The day that Papyrus learned how to talk was the last one Sans had ever known peace. The endless torrent of nonsense that streamed from that useless kid's mouth was a rope that had been slowly choking Sans, strangling the joy from his life. He'd stopped using the common rooms of the house, having learned that doing so only invited another burst of boastful bullcrap he no longer had the patience for. But not even holing up in his room had been enough solace; Papyrus had little respect for even that boundary, yelling at him from the other side of the door if he'd locked it.
And oh god, yell he did. Constantly. Nothing Sans ever did was right in Papyrus' eyes, and that horrid screeching would erupt at the slightest provocation. Didn't run his sheets through the wash soon enough? A shrill lecture about uncleanliness and how much time he wasted by being asleep was sure to follow. Left a sock somewhere? He might as well have slapped Papyrus in the face for it, for all he seemed concerned. Neglected the pet rock he adopted as a joke? Not only did he get dressed down for it, at volumes that one typically shared for crowded concert halls, but Papyrus would even take it on himself to 'feed' the pet rock himself, and add a level of smugness to his 'talk' with Sans that just ground on his very last nerve.
The fridge had once been a mix of the foods they liked to eat, but ever since that stupid fish decided to 'train' Papyrus in the art of preparing food- and taught him all of one freaking dish- there had been an endless invasion of terrible spaghetti overwhelming what had once been a mutual space. Sans had gotten so fed up, he shoved a bag of chips in there as a joke and took up a tab at Grillby's instead of bothering anymore.
Besides, if he'd tried cooking, he'd just get another round of being told how wrong his approach was. Not that he'd ever heard any complaints about his hot dogs, but of course, Papyrus didn't care about that.
Leaning against the giant door deep in the forest near Snowdin, Sans felt his hands clenching. That stupid braggart had gotten it into his head that he wanted to join the Royal Guard. He'd become so enamored of that garish costume, he never took the thing off. He'd become a laughingstock, an eyesore, an uptight, self-centered jerk who only saw his goals and trod over anyone else who got in his way.
Sans' grimace tightened. Today had been the last straw for him, when he came home from one of the many jobs he worked to keep the both of them in stable enough conditions only to have another dirty sock shoved in his face and accused of being LAZY.
"yeah, how about you go fuck yourself?" he'd snarled at Papyrus, only to feel a faint sting at the hurt that registered on his brother's face. "seriously, it wouldn't matter even if we did live in a total dump, because no one comes over. "
"BUT WHAT IF THEY DID AND SAW IT!? WHAT WOULD THEY THINK!?" He cried, throwing the sock onto the floor. "THE GREAT PAPYRUS WOULD BE SO EMBARRASSED TO HAVE TO EXPLAIN THAT HIS OWN BROTHER WAS SUCH A SLOB!"
Anger bubbled up from a toxic place in his soul, and Sans rounded on Papyrus. "you would be embarrassed? you? you've done nothing but humiliate me for years with this idiotic 'royal guard' schtick you keep touting, as if you ever stood a chance of getting in! you call me lazy, but what do you do all day? besides yell at me for some arbitrary bullshit, i mean! do you know what they say about you behind your back?"
Papryus recoiled, eyes wide. "WH-WHAT? WHAT DO THEY SAY?"
Sans' grin grew coldly. "they call you a loser, a weirdo, a freak who stomps around uselessly and is sometimes entertaining in his stupidity! don't you get it?" Sans poured all of his pent up frustration into his words. "i am embarrassed to be related to you!"
For a long moment, Sans waited for the inevitable tirade of anger and self-righteous screeching. Papyrus stared at his brother, his jaw agape, his shoulders slowly sinking. The silence was broken by Papyrus, but it wasn't his usual grating shouting.
"...Are you truly...?"
Sans flinched to see tears welling in his brother's eyes, but the anger was unleashed now. "you haven't exactly made it easy to be your brother, y'know?"
