Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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List Search Criteria

Let's see...

It floats around an empty patch of Void, wondering to Itself.

CLASSIC, EARLY STAGES, ABANDONED FRISK, NO VOID DWELLERS, UNTAMPERED

SEARCHING...

DISPLAYING RESULTS

A large display of windows appear in front of It, each showing rapidly flashing strings of code. It looks through them, swiping a few away with Its right hand.

No, not that one...

Interesting but not what I want...

Oh, I'll have to come back to that one later...

Ah!

Here!

Most of the windows disperse, leaving only one. It reaches out and touches the window, and the display changes. A predicted timeline with past events and possible futures is displayed. 

This will do wonderfully.

It checks the current progress in the timeline.

Although, it may take a while for this fruit to ripen.

Ah, I can be patient.

Time to set it up.

ISOLATE SIMULATION?

YES

CONFIRMED. ISOLATING...

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It is late. The moon would be bright overhead if it wasn't for the rainclouds that blocked it, raining down on the town.

On nights like these, most people would sleep through them without a second thought.

A man walks through the rain, cursing under his breath. In his hand he is holding a covered basket. With his free hand, he pulls out a cigarette and tries to light it, only to be foiled by the rain. He curses again.

A cry comes from the basket in his hand. He hits it, saying "Oh, shuddap already. You're not gonna be my problem for much longer."

The crying goes quiet. He looks ahead and sees the building he was looking for. A crooked grin crosses his face as he reads the sign in front of the building. Orphanage.

He gets to the wooden door with metallic door knockers and unceremoniously drops the basket on the doorstep. "There. Not my problem anymore." He laughs to himself as he turns and walks away quickly, without even knocking on the door.

The baby sits alone in the dark, cold, and wet night. She shivers. She begins to softly cry.

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CONNECTION ESTABLISHED

Didn't even let anyone know you're here.

The baby's crying stops.

You poor thing.

Not even a chance to have a family.

But aren't you lucky.

I can change that for you.

Through a small opening in the cover on the basket, the baby watches the dark figure, who seems to be reflected in the shiny metal.

This next experiment should prove to be very

very

interesting.

It snaps Its fingers. A dark hole appears under the basket, causing it to slowly descend. The baby begins crying.

No need to cry.

I'm sure you'll have a great time.

The basket goes lower and lower into the darkness, which passes over the baby, silencing her. Then, the basket is gone.

Now to relocate you.

//////////////////////////////

The orphanage matron opens the door. She looks around, swearing she heard something.

She steps out onto the doorstep and looks into the dark night. She sees nothing.

She shrugs, assuming she imagined it. She closes the door behind her and relocks it.

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TARGET LOCATED

Ah, there he is.

I wonder what he will think of this little present.

CONNECTION ESTABLISHED

In front of a dirty doorstep, a dark hole opens. A basket rises from out of the darkness, a sleeping baby girl inside it.

Aw, you're so cute at this age.

It moved Its distorted form around the little bits of metal on the door.

This will certainly be entertaining.

Hmm...

A bit low tech, but I can still make it work.

ACCESSING SYSTEM

*Ding Dong*

Have fun little one.

See you soon.

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A moment later, the door opens. A skeleton stands in the doorframe, seeming completely shocked.

"...oh," is all he manages to say.

Sans lies down on the old couch. He has spent the day doing odd jobs, and he just finished reading his brother a bed time story. He is beyond exhausted. He closes his eye sockets and wonders if they will always have to live like this.

Sans considers his options. He could find some of the old man's uncompleted projects and sell them for some G, but he doesn't really feel like it. Even if everyone has forgotten about him, he doesn't really need to do any of that. It's just him and Pap, after all. Sure, they'll miss a few meals every now and then, but Sans is sure he can eventually-

*Ding Dong*

Sans opens his eyes and looks at the door. "we have a doorbell?" he mumbles. He considers who it could possibly be. The old man is gone, and he was the only one Sans could possibly expect. No one else knows where he lives, after all.

Sans sighs and forces himself to stand. He scratches his tired bones and walks to the door.

"who the heck would be here at this hour?" Sans absentmindedly asks.

He looks through the peephole and sees nothing.

Sans sighs, assuming it was some teens pulling pranks.

Sans prepares to chew out anyone he sees as he opens the door.

...

He isn't expecting the baby.

Sans' mind races at the sight of the abandoned child at his doorstep. They appear to be sleeping, but he isn't sure what kind of monster they are. Suddenly, he remembers something the doctor had shown him once and the the realization sends another shock through his system. This was a human child on his doorstep.

Sans' mind is overwhelmed. He has no idea what to do, what to say. All he can manage was a weak "...oh."

Sans feels a tapping on his shoulder. He spins around and sees his brother behind him, rubbing at his eyes. "SANS? WHAT'S THE MATTER?"

Sans moves to block his view of the basket. "nothing paps. sorry, did i wake you?"

Papyrus shakes his head. "NO, IT WAS THE..." Papyrus trails off, noticing something behind Sans. "...WHAT'S THAT?"

Sans wants to curse. He sometimes hates how observant his brother is. He hasn't even had enough time to process what was going on. "um... it's... uh..."

Papyrus moves Sans to one side and gasps. He runs over and picks up the child. "SANS, IS THIS WHAT I THINK IT IS?"

Sans isn't sure what to say. "um... it's..."

Before he can say any more, Papyrus holds up the child in delight. "IT'S A NEW SIBLING!"

Sans' face freezes. "...what?"

Papyrus clutches the baby to his chest. "I ASKED SANTA FOR A SIBLING FOR GYFTMAS AND HE DELIVERED! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, SANS?"

Sans decides it would be easier to just play along. He shrugs, saying, "yup. must have been because of how well behaved you were all year."

Papyrus looks proud of himself. "WELL I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS AFTER ALL. NYEH HEH-"

The baby shifts in his arms and Papyrus adjusts her. He finishes quietly: "heh!"

Sans puts his hand on his little brother's head. "let's get them inside, shall we?" Papyrus nods and carefully moves inside, holding the baby in his arms. Sans is about to close the door when he notices something else in the basket. He carefully reaches inside and pulls out a piece of paper. One thing is written on it. Frisk. Sans looks at the word. It must be the kid's name.

Sans looks around, hoping to find any clue as to who could have left them here. He sees no one anywhere nearby. He looks at the note again and sighs. Maybe he'll have to sell some of the old man's projects after all.

Chapter Text

Sans has brought in the basket and is entertaining the now-awake small child with some magic tricks. Papyrus is getting food for the child.

He pokes his head outside the kitchen and asks, "WHAT KIND OF FOOD SHOULD I BRING?"

Sans shrugs, smiling at the small child as they reach for the objects he is floating above them. "something soft. i don't think they can eat hard food yet."

Papyrus looks through the kitchen. He calls out, asking, "WHAT ABOUT YOUR KETCHUP THEN?"

Sans chuckles. "not so sure that's the best idea bro. don't we have some apple sauce?"

Papyrus looks around the kitchen. "AH, FOUND IT!" He comes out with a jar and a spoon. He puts the spoon in the jar and brings out out some apple sauce, then moves the spoon towards Frisk's mouth. "HERE COMES THE TSUNDERPLANE! SAY AH!"

Frisk seems unimpressed. Sans chuckles again. "you know, this reminds me of when you were a baby bones."

Papyrus huffs. "I'M NOT A BABY BONES ANYMORE!"

Sans shrugs. "sure you aren't."

Papyrus looks a bit annoyed, much to Sans' amusement. "YOU'LL SEE BROTHER. ONE DAY I'LL BE THE BIG SIBLING. I'LL GROW UP TO BE A VERY TALL SKELETON!"

Sans laughs. "sure you will bro. then i can look up to you."

Papyrus seems proud. Then he realizes the joke.

He puts the spoon on the table and begins to softly hit his brother's chest. "SANS, YOU BONEHEAD! DON'T MAKE FUN OF ME!"

Frisk starts laughing, startling the two skeletons. Papyrus leans over Frisk and says, "BONEHEAD?" Frisk breaks out into another round of giggles.

Sans chuckles. "seems they've got a funny bone."

"SAAAANS!" Papyrus says. Frisk breaks out into more giggles.

Sans looks down at Frisk. "you really like those jokes, don't you?"

Papyrus groans. "SANS, WHY MUST YOU BE SUCH A NUMBSKULL?" Frisk giggles harder.

Sans smiles genuinely as Papyrus goes and picks up Frisk. "WE MUST MAKE SURE THEY HAVE A PROPER SENSE OF HUMOR. SO STOP WITH YOUR AWFUL PUNS!"

Sans shrugs. "i dunno paps, the kid seems to think they're puntastic." Papyrus groans as Frisk giggles more.

Sans looks at the time. "well if the kiddo isn't going to eat, you two should get to bed. it's late."

Papyrus nods as he gently rocks Frisk, her eyelids drooping from the motion. He carefully sets Frisk down in the basket as she dozes off.

Sans quietly tells his brother, "why don't you take them to your room with you. you can make sure they stay safe."

Papyrus salutes in confirmation and oh so carefully picks up the basket and returns to his room.

Sans hears the door gently shut and walks towards the couch. He falls onto it with a sigh.

He has no idea how to take care of a human child. He remembers that the last human child that had been raised in the Underground was adopted by the royal family. The rest...

Sans shudders. He isn't sure why, but he really doesn't like the idea of turning the kid over to the king. It's bad enough they're using the SOULs of kids to break the barrier, but a baby? Sans shakes his head. He won't allow it.

Then Sans has an idea. Maybe the king has some books lying around on how to raise a human child. Sans stands up and prepares himself. He's only been to the castle once when he was younger, when the old man had brought him. He remembers the space within the castle and focuses. He takes a step forwards and teleports.

He looks around the room he's ended up in. He remembers sneaking away from the old man during their visit and finding this room, which looked like it belonged to children. The royal children. Fortunately, no one was there.

He silently walks over to the bookshelf and reads some of the titles. He doesn't see what he's looking for at first. Then he spots it. He grabs the book and looks at the back. Reading over it, it seems to be a "how to raise a child for dummies" book, but the cover had long faded.

Sans puts the book under his arm and is about to teleport back when he has a thought. He walks over to the toy bin and grabs one out. He figures no one will miss one toy. He smiles, looking at the stuffed fluffy bunny in his hands. If the kid doesn't like it, Paps is sure to love it.

Sans takes a step forwards and teleports back to his house, just outside Papyrus' door. He peeks inside and sees Papyrus asleep with Frisk next to him. Sans smiles softly and silently shuts the door.

Sans sits on the couch and opens the book. He begins to read about how to raise humans.

"SANS! SANS! SANS!"

Sans is startled awake by his brother's voice. "what's wro-"

Frisk is crying. Sans looks at Frisk, who is in Papyrus' arms. "THEY JUST STARTED CRYING AND I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO GET THEM TO STOP!"

Sans looks at the book on his chest and quickly flips to different pages. "did you try feeding them? burping them?"

Papyrus shakes his head. "THEY DIDN'T WANT THE FOOD! I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!"

Sans rapidly flips through the pages, hoping for something. Suddenly, he stops on one. "did you check their diaper?"

Papyrus looks confused. "DIAPER? WHAT'S THAT?"

Sans is about to explain, but thinks better of it. "nevermind, just put them down on the kitchen table, i'll be right back."

Sans takes a step forward, holding the book, and appears in the dump. He checks the picture of a diaper and begins searching though the trash. He gets lucky and finds a clean one almost immediately. He uses magic to make sure it's clean before teleporting back to the kitchen, where Papyrus is with the still crying Frisk.

Papyrus looks at the thing in Sans' hand and asks, "WHAT'S THAT?"

Sans shakes his head. "not important. wait outside the kitchen."

Papyrus looks nervous. "BUT-"

Sans shakes his head again. "trust me paps."

Papyrus nods his head after a moment and runs out of the kitchen.

Sans looks at the diaper in his hand and the instructions on how to change it.

Sans takes a deep breath. He hopes he'll do it right.

Papyrus sits on the couch, holding onto the fluffy bunny he just found. He figures Sans must have gotten it for Frisk. He can hear their crying.

He waits patiently. After a moment or two, the crying finally stops. Sans steps out of the kitchen another moment later, looking very tired. "good news," he says. "you've got yourself a little sister."

Papyrus gasps in surprise. "A SISTER?"

Sans nods but refuses to elaborate. He carefully offers her to Papyrus.

Papyrus gives Frisk the fluffy bunny and she immediately takes it into a hug, babbling happily.

Papyrus takes her into his arms and gently rocks her. "I PROMISE I WILL BE THE BEST BIG BROTHER I CAN FOR HER!"

Sans chuckles. "well since you promised, i'll have to hold you to that."

Papyrus chuckles. "NYEH HEH HEH. I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS. I ALWAYS KEEP MY WORD!"

Sans nods, silently hoping he'd NEVER have to do that again.

It's been a few days since the 'diaper' incident and, fortunately for Sans, he did not have to repeat that action. The brothers have put Frisk in some of Papyrus' old clothes, though they seem too big for her most of the time.

Sans wanted to go out and buy proper clothes, but he can't because no one can know about Frisk, and he doesn't have the money anyway. He occasionally goes to the dump and brings back any clothes small enough for her that he could find.

Papyrus is almost always with Frisk, feeding her when she's hungry and playing with her when she wants to. According to what Sans read, the kid is learning incredibly fast. She's already trying to learn to walk, with Papyrus' help and encouragement.

He isn't sure exactly how old she is, but he is pretty certain she isn't even a year old yet. The thought rattles in his skull. Someone had abandoned her at such a young age. Why? Are humans really just that awful? He looks at Frisk, who is playing with Papyrus, and promises himself he will do his best to make sure she doesn't turn out like that.

Sans looks up at the ceiling, wondering just how she even got on his doorstep. They live far away from any holes to the surface, no other humans have been reported, and she is far to young to even understand where she is.

Sans hears her giggling and looks over. He smiles softly. Maybe it was the old man's doing. Maybe it was just fate. Sans doesn't care either way. He will protect her as best as he can. And if he happens to figure out where she came from, that will just be one mystery solved among countless others. It doesn't really matter to him, in the end. As long as his younger siblings are happy, he can be happy.

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Perfect.

She's integrated nicely.

RECORD WORLD DATA

WORLD DATA BEING RECORDED

Great.

Now to set the timer and come back in 15 years.

SETTING ALERT NOTIFICATION

What to do...

What to do...

Hmm...

Maybe I'll check out that flower parasite from that Fell AU variant.

It could be very

very

interesting...

CONNECTION TERMINATED

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Chapter Text

Sans knows he'll need to get more G soon. What little he's been saving won't last long with the extra mouth to feed. He looks over a few of the old man's unfinished blueprints, hoping he can make something worth some G. He grabs a few random papers and stuffs them into a backpack before he teleports to the dump.

Sans sets down his bag and climbs up one of the trash piles. He begins looking through it, throwing old electronics over his shoulder and into his bag. He finds a figurine of some kind of a human with cat ears. He chuckles and throws it over his shoulder.

"Ow!"

Sans stops searching and looks at where the voice came from.

He carefully makes his way over the garbage piles and peeks over the one close to where the noise had been. He sees a yellow scaled monster rubbing her head. In front of her are a pair of glasses and the figurine he just threw.

Sans slides down the trash pile next to her. "sorry bout that, my bad," he says. He carefully reaches down and picks her glasses up out of the water. He tries to wipe them off with his sleeve before handing them back to her. "thought i was alone here today."

"I-it's no problem," the monster says, taking back her glasses. She puts them on and seems surprised by his appearance. "Woah. Are you a skeleton?"

Sans looks down at himself. "last time i checked." He sticks out his hand. "name's sans. sans the skeleton."

She takes his hand to shake it.

A long dramatic farting noise echoes through the cave.

Sans laughs and shows his hand. He has a whoopie cushion attached to his glove. "heheh, the old whoopie-cushion-in-the-hand trick. it's always funny."

After a moment of shock, the other monster begins laughing as well. "Oh my goodness, you gave me quite the fright." She looks around the empty dump nervously. "I-I don't usually come alone. My friends were busy today so I wasn't expecting to find anyone else here... M-my name's Alphys."

She reaches down and inspects the figurine that had hit her. She gasps. "T-this is a limited edition Kissy Kissy Mew Mew figurine!" She looks up at Sans eagerly. "Where did you find this?"

Sans looks surprised and points with his thumb to where he had come from. "i was collecting parts over there and came across it. is it valuable?"

Alphys looks a bit sad. "N-no not really, unless y-you're a fan of the s-series."

Sans closes his eyes and moves his head up towards the ceiling. Then he moves his head back down and cracks one eye to look at her. "fans of the series huh? i'm figuring you are one then?"

Alphys takes a second to process his statement before snort laughing at the joke. "Oh my gosh, that was hilarious."

Sans shrugs. "guess i'm a real comic sans."

Alphys starts laughing harder. "No no, stop! I can't breathe!"

Sans chuckles. "you sure? i could keep going."

Alphys shakes her head. "No more! It's too much!"

Sans shrugs as Alphys collects herself. She smiles at the skeleton. "You said you were collecting parts?"

Sans nods. "working on some of my o-... old projects i dug up. i need the G and i'm hoping i can sell some of them for it."

Alphys looks surprised. "You build things?"

Sans shrugs. "not often but yeah, i can build. program too. i know a thing or two about a thing or two."

Alphys looks surprised. "Did you find any good parts?"

Sans shrugs. "some old electronics and bits of metal. why? you invent too?"

Alphys blushes. "N-no not really, I m-mostly restore old pieces I find."

Sans chuckles. "why don't you take a look at what i found. maybe you can find a part you need."

Alphys looks surprised. She asks, "Really?"

Sans nods. "it's the least i can do after hitting you in the head." He climbs up the trash pile. "come on. my bag's just over here."

Alphys quickly follows Sans over the trash pile. Sans slides down the other side and picks up a bag, holding it open for her. She looks through it and grabs out a few pieces from an old phone. "I-I think I can repair these. B-but are you sure it's okay for me to..."

Sans nods. "i told you earlier, it's the least i could do. and i love doing the least i have to."

Alphys snorts, then covers her mouth, blushing. Sans closes the bag and flips it over his shoulder. "welp, i've better be going. my siblings are waiting for me at home." He looks at Alphys with an expression of faint hope on his face. "maybe i'll see you around again?"

Alphys nods. "I-I come here for parts every now and then so it's logical to assume we will encounter each other again in the future."

Sans looks at her for a moment before laughing. "you know, you remind me of someone i used to know." He waves over his shoulder, heading deeper into the dump, a few blueprints sticking out from one of his pockets. "see you around, alphys."

Alphys looks at him, wondering where he is going. "Um... the exit is..." She blinks, and suddenly, he's gone. She notices a blueprint left where he just was. She rushes over to it and grabs it before it can fall into the water. "Oh no, he dropped this!" She opens the blueprint and looks at it. She can't read some of the characters on it, but the title is clear enough. "DT extractor?" She looks over the math equations and scientific formula. Her eyes widen in shock. It's brilliant, assuming it will work. She rolls up the blueprint and puts it in her bag, planning to return it the next time she sees Sans.

As she collects the phone pieces and walks out of the dump, she keeps thinking about the blueprint. Sans has a bunch of them. Surely he won't mind if she borrows this one, just for a little while. She'll return it... eventually.

Chapter Text

“FRISK!”

Frisk looks up from the battered set of blocks she’d been stacking. Papyrus meets her eyes and grins even wider than usual, then plops down in front of her and lays out a series of colorful plastic chips.

“SEE THESE?”

His sister seems to be looking, so he continued. “THIS IS A PUZZLE. CAN YOU SAY PUZZLE? PUZ-ZLE?” Sans says his book says Frisk should say her first word in a couple months, but he also said she’d walk a month later than she did, so Papyrus is sure she can figure out talking now.

But Frisk just stares at the plastic chips and doesn’t say anything, so Papyrus talks instead. "I’LL GIVE YOU THREE CLUES, AND THEN YOU FIGURE OUT WHICH WAY TO LINE THEM UP.”

Frisk stares at the plastic chips. Papyrus can’t tell if she’s thinking or confused, but he decides to assume the best and keep going. His sister is very smart, after all, just like her brothers. “THE GREEN ONE GOES NEXT TO THE RED ONE. THE BLUE ONE SHOULDN’T BE NEXT TO THE RED ONE. AND THE YELLOW ONE GOES NEXT TO THE BLUE ONE.”

It isn’t a very hard puzzle, but if crosswords are too hard for her, like Sans said, Papyrus isn’t sure what else he can give her. Besides, maybe it’s better this way. If she solves her first one easily, that will make her feel good about herself and then she’ll be more likely to like puzzles, right?

The Great Papyrus is an expert on confidence. And he himself is quite confident that this will go well somehow.

Frisk stares at the plastic chips for a moment, then pushes the red one and the green one together and the blue one and the yellow one together. Then she pushes the two pairs together so the green one and the yellow one are touching.

It meets all Papyrus’s conditions, although it isn’t the order he had in mind.

He cheers anyway. This is a confidence-building exercise, after all! Then he sits back and thinks. There has to be another puzzle he can give Frisk – one that’ll actually challenge her.

He can’t think of anything that wouldn’t require her to read, but he runs upstairs to look anyway.

He doesn’t find anything in his own room, but when he goes to ask Sans if he has any ideas, he spots something. Lying next to the pile of parts Sans is working with is a Rubik’s cube. It’s kinda dirty – Sans must have found it in the dump – but it’s perfect.

“CAN I HAVE THAT?” Papyrus asks, pointing at it.

Sans looks up from the thing he’s trying to build. “i thought you were playing with frisk.”

“I AM! SHE SOLVED THE COLORS PUZZLE SUPER EASY, SO I THOUGHT I’D GIVE HER A HARDER ONE!”

Sans frowns. “pap, i don’t think she’s old enough to do that.”

“YOU’RE THE ONE WHO SAID SHE ACTS OLDER THAN SHE IS!”

“yeah, all right. go ahead. just don’t be too frustrated if she doesn’t know what to do with it, okay?”

Papyrus darts into the room to grab the cube, then retreats to the doorway. “THE GREAT PAPYRUS NEVER GETS FRUSTRATED!”

And with that trap laid – Papyrus knows Sans can bring up a dozen times he did, but also doesn’t want to argue – the younger skeleton waits for a moment. Sans does the smart thing and doesn’t say anything, so Papyrus runs back to Frisk.

She’s still kneeling on the floor, playing with the colorful plastic chips. Papyrus kneels beside her and shows her the Rubik’s cube. “SEE THIS, FRISK? THIS IS A RUBIK’S CUBE! YOU TWIST THE SIDES, LIKE THIS, AND YOU TRY TO GET ALL THE COLORS ON ONE SIDE!”

He hesitates, then hands her the cube. Frisk turns it over in her tiny hands, staring at it with wide eyes.

“CAN YOU SAY COLOR? COL-LOR?”

“Ga ga ba,” Frisk says. Which is cute, but not quite what Papyrus was aiming for.

“WHAT ABOUT CUBE? CAN YOU SAY CUBE?” He draws out the word, putting a lot of emphasis on the “u.”

