Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The light slowly faded from the surroundings. He clutched the cooling hand intertwined with his more strongly. The world, no the multiverse, existence as they knew it would soon end.

Many had already taken their last breath, and they were the last ones left. He couldn’t help squeezing again when he thought so. He shook with anxiety, a sharp sadness stinging in his soul. No, he had lasted until now, for years, through so much, too much, just to cry now. He refused to cry, at least not in front of him.

He turned his head to look at the last warmth left aside from him, he was met with the familiar light blue gaze, full of warmth as always, and full of melancholy, also as usual. The gaze blinked playfully at him, smiling in a weak attempt to soften the agonizing pain that they were surely both under. He couldn’t help but snort back in response.

Despite everything he was happy there was at least someone next to him before he too was inevitably gone. He knew that he was likely to go first, or at least at the same time. Arguably he was in a worse physical state than the other, despite the fact that many would assume otherwise, and a selfish part of him was happy that he didn’t have to watch another person go before him, even if that meant that we would be the other would have to watch in his place.

They both stayed there, hands intertwined and blindly gazing at the endless above, merely waiting for the inevitable.

Then it began again. Unfortunately however, not as he hoped. The first sign was the rapid cooling of the warmth in his hand.

He rapidly twisted his neck to gaze at the other. But he was met with a smile, and gradual slow of movement of the other’s jacket that had served as proof of life.

His facial expression finally broke, his features filling with horror. The other parted his polished white teeth, but the last breath escaped away from his grasp before he could speak.

The hand in his now laid limp, cold, no longer warming in his own high natural temperature.

He sat up in a hurry and rapidly fussed over the other’s body. His logic told him that if the other’s body was still intact that meant he was still alive, but he knew better. Grown to know better with the latest developments.

He spend several minutes trying everything he could think of. But the other did not show any sort of reaction.

Finally unable to stand it anymore, his head fell on the other’s chest and he began to sob, harshly cursing the unfairness of it all. What had he done to be the only one to deserve this? To have to go through this? He grew a tiny envy inside, envious of his long time friend —now as cold as a human corpse in his arms— for being able to leave first. But he couldn’t bring himself to truly fault the other. Not only did he know that doing so would be foolish. But his friend had also done too much for him, gone through too much. So despite himself, he also felt a small lingering happiness, for the other, for not having to see everything gone, even if this meant that he did instead.

It had been years, no, much more than the measly count of years, since he had last cried. But it was the last time anyways, so it should be okay, right?

He had long lost sense of time, when his own life also quietly and slowly drained away and he too, took his last breath.

At last, everything was finally over.

Then he did the impossible.

He opened his eyes. Taking a harsh, difficult exhale, before inhaling and gradually getting used to breathing again, he instinctively moved forward, already observing his surroundings.

He was met with something even more impossible. He couldn’t properly move, in front of him he saw a much too tiny skeletal hand. He gripped, his hand. His surroundings told him he was inside of some kind of see through container in some kind of liquid solution, and outside it was a familiar yet unfamiliar sight of what was clearly a laboratory.

Someone turned the corner, entering his sight as they rushed towards his direction, urgency clear in their steps. Another familiar thing, the new arrival, also a skeleton, thin and tall, wearing a white lab coat and with impossible to mistake cracks along his eye sockets, and holes in his hands. Gaster.

He fainted again, just before Gaster reached the container. 

Chapter Text

When he awoke again, he was no longer in that sticky solution, nor in a glass container.

Instead he was wrapped in a soft blanket, he felt very warm and cozy. It reminded him of when his brother decided to stop being a stupid EQless tsundere and decided that showing affection was allowed.

At those times he would walk in the living room, a heavy, well cared for blanket neatly folded in his arms, trudge towards the couch, and stop, staring at him like he had a grudge against his bony ass for sitting in the couch that was meant to be sat on.

Then as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and it had been for them, his brother would pick him up with one arm, as if he were a child. He was always very offended, lie. He may be short but he was still the older brother between the two. Anyways, then his brother would spread the blanket, sit on top of it, place him in his lap, and wrap them both in the blanket like a double filling burrito.

But wait. That can’t be what’s happening. His brother is already dead. And so is everyone else he’s ever had the pleasure of liking enough to allow them to cuddle up to him cozily like this. He immediately woke up from his thoughts.

The soft silky blanket was entirely wrapped around him, serving to block a large section of his vision, but when he looked below, he saw skeleton arms, adorned by the white sleeves of a lab coat and recognizable hands, wrapped around him, keeping both him and the blanket neatly in place and warm.

Gaster.

That’s right, just before fainting he had seen Gaster.

He felt dizzy with confusion.

How can Gaster- How can a Gaster-? How can anyone be here? How can he be here? And why is he a babybone?

He wiggled around, anxiety and paranoia spiking up.

This movement attracted the attention of Gaster, who was holding him. Gaster gently let down a bit of the soft blanket, enough so that he could now see Gaster’s face.

“Hmm? What’s wrong, Sans? Awake already?”, Gaster asked, his expression happy but anxious.

“Are you uncomfortable? Does it hurt somewhere? Do we need to get you back in the solution?”, Gaster rapidly began shooting questions when the only answer to his first ones was a poker face. Gaster was clearly panicking, his face full of concern.

What the fuck? Sans? Right. Sans, yes. I mean, that is his name. Well it’s many skeletons' names to anyone privy of the multiverse. The multiverse which had just collapsed, last time he checked.

It was just so baffling to hear it. It had been so long since anyone other than his brother, Papyrus, had called him by this name. The fact that it was a Gaster saying it wasn’t helping either.

And so in an awkwardly cute moment, Gaster and baby Sans panicked in synchronization.

But unlike the now baby Sans, Gaster was a lot more, how do you call it, loud and proud about it.

He was getting off topic again, he really needs to break that habit. His brother had told him to fix it before, but he naturally did not listen at the time.

Sans patted Gaster’s hand, the only thing he could reach, to call his attention. Gaster immediately stopped panicking and turned his full attention to him, audibly gulping air. Sans patted and caressed his hand awkwardly, hoping it would decrease his tension enough for them to have some form of non-angsty communication.

Gaster grasped his coat, right where his heart would be if he had one, and also right where his soul is. Sans was very confused by this reaction.

But Gaster quickly shook it off and gently, carefully turned Sans around and placed him in a soft surface, with his hands on either side of the babybone, so he could balance him, if needed.

“I’m sorry, Sans. This brother of yours is kind of useless huh?”, Gaster seemed to say more to himself.

Sans nearly died of a soul attack. Brother? This Gaster was his Sans’ brother, no he knew the truth, his brother?

“I was just very worried because it’s the first time you’ve woken up. I’m sure that from now on everything will get better. How about we figure this out together?”, Gaster continued in a suave voice.

Gaster waited for a answer for a few seconds, before realizing that Sans probably couldn’t speak.

“Oh right. Uh, how about I give you some questions and you answer with a little tap to my hand or something. One tap for no and two taps for yes. And we can figure out something else in the future for more complicated things”, Gaster suggested.

Now I know what you’re thinking. This guy has no idea how babies work huh? Well, Gaster is no expert in babies that’s for sure. But to provide some insight, not everything he has done is complete nonsense.

Most monsters, specially the ones who mature fast mentally (such as skeletons), are generally born with the ability to understand what others are saying, and to communicate, though not through speech, as speech must be learned. So Gaster isn’t entirely bonkers just yet.

Sans decides to go with his suggestion, tapping two times.

“You're such a little darling, aren’t you Sans?!”, Gaster couldn’t help but respond with fondness.

Sans shivers, very disturbed. He instinctively taps once, making Gaster laugh.

“Alright let’s begin. Are you hurt anywhere? Do you feel any type of stinging, burning or aches?”, he begins.

Sans taps once.

“Are you tired?”

Sans taps twice.

“Are you numb anywhere?”

Sans taps twice.

“Okay. Let’s try this”, Gaster gently grabs one of his little hands, “Now I’m going to point at places and you’ll tell me if you feel numb there”, he points at Sans’ hands.

Sans’ taps once.

Gaster points at his legs.

Sans’s taps twice.

Gaster gently rearranges him in the soft surface. From the small change of placement, he already feels better a bit.

“Does that feel better?”, Gaster asks.

Sans taps twice.

“Now let’s continue”, he points at Sans’ skull.

Sans taps once.

He points at Sans’ neck.

Sans taps twice.

Gaster pauses in thought, “Just a minute, two more questions and we can drink and eat something, yes?”.

Sans taps twice and Gaster smiles in response.

Gaster points at his spine.

Sans taps once.

Gaster points at his chest.

Sans taps twice.

Gaster takes a soft sigh, and picks up Sans, wrapping him back up with the small blanket. He starts walking and they reach the destination in no time. Must be because Gaster has long legs.

Gaster hands him a bottle of- milk. Seriously? Sans is very unimpressed.

“C’mon, try it?! This is the safest bet. We can try something else if you don’t like it”, Gaster nudges.

Sans sighs a baby sigh and nibbles the bottle. Gulping a little bit of milk, because Gaster is still looking at him. Actually. Oh. That’s pretty good. Sans continues drinking.

Gaster silently sighs in relief.

Chapter Text

Gaster had just gotten up this morning and gone to the lab early to begin with work. What awaited him was a more pleasant surprise than any accidentally successful project.

Sans was awake!

Sans was Gaster’s little brother, his first little brother. Or at least he had been born first. It was a complicated story.

Several years ago, a war between humans and monsters happened. It ended in the one-sided victory for the humans, who then imprisoned the remaining monsters under Mt. Ebott.

During the war many monsters lost their lives, while the humans were nearly unscathed. Wretchful things. Monsters had never once harmed them nor treated them as lesser, yet humans were ever the sickening bunch, taking advantage of monsterkind’s generous nature and benevolence. Monsterkind had been caught off guard by the deceiving and vile humans.

It couldn’t be helped that Gaster had grown to despise them for their sickening and distasteful natures.

He too had fought in the war, though only in the backlines, he had been much too young to be allowed in the frontlines.

The war left monsterkind with many scars to heal. One of which personally included and affected him and his brothers. They were the only skeletons left.

Initially their mother had survived, but she died from her wounds the day after Papyrus was born. And Sans. Sans had been born comatose, he breathed and exuded warmth, even too much warmth at times, but he never woke up. So today was the first time that Gaster had ever seen him open his eye sockets.

When Sans kindly patted his hand and rubbed it to calm him down, Gaster thought he would have a soul attack from the sheer cuteness.

Speaking of which Sans was now sitting in front of him and slowly downing a bottle of magic infused supplemental milk. The furrow of his bone brows and the ambience of satisfaction Sans gave out as he gulped, was particularly charming and adorable.

His first brother already had a captivating personality. He couldn’t wait for what was to come from now on.

Sans seemed to be doing surprisingly well, for someone who had woken up from a life long coma, perhaps in a few months he could take him out of the lab to live with him and Papyrus, Gaster’s other younger brother, who was naturally also Sans’ younger brother. Papyrus had been born very healthy, unlike Sans. So while Sans was technically physically older than Papyrus, as far as the time of consciousness goes, Papyrus would be considered older. Though he’s not sure how his cutely grumpy first younger brother will react to that. He seemed to have a strong personality.

Gaster was looking forward to it. He watched Sans’ drink the milk with a smile on his face.

Chapter Text

Sans had been here in this new universe for a few months now. No, this new multiverse. His multiverse was already gone.

He’d been in the lab the whole time. For a good reason too, because he found himself coughing and developing fevers as often as he did in his worst days in his past life. But the cough and fevers had been gradually decreasing as time passed, though he still felt uselessly lacking in strength. It reminded him of a bad time.

Sans did learn some new things in the meantime however. After months of existential crisis and several meltdowns that he had to disguise as just some kind of other severe symptom caused by his apparent coma that this, his body had been in since he was born. I mean he couldn’t very well explain why essentially what could be considered a newborn was having a meltdown about, right? Anyways, whether he admitted it or not Gaster’s constant presence helped him through this tough time.

Speak of the devil and he shall arrive. Just in time, Gaster comes in, waving at him with a smile—which Sans had grown familiar with in the past month or so— on his face. Still it was strange to have someone, to have Gaster treating him like some kind of precious treasure or something.

His childhood was in the rough side even among the Sanses in his original multiverse. Speaking of original multiverse, it had a name. He ruffled though his memories. Ah yes, he recalled that Error called it “Rootverse”. Well at least that will be easier than saying “original multiverse” in his head every time he wanted to distinguish between the two. He didn’t know the name of this multiverse yet, or even the universe he was in right now for sure, so for now he would just use Rootverse for his original and this multiverse for this one. Maybe later he would find out the correct names.

The Gaster in his memory, his faded and washed out memory, was nowhere as untouched, undamaged and retaining such clarity in his soul as this one was.

Though it may also have to do with the fact that every sentence he can remember his Rootverse Gaster saying was filled at least up to halfway through with curses. It couldn’t be helped, he also rarely spoke without cursing. Something Fresh did not appreciate. It was a habit common to Underfell AUs, and he belonged to the Original Underfell of Rootverse.

In Rootverse there were many AUs, it was basically packed full and bursting with AUs, unfortunately. So naturally some of the more “popular”, whatever that meant, AUs had various copies and variants. The Underfell he came from was the first Underfell created in Rootverse, hence why he had the title of being the Original Underfell Sans.

Wait, there he goes again getting off topic.

Anyways, his body had been in a coma since he was born. As per usual there were only three skeletons in the underground. Papyrus was still his younger brother. Though technically he was older than him, if one were to take into account the fact that Papyrus has been conscious for ‘longer’. But unfortunately for him, Sans has lived countless of years, through countless resets, and countless more time divergent bullshittery, so he was still the older brother, HA. Besides if you think well about it, he’s in fact the oldest brother, because counting his shitty past life, he was definitely older than Gaster as well. Was what he had gathered so far, the part where he was the older brother was the most important one.

Speaking of which, back to Gaster. He had stopped in front of Sans and was frantically waving his hand in front of Sans’ face, and also calling him a lot. He must have been really deep in thought, because he hadn’t noticed that until now at all.

But now that he had noticed, Sans quickly found the motion in front of him to be annoying and instinctively grasped Gaster’s hand.

“Oh thank the stars. Are you okay, Sans?”, Gaster asked, letting out a deep sigh.

Sans grunted in agreement. He hadn’t quite started speaking yet in these past few months, but he could easily make other noises that worked just as well for communication. He should be able to speak soon. Though to be frank Sans kind of liked not talking. Talking was exhausting. He had talked a lot in his past life. It was always more fruitless than it ever was effective. He quickly found that talking would get him into trouble and could cause more harm than it ever caused him any good.

“Are you sure?”, Gaster questioned, concerned, “Maybe we should stay here in the lab for a while longer after all. I was thinking of going home today but-”

Sans immediately interrupts, making a growl like noise of disagreement, grabbing Gaster’s hand with his tiny ones, and pointing towards the door, staring Gaster dead in the eye and scowling. Wordlessly daring him to keep him in this place for any longer.

Thankfully, Gaster had also grown to be quite the expert at understanding him.

Gaster silently nodded to convey that he understood what Sans meant. Then he picked up Sans, changed his clothes into something warmer, wrote a note with dog shit handwriting, of which Sans could only make out “Alphys”. So probably a note to her, she must be working with Gaster in the lab already.

“Fortunately I got a day off from King Fluffy Buns~ Alphys should have no problem with everything I’ve left for her in the meantime, she’s only organizing after all.”, Gaster filled the silence with some rambles. Sans didn’t mind since it voluntarily informed him of many things, and information was what Sans needed most right now.

Gaster wrapped Sans in a small fluffy blanket and securely carried him in his arms as he left the laboratory.

Outside Sans was met with the painfully familiar sight of snow. Snowdin’s snow.

Gaster pulled him close, and pulled the little hoodie on Sans’ clothes to cover his tiny skull. Gaster was warm, so Sans found that he didn’t feel the cold even when the wind brushed in their direction. Gaster took long strides in the snow, walking hurriedly but steadily.

Comfy against Gaster, Sans noted that the other walked as normal, without the usage of any magic, either this Gaster did not have any kind of space-time breaking magic or he just wanted to walk with him. Or perhaps it was because with his long legs it really didn’t take long to reach places. By the time Sans floated out of his thoughts he was already in front of his house.

It was exactly the same as the one he had in Underfell, but a lot less depilated, and in brown instead of red, basically it was a perfect copy of Classic’s house. He wondered if this was what Classic’s childhood was like, though when they grew closer both him and Classic would share stories of the past they kept hidden from everyone else, he doesn’t remember Classic saying anything about being disgustingly sick, nor comas. So he could probably consider this place as some kind of Alternative Timeline of Undertale. At least so far he didn’t see a big enough change of setting for it to be a AU, maybe it was a variant of a AT.

Gaster stopped at the door and glanced down at him. Sans understood what he wanted to ask even without him saying anything. So he reached his tiny hand and jiggled the nob awkwardly after Gaster unlocked the door, Gaster ‘sneakily’ helped him open it all the way.

Inside he was met with the hundredth soul attack of the week. Toriel was inside. What the fuck?

He thought he was gonna get to see a tiny Papyrus and be relieved of some stress, maybe cry a little. Not be met with the Queen of the Underground.

Toriel smiled motherly at the two, and Sans impulsively pressed closer to Gaster.

“Hello, Gaster. I see you’ve brought him. Come sit down first and have some tea. Papyrus and Asriel are playing in Papyrus’ room right now.”, she said.

Gaster politely greeted her back and sat at the table. He was going to also sit down Sans, but was surprised at the babybone’s clingy action, and decided to simply keep him in his arms.

Just as Gaster started to drink tea and crackers, while chatting about non-important things with Toriel, while Sans frantically glanced at every corner he could see, trying to take in the surroundings as fast as possible, came a playful thump.

It was soon followed by two small figures dashing down the stairs. Papyrus and Asriel.

Toriel scolded them for doing dangerous things and blah blah blah, but Sans wasn’t paying attention to it.

Papyrus was so fucking cute. He really looked like a tiny marshmallow version of Puff, Classic’s brother. Sans didn’t know what Puff looked and acted like when he was younger, but from Classic’s stories, it was probably something like this. It was so easily discernible from his brother, his boss, Papyrus, or Edge as the others called him —Sans had never been in the habit of calling him that—, always hated it when he called him boss, which is why Sans called him that all the time. His boss, haha, had been a pest of child, Sans wasn't in the mind to admit he had been a cute pest, but he had definitely been a pest. Completely different from the soft and energetic but polite child in front of him right now, awkwardly apologizing to Toriel.

The next moments passed rather fast. Sans hadn’t even noticed that he got distracted with his thoughts again. Before he knew it Toriel and Asriel were gone, not before the tiny Asriel bid them a little goodbye with a wave, which the goat child made sure included him, for some reason. And finally the skeleton house was only left with skeletons in it.

Papyrus immediately jumped to action as soon as the goats were gone, clinging to Gaster’s legs and mewling for him to bend down.

Gaster obliged, still carrying Sans in his grasp.

Soon enough Sans was met with Papyrus’ sparkling gaze. Papyrus made some kind of strange sound similar to a squeal and reached his tiny hand towards Sans. Willing to indulge someone with that face, Sans helpfully removed a arm from the bundle of blanket he was in and met Papyrus’ in contact.

He immediately deemed it the right choice when Papyrus nearly screeched in excitement with an ever growing smile.

“Little big brother!”, Papyrus greeted him with extra energy.

Sans felt that the little was very unnecessary but he would let it go just today. He hummed in response to the other babybone.

Maybe he could get used to this after all.

Chapter Text

Papyrus had seen his little big brother a few times before, but when he saw him, he had been sleeping. Sans. His little big brother, Sans had always been sleeping. He had been sleeping even before Papyrus was born.

Papyrus had his big big brother, Wing Dings Gaster— Papyrus liked to call him Wings for short— who had been the one to care for him. But Wings was very busy. After a while he was mainly watched by the Queen of Monsters, Toriel while she took care of her son —who had also turned into Papyrus’ playmate—, Asriel and occasionally by other acquaintances and friends of Wings when they could. Even though Papyrus was a bit slow and not as smart as his big big brother —and probably not as smart as little big brother either, going by what Wings has told him since his little big brother woke up, he’d been asking since he first heard Sans woke up, and it was a also a nice little change of pace that Wings would sit down with him and answer all of his questions and curiosities about his little big brother— he wasn’t stupid either. In fact Papyrus was quite perceptive.

That’s why he inferred the reason why they didn’t have parents easily. That’s why Papyrus had always understood the underlying notions of his little big brother’s condition. Understood what his big big brother’s grief, which would sometimes leak out when he thought no one was looking, meant. Comprehended that there had always been a higher likelihood of his little big brother never waking up than of ever waking up at all. Hence through the recognition of these facts, Papyrus was just as ecstatic to meet his little big brother as Wings had been, and as Sans had been to meet him, unbeknownst to the other two.

Papyrus marveled at the animated version of Sans he saw for the first time. His expression seemed to scream unimpressed, but his gaze at Papyrus was warm and made Papyrus feel fuzzy inside. He liked his little big brother more and more.

He noted that Sans’ hands were even tinier than his, even though Sans should be physically older than him. Sans’ hands were also very different from everyone else’s hands that Papyrus knew. The only other skeleton he knew, only other skeleton left, was his other big brother, but even so Sans’ grasp was very different from Wings’. Putting aside the obvious differences like size and the holes that Wings had in his hands, Sans’ hands were softer and plumper, a funny sentiment considering they were equally made of bone. But after all, the three of them were magical skeletons, the constancy and texture of their bones were very distinct from that of humans, at least that’s what Papyrus thinks, because he’s never seen a human before. It should be the case from what he heard though, they say that human’s flesh is soft and their bones are hard, but skeleton monster’s have malleable and soft bones, very nice to hug. Papyrus thought that Sans would probably be nicer to hug than Wings. No offense to his big big brother of course. Sans just looked very huggable in that fluffy blanket of his.

He happily played with Sans’ hand, who willingly tolerated his ruffling and poking. Papyrus was surprised by the sudden sound of a loud ringing tone. With it his big brother Gaster got up from where he had been crouched down watching Sans and Papyrus.

“I’m gonna go take this call okay, Papy? I want you to stay in the couch with Sans until I return. Can you do that for me?”, Gaster asked.

Papyrus nodded sharply, grabbing Gaster’s hand as they both walked to the couch, where Gaster deposited Sans who he’d still been carrying and helped Papyrus climb, before leaving the room to answer the phone after checking that they were both good.

Papyrus immediately turned to Sans.

“Sans!”, Papyrus called his attention cheerfully, leaning into Sans’ personal space.

Sans hummed in acknowledgement, expression stoic but hands trembling.

“Are you really gonna live with us now?”, Papyrus asked grabbing Sans’ hands and rubbing them like he wanted to warm them up.

Sans nodded.

Papyrus squealed in joy. “Yay, now I don’t have to be alone in the mornings.”

Sans swished his head towards him so fast, you could hear a crack, he stared at Papyrus.

“Huh? What’s wrong, brother?”, Papyrus asked tilting his head in confusion.

It took a few minutes of staring at each other for Papyrus to finally come to the correct conclusion.

“Oh! Yeah big bro, I mean big big bro- is very busy and stays in the lab for a really long time. He usually stays there the entire morning and evening and only comes back to sleep. Now Sans will be with me during the morning and evening, right?”, Papyrus responded, eye lights sparkling with hope. Having Sans as his little big brother was gonna be awesome.

Sans made a gesture of pointing toward himself, that Papyrus somehow magically understood.

“Oh no, it’s not because of you. The lab has experts for uh medical stuff, they usually take care and work to continue the support for your unconscious body, I mean you, before-.”, Papyrus reveals an unusual amount of knowledge about what goes on, “That’s not Wings' expertise area. He’s usually busy with other things. You being awake probably won’t affect the amount of work he has at all”, he informs.

They soon hear the familiar sound of steps.

“Oh he’s coming back.”, Papyrus says brightly. He stops when Sans suddenly grasps his hands and holds them tight, expression furrowing.

Gaster comes in.

“Hhm? How are you two? Shall we go eat something?”, Gaster asks before pausing when he sees Sans’ expression. “Sans? What’s wrong?”, Gaster tries. But the only response is Sans’ scowl turning more intense.

Gaster instinctively sits in the ground where he can meet their gaze to level and lets out a confused sound.

Papyrus idly thinks it looks kind of funny, like Toriel and Asriel when she’s about to scold the goat child. Looking at the harsh coldness behind Sans’ soft features and feeling the soothing cool warmth of his hand, Papyrus feels a little sorry for Gaster. He didn’t really understand, but his little big brother, might be even smarter than his big big brother —specially in regards to emotions. That’s what his intuition tells him, and Papyrus had very good intuition. 

Chapter Text

It was without a single fucking doubt that Sans was, well maybe not quite angry yet, but definitely disappointed. He felt that he didn’t hold much of a fucking expectation for a Gaster who was from a peaceful —as peaceful as they come—, Undertale childhood timeline.

Sans didn’t blame Gaster for being busy. It was natural that work should be one of the main priorities a monster has, when it serves to sustain their livelihood —he himself had prioritized his jobs during his early years in order to make enough to provide for himself and his brother. But it didn’t mean it should be the only priority. It seemed clear to Sans that Gaster had put enough thought into this that he had arranged others to look after Papyrus when he could not, evident by the presence of Toriel and prince Asriel, who seemed familiar with Papyrus and Gaster. However Sans was disappointed that Gaster did not even bother to spend enough time at home to greet Papyrus in the morning and eat with him.

Sans knew that Papyrus, if he was anything like his brother in his previous life, of Rootverse's Original Underfell, or literally any Papyrus other then maybe the swap versions, that it was certain Papyrus woke up early, enough to the point of rarely sleeping for longer than 3 hours (fortunately this wasn’t necessarily unhealthy practice for a healthy skeleton monster, with good fitness and vigor, which most Papyri, including this one in front of him were, thankfully), and he didn’t believe that Gaster really could not afford to spare an hour in his morning routine to eat with Papyrus.

It was one thing if this was the vague shitty Gaster from his Underfell, but for some reason Sans couldn’t stand the thought that a Gaster related to a Sans other than him — he would need to correct this line of thought later—, was so neglectful, specially towards his new little brother.

This small and clearly clever Papyrus, was undoubtedly not his brother, or well, not his boss. Not the Papyrus he raised and ran all over the underground for in his childhood. That Papyrus was gone, and no one could ever replace him. Sans would continue to ache and miss him forever. But this Papyrus was also innocent, and deserved happiness as much as his brother had. He was just like any of the of his brother’s doppelgängers, any other of his doppelgängers' brothers, many of whom he had come to care for, before they were all gone. And now he was his brother. So Sans would care for him just like he cared for his boss. He was willing to provide him with the best that he could, and he hoped that if his other little brother was still out there somewhere, that he was in a better place, happy. 

Anyways, Gaster was currently getting stared down by an adorable baby bone with the deadliest gaze known to monsterkind.

Gaster swallowed a dry gulp of air. “Yes?”, the older skeleton hesitated.

Sans scowled at him.

“I’m sorry”, Gaster spoke out of a pure unadulterated sense of self preservation.

That didn’t seem to be the correct answer though, as Sans’ squishy face turned even more terrifying. The confusion Gaster felt in addition to the terror that he couldn't explain how his younger brother emitted, left him flustered in and disoriented. 

“Hmm”, a little sound suddenly broke the tense atmosphere.

Gaster and Sans turned to the source. Papyrus. He was squishing Sans’ hands wrapped in his and looking at Gaster and Sans with bright but slightly confused eye lights.

“I think he’s mad, because you work too much?”, he turns to Sans for confirmation. “Uh, no? Then because you stay in the lab too much?”, he tries again. Gaster’s eye lights grow with intense concentration as he watches his youngest brother, run through the possibilities. “Or uh. Because you don’t uh- spend enough time at home?”, Papyrus tries one more time. “Because you don’t spend enough time with me?!”, he finally sees Sans’ approval.

““Wait what?””, both Papyrus and Gaster exclaim in surprise.

“That’s no true at all”, Papyrus immediately denies it, “Lately he’s been coming back during the night slightly earlier than usual and he even gives me updates on you”.

Sans looks throughly unimpressed.

“I spend time with Papyrus. There’s a lot of work so I do leave pretty early but there’s always someone to take care of him.”, Gaster tries, “I spend time with you, right Papy?”, he seeks support shamelessly.

Sans throws the blanket at his face, standing up in the couch very unsteadily.

“Ah ah ah”, Papyrus panics at the sight and supports him.

Gaster quickly removes the blanket from his line of sight and goes to help steady both of them,  he’s immediately met with a face of distaste. “I- I”, but he can’t really think of what to say for himself.

Sans makes some cute and awkward gestures to convey what he wants to really scold about.

Through sheer miracle, or some kind of magical bullshit, magic lineage, doesn’t matter, they somehow understand what he wants to say.

“Is it necessary to go out so early? Well it’s uh good to be prepared and get things neat.”, Gaster responds. 

The only accurate description of Sans’ response to his bullshit would be: Press X to doubt.

When in the ever loving stars has this bitch ever been tidy, Sans inwardly screams. Did he think he was blind? Sans had spend the last few months in the laboratory. There was not an inch of space in that place that was “neat” and “prepared”. Everyone was running around all the time, having no sense of where their head or feet even were, much less anything else in that place.

What Gaster was, was a trashy fucking workaholic with no common sense nor awareness nor wisdom in any other part of his life aside from work. Like every other Gaster Sans had ever had the pleasure and displeasure of fucking meeting. He would make sure to change that.

“I uh-”, Papyrus speaks up to defend Gaster but gets Sans’ small open palm in front of his face, the taller but younger skeleton deflates immediately.

“No, yes you are absolutely right. I should have been a better, more mindful older brother. I can definitely spare some time to eat with Papyrus in the morning. I will also take appropriate breaks, to get all aspects of my life in order. I will never again neglect him”, Gaster anxiously replied, bowing in Sans' direction for some reason. 

The small babybone glares from above, barely satisfied at the response. Sans is going to teach him well.

On a side note, if there had been any outsider looking into this scene, it would be hilarious sight to them. Two skeletons, one adult, one child, being shut down by the smallest in the room, a delicate rounded skeleton child who hadn’t even spoken the entire time. The former two skeletons sounded ridiculous responding to what seemed to be more their imagination than anything else.

Hahah Karma always comes back to bite bitches.

Chapter Text

That day whether it had been through sheer miracle, or some kind of magical bullshit, magic lineage kind of thing, Gaster and Papyrus had somehow understood the meaning behind every wordless scowl of Sans’ during their first intimidating “Sans' Karmic Scolding” — as they would later name it — they had ever gotten.

“Is it necessary to go out so early? Well it’s uh good to be prepared and get things neat.”, Gaster had responded.

That was complete and utter bullshit. To be frank Gaster just didn’t know how to interact with his youngest brother properly. Gaster was awkward and probably lacking a little too much in social skills. He would easily get anxious and default to an aloof attitude. Papyrus was no exception to this. In fact the only exception that didn’t include those he’d known for over half of his life, was Sans, but that was only because Sans’ attitude low key forced him to interact with him, and also because he was deadly afraid that if he let Sans’ get angrier than he always looked whenever he would say something seemingly stupid, that Sans would faint out of anger or something, and who knew if he would be able to wake up again if that happened. So he was unable to ignore him.

The two taller skeleton’s could almost feel the tenseness of the air, when Papyrus wearily attempted to dilute the situation, “I uh-”, unfortunately, Papyrus was too unaccustomed to the intensity of the scolding and was easily defused by a mere small palm that appeared in his sight.

“No, yes you are absolutely right. I should have been a better, more mindful older brother. I can definitely spare some time to eat with Papyrus in the morning. I will also take appropriate breaks, to get the rest of my life aside from my job in order. I will never again neglect him”, Gaster bows like he’s in front of either a judge or an executioner, probably both, as he begs for forgiveness and promises to change.

Papyrus quietly morned for himself and his oldest brother. This day would haunt his conscious for the rest of his life. Causing him to develop a reflex of falling silent when glared down by brotherly short skeletons with soft facial features, something that would cause many misunderstandings in the future.

Gaster shivered, feeling that he was in for more than a scolding if he didn’t properly change his ways as he claimed.

Chapter Text

It had been some time since the well deserved scolding Sans gave Gaster. Within this period of time, Sans relearned to speak. It wasn’t that hard once he actually tried, it wasn’t as if he had never spoken before after all. This body just needed to get used to it. Sans mostly opted to only speak when necessary in the end though, he always found himself tired of speaking —something that he would deny having any deeper meaning behind for a long time —, not to mention that his brothers could understand fine even when he didn’t speak, and it was much more fun to see how easily they understood him, he liked to see their certainty and clarity. Of course with those other than his brothers he generally simply kept his replies short, but was fully capable of having full conversations if prompted. 

Speaking of others. Now that Sans had become more well accustomed to living outside of the lab and regained the ability to do some things by himself, like walking without wobbling and more, he and his brothers were invited to the Royal Palace. Apparently something about Toriel and Asgore wanting to meet their second godson. HOLD the fuck on. Yeah, he was surprised too. Da fuck ya mean godson, which fucking AU or AT was this where Asgore and Toriel were the skeletons’ godparents. It took everything he had in him not to shout at the top of his non existent lungs, when he found out. 

Anyways the skelebros were currently packing to go to the royal palace. Well Gaster was useless, and Sans was weak lazy, so Papyrus was actually doing the bulk of packing.

They set out early and arrived in time for lunch. Sans was fucking shaking with anxiety and trying to remind himself that this was a Tale version of the royal family and not a Fell one. The only thing keeping him from doing something stupid was the fact that Papyrus had insisted in holding his hand as they walked. Gaster showed alleged support in Papyrus’ decision, as he needed to carry their things —the royal goats had insisted they stay for a few days, hence why there was quite a lot of baggage, so Gaster couldn’t hold their hands himself— and this was the first time that Sans walked such a long distance.

Sans doesn’t want to think about the fact that they had to stop so he could rest while walking all the way here, it was embarrassing to think of, they should have originally gotten here not for lunch but for tea, which was a few hours before lunch. Sure he was lazy but actually not being able to walk the shortest shortcut distance between their house in snowdin and the palace was simply shameful to him. He was used to being able to bulldoze through shit. He had grown up with the mentality and practicality of doing, of carrying out what needed to be done, even if he was in pain while doing it, even if doing it caused him pain. But now it was besides a matter of enduring pain, his body would pitiably shut down, he literally could not physically continue, without taking these disgraceful breaks. Sans would have likely never faulted anyone if they were in the same situation, but he was different, he wasn’t others, he wasn’t allowed to be so-, so weak. 

Sans would never admit how hard this journey was for him. He mentally denied himself the acknowledgment of his own effort. Sans was overwhelmed with fatigue from the walk that couldn’t even be considered long after they used a shortcut, and with tension of meeting the royals of this- this new home of his.

However Papyrus would not deny him as he did. It had been a painfully boring and tedious journey, Sans was certain. Yet when they stopped at the doors of the palace, already late, Papyrus and Gaster were unbothered. Papyrus, the sweet sweet child, who Sans had nearly forgotten he’d been squeezing the hand of for some time now, unwrapped his favorite dark red scarf — a scarf that Gaster had bought and Sans had picked for him during their first outing together —, and wrapped it around Sans.

“You’re so awesome brother. The second coolest to ever exist.”, Papyrus praised him.

Sans involuntarily smiled, “Bit offended, who’s the first then”, he humored.

“Why me of course, nyeheheh”, Papyrus responded.

“Can’t be helped then. Paps is indeed the coolest.”, Sans replied, his mood already much better.

Sans heard the sound of something being set down, and Gaster soon appeared next to them, crouching to their height

Smiling with mischief, he turned to Papyrus and asked, “Can I be the third coolest then?”.

Papyrus took a dramatic thinking pose, like he was considering it very hard, “Nye. The Great Papyrus shall pronounce you the third coolest.”, he finally reached his confident verdict.

Gaster made a tiny and silly victory dance before turning to Sans.

“What?”, Sans rose a bone brow in question.

“So, my second coolest baby brother. Aren’t I the third coolest?”, Gaster sought shameless praise.

Sans rolled his eye lights, “Yeah yeah”.

“AHAH”, Gaster turned to Papyrus, “See he called me third coolest too”.

“He only agreed with you, big big brother. Unlike how he very clearly said I was the coolest.”, Papyrus retorted.

Gaster gasped dramatically, “Now that’s just evil of you to point out, Papy”.

Sans was staring at them like as if to say: What kind of nonsense is this. Distracted by their bullshit silliness, he was caught off guard when Gaster picked him up his arms and held Papyrus’ hand with his free side.

Gaster and Papyrus smiled as they knocked on the large palace door.

At this sight, Sans sighed, and relaxed against Gaster. His brothers were really something. Unfortunately or fortunately, they were something he could tolerate, regardless of what his better intuition advised.

They were soon warmly greeted by their fluffy hosts. 

Chapter Text

The three skeleton brothers were heartily welcomed by the royal goat family and quickly ushered into the palace.

“Come in boys”, Toriel, the Queen, hurried them in gently, gesturing for Gaster to leave the bags outside, when he made to grab them again. Someone else would bring them in.

This Toriel was gentle and warm, youthful and sociable. Completely unlike the Toriel Sans remembered from his AU. He brushed aside the thought, now this was his AU. That place, other place, was gone now.

Gaster walked carrying Sans in one arm and holding Papyrus’ hand. A small ball of fluff flashed past and tackled Papyrus. Sans reflectively glared, and instinctively posed to activate his magic at any potential threats, but it of course, did not activate. He didn’t have his magic yet. Sans paused, after noting that Papyrus was safe. It had only been Asriel, prince Asriel, who was enthusiastically greeting his friend with a tackle hug.

Sans looked down and closed his hand around Papyrus’ scarf which had been wrapped around his own neck by Papyrus, rubbing the fabric and feeling out of place.

“Hhm?”, he heard a quiet questioning sound that rumbled from Gaster’s chest. Sans wordlessly assured him it was nothing with a little pat to his arm.

“Now Asriel, you can play with Papyrus all you want later. It’s time for dinner. Why don’t you lead the skeleton brothers?”, a kindly husky voice suddenly said. Sans gripped onto Gaster’s clothes, barely maintaining his balance.

A familiar voice, yet with such a different tone. Sans’ soul shook with apprehension, at the thought of the figure he personally knew with that voice. Asgore smiled amicable in his line of sight. Sans took a shaky breath, at the misleading sight. No, not misleading, this wasn’t him. It was someone else, remember that, Sans.

Sans had met Classic’s Asgore and Toriel before, they were similar to this as well, but it was different. It just had been different. He had simply met them before as Classic’s friends, they had a one sentence exchange at most. But he knew it wouldn’t turn out like this, not with them, this was now the royal family of his AU.

Meanwhile Asriel excitedly pulled Papyrus, tugging at Gaster’s pants and sneaking a glance at Sans before leading the way.

Toriel and Asgore, watched cordially. Moving to walking alongside Gaster, as Asriel and Papyrus walked in front.

Asgore started to chat about the progress of Gaster’s work, who quickly picked up the topic. Before they were both softly admonished by Toriel.

“Hello there”, Asgore greeted Sans to change the topic.

Sans spontaneously buried his face into Gaster’s chest, startled at the sudden attention towards him.

“Sorry, he’s a little shy with new people, Your Majesty”, Gaster replied in his place, a fond chuckle in his tone.

Asgore laughed genially, “It’s quite alright, my young friend. He can get to know us from now on. What do you think?”.

Sans nodded mechanically, not knowing what else to do.

Fortunately they soon reached the dinner table, so Sans was spared from any more immediate awkwardness.

Asgore sat in the corner of the long table. Then Toriel sat next to him. Sans’s eye sockets widened. Asriel sat next to Toriel. Gaster sat on the other side of Asgore, facing Toriel and sat Sans down to face Asriel, while Papyrus sat next to Sans.

They didn’t have to wait long for the food to be served. While the sitting arrangement was strange to say the least, Sans was happy to find out that the food was very tasty. About 30th most delicious, after the Boss, Papyrus and some of the boys. Well, Boss and the boys were gone, so I guess it was 2nd to only Papyrus for now, because Gaster couldn’t cook for shit. Little Papy though was a genius, Sans had taught him how to cook some lasagna when he had regained the ability to stay standing stably for long enough to do something that required some stamina, like cooking and Little Papy got it almost immediately. He was much better than Puff and the Boss, those two had been lost causes until they got real classes with some of the boys who were really good at cooking, he missed them. It must be because Papyrus hadn’t been misguided like them or something.

“Is it tasty?”, asked a soft motherly voice. Sans was suddenly awoken from his thoughts. He found that his plate was nearly empty and raised his head to meet the owner of the voice, Toriel. He noted that her eyes were a warm purple, different from his Toriel, different from Classic’s Toriel. He saw her gaze flash with a mischievous light, it reminded him of Epic’s cheeky gaze.

He snapped out of his staring, reflecting that what she was likely amused at was his lack of attention and that he had yet to answer her. Sans decided to nod instead of speaking. Toriel returned a friendly smile at that, to which he simply turned his gaze back down and continued eating.

Chapter Text

Lunch had been a pleasant affair, despite it all. The royals did not push Sans to speak, though they occasionally made conversation and asked questions, but they had not been aimed at Sans specifically but rather at all three skeletons, in a more general, less pressuring manner.

The royalty had good manners and etiquette, which Sans already expected. Instead he was surprised to see how well mannered and proper Gaster was. The Gaster that Sans had seen up until now, was messy and silly. Sans had been privy of some of his worst sides, and had yet to witness his best ones up until now.

Aside from that, Sans noticed that while Asriel was just as proper and polite as the Queen and King, he was constantly fidgeting, clearly impatient, yet remaining civilized and respectful through it all.

However, the impatience that Sans suspected was proved true as soon as lunch ended, and his parents freed him to go play. Prince Asriel immediately ran up to Sans and Papyrus, not a beat missed.

“Howdy!”, the small goat child greeted him. Sans nearly cringed at the familiar greeting matched with the less familiar sight, but simply nodded in return.

