Archive of Our Own ^beta

“You’ve gotta be shittin’ me.”

Honestly when Edge had said having something to nurture and distract could help him deal with his ‘separation issues’, the last thing Red had expected was the bitty center. At most he’d thought he was going to be forced to buy a plant or two.

Not pick out a damn pet!

So, maybe, he shouldn’t have snuck into Edge’s house at four in the morning. But what did his brother seriously expect? It was Red’s job to make sure he was safe, and living alone underground went against that very notion. How was being on the surface really any different?

Still had assholes wanting to dust you, still had people willing to backstab for a quick buck.

Only humans were thrown into the mix now, and they were unpredictable.

With a grumble he shoved his hands in his pockets and squared his shoulders before reluctantly walking along the display wall. His crimson eyelights panned from tank to tank; from the tall and energetic Papies to the lazy and, okay a little cute, Sansies.

But Red gave up after about ten seconds.

How the hell was he supposed to pick out a tiny little bone clone?

The little condensed balls of primal magic were all the same looking for the most part, and just… strange. Out of all the consequences of the monster’s freedom from the underground, and the release of a millennia of built up magic, bitties springing to life was the last thing he’d have imagined.

Red glanced surreptitiously towards Edge and the attendant.

They were both looking through some sort of magazine together, and were very distracted. He could easily shortcut away if he wanted. In fact the more he thought about it the more the idea tempted him.

Until he felt that all too familiar prick along the back of his vertebra. The age old tell of eyes on his back and another’s intent aimed directly at him.

Red abruptly turned, and froze.

A Blueberry locked eyelights with him from an isolation tank.

Cautiously he glanced around but the lone bitty was the only one eyeing him so intently. Just a shelf over, a tank housing a crowd of the little guys and their Honeys perked up and started to vie for his attention, but nothing about them were enough to warrant his instincts flaring as they had.

Red looked back at the loner with a raised brow but didn’t get a reaction, just the same long and soul piercing stare. The Blueberry looked as if someone had run him through the washer with bleach. Compared to the others, his clothing looked five shades too light, and his bones were off colored, a little gray.

His eyelights looked like watered down paint.

It was… a bit disturbing.

Red’s voice came out more of a rasp than his usual gruff. “What’s his deal?”

The attendant glanced up before clearing her throat. “I don’t think you’d be too interested in that one, he’s got a few defects, depression being one of them. So he’s not as active or energetic as a Blueberry should be.”

Red shot her a scowl over his shoulder, his crimson eyelights pulsing violently.

“Depression is not a fuckin’ defect.”

She wisely averted her gaze.

“Where’s his Honey?” He asked, looking back at the tank and tapping at the glass. Interestingly the Blueberry still didn’t break eye contact, but instead, took a single step forward to tap right back at him.

Okay, that was downright adorable.

“His brother was adopted.” She responded hesitantly. “The buyer didn’t want a hyperactive bitty, but he did want a Papy.”

“No wonder he’s depressed.” Red hissed beneath a whisper.

The Blueberry and Red both stared at each other, and Edge noticed the slight tilt to his brother’s grin. It was the one he got only when he felt a rare moment of softness, a second of vulnerability that was hardly ever allowed to show.

Smiling, he stepped up next to him. “Well, brother?”

“I’ll take’em.”

~~

Blue had been used to high pitched squeals and excited murmurs from passing customers, not quiet curses and grumbled comments. So when he’d spotted the short giant, looking as if he was going to be sick just from being in the store, he’d paused.

The sight had been so foreign to him.

In curiosity his eyelights expanded, and with just a little focus, he saw why.

What Blue assumed was a soul, just barely stood out from the stranger’s outline in a bizarre tonal blend. If he hadn’t known better he would’ve labeled the monster a life sized bitty with how dim it shone. Then he had noticed the emotions glimmering across it, the thin magical lines bending and distorting as they traveled like rippling waves along the dull surface.

There was loneliness, and a sense of displacement.

Blue clutched at his shirt as he’d blinked his vision clear. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the taller being no matter how hard he’d tried. The feelings were too familiar, too painful.

Well it had been a few days since then, and Blue had been… uncertain about the new environment, but he tried to offer activities to do together. However, everything he suggested was turned down for one reason or another.

All Red seemed to want to do was watch TV, sleep on the sofa, and ‘bitty proof’ the house; placing mini ladders and stairs everywhere while making sure all sharp edges were somehow blunted or covered. He was doing his part making sure Blue had plenty of food and water, and had even bought him toys, but the more Blue watched his new owner work the more he worried.

Red looked like a machine on auto-pilot.

Blue’s concerns were validated only a night later.

He had never heard such a blood curdling scream before in his life! The whole of Red’s house and his own bitty dwelling were rocked from what sounded like a sudden blow. Just as quickly as it happened though it stopped, and Blue slowly poked his head out of his door.

Red had actually gone to his room to sleep for the first time since Blue had been adopted, and at a decent hour too. To say this was the last thing the bitty had expected would’ve been an understatement.

