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The spiderwebs were new, Maddy thought while trying to find anything to distract herself from the uncomfortable tingling of being halfway-alive.
Her arm tingled, then sunk slightly through the walls as she leaned against the corner of her—of Blooky’s—old house. She could barely see, barely think, but she had to focus. Every so often she felt half a spark of sensation in her fingertips, or the soles of her feet, or the spot where hair brushed against her neck, before the feeling disappeared.
She’d been numb for her entire life, but the numbness had never hurt. The absence of sensation had never been such a tangible, oppressive force.
She needed to become fully corporeal soon. This halfway-state sucked.
Which was why she was desperate enough to come here, because if any place could stir up emotions in her, it’d be this.
The house was disorienting, though. The furniture was all gone, just bare walls and floorboards. Desperate as she was for some emotions, she couldn’t bring herself to check her room on the second floor, to see if Blooky had gotten rid of her things, or if they’d left all of her possessions behind, but just hadn’t cared to wait for when she returned.
No, instead, she was staring at the spiderwebs in a corner, trying not to notice how unfamiliar the rest of the room felt—even though she’d left this house, the house wasn’t supposed to leave her, it was supposed to wait, to stay strong and steady, to—
She nearly fell all the way through the wall, and she shrieked, stumbling forward.
Spiderwebs. She was here to look at the spiderwebs.
She wondered if Blooky had been so hurt by her disappearance that they had stopped cleaning, stopped asking the bugs to move their houses outside to the garden. A kind of painful-numb-tingling settled in her stomach.
When Maddy had lived here, what felt like an eternity ago, Blooky had kept their floor of the house sparkling clean.
Blooky had always been the one who kept up mundane rituals, like sweeping the floor, and setting alarms so they knew when the morning came in the constant dimness of Waterfall, and making sure that the Blook cousins spoke to each other at least once per day. Her other cousins had tried to do chores, during bursts of energy, but Blooky was the steady one, the fallback.
Maddy had never had time for that kind of nonsense. Her room was doorless, and without any corporeal creatures setting foot in it, there was no risk of hair—or whatever gross things corporeal creatures shed—getting onto the room. Cleaning would be pointless, and dumb.
Still, she loved this house. She loved her family.
Not enough to stay. Not enough to be happy with her life there, or even content with it. But she loved it enough for it to sting painfully when it was gone..
It was so fundamentally wrong for the house to be abandoned and creepy. This shouldn’t be possible.
Her annoying glamour-obsessed cousin should be berating her for stumbling around and staring at bugs when she should be looking for her family and apologizing.
She almost regretted staying hidden in the lab while Blooky had packed up the snails, because now the entire place was empty. It would never be her home again. Maybe it would never be anyone’s home again.
But, well, almost didn’t mean she actually regretted it. She didn’t know how to move her new body yet, after all. She couldn’t have been helpful.
And she wasn’t hiding! Not really!
She only got one chance to reveal her new form to her cousins. Or, to well, to her cousin, if she couldn’t find the others.
That sent another twinge of half-feeling in her brand new chest, the kind that flickered in and out, so the numbness hurt more than the pain.
Most of all, she was furious that her baby cousin had vanished.
There were no traces of them anywhere in the RUINS, not after countless searches. The froggits and whimsuns ran away when she asked them for help, and ran away faster when she screamed at them to stay put and threw knives at them. When a stroke of luck hit and she managed to snatch up a moldsmal, it had ignored her accusatory shouts, and melted out of her ghost-nub hands and into a crack in the floor.
She had snarled, throwing one of her useless hands at a froggit cowering in the corner. It passed right through it. Stupid incorporeality.
This was the worst thing that had ever happened to Maddy. She was sure of it. So how the heck was it still not enough?
All of it—the grief, the guilt, the terror that she might never get back what she’d lost–was somehow still just a soft buzzing in her head. It stung in waves, but quickly faded, replaced by exhaustion and that stupid, stupid emptiness.
