Chapter Text
Almost as soon as they’ve finished moving in, Papyrus wants to explore. Sans is passingly familiar with the area and he doesn’t think there’s anything too dangerous his brother could run into, so he tells Papyrus to dress warmly and come back before dinnertime and then goes back to reading his book.
Papyrus wanted to bring Frisk along, too, but Sans said she was too young to be out in the snow for that long, so now he was standing in front of the house alone, trying to decide what direction he wanted to go in first.
He ultimately decides on right and sets out.
The snow is nice. He likes the snow. The way it glitters is pretty, and it’s weirdly satisfying to try and keep his footprints as neat as possible and kick up clouds of white stuff with each step.
And there are other people hanging around too. People he doesn’t know.
Time for an adventure!
After a couple dozen steps, kicking at the snow loses its glitter, and he takes off down the street.
People. Buildings. Trees. Snow. That’s mostly what Snowdin is made up of.
He’s seen buildings and trees before, and the snow appears to be everywhere, so he decides to investigate the people. He runs up to the first one he sees – a mouse monster in a scarf much too big for her – and yells, “HELLO THERE! HOW’S IT GOING?!”
“Oh,” the mouse says, her voice flat and dull in the same way Sans’s is when he’s had a bad day. “Not too badly.”
“WHAT’S WRONG?"
The mouse’s eyes crease in a way he thinks means she’s smiling. “We’re still down here.”
“WHERE ELSE WOULD WE BE?”
“The surface. We might make it someday. Maybe even before it all ends down here.” The mouse shakes her head, then turns and begins walking away. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. It’ll just depress you.”
And she’s gone.
Papyrus stares after her, wondering if he’ll see her again and, if he does, how he could cheer her up. There must be some way. He’s good at cheering people up. He’s Papyrus, after all.
He thinks about this for a few more minutes, and then he starts looking for more people. There aren’t many out and about right now, so he starts going into the buildings that don’t look like houses.
The shop and the inn are interesting, and the rabbits running them are nice, but there isn’t much to see there. It’s the third building he walks into that surprises him, because the guy behind the counter knows his name.
Papyrus steps into the warmth and closes the door behind himself, stomping the snow off of his boots in the doorway because there’s no rug. He looks around. There are more people here than in the other two buildings so far. There’s a dog playing cards with himself in the corner. He seems to be losing. There’s a couple of other dogs – they look like they’re a little older than Sans – sitting at a table, talking quietly with one another. Behind the counter is what seems to be a person made of fire.
Papyrus crisscrosses through the room, looking at the different people. And then the fire person says his name.
“Papyrus?”
His voice is crackly, and it sounds exactly like a fire would if it could talk. Papyrus glances toward him. “HELLO!! HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME?”
“You’re Sans’s brother.”
Papyrus runs up to him. “YOU KNOW SANS?!?”
“Yes.”
“YOU MEAN SANS HAS MORE THAN ONE FRIEND?!?”
“…yes.”
Papyrus grabs at his own face. “THAT’S AMAZING!! HE DOESN’T HAVE ENOUGH FRIENDS, YOU KNOW!”
The fire monster doesn’t respond.
“WHAT’S YOUR NAME?!”
“Grillby.”
“OH.” Papyrus’s shoulders slump a little. No wonder this guy is friends with Sans. That’s exactly the sort of name Sans would use to make endless bad puns. “WELL – THAT’S NICE!”
He stands there for another several minutes, but the fire monster doesn’t say anything, and eventually Papyrus gets bored and runs off.
“What are you doing?”
“GYFTMAS SEASON JUST STARTED!” Papyrus yells. “WE’RE DECORATING THE HOUSE!”
We? Sans leans forward, and yep, Frisk is standing behind Papyrus in the darkened hallway, holding a paintbrush larger than her hand.
“Bro, it’s midnight.”
“LIKE I SAID! IT JUST STARTED!”
Sans closes his eyes. It is way too late to be dealing with this. “All right, all right… you can try to put up a few decorations or somethin’… I’m going back to bed.”
“COME ON, BROTHER! THAT’S NO WAY TO GET INTO THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT!”
“I’ll worry about that once I’m awake. Night, bro. Frisk.”
It doesn’t take much brainpower to figure out what happened when Sans opens his bedroom door in the morning and finds Papyrus standing in the hallway. The smaller skeleton is wide awake and covered in tinsel and glitter. Frisk is passed out on the ground behind him, wrapped up in shiny pink foil.
Sans stares at them for a moment. Then he looks down the hallway. The railing is covered in even more messy Giftmassy glitz than his sister.
“You know you’re supposed to be decorating the house, not yourselves, right?”
“YES,” Papyrus says.
Sans looks at the railing décor again. “Well… I guess you should start cleaning it up.”
Papyrus fidgets a little. He’s not quite meeting Sans’s eyes. “THAT STUFF’S RIGHT WHERE WE WANTED IT TO BE…”
Sans frowns. “Then what’s the problem?”
