Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first thing he knows is…

Well.

Not much.

His sockets gaze blearily upon the world—a haze of cyan, a dark room beyond it, a person, frowning at him—and knowing what precisely none of those things are, he resolves to go back to sleep.

Altogether a quiet, uneventful beginning…

Which is probably why it’s not the one he remembers.

He remembers the violent awakening.

The blare of loud alarms, soothing cyan to ominous red, pain in his chest and his limbs and his head as a person runs around the laboratory doing a lot of things very quickly and he knows with certainty that something is terribly, terribly wrong.

The person grabs him by the shoulder and yanks him out of the tank he’s in, shoving all kinds of tools and paper pads off of the nearest table to drop him onto it instead.

They hold him there, tearing nodes and wires off of his wet skull and spine, scanning him urgently while he rattles and struggles to breathe.

He doesn’t know how he knows what these things are.

He doesn’t know what’s happening to him.

He doesn’t know who this person is or what they’re doing, but…

He thinks they’re trying to help him.

Their hand moves down to his humerus as they examine him, their grip still almost punishingly tight.

Somehow…it’s a welcome distraction from Everything Else.

He looks at the hand as the person in the lab coat does whatever they need to do: he counts the phalanges, reciting each segment’s name in his head, from the clawed distals to the proximals and starting over again when he ran out…

(How does he know the names of these bones? Where could he possibly have learned this? When did he even learn to count?!)

Too many questions without answers, especially for someone whose soul was ‘resonating irregularly’…whatever that meant.

He keeps looking at the hand.

There’s a hole in it, straight through the middle.

This is Sans’ first memory.

-

The person in the lab coat says his name is ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎.

Sans can see the symbols—the words—as they’re spoken and he asks what it means that he can see them.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ sighs, but says that it’s his font.

All skeleton monsters have fonts, he explains, and can perceive the speech of other monsters both visually and aurally.

When Sans asks why, he frowns and says all monsters have abilities unique to their subspecies and that’s just the way it is.

(Sans thinks that means he doesn’t know, either.)

Still, a lot of important things come from this line of questioning.

“AM I A SKELETON MONSTER, TOO?”

Yes, like ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ is, made from the same dust and magic.

“YOU MADE ME?”

Yes, through ‘unconventional means,’ but ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ is unequivocally his creator.

“ARE YOU MY FATHER?”

Maybe not, from the silent, deadpan stare ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ levels at him…

“…WHAT DOES MY FONT LOOK LIKE?”

‘Comic Sans Serif,’ ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ says, checking some notes on a clipboard. Upper-case, which is ‘respectable,’ apparently.

And so Sans learns his name.

-

Sans learns many more things, in the days to come.

He’s the result of an experiment—what kind, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ refused say, no matter how much Sans prodded—and as far as results go, he is…lacking.

He only has 1 HP and had a very poor response to the artificial age-acceleration that proved he was never going to grow out of it naturally.

The fact that he could speak and had at least a basic understanding of the world around him was a small silver lining, as ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ had no time to raise a child from scratch and teach him every little thing, but overall…

Sans is not what ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ wanted.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ is not his father, he learns, but will be his guardian for the foreseeable future, and as such, he is to do as he is told and cause as little bother as monsterly possible—to make it as painless as it can be for the both of them.

Sans doesn’t know yet, what ‘it’ is, but ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ made him; answered his questions and kept him from dusting.

He tries to cooperate.

…But the rules are hard to feel out when there’s so many of them that went unspoken.

Asking questions is allowed, unless he asks too many, or asks when ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ is busy.

Occupying himself with doodles or books is (sometimes) allowed, but if he can’t get a scribble to look right or a sentence is too hard to understand, that’s ‘not his problem’ or he should ‘figure it out.’

Perhaps most confusingly, even completely silent, holding onto ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s lab coat or sitting ‘too close’ to him is still very bothersome and Sans is not supposed to do those things, no matter what.

………

Sans tries to cooperate.

But it’s hard.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ snaps at him one day, saying that if he has enough energy to be so irritating, then maybe it’s time to start his training.

Sans doesn’t know what ‘training’ will entail, but he knows that doing what he’s told is one of the Official Rules.

So, Sans cooperates.

-

Training is…fine.

Sans learns how to initiate Encounters, how to form bullets, how to make patterns, and how to dodge.

He learns the different types of magic and what each color does, and finds that green bullets are very easy for him to make.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ isn’t impressed—those will help his opponent in battle, useless unless he’s trying to drag things out longer.

Inefficient.

Do better.

Sans learns how to harness purple magic instead, finding it funny to watch his guardian hop between paths, avoiding his bullets.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ approves…but still doesn’t seem impressed.

He writes a lot of things after their Encounters, jotting down words Sans can’t see—but he thinks he gets the gist from the muttering.

‘Only 1 damage per bullet’… ‘decent magic output, but his HP’… ‘wouldn’t stand a chance’…

Sans learns that he is a disappointment.

When the training is done, when Sans has practiced all the forms, perfected his patterns, taught his body to twist and turn on a dime, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ comes to him.

This is the best Sans is going to get, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ tells him. If he wants to be better, if he wants to be stronger…they’re going to have to experiment a bit.

Sans doesn’t know why he needs to be stronger.

But he knows he doesn’t want to be a disappointment.

“OKAY,” he replies. “WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO?”

-

………

Sans doesn’t like the experiments.

They aren’t so bad, at first—drink this, sit here, put this on—and Sans does as he’s told, without complaint.

…But ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ keeps pressing, and eventually he has to complain.

“…I DON’T LIKE THAT ONE,” he mutters at the sight of a familiar concoction in ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s hand. “IT MAKES ME FEEL SICK.”

It’s increasing his magic output, he’s told, he has to take it.

Sans spends the rest of the night feeling uncomfortably queasy.

“THE ZAPS HURT,” he protests, as ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ sticks nodes on his skull again, like maybe…if he knew…

They’re not ‘zaps,’ ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ tuts, like he’d be rolling his eyes if he had any. It’s a magic infusion, meant to make it easier for Sans to use different colors of magic—he remembers how much he’d struggled with orange magic, doesn’t he?

…Sans curls his phalanges around the arms of his chair and tries to be Brave.

The world is black and Sans dodges every bullet thrown at him, desperate for his turn to come; not to FIGHT, but to…

ACT

* Cry

* Beg

* Reason

“I’M TIRED,” Sans says to ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎, as flatly and evenly as possible. He knows it already sounds like ‘whining,’ but, “WE’VE BEEN HERE FOR HOURS. ISN’T THERE ENOUGH DATA ALREADY?”

He’s more than tired, he’s exhausted: there’s sweat on his skull and a growing tremor in his bones and he doesn’t know how much longer he can keep this up.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ is unmoved.

This is a test of Sans’ endurance, he explains. It’s useless as data if they end it before he’s really, truly spent.

And Sans just wasted his turn on an ACTion.

The bullets resume.

……Sans doesn’t know when he passes out, but he comes to with a green magic needle taped into his ulna and ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s back to him, busy analyzing the results.

He wonders if it would have been different if he’d cried instead.

-

The breaking point comes when ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ demands his soul.

“WHAT?!”

Take it out, he’s instructed sternly. ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ needs to access it directly, to see if it can be altered.

NO!

Everything in Sans is screaming that, no, his soul is…

It’s his soul!

His!

Him!

It’s all that he is, the entirety of himself, as a monster; as a person…

And it is not for ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎.

“………NO.”

Sans says it, outright, finally.

After days, weeks, months of dancing around it, he finally says it: no.

“NO… NO. NO!!!”

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ doesn’t like that word.

Sans isn’t even sure he can hear it.

If he can, it doesn’t stop him from grabbing Sans by the arm and dragging him away, literally kicking and screaming.

For all of his training, for all of the experiments, Sans still isn’t strong enough against ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ to do anything but howl and squirm and cry as he’s tied down—made even more helpless—and his soul is forced out of his body before his eye-sockets.

It hurts.

It hurts worse when ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ starts to poke his tools around in the glowing white shape, doing stars knew what to his essence; his very being.

“I HATE YOU,” Sans seethes through the tears. “I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU!”

He hopes it stings.

He wants to hurt ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎, the same way ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ is hurting him. He wants to make him sorry, to make him stop…!

But his response…

‘I don’t care.’

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ doesn’t need Sans to like him, all he needs is his obedience.

And as he’s proven, he can just as easily take it, if Sans decides to be…difficult.

A shame ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ wasn’t able to create him without sentience entirely in the first place, but c’est la vie—this works just as well, doesn’t it?

Sans just gawps at him.

He feels…like he’s been slapped across the face…like a rug’s been pulled out from under him…

Like his guardian, his creator had just betrayed him in the cruelest, coldest, most devastating, painful way possible.

………

His tears won’t stop and he can’t make them, but he closes his teeth tight, refusing to utter even one more sound for the rest of the ‘experiment.’

Nothing he could say would stop ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ from doing whatever he wanted.

Why bother?

-

The experiments continue.

Sans complies.

…He’s beginning to realize he never had a choice otherwise.

-

Sans is improving, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ tells him.

His attacks are doing more damage and his endurance is considerably better than when they began, but his low HP is still a problem.

(Sans is not enough for ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎. He doubts he ever will be, or that anyone or anything could ever be enough to satisfy him.)

(He hasn’t said a single word since The Experiment, hasn’t complained or plead or resisted, but his feelings haven’t changed.)

(He hates ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎, with every molecule in his body.)

There’s still one thing they can try, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ says, the only real tried and true way for a monster to become strong.

LoVe.

The thing in the cage before him, trembling and sobbing, is a Whimsun—another monster, the first Sans has ever seen.

It is begging for its life, even as ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ tells him that he needs to kill it.

To get stronger.

Because he’s weak.

Sans doesn’t know why it’s so important that he get stronger.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ never explained, and he’s given up on expecting him to.

Sans isn’t even sure he cares why, anymore.

It doesn’t matter.

Nothing matters.

He doesn’t know why the Whimsun is crying so hard, or what it thinks its tears are going to do, because tears never did anything for him.

Neither did begging.

The only thing…that did anything…

…was doing exactly what ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ said to do.

It made it easier.

‘As painless as it could be.’

Sans pulls the Whimsun into an Encounter.

It all but wastes its turn, blindly flinging moth-shaped bullets through the cage that Sans dodges with ease.

His training was good for something, after all.

He raises his hand, forming bullets of his own with as much power in them as he can muster.

Finally breaking his long silence, Sans speaks to the Whimsun.

“DON’T WORRY. I’LL BE QUICK.”

And he is.

………

SANS LV 2, HP 1/4

-

The Whimsun is not the first, nor the last.

Sans becomes stronger.

Not strong enough, unfortunately, to think he has any chance of turning his practice FIGHTs with ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ into something a little less ‘practice,’ but enough that his guardian now hums over his results and examinations instead of tsk-ing.

Sans’…compliance…begins to come with perks.

His own room, separate from the laboratory, is the biggest of these perks. It has a door he can close and everything, a real luxury.

The door has no lock, of course, and there’s a camera in the corner—no true privacy here—but Sans finds he prefers the illusion of it anyway.

His ‘enrichment’ improves as well, however slightly, and Sans gradually begins to receive books and notepads of his own; no longer just ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s scraps and castoffs. He is allowed to request more, as needed—as wanted, even, a ‘privilege’ he takes full advantage of.

For all the base knowledge haphazardly dumped into his skull, there’s so many things he doesn’t know, and he wants to change that.

Sans wants to know all that he can, especially about the world outside these cold walls, away from his cold creator.

He requests books about history, about politics, about philosophy and art.

He learns about humans and about monsters, and the latter’s…current predicament.

And despite himself, despite everything, it’s the science textbooks and research papers that Sans consumes most ravenously.

Whether by nature or by nurture (or by being programmed by a scientist), it’s the graphs and diagrams that speak to him most clearly; the hard numbers that compel him, showing whatever truth they can and allowing him to interpret their meaning.

Sans requests so many math books that he’s sure ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ is sick of hearing the word—but that’s hardly a deterrent.

He fills notebook after notebook with scrawled out equations, some he pulled from texts to solve and some he made on his own, just because he can.

It’s…fun?

(It feels like…)

(He understands the numbers. He doesn’t have to guess at hidden motives, or wonder how they’re lying to him—people lie, but numbers simply are.)

(He understands, he is capable, he is in control.)

It’s…fun.

So of course, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ finds a way to make it useful to him.

He comes into Sans’ room one day, with neither warning nor permission. He strolls right in and starts rustling through Sans’ papers, sockets and phalanges lingering over formulas and equations.

Sans would very much love to tell him to get out; to put those down, leave them alone, those are his!

Let him have one thing, one thing just for himself…

But he knows how that would go.

He sits stock-still on his cot and says nothing.

Sans is…intelligent, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ notes at length, as if it’s a surprise to him.

(Sans hates that the assessment has the power to make him feel anything besides anger and disdain, that there’s even a flicker of pride in his chest to hear those words—like he’s done well somehow.)

Perhaps, his guardian muses, there are other ways for Sans to be useful around here with his physical training taking so long.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ brings him print-outs of raw data, long sheets of numbers that he’s told to review and analyze.

He does.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ brings him to the lab and sits him in front of a computer, instructing him to perform tasks he’s seen his guardian perform many times.

He does.

Gradually, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ passes off his most boring grunt-work to Sans, allowing him to do the data entry, to check calculations, to run some of the simpler routines of ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s very important work with only minimal supervision.

Sans makes a halfway decent lab assistant, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ jokes—perhaps he should’ve been training him for this instead.

Not finding it particularly funny, Sans does not laugh.

But he continues to perform admirably.

As instructed.

-

Eventually, Sans graduates to full-on gofer, sent along on errands.

Errands outside the lab.

Sans knows something is up when he’s given new clothes: plain, black, nondescript, yet leagues above the scrubs he’s had to wear his whole life thusfar.

He even receives his own lab coat, just his size, with an ID badge already clipped to the pocket.

He realizes fully that he’s being tested when ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ shows him a map of the facility beyond this inner sanctum, the Royal Labs in their entirety, and tells him that he’s going there.

To the commissary.

To bring back a coffee.

All sorts of thoughts whirl around in Sans’ skull as he steps out of ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s lab for the first time, entirely unaccompanied.

He could run, he thinks, striding through an empty blue hallway. Just…bolt and see how far he could get…?

…But every door he comes across has an ID-scanner, and refuses to open until he scans his badge.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ wouldn’t be stupid enough to give him access to every door here, and Sans would rather not think about what punishment might come from such a poorly thought out and executed attempt.

Sans begins to pass other monsters in the hallway—scientists, technicians, assistants—and feels sweat prickling on the back of his cervical vertebrae.

They’re looking at him.

He’s out of place here: none of them have ever seen him before, he’s several heads shorter than any of them, no one’s is going to believe that he belongs here, a…

………

STARS, WHAT STUPID AGE AM I?! Sans wonders, silently panicking.

What should be an easy question, rendered unnecessarily complicated by ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s meddling.

Chronologically, he’s only existed for a scant handful of years. Four? Five? Something like that…

Physically, his body is…at least twice that, and mentally, well…his mental aptitude is at the collegiate level, he knows that.

But what do people see, when they look at him? What do they think?

It isn’t long before Sans discovers the answer.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

When no one stops him, questions him, makes him explain himself, he chances a few glances around out of the corner of his eye-socket.

Monsters are looking at him, certainly…but as he continues on his way, walking with purpose—like he knows exactly where he’s going, exactly what he’s doing—they quickly lose interest.

Whatever curiosity they have about the short skeleton in their midst, retrieving a single cup of coffee (no milk, two sugars) and speaking to no one, is swiftly dismissed.

Not that unusual.

Not their problem.

Sans’ task—his test—is completed successfully as he returns to ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s private lab and hands him his coffee.

Did Sans cause any trouble for him? he asks slyly, undoubtedly already knowing the answer.

“NO.”

Sans is smart, then.

It’s good to know that he can be trusted with simple things like this—maybe he’ll get more of them, in the future.

He does, of course.

Sans makes many coffee runs and snack trips, over and over, never stopped and never speaking a word to anyone, and all it takes is two weeks before there’s no one left who side-eyes him as he walks past.

He becomes a familiar sight to the labs’ personnel—boring, normal background, nothing remarkable.

None of them are going to help him.

-

As ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ becomes comfortable in his charge’s obedience, certain in the knowledge that he isn’t about to do anything ‘foolish,’ Sans’ metaphorical leash is loosened.

More responsibility, more freedom.

Not real freedom, by any definition of the word…but he’ll take it.

He is now allowed to speak to other monsters, as necessary.

And through this, Sans discovers a talent he never knew he had.

“I’M HERE TO PICK UP THE—”

“The new recombinator, yeah, yeah,” Dr. Grey grumbles, Sans’ interruption obviously unwelcome. “Can I eat my lunch first? Do you need it right now?”

Sans doesn’t.

But he finds himself frowning as the cat monster plops a splotchy, greasy paper bag on the table, right next to all his very sensitive and intricate and probably expensive equipment.

“IT’S…AGAINST PROCEDURE TO—…”

Sans stops talking the moment he sees the effect his words are having.

It really is a form of culture shock for him, realizing how…expressive people can be, apparently without even realizing it.

Raised under ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s thumb, Sans had grown used to that flat, unreadable face: a blank wall with rarely manifested eye-lights, only growing malleable to purposefully express an emotion; for emphasis.

Other monsters, it seemed, didn’t have that same kind of control.

Sans sees the subtle scrunch of Dr. Grey’s nose, the slight downward shift of his brow, a tightness to his mouth, and without the man ever having to say it, Sans knows.

Dr. Grey is irritated with him.

So when he says, “Look, if I share, will you promise not to snitch on me?” and holds something out to him with his unusually long arms, Sans decides it’s probably a good gesture on his part to take it.

Even if it doesn’t look particularly appetizing…

………

It tastes much better than it looks.

Dr. Grey chuckles, whiskers twitching in amusement, and Sans remembers belatedly that he probably makes a lot of easily read expressions too—he’ll have to watch that…

As soon as he’s done with this, this…

“Jeez, you like burgers that much?”

This burger.

“I’VE NEVER HAD ONE,” Sans says without thinking, just barely able to tack on, “THIS GOOD.”

Dr. Grey doesn’t look like he caught the pause.

“Yeah, they’re pretty good,” he agrees. “That Grillby kid does ‘em right. …Should probably rethink his business model, though… Y’know, if he’s ever gonna make any real G.”

Sans eats lunch with Dr. Grey, making small talk until he can bring the recombinator to ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ and complete his tasks for the day.

(And if he thinks about burgers for longer than is strictly casual, he says nothing about it to anyone.)

-

Sans goes on, honing his skills of observation, making as nice as he can with the surly and scarred personnel of the outer labs.

The monster with a round, bald head and even rounder, penetrating eyes clearly doesn’t believe Sans when he claims to be an intern… but noticeably lets it lie when he mentions ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ by name.

It’s clear he doesn’t want to get involved with the Royal Scientist’s personal business.

A large bird with a big, jagged beak pauses in the middle of a lively discussion about quantum entanglement to ask…how old he is, again?

Sans makes a guess, somewhere between his chronological and physical ages, and they flush brightly. He knows they’re thinking they made a faux pas—to get such a sarcastic, obviously wrong answer, Sans must get that question all the time…

He doesn’t correct them, much preferring to go back to talking about particles than himself.

Even the custodian, he develops a civil rapport with, and she stops him once in the hall as he’s lugging equipment back and forth, as he always does.

“Hey,” she says, her eye intense as her clamshell head clapped softly around her words, “if you ever need anything……”

“THANK YOU,” Sans says, shifting the weight in his arms. “BUT I’VE GOT THEM.”

(He knows that’s not what she meant.)

(He can tell from her tone that even if she doesn’t know, she Knows.)

(Sans, a kid far too smart for whatever age he actually was, running around the Royal Labs, personal assistant to someone that was well known within and without these walls as a very powerful, very intelligent, very cruel monster…)

(But how can he trust her? Trust anyone? The possibility of betrayal is omnipresent, ulterior motives lie in everything—☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ taught him that.)

(What was the price of this offer? The consequences? He has no way of knowing.)

(And even if he was wrong, even if she offered of the goodness in her heart and nothing else…)

(☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ had eyes everywhere, and custodians were…replaceable.)

(Sans did her a favor, pretending not to understand.)

(He thinks.)

-

Sans doesn’t consciously realize it, not for awhile.

But there’s a plan forming, somewhere in the back of his mind, nebulous as steam but slowly, slowly building pressure.

Sans is…earning ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s trust.

Gradually, of course, but…

If he had more of it…

With more leeway…

He could…

What— escape? Expose his…crimes?

Do something…more satisfying?

(Sans is stronger now, so much stronger than the last time he tested that for real against his guardian.)

(Maybe this time…?)

Sans isn’t sure.

And before he can properly figure it out, a wrench is thrown squarely into his gears.

A very, very big wrench.

When Sans comes back to ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s lab and finds himself staring at his own replacement.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ doesn’t say that’s what it is, but there’s a new hole in his left hand to match the one in the right, and what else could the tiny little soulling in a familiar tank of cyan magic be?

Especially when all ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ says on the matter is that he’s going to let this one grow naturally—since the accelerator had such…unfortunate side-effects last time.

Sans is…being replaced.

-

He watches the soulling as it grows, his eye-lights drawn to the bright white glow every time he passes its tank.

Such a small thing to kill his budding hope so brutally…

This is his replacement.

Sans surely only has until it’s finished, not nearly enough time to build all the trust he needs from ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ in order to do…any of the things he was planning to do.

With the release of the working product, the prototype is no longer needed, and Sans has no faith in his value to ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ as a lab assistant to assume he’ll be kept around.

As soon as it’s ready…

As soon as it proves viable, better than its predecessor…

………

Sans is left wholly unattended with it a total of four times.

His eye-lights linger on all the wires and tubes hooked up to the tank, all of the monitoring and regulatory equipment that he knows well how to use.

It would be…smart…to solve this problem now.

It would be easy.

…It should be.

And yet…

Sans only looks at it, bobbing slowly, almost sleepily in its pool of cyan.

If it weren’t almost certainly his impending death, he might even call it ‘cute.’

-

Sans is told to stop what he’s doing, come over here, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ could use an extra pair of hands for this.

This, Sans sees when he turns to look, is the soulling glowing brighter, shivering with potential…

Ready to form its physical body.

Sans goes over to assist.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎, rolling up his sleeves, explains that he’s going to remove it from the gestation tank and Sans’ job will be to monitor its vitals and call out anything alarming.

It should go smoothly, he adds, with something that sounds an awful lot like a sneer in his voice.

This specimen is far more…robust.

‘Robust’ is not the first word that comes to Sans’ mind as he watches the soulling—the soul—disappear, magic coalescing around it into a body of tiny, delicate bones.

A skeleton, of course, just like ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎.

Just like Sans.

“SHOWING…MODERATE SIGNS OF DISTRESS,” Sans reports, trying to remain focused on his task.

Expected, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ assures him, draining the tank and removing the…

The infant.

…which is now wiggling and rattling and wailing at the top of lungs it didn’t have as ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ examined it thoroughly.

Its sobs are huge for such a little body, Sans can’t help but think.

The real-time data on the computer shows no complications, though, none that Sans can see.

Aside from a slight tremor in its soul resonance—well within the range of normal for a monster experiencing unpleasant emotion—the little skeleton is in perfect health.

A steady soul, well-formed limbs in the correct proportion, 10 HP just to start…

It’s perfect.

Sans’ superior.

His replacement.

Only a matter of time.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ moves suddenly, carrying the infant over to Sans’ old cot in the corner of the lab.

Sans watches him set it down and then come back over to the computer, bumping him aside to get a print-out of the data.

Sans…stands there, feeling tense and awkward as ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ clips the papers to a board and begins scribbling down notes.

The infant is screaming its skull off behind him.

“☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎…”

He huffs audibly, a nonverbal demand to speak.

“WHAT…NOW?”

This is, one would assume from ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s reaction, an incredibly stupid question to ask.

Nothing, he says, waving his hand dismissively. Sans should go about his business, he’s not needed anymore—☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s busy, he doesn’t have time to dictate every second of his day for him.

But suddenly, Sans isn’t…all that concerned, about himself; if ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ meant ‘not needed’ now or just…‘not needed.’

“WHAT ABOUT… IT’S……IT’S CRYING…”

Infants do that, yes—it’ll stop eventually.

“………BUT. WHAT IF…”

It’s fine, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ says, manifesting eye-lights just to roll them condescendingly. Sans saw the data himself: there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s healthy and normal, it doesn’t need anything.

However annoying the noise may be, it’ll cry itself out sooner or later—nothing to bother with.

And so saying, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ decisively turns his back on Sans, immersing himself fully in his work.

Conversation over.

Sans…takes a step back.

Turns.

…

The infant is very loud and from its flailing, very upset.

Maybe…

Maybe he should check.

Just to make sure nothing was wrong.

Sans looks at the screen again, reading over the data.

Stalling.

Full HP, a masculine soul resonance, a potential affinity for purple magic…

The computer even recorded its font, the name that goes along with the shape of the letters screaming out of the infant’s mouth.

Papyrus.

……

Sans leaves the computer.

And approaches the cot.

It’s still crying…

He’s still crying.

And…

It’s making Sans…feel something.

A…a kinship?

…I WAS THERE, he realizes, with dawning horror. THAT WAS ME.

Older, physically.

Bigger, and smarter, and able to hold his own skull up under his own power, maybe, but…

No less helpless, when it came right down to it.

Exactly as scared and alone, wishing, somewhere, deep down in the heart of him that…

………

That someone would help.

………

The babybones…

Papyrus…is just like him.

Made of the same dust and magic, dragged into the same terrible situation.

…They’re family, of a sort.

Brothers.

………

Sans reaches down and picks Papyrus up.

The ensuing silence is so sudden and complete that for a moment, Sans thinks he’s gone deaf.

Papyrus is looking at him, with big startled eye-sockets still wet with tears; quiet at first, but letting out uncertain little whines and whimpers as he tries to figure out if what’s just happened is good or not.

Sans doesn’t know the ‘correct’ way to hold a babybones.

He’s probably doing it all wrong as he shifts Papyrus…his brother…closer to his chest, trying to crook his arm the way he’s seen mothers do it from the pictures in his books—a clumsy imitation at best.

Papyrus doesn’t seem to mind his inexperience.

He fusses a little but remains quiet, his tiny, useless phalanges fisting ineffectively at Sans’ lab coat, his skull nuzzling into his big brother’s chest.

Easy to please, little Papyrus was—it seemed like being picked up was all he’d wanted.

Sans exhales the breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

He sits, on the cot, careful not to lose his grip and drop the babybones like an idiot.

He looks across the lab, at ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎—but if the Royal Scientist ever looked up from his work to see what his failed experiment was doing to his replacement, he’s already deemed it unimportant and turned back to More Important Matters.

Sans sits there with Papyrus for a long time.

His skull is empty, in the moment, but later—much later—Sans will realize how…big…this moment is.

The moment he gained a brother.

The moment he had something…his, something that ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ didn’t tell him to want or to take on.

The moment that Sans gained, however small…

A family.

-

Another Big Moment is fast approaching.

Not that any of them know it yet.

-

Sans takes on the chore of looking after Papyrus in the days, weeks, months that follow.

With, he assumes, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s tacit approval, as his lab work and fetching assignments diminish considerably, almost overnight.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ once said he didn’t have time to raise a child from scratch—Sans couldn’t have known then that it would become his job.

But it’s…good…to have a purpose.

Some certainty that he won’t be discarded just yet.

Sans doesn’t intend to complain.

As far as babies go, Papyrus is an easy one…he thinks.

He doesn’t have much to compare to, of course, but as long as Sans keeps him fed and holds him on a regular basis, there’s rarely any crying and that’s not too hard to keep up with.

Papyrus is a bit of a whiner, though…

He whines when he’s hungry, and when he’s tired, when Sans goes to leave the room without him—even for just a moment!—and he whines when he’s bored, which Sans can only assume because nothing else could be wrong for him to whine about.

It’s all forgivable, though, because Papyrus is his baby brother and it’s not his fault he’s too small and new to do anything by himself.

…and, maybe, also a little bit because Papyrus raises hell when ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ tries to handle him—staring up at his flat, skeletal face for only a second before bursting into frightened tears and refusing to settle until Sans has him again.

There’s a very nasty, spiteful sort of joy for Sans in that; one that he savors every time it happens and ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ looks so put out and sour.

Papyrus knows what he’s about.

Sans respects that.

So, he sits with Papyrus in his lap and reads his textbooks aloud, even though his audience mostly just makes weird noises and excitedly smacks any pages that have colorful pictures.

He shares his paper and tries to find lots of markers for Papyrus as soon as he learns how to hold them, and doesn’t get that mad when streaks of ink end up all over his…everything.

He points at things and says what they’re called and only laughs a little bit when Papyrus can never quite say the word himself, just syllables like ‘bah’ and ‘nyeh’ and ‘ssssss.’

He’s not laughing when one day, that ‘ssssss’ turns into a “ssssssans!!!” complete with a big smile and reaching grabby hands and Sans…

Sans isn’t crying that day, either.

His brother’s the babybones, not him.

Obviously.

Throughout all this,☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ insists on regular health checks and examinations for his second creation, just as he’d done with Sans.

The only difference is that Papyrus passes them all with flying colors: his HP, his magic production, his budding motor skills, all on track for a babybones his age.

He is, by all accounts, the perfect specimen.

Undoubtedly what ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ had hoped his first attempt would be.

Sans is…making his peace with that, he thinks.

He’s not strong enough—he never was and probably never will be—but at least for the moment, he still has a purpose.

Taking care of Papyrus.

Whatever ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ intends to do about him when Papyrus no longer needs to be taken care of, whether he’ll go back to being an assistant-slash-errand-boy, or…

………

Well.

It’s not as if Sans will have a choice in the matter anyway.

He’s making his peace with it.

And then…

Papyrus is crawling underfoot, exploring the lab as he sometimes does. He’s still entirely too small to get at anything dangerous, so as long as Sans has him in eyeshot he figures it’s fine.

He and ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ both watch as the babybones gets up off his knees, toddling a few steps before stumbling and starting to fall.

Sans catches him, of course, setting him back down on the floor and angling him towards the area with the least sharp edges and hard corners, but ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s attention is caught.

He asks if Papyrus is walking now, sounding intrigued.

“SORT OF,” Sans allows. “HIS BALANCE ISN’T RIGHT YET, BUT HE’S GETTING THERE.”

It’s about time, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ opines.

He’ll be ready for some experiments soon.

………

Sans goes cold.

Through the odd ringing sound that seems to have taken up residence in his skull, he keeps his tone even and casual as he probes deeper.

“EXPERIMENTS? ISN’T HE ALREADY PERFECT?”

Perfect?

Stars, no.

Better than Sans, certainly—healthier, stronger, lots of potential—but far from perfect.

His magic production is only slightly above average for a monster his age, and projections of his intelligence and mental aptitude are actually slightly below average.

“MAYBE HE DOESN’T TEST WELL,” Sans quips, like the conversation wouldn’t be boiling his blood, if he had any.

Maybe, ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ allows, but there’s plenty of room for improvement.

Enhancement.

And so many more things to try with a specimen so much sturdier than Sans was!

No need to scrap the really interesting ideas just because they might be a little too taxing for his fragile creation, a nice, wide margin for error to work within, finally.

Sans makes as noncommittal a noise as he knows how to make.

But on the inside, he’s burning.

The coldest fire he’s ever felt, like shards of ice in his chest making his ribs sting and creak with the pressure as they spread and spread and spread.

He knows this feeling.

Hate.

His hate for ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎, never quite gone, never quite faded, but maybe forgotten for a time; less immediate.

It’s back at the forefront of Sans’ mind now, with a horrible vengeance, fueled by…

Fear? Concern?

…Love?

Sans thought he’d given up on the idea of defying ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎.

It had been…pointless, hopeless, impossible, why bother?

It still was, all of those things, but now…

Now, the stakes were so high, they were dizzying, sending Sans reeling to even contemplate them.

Papyrus.

Papyrus.

Small, helpless, trusting Papyrus…

Poisoned with chemicals, zapped with incompatible magic, trained to his literal breaking point, strapped down to a table and—

NO.

Papyrus is his brother.

His family.

His.

And he is not for ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ to ruin.

Sans won’t allow it.

Not even if it kills him.

-

For the next few weeks, Sans sleeps poorly—if at all.

He keeps his eye-sockets shut, his eye-lights extinguished, but all of his attention is fixed firmly on the door night after night, as if ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ would burst in at any moment and try to steal Papyrus out from under him, like an ambush.

It’s ridiculous.

Sans knows that if…when…☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ comes for Papyrus, there’ll be no such subtlety and pretense.

He’ll simply take, the way he always has before, with a show of force and unimpeachable authority, and Sans won’t be able to stop it.

Sans knows this in his bones, but his body remains tense and wired regardless.

Papyrus, perfectly oblivious to the danger he’s in, still seems to sense that something’s wrong.

He frowns at Sans sometimes, his little hands reaching up to pat at his brother’s face.

“why sad???”

“NOT SAD,” Sans says every time, redirecting him to his coloring.

He’s not.

He’s tired. He’s scared. He’s angry.

WHY PAPYRUS? he wonders constantly. WHY NOW? HE’S A FUCKING BABYBONES, HE DOESN’T DESERVE…!

But Sans learned a long time ago that reason and empathy meant nothing to their guardian.

He’s the Royal Scientist: he can do whatever experiments he wants, on anything or anyone he wants.

And because he can, he will.

The thought makes Sans sick, sick and mad and it keeps his every sense on high alert as he looks for the right opportunity.

Any opportunity, no matter the odds against him.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ doesn’t get to win this time.

He doesn’t get Sans’ brother.

