Delta, Fjord, & Ace There is definitely a scene waiting here for Dread when he gets back. Fjord is laying on his side, bleeding from wounds on his chest and stomach, his breathing labored and shallow. He's laying next to Delta, whose unconscious next to him, just holding one of his hands. Dread ...
And the two storylines finally converge. Dread arrives home to a grisly scene, and then once that’s dealt with he gets to finally hold his boyfriends again. For a little bit, at least.
Muses involved:
Dread, WD, Frisk, and Toriel, from here
Wasp/CB, @coolskeletonsdontcry
Ace, @acetheskeleton
Delta and Fjord, @deltagaster
Papyrus woke with a start, breathing hard and clawing at his neck. His head hurt and he couldn’t remember where he was or what had happened to him. He felt like there was something in his mouth, something... vaguely liquid. He coughed, trying to get it out, get it out get it out
He heard something move next to him and felt a jolt of fear course through him. He had to do something or else he’d die, just like her. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want her to die, all she did was pull him out of the void she didn’t deserve to die why did they kill her why it didn’t make sense
With a wheeze he threw his hand up, gripping the nearest soul and tossing them into the ceiling with a thud. He summoned a blaster, positioning it defensively between himself and his attacker, doubling over as he tried to hack up the stuff in his mouth. He thought he heard the attacker shout something before the blaster let loose.
Suddenly he was blue and he felt himself flying towards the ceiling. He flailed and wheezed and summoned bones to protect himself from his attacker but he couldn’t see where it was coming from everything hurt he was scared he didn’t want to die
He felt arms around his ribcage and tried to scream, but all that came out was a strangled cough as he finally dislodged the gunk from his mouth. He heard... cooing next to his head. It sounded familiar. It sounded like...
“s-sans?” he managed to gasp out. Sans gripped him tight and nodded.
“*yeah, it’s me. it’s your brother, sans.” Sans let out another coo and started rubbing Papyrus’s back. “*i’m here. i’ve gotcha.”
Papyrus whimpered and curled up in his brother’s arms, fingers digging into the fabric of his t-shirt. He was home, he was safe, he wasn’t under attack. But his face hurt something fierce. It hurt so much he wanted to throw up again.
Sans kept rubbing his back and cooing for him, trying to help him calm down.
“*hey, uh, bro? can you do me a quick favor?”
Papyrus let out another whimper, this one sounding vaguely curious.
“*on the count of three, can we lower each other down to the ground? it’s kinda weird to be hugging it out on the ceiling.”
“o-okay.”
Sans counted to three, and together they lowered themselves down to the floor before dismissing the blue soul magic altogether. Papyrus leaned against Sans and whimpered some more, starting to visibly shake.
“*it’s ok, bro, it’s ok,” Sans said as he kept rubbing his brother’s back.
“h-hurts,” Papyrus whined.
“*i’ll go call your doctor friend and ask him to come over and patch you up, ok?”
Papyrus just let out another little pained whine. Sans maneuvered him onto the couch and got out his phone. Time to call in Pip.
Orion's shortcuts had never been particularly flashy or special. Just one moment there's a skeleton, and then the next moment he's gone. Or vice versa. So Starface's brother was understandably caught off-guard when a skeleton who looked disturbingly similar to himself suddenly appeared in the mi...
((Starface has been having A Day today. A Day that Orion finds very familiar...
Papyrus woke with a gasp, shoving himself into a sitting position. He was immediately hit with a wave of pain and nausea, and curled up again, covering his face. As his arm pressed against his skull, he could feel to contours of his reopened head wound. There had been another reset.
Papyrus let out a whiny groan as he contemplated all the things he'd have to do again, now that he was back to square one. First of all, fix his face. He'd probably lost the ability to see through his previously broken eye, sadly. Oh well, he'd managed without it before and he'll manage without it again.
He no longer had his sentry position, either. He'd have to either go back to Undyne (not happening anytime soon) or... talk to Alphys again.
He could feel a knot forming in his nonexistent stomach. He didn't want to do this again. He didn't want to have to talk to Alphys again and again, like he kept having to talk to Undyne. He didn't want to have to start over again. He could see Undyne's face in his head, the first time he asked her to stop torturing him. He remembered the way she'd been horrified about how badly she'd been treating him.
He remembered the feeling of his body melting around him. Because he'd stopped asking her. Because it felt like she didn't care, even though he knew the resets were just messing with her memories. He couldn't tell if she really did care anymore. He wasn't sure if anyone was able to care. He was alone, he'd always been alone, he'd always be alone and there was nothing—
Papyrus leaned over the side of the couch and started retching loudly. That old, familiar black goo came out of his mouth again, splattering against the floor noiselessly. His soul was pounding from all the anxiety, each beat sending another fresh bout of pain through his head. He hated this. He hated the pain, he hated the anxiety, he hated the nausea, he hated everything.
He felt a hand on his back, and heard some gentle cooing. Solid, smooth bone pressed against what was left of his forehead. He blindly reached out and gripped the fabric of his brother's shirt.
