Chapter Text
Waking up the next morning, you felt surprisingly well rested. The sun hadn't come up yet, but you could still tell the sky was completely clear. You stay under the covers, enjoying the warmth and fearing the cold of leaving the bed. The feeling of not knowing if anyone else was awake made you uneasy as usual. One can never know with sleepovers.
Sounds from the kitchen confirmed that someone was indeed awake. At first it made you feel better, but then your brain decided to wonder if maybe it could be a burglar. Shaking away the silly thought, you dared to lift the covers.
The room wasn't actually as cold as you expected, which was a pleasant surprise. Still, you shivered a little as you waddled over to the window and looked outside. There was so much snow! The storm had really left its mark, or should you say, erased everything else from existence. The backyard and everything around it was draped in a glittering white.
A ray of sunshine hit your face as the sun started to rise above the mountain. You took it as a sign that the day had well begun and that you could step outside and greet it. Opening the door slowly, you poked your head out, looking and listening for either Papyrus or Sans.
The distinct sound of Papyrus voice humming a melody-less tune floated towards you. You tip-toe quietly to the bathroom and pull your pants on before heading down the stairs. The gentle pitter-patter of your bare feet against the steps made you feel at home. Something about this place just felt so welcoming and non-judgmental.
Peeking into the kitchen, you spot Papyrus making some sort of batter. He sees you as well.
"Oho! Our guest has awoken! Did you sleep well?"
"I did indeed," you nodded back at him, smiling. "What are you making?" you move further inside the kitchen to look.
"I'm making pancakes! I'll assure you, spaghetti might be my main culinary attraction, but The Great Papyrus surely knows how to create many other dishes as well!"
You're wondering if maybe you goofed up by not being a bit more honest yesterday about Pap's cooking. Then again, one can't go wrong with pancakes! Or...?
Papyrus, who was now getting the frying pan ready, interrupted your thoughts: "Could you go wake Sans up? If he's not awoken, he'll sleep till way past noon! I don't understand how he does it!"
"How long have you been up then?" you wonder, considering it's still pretty early, even for you.
"About six hours!"
Some quick math and you figured he'd only slept for about two hours. You decide to not question it too much as you head back upstairs, Papyrus seemed to work in strange ways after all.
Standing outside Sans' door, you're now given the chance to wonder what it would look like, just like you didn't get to with Papyrus' room. You hesitate and look at the door. Papyrus' was covered it stickers and signs, but Sans' was completely blank. It didn't give you anything. You open it slowly.
Sans' room was colder than the rest of the house. At first you didn't see him, and started to wonder, but on closer inspection... His bedsheets were all crumpled into a ball on the bed, and behind it was Sans. Lying with his back against the wall, and the ball like a shield in front of him. Wearing nothing but a shirt and his shorts, he should by all logic not be looking so... warm and chubby. Yet there he was, as round as the ball of sheets on his bed.
Looking around the room, there wasn't much to it. Some laundry spread around, a single wardrobe and strangely enough, a treadmill. You grab the sheet-ball and start rocking it gently to see if that would wake him up. Of course it didn't, seeing as he slept through a storm and Papyrus carrying him upstairs last night.
Rocking the ball a little harder, you start to wonder just what you're doing with your life, and if Papyrus sent you on a failure mission just for fun. Sans doesn't even react or grab hold of the ball as you pull it out of the bed. It worries you a little, but he's definitely breathing. You climb halfway into the bed and start poking at him, not knowing what else to do. Every now and then you call his name, but for the most part you get no response. The poking does prompt a grunt here and there.
It also feels rather weird, the way poking him feels so much like poking a human. Poking his exposed arms felt like a normal skeleton, but poking his belly was soft. You were probably never going to get over how strange that was. Stepping out of the bed, you give up. He's not going to wake up, is he? Not unless you use drastic measures.
You're about to go back downstairs to Papyrus, but then decide to try one last thing. Just for fun. You grab into Sans' legs and start pulling him out of the bed. With his legs towards the floor, and his body on the edge, you kneel down and put his arms over your shoulders, hooking his hands together in front of your chest. You put each of his legs on either side of you as you stand up. Success! You've now acquired a Sans backpack!
Carefully you wobble towards the door, nudging it open, and begin the descend to the kitchen. You only make it halfway down before a sleepy voice on your back distracts you, and you almost fall. Your feel Sans tightening his grip around you.
"Hey, woah. What's this? I don't remember calling for a piggyback taxi," he chuckled, sleepy surprise in his voice.
You didn't really know how to respond to this, as you only just realized what you were actually doing, and hadn't planned on him waking up so suddenly. You carefully continue down the stairs before letting him down from your back, blushing profusely and mouthing a "sorry" at him.
