Chapter 42: Call Me Back

"I think I'll try '7267' next," Frisk mused, leaning back against the front of the couch and resting their head on the seat cushions. They flipped open the phone, checking to see how long they had to wait before their next password attempt.

Papyrus shook his head. "I KNOW MY BROTHER IS LAZY—" He stopped, took a steadying breath. "BUT I DO NOT THINK HE WOULD LOCK HIS PHONE WITH HIS OWN NAME."

Frisk shrugged. "Maybe, but—"

The phone in their hand buzzed once, cutting them off, and they glanced at it in surprise. Surprise which became somehow more surprised once they read the screen.

"It's a phone call!"

"REALLY?"

It buzzed again.

"Uh—"

Seeing both human and monster doing nothing but stare at the phone in dumb surprise, Flowey seriously considered smacking them. "Well answer it, you idiot!"

A third buzz.

Frisk glanced between the phone and the flower, then over to Papyrus. "But shouldn't—"

"Oh, for-" Flowey flicked out a thin vine, red thorns growing from smooth green to snatch the phone from their hand and flip it open, then held it up to his petals to listen. His voice dripped with well-faked friendliness when he greeted, "Howdy, Doctor!"

"Who is this?" The voice was low and rumbly, and definitely not who he had been expecting. "You're certainly not Sans."

"Yeah, well you're not Alphys," he muttered under his breath.

It was King Asgore.

Flowey immediately regretted answering.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch—"

"Oh, well of course I'm not," he chirped louder, hiding his uncomfortable surprise behind false cheer. "My name's Flowey. Flowey the flower, though I guess you can't tell that over the phone."

The voice became colder, more guarded. "A flower—?"

There was an alarmed squeak and the king was interrupted by a clatter of claws on plastic. Flowey had the distinct impression that the doctor may have just tried to grab for the phone.

"Goodness, Dr. Alphys! What's wrong?"

"T-that's— he's not— Sans vanished, a-and—" She was stuttering so badly that it made it sound like the call had a poor connection. "And if he has his phone, I-I don't—"

There was more racket on the other end of the call, and then suddenly the line fell silent. Evidently her second attempt to hang up on them was successful.

Flowey scowled down at the phone, held carefully in one twirled vine. It was back to being useless, numpad disabled because of their earlier failed attempts at guessing the password. The clock that was usually displayed on the lock screen had been replaced by a vaguely threatening message: 'if you try that again, you're gonna have a bad', which was followed immediately by a digital countdown timer.

He hated it, and definitely didn't think it was funny or clever.

"That could have gone better." He flipped the phone shut and tossed it back toward Frisk, who almost fumbled the catch.

"What?"

"She ended the call as soon as she realized it was me," Flowey huffed, annoyed both with Alphys and, more importantly, with himself.

Honestly, he probably should have expected that reaction from the ever-anxious doctor. If he had forced the human to answer—or even Papyrus, even though he didn't really know what's going on—the call wouldn't have been cut so short. They could have learned something, maybe.

Plus now Alphys probably thought he had something to do with Sans's self-sacrificial vanishing act, which she was at least somewhat aware had happened. So that's just great.

"WELL, THAT'S RUDE OF HER."

Flowey sighed, pressing a leaf against what was technically his forehead. "I should have seen it coming. We… don't really get along."

Finally realizing what Flowey had already guessed, Frisk gave him an alarmed look. "Wait a sec, won't she assume you had something to do with Sans… you know. Vanishing?"

The skeleton seemed to crumple slightly, despite how delicate the human had tried to be.

Still, 'vanishing' was an apt way to put it, even if Flowey was annoyed at how Frisk had just unknowingly echoed the doctor. Despite how cynical he had been earlier, being in the void is not the same as being dead. Though it's still not exactly a prime example of existence either.

Part of him couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to spend more time in that darkness—to spend minutes, hours, days more than the few seconds he ever had needed to reset.

In as much as one can spend time in a timeless place, that is.

Flowey shook himself from his musings.

"Probably," he replied, bitter in spite of himself. One would think Alphys—of all monsters, after what she had done—would be the type to hesitate when laying blame. And in most cases, she was.

Just not when it came to him.

Although, to be fair, in most cases she would be right to be so paranoid. But he hadn't had anything to do with it this time. Even if he had been involved, though he hated to admit it, past experience made it pretty clear that vanishing the annoying (and deceptively powerful) short skeleton wasn't exactly as easy as one might think.

"WHAT?" Eye sockets wide, Papyrus turned to the flower he had always so naively called his friend. "WHY WOULD SHE ASSUME THAT?"

