Consequences of Coming Home

For the first time since running away, Frisk awoke to silence. No bugs, nor birds, no waterfalls or monsters. Beams of sunlight illuminated the room through the sheer curtains over their bedroom window. The bed beneath them was soft and the blankets were heavy and comforting. They felt warm and sluggish. It was nice to be home.

They stayed in bed for a while, just dozing and enjoying the last remnants of sleep as half-remembered dreams played across their eyelids. There was nothing they needed to do right away. Frisk let themselves relax and just exist. The stress melted off of them as they buried their face into their pillow again. It was nice to just breathe deeply and taste the familiar scent of their room.

Eventually, biological processes caught up to them and they had to get up. Slowly, they rolled over and shifted their weight to sit up. The clock on the wall told them it was around 10:30. It was much later than they would normally get up. No wonder they were so hungry. They figured they were catching up on the sleep that they'd lost the past week when they were hiding from Undyne and climbing down the mountain.

As much as they didn't want to go downstairs and deal with the consequences of running away, they knew that they had to. Frisk still felt somewhat optimistic about it. Though they knew they'd be scolded, grounded, maybe shouted at, they knew their parents still cared. For once, their parents would have no choice but to listen when they talked about what happened. Maybe their parents would even accept them for who they are.

They picked a green and blue striped shirt out of their dresser and some light shorts from the closet. The neck of the shirt was styled to be feminine, but they didn't care much about that. What mattered was that it was a striped shirt. They didn't necessarily agree with everything the monsters did, but they really respected their customs when it came to clothing. They also liked the variety of colours they could get by wearing stripes. If possible, they'd see if their parents could replace their wardrobe with stiped shirts in every colour.

Frisk leisurely went about their morning routine and got used to being home again. Brushing their teeth again felt amazing. They had to do a couple of passes to get the built-up plaque off, but they didn't mind. The way their mouth felt afterwards was worth the extra time spent cleaning.

As they climbed down the stairs, they could hear something sizzling in the kitchen. It smelled like bacon and sausages. Their parents must have heard them moving about upstairs and started cooking breakfast for them. Well, brunch at this point. Frisk's mouth started to water at the thought of hot, salty food. Water sausages could not replace the real thing, and they hadn't had hot food since leaving Toriel's place.

On the table was a spread of various breakfast foods. There were mini-pancakes, syrup and butter, a bowl of scrambled eggs, a plate of bacon and breakfast sausages, ketchup, salt and pepper, buttered toast, boxes of cereal, and milk. There was honest-to-God milk on the table. They hadn't realized just how much they had missed milk. Underground, it was water, tea, or nothing. Immediately, they grabbed a glass, filled it to the top, and chugged it. The sweet taste of it made them smile. They giggled when they felt the milk mustache resting above their lip.

Little things like this made them appreciate just how great their home could be. They didn't regret running away, but they were very happy to be back. Here, they could just be a kid. They weren't the selfish child who chose to abandon a nation instead of securing their freedom. They weren't prey to be hunted down and killed. They weren't expected to fulfill some sort of prophecy or be a hero. Their responsibilities now were to grow up and do well in school.

Those things wouldn't be easy, but they didn't feel as huge or insurmountable as being the sole person determining the future of a nation. They would still have to deal with bullies at school, but they survived Undyne and managed to evade her for a whole week. Bullies weren't tougher than her.

And growing up wasn't something they were quite ready for yet, but they were ready to set the stage. If nothing else, they could talk to their parents about what they wanted for the future, and maybe they could come up with a plan to get what they needed to make it real.

"Someone's thirsty this morning!" Their dad laughed, "Welcome home sweetie. Help yourself and we can talk after your brunch."

Frisk started filling their plate with their favourite foods. "Thanks! Everything looks amazing! But eating in silence would just be weird. If you're gonna sit here with me, tell me about what's happened in the last few weeks."

Their father complied and talked about easy topics like the weather, neighbourhood gossip, and how work was going. Normally, Frisk wouldn't care much about any of this, but they were just happy to hear their father's voice. Occasionally they'd chime in and ask for details or just nod along.

Their neighbours on one side had an apple tree that was nearly ready for picking. They spent some time plotting with their father to try to steal a few without getting caught. Freshly picked apples tasted better than the ones from the store. It was really nice to be able to talk to him again and have a proper conversation.

It was the first real two-way conversation that they'd had in longer than they could remember. Not including tea with Asgore. That was less of a conversation and more of an explanation of their options. Asgore contributed far more to that than they did. Now, both they and their father could suggest different methods of sneaking over the fence to swipe some apples before the neighbour knew they had been there.

