Chapter 11: The Selfish Route

Frisk felt her eyelids open. They lulled. She looked down and saw rips in her sweater. She could see the purple of bruises through them. Her body felt a bit foreign to herself. Her knee stung. She saw the bandages and wondered who'd fixed her up.

She blinked again, her mind still spinning.

The vines.

That flower.

Sans.

She closed her eyes, trying to remember hard if Sans had been ok. She recalled…the flash of light…or fire…something…behind him. The singing heat near her face He was alright? Wasn't he?

She pushed herself up in the bed she was in. She looked around. Socks. She was in Sans' room. Surely, he was okay then? She grabbed her forehead. All of this was making her dizzy.

What's more she had this pit in her stomach. Like she felt guilty for being so useless. Where had her Determination been? Why was she so helpless to that monster…

She looked down at her knee. Someone had bandaged it.

"Hey Kid."

She heard the door creek open. Everything in the room was dark. It must be evening. Not that there was sun down here, but it seemed even their world had some kind of system. Maybe it was the peak of the mountain…she always wondered if the peak of the mountain's opening became their sun. She could never be sure.

She already knew the voice though. Sans.

"You're ok…"

"Yea, Grills to the rescue actually. Look-"

"I'm really lost, what just happened?"

"I didn't tell you everything. I got some explainin' to do…I tried before but you said you didn't care but I think you should…" Sans walked over. He sat on the end of his mattress.

She had a million things spinning around her head. But she sat in silence. As she used to do. For once, as she had as a kid, her voice seemed to disappear.

"I can see into the future. Sometimes, if I use enough of my power I can time jump. Brief moments I can see …glimpses. It's how I've tried to stop and prevent … Flowey… when I realized time was… kind of a mess down here… well I started leaving messages for myself where I could."

"And you said this was the best… or… a good timeline…which is why you stopped me…way back then…was it that monster…was it him that harmed me?"

"I wasn't sure. Now I'm not sure either. But I don't even know if this was the best route now…I hadn't seen this part."

"What? Then why this?"

"Because I saw something else that made me think it could have been."

"I wish I could understand…"

"I got rid of Flowey for now. I know where it hangs out. No more slips. Grillby, the gang and I are going to get rid of all of the yellow flowers. No chances."

"Who is Chara?"

Damn. He wasn't going to be able to get past this was he. No point in trying to change the subject.

"A…kid…another human. They died… along with our Prince. Not many people here remember it all. Look. It took me a while to figure this out. Believe me you ain't seen half of the post it notes and things I had to write to myself between time jumps and resets…but I guess that's not the point. Flowey is … associated with them. Flowey from what I can tell, used to be our Prince. He wanted your soul…like the King… or to get you to take his side. I once saw a big monster or something…left myself a little memo …" Sans got up and walked over to the pile of papers. He pulled out one.

She read it.

Monster. Flower. Golden. Bad

Sans breathed out. She watched him slump a little further into his jacket. "There was another timeline too…a few. Frankly I started to figure it out. I donno how much you remember of when you were a kid back then. But that Saving thing? The Determination? I saw you use it once. I kinda drifted around you to make sure nothing happened, back then. You were kind of an anomaly. But before that, before you came here Kid, there's a lot of messed up stuff that has happened here. Had I known that Flower was that deranged I wouldn't have let you-"

"Let me? Sans…you made a choice for me. I thought it was selfless but…what else is there?"

"Look, stay here as long as you want. I suppose you … were asleep… last night. I may have made one bad call Kid, but that doesn't mean I'll let anything else happen."

"I'm not a Kid anymore Sans."

"Damn it, I know."

"Look. I looked down this road, and I saw you. You were happy. But the reason I made the mistake of kissing you in the Waterfall that day…was because I saw me, sometime in this future…"

"You saw us kissing..." Her eyes opened wider.

"Hey, kid it was taboo. Back then you were a kid. The idea that some version of me could be with this human kid was crazy, to me I tell yeh, but I thought I saw you look happy. I thought even if it didn't end up that way, at least you were safe. If I brought you down this route, maybe I could avoid that part. But as you got older, man, maybe seeing that really got in my skull. I don't know kid, we can be a good pair. I've wondered if I made that call for you or for my own curiosity. Sooner or later…I realized why I had kissed you. And I really…heh, I really just kind of pushed it down. Now, after seeing that…after seeing what happened to you, I know it wasn't selfless. I'm a monster kid. I'll do what I can do to get rid of the weed problem, but hey, heh, I think there might be some truth to why humans and monsters don't mix very well…" Sans turned his head away. His voice was somber. It had the tinge of his light hearted sarcasm, but there was a tone in it that made Frisk's heart drop a bit.

He felt a hand on his.

"Sans…" Frisk started quietly. "You wanted to help me I get that. You didn't force that kiss. Plus, if I got things…kind of straight… Flowey was manipulating things as he went along too. Way more selfishly than you could have. Of the two, I think I feel more blindsided by him. I mean he was whispering doubts to me about you at night. I wondered for so long why you wanted me to stay. For a short while I started to wonder if I had missed out on something potentially great up there…but I think my past got to me. My Determination turned to me being…passive. I just sat around because I was afraid…afraid that all that was left up there was more abuse. I found a cushion of friends and family here. Maybe it's not a bad thing to run away…but he made me second guess it all. All the happiness I had found here. And after what he just did…I guess there are worse things a monster could do, than omit a few truths right?" Frisk started to feel tears well up in her eyes, as her fist closed down on itself, the feeling of those vines on her, hurting her, moving around her body. Her skin began to prickle. The holes in her shirt suddenly seemed more present.

Sans eyes seemed to brighten, as he realized, as much as he'd blamed himself for this, she'd gone through more. He was so busy thinking about his screw ups he forgot to consider what she'd just lived through. Her injuries were something he was internalizing as another reason to blame himself, another representation of his selfishness, when in reality they were hers. They were scars she was wearing. Frisk, that innocent, determined kid.

She wasn't wrong. The monster here, or more the villain, was Flowey. Sans knew he was far from perfect, but some things done were unforgivable.

He looked to his hand. He wasn't off the hook. But it wasn't about him, or his choices anymore. It was about her.

"Frisk."

He placed his boney hand around her clenched fist and slipped it out of its tensioned grasp, merging his fingers with hers. "Just take it easy tonight kid. I don't need a bed, I'll take the couch. Believe me when I say, I'll spend the rest of my monster life making sure I make this up to you."

He moved slightly as if to leave.

She leaned forward into his chest, feeling the soft ripple of bones beneath his jacket and shirt. She couldn't stop the tears.

"Please… just stay." She muffled out.

He silently nodded.