Sans lay in bed for a while contemplating what he remembered of his dream. This one had been different - noteworthy. His brain clung to it more. He could remember. A mist covered it, and he could already feel himself forgetting details, but still he remembered something. Arguing with Papyrus. The revelation he could kill. And that kid. That kid was familiar too. Now, outside of the previous dream, he could sense the familiarity. He'd dreamed about him before. Sans' brow furrowed in thought as he desperately tried to bring back more of the memory. Nothing. Like a bank of fog blocked any further progress.

Sans gave a terse sigh and swung his feet over the side of his bed, a few of his bones letting out stiff pops as he did. He felt like he'd been asleep for weeks. With a final yawn and stretch he managed to clamor out of bed and shuffle his way downstairs, slipping on his hoodie and slippers as he went. The house was quiet.

"Papyrus?" Sans called through another yawn, "Paps you awake?"

Nervousness crept down the back of his neck like a cold sweat. Nobody answered him.

"Bro?"

Sans slipped his hands into his hoodie pockets and began a deliberately slow walk through the house, checking every room, counting his steps, breathing. Step - breathe - step - pause - step - sigh - step - pause. Over and over. Step - breathe - step - pause. Papyrus wasn't in his bedroom. Sans crept downstairs. Step - step - sigh - step - pause. The television was off, no noise came from the kitchen. It was a small house. Step - stepstep - breathe - stepstepstep - gasp - stepstepstepstep!

Sans tossed open the front door, "Papyrus?!"

Why wasn't he home? Why didn't he leave a note? Where was he?!

A thought derailed him, I'm too late, he's dead.

Too late for what? What'd he miss? Why'd he sleep in? Papyrus is dead. You don't know that. Yes I do.

Sans took off running, leaving the door open. This was too important to wait for him to find his keys and lock the house. Too important for the handful of seconds it would've taken to close the door. Where could he have gone? Why would he leave without waking Sans up? Fear and guilt twisted in his gut and the bite in his chest spurred him faster. He dashed past neighbors, ignoring their stares as he made his way out of town. Grillby gave a flustered call that Sans didn't hear. He could barely hear the sound of his own feet crunching frantically through the snow. Across the bridge now.

"Papyrus?!"

Down the path, past the colored tile maze.

"Papyrus are you out here?!"

Dogamy and Dogaressa barked at him as he shot past them. Greater dog barely managed to dance out of the way as Sans ploughed haphazardly through one of his snow poffs. Lesser dog's neck stretched in confusion as his eyes traced the small skeleton's path into the distance. Logically, Sans should have been asking them if they'd seen his brother, asking how long ago they'd seen him and what he'd been doing. Logically, he had nothing to worry about.

This wasn't logical.

Sans kept running, coming upon the final stretch of Papyrus' puzzles before his outpost. Where was he, where was he?!

His foot came down on the soft snow - and kept going. The slushy ground gave way before him to a hole that seemed to swallow him up. Sans' panic contorted into a mix of confusion and terror. He was falling, and the darkness of what he'd fallen into opened up before him for several feet. He let out a belated shriek and covered his face with his arms, hoping against hope that the fall wouldn't snap away his one and only HP.

Ping!

Sans' soul shuddered against the tight grip of magic that suddenly grabbed him and stopped his free fall abruptly. He hovered there for a moment, shaking, his body inches away from the ground. Both of his hands came up to grip the chest of his hoodie tightly, every part of his body shaking uncontrollably. He could feel his soul wriggling in the magical grip even as he was lifted out.

"BROTHER? YOU REALLY MUST BE MORE CAREFUL! THAT FALL COULD'VE KILLED YOU!"

Sans had never been so relieved to hear a voice in his life. He waited as patiently as he could, breathlessly gulping down the fear that had consumed him. Papyrus came into view, his hand outstretched, blue light dancing around his fingertips as he gently set Sans back on solid ground. Sans couldn't stand. He sunk to his knees, hugging himself, crying. Everything hurt. His soul pulsed abnormally hard in his ribcage, like some weird distended heartbeat. And the shaking, shivering like he had the beginning stages of hypothermia. His breathing was in ragged gasps that ricocheted up the back of his neck vertebrae and rattled in his skull. Every breath, every heartbeat, every movement of his body suddenly felt alien and irregular. Was he dying? Was he killing himself? A sharp pain etched through his chest and wrenched a particularly loud sob from his throat.