"Think about it." Leaves twisting in what would have been a palms-up shrug if he'd had hands, Flowey spelled it out for him. "If you were the one to call his phone, only for it to be answered by someone you didn't trust… you'd be suspicious, right?"

Thoughtful reflection was not something that suited the tall skeleton.

"I… I SUPPOSE I WOULD WORRY…" Then some of the light returned to his eyes (metaphorically, since he had neither eyes nor lights where they would have been). "BUT! THAT WOULD BE JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS! AND YOU SHOULD ALWAYS LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP!"

"A lot of people only figure that out after they're already falling," said Frisk softly, staring down at their hands with an unreadable expression.

"And plenty hit the ground first," Flowey tacked on, ever the pessimist.

As a natural optimist—even now, after his world had been yanked out from under him—Papyrus refused to give in. "THAT JUST MEANS WE NEED TO CATCH HER, THEN."

"Catch her." His tone was so deadpan, it bordered on heartless.

Frisk echoed the words, too—so quietly that they were nearly inaudible—but from what he could hear their voice had an edge of realization and a newfound core of steel. Unfortunately, that probably meant that they had just decided to take it upon themselves to try and clear the air between flower and doctor.

He didn't know why they always had to be like that, honestly; it got pretty exhausting just watching the human always be so motivated.

Urg, he was starting to sound like Smiley Trashbag. That can't be a good sign.

"DR. ALPHYS IS VERY SMART, AFTER ALL," continued Papyrus, nodding to himself as if the matter was already settled. "I'M SURE SHE CAN DO BETTER."

Frisk winced.

"You sound real sure of that for a skeleton who forgot who she was earlier," Flowey cut in, smile more like a sharp sneer.

"I WAS JUST… SURPRISED." He shifted in place, looking vaguely embarrassed, before trying to cover it up with a broad waving gesture. It was a good attempt, to be sure, but it still lacked much of the energy of his usual bravado. "HOW DOES THE ROYAL SCIENTIST EVEN KNOW MY BROTHER?"

"Doesn't everybody?" Frisk quoted quietly.

The group fell silent at that, all simply staring at the phone on the floor between them. It was true that Sans seemed to know everyone in the entire Underground, even as he simultaneously gave off the air of a monster who considered leaving the house to be a great chore.

"IN FACT," Papyrus started again, slowly, and he gave the human a curious look, "THAT THOUGHT HAS RAISED AN ADDITIONAL QUESTION."

"Yeah?"

"I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW YOU KNOW MY BROTHER."

Frisk didn't so much as twitch, but the light seemed to drain from their eyes as their face settled into a practiced neutral expression. But Flowey had known them for longer than was temporally possible, and he could tell that they seemed torn between speaking and staying silent.

Still, proving he was more observant than most give him credit for, the skeleton picked up on it too.

"YOU DON'T NEED TO TELL ME," he quickly continued. "I KNOW MY BROTHER KEPT THINGS TO HIMSELF, AND IF YOU'D LIKE TO AS WELL THEN—"

"Sans saved my life."

Papyrus went silent.

"Even after I…" Shaking and struggling to find the words, Frisk tried to explain. "I made… the worst mistake you could possibly, and I… He still…"

"That's enough," Flowey snapped, not wanting to have to tackle the whole twisty story. Especially with emotions so wound up at the moment. "You can tell him your whole sob story later, idiot. We have other things to deal with right now."

"RIGHT." Papyrus looked disappointed, yet oddly relieved; he'd probably been getting worried, seeing the child so distressed. "AND I HAVE AN IDEA."

One leaf tapped at the plastic rim of his container. "What is it?"

"IT'S QUITE SIMPLE. ALL WE NEED TO DO IS CALL HER BACK."

"Oh, come on. That's…" Flowey paused, then frowned slightly, "actually not a bad idea. Though I think a text would be better."

With a shrug, Frisk replied, "I can't text, but I guess we could use Papyrus's phone."

"YOU CAN'T TEXT?"

Fishing their phone out from the surprisingly-pocket-like waistband of their overly large sweater, the human held it out to him so he could see just how old the thing was. It had a numpad—without the letters—and two buttons for answering or hanging up. Nothing else.

"And besides," they added, somewhat apologetic, "I don't even have her number."

To prove their point, they hit the little green telephone button and showed both skeleton and flower their contacts list. Toriel's number was the only one there.

And Flowey had known that, of course, he just hadn't thought it would be an issue.

"Yes," the flower said slowly, as if talking to a child. Which he was doing, technically—though Frisk hadn't really been a child for a long time. "But don't you know her number?"

