aiko's otter den

red as the blood you didn't shed - Your name, a long time ago, was Frisk. AU.

1. I

Rachel named you Bam, after the night sky in her language. She named you after a number, too, before you knew what numbers were, before you knew what the sky was. She named you, but it never settled right in your skin. But no names really do, you realize, like you were something else a long time ago and you don’t know how to handle that fact. But you cannot word this. You don’t know how.

She called you a boy back then too, and that had never settled right either. It wasn’t wrong but it wasn’t right. But you didn’t want to scare her, to hurt her, to upset her and make her go away forever (it often felt like forever when she was gone) so you didn’t tell her this, and let her think what she wanted. It seemed to make her happy to do that, so you let her keep doing it.

Your name isn’t the name you choose either, in the end. You know it isn’t but you liked the sound of it, the feel of it swiping your fingers in a certain way. You like having a lot of ways to talk. There’s not enough water here, so you’re often thirsty.

The ghost at the end of a tunnel teaches it to you and then when Rachel shows you how, you learn twice as fast. She pats your head. This is what love feels like to you. Conditional. Earned.

Rachel is your light, you think, often. Light is not always good, but you don’t know this yet. At that time, her light is enough for you to live off of, even though your body and heart deep down yearns further. You delude yourself. You think that you’re content. You think that you’re happy.

(You have never been happy until now.)

You’re determined to keep her. You’re determined to stay with her. The ghost isn’t like that, you don’t want to bother the ghost, so you let it come to you instead. It can’t replace a real person, not at first.

And then she leaves for too long, and you’re hungry.

So you wander off in search of food. You’d been hungry before, starving, thirsty, a lot of things. The sensations are nothing new. It’s the loneliness that makes it hurt. Hunger is more than physical, you think, in not so many words.

Rachel had told you about fighting the other day. She’d warned you that people do it when they’re angry, when they’re sad, when they don’t want to be hurt, and that it is wrong to fight without it being for someone else. You believe her, despite the word fight making your chest warm and your stomach clench with anticipation.

But you understand the idea of fighting for something more than fighting at all. You think you would fight for Rachel. You know you really can’t, but if you had to, you could probably do anything for her if you tried.

But you aren’t fighting for Rachel when you fall down, deeper into the caves. You aren’t really fighting at all. You’re too tired. You’re much too tired by then.

The flowers are comfortable. Your body hurts, but these plants are comfortable and warmed by something far over your head, over the roof of the cave. Another light from much further up.

Is that the sun? You wonder. Is it one of the many stars? Rachel never told you that the stars were warm.

The ghost from the end of the tunnel shakes your shoulder and you open your eyes to them. Their big round eyes, rusty red from the light, the pink that dusts their cheeks forever because they’re dead. They taught you what death is like, with big words and solemn promises to not be as stupid as they were. There are things scarier than dying to you, and they know it. They think that’s pretty dumb, but they were like that once so they get it. But in turn they make you promise to try to not die anyway, because the people you love more than fear dying for will be heartbroken if you do not return. Rachel will be sad.

You promise them because they look at their shoes when they ask, and it clearly means a lot to them, and they let you stand up and call for help.

“Nobody will come,” they say after a few calls, preparing you to start walking. “Nobody ever —”

They are surprised when she does. A voice that is not Rachel, a voice that is concerned without hesitation, no shock, no sorrow, no other things. Just a single minded drive.

Your heart fills with something like hope and it’s not yours. It’s theirs, but you like the feeling and keep your discomfort to yourself.

“Mom…” they say in your ear, wistful. Bitter but wistful.

You call for help again and instead of her, a flower rises from the rest.

“Howdy,” it says. ‘You don’t have to be so loud there buddy! Let’s be friends.’ They hold out a leaf like a hand and you tilt your head. “My name’s Flowey. Flowey the Flower! Let me show you around!”

“Don’t,” says the ghost and the hope has faded to heartbreak. “Don’t, please.”

