AN: So, this is an incomplete story I've been working on for a while, based on Lynxgriffin's amazing Undertale webcomic Dogs of Future Past, which I highly recommend you read if you haven't already (seriously it's AMAZING). This story takes place after the supplementary story Truth or Dare, where Frisk revealed to Flowey the sordid details of their past. The idea that came to me immediately after was "What if talking to Flowey wasn't enough?"

Now, I don't want to come off as "fixing" anything plot-wise, FAR from it. I was just mostly curious about what would happen if Frisk (without mentioning things only Flowey would get) confided in the other monsters about their past? They are the kids surrogate family, after all. I thought it had a lot of potential for some really sweet moments and the story just kinda took off from there.

Dogs of Future Past and its ideas belong to Lynxgriffin. Undertale belongs to Toby Fox. Please support the original creators. With that said, enjoy and give me whatever criticisms you feel necessary!

Flowey was close to losing his mind.

Earlier that day, he had requested to Toriel that he'd be placed in front of the TV before she left for work, something he often did when Frisk was at school or if he didn't feel like practicing with his new leaves. There was only one problem. Toriel had been in a hurry this morning, so as she was racing out the door, she'd asked the only other person in the room if they could help Flowey for her. That person happened to be Sans.

So when Frisk walked in a few hours later, they found Flowey on a high chair about two centimeters away from the TV screen, which had been set to the 24-hour infomercial channel.

"FRISK!" Flowey shot up, turning to face the human with heavy bags under his eyes. "Thank god! Make the pain stop before I kill myself!"

A smile of amusement appeared on Frisk's face as they took Flowey's pot off the chair and placed it on the couch. The flower heaved a sigh of relief as Frisk switched over to a different channel.

"The next time I see that skeleton, I'm going to throw my dirt in his stupid eye sockets." Flowey grumbled as Frisk flopped down beside him. He shuddered. "They had a special on pedi-eggs that lasted for three hours! Three hours, Frisk! That's three hours of close-ups on someones nasty, gross feet getting cleaned!"

Frisk made a small noise in their throat.

"And all this time I've been missing my feet." Flowey looked down at his stem, sticking his tongue out. "Yyyech! That's one perk of being a flower– I don't have to worry about what's going on down there."

Frisk grunted again.

"I'll be lucky to never have feet again–" Flowey paused, turning to look at Frisk, who was staring at the TV. Their normally stoic expression seemed more blank than usual. Flowey frowned, leaning over to poke them with one of his petals. "Hey! Are you even listening?"

"Huh?" Frisk jerked their head around to look at Flowey, snapping out of their funk. "Oh, right, um… you wanted a pedicure…?"

Flowey rolled his eyes. "Ugh, nevermind. I should know better to talk to you when your dumb cartoons are on…" His voice trailed off as he noticed the stern looking suit-clad individuals on the screen. "Wait, why are you watching the news?"

Frisk folded their hands together, laying their back against the sofa. Something about the way they looked and spoke seemed distant. "…Just curious…"

Flowey raised an eyebrow at Frisk's odd behavior, but shrugged it off, figuring that it must have been a long day at school for them and was just tired. He turned his attention to the tv, feeling that the weather would make a much more interesting topic than hours of mindless consumerism.

"…currently at fifty-five degrees fahrenheit, with highs of sixty by noon…"

By noon? Flowey glanced at the skull-shaped clock Sans had gotten Toriel as a gift, now hanging on the wall where Flowey had to look at it every day. It's big, googly eyes shifted side-to-side every time a second went by, and inside its mouth Flowey could see the hands reading 11:18.

"It's not two PM?" Flowey said, bewildered yet somewhat relieved. He looked at Frisk in confusion. "And here I thought you walking in meant I'd spent half a day in hell! What are you doing home so early?"

Frisk said nothing. They were holding one of the sofa pillows to their chest, and Flowey's question elicited them to hug it tighter. Something about that looked awfully familiar to Flowey, but he couldn't put his finger on it– ignoring the fact that he didn't have fingers.

"What's up with you? You're acting weird today."

The child slouched, sinking deeper into the cushion. They made another little noise in their throat. "It's… it's nothing, Flowey. Don't worry about it."

Flowey raised a skeptical eyebrow, lip protruding slightly. "You seem pretty upset over nothing."

"I'm not upset," Frisk said, sighing. They brought their hand to rub their forehead. "It's just… today is…"

"What?" Flowey leaned forward. "What's today?"

"…Today is the day that Jacob died."

"J…" Flowey's expression fell as realization hit him square in the face. "…Oh."

He whipped around to look at the calendar. It had been some time since Frisk had told him the story of his first kill during a game of truth or dare in their little fort. Since that night, it was never brought up again, no further details such as to when it exactly happened were explained, and Flowey figured that finally having someone to tell their story to was enough for Frisk to move on. Gluping, he turned back around to look at Frisk.

