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For Sans, the day had gotten off to a spectacular start. He’d woken up with sunlight streaming in through the windows and real snow on the ground, teleported himself downstairs to a couch that was pokey-spring free and clean of crumbs, all ready for him to sneak in an early nap while Toriel spoiled the kid (and by extension, himself) with breakfasts and tea and nothing to do but consider whether he would join a snowball fight or use his blue magic to push a sled down a hill a few dozen times. He had to concede that above ground life was pretty…chill, and all without even a mental addendum of 'until the reset’ echoing through his mind to bring him down. He sighed contentedly and leaned back, eye-sockets slipping closed… .
“BROTHER!”
Sans’ eyes shot open and he found himself nasal-cavity to nasal-cavity with a what appeared to his cross-eye lights as a fuzzy, white Papyrus-shaped blur.
“Eesh bro, Personal Space.”
“I AM IN NEED OF YOUR ASSISTANCE BROTHER!”
Papyrus drew back AFTER he had screamed in Sans’ face a second time and the elder brother sat up in a certain amount of concern now that the initial shock had subsided. Since coming above ground, Papyrus had been studying and successfully began a job as a medical student. He had quite a knack for it and had developed a bedside manner that had mellowed his demeanor quite a bit (but his regular volume was apparently dead useful for maneuvering a crash cart) .For him to be yelling like this without remembering an indoor voice meant something was possibly very wrong.
Or, one could only hope it was some minor above ground thing he still hadn’t experienced yet. Like weather shifts that happened within the same day and area. Or flowers that came in colours beyond yellow, repeat everything you say and black and white morality. Or pasta in star shapes. All had been the source of some epic but short-lived Papyrus freakouts.
Papyrus thankfully lowered his voice, and took enough of a dramatic breath before continuing that a number of things happened at once. First, the kitchen noises started up again, much to Sans’ relief. Second, upon turning his head he could see through the elbow gap in his brother’s pose of hands-on hips and was immediately clued in to what the problem was, just as Papyrus himself spoke up.
“My human is pregnant!”
That was indeed a very knocked up human female, three or four months along by Sans’ inexpert estimate, and with a very softly blue-glowing uterus which even without the faint outline of an inverted heart as the source of that glow was betraying in no particularly uncertain terms the fact that the kid-to-be was undeniably Papyrus’ soulling. That was a train of thought he swiftly derailed before he could think of his brother going at it. More specifically, that was Papyrus’ pregnant female-identifying, hot-nurse, human common law partner. That was…slightly better.
Okay, if Sans was honest, this was a bullet he always had expected to dodge. He liked goofing around with the kid, but he had a certain limit. Toriel was a complete saint and didn’t question him or pressure him and now that Papyrus had been through a good chunk of medical school, he didn’t even really have to bring the math and science homework help anymore. He’d settled into a comfortable routine that positioned him more as the favourite Uncle who showed up for the day trip to the carnival or the zoo, or maybe a godparent who went to the seaside with them. That was cool.
As for Papyrus, before the surface he had expressed what he thought was interest in MTT, which much to his complete relief had been a celebrity crush no more or less harmful than Alphys’ starry-eyed stares for Asgore and anime boys and well, Undyne, and that one had worked out. He’d been absolutely delighted to find out that Undyne herself was 100% into other females and Frisk had been just the byproduct of trying out his spiffy human dating book on the real mccoy.
But no, Papyrus liked humans. A lot. And he had a type: leggy and statuesque (Okay. The MTT thing really HAD been a bullet dodged; Papyrus would never at least have gone for someone who would pay more attention to himself than to him). At any rate, Sans may have been out of the scientific community for a while and he’d been in physics as opposed to biology but it hadn’t exactly taken him long to figure out that humans at one point had had magic. Enough magic to seal them underground. They’d had to have introduced the magic into their lineage somehow…and the most likely conclusion was that the species were reproductive…ly compatible.
“Uh.” he said. He’d meant to say ‘congratulations’, but ‘Uh’ appeared to be the extent of his communication capabilities presently.
Then, he said “Oh.”
Then his stomach whined at him, but that had a lot more to do with the fact that for all of the interesting little family-to-be drama that was going on out here, there were muffins or cookies or something in there that smelled nearly finished. . The chuckle was a general sense of embarrassment all around.
“I’m…I’m happy about it.” Papyrus’ girlfriend put her hand up a little, like the shy kid in class. “Just…in case anyone wants to know my opinion.”
