Hello! I was inspired by some Sans headcanons recently so here you go. It's all nice and soft, and Papyrus centric! I got the idea from one of Biscia comics about Sans and Alphys exchanging clothes, so here you go!
OUT OF THE CLOSET
Like every evening after school, Papyrus prepared himself to put down his school bag at its place, on the coat rail next to the entrance door. And like every evening, he got ready to cringe because Sans would have put her things on HIS coat rail, that he would have to put away so he could hang his heavy school bag on its usual spot. This was his coat rail, they both decided it long ago. Why was it so hard for Sans to understand it?
But today, Papyrus had the surprise to find his coat rail perfectly empty and ready to be used. His backpack in his hands, Papyrus hesitated, nervous. Why was it empty? It was never empty. Papyrus made it empty. Sans always loved to put useless things that didn't even go on a coat rail just to annoy him. It was their evening routine. But that routine was now broken. It was not normal, and Papyrus hated when things were not normal.
"SANS?" he called. "ARE YOU HOME?"
No answer.
Papyrus tried to think rationally. Yeah, rational, that was such a grown up word. He was proud of himself. Maybe Sans wasn't home yet and this was why his coat rail was empty. She simply didn't have the time to set up their usual prank and it was totally normal and not scary! Very proud of his deduction, Papyrus picked up his school bag and lifted it to hang it on the coat rail.
But then his stare fell on the pink slippers on the mat.
Those horrible pink slippers, more brown than pink, that Sans always put on to go outside despite how ridiculous it was. Papyrus always told her that if she were wearing real shoes, she wouldn't have cold feet so often. But like always, Sans was stubborn and never listened to him. One of these days, she was going to get sick, and he would laugh in her face.
The only problem was that, if Sans' slippers were here, then Sans should be home too. That too was not normal, and Papyrus hated when things were not normal!
"SANS! I KNOW YOU ARE HERE. THIS IS NOT FUNNY! ARE YOU HIDING AGAIN TO SCARE ME? BECAUSE I AM DEFINITELY NOT SCARED AND PANICKED RIGHT NOW! YOU KNOW I DON'T LIKE IT, SO STOP YOUR SHENANIGANS FOR ONCE AND SHOW YOURSELF."
Papyrus crossed his arms on his chest to look more confident, even if he actually wasn't right now, which no one needed to know.
Still no answer.
Papyrus felt his non-existent stomach squeeze. Sans was always answering when he was not in the mood for jumpscares, and clearly, she was not right now! This was not normal! Not normal at all!
"VERY WELL!" he screamed. "DON'T SHOW YOURSELF, I DON'T CARE! I'M A VERY BRAVE LITTLE SKELETON AND I AM NOT SCARED! YOU HEAR ME? I'M NOT SCARED!"
But… What if something happened? What if Sans was gone forever? Was it because he did something wrong? No, this was stupid, Sans would never give up on him too. After all, he was only a little skeleton, he couldn't even pay taxes yet. How was he going to pay the house? What if he got evicted and had to live on the streets like before? He didn't want to, he hated it there! And anyway, he wouldn't leave without Sans. He needed Sans!
Now. Now. NOW !
"SANS?" he asked again, his voice trembling with panic. "SANS, PLEASE, WHERE ARE YOU?"
Still no answer. That was it. Sans was probably dead, or worse! Wait, what could be worse than death? He didn't know, but he was sure it was that! He couldn't even breathe correctly anymore! This was not normal! This was not normal, and he hated it so much!
He sat against the wall and, like the school therapist showed him when he was so stressed he was panicking, he tried to empty his head and breathe in and out to try to calm down his erratic soul beats. His eye sockets stopped on several objects around him and he started to name them outloud, doing all he could to not cry.
"C-CHAIR. TABLE. C-COUCH. LIGHT. DIRTY S-SOCK. SLIPPERS. BAG…"
He concentrated again on his breathing, and, slowly, he calmed down and tried to think rationally again. There has to be an explanation. Sans couldn't just have… vanished! If Sans' slippers were there, then Sans was home. And if Sans was not in the living room or in the kitchen, she had to be upstairs. In her room maybe? How did he not even think of trying her room? Yes. Yes, this was a rational enough idea. Sans was probably in her room, listening to music or something, and she just didn't hear him coming home.
Papyrus stood up. He ignored his trembling legs and walked - well, he ran actually, as fast as he could before he could have a second panic attack - to the stairs. He climbed the steps two by two before he rushed to the end of the mezzanine corridor to bang on Sans' door.
After a few seconds of intense knocking, he stopped and put his head against the door to listen. No sound. No answer. This was still not normal, but Sans usually didn't make a lot of noise, so maybe she was in there anyway?
"SANS? ARE YOU THERE?"
Still no answer.
Frustrated, Papyrus tried the handle of the door, in vain. It was locked. He hated when Sans locked the door. She only did it when she was mad at him or when she was sad. Papyrus knew Sans had no reason to be upset with him right now, so it had to be the second option. Sans was sad again.
