In Which Undyne Is Aggressive

Undyne was extremely ticked off. So ticked off, that one might have even called the emotion "absolutely freaking pissed." Papyrus was fucking hurting himself and he wouldn't let her help! All she wanted to do was help him fix his problems so that he'd go back to being the normal happy skeleton that he was yesterday. Why was he suddenly like this? What could have possibly happened in a single day to take him down so far?

Undyne huffed to herself as she stomped through the snow. Sans was never at work on time. Most likely, he was still at Grillby's since his shift started ten minutes ago.

She'd have to have a word with him about that some other day.

Knowing that she'd incur the wrath of the flame monster if she actually broke his door, Undyne settled for slamming it open with just little enough force that the wall only cracked slightly. It took a lot of willpower to keep her anger under control.

"SANS! What the hell are you doing here!? You'd better have a damn good reason for not being with Papyrus right now!" Fortunately, the only monster in the bar besides Sans was Grillby, or this shouting could have easily and quickly gotten embarrassing for the skeleton.

Sans shrugged as he turned to face his fuming boss, "i know, i'm supposed to be at my station right now but my shift only started ten minutes ago. being fashionably late is my style." He made a mental note to try that line on the door lady.

Normally, humour would serve to defuse a situation like this, but the joke had the opposite effect on Undyne. She strode closer to Sans so that there were only inches between their faces. "Do you have any idea at all about what Papyrus is doing right now? Maybe not, because it's probably all your fault that he's like this now with your lazing about and never doing your work and- and- I can't even THINK of anything else to say to you right now! Your brother is at your house like that and you're just SITTING HERE AND MAKING JOKES!?"

Sans's eye lights shrink a little in surprise. Papyrus was doing something different? Normally, his brother would be on his way to recalibrate the puzzles around now, but Undyne seems to think that he isn't. That was worrying. Variations like this, while they had the potential to occur, generally shouldn't and wouldn't happen.

He grabbed Undyne's arm tightly. "let's take this outside." He turned to Grillby, "put it on my tab."

Once the two left the establishment, Undyne wrestled her arm out of Sans's grip. The smaller monster kept walking west. Was he even going to listen to what she was trying to say?

"Where the fuck are you going now? Did you not hear anything I said back there? It's cold out here and you're just WALKING AWAY! Don't you care about your brother at all? There's something wrong and you need to do something about it." Undyne seethed.

Sans paused and turned, "look, you want to talk, and we will, but i think that this is something you want to keep private, yeah? so we're not going to do this in the middle of town." He turned back again and continued walking west.

As angry as she still was, Undyne reluctantly followed.

Sans stopped a short ways past Greater Dog's post. There was nothing in sight but the empty station and several snow poffs.

"So this is where you want me to shout at you? It's as good a place as any. Why haven't you noticed what's going on with Papyrus? He's your brother for crying out loud! Don't you at least care a little- Oomph!" Undyne was thrown roughly into a nearby snow poff. Her soul was suspiciously blue.

Sans glared at her, "i think you need to chill. and once you've cooled off, you can icely explain to me what you think is going on."

Undyne glared back and began to shout again, "Are you so blind that you CAN'T EVEN SEE- AGH!" Once again, she was dunked under a snow poff. The snow was starting to get into her armour, and it was really cold.

"it's snow problem for me. i can keep this up all day." Sans said, his eye lights shrinking with the threat.

Undyne stood up and brushed herself off. It was fine, she could play by his rules this once. Papyrus is more important than maintaining her authority over a single sentry in this moment.

After some deep breathing (because that's what the most awesome human historical figures did before they engaged in a battle), Undyne spoke calmly, but with obvious anger and annoyance, "I came to get some information from you because Papyrus isn't acting like himself."

"you were screaming at me because you wanted to ask me about papyrus. maybe not the best way to go about getting information, but everyone has different methods. he's doing fine, never better. he was wearing his battle body, shouting at me to wake up, and made breakfast spaghetti this morning and everything." Sans thought back to earlier that morning, and Papyrus had done exactly the same things as he always had. Sure, his words changed from reset to reset, but the thoughts and ideas behind them were always the same.

"Are you absolutely sure that there was nothing different about him this morning? At all?" Undyne asked.

"not a thing." There was no way Papyrus was that good at hiding anything. Was Sans really so blind to his own brother's obvious emotional distress?

To be fair, she had been too, until that morning.

"There were absolutely no sudden inexplicable changes that started this morning?" Undyne pressed again.

Sans had to pause for a moment. The only thing special about this morning was the beginning of a new reset. Papyrus didn't know about those, though, so there was no reason for him to act any differently than he normally would. There was certainly some variation in his morning behaviour, but it was entirely dependant on Sans's own mood that morning. Papyrus reacted differently to his terrible mornings and his slightly better mornings. Things like that wouldn't be caused by the resets, since they were just reactions to the current situation. Even Papyrus's reactions were fairly consistent across resets, though he did seems to act with more care and subtlety on the bad days and terrible days more recently than he used to.

Perhaps there was some subconscious information transfer between his selves in different resets? It would seem to behave almost like intuition and could make for some fascinating research. Some sort of strange simultaneous but also somehow longitudinal study?

That might be too much work, though. Papyrus was fine, after all.

Sans spoke with confidence, "papyrus is completely happy and healthy. i don't know why you would keep saying otherwise."

Undyne's hold on her anger started to slip, "HAVE YOU EVEN LOOKED AT YOUR BROTHER TODAY?"

"yeah. saw him this morning. tall, loud, and wearing his battle body. breakfast spaghetti. you not paying attention?" Sans asked.

