#sorry about any typos and weird scanning it is not beta-read

[beescream]

For @scenitroute! I was your Secret Santa @undertalesecretsanta this year, and I hope you like what I wrote for you - happy new year, too! Eta: when i moved this over from my fic editor it deleted all of my italics! Pls dont reblog this til i fix it :( im at work but i will do it asap. 

Eta2: fixed it!

“You know,” Papyrus remarked, absently stirring his tea as he gazed out at the sleet battering the road outside, “in all the books underground, when they show pictures of Spring, usually it looks.. greener. And less, you know, generally awful.”

From across the room, Sans hummed agreement and turned another page of the heavy paperback book he was cradling.

“I think that Fluffy Bunny might have been a little idealistic, Sans.”

“Surely not, bro.”

“I’m afraid so, Sans. I think the author of Fluffy Bunny may have been misled, somehow. Or lived somewhere less… abysmal.”

Sans looked up.

“You gotta remember, bro, it’s only mid-January. It’s not Spring yet. Maybe it’ll get better then?”

Papyrus turned away from the dismal view to squint at Sans, head tilting as if he was attempting to get water out of the ears he didn’t have.

“But we have celebrated Christmas, Sans! As you and I are both aware, the next season after Christmas is Spring, and as we left Christmas behind in December, along with the New Year - one of them, at least - that logically means that we are now in Spring.”

Sans’ vision tracked him as he paced across the living room of their new property. Three months was not long enough to make it feel like home, but it was getting there. He’d even managed to get Sans to promise to pick up any socks he left downstairs, and help with chores. His brother had even begun to wear other clothes - as had Papyrus! Human fashion was myriad and fascinating, and even a little intimidating at times, but that hadn’t stopped him from joining with his friends and the human for their first ever shopping trip.

Papyrus found his mind wandering back to the day he’d spent with his friends (friends! He had friends!), digging through boxes of clothes in charity shops, perusing the racks at department stores, being gazed at by many, many humans who were no doubt fascinated by his pearly white bones. Since moving up to the surface he’d read a little more about humans (to be polite) and found that humans also contained skeletons! Possibly they were related somehow, but no doubt it explained why he and his brother often got such strong reactions.

“Papyrus..?”

Papyrus’ head turned sharply to look at his brother, who appeared somewhat amused.

“Been calling you for a couple minutes. Here.”

“Don’t, Sans- augh!”

He reached out and snatched the mobile phone Sans had so carelessly tossed in his direction out of the air.

“One day you’ll break this, you know.”

“I know you’ll catch it.”

Sans shrugged, face already back in his book. Papyrus could see the glossy pages from where he stood, emblazoned with stars. He wasn’t sure why his brother loved them so much, but if it made him happy..

He looked at the phone’s screen.

“Spring,” it said, “is one of the four seasons. This year, Spring begins on the first of March, and ends on the thirty-first of May.”

The article then went on to talk about other seasons. Papyrus backed out of the article and searched again, this time more generally, for “Spring”. Once more he was displayed pictures of sun, blue skies, green grass, and lambs (apparently essential, for a proper Spring.There were also some coiled pieces of metal, although he discounted those). He scrolled through the results and frowned.

“Do humans only clean at one time of the year?”

“Uhh.. don’t think so. Why?”

“There are all these articles about Spring Cleaning.. I really hope our human acquaintances are more sanitary than these ladies. Brenda says she does her best cleaning in Spring.. Well, Brenda, maybe your cleaning would be better if you practised it year-round!”

“You tell her, bro.”

Papyrus looked around. All this talk of cleaning was making him feel antsy. His gaze alit on the tree.

“Don’t you think it’s about time we got rid of that, Sans? It sheds everywhere, and the dog is bad enough without pine needles, too.”

“I thought we were gonna wait ‘til February? If you wanna toss it, go for it. Means you don’t have to vacuum every hour, anyway.”

Papyrus privately thought saying he vacuumed every hour was unfair. It was every two hours, maybe every hour and a half if the tree was being particularly shed-y. It would be nice to have that time back.. And Sans would probably appreciate it, not being woken every few hours through the night.

“I’ll take it down to the dump,” he decided, “do you want to come, Sans?”

“I’m good, thanks, bro. But maybe Undyne would want to? You haven’t seen her in a couple of days. And you could, you know. Talk to her about.. That Thing.”

Papyrus nodded. He really did need to discuss That with her. This would be a trip to the dump with purpose!

—

An hour and a half later, and many, many needles down his shirt, in his socks, and one particularly awful introduction of a branch into his eyesocket, he was ready to go. Glaring at the tree, wrapped in a dirty sheet from Sans’ bed to stop needles from covering his car’s back seat, he slammed the door and winced as he heard the pot hit the door. Hopefully it wouldn’t leave a mark..

“Hugkh-”

“Hey, dude!”

