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spectascopes · 1 year

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Without a Second Thought- Chapter 1

Undertale Fanfiction (Gen, SFW) No relationships or pairings Tags (from AO3): Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Childhood Trauma, Mental Health Issues, Gender-Neutral Frisk, Trust Issues, Sans is a Mess, Good Parent Toriel, Toriel is Frisk's Mom, Manipulation, Flowey isn't a great friend, but nobody is surprised, Soriel Lightly Implied, Past Child Abuse, Narrator Chara, Major Character Injury, Injury Recovery, Crying, lots and lots of crying, Reader is Frisk Link to AO3 version

"You got through the Underground with the help of a ghostly companion nobody else could see, and you made a lot of friends along the way, but Chara didn't come with you into the sunlight. Now you have a new mom, and a new family, but no extra brain to help you make the right choices. It might have lasted, too, if you hadn't messed it up."

this is called frangst (Frisk Angst) and it's mostly about Sans and Frisk and a really bad situation

anyways I've been kinda on/off working on this for months, so most of it is already written! BIG HUGE SHOUT OUT to @kaliawai512-v2 for reading this and giving me some insightful and super helpful feedback, go read their stories if you haven't already!

TW for some intense emotions and results of emotional and verbal abuse in later chapters, I'm a bit of a wimp myself but I kinda maybe definitely cried maybe more than once writing this- allegedly

You sighed, laying in the backyard under the shade of the big oak tree mom tended to so well. She was inside making dinner- you could hear her humming to herself through the open window. She insisted it remained open, because-

"Ugh, is this really all you do? Just sit around? You've been spending too much time with Trashbag."

You sighed again, this time in exasperation. You opened your eyes and turned to see the plant in question giving you a dirty look. It was no wonder mom didn’t exactly trust him.

"It's a little mean to still call him that," you said. "He gave you a sandwich at that party one time, remember? That was really nice of him."

"Uh, yeah, you asked him to do that and Papyrus said if he didn't he’d be disowned. I bet he tried to poison me with it."

You rolled your eyes, but it was with a smile. "How much?"

Flowey groaned, blew a raspberry, then hit you in the face with a floppy leaf. "Fine, you called my bluff. He's not really the type to do things, I guess."

You sat up, pulling your legs in to sit criss-cross. Flowey's pouty, ever-cranky face had a bit of happiness in it. He poked a bruise on your leg.

“What’s this from? That’s probably a more interesting story than anything to do with Sans.”

You swept his vines away. “I ran into the coffee table. Papyrus was chasing me.”

“Stupid. You two are like dogs- like little baby dogs, you know that? Chasing each other around the house, you’re-”

“We’re dogs,” you finished, smiling. “I get it. We both like to run and play- is that a crime?”

“It should be,” Flowey said. “If I had my way, it would be. And no more of the idiotic play-fights you have with Smiley, those are just horrible to watch. You don’t even hit each other enough to do damage! Weirdos!.”

“C’mon, you should come with us and get suplexed by Undyne sometime. It’s her favorite activity.”

Flowey shuddered, and it was funny to watch it run up his stem and shake out into his petals. “Eugh. I don’t understand how you shrug off getting bruised and bloody ‘playing’ with these losers while also being the biggest wimp I’ve ever met.”

You smiled, idly touching the small mark. Mom had scolded you (and Papyrus) thoroughly and made it quite clear that any chases had to happen outside from then on. It was funny watching a grown skeleton sheepishly twiddle his thumbs in shame.

"Where have you been, by the way?" you asked Flowey, reaching over and brushing some dirt off of his petals. You pretended not to notice him flush and straighten his stem, but it was funny regardless. Maybe if he came around more he'd get used to casual, platonic dirt-wiping.

"Oh, you know. Here and there. Doing some research, sight-seeing, that sorta thing," he said, flipping a leaf nonchalantly. "You wouldn't get it since you're stuck here all the time with Miss Fussy Paws."

"You mean your mom?"

Flowey gave you a real dirty look this time, and you shrank away, a quick 'sorry' coming out.

"She's your mom, idiot. She's... not mine right now."

