Chapter Text
Soon enough one of the crew monsters takes Rust’s blood-bucket-thing and swings it up into the catwalks, slopping some over the side. Moss dodges, but Rust goes UUUGHHHHHHH when some lands in his hair.
“Oh, that’s grooossss,” he whines, messing with it. His dreads are all neat and recently twisted for the musical, and now they also smell like strawberry. “I’m gonna have to – “ But Frisk doesn’t hear what he’s gonna have to do, cause a big carton of black and red glitter gets shoved into their hands and they get pushed out to the wings.
This intermission isn’t like the other one – it’s fast and focused, Frisk dropping off the glitter and getting some lights, running the lights over and grabbing the healing snacks without saying a word to hardly anybody. Chara’s quick and quiet in their brain, guiding them through the dark and the passing bodies, no room at all for being nervous. The monster that takes their snacks tells them to ask Liolex where the emergency sewing kit’s at, and Liolex tells them to go find Maddie while she rushes off to look, and Maddie wants to know if Mettaton knows his chainsaw is out of alignment and she totally didn’t break it, and NO ONE has ANY clue where Mettaton went.
They almost forget it’s the third act, The Third Act, in all their running around and back and forth and up and down, and they never never once see Flowey. It’s mostly just crew monsters whose names Chara could remember if there was less going on, telling them to carry stuff over there or scoot out the way. So they do, sort of dancing their way around, handing back props like fire buckets and trying not to get too entranced by the whirl of the moving pulleys. They’re all-business, all-ready, focused and determined and fast! So it really knocks them out of their groove when Mina pulls them into a costume closet and yells something about Talley getting kidnapped.
“He didn’t get kidnapped,” snaps Rox before Frisk can even start processing all of that. “He’s just – “
“Stuck in a BATHROOM – “ yells Glow –
“It’s not a whole lot better is it!!” says Moss –
“Where’s Rust?” Chara breaks in, ricocheting.
“He’s texting,” says Mina.
What Rust is trying to do, Frisk thinks probably, is he’s trying not to pay attention to everyone. He’s all scrunched over his phone, one hand sort of up over the side of his face like he’s keeping out the sun or meaning Extreme Exasperation. Frisk tiptoes up over the screen and his head snaps up. “Hey,” he says, voice strained, “did Talley, like, tell you he never actually told his dad he was in the musical? I’m not the last one to know about this, right?”
Frisk grabs their hands in their hair and shakes their head big, and in their head they go SHIT, and Chara goes, I did not think this whole cascade would kick off quite this soon.
This WHAT!! says Frisk.
“Because his dad didn’t take it so good,” Rust avalanches on, “and he was gonna, like, stop Talley coming down for the song at all, but Talley went in the bathroom instead, and he says his dad’s waiting outside. And he told me to try not to worry about him, cause he’s 14 now like me so he’s got it, but he’s stuck, and, what is it to curtain? Like ten, right?? And I don’t know what to do and I’m freaking out!!”
Oh no no no no no no, Chara mumbles, antsy, he needs to be here for the first song of the act, we can’t…
“You’re freaking out. It's not helping anyone,” Rox butts in before Chara can even say anything. “He’s here. And we can help him. That’s something. We can start with that.”
“But he came with his dad,” Mina whines, with a lot of weight on the last word. Rox shushes her real quick.
“He’s here. Right.” Rust is still breathing too fast but Frisk can feel something in him standing up. “And, and we’re here too. And we’re going to get him out of that bathroom. Wait, hang on.”
Frisk peeks themselves over his shoulder. The last text Rust sent a couple minutes ago says, you still want to do all of this, right? be here? And the brand new message that just popped up says Yes of course I do yes yes yes.
okay, types Rust, hold on tight, types Rust, we’re coming.
“Ask him how crowded is the bathroom,” Rox says, rubbing a few strands of hair that are loose from his braid. “Can he get out if he like shoves himself in the middle of a crowd?”
Rust asks, his fingers hardly shaking. “He says it’s pretty packed,” he reads the response, “it’s the only men’s bathroom on the second floor.”
Rox grunts and nods. “Ask him if it’s mostly other rich guys?”
“He wants to know what you’re getting at,” says Rust, after a moment of furious typing.
“I mean, he’s probably not the only brown haired white boy in a suit there, right? He’s not gonna stand out.”
“Oh, that makes sense.” A break. Frisk goes up on tiptoes and Rust snatches the screen away from them. “Yeah, he says yeah.”
“Okay. Tell him this is what he’s gonna do. Tell him he’s gonna take off the suit jacket, like it’s got a stain or something. His dad will be looking for a dark-colored jacket, right?”
“Tell him to take off his stupid yellow tie,” says Mina. Rox distractedly shoots her a finger gun and a “Good idea.”
“I forgot he used to wear that all the time,” Rust says, fondly.
“Now tell him he needs to find a group of people, ideally an adult and at least two kids, that look like him.”
“You seem like really prepared for this,” Moss says.
Rox shrugs. “I mean, I’ve thought about it. S’a little familiar.”
“What’s he gonna do once he gets out?” Glow asks. “They locked the stage doors, right?”
“We’re gonna go get him,” says Rust.
“I know where he’s gonna be,” adds Moss. “Upstairs by that green room? The one we take naps in all the time. Pretty sure that’s the closest stage door to those bathrooms.”
“Is it the one we had to keep going to when I got prop paint all over my hands?” asks Glow, and then gasps. “Tell him to follow the paint drips on the floor!!”
“Okay,” says Rust, furiously typing, “okay. I think I know where that is. Are we ready to go? I think so. We don’t have a lot of time.”
Frisk claps their hands together, go go go go go! Rust is typing a lot. “He told me he’s ready too,” he says, distracted, but Frisk does the tiptoe thing that got them in trouble last time, and they can see Talley’s typing bubble popping up and down and up and down and up and down.
They don’t think Rust can see them. He’s fixed on his screen. I don’t know if I can go back if I do this. Rust’s thumbs freeze. Another message. He’s not going to let me come back.
Rust drinks in a breath, one that whistles on his lips dry and cold-bracing in the musty air. He holds it for a second. Then he lets it go, explosively.
what if you didnt have to
Frisk feels kind of like they’re looking down the grandest slope of a shining roller coaster. Chara makes them breathe too, in like a whistle, out.
itll be okay, Rust’s fingers promise. come on. you can do it. be brave?
A long, long moment. Rust’s eyes glance over his shoulder, to Frisk, but he doesn’t pull the phone away.
The response comes through like the releasing of brakes. I’m going now.
“Let’s go!” Rust shouts, startling Glow so hard she shrieks and racing out of the closet and down the hall. Frisk and the others go charging after him, scattering crew monsters in their wake, drumrolling feet pounding way too loud on the old wooden floors. Up the cramped spiral staircase to backstage’s second floor, past the couple catwalk ladders, down the narrow hallway to the stage door. There are sounds, conversation, heavy steps, outside. Everything feels faster now, and Chara says they do not have much time, at all at all.
“It says he went offline,” says Rust after a break of panting silence.
“Hey, kids? That’s you down there, right?” A monster Frisk almost remembers, eyes neon-bright in the darkness, sticks their head down the hallway. “Liolex asked me to find you? It’s five til curtain.”
THANKYOUFIVE, Chara sort of screams in the back of Frisk’s head.
“I’m gonna call him,” wavers Rust.
And he does, and as he does, it sounds like someone running outside the door – and then, the shining, brilliant chimes of the default ringtone.
“Push!” calls Chara, the first to say it, and so they push. Light spills down the hallway as Talley slams into the door and catches it and scurries around, his jacket dragging from his hand on the floor, his tie all bunched in his fist.
The door closes on the hem of his jacket, leaving a tiny channel of light streaming through the crack to Frisk’s face. Talley doesn’t bother to pull it free. He’s a tight, brimming ball of anxiety, so tensely wound it feels like he’ll crack from the strain of it. “Uh. Hi, guys?”
“Dude, your phone is still going off,” grins Rust, and then tackles him into a bear hug.
And the dam breaks. Mina rushes forward first, to Rox’s mild surprise, wrapping herself around the two of them and squeezing like she’s gluing them together. Rox follows, hooking his chin over the top of Rust’s head, and Moss and Glow too. Frisk throws themselves into the pile like a cannonball and the whole clump goes off-balance, Moss squeaking as they stumble, Rox cackling, Rust going “Frisk!! Frisk!!!!” and Frisk not even knowing who they’re hugging.
