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01010010-posts · 6 years ago

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— our love is a starred staircase; i jump two steps at time but you can only go one by one.

i. → becoming human. “and this is hen.” “mhh, very interesting.” “.... i hate you.” he unwillingly cracks up, slightly turning to the other side because, honestly, he’s not that bastard (maybe) “sorry–” he bites his lips, not wanting to be exposed, gosh, he really is such a bastard “it’s just that– well, how do i put it.... learning a new language from scratch, without any download, it actually is difficult.” there is it again, that devilish sneer “i swear to god, love” “okay, okay. i’ll say it. but please don’t be mad. it’s your handwriting. it’s hard to read. it’s so ugly you could be a doctor.” he’s doing his best, he vows, but since being deviant his sense of humour has highly been affected. you lose no time in emerging onto his jolly demeanor and begin smacking him “you’re not being fair! ouch– please! you promised to not get angry!” he refuges his hair behind his knuckles, while still enjoying taunting you “i’ve spent the past hour memorizing things with you and that’s how you repay me! and i didn’t promise that!” he lets you tease him for too little, and without even realizing it you’re in his grasp, frozen, sweetly pouting, a mouth that he kisses “you’re right, here’s your reward, teacher.” “did you at least learn something?” “ohh, yes, a wonderful lot. i learnt how to kiss you here, here, and here.” and saying that he follows his preaching, teaching you where he adores to leave lovebites. ii. → pieces of you between the pages. it’s not his fault. sometimes night shifts happen. but he hates them abysmally. why? because, as much as he gets bored when you’re sleeping, he can’t help but worship those endless hours he has available, basking in the lone presence of your body, recording each minute thing, with such limited time on this earth, then, he.... but tonight is a little different. he phoned you for a while (you had to force him to hang up), assured that you finished eating at a normal pace, didn’t steal too many snacks from the cupboard, watched something nice and got to bed at a reasonable hour. yes. he’s not your mom but he likes to remind you that his way of loving is varied. of course, soft words and i love yous and invisible smooching were not absent at the roll-call. he’s not only your mom after all. ahh, almost forgot. this is just routine. the deviant thing tonight is: a book. your book. your favourite book. you probably forgot it in his bag. but it’s not very important right now. he picks it up, the spine slightly visible from the black fabric incorporating it. it’s an ordinary book. he sits, and since he’s kinda alone, nobody prevents him from propping his long legs on his desk, relaxing in his leather ergonomic chair. reading a bit won’t hurt. the content, the plot, it’s not really important. what he’s actually reading is: your underlined parts. you normally don’t do that, you said one time. it ruins the paper, you said. yet in this one, this one, so important to you, you used graphite pencil to emphasize. mostly, about love. iii. → doing nothing. “i won’t stand for this!” he huffs in a bit of what appears to be the middle of an angry and annoyed tone. his arms hurriedly coming into a fold around his chest, he doesn’t really know how to react. you try to hide your benevolent smirk, an android this cute shouldn’t exist “why? you’re already doing it.” “that’s– that’s because it was your turn to choose what we should be doing this evening.” “so you’re peacefully protesting?” you urge him, now holding back snorting is almost impossible “.... kinda.” and at this point you’re nearly choking on your own laugh “you’re making fun of me?!” he finishes his retort and darts, indignant, sitting upright on the couch. so so so sorry but you have to cover your face with your digits and turn towards the other side because, honestly, you’re not that bastard as to burst into laughter in front of him (maybe) “gosh– it’s– it’s– pfft– i apologize i’m– ahahAHAHA NO PLEASE NO!” while you were, indeed, mocking him you lowered your guard and him, a weapon, took that as his advantage “PLEASE BABY” “ohh, we’re begging before i even get serious? my my, you’re quite weak.” his fingers carefully threading between your ribs, stroking your skin in a delicate manoeuvring until he’s satisfied with his revenge “you’re terrible.” he grins, both short of breath from being such imbeciles “i am.” he gently lowers down your crouched shape, half on the sofa the rest on the floor, and kisses your reluctant cheek “what’s the plan, then?” “don’t think i’ve changed my mind. i don’t want to do anything. i want to continue until i reach absolute zero.” iv. → your things // your place. he doesn’t need to shower, nor to bathe, and if he indulges in those activities it’s just to bond, he assures you. but suddenly it’s not so credible when you, wanting to surprise him, come back to your place without telling, sneakily unlock the threshold and tiptoe to search for him to no avail. you’re about to open your mouth and shout, to see some sort of shocked reaction, maybe a jump from the scare, but he’s not in the living room. and not in the compact kitchen. and not in the bedroom either. then, where could he be? you silently ponder, a tap of your shoe asking if he left to go shopping. but you know, the fridge is not that empty. could he be....? without letting out a sound you enter the bathroom, certainly not expecting the sight that presents to you. a single curtain separating you from his shadow. of course, you can’t resist the call. with a swift movement you pull the nylon and expose him, who can’t help but nervously shriek in distress “ah! what the fuck!” you cackle “surprise!” he sighs, exasperated by your childish behaviour, and turns off the water “is that my.... body wash?” your attention shifts rapidly, taking in the image of his fully naked anatomy but pointing an index at his palms “what–” he halts mid-sentence, his cyan eyes darting to his fingers “oh, well, huh–” “you’re using my body wash.” “i can explain.” “you always say you’re too upgraded for bubbles.” “.... my phrasing is not exactly that however i was just– curious.” “to try my body wash.” “yes. to try your pink velvet sunflower body wash.” “wait. how do you know the exact name. suspicious.” if his forehead wasn’t already shimmering from the droplets of your interruption he would be drenched in cold sweat “.... i analyzed it.” “you fucking ate shower gel.” “in my defense–” v. → what do you do when you’re happy. he longs for moments like these. for when you both come home, him entangling his arms around your waist as soon as the door closes, leaving a trail of tiny pecks from your shoulder to your lobe, slow as a snail, savouring each millimeter of skin, each little relaxed spasm your muscles have, each complaint you attempt to address to his figure, each tender giggle escapes your mouth. he longs for moments like these. the same as when your shared friends send a text at the last minute, asking if it’s okay to come over and then maybe go somewhere, drinking or eating doesn’t really matter, it’s just to be together. and you sweetly smile, a bit tired after work, but still willing to say ‘yes’, serene in the comfort of not even having the need to change into fancy clothes, only bustling with secret excitement, waiting to be in stitches in the back of a non-automatic car. he longs for moments like these. as that time you both got a couple days off and decided to spend them in a countryside house, clutched by vines of different species: virginia creeper, common ivy and climbing magenta roses. and as soon as the door closed you rushed, gliding on the worn burnt sienna cotto tiles, up the old rusty stone stairs, reached the top and opened the small cabin, only occupied by a toilet and a small painting (‘in bed’ by federico zandomeneghi. a girl with long auburn hair, facing a floral wallpaper, resting in a tranquil atmosphere while stretched out in her bed under light blue covers.). you promptly proceeded to push the wood window frame, letting light invade the whole space. he was right beside you as your head stuck out, inhaling the fresh air and remaining speechless in front of the sun, the sky, the clouds, the as much red roofs interspersed with yellow lichens and green moss, the rest of the panorama composed by infinite sweeps of earthy fields. he longs for moments like these. vi. → our things // our place. “don’t forget to brush your teeth.” he whispers from behind you, his face reflected on the mirror in which you’re admiring yourself in search of some imperfections. you absentmindedly chuckle “i know” your eyes fixated low, watching the drain of the pale china sink. logically, the most convenient way of getting the toothpaste to exit the tube, is to squeeze from the end and let it come out on its own. of course, he noticed, you don’t do that. you, as if reading his mind while he’s standing close, watching and mimicking a human nightly routine, do the complete opposite of what he’s thinking, pressing your thumb at the very start of the mixed aluminium-and-plastic bottle you’re holding. a tiny bubble forms where the cap should be and you hint a smile. infos bothering his vision at the corner of his irises: it’s some internet articles about teeth blackening, mostly persistent in asia. it’s somewhat fascinating to him, or at least, it’s different from the constant obsession with lightening. he wonders what you would think about it. he wonders if you even know about it. white gel slowly fills your tongue and coats the ends of your lips. you’re kinda messy, he admits, but finds it utterly adorable nevertheless. vii. → dying human. your hand. your hand is what kept him alive for so long. because, despite his appearance, he’s as old as an adult can be at this time of your life. your life. two parallels tracks that never meet, going their way, wanting to touch but never able to. you, growing old. him, growing and nothing more. because he can’t be old, can’t he. he will never be old. he must be about.... no, that’s stupid. no hypothesis could change anything. it doesn’t matter which numbers he should have in his ID – not that androids have any in the first place –, what matters is the inequity of your age “you’re always beautiful” you murmur “mh? look who’s talking” the end of your mouth curls up in a childish smile, wrinkles adorning all of your features “flatterer. i could be one of your grandparents for all you know” he gives you a lazy expression, lids half closed, nevertheless content, a bittersweet happiness. he takes your right hand in his and draws it near his cheek “it’s rough, c’mon” you’re a bit ashamed but he lets the warm rays of sunshine glimmer onto him, eyes slowly leaving space to complete relaxation “no, it’s tender, don’t worry, just as you.”

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euphoricquotes · 5 years ago

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1. In a sallow square, five by five faces project a mood toward a sharp-nosed dog with felt ears. We’re a mess of lapel, wallpaper, denim, and I’m in a dress of apples. That boy above me in the checkered jacket, he’ll grow up to kiss me on a porch then pollute me in a pool house—a tacky set piece, as these things go. I counted the turquoise tile edging the water, and when I lost tally I began again, my face pressed cruelly into wicker, my eyes peering through the breaks in its twist. And then a gift, when I still believed in all that. It rained in August, droplets snapping from the overlay like blown glass breaking blue, magnificent. 2. There was sand in my hourglass and gold on the beach blown through the spray, through the shiny suit among a grove of options. Sometimes a hand would unfold on nuggets of foil from a box of cigars. This when I was very small and through to another state’s recreational triumph where I dug greedily for prizes. It’s not visible for the grainy murk clung to the lens, for the hair whipping my face, but I was smiling. I was dozens of girls back then, and some of them happy. Miles after, there is the Rogue River recklessly collecting tributaries, the seagulls splitting their time between residences. The water there is furious enough for daredevils, but I had no use for it. 3. Suddenly I liked avocados, California’s own plan to fatten me up, to ripen itself under my grip before rotting the fruit as a metaphor for time. I was rotations away from an ability to fathom. That was the year my instamatic broke, the end to fuzzy four-sides of goings-on, of me topless in so many stairwells I’d bore even my biographer, wheezing at the top step. Months left me where I couldn’t laugh. I knew a kid with a balcony edging his bedroom overlooking the busiest intersection I’d spent instances overlooking. He had to jump and I took home that obstinate plant urged from a wide-mouthed jar. 4. Around an L-shaped table she couldn’t suppose that I’m an L, formal in a month of pedestrian secrets, dumb to the pretty teeth whittling themselves to fangs. She anchored the pileup of people I wore out, persuading from one trouble to the next to demonstrate a kind of shade, even as nineteen eighty-nine was my warmest year on record. Like a rat sated on slop, my place on the food chain had yet to be decided. And in all the goodbyes, I only caught her sideways, where she fancied me well enough to tell me what I’d become. Too remote, that kind of chaos, when I’d already given up. 5. Someone lost an elbow out the window of a bus, clipped by a six-ton truck. How does the body reset itself when the time for downy regeneration has long since sunk into relentless decay? It doesn’t, of course, but I think the lesson is to keep trying, and to keep your limbs to yourself. Days later, a man with nine fingers charmed me over a fence to listen to the loons exulting a lake in the winter range because there is no winter here. I shot a self portrait and it caught my white belly and behind it the red light of leaving. Now we must also leave me, tramping in a modern radiation, blooming home. 6. I took anyone who’d come with me to pose at the orange-lit rows of dire wolf heads, maybe hundreds of them gone skeletal as even the ruthless will. The flash never got it, turned the background yellow as if in a bright kitchen a pack sat down to a meal and stayed on for centuries. We’ve all had that happen. The redundancy of death left me rapt against the scratch of the back wall. I thought a lot about tar not realizing the pits I stuck in were a mire of effervescent obsession. I wrongly predicted what feasted on me would be less easily pleased, less patient as I sank. 7. Should I have been terrified when flat surfaces became uphill, reddening my cheeks? They called it infection but I knew it was allergy, a reaction to all the gravel and under- brush and moss. I was desperate for pavement, something solid to crack me open, something porous to absorb the stain. I would have been any person who would house me. In one image I’m in brown hiking boots, fumbling with matches in the thicket. Afterwards, I bought shoes nothing could accommodate, patent lime green with extra-large buckles and a trick to the heel. These I photographed from above, with the toes pointed westward, because I thought I would never escape.

