Chapter 21- Money for Cool Leg
Intermission
Sans time?
Sans time. We walk back down the alley to where Sans is still standing outside the hotel. He's grinning, as per usual.
"hey. i heard you're going to the core. how about grabbing some dinner with me first?" Sans asks.
"Yeah!" Frisk says.
"great, thanks for treating me."
...With what money? We're flat broke, mister.
"over here. i know a shortcut." He takes Frisk's hand, and with a pop we're inside the Resort. There's lively music playing.
Well this place has seen some changes. Namely Mettaton changes.
You've been here?
Of course. Lots of monsters lived here.
"well, here we are," Sans says. We're sitting across from each other at a table in the middle of the room, and no nearby tables are occupied. "so. your journey's almost over, huh? you must really wanna go home."
Frisk makes a face, feeling conflicted about that issue.
"hey. i know the feeling, buddo. though... maybe sometimes it's better to take what's given to you. down here you've already got food, drink, friends…"
Isn't that what you were saying, Chara?
Yeah, but since Sans is saying it, I feel inclined to disagree.
That's the pettiest thing I ever heard. Plus I thought you two made up?
We've agreed not to be openly hostile. I think.
...Sounds complicated?
Probably, yeah.
"is what you have to do…" Sans continues. "really worth it?" He turns away, looking thoughtfully into the distance. "...ah, forget it. i'm rootin' for ya, kid." Frisk smiles really big. "hey. let me tell you a story. so i'm a sentry in snowdin forest, right? i sit out there and watch for humans. it's kind of boring. fortunately, deep in the forest… there's this HUGE locked door."
...Would that be the door to the Ruins, by any chance? Frisk shrugs the tiniest bit.
"and it's perfect for practicing knock knock jokes. so one day, i'm knocking 'em out, like usual. i knock on the door and say 'knock knock.' and suddenly, from the other side… i hear a woman's voice. 'who is there?'" He says, making his voice higher pitched. It's actually a pretty good impression of…
Toriel?
What!? Really!?
Keep listening…
"so, naturally, I respond: 'dishes.' 'dishes who?' 'dishes a very bad joke.'" He winks at us, and Frisk giggles. "then she just howls with laughter. like it's the best joke she's heard in a hundred years."
...A hundred years… I wonder if that's just a random number he threw out?
Should we investigate that later?
Definitely.
"so I keep 'em coming, and she keeps laughing. She's the best audience i've ever had. then, after a dozen of 'em, SHE knocks and says… 'Knock knock!' i say 'whos there?' 'old lady!' 'old lady who?' 'oh! I did not know you could yodel!'" He winks again, even though it's not his joke. "wow. Needless to say, this woman was extremely good. we kept telling each other jokes for hours. eventually, i had to leave. papyrus gets kind of cranky without his bedtime story. but she told me to come by again, and so i did. then i did again. and again. it's a thing now. telling bad jokes through the door. it rules. ...one day, though, i noticed she wasn't laughing very much. i asked her what was up. then she told me something strange. 'if a human ever comes through this door… could you please, please promise something? watch over them, and protect them, will you not?'"
...It was YOU!
What?
The one talking to Toriel when she thought we were asleep! It was Sans!
Really? That's crazy!
It actually makes so much sense. He's-
Let's let him finish, first, Chara.
"now, i hate making promises." Sans continues, oblivious (probably) to our secret conversation. "and this woman, i don't even know her name. but... someone who sincerely likes bad jokes… has an integrity you can't say 'no' to." He turns away, and then looks back at us. His face is somehow… colder. It puts me on edge. "do you get what i'm saying?" He asks.
"...no?" Frisk says hesitantly.
"that promise i made to her… you know what would have happened if she hadn't said anything? ...buddy. ...You'd be dead where you stand." The light completely disappears from his eyes. Frisk gulps, our eyes widening.
Is that a threat? Are you threatening us? I get tense, ready to fight or defend if I have to. I glare. Frisk tries to calm me down. I relax a little, but remain prepared to move at any time.
"...hey, lighten up, bucko! i'm just joking with you." Sans says, the atmosphere going back to normal.
...If he thinks that he can just shrug this off… I hope he doesn't think I'll forget that. Because I won't.
It's ok, he's gotten to know us now, and I'm sure he doesn't harbor any malicious intent. He's a nice guy, remember?
Just keep your guard up, Frisk.
