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the-entity-down-the-street · 4 years

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Memory Eater

Since a few of you have expressed interest in reading my terato stories, I’ve decided to start posting a few. This first one is actually from a workshop I did for class back in the spring of 2019. I wrote it when I was going through a bad mental health period, and BPD was kicking my ass. Mental illness is a frequent theme in my work,and I’ll tag accordingly. I’ll the put the story under the cut. if you aren’t interested in my stories, blacklist the tag “entitywrites”

Hope you guys enjoy!

Dahlia woke up in her closet with one hell of a hangover, a hollow void where last night should’ve been, and a sticky note on her chest. She peeled it off to read.

Call me so I know you’re okay, if you could. Thank you, babe! – Love, Gideon

Her questions were caught between a pounding headache and a desperate need to vomit. Dahlia stumbled out of her closet and dashed to the bathroom.

Once her stomach was emptied, Dahlia wobbled over to the mirror and assessed herself. She was still wearing her nightgown, but the front was stained irreparably by something that looked like wine. Old, faded eyeliner wings clung to the skin around her eyes. Her hair looked less like a neat, curly bob and more like a mishappen stormcloud.

Dahlia rubbed her eyes until colorful blotches danced before them. She tried to organize the evidence she had at hand into a cohesive narrative. She had somehow worked up the nerve to go out partying, in skimpy pajamas no less, and in the process found enough charm to get a number. She couldn’t even remember leaving her apartment.

Then again, memory had always been an issue for her. It was easy for things to get lost and liquify into a gray mush, sometimes five minutes after they happened. Dissociative episodes did the worst damage, of course. She blundered through the days half-aware, divided from herself, plagued by a suicidal itch. Those memories were static at best. It was a stress response to the Borderline Blues. But this was different. This was a black hole where the static should be.

Dahlia dug her fingers into her scalp, as if that would squeeze something out of the void in her head. When that didn’t work, she shambled over to her bed, a little nest of unmade sheets in the corner of the apartment. She considered getting breakfast from the kitchenette, but the mere idea made her stomach want to upend itself again. Dahlia wrapped herself in a blanket and thanked whoever was listening that she didn’t have work today.

A glint of light on the nightstand caught her eye. She lifted her head up. There was a glass rose pink liquid sitting next to her lamp. The amorphous shadow it cast over the wood highlighted the second note beside it. Dahlia propped herself up on her elbows and snatched it.

For the hangover you’re going to have! Home-brewed cure. Drink it in steady gulps, don’t stop until the glass is empty. – Love, Gideon

“We add another layer to this fuckery,” she mumbled. So, this Gideon had been in her apartment, huh? Did he walk her back? Did he stay the night and bail before she woke up? If that was the case, why did he offer his phone number? None of these theories got her any closer to why she fell asleep in the closet.

Dahlia rested her head back on the pillow. The world was spinning around her aching brain, as if she were the center of a cramped, painful universe. Thinking was becoming a rigorous exercise. She tried to backtrack and grasp onto something, anything, from the night before.

Nothing. Empty. Null and void.

Dahlia tried going back further, knotting her brows together in concentration. There barely anything in her memory from the day before. And the night before that. And the night before that. Her memories were suddenly spotted with jagged holes of time. Was it the migraine blotting everything out?

Desperate, and a little panicked, Dahlia picked up the mysterious concoction left for her and began to gulp it down as suggested. It was flavorless, like water, but each gulp came with a pulse of gentle, radiating warmth. It calmed the storm in her stomach and suffocated the agony in her head.

When the drink was completely gone, Dahlia set the glass down and sank into the bed with a heavy sigh. The warmth died out and left clarity in its place. She basked in the bliss of clean, painless sobriety for a few minutes. Wow, when Gideon said a cure, he meant a cure.

Dahlia tried backtracking again, hoping for better results. Sometimes pain made her symptoms worse. Yet, when she shuffled through her head, the holes remained. Even going back to the beginning of last semester, there were missing patches of time.

Shit.

This was bad.

She thought of the note Gideon left and grabbed her phone. She clicked contacts. Sure enough, his name was second in her “frequently contacted” list, right below her therapist. That raised a whole new set of questions, but she could only take one mystery at a time. This was the only clue she had, so she figured there was nothing else to lose.

