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Their hands start hurting about 20 minutes in, which is probably not a great sign. The numbness stops but their fingers still feel cold; a warmth biting feeling back into the tips.
“Not even warmth,” Chara says, hovering over(but not on) Papyrus’s bed. “Just less like ice.”
Frisk’s shorts are caked with snow and set off to the side of the room in a frozen clump, along with whatever other pieces of clothing they’ve been able to replace. Papyrus comes by every couple minutes or so to leave something else for them to try on outside the door- it started with his own things, like leggings and a tee-shirt. It has now progressed to whatever he can find in sans’s room that isn’t either dirty or falling-off-of-them baggy.
“We can’t stay forever,” Chara says. Facing the wall. Frisk hops over to sit down near them and pull on a sock. And, assuming the closeness means they’re probably dressed, Chara turns over to stare. Arms crossed and lying on their side.
“It’s still cold here,” They point out. “You’ll just freeze slower than you would outside.”
“We’ll be okay,” Frisk signs. Chara rolls their eyes and Frisk flops themself back down against the blankets, eyes trained on the ceiling until they aren’t and they’re closed and Papyrus’s comforter is surprisingly soft, actually. They run the back of their hands against the feeling in a mock-snow angel.
It’s chilly in here. But it’s better than outside.
Because outside Frisk’s knees went numb before anything else did. It was a surface level cold, where you can fee your bones but not your skin- they could walk but a scrape would be painless. And that was okay for a bit. For a while.
But then the sun went down. And it’s really pretty simple from there: sans and Papyrus’s house is the only one with lights to see through the blizzard.
“HUMAN!”
Frisk shoots up and Chara screeches and Papyrus knocks loudly, thump-thump-thumping against the door as if his voice isn’t loud enough of a warning- “HAVE YOU GOTTEN DRESSED? CAN I OPEN THE DOOR?”
Heart racing Frisk pulls themself off the bed and waddles over to the door, pulling it open with a click and a creak. Papyrus isn’t holding any extra clothing this time and when he sees them he smiles brightly.
“GOOD! YOU’RE NOT DEAD. HAS THE CLOTHING WARMED YOU UP?”
Frisk goes to sign ‘yes’, but their hands are shaking too much for the sign to be legible; the motion makes him squint. In one fluid motion he’s squatting down to be just-above-eye-level.
“COULD I SEE YOUR HANDS, HUMAN?” Papyrus asks as he pulls off his mittens.
Frisk swallows and nods, anxious, curious. They don’t think they’ve seen Papyrus without his mittens before, but when he takes them off to reveal regular skeletal hands they aren’t sure why they couldn’t picture it in the first place. They’re about what they should have expected.
But he’s still a skeleton. And he’s still alive. That, in itself, has them awed all over again as he takes their hand in his and spreads their fingers.
“…HM.”
Frisk tilts their head.
“WELL, HUMAN,” Papyrus says, confident as ever, “I AM STILL SURE OF ONE THING: I DON’T KNOW SHIT ABOUT PALM READING.”
“You’re dead,” Chara dead-pans. Frisk, despite their mounting horror, uses all their energy not to respond to that.
“HOWEVER!! SANS WILL BE HOME SHORTLY, AND HE WILL PROBABLY KNOW MORE ABOUT YOUR FLESHY PROBLEMS. MEANWHILE,-”
“Ask for his gloves,” Chara tells them, watching him stand and turn towards the steps. They say it like they know Frisk won’t ask if the moment passes. As they hesitate, Frisk knows they’re probably right. “Your fingers need to get warm and you need gloves. Ask.”
“-I WILL INTRODUCE YOU TO WHAT IS MINE, AND NOW TEMPORARILY YOURS. STARTING WITH: MY COUCH.”
His scarf is too long for his neck. Frisk can tell, even though it’s wrapped up comfortably, because one end trails down to his knees and follows him from behind like a cape. With a burst of almost-panic and a tad of determination they’re able to reach out and tug on it. Gently. Just enough to get his attention.
He spins on a heel, hands on his hips, attentive. “YES, HUMAN?”
Swallow. Gulp. Point- sign the word for gloves, careful to make it clear despite the shivers.
“…MY MITTENS?” Papyrus fiddles with the tips, tugging so they’re loose on his hand before then massaging the fabric. “YOU…. WOULD LIKE MY GLOVES? TO WEAR?”
They nod. Papyrus considers.
“WELL, I SUPPOSE THAT IS ALL RIGHT,” He decides after a minute. He pulls the gloves off in two swift motions and leans low to drop them into Frisk’s open hands. “JUST BE CAREFUL WITH THEM, PLEASE. THEY’RE MY ONLY PAIR.”