You shake your head immediately. The ghost knows well.

The flower doesn’t like that.

Whatever he hits you with hurts like hunger, but smaller and pointed. You gasp, but you dodge the second attack as the flower chirps out. “You really are an idiot.”

Your first moments in the Underground are nothing but pain and laughter. Well, at least one of these is familiar.

You bend your knees to jump for a third time but then flames shoot past your eyes and knock the flower away. It shrieks in irritation and vanishes in seconds. You frown, but then your heart jolts. The ghost is whimpering, almost impossible to hear. But you have always heard the ghost. You reach out behind your back and loop your wrist against theirs, so it doesn’t look weird, so it can’t be seen.

“Do not be afraid, my child,” she says after tutting away the flower. “My name is Toriel. It looks like you’re quite lost.”

She doesn’t understand that you do not feel fear. You feel loneliness and that is much worse.

You nod because yes that’s true. You want to shake your head because you don’t really understand the idea of being lost, just of losing things. But you are not in a place where Rachel can find you and call your name, so you suppose that she isn’t wrong.

“Come with me,” she says, offering her hand to you. “I’ll help you through these dangerous ruins.”

It’s significant, this moment you’re sure it’s significant, but you can’t place why. So you take her hand and hope you’ll find an answer.

(This is your first experience with dissatisfaction and knowing it. It fills you with determination, though you don’t know what that is either.)

But you will. Because the ghost knows and he often tells you a lot of things you don’t know.

You’re always grateful to them, even if they won’t tell you their name.

Well, you won’t tell me yours, they say to you and you smile. Because you would. Just nobody’s asked.

---

Miss Toriel (not mom, for some reason that word makes your heart ache and you think of Rachel but even that isn’t quite right either) guides you gently, lets you try a couple of things. She encourages you to take a candy and you do. You don’t eat it but you want to. Who knows when you will get another chance later? Who knows if you’ll ever see it again? You want to share it with Rachel.

She lets you press your bare, hurting feet into the “leaves” and they tickle, brushing in the gaps between your toes in a way that softens your heart and makes you breathe easier.

You’re still hurting. Miss Toriel doesn’t notice. She just seems… anxious, hopeful, things that Rachel is but isn’t whenever she’s in the cave with you. She hurries with you because the cave is dangerous, the ruins have traps that could hurt you. You don’t tell her that you’re quite hurt already. She probably won’t listen. It’s like being hungry. Besides, maybe you can stop hurting when you get to where she wants to go.

You miss Rachel. You should return to her soon.

Still, she takes you to her home. She takes you and feeds you and gives you clothes. You don’t put them on. It feels wrong for some reason.

You think you should be happy. She asks you what your favorite pie is. You don’t have a favorite thing of any kind, except a person. You miss her. You should go see her soon.

These clothes are warm wool, she says. A bit scratchy, and she’s running her claws gently through your hair like a comb.

“Would you like a bath, child?” she asks.

Bath? Bath is… cleaning. Bath is water and soap and eye stinging. You’re not sure if you want it, but you feel scratchy, so a bath might help.

It does until she sees you are hurt. Then she nearly cries, tracing your bruises and bumps and the dried blood with guilty fingers.

You wish she wouldn’t. Rachel crying twists your stomach. This twists your heart.

You need to leave soon before both turn into knots, you think.

But you don’t say so. Instead you watch her place the ointment on and memorize the sensation, fumble through how to tie knots for two times until you’ve mastered it and smile when she looks at you because people seem to like that. All three people you know prefer when you draw up your mouth and don’t bare your teeth.

You’d bared your teeth at Rachel once, you think. She’d fled. You’ve never done it again. You don’t know why it’s bad.

Rachel’s weak and you are frightening, murmurs the ghost and you wrinkle your nose. None of those things make sense. You’re not even sure if they matter.

But Miss Toriel carries you easily. She looks at your body, disapproving of something.

