A figure struggles through the thigh-high snow drifts. His teeth chatter. He is carrying a girl. Everyone thinks she is his sister.
Everyone is wrong.
They are both thin and haggard. He is perhaps seventeen; she, twelve, though mature for her age. He has black hair and eyes and fair skin. She, however, has pale red hair, fair skin spattered with freckles and eyes like two chips of ice- dark at the edges, lightest closest to the pupil. She is sleeping in his arms, lips tinged blue. He is far worse off, however- shivering hard enough to keep the snow off his shoulders, but not enough to keep him warm; any heat that the constant flexing-relaxing motions produce is immediately lost due to the thrice-patched, ill-fitting clothes. They are both running, which, until now, has never worked for them.
In a final burst of luck, both had fallen into a place so forgotten that not even the person hunting them could follow.
In any case, she probably thought they had been finished off hours ago.
Everyone thinks he loves her as a little sister.
Everyone is right.
Tanner stumbled ever onwards through the snow.
He'd gotten used to the cold, used to the shivering, used to the fire in his legs, arms and abdomen, used to the burning hole where his stomach used to be, used to the dry thing that is his throat.
The warmth, though, was new.
It called to him, whispering promises of release from his discomfort- relaxation instead of exhaustion, cool soothing instead of intense burning.
Warmth instead of cold.
Death instead of life.
Tanner caved.
(Literally and figuratively.)
He dug a snow cave.
He made sure to poke a hole, so he could breathe.
He curled his body around his sister, who was sleeping on his jacket because he was too warm, a sensation he'd almost forgotten.
He stopped shivering.
For every degree of warmth his core temperature his body lost, it was the warmer his sister felt. She stirred slightly, nestling further.
He almost died.
He would need a miracle to make him alive again.
Sans meandered among the snow, thinking of socks.
This patrol was just as interesting as the last. Which was to say, not at all. At first, he'd worn himself to a frazzle, running around like a displaced ant looking for the kid.
Frisk.
Some days, it felt like the entire universe rotated around the little fudgepot.
Prob'ly cuz it did.
Sigh. He kicked a snow poff idly. It collapsed in on itself.
Sans froze.
Whut.
The he-eck.
Was that.
Holy fudge, they were still there.
…
$&%.
Just $&%.
The smaller one stirred.
It mumbled, "Broth'r…"
God.
That was Fate, all right. He'd learned to recognize the female dog.
Uuuuuuugh
Fiiiiiine
I'll save them already
Scat
Thank you.
Sigh. Stoop over, scoop the smaller one up, pick up the larger one with blue magic. Hmm. Pretty sure humans weren't supposed to be that stiff. Prolly just the cold, tho. He found a shortcut and walked through it with a soft vmmmzzz.
A few milliseconds later, he arrived at their house. Dum dee dum… Why don't we put you on the couch, and you… Uh, right here should do. Okay. He was no great shakes at healing, but might as well give it a try. Big one first. If he healed the smaller one all the way, It might wake up and havoc would ensue.
Call it survival instincts, ha.
Sans put his hands on the human's chest and slipped through the door of reality.
He opened his eye sockets to a world darker than pitch.
Huh.
That was weird.
He turned slowly where he stood. Nothing. The human's soul-dream was completely blank. Nope, wait, spoke too soon. There was, indeed, something. Sans walked closer until he was near enough to touch it.
A tiny, fingernail-sized point of light hovered at eye level.
This was not good.
Creatures with souls had a kind of dream-magic in their soul plane, always. It manifested as their 'avatar', a three-dimensional doodle equivalent of themselves. The dream plane was always colorful- red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, white.
Black meant death.
Sans furrowed his brow. This human should have been dead a long time ago. Whatever was keeping it alive was not determination- he should know.
The light shivered and shrank a little, snapping Sans out of it. Penelope, it whispered. He reached out, touched it, and gave some of his HoPe to it. Not too much. He'd need Papyrus for this, and quickly.
For a moment, Sans contemplated just letting this thing die in peace. One less anomaly to deal with. Literally all he needed to do was sit back and wait, tell anybody who wanted to know that it had been dead when he brought it to his house.
Holy fudge, what the actual fricking heck is wrong with me.
What Would Papyrus Do?
Well, Papyrus would have had higher HP in the first place.
… Aaand if he didn't…?
He would have found his bro and, again, healed him already, you couch potato.
Sans sighed and came back to himself.
Then he took the same shortcut and ambled around for a while.
Finally he gave up and started cracking puns.
Loudly.
All of them were centered around snow.
At last, he heard his brother.
"BROTHER! WOULD YOU STOP THOSE AWFUL PUNS!"
"gonna hafta catch me first."
Sans walked around a tree to the first shortcut he saw. Papyrus tromped in his footsteps around a pine and right through the shortcut, which Sans had held open for Pap to step through.
"- THEY ARE COMPLETELY TASTELESS AND ARE THE LOWEST FORM OF HUMOR, IN FACT-"
Papyrus came to a standstill, openmouthed and frozen. Then he clapped his hands over his teeth.
"BROTHER! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM?! WHY ARE THEY SLEEPING?!" He gasped and plucked Sans up by the hoodie. "HAVE YOU INFECTED THEM WITH LAZINESS?! TELL MEEE!"
"bro, calm yourself," grinned Sans. "they need healed and I can't. 1 HP, remember?"
Papyrus set down his twin, dusting him off. "OF COURSE! THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL HEAL THEM LIKE NO ONE HAS HEALED ANYONE ELSE BEFORE!" He struck a pose. "WATCH AND LEARN!"
He plopped down on the carpet, taking the bigger human's hands in his own, frowning with concentration. After a moment, his eye socket took on a green haze. His frown deepened to one of incredulity. His eye burned brighter, brighter still, until the humans chest stumbled to a start and began to rise and fall- the rhythm of life. Still, he pressed harder, until the tips of the human's fingers, toes, nose and ears began to burn a bright green. Sans frowned and laid his palm on his brother's shoulder.
Papyrus started so badly Sans thought he'd been electrocuted. "WHA- OH. HELLO, BROTHER." He frowned again and waved his hands in frustration. "THEY… THEY… HOW… WHAT HAPPENED?"
"i think they 'bout froze to death," muttered Sans. He inclined his head towards the larger human. "and don't ask me. i ain't gotta clue as to how the heck they're still alive."
Papyrus hummed thoughtfully and healed the smaller human, muttering something about his spaghetti.
Sans took a nap.
Papyrus finished and went to make pasta.
The smaller human began to wake.
Chapter the first! tell me if you like it.