"Papyrus!"
Alex's voice echoed down the snowy path. A light, chilly gust of wind carried down as Papyrus turned to Alex with a quick jolt.
"Huh? Alex! I-I wasn't expecting you so soon!" Papyrus stuttered. Alex exhaled sharply. "I think it's time we put this to an end." Alex said. "Yes. Yes! I fully agree! ...what do you mean by that exactly?" Papyrus asked. "You wanna capture me, and I can't accept capture." Alex stated. "Ah, so it's time for us to fight then!" Papyrus said, raising his fists.
Alex shook his head. "I don't want to fight." He reached into his back pocket, pulling out a black leather wallet. "I want to show you something." He said. Papyrus tilted his head in confusion. Alex walked up to Papyrus, standing in front of him. He held up a picture. Papyrus looked down at it.
The photograph depicted Alex at a table in a fancy restaurant with a girl. It was nighttime. They were dressed nicely and smiling happily. The girl was very pretty. She had long flowing black hair, deep brown eyes that were brighter than Alex's, and tanned skin. Papyrus took this in.
"Her name is Jasmine."
"Ah. You have a girl up there. And she's...special to you?" Alex nodded. "Very special. I know that, up there, she's worried sick about me. I need to get back to her." Alex said firmly. Papyrus squirmed a bit. "Ergh...but-but, I'm supposed to capture you..." Papyrus said hesitantly, staring at Alex's picture.
Alex pocketed the picture. "Put yourself in my shoes, Papyrus... Imagine that you were in my position, and it was Sans up there on the surface. What would you say to me?" Alex proposed. "Well, I'd tell you how important my brother is to me, and then I'd ask very nicely if I could...oh..." Papyrus sighed, all at once understanding how Alex must've felt. Alex waited silently as Papyrus mulled it over.
Papyrus sighed again. "Alright. I won't capture you." He said. Alex exhaled a sigh of relief. "Thank you." "You're welcome." Papyrus sighed. Alex nodded and began to continue down the trail. "Where are you going?" Papyrus asked. "Forward." Alex answered.
"It's getting late." Papyrus pointed out. Alex looked up and noticed how dark it was. "Yeah. I guess it is." Alex said. "You can stay at my house if you'd like." Papyrus offered. Alex nodded. "Okay. Yeah, I'd appreciate that." "Come. I will take you to my home." Papyrus said.
~~~
Papyrus led Alex into his two story home. Alex was greeted with a gust of warm air as he entered the house. He stood between the living room and a dining table. On the left side of the house was a set of stairs. The upper level had three doors. In front of Alex was the entrance to the kitchen.
"Welcome to my humble home, Alex! Looks like Sans hasn't come back from his second job yet. I forget how many of those he has. Anyways, there's the couch and the table and the bathroom is the middle door up there. You can sleep in my room. It's the first door on the left up there." Papyrus said. "Oh no no that's fine. I'll take the couch." Alex insisted. Papyrus shrugged. "If you say so."
"Well, I suppose it's time to start on the dinner spaghetti!" "Heheh. Sure. You pretty passionate about cooking?" Alex asked. Papyrus nodded excitedly. "Yes! Spaghetti is my favorite food! I cook it every day, I love it so much. Also, it's the only cooking lesson I ever finished with Undyne." "Haha. That's awesome. I'm not the biggest cook, but I've learned a few tips and tricks." "Have you learned spaghetti??" Papyrus rubbed his palms together.
Alex nodded, and Papyrus jumped excitedly. "Great! You can help me prepare!"
Papyrus grabbed Alex and pulled him into the kitchen. He handed Alex an apron, and they washed their hands. "Alright! I'll handle the noodles! You take the meat!" Papyrus instructed. They began cooking. Papyrus set the spaghetti to boil as Alex worked on mixing up the meat.
"Is it alright if I play some music as they work?" Alex asked as they worked. "Go ahead." Papyrus nodded. Alex cleaned off his hands and played one of his favorite Spanish songs from his phone: El Perdon. Papyrus hummed as it played. He was intrigued by the music.
"What an interesting sound. Is this the type of music they play on the surface?" Papyrus asked. "One kind. There's many many different kinds of music on the surface." Alex described. "What kind of music plays down here in the Underground?" Alex asked.