The phone rang. And rang. And rang. Dahlia sat up and tapped her fingers against the snowy hill of her kneecap.

“Hello?” a drowsy voice answered.

She cringed. Shit, did she wake him up? “Uh, hi, Gideon?”

“Oh, good morning, Dahlia,” Gideon replied. His voice was instantly perky and pleasant. “Are you feeling okay? I hope my cure did its job.”

“Yeah, yeah, worked like a charm. Thanks for that. I’m, uh, much better now.”

“Wonderful, wonderful. I figured you’d need it after all that wine.” He laughed, and his voice rang like tinkling bells in her ears. It was oddly familiar, and more oddly relaxing. “We’ll have to do that again sometime.”

“Yeah, for sure,” Dahlia said agreeably. “So, uh, speaking of, what exactly was that?”

Another chuckle. “Memory a bit lacking, I assume?”

Dahlia tensed. “More like completely lacking.”

“…Completely?”

“Uh, yeah. Completely.”

There was a long pause. Painfully long. The silence stretched like a rubber band primed for snapping. Dahlia nibbled at the corner of her lip.

“D-do you know who I am?” His voice cracked under the weight of its own horrified tone.

She shook her head, despite the pointlessness of the gesture in a phone conversation. “No, I’m sorry. That’s kind of why I called. I need answers and your number was my only lead.”

“I see.” Another pause. Some shuffling, a whoosh of sheets being tossed back. “I don’t think this is a conversation we should have over the phone. Would it be possible for me to come over this evening?”

Dahlia quirked an eyebrow. Curiosity bubbled where the headache had been.

“Dahlia?”

“Uh, yeah, sure. What time?”

Another pause. “I can come by around nine. Would that work for you?”

Dahlia shrugged. “Sure. I’m not doing anything.”

“Alright. Nine it is.”

“Do you need me to text you my address?” Dahlia asked, realizing she could’ve just texted him like a normal person instead of calling and waking him up. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“No, I remember where you are. I’ll text before I knock, okay?”

“Um, okay.” Weird, but okay. “See you tonight.”

“See you tonight.”

They hung up. Dahlia hunched over and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Where the nausea had been, unease took its place, plopped into her gut like brick, as she wondered what she’d mixed herself up in.

Dahlia had latched onto the stress ball her therapist gave her, but the little smiley face printed on it did nothing to reassure her. She had struggled to pick an outfit. She chewed through a whole pack of gum. She fidgeted and paced and fussed over cleaning the apartment up. Was she nervous about meeting this man she couldn’t remember? Was she nervous about what he knew? Did it matter? Either way, Dahlia was a tense bundle of nerves when the clock struck nine. She sat on the couch as she waited for his text.

A minute passed. Nothing.

Five minutes. Nothing.

Ten. Nothing.

Dahlia tapped her foot impatiently. “Where is this guy?”

Just as she asked, her phone buzzed.

Hey. I’m here. About to knock. Please don’t scream.

Well, that was the creepiest thing anyone had ever texted her. She clenched her stress ball so hard that the little smiley face caved in on itself. She dialed 911, the call button poised for pushing at any time. As she was comparing escape routes and rushing for the kitchen knives, the knock came. From her closet door.

“Good evening,” Gideon said. “Sorry for being late. Things took longer than expected. May I come in?”

Words dissolved on Dahlia’s tongue. She tried and failed to scrounge up logic. The way she saw it, there were two possibilities. Either she was hallucinating, and she had another mental illness to worry about, or something supernatural was going on. She had never prayed before, but she prayed it was door number two.

“Y-yeah, come in.”

Gideon stepped into her living room. A gasp wound down Dahlia’s throat as she took in the sight of him. Two curling horns stuck out of the stringy grey hair that fell to his shoulders. The eyes staring at her were painfully large, painfully blue orbs with reptilian slits in their centers. His skin was bluish grey, corpse skin. Even subtle things, like the number of knuckles in his fingers, and the way his skin stretched over the bones in his face, were unsettling and alien. It was almost comical in comparison to his clean plaid button-up and black slacks. A monster in business casual. She thought she could see something glowing in his pants pocket, but that barely registered when looking at everything else.

“Thank you for not screaming,” he said.

