Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It didn’t take Papyrus long to realize that Frisk was not, in many ways, the perfect example of the humans he would meet on the surface.

In many ways, of course, they were. Most humans had smooth skin, soft and squishy, with only a little bit of hair on it, except for the top of their head. Most humans had two arms and two legs—though he had met a human who had no legs and used a chair with wheels to get around, and he thought it was very cool, and he met another human with only one arm who picked things up with her feet. Most humans wore clothes, all the time, except when they were in the bath—and most humans did not like to be seen when they were in the bath. Most humans needed to breath air and eat food to keep living—Not-Queen Toriel said that all humans needed those things, but Papyrus had not met all humans yet, and he did not want to make assumptions.

That was where the similarities ended.

Most humans were taller than Frisk, Papyrus found—taller than Sans and almost as tall as him. Sometimes even taller. Humans had hair in different colors and skin in different colors. Some humans spoke in words that Papyrus couldn’t understand, even though most of the humans who lived in this particular city used words he knew.

Most humans didn’t think that monsters were real before they arrived on the surface, and most humans were not quite so excited to meet them.

Most humans did not like skeletons as much as they should.

As much as Frisk did.

Most humans thought that skeletons were scary, which Papyrus didn’t understand at all. He was very powerful, of course, and his attacks were indeed something to be feared. But these humans had never met him before. Had never even had the chance to hear of him. And they were apparently just as scared of Sans as they were of him, and Sans … well, Sans was definitely not the sort of monster someone should be afraid of.

He had said that to Frisk once, and they had gotten very quiet and not said anything in response.

There were a lot of things Frisk didn’t say anything about, and Papyrus still hadn’t figured out how to convince them it was a good idea to talk.

That was another way that Frisk was different from most humans. Most humans talked. Not as much as Papyrus, and sometimes in different “languages,” as they were called, but most of them, in his experience, talked a great deal.

Frisk … didn’t.

They talked sometimes. And, occasionally, they could talk for a while. But more often—and even more often lately—they hardly talked at all.

They hadn’t talked at dinner earlier today, even though they had had a long day at summer camp and Papyrus had been sure they would have plenty to talk about. They had nodded when Toriel asked if they had a good day, but then they changed the subject, asking Undyne about her new part-time job, which—as usual—had sparked a twenty-minute rant that had taken up the rest of dinner. It was an exciting rant, and Papyrus normally would have enjoyed it greatly, but today, he couldn’t help but notice how Frisk picked at their food, staring down at it while everyone else’s attention was turned away.

They had gone up to their room as soon as the table was cleared, and though Papyrus saw Toriel looking longingly, worriedly, after them, she didn’t follow. She went upstairs later that evening to help them get ready for bed, but he could tell, from the furrow of her brow when she came back downstairs, that the problem hadn’t been solved.

No one else noticed, because Frisk was careful not to let anyone notice, and everyone else was too occupied with their own lives to pay close attention. Well. Alphys and Undyne were. Alphys was busy studying for some sort of test that would prove to the humans that she knew as much about science as she claimed she did, and Undyne was busy with all the part-time jobs she had picked up around town. And Sans … well. Maybe Sans had noticed, but Sans was notoriously bad at actually doing something.

But Papyrus found that he couldn’t blame him this time. Not when neither he nor Toriel could figure out what to do.

Papyrus didn’t like not knowing what to do. He really didn’t like not knowing what to do. And his growing frustration with not knowing what to do was probably why he found himself still awake two hours after everyone else had gone to bed, rushing around the house, scrubbing every surface until it shined “with a vengeance,” to use Undyne’s favorite phrase.

Of course, he had spent plenty of late nights awake when everyone else was asleep. Sometimes his mind was more active than usual, or he was just too excited to sleep. But tonight he could feel the worry eating at the back of his head, no matter how hard he tried to distract himself. Tonight he could hear his thoughts bouncing around inside his skull, even as he tried to drown himself in cleaning.

Which was probably the main reason why, when a faint, muffled noise broke into the silence of the house, he was the only one who heard it.

He wasn’t sure what it was at first. He stopped what he was doing—scrubbing the coffee table—perking up ears he didn’t have to listen for a noise he was sure he hadn’t imagined. There was nothing but silence for a few seconds, but he kept listening, turning his head a little to the side to listen better.

Then it came again.

And again.

And again.

It was … breathing? Hitched breathing. Hitched breathing coupled with faint, high-pitched whines, like someone was in pain.

It was coming from upstairs.

Sans’s voice didn’t sound like that. Neither did Undyne’s. Toriel’s bedroom was downstairs, and Alphys … well, her voice was indeed very high-pitched, but her bedroom was at the end of the hall, and she had apparently “sound-proofed” the room so she could watch anime at full volume without disturbing anyone else.

Which only left one other room the noise could be coming from.

Frisk’s room.

Frisk was making the noise.

Frisk was … crying.

The second the thought crossed his mind, he was striding up the stairs, two steps at a time, walking as fast as he could without breaking into a run—because Not-Queen Toriel had told him that it was very loud when he ran in the house and to please not do it when others were sleeping.

But Frisk was crying, and even if he couldn’t run, Papyrus knew that Toriel would consider this important enough to make just a bit of noise.

He stopped in front of their door, decorated with welcome sign that Frisk had covered with all the stickers they could find, from flowers to trucks to princesses to kitchen appliances. He remembered watching them put them on, so carefully, finding each one its perfect spot. Papyrus had told them it was very cool, and they had smiled so big he thought their face might break.

That had been two months ago, when they finally found a house where they could all live together, and Papyrus couldn’t remember seeing them smile quite so wide since.

He put one hand on the wood of the door, followed by the side of his skull, and concentrated on the sounds. They had seemed louder before, but now he found that even Frisk’s loudest sobs were quiet, timid. Held back. Like they were trying not to make too much noise, even though they were supposed to be alone.

It made Papyrus’s chest hurt, and he couldn’t name the reason why.

He waited a second longer, listening to Frisk’s breath hitch, listening to them choke on their tears, before he couldn’t take it anymore, and he put his hand on the doorknob and turned it.

Then the door was open, and he was standing inside the room, and Frisk was sitting on their bed in the stream of light from the hall, blinking wide eyes and staring right back.

They stayed like that for what felt like a minute, but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. In that few seconds, he watched Frisk pick themself up like they were rushing to clean their room, stuffing their dirty clothes under the bed and sticking their toys in random drawers and generally making everything look very tidy even though it wasn’t tidy at all.

They moved their hand over their face so quickly he almost missed it, wiping away most of the tears that remained on their cheeks. They sniffed a few times to clear their nose, which Papyrus had learned sometimes got stuffy with something called “snot.” Then they curled their lips into a smile, and it looked like they were holding boulders up on the corners of their mouth.

“Sorry, Pap,” they said, and as hard as they tried to hide it, Papyrus could still hear the rawness in their voice. “Did I wake you up?”

Papyrus just looked at them for another long pause. He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t even start to figure out what he was supposed to say. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened and closed it a few more times, then decided on closing it to just look at them. He thought he might be waiting for their smile to drop, for them to give in and admit that they were pretending. But Frisk was very determined, and deep down, he already knew that that would never happen.

So he swallowed the hesitance that Undyne had told him was his greatest enemy and held himself tall instead.

“I HAVE NOT YET GONE TO BED, HUMAN FRISK. I WAS ON ANOTHER MARVELOUS CLEANING ADVENTURE WHEN I HEARD YOU IN DISTRESS,” he replied, trying to make his voice sound sure, because he was sure, he had heard them crying just a minute ago even though they were smiling at him now. They were still smiling, blinking, like they were trying to blink away his words. He let another second pass, then tilted his head. “WHY WERE YOU IN DISTRESS”

He could see Frisk fighting to keep the smile on their face. It trembled, dropped, then pulled back up. It looked like a miniature battle, and it looked like they were losing.

“It’s nothing,” they said, very quickly, the words sounding more like air than voice. They swallowed and licked their lips. “I just … it’s fine. I’m fine.”

They smiled again, a little wider, and he could see them holding up their shields against the enemy’s attack, holding firm even though they knew the battle was over.

“YOU HAVE TEARS ON YOUR CHEEKS,” he said, because they did.

They blinked a few times, as if they hadn’t realized it themself. They looked down. Their hand twitched, like they wanted to reach up and wipe the tears away, but they stopped it and just looked down at the bed.

“I … it’s fine, Pap, really,” they muttered. They didn’t even seem to convince themself. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

Papyrus felt himself frowning. It hurt, seeing them like this. A lot like it hurt when Sans had one of his bad days but didn’t say anything and pretended, badly, that everything was okay. Except Sans was grown up, and Frisk wasn’t.

But then again … Sans hadn’t looked that much older than Frisk in Papyrus’s earliest memories, and he had pretended on his bad days then, too.

He found his shoulders slumped, so he straightened them again.

“WELL, WHETHER OR NOT IT IS NECESSARY, THE WORRY HAS COMMENCED, AND I DOUBT THAT IT WILL STOP UNTIL I HAVE FULLY ASSURED MYSELF THAT YOU ARE SAFE AND NOT IN DISTRESS.”

Frisk glanced up at him, then away again. They looked disappointed. Frustrated. They pulled their knees even closer to their chest, so tight that he worried they would disappear if they curled up any tighter.

“… it was just a bad dream.”

It was quiet and small and dismissive, but it was something, and Papyrus felt his soul jump a little in his chest.

“WHAT KIND OF BAD DREAM?” he asked, and though he tried to sound neutral, he knew it didn’t quite come out that way.

They couldn’t curl up any tighter than they already were, so instead they clenched their jaw and turned their head further away.

“I don’t remember.”

They said it a little louder than the other things, like saying it louder would make him ignore the forced tone. The way their voice broke on the end of the last word, the way they swallowed afterward, like they had a lump in their throat. The pain that seemed to soak every word that left their mouth.

Papyrus shifted his weight to his right foot, then his left, then evened it out again.

“I DON’T THINK YOU ARE TELLING THE TRUTH,” he said, and it felt wrong to say. It felt like an accusation, and when Frisk flinched, it felt twice as bad. He spent another few seconds bouncing back and forth between responses before he finally forced his mouth to move. “BUT … I KNOW THAT SOMETIMES IT IS NOT FUN TO TALK ABOUT BAD DREAMS AFTER YOU HAVE THEM. SO … I WILL NOT ASK YOU TO TALK ABOUT IT IF YOU DON’T WANT TO.”

Frisk didn’t quite manage to hide their sigh. It was soft, relieved, but the tension in their body didn’t go away, and they still didn’t lift their head.

He didn’t need to meet their eyes to see the pain that shined inside them.

He ground his teeth, then took a step forward.

“HOWEVER … PERHAPS I CAN ASSIST YOU IN CALMING DOWN BEFORE YOU GO BACK TO SLEEP?”

Frisk did look up then, their head seeming to lift of its own volition, their eyes wide and their eyebrows knitted. The pain was still there, but it was duller now, overshadowed by curiosity.

“How?” they asked, and yes, they were curious, even if he could tell they didn’t quite believe he could do it.

But not quite believing was better than not believing at all, and Papyrus felt himself stand up taller, his mouth curling into a grin.

“THE VERY BEST WAY I KNOW TO SETTLE A MIND THAT WILL NOT GO WHERE YOU WANT IT TO!” he exclaimed, just quietly enough that he wouldn’t risk waking everyone in the house. Frisk blinked, just as lost as before. “PUZZLES, OF COURSE!”

Frisk blinked again. And again. And again.

They looked at their clock, shining bright green in the dim light of the room, then back to him.

“... it’s one in the morning, Pap.”

Papyrus’s smile didn’t slip. “WHICH IS AN EXCELLENT TIME FOR PUZZLES, SHOULD YOU HAPPEN TO BE AWAKE!”

Frisk’s lips twitched at the corners. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it was close.

“You always think it’s an excellent time for puzzles.”

“BECAUSE IT ALWAYS IS!” he replied, with a tone that expressed exactly how obvious that was. Frisk’s not-quite-smile twitched up again, longer this time. Papyrus beamed. “NOW COME ALONG, HUMAN FRISK! I HAVE A WIDE ASSORTMENT OF PUZZLES TO CHOOSE FROM, AND I AM CERTAIN THAT ONE OF THEM WILL SUCCEED IN FOCUSING YOUR MIND ENOUGH TO FORGET ABOUT YOUR BAD DREAM!”

They made a sound somewhere between a breath and a laugh. They said nothing, but they stuck their legs out from under the covers and climbed out of bed, and when he offered his hand, they took it and followed him downstairs.

They didn’t talk much after that. Papyrus had learned that it didn’t take much volume to wake up Not-Queen Toriel, especially since her bedroom was on the first floor. But Frisk was good at communicating without using words, and so was Papyrus—at least when puzzles were involved. After a few minutes of looking through Papyrus’s selection, they picked out a jigsaw puzzle, a thousand pieces, that he had brought up from the underground. It was one of his favorite jigsaw puzzles, and he had put it together and taken it apart at least eight times already. The box holding it was completely faded, so you couldn’t see the picture anymore. But Papyrus could never forget the shiny red car that had gleamed at him the first time he completed it, and how he had kept it on the coffee table for nearly a week before he took it apart.

They got maybe halfway through the puzzle before Frisk’s eyes started drooping, and only a few minutes later, they were asleep, their head on Papyrus’s shoulder, one of his arms around them, while the other stuck puzzle pieces in place without even having to think. He finished another hundred pieces, then turned, slipped his arms under Frisk’s legs and back, and carried them up the stairs to their room.

He had never put someone to bed before. Well, except Sans—and that was only a few times, and only because Papyrus had wanted to use the couch when Sans was napping on it. He had never put someone younger than himself to bed before, and it felt … different than it had with Sans.

As he tucked the covers around Frisk’s tiny body, he felt this odd rush of … responsibility? Was that the right word? He felt suddenly older, bigger, stronger, but also more afraid that his age and his strength would work against him. It suddenly felt more important than it ever had before that he do the right thing, make the right choice, because whatever choice he made, it would affect someone else.

Someone more important than him.

He spent another five minutes standing next to the bed, staring at Frisk, curled up under the blankets, peaceful and at ease, before he turned around and slipped out of the room.

He had thought, at first, that he might go back to cleaning. There was plenty more to be done, after all—or, at least, plenty more that he had told himself there was to do, even though Toriel had insisted that even she had never kept a house quite as tidy as he did. But he found himself walking back down to the living room and standing in front of the coffee table, the unfinished image of a bright red car staring back at him.

This was the first time he had seen Frisk have a nightmare, but it wasn’t the first time he had noticed that they looked … sad. It was more obvious when they were crying, of course, but Papyrus knew that there were many more ways that someone could express sadness. Frisk just tended to do it very quietly. They stared off into the distance, frowned when they thought no one else was looking, spent their time sitting alone instead of playing with someone else. And they had been doing that more and more lately. They never told anyone that something was wrong, but it was clearer with each day that passed by that something was.

Toriel had said once that Frisk wasn’t as “expressive” as many children were, so it was harder to know what they were really feeling. But it wasn’t so hard to see it, once you knew how to look. You just had to realize that you couldn’t read them like you could other people.

Other humans, especially.

Frisk wasn’t like most other humans … but Papyrus didn’t know much about other humans anyway. Frisk was much more like monsters, and Papyrus knew plenty about them.

He knew that monsters expressed their feelings in many different ways, a lot of which humans seemed to have never heard of. Some used words, some used other sounds. Some used their faces and some used their hands and some didn’t have faces or hands so they used whatever other body parts they had. Sometimes you had to know a monster for a long time before you learned how to read their feelings, but there was never any question that you could learn. It just took time. Time, and effort.

He knew what it looked like when a monster child woke up from a nightmare, a regular nightmare, the kind that came and went for no real reason except for eating too much before bed. He also knew what it looked like when a monster child woke up from a not-regular nightmare. The kind that didn’t come as often, but always came for a reason. The kind that dug up feelings you had forgotten, problems that hadn’t been solved, fears that you thought you were over. The kind that left you shaking in your bed for hours, curled up under the blankets. The kind you couldn’t quite let go of, no matter how many times you told yourself it wasn’t real.

He knew what it looked like because he had had those kinds of nightmares. The regular kind, and the not-regular kind, more times than he could count. He had woken up in the middle of the night, crying, screaming, haunted by memories of … he could never remember what. But he didn’t need to remember for it to terrify him.

He had been terrified, crying, screaming … but that didn’t mean he kept feeling that way. He couldn’t remember one time that he had woken up shaking in bed and had stayed shaking in bed until morning. He had always had something to help him. Someone to help him. He had always had …

… his brother.

He had gotten through those nightmares, worked through the feelings and moved on, because of his brother.

But … Frisk didn’t have a brother. Or a sister. Or any kind of sibling. They had their mother, of course, and Toriel was very good at being a mother—but that wasn’t quite the same as having a brother. At least, Papyrus was pretty sure it wasn’t. He didn’t remember ever having a mother. Or a sister. Or any other kind of sibling.

But he had a brother. He had always had a brother.

And his brother had helped, even when nothing else would.

Frisk might not have a brother now … but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have one. That didn’t mean someone couldn’t be their brother.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t be their brother.

Papyrus lifted his head, staring at his reflection in the TV screen and watching his own eyes look back at him.

He could be Frisk’s brother.

He could help them like Sans had helped him.

He could find a way to make them not sad anymore. To take away their nightmares, or at least … make them easier to face.

He could find out what was hurting them, and he could make it go away.

He looked over his shoulder, toward Frisk’s room, and imagined he could hear their soft breathing, see their tiny smile and their pudgy cheeks. Something warm and strong bubbled up inside him until he felt like he was going to explode, but instead he just stood taller, squaring his shoulders and nodding in decision.

Papyrus would be the very best big brother to Frisk.

Just like Sans had been for him.

Chapter Text

There was no reason for it to be a bad day.

At least, not a reason that Papyrus deemed bad enough to make his entire day bad. He had bad moments. Everyone had bad moments. But that was all they were: moments. They happened, and then they were over, and you went on with your day, and you could make sure that enough good things happened that they overpowered all the bad things.

The problem was that, no matter how hard Papyrus tried, he couldn’t seem to find any good things to overpower the bad things.

And he couldn’t even figure out what the bad things were so he could try to fix them.

Sans had told him, once, that sometimes people were just in a bad mood, and there was no reason why. Papyrus had thought he was lying then, telling him something that wasn’t quite true because he didn’t have a good enough answer. But now, Papyrus started to wonder whether he had been right.

Nothing bad had happened. Nothing good had happened either. It had just been … a day.

And apparently, some part of him had decided that it would be a bad day, and the rest of him decided to play along.

It didn’t help that it was a Saturday, and he didn’t have anywhere to go or anything to do. He had heard a few of the other kids at school talking about having a sleepover, but as usual, they hadn’t invited him. He didn’t know those kids very well, but … he didn’t know any kids very well. And it would be nice to get the chance to get to know them well. But they hadn’t invited him, and it was too late now.

He tried to think of other things to do, but nothing felt interesting enough. Nothing sounded like it would get him out of this … spot. He felt lazy, just sitting on the couch for more than an hour, but nothing he could think of sounded better.

Maybe this was what Sans felt like, on those days he did nothing else but sit on the couch. Maybe this was why Sans was so lazy all the time. Maybe—

“hey bro.”

Papyrus tensed, but didn’t look up. Sans was very good at sneaking up on him, but Papyrus wasn’t in the mood to give him the satisfaction of getting mad.

“HELLO SANS,” he said, more quietly than he had heard his own voice in a while.

Sans stepped a little closer, and Papyrus could see his shoes out of the bottom of his vision, so old and worn that he couldn’t tell what color they were supposed to be. He hummed as he turned from side to side, looking around at the walls, the couch, the TV.

“you know, i thought we painted this whole room red, but i still see this little blue spot,” he said. Papyrus furrowed his browbone and looked up. Sans stepped closer and lifted a finger, pausing a moment. “right … here.”

He tapped Papyrus between his sockets, and Papyrus flinched away.

“HEY!”

Sans hummed again and tilted his head.

“hmm, nope, still there. well, this is a dilemma. we can’t just leave a big old blue spot sitting right in the middle of this nice red room.”

Papyrus frowned even deeper and ducked his head. He knew Sans was trying to help, even if he wasn’t doing a very good job. He knew there was no reason for him to be upset when nothing really bad had happened. But that didn’t make the “bad day” feeling go away, and it didn’t make Sans’s jokes feel any less annoying.

He expected Sans to make another joke, or maybe poke him again, but instead he just hummed, softer this time, and tilted his head the other way.

“guess we’ll have to go shopping.”

Papyrus blinked.

He looked up before he could think better of it. Sans didn’t look joking—well, no more than he did all the time. In fact, he almost looked serious. Papyrus frowned deeper, but he could feel his irritation slipping away.

“SHOPPING?”

“for new clothes. get something to cover up all that blue, make it a little brighter in here,” Sans replied, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, even though Papyrus could feel his browbone furrowing more. “hey, i know this guy in waterfall, he always has some great deals on some good finds.”

Papyrus blinked, then felt his irritated frown dip into disappointment.

“YOU MEAN MR. GERSON? HE ONLY SELLS OLD THINGS.”

Of course, everything they owned was old—everything a lot of people owned was old, Papyrus knew that—but Mr. Gerson only sold old old things. Things that most monsters would walk right past in the garbage dump because it looked like … actual garbage. And he didn’t even sell it for very cheap. Mr. Gerson was a funny old man, and a lot of the kids liked him, but everyone knew that you didn’t buy from Mr. Gerson, because you would probably spend twenty gold on something you could easily find for free.

But even though Sans had said the exact same thing himself—at least twice—now, he just gave Papyrus a sneaky-looking grin.

“oh, my innocent little bro, you’ve only seen the stuff he puts on sale up front. he’s got all kinds of treasures if you ask him the right way.”

Papyrus scanned his brother’s face for a joke, checked for every single sign, but he found none of them. Sans’s smile was sneaky, as sneaky as it ever got, but there was no joke there. No prank he would reveal as soon as they got to Waterfall.

“WHAT’S THE RIGHT WAY?” he asked, a little more desperately than he intended.

Sans winked. “trade secret. but … since you’re my little bro, i guess i could teach you.”

“I WANT TO KNOW!”

Papyrus heard his own voice echo around the room, like it usually did when he spoke at full volume, but he didn’t care. He watched Sans with wide, eager eyes, and Sans smiled back at him, a little softer, filled with something Papyrus couldn’t name.

“well, then, we better go.”

Papyrus opened his mouth to ask another question, but Sans was already turning, walking toward the front door, so instead, he clamped his mouth shut, jumped to his feet, and ran after him.

They spent the next three hours out—one traveling and two at Mr. Gerson’s shop. At first, Papyrus had been convinced that his brother was playing a joke on him. He knew, deep down, that Sans would never play a joke like that when he was already upset, but his brother played a lot of bad jokes, and it was easy to start thinking that this might be one of them.

And when they got to the shop, for the first few minutes, Papyrus thought he might be right. Because there was Mr. Gerson with his old junk, just like he always was, standing there offering the items and barely trying to make them sound better than they really were. He and Sans chatted like old friends, because Sans chatted to everyone like an old friend, before Sans glanced at Papyrus, winked one socket, then leaned in and whispered something into Mr. Gerson’s wrinkly ear hole.

