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It wasn’t until the second stoplight that the flower started screaming.
To be fair, it wasn’t Crowley’s first incident with a physically talking plant. [1] It had seemed a bit droopy and altogether underwhelming in the nursery, which was largely why Crowley had selected it in the first place. Sometimes there was nothing better than reforming the bad behavior of a newly bought plant with several whispered threats. It was really very satisfying to watch a plant blossom from a slacking flower to a flourishing, colorful, and absolutely terrified masterpiece under his care.
If he’d been human, Crowley most certainly would have crashed the Bentley into the nearest lamppost [2] at the plant’s sudden outburst.
“HOW MANY TIMES? HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO THAT GODDAMNED SONG?” shrieked the Flower after the Bentley had decided to play ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ for the third time. [3]
Crowley jumped, and the coffee he’d been drinking abruptly turned to brimstone. He twisted to look into the backseat. “Excuse me?”
“What sort of playlist is this?!” shrieked the Flower. “What sort of sicko only listens to Queen?! What’s wrong with you?!”
Crowley frowned deeply, lowering his sunglasses to get a better look at the Flower having a tantrum in his backseat and decided to completely forgo driving [4]. “I don’t remember assssking your opinion,” he glared. It was one thing to become irritated by the same song over and over again [5] and another to hate Freddie Mercury [6].
“And I don’t remember asking you to buy me, asshole!” it sneered back, though he thought he saw its leaves tremble a bit.
Obviously something had to be done.
Crowley called up Aziraphale.
“Well, it most certainly wasn’t my side, dear,” the Angel said after he’d taken a look at the offending flora. He took the kettle off the stove and put it in a tea cozy [7]. “I don’t know why you’d think such a thing, it’s really more your style.”
“I looked it over, and it wasn’t my side either,” Crowley scowled. “I didn’t do it, and none of the idiots downstairs have the creativity for something like that, anyway.”
“Do you suppose it could be one of the new ones?” Aziraphale wondered, fetching the floral teacups from the shelf. “It’s been quite the talk over the airwaves on both our sides.”
“Oh, let me tell you, they’ve been trying to get me to move to America because of the new ones,” Crowley grumbled. “But as far as I know none have popped up around here, but I guess it’s not impossible one came across the pond already.”
Aziraphale set the tea things on a tray, along with a plate of biscuits and three teacups. “We could always ask the poor thing.”
Crowley took a biscuit from the plate with a scoff. “It doesn’t answer, all it does is scream.”
The Flower was suspiciously quiet when they joined it back in the living room, and it didn’t touch the teacup of water and plant food Aziraphale so thoughtfully set out for it.
“Are you from Mt. Ebott in America, darling?” the Angel asked soothingly.
It just glared, then peered suspiciously into its teacup.
Aziraphale looked over at the Demon, and frowned. “Crowley, put that weed killer away! You’re being rude to our guest.”
“I’m being rude?” he whined, holding the spray bottle close to his chest. Aziraphale gave him another stern look, and Crowley sighed. The weed killer disappeared with a pop.
“Is this some kind of joke?” the Flower hissed. “Did that trash bag of a skeleton put you up this? Because he’s not gonna pay you anything. Don’t believe anything he’s told you.” Its voice shook.
Aziraphale blinked and took off his spectacles, cleaning them with a peach colored cloth covered in tea stains. “I’m not quite sure we know what you mean. Would you mind enlightening us?”
Crowley took another biscuit and swirled it around in his tea. “There’s something wrong with you,” he muttered.
“And here I was thinking talking flowers were common as flies up here,” it sneered, sarcastic. “How stupid can you get?”
The weed killer appeared in Crowley’s hand again, and the plant cowered. The rest of the potted plants in Crowley’s flat looked on in silent, horrified interest, glad not to be the target of threats for once.
“Now now, let’s not fight,” said Aziraphale, wringing his hands a bit. “We don’t want to do anything hasty.” He leaned closer to the Flower. “I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Aziraphale, and we mean you-”
“I’ve figured it out!” exclaimed the Demon. “It’s been bothering me since the moment I saw you. YOU don’t have a soul.”
“Then it must have been something to do with your side,” the Angel said, turning his attention back from the Flower.
“Nah. If it’s a Monster, its soul is pretty much worthless. [8] Won’t last a second outside.” He turned to floral creature, who was shaking in a mixture of fear and rage. Crowley's lips curled back over sharp white canines in a malicious grin. “Isn’t that right, you 'blooming’ idiot?”
“NGGGGAHHHHHHH!” The Flower abruptly grew two tendrils with blossoms on their ends, and proceeded to pound them on the tea tray. The teacup full of plant food fell and cracked on the floor, while the sugar bowl spilt unceremoniously on its tea tray. <[9] Several white seeds floated harmlessly to the floor.
“Oh my goodness,” said the Angel [10].
It was an underwhelming tantrum, and in the end the Flower just wound up slumping forward, facedown on the tea tray.