In his AU, Underfell, wait- maybe this new multiverse also had a Underfell, so that might become confusing in the future. Well his Underfell was a original. No wait, maybe he was getting too far ahead of himself. It had taken him a long time before he was privy to the multiverse in his past life, he should called it. Underfell 00, is what Error had called it. Actually word by word he called it “Edgy Abomination Number 1, Underfell 00”, in full, but Underfell —sometimes abbreviated as UF00 by the others— would do the job. Sans brushed away his diverting thoughts.

In Underfell 00, Sans had met Prince Asriel before, but Sans had not been near his age, both him and Boss, were older than the Prince, and Sans had seen Asriel grow up and die. The ages in this new AU of his were odd. They seemed to be twisted strangely from what he was used to, and even from what he knew from most other AUs in Rootverse.

“Will you play with me and Papyrus?”, an immature voice pulled Sans out of his thoughts. Prince Asriel’s eyes glittered with hope. Sans fidgeted with the dark red scarf around his neck, only now remembering that he still had it on, even after lunch. He looked towards Papyrus, who shared Prince Asriel’s expectant gaze.

“Ok”, Sans succumbed, turning to Papyrus. He heard a short gasp coming from Prince Asriel’s direction, as he unwrapped the scarf from around his neck and wrapped it around Papyrus’ again.

Then he turned back to Prince Asriel again, whose eyes had grown even brighter for some odd reason.

The three children bid goodbye to the three adults, who warned them to exercise caution and knowingly bid them farewell for the evening

Without hesitation, Prince Asriel send Papyrus some kind of strange gesture, that Sans couldn’t understand, and gripped Papyrus’ hand, shortly beginning to walk determinedly in what was clearly a well-acquainted path for him. Leaving no gap in between actions, Papyrus’ grasped Sans’ hand with his other and walked after Prince Asriel with notable familiarity.

Sans had to rush a bit in order to catch up with them, as he had been caught off guard and started walking a bit later. Papyrus, observant as always, pulled Prince Asriel’s hand, and the monster child leading them immediately started walking slower.

They soon reached a room with Prince Asriel’s name etched into the fancy door. Prince Asriel twisted the handle open with no fanfare, as if he couldn’t afford to be slower about it or something, and lead them in.

The room was very expansive, it was nearly the size of the small house Sans and his at the time baby Boss in his past life had been forced to take shelter in during his youth, before he was out of stripes and could work, to get them better things. Prince Asriel’s room was adorned by a king sized bed, that looked particularly comfortable, a cabinet, and several treasure chests. He opened one of them to reveal all sorts of toys and gadgets. Sans had never seen so many toys in his life.

“What do you want to play?”, Asriel turned to them cheerfully. “We have balls, boardgames, cards, props, costumes, and everything you can think of. There are also some books in a few chests too. But I can’t read them very well”, he informed excitedly.

“Oooo”, Papyrus seemed used to this sight, and was already deep in thought about what they should do. “Wait but we can’t throw ball and sword fight with Sans, what if he gets hurt?”, he exclaimed.

“Oh no, that’s true. We can uh play boardgames or cards then.”, Asriel suggested.

Sans was not amused by the implication that he would get hurt from playing ball with children, even though he knew it was the truth of the current reality.

In the end they played a few board and card games for a couple of hours. Somewhere in between King Asgore walked in with some snacks, and made the occasional sneaky suggestions and dropping hints for any of the three children he happened to be closest to in the short gap between setting down the snacks and leaving the room quietly soon after.

The hours dragged until it was ‘dark out’ before they grew bored of the various games. Fortunately just as they did, Queen Toriel called them for dinner.

Sans had grown just a bit closer to Asriel during them time playing together. Though he would most certainly deny it if you asked him.

Dinner was just as pleasant an affair as lunch, this time when the royals asked questions and made conversation Sans actually replied with words instead of hums and nods which he had been doing up until now. This put a easy smile on the faces of the three goat monsters. Though Asriel’s was more excited than it was easy.

After dinner, Papyrus and Sans went to check on their older brother. It was actually Gaster checking on them, but he was arguably more hopeless than them, so it was only natural that it felt more like them checking on him than the other way around. They bid him a short farewell and sent him off on his own playdate with the Queen and King. Sans laughed at that. Papyrus was the one to refer to it as a playdate, but Sans was definitely stealing that later to mess with Gaster.

After sending off Gaster, the two younger skeletons met with Asriel again. Who led them to his room. Where newly set bedsheets draped over his large mattress, and on top of it was the pajamas that Papyrus had packed for them both. It was probably Gaster who left them there, though he didn’t know when on earth he had time to do such a thing. It was obvious that Sans and Papyrus would be sleeping with Asriel during their stay in the Palace.

Which was odd for sure if you asked Sans, but this whole family was odd, hence it wasn’t as out of place as it should have been. Though, Sans could bet his pinky distal phalanx they had passed multiple guest rooms on the way to Asriel’s room.

Asriel urged them to shower and change into their pajamas, so they could hang out with him until it was time to sleep. He informed that his room had two bathrooms, noting that the same was true for his parent’s bedroom. It was a strange fun fact to be fed, but Sans had learned to, in the last few hours, more or less, not think too deeply about the things Asriel said. The two skeletons picked up their change of clothes from the bed and went to the left positioned bathroom to take a bath.

You can tell shit is fancy because they can afford to use two different bathrooms to do something as simple of showering at the same time. Sans can’t remember the last time when he’d showered in a separate bathroom of a house that wasn’t full, at the same time as someone else under the same roof. He had only ever done that sometimes in the Sans mansion in Rootverse, things tended to be more leisure then, and water wasn’t a problem, so they could afford not to share a shower in order to bathe at the same time. His thoughts floated, distantly remembering when he also once showered at Nightmare’s castle —back when it was still named that—, it was an almost lone shower experience, until he got interrupted halfway through by a three lovely psychos.

Since he woke up here in this new AU, he’d been only showering with Gaster and Papyrus, since he was initially too weak to do it by himself, and then Gaster and Papyrus’ paranoia and anxiety turned an ugly head on even after he was able to do it without their help. Even now he was going to shower with Papyrus, but at their house they only had one shower, unlike here at the palace.

Some things he would just have to get used to from now on. He also fucking needed to learn to stop rambling in his mind so much, he had been lost in thought before he knew it.

As the shower ended, Sans found himself sitting in Asriel’s large bed with Papyrus and Asriel discussing what they wanted to do. They talked on and on, and while Sans, even having originated from a Underfell in his past life, had harnessed patience to an extent —as all Sans’ did—, he was really getting sick and tired of their indecisive bullshit. So he decided to intervene.

“I will read a book for you two. What do you want?”

Asriel and Papyrus turned to him in a scary speed. “You can read?”, Papyrus yelled.

“Yes. I can read.”, Sans sighed.

“AHHHHHHH. Your brother is so awesome.”, Asriel told Papyrus, shaking the slim skeleton in his excitement.

“I Know”, Papyrus affirmed, completely unbothered and unruffled by the action.

“Please.”, Sans mentally facepalmed, willing himself to ignore Asriel’s little action, like Papyrus did.

“You’re so incredible, brother. I can’t even read and I’ve been awake for a few years longer than you!”, Papyrus exclaimed excitedly.

Right. Sans’ body here had been conscious for a shorter time than Papyrus. His life had been busy since he wake up here, and he naturally shouldn’t have had time to learn to read. But that didn’t matter. Papyrus and Gaster were already pretty convinced that he was a genius, which was insane in his opinion —he was nowhere near the genius of many of his fellow Sanses if you asked him—, albeit he won't deny his own usefulness, so this reveal wouldn't be a problem. Sans shrugged.

“Yes. It’s because I’m a genius”, Sans deadpanned, barely holding himself back from laughing.

Papyrus and Asriel ate it up, like it was the undeniable truth.

“What do you want me to read for you?”, Sans asked again.

“Oooooo ooo oo”, Papyrus began too excited to form proper words, “We should make him read Fluffy Bunny. It’s the best!”, he discussed with Asriel.

“Yes! I love Fluffy Bunny. It’s only second to Snail Chronicles for me, but dad is the best at reading that, so we’ll get him to read it for us later.”, Asriel responded.

Then the two turned to Sans, expectant.

Sans breathed a sigh of nostalgia at the familiar story name, “Okay”.

Asriel hurriedly scurried and handed him a pristine copy of Fluffy Bunny. 

Sans began to retell the story, he had read many times in the past. Asriel fell asleep half way through, having commented quietly to Papyrus some time before, that Sans’ voice was too soothing and made him extra sleepy. Papyrus braved through the end of the story, before falling into deep sleep, snuggly pressed against Sans’ side.

This would be an eventful next couple of days, Sans thought as he also drifted to sleep.

Chapter Text

It’s not unusual for the presence of something that represents a higher power, such as a royal family, to be generally intimidating for outsiders.

However the royal family of monsterkind was different from many others. Presently made up of three goat monsters: The Queen, Toriel; The King, Asgore; and The Prince, Asriel. The three were famous in the underground for being amiable and approachable. Asgore himself, who should have been the symbol of utmost authority within monster society in this world, often encouraged others to refer to him as “King Fluffy Buns”. Toriel herself, often treated the majority of monsterkind as if they were her children. Having been born from the union of these two monsters, Asriel also possessed a kind heart and jovial manners.

But although all three were friendly, gracious and agreeable, this alone would not completely erase the fact that they were the royal family. Hence by nature, stood in a social plane higher than everyone else. With power came responsibility, and with responsibility came respect. So in their personal life they had a rather limited personal circle, despite their sociableness.

Two of said monsters that they had intimate relationships with were the skeleton brothers, Gaster and Papyrus. For a long time, ever since monsterkind was sealed in the underground after the War between Humans and Monsters, the skeleton monster population had greatly diminished. Leaving Gaster and Papyrus as the last skeleton monsters in active monster society.

However, known to few, a third skeleton had survived. The middle sibling of the skeleton brothers, Sans. Sans had been born with a congenital condition, that left him in a coma ever since he was born. Naturally he was often not included, when talking about the remaining skeleton monsters.

That was until now. It had been a little less than a year, since the monsters in the know were given the pleasant news that the third skeleton monster had woken up.

Asgore as the King who often oversaw other royal post leaders, such as the royal guard captain, the royal scientist, and more, was well acquainted with Gaster, who was the current royal scientist. Therefore, Asgore had been one of the first monsters to be privy of the fact that Sans had woken up. Unlike most, Asgore had been present for the birth of the middle brother of the skeletons, and had been good friends with their mother, so he felt attached to the young skeleton despite him never having interacted with him before.

As the loyal and attentive monster that he was, Asgore also provided Gaster with aid during the time Sans first woke up and could do little to nothing by himself. While he did not witness in person, Asgore was very familiar with the gradual and arduous progress that Sans went through in the last months after he woke up.

Asgore eventually told Toriel, of the information, appropriately, after being given permission to do so. Toriel, the motherly and stubborn figure that she was, immediately suggested that they finally make an official claim to Sans as their godchild, as they had with Papyrus. In monster society, in order to claim a monster child as godchild, the child must accept, therefore it was previously impossible to claim the unconscious Sans.

Asgore had doubts about claiming Sans as their godchild, not because he didn’t want to, no the very opposite, he would love to, but because he was concerned that Sans would not accept it. Gaster had given Asgore a detailed report of Sans’ condition and attitude since he woke up, a report only second in detail to the one Gaster gave to Papyrus. Thus Asgore understood that Sans was most likely to decline them. But Toriel was not someone Asgore could truly talk back to, specially since just asking Sans wouldn’t truly cause any harm, hopefully. At worst probably, they would be rejected.

Aside from Asgore and Toriel, Asriel had also been informed of Sans’ newly formed conscious, from Papyrus himself. Asriel and Papyrus had been playmates for a long time now. They had a very short age gap, with Papyrus being a few months older than him, and they got along very well. As such it was natural that Papyrus eventually shared what he knew about his new brother. Asriel was very excited to meet Sans, and supported Toriel’s idea of inviting the skeleton brothers to the palace. Though unlike Toriel, Asriel personally didn’t care about the whole  godson/godbrother thing, he simply wanted to have some chance in becoming close to Papyrus’ new big brother as well. Specially since ever since Sans had woken up, he was everything Papyrus would talk about. Of course, Asriel didn’t mind the nearly endless chatting, he thought it was very fun to hear about Sans, and his desire to meet the small skeleton only ever increased the more he listened.F

Eventually Sans had recovered enough to do things for himself without help, though the other two skeletons never left him by himself and did not stop helping him move around even when he didn’t really needed it. Toriel took this opportunity to suggest to Asgore that they invite the skeleton brothers and give Gaster off days so that he can rest comfortably. Asgore deliberated not for long before weighing the pros and cons and accepting after confirming all the important factors.

Not long after, the family of goat monsters welcomed the skeleton family into their house.

The few days that they spend with the skeleton brothers were some none of the three would ever forget.

The first things Toriel noticed when she greeted the skeletons, was (1) The three brothers were very close and comfortable with each other (2) Sans was tired from the journey from the skeletons’ house to the palace, evident from the short breaths he took and his slumped form pressed against Gaster as he sat on the latter’s arm, and (3) Papyrus had lend Sans one of his most prized possessions, a dark red scarf that the energetic skeleton had never taken off ever since he got it, Toriel wasn’t entirely privy to the details of how Papyrus got this soon to turn signature scarf, but she suspected there was a good chance that not only Gaster but Sans was also involved in the gift.

She quickly urged them inside, not allowing them to remain outside for long.

After Toriel, Asgore was the second to greet the skeletons. Unlike Toriel who’s first perceptions were mostly superficial, Asgore noticed some more things that laid deeper underneath the surface, (1) Sans was nervous, no it was worse, he looked terrified, his eyelights shook in place at the sight of himself, as if Asgore were a beast who could snap at any moment, (2) Sans had his guard up, the other four seemed to shake it off when Sans froze up at the unclear sight of Asriel’s friendly tackle on Papyrus, but Asgore noticed immediately, he noticed Sans body language, the faint bubbling of magic that could only simmer on the surface without being activated because Sans was too young to use it properly, (3) Sans’ gaze felt unlike a child’s, and more like a adult’s who had gone through horrible things, he looked more traumatized than the young monsters Asgore knew who had survived through the war, and (4) Gaster and Papyrus were pretending not to know.

It did not matter if it took a long time for him to open up. Asgore was now determined to help Gaster and Papyrus take good care of Sans. It didn’t need to be as a godson. Perhaps they could be good friends instead, just like he had been with the skeletons’ mother, and was with Gaster. Asgore sincerely hoped that Sans would live a peaceful life from now on.

Little did he know, there were many future obstacles and tragedies awaiting Sans. Thankfully he would at least be relieved to know, that Sans’ life would not be entirely absent of moments of warmth and happiness.

Asriel was taken by excitement after seen his close friend, Papyrus, in his house after so long, and gave in to the urge to jump hug the other. Papyrus was very strong, so he would not be injured nor effected by much other than surprise even if he did such things. Hence it took Asriel a bit longer than his parents to properly form his first impressions, but he soon noted that (1) Sans was small, he was smaller than Papyrus and himself, even though he should be physically older than both of them, (2) Sans’ gaze was always stony and heated like lava, but it melted like marshmallows at a campfire at the sight or mention of Papyrus or Gaster, (2.5) and food as well, he seemed to like food, Asriel considered that looking at Sans eating could make anything look good, (3) Sans was similar to both Gaster and Papyrus, he was closed off like Gaster, yet candid when he communicated, just like Papyrus, he was also unlike either of them, and spoke with a surprising smoothness to his words, despite speaking little, and (4) Sans spaces out a lot.

On the first day Asgore and Toriel noted that Asriel had been successful in approaching Sans and let him have his peaceful space with the two younger skeleton brothers, while they took Gaster away for themselves.

Asriel had gathered up his courage and asked Sans to play with him and Papyrus, he was surprised but delighted when Sans agreed easily. He was specially shocked when he heard Sans speak for the first time when agreeing, even if it was just a simple “Ok”. Asriel quickly noted that Sans’ voice was a bit deeper than Papyrus’, though not as deep as Gaster’s —perhaps because he was still a child—, his tone was also languid and seemed to exude carelessness, yet contained a natural sharp edge that anyone less perceptive than Asriel (who had learned to be discerning, a skill essential to have as a member of the royal family), would have missed.

They spend the day playing board games and the night reading. During this time Asriel additionally observed that Papyrus had been absolutely correct, Sans was a genius!! That youthful yet deep voice was pleasant to fall asleep to on the first day and all the others to come. As Asriel determinately dragged Sans to read for him and Papyrus every night with Papyrus’ help, except the last night. In the last night, Asgore read Asriel’s favorite bedtime story, Snail Chronicles, for the three monster children.

In the next few days after the first night passed, the goat family took turns trying to approach Sans and spend time with all of the skeleton brothers alternatively.

In the end, while Toriel wasn’t successful in making Sans her godson, she felt that she grew closer to him, and even recognized that he was mature and pleasant to talk to regarding both serious and casual subjects, Toriel would come to describe him as a sociable introvert. Though she later analyzed that Sans was oddly not quite like an introvert, and more like a reserved extrovert.

Asgore spend lots of time with Gaster, and noted that Sans became much easier to talk to when the topic was on one of his brothers, through a few conversations Asgore and Sans formed a bond as tea drinking companions. Asgore felt proud that Sans seemed to enjoy his tea snacks. People usually told him about how bland or strange they tasted, but Asgore believed that he had been improving and he loved that Sans showed a very satisfied face when he munched on the snacks.

Asriel who had tried a snack after seeing Sans’ reaction, decided not to tell his father that Sans probably just liked food in general, because Asgore had not improved much.

In the meantime, Asriel was successful in securing Sans as his playmate, so that he could play with Sans alongside Papyrus. As the days passed Asriel sensed that Sans gradually grew more indulgent of him, later noting with his parents that Sans may have grown a soft spot for him in comparison to his parents because he was a child. After all, Sans was clearly doting of both of his brothers, but it was obvious that he was more mellow, receptive and good-humored towards Papyrus, while being a bit more sarcastic and chummy with Gaster. In the end, the ultimate winner in the goat family was Asriel, in this encounter with the skeleton brothers.

Chapter Text

The few days Sans spend in the royal palace were simultaneously easy going and busy at the same time. In a way it was undoubtedly meant to be some kind of vacation, and it served as one.

For example while in the palace, Sans had spend time alone with someone other than his brothers, for the first time since waking up in this new bizarre reality of his. Now that he thinks about it’s seriously ridiculous how he’s technically never been alone in a room since waking up nearly a year ago. Hopefully that will change soon. No offense to Papy and Gaster but he was getting tired of seeing them so often.

To be honest he feels like there’s never been a time when he’s been so stuck close to someone like this. Even during his childhood when he was taking care of Boss when he was a baby bone, running around the streets all day, he hadn’t been stuck by the hip to his little brother as much as he currently found himself stuck to Papyrus and Gaster.

Unfortunately for Sans he was still doomed to endure a clingy Papyrus and Gaster for a while longer.

A few days after they had returned home from the visit to the royal palace and gone back to a “normal”  routine. Once again stuck between staying at home with Papyrus and occasionally going to the lab with Gaster for check ups and other things, Sans noticed an unfortunate thing. The meeting with the royal family had been some kind of ominous omen and served as a trigger, as he soon found himself meeting many unfamiliar familiar faces during this time.

Just the other day, he had gone out with Papyrus to shop for groceries when he met a young baby Temmie, the present Royal Guard Captain Gerson, and two familiar ghost cousins.

Aside from already naturally reeling back at the fact that none of them were actually the version he was familiar with (Underfell), most of them were also much younger than he ever remembered them.

Seeing Hapstablook was something he had only done once in his life, back when Mettaton was  still just another beaten up ghost child running in the streets with his cousin Napstablook as many other children did during his childhood in Underfell 00.

He had always wondered how a ghost could look so beaten up when others couldn’t even touch him, to beat him up. Believe him, he’d tried before. It went as well as you imagine.

The Hapstablook in his memory was of great contrast against the one he met while shopping with Papyrus. The Hapstablook in this AU had a shy smile on his face, and waved politely in greeting, he also had a pink purplish tint to his ghost body, whereas the one in his memory had a red undertone in color.

As for Temmie. Well… Sans had never wished to witness a baby temmie with a pacifier on her mouth, yet here he was.. Some things were better left unwitnessed, but alas Sans had no fucking choice on the matter.

He doesn’t want to talk about Gerson… But he will anyway lol, because he can’t fucking control his overachieving thoughts and unreasonably good memory. It’s times like this he wished he had amnesia or something. The Gerson in his memory was an unwieldy old turtle, shitty old man would always correct him, yelling that he was a tortoise not a turtle, with a stubborn streak. Everyone deeply respected him, even in the tough times of the underground. This Gerson, was much younger, with a remanent of youthfulness in his maturity, heartiness in his laugher, and a friendliness that accompanied his seasoned figure rather than clashing against it.

Sans’ instinct constantly warned him that soon he would be plagued by more troublesome encounters.

Regrettably his instinct soon proved to be correct, as when Gaster returned that night he informed that he would be taking Sans and Papyrus to spend some days with his young friendly fire friend, while he took care of business with the royal family and some personnel of importance in monster society.

Yes, that friendly fire. Grillby.

Fuck. Someone save him. Sans had always been apprehensive of Grillbys.

Chapter Text

Despite his best wishes, the dreaded day arrived. This time the journey from their house to Grillby’s workplace was much shorter than the one to the palace. Both were within Snowdin after all.

It went by so fast that they arrived at the familiar building before he could register it in his head.

He was hit with a pang of twisted nostalgia, just like the one when he saw the skeletons’ house for the first time. Alike the house the only difference between Grillby’s in front of him and the one in his memories, was the color scheme, and the fact that it looked very new and renovated. Considering the strange timeline in this new AU of his, it’s likely that Grillby’s is a fairly newly established business.

In his memory when Grillby’s was first inaugurated in Underfell 00, it was definitely not as clean and polished as this one. Of course during that time few buildings in the underground were clean and/or polished.

Before he knew about the multiverse and his understanding of the world was limited to Underfell 00 and its timelines created by the combination of determination and the floating energy of the core, Grillby’s had often been one of his most visited locations. Once Boss grew up, it became the most visited location, as he no longer felt the need to return home as he did before.

Most Sanses had good relationships with their Grillbys. Though often ranging from friendly acquaintances, to friends, close friends, to even lovers, or family. Though he is hesitant to admit it he also had had a good relationship with his Grillby. They could hardly be called friendly acquaintances, for they were neither mere acquaintances, nor typically close. They were not quite friends, but definitely nothing as deep as family. They had a strange relationship, one that was both less and more than friends, but definitely not lovers. Sans shakes his head, shuddering in reflex at the thought.

He was incredibly shocked when he first learned that some Sanses actually dated their Grillbys. It was definitely within the top 10 scariest things that can happen in the multiverse.

Leaving that aside. Generally speaking from his experiences, most Grillbys are reserved, except for swap ones, they usually are either mute, speak a unique language, like Wing Dings, or simply dislike talking much. Sans idly wondered which one this Grillby would be, as he held Papyrus' hand and awaited with baited breath outside of the door.

After what felt like hours, but was actually around 3 minutes, the door opened up to reveal a youthful Grillby, burning brightly in orange flames. How strange that they were not purple.

The flames wiggled familiarly in the air, while keeping form. So weirdly alike the trembling of his skeletal hands. With warmth like the one exuding from Papyrus’ hand wrapped around his own.

The orange Grillby nodded in greeting to Gaster, and the latter greeted back familiarly. The door was opened wide and the flame monster welcomed them in.

Chapter Text

“Gaster”, a deep airy voice called passively. Sans flinched at the clash between the unfamiliar tone and the familiar timbre. He seemed to be doing that a lot nowadays.

He wasn’t sure what he had expected before this orange Grillby, before Grillby opened his mouth, but somehow he just knew it wasn’t this.

He had always though that Grillby, his Grillby, from Underfell 00, was fitting for his element. The fiery bastard. But the guy in front of him right now was completely different. He had a certain tranquil calmness to him, it exuded from his gestures and clearly seemed to extend to his personality as far as he could tell. It made him more resembling of water rather than fire, at least in Sans’ opinion. Maybe his mind would change as he got to know this version of the fire monster better.

“Grillby! Thank you so much for agreeing to take care of my brothers, when I can’t get my hands off of this project. We’ve been waiting for so long for this to be in the last stages, that I just couldn’t delay it.”, Gaster replied enthusiastically. Sans had never heard him so cheerful and comfortable when talking to someone other than him and Papyrus before. It must be known that Gaster was a person who was relatively lacking in social skills. This often presented in a seemingly stoic manner of speech, his formality made Gaster good at evading questions in a way that made others think he was a cold man with better things to do, instead of making them think he was socially inept, which was the truth.

However the stoic tone Gaster used for every person outside of his very small family and friend group was nowhere to be seen. He and Grillby were clearly familiar. Close even.

Grillby nodded. Gaster was already blabbing on and on something about “Oh Papyrus likes to sleep just before dawn hours, if you don’t urge him to sleep with-”, blah blah, blah, “he’ll only get 3 hours of sleep. Make sure-”, this Grillby didn’t really have facial expressions that could be properly read by Sans yet, but if he did it would probably be a poker face at this bullshit. “Call me if you need anything”, and with this Gaster finished dropping the younger skeletons’ bags.

Already scurrying out the door but not without getting some more words in, after reaching the door he twisted around, he characteristically gestured toward Sans and Papyrus with his hands, “You can ask Grillby to call me, if you need me okay?”. Then he proceeded to comically begin to leave, every step and movement he made he would look back around and wave at the three.

Finally as the door closed, Papyrus, Sans and Grillby were left on their own.

…

Awkward silence hung in the air for several minutes.

Actually, it was more just Sans who was feeling awkward right now.

Papyrus was hopping in place, happy to be here. And Grillby. Well Grillby was just naturally quiet.

Sans offhandedly wondered if his decision of not speaking much would cause a character clash with Grillby.

Unfortunately he wasn’t blessed with the cursed ability to utterly and entirely break the fourth wall. So that line of thought would end there.

He’ll have to leave fourth wall breaking to Fres- the Fresh of this multiverse when he meets him. He brushed this thought aside as well.

It was too early to be thinking about the multiverse.

Though to be fair Fresh was kind of surprise bomb. It wouldn’t be strange if he appeared in this AU suddenly. If he exists in this multiverse. Well Sans doubted there could be a multiverse without the guy. It just wouldn’t be the same.

Stop. Stop, Sans. No more thinking about them. There’s no guarantee anything will happen. What’s the point of anticipating anything?

“Sa-”

“Sa-“

“Sans”

“SANS!”

He suddenly woke up from his thoughts, at Papyrus loudly calling his name. The boisterous manner hit him with a wave of nostalgia before what was happening sinked in.

It looks like Grillby had been trying to call his attention but he had spaced out, so Papyrus helped out.

“What is it?”, he asked harshly by reflex. “I mean, yeah?”, he tried to soften his natural tone.

“Grillby wants to talk to you”, Papyrus responded easily, completely unbothered.

Sans turned to Grillby and Grillby crouched down to meet his eye line.

“Hello”, hearing the calm and airy voice from such a close distance was different. Not a bad different for now, Sans decided.

“Hi”, he said back.

Then they proceeded to just blankly stare at each other for an additional few minutes.

What a meaningful conversation!

This time it was apparently Papyrus who felt awkward because after some time, when neither skeleton nor flame budged, he butted in, with a sheepish tone, “Uhm, I think you need to speak to have a conversation? Or at least communicate.”

Sans and Grillby stopped staring at each other and turned their head in synchronization to look at Papyrus.

Then Grillby broke the silence, “Right.”

“Well. Gaster asked me to look after you two for a couple of days because he has a very important project to work on and discuss, and he couldn’t find anyone else who was free to look after you two. So you will spend the next few days with me. Everything has been arranged. You will each have your own room here, and you are free to do as you like in your spare time, as long as you stay within my line of sight. For meals, I will cook and we’ll all ate together.”, he patiently explained.

Papyrus: Surprised Pikachu Face.jpg

“I didn’t know you could talk for this long”, Papyrus gasped.

“Oh c’mon Paps. ‘Course he can”, Sans retorted, but he was also surprised.

“Yeah. No, yeah, that’s right. UH. Your voice is nice. You should talk more”, Papyrus panickily added.

“Paps.”

“No I mean-”, Papyrus attempted to salvage but he was interrupted by cool laughter.

Da fuck? Grillby was laughing? One of these days Sans was really gonna have a soul attack.

The fire monster wiped away a tear that had already began to evaporate. “Well I hope you two don’t mind that you have to stay here with me in the restaurant”, he said.

That’s right, come to think of it this place didn’t have a sign yet. Sans knew it was Grillby’s but at the same times this wasn’t "Grillby’s", yet.

Also restaurant? Sans thought Classic said that Grillby’s in his place was also a pub. Maybe just another weird AT thing? Sans looked around. Or maybe it’s just because it has barely been open yet, and will turn into a pub later. His Grillby’s Grillby’s —wow that sounds funny after saying it in his head— had always been a bar, in fact it wasn’t all that age appropriate for children, even when it was first established, and Sans, who had still been in his stripes went in for the first time. Grillby’s himself had just gotten out of stripes during the time as well, if he remembered correctly. Well in Underfell 00, no one cared about things like the age appropriate to drink, or smoke or anything of the like. They all had more pressing issues to worry about.

“No no, we don’t mind at all”, Papyrus responded for both him and Sans while Sans was distracted again, waving his hands frantically to dismiss the rootless concern.

“Good”, Grillby snuffed out a chuckle.

Papyrus tripped over himself, still embarrassed by his mistake. Sans sighed.

First he had to stay with goats, now he has to stay with fire. Ignoring the fact that he’d stayed with parasites, gods, cats, dogs, octopus —Nightmare would kill him if he heard him say that, and worse in Rootverse. Life really has its ways of getting you.

Chapter Text

There were a couple of things Sans learned in the past 2 days. Number 1, was that conversations didn’t progress when him and this Grillby were alone. Clearly neither of them were interested in being the first to speak. Number 2, unlike the hot mess that was Gaster outside of his work, Grillby was very competent.

Well to be honest number 2 wasn’t too surprising to Sans. The G man he was familiar with from Underfell 00, was also a very competent monster. It was just that everything G man did for anyone, always came with a price.

But Grillby, the warm yet not pipping hot elemental in front of him, was attentive and welcoming to an extent that frightened him. He felt like he was meeting Dream again for the first time or something. Of course Dream was much more talkative than Grillby, but that was besides the point.

Despite the similar aloof air that emanated from both Grillby and G man who he had been familiar with for years, their tone was entirely too different. Grillby was kind and helpful. He could cook, clean, do paperwork, be peaceful company and more. G man would have throttled him to the ground if he asked him to cook for free and waste his time talking to him because he had nothing better to do. Grillby did it like it was natural. Like he had all the time to spare in the world, and that like he didn’t have anywhere he wanted to be more than here. Sans’ chest squeezed at the brief overlap between the fire monster and Swap.

Of course, they were completely different. Neither their personalities nor abilities even properly matched. But the homely air was so… alike.

Sans shook his head aggressively, startling Papyrus who had been sitting next to him.

He needed to stop this. This pointless nostalgia. This hopeless yearning for people- people who were gone.

“Sans?”, he heard a cautious voice ask.

He twisted his neck to Papyrus’ direction so fast, you could hear the crack of his bones. Papyrus visibly flinched at the sound.

He placed his small hand on Sans’ equally small one and tilted his head cutely before asking, “Are you okay? Are you hungry? Do you want to nap or something? I mean just this once I will allow it.”

Sans stared at Papyrus’ tiny adorable face.

“Sans. I know sleeping is good for you because you need energy, but you really should do everything in moderation.”

Sans brushed aside another wave of intimate nostalgia.

Why was this so hard?

“Since ya know ‘his word.”, he started in the accent he couldn’t lose even after dying multiple times.

Why was it so hard to not see them everywhere? Even though he knew they were… gone.

“Maybe ya should also exercise som’ moderation. By sleepin’ more than 3 hours a da’.”, he teased, the corner of his mandibles twitching to not raise up.

Papyrus gasped loud. “But, brother. 3 hours is already so much!”

“Didn’t you say sleeping is a good thing?”, Sans retorted.

“For you!”, Papyrus threw back.

“That’s not exactly how that works Papy.”, Sans grinned.

Papyrus shook in place his little face scrunching up as he thought hard of a come back.

“You both require education on moderation?”, the sudden question made both of them jump up. They could already tell who it was by the voice but they turned their heads as if to confirm anyways. Of course, it was none other then Grillby. There wasn’t anyone else here with them.

Grillby was currently setting up some final things in the restaurant/future pub. Grillby’s hadn’t opened yet in this timeline.

“I’m not surprised. Must run in the family.”, Grillby added casually, continuing to walk past, like he didn’t just give them the shock of a lifetime.

This was the first time they had heard him insert himself into a conversation in these 2 days. It was like discovering he could speak more than 3 sentences at a time all over again.

It usually took him being personally addressed to join their conversations. This made the presence of his voice predictable until now. So after initially becoming accustomed to that. Whenever he spoke at an unexpected time, the natural response became finding themselves jump scared. The whisper like quality of his voice did not help.

At least he had a gentle, calm pitch. If this had been G man instead, Sans is afraid it would have turned into a horror movie for them.

That aside, the increasing number of times that Grillby seemed to speak was not necessarily a bad thing. Instead it was proof that he was growing closer and more comfortable with them.

Sans is still not sure if he can really consider that a good thing, but he’s agreeable enough to agree that it isn’t bad at least.

Chapter Text

Today was the 5th night Sans and Papyrus would spent at Grillby’s.

To Sans it was a surprisingly relaxing time. Surprising in a different way than he was surprised the first time G man was willing to really just relax in his company.

Grillby’s food was delicious. Apparently when making home cooked meals other than the ones to sell, his food wasn’t all grease. Sans wouldn’t have known until now, he’d never eaten G man’s home cooked meal before. Which was a big gain for Papyrus, based on the twinkle of his eyes as he ate with relish.

Grillby’s which wasn’t yet “Grillby’s” opened just about 1 day and a half ago. The movement was pretty slow, likely because it was a new shop. It figures that if the movement was expected to be higher Grillby wouldn’t have agreed to look after Sans and Papyrus.

The people who had come in so far, were those who Sans knew would become regulars in the future.

Based off of Classic’s Undertale of course, in Underfell 00 there were a few less regulars. A few less people who survived the tumble of monster society after they were imprisoned in the underground.

When the movement was particularly slow and Grillby was closely acquainted with the customers inside, he would allow Sans and Papyrus to stay behind the counter with him, instead of inside.

If they were good and well-behaved (what a strange thing to think about, nobody had described Sans as well-behaved before), for the first few hours, he would let them help him grill something up or make a non-alcoholic drink or sit in the counter and chat with the customers.

Tonight in particular was cold, with the fake snow of Snowdin crashing harshly against the street and its adornments.

Papyrus mentioned he was sure to freeze if he stepped even a inch out of the door. Sans rolled his eyes at that. It wasn’t that cold. He’d patrolled under a storm before. Swam in a frozen lake. Went to a AU whose entire geography took place in an Antartica rip off. This could hardly be called a temperature of significance.

But while that was true. It was also a fact that he’d experienced all of this not in this life but the one before. So naturally his current body didn’t have the resistance to cold that he was used to.

He shivered when a strong wind passed through the cracks of the main entrance, where he and Papyrus were sitting in the ground playing cards.

“Brother?”, he heard.

Sans’ had his mandible buried inside his zipped up blue jacket from the cold.

Gaster had giving it to him, back when he first came to. He was hoping to change at least the color at some point. It wasn’t that he didn’t like blue. He just didn’t like to be surprised by his own reflection, having the same face as practically all of them was enough, he was used to that, but the same outfit hit different.

He didn’t want to see Classic in the mirror every time he woke up and went to the bathroom to freshen up. He didn’t want to see Murder, and Dust every time he looked in the mirror while his hood was up. He hadn’t really wanted to see Killer when Gaster gave him new shorts and a turtleneck for colder times either. He only wore those shorts and turtleneck once… he didn’t realize the combination was so his before putting on. The sight was unexpected in comparison to seeing Classic, Murder and Dust who didn’t have much difference in clothing. He made a yelp so high pitched, Gaster and Papyrus came running asking if there was an intruder or something.

The multiversal beyond had to be joking with him. Of all ghosts he could be haunted by, the last person he would want was Killer. For multiple reasons.

And despite that all he was still too young to even look exactly how he remembered them either way. Imagine if he still wore these things when this body matures. He’s not sure how he would be able to handle it. Looking at the mirror and seeing them, as if they were still-

“BROTHER”

There he was, getting distracted again. He wondered if all Sanses (other than swaps) were easily distracted in their childhood and that’s how most Papyruses became such loud mouths. He couldn’t quite remember when Boss became as loud as he is- was.

For Papyrus, it seemed to be the developing case.

“Yeah Papy?”, he quickly responded before Papyrus called him again.

“Is it too cold? We should go inside.”, Papyrus suggested.

Sans’ body had been trembling for a while now. But despite this.

“Nah, you wanted to the stay here because there’s more space, right? It’s fine”, Sans said.

Papyrus didn’t believe him at all, it was hard to, when Sans wouldn’t stop trembling.

The younger skeleton narrowed his eye sockets at his older brother.

“Don’t be ridiculous Sans. We can do something else!”, Papyrus said twisting his head around.

“Not to mention it’s almost time for Grillby to call us for dinner”, the skeleton commented after reading the hanging clock.

Without waiting for an answer Papyrus stood up and walked to where Sans was sitting. He put a hand on Sans’ shoulder once he reached him.

“Bro?”, Sans confusedly asked.

Papyrus dived down slowly moving as if to hug Sans.

While Sans was distracted by his confusion and hugging back, Papyrus stood up again, carrying Sans with him.

“BRO! What the fuck, Papyrus?”

“Language, brother”

“Put me down! I can fucking walk for myself”, Sans struggled in the slightly taller skeleton’s arms.

“Lan- you know what, never mind. No can do brother. I will put you down when after we’ve gone inside”, Papyrus responded.

He carried Sans with ease. It had been around maybe a year and some more since Sans woke up. He usually wouldn’t have known since he doesn’t keep track of things like time, but Gaster is kind of a fanatic about it, keeping track of time to the seconds, milliseconds sometimes.

Papyrus had matured nicely in this last year, healthy and appropriate if not a little better for someone his age, unlike Sans. Like most fit monster children, he was capable of shows of strength that most human children may never reach, even as adults —depending on their tendency.

It was useless for Sans to struggle. If Papyrus wanted to, he could manhandle Sans to his soul’s desire.

Sans was used to being manhandled by Boss, but being manhandled by a child equivalent of him was still embarrassing to say the least. Specially when his pitiful amount of strength didn’t allow him to even protest properly.

Naturally Papyrus walked all the way inside and to the home part of Grillby’s while carrying Sans.

By the time they crossed where Grillby was sitting reading a newspaper, Sans was flushing bright blue, with a tint of dull grayness, a sign of illness, that differed from Classic’s and many others’ with a similar color.

“Papyrus, it’s best you put him down now. I’m afraid he will turn into a blueberry soon”, Grillby commented on sight of seeing this.

Sans involuntarily shuddered at the word blueberry. But he had constantly been moving and wiggling in the hope of creating some kind of show of fervent unwillingness towards being carried by Papyrus, so the shudder went by unnoticed.

“AH yes!”, Papyrus finally set Sans down.

Sans almost didn’t stand straight, out of balance do to the exertion he made while uselessly struggling. Papyrus supported him.

“I’m sorry brother. Are you angry?”, Papyrus commented sheepishly at Sans’ flushed face.

Sans stared him down which made the other instinctively lower his posture and make a puppy eyed gaze.

Sans sighed. He couldn’t stay mad at Papyrus.

“Don’t do that next time”, he simply said before walking off.

Soon enough, just as predicted, Grillby called them both to eat.

He made spaghetti. Papyrus could hardly remain in his seat.

Even though Sans introduced Papyrus to lasagna first, he still fell for spaghetti. Guess he really was an Undertale Papyrus, after all. Well, what else was Sans thinking? That he would become more similar to the Boss, because he’s been unconsciously influencing him? How disgusting it was for Sans to have such thoughts.

Well, it was nice to have any kind of Papyrus by his side. He also enjoyed Puff’s company, among many others, like Stretch and Slim. How vile. Comparing Papyrus to others. To dead people.

Sans pitched a meat ball with his fork and reached out to place it on Papyrus’ plate. Definitely not because of any kind of disgusting feeling of guilt.

Papyrus smiled back happily in thanks and suddenly it was easier to breathe.

After dinner he took a shower with Papyrus and headed to his room. Like Grillby had said when their first arrived there was a room ready for him and another for Papyrus here.

He shivered, clutching his bed sheets closer. He shut his eye sockets tightly and tried to sleep as he shook from the cold.

Idly he registered the sound of a door being creaked open.

He turned to look. It naturally wasn’t a beast, nor a ghost, he didn’t truly believe it might have been. Or did he? It was Papyrus. He has hugging his pillow and looking in to check whether Sans was sleep or not.

“Sans!”, he called after seeing the other was awake.

“I asked Grillby and he said that we can sleep with him tonight”, Papyrus informed of a soul attack inducing news while moving closer to Sans’s bed.

He grabbed his older brother’s hand. And pulled him gently. Still shocked, Sans wrapped his thin blanket around his body and let himself be helplessly dragged away.

The two small skeleton monsters walked down the hall and entered the main bedroom, where Grillby was already sitting in his bed, reading a book.

“Hello”, he greeted.

The fire monster became more and more talkative the more they knew him. Sans was nearly beginning to think the quietness was fake. Grillby would suddenly insert himself in a conversation at least 5 times a day, without any prior warning.

“Hi!”, Papyrus greeted back happily as he lead Sans to the bed.

“Uhm”, Sans couldn’t do anything but make a sound of uncertainty.

They soon reached the bed. Papyrus pushed Sans up into it first.

“Wait wait wait. What are you doing?”, Sans protested.

“C’mon brother. It’s time to sleep”, Papyrus said.

“I can sleep in my own bed!”, Sans retorted, replying way too fast.

“And continue shivering? I don’t think so.”, Papyrus responded sassily.