Usually, Frisk thinks, when you take clothes from someone else they still have a lingering warmth. Phantom body-heat. But when they slip on Papyrus’s gloves they find that there’s nothing at all, no sign of their actual owner. It’s sort of off putting.
But they’re soft. Fuzzy on the outside and velvety on the inside. The cuffs have elastic that makes them fit snug around their wrist, even if the rest of the glove is much bigger.
“SATISFIED?”
They are. He nods as if assured; then turns again.
“TO THE LIVING ROOM WE GO!”
sans shows up ten minutes later.
He pops into the middle of the living room with no warning, bag of what Frisk can only assume to be leftovers from Grillby’s in one hand and the other tucked deep in his pocket. “pap, you’ll never guess-”
Frisk’s standing a foot away from the kitchen doorway. Their shoulders are hunched up towards their ears and their hands are tucked into the space that comes from having their arms crossed- teeth clenched to stop them from chattering out of their head. When he turns and sees them he freezes for a good two seconds to stare.
Frisk waves.
“Oh, shit,” He says. The honest surprise would startle Frisk is they weren’t trying to avoid turning to a block of ice; then he’s gone and back so shortly Frisk would think they’d been imagining things if he wasn’t holding an extra Grillby’s bag.
“take it easy.” sans shrugs his jacket off in one practiced movement before pulling it around Frisk’s back, helping them push their arms through. They sigh into it, finding a warmth lingering. Probably from being in a bar with a fire elemental. “when’d they get here, pap?”
“THIRTY MINUTES AGO,” Papyrus says, from the kitchen. “COULD YOU CHECK THEIR HANDS? THEY WERE RATTLING EARLIER. I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS.”
“sure bro.”
The jacket cuts off just above their mid-waist and the hood fluff is soft. sans slips a mitten off and inspects their palm the same way Papyrus did, but seems to take it much more casually. He presses his fingers in.
“hmm…. so first thing. your hands feel like squishy bones. which, uh, isn’t great, because you’re supposed to have blood and stuff. so. maybe should have some heat to them.”
“ARE THEY SHAKING STILL?”
sans’s eyebrows raise and he seems pleasantly reminded.
“nah. they’re nice and steady.”
“SANS.”
sans grins and moves on, eye sockets then creasing. “why haven’t you gotten them in front of the fire paps?”
Attention turns towards the kitchen and Papyrus- who, now that sans is focusing over there, Frisk lets their attention drift back too.
First thing: Papyrus is wearing a Mettaton-brand, pink ‘KISS THE COOK!’ apron. He is not cooking. He’s simply pulling mugs down from the topmost cabinet- “SANS KEEPS BRINGING THEM TO HIS ROOM’S TRASH TORNADO. I’VE HAD O RESORT TO DRASTIC MEASURES.”- in an attempt to find one with sunflowers, like Frisk requested. Off to the side is one with a cat-head shaped head and one that says “#1 COOL GUY”. When asked, he says he collects them.
And when answering he holds a container of cocoa powder. “THE HUMAN HAS NOT REQUESTED A FIRE, SANS. AS A GOOD HOST I MUST SIMPLY COMPLY WITH THE GUEST’S REQUESTS.”
“what’d they want?”
One hand has milk. The other, a whisk. “HOT COCOA,” Papyrus says.
And sans just. Looks at them. Grin weary but eyes amused.
“kid.”
Frisk has been keeping their teeth clasped together for a good ten minutes now, so when sans gives them A Look they make a poor attempt to maneuver it into some sort of sheepish grin.
“no, kid,” sans says, chuckling over his words, “i mean, gotta respect the grind. but i mean. come on now.”
It’s an objectively stupid decision Frisk is trying to justify, which is probably why Chara’s snark catches them so off guard(and maybe it’s just their usual silence that adds to the surprise)- “Sounds like someone’s never had a good hot cocoa.”
Frisk chokes.
And they’re is too busy bursting into giggles over that to notice the squint sans shoots over their shoulder, but Chara joining in the laughter certainly doesn’t help them calm down. It’s silly and it’s stupid and they just like hot cocoa. They’re just ten.
“yeah, okay. chill out,” He tells them, rolling his eyes and helping their hand back into the mitten. Frisk snorts and Chara forces themself into silence. “let’s get a fire started. warm up the old bones.”
“OF COURSE, BROTHER!!”
As he walks by Papyrus hands off a sunflower-painted mug to Frisk. They cradle it carefully and watch with a mild curiosity. Where’s the fireplace?
