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theundertalenebulartheory · 1 year ago

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WELL THE POWER AND INTERNET ARE STILL OUT IDK WHEN ITS COMING BACK AND THE NEW CHAPTER IS HAUNTING MEEEEE SO HERE IT IS YOU CAN HAVE IT IN TUNGLR FORMAT UNTIL THE POWER COMES BACK AND I CAN GET THE NEW CHAPTER UP ON AO3

Chapter 23: In Which We Go Camping Again And Nothing Catches On Fire This Time Except A Few Faces

((There will be a little Present Day Blurb in the Summary Section when this chapter goes up on AO3 as well as some End Of Chapter notes about how very normal I’m feeling about the Summer Newsletter))

You’d taken up journaling. There wasn’t, exactly, a whole lot you could do about the whole Time Travel thing. And whether or not you woke up one day or another you weren’t entirely sure you’d be able to tell the difference between the first and 50th time you’d lived a specific day.

But there was the thing about certain things just kindof existing in your knowledge bank that you kept coming back to. Which meant that you’d learned them in the first place.

Which brought you to the journal. Even if you didn’t exactly have a lot of confidence that *what* you wrote could be maintained from one timeline to the next (otherwise you assumed you’d be finding a paper trail of some kind lying conspicuously around the house) but if you could somehow internalize what you were writing about, then maybe... maybe you could at least start over with a bigger toolbox than what you’d had previously.

Along those same lines, you’d also taken Papyrus up on his offer to really start training you in earnest. There was so, so much to do. Bills to pay. Taxes to file. Portfolios to submit. But Papyrus made time for you, and you made time for him. And as you did, you started to notice things that you wondered if maybe you’d already noticed before.

Like the fact that reading was hard for him. And articulating some of his thoughts could be a bit of a challenge. There was that whole Junior Jumble thing too, and that particular bullet point got double underlined in your fancy new journal. He was just too smart for that to NOT mean something.

Paps wasn’t the only one under the microscope. Sans, too, was exhibiting some behaviors that you’d started to jot down on a page in your new book. First of all, the man couldn’t read a map to save his life. He just needed to BE there. Or have been there. But where he’d been and where he needed to go were almost two completely separate things. It was almost like whatever filing system his brain used for how to get to places was totally removed from the actual 3D space itself. You‘d even asked him one time if he was inside a new house, couldn’t he just estimate the distance between himself and a backyard just outside that he’d never been to before and shortcut there? Nope. Only places he’s been, or places he can, in any given moment, actively see. There was also the sarcasm, tone-deaf thing too. But that one got a question mark next to it in your notes. That one might have been more of a cultural difference... except that Papyrus was the most sassy and sarcastic person you knew. So the note stayed regardless.

You’d been taking other notes too. Notes about things you’d been learning from Muffet. Things you’d been learning on your own as you tried to do what Muffet explained and then messed it up horrifically. To your credit, though, the look on Papyrus’ face when you accidentally messed up his bullet pattern because you’d managed to create a funnel that caught and redirected every one of them was freaking hilarious.

Slightly less hilarious was the loss of HP when the far end of that funnel was connected to your soul and you took an entire field of bullets right in the chest all at once.

And so a note ended up in the journal. But as winter changed to spring and your university graduation drew nearer, you found yourself drawn to a date. An event, rather. Which is what you’d been looking for in your philosophical discussions with Sans. A landmark of some kind. And here it was.

A meteor shower.

You discussed it with Papyrus and Sans and the three of you decided that Sans needed the trip the most (in spite of what he argued to the contrary) and so the two of you would go together. Especially when the possibility of bringing everyone else along got brought up and both you And Papyrus suddenly got extremely cagey for no discernable reason and suddenly you very much wanted to stay home.

You didn’t.

But you were tempted. Papyrus decided to stay home though. There was something… something undeniably anxiety-inducing about the day that none of you could put your finger on. So Pap stayed. And you and Sans went to see the meteor shower.

