So, as I said, two chapters in one day! Yay!

Disclaimer: Undertale belongs to TobyFox, Underfell to the comunity of Undertale in general and the cover art is mine.

Enjoy!

19XX - Years Ago

The last time Sans had been away for so long, he had returned sheepish and with an apology ready on his inexistent tongue. He had always been a bit too independent, but Grillby figured it was kind of his fault. He had been the one to let him chase after the figure of the Doctor, after all.

Still, his brother Papyrus was the same, in a different kind of independence. Where Sans struggled to get out of bed, it being almost a fight everyday… With Papyrus was the opposite, there was no way to get him to rest by conditional means, unless it was because of Sans reading him a bedtime story. Sans was obsessed with science, Papyrus with puzzles. Where Papyrus would sneak out to play in the woods or the Gyftmas tree, Sans would sneak in places like the Doctor's house or the Librarby.

It was weird, seeing how they complemented each other, being the same at their very core yet distinctly different.

The brothers had always been weird, to a point. But he cared for them deeply and the fact that Sans spent all his time at the labs… It didn't sit well with him. If Gaster insisted in the importance of the teenager studying, couldn't he do it from home? It hadn't been an issue before. Sure, Sans wasn't doing it supervised but he didn't have the heart to tell the kid no and that would surely be what Gaster would have told him.

Apparently, he was wrong.

Grillby didn't like it.

It was natural that the kid wanted to spent more time with the scientist, but that didn't mean that he had to be fine with that. Where was the other when Sans got in trouble? When Sans' insecurities got the better of him? When the teenager almost trashed the backroom of his bar because of his first magic attack?

He got that the scientist was busy, that he was doing his job for the good of all the monsterkind. Yet the look on his boys when Gaster started to not come back? Grillby was so mad.

There was the sound of crackling fire.

With a deep breath, the fire monster told himself to calm down, that he was overreacting. His hold on his magic was better than this, he was better than this.

A bell from the back door alerted him of someone entering his house.

"Grillbz? I'm back!"

The door sounded harsh on the floor, the wood with chunks outside that only allowed the door to be closed with great force. There was a big bang. Only then, Grillby allowed himself to go to return the greeting.

"… how was your day?"

Quietly, almost without any sound, the elemental struggled to make his voice louder. The skeleton seemed exhausted, but that wasn't anything new. It had been six days since the nonsense from the experiment started and the kid seemed to be swaying in place.

If Gaster didn't put his act together, he would make him. This was calling for an intervention.

"Oh, it was okay. Just, you know, the Doc doesn't allow me near the experiments yet. Heck, he wouldn't even let me KNOW what the experiment itself will be."

The words did little to reassure him, but they did.

"… anything interesting?"

"Nah, just tired." Sans shrugged, feigning disinterest while looking for something in the room. Probably Papyrus, the fire monster guessed. It had been a while, almost two days the brothers had spent any bonding time together. Sure, Sans had come back every day after that little stunt, but…"Anyways, where's Paps?"

… but he didn't seem to be all here. It frightened Grillby more than he could care to admit.

"…he was in the Inn, last I knew. It's still fairly… early."

The skeleton flinched and Grillby softened his features, a stern glare he didn't even notice he was making leaving his face. He didn't want to admit it out loud, but he missed the little ball of moodiness that was this monster. The trials of parenting other monsters' kids. Especially if those kids were teenagers.

Sans' sockets were wide, looking just at him.

Didn't seem to notice the lamp floating just above his head.

Puberty… That thought sobered him enough, quickly scrambling for a way to get the skeleton out of the house before he noticed...

Or before Grillby needed a new lamp for his humble living room.

"…why don't you go get him? He has been… kind of sad…"

The skeleton hunched, his posture slumped. It seemed like he felt bad about that as if he was the cause of his brother's feelings. Well, Grillby guessed it made sense and it was a big part of it. Just not all the problem.

"Alright, I'll just…" the teen lapsed into silence, before quickly looking at him and lower his gaze to his shoes immediately after "… I'll bring Paps for dinner."

Grillby watched Sans leave with a heavy soul… Just before hearing the telltale crash of his lamp.

Damn.

That kid would be the end of him.

He was not looking forward to going to The Dumps in Waterfall just to look for a new one.

He had been worried, to be honest.

