Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Frisk has been having an absolutely miserable time lately. Unable to speak for themself- well that wouldn't be too bad, Frisk was never much of a talker anyways.

But someone else was doing the talking, making the decisions, pulling the strings, and that was the real source of their misery. And this puppetmaster wasn't a good person. They wanted to see people suffer. They wanted to do things Frisk wouldn't even think about, let alone do.

Frisk felt stuck. The red soul always felt heavy in Frisk's chest, the heartbeat louder than their own. It made them want to scream until their throat ached so badly that they could scream no more. They so desperately wanted it gone.

And it has disappeared.

Wait, it's gone?
They feel like a great weight has suddenly been lifted off their chest. They can breathe again.

What happened?

Frisk opens their eyes, looking up into a dark starry sky.
'Where am I?'. They scan their surroundings. They were in an lonely, grassy area.
'I'm back on the surface, but I've never seen this place before'.
They stand and turn around. 'A bunker? Did I come from there?'. They try to open the door, but it won't budge. They aren't sure if it's locked, or just old and stiff.

Frisk spots a town in the distance. 'Maybe they know what's going on?', they think. They make their way into to Hometown, walking slowly as the try to work it out in their head.
'Is this a dream?', they wonder. 'That would make sense, but this doesn't feel like a dream. It's cold, the grass is wet, and I can even feel the wind. It's too... real. My dreams have never been this vivid'.

There is a police station up ahead.

They see Undyne inside. 'Wait, Undyne?', they think. 'But i ki- she's dead? This must be a dream afterall'.

"Hey, kid! what are you doing here?", Undyne shouts at them.
"I- I don't know... "
"Well ya better get yourself home".

"I don't know where I am", Frisk admits.
"Nonsense! I bet you ran away or somethin', didn't ya?". Frisk stares down at their feet. Undyne looks at them again, more carefully. They are shaking, cold and scared, on the brink of tears. Undyne's voice softens. "What's your name, kid?"
"Frisk. Frisk Cole".
"Well, Frisk. You can't stay here all night. Let's ring up someone for you to stay with and we'll sort all this out tommorow".

Frisk awkwardly stands around at until Toriel arrives at the station.
'Another dead person. Is this the afterlife?', They question. "It's a good job they don't recognise me, that would be bad". They giggle softly at the dark joke.

They follow Toriel into her car.
"Are you alright, dear?" Frisk nods. Toriel doesn't ask them anything for the rest of the car ride. Good, because Frisk is too tired and overwhelmed to talk much. She talks about her kids- Kris, who's only a year or two older than them, and Asriel, the older brother away at college. 'Seriously, what's with all the familiar faces? ', Frisk thinks. At least they don't know a Kris. Yet.

Toriel welcomes them into her house. It's small, but cozy. It feels warm, in a way that Frisk hasn't felt in a long time.
Toriel lets them lie on her couch. They quickly drift into a dreamless sleep, and don't wake until morning.

...

Chapter Text

When Kris woke up the next morning, they felt off, like their life had somehow changed. Deciding to ignore the feeling, they got out of bed and went to the bathroom. They splashed cold water on their face. Feeling more awake, they flushed the toilet. And then flushed it again... and again.

"Kris! Are you alright in there?", Toriel called out from downstairs.
"I'm fine, mom".

That was... strange. Very strange. Kris was sure they didn't mean to flush the toilet three times. It didn't even need to be flushed. They had moved without meaning to, like their body was running on autopilot.

Deciding to put that mishap behind them, they went downstairs.

Someone else was at the table, talking with their mother. And they were wearing Kris' clothes.

"Good morning, Kris. This is Frisk. They can't find their way back home, and Undyne sent them up to stay with us until we can get them sorted", Toriel said calmly, clearly expecting that Kris would be alright with this.
They weren't.

"When did they get here?", Kris asked, trying hard to not make their voice sound pissed off. What was this random kid doing at their house? Why not anyone else's house? Kris figured it's probably because they're human.

"Last night, it was late and I didn't want to wake you", Toriel said, and slid a plate across the table. "Would you like a pancake, Kris?". Kris nodded. Toriel's cooking was the best. Her pancakes were golden and light and fluffy, the kind of food that felt like home. Today they had chocolate chips in them, Kris' favorite.

After breakfast, Kris sent Frisk off into the sitting room to watch TV so they can speak with Toriel alone.

"Why didn't you tell me about them!?", Kris asked.
"I told you already Kris, you were asleep."

"You should've woke me. I wanted to know. And why did you give them my clothes?". Toriel was still calm about this, knowing Kris' reaction was more about the sudden change than anything else.

"I needed to wash the clothes they had on. Would you rather I gave them some of Asriel's clothes?" Kris stared at their mother for a second and then shrugged.

"Fair point".

Kris went to sit on the sofa with Frisk. Some show about a telpath detective was playing on TV. Funny, because Kris can read minds. They don't know how or why exactly, but its a useful skill (and good for finding new things to make fun of Berdly for).

They tried to get a read on Frisk, looking for something, anything about them. But all they could find in Frisk's head was painfully loud radio static.

'Are they doing this on purpose?' Kris thought. 'Are they trying to block me out? HOW CAN I NOT READ THEIR MIND?'. Meanwhile, Frisk was oblivious to Kris' struggle,their full attention turned to the TV.

Kris heard the phone ring and rushed to answer it.

"Hello? Kris heard Undyne's loud voice respond to them.

"Hey Kris! Can you go get your mother for me?". Kris handed the phone to Toriel.

"That Frisk kid, we can't find them on the system. The closest match is a snake monster living three hours away..."

...

