Silence reigned at the top of the stairs for a few minutes of respite. Red sat down where he was, staring blankly at the big padded house slippers that could crush him in a move. Above him, Blue crouched and dropped the shaggy collared coat he had been left holding down to Fell, who dropped it on his brother's head. Red found the sleeves and shrugged it back on to hang unevenly off his shoulders. He wanted to lie down.
Sansy broke off from the hug after one last head pat from Papyrus, to stretch one arm down the back of his neck and acknowledge the others in a half-wave with the other. "uh, hey guys, heh. this is our neighbor, mabel. she's been looking out for me since yesterday with, uh, whatever happened, with the, uh… thing, we were working on… in the… you-know… to do with different, places?..." he trailed off shiftily as his eyelights flicked back and forth from the human.
"Oh don't hurt yourself," she huffed in amusement. "As much as I'd love to be in on it. You all take your time and I'll leave you be to chat among yourselves whenever." She peered round at them all, "Oh and there's plenty of room for all your little friends if it comes to a bit of a stay. No fretting about that. If it comes to it I can shoo away unwanted visitors and pretend none of you are here if you are hiding from the big Sans and Fell and Blue and all of them." She waved her hands with a little sing-song to emphasize, "Ohhh dear! I'm just an innocent frail little old lady. No visitors today, thank-you-good-day!" Then made a slamming door hand motion with accompanying spoken sound effect, "Slam!"
Sansy chuckled.
With the other four now looking up at her, Mabel's fond tendency to host took the reins, so she decided promptly to take charge. They could decide differently if they wanted later, but for now, "Now then! I think it must be my and Sansy's lunchtime soon! Now that all this meeting and greeting is happening, how about we all see what I have in my kitchen that can be mini monster sized for you all while you have a nice chat with your friend here?"
She wasn't about to force anyone to 'fess up why they had all visited upon her house of all places, as much as it was tempting to ask a lot of questions right now, the least of which was actually how they had apparently got stuck in a spare room so catastrophically. And come to think of it, how Sansy had got in. So far there was that teleporting thing, if he could maybe do it through a closed window, or climbing through the cat flap in the back door, but she was pretty sure that was still locked since her last cat died.
They all exchanged glances as she asked in a playfully exaggerated tone and thumbed towards her face. "Who-would-like-a-ride-downstairs?"
No answer. Blue considered, Red stayed sitting, Fell crossed his arms. The suggestion of food wasnice. Then Sansy took his brothers hand and pulled the little, still taller then Sansy, Papyrus towards Mabel as she held an upturned hand to the windowsill where they stood. "shy all of a sudden bro?" he softly teased a response.
It worked like a charm, and Papyrus bloomed back into his larger than life manner, with an expressive open hand gesture towards his chest to proclaim, "NYEH! NO FEAT IS TOO GRAND AND NO MOUNTAIN IS TOO HIGH FOR ONE AS GREAT AS MYSELF TO SCALE!" He hopped on and climbed up with a determined set to his brow. He reached a shoulder and kept going by bending at the knees to do a leap even further up. Mabel stayed carefully still with widened eyes looking straight up, in the hopes he wouldn't fall off. He leaned forward into her view from his seated position cushioned in the piles of gray hair to tell her, "THANK YOU FOR YOUR OFFER, NICE HUMAN, YOUR HAIR IS VERY COMFORTABLE, nyehehe."
"Thank you Papy and it's very nice to meet you." Came the reply that left her new hat thinking.
Sansy was most of the way up her cardigan and he climbed back on her right shoulder with a happy look and no comment, so it seemed his brother would be fine. Mabel glanced down to the sitting skeleton with the spiky teeth set in a grouchy looking line, next to the similarly sharp toothed taller one in red boots and a contrasting smart black suit standing stoically over him. The one still on the windowsill with big blue eyes to match his own accessories was looking round distractedly for now. On his own with fists clenched at his sides he had the look of a lost child on a mission, to Mabel's mind at least.
"Okay then, who's next up?" Mabel looked back at the last on the sill, but he was lost in thought. He had turned instead to peer out with both hands on the window as if looking for something, so she looked to the two, and stepped down a few stairs to lean a knee against the top-most one with her left arm out to the floor, with the other holding the banister ready to straighten up to fully stand when ready.