A mute shake of their head.

"After all of those— How do you not have it memorized by now?"

Frisk glowered at him. Or at least tried to, anyway; their pudgy child features weren't doing any favors for their intimidation ability. "I never saw her number, she always put it in herself."

With the human plainly unable to help, Flowey threw his leaves into the air in exasperation and turned to the skeleton. "Alright, then you call Undyne."

Papyrus, who had been watching their back and forth with growing confusion, didn't quite follow his reasoning. "I DOUBT THAT UNDYNE KNOWS MY BROTHER'S PASSWORD."

"Not for the phone, you—" he cut himself off, shaking his head. "Whatever. I don't care about the phone, but Fish-face… er, Undyne knows Alphys."

"REALLY?"

"Yes, really. Call her."

Papyrus glanced back to the kitchen, where presumably he had left his phone. "I… I SHOULD. I SHOULD CALL A LOT OF PEOPLE. TELL THEM ABOUT…" He swallowed dryly, which was always odd for a skeleton. "ABOUT SANS."

Ever the sympathetic nice guy—except when they had gone time-loop mad and went on a murder spree, of course—Frisk set a comforting hand on the skeleton's booted foot.

Annoyed by all the sappy crap going on, Flowey decided to distract himself by picking up the phone and checking the unlock countdown timer. There was still five minutes on the clock.

In the curl of his vine, the phone buzzed.

He hadn't seen that coming; the doctor actually called them back. Or, well… it was more likely that she hadn't, but the king had.

"Is that her?" Frisk asked, sounding as surprised as he felt.

"Apparently." Flowey nodded, and then shoved the phone into their hands. "You'd better answer it this time."

"No," Frisk replied. "We'll answer it."

"What does that even—"

The human flipped the phone open, answered the call, and immediately switched it to speakerphone.

"Yeah sure," Flowey said, voice dripping sarcasm. "That's a great plan."

"Hello?"

"HELLO!"

"O-oh, uhm, s-sorry." Alphys sounded mortified. "I-I must have c-called the wrong number. Er, somehow."

"No, you got the right phone," chirped Flowey, flipping tones with frightening ease. "But why'd you go and hang up on us like that, Doc?"

"I must apologize for our caution," Asgore replied in her stead, though his voice still had the same cool edge it had gained when he learned that Flowey was… well, a flower. "She felt she had to tell me some of what she knows of you, and I suspect I have been warned about you by a friend of mine."

That must have been Sans, there was nobody else who could have known enough to do so.

Which was just… "Fantastic."

As if this wouldn't have been tricky enough with the paranoid, guilt-ridden royal scientist there.

"Still," the king continued, "I wish to judge you myself."

"FLOWEY IS A GOOD FRIEND," Papyrus asserted. "…THOUGH HE DOES GET CARRIED AWAY SOMETIMES."

Flowey rolled his eyes, and ignored the definitely-not warm feeling in his non-existent heart. "Yes, sure, thank you, Papyrus. Can we refocus here?"

At least Frisk seemed to agree, since they immediately jumped at the chance to ask: "How did you know to call? Or, well, how did you know that Sans is missing?"

"Bet she saw something on her voyeuristic cameras,"

"W-WHAT!" Alphys shrieked, and he could all but hear the blush in her voice. "I-I-I-I— No! It's n-not like that, you know that! They're for security!"

"Sure," Flowey said, smug in her embarrassment.

Papyrus and Frisk shared a confused look, clearly not catching the insult.

On the other end of the call, Asgore cleared his throat and put the conversation back on track. "We called because Dr. Alphys did, indeed, see something worrisome on her surveillance cameras."

"WHAT WAS IT?"

"Sans, he… He just vanished, I don't know, j-just…" Alphys audibly swallowed, clearly trying to hold her nerves steady with both hands—or claws, as it were. "D-do you think he's…"

"He's not—" Frisk couldn't bear to consider the prospect either, so they cut that sentence short and tried to start again. "Sans is just, well…"

Flowey rolled his eyes, stepping in (metaphorically) to answer in their place. "He's reality-challenged at the moment, as far as I know."

That quip got virtually everyone's attention.

"What do you mean by that?"

Before he could clarify—which was fine, since he wasn't actually sure how to do that—the front door handle jiggled a few times, but refused to become unlatched.

"Goodness." Still stuck outside for the moment, Toriel called, "Could someone please get the door for me? I'm afraid these groceries are making this quiet difficult."

There was a quiet gasp from the phone, sharp with surprise and recognition.

