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The sun began to rise, the bird singing as the sky melted from inky dark blue to richer shades of cerulean. An alarm clock on the bedside table began to go off, only to be immediately silenced by a gloved hand.
Papyrus had not been sleeping, of course, he had better ways to spend his night. Currently he is planning out a puzzle to be displayed in a museum exhibit about monster culture. He is nearly shaking, giddy and excited about being able to share a favorite part of his life with the humans on the surface. He is the ambassador for monsterkind, but he always looks to do even more to share all the things he loves about being a monster with human society.
He wishes he could stay a bit longer to continue working on the puzzle, but the alarm going off signals it's time for his morning jog. He grabs his keys and dashes into the garage, hitting the door button on the way inside. He doesn't bother opening the door, merely doing a sick flip in the air (partially aided by his gravity manipulation) and landing in his seat. He pulls his favorite pair of sunglasses out of the center console, partially because they make him look even cooler than usual and partially because he knows the sun will be in his eye sockets on his way to where he likes to jog.
He drives out to a street where all the houses on one side have backyards that open onto a creek, this is the street his friends live on. He pulls into the driveway of a particular house, a flag with the deltarune symbol in one of the windows on the first floor. He hops out of his car, sunglasses staying firmly in place as he does a sick landing on the ground, legs splayed out with a hand to the ground for stability, the other hand pointing up and off to one side. He is working to perfect his superhero landing, with his ability to fly, he’s sure that he will have it perfected in no time.
Papyrus jogs up to the door, his gloved hand pressing the button before withdrawing, hands clasped together in a perfect picture of patience while an anime opening plays. Though he is not a fan of anime - usually, but don’t tell Undyne he said there’s any exceptions - this tune is familiar simply because he tries to come here four times a week. Resisting the urge to hum along to the song is difficult, he has even, unfortunately, memorized the lyrics to the song, so it wouldn’t be very hard to-
He begins to boisterously sing along to the song, even if he says anime is for babies he truly can NOT resist a catchy song, and if he’s going to give in and sing along to the song, he will put his whole soul into it. He curses all of anime for having such long and fun to listen to theme songs.
Suddenly the door swings open and he finds himself metaphorically caught red handed. Undyne is standing in the door with an expression on her face somewhere between completely shocked and extremely smug. His teeth slam shut so quickly that it almost hurts, the clack of them connecting loud enough to make her flinch slightly. She leans back, her smile now entirely smug, and her arms crossing to really sell the look.
“So anime is only for little babies, huh?”
“UNDYNE I REFUSE TO ENGAGE WITH YOU WHILE YOU ARE MAKING THAT HORRIBLE FACE!”
She only nods in satisfaction, her face unchanging save for a new glint in her single eye.
“Pap, you know our doorbell has a camera, right?”
He feels a dawning horror creeping up his bones, his cheekbones flushed pink with embarrassment and his jaw falling open, he feels sweat begin to form on his pristine and well-polished skull.
“UNDYNE, PLEASE DON’T POST THAT TO UNDERNET, I AM BEGGING YOU, I’M THE AMBASSADOR FOR ALL MONSTERS, I WOULD SURELY DUST FROM THE FORCE OF THE MORTIFICATION CRUSHING ME LIKE A LARGE BOULDER.”
“Hmm,” She strokes her chin in an overly emotive gesture that Papyrus knows means she’s fucking with him, “You’re right, I won’t post it. I will just keep it saved forever. Maybe I’ll ask Alphys to put it in one of those picture frames that plays videos, fuhuhuhu!”
“UGH!!!” He stomps his foot but can’t help but smile, “WILL ALPHYS BE DOWN SOON FOR OUR TRAINING?”
“Yeah, you know her, she needs a bit more time to get up in the morning than us.” She is obviously referring to the fact that Papyrus is a chronic insomniac and Undyne used to be Captain of the guard, which necessitated early mornings. Undyne invites Papyrus in, and they stand in the living room for a moment, chatting idly about the weather today, how there’s a chance for thunderstorms.
