Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Slim, thank stars! Help mfff!!”

“M’lord? What are you doing?”

Sans pushed Blueberry’s skull deeper into his mouth, his hand covering the other skeleton’s face, muffling his protests. It was a tight fit, but fortunately Blue was a little smaller than him and his jaws could open surprisingly wide.

All his attention for now was on the last big gulp to bring Blue the rest of the way into his stomach. It took some effort, but that just made it more rewarding. He savored the moment before turning to look at his brother, who had walked in to see the tail end of the event.

“What does it look like?” he sneered.

“You ate him,” Papyrus said, stunned.

“Brilliant deduction. Come here.”

Papyrus hesitated.

“Do you have a problem?”

“No, m’lord.” Papyrus closed the distance between them with an easy stride.

Sans guided his brother’s hand to rest on his distended belly, grinning. “You can feel him squirming in there.”

“Yes, m’lord.” Papyrus’s voice quivered.

“Afraid I’ll do the same to you?”

“N-no, that’s not it…”

Sans lifted up his shirt to get a better view of his victim. Blue was curled up tightly, his face hidden from view, but he flinched satisfyingly when Sans prodded him through the translucent ecto-flesh.

“I got sick of the closest copy of me being such a sunshine-and-rainbows goody two-shoes,” Sans explained. “Besides, you’re too big to fit. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Papyrus didn’t seem reassured. Rather, he wilted a bit.

“What?” Sans snapped.

“Actually, I’m kinda jealous.”

“Oh, really?” Sans studied his brother, wondering how much Papyrus could fit through his jaws. “If you want a turn, I can try to find someone for you.”

“No, not of you, m’lord… Of him.”

Sans stared at him for a moment as realization dawned. “Ha ha ha! Like I said, you’re too big. Find a way to shrink yourself and I’ll totally eat you too!”

“Really?”

“Sure. I’m going to lie down while I digest this.” He made his way to the sofa. “What are you waiting for? A massage will help it go faster.”

Chapter Text

It had taken a lot of research, but eventually he’d found a method of manipulating size using monster magic, and with some refinement of the technique managed to apply it to himself. After a test jump to see if his teleportation was affected by the difference in scale, Papyrus teleported into the living room from his lab.

“You actually did it!” Sans had caught sight of him and actually sounded impressed.

Papyrus blushed at the almost-praise, and because he’d left his clothes in the lab. He hadn’t wanted to shrink them, as he wasn’t sure if they’d un-shrink again.

“Well.” Sans grinned. “I guess I should hold up my end of the bargain.”

Papyrus suppressed an instinct to turn and run as Sans knelt down and plucked him from the carpet. The erstwhile smaller skeleton cradled his brother in his hands. He was still significantly bigger than a mouse, but compared to his previous prey, he would be no trouble for Sans.

Sans gave him an exploratory lick, his purple tongue covering all his ribs and skull at once. If he freaked out now, Sans would probably let him go with just an insult about his cowardice and failure to follow through. He shivered but didn’t move.

Sans opened wide and tipped Papyrus onto his tongue. Papyrus forced himself to go limp. The softly glowing tongue nudged him, then pushed him this way and that, probing and tasting him, pressing him against the teeth and palate, then suddenly back out into the brighter light of the room. He found himself sitting on his brother’s metacarpals again.

“You could at least struggle a little,” Sans complained.

He shoved Papyrus back in without waiting for an answer. Papyrus attempted to crawl back out again, but the teeth snapped shut in front of him. He still tried to make his way toward them, but the tongue pushed him back, released him to try again, only to push him back again. Papyrus grew more desperate, trying going sideways instead of straight toward the front, yelping with dismay as the great purple tongue easily cut off that route as well.

Finally the tongue pushed him not just back to his starting point but deeper, all the way into Sans’s throat. It closed over him, squeezing him downward. He kept up his futile struggles as best he could in the limited space, but it didn’t even slow his downward journey.

He gave up when he reached the stomach. Every bone was tingling, but it seemed to be excitement rather than the beginning of digestion. It seemed more real now that he was all the way down here, and the ecto-flesh around him was quiet, though too soft and squishy to get solid footing on. Suddenly he fell over backwards as the entire stomach turned ninety degrees—Sans must have lain down on the sofa. He was going to relax while he digested, just like last time.

Papyrus lay where he was, sinking comfortably into the stomach lining. Sans was taking his time. Papyrus could easily fall asleep here, but he didn’t want to risk sleeping through it. He wondered how much it would hurt.

Minutes dragged on and nothing happened, Papyrus just lying there feeling giddy. He could hear Sans breathing and suspected he might have dozed off. He was in danger of falling asleep himself, particularly since it was so comfortable and unexpectedly pain-free in here.

It wouldn’t be so bad just to drift off in here and never wake up, he thought. Maybe he’d wake up to Sans yelling at him for not being digested yet. But he couldn’t risk it; it was going a lot slower than he’d expected, and he wasn’t entirely sure how long the shrinking effect would last. It wouldn’t be good if he returned to normal size while still in here; Sans might even be hurt. He hadn’t worried about that possibility until now, because he’d seen what short work Sans had made of Blueberry, and he was currently much smaller.

Maybe the stomach needed some kind of additional stimulation to start its work. He couldn’t rub it like he had last time—at least not from the outside. He reached out to press against the stomach wall above him, moving his hands around. Lying down like this he couldn’t exert much pressure. He got to his knees and rubbed at the lower curve of the wall, where he could put his weight into it. The wall shuddered under him with an audible gurgle, which encouraged him enough to keep going for a while. Still, nothing seemed to be happening. It ought to be … excreting fluids … or something like that, he thought with some ambivalence. He was getting some magic goop on his bones, especially his hands, but it seemed to be completely harmless.

Miniaturized like this, it was a lot of work to keep rubbing. He caught himself slowing down and redoubled his efforts. Eventually he had to admit he couldn’t keep it up. He lay back down. He would just take a short break and perhaps figure out a better strategy.

The next thing he knew, he was blinking awake. He sat up abruptly, urgently taking in his surroundings. He was resting in Sans’s hands again. The shrinking effect hadn’t worn off—that was good. But why was he out here and not…? He blinked up at Sans.

“What? Did you think I was actually gonna digest you?” Sans scoffed. “I have other uses for you.” His sharp-toothed grin widened evilly. “Tell me more about how you managed to shrink yourself.”

Papyrus looked up at him questioningly.

“So I can use it on other monsters.” Sans licked his teeth. “It does make it a lot easier. Maybe some of those other knock-off versions of me, and their brothers if they get nosy.”

Chapter Text

“Slim! Where is he?”

Papyrus stepped aside to let Stretch into the house. The orange-clad skeleton stalked directly up to Sans.

“You said you knew what happened to him!”

“You mean Blueberry?” Sans asked casually, not getting up from the couch.

“Yes, Blueberry! My brother!”

“Oh, that Blueberry.” Sans leered, getting to his feet with an infuriating lack of haste. Papyrus couldn’t help but smile at the reversed dynamics—his brother taking his time while Stretch boiled over with impatience. “He’s not here. But wait a second.” He pulled out a familiar blue scarf.

Stretch snatched it from him, examining it for traces of dust. “What happened to him?” he demanded.

“I’ll show you.”

That was Papyrus’s cue. He teleported right behind Stretch and jammed a needle into his spine, injecting the shrinking magic. It actually hurt a lot less when injected directly into the soul—Papyrus knew because he’d tested both methods on himself—but the spine was so much more accessible.

Stretch pulled away with a strangled cry, turning to face his attacker. But even as he did so, he shrank before Papyrus’s eyes, quickly reaching the same bigger-than-a-mouse, smaller-than-an-action-figure size that the magic had induced in Papyrus himself.

Papyrus scooped him up. The magic was “smart” enough not to shrink Blueberry’s scarf along with Stretch, even though it shrunk his clothes—they had spent so much time in close proximity to him, soaking in his magical aura, that they registered as part of him.

“What—? What did you do?” Stretch was dazed for a few moments, but as soon as he recovered he held onto Papyrus’s metacarpals and started demanding answers.

“Showing you what happened to your brother,” Papyrus answered easily, picking Stretch up with one hand by his orange hoodie. It took no effort to break the miniaturized skeleton’s grip on his metacarpals.

“You shrank him?!”

“No.” Papyrus smiled at the misunderstanding. “We just had to shrink you because you were a lot bigger than him.” The shrinking process disabling his attack magic was an added bonus.

