After Sans disappeared, Frisk took a few minutes to consider. There was a lot on their plate, but well, like Sans had said, their leash was off. Their emotions settled as a core truth of the world was returned to the way it should be - if something they wanted was possible, then it was inevitable.
Obviously, this was possible. Which meant there was nothing to worry about, really. Still, help would be helpful. They pulled out their phone and texted Flowey.
Frisk: Hey. Uh. Lots of things to talk about. First things first, we’re in a dead timeline.
They left it at that for now. It was mid-afternoon on a Saturday - who knew what Flowey was up to?
He didn’t reply right away and they took out a journal. They had things to focus on, and they needed to not be distracted by memories of yesterday. Sans wasn’t here and wasn’t going to be here - they had to stay focused, hard as that was.
They started sketching out some rough ideas and thoughts. Things to try, things to avoid, things Sans would hate, things he might approve of, important pieces of what they knew about Toriel…
Eventually, their phone buzzed.
Flowey: Oh GOOD. How long do we have?
Frisk: Probably a few days.
Flowey: *sigh* that doesn’t give me a lot of time to work with. Can you stretch it to a week from Thursday?
Frisk: Um. Kinda not up to me.
Flowey: Stupid trashbag. Fine.
Flowey: When’d you save?
Frisk: At roughly 1:30pm today. Maybe closer to 1:45.
Flowey: Easy. I was watching a movie, so that’s convenient. :D
It really annoyed him when their saves were in the middle of a conversation - they could only imagine how bothersome that would be. Frisk was glad it was good timing this time.
Flowey: Are we meeting up or just texting?
Frisk: Meeting up. Might take a while. There’s a lot to discuss.
Flowey: That’s fine. I had a few plans for this afternoon, but I can just do that when you reload. Where are you?
Frisk: I’m in my room, but Toriel’s home. You could come here if you’re good with speaking quietly, or we can meet elsewhere. Should be private, though.
Flowey: I was just heading home. Meet me there.
Frisk: On my way.
Frisk got up and tore out a page from the notebook they were using. They thought for a moment and then scribbled a note.
Dear Toriel,
First, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. That didn’t come out the way I wanted to and I made a mess of things. I want to talk to you soon and make things right. I’m just out and taking time to try to think.
I love you always. And I do trust you. Don’t worry, mum. It’ll all work out, you’ll see.
- Frisk
It didn’t take long to drive to Flowey’s place. Almost all of the monsters from the underground had moved to a sort of newly built suburb “city,” that was separate from, but basically a part of the main city. Asgore, naturally, had named it “Overground.” Because of course he did.
It’d been kinda crazy how fast the area had been put up. Combining human technology with monster magic made for some impressive results.
It meant that everyone they knew lived near each other. Monsters would visit other places, and some would occasionally move elsewhere, but it was much safer to live here. Flowey’s house was a bit further out, since he had such a lavish place.
Once they arrived, Flowey led them to a sitting room and he settled himself into some cushions. Frisk sat down.
“Alright, so there’s a lot to cover,” Frisk said. “First, uh, we’re in a dead timeline because I screwed up with Toriel pretty badly, and Sans has kinda put me in charge of fixing everything.”
“Really?” Flowey asked. “How badly could you have possibly screwed it up?”
“I’m pretty sure she’s convinced that Sans and I aren’t telling her things because we don’t trust her, and we’re kinda the closest people in her life,” Frisk said.
“That seems pretty fixable,” Flowey mused. “And is it true?”
“Wait, it is?” Frisk asked.
“She’s very forgiving, especially if you frame things right,” Flowey said with a shrug. “So? Is she right?”
“Uh,” Frisk said. “I mean, with her not forgiving Asgore… kinda, yeah?”
“Might be harder to fix, then,” he said casually. “Anyway. What’s the rest of it?”
Frisk took a breath.
“It worked, with Sans,” they said. “He remembers the resets.”
“Excellent,” Flowey said, beaming at them. “You can bring others in.”
“Uh,” Frisk said. “I have no idea if we can replicate it.”
“You've got to be kidding me. After everything, it's just him?” Flowey asked.
“I don’t even know what we’re going to say to Alphys,” Frisk said, awkwardly fidgeting. “I really don’t want to admit to… what all was involved.”
“You’ll tell me, though, won’t you?” Flowey asked with a big grin.
“Er… I’d really rather not,” they muttered and he huffed.
“There’s a lot to work out with that situation,” he said. “I would have expected him to be here for that discussion, though.”
“So, um, actually, I need your help,” Frisk said, and he gave them a curious look. “So, basically, Sans is sort of tapped out and decided to leave the Toriel situation to me. This whole dead timeline, in fact. He’s just fucked off for a while. We’ll reload when I’ve decided I know how I want to handle the thing with Toriel, and when he’s had time to get his head on straight.”
“Interesting,” he said, and his grin took on an edge. “Well, then, I know the price for my help.”
“Okay,” Frisk said.
