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“It’s for your own good.”Sans knew that, he knew that was true, he knew they were trying to make him feel better, but Papyrus’s assurances still rang hollow. He was – he was so scared – he didn’t want it to happen – even if it did make everything better – and it hurt, it hurt so bad…He squirmed, trying to keep himself from struggling. Moving wouldn’t help anything, he knew that… and if he moved too much, he might wake up Papyrus.He didn’t want to wake up his brother. Not again. He’d already done that far too many times.And Papyrus couldn’t help him. Papyrus had said everything he could, and none of it made Sans less scared.He curled up as tight as he could, trembling, he was trembling so hard, his chest hurt so much, and his spine… stars, he wanted someone to rip it out… he couldn’t have straightened if he’d wanted to…He was too out of breath to sob, but the tears streaked down his cheeks all the same. He wanted his brother… or his father… but it was the middle of the night and he’d woken them up so many times already…He finally caught a single, gasping breath, and the pain flared. He choked – no, his SOUL, his ribs, everything hurt, help someone help…“SANS?”Sans’s eyes flickered upward without his head moving an inch. Papyrus was leaning over him, eyes wide with concern.Sans tried to say something, tried to tell him he was all right, but all that would come out was a faint, gasping sob.“SANS, WHAT’S WRONG?”Nothing that hadn’t already been wrong for weeks. Sans sobbed again, and then he was out of breath, his knees pressing into his ribcage as he struggled to cry.“SHOULD I GO GET DAD?”No, he shouldn’t get Dad, he’d woken Dad up at two in the morning far too many times already, he was ruining his families’ lives-“I’M GONNA GO GET DAD.”And the most selfish part was that Sans wanted him to. Sans felt relieved as Papyrus let go of him, slipped out of bed and ran for the door. In a moment, his whole family would be up and worrying about him, and he was happy about it.They’d already spent so much time and worry on him. He should’ve been strong enough to carry it himself, just once.But he wasn’t. As a pair of hands much larger than Papyrus’s slid under him and scooped him up, all he could do was clamp his eyes shut tight and tremble. He was freezing, and his chest… stars…💙🗡💙Several minutes later, Sans was sitting in a chair he’d never grown into at the kitchen table, his phalanges digging into the wood in front of him. A half-empty cup of water sat in front of him. He’d used the other half to swallow the pills a few minutes ago, and the pain was more bearable now, but he wasn’t any less scared.Gaster walked away from whatever he’d been doing at the counter and sat down beside his son. Sans curled inward on himself, then launched himself forward, into his father’s lap. Gaster wrapped his arms around him, and Sans clung to him like his life depended on it.It probably did.“Are you feeling better now?” Gaster asked.Sans nodded, then shook his head. Physically, he felt better. Emotionally…He curled tighter, whimpering.“Do the painkillers still work?”Sans hesitated, then nodded. The pain wasn’t gone, like it had been the first few times his father had given him those pills, but it was less now.“Sans. Are you still in pain?”Oh, stars. He didn’t want his father to worry. It was all going to be over in a few days anyway, and he knew how much his father had been panicking about this… He shook his head.His father sighed. “Sans, I wish you had the confidence to tell me the truth.” Another sigh. “At least I have an answer. There’s nothing I can do tonight, but tomorrow I’ll try to find you something that actually works.” He ran a hand along the top of Sans’s skull, and Sans shoved closer, shivering full force again, anything for some physical comfort, anything.Gaster stood up and began to pace, rocking Sans back and forth just like Sans remembered him doing for Papyrus when Papyrus had been a baby. Sans wasn’t a baby, but stars, he felt as small and helpless as one. “Just try to remember, this will all be over soon. In a few days, I’ll have the test results and I’ll be able to operate.”Sans sobbed – a proper, full-throated sob this time. “Th-that’s I-I-I…”Gaster stopped pacing and leaned against the wall, still gently rocking Sans. “Sans, what’s wrong?”Gaster used his name a lot more lately – as if, every time, he was afraid it was the last time he’d say it. Sans didn’t think Gaster himself had noticed – if he had, he’d have stopped it. If he had, he’d have known how much it frightened Sans. “I – I – I – well-”Gaster waited while Sans gibbered, trying to string two words together. After several minutes, he finally came up with something that made sense. “Th-the operation…”“Ah. Of course. Sans, it’s perfectly normal to be scared. There’s nothing wrong with it. But please, try to keep in mind… it won’t be that unpleasant. You’ll be asleep for all of the messy stuff. It’ll be just like taking a nap. You’ll go to sleep before anything happens, and when you wake up, you’ll finally feel better. And I’ll be right there with you the whole time. It’s all going to be all right, Sans.”Sans was scared to sleep, lately. He felt like he was dying all the time… what if it turned out that he was? What if he went to sleep and he never woke up again?What if that happened during the surgery?“I – I almost wanna be awake for it.” All he could manage was a hoarse whisper. His voice hadn’t sounded normal in ages. “I – I’m afraid I won’t wake up-”Gaster’s hand still tracing along his temples felt so good right now. “I won’t let that happen.”“Wh-what if you didn’t have a choice?”“Nothing involved here is so serious that an emergency of that magnitude is likely to occur. I know what I’m doing. I’m not going to let you die.”Sans shuddered, gripping at his father’s shirt as his other worry played at the back of his mind. “Pr-promise?”“I promise.”Sans loosened his grip and started picking at Gaster’s shirt, trying to reassure himself that he was there, everything was still there and he wasn’t going anywhere. Should he bring it up…? No. No, it was ridiculous, it wasn’t going to happen, he didn’t need to worry his father over something so silly… not after Gaster and Papyrus had already gone to so much trouble for him…But he was so scared, and he wasn’t strong enough to carry it himself, and he didn’t want to have to lie awake thinking about it one more night. And – and what if it happened? He couldn’t – he couldn’t imagine-“Sans. Breathe.”Sans shuddered, then realized that he was indeed hyperventilating and struggled to get it back under control. Through the now-familiar misery, his father kept caressing him and quietly talking to him, trying to lead him back to a better place emotionally.And then he could breathe again. It hurt. Everything hurt these days. Breathing, talking, eating, moving – everything was pain.