“You didn’t really have to shrink him quite this much,” Sans complained.

“You didn’t have to shrink me at all!” Stretch countered, struggling to pull his hoodie out from between Papyrus’s fingers.

“Sure we did,” said Papyrus. “You wouldn’t have fit.”

“Fit in what?” Stretch paused to ask.

“You’ll see in a second.”

Sans opened his jaws wide and tilted his skull upward, letting his tongue loll out. Papyrus held Stretch over it, turning him around to face Sans. Stretch looked down and redoubled his efforts, at times trying to pull his hoodie free and at others trying to climb up on top of Papyrus’s fingers. “Oh stars!” He kept up a stream of soft cursing. Papyrus let go, and Stretch grasped at his phalanges, but he never got a good enough grip to support himself. He fell onto Sans’s tongue.

Stretch kicked at the tongue, trying to push himself back out of Sans’s mouth, but his shoes just slid across the slick surface, doing nothing more than scraping up some faintly purple magic saliva. He grabbed onto Sans’s lower teeth to stop himself sliding deeper in. Sans reached up and pressed against his skull until he was forced to let go with a pained grunt.

“This isn’t funny, Razz!”

Papyrus chuckled. It was kinda funny, watching Stretch lose his cool.

Razz didn’t comment, but dipped down the back of his tongue so that Stretch’s feet slid into his throat, keeping his mouth open so that Papyrus had a good view.

“Stars, Razz, you’re taking this too far!” Stretch scrabbled frantically at his tongue for a handhold.

“’s not a joke, Stretch,” Papyrus reminded him. “You wanted to know where your brother went, right?”

Stretch froze. His struggles must have been doing some good, because he immediately slid down to his pelvis. “You can’t mean—there’s no way—”

“Yep. Same place you’re going.”

“No. No, you’re not … murderers …” Stretch tried to brace himself with his arms against Sans’s palate and tongue. Sans swallowed, pulling him deeper but only by a few vertebrae.

“I dunno,” said Papyrus. “It’s not like we haven’t dusted plenty of monsters.”

“That was s-self-defense,” insisted Stretch. “You wouldn’t dust—”

“There’s no dust when you eat them,” Papyrus corrected him.

“You wouldn’t kill a monster for no reason,” Stretch pressed on. He was slipping slowly deeper, the surfaces on either side too slick. Maybe Sans was producing more saliva to help him on his way, or just as a natural response to having something in his mouth.

“It’s not ‘no reason’ if they kinda annoy you.”

“Ngh,” said Sans in agreement.

“Are you saying you killed Sans because he ‘kinda annoyed’ you?!” Stretch snapped his skull up to look at Papyrus through the frame of Sans’s jaws, shedding furious orange tears.

“Not me personally, no,” said Papyrus. Blueberry hadn’t annoyed him—he’d been like a slightly wimpier, goody-two-shoes version of his own brother. And he himself hadn’t killed him at all, although he’d done nothing to save him, either.

“You won’t get away with this,” Stretch snarled, but the way his voice broke betrayed his despair. By this point, only Sans’s tongue and throat gripping him were keeping him from sliding all the way in. “I’m gonna blast you both into dust, dust so fine, they’ll never find your dust—”

Sans closed his mouth and gulped.

“Your blasting days are over,” Papyrus addressed Stretch one more time, although he wasn’t sure the doomed skeleton could hear him anymore.

“That was good,” said Sans. “Next time, take off the shoes, at least. Who wants shoes on their tongue? Seriously.”

But despite the complaints, he was still pleased. He lifted his shirt so they could watch Stretch struggle and squirm futilely as first his magic and then his very bones were absorbed. Papyrus watched in fascination as the translucent flesh shifted around the little skeleton, never letting him get to his feet, enclosing him snugly from all sides.

“This is what woulda happened to you,” Sans reminded him with a nasty grin, “if I didn’t want to keep you around.”

It sent a pleasurable chill down Papyrus’s spine.

Chapter Text

Red easily gave up his soul after a little alcohol.

“Hold on, wha’ss that?” he slurred as Papyrus inserted the needle into the little heart, releasing it back into Red’s chest as he shrank. Papyrus had adjusted the dosage by almost half, so Red wouldn’t shrink as much as he and Stretch had. Red was already smaller than them to start with anyway.

Sans picked up Red and cradled him in his arms like a baby. “Anything is cute when you miniaturize it, huh?”

“Stoppit.” Red squirmed.

“Here, mutt, you take him.” Sans handed the little skeleton to Papyrus. Papyrus held him with an arm around his waist, and remembering Sans’s words from last time, pulled off Red’s shoes, with some difficulty as Red was kicking frantically. He wondered if he should remove the socks as well—neither Red’s socks nor Red’s bare feet struck him as terribly appetizing. Red bit changed tactics and bit his arm, but he barely felt it through the thick sleeve.

“Socks, too,” Sans directed. “And get off his jacket while you’re at it.”

Papyrus dropped the shoes on the floor, pulled off Red’s socks, and dropped them on top. Then he held onto the ends of Red’s sleeves and let him slide out of his jacket onto the floor. Red immediately made a break for the door, but Papyrus turned his soul blue and pinned him to the floor. Red looked back over his shoulder, eye flickering as he tried to summon his own magic, but was prevented by the side effects of the shrinking serum. Papyrus walked the couple steps over to Red and plucked him up by the collar of the red sweater he wore under his jacket.

“Okay.” Sans ran his tongue across his teeth. “Give him to me.” He opened his jaws wide.

Papyrus supported Red with one hand under his back and used the other to hold his legs together, feeding his feet deep into Sans’s throat, avoiding his tongue as much as possible on the assumption that they probably weren’t tasty. Maybe he was wrong to worry whether Red tasted good at all. Sans wasn’t doing this because of Red’s flavor, surely.

Red was too shocked to wrench free and kick until it was too late. Sans’s gullet had a hold on his feet, and Papyrus was keeping a steadying hand on his femurs even though that meant his fingers intruding into Sans’s mouth a little.

“What’re you doing, Razz? Are you insane?” Red protested as Sans gulped down his feet.

Sans gulped again, pulling him deeper, most of his legs down Sans’s throat. Papyrus gently held up Red’s torso as he sat on Sans’s tongue.

“Razz, stop! Slim, stop this!” Red’s voice grew more frantic. Sans swallowed his pelvis. “Oh stars, Slim, help me!” Red reached desperately for something to hold onto, other than Sans’s face, twisting to grab Slim’s arms and claw at the front of his jacket.

In a burst of inspiration, Papyrus took hold of Red’s arms and pinned his humeri to his sides. Pleased, Sans sucked him deeper so that Red couldn’t free his arms. Sans’s teeth pressed against his ribs through his sweater, pinning his wrists where he’d caught them.

Red was crying now. “Slim, please, ya gotta help me! For stars’ sake, do something—” Sans parted his teeth a little wider to let Red’s skull in as he gulped him down to the shoulders. “Oh stars, Boss, where are you? Boss—!” With another swallow, Sans closed his teeth over Red’s skull, and a final gulp sent him down, slowly, into Sans’s stomach.

“Good job, mutt,” said Sans. “Filling but easy to swallow.” He patted his stomach, swollen but not anything like it had been with Blueberry.

“Will you have Edge as well, m’lord?”

“Shut up and let me savor this one first.”

“Sorry.”

Chapter Text

The door burst open. “I know you’re here, Sans!” Edge scanned the room for his brother, but when he spotted him he couldn’t quite comprehend what he was seeing.

Red was trapped inside the ecto-flesh of Sans’s belly. He must have been able to hear Edge shouting because he perked up and opened his eyes. Papyrus couldn’t hear what Red was saying from in there, but it looked like “Boss!”

Papyrus couldn’t waste a second in reacting. He teleported to his lab and grabbed another dose of the serum, then immediately teleported to directly behind where Edge was standing. Fortunately Edge had only just recovered from his shock enough to start forming some attacks. Papyrus jabbed the needle into his spine, right below the skull. Edge’s magic sparked in the air around him as the serum dissipated the attacks before they could properly form.

Sans had adopted a confident stance but not summoned any attacks. Papyrus felt a rush of warmth at the thought that Sans trusted him to neutralize the threat quickly, although perhaps he was just confident he could dodge and counterattack, or that Edge wouldn’t risk attacking with too much firepower when he was risking hitting Red as well.