“You’ll answer all of my questions,” he said.
“Come on, Flowey,” Frisk said. “I can’t agree to that - you could ask about Sans’ secrets.”
“I want to know about how you got him to remember the resets,” he clarified, and they blushed.
His expression turned more curious.
“I don’t think it would be a process that would work for you,” Frisk said. “The knowledge may not be useful at all.”
“Like I care if I get some useless knowledge,” he said dismissively. “I want to know. You want my help with Toriel, and I can tell you now that it’s something I can help with.”
Frisk squirmed a little, feeling intensely awkward.
“But I might be able to fix things with Toriel on my own,” they said uneasily.
Flowey gave them a speculative look.
“Just checking - your issue is that you feel your little stabby timeline is worse than what Asgore did, and since she didn’t forgive Asgore, she won’t forgive you if she finds out,” he said.
“Basically, yeah,” Frisk said. “And similar dark stuff in Sans’ past.”
His eyes flashed with a surge of intense curiosity but he sighed and didn’t comment on it.
“Your problem isn’t with Toriel,” he said flatly. “Your problem is that you’re an idiot. You won’t get a happy ending without my help. Not if you’re only getting one shot at reloading.”
“Rude,” Frisk said, but flashed Flowey a wry smile. “I’ll need to address some stuff with Toriel right away, though - there’s a lot to talk about and I’d like to reassure her soon, so I can be in a good position to learn what I need.”
“Let’s make the deal, then, and I’ll help you soothe her as an advance payment,” Flowey said. “Here’s the deal. You answer every question at all related to Sans remembering the resets, to anything connected to the process. If it’s information he’s forbidden you to share, you tell me that - saying it's a secret and not just deflecting, for example. I get the whole picture in as much detail as I want.”
Frisk was bright red as he was speaking.
“In exchange, I will answer every question at all related to helping fix this problem with Toriel,” he continued. “Whether it’s temporary, in making her feel better, or with real fixes for your relationship. I’ll do my best to help you figure out a solution that both you and your garbage owner will be happy with. Deal?”
Frisk stared at him.
“You really think I can’t solve this on my own?” they asked meekly.
“With enough resets, of course you could,” Flowey said dismissively. “But it’s just the one, isn’t it?”
“I could probably get him to agree to more,” Frisk said and then looked down. “But… I’d like to impress him. I would like a great solution with only one reset.”
“Then you can’t, without my help,” he said. “From what you said, you’re obviously missing a major thing with Toriel. So do we have a deal?”
Frisk swallowed.
“We’ll limit the deal to just in this timeline,” Frisk said. “If you come up with questions after I reload, I don’t have to keep answering.”
“That’s fine, and same applies to my help,” Flowey said. “Well?”
Frisk squrimed.
“There’s things I really don’t want to tell you,” they said awkwardly.
“Why?” he asked.
They covered their face.
“Because it’s too embarrassing,” they squeaked.
“Embarrassing?” he said. “Not secret, not dangerous, just embarrassing?”
They nodded, their face still covered.
“That sounds like something you can just get over,” Flowey remarked and Frisk groaned.
“Could you maybe agree to not press on things that are… horribly awkward… and while maybe part of the big picture, aren’t related to how he gained knowledge of the resets?” Frisk asked weakly.
He looked at them speculatively.
“If I don’t accept that, would you refuse to deal?” he asked.
“... probably not,” Frisk muttered.
“Then no,” he said. “I’m really curious.”
“You’d really just… just make me say embarrassing things that I don’t want to say?” they said.
“That’s a stupid question,” he said dryly. “Obviously.”
“Could you maybe agree to try to be nice about it?” they asked and he gave them a look like they were being stupid again.
“Okay, okay,” they said. “But you do have to agree not to share this with anyone else. The private things.”
“Agreed,” he said. “Does that mean we have a deal?”
They pulled their hands from their face and stared at him.
“I really don’t want to,” they said.
“How much do you want to disappoint Sans by failing to find a good solution with Toriel?” he asked with a huge grin.
They groaned and he just laughed.
“Alright, alright, fine,” they said. “Anything I think Sans would be notably opposed to telling you, I won’t, but other than that, it’s all yours.”
“Excellent,” he said, and did his full creepy laugh, to which they rolled their eyes. “Let’s head to your place. I’ll let you know what you need to smooth things over with her and buy you time, and then we can talk at length.”
Frisk agreed and they headed out, Flowey taking his place on their shoulder.
“The key to Toriel’s soul,” Flowey said in the tones of a professor, “is learning. Character growth.”
“Character growth?” Frisk asked, confused.
“For whatever kind of person you’re pretending to be,” Flowey said. “Look, that’s not the point. Both of her children died, and because of that, they are locked into place in her head. Asriel and Chara can’t grow, can’t learn, can’t become anything new, and that is her deepest scar. Anything that feels like it runs counter to that problem, she’s hugely biased towards. Anything that aligns with that problem, she's biased against.”
