Chapter Text
Frisk woke up, and they had no idea what time it was.
That wasn't anything new, necessarily; the Underground had a particular lack of working clocks, and resetting certainly complicated matters. It was easy enough to lose track of time, and yet for once they had a reason not to. For all they knew, the human- whatever their actual name was, Gun-hat couldn't be it- could be anywhere right now.
Really, that was probably unlikely. Flowey's help had been vague enough to be completely unhelpful, but Frisk hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary. They had asked Papyrus to ask about the Royal Guard on the other half of Snowdin (how long had that existed, anyway?), so they had all possible outcomes covered.
Unless the human had managed to get past Snowdin already. They'd done it before; made it all the way to Waterfall before Frisk found them and decided to load. They could reluctantly concede that there was a non-zero chance of that effort being useless. Still, it'd be nice to know.
They couldn't just not have an eye or two on what was going on. Not when the alternative was... well, they didn't have to think about that right now. They could- they were going to do this. They just needed to get their SOUL once. They could manage that much...
They sighed, getting to their feet and tugging a jacket on, same as always. Had they really become this repetitive?
"Repetition is something you know well, hm?" that damn voice in their head chimed in, "Though, it would be nice to see you stop stressing yourself out."
Right, of course. They had been awfully quiet lately. Even if their commentary was snarky and occasionally unwelcome, it was... nice to hear someone familiar. Someone who had a vested interest in keeping Frisk alive.
"I- look, I know it's not the most optimal situation, Chara," they reply, pinching the bridge of their nose, "But we can't just- we can't just die, not- not like this! The human is- they're our only chance!"
"You've said as much," Chara stated, and it didn't feel accusatory so much as it did a quiet acknowledgement, "And you know my opinion on the matter. I firmly believe that this is a waste of your time and energy."
"But you're... not trying to stop me."
"No, I suppose I'm not. At the end of the day, this is your choice to make. And you... have clearly made a choice. My thoughts are secondary."
Well, that was... almost preferable. If nothing else, Chara understood- Frisk was sure they'd come around eventually, once they processed the severity of the situation. They were sure of it.
Finding Papyrus is easy.
Catching up to him is not.
It came with the "always moving" thing, Frisk supposed. Even if his Royal Guard status perpetually had an asterisk- despite their efforts- he would always be doing some sort of work.
They ended up running after Papyrus for about an hour, constantly barely being evaded. They were almost tempted to just... load and try again. Fortunately, they were finally able to stop him before resorting to anything of the sort.
"Papyrus!" Frisk called out, doubling over and trying to catch their breath after they ran up to him, "I- Hold on, actually..."
Papyrus turned to face them and, to his credit, waited for Frisk to calm down enough to not be under immediate threat of passing out.
"ARE YOU... OKAY?" he eventually asked.
"Yeah. Fine, thanks, I..." they sighed, finally standing up straight again, "Needed a minute. Can we talk?"
"HM... I SUPPOSE I COULD SPARE A MINUTE!" Papyrus replied, "AS LONG AS YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN YOU AREN'T ABOUT TO FALL OVER. YOU... LOOK LIKE YOUR BONES ARE A BIT RATTLED, TO SAY THE LEAST!"
"I'll live," and then, after another deep breath, "Any news from the Guard about, uh- anything interesting?"
..."hey, have you seen a human" felt like a lot better of an opening than "I'm trying to get a child killed".
Papyrus made a sound of consideration, bringing a gloved hand to rub his chin slightly.
"WELL... I DIDN'T GET TOLD EVERYTHING, BUT..." he began, "ONE OF THE RESERVE UNITS CALLED IN WITH... A LENGTHY COMPLAINT. I WOULD TELL YOU WHAT SHE SAID, BUT... IT'S NOT SOMETHING I WOULD RECITE IN MY PRESENT COMPANY."
Ah. That'd do it. Was this a chance of making progress?
"Can you summarize, at least?" Frisk asked, trying to mask the hope in their voice under simple curiosity.
"WOWIE, YOU'RE NEVER THIS INTERESTED IN GUARD BUSINESS! NOT THAT I'M COMPLAINING, IT'S JUST... ODD!"
