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Man. Papyrus was so cool.
Like, how could one look at him, and NOT think, Yep, that’s the epitome of Greatness right there, seen it with my own eyes now. There wasn’t a person in the world, on The Surface nor in the Earth who couldn’t see how awesome he was. It just wasn’t fathomable.
How, then,
did no one even know his name?
Even now, as the Ambassador of Monsters, second only to Frisk, the Ambassador and Savior of Monsters, whom everyone knew by default—even then, he was just known as “Ambassador of Monsters.” A prestigious title as it was but it said nothing about him; if anything it was a label. A faux name, a lesser name, a shadow only to Papyrus’s true name. …The true name being “Papyrus,” obviously.
…
I don’t know, maybe Sans was overreacting a bit.
But when you’re housemates, even more so brothers with the coolest guy around ever, how else are you supposed to react when some kid on the street recognizes him as That One Skeleton Who Helps Frisk Sometimes.
Now, don’t get him wrong; Frisk had their own merits, and if he was being completely honest when someone asked him (which he wouldn’t be), he couldn’t ask for a better human to be not just their friend, but all of Monsterkind’s family, really. In the ten seconds they’d first been in Ebott City, they even became penpals with the mayor himself. They had done a lot for everyone in their time on The Surface.
Sans was… Kind of proud of them. Actually.
But that wasn’t the problem here.
It was…
…
Well.
Maybe today, he’d just… Noticed it more.
Papyrus didn’t get tired. He never was. Impossible for him, in all senses.
…Yet when Sans heard him come home, and went out of his room to greet him, he saw him sitting on the couch.
He didn’t think Papyrus noticed him in the hallway. But Sans noticed, in the way his brother had held his skull in hands. Briefly, only for a few seconds, and seconds later he was already rising to his feet again (prompting Sans to retreat), but still.
Even still.
Even when Papyrus smiled at him, later when Sans reappeared as though he’d witnessed nothing, something about it was… Off. Like he was trying to save face, literally so. Simply for Sans’s sake, he smiled.
But he was tired.
. . .
So, Sans was Determined to do something about it.
What yet, exactly, he didn’t fully know—but he had a vague idea. He’d probably need a bit of help, though.
Thus he called Toriel first.
“Greetings, Sans!” she chirped after picking up, sounding all grins, as usual. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“heya, tori,” he piped back, all grins as well. “mind if this old bag o’ bones asks you a favor?”
“Of course! Anything at all, my bone-ified friend!”
Sans chuckled, “ok, so. you might want the kid here for this too…”
After relaying his plan to both Toriel and Frisk, Toriel seemed… Apprehensive, about the idea. But from what she’d translated from Frisk, her child was all for it—and even though Sans couldn’t audibly hear them from his end, they still had their weird energy-thing where something about them just screamed excitement.
Eventually, of course, Toriel relented at both Sans’s and Frisk’s convincing, and Frisk cheered (silently), whilst Sans sighed with relief.
“thanks, tori. i owe ya.”
“Oh, don’t thank me just yet, Sans.” Sounding a bit sly, she added, “You have a lot more convincing to do, do you not?”
Indeed.
It wasn’t hard at all to get Undyne and Alphys in on it and to his surprise, even Asgore agreed to help—apparently something about how he had immunity for tending to the mayor’s gardens.
And thus, they set the plan into motion.
Alphys was to stakeout high in a tree, binoculars in hand, and keep watch for any passerby’s that might question spot Asgore; Asgore on his part was guarding the building as a whole as his large form simply blended in with the shadows—seeming all a giant shadow himself. Undyne would be on the second floor, where the office was, guarding the elevator and should anything arise there, Frisk was to cause a distraction that would turn the tables from said anything that arose.
Sans had the most harrowing job of all.
He would shortcut directly into the office itself, look through the documents the mayor had stashed… Wherever he had them stashed. And from there find the document that had all the holidays of every holiday ever written down. …Whatever that one happened to be.
It was foolproof, certainly.
So when the time came and everyone was in position, Sans “snuck” himself into the office, wasting no time as he started sorting through every document known to man probably. It took him forty minutes but soon, he found what he was looking for.
Now all he had to figure out was what date to make it.
. . .
Crap, he hadn’t thought that far—
Too late.
Just then the door slammed open, and a guard stormed in—Sans didn’t have time to react or wonder what happened to Undyne or Frisk before the man shone his flashlight on him; looking wholly like he didn’t want to be there and simply wanted to get whatever this was over with.
“Sir, it is illegal to break and enter into the mayor’s office, do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Sans slowly lifted his hands into the air.
