aiko's otter den
red as the blood you didn't shed 4
Hello! You have reached the fic info website for aikotters. This is where you guys can find all of my docs and active fic information in one easy place! Please feel free to look around!
red as the blood you didn't shed - Your name, a long time ago, was Frisk. AU.
4. IV
Your point is not proven wrong at her house. In fact, it’s kind of proven more right.
That’s not how you cut things, Chara whispers in a mix of amazement and utter horror. That’s definitely not how you cut things. I would know, I cut things.
You say nothing. You can’t.
You’ve never punched a vegetable before. You’re not sure if you want to repeat the experience.
You’re still not sure how everything is on fire now either but… she seems happy. She seems to not want to kill you so… there’s that right?
It’s kind of all you have to go on right now.
She asks you to hit her with all you’ve got. You try to imagine hurting her, try to imagine making her feel what her spears did to you over and over and over again — and… you can’t.
You just can’t. So you punch her weakly, not like when you broke the stone at all. Because you don’t want to hurt her.
And… she doesn’t want to hurt you either.
All right good, because we couldn’t do that again.
They’re not wrong.
You have to fight Asgore.
Or at least talk to him.
He’s a pile of mush, Chara tells you. It’s all clicking into place a little more for you but you can’t think about it.
You hope Undyne is right and he’ll just let you go through but…
If there were six others here like you and they couldn’t go through, you don’t think he will either.
Why does everything have to be resolved like this?
People don’t always get along, Chara says simply.
And you know they’re right.
You know.
But you want to see Rachel. You can’t quite remember why anymore but… you want to see her.
You like Alphys, you decide. She seems kinda… not quite understanding of what she’s doing but you like her.
Though you have to agree with Chara, she’s uh… acting weird.
Mettaton breaks the wall and you try to remember if you made a safe place before coming here. You think you did. This will suck.
And it does. It sucks a lot.
Though he does keep complimenting you all of the time? Which is… kinda wacky?
You’re learning a bunch of new words. It’s neat.
Or maybe you’re, in Chara’s words, starting to disassociate. That sounds bad.
… You don’t know what a train is.
Chara makes a face and points at Alphys, who makes the symbol of a D with her clawed hands.
You consider crying. You really think it’ll help. But it may just give you a headache.
Everything is very very loud. Ugh.
Hey at least we know the fish and the lizard want to smooch.
You giggle hysterically at Chara. You don’t even know what it is and you know it’s true.
She’s lying, Chara says at one point. Dunno about what but she’s lying.
You don’t really understand this, but then, Chara’s usually right on these things. You’d just been thinking that she was scared.
You can lie and be scared.
There is that.
You feel that terrible urge to jusst be scared when you have to run around and defuse these weird moving things. Chara informs you that they’ll kill you if they go off, which? Doesn’t? Help?
If you have any fear of anything left in you after this, you’ll be surprised.
You manage it and… Alphys kind of helps.
You miss your cave all of a sudden. It was lonely and terrible and yes Rachel was there but it was lonely but at least nothing was actively trying to kill you in it.
You’re getting more steel as this goes on, I love it.
Actually you just want to break down but you don’t. You’re too determined to get back to do that.
Do you think she’ll believe you went on an adventure full of monsters?
… You doubt that.
(You love the spiders. When they aren’t thinking you like to hurt them, they’re all very sweet and even make you a tie for your hair.)
That dress is sparkly, you think. Rachel would look nice in it maybe. In a different color?
Less sparkly, more dodgy.
You’re not disagreeing with that one. At least Mettaton has a nice voice.
“You’ll be incinerated by these jets of fire.”
You’re gonna need so much therapy after this one.
What’s therapy?
You do get incinerated, as a matter of fact, because you trip. But you dust yourself off at the saved spot and get up again. At this point, you’re not sure if you’re running on determination to get through all of this anymore.
Use spite.
You have no idea what spite is, but the more this keeps happening, the more you think you start to understand it.
This time you actually don’t trip and still run out of time and —
Yeah you can see what Chara means by them lying now.
And… honestly? You don’t care all that much.
Five seconds later you can’t help the whoop that leaves your throat. Chara is howling laughter because now you can fire bullets. It’s all fake, you feel the lies seeping into your bones but you don’t care because finally you have something.
(It won’t last, you’re starting to realize you having things will never last so you have to enjoy it, you must.
I never thought I’d be happy to see Sans.
