Chapter Text
Dean wanted to hide in a snowbank as he approached the door of the skeletons’ house. His SOUL was flickering lighter than darker, over and over again as it imitated his fast heartbeat.
Yes, he agreed to go on a date with Papyrus, but now that it was happening, he couldn’t help but feel a little strange about it.
This couldn’t be any different than sleeping with a girl, right?
God, was Papyrus gonna expect something to happen?
The door swung open as he stomped back out.
“AH! HUMAN! I’M SO GLAD YOU COULD MAKE IT!”
“Heh… wouldn’t miss it…”
“WELL, I HAVE THE PERFECT PLACE FOR THIS ‘DATE’ TO HAPPEN! FOLLOW ME!”
Papyrus took off at a sprint down the snow, grabbing Dean by the hand as he hauled him back down towards the center of Snowdin. Then, without even stopping, he spun around again and started running backwards. Dean’s feet slipped away from the ground for the moment, but the rest of the monsters merely smiled.
It looked like this was something that happened pretty often, or they were just used to the skeleton’s antics.
“AND HERE WE ARE!”
They stopped right in front of the skeletons’ house, “WHAT BETTER PLACE THAN MY HOME!”
Papyrus trounced through the doorway, leaving Dean to stare awkwardly at the doorway as though it would swallow him whole.
He was still trying to figure out exactly what he was getting himself into. But the defeatist side of him just demonstrated that he had no other choice.
Their house was, for all intents in purposes, pretty standard.
Well, he thought that until he saw the mile-high sink or a sock with numerous sticky notes stuck all over it, or the strange, colorful lights that burst from underneath Sans’ door.
It suited them. The strangeness of this shared home reflected them like a mirror. Down to the ridiculous dog that scrambled all over the place on occasion.
Actually, did it leave through the door?
He took his time looking around. Papyrus was ecstatic as he watched Dean wander around their living room.
The first thing that caught Dean’s attention was a thick book to the side of the couch. The cover was detailed with numerous characters and what looked like physics equations. Now Dean never was a school guy. He didn’t really care for it when he knew how dangerous the world was outside those brick walls.
A desk was never meant for him anyway. He needed to get off his butt, walk around on his feet, but he did like a good book now and then, especially some with a (dare he say it) challenging puzzle.
He did chuckle a little when he opened it and saw the cover of a joke book.
Then he kept digging until his brain started to spin around how many layers could be dug into this book and he needed to drop it before his head blew up.
“This is a cool place,” Dean nodded.
“NOW IF ONLY I COULD GET SANS TO CLEAN UP AFTER HIM SELF! THAT LAZYBONES!”
Dean laughed generously.
Once he’d received the lay of the land, Papyrus led him into his bedroom, where Dean had to try very hard to ignore his childish glee. There was something so… innocent about Papyrus’ racecar bed and row upon row of action figures that struck a melancholic chord inside him. These were the thing’s he’d always wanted Sam to have when they were kids. These were the things that, at some level, he wanted.
“ONE DAY WHEN WE CAN RETURN TO THE SURFACE…” Papyrus muttered, “THEN I’LL DRIVE A CAR JUST LIKE THIS ONE!”
Dean smiled, “there’s nothing better than driving, trust me!”
“OH? YOU CAN DRIVE!? WOWEE, THAT’S AMAZING!”
“Well, y’know, I mean, I used to be a little bigger than this.”
Stupid smaller body.
“CAN HUMANS CHANGE THEIR SIZE?”
“Not normally,” Dean shrugged, “but, uh… this is kind of special circumstances.”
Papyrus gave a subtle nod as the pair took a seat on his race-themed bed, and for the rest of that time, they just… talked. Papyrus started discussing his frustrations with an online troll he kept running into (Dean had a sinking suspicion that another skeleton was involved), and they kind of just let things happen. Dean found himself laughing at the way the skeleton seemed to go all out. He tried following this book for a moment, some trash about dating, but Dean got him to ditch the thing for a little bit.
His SOUL hovered around the entire time, bouncing up and down in the air as if nothing would pull it down.
“WELL HUMAN, I SUPPOSE THAT IT IS BEST WE DID NOT FOLLOW THE DATING FORMAT BECAUSE I AM AFRAID THAT… I CANNOT RECIPROCATE THE INTENSE FEELINGS OF ATTRACTION YOU HAVE FOR ME!”
Dean rolled his eyes and hid a cheeky grin, “Then I guess it’s best for us to be friends.”