Before Sans could say anything else, he found himself being lifted up.

He moved his gaze from below where Papyrus stood to upwards.

Grillby was picking him up and placing him in the bed. WTF.

Sans was dumbfounded.

“Thank you!”, Papyrus thanked Grillby, in his place.

Grillby hummed in response.

Papyrus soon climbed up the bed and stuck to Sans.

This was certainly a bizarre situation. Trapped between a baby Papyrus and a young Grillby (he’d been in a situation like this with Papy and Gaster before, it took him by surprised then, and with Grillby instead of Gaster it took him by greater surprise). It was entirely too comfortable and perfect a temperature. Before Sans could get away he fell asleep between the two.

Chapter Text

It was safe to say that the last 5 days were a fun occurrence to Papyrus.

He missed Gaster of course. But he was used to his older brother, his big older brother, being absent fairly often.

Spending time with Sans and Gaster’s friendly fire friend, Grillby was very nice. It would have been nicer if Gaster was also here. But in the back of his mind he also thought that it was because Gaster wasn’t here that they had such a calm and cool time. Because Gaster was a conspicuously awkward fellow. Yeah that’s right, he said it. Papyrus was naturally not a fool, and was willing to admit that his big big brother was a failure at social communication. Even if they spend a good time together, it was impossible for that time to not be awkward. Because Gaster was only not awkward in two situations: while he was working, and while he was too busy to be awkward. The two often overlapped.

Grillby was a very calm monster in Papyrus’ eyes. At first he thought that the other was aloof. Then he began to thinking that he was awkward, the aloofness a pretense, just like Gaster. But he soon found out that Grillby was just a bit shy with new people, and once they grew familiar with him, he was simply a warm and tranquil individual, with a low tone.

Sans seemed to like him. Papyrus noticed this almost immediately. When they first came in Sans had a look on his face. A look of guilty longing.

He didn’t know what it meant. But Sans would sometimes get this look when they met someone new, and a few hours later he could already feel how much more at ease Sans was with them. It seemed to be an unconscious thing. Sans was always on guard, for some reason. But when he met someone who he looked at like that. His body would relax, even though his mind clearly never did.

Papyrus also liked Grillby. He was very good at everything. He even made this pasta called, Spaghetti. It was his favorite, only second to the Lasagna that Sans made him once. I bet if Sans made him Spaghetti instead he could eat it for a whole year without getting tired of it.

“Brother?”, Papyrus had been sitting crossed legged on the floor in front of Sans, when he called out to Sans after noticing how the older skeleton was shivering. He soon realized that the other was spacing out. Again.

He wondered why Sans spaced out so often sometimes. Gaster spaces out when he’s thinking of work. He would get all in his head, and draw up plans for his next projects, unconsciously isolating the outside world. Though he would tell him everything he thought about, after getting out of his trance, if he asked. Papyrus didn’t understand much of anything Gaster would talk about in those times, but he liked to hear his big big brother’s voice, so it didn’t matter.

Sans spaced out much more often. Papyrus wanted to know what he was thinking about too. But Papyrus always hesitated to ask. He didn’t like the anguished expression that Sans made often while spacing out. It would always get quickly extinguished, or shoved down, after Sans snapped out of it. He preferred when Sans’ face wasn’t scrunched up like that. It looked painful…

“BROTHER”, he shouted.

It did what he wanted it to do. Sans turned his attention to him and stopped making that expression.

Unfortunately his little big brother was very stubborn, even when he asked “Is it too cold? We should go inside”.

It was a rhetorical question of course. Papyrus was just suggesting the best course of action in a passive way. He learned that talking passively was more ideal to express politeness. Who taught him that again?

Yet, Sans responded with, “Nah, you wanted to the stay here because there’s more space right. It’s fine”.

Now that was just ridiculous. He didn’t even bother to come up with a proper reason.

Papyrus was very unsatisfied with being treated like a dummy by his little big brother. So he decided to take matters into his own hands, as he watched Sans’ body continue to stubbornly tremble.

“Don’t be ridiculous Sans. We can do something else!”, he said, glancing back at the clock hanging above the counter of the restaurant, “Not to mention it’s almost time for Grillby to call us for dinner”.

Without waiting anymore, Papyrus decided that he would have to simply carry Sans up to Grillby’s home, if his older brother was going to be so willful.

“Bro?”, Sans said with confusion in his voice as Papyrus approached.

Papyrus scooped him up while he was distracted and started walking.

“BRO! What the fuck, Papyrus?”

Honestly. He didn’t know where Sans kept learning these bad words from. He was always around either himself or Gaster, and the two were never in the habit of cursing. Not many people around were.

“Language, brother”, he warned without heat.

But Sans sure was fond of cursing.

“Put me down! I can fucking walk for myself”, Papyrus felt Sans wiggle in his grip as he protested.

Sans was so small. It was easy to carry him. Just about a year ago, he was still roughly around the same height as Sans —though Papyrus had always been a tiny bit taller. But Papyrus continued to grow taller and taller leaving Sans behind in height very quickly, despite being the younger sibling.

Papyrus silently wished that Sans would grow more too. So that he did not have to breathe so harshly after going for a walk. So that he did not fall to his knees when he exhausted himself due to doing an activity that should have been so easy for anyone else.

Strangely, he felt he wanted Sans to be taller than him.

Maybe he can ask Grillby to feed Sans some more. Since the fire monster was a really good cook and Sans clearly agreed with the sentiment.

“Lan- you know what, never mind. No can do brother. I will put you down when after we’ve gone inside”, Papyrus gave up on telling him off for cursing.

He barely felt Sans’ desperate struggles in his arms as he walked up to the living room.

Before he knew it he passed by Grillby who was reading a newspaper — something new that the underground began to circulate recently, he recalled that it was imitating some kind of human tradition — with some article on the front page about one of Gaster’s latest projects.

“Papyrus, it’s best you put him down now. I’m afraid he will turn into a blueberry soon”, Grillby said suddenly, looking up from his newspaper.

Papyrus looked down at Sans in his arms and noticed belatedly that Sans was colored a ashy blue. The color of his magic. It was sprayed across his skull, like when he gets a fever.

“AH yes!”, he quickly set the other down.

Papyrus hadn’t realized that Sans had been struggling so hard, until he saw the tell tale signs of exhaustion clearly caused by strain of effort.

He quickly supported Sans as the shorter skeleton swayed in his feet. He hadn’t meant to make Sans feel bad. He just wanted to help. He thought this was the best way, because he knew his brother would definitely not listen to him if he only asked.

“I’m sorry brother. Are you angry?”, he meekly enquired.

Sans stared at him with his cute — Sans would be mad if he heard that. But Gaster would agree — frown, before he quickly softened, as he always did with Papyrus. It made Papyrus feel special, with how fast Sans would always calm for him.

His older brother sighed deeply and said, “Don’t do that next time”, before walking away and out of sight.

“So. What happened?”, Grillby suddenly asked.

Papyrus turned to him. Grillby still had his eyes(?), well his head was bowed, Papyrus couldn’t really see his eyes behind the glasses, but he thinks they’re still trained on the newspaper. Even though it wasn’t really a proper complete question and lacked in context, Sans also liked to speak like that, so Papyrus understood what he meant.

“Sans was shivering but too stubborn to go inside with me. So I kinda just picked him and up and walked up myself.”, Papyrus responded scratching the back of his skull sheepishly.

“The whole way here?”, Grillby asked, the angle of his head tilting up. He should be looking at Papyrus now. To be honest he didn’t really know. It was hard to read Grillby’s facial features and expressions.

“Yes?”, he responded.

“No wonder he looked like he wanted to jump out”, Grillby commented before tilting his face to continue reading the newspaper again.

“Oh. Was it that bad?”, Papyrus asked.

“That bad.”

“Do you think he’ll forgive me?”

“I think he has already.”

He sighed in relief. Thankful of Grillby for talking to him.

“Do you need help with the food?”, he asked.

“No the pasta is just boiling. It will be done soon”, Grillby responded.

“Pasta! Is it Spaghetti again?”, he inquired excitedly.

“Yes.”

The three ate dinner together —he even got an extra meatball from Sans, he didn't like that look that Sans had in his face when he was putting it on his plate though, but Sans seemed happy that Papyrus was happy with the gift— and Papyrus headed to the bathroom to shower with his brother.

They had separate rooms, but there was only one bathroom in Grillby’s house with a shower. It was sad. He was used to sleeping with Sans. It was kinda of lonely to sleep by himself again these past 4 days.

He noticed that Sans was still feeling cold.

Out of the corner of his eye socket he saw Grillby cleaning up to go to sleep.

Grasping this chance, he approached and asked if Grillby could let them sleep with him.

He really liked sleeping together with Gaster and Sans, the three of them in Gaster’s big mattress. He thought that Grillby would surely be very warm and pleasant to sleep with in a windy night like this one.

So though he thought it was a bit selfish of him, he still asked anyways.

Grillby surprisingly agreed, after he mentioned sleeping together with Gaster and Sans whenever Gaster came home to sleep early.

That was the only time that Papyrus would sleep for longer than 3 hours.

After getting Grillby’s okay he rushed to his room, picking up his pillow and heading to Sans’ door.

He decided not to knock, afraid that it would wake Sans up if he did. He slowly pushed the door open as quietly as he could.

After peering in he noticed that Sans was still awake.

“Sans! I asked Grillby and he said that we can sleep with him tonight”, he walked to the bed side and grabbed Sans’ hand, walking off into the direction of Grillby’s room without pause.

When Papyrus twisted the handle of the door open and walked in with Sans he was greeted by Grillby’s friendly “Hello”.

Papyrus naturally greeted back, “Hi!”, as he walked towards the bed with Sans.

Papyrus moved Sans in front of him, encouraging him to enter the bed first, deciding to yield the middle position to him.

When they slept with Gaster, the two of the would often switch. Papyrus liked both positions. But it was really nice to get to hug Sans fully. He could wrap his arms around Sans now that he had grown taller and lankier.

But Sans was as stubborn as always.

“Wait wait wait. What are you doing?”, Sans asked.

“C’mon brother. It’s time to sleep”, Papyrus calmly responded.

“I can sleep in my own bed!”, the older skeleton exclaimed with a wobbly voice.

But to Papyrus, that was definitely not a choice.

“And continue shivering? I don’t think so.”

Grillby helped out by placing Sans into the bed while he was distracted with Papyrus.

“Thank you!”, Papyrus cheerfully thanked Grillby for the help.

He hooked his little foot on the bed hinge and climbed up by himself, before scooching closer to Sans and laying down comfortably.

He could feel the natural magical warmth exuding from Grillby and Sans’ body slowly relaxing against his own.

He smiled as he watched Grillby turn off the night lights, and mouthed a “Good night” to the fire monster, before resting his skull against Sans’ and sleeping.

Chapter Text

… Drip. Drip.. Drip...

The water from the melting ice inside the lowball glass slid between the rest of the partially intact ice.

It was a nice day in Snowdin today.

The strong winds that lasted for the last few days stopped. It was pleasantly snowy now.

Grillby took a sip from his glass, sitting in his home kitchen while looking out of the window.

He had spend the last 9 days with his friend —Gaster’s little brothers, Sans and Papyrus.

Gaster asked him to look after them while he was busy with his latest project. Grillby didn’t know much about it, but he knew that it was very important. Gaster mentioned that it could change everything. Grillby just hopes it changes everything for the better…

Gaster had just come around about a few hours ago to pick his brothers up. The skeleton also invited him out to hang out when they're both free.

It was nice of him. The hang outs they used to have often when they were younger had become far and in between. Hopefully they would have some time soon enough. Though he doubted it.

Now, speaking of the last few days. Grillby had a very nice time with Sans and Papyrus. They were both very nice and obedient children. Sometimes it worried him, how good they were. Children were suppose to be a little mischievous. But it was almost like Sans and Papyrus were scared to be mischievous. It reminded of what became of him and Gaster after the War interrupted their childhood, yet Sans and Papyrus hadn’t even been part of the war.

Grillby had met Papyrus before, though they never quite interacted much. That may have been partially his fault as well. Grillby was someone who was relatively quiet, he had a unique and silent way of communicating that he understood not everybody could follow, and he was very self aware of that. If it weren’t for the many pleasant monsters around, he may have been friendless.

Of course many people would disagree with him. But Grillby simply considered himself lucky.

He also knew about Sans. Before Sans woke up he was one of the few people who knew clearly about the existence and the state of the 2nd youngest Skeleton left in Monsterkind.

He had also seen Sans when he was born. He remembered it perfectly. He was quite young himself back then. That day an equally young Gaster ran up to him, his usually cold fake composure nowhere to be seen. He proudly presented the just born Sans to him, as if he were one of Gaster’s precious inventions. That was before they realized that the small skeleton did not wake up no matter what they did, yet his soul continued to beat and his magical veins continued to give a sign of life.

Grillby wasn’t sure what he expected before meeting Papyrus and Sans, but he definitely wasn’t disappointed. The two brothers, no the three, were very different from each other, yet so similar.

If he had to put it into simple words, Gaster was the socially awkward, stoic, and cold, fanatic scientist older brother. It may sound like he’s talking shit, but he’s allowed to do that, he’s Gaster’s best friend after all. Besides anyone who is close to Gaster would agree with this description.

Papyrus was the excitable and energetic yet perceptive younger brother.

Sans was a little harder to pin down. He was the middle ground between the two. He was very socially smart, despite the fact that he seemed to instinctively avoid his natural instinct to familiarly interact with others. Sans was much more understanding of social cues and the emotional response of others, unlike Gaster and Papyrus who seemed to have a certain difficulty grasping particular emotional indications and social hints. Which was funny because they displayed an incredible amount of emotional intelligence specifically when concerning those they cared about. Sans was different. He seemed to be good at reading everyone. He knew what to look for. Sometimes he felt that even himself, who was often described as hard to read, specially because he doesn’t stimulate his facial features to show clearly in his fire, was easily read by Sans. He seemed to understand Grillby’s expressions better than Gaster, who had spend nearly his whole life with him.

Curiously though, Sans didn’t seem to want others to know that. There was something funny and also sad, in how he deliberately pretended not to see. How he turned away like he didn’t want to see, yet he often saw it anyways.

Sans also didn’t let his emotions show on his face. But it was different from Grillby’s natural unexpressive face, or the way Gaster’s expressions would harden due to awkwardness. Sans was deliberately concealing his expressions. A true pokerface.

Yet there were certain things, habits that Sans was unable to hide from the trained eye. Or rather, they were more like twitches or involuntary movements that Sans was unaware of, hence why he was unsuccessful in hiding them.

To list a few Grillby noticed. It was very apparent in his eye lights sometimes. They would unconsciously roll before he realized what he was doing when he was unimpressed, or drop down to the ground when he was anxious. It was the easiest place to read his emotions from, because it was the place they leaked from the most. Sometimes he would look at something, or someone like he had known them for very long and was meeting them like a long parted friend. He looked at him like that often.

Grillby wanted to say something to Gaster about it. The many weird things about Sans. But when he looked at Gaster about to say something, he knew that his friend was already aware.

He was probably afraid of the same thing as him. Afraid that Sans would become aware of these unconscious things and learn to hide them like he hides everything else. 

Grillby closed his eyes, imperceivable to most on the outside. He reminisced the last 9 days he spend with the younger skeletons.

On the first day, when they arrived, he had to listen to Gaster give him a sermon like he didn’t know more about taking care of children than the hopeless skeleton. He hadn’t been sure how to interact with the little ones when they first came. It was also a bit unlucky that Sans looked just as unwilling to be the one start a conversation as Grillby usually was in any setting outside of his own arguably small comfort zone.

It was easy to notice than that Sans was a child that got easily distracted. That wasn’t a secret to anyone. Something that even the passing person would notice after watching him for a short time.

Papyrus took the initiative of saying hello to him, and that helped Grillby gather some motivation to say hello back and greet Sans as well. It took a while for Sans to answer. But that was okay.

Grillby just wanted to give them a short introduction all at once.

The two’s reactions were adorably funny. They cutely argued about whether he could talk in multiple long complete sentences at once. With Papyrus in disbelief and Sans trying to refute that it was obvious that he could, despite the equal surprise hidden in the shorter skeleton’s tone. He really couldn’t take the two, he ended up laughing.

But he supposed that was a good thing. It seemed to break the ice.

Like it had heard his thoughts, the large ice sphere inside his lowball glass hatched in half. He got up and threw it down his sink.

Oh is it strange for a fire monster to have a sink? Don’t worry there’s no water in it. It would indeed be a hazard for him.

Back to the topic at hand, on the second day, the two seemed to open up to him a little. He opened up to them in return. He spend some quiet time with Sans while Papyrus ran around to waste his energy, while remaining within sight. Something Sans didn’t have the energy to accompany him in doing. Despite his hesitation to accept it though, Sans seemed to enjoy the wordless company.

Good. At least there was something that Grillby could provide.

On day three, Grillby stopped hesitating and started being regular in inserting short and sudden comments and jabs at the two. They seemed to enjoy it, at least after they got used to it. At first they would almost jump in surprise.

On day four, Sans expressed his appreciation for Grillby’s food for the first time out loud.

On day five, the coldest day of the week— not that Grillby could feel much of the cold, Papyrus asked him to sleep together, all three of them.

He talked fast giving multiple reasonings and trying to convince him to let him sleep together.

It was cute how obvious he was, just wanting to bask in the natural warm of Grillby’s fire.

He was hit with a memory flashback as soon as Papyrus mentioned Gaster’s name. When they were children, before the war, before the underground. He and Gaster would often have sleepovers, and he had regularly slept in the same mattress as the scientist. But when it was cold, even if there wasn’t any sleepover marked, Gaster would rush to his house and invite him for one, a greedy light in his eye sockets as he stared at the young crackles of Grillby’s fire.

Grillby was never bothered. He wouldn’t be now either. So he agreed.

Not long after, Papyrus came into his room with Sans. Sans seemed very reluctant. But as Papyrus very tactlessly pointed out, he was actively shivering. So Grillby decided to just place Sans on the bed instead of waiting for Papyrus and Sans to argue it out.

As soon as he was settled between Papyrus and himself, Sans was the first to fall asleep.

On day six, they went to get some groceries.

On day seven, they had a movie night.

On day eight, they gossiped about Gaster.

And on day nine, they said goodbye.

…

Well he’s sure he will see them again.

Chapter Text

White, bland and sterile. Completely devoid of the joy and vitality of the day Gaster first found Sans awake in one of these lifeless solution capsules.

Gaster walked through the laboratory, brushing his phalanges against the glass surface of the empty capsule that used to hold Sans.

Gaster believed he was someone who understood consequences, and he was also someone who was willing to accept those consequences. For the greater good.

As the head of the royal laboratory, and the royal scientist appointed by the King of Monsters, Asgore, himself, Gaster had the responsibility and burden of the future and scientific growth of Monsterkind in his shoulders. It was a burden that he was very willing to carry. No matter what.

Walking through the lab and towards the exit, he crossed through some large urn shaped pots, accidentally knocking one over. Dust spilled all over the floor, he hurriedly tried to collect it back into the container.

“Fuck. I was still gonna use that”, he cursed, frustrated. Seeing that all the monster dust couldn’t be saved, he gave up, opting for picking up a broom and dusting it away. No one would look for this dust anyways. He made sure of that before bringing it back to use. It was still such a waste though. They couldn’t afford this kind of waste.

Gaster finished hastily pushing it away and putting the urn back in place with the remainder of dust that was successfully recovered. He then continued to move forward, passing by some medical beds. You know, the really uncomfortable kind that hospitals normally have. Though this was nothing like a hospital. Half a dozen were occupied by “patients”. Some monsters still seemed to retain some resemblance of magical energy maintaining them actively alive, they furrowed their brows and twisted around in the mattress. While others did not move, not even so much as a twitch.

Gaster stopped by the corner bed of a monster who did not move, not long after it began to dust away, starting from their fingertips. “FUCK. I already have enough dust. Why isn’t there a way to preserve the bodies or souls of monsters after their death?”, he gritted his teeth, “Humans clearly can. Even if our constitutions are different there should still be a way.”, he angrily griped. Twisting around he walked and came back with a white bed sheet, laying it on top of the dusting monster. “I will collect it later”, he said, to no one in particular.

Then he continued walking through the laboratory, going past various empty panels.

No matter, they would be filled soon enough.

After a while he finally stood in front of a metal door, and went through it, walking and going back into Hotland.

Taking about 10 more steps he decided to take a shortcut, within a second he was in the other side of Hotland.

He entered an empty lot. At this time, there were still a lot of newly constructed buildings in the underground which hadn’t yet been assigned to anything. The lot was large, the main lobby split into three, to the left was a long room space, to the right were 4 doors leading to four different rooms. But none of those two were important right now, everything was empty and bare anyways, with no owner to glorify it. The last part, straight forward was a double glass door.

Gaster opened the door and walked through and down a short wooden path, on either side were wires and mechanical components blinking their red lights.

Stopping in front of a large mechanical door, which was in a blue color scheme, except for the large red light on top. He placed his hand on the palm reader for a few seconds and the gate gradually opened for him.

He passed through the gate- the entrance, and continued walking. He took a trip up and to the left, than the right and every corner, filled with machinery and technology in one large mechanical complex. Calmly inspecting everything, checking the mechanical complex piece by piece in a long and boring reviewing patrol.

“Soon we can activate it. Then we won’t have to worry about lack of resources anytime soon. After this I will focus on the barrier”, Gaster mumbled to himself.

Gaster flipped a switch and the mechanical complex fell into darkness.

Only the sound of the clacking of his shoes against the ground could be heard as he walked back out, with no light to guide him, as if he knew the way by heart.

Chapter Text

A couple of months after leaving Grillby’s place, Sans finally found himself alone.

After returning home from Grillby’s place, his life continued to be busy for a while longer. In this time Sans encountered more familiar faces. Like the younger versions of the canine unit and some rabbits he had been personally familiar in his previous life. Yeah he decided that was what he was gonna call it, a previous life, it seemed like the best fitting name for it.

He recognized that there were still a few faces that he hadn’t met yet, that he inevitably would one day. Faces he could never escape from and he knew that he couldn’t escape from. Which was why he was somewhat glad when he found that he was essentially getting the largest break in his life since- well, this life began.

Now that Papyrus had reached the age to go to school, he was invited to attend the royal school that had recently been established in the underground. Asriel, Prince Asriel, Sans mentally corrected himself, would also be attending, and Queen Toriel would be teaching there.

Originally Sans was also suppose to go. But after a long discussion with the scientists and few medics still remaining in the underground, it was concluded that Sans was not yet properly healthy enough to attend school with so many children.

They said something about getting him used to the presence of monsters and further stabilizing his emotional and psychological health before putting him in a high interaction environment. Whatever that meant. Sans hadn’t really been paying attention. He didn’t care for it, and it naturally didn’t matter if he attended school either.

Sans had never attended school before. All that he knew was personally taught by him. That is Dr. Gaster. Even after become family with a Gaster, at the corner of his mind he still found strange how easy it was to now think and say that name, when he couldn’t before. Dr. Gaster was never family, and he was most certainly not a friend, but Sans would have called him a mentor willingly or not. Dr. Gaster taught him everything, he even taught him things that Dr. Gaster himself didn’t even know how to do. Though Sans was unwilling to admit it, it was undeniable that Dr. Gaster had been his best and his only true teacher.

Some time during the multiverse exploration, when he first found out that the multiverse was a thing that truly existed and could even be travelled, he gained others who were willing to teach him. But they were nothing like Dr. Gaster. Perhaps they may even have taught him more important things than Dr. Gaster, did but they would never be him, never be at his level. This was something that he always thought, even when he couldn’t properly remember Dr. Gaster back then.

Anyways, it took another long discussion to convince his new overprotective brothers that he was perfectly capable of remaining alone, aside from occasional neighbor check ups or something. The check ups were a hard earned negotiation. Sans was even able to limit them to 4 times a day. To him that was a win, frankly, specially against his brothers.

Now he laid in the couch in a silent home. He was finally able to climb the couch on his own. It had been over a year since he woke up. He basked in the long lost stillness, deprived of other presences. It itched at him, making him unable to tell if he enjoyed it or not.

He felt with certainty that he had enjoyed the first few hours, until a growing unease began to crawl on his soul. An unrest at the lack of sound. Sans had always been surrounded by a lot of noise and commotion, both in his previous life and in this one. He was constantly enclosed by what others would likely consider suffocating presences, of which were normal, natural really, to him, but now he was at home alone in a time when everyone was out of the house, and out of the living district. With Papyrus at school, there was nothing to fill the gap of silence.

The agitation bubbled up in him like it used to before there were others to distract him from it, he began to fidget and fall into old habits.

Flexing his magic connections (the equivalent of cartilage that connects bones) his stance tightened like readying for an approaching potential threat. He tapped his feet and double knotted his black shoes.

Ah yes. Gaster brought him these. He was finally successful in avoiding the extra addition of blues in his outfits. Though he would have preferred red, at least black shoes did not get dirty easily, so that was convenient.

He pulled at his blue jacket and fidgeted with its rims.

Sans really needed to get a new one. Something not blue. Purple would be creepy, probably. Definitely not yellow nor orange.

He bit his rounded phalanges and chewed on them.

Red and black was always the best. Maybe he could settled with a double tone. Sans’ original jacket was black but the boys liked to gift him dark red clothes a lot, including jackets.

He sat on the ground against the wall and messed with the debris of faded corners of the walls. Scraping his distal phalanges with the sharp little rocks. But he didn’t seem to notice the scratches.

His bro- boss once gifted him a double tone jacket with a dull red and an even duller dark grey blue color. Despite being such a fashion advocate, he was always stubborn about calling colors the way he wanted instead of what they actually were, and referred to the jacket as classy Carmine-Storm Cloud denim.

He picked up a few of the medium sized sharper rocks and rolled them between his fingers.

Something the actual fashion expert that Re- Sans knew did not agree with. Lust said that it was not even a denim jacket, but a cotton twill jacket instead. He also said that it was a Brick Red and Tinsmith in color not Carmine and Storm Cloud.

Throwing the pebbles into the ground he reached inside his jacket. But his hand, his small hand, didn’t find anything there. Neither mustard nor a cigarette pack.

The most terrible as he proclaimed himself, and coolest younger brother. Of course Papy was also the coolest. But boss was just on another plane of existence. Literally. Sans let out a sudden loud wet laugh at his own joke.

He picked the pebbles back up.

Maybe he could find something in that similar dull red shade.

He rolled the irregularly smashed pebbles to the palm of his hand and collected some nicely sized ones.

Speaking of which, a few days ago he, for the first time since he woke up, tried mustard. Spicy mustard of course, that was the best kind of mustard. But somehow he couldn’t eat it. He nearly gagged at it. It was the first time he had ever thought something was spicy.

I guess a lot had changed now that he was no longer, well himself. Some things still just didn’t hit him properly. He didn’t seem to realize the change was there until it was too late.

He collected the small rocks into his small palm until it was filled to the brim.

It should be that in about 10 minutes, someone will come to check up on him.

He should think about what else he wants to change in his outfits for when he goes out shopping again with his brothers, as Gaster promised. He will prioritize looking less like Classic.

With his unused hand he picked up one of the small rocks and brought it up to his mouth.

A long time ago. He used to smoke a lot. When he first met Stretch, the other was sucking a lollipop. It was a short while after he was introduced to multiverse, and it hadn’t hit him yet, that sugar was common in other universes. So he thought Stretch who had stood outside leaning on the balcony, as Sans often did himself, was there for the purpose of smoking as well.  He thought he just hadn’t lit up the cigarette yet. Or he just wanted hold it in his mouth without lighting it up, he did that sometimes too. So he had started smoking next to him.

He dropped a pebble into his awaiting open jaw.

That was a big mistake. Smoking next to Stretch, he means. Because Swap was not happy when he found out. Well no one was happy. Except Boss who was equally as confused as him at the time, and only dismissively told him to smoke less, as he usually did.

He dropped a second and a third and fourth pebble.

Swap scolded him for a long time. The most embarrassing thing was when he and Boss asked what the fuck Stretch even had in his mouth if it wasn’t a cigarette, and everyone replied with a tone of confusion saying that it was obviously a lollipop.

A Fifth and a sixth pebble fell in.

He got over the embarrassment quickly enough, specially because Boss was so much more embarrassed than him, that he hadn’t considered the fact that it could be a lollipop, and it was hilarious.

A seventh and a eighth pebbled dropped. He wouldn’t have much space to chew if he put any more in, he stopped, realizing the unexpectedly small size of his own mouth.

He closed his mouth and made a closed mouth laugh at a particularly memory, of some of the boys’ shocked faces when they first saw him chew down a metal sphere.

He bit down with his molars, chewing familiarly.

Instead of the satisfying crunch of the rock, as he’s used to, he felt a tingly sting, then something else broke.

He reflexively hunched over in pain.

Liquid magic slipped out of his mouth and down onto his hands. A chipped piece of a teeth dropped to the floor.

He coughed, hacking the pieces of rocks out of his mouth. Luckily he hadn’t swallowed them yet.

There was a knock on the door but he didn’t notice and only continued to cough, more magic spilling out.

He naturally also didn’t notice when the door opened and someone rushed to his side.

“Oh my Asgore. Sans!”

It took him a while through his blurring tears and magic to recognize the voice.

The young voice of a male lizard. The receptionist of the yet to be established “LIBRARBY”, which was now a half empty lot, with a dusty collection of books in it.

Sans thought he lived in north Snowdin. Why was he even among the neighbors to check on him? He thought between his coughs and nonstop magical spill.

“Gosh! We need to stop the bleeding.”

Sans felt a gentle touch of a wet napkin against his maxilla and mandible.

He seemed to have spaced out after that because the next thing he knew he was laying down on the couch, and Gaster was sitting by his head.

Papyrus also rushed in through the front door and sat by his side, holding his hand.

While he was focusing his vision onto the presence of the other two skeletons, Gaster immediately noticed his new clarity.

“Sans? What happened? I heard that you were found coughing up magic?”, Gaster asked patiently.

Sans didn’t answer. He didn’t want to answer. It was a mistake, another foolish mistake of his. Chewing on rocks was a coping mechanism he had since his childhood. Because it helped him calm down. Because ice wasn’t sold everywhere. And because cigarettes were expensive.

He didn’t want them to know that he fucking broke his teeth biting down on a rock, because he was used to them shattering when he bit them. How was he suppose to explain that?

How was he suppose to explain that he used to have such sharp teeth that they cut through most things, and he had an ingrained habit of bitting through things keep himself busy? How was he suppose to explain that he was proud of having the most durable teeth around, when he didn’t have them anymore, and did something as stupid as this?

Sans looked away from Gaster and Papyrus’ concerned gazes.

Gaster sighed. Evidently giving up on enquiring further.

Sans felt the unfamiliar weight of a hand on top of his skull and looked up. Gaster was patting him.

“It’s fine if you don’t answer, you can tell me when you feel like it. But we have to go for a checkup on the lab, okay?”, Gaster told him patiently.

Sans grimaced at the word checkup, but he could tell the two wouldn’t yield, so he hopelessly nodded.

Oh stars save him. May death get rid of his dumbass-ness.

Heh. He shouldn’t give Reaper too much work though, he would surely get annoyed, but mostly sad, emo god of death ass-.

Chapter Text

So here he was. White and familiar.

There was an even more familiar figure in front of him. A bit softer and smaller, rounder and less edgy than what he was used to.

A lizard monster, one who had also been an important part of Sans’ life at some point.

Alphys.

The silhouette of his friend overlapped with the small figure in front of him.

She lacked the sharp edges and the nerdy swirl in her glasses. Absent of the commonplace red.

She looked the same but felt different already.

“Hmmm s- sooo- o- Sa-“, Alphys stammered.

The Alphys he knew only stammered in front of strangers. The Alphys he knew made edgy emo comments in every phrase she spoke to him, trying to be cool and failing miserably in a charming way.

Alph was his friend before friends were a thing in the underground. Alph was the only one he could trust before Boss.

He shook his head, hoping to get rid of these useless thoughts.

Sans was currently in a sanctioned part of Hotland where a small medical camp was set up. This was were medical equipment from the lab was gathered neatly and in easy reach. The monsters who worked here were for the major part made up of those who were good at healing magic. Sans had heard that the Queen, who was good at healing magic, sometimes visited and helped around. He was inside one of the cabins, laying in one of its uncomfortable beds. For the last 8 hours he had been going through countless screenings.

Papyrus was at school and Gaster had just been taken away by the “doctor”, likely to discuss the results of the medical exams.

Classic’s underground didn’t have a medical camp like this, as far as he knew. The longer he spend here the more the differences became apparent.

In Classic’s AU, monsters were actually rarely sick, and those who were sick enough to need more than a day’s rest at home, were sick enough to fall, so they all ended up in the lab.

One of the reasons why his AU didn’t have a medical camp like this, was that it didn’t need one. Their society was stable and well supported even while trapped in the underground.

A clear difference from Underfell 00. In Underfell 00, there wasn’t a medical camp but there was something similar. There monsters with healing abilities were extremely rare. So they were naturally sought after. However in the environment and shitty society that was the underground of Underfell 00 no one was stupid enough to let everyone know that they had plentiful healing magic.

Instead those with healing magic would frequent the underground, ah yes the underground’s underground, it’s a bit like what you would refer to as the black market. In the black market it was easy to disguise yourself, because no one cared for who you truly were if they were desperate enough to enter it. So monster healers would set up small camps and charge ridiculous fees for their healing. It wasn’t unreasonable because that was how important and worthy their abilities were. It was also a way for them to make a living, so no one every said anything about it either.

Classic’s underground among many other AUs in his previous life, had walked out of the shadow of the Great War and build stable civilization and society, developing and evolving.

Underfell 00 was one of the few places were the shadows of the Great War still rested heavily on everyone’s shoulders even after a millennia. They were a failure of a society. Unable to stand back on their feet properly after losing their hope and turning to the red.

In this instance, Sans noted that this new AU of his was actually more similar to Underfell 00 than the original Undertale, shadows of the Great War still haunted it’s citizens. But it wasn’t as much as a failure as Underfell 00. It was clear to him that in here, the Great War hadn’t been a very very long time ago. After sometime he came to the conclusion that aside from those around Papyrus’ age, everyone else had actually already been alive during the Great War. Including himself.

That’s right, his body had been born not in the Underground but the surface. It was just that it had not been awake, so it was the same as not being alive.

“San- He-o S- ns”

He finally emerged from his thoughts at the stammering voice that reached his hearing once again.

Right. She was still in front of him. A small, Classic looking version of Alph, of Alphys.

Alphys sighed in relief when she saw he was paying attention to her now.

“Hii-“, she waved at him as a greeting, “Sans right? I- I’m- ‘m Alp-phys. I’m gonn-a stay he-eere today as your attendant. I work as a errand hand at the- the- lab- with Doctor Gaster”

Sans twitched at his Gaster being referred to as Doctor Gaster. He had carefully used that to distinguish the two. He would rather not mix them up.

“I’m here today- be-cause we’re short on hands. I- I’m gonna help- while you stay here.”, Alphys continued to talk, “If you uh- need any- anything, just call me. I- ‘ll be here.”

Then she sat on a chair inside of the cabin.

This was weird. Weird and awkward. Sans started to fidget with his phalanges in hopes of distracting himself. He tapped his teeth together, missing the feel of something between them.

“Hm”, he suddenly heard as he started to bite the tips of his fingers.

He turned to the side slightly and jumped. At some point Alphys had appeared by his bed side. She was holding a ice tray.

“Do you uh- need something to chew? Try this. I also like to chew on something sometimes- Ice is soft and nice. I think you will like it. But uh don’t bite them right away.. okay? Because- your teeth are hurt, wait for it to melt a little than you can start chewing through it. I know- that it’s not as nice but uh-“, she suddenly started talking a bunch.

Sans grabbed the ice tray and nodded in thanks, hoping that would shut her up. Thankfully it did and she went back to her little chair.

He stared at the ice for a while. It sank him into far away memories, back to when he and Alph would share a cigarette during the days they worked together in the lab. It was too expensive for them to buy, so they would buy a pack together and smoke it together, smoking it until there was nothing left.

He grabbed a ice cube and held it up to the celling, examining it like it was something more bizarre. Then he put his hand down, whether he got bored of it or having his arm raised up for so long was beginning to numb it didn’t matter, he put the cube in his mouth, summoning a thin layer of magic to cover the inside, so that it wouldn’t slip out through his bones. He let it sit there for a while and chewed. It stung his teeth a bit.

It was okay. But he didn’t really like how soft it was. The best part of his habit of chewing through things was the toughness of the solid and the satisfying crunch between his teeth. He liked to bite the harder things. Like metal and some hard woods, rocks and more.

It was nice that he even had ice, but it didn’t satisfy his need for something to chew. He barely felt like he was chewing at all.

He continued to chew mechanically as he laid his head down on the uncomfortable pillow.

He wanted to go home.

When was Gaster gonna get back?

Chapter Text

2 months ago Gaster had finally come to the forefront of his latest project. Something that would later be referred to as the “Core” and serve as the main source of energy and resources for the Underground.

Gaster had been willing to do a lot, just about almost everything to complete this project, it would be the new foundation upon which monster society could rebuild itself.

Before then he had taken some time away from his younger brothers to focus on the crucifix of this project and reached the step before launching was prepared. Now the only thing left was to wait for the collection of energy to be drawn in order to turn on the machine Core, for the first time and hopefully it would only need to be turned on once and would continue to be on forever, or at least while they need it.

After getting all of that done, he went to pick up his younger brothers at his good friend’s, his best friend’s house, Grillby. To Gaster, Grillby was an irreplaceable friend. A valuable, trustworthy and reliable friend. That’s why he felt safe in handing over his brothers to him for a week or so while he was gone for work.

When he saw Grillby that day he went to pick up Sans and Papyrus, he could already tell what all of the flame monsters questions were without him saying anything.

It’s just that some things needed to be discussed in a more suitable setting.

Following this, many things occurred rather fast. Before he knew it, his youngest brother, Papyrus was already attending the newly established academy. Well school, Papyrus said he sounded like a nerd when he called it academy. Not only that, Sans agreed, saying that the establishment was not up to standard nor curriculum to be considered an academy. This comment clearly made Sans the bigger nerd, so he didn’t understand why Papyrus only talked shit about him.

During this time Sans had to stay alone at home, for the first time, after much confrontation.

Now, Gaster wished he had never agreed.

It was only a few hours ago, that he heard the ring of his phone and answered it, only to receive horrendous news. Sans would surely say that he was over exaggerating it, to call it horrendous. But not to him.

During the past 2 years he’d been closely watching Sans alongside Papyrus and they had been very careful and gradually aided in a slow but steady physical recovery of Sans’ body. Since the last year, Sans’ only symptoms were the occasional low fevers and fatigue that was usually dealt with some additional hours of sleep.

How could it not be horrendous? To hear that Sans had been bleeding down to the floor from his mandible when the last neighbor in turn, went to check up on him.

Gaster had rushed away from the Laboratory and scooped up Papyrus who had also heard the news before he could prevent it from reaching the other’s non existent ears.

The sight they were faced with when they arrived was enough to take away the breath of their non existent lungs. Draped over the floor, where a green lizard supported his petite skull while he waited for help to arrive, Sans looked even paler than usual. The magic glow of his joints an even ashier tone of blue than what they were used to.

Gaster recalled stepping over a fragment of his teeth when he walked over. At the time he did not know what to call the strange feeling against the floor of his foot, when he picked up the object and inspected it in his hand, it took him a while, out of disbelief more than anything to recognize it as a tooth. He did not tell Papyrus nor call attention to it, but instead shoved the chipped remains inside of his lab coat pocket and picked up Sans, setting him down on the couch as he did some first aid himself.

When his younger brother woke up he asked, as he naturally should, but Sans was predictably unwilling to answer. That was okay to Gaster. Either way Sans would be going to the doctor now. Gaster watched the unwillingness flash through Sans poker face which seemed to become more and more perfected by the day. Gaster decided to walk to the Medical camp while carrying Sans, himself.

There the attending healer told him what he had already guessed. The injury was caused by some kind of strong, deliberate impact against the tooth. They were deciduous teeth — the monster version of course, monsters’ deciduous teeth did not work like human teeth did, after all monsters could actually heal much faster than a human, though they were a lot easier to kill in return—  thankfully, so there wouldn't be any struggle in their recovery.

Gaster was appalled of course. What could cause an injury like this? It was not as if anyone in their neighborhood was violent or something. How could the perfectly capable Sans, out of nowhere have a unexplainable teeth injury?

Papyrus had to leave and return first to school. But Gaster stayed, watching by the side, as Sans passed through every medical screening that was available to their still limited technology.

The attending healer pulled Gaster aside to talk about the all of the results, so he had to leave Sans with Alphys. Alphys was an awkward but hardworking monster child. He felt that though Alphys was awkward and anxious in a way that no one else Sans knew was, as far as he knew anyways, that they were likely to get along well. He didn’t really know where that conclusion came from but it seemed natural to him.

It was just that when he came back from the conversation with the attending healer. Sans did not look comfortable. He didn’t look like Alphys had done anything wrong of course. Sans wasn’t shy if anyone offended him. It was something more complicated. A hesitation that Sans occasionally showed in front of certain new people.

He watched for a while as Sans plopped ice cubes into his mandible and let them melt, eye sockets avoiding the direction in which Alphys was all the while.

“Sans”, he called.

This time, unlike how Sans usually took a while to make any kind of response when lost in thought, the smaller skeleton immediately perked up turning his gaze towards Gaster. His white eye light lit up an a strange red tone, unlike the usual blue undertone, signaling his obvious relief at Gaster’s presence.

Sans never answered with his words, but Gaster didn’t need a vocal answer.

He liked it. Silent answers. Answers that came from passive faces, where only the eyes showed signs of emotion. He liked how Sans, and how Grillby answered him like that. So defusing and calming, and itching all the same.

Gaster also didn’t speak and walked up to Sans’ bedside, picking him up, as had become natural.

“Let’s go home”, he said.

Sans gripped his coat to keep balance.

So he left, Alphys’ small figure fading behind as he walked back home.

Chapter Text

A few months later, it wasn’t surprising that Sans often found himself alone again. Gaster and Papyrus were now busy with their own things.

