Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It had been a month since the barrier was destroyed, life was agitated for everyone, specially for Frisk as an ambassador, it was no easy task to be taken seriously as a 12 years old kid ambassador trying to convince an entire race of humans to allow monsters to live in peace among them, after all, monsters had been sealed away for so long humans had already considered them infamous mythological beings of nothing but bad news, but at least it had been long enough for them to almost completely forget why'd they seal monsters away in the first place.

Frisk was not alone in the task though, as leaders of their kind, Asgore and Toriel made an effort to put their past problems aside and represent monsters as their former rulers with Frisk, and even though Asgore really wanted to go back with his ex-wife, Toriel never gave signs of forgiving him for the things he did, but they did talk several times about the topic and things seemed to be improving between them nevertheless.

Humans were pretty stubborn, fearing some monster or human freak would mess up and break the tension between both races and bring war again, humans were reluctant to accept monsters in their society but Frisk was strangely.... Good with words? Frisk's convincing skills were scary as heck, their determination managed to make humans give monsters a second chance and give them proper rights as normal people, monsters were now under the protection of a few laws and were allowed to live in colonies near the humans at the moment, some were allowed into civilization though.

There were haters here and there, mostly humans, fights were a normal thing every now and then but it never went further than a few scratches... Or maybe someone sent to the hospital a couple of times. Most humans were too afraid of monsters to fight them anyway, magic had been treated as a demonic doing among humans in the past centuries and was dropped, there were no almighty magicians or wizards to threat monsters with anymore, monsters were asked to refrain from using magic, specially in public since it freaked everyone out.

...But these things didn't make Frisk feel completely happy, even though they had now a loving family and a house on the surface, even though Toriel, Sans Papyrus and Frisk were living together and Metatton's fame bought a home for Alphys and Undyne, even though Asgore could finally relax and live in a monster colony near Mt Ebott to offer his guidance to the remaining monsters underground...

Frisk was still worried, concerned, they would have nightmares almost every night about the things they went through, the battles, the times they died, the tapes, the amalgamates... Asriel.

Frisk began going to school after a time when everyone settled down, they were glad Toriel was their teacher in most of classes, Toriel was an excellent History and Biology teacher, as well as a great goatmom, everyone respected her at school, a school in which both humans and monsters assisted even if they had separated classes most of the time, both races decided it was for the best to make children feel safe around monsters and get used to them, for the future of both.

Frisk, however, was bullied a lot because of their situation; Frisk would miss school very often to do their ambassador duties, and because they had no human family everyone treated Frisk like a weirdo who'd never hang out with their kind.

But Frisk didn't care, every day in the way back from school, Frisk could only think of one thing that left them unsettled. Him.

It was not the first time Frisk had thought of this, but today would be the first time they would actually do it, to go to Mt Ebott once more and venture underground to see him.

Chapter Text

The underground was half empty.

Everyone had left, but some decided to stay for different reasons, like being scared of humans, or treasuring their homes too much, some simply didn't feel like it and some were... Not intelligent enough to understand, like those white doggies and ocassional Temmies, though maybe it was for the best that most Temmies stayed... They were creepy enough to Frisk.

Frisk spent about an hour to get to Mt Ebott and another hour and half to reach the ruins, today Frisk had left school early so they had time to fool around without worrying anyone, they went through the underground almost unnoticed. Through hotland, looking back into Alphys' lab, temporarily closed while Alphys wasn't here. Through the Waterfall, enjoying the view ocassionally and listening to the soothing whispers of the echo flowers. Through Sowdin, which was particularly warmer than it was before, they saw Grillby's place and it was closed, of course, he moved to the surface too. Finally in the ruins, Frisk greeted a few stray Froggit and took their time to walk around Toriel's old house... With nostalgia.

And then Frisk arrived the place, the bed of flowers that had broken their fall when they first fell here, the very place where everything started... It was silent and sad, whenever Frisk was here, they could only think of the resets and the grief of death. But he wasn't here.... Where could he be?

"Hello, my Frisk" A familiar voice echoed soothingly, as if was a ghost who spoke.

Frisk turned around, but didn't see anyone, they were sure they had heard this voice before... Could that be...?

Frisk turned around to see if someone was there, but nobody was.

Frisk gasped when they turned around again to look at the flower bed. "boo!" the ghostly kid shouted quietly right in front of Frisk, appearing out of the blue. "Haha! You fell for it again, you dummy" the ghost kid said with a sassy tone.

"Chara!" Frisk frowned a bit "so you're still around... I thought you would never come out again after I left the underground"

"Wow, did you miss me THAT much?" Chara smirked "your determination, dummy, every time you get close to me it happens and... Hey I explained this to you a hundred times before, I’m not doing this again" they got close to Frisk and gave them a pat on the shoulder, "did you grow up or what? You're taller than I remember, how much time has it been?"

Frisk gave them a sad smile "almost 2 months now, it was a pretty tense halloween out there"

"Oh? I bet everyone thought the monsters coming back to the surface was a pretty bad halloween joke" Chara smirked again and crossed their arms "why are you here anyway? Want to remind me of how dead I am?"

Frisk tried to push Chara away, feigning disgust, but their hands passed through Chara before they could remember Chara was a ghost. "Dummy" Chara mocked Frisk with their tongue.

"I'm here for a friend" Frisk said firmly "... Have you seen him?" Frisk asked, fearing the worst.

"Ugh you won't give up on him, will you? You two are total crybabies" Chara sighed and then looked away, as if they also felt remorse "last time I saw him... Right before you left, he was... a pretty sad bud" Chara held a small giggle on that last line.

"Chara!" Frisk facepalmed.

"Okay okay I'm sorry! But no, I haven't seen him, I just woke up in almost 2 months Frisk! And what are you planning to do anyway? He will shoo you away" Chara said as they floated away, resting on the air with a stern expression.

"I just want to see him" Frisk kept their motives to themselves. "don't you?"

Chara didn't answer and just looked away, arms crossed and concerned expression. "I still don't know if I can forgive him for messing up everything"

Frisk stayed silent for a while, secretly mad at Chara for this statement. "well" Frisk said calmly "you also messed up back then"

"Ooh?" Chara got closer to Frisk's face with a menacing look "says the one who went genocidal and chickened out before finishing the job? You're a funny kid, we all messed up here"

Chara knew this made Frisk upset and they loved it, even if they were in relatively friendly terms after redeeming themselves during Frisk's pacifism, Chara was annoyed at Frisk's last reset before releasing the monsters.

But Frisk hadn't gotten past it yet and it looked like they were about to cry. Frisk never told Chara they had already released the monsters before the genocide incident, since the true reset after their pacifist run made Chara forget everything from when Frisk first fell into the underground, Chara was much nicer during that one time... Though less... Visible and annoying, but Frisk could still feel their sins crawling on their back, they only did it out of curiosity... And they hated it more than anythig, Frisk only sought in this path a way to help Flowey anyhow, maybe an alternate twisted solution. They failed miserably and were happy about it, except for Chara.

Frisk held their tears, despite the friendly terms, Chara still disliked human company in general and wouldn't think twice before teasing Frisk. "Yes, I messed up, but here I am, here WE are, wasn't this for the best?"

"I suppose" Chara sighed in disgust. Despite everything, Frisk's adventure reminded Chara of what used to be important in life for them, even if humans were all jerks to them, monsters gave them a family.

"I know deep inside you're happy things went this way, I know you don't think humans are all the same"

"let's not get into this topic" Chara turned their back to Frisk "I've already said... That I'm sorry about all that stuff" Chara said in a grumpy tone.

"Awww" Frisk giggled a little, it was Frisk's turn to tease Chara now.

"Ugh! Frisk I hate that sound! You sound like a retarded girl!" Chara complainted loudly.

“Who’s there…?” A childish, weak, glitchy voice came from behind, surprising both of them.

There he was.

“Welp, I’m outta here” Chara vanished like that.

Chapter Text

“Flowey!” Frisk gasped as soon as they saw him, a bit scared, yet happy, but definitely glad.

“…Frisk?” Flowey gave a confused/angry expression “What are YOU doing here!?”

“I came to visit you” Frisk said happily while attempting to approach him

“DON’T… come… any closer!” Flowey tried to look menacing

Frisk stopped and gave one step back, a bit afraid

“You came… just to visit?” He gave them a sick expression “Ha… that’s got to be some kind of trap, really, coming all the way here by yourself just to say “hi!” is just too stupid to believe”

Frisk gave no response. But they did notice the bad condition Flowey was in… he looked weak, tired, his petals lacked of his usual gold shine, it seemed as if he was withering… was he doing this on purpose?

“..Don’t you have a home to return to? The one you stole from me?” He tried to smirk, but… “…Don’t you have anything else better to do?” he said with a broken voice, unable to hold a stream of tears.

Frisk could only give him a worried look and approach him quietly while he tried to keep it together.

He looked up, holding back his angry tears “I told you to forget about me”

“I couldn’t”

“What was so hard about it!?” He yelled.

“I didn’t want to”

After a while of random fits thrown by Flowey and awkward silence moments, Frisk concluded he was not strong enough to try anything at the moment, they figured Flowey had been doing this on purpose. Frisk managed to convince Flowey to move to the flower bed, where Chara’s body was buried, on the spot where healthy soil and nice sunlight would do him good, but he wasn’t cooperating at all in the conversation. Frisk sat next to him.

“The sun out there is much better than this soft light spot, did you know?”

He didn’t reply

“You should go and check it yourself if you don’t believe me”

But he wasn’t even looking at Frisk

“….what’s wrong, Flowey?”

“Definitely you” He said in a subtle, sad chuckle

“I’m not going to leave you”

Flowey looked at Frisk, annoyed “you’re going to regret it”

“Nu-uh”

“What if they caught you sneaking out to see me?”

Frisk shrugged

“What if I decided it would be fun to watch you die?” he switched to a wicked expression, trying to creep them out.

But Frisk saw through his facade “You won’t. Besides… you already killed me a lot in the past, would it be any more fun to you…?”

Flowey stared, slightly stunned.

There was a moment of silence, again.

“Why don’t you come with me?”

“I would rather die” he said, irritated

“Aww don’t be like that, I know deep inside you want to leave this place”

Frisk couldn’t be any more right. Flowey was broken after all, ever since Frisk left he no longer had someone to reflect Chara on, his only and best friend, it took his purpose and desire of power away when he realized the kid he had been chasing after was not his old, now dead friend, but his pride and fresh memories of Asriel, the memory of his own feelings, wouldn’t allow him to leave the underground for good, besides, who would ever welcome him out there…? Flowey just wanted to get rid of his misery somehow, he knew he was fated to live forever in a soulless body, under a lonely mountain as a nobody, but he also knew he was afraid to die for real and this time, he would really chicken out if he tried.

“It won’t work, Frisk”

“it will”

“No, it won’t! What do you think they’ll say when you return home? Oh hey everyone! I brought home the soulless plant that tried to kill us all and our entire race! Let’s adopt him and live with him happily ever after! Is that it? Wow, I didn’t know you were so DUMB” He grumbled. “Also it’s not like I’m not fine down here, see? I’m alive! What else do you want?”

“They will understand!” Frisk’s voice didn’t feel confident.

“UGH, you’re unbelievable” Flowey swung his head dramatically.

“Fine” Frisk got up “I won’t bother you with that anymore”

Flowey looked at them, with concern… almost regretting all of his whinning might have caused Frisk a change of mind and he would have to stay all alone again.

“But...” Frisk looked at him mischievously “You’ll let me come to visit you… without complaints, I won’t take a no”

He gave them a confused-disgusted-angry look, Flowey was probably the only being capable of making such complex expressions. “Fine, do as you wish, but none of us will end up happy with this!”

Frisk giggled

“What’s so funny??” He freaked out.

“Oh it’s nothing! I was just thinking of how much you cheered up after we began talking”

“That’s…! I can’t even be happy!” He said, confused about how he felt about Frisk's statement… or if he felt something at all. But truth to be told, Flowey was relieved to see someone like Frisk again…

At least for now.

Chapter Text

“Are you telling me… it wasn’t you who broke the barrier?” Toriel says in shock

They nod.

It was hard, but Frisk managed to explain to both Sans and Toriel the situation, this of course, implied explaining that Flowey had been tamed in the end and convinced to do the right thing, Frisk was reluctant to tell them the true story… that Flowey was actually Asriel, that he had done this because he was soulless and helpless, because he mistook Frisk as an old friend and he only wanted something to care about… Frisk couldn’t bring themselves to do it, they didn’t want to break Toriel’s heart.

But she would have to know the truth someday anyway… right?

“Well… the story you tell us Frisk… it’s so hard to believe… I don’t remember any of this happening! But… I suppose it does explain how the barrier was actually broken… you couldn’t absorb the human souls, so who else could have done it?” She looked toughtful.

Sans sighed and closed his eyes for a second “Well Frisk, at least I’m glad you were honest about this before things got carried away”

“But I’m still not happy about this, dear” Toriel gave them a severe expression “that flower is the same flower that attacked you back in the ruins and tried to erase our existence, you say this creature is soulless, unable to feel anything at all, how then, will you avoid harm? How do you expect us to rest with such threat?”

“I’m with Tori here, Frisk” Sans said in a half-serious grin “That flower… I don’t think anything good can come out of it” he looked at them after his last line, as if he was trying to let Frisk know he already knew this flower.

“I know this doesn’t sound good!” there was despair in their voice “but please believe when I say… he really is trying, and I can’t stand to see how the underground goes empty and he just… and I just can’t do anything about it, he freed us all after all… isn’t this the least we can do? I will make myself responsible of any incidents, please believe in me, mom…”

Toriel didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes, she then sighed. “I trust you, my child. Once again, I cannot stop you from doing what you think is right, but please… promise me you won’t break this faith I’m putting in you” she gave them a weak smile “and also… don’t be home so late anymore… it… really worries me, try to be here before night falls down, so I know nothing happened to you”

Frisk gave her a warm hug “thanks, I promise”

Toriel excused herself and left to cook dinner afterwards, Frisk was really happy Toriel took it well.

But…

“Hey kiddo” Sans got up, big grin as usual “how about we take a walk? It’s a beautiful night outside”

Frisk shivered, that line was just too familiar. “Sure” they said as they followed him outside.

It was indeed, a beautiful night, being considerably away from the big city, the starry sky made spectacular debut, Sans loved gazing at the stars very much, Papyrus and him would lie down on the yard often to watch the stars and play “connect the dots” with them, it was their favorite hobby at the moment, but Papyrus wouldn’t be home tonight since he decided to stay over at Undyne’s place for “cooking lessons” business, since Papyrus had been obsessed over getting a job as a professional spaghetti cook but got rejected for apparently lacking the skills to “make edible food” and went to Undyne, his personal cooking master, to ask for advice and improve his skills… what a nightmare for Alphys, she just hoped they wouldn’t burn the building down.

They walked for a while around the silent grassy streets, it was a town near the city so there was a lot of nature around, the sound of bugs and crickets bouncing around, it would have been relaxing if there hadn’t been tension between the two.

“So” Sans broke the silence “Tell me, how’s your little bud doing huh?”

Not this joke again.

“He’s doing fine now, though… he was doing pretty bad”

Sans stopped walking, they found themselves standing on a grassy hill with a beautiful view over the horizon. “Hey Frisk, I think we both know this flower more than we pretend to”

Chapter Text

The stars were shiny

Frisk and Sans were sitting by the hill.

"Are you serious about this, Frisk?"

"Yeah..."

Sans remained silent and scratched the back of his head for a while "how much do you know about this flower?" he looked at them "tell me the truth"

Should Frisk really tell him everything? They knew Sans was the only one they could trust, Frisk could always somehow tell him everything and feel like he would always understand, Sans had easily become Frisk's best friend because of the way he was always around and could read their expression, their problems, their emotions somehow. Frisk needed to let this out, tell this to someone, feel supported and relieved...

"Promise me you won't tell Toriel any of this" they said with refrain.

"Gee kid... You know how much I hate promises" Sans sighed.

Frisk gulped and proceeded "He... The flower, that flower is actually..."

"Asriel?" Sans interrupted

Frisk was in shock.

"...how did you know?" they asked

Sans held a chuckle "I can't quite remember, like you would" he got serious "but I do recall... Faint pieces put together from when I first met the flower..."

...

"...when we first met the flower, before the resets would start happening, when the little guy came to us trying to become our friend, I remember him saying he was the king's son" he took a deep breath "and then for a time we hanged out, "Flowey" acted so nicely, his advices were always assertive and his actions were strangley perfect, as if nothing bothered him, as if he was trying so hard to accomplish something... I can only recall this, and then everything reset"

Frisk looked at Sans, paying as much attention as they could.

"I can't remember much after that, honestly, sometimes I feel like all of these things never happened at all, like it was just my imagination, or it was just a bad dream, so I can't even tell if all I'm telling you is even true. But with every reset, the flower was different, and if I'm sure about something here... Is that he was not nice anymore, my mind kept telling me he was the threat responsible of my nightmares."

He continued "I wasn't even sure he was Asriel until now, I kind of guessed it by the look on your face, heh" he gave Frisk a smug look "but after listening to your version of the story and knowing he is a soulless being... Frisk that's just one more reason not to trust him, how did you convince him to do the right thing in the first place?"

Silence, then they replied "...let's just say... I got to know Asriel in person" Frisk gave Sans a sad smile "he choose to break the barrier and stay behind when he could just... not, he lost everything he had twice... And now that he doesn't want to keep this up anymore, I just can't let him end this way... Sans there has to be something Alphys can do..."