She didn’t cry, although she desperately wanted to. What was the point of going back to the empty shell of her former home if she couldn’t even have a dramatic sobbing meltdown, and maybe fuse with her body?
She didn’t even want to go look for her baby cousin, anymore, not since she’d given up the search and moved to a training dummy in Waterfall, then to Alphys’s lab. Looking for them should have been her first priority, but she was paralyzed. She was too tired, too numb, too… powerless.
Ew.
Maybe that was it. For the first time in her life, she felt completely helpless. There was no one to stab to avenge both of her cousin’s disappearance, no one to cry to, no way to bring them back.
Or, more likely, she just wasn’t trying hard enough.
She was Mew Mew Madstablook, for crying out loud! Apathy could be her new superpower. If she couldn’t get angry enough or sad enough to fuse to her new form, maybe she could use the apathy to clear her mind, let her find a new, logical way to channel strong emotion. She’d lived for over a thousand years. She knew how to pick herself up and keep moving without anyone’s help.
She stood up shakily, which took more concentration than it should’ve. Her feet went numb a few times, making her hiss in pain and nearly topple over. Her vision speckled with black spots at the edges.
All the more motivation to work harder. She’d be fully corporeal and able to feel soon. She’d make sure of it.
Okay. Emotions.
The human kid had suggested harnessing some positive emotions. She wasn’t too sure that would work, and it was a little distressing that she was taking advice from some baby child. But, well, it was better than doing nothing.
Plus, she had to admire their audacity. Nearly dying to her bullets, and then having the guts to hunt her down in Snowdin and have a rematch, even though she was still unkillable? Stupid, impulsive, violent, probably having a death wish?
That was her type of kid.
And the absolute nerve of them, suggesting that she was wrong about becoming corporeal? That memory sparked fierce indignation mixed with begrudging respect. She was sure they were dumb: they didnt know the first thing about ghosts.
But… at least the echo in her mind was still making her feel, days later. That was more than she could even say about her baby cousin’s disappearance. The lingering shock from the human’s idiotic suggestion was as good of a foothold as any.
Where did she usually get positive emotions from?
She didn’t know if she’d ever been happy.
Smugly satisfied when people she hated suffered? Sure.
Snarky pride and the desire to rub it in people’s faces when she discovered something new? She’d had that plenty of times, though even that had started to fade in the past year or so.
Temporary comfort, where for a brief moment, she was okay with the present moment, like when her baby cousin brought her knives they’d found in the dump, or when Blooky offered to let her lay down for the night in their room with the music blasting so she wouldn’t have to wallow in so much self hate, or when her other cousin wrote a dumb little song in her honor. When she’d thought, for those brief moments, that maybe she could live like this forever, that maybe routine wasn’t so bad, even in the nonstop tirade of immortality. When that ever-present itch to fight, to break, to scream, was satiated for the tiniest, most precious moment, and she dared to hope—
Yikes, this was a dangerous train of thought. She shoved those emotions right back down. There were tons of other ways to get emotions, she had already decided that these were useless. They just hurt, and made her feel stupid and weak.
What else made her happy? What could she do on her own, without having to rely on her dumb cousins who didn’t even care about her enough to stay freaking alive for—
She gritted her teeth, slamming her head against the wall. She tried to breathe, but she couldnt quite get her stupid incorporeal lungs to listen to her.
Trust was stupid. Hope was stupid. She needed something real.
And she needed it now, or stars help her she would tear this house to splinters with her teeth and see if that would make her stupid unformed heart feel something.
A single cricket chirped noisily from somewhere in the corner.
She gasped.
Bugs. Bugs could bring her joy! Of course, of course! She was no weakling! She knew how to make her own happiness, without relying on any dumb cousins.
“Friendo, you are very lost,” she cooed, gently scooping the cricked into her arms. Her hand stayed solid enough for it to stay, and she felt a jolt of pride.
Just her and the bugs. Just like before she’d met Blooky. She’d lived for centuries without a family, and she could live for centuries after.