You protest, tokenly. You like Sans. He’s funny.
He’s weird.
… Everyone here is weird.
… Ok so?
You follow Sans and his shortcut.
“You really wanna get to the surface doncha kid?”
The surface?
Outside here but better.
Oh. You don’t think you lived on the surface but you don’t say anything.
“Is what you’re going back to really worth it? You have food, drink, friends… think about it.”
You don’t have to. And you don’t really have friends. “It doesn’t have Rachel,” you say, and you don’t know if that’s enough of a reason to go back, but you think you need to go back and apologize. And you want to in any case. You think she’d come back for you.
You hope she’d come back for you.
He looks at you and then grins a bit. It’s a grin he doesn’t seem to mean. “Let me tell you a story, kid.”
And he talks. It’s about Toriel, you’re sure it’s Toriel. It sounds like her, warm and kind and happy and caring and bulldozing. It puts a funny sensation in your stomach, that someone cares about you willingly, at all. Not just that person not being Rachel, but at all. Because Chara has cared for you and done more to help than Toriel did, but you don’t think that means Toriel doesn’t care.
“You know,” Sans says slowly. “You get it right? If it weren’t for that promise, that you’d be dead where you stand.”
You look at him. You want to muster up something, something worthy of those words, and… you can’t. You just, you just can’t. There’s not much in you left that hasn’t been stomped on this place. You don’t hate it here, he’s right, there’s plenty of things here, you and Rachel could live here but…
You shrug your shoulders and shake your head.
Sans grins. “C’mon, lighten up. Haven’t I done a good job so far? You’re still here an’ all. Still alive.”
You swallow something fuzzy. And you get up from the chair slowly and just walk away. He doesn’t call out to you, and you’re glad.
It lets you keep the hot furious tears in your eyes and your eyes alone.
Chara squeezes your shoulders and you smile. It hurts to smile.
But you do it. As long as you can smile, you might just be okay, all things considered.
You make it to the core.
And you’re right. Well, Chara’s right. It was all fake, all an act. Alphys… didn’t like you either.
No one here really ever liked you. No one here actually truly cares about you. They just want you for something, like a machine, or something.
It hurts. To think that hurts.
Chara rests their head on your hair. You smile, because it’s all you have left.
You’ve died so much in the past twenty minutes that you’re starting to forget Rachel’s face.
You don’t want that. So you grit your teeth and get up again.
“So what if a few people have to die?” Mettaton asks. “So what if you have to die?”
As if it doesn’t matter. As if none of it matters.
You swallow and then a new expression comes on to your face. You don’t think you like it much because it hurts to wear. And you follow Alphys’ advice one more time. It doesn’t work.
Instead, the room changes. The music starts. You take your Soul with a grim determination and your expression turns into a smile.
“Just try and hit me then,” you boast and you don’t mean it because you don’t feel anything. “I’ll dodge it all!”
The new Mettaton, with eyes and a mouth and a nose and everything, does a funny face at you and it all starts on fire.
But the funny thing is: you’re right.
And you keep dodging. You grin a bit, tie the ribbon you’d found onto your neck. You take the toy knife and deflect the lasers headed your way.
Woo! That’s it! Chara shouts.
You fire at the heart shaped core and eventually you watch his arms fall apart. You wince at the image because there should be blood and there’s not.
But he doesn’t give up.
And then a familiar voice talks, quiet, solemn, but certain. You take those moments to catch your breath, you take the moments to listen to their voices. You exhale, and then you smile a bit.
“They really love you here,” you say, and it hurts.
“They don’t love me here, but they love you,” you continue, and it hurts more. “And you love them. I think leaving them would be the worst pain in the world. Wouldn’t it?”
Mettaton grins at you. “Yes, darling, it just might.”
Eventually it ends, and you flop down. You ache all over again. Alphys’ words are a dull roar in your ear. You don’t hear it. You pick yourself up, the adrenaline fading, and start to walk away.
She follows you and then says, “You need a human soul and… and a monster soul to get through the barrier. You need to take Asgore’s soul. You need to kill him.”
Chara makes a noise that reverberates through your whole chest.
And you… you… look at your hands, bruised and filthy, your own blood dried in the lines. You say, because this doesn’t surprise you at all, “So it’s been the same for him and me all along.”
For some reason that makes you feel better. It’s the same stakes.
She apologizes and leaves. You don’t know what she’s apologizing for to you about. You’ve never been a person to them from the beginning.