Ohhh, now Sans felt guilty. He didn’t set a lot of store by manners or have them at the best of times but well, Toriel did.
“I…” She shook her head, a blush spreading across her cheeks. “I…I wanted to come because um, Papyrus said your girlfriend…she had children who were both species too?”
Ohhhh Papyrus. Sans was sorely tempted to warp back into Hotland, dive headfirst into the core and scatter himself across time and space as that sounded preferable to ANY of this nonsense.
“Um, well…” he mumbled, “Thing about that is…"he tried again.. Oh lord Fluffybuns, what is nonchalance in this situation even? “Bro, you work in a human hospital. For humans. You have a whole wing for this stuff! Plus um….” And his eyelights winked out all at once as his worst fears were realized.
“Papyrus! And Crystal! It is lovely to see y–my child! You are with CHILD!” Toriel, her stained apron awash in a sea of errant flour, cinnamon sugar and various other aromatic baking ingredients had chosen that moment to check up on the goings on between her own partner and his brother’s sudden visit.
Normally a joke that bad would have set Sans to chortling but this was all going to some spectacular brand new hell from which there was no reset button. Reset button to this morning, please. Please.
It was like watching Papyrus walk to his death. He was powerless to stop this.
“Qu–er–Lady…er…”
Sans mouthed ‘Toriel’ at him.
“TORIEL! I am here on a matter of urgency. As your keen now-no-longer-royal eye has noticed, we are to be having a small soul in our family and as my brother has explained to me…”
Sans imagined the moment he could escape to go ram his head into a wall repeatedly and was proud of himself for staying put.
“…you have had both human and monster children! Certainly you must know something about being pregnant with both!”
“Oh! My child. Dear Papyrus!” Toriel shook her head. “Chara was adopted you see. Just like I have adopted Frisk.”
Sans let out a breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding. Bless this woman, she was a saint.
“And I’m afraid I truly know nothing about the trials and tribulations of pregnancy. Monster or human.”
“Really?” This was Sans and the question was out before he could stop himself. “I um…I thought….”
Now HE was in this too. Papyrus was the innocently insensitive one, not HIM. Hell, his kid brother had thought Toriel was Asgore with a shaved beard. Did all boss monsters really look the same to him too? Yeesh. Well he was too young to have known Asriel (with a soul) but he’d seen pictures. The kid had looked a LOT like Toriel to him, especially the eyes. He’d even thought he looked like Asgore in build based on some of the scrap books Papyrus had helped Toriel to make.
Toriel either did not hear him or was ignoring him for the present, taking the young human woman by the hand and leading her to the kitchen. A single glance back over her shoulder had Frisk, Papyrus and himself following without debate.
“Here you are dear.” she pulled out the rocking chair in the corner and switched it for one of the table’s chairs, letting the human woman sink into it.
Frisk took a seat next to her, and the two skeletons followed suit. There sound of silence was broken only by Frisk kicking a rung of their chair, simply waiting patiently as Toriel put butterscotch muffins and cinnamon pancakes with syrup and cream onto five plates, with bacon and well, if she was mad at Sans for any of what he was now deeming a disaster of a morning, she wasn’t showing it by stiffing him on the fried tomatoes.
Finally Toriel took a seat with a modest plate and a cup of tea. “Asriel was not adopted.” She stiffened and she was evidently trying to keep ire out of her voice as she trained her gaze with determination on the pregnant human. “…if you want to know about the experience of being pregnant with a monster child, I suggest you ask…”
There was a long pause, during which Sans toyed around with the idea of making a pregnant pause and labor joke when she finally spit it out, all of which died when she continued, face screwed up as painfully as if it were indeed labor she was undergoing to say it.
“….my ex-husband.”
Not even Sans had the capacity to find the humour in the fact that the collective jaws of Toriel’s captive audience dropped at the same time.
***
“But you’re not seahorses!” the elder of the two humans at the table looked down at herself and then over to Papyrus with just the barest hint of ‘What have you done to me!?’ Or possibly ‘Why me when YOU could be going through this!?’ Aloud she added to Toriel, “We uh…did it…the normal way. Um, normal for…humans, I mean…”
“Well yes, dear, we did that 'the normal way’ too.” Toriel chuckled and patted her arm in a comforting fashion.
.
As a nurse Crystal had to ask many such things about people’s sexual practices among other personal questions with a day, all with a degree of both detachment and sensitivity… but clearly when one was in the situation was not only reversed but involved a veritable bomb of knowledge that included pregnancies that didn’t require a uterus and ovaries and semen and an egg to occur and in front of your boyfriend’s brother and a kid, the experience was a little different.
