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Papyrus had found himself many times in the same exact situation: shooting magic bullets at a bunch of defenseless snow puffs just outside of Snowdin while Flowey and his creepy ghostly friend watched. It was a routine born out of the necessity to vent out some frustration while never breaking character in front of the anomaly or his brother (albeit for two different reasons. He couldn’t give the anomaly any more reasons to reset and see how things changed. Meanwhile, hiding things from his brother was the only way he knew how to keep him from spiraling even further than he already had. Knowing that his baby brother was just as aware of the cruelty of their existence as he was would have broken him). And that day too he was back at it again.
Flowey’s presence there had been a coincidence at first, as Papyrus’ memory regarding the events of the resets was a lot spottier than his (partially because he always died so early on and partially because they had different levels of determination) and the flower had just offered some useful insights at first. Eventually, however, it turned into a proper partnership as Flowey was as frustrated with the human’s unwavering determination to be the worst possible version of themselves as Papyrus was. Perhaps more so than him as he had been given a taste of what it was like to have a soul at first, only for that to be ripped away from him forever.
Because of this, they often tried and failed to come up with plans to stop them together during those vent sessions. So far the best option they’d manage to come up with was subtly convincing Sans to stop engaging with the human so that they would eventually grow bored of him like they had with Flowey once he’d stopped answering them in the void between resets. It was a work in progress as, either they weren’t good at manipulation or his older brother was more resistant to people messing with his mind than he seemed.
Chara’s gripe with the anomaly was a touch more personal than theirs. Well, Papyrus would have liked to argue that the sadistic entity’s obsession with his brother did make it personal for him as well, but that was beside the point. The eighth fallen human was their reflection. Not only physically either, but they also shared some similar goals, they both had determination souls and a predisposition for hatred. Seeing Frisk waste away all their potential to satisfy their morbid curiosity didn’t sit right with the young spirit.
Their presence there, however, was explained as easily as Papyrus’: they needed a space to vent their frustration and that wasn’t easy for a spirit that couldn’t interact with anything but the anomaly they so despised. Watching Papyrus demolish some piles of snow was the peak of catharsis for them.
They didn’t engage with the plotting, though that wasn’t because they were in any way against them doing so, it was just because they’d given up already. Having to be stuck by the human’s side from the moment they fell into the underground to the very end had left them far more jaded than their two close companions. They did, however, try to keep their pessimism out of their discussions because they wanted to enjoy the few days of buffer they got any time a reset happened to the fullest.
However, that day, which was so similar to many they’d lived through before, something finally changed.
A golden portal opened up above one of the snow puffs Papyrus had mercilessly torn apart. Out of it stepped two skeleton monsters that were similar in appearance to his brother, yet not identical. They both seemed far more alive as if they never had the weight of the world resting on their shoulders. One of them was dressed in blue, white, and gold, they glowed like the sun in those surface cartoons Alphys sometimes showed them to try and keep their hope as well as hers alive, while the other was mostly wearing brown and had a comically large paintbrush tied to their back (and, well, if that second one was supposed to be an artist they could have at least fashioned themselves a less depressingly boring attire).
Now, Papyrus wasn’t dumb. And, not only that, but his brother never considered him as such and often used him as a sounding board for all his wacky science theories. And one of the said theories had been about parallel universes and the likelihood of different versions of them existing somewhere out there. Sans had mostly brought it up as a way to create an escape route for them, and that was what the machine in their basement was for. Though, as it got reset every time the human was done having their fun, he’d quickly abandoned the project in favor of trying to keep himself afloat.
Besides, the idea of the two of them escaping somewhere safe while all their friends were left to suffer never sat right with Papyrus, and he knew that, deep down, Sans didn’t like it too much either, he was simply desperate and willing to compromise his morals and take the brunt of the guilt if it meant that his brother didn’t have to. Just like in those timelines where Papyrus ended up getting elected as king, where, for some reason, his brother tried to hide the deaths of their friends from him and tried to shoulder all the grief on his own. (If they ever did get out of the Underground for good, he’d drag his brother to a therapist as soon as possible, that kind of behavior couldn't be healthy).