He hadn't been spending as much time as he would have liked with Papyrus and that was glaringly obvious in his little brother's demeanor this past week. Nonetheless, maybe this was for the best. Papyrus was still a babybones but he would grow up soon enough, he needed to be confident. He needed to know how to cope with stressful situations and how to defend himself.

In truth, Sans didn't want to let his brother figure this all on his own, but he felt like he had little choice in the matter. The (kind of) kindergarten was helping his bro by letting him being more independent, interacting with other children from all around the Underground. Sans knew that if he were to be present, he would be hovering all the time and chasing off the other kids.

And while he would like to do that, not that his brother minded the attention (quite the opposite, in fact), it wasn't good for him. To grow isolated, alone.

Not that he liked leaving Papyrus on his own, he probably never will. Papyrus had some abandonment issues.

Again, Gaster's fault.

"Everything comes back to you, doesn't it, Doc?" Shaking his head, he tried to dispel the thought. He knew he wasn't being very far. It wasn't like that, Sans told himself, he was just... So tired... "Heh, welp, I better hurry."

Quite the habit he was getting, talking to himself.

But it was weird. He felt weird. This exhaustion wasn't normal, he knew. It felt like when he was starting to get the hang on his magic, spending unnecessarily big amounts of it subconsciously. But it couldn't be that, could it? His magic wasn't acting up since he mastered his basic bone attacks.

Maybe he would ask Grillby later.

He had a brother to cheer up, after all. With that in mind, he took a detour. It was still early like Grillby said, he could afford to waste a bit of time in the way to get his brother something nice.

Spending time with his brother after so long... filled Sans with happiness.

Sans entered the shop of the Bunny Lady, the sister of the one managing the Inn.

Papyrus was bored. He kept looking at all his pretty drawings, looking wishfully at one in particular where he had drawn his brother Sans and himself with a dark blob in the background. He knew his artistic abilities weren't the best but he felt pretty proud!

He didn't really remember the blob's features, but he knew the name, the monster, it was supposed to represent.

Papyrus, Sans and Gaster.

Like it was meant to be.

He didn't really remember what the tallest of the three looked like, but that was okay! He was still little, he was told by the Bunny Lady that it was normal at his age to not remember a lot of things if he didn't saw them often, faces included!

So, what if he didn't see the taller all that much? He was still so great! His brother Sans had told him a lot of what the other monster did, working tirelessly in his efforts to make their lives more comfortable. In the hopes of keeping up morale, of keeping up HOPE! The other monster sure was amazing, doing all that complicated sciency thing in Hotland. He was even considered a hero, a respected monster by all the Underground population. He was the centre of a lot of gossip and guesses, the older monster was POPULAR!

But Sans was pretty amazing himself. Going to work at the Labs, helping Mr. Grillby out in his restaurant, reading Papyrus his bedtime story, looking after him... His brother was great, too.

Papyrus wanted to be like the both of them, even better than the two when he grew up! He would be THE GREAT PAPYRUS, in all caps. Everyone in the Underground would know his name, respect him, be his friend! He would be so popular, too!

Maybe then he wouldn't feel so alone while staying in Snowdin, looking at his brother leave to work.

Don't get him wrong, the great Papyrus (not in caps as he himself was still little), was very proud of his caretakers. Both his brother and Gaster were very intelligent monsters, capable of incredible things with just the right materials. He just... wasn't like that, at all.

He was told he was clumsy, that he was graceless and dumb. He didn't like it when the other monsters told him those mean things. At all. They were mainly the teenagers and he was told that teenagers said dumb things themselves, to feel better about what happened to them. He tried to brush them off.

Still.

The paper wrinkled under the pressure of his fist. The sound snapped him out of it and he hurried to try to fix the drawing he had been so proud of before. He was so clumsy indeed.

He wanted Sans to be home.

He didn't want to be alone.

It was his brother, too, not just someone the scientists could order around.

His brother. Papyrus' brother.

His.

Papyrus'.

The paper-bag sounded like it was about to rip from the weight and Sans shot a look at it, startled.

He had been thinking what to get his brother, to make amends for all the time he had to spend nowadays and all the time Sans would be leaving him again to either study or work. He hoped to start working again, soon, this time with a experiment himself.

He was excited, but...

The tub of NiceCream jostled inside the paper-bag. Right.

Opening the door that led him to the outside again, Sans clutched the bag with both hand from below. Better be safe than sorry.

"Bye, Bonny."