“Did you come down from the surface, little buggie? There’s no other crickets down here.”
The cricket didn’t respond. It had stopped chirping when she picked it up, so it became unnervingly quiet. Even when she’d been a ghost, there had always been someone crying or shouting or making music—
Nope. Nope nope nope! She wasn’t thinking about it.
“Don’t you worry, little buggy. I, Mew Mew, will return you to wherever you belong. Because I’m strong and independent like that!”
She took a few steps towards the door, and promptly tripped and fell on her face. The cricket leapt away before she hit the ground, disappearing into a crack in the wall.
She dug her claws into the floor. They didn’t even scratch the wood, just sank right through. She snarled loudly, trying to let out a feral roar, but her vocal chords gave out.
Dumb stupid half-incorporeal feet giving out on her! Stupid body!
Maybe, she finally let herself think—maybe she couldn’t become corporeal. Maybe it was just a myth. Maybe she wasn’t strong enough, or didn’t have the emotional capacity. Maybe, her centuries of life were up, and she was doomed to go out the same way all ghosts did, alone and depressed, fading to nothing, missed by no one. Just like her dumb cousins. The only difference was, at least she’d been there to miss them. Now, there was no one left to mourn her. Except Blooky, but, well, they’d already moved on. They were on the surface, building a giant snail farm, not looking for her anymore. They were probably glad to have her gone. They probably regretted ever letting her into this house, but they could suck it, because here she was anyway, finders keepers, if they were going to abandon this house then they didn’t have any right to stop her from dying in it.
Something tapped her leg.
She only screamed a little bit.
She scrambled back to a sitting position, trying to get her bearings, and came face to face with the human child she’d fought.
It looked like she hadn’t fallen because of incorporeality, she’d just tripped over this lurking kid. A kid who was currently chewing on a bag of dry ramen, tugging at a raggedy blanket caught under her boot..
Maybe she would’ve noticed that sooner if she’d been corporeal enough to feel anything, she thought bitterly. And maybe she’d be able to navigate her own house if selfish idiots would stop moving things without telling her.
She waited a moment out of pettiness, wanting to make the kid suffer just a little before giving them their blanket back. After all, they’d been the one who snuck in and tripped her. But, as they tugged, they managed to dislodge the blanket themself, knocking her over again.
She growled a few choice words, but they didn’t react.
“How long have you been here?” she asked, once she’d righted herself and caught her breath. Sure, now her lungs were operating, when it inconvenienced her.
Wait, did that mean—
She wiggled her fingers and toes, but they still felt numb. Just in case, she tapped at the floor, but her hand sunk right through it. Darn. There went any plans for startling herself into corporeality.
She was pulled out of her thoughts by a pounding noise. The human was slapping the wooden floor repeatedly, trying to get her attention.
She met their eyes, and saw their annoyed scowl.
“Ugh, what do you want?” she asked. “This is my house, you know. You’re the one trespassing. And frankly, I am in the middle of doing very important grown-up things that you wouldn’t understand, so—“
The human, now sitting up on their knees, tried to tap her shoulder, but this time their hand passed right through. They narrowed their eyes, their mouth pressed flat.
“What?” She asked.
They rolled their eyes, and buried their face in their palm.
“O…kay?” she said. “Well, if you’re just going to be an annoyance, why don’t you go do that somewhere else, because this is my spot to languish.”
The human met her eyes again, gritting their teeth this time, and pointed emphatically to one of their ears.
“Huh?” she said. “I don’t know what that means.”
She figured out what it meant about ten seconds later, when she got hit in the face with a pair of hearing aids they’d hurled at her. They passed through her head, clattering to the ground.
“…are you Deaf?” she asked.
They blinked at her, unamused, and she realized her mistake.
“Oh—um—“
She wished she remembered any sign language. She was sure she’d learned it at some point in the past few centuries, out of spite if nothing else. Plenty of monsters were fluent in sign language, and she liked to be able to eavesdrop. But, well, she’d never had hands before, which made the whole thing pretty frustrating. Not that she could tell them that.