“Sans. What’s wrong?”He was hurting and he was scared and he was a child and he couldn’t handle it all right now. So he spat it out.“Wh-what if the drugs – what if they don’t work like they’re supposed to?”“What do you mean?”Sans swallowed. This was stupid, this was so stupid, he shouldn’t have been worrying about this, he shouldn’t- “You know… you know how sometimes… anesthesia… it d-doesn’t really knock the person out?”Gaster’s grip tightened a little. “Anesthesia awareness. You’re talking about anesthesia awareness.”Sans nodded.“I need to stop letting you read medical literature.” He made a sound that was half sigh and half chuckle, then began pacing again. Sans looked up, trying to memorize the color of the cupboards, the shape of the counters and the tiles on the floor, just in case. “That’s very, very rare, Sans. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”Sans nodded. That had been in the article too. One or two people in every thousand, and even fewer were actually awake straight through the surgery. But that number felt pretty meaningless next to the horrifying picture of what suffering through that would be like. And the fact that there were odds of it happening at all meant it was possible. It wasn’t something that always happened to other people, too. The people it had already happened to had probably thought it was. Everyone it happened to had thought that. There was no reason why it couldn’t happen to him.He buried his face in his father’s chest, trying to hide from the world.“What if we did a trial run?”Sans looked up, then grimaced at the spike of pain from the sudden movement. “Huh?”“A trial run. I could give you the same drug we’ll be using during the actual surgery, and we can see if it works ahead of time. No actual cutting involved.”And it would give both of them a few hours’ respite from Sans’s illness.Sans hesitated.“I’ll be right there with you the whole time. Nothing bad is going to happen.”Sans nodded.“All right. I’ll put you under late tomorrow morning, then.”Sans sniffed. “Why not right now?”“Because you’ve already taken the painkillers and mixing drugs is dangerous.”“Oh. O-Okay…”“Do you think you can sleep?”Sans shook his head.“Do you even particularly want to sleep?”Sans hesitated. Yes, sort of, he wanted to escape the pain for a few hours, but there was always that nagging fear that this would be the time he didn’t wake up.“IS SANS OKAY?”Sans groaned and buried his face in his father’s shirt again. Gaster had told Papyrus Sans would be back in a few minutes and he should just go back to sleep when he’d first grabbed him. He’d probably been expecting the scene to play out as it had every night for the last few weeks – with Sans just taking the painkillers and going back to bed without much fuss. He hadn’t been expecting a heart-to-heart to take up and exceed those few minutes he’d promised his younger son.“I doubt it,” Gaster replied. “The painkillers aren’t working as well anymore.”Papyrus made a sympathetic noise and ran over. Gaster pulled out a chair and sat down, bringing Sans back down to his brother’s level without having to put him down.Papyrus immediately grabbed hold of Sans, his hands glowing bright green.It did absolutely nothing. As Gaster had explained to him several times already, Sans wasn’t actually injured or damaged in any way – the problem was that there was stuff inside of him that shouldn’t have been, and healing magic couldn’t do much about that.As such, Gaster had stopped trying to use healing magic on Sans at about the time it had stopped helping with the pain. Papyrus, though… well, hope sprung eternal, and Sans did appreciate the sentiment. It was just that the sentiment and a buck fifty would almost make enough to buy him some coffee.Papyrus seemed to realize that after a moment. His hands stopped glowing, and he crawled into Gaster’s lap alongside Sans so he could hug his brother instead.Sans shifted so that he was leaning against both his brother and his father, and clinging to both as well. He was exhausted, the weariness every bit as deep into his bones as the pain and illness were, but he couldn’t sleep. He was perfectly still, not doing anything, his body’s entire weight being held by others, but he still wasn’t at rest.He sobbed, the sound harsh and pathetic and helpless.“Is there anything I could do to help?” Gaster asked quietly.“No,” Sans said, his voice tiny. “I – I think I’m ready to go back to bed now.” He wasn’t, but he knew there was no way Papyrus was going back to bed until Sans did, and there was no reason for Papyrus to go sleepless.Gaster saw right through him. And so did his brother.“No, Sans. We’re going to stay right here, as long as you need us.”Papyrus gave him an extra-hard squeeze, enough to knock the wind out of him. “OF COURSE WE ARE! YOU CAN’T FOOL US SO EASILY, BROTHER!”Sans looked up at them and smiled. He knew they could tell it was fake.
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Gaster carried Sans into the lab, the smaller skeleton resting on his hip, his eyes closed. It looked like he was asleep.Stars, how Gaster wished that was the case.Sans’s eyes popped open when Gaster flicked on the lights, but aside from that, he didn’t move. He’d barely slept for an hour the night – or rather the morning – before, and that had come after weeks of sleeplessness. The boy was exhausted. Gaster had an idea how he felt – he hadn’t been sleeping much better since Papyrus had first come charging into the lab screaming that something was wrong with Sans – but Gaster wasn’t a growing boy, he wasn’t seriously ill and he’d been living off of coffee for years.It was ten thirty in the morning. Papyrus was asleep, having finally nodded off a couple hours after sunrise. Sans and Gaster were still busy living through their own personal hells.Gaster carried Sans into a room that had been set up for a pediatric surgery – the one he had partially prepared for Sans’s procedure. He wondered if Sans was still lucid enough to figure that out.He laid Sans down on the operating table, and at the feel of it, Sans’s eyes flew wide open. Two huge, frightened pale blue eyelights flickered about for a moment before locking onto Gaster’s face.“Shh,” Gaster said. “It’s all right.”Sans didn’t relax a bit.Gaster kept his disappointment to himself and began preparing the anesthetic. The silence hung awkward and heavy between them. Sans watched his every move, clearly terrified, although Gaster wasn’t entirely sure he knew what was going on anymore.After a moment, he had everything ready, and he moved over to the operating table to place the mask over Sans’s face. Sans blinked, meeting his eyes and trying to pull away. He either couldn’t or wouldn’t make it too far.