Chapter 50
Suzy hated everything.
She had heard Mon and that skeleton monster multiple times refer to her godmother as The Snake. They were not wrong. Mandy only cared for what Suzy could do for her, not about Suzy herself.
As for Mon and her human friend, Suzy knew they were using her. It was no coincidence they started acting friendly towards her the same time Mandy demanded Suzy try to be their friend. How they knew what Mandy's plan was, Suzy didn't care. The point stood they were trying to play The Snake at her own game. Suzy was just the piece they both tried to use to their advantage.
Whenever Frisk snuck away and Suzy was to follow, Suzy would take the opportunity to do her own thing. While the human trained with the spirit of Chara – it was only after the locket went missing Suzy could conclude the old child's toy contained the soul of the dead price, information she casually "forgot" to mention to her godmother before and even after Frisk's false claim that she was the reincarnation of the dead prince – Suzy would travel a few more yards before collapsing behind a boulder and lighting a cigarette. It was a nasty habit that would destroy her lungs, but it was the only thing that could get Suzy to relax sometimes. Maybe when life stopped being so stressful she could kick the habit.
Or maybe it would kill her. Whichever came first.
Suzy had snuck away from training with Mon immediately after realizing what she and the human were trying to do. If Suzy wanted alone time, sneaking away was the chance to get it. She liked Mon, much to her own surprise, but she was not in the mood to interact with friendly faces.
"Even if the whole world forgave you and went on to forget every bad thing you did, would you ever forgive yourself?"
She caught wind of the human's words after she had finished smoking and came back to her hiding spot. Frisk had to be speaking to the spirit of Chara because she looked intently at what Suzy could not see. The more Suzy was able to pick up from the humans' conversations, the more Suzy could piece together that perhaps she and the dead prince were not too different after all.
After whatever speech the ghost prince gave, Frisk rose to her feet and said, "We should probably head back before anyone realizes that we're gone."
A little late for that. Suzy kept her unseen distance as she followed Frisk back to the camp. When she found her opening, Suzy diverged onto another path and made her way to Mandy's tent. Her godmother would want a status update. After all, nobody in camp could break wind without her knowing about it.
When Suzy walked into Mandy's tent and saw the monsters glaring at her as she shoved some files back into her desk drawer, Suzy knew she was in trouble. It didn't matter if Suzy did anything wrong. When the beloved leader of the Blues was furious, Suzy was the one to suffer the wrath.
"Same old training routine from the human," Suzy supplied as if this was a normal report delivery. "Now that I know she's the reincarnation of Prince Chara, I now understand that she's not talking to his spirit, but processing things out loud. I should have made the connection sooner, but I wasn't paying much attention."
Without speaking, Mandy walked from behind her desk, approached Suzy, and backhanded the younger girl in the face. Blood gushed in Suzy's mouth from where she bit her tongue. Otherwise, she stood in place as Mandy hissed at her.
"Do not lie to me, child! Now tell me, where is it!"
"Where is what?" Suzy wanted to spit her blood onto her godmother but chose to swallow it instead.
"My key, you stupid, stupid girl!" Mandy spun on her heel and walked back to her desk. "My key to the Core is gone!"
"Hold up, you had a key to the Core, and you still sent us on that stupid mission to retrieve another?"
"Use your head, Suzette!" Mandy rummaged through another drawer and, dissatisfied with its contents, slammed it shut. "If anyone knew that I had a key because I used to work at the Core, they would question me. Some might even lose their loyalty to me. I cannot have that!"
"Well, maybe if they knew who you really were, Amanda—"
"Don't you dare call me by that name!" Mandy once again approached Suzy and grabbed her by the snout. "These Blues are stupid enough to think I want the peaceful world they do. As if! I just want to get rid of a particular tyrant. Once he's out of the way—"
"You will take over?" Suzy laughed without humor as she grabbed Mandy by the wrist and pried her hand away. "With so many Blues loyal to you, it won't take too much convincing to set you up as dictator."
"Please, that is not the goal here." Mandy snorted. "But don't get me wrong, if they do want me to step up to lead the kingdom, I won't say no."
