Chapter Text
Your fingers fly over the screen of your cellphone, punching in yet another reply to yet another question from yet another reporter who you're pretty sure was there at the conference, and really these people… you grumble under your breath. Sometimes you wonder why you ever bother writing up all these nice FAQs and overview posts when so few people apparently read them. The topic of souls is too important to not answer those questions though, so you do it anyway, even if you're grumpy about it.
“HOW ABOUT THIS ONE?” Papyrus asks from his place at the dinner table next to you.
You take a look at the screen at the same time as Sans does.
“Looks good,” you say, scanning the information displayed on the computer screen. Papyrus’ old computer hadn't taken well to being disassembled and reassembled repeatedly for his name research, and broke this morning. Sans had taken one look at it and told his brother that he should just buy a new one. They can afford it now after all, what with their newfound wealth thanks to the monster gold. So you've borrowed Papyrus your laptop to let him look at computer models. He's going for a laptop himself, the portability appealing to him.
“the cpu’s not good enough,” Sans disagrees.
“Sans, he's just going to use the thing to surf the net and write blog posts, he doesn't need a high end machine for that,” you say critically. “Unless you want to use it, too?”
“nah. he should have his own. but he could change his mind ‘n then it'll be good to have a better machine.”
“SANS, THAT SOUNDS LIKE A WASTE OF MONEY!”
“only want the best for you, paps.”
“Man, are you really complaining because he wants to buy you a super good laptop?” Undyne asks incredulously. She's sitting opposite Papyrus, Sans and you at Alphys’ laptop, researching names again. Alphys isn't there, she has gone with Asgore and Dolores to look over the building plans for the new joint human-monster research centre that's supposed to be built in front of the gatehouse, outside of the border of Ebott Town. Sans is actually supposed to be there too, you have no idea why he's still here. It's not as if his brother can't shop for a laptop by himself.
“I AM NOT COMPLAINING! I'M USING MY GREAT INTELLECT TO QUESTION HIS CHOICES!”
“Sounds like complaining to me,” Undyne chuckles. “Just let him spoil you.”
“yeah man, we're rich now. live a little.”
“WHY DON'T YOU BUY A HIGH END LAPTOP THEN? HEAVEN KNOWS YOU NEED IT MORE THAN I DO FOR YOUR RESEARCH!”
“eh. ‘m just dabbling, really. ‘sides, i can use the terminal in the garage lab.”
“Even for your private stuff?” You ask. “I mean, if you don't want one then you don't want one, but I think Papyrus is right, you should consider it at least.”
Papyrus beams at you. “SEE, OUR HUMAN FRIEND AGREES! I TOLD YOU IT MAKES SENSE! AND IF YOU ONLY WANT THE BEST FOR ME, WELL, THE SAME IS TRUE FOR ME! I WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY AND SPOILED WITH GOOD THINGS, TOO!”
“aw, shucks bro.”
“YES, BECAUSE I AM AN AMAZING BROTHER AND I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH.”
Sans has one of his rare, beaming smiles on his face.
“AND BECAUSE OF THAT I REALLY HAVE TO ASK YOU WHY ARE YOU NOT AT THE MEETING WITH ALPHYS AND ASGORE?”
Sans’ smile slips. “c’mon paps - “
“SANS! YOU'RE PART OF THE SCIENTIFIC TEAM! AND YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE HALF AN HOUR AGO! AND THAT'S ACCOUNTING FOR THE FACT THAT THEY TOLD YOU IT WAS OKAY TO COME IN LATE!”
“look - “
“NO DISCUSSIONS! YOU'RE LATE AND YOU CAN STOP BEING LATE BY TELEPORTING THERE, SO OFF YOU GO!”
“bro - “
“YOU'RE STILL HERE.”
“i just wanna help you pick a good one - “
“Sans, don't worry, Undyne and I will make sure that Papyrus will buy the best of all laptops,” you tell him with a snicker.
“The ultimate machine!” Undyne agrees.
“The Mercedes of the computer world.”
“A RACECAR IN THE SHAPE OF A BOX!”