He just looked at Frisk, speechless

"I wouldn't know... Frisk, but what if something goes wrong with the flower?"

"I'm taking full responsibility for this"

"What if something goes wrong with you? Would you...?" his voice faded with concern.

"No more resets"

Sans seemed relieved. "Can't we just leave the flower alone?" he sighed.

"Saaaans!" Frisk whined "what if Flowey leaves himself anyway? Who says he won't get over it sometime if I leave him be and then he gets bored enough to leave the underground all alone? If we keep an eye on him at least he won't be able to terrorize people"

"Fair enough" he sounded dull

"but I'm making this clear, Frisk..." he paused

Frisk paid attention to him

"...if it ever gets out of your hands, I'm taking care of this my way, ok buddy? There, I'm counting on you"

They nodded

"I'm not comfortable with this but... Oh well I probably won't be able to remember anything anyway, maybe this is not even the first time we've been here... Right?" he shrugged, wearing his usual grin

Frisk was pained "you're wrong"

"I hope I am" he seemed glad

Sans and Frisk spent some more time resting on the grass, talking about other topics, telling litte jokes... and time would have escaped their hands if they hadn't remembered Toriel was cooking dinner and she was probably waiting for them to come back, less than half an hour later they would be heading back home to be greeted with a delicious meal, too bad Papyrus wasn't there that night, dinner conversations were always interesting and cheerful with him around.

That night Frisk went to bed early, happy that everything had turned out well -and convinced everything would turn out just fine- the next step was to convince Flowey to come to the surface... Frisk knew this wouldn't be easy at all, it might even require a plan, but they were determined, they felt a determination they had not felt in a long while... The thought of being up to the challenge and having friends to support their goal of helping the little folk get his life back, filled them with determination.

Frisk was kind of glad they still were able to SAVE.

Chapter Text

Your name is Frisk.

Ambassador of monsters and average school student, it's been a week since you last had that conversation with Toriel and Sans about accepting Flowey in the family, you're pretty excited about how will everything be... ever since then, you tend to walk by gardening shops trying to pick a nice flowerpot for your friend.

Today was the day you'd pay a visit again, you still didn't have a plan but trying was an option.

And there you were, lying on a bed of golden flowers next to your golden friend, who was looming his head above your gaze with a serious expression, Flowey had opened up to you a lot lately, he talked more about many things and seemed much calmer than usual, it was almost creeping you out how "friendly" he had been acting around you… that didn't mean he was always nice, just that he wouldn't ignore you as much and would usually give his opinion on whatever topic you brought up, boredom was probably the cause of this behaviour.

"What things did Chara and you used to do, Flowey?"

"Let's see... we liked to play tag a lot"

"Sounds fun!" you said

"Yeah... It probably was" he squirmed "though Chara liked to hide in creepy places sometimes to make it hard for me"

Chara chuckled in the distance, you used to wish Flowey could still see or hear them so you wouldn't have to bear with it alone...

"Heheh, maybe we can play tag sometime Flowey!" you replied.

He gave you a disgusted look "yeah maybe that way you won't find me ever again and leave me alone... actually, It's not a bad idea, I could probably pass the time setting up traps for you" he switched to his trademark smile.

"I think I'll pass" you didn't like the idea as much anymore

"How about you, dumb dumb? Did you have any friends before coming here?" he had a pretentious smile

"Nah..." you crossed your arms under your neck "people never liked me that much, specially since I had no parents..."

"What happened to them?"

"Dunno, I've always been like this" you said, without concerns

"Just like Chara..." he looked away, seemingly disgusted "why are you so much like them? It's annoying"

You smiled in embarrassment "sorry pal"

He hesitated to speak for a moment, thinking of something "I actually... When you left me here and I still had my emotions back... I got the chance to talk to them again"

"Wow, really?"

"Of course I did you idiot, I was technically a GOD" he smirked at you, then turned serious again "it was just their ghost though"

You didn't speak

"They apologized, and said the plan didn't matter anymore, I was actually relieved they didn't hate me for this... I think? And that I was lucky you came along to do something about this mess"

You smiled "Did Chara say that?"

"ASRIEL YOU IDIOT DON'T EMBARRASS ME LIKE THIS!" Chara shouted and came closer to him, swatting their hands all around him, you were trying really hard not to laugh

"You know, I can remember..." his expression turned sour "I can remember being glad I met you, Frisk, I can remember being able to see Chara by your side when I took the souls for the last time, I was so convinced it was you... And somehow, I felt Chara reach to me when you tried to SAVE me, as if you two had worked together to make me stop"

Silence

“We… did” You confessed

“You… how?”

“Chara said it was my determination and my human soul… the ones that awakened them” … “Chara told me so much about you… like how you helped them when they fell down, and how much you two liked flowers and were always together”

"Why did you never tell me you two knew each other?" he seemed surprised

You shrugged "After all that happened... I felt like it was a really sensitive topic"

"You're forgetting I'm not sensitive at all" he seemed annoyed

"Sorry. But still..." you sat up "I felt like I was getting into something that didn't concern me”

"Wow, you're not as dumb as I thought" he replied "unfortunately you got into this mess long ago so deal with it"

You sighed "I guess" then gave him a sarcastic look "you can be pretty nice and soft when you want to huh?"

"I can adapt to everything and feel nothing about it" he grinned, feigning to be proud.

You didn't find that quite amusing.

"Aaaand... If you were on the surface, how would you adapt to it?"

"I would probably just kill everyone" he laughed happily

You knew it was another one of his empty threats... Probably.

"Don't try to convince me, okay buddy?" he tilted his head towards Frisk

"Heh, I will get you to come later or sooner, it's too boring for you down here, there's plenty of stuff to do out there, you will never run out of those"

"Your determination makes me sick" Flowey faceplanted on the ground

After that you two didn't spend much more time together, you promised not to be late after all and it was getting dark outside, you knew it by the way the light above the bed of flowers was getting fainter and fainter.

In the way back, you had Chara accompany you... Or more like stalk you lazily, in silence.

"Why haven't you said anything yet?" you asked

"Huh..." they seemed thoughtful "I was just thinking about that stuff he said"

"What did you think?"

"Frisk, even if I hate cowards like you, I guess I really am glad you came along"

"is that so?" you smiled

"And even if Asriel made it big back then and got us killed... I recognize I may have pushed him too far... After all, I did like him..." Chara looked away "I guess this is what is like to value something after you've lost it? I just killed myself because I thought it was for the best though, I still take pride on that decision regardless of messing everything up"

You didn't say anything

"But... Thank you, I guess. If only he could still see me... Or at least hear me, I'd beg you to leave him here with me, but his determination is not as great as yours"

“You’re not as bad as I thought, Chara” you smiled at them

“I’m trying to be emotional here, Frisk, thank you” they grumbled “Just like that time on the date with Alphys”

“Oh you wait a second! Telling Alphys ‘YOur cute’ and then trying to kiss her straightforward were not emotional suggestions at all!! At least you convinced me to tell Undyne anime was real and she was really disappointed when she found out you know?”

“Hahaha! Serves you right for lying!”

“In any case… the exit is up ahead” you stopped when you were in the king’s throne room. You were standing there… in the middle of the golden garden, birds singing, nothing but you and them.

“Aaah I suppose… it’s so boring to just… be dead you know? I wish your determination thing was strong enough to bring me out there”

“It must be so boring to be you” you said in amusement “you’d probably be a bad influence anyway” you giggled

“Hey Frisk, come back again ok?” Chara said proudly

“I will” You said as you wavered goodbye and walked out of the room, heading for the exit of the underground.

You came back one week later, you found Flowey outside the underground, right on the same spot you and your friends stood at when the barrier was broken.

And several times after that, you found him there, again and again.

Chapter Text

"...But" Flowey looked down at the floor, you unhugged him "I don't trust myself" he said.

You didn't know what to say.

He was still staring down, you suddenly felt uncomfortably close to him

"How will you stop me?" He almost whispered in a funny tone

"...huh?"

He looked at you, his upset expression changed into a wicked, twisted grin that froze you in fear

"I want to play one last game"

Vines and spiky thorns surrounded you

Oh no

"Be prepared when you come back, because I won't give in"

You didn't have a chance to react or feel at all before his vines crushed your soul.

Chapter Text

You woke up on your bed, it was morning again. You checked the date… It was still the same day.

No doubt about it, he killed you.

You had so many things going on your head right now, one of them was relief you had saved this morning, saving was now an habit of yours every time you went to bed and every time you woke up, you remember commenting this to Flowey… Maybe it was a bad idea to let him know you could still do this.

In any case, you knew something like this was bound to happen sometime, you were not too surprised or shocked, you died much enough in the past to be afraid of it anymore, what a messed up kid you were.

You felt a bit betrayed and confused too, what did he mean? Did he mean to say he got so sick of your insistence he decided a “game” could settle this? Or was he going to try and test your patience? Either way, you knew this was a challenge and not just a get-lost-forever warning, gosh you were so stubborn.

You sat on up your bed and sighed, inspecting your body, looking for wounds or pain, but you were as fine as the day before. You didn’t know what to do about this… But you would have to relive the whole day again, how annoying.

Things went normally, you had breakfast with goatmom and Papyrus and Sans were around as usual before going off to work, in Papyrus’ case… He was still trying find a suitable job better than the part time one he had now, it was awkward being able to tell how things would happen exactly

School was the same, same classmates and same surprise exam which didn’t surprise you anymore, you had in fact time to study for it this time that you knew it was coming, you were alone like you always were, except for a few monster friends you had like Monster Kid and the bunnies, who liked to hang out with you a lot.

And when the bells rang and it was time to go back home, you knew you had to go there again, part of you wished you didn’t have to, but you had to figure out what was he pretending with this attitude.

-

You stepped into the underground, you were a bit scared to be honest, he was trying to kill you this time and he could come out of nowhere any minute now, not to mention you refused to relive the day again so you made sure to SAVE as soon as you found a save point.

Chara appeared in your way to the ruins, in Snowdin.

“Oooh who do we have heeere!” Chara seemed very amused “did you come to take him with you?” they got in your way, floating as you walked forward.

“What’s the deal with him?” You asked to no one in particular, as if you were talking alone.

Chara grinned pretentiously “I think he wants to make you give up on him. And this is going to be sooo entertaining to watch, who will quit first? The small crybaby or the big crybaby? I wish I had some popcorn and a chair”

You rolled your eyes.

The rest of the walk was filled with small phrases of similar caliber by Chara, teasing you since there was nothing else for them to do. You didn’t quite show it, but you were nervous about facing him like this since you knew giving him mercy wouldn’t work at all and you didn’t want to fight him, how were you supposed to win this so-called game when all he told you was to be “prepared”? What did he want anyway? If he knew you could reload every time you wanted then there was no point in killing you in the first place… What had gotten into him?

You stepped forward, there he was with a gleeful smile before the bed of flowers, it reminded you of the first time you met him.

“Howdy Frisk! It’s me, Flowey, Flowey the flower. I’m glad you came!”

You looked at him carefully.

“Gosh you must be so confused, but it’s okay! Ol’ little me is here to teach you…” he said as his famous friendliness pellets appeared around him “…a nice, friendly tutorial on how to give up”

“Why are you doing this Flowey? I thought you had agreed to come!” you prepared to dodge.

His bullets were fast, you barely managed to dodge them.

“You fool” he didn’t stop smiling “Do you really want me to go up there so badly? You must have a death wish!”

Another string of bullets appeared around him and shoot towards you right away, one of them hit your shoulder and made you trip over.

“Is it even worth? I’m going to make your life impossible if you bring me “home”, you’d be wasting your time on me, you idiot!” He began to look slightly irritated.

“It won’t be a waste” you stood up, pressing your hand against the wound on your shoulder.

“You are a waste of determination” Flowey said in a gloomy tone and a creepy smile, summoning a full ring of Bullets all around you, before you knew it, they all hit you and crushed your soul.

You were in The last Corridor again. Dammit, he was serious about this wasn’t he?

Chara approached you once more in Snowdin.

“Geeeeeeeeet duuuuunked ooonnnnnnnnnn” they gave you thumbs down.

“Shut up, you’re not helping” you sighed

“I don’t intend to” they giggled

…

“Back again for more?” Flowey smiled at you “You know, this is actually fun, it’s been so long since I last played something as interesting, do you remember, Frisk?”

“Listen, we don’t have to…” You were interrupted by incoming bullets “Argh!” A few ones caught you off guard and hurt your arms, they were fast.

Flowey was toying with you, but he was clever, summoning pellets in strategic places to make it difficult for you to dodge, if you even thought about dodging with a jump, Flowey would be one step ahead of you and shoot pellets from above, this was ridiculously unfair, his advantage was being able to remember past timelines and randomize his attacks every time, making it impossible for you to essay his moves.

You were panting a bit, after a full minute of his nonstop attacks you were pretty tired.

“…We don’t have to settle it this way” you finally shouted

“We do” He twisted his sick grimace, you felt a vine pierce you from the back.

Things went this way for a while… you might have lost count of how many times you died and how much the dynamics changed every time, there were several times when Flowey had moved near your save point to kill you instantly as soon as you loaded, other times he would attack out of nowhere while you were headed to the ruins, he even tricked you to believe he was giving up on all of this just to kill you in your moment of weakness, and the more you died… the closer you were to actually giving up on his insults and taunts, though you noticed something curious… the more you died, the more bored and upset he looked as well.

You decided all of this was pointless, you both knew it, so why keep you trapped in this temporal loop? … you suddenly realized it, you realized the purpose of all of this act and you knew just the way to end this once and for all, even if it meant dying a lot spending hours in this nonsensical “game”.

Chapter Text

"You sure are persistent" Flowey growled "idiots like you shouldn't exist, you're just letting me kill you for fun, aren't you?" his eyes turned black as night “What a sicko”

You didn't move or say anything, you were just standing there in front of him with a stern expression

"What's wrong, Frisk dear?" He said mockingly in Toriel’s voice, his vines arose near you, ready to strike a death blow "catnip got your tongue?"

But you didn't move or speak.

"You think if you just stay there and look at me with that sick look of yours I'm gonna pity you and spare your life? Just what kind of idiot do you take ME for? I don't care if you die, I don't feel anything for you" he was really mad.

...

"Die" he said in a deep voice

Vines crushed your body.

But in no time, you were back again, and you stood there, again, speechless.

And like that, he killed you once again.

And again you were back, just to be killed by his bullets.

And again you were back, to die by his vines.

And again and again... Until you lost track of your tries.

"Just what's wrong with you?? Why are you doing this??" He shouted angrily.

You were dead again. And back.

"You won't get anything from this!" he yelled at you.

Dead again. And back.

“Is this how you win a game? Are you braindead!?” He snarled at you.

Again.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" He said this time, rather upset.

And again.

But then after a while... When you got back to him and stood there in front of him, you found him there, crying, expecting your arrival and with his defenses up; bullets all around him and vines pointing at you aggressively, he was in the middle of his own minefield crying, desperate.

And for a while, none of you spoke.

"...why?" he asked "why are you not playing along?" he snapped at you "Why couldn't you just leave me to die Frisk!? Why couldn't you let me WIN at least!?"

One vine pierced through your arm and hurt you really bad, you gasped and fell to your knees.

 "I WANTED you to be happy!!" He yelled.

A pair of bullets hit your back, you tried your best to hold the pain.

"I don't want to be in your DUMB, USELESS FAMILY!" He screamed in tears.

A couple of vines held your arms tight and smashed you to the ground, your pain kept you from screaming.

"I will kill them all, I will kill you!!"

The vines dragged you closer to him, dirt and sharp rocks ripping your sweater.

"So why..." he lifted you in the air, close enough for you to look at him right in the eye "Why are you being so STUPID and STUBBORN? I wish I could at least feel hate, so I could hate you as much as I want!!"

You shivered from pain, you made sure he didn't see your tears.

"Why are you doing this to me?" he spoke in Asriel's voice.

He crushed your soul with a fast ring of pellets.

You were in the corridor again.

You sat down for a moment and curled up in the corner, you needed just a minute to let it all out.

Chara was in front of you, serious and silent, it looked like they weren't enjoying this as much anymore, they seemed to know it was for the best to leave you alone... Not like they knew much about comforting others anyway.

But you were really upset, you wished you could just help him somehow... You knew and feared deep inside that he would do this: be honest with you, you knew he meant to frighten you, hurt you, pain you, all for your own sake, he was doing it again... He was forcing you to move on without him, trying to show you his worst facade yet and convince you of the monster he was, and you knew he was.

But knowing this only made it harder for you to let go, why did you have to be so kind and determined? You wondered several times during these loops, why did you have to possess the power to SAVE? If you didn't have this ability you could just forget about him and fear your own death, but you couldn't, not after all you worked so hard for... He was a pain in the butt and you wanted to fix him so badly... Even you needed a moment to remind yourself why you were doing this.

...Why were you doing it? Was it pity? Was it remorse? Was it for Asriel? Did you really consider him a friend? You had seen Asriel only twice, on both of your pacifist runs, you had talked so much to him those times and always tried to convince him to come, to play a little game with you, to tell you a little story, to ask him if there was a way to SAVE him, but nothing could make him stay.