Papyrus' strong hands came down on his shoulders, and he forced Sans to look up. Sans' manic eyes, pupils contracted into pinpricks of flickering light met Papyrus'. He looked so calm. How did he look so calm?! Sans could feel him trembling - or was that his own shaking he was feeling?

"SANS, LOOK AT ME," he didn't have the option to look away now, "BREATHE, BROTHER. BREATHE. YOU'RE GOING TO FAINT IF YOU KEEP DOING THIS."

Sans' grip on his own chest got tighter. He could feel his hoodie pulling uncomfortably around his shoulders and back. He gasped.

"C-c-ca-an't…"

"YES YOU CAN," Papyrus sighed a deep breath in, and hissed it back out again, "LIKE ME. JUST LIKE ME."

Sans shook his head, eyes closing. He wanted to curl in on himself, to hug his shuddering body and make everything stop.

"SANS YOU HAVE TO BREATHE. SANS? SANS!"

"Y-y-you w-we-ere g-gone."

"TALK TO ME LATER, BROTHER," Papyrus hugged Sans gently, cradling him as if he were made of glass. He sighed in deep breaths. In. Stop. Out. Stop. Sans kept his eyes screwed tightly shut and managed to pry his hands from their death grip on his chest. He hugged his brother back, feeling every breath the other took. Forcing himself to breath along. Forcing himself to focus on the sound, the movement, the way his brother's ribcage expanded and collapsed. And in turn he did his best mockery of the movement that he could muster. . O-out. In. St. Out. Sto-op. I-in. St-stop. Out. Out. Stop-p. In…

"THERE, GOOD," Papyrus cooed above him, "YOU'RE DOING GOOD, BROTHER. KEEP BREATHING."

Sans didn't know how long they sat like that, just breathing in the snow, holding each other. As his panic subsided, his frustration mounted. Frustration with the situation. Frustration at his inability to calm his own panic. How helpless he felt. How stupid he felt. How completely needy and broken up did he look right now? And Papyrus had to see him have a meltdown - the whole town got to see it. A small part of him wished Papyrus hadn't caught him before he fell in that goddamn hole.

"ARE YOU OKAY NOW, BROTHER?"

Sans' voice grated shrilly past his teeth, hitching every other syllable, "Hell no I'm not okay. I'm never okay. I can't remember the last time I was a-oh-freakin-kay."

He could hear the frown in Papyrus's voice, "SANS, I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU. DON'T BE CRUEL."

Sans gave a shuddering sigh, guilt and bitterness twisting his stomach in knots.

"I'm so sorry you had to see that."

His hands slipped away from their grip on Papyrus and once again clutched shakily at the middle of his chest. Every few breaths he could feel a pain there, stinging at his ribcage. He hardly had the courage to meet his brother's eye again. His soul's pulsing still felt odd in his chest, his body shook faintly.

"NOW, WHAT BROUGHT ALL THAT ON?" Papyrus sighed, watching Sans with concern, "I MEAN, YOU'VE DEFINITELY GOTTEN UPSET BEFORE BUT NEVER LIKE THAT. WHY DID YOU…?"

"I couldn't… find you anywhere," Sans brought one of his hands up to clutch at his skull, glaring at the snow. The words rolled through his mouth and sounded ridiculous outloud. Such a stupid thing to freak out over.

"Y-you never leave the house without saying anything to me," boy, was that really the only reason he'd freaked out so much, "And I was alone and I thought something happened to you? I don't know I just… I lost it. I couldn't think straight. I couldn't find you I…"

Sans gave a defeated sigh and finally looked up at Papyrus, "I couldn't help it. I'm sorry."

