#I just want to gauge if people have specific phobias of certain animals

[lesbianfakir]

You’re placed in a room with an animal. The door is closed and you cannot leave. The animal is completely calm and has no intent of harming you. You are in no danger unless you provoke the animal in some way.

#having a conversation about pathological fears of animal #if you put me in a room with the worlds chillest nicest chimpanzee I would be in hysteric #it’s been that way ever since age 12 #that scene in ​nope was the most validated I’ve ever felt in my life #lea off topic tag #I just want to gauge if people have specific phobias of certain animals

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Some Sense of Normalcy ch.3 (baon)

Summary: It’s Edge’s first day back to work at the Embassy, but his job isn’t the only thing on his mind.

Tags:  Spicyhoney, Kustard, Established Relationships, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Past Injury

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 |

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Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

Read Chapter 3 on AO3

or

Read it here!

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Stretch was only two steps out of the elevator and already he could taste his own sweat heavy on the back of his tongue. It was fine, no big deal, it was only a bunch of equipment, right? The harsh gleam of the overhead fluorescent lights on stainless steel shouldn’t be that damn upsetting, it shouldn’t.

Shoulda woulda coulda, and fuck it all, because it damn well was, and the bitch of it was that Stretch wasn’t even sure why.

He started to turn around. Not to get back into the elevator, no, he wasn’t peacing out. Only to breathe for a minute, use those hard-learned tactics for controlling an incipient panic attack that Doc Lee spent the past year trying to pound into his hard skull. She hadn’t said it in so many words, but Stretch got the idea that they’d all been thoroughly tested already on Sans.

Close his sockets, focus on breathing deeply through his mouth. In for four, hold it, out for four. He was supposed to be so damned good at math, he could manage that much.

What felt like a hard, rubbery fist clenched in his chest was starting to ease when he heard someone calling his name.

“Stretch!” He turned to see Alphys almost scurrying up and her smile was warm enough despite the trifle of worry in her eyes.

Yeah, okay, better to keep her worries on the right path. Stretch hung on a 100-watt smile and beamed it right her way, “hey, lizard lady, how’s it going? i didn’t even have a chance to ring the bell.”

She held up her phone. “I g-get an alert when certain k-keycards are used in the elevator. C-come on, come to my office.”

Going to her office sounded like a super plan.

Stretch followed after her as she led a path through the maze of metal tables and equipment, the other scientists in their long white coats. He knew the way to her office, but it was easier to focus on the long yellow tail poking out of the back of her lab coat, concentrate on keeping that breathing nice and even.

Alphys wasn’t always the most observant person out there when it came to social cues, but she sure as hell understood anxiety. She knew he wasn’t keen on the labs. Not from anything Stretch said, not fucking likely, but he was pretty sure Ass-gore had a top-secret file on him somewhere with a nice long list of his skills sets and another one of his phobias. He kinda thought the skill list was longer, not enough to bet on it. He hoped whatever pictures they stuck in it caught his good side, namely his ass.

The second Stretch was through the office door, Alphys closed it, shutting out all the bustling sounds and reflections, and the relief of it being out of sight, out of mind, made Stretch let out an explosive sigh.

Alphys gave him a nervous smile as she gathered a stack of folders out of the guest chair. “So-sorry about the mess.”

On her desk, bookshelves, and even the chairs were cluttered piles of papers and diagrams, surrounded her computer monitors like flimsy skyscrapers, the bright corners of manga books poking out from random levels, and empty coffee mugs standing around like statues.

There were toys, too, statues and plushies both, one that looked distinctly like smiling piece of poo, another of dragon, curled around one of the coffee mugs. On her desk was a figure from ‘Mew Mew Kissy Cutie’ and that gave Stretch a little pang to see.

Back home, (no not home, not for a long time now) it was ‘Bow Wow Smootchie Beauty’, the main character an anime girl with adorably floppy ears. For the first time in longer than Stretch could remember, a longing twinge for Undyne rose up in him. Not this world’s Undyne, his Undyne, and he hated phrasing it that way, but he couldn’t think of something better.

He and Undyne hadn’t been besties, but they’d still been friends. Close enough that he’d gone to her place a few times to hang out, watch anime, and chatter on about the episodes and what was the best kind of cup noodles. So many words tossed back and forth about nothing at all. So long as they stayed in her rooms and out of the lab proper, it didn’t bother him, and Undyne never brought up her work, even when it was kinda obvious she wanted to.

