"WHAT DO YOU THINK, FLOWEY? DOES THIS COMPLEMENT MY ORBISH BODY?"
Papyrus spun, letting the purple-and-red miniskirt flare out around his hips. Flowey looked up and squinted at him in the dressing room mirror.
"It looks way better than your brother's gross gym shorts." Anything Papyrus picked out would look better than Sans's garbage, though.
"IT'S NOT HIS FAULT HE DOESN'T SHARE OUR EXCELLENT TASTE." Papyrus slipped out of the skirt and folded it neatly on top of his "yes" pile.
Flowey was sure Sans could try a little harder to look cool. Unfortunately, Sans only seemed to try when everyone else was dead.
He bit the inside of his cheek, forcing those memories down. At least he wasn't the only one who'd gone crazy with his godlike powers. Frisk and Chara had finally told him about the cruel things they'd done, things that had literally brought the timeline to an end.
"Things" that included killing their brother. Their best friend.
He couldn't blame them. He'd deserved it more than anyone else they'd killed. Now they were finally even for all the times he'd killed them.
"WOWIE, THOSE WILL LOOK GREAT WITH YOUR NEW BODY!" Papyrus beamed, looking at the splatter-print rainbow sweatshirt and matching pants Flowey had picked out.
Without asking, Papyrus held down the far edge of the tape measure. Was it that obvious that Flowey needed help? At least he hadn't made a big deal about it or anything.
Flowey pulled the tape measure taut at the left edge of the shirt. The measurements lined up with what Alphys had told him, and the fabric felt soft enough.
Would he even be able to feel sensations like touch once his consciousness was transferred? Mettaton could. Aunt Mew Mew could. But they'd been ghosts, and Flowey was… Flowey was nothing. All the donated fur, cool designs, and new clothes in the world couldn't replace a soul.
"SHOULD WE GET THEM?" Papyrus asked before Flowey could wallow any deeper in self-pity.
"Yeah," Flowey said too quietly, then forced himself to show his most pleasant grin. "Like you said, they'll look great!"
Papyrus didn't have his own soul right now, and he was still Papyrus. Maybe souls weren't all they were cracked up to be. Flowey could still be himself in his new body, even without a soul to transfer.
"EXCELLENT!" Papyrus set the outfit aside, then somehow dug a slightly smaller copy out of their try-on-slash-measure pile. "LET'S SEE IF THEY LOOK HALF AS GOOD ON ME!"
Flowey snorted as Papyrus pulled the sweatshirt over his stumpy torso. Papyrus had the confidence to pull off anything, though, and that confidence radiated to everyone around him. It was almost like Flowey could borrow his soul just by being close—or Sans's soul, technically. Whatever.
"Not bad." Flowey's smile was more genuine this time.
Papyrus struck a few poses in the mirror, until he noticed Flowey mimicking his signature googly-eyed expression.
Papyrus laughed and clipped a plastic earring to one of Flowey's petals.
"THERE! NOW WE MATCH EVEN BETTER!"
The other clip-on—a dangly plastic ruby—hung from the side of Papyrus's skull. It didn't seem to be connected to anything. Was Papyrus using blue magic to hold it there? That was pretty cool, actually.
They spent a few more minutes cycling through dumb and scary faces, making each other laugh while Papyrus tried on outfit after outfit. Eventually Papyrus carried Flowey's pot and the stack of clothes out of the dressing room. Flowey had no idea how much Papyrus's resort manager job paid, but it was enough for him to afford all of the clothes and accessories without batting an eye.
"WHERE TO NEXT, MY FLORAL FRIEND?" Papyrus asked while tucking the Justice™ bags into his inventory.
"Hmmm…" Flowey squinted at the shops across the hall. Most of them looked super boring and lame. Hollister, Aeropostale, Victoria's Secret…
Well, maybe that one wouldn't be boring. It looked very pink, though he wasn't really sure what it was selling. The mannequins were barely wearing any clothes, which seemed counterproductive for a clothing store.
Papyrus followed his line of sight.
"YOU WANT TO GO THERE? I'M NOT SURE IT WOULD BE, YOUR, UM, STYLE—"
"I'm still figuring out my style." Flowey pouted. Why did Papyrus look so uncomfortable?
Well, there was only one way to find out.
"Come on, let's go!" He tugged on Papyrus's arm.
"ALRIGHT, IF YOU'RE SURE." Papyrus scratched his clavicle beneath his scarf. "I SHOULD FIND METTATON A PRESENT TO CELEBRATE HIS UPCOMING SPECIAL, ANYWAY."
