[Handplates chapter references: Howdy, Can i interest you in some peer pressure]

Papyrus looked at his art with a small satisfied smile.
He held a palette of colors in his hand and a brush in the other, twirling it in his fingers as he eyed his finished work.

There were smudges on his skull and face but miraculously he had managed to not get any paint on his clothes.

A small voice made him flinch: "Howdy!"

Papyrus immediately turned to the source of the voice, the greeting so familiar that he almost automatically replied: "HOWDY, ASG..."

He stopped himself as he saw no furry monster king standing next to him but a small flower with yellow petals and a friendly face.

"OH!", Papyrus exclaimed in curiosity and bent over slightly to be on a better eye level with the flower: "UH, HOWDY STRANGE FLOWER!"

The flower was bobbing its head slightly, smiling at him: "Howdy there, friend! Boy that's a cool looking painting you're working on there!"

Papyrus immediately got a boast of confidence, standing up straight and extending his hand to present it to them.

It was the forest, crudely painted onto a giant rocky surface.

His chest was slightly puffed and he had a proud look on his face: "OH YES, I'VE BEEN STRETCHING MY ARTISTIC MUSCLES LATELY!
IN A FIGURATIVE SENSE, AS I DON'T ACTUALLY HAVE ANY MUSCLES.

MY LATEST PROJECTS HAVE BEEN LANDSCAPES...PAINTED ON ACTUAL LANDSCAPES.

NYEH HEH HEH!

I MAY BE AHEAD OF MY TIME. BUT THAT'S THE PRICE YOU PAY FOR BEING A TRUE GENIUS.
THAT'S WHAT SANS ALWAYS SAYS."

Papyrus kept on rambling and rambling, first about how Sans fell asleep on the couch, then that they need to finish the frame for his bed but Sans keeps putting it off, then about Papyrus's own car bed frame that they had made together and that if you sleep, you should sleep on a bed and that Sans is only enthusiastic about things when they are for Papyrus and not for him and he thinks he does not know but he actually knows, even if he says he is just being lazy –

For the first few sentences, the small flower listened intently but one could clearly see that they did not care at all and they eventually just ended up staring blankly at Papyrus, head empty.

(Admit it, you did not read the full long sentence before this either or your inner voice almost died trying to read this in one go) 

Eventually Papyrus trailed off, looking at the flower that was just staring at him dumbfounded.

The skeleton leaned down to the flower: "BOY, YOU LOOK"

The flower flinched slightly as they feared they have been caught not listening to Papyrus's rambling at all.

But to the flower's surprise, Papyrus just beamed, putting up his hands as he seemed to barely contain his excitement: "REALLY INTERESTED! DO YOU WANT TO HEAR MORE ABOUT SANS?"

The flower smiled, almost painfully, but it went unnoticed by Papyrus.

"You bet!", they said, their voice slightly strained but the flower tried to remain cheerful.

~🧡🌼~

It was unclear how long they have been hanging out together, but Papyrus was now sat next to the flower, still as enthusiastic as he was hours before.

"WOWIE, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME ANYONE'S LISTENED TO ALL MY STORIES!"

The yellow flower just smiled: "I could listen to you all day, Papyrus!"

Papyrus gasped in response, his eyes glistening brightly and his mouth open wide in amazement: "WOW!!!!"

However, the excitement quickly faded as Papyrus noticed a crucial thing: "UH, DID I TELL YOU MY NAME..?"

The flower seemed unfazed, giving Papyrus a small wink and sticking their tongue out: "You sure did, silly. Don't you remember? I guess you might have forgot since you were talking...for such a long time."

The small flower breathed the last part of the sentence as if physically and mentally suffering from this very long conversation...or well, one-sided story telling.

However, they immediately brushed it off and smiled at Papyrus again: "But that's okay, cause I remembered for you! That's what friends are for, right?"

"FRIENDS...? WAIT, ARE...ARE WE...ARE WE FRIENDS?"

For a second time, Papyrus's eyes began shining again and he covered his mouth in disbelief.

"Of course, we're friends, Papyrus! Can't you tell?"

Papyrus began flailing around in excitement, cheering for himself: "OH MY GOD I'VE NEVER HAD A FRIEND BEFORE! THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!"

A dry chuckle escaped the flower's mouth and they looked away for a moment: "Yeah, it sure is new and exciting, huh?"

A few vines broke through the ground, serving as arms to further reassure Papyrus with small gestures: "Don't worry, I'm happy to teach you about all kinds of things, Papyrus! Maybe we'll even be...BEST friends!"

"hey bro, who you talking to?"

Sans had suddenly appeared behind Papyrus and he flinched slightly, still not entirely used to his brother's ability to literally appear out of nowhere.

Papyrus beamed at his brother when he looked over his shoulder: "SANS! OH, I WAS JUST TALKING TO THIS AMAZING FLO..."

As Papyrus turned back around to look at his small yellow friend, it had vanished without leaving a trace.

"WER..."

Sans had now approached his brother, following Papyrus's gaze and searching for whatever, or whoever, he was looking for.

"oh, like, an echo flower? i thought they only grown in waterfall."

"NO, LIKE... IT WAS A MOVING FLOWER WITH A FACE! HE COULD SAY HIS OWN WORDS AND EVERYTHING!"

Papyrus was still looking for his friend, now slightly disappointed that he had left without a word. Perhaps he was shy...

"WHERE DID HE GO..?"

Sans was watching his brother with slight concern.
Did he actually see what he said he did?

Sometimes Papyrus had quite vivid fantasies, maybe it was just one of those.

Sans decided to just shrug it off for the time being.