Edge screeched with rage as Papyrus picked him up from the floor by his scarf, his eye flashing futilely as the serum blocked his magic. Papyrus was curious what would happen if he kept on trying to summon attacks. Would it exhaust him or could he keep it up indefinitely, since the serum wouldn’t allow him to actually expend any magic? That was an experiment for another time; Sans’s pleasure came first.

“He wants to see his brother, right? Bring him over, give him a good look.” Sans beckoned, keeping his shirt bunched up so that Red was clearly visible inside.

Edge twisted and struggled viciously. By the time Papyrus had carried him across the room to Sans, he’d grasped onto Papyrus’s arm like a ferocious koala, and was ripping at his jacket sleeve and actually doing some damage—and biting too, trying to reach the bone of Papyrus’s wrist, but only getting a mouthful of the fluffy lining on his cuff. Papyrus lowered him close to Sans’s stomach, and Sans fearlessly grabbed Edge’s skull and pressed it against his ecto-flesh. Edge dropped off of Papyrus’s arm and tried to claw at the translucent purple flesh, but it was both too tough and too yielding for him to dig his talons in. He managed to catch some between his jaws and bit down, piercing it, faintly purple ectoplasm dribbling down his jaw. But Sans only laughed at his desperation.

Red reached for his brother as best he could with the walls of Sans’s stomach squeezing him from all sides, his expression stricken.

“Red is a lucky skeleton,” said Sans. “His brother cares about him so much. I guess if they really want to be together, we can’t keep them apart, right, mutt?”

“No, m’lord,” Papyrus agreed. “I can give him something to calm him down a little…?” He was concerned whether Sans could handle both of them at once, but even though Edge was bigger than Red after being shrunk to the same scale, they were probably still smaller than Blueberry, combined.

“No need,” said Sans. “I don’t suppose you can get that armor off of him.”

“I’ll try.” Papyrus pulled Edge off and pinned him to the carpet by kneeling on him, pulled off his scarf, and fiddled with his chest plate until he figured out how to unfasten it. It was quite a struggle to get it off with Edge resisting and biting him at every opportunity, but he managed it. He stood up with a grunt of satisfaction, picking up Edge with his humeri pinned to his ribs, adjusting his grip to keep his hands out of range of the enraged skeleton’s teeth.

“All right. Head-first.” Sans opened his jaws and leaned over so that Papyrus wouldn’t have to lift Edge up horizontally; he was having a hard enough time holding onto him without getting bitten. Papyrus was concerned that Edge would bite Sans’s tongue, but he obeyed, pushing him forward into Sans’s mouth.

Sans quickly accepted Edge’s skull all the way to the back of his throat, bringing his teeth over the angry skeleton’s ribs, and bit down, hard. Papyrus heard a crack and a muffled grunt of pain. Edge went still for a moment, and when he resumed his struggles they seemed weaker. Papyrus focused on holding his legs still so he couldn’t kick anyone as Sans efficiently swallowed down his skull and shoulders, effectively pinning his arms to his sides.

Now Sans could take his time swallowing the rest of Edge’s rib cage. He closed his teeth on Edge’s spine, perhaps thinking about biting down again and removing Edge’s ability to kick. Papyrus took the opportunity to pull off Edge’s boots. Sans pulled him deeper without biting, curled his tongue around Edge’s pelvis. Papyrus kept hold of his feet—he was certainly TRYING to kick.

It took a few more gulps for Sans to get Edge’s knees past his teeth, and then Papyrus could let go and just watch. Another couple gulps and Edge joined his brother inside Sans’s stomach, upside down. Red immediately clung to him, weeping. Edge pushed him off until he could right himself, and then ignored Red while he attempted to claw his way out. If the injury to his ribs was slowing him down, it wasn’t apparent. After his initial frenzy, Red latched onto him again, and he didn’t resist, although he kept trying to claw at the ecto-flesh trapping them both. Papyrus even thought he saw Edge give Red a squeeze in return.

It was obvious that Edge would never claw or bite his way out, though he kept trying. He mixed in some attempts at magic as well, and so did Red. Papyrus could only imagine how much Red wished he could teleport the both of them out of there. After a while, Edge gave up on clawing and put his arms around Red, but he never stopped trying to summon his magic, as evidenced by the sputtering, flickering glow in his eye. It kept going sporadically even after Red had succumbed—of course, Red had been in there longer and was physically smaller. Papyrus wondered if Red was also just less determined, but there was probably no way to test that accurately.

Papyrus felt an uncomfortable sympathy in the pit of his nonexistent stomach as he watched Edge fade, clinging to his brother’s sweater. Red had always reminded him of what his brother might be like if he were more laid-back. He could imagine Edge’s despair all too easily. He wrung his hands together, hoping Edge’s misery would be over soon, but not daring to look away.

Sans seemed satisfied now that Edge wasn’t moving anymore. He was barely hanging on to life, but it was only a matter of time—it always had been, really, once Sans had gotten the advantage over him. Sans pulled down his shirt, smoothing it out with a satisfied sigh. “Well, that was exciting. You did good, mutt.”

That made it all worthwhile.

Chapter Text

“Let me see your soul for a minute. I promise this won’t hurt you.”

“Okay,” Sans agreed, perhaps a bit incautiously. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done soul stuff on the first date, and Razz had been a great partner. He was surprisingly considerate in spite of his tough-guy appearance, and it was unbelievably sexy. Sans was dying to know how he’d gotten those scars.

He had second thoughts when he saw the needle, but he could feel Razz’s intentions through his soul, and Razz had no intent to cause pain. Razz was feeling anticipation—whatever this was, it was going to be good. So Sans bit back his fears as Razz inserted the needle into his soul. And true to his word, it didn’t hurt. In fact, he barely felt the needle—but the effects of whatever Razz had injected him with did feel strange. After this, we’re going to have a talk about injecting monsters with things without explaining what they are first, Sans thought as the wooziness overwhelmed him.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw Razz looking down at him, but something was off. Razz was quite a lot bigger than he had been, he realized. He stretched out his arms and couldn’t find the edges of the bed. The texture of the sheets was different too, much coarser. Razz wasn’t bigger—Sans had shrunk. At least his soul seemed to have returned to its proper place.

“Well, this is interesting,” he said with a nervous laugh. “I hope this doesn’t mean you meant that literally about eating me alive.” Sans had assumed the phrase in Razz’s invitation to visit his universe was just a sexy innuendo, and he considered the promise well fulfilled already.

“Nah, I’m not gonna hurt you,” Razz laughed, gently picking up his miniaturized guest. Not bothering to put on pants, Razz carried him out of the room and down the stairs. “Wake up, Mutt!” he ordered.

“Yes, m’lord.” Razz’s brother—Slim, as Razz had introduced him in passing when Sans first arrived—sat up on the couch, reacting too quickly to have actually been asleep. He didn’t have that same aura of a finely honed weapon that Razz did, but he was sexy too in an unkempt, roguish way. He was staring at Sans in surprise. Had Razz not told him whatever it was he planned to do? Sans was starting to think that, as much fun as he’d had so far, Razz needed the standard informed consent lecture if they were going to do this again.

“You’ve been such a good dog lately,” said Razz. “I got you a treat.”

Slim’s eye sockets widened further. Sans laughed nervously. Clearly, he was the treat being referred to. But he still wasn’t sure exactly how Slim was supposed to enjoy his “treat.”

“Open up,” ordered Razz. Slim leaned forward, parting his jaws, letting his burnt orange tongue loll out. Razz stretched up as tall as he could to dangle Sans over his brother’s mouth.

Sans yelped with terror and tried to climb up on top of Razz’s phalanges. Fearful reactions were a big part of what made scenes like this fun. And also it was completely terrifying.

Razz smirked and let him drop. Sans gasped as he fell, then had the wind knocked out of him as he landed. He spread out his arms to try and stay on Slim’s tongue. Razz had said he wasn’t going to hurt him, so whatever the brothers were going to do was probably preferable to falling all the way to the floor—that could easily be deadly with his HP.

“Razz,” he said when he got his breath back, “I think we’re getting into safe word territory here. I mean we should pick a safe word if we’re gonna do stuff like this.”

Razz paused, looking right at Sans, but didn’t respond. Instead, he ran his hand down his brother’s jawbone and grasped it, tilting it up so that Sans slid along the tongue deeper into Slim’s mouth.

