aiko's otter den

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

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7. VII

Don’t you realize that being nice just makes you get hurt? If you had just gone through that door, without caring about anyone, you wouldn’t be as unhappy as you are now. So I don’t get it. If you really did everything the right way, why are things the way they are now? Is life really that unfair?

It is, you want to tell Flowey as you stir. It’s very unfair. But that’s okay. Fair doesn’t necessarily mean good.

You open your eyes to a familiar spot, the heat of the caves on your skin. Chara hovers beside you.

Look at the knife, they tell you, and you do. It’s a glimmering rainbow of light. You sheathe it before it can hurt your eyes.

The world resets to before the bad things happen (to others, bad has happened to you and has since you were aware), but you can’t seem to entirely erase the good. Good. You will save them too.

You decide to go to Alphys then.

But then you get a phone call. You suppose you’ll go to Alphys afterwards.

The rollercoaster you run through after that is adorable, but Rachel’s death, the deaths of the other souls, Flowey’s face, linger too long for you to really enjoy it. But you try. You smile and you try because this is all fake really but they don’t have to know that. They don’t have to know that you know the worst has come to pass and your reason to leave is currently decaying and will be gone forever if you can’t make a miracle.

Still, it’s really cute, watching Undyne and Alphys flail around like that. All of it escapes you but…

“You need to tell her,” you say after a moment of silence.

Alphys jumps, as if she’s forgotten you’re sitting on a garbage pile. “Oh no I-I-I—”

You shake your head. “You need to.” Lying or hiding things only makes them harder to bear,

Look at the baby gays, Chara whispers in wonder. So young and so stupid.

You really want to know what they mean but you think you can guess. “Go on a date,” you insist.

“S-Sh-She’s out of my league.”

“Go,” you insist again. “Happiness is good. Try to be happy if you can.”

Because you tried to do that with Rachel. You had both tried your absolute best, but now, knowing what you are at the lack of her, at the blurry images that come up whenever you close your eyes and think of her, you can’t be sure how much of it is actually real.

Alphys talks about lies, about lying to Undyne, about all the horrible things she’s done. You seat yourself on a piece of the dump, legs swinging and say.

“Rachel lies to me a lot.” Alphys pauses, and you pretend the knowledge of Rachel’s dead body being somewhere isn’t making you want to throw up. “She has to leave a lot and leave me down there, and I think she lies about why. I think she lies about things she doesn’t know because she’s a kid like me, but… But she’s still my precious treasure. She’s very plain and teases me and makes jokes, but she’s still precious to me. I think Undyne will think of you like that, if not better. But she won’t do anything if you don’t let her.”

“It’s better to live a lie where both are happy,” Alphys insists.

You shake your head no. “She’s… Rachel always ends up feeling better when she stops having to lie. Sure, it hurts sometimes but… I’d rather have a relationship with someone that we built up ourselves. With the truth.”

All everyone else’s lying has done has made you exhausted, all the lies that your body is wrapped up in without any truths is exhausting.

You don’t know if you’re doing the right thing here, but you’re tired. You’re very tired.

But at least Alphys is willing to try and practice being honest with you, even if it’s not about the things you want to ask about. At least until Undyne shows up again.

Chara is laughing quietly but it’s a happy sort of laughter, a fondness that you didn’t think the ghost knew how to give. You don’t push however, you just watch peacefully on your trash can chair.

Did she just dunk her future girlfriend into a trashcan? They guffaw at some point, practically in tears.

Despite it all, you’re grinning. She did.

Undyne, you have to agree, is really, really cool.

Everyone here is really nice when they’re not trying to kill you for your SOUL. When you’re not useful to them, they grow kinder.

Isn’t it supposed to be the opposite of that?

---

You start to head to Alphys’ Lab, hours later. You sleep in Mettaton’s hotel with money beforehand. You dream of awful things.

She’s not there.

That’s okay, you’re willing to wait, until you find her note.

God you wish you could read. Or at least read this.

Chara reads it out for you and you go to the room in the north and enter the lift. You’d thought this was a bathroom. You press a button and then you fall.

“Ow,” you mutter when you’ve crashed and can get up again.

Ow, agrees Chara. How are you not dead?

Honestly, you have no idea. Still, you twitch yourself slowly up into something resembling movement and shuffle towards the exit. The doors open easily.