"Jeez… that's… hmm."

There was an awkward silence that lingered between the two, disrupted only by the TV that they decided to direct all their attention towards.

"…So, do you, I dunno," Flowey said after a minute or two. "You wanna talk about it or something?"

Frisk shook their head. "It's nothing to worry about."

"I'm not worried." Flowey snorted. "I just don't want you to be all mopey and sad for the whole day."

"I won't be, I promise," Frisk said, shifting to give them a weak smile. "It still hurts… a lot, and it's hard to not think about it on a day like today, but… you've already helped. I know you can't feel sorry for me or find a way to comfort me, but you don't need to. Knowing you understand what I'm feeling is enough."

Flowey frowned. "But it isn't, because you wouldn't have left school early otherwise."

The smile dropped from Frisk's face for a split-second. They looked away from Flowey, scratching their head with a little laugh. "Wow… now I know how Sans feels."

"CHOW TIME, PUNKS!"

Out of nowhere, Undyne barged through the door– after kicking it open, of course, making Frisk and Flowey jump. Undyne hopped over the couch and sat between them, placing a greasy brown bag decorated with Mettaton's face down on the coffee table. Frisk and Flowey shared a look, mentally agreeing that their conversation would have to wait.

"Sausage-egg-and-cheese MTT Muffins!" Undyne shouted, grinning. "Get 'em while they're hot and the glue hasn't solidified yet!"

Flowey stared at the bag the same way one stares into a fridge with an unopened container way in the back, feeling the same lingering sense of dread of checking to see what's in it. Undyne yanked out what was presumably a breakfast sandwich and took a huge bite. Glittery, white juice dribbled down her chin and on to the carpet.

"Hey Frisk," Undyne whipped her head around, sending a fleck of grease right into Flowey's eye. "Betcha I can eat more of these babies than you in thirty seconds!"

"I thought you hated Metaton's food?" Frisk asked with a bemused grin.

"ISH EARLY MORNIG!" Undyne shouted through six sandwiches. "I HAFF NO SHTANDARD WHEN AHM TIRED!"

She swallowed her food in one go, her neck bulging like an anaconda as it passed into her gut. As she patted her stomach with a contented sigh, Flowey was growing increasingly more horrified.

"Besides," Undyne shot Frisk a smirk. "You're the one who likes dog biscuits."

"Oh, brother," Flowey groaned. "We're never gonna live this down, are we?"

Undyne let out a hearty laugh. "I'm just messing with you guys! Compared to what I've seen humans eat since we got here, I'm not surprised you prefer dog food!" She pulled out a handful of treats from her pocket and dropped them on the table. "Here, I bummed these off of Doggo yesterday. Some of them are kinda burnt, but still."

Flowey considered the treats for a moment. With a resigned huff, he picked one up with his mouth and started to chew on it. Undyne looked at Frisk with an excited grin. "The challenge still stands if…"

Her voice trailed off, and her smile faded. Flowey looked up. At some point, Frisk had gone back into vegetable mode, staring ahead at the tv with the same tired expression as before.

"Hey, Frisk," Undyne waved a hand in front of Frisk's eyes. "You okay?"

Frisk regarded her for a second. "I'm… not very hungry right now."

Flowey looked surprised as Undyne turned to him, apparently wanting an explanation. As annoying as all of this was, he wasn't about to break his bond with Frisk. It had already been hard enough dealing with the aftermath of Chara revealing his identity to Toriel and Asgore. He wouldn't put Frisk through that. He couldn't.

So he curled his lip at Undyne, shrugging his leaves. She looked at him for a moment, then back to Frisk, a hand going to her chin. A devious grin began to form on her face.

Picking up one of the biscuits, Undyne slowly brought it over to Frisk's face. "Heeeere doggy…"

Frisk's mouth twitched. Undyne started to poke them in the cheek repeatedly. Flowey rolled his eyes.

"Who's a good puppy?" Undyne said as she kept poking them, a laugh brewing in her throat. "Who's a good pup?"

With difficulty, Frisk resisted a smile. "Quit it."

"Eat it!" Undyne leaned closer, trying to get the treat past Frisk's lips. "Eat the cookie!"

Frisk turned their head sharply as a grin was finally cracking through their stoic demeanor. Undyne pulled back with a wicked glint in her eye.

"Ahh, I see," She said thoughtfully. "I know why you wont eat…"

There was a pause, and then Frisk yelped as Undyne grabbed them from behind and pulled them into her chest. "YOU WANT A TUMMY RUB FIRST!"

Frisk shrieked with laughter as Undyne's hand squeezed their belly, moving up and down in a rapid motion. They tried to pull away, only for Undyne's arm to snake around their chest, pulling Frisk against her.

"Noooo!" Frisk gasped for air, trying to pry out of Undyne's grip. "Help! Flowey, help me!"

