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Undyne sneezed and the force of her head moving knocked a hole into the sheet rock of her apartment.
“WOWIE!” Papyrus rushed over. "IS THIS A NEW TRAINING TECHNIQUE? IMPRESSIVE!“ He copied her, minus the sneeze, and now there were two holes in the wall. He rocked backward and sat down, hard, on the floor. "NYEH-HEH HEH! NEXT TIME, I WILL HIT THE WALL EVEN HARDER! AND MY HEAD WILL BECOME…STRONGER?” He looked confused. "THAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS EXERCISE, CORRECT?" He rubbed his skull.
"Yeah, sure!” Undyne was a tiny bit embarrassed, so she decided to just roll with it. "The next part is where we, uh…go down to the hardware store and grab the stuff we need to fix that, before Alphys gets back!" She sniffed and wiped her face on the back of her sleeve.
"NO ONE SHOULD UNDERESTIMATE YOUR WISDOM! WE SHOULD NOT BREAK THINGS UNLESS WE CAN PUT THEM BACK TOGETHER AGAIN.”
“Exactly!” She slapped him on the back, and he doubled over, his face knocking onto the floor. The floor was carpeted, so they didn’t have to figure out how to fix that, too.
“PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH ME WITH THE ARM YOU WIPED YOUR NOSE ON,” Papyrus said.
“Sure! I’ll just blow my nose on this big red tissue hanging around your neck!”
Papyrus was on his feet and across the room in impressive time. She wished she’d gotten out a stopwatch.
Undyne’s gills on her sides felt stickier than normal. Alphys had asked her that morning if she had allergies, and now Undyne was wondering, too. A cold would be a pain in the ass. She cleared her throat. Did it feel a little sore? NAH! She had too much stuff to do!
Papyrus drove them to the hardware store and called his brother to ask what they needed to pick up. Undyne leaned against one of the shelves and rubbed at her eye. She was suddenly starving. She wanted to stop at a fast food place and get a few bags of the greasiest food she could find. Maybe she could tell Papyrus she needed to stop there because Alphys was collecting the kids’ meal toys.
She sneezed, again, and knocked half the things off the shelf she was leaning on. Nothing broke, but she and Papyrus hung around trying to help the staff clean up her mess. She was politely thrown out after another sneezing fit almost broke one of the workers’ arms.
“This is bullshit!” she yelled, outside the building. Not getting thrown out – that was pretty reasonable. Her sneezing was starting to really get to her. Her gills kept twitching and her eye itched. What was left of her other eye wasn’t feeling great, either.
She sniffed and wiped her nose on the handkerchief Papyrus had lent to her. It was custom-made, with a photograph of his face printed on it. She didn’t think he had thought through the design, but she was still going to use it. She’d managed to destroy her own in the last hour.
A strong gust of wind made the trees lining the street bend, and Undyne noticed dust get tossed off and blown through the air. She shook her fist at it and yelled. If she did have allergies, pollen was her most likely enemy.
A human walking past heard her cursing out the trees, and joined in. "Yeah, fuck you, pollen!“ she yelled.
"You think you’re safe because you’re too small to punch, but JUST YOU WAIT!” Undyne said.
A few more people came over, curious.
“OH! YOU HAVE BEEN VERY BUSY, UNDYNE!” Papyrus said, when he left the hardware store. "THIS IS AN IMPRESSIVE MOB YOU HAVE FORMED IN SUCH A SHORT TIME."
She took a breath to reply, but something caught in her throat, and she coughed. Papyrus urged her back to his car, and back home, leaving her new friends behind.
"This sucks!” she said, when she could talk again.
“YOU WERE VERY ANGRY AT THOSE TREES, BUT I AM SURE THEY WILL DECIDE TO LEAVE THEIR OLD WAYS BEHIND THEM,” Papyrus said. "THEY WILL SHED THEIR PAST. THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS POSITIVE OF THIS."
"I wish I’d knocked those trees down with my bare fists!” She said, still angry. "But then there’d just be more pollen everywhere! People shouldn’t have to suffer like this!" They needed a hero to–
She started to cough, again. This couldn’t be a cold, right? She hadn’t had one of those in years. She was too tough for colds! Or, anyway, she’d been really lucky and they sucked. She’d spent that whole illness alone, only getting up to heat up some water for tea every now and then.