Your old beater absolutely was Not going to make the trip, but you had an uncle with a truck that was willing to trade you vehicles for one weekend so you could go see the stars. You picked up Sans and his telescope from Toriel’s McMansion of a home at 4 AM Friday morning, noticing the way he eyed all the totes and bags in the truck bed somewhat disbelievingly. But he climbed in after securing the box for his telescope with some spare bungee cords and buckled up without verbally questioning it all too much.

“Alright, we’ve got road snacks in the center console, a little baby cooler on the back seat with drinks, and you’ve had all the pit-stops you’re going to need for a few hours?”

“ ‘m good.” His voice was extra low and graveled so early in the morning and you did your best to keep the effect that was having on you down to a minimum.

“Awesome. You’re totally ok to nap for a few hours, by the way, once we make it out of Ebbott. I’m way too hype for this trip to even be slightly sleepy so you go to sleep for a bit. It’s gonna be a solid 8 hours in the car even once we’re past the way station. Might as well nap for some of it.”

As if on queue he stifled a yawn, settling into the seat to get comfortable and adjusting the angle of the seat backing. “nah, i’m awake.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. Super awake. At 4 AM. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

“you’ve never met anyone as awake as I am right now.”

“Sure.”

Thankfully the waystation wasn’t busy at this time of the morning, and Sans was able to shortcut to the roof of the building without issue. You passed inspection with no issues, and Sans dropped through your roof to land easily in the passenger’s seat once you were rolling past it. You had a nice laugh about it together, but after that you didn’t even make it onto the freeway before he was softly snoring. It took a little station surfing, but soon enough there was a smooth jazz radio station to keep the road noise from being too distracting for him. This was a pretty big deal, and you didn’t want anyone to start the day off on a sour note. He was going out on a limb, doing a one-on-one trip with you after all of the soul-bond weirdness had finally started to settle down and your relationship friendship was finally starting to get easier again. The least you could do is make sure he started the day well rested.

It was funny though. What soft snoring sounds he was making for the first 20 or so minutes of the drive changed a little bit, smoothing out into almost soundless deep breathing after some time driving. You weren’t 100% sure how to feel about that, but you shrugged it off without taking it too much to heart. He stayed asleep until the sun was well over the horizon, the strategic way you’d arranged the sun visor to block the worst of the rays finally failing as the freeway turned in just the right direction to evade your best attempts to keep his face out of the sun.

Blearily, he came to, and you made sure to continue bobbing your head side-to-side along with the music even as there was motion in your periphery. You let him look around and rub his face on his own terms without calling attention to it, letting him decide when he was ready to engage with you. It took a minute, but not as long as you thought maybe it would take, before he finally yawned out loud and grumbled a little to himself. You finally peeked over at him, caught his eye, smiled, and kept driving.

“never took you for a smooth jazz type.”

“No?”

“nah.” His voice was still rough with sleep, and you reminded yourself silently that you REALLY needed to get a grip on yourself if you were going to survive the weekend.

“It’s nice to study to. Lo-fi, smooth jazz, instrumental covers of pop songs. It’s also nice to have on as background napping music.”

“…ah. you didn’t have to do that. i can sleep through anything.”

You hummed thoughtfully, switching the radio station to something a little less… well, a little more like something you would prefer to listen to for hours at a time. “Maybe. But you had to get up early. And you’re going to be up late.”

"hopefully. kindof hard to watch a meteor shower when its daytime.”

You rolled your eyes at him fondly and shook your head. “Alright, wise guy. I spy with my little eye something red.”

Between the car games you knew, songs on the radio that you liked, (a check-in phone call to alleviate some of the itching in the back of your brain) and the snacks, eight hours in the car flew by faster than you thought it would. You made it to the campsite just after noon, and even with Sans’ inexperience in the ways of Tent Poles you had a nice little campsite set up just in time for lunch. Your totes of pillows and blankets didn’t go into the tents, though. Not yet, anyways. Those you dumped out into the bed of the truck and made a lovely stargazing nest out of. There was a little nature walk and a stream to play in nearby your site that took up most of the afternoon, and by the time Sans had somehow soundly beaten you at ‘how many frogs can I catch’ (you had your suspicions that maybe some shortcuts and trickery had been involved, but you couldn’t be too mad about it when he smiled like that) it was time to stoke up a fire and cook dinner. You checked in with Papyrus again, and discovered that Toriel had started feeling apprehensive also and had started doing some gardening outside.

