The sound of Undyne's phone alarm making that annoying beeping sound faded in louder as she began to stir, and once she finally processed it, the fish monster rolled her eye in discontent. She didn't want to get up just yet. Not now.
They were too comfortable.
She reluctantly extracted her arm from under the covers, being careful not to wake Papyrus in the process as she shifted beside him. They had both recently gotten into the habit of sharing a bed at night. Usually Undyne's; all it took was one comment about Papyrus' racecar bed being a bit of a squeeze for both of them to make the skeleton pretty much always insist on sleeping in hers instead from then on, despite her attempts to negotiate. It didn't really matter, though; all they wanted was the company...And the cuddles, for that matter. They'd stuck to each other like glue for most of, if not the whole night, wrapped in each others' arms and curled up underneath the warm covers to keep out the chilly morning air.
She checked the time once the was alarm off; "7:02 a.m.," it read. Good. They didn't have to get up just yet. Undyne sighed contently as she pulled her arm back under the blankets.
We're just a couple of big toasty cinnamon buns, she mused. I never wanna get out of this bed.
But she knew that they had to eventually. Even if Papyrus didn't have to show up at the hotel for his on-the-job training until eleven, sleeping the whole morning away wasn't really a great idea, despite the temptation. To make the most what time they had left, she pulled him closer and nuzzled into him a bit more. Before all of this had gone down, she never anticipated someone made pretty much entirely out of bone to be so nice to snuggle up with. But here she was doing just that, cozy as ever.
"...YOU AWAKE UNDYNE?"
She sighed. Darn it all, she woke him up. Maybe she shouldn't have squeezed him so tightly.
"Yeah..." she groaned, still groggy. "...Sorry 'bout that."
He chuckled, then returned the hug.
"YOU NEEDN'T BE," he cooed, gently pressing his forehead against hers. "...BESIDES, WHAT BETTER WAY IS THERE TO WAKE UP THAN BY HUG? ESPECIALLY IF IT'S FROM YOU."
"I love you so much..."
She leaned her head back a bit and planted a peck on his cheekbone.
"So...Big day today, huh?"
"YES, INDEED IT IS. THE GREAT CHEF PAPYRUS IS ABOUT TO MAKE HIS MARK ON THE WORLD!"
"Awesome...You sleep okay last night? You'll need the energy."
"LIKE A BABY, UNDYNE. LIKE A BABY..."
They huddled into each other a bit more.
"Man, I just wanna stay like this forever...Shame we have to get up at some point."
"OH, I DON'T HAVE TO SHOW UP AT THE HOTEL UNTIL ELEVEN. WE CAN STAY HERE FOR A LITTLE WHILE LONGER IF YOU'D LIKE."
"Another twenty minutes, maybe?"
"SURE," Papyrus agreed before suddenly perking up with an idea. "...OOH. WHEN WE FINALLY DECIDE TO GET UP, HOW ABOUT I MAKE YOU BREAKFAST IN BED? IT'LL HELP ME BRUSH UP ON MY SKILLS FOR LATER."
"For me?"
"ANYTHING FOR YOU, UNDYNE!"
"Aww...You're the best."
"YOU'RE BETTER."
"Nuh-uh."
...
"i wish toriel hadn't been so right about you two last night."
"OH...DID YOU HEAR US TALKING?"
"i wonder if i can bleach my ear holes, too."
Papyrus rolled his eye sockets, half amused and half disgruntled, as he flipped the egg over.
"WELL, I SUPPOSE YOU'LL HAVE TO GET USED TO IT, SANS. BESIDES, IT'S NOT LIKE WE DO IT IN FRONT OF YOU ALL THE TIME...NOT ON PURPOSE, AT LEAST."
"well, i don't have much a choice, so i guess so."
"NYEH! NOT UNLESS WE DECIDE TO MOVE OUT, AT LEAST..."
Sans cast a wayward glance off to the side, and he buried himself a bit deeper into the couch cushions, emitting a forlorn-sounding sigh.
It was only when Papyrus turned to see the look on his brother's face that he realized just what he'd said.
"WAIT," he stammered. "I-I DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE-"
"eh...don't sweat it too much, bro," Sand assured him, finally deciding to get up off the couch where he was sitting and approach him. "to be honest, i'm not particularly surprised you'd start thinkin' about stuff like that about now. you're one to plan ahead."
"BUT ISN'T IT FAR TOO SOON FOR ME TO START CONSIDERING SOMETHING LIKE THAT? WE'VE BOTH...NO. ALL THREE OF US HAVE BEEN HERE TOGETHER FOR SO LONG, AND JUST THINKING ABOUT LEAVING JUST...WELL...I HAVE VERY MIXED OPINIONS ON THE IDEA."