Ugh. Flowey hoped he didn't have to go to that. Chara and Frisk both loved Uncle Mettaton, but Flowey couldn't sit through hours of rose petal rain without falling asleep.
Papyrus carried Flowey into the bright store, and he quickly saw why Papyrus had been confused. All the mannequins had female-presenting bodies. None of it would fit Flowey's new robotic form.
"You could've told me it was just lame stuff," he huffed. "What would you get your boyfriend here, anyway?"
Papyrus blushed blue. "THAT'S A SURPRISE, OF COURSE!"
Flowey squinted, but that was one thing he knew about Papyrus: if he didn't want you to know something, you weren't going to find it out. That was part of what made him so interesting and fun to play with.
"IT WOULD PROBABLY BE USELESS IN MY CURRENT STATE, ANYWAY." Papyrus sighed.
"Hey, lighten up." Flowey tickled Papyrus's arm with a leaf. "Alphys brought me back from the dead. Fixing you is going to be a piece of cake."
Papyrus frowned. "BAKING CAKE IS A LOT HARDER THAN IT LOOKS. DID YOU KNOW YOU HAVE TO REMOVE THE SHELLS BEFORE ADDING THE EGGS? WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED THAT?"
Flowey raised an eyebrow.
"I don't know, anyone who's ever baked before?"
Papyrus just laughed at that. He started to head back out of the store, which was probably for the best, since the women inside were giving them weird looks. They probably didn't know what a flower and a stubby skeleton would want with a bunch of poor-fitting clothes.
"I'M PICKING THE NEXT STORE," Papyrus decided.
"Whatever. As long as we go to Hot Topic before we leave."
"AN EXCELLENT PICK! MUCH BETTER THAN YOUR PREVIOUS IDEA!"
"You didn't tell me what was in there, stupid!"
On the way to Hot Topic, Papyrus bought him a giant pretzel. It was a good enough apology.
XXX
"No fair, how come you got a pretzel?" Frisk signed when Flowey and Papyrus bumped into them in the Hot Topic. It had been easy to pick them out in the cramped store—the stack of t-shirts they were balancing on their head was taller than the shelves.
"Cause I went with the cool uncle." Flowey stuck out his tongue, which still had chewed-up pretzel on it. (Papyrus gave a self-satisfied "NYEH HEH!")
"It wasn't like you gave us a choice. You picked Uncle Papyrus first," Frisk pointed out.
"Hey, c'mon. I'm not that lame." Sans appeared from behind them and gave them a noogie. Flowey was glad his current form made receiving noogies impossible.
Huh. It was going to be weird having a regular, noogie-able body again.
"OF COURSE YOU AREN'T! 'LAME' ONLY SHARES ONE LETTER FROM YOUR NAME!" Papyrus grinned. "UNLIKE 'COOL,' WHICH SHARES… EXACTLY ZERO."
"Alright, I can live with that. Only one-fourth lame."
"SANS! THAT WAS A JOKE! YOU ARE NOT LAME IN THE SLIGHTEST! UNLESS YOU MEAN THE PHYSICAL, LITERAL SENSE, IN WHICH CASE YOUR BODY DOES HAVE DIFFICULTY WALKING OCCASIONALLY."
Flowey snickered, but Frisk shot him a glare. Right. Making fun of people's bodies was rude, or whatever. At least Sans actually had legs.
"Did you buy anything cool?" Frisk asked while Sans and Papyrus traded increasingly lame jokes-slash-insults-slash-possibly-compliments. Flowey didn't care enough to separate the categories.
"Yeah, I'll show you in the car," Flowey said. He would've shown off then, but everything was in Papyrus's inventory, and he still had more stuff to pick out. "Take me over to the leggings while these two are wasting time."
Frisk smiled and took Flowey's pot from Papyrus's hands.
"OH, ALRIGHT!" Papyrus blinked. "IF YOU NEED HELP MEASURING ANYTHING, I'LL BE IN THE FUNKO POP SECTION!"
"That got anything to do with the new Mettaton figure they announced?" Sans grinned.
"SO WHAT IF IT DOES? BUYING MY BOYFRIEND'S MERCH IS ONLY THE SUPPORTIVE THING TO DO!"
Flowey snorted, but thankfully Frisk carried him away before he had to listen to any more of Papyrus's sappiness.
Once they reached the back corner of the store, Frisk set his pot on a shelf and pulled their keyblade pendant from under their collar.
Immediately, the t-shirt stack on their head began to tumble. Chara didn't share Frisk's superhuman balance. They caught the clothes in their arms, piling them next to Flowey's pot.
"Aww, you wanted to talk to me that badly?" Flowey morphed his face into a form with eyelashes so he could bat them innocently.
