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zuzuelectricbugaloo · 6 months ago

Text

Crepic: Letters

Word count: 3, 647

Content Warnings: Brief mentions of blood and vomiting. Epic’s Eye surgery is alluded to but not described in detail.

Chapter Two: Dear Friend,

It was a hot summer day. The golden sun blazing in a cloudless sapphire sky while the air blistered and rolled with heat like waves. The perfect day for a visit to the park. The flowers were in bloom, gentle lilacs swaying in the breeze, a tiny visitor of yellow and black buzzing about occasionally, humming and nuzzling into a flower before darting off to the next in search of the sacred ambrosial nectar.

Much like the honeybees, the two skeletons and their human companion sought a saccharine treat to ease the heat they found themselves in.

Thanking the vendor, Sans hurried back to Frisk and Papyrus, where his brother and best friend perched atop the wooden bench. They’d have to eat their Nice Cream quickly if they didn’t want their sweet treats to melt and trickle down their hands, and then fall to the floor as a snack for the ants instead.

Alas, Sans cried out in dismay as he sat on Frisk’s unoccupied side and a generous clump of the human’s Nice Cream fell onto the concrete. Melting into a forlorn puddle that reflected all three of their disheartened expressions as it sizzled. Sizzled.

If only the King and Queen owned a pool rather than a hot spring…

“There There, Frisk!” Papyrus pat him on the back while Sans offered to share his own ice cream. Frisk shook his head. “We Can Go Get More If You’d Like—”

“—I’m fine,” he interrupted. He brushed a few dark, sweaty strands of hair out of his face. “Thanks, Papyrus.”

Poor Frisk, hot and miserable in the sweltering heat. Of course he and Papyrus were just as perceptive to temperature, but as magical skeletons they were more resistant to any harmful effects of any fluctuations. Unlike their human charge, who was visibly struggling with his flushed cheeks and sweat-drenched clothes.

“Why don’t we head back to the house?” Sans suggested. “Dad’s out with Alphys for one of their workshops. We can crank up the AC and watch some TV, maybe play some video games if you’re up for it.”

“I dunno,” Frisk slowly blinked his eyes, one at a time. Impressive, considering how they always looked closed. “

“We can invite Undyne and Muffet over,” Sans added, purposefully stressing the name of the latter monster. His grin hiked up at the corners as Frisk seemed to perk up a little, then deflate.

“I dunno…And they’re busy today, anyway,” Frisk muttered. Sans’s grin fell slightly when Frisk murmured quietly under his breath, thinking the skeleton couldn’t hear, that the spider monster didn’t deserve to be hurt again.

He wished he knew what happened between them that had made Frisk insist on pushing the girl away, even when it was clear to anyone with sight how much he cared for the spider and vice versa.

Well, no use in being mopey on top of being hot and miserable! Time to break out the big guns.

Conspiratorially, he cupped a hand to his skull, gesturing with the other for his brother and friend to lean in close as he stage whispered, “Aaaand, since Dad’s not gonna be around,” he winked, “We can break out the emergency chocolate and treat ourselves to some malt shakes.”

Papyrus’s eyelights glittered “And Sundaes?!”

“And sundaes.”

Frisk put his hand on Sans’s lower arm, his eyes lifted into tiny crescents as he grinned. “Dude, you had me at ‘chocolate’.”

“Let’s go then!”

Soon they had a veritable ice cream party on their hands. Teleporting home and getting everything set up, the three practically melted onto the couch as the ceiling fan showered them in soothingly cold gusts of air while a laugh track from a popular human sitcom Sans couldn’t remember the name of burst from the TV. Sans wouldn’t be surprised if steam wafted off of their burning bodies—he swore he even saw a few wisps curl off his bones and be blown away by the fan.

Papyrus groaned, his taller form splayed out and comically slipping off the couch the more he sank into the furniture. “Why Didn't We Do This From The Start?” He wondered.

“Shhhh,” Sans hushed him. “I want to see how Monica sautéed her veggies! Maybe then I’ll stop burning all my tacos.”

Several chocolate milkshakes later, Frisk seemed to be doing better. There was less of the hopeless air Sans had sensed from him earlier. Though by the dark bags and pale expression, a concerningly more familiar look these last few months, something heavy, yet indistinguishable, still pressed the deceptively young human.

Frisk chuckled, his quiet voice tinged with amusement. “Please. You’ve followed Mo—Queen Toriel’s recipes to the letter and you still can’t not set water on fire.”

Though they seemed well enough to quip at his expense.

“Don’t quit your day job, guardsman. A chef you are not,” Frisk snickered before he took another spoonful of his sundae, chirping happily as the hot fudge melted on his tongue. Sans half-heartedly glared at the smirking human.

