Chapter 4: A Past Worth Noting
Note: This is a sort of long flashback just to establish the characters of Sans and Papyrus. I'm sorry that this interrupts an action-packed scene. It wasn't my intention to make this story boring, but I felt it was necessary to give Sans and Papyrus a backstory. I'm very sorry if this is an inconvenience to anyone's reading pleasure. Please just bear with me here. I will get back to the present sooner or later.
As Sans sat at his usual spot at Grilby's, he listened in on other Monsters' conversations.
"Hey. Did you see that new guy around?"
"Yeah. He's a skeleton, right?"
"Yeah. Maybe he's related to Sans."
"That'd be a laugh! He's nothing like Sans! He hasn't walked into Grilby's since he got here!"
"Hahaha!" The two laughed as if it was the best joke either had ever heard.
These people were making Sans crazy! All of Snowdin was acting like this new skeleton in town was so much better than Sans. He was literally all the town could talk about, and the guy'd moved in a week ago!
Sans got up from his seat at Grilby's, leaving his half-empty bottle of ketchup on the bar.
"Put it on my tab, Grilbz. I have to go do something," Sans said as he was leaving.
Grilby was a Monster who was incapable of speech, but Sans knew that Grilby would put the ketchup on his tab no matter what.
Sans had not introduced himself to the skeleton yet. Even after all this time, Sans was still hesitant to greet any new visitor. Ever since he first arrived in Snowdin, he wasn't ever the most talkative Monster ever.
He hardly went out; most of his day was spent sleeping. And when he did go outside, he acted very antisocial.
Most of the residents saw him as weird or mysterious, but Sans didn't really care. He only cared about people not asking too many questions.
He had just woken up in the snow outside of Snowdin without any recollection of what had happened before. He decided to live here without any idea of how he got here or where he came from. All he could tell was that he was new to Snowdin.
As Sans walked through town today, he noticed that the residents were acting strangely. They were talking in hushed voices, and when Sans went up to a small group to ask if they had seen the new skeleton, they practically jumped out of their skin. What was the deal?! No one was going to give him answers, so he just continued his search for the new guy.
Finally, he spotted the skeleton walking down the road with several brown bags in his gloved hands. "Probably groceries," Sans thought.
The skeleton stuck out like a sore thumb. He was about 6 inches taller than anyone else in town, towering over Sans. He was wearing a brightly colored shirt with "Cool Dude" and pixelated sunglasses on the front. He was also wearing some blue jean pants and fluffy snow boots, the same style of his gloves. He had a odd but pretty cool fashion sense it seemed.
The skeleton was happily humming to himself, so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn't notice Sans jumping up and down trying to get his attention.
Sans was never the best at getting someone's attention. He was never the tallest Monster in the Underground (even Alphys was a little taller than him), but this newcomer dwarfed him in size. Sans was also a fairly soft-spoken Monster. He often found it hard to talk over others. It was easy when he cared about it, but he didn't care about much around here.
After a few more minutes of Sans trying to get the other skeleton's attention, he tried going in front of him. This, thankfully, finally worked.
"Hello! I don't believe we've met before! I am Papyrus! What's your name?" Papyrus said cheerfully, extending his hand, "Oh! You're a skeleton like me!" he said as Sans took it. It would've been rude not to return the gesture.
"Heh. Yeah. People say that I'm bad to the BONE."
The tall skeleton groaned in response, but Sans saw his already huge smile widen as he continued speaking.
"Anyway, I didn't know there were other skeletons living here! Why are you wearing that jacket? Can you feel the cold? Is it freezing? I can't feel it, but dad says every skeleton is different."
Papyrus' imitation of his dad was rather funny, Sans thought, and gave him a genuine chuckle.
The taller skeleton barely acknowledged it however as he continued.
"Hey, who's your dad? Maybe we can have a 'dad party'! Where do you live? I could come over some time! We could make spaghetti! Do you like spaghetti? Dad is allergic to it, so I don't have much practice…"
After only a moment of thought, Papyrus said, "I have an idea! You can be the first to try my 'Super Special Spaghetti Surprise'! It's settled! Come over to my house at noon, and I'll make us some spaghetti! We can use my kitchen!" Papyrus exclaimed excitedly without giving Sans a chance to answer any of his multiple questions.
"Thanks. I'll be there. By the way, th' name's Sans." Sans said as calmly as he could. Papyrus' barrage of questions was so different from any of the other townsfolk he had met. It caught him off-guard.
Everything about this monster was the polar opposite of Sans. Papyrus was happy, excited, loud, motivated, and seemingly willing to drop whatever he was doing just to greet Sans. Papyrus had also talked so fast that Sans was sure he didn't catch everything the tall skeleton had said.
It only took Sans a few minutes to find Papyrus' house at noon. Sans had decided to walk to his house, but Snowdin was a pretty small town. Even Sans could get from one end of the town to the other in only 5 minutes.
Papyrus' house was very big and nicely decorated. It was by far the biggest and oldest house in Snowdin. It had been there before Sans had come to Snowdin, and he was surprised to find that no Monster had lived there since its construction. He'd found that it was mostly due to the price.
Sans had never been the richest Monster, but none of the other Snowdin residents could afford to live there either. That's why he was so surprised that Papyrus could afford the huge house's price.
Papyrus already had a mailbox in front of the house with his name engraved on its side. This was clearly a well-off Monster.
As Sans walked up the steps, he started to get cold feet. He had never been invited to another Monster's place since he arrived. He hardly even spoke to the other Monsters. This would be the first time he actually had a real conversation with someone else to his recollection.
This Monster was vastly different than Snowdin's other residents. He asked too many questions. What if he asked Sans where he lived? What if he wanted to meet his dad? How would the other skeleton react if Sans told him the truth?
