aiko's otter den

yellow as a real star - You are not a hero, yet here you are with a happy ending. Or, Rachel, and the aftermath with the monsters.

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1. I

Arlene had told her about a monster buried underneath her feet, mixed in with her stories of stars.

She had told her of a child, of a world filled with monsters, of a tower that could make her dreams come true. None of these things sounded real at the time, but then she’d fallen, and she’d found one, so maybe the others were real as well.

Bam at first glance, had looked like a monster to her, twin golden voids in the darkness. But then he’d smiled, all big and helpless, making a sound like a cooing bird, crawling into view in what little light there is shining from above her.

This child, she’d thought, could not possibly be a hero or a savior.

He could not do anything alone.

He was hard to deal with. He knew nothing but picked up quickly. He was speaking sentences faster than the babies above, and could already walk and run and grip. He just had never thought in words before. The way he had said it was like feelings in shapes. It never made sense to you, but you didn’t mind. It was fine, he was a monster. They were just different, that’s all.

She had reported to Arlene dutifully. She was pleased. She was proud of you. She was so proud.

Now, Rachel knows, that time is long over.

It had been over the second the kind goat woman had held her while she was frightened. It had been over the second Bam had disappeared from the cave. It has been over for years now.

She’s outside. She’s in a real outside, with a real sky and a real breeze and real stars, distant in most areas but real, real real. New smells and solid ground and homes built without fear of sloping ceilings, real with warm sunlight and growing grass and food not magically grown or shifted around. Real, real, it was all real.

And she was out, without Bam.

She hasn’t seen Arlene for a long time.

The entire time she had looked after Bam, the entire time she had cared for him, she had reminded herself that the whole thing was temporary. She had told herself that it wouldn’t mean anything, that no matter how smart he became, no matter how capable and how much he cared, how much he clung, how much he cried, she would not stay with him forever.

It wasn’t supposed to be from his end though.

“Rachel, stop brooding.”

Her thoughts are interrupted by Asriel from the other side of the van. She glowers at him half-heartedly. He snorts back. She remembers when he used to be tiny and eight and cute. Nice little kid when he wasn’t a homicidal bored flower. Spoiled rotten, yes, but listened to the people around him. It was better than remembering him as a soulless, fucked up flower with vines stabbing into her guts.

Yeah, she doesn’t want to think about that anymore.

The outside wasn’t like the outside she had been in either. The sun shines, there are cool breezes, and it’s harder to see the stars than she likes. But they are there, they are real and she gets to see them.

She knows it must be tearing up the woman inside.

“I’m not brooding,” she finally says, because she’s not, not really. She’s thinking, and the barely aging goat punk needs to stop pretending he can read minds because he used to be able to control time. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“That’s why your face looks like Undyne smacked you in the nose.” He’s trying to be funny, tongue sticking out and eyes crossing. Rachel rolls her eyes and he puffs a little. “You’re worrying me.”

“Bull roar.” She’s gotten better at not swearing. It helps that they’re in the car with Asgore and not Papyrus, who repeats human cursing with levity and concern. To him, there are much better words to express things. Toriel would just judge them, but she’s in a pun battle with Sans in another car, and… ugh. It’s gross.

She used to have bigger things to worry about. Much, much bigger things.

“I can worry about your ungrateful, hairless butt,” Asriel gripes, huffing and looking out the window. “Never mind, I’ll stop that.”

“I’m fine,” she says because she is. Something might be wrong, but fu-heck if she knows what it is. It might just be her yellow SOUL, smacking against her scarred chest, trying to burst out of her body again. It’s paranoid in this place in a way she only knows how to hide because no one uses magic now. “The ocean’s not my thing, that’s all.”

“It’s not mine either,” he protests, but it is in a way. Anything that’s not the same cave walls, the same seventy plants, blood on his leaves, dust in the air, is his thing. Anything that’s not the same awful shit over and over is for him.

The problem is she can relate, but she knows she holds a grudge and Asriel has never made it right. It just burns sometimes. And he knows it and Bam knows it.

“We got good fish for Frisk though,” he says after a moment or two, looking at the nice cooler. Bam’s been cooking since he was able to use the kitchen in New Home. Toriel and Asgore have taught him (so has Undyne, but none of them want to think about that disaster) whenever they come by. He’s gotten good, even if he still never looks any of them in the eye except her.

She looks into his eyes and sees red and gold, eyes of fire, eyes of

LOVE

— light.

A few years ago, she would have been roiling with envy, jealous burning, blood, and hunger and her destiny pulled from her hands. Now?

Now she doesn’t remember what that destiny would have been. It worries her, some. But dying once, stuck watching the world move, the warmth seep out of her because she no longer has hands or feet or a face to feel with, the rage of being trapped has enlightened her.

