Chapter Text
“bro, i have to check on something in snowdin. need anything while i’m at the house?” Sans stood in the doorway to the kitchen. Papyrus was concentrating on a pot of boiling water on the stove.
Sans hadn’t bothered to mention he was leaving last time he visited the underground and he had gotten a number of worried and angry text messages from Papyrus.
“WHAT? YOU DIDN’T GET EVERYTHING LAST TIME?” Papyrus threw a box full of pasta into the boiling water and it splashed everywhere.
“nah.”
“WELL, SIT DOWN! I AM NOT LETTING YOU LEAVE ON AN EMPTY STOMACH, OR WITH SOMETHING FROM GRILLBY’S! YOU SHOULDN’T TRAVEL SO FAR ON GREASE AND CONDIMENTS!”
“eh. it’s not that far. i have a few shortcuts.”
Papyrus grabbed a plate and shoved it into Sans’ hands. "SIT!!!!!“
"dinner does sound good, though. ok. listen to this. where did the spaghetti go to the dance?”
“SIT DOWN!”
“the meat ball.” Sans chuckled.
“…FINE. I WILL ACCEPT THAT ONE.”
“you’re smiling.”
“SPAGHETTI YOUR BUTT ONTO THE COUCH AND WAIT FOR DINNER!”
“oh my god.” Sans was almost doubled over, laughing now, clutching the empty plate to his chest. "good one.“
"I KNOW! NYEHEHEHEH!”
Sans continued to pester Papyrus with puns until the noodles were done cooking, and then the two of them sat down to eat. Papyrus’ cooking had improved to the point where his pasta was actually tolerable, and Sans was starting to develop a taste for it. Sure, everything he ate for the next week was going to taste like garlic, but there were worse flavors out there.
“YOU KNOW WHAT? I’VE DECIDED! I’M COMING WITH YOU! I WANT TO SEE MY OLD BEDROOM AGAIN!”
“that’s all in the pasta, bro. no reason to go back there.”
“A TRUELY GREAT SKELETON! LIKE MYSELF! BUILDS ON THE PAST TO MAKE A GREATER FUTURE!”
“wow. that’s such a cool thing to say.”
“I KNOW!!!”
Sans always had a tough time turning down his brother, so he already knew he was going to give in.
Papyrus made his usual comment about the shortcut: “I HATE THAT YOU LEARNED HOW TO DO SOMETHING SO COOL, AND IT IS JUST SO THAT YOU CAN BE EXTRA LAZY!”
“but you agree that it’s cool.”
“OF COURSE! YOU ARE, AFTER ALL, MY VERY COOL BROTHER. WHO IS NOT AS COOL AS ME, THE GREAT PAPYRUS. BUT BEING MY BROTHER MUST HAVE RUBBED OFF ON YOU, NYEHEHEH!”
“yeah. thanks.” He didn’t really need to grab Papyrus’ arm to take him along, but he did it anyway. Papyrus was the best brother anyone could have asked for.
They walked together out the front door and in a blink they were at the base of Mt. Ebott. Sans could have taken a shortcut the entire way, or immediately taken the next one, but he preferred to brace himself, take a little break, before he made himself go back under there.
The break stretched longer than he intended--Papyrus had brought along a thermos of lemonade and they both sat down to drink it. Papyrus was treating this like a road trip back to visit their family home.
Sans had gone back once, a few weeks after they reached the surface. His original intention had been to mess around in the back room. He hadn’t looked through the album since the world had been reset, and he needed to make himself look at those pictures and memorize them. Instead, he had taken a nap and grabbed a few things they’d left behind.
This time, he couldn’t avoid going in there. He needed to add a picture to the album, just in case Frisk didn’t follow through on their promise. He wasn’t entirely sure Frisk had complete control of it, anyway.
The lemonade was interesting. It was a joint effort between Undyne and Papyrus, and involved Undyne smashing the lemons with her fists until there was enough juice, then Papyrus emphatically stirring while she dumped sugar in. The amount of sugar depended on how much Undyne had on hand, so sometimes the drink was incredibly sour, and sometimes it turned into a sugary lemon gel.
Sans drank it, regardless.
Papyrus jumped to his feet and pulled Sans back up with him. “I HOPE OUR HOUSE DIDN’T GET DIRTY SINCE WE’VE BEEN GONE!”
“let’s go see.” He tipped back the last of his lemonade and by the time his cup was empty, they were in the living room of their old house.
It had been over a year, and there was a stale smell and a layer of dust over everything. Sans knew it was just standard dust, but it still made him uneasy.
“OH!” Papyrus covered his mouth with his hands.
Sans looked up at him, curious.
“IT’S–THERE ARE SO MANY MEMORIES POURING THROUGH ME! LOOK, SANS! LOOK! I USED TO WATCH SEXY ROBOT METTATON ON THIS COUCH! I USED TO MAKE SPAGHETTI IN THAT KITCHEN! I NEED TO FIX OUR SINK SO THAT IT IS THAT HIGH AGAIN! LOOK! YOUR SOCK–” his expression darkened. "…YOUR SOCK IS STILL RIGHT ON THE FLOOR WHERE YOU LEFT IT.“
"i should get to moving that,” Sans said. He shoved his hands into his pockets and started walking to his bedroom.
“PICK IT UP BEFORE YOU–AUGH! NO! I REFUSE TO START THIS AGAIN RIGHT NOW!”
“yeah you shouldn’t knit-pick.” He unlocked the door to his bedroom. "you should be stocking up on anything you wanted to bring back. i’ll be an hour.“ He stepped into his room, closed and locked the door behind him, and when he turned around again he was in his back room.
The glowing light in his eyesockets was drawn to the broken machine on one side of the room, but he tore them away and went over to where he kept all his papers and the album.
It was hard not to get stuck here, flipping through the pictures, committing them to memory. He tried to hurry, reminding himself that Papyrus was alone in the house, and he’d come looking if Sans took too long.
He got to the end, where he was planning on slipping the new photo, and stopped short. He didn’t always remember all the pictures in his album, but he had a pretty good idea what they would be.
He pulled a photograph out of its plastic sleeve that he didn’t recognize at all. There was nothing that noteworthy about it, other than that he had decided it was important enough to stick in the album.
He was sitting with Grillby at a table in the restaurant at the MTT Resort. He did shows there, sometimes, and Grillby had relatives in Hotland, so it wasn’t weird that they’d run into each other. They both had unwrapped glam burgs from the fast food place in the lobby. Not like Sans would have made a reservation. The two of them didn’t even have plates. He was guessing Grillby was dissatisfied with the glamburger, but that was just a guess from knowing the guy. He was hard to read in a photo.
Why had he decided he needed to remember this?
He flipped the picture over, thinking he might have left a note for himself like he had on the back of some of the other pictures, but, nope. Maybe he was messing with himself. Pranking himself across space and time. He shook his head and laughed. He really wasn’t taking anything seriously anymore, was he?
He put the picture of himself and Grillby back, and then got out the new photo he’d brought with him and found a place for it. There. His work was done.
Time for a break.