"They won't let you if they know that you also want to wage war against humanity," Suzy retorted. "Why not let King Asgore live, deliver the human, and when he's done, take him out?"
"What if he dies in war, and in the chaos nobody knows if anyone steps up to rule monsterkind? Or worse yet, multiple people step up to fill the role? We would quickly be divided amongst ourselves, and it would be nothing for the humans to annihilate us. No, we have to take care of matters in a particular order."
"Why are you so against the king anyway?" Suzy challenged. "You both want the same thing, don't you? Why not let him do all the work instead of all this scheming and doing it yourself?"
"I don't think the king would go through with declaring war even if the barrier were to shatter tonight." Mandy shook her head. "Despite the humans taking everything away from us, away from him, I don't doubt for a minute that he would show them mercy and try to find some way to live in an illusion of peace. No, we need to wipe humanity out before they can wipe us out. If we were to leave the Underground and once again live with the humans, I do not believe the humans would spare us if war were to break out again.
"Now, enough of this. Where is my key?"
"I'm telling you, I don't have it." Suzy shrugged. "I didn't even know you had a key before now. You never told me you still kept it."
Mandy cursed. "Without a key, I cannot stick to my plan to send a team to the castle through the Core."
"Well, the human did offer another option."
Narrowing her eyes, Mandy said, "It is odd that you would agree with Frisk's alternate plan."
As she resisted the urge to bare her teeth, Suzy replied, "You wanted to get her to trust me, didn't you? I think supporting Frisk is the best way to make sure she keeps me close when she confronts King Asgore. That is what you wanted, right?"
"How do I know you didn't take my key to force me to follow along with this absurd plan?"
Suzy groaned. "Do you really think I'm smart enough to make a plan that elaborate?"
Before she had finished speaking, Suzy saw something golden from the corner of her eye. When Suzy turned her head to face it, the thing was gone.
"Wowie, I'm so glad Undyne personally sent Ms. Sizzle my training schedule so I can pick up right where I left off!"
Sans and Papyrus were cleaning the dishes from the dinner. It was just the two of them cleaning up all the dishes from the camp's dinner. It was supposed to be three, but Temmie went off doing whatever it is Tems do when they run off.
When Papyrus decided to come to the camp, Undyne, from where she remained stationed in the castle, sent The Snake her old training guide for Papyrus. In other words, cooking. Since the camp was short on monsters willing to cook enough food for everyone three times a day, there was no debate to have Papyrus spend all his time cooking and cleaning versus actually training him to fight. It was a situation that relieved Sans.
What did not relieve Sans was his having to serve kitchen duty as punishment for interfering with the mission. If not for Papyrus and Tem being the sole cooks and dishwashers, Sans would have snuck away at various points to take a nap or something. Yet since this was his brother, Sans decided to not skimp the work here.
"It has been a long time since I trained with Undyne," Papyrus continued as he furiously scrubbed at the dishes. When he was done cleaning them, he would pass them to Sans to dry and put away. "I'm surprised she still had it after all these years. So nice of her to send it over. I missed cooking."
"I'm glad your skill has not deteriorated one bit since your last lesson," Sans replied. When Papyrus was finally accepted into the royal guard, Undyne had finally gotten Papyrus to make food that was actually edible. It wasn't good food, but at least it would not kill the entire Blue army in one swoop.
"And I'm so glad you will be joining me!" Papyrus exclaimed, washing the dishes even more excitedly. "It has been a good while since you and I last hung out. Tell me, Sans, how have you been? What are you up to these days? How's Frisk? I see her around, but I rarely get to speak with her. Once I finish cooking, it's time to start cleaning. After I finish cleaning, it's time to start cooking again! There's not a lot of time for the Great Papyrus to socialize when he's so busy all the time. I beat the human misses me so."
"The kid asks about you often." Sans started using his telekinesis to put away the dishes he dried. There was no sense in walking back and forth the whole time when he could just stand around as he waited for Papyrus to finish washing the next dish. "She's doing all right. Very busy herself. I don't know how anyone is supposed to socialize or even get any rest around here when you're expected to always be doing something."
"Do you think she will be ready when it's time to infiltrate the castle?"