Lynn Melnick, Seven Scenes from the Wreckage

#Seven Scenes from the Wreckage #lynn melnick #poem #poetry #book

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littlemisskookie · 6 years ago

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coraline au sneak peak/intro so far

For some reason you expected it to be more colorful.

Typically when someone thinks back to their childhood home and summer memories, they think back the lush green of the trees and the wide expanses of grass and yard. Perhaps blue skies and scraped knees, with a golden sun overhead to burn skin and give tans. Maybe the flush of cool water against one's skin, and friends whose little arms would wrap around you in a tight hug.

Well, that's what you supposed most would think of, anyway. You really couldn't say, truth be told because you had no recollection.

As in, no recollection whatsoever.

An incident had apparently happened when you were eleven years old, at this very place. It was your childhood home, but you were spared most of the details. After the incident, your grandparents who you lived with decided a change of scenery would benefit you, and you were unable to recall the memories you had before middle school.

You'd remember small things, but none of it really seemed real. It was more like a dream, some of it bizarre and outlandish. A small door and a winding tunnel, as well as neon bugs and mischevious mice. Some nights, until about a year after the incident, you'd wake up screaming about your eyes.

Neither you nor your grandparents could decipher what it really meant.

There was one thing you were positive was real though. Two boys. One you weren't able to really make out, but the other had a face as clear as day. A bright smile and long eyes, with big cheeks that looked ready to pinch.

You wondered if you'd see that boy again.

Your grandparents had decided to move back to the home after all of these years. You were being transferred to another school, and you'd be away for a while. The two felt nostalgic about the place since it was originally where they had raised your mother before she died, and wished to return. You insisted upon helping them settle in during the summer before you go away yourself, admittedly curious about it. They were worried- about bad memories returning after all these years or other things, you weren't quite sure. Nevertheless, you had pestered them into letting you stay with them for one last summer before leaving.

The town was a lot more grey than you would've guessed. A bleak sky with a dreary yet humid atmosphere, lightly sprinkling enough for your skin to feel dewy, but not enough for the need to go inside. The ground was muddy as you stepped out of the car, taking a long look at the house you had grown up in.

It was a large suburban home that was divided into four apartments, all of the neighbors staying there even after your departure, apparently. The landowner immediately let your family move in, perhaps for nostalgia's sake or for the need of money.

Sweeping a hand through your blue-dyed hair and tugging your yellow raincoat closer, you marched up to the house, noticing how run down and old it was. The paint was faded and chipped, and each step you took creaked.

"Y/N! Don't run off too far!" your grandmother called, paranoid as always.

You ignored her, giddy as you clutched on tightly to the key in hand, jamming it into the front door and entering the premises.

Nothing.

You felt deflated.

It was standard, some old furniture still there, and dusty as hell. You didn't know what you expected. Why did you get your hopes up?

The whole reason you had brought yourself here was to try to recover your memories.

You had all summer for that, though. Surely something would come up to bring back the rush of memories.

You ventured through, noting leaks and mouse traps that had yet to go off. Walking up the stairs, you continued to look for something of interest, only to stumble across your old room. The landowner was right- it really hadn't been touched since your family moved away.

The room was set up for a young girl, with faded pink walls and a bedspread of butterflies. You stared around, racking your brain for any sense of familiarity, only to find none. It felt as though you were in a stranger's room, but you knew it was yours. Your grandma had some pictures of you in your room back when you had stolen one of her polaroids, and you were sure if you'd look at them in comparison, the room would be a match.

You squinted your eyes, however, seeing something that seemed out of place. A tiny door, no taller than your knee. You kneeled down, finger tracing along the outline of it, ripped wallpaper being hastily taped up with duct tape that was already beginning to fall off.

This... This seemed familiar.

Your heart palpitates, realizing it looked awfully like the door in one of your many dreams.

It couldn't be real.

Ripping off the tape, you try to pry the door open, only to find it locked. You grit your teeth, looking around the room for a key. You looked beneath the bed, behind the dressers, everyone until you finally found it beneath some cobwebs. Blowing the dust off, you jam it into the lock, twisting the key to pry the door open only to find... brick.

Disappointed, you return to the car, your grandfather calling for you. A tall, strange figure stood before both of them, a mop of dark hair on top. You furrow your brows, looking at the man in question.

His skin was golden, making him glow and illuminate the grey clouds in the background. He was stunningly handsome, and you felt your breath hitch as you stared at him, finding your mouth dry.

"Y/N, this is your childhood best friend, Kim Taehyung. He's the son of the landowner, and he's graciously offered to help us move in!" Your grandmother beamed at the man, reaching up to pinch his cheek. "My, how you've grown! I remember back when you were no bigger than my knee, you were such a cute kid. Now you're a handsome young man! You know, Y/N's single right now, and with the history between the two of you-"

"That's enough, Grandma, I'm sure he's got another girl," you hastily interrupt, feeling your cheeks flush. You hold your hand out, smiling at Taehyung, internally praying that your hands weren't sweaty. "I'm Y/N, it's nice to meet you."

He glared down at your hand before giving you a confused look. "Why're you introducing yourself? We've known each other since diapers."

You feel your face go beet red, and you fume with anger immediately. That was just plain rude. "There's no need to be obnoxious."

"Y/N!" your grandmother snapped.

"I'm sorry I don't remember you, but it's probably for the best, seeing how rude you're being," you continued, crossing your arms as you looked up at the man. You were best friends with this brat? You would've figured it'd be the boy with the chubby cheeks and long eyes, not this absolute jerk.

Taehyung raised a brow in a way that sent shivers down your spine. "Is that so?"

"It is," you say, wanting to spit out the words. "I can't imagine myself being friends with such a pompous ass."

"Y/N, that's enough. We raised you better than this. Why don't you get started on moving the stuff inside? We'll have to apologize to Taehyung on your behalf."

You rolled your eyes, huffing as you began moving the boxes inside. It's about only five minutes later that Taehyung joins you, boxes in his arms as well. He's about to stumble when you catch some of them, quick on your feet as you prevent them from toppling to the ground.

"Careful! That could be our good china!"

Taehyung set down the box carefully, both of you trying to calm down after the brief scare.

You're both silent for a moment, but you break the silence ultimately. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have burst out like that. I was being rude."

He grunted in response, and you do your best not to get pissed off at him once more. There was no need for you to act so immaturely and childish, after all. Finally, he speaks up. "So you really don't remember anything, huh?"

You pause at that. "So they told you, huh?"

"Yeah. If I had known I wouldn't have been like that," Taehyung admits.

You let out a breath. "It's alright. There was no way for you to know. And no, I don't remember anything. It's one of the reasons I came back for the summer. Apparently, there was some incident that just completely wiped away my memories and... Well, I've been gone ever since."

"So you don't remember me."

"No. You probably know my childhood better than I do, if we were really friends though. It's hard to imagine, though. You're no more than a stranger to me right now, I mean look at us." You gesture at the contrast between his dark coat and your own bright yellow one.

"Show your left ankle and I'll tell you one story," he offers.

Your eyes light up at that, and you don't hesitate, kicking off a rainboot and rolling up your already cuffed jeans, showing the small, crummy butterfly.

Taehyung traces it softly, making sure not to make you uncomfortable as he does so. His mouth quirks up a bit, and you can't help the unexpectedly warm feeling in your chest. "When we were eight we all snuck into Mrs. Miller and Wilson's apartment. They had this old tattoo pen and such. Jimin advised against it, but you were obsessed with butterflies at the time and wanted me to draw one on you. By the time the adults found out, it had been done. You were the only eight-year-old at our school who had a tattoo, needless to say."

You laugh at the story. "Oh God, I could totally picture myself doing that. Makes sense why it's so poorly drawn, though."

"Hey, I was eight and had never even held a tattoo pen before, give me a break," he scoffed in response, though laughing as well.

"Wait, but who's Jimin?" you ask curiously.

Taehyung's laughter stops immediately, and his face returns to the previously dark look. He gets up to walk away, and you're quick to hobble on one foot, grabbing onto his sleeve. "Wait, why're you leaving? Did I offend you?"

His face is steely as he looks at you, removing your hand from his sleeve. "You're not my Y/N, and you never will be. My Y/N wouldn't have left no matter what happened."

Your eyes widen at that. "Excuse me? I can't help the fact I had amnesia!"

"I don't give a damn about your amnesia. You said it yourself that we're strangers, and we're going to stay that way. The less you know the better," Taehyung spits.

You narrow your brows, glaring at him. "What the fuck, Taehyung? What are you even talking about."

"I repeat: the less you know the better."

"What, do you know what happened?" The wheels in your brain begin to spin as you frantically try to prevent him from leaving. "Do you know the incident? What happened to me? Why I forgot everything?"

"I don't know anything," he says hastily.

"Liar!" Your eyes immediately catch the small quirk of his lip, a twitch of his sneer. "I can tell you're lying. I don't know how, but I do. That small quirk of your lip..."

He stops in his tracks, reaching up to his mouth, his face turning red with embarrassment. You know your assumption was correct, and you can't help but grin victoriously. "It doesn't mean anything," he excuses.

Your face softens, and you reach for his hand, glad that he doesn't flinch at your touch. "Taehyung- I need to know. It's why I came here. I feel like there's this big part of me that's been missing all this time. You might not know everything, but clearly you know something. It's clear you and I were best friends- why can't we be that again?"

He's frozen in your touch as you stare him in the eyes, searching for something. With your hand in his, though, you do feel some sense of familiarity. You haven't felt this in a long time.

He retracts from your touch as though burned, snapping out of his daze as he turns away from you. "Grow up, Y/N. I would've figured you would after all this time- but you're still childish as always."

"I thought you said I wasn't your Y/N," you say.

"You're not. You never will be," he hisses, avoiding your stare as you attempt once again to make him look at you. It's as though it physically pains him to look at you. "We'll keep it that way."

"We're going to be neighbors now, Taehyung. You can't ignore me forever," you say stubbornly. "And if there's one thing I'm sure I've kept with me even from childhood, it's my ability to be a pain in the ass. We've got three months together, and I'm not leaving without finding out what happened to me. You can either choose to help me or be annoyed for months on end until I figure it out on my own."

"Go to hell, Y/N. I told you that the less you know the better. After all, curiosity killed the cat."

You grin, finally succeeding in locking eyes with him again. "But satisfaction brought it back."

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darkhymns-fic · 7 years ago

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The Official Flowey Fan Club!

Flowey had gone through so many timelines, so many runs, that any thrill they once had were starting to wane. Still, there was one certain route Flowey had avoided to take for so long.

Welcome to the Flowey Fan Club.

