Chapter Three
This is all so wrong and nothing is okay with the world.
You've somehow managed to make your way to the door in the forest, and you lean against it, staring down at the snow- white and blank and calming. You're half-heartedly tapping at the door, waiting for a response that you know isn't coming.
"knock knock," you call hopefully, praying for a response from the woman behind the door. You wait for a minute, two minutes, three minutes, before answering yourself. "who's there?"
You wait again, and then bury your skull in your arms, not crying because skeletons don't cry.
"a couple of people who're too short to reach the doorbell," you mutter into your jacket, and curl up against the wind and snow miserably, wishing that anyone was there to respond. Undyne's not responding to your calls and text messages, and all you can get out of Alphys is a short, stressed message that informs you she's fine. And nothing else.
You want Papyrus back.
You wish he was here.
But nobody comes.
Their nails are biting into your bones, which you wouldn't normally notice but you're feeling strangely sensitive right now. For some reason, you get the deep, resonating impression that you've fucked up (again), and badly. The feeling is unique in the fact that you haven't felt it since-
-well…
"Sans, get up."
You mumble something incomprehensible, and elbow at the person who's shaking you, and they elbow you right back, hard in the ribs. You sit up, flinging them off you with perhaps a bit too much force, and turn to glare at the offender, ready to blast them off the face of the Earth if necessary.
Oh.
Oh.
Frisk glares right back at you, meeting your gaze with level fury. They're dressed- for the conference, presumably- in a neat black suit and tie, but their hair is dishevelled and uncombed. They look… well, tired. Rings under their eyes, limbs hanging loosely- but still looking like they could easily commit small-scale genocide in a heartbeat.
Where the hell were you? they sign furiously, hands shaking slightly.
"said i wasn't going," you mutter, and turn back to the bar, crossing your arms in front of you. They grab you by your shoulders and spin you around forcefully.
No. You. Didn't. Their hands are most definitely shaking now, so much that they drop them to their sides. "You said you'd think about it, and you never told me" anything otherwise "so I assumed that you'd come and I didn't bother to get" anyone else to go instead. They're switching between signing and hissing their words out furiously so quickly that it's almost painful to watch.
"look, kid-" you begin, and they get right up in your face, forming their words with feverish, frantic motions.
STOP CALLING ME KID
Your hands shoot up to rub at your skull- purely reflexive, it doesn't help in the least. "frisk-"
"I thought you'd be doing something important," they growl. "Instead, I find you in a fucking bar."
You place your skull in the crooks of your arms, and wish that you were asleep or dead, or at the very least somewhere else. "i was busy."
"Getting drunk," they say scornfully.
"…yeah."
You hear them laugh bitterly under their breath, and then there's the jingle and clatter of money being slammed onto the wood. You look up, and see Grillby and Frisk holding a silent conversation, which cumulates with the owner of the restaurant nodding reluctantly and retreating into the back room. Frisk loops an arm around you, and pulls you to your feet. The two of you begin towards the door in some sort of crude mockery of a three-legged race.
"what did you do?"
They let go of you long enough to sign briefly. Paid off your tab. They don't seem much for talking at the moment, which is fine, since you don't especially want to talk.
"all of it?" you ask despite yourself. To say that your tab is huge would be an understatement. It would probably take more than what the entire Underground was paid in a year to fully pay it off.
They nod shortly, and before you can speak, continue dragging your forwards and out the door, which closes with a creak behind you. Somehow, day's turned to night while you were inside, although you could have sworn it was only a few hours ago. There's a park just across the road, and a park bench on the side closest to Grillby's, and Frisk leads you roughly to it. They point, and the meaning is clear: sit down.
You sit.
Frisk stays standing, biting at their lip, and twisting their neat white shirt with clenched fists. For all of their attitude and rage just a few minutes ago, right now they look like they're just a few seconds away from bursting into floods of tears.
Okay, they begin, hands hesitant and jerky. Here's the thing-
They stop, abruptly, open their mouth like they're about to speak, close it again, and suddenly their expression drops and they look pathetic and just a little lost.
"aw, frisk…" you start, beginning to stand up, but they scramble backwards, grimacing in protest.
"I was depending on you!" they blurt, sounding pathetic and young and hurt, and it wrenches at your non-existent heart. "I needed you, and you didn't come-"
"that's not fair-"
"I froze up!" they snap at you, and their jaw seems to lock in place abruptly. After a few tries of attempting to form a sentence, they give up and begin to write words in the air with their hands. They were asking me about- pause –some things.
"what things?" you ask cautiously, sitting down again. You motion for them to come and sit next to you, but they shake their head and continue signing.
If any monsters are dangerous. If any of them need to be- a long, long pause –put down. Killed.
"wow," you say, and shift where you sit, readjusting your jacket. "what did you say?"
They glare at you. I didn't, they sign. I told you, I froze up.
"shit," you hiss with feeling. "so, now they think- hell, I don't know, that we've been forcing you to do this ambassador work for us- or that you're hiding something-"
I am hiding something, Frisk signs. Plenty of things. They know that.
You look at them for a moment, hunched miserably against the wind and illuminated faintly in the dim shine of a streetlight. It takes a moment to click. "they've been trying to frame something on you," you realize, and the look of half-relief that steals across their face fills you with some sort of triumph.
They nod unhappily, and elaborate with a reluctant motion of their hands. They succeeded.
You sit there in stunned silence for a moment. "wow," you say, and consider. "want me to dunk them for you?"
They laugh again, a short, sharp sound. "Sans," they say. "You're drunk. Go home."
And before you can react, they turn sharply on their heel and walk off, melting into the shadows as they reach the end of the street. You aren't coherent enough to do anything more than sit and gape as they leave you, alone, in the park. You suppose you deserve it, really.
What you don't get is why it hurts so much.
It's not supposed to.
You're not supposed to have gotten so attached to- so dependent on- this one human, who's still quite young, especially by monster standards. It wasn't part of any sort of half-baked plan that you had vaguely thought about in any timeline at all.
Nothing ever goes the way you plan it, and it's really not fair at all.