Soon, they hear the gentle creaking of the old floorboards in the disparately decorated cabin Alphys and Undyne live in. Alphys quickly appears at the bottom of the steps, in her gear and still looking half asleep, but with a smile on her face, happy to see her friend Papyrus and her girlfriend Undyne standing there waiting for her, both of them equally happy to see her.
All three of them head for the back door, walking down the gently weathered steps of their back porch and into the open end of their backyard. Almost immediately, they are on the path that runs in parallel to the creek, and they begin to jog. Normally Papyrus and Undyne by themselves would take this opportunity to race, but Alphys is there and is not as fast as both of them with her much shorter legs, but she also is still not fully awake.
As they follow the path Papyrus and Undyne offer encouragement and compliments to Alphys, her repeating them, shyly at first before she begins to wake up more, her confidence rising.
They reach a clearing along the creek, a delightful and antiquated lamp stands beside an equally beautiful and old bench. Undyne flops down onto the seat at one end, her arm stretching across the back rest as she stretches out. Alphas practically collapses onto the bench, directly in the middle, though she tries not to take up any space. Papyrus easily sits at the other end of the bench, propping one leg up on the other and setting one of his hands on that knee, the other arm resting on the arm rest. There's just barely enough room on the bench for all of them, which is lucky since Undyne is 8 feet tall, Papyrus is 7 and a half feet tall, and while Alphys isn't big like that, she is more plump, and her tail tends to take up a lot of room when she sits on chairs and such that don't include a gap for it to slip through.
They all relax, each of them being quiet and enjoying the moment. In nature, on the surface, they always find new plants and animals to look at. Papyrus looks up at the birds, enjoying their songs and cooing, while Alphys is more interested in the beauty of the moss, lichen, flowers, and ferns, and at Undyne's favored end of the bench she's close enough to observe many different bugs living in the broken stump of a tree.
Though all of them prefer to speak or fill silences, here they can't help but savor the non-silence provided by the forest. Alphys leans to Undyne a bit and Papyrus decides to give them some space for a moment. He crosses the clearing and approaches the gently flowing creek, sitting on a large rock that juts out from the edge of the water, he takes off his shoes and socks. He sets his feet into the water to enjoy the feeling of the cold rushing between his bones. It's different from the river outside of Snowdin, which was always ice cold in that area. This is cold but like a cool glass of water on a hot, sunny day.
Papyrus leans forward to look into the water, observing the sunlight beginning to peek through the treetops to make the surface glitter and shine, and beneath the surface, the scales of the fish lurking on the rocky floor seem to shimmer. Under the distortion of the rushing water he sees smooth river rocks, and he looks carefully to see if there's any that might be nice to take home with him, but alas. He turns his head to look up the stream and suddenly sits straight up.
Further up from where the currents come, he sees several cairns stacked to various heights and with various levels of intricacies to the configuration of the stacked rocks. He was reading an article about this last night, how cairns can be useful when trying to make markers along a less worn path or when walking off the path, but ones constructed in the water can be disruptive and harmful to the ecosystems. They can alter the flow of water and potentially fall over and hurt the animals living in that body of water.
He stands from his spot and approaches the cairns, gingerly dismantling them with a determined expression on his face. He sets the stones, in what he hopes will be an acceptably natural way, onto the creekbed. While dismantling and rearranging the stacks he finds a nice stone that is worn smooth by the flow, with an interesting glittering in the way the surface of it reflects light. He stores it in his phone's inventory before following the stream back to where he had been sitting.
He pulls a towel out of his inventory - the Great Papyrus is always prepared - and dries his feet before he puts his socks back on because he can think of nothing more miserable than wet socks in shoes. He turns back to see Undyne and Alphys talking animatedly about something, so he stands up and manipulates gravity on himself so that he slides over to them without moving his feet.
They both just look over to him as he stops, completely used to his habit of moving around in unconventional ways, before resuming their conversation.
