A Winter Chill
Chapter One: Papyrus
AN: Sans is 16, Papyrus is 7.
The shutters rattle with the force of the wind. The noise generated is just loud enough to irritate; Papyrus finds it hard to concentrate on his television show.
The front door suddenly swings open, and Papyrus trots over to greet his brother.
"Sans!" He tackles the taller skeleton in a hug. He smells of hotdogs and Hotland. Though it's still unpleasant, Papyrus will take it over the clinging stench of the Lab. Sans pats the crown of his skull genially.
"How was school today, Pap?"
"It was great! Super, super great!" Sans closes the door, then flops onto the couch. Papyrus follows him, bouncing on the couch cushion beside him.
Sans' grin widens further. "And what made this day in particular "super, super great"?"
"Ice Cap and Chilldrake invited me to a snowball fight later today." Well, they didn't really invite him. He happened to overhear the older monsters talking about meeting by the river later that afternoon, and figured he'd join them. Papyrus would be a surprise friend!
But rather than the elation he expects on his behalf, Sans glances towards the window, the rattling shutters.
"Eh, you might need to take a rain check on that. Or rather, a snow check."
"What? But when it's snowing it's free to play in it!" Papyrus doesn't know much about these "taxes" that adults speak of all the time, beyond the fact that the accursed snowball tax is a constant fun destroyer in his life.
"This is supposed to be a really bad storm, Pap. We should stay inside until it blows over." He winks. "You could say this storm is "snow joke"."
Papyrus crosses his arms, and pulls the cutest face he can muster. "Please, Sans? Just for a little while?"
"No, Pap." Sans is unfazed by Papyrus' cute face. Rude.
A loud burst of canned laughter from the television snags Sans' attention. He dials the volume down a bit with the remote.
"And if you've been watching TV, that means you've already finished all your homework, right?"
Papyrus shifts guiltily.
"Papyrus." Uh-oh. Whenever Sans says his full name, he means business.
The tiny skeleton scrambles off the couch, heading for his room.
"I'll do it right now!" He darts into his room, shutting the door behind him.
The temptation of the robot toys on his shelf is mighty, but he pushes past the impulse to stop and play with them for a while. His backpack rests against his desk chair. Reluctantly, he tugs the zipper open, laying out the notebooks for various subjects. He tries to start on his history homework, but his attention strays to the small clock on his desk. It's 4:02 right now. If he wants to meet up with Chilldrake and Ice Cap, he'll have to leave soon.
But how? Papyrus taps his pencil thoughtfully against his teeth. Sans is probably still downstairs, so he'd catch him if he ran out the front door.
"That's it!" He declares. If he can't use his home's normal exit, he'll have to create his own. Shoving the homework to the side, Papyrus scrambles atop his desk. He fumbles with the latches, unlocking the window. A gust of wind buffets him as he opens the window, but he shall not be deterred.
Now comes the tricky part. Papyrus takes a steadying breath, then raises his arms. A line of bones materializes in front of him, but then drop to the ground with a clatter, slightly muffled by the layer of snow at the bottom. Papyrus makes frustrated noises as he tries and fails to construct a ladder from his bone attacks.
"Why is this so hard?" He gripes. He thrusts his arms forward.
"Make a ladder!" A row of bones manifests and falls.
"Ladder!" Another row adds to the growing pile; sweat starts to bead on his skull.
He slumps back from the window, momentarily defeated. If he doesn't leave soon they'll start the snowball fight without him!
"This is a puzzling situation, for sure." He snaps his finger bones. "Of course! This is a puzzle. It can be solved, as soon as I figure out the trick."
As much as he tries otherwise, he can only form bone attacks in lines, not unique shapes or combinations. He resolves to ask Sans for more practice time later. For now, though, he'll have to work with the rows. Concentrating, he conjures up a new row, this time infusing the bones with blue magic. Sans had been impressed when he had summoned them so early. Papyrus was not so amazed. Why wouldn't he excel, when Sans was the best teacher there was?
He carefully guides the bones down, so they're only several feet off the ground. He summons a few more rows, forming a set of hovering steps.
Papyrus tentatively puts the shoe on the first step—it holds.
"Hey, Pap!" Sans' sudden call startles him badly, and he scrambles to maintain the tether between him and his attacks, lest they all collapse and he has to build them all again.
"What is it, brother?" He responds, sounding very calm and not at all like he is about to disobey Sans.
