Chapter Text
Gyftmas had been interesting.
The Papy Patrol had all gotten presents from ‘Santa’ and you saw four proud brothers glow when those gifts were opened. Or shown off, in Noodle’s case, since he had come in wearing a snuggie, which he had modeled for everyone.
You had gotten a sweater from Chompers, a plushie of a plate of spaghetti from Papyrus (SO YOU CAN HAVE YOUR PASTA AND EAT OTHER PASTA!), and a set of glasses with eyes on springs in it from Sans. But the gift that really surprised you was waiting for you on your nightstand when you woke up.
“nobody’d believe you, but don’t tell about this.”
The note confused you, but you opened it up to see a carefully whittled flower. It was an echo flower, you noticed, and on the back, neatly carved, was ‘Sans’. You knew this was not your Sans. Which meant it was either Teddy or Axe who gave you this, since Buddy’s joints pained him too much to do any sort of delicate work. You often had to wrap blankets around his hands to help ease it after he came back from gardening.
Well, clearly it was Axe, because Teddy soon dumped a thoroughly cleaned deer skull on your bed and grinned, “happy gyftmas, human. Thought you’d like to know what gyftrot looked like, so here he is. Kinda.”
You look at the skull and blink, but are excited. “Wow, Teddy, this guy was huge! Look at those antlers! Did you kill this yourself?”
He blushed, “uh, yeah, actually. Thought you’d feel weird about this, though?”
“No, I appreciate how hard it must have been to do that. Deer are dangerous; they kill humans if they get in the mood to, and to take this big of a buck on your own…wow.” You didn’t agree with hunting, but you knew Teddy and Needles ate everything they killed, so it was much less disturbing that way. Survival hunting was a lot less stupid than sport hunting.
Buddy and Noodle came to your side as you were making dinner, and Buddy set something soft on the counter. It was a set of oven mitts, your favorite color, and it had a note with it.
“DEAR HUMAN!
BUDDY AND NOODLE WANTED TO GET YOU A JOINT GIFT FOR THE HOLIDAY, AND ASKED ME TO HELP THEM PICK SOMETHING OUT. THEY THOUGHT YOU MIGHT LIKE THESE SINCE YOU HELP US MAKE SUCH WONDERFUL MEALS!
YOUR ARDENT SUPPORTER AND THE BEST SANTA’S HELPER
PAPYRUS”
“Oh, guys,” You stop stirring the pot of tomato soup and put the mitts on. “These are so great! And they even have grip pads. Thank you!”
Buddy hugs you by picking you up, and the big softy purrs. Noodle stoops and leans on your back as his brother holds you up, and you feel his chest vibrate despite his purring being silent. You’ve come to accept that happy skeletons purr, and you have grown to like it.
You also have grown to like Noodle’s unique way of getting his emotions through, like putting his ribs against you so you can feel him purr or touching your hands with his ghostly ones when he needs help. Sometimes his little magic hands tingled when they touched you, but it didn’t worry you. He usually just needed help with a door or wanted you to fold towels with him. He could carry the basket but preferred someone else to fold them while talking to him.
And something you didn’t expect was the delicate paper crane on your nightstand a few nights later, grey smudges on the wings and folds.
“Dusty…” you murmured as you set it safely in your bookshelf. The books had been vanishing and reappearing with those same smudges on them, making you know he regularly visited. The same was said of the newspapers that appeared at the dining room table, apparently from a subscription box at the mouth of the road toward the forest.
You were at least reassured that Dusty was staying near here, away from other people who could get hurt. And also that he currently had no wish to hurt you, if he came and went from your space so frequently and even bothered to make you a gift…
You really didn’t know how to feel about Dusty.
--
Sun filtered in from the hole in the ceiling.
Dusty blinked awake with a groan, not wanting to be here.
“BROTHER, YOU MANAGED TO SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT. I’M PROUD OF YOU!”
Well at least he’s got his brother still…doesn’t deserve him but has him anyway. He gets up and rubs his sockets instinctively, looking around and sighing. Abandoned house, no idea where he was, and wrapped in his blankets on the floor.