“It’s all right,” Gaster repeated, grabbing a blanket from a nearby cupboard and spreading it over his son. “It’s all right. In a few seconds, I’m going to flip a switch. You just keep breathing, slow and steady, all right? You’re going to fall asleep. It’ll take perhaps a minute, and it should feel very natural. No different from every other time you’ve ever fallen asleep.”Sans nodded. “Y-you won’t l-leave me, right?”“Of course not.” He couldn’t. He had to stay to monitor Sans’s reactions to the anesthesia or Sans could very easily die. “I’ll be right here until you wake up.”Sans nodded again. This time, he didn’t say anything.Gaster leaned over and flipped the switch.The click was loud in the silent room, and Sans shuddered, then fell still, his eyes still wide. Gaster watched his face. Sans was fighting it; he could see him. “Calm down. Don’t worry; you’re just falling asleep. If something goes wrong, I’ll save you, I promise.”Sans didn’t seem to hear him. He kept right on fighting, struggling to stay awake, until that was physically impossible and he went limp on the operating table, his quick, panicky breathing subsiding into a calm, slow, rhythm, his frightened expression melting into something more peaceful than Gaster had seen on him in weeks.Gaster heaved a sigh of relief, then pulled over a chair and sat down, ready to simply sit there and watch for the next several hours as Sans slept.For a few blissful hours, that was all that happened. Sans was peaceful, the usual pain in his expression and bearing, even in his sleep, was gone, and nothing went wrong with the anesthesia.And then Papyrus turned up at around two in the afternoon. Thank goodness. Gaster had been nodding off.His younger son came in surprisingly quietly, padding along as lightly as a creature made of bone realistically could. From the moment he entered the room, his eyes were on Sans. It was a wonder he didn’t run into anything.He walked up beside Gaster and leaned against him, still staring at Sans. “IT’S NICE TO SEE HIM SLEEPING FOR ONCE.”Gaster burst out laughing, causing Papyrus to mumble irritably when he jerked forward and Papyrus fell sideways. After a moment’s confusion, they were both relatively upright. Gaster was still laughing. It hadn’t been that funny, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d found anything funny, so he’d take what he could get for all he could kinda sorta claim it was worth.“QUIET!” Papyrus snapped at the top of his lungs. “YOU’RE GOING TO WAKE UP SANS!!!”“No,” Gaster said, “I’m not. An earthquake could cave in this lab and he wouldn’t wake up.”“HE WILL WAKE UP EVENTUALLY, THOUGH, RIGHT?”Gaster nodded. “Of course. Once I stop giving him the drugs. He’ll be fine.”“WHY AREN’T YOU CUTTING HIM?”“Hm? Oh. That still can’t happen for a few more days. He was… concerned about potential problems with the anesthesia, so this is a demonstration meant to prove that on the day of, everything will proceed as it should.”“WHAT WAS HE WORRIED ABOUT?”“Would you stop asking questions if I told you it would make a good horror movie?”“YES. AND THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GOOD HORROR MOVIE.”“Undyne might disagree with you.”“WE’RE TALKING ABOUT SANS.”“Yes, because he’s such an interesting topic of conversation right now.”“OF COURSE HE IS! UH…”“He’s definitely doing a lot of nothing right now. Perfectly still there, he is. Good heavens, all this nothing is exciting.”Papyrus stomped his foot. “THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!”“All right, all right. What did you want to talk about?”Papyrus’s eyelights blinked out, and Gaster groaned internally. That was always the harbinger of a fun conversation.“HE DOESN’T EVER WANT ME TO HELP HIM.”Gaster focused on a drawer behind himself and began digging through its contents with blue magic, searching for a tape recorder. Maybe if he played this conversation back to Sans later, it would actually make a dent in the boy’s remarkably thick metaphorical skull.“HE ALWAYS TELLS ME HE’S FINE, EVEN WHEN HE’S NOT, AND THEN I FIND OUT WHEN HE CAN’T HANDLE IT ANYMORE. IT’S LIKE HE THINKS IT’LL BE EASIER FOR ME TO FIND HIM CRYING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS THAN TO HEAR HIM SAY HIS SOUL HURTS.”Sans’s SOUL wasn’t actually the problem, but Gaster had given up on correcting Papyrus on that point. It might as well have been true anyway – Sans was understandably miserable of late. Gaster couldn’t even remember the last time Sans had cracked a joke. Oh, good, there was that tape recorder.
Click.
“I’M AFRAID TO SLEEP NOW. BECAUSE SANS DOESN’T. AND I KNOW IT GETS WORSE AT NIGHT. AND I DON’T WANT TO TAKE THE CHANCE THAT SOME NIGHT, I’LL PROBABLY BE SLEEPING PEACEFULLY WHILE HE’S LYING THERE HURTING ALONE AND DOESN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO ABOUT OR ANYONE TO HELP HIM AND I KNOW HE WON’T WAKE ME UP IF THAT HAPPENS. I DON’T WANT SANS TO BE HURT, AND I DON’T WANT THAT MORE THAN I WANT TO SLEEP, AND IT DOESN’T SEEM LIKE HE CAN UNDERSTAND THAT. I DON’T KNOW HOW HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND. HE’D WANT TO TAKE CARE OF ME IF I WERE SICK.”Gaster nodded. “Yes. He would. Papyrus… you see… there’s a dramatic difference between standard intelligence and emotional intelligence, right?”“YES…”“Well, your brother, for all how smart he is, when it comes to those closest to him, he has the emotional intelligence of a plastic spoon.”Papyrus blinked. “THIS DOESN’T FEEL LIKE A NORMAL HEART-TO-HEART.”“No. That would necessitate me being awake.” Gaster sighed. “He tries not to let me help him, either. He doesn’t wish to inconvenience us by reminding us that he’s in horrible pain all the time and asking for comfort.”“…THAT’S NOT AN INCONVENIENCE.”“No, it’s not, but Sans… he has a hard time doing or asking for things for himself. On some level, for some reason, he counts himself less valuable than you or I.”“THAT’S RIDICULOUS. SANS IS SMARTER THAN THAT.”“You would think so, but remember that difference between standard and emotional intelligence we just discussed.”“SANS IS EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT!”“With the exception of a few glaring blind spots.”“ALL RIGHT! HOW DO I CONVINCE HIM HE’S BEING AN IDIOT, THEN?”“I don’t know. I’ve been trying for weeks now. If you ever find out, please tell me.”Papyrus planted his hands on his hips and turned toward his unconscious brother with the most comically determined look on his face. “SANS! IF YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS OR WHATEVER IS LISTENING RIGHT NOW, STOP TELLING US YOU’RE FINE! WE BOTH KNOW YOU’RE NOT! AND WE BOTH WANT TO HELP YOU, SO STOP TRYING TO PRETEND YOU DON’T NEED IT!”“That’s probably not going to work. He’s under much more deeply than normal sleep would put him.”“WELL IT HAS A CHANCE! SO I’M DOING IT!”“That’s the spirit, I suppose.”“IT MOST DEFINITELY IS THE SPIRIT! HOPE SHINES BRIGHTEST IN HOPELESS SITUATIONS!”“…did you get that off a bumper sticker?”