And speaking of, for Sans this was quickly delving into serious bad time territory. As PG-13 as they were trying to keep this conversation in front of Frisk, he was trying and failing to keep the image of his brother and his girlfriend doing it out of his head, but also the fact that, however long it had been ago, his own girlfriend had done it with King Fluffybuns.
The revelation that it had been Asgore who was pregnant was actually NOT a huge shocker, at least for the monsters. Everyone knew that the big squish was a sweetheart and it wasn’t that he was a bad king, but even for those who could not remember the joint reign, being about five minutes in her presence and everyone knew that Toriel had been the brains of the operation.
It was clearly much more prudent to put Asgore out of temporary commission than it had been Toriel. .
"Well…okay, let’s have it. What’s the the Monster version of what to expect when you’re expecting here?”
****
"Well…I think….how would you like to meet your child?”
“You really think that’s done it? Oh, I cannot wait! What a special day and I…er. …Gorey?”
“Yes my darling?”
“….Is that a camera?”
“Goodness no. Not in the bedroom. You must be seeing things. I just had the royal Scientist in through here the other day and I’m quite sure she would never have put a camera in the bedroom.”
“I’m sure you’re right. But speaking of cameras, I would love to document every moment of our little miracle.”
If Toriel or Asgore had ever thought there was a time when they would be disgusted and bothered by the idea of nuzzling noses, it certainly wasn’t now, in this moment.
Physically, boss monsters were extremely well-equipped to handle pregnancy, so the adventure had started off all rather pleasantly. Asgore was cheerful and delighted to have a baby on the way and given his massive size, the only evidence that anything was different awhile was the presence of a small soul being carted along. One little inverted heart. The kid seemed pretty peaceful and sleepy mostly, there was no ‘kicking’ or restless movement. This was going to be easy.
Famous last words.
The second thing that was noticeable was that both began to age. Just a little bit. It was more obvious on Asgore with his golden beard, but Toriel was sure that a few strands of fur were starting to go more silver than white. This too was no big deal as boss monsters, like humans did not want to outlive their friends and family.
And then it started to go downhill. Good old fluffybuns could rock a one-on-one fight with the finest human warriors to ever live without breaking a sweat, but Toriel knew that the halcyon days were over when she found him in the kitchen, sobbing - yes, real tears - over a large container of snails that he had dropped on the floor.
The little mollusks were making a very, very slow bid for freedom and even he wasn’t big enough to have been impeded by bending down and collecting them. He could have probably taken all day and got them all.
“But the families of the fallen!” he managed around his tears.
Alright, Asgore certainly did care about those he had hurt in battle, that was one of the things that Toriel loved about him. But they were snails. Brains the size of dust specks or something. This was ridiculous.
And, well he was pregnant.
She smiled and patted his head. “More for me.” she said cheerfully and set about picking them up.
…And that was the story of the first food aversion. It lasted about a month and it wouldn’t have been TOO much of an issue; most pregnant people tended to have issues with some foods and cravings for unexpected others…except for the fact that this was the Underground. No, Monsters were not necessarily carnivores or vegetarians, regardless of if the dust resembled other animals that were, but options were limited when it came to eating and having an aversion or even an allergy to any one food severely limited an already limited diet.
One month down and already the soulling had been in some danger….and there were eight more to go.
***
Papyrus and his girlfriend looked over at each other.
“HUMAN! I AM SURE THAT WE WILL BE JUST FINE! AND I WILL NOT EVEN MIND IF YOU DO NOT LIKE SPAGHETTI FOR AWHILE!”
Cyrstal nodded along, privately agreeing that maybe she could fake that one for just a little bit, even if lying at all to Papyrus was far harder in practice than in theory. Besides that, well…
“I um, don’t think that sounds too bad. I mean, I see patients at the hospital all the time, with mood swings and food issues. I have access to all sorts of things, I should be able to find something I like….and well I don’t think I’m going to be as lucky about my mobility.” No she wouldn’t be so lucky. She was pretty tall for a human but nowhere near approaching Papyrus’ height and was pretty slender. Even without the tell-tale signs of Monster pregnancy she was already struggling.
"Oh.” said Toriel, just slightly darkly. “I am sure YOU can handle it just fine. But we are talking about Asgore here.”
“It gets worse?”
“Well it certainly gets more pathetic.”