slipping down the straps nestled tightly around your shoulders like a reluctant child dragging themself down a particularly friction-fond slide before you pull them away. Slowly, ponderously, thinking every sign through before you start the formation of the letters, emphasis overcoming ease, you (literally) spell it out for your companion.

‘N-U-N-Y-A’

“... What?”

‘Nunya fucking business, Flowey. Maybe I can show you later, instead, when we get Chara back.’

He splutters, face scrunching up into a scowl at the same time as yours widens into a smirk. “Are you serious, Frisk!? Wow! You know what, fine! Don’t tell me then, whatever!”

In as obviously a not ‘whatever’ motion as could be possibly be made, Flowey speeds ahead of you, and as before, you don’t bother to jog to keep up. Flowers - blue, this time, not yellow - whisper his words again around you, petals and stems fluttering and swaying in what is not a breeze but something much more akin to magic.

Even just the two of you walking back through the Underground has revitalised some life into it. You can appreciate that, even with the urgency of your heart wanting to push you to ignore your surroundings because there are far more vital things at stake.

Flowey returns again after a few moment of quiet wading, and it’s with a silent, almost friendly air that the two of you finally kick your way out of the tail end of Waterfall and walk through the high, spiked chasm that leads into Hotland.

But, of course, you can’t keep that for very long. It’s not a long walk from the start of Hotland to the pale landmark that was Alphys’ lab - it’s directly in eyeview right from here, in fact, beyond the water cooler and the bridge - so when Flowey goes on ahead and stops at the closed sliding doors, you’re immediately, and you think understandably, irritated.

‘Did you seriously make me walk all the way through the Underground again when we could have just borrowed the Riverperson’s boat?’

Your fingers curl slightly like you want to make them fists, because you might be able to make such a trek twice over in a matter of hours but that definitely didn’t mean you wanted to, especially when this stop was literally right up the staircase from the river that conveniently passed through all of the main areas any monster could ask for.

Whatever doubtlessly smarmy reply Flowey had for that - you imagine maybe something about if only you had just humoured him the first time around - is one that passes over your head, however, as you suddenly stop right in the middle of the plateau that crossroads four times over.

To your left, you know, the elevator that would lead you right through Hotland stretches up above your head, more than your eye could follow from this distance even if you craned your neck hard. To your right leads down to the vessel that could have easily transported you here, water and wood both. Behind you and in front of you, respectively, stretches the bridge you vividly remember Undyne collapsing upon and the refreshingly air-conditioned laboratory.

Which means…

You look down at your feet, eyebrows furrowed. Where’s the SAVE point?

Now that you think about it, you haven’t seen any of the telltale yellow stars that should have been dotting the area. You hadn’t been paying attention to such a minute detail initially, more focused on retrieving the answers you sought, but now that you’re combing through your memories, you’re relatively certain you’re right; not a one has been there.

You look up at the flower watching you with feigned indifference, as if he wasn’t obviously wondering why you had ignored him entirely to stare at your feet. Just as you lift your hands to make the signs you need, your fingers fumbling into position while you prepare to announce the problem, he speaks up with his own question.

“You keep looking down. Gee, Frisk, did you finally notice how awful your sandals actually are?”

Without even thinking, you’re shrugging off your bag – the heaviest, most painful thing you have on your person – and slinging it with all of your child upper body strength at him. He, sadly, dodges to the side with ease, and you both watch in (for you, slightly pained – you liked that thing) captivation as the red-and-black pack slides past him along to the border of the ledge, not even having the dignity to teeter dangerously there so you could try diving for it before it plunges into the depths below.

Pride and supplies both grievously injured, you turn back to Flowey with a firm, stoic air, with all the dignity you can possibly muster. ‘No.’ You promptly snap, teeth peeling back in hostility.

‘I can’t find the SAVE point.’