Fandom: Undertale Characters: Flowey, Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys Rating: PG Mirror Links: AO3 Notes: Happy Holidays to @cutecatdoodles! I was your Secret Santa for @undertalesecretsanta. I latched onto your ‘Flowey during one of his resets prompt’ and went a little nuts with it. Flowey is always a fun character to write for and the idea for this story just took over (at 7000 words..) I hope you like it!

He could do this again, if needed.

That’s how it always is though, isn’t it?

When Flowey passed traveled through the dim marshlands of Waterfall, he let his roots drag behind him. The dust that coated his petals became chalky withdue to the constant mist around him. It felt disgusting, nothing that an easy dunk in the nearby puddles couldn’t fix. But he stayed away, walking as best as a flower ever could. The view around the place was scenic; the soft pattering of the recycled rain, the glow of the echo flowers that stared out at him, their faceless heads mocking him with their whispers, and the glittering stars above – fake and worthless as they were.

Just like those stars, everything around him was a mockery. Right now it was nighttime, but the darkness was always present here. The waterfalls were not real phenomena of nature either, just the stream always being redirected back through the stones. There was no dark sky overhead, just miles of rock that none had hope of ever breaking through.

Flowey finally made it past the marshes to reach a stone path, but all was empty. Not even a stray Temmie vibrating by.

This run was already getting boring.

“I’ve already done everything else,” Flowey muttered to himself. Long, curling gnarled roots and vines bunched up behind him like a waiting beast, their nature as twisted as he was himself. The length of them was staggering, already taller than his small frame. No other monster could hope to match such genuine monstrosity. “How many ways do I need to kill them again before I get something different?!”

When making friends had lost its appeal, Flowey began to deal in death instead. But the reactions were already getting stale; the brief terror of that Snowdrake, the bunny woman’s empty shop, and the stare of a hooded figure in the distance.

Nothing Flowey had done ever prompted that figure to fight him. Not until the very end.

“I need a new strategy.” He thought about a certain something, a turn of events that he had been avoiding for so long before. “Ugh, but that…”

What a stupid idea. Only an idiot would ever think of that! And granted, the idea had been thought up by one such idiot, but that same idiot had at least given Flowey the most entertainment he could wring out of this bore of a world.

And out of so many endless runs, what harm could there be in trying it out? After all, he could always just RESET.

Not like that figure in the distance was going to do anything.

“Fine.” Flowey’s roots and vines then submerged into the ground, like a beast burrowing frantically into its den. Soil and stone flew into the air due to the force, the crunching sound deeply disturbing to literally anyone else. To Flowey, this was normal.

He had heard the silence, with its aftertaste of fear. He had heard the repetitive echoes of his own voice, bounding back to him from the meadows of blue flowers. He had heard the clattering of bones as they fell against polished tiles.

There are far worse things to hear.

He closed his eyes.

CONTINUE. RESET.

There were more monsters to kill. Undyne would be near the edge of Hotland if he continued ahead. But this timeline had nothing else going for him anymore.

Flowey smiled then, his face morphing into something that should not be seen. And luckily, no one would. They were either dead, or fled deeper into the Underground. But none of that mattered. He would make this next run count.

“This time, I’ll humor the idiot!”

RESET.

“ya ready?”

Flowey sighed, his petals already damp from the drizzling snow. But he kept on his smile, friendly and happy and oh so excited! “Of course! I’m ready for anything!”

“ok.” Sans placed his hand on the front door. Flowey ignored the lazy tread of the skeleton, as well as he ignored the full mailbox behind them both, which looked ready to topple over from its weight of envelopes. “just uh, don’t tell papyrus about me spoiling the surprise. guy’s been looking forward to it all week.”

Flowey slid a leaf over his mouth, mimicking a zippered-up motion. “My lips are sealed! Well, if I had any!”

“heh, nice.”

Once Sans turned back to the door, Flowey let slip the tiniest of frowns.

Just get this over with.

When he first heard of the idea, he had avoided this turn of events at all costs. But after doing the rest, what else did he have? So he chose this route, and would stick with it to the end. He took another deep breath, mentally preparing himself for what would come.

Sans opened the door to their home, and immediately, came a screaming voice.

“HELLO!” Papyrus waved erratically. Streamers and numerous other party favors fell out of his arms, the skeleton having promptly dropped them all to greet his brother and flowery friend. “WELCOME TO THE FLOWEY FAN CLUB!”

Flowey did all he could to not outright cringe at the sight.

Papyrus had gone completely overboard in the celebrations. The wallpaper was no longer a single color, but flower-patterned. Streamers covered the stairway railings, and the floor, and the television set, and also the couch. And there were party balloons everywhere. It was a fine array of gold and green that looked to have been vomited all over the skeleton’s living room just then. Flowey looked up to find what seemed to be a Flowey head piñata, face in a wide smile, so happy to be knocked around at any moment. There were also party snacks on the table by the couch – which mainly consisted of both burnt and frozen spaghetti, arranged in bowls, tin trays, small cups, and sometimes just wrapped up in napkins like some kind of fancy hors d’oeuvres. He was already getting nauseous.

Still, what caught Flowey’s attention the most was the mind-numbingly bright yellow banners that were stretched across the ceiling, each one in Papyrus’ unique handwriting. All were written in various ways of saying the same message, such as THE FLOWEY FAN CLUB! and FOR ALL FLOWEY FANS! as well as COME JOIN THE FLOWEY CRAZE (BUT ONLY IF YOU WANT TO!!) and there was also don’t have a stigma against us which was radically different- oh wait.

“SANS!” Papyrus placed bony hands on his bony hips, glaring down at the smaller skeleton that was now suddenly laying down on the couch. “YOU’VE RUINED MY SPECIAL DECORATIONS WITH YOUR VANDALISM.”

“just showing my own fanaticism for the weed, bro.”

Flowey decided not to take offense to that. Still standing before the door, where his roots could comfortably reach into the soil, he smiled at the tall skeleton. “This is amazing, Papyrus! You didn’t have to go through all this trouble for little old me!”

Papyrus’ eyes were shining from the praise. With quick reflexes, he brought out a flowerpot which also sported a logo of Flowey’s winking, smiling face, and brought it near Flowey so that he could enter their home. “NOTHING IS TOO MUCH TROUBLE FOR THE GREAT PAPYRUS! NYEH HEH HEH! AS WELL AS HIS BEST FRIEND, FLOWERY!”

“It’s Flowey,” Flowey corrected, hopping from Snowdin’s soil to the packed one in the flowerpot. “I mean, you got it correct on your banners, but, um, never mind! I’m really happy that you thought so much of me!”

Papyrus kept soaking in the praise. He was ridiculously easy to please, one thing that Flowey liked about him. It took very little effort from him to get positive reactions from the monster, and so many of them, too.

“AS MY BEST FRIEND, I HAD TO DO SOMETHING! A FAN CLUB TO TELL YOU HOW TRULY SPECIAL YOU ARE, AND ALSO MY CURRENT OBSESSION. BESIDES, YOU’VE NOT ONLY HELPED ME, BUT SO MANY OTHER MONSTERS IN THE UNDERGROUND, WHO I AM SURE ARE JUST AS OBSESSED WITH YOU, TOO.”

Sans agreed with a thumbs-up while he laid on the couch, eye sockets closed.

“Aw, shucks!” Flowey made sure to act all humble, face turned away in well-acted embarrassment. Too easy, really. (And the decorations were, in fact, plenty embarrassing). “Nothing’s more important than helping out your friends! It’s almost a shame they didn’t make it to this wonderful…” A party balloon had popped, its now deflated form falling on top of Flowey’s head. He continued to smile. “…Party.”

Now, the thing about Papyrus was that he was absolutely terrible at hiding his excitement. It’s why Flowey could already tell that the skeleton was setting up some surprise for him in the first place – only later confirmed when Sans told him straight away about it when asked.

Papyrus right now was acting just like that. His bones were rattling, and he hopped up and down his feet, his red scarf bouncing with the movement. His eye sockets continued to shine, emitting sparkles that floated over his skull.

“bro, you’re going to spill the beans.”

“NO BEANS HAVE BEEN SPILT, BROTHER.” Papyrus, however, continued to hop, and then even that was not enough. “OH, I CANNOT WAIT. I’VE BROUGHT ALL THOSE YOU HAVE HELPED OVER HERE AS WELL!”

Flowey had to take a second to parse the meaning of such words. “You did?”

“YES. ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS!”

Right on cue, the house seemed to explode with noise. “Surprise!!”

One of the doors from upstairs slammed open. Undyne had kicked it forcefully, pulling the door off its hinges, though Papyrus seemed to pay little mind. In her arms, she carried a blushing Alphys, who was looking every which way in fear. “NGAAH! Welcome to the Flowey Fan Club, nerd!”

The door next to Undyne’s entrance also slammed open. This was accompanied by frantic barking and howling. The entire Royal Guard was there, all of them scurrying around the upstairs area with boundless energy. Everyone except for Doggo, who turned his head at every telltale movement around him. “Hey! Too much moving!”

With less violence, some more monsters walked out of the kitchen area. Many of these, Flowey could indeed recognize. The failing comedian named Snowdrake and his sunglasses-wearing cousin, the tall orange monster with the clownish face and his scarf-wearing mousey friend, the bear and horse monster who were already going at it with political blabbering, the firey Heats Flamesman (and yes, he very much remembered that name. Hard to not after so many resets), and even a few from the hotel’s comedy club. Not that he ever liked going there in the first place, but he always made sure to make a pit stop during the more peaceful runs.

Then he felt a scuttering on his leaf. He looked down to find a tiny spider crawling on him, wearing an equally tiny party hat. Flowey shrieked and flung it away.

“Ahuhu! I apologize for my dearies. They’re just so excited to be part of this wonderful club.” Muffet descended down on an invisible thread from the ceiling, her many hands carrying her tea and pastries. Flowey looked to the floor where more of the spiders were dashing around. Ugh, he never liked these things…

“Wow! Howdy, everyone! And thanks again, Papyrus!” He said, a little overwhelmed. Okay, so he hadn’t really expected such a turnout. It had seemed like a lame thing that the equally as lame boneheads would make up. And besides, it’s not like Papyrus usually had any other friends to invite over, too. “I can’t believe so many came-“

The left wall suddenly crashed, followed by a square robot that went through the tear in the home that he had just made.

“OHHHHH YEEESSSSS! The fabulous and most talented Mettaton, here to spice up the Flowey Fan Club with his presence! All for you, darling!”

Flowey stared at the robot for a few seconds, blinking in deep confusion while the rest of the monster crowd cheered at the arrival of their most famous (and only) celebrity. He turned back to Papyrus.

“I can’t believe so many came by! And… for me!”

“NYEH HEH HEH! ALL BECAUSE OF THE GREAT PAPYRUS. ONCE I TOLD THEM THAT THIS CLUB WAS FOR YOU, EVERYONE SAID THEY WOULD JOIN! WOWIE! I CAN’T WAIT FOR WHEN YOU ALL COME TO MY COSTUME PARTY NEXT WEEK!”

There were several mutters around the room here and there, which were all vague assertions at politely declining the invitation.

“AND WE JUST WANT TO REPAY YOU FOR ALL THE GOOD THAT YOU’VE DONE.”

“Yeah, punk!” Undyne leaped off the second floor to land heroically to ground. Alphys opted to take the stairs instead. “I thought you were just a wimpy weed, but you’re a plant that packs a punch… of friendship!” She grinned her slightly scary grin. It always made Flowey itch with a little worry. “Seeing you help out that kid really proved to me that you care about everyone, even for a weird freak of nature!”