It happened a lot these last few days. Sans probably thought Papyrus hadn't noticed, he knew it, but that wasn't true. Sans had another stare when sad, even if she tried to hide it behind a forced smile. Papyrus was really good at reading other people's eyes, and especially his sibling's. Usually, that was around that time Papyrus behaved badly. That way, Sans was too busy scolding him to be sad. For a while at least. Even if it was very clever, Papyrus knew it wasn't going to last long.
However, these last few days, it seemed to Papyrus that nothing could make Sans smile again, not even his own shenanigans. And weird things were happening in the house. Papyrus noticed how, every morning, the bathroom mirror was covered with Sans' towel. Or that time where Papyrus searched her cosmetics to put on makeup on one of his plushies and everything was gone. He found them later that day in the bin and said nothing, thinking maybe they were expired or something.
Now that he was thinking about it, other weird events occurred that Papyrus didn't understand. Like when, two days ago, they went to Gerson's shop to buy clothes, and then Gerson told Sans the jacket she wanted was a boy jacket, and then Sans crushed Papyrus' hand suddenly like the old turtle insulted her. And then her eyes went sad again.
Papyrus thought it was not fair they couldn't buy the jacket so, the next day after school, he sneaked in the shop and stole it. That hadn't been very hard. Gerson had bad eyesight, and that was actually not the first time he did that, he used to do it all the time when they were living on the streets. Though, he was not sure why he felt like he had to steal now. He knew it was bad and he even promised Sans he would never steal ever again once they had settled inside a real home.
But that made Sans angry that she couldn't buy the jacket, so that made Papyrus angry too.
His first plan was to gift the jacket to Sans, but then Papyrus thought that if Sans was seen with the jacket, she could have problems with the Royal Guard and he didn't want that.
But… What if Sans was really sad because she went back to Gerson and couldn't buy the jacket because it was gone? What if everything was his fault? If he gave the jacket to Sans now, maybe she wouldn't be sad anymore? Papyrus thought about the risks for a few seconds and then decided that his sibling's happiness was more important than being arrested by the Royal Guard. And in the worst scenario, he could still cry on command to make the guards sad and free his sibling. He was very good at that.
Now sure it was the best thing to do, Papyrus ran to his own room. He pulled the bed out of the wall, which made some bricks fall on his carpet. Another thing Sans didn't know. Yet, at least. After seeing Sans train her magic with this huge very cool skeletal head beast thing, Papyrus was dying to try to do the same thing. And well, it worked! However, he didn't know the beam could cause that much damage to the wall. There was now a huge hole in it, that Papyrus hid by putting the bricks in place and holding them still with his bed. Sure, Sans found it weird (very suspicious, even) that Papyrus decided to suddenly move his bed elsewhere in the room, but thankfully didn't search to know more. Now Papyrus was using the hole as a super cool hiding place!
Papyrus dug out the jacket from under half eaten bags of candy he stole in the kitchen so Sans didn't eat them all, and dusted it. It was really a nice looking jacket, all blue, with funny bone patterns on the inside and a comfortable hood. The skeleton felt a little bad. It was probably worth some money. Maybe he could save to pay Gerson back someday. But that wasn't important right now. What was important was that Sans was sad and that this hoodie could help.
The small skeleton looked around for something to put his nice gift in, and chose one of his blankets, the one with superheroes on it. He wrapped the jacket in it and closed his improvised gift with the red bowtie of Mr Bear, his favorite teddy bear. Very proud of his work, he picked up the gift and walked to Sans' door again.
The door was still locked.
"SANS?" He tried again, not believing one second it would work. "CAN YOU OPEN THE DOOR PLEASE?"
As he expected, no answer. But that was not like any door ever stopped Papyrus. He activated his weird magic, the one that helped him cross any object, and glitched through the wall right to his sibling's room. Papyrus didn't like to use that type of magic. It felt wrong, and there were weird noises inside the weird black emptiness he crossed to walk through things. The other kids at school didn't like it either, they said he was not normal. Well, except that time when the playground balloon got stuck on the roof and Papyrus flew to get it, which freaked out his teacher so much she called the Royal Guard to fetch him. He didn't really understand why she was so eager to ask him to not move, but for once the entire school was looking at him so he played along.
When he opened his eye sockets after crossing the wall, he froze. It seemed like a tornado had passed through the bedroom. The big mirror of the room had been smashed in a million pieces on the floor, most of Sans' clothes were on the floor, ripped off or cut willingly, sometimes both at the same time, like someone decided to transform them into mops. There were no posters on the walls anymore, and even a huge crack in one of them.
Did Sans attack the wall? Why? That was silly.
Papyrus was uneasy. That didn't feel like something Sans would do. Did something happen to her while he was at school? His first thought was that Sans always told him there was nothing under his bed, but what if Papyrus was right all along and Sans was gone forever now?
"S-Sans…?" he whispered, suddenly terrified to talk out loud.
