Chapter Text
Waterfall.
Aptly named, for the sounds of rushing and falling water filled the air, echoed through the stone corridors and the sweet blue flowers. The echo flowers gently roared with the forever repeating sounds of water, but now were repeating a new sound, that of footfalls somewhere, bouncing with each new iteration of the sound.
The skeleton’s boots crunched lightly on gravel and small flora as he walked through the caverns, ducking and shifting occasionally to make sure he didn’t scrape his shoulders or skull on the stone. His brother was lazy, but he was observant, and would probably wonder where the cracks and scrapes came from. Not that Papyrus was particularly worried about that, a cool guy like him didn’t need to explain random forays into the next area. His traps would hold until he returned.
The cavern ahead of him slowly opened up, in here the sound of rushing water was quieter, having to echo a long ways just to slip through the opening. A stream trickled past his boot to the far end of the cavern, winding like a snake through fields of soft blue echo flowers. This was always his favorite spot to think, but he hadn't come to think today. Today he was meeting someone.
There was a hole in the black and blue colors, a spot of bright yellow in the middle of the of the clearing. A single golden flower, with an actual face between its sunburst petals. Like always, it was smiling.
“Hiya!” cried the little plant, in a sweet, honey-like voice at Papyrus’s approach. It always used that sweet voice, laden with flattery and praise and sometimes prediction.
“The Great Papyrus has decided to come back! To grant you an audience once more!” the skeleton declared as he sat down, grinning. He liked this flower, most of the ones around here just whispered past conversations and secrets, but he didn't care much for secrets. Flattery though, was a different matter.
“I'm so honored~” it giggled, bending its stem slightly, in an imitation of a bow. “I've got something extra super special to tell you, I'm sure you'll be excited to hear. I've heard through the plant vine that a human might be finally coming your way and-”
“REALLY?!” The cry was sharp and sudden, Flowey bending back slightly as Papyrus punched the air in excitement. “Oh boy oh boy we're gonna capture a human and I'll finally be made a member of the Royal Guard!” Papyrus continued his small bone-rattling before seeing an even bigger grin on the flower's face. “What is it? What could be more more important than another human?”
Flowey giggled, his voice still laden with honey as he turned his face up to the skeleton. “Oh, not good news for you, news for me. You probably wouldn't care about lil’ ol’ me’s little joys in life.”
“Oh, but I do!” Papyrus claimed, a hand over his chest, over his SOUL. “I, the great Papyrus, will listen to your botanical excitement!”
“Oh, it's nothing too important.” If the flower had shoulders, it might have done a passive shrug. “Just a little prediction for you, to carry in your little ribcage. You're all going to die~”
There was silence. For a few moments Papyrus held his grin, before confusion crossed his skull and he glanced down to the flower. “...the great Papyrus must not have heard-” He tried, but Flowey cut him off, a bit of the sweetness gone from his voice, turning colder with each word.
“You heard it right. All of your friends are gonna die, mister skeleton, and it's all going to be your fault!” With that, the flower doubled over, giggling like it was mad. Papyrus, shocked, scrambled back to his feet, the boots sinking slightly in the damp earth.
“I don't know why you'd threaten my friends,” Papyrus started, eye sockets narrowing at Flowey, whose giggling was finally dying down. “But they're stronger than you think, and I won't let you!”
“Stupid skeleton.” There was no guise now, every word was cold and malicious. Even the smile had no warmth, it was cruel. “Every one of them is going to die, and you won't be able to do anything. Alphys, Undyne, Asgore...Sans…”
“That's enough!” Papyrus frowned, an expression rather unfamiliar to him. He decided right then that he didn't like it. “I don't care who you're threatening, but no one brings my brother into it. I may be cool, but he's stronger than he looks.” And with that, Papyrus stood, turning and heading back towards the entrance of the cavern. He'd just reached it when he heard Flowey calling after him.
“You wouldn't be afraid if you didn't believe me!”
He paused, one skeletal hand on the edge of the entrance.
“My predictions haven't been wrong before. It's how you made most of your friends.”
A longer pause this time, the seconds slipping by like snails on a racetrack. Flowey had him now. It made sure these next words were direct, hooking.
“I know how to save them.”
“Well, not so much somehow, as someone.” Flowey said off handedly, enjoying the desperate look on Papyrus’s skull. It had him, now to reel it in~
“Then who?” He didn't want to believe this flower, not one bit. But if there was one thing he believed, it was that there was some good in everyone. And it hadn't steered him wrong yet… “Give me the name and I shall ask them! No one could deny a plea from the great Papyrus!”