“fine,” Sans grumbles. “but don't order one for me yet, i wanna do that myself.”
“YES, YES. NOW HURRY!”
Sans teleports away with a soft sigh.
“WHEW. FINALLY. I LOVE MY BROTHER, BUT HE CAN BE SUCH A MOTHER HEN SOMETIMES!”
“Mommy Sans,” Undyne cackles and you can't help but snicker, too. The mental image of Sans as a fussy helicopter mom in an apron is pretty funny.
“WHAT ABOUT THIS ONE?” Papyrus interrupts, ignoring your laughter to point out another laptop model.
“No, it's just expensive, but not actually good. Go back - uh, there, click on that one.” You guide Papyrus through the heaps of possible laptops until three possible options remain, all of them high end. He only has to choose his favourite and then he'll be set. You go back to your cellphone to answer some more questions about souls while he rubs the tips of his finger bones against his chin, humming relatively quietly as he ponders the decision.
The reactions of the world to the revelation that humans have souls and how they work has been mixed, to say the least. A lot of people are really excited about it. Some claim they are already developing their magic, which you kind of doubt. Some are constructing conspiracy theories around it. A large group cries blasphemy, but can't agree which religion this insults the most. The leaders of said religion are keeping quiet about it so far, apparently still internally discussing their stance on it. Some people don't believe it and deny the entire thing is true, claiming it's all a hoax and that Dolores’ demonstration was faked. Yet others say it's a sign that the end of days is near. You're not very concerned about the latter group, nowadays literally everything seems to be a sign of the end of days.
Still, with such diverse opinions and so much discussion about it, there are a lot of rumours flying around, misinformation is spread, and you're spending a lot of time clearing up any potential misunderstandings. You really wish they’d all just read your FAQ instead of repeating the same questions over and over.
Even worse are the questions about the second half of the conference. People are happily asking you about your love life and the love life of the monsters and a variety of other topics that are really private. You ignore all of them. No matter how much you can understand being curious about what sharing a life with monsters is like, privacy is a thing. Besides, the only relationship that actually exists is the one between Undyne and Alphys, and it’s not your place to talk about that.
“I'M GOING TO BUY THIS ONE!” Papyrus declares a few minutes later. “IT'S SLEEK AND ELEGANT, AS BEFITS THE GREAT PAPYRUS. IT WILL MATCH THE CAR I'M GOING TO GET ONCE I'M ALLOWED TO!”
“Neat. It's always a good idea to think ahead,” you tell him with a small chuckle.
“I KNOW! SOMEONE HAS TO MAKE PLANS FOR THE FUTURE AND SINCE MY BROTHER REFUSES TO, IT FALLS TO ME. SAY, COULD I USE YOUR LAPTOP TO CHECK ON MY COOKING FORUM? I'M WAITING FOR FEEDBACK ON MY LATEST SPAGHETTI RECIPE.”
“Sure, knock yourself out.”
For a while, the three of you sit in companionable silence, each absorbed with your own online stuff. You like working like this, when everything is quiet and calm and you’re surrounded by friends. It’s almost as nice as working outside. As much as it can be difficult to set boundaries between your professional and your private life like this, you still prefer this way of working to being trapped in some grey office cubicle.
“Ugh, names are hard,” Undyne finally complains. “Everything cool has been done already.”
“Then why not just pick the coolest person with the surname you like most and go with that?” You shrug.
“Ugh! No! I want a unique one!”
“Okay. What have you narrowed it down to? What sites are you even using for your research?” You ask, moving over to her side of the table while trying to suppress a snicker. You are somewhat reminded of that time when you were fourteen and tried to find a screenname for that chatroom your crush hung out in that hadn’t been taken already. A lot of special characters got involved. Fond memories. Cringy ones, but still.
“Dunno, just the search engine,” Undyne says. She has google open with a list of naming sites, and also about a million tabs that are so compressed that you can’t read the tags on any of them. “Human internet is weird.”
“Hmm. I know this one site about surnames you could check out, wait a second…” You type in a new google search.
“Oh, I think I’ve seen that one before. But they don’t have any with spears! Lame!”