Gaster dived deep into his research, with passion never seen before. Every time he saw that fanatic look on Gaster’s face, Sans reflexively shuddered at the sight.

Papyrus was also now a grown child, making his own connections and experiencing society in the form of school.

Alone with nothing but his thoughts and the sudden jump inducing occasional presences of neighbors who would randomly check on him… It was equally expected that Sans had no progress in fixing his bad habits, but instead fell deeper into them. Slowly settling back into a routine similar to the one he had as Red.

The only progress he made in the last few months was that he learned to be smart about his fuck ups. He hid them well now, like a second nature.

A new event did come up too. Though it was frankly a bit late in his opinion, his magic had finally matured to the point that he was in control of it.

He did a lot of testing with that. Helped him keep distracted for a while. It was just that his magic wasn’t like his magic anymore. It was like Classic’s instead.

Right because now, he was some kind of Classic Sans. Probably. This AU was weird. Nothing like what he could recall from others’ stories. Maybe it was just some messy thing, that was hastily put together, maybe there was a secret or twist behind it, maybe it would turn into something more or something less. Or maybe it would be a combination of all three. That was the worst case scenario.

While training his magic he learned to do some new things that he never could before. All thanks to finally to being conscious of the fact that he was now closer to what Classic was like, than what he himself was like in his past life.

That’s when he came across a type of magic he had never touched before. Healing.

Sure in Underfell 00 healing magic was extremely rare, but it was not the case in Undertale. In fact he recalled Classic telling him that it was more rare than not to be able to perform at least some level of healing magic. Though the efficiency heavily varied from monster to monster.

Classic himself could use healing magic. He had not been an expert, but was good enough to heal cracks or scratches, and some minor fractures.

Sans recalled that Classic would often heal the Bad Sanses and himself (Red), usually while making the most unimpressed poker face at them. The only time they and he would agree that they rather face Swap and Blue’s collective sermon like lectures.

You don’t get it. Classic’s face of disappointment was fatal. Swap said they could try not getting hurt as much, but that hardly worked. And it was not even just because they totally ignored him when he said that.

But back to the topic at hand. He always got distracted when he dived into his memories.

Lately Papyrus seemed to be noticing the chips and half healed injuries in his teeth. His natural healing couldn’t keep up, so some things remained. But if he could learn healing than he would not have this problem anymore, and Papyrus would stop being suspicious.

So for the past 3 weeks or so he’d been attending the library, which wasn’t even the library yet, they should put up the sign soon though.

Papyrus and Gaster were very supportive of him going to the not-library. As he very rarely left the house, and the not-library was frequented by many monsters, so they didn’t have to worry about him being alone on his own. Not to mention that the new not-librarian-yet was the “helpful green lizard” from his first fuck up incident.

Anyways now that he was “mastering” —though that was really an overstatement— healing magic, he healed his teeth even after biting down on a rock wrongly, and dripping magic liquid all over the floor. The hard part was actually cleaning up the magic liquid so they wouldn’t found out.

Sans currently stood in front of a mirror in the bathroom. He grinned and checked on his teeth. Was it just him? Or have they recently became a little sharper?

Anyways, Sans had learned to heal cracks to near perfection now, no more chipped off bits of tooth could be seen. He was now learning how to heal a sprained leg.

Not his sprained leg, no matter how good he was he wouldn't have been able to hide that. A bunny’s leg.

He found the thing on the snowy floor when he taking a walk to go to the not-library, it was very active but stayed in place unable to hop. He decided it was good practice. Only the combination of both theory and practice could truly get you somewhere. It totally had nothing to do with the fact that he found the aggressiveness of the small and fluffy bunny super adorable and decided to heal it out of the kindness of his heart. He had no kindness in his soul. Nuh uh.

The boys would have disagreed. But when did that stop him from believing anything?

He was pretty good at it to be honest. This healing thing. He soon found that the more he practiced the faster and more efficient he became. In fact he can’t remember Classic being as efficient as him. But maybe that’s just because Classic was a lazy ass and always took everything slow with that unbelievably draggy patience of his.

Soon enough the bunny’s leg was perfectly healed up. So he send it on its way back into the snowy forest.

Then he walked through the snow with heavy steps, the snow was thicker today, harder to get through with his small feet. Why did he have to be Classic sized? Hell he was even smaller than Classic, probably because he was still a child now. Hopefully, that was truly why.

Sans’ back faded away in the direction of the not-library-yet.

Chapter Text

Recently Papyrus would often tell Sans about his school day after coming home.

He would idly discuss about what he learned that day, and while Sans hadn’t gotten a formal education in his previous life, he was plentifully knowledgable enough to help Papyrus with anything he needed help in.

Today was such a day.

“SANS!”

The shorter skeleton had been sitting on the couch idly chewing rocks and draped all over it like a boneless plush. He immediately spit out the tiny rocks at the familiar shout, they easily blended in with the ground.

Papyrus was early today.

Sans quickly got off of the couch and headed towards the door, in the direction the shout had come from.

“Papy?”, he walked sluggishly up to the now significantly taller skeleton.

“Sans! I have great news!”, Papyrus rushed forward pushing down Sans with an aggressive hug tackle.

“Ouch”, Sans said more for the dramatics than anything.

“Oh! I’m sorry, brother!”, Papyrus quickly apologized. The younger skeleton had actually shielded the back of Sans’ skull with his hand.

It was ridiculous to think sometimes. How fast he seemed to grow. Papyrus would soon get to a point where Sans would never be able to catch up with again. Just like back then.

It was good for him to grow well. Sans was happy to know that he was safe and healthy.

This place provided them with so much. He suddenly understood why Classic had still been attached to his AU no matter how many countless times it hurt him. Suddenly understood why Killer sometimes missed even the worst of his days back when he still had a Papyrus. Or why Dream shed tears for his brother that was long gone, and still mourned for someone who had merely taken his place and done nothing other than harm to him.

He also hypocritically missed it sometimes. The danger. The blood. The adrenaline of Underfell.

Safety was comfortable, but no one was truly ever safe.

While distracted with his useless thoughts he had long moved back into the living room to wait for Papyrus to take a shower and change before he started talking about his day

Within 5 minutes of Sans swimming out of his thoughts, Papyrus appeared. Clean, ready for a cozy afternoon and excited to tell him everything.

“So Paps, what’s gotcha so pappy today?”, Sans asked with a wink.

“Well, you see brother. Today I actually- Wait a minute. Did you just make a pun? Because that was a horrible one.”, Papyrus asked.

“I dun know whatcha talkin’ about…?”, he played dumb.

Papyrus raised his bone brow and looked at him with suspicion but let it go for now.

“Anyways as I was saying! I made a super cool new friend! She’s not as cool as me of course, but she’s a close 3rd after you brother!”, Papyrus said.

“Oh? Gaster is gonna be really sad that she’s taking his place”, Sans responded.

“But Wings is nowhere near as cool?!”, Papyrus tilted his head in confusion, “He’s so clumsy, he can’t do anything other than work. His work is cool but I don’t really understand it”.

Sans bursted into laughter and mentally lit up a candle for Gaster.

“???”, Papyrus didn’t understand what was so funny, he was just telling the truth.

“Anyways! So it’s this fish monster girl! And she has blue skin and fish fins and red hair! Her name is Undyne! She’s supeeeeeer cool. We’re gonna play together from now on”, he continued.

Sans eye lights widened. Oh Undyne? Sans didn’t know Undyne was part of Papyrus’ childhood. I mean she wasn’t in his boss’ in Underfell 00. He didn’t recall her being Puff’s either, Sans mentioned knowing Alphys when he was younger which was the same for him. Though he supposed it wasn’t quite as young as now, but he had never mentioned anything about Undyne being Puff’s childhood friend. Sans didn’t think she was.

The more he stayed here the more clear it became that this really wasn’t quite a Classic Undertale. Well it definitely wasn’t a Underfell either. It was at most probably a Classic AT or something.

“A fish? Whatcha gon do? Have swimmin’ competitions? Can ya swim?”, Sans connected back into the conversation.

“That’s very impolite Sans. She is a fish monster but she can breath out of water as well. She is not a mermaid. Of course, we spar on the ground. And I can swim fine.”, Papyrus said pouting.

Can all mermaid’s not breath out of water? Are there mermaids here? Sans wondered mentally.

“Impolite? Whose teaching ya to talk like this, definitely ain’t me nor Gaster”, Sans playfully said.

“It’s Queen Toriel of course!” Papyrus responded.

“Toriel? Ain’t that the same one that told us to call ‘er Tori or somethin’, bud?”, Sans raised a bone brow.

“Well the Queen Toriel thing I got from the other kids they all call her that. But she uses very flowery language in school, like impolite and improper and all of that.”, Papyrus said.

“The other kids ain’t her godchild. Ya can call her whateva ya want Paps”, Sans commented.

“But I like calling her the same as the other kids”, Papyrus retorted.

“If das whatcha want. But she might be sad ya call her all formal like that when ya meet her outside school”.

“That’s a good point brother! I shall continue to call her Tori outside of school. Or should I call her goat mama?”, Papyrus questioned.

Sans splattered. His eye lights shaking as he rapidly turned to Papyrus, “What?”

“You remember when I went to the Palace to hang out with Asriel when you were out with Wings?”, Papyrus started.

“Ya?”, Sans responded.

“I happened to mention that I didn’t have a mom none and that the kids at school were always talking about what their moms would make for them and all and they asked me, and I couldn’t say anything.”, Papyrus told the story.

“What’s the big, it’s not that uncommon to not have paren’s?”, Sans said.

Papyrus looked at him, “Yeah I know some people just have dads or something, that’s not exact what were talking about”.

Oh Sans forgot that it was more common to have at least one parent here. He completely forgot because a “complete” family was rare in Underfell 00. Shit, he slipped.

“Not that I mind any.”, Papyrus continued.

Papy was picking up on some of his accent that Sans would slip into unconsciously.

“Having you and Wings is enough. You’re both basically like a mom and dad. Where Grillby has the actual emotional intelligence you two lack. Not that I think he’s like family or anything!”, Papyrus quickly shook his skull.

Sans stared at him in amusement.

“I mean. So I was talking bout that in uh the table while eating with the Miss Tori and Asriel and I think they misunderstood something. Uh.”, Papyrus tried to distract him away from the Grillby slip.

“M’ k”, Sans leaned his skull against his hand and continued to pay attention to Papyrus’ story, letting him get away just for today.

Papyrus heaved a sigh of relief, “Anyways I think they thought I was sad or something. Because before they let me finish the story- I was gonna mention that I talked about you and Gaster and the kids were super into my stories. Because you guys are great.”

Sans nearly choked on air. He couldn’t held the honesty and cuteness. He’s so weak. The Puff coded straight forwardness was gonna kill him of a soul attack some day. He covered it up so Papyrus wouldn’t suddenly stop talking and worry about him. Believe him, he’s done that before.

“They said that Miss Tori was my god mother so I could call her mom if I wanted to. But then she kinda freaked out and said that she doesn’t mean to replace my mom. I can’t even remember my mom. And then Asriel suggested that I could call he Goat mama, to differentiate. Miss Tori stared at him after that for some reason.”, Papyrus continued to tell him.

“Pfff. That’s great buddy”, Sans patted Papyrus’ arm and leaned into the couch to continue to listen.

Papyrus discussed with him about the new things he’d learned that day. Sans helped him do homework. Then when they were going to bed, after reading the bed time story and bidding Papyrus farewell for the night, he suddenly got stopped before he could exit the room.

“Oh that’s right!”, Papyrus said rubbing his eyes, “I’m gonna go to Undyne’s to play next month”.

Sans nodded. Good for you Papy, he thought to himself.

“Then she’s gonna come here, the month after that”, Papyrus said in a low sleepy voice.

“Wait what?”, Sans turned around, but Papyrus was already asleep.

Sans walked to his room. Thinking about how he hopes young Classic-ish Undyne is less annoying than Underfell Undyne. But who is he kidding he’s never had such luck in his life. Neither the past one nor this one.

He flopped into the bed and went to sleep, decisively giving up on thinking.

Chapter Text

Time passed by fast and Sans already found himself opening the door for Papyru’s new friend, Undyne.

The young, less edgy than usual version of his br- Boss’ best friend grinned at him with a familiar sharp smile.

“You must be Sans! Ngaaaaaah!”, she greeted him, her red pony tail flying to accompany her high energy gestures.

“Heya. Undyne, right?”, he greeted back with a ounce of awkwardness in his voice.

“That’s Right!”, she responded quickly.

“Paps is in the kitchen with Gaster, whipping up some breakfast. Come in. You can seat whereever”, Sans said and led her inside, walking towards the living room and dining room, located just outside the kitchen.

The small Undyne eagerly followed after him, clearly walking slowly so as to not overtake his own steps. She shook with spirit, taking extra steps without actually walking forward multiple times.

How polite… He thought.

Undyne was different from the others. In Underfell 00 he could be considered to know monsters like Grillby, Alphys, Toriel, and even Asgore well. But Undyne was not someone he had dealt with in a daily basis.

Undyne was not a friend or anything close to it. Undyne had been a friend of his brother, and that was all there was to it.

They were- acquaintances, at best. Despite the occasional banter they shared. She called him a ‘fuck ass bonehead’ and he called her a ‘fish bitch’. There wasn’t anything intimate about it. Everyone cursed everybody all the time in Underfell.

The extensive time he spent as a Multiverse Resident did nothing to change this habit of his. Even Boss who had accustomed more to not cursing as much in front of their multiversal friends, still had cursing as a crucial part of his vocabulary.

Once they arrived, Sans plopped on the sofa and gave her rein, to which she immediately dashed into the kitchen.

Sans could hear the entire conversation from outside. It certainly helped that both Papyrus and Undyne were very loud. Gaster was the hardest to make out from their voices, but he wasn’t inclined to talk either so there wasn’t much to listen for.

A few minutes later Gaster walked out of the kitchen and sat next to Sans. They both looked at each other and relaxed onto the couch, listening to the younger ones’ active conversation.

Papyrus and Undyne loudly discussed about what they wanted to do for the day. Consisting mostly of physical activities and games. Sans cringed at the thought of doing any of them.

Gaster turned on the TV. It did nothing to drown out Papyrus and Undyne, they were much louder than the TV.

Sans leaned his cheek against his hand and watched the screen without paying attention to it. Papyrus and Undyne’s voices soon became white noise and he fell into his thoughts and memories as he always found himself doing since he got here.

Undyne was so familiar. Sure Sans wasn’t as familiar with Undyne in Underfell 00 as he was to anyone else, but she the one here was similar, more than any of them.

She was so equally loud, and sharp. Maybe with a less morbid and dark vocabulary sure, but she retained an edginess that no one else did in this AU. Her tone as she spoke reeked of teen angst and her attitude begged for attention and picked a fight like no other.

Maybe it was exactly that. Maybe it was exactly because he wasn’t as close to Undyne in Underfell 00 that he felt this Undyne was the most similar to the one he knew.

There were such clear distinctions in the others. Grillby for example was nothing like G man. At their core he could find similarities but no one would ever mistake the two for the same person.

But Sans could almost mistake this Undyne for UF00’s Undyne. He wondered if maybe UF00 Undyne was like this when she was young. Before she had to go through what forged her into the monster she was to- had been.

He shook his head to try and change the topic in his mind, but his thoughts were not inclined to listen to him today.

He leaned against Gaster’s side. He would never have done that in Underfell 00. Not even if he were dying.

Listening to the mindless chatter of Undyne and Papyrus he found another familiar monster coming to mind.

He had also had a friendship close like this one once. Something with someone who shared interests with him, someone he let get close at some point. Alphys.

The Alphys he met at the Medical Tent some months ago, made him feel strange. So clearly contrasting that she felt alien.

He felt a disturbing urge to remain close to familiar faces, though he would never admit that to himself. Never admit to missing someone like who Gaster and G m- Grillby had been. Never admit that sometimes in the morning he would stare into the mirror just to look at them for a little while longer.

But he did not feel that way towards this Alphys. He disliked the way she made him feel. As if he were looking at an imposter of his close friend.

This must be how Boss felt when he met the boys for the first time.

He felt himself being gently shaken. It was Gaster. Apparently Papyrus was done making breakfast. He walked with Gaster and sat down on the dinning table.

“Looks great Paps”, he gave a thumbs up and shoved a piece of pancake into his mouth with his other hand.

“Nyehehehe! You’re welcome brother. Undyne helped me! Please do not speak with food in your mouth”, Papyrus responded happily, without forgetting to scold him.

He was spending too much time with Toriel.

Sans gave a silent thumbs up to Undyne in response.

“Ngahhhh! Papyrus is incredible. He’s really good at this.”, Undyne responded, shying away from the praise, a large toothy smile still on her face as she looked to the side and scratched her head.

Gaster and Sans nodded at her words.

Ah this was nice.

Sans hoped that this Undyne would be a long time, good friend to Paps, just like Felldyne, he’d heard Error called his Undyne something stupid like that once, was to his br- Boss.

He silently prayed that this friendship would last…

Chapter Text

A few centuries ago the Great War between Humans and Monsters broke out.

A few decades ago it came to an end, resulting in no human casualties and many monster casualties, along with the imprisonment of remaining monsterkind underground.

There was no rhyme nor reason for its beginning. It seemed like one day humans decided that monsters could no longer be tolerated.

Despite being treated with respect and courtesy by monsters, humans did not extend the same attitude.

This was what led to monsterkind’s downfall.

They had been much too kind.

With such a short period of time between the tragedy that was the war to monsterkind, it was hard to view humans in a positive light.

So monsters, most having been alive during the war and some even having participated in it, felt that humankind was despicable. Vile, even.

Undyne was one of the monsters that had been born after the imprisonment of monsterkind. She did not witness the surface, and had never seen the sun.

She was one of the first monster children to be born after the war. A mere few years or so before the birth of the youngest children already to date, such as Papyrus and Asriel.

Having been born only a decade or so after monsterkind was imprisoned underground, she grew up hearing the stories of the war that had been, and of the cruel humans that led it.

Believing that she knew the true essence of humans from the words that she constantly heard, she grew a vicious opinion of humankind and her DETERMINATION increased by the day. As such Undyne swore that she would one day be the hero, as her favorite stories always started, to free all of monsterkind.

While monsters all undoubtedly had white souls, something that rarely had an exception even outside of the general multiverse, monsters were not exempt of showing traits of the 7 souls as human did, they were simply not as visually apparent as in the human soul, that colored itself with its most prominent trait.

Despite Undyne intense opinions of Righteousness, her soul and character was not marked by Justice as many who knew her may guess, it was instead deeply marked by Bravery and Determination.

Her loyalty came not from what was right but what was respectable. And there was a very large difference between what is ethical and what is honorable.

Undyne was happy to make a new friend and forge a new bond of loyalty. Specially with a fellow young mind also born after the peak of monsterkind. Papyrus, was her new beloved friend. He, just as she did, was largely marked by the Bravery in his soul and character.

However, while they were similar they were also equally different. On a surface level it may seem that they were a similar type of person, but the truth was that they couldn’t be further from each other.

Not that this was bad thing, necessarily. But their similarities stopped at surface level.

Unlike Undyne, Papyrus held not Determination but Integrity in his core. He was not particularly a person with strict moral standards, he was not particularly a person that did not lie. Yet he held a belief more firm than hers, a loyalty that never wavered due to entirely different reasons than the ones that maintained her’s unwavering.

Yet they both fit as friends like a glove to a hand.

After spending several months by his side, Undyne found herself being invited into his personal space, a show of loyalty that endeared her stubborn heart. She responded at once, eager to become even better friends!

About a month ago Papyrus had met her current guardian, Gerson. The hearty turtle was someone who Papyrus had seen but not interacted with closely, at least that was what he said to her. Gerson and Papyrus seemed to hit off well.

Undyne heard them talking about Papyrus’ brother, whom Gerson apparently had spoken to before. The turtle seemed to have a good impression of the other skeleton. Undyne didn’t know exactly what to think of him yet though. However, slowly but surely she began to shape an impression of this, to her, unknown individual.

She had yet to meet Papyrus’ Little Big brother, yes she was confused by the nickname as well. It took her a while to understand that he was indeed older than Papyrus and simply shorter. She had laughed when she finally understood.

But she had met Papyrus’ oldest brother, Gaster. He was the royal scientist, she had encountered him many years ago when Gerson took her into his custody. Now she finally met him not as the royal scientist but as Papyrus’ oldest brother.

Apparently his name was Wings. She thinks. That’s what Papyrus calls him anyways. She didn’t really get it. She had glanced behind him and at his back several times but the taller skeleton did not seem to have wings of any kind.

Papyrus also loved to talk about his family, she often heard from him about all kinds of silly things that Gaster did, and her perception of the tall skeleton gradually morphed.

To her, Gaster had two very distinct descriptions in her mind: The nerdy, serious, very intelligent Royal Scientist; and, Papyrus’ stone faced, clumsy older brother.

The day soon came that she stood before Papyrus’ front door. The door opened to a very soft short looking skeleton. His clearly oversized clothing, made him look round, as though he had malleable flesh underneath instead of just bones. A clear contrast from the slim slenderness present in both Papyrus and Gaster.

She decided she liked him.

It helped that Papyrus always praised him and told her how cool he was. He also often mentioned how exasperating the shorter skeleton was, but that didn’t matter.

That day she spend all morning, afternoon and night in the skeleton brothers’ house.

After having breakfast with them, Gaster soon vanished, she guessed it must be that he was off to do Royal Scientists things. Papyrus had told her he was very busy.

She ran around the house and in their large smooth yard with Papyrus, playing all sorts of games. From racing to play fighting. Papyrus even got her to sit down at some point and she struggled through a super cool and super frustrating puzzle. Papyrus seemed to like the puzzle, she had fun with it too of course, but it certainly did use up all her brain calories.

They had a ample meal after, which she helped Papyrus make just as she had when she arrived during breakfast. This time from the very beginning, Papyrus smaller brother also joined them. He didn’t seem to do much, but she did see him preventing some things from falling and scooting over some ingredients like some kind of silent errand robot.

Undyne spend most of the day only in Papyrus’ presence though, as his smaller brother often seemed to disappear out of nowhere.

After noting that it was almost impossible to invite him to do anything alongside them, she lost interest fairly fast.

Say, what was his name again?

Chapter Text

Since meeting the royal family in this AU, the three goat monsters seemed to have grown increasingly fond of Sans.

They were very open and clear with their fondness as well.

Asgore would often call him to have some tea when he was not busy. Toriel would continuously attempt to send him Cinnamon Butterscotch pies. Asriel had long claimed him as his second “royal playmate” beside Papyrus. It happened that after a very long period of persistence Sans had by accident let his guard down and allowed a playdate to which he would be part of to be appointed.

Thank the stars, Papyrus was also a part of it, otherwise Sans would have long gone insane the moment the Prince of Monsters entered through their door and began to drag him around to play.

Despite everything, Sans had to admit that Asriel was a considerate person. After recognizing the limitations that Sans had, the younger monster almost unconsciously only suggested games that Sans could safely play and that he thought Sans might enjoy.

Sans felt for a moment like he had gained another younger brother. It’s the first time it’s not a skeleton. Sans shivers and immediately shakes his head to erase the thought from his mind.

“Sans! Let’s go eat some nice cream.”, a young voice snaps him out of his thoughts.

“Nice cream?”, Sans reflexively responded. He’d heard of it. It’s the thing other Nice Cream Guys sold.

Speaking of Nice Cream Guy, Sans didn’t know his actual name, he doesn’t think most people knew. Whether in Underfell 00 or other AUs. He thinks his real name may even vary in certain AUs. It didn’t really matter much.

Anyways, Nice Cream, the merchandise itself, was not sold in Underfell 00. The concept of Ice Cream was quite devoid there, just like most things made out of mostly sugar. Nice Cream Guy worked for G Man, and was not just a nice cream vendor that appeared in various locations like Undertale Nice Cream Guy.

Sans had actually never eaten Nice Cream. Though he had eaten Ice Cream at some point, after the multiverse bullshit, some of the boys took him to lots of different places after finding out that he didn’t have sugar often. Yeah, that was how he phrased it for them, though some of them understood the underlying meaning.

He wasn’t sure if there was anything special about Nice Cream in comparison to other ice creams. He remembers someone making a joke about blue bunnies and ice cream but he didn’t really get it, he didn’t think many people got it, but he remembers Ink laughing.

Also wasn’t Nice Cream Guy like a child right now? Who is selling Nice Cream then?

Sans suddenly noticed a furry hand waving in front of his eyes. He turned to look at Asriel.

“Howdy? So do you wanna eat some nice cream?”, Asriel asked again.

“Sure?”, Sans answered unsure.

“Oh right, do you not know what nice cream is, perhaps?”, Asriel said, as if suddenly connecting things.

“I know what it is”, Sans replied.

“But he’s never tried it before”, Papyrus interjected, causing Sans to turn to him. I mean Papyrus was right. Sans didn’t know why he still found it strange when Papyrus casually said these things even after two years and a half. Boss would have never said that, he would never expose Sans’ preferences, it was very dangerous to do that. Boss was rough but he had his own way of showing care. But here Sans didn’t need to hide his preferences, so naturally neither did Papyrus need to careful about exposing them.

Sans sometimes wondered how Classic survived with a brother as straightforward as Puff when he was quite literally the blueprint to Sanses’ secretive tendencies.

“Yeah”, Sans said after a while, “I’ve never tried it before”.

Asriel smiled warmly and grabbed Papyrus and Sans’ hands. “Great! Well, there’s no time like the present.”

Asriel quickly dashed past the spot they stood inside the Skeleton House. He grabbed a notepad and a pen and handed it to Sans.

Sans looked down at it and then looked back up at Asriel and Papyrus. Both younger brothers had shit eating grins on their faces. Sans scoffed without heat and wrote a grammatically correct message down on the note pad, telling their guardians that they had left to get nice cream by the Snowdin Forest.

The monster children walked hand in hand towards the predestined destination. Sans had seen the OG Nice Cream Guy in this exact spot when he went to visit Classic in Undertale once.

However, the vendor was not Nice Cream Guy but another Rabbit Monster. Sans had never seen this monster before. Perhaps just another of the many that lost their lives without being recorded.

Asriel and Papyrus were already ordering. When they turned around to ask him what he wanted, Sans just left it to them. He didn’t really care what flavor it was.

While the rabbit vendor was building their cones, Sans spotted a blue rabbit monster child behind the vendor. The child was accompanied by another monster child, a cat monster. The two were very familiar, probably friends or something. Having friends was normal, remember, Red.

Nice Cream Guy and Burgerpants. You have got to be kidding me. Sans looked away and pretended he didn’t see.

Asriel and Papyrus got him a chocolate flavored nice cream. It was pretty good.

They headed back home while eating the nice cream.

When they got back Toriel had already arrived and was rustling about in the kitchen.

“Are you back boys?”, she shouted from the other room.

““Yes!!””, Asriel and Papyrus shouted back together.

“Yeah”, Sans said, much lower in volume.

Toriel exited the kitchen and met them face to face. “Greetings!”, she crouched down to their height. Sans found it patronizing. Specially when she sank lower onto her knees when turning towards him. “Thank you for the the little note letting me know where you all went”, she smiled.

Sans simply nodded in response.

“I have some butterscotch cinnamon pie for you three”, she informed.

“Oooo”, Asriel liked butterscotch cinnamon.

But Papyrus merely smiled back at Toriel politely, he like Sans didn’t actually care for butterscotch cinnamon nor the pies that Toriel baked. He was much nicer about it and still ate them, so as to not make her feel sad. Sans only ate when he wanted, so naturally he did not force himself to eat this pie that he was tired of seeing nearly every week nowadays. He merely watched Asriel and Papyrus eat, thinking that at least it would fill them up, if nothing else.

Toriel soon left as she was busy, and the three were left alone once again.

They went to hang out in Sans’ room this time. Recently the house had gone through a little renovation to accommodate the newer technologies coming out and during this time, Sans and Papyrus got their own rooms, whereas they shared one before.

The three of them usually hung out in Papyrus’ room but they decided to go to Sans’ for a change of pace.

Papyrus room had a cool racing car bed and many different things, from decorations to balls and puzzles. Plus a few books, either something about puzzles or different illustrated stories.

Sans’ room was very different. It didn’t have a bed, there wasn’t even a mattress.

Of course Gaster had been planning to get him one but to this day Papyrus and Gaster would still insist on sleeping with Sans for “precaution”. So Sans felt that having a bed at this point, specially when he came to realize that with the turn of the underground’s most recent new developments a lot of things would need to be purchased and done, that a mattress for himself was actually unnecessary, and really did not need to be prioritized. So he talked them out of putting it on the list for the next major shopping trip. Speaking of which they had been delaying their shopping trips a lot, not counting grocery shopping of course, that was something else entirely. He still had that haunting blue jacket of his.

Anyways, Sans’ room was more of a study room or something, rather than a bedroom. It was filled with several shelves full of books of all kinds. There was a desk with a bunch of papers and things thrown on top of it. A smooth carpet laid in the left center floor next to the desk, providing a convenient space to sit on the ground.

The three sat down on top of the carpet in a semi triangle.

“What do ya even wanna do here?”, Sans asked resting his face on his hand. There wasn’t much for children to do of interest in his room.

Asriel rubbed his jaw, a habit he’d picked up from King Asgore surely. Sans had seen the King of Monsters do this often. A habit common throughout multiple AUs. Sans didn’t know if other Asriels did this too, but he had seen plenty of Asgores do this exact gesture.

After a short while of thinking Asriel instinctively exclaimed with a “baah”, followed by covering his mouth as quick as he could.

Sans and Papyrus looked at him in unison.

“Hmm? What’s that?”, Asriel pointed at a pot on the shelve above the study desk dodging to another subject.

“Oh, that ’s-”, Sans looked at the direction Asriel pointed and immediately recognized the object.

“It’s Sans’ rock collection!”, Papyrus ended up answering for him. He did that often. It took some getting used to, but Sans didn’t mind it that much, specially since it meant he got to talk less.

Papyrus was right. Well kinda.

It was a vessel pot where Sans collected several soft and malleable rocks that he often chewed on. Sans was too far gone now to consciously stop indulging in his old habits, so he simply designed for his body to slowly adjust to it.

With the aid of his healing magic, Sans actually shaped his deciduous teeth into a pathetic newbie version of his old teeth. They were nothing like before, still flat overall, and not able to break through any fully solid rock nor non malleable metal, just yet. Though a part of him strongly hoped this wouldn’t remain the case.

However it was now perfectly capable of chewing through softer rocks. He collected many of these rocks, his “rock collection”, was made up mostly of sedimentary rocks, like shale, sandstone and limestone which he placed into this pot that usually rested on top of his study desk shelf, and he would later crunch on them like snacks.

“Though it’s strange that his rock collection is always full but also always looks kinda different”, Papyrus perceptively commented in confusion.

That’s right. This “rock collection” was not a real collection. He crunched on the rocks and sometimes even ate them. Sure, it was not nutritious, but as a monster it wasn’t particularly harmful either, other than the fact that his now immature and weak teeth could only handle fucking sedimentary rocks, frankly pathetic, specially compared to what he could do before. So the rocks in this collection were not fixed, the pot content constantly changed and there were always new rocks. They weren’t collectibles after all, they were basically almost like snacks.

This coping mechanism —his least destructive one, was to him, or at least to the previous him, the equivalent of chewing gum and occasionally swallowing it.

Asriel had picked up the pot and was going through the contents with it in his lap and Papyrus looking over his shoulder to watch.

It seemed that Sans had nodded unconsciously when he asked if he could look through it. Oh well, Sans didn’t really care.

“They undo easy”, Asriel picked up a softer one that nearly disintegrated in his hand.

“Yeah I’m purposely collecting the soft ones. I don’t want the hard ones.”, Sans said. It was a lie. He very much wanted the hard ones, they were so satisfying to bite, but he couldn’t bite through them with his current teeth, that would just end up with him going to the healers again.

Maybe someday in the future…

“Oh. That’s cool”, Asriel commented and continued to purse through.

Chapter Text

It took hours before Asriel and Papyrus got tired of looking through his snac- rocks.

Gaster had arrived home, having come back earlier today. The monster children greeted him and Papyrus went to the kitchen to cook. Asriel soon joined after him, while Gaster went to take a shower.

After making sure that nothing was gonna fall or catch on fire —Papyrus was a much better cook than Boss and Puff at his age, though unfortunately also a very messy cook—, Sans decided it was safe to leave Papyrus and Asriel to continue on their own.

He exited the kitchen and sat by Gaster who had relaxed on the couch after his shower. The older skeleton was wearing his usual glasses that he did when looking over paper work and there was a stack of stapled papers in one of his hands. It looked like some kind of research report.

Sans leaned against his arm on the side that wasn’t being used. Gaster was ambidextrous, yet often liked to handle things with one hand unless absolutely necessary, most often opting for his left hand. Perhaps because Sans liked to stand on his right.

Sans peeked at the paper. He wasn’t particularly the hugest nerd around. Definitely not anywhere near Murder, Classic or Sci, but he did have some background in Quantum Physics and had worked in the Laboratory alongside Dr. Gaster at some point. Before he fell in the core. He had a lot of memories of that place, many more than he preferred. Which meant that Sans could actually understand what the paper was about.

To summarize it for the dull-headed ones, like his brother.

During childhood, the Boss, he chuckled to himself at the long lost internal joke, which he could no longer share with anyone, had been a very curious and very stubborn child, who couldn’t understand shit about science. Unfortunately that curiosity and stubbornness was never outgrown which meant he had to fucking explain shit all the time, so he naturally by habit, un-nerded the report’s content in his brain and simplified it in lay-man’s terms.

Basically it was report on the current state of the Core. Which in this AU had been activated about half a year ago, and slowly turned into the main source of stable resources for monsterkind, improving quality of life exponentially.

Sans thinks it got Gaster a promotion or something, at least that’s what he heard. Which is honestly bullshit because there was already no position in the lab higher than Gaster’s. Sans rolled his eyes at the thought as he continued to read the report.

It detailed the most recent problem they were having. The internal heating of the Core. For the constant flow of energy and magic that went through it, it lacked the ability to regulate its own temperature. It was impossible to do something about it from the building standpoint too. Because that would require for the Core to be shut down first so that a new regulator could be built into it, since the regulation would need to be internal and not external. If they turned it off there was no way to know how long it would take for them to both finish the extensive cooling system it would require and get enough magic flow momentum to turn it back on. It would interrupt the current stream of resources, which would be terrible for current monster society. They had to find another way.

Gaster bit the tip of his phalanges in deep thought.

Sans thought about it from what he knew and easily reached the answer to what had been done about this problem in other AUs and could be copied.

He looked at the side of Gaster’s skull as the other grew more irritated, chewing through his phalanges without realizing it.

Sans grabbed the hand Gaster was biting, it was the same arm as the one he was laying on, since the other was holding the report.

It successfully snapped Gaster out of it.

“Sans? Sorry I am in the middle of something very important right now-”, Gaster started.

“Ya don’ need tha build somethin’. Ya can go a lil’ more primitive. As long as it works”, Sans interrupted.

“What do you mean?”, Gaster turned his full attention to Sans.

“Yer thinking of how to implement internal cooling by buildin’ something to do the cooling for ya right?”, Sans asked.

Gaster startled, “I- uh- How? Yes?”.

“It can be don’ manually. Why don’t ya just drop some ice into it? Lo’s of ice.”, Sans suggested it.

“What?”, Gaster was incredulous at the suggestion.

“I’s easy to produce ice. We’re in da middle of fuckin’ snowdin. Contract someone or somethin’ to throw ice into the core. It spans a pretty big distance right. Ya can get someone from North Snowdin to throw ice into the Core regularly. They ‘on’t need ta actually be by the Core righ’?”, Sans said.

That was how this problem was handled in most AUs including Undertale itself.

Ice Wolf.

He couldn’t know for sure ‘cause the ages here were kinda wack. But according to the trends on age changes he observed in this AU, Ice Wolf should be about a young adult at this time. It should be feasible for Gaster to find him and he have him fulfill this role.

Gaster expertly ignored the cursing which he had long grown desensitized to by Sans’ speech habits that survived through multiple lives.

“Uh- Eh- I- Actually that might work”, Gaster couldn’t believe it at first, but after thinking about it for a bit, it could actually legitimately work.

“Great idea Sans! You’re incredible. I can’t believe no one thought of this before now!”, Gaster rapidly shot up from his languid slump on the couch, startling Sans who had been laying against him.

He quickly helped Sans who had been thrown off balance by his sudden action. Then made a energetic skeleton kiss clank against Sans’ cheek and rushed off. Likely to his computer to write a new paper and officially push this suggestion forward with his colleagues.

Sans blinked in place, one hand over the cheek that was kissed.

Gaster came back down in time to join Sans, Papyrus and Asriel for dinner together. He was very high tensioned and jovial during the meal. Chatting quite a bit more than usual.

Sans swiftly chose to seat between Papyrus and Asriel, expression still blank, ever since Gaster had left the couch a few hours ago.

He forked a meatball and shoved it in his mouth absently.

Papyrus was a really good cook.

Chapter Text

Gaster and Grillby were childhood friends.

They were both born around the same period of time, Gaster being a few years older than Grillby.

The two shared many childhood memories together, above the surface and before the War.

When the War Between Monsters and Humans befell upon monsterkind, they were at that mid point of their lives where they were neither young enough to not contribute nor old enough to fight in the front lines.

So both Gaster and Grillby had non-combatant roles during the War but nonetheless were part of it like many monsters, many of whom were long gone.

The two cultivated an easy understanding with each other and their collaboration was matchless in some areas.

They were equally distinct individuals, who did not have as much in common as they may first appear to have. Both their differences and similarities however made them all the more fitting as friends. Forging a strong bond between the monsters who grew up by each other’s sides.

In their hearts they were almost like brothers. But there were things that brothers could not share and friends could, and that was what made their relationship what it is today instead of family. Though you could still argue that they were family to an extent, even if they didn't call themselves that. 

It had been a long time since the two hung out together. They had found themselves very busy lately.

Grillby had recently opened a commerce, a pub, he decided. It soon became one of the main spots of the underground and personal favorite of many Snowdin residents. He had yet to name the place, so monsters would simply refers it to it by saying things like “Let’s go to Grillby’s.” or “Have you been to Grillby’s yet?”, he was the owner after all.

Grillby remembers Sans telling him that it wasn’t a bad name, so he’d been seriously thinking about it, even though it kind of sounded ridiculous in his opinion. But he himself couldn’t think of a better name, so he sincerely considered painting “Grillby’s” on the currently empty sign board of the pub.

The place was casual, had good food and a nice atmosphere. It was no wonder it grew in popularity quite fast. Grillby soon found the amount of regulars increasing. Business was booming.

Meanwhile, Gaster was preoccupied with the latest scientific and technological developments of monsterkind, as he led most of the current projects as the Royal Scientist.

He’d been swamped with work these days. Nearly missing most meals and being scolded black and blue by his younger brothers, specially Sans. The short skeleton could really be a mother sometimes, but he would definitely beat him up if he ever heard him say something like that.

Sans had a unique way of showing affection. Which really wasn’t surprising, it wasn’t like Gaster’s own way of showing affection wasn’t also a bit eccentric at times. Grillby said it was probably a family thing.

Many new inventions were being released for public usage and monster society was finally flourishing for the first time since their banishment to the underground.

The thing that allowed all of these new products and discoveries to circulate, innovate and improve monster society and quality of life was the source of energy used to power everything, Gaster’s latest biggest invention, the Core.

The Core was a mechanical complex that had the ability to produce energy in the form of magical electricity that could be distributed and used throughout the Underground. It was a very complex and advanced facility that took the magic, blood and, sweat of all the monsters involved to develop.

After a long period of development, the facility had finally been activated half a year ago. In order to keep things on the safe side, it was tweaked to start by producing a minimal amount of energy and gradually increase until it produced a standard amount of energy that could power the entire underground. It took about 6 months to reach that point.

There were no problems in the development before the target energy levels were hit, however the problem was exact the target levels, They were too high. In the underground which severely lacked in resources, everything was replenished through magic, and the Core was providing a stable income of flowing magic. But because it was everywhere and in everything, the volume required was beyond astronomical numbers.

They had made a mistake in the design of the Core and had not expected the heating to be such a big problem. Normally the way to solve this would be the same as a fan in a computer. However this kind of fan needs to be internal. That is the computer needs to be dismantled so that the fan can be added from the inside. The same applied to the Core. But they couldn’t dismantle the fucking Core. Not now. It would need to be turned off, and the production of the Underground was already dependent on the Core, so if it was turned off the effect would be brutal even for a short amount of time. But of course they couldn’t keep using it without cooling it off, it would explode and destroy the underground, including everything in it, and then there was no point in having it on anymore.

Fortunately, who told Gaster to be blessed with a super cute genius younger brother, just the other day Sans suggested to him the perfect solution to this predicament. Something so simple that Gaster who was used to messing with complex concepts, hadn’t even considered.

Thanks to this idea, after Gaster proposed it to his associates and it was accepted and implemented, he finally had time to rest!

He spend sometime with his brothers after this, taking the time to relax, and even got to play chess and lots of games with Papyrus, the two being occasionally joined by Sans.

While Papyrus was at school and Gaster remained home with Sans, he often found himself taking naps with his littlest brother, Sans would curse at him if he heard him say that.

Now he had marked a date with his best friend Grillby to hang out. Which he had promised to find time to do back when his friend was kind enough to help him take care of his brothers when he was busy.

Today they would finally have some time with each other.

So Gaster got up in the morning for a reason other than work and breakfast with his younger brothers for once.

He had breakfast with his brothers as usual. Papyrus just got better and better at cooking everyday, as long as you don’t look in the kitchen. Out of sight, out of mind. 

After eating his youngest’s tasty pancakes, he changed into a classy dark gray turtleneck, brown high waist trousers, and a neat black trench coat —courtesy styling by Sans who followed up by telling him it would never happen again, no one believed it, and left for Grillby’s house.

He could’t wait to see his best friend! Gaster exited the house humming as he waved goodbye to his obedient brothers.

Chapter Text

Around 3 to 5 months —he wasn’t entirely sure, he didn’t really keep track of time, it was often not useful in his experience, and it was hard to do so properly after so long—, had passed since Sans mentioned to Gaster the effective and typical solution for cooling the core.