Immediately, he’s seemingly recovered from his close encounter with your single missile. (Though, then again, he didn’t even seem that alarmed in the first place.) He lights up as if he were a plant that had seen its first glimpse of the sun - which you guess could be true, maybe even literally as well as metaphorically, depending on how you look at it – and he flashes his teeth at you, a smile that’s more fangs and intimidation than anything else.

(You read somewhere that only humans and monsters ever made such an expression like that as an indication of happiness. You guess that’s fair; Flowey isn’t really either anymore, is he?)

“Is that so?” He all but crows, eyes sharpening like knives into something pointed and giddy. “If you’ve lost the ability to SAVE, maybe that means I’ve inherited the timeline once again!”

Immediately, you tense, feet sliding slightly apart on the volcanic, rocky surface in preparation for having to handle anything unexpected that he throws your way. The zigzag soles of your shoes scrape audibly as you do so, and you find the sound almost like one of nonverbal challenge as Flowey stares intently at you.

You’re both holding your breath, an almost visible silence hanging between the two of you – one beat, two. You’ve almost counted to half a minute (and your lungs fully screaming at you) before he droops a little, tongue sticking out in a childish display of disappointment.

“I guess not.” He sighs with a shake of his head as you gratefully suck oxygen into your lungs. “I don’t know what I expected, really. It’s not like I could see the point any more than you.”

You stick your tongue out at him in turn for making you think anything was going to happen and straighten back up, returning to frowning at the spot directly before you. You almost think you can see something, whether wish fulfilment or not, and you squint harder, eyes narrowing as if it’s the light coming from the magma below that’s ruining your line of vision to what’s literally in front of your nose.

You mean, on one hand, it works.

The harder you focus, the easier you can make it out – until finally, hovering there like it was never gone in the first place, is the SAVE star you had thought was entirely missing. Though, it seems… a little paler than before, a little more glassy-looking. That should probably concern you, but you have more important matters already doing that, so you shrug the thought off and make to place your hands on it, palms hovering over the spinning glow like one might warm themself over a fire on a cold wintry night.

It takes far more exertion than it should have to overwrite your old file, strain where it should have been effortless as thought, and you’re breathing a little hard when you finish doing so.

It’s only when you’ve dropped your hands back to your sides and turned to face Flowey, ready to ask him what exactly he’s even looking for in the lab that would help, that you realise you’ve SAVED over any chance of getting your bag back.

Well, fuck.

Chapter Text

The lab is quiet and empty, devoid of the background hum of running machinery that you’d come to expect from your dalliances through the building, and while you’ve long come to realize that its previous inhabitants are far from the scariest things to be contained within its walls, you’re still incredibly grateful that the lights only flicker a little bit before staying on. The air-conditioning is a welcome change, too, and while this could hardly be considered a respite, you can’t say you miss the oppressive heat of outside much at all.

Sliding open a file cabinet drawer, you have to resist the urge to screw up your nose at the absolute nothing you find there. You even reach inside and pat your hands along the back just to make sure, but all you come up with is a couple of paper clips and a lonely ball of lint. You stick them in your pocket as you check the other drawers in the cabinet, but the next one down is locked and the other two wield much the same results as the first. You shake it a little for good measure. Doesn’t sound like anything’s inside...

You’re jolted rudely out of your thoughts by a loud BANG. Looking over finds an overturned cabinet throwing up an odd combination of glitter and a week’s worth of accumulated (not death) dust, as well as Flowey looking entirely too pleased with himself.

“What?” he says when he catches you looking at him. “It works.”

Dubiousness of that claim aside, you’re pretty sure you didn’t come here to destroy all of Alphys’ old stuff. You decide not to comment. ‘I still don’t even know what exactly we’re looking for.’

“I told you already.” He grunts as he pulls the closest drawer open with his mouth, the fall having jarred the entire thing enough that it slides out easily. He frowns at what he finds there. Or, doesn’t find. “We’re looking for intel. You know, super secret files and stuff. I know you’re not the sharpest crayon in the box, but even you have to know what those would look like.”