“Yo! You’re really great!” Flowey swiveled his head to see said monster kid, as armless and clumsy as always. Kid nearly faceplanted into a swarm of those disgusting spiders. “That speech about how you know what it’s like to be me, but without both arms and your legs! It really inspired me! I can definitely still be a cool hero for all monsters!”

Yeah, Flowey had figured some worthless words like that would help the dumb kid. He had figured out the trick on his fourth run through the Underground. It had the benefit of pleasing both Undyne and this brat.

“M-me, too!” Alphys finally made it down, panting from that legwork down the stairs. “Admittedly, I-I was a bit worried… about…” She shook her head. “B-but never mind! Knowing you also agree about Mew Mew Kissy Cutie and that garbage of a sequel helped me feel less alone about my opinions!”

Also simple to figure out. The fact that the scientist was willing to ignore his possible origins for the sake of her stupid anime was laughable. Third run.

Undyne then wrapped an arm around Alphys, grinning like mad. “And setting us up, ha! That was the best date ever!!! I knew I could count on you to give Alphys my letter!”

“Y-yeah! That, too!”

Another easy, if somewhat drawn out task. He would never get rid of the memory of those roleplay sessions with Alphys out of his head. Sixth run.

“And thank you for playing with us!” spoke Dogamy from above.

“(And for petting us and giving us treats!)” spoke Dogarresa.

“Bark bark! Woof!” spoke both Greater and Lesser Dog.

“What? Where is everyone?” spoke Doggo.

Yeah, the dogs were way too easy to figure out their quirks. First run.

“Also thank you for helping us repair that orphanage!” One random monster shouted from the kitchen crowd. Who was that again? “It was so selfless and kind of you!”

Well, yeah. He had already burned down that orphanage more times than he could count. Eighth run.

“Ahuhuhu! And your business smarts got me to rake in all the dough in Hotland. I should just hire you as a salesman already.”

All Flowey had to do was threaten one monster to go into Muffet’s parlor and never leave, so that he was forced to buy and buy all the spider donuts he could never hope to finish in entirety. Also third run.

“Thank you for finding my child in time before someone used him in their skipping stone game! Truly a hero!”

Twelfth run.

“And for helping my Bun-Bun out of a tree. I would have never got him out myself.”

Ninth run.

“The political forum you devised for us so that we can have calm and concise debate instead of berating one another for our perceptions really helped us pave the way to truly figuring out the political future of the Underground.”

Ugh, the bear talked too much. And Flowey had just been winging that one. Eighteenth run.

“and also…thank you for helping me make more music… now I have an album coming out that people keep telling me they’re excited about…” The shy ghost nearly faded into the flower-patterned walls. “oh no… i’m getting emotional again…”

Not like it was hard. Second run.

“And like, thanks for getting us tickets to Mettaton’s concert. It was such a blast, right, Bratty?”

“Well, duh, Catty! Also the V.I.P passes you scored for us were super cool! You the best, babe!”

Fourteenth run.

“…Thanks for helping me get the burgers out of my pants that time. And the second time.”

What a loser. Thirteenth run.

“Sweet darling! Your innovative ideas for my cooking show has helped shoot up my ratings! The competition against terrible contestants and their terrible ideas gets the viewers’ attention while also making me look even more fabulous in comparison.”

Sure, whatever. Tenth run.

He then saw Grillby walk forward, just a few inches from the crowd. He stood there silently, only giving a nod of approval.

…Okay, this guy, Flowey admitted, had been a challenge. Twenty-sixth run.

“yo and thanks for finding one of my socks.”

“That took way too long!” Flowey snapped out suddenly. Sans made no reaction, though he saw Alphys flinch with worry. “But, um, you’re welcome there, buddy! Who knew it was just right on your bed the entire time! Where you were sleeping on…all while I was looking for it. For three weeks straight.” Flowey twitched. “I’m glad to have helped you.”

That run had been embarrassing and for something so stupid. He didn’t want to remember that run number.

“OH, ALSO! ALSO!” Papyrus jumped up and down, still holding onto the flowerpot. Flowey had to ward off the coming motion sickness. “WE DID SOMETHING ELSE, TOO!”

“Oh?”

Undyne was wearing that scary grin of hers again. “We also… all got fan club t-shirts, heck yeah!”

With that, nearly everyone ripped off their outer clothing (or… whatever else if they weren’t wearing anything) to showcase what they wore underneath. They were indeed fan club t-shirts; complete with a winking, smiling Flowey head, giving the V for victory sign with one of his leaves. The words FLOWEY FAN CLUB were printed on the shirt with some kind of obnoxious font.

Papyrus was in such a hurry to show off his own shirt that he nearly upended Flowey’s pot to take off his battle body costume. But he succeeded, showing his Flowey Fan Club ensemble – but with one minor difference.

“AS THE LEADER OF THE FAN CLUB, I GOT MY OWN SIGNATURE LAPEL!” He pointed to said lapel; again with the Flowey head, perched on his shirt like a treasured badge. It had been made rather well.

Again, there was so much going on at once. But Flowey took a breath and said some practiced words.

“Oh, gosh, you guys!” He pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. “To think all of you care for me this much, to do all this! I couldn’t have asked for better friends!” He then faced Papyrus, the most idiotic of them all. “And thank you, Papyrus. I have to say, you starting this fan club for me is the kindest thing you have ever done for me! And I will never forget it!”

Cue the applause and the cheering. People loved cheesy stuff like that, and at least some of Alphys’ slice-of-life animes helped him form the core of his own lame-as-hell friendship speech.

Papyrus grinned, and then said, “ACTUALLY IT WAS ALL SANS’ IDEA!”

Flowey froze. “What.”

“I KNOW! I WAS SURPRISED, TOO! BUT SANS CAN TRULY COME UP WITH SUCH INNOVATIVE PLANS WHEN HE PUTS HIS MIND TO IT! HE DIDN’T ACTUALLY DO ANY OF THE WORK WITH THE ARRANGEMENTS, INVITATIONS OR ANYTHING, BUT HE DID GIVE ME THE INSPIRATION TO DO ALL THAT!”

“heh, yeah, after all,” sans said, pulling open his jacket to reveal the Flowey-printed t-shirt that everyone else sported, complete with the FLOWEY FAN CLUB lettering. “i’m a huge flowey fan.”

At that, Flowey had nothing to say. Sans’ face still had that same stupid grin. The shirt was already stained with ketchup and other foodstuff, but Flowey couldn’t even think up insults to himself.

Luckily, no one seemed to notice his speechlessness. Everyone was already moving on, setting up the games, the music, the food, and all sorts of entertainment. Grillby was using the kitchen to set up as his own bar, while Napstablook, Mettaton, and the timid Shyren were quickly arranging a stage to do a little music show for the teeming masses crowded in the skeletons’ home. Undyne was making due with the games part, going to the dining room table and challenging anyone to beat her at arm-wrestling.

Flowey barely noticed any of that. Sans had long gone back to sleep on the couch, yet the uneasiness remained.

The flower tried to ignore that. He looked around, noting so much motion and color, all of it accompanied by the loud commentary of Papyrus. Everyone was here for him. They, and Papyrus, and apparently even Sans, went to all this trouble to make him feel accepted.

…But he didn’t feel anything.

Anything at all.

All their praises for him felt like nothing.

As he thought on this, Papyrus continued to haul him around in his flowerpot, bringing him to each and every monster, just so they could tell him again about the great deeds he did.

“FLOWERY. YOU ARE INDEED A WONDERFUL PERSON.”

Flowey stared.

He thought back to the last run, where he had broken off each and every rib of Papyrus’ one by one, until he finally disintegrated into dust.

He thought back to Undyne, done in by her own determination, denying her own death as he strangled her.

He thought back to Alphys, cowering in a corner of her lab, crying as the amalgamates deteriorated to puddles of goop and dust, and then screaming as he lumbered towards her with laughter.

He thought back to chasing that monster kid down in Waterfall, before finally making him fall off the bridge onto the sharp rocks below.

He thought back to Grillby, killing all of his patrons before his eyes, before taking a glass of water and throwing it at the bartender’s face, literally snuffing him out.

He thought back to the dogs, hearing them whimper as he took out each of the Royal Guard in the snows.

He thought about all of that.

And still, he felt nothing.

But that’s how it always is though, isn’t it?

“Darlings and gentledarlings! Do I hear an encore? For the eighth time this night!?”

Cheers erupted from every part of the home, even from the webs where all the spiders had quickly woven, their tiny bodies already dancing to the beat. Napstablook played the record, Shyren hummed a tune, and Mettaton glided about the hastily crafted stage, which took the spot of the television set, to everyone’s awe. Everyone’s except Flowey’s.

This fan club had long overstayed its welcome.

The problem with being in the house was that Flowey couldn’t just retreat back into the ground like when he was outside. The pot he was residing in severely limited him. That and Papyrus had not once set him down, where he could have at least maybe hopped over to a window. But no. The skeleton insisted on carrying him around, bringing him to each monster repeatedly, including his brother who still had not left his spot from the couch.

“ARE YOU ENJOYING THE FESTIVITIES?” Papyrus asked his friend.

Flowey once again smiled wide. “Oh, Papyrus, it’s amazing! I’ve never seen so many monsters in one spot!” The noise was killing him. Nothing sounded so nice as the suffocating, dark silence that was the ground beneath him.

“I HOPE YOU ALSO ENJOY THE PRIZES WE’VE ARRANGED FOR LUCKY CLUB MEMBERS TO WIN FOR. IN A DARING GAME OF FLOWERY FAN CLUB PUZZLES. I MADE THEM MYSELF!”

That piqued his curiosity, if not his long-gone happiness. “Prizes? That sounds so exciting! Like a free stay at the hotel?” Where the service sucks, the food was abysmal, and their comedy club’s jokes were so last year.

“it’s the merch.” Sans decided to intervene, body still sprawled and looking close to dead. (Well. Not surprising). “thinking about hosting up a flowey convention at some point to sell off the rest. gonna need you as a guest panelist. you know, for marketing.”

“YES. AS A FAN CLUB, WE HAVE TO SELL OUR FLOWERY MERCHANDISE TO ALL OF THE UNDERGROUND!”

“It’s Flow- wait, what do you mean?”

At that, Sans decided to finally rise from his slumber, already standing next to Papyrus suddenly. “gotta make some profit to at least break even from all the stuff we did today. good (heh) food, bad laughs, and nice friends don’t come cheap.”

Again, Flowey felt a little slow in catching up. “Profit?”

Sans nodded. “gotta give the people what they want. and that includes some good ol’ third quality merch. some mugs, some more t-shirts, some socks (those are my favorite), some plushies, some posters, and, oh yeah, some pillows, too. those are going to be our best-selling.” He winked. “guaranteed.”

Pillows didn’t sound that bad, but then he remembered he was talking to Sans. “What kind of pillows?”

“OH! OH! LET ME SHOW HIM, SANS. PLEASE?”

Sans made a shrugging motion. “sure.”

With that, Papyrus went to a conveniently nearby closet, still holding onto the flowerpot, and started to rummage through it. He took out what looked like a hefty and fluffy object in his free hand. “THESE BODY PILLOWS WERE DESIGNED BY DR. ALPHYS. NOW YOU TOO CAN RIDE MY RACECAR BED! IN MY DREAMS!”

And there was Flowey, printed on said body pillow, all smiling and posed, and proportions all whacked. He couldn’t exactly ignore it. It was pressed right against his face, making him see himself in too much detail. The colors were stupidly bright, the expression downright weird. Flowey felt very… he felt…

“No,” he said reflexively.

Papyrus looked a bit confused at the answer, so sudden, the tone so very low. “NO TO WHAT? I DO THINK DR. ALPHYS PUT A LITTLE TOO MANY CURVES ON YOU, BUT SHE DID INDEED TRY HER BEST!”

