Frisk was impatient but also a little bit intimidated. They repeatedly tapped their feet against the car door until Toriel told them to stop as to not risk damaging it.
They were going on vacation today, and they were going to do something pretty special. Frisk had actually never done it before, it sounded very fun but also somewhat difficult. They were about to go skiing.
Asgore decided to stay home. However, it wouldn't just be them and Toriel, the skeletons brothers decided to go as well. Papyrus insisted on driving all the way there on his own rather than coming with them, he really enjoyed his new car, he was the first to get a driving license when everyone left for the surface. He had wanted to do this for a while, Frisk remembered Papyrus telling them about wanting to drive on the surface once when they hung out with him. It was surely better than the racecar bed he had underground.
It was a bit more surprising that Sans actually decided to come as well, although Frisk suspected it was more about tagging along with his brother than actual interest in it. In all cases he was coming with Papyrus.
Luckily, the drive wasn't very long. There were a bunch of mountains in this region, finding one suitable for skiing wasn't that difficult.
Frisk stretched as they got out of the car before they were greeted by a loud familiar voice.
"HUMAN ! I HOPE YOU ARE READY TO GET THOSE BONES SHAKING !" Papyrus wore his usual 'battle body' as he didn't fear the cold. Frisk on the other hand was covered from head to feet with warm clothing, Toriel really didn't want them to get sick…
Frisk nodded.
"YOU SEEM ENTHUSIASTIC, WELL THEN BE PREPARED…"
Papyrus struck a pose, his hand on his chest and his scarf floating as the wind blew in Papyrus' direction.
"FOR I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AM AMONG THE BEST SKIIERS IN THE UNDERGROUND."
Humble as always. Chara commented. He said that about puzzles and about dating too, and well you know how that played out.
Frisk was about to answer to defend Papyrus when they were interrupted by another familiar voice.
"heya"
Frisk turned around to see Sans with a hand held up waiting for a handshake. They hesitated to take it knowing how that one usually went.
"what ? There aren't any weirdos to put whoopie cushions anywhere over here. No need to worry im giving ya a hand."
They decided to take Sans' hand after all, it felt a bit weird compared to usual. It wasn't as cold as normal. When they brought their arm back to them, Sans' hand came off with it. Frisk went pale for a moment before looking back at Sans to find him winking at them. After staring at the hand again they realised it was actually a fake, Sans then brought out his real hand from his sleeve. They had been pranked again.
Well he did tell you he was giving you a hand. Chara pointed out which made Frisk giggle.
"You scared me ! Where did you even get that ?" Frisk asked him.
Papyrus answered before his brother did "I BET HE GOT IT FROM ONE OF THOSE PRANK STORES, THEY ALWAYS HAVE ITEMS THAT CAN COME IN HANDY."
Puns, puns and pranks everywhere.
I need to catch up to them now, i don't want to be left behind.
"No ! No more jokes. " Frisk thoulked. They usually liked puns but there was no way they could bear an entire afternoon if those three kept going at it. They had to stop this before it escalated any further.
They tried to focus again, they changed the subject to instead ask Sans the question that had been on their mind earlier.
"Why did you want to come here with us by the way ? Usually you're more of the lazy kind."
"im here for business of course." Sans answered.
"Business ?" Frisk was even more confused than before.
"the price of fried snow has skyrocketed over here, its the perfect time to make some profits." He explained.
Frisk wasn't an expert in marketing at all, but they knew that the basic laws of supply and demand would say that snow should be less expensive in a place where there is snow everywhere than somewhere where there is no snow. It wouldn't make sense for the price to be high here.
Who even buys snow anyways for it to have a market ? Fried snow of all things ?
Sans apparently could tell what they were thinking by their expression because he answered exactly what they were wondering.
"there's a lot of snow around but its not fried snow so it has no impact on supply. people who come over here are more likely to be interested in snow in general and thus more likely to buy it and to be ready to spend more money to get some. that's why its such good business to sell snow at the top of a mountain." Sans told them, winking again.
They were smart enough to know that this explanation didn't make any sense but not smart enough to be able to put into words why it didn't. They decided to leave it at that. Sans was just doing Sans things, they couldn't question it.