You huff, less because of the uninventive insult and more because Flowey refuses to look at you even when you tap your foot loudly on the tiled floor. (Besides, who even sharpens crayons?) It takes you slamming shut the drawer he’s trying to open to finally get his attention. Even then, it’s only so he can properly stick his tongue out at you.

“Do you mind? I’m kind of busy, I don’t know, helping you.”

‘You can’t expect me to play a game when you don’t give me all the rules.’

He snorts before the last sign even leaves your fingers. “Of course I can! Especially when it’s so fun to watch you flounder around. But fine, whatever.” He eyes the file drawer again, and you lean your elbow against it as if daring him to try. He sighs. “Think about it. What kind of stuff would Doc Alph even keep files for?”

You do think for a moment, wishing Flowey would just tell you instead of making you play a guessing game. ‘Anime?’

“I-- yeah okay, sure. But what else??”

‘I don’t know. Her work?’

“Exactly!” He brightens up at that, although his smile borders on patronizing a little too much for you to call it genuine. “And what sorta work has she done that would leave a consumable in your phone?”

You furrow your eyebrows at the abandoned lab around you, file cabinets and empty boxes looming like strange, boxy shapes around you, and you think you finally understand. ‘The Amalgamates.’

“The Amalgamates,” Flowey agrees. He makes a pleased noise when you finally move away from the cabinet, and you step back to let him search. But there’s still something that doesn’t make sense.

‘I don’t remember any of the Amalgamates giving me something called a Bad Memory.’

“Cry me a river. It’s not my fault if you didn’t try everything before sparing them.” He pauses, but when he frowns, you get the feeling that it’s not exactly at you. “Besides. I’m not sure if the Memoryheads even are Amalgamates.”

Well, that’s helpful. But he’s at least given you a name to work with, and when you think back on your first trip through the True Lab, your encounter with the group of monsters rises through your memory like static. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

“What I mean is that if the Memoryheads are made up of different monsters, then they’re not any sort of monster I’ve met before. And I’ve met them all.” He scowls, only to shove his head into a filing cabinet and make his voice echo when he continues to talk. “So unless we can find their freaking file, you’re out of luck!”

The cheerful tune of your phone turning on rings through the building for a long moment before Flowey raises his head to look at you.

“What. What are you doing.”

You beam at him as your phone boots up the rest of the way. ‘I don’t think we’re going to find anything here. So there’s only one last source to go to for info on our mystery monster.’ Folding your legs underneath yourself, you sink into a cross-legged position on the floor, and Flowey pops up next to you in just in time for you to click into your contacts and find the one you need.

“...That’s not a bad idea,” Flowey admits, and you’re quick to send the text.

* are you up??

From what you can tell, time has always been a somewhat flimsy thing to measure in the Underground, but you’re not really surprised when the clock on your phone tells you how late at night it is. There’s a good possibility that anyone you would try to contact right now would be asleep-- except you highly doubt it, in this case.

Like you anticipated, the reply comes quickly, promptly, and with a lot of exclamation points.

* FRISK? OMG WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!!!

You’re… Kind of tempted to tell her that you’ve been in hell. You’re not sure why. Before you can actually get to thinking of what you should really write, another message zooms into your inbox.

* everyone’s been SO WORRIED ABOUT YOU are you ok

* yeah im fine anyway i needed to ask you about something

* um ok
* shoot i guess?

* ok so i guess this is going to be kind of long but do you remember those tapes from your old lab in the underground? the ones from asgore, those recordings?
* do you remember

You hesitate, for a long moment. You know that you need to tell Alphys for her to be able to answer your question, because you can’t exactly be like, ‘Hey Alphys tell me everything about the Memoryheads, why do I want to know and what in particular? I don’t know, just give me the goods woman’. She needs to at least have some idea of what you’re asking after, right?

But you’re finding the idea of typing down their name - of properly, concretely putting into text the identity and continued existence of the voice [that was] in your head… It feels a little like betrayal.