“SO WHAT IF I DID! ALSO, WHAT THE HECK IS A BUMPER STICKER?”Gaster chuckled, shaking his head. “Never mind.”“CAN I TOUCH HIM?”“As long as you don’t touch the mask, go for it.”Papyrus left Gaster’s side and scrambled over to his brother, then took a moment to scramble up onto the operating table beside him. The table was, as operating tables tended to be, narrow, but Sans was so small that there was enough room for Papyrus to sit beside him and grab one of his limp little hands.It was one of those moments when Gaster was reminded of just how small and fragile Sans was. The boy was tiny, and if Papyrus so much as gripped too tightly right now, Sans would be down one functional hand. It was the sort of feeling of awe-inspiring responsibility and protectiveness that Gaster had stopped feeling for Papyrus shortly after Papyrus had figured out how to walk. It wasn’t that he didn’t love Papyrus, it was just that Papyrus’s appearance didn’t remind him of thin glass.“I WISH I’D CAUGHT IT INSTEAD,” Papyrus said, his voice dropping to almost a normal speaking volume. “I WISH I COULD TAKE THIS FOR HIM.”Gaster stood up and crossed the room to stand by Sans’s other side, resting a hand on the shoulder not connected to the hand Papyrus was holding. “I wish I could, too.”Papyrus poked at Sans’s face. The sleeping skeleton didn’t react. “HOW COULD HE THINK HE’S NOT WORTH HELPING OUT OF THIS?”Gaster shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know.”Papyrus frowned, staring thoughtfully down at his brother.“Don’t try to hug him. That mask needs to stay where it is.”“THEN I’LL HUG HIM LATER. WHEN HE’S AWAKE. AND I’LL TELL HIM WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT JUST NOW AND TELL HIM HE’S BEING STUPID ABOUT IT BECAUSE HE WON’T BE ABLE TO GO ANYWHERE IF I’M HUGGING HIM.”Gaster chuckled. “That’s a good idea. And you should probably keep holding on to him once you’ve run out of things to say. He has a hard time asking for it, but your affection helps him a lot.”“ALL RIGHT THEN! THAT SOUNDS EASY!”“I’ll bet it does.”“EXCEPT FOR RIGHT NOW. BECAUSE YOU JUST TOLD ME NOT TO.”“He’s asleep right now. He doesn’t need it.”“I SUPPOSE YOU’RE RIGHT.” Papyrus let go of Sans’s hand and slid off the operating table. “CAN I HAVE A HUG, THEN? THIS HAS ALL BEEN VERY HARD ON ME, TOO.”Ah, the eternal sunshine that was Papyrus’s attitude. Gaster wasn’t sure he or Sans would still be sane right now without him. He nodded, then scooped his younger son up and carried him back over to the chair. “Oof. You’re getting big.”“I’M MADE OF BONES, DAD. I’M NOT THAT HEAVY.”“Sans isn’t the only smart aleck in the house, I see.”“I PROMISED HIM I’D OUT-ALECK HIM SOMEDAY. I… DON’T THINK HE REMEMBERS.”“It’s okay. You can remind him once he’s better.”“YOU… YOU CAN FIX HIM, RIGHT?”“Yes. Of course I can.” He wasn’t actually as confident as he pretended to be for his children’s sake, but it was a fairly simple procedure and there were no strange complications involved. If he could just keep Sans’s lack of hit points from causing problems… There was no reason for him to be preparing his sons for one of them to die, even if he halfway expected it to happen himself.Sans was going to survive. He would be okay. But Gaster couldn’t keep himself from thinking a whole lot more about the other possibility.Papyrus hummed to himself and curled up such that he could keep an eye on Sans, and the two just sat there, keeping a silent vigil over the sleeping, sickened third member of their family.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Sans knelt on the floor, halfheartedly pushing a toy car around. It wasn’t nearly enthralling enough to distract him from the gnawing agony in his chest, but that wasn’t bad enough yet to go bother his father or brother about.He started crawling, intent on carrying the car to the windowsill for reasons he hadn’t yet thought out, and something slammed into him from behind, sending him sprawling facefirst to the ground. The car went flying out of his hands.Sans squirmed, instinctively trying to throw his attacker off of him, then hissed as the movement shoved a spike right through the usual pain. Papyrus made a vaguely concerned noise and sat up, pulling Sans into his lap. Sans might’ve been the older brother, but he was easily small enough to fit.Papyrus pulled him in close, wrapping his body snugly around his smaller brother’s. Sans closed his eyes. He didn’t relax, he couldn’t relax, not anymore, but his brother’s presence and love and control helped. He didn’t need to hold it all together himself if his brother was holding him. He didn’t need to be able to control an overwhelming, terrifying situation if someone he trusted could.And maybe Papyrus wasn’t in control, maybe Papyrus could do less about all this than Sans could, but his brother was stronger than he was and he was at least pretending to be calm and Sans felt safe breaking on him.He ducked a little to make it easier for Papyrus to tuck his skull under his chin, then ground his teeth and tried to keep his breathing steady. Stars, it was getting worse…“YOU KNOW YOU DESERVE THIS, RIGHT?”Sans shifted. “Huh?”“ME HELPING YOU. YOU KNOW YOU DESERVE HELP ON YOUR BAD DAYS, RIGHT?”Sans shifted some more, probably enough to call it squirming. “Um…”“SANS!”Sans slumped, staring down at Papyrus’s knee. The pain was almost unbearable. “What brought this up?”“DAD AND I HAD A TALK WHILE YOU WERE OUT. AND WE AGREED THAT YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.”Sans shoved his knees into his chest in the futile hope that the pressure might ease the pain a little. “’m eleven, Paps. Pretty sure I’m not supposed to.”“SANS! YOU KNOW THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!”“Paps, I-”“YOU WON’T EVER LET US HELP YOU! YOU JUST CRAWL OFF ON YOUR OWN WHEN YOU’RE IN PAIN AND YOU TELL US YOU’RE FINE WHEN YOU’RE NOT AND YOU DON’T EVER SLEEP ANYMORE AND YOU WON’T EVEN TELL US! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW SCARY IT IS, FINDING YOU SOBBING ON THE FLOOR THREE MINUTES AFTER YOU SAID YOU WERE HAVING A GOOD DAY?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW I FEEL WHEN I WAKE UP IN THE MORNING AND REALIZED YOU NEEDED ME ALL NIGHT, BUT YOU WEREN’T WILLING TO WAKE ME UP, SO YOU JUST LAID THERE AND CRIED ALL BY YOURSELF UNTIL YOU COULDN’T ANYMORE?!”Tears were beginning to well up in Sans’s sockets. “Papyrus, I just-”“DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT HURTS TO KNOW YOU’RE SUFFERING LIKE THAT?”“Paps-”“AND THEN YOU WON’T LET ME DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! I HAVE TO SIT OFF TO THE SIDE AND WATCH YOU FALL APART! AND IT FEELS AWFUL, BROTHER!”One of those tears spilled over. “It’s not that-”“OH YES IT IS THAT BAD! ANYWAY.” Papyrus shifted his grip on Sans so the smaller skeleton was lying flat on his back in his lap. The message was pretty clear: You’re not in charge here, so stop arguing.Sans did.