“It’s probably just a heater upstairs or something,” Chara answers. Sometimes Frisk doesn’t know where their connection starts and where their own personal thoughts end. But they don’t mind being listened to if Chara doesn’t mind answering every now and again.
They nod to themself slightly, just to show they heard. Probably. But then-
BAM!
Unprompted and sudden Papyrus takes a swinging kick at the T.V. stand, causing it to speed away so forcefully to the side that it ends up colliding with the wall with a slam!. In the space left behind, where the wall had been concealed, it reveals-!
“….HM,” Papyrus says. They all stare at the fireplace’s opening, full of carefully stacked wood that has been absolutely covered in ice and snow. It must have came from the chimney. With so little use, it just built up.
“I DON’T THINK THAT’S QUITE RIGHT,” Papyrus points out.
“You’re dead,” Chara stresses, clearly horrified as the float in front of Frisk to mime grabbing at their shoulders.
And they’re once again a giggling mess, because they’re ten.
As it turns out, neither of them actually know what hot chocolate is.
(“it’s like. warm chocolate, right.”
“Oh my god.)
sans sits on the counter lazily, head dipped down, dozing in and out- though Frisk is never really sure when he’s awake and when he isn’t. Papyrus works around him and Frisk stands on a step-stool helpfully found from beneath the sink. They’re mixing dry ingredients. He’s heating milk.
“HOW IS IT?”
“Needs more salt,” They sign. They actually have no clue if it does need more salt, but Chara looks thoughtfully at the mixture and tells them what to add and how long to whisk for- they’re an expert, apparently. Frisk has only over had cocoa from packets.
They’re fine with following along. Especially when they got to be the taste-tester.
“I’M WORRIED ABOUT THE SALT,” Papyrus rambles. He grabs the salt container from behind sans and hands it over, looking suspiciously into the bowl as Frisk adds it in slowly. “I USUALLY MAKE MARINARA IN THIS. ISN’T IT SUPPOSED TO BE SWEET?”
“It will be,” They assure him. He doesn’t look convinced.
“You have to add it to the milk now,” Chara says. “Stir it in while it’s warming up.”
They started off hovering just over the edge of the sink, a good 6 feet higher up than they usually are. Frisk thinks they liked being tall for a bit- but then they started getting more involved and now they’re just over Frisk’s shoulder. It’s less like warmth and more like familiarity. No actual weight, since Chara is. Um.
But if they think hard enough, they think they can feel them. Sometimes.
“Do they have chocolate chips?”
White or milk? Chara looks offended by the question. The white chocolate is promptly put away and the chips are poured in haphazardly because they insist using cups isn’t necessary. Eventually, they all end up standing in the kitchen in a brief quiet, Papyrus putting away ingredients while they wait for it all to melt.
“determined kid,” sans muses, watching with a cracked eye as Frisk struggles to pull themself up onto the counter next to him. Eventually he takes mercy; turns them blue and floats them up. As they start snacking on whatever leftover chocolate they have he holds out a hand. “gotta pay the toll.”
They drop a few down into his palm- and for a moment they’re almost worried they’ll fall through the cracks between bones where muscle should be. But they don’t, and Chara snorts at them for thinking it could be a possibility, and it’s comfortable. Papyrus’s mittens have been stuffed into sans’s jacket pockets for cooking but they find themself reaching in to rub against the fabric. It’s smoother than expected.
The brothers leave Frisk to fill the mugs, off to their rooms to scour for extra bedding. Steam rises slowly. Warmth pools against Frisk’s hands and they just stand, body relaxing into it.
When they open their eyes- when did they close them?- Chara is sitting up near the stove and watching them curiously. “So?” They ask.
Frisk takes a sip. Slowly, taking it in.
It’s more chocolate-y than they’re used to. “Sweet,” They finally sign.
Chara looks proud. “Hell yeah.”
They actually hadn’t been planning to spend the night. They hadn’t thought that far ahead, they guess- but when they do they figure that here is really the only option, unless they want to pocket over Temmie’s college funds for a night in the inn. It’s cold and dark out. They look out the window and out at the snow-dusted gusts of wind for a moment longer than can be called a curious glance and Chara scowls.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“We could go to Napstablook’s.”
“You’d fall through the bed,” Chara dead-pans. Frisk shrugs.
“Yeah,” They say. “But you could use it.”
Chara looks like they don’t know how to take that one. But then Frisk grins and they roll their eyes. “Smart aleck.”
sans pops in with a stack of five pillows, one on top of the other and fluffed to the point that they’re taller than himself. Papyrus follows down the steps shortly after, blankets in hand: The process turns into Frisk handing him pillows from sans’s pile as he gets the space between the couch and the fireplace looking comfortable.