Mr. Gerson blinked. Then his eyes drifted over to Papyrus, and he grinned.

Papyrus got the feeling that there was a lot more going on in those few seconds than he could see with his eyes. He got that feeling a lot when Sans was involved, and no matter how much he asked, Sans would never give him an explanation he liked. But this time, he didn’t even ask. He was far too interested in Mr. Gerson waving them forward, further down the tunnel where he set up his shop, around the corner and into the space Papyrus thought must be his home.

Or at least … it looked a little like a home. Papyrus knew that everyone’s home looked different. Some people lived in big houses, some in small houses. Some people lived in apartments in the Capital. And some people didn’t even live in buildings, because they liked being outside and didn’t want to give it up even for a place to keep their things.

Looking at this spot now, Papyrus couldn’t decide exactly which one of those people Mr. Gerson was.

The space—the cave, he might have called it—did look a little like an apartment. A one-roomed apartment with a bed, something that might have been a couch, a rock that he thought might be used as a table, and more junk than Papyrus had seen in his entire life.

It was like Mr. Gerson had picked out a corner of the dump and spent a full day just dragging it in here. There was all kinds of stuff, lying around on the floor, tucked by the walls, stuffed under the things that might have been furniture, and pretty much everywhere else. Scraps of fabric and complete outfits, shoes, boxes, discs, books, glasses, hats, and plenty of things Papyrus didn’t even have a name for.

He didn’t know how long he stood in the doorway, staring at everything, trying to figure out exactly what he was looking at. All he knew was that, by the time he blinked and stepped out of his thoughts, Sans was already stuffing what looked like fabric into a bag Papyrus didn’t remember him bringing, chatting with Mr. Gerson just like he had before. The bag was half-full, and though Papyrus ran up to try and see what was inside, Sans immediately tucked it under his arm and gave him a teasing smirk.

“you can see it when we get home.”

Papyrus wasn’t happy about that. Not at all. But Sans was stubborn, even more stubborn than he was, and Papyrus knew that he had lost this round. He might have sulked about it for the entire trip if Sans hadn’t told him to pick out a few other things for himself. At first, Papyrus wasn’t sure what he could want in a pile of what looked like … well. The actual trash in the garbage dump. But then Mr. Gerson pointed him toward some action figures, almost new, only a few scratches on them, and soon Papyrus’s only concern was trying to decide how he could pick only a few of them.

Sans didn’t say that he could only pick a few of them. He didn’t give a limit. But Papyrus had seen how careful Sans was about figuring out cost when they went to the store, how many little things he would do to save them just one or two pieces of gold. He knew that these nice things would cost money.

It took him twenty minutes, but he finally decided on his favorite three, and set the rest of them down with a longing look he made sure Sans didn’t see.

Sans was even more careful not to let him see how much the action figures cost than he was not to let him see inside the bag—which was now stuffed to the brim. He kept an even face at first, but Papyrus could see a hint of relief when Mr. Gerson handed a few of the coins back to him and told him that the items were “discounted” because he was “having a sale he forgot to tell anyone else about.”

Papyrus told Mr. Gerson that his shop would probably get more customers if he marketed his big sales. Mr. Gerson stared at him for a long second, then laughed.

Sans was careful to hold the bag on his left side while they walked, so that Papyrus, from his right side, wouldn’t be able to peek. There was definitely fabric in there. Papyrus could tell that much. But he hadn’t noticed any cool outfits lying around Mr. Gerson’s apartment-cave-house, and Sans had said they would be going out for cool clothes.

Still … Sans seemed like he knew what he was doing, and it felt better to trust his brother than to think he was playing a mean trick.

Papyrus swore that his brother moved even slower once they got back to the house, taking his time putting the key in the lock, turning it, and stepping inside, and he took even longer setting down the bag. But the second he did, Papyrus was on it, turning the bag upside down and dumping the contents onto the living room floor, his eyes bright with anticipation. He reached into the pile and spread it out, scanning it for any sign of what it was.

He looked.

He blinked.

And the beginnings of his smile fell down once again.

It was … fabric.

Or, well, it was kind of clothes. It was pieces of lots of different pieces of clothes. Ripped clothes, old clothes, brightly colored clothes and dull clothes, shirts and pants and socks and skirts and tights and things that Papyrus didn’t have a name for.

It was clothes, but it wasn’t anything close to cool.

Papyrus didn’t notice his shoulders dropping until they were almost falling off of his torso, his eyes wide and pained. The low feeling that had been nudging him from the inside out came back, only stronger now. Because his brother had said he would get him cool clothes. He had said he would make him feel better. But he had lied. He had gotten Papyrus so excited and then—

Sans flopped down on the floor in front of him, right next to the clothes, and before Papyrus could even think of opening his mouth, Sans had already picked up two of pieces of cloth and laying them out next to him.

Then he picked up a little box out of his hoodie pocket, opened it up, and pulled out a needle and a spool of thread.

Papyrus blinked and frowned harder.

“SANS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

Sans didn’t even look up. He was too focused slipping the thread through the needle, then tying it off and looking for the right place on the two pieces of fabric to stick it in.

“putting it together, of course,” he said, still without meeting Papyrus’s eyes. “it’s not an outfit until you put the whole thing together, is it?”

Papyrus blinked again. He hesitated, the low feeling inside him telling him that he shouldn’t start feeling better again, because it would only make him feel even worse when Sans disappointed him.

Sans had promised to get him cool clothes. He hadn’t gotten him cool clothes.

But he had taken him all the way to Waterfall when Papyrus knew he was really busy, and he had spent money on action figures and a lot of fabric even when Papyrus knew he didn’t have much money to spend. He had been willing to pay all it would cost, even before Mr. Gerson gave him a discount.

Papyrus waited a second longer, then sat down on the floor, on the other side of the fabric.

“WHAT ARE YOU MAKING?”

Sans still didn’t look at him, but Papyrus could see his permanent smile twitching up at the corners. He poked the needle through one side of the fabric and pulled all the thread through.

“the greatest outfit for the greatest guy in snowdin,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. His eyes flicked up, his smile even wider. “oh, ‘scuse me. i meant the greatest guy in the underground.”

Something warm and soft grew in Papyrus’s chest, starting with just a little spark, then getting bigger, bigger and warmer and softer until he felt like he was breathing it in, every one of his bones radiating it back out.

“AND … THAT’S ME, RIGHT?”

Sans lifted his head, right in the middle of a stitch, his eyes looking even softer than Papyrus felt.

“who else?”

The answer was right behind Papyrus’s teeth, trying to get out. But before he could say it, Sans went back to chatting about the outfit, what would go where, what they could sew together, what they could paint a different color. The words went away, tucking themselves somewhere deep in Papyrus’s throat.

He would tell him later.

Now, he just felt his smile grow until it tried to break out of the edges of his face, and got down on the floor to help his brother make his new outfit.

*

“New clothes?”

Frisk said it like they had never heard the phrase before, tilting their head and furrowing their eyebrows in an expression that reminded Papyrus a lot of the dogs in Snowdin when they were confused. He knew Frisk wasn’t a dog, but they really did act like one sometimes.

He grinned, much more patiently than he would have for the dogs.

“OF COURSE! NOTHING WILL MAKE YOU FEEL MORE POWERFUL AND IMPORTANT THAN A GREAT OUTFIT!”

Frisk gave him a look that said they didn’t quite believe him, but as usual, they didn’t say anything. They also didn’t look as happy as he had thought they would be. They didn’t look sad either, but … that was still a very long way from happy.

His mouth wanted to frown, but he forced it into a smile again.

“WE WILL FIND YOU THE VERY BEST OUTFIT YOU COULD POSSIBLY WEAR, EVEN IF WE HAVE TO SEARCH ALL THE STORES IN THE ENTIRE TOWN! THEN WE WILL PARADE THROUGH THE STREETS AND SHOW EVERYONE HOW COOL WE ARE!”

Frisk’s mouth twitched at that, just a little. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it was better than a frown.

Before they could say anything else—or he could decide if he should be saying something instead—he took their hand and led them out toward the front door.

“Public transportation,” in Papyrus’s opinion, was both incredibly useful and very disappointing. Incredibly useful because it got him all kinds of places very quickly, a lot like the Riverperson had in the underground, but very disappointing because he would much rather be driving to those new places in his own car. But he knew that owning a car was … still in the future: a future when he could earn a “driver’s license,” as they were apparently called, and a future where he had saved up enough money to buy his own car, which he had learned were quite expensive on the surface, and couldn’t usually be found sitting around a dump. For now, public transportation was incredibly useful, and he was glad to have a way to get around town more quickly than his legs could ever carry him.

He was even more glad to have so many places to go around town.

A human “town,” from what he could see, was only a bit smaller than the entire underground, and had about as many different things to do. Stores to shop at, parks, entertainment centers, theaters, schools, places to send mail, and a place that Frisk had told him was like the humans’ version of the Royal Guard headquarters. Papyrus had been a little confused at that, because the Royal Guard didn’t have headquarters, unless you counted Undyne’s house—and the place Frisk pointed out didn’t look at all like Undyne’s house. He had wanted to visit, to see if the people inside were anything like Undyne—and to see if, perhaps, he would be able to join them like he never quite joined the Royal Guard—but Frisk had stopped him, saying, quietly, nervously, that some of the people in the human Royal Guard weren’t used to monsters yet, and might not be so nice to him if he went inside unannounced.

Papyrus hadn’t asked them to explain more. He had already seen plenty of examples of what humans not being “used to” monsters looked like.

But he tried not to think about that today, and today, it was easy. Today, they were going to a human “supermarket”: a truly brilliant location that sold everything from food to technology to clothes, and the one he had picked out today was definitely monster-friendly.

Well. Mostly monster-friendly.

They allowed him to shop at the store, and that was considerably more friendly than some other stores he had seen.

He couldn’t help but stare a little as they stepped inside, his eyes growing wider and his grin brighter as he looked around at all the human shoppers, all the areas of the store, all the products to buy. Frisk looked … a bit less excited, but they followed close at his side as he made his way toward the clothing department, ignoring the stares of the humans they passed and focusing on his excitement.

When they finally stopped, right in front of the clothing department, Papyrus turned around and clapped his hands together, so loud that several nearby humans paused to stare. Papyrus smiled and waved, then turned to Frisk again.

“NOW! THE FIRST STEP IN CREATING A COOL OUTFIT IS TO MAKE SURE THE COLORS ARE BRIGHT! BRIGHT COLORS DRAW EVERYONE’S ATTENTION TO YOUR COOLNESS! WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BRIGHT COLOR, HUMAN FRISK?”

Frisk’s eyes were on the other humans, their lips pressed together, their jaw tensed. Finally, they looked back to him, blinking, as if trying to figure out what he had asked them.

“Um … ye—orange?”

“ORANGE IT IS!” Papyrus said, deciding not to mention the funny way they stumbled between the two colors. He glanced down at his own orange cape and grinned even wider. “NYEH HEH HEH! A WONDERFUL COLOR CHOICE INDEED!”

Frisk smiled back at him, a much smaller smile, but it was enough to make him grin wider still.

He started off a second later, Frisk racing to keep up with him as he ran around the store, picking up every cool-looking orange item he could find, then items that went well with orange but weren’t orange themself. Sometimes he had to make compromises, since apparently even the expansive human stores didn’t have every type of clothing, but within ten minutes, he had all the pieces he needed for an outfit, and with the help of a nervous-looking store worker, he found the place where humans changed into clothes they wanted to buy, and nudged Frisk toward the door to one of the stalls.

“NOW, ENTER INTO THE DRESSING ROOM AND DON YOUR COOL OUTFIT, AND WE WILL SEE WHERE TO GO FROM THERE!”

Frisk made a sound somewhere between a huff and a laugh, but they went inside without any protest, pulling the door shut behind them. Papyrus waited as patiently as he could, bouncing from foot to foot while they shuffled around, trying to get dressed. It was more than a minute before they pushed the door open, very slowly, poking their head out before the rest of their body followed.

They held their arms out to their sides, the end of their “COOL KID” T-shirt just passing their knees. They looked down, made a face, then looked back up to him.

“… I think the shirt’s too big.”

Papyrus hummed, bringing his hand to his chin and frowning in thought.

“HMM … IT DOES SEEM TO BE A BIT LARGE. I DID NOT REALIZE YOU WERE QUITE THIS SMALL.”

“Hey!” Frisk whined, but they couldn’t quite hide their smile.

Papyrus put his hand in the air, already half-pivoting on the heels of his boots. “I WILL GO FIND ANOTHER SIZE! WAIT HERE, FRISK!”

Frisk started to say something, but Papyrus was already off again, running into the store and searching for the spot where he had seen the shirt. A minute later, he was back, three different sizes in hand, shoving them into the arms of a baffled Frisk and ushering them back into the dressing room.

It took another half-hour for them to find the right sizes for everything. Frisk was, indeed, very small, and Papyrus quickly learned that there was an entire section of the clothing department devoted to “children’s” sizes, since apparently human children were all quite small. But finally, the seventh time Frisk walked out of the dressing room, Papyrus looked at them and saw nothing out of place.

And despite the fact that he had seen almost every part of the outfit already, Papyrus squealed.

“IT. IS. PERFECT!”

And even though Frisk’s attention had drifted to the other humans, staring at them from near the other dressing rooms, it now snapped back to him. They blinked wide, wondrous eyes up at him, and Papyrus threw his arms out to his sides, barely stopping himself from squealing even louder.

“YOU ARE THE EPITOME OF COOL! YOU ARE ALMOST AS COOL AS I AM! JUST ONE STEP MORE AND YOU WILL HAVE REACHED MY LEVEL OF COOLNESS, WHICH, I MUST SAY, IS QUITE AN IMPRESSIVE FEAT!”

Frisk blinked at him, once, twice. Then they turned around and looked at themself in the full-length mirror in their stall.

They turned one way. Then the other. They turned in every possible angle and examined their reflection with wide eyes and a hard-to-read face.

Then they looked at his reflection, beaming at them above their head.

Their lips twitched up at the corners, a little at first, then more and more. Then they were smiling, a small smile, a big smile, a hesitant yet beaming smile, their eyes locked not on themself, but on him. On his smile. On his bright eyes. On the way he looked at them.

And in that moment, they looked cooler than he could ever imagine himself being.

And he didn’t even mind.

He was proud. Because he had helped make them cool.

“WELL,” he said, and despite how hard he tried to hide it, his voice still came out tight. “I THINK YOU ARE … BEYOND COOL ENOUGH TO PARADE AROUND TOWN. IN FACT, YOU ARE SO COOL THAT I AM AFRAID PARADING YOU AROUND TOWN WOULD STUN THE OTHER HUMANS BEYOND REPAIR. THEY … SIMPLY WILL NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR COOLNESS.”

He cursed his voice every time it broke, but every time he swallowed the lump in his throat, it came back a second later, twice as big as before. But Frisk didn’t seem to notice, and if they did, they didn’t mind. They just kept smiling up at him, like his words were the only thing that mattered, like his proclamation of their coolness meant more than the entire town saying the same thing.

The lump in his throat grew again, and this time, he didn’t even try to swallow it.

“So …” they started, pausing for a moment, their smile beginning to slip before they tugged it up again. “Maybe we should just parade around the house? You know … where people are already used to your coolness, and maybe they won’t be so overwhelmed?”

Papyrus blinked, then took a longer, harder look at Frisk, taking in the faint hope in their eyes, the hesitance of their smile, the way they looked at him steadily now compared to the way they fidgeted and looked around constantly when they were out on the streets. Something in him ached, just for a second, before he smiled back.

“THAT SOUNDS LIKE AN EXCELLENT IDEA.”

They made it through the checkout line in record time—or at least it felt like record time, because the time spent sharing bright smiles with Frisk seemed to go by twice as fast. The cashier gave them a funny look that Papyrus decided was awe and appreciation, and though he could see Frisk fidget, just for a second, at his side, their smile never disappeared.

Frisk didn’t put on their outfit before leaving the store, but the whole bus ride home, Papyrus watched them hug the bag to their chest, occasionally looking at him and smiling, even though they never spoke. And the second they got home, they scurried off to the bathroom, barely pausing to say hello to their mother. A minute later, they were back out, dressed in a combination of clothes that made up everything Papyrus had ever learned about dressing cool.

Only this time, they were standing tall, hands on their hips, shoulders back, head up, and smiling wide.

He didn’t know how, but they looked twice as cool as before.

They wore their outfit for the rest of the day, parading around the house, eliciting gasps and smiles and cheers from every member of their family, and it was far better than the cheers of every human in town could ever have been.

Chapter Text

Papyrus was nine years old.

At least, that was what he had decided to tell other people, and that was good enough for him.

Or … well. It was usually good enough for him.

He acted like he was nine years old, or what he thought a nine-year-old should act like. He put nine years old on all the official paperwork he had to fill out, or that Sans had to fill out but Papyrus insisted on helping with because he could write very well. He was in the same grade as the nine-year-olds, and when the school grouped kids by age for other activities, he was with the nine-year-olds—well, the kids who were between eight and twelve, but that was basically the same thing.

In every single respect in his life, he was nine years old.

Except he didn’t know the exact day when his ninth birthday had occurred.

He didn’t realize for a long, long time that it was normal to have a birthday. To celebrate your birth every single year and to be sure that that was the day it had happened.

To have family that remembered the day you were born. Who could talk about it. Tell you about it, since you were too young to remember.

To be able to tell all the other kids that today, you were another year older.

He had always had birthday parties—as long as he could remember, at least. Sans had always made them over the break from school, when he had enough free time and money to make something that Papyrus would really enjoy. But it was never on the same day twice, and it didn’t take Papyrus long to figure out that the reason they had it over the break was so he wouldn’t have to tell his classmates what day his birthday was.

And no matter how hard Sans tried to make those parties something to remember, no matter how hard he tried to give him all the same things the other kids had on their birthdays … it was never the same.

Because the other kids were celebrating their real birthday, and Papyrus was just celebrating another year passed.

He had known this for almost as long as he could remember, and he had never brought it up before. He thanked Sans for the parties he put together, and Sans looked happy that he was happy, and they went about their lives like they always had. And he told himself that it didn’t matter. He told himself that they were fine. That he was fine, exactly as things were.

Then he started the fourth grade, and on the first day of class, the teacher asked them to fill in a “questionnaire” about themselves, so they could all get to know each other a little better, even though Papyrus had been with the same kids for years.

And the third question on the piece of paper was his birthday.

Papyrus stared at the paper for a long, long time with the pencil in his hand, without writing anything. Then the teacher asked them to finish up, so he filled in all the other questions as fast as he could, and when the teacher went around collecting their papers, he handed his in without meeting her eyes.

At the end of the day, she asked him to stay after the other kids went home.

She sounded very nice, he thought. She asked if he had forgotten to fill in one of the questions, if he had maybe been focused on the others and missed this one because it was so simple. She sounded nice, but her words made his chest ache, and he ducked his head and tried to think of something to say but he couldn’t so he just kept staring at the floor.

After a minute, she asked whether maybe he didn’t like his birthday. Maybe he wanted a different one instead. She told him that if he wanted, he could put the date he wanted on the paper, and they could have his birthday celebration in class on that day instead.

A small whine slipped past his teeth, and he shook his head.

She was quiet for a long time after that. He thought, for a second, that she might get mad, or tell him that he had failed the assignment because he wouldn’t put in his birthday. But when he finally looked up, her eyes were soft, filled with what he had come to recognize a long time ago as pity.

“You can go home, Papyrus,” she said, very gently, and he hated it even as it filled him with relief. “It’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow, alright?”

Papyrus didn’t even manage to make himself say goodbye.

Sans was late picking him up that day, so he didn’t notice that Papyrus hadn’t come out with the other kids. He was distracted as they walked home, asking him how his day was but not really listening to the answer. He had days like this more and more lately, when bad things happened that he didn’t tell Papyrus about but he found out later anyway. Papyrus wanted to tell him what had happened at school, but he clenched his teeth and stayed silent.

When they got home, Sans made him a snack, then sat down on the couch with some papers and got to work. Papyrus wasn’t really sure what kind of work he was doing. It all looked very official, and very boring, so Papyrus usually didn’t pay much attention to it. He didn’t now. He went up to his room and did his homework, even though there wasn’t very much. Then he sat on his bed and stared at the wall. He tried to play with his action figures, but his mind kept wandering off, and it was hard to create a pretend battle when your own head wouldn’t let you plan out the moves.

More than an hour had passed before he went downstairs again. It was almost dinnertime, but Sans was still working, his teeth clenched and his smile tight as he worked on the same pile of papers as before. Papyrus walked down the stairs and stood at the side of the couch. Sans didn’t look up. Papyrus stepped a little closer. Sans didn’t even glance his way. Papyrus waited for another minute, giving Sans every change to see him there, until finally he felt the words pressing against the backs of his teeth, and he couldn’t keep them inside him any longer.

“WHEN WAS I BORN?”

Sans jumped.

He turned his head, blinking, apparently surprised to see him so close. Papyrus was used to that by now. Sans had been busy lately, focused on … stuff, like the papers spread out on the coffee table, though he never talked about what was on them. He used to always hear Papyrus coming up to him, because Papyrus rarely tried to be quiet, and Sans was a very good listener.

But he had been distracted lately, and he was distracted now, staring at Papyrus for a few seconds before turning back to the papers, like they were pulling on him, forcing his attention to return whether he wanted it to or not.

“nine years ago,” he said, adjusting his grip on the pen and lifting it to one of the papers, but not writing anything.

Papyrus frowned and clenched his hands tight against his sides.

“I MEAN THE DAY.”

Sans froze, pen in hand, hovering less than an inch above the paper.

Then his hand lowered to the table, the pen falling out of his grip, and he turned his head to look at Papyrus in full.

Papyrus knew his brother didn’t know. He knew it almost for sure. But even as Sans stared at him with those wide, confused eyes, he couldn’t bring himself to back down.

He wanted to know, and his brother knew more than anyone he had ever met. Even his teacher.

Sans had to know.

Because if Sans didn’t know …

“I WANT TO KNOW MY BIRTHDAY,” he went on, before his thoughts could go too far in a direction he didn’t like. “THE REAL DAY.”

Sans didn’t say anything. He didn’t even start. He just kept staring, his sockets as wide as Papyrus had ever seen them, his eyesights so small they were almost black.

The line of Papyrus’s mouth trembled.

“YOU KNOW IT, DON’T YOU?” he pressed harder. Sans didn’t respond. Papyrus gripped the bottom of his T-shirt and squeezed tight. “DON’T YOU?”

Sans made a noise like he might respond, but it was just a noise. Not a word. Not a response. A few more seconds passed, and he finally shook his head, slow and pained.

“i … there’s not … i …”

It had been a long time since Papyrus had seen his brother look so helpless, and he hated, hated, that he was the one that put that look on his face. And he could take it off any second he liked. He could say nevermind, he could let it go, he could change the subject or invite Sans to do something fun.

But instead, he just stood there, feeling as helpless as Sans looked, his hands shaking and his mouth curling into something between a smile and a frown.

“YOU DON’T,” he said at last, with a certainty that equally pained and surprised him. Sans looked away. Papyrus sucked in a breath. “HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW? HOW CAN YOU NOT REMEMBER?”

