Here's another commission for AJ. They keep throwing money at me and I keep needing money so honestly i can't complain...
1.
They failed. They failed and Chara is dead and so was he, for a little while.
For a merciful while, when he didn't feel anything and didn't realize it. Now only the first one remains him, the hollowness where once there was something real, something solid.
He can't be sad that they're dead. Or that they failed. Flowey wants to be. He wants to cry and scream and tear the stone walls down around him. He wants to mourn.
But it only takes him a short while to figure out that's the problem. He truly can't.
Because he isn't sad. And that's something he wants to feel guilty about in turn, only to learn this too has been taken from him.
Not that he isn't trying. Not like every scarce inch of this new body of his isn't wreaking with effort and he remembers them clear as day, burrows himself in his memories of them hoping it will make him recall some feeling. Their hair was always messy and their clothes dirty and their arms full of scars. And their laugh, rare as it was, never failed to touch him, light and carefree and just slightly strained around the edges, hiding something darker.
Their plan was supposed to save everyone, make right so many wrongs. Chara promised him, in hushed whispers and darkened rooms, that this would be the best thing they ever did. And he believed them.
For that was a time when they meant the world to him.
But now it doesn't mean anything to him anymore.
Chara is dead and the one who used to be Asriel discovers he doesn't care.
2.
He visits his parents but they mean nothing to him anymore either. They are like images of something he remembers, but blurred beyond recognition. They have changed, and he doesn't know what loving them felt like, only supposes he did at some point. He must have, he assumes, somewhere tucked far away in a corner of his former self. And their eyes are sad and tearful and they are broken, torn down by the death of their children.
And Flowey doesn't care. Doesn't even pity them.
Looking at them makes him feel empty and talking to them makes him feel empty and telling them who he is makes them cry, pathetically.
His newfound power comes in handy then, because their sorrow is more than he can take, only makes him feel even less whole in response, because he can't answer their heartfelt pleas with anything but mocking sarcasm, so he restarts and retries and every time they feel something which he doesn't.
Not anymore.
The castle doesn't look like the place he grew up in. The flowers aren't as pretty as they used to be, despite his father caring for them still. The crystal ceilings of distant fake stars that were once so beautiful, fail to impress him now. The halls he used to roam so gleefully, full of live and adventure are dead to him.
And all around him there is nothing of significance. Nothing that has any importance to him in the slightest. A backdrop of monotonous places he once lived.
Killing them is a logical next step. It comes without question. Just another thing he can try to maybe finally force himself to feel something. Horror at what he has become.
For the first time maybe his horrible position makes him stronger, grants him an advantage, because slaying them is easy, something Asriel would never have been able to do but for Flowey it is simple, barely requires a second though. It should worry him perhaps, but that too is beyond his capabilities.
Staring at their dust hoping maybe now it will do something for him. Be more useful than they were alive.
But nothing happens. No guilt nor sadness nor anything else that could mean anything.
He is more powerful than ever before and Flowey still doesn't care.
3.
And then he does the opposite.
He sets out into the world because time has passed and the king and queen have grown predictable, boring. Flowey knows they won't be able to save anything anymore, has lost his already non-existing hope that they'll be able to help him. They're not even able to help themselves.
The world is changed. Different from what he remembers of it, though he only ever experienced a sliver of it as a child anyway, a canvas of possibilities for him to exploit.
Exciting. That's the word one would use for it. Except Flowey is empty still. Like he's a shell of his former self, robbed of anything worth note.
He meets Papyrus around this time. It is hard to be in Snowdin and not meet him, he is quite the presence, after all. Loud and boisterous and for a while that alone is enough to keep Flowey's interest. Keep him occupied.
Papyrus is funny, in an objective sense. Not traditionally amusing maybe, but different from anybody else he has met. Creative in a lot of ways. Nothing he can quite put his now long gone fingers on.
The opposite of that which Flowey has so quickly grown tired off in others, like his parents.
And when they become friends, or play pretend at it anyway, It's like an absence in the skeleton comes alive. Like he too was missing something, a void which Flowey's presence could fill for him, an unspeakable loneliness now cured. For a while this is enough. For a while Flowey would almost call himself content.
Not feeling anything isn't so bad when there's something (or someone) to distract you from the emptiness tearing through your soul, evaporating it, drowning everything.
But then, inevitably, like the seasons changing and the tides turning and the sun rising, he grows bored of Papyrus too. He grows bored and he resets and doesn't make friends with Papyrus a second time.
Because he has already seen all his tricks and Flowey doesn't care enough.
4.
And when Papyrus comes to him that second time around, approaches him like an old friend he hasn't seen in ages, then still did Flowey not feel anything real, tangible, except something almost akin to confusion.
A sense of dismay. Curiosity. Though in the end, nothing still.
