Chapter Text
They were in a nightmare. That's what is was, a living nightmare with no way to wake up. There were countless attempts made to wake up, but nothing ever seemed to change. The only difference that Sans saw was that Papyrus was now living the nightmare with him.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was dark and quiet in the skeleton household.
Papyrus was laying on the couch of his and Sans' Snowdin home, his eye-lights fixated and unseeing on the ceiling with one arm across his chest and the other hanging over the edge.
Sans was quietly nursing a bottle of ketchup with a bunch of empty bottles surrounding him on the floor in front of the couch. He was turned away from Papyrus watching the carpet as if waiting for mold to grow.
They had both run out of things to say and complain about a few hours ago. The repeating days, nights, conversations, and deaths were never changing, yet neither felt like sleeping. It was a feeling that if they didn't sleep, then it couldn't reset.
They both knew how foolish that was.
Despite the quiet though, Papyrus' mind was buzzing.
'Why do none of my plans ever work? Why couldn't the human just leave them alone?'
He honestly didn't mind staying underground anymore if it meant that they wouldn't have to die again and again.
'Why did I start to remember the resets?'
“Sans?”
Sans twitched at the broken silence, “yah bro?”, he said without looking up.
“Do you remember when it was that I started to remember?”
Sans stayed silent. He honestly didn't want to remember, because that was when the pain became ten times worse. That was the time when he started to see his brother slowly lose his hope.
“n-not really bro, why do you ask?”, he finally answered.
After what was probably over fifty resets, Papyrus could easily tell when his brother was lying to him. It really was not that big of a deal though. He had come to understand his older brother and the reasons why he always seemed so lazy before. He just kind of wished Sans wouldn't feel the need to lie to him anymore.
He pushed it aside.
“I was just remembering that when it happened and I began to learn what had been going on all this time I had thought, 'This must be a sign that things were going to change for you and everyone else. That everything was finally going to be okay. That the human would finally stop killing us'.”
Papyrus paused.
“I guess I was wrong.”
Sans jumped up looking frantic and scared at Papyrus, “No! Don't say that!”
Papyrus lifted himself up slightly and looked at his brother, he was breathing heavily and looked on the verge of tears.
“don't say that bro. it's true t-that the human hasn't changed their mind yet, b-but they have to be getting bored soon. we–we just have t-to hold on for— for a bit longer.”
Sans was shaking as the tears began to fall without his consent. Papyrus could tell what Sans was trying to do, and he could kinda understand. Sans had been living with the resets a lot longer than he had and somewhere along the way, Sans had admitted to depending on Papyrus' happy and positive attitude to keep himself going.
Papyrus just didn't have the same patience and perseverance that Sans had.
“I'm sorry Sans, I guess it's just been a long day today. I-I'm sure tomorrow will be better.” Papyrus lied to Sans.
Sans sighed with a slightly forced smile.
“yah, you're right, maybe we should head to bed now. t-tomorrow will be better.”
They were both silent and unmoving for a bit longer before Sans spoke up again.
“well, goodnight pap!”
And with a small pop from his teleportation, he was gone.
Papyrus sighed and sat up. Maybe he really was just tired and some sleep would help him think more clearly. He sighed again before getting up and making his way to his room.
“Yeah, tomorrow will be better.”, he whispered to himself, “Tomorrow....”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Papyrus woke with a start at the sound of a loud thud that was followed by the sound of barely contained sobs. Sans had another nightmare – and if he were honest, he did too. It was the same dream as always: a dust covered underground and the sound of childish laughter. He sighed and slowly got up out of his bed. He popped his bones and made his way towards his brother's room. He remembered a time when he would be rushing to be by his brother's side, to want nothing more than to comfort him, to tell him that everything was alright and that it was just a dream; but they both knew he would be lying.
Papyrus knocked on his brother's door.
“Sans? Can I come in?”
There was a quick stifling of sobs and some rustling of things moving around.
“y-yah, j-jus– just give m-me a second.”
Papyrus waited a literal second before opening to door. Sans was standing in the middle of his room, furiously trying to dry his face with his shirt when Papyrus stepped in.
Sans looked shocked and turned away.
“i-i-it's... th-there's...th-this is not...”
“Sans.”
Papyrus interrupted his attempt to come up with some kind of obvious lie and walked over to him.
Sans looked up at his little bro with tears still threatening to fall down his face.
Papyrus knelt down and just hugged his older brother.
“...p-pap...”
“Ssssssh.”
It didn't take much more for Sans to just cling to Papyrus and start sobbing.
Papyrus felt his vision gloss over as he stared at the far wall of the room. His brother was crying in his arms, yet his soul barely moved. He still loved his brother very much, but with no way to fix anything, how many more times would they be in this very same position? How many more times would he have to make false promises and pretend that he believed all the lies he spewed? His hope was low, they both knew it, but Papyrus still felt forced to put on this charade.
They sat like that for an unknown amount of time, but after what felt like half an hour of Sans just sniffling, Papyrus spoke up.
“Sans?”
Sans made no motion, but Papyrus knew he was listening.
“Have you ever thought of a way that we could take the human's reset powers away from them?”
Sans stiffened in his arms, “t-take them away?”
“Yes. If they couldn't reset anymore. Would that be possible?”
Sans shook a little, “i-i don't know. i mean...., i-i guess there was that one time..., i mean...”, Sans tried to gather his thoughts, “the only way they might lose their power would be if someone else with more Determination than them came along. probably, that might be what happened with flowey anyways.”
Papyrus knew of Flowey. Every so often that flower would pop up to taunt him with sickly-sweet lies. Flowey also let it slip once that the human had stolen his reset power. This was back before the flower realized Papyrus was remembering things after the resets. He has since stopped talking to him.
“Hmmm...”
Sans looked up at Papyrus and could see the wheels turning and to be honest, it worried him.
“pap?”
“Would it be possible to get more Determination somehow?”
Sans' eye-lights went out, this was not what he wanted his brother to be considering. He did not want Papyrus to even be thinking about it.
“p-pap, monsters can't handle that stuff. sure, it may be powerful, and might even have the chance to help us, but too much would kill us! we can't consider that, it's too dangerous!”
They both went silent, but Papyrus was still thinking. Sans just wanted him to drop it, there had to be another way, there just had to be.
Papyrus was already thinking of other ways, but had a feeling that Sans wouldn't agree, so he kept silent on it.
“Oh, I guess I have to think of something else.”
Papyrus' voice was low and monotone. That worried Sans, but as long as he would stop considering Determination, then it should be fine.
“You should get ready, the human will be coming out of The Ruins today.”
“...right.”
Papyrus got up and left the room.
Closing the door behind him, Papyrus headed downstairs to get breakfast ready. All his thoughts were on his new plans for dealing with the human.
'The only way to deal with someone without an ounce of mercy in their soul does Not include Mercy.', Papyrus confirmed to himself.
He pulled the eggs and bacon from the fridge and turned on the stove, “It'll be difficult, but I think I can manage. I just have to be brave.”