As soon as she heard the flower speak, Frisk was up. Looking to the source of the voice, a washed-out grey replaced what she knew to be a vibrant red. The flower looked puzzled. Frisk was puzzled. This didn't make sense. Perhaps she should have reset to a decision before the intruders had added themselves to this timeline, but why was this flower sticking around either way? Turning to Sans, Frisk decided to see what he thought of the strange, impossible monster.
"Sans, what it that?" Frisk asked, pointing to the intruder.
"What, kid?" Sans asked, slowly waking up.
"Why is that flower grey?" Frisk asked, clarifying. "I don't think that flowers are supposed to be grey, especially ones that break in and wake you up"
"A flower woke you up?" Sans asked, disbelief in his tone. "Are you sure that it isn't just Flowey playing a prank on you?"
"I'm not Flowey" The grey flower said, scrunching up their face in distaste. "I'm Sunny, Sunny the Sunflower"
"Why are you here then, Sunny?" Sans asked. Frisk thought it was better to just take his side here.
"I'm here because…" Sunny frowned, confused. "I thought that I saw monsters getting dusted in the capitol, but that just doesn't sound right" Sunny said, looking around as if for some defense.
"Wait here a moment" Sans said. Taking out his phone, he called Alphies. "Hey, can I ask you a favor? Some grey flower said that he saw monsters getting dusted in the capital. Can you check to see if their story matches up?" He asked. Holding the phone, Sans gave Alphies all the time that she needed to check the cameras. After a little while, he shifted it again. "You're sure? Thanks anyways, Alphies" he added, closing the phone. "Alphies just checked the cameras, and no one in the underground has been dusted"
Hearing her phone ding, Frisk looked at it. What she saw made her want to cry in more reasons than just one. Joker had sent her a copy of the blueprints labeled 'Phoenix'. It looked like Dad really did remember her reset! Great, now Frisk had some justification for her theory. "Sans, what do you call someone who's origin story was reset?" Frisk asked.
"Why?" Sans wondered, suspicious. "You haven't been doing anything, have you, kid?" he asked, tone dark.
"The last time that I heard the flower say that people were getting dusted, Alphies' cameras supported the claim. In that version of reality, Ivy had been killed and I managed to convince the perpetrators to scram. I reset this so that they would be alive again, as well as dozens more victims" Frisk said. "Those deaths don't have any reason to happen and catalyze unless they were messing around again, but how can I choose to pay attention to a flower that talked to me when the flower didn't exist?" she wondered.
"That is quite the fiction, kid. The underground has their share of experience with resets, however. I just tend to call them goner kids, however" Sans said.
"Why?" Frisk asked.
"Some grey kid named Goner is the primary victim. He says that things are all wrong when you ask him, and he's never sure whether it's actually raining or not" Sans said. "Memory loss and a complete fading of color are the normal symptoms however. I'm not sure if it affects other types of monsters differently, however" he added.
"Alright" Frisk said, moving on.
"Kid, what are you looking at now?" Sans wondered, looking over her shoulder at her phone. "Kid" he started, warningly, "I thought that you said you were content staying down here" He said.
"Joker remembers the times I reset myself" Frisk said, guilty. "I had a surprising amount of fun with him on the surface, even refraining from the murder part"
Sans wasn't believing this. "You went on the surface and lived with Joker… but you didn't kill anybody?"
"Technically there were three dustings to attribute to me there, but all of them asked for it. Those other dusters in that other timeline really made things miserable, and it's debatable whether- "
Sans just got her with the spray bottle. "Bad" He said, squirting her some more. "Bad, bad, bad" He said, feeling helpless to do more.
"Ick, that was cold" Frisk said, grumbling. Getting out of bed, Frisk changed into a cleaner outfit that wasn't her costume. Going down to the sofa, she texted updates to the Joker, both preparing for the repeat and what they wanted to change.
NotAnAngelOfDeath: That wing would take forever to build. Why not just repurpose the building right next to you?
JokesAreFunny: Good idea, but it's still occupied
NotAnAngelOfDeath: You're the Joker! Do I really need to explain how to force someone out of a building to you?
Sans didn't find that very funny. The spray bottle went out again. Ugg
NotAnAngelOfDeath: On second thought, Sans is really infuriated by the thought. That was absolutely not my idea.
JokesAreFunny: Looks like we're both too good for our partners.
NotAnAngelOfDeath: If he keeps this up…
JokesAreFunny: But you love him!
NotAnAngelOfDeath: … I might move in with you to escape the scrutiny. Why so morbid?
JokesAreFunny: Ha, you're getting the hang of it!
NotAnAngelOfDeath: Thanks for the confirmation.
"Frisk, cut it out" Sans said, grabbing her phone. "What is going on, and why are you talking to him? I thought that you had a big falling out".
"That's my phone!" Frisk said, grabbing it back. "Stop stealing it" she grumbled. Trying to look at it, Frisk was getting annoyed as Sans actually stopped her again, regardless of what she had just asked.
"Tell me why your talking to him" Sans demanded, trying to get results by being stern.
"Ugg, didn't I already tell you? I had fun with him last time, and generally plan on repeating the best part of that experience, leaving any of the murders that might have happened in the reset timeline" Frisk complained, rolling her eyes.
"But I thought that you said you were content here?" Sans asked, out of sorts. He didn't understand what had brought that on at all.
Frisk finally looked at him. Patently, Frisk actually explained what she was doing. "I am continuing plans for a business that I'm going to use when I move back in with him and generally have a great time"
"Why not just stay here?" Sans asked, trying to return her patience.
Frisk looked at him and tried to find a new way to explain what she'd said three times already. "I enjoyed planning a business with him" She said. "It was fun. I am going to do it again and have more fun"
"Why not just stay in the underground and have fun here?" Sans asked, sinking into some despair. His HP cut in half, and he was upset.