-

Of all the scenarios Sans expected, of everything he ran through in his head looking for an answer—how he could stop the inevitable, how he could keep his brother safe, how he could maybe even live through it himself—there was one thing he failed to account for.

Sheer dumb luck.

An alarm goes off one day, one Sans has never seen go off before: a big red light on the wall flashing intermittently, a long slow klaxon blaring in time.

It doesn’t sound particularly urgent, but then ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s pager, phone, and intercom all go off at the same time too, and Sans knows it has to be something really serious.

Unfortunately, Papyrus doesn’t like loud noises.

All of the discordant, blaring sounds at once makes him throw his arms over his skull and start to cry, loudly, only adding to the cacophony.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ snaps at Sans to shut him up while he tries to attend to all of the notifications happening at once, and Sans scoops his baby brother up without hesitation—bouncing and hushing and explaining that it was fine, he was okay, everything was okay…

Perhaps not the whole truth.

Sans can hear the rushed, angry conversation bouncing back and forth behind him, or at least the important bits.

“…the CORE…ngerous fluctuation…ls are too high, we can’t stabilize…”

Papyrus is quiet by the time ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ curses once, loudly, whirling and flying around the lab gathering tools and shutting off everything still trying to get his attention.

Sans jumps a little to hear his name barked, instructed to come along as the CORE needs urgent repair and ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ needs his extra set of hands.

On autopilot, Sans is already lowering Papyrus back to the floor before it occurs to him.

An opportunity.

A loophole.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ said to keep Papyrus quiet.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ said to come with.

He never said to put Papyrus down in between.

Papyrus stares at Sans, his little skull tilting in confusion, and…

And Sans picks him back up, whispering, “QUIET NOW,” before following ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ out the door.

It’s risky.

There’s no guarantee, of anything, but to Sans’ estimations, this is perhaps the best shot he’s ever going to get.

Papyrus has never been out of the lab before—the precious, successful experiment, kept close under observation, and under lock and key.

But ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ doesn’t notice him at all, clinging silently to Sans’ coat, and for him not to notice…

It means that ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ is distracted.

Really distracted.

Sans’ odds of success are rising by the second.

Through a long elevator ride and several hallways, with an amount of ID scanners that make ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ cuss and grumble, Sans stays sharp, waiting for his chance.

Feeling like a mousetrap ready to spring.

The CORE, when they reach it, truly is impressive: a massive geothermal energy hub, siphoning power from the earth itself to provide light and warmth to all monsterkind.

Innovation.

Genius.

A technological marvel.

…but the choice to have the main control center accessible only by catwalks, miles above the glowing, flowing lava that powered it seemed an unnecessarily dramatic touch.

Unsafe.

Anything could happen here, really.

Just a few rails and good balance standing between someone and an…

Unfortunate accident.

…

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ is fixing the CORE.

He makes periodic demands for tools, hold this, take that, back up, get away…

Sans complies.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s back is to Sans, as it often is—less a show of trust than one of arrogance, certain in the knowledge that his first creation knows better than to do anything…disobedient.

Stupid.

……

Standing here, holding his innocent baby brother in his arms, Sans has never felt stupider.

When ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ sighs and closes the control panel, starting to stand, it’s like the world slips into slow motion.

NOW.

Sans shifts Papyrus onto his hip, keeping hold of him with just one arm. He’s a toddler now, and it’s not as easy to hold him this way as it used to be, but Sans is strong enough to do it.

This probably isn’t what ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ wanted him to be stronger for, but that’s too bad.

Sans gets to decide what to do with his strength now.

What he’s going to use it to protect.

By the time ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ starts to turn, it’s already too late.

Sans is bumping his heel against ☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎’s, shoving hard at the middle of his spine, with all the force he has…

And it’s enough.

Sneaky and underhanded and opportunistic, but it’s enough.

☝︎✌︎💧︎❄︎☜︎☼︎ goes over the rail.

Every emotion that flits across his normally inscrutable face is a thing of beauty to Sans.

The shock, the disbelief, the anger, the fear…

Oh, the fear is something that Sans etches into his memory on the spot, never wanting to forget.

Sans watches him fall, watches him hit…

He never thought it would be so easy.

So quick and painless.

And now…

He’s free.

-

Well…

Maybe not.

Sans questions the efficacy of ‘safety features’ that throw the entire CORE into lockdown only after someone’s fallen into the damn thing. It hardly seems useful.

And yet, useful or not, alarms are blaring again and not a single door will open, no matter how many times he scans his ID badge, and he…

They…are stuck.

At the scene of the crime, where Sans murdered the Royal Scientist in cold blood, and he doesn’t want to be here when someone comes asking about it.

And someone’s coming, that he’s sure of—with all the flashing lights and howling alarms, someone is coming to investigate—but Sans can’t pry the panel off the wall to try and hardwire the door while he’s holding his brother, but Papyrus hates all this noise and he’s crying and he’ll cry louder if Sans puts him down, which he doesn’t want to do here anyway where one wrong toddle could mean the Royal Scientist’s fate, and he’s so stupid, he should’ve taken his ID badge before shoving him over, those credentials might’ve bypassed the lockdown, but he didn’t and they’re trapped and he, he…!

He can see it, Sans can see the next hallway, through the window in the door, he can see it but he can’t get there, he needs to get there, he needs to get there…!

And then, between one blink and the next…

He is.

The sudden cool-down of the air around him is what puts Sans’ panic attack on hold, making him pause and look around in surprise.

There’s no lava far below his feet. He’s not standing on a catwalk.

He’s in the next hallway.

The door never opened, but he’s here just the same, like he’d simply…found another route.

Like he took a shortcut.

………

The next door has a window, too.

Sans wonders if he can do that again.

The answer is ‘yes.’

It’s ‘yes,’ and ‘yes,’ and ‘yes,’ and ‘yes,’ shortcutting through door after door and getting farther and farther away from the CORE, closer and closer to freedom—real freedom!

They’re farther than Sans has even been on his own, one last door between them and the publicly accessible area of the CORE facility, so, so, so close…

…when Sans’ strength gives out.

He tries to shortcut again, one last time, but the attempt just leaves him dizzy, trying to call on magic that just isn’t there.

His knees wobble and he reaches for his badge, hoping against hope that maybe…

Access denied.

The Royal Scientist was just as sly as Sans had expected him to be—of course his ID wouldn’t work this far out.

Feeling like the wind’s been knocked out of him, Sans…sits.

He leans against the wall and slides all the way down until he’s just…sitting there, on the floor, trying to breathe.

Papyrus slips out of his grip and starts to wander around the little hallway. The klaxons are far away now, only just audible in the distance, and apparently that’s good enough for him to feel alright to explore.

Good for him.

Sans scrubs his phalanges over his face, taking a long, deep inhale and holding it.

“OKAY,” he says to himself, exhaling. “OKAY, OKAY, OKAY… THINK.”

He has some time now.

People are going to be going to the CORE first. It’s probably going to take them awhile to figure out what happened at all, probably longer if there’s no evidence that it wasn’t just an accident.

If anyone is going to be looking for him, they won’t be looking here first thing.

He has some time.

Sans’ ID badge is useless against this door.

As he sees it, he only has two options: try to open up the panel again, or wait until he has enough magic to use his new trick one more time.

The latter is risky.

Any time wasted is time that someone could find them here, in a restricted area in the middle of a lockdown, after a very important monster died under mysterious circumstances, and that’s—to put it mildly—not a good look.

But the former isn’t without its drawbacks, either.

Sans doesn’t have any tools, all left behind back at the CORE—STUPID, STUPID, STUPID…—so he’d be prying it open and fiddling around in it all with his bare hands, almost certainly causing himself some kind of injury, and with damaged or broken claws it’s going to be a lot harder to look after—………

Sans’ soul thrums oddly in his chest.

Where is Papyrus?

He can’t see him.

It’s not a large hallway, and there’s nowhere in it to hide, Sans should definitely be able to see Papyrus in it, but he can’t.

Papyrus is gone.

Papyrus is gone and how could Sans have lost him?! Literally how, because it makes no sense, and Sans is working himself right back up into a panic by the time he sees it.

The tiny little hand reaching for him through the door.

Through the door.

That’s the part that takes Sans an inordinate amount of time to process, because there’s no opening, no crack under or at the side of the door, no possible way for anything to go through it.

But there, somehow…is Papyrus’ hand, waving around blindly the same way it did when he lost a marker under the cot that he couldn’t quite reach.

Sans doesn’t understand it, but he grabs the hand.

It curls around his claws and tugs, and Sans still doesn’t understand but he moves towards the door anyway.

Sans isn’t sure he’ll ever understand how he just…slid right through, as if the door didn’t even exist, but maybe he isn’t the only one who just learned a new trick.

Either way, Papyrus certainly seems happy to see him on the other side—tiny purple lights manifesting in his eye-sockets as he smiles up at his big brother.

“quiet now,” he announces, proudly.

He’s right.

The sirens can’t even be heard faintly now, here, in this room: an empty reception area, preemptively evacuated when the first alarms went off, no doubt.

They’re alone here.

They’re…

They’re alone.

Free, for real.

“…HEH…HEHEHEH…HAHAHA!”

Sans is laughing as he scoops Papyrus up again, the rush giving him an unexpected boost of strength.

He might be crying a little bit too as he gets to his feet and starts to run, as fast as he can.

Sans has no plan.

He has nowhere to go, no one to help him, nothing to fall back on, but he just keeps running and doesn’t look back.

What he does have…it isn’t much.

It’s…just the two of them, but…

It’s still Sans’ family.

He has his family, his brother, and they’re free now.

They can be safe.

Whatever he has to do to be strong enough to keep this, to protect it, he’ll do it.

He’ll make it work.

They’ll make it work.

“YOU AND ME, PAPYRUS,” he laughs breathlessly. “SKELETON BROTHERS AGAINST THE WORLD!”

Chapter Text

Papyrus’ earliest memories are…blurry.

From how people usually talk about it, from things he’s read on the Undernet, it seems like that’s pretty typical.

The first couple years of life don’t really stick, not in any way that matters, and if they do, they’re hardly ever clear.

Just…bits and pieces.

Papyrus has bits and pieces.

Papyrus has…crawling around on cold tile…scribbling formless shapes with neon highlighters…sometimes bad noises, but mostly beeps and hums that were easy to fall asleep to…

Nightmares, too.

A flat, white face in the darkness, staring at him.

Grating sounds and jumbled symbols that he didn’t understand; couldn’t understand.

Hands—like his, but huge, with holes in the middle—reaching, trying to get him, to do something bad…

Many years later, Papyrus questions his own psyche; that it was able to come up with such a creepy ominous figure to haunt his dreams that young.

But then, apparently… lots of kids have boogeymen around that age, or so he’s heard.

It’s normal.

And a moot point, really, because the boogeyman never got him.

Because Sans was there.

That’s one of the stronger memories that Papyrus has from that far back: bright eye-lights in the darkness, claws snatching him up and away, loud words but in simple, rounded letters that made them feel so much safer, somehow…

Sans.

His big brother.

Papyrus was safe when Sans was there, and Sans was always there.

That’s what he remembers the most.

The rest…

…probably isn’t that important.

-

Papyrus doesn’t really like their house.

It’s tiny and creaky and the lights turn off a lot, and one of the walls has a hole that’s wet and smells gross, even after Sans made the pipe stop dripping.

Sans always says they’ll go somewhere else soon, but it’s been awhile so Papyrus guesses that ‘soon’ is longer than he thought it was…

It’s not all bad, though, because Sans comes up with lots of games for them to play to pass the time.

Papyrus is really good at the Quiet Game—he knows all the loud spots of the floor and how to step around them and he even remembers to duck under the windows, so nobody outside would ever know he was there!

He can stay quiet for hours until Sans comes home and taps the wall four times (so he knows the game is over).

“DID ANYONE SEE YOU?” he asks every time, checking the locks on the door and the boards on the window, but Papyrus’ answer is always the same.

“nope!”

It makes Sans smile and pat him on the head, telling him, “GOOD JOB,” before handing over whatever he found for dinner.

Papyrus is the best at the Quiet Game.

…he’s probably the worst at the G Game, though, because Sans always wins that one.

He used to be better at it, but towards the end, it was just never any fun to see his brother holding that shiny gold coin out to him, asking to play.

No matter where he hid it—in pockets, in bags, in wallets, in wallets in bags—Sans would always find it somehow, and Papyrus could only win if he felt him take it.

It was impossible and he wasn’t sad when Sans said he was good enough and that they didn’t need to play it anymore.

He is a little sad that they never got to play Fortress.

That one had sounded like fun, when Sans explained it, but then it just never happened…

He asks about it one day, a long time later, and his brother looks surprised.

“YOU REMEMBER THAT?” Sans makes a weird face and shakes his head. “DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT, WE WON’T HAVE TO PLAY THAT GAME.”

“how come???”

“BECAUSE.”

Papyrus frowns, because that’s a bad answer, and Sans should know that.

“……BECAUSE THE…PEOPLE…I THOUGHT WERE GOING TO COME PLAY WITH US AREN’T COMING.”

“why not?”

“THEY FORGOT THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO.”

“all of them?”

Sans makes a noise, kind of like a laugh, but one that sounds like it hurts.

“APPARENTLY.”

“oh…”

Maybe Papyrus sounds disappointed, because Sans reaches out and grabs his shoulder.

“HEY, THAT GAME’S STUPID ANYWAY. IT’S JUST HIDE AND SEEK WITH EXTRA STEPS. WE CAN PLAY HIDE AND SEEK RIGHT NOW, IF YOU WANT.”

Of course he wants to!

The game of hide and seek they play after is fun, and Sans is probably right that it’s better than Fortress.

Papyrus hardly even remembers all the rules—something about…moving the furniture?

That sounds hard and not that fun at all.

He’d rather play fun games with his brother than wait for the people in black armor to come over and make them move stuff…

So he doesn’t think about Fortress again.

-

Papyrus shakes his brother awake one night.

Sans grumbles, like he always does when Papyrus doesn’t let him sleep, but it’s important and he can’t wait until morning.

“WHAT?” Sans asks, annoyed. “WHAT DO YOU N—………”

Sans stops talking, his mouth hanging open in a funny way. His eye-lights even go away for a second, so Papyrus knows he really surprised him, and that just makes him smile wider.

The little glowing bone floating between his palms isn’t much—small, and lopsided, and a little flickery—but it’s his best one yet!

Sans has to see it.

“I…PAPYRUS, THAT’S…” His brother’s eye-sockets are huge, and it kinda makes him want to laugh. “WHEN DID YOU LEARN THAT?”

“just now,” Papyrus proudly tells him.

It took days to make one this good; one that looked mostly how he wanted it to and didn’t disappear when he thought about anything else.

Of course he’s proud of it!

Sans shakes his head.

“NO,” he says, “I…HOW?”

Which is a silly question.

“i saw when you did it.”

The bone Sans had made was a lot cooler, way bigger and bright blue, and it made that mad sphinx lady stop chasing them like they were playing freeze-tag!

Papyrus doesn’t know if he can make one like that, but he thinks this one is still pretty cool.

Sans seems to think so, too.

“………HEH. HEHEHEH, STARS, YOU’RE QUICK. A WHOLE BULLET, THAT’S…” He sits up, leaning closer to inspect it. “THE BOOKS SAID YOU MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO DO THAT FOR ANOTHER YEAR. THAT’S INCREDIBLE, PAPYRUS.”

Papyrus beams, bouncing in place a little to get the happy out.

There’s…maybe a little too much happy, actually.

The bone…the ‘bullet’ glows brighter between his hands, sparking and fizzling in a weird way, and Papyrus doesn’t know what it means, but it doesn’t look safe and definitely throws off his concentration.

He can’t help but make a sad noise when he lets it go and it pops, disappearing into thin air and leaving the room dark again.

Dark, except for Sans’ eye-lights, looking down at him.

“AH, DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT,” he says, laughing a little. “THAT WAS GREAT. YOU CAN TRY AGAIN LATER, I’LL HELP YOU.”

Papyrus perks back up.

“really? you’ll show me how???”

“SURE. WHEN IT ISN’T…” Sans rustles around in his stuff, looking at his pocket-watch. “…TWO IN THE MORNING, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU AWAKE?!”

“‘cause i had to sh—mffhmgfhh…!”

Sans’ hand is on his face, covering his mouth and shoving him to lay down.

There’s only one thing Papyrus can do.

“OW! DID YOU BITE ME?! YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE GREMLIN!”

“you’re a gremlin!”

Papyrus doesn’t know what a ‘gremlin’ is, but that doesn’t seem important.

“OOH, YOU HAVE NO IDEA,” Sans grumbles, “YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LUCKY YOU ARE THAT I PUT UP WITH YOU… GO TO BED!”

He says that, but Papyrus just snickers as he lays down.

Sans only sounds mad, he knows he isn’t really.

And he knows that Sans doesn’t break promises—so tomorrow, he’ll get to learn how to make bones!

Going to bed will just make that come sooner, and he can’t wait.

-

…Maybe he could’ve waited.

The next morning, first thing, Sans wakes him up and gives him…

“a book?”

“DON’T WHINE,” Sans tuts at him. “YOU CAN’T JUST DIVE IN WITH THIS SORT OF MAGIC, YOU HAVE TO LEARN THE BASICS FIRST.”

“yeah, but……”

Making bones and doing magic, it was…it was supposed to be…fun, cool!

Not school, like numbers and letters…

Papyrus pouts.

“NICE TRY, I’M NOT THAT EASY. AT LEAST LOOK AT IT TODAY, OKAY?”

It’s then that Papyrus realizes Sans is putting on a sweater with a hood, and his soul sinks for real.

“you’re going out?”

“I HAVE TO,” Sans says.

“no!” Papyrus protests, making himself jump a little at how loud he was, but… “you can’t! i…you said……i-i can’t read by myself!”

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO.” Sans cracks the book open, showing him the inside. “IT’S FOR KIDS, THERE’S LOTS OF PICTURES. YOU CAN LOOK AT THOSE AND I’LL READ IT FOR YOU WHEN I GET HOME.”

He passes the book back into Papyrus’ arms, starting to turn away, and…

Papyrus doesn’t know why.

He doesn’t have the words, at his age, to express why it felt so important that Sans stayed.

Why seeing him go, when they were supposed to do something together, when what he thought was supposed to happen wasn’t happening made everything feel so suddenly bad and wrong.

All Papyrus knows is that his chest hurts and he feels sad and his eye-sockets are starting to well up, and…

And then, he’s crying.

“WH—OH, PAPYRUS, WHAT…”

Whatever Sans was going to say, he stops saying it and kneels down instead, reaching out for Papyrus.

He doesn’t—can’t—do anything but keep crying, even as his brother tries to make him look at him, and reasons and shushes and consoles.

Papyrus just cries, full of emotion and with no other way to let it out, and before he knows it, he finds himself squished up against Sans in a tight grip.

The pressure…the hug…helps.

A little.

“d-don’t,” he whines, still gasping and blubbering. “i, i…i don’t, you………please…”

Sans squeezes him harder, but it’s weird.

It sounds like he’s the one who’s hurting when he says, “I’M SORRY, I…I CAN’T, PAPYRUS, I HAVE TO GO.”

“why????” Papyrus demands.

“BECAUSE, I…I HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF US.” Gently, Sans probes, “YOU WANT TO EAT LATER, DON’T YOU?”

Papyrus sniffles.

Of course he does.

“I HAVE TO GO OUT THEN,” Sans explains, correctly reading his silence. “I CAN’T BRING HOME FOOD IF I DON’T GO.”

That makes sense.

But…

Papyrus’ hands grip the book he’s still holding, like it was his brother he was trying to hold onto instead.

Sans pulls back enough to see it and tries to smile at him.

“IT’S OKAY. WE’LL DO THAT LATER. I PROMISE.”

………

Sans always kept promises.

Papyrus looks at him for a long time before scrubbing at his eye-sockets and staring down at the creaky wood floor.

“…okay,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

He can’t say that he still wants Sans to stay and read the book for him, because he doesn’t know how to say that he thinks he should be able to have both—dinner and his brother—and he doesn’t want Sans to get mad at him for not understanding why he can’t.

He wouldn’t get mad: Sans is never mad, not at him, but when you’re a babybones, the things you worry about don’t always make sense.

And you rarely know how to explain them, even if they do.

Sans smiles, relieved, and hugs him again, telling him to stay safe and be careful while he’s gone, that he’ll be as quick as he can and bring back something really good, to make it up to him.

Papyrus nods and agrees and…

And then, he’s alone.

And that’s…okay.

Papyrus does look at the book while Sans is gone.

There’s lots of pictures, like Sans said, and some words that he can kind of sound out a little bit on his own… but lots that he can’t; that he needs his brother to read for him.

He tries his best anyway, while he waits, but by the time Sans gets back he’s more than ready for help.

Papyrus is so happy to see Sans again that he doesn’t even really notice how tired and scuffed up his brother looks—an easy thing to miss hidden behind an armful of treats and a big, bright lying smile.

Sans keeps his promise, though, and diligently reads him the whole book, picking at popato chisps while letting Papyrus have as many crab apples and donuts as he wanted; answering all of his questions and more, even when it started to get late.

By bedtime, he’s all but forgotten the episode of the morning, and he goes to bed excited to learn more about magic.

Even if it is like school.

-

Papyrus does learn more about magic.

It comes in lots of colors, not just white and blue, and every color does something different.

The blue he saw Sans use that one time makes you stay still or it hurts, and orange does the opposite. Green makes you feel better if you’re hurt and sometimes protects you, dark blue makes you heavy, and you have to dodge yellow no matter what because it hits your soul instead of your body and you can’t block it…

Red is weird and Papyrus isn’t sure he gets what it does.

“IT’S A PASSIVE MAGIC,” Sans tries to explain. “IT DOESN’T DO ANYTHING, TO THE OTHER PERSON, IT… RED MAGIC MAKES YOU TOUGHER. HARDER TO K…TO BEAT.”

Papyrus probably still looks like he doesn’t get it, because Sans huffs.

“IT DOESN’T MATTER, YOU SHOULDN’T EVER BE USING RED MAGIC ANYWAY, LET’S—”

“wait, why?”

“IT’S DANGEROUS.” Sans reaches over him to turn the page of the book, pointing at a cartoon picture of a monster.

“she looks…drippy.”

“SHE IS. MONSTER BODIES DON’T ALWAYS REACT TO IT WELL IN HIGH QUANTITIES. A FEW STUDIES HAVE BEEN DONE BUT NOTHING PARTICULARLY CONCLUSIVE WAS FOUND. …EXCEPT FOR A CORRELATION OF STABILITY WITH REPORTED LEVELS OF ANGER OR PASSION, AND A FEW OUTLIERS WITH TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES, ESPECIALLY IN THE FORMATIVE YEARS. IT’S INTERESTING, BUT SUBJECTS’ SELF-REPORTING SKEWS THE ACCURACY, AND STATISTICALLY, IT’S NOT…”

Papyrus doesn’t understand half of what his brother is talking about and promptly tunes the other half out.

He got the part that was important—red is dangerous, don’t use it—but he still lets Sans keep talking because Sans likes to use big words and talk about math stuff and doesn’t expect him to actually listen or remember.

He’s not even really interested in red magic anyway, since it doesn’t sound very cool.

What Papyrus is really interested in is purple magic, the kind that Sans says he uses the most.

…Even if he doesn’t quite get it either.

“it makes strings?”

“NO,” says Sans. Then, “…YES. SORT OF. NOT REALLY.”

“………”

Papyrus doesn’t even have to say anything for Sans to realize what a bad answer that was.

“…I’LL SHOW YOU.”

But first, apparently, Papyrus has to learn about Encounters.

A tradition, Sans calls it, turn-based and binding, a one-on-one, “OR TWO…SOMETIMES THREE,” environment to facilitate interaction between monsters.

All Papyrus knows about ‘tradition’ is that it’s the reason why there’s puzzles everywhere when they go out, and why he’s supposed to wear clothes with stripes on them because he’s a kid.

That stuff doesn’t prepare him at all for what it’s like when everything around him goes black, black and black and more black as far as he can see, and only four weird orange rectangles in front of him to break up the darkness.

Even Sans looks darker, somehow, standing across from him…but his purple eye-lights are still there, big and bright and calm, and Papyrus knows he’s safe.

“what……what do i do?” he asks.

“ANYTHING YOU WANT,” Sans replies. “I STARTED THE ENCOUNTER, SO THAT MEANS IT’S YOUR TURN. YOU CAN PICK SOMETHING TO DO AND THEN IT’LL BE MY TURN.”

That doesn’t sound so hard…

Papyrus looks at the rectangles.

He worries, for half a second, that he might have trouble reading the words on them if there’s one he doesn’t recognize, but when he looks he finds that he understands it all perfectly.

Somehow.

He’s never even seen the word ‘MERCY’ before, but here, looking at it before him, he knows exactly what it means.

Like he’s not just reading the word with his head, but…his soul, too…?

Papyrus knows what ‘MERCY’ means, and what ‘ITEM’ means, and what ‘ACT’ means, and what—………

He frowns.

Maybe he should’ve figured it out before.

Maybe he should’ve realized sooner, learning about the different types of magic, what they do and how they can hurt and how you can use them to beat somebody, but…

It’s not until just now, seeing it in front of him in big orange letters, that it really sinks in.

“sans…is… is this for FIGHTing?”

Papyrus doesn’t want to FIGHT anybody.

That sounds…mean, and…and scary!

If that’s what Encounters are for, then—

“NOT! NECESSARILY,” Sans blurts out, like he’s trying to talk fast. “IT… I, YES, SOME…MONSTERS USE IT FOR FIGHTING, BUT IT’S…IT’S NOT ONLY THAT!”

“……but it says—”

“IT SAYS A LOT OF THINGS! MOST OF THEM ARE GOOD, AREN’T THEY?”

Well…

Yeah?

That’s true.

MERCY is new to Papyrus, but that’s good…and…and he can’t really think of how an ITEM could be bad…

“WHY DON’T YOU TRY ‘ACT’?” Sans says, encouraging. “YOU CAN PICK WHATEVER YOU WANT A-AND THEN I’LL SHOW YOU HOW PURPLE MAGIC WORKS. OKAY???”

Papyrus considers it.

He does want to see his brother’s magic…

………

Papyrus ACTs.

* Check

* Hug

* Play

He doesn’t really feel like playing right now, and he can hug his brother anytime, so…

He Checks Sans instead.

* SANS ATK 20 DEF 40

* Doesn’t want to scare you, but thinks this is really important.

As soon as he processes what he’s seen, Papyrus feels…a shift, hard to pin down and even harder to put into words, but he just Knows.

It’s Sans’ turn now.

Sans, who looks just a little bit sweaty…

“ARE…ARE YOU OKAY?” he asks, awkwardly. “DO… SHOULD I……DO YOU WANT TO KEEP GOING?”

………

Sans wants to show him this.

He thinks it’s important to show him this.

But…he won’t, if Papyrus doesn’t like it…

If he gets scared.

Somehow, knowing that makes him feel…

…not very scared at all.

“i’m okay,” he says. “i wanna see.”

Which is true, but also…

He trusts his big brother.

And if Sans thinks this is important, then it probably is.

He wants to learn about it.

Sans looks relieved at his answer, exhaling loudly and smiling at him.

“OKAY,” he tells Papyrus. “I’M GOING TO TURN YOU PURPLE NOW. IT WON’T HURT, BUT I WANT YOU TO REMEMBER WHAT IT FEELS LIKE, SO YOU CAN USE IT LATER.”

“you think i can???”

“I KNOW YOU CAN. I JUST HAVE TO SHOW YOU HOW.”

Sans’ answer was so sure, so quick.

He really believes in Papyrus, doesn’t he?

That…

Makes him a little nervous, actually…

But…but he’ll try his best anyway!

“okay,” he says out loud. “i’m ready!”

-

Sans is right about Papyrus being able to learn purple magic—all it takes is a few turns of being purple himself in that first Encounter, having to hop and shimmy along set lines to dodge his brother’s (very slow, very small, very green) bone bullets before he Learns the feeling.

He even manages to turn Sans purple for a turn, and it makes him so excited that he doesn’t even care that he can’t do fewer than six lines, or that he had to let go of it right after because he started to feel dizzy.

Sans ends the Encounter right after anyway, and won’t restart it even when Papyrus eats a Monster Candy and feels totally fine again.

Sans is such a wet blanket…

(Like ‘gremlin,’ Papyrus doesn’t actually know what it means to be a ‘wet blanket,’ but he thinks it means ‘no fun,’ and that’s definitely what Sans is.)

He promises they’ll do more Encounters soon, at least, and train every day until he gets so good at it he won’t even need Monster Candy after.

Every day sounds like a lot at first, but in the end, it’s just another kind of game for Sans to play with him.

The fact that he’s learning stuff can’t even ruin that.

For a long time, Sans helps him try out lots of different colors of magic, shows him how to make bullets—more than one!—and arrange them in special ways, and even how to start Encounters on his own.

He’s getting better at it all the time, and he knows because Sans keeps saying so, praising the power of his bones and how ‘sophisticated’ his patterns are for his age and lots of other really nice things that make him feel happy and proud.

Papyrus loves training.

…He still doesn’t know what it’s for, or why Sans thinks it’s important for him to know all this stuff, but he’s doing well and Sans is proud of him and that’s all he really cares about.

-

There’s other cool stuff about training and learning magic too, stuff that Papyrus never would’ve thought of before.

Apparently, now that he’s training, that means he gets to go out!

Papyrus has been out before, of course, sometimes…but never for very long.

Usually only when he was really little, or when he threw a tantrum got really upset and wouldn’t let go of Sans so his brother had to take him with, and those times, he was either too young to remember or Sans held onto his hand and made him stay so close, he couldn’t really see anything anyway.

But now!

Now Sans brings him on purpose! And he still has to stay close, but he doesn’t have to hold Sans’ hand and he can explore and look at whatever stuff he wants to!

Which is good, because the Dump is probably the best place ever to do that.

The first time Sans takes Papyrus there, he doesn’t really like it: it’s dark and smells weird, like the hole in their wall, and everywhere he steps is wet.

“WE’RE IN WATERFALL,” Sans explains when Papyrus says so. “THE CAPITAL IS NEAR HOTLAND. IT’S DRIER THERE.”

Papyrus knows the Capital is where they live and he guesses it makes sense that somewhere else would be really different…

So even though Waterfall is the exact opposite of bright and warm and packed full of monsters, he decides to give it a chance.

And it’s pretty cool!

The blue tone of what dim light can be found is actually a lot easier to look at than the sharp reds and yellows of the Capital (or…Hotland?).

The sound all the running water makes is really nice, too, and the splashes his boots make when he walks through it are especially good.

The piles of weird junk are ever-changing and everywhere, and Papyrus can look through them and take anything he wants.

“…AS LONG AS IT FITS IN THE BAG,” Sans adds.

The bag his brother brings to the Dump is big and tube-shaped and can fit a lot of stuff, though, so that doesn’t really rule out anything Papyrus wants to take home.

The squishy duck that looks like it used to be really fuzzy?

“LOOKS MOLDY. SURE, I CAN WASH IT.”

The whole stack of empty notebooks just barely getting dripped on?

“PAGES MIGHT DRY A LITTLE FUNNY, BUT IF YOU DON’T CARE…”

A shiny, curvy bottle?

“……IT’S EMPTY. WHY DO YOU…? OH WHATEVER, IT’S NOT BROKEN, WHY NOT.”

The Dump is officially the best.

-

Eventually, many visits later, Papyrus gets bored of collecting junk for himself.

He asks Sans what he’s looking for.

“G, MOSTLY,” Sans says. “OR THINGS THAT I CAN SELL FOR G.”

“like what?”

“MMN, GADGETS, WEAPONS, TOOLS… ANYTHING THAT’S NOT BROKEN TOO BADLY…”

Sans pauses in his rummaging to look at Papyrus, maybe realizing that didn’t really clear things up.

“METAL,” he says, trying again. “IF IT’S METAL OR LOOKS COMPLICATED, THAT’S WHAT I WANT.”

Which makes way more sense, and Papyrus doesn’t know why Sans didn’t just say that in the first place.

Now that he knows what he’s supposed to find, Papyrus ends up bringing back lots of stuff that Sans says is exactly what he needed and that’ll help get lots of G.

Papyrus is proud of that—being able to help—but he’s proudest of the stuff that his brother doesn’t sell.

A little blade with a long handle that Sans says probably wouldn’t go for much, but could be useful in a pinch, he supposes…

(Papyrus saw him using it sometimes, when Sans thought he was asleep, making shapes out of driftwood while he watched outside the window, looking for people who weren’t there. He always made mean faces at the shapes when he was done and threw them away, but Papyrus always found them and kept them, all of them, just in case Sans wanted them back someday.)

An instant camera in really good shape, with a whole bunch of totally dry packs of film to go with it.

(They spend whole afternoons trading it back and forth sometimes, taking pictures of each other and whatever else they thought could be interesting to have a picture of, just because. It somehow takes years to run out of film packs, and by then they have digital cameras to replace it, but he knows that Sans collected all the old photos—every one—and put them all in an album for safekeeping.)

A little book with weird, smiling faces on it that Papyrus doesn’t really get, but it makes Sans laugh and laugh and laugh when he reads it, so it must be good.

(…That one, Papyrus realizes as an adult, was probably either the greatest thing he ever did or the worst mistake he ever made: presenting Sans with his very first joke book.)

(………)

(Jury’s still out.)

It’s all a bunch of little stuff, nothing big or important, but somehow it means more, and it makes Papyrus happy because…

Well.

Because he has a really cool brother!

And he’s starting to realize that maybe…not everybody has a brother this cool.

-

There are other monsters sometimes, at the Dump.

Seeing them, running into them…it’s not like it is at the Capital, where there’s so many monsters that everybody’s squished against everybody, but nobody really looks at anybody, or bothers with you unless you make someone mad.

It’s different in Waterfall.

The monsters here stop when they see Papyrus.