Wait. They’d been able to hear her talk before, hadn’t they? And they’d been speaking out loud, too, she was pretty sure. There had to be a solution, a way to let them hear again long enough to tell them that she wasn’t some ignorant idiot, she just had her own issues.
“Here! Um!” She fumbled behind her, trying to pick up the tiny hearing aids. She gave up after a moment, and instead slid them towards the kid.
“Here! If you put these on, you can—“
They picked up the hearing aids, with their lips twitching in a way that looked more like rage than humor, and stood up.
“Okay, fine, leave then. See if I care! More sulk time for me, you little trespasser!” she yelled, knowing full well that they couldn’t hear her.
Instead of leaving, though, they marched over to the window, and tossed the hearing aids outside.
They walked back to exactly where they’d been, now with hints of smugness in their expression. They met her eyes, daring her to say something. And she knew, with annoying certainty, that this was a fight she couldn’t stab her way out of.
She closed her eyes, trying desperately to remember any hints of sign language from her memories, any way to communicate with this child that, for once in her life, she wasn't being a stupid jerk, she was just—she was—she didn’t know what she was doing, and she was lost, and she was useless, and she was alone, and—and—she was scared—and —
A hot tear landed on her thigh, startling her again. She rubbed at her eyes. Had she done it—? Was this self-pity a strong enough emotion to make her corporeal? It certainly felt overpowering.
She stood up, cackling, ignoring the tears building in her eyes. She’d done it after all! She was strong! She was Mew Mew! She didn’t need to communicate, she could just—
The human’s hand passed through her ankle, and she realized her whole body was still numb.
God. Damn. It.
She sat back down roughly, with a feral hiss.
The kid didn’t even look scared, they were just staring at her in astonishment, like even they couldn’t believe how pathetic she was being. She snarled again for good measure.
They signed something at her, slowly and deliberately.
First, they pointed at her, then made two symbols with their hands: O, and, was that a K?
“Oh, am I okay?” She asked. They didn’t respond, obviously. She nodded, but aborted the gesture halfway through and shook her head.
They clicked their tongue and picked up their blanket, draping it gently over her shoulders. She tried not to flinch away.
They sat back down and signed a much longer phrase at her. This time, she caught none of it.
“Look kid, I—“ she grimaced. Come on, she thought, I have centuries of experience, I know I have some knowledge somewhere in my expansive memories.
“Um, I—“ she pointed to herself. “I don’t know—“ except she didn’t know how to sign that, so—“I can’t.” She squeezed her eyes shut, hands hurting from the exertion of holding them steady when she had such fragile control over them.
“I can’t sign,” she finally signed at them.
She was pretty sure there was sweat dripping down her neck, but that might’ve just been another oil leak.
She wanted to rant about how it wasn’t her fault that she didn’t know it, but—she didn’t know enough words for that. So, instead, she sucked in a breath, bracing herself, and signed “sorry.”
The human kid’s eyes widened in understanding.
They made a motion with their hands, that could’ve been a real sign or a mimicked gesture, of pencil writing on paper, then raised an eyebrow questioningly.
She absolutely didn’t know how to snap and tell them that being nearly blind and having no fingers, mixed with barely being able to hold things, was not exactly a recipe for literacy. So, again, she was forced to just shake her head.
“Sorry,” she signed again. Was that what a strong independent woman would say? She was pretty sure it was, or at least it was the closest she was capable of signing.
The human bit their lip.
“You,” they signed. “Crying.”
They raised an eyebrow again, though she had no idea what the question was.
“Um, yes?” She nodded. “I was crying, because I’m capable of feeling emotions, and I’ll have you know I was crying for a perfectly valid reason and not just out of frustration with this conversation.”
She knew they couldn’t understand anything but the nod, and she wasn’t quite sure who she was trying to convince. She couldn’t have random onlookers think she was so pathetic she cried when a little kid tried to have a conversation with her.