Sans winced, and it hurt Papyrus deep in his chest.

“i forgot everything you—”

“BUT YOU’RE OLDER!” Papyrus shouted, so loud he could hear his voice rebounding off the walls and landing back against his skull. “YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO REMEMBER MORE THAN ME! BUT YOU DON’T! ALL YOU KNOW IS THAT ONE DAY YOU WOKE UP AND WE WERE HERE AND WE WERE BY OURSELVES AND YOU KNEW WHO I WAS AND WHO YOU WERE AND THAT THIS WAS OUR HOUSE BUT YOU DIDN’T KNOW HOW WE GOT HERE OR WHY WE WERE HERE OR WHO … WHO OUR …”

His voice hitched, and he paused, shaking his head and trying to breathe without letting out the tears he could feel forming in his eyes.

“DID THEY NOT WANT US?”

Sans turned to look at him again, eyes wide, but Papyrus kept shaking his head, squeezing his shirt so hard it hurt his hands.

“IS THAT WHY NO ONE ELSE IS HERE WITH US? IS THAT WHY WE’RE ALONE?”

Sans pushed himself out of his chair, kneeling down in front of him. “bro, you know—”

“I DON’T KNOW!” Papyrus cut him off, though this time, Sans didn’t even flinch. “I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING BECAUSE I CAN’T REMEMBER IT AND NEITHER CAN YOU AND IF YOU CAN’T REMEMBER THEN THAT MEANS NO ONE DOES AND I’LL NEVER KNOW MY REAL BIRTHDAY AND I’LL NEVER KNOW WHERE I CAME FROM AND I …”

His voice broke, and this time, it refused to come back. Papyrus breathed and breathed, faster and faster, almost panting in his effort to choke back the sobs.

It didn’t work.

The first one slipped out, then another, and another after that, and then Papyrus collapsed on the floor, crying so hard it burned his eyesockets, and Sans’s arms were around him, holding him tight.

It had been a long, long time since Papyrus had let himself cry. It hurt, more than he remembered, like he was working a part of his body that hadn’t gotten any exercise for months. It hurt more than falling and scraping his knee or the time one of the kids in class had been practicing attacks and accidentally hit him in the face.

It hurt, but it also felt like he was letting a weight off his back that he hadn’t even realized was there.

Sans never let go. He adjusted himself, got down on the floor so he wouldn’t strain his legs, but he never let Papyrus go, even for a second. He held him so tight Papyrus could feel the hum of his soul against his skull, buzzing alongside his own. It was warm, familiar like nothing else in his life. The one thing that he was sure had been there before he could remember. He didn’t know who his parents were. He didn’t know why he was here or why he was alone. He didn’t know when his birthday was. But he knew his brother was with him. His brother had always been with him.

And Sans would never leave.

Papyrus was sure.

He must have had a lot of tears inside him, because it took what felt like a very long time for them to stop. But they did stop, slowly, steadily, until he was lying in Sans’s arms, sniffing and wiping his eyes against the fabric of his brother’s shirt. His head ached, his bones trembled, and he felt like half of him had been drained out through his sockets. But he felt better. He didn’t know how, but he felt a lot better.

Sans didn’t say anything at first. Papyrus could feel him shifting around, like he did when he was trying to think of something to say. Papyrus waited, as patiently as he always tried to do, but still, Sans said nothing. It felt very quiet in the room now that his tears had stopped, and after a few minutes, Papyrus opened his mouth, ready to break the silence himself.

Then he felt something poke his side.

He jumped, barely biting back a squeal. He started to look up at Sans to ask what he was doing, but Sans poked him again, wiggling his fingers over his ribs just enough for him to feel it. He squealed again.

He could hear Sans snickering, swore he could feel him smiling, but all he could focus on was trying to get away from his tickling fingers. But Sans’s free arm was still around him, tugging him closer every time he got away. Papyrus was smaller, faster, and he tried to slip out of Sans’s grasp, but Sans knew him, knew how he moved, knew how he thought, and he followed right away, tickling him with one hand as soon as Papyrus had knocked away the other.

Papyrus squealed and laughed and shrieked, and even though the haze, he could hear Sans laughing right along with him. It was softer, gentler, but it echoed nonetheless, bouncing around the room and filling it with life.

It was warm. It was comfortable. It was his.

And it was better than all the real birthdays in the world.

*

Some part of Papyrus had known that new clothes weren’t the answer to everything. That they wouldn’t solve all Frisk’s problems, any more than they had solved all of his.

Still. That didn’t stop him from being disappointed when the cheer resulting from the new clothes only lasted four days.

He wasn’t sure exactly when Frisk’s excitement began to fade. It was slow, even if it happened in a very short amount of time. Their smiles got a little smaller, a little less frequent. They didn’t twirl around the room, waving their new cape in the air, quite as often. And more and more times each day, he found them sitting on the corner of the couch, or in their room, or on the beanbag chair Sans had insisted on buying, staring down at the floor, lost in thoughts Papyrus wished he could read.

They still wore their new outfit almost every day, but the effect was almost completely gone.

So Papyrus was left to try to find something else to cheer his new little sibling up.

He had spent a lot of time—a very, very long time—trying to figure out what Frisk might be scared of, what might make them wake up in the middle of the night so … suddenly.

What might make them cry harder than he had ever seen them cry before.

He had gone over all of the fears that were apparently normal for human children as well as many monster children. The dark. Small and cramped spaces. Too much space, apparently, which he would have never understood until Toriel told him about all the monsters who suffered from it once they moved out from under the mountain. Mean people. Scary creatures—humans still called those “monsters,” and it was incredibly confusing for Papyrus to tell whether humans were talking about the monsters from human movies or, well, monsters.

If he knew what they were afraid of, then maybe he could help get rid of it. Maybe he could make their nightmares stop. That might not fix their bad mood, but it would help. Even if it didn’t do anything else, it would mean they would get a better night’s sleep—and even though Papyrus functioned quite well without much sleep at all, Toriel had informed him that humans, especially human children, needed a lot of sleep to stay healthy.

So if he could not find out what was bothering Frisk just by being intuitive and observant, he would have to find out another way.

“WHAT IS MAKING YOU UPSET, HUMAN FRISK?”

The direct way sounded good.

Frisk looked up at him, blinking, like they hadn’t even noticed him in the room until now. For a long few seconds, they stayed that way, staring at him as he stared back. But Papyrus was very patient, and he didn’t need to blink, and he had proven a long time ago that he could beat Frisk in every staring contest in the world.

Finally, they pressed their lips together and lowered their gaze to the floor.

“… I dunno.”

Papyrus frowned. Their voice was quiet, so quiet that it reminded him of Sans on one of his worst days. And Sans was naturally one of the quietest people Papyrus had ever met. Frisk was quiet, yes, but …

He paused, thinking, then took a seat on the couch next to them.

“WELL, THAT IS NOT VERY GOOD,” he said, as matter-of-fact as he felt. “IT IS MUCH HARDER TO NOT BE UPSET WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT’S MAKING YOU UPSET.”

Frisk stared at him again, not as long this time. Then they fidgeted and stared at their feet, wrapping their arms around their legs and pulling them close. They said nothing.

Papyrus frowned deeper. He crossed his arms over his chest and twisted his mouth into the funny shape it always made when he was thinking about something very hard.

“HMM … THIS IS QUITE THE CONUNDRUM. LUCKILY, THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS A MASTER PUZZLE-SOLVER, AND THIS PUZZLE IS NO DIFFERENT! I WILL SOLVE IT AND FIND THE BEST WAY TO MAKE YOU HAPPY AGAIN!”

He lifted one arm in the air in triumph, curving his frown into a grin. Frisk peeked up at him, but again, looked away only a second later.

“You don’t have to do that, Pap.”

Papyrus’s smile fell, and his arm lowered back down to his lap. His browbone furrowed.

“WELL ... PERHAPS IT IS NOT AN OBLIGATION, BUT I BELIEVE IT IS ONE OF MY FRIEND DUTIES, WHICH ARE STILL EXTREMELY IMPORTANT.”

Frisk let out a soft sigh and shook their head. “You have better things to do.”

Papyrus’s browbone furrowed deeper. “AT THE MOMENT, THE BEST THING I CAN THINK OF TO DO IS TO SOLVE THE PUZZLE OF YOUR UPSETNESS.”

Frisk’s mouth twisted into a shape of its own, like there were so many things inside them that they had to fight to keep them from falling out of the first exit they found.

“You’ll get bored soon,” they muttered, but with the certainty they might use for something that had already happened. “If you can’t solve it.”

Papyrus wanted them to look at him. Wanted to meet their eyes so he could read them better. But their head was down and their eyes were on their lap, and Papyrus wasn’t sure if they would like it if he stretched across the couch just to get a good look at them.

“WHY DO YOU THINK I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SOLVE IT?” he asked instead, hoping that it might be enough.

Frisk sucked in a hiss of a breath through their teeth, like something had hurt them, even though Papyrus could think of nothing on the couch that might have done so.

“It’s … it’s not worth it.”

“YES IT—”

“I’m not worth it,” Frisk cut him off, barely louder than a whisper, even though the words themselves felt like rocks plopping down onto his head.

Papyrus didn’t know what to say to that. He tried to think of something, one of the things that were obvious to him, things that should have been just as obvious to Frisk. But then he realized that if they had been obvious to Frisk, then he wouldn’t have needed to point them out.

And maybe it didn’t matter if he thought they were obvious. If Frisk didn’t … then he still wouldn’t be able to make them believe him.

He frowned again, putting his hand on his chin in his best thinking pose. It didn’t always help him think better, but it looked very cool, and he could feel Frisk watching him, their usual curiosity peeking past the cloud that hung over their head. He hummed once, then hummed a bit louder. Frisk giggled, so quietly he almost missed it. Papyrus paused, then hummed again, as loud as he could. Frisk couldn’t hold back a snort.

Papyrus’s mouth twitched up at the corners.

Then he took a deep breath and hummed as loud as a shout.

Frisk laughed.

And they kept laughing, harder and harder the louder he hummed. Then he started making funny faces, which he had been told looked even funnier when your face was made out of bone. He took off his cape and tied it around different parts of his body and showed it off like his favorite new fashion accessory. And when even that wore off and Frisk started to settle down, Papyrus leaned forward and tickled them under their arms.

They squealed.

He tickled them harder, tickled them with all the technique he had learned to use on his brother, all the techniques his brother had used on him. Frisk curled up into a ball, backing into the corner of the couch, almost falling off of it, but he didn’t stop. After a minute, they slipped past him, running across the room, but he ran after them, and with his long legs, he caught up fast. And they kept going, Frisk running, Papyrus chasing after them, all around the living room. Frisk grabbed pillows from the couch to use as shields, and took to climbing under and over the furniture in increasingly creative escape attempts.

And the whole time, even when they had to pause to breathe, they never stopped smiling.

They must have been running for fifteen minutes before they—well, Frisk—finally collapsed on the floor, panting and waving their arms in surrender. Papyrus flopped down next to them, a little worn down, but still full of energy. If training with Undyne had given him one thing, it was endurance.

But Frisk was small and young, and Toriel had told him they needed a few more years before they were ready for the sort of “rigorous exercise” that was his daily routine.

So while Frisk caught their breath, Papyrus got to his feet and plucked them up, carrying them across the room and plopping them down on the couch. They giggled, still panting as he sat down beside them. Their smile was tired, but the gleam in their eyes was more genuine than he had seen all day.

“Thanks, Pap,” they breathed, barely more than a whisper, but in the silence of the room, it was like the chime of a bell.

Papyrus beamed, and reached out to pull them to his side, warm against his chest.

“OF COURSE, HUMAN FRISK. YOU ARE WORTH IT,” he said, feeling them curl up against him, so small it shocked him. His eyes softened, even though he knew they weren’t looking. “YOU ARE ALWAYS WORTH IT.”

Frisk said nothing else, just kept breathing, the noise rhythmic and soothing. They curled up a little closer, pressing their face into his shirt, and Papyrus wrapped both arms around them, holding them as securely as he could.

And he hoped, with all of his might, that they believed him.

Chapter Text

“What are you wearing?”

“No one draws that many cars.”

“You’re so weird!”

“Are you sure there isn’t an adult in your family I can talk to? I know you don’t have … but perhaps an aunt or uncle, a grandparent?”

Papyrus was used to the questions.

He had been getting them for as long as he could remember, and he knew by now that they would never stop. As long as he was around other people, other people who had different lives than his, there would be questions. Sans said that questions weren’t bad, most of the time, as long as he had an answer ready. As long as he could tell them that yes, his brother was definitely old enough to take care of him, no, they didn’t need anyone to come to the house, and yes, his brother would be happy to come down to the school to talk about Papyrus’s progress, but it would have to wait until he had a break from work.

Papyrus had memorized those answers within a month of starting school. They weren’t hard, and usually, when he gave them, people left him alone.

But sometimes he didn’t get questions. Sometimes people just said things, like they were true no matter what, and didn’t leave any room for Papyrus to say they weren’t.

If they said he was weird … then he was weird. If he said he wasn’t, they just wrinkled their noses and walked off, like what he said about it didn’t matter.

If they said no one draws that many cars … well, he didn’t know any better. He didn’t know many people outside school, except Sans, and he had never seen Sans draw anything unless Papyrus asked him to join him.

And if someone gave him funny looks when he walked into class with clothes in so many colors it looked like a rainbow …

… then there weren’t even any words for him to say weren’t true.

It had been happening more and more with every year that passed, and this year … this year it happened at least once a week. At least once a week, he got out of school with thoughts still swirling around in his head. Voices. Questions. Accusations. Demands for answers he didn’t have.

He tried to distract himself. Tried to focus on his homework or board games or cleaning. But it was harder lately, with how much Sans was gone. Sometimes he would just be home for a few minutes, long enough to drop Papyrus off at the house and make sure he had something to do, before he headed off to another of his “part-time jobs.” He had a lot of those nowadays.

That was another thing people asked about, and another question that left Papyrus without anything to say.

Other kids’ brothers didn’t have so many jobs. A lot of other kids’ brothers didn’t even have jobs. A lot of them went to school. In a different grade, but they still went to school. At first, Papyrus had thought Sans was just older than those other kids’ brothers, but then he had met those other kids’ brothers, and he found that most of them were much bigger and stronger than his own.

But those kids’ brothers went to school, and Sans didn’t. Even though he was really smart. Even though he understood Papyrus’s schoolwork better than Papyrus did. Even though he probably would have been so much happier if he could just—

“—yrus?”

“HUH?” Papyrus’s head snapped up, his eyes jerking all the way open before they landed on the person in front of him. On Sans. On Sans, standing maybe a foot away, his browbone creased in worry. Papyrus’s shoulders dropped, and his soul twisted in embarrassment. “OH. SORRY.”

Sans’s worried look didn’t go away. “you seemed pretty lost in thought there, bro.”

Papyrus ducked his head and stared down at the quilt of their shared bed, running a finger along one of the patterns sewed into it.

“IT WAS A VERY … THOUGHT-PROVOKING DAY.”

“is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

Papyrus clenched his teeth and lowered his head even more.

“IT’S A GOOD THING TO BE PROVOKED TO HAVE THOUGHTS AT SCHOOL.”

He knew it wasn’t very convincing. He knew Sans would be able to tell he didn’t mean it. He knew that anything said with your head that low wouldn’t be believed. But he couldn’t bring himself to meet his brother’s eyes, so he didn’t bother trying.

Sans hummed in consideration, and Papyrus thought he saw him shrugging.

“eh, sometimes. depends on the thoughts,” he said, with a casual tone that Papyrus knew was anything but. He paused again, and Papyrus felt his eyes locked on him, burning deeper into him than bones could go. “you feel like sharing any of those thoughts?”

Papyrus’s head couldn’t go any lower, so he just wrapped his arms around himself, like a hug.

“THERE IS NOTHING WORTH SHARING.”

The thing about knowing someone as well as he knew Sans was that he didn’t have to look up to imagine his expression. To imagine him quirking half his browbone, his head tilted to the side, how his smile twitched in something between amusement and pain.

“really?” he asked, in that same not-really-casual tone. “i find that pretty hard to believe. any thoughts that spend so much time running around in such a great head must have a good reason to be there, if you haven’t gotten rid of them yet.”

He paused, and Papyrus got the feeling that he was hoping for an answer. He tried to come up with one, but Sans’s question somehow felt even harder than the ones his classmates and teacher asked, and his voice failed him no matter how hard he tried to make it come out.

“unless … they won’t leave?”

Papyrus jerked his head up before he could think better of it. Sans’s face looked exactly like he had imagined, and he didn’t know he could hate and love something quite so much. He tried to look away, but Sans’s gaze held him there, and after a few seconds, he knew there was no going back.

Sans gave him a soft, sad smile.

“yeah, thoughts are nasty like that.” He paused. Raised his browbone again. “want me to dunk ‘em?”

“SANS!”

Papyrus tried to sound scolding, but it came out more like a whine, and when Sans grinned at him, Papyrus blushed and jerked his head away, glaring at the floor as he crossed his arms firmly in front of his chest.

“YOU CAN’T DUNK THOUGHTS, ANYWAY,” he muttered. “AND PRANKING THE OTHER KIDS ISN’T GOING TO SOLVE ANYTHING!”

“so it’s the other kids at school?”

Papyrus froze. He could feel Sans’s eyes on him, feel the slight triumph in his gaze, and he felt his own cheeks glow as bright as they ever had. He frowned even deeper, ducking his head and staring at the floor as resolutely as he could manage.

“i can’t help if you won’t tell me, bro,” Sans said, and there was no smugness in his tone. Only softness. Only worry.

Sans was just trying to help. Papyrus knew that. Despite the jokes, despite his teasing, all Sans ever wanted to do was help.

Papyrus’s shoulders dropped, and his face softened, even as his gaze remained on the floor.

“... THEY JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND,” he murmured, his voice barely louder than a whisper. His browbone furrowed, and he shook his head. “THEY … THEY JUST DON’T KNOW HOW TO SAY NICE THINGS.”

He looked up, and found Sans watching him with eyes he didn’t know how to read. He swallowed the thick lump in his throat.

“YOU SAID THAT PEOPLE DO THAT, RIGHT? THEY … THEY SAY MEAN THINGS BECAUSE NO ONE EVER TAUGHT THEM HOW TO SAY NICE THINGS? BECAUSE … PEOPLE SAID A LOT OF MEAN THINGS TO THEM AND SO THEY THINK IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO?”

It sounded more desperate than he wanted it to. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted to believe it. Wanted to believe that there was a reason for what they were doing. A reason that didn’t have to do with him.

A reason that didn’t make him feel like, maybe … what they were saying was true.

Sans’s smile got as close to a frown as it ever did.

“that doesn’t make it okay.”

His eyelights were sharp now, small and dull, like they got just before they disappeared. Just before he said something in that voice he tried not to let Papyrus hear, but Papyrus had only had to hear it once for it to be engraved in his head forever.

“THEY’LL JUST LAUGH MORE,” Papyrus said, the words tumbling out like a bag of rocks dumped onto the ground, messy and frantic. “IF YOU DO SOMETHING.”

He didn’t expect it to work, but a second later, Sans’s eyelights got wider again, just a bit, and the hardness in his eyes softened. Just enough for the knot in Papyrus’s chest to loosen.

Loosen, but not disappear.

Sans let out a long, sad breath, and looked down at the floor.

“and nothing will change if no one does anything.”

Papyrus curled up a little further, dropping his eyes back down to the ground, as if it would make everything better if he didn’t have to look at it. But Sans was still there, whether or not he was looking at him. He was still watching him with those sad eyes.

A few seconds later, a warm hand rested on his shoulder, giving it a soft squeeze.

“you don’t deserve that, papyrus,” Sans said, and his voice was so soft, so pained, that it made Papyrus’s chest clench. “i don’t want to see you hurt like that. it hurts me, too.”

Papyrus blinked, glancing up at him, then immediately back down at his feet. He clenched his teeth and shook his head.

“BUT YOU’RE NOT THE ONE THEY’RE SAYING THINGS ABOUT.”

The lie felt like acid coming up his throat. Because they had said things about Sans. Not very much. Not as much as they said things about him. But they did say things, sometimes. They talked about how stained and old his clothes looked. They talked about how he was supposed to be years older than Papyrus but still looked so small.

One time, and only one time, they had said that Papyrus and Sans must have been awful sons for their parents to abandon them.

But only a second after they said it, another kid in the group stopped smiling, and nudged the other two, and they left Papyrus where he was, hugging himself, trying not to cry, as he wondered whether they were right.

“well, what if i told one of your teachers and let them take care of it?”

Papyrus barely kept himself from jumping. He looked up, meeting Sans’s eyes and trying to act like he hadn’t forgotten he was there. Hoping that he hadn’t let his remembered emotions show on his face.

By the way Sans’s eyes softened, and his smile tensed, Papyrus got the feeling he wasn’t successful.

He looked down again, staring at his feet, his toes just touching the floor.

“I DON’T … I DON’T THINK THE TEACHERS PAY MUCH ATTENTION.”

The silence that followed felt heavier before, and Papyrus didn’t need to look to know that Sans was glaring at something, something that wasn’t there, at a situation that he couldn’t glare at because it was a situation, not a person. When Papyrus finally looked up, Sans had stopped glaring, and was looking at him with sad eyes.

“well, that doesn’t make any sense,” he said, in a light-hearted tone, like he was trying to make a joke but already knew it wouldn’t be funny. “they expect you to pay attention to them all day but they don’t pay much attention to you? that doesn’t sound like how a school’s supposed to work.”

Papyrus gritted his teeth and looked to the side, frowning at the wall in growing frustration.

“HOW WOULD YOU KNOW? YOU NEVER WENT TO SCHOOL.”

It came out before he even realized it was in his head, and the second the words were in the air, Papyrus wanted to snatch them back. But of course, you couldn’t take your words back after you said them, so all Papyrus could do was sit there as Sans stared back at him, and try to think of a way to say sorry.

But Sans didn’t look upset. After a long second, his mouth twitched up at the corners, and he let out a small huff of a laugh.

“well, you’re right about that,” he said, looking off to the side, apparently talking to himself as much as Papyrus.

Papyrus swallowed and looked at the floor.

He wasn’t right. Or, at least, he wasn’t sure whether he was right. And neither was Sans. For all they knew, Sans had been going to school before, maybe for years. Maybe he was really good at school. Maybe he had really liked it.

But they couldn’t remember.

All Papyrus knew was that, from that first moment they woke up in this house, alone aside from each other, he had gone to school, and Sans had tried to find jobs. He had tried anything and everything he could to make money so that they—so that Papyrus—could live a good, comfortable life.

“but i’ve heard plenty about it from you,” Sans went on, as casually as ever, as if it didn’t matter. As if what Papyrus hadn’t said didn’t hit a tender spot for both of them. “and you’ve been soaking up all that school stuff like a sponge since you started going.”

Papyrus ducked his head a little lower, trying to look more frustrated than sad.

“SKELETONS AREN’T MADE OF SPONGE, SANS. THEY’RE MADE OF MAGIC. AND BONES.”

Sans huffed a laugh. “hey, you see? you just taught me something. is that one of those cool school facts?”