They look at him, hard, and without knowing why, it makes his soul shiver unpleasantly in his chest; makes him want to run and hide until they go away.

He never has to, though.

Because Sans is always there.

Sans is always there to stand in front of Papyrus and make them look at him instead, and if they come closer or try to talk to them, Sans is the one who looks right at their eyes and says the words that make them go away.

It’s like a whole different language that Sans uses with them, one that Papyrus just doesn’t understand—a way of talking where all the words are normal and don’t seem bad at all, but they’re…heavy, somehow…like there’s something more there that he can’t see.

Underneath.

It’s…

It’s scary, sometimes, but Sans never seems to get scared.

Sans never messes up and always says everything right and nothing bad ever happens to them in Waterfall because he’s so good at people, in a way that Papyrus doesn’t think he’ll ever be.

He doesn’t know that language, and as long as Sans is around, he’ll never have to learn it.

All of…that…is probably why he says what he says when Sans catches him looking at some kids one day, playing together in the Dump.

They’re bigger than Papyrus, even far away, but he can tell that they’re kids like him because they’re wearing stripes, too.

Their ‘playing’ looks weird, the whole group running around and hitting and shoving each other, laughing when one of them falls in the water.

He’s seen other kids sometimes, doing stuff like this before, but it seems…mean, and like it would hurt, and Papyrus doesn’t get how it’s supposed to be fun at all.

He’s watching them, trying to figure it out, when he feels his brother come up beside him and look at what he’s looking at.

Sans is quiet for awhile.

Papyrus wonders if maybe even Sans is confused—which never happens—until…

“YOU SHOULD…PROBABLY HAVE SOME FRIENDS, AT YOUR AGE…” Sans says slowly, reluctantly. “I… PAPYRUS, DO YOU……DO YOU WANT ME TO FIND SOME FRIENDS FOR YOU?”

“no!”

“NOT THEM,” Sans starts to say, “THEY’RE TOO OLD. ONES THE SAME AGE AS Y—”

But, “no!!!” Papyrus says again, because he doesn’t want friends.

Not friends like that, who are mean and rough and…and scary!

He doesn’t want things to change…

Sans doesn’t act like that, when they play.

Sans doesn’t hit him, or yell at him, or laugh at him when he messes up or says something dumb, Sans…

Sans…

Sans talks loud but he gets quieter when Papyrus needs him to, without even having to ask.

Sans always knows what he means, even if he says it a weird way.

Sans never makes him feel stupid even though Sans knows a lot of things that Papyrus doesn’t, and…

And Sans shares his food when he’s hungry, and lets him sleep closer to him when he has bad dreams, and puts on a blanket-cape to be a bad guy and chase Papyrus around so he can be the hero and…

Sans is a good brother.

That’s way better than friends.

It’s a lot to try and explain, so Papyrus doesn’t, latching onto Sans instead and holding tight, hoping his brother will understand.

Like he always does.

It only takes a second for Sans to hug him back, patting lightly.

“OKAY,” he says. “I WON’T. JUST…LET ME KNOW IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND LATER… ALRIGHT?”

“okay,” Papyrus mumbles back.

But he doesn’t think he’ll change his mind.

Even Sans, who talks to people so good and always knows what they want, doesn’t seem like he has any ‘friends.’

If Sans doesn’t have any…

How important can they be, anyway?

-

Nothing changes.

For a long time, everything is the same as always and things are good: they play games, they explore, they have fun…

There’s nothing Papyrus would change.

………

Except.

“STOP.”

Papyrus drops the covers he was trying to pull over Sans and scoots back as his brother shoves them off again.

“you shivered,” he tries to explain, but Sans just shakes his head.

“TOO HOT,” he mutters.

“…oh.”

Sans’ skull does look pretty purple, and sweaty, so… maybe that’s true?

But… he shivered like he was cold, so Papyrus thought…

He’s not sure.

He’s never sure what’s what when Sans is sick like this.

And he gets sick like this a lot.

When his brother gets so tired he can’t even stand up, and he’s hot and cold at the same time, and he talks a lot but doesn’t make any sense, Papyrus never knows what to do except…

Sit there.

And watch.

…

Papyrus doesn’t get why this happens to Sans so much.

It never happened to him and…they were brothers! They were both skeletons, and Sans was bigger and older, but Papyrus never got sick like this and he doesn’t understand why it’s different.

“YOU WERE BUILT TOUGHER THAN ME,” Sans said, when he asked once. “YOU’RE STRONGER, I HAVE MORE MAGIC… JUST HOW WE WERE MADE…”

He was sick, when he said that, so Papyrus doesn’t know how true it is.

It might have just been another one of those things Sans says that doesn’t make any sense, because he doesn’t think he could be stronger than his big brother, but he was too scared to ask again later when Sans was feeling better…

Papyrus jumps when suddenly, Sans jerks upright and disappears.

He freezes, eye-sockets wide, too startled to even register what had happened until Sans is already back, coughing and wiping at his face.

There’s magic residue around his mouth still…and his nasal cavity…and his eye-sockets…

Yuck!

Throwing up seems so gross, Papyrus hates this, he hates it so much!

“sans?”

But Sans doesn’t act like he heard him.

He just…falls back onto the pile of dirty blankets that was their bed, sprawling out and staring at the ceiling with eye-lights so dim and fuzzy, Papyrus wasn’t even sure he was still awake.

Until he started talking.

“…IT’S…FUNNY,” he says, his voice airy and faint. “THERE’S…THERE’S FREED’M IN CAPTIVITY…SORT OF. …WHEN. WHEN THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO…‘BOUT ANYTHING… NOTHING IS Y’R……… HE’S GONE, HE’S GONE, I’M FREE, BUT NOW, EVERYTHING’S ON ME… I…I HAVE TO……”

Papyrus doesn’t understand.

Sans isn’t making sense again and there’s so many pauses and slurs in his words and it’s…it’s scaring him.

Papyrus reaches out, grabbing his brother’s arm and trying again.

“sans???”

Sans blinks and turns, looking at Papyrus.

It feels like forever, even though it’s only a few seconds, but Sans’ eye-lights focus a little and he’s…

He’s Sans again.

“…OH. PAPYRUS. I’M SORRY.” He shifts, like maybe he’s trying to get up. “DID…DID YOU NEED SOMETHING…?”

Somehow…Papyrus knows he shouldn’t mention that he’s a little hungry, or that Sans is taking up their whole bed.

He doesn’t want Sans to get up right now.

So he says, “no,” instead.

And he feels better when Sans just grunts and flops back down.

Now he can ask what he wanted to ask before.

“are…do you………can i…help?”

Sans laughs.

Papyrus frowns at the hoarse chuckle, like what he said was funny, because he doesn’t think he said anything funny.

“DON’T…DON’T WORRY ABOUT ME, PAPYRUS,” Sans says, loosely flapping his hand. “I BOUNCE BACK FAST, YOU KNOW I DO.”

………

Yeah…Papyrus guesses that’s true.

He’s never seen Sans sick for longer than two days, and he’s always right back to normal after, like it never even happened.

But…

“don’t…sh-shouldn’t there……isn’t somebody…supposed to take care of you?”

Papyrus isn’t sure, but…the more they go out together, the more he sees other monsters, other families…

They don’t look like their family.

“don’t we…shouldn’t we have………parents??? like…like a mom, o-or a d—”

“NO.”

Papyrus shuts up so fast his teeth click.

Sans’ eye-lights are intense, fever-bright but more solid than they’ve looked in hours.

“WE DON’T HAVE THOSE,” he says sharply. “WE DON’T NEED THEM. I CAN TAKE CARE OF US.”

“i…okay.”

Papyrus doesn’t know why that question made Sans so serious, but he thinks maybe…maybe them not having parents is…one of those things he won’t ask about again…

Seeing Papyrus duck his skull and look at the floor seems to soften his brother, though, because the next thing Sans does is reach out and pat him on the head.

“DON’T WORRY,” he says again. “IT’S FINE. I’VE GOT A PLAN, I’VE BEEN SAVING G… WE’LL BE FINE SOON, I’LL BE FINE. I PROMISE.”

It’s not the first time Sans has promised that.

But it is the first time that Papyrus thought that it…maybe wasn’t all the way true.

Still, Sans is himself again in the morning, fine again after sleeping all night, so Papyrus…

He…tries not to think about it.

-

Sans was telling the truth when he said he had a plan.

Papyrus finds this out when one day, his brother tells them they’re moving and to grab up anything he wants to keep from the house because they won’t be coming back.

“where are we gonna live now?”

“IN SNOWDIN,” says Sans, which Papyrus hasn’t heard of before. But apparently, “IT’S COLD THERE, BUT IT SHOULD BE QUIET.”

Papyrus likes quiet places, and he doesn’t think he minds being cold, so he gathers all his best and most important stuff and takes his brother’s hand to go to the new house.

It’s way better than the old one.

Stepping inside for the first time, Papyrus can hardly believe this could be their place: it’s huge, and it has carpets and furniture without weird smells and walls without holes and—

“YOUR ROOM IS UPSTAIRS, IF YOU WANT TO SEE IT,” Sans adds with a smug little smile.

Papyrus is too caught up in the excitement of having his own room, having an upstairs, that he doesn’t even want to make Sans stop being so smug.

He wanders around the house for hours with Sans at his heels, exploring everything, going everywhere, finding just the right spots to put all his stuff…

It’s not until he’s trying out his bed—his own bed, with a mattress and everything!—that it occurs to him to ask.

“did… can we…afford this…?”

Not that Papyrus wants to leave, not after seeing so much of the cool new place, but…

He knows that they…don’t have a lot of G…and stuff costs money, unless you find it in the Dump, but he’s pretty sure Sans didn’t dig a whole house out of the Dump.

Sans frowns at the question.

“YOU’RE TOO YOUNG TO WORRY ABOUT MONEY,” he says. “DON’T— IT’S ALL BOUGHT AND PAID FOR. ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT OURS.”

Papyrus makes a face at him, wondering if Sans is just saying that so he won’t worry.

Sans sighs.

“I’M GOING TO HAVE TO START TRYING HARDER TO GET ANYTHING PAST YOU, AREN’T I…?”

That must be one of those questions Papyrus isn’t supposed to answer, because Sans keeps talking.

“I MEAN IT. I’VE BEEN PINCHING PENNIES A LONG TIME FOR THIS. I GOT AN ADVANCE ON MY FIRST MONTH’S PAY AND A STIPEND TO COVER THE RELOCATION TO MY DUTY-ZONE, SO WE’VE EVEN GOT PLENTY LEFT OVER FOR NECESSITIES UNTIL THE NEXT ONE.”

There’s a lot in that sentence that Papyrus doesn’t really get.

He decides to focus on the smallest word first.

“pay?”

Sans blinks at his question, and then he smiles: big and broad and proud, like Papyrus hasn’t seen him do in a really long time.

“I GOT A JOB,” he says. “I’M GOING TO BE A SENTRY IN THE ROYAL GUARD.”

-

Sans’ new job turns out to mean a lot of things.

Some of those things are good, like the new house…

“THEY WANT ME TO LIVE HERE BECAUSE IT’S CLOSE TO WHERE I’M SUPPOSED TO WORK.”

And the money…

“BEING PART OF THE GUARD IS HARD WORK AND A LOT OF MONSTERS DON’T WANT TO DO IT, SO THEY GIVE REALLY GOOD G TO THE PEOPLE WHO SIGN UP ANYWAY.”

Papyrus has his own room now, and so many other rooms with doors and locks that aren’t broken and pipes that don’t drip and he can have the lights on whenever he wants and not only when Sans is home to make sure it’s safe.

He gets brand new clothes, too—sweaters and jeans and three different kinds of shoes—a new blanket and pillows, plus fresh markers and notebooks that didn’t already have stuff written in them, and extra food just sitting there in the kitchen whenever he wanted it…

It’s more than Papyrus could’ve ever thought to ask for and he loves it all.

But…there’s some not so good parts about Sans’ new job, too.

“WE DON’T HAVE TO GO TO THE DUMP ANYMORE. IF YOU WANT SOMETHING, I CAN BUY IT NOW, AS LONG AS YOU CAN WAIT A LITTLE.”

Papyrus had never really thought of that as the purpose of going to the Dump.

Finding stuff was cool, especially when it was something they were out of or that he really wanted, but it wasn’t…

Papyrus just…liked going…with his brother.

And now, that’s over.

Which is…

It’s…

………

Papyrus isn’t happy about it.

But it’s not the worst thing.

The worst thing is when he finds Sans one morning, just a few days after the move, putting on a uniform.

“where’re you going?”

Sans jumps a little, whirling on him.

“DON’T SNEAK UP ON ME,” he snaps. “WHY ARE YOU AWAKE?”

Well…

Papyrus had been hoping to talk his brother into making a (very, very) early breakfast for him, but…

“why are you awake?”

Sans huffs, but lets Papyrus get away with it and answers his question first.

“BECAUSE I HAVE TO GO.”

Go?

“where?” Papyrus wonders, because if Sans doesn’t need to go to the Dump, or go looking for money and food anymore, then…

“TRAINING,” Sans replies. “FOR MY JOB.”

Papyrus is understandably confused.

“but……you’re good already??? you’re really good, you…you don’t need training!”

His brother chuckles a little.

“NO, NOT MAGIC TRAINING,” he explains. “JUST… THEY WANT TO TEACH ME HOW TO DO MY JOB AND WHAT ALL THE RULES ARE. THEY HAVE TO KNOW HOW STRONG I AM AND IF I’M GOOD AT DOING WHAT THEY TELL ME TO DO BEFORE THEY’LL LET ME BE A SENTRY.”

Papyrus, having been told by now what sentries do, thinks it can’t be that hard to sit somewhere and walk around sometimes to make sure nobody’s doing stuff they’re not supposed to.

Sans could do that in his sleep!

But maybe…

“it’s…it’s like, a test?”

“SORT OF,” Sans agrees. “THE ACTUAL TEST IS AT THE END. I HAVE TO GO TO ALL THE TRAININGS FIRST.”

“how many?”

“LOTS. EVERY DAY FOR AT LEAST A FEW MONTHS.”

“months?!”

That’s forever!

“IT’S OKAY, IT’S FINE, I KNEW WHAT I WAS GETTING INTO.” Sans is smiling, like it’s really not a big deal at all. “IT WON’T BE THAT DIFFERENT THAN BEFORE, FOR YOU. …EXCEPT NOW, IF YOU GET HUNGRY WHILE I’M GONE, YOU DON’T HAVE TO WAIT FOR ME, YOU CAN JUST GRAB WHATEVER FROM THE KITCHEN.”

Papyrus hadn’t even been thinking about food anymore.

“but…w…when are you gonna be home?”

“PROBABLY LATE,” Sans admits. “I DOUBT I’LL BE ABLE TO GET AWAY FOR LONG ENOUGH TO CHECK IN BEFORE DISMISSAL, SO……….YES, LATE.”

Papyrus doesn’t like that.

But he’s…he’s getting too old to…to just…cry about it when things aren’t…when he doesn’t…

So he doesn’t cry.

He can’t help it if he still looks sad, though.

Papyrus looks up when Sans half-kneels to be on his level, looking sympathetic.

“I KNOW,” he says. “IT’S DIFFERENT. I KNOW YOU HATE DIFFERENT, BUT THIS IS GOOD-DIFFERENT, IT IS. IT…IT MIGHT BE HARD, FOR A LITTLE WHILE, BUT…WE’LL GET THROUGH IT. WE ALWAYS DO, DON’T WE? SKELETON BROTHERS AGAINST THE WORLD?”

Papyrus nods.

He doesn’t like it…but Sans is usually right about stuff.

If…if his brother thinks these…changes…are gonna be good, they probably will be.

He just has to be strong.

Like Sans.

Papyrus nods again but more sure this time.

“okay. you…you’ll be careful?”

In that moment, Sans looks so pleased with him, so proud of him that he knows without a doubt that he said the right thing.

“OF COURSE. AS LONG AS YOU’RE CAREFUL, TOO, HEHEHEH…”

Papyrus can do that.

He can do this.

-

Sans was right about at least one thing.

It was hard.

With his brother gone all day—no longer just three or four hours at a time—Papyrus really struggles to find ways to kill the time.

He can read by himself these days, and there’s lots of books around to practice with, but…it’s really not the same without Sans around to do the voices and it rarely holds his attention for very long.

Snacking and taking naps helps, and he holds to his brother’s important rules for doing that stuff when he’s not home (no microwave, no oven, check all the locks on the doors and windows), but even those things only take so long.

They have a TV, but nothing’s really on ever, especially not during the day, so there’s not much there to occupy him either.

Mostly, Papyrus draws and colors.

It’s always been something he liked doing, but with his fancy supplies and the good lights in his room, he really gets into it.

He draws whatever he wants and experiments with everything: colors, styles, pens and pencils and markers, anything he can mess around with to see if it looks good or not.

He doesn’t have to worry about running out of paper to doodle on anymore, or using up his only special cherry-scented marker—why shouldn’t he try it all out?

“THIS IS REALLY GOOD,” Sans says one night when Papyrus shows him one of his notebooks.

“i traced that,” he admits, thinking of the picture book he copied it out of, but quickly points to the next page. “that one, i did myself.”

“HEHEH, WELL, THAT ONE’S GOOD, TOO. YOU’RE CREATIVE, PAPYRUS. I’M GLAD YOU’RE HAVING FUN.”

Papyrus does have fun drawing.

He thinks that…maybe…he’d have more fun drawing, if Sans were home to see him doing it…

But he doesn’t think he can (or should) say that to his brother just then, home very late and slumped over on the couch looking really, really tired.

So he doesn’t.

“you really think it’s good?”

Sans snorts.

“BETTER THAN ANYTHING I COULD DRAW. KEEP AT IT, YOU’VE GOT TALENT THERE.”

Papyrus intends to.

There’s not much else for him to do all day long, is there?

-

Papyrus keeps drawing—mostly whatever he sees, whatever he’s seen before, some things he’s never seen but heard about and gotten a picture in his head of it.

(He has no idea what the Surface looks like for real, but he thinks it’s probably very pretty if humans wanted to keep it all for themselves.)

(He wonders if he’ll ever get to see it for himself someday.)

Unfortunately, even that gets boring after awhile.

There’s only so much he can pull out of his imagination, only so much he can see in their house and on TV and outside their windows and try to recreate it on paper in interesting ways.

He needs…

He wants…

Something more.

…

It’s a little thing that breaks him.

Such a silly, tiny thing that makes him act without thinking; that makes him break all of the rules his brother’d had set for years.

It’s snowing outside.

Rain, like in Waterfall, but slow and fluffy and white, trickling down from the ceiling and piling up on the ground.

It sparkles, even in the dim light of the Underground, and it’s…beautiful.

Papyrus wants to see it.

He wants to be out in it.

But Sans isn’t home to take him outside and he won’t be home for hours, not until their artificial light has already gone away for the night.

The snow won’t look as pretty by then.

And Sans probably won’t even want to take him—he’s always so tired when he gets back from training with the Guard that he doesn’t want to do anything but sit with Papyrus and eat dinner and go to bed.

Wouldn’t it…

Wouldn’t it be better…for both of them…if Papyrus just…went out right now? Really quick?

Just to look around a little, just to see some more of Snowdin…

It wouldn’t take long.

Papyrus is practically six, it’s not like he’s some…babybones anymore, who needs his brother around to hold his hand for everything.

Especially something this small!

In hardly any time at all, Papyrus has talked himself into it.

Grabbing his coat, his favorite pen, and a brand new black notebook, Papyrus slips right through the front door and outside.

Into Snowdin, unaccompanied, for the very first time.

-

As an adult, Papyrus knows there’s no question about this one.

It’s absolutely the worst mistake he’s ever made.

-

What…Happens…is mostly a blur, in the end.

Papyrus is…wandering around, just…looking at the trees and the rocks and the snow.

He doesn’t see her.

Not until she shouts at him, asking who he is and what he’s doing there.

Papyrus freezes as she storms up to him, her boots crunching in the snow as she gets closer and closer.

A porcupine monster, he realizes when she’s practically snout to nasal ridge with him, her quills all fluffed out like she’s mad.

She looks mad.

And she looks a lot bigger than him—older, too, maybe almost Sans’ age, except that she’s wearing stripes, which means she must be a kid like Papyrus is.

She yells at him, really yells, especially when he doesn’t answer her right away because that’s ‘disrespectful,’ he should know better than to ignore his elders.

Papyrus can’t get an explanation out.

He tries, but all that comes out are stutters and broken words that make her laugh at him and call him names.

She shoves him.

She says he’s a stupid kid and shouldn’t be here, in her turf, and if he’s too dumb to even say sorry for it, she’s gonna teach him a lesson.

When she takes another step closer, intent written all over her face, Papyrus snaps out of whatever paralysis he was in.

And he runs.

It doesn’t do any good.

He doesn’t remember that monsters could use bullets outside of Encounters.

He doesn’t see the giant, razor-sharp quill bursting up out of the snow behind him, catching him right in the back.

He didn’t know that something could hurt so much, so deep that you couldn’t even scream.

Papyrus falls, paralyzed again from more than just fear this time—too panicked to move, too hurt to try—as he hears the girl coming closer.

She laughs at him again, says he shouldn’t have run.

And then the white snow around them disappears, turning to black.

An Encounter.

His soul fit to vibrate right out of his chest, Papyrus rolls onto his (stinging, tender, aching) back to look at her.

He sees his options—she started it, it’s his turn, of course it is—and goes to try MERCY…

But he can’t.

Her name—Quinn—it’s not yellow, like his brother’s name always was.

He can’t spare her.

He tries to ACT, but…

* Cry

* Cry

* Cry

He doesn’t think that’ll do any good either.

Papyrus has no conscious memory at all of choosing to FIGHT.

All he remembers when it’s over is being scared, being hurt, wanting her to go away and leave him alone…!

He lashes out, hitting her with everything he can muster—his strongest bones, his most complicated patterns, praying it’s enough for him to get away, and…

And suddenly, she’s…

She’s gone.

The Encounter’s over.

There’s only a searing pain in his spine and a pile of dust in the snow and…

PAPYRUS LV 2, HP 10/25

………

Papyrus cries.

He curls up on the ground and cries and cries and cries, not even caring about the cold or his back or his torn coat or…or anything else.

He cries until it gets dark and Sans comes to fish him out of the snow, with scared eye-lights and green magic already pouring out of his claws to make Papyrus’ spine not hurt so bad.

Sans doesn’t say anything.

He takes Papyrus home and keeps healing him until the line in the middle of his back only just barely throbs with every pulse of his soul.

He makes dinner and stitches up his coat and watches TV with him and he doesn’t say…anything.

Even though…

He knew what Papyrus did.

He knew Papyrus snuck out, and got hurt, and…

He saw the dust.

He knew what Papyrus did.

Why didn’t Sans say something?!

It’s not until he’s brushing his teeth that night—like everything was normal and fine and nothing bad had happened at all—that Papyrus catches sight of himself in the mirror.

His face looks…

Different.

He stares at himself, pondering over his reflection for a long, long time before he can pick out why.

The look on his face…it’s one he’s seen before.

This exact expression, cold and sharp and…and haunted…

He’s seen it on Sans.

He’s seen it on Sans a lot, almost every time he left their old house without Papyrus, he’d come back and be…

He’d look…

………

Papyrus finishes brushing his teeth with a horrible pit where his stomach would be, and when Sans comes in to read him a bedtime story, he can’t stay quiet anymore.

“sans…have you……did you ever…?”

Sans takes a deep, deep breath and exhales it slowly.

His mouth looks tight.

“I’M…I’M SORRY,” he says. “I DIDN’T…I NEVER WANTED THIS FOR YOU.”

Papyrus doesn’t cry again when Sans explains—stiffly, hesitantly—about how their world is; about how other monsters act and what it’s…necessary, sometimes, to do to stay safe…to protect the things you care about, and yourself.

Kill or Be Killed.

Papyrus just sits there, listening as Sans apologizes for leaving him alone, for letting that happen to him so early, for not protecting him better…

Telling him that he did the right thing and it was okay, he was only protecting himself and there was nothing bad about that and Sans could never be mad at him for it—he was glad that Papyrus was okay and he would…be there…if he needed anything.

Papyrus accepts the hug Sans gives him before leaving his room, even though it’s tight enough to make the crack in his spine hurt a little.

And when Sans is gone…

Papyrus cries enough for the both of them.

He doesn’t sleep and spends the rest of the night trying to draw the girl from memory, his notebook still damp from snow and now speckled with tears.

He knows, down to his bones, that he can’t forget her.

No matter how much he’d like to.

-

Papyrus follows the rules to the letter again—no more exceptions.

Doors and windows locked religiously, be aware of your surroundings, never leave the house alone.

He’s learned the hard way why these rules were rules to begin with, and it scares him to think of all the things that could’ve happened to him if he’d thoughtlessly broken them sooner, when he’d only gone along with them because Sans said it was Important.

So many ‘fun’ memories look so much different now, knowing what his brother was protecting them from.

The people who chased them in the Capital for stealing, the scavengers who tried to size them up in Waterfall, the ones who might’ve found them in their old, condemned, abandoned house to take their things or their G or their lives and Papyrus never knew.

It’s like a nightmare.

One horrible moment and everything Papyrus thought he knew came crashing down.

He didn’t know anything.

He doesn’t know anything.

There’s only one thing that’s still true, from before he learned the reality of their world, and it’s that…

That Papyrus is safe when Sans is there.

…but Sans isn’t always there anymore, and that…really raises the stakes, doesn’t it?

………

Papyrus follows the rules.

Sans passes his test and is officially inducted into the Royal Guard as a sentry, assigned to the forest post, out by the Ruins.

He’s home earlier, now that he has a set patrol, and sometimes even comes by in the middle of the day to grab Papyrus and pull him out for a walk about the town on his lunch break.

Papyrus thinks, at first, that Sans is doing it to make him not be scared of Snowdin and its people, but Sans says differently.

“I WANT THEM TO SEE YOU WITH ME,” he says one day as they walk, monsters peering at them suspiciously through their windows and skirting around them wherever they went. “I’M ONLY A SENTRY NOW, BUT THAT STILL MEANS SOMETHING. I DON’T WANT YOU OUT ALONE YET, BUT I’M GOING TO MAKE A NAME FOR MYSELF HERE. YOU WON’T BE AS GOOD OF A TARGET IF EVERYBODY KNOWS YOU’RE WITH ME.”

Papyrus doesn’t know if that could ever work, but as always, Sans probably knows best.

He tries not to complain.

At least on the days they stop into the shop, the willowy rabbit lady behind the counter gives them a free Cinnamon Bunny ‘for the little one,’ and Papyrus isn’t that little…but the Cinnamon Bunnies are too good to turn down.

(Her sister at the inn next door isn’t nearly so nice, but she does put out a bowl of lollipops whenever they go in there, so maybe she’s not so bad either.)

“THE BUNS ARE DECENT PEOPLE,” Sans says while Papyrus munches on a frosted, floppy ear. “SOFT ON KIDS. IF YOU’RE EVER IN TROUBLE AND I’M NOT AROUND, I THINK THEY’D HELP YOU.”

Maybe.

But Papyrus doesn’t think he’s brave enough to test that theory.

He’ll just…stay home.

And wait for Sans.

-

Sans keeps trying to train with him.

Every day, like clockwork, he asks about it—pushing, coaxing, suggesting—trying to drag him outside to practice his dodging and his bullets and patterns and Papyrus…does a lot of things he’s not proud of to wriggle out of it.

When his excuses stop working, he runs, he hides, he yells and flails and begs until Sans gives up and goes away, and he feels like a total babybones for doing it but…

Training isn’t the same as it used to be.

Not now that he knows…what it was for.

Now that he’s…

………

It’s not something he wants to do anymore.

It makes him feel sick and bad and wrong just thinking about what he did to that girl—quinn, her name was quinn, don’t forget—and he doesn’t want it to happen ever again.

He doesn’t want to get better at it.

He doesn’t want to have to k—…

He doesn’t want to have to do what he did again, but on purpose next time.

The prospect alone makes his chest feel tight and his soul starts to tremble and then he’s fighting back tears and he doesn’t want to feel that way, he doesn’t want to do those things, but Sans keeps pushing it and he never lets it go.

“YOU HAVE TO LEARN SOMETIME,” he keeps saying, every time that he’s actually home, but Papyrus doesn’t understand why.

Why does he have to do that?

Why does he have to be that?

Why…

Why can’t Sans just do it, since he’s so strong and good at it? Why does he have to make Papyrus do it too and make him feel so…so stressed out and scared and horrible all the time?

Why can’t he just be Papyrus’ brother again?!

All those feelings come to a head eventually.

Papyrus breaks down, harder than he has since he was a babybones, crying in the corner of his room where Sans had tracked him down.

He wasn’t taking any excuses today and Papyrus watches through tears as Sans marches toward him, looking angry.

“YOU HAVE TO TRAIN,” he says. “YOU HAVE TO GET STRONGER!”

“no!” Papyrus yells back. “please, i don’t…! i don’t wanna! no, no no, don’t make me, no!”

Sans’ face just hardens and he reaches for him, ready to drag him kicking and screaming.

Papyrus flinches, shutting his sockets tight, knowing he’s not going to get a choice this time…

Except.

Except.

Sans never grabs him.

There’s a thump on the carpet instead, and Papyrus opens his eye-sockets to see Sans on his knees.

Looking horrified.

Papyrus has never seen his brother with an expression like that before.

He doesn’t know what it’s for; what it means.

When Sans reaches out again and pulls him into a crushing hug, he wiggles because he doesn’t know what that means either, but his brother just shushes him.

“IT…IT’S OKAY, PAPYRUS,” Sans says, his voice cracking around the words. “IT’S… YOU DON’T… HAVE TO TRAIN TODAY. OR… OR EVER. I’M SORRY, I… YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO…ANYTHING YOU DON’T WANT TO DO. I’LL…I’LL TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING, F-FROM NOW ON.”

And the two words that sealed it as absolute truth:

“I PROMISE.”

That’s…

It’s…exactly what Papyrus wanted to hear.

Freedom, from an awful responsibility that Papyrus never wanted.

He doesn’t know why hearing Sans say it makes him feel a different kind of bad feeling somewhere in his chest.

Like he just made a really big mistake…

But.

Papyrus is…just a kid.

He’s just a kid and he’s scared and upset and Sans promised to fix it, so he…

He lets Sans make the promise without a word of protest.

And he hugs his brother back.

-

Sans comes to him the next day with a collar.

It’s soaked in Sans’ magic, dripping with vibes so unpleasant that Papyrus can practically hear his brother’s voice in it from across the room, hissing, ‘WATCH YOUR STEP.’

“I’M WORKING ON MY REPUTATION STILL,” Sans says, fiddling with the leather. “I STILL HAVE…I’M STILL GUNNING FOR A FEW PROMOTIONS, I…I NEED TO START SPREADING A LITTLE G AROUND, MORE, BUT I’M…PEOPLE ARE STARTING TO KNOW ME, AROUND HERE. THIS…THIS WILL MEAN SOMETHING, SOON.”

Papyrus takes the collar in his hands, just looking at it.

“BY THE TIME I… WHEN I GET WHERE I NEED TO BE…IF MONSTERS DON’T RESPECT ME, THEY’LL FEAR ME, AND THEY’LL LEAVE YOU ALONE. IF THEY KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR THEM.”

Papyrus doesn’t want to think about that.

“how long?” he asks instead.

Sans doesn’t need to ask what he means.

“GIVE ME A YEAR. I THINK I CAN MAKE OFFICER BY THEN, AND IT’S ONLY UP FROM THERE.”

Papyrus has no idea how Sans can be so confident, so certain of his future when all Papyrus has felt is…

Lost.

But Sans knows what he’s doing, he guesses.

Papyrus puts the collar on.

-

A year later (and a few months after, when he finally works up the courage to try it), Papyrus leaves the house by himself.

He gets a few looks, but not one monster takes more than a few steps toward him before seeing the shiny gold bone-tag on his collar, or sensing the warning painted on it in protective magic.

Papyrus goes all the way to the shop and back with nothing worse happening to him than a pat on the head from the Bun lady.

So.

It looks like whatever Sans did worked.

-

Things loosen up a little after that.

Get a little easier.

Papyrus doesn’t really see the bad parts of their world so much anymore, under Sans’ protection, and Sans doesn’t really talk about the things he does as the First Lieutenant of the Royal Guard to keep his reputation untouchable.

“CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GUARD, SOON,” Sans says eventually, and Papyrus frowns.

“is…did alphys…?”

He thinks he remembers Sans saying something about an ambush in Waterfall, his Captain getting caught up in it…

“FINE,” Sans assures him, though. “SHE PULLED THROUGH WITH JUST A NEW SCAR, YOU CAN BARELY EVEN SEE IT. SHE GOT A WEEK OFF AND THE EMPRESS IS BUMPING HER UP TO GENERAL, SO I’LL BE TAKING HER PLACE.”

“oh. cool.”

The higher Sans goes up the totem pole in the Guard, the more free time he has—and the more free time he has, the more they just…hang out.

Talk.

Watch nothing on TV.

Laugh and joke and tease each other and…

Without anything to get in the way of it…

To just be brothers.

It’s quickly becoming a new normal and Papyrus likes it, a lot.

He’s…he’s happy and it feels like things are good.

He’s even started thinking about ditching his stripes—a rite of passage as he’s getting older—but even though he hasn’t really felt like a kid since………for awhile, he’s maybe not quite ready to give up the free candy and Nice Scream and Cinnamon Bunnies he gets by keeping them.

“GOOD,” Sans nods in agreement when he admits as much. “MILK IT FOR ALL IT’S WORTH, YOU DESERVE IT.”

“you just want me to eat their candy and not yours.”

“CAN’T BOTH BE TRUE?”

“candy hog.”

“MINE’S PURELY MEDICINAL! YOU JUST HAVE A SWEET TOOTH.”

“they’re all sweet.”

