Work Text:
Two dozen mats were spread across the hall in a grid, with a twenty fifth at one end. The group of humans were in a huddle talking with themselves, mostly about the clientele of the gym, but also small talk about life in general. This went on for about ten minutes, before the door opened and a confident skeleton wearing his freshly laundered 'JOGGER BOY' shirt strode in and stood at the head mat.
"HELLO, HUMANS," he said, "I'M YOUR TRAINER, PAPYRUS. THANK YOU FOR CHOOSING TO ENROLL AT MY INTRODUCTORY AEROBICS CLASS AT ALPHYNE LEISURE AND FITNESS CLUB!"
The humans were a little taken aback, but it wasn't like they knew nothing about this place before booking the class, or what their fellow exercisers looked like.
"NOW, EVERYBODY PLEASE FIND A MAT TO THEMSELVES." He watched them organize themselves as he requested, though it soon became clear two of them were left wanting. "WOWIE, THIS CLASS IS MORE POPULAR THAN I THOUGHT! WORRY NOT, HUMANS."
He waved his hand. With a ping, two more mats parked against the wall hovered over to the back of the class and laid themselves down in perfect alignment with the grid.
"THERE YOU GO, TAKE YOUR SPOT." They did, albeit warily. "NOW, BEFORE WE BEGIN, DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHAT WE SHOULD DO TO WARM UP?"
"Stretch?" offered one woman.
"PRECISELY! SO LET US ALL STRETCH. PLANT YOUR FEET LIKE THIS," he planted his own feet a good pace apart from each other. Everyone followed. "NOW SLOWLY BEND OVER AND TRY TO TOUCH THE FLOOR. DON'T LET YOUR KNEES BEND." A few grunts filled the room as the less flexible struggled. "AND HOLD... NOW UPRIGHT AGAIN. AND TO THE LEFT, LIKE THIS." He leaned as far to the left as his body allowed. Which was further than most of the humans, for he had no pesky muscles to hold him back. "AND TO THE RIGHT..."
The stretched continued like this for a few minutes. Nothing wild, though sometimes the bulk of the class had to hold a posture while Papyrus directed one or two students to assume the position properly.
"AND... UP! HIGH AS YOU CAN, LIKE YOU'RE TRYING TO TOUCH THE CEILING." More grunts as they stretched for the ceiling designed for beings half again as tall as they were. Papyrus looked on as he stretched higher than any of them.
"VERY GOOD, EVERYONE! NOW, I COULD PROBABLY GO EVEN FURTHER, BUT THAT WOULD INVOLVE TAKING OFF MY ARM, AND I DON'T THINK THAT'S HEALTHY FOR HUMANS."
He got a few chuckles, and the warmth in his chest grew at the rapport he was developing with his students.
"I MEAN," he continued, "IF I WERE TO DO THIS-"
An unpleasant clicking sound killed all the laughter. He'd seized his upper left arm with his right hand, detached it, and now held it up high like a torch, the left hand still able to move and tickle the ceiling.
"IT'S VERY IMPORTANT YOU NEVER DO WHAT I'M DOING RIGHT NOW," he cautioned, wondering why the room was so quiet. "I'M UNCERTAIN HOW PROFICIENT HUMAN MEDICINE IS AT FIXING IT."
He eventually became aware that maybe the humans were making unintended assumptions as a result of his demonstration of what not to do, so he decided to cut stretches short by fifteen minutes. Their flushed faces showed they were ready anyway. He reattached his arm and stood tall, legs snapped together.
"OKAY, WE'RE NICE AND STRETCHY. GOOD JOB, EVERYONE. NOW FOR EXERCISE. DOES ANYONE NEED AN EXPLANATION OF WHAT 'JOGGING ON THE SPOT' IS?" Murmurs of no. "WELL? WHY HAVEN'T YOU STARTED?"
The opening exercise went pretty well, Papyrus thought later. A good five minutes of jogging on the spot. Not everyone could keep pace with the fast spot-joggers but they did their best and he admired them for trying. The memory of Sans assuming the same position, flat on the ground, regardless of what Papyrus tried to practice with him, filled him with the microdoses of determination his body could tolerate.
"AAAAAAAND... REST!" Everyone with skin had definitely worked up a good sweat by now. "GREAT JOB, EVERYONE. NOW, GO TO THE WATER COOLER IN THE BACK CORNER AND TAKE A DRINK." When only a few went, Papyrus' fixed expression radiated irritation. "DID I ALPHYS? SHOO SHOO, TAKE A DRINK!" He stood perfectly still during the five minutes it took for them to each take a drink and return to their mat. "NOW I THINK IT'S TIME TO GET IN THE AIR. DOES ANYBODY NEED ME TO GIVE THEM A DIAGRAM OF A JUMPING JACK FOR THEM?" Silence told him no. "A PITY, I DREW IT MYSELF, AND I THINK LOOKS GREAT. OKAY, LET'S GO!"
It was not as synchronised as Papyrus would have liked. His pace wasn't Undyne's, but it was steady and unrelenting, and the heftier of the humans barely left contact with their mats, out of fear of damage to their joints. But once again, nobody gave up.
"AAAAAAAND... REST!" Several brows without headbands were mopped for their sweat. "FANTASTIC JOB, EVERYONE! NOW GO TAKE ANOTHER DRINK."
"Excuse me," asked a man, "but are you going to make us stop for a drink after every single routine?"
Papyrus looked at him like he questioned whether one and one made two. "WHY WOULDN'T I?"
"Aren't you worried all these interruptions to the flow of our exercising hampers the results?" He received a few agreeing mutters.
"BUT... HUMANS NEED WATER. I READ ABOUT IT! I DON'T WANT YOU TO SHRIVEL UP LIKE PRUNES BECAUSE I TRIED TO PRETEND YOU WERE SOMETHING YOU AREN'T."
"If we shrivel up after a little workout," said another woman, "then we were too sick to be doing it in the first place."
"I DON'T KNOW..." Papyrus tapped his mandible. "I CLEARED MY PLANS WITH THE MANAGER." He looked over to a picture of her on the wall, firey red hair, blue scales and drying fins very clearly on display, though not as much as her intimidating smile and eyepatch.
"She's... a fish," hazarded the first man. "Don't you think she might be a little... biased when it comes to what's enough water?"
Papyrus took his words to heart. "WELL SHE HAS BEEN TRAINED IN ANTI-HUMAN WARFARE BY THE KING SINCE SHE WAS A CHILD-"
"Wait, she what-"
"-SO YOU COULD BE RIGHT THAT HER PRIORITIES ARE ASKEW. VERY WELL, NO WATER AT ALL UNTIL THE CLASS IS OVER!"
This caused a hubbub in the opposite direction. It took a while for the humans to convey to him that water is a sometimes food. It went against his plans, to allow the humans to drink at their own discretion, but to his astonishment, everything worked out. They did pushups and situps and one leg circles and imaginary bicycles. They tried jump rope, but Papyrus somehow got hopelessly entangled and concluded advanced puzzle escape would be for another lesson. By the time they were finished they hadn't done as much as he'd hoped, but the room was warm from their collective bodyheat, and everyone was still standing. At least, when he gave them permission to stand.
"ABSOLUTELY MARVELOUS, BEST OF ALL TIME, NOT A WHAT IF STORY, ACTUALLY THE TRUTH, UNMATCHABLE JOB, EVERYONE! SEE YOU ALL NEXT WEEK. OH, AND I RUN A POWER-WALK GROUP ON SUNDAYS. WE LEAVE BY THE STAGE IN THE PARK. BRING YOUR OWN WATER!"