The tears continued, though he wiped them away with a big orange glove. "The Great Papyrus does not care what the others think... they are simply unable to see my greatness... but to hear this from you, of all people, Sans..." Anger finally flickered to life in his eyes. "YOU DON'T HAVE A RIGHT TO BE EMBARRASSED BY ME, YOU LAZYBONES! I WOULD CALL YOU A WALKING GARBAGE PILE IF I EVER ACTUALLY SAW YOU WALKING ANYWHERE!"
Whatever regret Sans had in his initial outburst was extinguished in an instant, and he felt himself go colder than the chilly air of Snowdin. "don't bother trying to insult me, bro. you don't have enough wit to manage it."
He turned and threw the front door open, pausing only to grin over his shoulder. "oh, and your spaghetti tastes terrible." The door closed on any further argument from Papyrus.
The walk to his post by the door had been a fog, wrapped in conflict. Did he regret what he said? Well, sure. No matter how annoying the sprog was, he was still his brother. Papyrus had never done any deliberate harm, he was just too much to handle for him. With the door at his back, Sans closed his eyes and clonked his skull against it in resignation. Maybe he'd say sorry when he got back.
Maybe.
A low rumble brought Sans out of his thoughts, and he wrenched to his feet, staring at the door in shock. The door never opened. The giant freaking door was always closed, and his placement there was supposed to be a precaution, not a legitimate need! Panicking, Sans bolted for the bushes nearby, nestling into the leaves as best he could.
The door finally cracked, the musty smell of a dying cavern mixing with the crisp, wintry air. The crack was enough to let out the horrific creature he anticipated. ...They were awfully small, weren't they? Short, with rounded edges, a helmet of mussed hair, and a striped shirt. Oh, they must be a kid; everyone knew only kids wore striped shirts. He watched the kid crane their head to and fro, as if they'd never seen anything like an underground forest.
Their gaze stopped on the set of footprints Sans had left behind. Sans had enough time to curse his mistake before a spike of fear pierced him. The child's hands... they were covered in dust. The dust even covered parts of their sleeves. A shiver took him; the concern that had placed him at the door had been justified. A human had arrived in the Underground, and, like the legends, they were capable of horrible things.
And they knew where he was.
They started advancing towards the bush, a toy knife clutched in their dusty hand. Sans barely tilted his head to look for an escape, when the soft brush of the leaf on his skull halted him; if he moved, the rustling would reveal him for sure! The human child was still on guard, but they didn't seem convinced that anyone was back there. Sans might still get away with not having to fight this child so long as they never found him...
They were close. Staring straight into the bushes. Sans was close enough to see the cold malice written on their features, a hate sucked at his soul to see. Their eyes darted to the camera installed in the bush, sharpening to a point. With a cruel grin, they snipped the cord of the camera using the toy knife, and turned on their oh so merry way.
Sans trembled in place for a while after the kid had skipped on ahead. He could probably have easily defeated the kid, really, but it wasn't fear of dying at the human's hands that had so rattled him. This was a human that exemplified the theory of how LOVE manifested in humanity; a true malice that would kill them all, if it could.
Judging by the coating of dust, Sans suspected they were already capable of exactly that.
-xxx-
Nothing was going right, nothing was right anymore. That abomination was killing everyone, slaughtering them in the streets, leaving them pinned to trees until they dissolved into dust. Hurrying as fast as his short legs could carry him, Sans used every shortcut he could to reach the edge of Snowdin before the unthinkable could happen.
His idiot brother had challenged the human to fight him. Still going on about joining the Royal Guard, determined to prove himself at all costs, Papyrus had told him so himself.
"I KNOW THE HUMAN HAS DONE MANY VIOLENT THINGS, SANS!" He'd said, scowling at Sans. "THEY ARE AS DANGEROUS AS THE KING FEARED, AND I WILL NOT ALLOW IT TO CONTINUE!"
"so you're going to throw yourself in their way, and what... hope that they'll trip over your spine after stepping all over you?" Sans had growled.
"VERY FUNNY, SANS! ALWAYS WITH THE JOKES, ISN'T IT!? WELL, MAYBE I'LL BE THE ONE LAUGHING ALL THE TIME SOON ENOUGH! I WILL CAPTURE THE HUMAN AND GET THE RECOGNITION I DESERVE!" He had paused, and smiled weakly at him. "M-MAYBE THEN YOU WON'T HAVE TO BE EMBARRASSED ANYMORE?"