“i know the mayor,” Sans said.
…
The guard shining the flashlight at him deadpanned. Then, brought out a walkie-talkie-like device (shoot, why didn’t Sans think of that) and spoke into it,
“A magic skeleton broke into the mayor’s office, I’mma need some backup.”
Thus, Sans was sent to jail that very night, along with the others. He found out later that Undyne herself had gotten distracted a bit too long with Frisk trying to recite in hands a ten-minute summary of the time they found a closet that led into The Void—and their cover was blown when the guard only listened to the first five minutes.
From there Sans spent an hour or so in the slammer. Alone. He wasn’t sure where everyone else was but he was told apparently that the charges against them had been dropped and they were sent home.
Which just left him.
He realized this was… Turning out to be a pretty sucky plan. All things considered.
And to top it all off they told him he could only get one phone-call, which didn’t help, when all of his “backup” currently seemed unreliable. (And probably didn’t want to get involved any further anyway.)
…
Sans sighed, as he also realized: there was only one way out of this mess (other than teleporting out and breaking the law further).
So he requested a call to his brother.
“hey bro, can you call the mayor to bail me out, i’m in jail.”
…“WHAT?”
Nevertheless Papyrus showed up, with the mayor himself, and the charges were dropped on account of the mayor being told what happened and telling the officers that Sans did, in fact, know him.
In the end, no charges were pressed against Frisk, or their monster friends; or even Sans, for that matter. Which wasn’t all a surprise, he’d done his part in helping monsterkind get this far, but still.
…
The, uh… Real unfortunate part, was facing Papyrus himself, when Sans came back home.
He could tell his brother was mad at him. Angry, maybe.
“WHY?” he’d been asked by him, clearly upset, in any case. “DO YOU EVEN REALIZE— IF IT HADN’T BEEN HIM, AND THE WAY HE IS, IF IT HAD BEEN ANYONE ELSE!! ANYONE AT ALL!!! I’M NOT SURE I COULD HAVE HELPED YOU!!! I’M NOT SURE IF… I’M NOT SURE YOU WOULDN’T BE IN THERE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, SANS!!!”
Sans… Flinched at that, admittedly. And in return Papyrus softened.
“…I’M SORRY. I JUST…”
“no.”
Sans kept his eyesockets on the ground. Not meeting his gaze.
“you’re right.”
…
Papyrus stopped, and sat down heavily next to him on the couch. Hands twitching, as though he wanted to bury his skull in his skeletal palms all over again.
“…You scared me, that’s all,” he stated, with calm finality. “I’m not sure what I would have done, if…”
“i’m sorry,” Sans said, quietly.
And he did mean it.
More than anything.
“…i just… wanted to make you happy.”
Before Papyrus could respond,
Undyne burst through the door.
“HEY!!!” she shouted. “IT’S NOT HIS FAULT!!”
Sans’s head slowly raised to look at her.
“...uh, what?”
“UH, WHAT?”
Alphys shuffled in after her, fiddling with her hands, looking almost ashamed. “U-Undyne’s right,” she said timidly, “we… W-we were the ones to, t-to go along with it too.”
“It is as much our fault as any,” Asgore added. Toriel nodded.
“It was an agreement on all of our parts. We figured, since Mayor Davis was penpals with Frisk—and by extension all of us—if he found out what we’d done, it would not cause as much of a problem. Even if we were to get caught, and indeed, even if Sans got in trouble. But we see now, that… That was a silly thought regardless. We truly intended not to worry you. And… We are sorry for the trouble we have caused.”
Frisk stepped forward, too.
If it helps, I also became penpals with the police officers.
…
A beat later, Papyrus groaned, surely enough proceeding to put his head in his hands.
“I’M NOT SURE WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING ANYMORE…”
Honestly, him and Sans both.
Honestly Sans just wanted this whole thing to be over.
. . .
But.
Wait.
“hey, kid?” Frisk perked up, and he asked them, “did you guys bring the… thing?”
They perked up even more, and quickly rummaged through their back pocket, pulling out a sheet of paper.
“anyone got a pen?”
Toriel walked over to him and bestowed upon him a blue pen, sending him a subtle wink before backing away once more. Sans thanked her with a smile, before requesting that Frisk bring the paper over. They did with barely restrained anticipation, and Sans uncapped the pen, proceeding to turn it over entirely and began writing on the back.
Too jumpy to sit still—or keep a secret, for that matter—Frisk tapped Papyrus and signed rapidly, It’s for you!
Papyrus looked to him in confusion, but Sans was too busy trying to shield his imperative hidden message with his other hand. When he did finish, he opened his metaphorical mouth to—
We all helped!