Papyrus flashed his brother a tired smile, "WHY ARE YOU SORRY? IT'S OBVIOUSLY MY FAULT FOR NOT TELLING YOU I WAS LEAVING THE HOUSE."

He gave a soft nyeh of laughter, "YOU WERE RESTING SO WELL, I DIDN'T REALLY HAVE THE HEART TO WAKE YOU."

Sans allowed a small laugh to escape his throat, "Now you're the one who's crazy. You hate it when I'm lazy, remember?"

Papyrus grinned, "WELL SOMETIMES IT'S NICE TO KNOW YOU'RE HAPPY."

Sans rubbed the back of his head bashfully, all the more ashamed that he'd freaked out so badly. Papyrus had just been trying to be nice. Goddamn it.

"Uh…" Sans cast his gaze over to the pit he'd fallen into, "... so… thanks for the save…? What is that? I don't remember that being there."

"AH, YES," now it was Papyrus' turn to look uncomfortable, "WELL I… I WAS MULLING OVER MY PUZZLES YOU KNOW… HAVE TO KEEP THEM GOOD FOR IF A HUMAN ARRIVES NYEHEH… AND WELL I REALIZED THAT THE PUZZLES I CURRENTLY HAVE CAN'T REALLY SLOW DOWN A HUMAN CAN THEY? NOT ONE WHO'S REALLY DETERMINED TO GET THROUGH THEM ANYWAY."

Sans blinked at his brother surprisedly, "Woah woah woah. You made that? This morning?!"

Not knowing what else to do, Papyrus simply nodded.

"Well you work harder than even I give you credit for bro," Sans said, managing to stumble to his feet, "But you could really do a number on someone with that thing."

Papyrus flashed him a horror-filled look, and Sans held his hands up to calm him down.

"I mean, you wouldn't really hurt anyone. Well… besides me, but we both know I'm kind of pathetic when it comes to HP. And you'd probably give a human a good scare. But someone could sprain a leg in that thing, or lose a handful of HP."

Papyrus seemed to relax a bit - but only slightly, "WELL YES. I TOOK THE TIME TO WARN ALL THE FOREST RESIDENTS ABOUT THE NEW TRAPS. THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO STAY OUT OF THIS PARTICULAR AREA UNTIL I'M FINISHED. I'M TRYING TO WORK OUT A WAY OF MARKING THEM SO WE CAN SEE THEM BUT THE HUMAN CAN'T."

"Oh," Sans hummed, "Well that would… help… uh… have any ideas so far?"

Papyrus opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it. He shook his head, and then waved a hand to dismiss the topic altogether.

"WE SHOULDN'T BE TALKING ABOUT THIS," he finally chided, "IT WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA ON MY PART! MUCH TOO DANGEROUS AND UNDERHANDED. AFTER ALL, A HUMAN SHOULD BE GREETED WITH HONOR AND DIGNITY - AND PUZZLES! NOT TRAPS LIKE THESE."

"Are you sure bro?"

"IF I WASN'T SURE BEFORE I AM DOUBLY SURE NOW," the confidence that returned to Papyrus' voice massaged away the last feelings of bitterness and guilt clinging to Sans, "I WILL HAVE TO FILL THIS BACK IN. BUT FOR NOW… YOU HAVEN'T HAD BREAKFAST YET HAVE YOU?"

Sans gave his brother a soft grin, "No I haven't. And uh… I left the front door open. In the hurry. So we should uh… fix that."

Papyrus gave an exasperated sigh and clapped his face with his hand, "YOU DID NOT! ALRIGHT SANS, LET US RETURN TO SNOWDIN AT ONCE!"

Sans laughed ruefully as his brother strode off, taking one last look at the ominous trap before following. Since when did Papyrus, his Papyrus, ever think of something insidious as that? He couldn't stop the familiar feeling of dread as it started creeping up his back.

.

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- Just a cautionary author's note down here since people get sensitive about this - I'm in no way trying to shame anyone who ever has a panic attack by writing Sans the way I did. I wrote him feeling guilty because, in my experience when I've gone through stuff like that, I feel terrible guilt when I have to explain myself. So please don't judge me too harshly -