Flowey wanted to tell him that he didn’t care if that loser scientist did her best. After all, her best got all those abominations running around her lab. Her best denied those suffering even the peace of death. Her best got him to where he was today. Her best ruined everything he could have-

“Pin the tail on the Flowey!” Someone shouted, breaking Flowey from his thoughts. “Pin the tail on the Flowey! Woo!”

Movement was too much for him again. Papyrus seemed to forget about the current conversation, instead bringing Flowey to a gathering crowd that was by the left side of the wall, just a few feet away from the hole Mettaton had created earlier. Everyone ignored the snowy draft from outside, instead clapping and cheering when Flowey was seen again.

Papyrus, with his cherished flower friend, stood in the middle of the crowd. Someone shoved something in Flowey’s grip, something sharp, nearly pricking straight through the leaf.

“go on.” There was Sans, looking entirely much too pleased with everything. That grin filled Flowey’s vision. “pin the tail on the flowey.”

“Uh, what.” Flowey looked at said pin in his leafy hands. Sans gestured ahead at the wall. Flowey turned to see a poster of himself, winking and smiling and way, way too happy at shoving the lower part of his stem at the viewer. The hell?! The tell-tale array of sparkles and way too much lens flare gave him a hint as to who designed this poster, just like that travesty of a pillow. “I don’t have a tail. I don’t even have a butt!”

Sans not so surprisingly chuckled at the words. “heh, butt. don’t worry though. it’s all in good fun. now come on, the good folks are waiting.”

Flowey slowly turned to the crowd around him and Papyrus, all of them grinning and laughing. The pin felt so wrong in his hand. Were they… were they mocking him?

“Come on! Don’t be a wuss!” Undyne’s fists were clenched as she stood by the side, looking quite eager to rip away the pin from Flowey so she could do it herself.

“Darling! The show must go on!” Mettaton swerved around on the floor, keeping his microphone close to his speaker unit. The music (which sounded very much like one of those spook tunes) from his concert continued to play in the background. “And you can’t disappoint all of your adoring fans!”

“Yo! You gotta do it!” The monster kid really did faceplant this time in his excitement. Flowey hoped that it hurt.

“Like, that picture of you is soooo cute!” Catty pawed at it, specifically at the… behind. “I just wanna pinch its cheeks!”

“Wow, like, which one do you mean, Catty?” Bratty laughed, her fangs glinting from the party lights. Catty cackled along with her. Flowey winced. How he always hated how they laughed.

“P-pin the tail, Flowey. I, um, I t-tried to make the pose obvious as to where you should p-pin it!”

“Woof! Do it, hurry! (Crush that poster, woof!)”

“; ) Need to do a little flexing competition to warm up, Flowey? ; )”

“YES, PLEASE! PIN THE TAIL ON YOURSELF, FLOWERY!” Papyrus shouted from behind him. The decibel level on those non-existent vocal chords was too much. Flowey winced, but could find no reprieve from it. “IT IS PART OF THE PARTY TRADITION.”

“My name…” he whispered. “…Is Flowey.”

No one could hear him. They were all shouting like-

“DO YOU NEED ASSISTANCE? I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL GET YOU TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOAL.” Again, he shoved Flowey way too close at the stupidly drawn image of himself, which had way too big eyes. “YOU CAN DO IT. I BELIEVE IN YOU!”

He had enough of this.

“I don’t need your help, you idiot!”

Flowey threw the pin to the ground, but not before a gargantuan vine shot forth from the small soil of his flowerpot. The appendage extended forward towards that poster, wrecking it and the wall behind it to pieces.

The music stopped on a record-scratch. Everyone was silent.

And then that was followed by instant cheering.

“YEAH!! You showed that poster who’s boss!” Undyne was so pumped, she was ready to suplex her girlfriend right there, who was crying at the loss of her work of art.

“WOWIE! I DIDN’T KNOW MY WORDS OF FIERY INSPIRATION WOULD HELP SO MUCH! PERHAPS I SHOULD HOLD BACK JUST A BIT? STILL, I AM PROUD OF YOU!”

Flowey looked at everyone, at all of their smiling, laughing, and stupid, stupid faces. He looked everywhere, and suddenly noticed something was missing. That smiley trashbag was gone.

Good.

Flowey no longer held back. This run was over. That single vine was soon joined by many, all of them writhing out of the pot until the sheer amount of them, along with their strength, broke the frail pottery. Like giant serpents, those vines curled and wrapped around many monsters who were caught off guard. The rest either went screaming into the Mettaton-made hole, started running around in circles, or, like Undyne and the Royal Guard, were getting ready to fight, suddenly realizing that this happy, bundle-of-joy flower was a threat.

Flowey took one moment to look behind him. No longer was someone holding him, now fully supported from his own vines, which some he latched onto the ceiling and railings so that he could look down on the screaming crowd. He saw no sign of Papyrus – nothing but a pile of dust in the middle of the floor. In his outrage, his vines must have struck the skeleton, killing him instantly.

Flowey’s smile became a nightmare.

“You idiots!” He laughed and laughed, uprooting the house’s foundations, and smacking away at fleeing spiders with precision. “Now we’ll play -my- game!”

He still felt nothing, even after it was all over.

RESET.

Before he would meet up with Sans, Flowey trudged through Snowdin, into the more solitary areas of the snowbanks. He found the obnoxious Snowdrake with little effort, the monster already searching desperately for an audience. It came up to Flowey with no thought as to the other’s privacy.

“Hey!” Flowey shouted. “Get out of the way! I’m in a hurry!”

Snowdrake just said, “H… hey… uh… putting that ‘petal’ to the metal then, huh?” He weakly laughed. The wind blew harshly.

Flowey felt the ground rumble beneath him. That comedian.

He was already deep in this run, but he had so little patience.

Flowey immediately noted that this fan club meeting/party/waste of space was already missing a few key attendees. Snowdrake and his family were out of the picture, along with the bunny monster and her leashed brother, the rocks from two doors over, and even most of the dogs. There was only Lesser Dog, looking left and right with high-pitched whines.

“UNDYNE WAS GOING TO COME,” Papyrus said, as if reading the flower’s mind. “BUT SHE HAD HEAD OF ROYAL GUARD DUTIES TO ATTEND TO. SOMETHING ABOUT MISSING THINGS???”

“think she means missing people.” Sans blinked slowly. “just a few of ‘em vanished within the past few days. pretty weird.”

“Oh gosh!” Flowey said with clear concern. “I hope they’re okay! Let’s all go look for them together then! After this party you all worked so hard to arrange, of course!”

“eh, i’m good.” Sans shrugged. “you go on ahead.”

Flowey was tempted to end the run then and there. But he went through with the whole fiasco. No Undyne also meant no Alphys, which meant no gross body pillow or poster. Just some bad food, stupid laughs, and idiotic friends. He even made sure to thank each and every one of them once the fan club’s party was winding down to a close.

“Thank you all so much!” he said, noting the cheer and gratitude in all of the monsters’ faces, especially Papyrus��. He then noticed that Sans was gone. Again.

Yet when he killed them all, he still felt nothing.

RESET.

“WE HAD PLANS TO SELL ALL SORTS OF FLOWERY PLUSHIES AND POSTERS AND OTHER COLLECTIBLE MEMORABILIA. BUT… DR. ALPHYS HAS NOT BEEN RETURNING MY CALLS.”

“weird,” Sans interjected. “did you text her, too?”

“OF COURSE I DID, BROTHER! I ALWAYS MAKE SURE TO DO BOTH, EVERY HOUR, ON THE HOUR. I TIME THAT SPECIFICALLY! YET STILL I GOT NO RESPONSE. UNDYNE SAID SHE WOULD TRY TO FIND HER THOUGH.”

Flowey said nothing, didn’t feel like saying anything. He had made sure to pay the so-called ‘doctor’ twice over for her fanmade Flowey creations. It was only fair.

Sans had left again before the party’s end. Flowey hadn’t noticed until the dust finally settled, Papyrus’ stupid smile still in his head.

RESET.

He didn’t always win though. He decided to let himself lose a few times – it was the only way that he could make sure that he did everything.

“I won’t let you hurt anyone here!” Undyne had shouted. Papyrus had tried his best to plead with both of his friends, but Undyne ignored him while Flowey just pushed him to the side. Flowey, at least, always had be on top of his game when facing her. He saw the opening to stab her in the gut, but instead waited for her spears to slice him to pieces. She couldn’t encase his soul – didn’t have one, after all – but her speed and strength was more than enough.

Smiley Trashbag was still nowhere to be found. But Papyrus was here.

Undyne ended him quickly. At least he could count on that stupid fish face for something.

RESET.

And other times, he would kill her. He would watch her melt into nothing, done in by her own determination.

Sans was still missing.

And Papyrus was usually dead before then.

RESET.

At the next gathering of the Flowey Fan Club, no music played. He only needed to get rid of one of the performers anyway to achieve that.

Still no posters.

Still no barking.

Still no Sans.

Just Papyrus and his dust.

RESET.

He didn’t feel like dealing with gross spiders later on. He’d rather endure more of Papyrus’ spaghetti than crawly-crawl donuts.

More importantly, his devoted fans were shrinking, he realized.

Good.

RESET.

He interrupted his usual strategies to do a little eavesdropping, early on in this timeline. He found Papyrus recalibrating his puzzles, while Sans laid on a snow poff.

“DO YOU THINK FLOWERY WOULD LIKE THE NEW PUZZLE I MADE? I MADE SURE TO COLOR-COORDINATE IT TO HIS PETALS.”

Flowey sighed. It’s Flow-

“thought it was flowey. also, bro, you’ve been talking non-stop about him for weeks. what are you, the head of his fan club?” He winked.

Flowey saw the gears in Papyrus’ skull work. “OH MY GOD, SANS! YOU ARE RIGHT! I SHOULD BE THE HEAD OF HIS FAN CLUB.”

“hey, cool.”

Flowey didn’t feel like dealing with this run anymore.

RESET.

“HELLO!” Papyrus waved erratically. One haphazard streamer and a plate of overheated spaghetti fell out of his arms to make a mess on the floor. There was just one banner, the writing a bit disjointed, its misspelling making The Librarby look like a masterpiece, simply saying FLOREY FUN CLAP.

Flowey had gone to the house by himself, his stem still immersed in the snows. Sans was nowhere to be found.

He knew that no one else would come to the fan club.

“WELCOME TO THE FLOWEY FAN CLUB! I HAVE NOT HAD TIME TO FINISH MY DECORATIONS! PEOPLE WHO WERE SUPPOSED TO HELP KEPT DISAPPEARING! AND UNDYNE, DR. ALPHYS, THAT ADORABLE MOUSE…” Papyrus paused. “I AM SURE THEY WILL COME WHEN THEY CAN. IN THE MEANTIME, WELCOME!”

It all looked so pathetic.

“Why did you let your brother put such a stupid idea in your head?”

It was one of the few times, he thought in amusement, that he could render the skeleton speechless. At least for a moment.

“OH!! DID SANS TELL YOU? HE’S USUALLY SO GOOD AT KEEPING SECRETS! HE NEVER TELLS ANYBODY ANYTHING. EVEN ME!” A pause. “HAVE YOU SEEN MY BROTHER?”

Vines unearthed from the ground, their surfaces draped in snow.

“Who cares about that smiley trashbag!?”

Each time, he hoped for something different whenever he killed Papyrus. And not just letting his skull live for a moment longer. He expected to feel something different.

Of course, nothing.

Flowey waited by the open door of the brothers’ home before Sans finally showed up. He walked slowly, as if ready to fall asleep right there. Eye sockets peered at the flower, at the wreckage of the home, done because of Flowey’s boredom. And, Flowey was sure, that gaze peered at the dust, already pulled in by the wind.

Sans turned around, and started walking away.