“I came home to have a good time and I’m feeling sooo attacked right now.”

“Shhh!” Papyrus hushed him. “The Paleontologist Is Attempting To Reconnect With The Beautician! He’s Asserting They Were On A Break And It Is NOT Going Well For Him.”

“Humans. Y’all are weird.” Frisk snorted, only to cough and sputter as some of the ice cream and chocolate went out his nose.

“Damn it Sans!”

“LANGUAGE!” Papyrus reprimanded.

“You made me laugh too hard!” Frisk sputtered, wheezing and coughing as tears welled in the corners of his eyes from the sting.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help that I’m so painfully funny!” Sans jumped off the couch while Papyrus went to grab washcloths with water to clean up the spilled drink. “Hang on, I’ll go get some tissues.”

Sans hurried up the stairs and off to his room, opening the door and dashing in to quickly grab the box of tissues from his desk. As he did so, he noticed a new letter had arrived.

His Soul beat faster in his chest.

Wowie! A letter!

They always arrived every few weeks or so, with the last one sent a month ago!

He ran down the stairs so fast he practically flew. “Here you go!” He tossed the box onto Frisk’s lap, startling Frisk and his Papyrus as he was wiping his face while the human protested he was old enough to do it himself.

“I gotta go, I’ll be back in a jiffy!”

Sans’s Soul hammered in his chest as he left before either his brother or friend could respond. They both jumped when Sans’s bedroom door slammed shut from his overeager motion. Not to mention the crashing sound and yelp, accompanied by a thud and exuberant exclamation of ‘I’m Alright!’ Before it was silent once more. The sounds in the living room now full of the audience responding to the shenanigans of the friends on TV.

Face and couch sufficiently cleaned of any sugary substances, Frisk tilted his head inquisitively in the direction Sans had disappeared. “What’s gotten into him?”

Papyrus finished wiping off his own phalanges before he responded. “It Seems A Letter From His Mysterious Penpal Has Arrived!”

Frisk blinked. Unknown to Papyrus, the ghost of his brother blinking along with him, brows piercing together as he frowned in confusion.

“Penpal? I don’t remember him having a penpal in any of the previous timelines,” Chara remarked.

“How long has he had a penpal, Papyrus?”

Satisfied with his work, Papyrus tossed the sullied cloth behind him in a perfect arch. It landed with a sodden flop into the kitchen sink.

“Sometime After He Joined The Guard, I Think! If You Ask Me,” his eyelights glittered as a light blush dusted his cheekbones in his excitement. “He’s Gotten Himself A Secret Admirer. You Saw For Yourself How Bright He Gets! Always Running Off To Respond The Moment They’ve Written Back.”

While Frisk reeled beside him, Papyrus continued on in his own little world, amused by his older brother’s unfolding shojo romance (in his most humble opinion, anyway!). “Oh He’s Told Me They’re Just Conversing As Friends, But You Mark My Words Human, There Are SPARKS! Sparks, I Say!”

Slowly, “That’s real cool, Papyrus,” Frisk responded.

Frisk had noticed Cross was upbeat more than usual since joining the Guard. He thought it was because of how much he enjoyed his job—especially given how he fawned over his armor—but then the few times they’ve hung out, the skeleton had something on his mind. The few times Frisk inquired about him, he’d be mentioned to be hanging out more in his room.

That…that was good. Frisk was glad for him, really. His best friend deserved something to make him happy since he was stuck with a shitty father like XGaster in this latest timeline.

At the thought of the royal scientist Frisk soured, the, unseen to Papyrus, form of Chara scowling at the wall like it offended him.

That bastard. Always insisting on overwriting just to achieve his ‘perfect timeline’. As if there was anything wrong with what they had now. As if they would never be good enough.

When had he stopped calling them his sons and started calling them his creations? Frisk couldn’t remember.

Sans deserved better. Frisk glanced at Papyrus, who was gasping and nodding along as he watched with rapt attention the long forgotten show. Papyrus deserved better. But what could Frisk do?

“In the other worlds,” Chara’s voice whispered in his head, “their Sanses could remember. We could make ours remember, too.”

Not a bad idea. But it would mean—

Frisk lightly shook his head, pretending he was brushing his hair aside in case Papyrus looked at him.

Sans should be happy. Frisk didn’t want to hurt him like that, even if it was temporary.

“Please, Frisk,” it was rare for Chara to plead. His dark eyes were sunken in their void-like holes as liquid determination trickled down the ghostly apparition of his face. “I’m tired. Aren’t you tired? He’s your best friend, isn’t he? He’ll understand in the end. But we can’t let XGaster keep getting away with this.”

It…it would be nice for someone else to know, again.