Sans had merely spend his days as usual. He rarely left the house without the company or presence of another, which felt very out of place for him. But he was too tired of everything to argue.

When he thinks about it, quite a lot has happened since he woke up here.

While neither his understanding of what this new chance meant nor what the status of this multiverse was, progressed, he had gradually settled in place within this strange reality, an inevitable development. Sans still felt out of place in many things, but it had come to the point where he regarded certain monsters as his acquaintances, some maybe even as friends. Dare he say, he had grown fond of Papyrus and Gaster enough that they could not be anything less than family any longer. Way too fast if you ask him, even if it had been nearly 3 years.

Gaster recently came to him to inform that his suggestion was wonderfully helpful, as he put it, and it was doing great. He repeatedly thanked the smaller skeleton and suffocated him in affection. For a moment R- Sans felt that he was back in Swap’s embrace when he first opened up to them.

Just this morning, Gaster left to hang out with Grillby. They were best friends apparently. Childhood friends even. He wondered if his- Doctor Gaster and G man had been anything, friend or not, at some point. Now unbound by the powers of the void, he could recall Dr. Gaster and even speak his name. As he frequently called his new brother. However Sans had lived for too long, through too much time, in his previous mu- life. Some corners of his memory were inevitably blurry. He could not recall Dr. Gaster’s age. He could not even recall if he ever knew the other’s age. But he was pretty sure G man was significantly younger than the Doctor, probably. As G man had not all that far from himself in age, and he thinks the Doctor was an adult when he first met the other, himself being in new stripes back then. It was hard to tell, in Underfell 00 there occasionally were the few unlucky ones who stripped their stripes early, before the time. Whether to fend for themselves in better occupations, or something else. He had been ridiculously lucky to avoid that outcome, when he was left alone to provide for Papyrus and himself.

He bid farewell to Gaster alongside Papyrus after breakfast. Then a few hours later he bid farewell to Papyrus as the younger skeleton left for school.

Because it was deemed “inappropriate” for him to attend school in his current condition, Gaster had actually brought quite a few books for him to replace the things one would usually learn in school.

The “academy” was at elementary school level for now though, as it was planned to be expanded in the future. So Sans didn’t have anything to learn from there. He originally picked up one of Gaster’s books just to pacify the other. But apparently his older brother was insane, because these were absolutely not elementary level books whatsoever.

Papyrus peeked over his shoulder to see the book he opened back when Gaster first brought them home, and told him that he was dizzy.

Gaster was crazy. These books were hardly even college level. They were professional books. Something someone who had already done their master’s education might read. If they’re nerds, that is. No normal person would give these to a child. Though to be fair Gaster wasn’t a normal person.

While waiting at home alone, Sans found himself reading the books anyways.

There was a bit of quantum physics, a bit of reality warping, and such subjects. Aside from the nerdy science books, that he actually read through quite easily, Sci’s fault, he’s sure, there were also some magic books and history books as well.

They were mostly from the theoretical point of view. Including many researches and in depth explanations. Something that wouldn’t have appeared in a normal library book like the ones he had been reading from the not-yet-library in Snowdin.

He propped up his vessel pot of small rocks against the couch he sat on. Trapping it between the couch’s leg and his own to keep it in place. While flipping and reading through another one of Gaster’s nerdy books, he would occasionally pick up some pebbles and throw them into his mouth. They parted like cake between his milk teeth that had been strengthened from routine damage and healing magic.

Phasing out the outside world, he snacked on the soft rocks, relaxing into the world of Quantum Physics and Magic.

Hence he naturally failed to notice his younger brother’s early arrival.

Papyrus poked out his head with a “Boo”, hoping to surprise Sans.

The young skeleton was met with an unexpected sight.

Startled from the sudden action, Sans jumped, causing his nearly bottomed out rock pot to spill all over the floor. A fully intact rock laid inside his magic coated mouth. From this angle Papyrus could see it peeking out from between his teeth, which were opened apart in shock.

“Sans?”, he called subconsciously.

Sans bit down by instinct, hatching the rounded limestone pebble into many little pieces as if it were paper and his teeth knife. He unconsciously swallowed before speaking.

“Paps! What are you doing here so early?”, Sans spoke with a higher pitch than normal, trying to change the subject.

Papyrus stood dumbfounded. He pointed at the fallen pot, then back up at Sans and then at his own mouth and nothing seemed to come out from his voice.

Sans glances at the page he had left the book on, 96, before tossing the book aside and walking towards Papyrus. He put a hand on the younger but taller skeleton’s shoulder.

“Earth to Papyrus. Don’t freak out. Please. Don’t freak out. Paps. Paps?”, he softly shook Papyrus.

“What the fuck Sans?”, ah Papyrus had probably picked up this foul language from him. Wait, that wasn’t the point right now.

“Bro chill. You also saw it just now. These rocks are basically like tofu to my teeth”, Sans tried to explain in the way that would make him the least mad, “Besides you know there’s nothing super hard in this pot.”

“I thought it was a fucking rock collection??”, Papyrus finally spoke, appalled.

“It is, in a way.”, Sans responded, “Like a snack rock collection”.

“SANS.”

“Okay okay. I’m sorry, alright? But isn’t it okay? It calms me down and shit. Most effective copium I’ve ever had”. Fuck he sounded Ink now, who the fuck said copium!?

“Come on Paps. Please don’t tell Gaster”, Sans begged, grabbing onto Papyrus, “It helps me settled down when the two of you aren’t here”, he made puppy eyes at Papyrus.

Papyrus made a hesitant face. Thank the stars he practiced his puppy eyes before with the boys. They were all super weak to it. Boss had some resistance but Papyrus hadn’t build that same resistance yet.

“You see”, Sans let go of Papyrus and opened his mouth wide, “My teeth are super healthy. This much is fine, might even be good for them”, it was a bit of a stretch but Papyrus didn’t need to know that.

He closed his mouth back up and continued to persuade, “I just gets a little fidgety when you guys aren’t here. Ya know?”, he grips Papyrus’ hand again, “Helps me stay grounded. There’s no harm to it”.

Papyrus’ expression twisted for a while. “Alright, if it really helps you feel better.”

Sans smiled in relief.

“But you have to make sure to not go overboard. If you ever feel anything is wrong or it starts hurting, you need to tell us okay?”, Papyrus demanded.

“Yeah, totally”, Sans said, you know, like a liar.

“And this. This doesn’t have anything to do with that incident, does it?”, Papyrus asked tentative.

They both knew what he was talking about without saying it. The dreaded time Sans got dragged to the healers of course.

“No”, Sans lied, “It has nothing to do with that. I’m not sure what happened back then”. Good thing he had a good pokerface.

“Okay. It’s just I heard that it was a mouth injury”, Papyrus scratched the back of his neck, “You’re sure?”.

“Of course, Paps”, Sans lied through his teeth again.

“Okay”, Papyrus said, followed by an out of place silence for him.

“Why don’t we go watch something while we wait for Wings?”, Papyrus finally asks after a while, “You’ll let me look at your little uh ‘snack’ collection before you eat right? And you won’t eat the ones that fell in the floor, will you?”

“Yeah, no problem Papy”, Sans purposely used the intimate nickname to pacify the other, “You can look at them all. And of course I won’t eat the ones that fell in the floor. Why would I ever do that?”.

Sans often ate rocks from the floor. That’s how it had started a long long time ago. Papyrus didn’t need to know that though.

They sat next to each other in the couch and put a movie on.

Neither of them was paying attention to it. But the noise drowned out their unnerving silence.

Chapter Text

Papyrus was not a fool. He did not believe everything that his brother said.

Yet he could not stop him. That much he knew.

So he would simply guard him instead.

It was the little things that made him unable to stop Sans as he should have.

It was the way the way Sans’ usually stiff and guarded jaw relaxed after he bit down on the pebble like it was a cookie or something.

He really couldn’t help it cursing at his brother. He just couldn’t digest it in his mind properly without it.

But it was the way that Sans immediately jumped to placate him. The way he seemed almost frantic to convince the younger skeleton.

It was okay. Sans said it didn’t hurt. Sans said it just made him feel better.

Papyrus knew that Sans struggled with staying in the present. It was already a struggle when both him and Wings was around. He knew it could not get better but only worse when they were not there.

If it helped him, it was okay. Papyrus would just watch more carefully.

He sat in the couch next to his brother. The TV was noisy like he liked, but he didn’t pay a single ounce of attention to it. He pulled Sans closer and leaned against him.

It was okay. He told himself.

He wouldn’t let Sans get hurt again.

Yet he would fail to keep this promise he made himself, countless times in the future.

Chapter Text

Grillby had been waiting for this day for a long time now. His flames anxiously danced in the air as he waited for Gaster to arrive. Their hangout would be at his place this time

In the recent establishment of his yet-to-be-named pub, he actually transferred his entire household to the new building, The bottom floor was the pub but the upper floor was already his house. That was why Sans and Papyrus had stayed in the pub —back then it was more of a restaurant, he was only trying things out after all—, instead of the previous house he lived in.

Grillby’s parents had perished during the Great War. He had actually spent some time living with Gaster and his mother, back when she was alive. He moved when Papyrus was born, and relocated into the orphanage. Nobody called it that but what else was a place where they shoved all the kids that had lost both their parents in the war, if not an orphanage?

Of course, the skeletons’ mother and Gaster had both been very understanding and offered for him to continue to live with them. But Grillby did not want that.

Call it a sense of awkwardness or envy, he didn’t care, being a part of the “skeleton family” had not felt right to him back then.

To speak the truth he was willing to refer to Gaster as his family, but he was not interested in occupying a space that was not his.

He maintained a strong bond and contact with Gaster even after he left. They were very good friends to this day. Grillby had even tried to help him through his mother’s death. But Gaster didn’t need him like that.

Gaster just needed him as a friend, not as family, and Grillby felt the same way.

Knock. Knock.

Ah! Gaster was here.

Grillby got up, fast, with an anxiousness he had not recognized was there before. He reached the door in no time and opened it to reveal his good old friend.

Gaster stood there in all his glory, with that crooked but genuine smile of his. He was wearing new glasses frames. They were silver. Not only that he was quite fashioned up as well. Unusual of Gaster. His outfit perfectly complemented his slim skeletal figure.

Grillby greeted him as he continued to note how unusually neat Gaster was for a outfit that was not his work one. Anyone familiar with the skeleton knew he was a bit messy, for lack of a better word, in his private life. Grillby had believed the neatest outfit the other owned was his work one, where he smoothened everything by throwing a white lab coat on top of it.

Gaster also rarely wore his glasses for fashion. He only wore them for practicality. For working and reading documents, most of the time.

But his current glasses matched the stylish outfit he had on.

Marron colored high waisted trousers highlighted Gaster’s long legs, a classic gray turtleneck making him look sharp. He removed the black trench coat he had on and Grillby grabbed from his hand with acute familiarity, hanging it up on his coat hanger, before ushering his best friend in and up the stairs.

Gaster was all smiles too. Not the default skeletal smiles all skeleton monsters seemed to have as their neutral face, but something unusually wide for Gaster.

As soon as they entered into the living area of building, Gaster hugged his warm friend.

“Grillby! It’s so good to see you!”, Gaster finally greeted him out loud.

“Hhm”, Grillby nodded, hugging back, just as enthused, despite his seemingly lack of reaction

“How have you been?”, Grillby decided to start the conversation.

“It has been great lately. I hope the energy is flowing well?”, Gaster looked at him smug.

“Of course.”, Grillby replied earnestly, “As smooth as ambers.”, his hidden mouth curved up.

“Hahahah. I knew I was the best”, Gaster said with pride.

Indeed thanks to Gaster’s new invention, The Core, Grillby and many others could have the resources and power to run their establishments.

“I can’t take all of the credit for myself though”, Gaster said, unusually humble for moment.

“Oh?”, Grillby raised a fire brow.

“My team has been wonderful of course. But let me tell you about Sans!”, Gaster responded.

There he goes again, Grillby thought, preparing himself for another long smug story about Gaster’s little brothers. He didn’t mind really, it was nice to see Gaster so energetic about something other than his work. Not to mention that Grillby himself was quite fond of the other’s younger brothers, whether he said it out loud or not.

The rambles lasted around 2 hours, Grillby and Gaster had long sat down and were eating snacks and drinking alcohol as he listened.

Grillby wasn’t surprised that Sans had somehow managed to solve one of Gaster’s biggest predicaments in his latest project. Sans, unlike the sweet Papyrus, was very much like Gaster. Though not necessarily in a good way. Papyrus also had his own traits shared with the oldest skeleton, but they were less in an intellectual manner, regarding things such as science, and more in personality and attitude towards certain things. To be honest it was unfortunate that those kids had to pretty much only inherit the more questionable sides of his best friend. But sometimes you just had to deal with the card hand you were given.

All three of the skeleton brothers were wonderful people. Even if they were all a bit problematic in their own ways.

After talking about his brother Gaster began to veer the conversation towards Grillby and ask how he was doing lately. Grillby told him everything he could. He didn’t have anything to hide. Unlike some people.

The flame monster glanced at his best friend with a smile that held an unspoken judgement behind the lenses of his own glasses. The other naturally didn’t react.

They spent the day like this, sharing what had happened recently, talking about random topics, and eating.

Gaster was very unashamed to praise all of the food Grillby prepared.

Don’t get him wrong, it was not that Grillby was not used to others complimenting his food, he owned a food establishment after all. But the skeletons sure were particularly habituated to complimenting it as if he made the best food known to monsterkind.

Zero shame, all of them. The words of devotion for his food were so overboard at times that Grillby felt himself burning brighter at them.

He playfully shoved his friend away in embarrassment, commenting for the other to not teach his brothers strange things.

Already blaming the skeleton for tainting his younger brothers.

Little did he know those little shits didn’t need anyone to taint them.

Just like that, for a whole day, they swam in each other’s long forgotten comfortable presence.

Grillby sighed, putting their 10th empty bottle of spirits down.

He wished they could do this more often.

Maybe someday…

Chapter Text

After leaving the skeleton brothers’ shared house, Gaster speed walked the whole way to Grillby’s house.

When he stopped in front of the flame monster’s door he paused for a moment before knocking. Wiping his skull with one of his odd hands.

Yes, hands born as if a piece of them were missing. No one ever knew why that was. What can you call them if not odd? Disgusting, maybe?

Unlike Gaster’s own wondering opinions about his own hands, his closest people did not mind seem to mind them.

Sans liked to stare at them a lot. Sometimes he played with them, tracing the perfect circles with his tiny distal phalanges. One of the few expressions of curiosity he had ever seen from the other. Probably. Sans wasn’t the easiest monster child to read.

He seemed to do it by instinct. As Gaster often found Sans staring up at him, his face would quickly twist as if having caught himself doing something improper. Shame would thunder through Sans’ small face. Gaster didn’t really get it. There was nothing wrong with fidgeting with his hands. Sans could do it all he wanted. He didn’t mind.

He noticed Sans did that a lot even with other people, like Papyrus for example. Maybe Sans thought it was only okay to do with people you are close to? That seemed like a good mentality at least. Or maybe it was that he thought he should have asked? He didn’t know. But Sans never fidgeted with a stranger’s hand, so fidgeting with his or Papyrus’ hand wasn’t something he needed to be cautious about.

Well Sans was kind of cautious about physical affection of any kind, Gaster belatedly noted at some point he can’t recall. So maybe that was what it was?

After thinking about such things, Gaster’s racing mind settled down, and he knocked on Grillby’s door twice.

It took less than a minute for the door to be opened and he be ushered in.

Grillby was wearing his usual outfit except for a dark red vest instead of his usual black one. Very flameboyant.

He stole that pun from Sans, who made it at one of Papyrus hot spaghetti monster drawings, the spaghetti monster was uh undercooked spaghetti, as Papyrus told the story, he was the villain in the illustration. It was defeated by fire, and after reaching the perfect boiling point, turned to the good side!

It was unusual of Grillby to wear red.

Gaster immediately jumped at him with a hug once they entered the house part of the new pub, “Grillby! It’s so good to see you!”.

Grillby replied with a warm, “Hhm”.

His stoic friend was clearly just as excited for this hang out as him. This was great.

They spent the whole day drinking, eating and talking.

He bragged for a while, talked about his brothers, talked about his work. Asked Grillby questions about how he was doing.

He voted for Sans’ suggestion on naming the pub “Grillby’s”. It was gonna be iconic in a few years, he swore to Grillby.

A lot of mindless chatter, really.

But it was great to be here by Grillby’s side.

Gaster was arguably a coldhearted person. He was not heartless. But he was cold, and no amount of pleasantries or protectiveness he could express would ever change that.

Gaster was very clear on what he cared about. Everything out of that easily fell under what he didn’t care about.

He was the kind of person who could shamelessly rank people in his life, and sacrifice the ones he cared less about for the ones he cared more about. He wasn’t a good person, and he never claimed to be.

Among the people he most cared about were naturally his brothers, Sans and Papyrus.

Aside from them, the last person in his top three favorite people, because he 100% quantifies how much he likes certain people over others, was undoubtedly Grillby.

Grillby had been with him since before Sans and Papyrus were born. Gaster knew what it was like to lose people he cared for, and he hoped that he would never lose those three.

In his opinion anyone else was secondary.

He cared for Sans, Papyrus and Grillby equally, and no one else could approach his heart the way they did.

The world could end, as long as they were safe.

The crackle.

The spark.

The flames.

The fire within his heart.

Chapter Text

Early the next morning, Sans draped himself over the couch. Both of his brothers were out of the house.

Gaster had yet to return from his best friend hangout with Grillby from the previous day, and Papyrus had left to do something with his friends or whatever.

Papyrus was a real social butterfly. One that often failed in reading the room and picking up social cues on occasion, but one nonetheless.

Boss was also a real social butterfly when he was a kid in stripes. Though arguably the whole friendship thing wasn’t really a thing at all.

Friends were not a necessity nor a right, but a luxury.

Sans recalls that Boss’ only true friend in Underfell 00 was Felldyne, he still thinks that’s a stupid name by the way. Error and his stupid names, he can’t believe that was the best he could do after "adjective abomination number whatever".

Many people he knew argued that he was the social butterfly and not Boss. Sans knew how to talk to people. Sans knew people. Perhaps in the Underground back then there was no one who knew more people than Sans. They called him friendly, which in Underfell 00 was more an insult than a compliment. But what worked, worked.

He was a social butterfly. Because he had been so much more social than anyone else around. Some people made the mistake of thinking that being social and having a lot of friends came hand in hand. But that wasn’t always the case. Before he entered the real multiverse, Sans didn’t have friends, he had allies and he had enemies, and he had Alph. To be honest he never called Alph a friend back when all he knew was Underfell 00. And neither did she.

Felldyne, as annoying as the fish bitch was, had been a friend to the Boss. Both Boss and her were unafraid to call each other that. Such a clear distinction between them against himself and Alph. Boss was always a cool guy like that.

Sans only had the courage to call Alph his friend a long time after he truly became a part of the multiverse. It took many many skeletons to get through his skull before he admitted that his only friend, that he even had a friend back then, had been Alphys.

That didn’t matter anymore though. He was back to being friendless anyways. All of his friends were dead. From the first to the last. 

Speaking of stripes. For some reason the children in this AU didn’t wear stripes?!

He wasn’t wearing any, and neither was Papyrus. Almost none of the monster children he had met so far were wearing any kind of stripes.

Another things in the endless list of strange things about this place. The genuine inconsistency confused him and made it harder to pin point what kind of place his new AU was.

Perhaps they didn’t have this culture here? It was off putting to say the least.

Thankfully this wasn’t an Underfell, so not having stripes for children wasn’t that big of a deal. In his Underfell 00 stripes were not just a symbol, they were protection in a way. Even Underfell 00 monsters didn’t touch the children. They were the only thing keeping monsterkind alive after all.

Sans had his “snack” collection on his lap and was shifting through the rocks with his hands. Fighting back the urge to put one in his mouth in case Gaster was the one to come back first.

His choice was proved correct when he heard the door unlock slowly and the sound of quiet dull steps reached him, a sound he had long started to associate with Gaster.

The older skeleton soon came into sight. Still wearing the same clothes he left in, the ones Sans chose for him. Gaster had a chill smile across his face, clearly in a good mood, as he walked towards Sans.

“Hello, Sans!”, he greeted reaching the couch and bending down to meet Sans’ eye line.

“Hey”, Sans responded languidly.

Gaster giggled strangely and reached out, capturing Sans in a hug. The shorter skeleton subconsciously gripped at the other’s arms, attempting to create distance but too weak to actually succeed.

Sans jolted up, “You smell like alcohol”.

“Oh”, Gaster gasped still hugging him tightly but carefully, “It must have stayed on my clothes. We drank quite a bit last night”, he commented.

That was probably the truth. Gaster wasn’t drunk right now, Sans could tell. Maybe a little high on his happiness but not drunk.

Sans knew what drunk monsters looked like. How they acted. He knew better than anyone. Maybe Gaster was a heavy weight. It didn’t really matter.

The pot filled with rocks, now trapped between two skeletons slid to the side, no longer supported by Sans’s hands.

This made Gaster take notice of it. He unwrapped himself from around Sans and grabbed the pot.

“Rocks?”, he questioned, before shifting through them in a way that perfectly mirrored Sans’ gestures before he came in.

“Yeah. It’s a little collection. I get rid of them and then collect new ones after”, Sans replied vaguely, a precaution, because if he didn’t mention it like this Gaster was likely to ask why the contents had changed if he ever saw it again. Creepy guy, with his creepy good memory.

“That’s nice. I didn’t know you liked collecting rocks”, Gaster continued to shift through them, “Is there any reason why they’re all sedimentary rocks? There’s nothing particularly special about this collection, other than there are a lot perfectly sphere shaped”, Gaster held up a perfect marble made out of limestone, “Though there are also a few cracked ones”, he looked back into the pot.

Many of the pebbles had a spherical shape inside of the pot. It wasn’t like this before. Not when Papyrus looked at them. That naturally wasn’t all- well, natural. Sans sculpted them into spheres. With his teeth. It was a lot of work because his teeth were blunt now so it was harder to shape them up neatly like he could before.

“Yeah. Dey’re cool righ’?”, Sans responded, looking to the side.

“Well, yes?”, Gaster sounded unsure. But I guess rocks weren’t exactly his thing, “But why so much soft stones? We definitely have prettier stones around, even in Snowdin”. Clearly Gaster wasn’t allowing him to ignore the question.

“Well ya know”, Sans’ mind ran rapidly for an excuse good enough to convince Gaster, “Well they tend to be smoother, and not being as tough also has its advantages right?”

“I guess you’re right.”

His answer seemed to satisfy Gaster, but before Sans could sigh in relief, Gaster pondered out loud, “You sure know a lot about your rocks, huh Sans!?”.

“Yeah. Rocks are cool.”, Sans felt magic sweat drip down his skull. He hadn’t felt this in a long time. It used to be frequent in his life in UF00, and even more so when his life became more full with all sorts of skeletons.

“Have you read any of the books I left for you?”, Gaster asked, thankfully changing the subject.

“Yeah. Yer a little crazy ain’t ya?”

“What do you mean?”, Gaster was confused.

“They were okay. Tried the method one of ‘hem mentioned for healing magic, on a bunny rabbit but it wasn’t much a difference”, Sans commented, “Why did ya only leave the first book on the Multiversal Theory in Quantum Physics context? Where’s da second part?”.

Gaster’s eye lights turned into pinpricks, “You read a lot huh?”.

Sans shoved back into the couch cushions, pressing himself against them, a balking gesture. “Yeah. So?”, he said defensively.

Gaster grinned in amusement, “It’s nothing. Don’t worry, I’ll bring the second part next time”.

Sans grunted out an agreement.

Gaster stared at him, keeping the grin on his face. Sans stared back.

After some time Sans decided it was enough, and kicked at Gaster’s leg without much strength, “Go take a shower and change before Papyrus comes back, drunkard”.

The taller skeleton wobbled due to his weight been supported by his legs alone in the position he was in. He put down a hand on the ground reflexively, maintaining balance thanks to it. “Yes, sir”, he responded jokingly. Getting up and heading to his room to do as he was told.

Once Gaster was out of sight, Sans huffed. How ridiculous these two brothers of his were.

A few hours later, Gaster had long changed and cleaned up, and Papyrus was back. He greeted his oldest brother with an enthusiastic hug.

Chapter Text

It had been long enough now that Sans’ daily routine was nearly unbreakable with the exception of the occasional unwanted invitation, a trip to the bookstore, or something of the sort. For the majority of the day Sans remained indoors in what was lovingly nicknamed the Skeleton House, because that’s where the three remaining skeletons of monsterkind resided.

The development of the underground in this new AU of his was slightly different from usual. As he analyzed before, it had been a much shorter time period between the War between Humans and Monsters and present time, than it had been in the comparative childhood of most Sanses in Rootverse. That meant that monsterkind held a certain level of tension, or resentment even, towards humanity. Not because of grudges nor because of historical importance, but because the wound was fairly fresh to adult and even some teenage monsters. It would require a gradual transition, perhaps even a trigger for the transition to begin, before monsterkind could grow at least tolerant of human existence once again.

As of right now, it had not been long since monsterkind increasingly made evolutionary steps in rebuilding monster society in the underground. It had been only a year or so prior to when Sans woke up that monsters began to move out of Old Home and into New Home. At the current state of things, Old Home had yet to be abandoned and New Home had grown to be an extension of Old Home. There were no Ruins, because the space which would be designated as The Ruins were not yet ruins. From the beginning of Old Home to the end of New Home was monsterkind’s evolved civilization within the underground. Asgore referred to this territory as simply Home.

That’s right, he was bad at names no matter the AU. Sans was appalled when he found out.

Lately, Gaster had brought Sans some new books after the short skeleton had finished all the previous ones. This had further cemented within his brothers’ minds the image that Sans was some sort of genius with a prickly attitude.

Among the new books, was the second edition of the book which he had mentioned to Gaster before.

Sans got up from his usual spot on the sofa, he’d been there for so long and so often, it had left a small impression in the cushions. It was ridiculous how small he was now. He couldn’t even reach shelves. Not that he could reach high shelves before, but he used to be able to at least reach one or two shelves above the sink. Now it was to no avail, he couldn’t even climb on the counter anymore, because he was too small and weak to do so. Tsk.

He passed by the small table that usually held 3 rounds of keys when everyone was at home. It held only one copy, his own, and also his pot of snacks. Now that everyone knew about the rock collection. Sans had been more careless and left it around wherever he pleased. Originally when it was outside of his room it would be by his hands, but now Papyrus and Gaster would occasionally find it in random parts of the house. Sans felt it didn’t matter much.

After walking a little he reached a low pile of books. Gaster hadn’t had time to bring it up to Sans’ room, so it had been left in the living room for now. Sans picked up the top two books, the long awaited “Quantum Physics: Beyond The Multiverse Theory (Second Edition)”, which had a solid black cover and the title written in a scratchy blue, the same shade as Error’s blue, and a more colorful book with an intricate artistic background flair, titled “The Basics of Metaphysics: The Science Behind Magic”.

Both books took up all the space in his petite arms as Sans lounged back to the sofa.

He heavily plopped down the two books on either side of himself before pushing himself up and shuffling into his own spot in the middle. Once sat, he pulled the Quantum Psychics book into his lap and started reading it.

Many of the more general theories in the book were actually correct, but the smaller more specific ones tended to be incorrect, Sans noted to himself. At least the book did a good job at trying to prove these theories, and back them up. As it should. But after all there was only so much that the field of Quantum Physics, which had yet to be delved into the depths of in this AU, could attempt to prove.

There were many kind of multiverses, in any case. While in his previous life Sans mainly solely resided within his own multiverse, individuals from other multiverses had entered Rootverse before. So it had been proved for a long time that multiple multiverses not only existed but often functioned in varied ways from one another.

It’s precisely because of the inconsistency in both Multiverses and Universes, that without the access to the multiversal paradigm, Sans could never be sure of anything within this new Multiverse.

Well that was something to care for some other time. He wouldn’t be joining the multiversal residency so fast, he’s pretty sure. He could tell at least that his own AU was very immature. By general principle, immature AUs were not touched. That is, unless they were abandoned. That much seemed to be consistent throughout all the multiverses he’d heard of.

The first edition of this book was background on the original theory, and talked about the establishment of the universal wave function, and its practicality in the Many-World Interpretation of quantum mechanics, describing the science originally from a human point of view, crediting a human named H something Everett, but lacking a proper citation to the time period in which it was attributed to. Then it expanded the theory further into Metaphysics, which took into account not only science, but also magic. Both human and monster magic.

It touched on the mechanism of quantum decoherence, and even spoke of the deviation of human magic. Connecting the multiversal theory to the gradual decline of human magic. Bringing up the possibility of how much an alternative universe would differ if human magic were predominant, like monster magic is. It ended this particular section by concluding that unless the basis of human magic were fundamentally different than what we know it as, it would never be as transcendent nor paramount as monster magic.

The second edition of the book, which was what he was reading right now, focused on the calculation and predictment of Alternative Universes and time spaces. Speaking from a mostly mathematical point of view. It was all about the branching, concept and code behind the formulation of some sort of map to outline the multiverse. Basically it was the theory behind the machine in the basement of 90% of Sanses. Well Sans didn’t have one right now. He guessed it either hadn’t been constructed yet, or was in the True Lab and would eventually be moved to the Skeleton residence at some point. He couldn’t even remember how it had ended up in his own basement back then. It had been too long.

It took him a few hours to read through the book once. He sat it back down next to himself, planning on reading it again some other time, and too lazy to put it back in its place. He looked up at the clock hanging on the wall, the large pointer hit the two. One more hour before Papyrus comes back. Sans picked up the second thick book and placed it on his lap.

Chapter Text

Sans opened the second book, “The Basics of Metaphysics: The Science Behind Magic”, the title — clearly a different texture from the rest of the cover— gleamed, taking his attention momentarily and making him read it again even though he already had, as he turned the cover.

The book was a Research Book on the methodology of Magical Science. Gaster said he had specifically pulled this out from the depths for him to read, thinking it would be in his interest.

Seriously? Did Gaster think he was some kind of mega magic nerd? How ridiculous.

He was first met with a glossary, containing several important key terms and their definitions in the context used within the book.

In this book the terms Science and Magic, alongside science and magic, will take on separate and unique definitions.

* Note the Capitalization of the word to avoid confusion within the text.

Science, refers to the methodical study of part of the material world. It is implied that Science can prove natural phenomena within Scientific Law.

Whilst science, refers to activities restricted to a class of natural or unnatural phenomena.

Within this book Magic will be used as a synonym to Metaphysics, or the study of magic.

Whilst magic will refer to the action and/or practice.

Who wrote this book? A teacher? Why did he feel like he was reading a textbook instead of a research book?

He continued reading.

Metaphysics, often abbreviated as simply Magic, is defined as the methodical study of the abstract world. The study of phenomena that go against scientific laws.

It was in a very superficial sense of its definition, an opposite to Science.

Magic is not completely without it’s own guidelines. However, it often did not follow restricted rules, holding malleable laws that did not always hold true, given any small differing variable. Making it easily more unpredictable and unique than Science. Just as not everything could be accomplished in Science, magic too was not without its limitations.

It’s found that the behavior of magic may be closely aligned to Science. With many of its capacities mimicking the structure of Science. One could argue that Science and Magic were two sides of the same coin.

In a way Magic, given its own loose regulations, was a type of science.

Magic could be best understood and studied when in a comparative analyzation to Science. Its basic form closely followed the concept of scientific systems.

Yawn! He felt like he was reading one of Sci’s papers before the younger skeleton had handed it over for him fix it, in order not to bore everyone when presenting it. It was a role he had resigned himself to, after he had regrettably, not really, grown close to the other.

This was why he never touched science of his own validation after the Doctor scattered across time and reality. That was a lie, he did touch it again, several times actually.

Tsk, he really didn’t like science. Dream always told him that he lied too much. The boy was a sunshine, but the sun was never afraid to shine light on the truth.

Fundamentally while Science was about the material world, Magic could explain, to a certain extent, the spiritual world.

Magic could also be characterized as the anomaly capable of changing Science beyond its restrictive laws.

Hence, many divided the study of magic into three different directions.

One could study Magic as another form of Science. As if it were merely a set of laws pertaining to paradoxes and unreality. In this case magic was anything that Science could not explain.

Of course the disadvantage of classifying Magic as such, was that it essentially equated it to any unexplained phenomenon or anomaly. Causing many overlaps with other areas of science that could not be explained by modern scientific understanding or theories. Which included the understanding of dark matter and certain aspects of quantum mechanics.

The purpose of this research direction was to mold the forces of Magic and tame them to the use, designating Magic as the new Science.

The group of Metaphysics scientists, in light of the fact that they could all use magic, were dubbed Mages. (Not to be confused with Magicians, any magic-user or individual capable of wielding magic to a conscious extent.)

So there are multiple different takes on Magical Science in this AU, and there’s quite some history behind it, huh. Not too shabby.

A certain separate group of Metaphysic scientists, who refused to call themselves scientists, and were hence named Magic Researchers, studied magic under the assumption that it was completely disconnected to Science.

Excluding it as an inverse force, existing in another plane from Science.

Are these fuckers dumb? The basis of Magical Science was the reaction and interaction of and between Magic and Science. If they really existed in an entirely different plane how could they influence each other as they did? These idiots don’t deserve to be called Researchers. Sans gritted his teeth with a scowl of indignation.

These Magic Researchers abandoned the potential behind the explanation of the structure behind magic, and viewed it solely from a conceptual, philosophical point of view.

Instituting Magic as the better, fantastical alternative of Science.

This group created many fascinating theories. But there was very little proof to support them.

What a bunch of dumbasses. Magic isn’t an alternative of science, the two are entirely different things. You can’t replace one with the other. Magic and Science could work together, and they could provide different solutions for the same problem, but they were radically distinct aspects of reality. No wonder they didn’t wanna be called scientists.

At least this book was pretty good for him to get a feel on how the scientific development of magic in this AU worked.

The third direction of the study of magic was held by a group that took both sides of the coin into consideration.

Like the study of science, the study of magic is imperfect, however this group put effort into standardizing Magic.

Magic to them was not Science but nevertheless interlocked to Science so closely that it could not exist without it.

This group brought rise to Magical Science.

Bringing into fruition the merge and consolidation of Magic and Science.

Hohoh. Now it was getting interesting. Sans laid with his feet up on the sofa arms, like he used to do a long time ago. But there were no loud, rude voices to scold him for it now…

The bulk of the book after the introduction went in depth on the three separate directions in the study of Metaphysics.

He continued to read, immersed in the contents of the book.

In the backdrop outside of his focus, the large hand of the clock landed on 3, and the small hand steadily moved forward.

Some time later, he distinctively heard the noise of creaking wood, but it did not register in his distracted mind.

Many concepts of Science can be roughly applied to the synergy between different magics.

Take for example Newton’s laws of motion. In physics, two objects or forces that interact can only end up one of two ways. They either cancel each other out or the force becomes unbalanced.

This applies to the crash between magics.

When two magic forces act against each other. The magic force with higher potency is by definition the one which has a larger force, resulting in pushing out the opposite magic force.

Magic force can be categorized as the larger or smaller force based on the nature and intent of the magic alongside other variables. Healing magic for example, is generally a smaller force, because it is of lesser ‘mass’ and last “aggressive” intent. As the nature of healing works best outside oppressive conditions. Certain types of summoning magic, most of which are considered in the parallel of the realm of creation, can also be categorized as smaller forces, because they are of leaser ‘density'.

“Attack magic, whose primary purpose is to cause damage and the intent behind is often ill-born are considerably among the ‘densest’ of magics. Meaning they are generally within the stronger forces among magic types, with the exception of defensive magics with larger ‘mass’ than the attack magic they attempt to defend against.”

?? That’s not the sound of what his voice sounds like inside of his head. Sans whipped his neck around and was met with the sight of his younger brother, peering from behind him into the pages of the book he was reading.

“Paps! Why didn’t ya say something?”, Sans exclaimed.

“Hello brother! You seemed very focused, as you did not hear me when I called your name. So I The Great Papyrus, had to settle for the second best thing, and help you read! I’m very good at reading now aren’t I brother?”, Papyrus said proudly.

“Nyeheheh”, he laughed with a somewhat evil intonation, clearly thrilled to catch Sans off guard.

“Yeah. Yer awesome Bo-Paps”.

FUCK. What the fuck what that? Stupid bitch!

Re- Sans you stupid modafucker. Who do you think you are? That’s Papyrus! Your brother in this new reality. Not Boss. That is not Boss! How fucking dare you? How fucking dare you confuse them even for a minute! You piece of trash.

You useless fuck. I can’t believe you would do either of them like this. They were all right about you.

“Sans?”

Papyrus’ voice broke him out from his self-deprecating thoughts. The younger skeleton had tilted his head in a way that did not have the right to be that cute.

“Yeah, Paps?”

“Are you certain, you are alright, brother?”, Papyrus asked, concerned.

“Yeah. I’m great Paps. I dun know. Maybe I just missed ya”, Sans pulled him into a hug, clutching and hiding the other’s face in his stomach, so he couldn’t see his face.

“Nyeeee”, Papyrus was startled by the sudden predicament he found himself in, he playfully tried to get away without making an effort, obviously hesitant to use force against Sans in any way, “It cannot be helped, The Great Papyrus is simply that Great.”

Fuck. Sans swore that a Papyrus would be the death of him someday, again.

Chapter Text

Papyrus had a good life. I mean he was still young and hadn’t experienced much yet, so hopefully he would be able to say that again when he's much much older. But for now he could say for certain that he was content with his bunch.

People often liked to mention what he didn’t have, but he felt that he was pretty satisfied even without those things.

Papyrus didn’t have parents, but he never felt lonely. His eye sockets glanced over at his brothers, both draped over the couch. One reading papers, the other watching TV. Leaning on each other like the other was a pillow. Lazybones.

Papyrus didn’t have as many friends as he hoped, but he felt he had a few good ones that he wasn’t willing to trade for 100.

He thought of Asriel and Undyne as he walked into the kitchen.

Papyrus was a very clever child, his brothers said so, and his brothers didn’t lie about silly things like that. Picking out facts and hidden hints from situations and conversations came easily to him. He loved how some things fell into place like puzzle pieces. He really was his brothers’ brother. But as amazing and great as he was, he had to admit, that he had never been the best at making friends.

He opened the drawers above the sink, picking some containers and setting them in the counter.

He’d felt a very small bit of jealousy when he noted how easy Sans seemed to be able to get familiar with and settle himself into most people’s spaces as if he had always been there. This was the case even when the shorter skeleton was so clearly avoiding it.

Socializing was Sans’ natural grounds it seemed. Strange for someone who tried not to interact to others, so desperately too. Avoiding some like they were the plague. Why? What was he running from? His brother had clearly not even been conscious for as long as himself. But Papyrus could see the difference.

A difference particularly glaring in comparison to his and Wings’ own ineptitude in sociable communication with others aside from their few close ones.

Perhaps it was just another talent of Sans’ that Papyrus didn’t share.

Opening a container of cookies, a container of chips, and some more smalls things to eat, he organized a tray of snacks.

Monsters all had very varying degrees of maturity. Nobody truly matured in the same pace. Mental and physical aging were often at odds with one another.

Papyrus felt that perhaps Sans had been mentally mature the moment he opened his eyes.

He certainly acted more maturely than Wings in general.

Of course he didn’t mind too much, they all had their different strong points. It was just that sometimes he wished that saying the right thing and acting the right away came as easily to him as it did to Sans. He even wished that he could understand the sciencey things his brothers talked about sometimes too.

Though the latter wasn’t as important. He just wanted to talk to his brothers more, and his brothers were very willing to talk about literally anything with him.

He thinks his brothers might like him a little too much. I mean he is great, yeah. It’s just that… well, his brothers could be a bit much sometimes.

He opened the fridge and picked up a can of sprite, a can of orange soda and a can of cola.

He recently noticed — perhaps because before Sans’ baby (good thing he was thinking and not saying that out loud) scolding Wings’ just didn’t stay within his sight for long enough for him to — that his oldest brother was the type to stop a super important meeting just because Papyrus said he wanted to do something silly like go eat nice cream with both of his brothers.

Was this what Undyne was talking about when she mentioned this “new manga trope” called “brother complex”? He supposed that brotherly affections could be complex. Specially when you had brothers as odd as his.

Speaking of Undyne. It had been a surprise to him to make friends with Undyne if he were to be honest.

His friendship with Asriel was unconventional. Asriel was almost like a family friend, really. It happened that he was pulled to be Asriel’s playmate at some point in his most early years, because their families had history —he wasn’t entirely sure what that meant either than the literal sense of the word. That a true friendship bloomed out of what was initially more a trade than anything else, was a pleasant surprise to the youngest skeleton.

He placed the soda cans into the empty space remaining in the tray.

Undyne on the other hand, well she was popular. Not in the way that Asriel was popular, no. Asriel was the prince, but every child in the underground seemed to know the heroic Undyne, seemed to have spoken to her. Though his little big brother — he had been trying to grow out of the habit of calling him that, he noticed that Sans felt a certain way about, if his glaring at their gradually increasingly height difference was anything to go by — would surely tell him that was an exaggeration. Papyrus thought it might be. But it didn’t matter because that’s what it felt like to the children anyways. Sometimes what it feels like is more important than what it actually is like.

The smoothness in which Papyrus ended up getting along with Undyne was unreal. He felt disbelieving to this day sometimes.

Undyne was a very easy person to read. A very easy person to sway. A very easy person to manipulate even, dare he say it, or think it, he supposed.

Undyne had an unyielding fire within her. A determination that burned bright. Stubborn. Ever loyal. Extremely influenceable.

He picked up the now very full tray and carried it in his arms with ease before walking back into the living room.

Papyrus could read her like a book. Maybe that was why it was so easy to get familiar with her.

He wondered if this was how Sans felt. His shorter older brother seemed to always see through people. He himself could hardly ever hide anything from him. It was like Sans knew not only what to expect but what to look for as well.

All his habits, his tics and twitches. Sans knew all of his tells. Sans knew all of everyone’s tells. That’s what Papyrus thought.