“Why didn’t you tell him?!?!?!” Glow yells over the ringtone, which Talley finally fishes out of his pocket and turns off. Talley laughs, breathless and happy. “I know I should have,” he says. “But it just… kept being a bad time, and then it didn’t get better.”
“No, we get it, it’s okay,” says Rox soothingly. Chara, privately, agrees – simmer down, Sponge, it is not his fault. Which Frisk immediately gets distracted by being giddily excited by. CHARA YOU!! -
“And I kept being, being scared, and thinking about how…” The others have stepped back a little bit, and Talley notices, with a twinge of sadness. Frisk leans forward and squeezes him tight again. “How I don’t have to be scared at rehearsal,” Talley continues quietly, one hand on the back of Frisk’s sweater. “And how it had been a long time since I’d been this kind of scared, this bad.”
“So why’d you tell him at all then?” Mina blurts. Rust makes a tiny noise of agreement. “He didn’t need to know.”
“He’d be worried,” says Talley, sort of helplessly. And then: “He wouldn’t really be, would he. Alphys worries about me, and Toriel. And you, Rust. He would have acted like he was worried, but he was only ever just going to be angry. Right? I don’t know why I thought it would be any different.”
“’S’okay to hope,” murmurs Rox. “Even with everything, it’s okay.”
And Frisk knows this makes everything so much more complicated, and so much worse in ways they don’t even understand yet, and it doesn’t even matter. Cause here is here and now is now. And everyone is home.
“Uhm,” says Talley. He finally pulls his phone out and turns it off, fidgeting with the case instead of putting it back in his pocket. He keeps looking at the screen even though he turned it off. “So then, Rust, uh, is it okay if I… maybe sleep over tonight?”
Rust has both his hands on Talley’s shoulders now and he’s grinning and grinning like he just won a marathon. “Yeah, man! We got a pullout couch now!!”
“And maybe.” Talley drums his fingernails on his phone screen. Clicklicklicklick. “Maybe, um. After that?”
“Doesn’t count as sleeping over if it’s home,” says Rust firmly, and then gets embarrassed and lets go with a little laugh.
Talley is looking at Rust in a Way. Even Frisk can tell that it’s a capital-W Way. Chara says, Great, here we go. And Rust says, “There’s never gonna be a better time to do this, is there.” Talley says “Huh,” but Rust isn’t talking to him. He’s doing something else. He’s leaning forward and kissing Talley softly on the cheek.
Glow sticks her fist over her mouth and yells.
“Huh,” goes Talley again, face a really different bright red Way now. “So, I.” He’s all giddy-happy-light, like when-am-I-waking-up-from-this. “I guess, um, you – “
That’s when Flowey explodes his entire head out of a mildewy crack in the tiles and shrieks “Where the HELL have you all been?!
“The five til curtain?! Did you even HEAR that?! The thing that happened six minutes ago?!?!” he says, jabbing his vines at Frisk like this is literally in any way shape or form their fault at all. “You had ONE job!! Be ready for my big debut! And I looked ALL over backstage, cause you weren’t where you said you’d be, and you’re not even backstage you’re here by the DOORS and I had to go through concrete and I HATE that – “
Frisk steps forward and clamps Flowey’s mouth shut with their hand. He bites them immediately, but it gives Chara enough silence to say, “We will explain. We are sorry, Asriel.” And that shuts him up.
“Tell me later. Just get in places already,” he mumbles. So they do.
Places for most of them is up in the catwalks actually, so it was stupid for Flowey to be all pissy about them being here right close to the stairs. The humans all take off that way. Talley’s holding onto Rust’s hand even though Rust isn’t very nervous anymore. And Frisk gives their head a big happy shake and runs back in the other direction. They need to be by the stage for this.
It’s so quiet again. And dark. They can realize it now, when it’s just them. More than the rest of intermission, even. Chara thinks the house lights must be down, even the red emergency ones they put on for atmosphere, so everyone is being all settled and waiting. They wonder all jittering what the Mayor is thinking about the show so far. Frisk bats their thoughts away from that. It’s not going to help right now.
The way out feels nothing like last time when they had to practically get shoved out on stage, not like that at all. Pretty much everyone is up there or on the pulleys and stuff to make sure the six-soul puppet doesn’t fall off the ceiling too much. And the ones that aren’t all have really important jobs to do Frisk doesn’t know about so they’re all pretty focused. Chara tries not to make their feet too loud as they clatter down the stairs and skid up beside the stage, screeching to a stop face to face with Sans. He sees them, goes “okay, they’re here,” into his phone, snaps them finger guns, and disappears. Then they’re alone.
Right now they have to focus on Beating Ass.
The blocking for this one changed a little bit from the first draft. Chara has to remember it. Frisk walks loud and ringing out in front of the curtain, all the way to center stage. They stop on the little taped x.
An evil white spotlight screams down on them. They flinch, and cover their eyes. It’s okay to do that on this spot, because this one is supposed to be bad. A startle goes through the audience at the sudden light. Up in the rafters, hidden from view even through the intermission with the dim glow of the emergency lights, Flowey takes that as his cue and flicks the great big TV on.
He’d wanted it to be playing static at first, like really loud, alongside and under his words. But that only lasted until Glow flipped out about it, so now it’s only him on the blank black screen, suspended far above their head. He laughs, slow and awed and easy, and it shivers through the theater like a skipped heartbeat.
“Hush now, little ones,” he simmers, eyes roving across the audience. He thought it would be creepier if he skipped the whole fake-storyteller-voice thing, and squinting in the light, his words crawling like centipedes underneath their skin, Frisk thinks he’s right. “I have a story for you.” Frisk shivers this time, and his grin widens, eyes rolling over to them. “A story of humans… and monsters. Long ago. Two races ruled over the earth.”
Frisk doesn’t like how the spotlight makes it harder to hear him, like he’d really gone through with his static plan anyway. They need to know where he is in his line. “Humans, and monsters. One day…” And they know what’s coming but still they tense. “...they all disappeared WITHOUT A TRACE.”
Edgy bastard, Chara thinks. Frisk is full of tension and terror and that bright, bright light so they are not really thinking much at all.
“Howdy!” Flowey’s giggle scrapes inside their ears. “It’s me! Flowey. Flowey the flower!” He’s having just a magnificent time. Chara pushes his voice away, fluttering over and over every human’s part in their head. This is the part they’re most scared for, with the humans, even though it’s easier than Waterfall cause there’s not as much to remember. But there’s still the spotlight and the puppet and the million moving parts. And Frisk thinks maybe Flowey can feel it too, with all the glee he’s leeching out, that the audience is actually fucking terrified.
The mania is building up slowly through the very tips of Frisk’s toes, as Flowey snarls promises and threats. First Rox is coming out, then Rust. Then last is Talley. Well. Last is all of them. Frisk hopes to god Flowey remembers to set the human constructs off in the right order, but Chara says that’s the least of their worries. Flowey snickers about replacing them, ripping their control from the world, and that’s when Frisk remembers to square their feet and bend their knees. That’s their cue. Chara gazes up in the spotlight, eyes tingling with pain and nerves, and does their very best face. It’s not “MAD,” even though it feels the same on Frisk’s cheeks. Chara says that it’s “DETERMINED.” It makes Flowey snort. “You think – you really think, you think YOU… can stop ME?! Awwwww.” He winks audibly. “You really are an idiot.”
Frisk’s spotlight goes out. The emergency lights surge and buzz. A chorus of laughter comes crawling out of every speaker, swarming in the air, screaming and hooting and bellowing and keening. Chara slaps their hands over their ears, and in that split second, the house lights all come up.
Frisk gets the distinct feeling that a lot of the audience has decided they have gotten into something over their heads.
Well, that’s just tough luck, says Chara, a little bitter, a little manic. If they wanted so badly to – Frisk, MOVE!
