Chapter Text
Papyrus could not for the life of him find that damned dog. Brows furrowed, he very carefully scoured the kitchen and spotted fluffy white from a crack in the cabinet under the sink. Looks like he found the tiny thief, but that was to be expected when it came to The Great Papyrus! There was no way he could lose him now; that annoying dog wouldn’t get him this time. Papyrus quickly opened the cabinet in preparation to catch whatever mutt would come tumbling out, only to come face to face with the white mop. Dang.
He sighed dramatically and internally thought of some very not-nice things about the dog. He would never say such things out loud, of course, his brother(s) would revel in it a bit too much for his liking. But just as he resigned himself to defeat, Papyrus heard an excited bark from the room over. He quickly reacted and within no time reached the living room where a white fluffy dog leaped into the air to snatch Papyrus’s Special Attack in the air from where it was thrown. Which was a bit strange considering there really shouldn’t have been anyone in the house but him.
Papyrus narrowed his sockets in suspicion until a particularly dark corner of the room put him at ease. A pair of pinpricks watched him from the darkened corner, filled with mischief. Papyrus sighed dramatically once again and dispersed the defensive magic that had built up in his bones.
“HONESTLY, I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT YOU WERE UP TO YOUR TOMFOOLERY! I ASSUME THIS MEANS THAT SANS IS HOME?” Papyrus cocked his head and put one hand on his hips while the other gestured about wildly.
The shadow which at this point had taken the appearance of a skeleton smiled from cheekbone to cheekbone and nodded in a truly horrific way. Papyrus, as if he was unaware, continued on his rant.
“AH WELL THEN, I SEE THAT SANS’S SOCK IS STILL LYING PRONE ON THE GROUND. QUITE STRANGE CONSIDERING I CLEARLY LAID OUT WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH IT” He waved his hands in the general direction of the sock in question.
The now skeleton figure raised an arm and it grew in size a few heads taller than Sans himself and reached to move the sock what Papyrus knew was probably just a few inches.
“WELL DON’T EVEN BOTHER IF YOU DON'T PLAN ON DOING IT CORRECTLY, AND YOU KNOW THAT GROWING IN SIZE DOESN’T INTIMIDATE ANYONE. HONESTLY” Papyrus had settled on crossing his arms and staring judgmentally.
The now ten-foot figure eyed Papyrus fondly as he went on his tirade and wondered what was for lunch. Papyrus, who had realized that he lost his audience, huffed and paused as he heard the door jangling. But in that moment he felt deep in his (non-existent) guts that something was wrong. And it was clear that the skeleton figure thought so too, the figure went from a semi-solid darkness to a shaking and fuzzy shadow losing its form.
There was a moment of silence before the skeleton figure began screeching in earnest. And all Papyrus could hear beyond the sound of the void was the screaming and the jangling keys desperately trying to unlock the door. He stumbled towards the door. Why was he so weak? And opened it, practically collapsing on one Sans skeleton who seemed just as rattled (ha) as he did.
“Pap, i think something’s wrong” Sans slurred his words and stumbled as he caught Papyrus.
He looked over Papyrus’s shoulder and inside his home to see absolute chaos, a shadowy figure reached out a skeletal hand to him as it(?) was sucked deep into what Sans knew wasn’t really his house. He didn’t even have a chance to process how an incorporeal shadow could possibly be dragged away before the pull got to him and Papyrus. His sockets were shut and he was ‘asleep’ before he could see if his brothers were okay.
-
This is not my house, we are not home
They whispered into Sans’ ear(?) as he woke up from his slumber. He was talking to him quietly, which was strange. Typically, he was loud and upfront when speaking to Sans, if only to bother Papyrus. So just the fact that he was quiet for once put Sans on edge. He felt his skull begin to pound as he tried to get his hands underneath him from where he lay.
He opened his sockets to what looked like some sort of basement. Sans looked up to see a significant amount of smoke pour out of a boxy-looking machine. A generator maybe? He looked deeper, past the smoke to see multiple very notably skeletal legs fluttering around the room. Over to his left was his unconscious brother and behind him was his Shadow. Whoever was in the room hadn’t paid them any attention yet. Sans would have to use that to his advantage.
Sans shook Papyrus’s shoulder until his sockets opened and squinted at him. A dazed Papyrus looked as though he was going to ask what the hell was going on but stopped at the finger Sans quickly put to his teeth. Papyrus’s sharp gaze landed on the moving people and the now-clearing smoke.
They were not alone and they were not safe.
The corner they were in was only partially obscured by Sans’s Shadow. They would need to do something and do so quickly, but before Papyrus could fully get on his feet a skeleton that looked eerily similar to him appeared from within the smoke.