It’s at this point, apparently, that Flowey has decided that you’ve taken too long. Your last text still unsent and half-written, he lunges forwards with his fangs bared. You barely get your fingers out of the way just in time before he seizes your phone in his mouth, enamel [maybe enamel???? what kind of material is plant teeth supposed to be made out of anyway?] clicking against the metal before he draws back. At this point, he briefly hesitates, eyes shifting from side to side before he simply spits it back out onto the metallic tiling with a ‘clang’.

Ungracefully, he leans back down to it, tongue extended out as far as it can reach during his slow, inexorable approach. You watch on as the passenger to the incoming trainwreck, horrified and fascinated and unable to look away from this natural disaster all in one as Flowey gets closer and closer to your phone with that tongue why this. If you were any more verbal, you might have let out a devastated sound when screen finally met flesh and he started swiping through your stuff. He might wish for arms, but it’s at a moment like this where you think you might wish for it even more than he does.

Finally, Flowey finds whatever he’s looking for and decisively presses his tongue against it. Curling and shrinking on his stem into a coil to awkwardly shift the phone off the floor and propped up against his head, there’s a beat or two of silence before you hear from the speaker the tinny, but familiar voice of your scientist friend.

“Um, F-Frisk? What’s going on?”

“Well, howdy!” Flowey drawls the words out, sounding for all the world even more like a miniature, plant-based cowboy. His smirk is wide, smug, and unrestrained. “Have you gotten any better at doing science yet? Because a hand would be appreciated from Miss Failure Extraordinaire, if you can manage it without ruining something.”

‘Flowey!’ You snap, to his unrepentant smile.

“Oh, uh. It’s… Y-you.”

“Golly, we have a slick one on our hands! That’s right; it’s me!”

“Where- where’s Frisk?” she asks, ignoring his barb, and you’re surprised to hear her voice sharpen into something more like steel. “Why do you have their phone?”

If anything, the question only seems to fuel Flowey’s amusement even more. “Why, aren’t you happy to hear from little old me? After all, it’s been so long since we’ve talked.”

“If you think I won’t go down there a-and--”

“And what,” he interrupts, smile turning ugly. The other line goes silent. “That’s what I thought. But I guess it doesn’t matter,” he allows. “Because your old friend Flowey has Frisk right here for you!”

“...How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

Flowey has the audacity to look offended. “Would I lie to you?” He doesn’t give her a chance to answer, which you figure is pretty smart of him. “Hey, Frisk. What’s something you know about Alphys that I don’t, huh?”

It takes you a moment to think of something. When you do, Flowey reads off your signs.

“Alphys has a crush on-- wait, seriously? I already know she has a gross crush on my dad, you idiot!”

From the speaker, you hear the distinct sound of muffled, quiet shrieking and an audible thump. Did she just fall off her bed? You shrug in Flowey’s direction. You’ll just have to think of something from after the barrier broke to be safe.

“When Undyne came back from the store one time,” Flowey repeats, “you bit into the popsicle she brought you with your bare teeth and Undyne nearly started crying. What the hell. Why would you do that?”

“Oh my god,” Alphys says, apparently having recovered from her fall. “Frisk?”

“Told you so.”

“You did.” She doesn’t apologize for not trusting him, though, and you’re glad. “But um, Frisk, why did you bring up the... the tapes?” It’s here that she becomes less certain, her claws tapping audibly against the phone as she readjusts her grip. “And why did you leave without telling anybody? Everyone’s r-really worried about you! If you just wanted to go back to- to the Underground for something, someone could’ve gone with you! You know that, right?”

“You can’t let anyone know you’ve heard from them.”

“Is it you saying that, or Frisk?”

“Does it matter?”

You huff at him, stomping a foot in frustration loud enough that you wonder if Alphys can’t hear it. Flowey rolls his eyes.

“Fine, fine, cool it shorty. That was Frisk. But it’s me, too. I’m serious, pal, you can’t tell anybody.”