“So, I think for our movie marathon we should watch this movie my coworker recommended,” Undyne begin to rotate her hand in the air as she tries to recall the name, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit. She said that you might like the movie because it's a murder mystery and is a nice combination of serious and lighthearted while also, apparently, being a really big achievement for animated films? I dunno, I didn't look too much into it so we can be surprised.”
“Oh, wow, that sounds really interesting! And then after that we can watch an anime movie that humans frequently consider one of the best animated movies of all time, it's called Spirited Away. I'm really excited! There's so many more amazing movies and shows than I could have ever imagined.”
Papyrus patiently listens in on the conversation, waiting for an opportunity to recommend an animated movie that he saw recently with Frisk. “YOU SHOULD CONSIDER WATCHING THE IRON GIANT. IT'S WONDERFUL, I SAW IT LAST WEEK, AND I VERY MUCH DID NOT CRY!” He denies, suspiciously, and without prompting.
Alphys just gives him a smugly knowing look while Undyne nods sarcastically, “Sure you didn't, Pap.”
~~~/\^/\^/\~~~
Soon Papyrus arrives back at his car, having walked and talked with his friends on the way back. They wave to him and he waves in return as he slips into the driver’s seat. He cruises through the neighborhood, to the nearest grocery store, his list of needed purchases already saved to his phone.
He hops out of the driver’s seat again, striding confidently towards the store, his phone already in hand as he snatches a grocery cart and begins to grab all the items on his list, as well as a few impulsive snacks, since he simply cannot refuse the call of the 3 pound bag of mini peanut butter cups. As he reaches for a box of dinosaur egg oatmeal, he feels a tap on his shoulder, and he turns to see the excited faces of three darkly dressed, young humans. He grabs the box without looking and tosses it into his cart and then turns to face them.
“NYES, HUMANS?”
“Woah! You’re the Ambassador!! That’s so cool! We really think skeletons are awesome, can we get a picture with you?” The three of them are all practically jumping in place, and he pays closer attention to their clothes, noticing now that they’re all adorned with various images of bones and skulls with spikes and flames as accents. He brightens up immediately, able to clearly see now that they’re humans of good taste.
“OF COURSE!”
They gather around and he leans down to fit in frame better, smiling happily as they take a few pictures. He stands up and they press together to all look at the pictures on their friend’s phone, smiling and pointing excitedly. One of their heads pops up and turns to him.
“Thank you Mr. Ambassador!” The other two straighten and turn immediately, also calling out thanks to him. He waves and continues down the aisle.
Papyrus turns down the chip aisle, a frown of melodramatic displeasure on his teeth as he looks for what Toriel requested he bring the meet up this afternoon. He soon finds the bag, inspecting it to make sure it's not the variety bag of smaller bags that includes the barbecue or ketchup chips. If he absolutely must buy chips he refuses to buy his least favorites, though he would be hard pressed to name any a favorite.
He begins to worry as he looks at the quantities that a single bag will not be enough, and two might not be enough either. He sighs in aggravation, though there is a smile on his face, and then he grabs three of the variety packs. He checks over his list, nodding as he takes I'm that all the items there have been ticked off, before turning his attention to the much shorter list that Toriel had given him.
He takes his cart and books it across the grocery store, arriving in the aisle filled with juices, flavored water, and pop. Toriel asked for him to get 5 packs of various juice boxes. He looks at the varieties available, his face becoming puzzled when he notices that most of them aren't real juice. He carefully scans the shelves, bringing box after box close to his eyes so he can read the thin, small print that denotes whether or not the juice is real juice or “fruit drink”. After a few minutes of searching he finds a brand that seems to only sell real juice, and he happily places 6 in his cart, wanting to make sure there's a lot of variety for the kids.
It isn't until he's paid and put everything into his car that Papyrus realizes he forgot the cooler and ice at home. He stomps his foot, and sighs as he tosses his head back. He closes the doors and locks his car, pinching the bridge of his nose, because if he wants to get to the event on time (which is actually early, since the Great Papyrus is always fashionably early) then he will have to take a shortcut.
