The next day, Papyrus showed up to school grinning wider than anyone had seen him doing since before Sans' "death." Everyone asked him why he was so happy, but he declined to answer, remembering each time Gaster's words.

The New Home school was run in what Frisk had once described to Papyrus as "an old-timey" way. All the twenty-something students were together in one room, with the youngest students at the front and oldest at the back. (Papyrus usually sat next to Frisk in the front of the middle section.) Queen Toriel taught lessons from the front of the class, using the whiteboards and sometimes an overhead projector, starting with something quick to get the younger students started, then moving on to more advanced topics for the older students. There were two assistants that helped her throughout the day, and a third that came in on Tuesdays and Fridays.

So Papyrus spent the day in school, his desk next to Frisk's. At one point, he shared with his friend the multiplication crayonbox trick Sans had taught him. They were pretty happy with it, and thanked Papyrus for teaching them.

At the end of class as everyone was heading home, Frisk caught up with Papyrus.

"Hey, Papyrus." They spoke softly, as always.

"Hello, Frisk!" Papyrus stopped walking and grinned at his human friend. "How can I help you?"

"Oh, um... I was just wondering if... you wanted to come home with me and Toriel, and... stay over and play for the day?"

Papyrus did want to. "I- ... I'm sorry, I promised someone I would go see them today, right after school. Maybe another day?"

Frisk smiled and nodded. Then they paused a moment. "Papyrus... I won't ask you who you're going to see, because I know you would have told me if you didn't have a very good reason not to. But am I right if I say they have to do with why you're so happy?"

Papyrus hesitated a moment. Would admitting that a person was making him happy in any way allude to Sans? No, he didn't think so. So he nodded.

"... Papyrus, please be careful. While everyone is capable of good... sometimes, they aren't. Sometimes, people can be mean and hurtful. So please be sure you can trust this person, because... Because not everyone can go back and fix their mistake."

Papyrus smiled at Frisk. "While your concern is appreciated, it is unnecessary! I know this person very well, like--" Papyrus hesitated another moment, then decided to continue, "-like my brother! He won't hurt me, not ever."

Frisk looked a little curious, but they only nodded. They didn't poke their nose where they had no business poking it, and they trusted Papyrus. Besides, if anything went really wrong, they could always go back and see if this was one of those destined-to-happen things, or if they could change it.

But, that was a thing for later. For now, Papyrus had to get home.

Saying goodbye to Frisk, Papyrus started jogging home.

~o0o~

Sans was not enjoying this.

Gaster was having the Time Of His Life, getting more and more data. He believed he was close to finding a cure.

But Sans had a variety of monitoring devices, sensors, and other... things... attached to his Soul, at least two of which were fairly IV-like, and had a needle that had to be inserted in his Soul. Having things touching one's Soul was never fun in the first place, but having things stabbed into one's Soul was actually quite painful.

Not to mention that one of those stabby-things wasn't just a sensor, but it also, at Gaster's command, of course, sent out small pulses of Magic to see how Sans' Soul and the Magic in it, both Pure and Corrupt, responded to it. That was also unfortunately painful.

Sans hated it.

And he wasn't the least bit inclined to keep silent about his opinions.

"how would you like it," he was saying, "if i attacked you? I'm speaking from experience when i say i know you wouldn't like it. well, that's what you're doing here. you're pretty much attacking me."

Gaster glanced over at Sans from where he was sitting at his desk in front of his computer. "I am not attacking you."

"almost!" Sans spluttered. "you're using a pokey metal thing to directly hit my soul with magic! it's basically an overcomplicated form of attacking, which is hitting people with magic!"

"Okay, granted, you have a point, it might be bruising you up a little. But you'll be fine, and the information it's providing me with gets me that much closer to finding a cure!"

"oh, so because you're doing it for science, it's supposed to be alright? that's, like, as bad as the kind a' electrotherapy they used in old psych wards!"

Gaster had turned back to his computer, but Sans could practically hear the grin in his voice. "Except you voluntarily agreed to participate, and I only had to let you see Papyrus once. But you are continuing to participate not only because I am a kind monster who is letting you see your brother again, but also because you agreed to participate."

Sans growled at Gaster's infallible logic. A new tactic, then. "okay, but really, i'm not even a real corrupt monster, since we decided that bit of my soul is pure. i'm, like, a corrupted corrupt monster, and that could drastically effect all your test results as an unaccounted for variable."

"While I appreciate your consideration, said variable has been accounted for, and you are also the closest thing I have to a Corrupter, and I have to make do with what I've got."

Sans had a quip ready about how Gaster had a still fully-functional trap, so why didn't his make do with that, when Gaster powered on the device, and Sans' words changed to "ow. ow. ow, ow, OW OKAY THAT REALLY HURTS OWOWYOUCANSTOPNOW." He struggled halfheartedly against the restraints, more as something to distract himself rather than actually trying to escape.

After a moment, Gaster shut it down, and Sans found, somewhat irritably, that he hadn't even lost a whole 1 HP from his eight hundred eighty six. (His max was nine hundred, but as little damage as Gaster's experiments did, the damage did accumulate over time.)

Sans glared at Gaster as much as he could. "well. i hope you're satisfied." He huffed.

"I am, thank you very much."

"... i'm not, if that's of any importance to you."

Gaster let out a breathy laugh. "You won't be satisfied until I'm dead!"