Regrettably, it turned out that Sans was the kind of heathen that liked his marshmallow burnt to a crisp even after you made him a perfectly golden-brown masterpiece of a mallow. But he seemed to have fun with the process, and really that was all that mattered. You did too, it had been years since you’d been camping (as far as you remembered). It brought back tons of great memories, some of which hadn’t been so great when you’d been going through them but made for hilarious stories now that you were older and time had smoothed the rough edges. Nothing actually terrible, of course. But plenty enough awkward and miserable that Sans actually fell out of his camp chair laughing as you really hammed up the retelling of the time that your parents had taken your family camping during ‘monsoon season’ and a microburst had chased the lot of you underneath the upside-down shell of your tent after the wind had snapped 100% of your tent poles.

Regaling him with stories of misadventures in camping as a kid ate away at the hours of the early evening, as did another check-in phonecall to Pap and Tori.

“you think that whatever might have happened in that past timeline... it was bad?” Sans asked as you hung up your fourth check-in phonecall of the night, firelight dancing over his bones.

You sighed and rubbed your hand over your face, knowing logically that you were clearly having some kind of mental breakdown over nothing at all but grateful that it wasn’t just you experiencing a bout of unexplainable anxiety tonight. “It’s got to be, right? Especially with Pap and Tori feeling it too. But we don’t know what it is. And that’s the tricky part, isn’t it? We don’t know if it’s some kind of earthquake that’s going to strike or if like... we did all come camping together before and Frisk fell and broke their leg. There’s just this feeling of... I just need to check on them. All of them. And if I don’t, then something bad might happen. And if it’s a feeling that extends to all of them, then that kindof feels... big, you know? Like it’s not just that I need to check on Papyrus, because if that’s the feeling I had then it would make sense that Papyrus was the one that something bad happened to. Right?”

Sans nodded, looking grimly down into the fire. “we can go back if you want to.”

“No,” you shook your head quickly and settled back into your folding chair. “I want to be here. And I know that they’ve all got each other. I think I just need to stop scratching the itch, you know? They’ll call if something happens. And if something happens, we can always jump right home. But we’re here, it’s a beautiful night, and I’m having fun. I want to see the meteor shower.”

“well... long time between now and then.”

You checked your watch and grinned. “Yeah, but the stars are pretty great even before it’s time for the meteor shower to really kick into gear. Actually, we’re probably far enough past sunset now to get started. Most of the light pollution should be gone now. Wanna see something cool?”

“sure.”

You winked at him as you stood up and grabbed the bucket of stream water, dousing the fire with a spectacular hiss.

The effect was almost instantaneous, as your bucket of water reduced the firepit to a smoking black ring, the sky above you burst into life. Your attention was on the ring of stones at first, checking for any glowing embers you might have missed (Smokey the Bear was NOT going to be disappointed in you tonight!) but you could hear the gasp next to you. And you remembered your first time coming out to one of these truly Dark Sky Zones. Your own father dumping water on the fire and the way you’d quite literally fallen over yourself trying to crane your neck far enough to take it all in.

Satisfied that you’d sufficiently soaked the coals, you carefully reached out to touch his shoulder to catch his attention. He tilted his head your direction a few degrees, but didn’t take his eyes off of the sky.

“Hey. Your eyes aren’t quite adjusted to the dark yet. Close your eyes for like… 20 seconds to let them adjust a little, then try again. I promise it’s worth it.”

“heh. seems… pretty worth it already. but… ok.”

He was loathe to peel his gaze away from the stars for even a second, but with some effort he eventually closed his eyes. With a near-giddy grin, you took his arm.