You were doing this because you could, you realized it, you could do it, you had hope that something could be done, even if it meant looking for those stray 6 human souls and give them to him, then give him yours afterwards, even if it meant begging Alphys for a cure, even if it meant giving him the best of you, so he could be able to change back and get his life back, unlike you who had so little before falling into the underground, you who knew what was loneliness like, he was just a kid after all... And even as an evil flower, he still acted like one.

You really wanted to stop being a crybaby.

You got up after a while and walked outside, heading for the ruins again, everything was strangely silent… maybe because normally Chara would comment on something, or Flowey would show up and mock you through echo flowers, but the echo flowers were strangely silent this time.

You stopped a minute to appreciate the beautiful view of the waterfalls, glowing in fluorescent lights and mushrooms, you loved this place the most in the entire underground.

When you turned around to keep up the pace, Flowey was there, looking at you with confusion.

“I don’t really want to play anymore” He said

You didn’t talk yet.

“I’m tired of this, I thought getting under your skin was easier than this” he gave you an embarrassed smile.

You stared.

He changed to a sad smile “Asriel liked you a lot, you know”

You felt better to hear that.

“But I don’t” he continued.

Silence.

“I’m trying really hard to hold on to my memories”

…

“What do you think will happen when I can’t do it anymore?”

…

“I’m trying to care, why don’t you care? Aren’t you afraid?”

…

“Killing you gets really boring you know… killing only felt right when I used to regret the decision I took back then”

…

“…and believe it was kill or be killed”

…

“And even though I don’t think that way anymore, killing still means nothing to me”

…

“Nothing means nothing to me” He tried to smile.

…

“You don’t mean anything to me, Frisk” he was upset.

…

“Mom… dad… they mean nothing”

…

“I only cry because I’m desperate to feel something”

…

“What can YOU do?

…

“Why are you here yet!?” he spoke louder.

…

“I really don’t understand, I just can’t understand, I want to understand!”

…

“Why won’t you say anything…?” His tears were trying to escape.

……

“…don’t you have anything else better to do?”

“No” You replied sadly.

You approached him and he allowed you to, you then sat next to him and you two stayed there in silence for a while, appreciating the environment and having your own thoughts about the future. When you thought you were okay and ready for it, you spoke to him.

“Shall we go?” you smiled at him.

He looked away and nodded.

You took out a new, clean orange flowerpot from yout bag and filled it with soil to its half. Carefully, you kneeled in front of him and brushed the soil under his body, your fingers touching his roots, you slowly lifted him from the ground and placed him inside the pot… if was funny to see him wiggle and get comfortable, you were so glad it was all over. You finally set off to leave the underground with him, holding the pot tight in your arms you noticed he was pretty heavy for a flower.

It was silent for a while, you noticed Flowey was mind absent, not really paying attention to anything in particular, when you finally went past the Throne Room, you looked back one last time before leaving… Chara was giving you a grateful smile.

You smiled back for a few seconds, trying to translate a “thank you” back and a bitter farewell.

“What are you doing?” Flowey asked.

“Just saying goodbye to a friend”

“…can you say goodbye for me too?” He asked you.

You smiled.

Chapter Text

"I'm home!" you shouted as you closed the door behind you, dropping your backpack on the floor as usual.

"Welcome back, my child" Toriel greeted you with a warm hug and kiss on your head, she had left school earlier than you today since she had finished her classes early.

"Zup Friz" Sans said across the table, eating a bag of potato chips while pronouncing the words, his manners as beautiful as ever.

Papyrus was not missing your comeback either "HUMAN, I'M GLAD YOU'RE BACK! I HAD GOOD NEWS TO ASK!" ... "Ask?" Sans turned around to see him with an amused grin, "YES! WELL... IT'S MORE ASKING THAN GOOD NEWS ACTUALLY" he narrowed his eyes.

You giggled "Sure pap, what do you need?"

"BUT NOT RIGHT NOW! I NEED TO MAKE SURE THINGS WILL TURN OUT WELL FIRST!" Papyrus said as he left upstairs to his room with a cellphone on hands.

You were so confused, but it was Papyrus after all so you didn't question him.

After telling everyone how was your day and how easy today's test was even though you didn't study at all, you rushed to your bedroom to say hi to your favorite flower.

It had been the same routine for 3 weeks and things were going pretty well for you and him, Flowey had been behaving surprisingly well in the family, being polite to Toriel and... Trying his best not to insult Sans every now and then and get mad at his terrible puns, Papyrus was easily Flowey's entertainment most of the time when Frisk wasn't home, Flowey had gotten interested on him again now that they were all on the surface and had a bunch of new things to interact with, it was honestly fun for everyone to have Papyrus around and see him react to things like human TV shows and talk about the city all the time whenever he visited Undyne and Alphys’ apartment (which was Metatton's place, gifted to him by humans as a representative monster celebrity, he allowed Alphys and Undyne to stay since he was constantly on tour encouraging his monster fans and winning the heart of human population, he could always stay on MTT resort to rest anyway, it wasn't like the underground was abandoned; monsters would come in and out pretty often and MTT resort was ready to offer its services, even to occasional humans that visited the place).

You slammed the door open and saw him there by the window's ledge, looking outside "Hi Flowey!"

He looked at you and raised an eyebrow "You're later than usual today" you walked close to him, "worried?" you asked as you rested your arms on the ledge and looked outside with him, you could understand why he liked the view, the patterns would always change with every sunset.

"Pfft, not a chance" he flailed a little "but you know, it gets boring to be here all day! I'm not a houseplant Frisk!  You promised me a bunch of stuff and I haven't seen as much as you described, heck you even stopped showing me interesting stuff ever since I moved here"

You narrowed your eyes at him "liar, I even got you toys, and you get to eat mom's tasty pie, and hey you're here looking at the patterns again, and you can always come with Papyrus and me at night to play connect the dots with the stars, you liked that a lot the first week!"

"That's all old news, I had never before seen so many shiny dots in the sky, it was impressive at first but now there's nothing new about that" he complained even further. You sighed and commented "well you should probably try to count the stars next time, did you know nobody has ever managed to count them all?" you said in a challenging tone, which got his attention.

"Really? Huh, well maybe I'll be the first one" he smirked. You were holding a giggle, he was so naive sometimes.

"Frisk! Flowey! Dinner will be ready soon!" Toriel announced outside. "Coming!" you said out loud as you grabbed the floweypot (that's how you called it now) and leaded outside.

It smelled like tonight's menu included baked potatoes and steak, Toriel didn't like meat but she knew humans needed it and certain skeletons liked it, so she was willing to cook it for everyone.

After dinner was ready, you all settled the table and ate in family, you talked about many things as usual, Flowey would usually just listen unless he was mentioned.

 Frisk couldn't understand how could Flowey even eat something or if it was even good for him since he was a flower... But Sans and Papyrus were skeletons and needed to eat too, so you didn't try to make much sense of it, maybe monsters had a way of turning food into magical energy? It was so weird, in any case you only gave him food you considered to be healthy for plants, veggies sounded like a good idea... Until you thought of it as some sort of plant cannibalism...

...You would rather just water him but he seemed curious about the taste in food so you let him be, he still needed to be watered throughout the day anyway, and he had already gotten sick from eating too much junk once, so you tried to keep him controlled in the food area.

"Hey pap, so what was that you wanted to ask earlier?" you asked after finishing your meal, he looked disappointed "OH, SORRY ABOUT THAT, I SHOULDN'T HAVE LEFT YOU HANGING BUT I STILL CAN'T ASK YOU, UNDYNE DIDN'T PICK UP MY CALL SO I COULDN'T ASK HER FIRST! AND IF SHE DOESN'T TELL ME IT'S OKAY THEN I CAN'T TELL YOU YET!"

"Um, that's okay but I'm really curious!" you smiled.

A while after, everyone except Flowey had finished their meal. "What's wrong Flowey? You don't like it?" Toriel asked. "No" he said with an annoyed expression and cheeks full of food "this tastes really dull, can't I have sweets instead?" he forced himself to swallow and made a disgusted face afterwards.

"You'll have your sweets if you finish your meal first, as usual" You scolded him a little.

"That one looks like Vulkin!" you said eagerly as you pointed towards the dark sky, sitting on the moist grass. "REALLY?" Papyrus narrowed his eyes at the constellation "I WAS THINKING IT LOOKED MORE LIKE SPAGHETTI..."

"It looks like a deformed, dying monster to me" Flowey said with a serious expression, you facepalmed a little, it was the fifth time he'd say something like that.

"Nah that's definitely a hot dog" Sans said as he... Ate a hot dog, he had a new stash of those now, aside from ketchup bottles, Sans had improved his laziness and motivation a lot ever since they got to the surface but his gluttony was getting worse, human food amazed him even if he was still loyal to Grillby's food, still trying to find a place on the surface...

... But thinking about now, experiencing a new age like this, taking a break from being an ambassador and from all of your worries, focusing on how things had turned out for everyone in the end and resuming your life to simple moments like these... you couldn't help but love your friends, your new life, all as it surrounded you... You loved it the way it was. Life was definitely great now, specially with Sans, Pap, goatmom... Flowey, even though you knew his behavior was unpredictable and he couldn't really relate to your feelings, most of your problems... You were glad you could give him something at least.

 Ever since he started living with you, Alphys had visited you only once and she was speechless when she saw him, you couldn't tell her yet, ask her yet to help him, but you knew you would and you needed to... Though it would have to wait.

You were enjoying this new life like you had never done before, the things you went through to save everyone and fight for everyone's freedom... It was worth it.

"Welp, It's late you two, we should head back home" Sans got up. "BUT SANS I WANTED TO STAY LONGER, YOU PROBABLY DON'T KNOW THIS BECAUSE YOU DON'T WATCH AS MUCH EDUCATIONAL TV AS I DO, BUT DID YOU KNOW STARS MOVE AND NEW AND BRIGHTER ONES APPEAR DURING THE NIGHT??? I DON'T WANT TO MISS IT, YOU ON THE OTHER HAND ARE TOO LAZY NOT TO FALL ASLEEP” Papyrus frowned.

"Sorry bro, but Frisk has a bedtime and Tori would get mad at me for not being a responsible big uncle here" he winked "she would skin me alive" he shrugged.

If Flowey could facepalm, that's what he would have done. Papyrus frowned even further, "OKAY WE'LL GO BACK HOME IF THAT'S WHAT TAKES US TO STOP YOUR TERRIBLE PUNS, BUT THIS FRIDAY WE WILL BE STAYING UP LATE FOR IT. HUMAN!" Papyrus offered you his bony hand to get up, you accepted.

"Boy... I'm tired" you let your weight fall on your comfy bed "today was such a long but great d-" you were interrupted "Argh FRISK!" Flowey shouted at you from near the window, frustrated "you made me lose count of them! Just shut up and go to sleep!"

You blinked at him "woah there, I'm sorry, you'll have the whole night to yourself anyway, that if you're strong enough to stay awake until you count every star haha!" you tried not to be loud. "I WILL" he huffed.

You got comfortable and ready to sleep... At night, you liked to think about your day and the things in your life... You thought about those kids that kept messing with you at school, but also about all of those monster kids that liked you and considered you their hero and idol. You thought about how mom had prepared her special butterscotch pie today and gave you a slice for lunch, you also thought about how Papyrus was excited about getting his driver license soon...

Sometimes you also thought about other things, like how Sans and Toriel were so perfect together, but they wouldn't just date, you were living together because Toriel didn't want to be so lonely, all of her time in the ruins had made her miss being surrounded by loving people, so she allowed the skelebros to stay. You also thought of how hard it was for you to convince them to let Flowey sleep in your bedroom at first... The idea of having a flower with murderous tendencies stay at your bedroom during the night wasn't relieving for Toriel, but you managed to convince her and Sans that it was for the best, since you were responsible about it and he would probably make terrible messes if left alone all night in the living room.

"Hey Frisk?" he interrupted your train of thoughts, "hmm?" you sat up. "Do you think you could bring me to your school sometime? I'm a bit tired of spending the whole day in the house doing nothing interesting when there's no one home"

You gave it a thought "well... You have been behaving quite well... I'm actually proud! I think it would be nice to have you come sometime so you can see newer things"

"Good" he gave you a smug smile "there will be so many human souls to take a look at..." "Flowey no! As soon as I see you trying to do anything funny, I'm going to LOAD and leave you at home" you crossed your arms. "You can't take a joke? Seriously Frisk!" ... "Though getting a few human souls doesn't sound like a bad idea..." he muttered loud enough.

You sighed, "well, two out of two times you got human souls I won" you tried a different approach "there are many other games, Flowey" you said, he then rolled his eyes and sighed "I wouldn't trust me if I was you!" he singed.

"I'm going to tell mom about it" you smiled "I'm sure she'd let you come if you promise to behave, but..." you yawned "let's go to sleep now, I'm toooo tired..." you let your back sink on your bed and covered yourself in sheets "you can try and count the stars while then, hehe"

Long day, short story: life was good. But even if things were going wonderfully for now, life on the surface had just begun for you and your family and you'd have so much to take care of, but what could possibly go wrong...?

" 'Night, I love you Flowey" You said, like every night ever since he stayed in your bedroom.

"I don't" He replied, as usual.

...you didn't know, but you wouldn't give it any thoughts now.

Chapter Text

"Frisk, you'll be late again!" Toriel shouted from the living room, you were getting dressed for school as fast as you could, "Coming!" you replied nervously from your bedroom, you had woken up late today, at least your first class was with Toriel.

"Are you bringing me to school today??" Flowey asked impatiently for the second time, you had promised him to take him with you a few days ago but you always forgot to ask goatmom for permission. He was determined to annoy you with this today.

"Yeah yeah! Just let me finish here" you said as you packed your bag and books, taking the floweypot outside.

"Here's your breakfast dear, please hurry!" Toriel said as she gave you a cheese sandwich, you put Flowey on the dining table and took the sandwich right away and devoured it as if apocalypse was coming, you then remembered you needed to water Flowey and rushed to get some water form him, it was getting late and you had no time anymore.

"Friiiisk, can you take me with you today???" Flowey insisted, stressing you out more than you already were. "Mom, can Flowey come today?" you asked her out loud as you ran back to your room to get your toothbrush.

"Huh? But Frisk, are you sure...?" She said, worried, "He'll be fine!" you shouted back. "Um, well I'll trust you'll keep everything in order, but..." she glared at him with suspicion.

"What?" Flowey looked back at her "I'll behave!"

Toriel sighed, "fine, but please hurry! I'll be waiting outside at the bus stop!"

"Gwud!" you replied while brushing your teeth.

The bus was approaching and you were excited about today, it was special not only because it was valentine's day, but also because Flowey would come with you and this was all new to him, how would he react? What would he think? You were starting to understand the way he thought. You held the floweypot strongly as you hopped in the bus right after Toriel.

You were used to the view in the bus; both monsters and humans scrambled in different seats, mostly humans. Both races were beginning to get along after all this time, you'd ocassionally spot a monster and a human talking and playing together, being friends, even holding hands, but it was rare. You were quick to find an empty seat away from Toriel so you could get a talk with your flower friend.

"Excited?" you asked him. "Yes Frisk, I'm so excited, look at my excitement face" he replied with irritation, you couldn't help but giggle.

You noticed everyone in general was interested in you as soon as Flowey spoke, humans weren't used to talking flowers and everyone was giving you weird looks and mumbling, you were starting to wonder if Flowey would stand receiving so much attention...

As soon as the bus stopped, you left after Toriel and followed her inside the school,  you walked to your classroom through the halls full of people goofing around and peeking in their lockers, you looked at Flowey, he was full of energy and trying to get a hold of everthing that was going on, looking in every direction with interest.

"It's frisk!" you heard someone whisper out loud behind you, "I heard they brought their talking flower pet today or something like that" some kids mumbled "a talking flower??" "hey guys leave Frisk alone, let's go" "what kind of weirdo has a flower for a pet?"

You were used to these commentaries from people, but Flowey wasn't, he seemed a bit annoyed by them, you prayed he would be quiet.

"Are these people stupid? I thought school was for smart people" he told you, kind of angry "some people think they're better than everyone else and treat others that way, don't be mad" you tried to calm him down.

When the bells rang you ran to your classroom with Flowey on hands, you liked to sit in the front so you could get the best learning experience, but today otner kids had gotten the front seats first so you had to sit a few seats behind...

Once you were settled and Toriel was about to begin the biology class, you took out your notebook and pen, Flowey looked at you carefully, then everything and everyone else, he was too busy to speak. Time passed this way and not too long after, you noticed Flowey was paying attention to what Toriel was saying, like everyone else, had he gotten bored and started mimicking everyone else?

"...and chlorophyll is why plants are green, any questions, class?" Toriel smiled sweetly. "I have one" a kid in the back said "why does Frisk's plant talks?"

Toriel giggled a little "Flowey is a magical being, like monsters, he can do many things normal plants can't do" she stated, "neaaat! I want a flower like that!" they said, you were actually happy everyone thought he was cool.

"Well then let's continue, now that you know how plants work, we'll talk a bit about ecosystems..." She continued the class.

You were focused in Toriel's speech, when you suddenly felt a small, paper ball hit your head from the back, you frowned and ignored it. A few minutes later you felt another piece of paper hit your head, and again minutes after, gosh couldn't you just be left alone? This would happen quite often.

It was the fourth time when Flowey noticed someone was bothering you with paper balls, he looked behind and found out who was doing it: it was the boy right behind you, Flowey thought it was actually funny and he smirked at him, but the not-so-friendly boy replied with a mocking face, Flowey huffed and turned around to listen to Toriel again.