His first attack catapults straight down the middle of the stage, a squirming leafy pillar, and Frisk throws themselves to the side and catches themselves on their knees. It gives the vines a chance to smash off the stage and slaver after them, wrapping around their leg and yanking up. The fluorescents wheel as Frisk goes head over ass but Flowey promised not to put them upside down so much this time, so a vine flicks into their hands and he helps them swing like a monkey. They let go and fall for a second, squishing down on one of Flowey’s horrible worm platforms, and now they can start the actual running part of this song.
“While you had a pow-wow! I was feeling so proud!!” The words echo static and strange in the white-waiting air as Frisk scuttles over the squishy coils towards Rox’s corner of the theater. Chara thinks they got like a minute to get up into places but Flowey’s not making it easy for them, throwing attacks and shaking leaves down that tangle in their hair. They need to be up by the time Flowey goes Huh?? WHY am I still doing this??! but they slip and he helps them up, a cruel giggle snaking through his words. “Don’t you get it?! This is all just a SHOW...”
Rox darts down from the catwalks, grabs Frisk’s hand, and pulls them to their feet. His hands are hot and soft and reassuring, and he flashes them a harried smile. “And we’re playing PARTS…” Flowey croons above. His screen flashes cyan, the house lights flicker back out, and a current of blue light runs over the wall to the wings. Rox takes a quick breath and the blue spot goes up.
His part of the song is pizzicato plucks and steady certain steps, and his smile gentles into an easy grin as they pick and hop around each other. He’s giving them easy confidence, pulling it up from inside himself, feeling a little strained for their benefit. But Frisk’s jumping from foot to foot and Rox shoots them finger guns before they go, and they will absolutely take the finger guns as Flowey screams about eternity because they already got hit once this run. It’s a shaky start, but Rox’s verse is already ending, so they squish him in a quick hug before Flowey pulls them to the other side of the theater.
Rust’s orange-lit platform Jacob-ladders down and he gives them a brave rictus smile, harnessed firmly to his ledge. Frisk needs to do the dancing around for this one, an easy sway-step swing, two three four two three four and they catch their breath. He waves his hands in sweeping gusts and Flowey curls the creamsicle constructs away, over their heads and flickering to pieces in the dark, and then he sticks out his hands and rewards Frisk with a big double-barreled high five SLAP! and WHOOPS as they twirl away!!
Frisk gets a short break for Flowey to scream some more Bullshit, and they double over with their hands on their knees, gasping. They swallow down one more breath before Flowey snakes a vine around their middle, and he cackles as they yell and struggle like he’s not taking them right where they’re supposed to be.
He drops them up high as Mina swings down on a vine and lands in her cool Sailor Moon pose. She poses for a beat, lets Frisk catch their breath, then darts forward to pull them away as indigo sparks fly. She’s not smiling. Mostly she looks concentrated, but she catches Chara’s eye and her mouth goes weird, and Frisk loses a beat to a surge of fearful melancholy.
Frisk grabs Mina harder, pulling her out of the way of a pillar of thorns. Her verse is flutes and bass plucks, poses and pointing. Chara thinks it sounds like that Earthbound game that Mina got too frustrated to be good at. Flowey howls above, and Frisk goes to sign one of the words Mina knows – friend, hold on, are you okay? - but Flowey grabs their outstretched hands and yanks them up.
“You have NO IDEA what this is LIKE!!” Frisk kicks and swings and kicks – it’s their FUCKING HANDS!! – and Flowey cackles. He’s totally oblivious. “I can feel the human souls, WRIGGLING inside me…They’re screaming in pain, just like you.” He’s totally oblivious! “Wanna hear? WANNA HEAR??!” Frisk pulls up and bites him, HARD, but when he drops them back in Mina’s tangle of vines, the lights are shining but Mina’s gone.
And now they’re racing away from swarming tendrils across the catwalks as Flowey chases them down to Glow’s corner and they can’t even think it right now! Glow sweeps them up into a twirling hug, grinning and staggering, as Flowey fires off the word-shaped constructs up above. Frisk lifts Glow briefly and she screams, and they squeal back when there’s air in their lungs. She smacks at their arms and they smack at her shoulders excitedly, spinning and Glow pulls back to flap and jump so so hard, at the mellow-soft glaring purples at Flowey’s whispers and bellows! And all the words are up there but Glow doesn’t need words!
Flowey’s busy losing his shit all here, only pieces aren’t really breaking off this time! It’s a little scary honestly cause they can’t see Flowey and can only feel him cause of how much he is everything he is. He could squish them in his hand until they dripped out of his fingers like this and probably not even notice! And that would be kind of a problem. But he doesn’t. He only swings them over to Moss’s nest of braided cables and neon electric tape. Their sweaty face narrows as they reach out their arms to catch Frisk, then broadens as they beam and dance them around and around ! They’ve got their pan, spraypainted glowing and everything, and they block Frisk with a pang! a nd send the attacks corkscrewing back into Flowey’s sputtering jaws. “Y’okay?” they get out, panting, and Chara makes themselves nod. Moss’s lengthening hair is pulled back in concentration for tonight, and in the green of the lights, it makes them look like a light-dark painting in chiaroscuro. (Frisk thinks Chara isn’t using that word how Moss said it earlier.) A great big fly flies them off the edge in the end, and Moss waves big as Frisk plummets into Flowey’s wailing arms.
They’re back near the balcony now, a smidgen under it, out of the way of a needling hailstorm. This next one has them sprinting down the aisle so Talley doesn’t have to go too far after he’s done to center stage, but halfway up they trip and totally eat it on the concrete-ass floor! Flowey improvises like a champ, poking at them with a vine and going all “What’s wroooooonngg?? Did you fall doooooowwnn??? No, no – DON’T GET UP!!!” as they lick the sting out of their palms and smear at their aching nose, before sending a line of bombs down towards them so they really actually gotta. (The last one hits them square in the head and heals them the full seven points, and that’s good cause they gotta climb again.)
Talley pulls them up over the railing of the box as the music swells and crests, triumphant and brave. He takes Frisk’s hands and looks them in the face, he’s not very good with that whole thing yet, but what he says as yellow clovers bloom is “Thank you.” Then he turns tail and races through the stage door to backstage cause he has about 45 seconds to get up front with the rest. Chara would laugh but Frisk is too out of breath, climbing out of the box down vines to reserved-seat monster shoulders and letting horrible worms tsunami them over the pit.
Frisk’s feet slam down on the stage with a thunk – okay, okay, okay okay okay. Here we go. It feels like their entire blood is sparking. Chara sees the humans scamper into places, marked by little colored tape x’s on the floor, Talley grabbing Rust’s hand as he skids into view. Frisk does some cool dodge rolling on the stage as Flowey laughs, panting, like he threw them, until they get to that little red star.
And the lights come up on the others in their “Poses”, all that direction Mettaton gave them! Mina’s Sailor Moon and Rox’s confident folded arms, Moss’s awkward wave and Glow’s split-faced flap, Talley and Rust with their hands together! The audience ripples with gasps and applause as the humans beam, then race forward, crowding around Frisk. Their spots all come together in a riot of rainbow. Then all at once at the top of their lungs -
"Hear our refrain, as
we sing again, we’ll
write a new symphony!”
So much stronger than the first time, a chorus all their own now. All so wonderfully joyful, Frisk’s caught up in it, so wonderfully themselves!! Flowey bears down on them, and Frisk’s shriek is drowned by the music – “Lost in the silence, used in his violence, we’ll keep you company!” Rust and Talley are getting in each other’s way and giggling, Moss’s frying pan and Rox’s Badass Knife (Fake) silver in the light, Mina and Glow’s voices piping like running on top of the waves. They move like one whole made of seven parts and Frisk loves them!!
“What is this!?” Flowey screams. “You broke from my hold!? IMPOSSIBLE – I’ll gain back control!!” There are pieces fluttering down on the stage from up high, leaves and glitter and strands of hair. “I’m your GOD! Your KING! You can’t DO ANYTHING, any mooore - “
The music cuts for a sec, the lights too. Rust grabs their hand, and they grab it back. He’s tall and glowing and his teeth shine white like a shooting star. Frisk feels his gentle courage through every breath they take, bonding, strengthening, reaching out, belonging. His voice drops, serious. He’s still beaming. “Fight with determination.”