“Okay, what about this - uh, yeah okay, no.”
“That’s very pink.”
“It’s actually one for girl’s names, hang on - “
“Don’t close that tab! I still need it!”
“I’m not gonna close it, calm down, I just want to open a new one.”
“Papyrus, what about you? You found something yet?” Undyne asks while you open yet another naming site for her. “...Papyrus? Hey, Papyrus!!”
You look up just in time to catch Papyrus staring at the screen of your laptop with his eye sockets wide and a deep, pinkish-orange blush on his face. He flinches at Undyne’s increasingly loud voice and squeaks, only to launch into a flurry of movement and clicks before he snaps your laptop close.
“YES! PAPYRUS! THAT’S ME!”
“Uh,” you say.
“I’M VERY SORRY BUT I HAVE TO GO IMMEDIATELY DON’T ASK QUESTIONS IT’S VERY IMPORTANT!”
And with that, Papyrus jumps out of his chair, runs to the glass door, and jumps straight through it. He lands in a clatter of bones, pushes himself up, and sprints across the bare earth of the garden towards the street out of sight. You and Undyne are left to stare after him.
“What the fuck,” is all you manage to say in response.
“Wow.”
“Did he just jump through the window?!”
“Yeah, I can’t believe it either! Normally he nails the landing!”
“I - ...not the point, Undyne. What are we going to tell the others? We need a new pane installed - “
“What did he even see on your laptop to make him react like that, huh?!” Undyne waggles her eyebrows at you with a fiendish grin. You can feel your face heat up.
“Nothing!” You protest. “There’s nothing to see! Besides, he was on a guest account, so - “
“Uhuh! That doesn’t look like nothing!” Undyne cackles. “Let’s look at it!”
“Undyne, wait!”
She reaches over the table to grab your laptop from where Papyrus left it while you try to wrestle her away from it. Of course you’re completely unsuccessful. Undyne might look thin like a toothpick, but she’s far stronger and more athletic than you are thanks to her royal guard training. You don’t stand a chance against her iron-hard muscles. She ends up with your laptop in one hand while keeping you at a distance with the other. When she opens the laptop though, her face falls.
“Just the cooking forum?!”
You breathe a silent sigh of relief. Not that you were worried or anything.
“He must have closed the tabs he was looking at, didn’t you hear all that clicking?”
“That means we can look at the browser history though! Unless you have a problem with that?!” She shoots you another suggestive grin and you roll your eyes.
“Of course not, knock yourself out.” It is, after all, your guest account. The browser history is automatically cleared with every restart.
“Boring,” Undyne says, and opens the browser history. There’s a long list of homepages with spaghetti recipes, which surprises neither you or Undyne. It’s the page at the top of the list that catches both of your interest.
“What’s that?” Undyne asks, clicking on the link. You have a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach after having caught a glimpse of the page name. On the screen, the website that loads opens to a picture of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in all its glory.
“What is that?!” Undyne repeats, her face somewhere between grossed out and intrigued.
“Uh. The Flying Spaghetti Monster…?” You try.
“There’s no Flying Spaghetti Monster that I know of,” Undyne tells you with a sideway glance.
“Yeah, no. It’s something people made up. I think it’s supposed to be an allegory or something?”
“Humans are so weird. Why would you invent something like this?! The poor spaghetti!”
“It’s just a joke!”
“No, you don’t get it!” Undyne grabs your arms hard and you flinch. “Papyrus! He blushed! He’s totally developed a crush on this thing or something! We need to go tell him it’s not real!”
“Undyne, are you sure he doesn’t know that? I mean - “
Undyne shakes you, ending your sentence in a strangled squeak. “BUT WHAT IF NOT?! He could have his soul broken! Shattered into a million tiny pieces!”
“Can that actually happen to monsters when they’re lovesick?!”
“What?” Undyne gives you a really weird look. “No, you nerd, it’s just something you say!”
“Well excuse me for being new to the soul thing.”
“Anyway! We gotta tell him! It’s our duty as his friends, so come on!” Before you can protest, Undyne has hoisted you up and thrown you over her shoulder. It’s uncomfortably poky and digs into your stomach.