"HAVE YOU ALREADY PREPARED YOUR SLIPPERY FLAT STICKS ?" Papyrus asked them. It took Frisk an embarrassing amount of time to realise he was talking about their skis. Yes they had, they were in the car.
Soon enough they were done getting them on, it felt really weird to walk around with those.
"IT SEEMS YOU ARE STRUGGLING." Papyrus noticed. "BEHOLD !" He hold them their ski poles. "THESE TOOLS WILL ALLOW YOU TO MOVE AROUND EASILY !"
Right… Of course… Frisk took them and tried using them to push themself forward a bit, it was much easier to slide like this than to walk.
"Usually you love rubbing it in my face when I forget something obvious." Frisk thoulked after noticing that Chara had stayed silent.
I know about as much about skiing as you do. I would be a hypocrite to do so.
"Can we start with something easy ?" They asked Papyrus.
"OF COURSE." The skeleton answered, they followed him along until they made it to a chairlift.
It took a few minutes to reach their destination, once they did Papyrus asked them a question.
"WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO GIVE YOU SOME HELP ?"
Frisk agreed.
"Can you go first to give me an example ?" They asked the tall skeleton.
"VERY WELL, OBSERVE." Papyrus slowly went down the ski slope, he made large turns and gave them a good angle of view to see what he was doing. Frisk was actually pretty impressed by how good of a job their friend made at showing them what to do. Once he stopped, Papyrus asked them another question.
"ARE YOU READY NOW OR DO YOU WANT MORE DETAILED EXPLANATIONS ?"
Frisk decided to give it a shot.
They timidly began pushing with their ski poles and tried to follow the path that Papyrus had just left in the snow. They got a bit anxious whenever they had to take a turn or when they felt like they were going too fast but in the end they managed to make it to him without falling.
Wait… How do they stop now ?
They almost began to freak out but Papyrus caught them as soon as they got close enough to him.
"WOWIE ! YOU ARE VERY SKILLED FOR A BEGINNER, IN THIS CASE I SUGGEST WE PICK UP THE PACE !
Papyrus suddenly dashed forward.
He made very quick and narrow turns, went considerably faster and even went out of bounds for a bit in order to take bigger bumps. Papyrus was a natural at this ! They hadn't imagined their friend would be this good. Once he got far enough, he stopped and waved at them.
I take back what I've said. Im impressed. Chara commented. You're also doing pretty good. They added when Frisk began to feel not as proud of their previous performance.
"Would you rather have wanted to see me fail ?" Frisk asked them.
As much as seeing you eating snow could have been very fun, if you got snow in your clothes after falling i would end up freezing for the rest of the day as much as you.
After a bit of hesitation, Frisk decided to ask.
"Wanna try ?"
What ?
"Wanna try skiing ?"
Chara was about to answer no reflexively, but honestly, it did sound quite fun…
O-okay, but don't make fun of me.
Frisk didn't get to Chara being unsure of themself like this very often, in all cases they agreed and let Chara in control. As soon as the first human looked downwards they started hesitating.
Humm… Is it too late to take it back ?
"Yup." Frisk answered.
What the hell did Chara just get into ?
They had seen Papyrus doing it and they felt Frisk doing it, they should be able to do it too right ?
Chara launched themself a bit too fast, they only managed to go about three seconds before falling into the snow. They heard laughter in their head.
You told me you wouldn't laugh !
"Sorry, I didn't mean to."
How did you even do that first try ?
"Its not that hard, you're just bad" Frisk jokingly taunted them, they didn't mean it of course.
You're just good at this because you have great balance. Chara stated before trying it again.
"My balance isn't that good." Frisk answered as Chara was still trying their best.
You went through a whole maze while holding a sphere on top of your head and didn't even drop it once !
"Can you really call it a maze ? It was just four turns. You're making it a bigger deal than it is."
Chara fell again.
You got zapped once ! You took an electric shock and even then you still didn't drop it. They added as they got back up again.
"It was a tiny shock ! I didn't even lose any HP from that !"
Can you stop making excuses and admit that you are good at something ? Seriously, you held up THIRTY hotdogs stacked on top of one another on your head. If that's not having incredibly good balance then I do not know what is !
"I dropped them as soon as i took a step." Frisk reminded them as Chara almost fell again but stabilised at the last moment.
That doesn't make it any less impressive… I do not think I could hold more than two.
