Half
Of
My
Energy
Wasted
On
Random
Knowledge
I don't know if a shattered eye is a real thing, but I read it in another story where a character attempted suicide via jumping from a high place. I don't remember what they said about why his eye 'shattered', but because Sans only glows one eye I'll assume it's some kind of head injury. Due to the fact that monsters exist, I figured this would be a type of injury monsters could get, cuz' of how their HP and healing works. Idk about Undyne, though. I'm not even sure if hers will be brought into account. Really sorry for the late update, too... but I've been super-crazy busy for awhile now and can't find the inspiration to write anything because I'm so distracted. I wasn't originally intending there to be a chapter like this, but I replayed Undertale when I did have time and was desperate for something involving Flowey/Asriel. After realizing how it would help advance the plot quickly, and based on that I might not update as often as I'd like, chapters like this would be a good idea. I hope you guys understand 3
It was a long walk to be sure' almost noon by the time you reached where the barrier once existed. From there you moved calmly through the Throne Room and past the Judgement Hall, both still appealing to the sense of sight and owning a pleasing, golden light. Almost as if it were the air itself. Regardless, you trudged past it and into the heatwave that was the Hotlands but didn't bother with removing your favorite black hoodie. On the way, you greeted the Riverperson who hadn't really cared for the surface. The dog-face on the front of the boat seemed happy when you passed by.
Waterfall was wet, as usual, but you you didn't take an umbrella until you reached the other side and kept it with you for the rest of your little backtracing journey, but paused for a few moments to listen to the statue. Something about it spread a small feeling of elation within you. Minuscule, even, but the slight relief it provided from the heavy fog you resumed calling your thoughts, movements... everything... was much appreciated. However, you forced yourself to keep moving. A feeling of sickness spread through your stomach in vein-like patterns, almost, as the sound slowly faded out of range. Shortly after, you waved to the Riverperson a second time. The dog-face wasn't there anymore.
The water on you mysteriously disappeared as you stepped into Snowdin's now empty snowy, forest wonderland. The snow sparkled at your arrival. The town lacked the same vivid life it once had, and now felt dusty and shelved rather than happy and noticeable. It just didn't seem right that even the footsteps faded out with the snow. You quickly moved past, only stopping to greet the Riverperson for the third time. Once you entered the Ruins, though, you really understood how abandoned the place was.
All the Whimsus, Froggits, spiders... everyone and everything had left. In Toriel's old home, you found a fair bit of the butterscotch-cinnamon pie still left in the tin. It still smelled wonderful, and somehow still warm. Toriel's magic, you assumed, kept it like that. A short nibble told you it wasn't expired. The cupboards were mostly emptied, likely from when the huge move to the surface took place. She likely took most of the dishware and utensils, which was why there were only a few left. Nothing fancy, but rather some plain plates, or sometimes with cheap designs. Still, you took two plates and two forks, along with the rest of the pie, and continued back through the array of solved 'puzzles'. You hadn't considered them puzzles, even when you came down here, but rather process of elimination. Finally, you came upon a small patch of what you assumed to be buttercups.
You remembered when you first fell here; you'd been certain that it had been the afterlife. Until you died and came back.
"Look who it is! Surface not good enough for ya? Well, golly! I guess I'll have to be the welcoming committee." You turned to see a familiar face, stems, and petals. "Howdy! It's Flowey the Flower! Remember me? I'm sure you do!" He exclaimed with just a bit too much joy. Then his expression suddenly changed to one of disgust and annoyance. "Now, what do YOU want? To rub your victory in my face? Proclaim your triumph and my humiliation while I sit and watch?" You stared blankly at him, and for a moment he seemed put off by the fact that your eyes were not only open, but that one seemed a bit... odd... but you went to sit next to him. He leaned away from you with a tight frown, but you firmly jabbed the umbrella into the ground so it shadowed over him.
In the moment where he was speechless, staring up at the underside, you spoke.
"It's gonna rain later." As if nothing out of the ordinary happened, you put the tin between the two of you and took a small piece in your hands to slowly eat at. Flowey looked between you and the pie for a good minute, before speaking.
"If you're looking for Asriel, he's not here. You know that, right?" There wasn't any sarcasm or annoyance in his voice. Just a stating the obvious sort of thing.
"Yeah," was your half-hearted response.
"Then why are you here? To make friends with me? Try and get me to come up onto the surface with you?" He directed a withered scowl your way.