The paper balls didn't stop and you were so close to let him have it... But then one of them "accidentally" hit Flowey instead.

Flowey turned around violently and hissed, showing him the creepiest face the kid would see in his life, if not his nightmares as well. "AAH!" He screamed and fell back on the chair, everyone started laughing at him, even you turned around and tried to hold your laughter.

"Daniel! What happened? Why are you on the floor!?" Toriel turned around to see what was going on. "The flower scared me!! That flower is a monster and it made a really creepy face at me!" he said as he tried to get up.

"Golly! I don't know what are you talking about!" Flowey smiled gleefully, it was even cute, everyone laughed at the boy even further.

"Haha, a flower scared you?" "what a scaredy cat!" "that flower is just too cute to scare anyone!" the kids all mumbled, Toriel sighed.

"Please get up, Daniel, try not to bother Flowey again, or Frisk" she glared at him "now as I was saying..." she went back to her speech.

It was time for lunch and Toriel gave you some snacks as usual "My child, I know that kid always bothers you and maybe he could have deserved what happened but... Try to keep Flowey quiet, alright? Just tell me next time so no one gets hurt"

"Okay mom..." you replied "Well, I'll see you later dear" Toriel said as she walked away for her next class.

"He deserved it!" Flowey told you, "Yeah, maybe he did" you giggled "let's go eat lunch"

You went to the cafeteria and looked for a peaceful place to sit and eat, in the way, a bunch of kids kept giving you looks, specially at Flowey, more and more, they seemed interested in him until a girl walked close...

"Ooh your flower is sooo cute!!! It moves and it has eyes... Wow! I've never seen anything like it!" She said excitedly. "Uuh, thanks, his name is..." you were interrupted by another kid that approached you "Flowey! Right? Is he a male?? I didn't know flowers had a gender...!" and more kids drew closer and closer, until it was a crowd surrounding you.

"Can I touch him??" "Frisk your flower is so cute!! How can I get one?" "hey guys give them some space!" "Is this the flower that scared Daniel?? What a wimp!" "I want to see the flower too!" they all spoke.

This was getting out of your hands.

You noticed Flowey was getting really nervous and anxious, oh no...

"Guys! Can... Can we get some personal space? He's..." you couldn't find the words, you were too nervous and your voice wasn't heard, you tried to turn around and flee but there were too many kids in the way.

You thought this was it: Flowey would get irritated and attack everyone in his way carelessly, but strangely enough... He didn't, you looked at him, he was petrified! Was he scared...?

"Frisk... Do something Frisk!" he called you. You understood what was happening; you armed yourself of courage and raised your voice. "Everyone!" you yelled and got their attention.

"Flowey is not feeling well and we'd like to be alone and eat lunch!" You said with a frown, everyone suddenly felt disappointed and complained, a bunch of them started walking away and getting out of your way. "Thank you" you said loudly and walked away from them all.

"Are you okay?" you asked Flowey. "Yeah, that was just too much people to my liking" he went back to his old, unamused self. "What happened back there?? You could have yelled something horrible and spook them all away.... Though I'm glad you didn't" you said.

"Huh, you'd probably get mad or something, took you long enough to react" he tried to brush it off. But you knew he was hiding something...

"Frisk!" you turned around to see who called your name, it was monster kid running towards you.

He stopped awkwardly in front of you "Yo... Finally found you, hey I need to ask you a favour!" he said nervously "Sure! What is it?" you replied. "Well you know I don't have arms so... Can you check in my pocket and take out what's in?"

You got close to him and took out a piece of paper "A piece of paper? Is this what you..." you looked up to talk to him but he was gone of all sudden. "Oh yeah he ran away while you were checking on that paper thing" Flowey said.

You unfolded the piece of paper and found something written...

Yoo, happy Valentine's Frisk! Thanks for being so cool and being my friend!

You giggled a little, this cheered up your day. Flowey rolled his eyes at the note.

The way back was quiet, you were both tired from such a long day, you had tons of homework on you and a half-asleep flower when you were in the bus back home.

Once you were back, you greeted Sans and Papyrus with bony hugs, you had a quiet dinner as usual, and you went to bed early, you decided to lie down on your bed and think about your day before going to sleep, as usual. It had been exciting, annoying, funny, Flowey was a great companion, you two talked a bunch at lunch, you were glad he had become so talkative with you, it was probably his way of getting rid of his perpetual boredom state.

He rambled a lot and complained when you explained him what Valentine's day was, and he got kind of mad when you gave him that Valentine's day card you made for him at home... But there was still that moment bothering you, the moment he was afraid of that crowd of people.

"Flowey"

"What?" he replied.

"Were you scared of that crowd today? That’s not like you"

 there was silence for a few seconds.

"I just remembered some stuff, okay?" he replied. "What what did you remember?" you sat up and asked.

"Just when I first went to the surface" he said, looking away "When I carried Chara's body back to their village and a crowd of humans attacked me"

You didn't say anything.

"It was really uncomfortable but they're all wimpy kids, just forget about it" he frowned at you.

"Alriiight...." you laid back down "How's the star counting going by the way?"

"I'm beginning to think you lied to me. Counting these things is impossible!" he yelled at you.

You didn't try not to laugh this time.

Chapter Text

Saturday, at last, you could do whatever you wanted.

It was 10 am that morning when you heard someone knocking at the door.... Knocking REALLY hard, heck you thought they would break the door...

"Coming!" you yelled and rushed to open the door, you were expecting this visit and you were excited...

"Undyne! Hi!" you greeted her warmly "Hya Frisk! How's it going?" she locked her arm around your neck and ruffled your hair with her fist. "Haha no no! Undyne it's not fair, you're so much taller than me!" you complained in laughter.

"UNDYNE!!!" Papyrus drew near "YOU'RE HERE AT LAST, WHERE'S ALPHYS?"

"Hi Papyrus!" She left you alone "Oh Alphys couldn't come, she's repairing Mettaton right now, looks like he fell from stage and broke something in his leg" she seemed annoyed by that. "WHAT A SHAME" Papyrus seemed disappointed "WELL AT LEAST SANS, FRISK YOU AND ME WILL HAVE SO MUCH FUN TODAY! COME IN!"

You rushed to the living room and announced "Undyne is here! Sans, mom!"

You heard Toriel coming... and Sans snoring, he came home really late last night from work.

"Undyne! Nice to see you" Toriel greeted her, "Nice to see you again as well your highness!" Undyne showed a big grin. "Undyne, you know I don't want to be called that way anymore... Just Toriel is alright dear"

"Sup?" You heard Sans say.... Sans? Wasn't he sleeping? He was next to you right now of all sudden, it startled you. "Sans! Where'd you come from? You scared me!"

"Good morning kid, and hey Undyne, how's it going?" he greeted enthusiastically, as if he had been awake for a long while. "What a creep!" Undyne replied in a funny tone "I'm doing fine, still trying to find a suitable job, but humans keep rejecting me! They say I'm too harsh for the task, what's up with them??"

"DON'T WORRY UNDYNE, YOU'LL FIND YOUR DREAM JOB, JUST LIKE I'LL FINALLY BE ACCEPTED AS A COOK AT THE CITY'S ITALIAN RESTAURANT!"

"YEAH!! I will not rest until Papyrus gets the job, I've trained him too hard for this and it won't go to waste!!" Undyne screamed "How about you, Sans?? I heard you were accepted as a comedian for the city's Stand Up show, how did that happen??"

"Man i don't know" he shrugged "i guess you could say..." ..."SANS NO!" Papyrus frowned at him "...they saw my funny bone" he winked at him.

Toriel howled in laughter as usual, Papyrus whined and Undyne... Well, her poker face was priceless, meanwhile, you were sighing and facepalming.

"Sans how did you even get the job??" Undyne seemed puzzled and irritated now, "Well, that's of course, the same way i got the job at MTT resort back in the underground, but that's too far away for me to work anymore and honestly they pay better on the surface, so why not?" he shrugged once more.

"But... With THOSE puns??" You asked sarcastically. "Nah kid, that's a growns up kind of comedy, i wouldn't say those puns in front of you" he joked.

"SANS STOP!!" Papyrus sighed deeply "LET'S GO DO SOMETHING BEFORE HE KEEPS IT UP!"

"HECK YES, it's Saturday movies night so let's go watch something!!" Undyne threw her fists in the air.

Suddenly, you saw something small and white fly at the speed of a bullet, it flew past you by a few inches and it was heading for Undyne, you would have missed it if you had blinked.

Undyne caught the small, white, flying projectile aimed at her with her bare hands in a jiffy, as if it was just an annoying fly. "Nice try, Flowey" she grinned mischievously.

Flowey huffed with a small smile, he had been on the living room's dining table all along, waiting for the moment to strike; ever since Undyne first visited him, Undyne and Flowey kind of disliked each other, after a series of small strifes between them inside the house (which involved shredding to pieces a couple of chairs and breaking some glasses) they were exhausted and concluded it had been a nice workout... Flowey had escaped the flowerpot that one time and really, you were freaking out the whole time.

Ever since that incident, which ended up in a tie, they decided to call it a day and settle it in a more civilized way: the first one to deal a blow would be the winner, now every time Undyne visited you were really paranoid they'd break in another strife, but at least goatmom was mad enough at their mess to keep them from overdoing things... Heck she barely banned Undyne and Flowey from seeing each other ever again. That, of course, meant Flowey had to watch his back too.

Toriel gasped "Watch it you two!" she then frowned, Undyne and Flowey were easily intimidated by her.

You all sat on the couch then, talking for a while about how things were going, laughing and telling jokes, Toriel baked a bunch of cookies for everyone... Which Flowey ate when no one was looking, leaving nothing but bits and a few chips, you only got the chance to eat a couple of them.

The day passed and you decided to play videogames together, Undyne and Sans loved those and they were the biggest rivals when it came to melee games, Papyrus wasn't very good at those and Toriel had no idea how the controls worked, but you could at least be a worthy opponent every now and then, oh not to mention Flowey liked to play as well, he'd use his vines and leaves as hands but it was a complex task, making it difficult for him to keep up with the others, also he'd get mad when he lost and try to destroy the controls...

You lose! The screen announced, you facepalmed really hard and complained "That's not fair Undyne!!! I didn't even get the chance to react!" you told her, kind of mad, "Fuhuhu! That's all you can do? And here I thought humans were tough!" she joked.

"HEY EVERYONE!! IT WILL BE TIME FOR DINNER IN A COUPLE OF HOURS, I'M GOING TO PREPARE SOME OF MY DELICIOUS SPAGHETTI FOR EVERYONE!” Papyrus said happily. "No!!" you all screamed at the same time, there was an awkward silence for a few seconds until...

"Uh... I mean, pap..." you tried to speak. "You should save your specialty for tomorrow Papyrus! Tomorrow we'll have your last cooking lesson and you wouldn't want your main dish to taste dull because we already ate it today, right?" Undyne smiled nervously as she spoke, "Yes! Also... I cleaned up the kitchen this afternoon! You wouldn't want the effort go to waste, right?" Toriel commented, trying to sound convincing, "Why don't we order pizza instead bro? You love it" Sans winked.

"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT! I GET IT! YOU ALL LOVE MY SPAGHETTI SO MUCH AND WORRY ABOUT ME, I'M GLAD I HAVE SUCH GOOD FRIENDS! SOME PIZZA IS OKAY FOR TONIGHT!" he smiled, then took his pone and left to order pizza. You all sighed in relief once he was gone.

"His dishes don't suck as much anymore but..." Undyne commented "...yeah I'd rather eat something else, he's been cooking spaghetti the entire week!!" you said. "I refuse to eat that trash again" Flowey said in disgust. "Watch your mouth Flowey" Toriel said as she glared at him.

You hear the door bells ring, someone was outside.

"Coming!" Toriel exclaimed and hurried to open the door.

"Who could that be?" you wondered "Maybe it's our special guest" Sans replied, "special guest? You don't mean..." you stopped talking when you heard mumbles and Toriel talking to whoever was visiting, you then heard steps getting closer and closer…

"Oh my!" you smiled widely when you saw who this special guest was.

"Hodwy everyone! How have you been?" Asgore walked into the living room and showed his arms wide open. "Asgore!!" you leapt out of the couch and went to give him a big furry hug "nobody told me you were coming!"

"We wanted to keep it a surprise for you Frisk, we know how much you like ot when he comes over" Sans grinned "How's it going Asgore?" he asked.

"It's been a long while indeed, but things are going great, a bit busy for me though... I want to spend my last days as a king helping both humans and monsters as much as I can with this getting-along business... With your help, Frisk, it has worked much better than we expected. Now that you took a break from it... It's been a while since we last saw each other" he said as he returned you a hug.

"I couldn't have done it without mom and you!" You added "Come and watch a movie with us Asgore" you took his hand and pulled him to the couch. "Yeah Asgore! Have you watched these human shows lately??? They're so weird and yet so amazing" Undyne shouted with enthusiasm.

"My, and what is it that you're watching?" he asked and sat on the couch next to you, "we're watching a marathon of this thing called Harry Potter, oh hey that's how they used their magic it seems" Sans lazily pointed at the way the characters used their magic wands.

"Sans I don't think that's how it was!" you huffed, you then heard both Papyrus and Toriel coming, "I HAVE ORDERED A DELICIOUS FAMILIAR.... WOW WHAT IS ASGORE DOING HERE??" Papyrus yelled when he saw him.

"Hello Papyrus! I was invited, care to watch a show with us? And.... Hey Tori... Toriel" he corrected himself and smiled "will you be joining us?" he asked her.

"I guess I could..." she tried to smile and sat next to Sans, from the other side of the couch away from Asgore. "Maaan... They still don't get along, do they?" Undyne whispered to you really low, she was next to you, "No... But hey at least they talk more and mom is less rude to him, I think they can go back to being friends eventually" you whispered back.

You then watched 3 more Harry Potter movies, the plot was getting good and up to something, you were all really enjoying companion, telling silly jokes about the scenes and commenting on random things, you really appreciated these moments.

The pizza had arrived and you made a pause to eat, it was already 6:30pm, you enjoyed your food at the dining table and couldn't wait to keep watching the entire saga, it was then when...

"It really was a pleasure to come and watch movies with you this evening... But I'm afraid I must get going as soon as possible, I live really far away and it's already late for me to go home" Asgore said with concern.

"So soon already??" Undyne raised her voice, "Aaww but why can't you stay over?" you insisted him.

"Haha... I'm sorry Frisk, I don't think Toriel would like it, besides I'd feel a bit awkward..." He said nervously, "And besides..." Toriel added "there's not really room for him in the house"

"But mooom, couldn't he sleep with you or something?" you complained, "Frisk!" Toriel shouted alarmed, and a bit embarrassed, Undyne and Papyrus giggled a little.

"It's fine Frisk, I'm sure I'll be able to stay over some other time" Asgore tried to play it cool. "But I wouldn't be so sure, there's still no room for more people than we had before you got here" Toriel commented, trying to cover the rudeness of her statement with a sweet, reasoning voice. Everyone else could feel a bit of tension between the two. "Well... I'm going to the bathroom!" Undyne singed and left, "Welp, I think I forgot something upstairs" Sans walked away, "WHY IS EVERYONE LEAVING?? SANS WAIT FOR ME" Papyrus said as he followed him, you and Flowey were the only ones left...

"Umm, I think Flowey needs some water" You pointed at him, sounding unsure. "No I don't!" he replied out loud to make you look dumb, you walked up to him and took him away anyway, you two left and stayed in the hallway to Toriel's bedroom and the bathroom, watching both Toriel and Asgore speak from there. "They're getting better, at least she lets him come over" you stated, "Huh, I only got them to see each other again in a timeline and it didn't go so well, this is the closest I've seen them before" Flowey smiled darkly.

"What the heck are you talking about Flowey?" Undyne whispered from behind, startling you two. "Undyne! Weren't you in the bathroom??" you asked her exalted, but still quiet, "Pffft, have you never been to a date, Frisk?? When they say 'I have to go to the bathroom!' In a fishy situation they never really do it!" she mocked you. "You just made a pun out of yourself, Undyne" you mocked her back.

She frowned and looked at you.... Sarcastically. "Anyway, better give them their space" she smirked "why don't you let Flowey on the floor, Frisk? I'm pretty sure he gets heavy after a while..."

"You're right, we can sit here while they get things settled..." you went from speaking to mumbling, sitting on the floor carpet and putting Flowey beside you, almost behind you, what a terrible mistake you made.

"Well then Asgore" Toriel sighed "you know... Let's not keep this up any longer, they're all having so much fun and I don't want to ruin it for them, we can talk about this some other time"

"But... You barely visit the monster basements anymore, ever since Frisk's ambassador duties were dismissed temporally, when will we even talk?" he replied with a concerned expression, "I don't know Asgore, I don't really have any interest in this anymore, but let's drop this before they get upset, I'm trying really hard to make this work" Toriel said with forced patience.

"Tori.. You know I... Eh...?" Asgore stopped talking as he heard some... Violent noises coming from your direction.

"FLOWEY, UNDYNE NO!" You screamed. "HISSSSS" Flowey growled at Undyne with a creepy-scared face, "No! Undyne he will get out of the-" crink, the flowerpot cracked loud across the hallway.

"Don't be a coward! COME BACK HERE AND LET'S SETTLE THIS TONIGHT!" Undyne didn't hold back. Great, it happened again because you let your guard down.