Frisk would have been staring at him in shock, if it weren’t really difficult when he was on their shoulder like this. It was also interesting how he spoke of himself in the third person - he was having some trouble with it, torn between “they” and “we,” for example, but clearly he thought it better to think of “Asriel” separately for this.
“For example, let’s say I showed up and did awful things. She chews me out, teaches me why I’m wrong, I apologize, and do better. She will actually think more highly of me and like me more than if I never did the awful stuff in the first place,” he said.
“Really?” Frisk asked.
Frisk got into their car, and Flowey remained perched on their shoulder.
“Yeah,” he said. “In fact, if she never found out that I used to be Asriel, she wouldn’t trust me at all if I didn’t ‘screw up’ and then ‘learn.’ Not really. But by pushing that for all it was worth, I could make her love me like I was her child in just a few days.”
“She treated me like that within seconds of meeting me, though,” Frisk said, and he looked at them like they were stupid again.
“Because of how much you and your situation resembled Chara, obviously,” Flowey said. “She’s motherly and caring towards everyone, sure, but it takes growth - especially if she feels like it’s from something she did - to really worm into her heart.”
“The other side of it is where you went wrong,” he continued. “Toriel didn’t refuse to forgive Asgore because he did something unforgivable. She refused to forgive Asgore because he was something unforgivable.”
“She did suggest that what he’d done had revealed something about who he was,” they noted thoughtfully.
“Exactly,” Flowey said. “If someone learns and grows, it means that they are okay, they have a future, and with patience and love, everything will be okay. If they refuse to learn or grow, it means that’s who they really are, and worse, that they’re locked in time, the same way Chara and I are. Asriel, I mean. So it combines her issues in the worst way.”
“Huh,” Frisk said thoughtfully. “So the issue with Asgore wasn’t that he killed some people. It was that he was doing wrong things and staying the course. If he’d changed his approach from her leaving him, she might have gone back to him.”
“She absolutely would have gone back to him, especially if he asked for her to come back in the right way,” he said. “Though, by the time either of us were in the picture, it was too late - he had a hundred years to fix his mistake and failed.”
Frisk nodded.
“And you had all the information you needed,” he continued. “You told me about how Toriel got mad at him when he tried to make excuses. How he could have killed one fallen human, crossed the barrier, and gotten the rest of the souls. The problem wasn’t him killing people, though she didn’t agree with it. She can forgive almost anything. The problem was that he was locked in place.”
They drove in silence for a minute. They were getting pretty close to Toriel’s house.
“She likes Sans, though, and he kind of doesn’t do that,” they noted.
“Because she’s an idiot, too,” he groused. “He does change things - he reads his audience and adjusts on the fly. Changing his jokes, his topics, whatever, according to people’s reactions. Knowing how to manipulate people to get what he wants from them is not the same thing as growing as a person, but it’s not like she’s aware of this about herself. They hit it off because of a shared appreciation for stupid jokes, and his perception and responsiveness took things the rest of the way.”
Frisk thought about how Toriel reacted when they said they wanted to stay with her, in the end. How hard that had hit her, how tenderly she had smiled at them. How much more profound it had seemed, than when she’d tried to get them to stay with her, only hours before.
Flowey was right. They had known everything they needed already. Which meant…
“Do you think she can forgive me, then?” Frisk asked quietly.
“We don’t have time to talk about that yet,” he said. “You're dealing with soothing her first, then discussing with me, then we work on fixing things. So here’s what you need to do. Keep in mind the growth mindset - you made two mistakes. One, the evil thing she knows you’re keeping from her, and two, refusing to trust her. The character you’re presenting to her is one who has already learned and grown from your first mistake, and who needs her help to grow from the second mistake.”
“Um,” they said, reeling from this perspective. “I want it to be real, though…”
“Not today, you don’t,” he said. “We’re extracting information from her in this timeline. Save permanent things for the permanent timeline.”
“Um,” they said again.
“You could lay it out as directly as I just said it, and she’ll still listen and feel better,” Flowey said. “Same as how I could directly say that you don’t want to disappoint Sans, and you knew that was a blatant manipulation, but it worked anyway.”
“When you have the key to someone’s soul, it doesn’t matter if they know,” Frisk murmured.
“It matters if you don’t want them to know you’re manipulating them,” he said with a laugh. “But that’s all.”
Frisk pulled into the parking spot. They took a moment to run their intended approach by Flowey and he approved it. He was going to sneak in and eavesdrop - his weird magic tunnelling trick he’d figured out that enabled him to move through the ground without damaging the floor was handy.
They were really nervous. They’d put on masks like this - frequently designed by Flowey’s suggestions, too - for dealing with meetings and such, but they had a deeply rooted preference for honesty, for being real with people.
The note was still on the table where they’d left it when they went inside. It seemed like Toriel hadn’t left her room yet.
They walked to her room nervously and knocked.
“Y-yes?” Toriel asked through the door, but didn’t open it.
