The style of writing used when Frisk was reading lips was originated by ChoyofBonk. Also, this story will be beta read by the lovely Ariza Luca. Now that credit has been given where credit is due, on to the story!

The scent of flowers was overpowering.

When I lifted my head, I realized that that had been because I'd landed face-first in flowers.

And I was alive.

I was not supposed to be alive.

I was supposed to be dead.

Groaning, I pulled myself to my feet. Everything hurt, but upon a quick inspection of my body and the realization that I could stand without much struggle, I came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to be dead anytime soon. Not from this fall, at least.

Clenching my teeth, I looked down at the flowers. The were a bright golden color, and I couldn't seem to understand what they were doing in this spot. It seemed all too random.

"Golden flowers." A quiet voice said. "They must have broken your fall."

I flinched violently at the sound.

Not because there were apparently other sentient beings down here, but because it was a sound.

For eight years, my ears had been useless. It was a somewhat unfortunate part of my life that I'd learned to accept.

My world was silent. It had been for so long that I could hardly remember what things sounded like.

So why could I suddenly hear this mysterious disembodied voice?

"What the-who the hell are you?!" I demanded. I didn't even know who I was talking to, but I knew I needed to know.

"Wait, you can hear me?" The voice sounded incredulous.

"Surprisingly enough, yes!" I exclaimed. I looked around for who was talking, and when I saw her, I had to suppress a gasp.

Because standing right there was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

Dammit, Fiona. You might be gayer than gay, but you've got bigger things to think about than a pretty girl who you can hear.

But despite my attempts to suppress my smol lesbian self, I couldn't stop myself from thinking something very obvious and very gay: Holy fuck, she was gorgeous. Even though she was probably straight, she was still gorgeous.

The girl had shoulder-length auburn hair that framed her face, which had rosy cheeks and deep crimson eyes. She wore a green sweater with a single yellow stripe and brown pants. She appeared to be translucent, and she floated slightly above the ground.

It was not normal to have red eyes.

It was not normal to be translucent.

It was definitely not normal to be floating a few inches above the ground.

And it sure as fucking hell wasn't normal in any way, shape, or form for a deaf person to be able to hear you!

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I demanded.

"A lot of things, but seriously, how can you hear me? Nobody can!" The girl exclaimed.

"And I can't hear anyone!" I replied.

"This is weird!" The statement was so obvious, but she said it like it wasn't.

"Okay, seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?" I asked. "People are not supposed to be red-eyed, translucent, or too cool for gravity. And I've been deaf for eight fucking years, so it's incredibly illogical that I can hear you. You'd better have a damn good explanation."

The girl was silent for a moment before she responded, "It's a long story."

My teeth clenched, I gestured around the room we were in and snapped, "Does it look like anything's going to be happening anytime soon? We've got time, now explain yourself."

"Alright." The girl cleared her throat. "Greetings. I am Chara, and you have fallen into the Underground." She began. I opened my mouth to make a snarky comment about the ever-so-creative name and her sudden formality, but she held up a hand. "To answer your questions, I am translucent because I am a ghost. This is also why I am able to float." I started to say something again, but Chara stopped me a second time. "Hear me out and then you can say whatever the hell you want. In any case, I cannot answer the question of why I have red eyes because I don't know. Nobody ever did, to be honest."

Chara was silent, and I decided it was safe to talk. "Okay, there's about a million and one things I want to say right now, but I'll just stick with the most pressing question that comes to mind: am I fucked now that I'm down here?"

Chara looked at me, and for a moment, everything was still. Then she started to laugh. When she caught her breath, she answered, "Oh, hell no."

"What? Why is that such a funny question?" I snapped.

"No, it-it's not." Chara answered. "It's just...the Underground is full of monsters, and they're better than any human you'll ever meet."

"Not like that's a very high bar." I muttered. Raising my voice, I continued, "I feel like I should be freaking out about how there are monsters and you're apparently a ghost, but I'm honestly so numb from the shock of surviving this fall right now that I don't even feel anything about it. But here's what I'm not numb to: the fact that I can hear you. What the hell is up with that?"