“Keep ‘em closed. No tricks. I’m just going to guide you towards the truck. It’ll be worth it. Just keep your eyes closed for a bit longer, and when we get to the truck don’t peek. Use the chance to get up into the truckbed as a chance for you eyes to adjust a little more. The dark blankets will help kindof… force your eyes to finish adjusting to the dark. Then you can look. Promise.”

You guided him expertly and carefully, in spite of his grumbling about it, back to the pickup truck and the blanket nest you’d built earlier in the day. He looked down just long enough to climb into it, but as soon as he was settled among the pillows his face was turned heaven-ward again. You settled in too, and finally let the weight of being the responsible host slide off of your shoulders enough to relax into the moment and gaze at the trillions of stars that made the sky glow like the very best and most impressive NASA satellite images available. But with a depth and grandeur that no photo could ever capture.

It was cool, of course. Grand and spectacular and majestic and poetic and whatnot. But… you couldn’t keep your head from lolling to the side so you could watch Sans.

His eye sockets had never been so wide. And his eye lights practically filled the whole space. They were so bright, too. Brighter than a whole handful of stars. Bright enough that you could almost see the rims of his sockets glowing with just how intensely he was focused on taking in absolutely every single detail. If you didn’t know any better, you’d guess he was having the equivalent of a religious experience as his gaze swept reverently across the Milky Way.

You let him be.

You kept watching him, but you did so silently. He’d never looked so relaxed in his life, nor had he ever looked so small. The usual softness to his figure held up by some kind of magic that gave him such a huggable shape day in and day out was completely abandoned and his clothing draped loosely over his bones in a way that showed off just how little mass he really actually had. You’d never actually seen his shirt fall into the gap between his pelvis and his ribs, even when he had been sleeping in the car. But his sleeves, his shirt, his shorts, everything draped over his bones and nothing more than his bones and he looked so, so small. So slight. Like a stiff breeze might blow him away. And you had to fight the urge to bundle him up in your arms and burrito him in a blanket just to make sure some bluejay didn’t grab him by the spine and fly off with him (hour of the night notwithstanding.)

After what felt like 30 minutes you watched him tug one of his mittens off and then lift his hand towards the heavens, reaching out for the stars. It was deeply endearing, and you grinned to yourself. That was one of the funny things about stargazing that you couldn’t anticipate just by looking at pictures of the stars. If you watched them, flat on your back, for long enough… you started to get a sense for depth. You could start to feel just how vast, like watching the sea stretch out all the way to the horizon, the expanse was. Incomprehensible though it was. And in that vastness… there was you. Little old you. Floating in the middle of all of it.

And since you were floating… couldn’t you just… you could almost just… if you could just reach a little further, then, maybe…

It was funny how such immeasurable intensity could mess with your head. Logically, of course, you knew you couldn’t. But your heart still wanted so desperately to believe that it was right there. And as you watched Sans reach, starlight glittering through the hole in his palm, you let your gaze follow the line of his hand heavenward again.

“Feels so close, doesn’t it? So close but so far.”

“… yeah.”

“Hey.”

“hm.”

“Just a fair warning,” you kept your voice low, so as not to disturb the moment, but you could feel his eyes slide over to you anyways. “Looking at this many stars all at once tends to make people wax philosophical. And being up late with someone tends to lead to really deep and personal conversations. So just like… a fair warning that you’re going to be really tempted to start talking about eternity and the multiverse theory and the insignificance of our existence and all that. Which I am totally down for. But if you’re not, this is your disclaimer now. This is the deep end of the pool, my guy.”

He huffed a laugh and shook his head, settling back into the pillows. “good to know.”

There really wasn’t anything like a sky bursting with stars on a cool and clear night. The Milky Way stretched the full length of it, well and truly glowing with life and energy. It had been years since you’d been out here, but the view was no less awe-inspiring than it was when you were half as tall and dozens of times more carefree. The memory was a gift you cherished, and the way it had molded your worldview couldn’t be bought with all the gold and silver under Mount Ebott. How many lives would be so different if more people could come out to a place like this and watch such a spectacular parade of stars and feel, profoundly, how small your place was in the cosmos every few years or so?

