I hope everybody is doing ok with the crazy shit going on in the world right now! I should have more time to write now, but mostly I just sleep...

It's embarrassing for Flowey to admit he doesn't recall the names of all of Snowdin's residents.

I know I have killed you a few times before but what was your name again? It lingers somewhere in the air between them but he shakes it off, brushes it under the proverbial rug, which is something this place lacks. Maybe he has just become too used to dealing with Papyrus and Sans and Frisk – people who remember. Or even Alphys and Asgore, who don't remember but possess certain knowledge that means he doesn't need to explain the details or come clean completely.

If there's anything Flowey hadn't signed up for when coming to the surface, it was coming clean about what he has done.

Frisk doesn't expect it of him. They haven't told those who didn't already know about his former powers or what he did with them and as far as he's aware not about his real identity either. That last one in particular is a relief to him, a silent secret shared between the two of them and something bitter to hold onto.

But that still leaves him here, surrounded by non-strangers whose dust he has spilled before but he has no idea about who they are. After the citizenship went through, thanks in part to Papyrus' conscientious effort at finishing the paperwork, many monsters were eager to get their lives back on track despite the general public's still tepid cooperation. Grillby had no qualms about starting his business practices up again post-haste, setting up the first much needed monster-run establishment on the surface.

This is why Flowey finds himself in a too-crowded-for-comfort bar on a Saturday afternoon, sighing his way through asinine conversations between people he doesn't care about and drinking slightly sour beer. Frisk had thrown their hands in front of their mouth in mock shock at the sight, and he deplored his current lack of fingers or he could think of a gesture or two to serve them in return.

Monster drinks couldn't even get you drunk to begin with. Alcohol is a human thing and getting wasted requires certain biologies monsters inherently lack, existing of magic in physical shape, with anything they consume just reverting to such. They just borrowed some names.

But maybe if he drinks enough he can approximate something.

It would be more bearable than this, at least. From time to time someone takes pity on him, carting him from table to table for a change of scenery. At the start of the evening, many were eager to talk to him – the cover story he had concocted with Frisk about him being a shy recluse monster that lived somewhere in the Snowdin area but barely ever showed his face elicited a lot of questions – but his avoidant answers and apathetic grunts soon chased most curious ones away and he was left alone. That same cover story came in useful in explaining why he was so socially inept, probably.

As Flowey pretends to watch a handful of canine monsters play a game of cards that started out as poker but is by now slowly shifting into twenty-one, he keeps his eyes on the back of the room instead. At the bar, Sans is laying half onto the top of the counter, talking to Grillby with a bottle of ketchup in hand. Flowey doesn't know what they're talking about and frankly doesn't care. His interest lies solely in Papyrus, sitting on a stool beside the two and seemingly following the conversation.

Every once in a while he will say something that will make his brother tilt his head up and laugh and Papyrus gesticulates a little faster before dying down again, leaning away a fraction. Flowey must have seen the display repeat over and over a dozen times by now, if he didn't know any better he'd be thinking somebody was playing with the reset button again.

"Ace of diamonds!" one of the monsters at the table declares in a deep rumble, laying his cards right side up. The others bark in frustration but slide the chips over with minimal protest. Flowey glances at them for a moment.

"I saw you slide that ace out of your sleeve," he says. He didn't actually see that, most likely it didn't even happen, but if he doesn't do something interesting he'll probably die of boredom right now and maybe it will compel them to dump him on another table again, one with a better view of whatever Papyrus is getting at.

The dog monster makes a noise at him, something between a laugh and a growl. They all continue playing, ignoring his comment. "Would be pretty impressive considering I don't have sleeves."

Flowey looks back and sees this is true. Instead of responding, he turns around to stare at Papyrus again, who hasn't shifted on his seat an inch. It's almost impressive if it wasn't so damn unnerving.

"I saw you keep glancing in that direction. Anything interesting going on?"

Flowey doesn't want to answer, until he realizes the monster in question is the one Papyrus sometimes mentioned, Doggo. His eyes are trained on the cards still, keeping them close to his snout to make up for his poor vision, but shift to him for a moment when he talks, slightly unfocussed.

"How did you even know?" he asks. "I thought you couldn't see shit."

Doggo drops his cards, folding for the round, and shifts his attention completely onto him. "You move a lot."

Oh, right. That was a thing, wasn't it? Flowey tries to remember how often he killed Doggo, if it was easy as long as you can keep still.

"Don't worry about it-" he starts, but Doggo interrupts him with a low sound deep in his throat, baring his teeth a little.

"Why are you staring at him?"

It crosses Flowey's mind to play the fool, but he discards the idea almost instantly. He isn't Papyrus and when dealing with things unexplainable and concerning, it probably is best to dig where the gold vein is. That is to say: anybody who might know what they are talking about.

"Because he's stupid." He catches that gaze, narrows his eyes. "He's acting stupid."

Doggo turns around on his chair, one arm draped over the back of the seat. The dog treat clenched tightly between his jaws is inexplicably smoking and shifts to the side as he smirks around it. "That's one way to put it, sure."

"You noticed?" Flowey smothers the surprise in that question. Nobody noticed, Sans didn't even notice. Frisk noticed but they are an anomaly.

Flowey noticed but he isn't sure what he is anymore.

Nobody else noticed. Skepticism clouds his thoughts, lingers to pull them back to the present, but there's a burst of hopeful anticipation he doesn't recognize that undeniably drowns it out.

"He's not moving as much," Doggo answers plainly as if this explains everything. "It's weird. I'm used to him being livelier, you know."