The question caught Sans off guard. Too shocked to answer, he could only look at Papyrus. Although his brother still washed the dishes, his excitement over the task visibly dropped.
"She'll be more ready to get it over with than anything else, if I had to guess." Sans scratched the back of his skull. "The Snake will probably send out the troops any day now. It's only a matter of time before . . ."
Papyrus was quiet for a moment before saying, "I liked things better when we could focus on making friends and getting to the next area. Coming to the end isn't as delightful."
"You said it." Sans could never bring himself to imagine Frisk fighting King Asgore. He knew in his bones that she had to, but he still could not envision it. When he thought of Frisk, he thought of a human who needed protecting.
And the promise he made to the woman on the other end of the door.
"Hey, Paps," Sans began, "I have something I need to do. Don't worry about drying the dishes though. Just leave them for me to dry and put away when I get back."
"If you say so." Papyrus sounded as if he wanted to ask but restrained himself.
With the internal promise to repay Papyrus for this later, Sans teleported out of the kitchen and into Frisk's tent. He found the human on her cot with a book in hand. Her dripping wet hair, light blue tunic, and brown leggings indicated she was planning to go to bed soon, but her attire was appropriate for company.
"What are you doing here?" Frisk furrowed her brows and closed her book without marking the page. "Aren't you supposed to be helping Papyrus? Is he all right?"
"Papyrus is fine," Sans said, finally realizing he had come here on borrowed confidence. "I wanted to speak with you."
"About what?"
"Not here." Sans handed Frisk a brown paper bag. "Put this on your head."
"Excuse me?"
"There's someplace I want to take you, but we can't let anyone see who you are."
"And a bag over my head isn't going to draw attention?"
"Of course not. I drew a monster face on it so everyone who saw you would just think you were another monster."
Frisk pressed her lips together before accepting the bag. She didn't even look at the face Sans drew before putting the bag over her head. The face on the bag had poorly drawn eyes of uneven sizes, a mini trunk for a nose, and an open-mouthed smile with buck teeth. Seeing Frisk wear it made Sans feel a little better. Her childlike trust in him had not changed despite everything else that had changed since the day they met.
"Here," Sans offered his hand. Frisk needed no other prompting. When their fingers touched, Sans teleported them out of the camp. Although Sans would have preferred to go to Grillby's, there was one other restaurant he liked that was much closer to their location.
"Mettaton Resort?" Frisk read the sign outside of the building aloud and sounded uncertain as she did.
"Don't worry," Sans began to lead the way forward, "he's a much better hotel owner than actor. This is a decent place to grab a bite to eat."
They walked through the doors of the hotel, and when she caught sight of it, Frisk beelined for the fast-food joint in the corner. Sans caught her wrist and gently steered her to the left of the building. When Frisk saw where they were going, she stiffed.
"I'm not dresses for a nice restaurant," she whispered.
"Come on, you look beautiful. Besides, I'm in a hoodie and slippers. Do you really thing anyone is going to be judging you?"
Seeing San's point, Frisk followed him to the hostess desk. Distracting the hostess so he could sneak writing his name in the reservation list, Sans charmed the hostess into giving them a seat near the end of the dining room. Once they were seated and placed their orders – Sans a burger and Frisk a salad – Sans tried to make himself comfortable as Frisk looked around through the eye cutouts in her bag. Although Sans couldn't see her expression, he knew she was confused by all of this. Of all the times they hung out, it was never anywhere this nice.
"This isn't the original building," Sans said, knowing he should cut to the point but chose to stall anyway. "That was torn down about three years ago, the same time Core restrictions became tight. Not to mention a hotel right in front of the Core never seemed like a good idea. Imagine thinking you got a nice hotel room only to look outside your window to see you got a view of the Core."
"What is all this about, Sans?" Frisk asked, refusing to let Sans drag this out.
Sans sighed before he answered, "Welp, I guess I have to get to the point then, huh? There is something I have been needing to tell you for some time now, and I don't know where to start except the beginning.