"Don't worry about it, kiddo. Being woken up the same way by Pap every day can get boring after a while. This was an... uplifting experience," he said and winked at you before going in the kitchen and greeting Papyrus.
---
The breakfast was lovely and a nicer time than you've had for a long time. All three of your talked, joked and laughed around the table for a long time. After finishing up, Papyrus suggested you go out in the snow.
Outside was cold but refreshing. Papyrus gets all kinds of tool from the shed, shovels and whatnot.
"Let's have a snow sculpture-making-contest!" he declares and you laugh.
"Aren't you a bit too old for snowmen?" you ask in a joking manner. Technically you too were too "old", but you felt very up for having some fun in the snow.
"Nyeh! One is never too old for fun!"
You start building what you intend to be a unicorn, and Papyrus makes and excellent rendition of himself with huge muscles. Sans covers himself in snow and falls asleep again, which was about as much effort you expected him to put into it.
While he's sleeping, you and Papyrus build a wall in front of him. Then another, and more. Eventually he's got a small show castle around him. You then build another castle for yourselves. You pretend to have a tea party in your castle, doing silly, pompous voices and laughing. Eventually you start to get cold, and decide to throw a snowball at Sans. Papyrus gets a slingshot, and starts flinging snow at his brother at an alarming rate.
You gasp as a snowball comes firing back at you. Ducking behind the wall, you see Sans has woken up, making more snowballs. You make one too and throw it at him. Sans cheats and uses his magic to throw several snowballs at once at such speed you actually start to get frightened. You and Papyrus do your best to defend your castle. The battle escalates as Papyrus gets a bone, and starts baseballing the snowballs back at Sans. At this point you're too afraid to even partake, and just watch in amazement as the two brothers show off their powers over a silly snow fight.
A snowball flies at you, hitting you hard in the side of the head. Everything goes black for a split-second, and your ear starts ringing. You sit down in shock as both the skeleton immediately cease their fight and come to your side. You don't even see Sans coming, he's just suddenly there.
Both of them are fussing over you, but Papyrus is fussing the loudest. Sans on the other hand just looks at you with a worried and guilty expression. The snowball had come from him after all. You try to assure them you’re perfectly fine, but it doesn’t really help much.
“Are you sure you haven’t gotten a concussion?” Sans asks. Papyrus asks what a concussion is. “It’s sorta when your brain gets knocked around in your skull, which isn’t good for it,” the short skeleton explains. This doesn’t make things better, and you don’t even get to answer because now Papyrus is just fussing even louder.
You grab onto his hands to calm him down. “I’m fine, really. It’s nothing serious. No, I don’t have a concussion.” He wants to know how you can be so sure of that. “Because…” You let go of his hands. “I can still do this!” You grab handfuls of snow and shove it in his face. There’s a muffled ‘NYEH!’ heard from within the snow.
He shakes his head and digs the snow out of his eye sockets, throwing it back on you. “I’ll get my revenge!”
You make a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scream as you scramble to get up and run away, but Papyrus is too fast for you. The two of you roll around in the snow, caking each other in the white stuff. Papyrus has a clear advantage from not actually feeling the cold, and you shriek as he shoves snow down inside the back of your coat. Sans just shrugs and chuckles as he watches you tumble around like children.
---
After playing around in the snow for a while, and getting too chilly, you decide it’s time to go home. Not because you really wanted to, but because you still had work that needed to be done.
Before getting into the car, you tell them you haven’t had this much fun in a long time. Just as you’ve started the motor, and is about to drive away, Papyrus knocks on the window.
“Wait! Let us exchange phone numbers before you leave!” Come to think of it, it’s been ages since anyone asked for your number in a friend-way, and not just for professional reasons. A strange warmth fills you, and you gladly give your number to the skeletons.
When you get home, the house is cold, and in reality, so are you from being out in the snow for so long. Yet you don’t feel cold as the warmth from earlier is still present. You had no idea a feeling could be such a physical sensation. This was the warmth of… friendship? Your stomach flutters at the thought, and you smile stupidly to yourself.
Yeah, that’s what this is.
You turn up the heat in the house, make yourself a gigantic cup of hot chocolate, then head upstairs to your work-station. How are you even going to concentrate now? Perhaps winding down a little first is a good idea. Browsing the internet a little might work. You open up your browser to the usual sites, Facebook being one of them.
That’s when it happens. One of your friends has shared an event page.
You take a sip of your chocolate as you get an idea. An idea for something you would never dare do alone.
But with the skelebros you might.