"If it's what I think it is, then it's...complicated." Chara answered. "Just go with it for now. But listen, let me just get this out of the way quick: if you expect us to be all buddy-buddy, stop expecting that. I don't even know why you're aware of my existence, and it would be preferable if you weren't. If the reason is what I think it is, then if you die, I'll go back to being dead like before. So I'll help you out, but don't think I'll do more than that."

"So basically, you'll help, but you don't want to be friends or anything." I summarized.

Chara shrugged. "Pretty much. In any case, you know my name, so I think I should know yours."

"I'm Fi-" I cut myself off. I'd just survived a fucking suicide attempt; no need to stick with that name. "Frisk."

"Fifrisk?" Chara looked weirded out.

"No. Just Frisk."

"Okay."

Aside from a bunch of cuts, scrapes, and bruises all over me, I seemed to be alright. I had a used bandage in my pocket that I decided to put on a particularly painful spot on my cheek that appeared to be bleeding. Okay, there appeared to be only one way to go. I started walking down the only hallway there was. I walked through a doorway and saw…a flower. Well, great. Wait, it had a face. What the fuck?

"Oh, lovely." Chara muttered, a twinge of sarcasm in her voice. The flower didn't seem to hear her.

What was so bad about this flower? It had a face, yeah, and that was weird, but somehow I got the feeling that that wasn't the weirdest thing down here.

"Here's what's bad: he's going to try and kill you. His name is Flowey."

Wait, what? Chara had heard that?

"Yeah. I think our SOULs might be linked somehow-well, your SOUL and the remnants of mine. And having linked SOULs means that we can hear each other's thoughts if we try. That's probably also how you can hear me when nobody else can and when you shouldn't be able to."

Our SOULs? I tried to direct the thought towards Chara.

"I'll explain later."

That was when I felt a strange sensation. It was like my heart was being torn out of my chest, yet it wasn't painful in the slightest. When I looked down, my chest somehow had no gaping hole in it, and there was a bright red heart hovering in front of it. It appeared to be glowing slightly.

This flower is going to try and kill me. What if there is no later?

"Then you won't need to know anything about SOULs!"

Fine!

While I'd been thought-speaking with Chara, the flower had been talking. There were white bullet-like things surrounding him. Shit.

"I know he says they're friendliness pellets, but they aren't."

FRIENDLINESS PELLETS?

"Oh, yeah, you can't hear. But anyways, dodge them, even though he says to run into them. Trust me."

Yeah, no shit. The bullets came towards me, and I dodged them immediately. Flowey looked slightly pissed. "Hey, …, you m… them." That was all I was able to make out.

Another wave of the bullets came, and I dodged them. ".. dis a joke? ... you branded? R... . The. B...ets." Bullets. Okay, he was dropping the act. He said bullets, right?

"Yeah, he did."

"I ...n trendliest pellets." Another wave. More dodging. The flower's expression became malicious. "Y.. know what's ... here, d.n't you? You j..t wan... see me suffer. DIE." Shit, shit, shit. Those same bullet-pellet-whatever things surrounded me and began closing in. I was frozen, and even if I'd been less petrified, there was nowhere to run. I was seconds away from death when, our of nowhere, the bullets disappeared. A fireball appeared and knocked the flower out of the way, and a friendly-looking goat lady showed up. This day was just getting weirder and weirder.

The goat lady spoke. "What a t...le creature, tortur... such a , innoc... yooth (youth?)." Had she just called me innocent? Me? Ha! "Do n.t be afr..d, my c..ld. I am , ca..taker of the ruins." She would have continued, but I cut her off.

"I just got assaulted by a talking flower. Do you expect me to trust you?"

"Oh, well, t..t flower is cer...nly a bad cr..ture. How..er, the Und..gr..nd is full of m..sters, and very few are the one y.. just en...tered." She paused before adding, "Child, y.. have an int...ing accent." Ah, yes. The trademark accent of the deaf, complete with all the sounds my mouth had forgotten how to pronounce.

