Thanks to those who have read this far, and also for all the likes and favorites!

Enjoy~

I remember our constant travels as we searched desperately for a permanent home.

It wasn't like those times were any worse than the rest. We were skeletons, so we hardly felt the cold. We could feel the snow digging into our bones, and the wind blowing us nearly off our feet, and the perpetual fear that the blizzards would become so bad that our vicinity would be completely cut off, but at least we didn't freeze to death, right?

At least we each had a brother by our side, which was yet another thing gnawing at me, fiercer, more terrible than the conditions battering around me. I didn't even ask him. I didn't even ask his opinion. I know he would've come with me either way... right? It's Papyrus, we've been together since as long as I can remember. He couldn't have made it without me, anyways. He needed me.

And... I needed him.

Trudging through the snow without him, as the only family I'd ever known watched through the windows. Too afraid to look back, not because I was afraid I'd see something I didn't want to see, but because I didn't want him to see what he didn't want to see. The tears that would've stained my bones. That mask of a smile, taken off for the first time. The final embrace of the fact that I was alone.

No. I couldn't have done that. I wouldn't leave him.

Besides, I needed someone to practice my jokes on.

This one night, the blizzards had finally calmed down. It was probably a few days after we left our town, in the middle of the winter, just our luck. It was rare that the winds managed to slow even slightly, so we took every opportunity to light a fire and roast some food. And as I took a much-needed rest, he, of course, would not rest and started fighting any moving thing nearby.

Eventually, I watched as his movements slowed and he slumped onto the snow across from me, tired, for once. The fire crackled between us, warming my slipper-covered feet. The storm had ceased, if only for a moment, and the fire would be blown out in a few minutes, but I was determined to treasure those scarce moments of tranquility. I wasn't even tempted to crack a joke.

"Sans?"

I took a deep breath, the silence dissipated. Strangely enough, I wasn't so disappointed. "Yeah, Papyrus?"

"I'm not as clueless as you think."

I was quiet. It was rare that the storm ever stopped, but it was even more unusual for Papyrus to talk calmly. Solemnly. Maybe our traveling had really taken a tole on him. Another pang of guilt struck me in the stomach, sickening and painful.

I swallowed my regret. "I know that."

He sighed. "Well, obviously not enough to tell me the truth! You've never fought, at least not around me. Those guys, they... they were tough. I didn't get that many hits in," he paused, I could hear him readying himself to continue, "if any. They beat the crap out of me, and you took them down like they were nothing. How?"

Silence clouded the atmosphere again. I wanted to say something. I wanted to tell him, I didn't know how. I didn't know why there was that thing in my eye. I didn't know how I fought them into a helpless, hysterical sack in just a single turn. I just didn't know.

"I saw from the window. Your eye was glowing. Your attacks were like nothing I'd ever seen before." He sat up, lacing his bony arms around his legs, gazing into the fire. "I... I've read all the books, Sans. All of them. You're not like them. You're something different." He lifted his head up to look at me, his eyes filled with confused pain, begging for an explanation. And I knew, what I'd done had resulted in something I'd never intended.

Papyrus was doubting himself.

I sat up quickly, fidgeting nervously. I was good with jokes, not words. They tumbled out of mouth in an incoherent jumble.

"I really don't know. I mean, I wish I could figure it out, but I can't." I sighed, resting my face in my hands. "I was so angry. And my eye, the thing that was in my eye. It was burning, like someone stuck a hot rod in it. It was so painful. I just saw white, and then when I realized what I'd done, what I'd caused..." I closed my eyes, the image of the three bears cowering in complete terror still engraved into my head. "They thought I was a monster."

He looked grim. "But you're not. If you put that... whatever that was, to good use, for good reason. To get us all out of the Underground, if a human ever comes along, if we can't. You don't have to be a monster."

"But I am one. We all are."

The silence was no longer comfortable. It was still, sad. Eerie, even. Imagine that. A monster in fear.

"I don't like fighting." I murmured finally, letting myself fall backwards into the soft, clean slow with a muted thump. "I don't want to have to hurt anyone." My voice was meek and soft.

Papyrus's eyes were glazed, facing the warmth of the fire licking at the snow. But suddenly, as if fireworks went off in his skull, he shot up to beam at me. His smile. So silly, so stupid. But contagious. It was gone for too long; simply its appearance lifted my mood. "Well, you don't have to fight! How about, I'll be the amazing, dashing hero who becomes the master of battle, and you can be my slightly less amazing, but still pretty cool, joke-telling brother!" He grinned cheerfully, the seriousness that once played on his face now completely gone without a trace of its prior existence.

I chuckled weakly, closing my eyes, immersing myself in darkness. "Yeah. Yeah, that'd be cool, man. I'd like that."

But a question still pushed, begging to be determined. Begging to be asked, simply to make that infectious smile disappear by my own doing, just once. The cruelness hiding in the back of my mind, it implored to me to see the light. Just once.

What if I'm forced to fight someday?

What if there's not other option? What if that's the only way I can protect you, huh? What then?!

I gritted my teeth. A barrier to keep these words from spewing from my mouth, although they were at the very edge of my tongue.

I bet it looked just like a smile.