“I’m sorry.”

“… don’t be.”

“Someone needs to be. I can’t fathom how… a thousand years ago, this would have been what our ancestors would have seen every single night. How can you see something like this every single night and treat people like that? Put them under a mountain?”

“now who’s being all philosophical?”

“Oh, it’s me, for sure. That warning was for you in case you didn’t really want to share anything deep, but it was also a warning for you that I AM going to get all deep. Super deep.”

“that’s what she said.” You could hear the grin in his voice, and you were half tempted to sit up and wiggle your eyebrows at him, but you weren’t quite done admiring the view yet. You’d just started to notice a star moving a tiny bit faster than the other ones and you were suspecting maybe you were looking at a planet that you didn’t want to lose sight of just yet. Definitely not fast enough to be a satellite, but maybe a planet.

“Nice… Vaguely Related Side Note: Conceptually I understand the mechanics of how a strap-on works. But there’s also this little nagging voice in the back of my head that says,” at this point Sans started to crack up but you kept going undisturbed, “if you were actually to put one of those on… the specific location where the dildo would sit isn’t actually supported by any bone structure. The bone structure sits too low to actually provide support where you’d need it. Right? It’d be like strapping it onto your – Sans I’m being serious, stop giggling – strapping it onto your stomach. It’s all soft tissue right there! Wouldn’t that be uncomfortable?”

He managed to string something together in response, but it was nearly impossible to understand through his wheezing. Something about a harness and weight distribution and something called a ‘symphasis.’ “No, I GET the harness part, but still. Like… there’s going to be a concentrated amount of force on a non-reinforced part of your body. You gotta consider the pounds per square inch.”

His wheezing devolved into a deep and rolling laughter and he doubled over into a fetal position with the force of it. “i didn’t realize that this is what you meant when you said we were going to get deep,” he coughed and continued to giggle, barely holding onto his composure. “the harness has like… a plate. not a plate, what word am i looking for? a triangle. a patch. that’s not it either. a base. spreads out the surface area on the bone structure.”

“Ah, that would help.” You finally pulled your eyes away from the maybe-planet and watched his laughter fade into a smile, humor still working towards smoothing out the exhaustion usually carved into his face. You were really starting to get to know the subtle micro-expressions that tugged at his skeletal grin, and for once this one looked genuinely pleased with no reserved hints of worry or masking. “Glad to hear from the expert. I was really worried there. One less mystery of the universe to worry about now.”

He snorted, a strange sound without all the internal nasal structures that normally came with being human-shaped, but a close enough approximation to the sound that you could tell what he’d meant to do. “didn’t know you came star-gazing with a… sex-pert.”

“Better you than me,” you joked. “People get DEEPLY uncomfortable with people in public education having hobbies other than like… jigsaw puzzles and knitting. Gotta prepare for the next 30 years of G-rated fun only.”

“ok, but you and alphys killed that jigsaw the other night, though.”

“That is entirely beside the point,” you countered with a very put-upon frown. Sans just snickered, and you couldn’t help the urge to lean over and rest your head on his shoulder. This had been what you’d been wanting so badly when you invited him to come with you. Sure, the two of you had spent hours together debating the finer points of timeline shenanigans. But it really did seem to eat at him. If you had to hazard a guess, he was maybe even starting to show symptoms of depression. Not that you’d call him out on it, of course. But that didn’t mean you were just going to lay down and let the man just BE depressed either. So... you brought him camping. Some sunshine. Some fresh air. Change of scenery. And a sky full of stars to get lost under. An excuse to pull out his old telescope, ready and waiting for you just beside the pickup truck.

“My grandma could knit,” you mused out loud after a comfortable silence had settled between you. “She tried to teach all the grandkids how to do it. Emphasis on tried, anyways. I never could get it. She tried when I was like… seven? Bored out of my mind, couldn’t grasp the concept. Grandma loved to make dolls for her great grandkids. None of the boys ever really liked dolls so she actually went online and found these patterns to knit Transformers so they wouldn’t feel left out. What’s funny about that, though, is once she started making them then all the grandkids wanted one. Even ones who’d already gotten a regular doll. And then their friends wanted one. She thought about starting an online business before her health tanked. I still have mine in my closet. It’s cool.”

