Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The skeleton brothers were nice enough, but… The short one. Sans. There was something weird about him. It felt like everywhere Frisk turned, he was standing there, watching her, and she didn't really like it. She didn't know why he was watching her. Maybe it had to do with those times it felt like she wasn't in control. Maybe he knew how to help! But whenever she tried to ask him for help, she… She just couldn't. She stayed quiet, and that was that.

The tall one, Papyrus, at least didn't seem put off by her quiet. In fact, he seemed to take that as invitation to talk and fill the silence. And boy did he talk a lot. She hated them. She hated the both of them. The tall one wouldn't shut up and the short one was too clever by half. He knew who she was and she just needed to stay quiet. He wouldn't be able to prove anything if she stayed quiet. That part Frisk really didn't like. She'd been having… She'd been having these thoughts, and they were awful and mean. She didn't like them. But she couldn't stop them. You can't stop me.

"Hey kid, nice to have you over. Papyrus is making spaghetti, you know. It's basically edible, these days."

That did make Frisk worry, a little. "Basically?"

Sans seemed to pause before he grinned. "Yeah. Basically. He used to not be able to cook at all, you know. I had to cook for us." He could cook? Sans didn't seem like the kind of person who really could cook, but she supposed that was the thing about people. They just surprised you. She wouldn't let him surprise her. He wouldn't catch on, she would make sure of that much. It would be too late, by the time he did. Frisk gave a small shake of her head as she felt a headache. It felt like someone else was in her head with her, and she didn't like that feeling. "You okay there, kid?"

Frisk gave a small nod, but didn't say anything else. She just focused on trying to fight off this feeling. She didn't like it, and it felt bad. She just hoped it stopped soon…

Chapter Text

“Wait, wait, I’m supposed to be controlling you, you’re supposed to be my puppet! What are you doing?!” Chara couldn’t believe it. The last little human had fallen down into the Underground, and she couldn’t even take over this one! But… But she was still stuck to her. Somehow. She didn’t know how, but she quickly decided she didn’t like it. It felt like she felt everything that this human felt.

“Who said that? Hello?” The kid looked around the area, frowning when she didn’t really see anyone. Chara felt her legs move, but she technically didn’t have legs, and she wasn’t in control of this kid.

She rolled her metaphysical eyes. “I did, you idiot.”

“I’m not an idiot!” The kid turned to face her, but looked right through her, because she wasn’t visible. Chara quickly realized she did not like this little arrangement. She felt her breaths getting faster and faster, not that she was breathing, and her heart felt like it was going to pump out of her chest, not that she had either one of those for such a thing to happen. “I’m Frisk.” The kid still kept looking around as though she expected to see Chara pop out of pitch blackness before she finally moved forward to where he was waiting.

“Hey, it didn’t work,” she told him, the little flower waving gently in the wind. “Just kill this one and Reset, As.”

Asriel acted like he didn’t hear her, just beaming at ‘Frisk,’ who was just looking over her shoulder and looking cautious. “Hi, Chara! Is this gonna be the big one? The big one where we become the Angel of Death?”

Frisk jumped a mile high, and even shrieked, embarrassingly enough. “Who are you? Who’s Chara?”

“Oh, Chara, you don’t need to worry, she’s not coming, yet! We have a few minutes!”

Chara frowned, flying closer. “Asriel, that’s not me. Can’t you see me? You’ve always been able to see anything strange.”

Frisk only shook her head again, standing up a little straighter. “I’m not Chara. Chara’s talking to you. I think? Maybe?” Oh jeez, this really was a mess. Now Asriel was frowning.

“Chara, quit pretending- Hang on, she’s coming. Come on, let’s make it look good.” Just like that, Asriel was trying to fight the pathetic little kid, Frisk startling as she stared to glow red. Huh. That was her color, too. Weird, Chara hadn’t seen another human with the same color SOUL as her. She floated closer, trying to get a good look- Ow! Hey, that hurt!