“I HAVE COME TO A DECISION.”Sans squirmed, feeling oddly vulnerable. “And that would be?”“YOU ARE CLEARLY A TERRIBLE JUDGE OF WHETHER OR NOT YOU NEED HELP, SO FROM NOW ON, I’LL JUDGE IT FOR YOU! ALTHOUGH,” he added, a bit more quietly, “YOU CAN STILL ASK.”“How generous of you.”“EXACTLY!” And then he was upright and Papyrus was hugging him again, his arms tight around Sans’s ribcage – just barely not tight enough to send Sans spiraling into agony.Papyrus loosened his grip slightly, then pushed Sans away altogether and stood up. Before Sans could ask why, Papyrus had bent down and was trying to pick him up.“Um, Papyrus, I don’t think this is a good-”And then Papyrus had gotten his arms under Sans’s shoulders and knees and was straightening up.He managed it. Shakily, yes, but he was standing, with Sans in his arms.Not that it felt at all safe. Papyrus was shaking like a leaf in the wind, or, more aptly, an empty bucket about to fall over. Sans twisted his hands into his brother’s shirt, clinging to him. He was going to get dropped, he knew it. “Papyrus, please put me d-”Papyrus fell forward, and Sans screamed in anticipation of the pain he would feel when he hit the ground.Someone grabbed his SOUL, a clumsy, slippery grip, then immediately dropped him. Then someone else grabbed him, a much firmer hold on his SOUL keeping him hovering a few inches off the ground.Sans’s screams cut off as he looked up at his father, who was leaning through the kitchen doorway, one outstretched hand glowing blue.“Sans. Are you all right?”“Y-yes.”“SORRY,” Papyrus muttered.“’sokay.”“NO IT’S NOT! SEE, THIS IS THE PROBLEM, BROTHER!”Gaster chuckled, tilting his hand slightly. Sans flipped upright, then rose slightly so he was hovering a couple of feet off the ground. Papyrus was standing on his own two feet again. “Hark who’s talking.”Sans smiled faintly.“THIS ISN’T ABOUT HIM FORGIVING EASILY! THIS IS ABOUT HIM THINKING IT’S NOT A PROBLEM TO BEGIN WITH!”“Where were you trying to take him?”“IT’S ABOUT THE TIME OF DAY HE USUALLY TAKES HIS PAINKILLERS. I WAS TRYING TO CARRY HIM OUT TO THE KITCHEN FOR YOU.”“You’re not big enough to lift him safely, Papyrus.” Sans nodded in vehement agreement – well, as vehement as he could get without making himself feel even worse. “We both appreciate the thought, but please don’t ever try that again.”“I WON’T. I KNOW THAT COULD’VE HURT SANS.”“All right. Don’t be too down on yourself. Just – be careful with him.” Gaster turned his attention to Sans, who was blinking rapidly and trying to tense. Floating in zero gravity was strangely relaxing, and he had found himself drifting off toward sleep. “Sans. Sans…”He pulled Sans over to himself, letting go with the blue magic to hold the boy on his hip instead. Sans snuggled into the familiar hold. “I told you the night before last that I’d try to find some painkillers that worked better, right?”Sans nodded into his shoulder.“I think I’ve found something. I should warn you, it will have more side effects than what you’ve been using.”“like what?”Gaster sighed. “It will essentially turn you into a zombie.”Sans chuckled. “’m not too far off anyway.”“SANS!”Gaster smiled – it was obviously fake. “Let’s go try it, then, Sans.”He carried him into the kitchen and put him down on the kitchen table – Sans had been spending a lot of time there lately; he sometimes wondered if Gaster was trying to prepare him for the next time he would lie on the operating table.The new pills were bigger than the last ones, and bright blue to boot. Sans had no idea what to make of that; he just took the dose Gaster measured out for him and swallowed them.“Now,” Gaster said, once the last pill had gone down, “how about we take you up to your room, and I’ll read to you two until you’re asleep?”Sans grinned weakly. “c’mon, Dad. You know I can’t sleep.”Gaster glanced at the label on the pill bottle. “That might change soon.”Oh. Oh. He… wasn’t sure how he felt about that. On the one hand, sleep was still frightening. He still had no way to be sure he’d wake up. But on the other hand… sleep. Real, proper sleep, without the pain tearing into his dreams and waking him up every hour.It sounded so appealing.And it was going to happen whether he liked it or not.And he felt a bit better already, and a bit calmer to boot. “all right. Bedtime story sounds good.”“HOW CAN I HELP?”“Oh, I don’t think I need-”“I’M GOING TO HELP SOMEHOW!”“All right, then – here-”Sans wanted to jolt with surprise when Gaster picked him up and handed him off to his brother – hadn’t he just warned them that this was dangerous? But for whatever reason, he was starting to feel strangely slow and unusually calm, like all his thoughts were moving through syrup. So he hadn’t quite registered that he didn’t want Papyrus carrying him by the time his SOUL lit up blue and he felt Gaster’s familiar arcane grip, supporting most of his weight so Papyrus could carry him safely.Oh. Okay. This seemed all right.They carried him up the stairs to the room he and Papyrus shared, and Gaster had been right, those drugs hit hard. By the time they had Sans tucked comfortably into bed and had found a book to read, Sans was too far gone to hear the words on the first page.
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Gaster closed the door behind him as quietly as he could – he wasn’t sure why he cared about that, Sans’s illness wasn’t doing anything to his hearing, and he absolutely refused to think that his new habit might have anything to do with mourning traditions – and stepped into the living room proper. “Sans? Papyrus?”Sans was lying on the couch, groggy and just coming off the effects of his last dose of painkillers, but awake. Papyrus was sitting beside him playing with a Rubiks cube.Both looked up when he called their names.He held up the papers in his hands. “I have the results. The operation can proceed.”Sans’s eyes widened, and he curled in on himself, staring up at his father. Papyrus gave a concerned coo and slid a little closer to his brother, gently patting his shoulder.“t-tonight?”“No.” He wanted to do it soon. He didn’t want Sans to suffer any longer than he had to. But he also didn’t want to spring something like this on Sans and then expect him to be ready to go through with it five minutes after receiving the news. Unless Sans argued with him and insisted that he wanted to do it now, he wasn’t going to. “Tomorrow morning.”Sans swallowed, then nodded. “All – all right.”Gaster walked over to the couch and gently scooped his smaller son up, then, thanks to some blue magic jury-rigging, picked up Papyrus as well. “It’ll all be over soon, Sans. Not much longer now.”