Papyrus remembers.
"Who are you?" Flowey asks, weary, because not only does he not feel anything at all but now he can't understand something either and it makes everything that much harder. That much more bothersome to deal with.
And Papyrus was really the most interesting out of all of them, the most different, the most special to him. Unique.
"I'm you best friend, silly." Papyrus tells him, like an echo of what Flowey himself would say maybe.
Those words could mean something too, Flowey knows. Though not to him.
"I'm not you friend." He says.
Papyrus looks genuinely surprised, something pulls at his smile for the first time since Flowey has known him and he casts his eyes down, takes a step back. "Oh, I uh- I just thought, since last time we did the hanging out thing. A lot. And that's what friends do, so-"
Wait, he can't be serious, can he?
Maybe his face is pretty telling because the skeleton drops his arms to his side, smirks but not in a way Flowey likes to see on him. A pained expression, not truly dismayed or disappointed, but self-deprecating in nature.
"No, it's fine. Assuming makes an ass out of you and me. Mostly me." Papyrus answers, apologetically and for a second Flowey almost feels something.
Just a tiny little detached fleck of regret.
He doesn't, but the approximation is enough to intrigue him into relenting. Into believing maybe not all potential was wasted in this relationship.
In hindsight, this is when they truly became friends. It's not a meeting either of them dwells on but it's true, because you can be completely alone or incomplete together and when the option is presented to you one is starkly better than the other.
And so Flowey found himself with a real friend, though he still didn't care that much.
5.
He recognizes it was inevitable. Just like his parents, so too was Papyrus' demise not something that could reasonably be avoided.
It was an experiment. A theory put to the test. Maybe if he could finally find somebody to care about after losing his soul, somebody he didn't know before this happened to him, killing them would make all the difference. Would trigger something real.
And with the skeleton before him on his knees, legs broken, mouth puckered in that perfect expression of surprise, Flowey feels nothing.
Though it's not really surprise on his friend's face, is it? More like acceptance. As if he too saw this coming from miles away. Something that welled between them, a weight on their time together that never quite ceased.
Like he knew.
Papyrus turns to dust. He doesn't make a noise besides a tired little huff of laughter that Flowey barely catches over the hail Snowdin suffers today and then he's gone, dead, and Flowey waits, counts out the seconds.
Just a little longer and then what he has done will hit him. Destroy him, tear him down with guilt and regret and pain and sadness.
And he will finally feel something again.
But it doesn't. Because he can bring Papyrus back if he wanted to and that makes all the difference here. His friend is as permanent, as unrelenting in existence as the hollow feeling inside him and neither matters even the slightest bit.
Nothing does.
He destroys them all, then. In a fit of not quite rage, not quite annoyance. Just an overwhelming knowledge that nothing matters anyway, so he might as well. He can tear them down like a toddler throwing a fit and breaking his toys and nobody will know, nobody will come and scold him, tell him what he's doing is wrong.
Not unless he wants them too. And then, like puppets on string, predictable, actors in a play, they will do and say exactly what Flowey thinks they will and that won't matter either. It won't make the slightest bit of difference.
When everything is done he waits again. A tiny part of him, the part he usually denies vehemently, thinking maybe this will be enough. Now he will feel something that counts.
And he waits, waits, waits.
Nothing happens.
Not even loneliness becomes his companion.
+1
He resets eventually, because while emotions might still be out of his reach, he has more than once found the sensation of boredom is not.
And the only thing worse than being stuck underground without feelings is being stuck underground without feelings nor people to distract you from this lack of feelings.
He stays in the ruins and waits, sulks, can't get rid of the creeping thought that this time he has ruined things even more than usual.
He tries not to think about it, about his 'friend', but the thought remains, stubbornly bouncing around his mind with every distracted moment.
Because now Papyrus will never want to speak to him again.
It's a silly notion, yet another thing that doesn't matter, shouldn't matter. Except it does and it leaves Flowey aimlessly wandering the few patches of sunlight he can find, watching for a glimpse of clouds from up above.
Papyrus will be angry. That's what he thinks.
Papyrus will be angry and never forgive him. And they won't be friends anymore.
And that makes Flowey feel...
It's faint, barely a shimmer of something more significant but it makes Flowey uncomfortable. He hates it. This might be the thing he has been chasing after all along, the thing that matters, the only thing, and he abhors it.
But it does make him uncomfortable. Not sad, exactly, that's something else entirely. But eventually he reaches a point where not knowing makes it worse. Where all he can do is wonder how much Papyrus hates him, loathes him, thinks he's the worst person ever and for the first time since waking up like this, it's eating at Flowey.
He doesn't know if it's guilt or curiosity, maybe some unholy combination of both. But he needs to know.