"I don't know." Silence ensued for a little while. Flowey seemed like he wanted to make some sort of caustic remark about him being a plant and that the food was pie, but ended up taking a small bite of it at some point, anyway. That was all for the time being' then it began to drizzle. Little drops left spots in your hair and clothes but you still found yourself leaning back on your hands and looking up through the hole, but focusing your gaze more towards the edge rather than straight up, as it was about midday and the sun would be directly overhead.
"I thought you were blind," Flowery suddenly spoke. "Looks like I was half-right," he chuckled weakly. "That's what you'd call a shattered eye, right?"
"Mm-hmm."
"I thought you could only get those from a really bad head wound. And I've only seen it in one monster."
"Mm-hmm."
More silence.
"You must have a reason for coming down here. If it's not that wimpy crybaby Asriel or something about the dumb surface or your dumb friendship, then what is it?" He hissed. You simply pulled a cigarette from your pocket and lit it up with a lighter from the other. Two knots in your stomach simultaneously knotted and unknotted. Each did only one, and not the same that the other did.
"Want one?" You asked the flower, already certain of his no.
"Uh, no. I'm good," he responded with a slightly uncertain face glancing between your good eye at the tobacco-filled paper contained, currently on fire at one end. "You still haven't answered my question, Frisk," he spat with a dark tone.
"Why does it matter to you so much about why I come here?" You finally grit back between your teeth, turning your face so he had a full view of your face. Your 'hard glare' may have been amusing had you been younger and both eyes intact, but with one eye looking like a piece of shattered glass and what once was either the pupil or the iris splattered around, some 'sections' with it mostly together near the center, one or two where it would be splattered like paint... one where it was just a mess all over the place. And yet, it completely lacked color. Everything was some sort of grey or black, and the sclera was a more deadly, pure white than the normal opaque one of the other. It even lacked the red veins. Flowey, although obviously having his rant turned down a bit by this appearance, still fired back,
"Because you obviously have an ulterior motive by this!"
"What ulterior motive could I have? You've listed all the possible things that I can think of, which have already been clarified to be false. Unless you have some others that you'd like to share?" He scoffed and opened his mouth to continue, but closed it and turned back to the pie. You released a heavy, smoke-filled sigh and reclined back into more of a laying position than stretched out sitting position. In the excitement, you had sat up straighter.
"Sorry for yelling," was your next, calmer sentence. Flowey said nothing, but looked up when the pattering of rain increased on the umbrella as it began to come down harder. At this point you pushed the tin closer to Flowey so it was also protected by the umbrella, then pulling the cigarette from your mouth and stuffing it into your back pocket, not willing to leave such a vulgar item in the Underground. You then fully laid down, rested your hands on your chest, then shortly afterwards closing your eyes. The cold, yet somehow soothing drops sprinkled on wherever your skin was bare, fanning little open spaces in the heavy fog existing in your mind.
You don't know when you fell asleep, but you do know that when you woke up, the sun had set and it had stopped raining. The umbrella was now positioned to cover your face. All the dishware, utensils, and the rest of the pie were nowhere to be seen, so you could only really assume that Flowey took them, though you weren't really sure why.
Above all, someone in the dark will desire to entire the light. Someone with a bad grade will want a good grade. Someone with a bad friend will want a good friend. Someone with a poor self-image will want to feel beautiful. This does not necessarily make the person selfish. It is selfish when they choose to act on it in a way that will hurt whats around them, and what other actions come as a result. There are, however, non-selfish ways to achieve this. If all this is correct, then it is natural that someone without a soul will want a soul. Someone who can no longer feel emotions would want to feel them again.
In the deepest reaches of himself, his desire was to feel again. To have a soul again. To be him again. Being around someone who had these; interacting with them, chatting with them, just hanging out with them... was the closest he could get right now. He would claw and grasp his way like a covetous, old, selfish sinner would, serving only to satisfy the voracious wants of his own. He wanted them to come back around, so he'd done something, while it meant nothing to him now, was considered kind by other (feeling) peoples' standards. Hopefully this would encourage their return. Besides, it wouldn't hurt if he developed a fondness for them. He'd done the same for something bad, so why couldn't he for something... good?
"Hi Flowey," you greeted calmly, having now brought your signature backpack, filled with many things.
"Golly, you came back. Goodie," Flowey deadpanned. "Why'd you bring that?" He gestured with a leaf towards your backpack.
"I've been called a renaissance person by my elementary school teachers and a few strangers who've seen and heard my stuff," you said seemingly out of nowhere, pulling a sketch pad and mechanical pencil from the pack, flipping open to a new page. Most of the pages were, although faintly drawn, depicted rather thoroughly drawn pictures.