The kid squinted, then nodded, and signed the longest phrase yet.
“Listen, I don’t—I can’t understand you—” she said.
They at least got the message from her expression, judging from their sigh.
They made a wispy, flowy motion with one hand, and made an “ooh” shape with their mouth, a sign that she recognized as “ghost”. They raised an eyebrow, asking if she understood.
She nodded, then gave a thumbs up for good measure. She might not understand their message, but at least she knew some words.
“Baby,” they signed next, pausing again for confirmation.
She gave another thumbs up, and they smiled victoriously.
“You.”
Another nod, another smile.
They tapped their chin, scrunching their face up, then raised an eyebrow for confirmation again.
This time, she shook her head.
They made an exasperated huffing noise.
“Cry,” they signed.
She gave a thumbs up.
They nodded with finality.
“Um, I don’t think I got the message,” she admitted.
Again, they seemed to understand her facial expression, judging by the roll of their eyes.
“You’re crying because of the baby ghost.” They signed, a little faster. “Your friend. You think they’re gone.”
Maybe they were signing more clearly, maybe she was getting more focused, or maybe it was just easier to fill in the blanks, but somehow she managed to get all of the words. It seemed like they were dumbing themself down for her a little less, which made pride flutter in her chest. She was truly capable of anything.
Then, the meaning sunk in, and she nearly choked.
“NO!” she yelled, scooting away. “I mean! Actually, yes. Yes I am. That’s the normal thing to do. To process emotions. I’m just processing like a normal person.”
She got a blank stare in response, and remembered to sign. Ugh. It was annoying not being able to speak with nuance. As soon as she became corporeal, she needed to take a refresher course. And also learn some curse words.
For now, she nodded, because it was all she could do.
The human patted her shoulder, though she couldn’t feel it, and their lips twitched into a smug expression.
“Sure! Laugh at the grieving old lady,” she grumbled, “We’ll see how you feel when I murder your family.”
They weren’t even trying to watch her, which she thought was rude. Instead, they started snapping in her face, trying to get her attention.
“My friend,” they signed.
She raised an eyebrow.
They giggled. “Baby ghost… my friend.”
“You… you saw them?” she signed, her hands trembling with the effort to contort them into signs. Why were fingers so complicated to maneuver?
They nodded emphatically.
“Yes! They…” they frantically signed something she couldn’t understand, which lasted several minutes, but she caught a few words.
“With me… they translated… help… fight… best friends.”
They smiled, satisfied, as they finished their story.
“What?” she signed, hand shaking worse. Her stomach twisted , with something that could have been nausea, or fear, or… something else. She didn’t know. Her head spun.
They snorted. She was pretty sure they called her an idiot in sign language, too, but unfortunately, she couldn’t remember enough sign language to be sure, which probably validated their point.
“Baby ghost,” they signed for the millionth time. “is OK.” They stared at her, waiting to see if she understood.
Her entire body tingled, apprehension mixing with hope in a dizzying soup of feeling .
“How do you know?” she asked suspiciously, her voice scratchy. Great, now her incorporeal throat wasn’t functioning properly.
They didn’t respond. Right. She needed to sign.
She held her hands in front of her, trying to steady them, but they were shaking much worse than before. Her vision was getting slightly blurry, and it was impossible to think. Stupid, stupid ghost body.
“Where?” she finally signed.
The kid shrugged, but their face held a mischievous smirk.
“Where?” she signed again, more firmly. “Where?!”
“Secret,” they signed.
Maddy shuddered, and bit her lip.
“They…” words were hard for this, even out loud. She didn’t even try to speak, just focused on finding some signs that could get her any more information. She knew this human well enough to know that threats wouldn’t get her any information.
“They didn’t want…? Their family?” she signed.
They shook their head decisively.
“Baby ghost loves you,” they signed, and something in her chest fluttered.
“Then… why? Why would they…”
The human covered her hands with theirs, silencing her gently.
“They wanted… to be alone… for a little bit.”