The Grillby’s food sans grabbed for them is greasier than they’d like. But they eat.
Once the fire is lit warmth starts seeping into the house in a slow but steady fashion. They’d felt it half-way through their kitchen activities but being in front of it is something different. More intense, but notably not as overpowering as Hotland.
“we should do this more,” sans says. He lays with his arms crossed behind his head, propped up by a not one, not two, but three pillows. “i get cocoa. i get a bunch of pillows. this is the life.”
“YOU BARELY DID ANYTHING.”
“that’s the point bro.”
“WHATEVER!!”
Papyrus has refused to change into something more comfortable, which Frisk can respect as someone who could only bare to take off their sweater when it became a frost-bite hazard. His scarf, however, has been folded and set off to the side atop the couch. Neither brother has asked them for their things back and Frisk doesn’t have the urge to take them off.
Frisk is curled on their side. They reach out for his arm and tap. He looks at them attentively.
“Thank you.”
The tension he had leaves. At this point Frisk has realized that most of it just for show, just for fun. The skeleton brothers are comedians and Frisk loves watching their set. “ANYTHING FOR A GUEST, HUMAN,” He tells them. “AS I SAID: WHAT IS MINE CAN ALWAYS BE TEMPORARILY YOURS.”
“and mine. but whatever.”
“OH SHUSH YOU LAZYBONES!!” Papyrus scolds. He picks up the pillow he’s been designated and chucks it at sans’s head. It smacks him in the face with a gentle “oof”, before becoming a light blue and floating up to get set comfortably underneath sans’s own feet.
Papyrus, who is doing a wonderful job at ignoring him, focuses on Frisk. “AND THANK YOU, FRISK, FOR SHOWING US HOW TO MAKE HOT CHOCOLATE. IT TASTES NOTHING LIKE SPAGHETTI.”
“Thank god,” Chara mutters.
Frisk smiles. They curl on their side, into themself, and pull a blanket up to their shoulders. Their cup is carefully set off to the side and fully empty.
The fire crackles.
“I LIKE THE WARMTH,” Papyrus says.
Pause.
“me too,” sans tells them both, contemplative, like he wants to say something more. But he just goes quiet.
“You could stay,” Chara tells them when the skeletons are asleep and Frisk is the only one with their eyes open. Someone forgot to turn off the kitchen light; it shines through to the living room and coats everything in pale yellow.
They’re tired. Chara can tell Frisk is only awake for them, now. They’ve gotten better about which thoughts they can hear coming through but they still can’t quite control the buzzing of emotion. Frisk can feel them contemplating. They wait with them, mirroring Chara’s own position on the floor with their knees up to their chest.
Chara goes through the blanket.
“It’s warm,” They tell them.
Frisk watches them for a moment. The fire’s flickering shadows are washed out from the kitchen light. They watch them and Chara watches back. They don’t have much else to do.
Eventually, their hands shift out from under the blanket and sign.
“We can’t.”
We. It’s always we with Frisk, as if their life started when they fell down and met Chara. It’s always the two of them- not just Frisk, not just Chara.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” They defend. But the second it comes out they know it’s a weak argument. This place might be safe for Frisk but that doesn’t matter to them. Not when it’s just them. “I didn’t need the ghost bed. I don’t need to leave. I can deal with the comedian.”
“We’ll be okay,” They repeat, just like they said earlier. They give them a smile and set a hand in the spot Chara’s is; it goes through the form but is small enough that it fits in instead of fully covering.
Then they’re asleep.
And it’s just Chara.
… It’s quiet.
“Dang it,” They mutter, pushing themself up to stand. They cross their arms and look around the area. “Dang it, Frisk.”
The older brother has, apparently, decided against laying down and is instead leaning his skull against his hand, which in turn has his elbow against his thigh bone. Because of the eye-mask they probably wouldn’t be able to tell he was asleep if not for the snoring. The younger hasn’t moved an inch since he lied down. Arms behind his head. Stupid grin.
Frisk fell asleep too quick to pull the blanket back up, which annoys Chara to no end.
The light switch is easy enough to shut off. It doesn’t take as much out of them as they thought it might, which is good- so when they step back into the living room they stand there for a moment and take in the fire and take in the people and Frisk looks comfortable. Frisk looks content. Frisk looks warm.
And when they come back and lay down and place their hand over Frisk’s again, they don’t get a second-hand body heat or warmth or comfort. It’s just familiar.