Chapter Text
Papyrus knew something was wrong before Sans even opened the door. He could feel his anguish in waves, coming closer until he was sobbing on the front steps. Papyrus instantly picked his brother up and held him close, heading for Sans’ room.
“What happened? Talk to me,” he murmured, gentle as he could be, carefully cradling Sans close as he sat on the bed.
“Alphys….she….” Sans could barely make words, but he wouldn’t move his hands from where they were wrapped around his middle, “m-m-made me….m-made me….”
“wait….Sans, where’s Jasmine?” Papyrus’ rage and alarm was growing as he noticed the absence of their tiny housemate.
At the mention of their name, Sans wailed, “She made me eat them!!!”
“Oh STARS what?!” he could feel the orange light flicker on in his right socket. “Sans, are they alright? Are they still moving?”
“y-yes,” he coughed, choking on tears. “b-but….”
“No, Sans, hey…” Papyrus shook his head, extinguishing the light and rubbing the back of Sans’ skull, “if they’re still alive, you’re fine. Wanna let me see what I can do about it?”
“Papy…” Sans’ voice wavered painfully, but he pulled his armor off, and held up his shirt to let his brother look.
Papyrus sighed in relief. As he’d thought, Sans’ body had rejected the idea of outright absorbing a living thing, instead storing them away, protected, behind his ribs in a small pouch of magic. “They’re fine, bro, see?”
Jasmine, seeing the light and their caretakers through the translucent cyan magic, rubbed at the barrier between them. Sure they were scared, but they weren’t hurt and they could breathe, and it wasn’t so tight as to be constricting.
This seemed to agitate Sans more, though, “H-how do we get them out, though?” He was too upset to think clearly, and Papyrus swore he’d give Alphys the talking to of a lifetime after this crisis was over.
“It’s just a little magic pouch, bro. Pull back your magic from them and they’ll just plop right out. No harm done,” Papyrus had dealt with this more often than Sans had, so he knew from experience. How many times had one of Muffet’s little friends crawled into his mouth while he was asleep on the counter? Too many times to count.
“o-okay…” Sans frowned and concentrated, and Papyrus watched the magic around Jasmine flicker and finally fade out. They yelped when they landed, but scrambled away and into Papyrus’ hoodie pocket.
“All good now,” Papyrus gave the pocket a gentle pat, then hugged Sans close again. “I’m so sorry you had to be scared like that, Sans.”
“It w-w-was awful…I f-felt like a….a h-horrible…nightmare or someth-thing,” he clung to his brother’s neck and sobbed again. “H-how c-c-could Alphys do this t-to me? It w-was so cruel and…and heartless.”
“I know, baby blue, I know,” cooed Papyrus, patting Sans’ back gently, “but it’s over now and I’ll go take care of telling her off, hm? You and J need to rest here. Just take a nap and I’ll be right back.”
It clearly took a lot of willpower from Sans to let go of Papyrus, but he did. Tenderly, Papyrus lay his brother down on the bed and tucked him in, clunking his teeth softly to Sans’ forehead in a facsimile of a kiss goodnight.
Reaching into the hoodie pocket, Papyrus was amazed when Jasmine flew into his hand and clung there. Their voice, quiet and broken, begged, “Don’t let her hurt you, too, Papy.” The term of affection, their heartbeat so fast and clear against the bones of his palm, made sure Papyrus’ rage at Alphys was all the more powerful. Pulling them out, he gave them his warmest, easiest smile, “No worries, J. I might be a lazybones, but I’m fast. Just try and rest, and watch Sans for me if you wake up before I get back, okay?”
“o-okay,” They murmured, hugging his thumb tight, “l-let me sleep on the bed with Sans? H-he might need me.”
“sure thing,” he chuckled, setting Jasmine gently on the pillow next to Sans, grabbing their blanket out of the terrarium for them and giving the same treatment he did with his brother. “Sleep tight, you two. I got this.”
They both answered, “good night, Papy,” then snuggled closer to each other and closed their eyes. It eased his mind to see Jasmine wasn’t scared of Sans after this, as that would have made things infinitely worse for both their family and Alphys. As of now….well, he wasn’t the Judge for nothing and Alphys had a sentence coming down.
Alphys didn’t know where the attacks were coming from. Too fast, too many, and she finally fell to her knees, exhausted. “SH-show yourself! Coward!”
“nah….you happen to be the coward here, captain. Tormenting someone who adores you, making him victim to your twisted worldview, using an innocent creature in your sick mission. You’re lucky they both survived that.”
“Whuh?” Alphys was confused, but finally it clicked, “this is about Sans?”
“yep,” came the dark voice from the shadows as the blue bars around her crept closer, “and you’ve got a lot of explaining to do. Apologizing to him and his tiny friend, for one. Getting educated on how the tiny humans actually work for another. Now, are you going to stop being violently ignorant or are you going to go ask Dr. Undyne about that?”