"yeah...life's like that. always throwin' difficult choices atcha."
"AND WHAT ABOUT ME AND UNDYNE? EVEN IF IT HAS BEEN SMOOTH SAILING BETWEEN THE TWO OF US SO FAR, WHO'S TO SAY WE WON'T HIT A NASTY STORM DOWN THE LINE? THAT BLOSSOM WE'VE GROWN IS STILL VERY NEW. IT CAN ONLY BE SO STRONG, AND THE FUTURE IS ONLY SO PREDICTABLE, SANS."
"also true...but still. don't beat yourself up about it. things will fall into place as time goes on...hey, besides, i can't say i ain't proud of ya. it isn't just undyne who's been movin' up in the world since the human came along, you know? look at you. you got undyne back on her own two feet, and then proceeded to sweep her right off of 'em, your cooking skills freakin' skyrocketed, and now you're going in for your first day at the hotel restaurant later this morning. i look back on all that and think to myself, 'damn. the 'great' in the great papyrus just got ten times more great."
"YOU...REALLY THINK SO?"
"dude, come on. at this point, would i honestly lie to you about something like THIS?"
"AT THIS POINT? WELL...WHILE I HIGHLY DOUBT IT, I STILL HAVE YET TO PUT IT COMPLETELY PAST YOU."
"that's my bro. still suspicious of me as ever. heh heh...eh...proud of ya. and i'm pretty sure i always will be, no matter where you decide to go."
The corners of Papyrus' mouth turned up, and he blinked away a few tears settling in his eye sockets.
"...THANK YOU, BROTHER," he said to him. "I...I'LL KEEP MAKING YOU PROUD. I'LL KEEP MAKING EVERYONE PROUD! ALWAYS!"
"eh, sure thing. just make sure you don't move to new home. that place just keeps getting more and more cramped."
"OH, HEAVENS, NO. I-IF WE EVER DID DECIDE TO MOVE, WE WOULD EITHER STICK HERE OR FIND SOMEPLACE IN WATERFALL. HOTLAND AND NEW HOME ARE OUT OF THE QUESTION, MOST CERTAINLY...AND TRUTHFULLY, I'M NOT SO KEEN ON LEAVING YOU HERE ALL BY YOURSELF ANYWAYS."
"ey. bro. you sayin' i can't get along on my own?"
"WELL, WOULDN'T YOU BE LONELY IN THIS BIG HOUSE WITH NOBODY ELSE LIVING HERE?"
"eh...guess it does defeat the purpose of the extra bedrooms. i'll figure somethin' out when it comes down to that."
"YOU MEAN 'IF.'"
"n'aw. pretty sure i mean 'when,'" he confirmed. "i'd say it's inevitable at this point."
"I WOULDN'T BE SO CERTAIN ABOUT THAT, SANS. LIKE I SAID, THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ME AND UNDYNE IS STILL VERY NEW. WE DON'T KNOW WHERE IT MIGHT LEAD US TO, OR HOW IT MIGHT CHANGE US, OR...IT'S SAD TO THINK, BUT THERE WAS NEVER A GUARENTEE THAT IT WOULD LAST A LIFETIME. LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE KING AND QUEEN."
"true, but you two still knew each other for a good two years before that. you two made a perfect match back then just as much as you do now. doubt it's gonna fall apart just like that...i mean, your case is a bit different from toriel and asgore. she ain't gotta worry about you leading the entire underground into a war. especially considering what's happened down here since then. heh..."
"THAT IS TRUE...I DON'T WANT IT TO BE THAT WAY. SH-SHE DID TELL ME WHEN SHE TOLD ME HOW SHE FELT THAT IF IT DIDN'T WORK OUT BETWEEN US THAT SHE WOULD STILL BE MY FRIEND, BUT..."
He sighed, then massaged in between his eye sockets with his thumb and forefinger, seeming very unnerved by what was going through his head.
"I KNOW IT SOUNDS RIDICULOUS, BUT...I'M SCARED, SANS. SCARED THAT SOMETHING BAD WILL HAPPEN AND THINGS WON'T EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN SOMEDAY. WHAT WILL WE DO THEN? WHAT IF WE ALL FALL APART BY MEANS OF SOME HORRIBLE EVENT AND NEVER END UP SPEAKING TO EACH OTHER AGAIN? WHAT IF-"
"dude."
"...YES, SANS?"
"chill. your goin' off the wall with these predictions now. after all we've been through, the odds of that are just about nil."