“WELL… THE PROBLEM IS DOWNSTAIRS…”
“Clean it up, then. Then you should go to bed. You didn’t sleep last night, did you?”
Papyrus shakes his head, then continues. “THE PROBLEM IS, WE NEED YOUR HELP TO CLEAN THE CEILING…”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“THE CEILING.”
“I heard, it’s just… how did you mess up the ceiling?”
Papyrus shrugs. “I’M NOT SURE.”
Sans blinks, then shakes his head and walks past his brother. “All right. Let me get a look at it.” Gyftmas season this year is off to… well, it’s definitely a start. It definitely is that.
Hoo, boy.
Papyrus and Frisk awaken Sans at a horrible hour on the morning of Gyftmas. He rolls over and goes back to sleep.
He comes downstairs a couple of hours later to find Papyrus and Frisk camped out by the table they put the presents on the night before. Frisk is sleeping in a pile of presents, her face hidden by her Santa hat, her Rubik’s cube clutched in one hand, and a small white dog lying nearby. Papyrus is wide awake.
Sans isn’t sure if his overexcited brother has gotten more than two hours of sleep total across the entirety of the Gyftmas season. Frisk, on the other hand, has taken the decorations as an invitation to fall asleep in the strangest of places. Sans really has to wonder if he ever tried using tinsel to make himself a nest in the sink when he was little.
“Merry Gyftmas,” Sans says, sitting down in front of them. “Or did I sleep right through it?”
Papyrus crosses his arms and glares at him.
Sans chuckles, then turns to the pile of gifts beneath Frisk and sifts through them until he finds a box with Papyrus’s name on it. It’s labeled “From Frisk,” but they all know Sans helped.
Papyrus’s stormy face immediately lights up and he shreds the box faster than an industrial wood chipper. The gift inside is a collection of toy cars, which Papyrus immediately begins playing with.
Sans grins, then sits back and wonders if Papyrus is distracted enough to let him get a few more hours of sleep right here. He could say he’s just putting his last Gyftmas present to good use.
Sadly, it is not to be. A few minutes later, Papyrus comes tearing back over and shakes Frisk awake, then yells at Sans to wake up again. Then he shoves a box into a very confused Frisk’s hands.
To Frisk, From Papyrus. Sans smiles.
It’s a scarf – bright blue, with a long purple stripe down the middle. Frisk folds it up, puts it on the ground, and lies back down, using it as a pillow. Papyrus is outraged.
Sans bursts out laughing, and then it’s his turn to have a present thrown at him. To Sans, From Papyrus And Frisk.
It’s a couple of books. One physics book, and one joke book.
“I GOT THE JOKE BOOK FOR FRISK,” Papyrus explains. “BECAUSE SHE CAN’T GO OUT, BUT SHE LIKES YOUR JOKES, SO I THOUGHT SHE’D LIKE TO GIVE YOU A JOKE BOOK AND IT WASN’T FAIR THAT SHE COULDN’T GET YOU ONE. SO I RELUCTANTLY DECIDED THAT, AS HER BIG BROTHER, IT WAS MY DUTY TO HELP, EVEN IF I DON’T WANT TO HEAR A SINGLE ONE OF THE JOKES IN THAT BOOK, DO YOU HEAR ME, SANS?!?”
Sans’s grin is stretching his face. He carefully puts the books aside, then rises to his knees and makes his way over to Papyrus, whom he puts his arms around. “Thanks, bro. I love them. And you. And Frisk.”
Papyrus hugs back, squeezing as tight as he can – and Sans is surprised by just how tight that is. His little brother’s getting stronger. “I LOVE YOU, TOO, SANS.”
Sans goes to reply, then hesitates as a thought occurs to him. “Then will you let me go back to sleep now?”
“SANS!!!"
“SA-A-ANS,” Papyrus says, walking into the room.
“Yes, bro?”
“WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE DOWN THE LIGHTS?”
Sans shrugs, flipping a page in his new joke book. “I dunno. Just kinda playing it by year.”
“SANS!!! THIS ISN'T A JOKE!!! YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE OF US WHO CAN GET THE LIGHTS DOWN, AND IT’S A POOR REFLECTION ON ALL OF US WHEN YOU’RE TOO LAZY TO DO SO!!!”
Sans turns another page.
“NEW YEAR’S WAS THREE WEEKS AGO!”
“Look, bro,” Sans says, finally putting the book aside. “Think of it this way. You’re supposed to keep the spirit of Gyftmas in your heart all year round, right?”
“YES…”
“Well, think of me leaving the lights up as me choosing to keep the spirit of Gyftmas in my house all year long.”
The look Papyrus gives him is priceless, and Sans wishes he had a camera, but his brother finally stops arguing and wanders off, muttering (loudly) about doing something productive somewhere else.
Sans chuckles, shakes his head, and goes back to reading his book.