“FLOWEY!” shriek Moss and Glow – Moss switched with Rox so them and Glow could sing together – “Stop this MADNESS!! If you don’t – ” Flowey flings bullets and bombs, bouncing them off Moss’s pan as Glow defends Frisk and they sing. Flowey growls how he can’t lose, how he’s so strong, and Frisk can barely even see him! “FLOWEY!” sing Talley and Mina, Mina shaking Talley by the arm to jump up and down with her while Talley awkwardly doesn’t, “stop this RAMPAGE! We will fight you, we swear – “ Mina scares away the bullets with clawy hands and SAILOR POWERS, as Talley sort of leans toward Frisk, delighted when they headbutt him back. Flowey snarls about how he’ll never quit and Frisk can hardly hear him! “FLOWEY!” bellow Rox and Rust, arm in arm and laughing like Rox just told a joke, synchronized and strong and protective. “You can’t win this! Show your courage, here, and –“ Rox slashes away the vines. Rust squishes half a cinnabun he must have smuggled onstage into Frisk’s hands. Flowey howls that they can’t do this, he won’t let them, and Frisk is needing the cinnabun. They really love Rust.
Mina bounds up to lead the last verse with Rust and Talley, who fall in behind her leaps and attacks. The other three stick tight by Frisk to defend, their breaths coming fast and hard now in the snatches between lines. “It’s up to you now – determined human – you’ve got the final – BLOW!! Unleash your power – on that flower – three, two, one, LET’S – “
They point, and Frisk points, and the lights and the constructs go all crazy. Flowey wails and yowls and hollers and the circle around Frisk is grinning, and panting, and laughing, and laughing, and laughing. They did it. THEY did it!!
But soon – quick as quick – it’s dark again. The humans scatter like Ratta Tooey (Chara can’t spell it either). The sudden silence booms around them. They have a little white x to find now, in glowing tape on the floor, and they go to find it.
They get there right as the light goes up. On Flowey, poking out of the stage. In the same hole he started in, small and echoing.
“I don’t understand,” he says. His voice is hoarse from the last song. His mic cracks.
Nightmare was fun for Flowey. Frisk can feel his mood like a stone sinking down a well, now after the colors are gone and it’s just him. He was scared of what came after. Now it’s after. They sit down in front of him, cross-legged, and after a sec they hold out their hand.
“Why? Why would you… let me live?”
Frisk thinks about how when they were here for real, they didn’t know if this was forgiveness. Cause they didn’t know what forgiveness felt like. They think it kind of was. They were kind of right, but not really. Forgiveness feels like this, like the dusty stage under their knees and the glare of the lights, the sweat on their hands and the glitter sticking to Flowey’s petals.
“Sparing me won’t change anything,” he says. He sounds like he doesn’t believe it – and Chara thinks that’s really something. Even with how good an actor he is. “Killing me is the only way to end this.”
Forgiveness is when they both know that he’s wrong. Frisk holds out their hand until he runs away. Then they stand up, dust off their pants, sigh gustily, and as they go through the arch, the light goes down.
They have to get across the stage for this. They find the place for them to stand, marked with more glowing tape, but the spot isn’t coming up on them until the end. They just need to stand.
Behind them they hear footsteps, soft and scuffed. Sans comes out first. The light goes up on him while the cell phone rings.
“Heya,” he says. Frisk knows he’s not looking at them. The first sad notes of the piano toll out across the stage.
Frisk closes their eyes cause no one can see them, and stands there as Sans talks and just… listens. Talking about the queen, and the souls, and then Papyrus coming in and getting a giggle when he asks to talk to no one, too??? And it contrasts good with the mourning song of the unseen chorus. What will we do? Will our dreams ever come true? Then Undyne appears, her and Rus horseplaying and fighting over the phone, and they feel all hollow and quiet inside. Or maybe that’s just the audience, wavering back and forth, sorrowful and hopeful at once. Like, are they going to pull it off? Are they really going to pull it off?
Frisk doesn’t know. They’re facing away, turned-off phone pressed to their ear. They can’t see.
"Has fate made its call?
Will we fall?"
But Flowey, close in his backstage pot, feels worse. He’s all awful and scared, coming down from all of that. Chara catches his eye and he grimaces and looks away.
“Hey – wherever you are. I hope it’s better than here.” Frisk’s head pops up at Undyne’s voice. She sounds. Real. And serious. “So. Wherever you are. You have to try to be happy, okay? For our sakes!!”
And the audience mourns. We’re really pulling it off, Chara marvels lowly.
“Once, we rejoiced, found the power in our voice…” Frisk stares at where Flowey was.
Undyne talks. And Papyrus talks. And Sans talks. They don’t ever really know what everyone’s saying here. This song used to be a hard one.
The last verse fades in. “In the world of them,
Could the child remember when?
Wondering if they could…”
The spot comes up on Frisk, who does “FROZEN”, who does “SHOCK.” “Do it… again…?”
Undyne continues, oblivious. She talks about – Toriel. And Frisk stands up straight, hoping, with the audience, and stays frozen through the rest. Sans mentions the batteries, and Frisk clutches at the phone, desperately, until the lights go down on them.
Everyone feels all sad and drifting, here in the dark. Frisk doesn’t really get why this is supposed to have such a big impact on the audience, cause they’re not even facing them. But Mettaton said it was a special kind of acting.
When the light comes back up it’s just them and Flowey, in the space the monsters were. There’s light, in a path, connecting them now. Frisk crosses it. They sit down on their knees in front of Flowey.
He looks up then, like he only just heard them. “Why…?” he says. He’s doing a good job of being distant and floaty now, but he’s really fucking scared. “Why did you let me go? Don’t you realize that being nice… just makes you get hurt?”
He talks, and it’s really just a monologue, but he doesn’t rush through, pauses when he’s supposed to. He talks about how far they’ve been set back. How their bad feeling is their own fault, for caring so much before. How they can, maybe, maybe, like the monsters said, do it again. Chara counts the beats with him between sentences.
“I got an idea,” he says, finally. “You can… go back, right? To before.”
This is something him and Momma and Mettaton and Chara did a lot of talking and thinking and careful-careful about. Cause they knew, if they were telling this much of everything, that Frisk’s reset-power would come into it. But Frisk didn’t want to tell them all of it. Some of it is still just theirs. So they changed it, a little. To something Chara thinks won’t scare the humans so much.
"Cause some humans. Well, you’ve got that thing called determination, right? It’s why your souls get to stick around after you die.” Flowey rolls his eyes. Like, wowie, how unfair. “And some of you, you’ve got little pieces of what us monsters would call magic. You’ll guess what song is coming up on the radio. Your shoes will never come untied. Maybe if something goes bad, and if you’re careful and strong and lucky, you can lean back and fix it.” Frisk nods, slowly at first, and then faster. Like that, tell’em like that. Flowey catches their eyes and looks away, out towards the rest of the humans.
“Speaking of fixing it. Undyne had that letter to Alphys she talked about, didn’t she? You know, I feel like you two could have been better friends. Who knows.” He looks back at Frisk. He looks at their shirt, not their face, like he’s supposed to. “Maybe she’s the key to your happiness? Either way.” He lets out a brief, nervous giggle. “See you soon.” And he’s gone.
Frisk nods again. That’s a cue. When they close their eyes, everything rustles to life around them - the sets, the lights, the props, all shoved around and moved back so it looks like the world is going backwards. The throne room background rumbles away as monsters pull it offstage, chased by the Hotland scene, then Waterfall and Snowdin after. Wheels clatter over floorboards and monsters shush each other as they move props, and lights that are red and blue and whitish flash over Frisk’s closed eyelids. Their cue right here is the slippery sound of Undyne moonwalking back onto stage and concentrating so hard she’s not even laughing about it. When that’s all done Frisk straightens back up and thinks really hard about unfunny things like rocks and spiders and doesn’t break even a little bit as they get the letter and go forward from there.
Undyne cackles all forced and maniacal and they don’t break. Everyone zooms to the Mettaton fight and they don’t break. Alphys melts down and they give her the letter and she skitters offstage and has to open it with Mettaton’s dumb CHAINSAW and they DON’T even break. And she comes back and goes “YEAH! Let’s, uh! Let’s! Let’s… hang… out?????” AND THEY DON’T even BREAK. And when Alphys does!! Her whole speech!! About her cool friend who she likes that helped her pick out the dress!! And when she goes “Oh I know what’ll help me talk to her!! R-roleplay!! That’ll be fun, r-r, r-r-right??” and her voice goes like sixteen notes in the air they SNORT really loud into the mic and Chara helps them turn it into a big sneeze noise, that doesn’t even count. So they make it all the way until Undyne gets actually onto the stage, which was their entire goal in the first place.