That wistful look started showing up more and more, and Stretch stopped going even before everything went to shit in Underswap. There was something for his regret bucket. That he hadn’t taken the time to keep up his end of the bargain, hadn’t invited her over to his place for some movie viewing and yeah, she hated Snowdin, but he hated Hotland, so it was a fair trade. What wasn’t fair was knowing that if he’d been in Underswap, he would’ve gone to Undyne about this problem, without ever letting her talk about her work. Watched her nervously rub her hands together, half her face obscured by her long hair, hiding behind that curtain.

Stretch blinked hard, tearing his gaze away from the little figure and focused back to Alphys’s concerned face. Underswap was a long time ago and he needed to keep the count his of personal issues to one hand, thanks.

“hey, so thanks for meeting with me,” Stretch said. He plunked down into the chair while Alphys sat at the one at her desk, specially designed to allow for her tail. He didn’t bother resisting the urge to reach for his lighter, letting the rhythm of weaving it through his fingers soothe him.

“No problem,” Alphys said, “we got off c-course with t-tracking your HP. Is it t-troubling you again?”

“let me get straight to the meat of it,” Stretch said, “i want you to run another scan on my hp, then you can tell me.”

She nodded. “Have you been h-having any symptoms?”

“i’ve been really tired lately, run down,” Stretch admitted, “i take a nap and i wake up still tired. i can fall asleep anywhere.”

Alphys hummed thoughtfully, “S-sounds like Undyne r-right now.” She gave him an unexpectedly teasing look, "Are you s-sure you aren't p-p-pregnant, too?"

"har, har, al." Stretch about sprained an eye light rolling them as hard as he could. “unless i grew some unexpected equipment, there won’t be any knocked up at my door.”

"Well, in theory, s-soul mating c-could result in the c-creation of a souling, there were experiments—"

"in theory, sure,” Stretch interrupted, unreasonably annoyed; he didn’t want to talk about experiments, thanks. “but that requires rubbing two souls together long enough to make a fire. since edge and i stick with rubbing pelvises, i'm going with not." Stretch shuddered; just the thought of it was nightmare fuel. "sorry, preggies is okay for people who want it, but i'd rather donate a femur to the cause.”

"I th-think I wouldn't have m-minded," Alphys said, shyly. "But Undyne has better HP than me, so we d-decided she should be the one to c-carry the baby.”

Even talking about this was making him a little uncomfortable, but Al had the look of someone who wanted to talk, maybe needed to. She was doing him the favor, here, the least he could do was listen. Probably Al didn’t get to talk about it much, since she wasn’t the one with the bump.

The memory of his Undyne made him push aside his discomfort. Stretch forced a chuckle and said, "heh, if that's the deciding vote, then if we were gonna baby it up, Edge would be the pregnant one."

"He would have very f-fashionable maternity clothes. He and Undyne c-could bond over prenatal yoga." Alphys looked at him curiously, rocking back in her office chair, “P-pardon me for asking, but are you t-two looking for a surrogate, then?”

“fuck, no!” Stretch blurted. Yeah, that might have been a little excessive, Alphys winced, cringing into herself. Stretch tied on his smile again, “sorry, sorry, that was rude.”

Alphys shook her head, and her words were gentle and nonjudgmental, “N-not at all, it’s a p-p-private decision, I shouldn’t have p-pressed.”

Probably not. He and Al weren't specifically close, as friends or anything else, so Stretch wasn't sure why his stupid mouth chose to add, "i really don’t want kids and edge…i mean. he says he’s fine with it.”

If Alphys was surprised to hear him toss out that conversational gambit, it didn’t show. She only leaned in, her eyes kind behind her glasses, “You d-don’t believe him?”

Wasn’t that the ten-dollar question? Stretch really wished he was sure about the answer. He wanted to believe Edge, maybe Edge even believed himself, tried to, anyway. Stretch looked down, away from Alphys’s gaze, and said in a small voice. “i don’t know.”

“Hm.” Alphys stood and waddled over to stand next to him. Even sitting, he had to look down at her as she settled a clawed hand on his shoulder, “I really want this baby,” she said, clearly, “But I th-think if Undyne d-didn’t want to have kids, I’d be okay w-with that.”

There was enough quiet sincerity in that to make him swallow hard against a knot settling in the back of his throat. “yeah?”