“Ska!” She turns one of the sides, seemingly randomly.

“ORANGE? CAN YOU SAY OR-RANGE?”

“Kakaga!”

“WHAT ABOUT PAPYRUS?” He leans in a little closer. “CAN YOU SAY MY NAME?”

She doesn’t even grace that one with an answer.

Well. Papyrus wonders if she’s old enough for him to be offended by that or not.

Frowning, he looks over his shoulder and around the room for something else he can ask her about. Desk? Wall? Chair? Those all seem like such boring options. If he got to choose what his first word was, he wouldn’t want it to be chair. He’d want it to be something cool!

Maybe Frisk just hasn’t said her first word because he hasn’t given her a cool enough one to – wait, no. It can’t be that. He’s asked her to say his name, after all, and he’s the coolest person Frisk knows.

Still thinking, he turns back to her – and a wide grin spreads across his face.

Frisk is sitting there, looking up at him, with a solved Rubik’s cube sitting in her lap, clapping happily.

Papyrus grabs it out of her hands and runs into Sans’s room. “SANS! SANS!!”

Sans looks up. “what’s up, bro?”

“LOOK AT THIS! LOOK AT IT!! FRISK SOLVED IT!”

Sans sat up straight. “she what?”

“SHE SOLVED IT! LOOK!”

Sans frowns, and Papyrus does, too. “SHE DID! I SWEAR!”

Sans’s face smooths out, fading into a neutral smile, and Papyrus’s invisible guts ripple with annoyance. Doesn’t his brother believe him?

“i’m sure you’re telling the truth,” Sans says slowly, “but… look, frisk should be way too young to do that. so i’m gonna want to see it for myself, okay?”

Papyrus stomps his foot, scowling. Sans always says he looks goofy doing that, and indeed, Sans grins upon seeing the look on his face. “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! FRISK CAN TOTALLY DO IT AGAIN, BECAUSE SHE’S GREAT AT PUZZLES! ALMOST AS GREAT AS I AM!”

Sans stands up. “i’m not saying i don’t believe you. just that i wanna see it. c’mon, how about you lead me to the living room?”

Papyrus rolls his eyes. “YOU CAN FIND YOUR WAY TO THE LIVING ROOM YOURSELF! IT’S WAY TOO EARLY FOR YOU TO BE THAT LAZY!”

And with that, Papyrus runs back to the living room, resetting the Rubik’s cube without looking at it as he goes. He can hear Sans following him much more slowly.

Frisk is still there, and now she’s knocking over the block towers she built earlier. Papyrus stops in the doorway and waits for Sans to catch up before marching up to Frisk and giving her the cube.

“CAN YOU SOLVE IT AGAIN?” he asks.

He knows the answer already. Just like those magicians Sans told him about.

But it looks like he was wrong. Frisk picks up the cube and adds it to her stack of weathered blocks, but she doesn’t try to do anything else with it.

Papyrus frowns, then, unable to resist, looks over his shoulder at Sans. His brother meets his eyes and shrugs. Papyrus scowls, although there’s really nothing he can be mad at – it’s not like Sans is saying “i told you so.”

He turns back to Frisk, wanting to take the cube back if it seems like she won’t miss it – and she’s holding it again.

It’s been solved.

And suddenly Papyrus is grinning again.

He picks up the cube and turns back to his brother, feeling triumphant. “SEE?”

Sans smiles, and it’s real, not some neutral conciliatory mask. He’s proud, Papyrus can tell. And then Sans raises his hands and starts clapping. Slowly, and only about three times, but still. “nice. i wouldn’t think a kid too young to talk could do that.”

Papyrus hesitates, then decides that fortune favors the bold and goes right on ahead. “SHE’S NOT TOO YOUNG TO TALK!”

“she hasn’t said anything yet.”

“BUT SHE CAN!” Papyrus turns to Frisk, and, silently begging her not to embarrass him, says, “CAN YOU SAY MY NAME, FRISK? PA-PY-RUS?”

Frisk doesn’t say anything. Papyrus doesn’t look at Sans, he just takes the Rubik’s cube back and starts resetting it.

“…Pap?”

Papyrus looks up.

Frisk is looking up at him, her eyes wide and hopeful and fixed on the Rubik’s cube.

“YES,” Papyrus breathes. “THAT’S IT. THAT’S MY NAME!” He knew it was cool enough for her to say it first!

He puts the cube on the ground, then lunges forward and picks her up. He’s not super big for his age, but Frisk is small for hers and so he’s plenty big enough to lift her high into the air and spin her around. “YOU SAID MY NAME!”

Sans chuckles, then comes forward, standing just behind them as Papyrus pulls Frisk down into a more stable hold.

“Pap,” she repeats, then points at the Rubik’s cube on the floor, then, much more forcefully, “Pap!”

Sans laughs. “think she wants her puzzle back, bro.”

And Papyrus is all too happy to give it to her. Then he turns back to Sans. “SEE? I TOLD YOU SHE COULD DO IT!”

“i didn’t doubt you, bro.”

“SHE’S SUPER GOOD AT PUZZLES!”

“well of course she is. she spends most of her time with you.”

“EXACTLY!” Papyrus stomps his foot for emphasis, although he’s grinning, so he’s sure Sans can tell he isn’t angry anymore. “AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT!”

Sans chuckles, then runs his hand over Papyrus’s skull in a gesture that smoothly changes into ruffling Frisk’s hair as she gives a pleased little crow and holds up the cube – solved, once again. “i won’t, don’t worry. i’m not such a numbskull that i could forget you.”

Frisk giggles, the little traitor. “SANS!”

“c’mon, bro, it was just one bone-ly little joke.”

“YOU’VE SAID THAT A MILLION TIMES!” Papyrus shouts, right over his sister’s high-pitched laughter.

“and it gets funnier every time. come on. how do you feel about hot dogs for dinner?”

Chapter Text

Sans searches through the garbage, trying to collect parts. He isn't finding a lot of salvageable tech. He only needs a few more components to finish the machine he was working on, but he knows they're rare. 

Sans absentmindedly wonders how the old man had been able to collect enough metal for the Core, much less the lab. Maybe he'd known something Sans didn't. Sans mentally corrects himself, thinking there was a lot the old man knew he didn't.

"O-oh, hello again S-Sans."

Sans turns and smiles at the familiar face. "oh hey, alphys. it's been a while."

Alphys nods her head. "Y-yeah, I was working on r-repairing the p-parts you gave me last time. I-I managed to fix it." She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a device. "O-on the surface i-it's called a phone. N-not many monsters have them b-but they allow you to c-contact people from a distance."

Sans looks at her in surprise, sliding down the trash pile to stand next to her. "that's gotta be worth quite a bit then."

Alphys shrugs. "I-it depends on the person. I-if you don't know a-anyone with one, i-it's kind of... pointless?"

Sans nods. "ah, i see..."

Alphys pushes her hand, holding the phone, out to him, much to his surprise. "H-here, i-it's for you."

Sans' eye sockets widen. "you sure, alphys? didn't you spend a lot of time fixing that thing?"

Alphys nods. "Y-yeah, b-but I want y-you to have it. T-that's what f-friends are f-for right?" She seems almost scared. "W-we are friends, r-right?"

Sans looks at her in surprise. He takes the phone, saying, "of course we are. us tech nerds gotta stick together, right?"

Alphys seems relived. "O-oh thank g-goodness. I-I was so n-nervous you'd r-reject me."

Sans shakes his head. "what gave you that idea, al?"

Alphys looks surprised. "A-Al?"

Sans shrugs. "it's a nickname. you don't mind, do yo-"

"N-no!" Alphys quickly interrupts. "I-it's fine, I-I just wasn't expecting it."

Alphys looks behind him at his nearly empty bag. "What are you looking for?"

Sans shrugs. "just some parts for the machine i'm working on." He reaches into his pocket and hands her a paper with a list of parts on it.

Alphys whistles. "Wow, those are some rare parts."

Sans gestures at the backpack. "i know. i've been here for an hour now and all i've found was scrap."

Alphys looks nervous. "I-I could k-keep an eye out for you. You know, if you want me to..."

Sans looks at her in surprise and joy. "really? that would be great! are you sure it won't be an issue though?"

Alphys shakes her head. "N-no problem. I come here a lot anyway. It's easy enough to keep an eye out for these parts. If I find one, I'll call you," she says, pointing at the phone.

Alphys suddenly blushes slightly. "I-if you ever n-need to call me, I l-left my number in y-your phone too."

Sans clicks a few buttons and sees a number in his contacts. He quickly begins typing something in the phone.

Alphys looks at him, confused. "W-what are you doing?"

Sans shows her his phone. He has changed her contact name to "Godzilla, queen of the nerds."

Alphys snort laughs at that. "Y-you've seen 'Godzilla?'"

Sans shrugs. "a while ago. i don't have anything to watch it on anymore, though."

Alphys looks nervous. "I-if you're interested, m-maybe you could come by my house sometimes a-and we could w-watch some old shows?"

Sans winks at her. "sounds like a date."

Alphys blushes hard. "A-a d-date!"

Sans laughs. "sorry, just pulling your tail. sounds great al."

Alphys smiles and pulls out her phone. She blushes as she shows Sans his contact information.

Sans chuckles. "comic sans. you do have a funny bone, don't ya?"

Alphys blushes and laughs nervously. "Heheh, y-yeah, I guess..."

Sans winks and grabs his bag. "well, i better get going." He heads deeper into the dump and waves at her over his shoulder. "i'll call you soon, al."

Alphys blinks and he's gone. She absentmindedly wonders how he does that.

Alphys climbs the trash pile, looking for parts. "Aha!" She reaches for a buried circuit board, inspecting it. "It's a bit corroded, but I should be able to get it working. This will be perfect for the body. I just need to find someone who's willing to help me test it."

Chapter Text

Sans sits on the couch, watching Papyrus and Frisk play some simple games. Right now, Papyrus is showing Frisk patty cake. She seems to be having a great time.

Sans suddenly feels a vibration coming from his pocket. He reaches in and pulls out the phone Alphys gave him.

Papyrus notices. "WHAT'S THAT?" Papyrus asks.

Sans turns the device in his direction so he can see it. "it's called a phone. it's for keeping in contact with people. a friend gave it to me a few days ago."

Papyrus gasps in surprise. "SANS! YOU MADE A FRIEND?" He rushes over hand hugs his brother. "I'M SO HAPPY FOR YOU!"

Frisk giggles happily, clapping her hands.

Sans chuckles. "thanks pap. i didn't really do anything honestly."

Papyrus mumbles to himself, "I DON'T THINK ANYONE WOULD BE SURPRISED BY THAT."

Sans chuckles. "what can i say? i've got a reputation to maintain." Sans checks his phone. "she's asking me if i'm free to hang out today and watch some movies with her."

Papyrus looks very excited. "WELL YOU OBVIOUSLY HAVE TO ACCEPT!" Sans raises whatever passes for an eyebrow. Papyrus continues, "YOUR FRIEND IS INVITING YOU TO HANG OUT! YOU CANNOT LET THIS OPPORTUNITY PASS!"

Sans looks surprised. "but i've got to stay here and keep an eye on yo-"

Papyrus grabs his arm and drags him off the couch. "NO BUTS! YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE A GOOD TIME WITH YOUR FRIEND. ME AND FRISK WILL BE FINE." As if to reiterate his point, Frisk giggles and claps. "SEE? YOU GO HAVE FUN WITH YOUR NEW FRIEND."

Papyrus opens the door and shoves Sans out of it. He closes it quickly and calls through it, "DON'T COME BACK UNTIL AFTER YOU SPEND TIME WITH YOUR FRIEND."

Sans chuckles and begins walking away. He didn't expect Papyrus to be this enthusiastic about him having a friend, but if it makes him happy, it couldn't hurt to hang out with her. Sans quickly texts her back, saying he'll meet her at the dump.

Sans kicks a stray can on the ground. Thanks to his shortcuts, he had gotten to the dump instantly.

Sans turns at the sound of footsteps. Alphys walks up behind him, looking nervous. "I-I hope you weren't w-waiting too long for me..."

Sans shakes his head. "it's no problem. i've got nothing but time." Sans chuckles. "my brother forced me out of the house when he learned i had a friend who wanted to hang out. i'm not allowed to return until after i spend some time with you."

Alphys looks embarrassed. "I-I sorry, I-"

Sans shakes his head again. "it's no problem. you should have seen his face light up when he heard i had a friend."

Alphys blushes. "H-he sounds v-very nice."

Sans nods. "my little bro's so cool."

Alphys looked nervous. "D-do you have any o-other siblings?"

Sans nods. "we recently took in an orphan. my brother was so happy to get a little sister."

"O-oh..." Alphys says. She knew it wasn't that uncommon for monsters to end up as orphans, ever since the war. She herself could relate to losing parents. "D-did her parents..."

Sans shrugs. "if you're asking if they fell down, we don't know. she just appeared on our doorstep one day. my bro took an instant liking to her." Sans chuckles. "i guess i did, too. even though she's so young, she seems very smart for her age. she laughs at my jokes and plays with my bro's puzzles."

Alphys looks surprised. "O-oh, how old is she?"

Sans shrugs. "not sure but can't be more than a few months i'd say."

Alphys' eyes widen. "T-that's very advanced!"

Sans nods. "she's a prodigy." He scratches the back of his head. "but enough about me. what did you want to do today?"

Alphys blushes. "O-oh, I was w-wondering i-if you wanted to w-watch some o-old movies with me? I-if it's not t-too much trouble."

Sans shrugs. "i have strict orders not to return home until after i have a good time with my friend." He gestures to the dump exit. "lead the way al."

Sans walks into Alphys' apartment. She rushes past him and quickly throws away some old ramen cups she left lying around. "S-sorry about the mess. I-I don't normally have v-visitors."

Sans shrugs. "no problem. honestly, i'm not much better."

Alphys looks surprised. "R-really?"

Sans chuckles. "if it weren't for my little bro, i'm sure the house wouldn't be livable anymore."

Alphys chuckles, too. She rushes over to a television and begins looking at old tapes. "D-do you have a preference a-about anything or...?"

Sans shrugs. "whatever you recommend, al."

Alphys thinks for a moment. "Do you l-like anime?"

Sans looks at her, confused. "what's an anime?"

Alphys glasses seem to gleam. "That settles it. We're watching some anime so you can learn what it is."

Sans shrugs and sits on the couch in front of the television. "whatever you say, al."

Alphys turns on the television and puts in a VHS. "Sans, my friend, allow me to introduce you to the world of Naruto."

Sans facepalms after seeing Naruto trying to impress Sakura for the umpteenth time. "please tell me he doesn't keep doing that?"

Alphys chuckles. "Sorry, no spoilers. You just have to watch and see."

Sans looks at the screen. "how do the shadow clones work anyway? do they each have their own mind or something?"

Alphys shakes her head. "No, they all share the same memories. They're essentially copies of the original person."

Sans raises whatever passes for an eyebrow. "and they're just fine disappearing afterwards like it's nothing?"

Alphys shrugs. "Not completely sure. Maybe Naruto just never thought of it like that so his clones didn't either."

Sans chuckles. "zero multiplied by a hundred."

Alphys laughs at that.

Sans looks at the time. "welp, i better get going. gotta prepare dinner for my siblings." He stands and looks at Alphys. "thanks for this, al. i've been stressed lately and i think i really needed this."

Alphys nods her head. "O-oh it's fine. C-come over whenever. J-just please give me a head up first?"

Sans chuckles. "sure thing, al."

Alphys has a thought. "O-oh, here." She rushes over and grabs some thin paper books. "T-they're called manga. If you liked anime you m-might enjoy these too. You read them f-from right to left. This one's called 'My Hero Academia.'"

Sans looks down at the cover. There are multiple humans on it, in various costumes. He puts it in his inventory. "i'll check it out, al. thanks for the recommendation." He winks at her as he turns to walk away. "i'll see ya later, alligator."

Sans walks into the kitchen. Alphys stands and rushes after him. "W-wait, the exit is..." She enters the empty kitchen. She looks around and sighs. One of these days, she'll have to ask him about how he does that.

Sans closes the door behind him. Papyrus looks up at him from where he's playing with Frisk. He beams at Sans. "HOW WAS YOUR DATE, SANS?"

Sans stutters, face turning blue with a blush. "it wasn't a date paps. why'd you think it was?"

Papyrus tilts his head. "ISN'T THAT WHAT YOU CALL IT WHEN YOU HANG OUT ALONE WITH A FRIEND?"

Sans shakes his head. "no paps, dates are different. we just sat around and watched some anime. i had a good time, just like you told me to."

Papyrus looks very proud of that. "GOOD. YOU'VE BEEN WORKING SO HARD LATELY. YOU NEEDED SOME TIME TO RELAX."

Sans chuckles. "thanks for worrying about me, bro."

Papyrus puffs his chest. "NYEH HEH HEH. I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS AFTER ALL!"

Sans chuckles as Frisk applauds Papyrus. "you're so cool bro."

Chapter Text

There are always books lying around the house. Big ones, usually, or smaller ones full of jokes, or books filled with other books. Sometimes Sans reads them. Papyrus is used to books.

This one is weird, though.

It’s some sort of picture book. But the pictures look like no other art Papyrus has ever seen.

And the words don’t go the right way. When he reads the speech bubbles left to right, it doesn’t make any sense. And the cover is on the back and the back is on the cover.

It can only mean one thing: this book must be some sort of puzzle!

Therefore, Papyrus will solve it.

He finds a comfortable spot behind the couch and curls up, shifting around to find just the perfect spot. Once he’s finally found it, he opens the book to what he thinks is the first page.

It is not. The book does begin where the cover has been moved to, then.

Papyrus turns it around and cracks it open again. It is definitely a picture book, so it is definitely a story he is supposed to read, so the puzzle must lie in figuring out which order he’s supposed to read the word bubbles in!

He is just about to begin theorizing about that when Sans walks in and spots him.

His brother’s reaction is a puzzle, too. Papyrus has no idea why seeing him with a picture book makes Sans freeze in place and blush bluer than his shirt.

Then Sans hurries over and grabs the book without taking it, grinning that grin he gets when he really doesn’t want to make the expression he’s really thinking of. “Um. Papyrus. Could I have that back?”

Papyrus lets go, confused. “Sure. What is it?”

“Oh, it’s – it’s just some manga – a friend loaned it to me – a friend. Definitely a friend.”

And he turns and walks out of the room very, very quickly.

Papyrus stares after him, baffled. What was that all about?

Sans is over at Alphys' apartment again, watching some anime.

He decides to try and make some small talk. "so... you mentioned you were good at restoring old electronics? got any you're working on now or...?" He cringes internally at his weak attempt.

Alphys fidgets. "I'm c-currently trying to r-reassemble a c-computer."

Sans is surprised. "really? that stuff can be tricky."

Alphys looks at him in surprise. "Y-you're familiar with it?"

Sans nods. "i've helped repair one before. mind if i take a look?"

Alphys pauses the anime and leads him into the kitchen space. At the table, a partially assembled computer sits with parts all around it.

Sans whistles. "i'm impressed, al. not every monster could repair this kind of thing."

Alphys blushes. "I-it's more of a side project. I-it's not that impressive."

Sans looks at some of the parts lying around. "mind if i help you out then?"

Alphys looks at him in shock. "Y-you'd be w-willing to help?"

Sans nods. "it's the least i can do, since you put up with me."

The pair spends the rest of the visit talking as they work on the computer.

Sans sits on the couch reading while Frisk practices her walking next to him. Papyrus is in his room trying to 'solve' the manga Alphys had given him.

Frisk walks over to the couch and looks at him, curious.

Sans points to the book in his hand. "sorry, kiddo. as smart as you are, this may be too advanced for you."

Frisk babbles something as she pulls herself up onto the couch. She stands on the cushion and begins to clap happily.

Sans chuckles. "nice job, sis. just make sure you don't-"

Frisk loses her balance. She waves her little arms as she falls off the couch and onto the ground, landing on her arm.

Sans shoots up and rushes to her. He carefully checks her arm and sees a large purple bruise forming.

Frisk begins to cry. Sans thinks about what to do. "shhh... it's okay, i'm here. i'll make the pain go away."

Sans gives Frisk a soft smile and holds up a hand in front of her. He focuses hard; he hasn't channeled healing magic in a long time. His hand glows a light green. Frisk's crying quiets as she looks at his glowing hand.

"it'll all be fine. you're a strong girl, aren't you? i just need you to hold still for me." Sans slowly moves his hand over to her bruised arm. Frisk flinches when a green magic spark lands on her arm, but the bruise begins to fade where the magic touches it.

Sans slowly moves his hand back and forth over the bruise, and Frisk watches the magic in awe. Finally, the bruise is completely gone. Sans slumps to the floor, leaning against the couch. He had forgotten how draining that kind of magic could be.

Sans looks at Frisk as she looks at her arm then at him. He grins. "see? told ya i'd make it better. so be careful in the future. i don't want to-"

Frisk rushes over and hugs him. Sans is so surprised, he doesn't react at first. He slowly raises a hand to her back and hugs her, too. "no problem, kiddo. that's what family is for."

Alphys and Sans are watching more anime, taking a break from the computer.

Sans voices a thought aloud. "how do they do that thing where they look like other objects? it's not magic, that much is clear."

Alphys thinks for a moment. "I'm actually not entirely sure. They explain it as special techniques, but maybe it's just possible because of how their world works."

Sans shrugs. He thinks to himself. "if you could turn into something else at will, what would you choose?"

Alphys thinks about the question. "Not sure. There are so many options that I can't really decide. Would it be a full transformation or just mimicry?"

Sans looks at her. "mimicry?"

She nods. "Yeah, like having the appearance of but not necessarily the abilities of. It happens a lot in nature, look like something dangerous so predators leave you alone, though sometimes it can be predatory. Some manga have a monster called a Mimic that looks like a treasure chest to trick humans."

Sans rubs his chin. "interesting."

They continue the conversation, but the idea of mimics doesn't leave Sans's mind. An idea forms in the back of his skull.

Sans is working on the unfinished machine when Papyrus walks into the room. Sans looks back at him and asks, "what's up, bro?"

Papyrus holds up the manga and asks, "WHY DOES FRISK LOOK LIKE THESE HUMANS?"

Sans internally flinches, but manages to keep a straight face. He's been expecting this to come up eventually. He just needs to play it cool. "what do you mean?" He walks over to Papyrus as the younger skeleton points to a page.

Sans stares down at the panel Papyrus is pointing to. It’s one centered on Ochaco Uraraka. “SEE? DOESN’T SHE LOOK A BIT LIKE FRISK?”

“she’s a lot taller than frisk, bro.”

“SHE’S GOT THE SAME KIND OF EYES.”

“only skeletons have the kind of eyes we do, bro.”

Papyrus furrows his brow, and for a moment, Sans has hope that his brother will let himself be distracted. “REALLY?”

“yeah. most other kinds of monsters have eyes like frisk’s.”

“COOL! BUT SERIOUSLY, WHY DOES FRISK LOOK SO MUCH LIKE THE PICTURES OF HUMANS IN YOUR BOOKS?”