💙🗡💙Gaster slowly pushed open the door to the boys’ room and leaned through the doorway, looking toward the bed where his sons should, theoretically, have still been sleeping.They weren’t, of course. Sans was crying quietly, his face streaked with snot and tears, and Papyrus was holding him, murmuring reassurances. Sans didn’t even seem to hear them.Papyrus’s face was tight with worry, and no wonder. Sans shouldn’t have been awake right now. He’d taken his painkillers earlier that morning, and he should still have been knocked out. If he was conscious, than something had woken him up, and whatever it was, it couldn’t have been good.“Sans?” Gaster called.Sans’s head snapped up, and he stared straight forward, his eyes wide and filled with tears. “D-Dad?”“Sans, what’s wr-”Sans wrenched himself out of Papyrus’s grip and charged forward, then launched himself off the edge of the bed toward Gaster. On instinct, Gaster turned his SOUL blue, catching him before he could fall, then, since that was the direction he’d been heading in anyway, pulled him into his arms.Sans sobbed and curled up into a tight little knot of a babybones, trying to writhe, cry onto Gaster’s shoulder and cling to his father all at the same time. “H-help me… help me…”“I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S WRONG,” Papyrus said. “I JUST – HE WAS WHIMPERING, AND IT WOKE ME UP, AND I WANTED TO COME GET YOU BUT HE WOULDN’T LET GO OF ME.”Gaster glanced down at Sans again. The smaller skeleton was clawing at his shirt, as if trying to get a firmer grip than was physically possible, fresh tears flooding down his face as he continued to beg Gaster to help him, to save him, to do something about the pain.Gaster crossed the room in two swift steps and put Sans down on the bed, pushing away his hands as the boy tried to cling to him so he could pull Sans’s shirt off. Sans kicked and screamed, too desperate to be rational anymore.Gaster planted his hands firmly on Sans’s ribcage and felt along the bones.Sans’s ribs were burning. It hurt to touch them; Gaster could only imagine what it must feel like to be living in them.But the pain wasn’t the issue right now. The issue was that Sans was dying.Gaster scooped the kid up and ran from the room. Sans curled against him, still screaming for his father to help him. Papyrus was following them and Gaster didn’t care. As long as he stayed out of the way.He stopped running at the operating room and almost threw Sans onto the table. Sans seemed to recognize the feeling of cold metal against his back, and he fell still, his screams choking off into whimpers as he stared at the ceiling through wide, blank eyes.Gaster prepared everything he could as quickly as possible. He couldn’t clean everything or change, like he should have, but first things first. If Sans got an infection, that was a problem he could deal with later. If Sans dusted…After what felt like far too long but couldn’t have been more than five minutes, he walked over to the table and tried to put the anesthetic mask on Sans’s face. Sans reached up and grabbed at his hands, trying to ward him off.He was doing a frustratingly, alarmingly good job.Gaster had to put the mask aside for the moment, grab Sans’s hands and push them down to his sides. Sans gasped and somehow tensed even further, staring up at him through massive, pleading eyes.“Sans,” he murmured. “It’s going to be all right.”Sans couldn’t manage a verbal reply, but the way he whimpered and struggled to get his hands free was plenty articulate.Gaster drew Sans’s hands together over his abdomen so he could loop one hand around both wrists, then moved the other hand to cup Sans’s cheek instead. Sans leaned into the hold and continued tugging at his hands.“Sans. You don’t need to be afraid. I’ve got you. I’m not going to let anything happen.” Well, he might have to, but Sans was going to be alive and well on his way to recovery by the time he woke up. Now that the moment had arrived, Gaster couldn’t bring himself to imagine it going any other way. “You’re going to wake up. I can – I will fix you. It’s okay. You don’t have to fight anymore.” He pulled his hand back so he could stroke Sans’s cheek with a finger. Sans had gone completely still by now and was just staring up at him, his eyelights no more than terrified pinpricks. “You can give up and let someone else handle it. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”Sans seemed to be mulling it over.“Please, Sans. Just give in. Let me help you. You don’t need to be scared because it’s not your battle to fight. I’m going to end it for you. Please let me help you.”Sans blinked, his body relaxing, even if only a little. Then he nodded and closed his eyes.Not all of the tension left his bones. That just wasn’t possible yet. But he was at least trying.Gaster shifted his grip again so that his right hand was gripping Sans’s. Sans clung to him in turn as he placed the mask over Sans’s mouth and lack of nose. Sans shuddered as it was put into place, then slowly, shakily began taking deep, deliberate breaths.He was trying to work with him, and Gaster was vaguely aware of himself praising Sans for doing so. He couldn’t hear what he was actually saying; he was too busy thinking about what he was going to have to do to Sans next. Some coldly rational yet wildly hysterical part of him promised that he would remember later that he was gushing over Sans’s efforts to a frankly embarrassing degree.Sans’s grip went slack, his hand going limp in Gaster’s almost bone-snapping grip, and Gaster forced himself to let go as well. He heard himself tell Papyrus to go wait in his room, because this was about to get disturbingly messy, and he waited impatiently as Papyrus reluctantly did as he was told. Then he closed the door, locked it, turned back to Sans, and picked up the tools that he had kept out of sight until both of his boys were gone.It took him a second to pull Sans’s SOUL out of his chest and drown it in green magic, and then he could make the first cut.
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Warm. Soft. Comfortable.Held. Loved.Sans stirred, snuggling close to whoever was lying next to him. Something moved against the back of his skull, and it felt incredibly good. He tried to move toward it.From there, he was content to just lie still and happy for a very long time.Finally, he became curious enough to wonder where he was and how he had gotten there, and he opened his eyes.He was lying flat on his back near the center of his father’s bed. His family was there with him – Papyrus lying a couple feet to his right, watching him intently, and Gaster sitting on the left edge of the bed, reading a book.“DAD? DAD!” Papyrus shouted. “HE’S WAKING UP!”Gaster looked up, then marked his page and put the book aside. “Sans?”Sans tried to sit up and quickly found that his limbs didn’t want to cooperate. “Hmgggh.”Gaster chuckled. “Good to see you again. Are you feeling better?”Sans blinked, his eyes flickering around the room. He couldn’t think through the haze in his head, and he didn’t have a problem with that.