Krusie is like “I have barely known you for three days but I would happily die if it meant I could protect you. I regret every second we spent thinking we hated each other, because now that I see the real you, it’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. You are the one person I can truly rely on, even if I have to keep the most devastating of secrets from you that will bury me in the end. I see you, and I love you.”

Kriselle is like “I haven’t had a conversation with you last more than five minutes in years and I can still remember every word we’ve said to each other. We were the closest two people could possibly be without literally sharing a body and now I don’t even know how to talk to you. I pretend like you don’t mean anything to me because admitting how much I still love you terrifies me to the core, and I feel insane guilt every day over the fact I broke us apart. I hope one day you can forgive me for being a terrible friend.”

Suselle is like “You are everything that I am not that I so desperately want to be. You hide your true self away under these layers of facade but I can see the sparkling gem underneath and it is such a beautiful sight, I don’t think I am worthy to behold it. I want to steal every moment I can with you and I will fight to do so even if fate itself attempts to tears us apart. I don’t know if I will ever deserve you but I will still reach out to you, and I will find a way to keep you.”

Susei/Ralsusie is like “We are polar opposites in every way I can imagine and it only brings us closer together. You complete me in ways I did not know I needed to be completed. When everything and everyone told me that I did not matter, you told me I am important not in spite of but because of who I am. I will take every blow and every injury if it means protecting your smile and keeping you safe. I will even destroy my own heart if it means giving you the happiness that I know for a fact you deserve.”

Kralsei is like “What if you met the person that was literally made for you, and that all the world was pushing you together, but there was something wrong? What if the person you were born to fall in love with was an unflattering, bitter depiction of who you are and who you used to be? What if your honest to God Soulmate was keeping secrets and undermining everything you have dedicated your life to do, not out of cruelty or malicious intent, but because it was genuinely what they needed to do, what they were always going to do? And what if, in spite of all of that, you fell in love with each other anyways?”

Kerdly is like “I don’t know if I can call you my friend or say I care about you, but you still define so much of who I am, intentionally or otherwise. I don’t have many people who would give a shit if I live or die, and I don’t know if you’re one of them, but I still need you to be in my life. I will fight you, I will hurt you, I will defy everything you want if I absolutely have to, but when the chips are down I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe. I don’t know if I love you, I don’t even know if I like you, but I still need you, whatever that even means.”

Dessriel…I mean, do I even have to explain that one? Whatever happened, however things went, you already know.

ANY adult Holiday/Dreemurr ship is like “We were once something special, closer than anyone could possibly imagine. My home was your home, and yours was mine. Even outside of what the world might accept, we were one family. Then everything went wrong, and now we’ve fallen apart. My life is crumbling down around me in ways I didn’t even think were possible, and yet I still care about you. I still love you, even as we rapidly approach the end, and the world crumbles down around me. I don’t know if we’re still a family, but you will always be my home.”

(T – 4.8k)

“Yes, I… I do suppose so…” He averted his gaze. “I just wish there was a way to fill the gap in the mean time. I… I would much prefer to be saving up fields and fields of flowers for her, for Tori, whilst we… Well… Selling them makes it all feel rather hollow. But I understand that’s not an option.”

“Asgore,” she smiled thinly, “you should know by now that if you require something, you can come to me for it.”

He placed his glass down on the counter, nearly empty now, and turned back to her. There was something in his expression that told her he still wasn’t quite looking at her, but it was easy to pretend.

Carol was adept at pretending. She was even better at preserving.

(T – 8.1k)

“Toriel visited…” admitted Asgore. “She wasn’t happy.”

Rudy’s expression twisted in sympathy.

—

“Carol,” he said earnestly, “if you would like my company again, you need only ask.”

Perhaps he needed her to ask. Perhaps he just needed someone to ask him back into their home, because Flower King had never felt like his own. Toriel had shut and locked the door on him, taken away the key, and alone had never been especially homely; an invite now, even just through a crack in a door left ajar, would be a candle in the true dark of the night, and he would be like a moth drawn to it.