She remembered Alphys offering to bring her soup, and turning her down. Undyne hadn’t really wanted Alphys to see her with ooze seeping out of her orifices. She still didn’t, but she sure wouldn’t mind some of that soup.
"Do you think Alphys will make me something good if I’m really sick?” Undyne asked.
“WHAT? LIKE…SOME KIND OF GOOD…WHAT? ROBOT? OF COURSE! PERHAPS ONE THAT WILL TEND TO YOUR WHIMS? OH! I CAN SEE IT IN YOUR EYES THAT MY FIRST GUESS WAS WRONG! LET ME PUZZLE IT…OH! WILL SHE MAKE YOU A GOOD PUZZLE? I CERTAINLY HOPE SO. I HAVE IT ON THE HIGHEST AUTHORITY THAT PUZZLING OVER LOVINGLY CRAFTED PUZZLES WHEN YOU ARE ILL KEEPS YOUR MIND SHARP AND HELPS YOU RECOVER FASTER THAN YOU OTHERWISE WOULD.”
“Where’d you hear that?” she asked, curious.
“FROM THE GREATEST AUTHORITY OF ALL: ME! PAPYRUS! A WELL KNOWN AUTHORITY ON BOTH PUZZLES AND HEALTH!”
“Alphys is really good at making puzzles,” Undyne said, rubbing at her eye. “She’s such a nerd!”
“WELL, THEY SAY THAT WHEN YOU SOLVE A PUZZLE MADE BY SOMEONE WHO CARES PASSIONATELY ABOUT YOU, THAT PASSION TRANSFERS TO YOU, AND YOU CAN THEN OVERCOME ANY OBSTACLE, PUZZLE AND NON-PUZZLE ALIKE.”
“Who’s they?” she asked, grinning.
“THEY ARE I! THE GREAT PAPYRUS!”
“Yeah! My head feels like someone shoved a damp towel in it, so I don’t think I get what you just said! But I like the sound of it!”
“I PROMISE YOU THAT IT SOUNDED JUST AS YOU WOULD EXPECT FROM ME.”
“That cleared it up. Thanks! Anyway, I hope Alphys makes me some soup or something,” she said. Alphys had some really fancy expensive ramen she saved for special occasions. It cost like two bucks. Maybe she would lovingly prepare it for Undyne. Maybe…she’d wear something cute when she brought it in for her? …No, probably not, but…maybe it wouldn’t be so bad being sick, this time.
They fixed up the wall and Papyrus made them both lunch. She sat down on the couch and didn’t want to get up again. Her whole body felt heavy, and the couch was more comfortable than it had been yesterday.
“Wow, you’ve really leveled up your cooking skill!” she said, surprised by how good Papyrus’ lunch tasted to her. Maybe she was just very hungry.
“I AM ALWAYS IMPROVING, WHICH IS SURPRISING TO HEAR FROM SOMEONE WHO WAS ALREADY THE BEST,” Papyrus said.
“You can’t let any loser catch up with you,” Undyne said.
“IT MUST BE DIFFICULT. BEING CURSED TO ALWAYS BE SECOND BEST. WHOEVER IS SECOND BEST TO ME, I HOPE THEY NEVER GIVE UP.”
Undyne laughed. She loved Papyrus’ enthusiasm.
“NOW, I KNOW THAT YOU HAVE AN ENORMOUS NUMBER OF IMPORTANT TASKS TODAY, BUT SINCE…YOU KEEP HAVING…SETBACKS…YOU MIGHT HAVE MORE SUCCESS WITH THEM IF YOU WAIT UNTIL TOMORROW TO COMPLETE THEM,” Papyrus said, speaking with great care.
“I guess I don’t want to have to fix another wall,” Undyne said. It was annoying, but she should probably get her sneezing under control before she destroyed the home she and Alphys shared.