“No!” Flowey snaked out his stem, his makeshift teeth curled into fangs, his mouth agape with darkness. “You’re not leaving this time!”

“ok.” Sans stopped, hands in his coat pockets. He slightly angled his skull to peer up at the serpentine flower.

“You always leave, you always leave!” Flowey raged at the monster, vines encircling the bonehead, ready to pluck out his spine and all its ligaments in pain-staking patience. “What is wrong with you?! You keep leaving! You keep letting your brother die!”

Sans continued to smile that blank, tight smile.

“I’m not waiting until the end! I’m not gonna go through New Home just for you to finally do something! I’m here right now! And everyone’s already dead anyway! Do you enjoy this?! Are you some kind of sick freak!?”

Sans shifted a damp slipper through the snow. “huh.”

“You stupid smiley trashbag! Hurry up and-!”

A prison of bones encased him suddenly. One of the jagged things pierced his stem, where his neck would have been, had he been made of fur and tears instead of petals and hollowness.

He could barely see Sans through his blurring vision. “E n o u g h.”

A quick motion. Flowey was brought back to the ground. His being – if not his soul – shattered.

That was the last time he could ever RESET.

Flowey hated how familiar the human was – in actions and in clothing choices.

“So you’re here again,” he said with a scoff. “What’s wrong with you?”

Then, a memory. Flowey chuckled, looking back to that dumb, blank face. “Are you trying to start the Flowey Fan Club?”

With its good food, bad laughs, and nice friends. Ha. What a joke. He laughed that bad laugh, but it did nothing to lift up his mood.

“You’ll have to talk to Papyrus. Yeah, he started one.” Flowey had no muscles, just imitations of anything that was once alive. When he transformed his expressions, it was as easy as scribbling a crayon on construction paper. Very little work involved. Yet, he could feel it – something that pulled his face into worry. “A few different times, anyway. Took me a long time to get bored of that one.”

What were they doing here to begin with? Should he warn the human about Smiley Trashbag? Should he tell them that Papyrus would always, always believe in him, even as half his body disintegrated?

...Nah, that wasn’t fun.

He went back to full on smiling. “Talk to him about it.”

Flowey left.

#undertalesecretsanta #undertale secret santa #undertale secret santa 2017 #undertale #flowey #sans #papyrus #undyne #alphys #fanfiction #one shot

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sketchyelvenasss · 7 years ago

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A Bloody Valentine

Chapter 1: The Beginning of Everything - 2145

I stare at the box before me. The perfectly wrapped black paper mocking me. Its decadent pedestal taunting me. The blood red bow prodding my needs.

Beautifully wrapped up in that box is me. My essence. I can't see it, but I can feel it with every fiber of my body. I am before it, unable to move. Forced, with nothing to occupy me, to remember why I'm here, how I got here. Gazing at the object of my obsession, sitting with my hands bound behind me, trapped inside this incredibly small room. Everything around me is dark except for the box, having the only light source, a dim 60 watt yellow bulb, just above it .

Putting the thing that can bring back my life to its relative normalcy just out of reach. This is their form of torture. They want to break me, brainwash me, make me a tame slave. Because I’m of powerful blood many wealthy aristocrats are willing to pay for a pet like me.

I can’t remember how long I’ve been stuck here two, three weeks maybe. Since I've refused to drink from them I'm literally starving. They've had to force feed me pig's blood just to keep me alive, but only just. I'm too valuable for them to give up on, no matter how stubborn I choose to be. But I my instincts are betraying me and I don't know how long it will be before I give in.

What I do know is I need to break out and reclaim my heart, which will restore my powers, once I’ve done that I’ll go to where I've preserved my girlfriend's body so I can resurrect her. Then I'm going to find the asshole that runs this black market slave ring and murder him and anyone else involved for what they did to Zoe and me.

Exhausted from malnutrition. I let sleep overcome me whenever I can’t keep my eyes open. Even though the dreams I have of my childhood are hardly an escape from my harrowing circumstances.

It was my fifth birthday and I remember how excited I had been. That day is the day that I became the thing my mom had wanted me for since she gave birth to me. That day I became her vampire, her tool to be used. I was too young at the time to understand anything, but the lies she loved to feed me.

"Valentine!" my mother cawed from the living room of the large mansion where I used to live. "Mommy wants to see you. Come now or else you won't get your present."

I was in my room only half dressed, but at the sound of her call I found myself in my suit and tie, rushing through the hall and down the stairs to please her. My mom didn't have to ask anything twice. I had learned early that if I didn't do what she wanted, when she wanted, bad things happened. Fear is a grand motivator, and I didn't realize until later that that was what she held over my head like a executioner’s axe.

I arrived at the living room in what seemed to me a matter of seconds. I slid my small body through the crack between the large, elegant, wooden doors because if I let anymore light in from the morning sun it would anger her.

On the other side I'm was in our large ballroom sized living room. Fancy, expensive carpet covered the floor, the type of wallpaper only nobles found pretty was plastered to the walls accompanied by a white chair rail and crown molding. Thick ceiling to floor, embroidered curtains were draped over the windows blocking out all natural light, leaving the only light to come from the large, almost gaudy, crystal chandelier hanging in the middle of the room. Just below the chandelier was a luxurious red fluffy sofa, a low riding wood table placed right in front and a grand piano directly to the right.

Mother was seated on the sofa. When I saw her I didn’t see a beautiful lady with shining blue eyes and blonde hair so full and well groomed it would make Rapunzel jealous. I saw the person I wanted to accept me even if it left me soulless. The thought of her now, however, all I picture is a selfish witch that I wish I could have avoided since the day I was born.

Next to her was a man I didn't know. He was lean, had a standard formal cut of chocolate brown hair, and dull green eyes. From his vacant expression I could tell he was my present… or at least part of it.

I saw my uncle, who was standing by the piano. I had decided from a younger age to call him Uncle Z. He is a tall, handsome, strong jawed man. For my birthday he was wearing a tux with his close cropped blond hair slicked back. When I looked into his eyes I saw a kindness that mother lacked and I couldn't help but smile in anticipation for my presents.

I approached them and gave them a courteous bow. My mom offered up a smile which was more of an elevated flat line than a kind hearted curve of the mouth. She patted her knee for me to come sit. I obeyed. She began to play with the curled ends of my blond shaggy cut hair, pushing it left and right tickling my neck. I used to think of moments like that and smile, but after that day I couldn't say I loved my mother the same way I used to. Or at all.

“Luke?”

“Yes mommy?”

“Did you do everything you were supposed to do this morning?” Her voice was high, almost kind, but I knew that questions like that were loaded, so I was always polite and straight forward with my answers.

“Yes mommy. I bathed and brushed my teeth and I picked out my clothes all my own!” I said with pride.

“Are you ready for your present, Luke?” My mother asked pulling me closer.

My instincts told me to run, but I didn’t understand them too well back then and ignored it. I looked to the man beside mother, with his dead eyed gaze into nothing, and wondered what purpose he had. When I saw that Uncle Z had come to stand behind mother I relaxed a little bit. I nodded my response. But my comfort didn't last long.

My mom embraced me, with one arm she supported my back and firmly gripped my shoulder with her other hand. Fear washed over my body as I realized what she was doing to me. I had always known what she was, but I never would have considered that she’d hurt me.

My body went rigid when her fangs brushed the skin just above my collarbone. When they pierced it hurt less than I had anticipated. Later I learned, along with other things, that vampire saliva has a chemical with narcotic properties. She took a pause after she bit me and pulled away to look at my shocked face.

Seeing the lust in her eyes scared me, but I couldn't move. I was frozen in disbelief and fear, and if not that she held onto me too tightly. My blood pooled on my collar. I felt it stick to the ends of my hair and run down my shirt.

That is when my true life began. When mother leaned in again and reinserted her fangs, burrowing deeper than before, causing more dull pain, drinking her red treasure. I surrendered to it. After about a minute it strangely felt good, natural, like it would be okay if I died like this. But my mother is a glutton and that part was never supposed to happen.

"Andrea!" My uncle stepped up after another minute. His face was worried, and I saw how he loved me unlike my mother. "Stop. He's only five. If you keep going you're going to hurt him or worse kill him."

She pulled away, releasing her grip on me. I fell backward, limp from blood loss, but Uncle Z was able to catch me. He held me protectively and I indeed felt safer with him than "mother".

"Really, Andrea!"

"I'm sorry, brother, but I couldn't help it." She gave a toothy smile, my blood still lining her lips. "He tastes just like his father. Such a sweet man, I'm sad he didn't want to make it work."

That's when I learned I hated my mother, even though I was too weak and dependent to do anything about it, I knew the feeling was there. Uncle Z grimaced, but his expression lightened when he looked down at me.

"I can't really ask if you're alright, but does it still hurt?"

It didn’t. The slight pain had faded quickly once her fangs had left my flesh. I slowly shook my head. The adrenaline from my fear started to dissipate and I felt tears threatening to surface.

But then a sensation stronger than sadness, even than my fear, rose up in my throat. In an instant, without warning, my mouth had become a desert. My tongue was dry, my teeth ached, my jaw felt like elastic. Not knowing what to do with this desire, not knowing what it was, I looked up at my uncle.

I tried to speak, but the shock of my mother's bite and the dryness of my mouth left me mute. However Uncle Z knew exactly what was going on. He sat me down between my mother and the man.

"This," he motioned to the man. "is Richard. He is my gift to you. He will provide anything you need and protect you with his life."

Richard didn't look at me. He didn't move, his face remained stone. But my uncle picked up his arm closest to me and after rolling up the man's suit sleeve bit his wrist. Uncle Z held out Rich's bleeding wrist to me. I just stared back at him.

"The thing that will quench that feeling in your throat is this. You'll need to feed about once a week, but that's why I'm giving you Richard. He's a good thrall and will serve you faithfully to the end." He explained.

Everything was so macabre it made me hesitant, even though the burning in my throat was getting more intense by the second. I looked between Uncle Z's encouraging face and Richard's emotionless gaze, not even worried that his wrist was bleeding or that it had been bitten. Mother was losing patience.

"Stop being shy, Luke! I know it's your birthday, but I have other obligations today." She pushed my head forward.

My nose an inch from the red pool I was hit with the smell of it. It was enticing, intoxicating. Without thinking I cupped my mouth over it, bit, and lapped up the liquid. The desert in my throat was washed away with a river of blood. I closed my eyes and all my other senses dimmed. All I wanted was more, it felt like I couldn’t get enough.

Suddenly I was removed from Richard’s wrist. I was almost mad, but I opened my eyes and saw mother was gone and it was Uncle Z now sitting next to me, pulling me away from Rich.

“I think that’s good Luke. If you drink too much you’ll vomit.” He patted my back. I must have looked deplorable because he then scooped me up with one arm and walked me to one of the many full-sized bathrooms in the mansion.

“I’ll be right back.” He said after he placed me on a stool in front of the mirror. When I saw myself I almost jumped (that rumor about vampires not being able to see their reflections is crap). The ends of my hair and the collar of my shirt were stained with blood. Tiny fangs protruded from my red stained lips and my blue eyes glowed brightly as if someone was shining a light from behind them.

I’ve never been good with time, but it felt like my uncle was taking a while so I decided to clean myself up. I ran the water and started a bath. I had just finished washing all the blood off me when Uncle Z entered the room. Seeing me he smiled.

"At first, when Andrea told me she wanted to turn you, I was worried that you weren't mature enough, but I think you'll be fine. If you ever have questions just ask me. Okay?"

I nodded. After I dried and dressed myself I sat in front of the mirror again. The last thing I remember from then was my uncle cropping my hair to remove all the dried blood that hadn't washed out.

