The Underground was rather calm, some time after Frisk left. One could really say, having in mind what that kid had done… everyone was living quite peacefully, perhaps too peacefully. The truth was that nobody missed them, and that was a good reason, according to the monsters, to be happy.
Asgore was dead because of them.
Some monsters would talk about how Frisk ruined everything by getting into others' problems and do anything that was uncalled for. Some (and by some, we mean almost all) of the monsters wished they hadn't come there at all, and some others wished they died in a fight.
Why all that hate? Well, that kid didn't only kill the King, the one everybody looked up to, and relied on. Oh no, they weren't happy with that. It didn't sting the monsters enough.
Toriel, Undyne, Mettaton, Alphys…
They were dead.
Murdered to be exact.
Murdered by a certain, now unwelcomed kid.
With no King or Queen left to rule, the monsters had to select a new ruler perhaps too fast. I wasn't like there were many choices. Nobody wanted some random monster to tell them what to do and look after the entire Underground. Just imagining an Ice Cap or a Pyrope taking care of everything… the monsters would rather stay leaderless until someone else responsible enough came upon.
And turns out, the best ruler they could get by process of elimination was Papyrus. And it wasn't a bad choice at all.
He liked being a king. He felt special, he felt like he mattered. Maybe, his friends weren't there to praise him. Maybe, he wasn't part of the now disbanded Royal Guard. His dreams hadn't become true, and they would never become true considering how frail the situation was, but he wouldn't fail the monsters. They depended on him, and his decisions. He wouldn't give up. He had many people to take care of.
It had actually changed his personality. Sure, he still was the childish, loud, naïve skeleton he had always been, but he was somewhat more serious. When he had to, of course. Nobody would ever see him pretending to be a dictator when somebody did something wrong or disrespected him out of sadness and fear for what could happen. He was great at his job. He knew what to do, when to do so, and how to do so. He carried an enormous weigh, but he was still strong enough to hold it. Everyone said he was great indeed.
Plus, he still had his brother to encourage him. He had actually been more attentive to everything. After all, it was him who accepted to handle the paperwork and nobody had to force him to. Papyrus could barely believe he was telling the truth. He remembered how he actually pissed off his brother because he kept dismissing it as a joke, and that wasn't weird at all. Sans had almost completely given up on life, but since that kid left and Papyrus had a chance to be the most important monster in the history of the Underground? He wasn't about to afford not to care anymore.
Even though he was still fairly careless, Sans was actually putting effort into his new occupation; sometimes he'd hardly sleep and Papyrus would let him take the entire day off. It was his way of thanking him. He was glad to have such a caring brother.
If only the rest were there to see their progress…
Undyne never picked up his calls. It worried him. Did something happen to her? Was she alright? Did her phone break? Papyrus was dying to know. Literally. His non-existent heart would shatter into millions of tiny pieces if something bad had happened to her. She was one of his best friends. Most of the things he knows are part of his knowledge thanks to Undyne. She would always help him with anything that bothered him when Sans couldn't take care of the situation. When he was a bit younger, Papyrus would sometimes believe Undyne was the sister he never had. She was like a sister to him.
He hadn't seen Mettaton praising himself and making everyone admire his "perfection" either, and his TV show had been too long gone. It was weird. He'd usually just strut around the Underground telling everyone how magnificent he was when he didn't have anything else to do. It looked like he vanished.
And Alphys, she was nowhere to be found either. When Papyrus requested his brother to check up on her, he came back saying the lab was empty. The lights were off and nothing was working. Alphys wasn't outgoing, so they both weren't the ones to believe she had gone for a walk. Plus, she would have come back already. Papyrus didn't recall her having many places to go aside from the lab.
Sans also told him that he once met an old lady living in the Ruins. He went back there a lot of times, but she never answered.
Four monsters had gone missing without any track. That just couldn't be normal.
Over-thinking it all made him worried sick.