The fact that she didn’t open the door made Frisk flinch. She could only imagine Toriel’s face, if she didn’t want to show it.
“Our conversation helped me realize some things,” Frisk said. “I’m so sorry, mum. I was wrong not to trust you.”
The door opened and Frisk looked at Toriel’s tear soaked cheeks. Their heart settled in a strange way, seeing the look on her face. They’d made the right choices. Of course they had to reset to fix this. Flowey was right about his advice, and so they’d been right to make that deal.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Everything was going to be okay, no matter how red Toriel’s eyes were.
“You have reason to feel as you do,” Toriel said in a soft voice.
“Yes, I did,” Frisk said. “My reason was fear.”
Toriel’s gaze grew softer.
“Trust is hard sometimes,” Frisk said. “Sans is afraid, too, and we’ve been working on that. And it’s working - he’s opened up to me some. I know he’ll learn to open up more in time.”
Toriel smiled faintly at that. It looked entirely genuine.
“For my part,” Frisk said, and took a breath. “You’re right, mum, and I’m sorry that I didn’t see it sooner. You are someone who is understanding of mistakes, and learning from them. That’s always been true, I was just too caught up in feelings of guilt to see it. You are trustworthy, and I do trust you.”
Toriel pulled them into a tight hug, a faint sound almost like a whimper coming from her.
“We don’t need to talk about any of that right now,” Frisk said. “Today’s been kind of rough on you. But I will tell you, mum. It’s hard, and I’m afraid, and I’ll need your help to get through it. But I will tell you the mistake I made and what I’ve learned from it. I'm telling you, not because I feel like I have to, but because you helped me realize that I was holding back from fear. Thank you for always being here for me.”
Toriel was shaking as she squeezed them.
Frisk felt a little dirty from all this. Filthy, really. It wasn’t that they were lying, exactly, so much that every word was chosen as a deliberate manipulation. That wasn’t how they were.
They pulled back from their hug and smiled at Toriel’s beaming face. It was strange to see such joy paired with red eyes and wet cheeks.
“Of course I am, my child,” Toriel said warmly. “And I always will be. I cannot tell you how much joy your words have brought me.”
Frisk managed to hide the guilty flinch. Yeah, Flowey was earning his pay, alright…
“I’m glad,” Frisk said.
It felt like a lie, in this moment, even though they were glad Toriel was happy.
“I think we could both use some time to decompress,” Frisk said. “I’ll go off and just hang out with friends, and laugh and have fun. You’re still reading that book that talked about the fibonacci sequence in nature, such as in snail shells, right?”
Toriel laughed lightly and rubbed at her eyes.
“I finished that one this morning,” she said. “But there are other books to read, and I think it is a good idea. Will I see you for dinner?”
“Absolutely,” Frisk said. “Maybe we can do snail pie for tonight?”
Toriel laughed at that.
“You are sweet, my child,” she said - since Frisk really didn’t like snail pie. “Very well, but I will also make those roasted garlic mashed potatoes you love so much.”
Frisk grinned hugely.
“I will make dinner for seven,” she said, sounding more put together than she had since their conversation yesterday. “Go and have a wonderful afternoon. Thank you again for your trust.”
“Always,” Frisk said. “Have a great one, too! See you at seven!”
With that, they left and sagged when they got into the car. Flowey slipped in when the door opened and just laughed.
“You did fantastic,” Flowey said. “She completely believed you.”
“Ow,” Frisk said. “Way to twist the knife, Flowey.”
“You shouldn’t feel bad about that,” he said with a sigh. “You did what you set out to do and made her hurt less. Why would you feel guilty?”
Frisk pulled out of the driveway and started to make their way to Flowey’s house again.
“Because I deliberately manipulated her,” they said.
“For her benefit,” he retorted. “Literally, you’re doing all this for her. You’re sacrificing things, making yourself uncomfortable, for her, and you’re still twisting yourself into knots. It’s stupid.”
“You’re probably right about that,” Frisk said wryly. “Still feel bad about it.”
“That idiocy aside,” Flowey said. “Let’s talk about Sans remembering the resets.”
Frisk nodded.
“Since he’s not here, this part shouldn’t be long,” he said. “Did you talk to him about the dead timeline rules?”
“No, but I’m pretty sure he won’t be paying attention to anything anyway,” Frisk said.
“If he shows up and kills me, I’ll be furious,” Flowey said.
Frisk smiled at that.
“If he does, I’ll argue for another dead timeline on your behalf,” Frisk said.
Flowey muttered under his breath.
“Did you talk to him about anything about the three of us?” he asked.
“No,” Frisk said. “We kinda got him to remember, talked about his history a little, and then later, the mess with Toriel happened. Well, um, actually, one other thing…”
Frisk pretended to pay very close attention to the upcoming left turn as a wave of anxiety crashed through them.
“Just tell me already,” he said as they straightened out.
“He’s completely accepted me,” Frisk said. “My devotion, my service.”
Flowey was silent for a while.