"Bye, kid. Don't get in trouble again" said the bunny monster with a warm smile and a small wave.

Sans snorted and hurried to get to the other front gate of the building, the Inn. He couldn't wait to see Papyrus, he had missed that little terror terribly. Heh.

The Bunny Lady from the Inn welcomed his with a small, before hurrying after Snowdrake, who kept trying to sneak out to practice his jokes without being made fun of. They were terrible, they didn't even make a lot of sense, but the kid was trying and he could respect that. He was trying to emulate that kid's father, too, Snowdrake Sir sure knew his stuff about comedy.

"Papyrus?" He called out to his brother.

There was a crash and a bang, curiously even a bark, lots of kids started to cry out and mayhem took control. He looked amused at his little brother who had just gotten out of the Kindergarten zone.

"SANS! YOU'RE BACK!"

Putting the paper-bag in the ground, he grinned, preparing for the hug that was so coming his way.

Did he say hug?

It felt more like a lunge. Ouch. His little brother was so cool it hurt.

"Hey kid, how was your day?"

Papyrus beamed under Sans' undivided attention, ignoring the poor Bunny Lady rushing back to the Playground in the back with a struggling Snowdrake under her arm. She glared at the brothers, the icy look almost making Sans flinch. Women were scary.

"IT WAS VERY GOOD. BUN, MS. BONNY'S SON, PLAYED WITH ME FOR A WHILE BEFORE HE LEFT FOR HIS MOTHER'S SHOP. AND THEN I GOT YOU SOMETHING!" Papyrus paused, looking to his hands. He was wrapping something with a powerful grip. After seeing that, the little skeleton's face fell, eyes sad. Startled, Sans asked him what was wrong. "IT'S JUST... I MADE THIS FOR YOU... AND NOW IT'S ALL RUINED!"

With a patient smile and warm eyes, Sans looked at Papyrus, letting the other separate from their hug.

"Can I see, at least?" Said Sans, holding out his hand.

Papyrus scrunched his face, looking dejected.

"BUT IT'S ALL RUINED NOW..."

"It doesn't matter, bro. I still wanna see."

Meekly, Papyrus complied.

It was a drawing of three people and he knew exactly who each one was. He tried to soften his features more, even if Gaster as a black blob with white hands and an oval head, looking like a creepy featureless monster, made him snort.

"Papyrus, bro, look at me." Papyrus did. "It's pretty cool, you know? And I know the perfect spot for it."

Suddenly all shiny and excited, Papyrus beamed. Sans could almost swear that glitter and sparkles were encompassing his little bro's face.

"YOU MEAN... THE PICTURE MUSEUM?"

Again, Sans snorted.

"If you mean the fridge by that, then sure." Papyrus made a happy dance, smiling. Sans' attention was once again being drawn to the paper-bag he had left on the floor. "Actually, I got something for you, too."

Papyrus gasped. "REALLY?! WOWIE!"

After a moment of silence, Sans hesitated.

"Aren't you gonna ask what is it?"

"WELL, I'M SURE IF IT'S FROM YOU, BROTHER, IT HAS TO BE VERY SPECIAL. ANYTHING YOU GIVE ME WILL BE SPECIAL, BECAUSE YOU'RE SPECIAL TO ME!"

Sans didn't know what he did to deserve this kid.

"Welp, I got some NiceCream from Bonny, so I thought, maybe... we could go to the forest and eat it outside before it gets late? We could make a couple of Snowmonsters too."

Smiling, Papyrus hugged Sans once more.

"THIS IS THE BEST DAY. THE GREATEST!"

How could have Sans left his brother aside for days? The Angel help him, he wanted to make up for the time lost.

Wait, was that actual glitter?! His clothes! HOLY SH-

I promise this is going somewhere, it's just... Well, I like fluff. Enjoy the fluff while you can. Trust me.

Anyway, little Papyrus is adorable.

I didn't know what to name the bunny monsters, so the bunny from the Inn is Bunny (Asgore level of originality), the Shop Keeper is Bonny and her son (the one who's going to be the monster selling NiceCream in his cart in the future) is Bun. There are more bunnies in this family, but I don't think they show up later so I'll clear up who's who if they do show up in the end.

Reviews and constructive criticism are always welcome! Please keep in mind English is not my first language, so if you see a mistake somewhere tell me and I'll fix it.

NellB out!