“Urgh! Undyne, wait!”
“No time! We’re on a mission of FRIENDSHIP!!”
She carries you out of the broken glass door despite your strangled protests. Luckily you don’t get caught on any shards. She makes her way past the garage to the street, which is where she stops, looking left and right.
“Hmmm.”
“Undyne! At least let my walk by myself!”
“You’re too slow! Stop squirming, I need to figure out which direction he went!”
“Just let me down and I can help you!”
“URGH! You - oh, hi Toriel, hi Frisk.” Just like that, Undyne’s voice has gone smooth and friendly again. Maybe a little bit too friendly. She sets you down. “You haven’t seen Papyrus by any chance?”
“He just passed us when we returned from the plaza,” Toriel says, clutching two bags with groceries in each hand and looking between you and Undyne with confusion. “Did something happen?”
“No time to explain, we’re on a mission to save our friend! Come on!” Undyne grabs your arm and pulls you past Toriel and Frisk.
“Can I help?” Frisk asks, carrying a bag of groceries as well.
“No! It’s an adult mission!”
“That was a bit curt,” you say critically when you’re out of earshot.
“Do you wanna be around when Toriel finds the broken window?! Because I don’t!” Undyne huffs.
“Oh.” You walk a bit faster. Next to you, Undyne snickers at your increased speed. “Well, at least we know where to go now, right? I still think Papyrus probably knows that the Flying Spaghetti Monster isn’t real though. I mean, he’s a grown man… monster... and everything. Maybe he just finds the idea of it attractive.”
“Yeah.” Undyne’s face suddenly softens dramatically. “But, he can also be really naive, you know?”
“He can’t be that naive if he gets a reaction like that though,” you snicker. “He seems to know at least something about sex.”
“Of course he knows about sex! Who do you think gave him the talk? I made sure he knows everything there is to know about it!”
“You gave Papyrus the talk?”
“What’s with the tone?” Undyne narrows her eye at you.
“Uh, sorry. I just kind of figured that Sans would have - “
“HA! As if.” Her eye narrows even further in a grumpy, almost aggressive expression. “He told him nothing because he thought Papyrus was ‘too innocent.’ Urgh! It was the worst! I had to sit Papyrus down and do it for him!”
“Wasn’t Sans angry about that, if he wanted to keep his brother innocent?”
“Look,” Undyne says roughly, poking her index finger at your chest. “I get that with kids, maybe, but Papyrus was already nineteen! What if he did that with someone without knowing what was happening and didn’t like it and didn’t know how to stop it? He wouldn’t have been able to protect himself! What if he accidentally had a kid?! It’s just irresponsible!”
“Hey, I agree with you!” You hurry to explain. “I’m just surprised he didn’t fight you over it, I guess.”
“He didn’t know,” Undyne shrugs. “I think he must have figured it out by now, but he didn’t say anything so I guess it’s fine.”
“Maybe he was just embarrassed. Not that that’s an excuse,” you quickly throw in before Undyne can get angry again. “I think you’re right, it’s better to know what to expect and everything. It’s just, the topic came up and, uh… I mean, someone has to give Frisk the talk, you know? At some point. And I talked to Toriel about it and some of her knowledge is literally from a thousand years ago, and that means I probably gotta step up too. And it’s a weird thought. And I don’t know anything about monster sex so it’s gonna be me and Toriel and Frisk sitting together and I can already taste the awkward. Shut up,” you say when Undyne cackles loudly at your miserable face.
“Stars, that’s gonna be hilarious! You need to film this for me!”
“What? No! Weren’t you embarrassed when you told Papyrus?”
“No!” Undyne’s face flushes a light shade of petrol. “Because it’s a natural and beautiful thing that monsters do when they love each other - I mean, uh. I’m tough! I love to eat rocks!! ...don’t look at me like that!”
You swallow the giggles that threaten to escape you. “Okay. So you were totally chill about it. Good for you. Weren’t you embarrassed though when you got the talk from whoever? Because I’m pretty sure Frisk wouldn’t want that to be filmed.”