“Are you okay?” Frisk asked.
“Just wish it had turned out differently,” he said quietly and then sighed. “Do you think you’ll ever be your own person?”
His tone was wistful and that tore at Frisk’s heart.
“I know this isn’t what you want, but it is what I want,” Frisk said. “I don’t ever want to stop belonging to Sans.”
“If you belonged to me, I’d have made you be your own person,” Flowey grumbled.
“You and Sans have that in common,” Frisk said, adopting a teasing tone despite the pain of his words. “He was struggling with the idea of whether it was the right thing to do to force me to change who I am against my will. If it came to it, I’d have gotten on my knees and begged not to change.”
Their teasing smile fell.
“Everyone wants to change who I am,” they said in a low tone. “Everyone I’ve talked to about it, anyway. You, Sans, Toriel. Alphys and Undyne tried to be gentle about it, but it seemed the same. Papyrus… I’m not even sure if he noticed.”
“If this is what you want, of course Papyrus wouldn’t want you to change,” Flowey said.
“Then I’ve got one person in all the world who supports who I want to be,” Frisk said with a rough laugh. “And I can’t tell him anything.”
“He actually handles learning about the timeloops well,” Flowey said. “The problem was, it always got to Sans, and that meant I’d be dead within a week of mentioning anything to him, unless I went into hiding.”
“I am sorry that Sans was such an asshole to you,” Frisk said. “Honestly.”
“What difference does you saying that make?” he asked, annoyed. “If you can get him to apologize, though? Now that I’d like to see.”
“I’ll ask him,” Frisk said.
“I’m sure that’ll make a huge difference,” Flowey said sarcastically. “The bigger concern is, if he’s the only new one in on the loops and he’s accepted owning you, what happens to me?”
“You’re worried I’ll take his side in everything, without any other considerations,” Frisk said.
“Obviously,” he said. “You’re the only one who has the power, putting Sans and I on equal ground, except for him owning you. If he didn’t accept it, he maybe wouldn’t control you as much, letting you try to stand up for me some. Or if there were other people, he’d take their opinions into consideration, too. But like this? Why wouldn’t he just get everything he wants?”
“Just because he owns me doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about my desires, my opinions,” they said.
“Can you promise me that you’d stand up to him on my behalf?” he asked, and they winced. “I didn’t think so.”
“Not completely, no, but I can promise to try,” they said.
“Better than nothing,” Flowey said with a sigh. “You talk to him, make sure he understands the basics - no need to have me there for that - and then set up a time for us all to talk. He and I need to make sure we’re on the same page, with you there as an intermediary. Please don’t just sideline me, Frisk.”
“I will honestly try to be fair,” they said. “And really, Flowey, I have no problems pressing him. I’ll cave if he gives an outright order, but I think it’ll…”
Frisk’s phone started ringing and they grumbled.
“Could you connect my phone and answer it for me?” they asked, reaching into their pocket and tossing Flowey their phone.
He quickly plugged it into the car and accepted the call. They mouthed “thanks” to him as it connected and he nodded.
“Hello?” Frisk asked.
“Where is Sans?!” Undyne yelled, sounding like she was at a bit of a distance from the phone.
“Er, uh, that is, we were - I mean, hi, Alphys here,” Alphys said, and Frisk chuckled. “Sans didn’t show up for our weekly game, so we tried to call him, but it went straight to voicemail, and his voicemail said he’s away and to talk to you?”
Flowey started snickering.
“YEAH!” Undyne said. “How can we have our game without him? He insults everything and they die!”
“It’s, er, a spell called ‘vicious mockery,’” Alphys said. “It’s not the only spell he casts.”
“But it’s the BEST!” Undyne said. “And without him making things bizarre, how will I come in and save the day?”
“I… I can still make situations where you can rescue people,” Alphys said.
Frisk was just laughing to themself.
“But Sans makes situations crazy,” Undyne said. “And it’s so great to watch you salvage the situation and make everything make sense again!”
“Uh, yes, so we were wondering where he is?” Alphys said.
“I’m so sorry we didn’t let you know ahead of time,” Frisk said. “It’s ambassador business, I’m afraid - he’s dealing with a situation for me. An emergency situation, where we didn’t have warning - everyone’s safe, he’s safe, nothing to worry about, but sadly, I can’t go into details. He must have forgotten to mention the game, distracted as he was. It sounds like fun, though!”
“YEAH!” Undyne said. “It is! It’s a shame you’re too busy to join. And it sucks that Sans isn’t here! When’s he coming back?!?!”
“We… we haven’t actually talked about Frisk joining us lately - er, sorry, Frisk,” Alphys said. “You’re w-welcome to join, but when we started the game, you were really busy, and-”
“It’s okay,” Frisk said, interrupting her. “I have no idea what you guys are talking about, but it sounds great and I’d love to join in when life settles down more. In the meantime, Sans’ mission is a little open-ended. It probably shouldn’t take more than a few days, but it might be as much as a few weeks.”