“UH HHHHHHHHHI UNDYNE,” goes Alphys. Frisk waves at her enthusiastically.
They go back and forth like that. Alphys gets through her line about romanticallyroleplayingasyou real real quick. Chara feels a little bit bad for her, but it was half her idea in the first place to put this part in anyway. It’s important for leading into Flowey’s origins, which she’s been very on top of getting in there.
She stays very on top of it. Goes right into her song segment, sounding all stressed but doing really just fine. Frisk has to not look at Undyne so they don’t explode when Alphys talks about anime being not real. And some more when she gets to her part in the song and she picks up Alphys and swings her around like a prop.
And some more when Papyrus pops out of the trash can and picks Alphys up under his arm and they run off backstage together. Undyne waves after them, then squints with her hand shading her eyes like she’s waiting for them to get out of sight, even though they’re still just right there. Frisk has to watch this part so they’re ready for -
“OH MY GOD.” Undyne grabs them by the shoulders and shakes them a little, fangs all manic bared. “She was kidding, right?? It was just a joke, right?! Anime’s real, right???” She picks them up like a little purse dog, as they’re grinning and wiggling their feet, and points them at the audience. “ANIME’S REAL, RIGHT?!?!?”
Mina goes WHOOOO from backstage, and the audience breaks into cheers. Undyne screams “YES!!!!!”, drops them back on their feet, and runs offstage, and finally Frisk lets out that BIG BIG “SNEEZE” they were holding. RIGHT in the mic.
Alphys scoots back in as Chara’s trying to shush them, and they almost don’t even notice her until she says really loud “Okay!”
They shush them. “Okay,” Alphys repeats. “I, uh. Didn’t really think my day would go in that direction! But, I. I think I lost him for now, he wasn’t expecting me to cut through that halfpipe.” Pause for chuckles. “But I need to tell you something first. Something important, that you deserve to know. Before, uh, they come back.”
They’re shushed now. Now it feels a little like a big rock just started rolling all slow down the top of a huge, huge hill.
She tells them about the flower. She says about how when she found the determination, well, it needed a vessel. And how King Asgore needed the hope, because everyone did. She tells them about the power to change fate, and the living will of the first flower that grew in the garden. It’s true in all the ways that are important.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” she’s saying, and telling the truth. “I – I didn’t have anything else to show him, to show anyone. And then, then one day – I don’t know what I thought would happen. But the flower, the thing without a soul, that gained the will to live – it was gone. I never saw it again. And then it was just me.”
Frisk reaches out for her, with one hand, then looks back behind them. Before they can do anything else, though, Papyrus pops out from behind a big pile of junk and goes “UNDYNE!! Undyne! Over here!”
As they’re all walking off together, Alphys gives them a little wave. “I’ll s-see, uh, see you around, okay? But, uh, maybe not, not for a little bit. Me and Undyne, we have. Some, uh. Catching up to do.”
So Frisk does a big wave at them, and then starts going off, and walking away the other direction, and then they get the phone call.
It’s Asriel. Of course it is. They knew it would be. But he sounds so strange, so deep and hard and real, echoing out around the blinding gape of the theater. “Chara,” he says. “Chara, are you there? Can you hear me? … You’ve done well.”
He gives a breathy little laugh. Frisk can hear the Flowey in it, his nasal little shiver, and it sends a shudder of presence through them. The glow of the stage lights could be the glow of the Barrier for how they sizzle on their skin. “Thanks to you, everything’s fallen into place. It won’t be long now… see you soon, Chara.”
Beep. He’s gone. And Frisk’s the only one here. They drift through the New Home set, alone and silent, all the way until the room of the Barrier. The crew has done something weird with the color of the lights, and they still feel all hot and sizzling, like soda, like ice. The lights go down as Asgore strides out onto the stage, all shrouded in dark, and it’s just like the first time…
...but less nervous. He actually smiles at them, for real and not forced, from deep in his shadows. It takes Chara off guard enough that they smile back at their dad. The rest of the monsters file out again, all around, feeling stuff that six months ago sent Frisk spiraling up into the rafters. Now it’s just home.
And it was never not home, but now it’s home in a way that they can trust. Whatever happens from here.
The orchestra plays out the opening riff and a fireball soars in from backstage, Asgore making an exaggerated oof and moving out of the way for Momma – and a giant CHEEEER from the audience that almost knocks Frisk back on their butt! The monsters gasp, grinning to each other, as Momma pauses awkwardly, curtsying. The conductor, panicking, is a good sport and waves at the orchestra to keep looping the Fallen Down intro until it quiets down.
“Ahem,” she ventures once she gets a second. “Ah. Dear me – thank you all. Ahem. What a miserable creature, tormenting such a poor innocent youth!” She grins at Frisk.
And Frisk is allowed to go and hug her now and so they do. Momma holds them tight and they cling to her skirt, as the conductor shoos the music forward and the antics all play out around them, all of their family showing up one by one by one. The audience laughs mostly when they’re supposed to, like Undyne’s that’s rough, buddy and Papyrus’s general pun agony. Momma sighs and says no, Asgore, we can’t be friends again, but Frisk thinks it’s a little bit fondly. There’s a huge CHEER again for Mettaton’s leg, which makes Undyne groan a little bit and Frisk double over laughing, and Chara says he’s going to be completely insufferable about.
Frisk doesn’t have a whole lot of stage directions here, just sort of “act all happy”, so they wander around the stage and give people all the hugs they wanted to during the scary songs. When Momma calls them over for the very last verse they scoot on over, feeling light and unreal and glad.
“Fallen child, our best friend
We’ll be here, until the end –
Of this tale, we will sing
The fallen child, and monster kin…”
Everyone’s voices all come together so good. Everyone sounds different and everyone’s singing the same. Frisk knows it’s the calm before the storm of the next couple songs. But it’s calm.
“My child…” says Momma. “it seems you must stay here for a while. But, looking at all the great friends you have made… I think you will be happy here.” And Frisk kind of wants to live in this moment forever.
But that’s what they thought before, when it was right now for real, too. And now they know there’s stuff that’s even better on the other side.
“Uhh, hey, that reminds me, Papyrus,” Alphys says carefully. “YOU called everyone here. Right? Except for, uh, her. So, if I got her before you, how did you know to call everyone?”
Papyrus puffs up. He’s been ready for this one since the show started. “Let’s just say… a tiny flower helped me.”
The music goes OUT. Alphys squeaks, “A, a tiny… flower?”
Nothing happens. Frisk shifts on their feet. They don’t really know how long he’s supposed to wait after his cue, but –
THERE he is. Seething from the floor, the walls, the ceiling, wrapping everyone all up, pulling them back away from Frisk, feet skidding along the floor as he swarms up the stage like he’s going to choke out the lights. “You IDIOTS,” he shrills, fast and nervous. “While you were having your little pow-wow… I took the human souls!!” Frisk thinks he’s panting a little bit between lines, as he zooms through his cool monologue, chattering at Frisk all about how EVERYTHING’S THEIR FAULT FOREVER. He twists his face all sweet and condescending, when he says if they win he’ll give everything back, and cackles as he snarls it WON’T happen. And he rings them around again with shaking pellets, and when Momma burns them back, he meets Chara’s eyes and takes a breath before his face melts down into the dismay he’s supposed to show for this song.
“Do not be afraid, my child… no matter what happens…” Momma smiles, even though Flowey’s holding her too tight. “We will always be there to protect you.”
It doesn’t feel like a line. Frisk’s feet are planted on the floor. There’s no running up into the rafters this time, and there’s nowhere they’d rather be.
“That’s right, human!” Papyrus pipes in, attempting mutedly to gesture as Flowey holds him tight. Everyone else comes in one after the other. It’s all as real as the time they’d ran up, all as strong and loving and brave. Frisk finds themselves looking around, as Chara’s face melts into something breathless and wondering, as everyone shouts for them. Undyne, Alphys, Sans, Asgore – Napstablook, MK – the human kids from backstage. The audience is cheering. They’re somewhere they never thought they would get, even when they’re here in the exact same place.
