Chapter 7
Brothers and Friends

When the skeletons' house came into view, Undyne was just coming outside. Dean thought he saw her counting heads as he drove up, but there was no question she was relieved by what she saw; her shoulders moved in a sigh and remained relaxed afterward. She still paced a little until Dean parked and everyone got out.

"How'd it go?" she asked then.

"They gave a war and nobody came," Dean quipped, prompting Sam to roll his eyes.

"We persuaded Naomi of her folly," Toriel translated before Undyne could do more than frown in confusion.

Undyne blinked. "O-oh, good. Great."

"that reaction wasn't fishy at all," Sans noted dryly.

"I swear, Sans—"

"What's going on, Undyne?" Sam interrupted before an actual fight could break out.

Undyne briefly bared her sharp yellow teeth at Sans, who was apparently still on the far side of the car and thus hidden from Dean but not from the taller monsters. But then she began, "Your dad's fine, first of all. Papyrus wanted me to find out when it would be safe to move him away from the wards, maybe to our house or Asgore's until the construction's finished in the living room."

"My house is closer still," said Toriel. "We can move him there for the time being."

"Should be just for the afternoon," Dean told her. "I did this kind of job a couple times when I worked construction a few years back; it'll go pretty fast, especially if you guys help. Probably won't get paint on the walls today, but you guys can handle that part."

"gerson sells paint, i think," Sans agreed. "papyrus can decide on a color."

"Me and Alphys got the dimensions for you," Undyne continued, pulling a notepad out of her coat pocket. "But, uh... that's not all we got."

"Oh?" Dean asked, bracing himself. "What else?"

"As soon as you guys left, Dr. Gaster asked for pen and paper. But what he wrote was in these weird scribbles, so Papyrus tried to decipher it for you. He got it into normal letters eventually, but he said it still looked like some kind of computer code, so Alphys took it from there, and... she's really, really upset, guys. So is Frisk. And I think Papyrus is, too, only he's holding it together for them." Undyne handed the notepad to Dean. "I haven't looked or asked."

As Sam came around the front of the car, Dean flipped past the first pages of dimensions and elevation drawings—good job, Alphys—to where the same neat hand had copied a section of code beginning switch(close Hell). He then held the pad to where Sam could read over his shoulder, although he didn't know if the code would make any more sense to Sam than it did to him. For his own part, he skimmed down the code, noting key words like hellhound, release soul, demon=cured, and a phrase that might be Enochian. But then he got to the end, read it twice, and then jumped to Alphys' explanation of that part to make sure he'd understood it correctly:

The energy input into the quester increases incrementally, to or near the point of overload, as the cure progresses. When the demon is completely cured, the quester completes the trial as before by stating, "Kah-nuh-am-dar." This then releases all the energy in the quester's body, and if that kills him, the gates of Hell will close.

Below that, Alphys had started to write something else that looked like Please don't, but a teardrop had landed on that line and blurred the ink, and she hadn't continued.

Sam and Dean had just exchanged a look when the house door opened, and with a wail of "Dean!" Frisk came running out. Dean handed the notepad to Sam and knelt to intercept Frisk, who hugged his neck and sobbed into his shoulder.

Dean returned the hug, putting one hand behind Frisk's head and rubbing the kid's back with the other. "Hey there, kiddo. You don't want us to do the trials, is that it?"

Frisk nodded.

"Shhh. It's okay. It's okay. Nothing's set yet. Me and Sam, we gotta have a long talk first, figure out what's goin' on. And we're not leavin' until tomorrow, at least—we still gotta get those wards hidden so Papyrus don't have to look at 'em anymore. Hey, did you break that one for Sans?"

Frisk nodded.

"All right. Thanks. Look, I can't make any promises about what we'll decide. But..." Dean had to fight the lump in his throat for a moment as sudden memories of Ben, the boy who might have been his son, flooded back unbidden. When he could speak again, he continued, "It means a lot that you care."