Either that elevator was broken or we’re haunted.

You kind of expect to be haunted at this point because Chara’s here.

You step outside. A chill runs down your spine. This place feels unhappy.

Chara shrinks into you. There are screens, and they turn on at your curious fingers. Slowly, Chara reads and your stomach turns queasy.

“Soul power can only be derived from what was once living,” says one.

“I’ve done it. Using the blueprints, I’ve extracted it from the human SOULs. I believe this is what gives their SOULs the strength to persist after death. The will to keep living… The resolve to change fate. Let’s call this power…” Determination.”

Suddenly you throw up. It comes up hot and fast and feels worse than the missiles aimed for your skull. Chara shakes beside you and you wipe your mouth.

Dragging yourself upright, you keep going. Chara keeps reading them to you in a numb voice. You turn it over in your mind, over and over.

Eventually you reach three sinks. Something comes out of the third one. You want to scream but your voice is caught in your throat. It’s smiling but, even though it’s smiling, you feel like you’re going to cry. It hurts.

Your cell phone crackles with three voices, come join the fun, they say. They keep whispering and you drag your voice up and say “No” in the firmest voice you can. They all make varying disgusted noises and hang up on you, leaving a red key behind.

What was that? Chara whispers.

You don’t want to know, but you think that they have a good idea anyway.

You go into the next room and slip the key in. It glows red.

You swallow and continue to wander.

A room is full of beds. They’re not clean anymore, but looking at them, you feel like they were once, less dusty, less dead.

Hey, says Chara softly. You’ve probably never seen it, but monsters turn into dust when they die.

You swallow and think of the many dusty items you’d found. The items of the dead children.

You keep walking. Another monster comes out of your reflection in a mirror, a giant bird. You smile at it timidly. You aren’t afraid of them exactly, you realize after a while. You just can’t understand them. And that’s what scares you. The way they attack you almost feels like talking. So you smile and try to bear it.

This one goes too.

How are the flowers still alive down here you wonder?

There’s another monster shaped like a dog. They have a thousand tongues and a hundred paws and more keep forming as they pin you to the ground. You laugh because you have to, because these children, you realize, cannot see your fear. That will only hurt them.

You see cats between its legs.

… It’s adorable. You pet them. You play with them using a stick you’ve been carrying for a while.

Eventually you stop and they stop and leave you be.

You keep walking. Chara reads the screens absently now as you walk.

Looking at the machines makes your eyes mist over but you look at them anyway. You look at the TV (you know what it is now, you know what so much more is now) anyway and you watch.

The first one is cute. It’s a little strange but it’s cute.

Mom liked puns, Chara says quietly. Like Sans said, she’s always thought of funny things.

Another thing clicks into place.

You play the next video. You listen. You listen to all of them.

Something in Chara gives and they fall apart on you again, sobbing and sobbing through the end, like they’d never been all together in the first place.

It’s my fault, they tell you. I did this, didn’t I? I did this to him. I hurt him like this. I broke him like this. He’s hurting you because of me.

You don’t want to lie.

I hate humans Bam, Chara says. And you knew this. You knew. But it’s different to hear it said outright. They hurt me, Bam. They hurt me and the people I treasured. They hurt me and they laughed. They always laughed because I cried. I wanted that village to pay. They killed. They killed and would have killed me. But then I ran away down here. And I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be happier than the stars in the sky.

But I couldn’t forgive them. I can’t forgive them. Even now I can’t. I know monsters aren’t the best either. I know monsters aren’t great now, look what they did to one who didn’t try and hurt them, but I still hate them. I hate that village. I don’t ever want to go back. I want to watch it burn and let the monsters trample on it.

Okay, you say. I don’t think I could do it, but I think it’s okay to want to.

Chara sniffles, then laughs. I don’t think it is Bam.

You can call me Frisk, you know, you remind them. You don’t really know what to say, you’re not even entirely sure if you understand Chara’s feelings, but you understand they are very very strong and very much full of pain. You don’t want to abandon that pain or turn away from it, just like you can’t turn away from the fact that you’ve died a lot, even though nobody remembers it. Besides, you can’t turn away from your willingness to destroy everything when seeing Rachel dead.

Those are bad thoughts, Frisk, Chara tries to tell you.

You think my thoughts of Rachel are bad, you tell them. But you’ve never told me not to think that way.