He walks forward and around a corner, finding himself at home. Sans is lounging on the front lawn in an inflatable pool recliner that he's set on the grass. He's using a mirror reflector to try harnessing the sun to cook a water sausage.
“SANS! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO GO TO THE PICNIC WITH YOUR HOTDOG CART TO SERVE THE KIDS A NICE LUNCH!”
Sans looks up from the steadily cooking ‘dog, “oh, heya paps, i'll be there. i was waiting to see if you'd notice you forgot the cooler.”
“YOU COULD HAVE CALLED ME TO LET ME KNOW THAT I FORGOT IT.”
“sounds less funny than what i actually did.” He grabs the now perfectly cooked dog with a mittened hand and presses it against his teeth. The hotdog slowly disappearing.
Papyrus can feel his eye socket twitching. “UGH. WHERE IS THE COOLER?”
Sans doesn't stop pressing the hotdog to his face as he reaches around to the other side of the floaty chair and pulls the cooler into view. Papyrus snatches it and walks into the house, opening the door and finding himself back in the parking lot of the grocery store. He quickly puts all the juice into the cooler and then puts the cooler into his trunk.
And then he's off, it will take 30 minutes for him to get to the park closest to the school where Toriel is having a picnic for all the children in the fifth grade. It's the last day of school before summer break, so all these kids will be leaving to another school next year, and she wants to give them all a warm send-off. Before he gets into the highway he puts the top to his convertible down while he waits for a train to pass on the road, and when he reaches the highway he smiles, the wind blowing over his skull, the late spring sun shining on him, his sunglasses keeping bugs from getting in his eyes.
He turns up the stereo system in his car, listening to the songs from a randomly selected station from the premium radio service that has something like a thousand options. Every time Papyrus drives around he listens to a different station so he can hear all the music he's missed by being trapped under a mountain.
Unfortunately there was traffic so he arrives on time instead of early, his brother is already fully set up, probably having arrived early just so he could smile smugly at him. Sans catches sight of Papyrus jumping out of his car and, yep, there's that smug smile. Papyrus retorts by staring back in disapproval.
“Papyrus! You have arrived just in time!” Toriel approaches him as he pops his trunk to pull out the cooler.
“UNFORTUNATELY! I WANTED TO BE EARLY BUT I NEEDED TO GO PICK UP THE COOLER FROM HOME. I CANNOT BELIEVE SOMEONE AS COOL AS ME FORGOT SOMETHING THAT WAS SOMEHOW EVEN COOLER. AND THEN THE TRAFFIC!!! UGH!”
Toriel smiles and laughs, a clawed hand covering her mouth. She reaches into the trunk as Papyrus hauls the drinks out, grabbing the variety packs. They both walk towards the gazebo and picnic area, and just as Papyrus sets the cooler down just inside the shade of the gazebo, he hears the bus pulling up.
Toriel rips the variety bags open and dumps the smaller bags of chips into a large basket to make it easier for the kids to pick what they want. While she's busy with that Papyrus feels a small body slam into him at full speed. He turns to look down at Frisk who is smiling up at him. He ruffles their hair.
“HELLO FRISK! DID YOU HAVE A NICE LAST DAY IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL?”
They jump back and nod their head, excited to see Papyrus, Toriel did not tell them that he would be here, and they're always happy to see their other friends from the underground. They look around to see if any other friends are here and they start to flap their hands with excitement when they see Sans. They quickly wave to Papyrus before running to playfully harass the shorter skeleton brother.
Papyrus spends the afternoon at the picnic, playing with Frisk, MK, and a couple of their friends.
Toriel waves the kids off, as they're all being brought back to the school to get brought home. When she's done she turns around, a small, sad smile on her lips. She looks up to see Papyrus has already finished cleaning up the gazebo from trash, collecting the cooler under one arm, a bag of trash in his hand, one of the chip variety bags repurposed.