Papyrus wheezed from beneath Undyne, air having been knocked out of him at her forceful greeting.

“Trip to the dump, huh? I am all over that! Do you think it’ll be much different from the one we had, you know, down there?”

Papyrus indicated he had no idea. Then, rather more forcefully, he indicated he’d quite like to get up, please.

“Ha! That’s so like you, Papyrus. Polite to a fault, even when your face is getting mashed into the rocks!”

She heaved him upright and left him to brush himself off, instead gazing in the windows of the car.

“Thanks for inviting me out, today, by the way! I was feeling kinda… cooped up. A trip to the dump is just what the doctor ordered! Not that I’ve been at the doctor. Or anyone has been to the doctor recently.”

He glanced at her, still picking pine needles off his skort, and watched her fidget. Her bulky coat hid her hands, but he could tell she was getting twitchy.

“Anyway!”

He sighed. It would be one of those trips.

—

The weight of the tree in the back made the car drive strangely, especially in sleet. He found himself slowing down even more than he would normally, taking corners carefully, giving himself more stopping time. Undyne sighed every time he tapped the brakes, practically bouncing in her seat. She flicked between stations on the radio, not allowing a single second of adverts to make it past her ears. Eventually it hit noon, and the news came on.

“Stop,” he said, “at least let’s listen to the headlines.”

“Ugh. It’s boring..”

..nother casualty of the riots in the downtown area was taken to hospital late last night. Police are appealing for any witnesses to come forward.

Further to the news that more monsters are planning the move from Underground, a speaker from the local anti-monster group made a statement this morning that the group is planning another protest in a few weeks time. A reply from the local monster advocacy groups is not yet forthcoming.

“This sucks,” said Undyne, stabbing a finger sharply into the power button. Papyrus didn’t stop her. He may not have had a stomach, but that didn’t stop the tight, cold feeling he got when he thought about the protests. “I feel like no matter what we do nothing happens, like it’s always gonna be this way! No matter what, monsters are always gonna be protested against and, I dunno, shunned.”

“It won’t be forever,” he said, far more confidently than he felt, “the good humans outnumber the bad! One day they’ll realise we’re just like them, except far more handsome, of course.”

Undyne sighed.

“Yeah. I met some pretty cool people when Alphys took me along to the meet on Friday. Obviously we didn’t go to the march, but maybe someday in the future. I’ve been working on shields - passive ones, you know? Not just the one you get with a spear. I dunno. It’d be nice to be able to protect th- myself. And Alphys, obviously, and anyone else who needs protecting, but mostly me and Alph, you know, not-”

“We’re here,” he said, interrupting her before she got totally wound up, and guided the car into the wide area at the entrance to the dump.

“Great!”

“No-”

Too late. She was already out of the car, stumbling out into the sleet with the car still moving. He sighed and braked. Handbrake on, he dug through the glove compartment for his wallet. He didn’t know if he had to pay for use of the dump or not, but he wouldn’t be caught empty-handed! Or empty-pocketed, as it were. He tucked the wallet into his jacket and joined Undyne outside.

She jostled him with her shoulder.

“So! What’s the plan? We gonna just… javelin this thing into the centre of this place? If we got a decent run-up, we could make it pretty far. Or put it on the roof of the car, and drive really fast, then brake-”

“I was thinking more like taking it over there,” he said mildly, pointing at the sign that read ‘XMas TREE DisPOSaL’ in thick black marker.

Undyne shook a layer of sleet off her hood.

“That’s fair. Boring, but fair.”

They opened the car door and gazed in at the ghostly white-wrapped tree.

“I’ll take this end,” announced Undyne, and gripped the base of the tree, tugging hard. The tree shuddered - then the pot slid off the end, sending her stumbling back with a yelp. Darting forward, Papyrus caught her barely before she hit the ground, hearing a faint clonk of the pot landing somewhere in the distance.

They awkwardly righted themselves.

“Right,” said Undyne. “Right.”

Papyrus stepped back. He recognised that particular tone.

“Don’t hurt my car, please,” he said.

“I won’t. I’m just gonna carry that WHOLE TREE over to the disposal area ALONE,” growled Undyne, striding over confidently.

“Okay!”

“Rrrrrrraghh!”

Undyne hefted the tree over her head. It looked very impressive, Papyrus thought, or it would have if the sheet hadn’t halfway unravelled to lie damply over her face.

“Do you want me to-”

“Aaaaaaaugh!!”

“Okay.”

She ran, full tilt, across the car park, blindly. If he was being generous, he could have said it was towards the vicinity of the sign. Closing the car doors - and silently promising his poor car a proper cleaning later - he set off. Papyrus to the rescue! The rescue of whoever encountered Undyne, that was, of course. Undyne would never need to be rescued.

He found her face first in a fence.