Papyrus and Sans rushed downstairs to see what the fuss was about, Toriel was worried and frowning at the same time, aware of the situation. It was in that moment when Flowey came out to the living room crawling and using his roots awkwardly, since the floor was made out of wood, Undyne chased after him with a spear on hands, the pointy side of the spear was facing back so nobody got actually hurt, she just wanted to smack flowey on the head... subtle shortcut.

"Friiiiiiiiiisssk!" Flowey hissed, trying to climb on the table and chairs to stand a chance, he knew you could stop the conflict... Only so he could get a chance to backstab Undyne.

"Not gonna work!" Undyne shouted and threw her spear at him, Flowey caught it with his vines and pointed it towards her, "Hahaha!!" he laughed darkly, his face had a vicious grin.

"...psst, hey Asgore" Sans sneaked close to him "it was nice to have you and all, it was a great day huh?" Sans pushed his back gently, leading him outside the house "umm, yes! Certainl-" Asgore got interrupted "Yes and i understand it's getting late and as you can see things are a bit messy over the living room so why don't you take a good rest at home? I'm pretty sure you deserve it" he shrugged and winked, being expressive with his hands and still leading him outside "Goodnight your majesty, keep up the amazing job and don't forget to smile" he gently closed the door as Asgore giggled and waved a nervous goodbye.

When Sans got back in, he sighed and kept a tired smile "Alright you two, be quiet" Sans yelled almost menacingly. For a second, you felt worried he might get mad and use his magic to stop them...

But they didn't stop, actually they probably ignored him or didn't hear him.

"Sans.." you tried to beg him not to- "Welp, my job is done" he grinned happily and walked to the couch, then sat on it like a vagabond.

Seriously?

"UNDYNE AND FLOWEY! STOP IT NOW OR TORIEL IS REALLY NOT GOING TO LET YOU PLAY THIS VIOLENT GAME AGAIN!" Papyrus tried to act strongly.

"She started this by attacking me from the back!!" Flowey protested "YOU started it this morning, and I hit you back in the hallway but you refuse to admit your defeat so I'm going to beat it out of you!" Undyne grinned mischievously.

"Alright now you two that's enough!!" Toriel's hands lit up with magic fire, both Undyne and Flowey lowered the spears and went into chicken mode. Toriel then sighed, calmed down and half-facepalmed, "I'll let it slip this time because you didn't break anything and Asgore is gone"

They both smiled.

"But you two are like little kids fighting over a toy! Undyne, I'm expecting more from a former Royal Guard captain!" ...that comment seemed to hit Undyne right in her pride.

"Heh" Flowey secretly laughed at her.

When things settled down and you cleaned up the mess from the flowerpot, you had Flowey wrap himself around your arms and stay with you that way until you filled a new pot with fresh soil, he seemed slightly pleased to be in a new pot with fresh soil.

Not too long after, you decided to play board games to shake the boredom off, Flowey loved these and he was surprisingly good at them, Undyne decided to give up on the strife wars after Flowey convinced her to settle the fight if he won against her in Monopoly, which he did... Twice, everyone was pretty glad all of this nonsensical fighting was over for good... They hoped.

The Harry Potter marathon continued hours later, you decided to play 'staying up late', the last one to be awake won... But everyone pretty much lost, you saw Flowey was really tired and his head would keep falling and rising, until he eventually closed his petals over his face and fell asleep for good, like most of plants did. You thought he looked really cute this way, you brought him to your room and placed him by the window's ledge.

"Hey Frisk" Undyne mumbled from your bedroom's door "can I come in?" she whispered as she saw Flowey was sleeping and you were making him comfortable. "sure, come in"

You two sat on your bed. "I'm sorry about what happened earlier" she said naughtily "I just... Really miss the Royal Guard you know?" she became serious "When I'd get to train with Asgore and always be prepared to defend others and use my strength to protect and represent my kind... To think living on the surface forces me to leave that old life behind... You know, I had never thought it would happen"

You smiled at her "It's okay Undyne"

"...Heh, I guess I just always thought of fighting to free us and fight humanity, but I never really thought of... Not doing it anymore" she paused, "I still have so much energy to burn and an undying wish to fight for something, no idea what now but if I get the smallest chance to fight in any way, then bring it on!" she fell back on your bed.

"I understand" you replied "Undyne, the human world is really really big and endless, you still have no idea! There are so many things you can do with your strength and for a noble cause, I know you will get a job that not only suits you, but you like as much as you liked being in the Royal Guard, there are many choices"

"Heh, thanks punk" Undyne closed her eyes for a moment, resting in silence. You then decided to talk a little more after a couple of minutes, "You know, I really never thought so well about my future either... Specially after I fell to the underground... I just kind of thought that was it for me, I didn't have anything to lose, but I won so much..." you stopped and... You noticed she had fallen asleep. "Oh well" you smiled "Goodnight Undyne" you got up and silently left the room.

It was way past midnight when Sans and you were the only two left awake, watching TV and chilling out, he seemed pretty awake and amused while you could barely keep your head straight, you eventually had no choice but to rest your head on his shoulder. He noticed your condition after a while.

"Hey kid, did Undyne fall asleep on your bed?" he asked, you nodded, he then scratched his back and added "Well… i'm sure Pap would love having company for the night, but he kicks and flails a lot in his sleep so... i don't think you would be up for it" ..."Saaaaans" you said in a giggle "that was a really lame one"

"Sheesh kid, you're getting exigent with the puns aren't you? Anyway, it's pretty late and you should go to sleep, i'll let you sleep on my bed, the couch is nice and cozy enough to me" he tried to make you get up. "But Saans... I don't want you to sleep here, it sounds bad!"

"Are you going against authority kid? I hope you're not… resisting a-rest" he whispered, you sighed deeply and tried not to smile, "Alright alright... i'll stay with you until you fall asleep okay? Let's go" he said and got up, "Yay!" you celebrated.

"Goodnight, Sans" you mumbled once you were all comfortable and cuddled in his bed, he rested his body against the bed's back, sitting next to you and reading a small book about jokes... Probably the same one he had back in the underground.

"Night" he replied, that was the last thing you heard before falling asleep.

And the last thing you remember was waking up for just a minute, hours later, he had fallen asleep next to you as well.

Chapter Text

"On days like these, kids like you..." you chanted as you summoned your Blasters, tricking space and time to trap your human guest into a sea of sharp bones. Your left eye sparkled in blue and yellow for a couple of seconds as a response of your use of magic.

But the human child dodged your attacks, they dodged them all and gave you a satisfying look. The human was getting better with every attempt, you knew your moves were getting predictable... But you still had some in store.

"Here we go" you winked at them, ready for another round, ready to kill them for the 12th time and make them regret all of their decisions, you hated them with a burning passion and yet... Deep inside, you felt concern, you felt betrayed by this kid somehow.

"You can't understand how it feels" you said as you dodged their butcher knife coming at you, "knowing that one day, without warning..." you landed on your feet and returned your empty gaze to their eyes "it's all going to be reset"

They kept frowning, showing no emotions at all unlike the first time, swinging their knife as fast as they could reach, they waltzed through your bone attacks as if they had practiced and learned them, not even a single Blaster hit them anymore, not even a single bone pierced through them.

"Hey kid, listen" you smirked and kept your hand up, ready to use your magic, "i gave up trying to go back long ago" you summoned a rain of sharp bones from the hall's ceiling, they all rushed to kill the kid, but they dodged them all like it was nothing. "And getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore... Because we'll just end up back here, with no memory of it, right?"

"Tsk" the kid mumbled, those words always got them, they forced themselves to keep attacking until you gave up, as if they didn't really want to end this.

..."All i know..." you summoned several Gaster Blasters to come after them, "is seeing what comes next, i can't afford not to care anymore" you grinned darkly at them.

And you then dealt a deadly blow; piercing their soul from their back while using the Blasters as a distraction, they didn't see it coming.

You sighed deeply, closing your eyes and letting your stress out... It was over, they were dead at last... For the 12th time... What could keep them from coming back? What could make them give up? You knew how things would end up for you if they kept going this way.

You shivered a little and huffed, you were scared actually, scared... mad... sad, you would kill them all the times you had to, delightfully... To make them pay for what they did, for killing your friends, family, neighborhood, for ruining the underground, you would make them quit if you couldn't kill them for good.

You opened your eyes again, the kid's dead corpse wasn't there anymore, the blood wasn't there anymore... Nothing was in its place, it almost looked like you were put back in time before the fight even happened, but that was ridiculous... Right?

No it wasn't, but you know what was there? The kid, the human was back again with a big grin and as healthy as ever, they looked determined... They figured you out, more and more with each death they were back and deadlier.

"Let's just get to the point" you growled, the battle began once more.

But their swings had changed and you were worried; the kid guessed your dodges to the point of forcing you to move away even further, the knife missed by fewer and fewer inches every time and your infuriated grin disappeared to create a worried one instead, with every death you were closer to being their next victim and you knew it.

You panted and sped your attacks up, you were sweating and tired, but this time the kid was coming at you recklessly, leaving a big opening for you... And as they leapt to slice your head off with the knife, you summoned a Blaster and fired, it was a direct hit and their body burned away instantly, leaving only the now rusty knife behind.

Their ashes and burnt clothes floated away... how ironic, you dusted the human, it felt right.

You breathed heavily and felt tired... Physically and psychologically, you took a moment to calm down and take a deep breath. You let your weight fall to the ground and sat down to rest... What a disgrace, the fate that now rested upon you was unbearable, but now it was too late to go back... Why didn't you save yourself? Why did you have to get carried away by rage and face the human alone like this? You had doomed yourself... But you wouldn't let them take you down so easily.

It was all gone now for you though, you knew it, you felt dead inside and you missed your brother, oh how you missed Papyrus, even if he died several hours ago you missed him like he was gone for years... You just wanted to be with him right now and apologize to him...

...But thinking about this didn't help at all, it only got you to get even more upset and threat you with tears already looming over your eye sockets, you wanted to give up on this as well...

Something felt weird, you suddenly opened your eyes and you weren't crying anymore, you weren't sitting either, the dust wasn't there, the knife wasn't there, it felt like it was all a bad dream.

It was a beautiful day outside, birds were singing... flowers were blooming...

And the echo of steps getting closer and closer haunted you.

You woke up and gasped, it was dark and you were covered in bed sheets... Frisk was sleeping next to you... Everything was okay, except probably because you were sweaty and shaky. You sat up on the bed and stayed that way for 5 minutes... And then left downstairs to watch some TV, you were not really sleepy anymore, and you didn't want to give this nightmare any thoughts... You didn't want to think it was Frisk, you really didn't want to ruin your new life thinking about them this way... Maybe a reset didn't sound so bad if it implied forgetting about this and letting Frisk handle it again.... No, you couldn't give in to that stupid idea.

…

It was dark around you when you opened your eyes... Was Sans' room so messy that sunlight couldn't pass through? Or maybe it was still night time, in any case you noticed he wasn't next to you anymore, where'd he go?

You got up and with a yawn, you put on his slippers and went outside, you saw the light from the TV turned on downstairs and decided to investigate. It was 3am and everyone was sleeping tight... Except for him; he was there sitting in the couch, watching some cartoons but he didn't look like the same guy he usually looked like... He looked rather tired and... Worn out.

"Hey Sans" you whispered sweetly, he snapped out of his trance and turned around in surprise, returning to his usual grin."Hey kiddo, uh, sorry, did i wake you up?"

You walked close and sat on the couch next to him, you felt a bit uncomfortable about it for some reason. "Why are you up so late? You already won the staying up late game, also you need to get some rest... You've been coming home really late lately" you tried to open a conversation.

"Oh, yeah i guess, heh" he yawned "i dunno, i'm just not tired, what about you? Tori will be mad if you don't get any sleep" he said, "I'm sure she'll understand, she's comprehensive" you smiled at him.

"hey Sans... Is something wrong?" you asked, minutes later, when you noticed he wasn't being as talkative as usual. He seemed nervous for a second, "nah i just needed to think a little, that's all" ..."Think about what, Sans?"

He didn't reply and kept watching the TV, you saw Tom and Jerry on the screen, an episode where Tom had done something mean to Jerry and he figured out it was a just a dream but felt bad about what he did anyway.

"That cat is mean" Sans stated, almost laughing. "Yes... This show is kind of old, I know all of the episodes! I used to watch this back in the orphan... I didn't have anything else to do or anyone to play with... Um, well I think it's better to forget those times now that I have you guys" you tried to sound cheerful.

Sans looked at you briefly and smiled "Well even if it's a mean cat he can be nice" ..."Right? I mean, don't you think everyone can be a good person if they try to be?" he continued.

You thought that sounded awfully familiar, "Yes, I think the same thing" you replied uncomfortably. "i'm glad you do" he sighed "but..." he paused and looked at you, with mixed concern and tenderness "do you think that if someone does something bad and nobody ever finds out or it doesn't really affect anyone directly... Is it still bad?"

You nodded, a bit sad.

"Well that's a good answer, kid, i'm proud of ya" he giggled a little. Then there was silence for a few minutes, you two watched the cartoon and didn't look at each other in a while, you were starting to suspect what was going on.

"Frisk" he finally broke the silence.

"what?" you replied, your throat felt disgusting as you were nervous.

"did you really do it? Did you really..." he stopped to try and find the words "...kill them?"

You looked at him, speechless.

"if you don't understand what i mean it's okay, it was probably just a random nightmare, but it felt so nostalgic somehow" he looked away. "Sans..." you whispered "is that why you can't sleep?" you asked, there was a short minute of silence, "so you did it or not?" he insisted.

You thought about lying to him, about not having to talk about this... He never showed signs of remembering and you never had to face the consequences of your actions because you reset before it all went wrong... But you were here now with a Sans that had a nightmare about that timeline and you wanted to lie to him.. You were so scared he'd hate you or stop talking to you ever again because of this, that he'd try to kill you in the worst scenario... But you also thought you wanted him to trust you, what if he found out about the truth from someone else... Like Flowey? What if he knew you were lying and it got worse? Sans was scary good at reading people, besides... He was your friend, you could always tell him everything... And this was your responsibility, you wanted to confess your actions deep inside.

"Sans..." your vision became blurry, you tried so hard to keep your tears inside and act responsibly "I'm sorry Sans"

He looked disappointed, yet glad you had made this easier "so... You did" he affirmed.

You looked away completely, so ashamed of letting him see your face, "I understand if you hate me, there's no excuse for what I've done, I..." you stopped when you felt his bony hand hold your shoulder, you were scared for a second of what it meant.

"Frisk" he called you. You armed yourself of some courage and dared to look at him. He looked at you with a puzzled frown and then sighed "hey... Whatever you did...  just forget about it buddy"

You were confused, wasn't he going to yell at you?

"...I killed everyone Sans, what I did to you... Why would you ever trust me again? Are you seriously telling me something like that is okay?" you raised your voice.

"you quit" he looked at you in the eye "you quit when I told you not to come back if you really were my friend"

You didn't say anything.

"And that makes everything different, you proved to me you didn't mean all wrong, even if you... Did what you did" he shrugged "Kid I don't know what your motivation was for all of that, but the Sans right here and right now got to know the Frisk from right here and right now, and in all of these months of living on the surface together... You showed me you're nothing like the monster from my nightmare" he explained.

You still didn't say a word, but you felt guilt.

"Besides, Toriel would probably kick me out if I tried to kill you" he winked, "...what?" you mumbled in fear and confusion, "just kidding, no hard feelings pal" he let out a small, short, tired laugh.

"Sans I can't believe you..." you whispered loud enough "...is this... A way of making me feel worse? Aren't you even afraid?" you began to get upset "Aren't you even going to ask how I felt about it?"

"look at you right now Frisk" he switched to a serious expression "are those the words from someone who enjoyed doing what they did? I would even dare to say something got into you when all of that stuff happened" ...you stayed silent. "i want to believe in your promise, of not resetting ever again"

"But aren't you... Aren't you even mad at me...? Why don't you tell me... Why are you being so forgiving about something like this!?" a few tears managed to escape from your eyes, you held his jacket in your fists weakly, "it was wrong Sans, killing my friends... how can you stand that? I still can't stand it myself! I still can't find a way to... make up for it..." you couldn't continue to speak, so you just hid your face in his jacket.

Sans seemed confused about what to do, he was hurt, no doubt of it... Having his memory come back like that and show him these things that should not have happened... He felt hurt that his friend had done something like this to him... To Papyrus, it made him mad that you were acting like a victim of your own actions, but at the same time... He could completely understand it wasn't easy to deal with such guilt, you were just a kid after all and even if there truly isn't an excuse for your actions, having a power such a Determination was a big responsibility... And he knew it, he knew about this power, he knew what could be done with it and how much of a threat it was for everyone that you had a great Determination... And you were just a kid.

He sighed and embraced you, after all of those countless nights of counting stars and talks, you managed to soften him one way or another and get him out of his hopeless state to make him step up for himself, you made him believe in you long ago and you haven't really failed to him yet, all monsters were in debt with you.

And also... Who said it was Asgore the one who killed all of those six humans? Sans had, too, a reason to feel empathy, something to regret as well.