“I KNEW YOU WOULD APPRECIATE THE HELP. I EVEN ROPED MY BROTHER INTO HELPING.” He points over at Sans, who has been moving all pieces of trash outside the gazebo into a pile using bone attacks, while he sits on his tricycle. Papyrus sighs and picks up the pile of garbage, tossing it into the bag before putting the bag in a nearby garbage can. “WELL. IT WAS HELPING, BUT A VERY SANS WAY OF HELPING.”
Papyrus pops the trunk of his car and puts the cooler back inside, now empty of ice, but still containing a couple boxes of juice. Toriel walks up beside him and puts the basket with all remaining bags of chips inside.
“MS. TORIEL, PLEASE, YOU CAN TAKE THE JUICE AND CHIPS, I'M SURE FRISK WILL ENJOY THEM QUITE A LOT! THEY REALLY LIKED THE ORANGE-APPLE-MANGO JUICE. AND YOU DO NOT NEED TO ENABLE SANS’ BAD HABITS BY GIVING ME THE CHIPS EITHER.”
Toriel shakes her head, “Papyrus, I insist, it is the least I can do as a thank you for buying much more than I asked you to. If you had not done that we would not have had nearly enough chips, and we would have been short a few boxes of juice as well.” Papyrus just smiles.
“OF COURSE! I WANTED TO MAKE SURE ALL THE LITTLE HUMANS AND TINY MONSTERS WOULD HAVE ENOUGH. THANK YOU FOR INVITING ME, IT IS ALWAYS NICE TO SPEND A DAY OUT IN THE SUN, BLEACHING MY PRISTINE BONES.”
“Of course!” Toriel snickers at his comment about sun bleaching, “It is always a delight to have you and your brother for company.” Toriel waves to Papyrus and Sans, “Goodbye, I hope to see you both again soon!” She walks towards the road, a bus stop on the sidewalk.
Papyrus shuts his trunk and turns to face his brother. “I WILL SEE YOU AT HOME LATER, SANS.” Sans gives him a two fingered salute and wave before peddling his tricycle, his packed up hotdog stand being pulled behind him as he goes off to another park to sell his ‘dogs.
Papyrus, meanwhile, has to get home and prepare for a monster charity’s ball tonight that he was invited to to help promote it.
~~~/\^/\^/\~~~
Papyrus steps out of the provided limousine, wearing a suit, the sun beginning to set behind him. He steps onto the red carpet, cameras beginning to flash. Papyrus strikes a pose, his suit black with trim the color of the waters of Waterfall, echo flowers embroidered on his lapels and the cuffs of his sleeves and pants. His dress shirt is printed with delicate patterns of all the flowers in the underground. He wears no tie, instead his collar is unbuttoned at the very top, the tips held together with a decorative collar chain, a few small gemstones from the wishing room adorning the piece.
This is Mettaton's charity, dedicated to helping make the wishes of monsters come true, and named for the wishing stones. At the moment the main function of the charity was to help all monsters who want to leave the mountain find a place to live and get established on the surface, even if they did not have much for currency to exchange.
Papyrus enters the function and finds Asgore quickly, he is very hard to miss.
“HEY, KING FLUFFYBUNS!” Papyrus approaches, joking.
Asgore turns to look at Papyrus, “Hello Mr. Ambassador, it is quite nice to see you could make it.”
“OF COURSE I WOULD COME, THIS IS A PERFECT EVENT TO HELP HUMANS EMPATHIZE WITH OUR CAUSE. US BEING HERE BRINGS ATTENTION TO IT, YOU SAW THE NEWS VANS OUTSIDE.”
He chuckles heartily, “Indeed.”
The lights suddenly dim and a hush falls over the room, a spotlight is aimed at the stage, where Mettaton stands. He is wearing an extravagant ball gown with a bespoke suit jacket over top, a necklace with a large wishing stone pendant, surrounded by human gems.