“Razz, wait!” Sans clawed at the surface of Slim’s tongue, but it was slick and smooth. “Aren’t you taking this a little far?”

“Swallow,” Razz ordered, the tongue under him shifted, and Sans felt his legs enveloped in the magic of Slim’s throat, and then his pelvis. Oh stars, how far were they going to take this?

“Slim, please!” he begged. Maybe they’d be satisfied once they’d gotten their kicks from his desperation. “Oh stars, please stop!” It was easy to sound desperate, no acting required.

“Again,” said Razz. Slim’s tongue rose up and Sans’s ribs slipped into his throat.

“Razz, no! Help—ahh!” The deep orange magic pressed against him from all sides now, squeezing him downward. Oh stars, this was it, this was going to be the time he didn’t come home to Papyrus in the morning.

***

“Good boy,” said Razz, letting go of Slim’s jaw. “Lift up your shirt.”

Slim obeyed, and they both watched Razz’s guest squirm and struggle inside the translucent ecto-flesh of his belly. Slim was fascinated, but also wracked with guilt. Could he stop his body from hurting the alternate Sans? Would he be able to let him go later without Razz finding out?

“You’re not thinking of spitting him out, are you?” Razz must have read it on his face. “Don’t you like him?”

Slim bowed his head guiltily.

“He’s yours now, every particle. You get to subsume his entire being into your own. A nice reward for a lowly dog like you.”

Slim nodded. The tiny Sans twisted inside him. Was he in pain? Was he already starting to be absorbed? Part of Slim was loving this, but part of him was hating himself for loving it. Who was he to exact such a sacrifice from another monster, especially a Sans?

Razz pulled Slim’s shirt back down and patted his belly. “Enjoy it, because the next one’s mine, and the one after that, and the one after that. I’m going to shower and make dinner for myself—since you’ve already eaten.”

“Yes, m’lord.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“Thank you, m’lord.”

Only after Razz had turned away did a tear run down Slim’s cheekbone.

Chapter Text

As soon as Sans had disappeared into the kitchen, Papyrus teleported to the lab. The feeling of the tiny Sans squirming in his stomach was delicious, and he hated to give it up, but he couldn’t risk harming the other monster. He focused on dispelling his magical anatomy. It resisted. He concentrated harder—panicking would just make him less focused. But it was apparently not going anywhere while it registered “food” inside to digest.

Papyrus moaned a little from the combination of pleasure and frustration, and tried a different tactic. He’d heard of flesh monsters inducing vomiting by sticking their fingers in their throats. He would have to try it.

It wasn’t pleasant, but eventually he figured it out. The little Sans lay still, cupped in his hands, covered in slime, his eye sockets staring blankly. Stars, don’t let it be too late.

Papyrus couldn’t wait for the skeleton to recover. Holding him to his chest with one hand, he booted up the machine and opened a portal back to the last universe accessed. The shrunken skeleton still hadn’t moved. “Please be okay,” he whispered as he stuck his hand through the portal and dropped him on the other side. He would unshrink on his own in a matter of hours, and he probably had a Papyrus there of his own to take care of him. This was all Papyrus could do for him.

He felt nauseous as he closed the portal and set about erasing the record of using the machine. Sans already suspected his brother had been reluctant to go through with it, and he used the machine frequently to invite or kidnap more victims. There would be hell to pay if he noticed Papyrus had used it without permission, and he would immediately know exactly what he’d done.

***

“Where have you been, mutt?”

Papyrus had holed up in his room long enough that he could feasibly say he’d finished digesting the little skeleton, but he didn’t want to draw suspicion by seeming like he was avoiding Sans, so he’d come down to the living room after he felt a reasonable amount of time had passed. He found Sans sitting on the couch, somehow taking up the whole space despite his smaller physical presence.

“I…needed some alone time.” He ducked his skull, embarrassed. “That felt…really good.” The excuse had the advantage of being true, even if not in the exact sense he was implying.

“A plausible lie,” Sans granted. “I’ve gotten a phone call from Alphys. She said she talked to an unreasonably sexy version of her girlfriend.”

Papyrus’s soul sank. The skeleton he’d let go must have been from one of those switched-up worlds where Undyne was the head of the Royal Guard.

“Take this stuff and drop it into the abyss at Waterfall.” Sans had gathered all the incriminating evidence on the dining table—Blueberry’s scarf, Red’s jacket, and Edge’s boots caught his eye on the pile of all the clothes that had been left by their victims.

“Yes, m’lord.” Papyrus gathered it all up.

“Make sure you don’t fall in yourself. I want you back here.” Sans wouldn’t let him off that easily.

Papyrus nodded and teleported to the edge of the abyss, where he dumped the armful of clothes in unceremoniously. It might have been nice to do them one-by-one, remembering the monsters they’d belonged to, but Sans would be waiting impatiently. He took a deep breath as he prepared to teleport back. Terror clutched his soul, but in a way it wasn’t as bad as the suspense and guilt of defying Sans and waiting to see if he would find out. Of course he’d found out. Now all Papyrus had to do was accept his punishment. This was more familiar territory.

He was trembling as he rematerialized in front of Sans.

“Go get a dose of the serum,” was Sans’s next order. Papyrus teleported to the lab, selected one of the pre-prepared syringes—a larger dose—and returned to the same spot in the living room.

Sans leaned forward to accept the syringe. “Take off your clothes. No, not here. Put them in your room.”

All this rapid-fire teleporting was taking a lot out of Papyrus, but he blinked into his room and shrugged off his clothes, leaving them in a pile just like he normally would, and blinked back to the same spot in front of the couch.

“Give me your soul.”

Papyrus didn’t hesitate. The little heart-shaped organ floated out of his rib cage, and he guided it toward Sans with his hand.

Sans sighed as he plunged the needle into the soul. He wasn’t enjoying this. He was disappointed. Punishment always made Papyrus’s metaphorical stomach curl excruciatingly, but if Sans was taking pleasure in it, it was good for Papyrus too. But now Sans was doling out punishment as a necessity, not for enjoyment. Guilt twisted at Papyrus’s soul along with the woozy sensation of shrinking.

He knelt on the carpet, not looking up as Sans dropped down from the couch, leaned over, and scooped him up. His soul—back where it belonged now—raced with fear, but it wasn’t the good kind of fear. How was this different than the previous time, he wondered as Sans raised him to face level. He’d asked for this before. He’d been willing to let Sans kill him, if he wanted to. But he didn’t want to. Papyrus had forced his hand. How dare he even compare the two situations? He wouldn’t have thought he could feel more guilty, but now he was suddenly acutely aware of how much he had taken from Sans when he betrayed him like that.

He deserved this, he thought as Sans dropped him onto his wide purple tongue. If the knowledge of how he’d hurt Sans added to his own suffering, it was no more than he deserved. Sans would be okay; he was strong. But Papyrus felt like he might dust on the spot just from knowing he wouldn’t be able to help Sans deal with all the trouble that he himself had brought upon him. Sans tilted his skull back. A strangled sob escaped Papyrus as he slid deeper. He selfishly hoped Sans would finish him off quickly so he wouldn’t have as much time to meditate on his failures. Unless he could still find some pleasure in having a skeleton squirming in his stomach. Papyrus determined to hang on as long as possible, just in case. If Sans wanted him gone quickly after all, he surely would be either way.

Chapter Text

Papyrus woke up in a hospital bed. He looked vaguely around the room, trying to place it. What had happened? The last thing he remembered was—

“Sans?” he called, stiffening. He shouldn’t be here. Who had brought him here? Had Sans changed his mind at the last second, and been unable to revive him without help?

“Oh, y-you’re awake.” Undyne appeared from his blind spot, and as he took in more of the room he noticed a bunny guard by the door. “How do you feel?” She poised to write on a notepad.

“Where’s Sans?”

“D-don’t worry, you’re safe now.” Undyne fumbled with the pencil and didn’t meet his eyes.

“No, I—where’s Sans?” Papyrus demanded.

“He was a-a-arrested.” Undyne dropped the pencil and then hit her head on the edge of the bed when she bent down to pick it up.

Papyrus tried to jump out of the bed, but he was prevented both by the straps he suddenly noticed holding him down and his own dizziness. He settled for glaring at Undyne and making her squeak when she finally retrieved the pencil. “What happened?” He kept his voice low and even.