“SANS!” Someone was poking at his shoulder. A slow, molasses-like turn to the side revealed that it was Papyrus. “SANS, CAN I HUG YOU?”The words took a while to register, so Sans just stared up at his brother in the meantime, smiling vaguely.“No,” Gaster answered for him. “I’m sorry, Papyrus, but your brother is still covered in half-healed surgical incisions and if you hug him, there’s a very good chance you’ll open some of them.”That would probably kill Sans, right? For some reason, Sans was finding it incredibly hard to care right now. He just kept smiling.“HE LOOKS HAPPY.”“Yes. He’s still in an altered state of consciousness.”He was supposed to know why his brother was snickering at that, right? Right? Mm… too much trouble to worry about right now.His eyes had drifted back toward the ceiling. He glanced back toward his brother and father again, just to make sure they hadn’t gone anywhere, then closed his eyes again.💙🗡💙He was a lot more lucid the next time he woke up.As per usual, he drifted for a while, calm and content and well settled into his little nest of blankets. And then he noticed something that snapped him wide awake.His chest didn’t hurt.The individual ribs were a little sore, and there was a certain stiffness to his body that suggested that moving would be unwise, but the all-consuming agony he had been trapped in for the last few weeks… that was gone. For the first time in what felt like forever, he wasn’t desperate to escape something. He wasn’t biting back tears of pain.He looked around, moving his eyes but not his head. He could feel the bandages around his ribs. He didn’t want to risk messing up any new wounds.Papyrus was lying beside him, a few inches of mattress between them. He was fast asleep. Gaster was sitting on the other side of him, clearly exhausted but wide awake and watching him.Sans grinned. “Dad.”Gaster leaned forward and very carefully picked him up, letting him get a good look at himself. He was wearing a green hospital gown, which let him see those stiff bandages he could clearly feel around his ribcage.“How are you feeling?” Gaster asked quietly.Sans looked up at him and grinned again. “Better. Way better.”Gaster put him back down, holding him against his side. Sans leaned against his father’s ribs, contemplating falling asleep again. “That’s good to hear.” The words were casual. The relief in his voice made it clear that that was the best news he’d heard in years.“And I guess we know exactly how much I trust you now.” Sans squirmed, trying to find the most comfortable position he could without breaking away from his father. “’s a good feeling.”“I’m glad you feel that way. Now, I need to check over your ribs.”Sans nodded and closed his eyes. Gaster maneuvered Sans so he was kneeling in front of his father, facing forward, and pulled at the back of his hospital gown, then started poking at his ribs.It stung a little, but after the last few weeks, that barely felt like anything. Sans just held still and waited for his father to be done doing whatever it was he needed to do. After that, Sans planned to go back to sleep. Again. Come to think of it, according to Gaster, he basically wasn’t supposed to get out of bed until he’d recovered fully from the surgery.Hm.Well, Papyrus would be annoyed.“SANS? SANS!”Sans grinned. Speak of the devil.Papyrus sat up. “YOU’RE AWAKE!”“sure am, bro.”Papyrus turned to Gaster, who was still poking at Sans’s ribs. It was starting to tickle, and Sans had to bite back his quiet giggles. He had the feeling he didn’t want to know how it would feel if he moved too suddenly. “WHAT ABOUT NOW? CAN I HUG HIM NOW, DAD?”“No. We can’t risk…” He trailed off, presumably looking at the impressively wide puppy-dog eyes Papyrus was making. “Sans? What do you think?”Sans just nodded. Sure. Why not.“All right. In a minute. If you’re careful.”“I’M ALWAYS CAREFUL WITH HIM!”Gaster chuckled. “Yes, that you are.” And he went back to poking at Sans’s ribs while Papyrus watched expectantly.Oh, stars. Stars. That was a bad spot. Sans leaned forward, trying to get Gaster to tap anywhere else or, failing that, trying to swallow back his laughter.He couldn’t do either, and a second later, he burst out laughing. It didn’t take long for his shrieks of mirth to turn into actual shrieks.Gaster’s hands were immediately on Sans’s shoulders, gripping tight and holding him still, and Sans made himself quiet down and gasp for air a couple times. The pain subsided, and that itself was enough of a novelty to distract him.There was a bit more tapping around his ribs, and then Gaster pulled back and again messed with the back of Sans’s gown, this time so Sans was more covered rather than less.“See? It’s far too easy to mess this up.”“I JUST WANT TO HOLD HIM FOR ONE MINUTE,” Papyrus pleaded. “ONE SECOND?”Gaster sighed. “You hold perfectly still.”Papyrus nodded, arranging himself so that there was plenty of room for Sans in his lap and holding his arms out to the sides, then going statue-still.Gaster very carefully picked Sans up, and Sans hung limp and a little nervous as he was brought closer to Papyrus.He was slowly lowered into his brother’s waiting lap and arms, closing his eyes as his ribs came to rest against Papyrus’s and his body was carefully maneuvered and manipulated for him, unable to do anything but relinquish all control and pray that his brother and father knew what they were doing with him.After a couple minutes, Papyrus had him in a loose hug and nothing hurt, so Sans slowly returned the hug and tried to lose some of the tension. It didn’t work very well.Gaster let them sit like that for a few excessively long moments, then carefully took Sans back and tucked him back into bed. Sans was relieved, and a little ashamed of himself for being relieved. He was careful not to let it show on his face; Papyrus looked concerned as it was.“Don’t worry,” Gaster said. “He’ll recover soon. You’ll be able to hug him again in a few days, most likely. For now, we should just let him rest.”