“Welcome, Darlings! I am so delighted I could invite you all to the Wishing Stones charity ball! Please feel free to join the auction in joining conference hall, but otherwise I hope you will enjoy the speakers I have invited. First speaker to the stage, the Great Ambassador Papyrus!”
A round of applause fills the room as Papyrus confidently strides to the stage, his speech thoroughly practiced and evaluated by Toriel, Undyne, Alphys, and Sans.
He steps on stage, quickly approaching the podium, he looks up and out to the audience.
“HUMANS, MONSTERS, IT IS VITAL THAT WE COME TOGETHER, AND OFFER A HAND, TO HELP PULL OUR MOST VULNERABLE OUT OF THE DARKNESS AND INTO THE SUNLIGHT.” He looks up at the second floor balconies, and sees an odd glint, one that he has done research to become familiar with.
“OH. ONE MOMENT, BELOVED GUESTS!” Papyrus gestures as he speaks, his sentence punctuated by a cry of pain and the sound of something clattering to the ground.
He grabs the podium with both hands and launches himself over it with a flip, his feet landing on nothing as he walks over the guests through the open air of the ballroom. He still has one microphone in his hand as he walks to where a cage of blue bones is surrounding someone whose soul is glowing a darker blue, they're up and pinned to the wall.
“SORRY FOR THE INTERRUPTION!” He speaks into the microphone, the spotlight still shining on him, a second spotlight suddenly kicking on and moving to shine on the human in the magic cage.”IT APPEARS WE HAVE A ROWDY VISITOR…” Papyrus arrives on the balcony railing, jumping into the balcony itself. He reaches down and picks up the gun the human had dropped.
A collective gasp and a cacophony of frightened whispers sound off from the crowd below. In a second, Undyne arrives, having been invited to organize security for the event.
“WORRY NOT, I AM SURE THAT THIS WILL BE THE ONLY UNWELCOME GUEST FOR THE EVENING. ISN'T THAT RIGHT, CAPTAIN?” Papyrus brings the mic to her face.
“Yeah! There's no way any more than this one punk could have snuck into this event. I'll take him out.” Undyne can tell he must have been with the kitchen staff, going off his outfit. He must have stashed the gun ahead of time somewhere her sweeps didn't catch.
Papyrus dissipates the bone cage and Undyne grabs the man and walks out of view, another security guard taking the gun with gloved hands and following after her. Papyrus jumps over the railing and glides on air down to the podium.
“NOW, WHERE WAS I?”
~~~/\^/\^/\~~~
The ball continues without another interruption. Some of the guests are initially on edge, but calm down quickly with the lovely company and stirring speeches of Papyrus, Asgore, and Mettaton. As the night winds to an end, Mettaton approaches Papyrus who is speaking quite cheerfully and explaining how he can fly to some interested humans. The humans notice that Mettaton is standing there wanting to speak to Papyrus, so they quickly say their goodbyes and step away.
“Papy, Darling! Thank you so much for your intervention earlier, I simply would have Fallen Down from sadness had any of my dear guests been harmed.”
“OF COURSE! I WOULD NEVER ALLOW HARM TO BEFALL PEOPLE IF I CAN HELP IT.”
“I just needed to come over and thank you, not only because you saved, well, likely yourself and the guests, but also because thanks to you, my event has gone off without a hitch. We'll be able to make a couple apartment buildings close to downtown, and begin work on the small district at the base of the mountain. More monsters in control of their own destinies. I must have you on my talk show some time soon.” Mettaton gives Papyrus a sparkling pink business card.
“I'D LOVE TO! I'LL LET YOU KNOW MY AVAILABILITY AS SOON AS I CAN.” He looks down and checks his watch, “THOUGH I THINK I'VE BEEN OUT FOR THE DAY LONG ENOUGH. HAVE A NICE EVENING METTATON!” He waves and walks to the door, already planning how to be most productive tonight, with a few hours already on the schedule to help him rest after the stress of today.
He smiles, ready to do it all again tomorrow.