He hoped that one day, he would also be able to know all of Sans’ tells in return. Papyrus was observant. He was sure that one day he would be able to do it.

Anyway, there wasn’t much Undyne could do that wasn’t predictable. Wearing her heart on her sleeve, he could deduce how she felt about others in the drop of a hat.

That’s why he knew how utterly uninterested in his brother, in his brother’s existence, she was.

He was there for their first meeting. She could care less about Sans.

That was okay.

He sat the tray down in the table in front of the TV and sat down next to Sans.

They didn’t need to like each other. They probably won’t even interact much from now on. He didn’t mind it staying like that.

Friends didn’t always need to be close to your family.

He didn’t need to chose between one or the other. Neither Sans nor Undyne would make him choose.

Sans opened his orange soda with a loud pop.

There would never be a reason for him to choose, after all.

Chapter Text

Undyne had grown amidst monsters plagued by the images, the horrors, of the war. She hadn’t been born when monsterkind was dashed away from the surface and shoved into the dark depths of the underground back then, yet sometimes she almost felt like she had experienced it herself. Throughout her early childhood to this day, she constantly heard about the tragedies of the past, most caused by the despicable humans, as was the only way she could think to describe the villains in the stories she heard of.

In fact one might say she knew too much. Sometimes she woke up in the middle of the night at the soft, nearly imperceptible cries of her neighbors and family. She felt the pain sting as much in her heart as it did in theirs when she heard their silent tears.

Perhaps thanks to this, Undyne was a righteous child. She believed in justice, from the depths of her soul.

Undyne felt that she could fight for her friends, her family, for monsterkind! She would surely become a guardian and a protector for them in the future, without a doubt.

She had a fortitude befitting a soldier, with the courage and fearlessness to tie the bow.

To but it nicely she was heroic, and to put it bluntly she was reckless.

It was okay though, she was nothing but a child now. There was plenty of room to grow.

Since she had met Papyrus, a young skeleton whom she delighted in the friendly companionship of, she had also learned to be slightly more prudent. To turn her grit and spirit into something dauntless but not as brash.

She felt this friendship was an undoubtedly a good thing.

It had been roughly around year —perhaps a few months less— now since she became good friends with the young and slim skeleton, it became a natural part of her routine to meet up with him rather often. Sometimes they would meet up in his house. Sometimes they would meet at her house, she had moved very often in the early stages of her life, but now she lived with Gerson.

Sometimes she and Papyrus would walk around the underground, visit their other friends, do whatever there was to do.

Spotting him was easy. Spending time with him was easy. She also attended the newly established academy and was in the same class as him. In a way she spend more time around him and her other school friends than anyone else.

It seemed that soon she and Papyrus would reach the maturity to formally learn magic. But of course being who she is, she actually already knew some magic.

Undyne walked to the nearby bench in the park, if you can call it that, that stood by a stand of nice cream, the usual rabbit worker was not there instead a child from his family was, sitting on the tall stool much taller than his own height.

Looking away she sat down and waited for Papyrus.

Not long after she heard a distinctive “Nye heh heh”, that she would never mistake for another’s. Turning her neck rapidly she was met with the expected view of Papyrus joyfully waving at her as he jogged over.

He sat next to her like sliding over. His smile(?) —it was heard to tell what was and wasn’t a smile in skeleton monsters, since she wasn’t that familiar with their “facial muscles”, well it was not as if they were the only stone faced monsters around either— was wide and friendly. Undyne happily returned his enthusiasm with a smile of her own.

They immediately started to chatter away.

“Nyeheh, and so Wings tripped over his own computer cords and fell face flat on the ground!”, he was telling her another story about his brothers from recently. “But fear not! Because the great Papyrus and his softer brother helped him up! He was okay.”

Recently Papyrus seemed to be trying out new ways to address his second brother. It was funny really. One day she would hear him say “my brother of slight differential height”, and another “my brother who is older but always wakes up after me”, among many others.

Papyrus always narrated his stories with a particular energy, that she felt it was definitely much better to hear from him than to actually experience it. She figured experiencing it probably wasn’t as good. Papyrus had a way to amp up stories after all. He was practically a genius at it!

“Yeah, and then hear this, Gerson actually banned me from the kitchen! Can you believe it?”, she shared her own little stories.

They each went back and forth for a while. Tired of talking they swang around to get some nice cream, the blue rabbit child, who looked either a few years younger or of slower maturity had a face of palpable agony for some odd reason. His grimace furrowed deeper as both her and Papyrus approached but kept chatting away nonstop all the while.

“What nice cream flavor do you want?”, even while looking mildly displeased at their existence the child was polite and “professional”.

“Where is the mister that’s usually here?”, she asked.

“He had to go do something. He won’t be back for a while. What flavor do you want?”, the blue bunny rolled his eyes so smoothly and quickly, she thought she was imagining it for a moment. Undyne was irked by the attitude.

“Ohhh I want to try tutti frutti!”, Papyrus quickly said, completely unbothered by the professional rudeness of the other monster child.

“Cone? How many scoops?”, the bunny asked.

“Yes the large cone please! I would like three scoops. Two of tutti frutti and one of blueberry please!”, Papyrus answered in anticipation.

“Alright”, the bunny pulled up his sleeves a lot more enthused than before, and scooped three neat balls of nice cream before handing it over to Papyrus. Papyrus placed some gold on top of the stand and took his nice cream. Taking a bite and expressing his delight with little sounds.

The blue bunny turned back to Undyne, his energy going down again as soon as he saw her face. “Flavors?”, he asked monotone.

Undyne stepped forward, feet grinding against the floor too loud in her irritation. Papyrus quickly patted her, getting her to chill out.

“Pineapple and two lemon. Three scoops and cone like Paps.”, she answered through a huff.

The bunny started scooping them up, ignoring the look she gave him at his “worsening" attitude towards her.

She grumblingly pulled out some gold and placed it heavily against the stand, so much so, the stand seemed to jump for a minute.

The bunny having finished scooping her nice cream, raised an unimpressed brow and handed it to her.

She took it with a grudge.

Papyrus placed a hand on her shoulder and led her away. The sat somewhere a little farther than before, where the nice cream stand was no longer in sight. She madly licked her nice cream for a while before settling down at the delicious taste.

They soon went back to chatting away.

Eventually their subject turned towards school.

“We’re going to be learning magic soon right?”, Papyrus stated in the tone of a question.

“Yeah. How did you know?”, Undyne asked. School curriculum wasn’t available for the students to find out before the day arrived, and there was not really “older children” to ask because they were pretty much the first class of students in the underground.

“Wings was talking about how excited he was about me and Sans learning magic and I quote ‘doing all kinds of incredible, unimaginable things with it because you two are my brothers after all’”, Papyrus answered.

Oh of course. Undyne was being silly, she forgot his oldest brother was the Royal Scientist, it was easy to forget sometimes. That he was the same person as the one in Papyrus’ ridiculous stories about his brothers.

“Oh! And you know I-“, Undyne began.

“The whole conversation was hilarious”, but Papyrus hadn’t finished the story yet, “Because Sans was very unimpressed and revealed that he had already learned magic from some books some more than 6 months ago. Wings was shocked nyehehehe. Sans is very amazing!”

Huh? Oh I guess his brother knew a bit of magic like her. He learned from books? 6 months ago? It probably took him awhile, I mean he was older than her anyways. Amazing but not as amazing as her. And so she conveniently forgot that he has been conscious for a much shorter time than her. Also it didn’t take him long to grasp the magic once he learned.

“That’s cool”, she felt her voice unnaturally shake with stubborn disbelief, “I can also use some magic”, she tried to salvage her strange pride.

“You can? That’s awesome!”, Papyrus’ response was enthusiastic, brushing away the weird feelings she felt when she heard his brother might be better than her.

“Ngaaaaaahahahahah, of course. I can show you some.”

Papyrus’ joy was so infectious. One couldn’t stay grumpy in his presence.

“Really? Yiiipie!”, he responded with something as silly as him.

Undyne picked up a random stick from the nearby ground. “Watch this!”, she said. Her hands glowed orange and red and the her magic wrapped around the stick, whirling between the two colors. When the entirety of the stick began to glow without any patch of it left behind, she got up brandishing the stick like a sword and striking a nearby bundle of leaves, which proceeded to perfectly split in half.

“Wowie!”, Papyrus exclaimed, jumping in curiosity.

“Ngahahaha”, she laughed with pride.

“Can you do anything else?”, Papyrus’ eye sockets sparkled with anticipation.

Undyne threw away the stick to the ground, which gradually dimmed in light and turned back into a normal stick.

The two children sat next to each other, very closely like they were sharing a secret. With a leaf in her hand Undyne squeezed over it, the green plant briefly glowed green before dissipating, then it merely sat in the palm of her hand.

Papyrus tilted his head in confusion, wondering if something went wrong.

Undyne handed the leaf to him, and he realized what happened as soon as he held it. The consistency was completely different. It was no longer fragile, its texture completely unlike that of any leaf, when he squeezed it bended like plastic.

Papyrus gasped loudly and looked back at Undyne sharing loud giggles.

“If I do it to something that’s initially tougher and not fragile like a leaf, it can became even more solid!”, she happily commented as they proceeded in the discussion like military weebs or something.

Chapter Text

Sans woke up that morning with a familiar buzz in his head.

It had become very clear to him since he wake up in this new yet familiar body, about what he thinks is 3 to 4 years ago, that he was far from a healthy child.

He had never been one, not really. But being a malnourished kid in the streets of Underfell 00 with some chronic issues was nothing compared to being a sickly child with chronic illness and the weakest body known to monsterkind. Okay that was an exaggeration, probably. Yet Sans sure felt like it was the case sometimes.

In the few years he had been here fevers were a pretty routine part of his life. Initially when he woke up he could hardly break a single fever in weeks. After one broke the other would start in the next or the same day. Eventually it dwindled to once month once he came home and got to live with Papyrus instead of inhabiting the cold sterile walls of the lab, for the second time in two lives, though for very different reasons. With time it gradually became more stable. Every other month, every three months, etc. Even after learning healing magic, it didn’t do much for him to get rid of the root of the problem. Chronic illnesses couldn’t be magically cured. This wasn’t that type of AU with that type of miracle, unfortunately for him. He felt his health hardly seemed to improve because of how slow the progress was. He remained a weak and frankly powerless child to this day. He cringed every time he thought of how that was his unavoidable reality.

He had been plagued by mobility issues in the first year since he awoke; shortness of breath, which still happened occasionally; sensitivity to temperature changes, which lasted until a few months ago.

He had been getting better. Yet it felt so excruciatingly slow, that it drove him crazy. Tearing his patience apart with the familiar crawling of redness through his soul. Not to mention that he simply had debatably milder symptoms now, not that he had no symptoms.

As the worse manifestations of his unknown —Gaster still refused to talk to him about it properly, at some point he suspected he was terminally ill because of how avoidant Gaster was about the topic in front of him, but he was smart enough to distinguish between chronic and terminal symptoms— illness subsided, they made way instead to milder ailments. The ones that weren’t noticeable beneath the more alarming ones in the past, the ones that had him facing healers more often than he liked.

He still felt weird knowing that most people could use some extent of healing magic here. At least he got something good out of it, not to brag but his healing magic is really something else. Now if it were a bit more effective on himself it would be nice. Maybe because the source of the magic was himself, at best he could somewhat improve the speed of his own healing but not really the potency.

He’s starting to get off topic again. Though perhaps that would have been for the best.

Today it was a bit of a new feeling. New in this life. But a very familiar feeling from his previous. His body ached, he shuddered out of a feeling of numbness instead of pain. His petite skull throbbed. A migraine. It had been one of life’s many banes.

He had them since he was a child. Back then he didn’t know how to hide his discomfort. His bratty naughty little brother had taken to mingling among the other younger children, and would always come home yelling of his return loudly.

Taking the advantage of his younger brother’s absence he would deplorably indulge in his own self-loathing, curled up in bed and cursing the world for making him suffer.

Sometimes overtaken by the unbearable migraines that assaulted his young body, he would phase out the outside, missing his brother’s loud, harsh, and clear voice, something he never did, never could, otherwise.

It was funny, the kid would often start fights with him. Unafraid to smack him away and talk back, unafraid of the retaliation he knew would come to bite his tiny bony ass. Yet too smart for his own good sometimes, he would notice. After a few loud calls, ones that he could guess the contents of because he had heard so many times he memorized them, the mindless noise would disappear before he could register it. The next thing he knew there the brat was. Small, mischievous, with a hint of innocence still sparkling in his eye sockets, his little brother, his boss, his Papyrus… he’d clumsily glance all over the room before looking all over Sans, like trying to survey for an unsuspecting enemy. It was cute really.

Once Boss realized what it was that put Sans in that pathetic, miserable condition, he would message his head for him. He was really shit at it, at first. But the clever little thing gradually grew better. Honestly he was so good at some point that Sans teased that he was an expert at giving pericranium massages, he shut up after Boss called him a nerd for calling it pericranium massages instead of scalp massages. Actually, he initially argued that scalp massages would be the incorrect term because he didn’t have a scalp but Boss retorted by saying that made him even more of a nerd. He never teased about again. At least directly, heh.

Anyways, this little action was one of the only things that Boss never stopped doing for him. Even when they were at their most distant and had to pretend to… I don’t know, to- dislike each other or something? To be honest even now, he still can’t tell exactly what they were trying to pretend to be exactly.

He curled around himself tighter, pulling his knees closer to his ribcage, taking deep breaths.

What? Skeletons breathe too. Though they usually didn’t need to.

He should distract himself again. It helped divert the attention. The migraines had been a while, not to mention he felt considerably weaker than in his past life, which might have contributed to him feeling even more like shit.

Waves of lethargy wreaked through his immature body as his mind raced, trying to pick up another topic to amuse himself and pass the time.

What time was it? Was it cold or hot? He couldn’t tell…

“I’M BACK SANS!!”

Ah. He must be really out of it.

“SANS!!!”

To be hearing Boss’ childhood voice yelling for him like this…

“Sans!!”

Hallucinations from the migraine already? He thought that only happened with the really bad ones. It didn’t even feel like them yet.

“Sans.”

The voice got slightly closer.

He suddenly could focus on it better. Definitely not too bad a migraine if he could still make out the distance, and his own name so well.

“Sans?”

Hesitant. Questioning.

Huh. Lacking the usual edge, heh, in the natural undertones of Boss’ voice.

It kinda sounded like a younger Puff instead. But Puff didn’t call him Sans, he only called Classic, Sans, and not very often, since they were usually around multiple Sanses.

“Sans?”

The voice was even closer now. A hint of concern slipping through it. It sounded much quieter.

Did the brat finally get tired of yelling for him? Letting the concern actually show in his tone of voice and lowering his voice? Since when was he so considerate?

He zoned out trying to focus on the noise. His eye sockets tightly closed. His phalanges grasped onto the sheets but their smooth flat-ish round digits slid a few times before he could hold a nice grip.

Small but commanding footsteps sounded.

His own hands were so small now. So soft. So delicate. Nothing like how they were before. He and his bro both had sharp phalanges, in Underfell 00 most monsters had pretty sharp nails, they had the skeleton alternate of that. Another one of the anomalies of the Underfell template, as Error put it, alongside their permanently red hues of magic.

If he still had them, they would have properly sinked into the sheets and promptly ripped into them, satisfying his need for a semi permanent grip against the texture, without worry that it would slip away from his hold.

The sound of the door creaking open reached his likely still hallucinating ass.

He curled deeper into a ball. Grumbling unintelligent words, complaining to himself about his own uselessness.

A familiar warmth pressed against the back of his spine and ribs.

“Sans?”

His little brother said mildly, voice uncharacteristically soft and open.

“Are you alright? Do you need something?”

It’s true what they say, that dreams are idealistic. Such an expressive, tactful Boss could only exist in his dreams. Though this was more of a hallucination —or perhaps a day dream— than a dream, he was still awake after all, heh.

“I will tell you off for not notifying before it got worse, when you are better. Have some rest for now, brother. I will stay with you.”

Ah, his kind, precious little brother. If he were as honest as Puff, he would have been like this. Damn Sans’ imagination was good. So sweet of him to stay, to let him know he would stay.

Hhm? Us? What is day dream Boss talking about again?

He felt the lanky contact of his younger brother —by feeling of his height and build, he should be in his late childhood, just before his teens, a little softer than Boss’ realistic touch— against Sans’ own childhood(?) body as the other wrapped his arms around him and brought him into a comfy embrace. The day dream was so good it almost felt like he had returned to childhood and all of this was real. He almost thought the touch was real, if not for how unrealistic all its little details were.

He hadn’t responded him yet. No matter how cutesy his brother was in this day dream he was unlikely to take it well, being “ignored”.

“Yeah Boss. Looking forward to your scolding.”

He responded to the empty room, his mind conjuring up a small chuckle as a response from his make-belief past version of his younger brother. He fell asleep in the false embrace.

He never did feel the anticipated massaging. An incomplete dream.

Chapter Text

It took a few days, before Sans recovered. Papyrus had counted it.

He was surprised to come home a few days ago without the familiar sight of his brother waiting to greet him back, and find his brother curled into himself in clear discomfort.

Wings couldn’t miss work these days unfortunately, so Papyrus naturally took upon himself to take care of Sans. Sans deserved all of his care.

He found that a sick Sans was very amiable in a heartbreaking way. When he found him first Papyrus had very briefly and softly scolded the other for hiding his ailment. It was a very bad habit of his. He thought it was funny how Sans accepted his scolding passively and curled deeper into his arms as he called him “Boss” in a mischievous tone.

Sans loved to be sarcastic, and sometimes he would make jokes, and those horrid puns, that would have been fine if not for how overused each of them were. But Sans was never playful like this with him. So Papyrus was secretly delighted.

Initially he wanted to tease Sans about it when he got better but once he did he could immediately tell that Sans could not remember the past few days. Maybe it was for the best. As funny as a flustered Sans was, he was also low key dangerous, as Wings put it.

Gaster couldn’t make it back yesternight and wasn’t here this morning. He should be back later in the day.

He and Sans had just finished their breakfast. Well he had finished quite some time ago, but a gentlemen he naturally remained in the table until Sans finished his plate. Sometimes Sans would eat very slowly, like he didn’t have any energy to go faster. It occasionally dragged on for a while until he finished everything, but Papyrus was just glad that he would finish it.

Wings said he had recently been growing more and more like Sans. Insisting on silly things like how from now on it wouldn’t just be Mama Sans around — he and Wings called him Sans that behind his back, he was truly quite like the fairytale of a mother was told sometimes— but there may be a Mama Papy too. Which was ridiculous he was nowhere near as mother-hen as Sans. Papyrus would prefer to think himself more a Father instead. Or something. Wings was technically their guardian but he was nothing like a Mother nor a Father and Papyrus didn’t want him to be, he liked the way he was. He just thought that since Sans was the Mother in this hypothetical situation from his prone to scold temperament and his grudgedly caring sentiment, that Papyrus should then be the Father, as he was the most responsible one in the family, besides once Wings retires he’s certain he will be long an adult and providing for everyone. That was what a Father did, right? In this case would it leave for Wings to be in some kind of strange position as an adult son? This was getting confusing.

He quickly washed his and Sans’ utensils and plates, drying and putting them away with efficiency. Sans had offered to do it for him, but the other still had a mild drag on his feet from his illness, so he refused.

When he was done with all of the dishes he shot a glance at the hanging clock —a strange little thing in their home, one of the few decorations it had, it as shaped like one of Wing’s hands, the hole in between them served as the clock’s screen. Undyne should be here any minute now. They’re hang outs had been growing more and more often these days.

Magic lessons at the school would start in a few days. Undyne had been showing him some different thing she could do with her magic already. Including strengthening and even molding materials.

When they were getting some nice cream she once made one of the scoops as hard as a popsicle and shaped it into a star.

Papyrus felt proud that Undyne liked to spend the most time with him, when he knew she had many other friends.

Knock Knock.

There she was. He immediately dashed towards the door, idly noting that Sans had disappeared from the couch. He glanced up the stairs. The other was likely in his room.

He opened the door and Undyne greeted him enthusiastically.

“PAPS! What’s uppppp?”, she brought his skull into her arms and noogied him.

“NYEH do not noogie the skeleton!”, he exclaimed loudly, not really bothered by the playful gesture.

“NGAAHHAHAHHAH”

“NYEHEHEHEHEHEH”

The room was filled with their laughter.

They soon walked deeper into the house.

Lately there wasn’t much to do with Undyne here. They had already pretty much done everything there was. Oh but!

“Undyne! I have a new puzzle that we can try! Wings brought me a 1000 piece puzzle this time!”, he remembered with joy.

Undyne visibly shuddered at the number, but joined him without hesitation. “Alright! Let’s do this!”, she said with conviction.

It took them 6 hours to assemble the full puzzle. Frankly speaking Undyne was more of a hindrance than a help, but what mattered was that it was fun, so Papyrus didn’t care.

Perhaps they should start commuting the park instead or something. He had the feeling that the house had gotten small for him and Undyne to hang out at. Since they often did mostly physical things. Like play fighting and more. He didn’t want the house to be damaged.

He had already almost damaged the kitchen when he first allowed Undyne to lead their cook out. Undyne wasn’t allowed to cook inside of their house anymore.

Papyrus was already a messy cook, even if he was a pretty good one —Papyrus preened at remembering his brothers’ compliments. Sans grew afraid that in combination with Undyne he may burn the place down to the ground. Unfortunately for Papyrus, Wings seemed to agree with the sentiment.

So Undyne and him were only allowed snacks, and strictly prohibited from using the oven while by themselves.

He doesn’t getting they did well when he was the one leading in the kitchen, instead of Undyne. Papyrus pouted, and returned his gaze to their large finished puzzle.

“NYEH! It is our victory! We have done it!”, he hollered.

“NGAHHHHHHHHHH! Hell yeah!”, she screamed along side him, plopping with her back to the floor.

Before catching what she had said and turning to Papyrus with wide eyes. She made a expression like a child who got caught doing something wrong. “Uh Paps. You didn’t hear anything.”, she tried to pass it off.

But Papyrus was not a fool, “Are you talking about the cursing?”, he said unbothered but amused by her desperation.

The sweat was visible on her blue skin and her eyes wide with surprise.

“Don’t worry, you won’t get in trouble for cursing in front of me. Sans already does it plenty”, he says passively.

Undyne’s eyes widen further in disbelief. He’s afraid if they widen any longer they will pop out of their sockets. He pats her shoulder, “Let’s go get some snacks”. He starts to walk towards the kitchen. Undyne follows him shortly after.

They make some useful mindless chatter as they pick around the place to get snacks.

“Papyrus?”, Undyne calls. “What’s this?”, she asks.

“Huhm?”, Papyrus turns around to look.

In Undyne’s arms is a familiar vessel pot. The one where Sans keeps his rock collection. He walks over and tells her, “That’s Sans’ rock collection. He likes to randomly pick up some rocks and stuff them in there before tossing them out and getting new ones.”

“Hhm. They’re really cool.”, Undyne picks one up, “I mean they’re not all that impressive looking, and they’re kinda fragile, but they’re all in perfectly circular shapes”.

Agh, Sans must be polishing them again with his teeth. He told him not to play with them too much.

“Why are they here anyways?”, Undyne asks, plopping the rock back into the pot and shuffling her hands instead the pockets of her jeans. He faintly heard the sound of two objects colliding against each other as her hands moved, but didn’t pay much attention. 

“Ah yes. He likes to leave it in random places of the house.”, Papyrus was worried. He was always worried for his brother, his older yet smaller brother. He could feel like soul clench whenever he saw Sans’ in pain. He didn’t want him to be in pain. Sometimes he had this weird feeling of hoping to keep everything away from Sans. He thought maybe that way he would be safe. But that was really weird, and Papyrus would not never do something like take away his brother’s freedom. It would be extremely bad of him.

He continued to talking to Undyne in favor of ignoring those unpleasant thoughts, “I have already told him to stop doing that, but he will simply not listen”.

Papyrus shivered thinking that this actually is a pretty ideal place form them considering their real use.

Chapter Text

Sans watched as Papyrus said goodbye to Undyne, claiming his spot on the couch again.

“Hey bro, how was da hang?”, he asked while turning on the TV.

“It was very good brother!”, Papyrus responded, walking into the kitchen.

He soon came out again, “Now! Have I not told you not to leave your sna-”, Papyrus cringed at the word, “rock collection out of living spaces aside from your room?”.

While the younger skeleton was very unimpressed he still threw a bag of chips on Sans’ lap.

“Eat that brother, Wings will be back for dinner, and he wishes to take us to Grillby’s”

Sans’ popped open the bag of chips. “Oo la la~ Grillbz huh? Sounds like a good dinner time”, he expressed his agreement at the choice of food in his own way. 

“Must you be like this?”, Papyrus exclaimed, but he knew that Papyrus also enjoyed Grillby’s food even if he didn’t like the more greasy options he offered.

“Heheh”

Papyrus rolled his eye lights at this response.

Sans munched on the chips as they watched TV and waited for Gaster.

“Don’t worry I’ll get the vessel out of the kitchen after I’m done with the chips.”, Sans promises.

Papyrus grimaced, understanding what he meant with ease.

Sans handed him a potato chip which Papyrus munched on like it was his enemy.

The bag was emptied in a short period of time.

Sans got up to throw it away and keep his promise. He glanced around the kitchen and spotted the pot, taking it into his hands and walking back out.

Then he joined Papyrus in the couch and continued to watch, munching the rocks in place of the chips.

He knew Papyrus didn’t really like him doing that, but he also know he wouldn’t stop him. Because Papyrus could tell that he at least hadn’t lied about how they made him chill out more.

He picked up sphere per sphere of the small soft rocks, feeling the fine grains of the sedimentary rocks under his phalanges. Shaping them into spheres was a pretty satisfying pastime, but he much preferred breaking them in half with a bite before chewing them into finer proportions and swallowing their faint magic.

Tired of picking them one by one he grabbed a small handful of 3 to 4 rocks, just enough to not fall between his fingers and periodically shoved the small groups of rocky snacks into his mouth.

He continuously popped them in his mouth and chewed with gusto, having thrown his legs on top Papyrus’ lap. The other only grumbled softly but didn’t push them away, Sans chuckled in response.

Everything was going well, only a half an hour until Gaster was back and they could go to Grillby’s for some dinner. Unfortunately it seems he truly can’t have good things.

Initially he didn’t feel anything wrong. The texture was fine, the layering seemed right, or so he thought. As soon as his teeth sunk deeper into the particular sphere it was too late.

Papyrus noticed faster than him, a small white object fly across the room from the corner of his vision. A teeth.

It wasn’t merely a piece of his teeth that fell like the first time, but the whole thing unlodged from its rightful place in his maxilla. He had felt the rock sink into his bone now that there was no teeth in between to stop the contact.

If only it had stopped at one. The familiar shade of red magic gushed down his mandible. A few mesial teeth spread across the floor and a distal left teeth he couldn’t feel anymore. His maxilla ached and his head spun. He felt a misplaced amount of foreign magic emanating from where he bit the rocks. Too wrong.

He fell to the floor. Instinctively pushing his healing magic into himself. It clashed against the other unknown magical signature.

Papyrus rushed frantically, Sans felt his back be supported by the taller skeleton. The latter’s sight blurred as he tried to focus on his brother. Orange tears slipped down the younger’s eye sockets. Sans raised his hand trying to wipe them away but he couldn’t seem to hold it in the right direction.

Papyrus was saying something, but the annoying ringing in Sans’ head blocked it out. As if putting Papyrus on mute.

The pounding from his mouth and head left him disoriented and his soon blacked out.

“SANS”, he heard before his consciousness took him under completely.

Chapter Text

Papyrus was terrified by what happened in front of him. He was clearly right there but could do nothing, did nothing to prevent it.

Hot magical tears rushed down his bone cheeks. His grip tightening around his brother. He desperately reached for the phone and clicked on Wings’ number as fast as possible.

“Sans”, he kept calling for a long time. Before and after the other’s eye lights were faded away. He sobbed and hiccuped clutching to Sans for dear life.

He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t even know how to use healing magic like Sans. He hadn’t learned yet. He just hoped that Wings would answer soon.

As he anxiously hears the rings of the phone, Sans starts to glow.

A shade of soft blue greenish magic encapsulates Sans’ skull. He looks over to see the momentary image of a clash. Too familiar and uniquely different colors of magic crack against each other like a lighting bolt meeting another.

For some reason he briefly remembers a memory of when he caught Sans reading one of those nerdy books Gaster got for him, something about how magical forces act when clashing against each other.

He immediately brushes it aside and panics, unhesitatingly bringing Sans into his arms, regardless of any potential danger that could have presented from this action.

The call goes through.

“Papyrus? What’s the matter?”, Wings’ voice is suddenly the most beautiful thing Papyrus has ever heard.

“Sans. Sssans. It’s so much. It’s gushing all over.”, he tries to explain, but his voice is muffled and hard to hear behind his sobbing, “I don’t know what to do. And it’s blue, and there’s more red now.”, he cries louder, “He’s gonna be okay, right, big brother?”, his words come out weak, with a unbearable vulnerability behind them.

“Papyrus.”

Papyrus clutches Sans impossibly closer. Watching as the smaller skeleton jerks up from the intense tussle of incompatible magics against each other. His orange tears drip down the other’s skull.

“Papyrus!”

He can barely register his name being called. Too agitated and distraught to think properly.

“PAPYRUS!”

Wings’ unfamiliarly loud volume finally catches his attention.

“I’m going out right now. I’ll be there in 5 minutes. I need you to talk to me while I walk, okay? Take a deep breath and explain to me what’s going on. What happened to Sans?”

The oldest skeleton’s voice is calming. It helps Papyrus collect himself. He notices the large flow of magic blood slowing down and the blue magic growing stronger over his brother.

He nods his head in response to Wings’ instructions, even though the other can’t see it. He takes a few deep breaths and props Sans’ head against himself.

“We were watching TV”, he hiccups, “and Sans was eating some snacks”.

“Yes. Okay good”, Wings praises him, “What else, Papy?”

“And there was something wrong with them”, he looks down at Sans.

The blue magic seems to be harmless so far. The red is finally gone.

“What do you mean?”, Wings questions them.

“They’re usually really soft and they split like cake between his teeth”, he doesn’t lie but doesn’t tell the whole truth, his voice still shaking but more stable now, “And he bit some that weren’t right”, he wipes the tears off his eye sockets.

“I don’t quite understand”, Wings admits, “I’m turning the corner at Snowdin, I’ll be there in less than a minute. Hang on tight.”

“Okay”, Papyrus says softly, voice no longer shaking, just watching Sans.

Sans glows a bright blue, much brighter than his own magical signature, and even brighter than his blue jacket.

Before Papyrus can move the magic dulls down, and only the inside of Sans’ mouth is left glowing.

Gaster slams the door open just in time to catch the miraculous sight.

His first reaction is to defend against he large intensity of the magic, but he immediately feels the underlying intent behind it. It’s healing magic, and it’s coming from Sans.

Gaster only gets to see a glimpse of the smallest skeleton’s missing teeth when the magic blinds both his and Papyrus’ sights. Once it calms down, it concentrates along the mandible and maxilla, and pushes out Sans’ remaining teeth ‘cause all of them to fall into the floor.

Papyrus lets out a horrified scream.

Gaster runs in their direction. Tripping over some furniture on his way.

Everything happens too fast. Even as Sans’ entire dental anatomy falls apart, a new one is pushed out in its place. It pierces through the bone, undoubtedly an uncomfortable experience, seeing as Sans’ most probably unconscious body shudders and quivers in response, and sets itself into place as a perfectly new set.

Papyrus audibly gasps.

Gaster rushes over to his younger brothers and crouches down to where Papyrus is sitting on the floor, supporting Sans’ head against his ribs.

Lingering traces of tears remain below Papyrus’ eye sockets. Gaster pulls him and Sans into his arms, and lifts them into the couch. Then grabs a hold of Sans’ face and inspects it.

The other is out like a light. Body completely limp, and definitely would have been sprawled all over the ground without Papyrus’ support. His mesial maxilla is scarred and so is the left distal corner. His teeth are oddly sharp, like shark teeth, and no longer deciduous in nature.

“Is he okay now?”

The shaky question makes him turn his focus away from Sans and onto Papyrus. He sighs.

“Yeah. I think he’s okay now”, he heaves a sigh with his own relief.

Papyrus smiles back at him widely but his eye lights are still shaken and their corners grieving.

He pulls him into a hug, consequently pulling Sans who is in Papyrus’ arms in as well.

There are so many teeth in the carpet. There’s a few across the room.

He gives up. Tomorrow’s Gaster can deal with the details.

Chapter Text

The sight before his eye sockets was anti-climatic, in a good way.

A brick red colored ceiling, interrupted by random equations written in a shade of dark yet darker purple.

Sans patted down. Soft. Cushiony. A large bed.

Gaster’s room.

Of course it was a familiar sight. He’d spend more time staring at this ceiling than any other ceiling since he got here.

It was good at least that it was not a haunting white.

The comfort of belonging tightened his chest. Since when was waking up in a familiar place a good thing?

He took deep breaths as he tried to recall what it meant for him to be here.

Click.

The sound of the door clicking open took him out of his chaotic mind.Right. He was with Papyrus watching something on the TV, waiting for Gaster so they could have dinner there together.

He felt the soft material underneath him sink. Someone sat on the bed, pulling it down with their weight. The bed never did that under his weight. But it used to, when he was Red and not this- this other Sans. Cold phalanges caressed his face, tracing his forehead down to his cheek bones.

“Sans?”, a soft monotone voice called his attention.

Sans turned his head. Gaster. He doesn’t answer, but the other seemed to expect as much.

“I”, the older skeleton begins, his eye lights sharp and focused on Sans’ own, “I am glad that you are okay now”.

Sans grips the hand on his face, sighing lightly to encourage the continuation, as his mind settles down.

“You have been hiding a lot of things.”, Gaster says, it’s not a question.

He laughs in response, and Gaster’s gaze turns more stern.

“I heard from a little bird about your snacks”, his older brother exposes him.

Papyrus must have been frightened. He would have never broken his promise otherwise. Naturally Sans won’t blame him for this. He merely looks at Gaster in silence.

“We will talk about this later”, the older skeleton says.

“Just like how we’ll talk about the things ya’ve been hidin’?”, Sans asks, his voice is rough, like when he first spoke in this body, when his magic wasn’t used to the strain and the sounds yet.

Gaster paused. No, it would be more accurate to say he froze.

“It was safe.”, Sans defended, “The rocks weren’ da problem. They were helpin’ with a problem.”

Gaster stared and listened. Sans could hear Gaster’s breathing, feel the exhale and the inhale through his imperfect hands. He gripped onto them tighter. Like G’s or Epic’s but slightly wider, longer. He thought all their imperfections were what made them perfect.

He exhaled and inhaled in his own right, before continuing, “I don’t know where it came from. But there was another magical signature. Something with the wrong intent mixed in.”, Sans looked up at Gaster and held his eye contact.

“Yes. It wasn’t just the intent of a few rocks. A badly timed combination I’m guessing”, Gaster finally spoke, “Your magic has been settling down but a spike recovery met with the foreign intent. The rocks mixed in weren’t the ones you usually choose. Something from hotland, maybe. With tight bonds. It was polished by magic. The intent was mild but it was intent to carve nonetheless. Luckily your magic came through. Your healing is very potent.”

Sans took steady breaths as he listened. “Why didn’t you take me to the healers?”, he asked.

“I knew it would be no use. We don’t have medicine here, Sans. I think you already know that. There are healers. But that’s it. That’s all there is. Only healers. There are no Doctors. The scientists, the professionals who had been great contesters to the medical field are all gone. They were gone with many of our people in the war.”

Sans widened his eyes. He didn’t expect a serious answer. He didn’t expect a answer at all. He was merely thoughtlessly asking. Sometimes it was worth it just asking, even if you never got a response. Gaster had never talked about the war that happened in this AU before. Sans had surmised he must have been a part of it, to some extent. He ended up learning about it mostly from books, and from the tid bits he would hear other monsters speak of. Never from Gaster.

“I’m okay now”, Sans said, patting the other’s hand. Reassuring. He didn’t know if it was entirely for Gaster’s sake.

“We will talk. We will talk eventually. About everything.”, Gaster finally concluded, brushing his phalanges against the crease of Sans’ corner most alveolar process as he slid his hands down to hold his cheeks. Sans shook his head, finding the feeling strange, “For now. Go wash your face. Papyrus is making you some soup.”

“Soup, huh?”, Sans languidly gestured with his eyes, trying to soften the atmosphere.

“Yes, he learned it himself while you were out.”, Gaster said, going along with his diversion.

“Can’t wait”, he smirked.

“I feel the same way”, Gaster smiled back, removing his hand from Sans’ face and leaving the room.

He laid for a good 2 minutes before getting up and heading to the bathroom, where he was met with the most unexpected surprise of the day.

In front of the mirror, sharp teeth grinned back at him.

He stopped. Waved his hand to make sure it wasn’t a ghost, and tilted his head in different angles to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. But the teeth were still there.

Not blunt. Not unscarred.

Sans’ distal phalanges pressed digits against the glass of the mirror as he bent his body forward to get closer.

Sharp like a shark.

A smooth curved scratch ran through the bone holding his last 2 left molars. He had four molars on each side now. Since when were his teeth adult teeth? Another two deep scars etched in half crescent shapes blemished the upper alveolar process holding his top incisors.

He looked… he looked so much more like him.

A large fat ashy blue tear dropped from his eye sockets and cupped the curve of his sharp new teeth as they slid down his face.

“Hahaha”, he laughed. At what, he didn’t know.

He didn’t look like Classic anymore. Nor like Murder, Dust, Killer or any of his blunt toothed former friends.

He looked like himself now.

His body arched over the sink as hot tears poured down his eye sockets.

What a relief. He wouldn’t see them while looking in the mirror anymore. He was free now.

He wouldn’t see them anymore…

The tears hit against the porcelain sink bowl with a clear sound against the otherwise silent backdrop.

He turned on the sink, and their blue disappeared with the sight of their smiles.

Sans wanted to eat Grillby’s, but he supposed Papyrus’ soup would do for a nice alternative to that for now.

Chapter Text

Papyrus had never panicked so hard in his life until he saw the deep rich red color spill all over his brother.

Color meant that he was still alive, but the speed in which it spilled outside of Sans’ body, where it had no business being, meant that alive might be temporary. He was forever thankful that Wings was within a call away, and immediately aided in his blind hysteria that devolved more and more into horror as the red slipped through his fingers.

When the older arrived, he ended up telling Wings about the secret he promised to keep for Sans, but he knew his brother would forgive him, and that made him feel shamelessly reassured.

Everything gradually became okay when Wings arrived. After he understood what was happening thanks to Papyrus’ explanation, he seemed to know what to do. For the most part.

Papyrus had watched intently as his oldest brother grasped his two hands together tightly and slid his teeth together with an awful sound, as a miracle devolved in front of the two.

For what could it be, short of a miracle? He had watched with his own two eyes as Sans’ grayed blue magic brightened more than ever, deepening and merging with a greenish hue. The green brought a change, a wonder.

Before his very eye sockets, the steady stream of red congealed, and stopped sliding away from its rightful place. He watched the green mend and form a perfect set of teeth. Sharp, clear, strong. Whiter and healthier it shined, than any other part of Sans’ being. When the light subsided he saw the figure of that set of perfected and flawless teeth settled into Sans’ face.

They looked immaculate. Their pristine condition would have made him think they were a accomplishment, had he not watched the gruel process of their coming into being. Traces of the horror lingered in Sans’ face. Deep etched scars by their cavity, making him frown at the thought that they might hurt his older brother.

Despite everything, they looked correct. Like they were meant to be in Sans’ person. It was funny, they looked terrifying with their undoubtable edge, yet his mind told him they suited Sans’ personal roughness.

However, they also made him look so different. Not a bad different. But different enough to separate Sans from him, and that made him feel some sort of way.

He was worried that they may hurt Sans, that they may feel uncomfortable, or numb, or something worse. Sans had felt worse than uncomfortable or numb. Not that he would ever tell Papyrus. Not that he needed to tell Papyrus for him to know.

He wondered if Sans would also feel the way he did, a grief that it made Sans look less like he was related to Papyrus. Papyrus felt it might be selfish to think that way. His thoughts quarreled, hoping to share the sentiment with Sans, and at the same time hoping that Sans wouldn’t feel the same distress as him.

Would Sans be lonely? Would he be lonely if he realized that he didn’t look much like his brothers as he did before?

Papyrus didn’t know.

But he wasn’t the type to linger too long on something without doing anything about it.

This might not be something he could resolve now, but at least he could start elsewhere.

He left Wings’ room, only glancing back to watch the smooth rise and fall of Sans’ ribs, signaling the smooth cycle of his magic running through his body.

He headed toward the kitchen. Wings’ followed him. He seemed to have followed since he left, Papyrus hadn’t noticed until he stopped and looked around the kitchen.

“Wings”, he called hesitantly.

“Hm?”, Wings responded.

“Do you think he would be very hungry when he wakes up?”, he asked, his voice unusually low.

“Maybe”, Wings humored.

“Something easy to digest would be best, no?”, he asked again, more to himself than Wings.

“Yeah”, Wings indulged.

Papyrus smiled in soft triumph.

Soft and easy to digest was good for a sick patient. Although this time, for once Sans wasn’t actually sick. Papyrus figured it was still best to be careful anyways.

He heard somewhere. No, Sans read to him sometime. That soup was very good for the sick. Very easy to make. Very convenient. An excellent cuisine to take up. One he hadn’t really taken up before. He often learned the things that Sans taught him. Lots of pasta, because Sans knew he liked them. Some sweets, because Sans knew he would be happy. Some meat, because Sans knew he loved to see his brothers eat what he made by his own hands, specially something he could watch them cut apart and indulge in the taste. He’d never cooked soup before. The smooth formless thing that it was.

Papyrus firmly decided it was the challenge to uptake next. He bunched up his sleeves and slid them upwards out of the way of his hands. Turning to Wings, his gaze sparkled with a trace far too similar to DETERMINATION.

His oldest brother was already prepared. Their bond something too deep to always require words. The large punctured hands handed him a sizable book. He slid them off of them into his own much smaller ones. One day his hands would be even bigger than Wings’, he thought to himself as he placed the cooking book in the counter and began to turn the pages.