"Don't worry, she's trustworthy. Very overprotective, though. Oh, and her butterscotch pie is to die for." Chara said.

How do you know?

"She's my mom."

Uh, what? I looked between the teenage girl beside me and the goat lady in front of me.

"Well, not my biological mom." Chara explained. "But she's more of a mom than my real one ever was. Just for the record, her name's Toriel. You probably didn't pick up on that through lip-reading."

Thanks.

"No problem."

I didn't know how to respond to Toriel. Did I tell her I was deaf? No. Nobody ever reacted well to finding out I was deaf. Instead, I just said, "Thanks, I guess. I'm Fio-" I stopped myself again. Frisk. Not Fiona. Frisk. "I'm Frisk. And...if it's not too much trouble, it would help me out a lot if you could speak slowly. Please don't ask why."

"Is this better, young one?" Toriel asked, her mouth moving slower already.

I nodded. "Much."

"I pass though this place every day to see if anyone has fallen down. You are the first human to come here in a long time. Come with me, I will guide you." She walked off, and I followed, continuing to mind-speak with Chara.

"Alright, I fully expect you to inform Mom that you can't hear a word she's saying." Chara snapped.

But what if it ends badly? What if she leaves me?

"She won't." Chara assured me. "Believe me, she wouldn't abandon you if you were blind, deaf, mute, and paralyzed from head to toe."

And you know this how?

"I lived with her for three years." She deadpanned. "I highly doubt that she would abandon someone just because they can't hear. Where did you get the idea that she would?"

I shrugged. Experience.

Chara winced. "Typical. Of course humans would treat you badly for that."

I raised an eyebrow, switching to speech out loud. "Chara, you...you are aware that you're human, right?"

"Sadly, yes." Chara answered.

"So you're a human who hates humans?"

"Yep."

My expression turned deadpan.

"Don't question it, please. In any case, Mom's waiting for you. I'm not going to make you tell her your ears don't function, but it would probably be better if you did at some point."

I just shrugged and headed into the next room.

I headed into the next room. Yep, there was Toriel. "My child, you took quite a while back there."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. It's kind of crazy, being down here. Trying to adjust to it." No sense in telling her that her child was in my head. Speaking of which, why was her child in my head? What was she doing there? Hadn't anyone ever taught her that it was rude to invade people's thoughts?

"No, not really." Chara said.

I didn't respond to that. The room was mostly purple, with white stairs, leaves, and a golden star-like thing up ahead. As Toriel headed up the stairs, I did what was only natural-I touched the star.

"The shadow of the ruins looms above, filling you with determination. HP fully restored."

How does that fill me with determination?

"I don't know, but trust me, determination is useful."

Okay…

I followed Toriel into the next room. "Welcome to your new home, innocent one. Allow me to educate you in the operation of the Ruins." Toriel stepped on some buttons in a pattern and flipped a switch, and a door up ahead opened. Coming back to me, she said, "The Ruins are full of puzzles. Ancient fusions between diversions and doorkeys. One must solve them to move from room to room. Please adjust yourself to the sight of them." Toriel left the room, and I took some time to look around.

There was a sign on the wall, and I walked towards it to read it. Chara narrated the whole thing for some reason.

"Only the fearless may proceed. Brave ones, foolish ones. Both walk not the middle road."

"Uh, what?"

"I don't know what it means any more than you do."

"But you fucking lived here."

"Not here, specifically." Chara replied. "I didn't live in the Ruins. Besides, it's just a cryptic sign."

"Wait, there's more than just these ruins?"

"Yeah."

"Cool."

I shrugged and walked into the next room. Toriel was waiting for me. "To make progress here, you will need to trigger several switches. Do not worry, my child. I have labeled the ones that you need to flip."

I followed Toriel down the path. Damn right she'd labeled them. There were countless arrows and a note I didn't bother reading next to one. Up ahead, there were two switches. One of them had the same arrows and note. Verdict? Press it. I flipped the switch. "Splendid! I am proud of you, little one. Let us move to the next room. Although, I must ask before we do...Frisk, are you a boy, a girl, or something else? I am sorry, but humans do not fall down often, so monsters cannot easily identify a human's gender or lack thereof by looking at them."