“SANS!”

“no, really, what else did you learn?” Sans asked, his voice mixing with another laugh. “did they tell you the secret that makes you so cool? cause i’d really like to learn that one.”

Papyrus sighed and rolled his eyes, but when his mouth twitched up at the corners, he didn’t try to hide it.

They kept talking for another twenty minutes after that, going over all the good parts of Papyrus’s day—and there were good parts, he had known that before, and it felt better now that he was reminded. He talked about the bad things some, too. The things the other kids had said. The things the teachers said. The little things that bothered him. And Sans listened. He didn’t try to give advice, or say how to fix it, but he listened.

Papyrus had never realized that listening could help quite so much.

By the time they finished talking, the weight in Papyrus’s chest had almost completely faded, leaving only a thin dusting of heaviness on his soul. It was still there, of course, but it was much easier to ignore.

And ignore it he did, as they ate dinner and worked on his homework and laughed at a silly human TV show Sans had found on disc at the dump. He ignored it as Sans read him a story and tucked him in bed, and he ignored it as his brother curled up beside him a little while later, holding him tight as they both fell asleep.

He ignored it until he woke up the next morning, alone, only to find Sans already downstairs, fixing breakfast. It had been a long time since Sans woke up before him, but Papyrus decided not to question it. Later, maybe. But for now, he just enjoyed getting to eat a real breakfast with his brother: not a frozen dinner, not leftovers from a restaurant, but real, home-cooked food.

Well. Cereal. But he had put it in the bowl and added the milk himself, and that was what counted.

He walked him to school, like he always did, but unlike most days, he didn’t drop him off as soon as the entrance came into sight. He walked him all the way to the front door of the schoolhouse, where several of the other kids had already gathered, playing a game of marbles in the snow.

Papyrus waved to get their attention, trying not to think about the things these same kids had said yesterday, trying to ignore that old ache in his soul. The kids looked up. They blinked at him, staring for a long second, before all their eyes fell on Sans.

They froze.

Then they turned, one by one, to Papyrus, and gave him bright smiles.

“Hey, Papyrus!”

“You wanna play with us?”

“I’ve got some extra marbles. You like red ones?”

“I can explain the rules if you never played before.”

Papyrus blinked. His smile slipped, just a bit, as his browbone furrowed, and he found his head tilting to look at Sans at his side.

Sans smiled back at him, that innocent, casual smile Papyrus had seen far too many times to believe.

“well?” he asked, almost normally. “you gonna go join them?”

Papyrus frowned. He knew that something was up. He would have to be completely braindead to not know that something was up—and even though he didn’t have a brain, he was very far from dead. But behind the fake innocence, Papyrus saw something like hope in his brother’s eyes. Hope, concern, and pain. The same look he had tried and failed to hide last night.

He looked back at the kids. They were still watching him, maybe a little more nervous than usual, but … they were still smiling. Still holding out a bag of marbles, welcoming him to join.

He had never been welcomed to join anyone before.

He looked at his brother one more time. Sans smiled. Papyrus gave him a small smile back.

Then he went bounding off to join the other kids, feeling his brother’s eyes on him for another long minute before he turned around and walked away.

*

If it wasn’t for Toriel, Papyrus probably wouldn’t have even noticed something was wrong.

In his defense, he had been very busy that day, running around town doing five different errands and talking to every human who didn’t immediately look away when he met their eyes. It had been a good day, he thought, and he had returned home a little after four in the afternoon, smiling and holding ten overstuffed shopping bags.

But when he set them on the table and looked to Toriel for her usual smile of approval and thanks, he found her staring out the window just above the kitchen sink, her brow furrowed and her mouth curved into a frown.

He had known her long enough by now to recognize her worried face. It was very distinctive from her other faces, and she wore it rather often, especially when she was thinking about Frisk. She didn’t wear it very much around other people—or, at least, when she knew other people were watching. He got the feeling she didn’t like for others to see her pain.

He waited for her to notice him, but after a minute, it became clear that she wasn’t going to. In fact, she looked even more worried now, even more lost in thought, than she had when he first came in, and it would be against his values to leave such a kind woman—a woman who had brought his brother so much joy, despite their shared horrendous jokes—upset.

He stepped forward, clearing his throat.

“NOT-QUEEN TORIEL?”

Toriel jumped. She turned around a little faster than normal, her hands close to her torso in a fighting stance.

Then she saw him.

She paused. Blinked. Took a breath.

Her hands fell to her sides, and she smiled, a weak, shaky smile.

“Oh. Hello, Papyrus. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in. How was your shopping trip?”

Her voice was as gentle as it always was, but there was an ache behind it that she didn’t do a very good job hiding. Papyrus tried to smile back, but he could already tell that it didn’t come out even half as wide as it normally was.

“IT WAS VERY SUCCESSFUL,” he said, glancing toward the bags on the table. “I FOUND ALL THE ITEMS ON THE LIST.”

Toriel’s smile grew, a little more genuinely this time, the corners of her eyes crinkling with what he had learned to be gratitude.

“Wonderful. Thank you so much for going.”

He wanted to say “YOU’RE WELCOME.” He wanted to say that he was happy to do shopping trips anytime she needed them. He wanted to tell her about all the things he had seen when he was out, the people he had talked to, the things he had learned. And he got the feeling Toriel wanted all of that, too.

Instead, he tilted his head and frowned.

“YOU ARE UPSET.”

Toriel tensed, but just a little, and Papyrus realized that the tension she had held before had never fully gone away. He kept looking at her, kept waiting, and it only took a few seconds for her to sigh and drop her gaze to the kitchen floor.

“I am just … concerned.”

“AND WHAT IS CONCERNING YOU?” Papyrus asked, taking another step forward, but giving her space. She had told him that once, about how other people sometimes wanted space more than they wanted someone to be right in front of them, and he had been doing his best to remember it.

Toriel shook her head, slowly, her lips pressed together and twisting into a worried shape.

“I think that … Frisk is being bullied.”

Papyrus blinked a couple of times as the words sunk in. He glanced up at the ceiling, toward Frisk’s bedroom on the second floor, then back to Toriel, only a few feet in front of him.

“YOU MEAN THE OTHER HUMAN CHILDREN ARE NOT TREATING THEM WELL?” he asked, just to make sure he was understanding right.

“Well … I am not entirely sure. But I believe so, yes,” Toriel replied, still not meeting his eyes. “They seemed … very upset when I picked them up from summer camp today. And even more so when I asked if they had fun with the other children. But they won’t tell me what happened, and as long as I do not know the details … there is nothing I can do.”

She held her arms tight against her body, like Papyrus had done when he was little and wanted a hug but there was no one around to hug him. Papyrus frowned deeper, and had to force his own arms to stay at his sides so he didn’t reach forward and hug her instead.

“THE ADULT HUMANS ARE NOT DOING ANYTHING?”

Toriel huffed, her worried frown twisting into something like annoyance, and even though her eyes were still locked on the ground, he could see the flash of fire burning within them.

“If there is one thing I have learned about humans and monsters who care for children … it is that they often have no idea when to step in and assist,” she muttered, and it sounded like she was talking to herself more than she was talking to him. She shook her head and huffed. “I know some of them believe the children should work it out for themselves, but they are only children and Frisk rarely stands up for themself and …”

She clamped her mouth shut, like she was trying to plug a faucet that wouldn’t stop running. She stood there for a second, closing her eyes, taking a deep breath, letting her shoulders fall. Then she opened her eyes and looked at him, her expression softer. Still pained, but duller, like the new pain had settled in with all the old pain that she didn’t talk about, that Sans said she might never talk about, the pain that had become as much a part of her as her fire magic or her thick white fur.

“I am sorry for rambling,” she said, giving him a shaky smile that didn’t look much like a smile at all. She lowered her eyes again and shook her head, even slower than before. “I am just … very worried.”

Papyrus’s chest hurt as he looked at her. He wanted to say something. Wanted to reassure her, make her feel better, offer some solution. But nothing came.

And before he had time to think some more, she brushed past him, out of the kitchen, through the living room, and into her own bedroom, probably to busy herself with one of her many activities in an effort to clear her head.

She wouldn’t give up on the issue, Papyrus was sure. She loved Frisk too much for that, and she was very determined, when she wanted to be.

But Sans once said that she had tried so hard so many times, without any success, that sometimes she just needed to take a break.

But Papyrus hadn’t been trying hard at this particular issue. He had had a lovely day out on the town running errands, and he had a lot of good energy to back him up, and if Toriel wasn’t ready to solve this problem yet, then Papyrus would just have to step up to the challenge himself.

Because Frisk was sad, and a good big brother would never let their little sibling stay sad.

He unloaded all the things he had picked up for Toriel, putting the food in the cabinets and fridge and laying out all the non-food things in the living room for her to sort through later, when she was feeling better. Then he marched up the stairs to Frisk’s bedroom and knocked, before he could convince himself it was better to wait and listen first.

The knock sounded a little too loud to him, and once the echo of it stopped, the silence had never felt quite so heavy.

“Who is it?”

Frisk’s voice barely made it through the door. There was no hitch to it, no breathiness. They didn’t sound like they had been crying. But Papyrus knew that it took a lot of pain for Frisk to cry, and just because they hadn’t let tears fall didn’t mean they weren’t hurting.

He stood up a little straighter.

“IT IS YOUR VERY GREAT FRIEND PAPYRUS, AND I AM REQUESTING ENTRANCE INTO YOUR ROOM!”

He heard something huffed and breathy, a little like a laugh. “Okay.”

“IS THAT AN OKAY THAT GRANTS ENTRANCE?”

“Yeah.”

Papyrus smiled, just a little, half for Frisk and half for himself, before he turned the knob and stepped into the room.

Frisk was on their bed, of course, tucked into the corner with their knees close to their chest, their eyes locked on him. There was nothing in front of them, not a book or a puzzle or even their laptop. He wondered how long they had been sitting there. He decided it was best not to ask.

Instead, he stared at them for a second, while they looked back. Then he cleared his throat.

“YOU HAVE RETURNED FROM SUMMER CAMP.”

Frisk fidgeted, like they could hear the words he wasn’t saying out loud.

“Mm-hmm,” they murmured. They paused a second, glancing away, then looked back to him with a slightly funny expression. “I’m always back by this time, Pap.”

“YES, BUT I WAS GONE ALL DAY TODAY, AND THEREFORE WAS NOT HERE TO GREET YOU WHEN YOU RETURNED, OR ASK HOW YOUR DAY WAS.”

Frisk looked down and didn’t say anything else. Papyrus felt his mouth curl into a frown, as hard as he tried to keep smiling.

“SO I AM ASKING NOW,” he finished, a bit of a question slipping into his tone, just enough that he was certain they heard it.

They tilted their head, shifting their gaze to the side, still not looking at him.

“It was fine,” they muttered, very quietly.

Papyrus frowned deeper. His browbone furrowed, and he spent a long moment just trying to get his thoughts organized, forming them into words that someone other than him could understand.

“I HEARD ONCE THAT FINE DOES NOT ACTUALLY MEAN WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE. I BELIEVE IT IS AN ACRONYM FOR SOMETHING ELSE, BUT SANS REFUSES TO TELL ME WHAT IT IS,” he replied, frowning a little harder as he remembered his own frustration at Sans’s stubborn silence. Frisk glanced up at him, just for a second, just long enough that he was sure they were listening. He stood up straighter. “THEREFORE, I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE ACTUALLY FINE, OR AT LEAST THAT THE FINE THAT YOU ARE IS NOT THE FINE THAT I WOULD CONSIDER FINE.”

Frisk looked up again, and this time their gaze stayed. They stared at him. He stared back. They blinked once, then again, then one more time.

“… Huh?”

Something deep in Papyrus’s bones softened as he looked as their confused expression, their eyes wide and bright and curious, even when they were in pain.

“TORIEL SAYS THAT YOU ARE NOT HAPPY AT SUMMER CAMP,” he said, before he could think better of it. “SHE BELIEVES THE OTHER HUMAN CHILDREN ARE NOT TREATING YOU WELL.”

Frisk tensed again, and immediately, their eyes dropped back down to the bed. They pulled their knees closer to their chest, lowered their head so their hair covered most of their face.

Papyrus frowned even deeper. “IS WHAT SHE SAYS CORRECT?”

Frisk fidgeted. They had taken off their shoes, but their socks made little shuffling noises as their feet moved on their quilt. Their feet were very small, now that Papyrus thought about it. And those tiny feet had carried them all the way across the underground.

“… I don’t want her to worry,” Frisk muttered, and their voice was even smaller than their tiny little feet.

They sounded very old and very young all at once. They sounded like Sans had sounded when he was a teenager, or what they had both thought was a teenager, though they were never completely sure. When he was trying so hard to sound like a grown-up, when he was trying to convince people that he could do a job, when he was insisting that yes, he was old enough to take care of his brother by himself, no, they didn’t need someone to take them in, they didn’t need anyone, they were find all by themselves.

Curled up against the wall on their bed, staring down at their feet, Frisk looked so much smaller than Sans ever had.

“SHE IS ALWAYS WORRIED ABOUT YOU,” Papyrus said, the words coming straight to his mouth without bothering to stop in his head. “SHE IS YOUR MOTHER.”

Even if he hadn’t thought it before, the words made sense as they came back to him, lingering in the air. Frisk peeked up at him through their hair, and Papyrus shifted his weight from foot to foot, pressing his teeth into a tight line.

“SANS SAID ONCE THAT … HE WAS ALWAYS WORRIED ABOUT ME. AND I THOUGHT THAT MEANT THAT I WAS DOING THINGS THAT MADE HIM WORRIED, OR THAT HE WAS BEING SILLY AND WORRYING TOO MUCH.”

Frisk lifted their head a little higher, and a small weight slipped off his shoulders.

“BUT HE SAID THAT HE ALWAYS WORRIED BECAUSE HE ALWAYS LOVED ME,” he went on, more confidently, because he realized that he hadn’t sounded very confident at all before. “BECAUSE … WHEN YOU LOVE SOMEONE, YOU WORRY ABOUT THEM. SOMETIMES A LITTLE. SOMETIMES A LOT. BUT YOU ALWAYS WORRY, BECAUSE … WHEN YOU LOVE SOMEONE, YOU DON’T WANT THEM TO GET HURT.”

There was more pain in Frisk’s eyes now, but it was a different kind of pain. It was the pain that always showed up on their face when they saw someone else hurt. Even if it wasn’t someone they knew, or someone they liked. They just didn’t want to see anyone suffer.

Papyrus swallowed harder and felt his own face soften.

“AND WHEN YOU SEE THEM GET HURT AND THEY DON’T LET YOU HELP THEM … IT MAKES YOU WORRY EVEN MORE.”

The words hung between them like rocks dangling by threads, ready to drop at any second. Frisk stared at him for a few seconds longer, then lowered their gaze, hands clenched in their lap.

“… sorry.”

“YOU DON’T NEED TO BE SORRY,” Papyrus said right away. “SANS TOLD ME THAT, TOO. THAT IT ISN’T MY FAULT HE LOVES ME SO MUCH. HE JUST DOES.”

Frisk didn’t look up, but Papyrus could tell they had heard him. They fidgeted a little more, their gaze shifting from side to side before landing on a random spot on the bed, their gaze sharp, focused, and pained.

“… I don’t know how to get them to stop,” they murmured, with a tone of pure defeat he didn’t think he had ever heard in all his time knowing them.

His shoulders fell, and he clenched his teeth.

“THAT IS INDEED A DIFFICULT THING TO DO,” he replied, picking out each word carefully, like searching for the ripest berries on the bushes in the woods. “IT IS … VERY DIFFICULT WHEN YOU WANT PEOPLE TO TREAT YOU ONE WAY BUT THEY ALWAYS TREAT YOU ANOTHER WAY.”

A very old, stale feeling bubbled up inside him, not enough to steal his attention, but enough to poke at the back of his awareness, reminding him of things he would rather ignore. Frisk shifted again, their head lowered even further.

“They … they say I’m weird.”

The word plucked a string in the old feeling in Papyrus’s head, but looking at Frisk, focusing on Frisk, made it easy to ignore.

He tilted his head. “IS IT BAD TO BE WEIRD?”

“No!” they blurted out, jerking their head up like this was of the greatest importance, and they had to make sure he heard them. He blinked. They blinked. Then they lowered their head again. “I … I don’t think so, but …”

They trailed off, opening and closing their mouth a few times before they huffed a heavy sigh, their eyes closing. Papyrus gave them a few more seconds, but they just curled up tighter on the bed. Papyrus rubbed his clenched teeth together, searching for the rights words again.

“BUT THE OTHER HUMANS THINK IT IS BAD TO BE WEIRD?”

Frisk made a face that seemed to hold many more feelings than a single expression should be able to hold.

“… most of them.”

Papyrus hummed, but said nothing at first. He had had more than six months to get used to humans, but sometimes they still confused him just as much as they had when he first met one. One other than Frisk, that is. He was learning more and more every day that he shouldn’t use Frisk as an example of a “typical human.”

That wasn’t a bad thing to him, or a good thing. Frisk was Frisk, and whether or not they were like other humans was just another part of who they were. In his mind, there was no reason to think of it any other way.

But apparently, human children thought differently.

“BUT WHAT IS WEIRD?” he asked at last, more out of his own curiosity than a further attempt at comfort. “DO THEY TELL YOU EXACTLY WHY THEY THINK YOU ARE WEIRD?”

Frisk opened their eyes, blinking a couple of times before looking up at him again. They frowned. They paused. They looked down again, their expression even more confused.

“Well … no. I guess it’s just … what they think.”

“THAT DOES NOT SEEM LIKE A VERY GOOD REASON,” Papyrus said, because it didn’t. He frowned even deeper. “IF THEY ARE TO MAKE SUCH A BOLD DECLARATION, THEN THEY SHOULD AT LEAST HAVE A GOOD REASON FOR IT.”

Frisk glanced up at him, and Papyrus looked back. His frown softened.

“BUT I HAVE LEARNED THROUGH MY MANY YEARS OF EXPERIENCE THAT SOMETIMES PEOPLE DO NOT THINK ABOUT WHAT THEY ARE SAYING AS MUCH THEY SHOULD.”

Frisk looked like they wanted to turn away again, but they didn’t. They kept looking at him, and Papyrus felt something warm glow in his chest. Yes, he decided. This was what responsibility felt like.

He thought it would scare him, but this time … it didn’t.

“SOMETIMES … THEY SAY THINGS BECAUSE THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT ELSE TO SAY. BECAUSE THEY WANT TO SPEAK BUT CAN’T THINK OF ANY WORDS. OR BECAUSE SOMEONE SAID THINGS LIKE THAT TO THEM AND THEY THINK IT IS ALRIGHT.”

He didn’t know where the words came from, but they felt right, so he let them come out on their own. Frisk waited, like they thought he might continue, and when he didn’t, they started chewing their bottom lip.

“So you think I should just ignore them?”

He got the impression, from their tone, that they had been told that before. Probably many times. He hesitated, then shook his head.

“... I DO NOT THINK THAT ALWAYS WORKS AS WELL AS SOME PEOPLE THINK IT DOES.”

Frisk gave him a vaguely surprised look, but it slipped away in only a few seconds, replaced by something between frustration and despair.

“Then what do I do?”

They stared up at him with eyes that somehow looked years younger than they had before. Papyrus had only realized recently, when he met other human children, how old Frisk’s eyes looked most of the time. How much older than their physical age. Like they had forced themself into the role of someone older, even an adult, because they had to, even though that didn’t change who they were deep down.

It didn’t change how much they needed someone to take care of them.

To help them.

The warm feeling grew stronger and stronger, until he felt ready to burst.

The words were in his mouth before he even knew they were in his head.

“BE WEIRD.”

Frisk blinked again, and the look they gave him reflected the confusion he felt swirling around in his head. It wasn’t until a few seconds later that the words settled in his skull, and Frisk opened their mouth, tilting their head to the side.

“Huh?”

Pieces began to click together much faster, much more easily than they had before, like he was remembering something he thought he forgot. Something that he had once known very well, even if he hadn’t remembered it for a while.

“THEY THINK THAT CALLING YOU WEIRD IS A BAD THING,” he went on, following his train of thought even though he wasn’t sure where it was going. “THAT YOU WILL FEEL LIKE SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH YOU BECAUSE THEY THINK YOU’RE WEIRD. BUT THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH BEING WEIRD, AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU. SO … BE EXTRA WEIRD. BE WEIRDER THAN THEY HAVE EVER SEEN IN THEIR LIVES. STUN THEM WITH YOUR WEIRDNESS.”

Frisk didn’t even blink this time. They just stared, lips parted, face blank. But Papyrus didn’t falter, didn’t pause, didn’t hesitate, just held himself taller, the words feeling as right as anything ever had.

“THEN THEY WILL NOT HAVE ANY POWER ANYMORE. BECAUSE THEY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO HURT YOU BY SAYING THAT YOU ARE WEIRD, BECAUSE YOU ARE PROUD OF IT.”

He found himself smiling, and nodded in satisfaction as his train of thought finally came to a stop, leaving him at a comfortable, bright station, even if it wasn’t the one he had planned on reaching.

Frisk stared at him for a long time after that, barely blinking, barely breathing, saying nothing. It felt like a full minute later that they lowered their head and raised their brow.

“That … kinda makes sense. I think.”

“OF COURSE IT DOES!” Papyrus said, even as that warmth bubbled up inside him. “MY IDEAS ALWAYS DO!”

Frisk nodded to themself, then looked at him again, hesitant.

“I guess … I’ll try that tomorrow,” they said, and though they still didn’t sound very sure of themself, when he smiled at them, they gave him a tiny smile back. “Maybe I can make a weird outfit to wear.”

Papyrus beamed.

“I CAN ASSIST YOU! THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS, OF COURSE, ALWAYS AT THE HIGHEST OF FASHION, BUT I BELIEVE I CAN SHIFT MY SIGNATURE COOL STYLE TO SOMETHING SUFFICIENTLY WEIRD TO STUN THE SOCKS OFF OF THE OTHER HUMAN CHILDREN. UNLESS THEY HAPPEN TO NOT BE WEARING SOCKS. THEN IT WILL HAVE TO STUN ANOTHER ITEM OF CLOTHING INSTEAD.”

Frisk snorted. It was a tiny snort, muffled and shy, but it wasn’t fake, and it made Papyrus smile a little easier. When they looked up at him again, their eyes were soft and far more grateful than they should have been. No one, especially not someone so young, should look so grateful for something that was, in his opinion, so small.

“Thanks, Pap.”

Papyrus already knew that the lump in his throat wasn’t going to go away, so he didn’t bother trying to swallow it.

“YOU ARE MOST WELCOME, HUMAN FRISK,” he said, his voice coming out just as soft as their eyes. Then he cleared his throat and stood up tall, putting his hands on his hips. “NOW! LET US GET STARTED ON YOUR OUTFIT!”

Frisk giggled, even quieter than before, but nodded.

Making a “weird” outfit was, as expected, very different from making a cool outfit. For one thing, they didn’t go shopping for the weird outfit, mostly because it was close to dinnertime and Papyrus doubted it would be a good idea to make Frisk miss their evening meal. But they had plenty to work with already in the house, he found. They had clothes that Frisk didn’t wear very much, and they had a whole pile of fabric scraps that Toriel had left over from old sewing projects, and though Papyrus didn’t have as much experience with sewing, he had enough to put together a simple outfit.