"Oh! Well...not much, to be honest. Other than Mettaton on TV, not much music circulates down here." Alex hummed in surprise. "One source of music? I don't like that too much." Alex said. "Passionate about music?" Papyrus asked. Alex nodded. "I love music like you love spaghetti." Alex said. "Wow. You must REALLY love music then." "Mhmm." Papyrus hummed.
Papyrus slid the meat over from Alex as they switched stations. Alex glanced over at Papyrus as he stirred the boiling pot of noodles. Papyrus added the seasonings to the meat, including a lot more garlic than what was needed. Alex yelped. "Agh! What're you doing?!" He shouted.
Papyrus flinched and backed away from the meat with his hands up. "What?! What is it?!" "That's too much garlic dude!" "What're you talking about? That's the amount of garlic I always put. The taste is good." Papyrus defended. "Uh...how about we try it with less garlic this one time. Okay?" Alex suggested. Papyrus shrugged. "Alright, but you'll have to remake the sauce."
***
"I'm home, bro." Sans called out as he entered the house. It was fully dark outside now. "Yo Papy, where you at?" San called out, facing the door to Papyrus' room. "Over here, brother!" Papyrus said. Sans turned and saw that both he and Alex were sitting at the dining table with plates of spaghetti. He glared at Alex.
"Come join us, Sans. We were just about to begin, but we waited for you. Our guest and I have prepared spaghetti." Papyrus said. Sans sat at the table. "You two cooked...?" Alex and Papyrus nodded. "Papyrus was kind enough to allow me to spend the night." Alex said as he mixed his spaghetti around and took a bite. Sans watched intently as he did so.
Alex hummed and nodded. "Mhmm. This is pretty sick. Nice job with the salt by the way." Alex complimented Papyrus. "It's sick? Spaghetti doesn't get sick..." Papyrus said. "No no, that's an expression that means really good." Alex explained. Sans and Papyrus shrugged and took bites off their own plates. "It's actually pretty good." Sans and Papyrus agreed.
***
"Long ago, two races lived on the surface: humans and monsters. The two races lived in abundant peace. That is, until the monsters discovered SOUL power. Humans, fearful of this power, declared war on the monsters and eventually won, due to their own SOUL power, which was much more powerful than the monsters. Humans banished the monsters underground, sealing up the way out with a barrier."
Alex read under his breath from the history book he had checked out from the library. Alex had no idea what time it was, but it felt pretty late. He continued reading on with keen interest. He was so involved in his reading that he didn't notice someone come down from upstairs. It was only when he'd made his way to the couch that Alex noticed him.
"Hey. Mind if I sit?" Sans asked. He'd showered and changed into a fresh black T-shirt and dark blue pajama pants. Alex nodded, pulling his blankets off the edge of the couch and crossing his legs to make room. Sans sat down and turned to Alex, crossing his legs as well. "Comfy." Sans commented. "Right?" Alex agreed.
"My brother's starting to like you a lot." Sans said. "Is he?" Sans nodded. "He's gonna miss you when you're gone. He was just tellin me about it before I read him his bedtime story. He wanted me to ask you when is it you plan to leave?" "First thing early in the morning." Alex answered. "Make sure to say goodbye to him before you go. He'll be real upset if you don't." Sans requested. Alex nodded. "Sure."
"Mind if I ask you another question?" "What is this, Jeopardy?" Alex joked. Sans said nothing. "It's...it's a TV show-what's your question?" Alex blinked. "What is it that landed you down here, and what's got you so determined to get back as quickly as possible?" "It's a long story." Alex said. Sans shrugged. "I've got time." Sans said.
Alex readjusted how he was sitting, and began his story.
"Me and my girlfriend, Jasmine, have been dating for almost 5 years now. Starting out, our families didn't like each other very much; her family was a little more accepting of me though. We moved out around 18 and got apartments close to each other, and from there money became our constant biggest struggle.
"We'd saved up this past year to rent a log cabin out here in the mountains and go on vacation. While we were out here, we got to talking about stuff, and it escalated into an argument. I can't remember what it was about, probably money. I came up here on a walk to clear my head and calm down, get my thoughts together. I ended up down here." Alex finished.
Sans sighed. "That's rough." Alex nodded in agreement. "Yeah. Now I just wanna get back to her. She gets really uneasy and stuff when she's worried." "I gotcha." Sans said, standing up. "Thanks for humoring me. Every human that falls down here always seems to have something to get back to, but I've never had the opportunity to ask one why." Sans explained, turning and going upstairs.
"Night." "Night, Sans."