Scream? She could barely listen. The static of her own stressed thoughts made it hard to hear. Was this the onset of schizophrenia? Was this why her brain was full of holes? Was that symptom? Her feet began carrying her across the room in search of an answer. She crossed the span of carpet between them until she had him at arm’s length. Her hand reached out, almost of its own free will, and gently poked Gideon’s cheek. Warm, living flesh greeted her. She nearly collapsed with relief.

“Oh. Oh, thank God. I’m not crazy.”

Gideon chuckled weakly. There was a strange warmth in his eyes that made Dahlia’s stomach flip. “No, love, you’re not crazy. Never crazy.”

He reached up to cup his hand over hers, but Dahlia pulled away and stumbled back before he could. With the worries about her tenuous mental health soothed, Dahlia could now focus on the fact that a very real monster was standing in her living room trying to reassure her of her sanity. Amazingly, that wasn’t an easier pill to swallow. Dahlia plopped onto her couch and grasped at the cushions in leu of a stress ball. It was something solid and normal.

Gideon looked more than a little hurt. He slowly put his arm down and shrank back. “R-right, you don’t remember me. I’m sorry.”

Dahlia put her head in her hands and pulled at the roots of her hair. “What the fuck,” she said, because it was the only thing her brain would let her say. “I- I don’t… what…”

“Overwhelmed?” Gideon asked.

Dahlia nodded. Thoughts were pouring out of her head and leaking onto her tongue. The overflow made it impossible to get a single coherent question out.

Gideon took a hesitant step forward. “Do you have your stress ball?”

Dahlia shook her head violently. She couldn’t even think about her lost stress ball right now. It was one thing too much.

Gideon chewed on his lip. “I know I’m kind of the reason you’re panicking right now, but I want to help. May I sit with you?”

Would that help? Probably not. Then again, nothing was making sense and there was a clog in her brain and the world was suddenly too bright, so she might as well try something. Dahlia gave him a weak, shaky nod to affirm. He was by her side not a moment later.

“Close your eyes for a moment, deep breaths,” Gideon said. His voice was suddenly much softer, but not exactly quiet. It was a gentle, soothing, like windchimes in a breeze. There was something comforting and familiar about it.

Dahlia closed her eyes. The world went mercifully dark. She laid back against the couch and began to take in slow, controlled breaths.

“Focus on something banal. Think about the texture of the couch. Or the carpet between your toes. I can get something from the kitchen if you want something to taste.”

Dahlia shook her head. “No, no. Just need quiet.”

“Quiet. I can do that.”

They sat together in silence as Dahlia let the static and chaos settle. She absorbed herself in the cool, textured leather of her sofa and sank against its plush backing. Her breathing steadied. Her head lolled to the side, and she relaxed.

“Better?” Gideon asked.

She nodded.

“Good. Now, I know this is a shock to you,” Gideon continued. “You have every right to be shocked. But I promise that everything is alright.”

Dahlia furrowed her brow. She was almost giving herself another headache trying to gaze into the holes where her memories should be. “I find that hard to believe.”

A sigh. “Fair enough. Okay, things aren’t alright yet, but they will be soon. That I definitely promise.”

“How can you promise that?”

“With these,” Gideon said. Dahlia heard the distinct scrape of skin on rough fabric, followed by a clacking noise. It sounded like hard candies knocking against each other. A new source of light danced in front of Dahlia’s closed eyes. Curious, she opened them.

“What the fuck.” The light was coming from a large cluster of glowing, electric blue orbs. They were about the size of marbles. “What are those?”

“Your missing memories.”

“…Okay then. Um, why are they in your hand and not, you know, in my head?”

“They were stolen. Thank the Gods you called when you did, otherwise I might not have been able to track them down.”

Dahlia’s eyes widened painfully. “Stolen? How? When? W-why?”

Gideon closed his fist around the memory orbs and held them close to his chest. His expression grew dark. “There are some people that think our worlds should remain separate. Someone stole every memory you had of our world, and of me, during my house party. Right under my fucking nose.” His voice was knife sharp and angry. Dahlia could tell he was directing it at himself just as much as he was the perpetrator. “It was pure luck and timing that allowed me to get them back.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dahlia said. A deep, profound dread crawled up her spine and settled on her shoulders. She imagined a set of spindly fingers reaching into her skull and plucking memories likes grapes from a synaptic vine. The mere thought sickened her to the soul.