#my writting #original fiction #original story #a bloody valentine #luke valentine

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cooperjones2020 · 7 years ago

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What’s Past is Prologue, What to Come, pt. 6

Summary: He wanted to hit whoever made Betty cry. He wanted to hit Betty so she’d keep crying. Interrelated vignettes from Jughead Jones’s obsession with Betty Cooper. Dark!Jug, Creepy!Jug, Stalker!Jug, generally Sociopathic!Jug.

A/N: Complete :) There’ll be one more one-shot to tie-off the series posted on Friday. But it will be more along the lines of Marked than of this fic. Prepare yourselves, because Dark!Betty comes out to play.

TW: implied violence (for this chapter specifically, check the other tags on ao3)

(parts one / two / three / four / five)

ao3—> http://archiveofourown.org/works/11394858/chapters/26675151

Every town has one. The house on the haunted hill all the kids avoid. Now that Jason was buried in the earth, it would only be a matter of time until something poisonous bloomed in that long, cold shadow cast by his death. Whatever grew in the rich black soil of the Blossoms’ garden always found its way to the town. Whether it was murder or love or secrets or lies.

He loved the murder board. He loved that Betty had touched every single piece of it. Earlier, when he was in the Blue and Gold office alone, he had run his fingers over every photograph, every scrap of paper, every tangled strand of red string, willing his fingertips to absorb the oils from her skin.

After the memorial, after Betty cornered her father about his conversation with Clifford Blossom, they returned to the office to regroup. He leaned back against a desk and watched her a few feet away from him as she grappled with the splintered fragments of her family.

“Juggie, I feel like I don’t even know who my mom and dad are anymore.”

“Betty,” he stood and moved toward the murder board. “If your parents lied about Jason and Polly, there’s probably more that they lied about.” He turned back to look at her.

“What do you mean?” She moved to follow him. He’d dealt with Trev, but now he wanted something from her. Some sign that they were in this together.

“Your dad said he would do anything to protect Polly. So the next logical question is, how far would he go to protect her?” He turned to the table in front of the board and grabbed an index card.

“Jughead, whoever broke into Sheriff Keller’s house and stole all his evidence wasn’t at the drive-in.” She looked at him with her big green eyes shining. He could imagine the look of the tears he knew she was holding back. “My dad wasn’t at the drive-in.” He handed her the index card and watched to see what she would do. With just a moment of hesitation, she pinned it right smack dab in the center, below Jason’s yearbook picture. God, he was proud of her. He pushed her over that barrier and she let him. He wanted to scoop her up in a hug and to devour her.

Instead, he said, “We need to talk to Polly.” Betty took a deep breath and gave him a wobbly nod. His heart slowed and beat thickly, as if submerged in maple syrup, as he watched her. The string between her and her parents was pulled taut. It would be easy to snip. It would be one more string he could hoard for himself.

On the first night he spent in the janitor’s closet at school, after the drive-in closed, the third thing he did was seek out Betty’s locker. He’d stolen a set of maintenance keys a few weeks ago and had a copy to the school’s front doors made, just in case. The drive-in had a cot, but it didn’t have a shower. And they’d stopped running water to the bathrooms at the campground when it had closed for the season on the first of September.

So the first thing he did was take a shower. The second thing he did was break into the cafeteria kitchen and scrounge up some dinner. Then he headed down the hallway with the science classrooms.

She’d had the same combination since sixth grade: Polly’s birthday. He rummaged through her locker for anything new, anything that could add to the store of Betty Cooper trivia he kept locked inside him.

He already knew about the Neosporin in the pink pencil box on the top shelf. But when he opened it, the tube was almost empty. It might have been that way for a while. There’s no way she’d used that much this early into the school year—she probably brought an old half-used tube from home anyway. But still. He wanted to slice the scars off her palms.

He replaced the pencil box and reached for the stack of notes besides it. He unfolded their intricate shapes and pressed them flat before scanning each one. All from Veronica and Kevin. All useless.

“No one cares you can’t get dick, Kev,” he whispered under his breath as he struggled to re-fold the notes.

Then, he reached over her school books and slid his hand down the back wall of the locker to see if anything had fallen. But rather than the detritus of further notes and to-do lists he expected, he found two slim books. One, the worn copy of The Story of O he’d caught her reading a few weeks ago. He hadn’t believed the story she fed Cheryl about writing an exposé on book banning. So he pocketed it to look at later, in the luxury of his closet. The other, the small pink book he recognized as her diary. Jackpot.

It was only about a two-thirds full but the last entry seemed to be from a few days before — a description of her showdown with Archie outside Pop’s. Odd. She normally wrote in it every day. He flipped back to the first entry, the day she arrived in LA, and began to scan, until his own name grabbed his attention.

I finally got Jug to talk to me. He’s been avoiding me since I got back. I don’t know what happened with him and Arch over the summer — though it seems to be better now — but he better get it through his thick skull that Archie has no business in our relationship. Whatever Archie did to him doesn’t affect him and me. He looks skinnier. Last night at Pop’s, I convinced him I was full so he’d eat the rest of my fries. I wonder if he’d be offended if I offered to pack him a lunch. A lump formed in his throat that he didn’t understand. But when he turned the page, the rest of the entry devolved into a description of cheerleading routines.

A few pages later something else caught his eye:

I think some of my clothes have gone missing. If Polly were here, I’d swear she’d stolen them, but she’s not so that can’t be it.

Sometime around early September, mentions of Archie, and especially her feelings for Archie, had dropped off sharply. Simultaneously, her mentions of him had grown. He tried not to read anything into it. It was probably just because of the paper. He was around her more so of course she would think about him more. Write about him more.

But then,

Dear Diary,

It happened again. I’m losing time. I remember talking to Chuck at Pop’s and making the plan with Veronica and Ethel. But I don’t remember showing up at Ethel’s house. I don’t remember calling him Jason. And I don’t know where I got the black wig.

This hasn’t happened since I was in LA. I had hoped it was some freaky coincidence brought on by not enough humidity and too much green juice. I don’t know what to do or who I can even tell.

Who will I be if I let go?

Sometimes Jughead looks at me as if he knows.

That was it. She ended the entry and then the next one was about Archie and Grundy. Fuck.

Channeling all his darkness into his obsession with Betty Cooper allowed Jughead to maintain a thin veneer of normalcy. That she might be doing the same to him…

The needy beast of a thing in his chest roared to life.

Most days, he does a pretty good job at seeming normal. Well, not normal. Reggie likes to call him things like Donnie Darko and Wednesday Adams, but, still, he manages to keep most of his darkness on the inside.

But all of these days from the past swirl in Jughead’s mind as he lets himself into the Andrews’ garage and commandeers Fred’s ladder. The day he met Betty. The day Betty burned her arm making him cookies. The day she got grounded for losing her American Girl doll. The day he set Nancy Drew on fire. The first day he saw her topless. The day she drove away from Riverdale in a wood-panelled station wagon. The day she asked him to join her on the Blue and Gold. The day the drive-in closed. The day he found her diary. The day she went on a “date” with Trev Brown.

Polly had accidentally scratched Betty’s cheek when the orderlies were dragging her out of their hug earlier. Jughead spent the car ride home fighting the urge to lick the blood off her face.

She would pine after Archie. She would “date” Trev. She would kiss Veronica. But her darkness is his. Today, she will pick him. He has a plan.

She sits at her vanity, fingering her necklace and staring at the floor when Jughead gets to the top of the ladder beneath her window. He wraps gently on the closed glass and her head turns, ponytail whipping behind her. He can tell she’s surprised, but her face quickly gives way to a smile as she rushes over to open the window.

“Hey there, Juliet. Nurse off duty?” She steps back so he can climb in. “You haven’t gone full ‘Yellow Wallpaper’ on me yet, have you?”

Betty’s voice is rough, as if she’s been crying. “They’re crazy. My parents are crazy.”

“They’re parents. They’re all crazy.”

“No, but what if—what if Polly is too?” Betty stammers. “The way she was talking to me, the way she looked at me. And now all I can think is, maybe I’m crazy like they are.” She’s spiralling. Jughead puts a hand on shoulder and he feels some of the tension drain out as she sighs, as his touch does that to her.

“Hey. We’re all crazy.” He looks into her eyes, willing her to know what he knows. To know they’re alike. She smiles at him and looks at the floor.

When he speaks, her eyes drift back up. “We’re not our parents, Betty. We’re not our families.” He might be imagining it, but he thinks her eyes pause on his lips on their journey back to the floor. “Also—”

“What?” she whispers. She stares into his eyes again as he flicks his gaze all over her face. “What?” she asks again, louder. She smiles at him with half of her mouth and raises one eyebrow.

He takes her face in his hands and kisses her. When she doesn’t pull back right away, the monster inside him cheers. Then when she kisses him back, he sighs and it settles into a contented purr.

She breaks the kiss, “The car!”

He smiles at her and raises his eyebrows. “Wow. That’s what you were thinking about in the middle of our moment?” If he hadn’t just felt the insistent pressure of her lips against his own, he’d be more upset. But he knows, better than anyone now, how Betty’s mind works.

“No. Polly talked about a car Jason had stashed for them down Route 40. Near some sign? If we can find it, we can confirm Polly’s story.”

“Well, one way or another.”

“I need to know, Juggie.” Then she leans forward and presses another soft kiss against his lips. He’d do anything for her. He’d kill for her. Of course he’ll go looking for the damn car with her. Because now, he’s got her. He’s finally got the real life Betty doll.

#bughead fanfiction #riverdale fanfiction #bughead #betty x jughead #betty cooper #jughead jones #mine #wpip #canon compliant #tw: implied violence

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monsterfactoryfanfic · 7 years ago

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Disunion X Reunion

Pam watched Trash Hulk lazily stroll to the front wall of the ballroom. His confidence fed her fury. He apparently knew they’d been caught off guard, and now he was arrogant enough to show Pam his back. She used the ground spike at the flag’s base to plant it in the center of the room, then took her axe in both hands. Her prey seemed unconcerned, and instead of preparing for a fight he crossed his arms and callously studied the window.

G.A.R.F.I.E.L.D. hurried to her side. “Pam, we can leave immediately,” he whispered. His claw grasped the wooden flagpole as he said, “This is all I need to jump to the next world. Let’s go.” The urgency in his voice was uncomfortably sincere. She looked into his optical sensors. Despite his effort remain emotionless, she detected concern that did not seem to be for himself.

“That’s right darling, keep running,” murmured Trash Hulk, still facing away. “Look how well it’s worked for you.” Pam would have broken into a charge had G.A.R.F.I.E.L.D. not gingerly placed his other hand on her shoulder.

“Pam, please.” This time, a quiver in the robot’s voice. “You don’t have to do this now.”

She shrugged his hands off, causing him to stumble back toward Christopher and Junker. She didn’t want their worry. With a rapid motion Pam leapt at her ex-husband, swinging the axe to cleave him in twain. Right before the blade made contact, she sensed an unnatural energy. It felt like the same aura that unnerved her in Skyrim. This not Hulk’s doing. Fuck.

Now he had turned to look at her, preventing his demise by grabbing the axe right at its shoulder, which a recent Google taught me is what you call the part of an axe right below its head. Pam could properly see his features. The mustache, the balding hairline with sideburns that’d shame a Civil War general, the weathered scars dividing his face into three unequal fractions- it was unmistakably him. Yet behind his hazy blue eyes stirred new purpose, an external hunger like that of a lioness who chases a deer through the forest and over rivers, herding it toward its pride. Hulk had never been half as strong as Pam before his death. Only one person could have so fundamentally altered this man.

“Why Todd send you here?” she snarled.

He chuckled. “What makes you think I didn’t follow of my own free will?” Pam wrenched the axe from his grasp and took another swing. He sidestepped it with uncharacteristic deftness, then grabbed her arm. Hard. A searing pain shot through the limb and her vision flashed green. “I wanted to see my wife again.” She brought her boot down on his foot with force enough to flatten a car, giving her time to pull away to the other side of the ballroom.