"besides... haven't i done a great job protecting you? i mean, look at yourself. you haven't died a single time." I start to laugh, but Frisk struggles to keep a neutral expression. "hey, what's that look supposed to mean? am i wrong…? heh." Sans gets up, and walks away. He's a couple tables from us when he turns back and says, "well, that's all. take care of yourself, kid. 'Cause someone really cares about you."
...Aw!
Don't 'aw'! He just threatened to kill you! I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty mad right now. I know that we made an uneasy… 'alliance', but he possibly just broke it. Possibly. Why else would he tell us that?
It's okay now. We're friends. We're all friends here. He just wanted us to know, that's all. He's even been protecting us!
He's been doing a terrible job of it.
...Hey, maybe you interpreted that wrong. When he said that without the promise, we'd be dead, maybe he just meant that he was protecting us, and that without his help we would have died.
So he's insulting us?
No, that's not what I meant! I just mean, maybe he meant it in good will, and not as a threat.
I don't know, that sounded pretty threatening to me. Can we talk about this later? I think that guy in the corner there is staring.
Oh! Frisk walks over to the aforementioned guy in the corner, and asks what he's doing. He hasn't really moved a muscle since we came in.
"As I came in, I realized I forgot to make a reservation. But I didn't want to look like I messed up. So I kept walkin' in anyway. Now I'm just… kinda… Consuming dew off this ficus."
"...Good for you!" Frisk awkwardly walks away. Looking around there's a T.V. on the wall with Mettaton on it, and a bunch more potted plants. Frisk asks me to read them what a bulletin board says.
It's a Wall of Fame full of quotes and photos from visiting celebrities. 'The food is to die for!' 'Gorgeous style and fragrance!' 'My face tastes beautiful!' ...these are all Mettaton.
...Wow. Can you read the other board?
Sure. It's a performance schedule. Comedians, dancers, Sans… Seems there's a break now. We go over to talk to a burly monster who looks like he could be a construction worker.
"Originally, we dug mazes with puzzles in order to foil human attacks. But now, building things winding and confusing… It's some awful tradition. You can't go (ugh) two feet without being up to your armpits in puzzles," The monster explains. We look at the other, smaller, rodent-like monster sitting at the table across from him.
"I work at the Core. The inside is a maze made of swappable parts… That means we can shuffle the layout at will. Boy, was today a FUN day! I sure love PUZZLE!"
"Me too!" Frisk says, trying to match enthusiasm. They're just a little less excited. Oh, hey, that monster looks like he's from Snowdin! He looks like Snowdrake, I wonder if they're related.
Yeah, pretty sure they are. Ugh.
Do you have something against that family?
...Maybe. Tell you later.
It's always 'we'll talk about that later' with you. When is later?
When we have time, okay? Just go talk to the stupid bird.
I will. "Hi! What's your job here?" Frisk asks.
"I'm the resort comedian. I'm very funny. People laugh at my jokes. Now, my son. He wants to be a comedian like his fathah. But his jokes. Aren't funny. He tells these awful puns. He's an embarrassment to our family. Ha ha ha ha… That's not funny. Since his mothah passed on, he couldn't stand. Living at home anymore. So he ran away. I haven't seen him since."
Snowy's mom's gone? I wonder in surprise. I knew her when I was alive. I really didn't like her. Of course when I knew her, Snowy was pretty young then, and they were a young couple. But monsters age very weirdly, some slower than others, so in human years they weren't that young. I wonder how old they'd be in human years now. Probably close to 200.
"So he ran away. I haven't seen him since. I'm a terrible fathah. Ha ha ha ha… That's not funny."
No, it's not.
Yeah, Sans is funnier.
...Hey, speaking of Sans, I just remembered something he told me.
And what's that?
He told me how to get the money for Temmie's college. He said we needed to see Gerson, and keep buying and selling stuff to the Tems until we make a profit and send her to college.
Oh! We should do that!
Yeah, later. Let's finish checking out the hotel and then we'll go see Riverperson, I agree. We move on to talk to the fish monster manning the reception desk.
"Blub blub… You'll have to reserve a table to eat here. You'll also need to reserve your chair, your silverware, your food, your…" We walk away before it finishes.
We didn't even eat with Sans.
...You're right. That freeloader. We leave the restaurant area, and see a fountain with a Mettaton statue in the middle, but it's broken and is spewing water all over the floor. This fills me with anger. ...What did he do to the fountain!? I can't believe this!
