Archive of Our Own ^beta

Papyrus had encountered an art class, on his trip to the museum. He had set out to laugh at the dinosaurs for doing a bad job at being alive, and to gawk at the mysterious remnants of Human history laid bare for him to see. He looked around. This appeared to be where the ‘miscellaneous knick knacks’ were kept, to draw people further into the museum, little breadcrumbs of various topics that guided people to the individual chambers and hallways. He was currently looking over some gemstones, before they slowly petered out to make way for various animal skeletons. Around twenty feet away, sat the class on various benches, fervently admiring the various animal skeletons before them, taking great care to notice how they stood, how they must have moved, how their muscles would have fell and clung to specific areas. They appeared to be studying a deer. Or an elk. Papyrus wasn’t sure what the difference was, only that it was a lot deader than anyone there, and also in a glass case. It was winter, his jacket was thick and padded, he was wearing a hat, and his scarf was pulled up to cover his nasal bone, so if you weren’t paying attention it was easy to mistake him for a skinny man, from a distance. But if you happened to shoot him a look in passing and noticed the massive, cavernous holes where his eyes should have been, you would shit yourself.

“If you want to master anatomy,” he heard from the other side of the foyer from an over-enthused instructor, “you must first master the skeletal structure. There is no way around this. It’s boring, laborious work, but it must be done.”

Papyrus huffed. Well. That was just insensitive. Not everyone had the privilege of walking around with ‘interesting’ additions, like skin, or organs, or those fancy eyeballs he had heard so much about. Some people were just skeletons. How rude. Of course, Papyrus mused, it could have been that he was waxing lyrical to inspire some sort of vigour in his group, who were drawing as if they were being held at gunpoint.

He looked to the large clock overhead.

Nine in the morning.

Ah.

… Wait.

Wait, weren’t life models always in demand? That job he had seen on television where you would get naked, pose with a fruit bowl, and get paid money while people were forced to stare at you for hours at a time? He would do that for free. What he lacked in obvious genitalia, he would make up for in blind, dumb enthusiasm. Perhaps they were looking for someone? He had a free schedule, Undyne was on a dinner-date with Alphys (he recalled they had been holed up in a sushi place for eight hours now), and Sans was asleep which meant it was difficult to get him to do anything even remotely resembling a physical activity, including standing still in a museum. Today was going to be a Papyrus day.

Satisfied, he strode towards the group, shoes clacking against the floor with every step until he was stood in front of the instructor, towering over him, hand outstretched like a prong on a forklift, waiting for his handshake in silence. Everyone stopped.

The man stared at his glove.

“… Can I help you?”

Papyrus swept off his scarf with dramatic flair to reveal his face, letting it flutter towards the ground, before sheepishly picking it up because he didn’t know when the floor was last cleaned.

“I WAS THINKING,” Papyrus bellowed, “THAT I COULD HELP YOU–”

“Oh good God!”

Oh.

Oh, he should have probably led with the skeleton part. That always unsettled people.

Papyrus ducked a little to make himself seem smaller, less threatening, while he watched around thirty students hurriedly stuff their sketchbooks into their bags as the grim reaper had descended on them to wreak havoc.

“UH.”

In the back, a girl was crying. Martyring himself, the instructor threw his arms wide open.

“Leave them, they’re so young! Take me instead!”

“I FEEL LIKE YOU’RE NOT UNDERSTANDING THE POINT OF THIS, AND ALSO, STOP CRYING.”

Oh God, this was going wrong, this was going so wrong. He watched the ripple of horror at his appearance work slowly outwards from person to person, group to group, until everyone was staring at him, either in horror or dull amusement. Monsters were pretty rare after all, rare enough that it was easy to forget that they existed. Maybe… Maybe put his best foot forward? Perhaps he could sell his services like that, he was very handsome, so it shouldn’t be particularly difficult.

In front of him, the instructor sobbed as he mentally catalogued every regret he had ever had, up to, and including, taking his students to this museum. Of all the people in the world to be pestered by one of the four horseman, it had to be him. His ex-wife told him this would happen. The throng of students scrambled to make it to the door that would lead them outside, and to safety against the skeletal menace, leaving their instructor to have his soul eaten, or whatever it was skeletons do with people.