“Really now child, you’re much too small and thin.”

You fail to understand the significance.

(You don’t know what kindness is you know what light is and Toriel is not your light.)

(You have always needed many lights. You are the night you are the night itself and the night is supposedly full of stars but even so you do not want her to be your light. You don’t know why but you do not.)

(Maybe, like Rachel does, she belongs to somebody else. So you are not going to hold on. Rachel is not yours, you realize but you are hers. You don’t know if you are ready to be anyone else’s.)

You don’t say so. You sleep on your first bed, in your first pajamas and she is humming as you sleep.

And she is watching.

You don’t know why this unnerves you, but it does.

You are filled with something like fear.

You don’t like it.

---

You decide to leave after some time.

Not because Miss Toriel isn’t kind and loving and good because you think she is all those things (you can’t really explain the concepts, but she lets you sign and sound out words and is more patient with you than Rachel, but you think that’s because she’s older. Rachel said older people sometimes did know better and this helped a lot in confirming that.) but because you feel an itch of restlessness. These clothes don’t belong to you, you think.

Children wear stripes here, supplies the ghost who won’t say their name. They sound bored now, the more time you spend with Toriel the less interested they become. Do you want a knife?

No, you don’t. You’re not even sure why you would need one.

You know why, says the ghost, but they shrug it off anyway.

You think you know why. The idea niggles in the back of your mind, red as the blood that’s seeped from your fingers, red as the color of your eyes in certain lights.

You do not want to do that.

You don’t think you have the courage.

So you refuse to do that.

Toriel, though she is kind and loving and good, nearly doesn’t give you much choice.

She attacks you with fire, her eyes steely and set, and she doesn’t hesitate. But maybe she means differently, maybe she doesn’t want to hurt you because even though it hurts, she starts making them easier to avoid, better for you.

But you don’t attack. You keep the toy knife in your new pockets and you don’t attack. You keep your hands in your newfound pockets (your hands are so warm now.) You’re getting better at dodging, you think, until you see the look of horror on her face as white hot red burning pain fills your body like peppered kisses of heat except so much worse and then you die.

It sucks but you die.

And then you’re alive again in your bed, gasping for breath, clutching your chest as tears fall down your face. She killed you.

She didn’t mean to but she killed you. She killed you, the nice person hurt you and fought you and killed you. They weren’t supposed to do that, they weren’t—

You sob and sob all night, but quietly, because you know what death is like now. You know why people fear it.

And you know why Chara the ghost is so hurt.

Their fingers fold soothingly over your own.

Just get past her, they tell her. Don’t gotta hurt her. Just gotta pass her. And then you’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out one step at a time.

You nod. It’s for Rachel. You’ll do this for her. She is probably worried that you aren’t here.

That is enough to fill you with determination.

10. X

Time passes. You start seeing less and less of everyone. It can’t be helped, and you were never very close to begin with, in your opinion, but the Underground is slowly growing quieter.

Which is fine. Every morning you take a careful jog to warm up. You climb vines, you knit, you read one of the Dreemurr’s books. You cook. You keep busy.

You tinker.

Most of everything has been taken out, but scraps, things from the dump, anything left from above that people forgot, you take from it. No one is going to come and claim it, you think.

Alphys upgraded your phone years ago, the keychain compresses things, including your knife (it’s so cute now, a little rainbow knife but it’s much sharper now too), and you can store more in your phone now. And it has a touch screen and folds. It’s also nigh invulnerable. None of your falls have even given it a scratch thankfully.

Rachel’s gotten a bit taller than you. You’re jealous but you understand. Asriel is finally growing again. He will be terrifying someday.

They’ve stopped fighting. As much. As loudly.

And they’re there to greet you when you reach the edges of New Home. They come once a week with anything useful, anything they can find. It’s the only consistency of time you have now.

They’re glaring at each other. Sans wisely says puberty, Toriel says they’re like cute little siblings. Asgore, more and more often, just watches the three of you with worry.