The fountain was important to you?
Yeah, me and my brother used to play in it all the time. It was one of our favorite spots.
...Well, there's a SAVE point in front of it.
Right. Ahem. The relaxing atmosphere of this hotel… it fills you with determination. Can I go back to being mad?
Sure.
Alright. Let's get a closer look at the statue. Oh, hey, an inscription. What did Mettaton graffiti on it now? … 'Royal Memorial Fountain. Built 201X. Mettaton added last week.' ...Oh. I can't help it, I start to shake a little.
...You okay?
Um… maybe.
Let's just sit for a little bit, then.
Yeah. We slide down next to the fountain, watching the water fall onto the carpet. Frisk yawns.
You think we can get a room here?
Probably.
...Do you wanna go see Gerson? The hotel's probably too expensive for us right now, anyways.
Sure.
Ok. Frisk gets up and leaves the Resort. They pass the Nice Cream man and the Royal Guards and Heats Flamesman, and go into the elevator. They press Left Floor 1. They end up by Alphys's lab, and where the Riverperson is found. They talk to the Riverperson, and request to go to Waterfall.
"Tra la la. Humans, monsters… Flowers." The Riverperson muses thoughtfully. Frisk doesn't question it. Frisk gets off the boat and goes to the east, towards Temmie Village. They cross the glowing stones in the ground, and arrive to the annoying Tems. They look into the box.
What should I sell?
Don't know.
Hmm… I'll sell some nice cream? And the bisicle? And put the other clothes we have in the box, since we have two now. So how about we put all the clothes in B and all the food in A?
Sure.
Alright, I'll do that. What about the Hot Dog?
You could sell that.
Then I will. Frisk goes into the Tem Shop.
"hOI! welcom to… TEM SHOP!" Greets Temmie. Frisk offers her a Nice Cream. "WOA! u gota… nice cream! hnnn... I gota hav dat nice cream… but i gota pay for colleg, hnnnnn…! tem always wanna nice cream!...!" She says. She offers us 2 gold for it, which Frisk takes, and sells another one for the same price. Then they sell the bicicle for 5 gold, and the Hot Dog…? for 10 gold. Now we have 25.
Sell the… All we have left are the instant noodles.
I want to keep those…
Do you want to send Tem to college? Or get a hotel room? Or buy Gerson's stuff?
Yeah…
Then do it.
...Fine… The InstaNoods get us 50 gold, luckily. Now that we have money we go over to Gerson's.
"Whoa there! I've got some neat junk for sale! What are you looking for?" Gerson asks.
Oh, cloudy glasses! And the torn notebook! Those have to be from humans, why didn't I get them before?
Money?
...Probably. When Frisk buys the Cloudy Glasses, they don't have enough money for the Torn Notebook. But they notice that Gerson seems to have an infinite amount of Cloudy Glasses, so they buy another one of those. They leave Gerson's shop.
"Be careful out there, kid!" Gerson says. Frisk waves back, and yawns again. They put one of the Cloudy Glasses in the box, and head back to Tem Village.
"hOI!" Temmie greets. Frisk sells her the Cloudy Glasses for 50 gold. They go back to Gerson's and buy two more Cloudy Glasses. They come back to the Tem shop, and get 100 gold. They go back to Gerson's and buy three Cloudy Glasses. They go back to Tem shop and get 150 gold. At Gerson's again, they buy 5 Cloudy Glasses. They come back and bring our total amount of money to 265.
Frisk keeps doing that, going back and forth, five more times until finally we have a total of 1,225 gold. It's time to pay for Temmie's college.
"WOA! thas ALOT o muns… can tem realy acepts… OKs! tem go to colleg and make u prouds!" She says excitedly.
"Go Tem!" Frisk encourages. Tem slides away, box and all, leaving an afterimage of only her face. She slides back, reconnecting with her face, wearing a graduation cap and holding a coffee mug. Or was she always holding that…? I don't know.
"tem bak from cool leg, tem learn MANY THINs, learn to sell new ITEM! yayA!" Tem all but yells.
"...What item?" Frisk looks at the list of items and sees 'temy ARMOR!' for 2,800 gold.
...No.
But please!
No!
Pretty please? It 'makes battles too easy!'
No, we're done here. Let's just go make one more run to Gerson to make sure we'll always have enough money, and then we'll go sleep in the hotel.