“THAT IS A GREAT IDEA!” Papyrus cheered, “HERE, PASS ME YOUR PHONE.”
Dean pulled the small dark brick from his pocket and handed it to the chipper, tall skeleton. In a flash the phone was open and his fingers were flying across the keys.
“HERE!”
He handed it back, “THAT WAY YOU CAN CALL ME WHENEVER YOU NEED HELP! SURELY A HUMAN COULD BENEFIT FROM MY BRILLIANT ADVICE ABOUT THE UNDERGROUND!”
“Actually, that would be a lot of help. Thanks, Papyrus.”
The skeleton’s trademark grin seemed to grow even larger as he walked Dean out back onto the porch and pointed in the other direction.
“IF YOU WANT TO DIVE DEEPER, HUMAN,” he announced, “THEN CONTINUE FORWARD ONTO WATERFALL. SANS HAS ANOTHER CHECKPOINT OVER THERE, THOUGH I DOUBT THAT LAZYBONES IS WORKING AT ALL!”
Dean nodded as his foot patted into the white snow, and with a final wave goodbye, he marched back towards where he fought Papyrus originally.
As he walked by, there was still large bones sticking out of the ground and other projectiles still stuck in the snow. The only change was a small, white dog that was gnawing on the side of the largest bone in the area. It shared a glance with Dean, and he stopped dead in his tracks.
The dog leapt away from the bone and bounded over to Dean for a single moment, then he started to circle around him over and over.
“Hey boy, what’s happening?” Dean asked. With his car miles away, dogs were not a worry for him.
The dog paused for a second as Dean’s SOUL bounded toward its nose, and the dog sniffed at it for a minute.
With one final nod, the dog bounded away, skipping behind the giant bone again. Dean followed after it for a second, but when he got there, it was gone.
Instead, stuck in the snow at his feet was a tape cassette, still in an old plastic case as Dean leaned down to pick it up.
It was his own tape, back from home. He furrowed his brow at its existence. And Kansas? How did it even get there? Especially left lying out in the snow. You had to treat good bands with respect.
He pushed the tape into his back pocket, and his eyes wandered back up to the ceiling above him, and the boundless darkness kept the world above feeling like it was light years away. He shook his head, and his hands clenched into tight fists.
He was getting back. No stupid barrier was going to stop him from getting back to his family.
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His march began and continued further and further away from Snowdin. The wintery cold started to filter away ever so slightly, and whatever artificial light existed started to fade around him. As he marched onward, all he could find was the calming smell of rainwater saturating the world, and two sounds mixing together in an unnatural harmony. The sound of endless, cascading water, and the quiet whispers of many voices. Yet as he came to what could only be described as the opening of a cave, all he could see was this one fish-like man standing next to a wall, and another sentry station not unlike the many he’d passed on his way to Snowdin.
“Hey!” A young voice shouted from behind him. Dean turned around just in time for a young monster kid with no arms bumped into Dean and fell backwards.
Dean opened his mouth to offer a response, but the monster was back on his feet before Dean could say anything.
“Sorry, I dunno if we talked in town, but I wanted to sneak away! You’ll never guess who’s coming here!” The monster kid’s tone was chipper and his disposition like sunshine in this desperate cave.
So Dean took the bait.
“Who’s coming?”
The monster kid rolled its eyes, “UNDYNE! Duhhh! She’s the Captain of the Royal Guard, and she’s sooooooo strong! I heard that she even fought a human once, and DESTROYED them! Man, Undyne is the coolest! I wish I could be like her…”
Dean blinked, “She killed a human once?”
The monster kid’s mannerisms matched a perplexed bird, “Well, yeah… She was defending the King! He’s such a pushover that he needs someone super tough like Undyne to protect him.”
Suddenly Dean felt his fists clenching. Was this monster just defending the king? Then he shouldn’t have to worry about defeating either of them. He was only trying to break through the barrier after all. But still… even the name Undyne was enough to send a shiver through his spine.
“Anyway,” the monster continued, “I’m gonna go ahead and see if I can see her. Ohhh that would be so cool!”
The kid scampered off before Dean could say anything, leaving him alone and stranded in a strange blue grass and flowing puddles of water.
He took a deep breath.
“hey kiddo,” a familiar voice wavered, “how’s it hanging?”
Dean looked up, and Sans was back at another sentry stand with the trademark smile stamped on his face.
“thanks for hanging out with my brother,” he chuckled, “man, was he looking forward to that.”