He let out another sigh, then rose his head a bit more to look his brother in the eye.
"bro...a lot o' things do change over time. and you can't stop change," he told him. "but the good news is that a lot of the time, there's a lot you can do to affect how and when they change. for better or for worse, or be it sooner or later, changes will happen in life...it's what you do leading up to those changes that counts. and knowing your mindset over this whole situation, and what i've seen so far, it seems to me you'd make...mostly good things happening down the line."
"YOU...REALLY THINK SO?"
"i do," he answered. "you know somethin, bro, i think all of us have gotten a bit more mature since the human left."
"YOU THINK SO?"
"know it."
"AH...I'M SORRY IF I OVERTHINK THINGS NOWADAYS, SANS. IT'S JUST...I DON'T WANT TO DISAPPOINT ANYONE. AND THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE THAT I WANT TO PLEASE, LIKE YOU, AND UNDYNE, AND MY SOON-TO-BE CO-WORKERS EVEN, THAT I'M AFRAID I WON'T BE ABLE TO KEEP UP WITH ALL OF IT. AND..."
He slumped down onto the floor and rested his head in his hands.
"NY'OHH...I KNOW I'M MORE MATURE NOW, BECAUSE I'M GIVING MYSELF A HEADACHE WITH ALL OF THIS WORRYING."
"whoa...now that's an achievement in and of itself."
"NYEH HEH...IS IT, NOW?"
"i've been there before...look, bro. it's good to have that kinda mindset; not wanting to let people down. but you're not always gonna be able to please everyone. there'll be times you disappoint. there might be times to disappoint someone in order to please someone else. i've been there, i've done that. you just gotta know who to please and when. there's a limit to the things we can do...accepting that is healthy."
"I SEE...WELL...YOU AND UNDYNE ARE AT THE TOP OF MY LIST."
"you're headed in the right direction."
"EXCELLENT! I'LL KEEP GOING THAT WAY!"
"that's what i like to hear," Sans nodded. "...wow. and you were able to keep anything from burning during all that, too."
"I WAS?"
Lo and behold, he looked across the countertops to find that everything was not only done, but had come out near perfect.
"I-I MEAN, OF COURSE I WAS! YOU HAVE TO BE A GOOD MULTITASKER IN ORDER TO BE AN EFFICIENT CHEF!"
"no kiddin'. you did most o' that without even trying...egg-cellent job, bro. you're talented from your head to your toast."
"OKAY, THAT LAST PART WAS AWFUL."
"thank you."
"Ah...Did I miss anything?"
The two brothers looked up to see the former royal guard captain plodding unceremoniously down the stairs, still stretching herself out.
"OH! UNDYNE! WHAT BRINGS YOU DOWN HERE? I THOUGHT I WAS BRINGING THE BREAKFAST TO YOU, NOT YOU BRINGING YOURSELF TO IT. NYEH!"
"I dunno...Guess I just didn't want you to be all by yourself down here."
"NY'AWW, DID YOU MISS ME?"
Her stride suddenly became a lot more graceful as she approached him, and the two locked into an embrace.
"Sorry. Couldn't help it..."
"do i need to find the bleach bottle again?"
"OH, SANS, YOU..."
.
The light shining down from the lamp above felt so intense that Asriel thought it'd cause him to wilt if he were in it for too long. But even the lamp failed to conceal the darkness of the silhouettes looming over him, as well as the darkness of the apparent situation.
"So..." one of the officers began. "You say you're the White Beast, huh?"
The flower sighed, then nodded lightly.
"Yes, that...That's true."
"The same White Beast who carried the corpse of an unidentified child into the center of the village upwards of ten years ago?"
"That was me," he confirmed again.
The humans sitting across from him exchanged glances, the same questions going through each of their heads.
Questions they planned to ask him.
"So..." the second continued. "First things first; we need to address our main concern. The dead child...What can you tell us about that?"
The Golden Flower tensed for a moment, then started to droop, and his furry face was quick to follow. His hazel gaze shifted off to the side, and he tightly shut his eyes in attempt to quell the urge to weep. Finally, he drew in a deep breath, let it out in a long sigh, then looked up to face them again.
"Before I get into it too far, I just want to make something clear," he said. "I...I didn't...k-kill her. I never would have. None of us would have..."
He paused for a moment.
"...But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't involved in her death at all."
"So what happened?"
"Well..." he started off. "Um...Should I start from the very beginning, w-when she first fell down into the Underground? So everything makes more sense?"
"I would," the second police officer nodded. "It'll probably help us piece things together more easily."
"Okay...Chara fell into Mount Ebott just over a decade ago."