His heart aches in memory of a spider monster turning to dust as she tried to protect him, her trembling hand reaching out for his before XGaster crushed it beneath his heel. The world turning black, then white as everything was OVERWRITTEN.

Frisk felt the memory of another monster, the young prince smiling at Chara and reassuring him they’d always be friends before he, too, met the same fate of the bakery girl.

Both brothers couldn’t keep watching history repeat itself like this. And yet, the thought of hurting Sans, even if it was to help him…that sounded a lot like an echo of XGaster’s own justifications.

“We are NOTHING like him,” Chara hissed. His white eyes burned crimson. “We’ll burn it all down to end this once and for all and get our happy ending.”

Frisk’s eyes slowly opened. His half-lidded eyes over irises blazing fierce and purple stared, uncomprehending, into the screen. They were full of DETERMINATION.

They could let Sans have his happiness for a little while longer. But soon…soon he’d need his help.

Whether the Guardsman was ready for it or not.

In his room, Cross’s eyelights darted across the page, absorbing every word as his inner voice read it and tried to change the sound to something his penpal might sound like. In his last letter, he’d asked if they wouldn’t mind sharing their pronouns, their hobbies, anything that wouldn’t be too too personal. But it was still something to learn more about his enigmatic friend.

For one, from all their correspondence thus far he’d learned his penpal was an avid lover of comedy, dropping some of the funniest jokes Sans had ever heard of. And, an interesting quirk he’d noticed, was as Sans had started doodling a taco at the end of his letter, his penpal had done the same with a cookie. Occasionally, there would be a rubber chicken or two on the borders of the paper as well. As if his penpal had gotten lost in thought or wanted to add some personality to his message.

Sans thought it was adorable.

Did they bite their lip when they wrote? Their pen, as he did occasionally? Did they like his doodles on the side of the paper? He’d like to think they did, as they’d been doodling more in response.

Breathless (despite not needing to breathe, it was soothing nonetheless to pretend he was a ‘normal’ monster), Sans read, his enigmatic friend becoming slightly less unknown.

My pronouns are coo/kie and mon/ster.

Sans snickered.

Nah, I’m playin’. I’m he/him/his, bruh, please and thank you.

Oh? They, ah, he, was male like him? Cool!

What else did they have in common?

Sans continued.

I don’t really do much. I spend most of my free time in the lab. As much as I like foolin’ around with differential cross sections and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, I’d also like to play video games or watch tv before I scream into nothing from the secondhand frustration of a failed experiment. You feel me?

Ah, well. Unfortunately, Sans had never been very…gifted, in the academic department. Science and math were as easy as breathing for XGaster, but Sans, well. If he hadn’t been required to take that IQ test by his father, he would’ve assumed all this time that he was simply stupid for how much he’d struggled in school, even with Alphys’s tutoring.

Oftentimes he still felt stupid

One of his many failures to his father No, his talents were more inclined towards the physicality of things. He was one of the top guards. Why, just the other day he’d finally been able to get the better of that stupid Mettabutt during sparring!

And at least his friend also liked games and movies. That was something else they could bond over.

Especially anime. Anime’s pretty cool.

Ooh, those action-packed shows? Absolutely!

A fun single or multiplayer game is Super Plumber Brothers, or if you’re into a more graphic novel oriented thing, I got a whole bunch of JRGs I can recommend.

Based off of our past letters, an anime I think you’d like (if you haven’t seen it already) is Trigun. You kinda remind me of the main protagonist, Vash, in a way. We haven’t met yet and only exchanged some letters, but you strike me as someone very earnest and compassionate.

Sans rapidly blinked as his eyes began to burn. His Soul beat faster in his chest.

He really thought that? About him?

From how you’ve written, I can practically feel how much you care about your friends and family and your world around you.

The words blurred as Sans’s hands trembled. A drop of liquid magic fell onto the paper.

Sorry for cutting this short, but my coworker has been on my ass lately about his project.

And I don’t like how he’s been looking at my eyes lately—

Sorry ‘bout that. Rambling again.

Anyway, send me any recs you got, too. I’ll save ‘em for when I’ve got time to chill. Hopefully soonish.

Laters Gators, A Friendly Far-Off Neighborhood Guy.

For a moment, Sans could only sit and stare at the innocuous sheet of paper before him. His friend…already held such a high view of him? And only from a few letters?

He sniffed. Wiping his watery eyes with the backs of his gloves before his eyelights burned in his sockets. He whipped out his own pen and paper and started to write, determined to reply as soon as he could and make his friend’s day as good as he’d made his.

Sans was straight up not having a good day. All day, he’d been dealing with the worst, throbbing headache. He thinks he’s dry heaved like, maybe twenty times into his office’s wastebasket. His bandaged skull throbbed over his eye.