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Gaster finished zipping up Sans’s coat and stepped back. “There you go.”Sans grinned. “Thanks!”“ARE YOU READY?” Papyrus called from his spot by the front door. He was wearing full winter gear, too, and he’d been waiting impatiently for the last several minutes for Sans to get dressed. It was a more awkward process now than Sans could ever remember it being – learning how to move normally again felt weird after having to carefully orient every motion around not hurting himself for so long.Heck, wearing normal clothes again felt weird, after being stuck in a hospital gown for almost the last week. He hadn’t been able to move the way he’d have had to to put on a shirt around the cuts and the bandages.The winter coat especially felt strangely bulky. It was definitely going to change how he handled around corners. After all, it wasn’t the sort of thing he’d normally wear – before his illness, Gaster had had no problem letting him go outside in Snowdin wearing shorts and a sweater. Skeletons didn’t normally feel the cold to begin with, but the concern was pretty harmless, so Sans wasn’t going to argue.“’m ready, bro!” Sans called back, before turning and trying to run to meet his brother.He ended up tripping over his own heavy, booted feet and faceplanting.He stayed down for a moment. Once, Gaster and Papyrus would both have burst out laughing, and Sans meant to take advantage of every moment that passed before they realized they could do that again.Eventually, Papyrus got the message and came forward to lift Sans to his feet, then dragged his brother into a bone-crushing hug while Sans pretended he was being strangled. Papyrus seemed to be of the opinion that not being allowed to touch Sans beyond gently holding his hand for six days had been pure torture, and he was deeply dedicated to making up for lost time.Gaster chuckled and told Papyrus to maybe go easy on his brother, and Papyrus backed off marginally, which was good, because it really had been getting hard for Sans to breathe.From there, Papyrus grabbed Sans and dragged him out the door, albeit carefully keeping his pace to something Sans could still match. It felt like running to Sans. It was probably frustratingly slow to Papyrus.And then they were out in the snow – Papyrus caught Sans before he could overbalance and faceplant yet again, and Sans tossed him a grateful smile.Papyrus kept tugging, pulling Sans well out into the yard. Finally, he dragged him onto a square of flattened snow that Sans couldn’t really sink into and dropped him there, leaving Sans feeling a bit like he was sitting on a pedestal.Papyrus then dropped into the snow beside him, grinning from ear to ear. “YOU’RE FINALLY HERE! WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO FIRST – BUILD A SNOWMAN, OR THROW SNOWBALLS AT EACH OTHER?!?”“mm…” He wasn’t going to be any good at either of those. Sure, Papyrus had been better at both before the illness, too, but now Sans wasn’t sure he’d be able to win the participation award.Which probably meant he should flip a coin and count it as practice. Papyrus would be happy either way.And Papyrus had been cooped up inside the house, camped out at Sans’s side for the last few days.“snowball fight.”Papyrus immediately slammed a snowball the size of his head directly into Sans’s face.Sans fell over backward, coughing and spluttering and flailing at his face with his hands. “what the – WHAT THE-”He could hear the crunch of Papyrus’s feet running through the snow. “NYEH HEHEHEHEH! I’VE BEEN PREPARING FOR THIS FIGHT FOR WEEKS! PREPARE TO BE DEFEATED, BROTHER!”Sans, whose sight was still obscured by snow, heard him stop right after he said that. “UM, NOT THAT THAT GIVES YOU AN EXCUSE TO JUST GIVE UP AT THE START! I WANT TO SEE YOU ON YOUR FEET DOING THINGS!Right, right. Just as soon as he figured out which way was up.Papyrus was running again, albeit cautiously. “SANS!”“’m up,” Sans protested weakly. He got a mouthful of snow for his trouble, and then he stood up.Papyrus was running toward a bush – a bush that presumably had hundreds of snowballs stacked up behind it. Sans must’ve spent more time sleeping than he’d thought.All right. Papyrus had superior ammunition and superior physical capabilities. Unless Sans found cover, like, now, Papyrus was going to launch several dozen snowballs at him and almost all of them were going to hit. Sans couldn’t run worth a darn, nor would he be able to throw back through the barrage he was about to be hit with.Fortunately, his goal wasn’t to avoid being turned into a walking snowman. His goal was to entertain his brother and to have fun himself. As such, the best possible strategy was…Sans rolled to his knees and grabbed his brother’s SOUL, yanking him backward. He wasn’t strong or skilled enough with blue magic to do more than disorient his brother for a moment, but that was all he needed to scoop up several large double handfuls of snow and wing them at him.Before Papyrus could recover – before the last handful of snow even landed – Sans was on his feet and stumbling awkwardly toward a nearby tree. The odds of him making it in time were approximately nil.Papyrus confirmed that by nailing him in the back of the head.Sans fell facefirst into, thank goodness, soft, powdery snow. Several more snowballs exploded against his back, blinding him with a cloud of shining white.And then Papyrus stopped. Then there was some crunching – several loud, slow sounds, each punctuated by a few seconds of silence. His brother was coming closer.Sans rolled onto his back, and Papyrus was halfway between him and the bush, holding a snowball in each hand. Sans knew where this was heading.And he couldn’t reasonably stop it, but he could grab two large handfuls of snow, shout “you’ll never flake me alive!” and fling as much white powder as he could into Papyrus’s face.Papyrus didn’t seem to notice the snow attack, which was patently unfair, in Sans’s opinion. The younger skeleton just stood there and blinked a couple times, his eyes preternaturally wide.“THAT… THAT WAS A JOKE.” He grinned. “I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! SANS! YOU MADE A JOKE! IT’S BEEN SO LONG SINCE YOU – OH.”Papyrus covered the distance between them, shoving both of his handfuls of snow into Sans’s face and clambering on top of his brother, pinning him to the ground. “YOU HAD ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD TO PRACTICE THOSE, AND YOU GOT SNOW PRACTICE AT ALL!”Sans grinned unrepentantly up at him. “and what are you gonna do about it?”Papyrus’s response was as immediate as it was predictable: he halfway buried Sans in the surrounding snow, then tickled Sans in the few places his winter clothing left exposed until they were both out of breath from laughing.Papyrus collapsed on top of his brother for a moment, feeling for all the world like a weighted blanket. Sans rather wished he’d stay there; this wouldn’t have been a bad way to take a nap.But Papyrus stood up eventually, still beaming broadly. “DO YOU WANT TO BUILD A SNOWMAN?!”Sans pushed himself upright, too, brushing snow off of his pants. “you bet, bro.”Papyrus took off toward a spot where they hadn’t made a mess of the snow, and Sans slowly began to follow him.Halfway there, Papyrus stopped and turned back to look at Sans, who had barely made it a few steps. Sans gave him an encouraging grin.Papyrus ran back and put an arm around Sans’s shoulders, supporting most of his brother’s weight. Sans’s grin turned to one of gratitude.“YOU’LL BE ABLE TO MOVE JUST FINE ON YOUR OWN IN NO TIME,” Papyrus promised cheerfully.Sans just leaned against his brother and nodded, still smiling wide. Yeah, that would come in time, he was sure of it. Dad had been certain when he’d said that.But Sans wasn’t that hung up on it. As far as he was concerned, this was already the happy ending.