“IT’S AROUND TEN IN THE MORNING, SO YOU CAN HAVE BREAKFAST ANYTIME YOU LIKE,” The translucent head and hands of his brother floated over to a little store of food. Huh, they must have been here for a while. “YOU’RE PROBABLY DISORIENTED AGAIN, THAT’S NORMAL FOR SLEEPING SO LONG AFTER NOT RESTING FOR A LONG TIME. WE’RE IN THE FOREST, ON THE SURFACE. ANOTHER VERSION OF YOU BROUGHT US HERE WITH HIS MACHINE, AND WE’VE BEEN HERE FOR SEVERAL WEEKS.”
Oh. That did ring some bells, and as he looked at his blanket, he remembered more. The human. His other self had hired them and they lived at the house closer to town. Glancing to the side, he saw the book he’d taken from their room, a popular children’s adventure book that he’d heard of in many of his wanderings. He was about halfway through, and he likes it.
“DO YOU WANT A CAN OF FRUIT COCKTAIL OR A GRANOLA BAR FOR BREAKFAST?”
Oh, right. Dusty points at the granola box, and his brother’s ghost nods and grabs one, throwing it to him as he also uses his other hand to pour from the box of powdered milk into a cup and fill it with water afterward.
He didn’t know what he’d do without his brother. Yes, he’d been the one to strike the fatal blow, but it had been enough to break him and it wasn’t until he reappeared in this ghostly from that he was able to get hold of himself. “thanks pap.”
“IT’S NO PROBLEM AT ALL, SANS.” He cooed back, smiling as he slid the cup over the floor to Dusty’s side.
Breakfast was quiet, as usual, since Dusty didn’t like talking and it took a lot of energy for his brother to speak. Papyrus could really only rest on his brother’s shoulders; it took concentration to not slip through most other surfaces for whatever reason. So Dusty felt his sins weighing on his back whenever his brother needed rest, but it was fine.
Dusty finished his cup of milk and granola bar, enjoying the soothing flush of new, untainted magic through his LV riddled body. It was a wonderful cooling sensation from the normal heat of hatred that sizzled through him. He hadn’t gained any new EXP since coming here, just keeping to himself to try and figure out this new place.
He picked up the book he’d taken from the human and kept reading. It was calming, getting out of his head and into a different world. It made the quiet bearable and let him feel…good again. For a little while.
Mid afternoon, after a lunch of room temperature fruit cocktail, he got up. time to go scrounging. Or more accurately go raid the pantry at his doubles’ house.
He popped into the kitchen after a shortcut, freezing when he saw the resident human. Maybe if he didn’t move-
“Dusty?” they jumped a bit seeing him, but forced a smile, “Good. I was worried you’d gotten hurt or something. That last book must be taking you a while.”
He nodded, hands in his pockets now and trying not to look at them.
His brother cooed, “BROTHER, THEY’RE TRYING SO HARD TO BE KIND. PLEASE SPEAK WITH THEM; LET THEM KNOW WHY YOU’RE HERE.”
“just…read it twice. Almost finished.” He coughed a bit, “an’ I came for some more food.”
“Oh!” the human gasped, “What do you need? I’ll get it for you so you don’t have to rummage.”
He couldn’t summon the energy to remember. He hadn’t wanted to be seen, especially not by them, and half of him was screaming at him to get a knife and kill them before they could hurt him. As his eye lights got smaller, he saw their face change in concern, asking softly, “Dusty? Should I leave you alone? You look really ashy…”
He swallowed hard and shook his head, “n-nah. Fine. jus’ thinking.”
Finally, his brother started listing things as he relayed them to the human. Why was he the only one who could see Papyrus? He never knew.
But seeing them bustle around, grabbing cans and bags from various places, made him ease up. They chattered the whole time, thanking him for the gyftmas origami, being happy he liked the book, all that while unaware a pair of red gloves were pushing the necessary items forward out of the shelves. His brother was always so helpful, but it made him tire easily. It took all his magic to remain solid enough to move things, much less move or speak. Maybe that’s why nobody else saw him. He was connected enough to Dusty to not need effort to be seen.
But you handed him a reusable shopping bag full of items, “Write down your list next time and I’ll fill this up again.”
He nodded, but didn’t feel like moving. It was a lot warmer in here than out there.
“thank you.” He mumbled, and when he got a puzzled noise in answer, he elaborated, “for the blanket. Keeps me warmer.”
“Well, it is what I signed up for,” you grin at him, and he’s baffled, “I’m not letting any of you lazybones dust if I have a choice. I already have eight spooky skeletons, what’s one more?”
“two.”