“I BELIEVE IT. ARE YOU BRUSHING YOUR TEETH LIKE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO?”

“don’t tell me what to do.”

“STARS, I’M PROUD OF YOU. …BUT SERIOUSLY, YOU BETTER BE BRUSHING!”

It’s good.

Things are good.

If there’s a downside—any downside at all—it would maybe just be that—

“HRK…! UGH……”

—that that was still happening.

Papyrus lingers in the doorway of the bathroom while his brother puked out guts he didn’t have, looking…

Well.

No worse than he ever looked, when these spells hit him.

…which was to say, awful.

And.

And Papyrus is old enough now; knows enough of the world beyond what Sans has told him to know the usual reasons monsters get sick.

Growth spurts.

Using lots of magic.

Stress.

………

His brother hasn’t gotten any taller, but two out of three is still something.

Something…pretty not good.

Papyrus can make at least a couple guesses about what might be causing so much stress and demanding so much magic in Sans’ life, but…

What could he do about it?

Sans starts to haul himself up off the floor. His legs are wobbling a little as he tries to get them under him, and it’s pure instinct that makes Papyrus ask.

“are you…okay?”

Even though he already knows the answer.

“I’M FINE.”

Practically Sans’ signature phrase.

His signature lie, one Papyrus hasn’t fallen for in a really long time.

Still, Papyrus trails after him as he staggers off to his room, kind of just…needing to see him make it there.

“WHAT,” Sans huffs when he notices his escort. “DO YOU NEED SOMETHING? CAN IT WAIT?”

“no. i-i mean! no, i don’t need…you…i just……a-are you…gonna take a monster candy? or…?”

Sans shakes his head.

“OUT. IT’S FINE, I’M FINE, I’M GOING T’BED, JUS’…WAKE ME UP WHEN YOU WANT DINNER.”

Papyrus squirms at the words, a familiar bad feeling settling in his soul.

Sans is cracking open his door by the time he finally blurts it out—something he’d been thinking about asking for…for awhile now.

“hey! have…have you ever thought a-about…like…taking a, a day…off, or…whatever???”

A bandage of a solution at best, but…what if it helped?

What if Sans just…rested, for once, and didn’t have to…to…

But before Papyrus can even fully articulate his own thoughts, Sans is snorting.

“THIS IS MY DAY OFF,” he says. “I CALLED IN SOME VACATION TIME.”

His tone is breezy, totally casual for such a sad, awful statement.

Papyrus had already used up all his nerve on asking the question in the first place, though, so when his brother disappears into his room, he…lets him.

But it doesn’t feel right.

He doesn’t feel right.

About…any of this.

It’s taken him long enough, but Papyrus is starting to realize how seriously Sans took that promise he made to take care of everything.

Too seriously.

It doesn’t feel right, anymore, that Sans is…doing whatever he does all day…and then coming home, not to put his feet up but to start dinner, and do the dishes, and the laundry, and…and balance their budget, or whatever.

It doesn’t feel right that his brother does all that stuff and the only time he ever takes a break is when he’s already sick and can’t enjoy it.

It doesn’t feel fair.

Surely, Papyrus could… could help, couldn’t he?

He couldn’t…didn’t want to do…what Sans did for them out there, but in here, around the house.

That was just…chores and stuff…wasn’t it?

Papyrus could do some of that.

He wasn’t a babybones anymore—he was practically out of his stripes already, practically mature!

Yeah…

Yeah, he could handle some chores.

At least a few things, while Sans was out.

That’s an easy goal, something Papyrus can do for sure.

………

…Which is why the afternoon that ensues, after he steels his resolve, is probably the most embarrassing of his life—even without any witnesses.

Papyrus first decides to vacuum the living room: the carpet is looking a little flat and grimy and it seems like just the thing to fluff it up a little.

…Except that he can’t find the vacuum.

He spends an hour looking for it and ends up making a mess of several closets, digging around in them and upsetting the unnatural order of everything on the shelves and tucked into corners.

Papyrus is not as good at real-life tetris as his brother is, that’s for sure.

Still, he puts everything back as best he can and tries to do something else.

Laundry—that can’t be too hard, can it?

Famous last words.

He has some dirty socks and underwear, pajamas he’s worn way too many times… He can wash those right now.

Papyrus gathers them all up and goes to the laundry room.

There’s…a lot of settings, on the machines, lots of boxes and bottles and gauzy little rectangles, and he doesn’t really know what any of it is for, but there’s instructions written on things.

Papyrus can follow instructions.

…by the time he’s cleaned up all the suds, determined that his socks look better pink than white, and accepted that his favorite red boxers are now his favorite pair of red hotpants, Papyrus amends the thought.

He can follow instructions, when they’re written out a lot more clearly than that.

Papyrus doesn’t even want to think about his gross and weird attempt at dinner once it’s congealing at the bottom of the trash can, buried under every bit of trash he could find to cover it up with—not wanting it to ever be seen again, by anyone.

………

At least the dishes are clean.

………

Papyrus can…wash dishes.

………

Papyrus sits on the couch for a long time, wondering how he could possibly be so bad at…everything.

(The obvious answer, he realizes years later, is that he never learned—no one ever taught him how to do any of those things, and watching someone else do it just isn’t the same as doing it yourself.)

But right then and there, he just feels…

Ashamed.

Helpless.

Useless.

When Papyrus gets up again, it’s to dig around in his secret stash for his last Cinnamon Bunny.

He was saving it for later, but…there’s green magic in it.

The only green magic left in the house.

All monster food could nourish, but it was hard to find the kind that healed—made with care and loving intent—and as far as Papyrus knew, the Buns were the only game in town.

Papyrus finds his Cinnamon Bunny and brings it straight to Sans’ room.

His brother swats at him and mumbles a lot of nonsense when he tries to wake him up, but Papyrus persists, making Sans take the pastry.

This is, apparently, the best that Papyrus can do.

It helps.

Sans begrudgingly eats it and perks up a bit, looking steadier in just a minute or two of processing the new magic.

And to Papyrus’ complete lack of surprise…he heads downstairs to go make dinner.

Sans notices his attempts.

At everything.

He’s not even mad at Papyrus for making such a mess of everything, just laughs and gives him a patronizing pat on the skull and teases, “WHY DON’T WE LEAVE THAT STUFF TO ME NEXT TIME?”

“yeah……sorry.”

But after that, Papyrus doesn’t think he’s ready to give up his stripes yet.

He’s never felt less grown up in his life.

-

It’s another couple years before Papyrus ditches his stripes, but even then, it’s not by choice.

He still feels like a dumb, scared kid in way over his head at…everything…but the growth spurt that hits him like a truck pretty much forces his hand.

He’s been slowly getting taller for awhile, but now he’s shot up, practically overnight. He towers over Sans now, even when his brother’s wearing his highest heels, and it’s probably about as funny as it is completely bizarre.

Papyrus looks at himself in the mirror when the fever and all the aches and pains have subsided and sees his canines big and pointed, his shoulders wider, his chest broader…

His claws are bigger, too—nowhere near as sharp as Sans’, but big, like the rest of him, and…

Hell.

If Papyrus didn’t know what a baby he really was, he might be scared of himself.

Sans thinks they should take advantage of that.

“how?”

“JUST COME OUT WITH ME SOMETIMES,” Sans says flippantly. “STAND NEXT TO ME AND LOOK INTIMIDATING.”

“next to you?”

Papyrus has a hard time picturing anybody thinking he’d look scary next to Sans, the Captain of the Royal Guard, even with his growth spurt.

“TRUST ME,” his brother drawls, tone dry as a desert. “APPEARANCE IS EVERYTHING. YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE HOW OFTEN PEOPLE START TO WONDER IF MY REPUTATION IS EXAGGERATED BECAUSE I’M ‘SHORTER THAN THEY EXPECTED.’”

“……snrk…even with th—”

“YES, PAPYRUS, EVEN WITH THE HEELS, PLEASE STAY FOCUSED.”

Papyrus mulls it over.

“i won’t…i don’t have to………?”

At least Sans is honest.

“YOU MIGHT HAVE TO DO SOME THINGS. YOU MIGHT HAVE TO DEFEND YOURSELF, SUMMON A FEW BONES, ACT LIKE YOU’RE GOING TO ATTACK…BUT YOU WON’T HAVE TO FOLLOW THROUGH, NOT AS LONG AS I’M THERE.”

“you’ll…you’ll ‘hold me back,’ or whatever?” Papyrus guesses.

Sans grins.

“IF NECESSARY. I CAN COACH YOU AND WE CAN FIGURE OUT THE DETAILS IF IT’S SOMETHING YOU WANT TO DO.”

That makes Papyrus frown.

“why would i wanna do it?”

“AREN’T YOU TIRED OF COASTING ON MY REPUTATION?”

Papyrus flinches, grateful that his brother is too engrossed in his morning coffee to zero in on it like he does everything else.

“IT’S GOOD,” Sans continues. “IT’LL PROTECT YOU IN SNOWDIN FOR SURE, BUT ANYWHERE ELSE… MORE IS BETTER. THE GAME IS TO MAKE YOURSELF THE WORST POSSIBLE TARGET—IT’S GOOD IF MONSTERS ARE TOO SCARED OF WHAT I’LL DO IF THEY ATTACK YOU, BUT IT’S EVEN BETTER IF THEY’RE SCARED OF WHAT YOU’LL DO IF THEY ATTACK YOU, TOO.”

Papyrus…actually had no problem at all with coasting on Sans’ reputation.

It never even occurred to him that it might not always be enough.

But he supposed that was Sans—thinking everything through, knowing all the answers, being the best at everything…

And Papyrus just had to shut up and keep up.

“okay. i’ll try it.”

-

Papyrus spends hours practicing faces in the mirror, making the scariest ones…whatever passed for muscle-memory in skeletons whenever he wasn’t thinking.

He works out a system with Sans, a whole slew of subtle gestures and expressions and even punctuation cues that work as silent communication between them, so they won’t have to break character.

He…

He doesn’t want to train.

He’s not ready for another Encounter yet, not even if it’s just for practice.

But he does, on his own, start making bones, just to make sure he still remembers how.

It’s almost disturbing how easy his bullets come, just as strong and robust as they ever were even though it’s been years.

Undeniably part of him.

And then, eventually, the time comes to…to try it out and see what happens.

“DO OR DIE,” Sans quips and Papyrus glares at him.

“not funny.”

He’s already nervous to be out of quiet, mostly peaceful Snowdin, already all turned around between Waterfall’s pitch-black mazes and Hotland’s stupidly convoluted transportation systems.

He feels hilariously unintimidating in his black jeans and his bulkiest, edgiest jacket while Sans cuts a truly terrifying figure walking in front of him, kitted out in shiny black armor that clanked with every sure, purposeful step.

Papyrus is all too aware of what he is.

A soft, scaredy-cat faker standing right next to the Real Deal.

This could never work.

He wasn’t…

He couldn’t do this—he was bound to screw it up, and, and even if he didn’t, who would ever buy this?!

That he was…some sort of tough guy?!

It was ridiculous!

…Which is why Papyrus is so glad for those hours of making his stern resting bitch-face second nature when it actually seems like it’s working.

Nobody says anything, nobody gets close… a few people look at him a little funny, but quickly look away when he makes eye-contact (against every natural instinct he has).

It’s crazy, but it works all the way to their destination, and—

“Captain! Looks like you’ve got a shadow.”

Papyrus doesn’t flinch at the booming voice that he’s only heard through walls and window panes before.

it’s fine, he reminds himself. this is supposed to happen.

He stops when his brother stops, hovering just behind his shoulder and trying to look bored.

Sans offers a salute as General Alphys strides up to them, grinning almost amicably.

She wears her new mantle as well as she wears her dented and scarred armor—and the unnervingly gnarled scar over her eye that Sans had understated by a longshot.

“GENERAL,” Sans greets her pleasantly. “HOW ARE THE RECRUITS?”

Said recruits, doing some kind of drill on the vent mazes, look noticeably dismayed when Alphys doesn’t hesitate to answer, “Terrible. First day jitters, I hope.”

“I HAVE COMPLETE FAITH IN YOUR ABILITIES TO RECTIFY THAT,” Sans replies. “UNLESS YOU’D LIKE SOME HELP…?”

“Nah, I got ‘em. We need somebody doing sweeps while I’m stuck babysitting…”

Her eyes fall again on Papyrus.

He doesn’t flinch.

(…Noticeably.)

“So,” says Alphys. “Does your shadow talk?”

not without sounding stupid, Papyrus answers her in his head. not without stuttering and saying everything wrong and looking like—

“NOT REALLY,” Sans says casually. “PAPYRUS HASN’T EVER BEEN MUCH OF A TALKER.”

Recognition sparks on Alphys’ face.

“Ah, this is the brother!” She looks him over, as if with new eyes. “…Bigger than I thought he’d be.”

“YES, AND A LOT MORE TROUBLE, TOO.”

Sans glares at him out of the corner of his eye-socket, and Papyrus remembers what he’s supposed to do.

He snorts and rolls his eye-lights, scowling off into the distance at nothing—the ‘whatever, dad’ teenager personified.

“I THOUGHT I’D START BRINGING HIM ON PATROL WITH ME,” Sans explains. “I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING WITH HIM.”

Alphys nods knowingly.

“That age, huh? Well, if this is your way of trying to drop a new recruit on me, I’m sure we could find something to keep a troublemaker busy…”

Sans barks out a laugh.

“STARS, I WISH,” he chuckles. “I CAN BARELY MAKE HIM LISTEN TO ME, I WON’T INFLICT THAT ON YOU.”

He couldn’t, anyway—in spite of his early bloom, Papyrus is decidedly a few years short of the age requirement for the Royal Guard—but Sans makes no mention of that.

It’s not relevant.

What’s relevant is all the young, new soldiers in the background listening to this conversation between their commanding officers with rapt, gossip-loving attention.

Just like Sans said they would be.

“I JUST WANT HIM CLOSEBY TO KEEP AN EYE ON HIM,” his brother continues, shooting another annoyed look backwards. “COLLATERAL DAMAGE DOESN’T REFLECT VERY WELL ON ME, PAPYRUS.”

Papyrus, an anxious, socially inept tween shut-in, has committed no such damage anywhere.

But the action of huffing and folding his arms like maybe he had will be enough to get the rumor mill going.

“PEOPLE WILL TALK,” Sans had said. “IT DOESN’T MATTER THAT YOU HAVEN’T DONE ANYTHING, THEY’LL FILL IN THE BLANKS FOR YOU. THIS IS THE GROUNDWORK FOR YOUR OWN REPUTATION.”

General Alphys laughs at his (false) display of attitude.

“I have complete faith in your abilities to keep him in line,” she says to his brother. “And if not…maybe don’t rule out the Guard just yet. Getting him to take orders can’t be any worse than getting them to make it past the vents with a half-decent time… Bratty! Are you here to serve the Empress or are you here to hold Catty’s hand?!”

Sans takes the casual dismissal for what it is and bids Papyrus to follow him, back on patrol.

Papyrus slinks sullenly after him, like he was told to, and hopes he played his part right.

Sans thought he could do this.

He doesn’t want to let his brother down.

Again.

-

Either Papyrus is doing something right or more likely his brother knew what he was talking about.

Monsters steer clear.

They did before, of course, usually the moment they spotted his collar, but now there’s something else to it as even in Snowdin, Papyrus starts to overhear gossip about himself: property he’s wrecked, people he’s beaten up, all the mean and nasty stuff he’d totally done to get put under direct supervision by Captain Sans Serif, his own brother.

It’s crazy and Papyrus has never felt more like a fraud in his life…

…but the Nice Scream guy gives him double punches on his card every time he goes now, so…y’know, that’s pretty cool.

At least he starts to feel better about leaving Snowdin, and not only because he has Sans with him.

He’s getting…a little more confident, a little less afraid that somebody will just…attack him in the middle of the day, out in the open.

The girl (Quinn) all those years ago…was just a fluke, a kid who didn’t know any better.

(Grown monsters did their dirty work in the dark, in secret corners of the Underground where the Guard couldn’t see or prove they’d done anything.)

Papyrus was…more or less…safe.

Nobody was going to bother him.

………

Except.

Papyrus is home alone one day—“I’M CLEARING WATERFALL TODAY, I HAVE TO STAY SHARP AND I DON’T WANT TO LOSE TRACK OF YOU IN WATERFALL,”—just browsing the Undernet when it happens.

A notification pings in his browser.

SmartFish91 jabbed you

Papyrus frowns.

He doesn’t have any Undernet friends…or any Undernet enemies…and he doesn’t know who ‘SmartFish91’ is or why they jabbed him, but…

He clicks the button to jab back.

And so begins Papyrus’ first, (subjectively) beautiful friendship (of a sort).

It starts with the jabbing war that lasts well into the night, and then a chat message accusing him of having pretty much no life, to which he points out that they must not have much of one either and that they started it, which they concede.

Messaging each other, liking and commenting on the same posts, trolling whenever possible…it turns into a regular thing.

A good thing.

It’s a long time before Papyrus can actually put anything besides she/her pronouns to the username, but SmartFish91 already seems to know quite a bit about him.

SmartFish91: So like…your brother. Are he and General Alphys like…a Thing, or…?

chillskeleton95: what

chillskeleton95: no, ew, she’s his boss

chillskeleton95: wait how’d you know i have a brother???

SmartFish91: Dude, there’s TWO skeletons in the ENTIRE Underground and I’m pretty sure the other one doesn’t have time to shoot the shit with me at 2AM

SmartFish91: Plus your firewall is garbo, I’ve already seen everything on your desktop

SmartFish91: You should really clear your history lol

If Papyrus were more like his brother more cautious, he’d have cut contact right then and there.

Maybe he should have.

But…for better or worse…Papyrus isn’t like Sans.

And having someone to talk to, someone that isn’t Sans, has actually been…really, really fun.

So, he just sticks a piece of duct tape over his webcam, just in case, and then replies.

chillskeleton95: what’s in your history then? ‘alphys sexy,’ ‘general alphys pinup,’ ‘hot naked lizard lady,’ ‘please give nudes i’m desperate’

SmartFish91: NO

SmartFish91: SHUT UP!!!

And…that’s that.

Eventually, Papyrus learns more about his sorta-friend, in that gradual, piecemeal path that online friendships tend to follow.

chillskeleton95: wait how are you older than me?

SmartFish91: That’s what I said! Did you bargain your firstborn to the puberty fairy or some shit? I found before pictures, you got BIG

chillskeleton95: yeah… just built that way, i guess

SmartFish91: Actually it’s illegal for you to be my height, you’re supposed to be a twerp, I’m gonna need to confiscate some of your inches

chillskeleton95: no?

SmartFish91: I’ve studied human anatomy and you skeletons don’t look much different, I bet I could surgically remove your knees

chillskeleton95: no??? i need them???

SmartFish91: Too bad, I’m coming for ‘em!

And on another occasion…

SmartFish91: Wish me luck, I’m going for it

chillskeleton95: good luck

SmartFish91: ‘Good luck’? That’s it?

SmartFish91: I am petitioning the Empress herself for a job that hasn’t been filled in literal decades

SmartFish91: A job where I’d have complete freedom to do any experiments I want in service of all monsterkind, with access to the ROYAL LABS and all their equipment

SmartFish91: And ROYAL FUNDING

SmartFish91: I’m gonna need more than ‘good luck’ here!

chillskeleton95: …super-good luck???

SmartFish91: Now THAT’S more like it!

………

SmartFish91: Okay she said no

chillskeleton95: :(

SmartFish91: But I’m not giving up!

chillskeleton95: :)

(When she eventually creates Napstaton, the Underground’s first human-killing robot-slash-deejay and becomes the Royal Scientist, Papyrus will tell her he believed in her all along.)

(She’ll call bullshit and hit him in the arm the next time she sees him in real life, but he’ll tell her all the same.)

By the time they’re on a first-name basis with each other, they’ve graduated to pretty much the ultimate level of friendship.

Sharing radical political opinions.

SmartFish91: It’s fucking stupid that we live like this, it’s a hellhole

chillskeleton95: it is!

chillskeleton95: like…why?!

SmartFish91: There’s no reason!

SmartFish91: Not a GOOD one anyway

SmartFish91: Like, yeah, it sucks down here, we live in a cave, nobody has enough of anything, we’re all pissed about it

SmartFish91: But why are we taking it out on each other?!

chillskeleton95: yeah!

SmartFish91: Why did I have to cyberstalk you for a week before I realized you were cool and like…normal? Why do I have to watch my back around everyone I ever meet, just in case they’re dangerous? Why do I have be ready for a fight EVERY TIME I leave my house so I don’t get surprised by some lowlife?

SmartFish91: It’s fucked up, and just ‘cause some humans stuck us down here? We should be working together so we can ALL get out, not fighting and killing each other like crabs in a bucket

chillskeleton95: it’s not fair

Papyrus means the words down to his very soul, and it’s a relief he never knew he needed to have someone to say it to; someone who agreed with him.

It’s not like he’d never tried to talk about it, with his brother, but…

“you’re not… how can you be……okay…with this?” Papyrus had asked once, gesturing broadly to indicate…everything—every terrible, dreary, violent aspect of their lives Underground.

Sans had just given him a strange, shuttered look, one that not even Papyrus could read, and shrugged.

“…IT COULD BE WORSE,” he’d said at length.

Papyrus hadn’t had anything to say to that.

He didn’t see how.

But even not seeing how it could be worse, he knew in his bones that it could be a hell of a lot better, too.

And Undyne agrees with him.

chillskeleton95: we deserve better

StrongFish91: We do!

StrongFish91: I think it all comes down to the Royal Guard, honestly

StrongFish91: They keep the peace and get rid of the crazies who just kill for fun, but like…look at the ratio! It’s like…ONE Guardsman to every HUNDRED monsters, what the hell are they supposed to do, really?

StrongFish91: Not even ALPHYS can protect everybody at once, and she’s practically a hero!

StrongFish91: And I guess, like, your brother too

StrongFish91: If I weren’t already doing the science thing, I’d join the Guard. The poor bastards are just too understaffed to be really effective

StrongFish91: I mean, if more people cared, if more people TRIED…I don’t know, maybe it would be better down here.

Yeah…

Yeah, maybe…it would be…

-

Sans chokes on his wine when Papyrus brings it up at dinner.

“I’M SORRY—YOU WHAT?”

“i wanna join the guard.”

“NO, YOU DON’T.”

“i—”

“NO, YOU DON’T,” Sans says again, more firmly this time. “YOU DON’T HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT… IT’S NOT FOR YOU.”

“but—”

“PAPYRUS. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’LL BE ASKED TO DO IF YOU JOIN THE GUARD?”

“………”

“YOU’LL HAVE TO TRAIN. YOU’LL HAVE TO FIGHT. YOU’LL HAVE TO KILL. YOU DON’T WANT THAT.”

“…n…no, but…”

“BUT WHAT?”

“i…i dunno, i just……i-i’m sixteen an’ i…i feel like i should……be doin’ something…”

The hard expression on his brother’s face softens a little at the admission.

“THAT’S EXACTLY MY POINT, PAPYRUS,” he nonetheless says. “YOU’RE SIXTEEN. YOU DON’T NEED TO BE DOING ANYTHING. I’VE GOT IT HANDLED, OKAY?”

Papyrus probably shouldn’t say it.

He’s…frustrated and upset and he knows that Sans is right (when isn’t he?) but that just makes it worse and…

And it kind of just…slips out, the words dripping in bitter guilt.

“how old were you when you joined up again?”

“………”

Sans just stares at him, over the table, eye-lights extinguished.

The guilt sharpens.

Papyrus stands up and leaves the table, heading up to his room.

Suddenly, he’s…not very hungry.

-

They don’t talk to each other for maybe a week.

Papyrus guesses that Sans feels bad for not having a better answer and doesn’t know how to talk about it, and Papyrus just wishes that he was…

Stronger.

Braver.

Better.

Different.

That he could…

………

He doesn’t know.

He’s scribbling something in the vague shape of a tree—wondering if trees look the same on the Surface and figuring he’ll probably never find out anyway—when the door to his room opens.

Papyrus watches Sans come in and sit on his bed, claws laced, elbows on his knees.

He doesn’t say anything for awhile and Papyrus doesn’t push him to hurry up: Sans will talk when he’s got his words sorted and not a moment before.

“…I HATE THIS,” he says eventually. “I HATE THIS ALMOST MORE THAN I’VE EVER HATED ANYTHING, AND……FOR THE RECORD, I THINK IT’S A HORRIBLE IDEA.”

Papyrus frowns.

“what is?”

Sans takes a deep breath.

“I PULLED SOME STRINGS. NO BOOTCAMP, YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO TRY OUT.”

“for what???”

“YOU’RE GOING TO BE A SENTRY,” Sans tells him. “NOT ONE RANK HIGHER, AND IF YOU EVEN TRY TO SEE COMBAT, I’LL BLOCK ANY PROMOTIONS MYSELF—NEPOTISM’S GETTING YOU THIS JOB AND IT’LL KEEP YOU THERE, AM I CLEAR?”

For a minute, all Papyrus can do is stare at his brother, jaw hanging open.

“wh…wait, a-are you… are you serious?”

“UNFORTUNATELY,” Sans sighs. “YOU START IN TWO WEEKS. BEARTHA’S GOING ON MATERNITY LEAVE, SO THERE’S AN OPENING. MY OLD STATION NEAR THE FOREST, FIVE A.M. SHARP. ……I’LL MAKE SURE YOU’RE AWAKE.”

“you……you changed your mind? really?”

“AGAINST MY BETTER JUDGMENT,” Sans admits, looking chagrined. “I DON’T KNOW WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT TO YOU, BUT…SITTING SOMEWHERE AND WALKING AROUND SOMETIMES TO MAKE SURE NOBODY’S DOING STUFF THEY’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SHOULDN’T BE…THAT DANGEROUS. IN SNOWDIN.”

Sans turns to him, his smile…very obviously nervous, but still encouraging.

“IF YOU WANT TO TRY, THE LEAST I CAN DO IS MAKE IT EASIER FOR YOU.”

Papyrus doesn’t have the words for a proper ‘thank you.’

He reaches out instead, practically tackling Sans with a grateful hug and not letting go, even though his brother tenses up and takes awhile to hug back.

Papyrus doesn’t know how to explain it, but…

He needs this.

He needs to do something, he needs to help and to make things better and to try, and to…to…

To be less useless.

To be different.

Papyrus needs things to be different.

This is exactly the chance he needed.

-

He lasts a month.

It’s a great month, for the most part.

His brother’s old sentry post is real quiet, far enough from Snowdin proper that he almost never sees anything but a few kids roughhousing away from their parents, close enough that he can walk to town on patrol or a lunch break (like old times).

The snow-covered landscapes—the trees and rocks and cliffs—are all so pretty and he has plenty of downtime to sketch bits and pieces of them, sometimes even to finish whole drawings if it’s a particularly calm day.

His shift starts early, but Sans wakes him up on time and drops him off and comes to get him when it’s over and…

And Papyrus is helping.

He’s…he’s doing something good, for monsters and for his brother, even if it’s small—the sleepy outskirts of Snowdin are staying peaceful and Papyrus is bringing home a paycheck for the first time ever.

He’s not really sure how much he’s getting paid, since Sans is the one who deals with that stuff still, but he figures it’s good money.

It has to be, with the time Sans spends balancing their budget suddenly cut in half.

Papyrus is contributing, finally, and his brother looks proud of him.

It’s really, really…really good.

Which is probably why it hurts so much when he screws it up.

When he falls asleep on the job one morning, literally.

When he lets the relative peace and quiet and the exhaustion from his late night (for no reason at all!) lull him into a sense of security that was very false.

A bullet to the face is a hell of a way to be woken up.

Papyrus is up almost instantly, feeling the drop in his HP and the sharp ache on the side of his face where it hit.

He staggers trying to face his attacker, holding a hand over his mouth, and his eye-sockets go wide when he sees the monster who hit him.

Papyrus knows him.

He’s known him for years and doesn’t know what to say; what to think to see him standing there now, looking ready to FIGHT.

“Sorry, kid,” the monster says, desperate but with conviction. “I gotta… I’m in trouble, I need the EXP, fast, and ha, I…I know you’re not as tough as you tell people…”

“i don’t…w-wait,” Papyrus stammers, already backing away. He can taste dust in his words and it scares him. “yuh…you don’t have to…you don’t have to, to do this, you don’t!”

“I do.”

The monster advances and…

Just like with Quinn, Papyrus turns on his heel and runs.

In a manner most unbefitting of a sentry in the service of the Royal Guard.

This time, he’s faster, his legs longer, and he knows better than to let the pain of another bullet striking him hard in the shoulder slow him down.

The monster chases him, and it takes Papyrus a terrifying hour of ducking behind trees, doubling back, sliding across an ice patch and clipping through a (thankfully empty) shack to finally lose the guy.

He retreats all the way home, knowing it’s predictable but at the same time knowing it’s in the middle of Snowdin and a goddamn fortress besides with how tightly Sans kept it buttoned up, and it would be safe.

Papyrus locks himself in the bathroom.

He needs to sit on the floor and shake for a little bit before anything else.

When he can finally breathe again, he pulls himself up by the sink to look at himself in the mirror.

If he had a stomach, it would’ve dropped at the sight he sees.

One of his canines is gone, knocked right out in the brief scuff—…oh, who was he kidding?

He’d have had to have participated to call it a ‘scuffle.’

All he did was run.

stupid…!

So stupid to have been caught like that, he can’t believe he was that dumb and now he’s missing a tooth!

Tears well up in his eye-sockets and Papyrus tries to pretend it’s just from the pain.

He’s managed to awkwardly, haltingly wrestle off the top of his uniform to get a look at the dusty gouge in his scapula by the time the last person in the world he wants to see right now bursts right in.

Or…shortcuts in.

Sans looks expectedly harried when he pops into existence next to Papyrus, his eye-sockets wide and panicked.

He sags noticeably to see his brother standing there, in one piece, and Papyrus lets out a shaky resigned sigh as gloved claws reach for him, already glowing green.

“STARS,” Sans breathes. “YOU’RE TRYING TO KILL ME…”

Papyrus says nothing.

He just lets his brother heal him, closing his eye-sockets as the ache drains away and his HP rises.

It’s not until Sans is working on his face that he speaks again.

“WHO WAS IT.”

It’s very much not a question.

Papyrus squirms.

He doesn’t…really want to answer…but Sans jostles him a little, making him look at him.

His expression is serious, brooking no argument.

“PAPYRUS. TELL ME.” Sans’ eye-lights are intense, practically boring into his. “I CAN’T LET THIS GO.”

Papyrus knows.

Which is precisely why he doesn’t want to say anything.

With the look on his brother’s face right now…

Papyrus knows that saying a name would be the same as signing a death warrant.

“sans…”

“PAPYRUS,” Sans says right back. “NOBODY GETS TO HURT YOU AND GET AWAY WITH IT. IT OPENS THE DOOR FOR TOO MUCH, IF I DON’T TAKE CARE OF IT NOW, YOUR COLLAR MEANS NOTHING. DO YOU WANT THAT?”

“………”

No.

Of course not.

But…

The look on Sans’ face changes, going shrewd; calculating.

“…WHAT ABOUT OTHER MONSTERS THEN?” he asks, switching tactic. “DO YOU THINK WHOEVER ATTACKED YOU WILL GIVE UP BECAUSE THEY LOST YOU? DO YOU THINK THEY WON’T JUST ATTACK SOMEONE ELSE?”

………

Papyrus knows he will.

He needed EXP, he said, he needed it fast, he absolutely would just go looking for someone else to take it out of.

He was an active danger to the peace of the Underground; to the monsters who weren’t strong enough or fast enough or clever enough to protect themselves.

Exactly the kind of threat the Royal Guard was supposed to defend against.

And the only thing Papyrus would’ve felt worse about than snitching on his own behalf.

damn it…

Papyrus screws his sockets shut, physically drooping in surrender.

“buck,” he reluctantly chokes out. “it was buck.”

Sans lets go of him, stepping back and taking a slow breath.

“ALRIGHT,” he says. “STAY HERE. I’LL SORT EVERYTHING OUT.”

And then, he’s gone.

Papyrus slinks off to his room and grabs up his old black notebook, deciding to draw to pass the time until his brother comes back.

He figures he should get Buck’s antlers down now while the shape of them is still fresh in his mind.

He won’t be seeing them—or Buck—ever again.

-

Papyrus hears some pretty nasty rumors about Buck in the days that follow: gambling debts, public fights, assaulting a member of the Royal Guard, finally stopped while firing bullets at a child…

He doesn’t know if more than the third thing is true, but he feels awful when he hears about what his brother did with the man’s dust.

Empress Toriel herself publicly censures Sans for the ‘overkill’ of spreading even a dangerous criminal’s remains throughout his parents’ house, but Sans accepts the reprimand contritely, with grace.

All he says on the matter is that he takes attacks on his family very seriously, and the matter is dropped there.

Papyrus gets a very wide berth now wherever he goes, and he has a feeling it’s exactly what Sans intended to happen.

Sans also gets him an appointment to have his tooth replaced—a shiny gold replica that matches the tag on his collar—hand-stitches up the tear in his uniform and the shirt he’d been wearing beneath it, and informs him that he’ll no longer be serving as a sentry in three days’ time.

“but—”

“UNRELATED TO THE INCIDENT, OF COURSE,” he says, as if Papyrus hadn’t spoken. “IT’LL HAVE TO BE A DISHONORABLE DISCHARGE, UNFORTUNATELY, BUT I’LL SPIN IT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE. CITE ABANDONING OF YOUR POST, DEFIANCE OF AUTHORITY…YOU’LL SOUND VERY COOL AND REBELLIOUS.”

“i…it wasn’t…that bad…”

“YOU LOST A TOOTH.”

“……i mean…i could still—”

“PAPYRUS,” Sans cuts him off again.

Papyrus looks up at his brother.