You know it’s just that they’ve both seen the worst of each other and you’ve seen the worst of them too. Or you did once, you don’t know about now.

Asriel is holding a box. “Yarn,” he announces with a smirk. “For that blanket you said you were working on.”

You smile and take it with thanks.

Rachel doesn’t give you what she’s holding at first, looking you up and down. She looks happier now. At some point, she must have stopped believing this was a dream. “Those clothes we got look good on you.”

“Thanks.” It is nice to have new clothes though.

“You called him cute,” says Asriel accusingly. Some of Flowey’s petulance and jealousy is coming in more and more as he ages, like it grows with his horns or something.

If Chara was here, they’d laugh.

Rachel makes a face. “That isn’t what I said, Asriel what is the matter with you?”

You decide to derail this before it gets going. “How was the telescope?”

Rachel grins, full of the familiar light and intensity that she gives space. “It was amazing, Bam! I could have stayed there all night! There are some pictures in the box. Also we found this little model you can use.”

You beam. “Where are you going next?” Living through them is surprisingly fun because they usually visit more when they’re back.

“Mom wants us to see the sea.” Asriel grumbles. “Again. She says it’s a different one but I think I still have salt in my fur.”

Rachel snorts at this and you can’t mistake it. She’s happy. She’s free. She’s alive. It’s like a great burden’s off of her shoulders, barring a single chip.

You keep your expression happy.

“Will you bring back some seashells?” you ask instead. “And some stones? The shores of Waterfall are starting to sink in, so I want to make proper paths again.”

“I have a bucket for that!” Asriel assures you. He squeezes your knee and you swallow the pain in your throat.

Rachel just nods but she’s looking at you hard, a bit too close if you’re honest. “What about your stuff at Old Home?”

“I’m going to finish moving it all soon,” you assure her. “There’s not much left. Undyne moved most of it. I just need to plant the rest of the plants Miss Toriel gave me in the Ruins with the graves and that’ll be that.”

You’d convinced everyone to let you let the Ruins and the old home slowly go into plants and cave light. You’d buried the remains of the other children there yourselves with their things. They were the tragedies, and time would forget them, but for now they could be honored by being dappled in surface sunlight.

The only things you’d kept were Chara’s and that was because they’d asked you to.

“Hmm…” She looks you up and down again and then says, “It’s summer now, once we’re back from the water we should be around more. Everyone’s going on this one though.”

Except me. You try not to pout. “Rachel, I’m fine.”

“You’re alone,” she said. “That’s not fine.”

“Alphys is working hard to fix this. It’s okay.” Well, every time you tried to cross the way at New Home you stopped breathing but again, it was being looked into. “And you guys have lives now. The humans and monsters aren’t exactly perfect, right?”

“No,” she agrees. “But it still should have been you.”

“But it’s not,” you say before the envy rises in her eyes again, which it does a lot. “It’s you, and from what it sounds like, you’re doing great just by being yourself.”

She makes a face. “I guess.”

“It’s more me being cute than her being smart,” Asriel says to you, self-assured as a prince would be.

The look on her face will haunt your nightmares for days, so you don’t agree with it.

“Rachel, this wouldn’t be happening if you hadn’t agreed,” you point out. “You helped your people and then extended it to the monsters. All I did was start things. You’re doing the real work.”

“… Yeah, I guess.”

You never realized how lowly she thought of herself until after you’d seen her SOUL.

But you hold none of it against her. You can’t. She was your light but she was still a person.

“Oh.” She rummages in the bag. “Toriel insisted on giving you pie and dinner again.”

You take the soup and the pie and laugh. “It’s not snails this time!”

Both Asriel and Rachel shudder.

You laugh again. It feels good to laugh.