"pfft, i don't need no carrying like a babybones, get lost!" Red sneered up at Sansy. To the good humored face next to him; "what? wanna try me? heh, or just like what you see so gotta stare, huh lady?!" Then making a show of leaning back on his hands in a slouch with a cocky grin and eyes shut, "just cuz all the ladies wanna get their hands on this doesn't mean i aint a lone wolf"
Sansy saw through the bluff with his own eyesockets shut, but opened one to aim the simple retort, "cant stand up, can you bud?"
Red's eyes shot open as he spluttered, "c-course i can stand up, ya think i'm a pushover?!" He struggled to his feet to posture but wobbled once there. "fuck you, marshmellow, i'm- i-" But his protests died out once again in the grip of his brother who had him held up by a fistful of the t-shirt threateningly. It conveniently masked that he had looked about to fall over. "he-... heh, hey boss, i, uh"
"My, you're edgy, aren't you?" blurted Mabel. The outburst had only made her smile fight its way to break out across her face further. Softly she added, "It's okay! I wont pick you up if you don't want me to. Sansy made it up here most of the way so I'm sure you can follow us all down on your own if you like." She looked instead to Blue by the window and started to pull back her hand again, missing the panicked open jawed look on Red's face because he hadn't truly wanted her to give up on him her offer.
Fell huffed, and looked at the old human who had already gently held his brother once, and saved from a fall, and now had two relaxed skeletons already hitching a lift. He made a decision. "HUMAN! I DEMAND YOU CARRY MY BROTHER AND I. I WILL OVERSEE THIS SO CALLED LUNCH YOU ARE OFFERING." He dangled said brother. "AND YOU! NO ARGUMENTS!"
"bu-bro!...yes boss" Came the meek reply. Red attempted to climb back on the lowered hand before Fell feigned impatience to hoist him back on himself, then climbing past him up the sleeve. Mabel carefully bought her arm up to cradle Red in front of her chest, and Fell stayed stood on her lower arm while holding onto the cardigan.
"Thank you, Boss is it?" she asked, with a glint in her eye.
Fell considered a moment, surprised, then inclined his skull to look up at her. He swung his face away in a show of dismissiveness, but said, "YES. HUMAN MABEL, THAT… IS MY NAME, IF YOU WISH TO CALL ME IT."
Red was also surprised as that jolted him out of the casual thought that he could bite those big fingers if the lady tried anything. Why would his brother opt for a new nickname? And Sansy. Papy. She had said something about the big Sans and others. So if they were still at the house who was he? He sighed. The damn machine. Last thing he remembered was working on it, and they were gonna run a jerry-rigged test. They weren't in another universe, they weren't shrunk, they were… made? The weird by-products that had appeared on the energy readings. It was them.
"Sooo. Edgy?" She was talking to him. Wait. That was a name?! Hell no!
"arcturus! He blurted as he went beet red. Boss rolled his eyelights. Yeah his little brother knew where that name was from. Old memories of big bright eyelights devouring a book on astronomy when the still in stripes Sans had discovered it in the dump when they were children. Sans had gone through a phase of wanting a cool nickname for street-cred, and ended up diving into the nerdiest stuff he could find. Staring at that innocent starry eyed excitement of his big brother had been a good memory in an often cruel world.
"it'sa star," He elaborated. "a red one, like my eyelights. i just… always liked it." He looked away, then back hesitantly. The doubts in his head however didn't hesitate. -Ugh! Stupid… why did he have to spit that out? She just had to come up with that dumb name and he panicked!
Mabel just smiled a moment. "That sounds like a lovely name, Arc? If you don't mind me shortening it?"
He shut his eyesockets again to pretend to not care either way, but said, "yeah. that's cool, i mean whatever"
Finally came the little Blue's turn, and Mabel had slowly raised to stand straight from the stairs with all her passengers. But he beat her to it; "HUMAN NEIGHBOR! IT'S NICE TO MEET YOU. THANK YOU FOR BEING SO KIND TO US ALL, I WILL OF COURSE BE HAPPY TO ACCEPT YOUR OFFER OF FRIENDSHIP! BUT… "He hesitated. "I BELIEVE MY BROTHER MAY ALSO BE SOMEWHERE IN YOUR HOUSE, AND POSSIBLY TWO OF OUR OTHER COUSINS. " He paused. "IF THEY ARE HERE THEY WOULD HAVE FOUND US BY NOW… UNLESS THEY ARE TRAPPED LIKE WE WERE BUT, UM, WITHOUT SUPPLIES."