But I'm not… tired…
Yeah, you are. Let's go. We go back to Gerson's and buy the Torn Notebook first, putting it in the box. We only have the money for 5 Cloudy Glasses, so we redeem that at Tem Shop. Now we're at 271 gold in total.
We go back to the Riverperson, and ride in their boat.
"Tra la la. Don't snoop behind people's houses. You might be mistaken for a trash can." They say.
Sounds to me like we should snoop behind people's houses.
Who's house could we go behind?
...Lots of people's. But let's focus on the hotel for now. We get off at Hotland and take the elevator back up to Right Floor 3. Back in the hotel Frisk makes a beeline for the reception desk, intent on getting some sleep. The lady running it is just a hand. She's wearing lovely red nail polish.
"Yes, we know. The elevator to the city is NOT working." She says. "Because of this incident, rooms are running at a special rate! 200 gold a room. Interested?"
"Yes, thank you!" Frisk says, passing her the gold. It's kinda a lot, but it's within our funds thankfully.
"Fabulous! We'll escort you to your room!" She says. A person in a uniform appears, and leads us down the hallway, and into the second door on the left. Most of the room is taken up by a huge bed, with some walking space around it. Five people could probably fit in there, and I'm talking adult humans. It was a big bed.
"Yessss!" Frisk hisses, and jumps under the covers. I decide to separate, since I don't want to sleep if I don't need to. They're immediately asleep, just a little lump in the middle of the bed.
I don't know what to do now. I'm bored.
~~~Later, when Frisk wakes up~~~
"Chara?" Frisk asks, speaking out loud since we're separated and there's no one around. They're still under the covers.
"Yeah?" I ask.
"This is like a slumber party! We haven't ever just hung out before." Frisk pops their head out, and smiles at me.
"There's always stuff to do. Even right now, we still need to go through the Core, and then we'll be…" I remember that our goal is the Capital. Suddenly I don't want to move as fast. I don't think I'm ready to go Home yet.
"But can't we just take a minute to relax?" Frisk asks. They uncurl themselves and flop on top of the covers, spreading out and stretching.
"I mean, I guess, but there's really not much to do here."
"We could have… A dance party?" Frisk's eyes light up and they sit upright, looking at me eagerly.
"A dance party?" I echo flatly.
"Yeah, we can jump on the bed and stuff. Like on T.V." Frisk says, and stands on the bed. They almost lose their balance, but catch themselves and look back at me, grinning.
"...You have fun with that." Honestly, how can they have this much energy just after waking up?
"No, you have to do it too!" Frisk starts hopping up and down, without any fear of falling off the edge because the bed's so massive. They reach over and grab my hand mid-jump, and pull me up onto the bed with them. I hover a few inches above it, to avoid falling over from the turbulence Frisk is causing.
"I don't know…" I say, eyeing it warily. I hadn't ever really done that before. I guess I've never had a full sized bed. Frisk grabs my arm again and tugs me down, so that my feet are on the unsteady surface. I circle my arms to stay balanced.
"It's fun!" Frisk says, still jumping. I start to cautiously jump, too, and the buoyancy of the bed sends me higher than I thought it would. The pillow gets bounced onto the floor.
Pretty soon I'm laughing, and Frisk is too. They go back under the covers while I'm still jumping, and move around trying to trip me. It works, even though I try to dodge it. I'm terrible at dodging. I fall on the floor, but of course it doesn't hurt at all. I can hear Frisk's muffled laughter from under the blankets, and then they slide out and fall onto the floor next to me.
"Nice one," I say. Their hair is really messed up, but they fix it absentmindedly with one hand, looking around contently.
"Thanks," Frisk says. "What's on the thing over there?"
"It's a lamp," I tell them, stepping over their legs to look on the nightstand. "There's no lightswitch. It says that stars make their own light…"
"Just in case you forgot who's hotel you're staying at," Frisk laughs. "Anything else in here? Besides the bed?"
"Yeah, there's some sort of giant bottle of perfume. Eau de Ractangle. The cap is so comically large, you probably can't even open it," I tell them. Both the lamp and the perfume bottle are Mettaton-shaped.
"...Should we leave now? I want to explore the hotel more. And maybe talk to some people." Frisk asks.
"But can you even call this a hotel? I didn't receive a mint on my pillow or anything." I say. They laugh, and then hug me, causing us to merge back together. We leave the room.