Papyrus whimpered and pulled his brother closer, burying his face against his chest. It wasn't alright, he wanted to say. Everything was terrible, Papyrus was a mess, and nothing was ever going to be okay ever again.
Gaster gently pat his little brother's head, his careful hands rubbing his skull. Papyrus let out a shuddering breath as he tried to fight back the tears springing to his eye. The gentleness just served as a reminder of how bad things were, how much he stood to lose again and again. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep this up for.
Papyrus owed his friends a lot, really. Without Pip and Clover, or Dread, Brio, and Roan, he'd probably still be depressed and miserable and in pain. He'd be, well... broken, still.
He knew he wasn't "fixed," of course. He still had a long way to go. But he felt so much better these days, now that his body and mind had been repaired a bit, and his brothers knew about the resets that were constantly going on. It was nice to no longer feel alone and isolated.
But he was also angry. Angry at Temmie for the resets, angry at Undyne for the experiments she inflicted on him. He wanted them both to stop. But he couldn't risk telling Temmie anything, because what if he used that against him? And Undyne... every time he told her to stop, she'd get reset and forget everything. Papyrus was tired of telling her to stop. So he'd given up on trying.
But the anger wouldn't go away. He'd suppressed it for a long time (or maybe he'd just gotten so depressed that he couldn't muster up the will to feel it). Now that he wasn't as tired all the time, it was starting to boil and churn deep within his soul. He tried to keep it in check as best as he could, but it was only a matter of time before it came out.
"Hey, Papyrus!" Undyne said cheerfully, holding out a cup of something fizzy. "I got you some soda!"
"i don't really like soda, undyne," Papyrus replied, glancing up from the machinery he was working on.
"Come on, it's not that bad!" Undyne held the cup a little closer, fortunately within full view of his one working eye. It was some sort of muddy brown color and even had the consistency of carbonated mud. "Try it, you'll love it!"
Papyrus had a bad feeling in his nonexistent gut. Whenever she got like this, it usually meant she was planning on pulling something on him. Probably trying to test some new concoction out on him.
Papyrus shook his head and held up a hand.
"no, thanks," he said. "i'm not that thirsty."
"You sure?" Undyne said, tilting her head a little bit. "How long have you been working on this, anyway?"
Before Papyrus could give an answer, his phone alarm went off. He dug it out and hit stop, before holding up the phone to her.
"about an hour, nyeh heh heh," he said. "but now it's time for a scheduled break."
Undyne huffed, head fins going flat in mild irritation. Crafty boy. Until an idea occurred to her, of course, causing her to grin.
"Oh! This is the perfect time to grab a refreshing drink, don't you think?" she said. "Good thing I have something right here!"
She shoved the cup into his hands before he had a chance to protest.
"Go on, give it a try!" she said, gesturing to him.
"i'm not sure," he said. "i think i'll go get—"
He felt his legs lock up and glanced down to see himself emitting a green glow. Of course. Undyne had pinned him in place with green soul magic. Yep, this was definitely a poor excuse for an experiment.
He glanced from the sludgy, fizzy drink in his hands back up to Undyne. He felt a little lurch in his soul as he was suddenly reminded of the countless other times she had pulled this exact trick on him before. She just stared at him expectantly, completely oblivious to the rising anger in his soul.
With an irritated huff, he decided to get this over with and just chug the entire thing at once. He regretted this strategy almost immediately. He doubled over, just managing to get the cup out of his face before he vomited the brown stuff back up again, along with a heaping helping of black void goop.
"wh... whAT DID YOU DO?!" Papyrus gasped out. He shuddered and coughed again, expelling more void goop all over the floor. Undyne backed up, her head frills unfurling in alarm as the gunk spread.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Papyrus shouted, lifting his head and glaring at her. More void goop dripped from his broken eye socket, while a blue and green light rapidly flickered in his other one.
"I-I just," Undyne stammered, "I was just trying to find out what... what would happen if I combined multiple trait extracts—"
"WITHOUT EVEN ASKING ME?!" Papyrus said. His angry tirade was cut off by another bout of vomiting. There was a puddle of black all over the floor now, just slowly spreading everywhere.
"I, well, I didn't..." Undyne kept backing away from the puddle, eyes widening as it dawned on her that maybe she did something really wrong. "I-I'm sorry..."
Papyrus couldn't give a reply as he hurled up another bit of goop, which didn't even make a sound as it splattered against the ground. He took a few slow, deep breaths, trying to steady himself on his shaking arms.
"h... hate... you..." he managed to gasp out.
"I... I'm sorry, I shouldn't..." Undyne glanced from him to the puddle between them. She took a deep breath and gingerly stepped through the puddle, reaching out and gripping his arms to help him to his feet. But he shrugged her arms off, shoving himself to his feet and taking a swaying step back.
"l... leave... alone."
And with that, he disappeared, leaving Undyne alone to ponder the magnitude of what she'd just done to her own friend. Even if she wasn't entirely sure why she suddenly felt a sense of deja vu about this whole encounter.