"I can choose to do that if I want to, Sans" Frisk said. "I had some fun down here, but what is it that I actually am needed for down here? Your job is down here. Papyrus' job is down here. Everyone who lives here has their whole life here. Even Ivy still lives in here greenhouse part-time" Frisk said.
"Then why not only live there part time to?" Sans asked. "Kid, I don't want you to go and leave me" he said. "Please don't just go back on the life you made for us"
"I wasn't planning on doing that" Frisk said, starting to think about the consequences. "I guess that living with Dad wouldn't be very convenient to us being together" she admitted. "Alright, I'll hold off on this plan of mine. In a few months, I'll go back to my plan on the surface, and I'll see if I can make my home here in the meanwhile"
"And if you find a way to stay down here?" Sans asked.
"Alright" Frisk agreed. "That's fair" Texting her dad, she told him the new deal.
NotAnAngelOfDeath: Sans has brought me back to my sensibilities. I'm staying in the underground a little longer to see if I can get a happy job in the underground and forget you.
JokesAreFunny: Aww, I was looking forward to hanging out with you instead.
NotAnAngelOfDeath: What are the chances of there actually being a life for a human in the underground?
JokesAreFunny: Now I feel better, but your mother still misses you.
"Hey Sans, Dad says that Mom would like me to come over for dinner. Would that offend your delicate sensibilities?" She asked, mocking.
Sans growled, but yielded the point. "Would you like me to drop you off?" He offered.
"Not unless you don't mind Mom inviting you to dinner" Frisk said, idly telling Joker to expect her.
Sans winced, but didn't want to be petty. "I don't mind getting offered" Sans said. "I'm not sure whether I'd actually expect"
Frisk rolled her eyes at his foolishness. "You really don't want to turn down Joker or Harley if they do offer. That's a good way to make them hate you, and you know what they've done for less almost as well as I do"
"How can you say something like that and still want to go over to them?" Sans asked, frustrated.
Frisk looked at him, with pain in her eyes. "I'm not sure," she admitted, "but I still do. Call it desensitizing, love, or just plain not caring about that; I still like being around him when there's something productive planned"
"Are you sure about that?" Sans asked. It was only now that she had pushed him to his breaking point once that Frisk could recognize the battle of guilt and sympathy and love in his eyes. "I can understand that you want to be with your family, but can't you just forget him and make the underground into your only family instead?" He asked, hurting both of them.
"Sans" Frisk said. She looked down. "If both of my parents died, someone would start pointing fingers to me or Dad's employees would start harassing me instead. You know as well as every other monster what Humans tend to do to the person with the biggest target on them. If I didn't end up replacing them, someone might decide to get rid of their legacy just to be on the safe side! Because the humans can so easily point fingers to the supervillains, they aren't overly worried about you monsters. I would rather have some stronghold for me before that happens, or someone tries to force me to bring someone back. I couldn't stand it if the people that I was cutting my life out of my life ended up needing to be you guys"
"We can do things" Sans protested.
"If the signs in waterfall are accurate, then your kind really can't. If they could have but just chose not to fight against getting forced somewhere new, then you're just gullible. I don't want to test which of those possibilities are true, Sans. Even though I love having connections and feeling close to you in particular, I'd rather find a way to stand on my own, or at least not make you into one of my foot soldiers"
"You don't need to have goons at all, Frisk" Sans asked in a desperate last plea.
Frisk just shook her head. "Because I so obviously favor you guys, Joker's probably going to leave you alone for the most part. If he thinks that I'm slipping, however, you might just all get massacred in a remedial lesson for me"
"He wouldn't do that" Sans tried, and knew that he had lost the argument.
"He's the Joker, Sans. There's pretty much nothing that he wouldn't do in order to prove that he isn't above anything." Frisk said, and the argument was over.
A few months later, a number of things had changed, but the stalemate wasn't one of them. Frisk didn't consider herself a true inhabitant of the underground without a job there, and she knew that she had a future on the surface. Sans still wasn't happy about it, but he wasn't about to back down from the deal. Frisk packed up most of her things and got them to move over back to her house, and Sans watched in resignation, feeling like she had moved out of the phase where she cared about him. Frisk, on the other hand, wasn't very concerned about Sans. She was embracing her heritage after giving him a few more months of living together, and now she was getting her roots fully back.
"Hope you have fun, kiddo" Sans said, wishing her off. This was awful for him, but he saw how happy she was.
"I certainly plan to" Frisk agreed.
"See you later then" Sans said, walking of to take a shortcut.
"Bye" Frisk said, giving him one last hug before she bounced off inside.
Sans had originally planned on going to leave and mope in the house for a while. Still, the thought struck him to snoop on how Frisk's reception actually went. He certainly didn't want Frisk to get mad at him, but he didn't want to remain ignorant of what was going on in Frisk's household more than he wanted her seal of approval. Frisk's household wasn't with him anymore, but Sans could still get an idea of what to expect if she asked to stay over with him again. Peeking in through the door, Sans chose to forgo +Frisk's privacy in favor of gaining knowledge.
"Sweetheart" Joker said, looking over to Frisk. He had a rehearsed idea of what they were going to say, but he wanted to test how well Frisk could recreate what they'd done before. "It's been a while sense you've come around" Motioning to the same guard he had last time, the business partner's seat was pulled out.
Frisk wasn't confused this time, but she still waited for further confirmation, a knowing smirk tugging at her lips.
"It's been what, a few months, since I've last seen you in person?" Joker asked, musing. "It is nice that you've come over, but your mother worries" he added. "Go on, sit" he offered, finally clearing her discomfort. "Welcome back, daughter" he recited, voice droning the obligatory greeting. "Let me help you with that" he rushed a little, bored of seeing only a fourth of her head above the table. "You know, that chair really doesn't fit you" he added. Seeing that Frisk wasn't about to break the ruse, he smiled at her cleverness and once again gave her a boost of his own free will. "Panda, get the booster" He said, reciting the same words. Frisk hopped off the chair on her own this time, not needing any instruction or force to do his bidding. She really was getting smarter but she was still keeping everything that she got out of her deal. His daughter was so clever, and that smirk told Joker that she knew it.