A moment of silence. “Why?”

“Well, gee, it’s almost like that’s what we’ve been trying to tell you this entire time!” The phone slides a bit as he talks, making him curse, but you reach over and set it on the floor before he can try and nudge it back into position, fingering the speaker button. You don’t try to hide your disgust as you wipe your hands on your shorts.

Flower spit. Gross.

Flowey makes a face at you, but when he speaks, it’s to the phone. “Do you want the long version, or the short version?”

“Uh... Short?”

“So when Frisk fell into Ebott they woke up my sibling’s ghost with their Determination,” Flowey says, not even easing into it, holy shit, “and they’ve been weird brain buddies for a while except now Chara’s gone and we think the Memoryhead Amalgamates had something to do with it.” He pauses, turning to look at you. “What do you think, was that short enough?”

You drop your head into your hands.

“WHAT?!” Alphys shrieks, and then, “I mean-- oh my god, I had no idea??? Th-that-- Frisk, are you okay??”

‘I’m fine,’ you say, waiting for Flowey to translate before moving on. As tactless as the explanation was, you can at least appreciate that it got the job done. ‘But I need your help.’

“I don’t know what I can do,” she admits, “or even if I really understand? B-but I can try.”

‘Do you know a way to fish a backpack from magma? Because I need that.’

“...Frisk found a Bad Memory in their phone,” Flowey says, pretty much ignoring you completely. Rude. “And they think it belonged to Chara. What do you know about them?”

“About- about Chara? Well--”

“No, you idiot, the Memoryheads.”

“Oh! Heh, sorry... Um, the truth is... I don’t- I don’t know?” Her nervous laugh echoes against the lab walls. “I didn’t really have anything to d-do with them. They just sort of...showed up.”

“Well, that’s helpful! Obviously calling you wasn’t a waste of time at all,” he says, voice dripping sugar in the way you know burns worst, “guess we’ll just have to figure this out on our--”

“Wait!!” You hear another thump, like she’s knocked something over with her tail. “I said I didn’t know where they came from, not that I c-couldn’t help. Jeeze, are you trying to troll me??”

Flowey actually splutters, voice rising into a small little yelp of outrage. “You’re only trolling yourself!”

You can’t believe this. ‘Who even says troll anymore?’ you sign, unable to let this pass without comment. ‘Do you read rage comics too?’

“Shut up, Frisk!!”

‘TFW no SOUL!!!’

“What did they say??”

“NOTHING!” Flowey barks, and you have to bite your hand to keep yourself from laughing too hard.

“O-okay...Um. Anyway.” Papers shuffle on the other end of the line. You take a breath, gathering yourself just as Alphys speaks again. “All of the Amalgamates came up to the Surface with their families after the barrier broke. O-or, the Amalgamates who had a family, at least. I tried to find the Memoryheads to ask if they wanted me to find them a place to stay, but it was like they- they disappeared. Which isn’t really unusual,” she adds hastily, “sometimes they’d be gone for days without warning.”

“Oh, great. So we’ll just have to sit around and wait for them to come back?”

“Not necessarily! Usually when that happened I’d find them hiding somewhere in- in the Core,” she says. “Almost like they were waiting for something.”

As ominous as it sounds, the comment doesn’t quite manage to shake you; backing out never would have been an option even if you’d ever stopped to consider it, and no amount of danger has ever deterred you from your path before.

“Frisk says thanks.” Flowey gives the phone a suspicious look. “But you’d better remember your promise.”

“Um, t-technically I haven’t promised anything yet,” Alphys says, making both you and Flowey freeze. “How do I know that not saying anything won’t turn out to be another mistake?”

“Of course it’s not a mistake you freaking imbecile, you-- what!” Flowey stops in his tirade as you wave at him, shaking your head. “What is-- ugh, fine. Frisk says that they’re soorrry for making you worry, but this is something that they need to do and they can’t risk anyone else finding out what’s going on. If it helps, they promise to keep texting you so you know they’re okay.” He stops. You motion for him to finish, and he narrows his eyes at you. “...And they still have some stuff they need to tell you anyway.”