"Right now?" you pressed, feeling at-ease enough to risk angering this one friend. Actually, he was probably your only friend you felt this comfortable with. It wasn’t like you could really hurt his feelings- he didn’t have any.

"Yeah- well- maybe not forever I dunno GOSH let's stop talking about this!" Flowey complained, dramatically flopping his head on the ground. "I didn't come to talk about that!"

You nodded. "Well, what did you come to talk about? I haven't seen you in months." Flowey had first popped up half a year after they'd all made it to the surface, going back on his self-promise to stay underground and out of their hair. That had been almost two years ago, and he'd come around only a handful of times since. They were always welcome visits despite his propensity towards being a pot-stirrer.

"You, silly goose!" he said, popping below the ground for a quick second and then back up on your other side, even closer. He slapped away another attempt at keeping him dirt-free. "I was thinking about your SAVE!"

You raised a brow at him. "Uh... okay?"

"You can still do that, right? You didn't turn into a spineless wimp?"

"Yeah, I think so, but it's been a long time since I have. If I'm never going to reset or reload or whatever again, what's the point in bringing up a SAVE?" You’d reset only a handful of times, always because you died and lost your nerve- deciding it was easier to go back to the beginning than to press forward and keep dying. You shivered at the thought.

Flowey grinned. "What if you could do something cool without resetting?"

You went quiet. You looked up at the window, heard mom still humming away, and then back to the flower.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, listen- you know that one part in that one god-awful movie where that wizard finds a wardrobe that rewinds time kinda but ONLY on the one object? I think he does an apple but I honestly don’t remember, it was boring. Do you know it?"

"Ew, you watched that? The author is a mega-bigot."

"Okay, I don't care! Shush!" Flowey said. "Humans are WEIRD and I'm not learning about all the ways you hate each other- my point is that it made me think about you and your resets!"

You rubbed your face. You needed a haircut, you noticed as you pushed the longer-than-normal bangs aside. You'd have to talk to Mew Mew soon, she’d been getting into that sort of thing.

"Flowey, I don't think that's a good idea. I don't want to mess with stuff like that anymore, I promised myself and everybody here that I'd never do it again."

"And you won't!" he said with a wink. You opened your mouth to protest the wink and whatever implication he was making with it, but Flowey was quick to stretch his stem way up and put a leaf to your lips. "But that and some other stuff got me thinking about the possibilities of all that determination in you. Do you see where I’m going yet?"

"No, not really," you said, arms crossed. "You had practically eternity to mess with all that before I came along, if it could be done you would have figured it out."

"Not true! I might be clever but I never had the full picture."

"Inspiration from Transphobe Supreme?"

Flowey stared at you for a second. You groaned, knowing full-well that most monsters didn't know what that meant, and moved on.

"Look, I just... I just don't want to mess with it," you said, rubbing an arm. "I might not have cared so much before, since I didn't know anybody that well and things felt too good to be true, but... but now I know they are true and I'm not going to risk any of them getting mad at me."

Flowey rolled his eyes. "Really? You're not going to try and figure out if you have super powers cause you're scared mommy will get mad?"

You looked away. Yeah, that was exactly what you were saying. Mom, Undyne, Alphys, Papyrus, Sans, Asgore- all of them knew about the resets and if they found out you were messing with determination and SAVES, they'd be mad. Well, one person in particular would be way more mad and it was because he knew way more than the others. You weren't going to put family grocery excursions with the skeleton brothers at risk.

"Friiiisk," Flowey whined, laying his head on your thigh and warping his face into a big-eyed, pleading expression. "C'mon, I've done a lot of poking around the SAVE-data and all that reality-fabric stuff, I know what I'm doing! We just have to alter some of it, not all! Imagine how cool it would be to reset just a little bit! Sans and Papyrus have some irregularities in their data and it lets them do that cool stuff they do!"

"Nope," you said, turning away from him. "I won't imagine it because it's pointless."

"It's not pointless, you just haven't thought about it!" Flowey exclaimed, annoyingly popping up right in front of you again. "What if you could reset the brown bananas on the counter to be yellow again? Or- or reset a plant all the way back to a seed?"