The pang had nearly seized all of Sans at that point. "you're not going to try and take on the human because of what i said, are you?"
Papyrus sniffed and wiped his glove across his right eye. "N-NO! DON'T BE SILLY! I'M GOING TO DO WHAT'S RIGHT, REGARDLESS OF WHAT YOU REGRET SAYING TO ME!"
"whatever. you'll just get yourself killed, moron."
Papyrus had stiffened, grinding his teeth together. "IF THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS FELLED BY A HUMAN, THEN AT LEAST I CAN SAY I DID SOMETHING! I WILL HAVE NOTHING TO REGRET! WILL YOU?"
Sans had smirked at him, then. "what do i have to regret?"
The last 'shortcut' Sans stepped through dropped him a few feet from where Papyrus towered over the tiny human child, dealing wave after wave of his attacks. They'd been going at it for a while, it seemed, as both were ragged and starting to slip up. Sans darted behind a tree to watch, not wanting to be seen by either of them.
His brother was fighting competently, though. He'd learned something in all this time about fighting, and he certainly was resilient. But... there were several nicks in his armor and his bones. He was already badly weakened, and the human's grin rivaled Sans' own.
A flash of the knife in the human's hand created an arc in the air, and the skull was flying, the body beginning to disintegrate. The armor and cape fell around the growing pile of dust, and his skull landed in a patch of snow nearby, slightly tilted as he regarded the human in shock.
"...OH."
No. No. No. Sans gripped the tree, his eyes as wide as his bones would allow, his legs trembling. No no no no-
Papyrus grinned at the human. "S-STILL! I THINK YOU COULD DO SO MUCH BETTER THAN THIS! I BELIEVE YOU HAVE IT IN YOU TO DO THE RIGHT THING, HUMAN! YOU EVEN HESITATED A LITTLE-"
Whatever else Papyrus had to say was cut off in a strangled cry as the human crunched their foot through his skull. He promptly dissolved as the rest of him had, silence filling the forest. The human lifted their leg, spying the dust that had started to cling there, too. After a short giggle, they brushed it off, humming a jaunty tune to themselves, and continued through the fog towards Waterfall.
"p...puh..." Sans felt the strength drain from him. "PAPYRUS!" he screamed in what would have been a perfect imitation of his brother, had it not come out all choked and strangled. He staggered to the dust pile, to the slowly scattering armor that rustled slightly in the breeze. His trembling hands were in the dust, droplets soaking it before he even realized he was crying.
He couldn't breathe.
He gathered the dust in the cape, that ghastly bright orange cape that stood out amidst the snow. The sound of his scraping and gathering was the only thing interrupting the pure silence of the forest. Silence.
"man, how about you drink a tall glass of 'shut the fuck up', bro?"
"here's a dictionary. look up the word 'quiet' and try to live it out for a while, 'kay?"
"have you ever tried not being insanely loud? no?"
He shuddered, all the things he'd said to Papyrus in irritation hitting him at once.
"whatever. go fuck yourself."
"i don't even think having no taste buds is enough of an excuse for what you just cooked."
"seriously, your voice could grate cheese, bro."
"i don't care."
"you'll just get yourself killed, moron."
"what do i have to regret?"
He swallowed the wail that threatened to spill out of him. No, the human would hear him. He had to keep it in, keep it under control. He let his tears suffice his mourning for now. He gripped the cape closed, having gathered all he could.
He glared into the fog as he stood, feeling his left eye burning fiercely. The human would answer for this; there was no doubt of that. He would see to it that the human would never see their goals realized. He might even have a little fun for once.
He started back towards town, thinking of where he might spread the ashes, where it would make Papyrus the most happy to occupy in death. He'd have to get Undyne's help if he wanted the dust to be in the garden near the Royal Guard's barracks, else he might have to settle for someplace around the house. Maybe he could spread Papyrus around his room, just to keep some remnant of his brother nearby, just one room away from him.
He was finally going to have some peace and quiet.
His eye burned.