“Yeah,” Alphys smiled, a loving, brilliant smile meant for someone else, someone tall and brash, with a lot of red hair. Not his Undyne, but hers. “I f-fell in love with her, n-not her DNA,” Alphys said, firmly. “Although she does have very n-nice DNA. So maybe you should b-believe him.”

Stretch offered her a smile of his own, one that felt a little wobbly, but hey, it was there. Look at him, communicating back and forth like a grown up and all. Doc Lee would be so proud. “thanks al. congrats by the way. how are undyne and the bump?"

"Impatient," Alphys sighed deeply, and wasn't there chapters of meaning in that one word.

“know much about the sprog yet?” Stretch teased and it felt okay. “gonna be twins? tadpoles?”

She giggled and shook her head. “N-no, the ultrasound is showing one baby. She’s d-due anytime now, it can be d-difficult to gauge with mixed Monster species.”

The scientist in him was a little curious about that; he’d gone for physics over biology. He wondered who they’d gone with for the dad juice, but he wasn’t the kind of asshole who would ask.

“i do like kids,” Stretch admitted, “i just don’t want part ownership with one. bet edge would like to babysit.”

She hummed thoughtfully, “B-be careful with that offer, I’m s-sure we’ll take you up on it. Now, we’ve g-gotten off-topic.”

Stretch winced. “yeah, sorry, sorry, i know you’re busy.”

“Not so busy that I can’t h-help,” Alphys countered. She turned around to scrabble through the clutter on her desk, came back with a notepad and a pencil. The tip of the pencil hovered over the paper, ready to write, “Now, you’ve been t-tired. What are you getting when you run a Ch-check?”

Of course she’d ask that, it made sense, it was the very first thing to be done to see a Monster’s stats. Quick, painless, and loaded with info, and Stretch didn’t really have a good reason for not doing one already, past ‘don’t wanna’.

Time to face the tunes. “i haven’t run one,” Stretch admitted quietly, “i know, i know, i’m wasting your time--”

“Hm? No, I don’t think so,” Alphys scribbled something down on the notepad. “Anything else out of the o-ordinary?”

“i thought about it and the only thing i can think of is i’ve been doing a lot healing lately, more than usual.” He didn’t say why and Alphys didn’t ask. “a lot of shit’s been going down. honestly, i don’t even know if something is wrong, but if there is, i wanted to get a leg over on it, get checked over before anything worse crops up.”

“You’re t-tall enough to get a leg right up over my h-head,” Alphys said, and the gentle tease soothed. Right up until Alphys set aside the notepad and picked up a tablet with a pair of electrodes dangling from it. “Right then, l-let’s run some t-tests. Can you summon your soul?”

Fuck, he hated this part. Or maybe hated was too strong a word. It wasn’t that bad, really, Stretch was used to a certain clinical touch on his soul from time to time, he got sick too often not to be. Used to the feel of gloved hands holding it steady to slip in an IV needle, or to attach leads, or to take a minuscule sample to study under a microscope, checking for what kind of germ hooked its wagon to his personal shining star this time. He was pretty numb to the whole ordeal at this point.

If he were honest with himself, and hey, sometimes he was, it hadn’t felt quite so invasive until he’d let Edge go hands-on with it. No one else had ever cradled his soul in a gentle hand, gazed at the silvery light that poured out of it with adoration. Sure as hell no one else had ever seen it during sex, rubbed a careful, bare thumb across its smooth surface and dragged such toe-curling pleasure out of him he’d damn near fainted from it.

Yeah, it was hard to sit back down in the waiting room once you got a glimpse of paradise.

He summoned up his soul, and didn’t watch as Alphys went to work. She was professional and gentle, hooking up the leads with barely even a pinch. She tapped the tablet and almost instantly, her expression changed into something... complicated. Um. That didn’t seem good. “what?”

“Oh, it’s n-nothing, let me--”

“it’s not nothing, you look like someone gave you a pinch on the ass. what is it?”

“It’s n-nothing bad,” Alphys corrected. “L-let me finish first, hasty c-conclusions lead to bad r-results.”

True enough but that was easier to deal with when it came to his experiments on growing better yielding plants through hydroponics, not so much when it was his soul on the line.

He waited impatiently while she poked at the tablet and managed to give her all of three minutes before bursting out, “okay, so what’s going on?”