Sans was far from the only one who gasped when he saw just what Joker was doing and how Frisk was taking it. Sans had learned from many sources how Joker reduced those who tried to do anything with the Joker on equal ground. Was Frisk really fine?
"Do you see what I just did?" Joker asked.
"You gave me something so that I could sit equal" Frisk recited, not the least bit surprised. That, in turn, was enough to shock some of the audience. This was a Monday morning, so the music wasn't as loud then, so this was far more for show than the last time had been. Both of them knew their lines, even though they were shaking it up a little bit.
"Exactly" Joker said, wondering how she felt so much higher than him when their positions were just as equal as before. "If I took that booster away, you'd be lower than me. Everyone knows it…" but he was starting to doubt if that was true. Frisk had managed to organize most of this, and Joker knew that he'd long be dead without her. Their spectators were wondering the same thing, and Sans in particular felt his hopes rise with that revelation. Mabey she could manage to keep herself safe this time with whatever had happened? Sans wasn't going to let himself believe it yet, but he was going to keep an eye on how it went.
Joker decided not to fallow the script anymore. He needed to decide fast whether to try and reestablish dominance over her or accept her elevated position gracefully. "We already have the plans laid out" Joker said, deciding that Frisk's reaction would determine whether Joker would worry about dominance in his dealings with her.
"I know" Frisk said, rolling her eyes. Somewhat fed up with how repetitive this was going, Frisk forgot to censor herself. "I'm not sure if it's been two months or three, but this is hardly the first time we've brought up the plans"
That hadn't been particularly dominant, nor had it been weak. Joker decided that it Frisk managed to get herself some leeway, that was fine with him. Harley couldn't manage without him or some other defender for a long period of time, so Joker kept her firmly under+ his thumb and protection. Joker wasn't going to let himself get reduced to a henchman, nor was he going to turn someone useless into a child of his. Joker had a few ideas that were now playing in his head. Either he was going to put Frisk back in her place, or he could see if she had what it took to make it. "Face it, darling. Do you think that you could make this on your own?"
"I don't see why not" Frisk said, shrugging.
"Then let's see just how well you can do with only the money for construction and directed customers" Joker said. "I'm curious just how long you actually will last"
"You'll see, and so will everyone else" Frisk said, gloating. She was amazing, and everything was going her way. She didn't need anyone, things were already perfect.
"I will" Joker said. Inviting her over to dinner together, Joker wondered if how long she would last. Could she back up her boasts, or would she learn better? Either way, Joker was going to get bossed around while she sunk.
Frisk enjoyed a chocolate cake. Nothing tasted better at the time. Frisk knew that she was where she belonged, right with the cream of the crop of Gothem's underworld. She was with the highest in the world, and she didn't care if Joker was looking at her funny, not when she was talking with the Harley Quin just fine. Going to bed, Frisk looked out at all the cars going below her. She wondered how many of them would stop for her if she ordered them. She was strong, even if it didn't feel great to realize that she'd slept in. It wasn't glamorous to wait in the office of her building and only realize people were in the waiting room when she went down to get a drink from the fountain. How was it that dinner one night could feel so different from the night before when the meal was the exact same cake?
"Welcome" Frisk said, grabbing her first client of the day's arm. "Let's see what my first job is"
"He had monoxide poisoning" They client said. She was a nice enough woman, but she seemed a little old. "Can you bring him back?" She asked.
"Don't doubt my abilities" Frisk snapped. "He will be alive- now" She said. She was triumphant for a moment, right until he gave out a strangled gasp and died again. "Oops, that wasn't what right" Frisk mumbled uncaring of the woman in sight of her failure. "Oh, right. I need to take it to before the injury" trying again, the boy actually had around half his life undone. "Oh, well, I fixed it. Do I get my money now?" She asked.
"Here" The woman said, handing a few hundred-dollar bills to Frisk. "That's good enough, I hope?"
Counting it, Frisk shrugged. "Sure, you can have a discount for my little mishap. Bye" she said, waiving them up. Going down with her, she grabbed the next client. "Come on, you're next" she said, nearly dragging them up to the top. "Now, who is it that I'm reviving?" She asked, looking up expectantly. Oh, it looked like several people from the waiting room were up here with her. She was still better than then, though, so that was fine.
"Fix him" One of them demanded.
"But the money first" Frisk said. She knew the way that Dad treated this type, and she wasn't going to get less than he got. She was obviously doing something wrong, however, because they kept making demands. Yuck, this wasn't how that was supposed to go. She held her ground, but they attacked for her for their trouble. She managed to win the fight obviously, but now she had dead bodies on her bloodstained floor. Resetting herself to before she chose to let them in, Frisk picked a different group to haggle. The same thing kept happening. Ugg, what was going wrong?
Finally, after what felt like a week of just trying to find a way to haggle successfully, Frisk gave up. Mabey she just didn't' have a bloody enough reputation yet. She decided to leave the bodies and see if it went any better. It partially worked, but she kept getting bad prices and icky glares and mishaps. When Sans came over to visit her, he was horrified to see the bodies just lying on the floor.
"What happened?" Sans wondered, glad that he had the spray bottle.
"Those people kept trying to kill me" Frisks said, annoyed.
Out came the spray bottle. "Just… bring them back" Sans asked, upset. His worse fears were realized. The moment that she left him, Frisk had gone back to her father's training. Had he made any difference at all.