You sit with them for a while. Asriel tells you about school and how people try to pet his horns and fail because he’s too fast, how Monster Kid brags about you and your fight with Undyne sometimes when she’s nervous (your heart warms at the thought of her still thinking of you), about how Mettaton is running some sort of show. Rachel tells you about the eclipse she stayed up all night to watch, gives you a SD card full of pictures and files you can look at on your phone. You tell them about what you’ve been finding in the lab, pass them the digitized copies of the videos that had been in the True Lab once, how you’re almost done finally transcribing all the research, including that from someone who seemed to no longer exist.

“W.D. Gaster existed once,” Asriel says eventually. “But that was like, timelines and timelines ago. He was around and then he was gone. At some point no matter what I reset as Flowey, he never came back. But his imprint was still there, like on Sans and Papyrus.”

“He was the one who made the CORE, right?” Rachel asks. She had taken out a notepad and started scratching at it.

Asriel nods. “Think so. I could never reset that far back to know what happened. Only up until I was revived with determination. I remember asking about him though. Sans’ eyes got real blue when Papyrus ever asked him.”

You nod. “I’ve never seen him here, and it’s probably a good thing. But certain places are chillier and the fog makes me feel watched. I think I’ve gotten everything I can from the True Lab though, so when everyone comes with you when you come back, it may be good to go through it and then close the lifts off.”

“Probably,” Asriel agrees. “I don’t wanna ever go in there again if I can help it. I don’t know how you can.”

“It’s better than staring at the ceiling,” you say, but that’s all.

Rachel winces again. You don’t know what she’s thinking.

---

Eventually, they leave. The sky outside from this distance is starting to get dark and even though they all know the worn path by now, it’s better to be safe than sorry. You watch until you can’t see their silhouettes anymore and then say,

“Aren’t you going with them Sans?”

Sans grins at you from the shadows. “You’re getting good, kid.”

“No one stands that still,” you tell him. He thrusts a greasy paper bag at you. You try not to roll your eyes. He’s been trying to get you to like Grillby’s for years. You suck it into your phone with the rest of the items though because you don’t want to be rude.

“Gonna be a while before we get back,” says the skeleton easily. He looks tired. Much as skeletons don’t have bags under their eyes, you think he could. “Wanted you to have something for the road.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” you tell him, baffled.

“Well duh, but it’s not like Grillby’s is gonna come to you now is he?” Sans looks smug. “And you like it, you know ya do kid.”

“Not as much as you and his ketchup.”

“Well that bottle’s made just for me, so.”

“Go home, please,” you say, laughing. “I promise I’ll stretch it out as much as I can.”

He huffs at you. “You’re so rude to my old bones.”

You squint at him. Then you exhale. “Sorry I brought up Gaster-ssi.”

“Eh, it’s fine. I figured you’d find somethin’ on him eventually. Thanks for being nice about it.”

“Yes sir,” you say agreeably, and you wait.

Sans slips some ketchup out of his own bag and takes a gulp. Then he says slowly, “You sure you’re fine, kid? It’s not like Toriel didn’t keep to herself for a long time and she’s still workin’ that out. Her and ol’ Fluffybuns.”

You nod. “I was alone before this,” you say easily. It’s so much easier to say now. “Everyone comes and visits and worries and helps out so it’s much better than before. It’ll just be quieter for a bit. Besides, you can just call me if you’re worried.”

He chortles at you. “Guess so. Eat that before it gets cold.”

You smile and nod, but you don’t relax until he’s properly gone and you have Papyrus on the phone to prove it.

Then you hang up and exhale deeply.

You feel the tidal wave of feeling and existence coming and finally, after all this time of holding it together, of watching everyone come and go, of working and working for the sake of the promise, you let yourself break at the edge of the world Chara may have come from. Just for a while. Just because you truly need to breathe. You scream and scream and scream out all of your pain, all of your sorrow, all of the aches in your soul and weep until your throat aches and your voice is hoarse.

Then, slowly, you pick yourself up from the cave floor and trudge inside.