"Okay fine whatever."
While they were listening to Frisk, Chara didn't notice they were about to run into a bump.
"Chara watch out !"
It was too late to avoid it. They closed their eyes as they felt themself leaving the ground.
Just as they were about to hit the ground, Chara got scared and let go of Frisk's body without warning. Frisk didn't take back control of it immediately which led to their body falling over like a ragdoll as soon as they landed with neither of them being there to move it.
They both felt it as Frisk's body lost its skis and started rolling down in the snow, Frisk then finally took back the ownership of their members and stopped themself before they ended up covered in snow from head to feet, then they got back up and tried to walk upwards again tot take back their skis.
Frisk im so sorry ! I did not mean to do that !
"Its fine !" They smiled. "That was hilarious !"
Chara was glad that Frisk took it that way.
"FRISK ? ARE YOU OKAY ?" They heard Papyrus calling from a bit further ahead. That must have looked like a pretty bad fall to him.
"Don't worry, im fine !" They answered him.
Some stranger took their skis for them and gave them to Frisk while they were going down the track themself. Frisk thanked them before trying to put the skis back on, they managed it fairly quickly.
You should finish the track yourself... Chara told them.
"Okay but you can try again later." Frisk thoulked.
Really ? You'd still let me after this ?
"Of course ! I haven't seen you having this much fun in quite a while, we can take turns !" They answered them.
In that case you can count me in.
Frisk enthusiastically approached Papyrus until they caught up to him. Chara paid closer attention to Frisk's moves trying to figure out what they were doing wrong.
"I SEE YOU'VE GOTTEN YOURSELF BACK TOGETHER. VERY GOOD. FOR YOU SEE, THIS WAS JUST THE BEGINNER'S COURSE."
Papyrus pointed forward in the direction of another chairlift.
"THE NEXT TRACK WILL NOT BE SO EASY !"
While they waited for the chairlift, Frisk heard their partner speaking up again.
Frisk ? I just has an idea.
"What is it ?" They thoulked whilst making sure to not let Papyrus notice anything.
This is either the best idea i've had today or the worst one. The only way to find out would be to try.
"Just say it already !"
What if... I controlled the ski poles with your arms and you controlled the actual skis ?
Frisk considered the idea for a little while. Either this was going to be extremely or they were going to fail to coordinate and immediatly fall.
"This is either going to be awesome or its going to fail horribly." They concluded.
Yup... Wanna try ?
"Absolutely !" They grinned.
"FEEL FREE TO PROCEED." Papyrus held his arm forward, inviting them to go first this time around.
"Ready ?" Frisk thoulked.
As an answer, Chara grabbed the ski poles using Frisk's hands.
Here we go. they pushed themself forward slowly.
The two of them did the best they could to keep their balance, it felt very weird for both of them but it was definitly very enjoyable. They struggled to keep their balance every time they took a turn until eventually on their fourth turn, Chara planted the ski poles slightly earlier than Frisk expected and they found themselves face on the snow fairly quickly.
Ouch.
"That went... Well it didn't go that well but it was very fun." Frisk admitted.
Can we try this again ? I think that with a few more tries we could make this work.
"I agree, lets keep doing it like this." Frisk found it really entertaining as well even though it was more difficult than doing it alone.
Papyrus was a bit perplexed to see how long it took Frisk to get back up, but when they did, they looked very happy. It seems they were enjoying this. Seeing them happy made him happy as well. He was doing a great job at making their day incredible, of course he was ! No one was as good at making people smile than the great Papyrus !
"FRISK ? ARE YOU READY TO KEEP GOING ?" The tall skeleton asked his little friend once they were done preparing themself.
The human gave him a quick nod.
"IN THAT CASE, FOLLOW ME, BUT ONLY IF YOU DARE ! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH !" Papyrus launched himself forward, but made sure to not go too fast or too make difficult turns so that Frisk would be able to keep up with him.
As they did their best to follow Papyrus through the snow, Frisk thought about how great their day was going. Them and Chara still had hours to get used to this and to keep skiing with Papyrus, who was excellent company.
And it was still far from being over.
Author notes :
For some reason Papyrus is often portrayed as hating puns in fanworks despite the fact that he actually makes more puns than Sans in the actual game (mostly in phone calls), he just doesn't like Sans' puns in particular.