"Girl." I responded instantly, almost without thinking about it.

Toriel nodded. "All right, I will keep that in mind." She left the room. I decided to test the other switch.

"This switch doesn't even work." Chara scoffed upon my attempts. "I'm pretty sure most humans who fall are younger than you."

"How old were you when you fell?" I asked her.

"I was eleven."

"Damn." I said before going to the next room. Chara got dragged along, probably because of the whole linked SOULs thing. Whatever a SOUL was.

"As a human living in the underground, monsters may you." Toriel said. "You will need to be prepared for this situation. However, worry not! The process is simple." Simple. Okay. "When you are in a fight, strike up a friendly conversation." A conversation. Yeah. That would be simple enough if I could, you know, hear. And if talking to someone when they were fighting you was a good idea. "Stall for time. I will come to resolve the conflict." Toriel paused before adding, "It also helps to make eye contact."

Huh?

Oh. Duh.

Toriel wanted me to make eye contact.

I couldn't, though, obviously. I was deaf, so I needed to look at people's lips if I wanted to lip-read what people were saying. She didn't need to know that, though. Not yet.

"Practice talking to the dummy." Toriel instructed. I walked up to the dummy, and I felt something strange. It was almost like my heart was being ripped out of my chest, but it wasn't painful. It just felt…weird.

"You encountered the Dummy." Chara said.

In front of me were four buttons, each with a single word on them: FIGHT, ACT, ITEM, or MERCY.

I raised my fist for a moment, ready to smack the FIGHT button hard.

"Don't."

I flinched when I heard Chara's voice out of the blue. Huh?

"Look, I won't pretend I'm some amazing merciful human being, because I'm really not. But if you have to kill something, don't make that something a dummy. Save death for when it's necessary."

I chose ACT.

"You can check, or you can talk."

I decided to talk. "Um…hello there, dummy."

"You talked to the Dummy. It doesn't seem much for conversation. Toriel seems happy with you." Chara said. "You won! You earned 0 EXP and 0 gold."

What kind of a win is that?

"Well, you lived."

"Ah, very good! You are very good." Toriel said, leaving the room. In the next room, she said something about puzzles that I didn't bother lip-reading. The next room contained…spikes. "This is the puzzle, but…here. Take my hand for a moment." I obliged, and she led me to the other side. "Puzzles seem a little too dangerous for now." I followed her into the next room.

Toriel said something, but she wasn't facing me completely, so I didn't know what it was. Then she walked off. Fuck.

Thankfully, Chara saved the day. "She wants you to walk to the end of the room."

I can do that.

"I know that, but she doesn't seem to."

I shrugged and walked through the room like it was nothing. Because it was nothing.

When I reached the end, Toriel suddenly showed up. "Greetings, Frisk." Seriously? She'd been right there? "Do not worry, I did not leave you." You don't fucking say? "I was merely behind this pillar the whole time. Thank you for trusting me. However, there was an important reason for this exercise…to test your independence. I must attend to some important business, and you must stay alone for a while. Please remain here. It is dangerous to explore by yourself." Toriel paused. "I have an idea. I will give you a cell phone."

Oh.

Well, fuck.

A cell phone.

For speaking and hearing.

Before I could decline, she handed it to me.

"I hate to say 'I told you so' but-"

Shut the hell up, Chara. Not the time.

"If you are in need of anything, just call. Be good, alright?" Toriel left the room.

Chara sat down against the wall, pulled her knees up against her chest, and shook her head, sighing. "Frisk, look. I don't know how fucked-up your surface life was, but Toriel wouldn't abandon you if you were blind, deaf, mute, and paralyzed. Just tell her!"

"Does it look like I can do that now?" I snapped.

"Okay, okay. Jesus. You need to tell her when you see her again, though."

I nodded, sitting down next to Chara. "Can we just sit here for a while?"

"Yeah, that sounds good." Chara nodded.

And for a while, that was where we stayed.