Undyne’s face does a funny thing. You think it’s her trying to mask awkwardness with a feral grin, which just ends up looking goofy. She keeps it up for maybe three seconds before she allows it to slip, leaving her with a more natural, flustered expression. “Yeah. Okay. You’re right. Man, that’s a terrible memory! Asgore is the worst at these things!”
There’s no helping it, you bark out a laughter at that particular mental image. “Asgore gave you the talk? Wow, you got the royal treatment,” you snicker.
“Nnngh, don’t say it like that, you make it sound weird!!”
“Okay, sorry. Still, the point stands.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Undyne says, looking to the side. “Toriel’s probably gonna go full mom-mode and do a wonderful job at it. ...except for the human side, I guess.” She looks back to you. You get the impression that she’s curious about something, but she also looks kind of twitchy. As if she’d fidget if she wasn’t… well, Undyne.
“What?” You ask.
Undyne looks left and right and then pulls you into a gap between the back of two shops. You’re almost at the plaza.
“Is it true that humans… “ She blushes. Deeply. “That they, with each other…”
You can feel your eyebrows raise slowly but surely while you take in Undyne’s flustered expression. You’ve never seen her like this before. Not even while talking about sex on her and Alphys’ bed.
“You can’t use your souls, right?” She whispers. “So you only do it with your…?” She waves a hand in the general direction of your crotch.
“Uh. Yeah?!” You suddenly feel fascinated. “Wait, so monster sex involves souls?!”
She blinks at you and, impossibly, blushes even more. “Wow. You really don’t - uh.”
“Hey, okay, since we’re already here and you’re curious and I’m curious, how about you give me a monster sex talk and I give you a human sex talk?” You suggest, hoping she’ll say yes. You keep scolding the reporters and other people online who ask nosy questions about how monsters do the do, but you’re secretly curious yourself. Especially now that Undyne has hinted at souls being involved. How does that even work??
“...fine,” Undyne mumbles after a moment, and you internally high five yourself. “But not out here!” She looks around again, apparently completely paranoid about being overheard. “Let’s go to Grillby’s.” She drags you along across the plaza, her mission to save Papyrus from impending heartbreak apparently forgotten for now. You think that’s maybe a good thing. Papyrus surely knows the Flying Spaghetti Monster isn’t real, and probably just wants a private moment to bemoan that fact or something.
Undyne pulls you past the spider bakery, which you manage to look at with minimal cringing even though there’s spiders rearranging the display. You’ve been trying hard to get used to looking at it ever since your visit. Muffet and her spiders really aren’t so bad, and they can’t help the way they look like, so you want to do your best to overcome your stupid phobia. It’s only when Undyne opens the door to Grillby’s and pulls you in that you notice that this is your first time going in. You’ve had takeout from here, but you never visited.
The first thing you notice is the temperature. Stepping into Grillby’s feels like stepping closer to a bonfire, the pure heat washing over you and wrapping around you like a blanket. Interestingly, it doesn’t feel uncomfortable - it feels hot, and your body recognises it as heat, but at the same time, it’s not the kind of heat that would bother you after a while or make you sweaty. Grillby’s is decked out completely in wood, with some open tables to the left and some booths to the right, and a bar at the opposite end of the room from where you stand. Behind it, a fire elemental is busy polishing a glass, looking distinguished in a bartender’s uniform and a pair of spectacles. You smile to yourself; so you were guessing correctly based on Sans’ fire puns. Ha. You think you’ll appreciate those a lot more now, maybe you can come up with some yourself and surprise him.
Undyne pulls you over to the last free booth - the place is packed now at noon, with all the other booths and most of the tables packed with dog, bunny and bird monsters, plus the occasional fish and one really frightening monster that seems to consist of nothing but a giant maw full of teeth - and tells you to wait for her there. She leaves for the bar and returns a few minutes later with two glasses of iced tea.
“Okay,” she says, looking around and making sure that nobody comes too close to your booth, “there’s a lot of people talking over each other so it should be hard to overhear us! Perfect conditions!!”