The hallway we enter has three other doors beside the one we came out of, and there's a janitor cleaning up its own messes at the end of the hall. We knock on the first door.
"Oooooaaah! Room service! Got my 'Sea Tea'?" A voice behind the door asks. Sadly, we're completely out of items and thus don't have the Sea Tea. We tell the voice that. "Then…!?" It doesn't say anything else. We knock on the next door by ours.
"Oooooaaah! Room service! Got my 'Cinnamon Bun'?" Another voice, identical to the first, asks. We say that we don't. "Then…!?" Frisk shrugs, and knocks on the last door. We hear shuffling.
Seems like you could put something under the door. But we don't have anything appealing. Or anything at all.
Aw… Do you think we could go get some stuff to give to these people?
I don't think it's worth our time or money.
...That's fair, I guess. We think about talking to the janitor, but it seems busy dripping goop everywhere and then immediately mopping it up in a vicious cycle. We go back into the lobby, having exhausted all the options in here. First we decide to talk to the monsters gathered by the elevator.
"This elevator goes straight to the capital. But it stopped working," Says the first monster, a chimera-esc lady wearing bright red high heels and glasses. "The hotel's doing its best to accommodate everybody stuck here."
"That's nice of them," Frisk nods. The next monster, a green dragon, is talking on the phone, so we don't bother it. But we listen to its conversation for a second.
"Yeah, I'm not gonna be home tonight… um… I think there's some cold pizza in my treasure horde you can heat up…"
"As a slime, I'm outraged," Says a black slime girl with a bright red bow on her chest, complimenting her dark lipstick. We decide to go into the little shop next to the broken elevator.
"Welcome to MTT-Brand Burger Emporium, home of the Glamburger. Sparkle up your day (™)." Says the employee, a teenage-looking cat monster wearing a hotel uniform. "How can I help you, O customer?"
We look at the list of things we can buy, but we're back to being poor. We only have 71 gold left, and the cheapest item on the menu is 60.
I think we need more money. Shall we head back to Gerson's?
...If we must. I don't want to keep dying because we have no food. I mean, we still have the snowpiece, and the pie, which would probably help a lot.
No, we can't eat those. I want something to remember Toriel by, and since monster food doesn't spoil… And the snowman's request was to take the piece to the ends of the earth! I'm not just going to eat it!
Fair enough. We leave the little shop, and reluctantly go back to Gerson's.
~~~Several monotonous trips between Gerson's and Tem Shop later~~~
Finally, we have 811 gold, but we buy a Sea Tea for that one hotel guest and end up with 793. We both agreed it'd be a good idea to get as much gold as we could so that we'd always have some. We go back to the MTT Resort, glad to be free of Temmie Village hopefully forever. As we go in, we stop to greet a star-shaped monster that we hadn't talked to before.
"Welcome to MTT Resort- Hotland's biggest apartment-building-turned-hotel! Whether you're here for a night or still live here, MTT Resort prides itself on a great stay!"
"Oh, we-I'm just passing through right now!" Frisk says.
"Just passing through…? Nice! MTT Resort prides itself on being passed through!"
"Thanks!" We go back over to the shop runned by the hyper-expressive teenager and ask to buy a Glamburger. It heals more than a Starfait, even though that sounds really good.
"Thanksy! Have a FABU-FUL day!" He says, grin stretching to places it probably shouldn't. We also buy a Legendary Hero, whatever that is, and another Glamburger. I hate having to be careful with our funds… That being said, we give in and buy two Starfaits. Our inventory isn't even full, and we only have 133 gold left. This is a travesty.
We decide to talk to the employee. "So how's your day been? Frisk asks.
"What?" Asks the employee. "Why do you keep trying to talk to me? I'll get in trouble if I get chummy with the customers. Sorry."
"Oh, that's alright. I understand," Frisk smiles.
"...SO, I wanted to be an ACTOR," He tells us, making an expression that can't be described with words. Frisk is taken by surprise, but listens eagerly to what he has to say anyway.
"Sounds like you have some life advice," Frisk comments.
"I'm getting on in years, so let me give you some advice, little buddy. You've still got time. Don't live like me. I'm 19 years old and I've already wasted my entire life." He pulls out a cigarette and smokes it. Frisk coughs a little, but tries not to be impolite.
"Any romance advice?" Frisk asks curiously.