A beep close by was followed shortly by Sam saying, "Hey, Garth, it's Sam Winchester. ... Yeah, it's—it's going well. Listen, tell Kevin to take a break on the tablet for a while, would you? ... We, uh... it's kind of a long story, but we just found out there's an angel tablet, too, plus we got some new information about the trials from somebody up here. ... No, he's not another prophet. It's complicated. ... Who? Meta—Metatron? No, but there's a robot called Mettaton we haven't met yet. ... Y—like I said, it's complicated. We'll call you back later and tell you all about it. Just tell Kevin to get some sleep and eat some real food for a change. Maybe take him to Branson for a couple days. ... Yeah, all right. Thanks, dude." He hung up and blew the air out of his cheeks. "Garth says hey," he told Dean.

"Who's Garth?" Undyne asked.

"A friend, fellow hunter. Nice guy. Actually, Papyrus kinda reminds me of him."

"Except Garth's probably a better cook," Dean deadpanned, which got a giggle out of Frisk. "You gonna be okay now, Frisk?"

Frisk sniffled and nodded.

"Okay. We gotta go back to town and get what we need at the hardware store before it snows again, but we'll be back by lunchtime. Though how the... heck we're gonna fit everything into the car..."

"now, there i can help you," Sans spoke up. "frisk, you brought one of the dimensional boxes out of the underground with you, right?"

Frisk sniffled again, apparently thinking, then got very excited and backed away from Dean far enough to sign. Yes, yes! Is great—like TARDIS!

Dean blinked. "You mean it's bigger on the inside?"

Sam snorted and tried to cover with a cough.

Frisk ignored him and nodded. Holds all kinds of stuff. Way more than I could carry through Underground.

"it is limited to ten items," Sans noted, "but you can probably get away with bundling the lumber and drywall so each bundle becomes one 'item.' there's no size limit."

"Ten..." Dean shook his head. "Y'know what, I'm not even gonna ask."

"I need to take the mirror home anyway," said Toriel, "so I shall do that and return with the dimensional box. Where in your room is it, my child?"

Dean missed Frisk's answer because he got up to open the trunk for Toriel.

"Ah, that box! I had wondered why you kept it. Well, then, will you come with me to take out whatever may be in it?" At Frisk's apparent agreement, Toriel continued, "Go in and get your coat, then, and ask Papyrus whether he wants to move Dr. Gaster now or after lunch."

"Actually, we might be late for lunch," Sam said in a slightly distracted tone, and Dean looked up from the trunk to see him checking his phone. "Local hardware store won't have what we'll need, according to Walsh. We'll have to go to the lumberyard in Salmon."

Dean checked his watch. "It's a quarter to 10 now; figure an hour each way, maybe half hour each at lumberyard and hardware store... better eat there, then, and plan to be back between 1 and 2."

"Will the dimensional box work over that distance?" Toriel asked Sans.

Sans shrugged. "don't see why not. it's not like the undernet, which runs on magic. in fact, that might let us get things unloaded and ready while you guys are on your way back. frisk, didn't alphys do something to your phone that let you connect to the boxes that way?"

When Frisk nodded, Dean's eyebrows shot up. "Okay, I'm really not gonna ask."

"Uh, hey," Undyne interrupted, "you guys keep your weapons in your car, right? Mind showing me what you've got while you're here?"

"No, sure," Dean replied, as much out of professional courtesy as anything.

Sam ushered Undyne over while Dean opened the arsenal, and the ensuing conversation about what everything was and did almost drew Dean's attention away from Frisk running inside and Sans following, Frisk coming back out and leaving with Toriel, and Toriel returning with the dimensional box. He suspected that was Undyne's intent, but he decided not to call her on it; it was at least something to do while they waited.

"Here we are!" Toriel called cheerfully as she walked up with the box. "Frisk has promised to check the box inventory at noon, and assuming it does work, we shall have everything prepared for you when you return."

Dean nodded and closed the arsenal. "Awesome. Thanks."

Toriel set the box in the trunk; it was bigger than it looked. "Frisk is preparing my couch for Dr. Gaster, and I think I should go and supervise. Undyne, will you help Papyrus move him when we are ready?"

"Sure thing," Undyne replied. "See you guys later." Then she went back in the house, and Toriel left.

Dean closed the trunk and leaned against it for a moment. "I swear these guys came out of some sort of video game."

"Wouldn't surprise me," Sam replied. "I mean, there's at least one universe out there where our lives are a TV show."

"Don't remind me, Padaleski."