"...ok. well anyway, your show is on. you wanna come watch or what?"

Papyrus slowly turned to his brother, still disappointed and also slightly frustrated that his brother obviously did not believe him.

He sighed but went with Sans anyway:

"YEAH...SURE..."

~🌼🧡~

"AND THEN SANS WOULDN'T TELL ME HOW HE WAS FEELING!", Papyrus's voice echoed through the forest. He still sounded slightly irritated about the entire incident:

"HE ALWAYS SAYS HE'S OKAY EVEN WHEN I KNOW HE ISN'T, LIKE HE THINKS I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON WITH HIM! IT DRIVES ME CRAZY!"

"Yeah, secrets are the worst!!", agreed Flowey.

The two of them had spent a bit of time together and therefore the flower now revealed their name.

"When two people REALLY trust each other, they can tell each other ANYthing!"

Flowey scooted closer to Papyrus, the petals gently grazing his boney cheek as Flowey looked up at their skeleton friend: "Like you and me, huh, Papyrus?"

"WHAT?"

"You aren't keeping any secrets from your good friend, are ya? You can tell me ANYthing!
Like, I don't know...why you always wear gloves all the time."

Flowey spoke calmly, looking up at Papyrus innocently.

"UM..." Papyrus averted his eyes, now slightly uncomfortable and ridden with guilt.

Flowey had a point.

They were his friend so why did he keep secrets from them?

"It CAN'T be because of a secret, right?", Flowey decided to push further, seeing that Papyrus was already cracking.

"Because friends always tell each other their secrets, especially BEST friends."

Flowey swayed from the left to the right on their stem, a devious smile forming on their face as they delivered the final blow: "And we're BEST friends, aren't we, Papyrus?"

Papyrus was squirming, sweat breaking out on his forehead and he suddenly had the urge to remove himself from this conversation.

He tried to come up with any kind of reasonable excuse but his good nature and Flowey's words were getting to him: "UH...WELL, WE ARE, UH FRIENDS, YES, THAT IS DEFINITELY TRUE, I THINK BUT, UM...
THERE IS, A REASON FOR WEARING THEM, THAT IS VERY GOOD AND NOT A SECRET OR SUSPICIOUS IN ANY WAY, AND,
I WILL TELL YOU THIS REASON, AS SOON AS I THINK OF IT-"

Flowey shot forward, basically hovering right in Papyrus's face: "Gosh, you're so silly sometimes!"

The flower smiled at him: "You don't have to make up stories! All you have to do is show me your hand.
Then I'll know you aren't keeping any secrets from me!
And that we're best friends!
You want to be friends, don't you, Papyrus?"

As Flowey kept talking, a couple of vines sprouted out of the crowd and started swirling dangerously close to Papyrus's hands.

Papyrus let out a shaky breath but he could not argue with that logic: "Y...YEAH..."

Flowey took his reply as the go-sign, the vines stripping off Papyrus's gloves almost immediately and revealing the handplate that was attached to the back of his hand.

"And friends show each other their weird hand- whoops! It looks like your glove fell off! Sometimes I'm clumsy."

Flowey snickered, holding the glove triumphantly up with their vine.

They quickly tossed it aside and grabbed Papyrus's wrist instead to inspect the plate on his hand: "Boy, what's that on your hand there, Papyrus?"

Papyrus immediately flinched, his heart racing. For a moment, he believed that Flowey would not notice the strange plate on his hand but he had made the mistake of trying to reach for the glove with his bare hand.

"UH, NOTHING! NOTHING IMPORTANT!", exclaimed Papyrus, clearly panicked.

He snatched his hand away from Flowey and covered the plate with his other hand: "JUST SOMETHING, VERY NORMAL FOR SKELETONS, THAT I DON'T HAVE ANY KIND OF ISSUES ABOUT WHATSOEVER, SO!
WE DON'T HAVE TO TALK ABOUT IT ANYMORE, SINCE THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO IT!"

Flowey ignored Papyrus's rambling, getting uncomfortably close to Papyrus once more as he continued to hole him with questions: "Say, does your brother have one of these too? Since this one says you're number two, so there must be a number one, right?"

Papyrus flinched away from the flower, grasping his own hand more tightly to make Flowey stop reading what it said on the plate: "UH, I KNOW WE'RE REALLY GOOD FRIENDS, BUT, I REALLY DON'T THINK YOU SHOULD ASK SANS ABOUT IT, HE DOESN'T UH, LIKE TAKING HIS GLOVES OFF AS MUCH AS, I DO, SOMETIMES, WHEN PEOPLE PULL MY GLOVES OFF, BECAUSE IT DOESN'T BOTHER ME! AT ALL!
ESPECIALLY WHEN IT'S BY MY FRIENDS, WHICH I HAVE MANY OF, INCLUDING YOU-"

Flowey brought a vine to their face, feigning surprise and a hint of guilt: "Gosh, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, Papyrus! I was just curious!"

Suddenly Flowey flopped forward, burying their face in the snow in shame: "I feel just awful about doing that, boy.
If only I'd known you were keeping a secret like that, I wouldn't have asked!"

Papyrus immediately leaned towards the guilt-ridden flower, extending his hand towards them as an attempt to comfort them: "OH, DON'T FEEL BAD! I SHOULD HAVE TOLD YOU, I DON'T, KNOW WHY I DIDN'T..."

Flowey glanced up at Papyrus from their slumped over position before immediately shooting into Papyrus's face again: "But don't worry, I know a way I can make it up to you!"

Flowey leaned closer, whispering:
"I think I know where that thing on your hand came from."