Sans has been preparing for that question. Now that it comes to it, the answer comes almost as easily as one of his jokes. “because she’s a mimic.”

“WHAT’S A MIMIC?”

“it’s a kind of monster. and they look a lot like humans. so it’s like they were mimicking the humans’ looks, see?”

Papyrus considers that for a moment, then lights right up. “COOL! BUT WHERE ARE THE OTHER MIMICS?”

Sans shrugs. "dunno. they were rare before the war, and wiped out during it, so most monsters don't even know about them."

Papyrus looks upset. "SO SHE'S ALONE? THAT'S SO SAD!"

Sans shakes his head. "she's not alone. she has us. we're her family now."

Papyrus' expression quickly changes to a cheerful one. "YOU'RE RIGHT, BROTHER. WE WILL BE THE BEST FAMILY SHE HAS!"

Sans chuckles. “now how about you go back to playing with her? i’m sure she-”

“SHE FELL ASLEEP.”

“oh.”

“I WANT TO WATCH YOU WORK.”

“all right, bro.”

Sans stood in a dark lab. He knows where he is. He remembers it all very clearly. He turns and, behind him, sees the tube where he and Papyrus were formed. He hasn't been in this room in a long time. He looks at the wall and sees an unfamiliar doorway with some light coming out of it.

Sans is confused. That has never been there before. He slowly walks over to it. He can hear the buzzing of tools from the other side.

He walks through the doorway and is hit by a bright light. As soon as his sight adjusts, he looks around the room.

He wishes he hadn't.

Frisk is strapped to a table. Her entire torso is open. He can see her bones, her flesh... her SOUL. It floats just above her struggling form. Sans can see tears in her eyes. Her dead eyes. Oh no... please no...

Sans isn't sure if skeletons can puke, but he sure wants to.

A figure steps out of the darkness, a tube in his hand. He grabs the SOUL, tossing it into the tube and sealing it.

Sans steps back in surprise. It's the old man. He's ignoring Sans, grinning down at the dissected child's dead body.

Sans' feet start to move. He begins to run the other way. Everything is shrouded in darkness, but that doesn't stop him from seeing Frisk's dead eyes every time he blinks.

He enters a spot of light. He sees Papyrus standing in front of him, his back to him.

Sans tries to speak, but no sound comes out.

Papyrus is holding something shiny.

Sans' eyes widen. It's a knife.

He tries to run to his brother, but it's like he's treading water.

Papyrus lifts the knife to his throat...

And decapitates himself.

Papyrus' body turns to dust as his head falls to the ground. It rolls, and Sans sees the dead expression in Papyrus' face... just before it turns to dust. The light disappears.

Sans screams silently into the suffocating darkness.

Sans shoots up straight, waking from his nightmare with a chill in his bones.

Sans peeks over the back of the couch at Papyrus' room. The door is closed. He must still be asleep, along with Frisk.

Sans stands and silently rushes over to the door. He peeks inside and feels a surge of relief when he sees them both in bed, sleeping peacefully.

Sans sighs in relief and closes the door.

After a moment's hesitation, he teleports to the room he and his brother were created in. It's covered in dust from long disuse. He looks at the wall. No doorway. He sighs in relief again. He looks around the room... and freezes.

He could swear he saw someone standing just in the corner of his vision, but looking around, he sees he's alone.

He chuckles to himself. The dream really rattled his bones. He's jumping at shadows.

Sans teleports back home and lies down on the couch.

Despite his best efforts, he can't get back to sleep.

Sans and Alphys are sitting at Alphys’ table, the half-finished computer between them. They are working in a pleasant, companionable silence, their movements carefully coordinated even though they aren’t talking to each other. Sans supposes this could be their version of dancing. They both know the steps, and to the right eyes, it is graceful.

He’d prefer if this was their version of dancing, because heaven knows neither of them can actually dance.

And then they both reach for the same part, and their hands touch, Sans’s phalanges over Alphys’ scales.

They both freeze, staring down at their hands. Sans’s cheeks are bright blue, and Alphys’ are orange.

There is a moment of silence, broken by Alphys’ glasses landing on something metal.

And they both pull back and hurriedly begin hunting for something else, each praying that the other won’t mention what just happened.

And each of them kind of wanting to do it again.

“SANS?”

Sans looks up from his joke book. “yeah, paps?”

“I’M GOING FOR A WALK. CAN YOU WATCH FRISK?”

Sans puts the book down. “sure.” He can try out some of the new jokes he was just reading about. The only downside is that Papyrus won’t be around to complain about it.

Papyrus takes off at top speed before Sans can get a head start on telling them. He must have noticed what his brother was reading.

Well, shoot.

Sans rises onto his knees and peeks over the back of the couch. Frisk is building a wall of books around herself. She seems content.

He sinks back down onto the couch and goes back to reading his book, keeping half an ear out for signs of trouble. He doesn’t hear any, but a moment later, he does spot Frisk in his peripheral. She’s come around the couch and is heading straight toward him.

Sans looks up. “hey, frisk. What’s a foot long and slippery?”

“Mageek!”

“no, silly.” Sans holds up one of his feet. “a slipper!”

Frisk contemplates his pink slipper for a moment, then runs the rest of the way forward and grabs two of his phalanges, trying to pull him off the couch. “Mageek!”

And that is how Sans ended up kneeling on the floor, at Frisk’s level, using his magic to do simple tricks with her toys.

Frisk giggles as Sans levitates a wooden block, then chases it as he moves it to one side, grinning. Frisk can walk just fine, but there’s still a certain awkwardness to it, and Sans finds it absolutely adorable.

He picks up another block and makes that one circle her, and she ooh’s quietly and starts spinning around trying to catch it. She loses interest in the first block, so he drops it.

He keeps the block circling, waiting to see how long she’ll chase it. She keeps it up for a while, whirling around and around until she flops over on her side, giggling. She tries to stand up, stumbles, and goes down. She tries again, and again, and again, and finally, she stays on her feet, although she staggers around in circles as she starts trying to walk.

Sans chuckles, then grabs her SOUL and picks her up, too. Frisk shrieks with mirth.

“ya trying to fly, frisk?”

Frisk giggles. “Fwy!”

Sans lifts his hand and sends her sailing overhead, soaring across the short length of the room just as if she were a bird – except she doesn’t crash into the window. Sans stops her just before that, then flips her over. The whole time, Frisk doesn’t stop laughing, except when she’s run out of breath.

It’s starting to take noticeable effort to hold her up, so Sans reels her back in and walks over to the couch. “hey, frisk. How are you like a salad?”

“Slalid!”

Sans grins. “you’re both easy to toss.”

Frisk lands perfectly on the couch cushions, then bounces exactly as high as Sans had thought she would. While she’s gathering herself, Sans takes the opportunity to flop back down on the couch next to her.

“what do you call a funny mountain?” he asks, and this time, Frisk actually seems interested.

“Moun-ain?”

“hill-larious.”

Frisk giggles.

Papyrus hurries home, holding a box under his arm. Gyftmas is coming up, and he just went and found a gift for Sans. Sans gave him some money for the present, and he decided to get him a blue jacket. While Papyrus doesn't approve of his brother's sleeping habits, he'd rather Sans be comfortable, and he figured a jacket like the one he bought would be like a convenient blanket for his brother.

As Papyrus is walking though a back alley short cut, he hears a small "Yip!" He turns and sees a small white dog staring at him with its tongue out.

Papyrus carefully shifts the box and kneels beside the dog. "HELLO THERE! ARE YOU LOST?"

The dog gives him another "Yip!" Its tail wags excitedly. Papyrus reaches over and pets the dog.

"AREN'T YOU FRIENDLY. HERE." Papyrus focuses magic into his hand. A bone slowly begins to materialize. Papyrus pants from the exertion as he offers the small dog the bone. "A GIFT FROM THE GREAT PAPYRUS. IT'S ONE OF MY SPECIAL BONE ATTACKS!"

The dog takes the bone, yipping and vibrating in excitement. Papyrus stands and lets out a proud "NYEH HEH HEH!"

He looks at the box under his arm and remembers. "SORRY, LITTLE DOG. I MUST RETURN HOME NOW." Papyrus begins to walk away. "BEHAVE YOURSELF. I'LL SEE YOU AGAIN, LITTLE DOG!"

The dog happily chews on the bone as the skeleton leaves. It doesn't take its eyes off him until he's out of sight.

The dog drops the bone on the ground. It turns its head and looks directly into the camera.

"Yip!"

“What’re we watching this time?” Sans asks, plopping down on the couch. “More Naruto?”

“N-no.” Alphys picks up a tape and waves it at him. “I found a sci-fi show I th-thought you might like.”

Sans’s eyelights flicker to the tape, although he doesn’t move. “Really?”

“I-it’s called Star W-Wars.”

Stars? “You’ve got my attention.”

“I-I’ve never seen it b-before. I was thinking we could watch it for the first time t-together.”

Sans nods. “Sounds good.”

Alphys goes to put the tape in the the television, then stops, realization dawning on her face. “Oh. This is the fourth one.”

“Fourth? How many are there?”

“Six.”

Sans does some quick math in his head. He didn’t tell his siblings he’d be out late, and they’ll be expecting him to get home in time to tuck them in. “Eh, we’ve got time.”

Alphys has walked over to a shelf and is trying to grab something on top of it. She can’t reach.

“I could give you a hand with that,” Sans offers.

Alphys looks over at him gratefully. “Thanks.”

Sans nods solemnly, then pops his right hand off of his wrist and tosses it to her.

Alphys catches it. She stares down at it in blank disbelief for a moment, then snorts and looks up, her eyes narrowed over an amused smile. “I’m g-gonna need the rest of your arm, too. Th-this isn’t long enough.”

Sans laughs, then chucks it over.

***

“Hey, Alphys, d’you want me to pass you the popcorn?”

“Huh?” Alphys looked up. “Oh. Sure.”

Sans grins, then grabs the popcorn bowl with blue magic and moves it through the air and onto Alphys’s lap. “see? I can use the Force, too.”

Alphys snorts and rolls her eyes. “Oh, Sans…”

***

Sans reaches out and pauses the movie, then turns to watch as Alphys snorts and laughs for a couple of minutes before finally getting ahold of herself. Sans is chuckling, too, but not hard enough that he can’t hear the movie over it.

“Ya done?”

Alphys nods. “Yeah… I think so.” She shakes her head. “Stars. Do you reckon he’s based off of some sort of monster?”

Sans stares at the character on the screen – Jar Jar Binks. “Um… maybe a really strange-looking Froggit? Nah. I think the humans just made his kind up.”

Alphys bursts out laughing again. This time, Sans joins her.

“C’mon,” he says, as he’s pulling himself together. “let’s get this movie started again so we can see what his next punchline is.”

***

Sans tilts his head to one side. “I think we should stop trying to figure out what sort of monsters are supposed to be in this movie. I don’t think any of them are based on reality.”

“They do look s-sort of like some kinds of monsters,” Alphys mused. “M-maybe if you took a few different kinds of fish and lizard monster, th-then melted them all together…”

“yeah, I can kinda see that.”

“I guess – STARS!”

Sans burst out laughing again. “that one just looks like a human pretending to be a lizard monster.”

***

Anakin’s podracer went sailing over the finish line, and Sans and Alphys both cheered briefly.

“He’s free!”

Sans nods, then grabs a massive handful of popcorn. His hands are shiny from handling the stuff. “I wonder how he’s going to do after leaving his mother, though.” He tries to imagine Papyrus – whom Anakin doesn't look any older than – all alone in the world like that.

Then he tries to think about just about anything else.

***

Sans blinks. “Woah. That’s a heck of a thing to do by accident.”

“I-it does stretch the bounds of believability a bit,” Alphys agrees.

“Oh, I don’t know. There’s at least one way it makes sense.”

“Oh?”

“I can definitely imagine my brother climbing into a starfighter and accidentally turning it on. ‘Accidentally’, that is,” Sans says, making air quotes with his fingers.

“Y-yeah, but could he aim its guns that well? There’s no way anyone let a slave boy learn how to do that.”

“How ‘bout we just contemplate the crazy things my brother’d do if he could? We’re supposed to be having fun here, right?”

***

Alphys takes the last bit of the popcorn just as the credits start to roll. “Who do you think the other Sith is?”

Sans shrugs, grabbing the empty bowl. They have five more movies to go; they’re going to need more. “It depends. If they’re going for a twist villain, then it’s gotta be a character who’s been named by now. If they’re not, the character probably won’t exist until the next movie.”

“If it’s going to be a t-twist villain, who do you think it’s going to be?”

Sans hesitates, then says, “Someone on the Jedi Council. Someone in power who looks like a good guy now.”

***

Alphys spits out her popcorn laughing. “They put WHO in charge while Amidala’s gone?!?”

Sans snorts into his handful of popcorn, then shoves it into his mouth and chews at top speed for a moment before replying. “Oh, I hope we get to see how that goes. That should be some peak legal comedy.”

***

An entire army of clones. That is… not what Sans was expecting to randomly come up in the middle of the movie.

Then again, he’s never really expecting to see himself represented in human media.

He’s… not at all sure he likes the way the idea’s used here. He becomes more and more sure that he doesn’t as the scene goes on. How the heck would someone make a person more compliant by editing their genetics, anyway? There’s no way a person could really design a clone like that.

Aging faster than normal… Sans has to reluctantly admit that the movie got that part right, although they’re definitely pushing it.

There’s an aspect of it that he does like, though. Boba. The one that’s basically just straight-up his template’s son.

Just like Sans is.

And it’s a normal relationship – well, as normal as it can be, considering Jengo is one of the villains. Ignoring that part, it’s quite relatable.

Still, Sans is pretty happy when the scene cuts back to to Naboo.

***
“WHAT?”

Alphys’s shout takes Sans by surprise, and he jumps, then hits pause. It’s been a couple minutes since Anakin stopped killing Sand People.

“What does she mean, it’s okay?” Alphys continues. Any hint of nervousness is gone. She’s just plain furious, now. “He was killing children!”

Sans frowns. “Yeah. I think she’s just saying that because she doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle her real reaction now.” It wouldn’t be too dissimilar to how he has to handle Papyrus at times. On occasion, Papyrus can get overwhelmed and then there’s no point saying anything that isn’t meant to calm him down.

“He was killing children!”

“Maybe she’s thinking he didn’t mean to,” Sans says. It sounds like the sort of thing a person might say to justify a loved one’s wrongs, even if it doesn’t make any sense.

“Would it matter?” Alphys seems to realize how bold that statement is, and she shrinks back a bit, her fury dying down. She doesn’t quite look ready to abandon her hill, though.

And now Sans actually has to think about his throwaway statement.

“I think it does,” he says slowly. “If you do something horrible… and it was a total mistake… then it’s still bad and you still need to try and fix it, but it’s not really your fault. You’re responsible for it but not culpable, y’know what I mean?”

Alphys thinks it over, then nods. “Yeah. Y-yeah, that makes s-sense.”

Sans smiles, and when she seems to have nothing else to say, he reaches out to hit play.

“I th-think Anakin meant to do that, though.”

“Fair.”

***

One of the upshots of being a skeleton is that Sans can pull his own hand off and toss it into the air at exactly the same moment Anakin gets his sliced off, to a round of snorting laughter and a “Sans, that’s terrible!” from Alphys.

***

While Alphys pays rapt attention to the wedding scene, Sans hunts around for a sheet of paper. Once he’s found one, he scribbles down a name, then folds the paper in half and puts it down on the back of the couch behind him.

“Calling it now,” he says. “I know who Darth Sidious is.”

“Who is it?”

Sans points to the piece of paper. “I wrote it down. Once it’s revealed, we’ll look at the paper and see if I was right.”

Alphys nods. “Okay. Oh, stars, those droids are so cute.”

“Ya ever wonder how complicated they must be on the inside?”

Alphys hesitates, then nods. “I keep comparing their workings to our computer's. Th-they would be much more of a challenge to m-make.”

“All right. Movie three, here we go.” Sans eyes the cover of the DVD case. “Revenge of the Sith. That’s not ominous at all.”

***

“Welp,” Sans says, staring at what remains of Count Dooku. “Ya know what, I’m not gonna try that.”

“Y-you can’t detach your head?” asks Alphys, who is holding one of Sans’s hands. She’s holding it by one of the wrist bones, and it isn’t attached to Sans’s arm.

Sans shrugs. “I figure the gag isn’t worth finding out, y’know?”

***

Sans turns to Alphys just as Anakin finishes vowing not to let his dream about Padme’s death come true. “Oh, no. I wonder what he’s going to do this time.”

“Maybe he’ll slaughter some more children,” Alphys says, her tone biting. She’s still a little sore that Anakin’s massacre of the Sand People, whose name she has now mispronounced as “the Sans People” half a dozen times, never did come up in more detail.

***

Emergency powers from the Senate. Sans nods internally. He nailed it.

***

“It’s Palpatine. It’s d-definitely Palpatine. Is that what you wr-wrote, Sans?”

Sans grins like a maniac. “Let’s see, shall we?”

***

“HA! I was right!”

***

“I am the Senate! I’m gonna say that the next time my brother doesn’t want to go to bed on time.”

“Aw, c’mon… th-they made lightning magic evil…”

“That guy just got hit with it right in the face.”

“OOH. Um, I don’t think it would actually d-do that.”

“Would it actually be painful?”

“Y-yep.”

“Close enough, then. Ouch.”

***

“I was right! He did go slaughter a bunch more children!”

***

As soon as he sees where the “order 66” thing is going, Sans wanders off into the inside of his head and pointedly thinks about something else. What is it with clones and lack of autonomy in this series?

***

"You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!"

"I hate you!"

"You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!"

Sans grimaces. “Ouch.”

“I d-don’t have any siblings. H-how much would you s-say it means?”

“It’s pretty darn bone-chilling. If Papyrus said that to me, I’d probably jump off a bridge.”

“Um…”

Sans holds up a hand. “Not literally.”

***

Alphys cheers when Anakin makes like a particularly clumsy monster in Hotland and partially lights himself on fire. Sans keeps his thoughts, which are mostly about the proper treatment of third-degree burns, to himself.

***

Sans and Alphys both grimace and flinch throughout Anakin’s surgery scene. It doesn’t help that both of them have done at least a little research into this sort of thing. It’s painful to watch.

Perhaps not as painful as Vader’s reaction when he’s told he killed his wife, though.

***

Sans stretches, then grabs the popcorn bowl, which is empty again. It’s wildly unhealthy, but in Papyrus’s absence, there’s no one to stop them. “Well that was a downer ending.”

“Th-the next movie is about the kids,” Alphys says. “It’s literally c-called ‘A New Hope.’ It should be more cheerful.”

“That’s nice.” Sans glances at the clock. Yeah, they’ve got enough time. He might be… mm… maybe five or six minutes late to do the usual bedtime routine with his siblings, but surely they won’t notice that, right? It’s just a tiny handful of minutes.

***

They’re both silent through the opening minutes. Alphys perks up the moment the droids come on screen and becomes more and more excited as it grows clearer and clearer that they will be major characters. Sans watches with a fond smile as she all but bounces in place.

And it’s making it hard for her to grab the popcorn, so hey, more for him.

***

“That’s… th-that’s a…”

“An entire planet,” Sans fills in. “They just destroyed an entire planet.”

***

“‘I can imagine quite a lot,’” Sans quotes. “I need to start writing down these comebacks.”

He doesn’t move. After a moment, Alphys gets the joke and snickers.

***

“Two minutes left, come on… You can make it, Luke, you can make it… Listen to the Force…”

At this point, Sans interrupts by picking up the popcorn bowl, a book and a pencil near Alphys with blue magic. She snorts and shakes her head. “No, the fictional Force! Don’t listen to Sans!”

“y’sure? I know a thing or two about aiming a projectile.”

“Thirty seconds left – YES! HE DID IT!”

Sans whistles, watching the massive explosion blossom. “how accurate do you reckon the starry background is?”

Alphys slides the fifth DVD in. The binge fatigue is starting to set in. Sans is beginning to think more about how comfy the couch is and how hard it is to keep his eyes open than about the movie. Alphys is clearly becoming uncomfortable with sitting in one place for so long. Outside, it’s getting dark.

The scenery onscreen isn’t helping. It’s bland and oddly overwhelming in the same way that Snowdin is: snow, snow, more snow, oh, look, there’s a person, snow. And then Luke gets knocked unconscious.

Sans bursts out laughing, and he doesn’t have much of an explanation when Alphys asks why. Then she asks if skeletons pass out when it’s cold, too, and Sans falls right off the couch in the ensuing fit of mirth.

After a quick discussion of the seasonal habits of skeletons, they skip the movie backward a few minutes and continue watching Hans Solo’s search and rescue attempts.

***

“Hey, Al. What’s the temperature inside a tauntaun?”

Alphys shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Lukewarm.”

Alphys snorts, shaking her head and smiling.

***

Alphys falls forward laughing. “OH MY GOSH.”

Sans tries to grimace and grin and snicker all at the same time. “That’s so gross.”

“I w-wonder if they’ll ever find out they’re siblings.”

Onscreen, Luke and Leia finally stop kissing, putting Hans’s ire in the spotlight instead. Sans shakes his head. “Oh, they’ll find out. You don’t put a secret like that in a story’s lore and then just not reveal it. The real question is, are they gonna remember this scene by the time they find out?”

Alphys’s face darkens. “Th-they did forget the Sans People.” She lets that hang for a moment, then facepalms. “I mean, Sand People.”

“I hope they don’t forget this one. I wanna see their shocked horror when they find out. It’d be hilarious.”

“Y-yeah. I mean, what other reaction could you have to finding out you were flirting w-with your own brother?”

***

“Can you lift anything that b-big?” Alphys asks as they watch Yoda lift Luke’s X-wing out of the swamp.

Sans shakes his head. “Not strong enough.”

“So size does matter.”

Sans shrugs. “Eh, not necessarily. Depends on the skeleton.”

***

Sans sort of jumps sitting down when Boba Fett turns up again. Alphys doesn’t seem to notice.

***

Alphys hits pause as Yoda finishes telling Luke not to go save his friends. “Call it.”

“He shouldn’t go,” Sans says. “Yoda’s right. He’s walking right into a trap and he’s nowhere near good enough to get back out of it. You?”

“I think he should go. His friends need him.”

Sans shrugs. “Let’s see how it works out.”

***

Sans is very careful not to say “I told you so” when Luke loses horribly to Vader. Either Alphys, unlike Papyrus, can’t hear the things he’s very pointedly not saying, or she’s too busy being horrified to notice.

It’s probably the second one. She definitely doesn’t notice when Sans flings his right hand at the same time Luke loses his. Or maybe she just didn’t care; the gag is getting a little old. How many times can the same amputation happen in one film franchise?

Either way, it leaves Sans hunting around on the floor for a moment for his hand. After a while, he shrugs, gives it up and figures it’s just as well that he’s left-handed. He’ll find his right sometime before he leaves.

***

The ending of The Empire Strikes Back is a downer, and the beginning of the sixth and final movie (Sans checks the clock; oh, stars, he’s definitely going to get home late) isn’t a whole lot more uplifting. Sans does note down some more lines he can use with Papyrus and Frisk later.

