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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2. II

There are letters left behind. Some in New Home. Some are in Home. They’re like diary entries in a clumsy scrawl.

Not enough science knowledge reads one. Ask Asriel about DT vs magic if there’s a difference. Maybe Sans if he hasn’t been in the ketchup.

Not enough nutmeg, reads another. Ask Toriel-ssi.

Don’t worry, says a third. There’s enough DT to swallow the stars.

That one scares her. It’s not in Bam’s handwriting.

There’s one book full of words. Memories that couldn’t be Bam’s, who had only known the cave and the light, fill the page, interspersed with gibberish that isn’t words but Rachel understands down to her bones. In between the entries are awkwardly placed apologies, whispers of death by thousands of spears or a laser carving through a chest, and vivid, loud jeering written in capital letters, screaming for Bam’s death. For the freedom of all monsters.

Of the duty of a little liege who had died out of love for monsters and hatred for humans.

The longer she holds it, the more it makes her stomach churn. She drops it.

It hits the floor and everyone jumps to look at her. She gives them an apologetic bow of the head.

Toriel steps over to her — maybe she thinks Rachel needs comfort and wants to know why — and takes the bundle.

As she reads, her soft honey-brown eyes grow cold then tired, then old. “I see.”

“Mom,” Asriel says softly. “What is it?”

She looks down at him less so now. “We should have kept a better eye on him here. Alone with his thoughts, along with his memories, he must have thought…”

He must have thought the tower was the only way to be free. And maybe it was.

For a moment, envy curdles in Rachel’s stomach. Of course, he could open the door by himself. Of course, he could go in and sneak and prepare everything to go and fool all of them. The envy fades into guilt.

They had just… left him there hadn’t they? They had come to visit, a lot and Rachel’s friends had found him sweet and interesting, but boring because he couldn’t leave. It must have been isolating.

You left him isolated anyway, reminds a voice in her head. You would have left him forever to climb the tower and see the stars you found anyway. You would have anyway and not cared.

The problem, Rachel knows, is that she would have cared. If she hadn’t been able to care, she wouldn’t have gotten this far.

“So he likely climbed the tower…” Asgore says heavily. “Or is climbing now. No one never leaves the place, not since her.”

Thinking of Arlene makes her stomach churn. And though the elder seems to say it with no inflection whatsoever, it hurts anyway. It hurts to think of Arlene, who she hasn’t seen in almost six years.

Not that that is a bad thing by any means.

“Idiot,” says Asriel. He kicks one of the books, ignores his mother’s sharp click of the tongue. “You could have just talked to us, said something, anything.”

Why? Rachel wants to say. Why say anything? I taught him not to.

Guilt is a bitch.

---

They leave the underground to go inform everyone else. Undyne and Alphys are waiting for them back in the village. Asriel always winces when he enters, his own death still singing strongly in him after thousands of years.

Never mind that he could probably knock them all out with a paw swipe and a few magic swords. Monsters were peaceful now.

She thinks of thorny vines around her entire body, squeezing until she’d popped, and keeps her thoughts to herself.

It is a choice to be a pacifist, to not FIGHT when you don’t have to.

Monsters never really made that choice without someone making another one first.

She reaches the car and slides in. Thoughts whirring, she doesn’t realize they’re home until the van squeaks to a halt.

Rachel looks at her hands and clenches them into fists.

The easiest solution to this situation is to wait. To forget about Bam and move on with their lives. That’s what he had requested for them anyway. Either Bam would go all the way up the tower and leave, stay there, or he’d die. None of those things were in their control.

And he was, theoretically, the only one who could open the door.

Well… there were others who could help, surely. But could she face Arlene again, even for Bam? When Bam had wanted to leave them behind?

The betrayal hurts.

She goes inside, shrugs off her coat. The beauty of the ocean, the tantalizing salt air, all memories of their vacation are gone now, because the moment they’d all taken their eyes off of him, Bam had left, like a rebellious child.

Rachel snaps the rubber band on her wrist absently and jolts from her thoughts.

“We—”

The monsters, having been talking in various levels of noise and fear this whole time, drowned out by her own singular focus, turn to look at her. Asriel is rubbing his face with his paws.

“We need to find Arlene,” she says after stumbling and clearing her throat three times.

Toriel looks murderous at the thought. Rachel knows, she knows that Arlene went out of the way to interact with Bam once and he’d never seemed the same afterward. She also knows that wherever Arlene is now, she’s somewhere she can see the sky as clear as day.

Rachel almost wonders if the woman ever left the caves, to begin with, but knowing her she must have. She had not liked them either and had not belonged anywhere else.

“Her mother was the one who left us in that place,” Undyne says-shouts. “She left Frisk in there.”

