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“You really are very lovely, you know, Papyrus.”
This took Papyrus by surprise, snapping him out of the rosy-cheeked haze of (entirely appropriate and controlled) intoxication he had been in for the last hour, whilst swigging something fruity and alcoholic that he was really only partaking in as, what he had gleaned, a popular social lubricant at “parties”. Because in the midst of this haze he had unconsciously wound up sitting very comfortably alone on the sofa of a quiet study, with a young woman he knew only by association of his brother.
Music from a shied-from party hummed, muffled, in from behind the jar of the door.
The aforementioned brother, Sans, was off elsewhere, being his usual, surprisingly chatty and personable self despite being the kind of person that was usually very difficult to make any kind of social plans with. The smaller, much rounder skeleton had been invited to the house party of a colleague, and had cooly accepted on the condition that he could bring his younger brother, as well as the very woman Papyrus now found himself beside, sitting so comfortably that their knees were touching.
Not only that, her hand was on his arm. And she was smiling at him. And leaning toward him, slightly.
Her name was Reader, and she was a pretty and plump sort of human girl, that Papyrus had met once or twice and not really thought about otherwise (aside from quietly contemplating the pleasing roundness of her chest and also her bottom at some point, but you mustn’t tell). They hadn’t spent any time together before, just met in passing when Papyrus was visiting Sans at work and she happened to be there. She worked around the corner, or something.
But upon wandering around this party feeling a bit out of touch and overwhelmed, the skeletal man had been presented with an opportunity to actually get to know Reader better, when he took pause in a room he thought was empty.
And it was going really rather well. Maybe it was the handy dandy social lubricant, or the fact that they were both the kind of people that would duck out of a party to recalibrate in a quiet room, but the two of them proved to gel very well, indeed. Not that Papyrus had given it too much thought. He was just enjoying her company - she was funny and clever and had a certain way of saying things that the skeleton found very unique and engaging.
But then she told him that he was lovely. And looked at him, like that. And touched him.
At the sensation of her tiny hand on his arm, static crept up along his senses, and his stomach flipped and he swallowed heavily, his laughter from their enjoyable conversation dying on his tongue, sobered. His brain fizzed and he suddenly found that he was very aware of himself, and he moved from his comfortable position, knees parted and back reclined into the arm of the sofa, and sat a bit more upright, more appropriately for sitting with someone you didn’t know very well.
Reader noticed the sudden change in body language and withdrew her hand politely, using it instead to tuck her hair behind her ear, saving face.
“Sorry, Pap, I-“
“Are you flirting with me?” Papyrus blurted out, blinking at her a little incredulously. He looked at her as though he was on the verge of solving an enormously difficult mathematical problem. Reader gasped out a small laugh, slightly scandalized.
“Well, I don’t know, maybe," she narrowed one eye at him with a slight smile, coyly continuing “Not intentionally I’m just… Speaking my truth.”
Her truth being that she thought Papyrus was very lovely.
More crackling and fizzing in the old brain box as the skeleton tried to compute all of this, amongst the continued buzz of being a light-weight that had awkwardly consumed at least three boozey, fruity things in quick succession.
She thought he was lovely? And was flirting with him to express this? What did he think, did he think she was lovely? She was certainly very nice. And very pretty. But he didn’t know! How could he possibly know? As he continued to blink at her and tried to figure out what to say, he found his eyes drawn to the pleasant roundness of her that he had previously considered. Yes, he definitely liked the round part. That was definitely lovely.
“I am… Flirting back,” he stated carefully.
Reader’s mouth dropped open and her eyebrows raised, stretching her face in an expression of surprise, and had Papyrus been a bit more sober and a bit less flabbergasted, he would have likely noticed in his keen powers of observation that her face flushed a little pinker at this. But then her expression slipped into somewhat of a sly smile, her eyelashes fluttering into hooded lids, as her touch returned to sit now upon his knee and send electricity coursing back through his bones.
“Is that so ?” she purred, her smile turning into a cheeky grin. Her teeth were straight and white and pretty. Her voice lowered and the skeleton shivered “… To what end?”
Poor Papyrus looked utterly petrified. Frozen, stiff as a board as he tried to comprehend all of this and come up with some kind of cool response that absolutely didn’t suggest any kind of lack of experience with these sorts of things. But there was just nothing. He couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t think of an answer. He was decidedly flirting back but, indeed, to what end?
“I don’t… know…” he admitted finally, looking dazed.
Reader’s face was still as she processed his response, this exchange suddenly becoming very awkward, especially now that neither of them knew what to say and deafening silence hung in the air. She withdrew her hand again, and shrank back a little.
Papyrus could have died on the spot. But dying wasn’t an option. So he did the next best thing.
“I-I’m going to go and find another drink and- and MINGLE. I will… SEE YOU AROUND, Reader!” he spluttered loudly at her, as he pushed himself to his feet and staggered out of the room, steam practically coming off his round, white skull with how hot and flushed his face was, utterly mortified.
He didn’t think for a second that it was a shared humiliation though, and he was much too busy escaping the room to hear Reader sigh after him.
“… Ah, shit.”