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When the dust settles, Papyrus takes to his new position as King of the Underground relatively quickly, all things considered.
Things like half the Royal Guard being gone. Papyrus recruits new, younger monsters to fill the ranks. He tries to keep kids in school, or what’s left of school when a lot of the teachers have taken a “leave of absence.” Still, MK manages to joins the ranks, with his new grim smile and lack of trust in anyone but the new King.
Things like Undyne being gone. Papyrus writes to her every night, whether or not Sans is prodding that sore spot of her absence with his quiet lies about how much she must miss him. He sets up Gerson as the new Captain of the Royal Guard, but Papyrus is at many more of the trainings than not.
Things like Alphys being gone. Papyrus shoves Sans into the old role of Royal Scientist with ease, the sort of quick decision that comes with not knowing everything but knowing enough not to try and learn more, lest those phantom pains return.
Things like Mettaton being gone. Papyrus has a stock pile of old reruns to last on air for weeks, and once that runs out, the monsters left performing at the resort are just about ready to start living again and take up the helm.
Things like King Asgore being gone. With everyone’s eyes turning to him, Papyrus learns to wear a crown and listen more than he speaks. It’s not the attention he wanted, but it’s something. He learns to make tea.
Things like the woman behind the door being gone... well, only Sans is left now to miss her. So it’s one thing he can take off of his brother’s plate.
Though it never feels like enough.
Sans doesn’t do much sleeping anymore, and he hasn’t been to Grillby’s in over a month. It started off alright - he had work on keeping the Core stable he got to throw himself into as he waited for the reset, and Papyrus was genuinely pleased when he was up at dawn everyday. The cooks at the castle were (to Papyrus’ chagrin) quite good, and the castle itself was beautiful if overwhelmingly huge. They had a contingency plan in case another human fell, and in Sans’ opinion, it was the best one, meant to treat a good human with friendship and a bad one with... well.
It wasn’t the worst ending to the maddening timeline that now lay dormant in the basement of the brother’s old home. Sans had Papyrus.
But it was hard to watch his brother go through these huge chances in such a short span of time. In a perfect world (and they would get there, eventually, they had to) Papyrus would have met friends and had a fun, but fulfilling job. He would have grown slowly into this confident, steadfast adult that anyone could trust with anything, and he wouldn’t have lost a bit of himself in the process.
This... this was too much, too fast, too lonely and wrong.
Sans could see as much behind closed doors every night.
“i’m home.”
Papyrus had not met him at the door to their living quarters, or even heard him come into the King’s chambers. He startled from his seat on the overlarge bed, getting his elbows off his knees and his head out of his hands.
The smile that he drew up onto his face wasn’t as fast as it used to be, and seemed brittle about the edges. It was like looking in a mirror.
“HELLO, BROTHER” Papyrus started, putting some life into his voice, no doubt strained from negotiations al day. “HOW WAS YOUR DAY?”
Sans let himself in, shutting the door behind him. “the usual. core’s running steady. should have the new team up and running within the week.”
Papyrus patted the mattress beside him with a large, ornately gloved hand. The dark beneath his eyes made them seem huge. “THAT’S GOOD, SANS. I’M GLAD.”
It took him a moment to ungracefully hop up next to his brother. Papyrus grinned as he watched, something soft and familiar in a strange place.
Sans let Papyrus lean into him a little.
“how was yours?”
There was a beat before he began that reminded Sans that despite all the lies between them, lying so much was still a little new to Papyrus.
“GREAT! I GOT THROUGH ANOTHER FOURTH OF THE MONSTERS THAT STILL NEED NEW HOMES IN THE CAPITAL. I KNOW IT SEEMS SLOW, BUT WE’RE WORKING ON IT.”
“doesn’t seem slow to me at all. just seems like a lot.”
Papyrus’ smile turned into something a little smaller, sadder. Sans let himself fall farther into his lap, resting his head on Papyrus’ chest, and his brother responded in kind with an arm going around him.
“it’s not too much?”
“NO.”
“hm.”
Whether he noticed it or not, Papyrus started tracing his hand up and down Sans’ side. Sans knew he took comfort in their proximity after a long day, so he reached across to play a hand on Papyrus’ hip, thumbing the exposed bone.
They stayed like that for a while in silence, gradually becoming more entangled, til Sans was rubbing his skull against Papyrus’ chest, which hummed pleasantly beneath him.
The soul-thrum flickered and pulled away.
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THAT, SANS.” Papyrus sounded so tired, and Sans was suddenly eager to wash that away, to fill his bones up with magic and love until he could stop thinking about the crown on his head and the people at his feet and the unreciprocated feelings Papyrus had to his brother.
Whatever means necessary.
“i want to.” Sans murmured, reaching down to slide his hand under Papyrus’ robes and up against his ribs, flicking each one until his brother’s breath hitched. Papyrus squirmed, but his grip on Sans has turned to stone.
“SANS-“
Sans cut him off with a kiss, desperate not to hear his name, not if he didn’t have to, not yet. Instead he closed his eyesockets and let his tongue slip between the King’s teeth, coaxing warm breath and a quiet moan.
They fell back onto the mattress together - Papyrus pulled, Sans pushed - and Sans threw a leg over his brother’s hips. It was never easy to begin grinding his own pelvis down onto Papyrus’, but it was the quickest way to get him to make something, and if Sans just switched his focus from the tongue in his mouth to the motion of his hips to the schematics of the Core to the scared little human covered in dust trembling in a golden hall with no idea what they’d done or what to do next-
Papyrus groaned into Sans’ mouth as a flood of wet magic manifested in his pelvis, and Sans pulled back.
Papyrus protested as he always did, hands coming up grab at his hips while Sans shimmied down to his long legs. “SANS, COME BACK, LET ME-“
“i wanna do this for you, papyrus.”
Sans pretended not to see the hurt on his brother’s face as he hiked up the robes, revealing Papyrus’s magic, a soft orange glow alighting Sans cheekbones. He’d formed a cunt, already wet and aching, and Sans quickly hid his face in it.
“AHHN, GOD,” Papyrus moaned, careful to jam a hand into his mouth to keep it down. His muffled cries were quiet enough for Sans’. None of the palace staff would be able to hear them in this wing, but that left Sans alone with brother’s lilting voice.
Sans easily fit two fingers into Papyrus, and then three. His tongue was well at work lapping and sucking at his clit, ignoring the way the King’s thighs had his skull trapped. It took only a hint of blue magic to stop Papyrus from bucking his hips up to meet Sans. He writhed beneath him, head tossing and turning as he climbed nearer and nearer to climax.
“SANS, S-SANS, OH,” Papyrus cried, louder now, his brother’s name slipping from his teeth as much as he tried to hold it back. Sans glanced up only once to find Papyrus staring down at him, face flushed, eyesockets a thick and heady black, looking so full of love- before Sans crooked his fingers. “SANS!”
Papyrus broke over his mouth, walls clenching around his soaked fingers, wailing into his glove. Sans helped him through it, stroking gently as Papyrus shuddered and stopped, before pressing his teeth to his thighs as he gently pulled out.
Papyrus was shaking above him, ribcage shuddering with choking breaths. Sans didn’t know if he was crying or laughing or which one was better, so he kept his head down, nuzzling against the inside of his femur and whispering, “it’s alright, alright, you’re alright.”
It would be alright. It had to be. Even if Sans quietly returned to his own room after Papyrus had fallen asleep, even if they never mentioned it the next morning, even if Sans never felt clean after showers anymore.
It would be alright, because this was what things were like now.