All of these things are bad.

There can’t be nothing good.

It feels like it.

They’re not wrong, it kinda does.

We’ll just have to make it happy, you tell yourself. And them.

Chara says nothing. Then they say, Rachel reminds me of me and Flowey and Toriel and Asgore and everyone. But you don’t remind me of anyone. It’s like you’re still being put together, even though you’re still you. Does that make sense?

No, but I’ve been in a cave for a long time. I don’t think I’m ever going to make sense. That’s why I have to leave Rachel.

You didn’t kill Asgore or Flowey. I don’t think you’ll have to now either.

Maybe not but… You take a deep breath and wipe your eyes. I don’t think I’m going to do anything if I stay with her. I think I’ll be happy but I don’t think I’ll do anything. And I need her too much. What if she makes friends who like stars? I don’t like stars. I’ll just drag her down.

What about what makes you happy? Things you like?

I dunno if I have many of those, you admit. I don’t know much about myself, or much about things. I didn’t know what pie was or how to dress myself or anything. I think… I think I need to learn those things.

Chara is quiet. Then they flop back on the ground. Dying makes living seem really weird, doesn’t it?

You don’t flop back, but you nod. You massage the crack in your heart.

… Thanks Frisk.

Thanks Chara.

Another peaceful moment of silence. Then Chara says, Frisk… I want you to promise me something, when this is over.

You tilt your head.

It’s not going to be a happy promise, they tell you. It’s not going to be nice or good or anything like that, but I want you to promise me anyway, if you’re up for it.

You swallow, but you listen.

All you can be for Chara is a listening ear. You think that’s okay for now.

---

You find the power source eventually.

You wonder how Alphys feels dealing with this every day, this lab where she hurt and failed a lot of people. You wonder if she knows about Flowey being around, or if he avoids her like he seems to do his dad and mom. You wonder a lot as you turn on the power switch.

Then the creatures come back. And you’re cornered, definitely.

Alphys then calls them away, saying, “The-They get a little sassy when they’re not fed on time.”

That sounds… terrible. “Were they why you thought you weren’t gonna come back?”

You watch her face turn ashen and pale and scared. Then she shakes her head and says, “No I thought I’d run away again or…”

She doesn’t finish her sentence, as if suddenly realizing that you are very young and impressionable. You frown at this. Monsters are stranger than humans, and you’ve only met a few of them. The SOULs’ imprint upon you flutters.

She struggles a moment and explains it all to you. You listen and you nod, but you’re growing numb again. The time is coming. It’s almost time. You swallow you spit as Alphys says quietly,

“I’m ready to tell the truth now. I’m ready to face it now.”

You’re not sure if that’s true, but you don’t know what ready looks like.

So you smile in encouragement, and watch her lead the monsters away.

“Chara?” you say softly.

Yes?

“I promise.”

Chara smiles. Thanks Frisk.

You smile back.

As you walk out of the power source room, two of the panels glow red and smile at you.

You look at them without fear.

You reach the lift. Your phone rings. It’s a voice you’ve never heard before.

“Chara? Are you there? It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

Chara doesn’t answer. You squeeze where their hand should be.

“But you’ve done well. Thanks to you, everything has fallen into place. Chara… see you soon.”

And the lift closes on you and you both rocket upward. It should be dramatic. It should feel worse to you than it does. But, it doesn’t.

You leave the lift and it wraps itself in vines. No turning back.

Not that you were going to anyway.

You walk past the way to the throne room and you see the coffins. All of them are closed but one, which is half built.

There is Rachel, all the way at the end..

Her body is not pristine. She has a horrible amount of wounds and her dress hasn’t been stitched up. You won’t lie and pretend that she’s ever been that beautiful by her own admission (you don’t know of any other), but she used to shine to you with the light coming from above. You take a deep breath and you exhale. You reach into your inventory and pull out the items the souls had given you and place them on each coffin, climbing them with care. You place items on each of them, the faded ribbon, the apron, the ballet shoes. You reach into the inventory and pull out your old, tattered, battered sheet. You place it over her and tuck her in like she’s just sleeping. If this works, she’ll be confused, yes, but she’ll be alive. And that is enough for you, now.

Seeing these coffins, seeing what awaits you up ahead is unknown and unfathomable…

You finally understand what it means, truly, to be filled with determination.

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