“See for y-yourself.”

She held out the table and on it was a screen was a visual display of all his stats, from his soul pulse (running too fast) to his defense (sitting at its normal too-low), to his HP, displayed down to the tiniest decimal.

His HP, which had been slowly ticking upward for the past few weeks, was still doing it. Only now it was above five, closer to 5.3453367883. The last three crawled upward as he stared, turning to a unaccusing four.

“it’s going up,” Stretch said blankly. Way to state the obvious, there. His mind wasn’t calculating anything past that, nothing beyond his initial shock. He’d been expecting bad news, braced to hear the worst, and this was the exact opposite. It was like a trash bag breaking open to reveal piñata candy inside.

“Y-yes!” Alphys said happily. She tapped a clawed finger on the tablet screen. “It’s s-still going at the same r-rate as before, only it’s traveled p-past your base HP!”

“but…why?” Pointless question, what did it matter so long as it was going up, but Stretch didn’t like mysteries, not on television and not in life. He liked answers.

“That’s harder to d-determine,” Alphys admitted. “You d-did say you’ve been getting more rest lately, but th-that usually causes a one-time boost, n-not a cumulative effect. You said you’ve been using your m-magic a lot m-more, yes?”

“yeah, more than i usually do around the house.”

“M-maybe you should keep that up.” She snatched up the notepad and started scribbling furiously, leaving Stretch to gingerly remove the leads himself and allow his soul fade back into his chest. “T-take more shortcuts, practice a few a-attacks. We aren’t meant to hoard our m-magic in our souls, we need to l-let it out, k-keep it from going stagnant.”

“i guess i could.” Shortcuts, anyway, Stretch wasn’t really keen on making any sort of attack, not even for the magic drain, thanks.

“I think you should t-t-try it,” Alphys said decisively, “For th-this week, work on using your m-magic more than usual, then come back and we’ll r-run another test. It’s worth investigating.” She paused. “Of course, there is a-another possibility.”

“what?”

Her smile was a little tremulous, “M-monster souls response well to h-happiness.”

Before Stretch could say anything to that, his phone rang, showing an incoming call from the main source of his current happiness.

Fuck, he’d told Edge to call on his lunch.

He held up a shushing finger to his mouth and Alphys nodded, even as he swiped to answer it, “babe! i was just thinking about you—”

“I hope they were kind thoughts and not nefarious plans.” Just the sound of his voice was soothing, the soft underlying humor wrapped around his concern, “How are you feeling?”

Too much enthusiasm was going to set off alarm bells, so Stretch settled for, “better, i think. more myself, anyway.”

“That’s wonderful to hear, love,” Edge said warmly. “Then if you’re feeling better, perhaps you’d like to come upstairs to my office and have lunch with me?

Welp, so much for secrets. He should have known better to even try at the Embassy. If the spy gear didn’t get you, the gossips sure did. “who tattled.”

“I’m afraid I can’t reveal my source.”

Yeah, about the only person that took out of the running was Andy, and only because he’d promised not to tell. “yeah, i’ll be up in a mo’.”

“Wait,” Came unexpectedly from Alphys. “C-could you ask Edge to c-come down here? For a few m-moments?”

“um, sure, al,” Stretch said slowly and all his relief about his HP started to curdle until she hastily spoke up again.

“It’s n-not about you. O-or it is, but n-not in that way, it’s n-nothing bad, only an experiment I’m doing. I c-could use both your help.”

That didn’t sound at all ominous or anything, did it. But he owed a favor and Stretch did like to pay off his tabs. Eventually.

“babe, can you come down to the labs, to alphys’s office?” Stretch said into the phone. “she says it’s nothing bad.”

“Of course,” Edge replied, surprised, “I’ll be down in ten minutes.” The call disconnected and left him alone again with Alphys for ten long minutes, ten minutes that he didn’t really want to discuss experiments in until Edge was here. He could give Alphys that much, more than he’d ever given his Undyne.

But only when Edge was here, that was the thing and it was okay; Edge might be the one with all the strategy, but Stretch had a trick or two up his sleeve, too.

“did you see the last mew mew kissy cutie holiday special?”

Alphys brightened visibly and took the bait, babbling her way excitedly into his trap. Stretch settled back into his chair to listen, for at least ten minutes, but his wandering thoughts were more on his HP and that slow upward tick.

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tbc

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