"Fine" Frisk said, fallowing the new orders. They immediately went back to trying to kill her, just like she had anticipated. Killing them again to make a point, she turned back to Sans patronizingly. Where was he? Looking down, she noticed some dust on the floor. Drat, that hadn't really done anything. Bringing Sans back, she suffered through his demand again.
"Just… bring them back" Sans said, looking at the bodies…. That were in different positions with different wounds. "You just reset me" Sans said, putting together the clues.
"No can do" Frisk said, smirking. This time, her patronizing was completely warranted. "They dusted you the moment that they got the chance. I'm not going to sacrifice you to your silly ideas again" She said, smirk turning into a full-blown grin.
The spray bottle still got used again. "No killing" Sans said, unwilling to say anything different. He didn't want to think about the implications of Frisk being right. This wasn't what he wanted. He wanted her to fix everything, not trap him to prove a point the way that Flowey had done. No more, please no more.
Frisk looked between Sans and the bodies a few times before coming to an internal compromise. Taking out her reset button, she reset them to infanthood. That should work to render them helpless and keep Sans safe. She really couldn't be sure with lesser terms considering how fragile Sans was.
For some reason, Sans took that as her asking for the spray bottle.
"What, I did what you said" Frisk asked. "You're getting close to wearing that thing out" she added irritated with how wet her shirt was by now.
"You just erased someone's entire life!" Sans said, horrified. "Give it back"
"Sorry, but that's not how the reset works. I turn time backwards, not forwards" Frisks said, grumpy. "Just let me change my shirt so that we can cuddle.
"No" Sans said, bringing out the spray bottle, he strictly told her, "Not until you give them back their lives"
"I already said that I couldn't do that, Sans. Are you even listening to me, or do you like using that thing?" She asked, rolling her eyes.
"Fine, I'll just take them somewhere while you go change" Sans said. He could use the opportunity to sort his thoughts. Picking them up, Sans went to take them to an orphanage outside the city. It didn't work. Why didn't it work? He could go back and ask Frisk, or he could stay away a little bit and actually sort his thoughts. Taking them to the overcrowded Gotham orphanage, Sans prioritized himself above his curiosity. Setting them outside and shortcutting to an ally, he let himself hyperventilate. Frisk really had reverted. Frisk had some possible subjective proof that she had been in the right. That wasn't what he wanted, but that was happening. What could he do, what you he do? He couldn't do anything. He wasn't Frisk's keeper, not anymore. Frisk had decided that they didn't need him, and she had stopped respecting his opinion. Sans made his choice. He couldn't leave her. He really couldn't stand to go without her. He needed her. He was just going to drop the stern act and deal with being reduced to a trophy boyfriend.
"I'm back" Sans said, rolling his eyes and trying to take that as a reasonable excuse. Somehow, that didn't add up, but he was going to overlook that. "Now we can cuddle"
"Yippy" Frisk said, pushing Sans onto a couch. Once he was comfortable, Frisk flopped on him and enjoyed the cuddles. Sans just stayed up, the repeated deaths weighing on his mind.
"Sweetie" Harley said, walking to from her house. "It's time for dinner"
"Yes" Frisk said, smiling at that. "Sans, do you want to come over?" She asked.
"You want your lover boy to come along?" Harley said, smiling. "Sure, bring him along" she said, smiling. Grabbing both of them, she dragged them off to dinner at her place before Sans could object.
Needless to say, dinner ended up being twice as awkward as breakfast had been. At breakfast, only Joker had been irritated at Frisk. Now, both Sans and Joker were irritated at Frisk, in addition to Sans wanting to be away from everyone else at the table and preferably the whole block. Frisk was to busy making small talk with her mother to care about the tension between the boys at the table, and Harley didn't care about the emotional needs of the people at the table.
"Do you want to spend the night with me, kiddo?" Sans asked, right after he and Frisk had finished their dinner.
"Not right now" Frisk complained. "Don't you want to practice our tricks, mom?" She asked.
"Mabey some other day, Frisk" Joker said, cutting Harley off. "I think that you should ketchup with your boyfriend? Don't you think so, Sans?" he asked.
"Hey, it wasn't like you were using that bottle" Sans said, smirking at the Joker. If it weren't for everything that Sans hated about him, he could respect his personality.
"There's no way I'm going to do it once you've sunk your teeth into it" Joker said, wrinkling his nose. "It's gross"
Sans just shrugged. "You're allowed you own opinion"
"Not that any rule would stop you anyways" Frisk added.
Harley was quick to add her thoughts to the mix. "You're just that strong, puddin"
Joker just looked at them, amused. "Someone's trying to curry favor, but I can't tell which one of you it is" he said, flitting his gaze from one person at the table to another. "I think that such nice behavior is deserving of a reward" he said. "How about we all have a game of paintball?" he suggested.
"That sounds nice" Frisk said, cautious, "Depending on how poisonous the paint is"
"You have the best ideas, darling" Harley said, fanning herself dramatically.
"Isn't it a bit late?" Sans wondered, suddenly.
"Not today, silly" Joker said, laughing. "Tomorrow we can all go to an actual paintball range. Tonight, I think that couples like us should be hanging out in bed" Suddenly pinning Harley to the chair, Joker proceeded to demonstrate exactly what sort of activity he was suggesting. "Do you want to have fun in your room, Frisk, or would you rather have fun with your lover-boy in the privacy of his own home?" he asked, wagging his eyebrows in overdramatic insinuations.
"I think that my house would be better" Sans said, blushing a little as he saw the glazed look starting to form on all the human's faces. It looked like Harley was very much interested in spreading her mood. "Come on, Frisk" he said, restraining a shudder.
"Sure thing, Sansy" Frisk said, giving him a big kiss on the teeth. Somehow, the pheromones that she was getting were starting to have a more sporadic effect on her. She wanted to kiss and cuddle with Sans, but she wasn't really sure about anything else, even if playing coy sounded like fun.