“Two more?” you think, then seem to remember, “Oh right! That had to have been your brother that wrote that note the first time you borrowed from me. He must be great at hiding and very quiet to have managed to not wake me up that night. Well, wherever he is, he gets cared for, too. I’ll get another blanket because I derped and only gave you one. I’m sure he’s cold, too.”
Dusty felt his mouth twitch up a bit, “yeah, stone cold…” he watched his brother glare at the glancing reference. It was very close to a pun, and a pun on him being a ghost in fact, and he hated that. Dusty liked still getting that reluctant smile out of him with puns and jokes.
“Right.” You shuffle a bit, then look up at him, “Uh, you know you can sleep in here, right? At least I don’t mind, anyway. I know skeletons deal with temperature a lot better than humans but I still get concerned.”
“I’ll…consider it,” he mumbled, but it was enough for them and he left after that.
--
“BROTHER?”
Dusty had hidden in his blanket for the rest of the evening. He did finish the book again, though. Peeking out of the covers, he looked at Papyrus.
“THERE YOU ARE.” He drifted closer and rested on the blanket over Dusty’s lap, “YOU KNOW, BEING AROUND ALL THAT MAGIC IN THE HOUSE DID ME SOME GOOD, I THINK. SEE? I CAN STAY ABOVE THE BLANKET WITHOUT AS MUCH EFFORT!”
“oh.” Dusty smiled a bit, “that’s great, bro. maybe we can start ‘visiting’ more.”
“WELL,” he fiddled with his hands a bit, “I ACTUALLY THOUGHT MAYBE YOU SHOULD TAKE THE HUMAN UP ON THEIR OFFER.”
A raised browbone was all the response he got, “I KNOW, YOU HAVE A VERY HARD TIME AROUND HUMANS BUT…I REALLY THINK YOU’D HAVE A BETTER TIME IN THE HOUSE. IT’S NOT AS COLD, YOU CAN HAVE WARM MEALS AND AT LEAST A SOFA TO SLEEP ON?”
“you felt how tense that was earlier…” he didn’t want to fight that every day. yeah, it had gotten better when he’d held still, gotten distracted wondering about his brother, but he was afraid of what would happen if he was there every day.
“I DID, YES.” Papyrus frowned and sighed, “BUT I’D LIKE YOU TO CONSIDER AT LEAST SLEEPING THERE. AFTER ALL, THERE ARE WILD ANIMALS OUT HERE, AND YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THEY LIKE BONES!”
He did, remembering the times he’d killed his own human and they took a few days to reset. Animals were vicious when they wanted to be.
“fine…if it helps you and makes you stop worrying, I’ll go tonight. But just till we can fortify this place better.”
Papyrus floated up and did a little flip, “THANK YOU! I WILL FEEL MUCH BETTER IF YOU’RE SAFE INSIDE A HOME FOR THE NIGHT.”
Well, at least one of them was happy. The only one who deserved to be.
Dusty spent the rest of his limited evening in his blanket cave, eating a dinner of barely magic-warmed canned pasta before waiting for late in the night.
--
Near one in the morning, Dusty ported into the living area of the house, glad to find it empty. He had his comforter, and couldn’t help a soft sigh of relief as he laid on the couch. His hood was up, and he was hoping if any of the others in the house found him still sleeping in the morning, he’d be mistaken either for the sans from this universe, or the one with the hole in his skull.
Back to the room, he curled into his comforter. His brother settled on the top of the sofa, actually able to rest there because of the ambient magic of a monster’s home, and Dusty let himself relax for a moment.
Long enough to drift off.
--
A worried groaning came to his attention, and Dusty blinked awake.
“YES, BUDDY, I AGREE THAT IT’S WEIRD, BUT AT LEAST WE’VE FOUND HIM.”
Papyrus?
“BUT? HE’S DANGEROUS, ISN’T HE?”
Was he talking to himself? And why did he sound so much more…screechy?
The groaning turned to gurgling and Dusty opened his sockets wide. Oh. That was the big version of him with the broken-looking jaw.
“YES, YOU WATCH HIM, BUDDY, AND I’LL GET THE HUMAN. BEST THEY HELP US BEFORE ANY OF OUR MORE REACTIONARY BROTHERS WAKE UP.” There were retreating footsteps, and Dusty saw his own brother materialize through the sofa in front of him.
