"Toriel, you really don't want to do this," Papyrus whispered, his frame rigid and motionless as he stared into furious yellow eyes. The goat monster's lip curled, and she leaned in slowly, clutching Frisk to her chest with her free hand. "Think carefully, think about my offer-"
"You're the one that refused to think about offers, dear Papyrus," Toriel cooed, her voice dripping with false levity as her grip on his neck tightened. "If anything.. you've only yourself to blame."
Before he could even think about a response, his skull rammed against the stone wall with a sickening crack, and his vision warped. Maniacal laughter filled his cranium, and his jaw opened, but no words came out. His limbs went slack. He was a puppet, and Toriel was cutting the strings.
Toriel's triumphant screeching intertwined with Frisk's wailing to make an unholy, keening symphony of horror. It was the soundtrack to the end of his world as pieces of his head fell to the floor like shards of an abandoned vase. Again and again, he tried to lift his head, only to have it be smashed back down. The pain was something unlike anything he'd ever felt before- it screamed through his bones and infected his very core, paralyzing him.
It was an eternity before he realized the screams were getting faint, and Toriel's rapidly retreating footsteps were echoing throughout the tunnels of the ruins. He'd lost. The feeling started to sink into his chest very slowly as he stared at the ceiling, at the spaces between the stalactites. Even from this distance, he could've sworn he heard her laughing.
Papyrus was surprisingly alright with that. He would have laughed at himself too. Laughed at all the failure, the misconceptions, the irony. For starters..
Dying wasn't as painful as he thought it would be, in the end.
Oh, sure, the beginning of Death was a rather agonizing experience, what with his skull literally cracking into pieces after being slammed into the wall, but as seconds turned to minutes, Papyrus realized that death was much like lying awake in bed and waiting for sleep to come.
If he had eyelids, they'd feel heavy. Instead, the edges of his eye sockets stung ever so slightly, his magical core flickering much like a candle flame in a harsh wind. It was an odd sensation, one that made his rib cage feel increasingly numb. It was a feeling he was quietly grateful for. His bones stopped aching, filled with a frigid tingling sensation, and after a few more feeble flickers, even his skull stopped hurting.
Now, after who knew how much time had passed, he just felt very tired. Getting flashbacks and reliving every moment was such a lie- he could barely form comprehensible thoughts. His cranium was full of clouds, and dense fog that was slowly creeping up on his vision. This was it.
Suddenly, his body began to feel weightless. It felt as if he was floating, and for a few seconds, he was baffled.
So the legend of good souls floating to the heavens was true after all? If anything, he thought-...
"...-rus! Papyrus! Can you hear me?"
That voice.. it was so familiar.
Too bad he couldn't stay awake long enough.
"Don't touch me," Sans snapped, swatting at the tendril Flowey offered for comfort. He sniffed and wiped at his face with his sleeve gruffly. After a few minutes of a disgusting emotional display, he was now sitting cross legged with his face in his hands, staring angrily at the mud before him.
...Now what?
"Even if I do give up," he croaked, shoulders hunching. "Asgore can't wait forever. He'll kill Alphys. He'll kill me, he'll kill everyone-"
"He won't," Flowey interrupted him, slowly shaking his head. "Asgore is many things, but he's not a fool when it comes to getting what he wants. Killing you and everyone else in a fit of rage would actually harm his cause instead of helping it. If... if you go back, you can buy yourself some time."
Sans looked up at the flower inquisitively, tilting his skull with a scoff.
"Go back where? What the hell are you talking about?" he pressured, standing and brushing himself off as best he could. Flowey gave a tight sigh, but chose to be patient with him. His head was still throbbing after that bone attack, after all.
"Go back to Papyrus and Frisk," he explained quietly. "And.. well, tell them. Negotiate, say you're on their side, and try to recruit more monsters. You have a fair amount on your side, I'm sure they'd listen to you."
The short skeleton snorted and waved a hand at him, shaking his head. Recruit? Admit defeat to something he'd been fighting for so long? Flowey was one thing, but Papyrus.. Frisk..
"Do you have a better plan?" Flowey asked, his lips turning down into a delicate but persistent frown. Sans paused. ..He didn't. It was his best bet, right? He'd already fallen from grace, what was the point of fearing going any lower?
"Right," he mumbled, turning and glaring at the cave entrance. He felt a soft tap on his shoe and jumped, looking down at an expectant face. "..What?"
"Pick me up, please," Flowey murmured, stretching and leaning towards him. "Tunneling through stone and metal is exhausting, you know."
Sans didn't appreciate being told what to do in the slightest. But he wasn't left with much of a choice. A part of him that he kept hidden admitted that Flowey's presence brought relief. He'd much rather face Papyrus and Frisk with him by his hide than alone.
Not as begrudgingly as he would have liked, he stooped and picked up the sentient plant, plopping him onto his shoulder and shaking his hands free of mud. The feeling of having something crawling on his back momentarily as Flowey tried to grip on and adjust was actually... Not as foreign as he would have thought.
After walking out of the cave, he paused, tapping his fingers against his thigh bone.
"...We're taking a short cut," he announced gruffly, snapping his fingers so that a pocket opened in the folds of time and space. He grunted in discomfort as Flowey's roots tightened around him, but the flower said nothing, so he proceeded to walk through.