"Bye, guys" Sans said, taking a shortcut with Frisk to his bedroom before Frisk could get more affected by Harley's pheromones. He endured a few more kisses and one attempt to wrestle him down into submission when he tried to restrain Frisk's hands. Rolling his eye-lights, Sans waited patiently for Frisk to get tired of squirming on him. He could get through this. He almost started to think otherwise, as her motions recreated the sensations that Harley suffered under. Managing to grabbing her hands again, Sans decided to try flipping them over. Frisk didn't take that to well, reversing their position again as she continued his rolled. Her eyes were starting to refocus, however, so Sans had a bit more hope that he would get out of it without any lines getting pushed on her.
His hope payed of when Frisk stopped her motions and took a few deep breaths. Looking around and going over what happened, Frisk decided she had been out of line. "Sorry" She said, starting to get of him.
"I forgive you" Sans said, worry fading. "I know what Harley's pheromones do. I was in the room when she explained Harley to Asgore"
"She actually did go through with that?" Frisk wondered. "Good for her"
"Come on, it's bedtime now" Sans said, getting her to the bed. "and I'm hoping that you're not about to try anything else. You aren't actually big enough for that, regardless of whatever anyone tells you otherwise"
"Aren't you staying?" Frisk asked, pouting.
"I have to get Papyrus from his job. I'll be back to cuddle with you once I've finished that" Sans said, smiling.
"Ok" She said, flopping back in the bed.
"See you soon" Sans said, taking a shortcut out of the room. Strange, his HP had rose again. He still wasn't ok with what happened at her job, but he knew that they could do better, and she did still listen to him.
"I do too well" Sans said, slumping against the wall.
"Good Morning, darling" Sans said, trying to rose Frisk.
Frisk rolled over a few times, but she did get up. "Why do I need to get up this early?" She asked, wanting nothing more than to go back to sleep.
"Sorry, but I have to get to a meeting in a few minutes" Sans said.
"But it's five in the morning" Frisk said, looking at her phone. "Why would you be up this early?"
"Technically, I'm stationed in the middle east" Sans said. "I'm just staying over here because I want to be with you" he said.
"Thanks" Frisk said, nuzzling him. "That shortcut ability of yours is really convenient" she said. "Thanks for coming over to be with me. Say, is that why I haven't seen Undyne lately?" She asked.
"Yeah, it sure is" He agreed. "I still need to get ready and go there"
"I'll get up" Frisk agreed, rolling off him. "I suppose that I'll visit Ivy now that I have the time" she said.
"Not going to go back to sleep?" Sans asked.
"There's no real point if you're not there to cuddle with" Frisk said, smiling.
Sans just blushed. "See you this evening" He said, shortcutting back.
It was a quick run to get to the palace. Frisk was even able to chat with a few people who were up at this time. Asgore wasn't up, so Frisk just passed him as she went to the chambers separating the surface from the underground. Getting out from there, she was surprised to see the sun starting to rouse. Good, Ivy always woke with the sun, so this was a good way to get in contact. Sprinting down the mountain, Frisk none the less stalled for a while when she passed through home. The construction was partly done, and Frisk was happy to see somewhat individualized homes instead of cloned houses. She shuddered to think of seeing anything like that near her city. The dump was actually a relief to find, seeing that some things stayed the same. ON the other hand, a large amount of the stuff there had been raked up, taking much of the stuff to the dump in waterfall. Things were changing, but Frisk was fairly confident that she liked the way that they were heading.
"Ivy" Frisk called, teasing as she knocked on the door. "Ivy, where are you?" She asked.
"I'm up hear, darling" Ivy said, calling down from the roof. "It's lovely to watch the sun come up. You should join me up here"
"Alright" Frisk said, climbing up the greenhouse with her mother's dexterity.
This was nice. The glass of the roof was cool against her skin where it touched, and the heat of Ivy's body was warm next to her. The dark of the cloud cover contrasted with the brightness of the sun as it rose. The greens of the forest contrasted with the grey of the sea, and the dark of mountains towered above the bright reflections in the running river. There was peaceful silence of cars, even as their engine smoke wafted to their noses. They could see the faded colors of old trash even as the dump truck make its deposit in their yard. Not even Ivy protested to its contribution.
Work seemed easy as she remembered the still from earlier. A few more people ended up being violent that day, but Frisk was prepared. She laughed at them, at least until she saw the gore that stained her carpet again. Stepping around it, Frisk restored families and returned victims to torture with the same good humor. She didn't feel alright when someone loomed outside her window, but Frisk was quick to react to the eyes on her. Getting rid of the stains sooner than later, she piled the perpetrators in some basket and left them out for Batman to deal with the way that he chose. She could almost feel the approval as she restored, but condemnation seemed to look on her as she overlooked what she was restoring a person to. This was scary, but it also was part of what she'd signed up for.
The day after that, Sans wasn't able to visit at all. He was very busy with classified stuff, so Frisk really didn't have a reason to complain. Still, she was out of customers in half the time that it took yesterday, and she was left bored. What to do, what to do? She wasn't sure where she could get more customers, but she had an idea. She could place an add in the newspaper easily enough. Going to her computer, she spent a few hours trying to place and add and a while after that trying to figure out how much money she had to give to tax. She was going to do better tomorrow, even if she actually checked and took care of clients when they came in today. Resting in her bed alone wasn't as fun as it had been to snuggle Sans.
The next day, Frisk saw her add in the paper. "Phoenix restorative store. Will bring back one person to life for three hundred dollars. People who try to go below this price will be turned into infants. Note that I actually can do that. -Frisk" That was sure to have more people come over! Going over to her job, she was satisfied with an increased number of civilian clients, but she also had a lot more threats from non-civilians. It was really starting to upset Frisk how many people she had to prove her claim on. Why were they even trying so hard? This wasn't the payoff that she had wanted for her advertisement!