Flowey giggled, the sound had lost all of its mirth, a poor facsimile of the laughter before. “Stop playing dumb with me, you know exactly who it is.”
“King Dreemurr?” Papyrus offered, to the immediate scoffing of the golden flower.
“Do you really believe that that ancient goat could possibly help anyone?” The grin was cruel, stretching far wider than any smile had any right to be, stretching the face of the flower outwards. “He's useless, and he'll die in the end too.”
Papyrus reeled back in surprise. He'd never heard anything ill of Asgore, only praises of his kindness and strength. Hearing such contempt for a nice man threw him for a loop, so Flowey stepped in to fill the silence. “I'll give you a hint, if you're so dedicated to this stupid game. He's very close to you.”
That narrowed the playing field, for Papyrus down to only one possible candidate. “Sans?”
That laugh again, this flower really liked to laugh. Before he had enjoyed the kind laughter, but now it made his bones crawl. “Trust me, that smiley trashbag won't be helping you. He doesn't care nearly enough.”
“Then who could it be?” Papyrus mused, running a hand under his jaw, before being interrupted with a resounding groan.
“For the love of...I'm talking about Gaster!” Flowey almost screeched, tired of this idiot act.
“...Gaster?” Papyrus tilted his skull slightly, that name...he might have heard it once, but it didn't ring any bells. “I don't know a Gaster.”
“Of course you do!” Flowey was angry now, some red creeping into the cores of his petals. A new element this time...maybe this reset could turn out better. “Come on, you've gotta be in there somewhere, Gaster. I know what happened to you, I saw it all those resets ago.”
The flower was talking, but Papyrus didn't hear. Something about that name...the longer he thought, he thought he could feel something deep inside his SOUL. A slow, rhythmic pulse, beating like a drum inside his skull. It felt powerful, but he pushed it away.
“Look,” Papyrus said, standing up once more from the flower, now nearly scarlet. “I don't know who that is, but it doesn't matter. None of my friends are going to die, I know it.”
“...you really are stupid, aren't you?”
Skeletal fingers closed into a slow fist. The pulse was back, stronger now. “What did you just say to me?”
“I said you really are as stupid as you look!” Flowey drew itself up to its full, rather unimpressive height. “I thought that maybe, just maybe, you'd be the half who actually would be strong enough. But no, I guess all you became was a BONEHEAD WHO WILL WATCH HIS FRIENDS DIE, AND BE POWERLESS TO STOP IT!”
If Papyrus had skin, his knuckles would be bone white. The pulse was much louder, a drum behind his eye sockets as the flower continued. “You won't even get to watch your brother die, how sad is that?” The flower's face turned into a cruel mockery of a sad, teary-eyed face. “You'll make it there just in time to miss the culprit, but you'll know who it was. And you'll know what they'll do. And it'll all.
Be.
Your.
Fault.”
“SHUT UP!!”
It had been faster than Flowey could have expected. Thin, bone fingers closed around the flower and riiiiped it from the earth, eliciting a shrill screech from the flower, it hadn’t seen this coming, this was new, this was terrifying. The face of the flower turned up to look at Papyrus and found a monster in his place.
Papyrus had never been so angry. That pulse had become a steady roar in his skull, and it filled him with anger, with hate, and with...power. He had never felt so powerful before, even in daydreams. A fire burned in his right eye socket, a flickering iris of blazing orange as it stared down the shivering flower.
The flower coughed, somehow, before it turned back and looked into that eye with a weak smile. Without the earth, it felt weak, unrooted...but maybe it was worth it. “Heh...I knew y-you were in there, Gaster…” it muttered, recognizing the look in that eye. It had seen it before, but different. It had been blue, and the final sight it had known before more resets than he cared to count.
Flowey hit the ground with a soft thump. It was very confused, understandably, it had been held a moment before. The flaming eye had died, and Papyrus had scrambled back, staring at his skeletal hands. That power, that anger...it hadn’t been him, and it scared him. He took a few, cautious steps back, giving Flowey a chance to re-root himself into the ground, turning his eyes up to Papyrus, once more filled with malice. “...fine then. Stay stupid, don’t save your brother, it’s on your head. Have fun~!” And with that, the ground seemed to open up below the flower, and it suddenly vanished down into it, gone in a heartbeat, leaving the skeleton standing there. He stared at the spot where Flowey had been a moment later, and after a moment, he stood and turned to leave. He...he had to see Sans.