Then there’s an ominous sort of opening sequence with the two droids. Alphys gets quite worried about them – and then they’re both more worried about Leia and Hans. And maybe Luke, who’s started dressing like Anakin did in his third movie.

That sense of impressed dread continues all the way through the sarlacc scene. Neither one of them is sure if they should be cheering Luke on or kind of worried about where he’s going. They both cautiously lean towards being impressed.

***

“Oh my gosh. I th-think those are actually supposed to be a real type of monster.”

Sans shakes his head. “They do look kinda like bear monsters, but they’re way too small.”

“They’re k-kinda cute.”

***

So if I ever need to convince someone I’m a god, just turn their SOUL blue and levitate them across the room.

Got it.

***

The first clip of Luke and Sidious talking one to another ends. Luke is kind of reminding Sans of Papyrus here.

He’s pretty sure Luke is going to succeed, that’s just how stories work, no one ends an epic hero’s journey by having the hero get slaughtered by his own father, but he’s still nervous watching it.

***

Luke’s lightsaber comes down over Sidious’s head, and Vader’s blocks it.

Alphys frowns, her forehead wrinkling. “I d-don’t get it. Wh-why would killing him have been wrong? H-he’s got so much b-blood on his hands. Luke’s killed for less before and nobody made a big deal out of th-that.”

Sans mulls it over a moment before answering. “It’s all about the intent. Killing’s something you should always do in sadness rather than anger, that’s what they’re trying to say.”

“Oh. Y-yeah. That makes sense.” She hesitates, then: “Do you think they’re right?”

“Yeah, I do. Now let’s skip backward a minute or two. I think we just missed the whole fight.”

***

Vader loses his right hand again during his second duel with Luke. Sans still hasn’t found his own right hand, and he doesn’t much feel like tossing and potentially losing his left for a gag Alphys has gotten tired of, so he doesn’t bother.

***

Sans and Alphys are on the edge of their seats wondering whether Vader’s going to do anything as the Emperor electrocutes Luke. Sans is pretty sure they’re both wondering if that’s what it would look like if Alphys attacked someone with her magic.

And then Vader runs forward and grabs Sidious and throws him over the railing. The movie shows him falling until he hits the blue… is that the core of the Death Star?… at the bottom, and then there’s an azure explosion that ripples across the room, and he’s just gone.

Vader, being made of metal, doesn’t look to be doing much better. Neither does Luke, come down to it, but at least he’s not actively dying anymore.

***

Vader’s death scene gets some tears out of Alphys. Sans holds his back, but it’s definitely making him feel things, too.

And then the movie finally becomes happier, with the Death Star exploding and everyone escaping just in the nick of time. And finally, the Empire is toppled, the main characters are war heroes, and the ending is a triumphant celebration with all the ghosts a person could’ve wanted in attendance.

***

The credits finish rolling, and for a moment, neither Sans nor Alphys moves. Then they both turn to each other, eyebrows raised.

“That was great,” Alphys says.

Sans nods. “It’s got good humor. I’m glad you found it.”

“I wonder if we could make a real lightsaber. I mean, I kn-know the physic doesn’t work with actual pl-plasma, but if we used some sort of magic instead…”

Sans nods again. “Yeah. That’d be a fun project. Might call for some parts we won’t be able to find, though.”

Alphys shrugs. “I-it’s still fun to think about.”

“Heh. Believe me, Al, I’m a big fan of thinking about things and then not doing them.”

Alphys laughs at that, and while she’s doing so, Sans’s eyes stray to the clock.

HOLY CRAP. It’s over an hour past his siblings’ bedtime. He’s super late, and Papyrus is going to be upset if he misses reading his bedtime story altogether.

“Um,” he says. “I’m gonna have to leave. Like, now.”

“Huh?”

Sans grins sheepishly. “I was supposed to tuck my siblings into bed seventy minutes ago.”

“Oh – okay.”

He and Alphys exchange hurried goodbyes, and he heads into another room to teleport. He’s in his own living room before he remembers that his right hand is still at Alphys’s.

A few seconds later, he’s knocking on Alphys’s front door.

Alphys opens it. “Sans! H-how do you keep doing that?”

Sans holds up his right wrist. “I left my hand here. D’you mind if I come back in and look for it?”

Alphys stares at his wrist for a moment. Then she bursts out laughing.

“Oh, now you think it’s funny.”

Still giggling, Alphys steps aside and waves Sans into the house. “G-go ahead. L-look around. Wouldn’t – wouldn’t want you to be shorthanded – ha ha ha…”

“Nice,” Sans says, then dashes past her and into the living room. He needs to be home now. He can’t spend much time searching for his hand.

He wiggles the fingers on the missing hand. He can still do that at a distance; it just feels weird. Hopefully the bone will hit something hard and-

There. A clicking noise.

Coming from beneath a bookshelf.

Upon closer inspection, he finds his hand isn’t beneath the bookshelf. It’s pinned between the bookshelf and the wall, dead center between the two edges where neither he nor Alphys can reach. Sans has no idea how that happened, but it’s very inconvenient.

After some frantic discussion, he gives Alphys his left arm and they both reach behind the shelf. Sans manages to grab his hand, and they pull it out. It doesn’t take that much time, but it also takes far, far too long. Sans needs to be home now.

He pops all the various pieces of himself back into place, then gives Alphys a hurried thanks and bolts. Hopefully Papyrus isn’t too furious.

Papyrus closes the Fluffy Bunny book, then gets up and walks out of the room so he can look at the clock. Then he heads back in and clambers onto the bed, where Frisk is waiting. She is playing with the Rubik’s cube and looking at him expectantly.

“HE’S LATE,” Papyrus says.

“Ah.”

“HE MUST REALLY BE HAVING FUN WITH HIS FRIEND.” And Papyrus doesn’t have a problem with that, of course – but it would be really nice if Sans would come home already, so he could read them their bedtime story and tuck them in.

And he definitely wasn’t worried about it because he was almost too tired to keep his eyes open. Not at all!

“DO YOU WANT ME TO READ THE STORY TO YOU AGAIN?” he asks.

Frisk whacks the Rubiks cube a few times. Papyrus thinks she likes the sound. “Yeh.”

Papyrus grins, then opens the book and begins to read. Frisk snuggles up against his side and stares at the pages. He points out all the pictures as he reads about them and does different voices for all the characters, just like he usually makes Sans do. Sometimes Frisk tries to imitate what he’s saying. It sounds like she’s trying to read, too.

Halfway through, Papyrus catches himself nodding off sitting up.

When he’s almost at the end, he trails off. Frisk babbles a bit, and says his name a couple of times, but he doesn’t move, so she takes the book.

When Sans walks in about ten minutes later, he finds Papyrus fast asleep and Frisk flipping through the pages of the Fluffy Bunny book more or less at random, the most comically serious determined glare on her face.

Sans chuckles. She looks a lot like Papyrus did when he was trying to solve the manga.

He walks over to ruffle her hair. “having a good time, kid?”

Frisk smacks one of the illustrations. “Yeh!”

Sans’s eyes drift to Papyrus. “ya think he’d want me to wake him up so I can read him that book?”

“Pap!”

Sans grins, sitting down on the bed beside her. “ah, you’re no help. Hey, papyrus. Papyrus.”

After about the fourth time Sans pokes him in the face, Papyrus opens one eye. “WHAT IS – OH!” He sits up. “SANS! IT’S ABOUT TIME!”

“i’m sorry, bro. the movie turned out to be about an hour longer than either of us remembered.”

“WELL, YOU’RE HERE NOW!” Papyrus grabs the book and shoves it into Sans’s hands, causing Frisk to throw the Rubik’s cube at him. “NOW YOU CAN READ TO US AND TUCK US IN!”

Sans stares at them for a moment. They’re both buried under a pile of old and makeshift blankets. They seem to have done a pretty good job tucking themselves in.

He flips to the first page of the book, his amused grin turning to a fond smile. “of course, bro.”

Papyrus shifts toward him, pulling the nest of blankets with him, until he’s cuddled up next to Sans, with Frisk squished in between them. Frisk seems fine with this.

Sans lies down so he can put an arm around both of them, then holds up the book and begins to read. He’s done this before; he knows he can turn the pages with only one hand.

“C’mon, Papyrus,” Sans says. “It’s time to go to bed.”

Papyrus sighs, then picks up his puzzle and starts off towards the stairs. “SO THIS IS HOW LIBERTY DIES.”

“Wait, what?”

“IT’S FROM ONE OF THOSE MOVIES YOU’RE ALWAYS QUOTING, RIGHT?”

“I don’t reference Star Wars that much!”

“UM… BROTHER… I THINK AN INTERVENTION MIGHT BE IN ORDER.”

“Go to bed, Papyrus.”

“ALL RIGHT. I’LL SCHEDULE THE INTERVENTION FOR TOMORROW MORNING, THEN.”

It's finally Gyftmas. It's been a year since Sans and Papyrus started taking care of Frisk, and Sans finds himself admitting it's been the most fun year he's had in a long time.

Sans has managed to scrape together enough G for him and Papyrus to be able to buy gifts, though their budget was still tight.

As Sans walks towards his front door, he pulls the red scarf out of his pocket. He rubs the fabric and hopes Papyrus will like it. They had gotten together and bought Frisk a small Santa cap for her first year with them, and Sans got his brother the scarf to match it.

Papyrus comes out of his room with two boxes in one hand. He's helping Frisk walk with the other. Sans quickly stuffs the scarf back into his pocket before his brother can see. Sans's smile widens. "ready for gifts bro?"

Papyrus sets the boxes down. He holds his now free hand to his chest. "THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS ALWAYS READY FOR ANYTHING! NYEH HEH HEH!" He reaches over and picks up the giggling Frisk, putting her down on the couch next to Sans. He picks up one of the boxes and hands it to her. "MERRY GYFTMAS, FRISK! HERE'S YOUR GIFT FROM ME AND SANS!"

Frisk looks at the box. She grabs the lid and tries to pull it towards her before figuring out she needs to lift it. She opens the box to reveal...

A small white dog in a Santa hat?

"Yip!" The dog says. It wags its tail back and forth and gives Frisk a face lick, getting a giggle out of her.

"NYEH!?!?" Papyrus says in confusion.

Sans chuckles and reaches over. He takes the hat off the dog. "sorry, pup, but i don't think that's for you." He puts the hat on Frisk's head. "here ya go, kiddo." Frisk giggles as she tugs at the hat, pulling it down on her head. The sight is practically making Sans's SOUL melt.

Papyrus looks back and forth between the dog and Frisk but doesn't say anything. Sans decides not to ask and just go with it. Eventually, Papyrus seems to give up and reaches for the second box. He offers it to Sans. "HERE BROTHER. I SPENT A LOT OF TIME COMING UP WITH A GIFT FOR YOU AND I THINK THIS WILL BE PERFECT!"

Sans takes the box and opens it, then lifts up the blue jacket. Papyrus shifts nervously. "I... I DON'T APPROVE OF YOUR NAPPING HABITS BUT... I AT LEAST WANT YOU TO BE COMFORTABLE WHILE YOU SLEEP." He gestures at the jacket. "I THOUGHT THIS COULD BE LIKE A BLANKET FOR YOU TO WEAR AROUND ALL THE TIME... DO YOU... LIKE IT?"

Sans looks at the jacket, then at his brother, his grin widening. He slips it over his shoulders and leans into it. It's a perfect fit. "it's perfect bro. in fact..." Sans yawns. "...i may just fall asleep right now." His sockets begin to droop.

Papyrus groans. "SANS, DON'T FALL ASLEEP ALREADY. THE DAY HAS JUST BEGUN."

Sans shrugs. "but sleeping comes natural to me. i could do it with my eyes closed." Papyrus groans and Sans chuckles. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the scarf, which he offers to Papyrus. "here, bro. sorry i didn't wrap it. figured you could match with our sis over here." Sans gestures to Frisk, who is petting the strange dog.

Papyrus takes the scarf and carefully puts it around his neck. He strikes a pose. "NYEH HEH HEH."

Sans and Frisk both clap for him. "wow bro, you're so cool."

Frisk lifts her hands up, grabbing at the air, saying, "Pap! Pap!"

He walks over to her and picks her up, swinging her in a circle, much to her delight.

Sans settles back into his new jacket. It really is comfortable. Papyrus chose a great gift for him.

Sans feels the object in his other pocket. He knows there is still one gift he has left to give.

Sans pulls out his phone and shoots Alphys a quick text, asking if he can come over in an hour.

He grins at her almost immediate response. He lies down on the couch, watching Frisk and Papyrus playing together with the small dog. He absentmindedly moves his hand over his gift for Alphys. He hopes she'll like it.

Sans knocks on Alphys's door and waits nervously. She opens the door and he gives her a smile. "hey, al." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a figurine. "happy gyftmas."

She takes it and looks it over. "I-is this..."

Sans's smile widens. "a naruto action figure? yep." Sans nods, rubbing the back of his skull. "i, uh... found it and thought of you..." A slight tinge of blue colors Sans's face.

She looks at him and suddenly remembers something. "O-oh, right! Just a sec." She rushes inside and grabs a bag. "I-it took me a while b-but I think these are all the p-parts you need?"

Sans inspects the parts in the bag, sockets widening. "al... you found all these?"

She rubs her hands together. "I-it wasn't easy b-but for a friend..."

Sans chuckles and puts the bag down next to him. "thanks, al. i really mean it."

She blushes a bit. She notices his jacket. "O-oh, is that n-new?"

Sans spreads his arms to show it off to her. "what do ya think? my bro got it for me." Sans chuckles. "now i can fall asleep anywhere and stay warm."

Alphys snickers. "It looks great on you." She hesitates. "D-do you want to come in?"

Sans shrugs. "i've got some free time. maybe we can finish the computer today. it's the least i can do for you after you got me these parts."

Alphys chuckles. "And you love doing the least, don't you?"

Sans looks at her and laughs. "you know me so well, al."

Sans inserts the last part into the machine and steps back. He had gone off some old blueprints, but the finished product would hopefully be worth it. Papyrus walks up behind him, asking, "SANS, IS IT DONE? WILL YOU TELL ME WHAT IT IS NOW?"

Sans chuckles and turns around, gesturing at the machine. "this, my young brother, is basically a very advanced oven with a specific purpose in mind."

Papyrus looks at the machine, confused. "IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE AN OVEN."

Sans nods. "yeah, i know, but it works like one. it's for making pastries. i know just the person to sell it to. soon, we'll have lots of G. then i'll get you and frisk some proper clothes."

Papyrus looks excited at the prospect. "WOWEE! YOU MEAN IT SANS?"

Sans chuckles. "yup. anything for my siblings. just gotta find the buyer."

Sans approaches the bake sale. He's met the owner before, but he wasn't sure she'd remember him. He waves at her. "hi, muffet."

She looks at him in surprise, a flash of recognition crossing her face. "Oh, Sans isn't it? It's been so long!"

Sans grins. "heh, yeah, it's been a while. how's business?"

Muffet looks upset. "It could be better. We've gotten a few sales but it's been slow."

Sans looks at her prices. At 9999G, it's no wonder people aren't buying. He looks up at her. "i may have something to help you with that. one sec." Sans disappears and reappears a moment later with the machine. "may i introduce to you the spider oven! it uses ambient magic from the core and will increase your production tenfold, allowing you to lower the prices. more food and lower prices means more sales!"

Muffet perked up, looking at the oven. "Oh, sounds fancy. Mind if I see if it works?"

Sans nods and gestures to it. "be my guest."

Sans watches as Muffet and her spiders move the machine behind their bake sale and pour ingredients in. Sans is silently happy the old man used to have a crush on her. Otherwise, he wouldn't have come up with this plan.

The oven starts up, and Muffet seems delighted by the results. She walks over to Sans. "This is exactly what I've been needing. Some of my spiders have been suggesting I lower the prices but I wasn't sure we could profit if we did. This oven will allow us to make more sales." She seductively leans over to Sans. "How can I thank you?"

Sans blushes and glances away. "i-if it's no trouble, i'm a bit s-short on G at the moment."

Muffet looks a bit disappointed but grabs out a bag of money, dropping it into Sans' hands. "Here you go dearie. 10000G. I think that's fair."

Sans' eyes widen as he stares at the bag. "really? thank you!"

Muffet chuckles. "No, thank you dearie. And please, come back anytime."

Sans nods and puts the money in his inventory. He quickly makes his exit, teleporting away and contemplating all the things he could now buy.

Chapter Text

Sans looks up as he hears footsteps making their way through the dump. He knows exactly whose they are. And they’re headed right for him, so he won’t have to go looking for her. Hooray.

He stays where he is, sifting through a pile of parts one-handed, until Alphys comes into view. Then he turns, smiling. “hi, al.”

“Hi, Sans.”

The good thing about having a broad grin as one of his standard expressions: it makes it really easy to hide his awkwardness as he steps forward and holds out a bunch of golden flowers. “I found something for you.”

Alphys stares at the flowers for a moment, her cheeks flushing bright orange. She doesn’t meet Sans’s eyes as she mumbles, “Th-thank you.”

“no problem.” Sans is blushing too, but there is no way it matches the veritable wildfire coloring Alphys’s face, so he’ll count it as a win.

He waits a moment, and Alphys realizes she should probably take the flowers, which she does in a way that leads to her gripping Sans’s hand proper for a moment. Now they are both blushing furiously.

Sans lets go and steps back. “thought you might like them.”

“I-it’s very th-thoughtful of you… th-thanks, Sans.”

“anytime.”

An awkward moment passes, and it doesn’t seem like Alphys has anything else to say, so Sans turns to leave. Alphys calls after him.

“Wait!”

He pauses and looks over his shoulder. “yeah?”

Alphys holds up her phone in one hand and the flowers in the other. “Could we take a picture together?”

“sure.”

Sans stands beside Alphys while she pulls up the camera application on her phone, then holds up the device. As she’s adjusting her hold to get the best picture, he holds up two fingers behind her head, giving her bunny ears.

Alphys snorts and returns the favor. Then both of them give the camera the biggest, goofiest grins they can manage before Alphys takes the picture.

Sans is sitting on the couch reading when someone busts down the door. Sans jumps and looks seeing the king standing there. He says something but Sans can't make it out, his voice sounding like it came from under water. Two armored figures rush in past Asgore. Sans tries to move but he feels frozen.

The two guards come out of Papyrus' room, carrying his brother and Frisk. Papyrus is kicking and saying something while Frisk seems to be unconscious. A red liquid drips from her little head.

Sans' SOUL falls.

Asgore summons a red trident and stabs through her small frail body. Sans can only watch in horror as his brother screams. Frisk's small form stops moving as more of the red liquid pools on the floor.

Asgore turns to the struggling Papyrus. Sans tries to beg for mercy but he's still frozen, unable to even scream as Asgore runs Papyrus though with the trident. Sans locks eyes with his brother, seeing his eyes filled with tears and confusion. Papyrus turns to dust. Sans can't scream.

Asgore turns towards Sans, his face dark. He raises his trident and throws it at Sans.

Sans shoots awake in a cold sweat, panting. He curses under his breath. Another nightmare. They'd been getting more and more frequent lately.

He lies back down and closes his eyes, trying to go back to sleep. It’s just a nightmare, he and his brother have done everything they can to keep Frisk a secret, that won’t happen.

But all he can see when he closes his eyes is Papyrus turning to dust, and even though he knows it isn’t real, he still finds himself choking on cries for them not to do it, for them to please leave him alone, please, he’s just a child, he’s innocent… please, take Sans instead…

With his eyes open, he sees Frisk, dangling unconscious in a Royal Guard’s arms with blood running down the side of her head.

At that point, he sits up, grabs the light switch with his magic and turns the thing on. His eyes have gotten used to the darkness, and his first reaction to the lights doing exactly what he wanted them to is to curse under his breath for a couple minutes.

It doesn’t make him feel a whole lot better. Especially not since he still needs to blink, and he sees his siblings dying every time he does.

It’ll pass. This never lasts for long. But stars, it feels like forever already and he’s only been yelling at himself for one minute.

And he sees it almost every night now. After all, it could happen. Frisk is a human. If someone sees her, someone beside himself and Papyrus…

How would Alphys react, if she saw her?

Sans can feel a headache forming. And when he closes his eyes against the light, he sees his brother’s confused, frightened face. Tears mixing with dust.

And that is when Sans decides that’s enough of trying to handle the nightmares on his own.

He gets up and goes to his brother’s room. He doesn’t peek in – he knows they’re still awake, and he doesn’t want them to ask any questions. But it does his SOUL some good to hear Frisk babbling nonsensically on the other side of the door, and his brother trying to figure out what she’s saying.

He can’t tell his little brother about this, of course. He’d just worry Papyrus. But… there is someone Sans can talk to… as much as he hates to take up his time…

He sighs. Hopefully his siblings won’t need him for anything while he’s gone.

Sans summons up his magic and teleports.

The day is over, the last person has left, and yet, as Grillby turns to carry a box into the backroom, he has a strong feeling that someone is standing behind him.

He thinks he’s just tired and imagining things, so it’s rather a shock when he looks over his shoulder and sees someone is actually there.

“Stars, Sans," Grillby says, voice crackling. "Could you give me some warning next-”

He stops as he takes in Sans’s actual appearance.

Sans looks like he just rolled out of bed, probably after tossing and turning for a while. He’s wearing a blue hoodie, white t-shirt and black shorts, and they’re all more crumpled than balled-up aluminum foil.

That’s not the important part, unless he looks like that because he just got mugged. The important part is the thousand-yard stare he’s giving the wall behind Grillby. Sans looks lost and nervous and like he’s trying very hard not to look like that.

“Sans,” he says. “What happened?”

The skeleton jolts a little and meets his eyes, then takes a deep breath and rearranges his face into a much more casual grin. If Grillby hadn’t just seen it, he wouldn’t know Sans had looked like a scared child just a moment ago.

Sans comes forward, walking up to the bar. “Hey, Grillbz. Is it too late to buy some ketchup?”

Grillby hands him a bottle. Sans pops off the lid and chugs half of it before he says another word.

“That’s better.”

“What happened?” Grillby repeats.

“Oh…” Sans glances down at himself. “Nothing much. I’ve been having some nightmares.”

His voice was level, his face was as straight as it ever got and he looked completely calm, but if they were bad enough to make him come all the way from New Home to talk to Grillby about it, then they must have been impressively awful and Sans must have been quite shaken.

“About what?”

“My siblings.” Sans takes another drink from the ketchup bottle. “They’re about bad things happening to my siblings.”

Siblings? Grillby could have sworn he only had the one. “Is there any particular reason you’re worried about that?”

Sans shrugs. “We don’t exactly live in a nicer part of town, y’know?”

Ah. Yes, that makes sense. Perhaps some sort of crime happened near where they lived. Sans is the sort to dwell on it if it had.

He’s also the sort who would hesitate to discuss it in any detail, so Grillby doesn’t ask and instead begins casting about for a possible solution. If Sans were an adult, with some way of getting ahold of a lot of G, he knows what he would suggest, but Sans is barely beginning his late teens. There’s no way he can afford to move.

