Chapter Text
When Papyrus was very young, he tried to call Sans “mom.”
It wasn’t his idea. He was about three-years-old and attending daycare for the first time, and it was kind of scary because he’d never really been around other kids his age and he’d never been away from Sans for too long before then, either. He remembers that he cried and clung to Sans and it took ages of new friends and fun and promising to come back for him to let go.
Papyrus ended up forgetting about him quickly enough. The other kids warmed up to him pretty fast and they all played games together and he knew at the end of the day he’d be back home, so there was no need to worry.
Eventually games led to talking and talking led to everyone talking about their family. Papyrus was mostly silent by that point.
“Hey, Papy,” one of the rabbit children asked, “what about you? What’s your mommy like?”
Papyrus shrugged awkwardly. “I don’t got a mommy.”
“That’s weird,” another kid said. “I have two.”
“Not everyone’s got a mommy, Toby!” yelled the rabbit kid’s sister. “Some people only have daddies!”
“My gramma takes care of me.”
“I only have a daddy.”
“My daddy died when I was born.”
“That’s what happened to my mommy!”
Everybody burst into chatter again and Papyrus stopped talking. At least until conversation turned back to him.
“So if you don’t have a mommy, and you don’t have a daddy-“ Papyrus isn’t quite sure when they established that, “-and if you don’t have a gramma or grampa, then who takes care of you?”
“Sans does,” Papyrus said.
“Is Sans your mommy then?” they asked.
He shrugged. Sans was Sans. Before that day he’d never heard of mommies or daddies.
“Well, what does Sans do?”
Papyrus shrugged again. From what he’d heard, pretty much the same thing all other parents did, he thought.
“So, then Sans must be your mommy!” they exclaimed excitedly, clapping their hands.
“Well,” one of the kids who only had dads started, “since my daddy does all the things mommies do, why can’t Sans be his daddy instead?”
That was wrong. Sans couldn’t be his dad. Papyrus… doesn’t remember why, but there was a reason, once upon a time. Someone else, maybe, even though his memories only ever had the two of them.
After that, they all seemed to agree that Sans was Papyrus’s mom, and encouraged him to start calling him that.
A five-year-old said, “You didn’t know what a mommy was before, right? You can show him that you learned a new word! And that you figured it all out by yourself.”
That was incentive enough. Papyrus loved showing Sans things he’d learned and puzzles he’d solve because Sans would always smile and hug him and say “good job kiddo” or “i’m proud of you” and that would make him feel happy for the rest of the day.
So at the end of the day, when Sans came back from wherever he went and they hugged and started walking back home, Papyrus talked about all the friends he made and how much fun he had.
“And it was so great! I wish you were there, mommy, it was-“
“wait,” he said, and Papyrus felt him stop and the hand holding his tighten, “what did you just say?”
“Um,” Papyrus was suddenly nervous, “I wish you were there?”
“heh, yeah,” Sans said, and Papyrus felt better, “i wish i was there too, kiddo, but, uh, i was actually wondering what you… called me?”
“I said mommy.” He began to feel nervous again, wondering if it was okay to call him that. The other kids talked about their parents and their dads and moms and he didn’t have a problem with saying Sans but there was something with the other kids when they were saying “well, my mommy does this” and “my mommy does that” and he wanted that, too.
Plus, when he told them about Sans, they all said that that was what a mommy (and daddy, a couple kids grumbled) does. So it shouldn’t have been wrong to switch around titles a bit.
“Um.” Papyrus looked down and began to fidget. He wished they were still walking. It would’ve been something to do. “Can I… not call you that?”
Sans didn’t answer immediately. Papyrus couldn’t see the look on his face, but he imagined that it might have been angry (though he doesn’t think he’d ever seen Sans truly angry) and he didn’t want to see it do he didn’t look.
“i’m. not your mom,” he replied quietly.
“Oh.” Papyrus didn’t know what to think. “So... what are you, then?” Was Sans really his dad, then? Maybe a “gramma,” though he got the impression that only old people could be grammas, and Sans wasn’t old.
“i’m. well, we’re, uh.” Sans was having difficulty saying something. Papyrus couldn’t understand why.
“we’re… brothers, paps.”
“Oh.”
Papyrus didn’t really know what a brother was. Some of the other kids mentioned sibling, he thought, but not in great detail because everyone was much more focused on who was raising them.
But he guessed that calling Sans “Brother” wouldn’t be so bad.