You refrain from chuckling at her overly careful approach, you think it’s a bit much, but Undyne can sometimes be almost as shy as Alphys when it comes to love, sex and romance, and you don’t want her to feel bad about it.
“So,” Undyne begins, “I already know the basics, Alphys taught me all about it after I saw it in one of the his - manga she found at the dump. Completely by accident of course!!” She shifts slightly in her seat. “What I mean to say is, I should start!”
You’re okay with that. “Okay, go on.”
Undyne takes a deep breath. “Remember what you said about having your soul out in the mall? How uncomfortable that was?” She waits for your nod before she goes on. “That’s because showing your soul to someone outside of an encounter is the first step towards… uh, intimacy. It’s like stripping, basically.”
You wince. The thought of having done the equivalent of showing your naked body to a bunch of terrorists makes you feel sick. No wonder it felt that bad to have your soul out. Undyne gives you a sympathetic look.
“Normally when they do that, monsters understand each other better than before. That’s why it feels nice, because it creates intimacy.”
“Like… can they read each other’s thoughts or something?”
“No, not like that! Just like… you can look at me and see, hey, that’s a fighting kinda girl, right? It’s like that, but on a deeper level. You might understand why someone likes to fight a little better, for example.”
“Okay. And that’s monster sex?”
Undyne actually laughs. “No, you nerd! That’s barely foreplay!”
“Stop laughing, how am I supposed to know?” You’re grinning a little yourself though. Monster sex sounds like it’s a very strange affair. It’s interesting to learn about.
“The next step up is touching the other’s soul. With your hands, I mean. That’s, uh… that’s where it starts to feel really nice,” she says with a flush on her face. “You’re starting to feel a little bit what your partner’s feeling. How much they like you. Stuff like that. And, uh, when you… touch them somewhere else during that, or - or kiss… then you can feel that a little bit, too.”
“That sounds pretty intense,” you say thoughtfully. “So monster sex is all about sharing feelings?”
“Mostly,” Undyne replies. “It’s what’s most important about it, anyway. Like, kissing and stuff’s nice, but that’s more a bonus on top, the important part is the soul.”
“Huh. Quick question, monsters do kiss like humans, right? What do monsters do who… uh, don’t have lips? Or a face in general,” you add, remembering the slime family and the family of monsters with diamonds for their heads that you saw during the Ikea delivery.
“Depends on the monster,” Undyne says. “I have no idea how Moldsmalls kiss or stuff like that. Maybe they nuzzle? Dogs nuzzle a lot. But if they have lips they smooch like you do!! Just without the weird tongue stuff you humans keep doing, that’s so gross!”
You laugh out of pure surprise. “Monster’s don’t french kiss?! Really?”
Undyne pulls a face. “No! Why do you even do that?? Tongues are for eating, not for… sticking them into each other’s mouth and wriggling them around or whatever!”
“We do that because it can feel really nice,” you tell her with a giggle. You laugh even more when you watch Undyne shudder in response. How strange!
“Whatever! Humans are gross! You even do it in public!”
“Do monsters not kiss in public?” That would explain a few things.
“No! It’s private! I mean, you can nuzzle someone in public and maybe kiss them on the forehead or on the cheek, but not on the lips!”
“Wow. Okay. Is there anything else that shouldn’t be done in public?”
“Sex, obviously,” Undyne cackles. “Don’t rub your bodies together, I guess?? Holding hands is okay though.”
“Well thank god, you people keep taking my hand, it would be really weird to find out that’s some sort of sex act for you,” you snicker. That actually makes Undyne laugh out loud, too.
“You nerd! We wouldn’t do that if it was!”
“Monsters are kind of conservative,” you observe.
“Humans are too revealing!” Undyne counters.
“Anyway. Was that all about monster sex?”
“No! There’s loads more you can do. You, uh,” she blushes a bit again. “You can kiss someone’s soul, or project magic into it while it’s out, or… press them together. That’s the most intense. When monsters press their souls together, they can really start to feel what the other is feeling! The souls can kind of start to overlap if the monsters are in a similar state of mind… if they manage to think and feel exactly the same thing at exactly the same time, as if they’re one, they might make a monster baby like that.”