For another thing, Papyrus discovered that creating a weird outfit, one that wasn’t meant to impress, one that wasn’t meant to express coolness, was … somehow much more difficult than creating a cool outfit.

Much more difficult, but also much more fun.

He didn’t get to use his “cool” sense when choosing colors or patterns or accessories, but he got the find the most ridiculous addition he could think of. He got to experiment with possibilities he had never considered before.

And most of all, he got to make Frisk laugh with something he made.

The end product was, without a doubt, the silliest thing he had ever laid eyes on, but it filled him with an odd sense of pride to see Frisk standing there wearing it, grinning like mad, twirling to show it off with just as much enthusiasm as they had had for their cool outfit.

Toriel was … a bit confused the next morning when Frisk asked to wear it to camp, but when both they and Papyrus gave her wide, pleading smiles, she let it go without question.

When Frisk returned that afternoon, they bounded up the stairs to Papyrus’s room before he could run down to greet them, and the smile shining on their face told him all he needed to know about their day. Still, he asked about it, and they were more than happy to tell him.

They wore the costume every day for the rest of the week, and not once did they come home without a smile.

Chapter Text

Papyrus was already screaming by the time he woke up.

He thought that was what had woken him. He thought it was some kind of siren, maybe coming from Hotland, because it sounded very Hotland-ish, even though he wasn’t sure how a sound from Hotland could come all the way to Snowdin. His eyes snapped open and he lay there in bed, frozen, staring at the ceiling.

Then he realized his mouth was open, and the sound was coming from him.

Only a second after the thought hit him, his door flew open, and Papyrus turned his head to see Sans standing in the doorway, panting, looking around the room for a threat that didn’t exist.

They stared at each other, both of them breathing the same thick, heavy air and trying to ground themselves in reality.

Reality.

Sans was here. It was just Sans, just him, just the two of them together in his bedroom.

His bedroom. Right. He had gotten his own room a couple of weeks ago. He had wanted to try it out, since the other kids at school talked about having their own rooms and he thought it sounded cool even though he really liked sharing a bed with Sans. But when he mentioned that to the other kids, some of them laughed and called him a baby for still sleeping with his big brother, and even though Sans had told him that he wasn’t a baby, it wasn’t bad to share a bed, there was no deadline for him to get his own room … Papyrus couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Sans had looked sad when he finally asked if they could clean out one of the junk rooms to make a bedroom for him. But a few seconds later, he had smiled and said they would go to the dump that weekend and try to find him a bed.

They had gotten very, very lucky and found the racecar bed their first time. It was a little broken in places, and smelled bad from being stuck in the garbage for so long, but when they dragged it back to the house, fixed it up, and set it in the old junk room, Papyrus thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

It took another week after that to get the room ready—to find a cheap set of sheets, a few other small pieces of furniture, little decorative items at the dump or at the shop—and two days more for Papyrus to decide he was ready to try a night by himself. Sans had tucked him in, read him a story, then another story and another story until he had finished all the short books and realized that unless he wanted to start reading Advanced Puzzle-Making, it was time to let Papyrus sleep.

He had paused for a long, long time, just looking at him, like he was moving across the underground rather than down the hall. Then he leaned down and touched his teeth to Papyrus’s forehead, like the kisses Papyrus had seen parents give their kids when they dropped them off at school.

When he turned out the light and walked out the door, for a split second, it was all Papyrus could do not to call after him.

He didn’t, of course. He had made this decision, and he was ready for it. He slept that night, after about an hour of tossing and turning to find the most comfortable position on the mattress Sans had spent thirty minutes haggling for. And he had slept the night after that, and the night after that, and every night for two weeks after, with almost no trouble at all.

Maybe it was about time that he had his first bad night on his own.

Sans had finally stopped panting, having realized that his brother was safe. He was only wearing a tank top and shorts, and based on the darkness under his eyes, Papyrus guessed that he had been asleep for a while.

He looked at the clock on his new nightstand. 3:41am.

He looked back to Sans, just in time to see him take a couple of steps into the room, his eyes softening into concern.

“… hey bro.”

He sounded as tired as he looked, but no less worried because of it. Papyrus pulled the blankets closer to his chest and looked down at the sports car print that matched his new bed.

“… SORRY.”

“what are you apologizing for?” Sans asked, taking a few more steps closer to the bed and doing his best to smile. “you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Papyrus fidgeted and squeezed the blankets tighter. “I KNOW YOU’RE TIRED. I DIDN’T WANT TO WAKE YOU UP.”

He could hear Sans coming closer, but this time he didn’t look up. He let his eyes trace each car on his quilt, thinking about how much money Sans had spent on it, how he had tried so hard to get him everything on his First Bedroom Wishlist even though Papyrus knew that money was already tight and Sans had picked up more hours at his job to pay for it all. And now Papyrus had woken him up in the middle of the night, and maybe because of this he would be even more tired tomorrow when he was working the job he didn’t like so he could buy food and clothes and toys and—

The mattress squeaked as Sans sat down on the edge, reaching out to squeeze Papyrus’s shoulder.

“hey. hey, look at me,” he said, somehow both gentle and firm. Papyrus didn’t really want to, but he didn’t want to cause any more trouble, so he looked up anyway. Sans’s eyes were totally awake now, wide and even more worried than before, with a sadness behind it all that made Papyrus’s chest clench. “i never want you to feel bad for waking me up if something’s wrong. i’d feel bad if you didn’t. if i woke up and found out there was something wrong the whole night and i didn’t even wake up to help you with it … that’d be way worse.”

He laughed a little, but it was pained laugh, a sad laugh, like he thought he had done something wrong even though Papyrus was the one who had woken them both up in the middle of the night. He glanced away for a second, then looked at Papyrus again, smiling a smile that looked just as pained as his laugh had sounded, and tilted his head.

“bad dream, i guess?”

Papyrus wanted to look away again, but he forced himself to keep his eyes up, even as he gave a slow, shaky nod. “… I THINK SO.”

Sans nodded back. He glanced to the left, then to the right, then dragged his eyes forward.

“you … wanna talk about it?”

It sounded more hesitant than most of Sans’s questions. He got like that sometimes: said something that sounded like it was supposed to be normal, something that sounded like a script, something he had memorized because that was the “right thing to do,” even though he didn’t know if it would actually work.

Papyrus couldn’t decide whether he looked relieved or even more concerned when he shook his head.

“I DON’T EVEN REMEMBER IT,” he said, because that was all the explanation either of them ever needed.

Sans’s shoulders fell.

“ah,” he muttered, sitting down on the edge of the bed like he did when he told Papyrus stories. “one of those dreams, then?”

“MM.”

Sans said nothing, because there was nothing to say. Papyrus wrapped his arms around himself in a makeshift hug. Sans looked like he wanted to hug him, but wasn’t sure if it was the right time. Papyrus wished, just a little, that Sans would hug him anyway. But he didn’t say that, and Sans didn’t do it.

It was almost a minute later when Sans cleared his throat.

“wish those didn’t have to happen,” he went on, with a sad, quiet chuckle. He tilted his head. “you think you ate something weird? you know, every single time i drink two bottles of ketchup, i have the craziest dreams.”

Papyrus wrinkled the spot where he imagined his nose could have been, if he had one.

“THAT’S BECAUSE YOU SHOULDN’T DRINK KETCHUP, SANS.”

“says who?”

“SAYS ME.”

Sans huffed a laugh.

“well, there is no worthier source, so it must be true,” he said, with a joking tone, but with just enough seriousness that Papyrus could tell he meant it. “shame on me.”

He gave Papyrus a little nudge and a sad smile, and Papyrus’s mouth twitched up, but didn’t stay there. He knew Sans was trying to cheer him up. He knew he was trying his best, but … that didn’t make it help. It didn’t change the lingering feeling of something … wrong. Something missing. Something that should have been there, something that had been there, that wasn’t before.

The feeling that something very bad had happened and he had forgotten all about it.

It never went away. Not really. He could distract himself for minutes, hours, sometimes even days, if he was having a lot of fun or busy with something else. But it was always there, ready to come back as soon as his mind went quiet. And even if his mind was usually buzzing, even in his sleep … there were still times when it slowed. When it tried to rest. But that part of his mind never rested. It snuck in at the worst moments, when he was alone, when he was scared, and it reminded him of that gaping hole where so many of his memories should have been.

“… was it something I did?”

It was barely more than a whisper, but in the silence of his bedroom, it sounded like a shout. A shout from the quietest person Papyrus knew, by far. He lifted his head, his browbone furrowed, but Sans was staring at the quilt, his eyes distant, soft, and hurting in a way Papyrus hadn’t seen for a long time.

“WHAT?”

Sans turned his head, staring at a different spot, then lifted his gaze to look at Papyrus. He blinked a few times, and the look in his sockets went away, but even once it was gone, Papyrus couldn’t get it out of his head.

“WHY WOULD IT BE SOMETHING YOU DID?” he asked, before Sans could change the subject, like he always tried to do. “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”

Sans glanced away, but forced his eyes back a second later. He tried to smile, and it almost looked convincing. “it’s nothing. sorry, shouldn’t have said it.”

“BUT YOU DID SAY IT AND NOW I’M WORRIED,” Papyrus shot back at him, without letting a second go by. “WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT YOU GAVE ME BAD DREAMS?”

Silence. Glances to the side. More staring.

“SANS?”

Sans winced, and it hurt Papyrus somewhere deep in his chest, where Sans said his soul was, even if Papyrus had never seen it. He could see him getting ready to deny it, to say that Papyrus had just misunderstood him, that he had meant something else. But he didn’t mean something else. Papyrus was sure of that now, no matter what Sans said.

He lowered his browbone and sat up straighter in bed.

“IT WASN’T YOU,” he said, as firmly as he could, even when his voice didn’t want to rise to its normal volume. “I … I DON’T KNOW … I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT WAS, BUT IT DEFINITELY WASN’T YOU. IT’S … YOU SAID THAT YOU CAN’T REMEMBER THEM EITHER. NOT REALLY.”

Sans kept looking away. There was something sad in his eyes that looked much, much older than he was. Papyrus frowned.

“YOU CAN’T REMEMBER THEM ... RIGHT?”

It came out more like a question than just him repeating something true, and Sans noticed. He met his eyes again.

“yeah,” he breathed, and he sounded like he had just woken up from a bad dream himself, blinking it away even as he did his best to smile. “course. i would’ve told you a long time ago if i did.”

Papyrus’s frown didn’t go away. He looked up at his brother, saw him smiling just a little more than the grin permanently etched into his face, heard his words echoing around his own head.

And for the first time in his life—or, at least, the first time he could remember—Papyrus wondered if that was true.

But that wondering went away after only a few seconds. He had seen Sans struggle when he tried to remember things about their life before that … point. He had seen him looking for things around the house that were important, things that they needed, things that he knew must be there even if he had no idea where they were. He had seen him sitting on the couch late at night, his head in his heads, staring at the photos he had found of the two of them playing around the house. Just a few, tucked away in a drawer. But photos they definitely didn’t remember taking.

Photos that had been taken by someone else.

Someone they would never know.

As the last of his suspicion melted away, Papyrus leaned forward and grabbed Sans in a hug, pressing his face into his chest, holding him as tight as he could. Sans froze, but relaxed again only a second later and returned the embrace.

They stayed like that until Papyrus’s eyes fell shut and his mind began to drift away. Then he felt Sans lowering him back onto the bed, pulling the blankets up to cover him. He felt his brother slip under the covers next to him, wrapping his arms around him and holding him even tighter than before.

He fell asleep to the familiar, warm thrum of a soul against his skull.

*

Toriel had once told him that when you became a mother, you also became a very light sleeper. You would wake at the slightest noise, the slightest tiny whimper, the slightest hint that something was wrong with the child in your care.

Papyrus was fairly sure he was not a mother, but perhaps they just needed to expand the definition.

Because he had been lying awake in bed for almost half an hour, staring at the ceiling and wondering whether tonight would just be one of those nights that he didn’t sleep at all, before he heard the sobs.

He might not have heard them at all if part of his mind, a part that was very deep down and that he rarely noticed, hadn’t been listening for them. He knew that the kind of nightmares that made someone so scared usually didn’t happen just once, just like they didn’t sneak in without something to cause them. He knew that they would come back, that he would find Frisk crying again one night. So even without knowing he was doing it, he listened.

And this time, he was out of bed before the thought could even fully form in his head.

He crossed the hall in so few steps that he could feel the strain in his legs, but he ignored it, getting to Frisk’s door as fast as he could, then stopping in front of it. His hand hovered over the doorknob, hesitating, unsure. But that hesitation disappeared as fast as it had come, as long as it took to hear another sob echo through the wood. Then he turned the knob, slipped inside the room, and crossed the floor to the bed.

Frisk gasped as he sat down next to them, and for a second he hesitated again, longer than before. He could barely make out their wide eyes watching him in the darkness, but he could still hear their trembling breaths, feel the weight of their pain in the air. And that was what made his arms reach forward and wrap around them, pulling them against his chest. That was what made him hold on even when they stiffened in his arms. That was what made him hold them even tighter when they went limp, pressing their face into his nightshirt and sniffling into the fabric.

They didn’t cry for very long. He got the impression they had already been crying for a while before he arrived, and had gotten a lot of it out of their system. But he could also feel them stuffing their remaining feelings, feel them swallowing their sobs, like they didn’t want him to see. They were so small, so young, so fragile. But they didn’t want him to see them in pain.

They didn’t want to let him help.

He had thought they were getting better. They had seemed happier over the past few days, since the bullying situation at summer camp was apparently resolved. They had even made a human friend today, and spent all of dinner telling everyone how nice she was and how much fun they had had together. They still didn’t talk a lot with the other kids, but … they seemed happy with their one friend. It seemed like everything was alright.

But, of course, they had had problems before that. They had been sad before that. If he was completely honest, they had been sad for a long, long time before that, even if it wasn’t always so obvious. Even if they didn’t always have bad dreams. There had been something bothering them, and none of them had been able to help.

Not even Papyrus.

He had tried so hard to be a good big brother … but he hadn’t been able to help them.

His arms squeezed them a little tighter, and he let out a sigh that felt heavier than all the air in the room.

“I’M SORRY.”

He didn’t realize the words had actually come out of his mouth until he felt Frisk’s head tilt, heard them sniff one more time before looking up to meet his eyes. He looked back at them, and even in the darkness, he could see the confusion rising above the pain.

“What?”

Papyrus swallowed, then swallowed again, and again, even though he knew there was nothing in his mouth. The lump in his throat was gone, replaced by a gaping emptiness that somehow felt even more suffocating. He looked away and shook his head.

“I AM … I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO TO HELP YOU, HUMAN FRISK,” he said, the words so light, so breathy, that they felt like pure air sliding past his teeth. “I … I WANT TO MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER, BUT I AM NOT SURE HOW. YOU HAVE BEEN SAD SO MUCH OF THE TIME AND I DON’T … KNOW WHAT IS CAUSING IT. OR HOW TO MAKE IT BETTER. I WANT TO HELP YOU, BUT I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO.”

His mouth hung open for a few more seconds, like he might say something else, but no words came, and finally, he let his teeth clack together. He hung his head, staring down at the quilt. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Frisk trying to speak, heard them start to form a few words, but in the end, they went silent, too.

The two of them must have sat there for a good few minutes, neither of them saying anything, the only sounds in the room their soft breaths and Frisk’s occasional sniffles. Papyrus ran his eyes over the patterns on Frisk’s quilt and thought, for the first time, how much they looked like the one that had been on his and Sans’s shared bed.

He wondered if Frisk had ever had someone to share a bed with.

He wondered what kind of life they had had before they fell into the underground that they had been so quick to leave it all behind.

“… it hurt …”

Papyrus might have called it a whisper, but he didn’t think it was even close to loud enough to count as one.

He heard the noise, for sure, and he was pretty sure what words the noise was trying to convey. But Frisk was still staring down at their lap, their hands clenched together, the blankets tugged up as far as they would go, and no matter how long Papyrus waited for them to say something else, they remained silent.

“WHAT?” he asked, as gently as he could. “I CANNOT HEAR YOU WHEN YOU ARE SO QUIET.”

Frisk flinched, and at first he thought they thought he was mad at them. He wasn’t mad, and he almost said so, but then they curled up a little further and ducked their head lower, so that their thick hair covered almost all of their face.

Their lips pressed together, like there was something trying to get out of them. Something they didn’t want to let themself say.

Papyrus waited, not saying a word. And finally, Frisk opened their mouth again.

“… it hurt.”

It wasn’t much louder at all, but this time, Papyrus had no doubt that he had heard it right. He ran through all the possible other things Frisk could have meant, and none of them fit.

Not that this one fit any better. When the words finally clicked, he felt his browbone furrow and his mouth curve into a worried down.

“WHAT HURT? DID YOU HURT YOURSELF WHEN WE WERE PLAYING TAG TODAY?”

He was already leaning in to look them over when Frisk shook their head. He paused, staying close by, just in case they told him where they were hurt, so he could fix it quickly and spare them any more pain.

“… no,” they murmured, in that same barely-there tone, their eyes still locked on the bed. “In … in my dream.”

It sounded like they had to pull the words out from deep in their chest, one by one, and then force them out through their teeth against their own will. It was painful to listen to, and it took Papyrus even longer to understand what they had said this time.

And when he finally did, all he could do was blink.

“YOU WERE HURT IN YOUR DREAM?” he asked. Frisk tensed and curled up even more. Papyrus wanted to put a hand on their shoulder, but got the funny idea that, at least right now, he shouldn’t. “WHAT HAPPENED?”

He had already come up with twenty-six different ideas in his head, and none of them felt like they were true. But instead of telling him what they really meant, Frisk just made a quiet whining noise and curled up so tight that it looked like they might turn into a ball of skin and cloth and thick brown hair.

“… nothing.”

Papyrus frowned a little deeper, and leaned a little closer, but still, he got the feeling that it would be a bad idea to touch them.

“I AM NOT AN EXPERT IN THIS AREA, BUT I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT NOTHING CAUSES PAIN,” he said instead, as gently and reasonably as he could. “SANS DOES NOTHING ALL THE TIME, AND IT HAS NEVER CAUSED HIM THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF DISCOMFORT!”

He had thought that might make them laugh—those kinds of comments usually did—but they were silent. Their mouth didn’t even twitch. Papyrus wanted to say something else, try something else to make Frisk happy again, but he made himself wait. Made himself sit there and watch them and give them the time they needed. It took more than a minute, but finally, they began to shift, and a few seconds later, they let out a soft, shaky sigh.

“It was just … something I remembered.”

Papyrus had thought that hearing them speak would help him solve the problem, but instead it just make his browbone furrow, even more confused than before.

“WHEN YOU WERE HURT?” he asked. Frisk didn’t respond. “WHEN WAS THIS? PERHAPS WE SHOULD CHECK TO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE FULLY HEALED.”

He leaned in before he could think, and Frisk flinched away, tucking themself as close to the headboard as they could. Papyrus stopped, tense, frozen. Hurt.

He knew Frisk wasn’t trying to hurt him, but to think that they would move away when he only wanted to help …

Frisk sucked in another breath, just as shaky, and shook their head, slowly, as if to reassure him.

“No, I … I healed a long time ago.”

“BUT YOU REMEMBER FEELING HURT,” Papyrus went on. The silence was becoming familiar, but it was no less comfortable. “AND IT … CAUSES YOU TO HAVE BAD DREAMS.”

If he listened very closely, he could hear Frisk gritting their teeth. Hear them swallowing thick lumps in their throat. Hear the shifting of the sheets as they fidgeted even more.

“WHAT HURT YOU?” Papyrus asked, forcing himself not to lean closer. “WAS IT ANOTHER PERSON?”

Frisk didn’t say anything, but they didn’t need to for Papyrus to see the flick of their eyes, the tightening of their jaw, and know the answer.

He frowned deeper still.

“DO I KNOW THEM?” he pressed. Frisk’s whole body went rigid, and it took all of Papyrus’s willpower not to jump to his feet and run out of the room to find the person in question, even though he had no idea who it could be. “THEN YOU MUST TELL ME IMMEDIATELY! EVERYONE I KNOW WOULD NEVER HURT YOU ON PURPOSE! YOU ARE OUR DEAR FRIEND AND FAMILY AND WE WOULD NOT WISH TO HURT YOU! THEREFORE, WE MUST RECTIFY THIS ISSUE RIGHT AWAY!”

Frisk winced. He didn’t think they were still in pain from what had happened in the dream, and he wasn’t sure what he could have said that would make them hurt. He just wanted to help. He just wanted to fix it. He just wanted to find whoever had hurt them and make sure that they were sorry and didn’t do it again.

But Frisk had still winced, and it took almost a minute for them to shake their head and let out a long, heavy sigh.

“… it doesn’t matter, Papyrus,” they said at last, lifting their head and looking at him, just for a second, before lowering their eyes again. “It … it already happened. It’s fine. I’m not mad.”

Papyrus clenched his hands into fists against his legs. “BUT YOU ARE HURTING. IN YOUR HEAD, EVEN AFTER YOUR BODY IS HEALED.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“IT DOES!” he pressed, almost too loud, loud enough to make them flinch, but his head was running around in circles and he couldn’t make sense of it and he wanted to help them but he didn’t know how and it felt like it was tearing him apart from the inside. “ANYTHING THAT HURT YOU MATTERS! NO ONE SHOULD EVER EVER HURT YOU!”

“You did.”

The words fell like a rock from Frisk’s lips, tumbling through the air and hitting smooth, calm water with a loud plop.

The ripples spread out as the rock sunk down into the water, deeper and deeper, the shape of it growing fuzzy and dark until it disappeared altogether.

The sound was gone. The words had faded into silence.

But the ripples remained.

“Sorry,” Frisk said, jerking their head up to look at him with wide, frantic eyes, as if they had only just heard their own words, as if they had only just noticed the rock, as if they still hoped they could snatch it back up and stuff it down their throat. “Sorry, I … I didn’t mean … I shouldn’t have …”

“I HURT YOU,” Papyrus heard himself saying, on a reflex, without even feeling his mouth move. Frisk went quiet, blinking, their eyes wide with pain. Papyrus’s voice was quieter than it had been in years. “I … WHEN WE WERE FIGHTING. IN SNOWDIN. BEFORE WE WENT ON OUR DATE AND BECAME BEST FRIENDS.”

His thoughts had stopped running in circles now. They were still running, but now they ran in another direction, backward, toward that day more than six months ago now, when he had stood on the border between Snowdin and Waterfall and felt like a hero, summoning his attacks to fight their human enemy.

A … kid.

A little human kid.

A little human kid who had done their very best to dodge his attacks, but had still winced every time one of them hit.

A little human kid who had never fought back.

“I HURT YOU.”

Frisk stared at him for a long moment, then dropped their eyes again.

“I got healed right after,” they said, as if that should be enough, as if that would smooth over the edges of what had happened, what he had known this whole time had happened, what he had never even paused to think about. “It … it wasn’t for very long. And everyone else did it, too, it … I knew it was gonna happen.”

