A/N: Another commission for Unioke on deviantART (commission info can be found in my profile). Contains story spoilers.
New sights were always surprising. Each one sent a tingle up his xylem. It hardly seemed to matter that every sight lately was a new one—that just kept him in a constant state of excitement, bordering on giddiness.
Even the small things. A splintered log that had always been whole. A smear of butterscotch pie on a rock.
And now, as Flowey burst his head up through the ground...the sight of Papyrus sitting cross-legged in the snow outside his house, hunched over a cell phone, frantically punching buttons.
"HELLO?" the skeleton boomed, clutching it to his face. "HELLO? HUMAN? ...OH, I'M SORRY! I DIDN'T MEAN TO FRIGHTEN YOU. I'M...CONDUCTING A RANDOM HUMAN SURVEY! ARE YOU, OR ANY MEMBER OF YOUR HOUSEHOLD, A HUMAN? ...NO? THANK YOU, HAVE A NICE DAY!"
Papyrus ground his teeth nervously, stabbing at the buttons again.
Flowey watched, hidden behind the mailbox. This was even more interesting than he'd expected.
He shivered.
"HUMAN? HUMAN, IS THA—OH, NO, I'M SORRY! NO, I'M NOT LOOKING FOR 'HERMAN'. ...WELL, YES, I WOULD BE HAPPY TO SPEAK TO HIM ANYWAYS, UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES, BUT...I-I'M SORRY, I HAVE TO GO! I DON'T WANT TO BE RUDE! SORRY!"
The gritted teeth were interrupted by a glove, gnawed vigorously. Papyrus rocked back and forth on the ground, making ruts in the snow.
The phone rang.
"HUMAN!" Papyrus shrieked, ripping his hand straight out of the glove in his fervor to pick up. "I—"
A sharp, whistling intake of breath.
"—I MEANT—H-HOW'S THE HUMAN HUNT GOING, UNDYNE...?"
The skeleton was nearly bent double, displaying every nervous tic in the book as he blathered, fidgeting and flailing and even somehow sweating, trying desperately to act casual.
Flowey smirked, though there was a twinge of jealousy on the edge of the satisfaction. He'd played these two against each other many times, in many ways. They were such close friends that it was difficult to wedge a rift between them, but he'd managed it. An apparent love triangle built on misunderstandings. Introducing violent competition into their cooking lessons.
But never had he induced such intense fear in Papyrus.
That person had.
"...ALL RIGHT, I...I-IF I REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS, I'LL...C-C-CALL YOU BACK..."
He hung up, breathing raggedly. Despite having no lungs, he seemed on the verge of choking.
The phone was clutched tight in his hands.
Jealousy was tamped down. Instead, Flowey reveled in Papyrus' despair. What a lovely emotion, vast and empty and cold. It swallowed everything you were, mashing up every kernel of your being until there was nothing left to chew.
It was extra sweet to see in him. That permanent grin, the loud boisterous laugh. The inane self-confidence. The more you had, the more there was to be destroyed.
...A bony finger tapped on the buttons again.
"HELLO? ARE YOU...NO...NO, WRONG NUMBER. I'M SORRY. GOODBYE."
Flowey furrowed his brow.
"...IS THIS...OH...NO, I'M AFRAID NOT. I HOPE YOU GET YOUR PIZZA SOON, THOUGH. YOU'RE WELCOME. OKAY."
"...HELLO...?"
Damn. He still had a little further to fall. Too much hope. Or was it "determination"?
But maybe that wasn't a bad thing. Flowey was used to being patient—playing the long game, as it were. These brief bursts of hope would only prolong Papyrus' overall suffering.
"SEE? MATCHING T-SHIRTS! JUST PUT YOUR LEAVES THROUGH THE SLEEVES—OOH! THAT CAN BE PART OF THE THEME SONG!"
Flowey shook his head vigorously. Focus.
"Howdy-doo!" he chirped, wriggling out from behind the mailbox. Papyrus screamed and dropped the phone mid-dial. "What's the haps, Paps?"
"FLOWEY? OH, OH, AM I GLAD TO SEE YOU!" the skeleton wailed, whirling around and flinging himself onto the ground in a shower of snow. He always did this—he always had done this. He thought it was polite to keep his face level with the flower's.