So he’ll have to settle for helping him in the short term. He hands Sans another ketchup bottle as Sans finishes his first one. If Sans doesn’t bring it up, he’s not planning to charge him for it.

The silence hangs for several long minutes. Sans seems content to drink the ketchup and stare at the table.

“I keep having dreams about them dying,” Sans says, putting his second empty bottle down. Grillby replaces it with a full one. “I… it’s getting hard to close my eyes when I’m alone in the dark and not see Papyrus turning to dust.”

Good grief, what happened? Did Papyrus have some sort of close call?

“You got anything alcoholic?” Sans asks. “Maybe if I-”

“No.” Mature for his age or not, Sans is still nowhere close to being able to legally drink.

Sans sighs and nods.

“Has anything happier happened lately?”

Sans doesn’t answer for a while. Then his smile becomes a bit more genuine. “Well, yeah. I made a sort of pastry making machine for Muffet, and I actually managed to sell it to her. And she offered to pay way more than I thought I could get for it.” His smile becomes very satisfied. “It’s gonna be a while before we have to worry about eating again.”

Wait.

“You’ve made a lot of G lately?”

Sans nods.

“How much?”

Sans chuckles. “Enough to buy a spider donut.”

Huh.

That changes things.

“Do you think you would like living in Snowdin?”

“Why do you ask?”

“There is a house for sale nearby. You might be able to afford it.”

Sans perks up, and almost spills his third bottle of ketchup in the process. “If we could move away from the city, that would help.”

“I could help you look into it.”

“It wouldn’t be too much trouble, would it?”

“No.” If anything, it would get the house’s previous owner to stop asking him for help finding a buyer.

Sans nods slowly, absently taking the fourth bottle of ketchup that Grillby hands him. “All right. Tell me about the details, then.”

"I could show you the house, if you want. It's a very short walk from here."

Sans agrees, and once Grillby is done cleaning up - and Sans has consumed three more bottles of ketchup - they set out. It's getting dark out, and Sans is quiet as they come to the house - which is still decorated for Gyftmas, for some reason - and as they go poking through the rooms. He checks all the doors to see if they have locks, and he seems disappointed that one of the bedrooms doesn't.

Still, when they're done walking through it, he turns to Grillby and says, "How much would it cost?"

"Probably a few hundred G," Grillby tells him. Sans doesn't seem fazed by the number at all, which is a marked change from the last time they talked.

"All right," Sans says. "Tomorrow, could you help me find the guy selling this place? I guess I'm moving to Snowdin."

Sans is packing up all their belongings into various bags. They don't own much, but Sans isn't the most efficient at packing. Papyrus helps as best he can. He asks, "SANS, WHAT'S THIS NEW PLACE LIKE?"

Sans shrugs. "it's bigger than this house, that's for sure. more room us to live."

Papyrus looks at Sans excitedly. "WILL YOU FINALLY GET YOUR OWN ROOM?"

Sans chuckles and smiles at his brother. "heheh, sure paps. there will be plenty of room for all of us." He glances over at Frisk, who is playing with her Rubik's cube. "it'll be quieter there, too. i'm sure you'll make lots of friends."

Papyrus jumps around in excitement. "WILL I BE POPULAR, SANS?"

Sans smiles at him. "i don't see why not. you're the coolest skeleton in the underground."

Papyrus stands proud, with a "NYEH HEH HEH!" Sans reaches over and rubs the top of Papyrus' head affectionately.

Sans closes the last bag. "ready to go, paps?"

Papyrus rushes over to Frisk and picks her up. She babbles happily.

Sans chuckles. "she's excited to see the new house." Papyrus stands next to Sans and grabs his hand. "okay, get ready."

Sans folds the space around them and the three appear in Snowdin, just outside the house. Sans walks over to the door and opens it, inviting them inside. Papyrus rushes in to explore. Sans teleports back and forth to retrieve their bags. 

As soon as Sans is done, he walks over to the new couch and lies down on it. He can hear Papyrus rushing around upstairs and Frisk's enthusiastic babbling. Eventually, the two come downstairs and Sans sits up to look at them. He asks, "you pick a room you like, bro?"

Papyrus is practically hopping up and down with excitement. He starts telling Sans how amazing their new house is. Sans is happy that Papyrus is happy.

Papyrus takes the room closest to the stairs. Sans decides to take the further one. Frisk is still sleeping next to Papyrus but when she gets older, Sans thinks he can make the attic space into a room for her.

They all unpack their few belongings and start moving them to their respective rooms. At one point when Papyrus is opening a bag, a small white dog pops out, yipping at him. It runs around for a while before running into the cabinet under the sink. Sans finds it hilarious.

After they've settled in, Sans feels at peace. He begins to relax. He puts his hand in his pocket, and it brushes against something. Suddenly, he doesn't feel so relaxed. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. The one Alphys made him.

Thought flood through his skull as he tries to figure out what to do. He really likes Alphys, but while most monsters wouldn't recognize a human, she definitely would. If he stayed friends with her, questions could come up. Uncomfortable ones. If she found out...

Sans' SOUL felt like it was trying to escape his rib cage. He could hear Frisk and Papyrus playing in the living room. He steels himself and makes a hard choice.

Alphys is watering the flowers Sans got her when she hears a knock on the door. She jumps in surprise. "Sans, is that you?"

No response. Alphys puts down the water and walks to the door. She checks herself in the mirror. She's been wearing her nicest clothes, hoping to ask him something the next time he shows up. She takes a deep breath and prepares herself.

Alphys opens the door. "Sans? Would you be willing..." She looks around the outside of her door. No skeleton. Alphys is very confused. She takes a step forwards to see into the hall. Maybe he's playing a prank on her?

Alphys' foot hits something metallic. She steps back and looks at the object, recognizing it.

Alphys reaches down and pick up the phone. The very same phone she had given to Sans. There's a paper wrapped around it. Alphys takes her quivering free hand and picks up the paper, unfolding it.

In Sans' signature handwriting, she sees three words.

i'm sorry

goodbye

Alphys' grip tightens on the paper in her hand as she reads and rereads those words. She takes a step back, closing her front door.

She stares from the phone to the paper, back and forth. Tears form in her eyes.

Alphys goes through a rush of feelings. Anger, sadness, regret...

But above all of them is the feeling of confusion. Why?

Why?

Why?

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.

Chapter Text

Papyrus wads up a snowball, then turns and throws it at the snowman he just built. Then he kicks out the stake in the ground behind him, which releases a rope in a tree above him, which tips a couple buckets and makes it rain snowballs all around him. Papyrus shrieks with laughter as he runs around trying to dodge them.

It isn’t quite the same as having a snowball fight with another person, but Sans is asleep and Frisk still isn’t allowed outside.

The snowballs stop falling, and Papyrus flops over backward in the snow to make yet another hyperactive snow angel. Then he pops back up and runs over to the house.

He can’t see Frisk, which is disappointing, but not unexpected. And really, she shouldn’t be at the window. She was there this morning, and he’d thrown snowballs at the glass while she giggled. Sans had stopped them, then told Papyrus it would be best if Frisk stayed out of sight, since it was so hard to tell mimics from humans, and things could get dangerous if someone mistook Frisk for one.

He stares at the window for a moment, and then he has an idea. An awesome idea. If Frisk can’t come out to play in the snow, then he will just have to bring the snow to her!

He finds a bucket and packs it full of the white stuff, then heads inside. “FRISK! FRISK!”

Frisk comes right over. “Papyrus?”

He shows her the bucket. “I BROUGHT YOU SOME SNOW!”

Frisk’s eyes go wider than saucers, and then she grabs a huge clump of the stuff and shoves it directly in his face.

Well.

At least she has good instincts.

But that doesn’t mean karma isn’t about to slam into her like a tsunami.

Papyrus shrieks, then shouts out a war cry, grabs the bucket and dumps the rest of its contents over her head. Frisk yowls and launches herself at him. She’s not big enough to knock him over, but he does stagger backward a few steps, trying to shove her off of him. A few seconds later, they’re both on the floor, shouting and rolling around and throwing snow at each other. Neither one of them has any clue what, exactly, they are doing.

There is a loud click, and Papyrus freezes. Frisk takes the opportunity to shove snow down the back of his shirt.

Papyrus ignores it and looks up, right at Sans, who lowers the camera and eyes the mess. “Interesting. Did a Glyde wander in here?”

“UM, AH, YES. YES, IT CAME IN THROUGH THE WINDOW.”

Sans glances over to the pristinely unbroken window, then looks back to Papyrus and raises an eyebrow. “Uh-huh.”

“UM…” Papyrus turns and points at Frisk. “IT WAS HER IDEA!”

Frisk responds to that by shoving snow through his eye sockets. “Was not!”

“Well, between the two of you, I’m gonna believe it was the one who’s been outside the house today.” His eyebrow goes back down and his eyes narrow. “I only heard the door close once.”

Papyrus cringes a little. “…HOW MUCH TROUBLE AM I IN?”

Sans glances at the mess again, then shrugs. “Well, I’m certainly not going to clean all this up.”

“…ANYTHING ELSE?”

Sans shrugs and heads for the stairs. “Nah. It’s just water. Why bother?”

And now Papyrus is in the bizarre position of wanting to object to getting off easy because it happened because his brother is too lazy to care about a mess that’ll eventually clean itself. Papyrus considers demanding that Sans take the situation seriously, then thinks again and makes his first wise decision since he picked up that bucket: he keeps his mouth shut.

He turns to Frisk, opening his mouth to say something about how they should start scooping the snow back into the bucket, and immediately takes a snowball to the face.

Frisk giggles.

Papyrus kicks a large snowball, and it explodes. Snow soccer isn’t working out quite as well as he had hoped.

He sighs irritably and starts rolling up another snowball. Maybe if he packs this one tightly enough, he’ll be able to kick it without making his own personal flurry.

“Watcha doin’ there, kid?”

The grammar is just as bad as Sans’s, but the voice is different. Papyrus looks up.

It’s one of the dogs in cool armor – the goofy whitish one Sans likes playing cards with. Sans knows everyone in Snowdin now; apparently he just went and treated them like old friends until they were.

Papyrus waves at her. “HELLO, CARD DOG!”

“Oh – I’m Dogwen,” the dog corrects cheerily. Then her eyes drop to the snowball. “Are you going to throw that?”

“HUH?” Papyrus looks back to his snowball. “OH! DO YOU WANT ME TO?”

Dogwen nods eagerly.

“ALL RIGHT THEN, CARD DOG!”

He grabs the snowball and throws it as hard as he can, and Dogwen goes off racing after it, disappearing behind some buildings. Papyrus runs after her.

After a moment, the dog comes tearing back toward him with the snowball in her mouth. Papyrus congratulates her and pets her, and the dog gets even more excited. He throws the ball for her a couple more times. He can’t stand still, so he always runs after the dog, so eventually he takes a turn fetching. It’s fun.

After chasing snowballs for a while, they both collapse in the snow. Papyrus is laughing happily and waving his arms around to try and make a snow angel.

The dog sits up, showering snow everywhere. “I think I’ve got to get back to work now.”

Papyrus sits up, too, then turns to admire his snow angel. “WHAT DO YOU DO?”

The dog raps on her cool armor. It makes a neat ringing sound. “I’m in the Royal Guard. We keep the area safe and keep watch for fallen humans.”

“OH! I-” And then Papyrus stops talking, because he was about to mention how he has a sister who’s a mimic and those look kinda like humans. He’s not supposed to talk about that.

“What?”

“I – I WAS JUST THINKING THAT THAT SOUNDS REALLY COOL!” And it does, now that he thinks about it. “IF I JOINED, WOULD I GET COOL ARMOR TOO?”

The dog taps on her armor again. “Yes. But you’re a bit young for that now.”

“OH.”

“Here, tell you what. When we get off shift again, you can come practice sparring with us. How does that sound?”

Papyrus grins. “THAT SOUNDS AWESOME!”

“All right.” The dog stands up and turns to leave. “I’ll find you then, then, Papyrus.”

Papyrus has stopped being weirded out by people he’s never met knowing his name. They all do, because they all know Sans, who apparently has so many friends now that Papyrus isn’t sure how he remembers all their names.

Whatever. Right now, he needs to head home and tell Sans about the new friend he just made, and the cool ideas he just got.

He takes off toward home at full tilt, throwing up clouds of snow around him.

“Hey, Frisk.”

Frisk and Papyrus both turn away from their game to look up at him, and Sans smiles. “Frisk, c’mere. There’s something I wanna talk about.”

Frisk picks up her Rubik’s cube and follows him out into the hallway. Papyrus comes, too, thus defeating the point of calling Frisk over instead of just talking to her from the doorway. Oh well. It’s not a conversation he needs Papyrus absent for.

“Y’know how you and Papyrus share a room?”

Both of his siblings nod.

“Well, you’ve been getting so much bigger lately – both of you-” he stops to glare at Papyrus – “I’ve been thinking you should have your own rooms. What do you say?”

“FRISK GETS HER OWN ROOM?”

Sans nods.

Papyrus grabs Frisk in a bone-crushing hug. “I’M SO HAPPY FOR YOU, SISTER! YOU’RE GROWING UP!” He puts her down. “WAIT, THIS MEANS WE WON’T BE ABLE TO PLAY TOGETHER AFTER BEDTIME ANYMORE.”

Sans smiles sadly. He knows Papyrus has trouble sleeping. It’s not like he has nightmares or anything – he’s just too hyper to get to sleep. He’s missing out on a lot, in Sans’s opinion. “Frisk is a growing girl, Papyrus. She needs her sleep.” She gets plenty of it during the day, but in Sans’s book, more sleep is never a bad thing.

Papyrus pouts. “I’M A GROWING BOY AND I DON’T SEE ANY PROBLEM WITH NOT SLEEPING.”

“Well Frisk’s a little different from you, okay?” Sans offers Papyrus another smile, an encouraging one this time. “Look… what if I read you two more bedtime stories every night, from now on? Would that make up for it?”

Papyrus frowns. Then he holds up three fingers.

“Sure. However many it takes to get you to sleep. Don’t look at me like that. Even you need to rest sometimes.”

Papyrus nods. “ALL RIGHT.”

Sans turns to Frisk. “What do you think?”

Frisk is frowning thoughtfully. “Where is it?”

“Well, I was thinking we’d put you in the attic.”

Frisk’s frown grows more pronounced. “But I’m not an old chair.”

Sans chuckles. “The attic isn’t just for storage, sis. And we’re not going to move you up there right away. We’re going to get all the stuff cleared out and find you some furniture and all that before you take over up there. You can pick out the paint color and everything.”

Frisk seems to like that. So does Papyrus. He starts jumping up and down, yelling, “PICK RED, FRISK! PICK RED!”

Sans claps once. “It’s settled, then.”

It’s a couple of weeks before Gyftmas when Sans pulls Papyrus aside, checking to make sure Frisk isn’t anywhere nearby.

“Hey, Paps,” he mutters. “You got any idea what you’re giving Frisk this year?”

“I WAS THINKING ANOTHER SCARF,” Papyrus says. “OR MAYBE A FUNNY HAT!”

Sans grins. “Well. You remember how you’re always asking me if Frisk’ll ever be able to play outside with you?”

Papyrus gasps. “YOU’RE GOING TO LET HER?”

“Well… sure. Let’s put it that way. See, I’ve got a great idea for what you could make her for Gyftmas. It’d be the perfect gift for both of you, really…”

On Gyftmas morning, Sans is the first sibling downstairs. Granted, that’s entirely because he fell asleep at the table at one in the morning after reading Papyrus to sleep and setting out the presents.

He is shaken awake by a very eager little Frisk. “Come on, Sans! Up! Up! It’s time for presents!”

Sans moans. “No, there are definitely better times than the present… f’r’instance, I was asleep five seconds ago…”

Something bounces off the back of his head. “SANS! WAKE UP! IT IS TIME TO OPEN PRESENTS!”

“Could ya give me the present of five more minutes of sleep?”

“NO!”

“Presents, San, Presents!”

Sans sighs and sits up. “All right, all right. Papyrus, this one is for you.” He grabs a flat box and shoves it toward his brother.

“NO! I WANT TO SEE FRISK OPEN HER GIFT FIRST!”

Sans picks up two boxes: one from Papyrus and one from him. “Which one, bro?”

“YOU KNOW WHICH ONE!”

Sans smiles, then hands Frisk the box with Papyrus’s name on it and watches her tear it open so fast, she looks like she has six arms. Papyrus squeals in delight as she holds it up.

It’s a skull mask, one fashioned so that, if Frisk wore it, she’d bear a strong family resemblance to Sans and Papyrus. Papyrus looks about ready to die of happiness.

Sans beams at her. “That’s a lovely mask. Did you make it yourself, Papyrus?”

Papyrus looks very confused for far too long, and then he grins. “YES! YES I DID!” He turns to Frisk, giving her a wide-eyed pleading look that a blind man couldn’t have misinterpreted.

Frisk grins – nervously? - and carefully places the mask over her face. Once her hands are back under the table, she looks a lot like a skeleton. There’s even some semi-transparent black stuff over the eye sockets so her eyes don’t break the illusion.

“YOU LOOK JUST LIKE US!” Papyrus exclaims.

“Looks great,” Sans says. “Hey, y’know, maybe if you keep that on, I can take you on a walk later and you can show it off to all the nice people outside.”

He can practically see Frisk’s grin through the mask.

Sans hands her the other box. “Now open my gift.”

It’s a blue sweater with a purple stripe across the chest. It’s thick and warm and should protect her from the elements once Sans starts letting her outside, which was never a concern before. Skeletons didn’t get cold, but according to both the book and Frisk’s behavior when near an open window, humans did.

Frisk seems to like the sweater, as she starts trying to wrap it around herself like a blanket. Sans chuckles and helps her get it on over her head, right over what she’s already wearing.

Then, on Papyrus’s insistence, Sans goes to open the gift his brother got him. Or, well, made him. It’s another mask, and this one looks exactly like Sans.

Sans looks to Papyrus and raises an eyebrow.

“I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT LIKE ONE TOO,” Papyrus says.

Sans grins. “I love it. It’s great, bro.” And he’s just agreed to wear it at least once, hasn’t he?

He’s got it on as he insists on Papyrus opening a gift for once. It’s a stack of books of puzzles Sans collected over the last few weeks, labeled as if it’s from Frisk. Papyrus cheers and thanks both of his siblings profusely, then shoves a box labeled “From Frisk, To Sans” at his older brother.

It’s a scarf. Purple, funnily enough.

“NOW YOU AND FRISK MATCH!”

It is a very good thing Sans has never cared much what he looks like.

On the bright side, it is rather amusing when he puts the scarf on and his stats box adds a new fun fact: “Severely challenged in the dress-sense department.”

Papyrus opens the last gift – some proper canvas and some half-used bottles of paint, courtesy of Sans – and then Sans and Frisk eat themselves into oblivion on all the sweet foods Frisk has helped Sans make over the last few days and Sans shares some of his ketchup with Frisk and she even drinks some of the barbecue sauce. Papyrus eats a bowl of oatmeal, starts painting and looks on in very vocal disapproval.

Everything is so big! Frisk saw all the same stuff from the window, of course, but it all looked smaller there.

Sans tugs on her hand, and she starts walking again. As she goes, she reaches down and picks up some of the snow. It melts in her hand, glittering more than anything else she’s ever seen. The water is so cold.

She knows Sans is smiling at her, even though she’s not looking at him. And Papyrus is definitely watching her. The world is big and a little overwhelming, but with her brothers close by, she feels safe. She’s never really noticed just how safe they make her feel before, really.

And then she sees someone else who’s about her own size. He doesn’t look much like either her or the skeletons, though. He’s some sort of bright yellow creature with a tail and spikes on his head. And he’s wearing stripes, too. Frisk is old enough to know what that means.

She takes a couple steps toward the monster kid, enough to be tugging on Sans’s hand, then stops, hesitating. Papyrus notices.

“DO YOU WANT TO GO TALK TO THAT OTHER KID?”

Frisk steps back toward Sans. “Yeah, but…”

“C’MON, GO AHEAD! I’M SURE IT’LL GO GREAT! HOW COULD ANYONE NOT LIKE YOU?”

Frisk hesitates a little longer, then sets her jaw, gathers her determination and sets off across the snow, with Papyrus cheering her on from behind. She walks up to the other monster kid.

“Hi there,” she says, staring at his feet as she holds out her hand. She has a vague idea that that’s what Sans does when he meets new people. “I’m Frisk. What’s – what’s your name?”

“I’m Andy!” the monster kid replies. “And, uh, I can’t shake your hand.”

Frisk looks up and notices for the first time that the monster kid – Andy – doesn’t have any arms. Strange. How does he do things he needs hands for? “That’s a good name.”

There’s another moment’s awkward pause, and then Frisk asks, “Um, do you wanna play?”

“Sure! We could play tag!”

Frisk grins and nods. This is going better than she had expected.

“Okay, great! But there are special rules. You have to tag with your head! No hands! And no shoving people over!”

Frisk supposes that makes sense. “Okay.”

“Okay then!” The kid runs into her headfirst, then takes off at top speed. “You’re it!”

Frisk yells “Hey!” and starts running after him, grinning.

Chapter Text

"... NINETY-EIGHT... NINETY-NINE... ONE HUNDRED!" Papyrus removes his hands from in front of his sockets. "READY OR NOT, THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS COMING TO FIND YOU!"

Papyrus rushes around, peering behind trees for any sign of Frisk or her new friend Andy. Frisk has suggested hide and seek and Papyrus volunteered to search first. It's all part of his plan to find the best spots!

Papyrus parts a bush but doesn't find anyone in it. He checks behind the igloos and houses but can't find either of them. He goes over to the edge of town and checks behind the sign. He sees a large snow poff that he knows wasn't there before. "OH WELL, GUESS THERE'S NO ONE HERE. I'LL HAVE TO SEARCH ELSEWHERE..." Papyrus notices the poff quiver slightly. He silently approaches it and reaches down into it, pulling up the person he finds inside. "GOTCHA!"

"Aw man," Andy says. "I thought I had you!"

"NICE TRY ANDY, BUT NOTHING GETS BY THE GREAT PAPYRUS!" He sets Andy down outside the snow poff. "THOUGH I WILL ADMIT IT WAS A CLEVER SPOT. HOW DID YOU THINK OF IT?"

Andy turns his head away. "I can't tell you! Trade secret!"

"HMMM..." Papyrus rubs his chin. "NO MATTER, WE MUST NOW FIND FRISK. SHE CANNOT HAVE GOTTEN FAR!"

Papyrus and Andy run circles around Snowdin, looking for any trace of Frisk. Papyrus pokes his head inside all the buildings and Andy checks by the lake, but they both come up with nothing.

They meet up by the trees in the center of Snowdin. "Phew," Andy pants, having run around for several minutes now. "Frisk's too good at this."

Papyrus leans against a tree, also tired but trying to hide it. "I AGREE. EVEN THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS STRUGGLING TO FIND HER."

There is a rustling in the tree above him. A bunch of snow falls on Papyrus' head. "HUH?" He looks up to see a figure coming straight at him. "NYEH!" Papyrus is tackled to the ground, rolling in the snow as he's grappled by the figure. His head is spinning from the unexpected tumble. He looks up at his attacker to see a grinning skeleton mask looking down at him. 