“When I saw you’d passed out, I took you home. I thought you just had too much wine. I never suspected…” He lowered his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Dahlia.”

Dahlia put a comforting hand on his shoulder, almost instictually. Her horror of him had been surpassed and subdued. “No, don’t be. You got them back. Thank you.”

“Of course. You have a right to your memories,” he said. He glanced up at Dahlia, then back down at the memory orbs. There was a noticeable dark flush to his cheeks. “Besides, these are important to me too.”

Before Dahlia could comment, Gideon held out his hand, offering her the orbs. She cupped her hands and let the little balls trickle into her palms. They felt like gumballs. Dahlia estimated there were a hundred of them, if not more. Her vision was taken up by their collective glow.

“How do I…”

“You eat them.”

“What?” Dahlia snapped her head up.

“Eat them. Pop one in your mouth at a time and bite. The memory will come back to you.”

“Do I, like, eat them in chronological order?” Dahlia asked, bemused by the string of words that just came out of her mouth.

“No, no, just eat them as you like. You can’t tell the orbs apart anyways. As long you eat them all, you’ll be fine.”

Dahlia grimaced. “Is this safe?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t make a hobby of eating your own memories, of course, but there’s no harm in taking in information that already belongs to you,” he explained. “But if you ever feel unsafe, I’ll be right here to help.”

Dahlia looked over at him. His hollowed-out face had taken on an inviting, comforting demeanor. There was something very reassuring about the little smile that was playing across his lips.

“Who are you?” she asked. “To me? How do you know what I need to calm down?”

“Take a bite and find out.”

Dahlia turned back to her palm full of orbs. She picked one up from the pile and held it up to her mouth. She snuck a glance at Gideon, who nodded encouragingly. After a heavy, nervous gulp, Dahlia popped the orb into her mouth and maneuvered it between her back molars.

She bit down.

We were sitting next to each other at the counter that separated my kitchenette from the rest of my apartment. “So, where do monsters come from? I mean, aside from closets.”

He tapped his fingers against the counter. “It’s like a pocket dimension. We hide in the nooks and crannies of space-time, only popping out when necessary.”

“Is this necessary?” I teased. I nibbled a cookie from the small plate I’d set out.

“The cookies or your company?”

“Either or.”

He smiled. “Both are absolutely necessary.”

“Whoa,” Dahlia breathed as the vision faded and settled back into its rightful spot in her head. Remembered happiness spread through her.

“What? What memory was it?”

“I was just talking with you over there.” She pointed to the counter. “You were telling me about where you came from.”

“Ah, yes, that was some time ago. We’d known each other for a few months. I’d just started to trust you,” he explained. His smile brightened. “Go on, have another.”

Dahlia snatched another orb up and bit into it.

Our lips met gingerly, hesitantly at first. Amazingly, I made the first move. We’d been passing sidelong glances and lingering hugs like the currency of pining. I needed to cash it in.

While we were watching our usual Friday night movie, I scooched close to him. Closer. Closer. He turned his head away from the screen and towards me. I leaned in. He leaned in.

Ginger, hesitant kisses deepened. His tongue dipped into my mouth. My hands snuck up his back. The movie was forgotten in the haze.

“Oh.” The memory nestled into its spot. Dahlia sank back into the couch. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so at ease when kissing someone. The slop of saliva and the bumping of teeth didn’t make her self-conscious. It was expected. It was okay. It was natural.

“What memory was it?” Gideon asked.

Dahlia turned to Gideon like she was seeing him for the first time. In a way, she was. “We were making out while Monsters Inc. played in the background.”

Gideon blushed. “Oh, yes, that night.”

“Are you my boyfriend?”

“Would you be horrified if I said yes?”

Dahlia opened her mouth to answer. She closed it and knotted her eyebrows. Contextually vacant, the memory of their kiss brought a surge of conflicting feelings. The remembered happiness, and a fresh, squirming discomfort. The emotional paradox of sudden closeness with a stranger.

She held up a finger in a wait sign and popped another orb into her mouth. Then another. And another. As soon as one memory faded, a new one was already waiting between her teeth. Flashes of dancing and love-making and cuddling and comforting found their spots in her head. Dahlia patched more and more holes, sewed memories to memories, feelings to feelings, creating a mostly cohesive quilt of past events. A few times she had to stop and catch her breath from the overload of information. But, eventually, the pile was reduced to a singular orb. Gideon watched with vigilant, silent eyes as Dahlia bit down on it.