The flower simply watched all of this with a half-lidded expression of incredulity. "You people are morons."

"Yeah, a real couple of buf-foods, ain't they?"

Flowey swiveled towards the familiar baritone behind him, teeth becoming sharp as daggers. "YOU!"

"Me." said Sans, giving Flowey his never-changing cheeky grin. He was sitting at his side with his arm resting casually on the coffee table like he'd been there the entire time, holding an open packet of ketchup in his hand. "How was the marathon?"

Flowey's response was to shriek with rage, hurling clods of dirt into the skeleton's face. Sans chuckled as he shielded himself from the flower's onslaught, needing only one boney hand to block the tiny clumps Flowey's petals were capable of grabbing. Meanwhile, Frisk had gotten the upper hand over Undyne, sitting on top of her with their knees in her chest.

"Ha! Got you now!" Frisk laughed, shoving a handful of dog biscuits into Undyne's face. "Time to feed the fish!"

"Ack! Stoppit!" Undyne spat, finding it difficult to avoid the treats with her huge mouth. Despite knowing fully well that she could throw Frisk off of her with obvious ease if she wanted to, she held her hands in front of her face, pretending to be powerless under their tiny frame. Perhaps she did too well, as a biscuit ended up jamming itself in her good eye. "OW!" Undyne's hands flew to her face, breaking character for a second. "Alright, that's it!"

Undyne suddenly heaved herself upward, sending Frisk flying backwards so that their spots were now switched. Though she was still playing around, the pain in Undyne's eye kept an annoyed grimace stuck on her face as she loomed over the kid. "Now you're gonna get what's coming–"

"NO!"

Undyne reeled back at Frisk's sudden shriek, eyes widening. Flowey and Sans stopped fighting, snapping their heads around. Frisk was laying on their back and clutching their shirt as if their heart was about to explode from their chest. Flowey couldn't help but recoil at the look of absolute panic and terror on Frisk's face and the familiar positions they and Undyne were in. The child glanced at the biscuit in their hand and immediately dropped it with a startled whimper.

"Hey," Sans said, holding out a tentative hand. "You okay, kid?"

Frisk sat up straight. They were trembling all over. Trying to speak only resulted in a few cracked syllables which Flowey recoiled at, sensing that the floodgates were about to break open.

Undyne held up her hands quickly. "Hey, uh… no worries, Frisk, I'm alright!" She smiled weakly, pointing at her eye. "See? Just got some crumbs in it, that's all. No hard feelings…"

It didn't seem to help. Frisk took a weary glance over at Flowey, who could only stare back with a helpless, exasperated frown. Frisk's adams apple bobbed up and down before they got off the couch and started making their way towards the hallway, muttering an apology as they disappeared behind the corner.

There was an awkward silence as everyone stared at the spot where Frisk had just been. They all turned to look at each other in bewilderment.

"Geez," Undyne said, scratching her neck. "I hope I didn't scare the kid…"

Flowey scoffed, trying to clear the air of awkwardness. "Please, the only thing scary about you is your obviously terrible dental plan."

"Hey, my mouth is like a fortress of pearly white stalagmites!" Undyne snapped. "When it comes to brushing, you go hard or go home!"

"Maybe it was your breath, then." Flowey said, smirking.

"That–" Undyne paused in the middle of yelling to quickly huff into her palm and sniff it before turning back to Flowey. "That's a load of crap!"

"Nightmares."

They both looked at Sans, who seemed deep in thought as he rubbed his chin. Both Flowey and Undyne knew that when Sans got quiet like this, it usually meant serious business.

"Toriel mentioned to me that Frisk's been having trouble sleeping lately. Bad dreams. Stuff like that. I can't help but wonder if maybe what we just saw had something to do with it."

Flowey suddenly remembered all the times in the past month or so he had woken up in the middle of the night due to Frisk's moaning and constant thrashing around in their sleep. It had been irritating at first, in a similar fashion to a neighbor's cat meowing non-stop outside the window. Flowey's solution was similarly simple: grab the nearest heavy object, hurl it at their head, and tell them to shut up in a half-asleep mumble before nodding off. The next morning, Frisk would be the same as they'd always been, without showing any signs that something was bothering them.

But Flowey now realized, after everything that had happened today, that Frisk had been dreading this day far longer than he had ever noticed.

"You look like you got somethin' on your mind, buddy."

Flowey's head snapped up. Undyne and Sans were looking at him.

"You got any idea what's goin' on with Frisk?" The skeleton asked, eyeing Flowey carefully.

Flowey gritted his teeth, his head darting back and forth between the two as they watched him expectantly. "I…" He stammered, trying to come up with something. Anything that would allow them to freaking help this poor kid already. But there wasn't even a little hint he could give to the other monsters that wouldn't be breaking his promise to Frisk. With a short sigh, Flowey's face fell into a frustrated grimace.

"No."