“Um, I don’t—I don’t know all the details, but—I’m sorry if this sounds ridiculous. Apparently he ate you?”

“I know that. What happened after? How did I get here?”

“You kn-kn— Well, Alphys went to talk to him about some—some reports she got from—one of those other universes. One where I’m captain of the guard, and also, like, super sexy?” She laughed, blushing.

Papyrus groaned, wishing she’d get to the important part.

“S-sorry. So she got there and saw—what he’d—that he’d—eaten you, so she arrested him and brought you here.”

“Arrested? So he’s okay, though?” Arrested meant not dead. It wasn’t ideal but it wasn’t the worst. Alphys was tough but she wouldn’t let Sans bleed out and dust in a jail cell, either. Papyrus tried to shake off the doubt he felt. Even if Alphys was horrified by what Sans had done, she had more integrity than that—right? And they were old friends—

“He sh-should be fine. He should b-b-be safe in custody, even though he must have lost some HP.”

That made sense. It wasn’t like Sans to go willingly, so they must have fought. Even Sans couldn’t take on the whole Royal Guard by himself at short notice.

“Since she did cut his stomach open to get you out,” Undyne continued.

“What?!” Papyrus strained at the bonds keeping him pinned to the bed. “How dare—Where is he? Where is she?”

“Oh! Oh no. C-calm down, he’s okay, he’s stable.” Undyne took a step back, trying to placate him. “And r-r-really, you’re lucky she did. If she hadn’t c-caught him off-guard like that, she’d have had to fight him before she could get you out, and by that time it might’ve…”

Her assurance that Sans was stable did calm him a little—combined with the complete futility of fighting the straps. He let his skull fall against the hard little pillow, but kept glaring daggers at Undyne. To think that Alphys would ambush Sans and stab him in the stomach—he’d never forgive her. And why would Sans be off guard in the first place? He was probably distraught over everything Papyrus had done—and obligated him to do. He felt wetness drip from his eye socket.

“Y-you, um, have a visitor, if you’re feeling up to it,” Undyne said, smiling nervously.

“If it’s not Sans, I don’t care.”

“I-i-it is! Kind of.”

“What?” Papyrus was in no mood for riddles.

“It’s a Sans from an alternate universe. He said to call him L-l-lust?”

“Never heard of him.”

“He said you s-saved his life.”

“Oh. Him,” Papyrus spat. “Let me off this bed and then I’ll see him.” He reached for his magic to see if he could summon any attacks, but something was blocking it, whether it was a precaution Undyne or the hospital staff had taken, or just his own weakness after nearly being digested.

“I d-don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Probably not. Papyrus was kicking himself for not just killing Lust like his brother had told him to. Everything would have been okay if he’d just done as he was told. Like always. But it would be even more meaningless if he ruined everything by not killing Lust, and then killed him anyway.

“I’ll tell them to g-go away.” Undyne moved for the door, but it opened before she reached it.

“Papyrus!” Alphys strolled in. “You’re awake! I didn’t think you had it in ya. You almost died a hero, you know!”

Papyrus felt like the furthest thing from a hero. All his anger at Alphys was crushed under his guilt at having created the situation that set her and Sans against each other.

Lust peeked out from behind Alphys. “H-hey.” He was wearing different clothes—Papyrus had dumped his previous outfit in the abyss. The new one was equally revealing. Papyrus turned his skull away, the most he could do with the restraints.

“Sorry about strapping you down, Paps,” said Alphys. “We do gotta formally interview you about what happened, at least.”

“Didn’t he tell you?” Papyrus twitched in the general direction of Lust, which wasn’t very effective, but seemed to get his point across.

“He made it pretty clear you were under duress.” Alphys had turned serious.

Papyrus clammed up. He didn’t want to say anything that could get Sans in worse trouble. There was one beam of hope shining into the darkness that was this whole situation: Since he wasn’t dead, he could still take the fall for Sans. He just had to get his story straight first. His mind raced. Ideally he and Sans would tell the guard the same thing, but it was unlikely they’d allow them to coordinate. Maybe he could work around that.

Alphys, Lust, and an unreasonably sexy dog guard of some kind crowded into the room. Papyrus stared at the opposite wall. Could he just insist he was guilty, or did he somehow have to convince them he was guilty but trying to look innocent? Maybe he could get Lust on his side if he could talk to him alone—he owed Papyrus his life, after all, and his testimony was critical.

“So how did he do it?” Alphys said, as if she were just making conversation.

“Do what?” Papyrus asked blankly.

“You know. Shrink a skeleton down to…bite size…” Alphys trailed off awkwardly, remembering that the victim was right next to her.

“He didn’t do it. I did.”

“You? How?”

“I made a serum—you saw it, didn’t you, Lust? You were injected with something.”

Lust nodded uncertainly.

“You can inject it into the soul or spine and it shrinks a monster. I invented it.”

“I see,” said Alphys, frowning. “Did your brother ask you to do this?”

Papyrus thought back and laughed. “No. It was my own idea.” He didn’t need to tell them that he’d made the serum in order to shrink himself.

“Hrm. And who did you use this on, aside from Lust?”

“I tested it on myself.” It was true, and they might find marks on his spine from the test. He couldn’t come right out and say he’d shrunk Stretch, Red, and Edge. It would make him look like he was eager to be found guilty.

“Y’know, there are some reports of other skeletons gone missing around the multi-verse,” Alphys said, apparently trying to be casual about it.

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“S-slim,” Lust intervened. “If you—if anything like what happened with me—if that wasn’t the first time, you know it’s not your fault, right?”

Alphys sort of agreed. “Well, you might still have some legal culpability, but considering you saved Lust here and stopped whatever was going on—assuming something was indeed going on—”

“That was the first time that that exact thing happened.” Papyrus narrowed his eye sockets at Lust. It was true, but he hoped they’d assume it was only the first time his victim had escaped.

“So d’you have any idea what happened to those other skeletons?” Alphys cut to the chase.

“Anyone can have ideas.” Papyrus refused to give a straight answer.

“Papyrus, we’ll go easier on you if you cooperate,” Alphys warned.

“Actually,” Undyne interrupted. “I have a feeling things will go easier for Sans if you cooperate.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Papyrus snapped.

“N-nothing, just…supplies are limited and…it can be hard to scrounge up things like anesthetics, for monsters who are clearly guilty of attempted fratricide.”

Papyrus fumed. “Fine. Fine, I’ll tell you.”

“You still care about him a lot for someone who just tried to kill you.” Alphys was skeptical.

“I may be pissed that he tried to give me a dose of my own medicine, but that doesn’t mean I want him tortured or dead. Ask Lust there. Would he want to see his brother hurt, just because someone told him he’d tried to kill him? Sans probably wasn’t even going to really hurt me.”

Everyone looked at Lust, who quailed a little under the attention of the rough, scar-bearing monsters, but shook his head no.

“Okay, then tell us,” said Alphys.

“I…I did it. Those other skeletons. I killed them all the same way I almost killed Lust.”

The room went silent for a moment.

“But why?” Lust was the one to break the silence.

“I couldn’t bear the idea of these corrupt alternate versions of me and my brother walking around. The world doesn’t need more than one Sans or Papyrus. Blueberry was first—remember him? He’s like a saccharine sweet version of my brother. Disgusting.” Papyrus couldn’t change the order of the disappearances, because Alphys probably already knew the timing, even if it would have looked better for a Papyrus to be the first victim. “And Stretch—it insults me how lazy and useless he is—was.” He smirked at the correction.

“So you’re saying you shrank and ate at least four other skeletons? Was your brother involved at all?”

“Of course. I got him to help with Lust, didn’t I? I mostly just needed him to distract them while I jabbed them with the serum, though. It wasn’t always as elaborate as the time with Lust.”

“And then why would you spare Lust? It makes no sense to let him go.”

Alphys was right. It made no sense to let Lust escape and tell everyone what had happened to him. How much did Lust remember?

“Sans must have felt bad for him and gotten him out while I was asleep. I always took a nap when I was digesting.” He grinned cruelly.

“So you’re saying Sans felt bad for Lust and rescued him, after letting you kill the other four? Why Lust? Why not Blueberry?”

Lust looked doubtful. Papyrus hoped he hadn’t been conscious enough to remember who it was shoving him through the portal.