But, the Multiverse being real opened them up to another much more alluring solution: that being that someone out there in the infinite number of universes that existed had to know how to get rid of the anomaly permanently. How to not only kill them but also erase them from existence. Kinda like what happened to Dr. Gaster (Papyrus couldn’t remember him at all, but Sans had told him about the guy. Apparently, he’d been their father and he was a bit of a deadbeat with an unhealthy obsession with his research but he also ultimately loved them. Although Papyrus wasn’t too willing to take Sans’ word on that seeing as his older brother without any explanation as to why, refused to step any further into Hotland than his hot dog stand, and that was where they’d lived before Gaster’s death according to him).
Alternatively, if that wasn’t possible, he’d be satisfied with just taking away the anomaly’s capacity for resets and either dispose of it or give it back to Flowey who had been surprisingly more responsible with it than they were despite being soulless.
The glowing version of his brother stepped toward him. He had a warm and welcoming smile and his arms were outstretched as if he was offering him a hug. Papyrus didn’t make any move to approach him. Seeing a version of his brother that looked so pristine was almost unsettling, being a trash goblin was a part of Sans’ charm, what did this other skeleton have left if they lacked that?
“Classic Papyrus, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a version of you. It’s always a pleasure to meet such a pure soul” the guy said. He sounded just as kind, open, and honest as their expression would have led someone to believe. Papyrus really wanted to trust him. He always wanted to see the best in people and to give them an infinite amount of chances, often to his detriment.
But something didn’t feel right about the strange skeleton’s words. Perhaps the main problem was that Papyrus knew them to be a lie. He tried his best to be a good person, he tried to remain optimistic and hopeful even as those around him couldn’t. He wanted to offer his friends and his brother the kind of stability that they needed so desperately, even if it meant playing the part of the fool sometimes. But his soul wasn’t pure.
He lied. He would have no qualms about murdering the anomaly if only he could, he didn’t even care that they were a child. Hell, he had been plotting to do just that for ages with a soulless weed and a spirit made of nothing but hatred (or, well, more so in front of them than with them, but they were still involved to an extent). Every day he hugged his brother as he broke down a bit more and still didn’t feel compelled to tell him the truth, that he could understand what he was going through, that he was truly there for him in a way all those that forgot couldn’t be. Sure, it was to protect him and Papyrus didn’t regret his choices, but what was pure about that?
Flowey must have agreed with him because he immediately quipped in with a snarky: “Okay, what are you here to sell him?”.
The no-nonsense attitude he had got a chuckle out of Papyrus and one of their patented creepy grins from Chara. Honestly, sometimes Papyrus wondered if they were truly malicious or if they just looked that way. It wasn’t like he’d ever seen them do anything wrong before…
The two visitors didn’t seem anywhere near as amused as they were.
The artist stepped forward. His eye lights were in the shape of two question marks, one was yellow, and one was green. Papyrus was pretty certain that they hadn’t looked like that until a moment prior. “Oh my, don’t tell me you care about him” he let out an obnoxious high-pitched laugh. “Oh that’s something! This isn’t such a Classic AU after all!”.
“You’re annoying” Flowey decided, without missing a beat. “I’m now gonna disregard anything you say”. He gave a look to Papyrus and Chara that was meant to indicate that they were supposed to do the same. They both nodded.
Papyrus was a bit irritated by the lack of answers too, so it wouldn’t be too much of an issue for him to ignore the disturbance. Although he couldn’t fully dislike them when their face was so similar to that of his brother. Their size too. The glowy one was a bit taller, but still nowhere near Papyrus or the one picture of Gaster he’d seen down in their basement. There were no other skeletons for them to compare themselves with left in the Underground, so he just had to assume from their small sample that all Sanses were just incredibly below average in height for their kind.