It doesn't take long for Papyrus to find him once he crosses into familiar territory. It's like the skeleton has some kind of weird radar that always has him end up exactly where Flowey is at. But right now he's grateful he doesn't have to make the approach himself.
And Papyrus is smiling.
"Flowey, I'm so happy to see you." He says and Flowey is watching his face, scanning it with narrowed eyes for any sign of sarcasm, distrust.
But as far as he can tell the other is being sincere.
"Do you now?" He asks, venomous, curt. Every inch of him hates this, hates this conversation, anticipating the souring of the mood and Papyrus leaving, never coming back. Hating him.
"Of course." Papyrus sits down, makes himself comfortable on the moist Waterfall ground without a care for how it will ruin his beloved clothes and that too is so like him. So typically Papyrus, it makes Flowey want to hurl. "When you didn't show up I was getting worried."
He closes in, wraps one vine around the skeleton's arm thinking maybe that will do the trick. That will be what makes Papyrus curl up in disgust, frown and shrug him off, leave him, hate him.
But Papyrus doesn't move an inch.
"Why where you even worried, you idiot." he says. It's not a question but he wants to know the answer so badly it physically aches. Where there was nothing before suddenly there is so much he can barely hold it inside.
And he could break Papyrus. He could break Papyrus into so many tiny pieces and all the feelings would be gone again. He would be rid of them forever and go back to living an empty live where nothing matters.
Except he isn't so sure that is true anymore.
"Well..." Papyrus says softly, unlike him suddenly, considering how to put this into words. As if what comes next is the most important thing in the world to him. "I was worried you might be feeling bad after what happened."
Flowey sputters, laughs so mockingly it almost hurts, because it does. This is just too much. "You thought I would feel bad?"
And Papyrus nods.
"After what happened? After me killing you, you were afraid I'd be feeling bad?"
Another nod.
He sighs, let's go because this is something they truly can't turn back from, is it? This is happening, whether Flowey wants it to or not, and he made it happen himself. All he can do now is face the music.
"Why, Papyrus? Tell me why and I will leave you alone forever."
"I don't want you to leave me alone forever." He says, without missing a beat and it's sickening. This monster is so nice, so full of love, it's sickening.
And sickeningly fascinating too.
"Besides, you did something... not so good, so I thought-" His hands hover in the air awkwardly, face turned to the side.
"Not so good." Flowey repeats in perfect monotone. "You think what I did was not so good?"
"Not really, no."
God, this is ridiculous.
"Papyrus, you do realize I killed you right?!" And he's right there in the skeleton's face, yelling at him, and he's angry. Real anger, something painful and tight that he barely recognizes as his own. "I killed you and you come crawling back to me like a pathetic worm saying you're worried I'd feel bad? I know you're not an idiot so don't even do yourself this disservice. Just leave!"
Still Papyrus won't budge an inch. He's blinking up at him, not quite smiling and not quite frowning and waiting for Flowey to finish and then he touches him, fingers brushing against the petals lightly, something not even his parents did.
Because they were scared of him and Papyrus isn't. Not even after what he did.
"I'd rather stay." He says, drops his hand back into his lap. "If that's alright."
And in that moment, unbidden, Flowey knows why Papyrus is different. And it reminds him of Chara. It reminds him of somebody that carries along so much sadness and disappointment and hate and still believes things can be fixed. Still believes people can be inherently good if they want to be.
"You don't hate me?" Flowey sighs, curls closer and Papyrus doesn't recoil or pull away from him. He shifts on the ground, his bones making little furrows in the earth and thinks.
For a full ten seconds he is thinking and Flowey is waiting, but he already knows the answer.
"I don't hate you." He says eventually. "I hate what you did, but I don't hate you. I think you can do better."
As if it is the simplest thing in the world.
And Flowey is coiling a vine along the skeleton's neck, tighter still, unable to choke him to stop him from talking but maybe he can break his neck in one clean pinch. He hasn't tried that before.
"And what if I can't. What if I do it again?"
Papyrus smiles wider still, amused. "That won't change my opinion."
Flowey knows he is telling the truth. No matter what he does it wouldn't change Papyrus.
He has found the immovable object to his unstoppable force and it is different.
Exciting, even.
"We'll see." He says, let's go because now is not the time. Soon, but not now. Right now he feels-
"We will." Papyrus says, getting up. "Do you want to see my new trap? I'm calling it the gauntlet of deadly fun, I think. Either that or the gauntlet of deadly terror. You can help me decide. Though there is not yet a gauntlet involved, I'm still working out the details."
"Yeah, why not." Flowey answers.
He can try again. He can keep trying until Papyrus relents.
But right now he feels happy. He feels like something matters. Like this thing with Papyrus matters more than anything.
Or maybe Papyrus himself is the one that matters.
And he feels.