Risking a glance down the hall he hesitantly took the ladder down from his perch on the TV end table, and made his way over to the door at the end. It was so tall and looked heavy, being made of a thick oak, but thankfully it was cracked just wide enough he could easily peer in to check on the monster.

Red’s room was a mess.

There were clothes everywhere, clean and dirty all mixed together with countless mustard packets tangled in between fast food wrappers. Worse yet, the smell was foul, and stale enough to make tears prickle in the corners of Blue’s sockets.

A sudden whimper snapped his gaze up.

Red was in nothing but his boxers, covered in a thick sheen of sweat and scrunched up into a ball beneath torn sheets. From what Blue could see there was a snarl replacing his grin, twisting the expression he normally wore into a nightmarish, agonized grimace.

Blue gasped.

Red’s soul was impossibly dim, and its magical ley lines were faded like long healed over scars.

How was Red still breathing?

Concerned, Blue returned to the living room and climbed back up to his perch before spying his goal, Red’s answering machine. He hadn’t seen the tall and angry one since they came back from the center, and he’d never seen Red use his phone.

The light was blinking.

He pressed play. “You have six missed calls from: ‘Edgelord’.”

The machine beeped and each message seemed perfectly normal, Edge going into the details of his day and asking after his. The usual family calls and pleasantries, Blue figured. It was on the last message, however, that Blue realized just how bad the situation was.

“… Red, I know we argued last we saw each other. But I thought the situation was resolved, only now you’re ignoring me.”

Blue could hear a slight, desperate undertone that leaked through his words. “Call me back.”

The machine clicked off.

When Blue had lost his brother, it had nearly broken him. He couldn’t imagine feeling so isolated and rejected as to ignore one’s own sibling’s pleas for understanding and acceptance.

Did Red do this… with everyone? Was Red doing this with him too? Was that why he avoided any activities or bonding time with him?

His new owner was worse off than he thought. Red was his responsibility to look after now, just as much as he was his. Just as bitties need love and care to keep going, so do their larger counterparts.

Red needed him.

Blue’s eyelights brightened into a vibrant cyan.

~~

Red’s day sucked.

First, his coffee machine had broken so he had to go play bodyguard for the little ambassador without his obligatory cup of joe. Second, he was very sleep deprived. And third, Toriel had been in a mood all morning long.

So it really didn’t help when he came home to the house filled with smoke.

“The hell?!” Red shouted as he opened the door to try to clear away the smog. “Hey! Where the fuck are ya!?”

“Kitchen!”

That sounded oddly calm.

A quick shortcut and he saw exactly why his fire alarm was blaring. His bitty was hunched over the top of the oven, door cracked, and shoulders straining as if he was trying to pull something out of it.

With a growl Red shot a bone into the annoying alarm, before yanking the oven open with a huff. Instinctively he pushed Blue back to make sure he didn’t fall in, and then promptly dumped the giant smoke bomb of a tray into the sink and drowned it.

Were those charred cookies?

“What the hell were ya thinkin’ trying to cook on yer own!?” Red snarled.

Blue froze in place, back ramrod straight before glancing down at his feet. “I thought you’d appreciate a snack when you got home.”

Red froze and offered nothing but a slow blink as he tried to figure out if the little guy was serious or not. After a moment of awkward staring, he sighed. Running a hand over his face, he glanced once more at the sink. It was a thoughtful gesture, but it was still stupid that the bitty had attempted it at all.

Red could’ve come home to a burnt skeleton kabob instead.

“… I’ll make the cookies.” Red huffed as he shut off the faucet.

“But, I wanted to do that for you.”

He cocked a brow as Blue’s tiny little skull dipped into the periwinkle blue scarf he wore in obvious disappointment, while somehow still looking defiant.

Red suddenly noticed his eyelights were bluer.

He glanced around at the splattered dough and flour dotting his kitchen sink and counter, and chuckled quietly. The sight was nostalgic. Edge had been just as much as a destructive tornado when it came to the kitchen as a babybones.

Red decided to try an old tactic he hadn’t used in a long time. “Tell ya what, let me make the cookies, and you can pick out a movie for us to watch. How ‘bout that?”

Blue seemed to perk up, his sockets going wide in shock and searching Red’s for any signs of deceit, before slowly smiling. Red’s own grin widened, it was the first smile he’d seen curve the little monster’s teeth.

It sent an unexpected spark of warmth through him.

After a momentary stare off, Blue finally ran along the counter to one of his ladders and climbed down it. Not long after a sudden clatter from the living room told him the VHS stack he kept had toppled over.

Red chuckled and tossed off his jacket before getting to work.

~~

Three trays of cookies later, and halfway through ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ Blue found himself nodding off, no matter how hard he struggled to keep his sockets open.

At least Red was having fun. He seemed completely at ease, chewing on cookies rather obnoxiously, and laughing at something the hero was doing involving a weird machine he was hooked up to.

Until suddenly he wasn’t anymore.

Blearily Blue looked up and instantly snapped awake.

Red was holding his cellphone, staring at the screen with lidded sockets and a dip to his teeth that wasn’t quite a frown, but something more resigned and apathetic. Blue could venture a guess as to why, and decided to risk asking.