"I just wanted to see if there was a different way to help him... Sans, maybe I could fix it later... After I found out if there was a way to save Asriel... it was a terrible idea I know, but I... I have my nightmares too, to remind me of that mistake..." you were finally starting to calm down "you... Really just don't know how sorry I am, I've always... Seen you as the best of my friends here, I'm afraid of losing you to this, I'm afraid you're not being honest with me about what you think and you just secretly hate me for it"

He took your shoulders and pulled you out of him, making you face him front. "Please let's just forget about this buddy... uh, i'll be honest... i am mad at those things but... Like i said, you gave me enough reasons to let go of this, we can't live with hard feelings about this if we're a family now, let's not do this to Toriel or my brother..." he let go of you "all that matters is that you were honest about this, that's all i expect from you, Frisk, you're still the same kid I met back in the forest, and you've made everyone happy here, you've put so much effort into it"

You wiped your tears away , "do you really... Think I've done well?"

"don't be so hard on yourself" he replied and stretched his arms open "come here and give me a hug, I'm not going to dunk you or anything" he grinned nervously, "It's not funny Sans" you sighed as you let your weigh fall on his hard chest.

It was a long hug and nobody spoke in several minutes, you two had so much to think about and yet nothing to do but forgive and move on.

"Thank you Sans, I really needed to vent on this one" you pulled yourself out of his personal space "I'm sorry for being a crybaby"

"no problem, you know..." he got comfortable on the couch again "i owe you many things, too, the surface has really changed everything along with your dedication in keeping this world the way it is, everything that bothered me and made me feel in conflict... is gone now, no more resets... No more trapped in the underground, no more having Papyrus try to be a Royal Guard member... Hey don't tell this to him, but i was always worried he'd get hurt in that place, so i didn't really root for him as much as i usually do on his ideas"

You giggled a little "that was obvious" you yawned, silently. "the point is..." he continued "i think the lesson was learned and everyone is happy in the end, right? Just don't break this trust we have in you"

You nodded. "Hey... Can we go to sleep now? I'm really tired..." you said as you rubbed your face.

"Heh, alright kid..." he got up and lazily walked towards the stairs, he stopped right before leaving the living room. "thanks for coming to talk"

Chapter Text

Toriel cooked waffles for you the next morning, she was getting better at cooking traditional human food with each day, the waffles were delicious with cream and strawberries at the top, like you had always wanted to eat them.

"You didn't say up too late, did you my child?" she asked. "Not reeeeaally..." You half-giggled.

"I'm sorry for falling asleep on your bed Frisk, haha!" Undyne laughed loudly while eating the waffles, "It's okay, Sans let me share his bed last night, also you all lost the staying up late game, Sans is a sleepless stone"

"Morning kid, morning Tori, talking about me?" Sans said cheerfully as he walked downstairs, Papyrus was behind, carrying a bag with him. "Hey Sans!" you greeted "And... Papyrus, what's that bag for?"

"GOOD MORNING HUMAN, ER... REMEMBER THOSE GOOD NEWS I WAS GOING TO ASK? MAYBE IT'S A BIT TOO LATE FOR THAT BUT I'LL ASK ANYWAY SINCE UNDYNE IS HERE" He said, cheerful and nervous.

"What!?" Undyne looked at him "Papyrus I thought you asked Frisk for this long ago! What were you waiting for?? I said it was okay!" ..."I'M SORRY, I GOT IT WRONG AND...WELL, FRISK WE WERE WONDERING IF YOU WANTED TO COME TO ALPHYS' APARTMENT TODAY AND HAVE A NICE HOMEMADE LUNCH TOGETHER! UNDYNE WILL GIVE ME MY LAST COOKING CLASS TODAY SO I CAN APPLY FOR THE JOB AGAIN, I'VE BEEN PRACTICING FOR MONTHS!"

"Wow, sure! Mom can I go? Pleeeeaasse!" you begged her. "Er... Did you say... Cooking lessons?" Toriel tried so hard to look supportive but deep inside she still believed having Undyne and Papyrus cook meant having a nuke bomb inside a kitchen, who would want their kid to participate in something like that?"

"Don't worry Ms. Toriel, we have improved a lot and Alphys will be there to take care, also Frisk has never visited us in all these months" Undyne grinned widely. Toriel sighed and agreed in the end.

"WE'LL BE BACK BEFORE DINNER, I PROMISE! FRISK HAS TO GO TO SCHOOL TOMORROW" Papyrus rushed to your bedroom "I'LL HELP YOU PACK YOUR THINGS WHILE YOU'RE HAVING BREAKFAST!" You were a bit concerned about him going to your bedroom... Specially because Flowey was still there, you didn't want to wake Undyne up earlier so you didn't even go into your bedroom, but you're pretty sure he was awake, you actually wondered if he tried to prank Undyne in her sleep...?

A while later when you were done washing the dishes and putting on some decent shoes, Papyrus came to you and shouted "HUMAN, EVERYTHING IS READY, I HAVE PACKED YOUR TOOTHBRUSH, A FEW PASTA RECIPES AND SOME INTERESTING BOOKS I  BELIEVE ALPHYS WOULD LOVE"

“Good! I’m practically ready to go” you gave him a thumbs up, Undyne had packed her things too after breakfast, ready to leave, "BUT I HAD TO ASK... WOULD YOU LET FLOWEY COME WITH US?" He said, holding the floweypot in his hands, "I TOLD HIM YOU WERE LEAVING WITH US AND HE BEGGED ME TO CONVINCE YOU BECAUSE HE'S BORED"

"Yes Frisk, won't you bring me??" he smirked. Oh no way in h- "Oh no, Flowey stays!" Toriel said, narrowing her eyes at him "I don't want Frisk to be in the middle if Flowey and Undyne will be in the same party, not after what happened yesterday"

"Aw man, it would have been fun to have him help us cook though" Undyne giggled, you actually thought Toriel was right this time.

"Friiiiiisk" Flowey growled at you, frustrated because of having to stay home. "Sorry Flowey but what mom says is true, you have to stay"

He then dramatically let his head fall back, resigned and whimpering like a kid. "DON'T WORRY FLOWEY, I'LL MAKE SURE THERE'S SOME PASTA LEFT FOR YOU" Papyrus comforted him and placed him on the table, Flowey seemed to feel worse after those words.

"Alright you two stop slacking off and grab your bags, I hate city traffic and Papyrus is as slow as Gerson trying to remember when it comes to driving" Undyne announced and opened the front door, Toriel giggled at that "Thank you for your hospitality ma'am" Undyne grinned at Toriel "...and patience!" she sweated a little. "Don't worry Undyne, it was fun to have you around anyhow!" Toriel waved goodbye "My child, hurry up! They're leaving without you!"

"Hang on! I'm packing some extra things!" you ran as fast as you could across the living room, packing some videogames you wanted to show Alphys and emptying your bag a little from those unnecessarily big pasta recipes... When you were done, you took your bag... It felt strangely heavy, probably from the things you packed. "See you later Flowey!" you shouted as you ran outside, without looking back.

You hopped in Papyrus' car, he'd already get his license and was surprisingly good at driving, respectful of human driving laws and rules, "IS EVERYONE READY? REMEMBER YOUR SEATBELTS! NEVER LEAVE WITHOUT THOSE, I EVEN CARRY SOME WITH ME WHEN I'M NOT DRIVING" Papyrus said from the front seat, "...He's not kidding about carrying seat belts all the time" Undyne whispered to you, both of you were in the back seats.

Papyrus had taken you for a ride before, around your town and the parks, to the supermarket even, but visiting the big city on the road... You had never seen anything like it before, you were so used to life in the fields.

The big tall skycrapers impressed you, Undyne kept telling you how neat the city was and praising your kind for being able to build such interesting things, you couldn't get your eyes out of the window and pretty fountains, you remained silent and focused in this unfamiliar environment.... RING! RING!

You picked up your ringing phone, "Hello? Mom...?" you heard Toriel from the other side "What? Flowey isn't in his flowerpot!?" you freaked out, "No I did not bring him with me! I’m sure it’s just a tantrum or something, did Sans look around? Maybe he... hang on!" You paused for a second.

You had a realization once you saw your bag.

You opened it carefully and narrowed your eyes at every pocket, you then decided to stick your hand inside because you could hardly see a thing. Moving your hand around and inspecting inside you noticed something was moving inside, getting away from your reach… "Hey!!!" you yelled as you felt a vine and heard a hissing sound, great, Flowey sneaked into your bag. "Um, mom, I found him in my bag and he's being an angry cat to me... No, I swear I did not sneak him.... Yes I'll be fine... No we can't go back! We're almost there... I promise I'll be responsible mom, I’ve taken good care of this for months! ….Yes, this won’t happen again, I’ll make sure to… um, yes, I’ll tell him he’s grounded for a week, okay… I love you too, bye!" you hung up.

Undyne let out a chuckle she had been holding while you were talking, "I can't believe this little guy, is he really in your bag?? Maan, Toriel is gonna be sooo mad!" she giggled, "Stop being so salty Undyne!" you replied. "NYEH HEH HEH" Papyrus snorted as well.

You sighed and frowned, "Alright mr flower buddy, you're busted, come out!" you muttered inside your bag, you could see his head coming out, he wasn't happy and he seemed... Tired and weak? "You didn't expect me to stay did you?" he huffed. "Flowey what happened to you? You look terrible!" you took him out of your bag and wrapped his roots around your arm, "it isn't exactly comfortable in here, specially with no sunlight at all" he sounded grumpy, his bad mood seemed to be completely gone as soon as he looked outside the window and saw the city, he was actually impressed and speechless, you smiled, glad that he could get to see something like this with you... Part of you was actually glad he managed to come in the end.

20 minutes later you two were watching the elegant tall buildings and fancy decorations in silence, flyers and big digital screens, even though you had never seen these things before, you were familiar with the concept, but Flowey wasn't; he was completely astonished and confused by the artifacts and sizes, he must have felt way smaller than he already was.

"Did humans do this??" he asked loudly "yes Flowey, this and many other great things, the sky is the limit!" you replied. "Humans didn't have to worry about being in the underground" Undyne said in sudden annoyance. "WE'RE ALMOST THERE!" Papyrus cheered you both, driving through a quiet alley with gift shops and dessert shops, there were a few monsters walking around like they had lived there all their lives, after almost a year of living among humans, monsters and men were finally starting to naturally accept each other.

Papyrus finally parked his car near the building’s entrance, you would finally get to see Alphys again in months… maybe this was the time to finally have a little talk.

Chapter Text

Undyne searched for her apartment's keys in her pockets, "It's, uh... A bit messy inside but I hope you don't mind" she grinned as she unlocked the door "Alphys! we're hom-" ..."WAH!" Alphys exclaimed and dropped a pile of CD covers she was carrying when she saw you all come inside unexpectedly "...Alphys?" Undyne stood there and looked at her... Papyrus and you also looked at where Alphys was.

"O-oh my!... I didn't expect... Uh, hehe...heh...eh" she chuckled nervously as she rushed to grab and hide all of the anime she had dropped, you managed to see a couple of covers and you were so confused about what they looked like, there was one with a weird tentacle monster... "I-I'm, sorry! I just wanted to clean up a little and move away some things before you g-got here" she kept smiling and hiding CDs, Undyne seemed to completely understand what she saw and was worried about letting both Papyrus and you see those covers, "Ummmmmmmmmm... Alphys, just...er, let me show you around the place" Undyne grinned and led you two somewhere else while Alphys fixed her mess.

It was a pretty place, a bit of a mess but still pretty, it was bigger and more luxurious than you thought, the whole place had Metatton's touch and watermark everywhere with his posters and decoration choices, but Undyne and Alphys' style was sprinkled all over the place as well, you thought it was a fitting place for them to call home. "Get comfortable, our home is your home" Undyne smiled "Do you want anything? Some tea, hot chocolate, soda..." ..."Can I have some water?" Flowey asked half grumpy half shy. "Heheh sure little punk!" she left to get some.

"I LOVE COMING OVER HERE, SHE'S ALWAYS SO HOSPITALARY" Papyrus sat down on the black skinned couch "I WAS ACTUALLY THINKING ABOUT MAKING SOME LASAGNA TODAY, I WAS TOLD SPAGHETTI ALONE WAS NOT GOOD ENOUGH" he seemed concerned, "That's good, I actually want to try that! I'm sure you'll be a good cook and I'll be proud Pap, and Sans will too"

"NYEH HEH, WHATEVER WOULD HE DO WITHOUT A GREAT COOK LIKE ME?? HE NEEDS A PERSONAL CHEF TO SATISFY THAT ENDLESS GLUTTONY OF HIS… BUT I SERIOUSLY DON'T UNDERSTAND HIS JOB SOMETIMES" he narrowed his eye sockets "I MANAGED TO GO TO ONE OF HIS LATE NIGHT STAND UP SHOWS ONE TIME AND... I DON'T REALLY UNDERSTAND HIS JOKES AT ALL, BUT EVERYONE SEEMS TO FIND THEM SO FUNNY! THEY ARE RATHER VULGAR..."

Sometimes you thought Papyrus was just too innocent and precious to know what kind of jokes Sans dealt with.

"I'm sorry!" Alphys walked up to you, she was wearing some casual fresh clothes, finally different from her usual lab coat "Ummm hi Papyrus! Frisk! It's really nice to have you here and..." she looked at Flowey on your arm and smiled nervously at him "Flowey! Welcome, heh!"

"Hey, Alphys! How's it going?” Flowey began bouncing “Golly, you must be real busy with your scientist duties" pulling out his happy-friendly-gleeful facade kind of surprised you. "Oh, um, well that's a work in process... I'm trying to help humans understand monsters' nature as much as I can to keep everything under control..." she grinned, Flowey chuckled a little "Yes I can imagine! It's for the best so incidents like the one back in the Underground don't happen again, right? Gosh I don't want to know what humans would think if they knew about it!" he grinned cutely, Alphys seemed suddenly uncomfortable.

Alright you knew what was he trying to accomplish and you didn't like it, you threw a quick glance at him in disapproval and he replied to you with a small, discrete smirk.

"E-excuse me, I need to g-get something, let me know if you need anything Frisk!" she walked away.

You frowned at him "we're here to visit, not to make Alphys hate you Flowey!" you exclaimed in a whisper, "She's the one I should be hating" he attempted to shrug somehow, moving his tiny leaves around. You sighed "don't lose your ticket to having feelings again"

Later when you were all settled and comfortable, you decided to sit on the couch for a while and share some stories and questions. "So... How's school going for you, Frisk?" Alphys was the first.

"It's boring and a bit hard but it's all great with Toriel... Mom, as a teacher" you corrected yourself.

Undyne threw an interesting question then, "Frisk how did you get used to calling Toriel your mom so fast? She told me you were calling her that way really early when you two met in the ruins" you laughed a little at this one "I know... At first, I wasn't even serious about it, it was like a nickname I gave her because of the way she acted and treated me and tried to keep me close, but then... She was just so much like a real mom... She's the best mom" you grinned widely, Flowey rolled his eyes at you.

"THAT'S SO SWEET OF YOU, I THINK YOU MAKE HER REALLY HAPPY FRISK! I KNOW FLOWEY TRIES TO DO THE SAME TOO, BECAUSE HE ACCIDENTALLY KEEPS CALLING TORIEL HIS MOM, SOMETIMES" Papyrus exclaimed, Flowey couldn't care less, he usually didn't like to interfere.

"Oh? Don't let him steal Toriel away from you!" Undyne chuckled. "Haha... Of course! Or else she's going to be all mine and there will be nothing left for Frisk" Flowey smiled at you, he gave you some kind of if you know what I mean look, and even though you liked to think he was just messing with you, it still kind of freaked you out.

After a few seconds of shared laughter, there was an awkward silence that betrayed your lack of conversation subjects... "Um, so, are you guys cooking lasagna for lunch? Can I help out??" you asked with rhythmic enthusiasm.

"Woah now punk! What do you think Toriel would think if you played around with knives in the kitchen, with Papyrus and me?!" Undyne stood up firmly and blocked your way, "Ummm... Eh" you tried to come up with an answer, "BUT OF COURSE! We won't tell her anything!" Undyne chanted with a hilarious expression, interrupting your attempt to be a responsible child.

"Heck yes!" you marched to the kitchen with Flowey still wrapped on your arm, he had to make a physical effort to avoid flailing around because of your sudden movements, he kept complaining about it over and over again for a while until you decided it was safer for everyone to put him in one of Alphys' emergency flowerpots, before he decided to make his threats real by biting you and anyone near him.... As the starter of all bad things he actually wanted to do.

You put him away from your workplace in a little table beside you, you wanted him to watch but not to get in the way or screw everything up, "where do we start?" you asked both Papyrus and Undyne, Alphys seemed reluctant to join you in this... Because of previous cooking incidents involving Papyrus and her fishy girlfriend.

"FIRST, WE NEED THE INGREDIENTS" Papyrus spoke with wisdom, "I've got them all dude!" Undyne followed as she took the lasagna noodles, ground beef, pans and everything else.

"UNDYNE, YOU'RE MISSING THE MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENT!" Papyrus brought a thoughtful hand to his chin "...What?" she slowly turned around to meet his face. "...SPAGHETTI OF COURSE! HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY MAKE GOOD ITALIAN FOOD WITHOUT THE DELIGHTS OF PASTA?" He said while he mysteriously took out a dish of spaghetti and put it with the ingredients. "OKAY, THE FIRST STEP IS TO PREHEAT THE OVEN, NOW, HOW MUCH WAS IT..."

"To the hell with how much, let's heat it up right away!!" Undyne impatiently grabbed the oven's knob, "UNDYNE WAIT!" Papyrus stopped her with a frown "REMEMBER, WE WILL FOLLOW THE RULES EXACTLY THE WAY THEY ARE, OR ELSE IT COULD BE REALLY BAD!" Undyne bit her lips, digging for her patience "Fine" she agreed after the thought of many other failed attempts where she'd convince Papyrus it was going to be okay but it turned out terrible in the end.