Going down for a final customer, Frisk was surprised to see the caped crusader looming over her. "Hi, Batman" She called, being friendly even as she started to panic. "Are you here to bring someone back to life?" That was something that he would do, right?
"What?" Batman asked. "Why would I fund your dirty business, Murderer?"
Frisk suddenly remembered the bodies laying throughout the room. "Oh, I'd honestly forgotten about those" she said.
"Forgotten? That was someone's life!" Batman said, trying to figure out where Frisk had suddenly started killing on this scale.
"But they threatened me" Frisk whined.
"That didn't make you start attacking them before you started this business" Batman pointed out.
"This is my business" Frisk said, ignoring Batman's opinion on her murders. "If you have the coupon from the add, you can get one person back for three-hundred dollars" she said, grinning at her cleverness.
Batman looked at her in disgust. "Why charge something like that for something that is so cruel to your clients?" He asked, trying to find info on another front.
"Whatever. If they can't pay, why should I care? Besides, everyone in Gothem can get their hands on three hundred dollars one way or another" She said, trying not to hide how much she was leaning on the second possibility.
"You mean by stealing?" Batman asked.
"No, silly" She said, laughing. "I meant the loan sharks. If you really want to, you can sell a few years of your life for that amount of money fairly easily" she said.
"That's ruining people's lives" Batman said, frowning at her.
"If they can't let the corpses lie, they are going to be in for some trouble any way. I know that I'm not the only person who can offer this service in Gotham, I'm just the most reputable source- imagine that, The Joker's family being the most reputable way to get a legitimate service" Frisk said, laughing.
"Why not at least be the one that they can get a loan to?" Batman asked, curious.
"What good would a bunch of people who owe me do?" Frisk asked. "This isn't Dad's club. My business makes no money from having bodies at our beck and call. I most certainly am not going to just turn over debtors to Dad to get some use out of"
"You could just make them pay you back over the course of years, giving you a steady income" Batman said, hating the possibility even as he suggested it. He hated probing the negative instincts of individuals, but it was the only way to judge a person's integrity in Gothem, where there everything exemplified the urge to do such things.
"No way" Frisk said, looking away. "I don't want to rule over rubble. If I get someone to owe me, they are going to have a home and they are going to have some time to spend with the person that they gave up their freedom for. If someone is going to be suffering to feed me, it won't be someone that I have control over" Frisk sternly refused, actually collapsing into her chair at the thought of doing such a thing. "I know that some people get some twisted pleasure out of that" Frisk said, looking Batman in the eye. "I know that the owners of some of the factories intentionally do it. I know that some of the criminal elements do it. I say that I am not going to be one of them, even if I do turn a blind eye"
"I'm almost sorry to do this" Batman said, looking at her.
"What?" Frisk said, immediately on guard. Something was going on, and she was going to do something about it. Her knife was at the ready, and she could do something about it. Suddenly, Batman hit some button on his belt. Despite all of her training and knowledge, Frisk was unconscious before she could do anything.
Waking up in Arkam was as miserable as Ivy had described. She was restrained and blindfolded, unable to do anything to get her out of the situation. She was somewhere, and she didn't really have a way to know anything else. Listening got boring very quick, especially when she realized that the room was padded. Harley had told her that the padded rooms were for isolation and retraining. Frisk wasn't going to stay awake for that. Forcing herself back asleep, Frisk skipped out on it. She was back to wakefulness sometime later. The walls were still padded, and her arms were still restrained. Her eyes were still covered, and she was still in that situation. Frisk did it again, sleeping through whatever conditioning they were trying to train her with. Again, and again, she woke up, tested her restraints and surroundings, and fell back asleep. She wasn't going to pay attention to any signals that she was given.
The cycle was suddenly broken. This time when she woke up, there was a needle in her. Everything else was the same, so she tried to fall back asleep. Still, it wasn't possible this time. There must be some kind of wakeful stimulant or hormone in that mixture that stopped her from sleeping through their triggers and orders. What was there that Frisk could do about that? Backing against one of the walls, Frisk tested if she could undo her arm's binding. She couldn't. finding the source of the IV, Frisk managed to wrap her legs around the stand. Getting a secure grip around that, Frisk suddenly yanked her arms away from it. She managed to knock it off the stand, and then she got a grip in the bag and yanked it off. She hoped that she would manage to get out of here soon, because she knew that she wouldn't be able deal with injections this way for long.
Sans was having a bad day. For all that he knew that he was doing something important, he hated to see the panic as murderers were separated from civilians in this facility. He had heard some screaming from one of the wings that the people he identified were taken to, and looking the other way over how many more EXP the soldiers had then the victims in some cases was weighing heavily on his mind, even as he heard congratulations on spies being discovered and plans being found before they could hurt anyone. Frisk could make him feel better, however.
Dialing her number on a break, Sans was surprised when she didn't pick up. Frisk always loved it when he picked up, and Frisk always made a point to demonstrate behavior that she liked. There was something going on. Taking a shortcut to Frisk's business, Sans looked wherever he could think. He was disgusted to see the bodies lying carelessly on the ground, but he knew that those were going to happen. He would have thought that Frisk would have taken care of them by the end of the day, so Sans figured that she hadn't been planning to go missing. Her phone's appearance beneath one of the chairs further solidified that point of view. Frisk hadn't had a chance to clean up when she left, and she hadn't left any hints on where she'd gone.
In the case of her loss, Sans was moved to drastic measures. Visiting Frisk's parents wasn't something that he wanted to do, but he really wanted to get Frisk back from wherever he was. Harley did have answers, however, and was willing to tell him.
"Probably Arkam" Harley had said, not even needing to think about it.
"Why would she be there?" Sans asked, feeling like possibility had just hit him.