"Gotcha, Paps!" Frisk says. "You forgot to look up!"

"AND YOU FORGOT TO NOT LET YOUR GUARD DOWN!" Papyrus reaches up and tickles her sides.

Frisk rolls off him, laughing uncontrollably but he doesn't let up. He keeps tickling her, even as she protests, saying "NO, STOP! HAHA! I SURRENDER! HAHA! ANDY, HELP!"

"YAAA!" Andy cries as he charges towards Papyrus. He trips and skids through the snow, face first.

Papyrus stops tickling Frisk, giving her a chance to breathe, as he goes and checks on Andy. "OH NO! ARE YOU-"

Andy pushes himself up, smiling. "Don't worry about it, I'm fine. So, who's it next?"

Frisk takes a few deep breathes, getting up. "I'll be it next. Let's see how well you can hide from me!"

Frisk is in the librarby, looking for books about magic. She's seen her brothers use some every now and then and wants to learn to do some herself. Picking out a book labeled 'Magic for Beginners,' Frisk goes up to the librarian and checks it out.

Heading back home, Frisk flips through the pages, trying to get an understanding of the basics. Something strikes her as odd, however, as she reads through the first few descriptions. The descriptions of magic seem... wrong. Magic is described as a solid thing, something that requires focus to use, a picture to form.

Frisk understands that it's probably simple to make it easier to understand, but she just can't see the plain magic in the book as the same beautiful one she's seen Sans use. Sans is a lot of things but he's certainly not focused when using magic. He uses his magic to goof off and be lazy. If it was that much work to use magic, Frisk doubts Sans would bother. Besides that, Frisk doesn't understand how magic can be solid. In her mind, magic is a formless energy that can be made into a condensed shape. There's nothing solid about pure magic in Frisk's mind.

Magic is a tool, a toy, a weapon, anything it needs to be. Focus would condense it but it would also lose part of its power. The purest control of magic would be to go with the flow. Find something familiar and draw from it without limiting yourself. At least, that's how Frisk sees it. She's aware everyone has their talents. Sans' teleportation is an advanced application of his gravity magic but it drains him quickly.

Entering the house and removing her mask, she sees that very brother of hers napping on the couch. She figures he might be able to explain it to her. She walks over and grabs his sleeve, shaking him awake. With a snort, his eyes open. "huh?" He looks over and sees Frisk holding her book. "what's up, sis?" Sans asks, still half asleep.

Frisk opens the book, turns it towards him, and points to the description of magic. "I was reading about magic and it says here that it's solid. But that's not right, is it?"

Sans is clearly surprised by the question. He sits up. "yeah, though i'm surprised you know that. that's not the most common knowledge."

Frisk lowers the book. "So why does the book say it's solid?"

Sans scratches his chin. "it's to make it easier for beginners to understand. gives them a base to start from, though most monsters don't go past that. generally, each monster has an affinity with their magic and it will take a form connected to them. me and paps are skeletons, so bones come easily, though i can also use gravity magic." Sans demonstrates, lifting the book from her hands and catching it in his. "if you try to force your magic into an unfamiliar shape, it tends to resist and be weaker. but that's not the end of it."

Frisk tilts her head. "But magic is formless right? Why would it be hard to reshape it?"

Sans' shock is evident. He clears his throat. "forming magic into shapes becomes second nature at some point. after that, it tends to follow the path of least resistance. but yes, magic is normally formless. how'd you figure that out?"

Frisk points to the book. "Whenever you use your magic, the energy surrounds what you're using it on. Same for Papyrus. When your magic collects and solidifies, it can't come from nowhere. Energy can't be created or destroyed right? That's what it said in one of your books."

Sans raises whatever passes for an eyebrow. "you read my textbooks?"

Frisk shrugs. "Only a little. I couldn't understand most of it. But I got that."

"well, you're right, energy can't be created or destroyed. magic can be condensed into a solid form..." Sans summons a bone to his hand. "...and while it may be able to stay stable for a long time on its own..." Sans breaks the bone. It dissipates in his hand. "...it's not that strong. am i making sense?"

Frisk nods, thinking for a moment. "So it's self sustaining?"

"bingo. but not all magic is like that. bone attacks collect lots of matter, making them solid. the more common magic tends to dissipate the moment it's no longer being sustained. most monsters first learn how to summon small balls of magic, like these." Sans waves his hand and three small white pellets appear in the air. "they don't take much effort to make so all monsters can create them."

"Is that why the book says magic is solid?"

"yep, though honestly i never liked that either. as i said, most monsters don't ever learn past that." Sans waves again and the pellets disappear. "ya know how i can teleport? i use my gravity magic to the fullest, which in turn lets me change my location. it's easier with places i'm familiar with so i always have my shortcuts."

"So how do I use magic?"

"you just feel it." At Frisk's confused look, Sans shrugs. "sorry, sis, i'm not much of a teacher. just... try to feel the magic around you, i guess. see if you can't shape it."

Frisk nods and takes a deep breath, closing her eyes. She's felt her brother's magic before. She tries to remember that feeling, recreate it. Something stirs but it's barely noticeable. Frisk tries again and feels a spark. She's about to try again when she stops. She remembers not to force it. She breathes in, and breathes out, letting it flow through her. She feels the magic flow around her. She sees the pellets in her mind. She puts them within the streams of magic and they merge with the streams, collecting magic.

Sans jaw would have hit the floor if it could. After only a moment of trying, Frisk has somehow managed to collect over a dozen pellets around her. They don't remain stationary but float around as if on invisible currents. Frisk cracks open her eyes and sees them around her. She's amazed by not only the sight but the feeling. She can feel herself connected to the pellets, as if they were a part of her. "I did it..." Frisk whispers. Then, louder, "I DID IT!"

Suddenly, the pellets vibrate. They shoot off in random directions, one almost hitting Sans. He manages to block it with the book. The rest hit the walls and couch. Frisk smiles sheepishly. "Oops."

Sans chuckles. "oops indeed. that's very impressive sis, i didn't think you'd manage so quickly."

"I just remembered how your magic felt and went with the flow."

Sans looks at her, confused. "you could feel my magic?"

"I think so. I tried forcing it at first but when I let go, it just... happened."

Sans looks at her for a moment before breaking out laughing. "do or do not, there is no try."

Frisk gives him a confused expression. "What?"

Sans collects himself, whipping away an imaginary tear. "nothing sis, i'll show ya later if i get the chance." He looks around the room, which is littered with impact points. "we should probably clean this up. before-"

The door opens suddenly. "SANS, FRISK, I'M HOME!"

"...before paps gets back."

Papyrus looks around the room, seeing the places where the pellets hit. "WHAT HAPPENED HERE?"

Frisk rushes over to him. "I used magic for the first time!"

Papyrus looks at her, surprised. "WOWIE, YOU DID?" He drops the bags he was carrying and hugs Frisk. "THAT'S AMAZING!"

Sans walks over behind them and messes with Frisk's hair. "yup, though until you learn some control, no using magic without my supervision, okay? don't want anyone to get hurt."

Frisk nods, turning to hug Sans. "I understand. Thank you, brother."

Sans pats her back. "anything for you, sis."

Sans looks through the old man's blueprints, trying to find a specific one. He has always been aware Frisk shouldn't have been able to reach his doorstep all those years ago. Now she was somehow learning how to use magic at an advanced rate. Sans hadn't seen anyone learn that fast since... well, himself. And Frisk is human! She shouldn't be able to-

Sans stops mid-thought, finding the blueprint he was looking for. A machine capable of finding irregularities within the timeline. Sans reads over the notes written in that weird language he knows so well. Most of the science flies right over his head, which is saying something, since Sans is no slouch in the science department. Most of the equations seem to contradict each other. The blueprints are far more complicated than any he'd ever seen before, and that includes the Core. Makes sense through; no normal machine can monitor timelines.

Sans knows it could take years to finish it. If he manages, he might even be able to bring back the old man. Two birds.

Sans scratches his skull before sighing. He waves his hand and a textbook flies over to him. He starts reading it, cross referencing it with the blueprint to have even a slight understanding of the concepts. Sans knows it's better to be safe than sorry.

Chapter Text

Sans sits on the couch and fiddles with the camera, trying to get it to work. He presses a button and a light glows red. "heh, check it out."

Frisk looks up at him from the puzzle she was working on in front of the couch. "Cool, you got your chimera working?"

"camera, and yeah. it'll record whatever we say." He holds the camera up to one of his eyes and points it at Frisk.

Frisk grins. "Looks like you're seeing things through a new lens."

Sans chuckles. "yeah, it lets me focus on the real issues."

"Well, you could stand to develop a frame of reference."

"cam do. i think i'm starting to see the big picture."

From upstairs, a loud "NYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH" comes from Papyrus' room. The door flies open and he stomps downstairs in a huff. "DO YOU HAVE TO DO THAT?" Papyrus demands. He crosses his arms and turns away. "IT'S REALLY PUSHING MY BUTTONS."

Sans and Frisk stare at each other for a moment before cracking a shared smile.

“SANS! I CAN’T FIND FRISK!”

It’s even louder than Papyrus’s usual yelling, and it’s just enough to make Frisk blink awake.

“Whaddaya mean, bro?”

“I CAN’T FIND HER! I’VE LOOKED IN HER ROOM AND BY THE TABLE AND EVERYWHERE AND I CAN’T FIND HER!”

Frisk frowns, confused, then sits up. Then she realizes what’s going on and lies back down.

She’s lying curled up in the center of a massive pile of tinsel under the table, well out of sight. She’s been resting here since walking downstairs at around midnight, the better to get to the presents easily in the morning. She wonders how long it’ll take her brothers to find her.

Papyrus’s frantic footsteps echo around the house from almost the moment Sans says they’ll keep looking for her. Sans is far less energetic at first, settling for walking around casually calling her name. As they keep searching, he becomes more and more frantic.

“Frisk! Frisk!”

OK, maybe it’d be a bit mean if she stayed in hiding. She waits until Sans walks by the table yet again, then pops out of the tinsel and yells, “I’M HERE!”

Sans snatches her up without a second’s pause. “Oh, thank goodness. Papyrus! Papyrus, I found her!” He glances under the table and spots the tinsel. “Were you… oh, you little sneak.” He ruffles her hair, and Frisk actually doesn’t mind this time, because she already has bedhead and her hair is full of tinsel. Sans usually reserves ruffling it for right after she’s combed it.

Papyrus shoots into the room at at least the speed of a car on a highway, then stops dead half an inch short of hitting the table. “OH THANK GOODNESS! WHERE WERE YOU?”

“Under the table,” Sans says. “She was hiding from us, can you believe it?”

“FRISK!”

“Hey!” Frisk exclaims. “I didn’t rat you out when you set up that one prank for Papyrus!”

Sans chuckles. “Sounds like ya have now.” Frisk isn’t sure if he’s playing along with her joke, or if there actually is some prank set up that she doesn’t know about.

“PRANK?” Papyrus asks suspiciously. “WHAT PRANK?”

Frisk shrugs. “Oh. You’ll see eventually.”

Papyrus narrows his eyes and gives her an adorable grumpy-kitten glare.

Frisk counters that with a Cheshire Cat grin as Sans sits down at the table. “Look, Papyrus, how about we just start opening presents?” He picks up a red box labeled “To Papyrus, From Sans.”

Papyrus eyes it suspiciously. “WHAT’S IN IT?”

“Oh, come on, bro. You know that’s not in the spirit of the holiday.”

“I WANNA KNOW IF IT’S GONNA EXPLODE WHEN I OPEN IT.”

Sans shrugs. “It shouldn’t.”

Papyrus still doesn’t look like he believes them, but he does open the box, cringing away from it the whole entire time.

It is a set of pretend armor, made to mimic the canine Royal Guards’. It isn’t a complete set, but it’s as much as Sans could make with the time and materials he had, and most of the pieces are there.

Papyrus gapes at it for a moment. Frisk bursts out laughing.

“Oh, your face!… you should have seen your face, brother! I shoulda grabbed a camera…! Ha ha ha ha…”

“HOW DARE YOU-!”

“Here,” Sans says, shoving a pink box toward Papyrus. “Maybe opening your other gift will make you feel better.”

Papyrus looks down at the box, then back up at his siblings, and if looks could kill, Sans and Frisk would both be dust right now. Neither of them can stop laughing.

Finally, Papyrus opens the box. He’s even slower and more hesitant than last time, and Sans and Frisk can barely stay in their chair, they’re laughing so hard.

Frisk’s present to Papyrus turns out to be the gift of nonexistant-stomach-turning prank anxiety. Oh, and the box also happens to contain three action figures.

Once Sans and Frisk stop cackling and Papyrus gets rid of the suspicious glower his face had momentarily frozen in, Papyrus shoves a blue box at Frisk and tells her she should open a gift next, as if that’s a good form of revenge, even though there’s no setup. Frisk tears it open, and it turns out to be a more advanced book about magic.

The next box for Frisk, the one from Sans, contains a handful of foil-wrapped rectangles. Frisk stares at them for a moment, trying to figure out what they are, before Sans takes pity on her and explains that they’re chocolate bars, and she is supposed to peel the foil off and eat them.

Which she does. She takes one bite, and if she’d had eyelights like a skeleton, they would have lit up so brightly she’d probably have blinded someone, and then she wolfs the rest of the bar down.

“Don’t go through too many too fast,” Sans warns. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

Frisk nods absently as she peels the foil off of the second bar.

“YOU’RE CORRUPTING OUR SISTER,” Papyrus says. Sans doesn’t seem to care.

Then it’s Sans’s turn to open his presents. Papyrus has made some constellation-shaped patches he can sew onto his hoodie. Frisk’s present is a pie, which she tries to grab and throw at him the moment he gets the box open. The only problem is that Sans is familiar with this prank and is also far stronger than her.

Once both the kitchen and Frisk are relatively clean again and Papyrus has finished chewing his siblings out, Frisk gives Sans the bottles of ketchup she got as his serious Gyftmas present, then crawls back into his lap and resumes eating her candy bars. She intends to fall asleep there, probably at about the time her stomach starts to hurt because she’s totally ignoring Sans’s earlier warning. Papyrus has put on some of his “armor” and is playing with his new-ish action figures.

“Now that all the drama’s over,” Sans says, “I’ve got a special present for each of you.”

Papyrus’s head shoots up so fast it’s a wonder it doesn’t fly off. “YOU GOT ONE FOR ME TOO?”

Frisk sits up a little straighter too. “What are they?”

“Which one of you wants to go first?”

Papyrus and Frisk both point at each other.

“I’m gonna need one of you to vote for yourself.”

They continue to point at each other.

Sans sighs and pulls a coin out of one of his pockets. “Soul or rune?”

“SOUL,” Papyrus says.

Frisk bites into her third candy bar. “Mmph.”

Sans flips the coin, and it comes up Soul. Papyrus leans forward, looking eager.

Sans pulls out a piece of paper. “Well, I don’t actually have it in the house right now, because I wouldn’t be able to get it in here without you noticing, but I found an interesting piece of furniture recently…”

He hands Papyrus the paper. Papyrus’s eyes go wide and starry. Frisk leans forward so she can see the picture.

It’s a bed – one shaped like a racecar.

“IT’S SO COOL,” Papyrus says, his voice as hushed as a shout can get. “I… THANK YOU, SANS.”

“No problem.”

“What’d you get for me?” Frisk asks, holding onto one of his arms.

Sans grins and pulls a small bottle and some folded paper out of seemingly nowhere. “Here. Read the label.”

Frisk does. It’s hair dye. White hair dye – the same color as Sans and Papyrus’s bones. It’s labeled From Sans and Papyrus.

Yet another way to look more like her family. Another way to mimic the brothers she loves so much.

“It’s perfect,” she says. “In fact, I’d say it’s just white.”

Papyrus groans, and Sans grins. “Just wait until you actually use it. It’s going tibia great.”

“SANS…! FRISK…!”

Sans shakes his head, resting his elbow on the table and his head on his hand as Frisk bites into her fourth candy bar. “Merry Gyftmas, Paps. Merry Gyftmas, Sis.”

While Frisk is in her room, dying her hair, Sans disappears from the house. A moment later, he walks out of Papyrus' room and leans against the door. "wanna see your gift while frisk is busy?"

Papyrus walks up the stairs and Sans holds the door open for him. He gasps upon seeing his new bed.

Papyrus rushes into his room and jumps onto the bed, bouncing slightly off the mattress. "HMMMM HMM HMMM!" Papyrus says into the mattress.

Sans walks in behind him, a bit confused. "what was that, pap?"

Papyrus picks his head up and turns to look at Sans with a big grin on his face. "THANK YOU, SANS! I LOVE IT!"

Sans chuckles. "no prob, bro. now, shall we go wait for our sister?"

Papyrus hops off the bed. "YES! I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE HER!"

Sans and Papyrus wait by the ladder to Frisk's room.

Frisk exits her new room excitedly, having just finished dying her hair white.

"What do you think?" Frisk asks her brothers, hopping off the latter.

Papyrus claps, saying, "IT LOOKS GREAT ON YOU! ALMOST AS GREAT AS I AM!"

Frisk and Sans laugh. "That's quite the accomplishment."

"heh, yeah. hard to be as cool as you are, bro," Sans agrees.

Papyrus lets out a proud "NYEH HEH HEH!"

Frisk hugs him. "Thank you for finding the hair dye for me. I love it!"

Papyrus returns the hug. "ANYTHING FOR MY SISTER. I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, SHALL BE THE BEST BROTHER I CAN BE!"

Sans shrugs. "guess i'll have to settle for second best, then." He tries to walk away but Frisk grabs his arm and pulls him into the hug.

Frisk whispers to Sans, "Thank you. You are the best family I could have asked for."

Sans seems surprised, but he smiles at her. "no problem sis, glad i have the two of you."

Frisk looks at her newly whitened hair in every single reflective surface possible on her way out of the house. With all the Gyftmas decorations up, there’s a lot of them. Papyrus keeps having to ask her if they’re really going outside or not.

Eventually, they make it out into the snow, where Frisk quickly finds some ice and resumes admiring her hair. Papyrus is amused but trying to pretend he isn’t.

After she’s been staring for a while, he reminds her that they need to get Andy his gift, and Frisk eagerly perks up, grabs it, and helps him run with it to the spot they usually meet the little yellow guy.

Andy is there, waiting. He has a little cloth pouch pinned to the side of his shirt and is looking off to one side, which makes him look super shifty. Frisk giggles as she and Papyrus draw closer. Looks like she wasn’t the only one who had this idea.

“Hey, Andy!” Frisk yells. “We brought something for you!”

Andy runs over, covering the last few feet between them. “Really? What is it?”

Papyrus and Frisk both turn and proudly point to the sled.

It was originally a normal red sled they found at the dump, but they’ve modified it to be just right for Andy. To start with, they’ve cleaned it up and patched the cracks, but they’ve also added a sort of seat belt – more like the ones you’d see in race cars than normal ones, though. They’ve also added a bit more structure to the inside of the sled to make it easier for a child’s body to stick in it.

Andy looks it over, his eyes wide. “Woah! You guys – you made this?”

Papyrus and Frisk both nod, grinning from ear to ear.

“Cool! We gotta find someplace to use it!”

He turns and runs off, then trips over his feet and lands facedown in the snow. Papyrus and Frisk both move to help him, but he gets himself back on his feet before they can reach him.

“WE’LL GO GRAB OUR SLEDS,” Papyrus says, and Frisk giggles at the look on his face as he realizes that moving three sleds around when they only have two people with arms is going to be awkward. “UM…”

“Oh yeah!” Andy yells, clearly oblivious to Papyrus’s internal crisis. “That reminds me! Frisk, I got you a Gyftmas present too! You see the pouch on my shirt? It’s in there!”

Frisk unpins the pouch and looks inside. It’s a small blue crystal, glowing bright blue in its little pocket of darkness.

Her mind lights up with the endless possibilities for how she could use this thing.

“Thanks, Andy.”

Andy grins. “I snuck out to Waterfall to get – OH. What did you do with your hair?!”

“Huh?” Frisk looks up from the crystal. “Oh! Sans and Papyrus got me some white hair dye for Gyftmas! Isn’t it great? Now I look even more like a skeleton!”

“It looks awesome!” Andy yells.

Frisk strikes a goofy pose. “Thanks!”

After a few more traded remarks, they find they way to a hill. Frisk and Papyrus have to help Andy get his sled in place and they also have to help him get in the sled, but soon enough, they’re all in. Papyrus gives the signal, and they’re all off.

It’s like flying. Frisk has a circular sled, so she’s spinning a bit as she soars down the hill.

And then the side slams into a tree. Frisk is sent sailing into the air, still spinning around in circles. The wind gets knocked right out of her when she hits the ground, sending up her own personal flurry, but she plays it off like it was intentional somehow when the two boys run over to make sure she’s okay. Andy seems to buy it, but Papyrus is definitely going to make fun of her later. He’s got the gift exchange to get back at her for, after all.

They all make their way back to the top of the hill, Frisk and Papyrus dragging Andy’s sled between them, talking and laughing, and this time, they position their sleds a little farther to the right.

Chapter Text

Frisk lays on the couch, struggling to read the Advanced Magic book. The book gives better descriptions than the beginners' version did, but some parts seem redundant to her. And it's still missing some parts that Sans told her about. Frisk flips through the chapters about specialized magic. Reading it over, she learns that some monsters tend to lean towards a certain magic pattern over others. While magic can be forced into other patterns, it tends to lose potency that way.

Frisk skips to the chapters on colored magics, reviewing what each color pertains to. Light blue and orange have to do with movement, green is healing and protection, yellow is offensive, purple is a more controlled version of movement than the other two, dark blue is weight and physical orientation and is often referred to as gravity magic, and red... is undocumented. Colored magic is hard for most monsters to learn, with the most common colors being blue and green, with the occasional orange. However, some monsters can learn beyond that, upgrading their magic from colored to SOUL magic, allowing one to significantly increase the effects.

Frisk keeps reading through. Suddenly, she drops the book in her lap, groaning. The chapter doesn't teach how to use colored magic at all.

From the floor next to her, Papyrus looks up from his puzzle at her. "WHAT'S WRONG, FRISK?"

"I wanted to learn how to use colored magic like Sans, but this book doesn't tell me how." She kicks her legs in frustration.

"HMM..." Papyrus thinks for a moment. "WHAT IF YOU ASKED HIM TO TEACH YOU?"

Frisk stops. "Why didn't I think of that?" Frisk sits up. "We should ask Sans to teach us!"

Papyrus looks at her, confused. "WE?"

Frisk nods. "Yeah, family training! We could all learn together."

Papyrus beams in excitement. "THAT'S A GREAT IDEA! AND IF YOU NEED HELP, YOUR BIG BROTHER, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL BE RIGHT NEXT TO YOU!"

Frisk starts hopping up and down on the couch. "Oh, this will be fun!"

"what will be fun?" Sans asks, having appeared behind the couch. He leans over.

"SANS, COULD YOU BE OUR MAGIC TEACHER PERSON?"