“They know you’re here; this universe’s me woke up, and while he was trying to figure out which one you were, the broken me came and recognized your aura as full of LV. His own brother was still asleep, so you had to be you.” Wow, he was speaking really quietly. Dusty would laugh at the fact it was silly to do so, since no one could hear him, but it wasn’t exactly the time.
Much softer footfalls join the familiar stomp of a Papyrus, and he feels the power of your soul.
“Oh. He took up my invitation, that’s wonderful.”
“YOU INVITED HIM?” the beat up papyrus was talking again.
“He came for food yesterday. I just hate thinking of anybody sleeping outside in the middle of winter.”
“I SUPPOSE HE’S NOT DONE ANYTHING YET, SO I GUESS HE CAN, BUT I JUST DON’T WANT HIM TO HURT YOU,” Original Papyrus, clearly.
His own Papyrus frowned, “The big one has figured out you’re awake.”
Sighing, Dusty got up and everything went quiet. “y’know, kind of rude to wake a guy up.”
You seem worried, “Sorry. The boys were just concerned, but it’s no excuse. It is early. You’re free to go back to sleep.”
“nah,” Dusty kept his eyes on the skeletons, helping himself avoid getting his anxiety started. “meant to be gone before y’all woke up. I’ll head home.”
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO,” Original Papyrus offered, “YOU WERE DOING VERY WELL BEING PEACEFUL, SO I HATE TO BREAK YOUR STREAK.”
Dusty’s brother swoops over and puts his skull on top of Papyrus’, “BROTHER, LOOK. WE’RE TRIPLETS!” He’s gesturing to the more broken looking Papyrus as well, and Dusty can’t help the soft look that crosses over his face.
“Dusty?” your voice draws him back and he sighs.
“heh. I’m okay. bro likes it here, wanted me to sleep here.”
“BUT SANS SAID YOUR BROTHER IS DEAD?” Chompers asks and everyone else winces.
“He’s not, hon,” you pat his arm, “He wrote me a note about Dusty borrowing my books.”
“actually, he is. I killed him.”
Everyone freezes, and Dusty shrugs, smile dipping, “it was an accident, but it doesn’t matter. It would have gotten there anyway. I killed the whole underground at least once, even if it got reset.”
“Then…who wrote the note?” you seem shaken. Dusty can’t blame you. He’s watched and seen how close you are to the Papyrus’ here.
“he did. Haunts me, y’know. stuck around because I’m a useless whelp who needs protecting from myself. he’s on this version’s head right now.”
“I WONDERED WHY MY HEAD WAS COLD! I HAVEN’T FELT THAT COLD SINCE THE TIME I STUCK MY HEAD IN THE RIVER TO SEE IF I COULD TALK TO THE FISH!” Papyrus seemed interested, “AND I CAN CERTAINLY IMAGINE WANTING TO MAKE SURE SANS WAS OKAY IF HE DID SOMETHING THAT TERRIBLE BY MISTAKE.”
Chompers frowns and walks over to Dusty. The much smaller skeleton looks up, feeling the urge to strike first to avoid damage come welling up, but he doesn’t get the chance. Chompers picks him up and holds him close. “SANS. YOU DON’T HAVE TO KILL ANYMORE. YOU CAN STOP NOW. THIS ISN’T YOUR HOME. IT’S SAFE.”
Welp, there went the tears. Dusty hated to cry, it burned his sockets horribly and they’d be sore for days afterward. But he couldn’t stop. That was almost exactly what his brother had said the day he dusted.
Why? Why did he get the sun and the chance to taste fresh air and be free? Why now, after all he’d done? Why him and not his brother or all the other innocent lives he’d snuffed out trying to stop the resets?
And why would anyone ever want to hold him like he was being held now? Like he mattered at all?
--
You didn’t know what to do as Dusty sobbed into Chompers’ shoulder, soft moans of ‘why?’ coming from him now and again. It hurt, seeing him so broken and knowing how far beyond your ability to help he was. He needed a professional therapist. They all did.
But that was something you couldn’t give them safely, and that was more painful.
His tears were sizzling, leaving trails of irritated purple on his skull and evaporating. It must be the LV in him, or something. He did have the highest in the house; hadn’t Sans or Needles said something like that?
A chill came over your shoulders and some force shoved you forward. What? You turned, but found no one and the boys were all focused. Buddy made a confused sound, and you watched his mismatched eye lights follow something around the room. Maybe he could see something.
You just hoped that the other short skeletons would be kind to Dusty. He’d clearly been through far too much.