“Well-” the glowy one spoke up again. “I’m Dream, and this is Ink. We’re the Guardians of the Multiverse, and we’re here to offer Papyrus a chance to help people by our side”. He’d been looking at Flowey while speaking until then, which made sense as he was the one who asked the question. But at the end of the last sentence he turned to Papyrus, his smile was as kind as it had been the whole time, and Papyrus could feel a comfortable warmth spread through his soul. “You’re such a bright and kind monster, we’d be honored to have you with us. You’d receive all the love and adoration that you certainly deserve, and you’ll make a true difference out there. You’ll matter”. His voice was hypnotic. It filled Papyrus’ skull with cotton.
It was a tempting offer. Especially as it was as if he could feel every ounce of excitement words like those usually caused him tenfold. Every apprehension of his washed away as soon as it surfaced. The whole world appeared more hopeful, all its colors were suddenly saturated, and there were no dark corners, no shadows. Only Papyrus was there, floating in a golden sea of honey and beautiful promises.
“Right, so you’re offering him a job where he’ll be paid in exposure. Gotcha” Flowey’s snide remark cut through the fog, bringing Papyrus back to reality.
“Wait Yeah! What’s In It For Me?”. Sure, having hoards of adoring fans sounded nice. And he liked helping people well enough. But it sounded like an extremely time-consuming job that would be taking him away from home, from his friends, and, most importantly, from his brother for long stretches of time. He was not willing to put up with all that just to get a few ‘Thank you’s at the end of the day.
Dream buffered.
All the bright positive feelings that had been there a moment earlier, fizzled out in an instant, leaving his soul vaguely sore. It wasn’t hard to deduce that Dream was connected to them from there.
So Papyrus’ feelings of unease had been correct. There was a trap there. His brother’s copies might have looked friendly, but they were far from it. They were like moldbyggs, lying in wait, masquerading themselves as someone harmless, only to reveal the threat once it was already too late.
Papyrus wouldn’t fall for it a second time.
And he would need to thank Flowey later for keeping him safe that first time around. Perhaps Ink had been right, Maybe, despite his soulless status, he had found it in himself to care, if only a tiny bit. Or maybe he just didn’t want to deal with the human alone again. The first few resets, before Papyrus had figured out that his sense of deja-vu was more than just that, had been Hellish for the flower. Especially since he never got along with Sans due to some past conflicts between them, so he couldn’t even seek some comfort from him.
Chara floated closer to them.
They couldn’t intervene in any way, but there was a chance that those outsiders didn’t know about that. So they could try to intimidate them if need be.
“I- well, isn’t working for the Greater Good reward enough?” Dream tried, hesitantly.
Of course, it wasn’t. They’d said as much already. But a thought struck Papyrus suddenly: these two were powerful enough to travel between universes and they seemed to have some level of knowledge of different AUs, perhaps then he could get the information he needed out of them. He just needed to play along. He needed to look approachable while he kept all his cards close to his chest. Easy job for him, he'd been practicing his act with the human for ages.
“Hm… Perhaps. But I Can’t Just Leave My Friends. You See, We’re In A Bit Of A Pickle Right Now. There Is A Human That Has Been Terrorizing Our World. I Cannot Leave Until They’re Gone For Good. You Understand, Right?” his tone was apologetic, and he made sure to keep a pleasant smile plastered onto his face for the whole duration of his little speech.
From the corner of his eye socket, he noticed Flowey and Chara exchanging confused glances, but he ignored them for the time being. He couldn’t risk explaining anything to them while his targets were there. It was probably better not to say anything at all until he got what he wanted, but he knew himself well enough to know that he wouldn’t have been able to keep the secret for so long.
There were already too many lies that he was telling, and he knew that Chara and Flowey were decent actors anyway, they wouldn’t blow this for him.
Dream immediately fell for Papyrus’ fake compliance hook line and sinker. “Of course! If you join we’ll help with that!”.
