Loving Every Bone in Your Body

Chapter 4.11 || Philosophical Cleaning

        Blue enjoyed cleaning. He wanted to say it was something he just liked doing. He was pretty sure it was just because out of him and his brother growing up, he was going to be the only one to do it, and Blue always enjoyed being the optimist.

He definitely didn't take to cleaning because it was his way of coping with stress and that's definitely not what he was doing now in his brother's room.

"ya good bro?" Stretch asks slowly, eyelights following the other back and forth across the floor. Just watching him was tiring. So tiring in fact he stretched out further on the beanbag he'd bought while out with the Doctor. He felt his sockets droop.

"HOW DO YOU LIVE IN SUCH A MESS?" Blue nearly wailed, fishing another fist full of socks from a precarious mini trash storm.

"I live like this so you can de-stress." Stretch joked.

"I'M NOT STRESSED!" Blue cuts in. He slumped though the moment the words were out of his mouth. He knew what little mask he had up had crumbled. It always crumbled around his brother. He rolled one of his shoulders back, trying to work out the knot in his ball socket. Stretch peeks at his brother with one socket before shifting, sitting up a bit more.

"what's got ya down bro?" He asks gently. Blue's smile flattens briefly. He tries to keep it up, tries to make it bigger, more believable, but it puts a strain in his cheek bones. Stretch frowns and- that's not the reaction Blue's supposed to get. When he smiles, Stretch is supposed to smile.

Blue's grin wilts.

"I MISS SNOWDIN." Blue admits. Yet, his face twists in confusion. He knew that wasn't right. Well, it was, he did miss Snowdin. He missed a lot of things but... there were also things he really, really didn't. Blue's large eyelights focus on his brother momentarily before they go to the carpet. It was a horrible carpet that Stretch insisted on getting. Blue disliked it oh-so-much.

To contrary belief, Blue disliked many things. He was well aware of his, well, role, back in Snowdin. He was the magnificent Blue! He laid out snares and traps, foiling fallen humans and crushing consenting dummies with the royal guard captain Alphys. He was optimistic and always ecstatic to be there for his lazy brother, or anyone, when he was needed.

If he was smiling, other monsters would smile back. If he helped around town, the people of Snowdin would thank him. If he protected the town, people would like him. He had only ever wanted people to like him.

He just wanted friends.

But he didn't have any friends in Snowdin. He wasn't popular or well liked. He had Stretch and Alphys and sometimes, because of his brother, he'd talk to the quiet scientist, Undyne, always hidden in her lab. Or the man behind the ruins door.

There was also Chara. He'd only met the human briefly before he and his brother were brought here, to a different version of their surface.

"...you miss snowdin?" Stretch quietly repeats, seemingly also confused, but patient, prompting his older brother to continue. Blue's teeth purse.

He didn't. Not really. He wanted to, he thinks. He should. Snowdin was all he's ever known. He grew up there, with Stretch.

But it was only ever Stretch and him.

And now, on the surface, there was still him and Stretch.

Blue still had his younger brother. Yet, now, he had other brothers. Maybe it was just him, or just his knack for hoping, but now he had an even larger family. Not only that but he had a soulmate. A whole entire soulmate. A soulmate that was not just tied to him, but his brother, too.