Frisk paused for a moment. Was that- no, Papyrus wouldn't ask if they didn't give him reason to. They'd just have to act normal. Which they could do! They could manage this! They had this under control!
"I'm trying to stay up to date on what's going on. Easier to keep track of everything that way," they said, and it wasn't technically a lie.
"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT. LET ME THINK..." and then, "SOME MISCREANT KNOCKED DOGE- THE RESERVE UNIT I MENTIONED- UNCONSCIOUS. LENGTHY RANT ABOUT THE INDIGNITY OF IT, AND THEN... OH, RIGHT!" Papyrus clapped his hands together, "A HUMAN! RIGHT, SHE HAD SIGHTED A HUMAN AND... FAILED TO CAPTURE THEM."
So the other human had made it out of the Ruins. Flowey was wrong. Frisk would have to ask the next time he caught up with them, get a track on an exact location. It might be inconvenient to get ahead of them if they were past Snowdin, but... they could manage. They could solve the problem at hand without needing to get directly involved.
"Out of your domain, then, huh?" they asked, raising an eyebrow, "Guess the Guard will have to figure something else out."
"EVEN THEN, I'M... NOT SURE I WOULD!" Papyrus answered, "I'M ALREADY PROTECTING ONE HUMAN. I CAN'T JUST COMMIT HALFWAY! I DON'T DO ANYTHING HALFWAY!"
He made a dramatic flourishing gesture, and Frisk fought back a sigh. Right. He would say that, wouldn't he... so much for leading questions.
"Mm. Right," they said instead of expressing any actual disappointment, "Thanks, Papyrus. I'll let you get back to your rounds."
Papyrus gave them a saluting gesture, and they huffed out something almost like a laugh before turning around and retreating back into Snowdin Forest.
Frisk really wasn't sure why they kept sitting down in this empty, snowy clearing. The quiet was nice, and the chill sunk into their very being and snapped them back to focus. Moreover, it had become sort of an unofficial meeting place for them and Flowey. However unpredictable his appearances may have been.
They settled themselves against the nearest tree, sitting down and pulling their jacket further around themselves.
"Risking dying of hypothermia fills you with determination," Chara commented, making their presence known next to Frisk, "Perhaps you should consider a better meeting place."
They weren't wrong. Frisk, for one, would have loved to relax someplace that wasn't the middle of nowhere. But they had to consider the practical elements of it.
"Flowey's not comfortable being seen around people. And I'd rather no one hear about what I'm doing," they replied neutrally.
They weren't sure they could take everyone knowing about the blood they were going to have on their hands. They're not sure they could commit if that happened.
"Of course," Chara said simply, shaking their head, "Ever the sacrificial one, hm?"
"It has to be like this."
"You've been saying that a lot lately, too."
Frisk didn't have anything to say to that. Maybe they were getting repetitive. Fortunately, Chara didn't press the subject, only choosing to go back to lurking silently in their mind's eye. They were grateful, even if they could never admit as much.
With a final sigh, they leaned back and waited for an appearance that, for all they knew, may never come to pass.
"Hey! Dammit, are you even- no, of course you're not listening..."
Frisk jolted. They must have gotten lost in thought again...
Flowey was in front of them again, looking particularly impatient at their failure to immediately acknowledge him. It was startling; from the right angle, he almost looked... worried about something? No, probably not, there was nothing for him to worry about...
And he had a scarf, for some reason. Or something that looked vaguely akin to the tattered edge of a scarf.
"Hi, Flowey..?" Frisk said, looking down at him, "What's with the scarf?"
"Oh. This old thing?" Flowey glanced at the scarf, expression turning completely neutral, "Stole it."
"You... stole it. From..?"
"A... really tiny child?"
"Right."
They would be stupid to believe that for even a second. Unfortunately, they were more worried about everything else going on, and thus had to reluctantly concede.
"Just give it back at some point," they told him with a sigh.
"Not a chance. You think I'm not freezing my petals off with all the time I've spending in Snowdin for your sake? I'm taking the one scrap of warmth I can get."
...That got Frisk's suspicion, however.
"Are you... really spending that much time in Snowdin? We don't talk that often, do we?"