Ink snorted, but one glare from his companion got him to behave himself. “Yeah, what he said” he answered, barely restraining himself from laughing more. “We’re great at getting rid of anomalies. We did it a ton of times before. Every time we promised we would-”. He probably would have kept going with his incriminating ramble had Dream not delivered a swift and painful punch to his mid-section that sent him writhing in pain on the snowy ground.
It pained Papyrus to pretend he was the kind of gullible fool who wouldn’t have noticed such an obvious blunder, but he did so regardless. Before Flowey could say anything about that pathetic attempt at deception, he spoke up: “See, I’d Love To Consider Joining You Once You Got Rid Of Our Anomaly. Of Course, As you Said, It’s For The Greater Good! And All You Do Is Save AUs. I’m Sure It Will Be Easy For You. Nyeh Heh Heh! The Great Papyrus Is Only Going To Work With The Best Of Allies! Like Undyne!”. He noticed Flowey and Chara’s glares and quickly added: “Or Flowey And Chara! Of Course” while directing an apologetic smile at them.
In unison, they gave him a look that translated to ‘You better’.
He had a feeling that he’d need to make it up to them.
The two guardians shared an uncertain look for a few moments. Their silent conversation was a lengthy one. During it, Ink’s eye lights changed both color and shape at least ten times. Papyrus had no clue what any of them indicated, but he was mildly worried by the amount of red he saw flashing there. It was the same shade as the human’s soul, so it could mean nothing good.
The wordless exchange ended with Ink rolling his eye lights and throwing his arms up in surrender and Dream turning around with a reluctant yet complacent expression.
“We’ll take care of your issue soon” he promised.
---
In the end, ‘soon’ meant about a month and two resets later. And it wasn’t even those two guardians that got rid of the human, but yet another copy of his brother. This one looked a lot different, a few chunks of his body looked glitched, and none of his bones were even white anymore. His eye lights looked more like regular eyes than skeleton ones. And he could produce some really weird blue strings from his tears (those were what he used to get rid of the anomaly. He wrapped up their soul in them and stuffed it into a glass jar before throwing it into a white void, hopefully, never to be seen again).
After some pleading, he broke down the barrier as well, freeing the Underground without any need for further bloodshed.
Papyrus figured that that was it. The two guardians had maybe forgotten their deal, or perhaps they’d found some other desperate soul that was far more willing to listen to their empty promises. He was almost certain that they had nothing to do with the new entity that had found his way to them. And he was hopeful that he would never have to see them again.
Unfortunately, one afternoon, as he watched one of those animated movies Undyne and Alphys had insisted they borrow with his brother, Flowey, and Chara (the two deceased kids had decided that they would stick around Papyrus going forward. They considered trying to go back to their parents, but all of them had changed too much, and they weren’t sure that was truly what they wanted. Besides, Fowey didn’t fancy the idea of having to constantly pretend he experienced emotions in the same way as everyone else to placate those around him. Which, to be fair to him, did sound exhausting) in their new living room on the surface, a golden portal opened up in front of them, obstructing their view of the screen.
“Oh, not those pretentious assholes again” Flowey groaned.
Sans looked at him questioningly, but the flower was too busy glaring at the portal to notice. That was when Papyrus realized that he had still failed to mention anything that happened to Sans. He also failed to mention anything about him retaining his memories regarding the resets, but that one was justified as he still wanted to save his brother from the heartbreak of knowing. And making up some bullshit excuse as to how he’d grown close to Chara and Flowey in so little time had been pretty easy anyway. His brother rarely questioned him. At his core, he was a trusting guy, and Papyrus had no problems shamelessly using that against him if it ultimately benefitted them both.
Again, Papyrus had no clue what criteria those two fake Sanses had used to deem his soul pure, but they had to be reconsidered.
Dream and Ink stepped out of the portal looking as open, friendly, and full of energy as they had the first time around. With Sans there to offer a comparison, the uncanny valley feeling he got looking at them was even stronger. They had no shadows under their eyes, no small cracks all over their bones from all the times they died, no ketchup stains on their clothes, nothing that indicated they’d seen even a single day of hardship in their lives.