Chapter Text

The next day, Frisk woke up early, and decided to watch TV. Morning TV always sucks, but what else could they do? Then, Toriel came downstairs.

"Today you are going to school with Kris", she explained. "I work at the school so I will be there if you need me. Is that okay, Frisk?". Frisk nodded. Toriel told them to go and get ready, and went to wake Kris. Frisk was beginning to see that Kris was never could wake up early.

Frisk stared out the window during the drive to school, trying to map out the town in their head. Kris was sitting beside them in the back of the car, with too loud music playing through their cheap earphones. Frisk wondered why Kris didn't sit in the passenger seat when there was nobody there.

They arrived at the school, which looked pretty similar to Frisk's school back home. Frisk thought that was strange, but most schools kinda look the same, don't they?

They followed Kris to class. Miss Alphys already knew about Frisk, and told them that they don't have to do the class project but they can help Kris' group if they want. Frisk chose that option as it seemed better than sitting there doing nothing.

A moment later, the door flung open. A tall purple monster (Frisk lated learn that her name was Susie) stomped into the classroom. Everyone seemed scared of her, even her teacher. Though, to be fair Alphys seemed to be the kind of person who was scared by almost everyone.

Alphys scrambled for her chalk to start the class. When she couldn't find any, she sent Susie to get some, and sent Kris after her to make sure she actually got it. Alphys told Frisk to follow them so that Kris coukd show them around the school on the way. Frisk wondered if Alphys realised that meant that would mean they would take ages getting the chalk back to her.

Frisk and Kris followed after Susie. They saw that she was eating the chalk.

"Hey, you didn't see anything just now, did you?", she said, hiding the chalk behind her back. "You cant even say? You think 'cause you don't say I don't know exactly what you're thinking?". Frisk backed away while Kris stood frozen.
"I caught Susie eating all the chalk! I can't wait to see her finally get expelled". Susie backed Kris into the wall.

"Well, Kris, it seems like a waste to get expelled just for having a snack... so if I know your gonna pull the trigger then why don't I get expelled for some real damage?" She pinned Kris to the wall..

and then dropped them.
"Nah", Susie backed away. "We don't want the kid to be scarred for life", she said, gesturing to Frisk. "Let's just go".

The group walked over to the store cupboard.

"So this is where Alphys keeps all the chalk? how'd I not know about it?" Susie opens the door.
"Hey, why's it so dark in here?" she said. Kris knew she was starting to feel scared. she'd never done well in the dark.

"You guys go in there first". Frisk and kris just stood there. Susie sighed.

"Fine, we'll all go together",she said, and then pulled them both in with her.

"Can anyone find the light switch?" Kris asked. "Maybe it's further in?". They walked foward and the other two followed. "This is a very big store cupboard".

another step foward and the floor gone from beneath them. They were all falling, falling into another world

(well, another another world for frisk)

Chapter Text

Kris looked around.
'This was inside the store closet?', they thought. They remembered an old story they read, one of the few human-authored books they knew of. 'What is this, Narnia?'. This place was unlike any they'd ever seen, all purple and dark with slime dripping from the walls, and empty. Too empty. Where were Frisk and Susie? And why were they blue?

Kris looked down at themself to double check what they had caught a glimpse of a moment ago. Their skin had turned a light blue color that they were sure couldn't be healthy. They were wearing a knight's armour. It was shiny, as if it had never seen a battlefield, or anywhere really. It looked like it should be on display, and not here on their dumb body.

They started walking. Their stride felt forced, like a bad imitation rather than the real deal. This, and a couple other strange things had happened with them in the last few days, and they were starting to suspect that someone (or something) else had control over their body. Kris knew that it sounded crazy, but their life had became much weirder recently and this mightn't even be the weirdest thing that happened.

They approached a puzzle, and quickly figured out how to solve it. Although they weren't too smart with school stuff, they had always been good at puzzles and riddles.
Despite knowing the solution, they found themsef pressing all the wrong buttons, and ended up spending around five minutes longer than needed at the puzzle. Having control of their body was turning out to be no fun, especially when their puppeteer was an idiot.

Moving foward, they saw piles of... dust? dandelion fluff? Kris wasnt quite sure what it was. They started kicking at one of the piles. It was therapeutic in a weird way. Once that pile was broken down, they started with the next one. Kris wasn't sure why, chances were there was nothing beneath it.

They were wrong.

"Hey! Whatd'ya think y- oh, its you, Kris", Susie said. Kris took in their classmate's apperance. It was a less dramatic change than Kris', but she too had a new outfit and her hair had changed colour.

"Why are you blue?", she asked. "Is this some weird human thing?". Kris shrugged, and they continued on.

"Hey, who's that up there?". The pair spotted a shadowed figure above them. Suddenly, a shower of spade-shaped bullets came down on them. Kris dodged carefully, while Susie ran on, taking a few hits. They slid down a slope, having to awkwardly manoeuvre their body around to avoid getting hit.

Finally, they reached safety.

"Kris, you're here. It's good you didn't, like, die or something". Susie was standing there with Frisk, whose skin was now a plum color. They were also in armour, though theirs was white with pink accents, and a sleek, sci-fi like design. Underneath, they were wearing a dark, tightfitting jumpsuit similar to Kris'.

Kris thought Frisk's armour looked nicer than their own, and it seemed more comfortable to wear.
Kris' metal armour was heavy, and Frisk's looked lighter, being made of carbon fiber, or something similar.

'Wow, I always get the short end of the stick, don't I?". They thought, and then cringed a little at their use of one of their mom's 'old-fashioned' phrases.

"Hey, do you think anyone lives in that castle up there?", Frisk asked, snapping Kris out of their thoughts.