so i have a question. Why were the boys so mad? I mean she isn't dating anyone so it's not like she was cheating on them. The next day she wasn't wearing the collar so that should've clued into at least Red and Edge that the date wasn't actually serious. Sans has shown zero interest in her she he needs to calm tf down. Stretch is a goddamn hypocrite because he kissed her already. (1/2)
If any of these "smart" buys had a braincell between the 4 of them they may have actually talked to her like Blue and Paps kind of did. 3/4 guys are holding phd's in scientific fields and they're choosing to just take something they don't know much about at face value instead of trying to observe the situation to find a solution that fits more of the context? i get jealousy can be blinding but god damn are they stubborn to old onto what they perceive as truth lol (2/2)
It’s less that she was cheating on them and more that several of them had felt slighted, or even used (Classic being the exception, as his boiled down to pure jealousy).
Edge and Red were off-put by the whole ‘date’, sure, but you’re right in that it was easily the collar that upset them most. Her having worn it at all - especially when Edge was known to have made just as much of an effort as Black did to get her to wear one - was something of a slap in his face, a way of saying ‘I think he’s better than you’, if you would. It really doesn’t help that Edge honestly thought she’d had a thing for him for a while now. Now he just feels like she’d led him on. He feels like she made a fool of him and, quite frankly, it stings a whole lot more than he’d ever openly admit.
Except, Red can read Edge a lot better than his brother gives him credit for. He knows he told Reed just what that sort of display can symbolize to them, and how critical something like that could be in their universe. And, sure, this isn’t their universe, and he knows things are different here and that this isn’t the Underfell, but he’s a bit steamed over the whole ordeal anyway. And the kiss didn’t really help matters, either.
No, they’re not a couple. Hell, he highly doubts Reed could ever even look at him that kind of way, not when he is how he is, but that she’d be willing to hook up with that tiny tyrant instead? She just took all the good things Red saw about her and flung them right out the window. He was still able to hear her soul at that time and knew full well there wasn’t any real emotion behind it - if there had been, he’d have been a lot more willing to step back and leave things be. But there wasn’t, and now he just feels like she’s playing games with them all. And that’s not something he’s okay with.
Then there’s Stretch, who has always been the sort to let his jealousy and insecurities cloud his vision and warp the truths he sees (we saw it once before when he’d found Red had snuck into Reed’s room when he’d supposed to be outside standing guard). He’s made it obvious to everyone - including her - that he has feelings for her that extend beyond just friendship, and more than that is the fact that he knows she knows. No, he hadn’t drunk himself stupid that evening he’d kissed her, and he knows she remembers it just as well as he does. He remembers exactly how her soul resonated with his that evening and, like Red, knows only too well that she’d felt absolutely nothing when she’d kissed Black.
Which, in all honestly, only fed Stretch’s own insecurities about himself.
After his own kiss with her, he’d been under the impression that things had been going fantastically between the two of them. Suddenly seeing her go on a full-fledged date with Black though, complete with a kiss, made him feel like he’d been led on. He’s left with a feeling of rejection and begins to wonder if she’d only been toying with him and his emotions instead and convinces himself that she only continued to stay around him more out of pity or entertainment, something that really doesn’t sit well with him. His behavior quickly takes a 180 as a result as he starts pushing her away instead, both out of spite and as a way to hopefully lessen the heartache he’s now feeling in his soul.
And, of course, who can forget the ring-leader in our little band of douchebagish misfits?
Sure, Classic cares for the kid, of that there’s no doubt. Lazy though this bag of bones may be, he’s put in more effort to keep Reed safe than he’d had when Frisk had fallen into the Underground. He’s still not entirely sure why he feels so invested in her wellbeing, but... well, he just is. And yeah, there’s been several moments in the past where he’s felt the familiar pangs of jealousy when he’s seen how close she’s grown to the others, but he knows that’s entirely on him. He’s always been the sort to keep people at a distance - it’s not her fault he’s done the same to her, and though he’ll tell himself ever excuse in the book he knows that at the end of the day that’s all they are. Excuses.
So when he feels that familiar wave of jealousy after she and Black returned from their outing, he once again piled excuse upon excuse over it in order to disguise it from what it truly was. He’ll have heard her soul and tell himself that no, it’s not okay for her to play with anyone like that. He’d warned her before not to hurt his family, and while he does manage to keep his stronger doubts at bay for a while, things all come crumbling down when he finds her in the kitchen with G that night. By that point he could already only barely catch snippets of her soul, but what he did hear he’d been none too happy with. First Black, now G? Yeah, his jealousy definitely got the better of him that night, and he knew it only too well in the way she avoided him when he was around afterward. He’d made a few weak attempts to apologize later, but seeing the way she’d quickly run off afterward only made him feel worse. He’d damaged what little progress he’d made with her already - did he really want to make things worse by forcing her to stick around and accept his apology? Of course not.
He just hadn’t thought he’d made things so bad that her soul would begin to rot while he waited for the chance to finally talk to her.