"Listen. I like you, little buddy. So I'm gonna save you a lot of trouble. Never interact with attractive people. Unless you're 'one of them,' they're just gonna take advantage of you. Like that time those two chicks asked me to sneak them some glamburgers. And I, naive teenager that I was, said yes to them. Bad idea."
"Oh? Tell me the glamburger story!" Frisk says.
"So I went out to the alley to see those two ladies, and uh… you know, see what'd happen next. ...Then my boss, uh, saw me and asked what I was doing. I was so startled, the hamburgers in my pockets tumbled out onto the ground. Not wanting to lose face, I scrambled to pick them up! But, as I was leaning over, the weight of the remaining hamburgers… caused my pants to fall down. Then the girls laughed at me. Everyone calls me Burgerpants now."
"You mentioned your boss. That's Mettaton, right?" Frisk asks the now-named Burgerpants.
"Yeah. When I first came to Hotland, it was my dream to work with Mettaton. ...Well, be careful what you wish for, little buddy!"
"Reakky? Why is Mettaton bad?"
"God, have you even looked around? This place is a labyrinth of bad choices. And every time we try to change something for the better, he vetoes it and says 'that's not how they do it on the surface.' Oh! Right! Humans are always eating hamburgers made of SEQUINS AND GLUE," Burgerpants says sarcastically.
"Why else is he bad?" Frisk asks, wanting to hear all the gossip apparently.
"Why do people find him so attractive? He's literally just a freaking rectangle."
Agreed. It's weird, right?
You can like people for their personality, too! You guys are so shallow!
"...You know, one time, I bought one of those, uh, kits online… to… Uh, make yourself more rectangular. ...They don't work."
"So what is your plan for the future?" Frisk asks.
What is this, a job interview?
I'm just making conversation! I'm curious!
"Future?" Burgerpants asks. "WHAT future? Nothing down here EVER changes. I'll probably be trapped at this stupid job forever." He looks down, and seems to re-think his entire life in the span of a couple seconds. Then he perks up again, and keeps twitching. "But wait! There's one thing that keeps me going! If Asgore gets just one more Soul, we'll finally get to go to the surface! It'll be a brand new world! There's gotta be a second chance out there for me! For everyone! So stay strong, little buddy. When I make it big, I'll keep you in mind."
"Thanks!"
"Any time, little buddy." We leave Burgerpants, and step outside through the door labeled, 'CORE'.
Um, can we stall on that for a little while?
It does look pretty intimidating… Frisk and I seem to be in agreement, for once. They want to go through there about as much as I do at this point. What else can we do, though?
He mentioned Bratty and Catty, what if we talked to them?
Sure, I guess. We go back into the alleyway, and greet Catty and Bratty again. "I'm not here to buy anything, sorry. But I was wondering, what do you guys know about Burgerpants?" Frisk asks.
"Oh, that guy from the store?" Says Bratty. "Yuck, what a creep."
"Yeah, He's a creep!" Catty adds. "But he's kind of cute, too…"
"C'mon, Catty, don't you have ANY standards?"
"Nope!"
"Hmmm… What else do you know about him?" Frisk asks. I can tell that these two frustrate them a tiny bit, since they're so shallow.
"OK, like, the annoying thing is…" Bratty starts.
"He'd be OK if he just treated us with some respect." Catty finishes.
"But he just acts… Really weird."
"And then acts like it's OUR fault he acts that way!"
"Like, when we asked him to get those Glamburgers…"
"He dropped them and ran away before we could even say anything!"
"We were, like, going to share them."
"Really? I wasn't."
"Catty!" Frisk looks at both of them in concern for a second, and then decides there isn't anything more to get out of them.
What if we… Gave them a Glamburger? Surely we can spare one?
Do you think they'll share one? Because I think they'll each want one.
We can give it a shot…
Ok. Frisk holds out a Glamburger.
"Oh my God. Is that a glamburger?" Bratty asks.
"OH MY GOD! GIMME!" Catty shouts.
"God, Catty. Try to have some self-control."
"Sorry…"
"'Cause they OBVIOUSLY brought that Glamburger for ME."
"NOOO WAYYY!" Neither of them moves to take the burger. Frisk slowly slides it back into their pocket.
I guess we're done here?
Yeah, I guess so. We never gave that hotel guest a Sea Tea.
We should do that. We go back into the hotel and knock on the first door.
"Oooooaaah! Room service! Got my 'Sea Tea'?"
"Yes!" Frisk says, pouring the Sea Tea under the door.