"Was that her name? Chara?"
"Yes. At least...That was what she told us when she first fell down the mountain."
"Hm..." he nodded. "...Continue."
"So, I was exploring the far end of the Ruins, where the opening in the ground was, and I heard her cry out, so I went over to see who made the noise...She was hurt pretty bad from her fall. If the flowerbed hadn't been there, she probably wouldn't have made it."
"Golden Flowers?"
"Uh-huh. They sorta have a...bouncy quality. I know, it sounds silly, but that's how Mom put it to us."
"Actually, that's what your dragon friend told us about them, too," the first human pointed out, turning to face his partner. "Shall we send out a botanist team to analyze the flowers growing in the center of the village to see if that's true?"
"Sounds like a plan," the second nodded. "So what'd you do?"
"Well, I...helped her back onto her feet and lead her to our old home in the Ruins. Mom and Dad were able to use their healing magic on her, so she was better pretty quickly."
"Healing magic?"
"Yeah. Green magic. If you're hurt, it heals you when you touch it. I'd show you, but...I was never very good at it. And...I don't know how good I'd be at it now, really. Since he and I are both...well, you know. Like this."
"We'll look into that," the second human nodded. "Continue."
"So we realized pretty soon after all that happened that Chara was...kinda stuck down here with us. They seemed pretty worried about what the people would do when they found out a human had fallen into the Underground. Once we moved to New Home, Mom really urged Dad to make it an official announcement at the next monthly address."
"New Home?"
"Oh, yeah. The new capital, closer to the surface. The city in the Ruins was the old capital: Home."
"Wait. Those are...the names of the places?"
"Yeah, ah, heh heh..." Asriel chuckled, in spite of the situation. "Dad was never the best at naming things. But he'll deny it if you ask him that."
"I see...So, did he make it an announcement?"
"Uh-huh," he nodded.
"And how did the other monsters react?"
"Well, at first, it was kinda split down the middle" Asriel told them. "A lot of the monsters hoped that it'd go well, and there would be proof that monsters and humans can still coexist, which was what Dad wanted...But a lot of them just wanted their freedom, too. Dad got a number of calls over the next few days from..."
He paused for a moment.
"...People who wanted him to...t-to harvest her SOUL."
"And what did he say to that?"
The flower pursed his furry lips.
"He was furious at them," he recalled. "I overheard him from the other room a couple times. I don't know what they told him word for word, but...He always told whoever it was who said something like that they should be ashamed of themselves for wanting to do something like that to a human. Let alone a human child...And one who'd been through so much on the surface."
"What was her surface life like?"
"I...I don't know. Not good, is all I can say. That's why she jumped down the mountain...She tried to escape it...We asked her about it a lot, but she never told us anything except that...that..."
"That what?"
"That we had no idea what the humans were really like," he finally spat out. "That she'd seen and endured so much, and that they were all horrible. Mom and Dad always told her she was wrong about that, though. That not all humans were bad...B-because she was a good example."
"Hmm...And how long did she live with you and your parents?"
"Uh...A little over half a year, I think. Seven or eight months, about."
"I see...And what month did she fall?"
"Well...Dad said it was January, I think. And he told us that the surface was probably covered in snow, like Snowdin is...I don't remember the exact date, though."
The two officers looked at each other. The time between Chara's fall into Mount Ebott and the arrival of the White Beast in the center of the town would indeed be between seven and eight months, depending on how far into January it began.
"So then...When did it start to go downhill?"
Asriel sighed. They were getting to the part he didn't want to have to relive through words. He sighed deeply again to maintain his composure, then looked up at them again.
"Well..." he began. "About a month before she came up with the idea, we wanted to make Dad a pie."
"Asgore?"
"Uh-huh. Mom was tired, since she had a lot to do that day, so we wanted to give her a break. And we knew how much Dad loved her butterscotch cinnamon pie, so...Chara and I decided we'd make him one ourselves. Ah...What we did was really stupid, looking back on it. The recipe called for 'cups of butter,' but we...put in buttercups instead."
"Buttercups...?"
"Yeah, you know...The flower? That's poisonous if you eat it? Dad had some growing in his garden, so we just...put them in."
He paused for a moment, grimacing at the memory of what happened next.
"We had no idea they would make Dad as sick as they did. H-he was in bed for over a week, a-and in and out of consciousness for days...Mom was really upset. At first, she didn't know whether or not he was gonna make it...And w-we didn't either, and we th-thought he was gonna die, and it'd b-be our fault if he did..."
He just barely managed to blink away the stray tear in the corner of his eye.