“Is it Edge?”

Red didn’t even look at him, merely snorted humorlessly and pocketed the phone as he focused back on the screen. “Yep, nothin’ important.”

Blue looked at the screen just as intently. “This movie is boring… ”

“‘Ey!”

“Stretch would’ve loved it. You and him are a lot alike sometimes.”

There was a beat of silence before Red hesitantly spoke. “Was that yer brother’s name?”

“Yeah.”

“… weird name.” He groused.

Blue couldn’t help the grin as he glanced up at Red. “He was tall.”

“Ah… that explains it.” Blue snorted before letting the room lull back into silence. The droning of the movie was barely a footnote as he thought about how his brother had been so proud of that name. He’d puffed out his chest and had even joked about naming Blue ‘short.’

He’d never seen his brother smile so widely.

“… Uh… ”

Blue’s eyelights flickered back to Red as a vivid red glow painted his cheekbones.

“Reason my bro’s name is Edge… is cuz he used to love superman comics.” A distant look overcame him, and his eyelights hazed around the edges.

“He liked this nobody character, Morgan Edge, some wealthy political douchebag that dressed real nice. Inspired a lot of my bro’s fashion choices. He’d always talk ‘bout him, which led to me eventually asking what the big story was, ‘Edgelord,’ everytime he found a new comic in the dump. Heh.”

Blue didn’t speak as Red’s expression tightened back into a frown. “Before we broke topside at least, and he saw how they screwed the guy with that infinity earth crapshoot. Never saw my bro try so hard not ta break windows before.”

“So you named your brother?” Blue asked curiously.

Red shifted in his seat. “Yeah, kinda had to. Was just us since we were babybones.” He looked thoughtful before finally facing Blue again.

“I haven’ given ya a name have I?”

Blue’s soul leapt in his chest, and his skull instantly flushed pale cyan, but his voice was calm. “No.”

“Hmm, do ya have somethin’ that you call yerself? Short stack? Tiny?”

The look Blue shot him was enough to pull a deep throated laugh from the monster. Only once that had subsided did he reply lamely. “I call myself Blue, it’s just what I’ve always gone by. No one thought to give me a name.”

Red scoffed “Can name yer brother but not you? Watta bunch of idiots.”

He didn’t even try to protest the name calling, he couldn’t. Because the moment he opened his mouth to try his tongue turned to lead, and all thought left him as Red smiled down at him with alarming softness.

“Well, goin’ with Blue then? Since you already use it.”

Blue couldn’t believe his non-existent ears. “You’re letting me choose my own name?”

“Why not?” The way Red shrugged was completely indifferent but at the same time so accommodating that Blue was having a hard time comprehending just what was happening. He didn’t have words.

So he defaulted to what he used to always say to Stretch in these moments.

“You’re so lazy.”

Red blinked at him and broke into another round of raucous laughter.

Warmth spread through Blue’s ribs, and trailed down to the tips of his toes and fingers as he slowly joined in. His gradual chuckles growing as a faint hue began to overtake his features, turning his washed out pastels into vivid contrasts.

Red noticed, and was the first to stop laughing as he watched on in wonder at the display.

When Blue finally stopped, and with tears beaded in his sockets, he looked almost exactly as the other Blueberries had at the shop. Actually, he looked more colorful, with deeper tones and shades.

“Lookin’ a bit flushed there Blue.” Red commented with a smirk.

Blue raised a brow in confusion before looking down at himself and widening his sockets.

Oh.

“This is how I’m supposed to look.” He shrugged, unable to hide his genuine grin.

Red rolled his eyelights playfully. “Uh huh, yep, you’ve always looked like that.”

A faint vibration cut through the air, and instantly killed the light atmosphere that had built up around them. Red glared over at the TV again, and this time Blue had no qualms speaking his mind.

“You should call him.”

Red looked as if he hadn’t heard him, until muttering, “He doesn’ need me.”

Blue frowned.

“A brother will always need his sibling, I still need mine.” Red looked down at him but Blue couldn’t stop the words from pouring out. “A-and I’ll never see him again. You don’t want that, trust me.”

Red grabbed the remote and shut the screen off.

The silence seemed to go on into eternity before something gave in his expression.

“… I’m scared because I don’t know how to not be there for him.” Blue watched as Red fiddled with the remote, his gaze downcast to the floor but seeing nothing. “Space wasn’ a thing underground, and I don’t know how to be close while bein’ apart.”

“… I could help you figure it out… ”

Blue felt Red’s gaze pan up to him, but he couldn’t look anywhere except at his gloved hands as he wrung them. ”I could help you learn how to be close at a distance… ”

He risked a glance up from beneath his lowered lids. “And you could help me figure out how to live with a missing half.”

Red didn’t say anything, but instead reached for Blue and pulled a yelp from him at the unexpected contact. Without missing a beat Red perched him on his shoulder and slumped further into the couch before once more flipping on the television.

“… We can try working on that tomorrow.”

Blue stared at him transfixed, before relaxing into the crook of his neck.

They both fell asleep right before the movie’s ending, but they slept peacefully, and with comfort in their souls.