Papyrus just had enough. He needed to know what happened to his friends. Perhaps something did happen to them, and, as ruler, he had to know. He had a feeling that they had been gone even before he became King, though. When he became the ruler, Undyne hadn't been there to celebrate with him, and the other two showed no signs of life. He was sure Sans would know. After all, he kinda watched what everyone was doing when he wasn't busy with other stuff.
"SANS!"
After an entire day of work, the two brothers were simply resting at the Throne Room, watching the light slowly trail out the room. It was a peaceful place, really. Sans would usually spend a lot of time there before the light went out – he'd say that it helped him forget "bad stuff". Papyrus never bothered asking him what kind of stuff it was, anyways. He knew Sans had his limitations when having a talk about those things. He didn't want to aggravate him with questions.
"yeah?" the elder brother merely looked over his shoulder to meet Papyrus' seemingly worried gaze.
"THERE WAS THIS… ONE THING I WANTED TO ASK YOU… I SUPPOSE YOU KNOW. IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I HAVEN'T HEARD OF UNDYNE AND THE OTHERS."
If Sans had a heart, it would've skipped a beat. He froze on the spot, and was certainly glad Papyrus couldn't see his face; he would've seen how his grin faltered and his pupils became pinprick-sized. From all the questions he could've asked, why did it have to be that one?
"DO YOU KNOW WHERE THEY ARE?"
No. Sans didn't have the courage to tell him the truth. Papyrus was… frail, emotionally talking. If he told him that they were… dead… let alone killed by what he thought was a friend… He couldn't. It had hurt him enough, he didn't want his innocent brother to go through the same. It would destroy him. Papyrus would never forget something like that.
"if- if i know where they are…?" Sans had to play it cool. It crushed him, having to know that he had to lie to his brother so he wouldn't enter into the dark jaws of depression. He didn't want to lie, but he had to. Papyrus would end up finding out after a while, but… better than him knowing it right away. Sans calmed himself down, turned to face Papyrus, and as carelessly as possible said, "yeah, yeah i know. since that human came, they've been busy, y'know? so they decided to…"
He stopped for a second. Something deep within him was telling him not to lie. But he lacked the guts to say they were dead. Nobody would want to say it. It was way too much to handle, way too much for someone like Sans. He sighed.
"they just went on vacation, that's all."
He was sure he felt a sharp sting on his soul when the words came out, but he was trying his best not to look worried, saddened… pained. Papyrus did frown a bit when he noticed that Sans was almost thinking over and over again what he was saying, but didn't pay too much attention.
"OH. WELL, THAT EXPLAINS IT. I WISH I COULD GO TOO… BUT GOOD FOR THEM! I HOPE THEY'RE HAVING FUN!"
Sans responded with a somewhat dim smile. Lying like that to someone so naïve and innocent… The emotional pain he felt was something he wouldn't wish to anyone, not even to his worst enemy. The fact that his brother believed it just made it worse. It was like an invisible hand took his soul and clenched the happiness right out of it.
Yes. They did to on vacation. They were somewhere far away.
There was one thing about that vacation, though.
They would never return.
"WELL, I AM GOING TO… I ACTUALLY HAVE NOTHING TO DO. I THINK I'M JUST GOING TO FIX MY PUZZLES."
"you go on ahead. i'll catch up with ya."
Cheerfully enough, Papyrus exited the dimming room under Sans' gaze. In just a moment, the elder brother knew what he had to do. He still had the kid's phone number. They were probably dead, but he had to do it. He would rub what they had done in their face. Or even better, let Papyrus leave part of the message as well.
If Frisk ever received the message, Sans honestly hoped the remorse would hit them in that dark soul of theirs. Sometimes he wondered why he hadn't killed them when he knew that they were murdering monsters just for fun.
It was still a mystery that they spared his brother.
I saw this Neutral Ending in which you kill everyone but Paps, and damn it's heart wrenching. Sad Papyrus is sad. So I decided to make a little fanfic about what happened before Sans' message. Teh feelz D: