Papyrus woke up slowly in a cold bed. He hurt all over from the energy transfer but he would do it all over again if It meant keeping Sans alive. Speaking of which...

Papyrus turned his head expecting to see Sans sleeping soundly next to him. When he saw there was no one there Papyrus had a mini heart attack. Had Sans dusted in the night?

No.

Humans didn't dust, even humans with composite souls. Even so Papyrus still pulled the sheets back to inspect the bed. Conferred by the lack of dust Papyrus figured Sans was downstairs making breakfast like every morning.

So the tall skeleton forced himself out of bed. He stood popping his joints for a bit. When he was satisfied that the stiffness was worked out of his body he headed downstairs. It was oddly quiet in the house and when Papyrus stepped into the kitchen he was on high alert once again.

Sans was gone.

When he looked at the clock he guessed why. It was almost noon. Sans had probably left for his sentry duty hours ago. Did Sans leave without trying to wake him up? Papyrus saw Sans boots were gone which confirmed his theory.

That had never happened before.

Papyrus went into the kitchen and saw everything was spotless. On the table sat a plate with a few of Muffets doughnuts on it. Still shaken after last night he went to go check the fridge. He saw some of the casserole had been eaten. When he looked in the sink a fresh dish was soaking along with a pan.

Sans had eaten, that was good. Lunch break was one o' clock. Papyrus would wait for Sans to come home for lunch then he could apologise for being a jerk. Having Sans almost die on him had shown Papyrus how much he needed that little ball of joy. He still shied away from calling Sans brother, even in his head, but this had shown him that he could eventually forgive Sans.

He was still mad deep down, that Sans had lied to him and then almost killed himself, but the guilt and worry overwhelmed all of those negative emotions. Whatever had happened to Sans to bring him here must have been bad. His soul and one HP was proof enough of that.

Papyrus took a bite of doughnut, when Sans got home they would talk and Papyrus would listen.

Sans sat at his post head in his hands.

Earlier this morning 01 and 02 had come by to check on him and make sure everything was ok. That told Sans that Papyrus hadn't spread the news about him being a human. Even though his soul was so broken it couldn't be used to break the barrier, the hurt monsters felt towards

humans was still fresh. And honestly Sans could blame them one bit. Humans were the worst.

Not all humans were bad, he was a testament to that, but in Sans' short life on the surface he had not met one nice human. Not one and to this day he didn't know if he was an anomaly or if there were actually pockets of good humans scattered about.

A heavy sigh left Sans mouth.

Thinking about the surface was useless, Thinking about humans was pointless. So why couldn't he stop?

Did you break another dish!?

He was safe in the underground.

Stop crying like a baby I thought I had a son not a daughter.

No one was going to hurt him.

Take your punishment like a man.

Things were different down here.

If you don't stop crying I won't take you to the hospital.

Monsters were nice.

Why don't you just get out of here you little piece of shit.

He had friends.

I hate you

A life.

I wish you were dead.

Why couldn't he just forget...

Papyrus was done waiting and he was getting annoyed.

Was Sans avoiding him?

The clock on there wall read 2:00 Sans was never this late for lunch. Sure sometimes he would be a little late because he had stopped to talk to someone on his way home. However he was never this late.

The energy transfer should have made his brother good as new. Sans soul wasn't normal though. If he had pushed himself and gotten hurt...

Papyrus slipped his shoes on at the door. He supposed this must have been karma for worrying Sans. Whatever higher power was at work here must have been a total asshole. Before he opened the front door he gave his ceiling the double bird.

Then he made his way to his brothers sentry station.

Sans had to pull himself together he couldn't go home to Papyrus like this. He had already caused enough trouble for him already. The least he could do was be happy and normal for him.

Sans sat huddled under his sentry station hugging his legs. If someone passed by they would think he was out patrolling the forest. His breathing was shaky and shallow. He was on the verge of tears but was holding them off valiantly.

This would happen sometimes. He would get strange moments extreme emotion. It was usually ok, being eccentric was one of his things, if he was overly happy or frustrated or even scared it was just his eccentric personality at work. It was the moments of extreme random sadness that were the hardest to handle.