We were curled up in my closet. Gideon knew I liked to be somewhere small and quiet after a breakdown. I’d been bashing my fists against my skull over something, though I couldn’t remember what. Reasons blurred together. With no emotional skin, I’m hurt by the slightest provocation. But in here it was safe, we were safe, and everything was okay.

“Why do you put up with me?” I asked. “I don’t even want to put up with me.”

“You’re under the assumption that you’re a burden. You’re not.”

I settled into his chest more. “But I’m sick, Gid. I don’t function right.”

“Maybe you need to change your definition of right, then.”

My lip quivered, and I wrapped my arms around him. “…I love you.”

Dahlia blinked. She was surprised to find tears on her cheeks. She looked over at Gideon, who was still waiting for her reply.

“No,” she said. “I wouldn’t be horrified at all.”

A bright, goofy grin spread across his face. “Then yes, I’m your boyfriend.”

She returned the grin with equal amounts of brightness and goofiness. “Good.”

FIN

#entitywrites #terato love #my writing #mental illness tw #bpd tw #character with bpd #monster boyfriend #romance writing #suicide mention #terato #monster lover #writblr #writeblr

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keelywolfe · 4 years

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FIC: Bedside Stories ch.1 (baon)

Summary: In the aftermath of Internal Disputes. Everything is going swell.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Established Relationships, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Hospitals

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

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Read it on AO3

Read it here!

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One of the first things Stretch had done when Edge was able to remain more awake was to sign in to their Netflix account on the hospital room television. Or rather, Red’s Netflix account since they still hadn’t bothered to get their own. He suspected Red took some minor glee at allowing others to pirate his account and who was he to steal his brother’s joy. He’d keep his thefts to digital streaming services.

But the television was currently dark, hunkering in the corner and silenced from the bevy of cooking shows played non-stop since that morning, ones like Sugar Rush and Cake Wars. Edge finally snapped on the second episode of ‘Nailed It’ and turned it off to relish the silence. His pain was currently at a tolerable level without any medication and he preferred not to add to it with awful programs.

On the table beneath the tv was a lovely floral arrangement sent by Asgore, one that he’d quite likely made himself and Edge truly appreciated that Stretch only put it where Edge directed and made no comment about who it was from.

It wasn’t entirely a surprise; Stretch had been on his best behavior for the past couple days and if the shrill voices of the hosts from that awful show had grated on his nerves, a well-behaved Stretch was nearly worse. He loved his husband as he was, snark and puns and all. It was nearly better to have him briefly gone, with the hopes he’d be more himself when he returned.

Much as Edge appreciated the current silence, there wasn’t much else to do in the hospital room. There was a stack of books sitting on the side table that he didn’t want to read along with his cell phone which gave him an apologetic message stating that his account could not currently access the Embassy servers, along with a terrible stick figure drawing resembling Janice with a word balloon that said, ‘Get well soon!’.

On top of the books was a rubix cube that Jeff brought in for him, a thoughtful gift that Edge solved in less than a minute, to his laughing dismay.

He was actually starting to reluctantly consider playing Simcity on his phone when a hammering knock at the door almost sent him flying to his feet. Or foot, rather, since one of them was currently firmly encased in a plaster cast.

“Come in!” Edge called irritably. He really could do without anyone testing whether skeletons could have a heart attack for a while.

He wasn’t surprised when the door flew open to reveal Undyne, grinning unrepentantly. She all but slammed the door behind her and flopped down in the chair by the bed, propping her booted feet up on the bed rail.

“Heya, tough nerd, where is your pretty honey bunny?” She glanced around the room as if she expected to find Stretch stashed away in the closet or under the bed.

“Must you call him that?” Edge sighed. The soles of her boots were leaving smudges on his sheets and he reached down to give them a slap, knocking them to the floor. Undyne only laughed.

“Touchy.” She shifted to lean with her elbows on her knees, hands hanging between them. “I’m the one whose knocked up, shouldn’t I be having the mood swings?”

“Thinking of you with mood swings is terrifying. Congratulations, by the way.” Edge knew very little about pregnancy, but he couldn’t really see a change in Undyne. He thought she might be wearing a slightly looser shirt than normal, but nothing else seemed visible, not even the ‘glow’ often mentioned in books and movies.