“You done?” asked Crowley, raising an eyebrow. At the responding silence, he vanished the spilt water and seeds and repaired the broken teacup. [11]
“But- but how can you not have a soul?” asked Aziraphale, his voice going higher in excitement. “All sentient creatures have a soul, and you are obviously in possession of Magic, which cannot be sustained in a Monster without a soul-” [12]
A crackly sort of squeaking interrupted him. It was coming from the creature in the flowerpot, and it was difficult to tell whether it was laughing or crying.
In either case, Crowley was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. “We need to call sssomeone about this,” he hissed nervously.
They both knew neither Heaven nor Hell would probably answer on this particular case- they contacted their earth agents, not the other way around.[13]
And so they did the only thing they could do. They checked the news.
As both had made a dedicated career of being extraordinarily lazy, neither Angel nor Demon cared for or checked the news regularly, especially since it had become mostly digitized[14]).
This is what they found:
-That Monsters were attempting to live a mostly quiet life after coming to the surface.
-That several groups of humans were panicking (as they do) but as the Monsters stayed almost exclusively near mt. Ebott, most humans stayed passive.
-That a small group of monsters, accompanied by a human ambassador, were starting to branch out and introduce themselves democratically to different cultures.
-That the prime minister had been involved in a scandal involving a pig and a fraternity (“Crowley, did you have something to do with this?” “Of course not, that’s disgusting!”)[15]
-That the human ambassador was a child
-That the small party were reportedly staying in London and we’re introducing themselves to parliament.
“Well, now,” sighed Aziraphale, wiping his brow[16]. “We may be getting somewhere.”
The first step was obviously finding the group of Monsters and then discovering if the bad tempered Flower was one of theirs.[17]
One would think a group of obvious non humans would be easy enough to find, but the humans were being surprisingly calm about the whole thing. That, or the Monsters were truly doing an excellent job of staying undetected.
After an annoyingly long while[18] of searching London, Aziraphale found their first lead on Picadilly street. Stuck to a telephone pole with several other 'lost pet’ signs was a crudely drawn picture of an angry looking flower was drawn in what looked like ketchup. Underneath, a scrawled message in the same medium-
LOST-
Piece of shit flower
Yellow, talks about murder+screams
It hadn’t been on the post twenty minutes ago, and it wasn’t long until Crowley found yet another sign.
PLEASE FIND OUR FRIEND HE
ANSWERS TO “FLOWEY” AND HE
NEEDS LOTS OF HUGS AND LOVE- THE GOOD KIND NOT THE MEAN KIND PLEASE BRING HIM HOME WE ALL MISS HIM AND ARE WORRIED EXCEPT I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WHO DID NOT CRY AT ALL WHEN HE GOT LOST BECAUSE HE IS PROBABLY FINE
There was a carefully made crayon and marker drawing of a child with brown hair, a smiling yellow flower, and a skeleton with a six pack holding hands under a rainbow.
Unfortunately, neither of the people who had made the posters had thought to put a phone number on either of them.[19]
Fortunately, Crowley found someone stapling up another poster shortly after. The child looked to be seven or eight years old, and was standing on their toes to try and attach the poster to a pub wall.[12]
Aziraphale was much more upset when he brought[21] the kid back to their meeting point than the child was themselves, completely nonplussed at the sudden change of scenery.[22]
“You cannot just kidnap a child!” scolded the Angel, as the youngster contentedly hummed to themselves.
“I didn’t. I just thought we could talk to them, because they’re the ones putting up all the posters of that shitty plant. If we don’t get rid of it soon I’m going to use the weed killer. Don’t look at me like that, Angel, I’m a demon and it’s-” Crowley stopped as the kid tugged on his coat, and excitedly started signing; F-L-O-W-E-
“Is that it’s name?” Crowley asked, then deftly signed back, 'Is the talking flower one of yours?’
The kid nodded excitedly. “I’m Frisk,” they said, softly, then signed, 'Flowey was upset. I think he tried to play a trick but got lost. Is he okay?’
“Your friend is fine, darling,” cooed Aziraphale, his chubby hands forming around the sign for 'safe’.
Frisk smiled, just before their mobile phone started to ring.
Both Angel and Demon could hear a worried female voice on the other end. “Frisk? My child, where have you gone? If you’re still too worried to talk right now, we can switch to texting, but please tell me where you are.”
“I’m okay, Mom,” said Frisk quietly. “Two people say they found Flowey.” He looked up at his two companions. “Here,” he waved the mobile up at them.
Aziraphale took it limply between two fingers, and after a moment of hesitation, held it upside down in front of his mouth. “HELLO? HELLO THIS IS AZIRAPHALE,” he shouted into the camera. “WE BELIEVE WE HAVE YOUR PET? HELLO? CAN YOU-?”
Crowley took the mobile with a sigh and asked for their location.
The Flower was tipped over, soil spilling from its pot as it tried in vain to drag itself to freedom by its face via the carpet. It started to scream when Crowley picked it up, and again when they appeared on Pickadilly street with no warning, but then it tried very hard not to seem happy to see Frisk, but couldn’t quite manage it.
Not long after, Frisk and Flowey appeared unexpectedly in front of Toriel, Sans, and Papyrus[23]. The two strange men didn’t make an appearance[24], but Toriel couldn’t help but notice that both Frisk and the flower’s pot were wearing equally hideous pink knit sweaters.