“BUT I HURT YOU. I HURT MY FRIEND,” Papyrus went on, pain slipping into his own voice, tears he knew he would never let free eking their way up his throat. “WE ALL HURT YOU.”

Frisk squeezed the blankets again, their hands beginning to tremble. “You and Undyne hurt each other when you fight.”

“BUT THAT IS SPARRING,” Papyrus shot back, shaking his head. “WE BOTH AGREE TO FIGHT, WE AGREE WE MIGHT GET HURT. UNDYNE SAYS THAT’S VERY IMPORTANT. NEVER SPAR WITH SOMEONE WITHOUT GETTING THEIR PERMISSION FIRST. AND MAKE SURE YOU TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER AFTERWARD.”

He had gotten hurt a few times, sparring with Undyne, especially early on when he hadn’t yet learned how to defend himself. She had told him he was tough, he would be able to walk it off, but as soon as he flinched from the residual ache, she cut their match off early and dragged him back to her house for a healing session.

She didn’t heal people very often. He could tell. But she tried her best, and by the time she was done, he felt almost entirely better. Still, she refused to fight him again until the next day, and insisted that he go home, have a good dinner, and actually sleep before then.

She had taken care of him, because he was her friend. Even though he was all grown up. Even though he could have taken care of himself.

Frisk was small and young and, in the words of Toriel, never should have been left to do half the things they did when they were underground.

“I DID NOT TAKE CARE OF YOU,” he said, and it didn’t say half the things he wanted to say, but it got the point across nonetheless.

Frisk fidgeted, glancing from side to side, like they might find something to say if they looked hard enough.

“I had a lot of food with me,” they tried again, after another long pause. “That heals me really fast.”

“BUT I DID NOT GIVE YOU ANY FOOD,” Papyrus replied, and he watched Frisk’s shoulders fall in disappointment. He shook his head again, slowly at first, then faster, as the guilt building up in his chest began to spread to the ends of his bones. “I SHOULD HAVE HEALED YOU. I SHOULD HAVE … I SHOULD HAVE NOT FOUGHT YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE.”

“You were doing what you thought you had to do,” Frisk muttered.

Papyrus clenched his teeth.

“THAT IS NOT A GOOD REASON. JUST BECAUSE I BELIEVE SOMETHING IS THE RIGHT THING DOES NOT MAKE IT THE RIGHT THING.”

Frisk didn’t argue. Probably because they knew he was right. He had heard a little about the other human wars since he had come to the surface, about how many times humans had fought each other, hurt each other, hurt so many other people, because they thought what they were doing was right. Millions of humans had died. Millions more had been through so much pain. Just because someone thought they were doing the right thing.

Monsters had said, in the underground, that humans were barbaric. They had said that monsters were gentler. Kinder. That they wouldn’t hurt someone without a good reason.

But as Papyrus looked down at his own hands, all he could see was the pain they had already caused.

“WHY DID YOU … YOU NEVER … YOU NEVER TOLD US. THAT YOU WERE … IS THIS WHAT ALL YOUR BAD DREAMS ARE ABOUT?”

His mouth wouldn’t work anymore. His head wouldn’t work anymore. Nothing sounded right, nothing he could come up with, but he had to talk, had to say something, had to try to fix this even though he already felt, somewhere deep in his being, that it couldn’t be fixed.

“WHY DID YOU NOT TELL US?” he asked, a little more quietly, much more gently, trying his best to show Frisk he wasn’t angry.

They kept staring down at their lap. Their shoulders had slumped, their hair fallen messily in front of their face. They were limp, calm, but he could see the pain still reflecting in their eyes.

Old pain. Pain they had been stuffing deep inside them since they stepped back out into the sun.

“… I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Papyrus’s hands clenched tighter. “EVEN THOUGH WE HURT YOU.”

They finally looked up then, peeking through their hair, staring at him with something like desperation, wild and hurting and older and younger than they ever should have been.

“Pap …”

But before they could go on, before they could say anything else, Papyrus stood from the edge of the bed, standing up as tall as he could manage even though all he wanted to do was sink into the floor. Frisk stopped, lifting their head to stare at him. Papyrus swallowed the lump in his throat.

“YOU ARE STILL SCARED RIGHT NOW. FROM YOUR DREAM. FROM … WHAT YOU REMEMBER,” he said, the words coming out almost without him having to think them. The lump in his throat came back, and no matter how hard he tried to swallow, it stayed right where it was. “LET’S … WE’LL GET YOU SOME HOT CHOCOLATE. TORIEL SAYS THAT IS GOOD WHEN YOU ARE SCARED.”

Frisk stared for a while longer. They looked like they wanted to say something else, but they were even more helpless than he was, and no words came out. Finally, they lowered their head, climbed out of bed, and followed Papyrus downstairs to the kitchen.

He made their hot chocolate—just enough for them, even though he did feel a little hungry—and they drank it, slowly, not once meeting his eyes. Once or twice they paused like they might say something, but every time they just went back to their drink. When it was done, he put the mug in the sink and walked them back up to bed. His fingers twitched with the urge to tuck them in, but he shoved it back down, and simply wished them goodnight before stepping out of the room and closing the door.

He walked back to his room more slowly than he had moved in years. He closed his own bedroom door and sat down on his own bed, still unmade, just as he had left it. The light was off, but the glow from the moon was enough for him to see the floor in front of him. To see his feet on the floor. To see his hands, bare, thin and white.

The hands that had summoned bones to attack a little kid.

The hands that had hurt a little kid.

The hands that had made a little kid—made his very best human friend—have nightmares more than six months later.

He stared at his hands, like he could yell at them, like they weren’t part of him, like he could go back in time and tell them off for something they hadn’t yet done. But they were just hands. Just a part of him. A part of him that had acted because he told them to. Because he told them to hurt someone he didn’t even know. Someone who had never done anything to hurt him.

He stayed there until the sun appeared over the horizon. Then, with a soft sigh, he stood to get ready for the day.

Chapter Text

He didn’t sleep the next two nights.

It wasn’t the first time he had done that, of course. He had stayed up one night more times than he could count, and once he had stayed up an entire week—though that had been difficult, he admitted, and was one of the few times in his life where he had felt genuinely tired. Usually it was a good thing. It meant he had lots of fun things to do, or that he was so excited about getting something done that he didn’t want to waste time lying in bed.

He couldn’t remember if he had ever stayed up because of something like this.

He had learned a long time ago that Sans slept when he was upset. He slept a lot anyway, of course, but he slept even more when he was upset, like he thought sleeping would make the pain go away—or at least distract him from it for a while. Papyrus understood that, but he had never felt like that himself. When he was upset, when he was worried, the last thing he wanted to do was sleep. He couldn’t sleep until the problem was solved, until he had found a way to stop worrying about whatever was bothering him. Until he had fixed what had been broken.

And he didn’t know how to fix this.

So he didn’t sleep.

No one noticed at first. At least, they didn’t say anything about it. He could feel Frisk watching him with wide, concerned eyes whenever they were in the same room, but they never spoke up. Toriel was busy writing new lesson plans for the class she was planning to teach in the fall, Undyne was out, and Alphys was having one of her “stay in her room for days and watch lots of anime” periods, her third this month.

Sans was sleeping. Of course he was sleeping.

Since he couldn’t sleep, Papyrus tried to keep himself busy. Tried to make himself focus on being productive. Cleaning the house. Doing the grocery shopping. Scrubbing his room until it was spotless, then scrubbing it again. Running around the street until his legs burned. Reading the “New Drivers’ Handbook” that Sans had bought him.

Nothing worked. Nothing kept his mind occupied for more than a few minutes.

And even if it had … Frisk lived just down the hall from him. He saw them every day.

He couldn’t forget.

And he didn’t want to.

He wanted to solve this. He wanted to find a way to fix it. But he couldn’t go back and change what he had done. He couldn’t go back and tell himself that he was making a bad choice, a very, very bad choice that would hurt his very first human friend for a long time afterward. And he couldn’t make Frisk’s nightmares go away just because he regretted what he had done.

So after those two—well, two and a half—sleepless nights, he found himself sitting on his bed in the late evening, when everyone else was getting ready for bed. He stared at the floor, trying his hardest to think of a solution, even though part of him already knew it was useless. He was supposed to be a good big brother. He was supposed to help take care of Frisk. And instead he had hurt them. He had caused them more pain. He had given them nightmares, and he couldn’t do anything about it.

It didn’t matter what he did now. It didn’t matter if he was the best big brother in the entire world. It wouldn’t change what he had done in the past. It wouldn’t change—

“you okay there, bro?”

Papyrus flinched so hard he could feel his bones clack together, and jerked his head up.

He hadn’t even noticed Sans’s footsteps approaching in the hall, or him pushing the door open. He had always been quiet, and Papyrus knew he could find a shortcut into the room if he really wanted to. But the door was open now, and it definitely hadn’t been before, so Papyrus was fairly sure that Sans hadn’t cheated this time.

He had just caught him so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t even notice the squeak of his door hinges.

Papyrus glanced from side to side, snatching up a book he didn’t even remember taking down from his shelf. He opened it on his lap as fast as he could, trying to make it look like he was about to start reading, even though he knew, deep down, that there was no way out of this now.

“OF COURSE I’M OKAY. WHY WOULD I NOT BE?”

He glanced down at the book as pointedly as possible, and had to force himself not to flinch at how silly he was sure he looked. Sans looked at the book, then back to him. Half his brow bone rose.

“you, uh … usually read upside down?”

Papyrus blinked and looked down. He frowned and set the book back on the bed.

“I’M LEARNING!” he said, trying to sound serious. “IT’S A VERY IMPORTANT SKILL!”

“yeah, course it is,” Sans replied, without missing a beat. “i just didn’t realize you still needed to practice it.”

Papyrus pressed his teeth together and looked down at his lap.

“PRACTICE IS ALWAYS GOOD. YOU CAN ALWAYS GET BETTER, EVEN IF YOU ARE ALREADY AS GREAT AS ME.”

Sans huffed a laugh. “heh. always knew you were the wisest skeleton around.”

Papyrus’s shoulders hunched, and he clenched his hands into fists.

“YES, THAT IS TRUE,” he murmured, as much to himself as to Sans. He hesitated, feeling his brother’s eyes on him, feeling the thoughts churning around in his head like one of Toriel’s bubbling stews. “EVEN IF … I DON’T ALWAYS FEEL LIKE THE WISEST.”

He regretted it as soon as it came out, but he didn’t try to take it back. Partially because he had learned a long time ago that it was impossible to really take back your words, and partially because, when he looked up and met Sans’s eyes … he saw the same thing he had seen so many years ago, when Papyrus came home from a bad day at school. The sympathy. The anger. The caring and love.

It had never really gone away, of course. But it had been a while since it had burned so brightly, and though he hadn’t realized, Papyrus had missed it.

“someone been telling you otherwise?” Sans asked, and as hard as he tried to sound casual, it didn’t work.

Papyrus looked back down.

“ONLY THE SOMEONE WHO LIVES IN MY HEAD.”

He could feel the tension in the room dropping. Not all the way, of course. But Sans knew that there wasn’t someone he could fight back against: not a real person, at least. And he knew that his method of fighting that not-real person was going to be very different.

“ah, yeah, those head people. annoying little things. wish i could evict them,” Sans said after a long pause, and though there was a hint of joking in his voice, Papyrus could still hear the ache. Papyrus said nothing, and Sans paused again. “what’s this one trying to tell you?”

Papyrus fidgeted on the edge of the bed. His hands clenched and unclenched in his lap, and even though his gloves, he could feel the tips of his fingers brushing against the bone of his legs.

“… THAT … I AM NOT THE GREAT BIG BROTHER THAT I ASPIRE TO BE.”

It felt like dragging the words out from somewhere deep inside him, but once they were out, he felt a tiny bit of the weight dissolve. Not all of it. Not even close. But just like Sans’s tension had dropped once he knew more about what was hurting his brother, Papyrus felt just a little bit better letting out the words that had been eating him from the inside out.

Those words hung there in the air, glittering in the silence, for a time that felt much longer than it really was. Papyrus fidgeting, ground his teeth, rubbed the tips of his shoes together, but refused to look up.

“what, you mean to frisk?”

Sans’s voice sounded so disbelieving that Papyrus found himself looking up anyway, frowning like Sans tried to frown—or the closest thing his mouth could make to a frown. They looked at each other for a long moment, eyes boring into one another’s skulls, before Sans finally tilted his head and raised half his browbone.

“well, uh, sure, you guys haven’t talked as much the past couple days, but they looked like they had a great time with you last time you hung out. always do.”

“YES, BUT … Papyrus sucked in breath through his teeth, shaking his head, even though he wasn’t sure exactly what he was denying. “I AM NOT …”

He trailed off. Sans waited for him to finish, but he had nothing else to say. He didn’t look up, but somehow he could still see Sans tilting his head, hear his feet padding on the carpet as he stepped a little closer.

“you’re not what?”

Papyrus breathed in again, and the breath caught in the middle of his throat, refusing to go any deeper. He knew he didn’t really have lungs, nowhere for the air to really go, no actual need for it, but he still felt like he was suffocating.

Sans took another step forward, and Papyrus let the breath out in one long, silent sigh.

“I’M NOT LIKE … LIKE YOU WERE.”

All his other words had lingered in the air like tiny balloons, but these words sunk. They hung between them for a few seconds, and then they dropped like rocks, plummeting and crashing into the ground, shaking the foundation on which they both stood.

Sans didn’t move at first. He didn’t speak. He didn’t breathe.

Then Papyrus heard the soft padding of feet, and felt the mattress dip on his right.

“you’re trying to be like i was?”

Papyrus wasn’t sure the last time he had heard Sans sound so surprised. So … stunned. Like he couldn’t even begin to believe that Papyrus would want to be like him. Papyrus didn’t want to look up, but he did it anyway, meeting Sans’s eyes and seeing the same shock reflecting in the lights in his sockets.

He swallowed hard.

“… YES.”

Sans blinked, his browbone furrowing. He stared for a second longer, then huffed a laugh and shook his head.

“why would you wanna do something like that? you’re the great papyrus. you’re already the coolest guy arou—”

“BUT I AM NOT A GREAT BIG BROTHER!”

Papyrus hadn’t even felt the words in his throat until they were out, and Sans was sitting there, his unfinished sentence hanging in the air, blinking away his renewed surprise. But Papyrus’s head was shaking now, faster and faster, the words bubbling out of him like Toriel had left the kitchen and the stew had boiled over the top.

“YOU … YOU WERE LAZY BUT YOU WERE ALWAYS THE BEST BROTHER. YOU DID EVERYTHING TO HELP ME BE HAPPY, SO I FELT LIKE I HAD A LOT OF THINGS EVEN THOUGH I KNOW WE DIDN’T HAVE VERY MUCH, AND YOU ALWAYS KNEW WHAT TO SAY AND EVEN WHEN THINGS WERE BAD YOU WERE STILL MAKING JOKES AND DISTRACTING ME AND … AND YOU MADE ME FEEL BETTER WHEN THINGS WERE BAD AND I DON’T … I DON’T KNOW HOW …”

He breathed again, and this time the air went in, shuddering and desperate, like he had finally cleared out the lump in his throat and reached the lungs he didn’t have. It didn’t feel better, though. It hurt. Everything hurt and his hands were clenched and his teeth gritted together and he felt like nothing would ever be okay again.

Sans was silent next to him. He still wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t moving. He didn’t say anything at all, and every second he held his silence, Papyrus felt even more like he was going to explode.

Even though he knew nothing could fix this.

Even though he knew nothing could change the past.

Nothing could make him a good big brother when he had already so miserably failed.

Then Sans laughed again, breathy and disbelieving, and Papyrus’s swirling thoughts came to a sudden halt.

“well, i gotta say it’s a relief to hear you thought i did a good job.”

Papyrus blinked.

It took a few seconds for the words to settle in his head, and a few seconds after that for him to really understand them. They didn’t click right, didn’t fit into the puzzle pieces he had been putting together for all of his life.

He looked at his brother, but his brother wasn’t looking at him. He was staring at the other side of the room, still chuckling, even as something wistful and very, very old glimmered in his eyes.

Papyrus opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again.

“DID YOU … NOT THINK THAT?”

Sans looked at him with blatant disbelief. Papyrus sat up straighter, defensive, but he knew it was no use. He knew that it wouldn’t make his words sound any more reasonable to the person hearing them. Sans laughed again, a little louder than this time, and even more pained.

“i was a wreck, bro,” he said, like it should have been obvious, like he was amazed Papyrus had gone all these years without realizing it. As if it would make perfect sense as soon as he said it out loud. “all the time. every single … i was barely holding it together most days. always thought i was doing an awful job, that you’d be better off with anyone but me.”

“I—”

“not that i ever thought of giving you up,” Sans cut in, before Papyrus’s thoughts could go any further down that path. Papyrus could hear the old desperation, the old fear, that lingered in his voice even now. “i couldn’t lose you. i’d give up anything before i gave up you.”

Suddenly Papyrus remembered all those times he had found Sans sitting at the kitchen table, staring down at a pile of papers he had later learned were bills. Bills Sans had never said, but Papyrus figured out anyway, that he could barely pay. Suddenly he remembered those rare days when they hadn’t had any food in the pantry or the fridge and Sans couldn’t pick up any more work and Papyrus had said he was hungry and Sans had hugged him so tight it hurt. Suddenly he remembered the times he caught Sans looking at him, just looking at him, like this was the last time he would ever see him.

He remembered the determination that had burned in his eyes, and how hard he had worked to get more money the next day.

“but … i never thought i was good enough to take care of you. i never thought i deserved to be a big brother to someone as great as you,” Sans went on, snapping Papyrus back to the present day. Sans had looked away again, his smile tight and achy, his eyes dull. “never thought i’d be able to give you the life you deserved.”

“YOU GAVE ME THE BEST LIFE,” Papyrus said, without even thinking about it, because he didn’t need to think about it.

Sans huffed again, but this time it sounded less like a laugh and more like a sigh.

“eh, wouldn’t say that.”

Papyrus sat up as straight as he could and put a hand on Sans’s shoulder, forcing him to look at him again. Sans didn’t resist, meeting his eyes and looking so much older and so much younger than he really was. Like the brother Papyrus had known in those early days, filling the role of an adult when he was only a child himself, and trying so hard not to let the burden of it show.

“THE BEST LIFE IS THE ONE THAT YOU’RE IN.”

Sans stared back at him, and for the first time, what would probably be the only time, Papyrus felt like he was the big brother, and Sans was just a kid, just a little kid looking up to the first person he remembered in his life. The person he had taken care of when he should have had someone taking care of him, too.

“i always thought i could have done better,” Sans managed after a long silence, his eyes dropping back down to the bed.

Papyrus didn’t know what to say to that. Everyone could do better, of course—even he knew he could always improve. But just because you could do better didn’t mean that you weren’t already great the way you were.

And Sans was great. He was lazy and made terrible jokes and didn’t wash his clothes nearly enough and always made a huge mess, but he was great, exactly the way he was.

“i saw other big brothers, and thought they were doing a better job, and i should have been more like them.”

Papyrus blinked, his brow bone creasing. Sans was staring at the wall again, like he was looking at something off in the distance that no one else could see. He looked so much younger, and for the first time in a while, Papyrus thought about how young they had been when they had first been alone.

He still didn’t know exactly when that had been. Neither of them did. Sans had said he didn’t remember why they were alone, or what had happened before that. Not really. He had little ideas, impressions, but he never really knew, even though he should have been old enough to remember.

Old enough to remember, but not old enough to take care of his little brother by himself.

Sans let out another long breath, and looked up to face him one more time.

His smile was different now. Still tired, still weak and lost and unsure, but filled with enough fondness to make him burst.

“but you know what made me know it was worth it to keep going? to keep doing what i was doing?”

Papyrus pressed his teeth together and glanced to the side. “THAT IS A RHETORICAL QUESTION AND YOU DON’T REALLY WANT ME TO ANSWER IT.”

Sans smiled wider. “sure i do. guess.”

Papyrus fidgeted, meeting Sans’s eyes every few seconds before looking away again. Sans never stopped looking at him, never stopping boring the answer into Papyrus’s skull more every second. Papyrus gave him a little longer to say it on his own, but despite his laziness, Sans could be incredibly stubborn when he wanted to be, and finally, Papyrus swallowed hard and looked at him in full.

“… ME?”

Sans’s expression softened, his eyelights wide and warm, like little suns inside his skull.

“seeing you smile,” he went on. “seeing that … that some of the stuff i did actually helped. made you feel better. made you … happy.”

His voice almost cracked, and he looked away for a second, just a second, before returning to Papyrus’s gaze.

“that was all i ever wanted. for you know that you were perfect exactly the way you are and … that i never wanted you to be any different. for you to be happy. really happy. and even if you couldn’t be all the time … even if i didn’t always know the right thing to do … i did some of the time. and … i guess … i decided that some of the time was at least a good start.”

His mouth twitched up at the corners, and the bottoms of his sockets curved as his smile finally reached the rest of his face.

“it was a reason to keep trying.”

Papyrus opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened and closed it five more times, trying to make himself speak. But the words wouldn’t form. They were there in his head, a thousand things he wanted to say, a thousand things he needed to say, a thousand things Sans needed to hear. But none of them would come out.

Finally, his mouth closed, his teeth touching with a soft clack. Sans watched him, patient as ever, waiting for however he would respond.

Then Papyrus leaned forward and pulled his brother into a hug.

He could feel Sans stiffen against him, barely recognizing what he was doing. Even without looking down, Papyrus could see him staring over his shoulder, out into the distance, like he did when he was thinking about the sorts of things he never talked about out loud. The sorts of things Papyrus couldn’t even imagine in his voice because his brother never, ever sounded that serious.

He held him tighter.

And after a minute, a long, long minute, he felt Sans relax. Felt his arms lift up to wrap around him in return, hesitantly at first, then with more certainty, half around his spine and half around the thickness of his battle body, squeezing tighter than Papyrus thought he was capable of. Squeezing like he was afraid Papyrus would disappear the second he let go. Squeezing like he hadn’t hugged him in years, even though they had hugged … yesterday? Last Tuesday? It couldn’t have been that long, had it?

But … even if they had, they hadn’t hugged like this. Papyrus had picked his brother up and spun him around for a few seconds, but then it was right back to business. They didn’t pause. They didn’t take the time to appreciate the feeling of having the other close. They didn’t stop long enough to feel the others’ soul beat echoing through them, stuttering a moment before they matched up, as if on some instinct that had been there longer than either of them could remember. They didn’t let themselves think how grateful they were that they were together, that they were safe, they were happy, that no matter what happened, they would always have that.

They didn’t let themselves remember how once, in the first memory that remained in either of their heads, they had been all the other had in the world.

And even when they had forgotten everything else, they had remembered that they were brothers.

They didn’t move for more than ten minutes after that. Papyrus held his brother, and his brother held him back, and they stayed still in that moment, feeling the other’s presence and remembering how much it was worth. How, no matter how much changed, no matter how much they lost or gained, they would always have the other.

How, no matter what happened from here on out, that would always be enough.

Chapter Text

The sun had barely started to peek over the horizon the next day when Papyrus’s eyes shot open, and he leapt out of bed so fast the sheets got tangled in his legs and got right out of bed with him.