Sans raises whatever passes for an eyebrow. "magic teacher, ay?" He scratches his head. "i dunno... i don't think i'm cut out for that."

"Pleeeeeeease?" Frisk begs. "You're the strongest monster I know! You'll be a great teacher!"

"hate to brake it to ya, sis, but strong doesn't mean wise. i don't-"

"Pretty pleeeeeease?" Frisk gives him puppy dog eyes.

"PLEASE SANS?" Papyrus joins in with his own puppy dog eyes.

Sans looks between the two for a moment, then sighs. "alright, i give. i'll try to teach you magic."

Papyrus and Frisk both jump up, cheering and running to lock Sans in a hug. He chuckles and pats both their heads. "no promises i'll do a good job though."

Frisk and Papyrus push the couch over to the wall to make space in the room. Sans snoozes on the couch, being unhelpful. Papyrus grunts in effort. "YOU COULD... AT LEAST... HELP US OUT..."

Sans cracks an eyelid. "sorry, paps, no can do. i need all my energy if i'm going to teach the two of ya."

With one final push, Frisk and Papyrus get the couch against the wall. They step back and stand in the middle of the room. Sans slowly sits up. "alright." He stretches. Then he lays back down, closing his eyes. "lets start with the basics. summon and maintain your magic."

Frisk looks disappointed. "But I can already do that! I wanna learn how to do gravity magic like you!"

Sans raises a hand and wags a finger. "no can do, sis. baby steps. also..." He cracks an eye open to look at her. "last time you summoned magic, we had to take cover to avoid being hit."

Frisk blushes in embarrassment and grumbles something. Papyrus eagerly starts summoning bones, creating a pile in front of him.

Sans nods approvingly. "nicely done, papy. see how he's doing it, frisk?"

Frisk focuses and feels the magic around her. She begins summoning pellets in the air, careful not to let them go. "See Sans, I can do it too."

The pellets start increasing by the dozens. Sans' eyes widen. "frisk wait, you'll-"

The pellets start to fizzle before disappearing. "Huh?" Frisk tries again but nothing happens. Suddenly, she's hit by a wave of dizziness.

Sans moves next to her and guides her to the couch. "you gotta be careful not to do that. if you use too much magic too fast, you could drain yourself."

Frisk sits on the couch, room still spinning. "I get it, I get it, the three of you don't have to rub it in."

Chuckling, Sans sits next to her. "you've gotta learn to control your output. look at our bro." Sans gestures to Papyrus, who is still going strong with his bone pile, which is now almost as tall as Frisk. "he wasn't always able to summon that many bones. few years ago, he could barely manage one. you've already got a large magic capacity, you've just gotta learn to limit it." Sans reaches into his pocket and pulls out a 'hot dog.' "here, i was saving it for later but it'll restore your magic."

"Thank you, Sans," Frisk says, taking the 'hot dog.' Sans pulls out a bottle of ketchup, waving it next to her. Frisk shakes her head. "No way I'm falling for that one."

Sans chuckles. "worth a shot." He unscrews the lid and begins drinking from the container, watching as Papyrus proudly stands next to his bone pile, having stacked it to be just taller than Sans. "nice job, bro."

Frisk swallows a bite of the 'hot dog.' "You've gotta show me how to do that later, it's too cool not to."

"NYEH HEH HEH, OF COURSE. THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS ALWAYS WILLING TO HELP!"

After Frisk manages to figure out how to gauge and limit her output, Sans moves on to the next lesson. "alright, so... blue attacks."

"Gravity?" Frisk asks excitedly.

Sans shakes his head. "other blue. gravity is darker. we're doing the lighter one."

"Aw, whyyyyyyyy?"

"patience, sis, there's no rush." Sans smirks and Frisk snickers, getting the implication.

Papyrus, meanwhile, is scratching his head. "WAIT, WHY ARE THERE TWO TYPES OF BLUE MAGIC? DOESN'T THAT GET CONFUSING?"

Sans shrugs. "it's easy to think that, but that's not what normally happens. generally when someone says blue magic they mean like this." Sans holds out his hand and a light blue, slightly translucent bone, floats just above his palm. "this is the more common one. dark blue, or gravity magic, is generally only ever used by monsters who don't have limbs, but that's a very basic form."

"Can you do SOUL magic?" Frisk asks, excitedly.

Sans hesitates for a moment, before scratching his chin and glancing away. "well... yeah, i guess. how much do you know about SOUL magic?"

Frisk looks down disappointedly. "Not much. The book didn't go into detail at all. It just said it's a stronger version of colored magic."

Sans shrugs. "that's not entirely wrong, but there is more to it. but that's for later. for now, both of you summon your own bone, but keep your magic flowing into it."

"LIKE THIS?" Papyrus summons a bone into his hand.

Sans shakes his head. "too solid. go for about half formed." He looks at Frisk. "think you can summon a bone, sis?"

She shrugs. "Can't be that hard. You do it all the time, after all."

Sans shoots her a glare and she counters with a smug grin. He ruffles her hair. "let's see if you can back that up, then."

Frisk takes a deep breath and focuses on the magic around her. She can feel Papyrus's bone pile nearby. She locks in on the magic that holds them together. Holding out a hand, she slowly gathers magic above it. Slowly, a white object begins to manifest, taking on the shape of a bone.

Sans claps his hands. "very impressive."

Frisk beams with pride. "Told ya!"

"WOWIE, THAT'S A GREAT BONE FRISK!"

"It should be, I learned how to make it from you, tibia honest."

"heheh, that was very humerus of you."

"Thanks. I didn't want to tell a fibula."

"NYEEEEEH! WHY MUST YOU BONEHEADS TORTURE ME SO?"

Frisk and Sans share a laugh as Papyrus goes back to focusing on half summoning a bone. "HOW'S THIS?" Papyrus asks Sans, holding up a new bone above his hand.

Sans collects himself, inspects it and nods. "perfect. okay now both of you, keep 'em like that for a moment." He takes a few steps back. "before you can use blue magic, you need to understand how it works." He snatches a bone off the pile and turns to them. He holds it in one hand, summoning a second bone into the other. "blue magic has to do with movement, or more specifically the lack of it." The second bone turns blue. "blue attacks will damage anything that tries to go through them." Sans slams the spare bone into the blue one. It snaps and dissolves. "as you can see, they can actually do more damage than a regular attack. however, there is a condition needed for them to do damage." Sans holds out his now free hand. With a movement of that hand, the blue attack begins to hover through the air. It passes through Sans' hand without doing anything. "think of them like water. hit it hard, it resists. let it flow past you, it doesn't do anything."

With a wave of his hand, the blue bone dissipates. "now as for how you make your attacks blue... remember you want to block anything moving. focus on that first." He scratches his head. "sorry, that probably isn't helpful. not really sure how to explain it better. just try it, i guess."

Frisk and Papyrus both try for a few minutes, but nothing happens. Eventually Sans sighs. "okay, this clearly isn't working. let's try this."

Sans summons a few blue bones in the air. "let these pass through you. try to get an idea of how it feels to go through a blue attack. maybe it'll help." Papyrus and Frisk stand next to each other. Sans readies the bones. "remember, don't move. i didn't put enough magic in these to hurt you, but it still wouldn't be pleasant."

Frisk closes her eyes. Sans moves the bones. They pass through the pair painlessly. Frisk feels... something strange when they pass through. The way the blue magic mixed with the bones...

Frisk's eyes shoot open. "I think I've got it!" Papyrus takes a few steps away as Frisk begins to focus magic. She knew what the problem was. She had been trying to solidify the blue magic, but that's not how it's suppose to work. Blue magic is suppose to be a collection of unformed magic, manipulated a certain way so that it gathers and solidifies around other objects. The reason it doesn't hurt objects that don't move is because it doesn't experience any resistance. Frisk tries again, building the bone from scratch, but focusing on not making it completely solid, just a bit sticky. She opens her eyes and holds out her hand, forming a blue attack. "I know what was wrong before! I was thinking of it as a solid but it's not, is it? It's suppose to be sticky!"

Papyrus tilts his head. "STICKY?"

Frisk nods. "The magic inside the attack will solidify around anything inside the attack's range. It doesn't hurt if you don't move because there isn't any resistance. It's not a solid wall!"

"OOOH, LET ME TRY!" Papyrus tries several times, unsuccessfully. On his 9th try, he finally manages to summon a blue attack. "I DID IT! FRISK, SANS, LOOK! I MADE A BLUE ATTACK!"

Frisk hugs Papyrus. "We did it!"

"not bad. you two are naturals at this."

"OF COURSE WE ARE. WE ARE THE GREAT PAPYRUS AND HIS GREAT SISTER FRISK, BEING TAUGHT BY OUR BROTHER SANS! WAS THERE EVER ANY DOUBT?"

Sans shrugs. "when you put it that way, guess not." Sans claps his hands together. "how 'bout we head to grillby's for lunch to celebrate?"

"Yeeeees!" Frisk shouts.

"UUUGH, AGAIN?" Papyrus asks.

"come on, you can order the food without the grease."

"...FINE," Papyrus relents.

“…and Papyrus wants his without grease,” Sans says.

“Can I have a milkshake?” Frisk pipes up from beside him.

“And a milkshake for my sister,” Sans adds.

They stand – or, in Sans’s case, sit – there for a few minutes, waiting while Grillby gets the food ready. Papyrus insists on taking his separately from the rest, lest his siblings’ meals contaminate his.

Once they have the food, the two skeletons move to leave. Frisk lingers by the bar. “Um… Sans? Can we stay here?”

Sans hesitates. He would really rather not – Frisk has to take her mask off to eat, and he doesn’t want to risk anyone finding out what she is…

“Please, Sans? It’s really cold out there and I don’t want to go back out yet.”

Sans hesitates some more, then looks around the bar. There’s almost no one there – it’s them, Grillby, a couple of tired dogs so engrossed in a poker game they likely wouldn’t notice if the earth exploded, and a drunken bunny rabbit passed out in the booth closest to the door.

Well…

Maybe just this once.

“All right, kid.”

He leads his little family over to the booth that is not occupied by an unconscious rabbit and makes sure Frisk has the seat closest to the wall. Papyrus sits down in the middle seat, then immediately jumps back up as he hears the whoopie cushion he just landed on. He picks up the whoopie cushion and shoots Sans a glare but doesn’t say anything.

Frisk pulls off her mask so she can eat, and Sans focuses on keeping a straight grinning face despite feeling like he’s about to have a SOUL attack. There are two people between her and anyone who might see her face. They’re fine.

And then Frisk jumps to her feet and shifts past him and Papyrus at speed before darting out of the booth to grab a couple of fries she’d dropped a moment ago.

Sans’s SOUL turns to ice.

As Frisk scrambles back into the booth, Sans looks around, trying to see if anyone noticed. There’s no way the drunken bunny did. The dogs are now having a very involved dispute over whether or not one of them cheated. Grillby is always hard to read, but he doesn’t look like he’s seen anything shocking. He’s just pausing midway through polishing a glass.

As Grillby begins polishing the glass again, Sans turns back to his food and internally sighs in relief.

After a few days of practicing blue magic, Frisk and Papyrus have significantly improved. They both are able to summon and manipulate multiple attacks at a time and Frisk rarely gets dizzy anymore. Once they both have managed to summon five blue attacks at once, Sans decides it's time for the next lesson.

"okay, it's the moment you've all been waiting for..."

Frisk jumps up and down in excitement. "Yesyesyesyes!"

Papyrus puts his hands on her shoulders to keep her still. "CALM DOWN, FRISK, OR HE WON'T TEACH US." Despite trying to hide it, Papyrus is clearly eager too.

Sans waves his hand, causing the pillows on the couch to be enveloped in a blue glow. "gravity magic!"

Papyrus can barely keep Frisk from jumping in excitement. With a flick of San's fingers, two pillows fly at them, each hitting them in their faces. The pillows drop to the floor. "we'll practice with these, since they won't cause any damage. now..." A third pillow flies into his hands. He holds it in front of himself. "first thing you should know about it. it's a pull, not a push." He demonstrates with the pillow, holding it up with one hand. "and you want to balance the pull all over. too much at one spot..." Sans changes where he's holding the pillow, causing it to list. "it tends to take a lot of control to use it over long periods of time."

Sans takes a few steps towards the couch, putting the pillow on it and laying against it. "now, how to use it. imagine you're forming your magic, but instead of creating something with it, focus on something that's already here. in this case, the pillows. try and collect magic around them."

Frisk and Papyrus each take a pillow and try using magic on it. Occasionally, one of them manages to envelop the pillow in a blue glow, but it doesn't last long.

"NYEH! I'M TRYING TO MOVE THIS PILLOW, SO WHY WON'T IT MOVE?" Papyrus asks in frustration.

"do or do not, there is no try," Sans says.

The blue glow that was forming around Frisk's pillow fizzles out. "Still don't know what that means."

"don't worry about it. once you understand how to do it, it'll come easy."

Frisk and Papyrus keep trying. Occasionally, one of them gets the pillow to lift a bit before they drop it. Finally, after about thirty minutes of trying, they both manage to hold the pillows in the air.

Sans peeks an eye open from the couch where he had fallen asleep. "oh, you got it. good for you. i didn't even have to lift a fing-"

A pillow flies at him, hitting him in the face. He looks at Frisk who's still holding her pillow. She points and his gaze slides over to Papyrus, missing one pillow.

Sans grabs the pillow off the floor and couch. "oh, so that's how you wanna play it." He throws the pillow at Papyrus. At the last second, it stops moving, having a soft blue glow around it. "wha-"

From his side, a new pillow hits him in the head. The floating pillow flies over and Frisk grabs it. Raising it in the air, she declares "PILLOW FIGHT!"

The free-for-all between the siblings begins, and it lasts for a few hours. During the fight, Frisk and Papyrus occasionally use gravity magic to stop an attack or reload on ammo.

Chapter Text

Frisk and Andy shoot through the doorway into Grillby’s, their flying feet flinging in a small personal snowstorm along with them. Andy almost immediately catches his foot on a floorboard and falls face-first to the ground. Frisk trips over him, and the two end up lying in a giggling, out-of-breath, half-frozen messy heap at the center of a large scattering of snow.

Frisk is pretty sure they’re drawing weird looks. At the very least, Grillby is definitely looking at them in that not exactly angry, but still rather unnerving way that says that they had better get rid of the snow and close the door posthaste.

Frisk scrambles to her feet, then helps Andy up too and pulls the door shut a bit harder than she meant to. “Hi, Grillby!”

There’s only one other person in the bar – a dirty-whitish, friendly-looking dog. It’s playing poker with itself. It appears to be losing.

Grillby glances down at the snow they’ve tracked in, and Frisk grins guiltily, then opens the door and sweeps most of it back out, with some help from Andy.

Frisk runs up to the bar, trying to pull out the lunch money Sans gave her as she does. “Hi! Can we get a whole lot of fries, please?!”

Grillby’s silence suggests that he thinks she has had quite enough unhealthy food for one day already, which is totally not true! She’d only eaten a couple handfuls of the sugary blue things she and Sans had found!

After a moment, Grillby gets the fries and hands them to Frisk. He looks like he’d much rather hand them to Andy.

Frisk takes the little trays, then picks up a fry and tosses it into the air, making sure it lists slightly toward Andy so it comes down toward him. She overshoots a bit, and he has to lunge backward to catch it in his mouth – but he doesn’t go so far he falls over, so Frisk counts it as a win!

Frisk laughs and tosses more. Andy catches them all perfectly. He’s got loads of practice, of course!

“C’mon!” Frisk shouts, starting for the door. “We’ve gotta meet up with Papyrus!” Some days, they can talk Pap into coming into Grillby’s with them, but today was not one of those days!

Andy follows her a lot more slowly, and then they set off through the snow in the general direction of Frisk’s house, Frisk still tossing fries for Andy every few seconds. Papyrus should meet them somewhere along the – oh, there he is.

Papyrus is wandering toward them, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Frisk throws a fry over her shoulder as she opens her mouth to call hello to him, and she distinctly hears Andy faceplant for the first time since they left the restaurant. She grimaces – whoops.

“HELLO, FRISK!” Papyrus takes a bite out of his sandwich.

“Hi, Papyrus!!!”

Papyrus takes a moment to finish chewing and swallow before replying. “SANS WAS RIGHT. YOU DID EAT TOO MUCH OF THAT CANDY.”

“What? No! I didn’t!”

“ARE YOU LISTENING TO YOURSELF?”

Frisk sighed dramatically. “All right. Fine. Maybe you’re on to something, bro. Want some fries?”

Papyrus’s face screws up in disgust. “NO!”

Frisk giggles, then chucks another fry over her shoulder, then glances back to see if Andy has caught it. He has.

“STOP OFFERING ME YOUR TAINTED FOOD,” Papyrus continues. “I SWEAR, FRISK, IF YOU AND SANS CONTINUE LIVING OFF OF THAT STUFF-”

He continues on in this vein all the way through the walk to their usual spot by the river – their usual spot on days when they can’t convince Papyrus to come into Grillby’s – and Frisk smiles the entire time. This is pretty much a show to go along with the lunch.

“OKAY. ARE WE ALL HERE?”

Papyrus looks around, hands on his hips. The other five kids – Frisk, Andy and three rabbits – are sitting in a circle in the snow. Frisk has fallen asleep leaning against a rock.

Papyrus frowns. “I SAID, ARE WE ALL HERE?!?”

Frisk jolts, then sits up straight, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Mm? Wha’re we doing?”

“WE’RE PLAYING HUMANS AND MONSTERS! STAY AWAKE, SISTER!”

“Eh.” Frisk waves her hand rather floppily in the general direction of a clump of trees. “Staying awake is for – is for – zzzz.” Andy snickers.

“FRISK!”

“ZZZZZZ.”

“FRISK, I KNOW YOU’RE FAKING!”

Frisk cracks an eye a second before one of the rabbit kids pokes her in the side. “’K, ‘k, ‘m up…”

Which is exactly what Sans says every time there’s a morning when Papyrus has to get him out of bed. Specifically, it’s the part he says right before he rolls over and goes back to sleep.

Papyrus shoots his sister an unimpressed glare and then turns so that he’s facing all the kids once again. “ALL RIGHT! WE ARE GATHERED HERE TODAY TO PLAY HUMANS AND MONSTERS. YOU ALL KNOW THE RULES, SO-”

“Why does he have to overdo everything so-”

“Shush,” Frisk mutters.

Papyrus pointedly ignored both the rabbit and the freshly fluttering butterfly in his SOUL and talked right over them. “-SO YOU TWO,” he points at Frisk and the rabbit monster sitting next to her, because he knows Frisk is crazy good at making the chase fun, “YOU CAN BE THE HUMANS THIS TIME. EVERYONE ELSE – RUN!” And he spins around and charges into the trees.

Frisk takes the stick and pulls it back, winding up for the throw. She draws it out for several seconds, spinning a bit so that she’s got even further to go when the tension does snap. The dogs respond exactly as she hopes, leaping and barking and getting really overexcited as she makes them wait.

Frisk whips around in the world’s fastest semicircle, sending the stick sailing toward the horizon.

The dogs run after it, barking and baying excitedly and shoving each other out of the way in a crazy race to be the first to catch it. Frisk laughs and pulls out one of the spare fries she’s been carrying around and stuffs it in her mouth.

The dogs are racing back now, and Frisk braces herself to meet them. They sweep her off her feet anyway, knocking her flat on her back in the snow. Their sheer enthusiasm radiates through the air around them, and Frisk can’t help but laugh as she gets back up and takes the stick from the guy who caught it this time.

The group of teens retreats a few paces, giving her room to throw the stick again. Which she does, with vigor.

And the older kids are off again.

This time they get caught up playfighting over it where it fell, so Frisk pulls out some more of those fries and munches on them. When the dogs make it back, two of them still wrestling over the stick, she’s still holding a few fries. The puppy-dog eyes they give her make it hard to believe that they’re older than she is.

Then again, Papyrus makes that face all the time and he’s older, too. Whatever. It’s also an expression that’s hard to say no to, and Frisk has more fries anyway, so she tosses the ones in her hand to the dogs and they go wild over them.

And then Andy finally arrives.

They have plans to go sledding over on that one hill by that one cool tree formation, so Frisk turns to leave with him. The dogs don’t like it, so Frisk promises she’ll be back tomorrow and throws some more fries. That seems to satisfy them.

“…and there you go, that’s how they go on,” Sans finishes. “Got it?”

Papyrus nods, twisting his foot back and forth as if to test the feel of the ice skate Sans has just finished buckling on to him. “GOT IT!”

“All right,” Sans says, his voice warm with approval and maybe a bit of pride. “Reckon you can put on the next one yourself, then?”

Papyrus nods enthusiastically. “THE GREAT PAPYRUS CAN ABSOLUTELY MANAGE IT!”

“Knew I could count on you, bro. All right, Frisk, d’you think you can do it on your own, too, or-”

“Could you just do both for me, please?” Frisk is looking out over the ice, wondering just how thick it is. “I don’t want something going wrong with them while I’m skating.”

“Not too many ways you can mess up putting on an ice skate.”

Frisk looks up, making her eyes big as she meets Sans’s. “Please?”

Sans looks confused for a moment. Then he kneels next to Frisk. “All right. I forgot…” He glances out toward the ice, right where Frisk was looking a moment ago. “It’s a bit less scary for us. I’m sorry.”

“That’s not gonna break, is it?” Frisk asks.

Sans shakes his head. “Nah. It’s like a foot thick. It’d take something way bigger than you to put a dent in it.”

Frisk takes a deep breath, then smiles. “All right. Then I’m not scared of it.”

Sans seems very pleased by that, although Frisk is sure he can tell she’s still nervous. But as much as she can choose to, she isn’t scared anymore. If Sans doesn’t think it’s dangerous, then it’s not. That ice definitely won’t crack and she won’t fall into the water below and be eaten alive by the freezing cold abyss. She won’t.

Sans said it wouldn’t happen.

Sans gets her first ice skate on in a matter of seconds, but he takes longer about the second one, fumbling about with one of the buckles because Papyrus has gotten stuck putting his skate on and Sans doesn’t want to make him feel bad about himself. But soon enough, they all have the right shoes on.

Sans moves out onto the ice first. He takes a couple steps, then kicks off and spins a few times. Papyrus follows almost immediately, and he makes it look easy too.

Finally, Frisk joins them. Thanks to her brothers’ skill, she has underestimated the difficulty of keeping her balance, and her face promptly meets the ice.

Sans laughs, but he also helps her get back up, so she can’t really get mad. Then he places his hands on her shoulders and guides her across the ice as she figures out what to do with her feet, and the last few shreds of her anxiety die away.

Once she’s gotten the hang of it, he lets go, and she sets off on her own. She’s not amazing, and she’s definitely not as good as either of her brothers, but she’s good enough for it to be fun and she doesn’t fall over again, although there are a few close calls. She sets to work trying to make a clean figure eight.

“Right here,” Frisk says. “This is the perfect spot.”

Andy looks around. “Won’t it get lonely out here?”

Frisk frowns thoughtfully, looking around at the isolated snow and trees. They’ve wandered out quite a ways into the forest. “No, I don’t think so. People come through here every now and then.”