***
Alex was awoken by the sound of something clattering in the kitchen. It must've been either really late at night or really early in the morning, because it was still very dark. Alex lifted his head and peered into the kitchen. Papyrus was sneaking around with a small plastic bowl of leftover spaghetti.
"Papyrus?" He called out. Papyrus flinched a bit, coming into the living room. "Alex? I'm sorry, did I wake you?" "Yeah. Yeah you did." Alex muttered sluggishly. He tried to rub his eyes and get up, but instead fell to the floor with a low thud. Papyrus helped him up, and Alex sat back on the couch."Thanks." Alex muttered. Papyrus nodded.
"What're you doing up so late?" Alex asked. "Oh, well you know, I was just...getting some spaghetti. Yeah! I need more than just three simple meals to maintain this fantastic physique." Papyrus said half-heartedly, with a forced awkward chuckle. Alex patted his hand on the couch. "Sit down. Tell me what's up." Alex beckoned. Papyrus sat.
"Well...I had a nightmare." Papyrus finally admitted. "What about?" Alex asked. "Well...it was about my last encounter with a human. Every time I have it, it's the same. He always comes up on the path where we met earlier by the river, and we have our fight. I try my hardest to capture him, but he kills me in the end every time." Papyrus relayed slowly.
"Oh." Alex said. "When we had out meeting; actually, as soon as I first saw you, I was worried that would hapen again. I'm glad it didn't." Papyrus quickly added. "I don't see how anyone could've had the heart to kill you." Alex said. Papyrus nodded silently. Alex pondered this for a bit, then something popped in his head: an idea that'd help Papyrus feel better.
"Would you mind if I told you a nightmare that I've had?" Alex asked. "You don't have to." "Yeah, but you told me yours. It's only fair." Alex said. Papyrus nodded. "Okay."
"Alright, so when I was a young boy, like 6 or 7, I had a dream where me and my Dad were going to a store in this van. We stopped in front of a store and my Dad gets out, and leans against the front hood to answer a phone call. You following so far?"
Papyrus nodded. "What's a van?" "A big car." "Got it. Okay, continue."
"Okay. So my Dad's at the hood, and I look ahead and see a tornado coming straight at us. It's tearing the street up and wrecking everything around it. I yell at my Dad, but he doesn't hear me. Then, WOOSH! The tornado sweeps him up. It was like you blinked, and he was gone.
"The van gets swept up, and the door to my right opens. I fall out of the van as it gets swept up, and I land face first on the street. My neck snaps, then I woke up." Alex concluded the dream.
"Wow." Papyrus said with a shake of his head. "That had to be terrifying." Alex nodded. "It was. And you know what happened next?" "You already said you woke up." Papyrus pointed out, confused. "Just bare with me.
"About 3 months after that nightmare, and another similar one, our family went down to the beach for a little vacation. Well, we're on our way back a few days later, and we're driving down the highway. And it is pouring badly out; it was raining so hard you could barely see 10 feet in front of you, and it is just crazy. Wind was howling too. It was strong enough to blow our car off the road. It didn't, fortunately.
"So we get under a highway bridge, and a lot of people are parked up against the right side, waiting this thing out. My parents look at each other; Mom says we should stay too, and Dad says we should keep going. They look at me, and ask me what we should do."
"What did you say?" Papyrus asked, hands on his chin as he listened, captivated by the story.
"Well, of course, I say we should get out of there. I don't wanna be there. I'm terrified. Mom puts the car in drive, and we weather through the storm and make it home safely." Papyrus sighed in relief.
"Next morning, me and my Mom are sitting in the living room and watching the news. They were showing this highway. There was all this wind and water damage everywhere. Cars were toppled over, trees were on the road, and the bridge itself barely held up. It was awful. Mom turns to me and says: 'That's where we were at, Alex. I'm glad we didn't stay'." "I'm glad too." Papyrus agreed.
"Your nightmare had me thinking about that dream just now, because your nightmare gave you fear, and so did mine. But we both had to face our fears, and things turned out alright. I guess what I'm saying is...sometimes you gotta take a risk and face your fears to find out if the danger is real, or just in your head." Alex said. Papyrus agreed. "Fine words."
"Nah, I'm just rambling. Anyways, you feel better?" Alex asked. "Yes, a lot better. Thank you." "No problem. Night, Papy." Alex said. "Goodnight." Papyrus said, getting up and going to his room. Alex laid back down, and quickly fell asleep again...