Taking short cuts was like walking down a very small, dark hallway. The disorientation lasted a few second before he felt snow crunching underneath his shoes once more, and blinked at the new surroundings. ...And then he cringed.
"They're gone," he said quietly, looking about. All that was left were pieces of bone, and footprints. It seemed like a scene from another time. Flowey huffed a bit.
"Of course they are- they wouldn't stay here. It's too cold, and home is too obvious of a place to go, so-... Sans?"
The skeleton had trailed off, staring at the trail of footprints with a stunned expression. Flowey followed his gaze and then he, too, realized what it meant.
"...Oh," he squeaked, hunkering closer to Sans' collar, eyes widening. "I... Would they?"
"They would," Sans spat, breaking into a run, sweat already beading his brow. "Of all the stupid decisions.."
"Maybe they just wanted to take shelter? Maybe they didn't meet her, maybe she's gone, or something!" Flowey argued desperately, trying to convince himsef more than anyone.
Going to Toriel, no matter how desperate, was a stupid thing to do. She proposed ridiculous bargains and kept none of her promises. She was impulsive, greedy... Why would Papyrus and Frisk thing going to her was a good idea again? He bounced on Sans' shoulder, stem aching at the swerves he took, straining to grip onto him properly and silently hoping he wouldn't fall off.
"Doubt that," his newly acquired companion snarled at him. Flowey kept silent as Sans raced onwards, grimacing and leaning away from his now very sweaty skull as they neared the door to the ruins. Despite being used to the cold, he shivered when Sans' hand made contact with it, as if he could sense the bad vibrations scuttling through from the other side. A loud creak made him flinch.
Surprisingly enough, Sans was able to push it open. That wasn't a good sign.
His brother's body lying motionless on the ground wasn't a good sign either.
"Papyrus!"
Sans' yell rang through the tunnels as he rushed forward, stumbling to his knees beside the fallen skeleton and carefully lifting him up by the shoulders.
"Papyrus! Can you hear me?" he asked desperately, peering into empty sockets. No response was given. Sans gave a shudder at the feeling of cold bones against his own. It was eerie. Something he didn't think capable of unnerving him, and yet..
"He can't hear me," Sans growled, putting Papyrus back down with a surprising amount of gentleness. The whole world was tilting and sliding out from underneath him again, but in a different way- it was inexplicable. His chest felt hollow.
...It was, but in a different way. Emotionally hollow. Papyrus was dead. He'd just been screaming at him about an hour ago, and now here he was, surrounded by shards of his own skull. Funny how things worked that way. With him out of the way, and Frisk gone missing... What did it even mean?
The new plan had fallen through. Now he was lost all over again, and-
"Sans.. Don't cry, he's not dead."
With a jolt, the smaller skeleton looked up from his sibling's vacant face and cleared his nonexistent throat.
"What? I'm not crying," he scoffed, thrusting his face into Flowey's angrily. "And what do you mean 'he's not dead'?"
"He hasn't turned to dust," Flowey pointed out, blinking and ignoring his previous comment. "So he still has a chance.. The problem is- you can either take him back yourself, or go on and find Toriel and Frisk."
Sans stared, recoiling a bit as he wiped at his brow.
"How do you know Toriel has Frisk?"
Flowey's face fell and he blinked slowly, sending Sans into silence. Duh. Anyway.. The skeleton huffed at him and turned away a bit. This choice was harder than he thought. If he took Papyrus somewhere safe, it would take precious time. Healing him would also require a lot of effort.
...He could just get up and track Toriel's trail, and leave Papyrus here. If he didn't die now, he would die later, right? So what was the point? And there was no guarantee he would trust him after what had happened earlier.
For some reason, that thought made the hollow feeling in his chest expand, and he felt his fingers curl into his palms. As if reading his thoughts, Flowey spoke quietly.
"...Are you going to go ahead?"
Sans flinched at the words, jaw clenching.
"...No," he said finally, standing and prying Flowey off his shoulder, placing him on the stone floor. "You are."
The flower gaped at him as he picked up the skull shards and hefted up his sibling silently, gaze grim.
"What? But.. you can't just leave me here," he protested, starting to shiver. "I-"
"Look," Sans bit, looming above him. "There's not much time. So we'll split up. I'll take care of Papyrus, and you go find Frisk. When Papyrus is awake, I'll go to Alphys and Mettaton and see what's happening over there. More will get done in a shorter amount of time."
"What if Toriel finds me?" Flowey squeaked desperately as Sans began to make his way out the door. The skeleton gave a scoff and turned to him, scarlet throbbing at his eye socket.
"...If anything, you're right about one thing. I do have a lot of knowledge and power," he elaborated, a hint of pride sneaking into his voice as he tilted his head. "And I know for a fact that you're only defenseless because you choose to be. If Toriel finds you, she'll defeat you only if you let her."
The door slam that came after that was one of the loudest things Flowey had ever heard. He shook, looking at the ground, vision tainted with shame.
Well, maybe he lied a little bit. Why waste time waiting for Papyrus to heal when he could just go straight to Alphys? She could help, and if she chose not to, well...
He'd figure out how to burn that bridge if he came to it.
Sans paused for a few seconds outside of the shortcut he'd created and looked down at the motionless pile of bones in his arms, feeling his eye sockets sting again.
"This is all your fault," he grumbled, despising the way his voice cracked. "I hate you."