Cooking was an expected disaster which Alphys would end up joining, for the sake of having good times with you, it wasn't easy to keep up with Papyrus and Undyne's ironic experience, especially since they'd forget you two wanted to help, in fact at one point Alphys and you had stopped cooking so you could casually talk out loud about generic subjects and cheer for the cooking couple.

"Hey, what about me?? Do you guys see me like I'm some dumb plant pet or what? I can do something to help too you know" Flowey protested with irritated kindness.

"Er..." Undyne muttered "U-uh..." Alphys tried to find an excuse, "BUT OF COURSE! HOW COULD WE MAKE YOU FEEL LEFT OUT? YOU CAN TOTALLY HELP!" Papyrus picked up the floweypot and placed it on the kitchen's table, near a bowl where he had put eggs and cheese to mix. "YOU'LL BE IN CHARGE OF MIXING THESE" he assigned him a mixing spoon and Flowey held it awkwardly with some of his tiny vines; the smaller his ground space, the smaller he was of a threat.

Undyne, Alphys and you sighed discretely in relief, glad that Flowey would get to do something that didn't involve fire or knives. You were kind of proud of him for offering himself.

Flowey stirred the mix until thoroughly combined, he seemed pretty tired from this exercise and adorable at the same time, do you know how adorable it is to watch a tiny golden flower doing bakery things? Gosh so adorable you cringed when you remembered this little guy wasn't innocent at all and he was probably up to something.

"OKAY IT'S ALL DONE FLOWEY, THANKS FOR YOUR HELP, YOU'RE SUCH A GREAT FRIEND!" Papyrus made him stop "THE FINAL STEP IS TO GET THE BAKING PAN AND PUT IT ALL TOGETHER WITH THE SPAGHETTI AND SOME KETCHUP ALL AROUND, UNDYNE CAN YOU DO THE HONORS?" Papyrus bowed a little.

"U-um, I-I don't think lasagna has ketchup a-at all Papyrus..." Alphys was worried her whole sense of taste was in danger. "NONSENSE" He proudly pronounced "WHAT'S PASTA WITHOUT KETCHUP? AS A PASTA LOVER, I WON'T ALLOW IT! JUST TRUST ME ALPHYS, IT'LL BE MY GREATEST DISH YET!"

You noticed Undyne had ducked in front of the kitchen's table to get the baking pan, and when you noticed Flowey had "accidentally" hit the mixing bowl with one of his vines, it was already too late to warn Undyne there were an egg and parmesan cheese mix about to fall on her head.

Clank! Splash! The disaster happened, Undyne was now covered in a gooey yellowish liquid, looking at herself to realize how bad it was and building up rage to let Flowey have it.

"Whoops!" Flowey showed a fake genuine concern "Silly me, I'm so sorry Undyne!" he tried not to look amused.

Alphys had covered her mouth with her hands, Papyrus seemed worried about Undyne and rushed to help her. Undyne on the other hand just stood there with a toothy grin, enraged, but trying to keep her cool. "..... Haha... It's okay Flowey, accidents happen!" she smiled widely, it was almost a like a creepy frown "YES, IT'S OKAY FLOWEY... WE ALL KNOW IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT... I HOPE YOU TWO AREN'T GOING TO FIGHT OVER SOMETHING LIKE THIS AGAIN" Papyrus narrowed his eyes at both of them. "Oh no of course not! Right Undyne?" Flowey gave her an upset look.

"Right!" she got up, looking neutral and cleaning the mix out of her clothes, "WELL WE'LL HAVE TO MAKE A NEW MIX BUT THAT'S OKAY! I GOT PLENTY OF INGREDIENTS IN..." ..."That's right!" Undyne interrupted him, irritated "Unless you did that on purpose to get revenge on me because of how I kicked your grass yesterday hehehe!"

"Please, Undyne" Flowey chuckled "I'm not a kid, I'm more mature than that"... "WAHA, yes of course you are, and you will be more after I..." she stopped, looking at your glares, she knew none of you would let her beat Flowey up, especially inside the kitchen while cooking... "...after I apologize" she smiled "sorry for being so rude!" she scratched her head.

"GOOD, CAN WE GO BACK TO COOKING NOW? WE CAN WAIT UNTIL YOU CHANGE CLOTHES UNDYNE" Papyrus sighed. "Yes please.." you followed. Undyne looked defeated and Flowey disappointed he didn't get the best of her, but he wasn't giving up just yet.

"Yes Undyne, let's go back to cooking, I'm hungry!" he spoke almost like a cartoon character "Papyrus I think cooking together is really fun, do you think we could cook something else in the future? Like... I don't know... Fish?" he grinned at both Papyrus and Undyne.

"FISH? WELL THAT'S CERTAINLY DIFFERENT..."... "U-uh oh" Alphys got suddenly scared.

"NOBODY IS HURTING A DAMN FISH IN THIS HOUSE!" Undyne interrupted them with a loud scream and charged towards Flowey and incidentally... You.

"Aaaaah!!" you hugged the pot tight and tried getting out of her way, but you just managed to trip over and drop Flowey... Hell for everyone again.

You spent the last 5 minutes hiding under the table, Undyne would throw tomatoes and eggs at Flowey while he'd tease her and hide everywhere, making a mess in the kitchen and nearly ruining the lasagna.

"H-hey! Stop!" Alphys thought it twice before going near them, "Ugh!" you were so mad at them you just wanted to knock everyone out "If I could use magic I swear I'd make you two stop and fix this mess together!!" you yelled in vain, they didn't listen to you. "BUT I CAN" Papyrus shouted, throwing a box of bones at the troublemakers... You thought of a different solution but it apparently worked out anyway, oh well.

They both stopped to protect their heads from the falling hard bones, "YOU TWO STOP NOW! I SHOULD PUNISH YOU BY NOT LETTING YOU HAVE ANY OF MY LASAGNA AT ALL! BUT... MY LASAGNA WOULD BE TOO GREAT TO NOT BE EATEN AND... YOU WOULD STARVE AND THAT'S NOT NICE AT ALL, BUT STILL!" Papyrus ranted "I WANT YOU TWO TO HELP ME CLEAN THIS MESS AND APOLOGIZE TO EACH OTHER LIKE GOOD FRIENDS, I DON'T WANT MY FRIENDS TO BE FIGHTING ALL THE TIME" he held his bony arms crossed.

With Alphys in the bathroom, Papyrus in the kitchen and Flowey grounded in a corner, Undyne and you were sitting in the table having a small talk while the lasagna was ready, she had already cleaned herself up. "What? I don't hate him, Frisk" she smiled "he just gets on my nerves" she growled afterward "Too much of a jerk for a flower, I know he doesn't really have feelings and all but he makes me want to go all out"

"That's what he wants, that's why you need to try harder and not get carried away so easily like that!" you advised. So far you had explained to everyone how Flowey worked: he was soulless because of an "accident" and got stuck as a flower, just wanting to feel emotions again. You always brought out the excuse "he doesn't want to talk about it" to skip explaining he was actually the king and queen's son who died to humans... that obviously had consequences neither you nor Flowey felt like dealing with.

"IT'S ALL READY! SET THE TABLE BECAUSE WE ARE EATING THE BEST LASAGNA EVER FROM THE GREAT PAPYRUS!" he sang happily from the kitchen's threshold.

You all finally sat together, with Alphys back and Flowey ungrounded next to you on the table, the lasagna was served and it looked much better than you expected... Even if it had ketchup at the top. You took a bite of it and you thought it was so good that Papyrus was definitely ready for his dream job.

"W-wow Pap... I was wrong, it's really good!" Alphys took more and more bites as if she had been starving for days. "I'm so proud of you Papyrus, our lessons really paid out huh?" Undyne giggled and chewed. "WOWIE, THANKS! I DIDN'T KNOW I COULD BE THIS GREAT!”

Flowey seemed reluctant to take a bite from his lasagna, but when he did... You got a reaction from him you never thought you'd see; his neutral-skeptical face turned into astonishment and he chewed so slowly you thought he'd never swallow, maybe he was trying to figure out each ingredient and hold into each different flavor? Everything new to him was always analyzed in detail the more he "liked" it.

"It's... Good" he muttered, it made you happy to hear, everything regardless of the mess caused by him made you happy today.

Lunch was filled with happy moments after that, conversations about your tastes in music, favorite things, silly stories and even about Mettaton's progress, not only you enjoyed your stay for the afternoon but you also felt like you were in touch with everyone... Especially with Alphys.

A while after, when everyone was resting and hanging out, you decided to approach Alphys to give her some stuff you brought, but Flowey was kind of... In your way. "Can you stay here for a little? I'll go and talk to her" you told him, "Don't forget to ask her for... Me" he said in disgust "I'd do it myself but I know it wouldn't turn out the same way" ..."Okay, but no spying, you're okay from here" you replied and walked off to find Alphys.

She was staring through the apartment's wide window, 6th floor, a pretty view of the city's local area, it startled her to see you so close of all sudden, "F-frisk! Hey uh... What's up?"

You giggled, "I wanted to show you these, it was hard to find them but they're classics!" you showed her the covers of many Ghibli Studio movies, her eyes grew big as plates when she realized these were some of the movies she had been crazy to find "Wow, Frisk thank you so much!!" she took them like they were gold "I owe you one, the human otaku club has gotten me so much into their culture and I needed these so badly"

"You're welcome Alph" you hugged her scaly body, her face red like a tomato. "So tell me how's your job doing? You haven't said a word about it" you asked her. "O-oh, well... I..." she looked away, trying to find a way to avoid the subject "the truth is... I'm not really doing anything too important... n-now, I'm not really getting paid yet but there are many chances I end up joining the human's research and science team as a monster representative, they say they'd like to know more about monsters to... Well, they didn't really say it this way but they basically just want to keep an eye on us in case something goes wrong...and as the old royal scientist, they want me in.

"Oh... And... What happened to your old lab?" you asked. "My... Lab? I still visit it pretty often, in fact, some of my future human workmates ask me to show them my lab every now and then... You know, to check on my own researches and recognition and stuff... they seem a bit impressed about my inventions even though they're mostly junk I repaired from the surface... I still have so much old junk over there I haven't moved"

"I think I get it..." you paused "and... What happened to your... ‘True’ lab?" you leaned on the window, "That place... Y-yeah I cleaned it up a little and made it less gloomy so I could impress those humans with something else other than my messy main lab hehehe.... Heh... Eh, good thing all of those guys went with their families... I don't know what I would do now if I had never told them the truth" she switched to upset mood.

"It's all over Alphys" you calmed her down "you're out here with everyone and you've gotten so much better at loving yourself"

She gave you a relieved smile "yes, I guess so... I... Haven't had the chance to properly say this but... Thank you Frisk, everything changed when you came, it's all thanks to you"

There was a long pause and silence, you two looked outside the window the beautiful city parks and lively streets... And then you sighed and armed yourself of courage. "Alphys... There was something I wanted to ask you" ..."What is it?" she was eager to listen.

You looked at her, seriously "I want you to fix Flowey..." she looked startled as soon as you asked her such thing "W-what? B-but Frisk... Y... Do you even…?"

"I know everything Alphys... Maybe you do, and I really need... He really needs it! Please, there must be something you can do to bring him back" you whispered "N-no... There... There isn't Frisk... He's just a flower he... He can never have feelings!" Alphys threw a quick glance at Flowey, far away on the table "I... I know I made so many mistakes and there are things I messed up for good... Things I cannot fix... He was meant to be just a vessel, an experiment, I-I didn't mean to make him like that but... Wait" she suddenly paused and her expression turned puzzled "Did you say... Bring him back? What do you mean with back...?"

You swallowed, she really didn't know it, did she? You guessed she really never got to put the pieces together "Alph... I don't know if you knew this but..." you turned around to look at Flowey as well, he seemed impatient and curious "once upon a time... A prince died to humans on a bed of flowers... His ashes scattered all around a garden of golden flowers, holding his human sibling... Until one day he woke up and he couldn't feel anything at all anymore... Because” you said with a regretful voice “... he had no... Soul"

"..." she looked at you "...what does that mean...?"

"Flowey wasn't a failure, Alphys, what you created him for... Holding both monsters and humans' souls to break the barrier, he did it, it's thanks to him that we're free... No, thanks to Asriel" you confessed her.

"Asriel?? Is he really... Asriel??" Alphys was horrified, she paused for several seconds to think "I... Didn't want to believe it... To think... I brought Asriel back to life as a flower…? Oh my god" ..."when we met at the Barrier and he showed up… he got the souls" you continued "he went back to being just a kid, he had his feelings back, he had his love back, his body and identity... He showed me who he was! And then he tried to keep me trapped in the underground forever with him, because of how lonely he felt and how much I reminded him to his human sibling, he refused to let go of me... And yet... he later decided to let me go over his own feelings"

She didn't say anything, but she had guilt in her eyes.

"He was so upset over so many things he did... Because he had no feelings, he did so many terrible things and hurt so many people, that DETERMINATION you gave him made him have a power he used irresponsibly and it became invincible when he had the souls, and yet... He chose to do the right thing and free everyone, even if it meant giving up the souls and going back to being a soulless flower, even when he had his life back just then and a family that still missed him and loved him... It moved me"

Alphys started to cry.

"...and it moved me... to find him at the ruins, right before leaving the underground with you guys. There we became friends before it was all over, talking about the past, about him. He didn't deserve any of this... Please help me give him a happy ending too Alph..." you pronounced with a broken voice.

"I'm.. I-I'm... So sorry" she looked away "I didn't know... What I had done"

You hugged her softly, "It's okay. Look the good side of all of this... Is that we're free thanks to him and... Therefore thanks to you" you looked at her "but he... deserves a second chance to live as a thank you gift... Do you think... There is a way to fix him?" there was a faint light in your eyes.

She made a long pause, suspense. "I'd.... Have to look into it..." she seemed uncomfortable and reluctant to give you an answer "I hope there is... I'm really sorry Frisk... I knew... He had something so familiar and I should have put the pieces together... And you're right... It's my responsibility to fix all of this mess I started, o-only I can do it" she tried to look brave. "...but I... Need some time... I'm sure I can do better when I get my hands on my new lab team if I ever get there... Until then, have faith in me!"

You hugged her tight "thank you so much! It's a relief..." you cried out, glad that she gave you a hope even if it was small, you could rest with this, knowing that maybe you would get to see Flowey smile, or even better... Asriel, and not only you were happy because there was a way to save everyone and end his suffering forever, but also because you wouldn't be afraid anymore, afraid deep inside that Flowey would someday forget himself again and make the same mistakes from the past.

The night was falling, it was time for you to go back home.

You took your bag and made sure not to forget anything, Papyrus was waiting for you by the door and you had the floweypot... "F-frisk, um..." Alphys stopped you "I... Kind of can't let you keep the flowerpot, let's just say I was using it to... Get rid of one from my many… filtrations? Heheh I need to get a plumber..."

"Filtrations? How did you get those? This place looks so new..." you asked while Flowey tried to get out by himself, he acted as if he didn't want you to notice it. "Well... It's just Undyne thought human walls were probably strong enough for her to train... Er, we need to fix that room" she felt nervous, Undyne was playing fool.

"Well it's okay" you agreed and helped Flowey get out of the pot, going back to wrapping his roots around your arm, you gave Alphys her pot back.

"Bye Undyne, bye Alph, I loved spending the day here" you hugged them goodbye "Bye punks!" Undyne ruffled your hair “BYE EVERYONE! LET'S GO FRISK, TORIEL IS GOING TO GET MAD IF WE'RE NOT THERE BEFORE DINNER"

The way back was silent and calm, for safety reasons and a good driver's sake, Papyrus made you stay in the back seat all the way back. It was getting fairly dark... But it just made things better; you two got the chance to appreciate the city lights.

You were silent, admiring buildings as tall as mountains and the way their light almost touched the clouds, admiring the glowing fountains and lively plazas filled with lights, even if it wasn't completely dark yet.

Flowey had spent the last minutes being thoughtful and restless, loosening and tightening his grip, it made you uncomfortable until he spoke first "Is there really a way to fix me?" he said, not doing eye contact with you. "Alphys said she hopes so" you replied.

"It's not true" he frowned "in many timelines I begged her, forced her, asked her, but there was never a cure for me" you were slightly shocked by this... You hadn't thought of the possibility that Flowey had attempted to convince her.

"But Flowey, we left the underground behind" you came up with something "She can do much more now... And with human help, in a new lab with more advanced things, you've never gotten this far have you?" you got close to him, he gave you bored look "whatever" he looked away.

You went back to a temporal silence. "Maybe I was wrong about you" he muttered.

Chapter Text

"Happy birthday to you ♪! Happy birthday to you ♪!" everyone sang "Happy birthday Frisk! Happy birthday to you ♪!"

Loud clapping and yelling almost turning you deaf, even though celebrating your birthday was like a dream to you.

"congrats kid, you're one step closer from looking like us" Sans gave you a small bump with his elbow "Yo... Are you really that old? Woah you're way older than me!" monster kid giggled beside you. Toriel sniffed "My child is already growing up so fast!" ..."HUMAN! SO HOW DOES IT FEEL BE 13?" Papyrus rested his hands on your shoulders.

"Frisk" Asgore spoke solemnly, everyone kept silence to his voice as if he was an unquestionable authority, monsters still considered him a leader and worthy king, "I think you should blow the candles and make a wish if that's how it works!"