“WHAT?!” Undyne yelled. “He might miss another game, too?!”
“We can play a little without him, it’s alright,” Alphys said.
“But who will distract the Duchess of Elencort so I can break into the prison?” Undyne asked.
“Um, I am a rogue,” an unknown voice said in the background.
“I am legitimately curious as to what in the world you guys are on about,” Frisk said as they pulled into Flowey’s driveway. “And as much as I’d love to hear about it, I have to work on my side of the situation Sans is dealing with - all planning, calls, and meetings.”
“That sounds like fun,” Undyne said. “NOT! I’m glad I don’t have that job.”
“I’d be a terrible gym teacher,” Frisk said with a smile. “We each have our strengths.”
“Are you kidding?” Undyne asked. “You’d be great! Hey, I just had an idea!”
“Um, Undyne-” Alphys tried to speak.
“You should come as a special guest to my class and they can watch us spar!” Undyne said. “The kids could see what real effort looks like!”
“We don’t want to traumatize them,” Frisk said with a laugh. “Also, how about we chat about all this after I deal with the whole situation? I really have quite a lot to do. I’m sure Sans is sad he couldn’t make your game!”
“He better be!” Undyne said. “I’m going to eat all of the hot dogs we got for him. You tell him that!”
“Will do,” Frisk said. “See you guys later!”
“Bye, Frisk!” Alphys said.
“See ya, punk!” Undyne yelled before the phone clicked off.
“I can’t believe he changed his voicemail to sic people on me,” Frisk said with a laugh, turning off the car.
“I can,” Flowey said. “On to the matter of your payment.”
Frisk blushed as they got out of the car and started heading in. Flowey had a modified dimensional storage, courtesy of Alphys, that effectively gave him some pockets in the form of a ring with buttons so he could carry his phone and other things around with him. He pulled out his keys and opened the door.
“This whole thing is why you’ve been weird this last week, and why there were a bunch of resets last night and this morning, right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Frisk said.
“I’m guessing he got in on the loops yesterday afternoon, at the time you had me sleep,” Flowey said, which Frisk confirmed again.
They hesitated at the door to the sitting room.
“You are ridiculously nervous,” Flowey commented. “Honestly, Frisk, what do you have to be so nervous about? You tell me all sorts of things.”
“I don’t tell you about this sort of thing,” they said, swallowing as they entered the room and sat down.
“We’re here,” he said. “Spill.”
“Lots of things were involved,” they said, taking a breath and bracing themself. “Including, uh… sex.”
Flowey gave them a contemplative look.
“I admit I don’t know much about that,” he said. “It’s something I never really looked into.”
Frisk glanced at him, before resuming their efforts to stare a hole into the floor. That made sense. He’d been a child before he died, and then as a flower, it made sense for him to not really feel anything like that. And if he had no experiences with it, no memories to draw on, plus how sex was all about feeling things… it made sense that it meant nothing to him.
“Um,” they said, swallowing. “How much do you know about sex in general…?”
“I’ve read up on it some,” he said with a shrug. “It’s a common enough conversation topic and I didn’t want to be clueless.”
“Okay,” they said. “And, um, I don’t know if you already knew, uh, about monsters being able to form sort of soul connections through sex?”
“Vaguely,” he said. “That’s what you meant a month ago, isn’t it? About how your plan involved connecting with Sans more?”
They nodded.
“So that connection was the key?” he asked.
“N-no,” they stammered. “Um. It kind of failed. But we were in a timeloop and doing resets and uh, I had an idea…”
“Hold on,” he said. “I just want to make sure I’m understanding. You were doing resets while having sex?”
“... yes,” Frisk said.
“How many times did you loop before you had your idea?” he asked.
Frisk turned bright red.
“... lots,” they muttered awkwardly.
“Come on, give me a guess,” he said.
“Probably less than a hundred,” they squeaked out.
“Wow,” he said. “I get the feeling that you weren’t exactly focusing on getting him to remember that whole time.”
Frisk just squirmed uneasily.
“So what was your idea?” Flowey pressed.
“F-for him to kill me as, um, as we, er, as I, um…” they said into their hands.
“Wait, for him to kill you during your orgasm?” Flowey asked. “Wow, you really are a masochist.”
“Yes,” Frisk confessed, still covering their face.
“You can actually get off to being killed?” he asked, sounding amused, and they nodded.
“But, um, physical pain isn’t, uh, isn’t nice,” they managed. “At least, after a certain point. A little is, uh… anyway.”
“So that worked, then?” he asked. “Killing you with that connection going?”
“I don’t actually know,” they admitted. “He really didn’t want to, he was opposed to killing me, so I kind of, um, intentionally pissed him off…”
Flowey grinned hugely at that.
“And, uh, a bunch of things happened?” they said. “I don’t know what part or parts were important. But I didn’t actually want him to remember that loop, and uh, that’s the loop where he did remember.”