"I'm sorry...Ah...B-but he was okay. After five days, h-he looked like he was getting better, and finally when a week was up, he was almost back to normal again...I-I remember how happy Mom was to see him walking around acting like his old self again. She said she'd never been happier, over and over...Um...But, that whole incident taught us just how poisonous the buttercups were if someone ate them. And a month later, we were playing in the garden where they were growing and...That was when she brought it up to me."
"What did you say?"
"Well, I was kind of...i-in denial, sort of. Like I didn't think she would actually think to come up with something like that, but...I told Chara that I didn't like the plan, but she kept telling me it would be okay, a-and that I could trust her, and...eventually I caved. I got her the flowers and...Sh-she was...gone in three days. And it was on the third day that I absorbed her SOUL, just like we planned, and used it to cross the Barrier. Before we went into the village, she said the plan was to just get six SOULs from humans that were about to die anyways."
"Can I stop you right there?" the first officer interjected.
"Um...yes."
"Let me mention something...A lot of the witnesses to the scene claim that you were behaving aggressively. Is this the case?"
"Aggressively..." he echoed. "...That wasn't me...That was Chara."
The two humans exchanged glances with one another again.
"How was it Chara if she died and had her SOUL absorbed?"
"Well...See, since our SOULs were merged, she was still there with me. Sh-she still talked to me as we went through the forest into the village, and...It turned out that she had half of the control over the body, too. When we were spotted, she just...just..."
He let out another shaky sigh.
"...Lashed out, all of a sudden. Told me to kill them. Wh-whichever ones came close enough...I don't know why, I-I don't know if she saw anyone who'd done bad thing to her on the surface, o-or anything like that, but...well...I knew I couldn't just let her kill everyone. It wasn't right. If she was capable of loving, a-and caring, then so were they. So even though she fought, I didn't her her hurt anyone...I knew it would only make it worse."
"And when the mob dispersed, they said you smiled and walked back into the woods..."
"...That's what I remember. And when we got home, we...well..."
He shook his head lightly. It had ended for them there.
"I got to the garden, just inside the Barrier, but...I didn't get much further than that before falling down...Mom and Dad were there. They were both standing there as I walked into the garden...staring. And...That's all I remember before it all went dark."
"Hmm..." the first officer hummed, thoughtfully stroking his chin. "But now that you've apparently been brought back in a...less-threatening form, it seems, can you tell us some of what happened since then?"
"Well...It's kind of a whole other matter. And a lot of other things happened while I was gone with Dad, and the other monsters, and the other humans that fell in...I know a couple things, but all of it. Dad will probably be able to tell you more about that."
"And according to the dragon, you're here now," the second one added. "to attempt your collection of six human SOULs again."
"That's true."
"But...you intend to go about the matter more peacefully."
"Yes, sir."
The two policemen exchanged glances one more time, then nodded and turned to face the flower again.
"Alright, then. That's all we need to know for now," the second one told him. "We'll bring your father in this evening to question him and see if everything lines up."
"Okay...Um...Thank you. For understanding."
"Don't thank us yet," the first one replied. "There's still a lot about this situation that we have yet to fully understand. But once we do, for better or for worse, we are gonna do something about it...One thing is for sure, though: this is DEFINITELY a big deal."
A/N: Would any of you like to know one of the reasons why this chapter took so painstakingly long for me to publish. Twice. TWICE OVER. I had completely finished the chapter, and BOTH TIMES, ALL OF MY WRITING WAS COMPLETELY DELETED. The first time it was because the internet connection went out when I was in the middle of saving the document, so nothing was salvaged, and the SECOND TIME, the computer screen went nuts(I suspect a virus) and the ENTIRETY OF THE TEXT was selected, cleared, and then the page refreshed as I was trying to undo the deletion. And after that, I ended up losing a lot of motivation to do the whole thing over again because I knew it wouldn't be as good as my first draft(which I remember being particularly proud of at the time, if only for half an hour.)
But after MONTHS of setbacks on my end and waiting on yours, IT'S FINALLY HERE. And it serves as a Christmas present, no less, lol. XP
During my process of frustration, I ended up coming up with a new story to freshen up my writing senses. Some of you may have seen it already, but for those of you who havent, I'll tell you what to expect.
The first case in The Detective Brown Trilogy-MIRA Murder Mystery-is a novelized take on the hit indie game Among Us, in which the main character comes straight out of a noir film, and she's onto the crew like an owl on a mouse. Will she discover the Impostor before it chows down on one too many innocent crewmates? There's only one way to find out: by staying tuned!
Welp, that's all for now. Hope everyone had a Merry Christler! XD