A small, empty piece of their heart started to fill up. They hadn't realized just how much they missed normal talking to people. They spent almost the entire time Underground mute. They didn't talk to anyone until they were about to fight Asgore. This was a refreshing change from their time Underground and the time before they ran away.

Ideas ranged from dressing up in fake military clothing and sneaking around to trying to lasso the fruit to training a bird to pluck an apple off the tree. It was silly and childish and complete nonsense. They loved it. They were able to laugh and they felt safe.

Even as their mom cleaned up their dishes and cleared the table, the comforting feeling of safety and belonging remained. Their mom didn't interrupt the conversation or make any remarks about how silly it was or how they should spend their time and effort doing something productive instead. She kept herself busy and just let them have fun with their dad.

Eventually, the conversation petered out and they fell into a comfortable silence. This was when their mom decided to insert herself.

"I'm really glad that you've come home to us, honey. But we do need to have a talk about everything that happened. You really worried us, you know?" They mom asked.

They nodded. "I know. I really didn't mean to be gone that long. I only wanted to be gone for a week."

"If you could tell us about what happened and why you decided to run away from us, we'd like to hear it." Their mom said with a fake smile. She was definitely unhappy about something.

"Can we talk on the couch?" Frisk asked, "There's a lot I need to tell you and you might not believe everything, but the couch is a lot more comfortable than the kitchen chairs."

"Sure dear. Anything you'd like." Their mom's voice had that fake sweet tone that she used when she was trying to get something from someone. Frisk knew they'd have to be very clear when they were talking. Their mom would latch onto anything to twist it her way if they let her.

But this was still their best opportunity to make her listen. They were determined to get her to hear them. The family made their way to the couch and Frisk took a few deep breaths to settle their nerves.

"The first thing you probably should know is the reason I ran away. I knew you'd be upset or angry or maybe even hate me, but I didn't have any real choice. You were going to send me away to a conversion camp and I've heard too many bad things about those places to let you trap me there all summer." Frisk began.

Their mother cut them off immediately. "It wasn't a conversion camp. It was a camp for children and teenagers who develop divergent behaviours and need some guidance to get themselves back on track as they grow into young adults."

"You're talking about a camp that wants to tell people who have same-sex crushes or non-conforming genders that they are broken or wrong. Depending on the place, the methods to make them "change their minds" vary from gaslighting to torture and illegal medical practices. I don't know what kind of place you were going to send me to, but I didn't want to learn the hard way." Frisk argued.

"We would never send you to a place that would torture you! You're our daughter and we love you too much to do something like that!" Their mom objected, "It is a normal camp with outdoor activities, crafts, and specialized counselling. Nothing there would harm you at all!"

"I disagree. Having some stranger tell me for an hour a day that I'm not who I say I am is definitely harmful."

"You're still a child! You don't know who you're going to be yet, and that's okay! But you can't just call yourself something you're not as if it's a fact."

Their voices grew louder as the two started arguing in earnest.

"And how old do I have to be? If I agreed with everything you said without thinking, then you wouldn't question whether I knew what I was talking about or not. That is hypocritical and wrong!"

"But what if you change your mind later or realize that you were wrong? I don't want you to make any mistakes that will hurt you for the rest of your life because you were too young to know better when I could have stopped you!"

"Let me make the mistake then! If I never make mistakes, I can't learn! And I'm not asking for any permanent changes! I don't want hormones, and I'm not ready to grow up yet. I want more time to be a kid and figure out exactly what I want. Until then, mostly I just want to be called by my name and for people to stop calling me a girl when it makes me feel gross."

'Your name is [Redacted] and you know it perfectly well! It's your name because it's the name we chose for you when you were born!"

"A name is a gift. Gifts don't have to be accepted and they can always be returned."

Their mom looked as if she was going to start screaming. It was then that their da stepped in. He put one hand on each of their arms which caused Frisk and their mom to look at him instead.

"We're all getting a bit carried away. Honey, take some deep breaths, and [Redacted], take a moment to collect your thoughts. We want to hear exactly what you mean." Their dad looked at their mom with a clear intent, "Right honey?"

Their mom took a moment to calm herself and put her fake smile back on, "Of course. Please, tell us exactly what you think."

"When people call me a girl or when you say I'm your daughter or little girl or princess or anything like that, I just feel gross inside. When I think about being a boy instead, it feels wrong too. I can't imagine myself with a deep voice like dad, or growing a beard or lots of body hair or wanting boy parts or anything like that. I definitely don't want testosterone flooding my body and changing me like that. At the same time, I also don't want to grow breasts or have hips or start my period. If that happens, I don't know if I could really call my body properly mine."