“That is fantastic,” Flowey said, still grinning hugely. “You abused the resets, turning on Sans for your perverted pleasure because you didn’t have consequences, and you got the consequences anyway.”
They squeaked.
“How’d you piss him off?” he asked, delighted.
“I told him I deserved to be killed because of how I’d killed Papyrus,” they admitted.
“In the middle of having sex,” he said, laughing. “That is something else. I suppose it’s an obvious enough way to push him. What factors do you think might have been involved in him remembering?”
“Um, a few things,” they said. “I, uh, during that whole process, I kind of realized that I’m learning to do magic. Like with Undyne’s training. I hadn’t consciously realized that’s what was happening, and Sans pointed it out. And so I took a different approach to some things I was trying and I learned to do something really weird.”
“Tell me,” Flowey said eagerly.
“You’re familiar with monster biology and magic stuff, right?” Frisk asked.
“Obviously,” he said. “I’m probably the most knowledgeable about magic in the world, and have a not quite expert level knowledge of monster biology.”
“So, his magic flesh is only sort of real,” they said, and he gave them a look like he was enduring their idiocy. “And I can sort of do a thing where I completely break my defences to it, so it overlaps my body.”
“Now that is interesting,” Flowey said, looking thoughtful as he spoke his thoughts out loud, almost muttering. “Monsters can’t do that, but humans are physical enough… that would work, wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t be enough to just weaken your defence. His physical presence doesn’t go through objects, it’s blocked by physical things - you can’t just withdraw, you would have to twist yourself to make him be your soul, in a sense. To give yourself up to him, to let your soul be entirely his. Consumed, subsumed, subjugated - none of those words work quite right…”
“They all seem right to me,” they said.
“Can you show me?” he asked.
They blinked.
“I understand if you can’t,” he said. “But I can make coherent magic, similar to his physical presence. Do you think you would be able to do that?”
“Not… not easily,” they said, taken aback. “I… sort of have to lay my conception of self on an altar in a form of absolute surrender and worship. But I did get a lot of practice at it…”
A look of disgust crossed his face. They winced a little.
“I might be able to try to pretend you’re Sans…?” they said weakly.
“It’s something in magic I’ve never seen or even heard of,” he said. “I just have pieces of theory I put together. I want to see.”
They nodded. He always used vines to interact with things, but this time, he pulled forth his roots. Frisk moved closer and lightly grabbed onto those roots. They seemed to blur oddly, pressing into their hand in a strange way - not quite like how Sans’ pseudo-flesh or core felt, but fairly similar. It had the same repulsion effect, like something not quite real was resisting them.
They focused for several minutes. They successfully lay bare their defenses several times, but the instant he started to slide into their hand, the understanding that the sensation wasn’t Sans made them emotionally withdraw a little, enough to eject him. They never felt any of the draining effect - he wasn’t getting into their soul enough for it to work.
Eventually they shook their head and he looked disappointed.
“I don’t want you to own me, to consume me,” they said. “And I know that Sans doesn’t want it, either. I think if he ordered me to do this, I’d have no trouble, but doing it of my own will - I’m running up against a wall. I want to share it with you, I do, but…”
“It makes sense,” he said with a sigh. “The theory is sound, but even knowing how crazy you are, it’s hard to believe you just stumbled into it. It really says something about how deep your obsession with him goes.”
“It’s not like I’ve hidden that it is complete and absolute,” they said, faintly annoyed.
No one seemed to take their devotion seriously. Sans seemed to get it now, but it’d been like pulling teeth. Well, no, pulling teeth would have been a lot easier.
“Lots of people say things are one hundred percent, or absolute, or that they’ll last forever, or all sorts of things,” Flowey said. “Sometimes it’s just messing around, or a short way of getting an idea across, but sometimes people actually believe it. It’s always a sign that they don’t know what they’re talking about. Nothing is guaranteed, or absolute, or forever.”
He gave them a sidelong look.
“But this is unusual,” he admitted. “It would take a really odd mindset, or really refined skill with magic, to pull off what you described.”
“You believe me about my devotion more, then?” they asked.
“I guess so,” he said begrudgingly and then huffed. “It’s still stupid.”
They smiled at him.
“Anyway,” he said. “This consuming trick - you think that might have been a key component?”
“I think it might be a combination of things,” they said. “I’ve been calling that ‘phasing,’ since he’s able to ‘phase’ through my body, and vice versa. It, um, has some weird effects, like transferring my life and vitality to him.”
“That makes sense,” he said.
“And, if he kills me while I’m doing that and we have the magic connection thing that monsters can usually do during sex, and possibly some mental effects due to other things, um, it sort of felt like my soul was pouring into him in kind of really intense ways,” they said. “I don’t know how much of the soul transference stuff, or mental components, or emotional, or… well, anything, really. I don’t know what all was involved. But none of the individual pieces worked.”
He nodded.
“He’d killed you last month, plus the regular connection and sex during your loops,” he said. “You tried phasing prior to doing those loops?”