“I’ll ask! Just lay off me, okay? I get it! I did a bad thing. I felt bad enough when he was crying, but this is too much.” Alphys gritted her teeth and looked around, still finding nothing to aim her anger at.
“nope, I’d say it was just enough to get that lesson through your thick skull. You have been judged, you have been found guilty, and given proper punishment. In the future, try to learn about what you don’t understand instead of hurting others.” A single orange fire blazed up in the darkness of the cavern around Alphys and smacked her one last time with something that bounced off her spines, but it and the blue bars vanished right after.
“I….I’ve been judged?” The stocky lizard murmured. “Oh stars, that was THE Judge…..wow, I must’ve really messed up.” Realizing how severe her mistake had been, she shuffled quickly off to Hotland and the lab of the royal scientist.
In the darkness, Papyrus smirked a little and sighed, “mission accomplished. Good. Now, let’s go see what Muffet’s cooking.” He shrugged his hood back off his head and walked away, vanishing in a small ‘zap’ noise.
When he got home, fresh honey bottle in hand from Muffet’s, Papyrus went upstairs to check on Sans and Jasmine. Sans was fast asleep still, but Jasmine was awake, hands stroking softly on Sans’ forehead. Slipping in, Papyrus whispered, “Hey, J. How’s our brave warrior?”
“He’s fine. Hasn’t moved much at all since you left,” they smiled as they spoke. “I barely slept at all worrying for him. I love him, Papy. I haven’t ever loved anybody, but I love Sans.”
“I know the feeling, bud,” he chuckled as he stepped closer, “I never loved anybody but Sans till you got through to me.” Papyrus took a slow drink of his honey, then asked, “You want to stay here or you okay to come down with me and watch TV?”
“I’ll go with you. The longer he rests, the better,” they murmured, then stood up.
Papyrus scooped them into his hand, quickly zipping out and shutting the door quietly. “Good choice. Kinda boring watching Sans sleep all night. I’ve done it a few times when I was younger.”
Jasmine giggled, “I’m just glad you made it home alright. We’d have both been devastated if you’d gotten hurt for our sakes.”
He slid down the bannister and flung himself down on the couch, relaxing at last, “Ugh, I know, but like I said, I’m fast. Nobody can hit me when I’m actually trying.”
The drone of another DPB music special and the blue-ish glow of the television in the dark living room were familiar and comforting environs for both of them. Jasmine settled down after crawling to sit in the hoodie pocket, and Papyrus let his sockets drift half shut, not really awake but not sleeping either. It was warm in the house, safe, a restful place.
Jasmine found the honey bottle as they shifted their feet, “Papyrus, what’s in this little bear bottle?”
“huh?” he had to shake himself more awake. “oh, it’s honey. You ever had some?”
“no,” Jasmine pulled the large bottle upward with some difficulty.
“well, lemme fix that then,” Papyrus took the cap off and barely squeezed it, some of the golden liquid pooling on top of the spout.
Careful, Jasmine took a mouthful of the honey and swallowed, “U-um…s-sorry but that’s…way too sweet for me.”
He laughed, taking the whole thing up in his hand and smiling honestly, “yeah, it is for most people. No worries, pal, more for me. Still,” Papyrus raised a browbone teasingly, “not as sweet as you are.”
Jasmine’s whole face turned red and they covered it shyly. This just made the tall skeleton laugh more.
“Don’t hide, I’m just messing with you. But you seriously are sweet, bud, taking care of Sans and encouraging him like you do. I appreciate that you didn’t try and run that first month, even if I was being a jerk,” His phalanges stroke the top of their head softly, and they lean into it.
“I would have been foolish to leave this,” came the hesitant reply. “Sans is too kind, and compared to my life before, it was too good here. Now that you…you don’t hate me so, it’s much better than that, even.”
“I don’t hate you at all, Jasmine,” Papyrus admitted quietly, “matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I already said I loved you. Sans comes first, obviously but….you’re not too far behind now.”
They sighed deeply and relaxed against his curled fingers, “even after today?”
“especially after today.” Picking them up, Papyrus added, “You went through hell and still your first concern when you were at yourself was for my safety. I’d say that earns you some big points.”
“but Alphys used me to hurt Sans. I’m a liability,” They seemed so sad to say it out loud.
“nope. loving somebody is never a liability. It’s a privilege,” he tilted their head up softly, “so you’ve made me and Sans pretty lucky. Don’t be down on yourself. You’re pretty amazing.”
There were sparkly tears in Jasmine’s eyes, but they nodded and smiled for him.
They stayed on the couch, Jasmine now laying on Papyrus’ chest under his hand, watching TV till Sans woke up.