You have a lot of work to do, and not much time to do it in.

---

You finish your work one evening, and get a call from Asgore.

“Howdy, Frisk,” greets the man over the phone.

“Good evening Asgore-ssi,” you say softly in return. He lets out a huff of breath but doesn’t protest. You can’t call them your parents, you’ve never even experienced such things. They don’t make sense to you, even knowing in your head the intimacy of two pairs. “How is the sea?”

“About the same as the last one,” he says cheerfully. “Asriel is having a wonderful time. Not as much as Undyne though. I don’t know how Alphys plans to drag her back to shore.”

You smile. “That’s great.”

“The stars are beautiful too,” he adds gently and you wince because no one can see you. “It’s not as fun without you, Frisk. Maybe next time we’ll set up a picnic near the edge of the cave.”

“That’d be nice,” you say. “Did they tell you I need help with the true lab downstairs?”

“They did, and we’ll be there, the whole lot.” Asgore pauses. “I’m proud of you, child.”

Your chest doesn’t warm. “Thank you sir,” you say instead. “That means a lot.”

“The research is taking too long,” he says gently. “You deserve to see the sky.”

“I can see it from the doorway,” you tell him. “It’s very beautiful. It’s probably different out there.”

“You deserve the breeze, child,” he says gently.

You’ve heard this all before but you agree anyway. You know he’s being kind again. “I can’t wait to feel it.” Then you yawn, quite uncontrolled.

“You must be tired, I’ll let you rest.”

“Give Toriel-ssi my regards,” you say sleepily.

He promises he will and you hear the call end.

You take a deep breath and roll to turn off the light. There’s no point in fretting now.

The next morning, you make sure everything is neatly tucked away in its place. You’ve hung the pictures from the other day in New Home, varying non-perishables you don’t want to risk bringing left on the shelves. The dishes are washed. Everything’s clean. You lock up the garden to New Home carefully and leave the keys where you’d found them once years ago. Your phone is charged in your pocket and everything you need for it in your other pocket. Everything else is in the box.

You begin the journey back to where it all began.

It takes a few hours, but you’ve practiced for this, carefully jogging, testing your stamina, pushing your limits. You make sure to stop in Waterfall, where it’s cooler, after raiding what’s left of Hotland one last time. You stop and look at the Echo Flowers. You’ve left memos for yourself at these before. You can do something similar now.

“Thank you,” is all you say to the flowers. They echo your words back in warbles. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”

And then you keep walking. You have a warmer coat this time, but you put a spare into your phone.

You make sure the remains of Sans’ and Papyrus’ home is locked up tight like Undyne’s was. The ball game is still in place but you ignore it this time.

You keep walking.

You can see your breath.

Finally, you reach Old Home.

It’s easy to travel the rest of the way through. Your limbs are longer and you are stronger. But now you reach the graves, and the hole that leads to the only home you’d known before. You grit your teeth but first you bow to the graves. “Soon,” you promise, and taking the rope that’d been tied to something above, you begin to climb. You’ve tested the weight repeatedly, and now you pull yourself up into the gloom. It’s dark compared to a lot of the places you’ve been but you’re named for the night. You like the dark sometimes. You keep walking, trusting your hands, your feet, your heart.

You reach the light again soon, the weak little filter of light up above where rock is in the way. Your tower is still standing strong. There’s another rope just near it, though Rachel had never needed one.

You regard it for a moment, regard the symbol of the three eyes on one wall. You take your phone, snap a picture of it, and keep walking. The path changes. It narrows, too big for you alone, but it narrows.

It seems like you will never reach the end.

You take another deep breath. You let it out loudly.

Seeing the unknown once again, with nothing and no one but you to meet it this time, you are filled with determination.

The world shifts for just a moment under your hands. Then before your eyes, great doors that dwarf the world appear before you.

You set your shoulders.

“I’m coming, Chara,” you say, and walk into them, pushing them open.

next →