"Oh, fine, just put this whole call on hold," Flowey grumbled. "Not like it's important or anything."

But despite his snark, since they're such goody two-shoes, Frisk and Papyrus leapt to their feet to help. After getting Toriel inside, they both grabbed as many grocery bags from her as they could carry before waddling off to the kitchen to put it all away.

As a flower confined to an old tupperware bin, Flowey did nothing but watch the interaction with an odd mix of annoyance and detached amusement.

"Thank you, dears," Toriel said, giving the two of them a gentle smile, before turning a slightly cooler look on a certain sentient plant. "And hello, Flowey."

Seeing as it had never worked on her before, he didn't bother puffing up his greeting with his usual false cheer. "Howdy."

Toriel paused. And slowly—for absolutely no reason, in his opinion, it's just a greeting—her expression softened into a curiously nostalgic melancholy.

He curled up on his stem slightly, almost defensive. "What're you lookin' at?"

The moment passed, and she refocused on the human child shoving aside boxes of pasta and oatmeal to make room in the pantry for a bag of sugar.

"It is good to see you up." Joining Frisk in their pasta relocation effort, Toriel took a package of rigatoni noodles—not spaghetti, what a shock—and moved it to one of the overhead cabinets. "How are you feeling, my child?"

Frisk shrugged, and they managed to give her a reassuring expression. Barely. It was still a sad smile, and that was answer enough really.

"Don't mind us," Flowey said, pointedly loud. "We were just in the middle of a call, no big deal."

"Oh dear, my apologies. I didn't know you were on the phone."

"Is that really you, Toriel?"

Toriel put her hand to her heart, surprised. "Asgore?"

"ASGORE?" Papyrus held his chin, thoughtful. "ISN'T THE KING'S NAME 'ASGORE', TOO?"

Leaf, meet face.

The skeleton blinked at him, then looked back at the phone with dawning shock. His voice had some of it's usual shrill edge back when he exclaimed, "WAIT— ARE YOU ACTUALLY THE KING?!"

Her shock had passed quickly, and now she was scowling fiercely at the phone. "Yes," she said, voice clipped. "He is."

Asgore's voice had gone soft. Fragile, almost. "Tori, I—"

"Don't you 'Tori' me, Dreemurr!" she snapped back.

"It's okay!" Frisk tried to defuse the budding rant before anything—namely the phone itself—could be damaged by rising tempers (and, more to the point, rising temperatures). "I'm sure he's sorry, and he won't hurt me, and we really need his help, so…"

"I am quite sure that we will be fine without his help, my child."

"But he—"

Flowey was reaching the end of his patience for this. "Everybody, shut up!"

Surprisingly, everybody did.

"Good." He straightened his stem, looking very much in control despite the stupid tupperware he was still stuck in. "Here's the deal. Sans is stuck outside of reality, and Frisk isn't going to stop until they get him back."

"HE'S WHAT?!" Papyrus squawked, sockets impossibly wide.

Ignoring him for the moment, Flowey continued, "I'm just saying, having state funding could probably help. Like, a lot."

"And Dr. Alphys would be a great help," Frisk added, deciding that charging straight ahead is the best way to get results. "He has this machine thing, down in the basement. And blueprints. I don't know what it's all for, but I think it might help."

"A machine?" Alphys said, hesitantly rejoining the conversation now that it had shifted back to more familiar territory.

Frisk nodded, remembered this was a phone call that didn't include video, and said, "Yeah. He's alive, and he's out there somewhere." They looked to the door at the end of the second floor hall, hanging open when it never had before. "We will bring him back."

Their hands clenched into fists, eyes bright with determination.

"I promised."

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Undertale.

HELLO! IT'S ME!

This is a chapter with altogether far too many characters trying to participate in the same conversation. Because I tell you what, writing dialog for a conversation including more than three people can really run away from you. Like, I know where the conversation is going, but these buggers just want to bicker for a few paragraphs.
Thank you, Flowey, for keeping them in line. Some.

Another reader drew some nice fanart of this story! You can find a copy-paste link on my profile, or an actual link over on this chapter posted on Ao3.
Thank you so much, depressedtrashcant! I love it!

Updates on the first of the month.
Thanks for all the reviews, follows, and favorites! And extra thanks for putting up with all the delays and crap these past few months. The break has got me back on track, so we're all set!

bisbiobyelye: When Toriel say's that Flowey is dangerous, she'd not necessarily talking about him hurting humans. Flowey did have his own attempts at a genocide run, and doesn't hesitate to hurt people or monsters who annoy him.

See ya on the flipside, everyone!