It’s so big, it’s so loud, so full. When Flowey leaps out and crashes everything to a halt, he feels steely, blocking it out, determined. He laughs and absorbs the souls, and the stage goes black, and the monsters scatter –
But Frisk and Chara just stand there in the dark. Of course we can do this, says Chara, when they’re alone. They don’t have to do anything for this transition. They just have to wait.
The spot comes up on the puppet, turned away from the crowd. In the light it hurts to look at. Fiber-optic fur. “Finally…” Flowey sighs. “I was so tired… of being a flower.” Beat, beat, beat. “Chara… are you there?” He stretches out his fingers. “It’s me. Your best friend – “
It’s time to show them.
A S R I E L D R E E M U R R says the backs of the seats, says the letters above the stage, yells every monster at once. Everything is hanging. Flowey breaks and cuts it free.
“Now, hold on,” he bellows, at the top of his lungs,
To the dreams
You created, for a happy life
It’s alright
All the things
We sought so long –
Will all be worth this fight!”
The strobes flash on and Flowey throws himself at them, construct-first, and Frisk dodges for their life. They’ve run this one long enough that it isn’t really mindblowing anymore. They could do this with their eyes closed, do it backwards and forwards and upside down, with the music in their ears and the lights filling their eyes. Right here, onstage, under attack, dancing, together, they’re home Chara’s vertigo, Flowey’s mania, their joy, their rage and love and joy. This is home, they’re home.
When Flowey calls out to Chara, when he howls about resetting and losing again, doing it for him, Frisk darts and rolls and scrabbles and laughs. The electric guitars zing and the violins soar, and everything around Frisk is lights and colors and sounds, Flowey and Chara, dimensions full of joy. Everything that was ever in them is flowing out overtop and over down it all, and Flowey’s taking it, and giving it back, and they can handle it, and they want it all!
“Cause you want a happy ending,
all because you love your friends,” Flowey roars, and Frisk takes a huge breath –
you’re filled with determination, Chara – “
“THAT IS NOT MY NAME!” Chara screams.
“We’ll be fighting here forever
Playing for eternity!” Flowey bulldozes.
The strength that let you get this far,
It’s nothing compared to me!”
Constructs soar down from the rafters, zoom in from stagehands setting them off from the wings. Flowey blasts them with healing when they need it, and the floor lights up with lightning from below. This is the most here they’ve ever been, the most now they’ve ever felt – there’s no was it worth it, no what if. There’s no other way it could have gone, cause this is what they chose!!
“You think you are something special –
you’re just a kid playing pretend!” Flowey gasps.
“Don’t get cocky, little Chara!
Soon enough you’ll meet your end!”
“YOU think you are something special!
YOU’RE just a kid playing pretend - “ Chara laughs right back –
“Don’t you worry, now, ASRIEL -
Soon enough YOU’LL meet your end!”
Heat and sweat pound through their feet, thundering the floor as they jump and stomp and dodge. Flowey glows so bright he leaves prints on their eyelids when they blink, as long as they can bear to tear their eyes away, pushing out everything that they’ve ever been, impossible incredible wonderful dance. He’s not afraid, and Chara’s not afraid, and they’re not afraid anymore! Here in this world, this place, this time, there’s no future hanging in the balance, there’s nothing rushing from the past to get them again! It’s only them! Only the whirling stars, and the shimmering sounds, the poses and laughter, the healing in different ways! Flowey beams as he whirls the Chaos Sabers down, the Shocker Breakers from above, and they are beaming too! It’s only them, it’s only ever been – the colors, the reaching out, the grabbing hold – despite everything! It will always be them!!
The last verse is the one they sing together. “We’ll never let go of our hopes and dreams -
We will never give up, for all eternity!”
“But I’ve been holding back on you ‘til now,” Flowey blazes ahead,
“Let’s see if you can survive THIS –
DIE FOR ME…”
Even the lights flash off and Flowey grabs them still, or really Undyne from backstage anyway, they have to wave their arms to stop falling over and Flowey laughs and it’s funny. It’s easy. It’s them. He blisters through his monologue. “Why are you still STANDING? Why are you still trying to STOP ME, CHARA?!” And Chara, Frisk breathes, and Chara –
“MY NAME IS FRISK!!”
Then their verse! It’s easy! It’s fun, it’s them! Even when Chara’s voice cracks in the mic, when they get a tiny off-tempo, Chara’s laughing, beaming, like there’s no humans out beyond the lights. And Frisk has their feet pounding, their hands reaching, pulling through Flowey’s soul, as monster by monster by monster comes bounding out onto the stage. They fake hit and grin to Undyne – humans can be good! They yell and jump at Alphys, grab her hands with courage – I am liked, and I like you! Papyrus whirls them around, you’re my friend, Sans laughs with his entire face, I won’t give up! They grab Momma in a crushing hug – I believe in you! And Asgore – spin around, point to everything, everybody, sign mercy, again and again. The future isn’t written yet! A better way can be made! WE ARE MAKING A BETTER WAY!!!
Everyone lines up stage left for the last verse.
“Here we are! Here we stand!
Fight together again!
Our hopes and dreams will not fail,
We will find our happy end – “
Frisk situates themselves right in the middle, by Momma and Asgore. They’re a little ahead of the rest, facing Flowey. One foot forward. He’s not facing out enough. He’s looking straight at them.
“We’ve come far, here we are
To reach what we idealize
It has been tough, but
We won’t give up, a
New day is on the rise…”
Here’s the last part. Next foot forward. Chara reaches out.
“Asriel, please do not quail,
You have walked a lonesome trail.”
One step per beat. “Peace and love will sure prevail,
Help me end this sorry tale.”
Every step they take, Flowey takes a step back, back and back towards backstage. “Deep inside, I feel a fire, burns within me ever higher…” He’s running out of room. “Knowing I will soon prevail – knowing I can END THIS TALE!” He lunges forward sword-first, and Frisk sidesteps, grabs at his wrist. He snatches his hand away, redoubles his attack, even as they’re singing together, even as it’s easier and easier for Frisk to dart out of the way. They circle back and forth through the last verses, triumphant and watching, easy and together and waiting, waiting for each other.
“I heard the tales they told to me,
This happy ending cannot be –
Let’s go together, we shall see!
Together for eternity…”
When the strings fade out, Flowey holds them at swordpoint, stanced like a duelist. He’s breathing hard, the entire puppet heaving, and Frisk doesn’t know they’ve ever seen him breathe like that. He looks alone, no matter how tall he is.
“What are you doing?!” he snarls. “How are you still standing!? Why can’t you just let me WIN?!”
Frisk slowly brings up their hand, and takes just one step towards him. He gasps like he’s been stabbed and takes a staggering step back. “STOP!!” he screams, “STOP!!!”, dropping the saber and blasting them with a storm of lightning. It doesn’t hurt, but Frisk scrunches their face anyway, holding their hands up like they’re walking in a hurricane, as the rest of their friends scurry backstage under the cover of the light.
They keep going, forward, forward, as all the lights on the stage go out. Eventually, he runs out of lightning. Eventually, Frisk’s spot goes out too.
“Chara…” Flowey says, when he can’t do anything else anymore. He sounds exhausted. “I’m so alone, Chara… I’m so afraid… I’m so…”
The lights in the puppet all fade. Everything goes pitch dark, and there is a lot of motion, very very quickly.
“Chara, I’m so sorry,” says Asriel.
This puppet doesn’t glow. This one is almost as short as Frisk. It doesn’t even have horns.
Frisk blinks away tears that don’t belong to them. It isn’t time for that yet.
Asriel sighs, long and careful. “I know,” he says. “I already know. You aren’t Chara. They’ve been gone for… a long, long time. You’re… Frisk, huh? That’s a nice name.” He smiles briefly, then his gaze falls. “Frisk, I… haven’t felt like this in a long time.
He explains his soullessness, and how he took things back, like he had earlier in the story. He talks about how he doesn’t have that power anymore. How he isn’t strong enough to save over them. How he did… a lot of bad things, with that power.
And then, he says something that isn’t in the script. He says, “Frisk, I’m… really glad I don’t have that power anymore. I’m glad it’s with someone that… that I can trust.”