“Ow!” Asriel had attacked her, and lowered her HP, but… That didn’t explain why it hurt Chara, too, if she wasn’t controlling Frisk’s body. It felt like the heartbeat, which had just started to settle, was picking up again, and then… Then she was there.

“What a pathetic creature…”

“ Hi, Mom.”

Chapter Text

“I don’t reckon this is the same as when I was back home,” Jack said quietly, looking around. “Where’d the shop go? And the ole’ drinkin’ tavern Dad liked to go when Mama wasn’t watchin’?”

Frisk frowned, looking over at him. “What’s a tavern?”

“It’s an old name for a bar,” Jo told her quietly. “I’m pretty sure a lot of things changed since you were up top, Jack.”

“How can they change so many things in just a couple months?”

“Why… Why are there still leaves on the ground? When I left, it was starting to snow, already.” Jo didn’t know what to tell them. All that she knew was that they needed to get Frisk home.

“Come on,” she told the rest of the kids. “Let’s just follow the road.” Everyone followed her uneasily, and she noticed most of the monsters tagging along with them. Frisk’s home couldn’t be too far, if she walked all the way up the mountain by herself.

“Come on! It’s this way,” Frisk called to them, taking the lead and beaming around at her town. Her town, because even to Jo, it seemed a few things had changed from when she last lived there. She wondered if her parents even still lived there.

Before long, Frisk started to point out different things in the neighborhood, like the tree her and her brother liked to climb, mainly when her brother was younger, and the house belonging to one of her neighbors her mother was friends with, and- “ Frisk! ” And an adult calling out to her.

“Oh. Hi, Miss Judy,” Frisk said happily. “How are you, today?”

“How am- Where have you been? The neighborhood has all been looking for you!”

Frisk frowned up at her, looking around. “I wasn’t gone that long.”

“You were gone for two weeks!” The woman looked back at the rest of them, and her eyes landed on Jo first, then each of the rest of the kids, then the monsters- “Oh god… We have to get all you kids to the police station right away.”

“Woah, hang on, the police station?”

“My uncle Johnny said to never trust a cop!”

“Are we in trouble?”

“We didn’t do anything!”

“Frisk, come on, you need to go to the police, they put up your poster everywhere, everyone thought you were missing.”

Frisk tugged away from her. “Okay. Okay, we’ll go, but I need to go see Mom, and Dad, and Josh, first. They probably miss me a lot if I’ve been gone a long time.”

“Oh… Frisk, honey…” Oh no. It was exactly what Jo had feared. “I- I’m sure your parents miss you a lot, and your brother too, but… But you can’t go see them. They’re not home, anymore.”

“What d’you mean, they’re not home? They were all sick in bed when I left, then I went and made my wish for them to get better, and then I came back- Oh, are they all looking for me? Well, where are they? Are they at the park?”

“No… No, your family isn’t at the park-”

“Excuse me,” Jo interrupted. “I think I can help explain it to her.”

Frisk looked up at Jo, her eyes almost pleading. “Explain what? How do you know where they are?”

“Frisk… How sick were your mom and dad and brother?”

“Really sick,” she told her. “They were sleeping all the time, and Josh didn’t want to eat when I tried to give him soup, and they barely got out of bed.”

“Well… Well, it took you two weeks to come back home. Maybe… Maybe it was too long for the wish to work?”

Jo felt heartbroken as Frisk only shook her head, her eyes darting from her, to her neighbor, to the monsters. “No- No one said it needed to be fast. They just said if you make a wish and come back it’ll come true.”

Jo sighed, ruffling Frisk’s hair. “I think it would have come true, and… I think it did. In a way.”

“Then where are they? Where’s Mommy and Daddy and Josh? If they’re not sick anymore, where are they?”

“Oh, child…” Oh, good, Toriel was going to try to explain. She held a hand out to Frish. “Perhaps you can show me to your home.”

Frisk looked around before nodding. “Okay.” The two started to walk, leaving the rest of them behind.

“So, uh… Police station, huh?”