"That's- well, no, I guess not, but-" Flowey stopped himself, eyes closing, "That's nothing you need to worry about, kid! I've got my own projects, you know that!"
"But you hate this place."
"I- yeah. I do. But sometimes I need to look at the bigger picture."
...Oh.
Oh. Of course. Of course they should've realised. Flowey knew the human's whereabouts this entire time, he knew every step Frisk was taking and was probably relaying them back. He had his own plans, and, painfully, they didn't involve Frisk.
They weren't sure why they were so sure he'd be fully cooperative, either. He had always focused on what he wanted more than anything, and Frisk was just the most convenient path for the longest amount of time. Maybe they weren't anymore. And that was... disappointing.
Mutually antagonistic plotting aside, they really did start thinking of him as a friend. But of course. Antagonists were as antagonists did, and they'd just have to accept that.
"You've been lying to me," they stated instead, with a tone that hopefully conveyed that they knew it was true.
"What?" Flowey replied, a cheerful smile coming to his expression, "Why would I do that, buddy?"
"I don't know. That's what I'm trying to figure out. Because it's- because it's convenient to you? Because..."
"Because? I think you're just tryin' to incriminate me here. Come on, give me a real reason."
And then Frisk couldn't take it anymore.
"Because you're you!" and they didn't mean half of it, but the disappointment clawing at their gut forbade them from stopping, "You've always been like this- I don't know why I ever decided you were worth working with! You'd kick me to the curb the second I stopped being useful to you! And I was still stupid enough to think that we were friends!"
"You're telling me to KILL a kid!" Flowey yelled back, like that was definitely the problem he had with this, "Look, I know you're zoned in on this, but they're not the only person who's been hurt by whatever you think you're trying to accomplish. Do you even realise that I've been suffering because of this too? Or has that never crossed your damn one-track mind?"
"We were supposed to both benefit from this, you idiot! Are you going to throw away your first friendship because you had a MOMENT of inconvenience?"
"I DIED BECAUSE OF YOU! AND IT DIDN'T EVEN MEAN ANYTHING! If I didn't know it wouldn't accomplish anything, I would've impaled you myself!"
Frisk paused. They- No, wait, they didn't mean any of this, they weren't supposed to- they weren't supposed to be arguing with Flowey, he was still their friend... sure, they were disagreeing on this one thing, but they- they were being hasty. They hit the side of their head with their hand and took a deep breath, trying to calm themselves down.
"I... Flowey, come on. I didn't-" they sighed, holding out their arms, "I didn't mean that. That was stupid. I've just... been stressed these past few weeks. You know that."
"Mhm."
"Are we still... okay?"
"Mhm."
That was... good. They could tell by his expression that he was hurt- why wouldn't he be, they were both yelling at each other, but... hopefully he would still listen to them. They didn't want to lose him, after all...
"Do you still want to, uh... be involved with this?"
They knew Flowey had chosen a side. But they'd rather hear it from him.
"I don't know, kid," he answered, "I don't know. I... you know, I think I'm going to go for a while. Check in on Gun-hat. Last I saw they were unconscious. Hopefully they've woken up by now. See you."
Frisk managed a "wait-" before Flowey was gone, burrowing back underground. They sighed, the back of their head hitting the tree behind them as they tried to catch their thoughts.
So Flowey... probably wasn't going to be completely helpful anymore. Not that he was to begin with, but...
Well, if he was going to tell the human anything that Frisk told him, they'd just stop telling him things! That kind of hurt, yeah, but... they could conspire alone. Or with Chara, if they were ever feeling particularly cooperative.
This didn't need to mean anything if they didn't want it to. They were in control. They were going to live. They could do this. They could do this. Even if they'd have to take that human's soul themselves.
...It wasn't preferable. But they felt like they had to at this point. If Flowey wasn't going to, and their indirect action kept forcing them to load or try another plan, they'd... they would manage.
They'd do what they had to.
They'd made their choice.
Taking a deep breath, they stood up. They'd have to find a map of the Underground or something. If they could get Flowey to accidentally reveal something major again, that would help, but... they would find a way regardless.
As soon as they figured out where that damn human was.