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Sans why he chose Lust of all monsters to set loose so he could run to the guard and rat me out. But if I venture a guess, I’d say it’s because Lust is pathetic. Look at him. He’s not a fighter. Those other skeletons had some chance of defending themselves, but this one, he walked directly into a trap and let himself get eaten. My brother has always had more of a sense of fair play than I have.” Papyrus was pleased with his excuse, partly because it seemed plausible, and partly because it insulted Lust, who he really wished he had killed when he had the chance. “It’s too bad his brother didn’t come looking for him. I bet he would have been tasty.”

Lust recoiled in satisfying horror. Alphys looked vaguely sick. Undyne was unaffected. Papyrus couldn’t judge the sexy dog’s reaction; it just panted the whole time.

“All right,” said Alphys eventually. “I’ve heard enough for now. I will definitely ask your brother about that, and you’d better hope his story matches yours, because things could end badly for you if you’re lying to me. I mean, you’re in serious trouble for four murders already, but we can always come up with ways to make it worse.”

Papyrus shivered, and hoped they would interpret that as fear of punishment for his crimes. He didn’t care what they did to him so long as Sans wasn’t hurt in the process.

“Lust, did you still wanna say anything?” Alphys prompted.

“I just wanted to thank you for s—well, for not killing me, I guess.” The sexy dog held Lust’s shoulders supportively. “From what you said, maybe I should be thanking Razz instead.”

Lust didn’t look Papyrus in the eyes. Papyrus prayed that he was just disappointed Papyrus wasn’t the savior he’d imagined, rather than having caught on to his lie about Sans being the one to save him.

“Hmph,” said Papyrus. “If I had just been quicker to kill you, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Lust flinched.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get to the bottom of this.” Alphys herded Lust and the sexy dog out of the room, leaving Papyrus to stew in his own worries.

Chapter Text

Alphys didn’t come back. A pair of guards Papyrus had never met eventually came and unstrapped him from the bed.

“What’s going on?” he asked them, rubbing the magic circulation back into his wrists.

“Come with us,” one of the guards grunted.

Papyrus really wanted news of his brother, but since the guards didn’t seem willing to share any information, he followed them out of the room. One walked ahead of him and one behind, so escape would be difficult. He still couldn’t access his attack magic, or teleport. But would he be able to help Sans if he escaped, anyway? Perhaps it would help make him look guilty, but on the other hand, it was possible they could punish Sans more harshly if they weren’t able to punish Papyrus, even if he did manage to take the majority of the blame. Plus, nobody had given him any clothes since he’d stripped for Sans, and it would be awkward to run through the Underground naked.

He was still uncertain, but he couldn’t stand the thought of doing something to get Sans even deeper in trouble, so he let the guards shove him through a door with a small window embedded in it. Inside was an empty room, with nothing but a slab on the opposite wall that could be used to sit or lie down on.

Papyrus sat on it. It was unlikely his magic would be allowed to come back while he was here, as he would in all likelihood be able to escape if he had it. He felt over his spine and couldn’t find anything unusual, so it must be an external blocker—or maybe something they’d injected him with. He couldn’t expect to know every method at the Royal Guard’s disposal.

Eventually he lay down on the bench, curling up to fit. He couldn’t be sure how long he’d been strapped to the bed. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep before that. And it was hard to keep track of time in this featureless cell. He was getting pretty hungry. A meal schedule would provide some sense of the passing days if they kept him in here for long, too. But if they hadn’t fed him by now, perhaps they just weren’t going to give him any food today. Maybe Undyne didn’t think he had recovered enough yet. Surely they would feed him tomorrow.

He slept, woke up, slept again, woke up and spent some time peering out the window. Nobody walked through the hall outside. Nobody came to his cell. He was used to regular meals and snacks, and now he was too hungry to sleep, bored to tears and too hungry to focus on anything to entertain himself. He ought to be planning out how to help Sans. He thought about it, but he knew he wasn’t analyzing the situation properly; things that might have been obvious if he had been in better mental shape were probably escaping him completely, and he drew a complete blank when trying to come up with strategies.

When the door finally creaked open, Papyrus had been lying curled up on the bench for hours, staring vaguely at the wall. His joints were stiff as he lifted himself up, far too slow to try to escape or attack the visitors. They had probably checked that he was far away from the door before they came in, anyway.

“Hey…Alphys…Undyne…I was getting bored in here by myself.”

The two monsters he greeted were followed by a handful of guards, closing the door behind them with a solid clunk.

“I’ve got bad news and good news,” Alphys said grimly, without preamble. “The good news is—” She traded a look with Undyne. “—you get to see your brother.”

“—we brought you a snack,” said Undyne, also grim, at the same time.

“No, that was the bad news,” said Alphys.

“They’re both good news. It’s the combination that’s bad.” Undyne smiled unpleasantly.

“What are you talking about?” Papyrus’s soul sank. He thought he could smell barbecue sauce.

“Then we shoulda said good news and good news. And also bad news,” argued Alphys.

“Undyne? W-what’s going on?”

Undyne looked at him with pity. “You’ve both been found guilty.”

“B-both of us?” Papyrus repeated. But surely his brother had a lighter sentence? If Papyrus had convinced them he was the one who had actually killed the other skeletons?

“D’you take me for an idiot, Papyrus? There were several gaping holes in your story.”

Papyrus wouldn’t have thought his soul could sink lower, but it did.

“Lust said that you saved him,” Undyne explained, the seriousness of the situation keeping her habitual stuttering mostly at bay. “He heard your voice. He could have been mistaken, but you also knew who he was as soon as I said you’d saved his life.”

“No! I just knew he would think I had!”

Undyne looked as if she would like to believe him but couldn’t. “And if your brother had betrayed you, and gotten you arrested for a crime you’d likely be executed for, I would expect you to show at least a little anger.”

“Of course I was angry!” The mention of execution felt like a knife blade in his soul, and Papyrus tried to back away from Undyne but encountered the wall and the bench, falling into a sitting position again. “I just got it out before—before he swallowed me, and then I realized it was wrong, what I did. I’ll accept any punishment. But Sans, he—he stopped me before I could kill again. You gotta give him credit for that.”

“That’s not what Sans said at all,” Alphys growled.

“He’s covering for me. You know how loyal he is.”

“Alphys, are you s-sure we should do this in here?” Undyne wasn’t easily fazed, but she seemed like she wouldn’t mind putting it off, whatever it was.

“Yeah, Lust said he didn’t wanna see it, and I don’t really think it’s a sight fit for decent monsters anyway.”

“Not even the Q-queen? It’s on her orders after all.”

“Doesn’t mean she wants to see it happen. Come on, let’s get it over with. Better hold him.”

Two of the guards, both bunnies, approached Papyrus from either side. He tried to slip out of their grasp, but they took hold of his arms and shoulders, pressing him onto the seat.

Alphys walked closer, stepping to the side, revealing one of the guards behind her holding something like a box with a cloth draped over it. She pulled the cloth off and handed it to one of the remaining guards. Underneath was a little cage, and inside, just as Papyrus had known he would be, was Sans, shrunken down to only a couple inches tall, presumably with the serum. Papyrus cursed himself for ever creating it.

“You must be pretty hungry by now,” said Alphys, taking the cage from the guard and opening the top. “It’ll be easiest if you just do this on your own.”

Papyrus kicked, but nothing was in range. He tried to wrench free from the guards that were holding him, but it was as if they were made of steel. Alphys nodded at another guard, who knelt down to restrain Papyrus’s legs. She offered Papyrus the cage containing Sans, and the guards let his radii and ulnae loose so he could accept it.

“M—m’lord.” He looked down into the cage, getting an unobscured view of Sans for the first time. He was definitely stained brown and smelled like barbecue sauce. Papyrus realized that he’d formed his tongue unconsciously just from the scent. Sans glared up at him and didn’t answer. Papyrus felt as if his soul was shrinking. There was nothing but rage and disgust in Sans’s expression.

“No tearful reunions, now,” Alphys said. “Get on with it, or we’ll have to use force.”

“Never!”

“Force it is.” Alphys looked over at Undyne.

Papyrus forced his tongue to demanifest. Undyne clucked disapprovingly and reached into his rib cage to retrieve his soul, pressing a finger against it, forcing him to summon all the relevant ecto-anatomy with practiced ease. An analytical part of his mind wondered how she’d gotten so good at this, if she didn’t regularly torture skeleton monsters—what had she forced other monsters to do via their souls, that the skill transferred over so well? He could feel her through the soul link, mostly professional detachment, although he thought he detected a little sorrow hidden underneath. But that didn’t matter; what mattered was keeping hold of Sans and getting out of here by any means necessary. He couldn’t writhe so hard in the grip of the guards while he was holding Sans in his small and delicate state. If only the door were still open, maybe he could have thrown Sans into the hall and given him a chance to make a run for it, even if he was tiny and had no attack magic, before Undyne squeezed his soul into dust.