“How does that work?” You ask, completely absorbed in what she’s telling you. Monster sex sounds really, really different from human sex. “I mean, if the souls are out, then how does a monster get pregnant?”
“What do you mean, pregnant?” Undyne asks.
“What?”
“What??”
“Uh… I mean, what… how does the monster baby… grow?”
“It just does?!”
“But where?”
“What do you mean, where?! Right there!”
You and Undyne stare at each other.
“Look, human babies grow in the mother’s stomach - “ you begin. Undyne’s single visible eye widens to an almost comical degree.
“Inside?!”
“Uh, yeah? I mean, where else? It needs to be protected while it grows before it’s ready to be born.”
“What the fuck?! Monster babies - they just form! When the parent souls overlap, some of their essence just… splits off, fills with magic until it’s a full soul, and then begins to form a body around itself! It takes maybe fifteen minutes at most.”
Now it’s your turn to stare at Undyne. “Fifteen minutes? Just like that?! It’s already outside?”
“Yeah? Why, how does it work with humans?”
“I thought you knew!”
“I know the basics about human sex, that’s all!”
“Oh man. Oh man, Undyne. You monsters have it so good, you have no idea.”
“Ngaaaah! Tell me already!!”
“Uh. Okay, look, like you know how humans are made out of cells and stuff like that, right? Humans can have sex in any configuration, but if they wanna make a baby, then you need to have a man and a woman and they need to - “
“Wait, what about other couples? Multiple men? Or multiple women?”
“They can’t conceive.”
“...that’s so fucked up.”
You file away the information that apparently, monsters can conceive regardless of gender, and press on.
“Anyway. Uh, so they need to combine their genetic material so the baby can grow out of their cells. Men and women only can give one half of their genetic material, so they need to combine it to make a full human, just like you need to combine your soul essences or whatever. So they have good old penis-in-vagina-sex, and the man dumps some sperm in the woman’s vagina, right? That’s where the one half of the genetic material is to make a baby, in the man’s sperm. It swims up into the woman’s womb, and if she’s at that part in her cycle, there’s - “
“What’s a cycle?”
“Oh boy. I’m getting to that, okay? Anyway, if she is, there’s going to be a tiny little egg inside her womb, that’s where the other half of the genetic material is. And the sperm swims to it, and one of the sperm pushes inside the egg and they kind of melt together and make a single new cell that has one half of the woman’s genes and one half of the men’s genes. And then the cells start to duplicate and multiply until eventually it grows into a baby.”
“Inside the woman?!”
“Yeah.”
Undyne looks stunned, and mildly horrified. She looks as if she has a very urgent question that she also really, really doesn’t want to ask. You know exactly what question that is and brace yourself.
“How…” she lowers her voice to a whisper. “How does it come out?!”
There’s really no subtle way to put this.
“Out of her vagina.”
Undyne stares at you. And stares. And stares. And then her eye slowly travels from your face down to your stomach.
“You. You carry your babies in your stomach. You press your babies out of your sexual organs. So. Human babies must be. Really small, right? Tiny. Really tiny.” Her tone is hopeful.
“Uh. About this big,” you say, showing her the size by holding your hands apart from each other. “I mean, vaginas are generally pretty flexible and can stretch a lot, plus the body produces natural painkillers when the baby is born so it’s not that bad - “
Undyne buries her head in her hands. She doesn’t say anything for a while.
“...Undyne? Are you okay?”
“I really regret suggesting this,” she groans. “You’re all so gross.”
“Gee, thanks. I mean, we can stop, I can ask Toriel about - “
“No, ask me. It’s fine. It’s fine. I’m fine.” She lowers her hands again.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Ask me. Ask me literally anything so I can forget that mental image!”
“Uh. Okay. It’s just, when the way you do sex just involves souls, do monsters even have sexual organs…? I mean, you seem to know what they are, so - “
“No,” Undyne says. “We know what they look like because you humans print a lot of weird magazines that show them, but we don’t have them ourselves. We can make them with magic if we want to, but we don’t have them naturally. Making magical ones is a bit… uh, kinky, though. Especially if you use them without your soul.”