He didn’t trip, of course. The great Papyrus was far too coordinated for something like that. But the sheets did not look very grand around his legs, so he took a minute to untangle them and lay them back on the bed, smoothed out and given a reassuring pat, before marching out of his room and down the hall.

Quietly marching, that was. He knew that there were quite a few members of the family that would not take kindly to being woken up this early, and there was only one person who he was intent on bothering today.

So he marched quietly down the hall until he reached their room, and only once he had slipped inside and shut the door behind him did he flick on the lights.

Frisk flinched. They started to open their eyes, then squeezed them shut, letting out a soft groan.

Papyrus threw his arms out to his sides.

“GOOD MORNING, HUMAN FRISK! AND WHAT A GRAND MORNING IT IS!”

Frisk winced and held their hand up further to block the light from getting into their eyes. They looked at him, blinking a few times.

“Papyrus, it’s …” They paused, then turned toward the window and frowned harder. “It’s still dark outside.”

“UNTRUE, HUMAN FRISK! IF YOU LOOK CLOSELY, RIGHT THERE ON THE HORIZON, THERE IS THE TINIEST BIT OF LIGHT THAT WAS NOT THERE DURING THE NIGHT, WHICH MEANS THAT IT IS MORNING, WHICH MEANS IT IS TIME TO START THE DAY!”

Papyrus pointed out the window, toward said tiny bit of light, but Frisk didn’t bother to look where he was pointing. They were too busy squinting at the digital alarm clock on their nightstand, letting out a soft groan.

“It’s not even six yet … and it’s Saturday …”

“ALL THE MORE REASON TO MAKE THE MOST OF THIS WONDERFUL NEW DAY!” Papyrus exclaimed, trying his best to keep his normal volume down, since Sans had warned him yesterday that the rest of the family might not be so enthusiastic about his early-morning plans if he woke them up in the process. He stepped back toward Frisk’s bed and, before they could protest, lifted them out of their bed and set them down on the floor. “PUT ON YOUR CLOTHES AND GET READY FOR A TRULY GRAND DAY, AND I WILL PREPARE YOUR BREAKFAST!”

Frisk blinked up at him, then rubbed one of their eyes and groaned again. But as Papyrus marched out of the room, he could already hear them rummaging through their dresser for something to wear, and by the time he had set their breakfast on the table, Frisk was coming down the stairs in their favorite striped shirt and matching shorts.

Toriel had taught him quite a few cooking tips over the past six months, and even though he had been skeptical at first—especially when she said that turning up the heat too high was actually dangerous rather than passion-infusing—the reactions people gave to his more recent dishes were all the proof he needed. Frisk had still been groggy when they sat down at the table, but by the time they were a few bites into his new “signature” breakfast casserole, their eyes were wide open, and they let out soft sighs and smiles each time they swallowed. Papyrus wished he could take a picture of their face just to appreciate that someone really, really enjoyed something he made, but he forced himself to refrain. They probably wouldn’t like that, and besides, he was saving all the photo space left on his phone for later.

“Does Mom know we’re going out?” Frisk asked as they finished up the dishes, sticking them on the drying rack and shaking off their wet hands in the sink.

“I INFORMED HER LAST NIGHT THAT WE WOULD BE GOING OUT FOR A DAY ON THE TOWN, AND THAT WE WOULD BE LEAVING EARLY SO WE COULD MAKE THE MOST OF THE DAY! SHE SAYS THAT SHE GIVES HER APPROVAL AS LONG AS WE SEND A TEXT AT LEAST ONCE PER HOUR AND LET HER KNOW WHERE WE ARE AND HOW WE ARE DOING.”

Frisk nodded and scampered back upstairs, coming back a minute later with their phone in hand. Papyrus picked up his own and tucked it into the pocket Toriel had kindly sewn into his cape. Then, with a bright smile, he led Frisk out the front door, into the faint gray light of the new dawn.

Papyrus had almost memorized the bus schedule, and they only had to wait a minute after they reached the stop for the bus to arrive and carry them off to their first destination. As usual, some of the humans moved away from the seats they chose, but while Frisk frowned and looked like they wanted to say something, Papyrus just smiled at them and made himself comfortable. Frisk still looked bothered by it, but they didn’t say anything, and after a few minutes they let their head rest against his shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around them to hold them close.

It was the longest bus ride of the day, but it got them deep into town, and by the time they stepped off, the gray sky had turned blue and pink and orange, and his plans for a wonderful day started to feel more and more real. Frisk tried to ask him where they were going first, but he just shook his head and winked, insisting that it had to stay a surprise—at least for the five more minutes it would take for them to get to their first stop.

They gave him a funny look when he opened the door to a little clothing shop, tucked in between two larger buildings, with five very different outfits hanging in the window. They opened their mouth, and he could already hear them getting ready to ask why they were going clothes shopping again, they had just gone a few weeks ago, they didn’t need any new clothes. Then they turned their head and looked at the store, and their mouth closed.

And they stared.

The store wasn’t very big, even on the inside, but so many things had been packed into it that it reminded Papyrus a little of the shops in the underground. There wasn’t a lot of space down there, not enough space for people to run around the aisles or do little dances in between the clothes racks.

What there was, was a lot of clothes.

Clothes of all sorts. Clothes of every human style that Papyrus had seen, even though he had been told there were many, many more in different parts of the world. Fancy clothes and casual clothes, clothes with bright colors and dull colors, clothes made of so many different fabrics he could never keep track.

Clothes that looked like they came out of a movie, and clothes that he might have seen every day on the street.

Clothes of far, far more types than he had found in the human supermarket where they had shopped before.

He had found it by chance—or, rather, Not-Queen Toriel had found it by chance, one day this week when she was out shopping. She had mentioned how nice it was, how the employees were friendly to her, how she had found a lovely dress that was just her size, without any alterations. He had thought he would visit it sometime, but by himself. He hadn’t thought that Frisk might enjoy it.

But the longer they stared, the brighter their eyes got, and when they turned to him at last, he could see a smile tugging at the corners of their lips.

He gave them a big grin and nodded toward the clothes on the racks, and just like that, they were off.

It wasn’t a very big shop, so it was easy to keep an eye on them—and Toriel had insisted that he not let them out of his sight, even for a minute. He knew that it took a lot of trust for her to allow anyone else to take Frisk out to town, and he was determined to make sure he had earned it.

But the fact that it wasn’t a very big shop also meant that he could look at a few things for himself while he was waiting for Frisk, so look he did. He had only seen pictures of the shop on the internet, never in person, and he didn’t think the photos even came close to doing it justice. The colors, all the different patterns, the styles of clothing he had never imagined. He spent a minute just looking at it all, before he finally found his feet carrying him toward the skirts.

He had never tried on a skirt before he came to the surface. He had seen them, and thought they looked nice, but he had never asked Sans for one, and once he was old enough to pick out his own clothes, he had settled on his signature style and never thought about switching it up.

But the skirts here looked even nicer than the ones in the underground. These were new, with no tears, no stains, in every color of the rainbow, some short, some long, some that would fit snugly around his legs and others that flowed out like the ballgowns he had seen in old human photos. He reached out and ran his fingers over one, appreciating the softness, how smoothly it slipped over his bones. His mouth quirked into a smile. He had come here for Frisk, but he had a bit of “fun money” left in the budget for himself for the month. Maybe …

“Can I try this?”

Papyrus turned around, the skirt slipping out of his fingers, and saw Frisk holding up a sundress, with short sleeves, lace around the edges, and a little bow on the left side of the waist. They peeked over the top of it with shy, uncertain eyes.

They looked a little like he had when he was little, when he had found something in a store that looked cool, something he knew they probably wouldn’t be able to afford. Something that was so cool that he had to show his brother anyway.

Papyrus beamed.

“THAT IS AN EXCELLENT IDEA! IN FACT, I WANT TO SEE IF THEY HAVE ONE IN MY SIZE, TOO!”

Frisk blinked, like they hadn’t expected that. But Papyrus just kept smiling, and after a long second, they smiled back.

The dress did, indeed, look amazing on them—even more amazing than it did on him—and Papyrus insisted that they try on a few more in slightly different styles. After that, they tried on some suits with shorts instead of pants that looked somehow both sophisticated and adorable and, Papyrus thought, would look even better with a top hat. Then there were overalls and skirts and sweaters and even a few swimsuits, because apparently they hadn’t decided what kind they wanted to wear this year yet and they wanted to try “both kinds” to be sure—even though Papyrus saw many more than two kinds of swimsuits at the store.

Unfortunately, they were only able to buy a few things in the end—Frisk insisted that he buy the skirt he had found, even though it meant less money for their own clothes—and Papyrus was sad about that, but Frisk left the store smiling, peeking into the bag they carried and the ones in Papyrus’s left hand, staring down at their new outfits—the outfits they had picked out themself—with a light in their eyes that Papyrus hadn’t seen for a while.

They went out to other stores after that, stores with little items to decorate their bedroom, stores with toys, stores with so much candy Papyrus almost cringed, snapping photos of themselves and the things they found. With each store, Frisk’s smile only got wider. Even if they didn’t buy anything. Even if they just spent their time wandering around, looking at everything, making notes of things they wanted to buy later.

Frisk enjoyed it.

They enjoyed it because they got to choose what they wanted to do.

They went places Papyrus hadn’t though of, too, like the antique store, the “arcade,” the park to look at little animals in the trees. To the train station to watch the trains come in and feel the faint wind as they rushed past.

At least once every few minutes, they would look at him, as if to check to see whether he was having fun, too. And he smiled, even if he didn’t really like the store, even if he didn’t find they were doing especially interesting on its own.

Because Frisk was smiling. Frisk was having fun.

And that was more than good enough for him.

It was late in the afternoon by the time they found themselves by a secluded little pond, watching a family of ducks swim off into the water. They had picked up some food that Frisk said was safe for them to eat and dropped it on the shore, then stepped back to watch the big “mama” duck and all her little “ducklings” enjoy their meal. Frisk claimed it was something friends and family did together a lot. Papyrus had never heard of that particular activity, but they didn’t have ducks in the underground, and he liked it more than enough to do it again soon.

The ducks were happy, and Frisk was happy, and Papyrus had never felt his chest quite so warm, standing there watching them stare off into the horizon, proud that they were able to help the little family out. That was what they did. Care about others. Help others. Put others before themself, no matter how young and helpless they were.

When he thought about it … they reminded him a little of Sans.

Papyrus gritted his teeth, the line of his mouth twisting as he remembered them, so small and scared in their bed. And suddenly he could see through all the pain, the guilt that had consumed him for the past few days, and he just saw Frisk. Little Frisk, his young human friend who was stronger than they ever should have needed to be.

He took a deep breath.

“I WANT TO APOLOGIZE.”

Frisk turned their head, staring at him for a long moment, as if they had forgotten he was there. They blinked a few times, then furrowed their brow.

“Huh?”

Papyrus stood up straighter and breathed in again.

“I BELIEVE THAT I OWE YOU AN APOLOGY, AND AS THE GREAT PAPYRUS DOES NOT LIKE TO BE IN DEBT, THAT MEANS I SHOULD GIVE YOU ONE.”

Frisk kept blinking, kept staring, but he could see a bit of comprehension beginning to shine in their eyes. They didn’t want to get it. They didn’t want to know what he meant—or at least they didn’t want to show it. But Papyrus needed to say it, and he believed, more strongly than he had even a few minutes earlier, that Frisk needed to hear it.

“YOU ARE MY GOOD FRIEND, AND I THINK THAT FRIENDS SHOULD TREAT ONE ANOTHER IN GOOD WAYS, AND SINCE I HAVE TREATED YOU IN A … NOT GOOD WAY, I MUST SAY SORRY,” he went on, letting the words form in his mouth right before they left it, not even pausing to wonder whether they were the right ones. “I WAS VERY … I WANTED VERY BADLY TO BE IN THE ROYAL GUARD WHEN WE MET. SO BAD THAT I DID NOT THINK OF HOW FIGHTING YOU WOULD HURT YOU. HOW … EVEN IF I DID NOT KILL YOU … I WOULD STILL CAUSE YOU PAIN. AND I WOULD STILL MAKE YOU AFRAID OF ME.”

Frisk’s lips pursed, their eyes wide and pained. Papyrus’s own eyes softened.

“I DO NOT LIKE THE IDEA OF MY FRIENDS BEING AFRAID OF ME. ESPECIALLY MY VERY BEST HUMAN FRIEND.”

They looked away, like Sans had looked away when he didn’t want to see someone taking on a burden he was used to shouldering himself. They fidgeted, like Papyrus had fidgeted, unsure of his own worth, unsure of the quality of the work he had been trying so hard to do.

“I’m not mad at you, Pap,” they murmured.

“I KNOW YOU AREN’T,” Papyrus said, and found himself only a little surprised that he meant it. Frisk peeked up at him out of the tops of their eyes. “YOU ARE VERY KIND LIKE THAT. I DON’T KNOW IF I’VE EVER SEEN YOU BE MAD AT ANYONE BEFORE. EVEN WHEN MANY MANY PEOPLE, EVEN GREAT PEOPLE LIKE MYSELF, WOULD HAVE BEEN.”

They lifted their head a bit, giving him a funny look. “I’ve never seen you mad either, though.”

Part of Papyrus wanted to say that they hadn’t known him very long, but then he remembered that Sans would probably say the same thing. That he didn’t like to express his anger, not his real anger, not when other people could see. He felt it sometimes. But it was brief, and he had never paid it much attention, and he didn’t consider it a great feat that he didn’t seem like an angry person.

He cleared his throat.

“WELL. I TRY MY BEST TO BE FORGIVING. AND YOU ARE AN EXCELLENT EXAMPLE OF SOMEONE WHO HAS EXCELLENT FORGIVENESS SKILLS,” he replied, lifting his head again and trying to force himself back on topic. “BUT … JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE FORGIVING, THAT DOES NOT MEAN I DO NOT NEED TO APOLOGIZE.”

Frisk lowered their head again, but not quite as much as before, and this time, it only took a few seconds for them to meet his eyes, slow, hesitant, just enough so they could still hide behind their thick curtain of brown hair.

Papyrus took a long moment and organized the words in his head before letting them move to his throat.

“SO I AM SORRY FOR SCARING YOU, AND FOR HURTING YOU, AND FOR GIVING YOU THINGS TO HAVE BAD DREAMS ABOUT. AND THOUGH I KNOW I CANNOT TAKE AWAY THE BAD MEMORIES I HAVE CAUSED … I HOPE THAT I CAN ADD MANY MORE GOOD MEMORIES TO HELP MAKE UP FOR IT.”

He let it hang there between them, settling into the air like mist, and it felt like he had let another pile of rocks off his back, dropping them to the ground and marching away unburdened. Even in the silence that followed. Even as Frisk stared at him like they were still processing his words. Even when their shoulders finally fell, and their face softened, and they looked at him with their head a little higher.

“You are, Pap,” they said, their voice quiet, but no less clear. “All the time.”

Papyrus’s mouth twitched up at the corners, and the warm in his chest began to bloom again.

“I AM VERY GLAD TO HEAR THAT. BECAUSE YOU HAVE GIVEN ME MANY GOOD MEMORIES ALREADY.”

Frisk’s smile curled so far into their cheeks it almost looked like it wouldn’t fit on their face. Papyrus was fairly sure that humans’ faces couldn’t actually break from smiling too hard, but still, he reached out and poked one of their cheeks to check. They laughed and pulled back, nudging his hand away. Papyrus smiled, that little worry slipping away, and poked them again, and again, and then they were poking him back, and after a minute they were poking and tickling and giggling and running all around the shore, not caring if anyone else saw them or what they might have thought.

Finally, they stopped, laughing so hard they hurt, and took a moment just to breathe, smiling back at each other like it was the only thing that mattered. Then Papyrus reached forward and lifted Frisk up, swinging them over to sit on his shoulders. They were heavy, heavier than his bones could usually handle, but they were squealing and giggling and clinging to his skull, and it was well worth how sore he might be later.

The ducks had disappeared long ago, but they stood there for a little while longer, just watching the lake, and all the little animals that Papyrus had never seen in the underground, all the creatures Frisk was all too happy to name. They watched the light of the sun shimmer on the water, brighter than it ever had in Waterfall, like the lake was made of multi-colored glass. They listened to the sounds of life all around them, the things Frisk said they had once taken for granted, but now could really appreciate, because they could see how much it meant to the people they loved.

When the alarm on Frisk’s phone beeped to tell them it was almost dinnertime, they set out again, back toward the bus stop, Frisk still perched on Papyrus’s shoulders and Papyrus still standing tall despite the weight. He carried them, laughing and chattering and grinning, all the way to the bus, then he collapsed into the seat with exhaustion that would probably rival his brother’s. Frisk giggled, but curled up against his side, smiling up at him with a warmth that made the ache in his bones disappear.

Neither of them said anything the whole ride home, and not once did they stop smiling.

Chapter Text

Sans was tired.

Of course, Sans was always tired—or at least he claimed to be, based on all the jokes he made about sleep. But Papyrus knew the difference between “joking tired” and “real tired.” He was almost twelve years old, and he could read his brother better than anyone else in the world.

And Sans was really, really tired.

Papyrus wasn’t exactly sure why he was tired. He didn’t think they had done anything differently today than they usually did. But then again, Papyrus had been at school for most of the day, and Sans had been at work, and no matter how much Papyrus asked, Sans never told him very much about work. He knew that Sans had to work, because the money they had found in this house when they … well, in their earliest memories, was starting to run out. He also knew that for a long time, Sans couldn’t get a full-time job because everyone said he was too young. He knew that the second Sans turned sixteen—or, rather, when he looked old enough that he could say he was sixteen, because Papyrus knew Sans wasn’t sure how old he really was—he got a job at the first place that would hire him.

And even though Sans never said anything about it … Papyrus had a feeling that the first job that would hire him was not really the best one he could have got.

He had had it for almost six months now. The first time he brought a “full-sized” paycheck, he spent almost all of it right away, getting them both new clothes to replace their old patched ones, repairing everything that was broken in the house, and even buying Papyrus a few brand-new toys.

The second time he brought home money … Papyrus could tell they needed it.

For food.

For bills.

For everything else that had broken, because everything around here was very old.

For the rent that came up out of nowhere a month later, when a monster they had seen a few times around Snowdin came to their door and told them that they actually owned this house, but had been renting it to … someone. Someone they couldn’t remember. But the rent had been “pre-paid” for the past few years, and it had finally run up, and unless they wanted to find another place to live, they would have to pay it now.

Sans insisted on seeing every bit of paperwork to prove that this person really did own the house, but in the end, he paid the rent.

Then the money he brought home every month wasn’t enough anymore, and he had to work more hours, leaving the house right after he dropped Papyrus off at school and staying out for a long, long time afterward.

He tried to act like it didn’t bother him. He tried to say that his work wasn’t that hard, and he really just lazed around all day—and Papyrus was sure he did, at least some of the time, because his brother had mastered the art of being lazy without letting anyone find out. But he also thought that there were things Sans didn’t tell him. Things about work that were harder. A lot harder. Things about work that made him come home sometimes and collapse on the couch, falling asleep right there without even bothering to go up to his room. Things that made him put something on the stove then forget about it until smoke started coming out of the top. Things that made him sleep so long on weekends that, once in a while, Papyrus was afraid he might never wake up.

But he never complained. Not out loud. Not around his brother.

So Papyrus learned to tell when something was wrong, even when Sans wouldn’t tell him. He learned the signs that Sans was about to break, so he could do little things that would keep him safe and comfortable when it happened.

He had seen every one of those signs tonight.

When Sans got home, he had stumbled over the entrance, and instead of dropping his hoodie over the back of his couch, he had dropped it on top of the TV. He had gotten the wrong frozen dinner out of the freezer three times before he got the right one and put it in the microwave to cook, and he kept setting it to cook for too little time. And when they finally sat down for dinner, while Papyrus started taking bites of his meal, Sans just sat there for a long few minutes, staring down at the plastic container, before he lifted his fork and began to eat.

He almost fell asleep when they sat down in front of the TV, Papyrus pretending to work on his homework while he snuck glances at Sans over his shoulder. His sockets would drift shut, and Papyrus would feel something between pain and relief. Then, just as they closed completely, they would snap open again, and he would blink a few times, sitting up straighter in a desperate attempt to keep himself awake. After half an hour, his tired eyes finally won, shutting and not opening again, and less than a minute after that, he was snoring.

Papyrus had asked him once how he could snore if he didn’t have a nose, and Sans had just winked at him and told him it was a secret.

That had been an hour ago, and Sans was still sleeping now, not even twitching when something on the TV exploded or two people started shouting at each other. He didn’t even chuckle when someone told a really bad joke—and Papyrus had learned a while ago that Sans’s sense of humor was just as awful when he was asleep.

Papyrus had already brushed his teeth and taken a shower and gotten into his pajamas. His homework was done, and the trash from dinner was cleaned up, and he had picked up everything around the living room that could count as mess—and that his brother wasn’t sleeping on top of. Now he stood a few feet away from the couch, watching his brother snore away, staring at the darkness under his eye sockets and wishing there was something more he could do about it.

But he couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t get a job. He couldn’t help Sans with the money. He couldn’t even cook dinner, more than putting something in the microwave. All he could do was pick up around the house and make sure everything was clean.

Sans had told him he didn’t need to do anything more than that. He didn’t even need to do that. All he needed to do was have fun and get enough food and go to school—and Sans had told him once, after a bad day, that he didn’t even have to go to school if he didn’t want to, but Papyrus liked school well enough now, and at the time, when he was younger, he knew that school was the only place he could go while Sans working that they wouldn’t have to pay for.

But … maybe there was one thing he could do to help out. Just for tonight, even if it didn’t happen a lot.

Sans was tired, and he was already asleep, and even though he always insisted he had enough time for a bedtime story … maybe tonight, Papyrus could go without one. Maybe he could read himself a bedtime story. Maybe, if he showed Sans that he could read himself a bedtime story, then Sans could go to bed a little earlier from now on and get more sleep. Then maybe he wouldn’t be tired enough to fall asleep on the couch no matter how hard he tried to stay awake.

He nodded to himself, then took a step away from the couch, then another, and another after that. He turned around, but looked over his shoulder a few times, checking to make sure his brother was still asleep. He thought about bringing him a blanket or another pillow, but moving him might wake him, and Sans usually kicked his own blankets off anyway. His hoodie kept him warm when he napped in the snow, and it would keep him warm on the couch.

He stepped onto the first stair, glancing over again. Sans was still snoring, as out as he ever was, the bone of his face smooth like it never was when he was awake.

Another step. Another glance. Another step. Another glance.

Sans slept on.

Papyrus let out a long, heavy, silent breath, then turned toward the top of the stairs and continued on his way.

“going to bed without your story?”

Papyrus stopped with one foot still hovering over the step.

He put it down, slowly, and took even more time to turn around. Sans was sitting on the couch, staring up at him, like he had never been asleep at all. But if Papyrus looked closer, he could still see the exhaustion written all around his sockets, in the tightness of his smile, in the dimness of his eyesights.

Papyrus frowned and tried not to look too nervous.

“YOU WERE ASLEEP.”

“i sleep a lot,” Sans replied, as if it wasn’t a big deal. “you can just wake me up.”

