1. Visitor
[[File 1 SA-20150701-0-# MW 106, 108]]
"IGNORE THE CEILING-HIGH LEANING TOWER OF EMPTY POP CANS! !"
An unwholesome cacophony assaulted the house foundation to rooftop; shouts trumpeted through the house, tumbled up the stairs, and boisterously ricocheted past walls and a locked bedroom door. Even coming from the far side of the house on the floor below, syllables crashed against the upstairs bedroom's rafters and shook its walls with greater energy than an earthquake.
It was one way to be woken from deep sleep.
He opened an eyesocket.
Lying from his supine position, he could crane his neck backward and blearily peer, upside-down, at a faint, emanating glow. That was it… a faint, emanating glow. A bright blurry, vaguely rectangular-esque thing glowing out from something non-glowy. There was no sense to the image. Mind, groggy and confused with semi-consciousness, could only process so much, and even his vision operated at low capacity. Only after slowly, muddily squinting for a minute could he recognize the view of light splashing through his window shades.
The rays were soft and barely warm, almost tangibly imperceptible on the cheekbone. Judging from the light's intensity and angle, afternoon was fading into evening. He could have checked the specific time by picking his phone off the floor – supposing the device had not run out of batteries – but he hardly felt like shifting positions on his mattress and reaching to retrieve it. Frankly, he could do without knowing the time. If he could see light outside, the day was still young... and that meant he might as well resume napping.
His eyesocket closed.
No action of his could drown out his brother's earsplitting shouts, but over time he had learned to ignore them. He would do anything to avoid doing anything, after all. He remained lying crumpled in bed with his crumpled sheets, allowing the continued monologue to harmlessly thunder over him.
"THAT TRASHY, TIPSY TOWER IS NOT OF MY CONSTRUCTION!
"IT IS MY BROTHER'S…
"HE IS TOO LAZY TO THROW ANYTHING AWAY INTO THE RECYCLING…
"…WHEREAS I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AM A SKELETON WITH STANDARDS!"
The words floated over his drifting consciousness. Through the foggy, sleepy recesses of his thoughts, he wondered if something seemed vaguely… strange… about the conversation. It was hardly worth thinking about, this close to returning to sleep, but for some reason, his mind remained awake enough to puzzle this through.
The mention of the pop can tower itself hardly perplexed him. Papyrus commented on it rather frequently, after all, as he considered its very existence an offense. A serious offense. No. Something else felt peculiar about this moment, something he could not quite consciously identify. It wasn't the tone of voice, or the phraseology, or the…
Welp. Not that he cared. Even if he weren't trying to sleep, he wouldn't have cared.
When did he ever care?
He allowed the puzzle to drop from his mind, quit listening to Papyrus' boisterous babbles, and focused instead on the soft, relaxing whir sound which rose from his room's far corner. The self-sustaining tornado of trash handily worked like a white noise machine. It at least drowned out the edge of his brother's sharp screeches.
"AFTER ALL…
"I, UNLIKE SOME MONSTERS, KNOW HOW TO THROW THINGS AWAY!
"AND HOW TO RECYCLE!"
Actually… that self-sustaining tornado of trash needed to be a lot louder to cut out even a decibel of that skeleton's voice. Maybe Sans would have to add some more wads of paper later. There might have been an empty chip bag in the refrigerator he could toss in, too.
Papyrus' speech continued to detonate unrelentingly through the house. Sans could not catch the voice of whomever Papyrus nattered to, but his brother typically dominated conversations anyway, both in terms of sheer volume and number of words spoken. The other individual probably had only squeaked in a word or two between Papyrus' passionate exclamations.
"BECAUSE POP CANS SHOULD BE RECYCLED!
"NOT THROWN AWAY!
"AND DEFINITELY NOT MADE INTO TOWERS THAT DOMINATE THE LIVING ROOM! ! !"
oh… that's it. Realization dawned upon him. Muggy as his mind currently felt, he ought to have recognized this simple fact sooner: Papyrus had a visitor. Papyrus was entertaining a guest. Being as that almost never occurred, no wonder Sans had felt the moment peculiar.
there.
Satisfied he identified the anomaly, Sans repositioned himself with his wadded-up covers and attempted to drift back into unconsciousness.
"WHAT?!" An ejecting exclamation, presumably responding from some quietly uttered question.
"WHY DON'T I RECYCLE THE CANS FOR HIM!?
"BECAUSE HE WOULDN'T LEARN ANYTHING THAT WAY!
"HE GETS LAZIER AND LAZIER EVERY DAY!
"I'M NOT GOING TO ENCOURAGE IT? ! ! ? !"
The visitor spoke at much too softly a volume to be Undyne; Sans did not even catch the slightest sound of muffled speech from the guest before Papyrus launched into his response rant. Undyne's screeches would have nearly equaled Papyrus' in volume. That said, Sans would not have expected the visitor to be Undyne, given as whomever Papyrus spoke to seemed to be entering the residency for their first time. There would be no other reason for his brother to explain the pop can tower, after all – that had been accumulating and growing now for at least three months. The few individuals who ever frequented their house were well-acquainted with the leaning tower and its associated controversial politics, and most had even contributed to the dialogue by either defending the tower's existence or proposing increasingly creative methods by which to discard it.