Recognizing the not-great situation going down, Chris and G.A.R.F.I.E.L.D. charged Trash Hulk simultaneously. The Pebble’s long arms allowed him to graze their target’s chest, but his brittle bones shattered on contact. Hulk pulled the Pebble above his head to shield himself from the khajiit’s overhead pounce, leaving them both a crumpled pile next to the flag. The Junker just watched, mumbling Psalms to calm his nerves.

Pam’s breath came harsh and fast. She shouldn’t have been able to feel pain at all, yet the place where he grabbed her still burned. If the Creator had somehow altered him to override her coding, this fight could prove short and costly. “I thought husband was brave enough to accept death, not beg for life and betray me.”

He responded with a blindingly fast punch that she barely blocked with the axe, sending her sliding against the stone wall. She dropped the now-dented weapon and threw her own fist, hitting his jaw with a satisfying smack. He caught her next blow as she caught his. They pushed against each other, both unable to force their partner to yield. Hulk brought his bald forehead centimeters away from Pam’s furrowed brow. “Don’t you dare talk about betrayal to me,” he growled. There was a sickness in his words. “I know about the robot. And the radroach.” His body shook with each deliberate syllable. “Todd may have taken them, but I came to him willingly.” A green mist clouded Pam’s eyes once more. “Because you are mine.”

She felt a wave of nausea, followed by sorrow. The Hulk she knew was long gone, replaced by the Creator’s mad desire to reclaim her. Todd had turned Trash Hulk’s envy into a physical illness. His paranoid ideas infected his mind, polluted his thoughts. The disease, left untreated, stole away his tongue, then his body, then his integrity. She thought that by escaping from her old world she could forget her past. But that’s the thing about obsessive exes. Ex-boyfriends, ex-husbands, even ex-gods. Sometimes, they won’t let you leave the past. Sometimes you love them too much to see the warning signs, to see that all they want is to keep you in the past, to make sure any fragment of your future is a picture they can jam in their scrapbook.

Trash Hulk seized this moment of weakness. He shoved a knee into Pam’s stomach, causing her to double over. A subsequent kick skittered her across the floor into a marble pillar. Small, thin cracks raced up the column as fire coursed up her spine. She groaned as she pushed up from the floor and willed her legs to stop shaking. Neither Todd nor Hulk earned this pain from her. She would use it against them. She balled her hands into fists. The ground beneath her grew hot. Before Hulk’s smug grin had time to change he was hiding behind his forearms while Pam converted anger into energy, smashing limbs with knuckles, scorching flesh with every blow. She became a furnace fueled by hatred for those who had robbed her of the chance to start over. Any average demigod or unholy spirit should have been reduced to ashy memory.

Sadly Trash Hulk, while neither sacred nor profane, had been chosen specifically to test Pam. Each fiery punch weakened in its intensity. For the first time in ages, she felt tired. When her arms no longer obeyed, she stepped back from the man she’d forced to a kneeling position. Somehow he remained, his face bearing a look of grim resolve. He lifted his battered body to stand before her. He pointed a finger at the stained glass window. The light became distorted, reds and yellows darkening into blues and greens. Dust whipped up in a whirlwind that consumed the whole chamber. The glass seemed to ripple like the surface of a lake disturbed by a particularly large stone. It bathed the five monsters in emerald light, which would have been kind of nice under difference circumstances.

“I’m taking you through there,” Trash Hulk stated, his voice steady after the previous outburst. “We’re going home together Pam. You don’t belong here.” He walked toward her with measured steps. She backed away but felt her strength failing. Hulk’s poisoned words sapped her energy. They were true. Hearing the truth often sucks, and in this case it literally sucked Pam’s inherent power into the portal. Unacceptable.

“You can’t decide where I go” she spat. “Or where I belong.”

He scoffed, the syllable thick with condescension. “Who does? You clearly don’t.” Hulk jerked his thumb toward the heap of G.A.R.F.I.E.L.D. and Chris. “When you make your own choices you end up with garbage like them. Believe me, I know about trash.” He was now mere feet away. His voice grew louder as he reflected on their old life. “It’s going to be just like before. We’ll be happy again.”

“Do not lecture about happiness. You not know about Pam’s happiness.”

He stopped. “I’ve changed.” His voice wavered.

“Don’t be stupid.” Pam’s vision blurred. Soon all her energy would be gone, stolen by cheat codes meant to contain her. “No one ever changes.” She fell on her hands, fighting to stay conscious. She felt like an empty Capri Sun, crinkled and disposable. Hulk offered her his right hand. He smiled. For a moment, she thought there might be kindness behind his eyes. They’d had good memories, right? Shopping for their house in a nice little cul-de-sac. Wallpapering the room where their newborn son would sleep. He got so frustrated with the new laundry machine; it was adorable.

That was all in the past. Before the war, before the ghosts, before the flood that blotted out all of space and time. Nothing behind the eyes now but emerald green coded by a vengeful, possessive god. She was not going back.

With as much strength as she could muster Pam pushed herself up into his chest, hoping to crack his sternum with her skull. They both stumbled back to the center. Hulk’s right hand was still reaching, but now with intent to crush her limbs. She grasped the only weapon within reach, the Witch’s flag, still standing in the middle of their wild dance. She wrenched it from the floor and stabbed the tail spike just below his thumb, shearing through his wrist bones and leaving the hand hanging by a scant number of ulnar ligaments. He howled.

The scream was enough to shake G.A.R.F.I.E.L.D. from his stupor. Optics came back online, revealing a severely weakened Pam and completely unresponsive Pebble. Ambulatory system scan reported ten percent functionality. Not quite enough to be useful. He looked over at Chris again. The clone’s face was scrunched into a pained grimace, respirations came at irregular intervals. Trash Hulk had only hit them once, but such was his strength that he’d left Chris in a serious state. G.A.R.F.I.E.L.D. had to say something.

“Pam. Please.” She almost didn’t hear the khajiit’s whisper. “Can we go?”

She used the flag as a crutch, turned away from the still-wailing Hulk, and limped over to the fallen cat. She didn’t realize how badly he’d been hurt. Her stomach tightened. G.A.R.F.I.E.L.D. managed to lift a paw to her knee. She took it in her own shaky hand.

“Yeah.”

Then they heard the snapping of bone and a yelp. Pam felt warm blood splatter her dress, but felt no injury. She looked over her shoulder to see Junker’s silhouette impaled by five long, green, spectral fingers. Trash Hulk apparently had torn the rest of his hand off and used Pam’s stolen energy to create a new one from pure energy. He had attempted to seize Pam once more, but-

“Green boy…you…save me?”

The yokel chortled feebly. “Well ma’am, the good book says there ain’t no greater love than to lay down one’s life fer a friend. So, here I am!” Blood poured from his mouth. He coughed a little.

“Keep on truckin’ Pam.”

Trash Hulk growled and slid the body off his magic fingers. The trio vanished before Junker hit the ground.

#monster factory #fanfiction #fanfic #THE FINAL PAM #The Pebble #trash hulk #Garfield #g.a.r.f.i.e.l.d.#body horror #the McElroys #mcelroy #justin mcelroy #griffin mcelroy #the junker

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lukerhill · 4 years ago

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Adding light summer touches to a cozy and dark bedroom

Hello there! I'm back to share our summer master bedroom tour along with a bunch of other bloggers hosted by my friend Marty at A Stroll Thru Life. She has gathered a talented group sharing their beautiful summer bedrooms this week. (See the full list at the bottom of the post!) Our master bedroom has undergone a bunch of changes since we moved in, and I finally finished up the painting in here a few months ago. The room wasn't completely done then, but after gathering some items from around the house, I'm calling it finished for now. And I'm so thrilled with it! I choose gray grasscloth on the walls and dark trim underneath, so I thought making this room light and summery would be a challenge. Turns out you can totally have a cozy room and still make it lighter for the summer months! My first step was to change out the bedding. A few months ago I found this light duvet cover from Target and went from there:

Confession time -- we rarely make our bed. (If you've been a long time reader you know it's just not our thing.) Half that battle has been all of the euros and decorative pillows I've added in the past. I hate dealing with them anymore!

I decided to do away with most of them and went with just two euros and one throw pillow, along with the bed pillows that we actually use:

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I like TONS of pillow to sleep with -- I like to be surrounded and cozy. 😂 So we don't have a lot of room for decorative stuff anyway. I'll link all of the bedding below, so check that out if you're interested! The lighter bedding made a big difference, but I grabbed a few other items from around the house to lighten things up:

We got that geode on a spelunking trip years ago, but it has a lighter feel like a seashell. It's quite beautiful up close -- I love it!

The green trees outside our windows are the best summer accessory though!:

The rest of the decor is light and sparse -- I tend to go "lighter" with decor in the summer months anyway. The fall and holidays are my time to add more stuff. :)

I was going to paint this dresser but decided against it for now. I really love the wood tone against the gray:

My fiddle leaf loves this room! It's so big I've had to tie the branches together because they spread out so much. Go here to see how to keep your fiddles thriving!

A simple vase with hydrangeas from the garden lighten things up too. I still love the IKEA dressers I made into nightstands. This is such a great way to create tons of good looking storage next to the bed:

The peel and stick grasscloth wallpaper I added last year adds so much coziness to this space.

I'm obsessed with wallpaper lately -- I've added it to a few rooms in this house and haven't regretted it one bit:

The first project we tackled in this room was the dark gray ceiling and the wood beams (that aren't really beams).

The tray ceiling was calling out for something and this upped the cozy factor big time!:

Do you see Colby hiding? :)

I later painted the trim and walls under it in the same color as the ceiling, Westchester Gray by Sherwin-Williams. I was able to go dark with the paint and drapes because we have so many windows in this room:

There are five windows to be exact. (One is a large picture window.)

If you've read for awhile you know how much I love symmetry. It makes me happy!:

I love the sound of a fan at night, and especially in the summer the breeze is welcomed. You can find options that look good enough to keep out all the time at HomeGoods! That fan is always on the nightstand.

We use hanging sconces on the wall instead of lamps on nightstands to save space -- and they work way better for reading!

I love the combo of wood tones, cozy gray paint and lighter accents in this room! I'm a lover of contrast:

Check out this post if you're wondering how to decorate around your TV. Adding a few simple frames takes away from the TV as the only focal point:

Lighter bedding and a few neutral accessories make even a dark and cozy room feel lighter and brighter for the summer months!

Here's the bedding we used:

Chair pillow from Target

Casaluna duvet cover set

Dark blue chambray euro pillows

And you can see most of the items in this room below. Just arrow through and click the photo you're interested in:

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Be sure to check out the beautiful bedrooms these bloggers have shared this week!:

Monday Lineup - July 20

A Stroll Thru Life , 11 Magnolia Lane , Remodelando La Casa

Tuesday Lineup - July 21

Clean & Scentsible , Hymns & Verses , Decor To Adore , Far Above Rubies

Wednesday Lineup - July 22

Fox Hollow Cottage , Inspiration For Moms , Life On Cedar Lane , Pink Peppermint Design

Thursday Lineup - July 23

Our Southern Home , White Arrows Home , Stone Gable

Friday - July 24

CitrineLiving , Thrifty Decor Chic , Follow The Yellow Brick Home

See more of our home here. To shop items in our home, click here! Never miss a post by signing up to get posts via email.

This content is property of Thrifty Decor Chick LLC. If you are reading this on any other site other than https://ift.tt/1kRxOJ2 or one of her social media platforms, please contact her immediately (thriftydecorchick at gmail dot com). Any other use of this content is strictly forbidden.

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andreafestefano · 4 years ago