Frisk took a few deep breaths. So far, their parents were listening. They weren't interrupting yet, so they took that as a good sign and continued, "I want to be me, and I'm not a boy or a girl. I don't want to be called he or she. I'd rather be called they. I don't want you to call me your daughter. I want you to call me your kid or your child. Most of all, I want you to use my name. My name is Frisk and it describes who I am and who I want to be.

"Maybe I don't know everything about who I want to be or who I'll grow up to be yet, but Frisk is my name and it feels right. I don't want any permanent changes. I'm not ready for that. I just want you to change a few words when you talk about me. I want you to love me, not just who you think I am."

They were breathing heavily. This was important to them and their parents finally seemed to be listening to them.

"You're our daughter. Of course we love you! How could you ever question that?" Their mom accused. It hurt just as much as Toriel kicking them out. They had just said that they didn't want to be called "daughter" and immediately it was ignored. On top of that, they never said that their parents didn't love them.

"I know you love me!"

"We were worried sick about you when you ran away! We thought you were dead! The police told us that we should start thinking about funeral preparations! They couldn't find you anywhere! You could have died on that mountain and never been found! Or you could have been kidnapped and killed by someone in that other town because you're young and vulnerable! And all that time, our neighbours and friends must have thought we were terrible to you and forced you to run off! Do you know how much that hurt us? Did you even consider the consequences of your actions?" Their mom's face was turning pink as she yelled at them.

Against their will, a few tears fell down their face. "How dare you. HOW DARE YOU! YOU WERE TRYING TO GET RID OF ME FIRST!" They screamed.

Their dad stepped in between the two of them. He faced their mom and spoke to her first. "Dear, yelling at each other isn't getting anywhere. You should cool off and relax for a bit. Let me handle this."

"Fine. Maybe you'll have better luck getting through to her." Their mom walked away quickly.

Their dad turned to them and opened his arms. Frisk threw themselves at him and cried into his shirt. Why couldn't their mom just listen for once? Why did she refuse to believe them? It hurt so much to bare their soul and have her reject it.

As they sobbed, they could feel their dad rubbing circles on their back to try to comfort them. He didn't say anything and just let them cry themselves out.

When they had calmed down a bit, they asked a question that terrified them. "Why can't she hear me? What did I do wrong that made her stop listening?" The kept their face buried in their dad's shirt, unwilling to look him in the face.

He hummed softly before answering. "Your mom has very strong opinions about things. She'll do or say anything to do what she wants and to show that she has something to say. It's something that I love about her, and about you too. It also makes her a bit blind to anything outside of her goals. She still loves you, but it'll take some time for her to come around. So stay strong. We'll get this fixed in time."

The words didn't comfort them as they should have. If anything, this was just proof that their mom was more important than they were. Slowly, they extracted themselves from their dad and curled up on the far side of the couch. They did their best to cut off any feelings they had. They could deal with those later.

"Got it. Was there anything else you want to know?" Frisk asked in a monotone.

"I have a couple of questions, but you don't need to answer if you don't want to or don't remember." Their dad said. When Frisk didn't object, he continued, "The one thing I'm most curious about is your eyes. They're red now."

"I know."

"Do you know what happened to turn them red?"

Frisk shrugged. It was probably something to do with their magic. They didn't know what their magic was yet, or even if they could figure it out now that they were outside the Underground, but they had no better guess. Maybe red eyes were the extent of their powers. It seemed weird that this was all their red soul was capable of, but what did they really know about magic to begin with?

"At first I thought it was coloured contacts. Who knows where you would have gotten those, but we weren't able to find a contact case with your things, and we haven't seen you take them out or clean them. Then, as you were… talking, your eyes got a bit brighter. They've gone back to the normal red now, but they were almost shining before. Contacts can't do that." He explained, "So do you know what happened?"

Frisk shrugged again, "Probably magic."

"Magic?"

"Yeah. You talked to the cops last night, so they probably gave you a summary of what I told them. It was all real." Frisk said. They knew he wouldn't believe them, but they didn't care. They couldn't care right now. "The goat monster who took me in explained that the magic food from the Underground can stimulate latent magical abilities in humans. I don't know what my magic is, but my eyes changed to the same colour as my soul. Dunno why or how that works." They shrugged again. It was magic. It didn't have to make sense. It just was.

Their dad paused for a moment as he took in the information. "We should probably book an appointment with your optometrist before summer break is over. Just to make sure that nothing else is going on with your eyes. Maybe the doctor will be able to explain what happened."

