Chapter Text
Flowey the Flower is bored.
Saying such a thing is like saying that fire burns. Of course fire burns - it’s an obvious fact. Similarly, Flowey is practically bored every day of his life, so why should it matter enough to be pointed out? The power to SAVE and reset…in theory, it sounds like an absolute dream. Being able to take back any mistake that you make, or being able to poke out every reaction from anyone that you meet. There are infinite possibilities; unfortunately, infinite boredom is also one of those possibilities.
And so, as already established several times by this point, Flowey spends most of his days being bored. When it’s been so long that he already knows what every monster in the main part of the Underground will say, why should he bother to toy with them again? Besides, killing everyone isn’t nearly as fun when Smiley Trashbag is always waiting for him at the end. Flowey can feel his body tremble from the rather unpleasant memories.
Never again, he reminds himself.
Without anyone to play with, Flowey finds himself in the place that he so frequently loves to occupy. The bed of golden flowers near the Ruins - the only thing breaking the fall of any human unfortunate enough to fall down the mountain leading to the Underground. Strangely enough, all six of the humans that have fallen down thus far have been children. Flowey doesn’t know why that is, but he doesn’t particularly care to analyze it. Not when it won’t make him any less bored.
The reason why he loves this place isn’t out of nostalgic value from his time as Asriel Dreemurr, prince of the monsters and intended ambassador between two species. Rather, Flowey spends time around this area for a very, very special reason. See, any human that has fallen down always does so in this specific spot. He certainly remembers that Chara had, at least.
Chara…I miss you more every day, old friend.
Flowey frowns from the thought of his long-deceased best friend and sibling. It’s not often that he presents himself without a smile on his face, but no one is around, so why should he care about breaking his facade? Even he needs some time to be himself, without Smiley Trashbag or the Royal Scientist around to see through his act instantly. And now, Flowey is in a very specific mood: the grieving kind.
Years have passed since he last saw Chara. With that in mind, it’s no wonder that Flowey has completely forgotten what they look like. The only thing that he can recall is a striped shirt, but that isn’t exactly specific enough to discern the rest of their appearance. All of this misery and suffering, and he can’t even remember what his best friend looks like in exchange. Pathetic, in Flowey’s humble opinion.
He misses them more every day. Maybe with them around, the Underground would finally have some amusement in it. Flowey can just imagine the scenario now; him and Chara duking it out against Smiley Trashbag and watching the obviously fake smile he always keeps on turning upside-down as soon as they land one hit. The thought is rather sadistic, but Flowey hasn’t been above sadism by this point. Killing the entire Underground isn’t what a nice, moral person would do.
Did he ever mention that having no SOUL has its downsides? Because it does.
Being left to his own thoughts is a lot less fun when most of his thoughts are negative. Without a SOUL in his flowery body, he can’t feel the same emotions that the rest of the Underground can. He can’t feel love (though he certainly can feel LOVE), joy only brings a single drop of pleasure, and he cannot care for anyone. Flowey the Flower shouldn’t exist - the many terrible acts committed in his unending lifetime only prove that.
Still waiting for something interesting to happen, he muses, annoyed by the general lack of activity in the Underground. Why couldn’t he have these powers on the surface instead? Oh well. Another day, another-
Human.
It happens almost too quickly for Flowey to react. A shadow starts to cast over his body, eclipsing the warm, radiant light leaking in from the surface. Unfortunately, this is something that he doesn’t notice until the darkness is a very short distance away from him. Flowey looks up just in time to see the body of a human falling straight towards him. However, his shock is so great that he fails to do the obvious thing and bury himself back in the ground to not get crushed.
An audible, comical splat sound echoes throughout the area. Flowey, utterly crushed by the human that was rude enough to land on him, groans in a mix of pain and annoyance. That annoyance instantly fades when the human so generously lifts themself up, revealing their identity to Flowey and flip-turning his entire mood from glum to gleeful. After an eternity of waiting, a human has finally arrived…
…and it may just be his delusional mind talking for him, but they look familiar.
Very, very familiar.
Flowey looks up at the human with appropriately childlike amazement. They don’t seem to notice that they just landed on a magical talking flower. Instead, they recover rather quickly from that harsh fall, stretching themself out and shaking the petals and dust off their body. Somehow, their hat stayed glued to their head throughout that entire kerfuffle. The mysterious, yet familiar human straightens it out regardless, adjusting its position on their head ever-so-slightly.
Despite how frankly corny the hat is (mainly because it looks far too big for their small head), it does nothing to change Flowey’s mind about who this may be.
“Chara…?”
The human - Chara - immediately turns to face him. Understandably, their jaw drops from realizing that a golden flower just spoke to them. Flowey can’t help but laugh from their rather shocked reaction. If the roles were reversed between them, he would be asking dozens of questions about how all of this works. Then again, it isn’t like Chara should be that surprised. With how strange the Underground can be, a flower that can talk isn’t really out of the ordinary, is it?
Flowey patiently waits for the human’s response. He can practically feel himself vibrating with excitement when he imagines how Chara will react to seeing him again. They may have every reason to be furious at him for failing their plan, but they’d be valid for being angry at him. It was his fault that the plan failed, but all of that is long since in the past. At last, they can start anew and start bringing some amusement to the Underground.
Right?
Of course I’m right! Flowey audibly laughs, Chara taking an uneasy step back.
Failing to notice this, Flowey digs into the ground, pops up right in front of them, and chipperly declares: “Howdy, Chara! It’s been a while since I’ve last seen you. No idea how you survived, honestly, but you can tell me about all that later!” When Chara takes another step back, Flowey summons a vine to place on their shoulder, “Come on, we should leave this dumb place and go have some fun!”