Sam rolled his eyes at Dean's deliberate mangling of his alter ego's name, which was exactly the reaction Dean had been aiming for.

"All right, let's go." Dean knocked on the trunk and straightened, and the brothers got in the car and left.

But for some reason, Dean didn't feel like turning on the radio, and silence fell over the car, heavy with the implications of Dr. Gaster's information. Neither brother said anything until they were well on the far side of Ebott.

"You looked in the mirror, didn't you?" Sam finally asked.

"Yeah," Dean admitted. "Didn't mean to. Just happened."

"What'd you see?"

Dean sighed. "A grunt who's too dumb to stay out of a battle."

"Dean."

"What do you want me to say, Sam? You're the brains of the outfit. You always have been. You want out; I want to give you a way out. That's the only happy ending I'll ever have. Just... don't say anything when we get back, huh? Don't wanna break Frisk's heart."

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

"No, you're not doing the trials."

"Well, I'm sure as hell not lettin' you kill yourself for the greater good again."

"And you expect me to sit back and let you commit suicide?"

"Dude, you were just fine while I was in Purgatory. You can go back to Amelia, have everything you ever wanted."

"No, I can't."

"Why not?"

"She's married."

Dean nearly swerved off the road. "She's WHAT?!"

"He was missing in action—"

"You had an affair?!"

"She thought he was dead! He came back, like, a week before you did—that's why I went to the cabin and ran into you there. Like I told you, it was over." Sam paused. "Truth is... I'm still not sure it ever actually happened in the first place."

"Why not?"

"Because you weren't there!"

Stunned, Dean blinked several times before he found his voice again. "What? But—I thought—"

"Yes, whatever Cas did to shift the Hell trauma got me back on my feet enough that I stopped hallucinating Lucifer. But I'd still spent most of a year not knowing whether anything I was seeing or hearing or... or touching was real. You don't just get over not being able to trust your senses, not when you've built up a habit for that long. I mean, yeah, I still had the scar I could press on, but that didn't always work, especially right toward the end, when I couldn't shut Lucifer up. But you know what I could always rely on, no matter what? YOU. You told me to trust you were real, and... and when you weren't reacting to what I saw, or... or heard or anything, I knew it wasn't real. The thing with Riot, yeah, that happened. I know because you smelled dog in the car when you got back. But you never met Amelia. You weren't there to tell me we were moving too fast or... or call me an idiot for getting involved with her or yell at me because I was making the whole thing up—I—I don't... you weren't there," Sam ended plaintively.

Dean sighed heavily. "Hell, Sammy, I'm sorry."

"I should have looked for you. If I'd been thinking straight, I probably would have. I'm tired of letting you down. But Dean, I can't have a happy ending without you in it."

"I thought you were doing better."

"I am. Doesn't mean I'll stay better." Sam paused. "In fact—"

"No! Do not say I'd be better off without you, Sam. I know I've said stupid stuff lately, especially about Benny, but there is nothing that I would ever put in front of you, understand? Ever."

"Not even Mom?"

"Not even Mom," Dean confirmed without hesitation.

Sam sounded about two years old when he replied, "Okay."

"I mean it. Don't make me lock you up in Bobby's old panic room."

"I thought it blew up with the house."

"I'll find a way to bring it back."

Sam laughed, and the tension in the air eased a bit. "Okay. But that still doesn't mean I think you should do it."

"But we can't ask—"

"Then we don't. We let Garth make the call."

"Garth?!"

"Dean, he's stepped into the void Bobby left. He's got way more contacts than we do. He can find a volunteer, someone who doesn't have a family. We can provide research support... you know, like the Men of Letters used to do."

Dean shot Sam a sidelong look.

"Besides, I think we still haven't gotten to the bottom of what Dr. Gaster knows. The monsters accept us, but they probably wouldn't trust anyone else."

That was a fair point, and Dean knew it. He took a deep breath and let it out again. "Okay."

"You—you agree?"

"Yeah. Still don't like sendin' someone else on a suicide mission, but you're right. Sans wouldn't let anyone else near his dad."

Sam blew the air out of his cheeks. "Okay. Great." And he pulled out his phone to call Garth.

