Author's note: What? Two uploads in a single day? WHAT IS THIS? Well, it's two uploads in one day for my timezone, because I'm not sure if I'll be able to upload anything tomorrow (my time.) So I hope you enjoy this next part! (^.^)
The school bell rang that late October afternoon, its crass chorus typically a siren song for students to slip the surly bonds of school and touch the face of freedom. But rumor had it that two of the senior students had set up an unforgettable performance, one time only. Only a few decided to meet them as planned behind the school.
Debs and Bevs- Frisk was surprised to discover that those weren't just the two girls' nicknames- had been trying to press her for information regarding her slip of the tongue a few days before.
"What did you mean by 'killer,'" Debs would ask.
"I mean, we have killer fashion, but almost none of those monsters are at all 'killer.' Except that one guy," Bevs would add, trailing off.
"What does that even mean," Debs would shout, giving Bevs a light slap to the back of the head.
Every day, every free moment, it was practically unchanging. Frisk wished that there was some button she could press to speed through such predictable conversations. She had tried to dissuade them through numerous tactics, even trying to overwhelm them by telling them that there were more times than any one person should know. But it was to no avail.
For the umpteenth time, Debs and Bevs sat down with her during lunch as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do.
"Just tell us about one," Debs had begged, her frantic whispers belying her increasing obsession with something she wondered she might regret hearing.
"One time, and we won't ask for any more," Bevs had said with a lilting tone which showed utter ignorance of what she might hear.
Frisk wiped her eyes only to find that it was just her cheeks she felt burning, with no water to assuage it. Even that mild correction- that one word "kill,"- was the closest she had ever come to vocalizing her past. Her pasts, the ones that did and didn't happen. The ones that happened and were bleached clean from everyone's memory except hers and Sans'. All of those pasts rolled around in her, trying to claw their way out of secrecy. After the first few months on the surface, she discovered ways to keep from talking about everything to the others. Papyrus was easy enough to distract when he became too curious about her recently somber demeanor, and distracting Undyne usually involved using Papyrus. And why talk about it with Sans when he remembered almost everything she did? Maybe he was the reason Toriel didn't ask as many questions but just sat with her during the darker times. Whatever it was, there were now two classmates who refused to leave, refused to let her run, until she disclosed something. As she looked at them, one memory seemed to press the hardest against her, almost to the point of tearing her heart in two.
"Fine. I'll do it," Frisk had said, quickly agreeing to the secluded spot behind the school which they suggested. The rest of the day until the final bell seemed to slow down, speed up, and become utterly unreal. Time marched into the dark unknown, dragging her with it to whatever future or doom awaited. And she felt too tired to do anything else but try her best to keep up with the pace.
As the bell rang, Frisk tried to hurry as quickly as she could to the agreed-upon meeting place. Her heart was beating quickly, her legs were shaking and her stomach was turning. It reminded her of the time she got over a severe bout of food poisoning, but with fewer toilets. And as her legs ran of their own accord, she saw something else that she wouldn't want in this time or that; other people nearby.
As she honed in on Debs and Bevs and made her way to them, the five or so students who had little else to do cheered. For a moment, she wondered who was more despicable, her for what she was about to say or the students for applauding for the revelation of one of the parts of herself she hated the most. She turned her anger towards Debs and Bevs' unwelcome surprise before she had time to figure out the answer.
"You didn't say that there would be a million people here," she barked.
"Hyperbole much," one of the students asked, muttering.
"We just asked for you to tell us, to tell us just one of those times," said Bevs, walking inbetween Frisk and the other students. "So just look at us and tell us, okay? We really won't ever ask ever again."
Debs silently nodded, her usually towering demeanor crumbling away to a girl who found herself suddenly at a ghost-telling party. Bevs remained just as unsuspecting, looking just as apprehensive as if she were in history class about to hear a lecture. Frisk took a breath before beginning, but found that the exhale left her looking at Debs' and Bevs' shins with only enough strength left to stand and speak.
"After I climbed Mount Ebbot, I fell into a hole. After talking to, uh, someone, a monster took me in and cared for me. But she didn't want to let me leave. She kept saying that it was safer with her than trying to go through the caves and look for a way out. One day, she tried to stop me." She looked at her right hand, already drawn into a fist as it seemed to remember what it held that time. "So," Frisk continued, slowly raising her hand, suddenly unsure if it was one of the memories that everyone knew or forgot, "I took a knife I had found, aimed it at her, and-"
"flowey isn't a 'she,'" Sans said. Frisk stopped, wondering if she was hearing a strange memory. A yelp from Debs pulled her to the present as she saw that she wasn't the only one surprised by Sans' presence. "you weren't in front of the school where we usually meet, so i wanted to see what took you so long." She felt a little worried at his usually serious tone, but his smile told her that she needed to follow his lead. The plan was automatically helped by the fact that few humans, apart from Frisk, know how to differentiate a skeleton's myriad of smiles. "do you kids," he said directing his attention to the others, "really want to hear the same story that everyone had already heard, about frisk defeating a monster named flowey and saving the rest of the monsters? it's good for history, but maybe we can hear it some other time. i'm bone tired of it!"
A combination of annoyance at Sans' news and irritation at his pun led to a swift, silent scattering of students. Even Debs started to give a nervous, relieved laughter while Bevs sighed about not being able to hear a cool story. Frisk had already learned that it was a waste of time asking how Sans did anything, so she went to the next question as soon as everyone else was out of sight.
"Why did you do that?"
"i should be asking you," he answered. "do you think you're making amends for what you did by torturing yourself and maybe hurting others?"
"How do you-" she stopped, seeing her pain reflected back in his eye sockets. She tried to stop it, but the tears had other plans. Her face contorted with unspoken grief as she fell to her knees, burying her face in Sans' blue jacket as she tried to hide herself and her cries from the rest of the world. She felt his arms wrap around her and heard him whisper just a little louder than her pain.
"it's weird. we remember what everyone forgot. but we're okay. we survived. like when you apologize to someone. what happened happened, but it would do more harm than good to keep yourself in that past." After Frisk's crying began to subside, she let go of Sans, wiping her eyes and nose with her sleeves. "maybe we can tell someone someday. but maybe when life gets back to its normal level of crazy."
"What do you know about normal," Frisk asked, smiling. Sans pretended to hit her, his skeletal hands landing a foot short of where she melodramatically acted as if she were vanquished. After another hug, they started their walk home by the fading light of day.