Papyrus despised that.
Not because he wanted every copy of his brother to suffer. Had things been his way, none of them would have. No, it was because they were doing well for themselves, and yet they wanted to take away the one family his brother had when he clearly wasn’t faring anywhere near as well as they were. They wanted to take away his only support network. The only person he felt fully safe around despite his incredibly low HOPE.
That was unforgivable.
On top of that, he had become Chara’s and Flowey’s home too. They had nowhere else to go, and they wouldn’t remain there if only Sans were to stay.
“Good to see that Ruru took care of everything around here!” Ink exclaimed, beaming at them. He wandered around the room, inspecting every feature of it, before stopping by one of the big windows (Papyrus’ favorite feature of the place as they let in so much natural light) to look up at the sun. “And he was as thorough as ever I see. This is the surface!”.
“You sent that guy?” Flowey asked, doubtfully.
“Yup!” the artist didn’t miss a beat. “And now we’re here for Papyrus”.
That was about the worst choice of words he could have made.
Immediately, Sans teleported in front of him, his left eye socket burning with magic. Chara also got up. They’d acquired a bit more physicality since the human disappeared, enough to at least manage to make one object float at a time. They chose a knife. Flowey’s thorny roots also shot out of his pot threateningly.
It was very sweet of them, but Papyrus didn’t need the protection.
“Oh, Right, I Did Promise That I Would Consider Joining You If You Got Rid Of That Human” he said calmly. Dream smiled at him softly, his arms opened as if he was offering a hug yet again, just like that first time, and a barrage of positivity flooded his soul.
It would have been so easy to leave everything behind. His AU was safe, and he knew logically that there were many more out there that needed help. They needed a hero, and Papyrus was great at that, apparently. All those fans, all that glory and adoration… they were tempting.
But he nonetheless dug his phalanges into the fabric of the couch and kept himself rooted in place. “I Have Considered It” he said slowly. “No Thanks”.
Dream’s smile dropped. “You can’t just say no! After all we did to get Error to attack this stupid fucking place, are you kidding me?!”. It was the first time he sounded anything but kind and sincere, and Papyrus couldn’t help but think that the ire suited him much better.
Of course, Papyrus wasn’t willing to shut down and cower as this god-like entity yelled at him. How could he call himself the Great Papyrus if he ever decided to behave with such cowardice? Undyne would have been ashamed to call him her disciple.
Instead, he stood up and used his height advantage to tower over Dream and fix him with a deathly glare. “Let’s Cut The Charade, You’re No Ally Of Mine. You’ve Been Trying To Manipulate Me This Whole Time. I Know You’ve Been Using You Little Soul Tricks On Me, I Know Your Kind. But, You See, You Don’t Know Mine. Because Any Ally Worth Considering Knows That I Don’t Care For Fame And Glory. So While You Were So Focused On Laying Your Little Trap, You Didn’t Notice The Loophole I Set Up”. Dream was speechless, and Papyrus couldn’t help but chuckle at that. He stepped back, making sure to keep an eye on Ink as well. He didn’t want his loved ones to get injured because he got too cocky. “You Lost. Now Leave”.
Ink huffed and stomped toward the portal like a kid still in stripes throwing a tantrum. “I thought you said the Handplates-style ones were foolproof!”.
“Just shut up Ink…”.
They were gone in a hurry, and Papyrus couldn’t be happier.
His soul ached again from even such a small interaction. He couldn’t imagine working with them full-time. That must have been torturous.
“So… Paps…”. Papyrus cringed hearing his brother’s tone. He wasn’t upset. He never was, not with him. But it was that tone he used when he was feeling just a tad bit disappointed, and that was so much worse than any amount of anger could ever have been. “You’ve been hiding things from me, huh?”.
Chara dropped the knife and picked up Flowey’s pot before high-tailing it out of there. Traitors.
“Paps?”.
Papyrus sighed and turned around. “I Think There Are A Few Things I Should Come Clean About” he started.
That would be a long afternoon.