This was someone new.
Had Sans not been so intent on fulfilling his daily quota of slacking, he almost might have been interested in who this newcomer was.
"TAKE OUT THE RECYCLING OF A SKELETON FOR A DAY…
"…AND YOU HAVE NO RECYCLING FOR THAT DAY!
"TEACH A SKELETON HOW TO TAKE OUT RECYCLING…
"…AND MAYBE HE'LL QUIT BEING A USELESS SACK OF BONES FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE! ! !"
Strange Papyrus had not mentioned this visitor sooner, come to think of it. On the rare but celebratory occasion a guest accepted his household invitation, he yammered about it every waking second. He also tended to drastically lose sleep, making "every waking second" literally "86,400 seven" – the number of seconds in a day, every day. However, Sans had not heard even a word from his brother about these afternoon plans, nor the buzzing of his phone from Papyrus leaving an exuberant message. Right, right, his phone was probably dead, but even then…
This excursion likely arose at the spur of the moment.
curious.
And then he heard his name.
"SAAAAAAAAAAANS! ! !"
Papyrus' previous words, disruptive as they were, had come from his regular 'speaking' voice. Now that he intended to yell, the scream erupted through the house in an overwhelming, apocalyptic sonic explosion. Sans' tornado of trash wavered at the aural onslaught.
"I TOLD YOU TO GO GROCERY SHOPPING! ! !"
Sans grinned despite himself. So much for sleeping. He knew what sort of tirade would be coming next, and it would be… hilarious. He had to stay awake for this.
"OH. MY. GOD, BROTHER.
"WHY DIDN'T YOU BUY ANYTHING EXCEPT KETCHUP, MAYONNAISE, AND MUSTARD!?
"THAT IS NOT GOOD NUTRITION!
"IT IS MILK, NOT KETCHUP, THAT STRENGTHENS THE BONES!
"DOCTORS DON'T TELL PEOPLE TO DRINK MORE KETCHUP FOR OSTEOPOROSIS!"
heh. you telling me you don't want to ketchup on your nutrition?
He almost found enough energy to pull himself out of bed to present that poor pun to his brother and the guest. Papyrus' indignant reaction would be worth it. Sans even devised a follow-up pun for when Papyrus would have complained about the poor humor – it would be all too easy to talk about milking up the jokes for what they're worth.
That would be funny.
As it was, Sans simply lay there, letting his brother boil about the lack of pasta ingredients from his half-hearted grocery store trip. He could find more than enough laughs simply listening to his brother, well, steam.
"COULDN'T YOU AT LEAST HAVE GOTTEN NOODLES FOR SPAGHETTI?!
"WE'RE GETTING LOW!
"WE ONLY HAVE ABOUT 54 MEALS LEFT IN THE FRIDGE.
"I NEED TO GET COOKING!
"WE MAY BE ALL BONES BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN WE SHOULD STARVE!"
Yep, remaining in bed turned out to be the right choice. Definitely worth listening to this tickling diatribe. Sans could hear the low-bass muffled booms of his brother stamping his boots on the tiled floor. The tantrum lasted an impressively long time before it died away and was replaced with the sound of Tupperware containers being shifted shelf to shelf.
"…
"WAIT!
"I FOUND ONE MORE BOX OF NOODLES!
"NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH! ! !" his brother crowed.
"HUMAN, WE ARE COOKING TONIGHT! ! !"
Sans' eyesockets widened, fatigue instantly evaporated. He jerked up from his supine position, propping himself up on one arm and staring intently toward his shut bedroom door. Electrocuting astonishment blasted through him. wait… did papyrus just say 'human'?
"I, GREAT CHEF PAPYRUS…
"…WILL DEMONSTRATE HOW TO COOK THE BEST PASTA OF YOUR LIFE!
"PREPARE TO BE AMAZED!
"ASTOUNDED!
"AWED!
"THROWN BACK IN ASTONISHMENT AT MY UNPARALLELED CULINARY EXPERTISE!"
A second's pause, probably to allow the visitor some response, and then…
"ALRIGHTY THEN, HUMAN! GET ME A KNIFE!"
That was it. That was it. That was it that was it that was it that was it. He launched out of the bedroom, slamming open the door and charging down the stairs into the kitchen, throwing himself into the room with a rush of flashing yellows and blues.
"WE NEED IT TO CUT UP THE VEGETA-"
Magic exploded, room clapping in light.
A second later, the kitchen floor clattered with hundreds of bones skidding across the floor. Papyrus, jaw agape, stared at the carnage, stared at his brother, whose left hand still hovered outstretched from his attack.
Slowly, slowly, Sans could feel the burn of his left eye fade. The bright blue tint of the room faded to its typical burnt orange and maroon colors. He could see more clearly the damage to the kitchen, of the pots and pans obliterated into useless flattened scraps of metal by his sudden magical outlash; of the refrigerator cowering, punctured like a pincushion, in the corner; of even the sink sporting fissures and cracks; of the entire space smothered, over and under and around everything, with bones.
As for the human, no evidence could be found.
Except the hovering glow of a heart-shaped SOUL split in two.