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Frisk was sitting on the long bridge in Waterfall when Undyne came up behind them. She was in a black tank top and ripped blue jeans, evidently in the middle of a walk or a casual patrol, but she stopped when she saw them anyway.
"Hey, Punk!"
They finally turned to face her and watched with a twinge of guilt as her wide, toothy grin twisted into a concerned frown. They'd been crying, and their eyes were still red and cheeks still puffy, half-smeared tear tracks shining in the dim blue lighting.
"Hey," she said again, this time uncharacteristically soft, "what's wrong?" She stepped closer and knelt down beside them.
They hesitated, pumping their legs over the dark void of the ravine under the bridge, as they had been doing for the last half hour. They had taken their shoes off at some point so they could feel the air brush against their bare feet with each swing, like dipping their legs into a river of air. It felt nice.
Undyne's eye followed their moving ankles. Her gaze shifted to the ravine below, her eye narrowing and her teeth clenching in a venomous glare as she threatened lowly, "Who do I need to go beat up?"
"No one," they murmured, looking back down and letting their shoulders drop lethargically, as if the tension in them had abruptly fled and left a heavy residue behind in its place. "No one you can reach, anyway."
Undyne stared at them expectantly, waiting for them to elaborate, but they didn't continue. She sighed, and in the next moment, she sat down next to them, her legs settling over the edge of the bridge like two blue waterfalls.
"You could talk to me, you know, if you want. If you don't, I... I get it. And if you want to be alone, I understand that too, and I'll leave if you ask me to. Otherwise, I can just sit here with you." She looked to them for an order to go away.
When they didn't speak, merely glancing at her nondescriptly for a second before looking back at their feet, Undyne slumped back, getting comfortable before continuing, "Sometimes Alphys has bad days and just needs some company and distractions to ride out the worst of it, but other times she needs to talk about it to process whatever she's thinking about and feeling. Do you know which would help you most right now?"
For a few seconds, there was nothing but the sound of distant water flowing.
Then Frisk answered, "Talking," their voice almost contradictorily quiet.
Undyne nodded. "Okay, that's okay. Go ahead whenever you're ready."
They wavered before opening their mouth again. "Why do you all want to go back to the Surface?" they asked.
Undyne was caught off guard. What did that have to do with anything? "Uh... Multiple reasons. For one thing, the Underground starts to feel pretty small once you've lived here for a while. It's really not that big, and it can start to feel a bit... cramped, and honestly, kind of boring at times. I mean, there's not much more to explore when you've lived here all your life. I can't speak for everyone, but I want the adventure of the Surface, all the space to travel and all the things to see.
"We also just want to get back up there, where we belong. Monsters were banished down here against our will, and the mourning for that world we were locked out of has passed down the generations to those of us who have never even seen the Surface. It's monsterkind's original Home, you know?
"And, honestly, I think some of us just want to see what it's like up there. Just plain old curiosity. Anyway, the specific reasons differ between monsters, but I think those are the main ones. Why?"
"I don't want to go back." They bit their wavering lip, their tear tracks starting to fill up again, slow and silent and a sight that brought a stiff pain to Undyne's chest. She'd seen them upset before, but not like this. They looked utterly hopeless.
Undyne stared down at them, confused. She knew they had given up on getting back to the Surface, but she'd never quite understood why they'd stopped trying.
"Why?"
"People... People suck," they choked out in a broken chuckle. "You know that thing you have going on with Alphys?"
Undyne's cheeks burst out into flames of purple. "'That thing?'"
"Come on, the mutual crushing is so obvious."
"Mutual?!"
"Yes, mutual, open your eye," they teased, though the glint that usually went with it wasn't quite there.
Undyne crossed her arms over her chest, huffing. She pretended to be humiliated, and she was a little embarrassed, but deep down, she was more relieved than anything that they'd started cracking out the sass again. They seemed more like themself. "Whatever! What about it?"
The mood dunked into solemnness again.
"A lot of people on the Surface... don't accept people that are attracted to other people of the same or similar gender."
Undyne's brows furrowed. "Don't accept? What do you mean? What's there to accept?"
It was small, but a smile pulled at the corners of Frisk's lips. "Exactly." They sighed. "But a lot of people up there see it differently. They think it's wrong, or weird, or gross. People... People like us get... hurt over it." They pulled their arms closer to their sides, shrinking into themself. "Some of us get kicked out of our homes."
"Wait, seriously? Kicked out? Over liking someone of a certain gender?"
They nodded.
"That's the stupidest shit I've ever heard. That's absolute bullshit, kid. Did..." Suddenly she was a lightning bolt of seriousness, turning her body to face them fully, keeping her eye on theirs even though they didn't make eye contact back. "Did your parents...?"
Frisk just nodded, their lips feeling glued together, their tongue too heavy to lift, too much to express and too little energy to do it.
Undyne's hands clenched, her teeth gritting together. "I'll kill them. That's so fu—messed—actually, fuck it, that's seriously fucked up, kid. God, I'm so sorry." She leaned over and wrapped her arms around them, pulling them into a slightly awkward but comfortable side hug.
How could humans do that? Undyne couldn't understand. She knew that they weren't made of love—real love, not LV—the way monsters were, but still... this?
She supposed they'd been heartless enough to banish all of monsterkind under a mountain, so it shouldn't have been that surprising they'd be heartless toward their own kind too.
Regardless, it disgusted Undyne to her core.
She hugged them tighter when her tank top began to feel wet. "We'd never abandon you like that. Never. You know that, right?"
Frisk pulled back weakly. "Yeah... but I still... sometimes I still worry." They glanced at their feet. "It's stupid."
"Okay, first of all, it's not stupid; of course something like that would leave some scars. And second, I promise you, we would never do that. I swear. Royal guard's honor. And if you ever need a reminder of that, just let me know, and I'll verbally beat that doubt into oblivion with some affirming words!"
Their mouth cracked a smile. A flood of relief washed over Undyne at the slowly rejuvenating spark in their eyes. They were making progress. Undyne hated seeing them upset; they deserved happiness, not that. She wished she could help more...
An idea struck her.
She considered it. It was kind of a big deal, and she hadn't thought about it before, but it only took a few seconds of pondering for her to know she wanted to do it.
"Hey, Frisk," Undyne started, waiting for them to look at her before continuing. "I know you live with Papyrus and Sans right now, and I mean I think you've been liking it there, so if you want to stay there, that's totally fine and I won't be at all offended, but, uh... if you wanted, you could come stay with me?"
Frisk's curious eyes widened.
"I don't know," she rushed to add, "I was just thinking it might help to live with a fellow lesbian? But you probably only just got used to living there, so I totally get it if you don't want to move, it's no pressure—"
"That would be amazing," they burst out, cutting her off, their eyes gleaming.
"Wait, really?"
"If you'll have me, I'd love to. I think it might help, too. Don't get me wrong, I love Sans and Papyrus and I'm really grateful for them, but they can't exactly understand that part of me fully, you know?"
Undyne beamed. "Great!"
Frisk smiled back, and the two embraced in a hug once more. It felt closer now, though, somehow. They were something more like family now. Real family. One that loves unconditionally—a concept they had only just started to put faith back in.
They were still nervous, of course, but excitement and hope leveled it out.
Despite the cool Waterfall air that surrounded them, they felt impossibly, perfectly warm, sitting there together as one.