You nodded and took a deep breath, blowing the cake's candles out and strongly wishing for something... The room filled with joy and cheer for you, and suddenly the lights went out and everyone freaked out.

A small reflector turned on in front of the cake's table and a robotic figure appeared, posing like an eccentric celebrity with a human-like shape, "Your wish became true my dear, here I am~!" he said, and everyone began to scream louder and louder than a moment ago, acclaiming for their favorite monster idol.

"...Mettaton!?!?" you quietly exclaimed, not that you weren't happy to see him but his entrance weirded you out and that was definitely not what you wished for. "It's been so long!!" you hurried to approach him.

"My, fame has been shaking me around recently, I'm terribly sorry I hadn't dropped by before! But then how could I have made such a fabulous appearance today? You're looking great my dear~" he held your chin with his hand for a moment to get a closer look at you "of course you might want to visit the spa to get rid of those ugly eye bags, consider this a birthday gift" he gave you a spa ticket and posed for his audience afterwards "let's get this party started then!" he walked outside the house to the small scenario they had prepared for his arrival, the crowd followed him with constant acclaim.

Well... That was certainly something. "My child, do you want to open your presents right now?" Toriel asked "Yeah!! There's some cool stuff I brought, you should totally open them now" Undyne made a suspicious face, "A-and I got something for y-you too" Alphys was excessively nervous and worried whether you'd like her present or not. "we all have something special for you" Sans winked.

You looked at them, all of your friends and monsters from the underground... Everyone was there -except for the ones who just left to watch Mettaton perform- and it was literally magical to have a birthday like this for the first time in your life; there was Toriel, Asgore, Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys, Sans, Monster kid, Burgerpants, Catty, Bratty, Dogamy and Dogaressa, Napstablook, Lesser Dog, Greater Dog, Snowdrake, Froggit, Shyren, even... Jerry, who no one invited by the way...

But you had never had these much people worry about you, monsters really were all you had for a family. Flowey wasn't exactly enjoying the event but it was a special day with no doubt, and he hadn't complained so far, in fact, he had been very energetic, interactive and seemed kind of impatient about something too.

"Alright I'll open them now!" you rushed to the table full of gifts everyone had left for you. "Open mine first!!" Undyne argued, "No, mine!" Monster kid yelled, "Please see mine first!" "Frisk open my gift right now!" they all complained "Shh now everyone let Frisk choose! You'll drive them crazy" Toriel glared at everyone... What an ability to intimidate.

The first gift you opened was from Burgerpants, you were actually really curious about this one... What kind of things would he gift to a kid...? Oh... It was... A book, ‘Life advice by an idiot’ the cover read, there was also a McDonald's coupon for a free drink, yeah he was now working for McDonald's... That was definitely a progress.

The second gift was from Asgore... It was a family picture with everyone after you left the underground, a note and a soft, round, fresh-looking piece of bread he presumably baked himself, the note read:

Howdy Frisk! I hope you're doing well with Toriel, she's a great mom and I'm sure you must enjoy living here, I know you worked really hard for us at the start of your ambassador duties, now that they are simple diplomatic matters and I've had less and less work as well, I can properly thank you and show you how grateful I am for helping our kind and helping me to ease my pain from the last decades... I also know you tried very hard to make Toriel forgive me, but I don't think she's ready for that, and honestly, I can understand... But do not feel bad, you have brought us all closer and you should be proud. Take care. -Asgore"

You felt so lucky to have them, yet so sad you couldn’t make it right for him… but it was going to be okay.

The next gift was from Alphys, an entire collection of Mew Mew Kissy and Cute figurines, she looked happy to give these to you, even though you had watched this cartoon with her and you liked it, you just couldn't be a fangirl like her... You were thankful anyway!

Papyrus gave you... A bone with a ribbon, you saw it coming, Sans, on the other hand, gave you more significant gift... A physics book? Oh not this physics book! You really didn't want to open the book, you expected the same result from the first time you visited Papyrus back in Snowdin... But you did it anyway... Oh, there was a videogame inside! This made you giggle, Sans threw you a fast wink when you looked at him.

Next gift was Undyne's... Guess what it was? A couple of weights... With ribbons, guess she spent way too much time getting bones like this from Papyrus. Then a gift from Napstablook... Wow, his newest album! You actually wanted to try his music now that he had officially become a DJ and he knew it, you liked to stay in touch with him every now and then and talk about his career, sweetest ghost ever.

And so it went. It took you a long while to open every present since at least half underground had sent you one, you were starting to worry about not having enough space to keep it all, and just like there were amazing gifts, some weren't as good...

It was a great party in general, you were pretty impressed of Toriel's abilities to pull off something like this, specially being willing to give up her precious order and clean space to let this pretty disaster happen to your house, this was her gift for you and it made you feel special. You took your time to talk to each guest, you had particularly meaningful conversations with Asgore about how his duty as a king was close to ending for good but he would still act as an ambassador, Blooky about his adventures, Muffet about her bakery and how the humans handled her during the first months and Burgerpants about the way Mettaton stopped annoying him as much but still treated him like a pet.

The day went like that from 11am to 10pm, it was full of events and games everyone had set up for the party, several random Mettaton's songs for breaks and a mini-concert of his, he also took his time to sit on the couch with you and have some sort of "Nice VIP talk", you also ate a bunch of junk food with Sans at one point and helped Papyrus and Toriel serve food for the guests... It was an enjoyable hard work until it was starting to get late and some monsters were starting to leave, others were rather... Tipsy, even though Toriel had forbidden any kind of alcoholic drinks, Sans secretly gave away some bottles to his close friends, including Grillby and well... Fire and alcohol weren't exactly a soft combination, luckily for Sans, Toriel never found out he was the responsible for the drunk ones, nobody ever betrayed such a sympathetic lazy guy.

It was almost 11pm when the house played a rather quiet waltz for everyone to enjoy before the party's closure, Blooky was of course, the party DJ and knew very well how to set the mood; it was pretty dark inside the house except for the subtle light reflectors, it was more of a romantic atmosphere in that moment, and then you saw it... Asgore had invited Toriel for a piece.

"Flowey, look at that" you whispered to him, holding his pot; you didn't leave him alone today so he didn't cause any disasters, but he wasn't bothered by that, he was in fact pretty entertained and content with the party, it was all so new and interesting to him. "...yeah, golly I thought they were done for good" he smirked. "Wow... It's really happening!" Alphys said, behind you, wearing a happy grin, "don't get too excited about it" Undyne sneaked up to you "I heard Toriel tell him it was only this time. Asgore had to talk a lot to convince her, she's one tough stone!" ..."yeah... She doesn't really look that happy if you look closely... But hey that's something!" you argued. Sans was also drawn close by the conversation "it's better than having her glare at him like he's some sort of nasty weirdo, poor guy" he shrugged.

It was cleaning up time, everyone had left and it was midnight.

Toriel allowed you to get away with it and go to bed, without having to help cleaning, you still helped her a little anyway. Undyne and Alphys stayed to help Papyrus, Toriel and you clean up the mess... It was definitely not a work for one.

"be right back, gotta go to the bathroom" Sans raised a lazy hand and walked away before joining you, "okay" you all chanted at the same time in response, you saw him enter the bathroom and close the door behind him.

"..." Everyone paused what they were doing, just a few seconds after, like they had a realization. The look in their faces was priceless "...BROTHER, EVER SINCE WHEN DO SKELETONS GO TO THE BATHROOM??" Papyrus yelled, but Sans gave no response.

After exchanging looks, you decided to check on your suspicions yourself... You walked up to the bathroom's door, knocked, and opened the door when you heard no response... Sans wasn't in there.

Undyne was laughing really hard and facepalming at the same time while Toriel just... Sighed, Alphys just shook her head. "I KNEW IT, SANS IS JUST TOO LAZY TO EVEN CARE ABOUT CLEANING UP, UGH! I'LL LET HIM HAVE IT WHEN HE GETS BACK" Papyrus crossed his arms. "HE USED TO DO THIS A LOT WHEN IT WAS LAUNDRY DAY AND WE LIVED IN SNOWDIN, I USED TO THINK HE HAD SOMEHOW FLUSHED HIMSELF DOWN THE TOILET..." he switched to worried mood.

It took you a while, but you managed to clean up the entire house, together. And tired but happy, you took the floweypot, kissed Toriel goodnight and went to your bedroom to sleep like a rock... It caught your attention that Flowey was still awake, usually the fact he's a flower and naturally hibernates during the night combined with his childish 'I'm big enough to stay up late' argument, made him fall asleep relatively early, but it was almost 2am and he was awake, barely, but still awake.

You closed your bedroom's door, like usual, "Wait" Flowey stopped you from turning the lights off "um, Frisk... I've been waiting all day for something" he looked at you with a serious, blank expression. These words made you nervous and curious. "Something? What is it?"

He beckoned you, you walked up to him cautiously... he was strangely energetic of all sudden, paying a lot of attention to your moves "I wanted to give you a birthday present" he forced a bored smile "But... I didn't want it to get lost with the others so just have it now" he used one of his vines to give you a small wrapped object.

He wanted to give you... A birthday present? That was shocking enough, you took it. It was a modest size and soft at touch, wrapped with an old-looking gift paper, it was clearly made in the underground... And it was a bit dusty... Not in the wrong way of course.

You looked at the gift before opening it, then looked at Flowey, then right back at the gift... "What are you waiting for?" he frowned a little, impatient. You let out a sigh and a wide happy smile "thanks Flowey", you ripped the gift-wrap off and made sure not to damage whatever was inside, and then you saw it...

Two knitted sweaters, they were deep blue and... Had two pink stripes in the middle. There was a note:

Happy birthday Chara!

-Asriel

You looked at the sweaters, they were both pretty similar in size and identical in design... aside from looking a lot like the sweater you wore back when you fell down. A small wave of sadness and joy hit you.

"Where... How...?" you almost muttered "...well, I made those a long time ago, as you can see" he seemed tired "I never got to give them these... Ha... Their birthday was less than one month away before it all went down, I had hoped they would give up in their plan and realize it was just a dumb idea, but I ended up... like this"

You just looked at him.

"Don't get me wrong" he frowned, indifferent "Not that I wanted to make you happy or I'm going to ask you…" he suddenly switched his face to match Toriel's "Do you like it?" then went back to normal "I just thought this was better than having it sitting in the closet forever"

You kept looking at the sweaters for a moment and took one that seemed to fit your size. "...won't Toriel know you... I mean... Asriel, did these? Also when did you sneak to get these? I would have noticed" you asked. "She never got to see them finished, I doubt she even remembers them... About getting them here... I convinced that smiley trashbag to go get them for me"

You replaced your pijama shirt for the knitted sweater, it was a cold night anyway. You looked at yourself in the mirror and felt... Strange, you began thinking about so many things... Specially about the way you affected everyone's lives so much, yet you did so little... About the way you resembled so much to monster's past and yet meant their future, the way you were connected to everything if you thought about it, and this sweater... was this the reason Flowey kept mistaking you for Chara? Or maybe they just refused to believe the truth?

Why were you so much like them? Why was your soul the only one capable of awakening them? You weren’t very sure how to feel about this gift.

"I like it" you said, sorrowful. "You can wear the other one Flowey... When Alphys fixes you... You will wear it one day, I know it" you smiled in excitement.

He didn't say anything

"Frisk... Why did you bring me to the surface?" he broke the silence after a while of thought, his expression showed concern "you weren't even sure there was a solution for me, you knew it was useless to make me feel, so... Why?" he wore a sad smile "I used all of my feelings to ask you not to come back and forget about me..." he erased his sad facade and smiled normally "If you really were my friend... You wouldn't come back"

You looked at him.

"Was it pity? I thought you were better than that, Frisk" he kept on smiling "You don't really think I've improved, do you? That would be pretty dumb" he smirked a little.

"What are you talking about Flowey? That's all in the past! Alphys may fix you now! There was always a chance... I couldn't let that chance slip, besides, I think you have improved... You were in a pretty bad shape down there if you ask me, bored and left alone, aren't you better up here?" you half-ranted.

"I can barely see the difference" he changed to a bold expression "I just have things to entertain myself with, maybe even worse... To remind me I can't feel anything at all, golly what a great friend you are!" he smiled and raised an eyebrow.

You weren't letting him get to you... You weren't letting him get to you... You weren't letting him have what he wanted... You took a deep breath and remembered another couple of times he had brought this up.

"You will be fixed" you spoke firmly "I'm sure Asriel would feel pretty bad about saying mean things now when he gets back, how did you feel about the things you did as a flower when you got your feelings back? Tell me" you smirked back at him.

It was actually painful to say that, it wasn't like you... You also knew Asriel would feel bad about these words if he ever existed again, but he was Flowey now and he couldn't be easily offended. You learned over the time that the only way of making him stop being cynical was to be cynical back... Sometimes.

"Wow, you got guts to say that, I'm impressed" he used sarcasm "I'm sure Asriel would feel great about the mean things YOU are saying"

"Tell me how did you feel" you raised your voice and continued "there doesn't need to be a reason why I went back for you... Do you have a reason for the things you do? You know you can't feel anything, so why do you even bother in being mean?" you were getting a little carried away now. "Of course there's a reason, silly human" his smile didn't fade "The reason is because I exist without a soul, and if I am to exist without love, then why should bother about being loving? None of that matters to me" he growled a little "I think you make a terrible mistake by thinking I'll take back everything I say by reminding me of my feelings, because even if I remember them, I don't feel anything about them!" he almost chanted.

You felt bad and frustrated, but he was right... You couldn't give up just yet, though, all of your determination was in for this.

"Can't you just think... Hold on to the hope that there is a way for you to change back?" you were starting to feel upset "Can't you just convince yourself that it'll be alright one day and this new possibility can work? That’s… what my wish was about earlier"

"Frisk, even if I did all of that cheesy stuff... You think of the possibility that it might fail, can't you consider the possibility that it may not work?" his smile was still and pretentious "do you think things ever went the way I wanted when I was still alive? What will you do with me when every plan fails and I start doing what I want?”

You suddenly grew afraid of that possibility, you tried to brush the thought away, but it only came back to turn into fearful tears... What would you do? Could you control a true monster like him for the rest of your life? You were afraid of facing the truth... That you might have run into a dead end with him and Alphys would never find a way to help him.

You had nothing to say.

None of you spoke for several seconds, you didn't plan on just standing there all night and have him watch you cry, so you just turned around and walked to turn the lights off while you wiped away your tears, you were so sick of crying over these things. You took your bed sheets and buried yourself in your bed to vent in silence, you felt dumb, dumb because for once ever since you took Flowey home, you allowed his words to hurt you and make you doubt of yourself and question whether you would ever save Asriel or not, it made you afraid of failing to accomplish this last wish you had and watch how he'd forget himself over time... And it was already happening; it had a good start, he was willing to try, to behave, his memories fresh... The Asriel part of him was still struggling to exist and reach out to you... But he made it clear tonight that he wasn't going to keep it up forever, you knew what he meant with all of that... It was another of his threats, one to be taken seriously.

How could you be so childish and think it would be so easy? Maybe it was the excitement, the idea that there was a chance and maybe he'd be glad that you didn't forget him? Deep inside, maybe the thought of having a supportive family and the power to SAVE got to your head? No... You couldn't let this disturb your determination or it was all going down.

It was rough not to feel guilty for not being able to save him... For not being able to vent on all the things you did wrong for him and have this responsibility rest on you... And what's worse, keep the weight of your sins, not being able admit to him that his behavior was understandable and all he did wasn't for you to judge... Because you also followed in his footsteps when you killed them all... There was still so much you wanted to get out of your chest and you had to fix...

You were calming down after a couple of minutes, realizing it was pointless to keep up this attitude, you two were the only ones who understood each other regardless of having a soul or not... It was hard to talk it out, but you needed it to settle this... You two needed it.

"Don't you ever just..." you muttered "...feel like nothing you do is enough to make up for your effort? Like it's all in vain and you messed up... And no one but you knows what is like to face the consequences because it's not something just anyone goes through? Like... You're not really a kid anymore after all those things... You just can't be the same"

Flowey didn't reply, but you noticed he had turned around half ways to look at you, the only light available in your bedroom was the moonlight through your closed window, and he was there... By the window's ledge, getting all of that light.

"I might not be Chara, but... Sometimes I guess part of the reason why I brought you up was so maybe... We could talk about those things and not to be so... Lonely" you paused. Silence. "...I can understand... And relate to you more than you think, if it makes it any better... After all, we both had that power and we both know what is it like to be like this"

Silence.

"I just thought I'd say that just so you know... I'm not always all about good things, not all reasons why I went back for you are... For you, not all of the things I did were for a good cause and you were right... Maybe I got a bit of Flowey in me, and maybe you don't feel anything about it but I still can't get over it and I just thought... It'd be nice to admit... That you may be right, maybe there's not a way to help you"

He looked at you, eye to eye.

"...but maybe there is, and you've got to cooperate if you wanna make it work... But, if no matter what I say you won't listen to me... I just want to say that... No matter what you do either, I'm determined to find out if there’s a solution, and we can’t go around arguing about who’s right or you won’t ever get to see the truth by yourself, isn’t that something you want after all?" you closed your eyes and felt lighter after saying these words... You smiled slightly.

"I suppose" he replied, weakly, going back to gazing at the moon.

As long as you stayed determined... Another SAVE would always be possible.