A/N

Originally posted in my short stories book, I realized No More was actually going to end up being rather long! So it gets its own book.

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Somewhere, sometime, on a grassy hill, a skeleton lies on a blanket. Beside him lies his brother, close enough to feel he warmth of his Magic. They're looking at the stars, spanning the sky in a beautiful array of colors. It's a sight that never could they have imagined from their old home.

Somewhere, sometime else entirely, a skeleton stands in a golden hall. He's alone, his brother long gone, a coldness where there should have been life. He's standing as a last resort, the only thing between an echo of a child and the end of the world. Between them a battle rages, repeating, repeating, repeating again like a broken record. Never has that grassy hill and starry sky seemed so far away.

And still elsewhere, elsewhen, a skeleton lies sleeping, dreaming. Head filled with pictures of things that have already not yet happened. The sunset, painting the horizon red, red as the blood that pools on the floor, mixing with the dust, the dust so thick it could look like the snow, with that ribbon of red through it like the scarf, the scarf that was never left behind, not even in the rush to the above world, the Surface, where dreams, the fragments of images on the fringes of sleep, dreams come true...

It's a beautiful day outside.

~o0o~

Papyrus sat up in bed, instantly awake.

That was how it usually was; he'd always been quick to start in the mornings. Not like Sans, who practically had to be dragged out of bed. Yes, mornings were one of Papyrus's many and widely varied specialties.

But, the problem was, it wasn't morning. Well, it was, technically, but... Papyrus was quite suddenly wide awake at, according to his bedside clock, two AM. He didn't usually get up until six. Which was still four hours away. Which didn't make sense, because Papyrus should have slept rather soundly until then.

Which made his Soul race, because if he was awake now, then something must have woken him up.

And although the Great Papyrus was almost entirely fearless, there were some things that still scared him, and the dark, and the things in the dark, were a part of that very, very small selection.

Because there could be any manner of beasts roaming about in the dark.

There could even be one out there right now, in his house!

The thought made Papyrus shudder a little, in turn making his bones rattle as they knocked together. He sat up, scrunched his knees to his chest, and pulled his blankets up to his chin. He just had to stay here, stay quiet, and he would be safe.

But then an even scarier thought occurred to him.

If there was a beast in his house...

It could hurt Sans!

Papyrus was strong, and for however scared the thought of a faceless, nameless beast scared him, he could stand to take a few hits. Sans, on the other hand, wouldn't survive one, and, more than the dark, that terrified Papyrus.

It terrified him so much that it spurred him into action, despite the dark.

He tossed aside his bedsheets and leaped to his bedroom door. There, he paused. Because-... well...

Well, it might be sitting right there, outside his door, waiting for him. Papyrus was the active sort, sure, but he was the cautious sort, too. It wouldn't do for him to be hurt before his rescue-Sans mission even began properly!

So, carefully, Papyrus opened his bedroom door, and hazarded a peek out. There was nothing there, so slowly, cautiously, he stepped out into the hallway. And still spying nothing of a hostile sort, he hurried downstairs to check for whatever had awoken him.

But there was nothing there.

For a moment, Papyrus simply stood in the living room, Magic fairly bursting at his palms, ready to be summoned at a moment's notice.

What had woken him up?

Maybe-...

Maybe the perpetrator was already outside?

With that, the tall skeleton rushed to the door in pursuit of a beast.

Yet when he flung open the door and stepped out into the snow, he saw no creature of malignant intent. There was a light snowfall, still dusting over the tracks he had left in the snow coming in that night, but other than that, there were no prints to indicate a foul beast escaping the premises. And off a ways, the lights of Snowdin town glowed cheerily, hinting that nothing was amiss.

So Papyrus quietly stepped back inside, and softly closed the door behind him.

What had woken him up?

The question remained, sitting like a lump in his throat- that is, it would be, if he had had a throat. As it was, he had a mildly unpleasant sensation emanating from about where a throat would be if he had one.

Something had woken him up. He had to figure out wha-

What if it's in Sans' room already?

The question exploded in his head, and without a moment's hesitation, Papyrus took off running for his brother's room. Because if whatever had woken him up was already in Sans' room, it could already be hurting Sans, and-

In just a few short bounds, Papyrus was up the stairs and flinging open the door of his brother's room. And finally, Papyrus saw that which had awakened him, and saw that he had, in fact, been right.

Admittedly, the beast wasn't a physical one, but one in the form of a nightmare, but still, a beast all the same.

Sans was thrashing about on his bare mattress, muttering under his breath in a sort of panicked tone. Papyrus stepped into the room and sat down on the edge of Sans' mattress, careful to stay out of the way of Sans' flailing limbs. Papyrus knew that when Sans was asleep was the only time he ever fought harder when things got more difficult. That was why Sans' mattress was bare. Some time ago he had gotten tangled up in his sheets during a nightmare, and the more tangled up he got, the more he struggled, and...