He hugged his gift against his chest to give him some courage and then, very slowly, tiptoed farther in the room. He avoided the sharp glass pieces, and started to search Sans favorite hiding places when they were playing hide-and-seek. Under the bed? Nope, nothing. On the unstable wood beam on the ceiling even if Papyrus told her a million times to not nap here? No, still no Sans. Maybe in the closet then?
Nervously, he put his head against the closet door to listen to what was inside. Some muffled noise was discernible, very discreetly. It was like someone was crying inside of a pillow or something. Was Sans crying? His chest hurt just thinking about the idea and he dropped his gift. The door was locked, but Papyrus forced it open, knocking out the broom that was holding it shut, and made his way inside.
"Sans? Are you alright?" he asked with a small voice.
She was there, head sinking deep inside her pillow. Sans had her clothes tattered, and there was a broken pair of scissors next to her, twisted with rage.
Papyrus was at a loss of what to do. Sans rarely cried, and usually, she didn't want him near when it happened. He decided to sit at the edge of the closet and wait patiently. His soul was crying for hers, and he was resisting the urge to jump in her arms and hug her close. This was not how Sans dealt with these types of things. He knew she preferred to take the first step.
But Papyrus never saw Sans so down before, and it distressed him quite a bit. He looked around, and then remembered the gift he brought with him, waiting in front of the entrance. Papyrus picked it up and pushed it slightly towards Sans with his foot, hoping she would notice.
For one second, he swore he saw two white pupils looking up towards him. Hopeful, Papyrus smiled nicely to show his sibling he was there if she wanted to talk.
"what's that?" Sans croaked, visibly forcing herself to make small talk with her brother.
"A GIFT! I THOUGHT IT WOULD SUIT YOU WELL. TAKE A LOOK!"
Her hands were shaking, but she took the gift anyway. She chuckled slightly seeing the… original packaging. She pulled the bow and unwrapped the blanket. Her eye sockets widened when her fingers met the blue hoodie.
"how did you know that… i… papyrus…"
She looked at him, confused. Papyrus tilted his head. Her eye sockets filled with tears. It was not exactly the reaction he was expecting… but that was sort of a reaction? Sans grabbed his arm and dragged him against her chest in a crushing hug. Papyrus sighed slightly in relief. Sans was not mad at him, and she hadn't asked him how he got the jacket either, which was good because that would have been so embarrassing to explain. He simply hugged back, happy Sans was happy now that she had that jacket she wanted so much.
But was all of it really just about the jacket?
Papyrus knew it was more than that. Like everything else, Sans thought he hadn't noticed but he did. He knew Sans was struggling with her (his?) body. A lot.
The small skeleton looked at the ripped clothes all over the floor with determination. Maybe Sans was sad because no one was listening? Maybe if he said something, Sans wouldn't be so lonely anymore. He wanted to be there. He took a deep breath.
"Sans… You know I would love you all the same if you wanted me to call you big brother, right?" he whispered.
That for sure surprised Sans, who froze and looked at him in shock.
"what did you just say?"
"If forcing yourself to be a girl makes you sad, then don't force yourself to be a girl, and that's it. I just want you to be happy. I don't care what Gerson said about the jacket. It's not for boys or for girls or whatever. It's just for you, and it should be enough. I won't think any different of you just because you want to be your true self. I love you the same, Sans."
A sob escaped Sans' throat, before he burst into tears, crushing him against his ribcage again. Papyrus smiled. He knew it was not bad tears this time.
"you don't even know how bad i needed to hear that… you're way too cool for your age, little brother. i love you too, buddy. i'm so sorry i'm such a wimpy loser. i don't even know why i'm crying…"
"THAT'S OK! I'M CRYING ALL THE TIME FOR NOTHING TOO. LIKE IN FRONT OF SAD METTATON MOVIES. OR WHEN UNDYNE REJECTED ME WHEN I INVITED HER TO DANCE AT THE SCHOOL PROM BECAUSE SHE SAID I WAS TOO SMALL AND THAT SHE PREFERS GIRLS ANYWAY. WHO CARES. ONE DAY, I'LL BE TALLER THAN HER AND I'LL REJECT HER FOR METATTON AND THEN I'LL STEAL HER JOB IN THE ROYAL GUARD LIKE I STOLE THAT HOODIE FROM GERSON!"
Papyrus froze, devastated. Sans frown.
"what did you just say?"
"I MEAN UH… METAPHORICALLY? YOU, UH… KNOW ME, I WOULD NEVER STEAL ANYTHING FOR REAL. EVER. AT ALL. OH WELL LOOK AT THE TIME, ISN'T IT TIME FOR A BATH OR SOMETHING? I'M GOING NOW!"
Papyrus forced a smile and wiggled out of Sans arms. He was sure of it, like that huge hole barely hidden behind his bed in his room, Sans would never know he stole that jacket. And anyway, if it helped his brother to come out of the closet, then he regretted nothing at all!