There’s silence on one end of the line for one moment. Two. Then, “Okay,” she says, reluctance still audible in her voice. “Okay. I won’t tell anybody.”

“Then we’re going to go and get this over with. Frisk says they- ugh--” Flowey mimes a gag, you smiling at him sweetly, “love you.”

“I love you too, Frisk.” The tone in her voice changes just slightly enough to tell her next words aren’t directed at you. “Be nice to them, okay?”

“Whatever,” he says. “Try not to be too much of a disappointment.” And before she has a chance to respond, he ends the call, leaving your phone one more bottle of sanitizer away from being clean ever again. You wonder, as you pick it up and wipe down the screen on your shorts, if your phone would survive a dip in the magma; if you’re lucky, maybe you can just burn the spit away.

At least now you have an idea of where to go from here. You guess that’s almost an equivalent exchange. Maybe. (It’s not.)

You slide your phone around so it’s adjusted into a better position suited for typing, beckoning behind you with one hand silently. There’s more magma-ringed volcanic rock to traverse, and a lab to get out of, after all. (You suppose Flowey doesn’t really need to come along now that you know what he does, but he did say he’d help. You won’t object to extra hands - even if he doesn’t have any actual hands. Heh.)

But he doesn’t respond. At the lack of movement, you glance over at his direction, head tilting in question. Flowey is there, but as you guessed - because really, if someone is ominously suddenly not replying like that there’s about a 90% chance something’s gone to shit - he’s staring at something, or someone, that isn’t you.

This is a little too horror movie for your liking, but you turn back to face forwards anyway, slipping your phone away into your inventory as a pre-emptive defense, and-- Out from the wall, head changing from side to side (not tilting, not really when it’s their face shifting and not their body), comes a distinctive figure you definitely have not forgotten.

Slithering out from the reflective surface of the chrome door, eye wide and piercing and intently fixated on you just like last time, you’re really not surprised at all to find your SOUL tearing itself to the surface. It’s red and whole-looking as always - and that almost feels wrong, because you’re not all you should be, there’s a pit echoing emptily in your head and that should be manifesting in the pulse of your heart, but it’s not.

Reaper Bird lets out its rasping, layered cry, spreading ragged wings and lifting its bill to the heavens of the void that they had dragged you to: the battle screen. Green lines and black all around you, but without a voice to whisper commentary in your head and Flowey left out of the fight - it feels both the same and horribly different. Even knowing how to spare them now, fully aware of what steps are necessary to pacify the Amalgamate, you still feel a thrill of something tense and terrible run down your spine at facing them off alone.

You never thought you’d miss the single fucking character of a comma.

‘You look horrible. Why are you even alive?’ There’s a small sneer curling on your lip as you sign the words, eyes fixed dead-center against theirs. Reaper Bird’s head rears back at the venomous jab you hurl, beak clacking audibly.

White walls slide up and hem you in, herding like a sheepdog and its flock. Your red flickering heart beats just a little faster when you lay eyes on the figure standing before you, pure snow against pure coal.

Everyman’s glassy, empty gaze goes right through you. For all that it’s perfectly intact, for all that nothing has happened to it yet this fight, it already looks dead inside, stare devoid of anything resembling recognition; void of fear, even, though you know it surely has to realise how this turn is going to go for it.

Suddenly, it moves. Snout rising and turning to its left, the monster(? you actually have no idea what they are, really) fixes their eyes up at something you can’t see no matter how much you try to peer in the same direction. Whatever has caught its attention, it’s enough to bring words breathily dripping out of void, sibilant text sliding around you into audibility and then fading again.