“MY FATHER TEXTED WHILE I WAS COOKING THIS DELICIOUS MEAL AND INFORMED ME THAT MY BROTHER HAS CONTRACTED SOME VILE ILLNESS. PERHAPS YOU HAVE THE SAME THING?”
“Maybe something’s going around.” She set her plate down and pulled her legs up on the couch. Yeah, a nap sounded like a good idea.
When Undyne woke up, she felt even worse than before her nap. Papyrus wasn’t around, but he had draped a blanket (or, four, actually, when she counted) over her before he left. He had left a large glass of milk on the table, and her dirty plate from lunch was long gone and probably washed and put away. The next time anyone said anything bad about Papyrus near her, they were going to learn what the word “pain” meant, on an intimate level.
She got to her feet and brought the milk into the kitchen. She put it in a saucepan and tried to heat it up on the stove. She came close to boiling it all away, but at least the small amount she had left wasn’t cold.
Undyne heard the front door rattling in the next room and padded over to the door in bare feet, sipping her hot milk.
“Oh, dammit!” Metal hit floor. Alphys had dropped her keys again.
Undyne opened the door for her. "Hey, what’s going on out here?“
"Just my dumb useless claws being d-dumb and useless again!” Alphys said, bright. She scooped up her keys and straightened. "Oh! Undyne! You look awful!“ She blanched. "I mean–I mean, you look amazing, but…maybe…not…well? god, I couldn’t have said that any worse, right?”
“If I look like shit, I look like shit,” Undyne said. That meant how she felt matched how she looked.
“You don’t look like – you don’t look that bad! Just…you should be in bed! I think my, um, hypothesis was wrong. There were three monsters out at the lab, today!”
“I guess Papyrus’ brother is sick, too,” Undyne said.
“I saw Dr. Gaster posting about that online,” Alphys said. She came inside and Undyne closed the door. Alphys locked it. She nervously touched Undyne’s arm, pushing just a little bit, like she was trying to direct her to their bedroom.
“I just got up,” Undyne admitted. "Papyrus convinced me to take a nap, and now I feel even more like crap.“
"I wonder if we have any medicine left?” Alphys asked.
“You were really chugging it,” Undyne said, laughing.
“I think there’s a little, though.” She started to go and check. "Oh, uh…what happened to the wall? Should I ask?“ She laughed, nervous.
The spackle hadn’t dried fast enough for them to paint it up like new, yet. "That was a pretty big sneeze,” Undyne said.
“Oh, uh…jeez. Maybe I can reinforce the walls with something? Later? Wait, I was getting medicine.” Alphys started to walk again, and then stopped. "Or…Undyne, what do you want me to do? I want to help, but the worst I’ve seen you sick was from, um, a hangover, maybe?“
"Do you remember when I was sick right after we met? And you said you’d make me soup, but I thought I’d gross you out too much, so I was a coward and didn’t let you come by?”
“That’s not how I remember it, but…do you want me to make dinner?”
She didn’t sound really into the idea. "I’m okay, so you don’t have to.“
"What? No, I want to help!” She suddenly stood up as straight as she could. “Sorry I’m so…everywhere. I really really want to help! So tell me how? Or…I can just…guess? Ok! I’ll start some soup, and then go get your medicine. If we don’t have any, I’ll go out and get some after dinner! So I won’t change into my pajamas right away so I won’t look like a complete loser when I go to the potion shop later. Ok. Ok! I know what I’m doing!”
“Yeah! You’ve got it figured out.”
“And…you!” Alphys turned on her. "G-go to bed! Put on lots of blankets and stop moving around!"
"You’re really taking charge, Alphys,” Undyne said. "I like it! Sure. I’ll go settle in, and you can bring me stuff!" She kind of liked this.
"Is that what you usually do, when you’re sick?” Alphys asked.
“I drink lots of hot tea, turn up the space heater, pile on the blankets, and sweat it out. The germs come right out of your pores. Sometimes I’ll toss the blankets in the dryer right before I use ‘em!”
“And that works?”
“Sure, I guess! It doesn’t kill me, anyway,” she said, smiling.
“Um, ok. I’ll bring you the space heater later.”
Undyne grabbed the extra blankets off the couch and brought them into the bedroom with her.