…
Sans chuckled at the kid, while Papyrus furrowed his brows further.
“WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT, SANS? WHAT IS…?”
Without trying to speak this time, Sans simply handed the paper over.
When Papyrus stared at it, not responding, Sans rubbed the back of his neck. (And second-guessed everything.)
“it’s, uh… kind of what we thought of first,” he explained, sheepishly.
I did the sketches!
“I did the, u-uh, l-line work and coloring…”
“I DREW THE BOULDER!!!”
“I added in the flowers. I hope you do not mind.”
“I taped a bit of it up after Undyne added the boulder. Oh, and I decided to draw the little house, right there! I am no artist, but…”
It was Sans’s idea!
All in all, it turned out rather well; a rather modest drawing, a bit primitive by professional art standards, but… With all their souls, everyone had worked on it.
Papyrus was the focus of it, in the direct center—but everyone else stood around (even Flowey, who’d Frisk insisted on adding), on a little hilltop that more than likely was supposed to be the top of Mount Ebott itself. Sure enough, it was lined and colored like a full drawing. There were golden flowers scattered all over the area, a “boulder” (humongous dark gray-blue blob, rather, that filled up almost half of one part of the paper) residing haphazardly to the side, and a quaint looking house in the background. The neat taping work that held it all together seemed a compliment by its own, really.
Sans interrupted Papyrus’s silence, gently reaching to turn the drawing over in his brother’s hands.
On the back, a note. Just recently written in blue ink, of course.
to the coolest guy around ever, from all of us.
love ya, Pap.
. . .
The longer the silence dragged on, the more sweat started beading on Sans’s skull, and the more his soul started thinking, crap, yeah, this was the worst idea i had yet.
But, then…
“You… Said you wanted to make me happy.”
His voice came out smaller, again, and Sans froze up.
“…uh, yeah. i… yeah?” he managed, lamely.
Suddenly, the drawing started shaking in Papyrus’s hands; but, before Sans could worry further…
Papyrus suddenly dove forward, wrapping Sans up in his arms, and choking out a simple, “I already am.”
Sans froze up for a different reason, that time.
…But slowly, he returned the hug, burying his skull into Papyrus’s shoulder.
“Thank you, Sans,” his brother whispered, “thank you so, so much.”
Sans just nodded against him, afraid that if he spoke, he’d just waver.
Papyrus nuzzled against his skull in return, before pulling away, facing everyone else with a gigantic smile.
“AND THANK YOU, EVERYONE!! YOU’RE THE BEST FRIENDS I COULD EVER ASK FOR!!!” He paused, furrowing his brows again, “I’M… STILL NOT SO SURE ABOUT THE WHOLE BREAKING AND ENTERING THING AND THE HEIST YOU ALL THOUGHT UP, BUT YOU HAD GOOD INTENTIONS FOR THE MOST PART!!! AND YOU MADE ME A LOVELY DRAWING, SO I GUESS I CAN LET IT SLIDE!! ESPECIALLY SINCE IT WAS FOR MYSELF! THAT’S ALWAYS GOOD-INTENTIONED, AS I AM INDEED VERY GREAT!!!”
Sans laughed. It was still a bit watery, but nevertheless…
“yeah,” he murmured, “you really are.”
Papyrus echoed him with a cheery laugh of his own, and it seemed contagious enough for everyone else. Toriel herself giggled slightly from behind her furry palm, looking fond.
“…Oh!" she abruptly blurted. "Before I forget! I made a butterscotch-cinnamon pie earlier, should anyone want it. I can run back home and it fetch it for us. How about it?”
Everyone whooped at that (“everyone” being Undyne and Frisk while the others just gave varying terms of agreement) and even though it was the middle of the night, they slipped in a Mettaton movie and all sat down to watch and spend time together, whilst stuffing their mouths full of pie.
All in all…
Maybe, just maybe, only one of Sans’s two plans had needed to work out after all.
…
Though, he—with Papyrus’s knowledge this time, of course—did end up sending the mayor a little call the next day, suggesting, casually, the idea; of making it official. A day to appreciate, and celebrate the epitome of Greatness.
A day called “Papyrus Day.”
…
The mayor said he’d consider it.
But, even if it never did end up becoming a thing…
Sans was content, with showing Papyrus just how much he meant to him regardless. To everyone as a whole.
...And, Papyrus, on his part?
Well.
Sans didn’t know, probably. But…
Even if no one knew his true name.
Even if no one truly knew him.
Papyrus, on his part,
he would always be content.
For, truly…
He knew just how much he was loved already.