“AND THEY CALL ME A DRAMA QUEEN…”

In a move Papyrus himself would describe as ‘ingenious’, he let his coat fall to the floor before sweeping off his shirt in one fluid motion.

“Are you here to eat my skin?”

“… NO! YOUR SKIN IS SAFE ANOTHER DAY. I AM HERE TO BE…”

Papyrus adjusted himself, so that the light caught his ribs individually, making them gleam a pearly, striking white.

“… YOUR LIFE MODEL!”

Dead, stone silence, filled with only the sound of Papyrus’ breathing, and on his periphery, frantic phone calls to loved ones. It seemed the goods weren’t good enough. He needed to up his game.

Maybe…

Maybe he needed to show off more? The fault wasn’t with him here, clearly. Hemming, he held his chin with his hand. 

“I… I MEAN, I DON’T WANT TO TAKE OFF MY PANTS, BUT I WILL?”

“Please, no,” the instructor whispered, “please, don’t kill me.”

“IF I HAVEN’T KILLED YOU ALREADY, WHY WOULD YOU THINK I WOULD DO IT NAKED.”

Is this what life models did? He could pose here, bring the students back in, and get paid for his efforts. He didn’t mind public nudity. He was nice to look at, who could mind that? He heard thundering feet on the balcony above, and looked up to meet it.

“Sir! Put your clothes on, sir!”

“UM… I’M TRYING TO GET HIRED? DO YOU MIND?”

The noise had travelled to the staircase directly in front of him, and Papyrus saw an officer’s hat over the bannister, the rest of him obscured.

“You, the skeleton, get dressed!”

Papyrus looked at him, affronted.  

“OH. OH, YOU CAN HAVE DOZENS OF SKELETONS LOUNGING ABOUT NAKED IN GLASS CASES TO BE GAWKED AT, BUT WHEN I START TO STRIP FOR ART, ART, IT’S A CRIME?”

Who was this guy? Showing up, thinking he could tell him to get dressed. He wasn’t his mother. If anything, Papyrus was wearing more than he normally did, because although he was shirtless he still had his pants on and it covered more than his short shorts ever did.

“Get dressed!”

“IS THIS A POLICE STATE. IS THIS WHAT THE SURFACE IS? A POLICE STATE. I CAN’T JUST GET NAKED IN A MUSEUM. THERE HAS TO BE A MAN IN A HAT SHOUTING AT ME. CRYING MAN, BACK ME UP–”

He was a blip in the distance, disappearing in one of the massive archways and vanishing into the hallway.

“… UH OH.”

“Last warning!”

Papyrus had the choice of either owning up to his mistake. Be the bigger, more reasonable man. Or, as was the more tempting option, double down and dig his feet in out of childish spite. Maybe he just wanted to be shirtless in the winter. That wasn’t a crime.

In a show of legendary defiance, logic now well and truly gone in the face of artistic oppression, Papyrus began to remove his pants.

The police officer was barreling towards him, and Papyrus was ready to meet the advance.

“Get on the ground!”

“MAKE ME–!”

With a swift clothesline, he was made to, flat out and half naked.

Why did mobile phones have to be so loud?

Sans peeled his face from the pillow, pasted to it with a thin layer of drool. How rude. It was…

Ten o’clock. Urgh. Only seventeen hours of sleep.

Groaning, he fumbled at the side of his mattress, until his hand found the thing. He mashed a button, bleary eyed, and hoped it was ‘answer’.

“yeah?”

He shot up, awake.

“whaddya mean, arrested? the hell happened, was he in a fight?”

Sans listened to the woman on the other end explain what had happened and, if he really strained, heard Papyrus shout something about ‘INJUSTICE!’

“… public indecency. was it…”

Sans sighed, pinching his nasal bone.

“… was it an art class? yeah… yeah, thought as much. did he start panic stripping?”

The astonished woman told him that yes, it was and yes, he had.

“for god’s sake. we talked about that. friggin’ arrested. dammit, i’ll be right there.”