Yeah, that's the way to do it. Could have just asked for them to open the door, but no...
"HUH!? That's just the way I want! Here's a tip." We get 99 gold.
What? Nice!
We could probably make a profit out of that…
But we aren't are we? I've had enough Temmie Village-esq shenanigans for one day.
Fair enough. Do you think we could follow up with Burgerpants about Bratty and Catty?
I doubt he has anything new to say. But you can try.
I will, then. We go back to Burgerpants.
"What can I do for you, little buddy?" He asks.
I like that nickname. It's nice.
It suits you?
Yep! "So, w- I went to see Bratty and Catty just now." Frisk says. "I asked them about you. They said you should stop acting like they owe you."
Way to let him in easy.
"The girls were… Talking about me…? They said I should stop acting like they owe me…" He echoes. He sounds very sad. "...and if I want to be FRIENDS with them, I should just… uh, try to see things from their perspective?" He asks.
"Yeah!" Frisk says, feeling a little proud that he came to that conclusion himself.
"Wow. Poor, naive little buddy. They've brainwashed you." He pulls out another cigarette. Frisk's smile drops. "'Friendship' is just a hot person's way of making you their slave."
Frisk! Is that true? Is that why you're befriending everyone instead of fighting?
No! ...Did you just imply that I'm hot…? Because, I'm only 11, you know.
Well, I'm only 12.
Wow, I thought you were like 16 or something.
Why!?
You use a lot of big words.
...Huh.
"So, uh, what time would they wanna hang out?" Burgerpants asks, distracting us from our silent conversation.
"I don't know, I'll go ask!" Frisk says, happy to be given a purpose in platonic match-making.
For some reason, I'm fine with this. We head back into the alleyway.
"So, Burgerpants wants to hang out." Frisk says, right off the bat.
"Oh, uh…" Bratty says uncertainly.
"Yeah!" Catty says enthusiastically. "He should come look for junk with us!"
"But like, if we let him hang out with us… I just worry it'll…"
"...be really super fun!"
I think I like Catty better than Bratty.
I don't really care for either of them.
"Um, that was NOT what I was gonna say."
"But I was close, right!?"
"You'd hang out with that kind of guy?" I ask. Frisk disapproves.
"Well, that kind of guy…" Bratty says. "You hang out with him once, then he wants to hang out… All. The. Time."
"But don't you feel bad for him, Bratty? Poor Burgerpants… Think about how cool we are compared to him! We'd be saving his LIFE with our friendship! His LIFE, Bratty!"
"Uh, so?"
"...Think of all the glamburgers he could get for us!"
"...so is he free after work?" Bratty asks, suddenly interested. Frisk sighs.
"I'll go ask." We go back to Burgerpants. This is much more complicated than I thought it'd be. "So, Catty wants to hang out. Bratty wants to know if you're free after work."
"They wanna hang out after work? Ha! Ahahaha! Yes! I won't let you down! Little buddy… thank you. You've brought a tear to the eye of this old man. So, uh, where do they want to go?"
"The dump!"
"...They want to hang out at the garbage dump. ...Well, nowhere to go but up, right, little buddy?" Burgerpants smiles.
And with that, I think we're done here. Good job, team.
I should go into this professionally, and get paid.
You should, it's a valid career option. Probably.
...I guess we have to go to the Core, now, huh. I sigh, and nod.
A/N: Do you know how close I was to forgetting to upload? ...Yeah...
Where did all this fluff come from? I don't know! But it's here! Hope you liked that... It's just, these kids are procrastinating moving on. Neither of them want to face Asgore, if for different reasons. Both want to avoid killing him at all costs. Chara doesn't know how they'll cope with being home again after all these years, and Frisk doesn't know what crossing the barrier takes. It's kind of a mess. Not to mention, while I've written up to the big Mettaton fight already, I'm also procrastinating writing in New Home. It's scary, guys. I don't know how to write emotions! Help!
Ask blog: saltychara. tumblr. com
Edit: Would it be weird if I wrote the New Home stuff from Frisk's pov instead of Chara's? Would that take away from the story or add to it? Everyone (and the readers) know the story anyways, but Frisk doesn't, so would it be good to be closer to the reactions of someone who doesn't know? But I don't want Chara to be in their head, so Frisk would probably be blind for most of it. Which presents another problem, because I don't feel Chara's up to narrating during that. But the visuals have powerful affects, too. Thoughts?