"please. let me kill you. i promise i'll never ask anything else of you after that."

Gaster laughed, but before he could respond with a witty remark of his own, the door opened and Papyrus walked in.

"Hi Dad! Hi Sans!"

"heya, pap." Although Papyrus was outside Sans' range of vision, his voice alone was enough to brighten Sans' mood.

A few days ago, it would have made his attitude worse. Funny, how things worked like that.

A moment later, Papyrus pulled himself up to sit on the edge of the operating table. "What's going on here?" He slipped his hand into Sans' strapped down one.

Sans squeezed his brother's hand lightly. "oh. y'know. gaster is killing me."

"I am not killing you, Sans."

"i've lost 14 hp!"

"Oh no! Fourteen whole points! That means you only have eight hundred, eighty six points left!" Gaster said melodramatically. Then, in a deadpan voice, "Seems pretty far from death to me."

"i didn't say i was already killed, i said you were in the process of killing me. you are causing my hp to drop, and if it drops all the way to 0, i'll be killed. therefore, you are killing me."

How he managed it without lips, no one knew, but Gaster blew Sans an especially rude-sounding raspberry.

Papyrus, meanwhile, had listened to this entire exchange with conflicting emotions. Sans had mentioned being hurt, but 14 HP really wasn't a damaging amount, especially for Sans. On top of that, Sans and Gaster were doing that back-and-forth banter thing they had used to do before Sans was Corrupt, and then started doing just a little bit (okay, a lot) rougher since he had become Corrupt. And if they were doing that, Sans couldn't be in an especially angry mood.

Still. HP is HP, and to take it was to cause harm.

Papyrus mentioned this out loud.

"see?" Sans said smugly, obviously pleased that Papyrus had taken his side. "he gets it!" Papyrus had no doubt that Sans would have been gesturing in a very smug way had he not been strapped down.

Gaster sighed in defeat and stood from his desk. "Alright, alright, fine. I suppose we've been at it all morning."

"all morning?" Sans said indignantly as Gaster came over to the table and began tugging off the various equipment. "all morning? papyrus is home from school, which means we've been 'at it' for most of the afternoon, too!"

Gaster didn't look at Sans' face, but he did pause in what he was doing. "You know what I really love about doing this? If I decided right now to walk back over to my desk and flip a couple switches, you couldn't do a thing to stop me."

"Dad!" Papyrus admonished, while Sans just glared.

Gaster chuckled at his sons' responses. "Calm down, I was only joking." He returned to his work.

When it came time to undo the restraints holding Sans down, Papyrus eagerly helped. Soon enough, Sans was able to move again, and he did so more or less happily, sitting up.

"so then," he began, loosely wrapping an arm around Papyrus's shoulders and completely ignoring Gaster's protest, "you've pretty much seen how my entire day was. how was yours?"

"School was pretty good. Ms. Toriel said I'm getting really good at multiplication! Reading is still kinda hard, though." Papyrus had originally been taught by Gaster to read Hands, and still had a bit of trouble reading the Common written language sometimes.

"aw," Sans squeezed Papyrus's shoulders. "I'm sure you'll figure it- MPH!!" The last bit was Sans' exclamation of surprise. While he had been talking to Papyrus, Gaster had gotten Sans' shirt, and thrown it in Sans' face. Without acknowledging Gaster, Sans pulled the teeshirt away from his face. "oh, hey! i was wondering where that was." He pulled it on, then turned back to Papyrus, still totally ignoring Gaster. "anyway. you'll get it, i'm sure."

Papyrus nodded, cheered on by Sans' support. Then, "Oh! Dad! When I left school, Frisk asked me if I wanted to go to there house to play. I told them I couldn't today, because I promised Sans I would come back today, but don't worry because I didn't actually say I was coming here since you don't want anyone knowing about Sans and stuff, I just said I was going to meet someone, and we thought I could  go over to their house maybe on a different day, but-" Papyrus paused for the barest second in his rapid-fire delivery, "I was wondering if you'd decided about letting Frisk meet Sans."

After taking a moment to absorb all that, both Sans and Gaster looked a little surprised. Truth be told, Gaster had forgotten about that, and then Sans had never heard about it in the first place.

Both of the older monsters hesitated.

Sans broke the silence. "uhh, pap, i don't think that's a good idea."

"Why not?"

"... well, because i want you to be happy, and i don't think you would be very happy if i killed the human."

"But... Sans, why would you kill them?"

Sans couldn't help the wild, maniacal grin. "to take their soul, use it to strengthen my army, and win the war!"

Gaster and Papyrus had no delusions about which army Sans was talkin about.

"But Sans, you wouldn't kill them, right? Or hurt them?"

Sans wanted to say no, he wouldn't. He really did, just to make Papyrus happy. "ehhhh... sorry, pap. i-... i can't make any guarantees"

Papyrus just leaned against Sans' side, grinning up at him. "Well, we'll work on that."

§

A/N

Welp, there ya go.

Completely unrelated, but I think if I had to choose a song to represent Sans and Papyrus's relationship, it would be this one \/

[Aquí debería haber un GIF o video. Actualiza la aplicación ahora para visualizarlo.]

And this TOTALLY doesn't have ANYTHING to do with future plot stuff.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Remember, comments and votes are not only always welcome, but also always appreciated, too!