Papy leaned forward to brightly add, "YES! THANK YOU FOR YOUR YARN, HUMAN! IT WAS A VERY NICE COLLECTION, I HOPE YOU DON'T MIND HOW WE IMPROVED IT'S PLACEMENT!"
Honestly she didn't mind. It was mainly a long neglected, rather shameful collection of unused baby patterns and good intentions, stuffed in that wardrobe over the years in ever lengthening delusion with each new grandchild growing past booties-age, that it would definitely be used one day.
Blue steeled himself and continued, "I CAN LOOK BY MYSELF! IF THAT'S OKAY. IF EVERYONE IS GOING TO GET FOOD. I, UM. -WOULD YOU MIND JUST OPENING THOSE SHUT DOORS BEFORE YOU GO DOWNSTAIRS FOR ME PLEASE?"
All the bittys bar Sansy were very famished. But; "uuurggh! fine!" came from Mabel's hand, with no hesitation. "OF COURSE WE CAN LOOK FIRST!" Came from her hair. Closely followed by a mellow "sure bud, i had a breakfast already so i can sit out lunch to search if need be. we'll find him." And simply a sharp nod of approval from Boss when they looked to him.
"Well, then my new friend." Mabel held her arm to the windowsill and he immediately hopped on with a small "Mweh!" He climbed up to the spare shoulder and looked ahead as the human pivoted steadily. "Let's look. You can point us where to check. Lead the way my little scout!"
Voices. Noises. All dull but, familiar? Lethargically Orange lay there and listened. Fell? Red. Papyrus. Blue. And another. Were they really nearby or was his mind playing a cruel trick?
"Let's try this room."
Blue-green light opened up before him in a long vertical line. A door cracking open, and it made the darkness around it wonderfully comforting; there was nothing to fear, a release from these walls. It was all okay now, he knew. A scythe came into view.
That snapped Orange out of it. "who the fuck are you?!" he actually squeaked as he scooted back rapidly on his elbows among the folds of pale cloth.
"Heh," The soft voice seemed to have eons behind it. It came from a skeletal face that regarded him passively from the shadow of the billowing dark cloak. The being looked like Sans. But it definitely was not his brother, or any of the others he knew. A new Sans, from another universe, but…
The black cloak around him moved with the dark energy of the void itself, fragments at the edges of it seemed to break off and vanish like the flames of a fire. His eyelights were gentle white, yet held a terror for whoever might look too deep, and find a firm, immovable, ageless finality.
"It's not your time."
Orange stayed frozen where he was sat. That was nice to hear, at least, so he was gonna just let this guy go ahead and build on that point uninterrupted.
The being like Sans looked around the space now once again barely lit with a green afterglow that seemed to come from himself, and spoke with an unhurried, murmuring flow. "Well, this is something that doesn't happen to me very often I have to admit." He considerately leaned the scythe backwards out of his sweating companion's immediate focus. "I am not here for you, not this day at least." He couldn't resist adding in good humor. He thought he had opened his portal back to his realm, but this was certainly not there.
"My business in this world was already concluded. I… " He looked wistful, and turned a graceful gaze over Orange, deciding to share a small confession before he left. Perhaps a whim of letting a mortal in on a rarely shared insight on himself, by way of apology for the intrusion. "I only wished to pause a while before returning to my own realm.
I gave myself a single day, just to float among the stars of this universe… did you know that they can differ between universes?"
Orange looked at the being anew and dared to respond, "no" He said thoughtfully. "im from a different one too. but, uh, i get the feeling you already know that?" His guest just grinned softly, so he continued. "i did look at them. when i knew we'd been bought to a universe where the underground had been freed like my and my bro's own. they were pretty similar to me. was just glad to still see 'em, you know?"
"Yes, it is always a beautiful sight.
It was a pleasure talking to you, but I must return to my duties. He would not think of it that way I'm sure, but I have already burdened my brother with caretaking our realm on his own for a selfish use of my time." He didn't turn away, instead calling on his magic to create a new portal to turn back and step through. Correctly this time.
Uh.
While Orange faltered between not encouraging this stranger who behaved like the personification of death to stay, and from not stopping himself from begging his only company to leave him alone again, the Sans who was the personification of Death also faltered. His magic wasn't working.
It was there still, but he was finding he had no way the right amount of energy to step across the many creations. Not even one. Is that why he had stepped back out into the same universe a few minutes ago when he tried to go home? It was… strange. Like his power was greatly reduced, now that he thought about it. He had assumed he was just worlds-weary the past day.