"So you know I used to be a sentry right outside of the Ruins, right? Well, one day, many years ago, I was doing my duty, standing guard by the door in case any humans happened to come through. As I'm sure you can imagine, this was a very boring job. So, I decided to practice some knock knock jokes. After all, with a huge, locked door right there, it was the perfect place to practice. So one day, as usual, I'm knocking them out, one after another. I rap on the door. 'Knock knock.' And wouldn't you believe it – a woman's voice responds for the other end. 'Who is there?'
"Natually, I respond: 'Dishes.'
"'Dishes who?'
"'Dishes a very bad joke.'
"Then she just howls with laughter, like it is the best joke she has heard in a hundred years. So I keep the jokes coming, and she keeps laughing at 'em. She's easily the best audience I ever had. After 'bout a dozen of really bad knock knock jokes, she knocks on the door. 'Knock knock!'
"'Who's there?'
"'Old lady.'
"'Old lady who?'
"'Oh, I did not know you could yodel!'
"Wow. Just wow. I don't think you need me to tell you that this lady was extremely good. For hours after that, we kept telling each other jokes. Of course, I eventually had to leave – Papyrus can get kind of cranky without his bedtime story – but she told me to come by again. So I did. And I did again. And again. It's a thing now, telling jokes through the door. Or at least it was a thing. . . ."
By this point, Sans had to turn his attention away from Frisk and stare at the wall. As he told the story, Sans imagined Frisk's expression shifted from confusion to understanding to surprise behind her paper bag mask. If only she knew where this story was going.
Taking a deep breath, Sans continued, "Though one day, she wasn't laughing very much. I asked what was up, and she told me something strange.
"'If a human ever comes through this door, could you please, please promise me something? Watch over them, and protect them, will you not?'
"Now, I hate making promises, and I didn't even know this woman's name. . . . But, someone who sincerely likes bad jokes has an integrity you really can't say 'no' to.
"Within time, I forgot I ever made the promise. After all, it took about eight years between making the promise and a human actually coming through that door."
Frisk's body went stiff. Her fingers were curled into such tight fists, her knuckles were bone white. It appeared as if Frisk was holding her breath.
"What I know now that I didn't then is that this woman was the former queen, Toriel," Sans forced himself to say, "and she had me make that promise in case her daughter ever found her way outside of the safety of the Ruins. After being friends for years, it was not too difficult to keep my promise when you showed up. Yet after learning what your connection to this woman is . . ."
"You killed me," Frisk pointed out, speaking softly.
"But you got better." Sans saw the opportunity to change the subject, and he almost took it. However, he had to tell Frisk the truth. Her journey was almost at its end, and if he didn't tell her now, he probably never would.
"It was during one of our meetings she brought up something strange. Stranger than her bringing up that promise she had me made. I still don't know if she was asking a question or thinking aloud.
"'Would a human in a world of monsters desire to see another human, or would they be content despite being the only one of their kind?'
"Now, don't ask me what brought this up. It could have been a joke we shared, or maybe it had to do with what I had told her about all the Hotland monsters moving to Ice Capital and how their body heat was melting our buildings."
"She might have been wondering if she made the right decision keeping Chara a secret from me," Frisk muttered, hand going up to her chest and bunching the fabric of her shirt.
"Either way . . . ," Sans took a deep breath, "I was not alone that day."
Frisk's head snapped up, and her hand dropped from her chest.
"Please, don't think I meant to bring company," Sans quickly said, hoping to speak before Frisk got the wrong idea. "I hadn't realized I wasn't alone until I asked why she was asking such a strange questions about humans. Turns out, one of the guards was out doing a sentry check, and she happened to catch me talking to a locked door."
Perhaps it was the way Sans said what he did, or maybe there was no other monster who could be the culprit, but Frisk was not wrong when she stated, not questioned, "Mew Mew. . . ."
"Er, yeah." Sans scratched his cheekbones. "I, uh, tried to play it all off as some sort of joke. I think the woman realized someone was there, because she stopped speaking after that."
"What happened?" Frisk asked in a way that seemed as if she didn't want to know the answer but had to speak the question regardless.
"Honestly, I thought she bought my lame excuse that I was talking to myself," Sans answered, "but when I came back the next day, and the door was torn off its hinges, I knew . . ."