"Any Supervillain can be relocated to Arkham as the discretion of anyone" Harley said, shrugging. "There doesn't have to be a reason"
"But why on earth would they do that? I don't think that Frisk was doing anything too awful… so long as you ignore the dead bodies" he asked, suddenly reeling what Frisk had done wrong and why Frisk would be there.
"So, you finally realized it, did you?" Harley said. "Jeeze, I knew that Frisk had you trained, but I didn't realize that she managed to distort your reality that badly. That's nearly comparable to what J did to me!" she exclaimed, starting to laugh. "Don't worry, Frisky's her father's girl. She'll be fine- so long as you ignore all the damages she'll get!"
"But I don't want that to happen to her" Sans said.
"To bad" Harley said. "Once you're in Arkam, anyone that you don't break out will hate you. Besides, don't you want to see if they'll actually be able to cure her?" she asked.
"Cure… what would happen if that was the case?" Sans asked, half on edge and otherwise relaxed.
"She might stop her deadly behaviors" Harley said, shrugging. "If she does and is let out, the next time that someone tries to kill her, they'll succeed. If someone decides not to let her out, someone will find a way to exploit her. That's what they always do, and that's what I was trained to do. Other than that, she'll have some person doing something to her. I won't know until it's already in play, and there's been a number of Villains who got out of Arkam only to get controlled by someone else"
"I don't want that to happen to Frisk" Sans said, back to just being on edge.
"Then break her out! It would automatically label you a supervillain, but who cares! In the name of true love, I say nothing is forbidden"
"You're crazy" Sans said, feeling the urge to point out the flaw in her logic. "You're a supervillain, and what is your life now?" he asked.
"Fame" She said. "I thought that I could get that by curing the Joker once, but right now I have it" Harley said.
"Did that actually do anything for you?" Sans asked.
"Nothing monetarily or in my standard of living" Harley admitted carelessly. "I still am doing it" she said. "I really don't care"
"How many times have you had your brain scrambled to think that?" Sans wondered.
"I don't remember" Harley admitted, bursting into tears and laughter and the same time. "I really don't know. Right now, this is all that I know, and I'm going to keep that" She said, still crying. "Goodbye" She said, leaving and slamming the door.
"Forget you" Sans said. He went home, and he decided what he was going to do. He knew that Frisk could reset. He could tell Frisk to reset after rescuing her. Going off to do just that, he quickly took a shortcut to Frisk and brought her to his house. She was wearing some sort of long-sleeved shirt that tied, stopping her arms from being able to move. Sans was careful to untie that and take the shirt off once Sans checked that she was still wearing something beneath it. Taking her blindfold off, Sans made sure that her eyes were fine and normal to the best of his knowledge. Deciding to let her wake up naturally, he put her on the bed and waited to see what she would do when she regained consciousness.
When she woke up this time, something was different. She could move her arms, but the surface beneath her was soft. She went back to sleep without bothering to check anything else. She was able to get back to sleep easier than she had last time, but she barely thought about that. The surface beneath her was soft, so she should go back to sleep without doing anything.
As Sans watched the cycle, he got the hint. Something was wrong. Using his voice, he tried to stimulate wakefulness. "Frisk, can you please get up?" He asked. Frisk wouldn't respond. Taking out the spray bottle, he was surprised that it didn't do anything either. What was it that she had done? She had checked her hands, and then she wiggled a little. What was she thinking about when she went back to sleep? Moving her off the bed, Sans decided to see if the floor would have a better effect. This time, once she woke up, she got up.
"Sans, what's going on?" Frisk asked. She was disoriented, and she really wanted something to eat.
"I just got you out of Arkam" Sans said.
"Good. I was hoping that you would decide to" Frisk said, smiling slightly, even though she felt a bit numb.
"Frisk, I care about you. I don't want anything to happen to you" Sans said, hugging her.
"I love you to" Frisk said, leaning into it. "Sans, would it be alright if I got some water?" She asked.
"Yeah, I don't mind" Sans said. "I'll even take you down there to get it" he offered.
"Thanks. I don't think that I could get down the stairs on my own right now" She admitted, clinging tighter.
"Geeze, kid. You're lucky that I'm starting to grow at the same time you are" He said, carrying her down. It was true. They were both at least an inch taller than they had been when Frisk had fallen into the underground. For Sans, his body was just enjoying the food he could easily access. Frisk was simply a growing girl. Nothing was wrong with either of them, and they were always pretty much the same height.
"I know" Frisk agreed. Managing to sit mostly up, she slowly took gulps of water. She whined at the feeling of it on her empty stomach. It always hurt to have something on an empty stomach, but it seemed worse than normal.
"What happened to you, kid?" Sans asked, watching as she finally managed to finish her water.
"I was in a solitary confinement cell in Arkam" Frisk said. "I know that they try and make you think things there, so I just made myself fall asleep so that I wouldn't see what they were trying to get me to notice" she said, proud of her resistance.
"Kid, you forced yourself back to sleep just from being on the bed" Sans said. "If anything, I think that you were the one to give yourself a problem"
"Whoops" Frisk agreed, embarrassed. "I never really thought about that… say, how long was I there?" she asked.
"Beets me, kid" Sans shrugged. "I brought you over here around an hour after I noticed that you weren't at your work, so that's anywhere from a day to a few minutes"
"I don't know more than that either" Frisk admitted. "Only that it sometime in the afternoon when Batman knocked me out"
Sans suddenly flinched. "Batman did that?" He asked.
"Yeah, that's what he does when he thinks that a supervillain's out of line. If he catches you doing something illegal, he might go after you regardless, but he only target's supervillains"
"How do you think that he found out?" Sans wondered.
"You didn't rat me out yourself?" Frisk asked, a bit surprised and more touched.
"I wouldn't do that" Sans said, only to catch himself. "Well, I might, but you haven't hit my breaking point yet"
"You really do love me, don't you" Frisk said, seeing the conflict in his eyes. "Thanks. I know how much it upsets you" she said.