This, could be bad, he thought. What force in any universe could so reduce Him? He wasn't accustomed to worrying about something like that since The Child had taken a portion of power. What being-
His thoughts were cut short as a huge vertical line of white light expanded behind him. As Orange stared upwards with an open jaw, he started to turn his own head to look past the side of his hood in the rapidly all encompassing light. A shadow fell over him, like a great hand reaching out.
It was a great hand. It grabbed him backwards into the light as Orange looked on in renewed shock.
"What's this? Oh! Is this him?!"
-No! don't!
"Hello little fellow I'm sorry I picked you up like that, I wasn't sure if you were a doll tucked away in here."
-Wait! You'll-
"The children do that sort of thing sometimes you know, hiding toys around for granny to find after they've gone home!" She warbled on.
-not die?
"Hello there!" The hand had turned him round to face a merry, giant old woman. With various skeletons perched all over her.
He was stunned. She had a hold of him from his cloak, and her gentle but firm grip scrunched up this and his robes underneath so that his arms stuck out and up at his sides in a highly undignified manner not befitting a deity. He probably did look like a toy right now. His arms were resting on her closed fingers. And she wasn't dropping dead. What was she?!
"Oh my, aren't you spooky? Here, let me. Oh! There's another one, hello!" -" He found himself placed gently placed to sit on the mound of a giant multi-colored patchwork chair, as she had spotted Orange mid-way through turning to put him down.
"BROTHER!"
The Reaper, and everyone else, watched as the swap universe Sans leapt off her shoulder and onto the linen closet shelf where said brother still sat. He dived to bear hug Orange, who was so overcome by emotions he didn't know whether to be grateful his brother had found him, happy to be free, horrified to be facing such a huge human, relieved there were some of the others climbing all over her with no apparent fear, and nevermind processing that he had been stuck in a giant linen closet the whole time instead of kidnapped.
The tears decided it before his mind could really have a say. He reached his arms around Blue and hung on happily. The occasional soft little "nyeh"s escaping him into his older brother's bright scarf.
"WERE YOU ASLEEP THIS WHOLE TIME?!" Came from Fell, stood on the arm of the old- oh! -That was one of their one who made the honey glazed bake at the I.T. girls party months ago. She'd grown.
"BROTHER?" Blue held him at arms length from the hug to add his voice to the question.
"eeeh… well i uh, couldn't get out, so. there wasn't much else to do?" Orange deflected with a sheepish grin, to a groan from his brother. "thanks for finding me bro… "
There wasn't much chance for a response, as Mabel suddenly glared at something next to them. "Are those scorches and holes in my sheets?" Both brothers gave a startled yelp as the top sheets were grabbed abruptly to be held up in front of Mabel's eyes, causing them to be tumbled to the side. She raised an eyebrow at Orange.
"welp, time to go eat?" Sansy changed the subject.
Mabel grumbled incoherently, before setting the sheet back down and placing her hand on it. "Oh come on then. Is this everyone? It's the last door that was shut up here. Wasn't there one more of you?" She half turned to glance at the little Reaper, then looked at Blue as he tugged Orange to climb aboard. Mabel gave them a hand up to her shoulder, where Sansy peeked over at Orange and winked..
"...YES, UH, TWO, I'M AFRAID WE DO NEED TO LOOK FOR OUR COUSINS. THEY-" Started Blue.
"There is no-one else in this house." Cut-in the unearthly skeleton from the cheerful decor he'd been placed on. "I can sense souls, usually further than this but the nearest other monsters I can detect are over there." A boney digit came from his black sleeve to point towards the right side window, the direction of the house of the original skeletons. When he retraced his hand, he stared at his boney palm briefly, before gazing up at Mabel, almost in wonder.
"uh, great, thanks whoever the heck you are pal" Said Sansy over Mabel's shoulder, and she turned to face the Final monster. "we're all gonna have a private chat about what happened to us, while our big friend here kindly sees what food we can manage. you're welcome to join us? wouldn't mind hearing where you came from too. got a name?"
Sans, God of Death grinned; "Spooky."
End Note:
Mabel carrying her little charges with the skill of a Geisha in training. You know she's gonna end up charging round the place with them accustomed to expertly hanging on for dear life.
Holds up lil' Deathy in a fisted grip: Special Edition glow in the dark bitty! Comes with scythe accessory and loves hugs!
Link to my Tumblr is in my profile if you like random Undertale finds!