How about SF or UF (your choice 😊) skeletons going to a pet shop? What pets would they get and how would they react to all the fluffy creatures? xxxx
Well, I went with the UF bros because I’m not nearly ready to give my version of the fellswap bros a day in the sun and because fellbro fluff is my favorite.
I wrote this entirely on mobile and I’m posting it on mobile, so hopefully the read more works and the major typos and errors are gone.
As usual, this went longer than intended.
Warnings for mild background angst, casual cursing, references to children in bad situations, and at a stretch, there’s some mocking about a lack of education… But otherwise this is really tame for Underfell as written by me. It’s fluff.
Life on the surface was weird getting used to.
The skeleton brothers were still getting over old wounds, and it was, frankly, getting to be a little much trying to navigate all the awkwardness that came with learning to be brothers again rather than boss and subordinate.
And so, Sans made a fairly spur of the moment decision that the obvious problem with their current living arrangement was that it was just them, alone, in an empty house on the edge of the city. Maybe it would be less awkward if there was someone or something else around to take their attentions off of each other and themselves. Or maybe that was fucking stupid, he didn’t know, but honestly, it seemed better than doing nothing.
See, once upon a time, (what felt like a lifetime or four ago at this point) when they were just kids, living on the streets, Papyrus had found and taken in a scruffy little surface beast. He named it Doomfanger. The thing was tiny. The only reason it was probably even roaming around at all was that it was small enough to slip through holes in walls and most basic traps. Sans always figured it was probably meant to be some monster’s dinner, but it was nothing but fur and bones, too scrawny to bother recapturing once it got away.
It was smaller than a rat and not nearly as cute, but Papyrus had loved the miserable thing like it was his whole world. He took it everywhere, constantly cuddling it and playing with it, giving it skeleton kisses on the head, nuzzles and hugs and constant words of encouragement that it was okay that it was little, that it was still a mighty beast no matter what anyone said.
…That hadn’t been all that weird, back then. Papyrus was a real, real sweet kid. It kind of sucked to think about, so Sans didn’t, at least not often. But still, maybe he’d be just a little bit less miserable with something scruffy and fuzzy and warm around the house.
Though, now Sans was having second thoughts. Papyrus was looking disdainfully at the crude handpainted signs inside the lobby of the animal shelter. Clearly, the artwork was not up to his standards, and he seemed annoyed to be here.
“eh, boss, maybe this ain’t a great idea. you wanna head back home? cuz we can. i didn’t sign no papers. we ain’t obligated so let’s just–”
Papyrus placed a hand up, the universal symbol for “shut the hell up” and smirked. “I DON’T BELIEVE THERE IS ANY REASON FOR US TO LEAVE BEFORE WE SEE WHAT’S HERE.”
Yeah. Definitely dumb. Now Papyrus was hoping to stick with it just to get a laugh in at him later. It was marginally better than the silence that normally pervaded at home, though, so fine. Sans could stick with this too.In the back of his mind, he imagined Papyrus, 6 years old with a ball of scruff and fluff never gone from his side for a moment, and strengthened his resolve.
The human at the desk seemed friendly enough, not giving them too much flack for being monsters or being rough around the edges, and Papyrus answered her questions with formal, clipped responses, but he made no moves to “impress” or intimidate her, and already the meeting was going better than most of their ventures outside of the designated monster districts.
The human opened the doors that led to the animal holding areas, and Sans watched his brother’s expressions with great interest. The younger brother surveyed the hall as if he was examining a shipment of fine goods: detached, judgemental, but certainly not uninterested. It was the sort of face he put on when they were meeting with nobility and the uppity ups of the underground, a tea tasting face.
His voice matched to accompany his expression, knowledgeable and clear. “I DID NOT REALIZE THE SURFACE HELD SUCH A WIDE ARRAY OF DOOMFANGERS.”
Sans couldn’t bury the snicker fast enough before it came out as a loud snort. “they’re called ‘cats,’ boss,” he explained (smugly), never resisting the opportunity to look like the smarter, world-wise one of the two. He’d actually only learned that fact last week when he started researching this whole stupid plan, but that didn’t stop him.
Papyrus’s jaw clamped shut with a scowl, and Sans felt bad… but only for a second. Maybe he shouldn’t have laughed, it’s not like either of them went to school long enough to know the names of exotic surface creatures. They’d made up their own names for them all as they’d needed to.
Ah well, Papyrus would get over his embarrassment.
Sans scanned the cages, looking for any cat that might make a good match for the both of them. They came in all kinds of colors and sizes. Probably a big one was best. He didn’t fully trust Papyrus with a runty one now that he was… well… boss.
Yeah, probably get a big one, one with short fur, or maybe no fur. Neither knew anything about fur, after all, and it would make less of a mess he would get lectures about not cleaning up.
And it would have to be one of the strong ones. Papyrus did not abide weakness.
Sans was unfamiliar with the sounds of cats (Doomfanger had always been silent, besides hisses, always directed at him), but they were animals, and animals were noisy, so at first, it didn’t really faze him to hear such a sound. But after a moment, he registered that something was off about it, the timbre and direction. His eyelights darted to the side, and then up, to his brother’s skull, whose eyes were wider than they’d been in years, gloved claws clamped over his mandibles.
“did you just… squeak…!?” The color rushed into Papyrus’s cheeks as he glanced back, clearly embarrassed at being caught making that noise, but too distracted to snap back at him. “the hell?”
Papyrus gestured helplessly towards whatever he was staring, at words escaping for a moment before he just let out a shrill “DOOMFANGER!”
Sans rolled his eyes. “boss i told ya, the word is ‘cat.’ or ‘kitten.’ or ‘kitt—’”
Long, gray, mangled fur, fat and small and fluffy. One eye, one ear, three legs, no tail, scruffy and angry and almost uglier than Jerry.
The cat was pressing against the cage, looking at Papyrus, pawing at the air between them, making similar noises to the one that the tall, haughty, disciplined skeleton had made just moments before. And speaking of, he was right against the glass, hands against it, as if he was trying hug the window between them until it shattered.
And Papyrus was, get this, crying. He was actually, honestly crying. And Sans had no clue what to even think. Because holy shit. The dumb beast was still alive. And they found it. And it found them. And it was like 16 damn years, did those things really live that long? And his brother, the asshole, the boss, the unfeeling, unemotional bastard, was crying. Not just crying, either, not like a single, dignified tear like on a damn movie. Papyrus was openly weeping. Like he did when they were kids, the day Doomfanger didn’t come back.
God, Sans was pretty sure he had never cried that bitterly since.
It was… it was friggin weird. But he crushed the part of him that wanted to make a joke about it, or that wanted to come up with a joke to tell all his good buddies later. Instead he savored the moment a bit longer (and maybe took a picture, purely for blackmail) and flagged down the human who was in charge of the place.
“Yeah we’ll take that one.”