"Why do you keep doing it then?" Sans asked, wondering what he lot in life had become.
Frisk was the one to feel guilty now. "I'm not sure. I know that there wasn't going to be any way that I wore the attackers down otherwise, I'm not trained in Batman's level of non-lethal, and aiming to kill is really the only way that feels natural"
"You didn't kill anyone in the underground" Sans said, trying to disprove her point.
Frisk disagreed. "That wasn't fighting, it was dodging and convincing people to stop the fight"
"Ok, I am pretty sure that those people at Arkam really did give you something, because I can count the number of times that you've been this honest at one, and that was when you were trying to get me to understand how much safer it would be if I left. I'm not leaving you, and we both know that. Why else would you have gotten so casual?" he wondered.
"I'm not exactly sure what it was they gave me, other than that there were a few injections. Most of them made it hard to sleep, so I'd assume there was some sort of stimulant in it. Still, aren't I allowed to feel a bit emotional after you just gave up your freedom and possibly the whole underground's to save me?"
"Don't say that" Sans asked. "That's just making you unhappy" he said.
"What does it matter" Frisk said, huffing. Looking down, she admitted something that she was starting to put together. "You keep giving up things for me, and how am I repaying you?" she wondered.
"Frisk" Sans tried to interrupt, but Frisk wasn't about to be silenced.
"I keep taking. I demand your time, I demand your compliance, and I demand that you go out of your way to get me out of the messes that I cause" She listed. "I can't name a single thing that I've done to pay you back even a little bit"
"Your wrong" Sans said, trying to stop her. "You are"
"Can you prove it?" Frisk asked. "Can you name a single thing that I've done to actually help you?" she wondered.
"Yes I can" Sans insisted. "You didn't let our name get sullied with yours when the monsters were setting up ties with the government"
"So, I stopped the chaos of turning you all into one battle" Frisks said, rolling her eyes. "That's the least that I could do after bringing you to something that you could lose"
"You helped the kingdom get a new queen" Sans said, speaking a bit more generally.
"That was me helping Ivy and fallowing my selfish wish to test a way that I could become a mother" Frisk said. "I don't think that commensalism counts"
"You warned me what I was getting into" Sans said, and they both paused to realize that it had fallen to that.
"Do you really think that counts?" Frisk asked.
Sans looked at her and thought a few seconds. "Yes" He said. "You gave me a chance to back out. You fully intended to leave me safe from anything that you cooked up. I got warned, and I was the one to choose what I was going to do"
"That hardly makes me feel better" Frisk said. "Joker himself gave Harley a chance to back out. Granted, I'm almost positive that he would have shot her if she actually took it, and her carrier would have been at the very least stagnated by what she had already gotten involved in…"
"See, he didn't" Sans said. "You did. You gave me a choice, and I chose that I wasn't going to abandon you. I do wish that you would do some things differently, but I don't regret having you with me"
"Haven't even you heard Harley say something similar?" Frisk asked. "Haven't you heard the things that she'll say to justify everything that she goes through?"
"Haven't you heard the things that you keep bringing up to try and get me to leave?" Sans asked.
"I might have damaged you so that you just think that" Frisk said, curling up into a ball, thirst long forgotten. "I did…"
"Learn manipulation from your parents?" Sans asked, raising an eye ridge. "I've been warned"
"That doesn't stop you from walking straight into the danger" Frisks said.
"Frisk, if something that you did explicitly stopped me from being able to be with you, even hanging out like this, that would be controlling me far more than being a charismatic little girl that I care for and am going to protect" Sans said, pointing it out.
"Funny, I said something similar to Joker once" Frisks said. "Mabey we're both being conditioned?" She asked.
"I don't care, I'm still not abandoning you, not that that's even a choice now that I've rescued you" Sans said.
They weren't sure who started, but soon they were both laughing. It wasn't that their confusion on how helpless they actually where was funny, but it was the absurdity of someone controlling them to worry about whether or not they were being controlled. Neither had any real evidence on way or another, but they both collapsed their worries in the face of realizing that they were equally confused. Frisk finally made a decision, one that she thought would satisfy both her worries and Sans' real right to be offended at his treatment.
"Ok" She said. "I get it. You're here of as much of your own violation as you can possibly think, and I'm going to stop worrying about it" she added. "How about you tell me what part of me starting my own business you disliked the most, and I'll see if I can change it" Frisk said.
It was Sans' turn to think long and hard. He had been horrified by the bodies. The proximity of Frisk to her parents had unsettled him, but Sans knew that it would be both cruel and pointless to ask Frisk to break contact with them altogether. Frisk had kept in contact with him, he couldn't honestly accuse her of any neglect on that end. She already had stayed over most nights that he was available, and she hadn't totally lost her interest in him, even if she hadn't been willing to just obey his commands. Thinking it over, the body count was the only part of Frisk's business that he actually objected to. Frisk was doing everything else right, at least as far as Sans could honestly believe. "Stop with the deaths' Sans suggested. Seeing her dubious look, Sans elaborated. "I love the way that you kept in contact through everything that happens in your schedule. You pay attention to what things I'd rather not know about and accommodate my wishes that way, even if you don't stop your actions. No one who was in their right mind could accuse you of not caring about me, even if a bunch of crazies do. What I don't like are the deaths. Even though you undo them, I wish that there was a way that you could get out of it, even though I want you to stay alive and healthy"
Frisk looked at Sans and sighed. "You're not exactly making this easy on me" She said, frowning. "Gotham can be a pretty crazy place. Ending someone's existence in it is hardly the worst thing that gets done around here" She really had to think on this one. "I don't want you to feel that I don't care about your wishes, so I'm not going to discard it outright, but things can get pretty violent. If it keeps you happy, I don't mind refraining from picking fights, even though I won't hesitate to finish them"