"Do you want pasta for dinner?"
A small thrill of joy runs through him.
"Of course!"
"It'll be ready in about an hour." How unwittingly helpful Sans is, giving him a time frame! Papyrus pockets the small clock, to make sure he gets home in time. He hesitates a moment to be sure Sans has finished speaking before he scoots back onto the window sill.
Papyrus steps onto the first row of bones, arms pinwheeling as he struggles to keep his balance. Once he's steadied, he carefully steps down onto the next row, and the next, and the next. He's overeager when he reaches the final step, and trips off it, face-planting into the snow. Some of it slips down his shirtfront, and he shakes the fabric, jostling the snow free.
Papyrus shivers—in hindsight, he should've grabbed his coat before heading out. He waves his hand, and the blue bones evaporate.
The bone pile from his previous ladder attempts is half-congealed in the snow, the magic in the attacks slowly draining off into the air. Papyrus pauses a moment to catch his breath. If he wants to fetch his jacket, he'll have to summon rows and rows of blue attacks again. As loathe as he is to admit it, even he can't continually call forth high level attacks like that. If he wants to build the steps up later for after his play, he'll have to conserve his magical power now.
So, forgoing the coat, he trots off in search of his soon-to-be-friends. He feels a flash of guilt, going behind his brother's back like this, but he shakes it off. Sans means well, but he doesn't know what he's talking about. Flurries drift down from the top of the mountain—hardly a catastrophic snow storm!
Papyrus jogs out of the town proper, to the stretch of forest that spans the distance between Snowdin and Waterfall. He then hangs a left, reaching the river. He spots Ice Cap and Chilldrake in the distance. They don't seem to have started the snowball fight yet; they're just chatting. He arrived just in time!
Papyrus slows to a casual walk as he approaches them. He sweeps a hand over his head, to slick back his hair in a cool way, but then remembers he doesn't have hair.
"H-Hello, friends! Papyrus has come to engage in the snowball fight!"
Chilldrake snickers. "Ice, why'd you invite this dweeb here?"
Ice Cap holds his large hat steady as he speaks, lest it topple off. "I didn't! I don't know what he's doing here."
Oh no! Papyrus has come on too strong. He dials back his enthusiasm a smidgeon.
"Um, if you don't want to have a snowball fight, that's alright too!" That hurts a bit to say. The snow is coming down in nice fat flakes now, the perfect consistency for packing snow. "We can just—just hang out! D-Do you guys like cars? We can talk about cars!"
Chilldrake shoves his beak near Papyrus' face.
"Beat it, kid. You're too mainstream to hang out with us."
"Yeah. We're rebels!" Pipes up Ice Cap.
Papyrus plants his hands on his hips. "I'm a rebel too."
"Yeah right." Ice Cap scoffs.
"Prove it then." Chilldrake challenges.
"I can do anything you dare me to! Just watch!"
Chilldrake thinks for a moment, then gestures towards the rushing river with one wing.
"Our parents always tell us to stay out of the river, 'cause it's "too dangerous". If you're really a rebel, you'll swim to the other side and back, with no magic."
Papyrus hesitates despite himself. Sans was always very adamant about him steering clear of the river. Even Ice Cap seems concerned with his friend's challenge.
"Chill, you don't think that's a bit too much? He's just a kid."
Any trepidation within Papyrus morphs into indignation. "I am not a baby bones!" He stomps his foot for emphasis.
"Go ahead then. Do it!"
Papyrus stomps towards the river bank. Ice Wolf must have finished his work for the day; no blocks of ice are being shuttled down to Hotland by the current.
He glances behind him. Chilldrake and Ice Cap are watching him intently. There's no backing out now. For friendship!
Papyrus plunges into the frigid river. The water weighs down his clothes, makes it hard to move forward, but he persists. The current tugs him downstream, but Papyrus cuts through to the other side with determination. He scrambles to shore, then strikes a triumphant pose.
"He made it, he actually made it!" He can barely hear Ice Cap over his chattering teeth, but the astonishment in his voice makes his chest puff up with pride.
"Y-You should never have doubted Papyrus!" He shouts over. The icy water feels like it's seeping into his bones, though he doesn't know how that could be possible.
"Come back over, Papyrus." Chilldrake referred to him by name! He's making progress towards friendship!