You tried to pivot away from him, but he popped right back up. You opted to close your eyes instead, arms crossed tightly.

"... dust back to a monster?"

You looked down at the flower, staring up at you with a smile.

"I know you care about all these losers, but what if something bad happens to them ? If Alphys keeled over tomorrow, are you telling me you wouldn't be tempted to reset to last week?"

"Well... well, maybe I’d think about it, but-"

"What if Undyne begs you to, and you do, but then Sans never forgives you?" Flowey asked. You bit your lip- you knew he was just trying to get what he wanted, but he was way too good at it to ignore. Especially when it hit so close to home and what kept you up at night.

"You can't say it wouldn't be nice to just bring her back."

"Of course I can't, but... but that's not how life is. Nobody else gets resets and it- it isn't fair to them." You stared at the dirt between your legs. "...I heard mom and Sans talking one night, and he said that he knew about me a long time ago. He said I was an 'anomaly' and that he'd spent years trying to figure out how to..." You swallowed. "... to stop me."

"Stop you?!" Flowey balked. "Stop you from what, existing? That guy is a trashbag if he-"

"He didn't know," you said softly. "Him and mom had drank a little bit and they thought Papyrus had taken me outside to catch lightning bugs, but he'd actually just fallen asleep on the porch cause he drank a little bit, too-"

"Love the details but I'm dying to know the point," Flowey pressed.

"The point is he didn't know I was there and he said he still doesn't really believe I won't reset again, all the way back to the beginning. Mom said she knew me and she knew that I wouldn't, but that she understood. I didn't hear the first half of the conversation, but Sans sounded kinda sad." You sniffled, not quite crying but almost there. "I think he blames me for something, and I don't want to make him mad."

Flowey stared at your shirt for a few moments as he processed what you'd said. Toriel's humming could be heard in that time, occasionally turning into singing and then back again. The sun was going down in earnest.

"Well, for one," Flowey began as he crossed his own leaves, "we aren't going to reset on accident, but also- if Sans ends up not trusting you, would that really be the end of the world?"

"Yes," you said with a waver in your voice, and the tears won out. Flowey seemed surprised, leaning his stem away from you, and it gave you a chance to rub at your eyes with the sleeve of your shirt. You grit your teeth, eyes closed, before taking a few deep breaths like Alphys had taught you to, letting the anxiety ease. She knew about your anxiety, and that was all she’d know.

When you opened your eyes, Flowey was looking up at you in... worry? It was something close to it, at least. Mixed with disgust, as usual.

"You, uh... you good?" he asked.

You wiped your nose as you pulled your knees to your chest. "I know you think you know everything, but you don’t ." You felt a little bad being so blunt with him, but you didn't know how else to communicate with the soulless plant. "They're my family, Flowey. My only family."

Flowey's brows knit in confusion before his expression evened out again. After another moment, he frowned.

"I don't want to lose them," You mumbled into your knees.

For once, Flowey didn't have something smart or rude to say. He wilted a little bit, looking off at nothing. You did your best to hide your face, embarrassed to have cried so easily. Flowey- Asriel- had been through so much, but he had grown up with a family who loved him. A mom and dad- a sibling- people who would still love him if he let them back in. It had taken you ten years to find a semblance of that in a bunch of monsters you hardly knew, and you’d do anything for it.

You didn't talk about how things had been before you wound up Underground. You didn't want to just be the scared kid from a bad home who cried too much, and you'd been doing such a good job. When the fear rose up- when you felt even the slightest bit rejected or annoying- you had kept it in. You only cried when nobody was around. You didn’t have Chara to help you make the right decisions anymore- it was on you to do that from here on out. And that pressure was suffocating after a brief time of having a second, smarter opinion in your brain. One that everybody liked more than the real you, probably.

So, yes, if even one of them suddenly decided you were not worth it to keep around, it felt like your world would end.

"I try to forget a lot of the stuff that I learned when I was still a monster, but I don't think family is supposed to be conditional," Flowey finally said in an uncharacteristically soft voice. He looked up at you, face as normal as it could be in his state. "Sure, they might be losers, but I'm pretty sure none of them would show you the door over one little mess-up."