It usually hit after a long boring day of thinking alone in the woods. He didn't know if it was the isolation or the monotony but sometimes he would just get sad. On his off days Sans would take a few extra minutes to compose himself before heading home. Papyrus didn't have to deal with that. When he did finally see his brother Papyrus would be enough to distract him from his bad thoughts.

Today was different though. Even though he knew what this was he couldn't stop it. He just kept thinking about how much Papyrus must hate him. How disappointed he must be.

If Sans came home and Papyrus was gone...

Could he do it? Could he live his life with a brother that hated him? Papyrus had been the biggest part of his life and the idea of that suddenly being ripped away from him. It was too much. How could he ever face something like that?

It would be easier to just lay in the dirt under his station forever.

Sans knew he should get up and go home. He needed to face whatever was waiting for him. He needed to be strong.

The fact that he just kept laying there despite these thoughts filled Sans with a familiar feeling of self hate. He couldn't do anything right.

Maybe he just needed a few more minutes to get himself under control.

Then he would go home.

Just a few more minutes...

As Papyrus made his way to Sans station it seemed like everyone and their mother greeted him on the street and asked about Sans.

Yes he was ok. Yes they had made up. Everything was fine. Etcetera .Etcetera .

This situation was a little to complicated to explain to everyone. To be honest he didn't even think Sans would want everyone to know. This was way to personal so Papyrus kept to his story.

They had a spat, they made up, everything was fine.

Finally he made it to Snowdin forest.

Most of the guards were at lunch so he just walked straight to Sans sation without further interruption.

When he got there though it was empty. Sans was nowhere to be seen. Papyrus stood in the snow wondering what to do next when he heard something by Sans station.

He walked over as quietly as he could to see what it was. Nothing jumped out at him when he got there though. It was just Sans station looking as perfect and clean as ever. Papyrus was about to leave when he heard the noise again from under the desk.

As he bent down to investigate a familiar face popped out from beneath the desk.

Sans looked shocked to see Papyrus (If not a little frightened?) those were quickly buried under Sans familiar happy face.

"Papy! What are you doing here!?" he asked trying to wiggle out of the small space with some semblance of grace. He failed and Papyrus had to grab him under the arms to help him out.

"I was just checking on you. It's way past lunch time and you never came home. What were ya doing under there anyways?""

Sans looked really guilty then. He looked at the floor and rubbed his hands together.

"I was looking for something I droped." He lied badly.

"For ten minutes?"

Sans just looked even more guilty and said "yes."

Papyrus shook his head in amazement "You know you're a really bad liar." He took out a smoke and lit it then finished his statement. " About some things."

Sans looked really crushed then and Papyrus mentally cursed himself. He hadn't come out here to chastise his brother. He had come out here to get Sans to come home and he was already doing a shitty job of it.

"Listen Sans I think it's time we had a talk."

"Yes, of course." Sans said still looking nervous.

Papyrus took another drag of his cigarette to calm his nerves.

"Listen Sans I'm not mad." I am kind of mad "I want to hear your side of the story." About why you lied to me all my life "Do you think you can do that for me?"

Sans nodded his head and then spoke in a small voice. "Yes I can do that Papy."

"Cool." He said and the nonchalant offhandedness of the statement clearly caught Sans of guard.

Papyrus just raised an eye ridge "Maybe we can talk somewhere a little more private?"

Even though they were in the middle of the woods you could never know who might be listening.

"Sure!" Sans said taking a shaky step forward.

Papyrus watched as the little guy took a few more shaky uncertain steps.

"You ok there?" He asked

"Of courses" Sans said taking another shaky step "I must have just been sitting down for too long my legs are a little weak."

Papyrus just sighed and dropped the burning but of his cigarette in the snow. "You're probably still weak after last night."

Sans looked up at him clearly confused "What happened last night?"

Shaking his head he reached down to pick Sans up. He had always wondered why Sans had felt so fleshy. Sans had told him it was magic when he had asked as a child and Papyrus never questioned him again. Looking back it was sickeningly obvious.

Sans tried to wiggle out of the bigger ones grasp "Papy I can walk!"

"Ya and at that pace we will get home by tomorrow morning."

Sans stopped struggling.

"We have a lot to talk about." Papyrus said walking quickly towards their house.

Sans just hid his face in Papyrus' shoulder and mumbled "I know"