A slow minute passed between the Winchesters leaving their car to go into the lumberyard and Sans materializing in the back seat. He'd waited that long to make sure they wouldn't come back and catch him. Once he'd arrived, however, he sat still for another long moment with his eye sockets closed, recovering from the longest jump he'd ever made. He knew he'd make it home just fine, as long as he rested a bit first.

When he felt somewhat recharged, he opened his eye sockets again and looked around. So this was Salmon, eh? Cool. Now he could come back if he needed to, get a car for Paps so they could run more errands away from Mt. Ebott. A red Ferrari, if he could find one, or maybe a Porche 911. Maybe a Corvette. Maybe a Mustang.

Maybe.

If he didn't decide to do something else first.

After another moment, he slid forward off the seat, turned around, and reached under to retrieve his right hand and the cell phone it was holding. He hadn't been certain his impromptu bug, using the phone's voice recorder to capture sound waves and the hand to relay the vibrations back to the rest of him, would work over this distance; maybe the dimensional box's link to the Underground had helped. But work it had. Sans had been distracted briefly by Toriel asking him on Frisk's behalf to take the bloodstained sweater Chara had stashed in the box and turn it over to the Ebott police. Fortunately, though, he'd gotten back before the Winchesters had started talking, and excusing himself for a nap had allowed him to 'hear' their entire conversation, the subsequent call to Garth (who really did sound like Papyrus personality-wise), and the smattering of small talk that had followed before Dean had found a classic rock station to listen to. As fascinating as the new-to-him music had been, however, Sans had spent the rest of the hour digesting what he'd heard.

Garth hadn't been sure he could find a volunteer. Sans wasn't sure whether it would be best if someone else accomplished the trials before any of the humans could try it themselves.

After reattaching his hand and turning off the voice recorder, Sans sat down again and let himself absorb what he could from the car while he rested. This thing, almost alive—Baby, she'd called herself when he'd jumped into her before breakfast—was brimful of smells and emotions and flashes of memory. Leather and oil, gunpowder and beer, whiskey and cheap food, salt and silver. Blood and tears, sweat and... things humans did that Papyrus didn't need to know about, and neither did Sans, holy cow. Laughter and anger. Joy and sorrow. And love—always love.

It smelled like home.

He couldn't say he didn't have the same thing with Papyrus. He did, and now Frisk and Toriel were part of it, too. He'd even managed to get his dad back. He just didn't know, with all the ways he'd failed and all the lives he hadn't saved, whether he deserved it.

A soft click interrupted his reverie, followed by a quiet female voice singing from the stereo: "Don't sleep in the subway, darling, / Don't stand in the pouring rain..."

Sans blinked. "baby? is that you?"

"Don't sleep in the subway, darling, / The night is long, forget your foolish pride..."

"o-kay, if you're gonna start reading my mind, i'm outta here." And before Baby could object, he teleported back to his room, then shook his head in bewilderment. Foolish pride? What was that supposed to mean?

"DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, SANS."

If Sans had had skin, he might have jumped out of it before whirling to see Papyrus leaning against the inside of his bedroom door, looking at him sadly. "what—i mean—what are you—"

"THE TRIALS TO CLOSE THE GATES OF HELL. YOU WANT TO DO THEM, DON'T YOU?"

Sans managed a laugh. "whatever gave you that idea, bro?"

"YOU DIDN'T USE THE VOICE RECORDER." Papyrus held up his own phone. "YOU CALLED ME."

"wh-wh-what?"

"YOU REALLY SCARED ALPHYS YESTERDAY WHEN YOU ASKED HER TO HELP YOU TEST WHETHER YOU COULD USE THE PHONE WITH YOUR HAND DETACHED. SO SHE REPROGRAMMED IT WHEN YOU WEREN'T LOOKING. YOU'D JUST COME IN HERE WHEN YOU TAPPED THE RECORD BUTTON, SO... WHEN I PICKED UP AND HEARD ROAD NOISE, I JUST LISTENED."

"heard the whole thing, huh?"

"YES, I DID. I KNOW I SHOULD HAVE HUNG UP, BUT..." Papyrus hesitated a moment, then slid his phone into his pocket and came over to sit down on the bed. "YOU'RE A REAL PUZZLE, YOU KNOW THAT, BROTHER? I KNEW THERE WAS SOMETHING IMPORTANT YOU WEREN'T TELLING ME, SOME REASON YOU KEEP HAVING NIGHTMARES. I THOUGHT YOU'D SEEN SOMETHING SCARY AND DIDN'T WANT ME TO KNOW."