His eye sockets were brimming with tears.
"Awww," Flowey cooed, affecting a smile. "What's wrong?"
Papyrus blubbered everything in a rush—there was a human, a real human, he was supposed to capture them, he hadn't captured them, he was now friends with them, Undyne wanted to capture them, he couldn't talk Undyne out of capturing them, he couldn't stand the thought of Undyne destroying them and he wanted so badly to be friends with everyone, etc. etc. etc. Flowey knew all this, but it was still good to hear. It was still interesting.
He nodded sympathetically in all the right places, clucked his tongue disapprovingly in all the right places. And he smiled.
It was an absolutely pathetic picture. The big gangly skeleton, his "battle body" smeared with dirt and moisture, sprawled face-down in the snow choking out frantic half-sobs. He could stare at this all day.
How best to twist the knife?
That was the question, wasn't it—kick him while he's down for a cheap thrill? Or build him back up so his later fall would be from a greater height?
God, but Flowey wanted to kill him right there. That desperate, pleading look on his face as he begged for help...just imagining that that was Papyrus begging for his life. He would be helpless. He'd never see it coming. The look of pure shock and pain on his face before he crumbled into dust would be exquisite.
And...what would that person do?
Honestly, that was the crux of the whole thing. He had seen Papyrus die so many times. And, well, he had seen that exact exquisite look of pure shock and pain so many times. Now that Flowey thought about it again, it was kind of boring.
But what would that person do?
That person had never been here before, unless you counted their handful of timeline resets. Either way, he had never seen their reaction to Papyrus' death. He'd seen Undyne's. And Sans'. Oh, Sans. But never that person.
A friendliness pellet popped idly into existence behind Flowey's back.
"PLEASE," gasped Papyrus, gently touching the flower's face. Flowey fought hard not to flinch. "I...I KNOW WE HAVEN'T KNOWN EACH OTHER VERY LONG, AND THIS IS AN AWFUL LOT TO ASK OF ANYONE, BUT...WH-WHAT DO YOU THINK? ...WHAT SHOULD I DO?"
"DO YOU LIKE THEM?" Papyrus squeaked excitedly, though with a hint of apprehension. He was kneeling rather than lying down so that Flowey could clearly see his shirt. Freshly-washed white, with the text "FLOWEY FAN CLUB" awkwardly scribbled across it with a rapidly fading marker. The "O" was replaced by—one could only assume—a drawing of Flowey's petaled face. A small matching shirt, which looked more like a cut-up sock, was dangling from Papyrus' gloved hands.
Flowey could only blink.
"What?" he finally managed. A smile was too much to ask.
"IT'S FOR OUR CLUB! THE FLOWEY FAN CLUB!" Papyrus glanced down at the shirt. "IS THE FONT TOO HARD TO READ?"
"No, I mean...what...what club? What are you talking about?"
"WELL, YOU'RE SO GREAT!" Papyrus beamed, and the way he said it offered no room for argument. It was simply an objective fact. "EVERYONE KNOWS HOW GREAT I AM. AT LEAST, NOW THAT I'M OFFICIALLY STATIONED HERE AS A FUTURE ROYAL GUARD MEMBER! BUT I'M THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS HOW GREAT YOU ARE! SO LET'S SPREAD THE WORD!"
This was...
...this was different.
Not just in terms of alternate timelines, in terms of how Papyrus was behaving this time as opposed to last time. This was totally new. This was...
Chara had never done anything like this.
ASGORE might have, and Toriel. In fact, they'd done something a little similar when Chara had arrived—a big handmade "Welcome, Human!" banner across the front door, with a specially decorated pie.
But...
"You shouldn't tell anyone," Flowey said without thinking.
"AWWWW! HUMILITY! WHAT A GREAT VIRTUE BEFITTING SUCH A GREAT FRIEND!"
"No—"
"YOU'RE SHY?"
"N-no—"
"TOO SHY TO SAY YOU'RE SHY! WOWIE, WHATTA FELLA!"
Papyrus clumsily forced the small "shirt" over Flowey's head, ignoring his feeble struggles. With pinched thumb and forefinger he gently guided Flowey's leaves through the armholes, then straightened the shirt out, then brushed stray specks of snow off of it (accidentally smearing the fan club logo in the process).