Papyrus wanted to say that sometimes he couldn’t wake Sans up, that he said his name and shook him and made all the noise he could and Sans slept right through it. He wanted to say that even when he could wake him up, he didn’t want to, because he had seen how tired he was and wanted to make sure that he got enough sleep so he wasn’t tired tomorrow.

He didn’t want his brother to stay up to read him a story if it was going to make him even more tired tomorrow. If it meant that he would spend even more of the weekend collapsed in bed.

But before he could think of what to say, Sans was already pushing himself up off the couch and walking across the living room floor. Papyrus bit back the sigh that wanted to slip out of his throat and walked the rest of the way into his room, feeling Sans right behind him. He climbed into his bed, smoothing out the covers over him, while Sans went to his bookshelf and ran his fingers along the spines of the books.

“got a preference tonight?” he asked, flashing another smile over his shoulder that was just a little too forced.

Papyrus fidgeted, gripping the blankets tighter.

“ADVANCED PUZZLE-MAKING?”

It sounded more like a question than usual, but Sans just nodded and plucked the book off the shelf, without even needing to search for where it was. He had read every book they owned at least twice, and probably more from the library that Papyrus didn’t remember. He used to read a lot more before he had to work so much. Papyrus wondered if he would ever be able to read that much again.

Maybe if he got a job. When he was older. He could get a job, one that paid a lot of money, and then Sans wouldn’t have to work so much, and he would be able to spend more time doing things he liked.

He wouldn’t be so tired all the time.

And maybe … maybe they could spend more time together again. When Sans was really awake, really paying attention to what they were doing.

When they were both happy.

“got something on your mind, bro?” Sans asked, and only as Papyrus’s head snapped up did he realized that Sans had already come to sit on the edge of his bed. “you’re quieter than usual tonight.”

Papyrus fidgeted again. There was something itching at the back of his head, trying to get out, trying to force its way down and into his mouth. Maybe, someday, he would let it out. But for now, he swallowed it as hard as he could, and sat up so straight his spine felt like a metal pole, frozen in the snow.

“ADVANCED PUZZLE-MAKING REQUIRES A LOT OF THOUGHT. I’M GETTING READY.”

Sans chuckled, and it was a real chuckle, even if it sounded just as tired as every other part of him.

“as always, you make the best points.”

Papyrus made himself smile, because it was a compliment, and he was supposed to smile, even if he didn’t feel like it. Even if he was still worried. Even though he still didn’t know what to do.

Even though he knew that he was years away from being able to get a job like his brother. Years away from being able to help him pay for things. Years away from giving them both the life he wanted for them.

Years away from feeling like he could give anything back to the person who had done so much for him.

He smiled despite all of that, because Sans liked it when he smiled, and if that was all he could do right now, then that was what he was going to do.

Sans only read half of the first chapter, because Papyrus could see him trying not to yawn and he knew the whole first chapter would keep him awake a lot longer. He tried to insist that he could read a bit more, but Papyrus was more stubborn than he was, and Sans was much too tired to try to argue with him right now.

He put the book away and came back to the bed to say goodnight properly, but when he leaned in to give Papyrus their usual quick hug, Papyrus tugged him down to the bed, hugging him more tightly than he had in months. It was awkward, and a little uncomfortable, and Sans spent a good ten seconds shifting so he was laying next to Papyrus rather than sprawled on top of him, but after that, he hugged him back just as tight, and Papyrus could tell he needed that hug just as much.

He expected Sans to insist on getting up after a minute or so, but instead he just settled further into the bed, sighing a little as he found a more comfortable position. Papyrus got the impression that Sans’s mattress wasn’t very comfortable anymore, and it was even less comfortable with how rarely he washed his sheets. Papyrus kept his bed clean and made it every day, and his mattress was only a few years old, compared to … well, neither of them knew how old Sans’s mattress was, and it had been so long since Papyrus had laid on it that he couldn’t remember what condition it had been in.

But it didn’t matter why Sans was more comfortable here. What mattered was how Papyrus could see him already relaxing, already drifting into sleep again, and Papyrus didn’t want to take that away from him just because they had slept in separate beds for the past few years. He couldn’t do very much for his brother now, but he could give him one good night’s sleep before he had to go back to work. Before he had to spend another long day earning money to support the two of them.

He could take care of Sans like Sans took care of him.

So he reached down and pulled the blankets up to cover his brother. Sans blinked and mumbled, but didn’t protest, or even seem to notice what was going on. But as Papyrus settled back down on the pillows, Sans opened his eyes, just a bit, just enough for Papyrus to know that he was still awake and looking at him.

His eyes were soft, fuzzy, distant, and not fully aware, and Papyrus wasn’t sure if he knew why he was smiling. But he was, and it was real, with no pain or sadness behind it. Just a soft, warm smile that made Papyrus feel soft and warm in return, like they were both several years younger, and Sans didn’t have to work much at all, and all they had to worry about was the memories neither of them had.

After a long, happy minute, Sans’s eyes began to drift shut, but before they could close completely, Papyrus cleared his throat.

“SANS?”

Sans blinked a couple times, but despite his tiredness, Papyrus was sure his attention was entirely on him. “yeah, bro?”

Papyrus swallowed the lump in his throat that, for once, didn’t feel bad at all.

“I LOVE YOU,” he said, hardly louder than a whisper, but filled with all the feeling he could stuff into three little words. “YOU’RE … YOU’RE A REALLY GOOD BROTHER. AND … YOU’RE REALLY GOOD AT A LOT OF THINGS AND I’M JUST … REALLY GLAD THAT YOU’RE MY BROTHER AND THAT YOU’RE HERE AND I LOVE YOU VERY, VERY MUCH.”

Sans blinked again. His eyes still didn’t open all the way, but Papyrus could see his eyelights focusing, locking on Papyrus as he soaked up his words.

Then those eyelights softened, and his smile twitched at the corners, curving up the corners of his sockets.

“thanks, papyrus,” he murmured, the words riding on his breath. “but to be completely fair, i don’t think you could ever love me as much as i love you.”

Papyrus wanted to tell him that that was silly, that Sans couldn’t know that, couldn’t measure how much they loved each other like he could measure sugar or flour or the ketchup he poured into a cup. But as he opened his mouth to say it, he looked into his brother’s eyes, and he saw something that he didn’t have a name for. Something that made the words die in his throat. Something soft and warm and filled with too many things for Papyrus to begin to describe.

He would have said it looked like love, but it was far more than that.

After a long, long moment, Papyrus let his mouth fall shut, and Sans chuckled and reached his hand up to run over the side of his skull, gentle, affectionate, appreciative, as if Papyrus were the most precious thing in the world.

Then he let out a long, content sigh and settled against the pillow, letting his eyes fall shut. His arms remained wrapped around Papyrus, holding him close to him, like he was protecting him from the world. Normally, Papyrus would have insisted that he didn’t need protecting, because he didn’t. But for the first time, he wondered if it wasn’t so much him that needed protecting as it was Sans needing someone to protect.

He could be that someone, if Sans needed it.

So he let his brother hold him, let him press him against his chest like there was something out to get him, like he had far scarier things in his life than his brother being tired all the time or having to work too hard. He let himself relax into the familiar warmth of the person who had cared for him as long as he could remember. He let his eyes close, and his breathing slow, and his soul beat match up with the one in front of him, as naturally as it ever had.

And for the first time in years, he fell asleep in seconds.

*

Papyrus was tired.

It was a wonderful kind of tired. The kind of tired that meant that he had had an exciting, adventurous, energetic day, the kind of tired that meant he had spent all of his energy in the best way possible.

But he was still tired, and that meant it was time to go to bed.

Frisk was tired, too, he could tell. Tired, but still smiling, as they hadn’t seemed to stop doing all day. Since the moment they got home, they had been going on and on about all the fun things they had done, and Toriel had listened like she always did, smiling and humming and giving soft looks that made Papyrus feel warm even though they weren’t directed at him.

They had shown her all their new clothes, and she insisted on taking even more pictures as they “modeled” each of the outfits, twirling and strutting and running around the living room, showing each of them off. She helped them add them to their usual wardrobe, and they stood there for a good minute after each thing was folded or hung up in their closet, beaming at the new additions like they would their most prized possession.

Toriel pulled Papyrus aside after dinner and gave him a long, tight hug, and even though she didn’t say anything, Papyrus got her message loud and clear.

Papyrus had spent the few hours since then more quietly than he had spent an evening in a very long time. He didn’t run around the house, picking things up, calling out to various members of his new family to remind them to clean up after themselves. He didn’t think about all the things he had to do tomorrow, or try to get a head start on them now. He didn’t watch exercise or dance videos and try to get one more workout in before the rest of the household went to bed. He got into his pajamas and brushed his teeth and tidied his room, but then he just went down to the living room and sat down with one of his favorite books.

The house wasn’t quiet or peaceful, even in this rare moment that Papyrus was. Undyne had had an epic day helping humans train at the gym, and was still running around the house with all the energy she had built up. Alphys had started a new experiment in the kitchen, and a couple of times he heard Toriel rushing in, trying to keep anything from catching on fire.

But instead of joining in, Papyrus just sat there, taking it all in, appreciating every second. Appreciating every one of the people he had in his life.

Appreciating his family, that was bigger than it had ever been before.

It was almost 9:30 by the time he got up again. He could still hear Frisk moving around upstairs. They usually went to bed around this time. He walked across the house to the only bedroom on the first floor, the one Toriel had claimed for herself only after everyone else had picked theirs. Sans had mentioned once, quietly, that everyone knew it was the biggest bedroom in the house, and had a lovely view of the front garden, and it had been much more intention than accident that Toriel had gotten it. But no one had ever told her, and as far as Papyrus knew, she had never figured it out.

She looked happy in there now, sitting on the edge of her bed, looking through the photo album she had been putting together. Her eyes were soft, and her smile was small and gentle, and she looked very young and very old all at once, and suddenly it made perfect sense, all over again, why she and Sans were such good friends. She kept looking through the book for a minute before she lifted her head, jumping a bit when she noticed Papyrus standing in the door.

“Oh dear,” she breathed, bringing a hand to her chest, then chuckling. “I’m sorry, Papyrus, I didn’t hear you come in. Did you need something?”

She closed the book and set it off to the side, but her hand lingered on it, and he got the strong feeling that she would open it again as soon as she was left alone. She had only been working on it for two months, and he knew she would not consider it ready for other eyes until it was finished. Based on how many photos she took, he didn’t think that would be much longer.

“HAVE YOU ALREADY READ A BEDTIME STORY TO FRISK?” he asked, once her hand returned to her lap.

Toriel blinked, then hummed in thought.

“I … no, I have not. I was thinking about …”

She stopped. And she looked at him, really looked at him, seeing him in a way that many people never did. Her face softened again, the lines of thought smoothing away, and a tiny smile touching her lips.

“Unless you would like to read them one instead?”

Papyrus couldn’t quite stop the blush that came to his cheekbones, but rather than ducking his head to hide it, he stood up a little taller, smiling in what felt like pride.

“I WAS HOPING TO DO SO.”

Toriel’s smile softened even more, and suddenly Papyrus recognized the look in her eyes as the same one Sans sometimes got when he thought Papyrus wasn’t looking. That look filled with more love than the word could ever express. The same look she gave to Frisk every single day.

“Well, then. I’m sure they’ll enjoy that,” she said, and pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll just go and wish them good night and make sure they’re settled, and then you can surprise them.”

She was only upstairs for a few minutes, but it felt closer to an hour as Papyrus stood near the bottom of the stairs, bouncing from foot to foot. When she came down, just a bit more slowly than was strictly necessary, she gave him another smile, more mischievous than her first one, and winked as she stepped aside and gave him room to bound up the stairs himself.

He did his best to run quietly, at least, and he stopped a good ten feet before he reached Frisk’s door. He took a deep, long breath to calm down the jitters in his bones. Think calming thoughts. Sleepy thoughts. Bedtime thoughts.

They had had a wonderful, fun, incredible day together, and now it was time for sleep.

He stepped forward, poking his head through the cracked door. Frisk’s main light had been turned on, the lamp at their bedside still glowing, giving off just enough light for him to see them curled on their bed, sitting against the pillows, a book in their lap. He tapped his knuckles on the wood. They looked up, smiling right away. He smiled back.

“HAVE YOU GOTTEN ALL READY FOR BED, HUMAN FRISK?”

Frisk giggled, closing their book and setting it off to the side. “Yeah, I’m all good, Pap.”

“THEN THAT MEANS YOU ARE ALL READY FOR YOUR BEDTIME STORY!” Papyrus said, holding out his arms to the sides to properly express the excitement of the idea. Frisk furrowed their brow, but Papyrus just kept grinning. “NOT-QUEEN TORIEL HAS AGREED TO GRANT ME THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUR STORY FOR TONIGHT!”

Frisk blinked a couple of times, glancing at the book to their side, then back to them.

“You wanna tell me a bedtime story?” they asked, a little hesitantly, like they weren’t sure they understood.

Papyrus felt a little sad that they were so surprised by the idea—especially since he knew that Toriel would have been more than happy to read them a bedtime story every single night, if she didn’t already—but he kept smiling nonetheless.

“OF COURSE! IT IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF GETTING READY FOR A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP!”

They stared at him for a moment longer, their eyes just as wide. Then their lips twitched up at the corners, and they nodded.

“Yeah … yeah, I’d like that.”

Papyrus beamed.

“EXCELLENT! IN THAT CASE, COME TO MY ROOM. SLEEPING IN MY RACECAR BED WILL CERTAINLY MAKE YOUR DREAMS MORE EXCITING!”

Frisk giggled, and he could already hear them getting out of bed as he marched back down the hallway toward his own room. He took a moment to pull back the blankets and turn off the main lights, leaving only the lamp in the corner, and pluck his desired book off the shelf. Frisk stepped into the room only a second later, and he smiled at them before waving them over to his bed.

He had had his bed for a long time, and he knew, objectively, that it was probably just a little too small for him, especially now that he was much taller than his brother would ever be. It was a tight fit for him, and for Frisk as well … well, it was a good thing they were not a very picky child. They had to spend a couple of minutes figuring out how to get comfortable, but finally they found themselves tucked under the covers with a copy of Fluffy Bunny sitting in front of them.

Papyrus had no idea how he would get up to turn off the lamp, but for the moment, this was just fine.

“ALRIGHT,” Papyrus said. “HOW FAMILIAR ARE YOU WITH THE TALES OF FLUFFY BUNNY?”

Frisk stared at him with wide, confused eyes. Papyrus sighed.

“YOU POOR HUMAN. I DO NOT KNOW HOW YOU SURVIVED UNTIL NOW. NEVER FEAR! I WILL START FROM THE VERY BEGINNING.”

Of course, starting from the beginning might have been easier if he had the first book with him, but they had only ever seen one copy growing up, and it had been a miracle when they finally checked it out from the library. Alphys had offered to help him hunt for it using something called “online shopping,” but for now, at least he knew the whole thing by heart. He told as much of Fluffy Bunny’s intricate and exciting backstory as he could fit into a few minutes, then opened the book in his hands and got started on the current story, which occurred some time into the main flow of adventures. It was one of the quieter tales, about Fluffy Bunny settling into a new town, meeting new people and making new friends, but Papyrus thought it was a perfect fit, and by the look on their face, Frisk agreed.

They were still awake when the book was done, but Papyrus wasn’t surprised—he had rarely fallen asleep after only one story. But instead of picking up another one, Frisk started asking questions about Fluffy Bunny, about the parts of their backstory Papyrus had skipped, about their friends, about how they had come to move to a new town in the first place. With every question Papyrus answered, Frisk came up with another, and they went back and forth like that, jumping from topic to topic, question to question, in what Papyrus could probably count as his favorite conversation in over a year.

It took about ten minutes before their eyes began to droop again. They kept them open at first, fighting to stay awake longer to ask just one more question. But once it was out, and he began the answer, their eyes fluttered shut, and before he was halfway through, their head dropped onto his shoulder and their breathing evened out.

Papyrus waved a hand in front of their face, but they didn’t even twitch.

He sat there for a few minutes after that, just looking at them. He was starting to understand why Toriel did that sometimes when she went in to wake them in the morning, just sitting beside their bed and watching them sleep with a soft look on her face. He couldn’t even think of a word good enough to describe them. They looked … soft? Fragile? Gentle? Those were close, but not the same.

They looked … kind. Definitely kind. Like their kindness had taken on a physical form and that was what he saw on their face.

They looked young. So much younger than every word he had heard leave their mouth.

They looked like no one else he had ever seen in all his life.

They looked like Frisk.

They looked like … his little sibling, sleeping soundly in his arms.

They looked safe.

“wow, and here i thought they were a night owl. they never fall asleep this early.”

Papyrus hadn’t heard the door open, or any footsteps in the hall, but this time, he didn’t even jump. He just looked up from Frisks’s little head resting against his side and met the eyes of his brother, standing just inside the closed door, watching them with something between fondness and amusement. Papyrus gave a small, tired smile.

“TORIEL SAYS THAT THEY USUALLY DO NOT, BUT THEY HAD A VERY TIRING DAY AND WOULD LIKELY BE ABLE TO FALL ASLEEP MUCH EARLIER THAN USUAL. IT APPEARS THAT SHE WAS CORRECT!”

Sans huffed a laugh, even quieter than usual. “no kidding. out like a light.”

“SPEAKING OF, WOULD YOU MIND TURNING OFF THE LIGHT, BROTHER?” Papyrus asked, glancing at the lamp that stood just a few feet away. “I AM AFRAID I CANNOT GET OUT OF BED WITHOUT WAKING HUMAN FRISK.”

Sans chuckled again, softer and fonder. “sure thing.”

He stepped toward the lamp, as slowly as he always did, but as he reached up to turn it off, Papyrus felt himself frowning, feeling the nudge of something unsaid that bubbled up against the backs of his teeth.

“SANS?”

Sans paused, hand already on the switch, and looked at him. “yeah, bro?”

Papyrus let a few seconds pass in silence, and just stared back at his brother, letting his eyes say what he knew his voice would never be able to.

“THANK YOU.”

He could tell that Sans understood what he meant right away. He knew how to read his brother’s face, no matter how hard he tried to hide what was behind his expressions. Sans glanced away, his eyelights growing wider, a faint glow of a blush dusting across his cheeks.

But he was still Sans, and he could never make it that easy.

“for what?” he asked, and it would have sounded genuine if he hadn’t still been looking away when he said it.

Papyrus sighed, so loud he almost worried that it would wake Frisk.

“PLEASE DON’T PLAY STUPID, BROTHER, IT IS MUCH TOO LATE FOR THAT.”

Sans’s mouth twitched, and he peeked up before lifting his head again.

“yeah,” he breathed, shrugging one shoulder. “it’s nothing.”

Papyrus frowned. “IT’S NOT NOTHING.”

Sans rolled his eyes, but didn’t stop smiling.

“well, you’re welcome, then.”

“THAT’S BETTER,” Papyrus replied. It certainly wasn’t the best, but it was the best he could hope for right now, and he was willing to take it. His eyes drifted to Sans’s hand, still lingering on the lamp switch, then to his face, to the faint darkness under his sockets, to the way his eyes had just begun to droop. “YOU LOOK TIRED.”

He thought Sans might protest, say that of course he wasn’t tired, but instead he just chuckled again.

“yeah, me and tori ended up going shopping for some stuff for the house today, and … well, you know how tiring shopping can be.”

Papyrus hummed. “TORIEL IS AN ENTHUSIASTIC SHOPPER INDEED.”

“and never buys something without hunting for the best bargain out there.”

He said it with fondness, with a softness to his smile that Papyrus only saw when he was talking about a few people. Toriel made his brother happy, and time with her made him happy, even if it did make him tired afterward. Despite how old she claimed to be, she could be very energetic, and though Sans might have been much younger … well. He hadn’t had half the stamina of most of the other kids even when he actually was one.

He was happy, but he was tired, and just as he started to flick the light switch, Papyrus opened his mouth again.

“COME SLEEP HERE.”

For the second time, Sans’s finger remained on the light switch as he turned to face him. He blinked a few times, then glanced down at the bed. The bed that Papyrus had learned was “twin-sized.” The bed that they had spent five minutes trying to find a way for just him and Frisk to fit into.

“you sure there’s room?” he asked, even though the question as already clear.

Papyrus didn’t even waste a second with thought.

“I WILL ALWAYS MAKE ROOM FOR MY FAVORITE BROTHER.”

Sans chuckled, like he did when he found the perfect opportunity for a joke, but Papyrus could see the brightness in his eyes and the returning blush on his cheekbones.

“aww, really? out of all your brothers, i’m your favorite?”

“JUST GET IN THE BED, SANS,” Papyrus said, and despite how hard he tried to look serious, he knew Sans could make out the faint smile on his face.

He didn’t say anything about it, though. He flicked off the light, and after a few seconds of blinking to adjust, Papyrus could make out the shapes in the room, glowing in the light of the moon streaming in from his window. Sans crossed the space between them, and Papyrus began the challenging, but worthwhile, process of trying to move Frisk without waking them up. Luckily, they were even more tired than Sans was, and they took the shifting around without so much as a groan or a blink. Then Papyrus scooted over to join them, and Sans lifted up the blankets and climbed, as carefully as he could, into the bed.

It was still a tight fit. More than a tight fit, really—if any of them so much as began to roll over in the night, Papyrus was sure they would all fall off the bed. But for the moment, they were cozy and tucked in, and there was nothing more comforting than the feeling of two of his favorite people settled on either of his sides.

Sans sighed, quiet and faint, as he rested his head against Papyrus’s shoulder, rubbing his forehead against the cloth as his eyes fell shut. Frisk mumbled in their sleep, curling up further on their side to press their face into Papyrus’s nightshirt.

Papyrus looked at his brother, and after a long second, Sans blinked open his tired eyes and looked back at him.

“I LOVE YOU,” Papyrus said, in the closest he could get to a whisper, letting all of his emotions soak into the words.

Sans didn’t blush, or look away, or try to brush it off. He just looked at him for a long, heavy moment, breathing in the words as they hung in the air.

“love you, too, bro,” he said back, and even though it was so quiet Papyrus could barely make it out, it felt like it was the only sound in the world.

It took a bit of maneuvering, but Papyrus managed to get his arm wrapped around his brother’s shoulders, tugging him closer, until they were pressed as tightly together as they could. It should have felt cramped, but instead it just felt warm and familiar, like those nights when they were kids and Sans would be so tired he would fall asleep in Papyrus’s bed, and Papyrus would drag him across the mattress until they could both cuddle together under his covers.

Sans wrapped his arms around him in return, with slightly less maneuvering, because his arms were small and thin, just like the rest of him. Papyrus gave him a squeeze, then leaned over and pressed his teeth to Frisk’s skull in the closest he could give to a kiss. Frisks’s lips curled up in their sleep, and Papyrus smiled right back.

Then he let himself relax into the pillows, feeling the comforting warmth of the two smaller bodies tucked against him. His big brother and his new little sibling. One who he had spent his whole life with, and the other who he had only met six short months ago.

Both who had been through far more pain than they ever should have.

Both who he would now do everything he could to protect.

Because he was a brother, whether he was little or big. And he would be the best brother than he could be.

He was the Great Papyrus, after all.

He would be a great brother, too.