You’ve settled, says Arlene in her head.

Rachel tells her to fuck off. It’s her head and she can.

“Bam will enjoy it, and the photos,” she says to break the awkward silences she keeps creating. “He’s seemed a little down lately.”

Asriel raises one fuzzy eyebrow and Undyne and Alphys go quiet. “You mean like, falling down?”

“No, that’s a monster thing.” Depression and despair mean death for the monsters, and while it can lead to that in humans it’s much… less. Or longer, whichever. “At least I don’t think so.”

Arlene had always called Bam a monster.

She’s spent the last few years wondering if Arlene had been wrong.

---

She dreams of the cave. She doesn’t like dreaming of it, but she dreams anyway. Of Waterfall and its unending streams. Of the little bird who carries people across gaps. She dreams of Bam laying back on the ground, listening to the water and humming a tune the ghost had taught him. She’s still surprised the ghost didn’t tell him the truth, all of the truths, even the ones she doesn’t know. And she’s sure after all of these years there’s a lot she doesn’t.

Bam breathes next to her. He’s not imagining the stars as she would, but not sleeping either. He’s plotting something soft and easy.

“Someday I might not come back,” she says, quite unwillingly.

“I know,” he replies, peaceful. She can see the scars of deaths in a way no one else can. She fingers the little six-shooter she once carried. She hadn’t used to. It had run out of bullets —

Against Arlene —

A long, long time ago. Which, stupid but it is a glorified paperweight in her room (her own room, her own place, her own everything) now.

“You have glorious things to do, Rachel.” His voice is soft and warm. “Don’t let my memory stop you.”

“But you’ll be alone.”

“That didn’t bother you before.”

It stings, but he doesn’t sound offended, only ancient and knowing.

“… Sometimes it did.” She can admit this because they’re dreaming, she could never tell Bam the truth, that a lot of the time, she tried to forget he was down there alone in the dark with nothing and no one. She had tried. She had failed. “Maybe not as much as it should have.”

It stings to think she is not a good person, that she is not the heroine of a story where everything is right and good and easy. It stings.

It ignites something hot and wrong.

“It can still bother you,” Bam says, like she hasn’t been the one to teach him so much of what he knows (not everything, not anymore and isn’t that a relief off of her shoulders, Toriel and Asgore had talked about this with her for a long time, she is not the parent of a child and she never should have been and only now does she understand). “You can still be upset. You can still be good. You can still be the heroine of a story. You still are, Rachel.”

And she must be dreaming because she, she knows, she can feel, she can not remember this happening. Except maybe it did, in another life, in another timeline. Maybe this is her subconscious telling her something, something necessary.

He unsheathes his Real Knife (even in her head the emphasis is so big and strong and clear like that scarlet blade) and holds it up to the light holes overhead. It still glows.

“I won’t be a hero,” he says, solemn and true. “I don’t need to be the hero of humans and monsters. I don’t need to be anyone’s knight or hero. I just need to keep an important promise. A promise made in death.”

“Bam?” she murmurs, the sickening churn in her stomach only growing. “Bam, what’s…”

He meets her gaze with his ignited eyes. “Goodbye Rachel,” he says. “Be happy, okay? Be happy as the hero of this story. I’m going now. You won’t have to worry anymore.”

He doesn’t get up. He just closes his eyes and breathes out. “I’m coming, Chara,” he whispers, reverent and aching with LOVE and love alike and —

She opens her eyes, gasping and shuddering. Tears are falling down her face, muddying the clear presence of her freckles and twisting her acne.

Asgore turns his head a little and Asriel snorts awake. “What is it?”

She struggles for words, for pain, for anything. Finally, Rachel croaks out.

“We have to get to Bam.”

---

The Underground has gone empty.

There’s still noise, the babbling of the water, and the chirping of birds overhead. But New Home has a few dust bunnies that weren’t there before. All the perishables were neatly tied up and piled at the cave entrance, thrown haphazardly by someone who couldn’t go any further. The non-perishables are neatly arranged. His phone is gone.

There are a lot of hand-knit projects left on Asriel’s old bed. The drawers are clean. There’s no indication that he’s done anything but go for a long walk to sleep on the ground.

But Rachel knows in her gut. She knows.

The other monsters are here. Sans is looking at one paper bag. He laughs grimly.

“Couldn’a taken some home with you for the road, kid?”

No one answers him. Nothing does.

Rachel refuses to accept it. Asriel runs screaming down the paths refusing to accept it.

Then they reach the flowers. The Echo Flowers warble in Bam’s voice, warped by their petals. They sing of gratitude, with platitudes.

The problem is, Rachel reflects, that it’s all bullshit. And none of them have really done anything. The only one who’d done shit is dead.

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