They rolled their eyes. "I want some cool leggings too, stupid."
Flowey laughed and finished off his pretzel. Mmm. Salty.
In no time, they'd both picked out several matching pairs of leggings, including one with a glittering red skull on each side. Flowey couldn't wait to see the look on Uncle Papyrus's face when he saw those.
"So," Chara started quietly as they folded up the jumble of clothes, "It's gonna be happening pretty soon, huh."
"You don't sound excited." Flowey frowned. "Aren't you happy? We're going to be…"
"Free," they whispered. Their hands smoothed over the clasp on a pair of black overalls. "Yeah. I'm not—I'm not getting cold feet or anything."
Flowey blinked. It wasn't like Chara to even bring up the possibility of backing out.
"Look, if you decided you don't wanna copy my character design, that's fine." He'd gotten attached to the idea of being twins, and the clothes Chara had picked out wouldn't fit if they changed their mind, but it was whatever. They'd still be Chara, no matter what they looked like.
"I'm not worried about that."
"But you're worried."
He didn't like that. Chara could do stupid stuff when they worried.
They breathed out, their fists balling on top of their half-folded clothes.
"It's up to me again," they murmured, then flinched. "Right—and Frisk, too. They don't want me to forget that."
Flowey pouted. It wasn't fair that Frisk and Chara got to have secret conversations in their head. At least that problem would be over soon, too.
"If anything goes wrong, I mean. With the bodyswap machine," they clarified. "If Mettaton gets stuck in the trial run, or if it works on him, but not our uncles—"
"Then you're going to reset."
It wasn't a question. Chara and Frisk would never leave a family member behind. Of course, resetting on the surface wasn't the same as resetting underground. Flowey knew, because he could still remember every reset. Frisk and Chara had only done it around six times—the first three by accident—and they'd never gone back far enough to risk unraveling the timeline. If he had to pick out all these clothes again because they went a little too far back, it wasn't the end of the world.
"Yeah. Yeah, we are." Their expression was hard—but not Determined.
"Don't tell me you forgot how to do it." Flowey snorted.
"Stop being stupid on purpose." They scowled. "We can fix anything that happens with you, or Sans and Papyrus, or Mettaton. That's easy. But if anything goes wrong with us…"
Flowey's insides went cold. He should've seen this coming. Alphys had studied their reset abilities, and had guessed that the only reason they could still reset was because of their combined Determination.
Once Chara was pulled free, the timeline would no longer be under their control.
"Nothing's gonna go wrong." Flowey's vines gripped the side of their face. "Cause if it does, I'll nab a few losers' souls, and I'll reset."
Chara's eyes widened, just for a moment, before they fixed him with a deadpan stare.
"No. You won't."
"Shut up." He flicked their cheek, right above an old scar. He wondered which of their family members had given it to them, and if Frisk and Chara had even thought twice before forgiving them.
"I'm not losing you again," he vowed. "Don't—don't even talk like that."
"You're the one who started talking about stealing souls." They pushed at his vines, and he reluctantly let go. "Anyway. You're right, I guess. Nothing's going to happen, so there's no point in worrying about it."
If there wasn't a point, Chara wouldn't have brought it up at all. They enjoyed dark humor, but this was too far, even for them.
They tucked their pendant back under their collar. Frisk placed the folded stack of clothes back on their head.
"You're not gonna be able to run away like that forever, you know." Flowey scowled. "Once you have your own body, you're gonna have to stay here and talk to me."
"They wish they didn't tell you," Frisk signed bluntly. "They don't want you to worry. But they want you to know they care about you. Just in case."
They picked up Flowey's pot, and he curled his vines tightly around his stem.
"What about you?" he found the nerve to ask. "Are you worried?" Should I be worried?
They paused thoughtfully.
"It's not about me," they finally signed.
"That's a fake answer and you know it," Flowey grumbled.
"Fine," Frisk gave a lazy sign while heading towards the Funko Pop wall. "I'm not worried. Because Aunt Alphys is the smartest, and Chara is the strongest, and you're…"
Their hand motion waffled off into something Flowey couldn't read.
"I'm what?" he demanded.
"You're the annoyingest. I couldn't get rid of you if I tried." They grinned.
"Hey!" Despite everything, he grinned back. "You want annoying? I'll show you annoying."
Thirty seconds and two broken shelves later, they were kicked out of the store. Sans was too busy laughing to tell them off, and Papyrus was too busy paying for the damages, their clothes, and his five Mettaton funko pops.
Flowey was glad he'd gotten his pretzel earlier. He was pretty sure neither of his uncles were going to take him to the mall again.