Rachel twitches. “I know that.” She’s patient now, patient still. She’s bad at waiting but good at being patient. “But she still would know how to get in.”

“She did not teach you how to enter the tower.” Asgore’s voice is soft, wary.

Rachel shakes her head. “Not really. She told me how I could get in, and that was with Bam’s help. I don’t know how to push the doors open on my own. I wouldn’t have stuck around if I knew.” It’s better not to sugarcoat with monsters. If they don’t know you’re lying, they’re going to guess and that’s the last thing she needs. “Not by myself.”

“Does that mean the uh, qualifications are i-in-heh-heh-herent?” Alphys asks, shaking her head and wringing her hands.

“No,” she says because this is true, this she knows to be true. “The conditions for getting in or out of the tower are not inherent, but they are built upon by something or someone. You need the resolve and the willingness to bear it. But you have to be worthy.”

She thinks she was worthy. She knows Bam was worthy, monster or not.

“So we could go in,” Undyne says with all of her teeth. “Kick all the ass ever, find Frisk, and get out?”

Rachel shakes her head. “She… she only made it out with a lot of luck and skill and desperation and probably insanity. And you all are monsters. Even boss monsters don’t have much HP. You’d be cut down in seconds.”

“How much LOVE do you gain inside the tower?” Toriel asks this question with smoke lifting around her claws.

Rachel thinks about it. Then she shakes her head. “Arlene would know the answer to that.”

And none of them know where she was anymore.

---

The kids go to school the next day.

It feels like the antithesis of what they should be doing but there’s no point in acting like anything is out of the ordinary. No one out here knows Bam beyond the stories she’s told her friends, and they were always skeptical because that mountain, that cave, was bad news.

If only they knew.

Her friends are cheerful and in great spirits, and Rachel reflexively brags about seeing the ocean and the great pictures she’d gotten of the sky. That’s as far as she goes because the trip is soured. She lies, she’s so very good at lying about things being wrong. Even if Asriel broods and looks more like a homicidal flower than he has in years, no one suspects her, the Friend to All Monsters and ambassador of those left to rot under the mountains of Ebott. No one knows there’s anything wrong.

She wishes they did, that they would just look, that they would just see. If only they could see all of her, even the ugly bits.

Rachel pinches her own wrist. No, that’s too much. That’s too far. She can’t ask that of everyone. She had been keeping secrets. She can’t assume they should be able to see it and know.

Asriel is glaring at her at lunch, too surly to explain to MK. She texts him about it and he makes his expression soft, not angry or

—cruel—

Uncomfortable. MK relaxes a little and goes to chatter his ear off again.

Rachel sighs and goes back to her meal, her friends, her normal life.

Should they really be looking for Bam? He wanted them to be happy and focus on their lives outside of here, she was sure. He wouldn’t have waited until they were gone and couldn’t stop him, couldn’t try to persuade them.

Right?

“Yo, monster girl.”

Rachel looks up and grins. “Hey, Kris.”

Kris is cold and tired and angry and makes all of her friends bristle, but they always greet her with a wry smile and dry eyes, and nothing short of honesty. “You look glum.”

They sit down without hesitation, jostling Theresa and her cute -childish— pigtails. She scowls.

“The vacation had a bit of a sour note,” she lies. She always wonders about his tattered clothes and unkempt hair. They make her think of Bam.

Which hurts now. Fuck.

Theresa elbows her. “Why didn’t you say so?”

She flushes hot with embarrassment. “It’s silly.”

“It’s not silly if it’s your problem,” echoes Sue, who had been glaring at mushy peas.

Rachel’s face warms further as she meets Kris’ blood-red eyes. They are mild with interest like she’s under a microscope. Sometimes they loos disgusted. Sometimes bored. Sometimes, like they’re waiting for a line to be read. Like they’ve seen it all before and they’re just waiting and waiting —

Huh. Waiting.

Hold on.

She feels something threaten to lurch out of her throat.

“My friend, my… he’s like a little brother. Bam. He’s… he’s run away.”

And now she’s crying. Even though no one had told her not to, even though it shouldn’t matter, she shouldn’t care, she does.

She doesn’t know why.

Her friends rub her back and offer to help and do all the soothing things you’re supposed to do. They worry and coo gently.

But Kris keeps looking at her with familiar eyes. Like she’s surprised them. Like she’s done something they didn’t expect.

It’s a look she’d seen before: on Bam’s face.

Red is the color of determination, a reminder whispers in her mind. Oh.

“Kris?” she says slowly. “Could you help too?”

She watches them smile slowly, with teeth sharper than Undyne’s. “Sure,” they say. “I was getting bored.

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