The required recipe appeared within the first five turns of pages.

He placed the tip of a phalanx below the first line of text, helping guide his vision.

He read slowly, still not an expert at reading like his older brothers. Wings stood behind him, filling the gaps on any words he couldn’t recognize. After reading the recipe fully once, he turned to his oldest brother and nodded with the formality of a commander. His older brother easily understood, and trudged back into the room to watch their unconscious sibling.

Papyrus turned his attention back to the book and started to collect the ingredients and tools needed.

It was unfortunate that they wouldn’t be able to see Grillby today, he imagined Sans’ disappointment as he stirred the spoon, resolved in making it good enough to stave off Sans’ desire for Grillby’s culinary delights.

He would love to learn from Grillby one day. He wondered if the fire monster would be willing to ever indulge him in it one day.

Chapter Text

He watched the fake darkness descend the fake sky.

He sighed knowing the disappointment of all present in their unfortunate absence from the cosy warmth of his best friend’s new pub.

He watched as Sans gobbled down the soup that Papyrus made, as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

He saw Papyrus’ smile widen with a guilty satisfaction from where the youngest stood to the side.

Then he watched Sans walk back into his room. Listened to the growing silence as the other presumedly went to sleep. He wasn’t entirely certain of course, he hadn’t followed the short skeleton inside, but the muted magic that would usually otherwise be discharged like a faulty leak whenever after one of Sans’ spikes was a telltale.

The silence was unusual, what with Papyrus still standing by his side. The young skeleton had his eye lights on the closed door Sans disappeared behind, just like himself before he had turned his attention to Papyrus.

“Do you think he’ll be lonely?”

The question was too sudden. He jumped, startled, failing to reply.

“It’s lonely when you’re the only one who’s different.”

He settled in listening. He likes listening to them talk. Listening to their thoughts and their opinions. The satisfying feeling of being allowed to peek into their psyche.

“They suit him.”

He subconsciously nodded.

“Sharp and honed. Barbed, like him.”

Papyrus had been learning a lot of new words. It was his favorite thing to add these terms into his vocabulary as soon as he became confident with them. Papyrus was always confident.

“Will he be sad?”

The question echoed like the previous with no response.

“Even though he looks more genuine now. Will he be tearful when he realizes it makes him look less like us?”

He paused. Intending to answer this time. Not with words, but with actions.

He smiled at Papyrus, wanting the other to know that he had listened to every thought he expressed.

The younger’s eye lights widened, evidently not prepared for the grin that was his response. However, Papyrus was nothing if not productive, he quickly returned it, beaming back in a way that put the sun to shame.

Chapter Text

A few days had passed since the incident.

He walked on eggshells around his brothers for a while, they had chilled out only recently. He also came to some both unfortunate and fortunate realizations, per usual.

His magic was evolving. Maybe maturing is the correct term in this case.

Sometimes he forgot that he was still growing. All over again. Like doing it once wasn’t enough.

At first he wasn’t conscious of it. Had he become rusty? Sans had always been very conscious of his own magic, having had it active almost at all times. He tended to be even more conscious than most other Sanses. In his previous life, anyways.

The magic he had in his body now was different than what he had before. Not just because he was apparently a classic variant now. His magic felt like how humans feel about their breathing. Muted? In the back of his mind? It was hard to describe. But well, not overly purposeful, a passive thing. Humans didn’t track their own breathing, weren’t aware of the circulation of their own blood. But he had been. Monsters didn’t need to breathe, not in the traditional sense of it, and they didn’t have blood, not really. Monsters were all magic. Every single part of them. From the outside to the inside. It was much easier, much more common, normal, really, for monsters to be aware of the flow of magic ‘breath’ and ‘blood’ that coursed through their bodies.

The truth was, monsters could always tell if something was wrong with them. They went to healers and doctors not to know if something was wrong but what was wrong. Check ups were a thing in certain AUs, only because everyone was self-sacrificial, suicidal, or emotionally stunted. Not that he can fucking talk. Of course some didn’t go at all either way, even if they were not optional in certain places. Knowing something was wrong didn’t mean one would necessarily do something about it, after all.

That’s why it was strange. Strange that he didn’t realize his own unbalance as clearly as he should have.

It wasn’t because he was younger now. No. He had somehow become out of touch. Been out of touch since he awoke here until- well now.

He shuddered at the thought that he had spend the last years in a human-like ignorance.

However, this latest incident helped him reconnect. He confirmed the problem. He had failed to recognize the magic as his own. Even while training it and going as far as learning healing. He had operated under the mentality of training this body’s (this Sans’) magic. Someone in denial of their own soul could not be properly connected to it.

Then why was it so much easier now? Perhaps it was because he looked more like himself? So it was easier to be cognizant of himself. His new self.

Had he been running away without realizing? Boss and the boys would often tell him he did that. Hypocritical and irritating as they often sounded. They were all well-intentioned, despite everything.

Now he recognized that his magic was out of proportion. Haphazardly so. Having deep magical reserves was the norm, for a Sans. But Sanses were made to have deep magical reserves. Sometimes depending on their physique they may in turn be corporeally vulnerable, but magic was nature.

The magic of a monster was usually made for the monster, it was the monster to a certain extent, naturally the same applied to their body which the magic inhabited and partially formed. A monster’s body was made as a vessel for the monster’s magic and soul.

That’s why when the body and the magic were mismatched, it was considered an illness. What kind of illness it was depended on the kind of inharmony happening.

Great, like it wasn’t already obvious that this trashy new body of his was even trashier than his previous one. Now he had some pretty concrete proof that it was unfixable trash. Sure he knew that it was likely what was happening since quite some time. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he was chronically ill, he wasn’t stupid, there were many hints. But knowing and seeing were different. He himself had experienced it obviously. But symptoms were symptoms, and many different things could cause pretty much the same symptoms. It was just that before even while knowing, he had some rein of rebuttal. Now, regaining the link between his magic, soul and his mind there was no logical argument to the reality.

He wondered how many times he would have to go through these endless loops of realization, denial and grudgeful acceptance. He was already getting tired and he wasn’t even out of stripes yet.

Speaking of stripes, Papyrus recently told him of a new trend going around. As monster society made a place in the underground, now that they weren’t interrupted by conflicts, war or its aftermath, not only did their technology and science slowly make progress but their culture did as well. Monsters had began to dress their children in stripes. A communal arrangement to prioritize the well being of monster children, who were the hope of monsterkind. That’s right, he was witnessing the creation of “stripes” in monster culture.

Something was definitely strange here. Stripes were something that existed far before he had been born in UF00. Even before the Great War. He was damn sure this was the case for at least Classic and Swap as well. Though he wasn’t 100% clear on historical trends in the others’ timelines. This timeline only got more and more confusing by the day.

Great, now he had to go back to wearing stripes. Wonderful. He already caught Gaster on the phone talking to Grillby about going out shopping with them, and he was pretty sure they were suppose to be getting stripped clothing for him and Papyrus on this occasion. God fucking damn it. He hated stripes. Like he didn’t already look like a fucking runt.

On slightly better news. While his magic was really fucking wacky and kinda unstable, it was gradually approaching something close enough to stability by the day. He was annoyed at the magic overflow, now that he was conscious of it happening. Such a fucking waste of magic. Unfortunately his shitty body couldn’t retain all of it inside yet. He was like cup where water kept spilling out because it was too full. He guessed it would be something similar to his other problems. They would, at the very least, become more ignorable as time went on.

Now on actually better fucking news. His beautiful teeth were back, not only aesthetically. Hehehe, that’s right he found out that they not only look like his teeth but the also have same capabilities too. Eheh heh heh. Back in Rootverse, most Original AUs’ residents had at least one feature, for lack of a better word, that was so unique and distinct from their alternate selves’, that the multiverse didn’t ‘allow’ (as Ink put it) any other version to have the same exact trait. His were his teeth. Rootverse wasn’t without its many sharp toothed alternate bitches. However, his marvelous teeth, that’s right, he is bragging, they’re awesome. There were few few things about himself he had pride in. Specially things that were part of himself. His teeth though, were undoubtedly a masterpiece. They were more durable than a chromium knife. In fact, he could bite and break a chromium knife to pieces! Heheheh. A memory flashed across his mind: Killer’s twisted face of stupefaction holding a edge of anguish when he destroyed the other’s new knife in one occasion, after the little shit dared to point it at his face, in the perfect height too mind you, for shits and giggles, when he was in a bad mood.

He can’t believe this kind of luck showered on him! Getting them back to their potential was crazy. Ridiculous. Incredible. Now he didn’t even have to be careful about what kind of rock, what kind of anything he picked up and chucked into his mouth. Yay!

Okay this was getting weird. He’s usually not this excitable, yet he continued to bounce with a uncharacteristic energy. Besides for something so fortunate to happen to him, he was probably bound to a lot of unfortunate things in the future. He stopped bouncing. Having his teeth back was great though. Heh.

Sans widely smiled to himself without noticing.

Papyrus and Gaster looked over at him with wide eye sockets. At this Sans tilted his head in confusion, dropping his smile. The two other skeletons looked away immediately, mild disappointment in their expressions. It merely left Sans more confused.

He shook his head, deciding to leave them be for now.

Anyways, he hadn’t been snacking lately because his brothers were hyperaware of his every move these last few days. But he figured they were probably good now right? He was getting antsy without anything to keep his mouth occupied. Papyrus kept slapping his hand (gently, it was actually more annoying because of how unoffensive the force behind it was,) when he tried to bite his distal phalanges.

He looked up. Gaster had gone elsewhere likely to do some paper work. That should give him some time. Taking this chance, Sans scooted closer to Papyrus, the one already used to his snacking habits.

Sans wasn’t ashamed to guilt trip his loved ones. He never claimed to be perfect. Everyone was kinda fucked up anyways. So expecting any of his surroundings to be entirely ‘safe' was ridiculous really. Besides, after the Boss grew up, specially during the period right after the other shed his stripes and learned to act like even more of a jackass, if he didn’t guilt trip the kid occasionally he wouldn’t be able to do shit.

He pressed against his current younger brother. The affectionate type of guilt tripping. He wouldn’t have dared to do it to Boss back when all they knew was Underfell, but there was something to learn even from their “soft wimpy”—he still can’t believe they called the others that back then— alternates. Puff and Blue in particular were experts at the art of guilt tripping with their cuteness. Sans wasn’t cute but his dumbass friends and family were weak against him for some unexplainable reason. So, it usually worked. Specially if they hadn’t build up any resistance to it yet. Doing it rarely and far in between helped abate any resistance and keep them susceptible to it, Sans thought cockily to himself.

Papyrus visibly hesitated, faltering and debating. It took a bit but he eventually fell. Sans would have to tone it down on him. Can’t have him think its usual and build up immunity or something.

Sans grinned as he grabbed a box filled with discarded silverware. At the lab they had been recently scavenging some metal in the dumps or some shit like that. The silverware were unusable as silverware and also not suitable for their intended scavenged purpose, whatever it was. So Gaster had disinfected them and brought them home, for Sans and Papyrus to play with. He often did that with any grade material that didn’t have a function in the projects anymore. There wasn’t any problem if he ate them.

He sat next to Papyrus. Knowing the other would be less twitchy if he watched him while he ate. Eating it behind his back would have an averse reaction, even if he had hidden it from the start. Papyrus was disturbingly sharp, sometimes it creeped him out. Puff always had been better than Boss at reading his emotional patterns, though unfortunately Boss had his tone and inflection down better than anyone else.

That’s what Gaster walked into. His younger siblings laying against each other comfortably against the sofa. Of course, if it was just that it would have been cute. That is if Sans hadn’t been biting down on a metal spoon! WTF? He took a deep dramatic and completely unnecessary breath of panic, and clutched his sweater over where his soul laid behind his ribcage, looking a little faint from being too far away to stop whatever the fuck this was.

Unlike the expected result, the sturdy metal, didn’t just bend against Sans’ sharp new incisors, it fucking snapped. The metal snapped like a cookie. Sans was chewing on the spoon like it was a cookie. He didn’t even stop there, he picked up a fucking fork, from what he could see was a container full of high quality damaged cutlery he had brought home to entertain his brothers, as they weren’t fit for anything else he had originally planned for them, but were still high grade resources. He briefly met Papyrus’s gaze with a look of betrayal before he fell over, still clutching onto his cardigan.

He faintly heard his brothers calling his name before everything went dark.

Chapter Text

Admittedly Gaster may have overreacted a bit, but he had throughly been shocked beyond what his stressed soul could handle.

Papyrus fussed over him for hours, and Sans watched in seemingly disinterest, but the look in his eye sockets kept Gaster in place when Papyrus scolded him and prohibited him from working.

It was fair to say that Gaster’s self-preservation was only slightly higher than Sans’. The shorter skeleton would be offended if he heard that, quite frankly. It was also fair to point out that Gaster’s tendency to keep busy was almost as bad as Papyrus’.

Whenever one spoke of the skeletons, no whenever one spoke of any family, it was natural to imply that if they have similarities, these common points originate from the oldest and go down in a linear path. Was that really the case though? Sans was bad at taking care of himself because Gaster provided that example, right? Papyrus didn’t know how to pick up social cues because Gaster didn’t really know how to either, right?

They say that a child is similar to their parent, not that a parent is similar to their child. But is that always the truth?

Have you ever considered that the egg might have come before the chicken?

Children are easily influenced, easily impressionable, they say. But it is not as if adults aren’t suggestible.

There are plenty of examples in history that show just how persuadable adults can be even after they’ve long matured. Humans lead by their nose, even after the full development of their frontal cortex. Monsters long having shed their youth and yet still naive, still so trusting.

Sans and Papyrus had as much influence on Gaster as he did to the two, if not more.

At least his younger brothers were smart. They knew he wasn’t the example they should follow. They knew not to learn from him. They knew better. But did he? Nobody had even taught him to know better. Not really.

To be honest he hadn’t taught his brothers to know better either. That was totally on them. They learned by themselves. He was proud of them. Very proud.

Gaster was always watching. Always absorbing.

Gaster was a bit like Sans in that they both avoided the things they didn’t want to deal with. Gaster was a bit like Papyrus in that they held a subtle pride for being akin to their brothers.

Gaster was inspired by his younger brothers, for better or for worse.

Sometimes it was hard to tell who really came first.

Papyrus was at school and Sans was sleeping in Papyrus’ room. He needs to get a bed for Sans’ room later, or at least a mattress. Sans keeps shuffling away from the top. It would be cute if it was because Sans didn’t want to stop sleeping with his brothers. But he knew that wasn’t it…

The house was peaceful, lacking any loud other than Gaster himself. Sans didn’t make a sound when he slept, unless he was very tired. The shorter skeleton tended to not even breathe when he slept. It wasn’t too concerning, because monsters don’t need to breath. It was concerning because breathing was a form of magical circulation. It helped to steady the flow of magic through the body (of a monster), like the flow of blood in a human body, and frankly Sans needed that help.

Gaster stood in front of the mirror in his bathroom. The same one Sans stood in front of a few days ago.

The area was well lit. He’d sterilized the entire room. Maybe this wasn’t the best location for what he was about to do. Eh. It wasn’t as if he could do it elsewhere. The lab was actually probably a worse idea than here, if one really took everything into account.

His hands were coated with medical gloves that he always had in his disposal due to the nature of his job. He sat on a stool that put him at just the right height to face both the mirror and catch the appropriate lighting.

He shuffled forward to quadrate his face within the mirror’s surface. Sliding his distal phalange on the porcelain sink as he maintained the position, his finger met with the cold surface of a series of diamond-coated needle files. Tools he was familiar with. He’d commissioned all the instruments in the lab that he hadn’t made himself and personally disinfected them. These were one set of many.

He’d rarely ever used any tools on himself. Fortunately, he plausibly knew what he was doing.

An empty purple cup and a black cup filled with drinking water were set to the side on top of the sink. A small white paper bag containing some powder laid by the cups.

Popping his jaw open to separate his mandible and maxilla, Gaster stuck his free hand between the two parts of his jaw, and positioned to support them away from each other in a stable distance, propping against the sink in a balanced position.

He eyed and mentally outlined the areas to be filed. Any individual with more common sense or any lesser genius than Gaster (both not mutually exclusive from each other), would have actually used something to mark it for precision. But he’d always been a little hazardous about delicate details like this. It wasn’t his thing, nor his area.

He held the larger of the needle files in his gloved hand, handling the instrument with familiarity as he carried it up to the height of his mouth. He angled the diamond-coated needle against his first canine’s surface. Moving in gentle, controlled, back and forth strokes he slowly sharpened the tooth below his hand. He could taste the rubber of the gloves against his retracted tongue with every practiced movement.

Periodically checking the symmetry in the mirror he continued the progress with consistent motions. He repeated four times until all his canines took the desired shape, before switching to a finer-grit needle file and working back on his teeth to smooth out any edges and unevenness.

He doesn’t even know how long it took, having phased out as he worked. His teeth felt rough. He restrained himself from licking them with his tongue.

Gaster took the empty purple cup he had set down on the sink and rinsed his mouth with lukewarm water from the sink. A soothing feeling immediately washed over the hypothetical insides of his mouth and the surface of his teeth. Easing the initial irritation and discomfort caused by the filing. They felt sleeker, but the sensitive numbness remained.

He dumped the small bag of powder into the other cup of water and consumed it as a form of cheap fluoride treatment.

Within a few minutes of the end of the procedure, a dull ache developed, stinging him with a unfamiliar chill to his dental cavity. His teeth felt increasingly smooth.

He reflexively licked over them, unable to stop himself this time. Beneath his tongue he felt the smooth result from the fine polishing he did to his teeth and the new sharp and angular edges. The edges felt raw and a brief burst of unwelcome warmth expanded over where his tongue ran. He frowned at the feeling, scowling to himself.

Definitely not his smartest idea.

He grimaced at the mirror and sharpened canines grimaced back at him. He lined over his still blunt teeth with the tips of his phalanges, avoiding the sensitive teeth. He was not dissatisfied with the results.

Don’t come at him, he’s not a dentist.

Chapter Text

Sometime during the late afternoon, Papyrus returned home.

By then a few hours had passed since Gaster’s ‘procedure’, and Sans was still sleeping in Papyrus’ room.

As time passed the sensivity of Gaster’s newly polished teeth lowered, and finally minimized, setting into their new places in his dental cavity. The teeth felt sharp and adapted to the new form.

As was usual for most days as soon as Papyrus entered the house he shouted a loud “I’m back”, and went to search for the other residents of the house.

Wings happened to be in the living room so he immediately finds the taller skeleton.

“Wings! Have the two of you been good?”, the youngest skeleton teased as he jumped on the other for a hug as soon as his older brother came into sight.

Wings caught him promptly, already used to the other’s eccentricities. “Papyrus? We’ve been good of course.”, he responded, “How was school?”

“It was okay. The magic classes have started, but for now they’re just uh, what do you call it? Theorem? Theory classes!”, Papyrus answered, before finally raising his sight up to look at Wings properly.

“I-”, Papyrus’ eyesockets widened. But Wings merely grinned back hesitantly. He wasn’t entirely sure how Papyrus would react. It was good to tell Papyrus before Sans though. He had the hunch Sans would take it worse.

“They’re sharp!”, Papyrus exclaimed excitedly.

Wings’ took a sigh of relief, “Yep.”

Papyrus put his hands on Wings’ shoulder’s and shook the skeleton, “They’re so edgy!!”

“They sure are”, Wings smiled more softly.

“I love them!!!”

“That’s good.” Wow, this was going better than Gaster expected.

“They’re not all edgy like Sans though”, Papyrus added, pondering.

“Yes well I-”, before Gaster could elaborate on that subject Papyrus interrupted him again.

“I ALSO WANT TO DO IT! I want to have really sharp edgy teeth like you two!”, Papyrus screamed.

Of course, things can never be that easy. Gaster should have predicted this.

“No!”, Gaster held onto Papyrus’ own shoulders and said in a hurry.

Papyrus blinked a few times, confused at Wings' reaction.

“I”, Wings immediately scrambled for words, “What I mean is that you can’t yet. Because you’re too young. The risks are higher. You still have your baby teeth. Besides I have both sharp and flat teeth, right? So you don’t need it.”

The silly older skeleton bared his teeth and pointed at them to emphasize his point.

Papyrus made a face of being unconvinced. He suspected Wings might be making shit up. I mean, making things up. He just couldn’t tell how much and what was made up. Hahhhhh, if only he was as smart as his brothers he definitely would be able to tell what was wrong with this excuse.

“When you’re older”, Wings continued, grabbing Papyrus’ attention once again. “If you still adamant on it… well, we can talk about it then.”

Wings was silly of course he wanted to match them. But since Wings is a very smart science man, Papyrus supposed he should at least listen to the other’s concerns.

“Okay. When I’m older”, Papyrus accepts.

He turns to Gaster and locks eye lights with him. The older skeleton understands immediately once Papyrus’ hand lifts up. He follows along, looking into Papyrus’ eyes and nodding an unspoken agreement.

Both of their little phalanges curl up as they’re hands approach one another’s.

The flow of the gesture is smooth. They’re fingers stretch forward, hook against each other and grip tightly around one another. They tug their pinky together, and see the vow reflected in each other’s gaze.

However, murky or bright their eye sockets appear, doesn’t matter, because now they’re bonded by a promise, a commitment, and they both know there are consequences were it to be broken.

Gaster silently prays to himself, hoping that his youngest brother won’t ever seriously consider it, after he’s grown up and understands the possible repercussions of his wishes. Gaster also didn’t like to break promises. So the only way for this promise not to be broken is if Papyrus never wants it to be fulfilled, never needs it to be fulfilled.

Chapter Text

A lot of things have been happening as of late. That’s what Sans thought at least. It’s nice to have a little break.

He stretched out and plopped off of Papyrus’ bed. How long had it been since he actually slept without being disturbed by something?

He yawns loudly, despite having just awakened. Not really bothering to cover his mouth, as is polite. But when has he been polite? Politeness is born out of necessity. He would never be polite to himself. It’s merely a tool of political use. It served for little except to give the person receiving the gesture the false impression that they were somehow respected.

Sans didn’t feel politeness was something expected from the people he truly respected. There was a fine line between politeness and courtesy. Of the two politeness was almost always fake. That’s how Sans saw it at least.

He courteously patted down the bed sheets and shifted the bedding back into place neatly, knowing Papyrus would appreciate it.

Then he finally walked out, heading towards the kitchen where he would likely find Papyrus.

As expected the younger skeleton was there, making some food. The boy was very smart, and shaping up to be a great cook. Sans was frankly relieved he was so enthused about taking over cooking duty.

What surprised him though was that Gaster was standing next to Papyrus and helping around the kitchen. The older skeleton was a lost cause in terms of being the cook but he was a sufficient helper at least.

“La la la”, Papyrus hummed a familiar tune.

“Paps? Whatchu makin’?”, Sans asked.

“Oh, Sans”, Papyrus exclaimed in surprise, turning back to him, “Did you have a nice nap, sleepybones? I am making The Great Papyrus’ Special Spaghetti!”

“Nice”, Sans grins.

Just as he was about to continue to conversation and pull Gaster into it, Gaster turned around. It made Sans pause.

“What’s that?”, the short skeleton asked, confusion seeping into his tone.

“WHAT?”, Papyrus questioned, a bit too loudly, but in a normal Papyrus volume range.

Sans idly brushed aside any meaningless observations and asked again, this time pointing at Gaster. To be precise at Gaster’s mouth.

“What the fuck is that?”

“Now, brother. While we have long given up in correcting you”, Papyrus admitted before continuing, “You should still refrain from cursing so often”.

“That’s right, Sans”, Gaster entered in the conversation, visibly sweating.

“Don’t change the subject”, Sans stared blankly at his brothers.

“What is ‘is?”, he gestured vaguely towards Gaster, “Yer sayin’ tha’ now I’m hallucina’ing or sumthing?”

Papyrus reflexively backed up at the expression Sans threw at Gaster.

“Or did ya become a vampire or sumthin’?”, Sans inquired, deepening eye contact with his older brother.

Gaster also back up with a nervous smile.

“Or yer a werewolf?”, Sans’ sharp smile widened oddly, “What natural causes have mysteriously sharped your canines perfectly evenly in last than 24 hours?”

Gaster and Papyrus took another step back but the kitchen counter was there, they gripped each others hands like two cannon fodder in their last moments inside a horror movie.

Naturally, all these questions were pointless, because Sans knew the answer. Perhaps he’s really softened out lately, even giving excuses for Gaster.

“Well you know, it was a perfectly safe cosmetic procedure.”, Gaster attempts.

“Oh was it?”, Sans rhetorically asked. Too bad Gaster didn’t know how to read the room when he actually needed it.

“Yes?”, in Gaster’s defense, his response sounded more like a question than a statement. 

Sans took a deep breath. His phalanges wiggling with restraint. “Where did you do it?”

“The bathroom?”, was the answer.

Sans was plainly unhappy with this answer.

“Do you know how wrong that could have gone?”

The long lost desire to strangle a dumb family member surged inside of Sans.

“I uh—”, Gaster was immediately silenced by Sans’ glare.

Sans turned to Papyrus with his blank stare. Papyrus jumped at the sight.

“Did you encourage this?”, Sans asked, his tone turning less vacant and slipping towards that more sarcastic crass tone that was his default. However, Sans always tended to speak more tenderly towards Papyrus and Gaster in this life, so it did nothing to lower their guard, instead it probably raised it.

Papyrus immediately shook his head, hurriedly pushing aside the blame and shoving Gaster under the bus.

Gaster couldn’t even get mad, he’s afraid he would have done the same if he was in Papyrus’ shoes. Gaster still felt a bit bitter though. He gripped his chest dramatically and looked at Papyrus with a sad face.

Papyrus shrugged at him.

Sans saw every one of those small gesticulations.

When Gaster turned his attention back forwards, he noticed Sans eye lights on him again. The former gripped Papyrus’ shoulder for emotional support.

“Genius idea huh?”, nothing ever sounded like a compliment when Sans spoke in that rough yet careless manner of his.

Sans pointed to the ground. Gaster sat on his knees immediately. He was no new player to this, and wasn’t willing to risk his life for silly things like dignity.

Gaster was barely shorter than Sans while on his knees like this. For a moment Sans looked even angrier. He took an audible breath, reigning in his darker instincts.

At this moment, darling sweet Papyrus decided to intervene, “But Sans, he’s also a professional. He didn’t mean to worry you. Shouldn’t you leave it at that?”

“Oh you have something to say, do you now?”, Sans doubted, “Tell me about how he’s a professional then. I didn’t know he was specialized in teeth nor anatomical modification. But you. You did, didn’t you? He must have told you all about it, huh? You got an in depth academic crash course as his accomplice?”

To be honest Papyrus wasn’t entirely sure what all those words meant, but he immediately diverted, joining Gaster on his knees to stand at a lower altitude than Sans, “No no. I didn’t know anything until after he did it. I was at school! He did it while I was at school. Neither this idea nor decision has anything to do with me. It was all him. He’s the genius.”

It wasn’t his fault he had a sense of self preservation. Barely. This time the youngest skeleton at least had the decency to look guilty when he locked eye sockets with Gaster after throwing the latter under the bus for the second time today.

Sans wasn’t over yet though.

Gaster and Papyrus silently swore not to tell him about their promise, regardless of what ends up coming out of it.

Chapter Text

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When he opened his eye sockets a faded room greeted him. Lacking color, personality or substance. The occasional silver of machines did not make the place look any more alive.

It was familiar.

Like home.

Looking down he saw his feet. Bare, small, child-like. The tips of his toes with a natural sharpness to it. Nothing out of the ordinary… Right?

Slightly upwards were his pants. Then a red shirt covered by a haphazardly patched up lab coat.

He glanced at his hands. A little bigger. A little sharper. A little bristle-r. Like they hadn’t seen nutrition in days.

His joints shined with a dull blue, a shade more purple than usual.

He stood there without moving.

"" (Sans)

He jumped in surprise. Quickly turning his head in the direction of the harsh sound.

Gaster stood there. With his off-white lab coat and his deep red turtleneck. The crack along his eye sockets ran off course instead of following the smooth lines he’d grown familiar with. Teeth bared sharply. Eye lights dark, devoid of warmth. Expression blurry even after blinking multiple times to get rid of the fogginess in his vision.

“Dr. Gaster”, he spoke faster than he thought.

“  ” (Come here, Sans.)

He grunted and walked towards the older skeleton.

Settling familiarly on the stool next to the other, he was handed a tool, which he took as a matter of course and place away, returning with another which he handed to the skeleton.

Without notice they fell into a easy and familiar routine.

He didn’t need to think, he performed like second nature. Fading out the sounds of Wing Dings. Long forgotten background noise.

“” (Soon.)

He glanced back at the tall skeleton, but still couldn’t make out his face entirely, only pieced parts of it came through.

" " (We’ll finally have better.)

“ ” (You may go get your brother now.)

He pushed off the stool, bowed half-assedly towards Dr. Gaster, who didn’t seem to care, and went to find Papyrus.

“If only things really had become better.” He spoke under his breath, low enough that no one heard. Out of place enough, that the world shook.

He walked not for long enough but found himself in front of a home. His home. Dr. Gaster’s home to be precise. It was red, much like everything else in this block. There was no snow in the entrance. Because this was not snowdin.

He pulled out a key he didn’t know he had, yet somehow knew he had. The lock twisted open slowly and the door unhinged unusually quietly.

Papyrus stood stiffly in front of him when the door fully opened. Clearly surprised.

The younger skeleton had been standing there. He’d been standing for who knows how long.

“SANS. YOU TRASH. You’re finally here”, the young, rough voice was too immature to properly hide its hesitation. A pang of unfamiliar sentiment surged through his soul.

The slim skeleton fidgeted with his hands. Overly sharp claws scrapping against one another.

He didn’t speak, instead he just walked forward and grabbed the brat’s hands separating them.

The younger immediately bristled like a cat in defense, yet he merely stared sharply. The other eventually settled down. Looking away like a child caught with his hand inside the cookie jar.

Papyrus’ hands in his were still smaller. Uneven scratches littered the tips of his phalanges.

Papyrus’ finger tips had been dull when he was a child.

He squeezed the smaller hands into his.

Papyrus faintly squeaked.

Chapter Text

It had been delayed quite a bit by now, but it was finally the day Sans, his brothers, and Grillby would go out together for some shopping.

The fake sun of the underground had barely “risen” when Sans got dragged out of bed by his younger brother, Papyrus.

Gaster was still out so he would arrive at the house with Grillby and they would leave then.

With Papyrus’ insistence Sans quickly changed and ate some breakfast with his younger brother before they both sat down in the couch to wait for Gaster and Grillby.

Thank the stars Papyrus had become quite a responsible little skeleton and a good cook. To be frank, Sans didn’t want to have to take that role ever again. Though he would undoubtedly do it anyways if necessary.

While waiting, Sans thought back to the things he knew about the upcoming trip.

Things progressed quite fast here.

By the day, more and more monster children were seen in stripes.

The timeline of this place was messed up. But in fact, it’s not too unusual. A multiverse consists of numerous possibilities. Even if the core structure of the multiverse’s alternative universes follow a template. The more variables you change in a template, the further from the original thing it looks. The number of changes is sometimes more important than the extent of one change.

Theoretically a multiverse should ideally be made up of all possibilities. Though that’s really a stretch. Since multiverses also have their own limits. Timeline inconsistency was one of the most common things you find once you dive into the depths of any multiverse. Not to mention that this is a different multiverse.

Of course the only proof Sans has that this was a different multiverse to begin with, are his memories of Rootverse’s destruction. He was there until the end.

Timeline changes within a multiverse can’t happen after it’s destruction. Because there’s no anchor for a timeline to play in any longer. That’s the theory that they concluded in Rootverse anyways. There’s always a chance that there could be disparity in such theory, at least in other multiverses.

There was once a hypothesis that the multiverse itself may have a reset feature just like a lot of the alternative universes do. However, those with higher access to the foundation of the multiverse helped prove that hypothesis wrong in the context of Rootverse. That’s why when everything started to fall into destruction, they all knew it was the true end…

That amongst other reasons is why he’s more inclined to believe a timeline or multiverse change occurred rather than anything like time travel. In fact the concept of time travel is just an unpolished version of timeline jumping. A much more unstable, unpolished version of it.

Some will occasionally refer to resets, loading, and saving, which most key humans within Undertale template timelines have, as time manipulation. But to be accurate it’s timeline manipulation.

They reasonably proved that time manipulation was a much more dangerous concept to mess around with. Timelines can shrink and expand, because they are written within a frame. Everything is connected. But in time manipulation, the structure of the timeline is not what is used to travel through it, instead rips are formed. Unfillable holes within the timelines. It essentially cuts through timelines in order to insert one self in them instead of navigating through them.

In a multiverse where timeline traveling is a central variable, timeline manipulation doesn’t do that much harm, because all it does is create more timelines. That in itself can be a bad thing, but as long as you control the expansion and the time space it occupies it can be good thing as well. Time manipulation on the other hand, touches strings of time without taking the structured timeline into consideration, misplacing the sections of the timeline.

Sans leans into Papyrus’ shoulder as a rest. Thinking anymore deeply on this matter won’t be any good. What’s the point of thinking about the dangers of incorrect timeline manipulation? He should have thought about it before all of them died.

Back to this present multiverse at hand.

The underground was constantly under construction these days. As monsterkind’s social and technical development evolved, civilization in the underground grew more orderly and larger by the day. A newly established “shopping complex”, for lack of a better word, had been constructed in the free space of new home. Hoping to gather movement from all over the underground, and serve as a common area for monsters of all parts of Home.

The shopping complex, of course was nothing like the ones in modern surfaces, with those fancy large multiple stories high buildings. No, it was much more communal. Everyone pretty much knew everyone around. It was hard not to with their population dwindled in comparison to prior to the war.

The shopping complex in new home was semi connected to all the other roads in the underground, allowing easy excess no matter where you came from. In fact rather than a downtown it was more of an easy access street. The charm of it was that while there were only a few shops actually within what could be described as New Home territory, by taking a single turn or another you could reach the shops in other parts of the underground, like Hotland and Waterfall. It was a commercial center connected to other commercial centers.

It was highly likely that he would be forced to go along on a annoyingly unnecessarily detailed shopping voyage.

At least he only had to deal with one Papyrus, and no stylish Sanses.

He could survive this. Probably.

As if his thoughts were a trigger, the door opened to reveal Gaster and Grillby. Both dressed for the occasion and clearly here to pick them up.

Papyrus immediately got up, holding Sans’ hand and rushing out of the house.

Hah. He was already tired.

Chapter Text

Sans walked down to the New Home Main Plaza alongside his brothers and Grillby.

To his left Papyrus held his hand as he skipped, making silly sing song noises, “nye nyeh nyehhhh~”. While to his right Gaster stood, talking to Grillby who was in the older skeleton’s own right side.

“We should go get some clothing shopping done first”, Gaster said.

“The two of you have eaten breakfast, right?”, he turned to Sans and Papyrus asking.

“Yes! I made my special breakfast spaghetti for us!”, Papyrus answered, and Sans nodded along.

It was good that Papyrus’ special breakfast spaghetti wasn’t like Puff’s. In fact it wasn’t spaghetti at all. It was pancake mix rolled thinly to resemble spaghetti pasta. Papyrus had a lot of creativity when it came to puzzles and pasta related things.

“Great! Then we’ll get some shopping done, and afterwards we can eat out for lunch”, Gaster responded, “Would that work with you Grillby?”

Grillby nodded in agreement.

So they headed down to the closest and largest clothing store. Sans could feel the day getting longer as he approached it.

Predictably, they spend several hours in the store. A large part of the time was Gaster and Papyrus arguing over each other and trying to chose clothing for all four of them. Sans and Grillby didn’t even need to speak up.

Anyways all Sans was hoping for was some non-blue clothing. He was willing to indulge his brothers some.

“What do you think of this? It’s a nice soft blue! It will definitely match Sans”, Gaster held up a silk pastel blue sweater. Papyrus smiled widely, clearly happy with Gaster’s choice finally.

But Sans was very much not. His eye sockets visibly widened and his eye lights shrank as he propelled forward to interrupt them.

“No”, his voice echoed in a deeper tone than usual as he placed his hands on Gaster’s arms holding up the sweater, and pushed them down.

Gaster and Papyrus were startled by the sudden action.

“I think I should try another color. Something not blue. How about black instead? Or red?”, he suggested without pause.

“Oh, that’s fine I suppose. But blue looks so nice on you brother. It matches your magic.”, Papyrus commented.

Sans looked down at the faded blue shining dully against his joints.

“Isn’t it a bit too bright though? My magic is definitely not that bright.”, he retorted.

“The warmth makes you look very comfy and amiable though”, Papyrus responded back.

“Why would I want to look amiable?”, Sans reflexively asked, “I mean we should choose something more low key. It will suit me better. You’ll see. Don’t you always say to try something new?!”

“Oh uh. I suppose you make a good point brother. Very well. Let’s try something else.”, Papyrus was convinced.

Gaster and Grillby who had been watching the exchange nearby broke their eye contact with the scene and went back to what they were doing before. Gaster followed Papyrus to look for some alternative clothing and Grillby stepped closer to stand by Sans while watching over the taller skeletons.

“Did you get your stripes yet?”, Grillby suddenly asked Sans.

“Huh? Oh the stripped clothing trend they’ve been doing recently for the monster children?”, Sans asked.

“Yes. It seems in a few months they will make it required for all non-adult monsters to wear striped clothing.”, Grillby said.

“Isn’t it kinda late to be doing this kind of thing?”, the short skeleton asked back. He really didn’t want to go back to wearing stripes.

“I guess you could put it that way. But there’s not much to be done.”, Grillby responded.

“Hmm. Well I’m sure they’ll chose some for me.”, Sans gestured towards Gaster and Papyrus who were busying themselves looking through hangers of clothing. “You do know if you don’t say anything, they’ll also chose clothing for you, right?”, for some reason Sans decided to keep making idle talk with Grillby.

“Yes”, Grillby responded affirmatively, “Gaster has done it a lot. Even before you two were born.”

“So there is no saving them?”, Sans jokingly asked.

“It is unlikely so”, Grillby humorously responded.

When they looked up from their conversation, Gaster and Papyrus were speed walking towards them, clearly holding clothing in their hands that were meant for them, since they were totally not Gaster and Papyrus’ styles.

Sans sighed quietly, “Here we go”.

“Brother!” “Grillby.”

The two skeletons yelled at the same time.

Sans scratched his skull and responded, “Yeah?”

“I’ve got the perfect thing for you, Sans!”, Papyrus rushed to his side with his hands full.

Meanwhile Gaster also did the same towards Grillby.

“Look brother! There weren’t any black and red stripes so I got this. This shade of blue is okay right?”

Papyrus held up a kid’s sized stripped sweater with dark blue and red stripes.

“Yeah this looks… nice, Paps”, Sans decided to just agree, it would be too much trouble to fight it again. At least it wasn’t the usual shade of blue most of them wore.

“Great! I’m also going to get a matching one for me”, Papyrus shoved the sweater in his hands at Sans and started running off, “Remember to check if the size is correct, brother.”

“Okay”, Sans shouted back, holding the stripped sweater in his hands.

He watched Papyrus disappear behind another clothing hanger and changed his line of sight to Gaster and Grillby.

Gaster was holding up a magenta red waistcoat, and passionately attempting to convince Grillby to wear it.

Sans shuddered at the color. Way too close to G man’s own preferred shade. He immediately walked forward to prevent having to live with having flashbacks running through his mind every time he saw Grillby wearing that stupid thing in the future.

“Isn’t this a little too flameboyant? Where would Grillby even wear it?”, he inserted himself, even making a pun that went unnoticed by either adult.

Grillby glanced at him before glancing back at Gaster and nodding to show agreement towards the comment.

“Oh…”, Gaster deflated, “but you could always wear it for special occasions!?”

“What special occasion is there for him to wear something like that in the underground? You should stop shoving things at him just because you want to see him wearing it, b- br- brother”, Sans gritted out the last word.

Gaster’s eye lights sparkled and his grin widened. Of course he wouldn’t have missed that. It did get him to give up more easily though, so there was that.

He quickly looked back at Grillby and saw the agreement in the fire monster’s eyes, so he decided to take away the gaudily colored waistcoat that was disliked by his picky family and friend.

Still he moved closer to Sans. “So do you wanna help me chose?”, Gaster mercifully not commenting on Sans’ use of ‘brother’, but his expression already said more than enough.

Sans sighed deeply and surrendered himself up to the curse of shopping.

Just in time Papyrus came running back, another stripped sweater in his hands. This one clearly bigger in size. Definitely for him.

Sans silently lamented that in this life he didn’t even get to properly experience the few years of being taller than his younger brother, and was unlikely to be able to in the future.

Chapter Text

In the end while idling in the first store for a while, they only came out with one or two dark blue and red sweaters, some with dark blue and orange stripes instead, a few, mostly black, waistcoats, and some monotone turtle necks. For Sans, Papyrus, Grillby and Gaster respectively.

It wasn’t yet time for lunch so they proceeded to the next clothing store to continue shopping for more.

Sans dragged his feet as he walked to the next pit of hell known as a clothing store.

Seeing this, Gaster commented, “Don’t worry there isn’t much else to get for clothing. You wanted a new jacket, right? We’ll be done soon, lunch is approaching.”

Sans helplessly nodded.

The shop they entered next had more durable and functional clothing, and there were even accessories hanging around. The perfect place to get a new jacket, fortunately.

In the same fashion as the previous shop, Papyrus and Gaster rushed forward into the bundles and hangers of clothing, while Grillby and Sans hung back.

“I’m going to go pick out some new glasses. Would you like to come with me?”, Grillby asked the short skeleton.

“Sure”, Sans agreed. More easily than he usually would, surely. It was better than just waiting around for Papyrus and Gaster alone anyways. Who knew how long those two would take. As long as they didn’t get him anything weird he was also okay with going with their choices anyways.

Both him and Grillby walked over to the small glasses corner in the store.

The cabinet was mostly filled with sunglasses but there were also some eyeglasses hanging around in bouts at the edges of the display.