Sans didn't need to finish. Frisk's tense posture told him enough. Unfortunately, he was not yet done telling her the truth.
"Call me a coward, but I could not bring myself to step foot past the doorway. I should have gone in. I should have seen what I could have done to help. Instead . . . I returned to my sentry post, I hide under my station, and when they finally left, I returned to the door and repaired it. I didn't know what had happened in the Ruins, and I didn't want to know. I was content to forget the whole thing, to pretend my friendship with the woman whose name I didn't know was ever real. Then you showed up. From there, questions I never wanted to ask began to be answered."
It was probably a good thing Sans could not see Frisk's face behind the paper bag. He could only imagine that all color drained from her face and that she appeared sick. Sans felt sick himself.
It was at this time the waitress brought their food. Either oblivious to the tension between the two or choosing to ignore it, the waitress acted cheerful as she set down the plates and promised to be back to check on them soon. Sans only half heard the waitress, and he was sure Frisk didn't hear her at all.
For a minute or two, silence dragged. Frisk didn't pick up her fork to stir the salad. The rise and fall of her chest were so minimal, Sans wasn't sure if she was breathing.
Sans considered asking Frisk to say something, but he didn't want to hear whatever it was she had to say. It was bound to be something unkind, even if true. Toriel's death was all Sans's fault, and he had done nothing about it. This was guilt he had spent so long pushing down, unaware it was there for so long. Then he started talking to Chara, and Sans could see himself in the ghost of the human.
The guilt, pain, and regret – Sans understood it all. At first, he thought it was for other past sins, but that was never the case. The second Sans entertained the possibility he felt responsible for Toriel's demise, the guilt gnawed at him from the inside out.
After spending so long hiding it, Sans realized that he couldn't keep this to himself any longer. His friendship with Frisk was becoming a relationship in which he deeply valued, coming behind only his relationship with Papyrus as a connection Sans deemed important. Yet Sans knew if he truly cared for Frisk, he had to respect her and trust her enough to tell her the truth.
Even if the truth meant their friendship would come to its abrupt end.
Sans hadn't realized the two of them sat motionless for long until the waitress returned and, confused, asked if everything was all right and if the food was okay. All Sans could answer was to request two to-go boxes. After the leftovers were boxed and Sans paid for the food, he teleported Frisk and himself back to the camp.
In the time it took for all of this to take place, Frisk still had yet to speak a word.
Chara longed for the days in which he felt no emotion. That was easier. This was excruciating.
Either Sans was not aware of it or thought Chara also needed to know the truth, because Chara was there as Sans confessed everything. It was difficult learning someone Chara had come to trust was responsible for the death of the woman who took him in as a child and refused to see him as anything less than her son. Knowing Sans knew he had caused this trouble and ran away was even harder to bear.
Not that Chara was one to judge when his own sins were far too many to count.
After returning to her tent, Frisk took the bag off her head, lied on her cot, and stared at nothing. Even though her shoulders didn't shake and her breathing didn't catch, Frisk still cried. Silent tears ran down her face and drenched her pillow. Choosing not to say anything, Chara sat at the foot of her cot. For the hours it took from that moment for the morning call to echo through the camp, the two sat silent and mostly motionless.
It's your fault I feel things, Chara thought without looking towards Frisk. For years he shoved down his guilt and sorrow so hard Chara had forgotten what it was like to feel emotions altogether. The claim he had no emotions never exited his mouth as an intentional lie.
Yet his time with Frisk brought back to Chara what it was like to feel. He still couldn't cry when sad or take deep breaths when angry, but the emotions were there. They were more present now in this moment than he had ever thought he would feel again.
Chara was angry Sans had led enemies to Toriel's door and fled from the consequences.
Chara was devasted Toriel had unwittingly been betrayed by someone who was her only friend.
Chara was hurt to see Frisk in so much pain from the revelation.
It was all why when Frisk reached out her hand, Chara reached back. The humans could never touch, keeping them from truly seeking comfort from the other. Yet the act of reaching out and holding their hands together as if they could touch meant more than if they never tried.
Although the humans could not be more alone in their respective situations, at least neither was truly alone.