… Out of the picture…

What does that even mean? It sounds ominous at best, even aside from the fact that it comes from a figure whose face is regularly devoured by butterflies. But speak of the devil, and they appear: as soon as the thought occurs to you, the aforementioned insects drift from an unspecified point to alight upon Everyman’s snout, their head, their face. More and more flock to them, wings fluttering gently - and then, brutally, their proboscis stab down into their flesh. Or at least, you can only assume that’s what’s happened; you can’t actually see anything from outside the crowd of flapping, can only see when they begin to shudder and quiver and scream in silent agony, hands pawing blindly at the things feasting on them as they collapse to their knees.

You wish you knew how to help them. Like this, you’re fully aware that touching them will only hurt you and drag your HP down - that you can’t just claw the butterflies off of them. But goddamn if you didn’t want to.

It’s your turn again. Gingerly, you lower yourself to your knees as well - following in Everyman’s footsteps - and bow your head, clasping your hands together. Time to move to step two. You know Reaper Bird isn’t exactly psychic (you mean, probably) and so you mouth along with your thoughts, whispering wordlessly for safety and for the Amalgamate to stop attacking you… Which is about when Flowey interrupts the fight by yanking himself up in between the two of you and giving them a truly acidic glare.

“Piss off!” He snarls, eloquently.

The monsters melded into a singular avian shape flare their wings further, answering with another layered noise of disgruntlement. Flowey lets out the most put-upon sigh, like he’s the one that had walked up an entire mountain and suffered through some slightly traumatic killer butterflies to get to this point rather than you. He tilts his head slightly in your direction.

“They’re saying you have something that smells sweet in your pockets, and they’re hungry. Honestly, I don’t know why they didn’t just follow everyone to the surface if they were just going to sit around down here eating nothing, but whatever. Not my problem.”

Something sweet…? Oh! You root around (heh) in your shorts upon the realisation, pulling out fistfuls of yellow petals. Flowey’s stare goes from skeptical and incredulous to wide when you pop some of the flowers in your mouth, chewing and holding out the rest for Reaper Bird to investigate. Just when they’re about to give one a delicate nibble, the flower that you’re not considering eating now or ever lets out a little shriek.

“What are you doing, Frisk?! Are you looking to die?? There are easier ways to go than that, you know!”

You have no idea what he’s talking about for all of one second before the realisation hits you like a wildly spinning truck: Asriel watched Chara eat buttercups. Of course he’d remember that and think about it first thing, looking at someone else do the same to golden flowers. With your free hand, you make a slightly placating motion, patting the air in his general direction.

‘No, no, it’s fine. They’re not poisonous. They’re sweet!’

You tilt the hand that had been proffering the Forsythias to Reaper Bird at an angle, allowing Flowey to see the different structure and shape of them. No plans of dying today! His petals droop slightly in obvious, but ill-concealed relief, and he lets out a disgruntled sniffing sound. The ‘whatever, it’s not like I actually cared’ can be easily conveyed even without him bothering to say anything, and the fact that that’s a bit of a blatant fucking lie even moreso, in your humble opinion.

You smile at him, just a little, and then let the Amalgamate delicately snap up the rest of the flowers.

With the last remaining resident of Alphys’ lab placated (and stubbornly melting back into the shadows before you can try even beginning to suggest they follow everyone else to the surface; you still have no idea as to why they’re so insistent on staying), there’s nothing left for you two here. The remainder of the search can only be conducted at the Core - which means just a little bit more walking in miserable, sweltering heat. You give the air conditioner and vents a forlorn look and wish you could take them with you.

Of course, you can’t - but what you can take is your conversation with Alphys, which you were very much going to do. Pulling your phone back into existence from your inventory with a little pop, you catch it in your hands and start typing the beginning of a text like you had been planning to do before you had been so rudely interrupted.

You don’t really know how to ask a question like this. But you know you have to.

...

* so. do you like pizza

You’re good at this.

* uh..........yes!
* my favorite is the one with all the toppings on it lol
* why??