“Wait, so human sex is automatically super kinky to monsters? And did I understand that right, you read human porn magazines back in the Underground?”
“They were all over the dump, it was impossible not to find them!! Do you know how much work it was to pick them out before the kids could get them?” Undyne snorts. “And hell yeah, your sex is kinky! I mean, it’s just… physical, you know? Where’s the intimacy in just rubbing each other off?!”
“Wow. That’s weird. We literally can’t use our souls though. For us, having physical sex is intimate.”
“I know! But it’s weird. Your biology is weird. You’re all weird. What’s a cycle?”
“Oh, right. So, uh… human women carry a lot of those tiny little eggs inside them, but they aren’t ready yet, they’re just in there next to the womb in these little… chambers, I guess. Each month, one gets ready to be fertile, comes out of the chamber, and wanders into the womb so it can get fertilised. And the womb also gets ready and produces a lot of blood and tissue, so when the egg is fertilised it can attach to that and feed on the nutrients in there so it can grow. If the egg isn’t fertilised, it’s flushed out together with the blood and then after that the next egg can get ready and the entire thing repeats.”
“When you say flushed out, does that mean it also comes out of your - “
“Yes.”
“You bleed out of your - “
“Yes.”
Undyne looks like she’s having the epiphany of a lifetime. “So that’s what the weird cotton soaking things in the bathroom are for! I’ve been wondering about those!”
“You could have just asked,” you tell her with a giggle.
“Look, humans do some things with their food that I want to forget just as much as the baby thing, so I figured it was safer not to.”
“Oh god.” Now it’s your time to hide your face in your hands, except you’re laughing helplessly.
“Hey, wait. You said every month! You’ve been here for more than a month! That means you already...”
“Uh, yeah?” You put your hands back down and look up. “Why?”
“Man, you totally hid it! It wasn’t noticeable at all! You should have told us!” Undyne actually looks concerned now. “Just because we’re monsters that doesn’t mean we don’t understand when you need a break because of your body, okay? Can’t be healthy to push yourself to work what with all of that coming out of your - “
“Undyne, that’s really, really sweet,” you interrupt her, genuinely touched. “But if I dropped everything every time I have my period, I’d never get anything done! It’s normal to work through it. I’m used to it, it’s not a big deal. So don’t worry about it, okay?”
“What do you mean, that’s normal?! You bleed and you just go on as if it’s nothing?!!?”
“Well, yeah. Like I said, I’d never get anything done otherwise! Sitting out a full week every month eats up way too much time.”
“But doesn’t it hurt?”
“Not every time,” you shrug. “And if I do get cramps, I can just take some painkillers, it’s really no big deal.”
You find Undyne staring at you again, this time with something approaching awe and deepest respect. “I take back everything about you being wimpy,” she declares. “You’re ultra hardcore!!”
You can’t help but start laughing again, despite the fact that you find her concern for you really heartwarming.
“Thanks, Undyne. It’s pretty normal for human women though.”
She shakes her head in disbelief. “Humans are weird.”
“I think monsters are weird. I mean, you guys literally have soul sex! That wasn’t what I expected at all.”
“What did you expect then?” Undyne cackles. “Tentacles?!”
“No - “
“Oh shit! Tentacles!” She slams her fist onto the table. The table doesn’t crack under her strength and you think that really speaks for the quality of Grillby’s establishment. “We forgot Papyrus!”
“Oh. Uh, Undyne - “
“Don’t try to tell me he’s fine again! It’s not fine!”
“I’m not. It’s just, why don’t you just… call him?”
“...”
“...”
“NGAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!”
You laugh quietly as you watch Undyne call Papyrus once she’s calmed down, to tell him the news that his new crush is unfortunately not real. You can only really hear half of what he says what he says over the background noise of the bar, but all in all he seems to be taking the news quite well.
So that was your big talk about monster sex, huh.
Maybe talking to Frisk won’t be so bad after all.