"WELL, WE DON'T HAVE TO OPEN UP MEMBERSHIP YET IF YOU'RE NOT READY," Papyrus decided graciously, sitting back to admire his handiwork. "IT CAN JUST BE YOU AND ME! I'D HAVE TO MAKE MORE T-SHIRTS FIRST, ANYWAYS."
There was that...feeling, again. Flowey got it a lot lately.
A great big emptiness begging to be filled, but there was nothing to fill it with. Like a choking sob with completely dry eyes.
"You're an idiot," he murmured quietly.
"OH? ...I'M SORRY I DIDN'T MAKE MORE T-SHIRTS TO START, BUT I COULDN'T—"
"I wasn't talking to you."
"You should try to talk to the human, of course, silly!" Flowey lilted. The friendliness pellet was gone.
"BUH...?" Papyrus cocked his head to the side. So much like a puppy. So stupid, like a puppy. "BUT DIALING EVERY PHONE NUMBER IN SEQUENTIAL ORDER IS TAKING TOO LONG! UNDYNE IS SURE TO FIND THEM BEFORE I CAN—"
"Cheer up, there's always hope!" Flowey was bouncing now, a little jig to distract the skeleton. "I've got a good feeling about this. Do you remember what number you left off on?"
Of course he did. Papyrus rattled it off without thinking.
"Aw, golly, that's your problem! That's a typical monster area code! Why would a human have a number like that? You'd have to pick a really weird number, like, say..." Flowey pretended to think, unnecessarily. Toriel had made him repeat it every day for a week to make sure he'd memorized it. He tried not to think about that as he told it to Papyrus.
"WOWIE ZOWIE!" breathed Papyrus. The fear was gone, and he was tensed for action, already springing back up to his feet. This was what he liked. Logical thinking and puzzle-solving. He was back in his element. "I'LL TRY IT RIGHT AWA—"
He faltered.
Flowey grinned.
"BUT WHAT TO SAY...?" It wasn't wailed in despair, but muttered thoughtfully. The skeleton stroked his chin. "I CAN'T HURT UNDYNE'S FEELINGS BY HELPING THE HUMAN...AND I CAN'T HURT THE HUMAN'S FEELINGS BY HELPING UNDYNE...BUT...BUT I REALLY WANT TO HELP EVERYONE!"
"You can!"
"...I CAN?"
"You can!"
Flowey danced harder. He could barely contain himself.
"Undyne wanted you to describe what the human was wearing, right? She's never seen a human and didn't want to spear some random monster by mistake, right? So you call the human and ask what they're wearing, and then call Undyne and tell her the wrong answer! That way, you're being helpful to Undyne while also letting the human escape! They'll both be sooooo grateful!"
Papyrus was skeptical. "LYING...?"
"Aww, it's fine! It's for a good cause, isn't it? You keep calling both of them and act like you're helping when really you're keeping them away from each other! Each of them thinks you're on their side, so they'll both like you! And you get what you want!"
"...NYEH...NYEH-HEH-HEH!" Now Papyrus was leaping into the air, fist-pumping and smiling. "SPLENDIFEROUS! THAT'S A GREAT PLAN THAT SOUNDS IN NO WAY LIKE OMINOUS FORESHADOWING, FLOWEY! THANK YOU SO MUCH!"
"My pleasure."
And it was.
Papyrus made the phone call, and Flowey sunk back into the snowdrift.
He'd played the skeleton and the fish knight against each other again. A little boring. But the third variable was what made all the difference.
That person. What would they do? How would it all turn out?
Either way, there were seven human souls in the Underground now. Even without the ability to reset the timeline, Flowey would find a chance. He'd make it happen. The thing he'd tried so many times to do, just to do it. A whole new level of suffering to inflict, to alleviate his boredom.
Papyrus was happy. Obnoxiously happy. Not a hint of the sobbing fear that had pinned him to the ground before.
Keep them happy. Keep them all friends. He hoped that's what that person would choose to do.
Because the happier they were...the nicer and kinder they were to each other...
A bitter smile.
...The worse their despair was going to be.