"And... why is that?" Flowey didn't bother trying to pursue the earlier question.
"I have had a maladaptive interest towards the art for as long as I can remember. Apparently, I was so into it I actually was improving at it at the same time."
"Okay. What about it?" He couldn't help but watch the eraser end of the pencil dart every which way above the paper, sometimes in long, soft movements, sometimes in sharp, jerky movements.
"Just let me concentrate for a minute," was all the response he got, so he begrudgingly stayed still and continued to observe for what he considered to be about a minute, before abruptly bending over and speaking loudly.
"You happy now?" You nodded, but the pencil didn't stop moving.
"What do you do down here, anyway? I'm sure you don't stay here in the Ruins all the time."
"Does it matter? There's no one else here. Nothing to do," was his calloused answer, sounding a bit more on the 'offense is the best defense' side of things.
"Just trying to strike up some conversation," you backpedaled, pausing your drawing to click the eraser twice before continuing.
"What are you drawing, anyway?" He finally asked.
"You." You turned the book to show a picture of a rather faint drawing of Flowey smiling. There was an obvious, basic sketch made from basic shapes, such as a cylinder for the stem, an oval for the face, as the picture was coming from a slight downward angle, and the petals were trapezoids. There was an overlying, more detailed sketch on top of that, and you seemed to have been in the process of working on the petals.
"And... why are you drawing me?"
"Because."
"Because why?"
"Just because."
He didn't pursue that, either.
It was the third time you came to visit. Your backpack was now almost completely empty, save for a few small items... and an instrument. When you took it out, Flowey stared with a more blanked-out expression than anything else before starting to make a comment on it, like he had about other things you'd shown him and talked about in previous visits.
"Golly, a violin! Betcha can't play." He wore a smug expression now, but you actually found yourself chuckling quietly about it as you removed a bow and zipped the backpack shut. "Ya don't even got a violin case," he added in a condescending tone.
"Never bought one," was your usual categorically no-beating-around-the-bush type answer.
"Why's that?" No curiosity seeped into his tone, but you had a little feeling in the back of your head that he really did want to know.
"All I have is dirty money. I try not to spend it often, and I can only make little purchases from a credit card."
"What about all the GOLD you earned down here?"
"I dunno. I never got around to figuring out what I'd ever do with it... While the sheer amount of gold I have would get me quite a bit of cash on the surface, other than a few extra items I haven't needed until now... I don't know what I'd spend it on."
"Quite the observation," was his curt reply, turning back to look at the violin. It had obviously seen its fair share of usage and the strings had likely been replaced more than once, but other than that it seemed to have a good home in.. wherever you lived. At least, it seemed like that. The surface looked shiny in the sunlight and it had an impressive air of 'fancy casualness'.
"So, what? Are you gonna play something with that?" He inquired, watching you test a few quick notes.
"Yes."
"What are you gonna play?"
"The music box statue's song."
"You mean that dumb-looking thing in Waterfall with an umbrella?"
"Yep."
"This better be good."
Flowey couldn't help but almost enjoy as soft and sharp notes alike resonated from the instrument to display a beautifully composed and arranged song.
It was the fifth time you came to visit. You returned with just the sketchbook, but with no utensils.
"Flowey, I finished the picture." He popped up and looked over to you, and though you seemed as indifferent as ever, when Flowey looked a little closer at you, there was a bit of excitement beaming in your eye. Though he didn't know about other things yet, you couldn't help these. No matter how hard you tried to harden your heart so their words and actions wouldn't hurt you... you couldn't help but to feel. You liked feeling things like happiness and having fun, but for a good majority of your life, all it was was sadness, anger... hurt. You felt that the cons outweighed the pros and you kept trying to shut yourself off... but it didn't work. Ever.
"I bet ya drew me badly, huh?" He had the notion that you did an impressive job of it.
"That's for you to judge." You turned the book so he could see the picture. It wasn't lined, and seemed to be have been painted in watercolor. The Flowey in the picture practically glowed in the sunlight seeming to shine down from the top, surrounded by several flowers of the same color, yet somehow not as noticeable as he was. The edges of the outermost flowers blurred and gave the appearance of dissipating, as little light dots surrounded the edges.
He couldn't help but almost feel special.
It was the seventh time you came to visit. Beforehand, Flowey was seething, though he personally couldn't understand why. He tried taking out his anger on inanimate objects, resulting in a few broken items, which he was sure you'd notice anyway the next time you came by, so he didn't bother to try and hide any of it. He had just figured you wouldn't come by on that particular day.