“How’s the trip to the tree disposal area going, Undyne?”

“Great.”

“I see.”

He leaned against the fence. He still couldn’t see her face. Perhaps now, with little chance of eye contact, was a good time to bring up the Thing.

“Do you, maybe, have something to tell me, Undyne?”

“No,” she said immediately.

“Of course not. If you turn ninety degrees to your left, you’ll be headed in the right direction, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

He waited until the next crash to catch up with her.

“Okay, so, when I said you’d be headed in the right direction, that wasn’t an instruction to run directly into the sign without stopping, but at least we’re here now. You can put the tree down over there- no. No, not there, either. Left a bit - bit more- stop! Right a bit. Stop. Step back a little then toss the tree gently forwards and up. I’d say.. Maybe at an eighth of your full strength.”

The tree made a surprisingly soft shuff as it was deposited neatly at the top of the pile. Undyne struggled out of the sheet to survey their handiwork with a grin.

“Nice! We should do something like this again sometime, except, you know, with more rules and less fences. And trees,” she added, reaching into her ear to pick out a pine needle.

“Yes,” he agreed, “it was certainly an interesting experiment. Although maybe next time we could also do it when it’s not sleeting outside. Maybe… sometime in Spring?”

“Sounds good.”

They got back into the car, Papyrus waving cheerfully at the security camera he spotted on the way.

“I might go back home the long way,” he said to Undyne, “the weather is clearing up - look.”

Where he pointed to, a patch of blue could be seen between the clouds.

“Hey, nice! Spring’s just around the corner, huh?”

“Actually it’s not til March the first,” he corrected her, turning onto another street.

“Huh. Didn’t know that.”

“Neither did I, til this morning.”

He eyed her out the corner of his eye. Still looking distracted.

“I know that it may sound like an utter falsehood,” he continued, “but there are actually some things I don’t know.”

“Really?”

“I know it sounds ridiculous, but I can’t claim to know something if people don’t tell me. That would be mindreading, and while I am a skeleton of many talents, telepathy is not one of them.”

“Uh-huh.”

She was going to try to avoid it, then. Papyrus internally shook his head, then externally shook his head, too, for good measure. Time to pull out all the stops.

“Undyne.”

“Yep.”

“I know you have something to say to me. I also know that you are too scared to tell me. Frankly I can understand this - I am an awesome and frankly inspiring sight, however, we’re friends! And friends should always be able to tell each other the truth, right?”

That ought to do it, he decided. She was cracking, he could tell.

“Papyrus.. listen-”

It was a good thing the street was deserted, because when he heard her speak, he slammed on the brakes.

“Undyne!”

“Don’t,” she said, “augh, don’t, Papyrus, I’m fine!”

“You’re crying! You are not fine! What do I do? What DID I do? Oh my god, I’m the worst friend ever-”

“-no you’re not, I’m the worst, it’s ME, Papyrus - don’t you start crying too, you can’t drive if you’re blubbing, Papyrus, come on-”

He swallowed, feeling her scrub roughly at his maxilla, her thumbs wiping away the ‘tears’ of magic created by his distress.

“Sorry,” she grunted, snuffling a little, “it’s just- ugh, you’re dry, just drive, I gotta think about this, I dunno what I’m gonna say. Gimme five minutes.”

“Alright. But I’ll be counting!”

The streets began to peel by again, grey and unappealing for the most part - and then there would be a flash of colour from leftover decorations, or, rarely, from more recent ones for the Chinese New Year. He scanned the horizon, looking for birds (still a novelty, to see them so high up in the sky and moving. Birds underground didn’t fly.)

Undyne coughed.

“It’s been five minutes,” she said, “so. I’m just gonna.. Go. I’m just gonna say it.”

Papyrus raised his eyebrows expectantly after a moment.

“Are you?”

“Ngahh! Yes! I! AM!”

He watched her fist bounce off the dashboard. Hopefully no dents would be left behind. Plastic was a pain to fix.

“Alphys! Is! Pregnant! ..Maybe!”

He pulled over. He exited the car. He pulled her out of the car. He embraced her.

Then he got back into the car. After a moment, so did she.

“Uhh. So. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but.. It’s scary, you know?”

He nodded.

“But.. depending on how the next couple of checkups go, we’ll know if we’re really gonna have a kid. Or kids, seeing as both her family and mine tend towards multiples. We might end up with an ARMY! Haha!”

Undyne was gesturing wildly, far more animated now than before.

“We’re gonna have to think of names, and buy clothes, and teach them to walk and talk, and all that stuff! Real parent stuff! Real, you know, couple stuff! Which is also scary! Not that I’m scared!”

Papyrus nodded, letting it flow over him. He’d finally gotten her to open up. Emotional-Undyne crisis had been averted. Now he just had to clean his car..

Roll on March 1st. Spring Cleaning could never be this hard, right?