Undyne was floored by Sans's lack of concern. Certainly he didn't just look at these superficial details when determining whether or not his brother was actually doing fine. "You know what? Don't listen to anything I have to say. Listen to his own words, and maybe you'll see why I'm worried."

Undyne took out her phone and played the voicemail that Papyrus had left for her that morning.

Sans certainly found it odd. Papyrus wasn't ever busy at this time. After he had left the house, Papyrus was supposed to finish cleaning up breakfast and then make his rounds through the puzzle areas in Snowdin Forest. There was most definitely no previous engagement for Papyrus to take part in.

It only begged the question, "what changed?"

If there really was some sort of intuition subconscious information transfer between resets happening with Papyrus, then maybe he was feeling unusually down since the last timeline had the most difficut events for Papyrus to come to terms with. Sans really hated having to tell Papyrus that Undyne and Alphys were only on vacation.

He couldn't explain any of this to Undyne, so he looked up at her and shrugged. "bro's just busy. isn't he allowed to do other things? have a life?"

"Papyrus doesn't miss work or training for anything." Undyne argued.

"fair point, but how do you know that something really important didn't come up?" Sans countered. It wasn't as though he believed his own arguments, but it would be easier to figure out this timeline stuff if Undyne wasn't getting in the way.

"I went to check on him. I suppose you could say that something important 'came up.'" Undyne growled.

"uh, really? what was it?" Sans asked. He was genuinely curious. What was going on with Papyrus that he didn't know about? After so many resets, he had thought he knew everything. Were there other timelines where Papyrus hadn't gone straight to work after cleaning up the kitchen? This could be very concerning.

Undyne couldn't hold herself back anymore. The nonchalance coming from Sans had pushed her back over the edge. "Do you really need me to tell you the whole story?! I broke into your house thins morning after Papyrus called me and then I saw him- You know what? NO! IT MAKES ME TOO MAD TO EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! YOU'RE HIS BROTHER! YOU SHOULD GO TALK TO HIM YOURSELF! MAYBE YOU'LL HAVE A BETTER TIME FIXING HIS PROBLEMS THAN I DID!"

A jolt of fear coursed through the small skeleton's body. "what problems, undyne?"

"ASK HIM YOURSELF! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE REALLY CLOSE, RIGHT?! I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF I CAN TALK ABOUT IT BECAUSE IT'S JUST THAT FUCKING TERRIFYING!" Undyne was wearing a torn expression. Her voice dropped so low that it was almost mumbling, but the anger remained, "I need to go talk to someone with some sense." She turned and stomped back towards Waterfall.

Sans was stunned. What could Papyrus possibly do that would scare Undyne so much? His bro was the sweetest and coolest person in the Underground. Even if Papyrus was capable of scaring someone (and scaring people off with his spaghetti didn't count), he wouldn't. He was just too nice.

With a sigh, Sans teleported to the Ruins door. He needed some advice and some knock knock jokes to take his mind off of all this. He was already late to met his pun pal. He knew that she would knock every two minutes for half an hour until he showed up, so he hadn't missed her completely yet.

Sure enough, as he appeared, Sans heard the two knocks against the large stone door.

"who's there?" he answered.

"Orange." said the mysterious door lady.

"orange who?"

"Orange you going to answer the door? It's been a long wait here."

Sans chuckled weakly. "i know, i deserve that. I should let you know though, that being fashionably late is my style."

The lady laughed at the weak joke, at least. "Is something the matter? You have never been late before." the lady sounded concerned. How could she care so much for someone she didn't even know?

Sans sighed again, "i don't even know."

"Do you wish to talk about it?" she inquired.

"i dunno. It's probably not going to make a lot of sense. i just heard that my bro's been acting off today, and i'm not sure why. i don't even know what's up, if there's anything up at all." he admitted.

"Sounds like it is a very confusing situation. Perhaps you could talk to him and clear the air?" she suggested.

"maybe. usually, he's a pretty good talker when something's on his mind." Sans replied.

"Then it is definitely worth trying at least once. You are a good brother, to be so concerned without even knowing what's wrong." she said.

"i wish i could agree with you about that." Sans rested his head against the door. His phone buzzed.

"What was that sound?"

"i just got a text. looks like it's from my boss." Sans opened the message. Undyne was certainly very... passionate in her communication.

*SANS, I AM GIVING YOU A DIRECT ORDER TO TAKE THE DAY OFF! STARTING NOW!

*YES, I AM TELLING YOU TO SLACK OFF!

*BUT NOT REALLY! YOU'D BETTER HAVE THE MOST FUN DAY EVER WITH PAPYRUS! OR ELSE! NGAAAH!

*TELL HIM I'M ORDERING HIM TO TAKE THE DAY OFF TOO! OR HE'LL HAVE TO DO AN EXTRA 50 LAPS AT OUR NEXT TRAINING SESSION!

*SHOW HIM THE MESSAGES IF HE DOESN'T BELIEVE IT!

"apparently i've been ordered to slack off with my brother today." Sans said, "i guess i'll have to leave you early."

"That's too bad. I hope it goes well, though! You'll have to tell me if you're brother is feeling better tomorrow!"

"sure thing. thanks for the advice. i really needed it." He really appreciated it.

"Any time. I will always be here to listen and help when I can." the lady said kindly.

"welp. i'd better get going. i'll come back to knock your socks off tomorrow." Sans heard the lady laugh briefly before teleporting back to his house.

A/N: Thus concludes the only chapter that will not have Papyrus in it.