When you did arrive, he turned to you, spiny roots and spiky extensions of his stem in the air, that demonic look on his face, he immediately began to hone in on you, ready to take out his anger on the nearest living thing. However... you didn't cower away. You stared right back up at him with a look of.. submission. It was all too similar to when you had first fallen and he knew you immediately recognized his 'friendship pellets' as bullets... and didn't bother moving out of the way.
All his anger suddenly vanished, and he pulled away, his face taking on a soft frown and everything else vanishing in the ground, leaving just his flowersome self.
He couldn't help but almost be plagued with dread.
This was the ninth time you came to visit. Somehow, you enjoyed Flowey's company. Despite all harsh appearances, he was more indifferent than anything else. It felt like what you needed now, rather than someone who would altogether hate, not care, or obsessively try to detain the behavior. It was obvious he wasn't expecting you to be someone who smoked, not that anything else was within his current knowledge, and then he wasn't the most easygoing about the topic, but at the same time he'd leave you be. Besides, he was the one person from the Underground, which was the most enjoyable time of your life, whose hopes for the surface world wouldn't be completely ruined by something like this. Seeing as he'd been technically killed by one surface world village. However, he had not expected to see you stumble into the space, already drunk, guzzling some foul-tasting liquid that claimed to be vodka - though you had your doubts. You had collapsed down into a sitting position in the middle of the flowers when he popped up.
"..." He'd been almost flabbergasted. Speechless was a more... accurate term. Apparently you had no need for a shot glass and could drink several shots in on swig without too much of a care. Forget about tomorrow's hangover, just throw back, you guessed. Eventually you turned to Flowey, slurring out a few words.
"Yous... look like ye wanna... say somethin'..." You forced out, averting your eye altogether from the sunlight. It was too early to be drinking, and you were too drunk to look at bright lights.
"...Why are you drinking?" He started, trying to keep any undertones from seeping into his voice.
"Cuz' today..." you paused to hiccup, "w'ss a real... shit-day."
"So... you had one bad day, and that gave you reason enough to get drunk?"
"Heh... if today... wus de' only bad day... I'd been singin'... hallelujah." Flowey blinked.
"...What do you mean, if?"A sick realization dawned on Flowey, but for some reason, he didn't find himself enjoying apparent suffering that appeared to be ongoing. Perhaps it was the pleasantness of the visits. Or something.
"M'dad's... a reaall jackass, ifya know... what'ah mean..." you slurred out, a thick feeling beginning to crush your chest, though you couldn't quite understand why.
"You mean like... abuse?" The last word was a whisper.
"Fer...as long as I can remember. Tossin' me around like a f'kin ragdoll..." You felt something warm run down your face. "The dumb bullies... at my school... my dumb addictions... my dumb desperate self..." You started choking up, and you vaguely acknowledged your face was wet. Your eyes burned and your chest felt like it would cave in on itself, and a pressure had built up in your throat. You were... sobbing. Why, you weren't sure. Your efforts to wipe your face were in vain, as it would immediately be replaced by twice as many tears. Flowey watched with a faint presence of helplessness. He couldn't feel. There wasn't a way he could understand what you were going through. Toriel and Asgore were never cruel to him as Asriel. As Flowey, he didn't care when Toriel hit him with a fireball, and he couldn't recall Asgore even seeing him as a flower, besides when he absorbed their souls.
But there was someone else who could help.
"Did you tell any of your friends?" He tried to pull a cruel tone of voice over it, but couldn't properly muster it. He could imagine them each overreacting heavily, to the point of storming your house and going on hunter mode whenever you'd enter the school building for the apparent bullies. He only felt his 'stomach' sink lower when you shook your head, the flow of tears having slowed down a little.
"Me thinks..." you paused for no reason, swallowed, then continued, "Sansy's... ontah me..."
"Why do you think that?"
"He..." Hiccup. "Caught me puttin' makeup.. on a bruise, behind..." your eyes fluttered shut for a moment.
"Behind what?" You started up with a small jolt, yawned, and continued.
"Behind the school... But... my eyes were open, n' stuff... I told 'im I was my cousin, 'Alex'..."
"But you don't think he totally bought it?"
"No..." You sniffled, another onslaught of tears spilling over, finally abandoning the bottle on the ground and curling up on your side, sobbing and whimpering pathetically into your hand, seeming to try and mumble something but ended up choking on it. Flowey watched with not a look of disgust, humor... smugness... but with an open-mouthed frown. There was something he knew he had to do, somehow.
Flowey couldn't help but feel the need to help his...