“Yeah,” they said. “It was only when everything came together - it was really intense.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he said speculatively. “Describe it for me.”
“What?” they asked.
“All of it,” he said. “I don’t understand it. I can’t experience what you’re talking about, and you agreed to answer all questions. And you’re embarrassed, which means you probably would refuse in the future.”
They stared at him for a moment.
It had been less embarrassing than they’d expected, telling him these things. Mostly, it seemed, it was because he was completely asexual. He probably wouldn’t have been, had he had a chance to grow up, but as it was, he couldn’t experience any of it - sexuality or romantic interest.
But with him not really engaging with the sexual side, not feeling it, it was oddly not as awkward as it felt like it should have been. It felt almost academic - not quite, but similar.
So they spoke. They didn’t make eye contact, but they answered his questions. He wasn’t interested in the parts they would actually object to answering - things about Sans’ body and soul, namely. He wasn’t even asking almost any questions about the sex parts. He was mostly interested in the magical and psychological components, and the sexuality only mattered to the extent that it interfered or interacted. The way it felt to have their soul absolutely consumed by Sans at the peak of pleasure, blinding their mind and ripping away all that they were - that was something he had them describe again and again as he tried to understand it, for example.
It was over an hour before he was satisfied and they moved on.
“What’s your goal with Toriel?” Flowey asked.
“For things to be okay?” Frisk said awkwardly and he huffed at them.
“Seriously,” he said. “I can’t help you solve something if you don’t know what the solution looks like. Her not being sad or upset at you - I get that, that’s easy. But what’s your end goal here? Does she know about the reset power, or are you keeping that a secret? Does she know about you killing people? Are we limiting things to only the truth? That sort of thing.”
Frisk swallowed and looked down. They’d been so focused on trying to undo the whole thing with Toriel being upset, they hadn’t thought about what they wanted things to look like if they just magically solved everything.
Their gut instinct was to say that they wanted things the way they were - Toriel happily oblivious to everything, and a simple, joyful relationship. Sure, Toriel would never understand their depths or a lot of why they were the way they were, but it was an easy way to be. It wasn’t a huge timebomb like Papyrus, either - he’d eventually figure things out, no matter what Sans did. With Toriel, though, it wasn’t like the information about the reset power or their genocide was generally accessible. She didn’t talk to anyone who knew except Sans, and it’s not like Sans was the type to go blabbing about things.
But… but if that’s what they aimed for, that was it. Their relationship with Toriel couldn’t become any deeper, not really. There’d be a wall there forever. Frisk was pretty sure they could avoid this sort of problem again simply by keeping Toriel at arm’s length, and could never push at that wall without facing this exact situation again. Except maybe worse, since it’d have involved a longer stretch without confessing.
But with the reset, there was a chance for something more.
Oh, it might go horribly wrong, but now was the time to find out. The only time they could.
Of course, it all kind of depended on Toriel and her reactions a bit, didn’t it? And on what Sans wanted. And if they even wanted that themself, rather than enjoying the sweet simplicity of the way things had been.
They were stymied. Flowey went off to go read a book, telling them to yell when they figured it out.
He probably had time to read a chapter before they called out to him and he returned, looking annoyed.
“I don’t think I actually want to tell her everything,” Frisk said. “But I do want to have a relationship with her where I’m not afraid of slipping up. So for this timeline, I want to push as hard as I can, nicely, and get a sense of what’s at stake. Can I have a relationship that risks her finding out, because her reaction is okay, or do I need to back off, that kind of thing.”
“That helps for the next few days,” Flowey said. “But not for our plan for after you reset.”
“I know,” Frisk said. “I think… I think what works best is to try to aim for getting her comfortable with the situation with Sans and I, without actually telling her anything about our pasts. That’s already a lot to deal with, and just that issue puts a lot of pressure on things. Ideally, I’d like to set things up to eventually talk about our past and stuff, if we choose to, without everything being set on fire.”
He nodded and grinned, a little maliciously.
“So we need everything we can get from her in this timeline,” he said, a wicked glint in his eye.
“Nicely,” they said nervously.
“You really want to handicap your efforts here?” Flowey asked. “You want this to be handled in a short amount of time, getting as much information from her as you can to use for a long term solution, and you want to be delicate with her feelings?”
“We can try to be gentle, at least at first,” Frisk said, mindful of Sans’ instruction to not let Flowey lead them down dangerous paths.
“This version of her isn’t even going to exist, why do you care?” he asked, exasperated.
“Because I’m an idiot, remember?” they said with a small smile.
He tried not to smile at that, but he couldn’t help it and laughed.
“True,” he finally said. “Alright. Let’s see what we can do.”
For the hours remaining until dinner, they worked, and Frisk gained a staggering - and at times, moderately unnerving - amount of insight into Toriel. Plans were made and Frisk settled into their role. It wasn’t comfortable, but it seemed like it would work.
Frisk just had to remember that this Toriel mattered, too, and it would be okay.