Maybe it does explain everything, Flowey thinks, latching onto the notion. Maybe they had been barking up the wrong tree, as ironic as that is? Focussing too much on those who were supposed to know Papyrus through and through but didn't know a damn thing. Those he would be already adept at deceiving. Or on himself, as if he wouldn't lie about everything.

But not the ones Papyrus wouldn't even take into consideration anymore, if he-

It sinks in heavily, a coin tossed down a well and clinking against the sides noisily multiple times before you finally hear that satisfying plop of metal disappearing into water, where it brakes its descent down to slow motion, taking several seconds to nestle into the slick at the bottom.

"Fuck..." he hisses beneath his breath, still at that clinking, still at that drop, bouncing around his mind, and then: "Shit!" with more frantic vigor.

The other canines are looking at them now. Apparently the round had progressed while they were talking and they were waiting for Doggo to join in again. Flowey ignores them, drags one vine across the table and Doggo watches with intent eyes, slitted pupils following his movement. "Did you-"

"Not now," Flowey interrupts him, eyes tracing the back of the room, coin clinking against the sides of the well still. Sans is alone and presumably asleep, judging by the angle of his skull smashed down on the countertop. Swiping the rest of the bar, Papyrus is nowhere to be found. Instead, Flowey sees Frisk, legs dangling off the couch of the booth they are sitting in. There's a pastel band-aid on their knee, their messy brown hair bouncing up and down as they gesture wildly.

Flowey remembers what he had clearly forgotten.

Metal hitting the water.

He wants to be wrong.

Frisk sets him down in the middle of the room and closes the door, locking it for good measure. Then, upon his request, the curtains are drawn closed as well. They left the lights turned off too, shrouding the room in the semi-darkness of dusk. It's hard to make out the concerned expression on their face, the pinch of their lips in a downward frown.

He didn't tell them yet because he wants to be wrong.

Kneeling in front of him, they wait patiently for him to explain the urgency in their leaving Grillby's. Toriel had driven them home, taking Frisk's excuse of suddenly feeling queasy at face value, despite the feeling of sickness clearing up as quickly as it had come once they jumped from the car. She would probably ask them about it later, but that could be dealt with then.

He just wants to be wrong first.

Something too akin to fear holds him back, makes him hesitate. It doesn't help that he hasn't done this in ages, in years, in decades, in centuries. The last time was when Chara was alive, sitting crosslegged on their bed, leaning back onto their knuckles, shirt sleeves hiked up to their elbows in an unusual display of vulnerability. Flowey remembers tracing the scars along their wrists with sudden clarity. Perhaps that had been the first time it found home inside him, how broken the world had made them.

"Now you have to show me something," they had said, the tilt of their voice high and excited.

And he had shown them, the glow of his soul reflecting in their dark eyes like stars.

The only time after that he tried to summon it had been one of the worst moments of his life, trying to conjure something solid from pure emptiness, finding the void inside him was vaster than he could have ever dreaded. He hadn't felt anything, not even an absence, but the consequences of his discovery were graspable from a theoretical standpoint.

Everything had been downhill from there on out.

Which is why he wants to be wrong.

He blinks a few times, tries to force his vision to steady, and there's a light where there should be none, radiating with soft pulses like a beat. The soul is small, an upside-down heart in pure white suspended in the air between them, shaking like a leaf.

Frisk gasps and Flowey makes it fade away quickly, snuffs out that shine desperately, though the warmth of it remains, beating against him in sluggish waves, inside him.

He wants to be wrong, but he isn't.

He has a soul again.

Distantly, he is aware of Frisk trying to sign something, scooting closer along the floor, but he can't concentrate enough to understand. The entire focal point of his world narrowed down into this sole moment, the reflection of his old soul in Chara's chocolate eyes and his new one in Frisk's brighter ones, polar opposites displayed as one. Dizziness overwhelms him, making everything swim in and out of focus. If he had a stomach surely he would be retching right now.

The coin sinks downward, ever so slowly, each pull of gravity stronger than the previous one. Until it settles at the bottom among particles of sand, unmovable now by the strongest current.

Flowey snaps out of it when he hears his name, his old one. Frisk is biting their bottom lip, there are tears on their lashes. They wipe at them with one hand, and their voice is raw and disused, but they force the word out anyway. "How?"

"I don't know." But even as he says it he knows he's wrong. He does know, doesn't he?

He has known all along.

"It never left," he mutters. Frisk stares at him with big eyes, trembling fingers clenched white-knuckled against the floor. Flowey knows they understand. "You took them back but his soul never left."

The flood of absorbing the entire Underground worth of souls had been utterly overwhelming, stuck inside him like glue, holding him together, artificial sinew and muscle and power. The aftermath had been even messier and short-lived, but he could feel its traces inside him.

He just hadn't been able to phantom what that meant.

Papyrus always was so fucking generous, wasn't he? He would give everything he had to make his friends happy.

And now he has.

Frisk pulls closer, their usual unreadable face caught in between desperation and determination, a horrible sight. "We have to tell him."

"No!" he screams. They jump at the rise in volume, and the tears have spilled over from the corners of their eyes now, tracking wetly against their cheeks. "No, we can't tell him."

Not when Flowey remembers what the revelation of being soulless can do to you with intense lucidness. Not when it almost destroyed him.

"Please." It comes out more like a sob, off-kilter and wrong. The raw emotion in his voice surprised himself. "Please, we can't-"

Not when it would destroy Papyrus.

Frisk nods, cups one shaky hand around the flowerpot. Flowey doesn't know how long they sit like that, waiting for the remaining sunlight to filter away and envelop the room in complete darkness.

Soulless papyrus yaaaay! Good luck with your new soul flowey, it's gonna be a doozy

Tumblr: sharada-n