He has his Very Serious face on again, but deeper, in his eye-lights…

There’s something that looks a lot like fear.

“YOU’RE NOT GOING BACK,” Sans tells him. “I CAN’T KEEP FINDING YOUR DUST IN THE SNOW. I CAN’T.”

And…

Well…

That’s that.

“…okay.”

Papyrus probably should just do…whatever Sans tells him to do.

Giving his brother one less thing to worry about…

It’s starting to feel like the best—and the absolute least—that he can do.

-

The next couple years are a monotony for Papyrus.

He follows Sans on patrols, when he’s asked to.

He stays home, when he’s asked to.

And that’s about all he does.

Whatever he’s asked to.

Papyrus knows his brother well enough to know that he’s picked up on the weirdness and tension between them now, but since he hasn’t said anything, he can only assume Sans hasn’t figured out how to fix it yet.

If there is a way, Papyrus would love to see it.

With how things are now, down here—with the way their whole terrible world is—he just can’t see a way that they could ever be good.

Fine, maybe.

They can be fine.

But ‘good’ is just too far out of reach.

So…for awhile, they’re fine.

And that has to be good enough.

-

Until it isn’t.

Apparently, even Papyrus has his limits.

Nothing in particular happens to set him off, no big dramatic event…just a series of small ones, over and over, building up on each other.

It’s a special kind of maddening to be stuck in the house all day long, even for a skeleton whose hobbies are ninety percent sedentary—only the vague brightening and dimming of the artificial light outside and a clock to tell what time it even is, never knowing what day, forced to try and base any semblance of a schedule off Sans’ comings and goings and just being constantly reminded that his brother is a workaholic who never stops moving, never stops taking on more responsibility, never rests until he’s about to pass out or he’s made himself sick again…

And feeling ungrateful for even having such a thought, because it’s Sans he has to thank for…everything, from not having to constantly fight for his life every time he goes outside to never having to do laundry or cook or any other basic household task that he should know by now, he’s a grown skeleton and he—………

It’s a lot.

Papyrus gets…frustrated.

So.

He starts going out again.

By himself.

Sometimes with an excuse—grocery run, taking some pictures, meeting Undyne at the Dump—sometimes without, going nowhere just to be going somewhere.

Papyrus can tell by the look on Sans’ face that he doesn’t really like it, but he doesn’t try to stop him either and that’s probably the best he’s gonna get.

(He could do without the silent, invisible tail he tends to pick up whenever his brother isn’t working or happens to be having a slow day… but if it keeps Sans from worrying himself even further into an early grave, he can deal.)

Unfortunately…

Going out as much as he starts to do comes with…consequences.

With encounters.

And sometimes Encounters.

Papyrus tries running.

He tries calling for the Guard.

He even tries fighting back as little as monsterly possible.

He tries everything he can think of and somehow it always ends the same way: new scars for his back and his arms and a new portrait in his notebook of faces he can never forget.

Somehow, the latter hurts so much worse than the former.

Papyrus was built tough, just like Sans had always said, and he could take the chips and divots in his bones—but every new page he has to fill is like an arrow right to his soul.

He doesn’t want LV. He doesn’t want EXP.

He just wants…

He just wants it all to stop.

He just wants to be left alone.

Desperate, he finally asks for help.

chillskeleton95: is there anywhere to go down here that isn’t a fucking cage-fight

chillskeleton95: like is it seriously just on-sight as soon as nobody’s looking EVERYWHERE

chillskeleton95: it can’t be, please

SmartFish91: Are you okay?

chillskeleton95: no

chillskeleton95: i’m sick of having to FIGHT every time i go outside

chillskeleton95: you know everything, help me, i can’t do this

SmartFish91: Okay okay, hang on, I’m gonna call you

SmartFish91: And you better pick up ‘cause you know it’s just me!

Undyne calls.

She…talks him down from the ledge of…what was shaping up to be a pretty nasty panic attack.

“It’s fine, no big deal,” she says when he’s calmer. “I get ‘em all the time. I think a lot of us do.”

Papyrus doesn’t know if that’s true or if she’s just saying it so he doesn’t feel embarrassed.

Either way, it’s pretty nice of her.

And then she tells him about Muffet’s.

“…the spider lady’s place???”

Papyrus has seen it—of course he has, it’s Snowdin’s most popular venue—but he’s never been inside.

Lots of out-of-towners frequented the place and it was constantly full of big, bad, scary-looking cityfolk.

He’d never had the guts to go in himself, not even for some damn good-looking donuts.

“It’s pretty much a ‘no screwing around’ zone,” Undyne explains. “The owner, Muffet—all her staff are spiders. The little kind. If one of them gets squished ‘cause of some meatheads dicking around, it’s a lifetime ban…or, y’know, worse.”

…Right.

“But from what I’ve read, it seems like everybody knows that by now, so it’s pretty tame. Just, uh…watch your step, I guess, and it should be fine!”

“yeah…okay. i can…i can check it out…”

Snowdin was his home-turf, he could…probably handle it.

No matter how many tough, judgmental strangers were crowded into the place.

“if i die, tell sans you sent me there.”

“Oh hell no, he’ll kill me! I just got a date with Alphys, I literally cannot die before that.”

“you’d deny my dying wish that you die for killing me???”

“Gals before pals, dude,” laments Undyne. “That’s just how it has to be…”

“…yeah, fair enough.”

Papyrus goes to Muffet’s.

Conversation stops and everyone stares at him when he first steps through the door, like the world’s most bizarre western, set in a café full of monsters.

Papyrus keeps his eye-lights forward and tries not to noticeably shake as he approaches the counter.

He orders only a black coffee (because it involves the least amount of talking and he can say it without stammering), and all five of Muffet’s eyes squint suspiciously at him while one of her spiders holds up a little sign that says, Take a seat.

Papyrus slowly makes his way to an empty table, taking care to miss every spider on the floor with his boots. He stares straight down at the surface of the counter in silence until another (very strong!) arachnid appears with his cup.

He thanks it, and the next one that shows up with a card asking, Sugar? Milk? when he takes what is surely an inordinate amount of time nursing the single (disgustingly bitter) coffee he ordered.

Yet another spider eventually brings his bill and the number is considerably smaller than what the sign on the wall said, but he leaves the necessary G (plus a tip) and exits without incident.

When next Papyrus works up the courage to go back, the spiders shoo him straight to a table and present him an exactly right coffee—creamy pale, with grit at the bottom where the sugar stopped dissolving.

He doesn’t think to protest until they bring out a whole sampler box of donuts that he didn’t order, with one of every flavor, but by then, Muffet herself appears at his shoulder to cut him off.

“We like polite customers,” she says in a sibilant whisper, smiling widely. “Don’t worry, the first box is free, ahuhuhu~”

In fairness…

Papyrus only needs one bite to see why she can get away with a promotion like that.

The coffee is good.

The donuts are incredible.

The patrons are quiet and nobody fights and most of them seem to be just like Papyrus—wanting nothing more than to sit there awhile and be left alone.

It’s exactly his scene

He’s found his oasis.

-

Things…stabilize after that, for Papyrus.

Something about having somewhere to go (that isn’t locked up in his own brother’s house) does wonders for his peace of mind.

With Muffet’s as an option, he doesn’t have to resort to hiding in mysterious ice caves with weird doors that make him feel like he’s being watched, or in unmapped alcoves full of goofy flowers that still bite if you get too close, or even go near Hotland and its terrible public transportation.

He can just go to his favorite patisserie and know he’ll be safe as soon as he gets there, because Muffet runs a very tight ship.

The closest Papyrus ever sees to an altercation is the time when Undyne—on one of her rare visits to Snowdin—is firmly, yet politely asked to leave, for being too loud.

Of all the things Papyrus could say to his kinda-sorta-not-really-but-maybe-a-little-bit friend’s credit, her volume control (and its consistency) was not one of them and Muffet’s two-strike rule was simply non-negotiable.

Undyne took her ban with good grace at least, and assured Papyrus that she’d rather go hunting around Hotland for Grillby’s super-delicious cheese fries anyway, and well, though he’s never understood the fascination with grease everybody he cares about seems to have, he can respect it.

Even without her, Muffet’s is still a real nice place with plenty of familiar things to make him feel comfortable.

Snow and pine trees outside the window, harpsichord remixes of Napstaton music playing on the radio, a few locals mingling with the out-of-towners…

Papyrus never knew that the Nice Scream guy was seeing somebody until he started seeing him get coffee every other day with the same grinning cat, sitting real close to him and even smiling when he called him by his name.

(He didn’t know that the Nice Scream guy’s real name was Bleu until then either, but that’s beside the point.)

Even Sans stops into Muffet’s on occasion, and that had been a hell of a surprise the first time Papyrus had looked up from his mug to see his brother just there without warning.

Sans sits with him while he finishes subtly choking on coffee, waiting for his own order to be ready.

“SNAILS,” he explains. “THE EMPRESS GETS NOSTALGIC SOMETIMES AND TRIES TO RECREATE OLD RECIPES. MUFFET HAS AN AGREEMENT WITH THE GHOST WHO MAINTAINS BLOOK ACRES—HE LIKES OWNING THE LAND, APPARENTLY, BUT NOT THE SNAILS, SO HE FARMS THAT OUT TO THE SPIDER FAMILY. IF I RECALL CORRECTLY, HE HAD A COUSIN WHO USED TO HELP HIM WITH THE DIRTY WORK, BUT…”

Papyrus tunes out somewhere around there, not really interested in gossip or thinking it very important, but letting Sans keep talking anyway.

After that run-in, Papyrus starts finding a little extra G in his pockets and he guesses that’s Sans’ way of saying he approves of the hangout, too.

So that’s good.

One less thing to make Sans worry about.

-

Papyrus gradually gains an…entourage, of sorts.

Much as he’d love to believe he’s making friends, he’s not dumb enough to believe that’s actually what’s happening when certain monsters start inching closer to him, tentatively sitting at his table, offering bits of their pastries for the privilege.

A Whimsun, a couple of Shroombas, Slimes, Moldsmals, and Wisps…

All small monsters.

Weak ones.

Papyrus knows very well what it is when they cluster around him and try to curry his favor, and he doesn’t mind that they don’t really talk to him or know him or seem to have any interest in getting to do so.

He also knows how valuable it is to be able to feel safe down here, even for just a little while, and he doesn’t have it in him to begrudge any of them that privilege.

They take his wordless grunts and his Intense Looks as full sentences and never expect anything else from him, and the free good-will croissants and macarons they slide over to him on the regular are a real nice perk.

……But these ‘friends’ of his do occasionally put him in some very awkward situations.

“You want some, big guy?” the Dewdrop asks, holding a bone-shape out to him in offering.

A Dog Treat.

Papyrus looks at it a second, hoping his uncertainty isn’t coming through on his skull.

In case it is, he makes a purposeful expression of vague distaste and hums, like maybe he’s just not really into it…and definitely not a very sheltered skeleton who’s never been this close to a Dog Treat, much less actually smoked one, and doesn’t want to risk making a fool of himself in front of a bunch of monsters who think he’s actually cool.

Unfortunately for him, the Dewdrop insists.

“No, no, it’s cool,” they press, “it’s safe, it’s the good stuff—I got it from Doggo!”

The name of the guy who throws ice in the river all day means nothing to Papyrus, except…

Except now he can’t…really see a way to back out of this situation—not without looking like a wet blanket or a wuss.

So…

To protect his reputation…

Papyrus takes the Dog Treat.

It’s already lit, so he doesn’t have to worry about that, and it’s easy to pinch it between his claws the way he’s seen everybody else do, when they’ve smoked around him in the past.

He raises it to his teeth and hopes he can handle this…

The smoke he inhales is…surprisingly sweet, with just a hint of spice, like gingerbread…but not. He holds it for a beat and then exhales, closing his sockets as he does because the last thing he wants is to be a spectacle; to be coaxed to do it again because it looked cool or something dumb like that.

And then…

He passes the Treat to the Whimsun next to him.

He didn’t cough or sputter or…or pass out or any of the embarrassing things he’d worried he might do.

Everything’s fine.

Papyrus, the chill, scary badass remains intact as far as everyone’s concerned.

It’s not until it’s gone around the group a few times and he’s had a couple puffs that Papyrus even feels it.

And all he feels is…relaxed.

He’s not sure what he was expecting—hallucinations? Melting walls and spinning rooms?—but there’s nothing like that at all.

Papyrus just feels calm.

A little looser than normal, a little more talkative, and when actually he opens his mouth, he doesn’t trip over a single word!

Honestly, if it weren’t for the lingering feeling of doing something he’s not supposed to be doing, Papyrus would call it great.

Still, he’s definitely nervous by the time he makes his way home, unlocking and relocking the front door with exaggerated care, hoping he seems…

Normal?

Or at least, normal enough to pass.

……Already knowing that he won’t.

Papyrus doesn’t think he’s ever gotten anything past Sans, and he can’t imagine why his luck would start now.

Sure enough, as soon as his foot touches the first stair up to his room…

“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” Sans demands, leaning out of the kitchen. “DINNER’S ALMOST READY. DON’T TELL ME YOU FILLED UP ON D—………”

Sweat beads along Papyrus’ skull at the look his brother gives him, narrowed eye-sockets and a displeased scowl.

A knowing displeased scowl.

Busted, and Papyrus didn’t even have to say a word.

“…GET IN HERE,” Sans says eventually, his tone too sharp to disagree with, so of course, Papyrus goes.

He sits at the table, awaiting the lecture.

He eats dinner, awaiting the lecture.

He goes up to his room, awaiting the lecture.

But it never comes.

After a few days, Papyrus starts to wonder if Sans had even noticed after all, or if the Dog Treat had just made him paranoid…?

It’s only about a week before he gets an answer.

In the form of a whole box of Dog Treats and a copy of the key to the liquor cabinet, presented to him by his very straight-faced brother.

“YOU’RE A GROWN SKELETON,” he says as Papyrus looks at his ‘gift’ with growing embarrassment. “I’M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU WHAT YOU CAN AND CAN’T DO, JUST…IF YOU’RE GOING TO DO IT, YOU SHOULD DO IT HERE FIRST AND NOT BE OUT IN PUBLIC UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THINGS YOU’VE NEVER EVEN TRIED BEFORE, IT, IT’S JUST UNSAFE! I—”

“okay!” Papyrus ekes out, his skull feeling like it’s on fire. “i got it! thanks!”

And then, he all but runs up to his room, filing the whole conversation under Awkward Moments To Forget, right next to The Talk.

-

Papyrus can…eventually…appreciate the gesture.

When he can look at any of that stuff with curiosity again and not mortification, he’s able to try things out in the safety of his own room, without the judgment of his peers or the risk of something worse happening to him.

He learns his limits at his own pace, his likes and dislikes, how his body reacts to what and how he feels about it.

Dog Treats are fine, but don’t seem to do much for him beyond that feeling of chill, maybe not worth the pervasive, guilty feeling of ‘you’re not supposed to be doing this’ that comes with it, ultimately.

Most booze tastes terrible—he has no idea how Sans can actually seem to enjoy the bitter taste of wine—but enough juice can make just about anything palatable, and it gives him that same loose feeling…to an extent.

Too much of any of it makes him feel sick, sometimes even into the next morning, and that serves as a hell of a reminder for moderation.

It’s an ongoing learning experience.

A practice run.

-

By the time Papyrus ends up at an actual, real bar in the Capital, he feels okay—even when he can’t remember how he got talked into coming here and can’t spot a single familiar face in the crowd.

He just hovers at the bar nursing his drink, something that’s supposed to taste just like the ‘Mai Tai’s that humans drink…whatever those are.

He’s only just taken a sip of Mai Tai Mimic number three when he turns to the left and discovers something else alcohol can do for him.

“holy shit, your horns are beautiful…”

The minotaur sitting beside him jumps a little, like she’s startled.

“O-oh…ah, thank you,” she says. “I…that’s…that’s really nice of you to say.”

“they are,” Papyrus tells her, because this is an obvious fact. “they’re so shiny…d’you polish them?”

“Ha! Uh, no, not…not really… They’re just…like that.”

Papyrus must look suitably impressed by this, because she pauses.

“I… You really like them?”

“’course, they’re gorgeous.”

“……You don’t… You don’t think they’re too…” She looks down, like she’s shy. “Too bull-ish?”

Papyrus doesn’t remember half of what he says to her in response, that night.

He doesn’t remember taking her by the hand and leaning in to look her very seriously in her deep, dark, soulful eyes.

He doesn’t remember waxing poetic to her about the delicate curve of her horns, the elegant points, their lovely color and sheen that made them gleam like gold in the dim light of the bar.

He doesn’t even remember her name.

But he does remember going home with her that night.

And everything that happened after.

It ends up being a night of many firsts for Papyrus…

But hardly any lasts.

-

Papyrus makes a habit of it.

The hooking up.

It’s not as…romantic as anything he’d ever hoped for himself, to be sure.

It’s not…tender intimacy, and long conversations, and real connection…

It’s not love.

But it is touch.

It is stroking and kissing and warmth and most of the time no pain, and whenever Papyrus is desperate enough to seek it; drunk enough to let himself pretend…

It feels like love.

Close enough to it.

…as close as he can probably ever hope to get down here, where the real thing seems to only come to a lucky few who can find it and an even luckier few that can hold onto it.

Papyrus can’t remember the last time he genuinely believed he’d be one of those people.

But that just makes the times when he can fake it even more valuable.

Sans only ever says one thing about Papyrus’ new pastime, catching him stumbling home early in the morning, rumpled and smelling like booze and some guy’s cologne.

“BE CAREFUL.”

“sorry,” Papyrus muttered, thinking at first maybe he was too loud coming in or knocked something over, but his brother grabs him by the arm before he can get by.

“NO,” Sans says, looking at him very seriously. “BE CAREFUL. MONSTERS ARE ALL THE SAME, IN IT FOR THEMSELVES. DON’T LET IT HURT YOU WHEN NOBODY STAYS.”

Maybe it’s the lack of sleep.

Maybe it’s the oncoming hangover.

Maybe it’s the years of being miserable and scared and useless and finally finding something that distracted him from it all and made him feel good for once, and knowing even that isn’t really real.

Papyrus jerks his arm out of Sans’ grip, angrily shoving right past him with the most clipped, “whatever,” he’s ever muttered in his life.

Sans doesn’t stop him again, or try to push the issue.

A bleary-socketed glance at the clock when he makes it up to his room shows that Sans has to be getting to work anyway, and Papyrus snorts as he flops onto his bed.

Of course Sans would say something like that.

All he does is work and FIGHT and look after Papyrus—no partners, no friends, a piss-poor excuse for a family…

Of course he would say that nobody stays, when he never lets anybody in, in the first place.

Sans is a cynic.

He’s a proud pessimist, too goddamn arrogant to admit that he’s probably just as lonely and miserable as…

………

The guilt hits before Papyrus can even finish the uncharitable thought.

He buries his face in a pillow and hopes to pass out quickly.

He doesn’t want to spend the morning conscious enough to know what a piss-poor excuse for a brother he really is, after all.

-

Sans is right, of course.

It’s a bandage at the best of times.

Papyrus loses track of all his partners who never call again, who act like it never happened, who aren’t as…kind…as he’d hoped they’d be.

This prison they all live in is shit, it makes everyone so…mad, and miserable, and…

And monstrous.

Papyrus hates the Underground, he hates it, and he doesn’t know how much longer he can live like this.

-

A human falls.

The seventh.

The last one.

Everything happens so fast for awhile, but before Papyrus knows it, monsters are free.

It’s not the way anyone pictured it would happen, but…

Something about getting to stand up on the Surface, where no monster had tread for centuries, makes the means feel completely, utterly irrelevant.

The air smells different, fresher.

The sky is full of colors, more than even he can name.

The sun is…

The sun is…

Papyrus isn’t too proud to admit it: he cries, too overwhelmed by how beautiful it is to do anything else.

For the first time in a long time, he feels like there’s hope for the future and he grips his brother by the shoulder, smiling widely even as the tears drip down his skull.

Freedom.

Peace.

A chance.

They have a chance to be ‘good’ now, and no longer just settle for ‘fine.’

This is the turning point, Papyrus is sure of it.

-

If he’d been watching his brother in that One Grand Moment instead of the sky, he might’ve managed his expectations a little better.

Standing up there on the Surface, on the precipice of untold change, the upending of everything he’s spent years to master and manipulate, Sans’ expression is nothing less than ‘lost.’

-

Papyrus is living.

Human society—its laws and rules and norms—is so different than the bare minimum that fear of the Royal Guard and the Empress were able to enforce amongst the angry, scared, and hurting populace of the Underground.

It’s actually safe here, or at least it feels that way for Papyrus, whose intimidating build and default scary face work just as well up here as they did down there, if not even better.

It no longer matters if people he encounters might not know his reputation, or his brother’s, because nobody will bother him as long as he keeps to himself and doesn’t cause any trouble—and he’s great at both of those things.

He takes walks.

He wanders around shops.

He discovers and falls in love with prepackaged snack cakes.

He tracks down Muffet’s new Surface location, and reconnects with Undyne on the human internet, and buys some new software and a whole lot of copics when he figures out that people pay for art here and he could actually be making a little money on the side.

Papyrus is living.

Sans…

Well.

Papyrus can’t say that things are unequivocally worse for his brother up here.

He’s seen some good things.

He knows about the wine-tasting class Sans attended ‘JUST TO FILL IN A GAP IN MY SCHEDULE,’ and his ‘professional assessment’ of the Baja Blast they got later when they went out for tacos had to have been the hardest either of them laughed in years.

He’s caught sight of Sans out on the porch of their new house, both early morning and late night, doing the same thing Papyrus is doing looking out the windows in the first place: watching the sunrise and the sunset, just because it’s there.

He even finds some wood shavings stuck in the carpet and a few lumpy, lopsided figurines in the trash (that he rescues), so he knows that Sans is trying that again.

All good things!

…But there’s a lot of bad things, too, way more than Papyrus thinks there should be.

Sans has gotten a new job, something to do with numbers, but, “I DON’T DO PATROLS ANYMORE, I MIGHT AS WELL DO SOMETHING WITH THE TIME—IT’S NOT AS IF WE COULDN’T USE THE MONEY.”

That would be fine…if Sans wasn’t also still working full-time as Captain of the Royal Guard.

“IT’S FINE,” he says dismissively when Papyrus raises concern. “I MOSTLY JUST DO PAPERWORK THESE DAYS. PAPERWORK, POLITICS, AND PUBLIC APPEARANCES. HEHEH, MORE PARANOIA THAN PUGILISM, HEHEHEH…”

Which of course…is not the lowest stress thing Sans could be doing right now, and it’s showing.

Papyrus’ unease with the whole situation only grows the more he watches Sans get sick—working himself sick—more than he ever did, even Underground when the stakes were literally life and death.

It’s not right.

He knows in his bones that this isn’t right, or fair, and it can’t possibly end well if Sans keeps going like this, doing…doing everything, all the time, for both of them.

And Papyrus still isn’t a very good brother.

If he were, he’d be helping.

He’d be cooking dinner so Sans wouldn’t have to do it the second he got home or else have to eat junk food or takeout all the time.

He’d be tidying up the house so Sans wouldn’t go out of his way to do it on his days off instead of actually taking the day off.

He’d…

He’d be doing something!

Anything!

But he isn’t.

Papyrus isn’t helping because he doesn’t know how—he doesn’t even know how to do laundry by himself, for fuck’s sake!—and it’s not right.

He’s a grown skeleton, not a babybones, and he’d never forgive himself if he let his martyring workaholic of a brother kill himself like this just because he was too scared to figure out some basic shit on his own.

The only obstacle is Sans himself, too stubborn and bullheaded to let Papyrus learn.

“DON’T WORRY, I’VE GOT THAT.”

“NO, NO, GIVE IT TO ME, I’LL HANDLE IT.”

“OH, JUST LET ME DO IT, IT’LL BE FASTER.”

Papyrus is…regrettably…stuck.

He can’t see any way out of his own uselessness incompetence as long as Sans is around, and it’s not like he can fix that.

They live in the same damn house, after all.

………

And then, one day, their ‘not mandatory but strongly encouraged’ therapist says two little words.

‘Trial separation.’

Papyrus’ kneejerk reaction is uncertainty.

Fear.

He’s never been apart from his brother before, not in any way that really mattered, and the thought alone is…

It’s scary.

But…

He looks over at Sans, sneering insults at Dirk, calling him a hack and an idiot and just about every name in the book.

There’s dark shadows beneath his eye-sockets from how little or how poorly he’s been sleeping.

His shoulders are tensed, held almost painfully tight, and Papyrus can’t remember the last time he’s seen them otherwise.

Sans is even physically angling himself between Papyrus and Dirk, just like all those years ago at the Dump; like a murderous scavenger and a therapist saying something he didn’t like were the same kind of threat to his naïve, helpless, baby brother.

And in that moment, Papyrus thinks he knows what he has to do.

“…IDICULOUS, I DON’T KNOW WHERE Y—”

“okay. yeah, let’s try it.”

Chapter Text

Her name is Bridget Wilson, neé Cleary.

She is sixty-three years old, both parents deceased and only one younger sister, living abroad, to call immediate family. Lily Cleary calls her from their home country of Ireland weekly, like clockwork, and each call lasts upwards of an hour.

In her late twenties, Bridget was married to one Geoffrey Wilson, an utterly unremarkable man who passed of unspecified causes just shy of their ten-year anniversary, leaving all earthly possessions to his wife—now widow. She never remarried and has made no significant attempts to seek a romantic relationship since.

Instead, Mrs. Wilson pursued a belated education and apparently found her new passion there.

A master’s in psychology, completion of a PsyD program, above and beyond the required hours of supervised practice until she became licensed and certified to practice on her own in Ebott; diligent about all renewals and reeducation as mandated by the state…

Dr. Wilson takes her field of psychotherapy quite seriously, it seems, and commentary from past patients of hers is nothing shy of glowing.

By all accounts, she is a professional: dedicated to her work, respectful yet straightforward, and always with her client’s interests in mind.

In short, she seems to be exactly what Sans has been looking for.

And she is currently accepting new patients.

-

Even after all of his meticulous stalking fact-finding, there’s nothing quite like really meeting someone to give Sans the best idea of who he’s dealing with.

Bridget Wilson is striking in person, to be sure, with far more presence than her photographs lent her.

Her face is weathered, too stern to be called ‘grandmotherly’ but bearing laugh lines and crow’s feet all the same, wholly untouched by cosmetics or concealer. Her hair, cropped short, is unapologetically gray, with no pretense of reclaiming its youthful color. Her attire is the very picture of business casual, without flair save for a complementary necklace and a Claddagh ring on her finger.

Spartan. Honest. A straight-shooter.

Sans files these assessments away in his mind for later perusal as the doctor reaches out a hand to him.

“Good morning, Captain Serif,” she greets him pleasantly. The lilt of her accent is more pronounced than it had been over the phone, faint but present. “It’s a pleasure to meet you face to face.”

Sans shakes her hand, returning her greeting.

“LIKEWISE, DR. WILSON,” he says with a polite smile.

Polite but not strained, an important distinction: she had greeted him by his title, after all.

The other one had a…special…way of saying ‘captain,’ flippant and dismissive and almost jokingly, like his years of dust, sweat, and danger had no more weight than that of a cotton ball.

Dr. Wilson said it respectfully, perhaps just mindful of their lack of familiarity but…

Sans doesn’t think so.

He feels the firmness of her handshake, sees no nonsense in her eyes, and files away another assessment.

(An older woman, left alone in a country not her own, choosing to stay and make her own way as a professional in the medical field…)

(Sans presumes she knows a thing or two about earning one’s rank; about clawing one’s way up.)

………

It’s too early to call anything, but as first impressions go…

SO FAR, SO GOOD.

Nothing noteworthy is discussed as Dr. Wilson ushers him into her office—how he found the place, what the weather was like, simple pleasantries—and Sans performs a quick visual scan of his surroundings.

The room is small, but with appropriate lighting and furnishings such that it felt cozy instead of cramped. There are several options for seating and a clear path to the door, which may or may not have been a strategic decision to put clients (him) at ease, but Sans approves regardless of the intention.

The doctor takes a seat and gestures for him to do the same.

Sans obligingly sits.

“So,” begins Dr. Wilson, “I know we spoke a bit already over the phone, but we might as well go over it again, for perspective’s sake. What brings you here today, Captain?”

“YOU’RE A THERAPIST AND I’M SEEKING THERAPY,” Sans replies wryly. “MAKING AN APPOINTMENT WITH YOU SEEMED THE MOST EXPEDIENT MEANS TO THAT END.”

Across from him, Bridget quirks a small smile, apparently catching and appreciating his humor.

Another mark in her favor, honestly.

“And that’s all?”

“MORE OR LESS. THOUGH,” Sans admits, “IT WAS…SUGGESTED TO ME THAT…THAT THIS SORT OF APPROACH COULD BE…BENEFICIAL.”

“Who suggested that?” Dr. Wilson wonders.

“MY BROTHER. AS WELL AS MY PARTNER. BOTH SEEM TO BELIEVE THAT… IT COULD BE GOOD FOR ME TO…TO OPEN UP, I SUPPOSE.”

There’s a noticeable pause.

Sans takes note of the woman’s expression, still a cool mask of professionalism but now with a hint of…

Displeasure?

Concern?

Perhaps some mix of the two.

It’s not until she speaks again, her tone admirably free of judgment, that Sans realizes why.

“You’re here on their account, then?”

“NO,” Sans says without hesitation. “I’M HERE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT. IT WAS A SUGGESTION, BUT ONE I’VE AGREED WITH. I AM NOT HERE TO SATISFY ANYONE ELSE.”

Another micro-expression—relief, this time—and before she can fully open her mouth to presumably apologize for assuming, Sans interjects.

“THANK YOU FOR ASKING, ACTUALLY. MY LAST FORAY INTO THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF PSYCHOTHERAPY WAS PURELY FOR SOMEONE ELSE’S BENEFIT AND THE EXPERIENCE WAS…NOT ONE I’D CARE TO REPEAT.”

Dr. Wilson nods, accepting this.

“I’m sorry to hear that you had a negative experience, of course,” she offers, “but I’m glad that you left it, and that you’re seeking betterment of your own volition.”

“THANK YOU,” Sans says again. “I’VE DONE MY RESEARCH THIS TIME AROUND, LOOKING FOR SOMEONE MORE…EQUIPPED TO HANDLE MY LIFE EXPERIENCES. YOUR PATIENTS RECOMMEND YOU QUITE HIGHLY, DOCTOR.”

A large portion of Dr. Wilson’s client base, Sans knows, consists of soldiers who have seen active duty. Some are still serving and some have been discharged for a variety of medical, emotional, or behavioral reasons.

People who have seen and done some awful things in the name of duty or survival…or neither.

People like Sans.

He wasn’t certain that the person who would know how to fix a mess like himself even existed, but if there were anyone in a five-hundred mile radius who could at least be familiar with most of the wreckage they were looking at, it would probably be this woman.

(Even as the thought crosses his mind, Sans can practically hear a pair of familiar voices tickling at the back of his skull.)

(One sternly tells him that he doesn’t need to be ‘fixed,’ that he isn’t broken. The other sweetly murmurs that he’s better than he thinks he is, and even if he wasn’t, he would still be worthy of love.)

(…You two aren’t even here and you’re still forcing self-care shit on him, and if it didn’t make his soul feel so warm in his chest, Sans would definitely probably be furious about it.)

“I’m flattered that you think we could be a good fit,” Bridget says, cutting into the sentimental direction of Sans’ thoughts. “Would you like to tell me a bit about yourself, then?”

NOT REALLY, is Sans’ first knee-jerk thought, which is both unhelpful and counterintuitive.

Out loud, he says, “ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR?”

Dr. Wilson half-shrugs.

“Anything you feel comfortable sharing. It’s our first session, so I’d most like to get to know you a bit and vice versa.”

“THE BRAIN-PICKING COMES LATER, I PRESUME?”

“The brain-picking comes not at all, I would guess.” Dr. Wilson looks thoughtful as she muses, “I don’t imagine a skeleton has a brain for me to pick, though do correct me if I’m wrong.”

The humor is so dryly delivered that it takes Sans a moment to realize it had been there.

“…HEHEHEH, NO, I’M AFRAID NOT.” He reaches up, demonstratively rapping a knuckle against his skull to produce a hollow sound. “NO ORGANS, NOTHING BUT MAGIC CIRCULATING IN THERE.”

“Pity,” says the doctor, and he chuckles again.

Though fully aware that she’s likely intentionally trying to put him at ease, Sans doesn’t mind it.

Mostly because he would, very much, like to be more at ease right now and perhaps…isn’t, entirely.

This is different, than the other time.

There’s no dismissive, disinterested ‘professional’ here, no talkative, open-hearted brother to usher to the fore to hide behind.

It’s just him…and her: someone trained to pay attention to people, to pick up on patterns and defense mechanisms and deflective tendencies and there’s no way to esc—………

NO.

Of course there’s a way to escape.

Sans can get up and leave at any time. He can just go and never come back if he so chooses, because he is the reason that he is here.

He chose this treatment option.

He picked this doctor.

He scheduled this appointment and kept it, because he saw how far his brother was able to come with just a little support from you, and him, and a trained professional who actually knew what they were doing, and…

Sans wants that, too.

He wants to at least try it, a real try, for himself, just… just to see if…

“I could go first,” Dr. Wilson offers, apparently noticing his silence. “It’s a bit of a broad question, admittedly. I could tell you a bit about myself and maybe give you an idea of where to start?”

“NO, I’M SORRY, I CAN GO FIRST.” Sans gives her an apologetic smile. “I WAS JUST THINKING.”

He was and he wasn’t, but in any case, he can certainly wait to hear a bunch of information he undoubtedly already knows.

The sharing of personal information would best be done now, before he manages to talk himself out of it.