The new skeleton waved his arms a bit to dispel the remaining smog and stared lazily at the two of them. His orange hoodie had weirdly glazed stains and he eyed them up and down with the air of an overworked cashier.
“aww man looks like the machine gave us a new pair”
To the right of the strangely familiar skeleton another skeleton that incidentally looked like an edgy version of Sans squinted past the smoke and made a very displeased grumble at the brothers.
“another one, are ya kidding me? we hardly survived the last two”
Another Sans look-alike spoke up as the last of the fog finally dissipated.
“THERE’S NO NEED TO BE SO SOUR FRIEND! I'M SURE THIS WILL ALL BE RESOLVED IN DUE TIME” his shrill voice rattled through Sans’s skull and made it ache ferociously.
Sans then decided that he wanted to know where exactly the Void had taken him, but before he could speak his brother beat him to it.
“WELL THAT'S FUN AND ALL, BUT COULD SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHERE THE FUCK I AM” Papyrus had finally stood up and helped his brother do so as he voiced his displeasure, being sure to keep his full attention on the room lest anyone get violent.
Funnily enough, everyone in the room froze and stared at Papyrus like he had just killed their dog or something. In particular, the energetic skeleton that spoke earlier looked absolutely dumbfounded, though to his credit recovered quickly. Papyrus, who never did like waiting for a response, tapped his foot once and spoke again.
“WELL? I REALLY WOULD LIKE AN ANSWER, YOU ALL SEEM LIKE REASONABLE MONSTERS. I WOULD HATE TO SIC MY BROTHER ON YOU” Wow he was really irritated now, but Sans could sense that it was more than that, it was clear to him that Papyrus was afraid.
Another skeleton that coincidentally looked exactly like Sans (Papyrus could sense a pattern) scoffed and their general snobby vibe already grated on Sans’s nerves.
“AND WHAT WILL HE DO? I DOUBT YOUR SANS IS THAT DANGEROUS”
“WELL THERE'S NO NEED TO BE RUDE” the energetic Sans spoke up again.
Papyrus’ Sans, who had been watching the whole thing go down in amusement, put his two cents in and internally grinned at the mischief that radiated off his other brother.
“oh no, paps wasn’t talking about me” He said, smiling like the devil, which immediately put the inhabitants of the room on edge.
The lazy Papyrus spoke again.
“now what the hell is that supposed to mean” he squinted suspiciously at the duo (well they were actually a trio, but he didn’t know that yet).
As if in response Sans’s shadow grew and Papyrus watched in amusement at the multiple eyelights and bone attacks that appeared and disappeared. The shadow turned from just darkness to a very tall bipedal creature and smiled with way too many teeth. The tension and terror in the room was palpable and cartoonish bones began to fly from every corner.
”what the fuck is that?” spiky Sans spoke up, his grin turning into more of a grimace.
Papyrus and Sans took the chance to duck into the familiar cover of the semi-solid shadow like children hiding underneath their mother’s skirt. To the chagrin of the occupants of the basement, every single attack sunk into black goop and clearly did no harm to the creature. There was some panicked talking and screeching, that Sans and Papyrus that was thankfully muffled by the darkness around them.
All was quiet when the creature opened its maw as though it was trying to speak. When it spoke it wasn’t in any language that anyone in the room knew, but nonetheless everyone knew exactly what it was trying to say. With every word that came out of its giant jaw an increasing sense of wrongness almost hurt physically to those who heard it. It’s brothers, who were accustomed to the noise didn’t flinch but many others in the room gasped at the feeling and clutched their skulls. Even the strongest of the lot weren’t able to do anything but tremble and clutch bone attacks that could ultimately do nothing.
“Now I advise that you answer his question, I hate to keep my little brother waiting” The creature’s voice was distorted as it watched on with amusement and smiled a little too sharply.
A Gaster Blaster was summoned by a new skeleton that had come from up the stairs. Before it could blast it however, it flickered and disappeared without the consent of its owner. The Sans looked shocked for a moment before sharp bones aimed directly at the figure whistled like a bullet before they too melted into his Shadow. The stranger took a minute to look a frozen crowd of similar looking skeletons before asking the unspoken question.
“what the hell is that thing?” the new skeleton was a mixture of horrified and terrified as it looked up at the monstrosity who was… shaking?
The creature's unnatural body was shaking and it took a moment for Sans to realize why. Laughing, the bastard was laughing at everybody. Man was this going to be difficult to explain to what seemed like alternate versions of himself. It wasn’t hard for Sans and Papyrus to figure out what was going on, what was going to be hard was the giant shadow monster that neither of them had an explanation for. Stars.