"Sure, that's fine."

"The other big question I had for you was to tell me about your adventure. I'd rather hear about it from you than from the police." He requested gently.

Frisk glanced over at their dad and could almost see a faint yellow glow from his shirt. Did that mean that he was a yellow soul?

"Uh… okay." Frisk started at the faint yellow light. It wasn't diminishing. It was curious. Maybe this was the extent of their magic? Seeing souls of other humans? But why did it only seem to work sometimes? And why was it happening without them trying to actively use their magic?

Questions like that would have to be answered later. They didn't have enough evidence to guess at what might be happening yet. If they stayed quiet too long, their dad might think they were ignoring him.

"I was camping out in a cave and slipped and fell down a hole in the dark. I don't know exactly what happened when I fell, but I think I passed out or something? I woke up on a patch of flowers. No injuries, just scratches and scrapes and bug bites from camping. There was a light above me that was really far away. I think that's where I fell in from."

Frisk paused. What they said wasn't a lie, but they skipped over all of their reasoning. "With nothing else to do, I followed the new cave that I fell into because I needed to find a way out. It wasn't long before the nice goat lady found me. She took me back to her house and took care of me. She made sure I had food, started teaching me school stuff from the next grade, and made sure I had clothes and toys and a place to sleep at night. It was really nice, and if she hadn't kicked me out, I don't know if I ever would have left."

"She told me not to go into her basement. I did because I was curious, so she kicked me out and told me to never contact her again. I wandered through the Underground for the next week to find the barrier. I met other monsters along the way, like some skeletons, dog monsters, rabbit monsters, a fish lady, a lizard lady, a ghost, a robot, a fire man, a giant spider, and a dragon-looking monster. When I got to the barrier, I had tea with the king. He was another goat monster. I think he used to be married to the goat lady who took me in for a while. Anyways, he told me that while monster souls were too weak to cross the barrier, a human soul could if they had a bit of extra magic."

"Lucky for me, one of the flowers in his garden was grown with an excess of magic. I took the flower and used it to escape. Then I started climbing back down the mountain." It was all technically true. They didn't want to get into any details about how they were hunted and killed and the voice and how evil Flowey was. The fewer details they gave, the less that they could accidentally mess up later.

"I see." Their dad said. He wasn't looking at them. Instead, he was gazing at the wall across from the couch. He was probably thinking really hard about how much he should believe them.

Frisk found that they didn't really care whether he believed them or not. In the end, it didn't matter. He asked, and they answered. There wouldn't be any significant consequences. No matter what, they'd be sent back to school in a couple of weeks and their life would go back to the way it was before they ran away.

In the end, they accomplished nothing. All they did was alienate their parents. If they pushed their dad away with what he thought were tall tales and imaginative stories, then so be it. Having no one behind them wasn't much different from having only one person kind of behind them.

Maybe it would have been better if the fall had killed them. Maybe it would have been better if Undyne had taken their soul and freed the monsters with it. They made the wrong choice Underground when they didn't free the monsters. If they could go back and do it again, they'd make a difference choice.

"You're sure that they were monsters?" Their dad asked, "They weren't people in costumes? And you saw them before they fed you anything?"

"Yeah."

"Hmm." He hummed to himself. "You didn't notice anything weird when you woke up in the bed of flowers either? No strange marks or uh… bug bites that you didn't remember getting? No strange taste in your mouth? And no weird side effects when you left this Underground place?"

"No, none."

"I see." Their dad paused. After a moment, he slowly reached over and hugged them. "I'm so glad you came home safe."

"Thanks dad." Frisk replied. They didn't know what they were supposed to be feeling right now. They weren't happy anymore, and they didn't feel guilty. Right now, they just felt blank.

"Now I'm going to go call the optometrist and see if we can get an appointment for you in the next week." He gave them a gentle kiss on the forehead before he stood up, "You just take it easy, okay? I'll make the appointment and once we know you're healthy, we can talk about what to for school next year, okay?"

Frisk nodded, "I'm going to go to my room and read for a while."

"Alright. Take it easy, alright?"

"Sure."

Frisk went back to their room. It was still soft and comfortable and warm and familiar and everything it was when they woke up this morning. It was a lovely prison where they were trapped and condemned to having no voice.

It was funny. Underground, they didn't talk, even though monsters were trying and willing to listen, mostly. Sans and Undyne were the exceptions. But now that they were home? If they never spoke again, it wouldn't make a difference. They proved that point before. Why did they bother trying to talk at all?