Undyne produced something from her pocket and slipped it between Papyrus’s jaws, prying them open. He couldn’t shut them again. Alphys looked around at the other guards, as if she wished she could pawn off this duty on one of them, but then slipped on a thick leathery glove.

“Don’t bite me, Sans. You brought this on yourself,” she muttered, reaching into the cage. Slim tried to move it away from her hand, but the guards on either side regained their hold on his radii and ulnae. Papyrus’s eye sparked as he tried to summon an attack. Alphys lifted her gloved hand out of the cage with Sans’s teeth embedded in one of the fingers. She didn’t even have to hold him, as he dug his fingers into the glove, scratching at it with his toes.

Papyrus moaned in protest as Alphys shoved Sans in between his jaws. The flavor of the sauce made his mouth water. Tears poured down his cheekbones as his eye continued to spark futilely. He tried to push Sans back out with his tongue, but Alphys cupped her gloved hand over his mouth. Undyne used a rod to disengage Sans from the glove and push him deeper in. Sans’s toes pricked on his tongue, but it was slippery with all the saliva the barbecue sauce had summoned, and he felt Sans fall over onto the surface.

He wouldn’t give up, though. If anyone could claw their way back out of a mouth, it was Sans, and perhaps he could bite Alphys’s hand too, so they wouldn’t be able to force his jaws closed. But Undyne and Alphys were too coordinated, Undyne removing the prop keeping his jaws open at the same time as Alphys forced them shut—the other guards were holding his skull firmly in place. Now they just had to hold him there for as long as it took. He was determined that would be forever. How could they ever think he would swallow Sans? He would sit here until he dusted first.

Undyne used the rod to stroke the outer surface of his ecto-throat. It was annoying, but he could resist it.

“Tilt his skull back,” ordered Alphys, keeping a firm grip on his jaw as the guards obeyed. Sans slid deeper, toward his throat.

That was fine. He could block the entrance with his tongue and Sans could just sit there for as long as it took for them to give up.

“Undyne? You still got his soul?” Alphys said after a minute. Her hand must be getting tired. He could keep this up longer than they could, he was sure. It didn’t stop the tears still oozing from the corners of his eye sockets.

“Yes.”

“Give him a jolt or something.”

“A—jolt?”

“Yeah.”

“A j-jolt of what?”

“I don’t know. Just shake him up a bit.”

Undyne’s uncertainty cracked through the shell of professional detachment he’d felt from the soul contact. She was trying to figure out what to do with his soul. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but it felt like she considered and rejected several ideas. Finally she decided on something. He braced himself.

Something wet pressed against his soul, and he twitched with sudden arousal. “Nnngh!” was all he could say without letting Sans fall into his throat.

“Oh. Gross, Undyne. Do it again. I think it’s working.”

No. No, it was not working. Papyrus could take this new torture without dropping Sans.

Undyne licked his soul again, then scraped her teeth against it. He wished she’d just bite it, hard enough to dust him. Sans wouldn’t be left in a good situation, but anything was preferable to this.

“Yeah, that’s good. Do it harder,” Alphys directed.

“You c-can’t—If I’m too rough with it, he’ll d-dust.”

“I really don’t wanna hold his mouth shut all day.”

“Okay. L-let me—I’ll t-try.”

Undyne’s teeth dug into his soul, and it felt so good but hurt so bad at the same time. Papyrus writhed in the guards’ grasp. Sans slipped. Papyrus pressed his tongue against him, holding him between his tongue and soft palate, but he kept slipping further. It was no use. Sans fell into his throat.

Papyrus didn’t give up; he couldn’t give up. It was immensely uncomfortable having Sans there in the entrance to his throat, but he could still cough him back up to relative safety. Sans was trying to climb back up his tongue; he would have welcomed a sharp pain indicating he had gotten a grip, but as it was he could barely feel it. If Undyne would stop doing distracting things to his soul. If he could stop salivating over the wretched sauce they’d coated Sans with. If he wasn’t slipping deeper every second—

It was too late. Papyrus gulped involuntarily.

***

The guards couldn’t let go of him, or he would find a way to vomit up his royally mandated meal. Undyne had to keep hold of his soul to stop him dispelling his stomach. He hadn’t been able to do it for Lust, but he hadn’t had much time to try that time either, and he hadn’t been half this desperate.

Undyne sighed as she quashed his latest attempt. “You’re n-not going to be able to dispel your magic, Paps.”

The guards had tied his wrists behind his back so they didn’t have to keep such a tight hold on him. He tried to bite them when they let go of his skull, so they put some kind of muzzle on him.

“Just get it over with, Papyrus,” said Alphys, now sitting in a chair one of the guards had fetched. “We all gotta sit here and watch until you do, to make sure you actually do it.”

Even with the added restraints, a guard sat next to Papyrus on the bench to keep him still. He couldn’t just sit here and … digest Sans … He had to do something, anything. He tried to at least stand up, but the guard kept pulling him back down.

Sans wasn’t just sitting there and taking it either. Papyrus could feel him squirming and clawing, wished he would just claw his way out, even if—especially if—it dusted Papyrus in the process. His desperation grew as time passed—was Sans getting weaker? Maybe he was resting a little before making a concentrated effort. He looked around for anything that could save him. The guards were impassive, stern. Alphys was staring uncomfortably at his midsection. Undyne was a bit bored, clinically apathetic, and below that a little horrified—he could feel that through the soul link she was forced to maintain. It gave him little comfort that this bothered her at least a bit, if only because he was a friend and not a random anonymous monster.

Papyrus tried everything he could think of, but his magic was out of reach, the guards wouldn’t let him do anything but sit there, and Undyne had control over his ecto-flesh. He leaned forward, avoiding looking at his stomach, watching the tears drop onto the floor.

He tilted his skull up to look at Alphys. Their eyes met, and she looked away.

“Alphys, please.”

She didn’t respond.

“Please, Alphys, I’ll do anything. Anything at all.”

She deigned to look at him, but if anything she looked less uncomfortable than before. She was used to prisoners begging for mercy.

“I’ll devote my life to you, or to the Queen, whatever you say. You’ll own me body and soul. Anything, anything you say.”

“The Queen already owns your life,” Alphys scoffed.

“But she never had my loyalty. But she can, if that’s what you want. I’ll fight to my last breath for her. Be her personal assassin. Or yours. You know I’m strong when I want to be. You could put me to good use.”

“Papyrus,” Undyne said softly, “your loyalty would never be complete. What if I accepted your offer, and then told you to kill Sans?”

“Keep him locked up forever as a hostage for my good behavior. So long as he’s alive. Please.” He broke down into sobs.

“It’s not a bad offer,” said Alphys, sitting up in her chair. “But I think it’s too late now.”

“No,” was all Papyrus said. It couldn’t be too late. He was sure he would dust from despair on the spot if it was. But he couldn’t feel Sans moving. He realized he hadn’t for a while. And now he couldn’t feel Sans’s weight. His tears flowed silently, dripping onto his femurs, down his legs, onto the floor.

Chapter Text

Alphys had given him a hospital gown and ejected him from the door into Hotland. Oh. He hadn’t even realized he was in Hotland. He turned to look at her blankly. Weren’t they going to kill him now? It was the least mercy they could show him.

“Your punishment is complete. You’re free to go,” said Alphys.

“Your magic should come back in a couple days,” added Undyne.

Papyrus stared at them until they closed the door in his face. He thought he might sit down right where he was and wait to dust. Surely he was Falling Down? Couldn’t he get it over with any faster?

Hotland was uncomfortably hot, so he started walking toward Waterfall. It didn’t matter where he Fell Down, really. He watched his own feet as he trudged into Waterfall. Walking was as good a way as any to pass the time until he dusted. Nothing mattered now that—nothing mattered now.