Frisk goes hhouufh, and claps their hands over their mouth. Chara stops them from doubling over and making another sound. That I can trust. They hardly hear the rest.
“But now, I have everyone’s compassion inside me. Everyone’s hope. Everyone’s love. They all love you so much.” Asriel swallows, but he doesn’t give them a second to get it together. “I understand… if you can’t forgive me. If you hate me. I can’t hold everyone’s souls like this for long, anyway… I’m not going to be ‘Asriel’ for much longer, either way. But, while I have time, I wanted to say…” He reaches out and touches their hand, so that Chara jerks their head up and lets them look him in the face. He creases his eyes shut, and smiles, the smile Frisk’s only ever seen on Flowey when he thinks they aren’t looking at him. “Thank you,” he says. “Thank you. For everything.” He means it.
Frisk lurches forward, arms outstretched, can’t even help themselves. But he stops them. It’s not time yet. They stand there frozen, as he sways back and forth slowly, and starts the song.
This is the song they’ve done the least. Asriel suddenly closes his eyes, and Frisk feels like he is having to concentrate a lot right now to keep himself okay.
“There’s a world out up above,
It would not show me love
I thought I could stop the end,
Be here with you, my friend…”
He sways back and forth a little as he sings. His hands are clasped in front of him, and he’s sort of facing out over Frisk’s shoulder, eyes still closed, all contemplative. Every note falls from his mouth, one after the other, like the turn of the world, like he can’t do anything to stop them. Frisk just watches him.
His eyes open back up on “so please just leave me behind, I couldn’t win this time,” and he stares fixed out into space. They never knew if the puppet needs to blink. He doesn’t, not as he sings about Frisk deserving far better friends, and being okay alone. They’re the only one that’s watching that.
Then his face crumbles, a little, sort of relaxes, as he closes his eyes again, shuddering little sniffs into the microphone. They’re careful, calculated little things, as he half-consciously tracks the exact tension of his shoulders, the tremble of his voice. He sobs, like a cough, like he’s trying to keep himself quiet. His fingers clench at his sides.
Frisk half-steps too loud on the floor, hand sort of up, sort of reaching out. He twitches back. Too fast. “Leave me be – say goodbye,
You can’t help, why must you try?
Why must you stay with me?
Your battle’s won, go with your family – “
Frisk breaks and runs. He’s in their arms before Chara even starts their verse. “It’s not fair to be alone, after what you’ve been through – “ He freezes in their grip, arms stiff and straight , even as he sings his part over theirs. “ No one came or heard my call – so glad you took your fall – “
“Leave me be! Say goodbye!” He starts pushing on them, struggling against their arms. Frisk braces their feet more firmly as Chara concentrates hard on their lines, one word after the other, one verse after one verse. “Determination fuels me, to keep trying to save you.”
The snare comes in, and he grabs them by the arms, his fingers clawing hard enough to hurt. “Why must you stay with me! Your battle’s won – go with your FAMILY !” His knees give out and he collapses into their shoulder. Chara stares straight forward, eyes stinging and wet, singing forgiveness as Frisk holds him up. He presses himself hard into their arms, the body of the puppet hot and scratchy and tingly with magic, and clings onto them like they’re the only thing keeping him on earth. His chin digs into their shoulder , garbling out his lyrics, in between deep heaving breaths that he can’t seem to stop. Frisk rocks back and forth between their feet, the stage floorboards creaking gently beneath them, and hugs him so tight their arms start to tremble. They say to Chara to blink, it hurts, blink, and Chara’s face crumples the second they do.
“ Leave me be! SAY GOODBYE!” he sobs, as Chara mumbles, “I will spare your life always, and hold you tight and close,” Frisk grabs the back of his head and holds on, and he shudders hard and tucks his chin in, “you can’t help, WHY MUST you try?!” Chara’s voice cracks, “we will be together here,” but they keep going, “until it’s safe to go,” I a m sorry, Asriel, sorry, sorry, sorry. “ Why must you stay with me?” he holds them like he’s never letting go, “I will stay here by your side, I know it’s frightening,” Flowey, I got you, I got you Flowey, I’m here, “your battle’s won… go with your family.” He’s not letting go. “To know that you now must leave, but that my friend is why…”
“ Forgive me… stay with me.” He clings to them. They cling to him. “I will spare your life always. And hold you tight and close.”
It doesn’t matter what the audience feels. They’ll feel what they’ll feel. What’s important is the three of them, bound together, finally, finally, on the same page.
“ You’re the last… light I’ll see.” Chara opens their eyes, and Frisk swallows down their tears. “ We will be together here…”
No one is letting go of anyone.
“Until it’s safe to go.”
They stand for a long time. They just stand there, and they hug each other. Frisk’s arms aren’t shaking anymore. Asriel’s not digging his chin so hard into their shoulder. He’s just sort of resting. He’s all steady now. He smells like ozone and magic. Frisk leans their weight on him, and something in their knee pops with relief.
They have the next conversation in silence. Asriel and Chara talk, about Chara, and about when Flowey turned into Flowey, and about Frisk too. Frisk holds his hand, all the way until he steps back to the barrier, and there’s a lightning and a thunder that always needs to make them cover their face. But while they’re hiding from it in the dark, one of the monsters from backstage cheers. And it feels like in a story, but everyone else starts clapping too.
What a story, says Chara.
Frisk doesn’t know what part they mean. Yeah, they say back. I like this story a lot.
When Asriel says his very last line – “ Take care of Mom and Dad for me, okay?” - Frisk rushes forward for one last unscripted hug. The puppet is warm and unreal. Frisk misses his vines and petals.
He laughs breathlessly when they grab him. “Ha… ha… alright, Frisk. I… you too. I’ll… see you around, alright?”
Then the lights go down, and the puppet goes limp.
They’re literally exhausted now. All three of them, and everyone else too, and they still have two songs and curtain to go. But somehow, they think, they probably don’t have to worry about what the humans think so much anymore.
The air is fragile when the lights come back up with everyone around them. Frisk’s family volleys their jokes and quips around carefully, and Frisk drinks the whole cup of “tea” Asgore offers them, since it’s only water and they’re thirsty now. He goes and gets them some more, as Momma talks about seeing a flower and everything going white, and Frisk drinks all of that too. Momma keeps sort of looking around, like she’s trying to see if someone’s here, but Flowey’s nowhere to be found. He’s been skittered off since the stagehands came out to grab the puppet.
“Frisk…” says Momma, after everyone’s got through all their bits, and a couple long seconds after that. “I admit… we do not know precisely what happened. There was… a flower… and everything went white. But, now the Barrier is gone. Frisk… It truly seems like your long journey is almost over.”
They get to take her hand now, or really, do whatever they want. And they want to take her hand and they do it and she beams down at them. “Whenever you are ready, Frisk,” she says. Then she looks out to the audience, and Frisk squinches their eyes closed, and does a “Big Grin”. “Everyone is waiting for us!”
As the music starts, the monsters begin to push out onstage – the Ruins chorus, Snowdin, Waterfall, everyone. Everyone files out all gentle and quiet, shuffling each other and stepping on toes, strangers with strangers and friends with friends. Asgore nudges them so gently in the side, and they nudge him back just a little bit. The monsters sing their first verses about the sunlight, with the stage lights warming all orange-yellow-pink. They sing about how there’s a whole world.
“Come, my child,” sings Momma, and pulls Chara and Frisk into her side, “be with me.” Easy and trusting. “Rest, my child,” Asgore echoes her, smooth and lovely, “neath the tree.” Momma finishes out, “like its branches, wait for me,” and Asgore rests a heavy, warm paw on their head.
“So much blood,” he murmurs, and Momma echoes, “so much pain,” and Frisk is warm and warm and warm. “Now we see the sun again… Go, then, child - “ (Momma squeezes their shoulder) “ - freedom bring, from the mountain and its kin.”
“Now, let us go out safe and warm, here arm in arm – “ Chara bursts out right at their cue, all tears gone from their voice. Smiling so big. Frisk signs the words as Chara sings, and the words come up on the backs of the seats, for the audience to get it and to read along. They and Momma duet, and then they have their very own solo line, about staying determined, cherishing people, and it isn’t even scary.