“Okay?”
“But!” Frisk signed. “Just a little bit. They will come back to their family. They promised.”
They grinned triumphantly.
“Are... are you sure?”
They nodded, rolling their eyes.
“Oh. Okay.” She felt tears welling up again, for no discernable reason. Maybe there was something wrong with this robot's eyes. “Thank you for telling me, or whatever.”
They snorted, bumping their shoulder against hers, and she gasped.
“What?” they asked.
She didn’t have the words to describe what it had felt like. The warmth, the softness, the comfort—
She tackled them into a hug, and they squeaked in shock before hugging her back, but it didn’t matter, because she could feel , She could feel the tightness of the hug, and the pulse rushing in her ears, and the tears and snot now streaming down her face. Could smell the musty old rocks of the house and see the twinkling crystals out the window and could wiggle each of her toes and she was—she was alive.
After an eternity of a moment, the human started to struggle against her hold, and she let them go.
She laughed, wiping tears out of her furry neck with a paw, sniffling but filled with the most joy she could ever remember feeling.
The kid had already moved on, grabbing the blanket from off of her shoulders and curling up in it.
She walked over to them, still a bit clumsy, but it was so much easier now, now that she didn’t have to worry about control of her body slipping away, or her feet sinking through the floor.
She knelt down tapped their shoulder, and it actually worked , her fingers made contact with their shirt, which sent tingles of euphoria through her mind.
“I’m tired,” the human signed. “Going back to sleep now.”
“Wait!” she said. “Wait, um.”
Signing should be easier now that she had control over her fingers, right?
“Why?” she signed. “Why are you here? Where’s your family? The…” she wracked her memory. “The queen? Wasn’t she watching you?”
They shrugged again, though this time their expression was laced with something like guilt.
“Too tired. Too loud. Head hurts. I need to be alone, for a little bit, too,” they yawned, rolling back over.
Hm. She was no expert, but that didn’t sound like a normal thing for human kids to do.
She tapped them again, and they grumbled, annoyed.
“Does your family know where you are?” she signed.
They raised an eyebrow. “Does your family know where you are?”
“Ugh,” she grumbled. “That’s different. I’m a grown up.”
They didn’t look convinced.
“I’m not gonna tattle on you or anything,” she said out loud, hoping that facial expression alone could carry the meaning of that.
It didn’t.
They blinked derisively at her, throwing the blanket on top of the head, and rolled over.
“It’s just, ugh. Listen, I hate to be all mushy, but I just became corporeal, so this is kind of my moment for feelings,” she said. “And… you don’t have to go back, if you don’t want to, but, maybe someone’s worried about you? Maybe you should at least let them know you’re not dead?”
She was pretty sure she could hear faint snores coming from the kid. How the heck could they pass out so fast?
“Fine,” she whispered. “Fine. I’m trusting you to make your own bad decisions, because I’m a girlboss like that. But this is my house, so we follow my rules. And I say, no dying allowed on my watch. You can hide as long as you want, but you’ll have to take care of yourself while doing it. I can keep guard as long as it takes. You can’t stop me.”
They didn’t respond, obviously.
Maddy sat down next to them, breathing deeply and appreciating how weird it felt to have the damp cave air in her lungs. The ground scratched against her legs. The wall felt cool and smooth and solid. The fur on her arms felt so fun to gently run her paw pads through, tingling and electric and alive .
“I’m not joking,” she whispered, quieter. “I know I’m impulsive, but I can be a very patient lady when I need to be. I have practice. I’m like a hundred times your age.”
The house settled into silence, except, not really. She could hear the distant rush of water, the wind against rock walls, and the cricket that had started chirping again, somewhere in the walls. The kid turned over again, into what must have been a more comfortable position, because the snoring stopped and was replaced by peaceful breathing.
Just feeling was more than enough of an adventure for the foreseeable future. That and babysitting this kid—out of spite, of course.
She was pretty dang good at this whole “being alive” thing, she thought.