Papyrus charges back into the water, enthusiasm recharged. However, his body doesn't seem to be on the same page, sluggish and slow. He's halfway across and his limbs stop cooperating entirely, and he flails as he starts to be carried away by the current.
"H-Help!"
Papyrus sees Ice Cap and Chilldrake arguing, but the words exchanged between them are lost to him as he bobs under the water. He struggles to resurface, but fails, and is pulled further and further away.
As a skeleton, he can't choke or drown like many other monsters can. But it's still a very unpleasant sensation, being unable to breathe properly—and the cold temperature is like nothing he's ever felt before. Plus, if he dallies too long, he'll be tossed into the Core just like the ice blocks. Sans would not be happy.
He calls forth his magic, and it's oddly resistant at first, blue sparking at his fingertips but going no further. Putting his whole soul behind it, Papyrus creates a bone, larger than any of his normal attacks, and large enough to reach the riverbank. It stabs into the mud. It slowly drags a ways down thanks to the current, but soon becomes snugly stuck in the sediment.
Papyrus laboriously climbs the attack to reach the riverbank. As soon as he's out he curls in on himself, coughing to relieve himself of the sensation of too much water.
His shaking won't stop, his bones rattling. "Guess I'm…chilled to the bone. Nyeh heh." Sans would love that one.
He sits up. Oh no, Sans. Papyrus pulls out the clock. It's waterlogged, but miraculously still functional. His hour of time is nearly spent, but if he hurries, he can still make it home before his older brother notices he ever left.
Papyrus wearily picks himself up, and staggers back to his home. On his way, he stops by the area where he'd met with Chilldrake and Ice Cap, but all that remains are their footprints, already half-covered up by the falling snow. Can he call them his friends, now? He did cross the river both ways, after all—it just took him a little longer than they all thought it would. Or would they begrudge him the use of his magic?
He staggers the rest of the way home, craning his neck up as he reaches the house. Good, his window is still open—that means Sans hasn't come in his room at all.
If he thought summoning the bone in the river was difficult, conjuring up the steps is a thousand times more trying. The bones are ill-formed, dripping apart. He hurriedly climbs them back into his room. Breathing hard, he closes and latches his window. He's made it.
But not quite. He plucks at his soggy clothing distastefully, and knows he needs to change. He shoves the wet ball of clothing under his bed, and just finishes tugging his shirt on when there's a knock at his door.
"Pap? Can I come in?"
Papyrus scrambles over to his desk, and flings open his history textbook to a random page.
"Sure!"
Sans steps inside, and his smile dips down a bit.
"It's cold in here." Papyrus is aware. Leaving the window open for so long has leeched away the room's warmth.
"I—I know! That's why I changed into my super warm studying clothes!" Papyrus would pat himself on the back for his brilliant excuse for both the cold and his new outfit, but then Sans might be suspicious.
The older skeleton starts poking around his room, and Papyrus tries not to stare at the evidence beneath his bed.
"What are you doing?"
Sans stops prodding at the ceiling. "I'm looking for where a draft could've gotten in." He shakes his head. "Nevermind that for now. You wanna eat?"
"Sure!" Anything to get Sans out of his room.
But when Sans puts the steaming plate of pasta before him, his stomach roils. The ambient heat of the meal feels good on his cold bones, but the thought of actually eating food is suddenly repulsive.
"What's wrong?" Sans watches him with concern.
"N-Nothing! I am just…appreciating the spaghetti. Savoring it." Sans doesn't look so convinced, so Papyrus shovels a forkful into his mouth, trying not to grimace.
The doorbell rings, tearing Sans' attention away from him. Papyrus has never been so relieved to hear the doorbell ring in his life.
Sans leaves the kitchen, and shambles over to open the door. Mrs. Drake stands there, Chilldrake fidgeting at her side. Papyrus has never been so not relieved to hear a doorbell ring in his life.
"Evening, Mrs. Drake." He's grinning, but confusion is thick in his voice. Papyrus sinks down in his chair. "What can I do for you?"
"I'm so sorry to intrude like this, but my son needs to apologize to Papyrus."
"…For what?"
Papyrus sinks lower. If he sinks any lower, he'll be under the table.
Now it's Mrs. Drake's turn to be confused.
"For what happened at the river, of course." Then, more alarmed. "He did make it home, didn't he?"
"I was not aware he had left." Sans' voice is cold. "Come here, Papyrus."
Uh-oh.