Sans rubbed the back of his cervical vertebrae. "kind of an understatement there, paps."

"I REALIZE THAT NOW. I... I READ WHAT FRISK WROTE YESTERDAY. WELL, MOST OF IT, ANYWAY, ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED IN THE UNDERGROUND."

Sans bit back a curse.

"AND NOW, HEARING WHAT THE WINCHESTERS SAID TO EACH OTHER... YOU SAW ME DIE, DIDN'T YOU? YOU REMEMBER."

Sans let his eye lights go out. "heh. you always were good at solving puzzles."

"SANS, DID IT EVER OCCUR TO YOU THAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN JUST AS BAD THE OTHER WAY AROUND?"

"huh? what are you talking about?"

"IF THEY'D KILLED YOU INSTEAD OF ME. IF I HAD HAD TO WATCH YOU DIE."

"but... but it didn't happen that way. ever. not once."

"NOT THEN, NO."

"paps..."

"YOU WOULDN'T SURVIVE, BROTHER. NO MONSTER COULD, NOT EVEN THE GREAT PAPYRUS. THOSE TRIALS ARE MEANT TO REACH THE LIMITS OF A HUMAN SOUL; A MONSTER SOUL WOULDN'T BE STRONG ENOUGH TO SURVIVE EVEN ONE TRIAL, LET ALONE THREE. BESIDES, YOU HEARD WHAT THE TASKS ARE. KILLING A HELLHOUND? GOING TO HELL AND BACK? CURING A DEMON?"

"we could find a way," Sans stated, but he didn't sound convincing even to himself. "it would benefit us as much as humans to have hell closed. chara could never get frisk again, for one thing. and... i mean... you wouldn't have to deal with my mess and my debts and my laziness and..."

Tears pooled beneath Papyrus' eye sockets as he slipped off the bed to kneel in front of Sans. "SANS, I DON'T WANT YOU TO FALL DOWN!"

Something in Sans' ribcage squeezed, as if his soul were being dragged down with blue magic. "paps, you've got frisk. you've got undyne and alphys. you've got dad back now."

"BUT THEY'RE NOT YOU." Papyrus was really crying now. "YES, I WISH YOU WEREN'T SO MESSY AND LAZY, BUT YOU'RE MY BROTHER AND FRISK'S DUNKLE AND... THERE'S JUST NOBODY ELSE LIKE YOU. AND DARN IT, IF SOMEONE AS COOL AS DEAN CAN SAY THINGS LIKE THAT TO HIS BROTHER, SO CAN I!"

Sans wasn't sure whether the sound he made was more laugh or sob; his smile broadened even as his own eye sockets started pouring tears. "aw, geez. who am i to contradict the great papyrus?"

"THAT'S RIGHT!"

"i'm sorry, bro." Sans stepped forward and hugged Papyrus. "i didn't mean to hurt you."

"YOU DIDN'T, REALLY. YOU JUST SCARED ME." But the way Sans' ribs creaked from the strength of the hug Papyrus was giving him proclaimed that either understatement or lie. "I MEAN—NYEH-HEH—OF ALL THE TIMES FOR YOU TO DECIDE TO ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING FOR ONCE..."

"well, then, i hereby resolve to be a lazybones the rest of my life so i can go on annoying my brother until we're both too old and stove up to do anything."

That got a laugh, and Papyrus finally eased up.

"i wasn't lying, though. it really would be better for us if hell's gates were closed. even naomi said dad's knowledge is a threat to hell."

"I KNOW. BUT SAM HAD A GOOD IDEA."

Sans blinked and pulled back. "you don't mean—"

"I THINK WE SHOULD JOIN THE MEN OF LETTERS!"

"i don't think they take monsters, bro."

"BUT IF IT'S ONLY SAM AND DEAN, THEY WOULDN'T MIND, WOULD THEY?"

"huh. guess it wouldn't hurt to ask."

"YAY!" Papyrus hugged Sans again. "YOU REALLY ARE THE BEST, SANS!"

Sans hugged Papyrus back and decided he did need to find Paps a sports car after all.