Grillby’s glasses were small and circular, or maybe oval was the right way to describe them. Well it doesn’t really matter. G man liked to wear sunglasses. They did have prescription though. Even though most monsters in Underfell 00 didn’t seem to realize that. If you cared enough it wasn’t hard to figure out that he had a bit of a vision impairment without them. The deal is that he didn’t really take them off.

Visual impairments were a big deal, and not at the same time. Underfell 00 was a cluster of contradictions and discrepancies. There were plenty enough monsters with some type of visual or physical impairment to make it the normal. Common place even. However at the same time it was undeniable that it could be a disadvantage.

“Do you want to recommend me some?”, Grillby’s voice cut through Sans’ thoughts.

It seems he’d been staring at the different eyeglasses and navigating his eye lights through them without realizing.

Sans looked up at Grillby and gave him one short and slow nod.

He pulled a rectangular-shaped light metal frame from the cabinet, before holding it up to Grillby.

“Thank you”, Grillby took it and checked the prescription of the glasses before taking his off and trying on the ones Sans picked for him.

He pushed the bridge against his nose to fix it in place on his face. Did Grillby have a nose? Sans noted he seemed to have a incline similar enough to one, but not quite one. Nevermind, that didn’t matter anyways. Glasses constructed by monsters could be used by any monster  sub species. It was probably magic or something, he didn’t know the details because why would he know the details of manufacturing glasses. But that’s how probably they stayed up in the face even without ears.

Grillby was looking at the small mirror in the counter by the eyeglasses/sunglasses cabinet.

“It’s very nice. Thank you, Sans.”, he expressed his gratitude and approval at Sans’ choice.

Sans nodded, still feeling strange about being thanked and complimented like that by someone with the same face as G man.

Honestly he thought he was gonna be the one doing the least choices in this trip. But it was clearly going to be Grillby.

Gaster went to the counter and paid for the glasses with the employee sitting there. As they returned to their spots to wait for Gaster and Papyrus, the two skeletons popped out of the rows of hangers and headed towards them with several clothes and accessories in their hands.

Sans and Grillby sighed in unison, blinked and looked at each other, sharing a light grin. Not that Sans would actually admit it happened.

“Bow ties are good too but you should try this one”, Gaster hadn’t properly stopped yet when he started to speak and shoved a black tie in Grillby’s hand.

Sans could see there were several other ties, broaches and accessories that could match Grillby’s usual fashion style in a low key manner. Gaster probably went all out with the accessory gathering.

“Look at this, Sans!”, meanwhile, Papyrus called for Sans’ attention,

“I got you this jacket. It’s very fluffy!”, the younger skeleton said as he shoved a black and red jacket with a fluffed hood at Sans.

Sans wobbled slightly as he clutched at the clothing garment suddenly shoved in his hands.

Papyrus stopped in front of him, clutching his fists around the other clothing occupying his arms, clearly eager to see Sans’ reaction.

Sans stretched the jacket up and away from his body so he could look at it properly.

It looked kinda similar to his old jacket back in UF00, but the hoodie was giving Cross vibes, albeit not a pure white like in Cross’ jacket. It was like a mild beige hood. The colors definitely matched his old outfit quite well, though imperfectly so. The only color missing from his previous palette now was probably yellow, but Sans thought it might be fine to forgo that one. He didn’t know if he wanted to be blue, black, red, AND yellow.

Anyways, the red didn’t match his old turtle neck, it was not as vivid, but rather a duller, brownish shade instead. The jacket sort of faded from a dark brick red to a regular brick red. But with a splash pattern instead of a smooth gradient. The pattern kinda reminded him of Ink, but considering the colors it might have been meant to be a blood splash instead. The dull colors kinda worked as an insincere attempt to censor it.

Where did Papyrus find something so edgy? Sans loved it.

“I like it. It’s perfect. Thanks, Paps.”, Sans told him.

“Heheheh”, Papyrus giggled sillily in response and rubbed the back of his skull like he was embarrassed by the praise. The movement made one of the clothes, that had been mostly supported by the hand he raised, to fall.

The four of them stared at the shorts that had fallen in the ground for a while, before Papyrus bend down and picked it up, then turned his eye lights elsewhere, pretending it hadn’t happened.

Chapter Text

After a few hours or something they were done with their clothes shopping. Sans didn’t know exactly he hadn’t counted it. Keeping track of time will only make everything move slower. He had learned that long ago.

They had brought quite a few pieces of clothing for each them, adding up to at least one bag for each. But they were pretty necessary things. Specially since Papyrus was growing, and so was Sans. Kinda anyways, his height didn’t show any signs of growing so far. But it probably would soon, probably.

After the first bout of shopping they had all grown hungry, so it was time to go eat.

They decided to head towards Hotland and continue their trip by heading back to Snowdin in the normal route.

To do that they passed through the Core, which had a build it passage that Gaster led them through. The passage allowed a smoother transition between New Home and Hotland without having to directly pass through the entirety of the large complex of the Core, but instead kind of ignore it.

This passage was awfully convenient. Though based on Gaster’s attitude, it probably wasn’t something just anyone could use. Sans wonder what happened to it in UF00. He guesses it probably never existed there. It certainly didn’t exist when he had to pass through it in order to complete his work as a judge and executioner. He wasn’t even sure if Classic’s place had it either. It might just be another one of those convenient things that exist in this AU and no other.

They used a different route to exit the Core from the usual. Normally one uses the MTT Resort, which is currently an empty lot, since it has a direct connection to it. There are a lot of good reasons to not use that route though, so Sans approves it.

Speaking of which Hotland in the current timeline of this AU is full of empty buildings and whatnot. Monsterkind hasn’t quite established all the buildings and places around yet. In the next few years, the place would likely undergo lots of new constructions and the empty buildings will be filled. 

After crossing the core they walked into Hotland, passing through several familiar places. They pretty much graze the True Laboratory. Sans notices Gaster looking and almost walking in direction of it before he and Papyrus pull him back in track. Damn occupational habit of this stupid tall skeleton. After a while, as they approached the half of Hotland closer to the Waterfall, passing through the previously mentioned empty lot. The location of what will become the MTT Resorts in the future. Sans always hated that fucking place. Primarily because of that stupid robot that kept popping up in it randomly. But Sans really can’t be faulted for disliking the bastard.

Anyways while there is always a chance that the plot design is entirely different from the normal. As long as the general layout of building and locations match the normal parameters and mapping of general Undertale underground construction and designing, there isn’t much doubt that the lot is connected to the core, even if it’s just an empty building right now. Maybe he can figure out if it is later. Preferably before MTT Resorts exists.

It’s good that Sans has been walking a lot for these past months or something. Otherwise he definitely would have gotten leg cramps, or just not have been able to make the whole trip without being carried. Thank the stars for getting dragged around by Papyrus, he guesses. So good things can come out of that shit huh. Not that he didn’t know that before…

Unlike Sans’ lingering thoughts, their feet proceed forward smoothly and they come across Muffet’s Bake Sale. The destination Gaster had obviously been aiming for.

“Muffet. Hello”, Gaster greets her in that half formal, half informal tone of his that says ‘I’m okay with this one, but we’re not particularly close’.

“Dr. Gaster.”, the spider monster greets back.

She turns her eyes towards the rest and continues greeting, “Grillby”.

Grillby nods back as a greeting.

“And you two must be Dr. Gaster’s little brothers?”, she finishes with that creepy signature smile of hers. It’s actually less unhinged than Sans is used to seeing in his Muffet’s face.

It’s the first time he’s met this Muffet.

“Hello!”, Papyrus waves frantically at her in greeting, while Sans grumbles and eventually just nods, deciding to follow Grillby.

“Wonderful seeing you four here.”, her eyes curve into half moons when she smiles, “What can I get you?”

Sans can’t believe Gaster came to the most expensive fucking place to get food in the underground just to have lunch. Sorry but the spider donuts are not worth it for him.

Well actually, maybe it’s less expensive than he’s thinking? This isn’t UF00 after all. Yes that would make complete sense. He decides to give his brother the benefit of the doubt.

Papyrus is draped over the table looking at the options, while Grillby is standing behind him, and Gaster is talking to Muffet about something Sans doesn’t care for enough to listen to.

He walks to Papyrus’ side and peeks at the table. Any hope he has for his brother’s half functioning brain hits the ground, because the tag says ‘9999G’. Sans’ hands twitch with the suppressed urge to strangle.

In the end they each get one Spider Donut and one Spider Cider.

Sans decides that in the future, preferably once he and Papyrus aren’t dependents of the older skeleton anymore, he hopes Gaster goes bankrupt and learns something.

They walk a little further just before entering Waterfall and sit down to eat.

On the other hand, at least it tastes pretty good.

Chapter Text

Once they were done eating they headed towards Waterfall.

They followed the long path down back to Snowdin as they walked across. While walking they were greeted by many monsters and did some piece shopping, leaving plans of delivery and more behind. Three skeletons and a fire monster were after all quite eye catching even in the underground.

Crossing into the threshold that led to the center of Waterfall, many houses soon came into view. In particular one of them had two very familiar figures.

“NGAAAAAHHHHHHHH”, an unmistakable war cry.

“HAHAHAH! Come on now! Where’s my little hero’s REAL war cry?”, a hearty voice accompanied.

“NGAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”, Undyne screamed even louder in response.

“AHAHHAHAHAHAH”, Gerson laughed along.

Sans shuddered at the sight of the two bloodthirsty fuckers… I mean monsters. Yikes. While Sans reflexively slid beside Papyrus’ half grown figure, successfully hiding himself, Undyne and Gerson had already noticed them.

Sans had forgotten that according to this timeline Undyne and Gerson lived together right now!? He wasn’t entirely sure what the entire story was but Gerson was Undyne’s guardian. He didn’t know if they were related in this AU or if Gerson adopted Undyne or something. It tended to vary a lot. In some AUs Undyne and Gerson hardly knew each other’s existence. The multiverse could get confusing fast.

“Oh! If it isn’t the skeleton brothers and Grillby”, Gerson exclaimed.

“What? Where?”, Undyne looked from side to side before spotting the four walking down the path, “Hey you punks! What are you doing here?”, she waved feverly at them.

“Ugh”. So fucking loud. Punks, are you serious? She’s already starting to become irksome so early. Sans scooted closer to Papyrus, thankful for once that he hadn’t grown to the size that could no longer be hidden behind his younger brother’s tall but scrawny figure.

Papyrus unconsciously gripped Sans’ hand that had rested against his arm as the other hid behind the younger skeleton, and shouted back, “Undyne!”, Papyrus waved at the two aquatic monsters just as fiercely.

“We’re returning from a family shopping trip!”, Papyrus quickly answered her question with enthusiasm.

Sans and Grillby froze, and unintentionally locked eyes (or the alternative of eyes they each have anyways) together. They immediately broke the eye contact as soon as they realized.

“That’s great!”, Undyne continued to wave as she shouted to speak with Papyrus. It was funny that the four had never stopped walking and Undyne and Papyrus just kept shouting at each other louder and louder as the distance increased. “I’m training with Gerson. Let’s do some training together later, okay?”, she shouted again.

“Okay!!!!”, Papyrus shouted one last time and the two friends waved nonstop until they couldn’t see each other anymore. 

Finally they were out of range. Thank the stars they didn’t fucking stop walking. This had already been torture. Sans couldn’t imagine if they actually stopped to talk to those two.

Soon they pass by another pair of familiar faces, if you can call it that.

“Hi”, a young Napstablook greets them raspily. Hapstablook quickly hides behind his cousin, almost mirroring the way Sans hid behind Papyrus when Undyne and Gerson came into view, but for very different reasons.

“Hello!”, Papyrus waves at the two ghosts cheerfully, ensuring he wave to Hapstablook as well.

“Eh!”, Hapstablook yelps in surprise and shyly returns the greeting, “Hi.” Then he goes back to hiding behind his cousin. Though frankly their both kinda of see through so you can still see Hapstablook is there. Mainly because unlike Napstablook’s clean white, Hapstablook has more of a colorful tint to him.

Papyrus smiles widely in response.

Gaster and Grillby wave at the ghost cousins and Sans gives a single wave of at Napstablook and proceeds.

He hates that damn glam bot. Even becomes really annoying in the future. He actually couldn’t believe that Classic’s mtt was even worse than his own when he first the damn glam bot. It’s petty sure but the damn ghost isn’t even paying attention staring after Papyrus like that, so he probably didn’t even notice Sans didn’t greet him.

Sans silently swears to teach this one a lesson if he approaches Papyrus.

After finishing the residential area, the path they walked down soon lead them to Temmie Village.

Oh great. Save me, Sans screamed inside. 

As predicted the area was practically infested with Temmies. If Sans had to note a difference from usual it was that most Temmies were children, and only a few adult Temmies could be spotted.

“Hi. I’m Bob. Come in”, a small Temmie greeted politely in a perfect English.

Papyrus waved and returned the greeting, “Hi!”.

Gaster, Grillby and even Sans waved at the Bob.

Honestly Bob was the only Temmie Sans could stand. He had to give the guy some credit. In UF00 he was a badass okay.

Many many Temmies greeted them as they walked down the the Village.

On the way a particularly enthusiastic Temmie tried to grab their attention.

“hOiiiii! I’M tEmmie!”, the baby Temmie greeted them.

“Nyeheh. Hello”, Papyrus greeted back and started to walk towards them.

“No Paps. No.”, Sans hurriedly stopped him from going closer and pushed him back in place for them to continue walking.

“Nyeh!”, Papyrus was startled by his actions, “Sans! That was very rude.”

“Greet with your mouth Paps. We gotta keep going, okay?”, Sans insisted and pulled him forward so they could continue. If Papyrus was gonna be friendly with a Temmie he should have been friendly with Bob instead.

The two younger skeletons could hear a faint familiar laugh from behind him.

“Pffff- hahah. My brothers are so cute. Right, Grillby?”, Gaster commented to his friend, in a low voice but loud enough for Sans and Papyrus to hear.

“Hahahah”, if the following laughter Gaster let out was anything to go by, Grillby must have nodded in agreement.

Sans and Papyrus decided to unanimously ignore the two dumb adults behind them.

They cross a stand with the words “Tem Shop” across it as they get closer to the exit of the Temmie village. Sans grabs a hold of Papyrus and walks before the younger skeleton can run off.

“Sans!”

“We’re not here to sell anything, Paps. We don’t need gold.”, Sans responded quickly and led him out of the village with Gaster and Grillby following behind.

“What?”, Papyrus questioned in confusion and he was pulled away and out of Temmie Village.

Sans speeds up a bit, it’s barely noticeable. They’ve been going at his pace for a while now, all the other three close the “gap” with ease when he changes the pace.

The Garbage Dump soon comes into sight. The place is pretty empty. Nothing that great falls down here yet either.

Sans spots a particularly empty spot and stares at it for a minute longer than necessary.

He remembers Gerson’s sets up a stand there once he retires.

He shakes it off and continues to pull Papyrus along.

Chapter Text

Once they crossed the Garbage Dump returning to Snowdin is pretty easy.

They soon come across the River Person’s ferry. All they need to do is take the boat to Snowdin. There’s only one problem. Grillby is made of fire. Everything underneath that ferry is very much water.

Sans isn’t the only one who notices Grillby instinctively step back when the water sloshes against the wooden boat.

The hooded figure stands there. Their hood floats solemnly. Quietly. As usual you can’t see what’s behind it. The River Person merely waits. They’re patient.

Gaster looks up at Grillby. His younger brothers follow the gesture.

Grillby looks at the water disconcerted but not enough enough to back out completely.

Gaster decides for him, and climbs into the boat. “Excuse me”, he tells the River Person who nods. Gaster pulls the boat closer to the shore so there’s no gap between the two. He keeps one hand there, and extends the other towards Grillby.

Grillby doesn’t hesitate for much longer before taking his hand and climbing into the ferry. Gaster sits are the very edge and Grillby sits next to him.

Sans plops onto the ferry and sits next to Grillby and finally Papyrus plops down hard enough to shake the boat and takes the other edge of the boat.

The skeletons press Grillby between them, and ask the River Person to take them to Waterfall.

“Tralala~”

The journey is peaceful. Gaster gets off first and pulls Grillby to the shore. Papyrus follows after intending to pull Sans up himself as well.

“Enjoy your peace while it lasts.”

Sans hears as he turns his back to the river. When he turns around, the river person is long gone.

“Sans?”, Papyrus calls him.

“I’m coming bro”, he presses forward.

They slowly begin to stroll down Snowdin.

The path of Snowdin is ever familiar. It’s impossible not to be.

It’s been a long day. It’s already time for another meal. Or snacks. Snacks will do.

Conveniently enough the Snowdin Shop pops right up just around the corner they happen to turn.

The sound of a wind chime bell rings as Gaster opens the door. A strange choice of bell to hang on their door. 

“Hello”, an unfamiliar white male bunny monster greets them at the reception, “What can I do for you?”

“Good night, sir”, Gaster greets the bunny monster.

Grillby’s fire makes a hissing sound.

Sans didn’t know he liked Cinnamon Bunnies.

How did Sans understand that? Don’t worry about it.

“Do you want to share a bisicle with me, Sans?”, Papyrus asks.

“Sure”, Sans agrees.

“I’ll take two cinnamon bunnies and a bisicle please”, Gaster orders.

“Alrighty. You got it, son”, the bunny monster says playfully, “Kid, can you go grab a bicicle for me?”

“Okay!”, they hear a young voice from behind them somewhere. When they look in its direction, they spot a purple bunny girl wearing stripes and sitting on a chair they hadn’t noticed when they came in. She rushes over to the freezer and pulls out a bisicle before running back to hand it over to Papyrus, “Here”.

“Thank you!”, Papyrus thanks her.

“No problem”, she smiles and returns to her little seat by the window. How did they not notice her there before?

“And here are your two cinnamon bunnies”, the white bunny puts two cinnamon bunnies in the counter for Gaster and Grillby to take.

Gaster counts the gold and hands it to the shopkeeper while Grillby holds their cinnamon bunnies.

After it’s paid for they wave goodbye and exit the shop.

A lot of greetings and goodbyes have been going on today. So tiring. Sans sighs.

Papyrus rips the popsicle plastic and pops it into two, handing the second prong to Sans.

The four continue walking down as they munch on their respective cinnamon bunny and unisicle.

It’s pretty light but fulfilling enough for a late night snack. It’s full of magic after all.

They all walked down to Grillby’s where the skeleton brother’s decide to drop off Grillby, as if he were the one needing to be dropped off.

Grillby bids them a goodbye and goodnight, and they continue heading down to their house.

Only the canine monster children are left running around at this time. Soon their parents and guardians come out and yell their names.

The streets empty as they reach the door of their house.

Gaster unlocks the door and jiggles the knob open.

“““Goodnight”””

The word echos thrice and the skeleton brothers separate to head to their own respective rooms and sleep.

It wasn’t a bad day.

Chapter Text

Shopping had made for a hectic day so once they arrive home they didn’t do much other than sleep. They didn’t even unpack their shopping bags yet. 

So the next morning the skeleton brothers sat together for breakfast and decided to unpack together afterwards. 

They moved in synch of each other. Gaster took the clothing out of the bags, Sans turned them inside out and Papyrus put them in the washer. 

As the underground began to have technological advancements aimed towards daily life, they approached “modern society” and everything became much easier to do. 

Gaster returned to his room, presumably to prepare for the day, and Papyrus was pouring some detergent into the washing machine and turning it on when a knock sounded from the door. 

“I’ll get it”, Sans said and opened the door, he was immediately faced with a iron clad chest. 

“Hey, shorty!”, a gruff voice teased. Sans looked up to see Gerson in his Royal Guard outfit. 

Sans couldn’t believe he only reached Gerson’s chest. In UF00 Gerson was known for being one of the shortest as well as most dangerous monsters to mess with. Of course, one of the shortest without counting the monster subspecies that are just generally very small, those guys had their own characteristics that made up for it. The point was Red was taller than Underfell Gerson, however slight the difference was. However, this Gerson was even shorter than UF00 Gerson, and Sans was still still shorter than him. 

He grunted out in response to the turtle, but the other merely laughed heartily. “Call yer brother will you? I got something for y’all.” 

Sans immediately ran over to get Gaster so he wouldn’t have to talk to this old man any longer. While turning around he noticed the bed frame Gerson had leaned against the wall of their home. Is he trying to ruin the paint? 

Sans trailed up the stairs and opened Gaster’s room. Inside Gaster was throwing on his coat. 

“Gerson is here. He’s got a bed frame. When did you get a bed frame for me?”, Sans informed him. 

“Hahah. Nothing ever gets past you, huh? It’s been a while now and we still don’t have a bed for you. So I thought it was about time, you know? You can continue sleeping with me and Papyrus obviously. We’re not ones to refuse such an opportunity, you know that.”, Gaster winked with a silly face, “Anyways it’s always good to have a bed either way. But it should only be the frame for now. I haven’t gotten you a mattress yet”, Gaster adjusted his sleeves as he turned to walk out of the room. 

“I don’t need it”, Sans said, “Rather why a frame first? And not the mattress?”

“I don’t know. I just thought I should get the frame first and put the mattress on top.”, Gaster reached the door, waiting for Sans to exit before he did do himself and closing the door behind him. 

Sans and Gaster walked alongside each other down the stairs. “How are you gonna put the bed frame in the house? It’s a full bed frame that he has leaning against our house. You’d have to break it apart first or something”, Sans commented. 

“Ah!”, Gaster rubbed his jaw bone, “You make a good point.” He looked at Sans, “Well we’ll figure something out.”

Sans sighed. Of course they will. 

Exiting the house, Gaster quickly greets and thanked Gerson, “Sir Gerson! Thank you for coming all this way.”

“It was no problem, Doctor.”, Gerson smiled widely, “You gonna need some help getting this inside?” 

Gaster glanced at the bed frame against their outside wall and the door, “I might need some, yes.”, he laughed awkwardly. 

Sans scoffed and walked back to the washer room, leaving the two older monsters behind. 

“Brother! Shall we watch some TV while we wait for the clothes to finish washing and drying?”, Papyrus immediately started talking as soon as he saw his older brother. 

“Sure, bro.”, Sans agreed even though he knew they wouldn’t find anything good on TV. 

The TV in the underground was a great development, the problem was the lack of content for it. When there weren’t any films to scavenge from the dump, they sometimes had to just watch some boring amateur skits by monsters who clearly didn’t know the first thing about entertainment. Dare he say it made him miss Mettaton sometimes. 

The two brothers sat down on the couch and turned on the TV. 

Papyrus was much more willing to sit down and watch TV with Sans than literally any other non-swap Papyrus Sans had ever seen. Maybe Puff was like this when he was younger. Or it might be because Papyrus thinks he’s a weakling. Yeah that sounds like the most likely probability. Considering it took him a full year or something to be able to actually walk around like a normal person. Sans leaned against Papyrus indigent. 

“Goodbye. Thank you for your help, sir”, Gaster bid farewell to Gerson in the background. Closing the door, but not locking it, Gaster patted his hands off the dust that had accumulated from lugging the bed frame in. Yes, somehow Gaster and Gerson were successful in bringing the bed frame in. Instead of leaning against the outside wall, it was now leaning against the inside wall. Sans twitched as he noticed the pristine paint get scrapped. 

Gaster disappeared into the house as he usually does before reappearing soon after and picking up his set of keys on the counter, and heading towards the door. Of course not without bidding his brothers goodbye, “Bye you two. Remember to eat well while I’m gone.”, he waved goodbye and exited.

“Bye”, Sans and Papyrus shouted after him. Honestly who was he talking to? He’s the one that forgets to ‘eat well’. Sans rolled his eye lights. 

A few hours later the new clothes were clean and dry. Ready to be put away and/or worn. 

Sans and Papyrus were to start wearing stripes as all the other monster children had began. In a few months, stripes would become required by the crown to be worn by all monster children and teens. Most children in the underground were already adhering by the new amendment. 

Papyrus and Sans folded the clothes to put away together and systematically placed them in their corresponding places, including Gaster’s clothes in his own room. The skeleton brothers were very familiar with each other’s rooms in any case. 

In fact back during his childhood in UF00 Sans was also familiar with Boss’ room, and it was only when Boss went through puberty or something that he was no longer allowed in without explicit permission. The little shit made him ask every time, and most of the time the answer would be no either way. Out of spite Sans also prohibited the other from entering his own room. Even though back then he really didn’t give a shit. Worked out well in the future when he began to accumulate his secrets not only internally but in his own private space as well. 

After putting away the clothes that weren’t going to be worn. Sans and Papyrus changed their own clothes. 

Papyrus had remained in his PJs until now, as had Sans, with the exact purpose of changing into their new clothes once they were clean. To be honest though what Papyrus’ was wearing could be called PJs but Sans was just wearing a normal classic ensemble (pun intended). Black shorts, oversized white t-shirt and that typical blue hoodie. Which he could finally, finally discard. Not that he was actually gonna throw it away or something. He would probably just like bury it in the depths of his closet. 

Papyrus changed into one of the dark blue and red stripped long sleeved t-shirts he had gotten to match Sans, a nice pair of brown denim pants, and some velcro boots. He thought that shoe ties wasted an extra few seconds of his daily routine and therefore didn’t like them. Sans rolled his eye lights fondly. 

On top Papyrus threw a light dress jacket and his dark red scarf, and matching red gloves. His old gloves were a shade lighter and didn’t match his scarf so he had taken the opportunity to get more closely matching ones in this shopping trip.  

He looked very nice. 

Papyrus was a meticulous kind of guy even as a kid so he took a while to get everything on, checking and fondling with his sleeves and other folds of his outfit to pat them down nicely. Sans had long changed into his own new outfit when the other was done. 

“Wowie”, Papyrus exclaimed, having turned to look at Sans once he was done, “You look great, brother”.

“Hmm. Thanks, Paps.”, Sans thanked him awkwardly. 

Sans himself had rid of his old clothes, prepared to leave them forgotten in the closet until further notice. He was currently wearing a stripped dark blue and red sweater, it’s neckline covering his cervical vertebrae fully, his shorts were the default sporty ones with a white line on each leg, while his shoes were now red and black. Funnily enough he’d also opted out for velcro shoes. He threw the hoodie Papyrus had picked out for him on top. The fluffy vanilla colored hood made the blue neckline of the sweater stand out against the red and black hoodie jacket. 

Sans quite liked his new outfit. Felt a little more like him. Not like Red The Underfell Sans, but the current him. He liked it. He liked it a lot. 

“Let’s go show Grillby”, he said to Papyrus, completely unwarranted. 

“Eh?”, Papyrus exclaimed in surprise. 

“Okay! Let’s go.”, the younger skeleton wisely didn’t say anything else. 

The two monster children exited the house, eagerly heading towards Grillby’s to show off their new outfits. 

Chapter Text

The path to Grillby’s is a most familiar to them at this point, even if Papyrus might not be willing to admit. It was funny how different yet similar things were.

They are greeted by lots of monsters in the way. This is a friendly place after all. Something like a small, friendly neighborhood. It was surreal for sure.

Being early morning, Grillby’s had just opened and less than half a dozen regulars were hanging around. The two immediately head towards the counter and sit right in front of Grillby. Sans future regular seat. 

Grillby peeked out from the drink he was making, spotting them at a glance.

He turned around and slid a portion of fries to the two. They could tell as soon as they took a bite, that they were specially made. With less oil than usual, just the way Papyrus likes it.

Sans could see the sparkles in Papyrus’ eye lights as he ate.

Grillby had been expecting them.

Sans tapped Papyrus in the shoulder reminding the other what they really came from.

The taller skeleton nodded at his older brother. Seeing that there were still pretty few customers, and Grillby wouldn’t be busy yet, the two jumped off the stools, planning to show off their outfits, but when they glanced at Grillby a second time they noticed something they hadn’t before. 

Grillby was also wearing a new outfit. It was so similar to the one he wore before they hadn’t noticed at first, but it was all in the details.

His whole outfit was made up of the things the skeleton brother’s chose for him the other day while shopping.

His glasses were now rectangular instead of oval, precisely the ones Sans picked out for him.

His waistcoat was lined with orange embroidery, the same color as his flames. He was also wearing a necktie instead of his usual bowtie. Gaster had picked out that waistcoat AND that necktie.

Even his pants had embroidery at the bottom hem. Papyrus had picked that out.

Most noticeably, due to how unusual an addition it was for his typical style, Grillby was wearing several accessories.

The sleeve garters he usually wore —the only accessory he normally had on aside from his glasses, were also different. They weren’t black leather. They were darker yet darker purple.

He was also wearing a watch in a similar, slightly more posh shade of purple. 

His black necktie had a red-orange tie clip on it.

While his dress shirt was decorated with foggy blue cufflinks.

Sans and Papyrus froze for a moment as their minds slowly connected things.

What a sap.

Meanwhile, customers started to trickle in. 

It was an inevitability, truly. Initially only the more attentive regulars noticed. But this place was a rumor mill, and what gossipy Snowdin monster doesn’t frequent Grillby’s? The news slowly circled the pub as the two skeletons ate their fries.

Grillby was wearing a new outfit. The monsters all suddenly knew.

The garter may work subtly with his outfit —specially in that dark shade, but a tie clip and cufflinks those colors do not. At least not in a man who never wears ‘jewelry’. Even the watch was little fancy for what most are used to seeing Grillby wearing.

“Aren’t you embarrassed of yourself?”

“Hmm?”, the fire monster hums back in a questioning tone, like he doesn’t know what Sans is talking about.

Chapter Text

Sans and Papyrus stay at Grillby’s to have lunch and then return home in the afternoon.

Sans still thinks the fire monster is shameless. But who knows Classic Timelines don’t typically have the same monster culture as Fell Timelines usually do. A lot of culture gap can actually exist between even AUs that are pretty much the same setting wise at first impression. 

There’s no reason to believe Grillby just staked a claim on them as family.

Yep. No way that was what happened.

The thought threatens to linger in his mind before it’s interrupted by Gaster’s return.

“Oh Asgore! The two of you look so adorable”, he immediately exclaims at the sight of them and goes for a hug. Sans evades but Papyrus grabs onto Gaster back and giggles at the oldest’s reaction.

“I must match as well”, Gaster separates from Papyrus and scurries into his room in a hurry, despite having barely arrived.

The reason he hadn’t changed into his new outfit first thing this morning, besides the fact that it wasn’t clean yet of course, was that he didn’t want to use it to work first thing. 

Despite how fast he moved to scurry away however, it took a while for him to come back down. He clearly washed up first and shoved away his work to wear his new clothes. 

His outfit was considerably monotonous, specially comparing to the other three. He was clad in grey from top to bottom. His pants were high waist, held up in place by suspenders. His top was another one of those turtlenecks he always wore. Or it might be one they bought yesterday. But it doesn’t really matter since they all look the fucking same. 

On top he had thrown his lab coat. Likely without realizing it even, out of habit maybe.

“What do you think? Is your older brother handsome?”, he flashed a pose for them.

“Very handsome!”, Papyrus indulged the dumb adult.

“Yeh sure”, Sans said, mainly because Papyrus and Gaster had turned to stare at him and he knew they weren’t gonna stop anytime soon if he didn’t agree or at least say something. Agreeing is the response that will bring the least annoying reaction, and well that’s saying something.

Gaster jumps in glee. Quite literally, like he’s a actual cartoon character or something. 

The taller skeleton approaches his two younger brothers, this time too fast for Sans to flee in time. He pulls them close, and takes out his smart phone.

They have smart phones here already?

“Check this out, it’s one of our newest creations. It combines a telephone, with a camera and several other things. Cool right?”, Gaster says, “Let’s take a photo”, he insists.

Sans tries to escape the very instant he hears photo coming out of the other’s mouth. Unfortunately he’s very unsuccessful.

Papyrus is already on board, and the little brat is a betrayer no matter the AU. So he helps Gaster hold Sans in place.

The photo gets printed out later. It looks very nice. But if you ever ask, Sans does not keep a copy in his desk drawer.

Chapter Text

Time ticked forward like the hand of the clock.

Times were peaceful. A peace Sans never experienced before. 

His routine had little disturbances, and even those occasional disturbances were light hearted.

Everyday he watched his brothers go to their respective work and school, he lazed around for as long as he could. Spending his spare time reading and practicing magic.

His physical development was slow. Slower than when he was Red. Which was ironic because Red was malnourished as a child and Sans currently wasn’t. Not only was his physical development slow but his magical development was also slow.

As an Underfell Sans one of his key characteristics was his single glowing red eye, because he always left his magic active at all times. He’d learned better than to let his guard down. However, now his magic wasn’t mature enough for to be able to use in this manner yet. He had to work harder to get there as fast as possible.

Regardless of how slow Sans was, time itself wouldn’t slow down for him, and as time passed things happened. They changed and moved. Soon enough he would have to bear the responsibilities he had somehow been miraculously avoiding since gaining this new life.

This was nothing short of a fact. A fact he was reminded of when Gaster sat down with him at night and asked him if once he was fully recovered he’d like to come work in the lab with him instead of attending school with Papyrus. Somehow Sans knew that was the better alternative for his future. Of course, full recovery would likely take years still, possibly decades, but once it happened he could no longer run away.

He knew there wasn’t anything the academy could teach him, even if it improved in level in the future. Sans didn’t want to return to the sterile walls of the laboratory, but he knew he eventually would have to. It seemed that no matter how much he ran from that place. He would eventually end up in it again at some point, in some way, however odd it ended up being. 

Gaster was also very unhelpful in pointing out that Sans could continue learning from books for now. As if that wasn’t already pretty much all Sans did with his life at this point. The older skeleton further praised Sans’ intellect, and usually the latter would be pretty smug about it, but he wasn’t in the mood. Gaster finished up by commenting that when Sans was older and more sturdy it would be great to work next to him in the lab. By that time Papyrus would be old enough not to need to be company at home as he does now. This would inevitably mean that the brothers would spend less time with each other. In a way Gaster wanted to at least share the time he could spend with Sans and Papyrus.

He would get Sans for work, Papyrus would get Sans at home, and they would all get each other for leisure. It was a naive, mundane way of thinking. But it was good enough for them.

Papyrus cheered on Sans once he heard about the discussion, stating that he would support any decisions the other made.

Sans already knew what decision he would take.

Chapter Text

Time always passes fast when you’re not keeping track of it.

It’d be around a decade or more now since Sans and Gaster discussed the former coming to work at the laboratory after recovery, and well Sans was as recovered as he was going to get.

In the last few years all residents of the underground went through their own bouts of growth. All in their own time.

Monsters noticeably aged in very different paces. For example, while Papyrus was already tall to the point Sans didn’t have any hope of catching up with him at any point in the future, the former’s aging had slowed down quite a bit. He was still a monster child, but Sans on the other hand was a teen monster already. In fact, after recovering his health, and being left only with few lingering issues that would likely never disappear, Sans’ growth and aging had sped up, in clear contrast to Papyrus’ own. It would be more appropriate to consider Sans to be in his late teens as far as monster physical maturity went.

However, some things never changed. In the early morning Papyrus came to wake Sans up as usual, and he had breakfast with Papyrus and Gaster.

Papyrus had greatly increased his repertory of culinary recipes in these years that passed. He cooked up beautiful sunny side up eggs and crunchy strips of bacon for each of them.

“Is delish bro. Never eaten a bacon bettah than dis”, Sans complimented. As time went own Sans began to lay back into his original accent. What was unintentional at first returned to becoming a habit.

“You are truly the greatest culinary genius, Papyrus”, Gaster added.

“Nyeheheh. Flattery will get you nowhere.”

Although Papyrus said that he placed an extra strip of bacon in each of their plates, clearly pleased by the flattery.

Sans and Gaster shared a snort and chuckle respectively.

They ate and chatted happily as they have been for over almost two decades now.

“What do you think about joining me in the laboratory tomorrow? I was thinking of you just getting familiar with the place and the monsters first. You’d start actually working sometime next week. How does that sound?”, Gaster chatted between bites of his last remaining strip of bacon.

“Sure”, Sans ripped a strip of bacon cleanly with his teeth as he agreed nonchalantly.

“Great!”, unexpectedly, or maybe not so much so, Papyrus was the one happy to hear his agreement, “I’ll be more busy with school now, and I would like to join a few clubs that are newly established in the academy. Now I can relax that Sans will be in good hands with Wing Dings’ colleagues.”

Sans scoffed. There he was again worrying about Sans who was clearly the older brother instead of himself. In fact, Sans knew he was interested in all those annoying extracurriculars and whatever, that only expanded in numbers every year, but refrained from joining because he didn’t feel comfortable leaving Sans at home alone everyday.

“What about me?”, Gaster’s gasped dramatically, “Why just my colleagues? He’s in good hands with me, right?”

Papyrus side eyed him. “I trust your colleagues can handle him because they can handle you. Older brother you can barely handle yourself. It’s quite bold to say you can handle Sans on your own without me.”

Papyrus had grown more sassy these days. Gaster liked to blame Sans for it. To be fair anyone could see where he was coming from. Sans didn’t feel offended, rather he was very proud.

“Oh okay”, Gaster dropped a fake tear.

Papyrus rolled his eye lights.

He needed to return it.

Sans grabbed the only set of keys remaining in the counter and headed out, walking towards the Librayr.

Sans merely smirked smugly in return, his pearly shark teeth sparkling at Gaster.

Gaster frowned, or more like pouted, at the action.

The breakfast table dissipated and the brothers separated, leaving to do their own things.

Gaster went to work and Papyrus to school.

Once the two left and Sans bid them farewell, he picked up a book he had left in the counter next to the TV, and turned it around.

He needed to return it. Sans grabbed the only set of keys remaining in the counter and headed out, walking towards the Librayr.

Pause. That’s right. That isn’t a typo you just read. For some odd unexplainable reason, the Snowdin Library, which in most timelines had a misspelled sign reading “LIBRARBY”, actually had a sign that read “LIBRAYR” in this timeline. 

Is it Sans fault? Maybe a little. He swears he was trying to stop the creation of another librarby, it wasn’t his fault the fish bitch who wrote the damn sign doesn’t know how to spell. Of course, he originally didn’t care that a sign may say “LIBRARBY”. It’s pretty standard, a charm point even, some might say. It’s just that Undyne was the one who who wrote the sign. Which was usual, and yeah maybe if he hadn’t said anything this would be one of the few timelines with a normal “LIBRARY”. But where is the fun in that?

Amongst things like his speech patterns, Sans also regained some of other general habits from when he was Red, including calling Undyne, fish bitch. Undyne had remained a good friend of Papyrus, and a acquaintance at best of Sans. Basically it was almost the same relationship Sans once had with Felldyne, but he somehow cared for this Undyne even less. Why? It was mainly because she was kinda of a hypocrite. Though I guess he should have expected that from a classic-esque Undyne.

For Papyrus’ sake he didn’t refer to her as fish bitch out loud, no. Instead he took to calling her something he’d heard Classic call his Undyne before, fish sticks. Oh boy was her reaction to being called that the first time hilarious. After a while the novelty wore off and she stopped caring so much about it, but she clearly still dislikes it. But hey, there was nothing big to it. They weren’t close, but they were close enough that Sans was allowed to tease. Specially when she drags Papyrus around as she pleases and made him cancel several plans with Sans before, just to hang out with her. Papyrus insisted that he could see Sans at any time and that he already spends less time with Undyne, so he had to prioritize her sometimes. Which is bullshit, because he sees her everyday. They’re classmates. Is Sans being petty? Maybe. Did he care? No. He was still pissed.

He didn’t specifically care that Papyrus spend time with her often, he just didn’t like that Papyrus was willing to cancel plans he had already previously made with Sans just to spend time with her. Reminded him of Boss’ second rebellious phase. That is his adolescence. Because Boss was born in his rebellious phase. So Sans considered puberty to be his second one. That brat had actively avoided him for several months once. Undyne had been his excuse every time. A grudge Sans never entirely let go of formed.

At least Papyrus wasn’t avoiding him. If he was he might have walked up to Undyne and given her a magic show like she always asks him to do.

By the time his tumultuous, petty thoughts settled down he had already arrived at the Librayr and was handing the book over to the green lizard librarian, who had opened the place officially as a library a few years ago.

Sans began to trudge back through the snow, deciding to stop somewhere first.

He’d already decided where he would eat lunch today, since both Papyrus and Gaster wouldn’t be home for it. He took a shortcut and arrived in the next second. 

Grillby’s.

The newly installed bell on the door rang to announce his arrival as he opened the door and trudged in, walking in a straight line to the counter seat facing Grillby.

He sat down and waved at the fire monster who was busy making someone’s drink.

Grillby’s fire crackled in response, and after he presented the drink to the random monster Sans could care less about, he walked towards Sans. 

“Ketchup?”

“And some of your pipping hot fries”, Sans winked.

Grillby nodded, not commenting further.

Yeah, he’d started consuming ketchup since a few years back. Originally he did everything he could to prevent that, because it gave him this weird anxiety that he was somehow turning into Classic, or one of the Classic adjacent boys. It freaked him out for a long time. Then you know, time passed, and they faded from his memory little. Not significantly. Never significantly. But he realized some things weren’t that important anymore. Specially things that would never come back. So yeah he started drinking ketchup like he used to drink mustard. He still couldn’t understand why his tastebuds didn’t like mustard though. Guess it’s like a physical preference and not a psychological one. Or something like that. Sans didn’t read up on this kind of area. 

In fact he kinda avoids topics on psycho-anything. Including therapy. Hah that’s a joke. There is no therapy here in the underground. Guess that’s why it always ends up fucked up. 

Grillby slides a big portion of fries that just came out of the fire and plops down a bottle of ketchup by his hand.

Sans makes a gesture of thank you, and picks up a bunch of fries with his hands before shoving them inside his mouth very ungracefully. They are just like he asked ‘pipping hot’, if the non-existent inside of his mouth were sensitive it would have burned. Smoke wafts out through the gaps of his bones, from the hot food. Fortunately for monster anatomy that extends to purely temporary magic, like a tongue in a skeleton monster, you could generally control whether to include your senses to it or not. 

Sans actually likes the feeling of the hot food against on his tongue and mouth cavity. It’s delicious, and it lets him know he’s alive. It’s just that Grillby is standing right there and facing him, and he’ll be able to tell, and frankly Sans doesn’t want a repeat of last time. He didn’t even know this Grillby could get angry. It was the first time he’d ever seen it.