Chapter Text
It took about a day until king Asgore eventually found him quietly sobbing in his flower garden. Despite not being able to feel anything, Asriel knew this was wrong. This wasn’t supposed to happen, it shouldn’t even have been ABLE to happen. This whole flower thing just seemed completely impossible to Asriel.
He heard the kings loud, yet muffled footsteps behind him. Asriel turned around to face him as he heard Asgore come to a halt. Both of them just stared at each other for a few moments, either of them unsure of what to do next. It was as if the whole world had come to a complete stop.
“Howdy,” Asgore eventually spoke, crouching down infront of the golden flower.
“You’re unusually.. alive for a flower, aren’t ‘cha?” He joked, to which Asriel responded with bursting into tears again. He couldn’t understand why he was crying, it wasn’t like he felt sad anyway.
The more he thought about it, the more he realised he should have felt something, anything at all. But there was nothing. He didn’t feel relieved, he didn’t feel happy and he didn’t feel a single drop of love for the goat monster infront of him. He just felt empty, like Asgore had never meant a single thing to him at all.
“Woah there, I’m sorry, partner.. I didn’t mean to..-” Asgore stuttered, waving his hands infront of his face in defence.
“What’s wrong?” He quickly added once he collected himself. Asriel kept on crying, unsure of how or what to answer. How was he even supposed to explain everything? Especially when he himself was so confused as to what was going on.
“I don’t- I was so scared.. I should be… I thought I would not be found..- I- I don’t want to..” He blabbered. Nothing that came out of his mouth made complete sense, whether that was because of all the thoughts spinning around inside of his head or the sobs he was desperately trying to choke down, he wasn’t sure.
Asgore reached out with one of his hands towards the flower and gently touched one of his yellow petals, studying it like it was a completely alien object. Asriel tilted his head in response to the action, trying to take deep breaths to calm himself down.
“Let’s.. start with something simple..” Asgore spoke softly, his hand still carefully caressing Asriels petal. “What is your name, friend?”
…No answer.
“Asriel..” The flower eventually whispered, and he noticed something in his father’s face shift at the sound of his name. Was it shock? Recognition? Whatever it was, he looked heartbroken, yet happy both at the same time.
Silence followed what he had just said. Neither of them knew what to say, and Asgore just stared at Asriel in complete disbelief. It seemed like his brain was buffering, trying to make the connections as to how the hell Asriel had been turned into that of a flower.
“No, you’re not..” he mumbled, the hand he’d previously used to stroke Asriels petal falling to the ground. “You’re not.. him, right..?”
Asriel just nodded in response, not having the strength to actually say anything this time around. He once again watched how Asgores face crumbled, tears starting to well up in his eyes.
He could not believe it. There was no way this was his Asriel, right? He was dead. His Asriel had passed many days ago, he wasn’t supposed to be here. But he was, and there was no doubt in that.
“Dad.. gee, I’m so sorry.. I didn’t mean-“ Asriel was interrupted by Asgores hands returning to his flower shaped head, gently rubbing the tips of his fingers on the back of it. It felt almost like a pat on the back.
This. This is when he knew he should have felt something. Was he a bad person? God, what if he would never feel anything about anyone again? No, he refused to believe that. He knew that there had to be someone, at least one monster in the underground who would make him feel just one single emotion. It didn’t matter which one; anger, fear, love, hatred, disgust, disappointment, empathy. He just wanted to feel, to be happy, to scream as loud as he could. But he didn’t yell. All he did was try his best to make sense of what had happened to him and his sibling as he cried.
Asgore listened carefully with a look of empathy and pity in his eyes, and he didn’t like it. Asriel wasn’t even sure if Asgore could even understand what he was babbling on about, but he tried his best. And once he was done explaining silence filled the throne room once again.
The king didn’t get angry for what they had done, he didn’t give him the “you shouldn’t have done that!” speech, just sat there in silence. He stared at Asriel in utter disbelief, just observing the flower infront of him, before eventually pulling him into an attempted hug.
His white fur was warm against Asriels stem, though the armour his father was wearing felt quite the opposite. It was cold and hard, like metal should be. He didn’t complain, though. It was good enough, even though he still didn’t feel anything for the guy. No love, no compassion and no warmth inside, not like before all of this had happened. Not like how he had once felt about him, Toriel and Chara. Everything in his body felt like it just stood still somehow, like he’d been robbed of all his emotions. Though the embrace lifted some sort of weight from his shoulders, he still wondered if he was a horrible person.