He hadn’t been able to sleep since three days ago, bit after he’d had a nightmare so bad he’d woken up screaming and coughing up blood.

To make matters worse, Gaster was getting desperate. His precious machine wasn’t working. The Core readings weren’t lining up with any of their theories.

Sans was tired. He’d done what he could to make it look like he’d tried everything to get the machine to work. But he had this chill go down his spine everytime Gaster looked at him. Beyond the veil of disappointment, Sans worried sometimes that the bastard knew he was faking, knew that he was purposefully sabotaging Gaster’s plans.

He tried to reassure himself he was being ridiculous. Sure Gaster was a shitty, neglectful dad who forced Sans to follow in his footsteps and be a prolific scientific genius, leaving Sans little time for friendships or for pursuing any time for leisure. Not to mention how, after Gaster created Papyrus from a test tube and deemed him a failed experiment, abandoned him for Sans to raise on his own.

All in all, definitely not winning any dad of the year awards.

However, Gaster had never, to his credit, laid a harmful hand on Sans. Never tried anything like that to Papyrus, either.

But then Gaster strapped him down to that cold, hard table. His hands and legs tied down as the machine loomed towards his sockets, that eye held within its claw and staring into Sans the closer it got to him.

The internal matrix of mana that made up his eyelight ruptured as the Eye took over and everything burned it was too cold it hurt it hurt it wasn’t him get it out please Dad please—!

Sans gagged, doubling over. He grabbed the basket as quickly as he could and heaved, nothing coming out, as he choked.

Heh. Good thing he’d skipped breakfast.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

With unsteady hands, he reached for the letter that had been sitting on his desk. He’d been too out of it to read it earlier, but he was feeling mostly better now. Upchucking glittery vomit and all. And he could use something positive for this shitty week.

Skimming through, his mouth couldn’t help but quirk up into a half-hearted grin as he read the energetic, elegantly sprawled handwriting of his penpal.

I’m impressed by how much we have in common! My pronouns are also he/him/his. Aside from video games and watching shows, I also like cooking! Although, ah, I admittedly am not very good at it.

Heh, just like Papyrus. His poor brother adored cooking but he could—scratch that, should—never be a chef.

I follow the recipe to the letter and the next thing I know, everything’s on fire, my sister-friend is curled up in the corner crying, and there’s sirens wailing in the distance.

Sans couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped him. Eeesh. Poor guy. Maybe he could try sending a cookbook along with his letter. He could fool around with the pod, see if the limitations of mass manipulation could be stretched a little further.

He could feel the tension in his face loosen, his smile small and easy as he continued to read.

I’ll be sure to check out the anime you recommended. It's always fun to find new shows my brother and I will like. Our sister friend says she’s not interested, but she also loves anime so I think she’d like it too.

As for games, I think you’d like Prince of Persia, if you tried something besides science. The graphics are older, but the story is good and the mechanics are fun!

Oh hey, Sans loved that game. He thought the romance was really sweet. Tragic, at first, but they have an implied happy ending. Good stuff.

They really did have a lot in common.

Or even Animal Crossing. That one is very relaxing. Sometimes I play just to visit my home. It’s fun to imagine what it’d be like to have a place for myself.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing inherently bad with living with others! It just feels stifling whenever my father is around I don’t think Al is very happy here either

Sorry, looks like I lost my train of thought. You seem really smart and know a lot more about this complex stuff than I do. I bet my ramblings are pretty silly in comparison, huh?

Nothing wrong with that. Sans adores silly. In fact, it was one of the most important qualities in a datemate for him. Humor and fun nonsense were the only things that made him feel better nowadays.

He should write more things like that in his next letter. The last thing he wanted to do was make his penpal feel bad. They were supposed to become good friends, he couldn’t do that if he made him feel insecure about himself. Not to mention how shitty it made Sans feel for making someone else feel like they were less than.

That was Gaster’s job.

Yeah. He’d think of something fun to cheer his friend up. And if he could get the equations right, he could send over a few of his favorite rubber chickens. He couldn’t help but giggle at the thought of his friend opening the letter only to jump in surprise as a screaming rubber toy flew out at him. At the very least it would be a funny prank.

When Sans read the last line, however, his smile fell as ice filled his blood.

Maybe I can ask the Royal Scientist about it? XGaster knows all about those heisen-thingys you mentioned. I could ask him about those things for you if you’d like. He’d be able to help you with them more than I ever could.

The letter slipped out his hands as his vision blurred. He breathed, harsh and ragged, unable to finish the ending as the rest of the letter’s paragraphs blurred into a swirly mess of indecipherable lines of black and white.

His Eye burned.

#crepic fanfic #dude and bruh #epiccross #my writing #crepic letters #cross sans #epic sans

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