* just curious

* ...you didn’t really text me to talk about pizza tho did you

You lean against the wall just inside the doorway, unwilling to leave your linoleum oasis quite yet when there’s still something that needs to be done. Oppressive heat you can handle, as well as conversations like this -- you’ve done so multiple times, after all -- but both at once? No thanks. Alphys has already seen right through you once. And here you thought you were being subtle.

* no
* sorry
* ive kept this to myself for so long i dont really know how to talk about it

Your thumb hovers over the SEND button, a moment of hesitation more than long enough to allow Alphys to interject with one of her typical quick-fingered messages that...never comes. What are you even expecting her to say? ‘Here’s an itemized list of all possible solutions to this problem you won’t share and by the way I have no fucking clue what you’re even talking about’?

You hit send.

* right before chara disappeared we got into a really bad argument over whether we should tell anyone else theyre still here
* i wanted to and they didnt and im starting to think that maybe i chose the wrong side
* how do you decide which secrets are worth keeping?

The next several seconds are spent staring down at your phone, trying not to fidget. Not that you were expecting a quick response; you’d be more surprised if Alphys just happened to have advice for this particular situation lying around. Still. The chime of the incoming notification can’t come soon enough.

* well....keeping secrets can be tiring! especially when you keep them for so long and they affect more than just you
* i’m not saying that telling everyone else that they’re still around wouldn’t be a good thing but
* if chara doesn’t want to do it then doing it anyway would only hurt them!! and you too
* if that even makes sense ahahha

* it does
* it makes a lot of sense

* maybe what can help you guys is to write down a list!! u know like lay out all the pros and cons so you have a more solid idea of what you’d be doing??
* IDK it works sometimes

* thats a good idea
* i think im gonna try that after i find them again

* Frisk...

You pause. You don’t have to wait long.

* i might not know exactly what’s going on still - which is probably for the best considering what u just told me! - but if there’s one thing i’m sure of it’s that everything is gonna turn out OK!!!
* i used to think that sometimes there are situations so bad u just can’t get past them but
* i’m a scientist?? it’s kind of my job to get proven wrong all the time
* you can do this!! ^_^

Smiling now, you push yourself off the wall. It’s easy to forget that even without the presence in your mind that’s been the one constant in your life since it all changed so drastically, you’re not as alone as you think you are.

* thank you alphys
* i like to think so too
* i should probably get going now. ill let you know how things turn out at the core

The acknowledging text is quick to appear in your inbox, but you don’t respond, knowing she’s not expecting you to. You feel -- not quite better, not when there’s still so much left uncertain, when there’s still so much banking on chance and luck, but.

You’ve always liked fixing things.

Flowey isn’t waiting for you when you finally step out of the Lab and onto the hard-packed earth, which doesn’t surprise you, but you can’t help but pause when he pops up right next to the still-glowing save point and glowers at you for all he’s worth.

“Seriously, can you move any slower??”

‘Is that a challenge?’

“No! Forget I asked.”

Laughing to yourself, you hold your hands over the familiar yellow pulse of magic once again. You might as well, right? It’s not like you have a backpack to lose anymore. As if marking the perimeter of his own impatience, Flowey appears again further down the path towards the elevator. You’d laugh at that, too, if you weren’t so familiar with the source of his restlessness yourself.

‘Let’s go,’ you say, trotting after him. The metal of the elevator ahead gleams almost like a promise. ‘Let’s find the Memoryheads and get Chara back.’

The look Flowey gives you is sidelong, but whatever barbed comment he’d come up with is replaced instead by, “Sure. Just don’t go crying if things don’t work out the way you want.”

The urge to stick your tongue out at him in a mockery of his usual expression is strong, but you manage to resist. ‘It’ll be fine. You’ll see.’ With that, you move forward, leaving Flowey to his grumbling and the Lab receding behind you. He can be as pessimistic as he wants. It’s not like you ever expected him to be a ray of sunshine about all this anyway.

Everything will turn out just fine.

You’re determined to make it that way.