“I-”
As soon as Chara says the first word (more like letter) that they’ve spoken in years, Flowey frowns. His memory isn’t completely perfect when it comes to his life as Asriel, yes, but he still knows that this is far from what Chara should sound like. Their voice had a sort of underlying sadness to it. Could this truly be the Chara that he knows? Flowey does his best to squint his eyes at the suspicious human. They step back for the third time today, though it does them no good when Flowey’s vine tightens its grip on their shoulder.
“Golly, Chara! Your voice isn’t what it used to be, huh?” Flowey chuckles. It is not a nice sound, and he knows it; but Chara wouldn’t dare to run away from their best friend, right? “Oh well. That doesn’t matter much, now does it? What matters is that you’re finally back here.”
Flowey intentionally keeps his mouth shut from that point onward. He wants to hear how Chara will react to his return. And see, too. Based on their body language, he can tell that they don’t exactly know how to react to this. That isn’t something that Flowey will blame them for. It’s been quite some time since both of them died, after all - he has to imagine that seeing him alive as a talking flower is quite the shock!
Though… I did tell them who I am, right?
Judging by the next question - a very plain utterance of “who are you?” - the answer to that question is very much a no. Flowey initially frowns, feeling almost insulted that his best friend can’t immediately recognize him. Just as soon as the annoyance comes, he shakes it off, realizing that it isn’t fair of him to assume that Chara can automatically recognize him. They still think that Flowey is some random talking golden flower. Well, it’s a good thing that he can fix that perception they have of him quite easily!
“Hm, right. I haven’t told you much of anything, have I? My mistake,” Flowey laughs in embarrassment, “I’ll say it like it is, then!” At these next words, his tone and face change to one that he hasn’t used in what feels like an eternity: “I’m Asriel, see? Your best friend!”
Chara raises a very suspicious, judging eyebrow. Awkwardly, they lift up their hands to fiddle with their trusty cowboy’s hat. Once again, Flowey holds himself back from blaming them, knowing that all of this is a lot to take in when they just fell down here. His petals swirl around his face from sheer excitement. Knowing that Chara is back…it fills him with determination. Determination to finally have some fun here for once.
As if they still need time to think on this revelation, Chara begins to circle him. Flowey, too, takes this opportunity to examine their new look. Several things about their appearance are so similar, yet so very different from that Chara that Flowey knows and not-quite-loves. The bandana and hat are new, as are the blue pants and- wait, hold the very metaphorical phone, is that a gun tucked into their pocket?! Last time he checked, Chara never carried around guns willy-nilly.
Things have changed, he quickly reminds himself, Chara isn’t the same person that they were in the past. It’s been years!
He ignores the part of him that says otherwise. The part of him that pessimistically says that this isn’t Chara, and is instead some rather other human that happens to have slight similarities to them. Flowey throws those intrusive thoughts down the (thankfully) metaphorical toilet. Not that he needs to use the bathroom, it’s only a metaphor. Regardless, this isn’t the same Chara; as much as he wants them to be identical to how they were ages ago, it seems that scenario simply wasn’t meant to be.
Their next words only confirm that: “...okay? Um. Do you know any other humans down here?”
Initially, Flowey is nothing short of insulted. So, Chara’s first action when they learn that his true identity is Asriel Dreemurr is not to lean down and hug him, is not to ask if their parents are still alive, but to ask if there are any other humans in the Underground? Flowey almost thinks about teaching them a lesson with his vines. The vine hooked over Chara’s shoulder twitches with very apparent annoyance, visibly making them regret their response to his revelation.
Of course, Flowey already knows the fate of the other poor unfortunate souls that have fallen down here. All of them have died before crossing the barrier, letting another SOUL and another corpse be placed in those infernal jars and coffins respectively. Two remain for Asgore to collect. Will he have it in him to take Chara’s SOUL as well? Only time will tell, but for now, Flowey will enjoy the precious time that he and Chara have together while it lasts.
“Hmm, let me think…” Flowey playfully puts a vine to his nonexistent chin. The giggle that comes from Chara’s mouth makes their unfamiliarity worth it. Once he finishes fake-thinking, Flowey continues speaking, “Nope! I don’t.”
Chara frowns. Flowey can feel his own grin turning upside-down. He uses his vines to worm his way up onto Chara’s shoulder. It’s warm! “Oh, Chara, stop worrying. You’re with me now!” he declares, nuzzling his way into their bandana, “And with me, you don’t have any need to worry. I’ll never let you die again.”
“Again?” Chara blurts out in shock. When Flowey looks up at them with concern, they quickly change their answer, “Okay, fine! Y-yes, Asriel. I, um, will not die again?”
Flowey scoldingly bats them on the shoulder with one of his vines, “Don’t call me that in public, Chara. That’ll get us weird looks, and the only weird faces I want around are the ones you make!” Chara chuckles nervously. Not noticing this, Flowey once again continues speaking, “You can call me Flowey. Flowey the Flower!”
“...then you can call me Clover,” Chara retorts.
“Hehe! You’re just as funny as always, Ch- Clover! Now,” Flowey sinks down into their bandana, “Time to leave this miserable place! We’ve got better things to do down here, don’t we?”
Chara - Clover, as they now insist on calling themself - nods blankly. While their smile doesn’t quite reach their eyes, it’s sufficient enough for Flowey to relax without a care in the world. His best friend has finally returned to bring some amusement to this miserable minefield of fools. That alone is good; if they still need some time to get used to their new identity, then it isn’t a big deal. After all, with the power to SAVE and reset, Chara will be completely safe. Nothing will ever hurt them again on his watch.
Honor is one of the many emotions that Flowey’s soulless being cannot feel, but if he could, he’d swear upon all of it.