I like making the skeletons angst far too much. Anyway, enjoy.


Papyrus needs sleep. Eight hours of it every night, to be precise. He stays up practising, cooking spaghetti (always risky when he's tired – Sans will never forget the time he nearly burned their house down), posting on UnderNet. Anything not to sleep. He takes short naps. Usually they tide him over.

When he finally succumbs, he dreams.

He always has the same dream, if you can call it that – he sees nothing in the blackness, except for maybe the occasional echo flower. It is warm and almost comforting, being in the presence of...something. A man. Sometimes he catches glimpses of delicate skeletal hands with gaping holes where the palms should be and it makes his SOUL hurt. Very rarely he sees the man's face – a gleaming white skull scored by deep cracks, one eye socket crushed. That makes his SOUL hurt more.

It is worst when the man speaks. His voice sounds garbled and incomprehensible, making sounds no monster could ever make, but his words are kind. Papyrus doesn't know how he can understand them.

He says things like I'm so sorry and I'm so proud of you and Sans and I miss you both so much. Papyrus doesn't know how the man knows them, but he reaches out for a hug anyway, even knowing that they can't touch, even knowing that the hugs only end up with Papyrus feeling like he's missing something.

Skeletons can't cry. They don't have tear ducts. Still, every time Papyrus wakes up from a dream he finds himself sobbing, like he lost something that was never there in the first place.

The skeleton brothers aren't hugely verbal – not between themselves, anyway – but Sans always seems to know when Papyrus has had one of his dreams. He calls in sick and treats Papyrus to a meal at Grillby's or gets the two of them Nice Cream. Skeletons don't really feel the cold, but the brothers pull a blanket over themselves and binge-watch old episodes of Mettaton's shows until the feeling of loss fades.

Papyrus has tried asking Sans about the strange man, but the lights in his brother's eyes always go out and he never gives a straight answer. Papyrus wishes he were smart like Sans, smart enough to work out who this person is and why they ended up in his dreams.

Most of all, he wishes that he could meet this man, offer him some cinnamon bunnies and Sea Tea, show off how cool he and his brother are right now. Make this person feel safe and loved. Make him feel like he's found something again.

Till then, he tries not to sleep. He misses the strange man too much.