“I’M…CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GUARD. I’VE SERVED FOR…HEH, TOO LONG, PROBABLY. …I’M THE ELDEST OF TWO. MY YOUNGER BROTHER, PAPYRUS, I MENTIONED HIM ALREADY. NO…NO PARENTS TO SPEAK OF, JUST……”

Sans chances a look at the doctor.

By her patiently listening expression at least, she doesn’t seem to be dangerously excessively interested in anything he’s revealed so far.

He still quickly moves on to something else anyway, warding off the risk of a follow-up question.

“I’M IN A RELATIONSHIP, A ROMANTIC ONE.” Sans allows himself a small smile at the thought of you, though he doubts he could’ve held it back entirely as he said your name aloud. “HUMAN, OF COURSE, NOT THAT IT…NOT THAT IT MATTERS, IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS.”

If Dr. Wilson has any negative feelings on interspecies relationships, Sans can’t see any of them in her face.

Which is good.

A test passed, but not the only one necessary.

Sans clears his nonexistent throat.

“OUR RELATIONSHIP IS POLYAMOROUS,” he says casually. “IT’S NOT OPEN, BUT SHE DOES HAVE A SECOND PARTNER, IN ADDITION TO MYSELF.”

Sans is attentive for even the slightest sign of disapproval or judgment in Bridget’s expression, but he finds none.

He keeps his gaze sharp but the rest of his demeanor as far from challenging as possible for the last bit.

“PAPYRUS AND I ARE QUITE FOND OF HER. VERY HAPPY TO HAVE HER IN OUR LIVES.”

“How long?”

“HOW LONG WHAT?”

“Oh, sorry, how long have you been seeing her?” Dr. Wilson asks. “Your partner?”

“AH. WELL, THERE’S TWO ANNIVERSARIES INVOLVED, WE DIDN’T… PAPYRUS IS GOING ON THE TWO-YEAR NOW, BUT SHE AND I HAD OUR FIRST LAST MONTH.”

“Congratulations,” Dr. Wilson offers.

And she means it.

The easy sincerity Sans hears in her voice is the sort he’s found most people to be incapable of faking, so when she says it, he knows that it’s the same mannerly ‘congratulations’ she’d have given to any other sort of relationship that had passed such a milestone.

To a monster and monster pair, to a two-person commitment, or to any configuration different than one where two brothers had fallen totally, completely, irrevocably for the same human and been lucky enough that she loved them both in return.

………

Sans is getting sentimental again.

He thanks Dr. Wilson for the ‘congratulations’ with no small amount of internal relief.

As dealbreakers go, an inability to accept his relationship would have been a very big one, but she had accepted it well—without scorn or judgment or anything negative.

…or.

Anything at all, really.

………

HMM…

“HAPPY THINGS ASIDE,” Sans continues slowly, “I WOULD SAY THAT I, PERSONALLY, AM SEEKING THERAPEUTIC INTERVENTION BECAUSE OF…SOME OF THE DARKER PARTS, OF MY LIFE. I’M SURE YOU CAN IMAGINE THE SORTS OF THINGS ONE MIGHT BE WITNESS TO, LIVING UNDERGROUND. TO SAY NOTHING OF LIVING UNDERGROUND IN SERVICE TO THE CROWN.”

“I can imagine,” Dr. Wilson echoes.

“IN THE INTEREST OF FULL DISCLOSURE, I SHOULD PROBABLY SAY THAT I’VE FOUGHT, AND KILLED, AND INFLICTED ARGUABLY UNNECESSARY PAIN ON OTHERS.” Sans laces his gloved fingers in his lap. “I WAS ONCE CENSURED BY THE EMPRESS HERSELF FOR AN INCIDENT OF THE LATTER, THOUGH ONLY THE ONCE.”

Dr. Wilson doesn’t so much as bat an eye at the admittance.

Her expression remains attentive yet neutral, so perfectly neither negative or positive, and Sans can’t help but think…

Does it genuinely not bother her to know, with certainty over assumption, that she is in the presence of a dangerous person?

Is she truly so unaffected to be alone with a self-confessed perpetrator of violent and cruel acts?

Or is her veneer of professionalism simply strong enough, opaque enough to obscure her feelings?

(And one very nasty part of Sans’ mind, marinated for decades in paranoia, analysis, and self-protection, starts to wonder, too…)

(What would break that veneer?)

“…I JOINED THE GUARD AT FIFTEEN,” Sans says, so abruptly as to startle himself. “WELL. ALMOST FIFTEEN, ANYWAY. I LIED ABOUT MY AGE, OBVIOUSLY, BUT I GOT AWAY WITH IT.”

He’s…not sure why he volunteered that.

Or why he opens his mouth again, to volunteer even more.

“I NEEDED THE INCOME, AND THE PROTECTION. TO SUPPORT MY BROTHER. NO OTHER FAMILY, YOU KNOW, I THINK I MENTIONED THAT, AND SQUATTING IN CONDEMNED BUILDINGS AND STEALING JUST ENOUGH GOLD AND FOOD TO GET BY WASN’T REALLY WORKING FOR ME.”

Bridget has no comment on this.

Either she doesn’t know what to say, or is just pointedly saying nothing at all, and somehow…

Somehow, that only compels Sans to keep going.

“ACTUALLY,” he admits, beginning to have an inkling of what he’s trying to do, “I DON’T KNOW IF THAT’S TRUE. THE PART ABOUT ENLISTING AT FOURTEEN, I MEAN. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW OLD I WAS, OR AM. I WASN’T ACTUALLY BORN, IS THE PROBLEM. I WAS CREATED. IN A LABORATORY. BY THE SORT OF MAN YOU COULD PROBABLY APTLY CALL A ‘MAD SCIENTIST.’”

Sans is trying to shock her.

He knows, the more he speaks, that that’s exactly what he’s doing—pushing the boundaries, stretching credulity, trying to force a reaction and see just where this woman’s line is.

Twisting the concept of ‘vulnerability’ so far out of shape as to become a shield, or maybe even a sword.

But Bridget is too tough, or too savvy to crack so easily.

So Sans can’t help but keep pushing.

“MY AGING WAS ACCELERATED, ARTIFICIALLY,” he tells her. “HE DIDN’T WANT TO DEAL WITH AN INFANT, MY CREATOR, SO HE MADE A FIVE-YEAR-OLD NEWBORN INSTEAD AND UPLOADED AS MUCH INFORMATION INTO MY HEAD AS HE THOUGHT MIGHT BE IMPORTANT, SO AS NOT TO NEED TO BOTHER WITH THE INCONVENIENCE OF TEACHING ME ANYTHING IF HE COULD GET AWAY WITH IT.”

It’s the truth, of course, as unbelievable as it sounds, but delivered so frankly; so baldly that it undoubtedly seems insane.

Dr. Wilson is still listening intently, patiently…

…and very much not as if she believes the skeleton across from her is totally unhinged.

Which is fine.

Sans may not have crazier to throw at her, but he certainly has worse.

“MY BROTHER WAS MADE AS A REPLACEMENT FOR ME. I SPENT HIS ENTIRE GESTATIONAL PERIOD WONDERING HOW I WOULD BE DISPOSED OF WHEN HE WAS FINISHED. …EXCEPT OF COURSE, I WASN’T—HEH, OUR ‘FATHER’ WAS NO SUCH THING AND SOMEONE WAS NEEDED TO PICK UP THE SLACK FOR WHAT HE COULDN’T BE BOTHERED WITH.”

The creak of the old, worn leather of Sans’ gloves seems to echo the tension he feels in his bones trying to keep perfectly still in his chair.

His soul is thrumming oddly in his chest, an almost feral feeling taking root there to know how freely he’s spilling all of this, truths he never told to anyone in full before—not even Papyrus, not even you—for something so petty and small as getting a reaction from a near-stranger.

But the floodgates are open, for better or worse.

There’s no stopping it now.

“I WAS AN EXPERIMENT TO HIM, BEFORE PAPYRUS. A FUN LITTLE SCIENCE PROJECT. NODES AND LAB TABLES AND MEDICAL RESTRAINTS—YOU NAME IT, I’M SURE HE TRIED IT AT SOME POINT. …THE PUT-DOWNS AND POWER PLAYS WERE A WHOLE OTHER KIND OF BULLSHIT,” Sans snarls, apparently more angry still than he thought, even so much later.

He shakes his head, snorting dismissively.

“HONESTLY, MY ONLY SECOND THOUGHT ABOUT KILLING HIM BEFORE HE COULD DO THE SAME TO MY BROTHER WAS IF I COULD GET AWAY WITH IT. AND I DID. I KILLED HIM AND HE WASN’T EVEN THE FIRST. OR THE LAST.”

Sans breathes deeply, trying to force himself to some semblance of calm.

It doesn’t last when he looks up into the placid, open expression of Dr. Wilson, coolly waiting to see if he has any more to say.

A spike of misplaced anger makes him scowl.

“WELL?” he demands.

“‘Well’ what?” Bridget inquires.

“YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT ALL THAT?” Sans prods. “NO THOUGHTS OR FEELINGS ON ‘A BIT ABOUT ME’?”

“I think that was a thorough primer,” she says after a moment of thought. “I think that you’ve been through a great many unpleasant experiences, and I’m sorry that you have. And while it’s not really my place to comment or assess anything so early in our relationship, if you need some form of validation…I’m sure you knew what you were doing.”

“………”

Sans sits with the statement for a moment, processing it.

‘Knew what he was doing.’

‘Knew what he was doing…’

…

Sans can’t be blamed for the bolt of rude laughter that bubbles up out of him.

“NO, I DIDN’T,” he chuckles, shaking his head. “OF COURSE I FUCKING DIDN’T, I WAS A CHILD, I HAD NO—”

His teeth snap shut with an audible click.

Suddenly, in Bridget’s dark eyes, Sans can see it.

A sly glint.

And he begins to understand…how thoroughly outfoxed he’s just been.

“YOU,” he says. And then, after better gathering his thoughts, “YOU GOT ME MONOLOGUING.”

By simply sitting there and not reacting, she got him to talk and share and even almost tricked him into absolving himself of…something.

The wild, pent-up feeling in his chest is beginning to evaporate as realization dawns, and as it goes, something else is taking its place.

It feels like respect.

“YOU’RE GOOD,” he says at length.

Dr. Wilson smiles.

“Thank you,” she says with a dip of her head, not pretending not to know what he’s talking about. “But I did mean what I said. It’s not my place nor my prerogative to pass any kind of judgment on what you choose to share in these sessions, if there are to be others after this. I’m here to listen to what you say, and to help you verbalize and understand your feelings. Maybe even how they impact your behaviors and how to work on things you’d like to change, if that’s in the cards for you.”

Her posture straightens a bit, and her eyes meet his.

“If you want to be assessed,” she tells Sans, “from just the CliffsNotes of what you’ve told me… I can only say that it seems to me like you’ve got a lot of things that you’d like to talk about.”

Sans huffs out a sigh, a long, slow exhale as he sinks a little deeper into his chair.

“…YES,” he concedes. “I DO. STARS, I DO.”

That was exactly why he’d come here, wasn’t it?

Because he wanted to talk.

Because he was ready to.

Because he barely had, about anything, since he was a babybones, and there were so many secrets and so much pain stuffed away inside of him and he was just so tired of lugging it all around.

This had just been a long time coming.

“SO…WHAT NEXT?” Sans asks.

“I could take my turn,” Dr. Wilson proposes, “tell you a bit about myself. I’m quite boring, so it might not be as exciting as your go, but…”

She trails off, but Sans senses a different clause at the end of her sentence, unspoken.

“OR?”

“Or…whatever you want. This is your show, Captain, I’m just the peanut gallery.”

Despite himself, Sans quirks a small grin.

“CALL ME ‘SANS,’” he offers. “I’VE JUST REALIZED I THAT RESENT MY ‘FATHER’ A LOT MORE THAN I THOUGHT I STILL DID, AND I THINK I COULD STAND TO VENT ABOUT HIM A LITTLE MORE. IF YOU’RE GOING TO SIT THROUGH THAT, THE LEAST I COULD DO IS LET YOU USE MY NAME.”

“Sans, then,” she says. “You can call me Bridget if you like.”

“BRIDGET, THEN.”

The doctor smiles, warm and agreeable.

“Now, let’s hear about this father of yours. He sounds like a cunt.”

Surprised by the vulgarity, Sans bursts out laughing.

It’s perhaps still too early to call it, but…

He’s fairly sure that his first appointment with Dr. Wilson isn’t going to be his last.

-

It’s not.

“I HAVE FULFILLED THE TERMS OF OUR AGREEMENT.”

“Oh, excellent! Let’s see it.”

“I DON’T RECALL THAT BEING PART OF SAID AGREEMENT.”

Dr. Wilson laughs.

“How am I to know you actually did it if you won’t let me see it?”

“YOU COULD PRESUME GOOD FAITH.”

“Should I?”

Sans smirks.

“NEVER.”

So saying, he reaches into his pocket, fingers curling around the object inside.

“IT’S LITTLE,” he feels the need to preface. “AND IT’S NOT…I DON’T KNOW IF I’VE DONE BETTER, BUT I DON’T KNOW IF I’D SAY IT’S EVEN OF MY USUAL—”

“I’m not grading you,” Bridget pointedly reminds him. “Nothing happens if it’s not perfect.”

Sans huffs, rolling his eye-lights.

But out comes his palm-sized carving anyway, for the doctor’s viewing pleasure.

…Displeasure, probably.

As usual, as with all of the products of his unfortunate whittling hobby, Sans mostly hates the thing by now.

Its every flaw seems garishly obvious to him here, in the well-lit office and especially under Bridget’s assessing gaze: that rough edge there, that too abrupt slope, the divot where his knife slipped just a quarter of an inch because a pan fell in the kitchen downstairs and he hadn’t bothered to go back over it and try to fix it…

He’d given his word, though, that he would bring something to show her one of these days instead of dumping it straight in the garbage, and much as it galls him sometimes, Sans tries to be a skeleton of his word.

…but he’s not happy about it.

He doesn’t like it, it’s not what it’s supposed to be, it doesn’t look the way he wanted and it’s—

“Oh, that’s a lovely little deer!”

Yes, it’s a lovely little—………

Wait, no.

“I’M SURPRISED YOU COULD EVEN GUESS WHAT IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE,” Sans opines.

“Well, of course,” says Bridget. “What else could it be?”

Sans critically eyes his own creation.

“AN EMACIATED HORSE,” he suggests. “…PERHAPS A MOOSE THAT’S BEEN IN A HORRIFIC ACCIDENT.”

Dr. Wilson scoffs a bit.

“No, she’s a dainty little thing. That’s all deer, I can tell.”

She holds out her hand, an unspoken request for said deer.

Sans hesitates, not really liking the idea of her seeing it closer…

But he forces the hesitation back, and hands it over.

Bridget handles the thing he gives her with far more care than he believes it’s worth as she turns it this way and that, looking it over better.

He watches her do so, sitting rigidly in his chair and wondering what she’ll have to say about after a second and more thorough assessment.

“I like it.”

“……WHY?” Sans can’t help but ask.

“Well, why don’t you like it?” she asks in return.

The question makes Sans frown.

“I… IT’S…”

He pauses, trying to put the right words to his gut-feeling of dislike.

“IT’S…MISTAKES,” he haltingly settles on. “IT’S ALL MISTAKES. I SEE…ALL THE PARTS I DID BADLY, OR THAT I COULDN’T DO, AND IT’S…”

Well.

He and Bridget had already had a lovely conversation a few sessions back about perfectionism, and tying feelings of worth and self to results and how well that tended to not work out for anyone, ever, and he doesn’t particularly want to rehash all that.

So he doesn’t say that the mistakes feel like a reflection of himself, and instead settles on an adjacent truth.

“I WISH I WERE BETTER AT THIS.”

Bridget nods, considering what he’d said.

(By the reserved expression on her face, she’s considering what he hadn’t said, too, so his clever obfuscation was for naught, damn it all.)

“You see mistakes,” she says slowly, “but all I see is a deer.”

Sans isn’t sure what to say to that, but she’s not done yet.

“You said you wish you were better. But how do you know you aren’t?”

“…I DON’T UNDERSTAND,” Sans reluctantly admits.

“How do you know you aren’t better?” Bridget leans forward, setting the carving onto the table. “What are you comparing this to? Your other works? Someone else’s? The idea you had in your head?”

Sans opens his mouth to reply, only to close it when he realizes…he’s not really sure.

…All of the above, possibly.

He looks at the deer between them, trying to somehow view it totally objectively.

………

He fails.

But it is food for thought, and Sans isn’t done thinking about it; not by a longshot.

Bridget knows him well enough by now not to take his extended silence as dismissal, but she does pivot a bit trying to get him to speak his thoughts out loud again.

“Why did you make this?”

A sly ‘BECAUSE YOU TOLD ME TO’ is on the tip of his metaphorical tongue, but Sans does know she doesn’t actually mean this deer specifically.

She means his carvings in general, all of them, from the moment he first took the little knife his baby brother had found for him and brought its edge to the mildew-rotted chunk of broken floorboard while he stared out the window with extinguished eye-lights.

Sans’ past attempts… the clumsy blobs and basic shapes…the attempts at figures, monster and animal alike…

Why had he made them?

He’d hated them all at the end, uniformly, but while he was making them, when he hadn’t thought at all of what they should look like or how he had messed them up…

They were…

He’d felt…

“IT’S…MEDITATIVE,” Sans concludes. “SOMETHING TO KEEP MY HANDS BUSY, WITHOUT HAVING TO…SPEND TOO MUCH ATTENTION, I SUPPOSE. STAY PRODUCTIVE.”

“Do you like it?”

The sheer simplicity of the question stuns him for half a moment, if only for the fact that he never thought to ask it of himself.

“…YES,” Sans decides. “I DO.”

Even if he thinks he could should be better, even if the results aren’t perfect, even if he feels compelled to throw them all away in the end…

He thinks he regrets that sometimes, however foolish that is. Maybe he really would be able to tell if he was getting any better, if he had something to compare to.

Sans likes whittling.

That feels important.

And the subtle smile playing on Dr. Wilson’s lips as she says, “That’s what matters,” has all the encouragement of an approving pat on the head.

“But,” she adds after a beat, “if you truly must be better than someone, I have also fulfilled the terms of our agreement.”

That perks Sans right up.

“LET’S SEE IT,” he eagerly invites.

Reaching for her purse, the doctor digs around in it a bit before producing her end of the bargain, setting it on the table alongside Sans’ deer.

“…THAT’S…A LOVELY…ER—”

“It was meant to be a penguin,” says Bridget primly, saving him the trouble of guessing. “This is what a true novice’s work looks like. If you forget everything else I’ve said, remember that.”

Sans looks at it.

“THAT SHOULD BE HARD TO FORGET,” he agrees. “IT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING…TOO INAPPROPRIATE TO NAME IN POLITE COMPANY SUCH AS THIS.”

Bridget gives him a Look.

“Need I remind you that I called your father a ‘cunt’ in our first session?” she wonders.

True, “BUT WERE YOU WRONG?”

“I don’t think so, but I’d say we’re long past the point of impolite language, in any case.”

“THEN IN THAT CASE, I’D SAY IT LOOKS LIKE A MARITAL AID. THE SORT TO BE INSERTED RECTALLY.”

“Hmm. So it looks like a butt-plug to you, as well, then? Interesting.”

Sans doesn’t know if she’s shown the ‘penguin’ to other people or if she simply came to the same conclusion for herself, but her perfectly straight delivery makes him laugh anyway.

When their time is up, Sans takes his deer back into his pocket with…perhaps a little more respect than when he’d brought it out, and when he gets back home, it doesn’t go into the trash.

It’s not much, but that feels important, too.

-

“SO I’M RUNNING FOR TREASURER OF THE LOCAL HOMEOWNER’S ASSOCIATION,” Sans says on another occasion.

Bridget’s eyebrows shoot up, but otherwise her expression stays neutral.

“That’s exciting news,” she replies conservatively. “What brought this on?”

“A DEEP, ABIDING PASSION FOR THE WELFARE AND PRIDE OF MY NEIGHBORHOOD?”

“No.”

“HEHEHEH… YOU’RE RIGHT, BUT IT’S A LONG STORY.”

“I’ve got time,” says Bridget.

“I PAY YOU TO HAVE TIME,” Sans retorts.

“Yes,” she agrees, “that’s how this works.”

Which is fair.

“WELL, OUT OF RESPECT FOR YOUR TIME, I’M SURE I CAN CONDENSE IT—I’M WAGING WAR ON THE SECRETARY AND THIS IS THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY TO MAKE HER LIFE MISERABLE AND DESTROY ALL THAT SHE HOLDS DEAR.”

Bridget’s eyebrows are inching back up again, higher with every word.

“…Perhaps you could un-condense it a bit?” she requests.

Which is, again, fair.

“I RECEIVED A FINE RECENTLY,” he explains. “OVER THE HEIGHT OF MY MAILBOX. TWO INCHES TOO SHORT, APPARENTLY, PER THE BYLAWS AND REGULATIONS OR SOME OTHER SUCH BULLSHIT. I IMAGINE IT’S BEEN TOO SHORT SINCE WE MOVED IN BACK IN 20XX.”

A familiar shrewd glint is entering Dr. Wilson’s eyes, and Sans knows she’s beginning to catch on.

“So why is the citation only coming now?”

“I CAN ONLY SPECULATE,” Sans says. “BUT IN MY SPECULATION, IT OCCURRED TO ME THAT THE FINE CORRELATED VERY CLOSELY ON THE HEELS OF A BARBECUE MY FAMILY AND I ATTENDED, WHERE A CERTAIN LADY MADE QUITE A SOUR FACE WHEN SHE ASKED MY PARTNER WHICH BROTHER WAS HERS AND RECEIVED AN ANSWER.”

“And that lady was the secretary,” Dr. Wilson concludes.

“ELLEN,” Sans agrees. “…BUT I’M NOT AN UNREASONABLE MAN, BRIDGET. I LIKE GAMES. IF SHE WANTS TO PLAY GAMES, I’M HAPPY TO BE HER OPPONENT.”

“And becoming Treasurer of the HOA is…?”

“STEP ONE. I WON’T BORE YOU WITH ALL THE INTERMEDIATE STEPS, BUT I INTEND TO INFILTRATE AND MAKE HER LIFE AS UNPLEASANT AS POSSIBLE BY STRANGLING HER TO DEATH WITH HER OWN RED TAPE. …METAPHORICALLY, OF COURSE.”

“Of course,” Bridget echoes.

“I’VE ALREADY BEGUN KEEPING RECORDS, BUILDING EVIDENCE AND SUCH…”

He can’t be sure until he gets a good look at the HOA’s accounting—just another reason to gain access to their inner circle—but based on the mismatch between Ellen and her husband’s finances and some of their luxury purchases, he suspects at least a bit of embezzlement of community funds to be going on.

He’s already certain that she’s committed mail fraud, or some variant of the crime. The citation letter left in his (“too short”) mailbox was not properly post-marked, and written testimonials collected from other neighbors confirms Ellen’s tendency to just print up fines and threatening letters and hand-deliver them into peoples’ boxes as the mood strikes her.

It would be the cherry on top of all this to get her indicted for a federal crime, but he isn’t sure if what he has would be enough for that, so the evidence gathering on at least the HOA-related infractions continues.

You’ve taken to looking at him like he’s mildly insane when he shortcuts to the window at precisely 6AM on the dot to take photographs of Ellen’s incorrectly oriented trash bins, and Papyrus had laughed for ten minutes when Sans sent him to a home improvement store to steal paint swatches over a suspicion that Ellen’s new addition had been painted ‘Simply White’ and not the approved shade of ‘White Dove,’ but Sans doesn’t care.

He has been mildly inconvenienced and personally disrespected.

“IT’S WAR NOW.”

“Well,” says Bridget at length. “It’s good to have hobbies. How’s the campaign going?”

Sans’ answering grin is razor sharp.

“VERY WELL. I’M RUNNING ON THE PROMISE OF AN HOA BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE.”

“By which you mean…?”

“I MAY HAVE INTIMATED TO A FEW THAT I INTEND TO DISMANTLE THE ESTABLISHMENT ALTOGETHER FROM THE INSIDE OUT. I HOPE THEY HAVEN’T SPREAD THAT TO ANY OTHER CONSTITUENTS WHO MIGHT NOT OTHERWISE SHOW UP TO THE BOARD MEETING WHEN THE ELECTION WILL BE TAKING PLACE, THOUGH…”

Bridget can hide it all she likes, but Sans can tell she’s grinning, too.

“Definitely looking forward to hearing the outcome of that one,” she says.

“ME TOO. I’LL KEEP YOU POSTED.”

-

“You’re not wearing your gloves today.”

Sans blinks, pausing mid-gesture and only just resisting the self-conscious urge to tuck his bare phalanges out of sight.

“I…YES. I’M…I’VE BEEN TRYING TO…DO THAT MORE.”

“You don’t have to,” says Dr. Wilson. “If you feel more comfortable wearing certain things, you don’t have to force yourself to—”

“NO, THAT’S NOT… I’M NOT FORCING MYSELF, I’M…” Sans shakes his head a little. “I’M JUST BREAKING A HABIT. I DON’T NEED THEM, ANYMORE.”

“And you did before?”

“YES.”

Sans doesn’t particularly want to explain.

He can see, preemptively, the direction of the conversation that’s going to follow, and he can hear the notes of a lecture he’s already heard twice now…

But Bridget has stumbled onto something significant and he knows that she knows it and there’s no point prolonging the inevitable, really.

“MY GLOVES WERE NEVER COMFORT-RELATED. THEY SERVED A PURPOSE,” he says shortly. “THE TIPS WERE REINFORCED AROUND MY CLAWS SO THE POINTS WOULDN’T TEAR THROUGH AND I COULD STILL USE MY HANDS FOR…HAND-TYPE ACTIVITIES. WITHOUT BLUNTING THEIR EDGE.”

Bridget takes a moment to process this.

“So what changed?”

Sans looks down at his claws, eyeing their shape.

“I FIXED THEM.”

The blunted edges of his phalanges still look a little strange to him, honestly, naked somehow with neither a casing of purple leather or a honed blade’s edge to protect them.

But it wasn’t a bad strange, or at least…he didn’t think so.

Just new.

“How did you fix them?”

“HOW DO YOU RUIN ANY GOOD KNIFE?” Sans wonders rhetorically. “I’VE BEEN DOING MY WHITTLING BAREHANDED LATELY. NOTHING QUITE LIKE WOOD TO TAKE THE EDGE OFF OF SOMETHING…”

“Did that hurt you?”

“NO WORSE THAN IT HURT TO SHARPEN THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE,” Sans quips.

That had hurt, ignoring the sting just to force his claws into a deadlier shape, rendering them numb for days each of the few times he’d done it and had to wait for his magic to slowly trickle back in and restore sensation.

By comparison, blunting them had been easy, almost painless; a gradual, faint, arthritic sort of ache, easily ignored as he used his bare thumb to bore a hole in a pendant here or his pinky to detail a parabolic pattern on a picture frame there.

And then it had been over, practically before he even knew it.

…But Sans had heard the delicacy of the doctor’s inquiry, the unspoken ‘is self-harm a concern here?’ and he was not so churlish as to ignore it.

“I’M DONE,” he says to her, hoping to assuage her concerns. “I’VE ALREADY TAKEN UP MY KNIFE AGAIN AND I HAVE BEEN CHASTISED IN STEREO ABOUT DOING STUPID THINGS THAT HURT ME, BUT IT…IT WAS NEVER ABOUT THAT.”

Sans can’t quite tell if Bridget believes that or not, but she’s at least willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“What was it about?”

Sans’ eye-lights fall to his claws again.

He folds them in his lap, neatly slotting them against each other.

Their curve is still wicked, the tips pointed, and if he really dug in, he could still do some damage with them…

But they weren’t…

They were just…

“…I WANTED HANDS AGAIN.”

Which makes very little sense, without the context of his thoughts, so Sans attempts to elaborate for the doctor.

“WHEN… MY CLAWS, WHEN THEY WERE SHARP, THEY WEREN’T… THEY WERE WEAPONS. THEY HAD A PURPOSE, AND IT WAS…CUTTING. SLASHING. HURTING. THAT…WASN’T RIGHT ANYMORE, FOR ME. I…WANTED SOMETHING ELSE.”

“Hands,” Bridget helpfully fills in.

“YES. I…WAS TIRED OF…FEELING LIKE A PART OF MYSELF WAS…… LIKE I HAD MADE A PART OF MYSELF BE…A WEAPON… WHEN I DIDN’T NEED IT ANYMORE. WHEN THERE ARE THINGS…PEOPLE THAT I………”

Sans thinks of you, his soul sparking fondly in his chest.

You weren’t the only reason, but you were a great example.

Someone he wanted to touch without fear, without hesitance or worry of causing you pain because of what he’d done to stay safe in the past; to stay alive long enough just to meet you.

Long enough to outgrow the need for an always-drawn sword, and long enough to find a place with enough peace and enough safety that he could just…

Lay it down.

Be done with it.

“I DID IT TO MYSELF,” Sans says of his claws, looking Dr. Wilson in the eye. “NOW I’VE UNDONE IT. THAT’S ALL.”

“…Alright,” Bridget says, assessing whatever she must be assessing of him. “But for the record, I don’t like the idea of you hurting yourself and I definitely don’t condone it.”

“I KNOW TWO PEOPLE WHO HAVE SAID PRECISELY THE SAME THING IN MORE ANNOYED, EMOTIONAL, AND CONDESCENDING TONES, AND I LIVE WITH BOTH. I HAVE NO PROOF, BUT I’M FAIRLY SURE THAT IF THEY CATCH ME DOING ANYTHING STUPID AGAIN, THE PLAN IS TO CLUB ME OVER THE BACK OF THE SKULL AND CHAIN ME UP IN SOME SORT OF TERRIBLE SELF-CARE DUNGEON FROM WHICH I WILL NEVER ESCAPE. …I CAN PROVIDE THEIR NUMBERS IF YOU’D LIKE AN EMERGENCY CONTACT OR TWO, OR WOULD JUST LIKE TO JOIN IN THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST ME.”

“Oh, that would be lovely, thank you.”

“OF COURSE, THE MORE THE MERRIER.”

-

When one finally lays down their sword, the shield isn’t likely far behind.

When Empress Toriel calls him to her chambers one day, Sans goes without protest or question, knowing precisely what she wants to discuss with him.

He can see it after all, there behind her.

Still, Sans holds to all proper protocol and presses his fist to the Delta Rune on his chest, bowing respectfully as if this were any other meeting.

“YOUR MAJESTY. HOW MAY I SERVE YOU?”

Toriel does not look particularly amused by his deference today.

“I would think,” she says, “you would know the answer to that, Captain.”

“I TRY NOT TO PRESUME YOUR INTENTIONS, YOUR MAJESTY.”

“That is a lie and you will explain yourself.”

She flicks her paw backwards, a half-gesture at the single sheet of paper on her desk.

“MY LETTER OF RESIGNATION?”

Toriel frowns.

“So it is not simply a joke in poor taste.”

“I ASSURE YOU,” Sans promises, “IT IS GENUINE.”

It had been perhaps one of the hardest things Sans had ever done, writing that letter. Harder still to actually submit it and to ignore the marrow-deep fear telling him to retract it, take it back, destroy it before the Empress could actually see it.

But he could see no other way around it.

This was necessary.

“You want to resign. From the Royal Guard.”

“YES.”

“You realize this is unprecedented, do you not?”

“I DO.”

No one resigned from the Royal Guard, not in any monster’s living memory save maybe Toriel’s, or her estranged husband’s.

The Guard was considered a lifetime commitment—mostly in the sense that commitment meant a definitive ending to your lifetime, a life and inevitable (probably early) death in service to the Empress.

Asking to leave just wasn’t done.

…Except.

“Why?”

Toriel’s voice is hard as she asks it, and when Sans looks up at her, her eyes are icy, without so much as a trace of her fiery nature.

“What is so important to you,” she demands, “that you would seek to turn your back on the crown?”

“MAY I SPEAK FREELY?” Sans asks.

“I am ordering you to.”

“THEN, I AM NOT TURNING MY BACK ON THE CROWN. NOR YOU. I RESPECT YOU, YOUR MAJESTY, MORE THAN ANY MONSTER I HAVE EVER KNOWN. THE EMPIRE YOU’VE BUILT, THE PEOPLE YOU HAVE KEPT IN LINE LONG ENOUGH TO LEAD TO FREEDOM, THE LIFE YOU’RE MAKING EVEN NOW FOR YOURSELF… I…ADMIRE YOU, GREATLY, AND IF MY SERVICES ARE EVER NEEDED, I WON’T HESITATE TO COME AT YOUR CALL.”

It’s the truth, and he hopes Toriel can see that in his face and in his body language, as open as either have ever been around her.

“…BUT. I’M NOT…REALLY NEEDED HERE NOW…AM I?” Sans huffs out a sound that could almost be a laugh, in another life. “MONSTERKIND IS FREE. WE’RE AT PEACE WITH HUMANITY. THE NEED FOR THE GUARD IS… OF COURSE, THERE IS STILL A NEED FOR THE GUARD, EVEN IN PEACETIMES, BUT… I PLAY BODYGUARD NOW INSTEAD OF PEACEKEEPER. I DO PAPERWORK INSTEAD OF PATROLS. ANY SOLDIER COULD FILL THAT NICHE, IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE ME ANYMORE.”

Toriel narrows her eyes a bit.

“If you are seeking higher honors—”

“I’M NOT.” Sans sighs, letting his posture sag, bearing the full weight of the truth. “I’M TIRED. I… I JOINED THE ROYAL GUARD… BECAUSE IT NEEDED ME, AND BECAUSE I NEEDED IT. BECAUSE……BECAUSE I WAS FOURTEEN AND FIGHTING AND KILLING WAS THE ONLY THING I KNEW HOW TO DO WELL ENOUGH TO LIVE ON IT, AND I HAD A CHILD TO PROTECT AND TO PROVIDE FOR.”

Sans can see a flash of surprise, maybe even a maternal sort of horror flickering across Toriel’s face, but he wants neither sympathy nor pity.

“IT’S ALL DIFFERENT NOW,” Sans says. “I’M GROWN. MY BROTHER IS GROWN. THERE’S PEACE, FOR THE MOST PART, AND I…DON’T…NEED TO DO THIS, ANYMORE. I DON’T WANT TO. I’M DONE. I…WANT TO BE DONE. I WANT TO DO OTHER THINGS, WITH MY LIFE. …I WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH MY FAMILY.”

The last was an admittedly calculated sentence, knowing the Empress’ soft-spot for that particular f-word, but it wasn’t a lie.

None of what Sans is telling Toriel now is a lie, or even an exaggeration.

It’s just the culmination of weeks upon weeks of self-reflection, analysis of his life and himself as they are and as he wants them to be.

Working at the Embassy, and as Captain of the Royal Guard, on the Surface… it takes his time and his energy, without the fulfilment that it used to provide.

He doesn’t need the protection of his rank anymore, not really, and neither does his brother.

Sans can do something else, if he wants to.

He can be something else.

He can have something else.

Sans straightens, resuming proper parade rest with his hands behind his back, the mask of professionalism back in place.

“OF COURSE, I WILL STAY ON AS LONG AS YOU DEEM NECESSARY. I WILL SEE TO THE COMPLETION OF ALL MY DUTIES TO MY USUAL STANDARD OF EFFICIENCY FOR THE DURATION OF MY TRANSITION OUT, OR UNTIL I CAN FULLY TRAIN A REPLACEMENT TO YOUR SATISFACTION. WHATEVER COURSE OF ACTION YOU DEEM BEST, I WILL ADHERE TO IT, BUT MY INTENTION TO RESIGN IS FIRM AND I APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE IT CAUSES YOU.”

The Empress’ face is…hard to read, even for Sans.

He remains stock-still as she slowly turns and walks to her desk, picking up his letter.

“…I will need to think on this,” she says, frowning a bit. “No one has resigned since before the Barrier was erected, I do not even remember the protocol, though I am sure you have likely broken it.”

A knot of something deep inside of Sans’ chest eases a bit at the vaguely surly words.

“PLEASE FORGIVE ME, YOUR MAJESTY,” he demurs.

“We shall see,” she mutters. And when he does not move, a flippant wave of her paw. “You are dismissed, Captain. I will inform you of my decision when I have made it.”

Sans bows, thanks her, and leaves her to resume his duties.

He receives his discharge papers—awarding full honors and accolades—three months later, and an invitation to his own retirement party a week after that.

Several guardsmen give touching rousing speeches in his honor, Alphys hardly cries at all when she formally pins a few final medals to his chest, and the salute that all his fellow soldiers and even Toriel herself give him at the end of the evening makes Sans’ own sockets a touch misty.

He shows off his gift basket to you and Papyrus when he arrives home late that night, and your ‘ooh’s and ‘aah’s over the bottles of expensive red wine, the fancy fountain pen, and the specially engraved brand new pocket-watch are suitably impressed for his liking.

Sans shares none of this with Bridget beyond a passing mention of his changing career.

“How is your new job treating you?” she asks one afternoon.

“WELL,” says Sans. “I LIKE WORKING WITH NUMBERS.”

The modest little corporation that enlisted him to be their dedicated actuary offers good benefits, decent pay, and interesting challenges for him to calculate and solve on a daily basis.

And more importantly, his hours are a set 8-to-5 and he’s never scheduled on the weekend.

“MORE TIME TO SPEND WITH MY FAMILY, TOO…”

“That’s wonderful, Sans, I’m glad.”

Sans smiles.

“SO AM I.”

-

Bridget gives him a real humdinger of a question towards the end of one of their sessions.

“How would you describe yourself, Sans?”

Sans is already opening his mouth to respond when she adds the tricky caveat.

“Without saying anything that you do for someone else. Who are you?”

Sans thinks about it…but actually formulating a sentence…one that fits within the constraints given…

“I…I DON’T KNOW,” he says, allowing himself the admission.

I DON’T KNOW IF I’VE EVER KNOWN, REALLY, he does not allow himself to say, because there’s nowhere near enough time left for them today to get into that.

Bridget seems to realize this as well.

“You can think about it,” she encourages. “The most ‘normal,’ well-adjusted person in the world would probably need a long weekend to mull that one over all the way.”

“SO I’LL BE IN MY EIGHTIES WHEN I FIGURE IT OUT, THEN?”

“I hope not,” Bridget says mildly. “I’ll be dead by then.”

Sans chuckles.

“Really, it’s just a thought. I only want you to think about it, I’m not going to ask you to submit an answer in writing or anything.”

“YES, I KNOW. I’LL THINK ABOUT IT. …PROBABLY NOT TONIGHT, THOUGH,” he adds after a second of thought.

Bridget’s interest is piqued.

“Oh? What’s tonight?”

“WHY, DR. WILSON, AFTER ALL THIS TIME, YOU DON’T KNOW MY BIRTHDAY? I’M HURT!”

Bridget only laughs at his mock-aggrieved tone.

“Well, maybe I’d have known it if you hadn’t moved it,” she teases.

“WELL, MAYBE I WOULDN’T HAVE MOVED IT IF YOU HADN’T SUGGESTED IT,” he teases in return.

Sans hadn’t been wholly in favor of the idea, at first.

It had seemed silly to him to just…call a different day his ‘birthday’ when he never even really celebrated the damn thing to begin with.

What was to celebrate about his Tube Extraction Day? The day he was dragged into a shitty existence with a shitty guardian who got the ball rolling on trauma the likes of which he was still coping with as a grown skeleton?

But slowly, the idea of moving it—choosing a different day to celebrate on, untainted by bad associations—had grown in Sans’ mind, and started to gain some sort of appeal, and you had been supportive, and Papyrus was so happy that he actually wanted to celebrate for once that he hadn’t even questioned it, and…

Well.

Today was his birthday, now.

“Happy birthday,” Bridget says, “though I’m sure that’d have had more oomph if I’d been told beforehand so I could thoughtfully remember it for you.”

“C’EST LA VIE. THANK YOU, ANYWAY.”

“Any plans for tonight?”

“SUPPOSEDLY,” Sans shrugs. “THOUGH I’VE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE. I’VE JUST BEEN TOLD TO KEEP MY EVENING CLEAR AND BE HOME BY SEVEN AT THE LATEST.”

Bridget looks over at the clock on the far wall.

It reads 6:53 PM.

“You’d best get a move-on then, don’t you think?”

“YES,” Sans agrees with a wink. “I DO.”

And in the blink of an eye, he’s back home.

The party horns and confetti-poppers go off instantly, and Sans is laughing as you and Papyrus descend upon him, welcoming him home.

He graciously accepts the kiss you give him, and not-so-graciously smacks away the ‘OLDER THAN DIRT’ ribbon Papyrus tries to slyly stick on him while he is distracted.

As is his duty as the Birthday Skeleton, he allows himself to be led to the den and pretends not to notice his brother slipping away to retrieve he-couldn’t-guess-what, and even acts very surprised when a cake of all things is brought in!

(He puts a stop to the Birthday Song, however: a man has to draw the line somewhere.)

Still, you and Papyrus clap half-playfully and half-earnestly when he blows out the candles and Sans feels warm when you announce that it’s time for presents.

“mine first,” Papyrus insists, only to set a gigantic box down on the floor in front of Sans.

“…THIS IS A PRANK,” Sans guesses, sockets narrowed. “THERE’S A CASCADE OF SMALLER WRAPPED BOXES IN HERE AND AT THE CENTER, IT’S JUST A GUMBALL IN A JEWELRY BOX OR SOMETHING, RIGHT?”

“Snrk… Are you sure you’re not projecting?” you wonder cheekily. “That sounds like something you would do.”

“has done. my fourteenth, i almost killed him…”

“YOU ALMOST TRIED.”

Papyrus does not rise to the taunt.

“as much as you’d deserve the payback, no. just open it.”

Sans sighs, rolling his eye-lights but tearing the paper off of the comically large box, looking for the best place to open it.

When he does find a taped-up seam and breaks through, pulling open the flaps to reveal the contents of the present…

His soul stutters in his chest.

Sans’ skull immediately whips around to his brother, staring at him in stunned silence.

Papyrus says nothing, offering only a sheepish little shrug in response, and Sans turns back to the box.

It does not contain smaller boxes.

It doesn’t contain anything, in fact, but a disorganized-looking pile of wood.

Very, very familiar pieces of wood.

Sans reaches in, pulling one out and turning it over in his claws, just to be sure he isn’t mistaken.

He isn’t.

These are…his.

His failures, all of them, every single one he’d thrown away, right here in front of him.

They look a little different, of course.

Papyrus, it seems, has taken the initiative to paint them—suitable colors for the recognizable figures, complementary palettes for the more abstract shapes that weren’t supposed to be anything—but beyond that…

Sans’ memory must be crueler than he realized, because even with a fresh and bright coat of paint on them, they don’t look nearly as bad as he remembered them to be.

“PAPYRUS…” he breathes, setting one piece down and picking up another. “YOU…?”

“…i liked ‘em,” Papyrus says awkwardly. “i thought they were cool, so i… y’know. plus, they’re a gift now, you can’t throw ‘em out again, it’d be rude.”

Even after months of therapy, Sans doesn’t have remotely the emotional vocabulary to tell his brother the magnitude of this gift and how much it means to him; how touched he is, and how dearly he loves his little sibling to have even thought of this.

Luckily, he and Papyrus have a pretty good shorthand for things like that.

“YOU’RE AN IDIOT,” he tells Papyrus, who beams and leans over the box to force a hug on him.

“love you, too, bro.”

Sans grumbles, but returns the hug anyway.

“I don’t know if I can top that,” you admit, “but…”

Sans takes the wrapped box from your hands before you can say another word.

“IT’S FROM YOU,” he says matter-of-factly. “I TRUST YOUR TASTE.”

Sans pauses, glancing pointedly at Papyrus.

“…MOST OF THE TIME.”

“nyeheheheheh…!”

“Hahaha!”

He carefully tears through your wrapping to the delightful sound of your laughter, unveiling your gift.

Gifts, apparently, all part of a very clear theme: a bag of gourmet popcorn kernels, a whole jug of ‘theater grade’ butter-flavored oil, a brand new popcorn machine, and a freshly released film, still sealed in cellophane and ready to be watched.

Sans turns to you, already grinning as you explain, “I remember you wanted to see that when it came out… Maybe it’s a little late now—”

He takes your hand in his, pulling your fingers up to his teeth for a kiss(-equivalent nuzzle).

“NEVER TOO LATE, MY DEAR,” he purrs, delighting in your shy, yet pleased smile. “I LOVE IT. IS THIS THE PLAN FOR THE EVENING?”

“More or less, yeah.”

A quiet evening in, watching a movie and shoveling salt and grease into his face with the two people he cares about most in the world…

“I COULDN’T HAVE ASKED FOR A BETTER BIRTHDAY,” he tells you fondly, meaning every word.

The next several minutes contain many things: moving the box of painted whittling out of the way, cracking open a bottle from his retirement gift basket, an argument over whether ‘no cooking on your birthday’ supersedes ‘IT’S MY PRESENT AND IF YOU USE IT BEFORE I DO, I’M GOING TO KILL YOU,’ dimming the lights and getting the movie ready to go.

It also contains a sensual whisper from you on the sly, that Sans has yet another present, one he’ll get to unwrap later, when it’s just the two of you, and that’s it’s own sort of exciting.

But as Sans settles himself down on the couch for the evening, he thinks that maybe… he could think of a few ways to answer Dr. Wilson’s question after all.

“Without saying anything that you do for someone else. Who are you?”

Sans is…Papyrus’ brother.

He’s your lover, and your partner.

He’s a full-time actuary, a part-time craftsman, and (to a certain Ellen’s great and terrible dismay) the newly-elected Treasurer of his neighborhood Homeowner’s Association…for as long as that still existed.

He’s…

He is Sans.

And that…feels like enough for him.

Papyrus gracelessly plops down on the couch to his left, ‘casually’ resting his elbow directly atop Sans’ shoulder like he’s not being an ungrateful little shit on purpose.

You slide in on his right next, though, with the glass of wine he’d forgotten in the kitchen in one hand and a big bowl of fluffy, buttery popcorn in the other.

Sans takes his glass with a grateful peck to your cheek, and Papyrus digs around in the cushions for the remote to get the movie playing, and you put the popcorn bowl in Sans’ lap so you can edge in just a little closer, cuddling right up against his side.

As the film begins to play on the TV, Sans really, truly cannot think of a single thing more he could wish to have in his life right now.

He has everything he needs right here.

And Sans is happy.

Chapter Text

“I don’t want it.”

Papyrus frowns.

He opens his mouth to reply, but they cut him off.

“Seriously,” Dor insists. “I dated him for two weeks, and I think he ghosted me for half of it… Am I really the best person you could find?”

The mouse monster sounds incredulous; so condescendingly so that though he dwarfs them by several feet, Papyrus still starts to sweat a little under their judgmental stare.

“…i…w…well, uh………”

Dor draws the correct conclusion from his lacking answer.

There was no one else.

They snort and shake their head.

“That should tell you something, I think,” they say, pointedly.

Papyrus…tries not to wilt.

A brief silence stretches between them.

…And then, a sigh.

“Stars,” Dor grumbles. “Just give me the fucking thing…”

Eagerly, Papyrus does.

“Oh, don’t look so happy about it, I’m probably gonna throw it in the garbage when I get home… Our ‘relationship’ was a joke, and so was he…and not even a funny one!”

“that…that’s fine!” Papyrus says quickly. “i-i don’t…care, what you, uh…what you do with it… it’s yours, i just……”

i just have to do this.

He doesn’t quite manage to complete the thought out loud, but Dor doesn’t seem to care either.

“Tch, you’re too soft. He really wasn’t worth this, you know.”

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But that wasn’t really the point, was it?

When Dor realizes he’s out of things to say, they roll their eyes at him and turn on their heel.

“Take care of yourself, Papyrus,” is their parting shot as they walk away, and his awkward, returning, “uh, you too,” probably comes far too late for even their oversized ears to hear.

Still.

It’s…something.

-

Papyrus sits on his bed, claws fiddling absently with his sheets while you rifle through his closet.

“You need a system,” your muffled voice says, floating out from behind the layers of clothes that have disembodied you from the waist up.

“i have a system,” he protests. “i…know where all the things are an’ i don’t move ‘em, ever, ‘cause i just wear the same five outfits all the time.”

You take a step back, extracting your head from the closet just to stare at him.

Your face is stern and flat, but—from static and mussing alike—your hair looks positively crazy, and all Papyrus can think is that you’re adorable and he loves you so much.

“Your system sucks,” you declare, and Papyrus laughs.

“yeah, it does.”

You look altogether exasperated…but as always, he can see it in your eyes that the love-thing is very mutual.

It softens the blow considerably.

Regardless, he notices a few hangers in your hands, so he prompts you to show him what you’ve unearthed from the depths of his sartorial graveyard.

The first shirt he pulls on is navy blue, gold-foil filigree patterning the long sleeves. It looks good on him, objectively, and you say as much.

Papyrus agrees, but…

“it’s…a little flashy,” he’s forced to conclude, tugging it off over his head.

Flashy is not what he’s going for.

Agreeably, you hand him another option.

This one is black, pleasantly soft and well-fitting, though he does have to fiddle with his collar a bit until he gets the turtleneck to sit right underneath it. It also looks pretty good, certainly simpler without any design or metallic print…

But there’s no sleeves.

Which means that his scars are on full display.

Papyrus doesn’t have much baggage tied to any of his scars—marks of self-defense, nothing more, nothing less—but a decent chunk of them happen to have been scored into his ulnae, and his humeri, and…

They’re noticeable, regardless of any emotional weight, and having so many of them showcased…now, for this, feels…

Tacky?

Inappropriate?

Cheap?

Papyrus is at a loss for the word, but this shirt isn’t right, either.

He’s struggling with how to tell you as much when you interrupt, tone vaguely accusatory.

“Why haven’t you worn this yet?”

Papyrus blinks.

He looks at you(r reflection in the mirror), just at his side, your eyes lingering along his chest and arms.

Appreciatively.

Papyrus feels his cheekbones go a little purple, even as he can’t hold back a pleased smile.

“i dunno why. i will,” he promises, making a mental note in bold and underlined to try this sweater out again sometime for you, “but not…i need somethin’ else, for… i’m not trying to look hot.”

You make a show of looking down at the clothes in your arms, and then back up at him.

“Well,” you say eventually. “That’s gonna be difficult.”

Stars, Papyrus loves you.

Aside from all the other reasons he has to love you as much as he does, you’re also so incredibly good for his ego.

After a bit of reshuffling and another peek into the closet, you hand Papyrus one more shirt that he reluctantly puts on.

Honestly, he can’t remember where this cornflower blue atrocity of a button-up even came from, and it actually probably looks…fine…but—

“i hate it,” Papyrus blurts out, before he can think better of it. “i look like i’m—”

“A high schooler trying not to throw up before your first job interview.”

“yes!!!”

Papyrus wastes no time tugging that one off, claws fumbling with the cheap plastic buttons.

“You know,” you say slowly, taking the offensive shirt away, “it would be a lot easier for me to help you if I knew what this was for.”

“………”

Papyrus grimaces.

Undoubtedly, it would be.

He should tell you what he’s planning and why he needs your help with a Look that isn’t slobby chic or pretend-badass.

He should be able to tell you.

…But something’s staying his metaphorical tongue, and he just can’t…seem to…

This is personal.

You can help, but it’s not for you.

You sigh.

A weird mixture of guilt and relief pools in Papyrus’ soul when he realizes there’s a surrender in that sigh; that you’ve elected not to push on this one.

He loves you.

“Okay. Alright. Not ‘flashy,’ not ‘hot,’ not ‘young business professional’—can you tell me what we are going for here?”

Papyrus considers the circumstances; the impression he wants to give off.

“Formal?” he guesses.

You look skeptical.

“Do you even own a tie?”

“……s…semi-formal???”

The skepticism sharpens.

Papyrus huffs.

“i don’t……i don’t want to look fancy…o-or like i’m, like i’m trying to…… i don’t wanna impress anybody, i just… i want…the outfit…to not matter. i don’t wanna look like anything.”

His nebulous thoughts probably make very little sense, said aloud, but Papyrus knows you.

He knows that if there’s any sense to be found in the words, you’ll give them enough consideration to dig it out.

Sure enough, after only a moment, he sees you start to nod.

“Neutral,” you conclude. “I can work with neutral.”

With another moment of closet-excavation (and one short trip to the mall), Papyrus finds himself looking in the mirror again.

A deep plum pullover, with a simple black jacket on over it. Dark jeans and black boots.

No prints, no fur lining, no rips or paint splatters, no buckles or flair…

The flashiest thing on him is his collar, and no monster would look twice at that.

“it’s perfect,” he decides.

You smile, as pleased with your work as you are with his approval.

“Good. You look great,” and then, a touch playfully, “but not too great.”

“ah, you know me,” Papyrus jokes. “m’always worried about lookin’ too great.”

Your laughter is the best prize he could ever ask for.

………

He’ll get through this.

He has to.

He’s got a lot more of those laughs to hear.

-

The claw-shaped bullet that lands at Papyrus’ feet is a little more like what he’s been expecting.

His offering clatters to the ground as he skitters back a step, a watcher as accusatory as the living beaked face that glares at him now across the trail.

Celaena is pissed.

And Papyrus doesn’t think he blames her.

“You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve!” she whistles, her feathers thoroughly fluffed. “Eight years and that’s what you show up with?!”

Acutely aware of the high ground she has over him from her perch in the pine, Papyrus does his damnedest not to look as nervous as he feels—even as he tries to brace himself for an Encounter at any second.

“i…i-it’s…not enough,” he stammers weakly. “i know, i know it’s……i just—”

“‘You just’ what?!”

Papyrus’ claws clench at his sides.

“i just… i can’t……take it back.”

Celaena’s expression drops.

“i didn’t want…i never wanted to…t-to…”

Papyrus frowns, frustrated with himself, and the Way Things Were, and everything else.

“if i knew,” he tries to explain. “that they…that i… i…i dunno, maybe i could’ve… i dunno. i dunno, a-an’ it doesn’t…nothin’ changes, i know that, but i—”

“Stop.”

Papyrus stops.

The harpy in the tree isn’t angry anymore…or at least, not only angry.

She looks torn, mad and sad and guilty and vaguely sick.

She looks tired.

“Don’t,” she says, sounding just as exhausted as she looks. “Don’t do that. There’s no… Feh, it’s like you said, it doesn’t change anything.”

Unsure of what that means for him, Papyrus keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t move.

Celaena hops down from her perch, her claws rustling the gravel of the empty hiking trail.

Papyrus watches warily as she strides forward, but she stops at his ‘gift’ and comes no closer.

She stands there, looking down at it for a long, long moment.

It could be a trick of the light, but the dark eyes above her beak look a little shinier; a little wetter.

“You didn’t do it.”

Papyrus nearly flinches at the suddenness of the statement, but the harpy’s attention has clearly left him.

She’s bending, nudging the paltry token into her wings with one clawed foot.

Cradling it, like something special.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Celaena says, reluctantly. “You didn’t help, but…you weren’t the one who…”

The anger filters back into her face, just for a moment.

It twists her expression into something cold and ugly, and then it’s gone—leaving only a weary sneer behind.

“The worst you did was give Ocy a bum leg they couldn’t take off on,” Celaena says. “Stop trying to take credit for the rest of it.”

Papyrus doesn’t know what to say to that.

He settles on a feeble, “sorry,” which makes her shake her head.

“Yeah…me, too.”

Papyrus startles back another step when one powerful kick of Celaena’s legs lands her back in the tree, her back pointedly towards him.

“Get out of here,” she mutters, “before I call the human Guard on you, or…whatever.”

Not seeing any point in the risk of calling that bluff, Papyrus silently turns, beginning the long trudge back towards civilization.

It was…far from the most satisfying way that encounter could’ve gone.

But satisfaction wasn’t the point of this, either.

And he’s not done yet.

-

You’re out of the house today.

You’re meeting up with someone and Papyrus can’t remember precisely who—you’ve been meeting up with a lot of people lately and he hasn’t really been able to keep it all straight, but…

Well, he guesses that kind of thing happens when the friends and family who took your ex’s side in your divorce just happen to learn about said ex’s prolific cheating habit and the harassment campaign that followed the split, some of which they ignorantly contributed to without bothering to know the full story.

It’s a very human impulse (for lack of a better adjective), Papyrus supposes, wanting to make amends when you’ve done wrong.

He understands it.

Stars, does he.

But the people from your old life outside Ebott are no business of Papyrus’, at least not until you’ve sorted through them all and decided who to welcome back and who to keep shut out.

What is his business is that you’re out, and Sans is working from home today, and now is the best time to ask.

“hey.”

“HEY,” his brother returns, absently and without even taking his eye-lights off his laptop. “WHAT.”

Papyrus doesn’t prevaricate.

“i need a favor.”

That, at least, gets Sans to look up.

And then, he’s scowling, having drawn some kind of conclusion from whatever’s on Papyrus’ face.

“WHAT’S WRONG?” he demands.

“nothing,” says Papyrus, and one browbone raises almost incredulously—as if to say, ‘YOU DON’T ACTUALLY THINK I BUY THAT FOR ONE SECOND, DO YOU?’

Papyrus sighs, not exasperated, per se, but perhaps…exasperated-adjacent.

“it’s fine,” he insists. “nothing’s wrong, everything’s fine, i just need a favor.”

Another Look, this time to the tune of ‘OH, REALLY?’

“WHAT’S THE FAVOR,” Sans asks flatly.

“i need you to cover my third of the bills for a couple months.”

Sans’ scowl loses a fair bit of steam then and there.

“…SERIOUSLY?” he wonders. “THAT’S ALL?”

“yeah.”

Papyrus spares a moment to think about the paint he needs to replenish, the canvases he has to pick up, the time he won’t be able to work on anything that brings in a paycheck…

“i’m… i’m doing a hiatus, i guess, so i won’t be… i mean, i got a little saved up, i could probably—”

Sans interrupts him.

“NO, NO, THAT’S… IT’S FINE,” he says, looking vaguely perplexed now. “EASILY DONE, WE’RE…FINE, I CAN DO THAT. YOU JUST…HAD A LOOK LIKE YOU WERE… ABOUT TO BEQUEATH ALL YOUR EARTHLY POSSESSIONS TO OUR LADY BEFORE WALKING OFF TO THE FIRING SQUAD.”

“…no. definitely not.”

Oh stars damn it, the scowl was back.

“YOU HESITATED,” Sans points out. “I DON’T LIKE THAT YOU HESITATED, PAPYRUS.”

The exasperation is no longer merely ‘adjacent.’

“sans—”

“PAPYRUS.”

Sans gets up, turning fully away from his computer and looking his brother dead in the eye-sockets.

“ARE YOU IN TROUBLE?” he asks.

“no.”

“ARE YOU GOING TO BE?”

“i……maybe. i hope not.”

“ARE YOU GOING TO DO SOMETHING THAT’S GOING TO GET YOU INTO TROUBLE?”

“………”

Papyrus isn’t sure what name to put to the look on Sans’ face at his silence, but it’s nothing positive.

“CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON?”

“i’d…rather not.”

This is personal.

Sans can help, but it’s not for him.

“…CAN I TALK YOU OUT OF WHATEVER THIS IS?”

“no.”

On that, Papyrus is firm.

Sans just Looks at him, and when he speaks again, there’s a note in his voice that sounds pleading.

“CAN YOU AT LEAST PROMISE YOU AREN’T WALKING INTO A LITERAL FIRING SQUAD SOMEWHERE?”

“i…hope not.”

Sans covers his face with his hand, his claws pinching at his nasal ridge.

“I HATE THE ANSWERS YOU’RE GIVING ME RIGHT NOW, PAPYRUS.”

“i know.”

“IS THERE ANY REASON,” Sans wonders, his tone as faux-reasonable as could be expected of someone on the verge of a hysterical something-or-other, “ANYTHING YOU CAN GRACIOUSLY SHARE WITH ME AS TO WHY I SHOULDN’T EITHER PUT YOU ON HOUSE ARREST OR TAIL YOU FOR A MONTH UNTIL YOU STOP TALKING ABOUT WALKING INTO MYSTERIOUS, DANGEROUS SITUATIONS THAT COULD POTENTIALLY BE LIFE-THREATENING?”

Papyrus has a few.

“‘cause i’m a grown skeleton, i can walk through walls, we’re on the surface, and if i’m ever really in trouble, i got you number one on speed-dial.”

Clearly out-argued, Sans slumps visibly.

His mouth opens and closes once or twice before forming a weak, “DO YOU REALLY…?”

Papyrus pulls his phone from his pocket, pressing a single button.

On the table, Sans’ phone starts to ring, and Sans only sags more at the demonstration.

“WILL…CAN YOU TRY TO BE CAREFUL?” he asks a little desperately. “WHATEVER IT IS YOU HAVE TO DO?”

“of course.”

That’s an easy promise to make.

“we just got everything settled right up here, m’not gonna screw it up now.”

Despite himself it seems, Sans huffs out a laugh.

“GOOD,” he says. “IF YOU DO SOMETHING SO STUPID AS DIE ON US, I’LL—”

“sift through my dust for the g to pay the rent i owe?”

“NO, I’LL MAKE IT A GIFT INSTEAD OF A LOAN.”

“…no.”

“YOU WON’T OWE ME A THING, ALL DEBTS FORGIVEN.”

“no. i’m an adult, i contribute around here, same as you two.”

“NOT IF YOU’RE DEAD, YOU DON’T. I’LL TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING, PAPYRUS, YOU WON’T HAVE TO PAY BACK A SINGLE CENT!”

“you son of a bitch, this is blackmail.”

“YES!”

Just another reason Papyrus was going to get through all this.

He’d have to keep Sans from slandering his good name by not accepting the back rent he’d owe.

The utter bastard…

-

“I want to talk about the notebook,” Milo had said, at the start of it all.

Or at least, at the start of this particular sequence of events.

Papyrus had mentioned it before, mostly peripherally, but at least once, he had explained it, and its purpose in entirety.

A memorial.

A way to remember the people he’d hurt.

To…honor them, in a sense.

“Is that what you’re doing?” Milo had asked.

And the answer that Papyrus had eventually come up with…hadn’t been a good one.

His notebook, heavy with the weight of the lives he’d taken…hidden away, kept secret but kept, forever.

“The way you talk about it… It sounds like you think of these drawings as a…penance. Or punishment.”

They were.

Are.

An albatross of ink and paper, tied around his neck.

“I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to grieve, or to make amends…but I do think that this way may be hurting you. At the very least, I think it may be holding you back from doing something more meaningful with your guilt.”

Papyrus had felt truth in that statement, almost as soon as Milo had said it.

He mulled it over, privately, for a very long time.

He picked up his notebook again, for the first time since he bared his soul in showing it to you, and felt again all the negative emotions he’d attached to it.

The shame, the grief, the horror and the guilt…

“If you can, I’d like you to think about some less internal things you can do to fill this same niche. I think that turning these feelings into something productive might help you get some kind of…closure.”

He sat with his drawings for what felt like hours, tracing the old, dull, dead black-and-white portraits with his claws and knew…

He could do better.

He could do more.

And Papyrus knew then that he had work to do.

-

Papyrus saves the worst for last.

His feet feel like lead as he walks up to the humble little apartment at the back of the complex.

His hand shakes faintly as he raises it to knock on the door, and if he had a stomach, he knows it would be doing queasy backflips from sheer anxiety.

None of that compares to the sheer…nothing that strikes him, the moment that door swings open.

The monster before him is… shorter than he expected.

Older too, with noticeable wrinkles around his eyes and snout, more white in his quills than brown or even gray.

But he looks so much like her, so much like his long-late daughter that for a second, it wipes all thought from Papyrus’ skull; makes his soul stutter in his chest.

“m…mr. green…?” he manages to ask, instead of sinking through the floor itself to escape like he’d much rather do.

The porcupine man frowns up at him suspiciously.

“Yes?”

“i…i, uh…”

For a guy without a throat, Papyrus found it far too difficult to make the words come out.

The wrapped canvas tucked under his arm burns against his ribs, though, and he knows he has to see this through—all the way.

“i have… there’s…something i have to give you. it’s…i-it’s…very personal. i…m-may i…come in?”

Mr. Green narrows his eyes at him a bit, and for a moment Papyrus worries he’s going to have to do this standing out in the hallway…

But either he figures he has nothing to fear from the terrified, rattling skeleton on his doorstep or he’s grown comfortable in the nonviolent ways they’ve all adopted since Surfacing, and Papyrus is allowed inside the porcupine’s den.

Within minutes of sitting down with the old man, Papyrus manages to stammer over no less than seven different beginnings and half-explanations that doubtfully come across any more coherent than gibberish.

If pressed, he doubts he could repeat any of it even seconds after it leaves his mouth, but after enough babbling, it seems like he’s gotten the point across.

Or, across enough that when Papyrus unwraps the canvas and passes it over, understanding lights in the old porcupine’s eyes.

The portrait of Quinn Green had been the hardest for him to paint: harder than the other recreations by far, the oldest in his memory and the one that had the most time to be warped by fear and pain and regret.

Papyrus had given it his all, though.

He’d spent weeks poring over this one alone, trashing inadequate attempts, going back and forth on every detail, every shade, every last aspect of the girl he remembered from that horrible day so many years ago.

The Quinn he’s made out of oil paints is nothing at all like the inky black Quinn he still sees sometimes in rare nightmares.

This one…

She’s young and colorful, grinning cheerfully with little pointed teeth and sparkling hazel eyes.

Just…a girl, still in her stripes.

Happy.

Cute.

The Quinn her father—her only surviving family—would have known best.

Grief wells up in Papyrus’ soul at the look on the old man’s face, as painful as any physical wound. Clawed fingers trace slowly, delicately along the wild spikes of his daughter’s quills and it feels like the squeeze of a vice.

“i’m sorry,” Papyrus blurts. “i…i’m so sorry, i…i’m sure this is…a-after so long, i…i’m sure i’m the last person you want to see, a-and this is…this is the last thing you want to hear, but……it was an accident.”

Mr. Green doesn’t speak.

He doesn’t even look up, and Papyrus feels compelled to keep talking; to try and explain himself for what he’d done.

“it was…i-i’d never…been in an Encounter before…not, not a real one,” he says. “a-and i didn’t…i didn’t know…”

His own strength?

What would happen?

The stakes?

“i didn’t mean it,” he admits quietly, miserably.

A feeling that had festered in his soul ever since he’d looked up and seen that she was gone: a whole person wiped away because he’d been young and hurt and scared and didn’t know what to do.

“i’m sorry,” Papyrus says again, having nothing else but that to say. “i’m so—”

“Hell…don’t apologize, kid. Not to me.”

Papyrus shuts his mouth with an audible click.

The old porcupine finally pulls his eyes up from the portrait, looking at the skeleton sat across from him with an unreadable expression.

“How old are you?”

Papyrus’ jaw works soundless for a second. He’s thrown by the question, but he eventually manages to produce the answer.

It doesn’t even occur to him to hesitate, or lie.

In the moment, he doesn’t think there’s a single thing this man could ask of him that he’d be able to deny.

Quinn’s father looks disgusted for a moment, then pained, and then just very, very sad.

“…You’re even younger than she would’ve been,” he says, a soft rasp in his voice. “You were just a damn kid, too, weren’t you…?”

The man scoffs, a sneer lingering on his face.

“Kids killing kids, what the hell was wrong with us down there…”

“…i-it…it was…the way things were,” Papyrus mumbles halfheartedly, but Mr. Green is shaking his head.

“It wasn’t right,” he says.

The porcupine looks down again, to the portrait in his lap.

He takes it up into his hands and holds it, staring hard at the image Papyrus put there.

“Why’d you come here?” he demands at length. “Why’d you bring me this?”

“i…”

Papyrus stops himself before he ends up just babbling again and hoping it makes sense.

Mr. Green… his questions…

They feel too important not to answer correctly.

“it’s…important,” Papyrus realizes. “i… all of us, i-i guess, we…did what we had to do, there, to not…… but that, it, it doesn’t mean that the ones who didn’t…make it up here…”

There’s a very large, old, deep scar carved up into his spine and suddenly, it starts to ache, a phantom pain to echo a clench in his soul.

He looks at the old porcupine, earnest as he knows how to be.

“quinn was important. she mattered. i didn’t want her to be forgotten.”

And that’s it.

That’s the truth.

The whole point of all of this, of everything since he filled that first page in his little black notebook so many years ago.

Quinn’s father doesn’t respond again.

Not for a long time, and the tension in Papyrus’ bones ratchets up higher and higher with each passing second of silence, too heavy to be called ‘awkward.’

As always, Papyrus breaks first.

“i! i didn’t…mean t-to, uh…to open up…old wounds, o-or… i just, i needed to…… if, if you want me to go, i, y’know, i get it, i’ll never—”

“No,” the porcupine monster says.

“……n…no…?” Papyrus wonders, hesitantly.

“No,” the answer comes again, and the old man stands up… but before any of a dozen half-imagined ‘revenge’ scenarios can start to play out…

He just carries the canvas over to the wall.

The porcupine’s steps are slow and shuffling, his movements noticeably creaky, but his task seems certain.

He removes a generic naturescape from where it was hung, laying it carelessly against the floor moulding, and raising his daughter to take its place.

“You did good work here,” Mr. Green says to Papyrus, looking up at her smile. “She looks good. I didn’t… I never had a lot of pictures…lost a few, over the years. You came at a good time.”

Even in profile, the old pain that flits across his face is inescapable.

“I think…I think maybe, I was starting to forget what she………”

Mr. Green trails off, looking at the portrait in lieu of finishing his sentence.

Going out on a limb, chasing a wild impulse, far before Papyrus can think better of it, he speaks.

“can you tell me about her?”

Mr. Green turns around, looking about as startled as Papyrus is by the words that just came out of his mouth, but he doesn’t back down (…yet).

“i didn’t…know her,” Papyrus admits. “i remembered her, and… but i never met her, i… i have no idea…what she was like, or…”

The porcupine visibly considers the request.

Eventually, he chuckles, just a bit.

“…I like that,” he says. “Heh, somebody to remember her when I go… I thought that ship sailed a long time ago.”

“…mr. green—”

“Everett,” the man corrects, shuffling back over to his seat. “And you’re Papyrus, yeah?”

Papyrus nods.

“Well, alright then. Let me tell you a little bit about my girl, Papyrus.”

With Quinn’s painted smile watching over, Papyrus folds his claws in his lap and gets ready to listen.

-

Finally, at the end of his pilgrimage, Papyrus sits on the floor, slumped before the fireplace.

He’s…exhausted, more tired than he thinks he’s ever been. After all he’d poured into this mission of his—his skill, his time, his pain and fear—he’s not surprised.

He feels wrung out, almost literally, like someone had physically grabbed him and twisted, squeezing something out of his marrow like water from a towel.

………

But he feels…good, too.

Maybe it’s because it all went better than he expected.

Tracking down the friends and family of those he’d hurt—killed—Papyrus really hadn’t expected anything good.

He’d expected fights.

He’d expected violence, and anger, or at the very best to have cops or the Royal Guard called on him; some sort of…belated justice, maybe…?

But that didn’t happen.

Some were angry. Some didn’t care. Some were just sad.

But none of them…

………

They were all monsters.

They all understood…what it was like, Underground.

The way things were, for them.

Papyrus wasn’t the only one who wanted to put it all behind him and try to move forward.

Let what was done, be done.

The crackling of the flames in front of Papyrus are hypnotic and he frankly has no idea how long he sits there, watching them dance and blacken their kindling when he hears his name said aloud.

He turns, still feeling foggy, but trying to focus at least a little at the sight of you and Sans standing there in the doorway.

Sans is hanging back a bit, in that quiet way he has when he’s trying to Observe and Analyze a situation, but you’re leaning forward into the den—like you want to enter his space, but aren’t sure yet if you should.

“Is…is everything okay?” you wonder.

“yeah,” Papyrus replies—purely on autopilot, which is probably why you don’t take him at face-value.

“Are you sure?” you press, coming in. “You look a little…”

You make a vague gesture.

Which is fair enough.

“yeah… yeah, i guess i am a little…” Papyrus makes the same gesture. “but i’m okay.”

He looks between you and Sans, as you two glance at each other.

“what’s up?” he asks.

Sans twitches his shoulders at you in a fraction of a shrug, a tiny cue but one that Papyrus takes to mean ‘THIS IS GOING TO BE ABOUT EMOTIONS AND YOU ARE OUR EMOTIONAL SUPPORT HUMAN, PLEASE DO THE TALKING, I AM EMOTIONALLY VERY STUPID AND AWKWARD AND NEED YOU TO GET THE BALL ROLLING FOR US.’

(Editorialized, maybe.)

(…But probably not by much.)

Either way, you do take your cue.

“We’re… a little worried,” you start slowly. “About you? You’ve been kinda…” The gesture again. “…for awhile, and… I mean, we don’t want to push, if it’s not something you want to talk about—”

“I DO.”

“—Sans does,” you concede. “But we’re not doing that, so… Just, if you need a little…support?”

“OR HELP,” Sans adds.

“That, too. We’re…we’re here.”

And then, in a shocking turn of events…

“BECAUSE WE LOVE YOU.”

You smile, even as Sans pointedly refuses eye-contact and Papyrus has to get his browbones back down from Saturn.

“Yes, we do.”

A mere statement of fact.

Papyrus looks at the two of you standing there—his brother and his partner, his two favorite people united in the common goal of being There for Him—and for a moment, the warmth of the fire feels like it’s soaked its way right into his soul.

Almost unconsciously, he drifts to his feet and over to the both of you.

In one swift motion, he’s got you both right where he wants you: squished against him in a hug.

Sans is stiff, like he always is at the beginning of a hug, to which Papyrus says, “put up with it, i love you guys, too.”

This makes you snicker, which makes Sans grumble, but he throws his arm up around his brother’s back anyway.

Papyrus lets you both go before you get concerned and before Sans becomes impossible to remove without force, well-attuned by now to that time-limit.

“i’m okay,” he says again, laying his claws on your shoulder. “seriously. i, uh…i had somethin’ to take care of…and i…i was a little worried about it? but i figured it out.”

Briefly, he flicks his eye-lights to the side, making meaningful contact with Sans’ and knowing his brother will understand exactly what he’s trying to communicate.

“did ‘what i had to do.’ it’s over now.”

Sans looks relieved instantly.

You’re a little more dubious, but when Papyrus’ hand wanders up to your cheek from your shoulder for a fond stroke, you laugh and lean into it, willing to be convinced.

“Okay,” you relent. “If you’re sure…”

“super-sure.”

“Snrk… Well, in that case, we had…kind of? A surprise for you?” You make a weird(ly cute) face. “If you can call it that, it’s…it’s pretty much just a field trip, but we thought it’d cheer you up, if you were up for it.”

“i’m up for anything if it’s with you, angel.”

“IF THAT WAS INTENDED AS INNUENDO,” Sans announces, marching past towards the fireplace, “I AM OFFICIALLY RESCINDING OUR DECLARATION OF LOVE.”

“Wait, ‘ours’? Mine too?”

“YES.”

“You can’t rescind my love!”

“I CAN IF I’M ENTRUSTED WITH DECLARING IT,” Sans retorts, grabbing a poker.

“Well, then maybe I’ll declare it independently—what do you have to say about that?”

There’s a haughty expression on your face as you say it, like you’ve won even as Sans rolls his eye-lights.

“YOU’RE GOING TO TELL PAPYRUS, YOUR PARTNER OF NEARLY TWO YEARS, THAT YOU LOVE HIM?” Sans pokes at the logs, starting to kill the fire. “STARS, NO, ANYTHING BUT THAT.”

Papyrus chuckles, even as you follow through on your threat.

He declares it right back to you, even as he knows what his brother can’t possibly miss digging around in the dying flames.

The smoldering remnants of a black notebook, blackened further and left to curl and disintegrate into the soot.

Papyrus is willing to trust in Sans’ decorum to leave the ashes to the ashes, or any least save any revelations or burning questions he has until later.

……burning questions, ugh, that’s terrible.

He’ll have to use that if Sans brings it up.

“so,” says Papyrus, “what’s the field trip?”

Your smile takes a turn for the coy.

“Maybe that’s a surpr—”

“THEY PUT A DIPPIN’ DOTS IN THE MALL WHERE THE FROZEN YOGURT PLACE USED TO BE.”

You shove at Sans when he comes back over to you, probably only half-really-annoyed, and Sans grins the grin of someone who likes to cause problems on purpose.

Papyrus can practically feel his eye-lights sparkling and demands, “what the hell are we standing around here for?! doesn’t the mall close soon?!”

Papyrus loves you guys.

He loves his life.

He loves where he’s at now.

And…after everything…

…

Papyrus feels light.

Chapter Text

It happened on a Thursday.

It’d been a long week for you, and with still one more day of it to go, your dearest wish at that moment was to be at home—in bed, in pajamas, dead-asleep until your morning alarm and not one second earlier.

Instead, though, you were out, all dressed up and making pleasant (if awkward) conversation with a whole bunch of near-strangers; the polar opposite of your intentions for the evening.

You’d have liked more warning for this, maybe, more time to mentally prepare…

But stars love him, your boyfriend could be such a scatterbrain sometimes.

“Oh yeah, I forgot to mention,” when you walked into the living room one day to see a freshly-purchased couch in place of the old one.

“Didn’t I tell you…?” when he had to break a date last-minute to sort out some kind of client-fire at the family company.

“Oh, did you want those?” when the last sleeve of your favorite Girl Scout cookies was missing from the box on your side of the pantry.

And of course most recently, “Hey, by the way, the family reunion starts at 6:00, so we should probably get going soon.”

…Kinda not cool.

The impulsive, last-minute stuff he was prone to pulling was far from your favorite feature of Preston’s, but he was always very contrite when it made you upset and, well…

You loved him.

You’re supposed to forgive people for stuff like that, when you love them.

Right?

………

So, you figured that all the regretful ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart’s probably balanced out the inevitable ‘I swore I told you’s, in the end.

And this thing in particular…

It wasn’t so bad!

There were a lot of people there and very few that you knew beyond a face and name (if even that much), but everyone was very nice and welcoming.

Outdoors in the middle of a humid summer maybe wasn’t the most well-thought-out choice, what with the sweat and the bugs and all…but the lakeside was beautiful at night, and the spectacular catering made up for a lot.

And, naturally, Preston was there too, an arm around your waist and a hand on your knee and a white, even-toothed smile that still gave you butterflies in your stomach even after all the months you’d been together.

You were a lucky lady.

You’d thought you should probably remember that more often.

The night went on, full of introductions and catchings up and fond retellings of old family stories…

………

A lot of it went over your head, admittedly—missing context and inside jokes you were on the outside of, with Preston’s quick explanations of this and that only able to take you so far—but you didn’t let it get you down.

You might not have known all the names and you didn’t have the shared history of these people that your boyfriend called his family, but you could learn.

You would.

You had time.

There was no hurry.

So, all in all, you were having a pretty good night.

You didn’t suspect a thing when Preston raised a glass in the middle of dinner and tapped it with his silverware, calling the entire crowd’s attention.

Why would you suspect a thing, as your handsome, charming, wonderful boyfriend started to speak, about community and family and moving forward together?

Preston had a way with words—part upbringing and part innate—that kept you nodding along with his ‘impromptu’ speech, smiling just as approvingly and obliviously as everyone else.

Right up until the moment he turned to look at you.

By now, you’ve long since forgotten what else he’d said, exactly, but The Moment Itself is engraved in perfect clarity.

“And tonight,” he’d said, his eyes holding your own with playful mischief in their depths, “here, with everybody I love… I think it’s the perfect time to ask a very special woman… a very special question.”

Preston got down on one knee before you, pulled out a small box of robin-egg-blue, and…

Well.

You presume he asked you to marry him.

You didn’t actually hear a word of it over the sudden ringing in your ears.

Your mind was blank in the wake of the question you hadn’t been at all prepared for.

You had no thoughts, only reactions: your eyes widened, your heart sped up, your mouth opened, and you felt your face grow very hot.

Preston smiled, looking up at you with an expression that was warm and confident and…and expectant.

Gradually, you became aware of the fact that…

…that he was not the only one, looking at you that way.

The whole place was staring at you now, all those people—Preston’s family—grinning at you, excited to hear your answer.

You knew, without needing to guess, what they thought you were going to say.

What Preston thought you were going to say.

So…

You said it.

“Y…Yes! I will!”

The rest of the night blurs in your memory.

You remember Preston swooping you into a kiss, to the whoops and applause of your audience.

You remember him slipping the engagement ring onto your finger—a massive diamond on a platinum band, all flash and sparkle—and looking down at it again and again, tilting it this way and that like you were trying to…make sense of it.

You remember one of his uncles chuckling and cooing over you, telling you how excited you’d looked when Preston pulled out that box, and you remember…

Excited, you remember thinking, still looking at your ring. I’m excited.

At the time, it seemed to make sense.

That moment when Preston surprised you and got down on one knee in front of you and everyone; when your heart skipped a beat and your breath froze in your chest and time seemed to slow to an absolute crawl so that no one even noticed that you hesitated to answer…

Handsome, charming, wonderful Preston wanted to marry you.

That was exciting.

So you were excited.

You were…happy.

………

It would take you the better part of two years to realize the truth, disillusioned enough by your partner’s selfishness, his casual arrogance, his lies that you could finally see it.

You hadn’t been excited at all.

You were terrified when you saw that ring and you never should have said ‘yes’ to so much, so soon.

But back then, you were just a blushing bride-to-be with an early case of pre-wedding jitters, equal parts eager and nervous to be married to your city’s most eligible bachelor.

That’s what they said you were, at least.

So you’d let your boyf—…your fiancé hold you close all night long, and celebrated your happy engagement with him and his whole family.

When it all eventually falls apart, it’s not the thoughtlessness or the lying or even the cheating that you think back on.

It’s this: this one Thursday night when you ignored every signal your body and soul were trying to give you that you weren’t ready for what was happening, and when the man who said he loved you hadn’t noticed any signals at all.

In retrospect, Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael were doomed from the start.

-

It happens on a Saturday.

Your workweek was long but it’s over now and you have plenty of time to rest. You went to bed alone on Friday but quickly found yourself at the center of a very bony cuddle-puddle, to which you raised no protest.

When daylight starts to filter in through the shades the next morning, you’re sprawled out on your back. Papyrus is laying on your arm, spine flush against your ribs as he slowly (obliviously) works on cutting off your circulation. Sans is all but draped over you on your other side, practically cheek-to-cheekbone and sharing your breath.

You’re totally out and aware of none of this, deeply, blissfully, wonderfully unconscious as you are.

These days, it seems like you just sleep better when you’re sandwiched by skeletons.

Go figure.

Sans wakes first, which wakes you, which…doesn’t wake Papyrus in the slightest, actually.

A bit of gentle jostling and a few smooches to the skull seems to do the trick, though, and in short order you’re all shuffling off to the kitchen by silent mutual agreement.

Naturally, Papyrus makes a beeline for the coffee maker, his priorities in order.

Several joints pop audibly as he stretches to reach the mugs, and Sans snorts.

“YOUR POSTURE SUCKS,” he opines.

“you suck,” is Papyrus’ automatic retort, still clearly mostly asleep.

“IT DOES,” Sans insists. “IT’S NO WONDER YOU SOUND LIKE POPCORN WHEN YOU SLOUCH AROUND LIKE A SHRIMP ALL THE TIME.”

“i’m the shrimp???”

Sans narrows his eye-sockets.

“NO, I SUPPOSE YOU’RE RIGHT. I’VE SEEN YOU ON THAT TABLET, YOU’RE MORE LIKE THE LETTER ‘C’.”

Ceramic clinks onto the counter, a coffee mug being set down.

“this one, today?” Papyrus inquires mildly.

His tone could almost pass for ‘innocent’…if not for the bold, blocky letters on the mug he’d pulled out, spelling out, ‘BITCH JUICE’ on the side.

Sans scoffs, grievously offended.

You laugh, terribly amused.

“Hey, hey,” you chuckle, putting the mug away. “Be nice, he’s uncaffeinated.”

“so’m i,” Papyrus protests.

“Well, you’re already a person. He needs caffeine to act like a decent monster in the morning.”

“HE CAN HEAR YOU,” Sans grumbles pointedly.

“He can help me make pancakes, if he wants,” you say, setting down a new mug and brushing past him on the way to get the batter.

You know without needing to look behind you that Sans is observing the mug—an arbor day gift from you, black with gold cursive proclaiming ‘CLASS, SASS, & BADASS’—and all his instinctive impulse to be ornery is wilting faster than an orchid that’d been sneezed at.

Sure enough, by the time you make your way back, there’s a pan heating up on the stove for you, and Papyrus is accepting the (conciliatory) creamer and sugar he’ll be needing soon, and peace is restored.

The harmony the three of you have come to possess is by far your favorite feature of your relationship.

It’s clear to you in so many ways but especially here, in the kitchen, where despite the limited space you all move around each other like an easy, coordinated dance.

Teeth at the crown of your head and a cup of morning beverage in easy reach as Papyrus glides by you set the table.

Claws brushing your fingers as they pass you a spatula, Sans with a knife in hand to slice up some fruit.

Two skeletons it’s hard to keep your eyes off of, but who teasingly remind you to watch the pan, and who help you get breakfast to the table, and who argue over whose turn it’ll be to do the dishes after.

(Sans is right, it is his turn, but it’s one pan and a couple plates, it’s not that big a deal, and Papyrus will probably win the right to Do The Chore this time.)

“Hey,” you say, halfway through breakfast, and two pairs of purple eye-lights lock onto you immediately—two big and bright, two small and faint.

“I love you guys.”

Papyrus’ eye-lights brighten and so does the smile on his face. Sans breaks your gaze, turning his soft, affectionate expression down to his coffee.

Their answers come at the same time.

“love you, too.”

“LIKEWISE…”

You feel warm all over, your heart full and your soul giddy that you get to have this; that somewhere between chance and fate and hard work, the three of you had found your way here.

You really do love these skeletons and you think you could probably tell them so all day long…

…but they’d probably start looking at you funny after the first couple hours, and there’s gotta be more productive ways to spend a weekend.

“Any plans today?” you ask, wondering if either of them have any suggestions to that end.

Sans grins at you.

It’s that sharp roguish look, the one he wears when he has a secret and he wants you to know it.

“WELL,” he drawls playfully, “AS A MATTER OF FACT—”

“no.”

The smile drops from Sans’ face.

He, like you do, turns to look at Papyrus, who is…very conspicuously not meeting either of your gazes.

“PAPYRUS,” says Sans. “WE—”

“nope! nothin’ planned,” Papyrus interrupts again, his voice pitched higher than normal. “whole day free. f…for……whatever. y’know.”

For some reason, this makes Sans frown.

“BUT—”

“sans!”

The vaguely panicked look Papyrus shoots you makes your brows dip in concern, but it’s apparently not a concern shared by his brother.

Sans looks far from worried at the urgent yelp of his name. Confused, definitely, and maybe even a little…annoyed?

If you were to put a name to the lack of understanding in his eye-sockets and the tension of his shoulders, you think you would call it, ‘Are you fucking kidding me right now?!’

You don’t know what that means.

Sans takes a breath, a slow and measured one of the ‘count backwards from ten’ variety, before turning back to you.

“I’M SORRY, DEAR,” he says, quite apologetically indeed. “WOULD YOU…EXCUSE US FOR A MOMENT?”

“…Uh.”

Well.

You don’t understand what’s going on, or what weirdness your casual question had apparently unleashed here, but you suppose the pleading look Papyrus is giving you is really all you need to know.

“Yeah, sure.”

A pair of matching relieved smiles is your answer, and with a quick, “THANK YOU,” Sans grabs his brother by the shoulder and the two of them are gone in the blink of an eye.

In another circumstance, that would’ve been it.

In another circumstance, you would’ve been entirely content to leave the two of them to hash out…whatever they were hashing out in secrecy.

Sans and Papyrus are your partners, yes, but they’re entitled to their privacy, and you have no reason not to give them the benefit of the doubt, no matter how odd their behavior was just then.

In another circumstance, it would’ve ended right there.

………

But in this circumstance, it seems that neither of your partners are thinking things through, and neither seems to see the problem in having their private discussion in the pantry.

The pantry a few feet away from you, at best.

The pantry with a flimsy, slatted wooden door.

The pantry that can mostly muffle Papyrus’ quiet way of speaking, but has no chance against Sans’ bold baritone, even whispering.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN ‘NO’?!” you hear, clear as day through the door. “I THOUGHT WE AGREED THAT WE WOULD—”

A pause, Papyrus’ voice speaking, but the words unintelligible.

“WELL YES, THANK YOU, I FIGURED THAT OUT—WHY.”

Another pause, presumably with an answer.

“THAT’S NOT A REASON.”

Sans doesn’t give Papyrus much room to explain this time.

“…BECAUSE IT’S NOT! I’M NOT GOING TO NOT ASK JUST BECAUSE YOU SUDDENLY FEEL LIKE THE ‘ENERGY’ IS ‘VIBING’ WEIRD, I—”

Your eyes go wide.

Papyrus is saying something, you know that he is—just like you know that you are definitely not supposed to be hearing even this much of this conversation.

But you can’t bring yourself to move, much less say anything.

“IS THIS COLD FEET?” Sans demands, and your heart starts to hammer at your ribs, fast and hard. “HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND?”

“no!” Papyrus exclaims, vehemently enough that for a moment, you can actually hear him through the slats of the door too, before he trails off again. “but…! what, w-what if she…”

“THEN SHE’LL TELL US! HOW THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW HOW SHE FEELS IF WE DON’T EVEN ASK? I LEARNED THAT FROM YOU, PAPYRUS!”

Silence reigns, no sound of voices at all, muffled or otherwise.

Then something that sounds like a sigh.

Face flush, you’re on your feet before you can even consciously register what you’re doing.

“…WELL, FINE. YOU TELL ME: ARE WE GOING BACK OUT THERE TO FINISH BREAKFAST, OR ARE WE GOING BACK OUT THERE TO ASK OUR LADY—”

You open the pantry.

The two skeletons crammed inside both freeze as the door swings back, pinned by the very sight of you.

Papyrus looks decidedly sweaty and Sans’ pupils are the size of pinpricks, and both of them are radiating such ‘caught!!!’ energy that you’re sure you’d be able to feel it if you were across the room.

Your mouth hangs open a second, waiting for your head to catch up and feed it the words it’s supposed to be saying.

After another beat of weirdly guilty silence, it does.

“Are you guys talking about proposing to me?”

Sans’ eye-lights disappear and somehow, Papyrus locks up even more.

“i…w………m…mayb—”

“YES.”

Papyrus’ skull whips over to his brother. He’s visibly anxious, and that only seems to sharpen at Sans’ reply, but for the moment, he’s ignored.

Sans meets your eyes now, looking nothing less than resolved.

“YES,” he says again. “THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT. IT WAS GOING TO BE TODAY BUT AS YOU’VE…APPARENTLY HEARD, THERE’S BEEN A BIT OF A DISAGREEMENT ABOUT THE TIMING.”

You turn to Papyrus, who looks sweatier by the moment.

“You…don’t want to marry me?”

“the opposite,” Papyrus blurts out, urgently like he can’t bear for you to misunderstand him.

You don’t want to misunderstand him either, so you only look at him, waiting until he’s able to say more.

“i…really, really, really…wanna marry you, angel. i just…i-i don’t… i mean, if it’s…the, the timing? o-or if it’s…pressure, or………”

He huffs, staring at you beseechingly.

“it’s gotta be right, doesn’t it???” he asks, rhetorical. “you gotta be ready for it, or it’s not, it won’t work, right???”

You look at Papyrus, very clearly on the verge of a full-blown tizzy over popping the question at the wrong moment.

You look at Sans, putting a hand on his brother’s arm and calmly, matter-of-factly stating, “SHE KNOWS SHE CAN SAY ‘NO’ IF IT’S NOT ‘RIGHT’ YET.”

You look at the two of them, standing here and talking to you about this, still crowded into the stars-damned pantry, and…

A smile starts to spread across your face.

You know what pressure feels like.

You know what ‘too fast’ feels like.

You know what ‘not right’ feels like.

This isn’t it.

“What if I don’t want to say ‘no’?”

Two skulls whip towards you so fast, you’re surprised they didn’t spin right off.

Papyrus takes an instinctive step toward you, his eye-sockets wide and hopeful.

“do…do you……would you say ‘yes’…?”

The word is hushed, like to even say it too loudly would be to invite disappointment.

Your smile curves and you can’t help but rock back on your heels a bit, knowing there must be a glint of mischief in your eyes.

“I don’t know,” you reply, as perfectly innocently as you aren’t. “I haven’t heard a question.”

He says your name, one of your favorite ways to hear it: eager, excited, disbelieving…

“will you…would you………”

Papyrus hesitates there, right on the brink.

He’s so very close, but seems…stuck, somehow; too nervous, too shy, too something to push through the rest of the words.

Luckily for him, this just so happens to be a joint endeavor.

“MARRY US?”

This time around, you don’t have to be told—you know you’re excited.

“I’d love to.”

The skeletons spill out of the pantry.

Papyrus, simultaneously sagging in relief and vibrating in delight, descends on you first, his teeth pressing against your mouth like his life depended on nuzzling you right now.

Sans stands by, patiently awaiting his turn with arms behind his back and a million-watt grin that only makes it a little hard to kiss him properly the second your lips are free.

Stars, are you giggling? You think you’re giggling, and you can’t remember the last time you’ve felt so giddy.

You pull them both in, to no resistance at all, squeezing them tight.

“Ow!”

Hug… interrupted?

You pull back, trying to determine what had caused the sharp little jab you’d just felt in your side.

………

“Is that… Papyrus, is that a fork?”

Papyrus, the one holding said fork, seems just as mystified as you are.

“…um.”

Sans is the first to piece it together.

“HAVE YOU BEEN HOLDING THAT SINCE WE LEFT THE TABLE?”

Apparently so, if the look of realization on Papyrus’ face is any indication.

“uh. well. i…i guess?”

………

All at once, the absurdity of the situation hits you.

“Oh stars… Oh stars, you guys just proposed to me.”

“…yeah?”

“While hiding inside a pantry.”

“…WE WERE HARDLY HIDING—”

“With a fork.”

“…well—”

“And I said yes.”

You’re not sure what kind of expression you’re making, as you announce these observations, but the brothers must misinterpret it because their own start to take a turn for the guilty.

“WE HAD SOMETHING VERY ROMANTIC PLANNED!” Sans tries to assure you. “WE WERE GOING TO TAKE YOU OUT TO THE MOUNTAIN, AT SUNSET, IT WAS GOING TO BE PICTURESQUE!”

“we, we can still do it!” Papyrus chimes in. “i mean, i, y’know it’s not…the surprise is, uh……i’m sorry, i didn’t mean to mess this up, i just—”

“Are you kidding me? This is perfect.”

You take the fork from his grasp, eyeing it appraisingly.

“We should frame this.”

………

They both start to laugh.

Sans loudly and openly, Papyrus abashedly with his hand over his face, but it’s a chorus you’re all too happy to join in on.

“I’m serious,” you insist. “It’s a memento! You might not have had a ring, but at least you weren’t empty-handed, right?”

“OH, MY DEAR, WE COULD NEVER HAVE BEEN THAT.”

As it turns out, the two of them were actually very prepared prior to the cascade-failure that had resulted in their premature (and perfect) pantry proposal.

Sans is able to very quickly produce a small stack of very nice boxes—three in total.

“WE MAY HAVE TAKEN THE LIBERTY OF DESIGNING OUR OWN,” he admits, only a touch ruefully. “NOT TO DEPRIVE YOU OF THE PRIVILEGE, BUT IT SEEMED PRUDENT TO HAVE ALL THE TOKENS AT THE SAME TIME.”

The box on top is slid over to you, and you curiously remove the top under your partners’ anticipating gazes.

Inside is not a ring, and not even by strict definition a collar.

You know the lovely gold chain before you is a collar, though—a lover’s collar—delicate enough to call ‘beautiful’ yet well-crafted enough to wear every day should you so desire.

It’s the pendant bailed to the chain that really makes your heart skip a beat: a (wonderfully familiar) purple stone, carved and tumbled into the shape of a heart with two gold bones fused to its setting.

“heart and crossbones,” Papyrus comments, looking pretty (deservedly) proud of himself. “i, uh, i designed it, and sans found a jeweler to make it happen.”

“I love it.”

You do, and you waste no time at all extracting your chain from the box, securing it around your neck.

As a human, and one who is regrettably not a mage in any capacity, your sense of magic is weak and peripheral at best.

You can’t possibly feel the full impression of both brothers’ magic braided into this token; the clear warning from them that you are spoken for, protected, loved such that any monster or mage who came within feet of you would know it instantly.

But with the chain settling flush against your skin, you do feel something.

It feels like the faint sub-aural vibration you feel when Sans is about to take a shortcut, or like the static electricity that picks up when Papyrus summons bones; like the soft tingle beneath your fingertips when you stroke over the spaces between bones and get to feel the truest essence of what your partners are made of.

It’s like being embraced by both of them at once, even with a physical distance in between, and it makes you feel very soft inside, very quickly.

In what is definitely not an attempt to keep from tearing up, you snatch up the second box in the stack and boldly announce, “Your turn, who’s next?”

You open the box, finding this one contains something a little more traditionally collar-like, dark leather with a gold buckle.

Papyrus scoots forward, already pushing up his sleeve to offer you his wrist.

A cuff, then, very practical…but also, you realize, taking it into your hands, very beautiful—fully within the parameters of what you’d been told a lover’s collar ought to be.

The leather is soft and shiny and where you touch it, you can feel it’s been embossed, its entire surface imprinted with intricate and appealing patterns.

You reach out, fastening the bracelet around Papyrus’ wrist.

Just as you start to wonder if it’s a problem that you have no magic to pour into it, Papyrus does what Papyrus has always done best and manages to assuage your fears in an instant.

“got you with me everywhere now,” he says.

To which you eloquently reply, “Huh?”

Beaming, he angles his arm for you, guiding the light and your eyes to the cuff’s edge…where your name is stamped, hiding artfully between the patterns.

“Oh,” you say.

…Which is not much better, but by the way Papyrus just grins wider and looks distinctly like he’d be wagging his tail if only he had one, you imagine he understood your reaction correctly.

Well, now.

Only one box left unopened.

Sans says nothing as you reach for it, but his skull dips encouragingly and so you take it.

It’s…simpler than you’d have guessed, somehow, for a skeleton with such expensive tastes as your partner.

You don’t know if you were expecting the extravagance of gold and jewels, but you definitely weren’t expecting the modest choker you hold in your hands now. The velvet is soft but dark, and you don’t have to wonder for a second if your name is here too, not with how easily the deep blue cursive embroidered along its edge pops out.

Wordlessly, Sans gives you his back.

You understand.

The choker fits snugly around his cervical vertebrae where you reach up to clasp it, a perfect fit, and when you step back to observe your handiwork, you watch Sans lay his claws upon the velvet with a reverence nothing shy of tender.

Papyrus is in a similar state, taking (probably) several hundred pictures of his cuff to send to (presumably) Undyne, and that makes you smile.

Your own pendant, growing warm where it sits at the top of your sternum, feels wonderfully solid.

A promise for your future.

“So…am I gonna be Mrs. Serif now?”

From his momentarily lovestruck state, Sans snaps to attention at your question.

“YOU COULD BE,” he says. “IF YOU WANTED. WE COULD ALSO TAKE YOUR NAME.”

“Really?”

“MONSTERS DON’T HAVE MUCH OF A CONCEPT OF FAMILY NAMES. REALLY, ONLY THE CROWN AND THE ROYAL FAMILY HAVE A SURNAME, SO THERE’S NOT MUCH ESTABLISHED TRADITION TO FOLLOW.”

You frown.

“…But you—”

Papyrus cuts in.

“that’s actually his whole name,” he explains for you. “‘comic sans serif,’ that’s the whole thing. guess somebody doin’ paperwork when we got up here thought it was a mistake and split it all up, so now we’re just the serifs.”

You look at both of your partners in turn.

Neither of them appears to be pulling your leg in the slightest.

“That’s……hilarious,” you say at length. “So the government thinks your name is Comic?” You turn to Papyrus as well. “And they think your name is Papyrus Serif?”

“it sounds weird, right???” Papyrus agrees, but Sans merely shrugs.

“TECHNICALLY,” he allows, “‘COMIC’ IS AS CORRECT AS ‘SANS’ IS IN THAT BOTH ARE ONLY PARTS OF THE WHOLE, I JUST HAPPEN TO HAVE A PREFERENCE. THE INANITY OF BUREAUCRACY AT WORK, HOWEVER, WILL ALWAYS DO AS IT DOES.”

“Crazy,” you chuckle. “The things you learn about a guy when you’re about to marry him…”

And you were.

About to marry him.

Both of them.

And the thought excites you.

Another chance at married life, another try at hopes and dreams and possibilities you’d once thought lost to you…

But now.

Whether as Captain, Mrs. and Mr. Serif, or by another name entirely, the future lies before you.

Ready for the three of you to write it together.

(You frame the fork first, of course, before anything else.)

(You can’t possibly pass up you and your future husbands’ first conversation piece, now could you?)