“Eh, thanks,” she grinned. “But let’s back up a step. I figured that honey of a hubby of yours wouldn’t leave your side.”

“You would be correct, even if I want him to,” Edge said dryly. “Much as I adore him, he was starting to get, shall we say, antsy. I sent him home to check on his chickens and to bring me some clean clothes.” Today was the first day Edge was in a position to despise the hospital gowns and he was, with great distaste.

“Uh huh. When are they springing you?” The way Undyne’s gaze fell over him was familiar, assessing damage and calculating potential weakness. It was automatic and came from a place of concern, he knew, but it was difficult not to bristle.

“Hopefully tomorrow, for a week’s rest and then a walking cast.”

Her eye narrowed, flicking back to his leg. “Bad?

“Not as bad as it could have been. For one, it’s still attached.” Undyne barked a laugh and pounded on the arm of her chair, which was the hoped for reaction. He’d tried that particular gallows humor with Stretch earlier and he had not been amused in the slightest. “It was mostly healed before we even got to the hospital, but the bone needs support until the doctors deem otherwise. Now that we’ve discussed me, can we…?”

“Yeah, sure.” She leaned back in her chair and spread her hands over her belly, pulling her t-shirt taut. That revealed the soft swell of her belly. “Alphys and I decided it was time to have a rugrat to chase, so us and the pop-sicle are on it.”

Popsicle? He didn’t want to know. But he did ask, curiously, “When are you due?”

“‘Bout two months.”

“Two months!” Edge blinked at her in shock. “I thought you’d be...more…” He held his arms out in front of his own empty stomach cavity in a wide circle.

She scoffed loudly and flexed, the firm ball of her bicep popping. “When you’re swole like me, the baby’s gotta fight the abs. And let me tell you, they’re trying.” She smirked then, a fiendish sort of glitter in her eye that filled Edge with equal parts fondness and terror. “You wanna feel the baby?”

“Well, I—”

Too late, she already stood and snatched up his hand, plopped it the slight curve of her belly. It was oddly firm, not at all what he was expecting and before he adjusted to that, there came a wiggle, like a fish was caught in her stomach which it might very well be. Ugh, that was disturbing. He preferred children after the creation process was finished.

She let him pull away and from her grin, she knew exactly how Edge felt about it; some of her glee rather resembled Red’s...or another Undyne, from another world. She flopped back in her chair and gave her belly an absent scratch. “So, when are you and Stretch gonna--”

“Please don’t ask.”

She frowned. “Oh. Sorry.”

It wasn’t her concern or her business, it was private, between him and Stretch, and Edge was as astonished as anyone to hear himself say, “He doesn’t want children.”

“What?” Undyne’s face twisted into disbelief. “Get off it. He loves kids, he’s always getting into trouble with the local ankle-biters. Bet you could talk him into it.”

“I don’t want to talk him into it.” Edge barely kept his testiness down, he knew Undyne, and knew she didn’t mean any harm, and he was the one who’d opened the topic. "I never want him to feel like a child is something he needs to agree to to keep me. I—“ He hesitated, thinking of Stretch, and his irritation faded. His faint smile was automatic, as natural as breathing when it came to thinking about his husband. As terrible as their anniversary had been with him mostly in a drugged sleep and Stretch curled up against him in his arms, Edge would have rather done it that way a dozen times over than to not have it at all. “I love him and I’ve accepted that we won’t have children. That’s our choice.”

For the first time, that honestly felt true. He supposed there was a faint hope lingering after their brief discussion last year, one that nagged at the back of his mind, tugged at his soul. But if he forced himself to truly consider it, Edge was happy with their lives the way they were and that wasn’t simply from Stretch’s preference; if they had a child, he would need to severely limit his other commitments to the Embassy and the Monster community as a whole. Plus there were the children at the Y to consider, children whose home lives were far from perfect, who craved a stabilizing influence.

Those children needed him more than he needed to speculate on an imaginary child. Even the children in New New home, who had loving parents of their own, needed to be protected from a world that was not yet as accepting as they might wish. The glaring white cast on his foot was proof of that.

That little pang he sometimes got when he thought of having a child of his own eased, fading, and Edge was content to let it go.