“Even when we’re worlds apart, stay in my heart - “ Chara and Momma sing together. Then, their voice drops. Frisk signs along. “And, when you will have found your way – I hope, that you’ll be good.”
It’s a gentle request. Whispered like Chara’s stepping back from their bitterness, for this little time. For just a couple seconds. Just a breath. Just a thought.
Momma picks up the Once Upon a Time verse, and then the chorus echoes her. Chara’s jaw feels wired shut, so Frisk just rocks a little, back and forth on their feet. They rock back and forth through the next couple verses, until Chara pokes them out of their daze, as the storyteller Froggit hops down the stage.
It bows to them, then to Momma and Asgore, then the audience, then clears its throat, very gently. Someone, Frisk thinks maybe Undyne, starts a quiet round of applause for it, and it dips its head with a subdued blush. “And that is the story of how one fallen child saved another, and through their mercy, saved the Underground, and gave the monsters the life they sought for generations,” it finishes. “The tale ends there, children… but your own tale is yet to be determined.”
“On the journey that you take,” sings everyone,
Through the choices that you make
We hope you’ll be good…
Please, be good…”
And the cast all signs, and the words go up on the screens, we forgive you.
It was Frisk’s idea. They know it isn’t all the way true, not yet. They know it won’t be all the way true for generations and generations. Chara knows especially that the hurt of the humans will take years and years and years to begin to heal. But who says forgiveness always has to happen at the end of everything? Who says it isn’t a place for something to begin?
The message sinks in for a little, in the silence. It’s silent for a long time. It feels like it should be. But just when it’s starting to get awkward, Undyne whoops and grabs Alphys into the air, and Bring It In, Guys! begins!
The entire stage breathes out at once, and something breaks like ice on a mountaintop at the beginning of the spring. Frisk shakes their head and does a little spinny. Chara’s got the choreography straight in their feet.
“That’s! Our! Show, g’bye, then humans
We sure had some fun!
We’ve! Got! One more encore, humans
Before the curtain drops and we’re done!
“It’s! The! Undertale’s finale,
Curtain call begins
Let’s! Give! Everyone a hand - “
“Come on, guys, bring it in!” beams Papyrus.
He drags Sans out to the front and does his best ambassador wave, his voice flattening with annoyance as Sans interrupts. When they’re done Sans drags him back after his last quick bow, and MK shuffles out to the front, hopping a little through the chorus. They nail their solo line, smile manically at Frisk, and scuttle back without even tripping once. Undyne and Alphys do their verse, with Alphys’s feet still dangling above the ground, and Undyne flips Alphys acrobatically to the beat as Alphys clutches onto her glasses and sings breathlessly. At the very end, Alphys grabs Undyne’s face and smacks a giant kiss on her cheek, and Mew Mew whoops at the top of her lungs from backstage.
Napstablook, down from the sound booth, mumbles that it’s all “pretty great, I guess,” quietly content. Mettaton backflips over the crowd to crash to the ground in front of them, DIRECTOR AND SOUND flashing in huge letters on the back of the seats so people clap and laugh. He and Napstablook jam out with Frisk, hopping and waving to the beat.
“Never thought I
Would see the day
Never, ever
Humans and monsters
Living in peace
Living together!”
The choreo goes perfectly, everyone stepping where they should, throwing their arms the right way at “long live our king! Long live our queen! Long live us!” and hitting mostly nobody in the face. Frisk spins and jumps and waves until they’re dizzy. At the end of the last verse, a vine snakes out from their backpack to grab them on the shoulder, and they stop short and get themselves in place.
As the piano dies out, Asgore steps out to the front. Chara thinks he might be smiling. “I have seen… my son again.”
“Oh dear child, fallen down, come to me…” Momma calls. And they do. They give her a big hug, then they turn out to the audience.
“There’s a world… up above…” Chara sings. Frisk walks slowly across the stage, grabbing Papyrus’s hand, letting Alphys nudge them with her elbow. Behind them, Flowey emerges out of the backpack. “Show them the child that learned from love!”
They stop in front of Asgore, who is smiling still, really smiling. Everyone sings, except him: “So concludes the Un – der – “
They lift their hands, and he grabs their arms and pulls them into the air, setting them on his shoulder. They steady themselves on his horn and Flowey leans close in to their face, and they all finish the song together, everything falling into place, in one last wonderful note.
When the curtains music starts, Frisk keels over into themselves, clutching Asgore’s horn and giggling with relief. Flowey squawks and flails a little bit. Asgore carefully squishes back against everyone else as they clear the front of the stage to make space for bows. Frisk knocks on Asgore’s head, and he lifts them down and straightens their shirt just in time for the beat to drop.
All Frisk’s favorite humans run out onstage in a line, hands joined, only crashing into each other a little at the end. They throw their joined hands up together and take a bow, so hard Mina almost falls over, then do it again. Talley lets go of Rox’s hand to crush Rust in a hug, and Rust picks him up and staggers around with him a little bit, until Mina jumps on his back and he has to put everyone down. Then Rox shoos them all to the back, and Moss and Glow get to Frisk first, with Glow smashing into them and Moss following right behind.
The area choruses come out next, more or less together, with a lot of bowing and running back and squirming around to let the people up who haven’t gone yet. Frisk gets to dance for this part, so they do it with Moss and Mina, grabbing their hands and spinning around and around until they smash into Talley and Rust, who are not paying attention to anything.
Next up are Papyrus and Sans, who rush out together, Papyrus bowing over and over as Sans just kind of stands there looking relieved. The audience starts standing up. Then are Undyne and Alphys, who are still more or less holding each other up, and can’t stop giggling at each other long enough to bow properly. After that are Mettaton and Napstablook, with Napstablook bobbing contentedly up and down as Mettaton does a lot of unnecessary twirling, then Momma and Asgore coming out from opposite sides of the stage. They don’t join hands like the other pairs, but they do stand close, and bow together. Everyone points to the orchestra, as the ones that aren’t playing wave their bows and stuff, then up at the sound booth as the lights dim and flash. The stagehands who can fit all pile out onto the stage, hugging people and waving and bowing. Frisk squeezes their own hands and bops on their feet, waiting for their cue. Chara reminds them to turn off their mic. As the key changes one last time, Momma and Asgore part the crowd like an ocean, and Frisk and Flowey race to the front of the stage.
The crowd explodes!! Frisk throws their hands in the air, leaping up and down to the beat, spinning in a circle and whooping whooping whooping! They bow and bow and bow, stumbling around and full of light, full to the brim and dizzy and alive! Flowey laughs in their ear, scattery and wild, gasping breaths he doesn’t need to cackle them out over and over. Every feeling in the world is here, and them, and everyone here, and it’s all freedom, it’s all hope, it’s all glory and dreams!
Frisk spins around and Momma is right there, and they crash right into her, and she wraps them up and hugs them tight, and Glow thuds into them from behind, and then Moss, and Papyrus and Alphys and Asgore, until everyone is squished up around them like the world’s happiest peanut cluster, and that’s how the curtain goes down.
The sudden quiet rings in Frisk’s ears once the house is out of sight. The audience are still cheering and applauding as the lights come up, but they’re dim and muted, hidden by the thick darkness of the curtain. Undyne, whose face is real close to Frisk’s head, checks her mic to see that the little red light is off, then sticks her head out of the crowd and yells really loud “HELL YEAH!!!!”
Momma lets out a breath of exasperated laughter and bends down to kiss Frisk on the head. Flowey grumbles a performative little yuck as she steps back, and right away everyone is swarming them, laughing with relief and reaching for them and fizzing with happiness. That was so good, we blew their socks off, you three were fantastic. Frisk is suddenly dizzy and lightheaded too, everyone’s faces and excitement and love blurring together. They smile, hug, squeal and clap as they go, pushing with determination through the crowd.
Flowey tugs on their hair with a vine. He feels like he did when they brought him home. Like there’s never been anything that was bigger and more real. “Where are you going?” he says. “We did it! We won!!”
You coming? Frisk asks, as Chara giggles, manic and over-tired.
He gives them a little half-smile. “Obviously I’m coming.”
So they all go up to the green room with the paint stains on the floor and the door that doesn’t close right. And then they curl up on the old couch that smells like granola crumbs where it is quiet and dark and soft and then they go to sleep.