Well, in the morning, Papyrus had spent a good hour trying to figure out how to fix Sans' dislocated shoulder without causing him even more distress, as he was still on edge after the nightmare.

Among Papyrus's great and many skills, however, was the ability to calm Sans down, no matter the situation. For example, this particular situation required that, due to the amount of limb-flailing to which Sans was committing himself, Papyrus merely stay seated on the edge of the mattress and not grab up his brother in a tight hug just yet. Instead, he elected to merely reach out a hand and settle it on Sans' back, a light gesture to inform his brother that he was there, a safe, friendly presence amid the chaos of Sans' dream.

This had the near-immediate effect of stopping Sans' limb-flailing. Sans also muttered something about being there forever, but Papyrus couldn't quite make it out. Sans seemed pretty calm, though, so after a little bit of waiting to make sure he actually was calmed down, and not about to start thrashing around again. Papyrus carefully slipped his arms under his brother's small frame and lifted Sans up. At this, Sans jerked in surprise, a sort of choked gasp noise escaping his mouth. He muttered something, maybe surprise, maybe protest, maybe something else entirely, but his words were still too slurred with sleep for Papyrus to understand.

From there, it was merely a matter of settling Sans into his lap, easily accomplished. Papyrus cradled Sans' head against his shoulder, wrapping his brother in a tight hug. Sans shifted a bit, still mumbling. One eyesocket cracked open for a barest second, then slid back shut as he began to wake up. Papyrus doubted that Sans was really awake enough yet to really be registering and understanding what he was seeing, but he gave his brother a small, warm smile anyway.

Sans let out a sort of choked, garbled groan, one hand pressed against his own ribs, the other reaching up to find Papyrus's scarf.

Papyrus hugged Sans a little tighter. "It's alright, brother! I'm here!"

"i-..." Sans let out another strangles noise, still struggling to wake up. "i-... gonna-... go to grill..." he shifted a bit more, his sleepy mumbling becoming a bit more coherent as he approached lucidity. "pap-...yrus-... d'you want... 'nything...?"

Despite the fact that Sans was clearly still struggling to skate off the nightmare and in need of comforting, Papyrus scowled down at him. "No! Absolutely not! You are most certainly not going to Grillby's, not at this hour, and definitely not in your current state!"

Finally, Sans twisted to look up at Papyrus, blinking sleepily, actually awake. For a long moment, he just looked up at Papyrus. His expression was stoically unreadable, but if Papyrus were to guess, he would say it was very much close to breaking down sobbing.

It took a minute, but Sans did eventually respond to Papyrus. To bury his face against Papyrus's chest and murmur our a quiet "okay" wasn't exactly what Papyrus had been expecting, though, which led Papyrus to believe that Sans' nightmare must have been even worse than the usual ones.

So Papyrus just let out a small sigh and gave Sans another squeeze, resolving to sit with his brother as long as he was needed there.

~o0o~

Something was... horribly wrong. Papyrus could tell. Maybe he didn't know what, and maybe Sans wasn't being helpful because he kept doing that evading thing whenever Papyrus tried to ask about it, and maybe the Snowdin residents weren't all that helpful either because they had all spontaneously decided to go on vacation at the same time so Papyrus couldn't ask any of them about it, but he knew. Something was wrong.

Wrong with the human.

It was in the way they moved. How they sort of shuffled forward, endlessly. In the way they acted. How they refused to participate in any of his puzzles. In the way they looked, even. Hands covered in a dusty powder, a blank, empty smile on their face.

Papyrus felt, very strongly, that their life was going down a dangerous path.

That was why he stood before them now. To help them. To guide them. To lead them away from the dark, dangerous place they were rapidly approaching, to keep them on the straight and narrow.

And so he stood, and waited, arms spread wide, a welcoming, encouraging smile on his face. And when they hesitated, he just smiled wider, more encouragingly. They could do it, he knew they could. They could stop, now, and they could be a good person. He knew they could.

With his help, they could turn their life right around-

And then, suddenly, Papyrus found he could no longer feel his body.

He blinked a little. "W-well! That's not what I expected... but... st... still!!"

When exactly had he gotten so close to the ground?

"I believe in you! You can do a little better!"

And why couldn't he get back up?

"Even if you don't think so! I-..."

And why was it getting so hard to see?

"I-... promise-..."

And why-...

...

. . .

. . .

Papyrus sat up in bed, instantly awake.

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Thus begins the story, No More. Hmm, I wonder where this could be going...?

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Comments and votes are my Favorite Things and my biggest motivators, and every notification I get makes my day!