Andy bobs his head. “All right.”

They set to work building the snowman. Frisk gets the snowballs started, rolling and packing the hard little cores, and then Andy leans over and rolls the balls around with his head, getting them nice and big. The snowman’s definitely going to be bigger than either of them is.

Once the first snowball gets big enough for two people to push it, Frisk joins Andy behind it, and her green scarf gets caught up in it. The scarf is so long that they walk a couple yards before she notices, and by then it’s really well buried.

Frisk tugs on her scarf, then tugs a little harder. It doesn’t budge, so she raises her hand, grabs it with gravity magic, and pulls hard with both her SOUL and her body.

The scarf pops out of the snowball so suddenly that Frisk goes flying backward, landing in a snow poff several yards away. Andy runs over, worried, then trips and falls right as he reaches her side. Then they both laugh it off, get up and keep rolling the snowballs.

Finally, they have three large snowballs. Now for the really fun part.

Frisk grabs the snowballs with her gravity magic. They glow blue, and then they rise into the air and land on top of one another. She’s getting pretty good, if she says so herself.

Then, out comes the bag of snowman supplies Frisk bought at the general store. Neither one of them can reach the snowman’s face, so Frisk lifts the supplies up with her magic and Andy gives her his best art criticism. “Little more to the left… up… yes! Right there!”

Finally, they step back and admire their work. The smile looks a bit… sinister, but otherwise, it’s good!

They bid their snowman farewell and leave, chattering eagerly about what they plan to do next.

Chapter Text

“Hey, Sans?”

The fridge door swings closed, revealing a familiar skeleton with an armload of ketchup bottles. “Yeah?”

“What sort of monster am I?”

Sans walks over to the table and dumps the ketchup, then sits down and begins idly unscrewing the top of one of the bottles. Once he has the hard plastic lid off, he simply punches his fingers through the seal. “I was wondering when you’d realize you’re adopted.”

Frisk snorts. “Sans.”

“OK, OK.” He takes a long pull on the ketchup bottle. “Have you ever heard of mimics?”

Frisk thinks about it, but she can’t remember ever hearing that type of monster mentioned anywhere. “Nope.”

Sans nods. “Not surprising. They’re like us skeletons – there aren’t many of either of us left.” He takes another swig, then puts the ketchup bottle down. “Mimics. They’re a rare kind of monster that looks a lot like a human. Have you seen pictures of humans yet? Like in a book or something?”

Frisk nods. She had wondered why she looked kinda like them. It’s good to have an answer.

“Yeah. It’s like your protective camouflage. ‘Xcept, it doesn’t work down here. No humans to hide from. And every monster eager for the next human to fall so we can get back to the surface.”

He pauses, letting that hang meaningfully for a moment.

“That’s why I have my mask,” Frisk realizes. “So no one mistakes me for one of them.”

“Yep. So now that you know, you’ll be careful about that, right?”

Frisk nods, feeling kind of stunned. She knows the Royal Guard are always on watch for fallen humans. So Sans is saying that if her mask had ever fallen or if she’d pulled it off for some reason while she was playing with Papyrus in the wrong place… she’s sure Sans could have explained everything, but still. That would’ve been one scary afternoon.

“That’s good.” Sans picks the ketchup bottle back up. “What brought this up?”

Frisk opens the book she's holding to a bookmarked page and shows it to Sans. "It says some monsters can use specialty magic, depending on what monster they are. You and Paps use bones because you're skeletons, right?"

Sans knocks on his skull. "well, i'm not a dolphin, now am i?"

Frisk snickers. "You know what I mean. I was just wondering what my specialty magic is."

Sans thinks for a moment, then shrugs. "no clue. sorry." Frisk's shoulders sag. "don't worry too much about it. besides, you can do bones too, right?"

Frisk thinks for a moment. "Yeah... why is that?"

"well, you see, any monster can do any magic, in theory. issue is in practice. each monster has their own magic patterns. their magic flows easiest when repeating those patterns. if they try to force magic into different shapes, it doesn't come naturally."

"Then why can I use bones?"

"best guess? because you live with me and paps. your pattern is still forming so it makes sense you would learn bone magic. or maybe it's because you're a mimic." Sans shrugs. "could be anything, really."

"So will I get a magic that's just mine?"

Sans shrugs. "no clue. most magic overlaps somewhere. grillby can use fire magic but he's not the only one. there are a few monsters with a couple different cold attacks. don't sweat it, it'll come to you eventually."

Sans leans back, chugging his ketchup as Frisk turns the book back to reread the page. She begins to walk out of the room, muttering to herself, "Hmm... overlapping magic..."

“I wonder what my siblings are doing,” Sans says offhandedly, staring down at his half-eaten hamburger. He chuckles. “Probably somethin’ they’re not supposed to. I told ‘em not to practice magic when I’m not around, but they’re both so excited about Frisk learning. She’s a natural.”

Grillby doesn’t answer, as per usual. He’s been polishing the same glass for the last fourteen minutes, though, so Sans knows he’s listening.

“She’s way too good at it for her age, actually,” Sans adds, then picks up his burger.

“Might that be because of what she is?”

Sans freezes with the burger an inch away from his mouth. He hadn’t been expecting Grillby to respond at all – and while he quickly processes what Grillby actually said, the reflexive panic makes it a bit hard to think.

Still, he doesn’t think there’s more than a second’s pause before he replies. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Grillby’s expressions are hard to make out, but Sans is pretty sure that’s supposed to be a slightly exasperated fond smile. “I’ve known you for years, Sans. There’s no need to play the fool.”

Shoot.

“What, exactly do you know about her?” He isn’t going to be one of those idiots who blurts out the secret and then finds out the guy was actually talking about something way less serious.

Grillby finally puts the glass, which has been cleaned to within an inch of its metaphorical life, down. “Your sister is a human.”

Oh, crap.

Sans doesn’t bother trying to pretend he’s not looking around the bar to see if they’re alone. Fortunately, they are. Sure, there are a couple of guys there – a mushroom monster and a rabbit – but they’re both asleep.

He turns back to Grillby. This is it. His nightmares have just become real. He’d expected he would be terrified, but he’s not feeling anything. He’s completely calm. “How’d ya know?”

“You brought her and her brother here for dinner a while back. I saw her with her mask off.” He shrugged. “I’ve seen humans before.”

So that was it. Sans is vaguely aware of the thought that it feels kinda stupid that it was something that small that gave them away. He’s disappointed he couldn’t keep the facade up for longer, but it’s the sort of disappointment that comes from losing a game faster than expected. It’s not at all what he should be feeling knowing that his sister is about to die because he wasn’t careful enough. There seems to be a barrier around his soul for now, keeping that thought at bay.

“She’s a great kid,” he says. “She deserves to live just as much as any monster child.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone, Sans.”

And now Sans’s soul began to pulse painfully, and he had to hold himself back from leaning forward. “Huh?”

“I agree with you. I’m impressed, actually. I wanted to offer to help.”

Sans blinks. He doesn’t say anything.

“I know you. You haven’t told anyone. It must be stressful. You’re quite young to be dealing with this. If you need someone to talk to, I am here.”

And now the panic hits Sans full force, almost at the same time as the relief. His body doesn’t seem to know how to feel and his soul is skipping around inside his ribcage.

His sister could have died. If it had been anyone else, his sister would have died. The angel alone knows what might have happened to Papyrus and Sans. It also knows about all the nightmare memories flashing through Sans’s head. It’s been a long time since he had one of those dreams, but those images stuck.

He tries to keep his face straight, his eyelights the right size, and his posture neutral. He’s rather pleased by how well he does, in spite of what his instincts are screaming at him.

“Ya could’ve mentioned that first,” he says. “Would’ve saved me a soul attack. I think ya owe me a bottle of ketchup.”

Grillby hands him one. Sans inhales it.

He puts the empty bottle down. It hasn’t done much to settle his metaphorical nerves, which are still shaking like there’s been a Richter 9 earthquake. He’s still keeping his face straight, but he’s not going to be able to hold it much longer.

He makes himself take a few more bites of the burger, which he really doesn’t feel like eating anymore, then pockets the rest and stands up. “I appreciate the offer, but I gotta go. Talk more tomorrow, OK?”

And he’s out before Grillby can say anything else.

Chapter Text

"Um, Frisk? Are you sure about this?" Andy asks nervously, looking at the quick flowing and freezing water of the river.

"It'll be fine Andy," Frisk assures him. "The magic theory all tracks so there shouldn't be a problem."

"So you tested this before?" Andy asks.

"Nnnnope!" Frisk says without hesitation.

"Wha- Then how do you know it'll work?" Andy asks, worriedly.

"Oh, that's simple." Frisk says as she leans over the water, her grinning mask mirroring her grin underneath. "I don't!"

Andy shook his head. "I don't think you should do it then dude. Let's at least get an adult!"

"But we're already here!" Frisk protests. "Besides, what's life without a few risks?"

"Safe?" Andy suggests.

"BORING!" Frisk says dramatically. "Besides, if, by some small chance, it doesn't work, there's no harm done. So really, there's no need for an adult, is there?"

Andy thinks for a moment. "I guess that's true. If nothing happens, it would just be a waste of an adults time." Andy thinks for a moment. "Wait, what is suppose to happen again?"

"Well, if my theory is correct," Frisk begins, looking across the river. "Since you can infuse different types of magic, as well as use magic on inanimate objects, there should be a way to be a way to combine those concepts and infuse magic on inanimate objects. If I'm correct, I should be able to combine blue magic with the water surface and create a solid patch."

"So that's how you plan to walk on water?" Andy asks, looking at the river.

"Almost," Frisk says. "If that works, it would only be standing on water. To walk, I'd need to constantly move at least 2 patches in unison with my feet." 

"Wait, why don't you just create a walkway over the water then? Wouldn't that work too?" Andy asks.

Frisk thinks for a moment. "Possibly, but there's more of a risk to that. I'm going to just target the water on the surface of the river in small patches. If you stopped too much water at once, it would block the rest of the water from flowing, which could lead to more problems."

"Oh I get it," Andy says, nodding his head. "Keep the spots small so they don't mess with the rest of the river too much."

"Exactly!" Frisk says. "Well, in theory anyway. This is going to be the first test." Frisk readies herself, standing next to the river. "Just gotta focus..."

Frisk takes a deep breath. She feels magic flow through her. She focuses on the water surface, picturing it being still, solid. She takes a step forward, carefully putting her foot on the water...

And it connects with a solid surface. Frisk looks at her foot. She is standing on the water. She glances at Andy, who's face is filled with awe and her grin under her mask widens. "See, told you it would work!" She plants both feet on the water and jumps a few times. "It's completely solid!" She lets out a victorious laugh. "You were worried for nothing!"

"Wooooooooooah," Andy breathes, in complete stunned awe.

"Now," Frisk says, rubbing her hands. "Let's start moving!" She replicates the magic effect on another patch of water and takes a step onto it. She repeats the pattern, managing to get across the river. Solid, step, solid, step, solid, step. As she gets use to the pattern, she begins speeding up. She turns and begins to pick up speed, moving up the river, laughing. She begins to run and Andy rushes to keep up with her, staying at the side of the river. "I'm running on water Andy! I'm running on water!"

Andy laughs, clearly able to tell just how much fun Frisk is having. "Nice job, but I bet I'm still faster!"

Frisk looks at him at the side of the river, keeping pace with her. "Oh yeah? Wanna race then?"

"Ha! You're on!" Andy rushes ahead.

"Hey, we didn't say start yet!" Frisk calls to him.

"YOU SNOOZE YOU LOSE!" Andy calls back, running quickly through the snow.

Frisk cups her mouth with her hands. "WHO DO YOU THINK I AM, MY BROTHER?" She picks up the pace and begins gaining on him. Andy already has a massive lead on her though and she knows she would have a hard time closing the distance like this.

Suddenly, Frisk gets an idea. Something Andy had suggested earlier. Using magic on a line of the water rather than patches. It may not work well when crossing the river, but running up it...

She focuses on her magic. She pictures it forming 2 lines in front of her feet that extend with her. She could feel the change on the surface of the water, but she knows it won't be enough. She'd have to pick up speed another way. Andy is simply too fast on snow. Whenever they raced, if he started winning, the only way she could ever win was if there was... ice.

Frisk looks at the water below her feet. Solidifying it created a surface she can stand on, but what if...

Frisk refocuses on the magic. She's never tried this before but she begins to imagine the solid surface as slippery, holding on to the image of ice. She feels a different type of magic slowly build within her as she focuses. She mutters to herself, "Slippery... slippery... slippery..."

Suddenly, the magic clicks and she almost loses her balance. She's able to quickly recover and straighten. She grins. Looking up, she notices Andy has gained even more ground on her, but now that was going to change. Frisk pushes off and begins skating across the water surface. It only takes her a few seconds to find a rhythm before she begins to rapidly pick up speed. She may not be as good as Papyrus naturally is, but she can skate straight just fine. The longest ice patch she's seen in the snow was only a few meters long, but now she has a lot of distance thanks to the river.

Frisk begins gaining on Andy again, rapidly catching up with him. He glances back and yelps in surprise as she closes in on him. "How are you doing that?" He asks, redoubling his efforts.

"Actually, you gave me the idea!" Frisk calls to him. "I'm solidifying the water in lines. It might not work well going across, but going up stream, it's perfect!"

"But why are you so fast?" Andy asks, struggling to keep what little distance he still has on her.

"I also figured out how to make it slippery. Well, guess icy you later." Frisk passes him, chuckling at the pun.

"That's basically cheating!" Andy complains.

Frisk looks back at him. "I don't remember ever agreeing on rules!"

Andy glares at her. "You know what I-" His eyes widen. "FRISK, LOOK OUT!"

Frisk looks forward just in time to see a large tree trunk in the water, right in front of her. She's moving too fast to react and collides with it, causing her to trip forward. The surprise, along with the fall, cause Frisk to lose her concentration on her magic. She is met with the freezing waters of the Snowdin river.

*SPLASH*

Sans shortcuts deep into the forest, far away from Snowdin. He took a few steps, walking out of the tree line and next to the river. He had found this spot a few days ago. A perfect snowbed next to a calming riverbed with an old tree trunk sticking out of the water, fighting against the current that surrounds it. He had put it there so he could easily find this spot again. After all, it's the perfect spot to nap the day away. Of course, he plans to tell Papyrus and Frisk about his day later. He can already see it now. Papyrus' indignant rage that Sans actually put effort into finding a way to combine being lazy with setting up for a pun and Frisk rolling on the floor, laughing.

Sans chuckles to himself and stares down at the snowbed. He can't make the jokes if he doesn't follow through. He walks over, looks around, and falls backwards into the snow. He can feel the chill in his bones, though it doesn't bother him. He closes his eyes and drifts off, snoring slightly.

...

...

...

"FRISK, LOOK OUT!"

Sans is startled awake suddenly. He rubs his eyes, trying to figure out what he heard.

*SPLASH*

"FRISK!" A familiar voice calls in alarm. Sans immediately snaps to attention, assessing his surroundings. First thing he notices is the trunk he had put in the water is now missing. He looks down stream and sees Frisk's friend, Andy he thinks, standing at the other side of the river, seemingly panicking. Suddenly, Frisk's head bursts from the water, gasping. She clutches on to the same trunk that Sans had used as a marker, holding on tight.

Sans' mind began to stall as he tried to make sense of the situation. Frisk was in the middle of the river. How did she get that far in? What was she-

Sans hears another splash and comes back to reality. Frisk's friend had just dove into the water. He glances at the log and sees... Frisk isn't there anymore.

Suddenly, Andy's head brakes the surface. In his mouth, he has Frisk's collar. She splutters, clearly trying to catch her breath. Andy's also clearly struggling to keep them both up.

Sans, his mind finally catching up with the situation, shortcuts from where he stood to a bit further down the river from them.

Sans hears Frisk spluttering, "Help..."

"kids!" He calls in alarm, trying to get their attention. He pushes out his hand and channels all the magic he can right onto the pair. He hadn't used anything as powerful as SOUL magic in a while but now was no time for restraint. He focused and grabbed both their SOULs with gravity magic. With all his might he pulls them out of the water and onto his side of the river. Andy drops Frisk's collar, panting heavily. Frisk on the other hand... she's shivering badly.

"crapcrapcrap," Sans mutters to himself, rushing towards them.

"Mr. Sans!" Andy says in surprise. "We, um-"

"explain later," Sans says hurriedly. "right now, we need to get you both inside and warm. hold on."

"R-right! Um..." Andy looks down at himself, realizing he didn't have many options for that.

Frisk reaches out a shivering hand and grabs his shirt tightly. Sans nods and picks Frisk up in his arms. He focuses carefully and shortcuts them all straight into his house.

In an instant, the three are now in Sans' house. Andy knew Frisk's brother was able to move around quickly but this is the first time he got to experience it himself. If he weren't so worried, he'd probably be more in awe. Frisk's hand drops from Andy's shirt. Sans rushes her to the couch, setting her shivering form down carefully. Her eyes are closed. "I-is Frisk-" Andy began.

"she'll be fine," Sans says immediately. He disappears and quickly reappears with towels. He quickly covers her before disappearing again. A second later, Andy can hear a machine starting up from under the stairs. Sans reappears again. "i tossed some towels into the dryer, they'll be warm in a moment," he assures Frisk. He carefully removes Frisk's mask and dries off her head, putting a towel under it.

Sans turns to Andy. "you should change clothes kid" Sans says to him. "i know your scales and magic might help you stay warm but you shouldn't stay soaking like that." Sans disappears and reappears with more towels and a shirt. "here. do you, uh, need help getting out of that?"

"Oh right, uh, yeah. Just grab the collar, it slips off easily." Sans nods and grabs Andy's shirt collar. Andy steps backwards and slips right out.

Sans holds out the spare shirt for him. "it's not specially made, but it should be enough for the moment. i'll toss your shirt in the dryer too."

Andy carefully puts on the shirt, avoiding sticking his head in the arm holes. "Thanks." He glances at Frisk. "What should I..."

"she needs warmth right now," Sans explains. "unfortunately i don't have any magic for that and i'm not exactly a space heater."

"Oh, I can help!" Andy says. He quickly runs over to the couch and pushes his way next to Frisk. He focuses and the air around him warms up slightly. Frisk's shivering lessens slightly, and she seems to subconsciously wrap a hand around him. Her breathing eases. Sans seems to relax a small bit when he hears that.

A bead of sweat drops from Andy's face. He isn't as good at magic as Frisk or her brothers, but he does have a few tricks.

After a moment, Frisk seems to have stopped shivering completely, and her breathing evens out. Andy realizes she fell asleep. Sans lets out a sigh of relief. "thanks kid," he says. Sans raises Andy's shirt. "i'll toss this in the dryer, then you can tell me what happened."

Andy nods and Sans disappears, reappearing a second later with new towels. He replaces the ones on Frisk and Andy can tell these new ones are warmer. Sans then goes to the free part of the couch and slumps down. "so..." Sans starts. "how did frisk get in the middle of the river?"

"She said she had a new magic she wanted to test," Andy whispers, trying to avoid waking her.

Sans nods. "not surprising. she's been reading though her books like crazy. so, what was she trying to do?"

"Walk on water," Andy responds.

Sans looks at him, brow raised. "how'd she manage that?"

"Um... she explains it better but... something about using blue magic on the water surface? To make it solid enough to stand on."

Sans scratches his chin. "huh... not a bad idea. i'm assuming it worked?"

Andy nods. "Yeah, and then we had a race. But she got distracted and a log came and..."

Sans cringes. "i think i can guess the rest. she tripped and couldn't focus?" Andy nods. Sans sighs and looks up at the ceiling for a moment.

"Um... Mr. Sans... is Frisk in trouble?" Andy asks, concerned.

Sans chuckles. "not really. though the two of us are going to have a long discussion about using new types of magic unsupervised later."

"Oh..." Andy says.

There is an awkward silence for a moment, with only the sound of Frisk's breathing filling the void.

"kid?" Sans asks to get Andy's attention. Andy looks over at Sans who has a serious expression on his face. "thanks. if you hadn't jumped in to save her... i might not have made it in time."

"Oh! No problem! She'd do the same for me, I'm sure."

Sans chuckles. "yeah, i don't doubt it. that said, do me a favor and avoid jumping in a river to test that theory."

Andy quietly laughs. "I think I've seen enough theories get tested for a while."

"fair enough. still... thank you."

Andy lay there quietly, still being hugged by Frisk as he generated heat. A few moments later, he hears a new snoring sound join hers. He glances over and sees Sans sleeping as well.

Andy chuckles and closes his eyes, hoping to join them in the land of dreams.

The front door flies open. "SANS, FRISK, I HAVE RETURNED FROM THE LIBRARBY," Papyrus calls, holding a stack of books. "I HAVE COMPLETED MY STUDYING PREPERATIONS BEFORE I-" He glances at the couch and sees three people fast asleep. "OH," Papyrus says, in a much quieter tone. Normally, he would have complained that they were being lazy, but judging from the amount of towels on Frisk and the magic emanating from Andy, Papyrus figures something must have happened.

Papyrus quietly closes the door behind him and sets the books on the table. Hearing the dryer, Papyrus pokes his head into the laundry room under the stairs and checks what's inside the machine. He carefully removes the warm towels and dry shirt and walks over to the couch, replacing the towels on Frisk. He hangs the dry shirt next to the door and tosses the damp towels into the machine. 

Quietly, Papyrus grabs his books off the table and makes his way upstairs to his room. After setting down the books, he returns to the couch with two blankets, draping one over Frisk and Andy and the other over Sans. As he puts the blanket on Sans, he notices a small patch of snow in Sans' spine. He quickly realizes what Sans was planning to do and fumes silently, resisting the urge to wake him and yell at him for falling asleep in the snow. Papyrus knows he'd just be walking into Sans' trap if he did that.

Papyrus will let him sleep for now. He can chew him out later.

A few days later, Frisk is doing just fine, save for the cold she got afterwards, not to mention the scolding from Sans. She sneezes and chuckles to herself as she wonders why the two couldn't cancel each other out as she lays in bed, looking up at the ceiling. Andy comes to visit her every day so she isn't lonely, but she feels so bored.

Frisk thinks back on the events from that day. She had managed to layer magic, if she isn't mistaken, but it wasn't just that. She could swear she had used a different magic than she had ever seen before. For a brief moment, Frisk wonders if she should ask Sans, but she quickly dismisses the idea. It would just get her another lecture.

Frisk does wonder though. Could she use that magic again?

It wasn't until a few days after Frisk had fallen into the river that Sans realized something. Sans sat near where she had fallen, remembering pulling them out, when he realizes something was off. Sans had used SOUL magic on Frisk. He's sure of that. But her SOUL... it hadn't manifested.

Sans sits up straight, replaying the events over and over in his head. Frisk's SOUL hadn't appeared. That... shouldn't be possible.

No matter how Sans looks at it, he can't figure out why Frisk's SOUL wouldn't have appeared. Even if his magic is weaker than most monsters, that shouldn't matter. Human SOULs are suppose to appear when someone uses SOUL magic on them. So why didn't Frisk's SOUL appear?

Sans doesn't have an answer.

ALERT

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