"But you don't know that," you whispered, looking over at the kitchen window where mom was busy baking. Your mom, in your house, where you felt safe.

What if something happened to her? What if she got really sick and then you were left with nothing again?

You wouldn't reset- you would never reset or reload, even if thinking about anything bad happening to Toriel made your stomach twist up in knots. But what if Flowey was actually right... what if there was a way to use your power for something else?

"I know them, though,” Flowey continued, “and I know Toriel would never just boot you out. Papyrus would overlook literal murder."

You wrinkled your nose at that, and Flowey was quick to shrug and say:

"Don't ask. But, pal, even if they do get mad at you, isn't it worth it to find a way to protect them? Some might not understand, but if we can mess with your SAVE without resetting- which we can- isn't being able to bring them back from the dead worth a little bit of emotional turmoil? We might even find some crazy, less reality-bending thing you can do! You’re a human with determination, after all- I’m just a houseplant."

Flowey had a point and you hated it. You looked at him, tears tucked safely away again, before you reached down and patted the top of his petal-y head with your hand. He groaned in not-quite protest.

"Yeah. I'd do anything for you guys."

Flowey's blush at the sentiment quickly faded as he flapped his leaves together in excitement. "Really? You'll do it?"

"I'll help you look into it. But I'm not promising anything- if it looks even a little bit dangerous-"

"Then we stop!" Flowey chirped, moving forward and hugging your wrist. "Oh, wow, I'm so glad I got through to you! I'll be back tomorrow evening, friend! I have to get a couple things ready!"

You smiled. Even if you were uneasy about this, seeing Flowey so happy made it feel far more bearable.

"Okay. Do you want to stay for dinner?"

"Nope! See ya tomorrow!" he said, and just like that he was gone.

You let out another big, deep sigh. You looked up at the leaves, swaying gently in the breeze, dappling the ground below with soft patches of light.

Toriel came out ten minutes later to get you for dinner. She still wore her flour-covered apron and a loving smile, though the latter of the two was hardly ever absent.

“Dinner is ready, my child.” Toriel called. She looked around the yard. “Where is Flowey? Is he not joining us tonight?”

You got to your feet and went to your mom, giving her a big hug. You laid your face on her torso regardless of the powder on it. She smelled like the kitchen and cinnamon. She smelled like home.

Toriel hugged you back, getting down on one knee to be easier to reach. She nuzzled her soft cheeks into your hair, something so sweet and affectionate that you weren’t sure you’d ever get used to it.

“He had to go. I tried to get him to stay but I think he’s still a little nervous.” You didn’t mention that it was because Toriel was his mother, because Flowey had not told her that in this timeline and it wasn’t your place to do so.

Toriel laughed. “He does not strike me as the nervous type, but we all have our fronts, do we not?” she said, standing and swooping you up into her strong, furry arms.

You squeaked, then giggled. “You don’t have to carry me to the table, I can walk,” you said as you snuggled close to her. Even without your second opinion brainworm/safety net combo, you felt safe with Toriel. She was the only one that you trusted to be there no matter what, even if you said the wrong thing. Even if she maybe didn’t like you as much as she’d liked you with your plus one.

“Of course I do not have to, but I want to, and so I shall,” she said, kissing the top of your head. She hummed as she began the walk back to the table, a hand shifting to run across your forehead and move your bangs. She was always so mindful of her claws. “Do you want me to contact a hairdresser soon, dear child? Your hair is getting longer than you usually wear it.”

“Yeah,” you said simply. Toriel noticed the hair, too- it really should have felt normal by now, but having someone care so deeply still felt alien. You closed your eyes and let yourself be carried back indoors. Tomorrow you’d see what Flowey had planned, but tonight you wanted to help Toriel clean the kitchen and watch a silly movie with your newly-acquired mother.

#undertale #frisk #sans #toriel #flowey #undertale fanfiction #post pacifist #NOT FRANS I REPEAT NOT FRANS #second person bc homestuck infected me #frisk is nonbinary don't try anything #i never cross post but fuck it we ball

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