Flowey's Friendly February (& March) Catch-All

[friendlyflower]

Who: Flowey & Bigby, Eleanor, Nico Robin, others to be added
What: Quests (Bounty: Frightening Freeze; Light Construction; Tough Luv; others TBA) and more?
Where: Icefall Lake, Heavy Downmoor, the coast
When: February through March
Warnings: Violence (canon-typical, including battling, and maybe beyond), Flowey's warnings (child injury & past death, disassociation, angst)

Comments

Bounty: Frightening Freeze (with Bigby)

[friendlyflower]

[[Results.]]

Everything starts going wrong when their respective quest partners cancel and they wind up with each other. Flowey would rather die than have to partner with Bigby, but he's also too proud to walk away first (and, going alone, he probably would die). So, stuck together it is.

It would already be a miserable journey, but the weather makes it nearly intolerable. Repeated use of Sunny Day just barely brings the temperature from "near absolute zero" to "fucking freezing" as some of his new leaves and roots wither away. Flowey laughed the first time Bigby fell into a snowdrift, but as it kept happening, he reluctantly began helping dig him out. Just so they can keep going, not because he cares or anything.

Not much conversation is made besides a ton of griping and squabbling. Flowey is ready to write off the entire thing as a complete waste of time.

And that's when their reflections distort.

Stress and paranoia cause them both to attack. Flowey's seeds bounce helplessly off the ice, but Bigby's Aeroblast sends him flying back into the abyss.

"Bigby!" It's the first time this entire mission that Flowey has called him his name instead of some version of 'moron'. He makes his way as fast as he can to the edge of the chasm, where Bigby is hanging onto a branch jutting out the side of a sheer cliff.

Flowey looks around desperately. He can't lower a root or vine of his own; it would just wither away in the cold, and he's not strong enough to pull him up (loath as he is to admit it). "Hang on! I've got an idea!"

He was hoping to save this for the battle with the outlaw, but there's no other choice. Flowey chomps down on the hard-earned Violent Seed he brought with him. He thought about tossing it down to Bigby to give him strength, but with the wind, there was too much risk that moron Bigby would miss it.

Power surges through him. After another Sunny Day, he extends roots that dig into the ground to stabilize himself and then lowers an unusually sturdy (for him) vine toward Bigby. "Climb up!"

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At some point during this whole expedition of theirs, Bigby has to wonder if any of it would even be worth the effort. He's tired and cold, made all the worse by the thorn at his side that he can't seem to shake no matter what he does around the Bay. But it's too late to turn back when they've already gotten this far, and remembering Flowey's history with these sorts of things, he can't let the kid's stubbornness outlast his own. This really is his own personal hell. Knowing that, he should have been prepared for what was next.

Instead, his distorted mirror completely wipes away all sense of reason. Maybe last month's dreams of hunting himself, over and over again, are finally coming to a head. Maybe deep down, he's still just a wild animal afraid of its own reflection. Whatever it might be, he manages to huff out a blast of air he didn't realize he could muster anymore, only for it to get sent right back at him, sweeping him off his feet and over the edge. Poetic, really.

Hang on. Like he has much of a choice. Even with his eyes closed shut, his head is spinning, and while his grip is still tight, he can hear the branch creak and sway from his weight. He doesn't want to look up at what Flowey could be doing up there, not when he knows he'll just as well glance down at the depths below. Even the thought alone sends him into a quiet panic.

"K-kid, just—" Leave him, he wants to say. Call in a rescue before things just wind up worse, because between the two of them, that's how things are always bound to go. Instead, Flowey calls out for him one more time, enough for him to finally peek at the vine inching toward him. Bigby hesitates, afraid of losing his hold by reaching out too quickly, or worse, accidentally dragging the Sunkern down with him. A moment passes before he finally finds it in himself to finally make the leap of faith.

"I'm... I'm coming up." There's no hiding the shakiness in his voice. It takes him a bit to make it partially back up, but between the exhaustion and fear, the climb is taking its toll. He needs the reassurance, which he doubts he'll get from Flowey, so he'll phrase it another way. "H-how are you doing, kid?"