Nothing mattered, so he didn’t think about it. The next thing he knew, he found himself at his own front door in Snowdin, without even noticing when the swamp and rocks under his bare feet had changed to snow. He didn’t have his key—it was in his jacket pocket—and he couldn’t teleport inside until whatever Undyne had done to him had worn off, so he sat down and leaned against the front door, wishing vaguely for a cigarette. It didn’t matter, and in a distant, intellectual way, he knew he didn’t deserve any comfort. Perhaps this was what it was like to Fall Down. He hoped so, as much as he could hope anything now.

After a few moments, the door opened, and he fell backward into the house. He didn’t feel particularly curious about why this had happened until the thought occurred to him that maybe Sans had been waiting here for him all along, he was alive, he was safe, he was—not the one who had opened the door. Lust was leaning over him, the sexy dog standing behind him. Stars, his shorts left nothing to the imagination, and his shirt only covered a couple of his ribs.

“Sans?” Papyrus asked, in case maybe Sans was here too after all. Even if it was impossible, it was his first thought that actually mattered to him since…

Lust looked at him with pity. “Aw. No. At least, not the Sans you mean.”

Papyrus managed to grunt in response, which he thought was pretty considerate of him, because of what a monumental effort it took, before going back to lying on the floor doing nothing until he dusted.

“Come on, Slim, you can’t lie halfway inside and half on the doorstep.” Lust took his arm and pulled, dragging him perhaps an inch further inside the house. The sexy dog took his other arm, and between them they managed to pull him far enough to allow the door to close again. Papyrus didn’t resist or react.

“Slim…” Lust knelt beside him. “Do you want to change out of those clothes? Take a shower, eat something…?” Papyrus didn’t respond or even look at him.

“Slim,” Lust tried again. “I’m sorry about your brother. Honestly. Even though … well, I still didn’t want to see him dead. And even if they have to execute murderers in this world, the way they did it was just needlessly cruel, to both of you. I told them—but—” Lust closed his eyes and sat there solemnly for a long moment, then changed moods. “I bet you’re wondering what I’m doing here.”

“No,” said Papyrus, annoyed that Lust talking to him was keeping his mind engaged with reality whether he wanted it to or not. He was pretty sure it was delaying his spontaneously collapsing into dust.

“Alphys gave me the keys to your house so I could get into the lab and get back to my own universe,” Lust explained as if he hadn’t objected. “And I was worried about you. They wouldn’t let me see you again, or tell me when you’d be released, but I thought you’d probably come back here. We thought about going looking for you too.” The sexy dog barked in agreement. “Although it’s kinda scary out there.” The dog whined.

Papyrus felt a glimmer of anger. “You told her I saved you. You… This is your fault.”

“No. It’s not. Razz is the one who tried to kill me. And have you seen how terrifying your Alphys here is? I wasn’t gonna lie to her. Plus I didn’t want you to get tortured to death for crimes you didn’t commit.”

Papyrus tried to ignore him again. He had been tortured, worse than he could have ever imagined. If only Sans had killed him before Alphys intervened. If only Sans had killed him the first time, when he could have died happy. And maybe he’d been released without being dusted, but he was certainly still going to dust as a consequence, hopefully sooner rather than later, if Lust would just leave him alone. So it wasn’t much different than being tortured to death—perhaps worse.

The sexy dog knelt down too and nuzzled Papyrus’s skull.

“You like bones, doggy? I’ve got two hundred and six that I don’t need anymore; you can have a few.”

“Come on, Slim, don’t say that,” Lust pleaded. “If you’re gonna stay there on the floor, let’s at least get you a blanket.”

The sexy dog found a blanket and spread it over Papyrus. Sans’s phone rang. No, it was the same ring tone, but it was Lust’s phone. Alphys had probably taken Sans’s phone—maybe Undyne would recycle it for someone else to use. Maybe she was going through its data right now. Papyrus growled at the thought.

Lust pulled the phone from his pocket and answered it. “Oh, hi Papyrus. How did you—? Oh, cool. Yes. Yeah, I’m still here. No, I’m fine, but Slim—the other Papyrus—yeah, that’s the one. Well, no, but I don’t want—I’m really worried he’s gonna—hang on a second.” Lust walked away into the kitchen, talking in hushed tones. Presumably he didn’t want Papyrus to overhear him speculating about how he was going to Fall Down at any minute.

After a minute, Lust came back out and handed the house keys to the dog. “Lesser, would you go meet Papyrus at the portal? We’ll be fine inside the house.”

Really? That was the sexy universe’s Lesser Dog? Huh, thought Papyrus, and then remembered that none of it mattered. Sans was gone, Sans was dead, and he’d killed him himself, he’d killed him twice over, first when he betrayed him and then when he physically … Papyrus felt sick. He refused to throw up, though; whatever was left of Sans was inside him, and if that was the only way he could keep his brother with him, he wasn’t going to let go of it. Suddenly he wished Alphys had let him keep Sans’s bandanna—he’d always worn it, even though it was torn and battle-scarred now. Papyrus was surprised to feel tears run down his skull toward the carpet. That hadn’t happened since they’d ejected him into Hotland.

“Oh,” said Lust, noticing. “Don’t cry. No, wait. Maybe do cry. You must have a lot of grief to work through. I know it hurts, but you can’t stay dead inside forever.”

“Can if I’m dead outside too.”

“Come on, don’t say that.”

The door opened and the sexy version of Lesser Dog came back in, followed by another skeleton. For a moment Papyrus felt curious what the unreasonably sexy version of himself looked like, but finding that out wasn’t worth dealing with yet another monster trying to interact with him when all he wanted to do was lie here and dust. He refused to look.

“Hello, Sans,” the other Papyrus said. There was a brief clack of bone on bone. “Hello, other me!”

Papyrus ignored him.

“Come on, other me! We have to pack your things!”

“Paps, what? Are we taking him with us?”

“You said you didn’t want to leave him here to dust! He’s clearly in no condition to take care of himself, and we can’t stay here in this extremely hazardous world, certainly not until he’s feeling better.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Oh! If you’re uncomfortable letting him stay with us, I’m sure we can work out other arrangements.”

“No, that’s fine, just… I don’t think he wants to come with us.”

“Hmm. Well! He can always come back here if he wants to—later! After he’s a bit better! Maybe just for a visit.”

“Okay,” Lust conceded. “Slim, we’ll pack up some of your clothes, and if you want anything else we can come back for it, yeah? Come on, Lesser, I think that’s his room over there.”

“Collar,” Papyrus croaked. “On the dresser.” He couldn’t leave without the gift from his brother. It would be almost as good a reminder of him as his bandanna would have.

“A collar?” said Lust, then mumbled as he climbed the stairs, “I’m the last guy in the Underground to kinkshame ya, but you and your bro were not very good at safe, sane and consensual.”

Seeing that Lust and his brother were planning to drag him to their universe, Papyrus gave in and turned his skull to check out the sexy version of himself. His low-riding pants left even less to the imagination than Sans’s shorts, and his shirt—if you could even call it a shirt—ended right below his shoulders. He seemed to have a good deal of ecto-flesh manifest as a matter of course, and his magic was a startling pink.

“Nice to meet you, scary me,” said the other Papyrus, striking an unnecessarily sexy pose. “My brother says we can call you Slim. I guess you can call me—”

“Pink,” suggested Papyrus, staring at his midriff.

“Sure!” The other Papyrus, stuck out his tongue, probably meaning to be cute, in a sexy way. Unfortunately those were just the pieces of ecto-anatomy that Papyrus didn’t want to be reminded of right now, if ever again. He turned his skull away.

“Don’t cry,” said Pink. Papyrus hadn’t even noticed he was. “I’m going to help you stand up, okay?”

Papyrus didn’t say anything, so Pink pulled him up into a sitting position. Papyrus let him. He didn’t care what they did to him. Maybe it was all a trick and once they got him back to their own territory they would torture him to death. That would be nice.

Lust and the dog came back downstairs, the dog hauling a bag of clothes and Lust twirling Papyrus’s collar from his fingers. He came over and fastened it around Papyrus’s neck. “There you go, Slim! Is there anything else you wanna bring right now?”

Slim just let his skull tilt a little, savoring the familiar feel of the collar against his bones.

Lust took that as a no. “Okay, let’s go.” He and Pink got Papyrus to his feet, draping the blanket over him like a cloak, and started half-carrying him toward the door. He cooperated a little. There was no need to force them to drag him through the snow to the lab. He still hoped they would do him a favor and dust him as vengeance for what he’d done to Lust. But if he was honest, he knew they were just going to try and help him. That would be much more annoying.