Undyne was looking at him with unusual shrewdness. “Yeah, I get that. Well, you’ll be a great uncle, both of ya, and I’m betting we’ll be trying to hook you up with babysitting duties.”

“I’d like that,” Edge said honestly. “And all the other neighborhood children seem to enjoy having a spare uncle or two. I’m sure your tadpole will be delighted to join the rest.”

She slapped her knees and stood. “Well, I gotta get back to the shitshow...and don’t even bother asking, I’m not supposed to tell you anything yet, that’s orders from on high. Just wanted to check in on you.” She sobered, and said with unusual softness. “And thank you. If I’d been there--” She shuddered, her hand falling down to rest on the slight swell of her belly.

“You don’t need to thank me, but you’re welcome,” Edge said sincerely.

Her somberness split into another wide grin. “But while I’m here….”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a Sharpie, waggling her eyebrows as she held it up.

Ugh. They’d only put the cast on this morning and thus far, no one else had been around to attempt signing it. Grimly, Edge nodded. This was a bonding ritual of sorts in this world, and he would not be so churlish as to refuse it.

“Nothing obscene,” he warned. Undyne scoffed, but obediently signed only her name, adding in a clumsy sketch of her own face saying ‘get well soon, nerd!’

The door opened as she was finishing, Stretch barrelling inside with several bags in his arms. “okay, i know it’s cold out, but you won’t be able to do any turns on the catwalk soon anyway, so i figured gym shorts would be easier to get on you--hey!” He stopped, outraged. “i was gonna do that!”

“I left you plenty of room,” Undyne snorted.

Stretch harrumphed and started digging through one of the bags. He pulled out an entire package of sharpies in a startling array of colors. “my canvas is the world!”

“Your canvas is on my body,” Edge said dryly. “You may sign your name and sketch a small picture, Van Gogh.”

“salvador dali had a better moustache. and both ears.”

“Considering you have neither--”

“yeah, yeah. hey, undyne, congrats on the bump.”

“Thanks,” Undyne said easily, but Edge noticed she didn’t try to grab Stretch’s hand and drag it over to feel any kicking. Neither did Stretch ask and that seemed best. “See you two nerds around!”

“See ya,” Stretch called even as he plopped down to sit next to Edge’s carefully propped leg. “oh, yeah, here, i got you this.”

From the depths of his bag came a couple of books, not novels, but crosswords and sudoku, both with bright titles declaring them ‘World’s Most Difficult Puzzles’! There were also two metal squares about the size of his fist and when Edge inspected them, he found that they were latticed, dozens of different parts that appeared to be a whole.

“those are supposed to be really tough brainteasers...shit!” Stretch had been struggling with opening the packet of pens and when he finally pried the plastic apart, they fell out in a burst, scattering over the bed. Grumbling, he gathered them up in a messy rainbow pile near Edge’s cast.

Edge added a blue sharpie that had made it all the way up to the pillow to the pile, then set books and puzzles on his other side. “Thank you.”

“sure. i figured you were tired of watching other people baking when you can’t stand up and do it yourself.” Stretch contemplated his pile of pens, his face screwed up comically, and his expression brightened into an ‘aha’ as he picked up one in bright orange. Of course.

“Stretch?”

“hmm?” he said absently, pen poised over the rough plaster.

“I love you.” Edge said it with all the deep, longing sweetness in his battered soul, the warmth that rose merely from thinking of Stretch, trying in some small way to project the depth of his love.

Stretch blinked and lowered his pen. Undyne might not normally be shrewd but Stretch very much was and his look was assessing. Wondering, perhaps, what happened while Undyne was here.

“i love you, too.” Then his mouth quirked in a lopsided smile. “but you’re interrupting art here.”

Edge smiled back and shook his head. “Far be it from me to play the part of philistine.”

“actually, this might end up more picasso,” Stretch mused, “guess we’ll see.” The tip of the sharpie touched down as Stretch began, but Edge didn’t watch his dubious attempt at art. Instead, he began inspecting the brain teaser his husband brought for him.

As if Stretch wasn’t a walking, talking brain teaser every day.

Edge lightly touched each joint as he contemplated how to begin, listening as Stretch hummed down by his feet, sketching something that would likely be terrible for him to love.

-finis-

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #by any other name

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