Sans shifted, and when you peeked over at him, he was looking at you with the corners of his smile falling a little bit downwards. “is she… uh…”

“Yeah. She passed on a couple of years ago.”

“sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Your eyes sparkled with the ability to parrot his own words back at him. The sparkle didn’t last, though, and you turned your eyes back to the stars. “She was really sick, and she hated wasting away. She was one week away from 100 years old. I kept telling everyone we needed to have an early party for her. 100 years is a pretty big deal. But… people were busy. It happens.”

“sounds like you two were close.”

“Oh, sure. I lived with her.” You put your hands behind your head and started looking for any constellations you could remember. The peak of the meteor shower wasn’t going to be until much, much later in the night. “One year after starting Uni is when Grandma’s health tanked. Everyone else either had families or stuff going on or was too young. They were going to put her in a home,” you caught yourself, identifying that Sans might not have the social context to know what that implied. So, you amended, “a, uh, a communal elderly living center that’s expensive as hell and has like... staff and nurses and stuff like that to take care of the old people’s needs. But it’s also… kindof famous for being the place you drop old people off and then abandon them until they die because you’re paying all this money for nurses and staff to take care of them. Just... shuck that responsibility off on someone else. Which sucks.”

“that’s... horrible. humans really do that?”

“Not everybody, for sure. But it’s not uncommon either. And to be fair, nobody in my family wanted that for her, but grandma needed help and nobody else was really in a great place to step up and do the 24/7 care thing that she needed. Which is part of the reason old people end up in those care centers in the first place. Everyone’s so poor and busy trying to get by that they literally can’t keep up with the level of care that a lot of really old people need. Even if it’s their own flesh-and-blood family. So… I... said I’d do it. I moved in just after finishing my second spring semester. Spent seven years doing 24/7 care for her. Meds, bathing, diapers, the whole bit. She got social security checks in the mail and a veterans check because of grandpa, and I used them to pay the bills and feed us both. Buy her meds and stuff. The aunts and uncles would come over sometimes but... not for very long. Fifteen, maybe thirty minutes. Then they’d be gone again for months.

“It was about… oh… maybe... Year 5 of just the two of us, barely any visitors ever, when Grandma met with the people managing her trust and included in her will a laughably low sale price for the house contingent upon her passing and first right of refusal for me. It was still more than I could really, actually afford, but… in today’s market? I couldn’t pass it up. I’d be the world’s biggest idiot to let that offer slip through my fingers, no matter how hard it was going to be to make it work.

“So, here I am. A decade behind all my peers. Just barely finishing my degree. Working 2 jobs that I get paid for and one that I don’t. I love Science Saturdays and it looked amazing on my resume, but doing a whole job for free really sucks while trying to maintain a scholarship. I’m glad it’s over and I’m finally a graduate. I thought about still doing it through the summer but... nah. I think that chapter of my life is done.”

“wait… you don’t get paid for that?”

“Nope. I don’t. 100% volunteer hours. Which… again, great resume builder. Great for getting experience with coordinating and managing and such. Great for building connections and networking and the like. No dinero, though. Nothin’ but pictures where my money used to be. The real money maker is the waitressing gig, but that comes and goes too. Did you know that most restaurants pay about $2 an hour and whatever you make in tips has to be reported to the IRS so you can get a year’s worth of taxes all billed at once on April 15th?”

“that’s messed up.”

“It is, but on the bright side I’ve gotten SO responsible with money. Budget game off the charts. Color-coded Excel spreadsheets and everything. Quicken could never.” He chuckled softly, but you could almost hear the gears turning in his head. Putting puzzle pieces together. Connecting dots. You braced for the inevitable pity or sympathy or whatever aww-that’s-so-sad sentiment might come out of him next.

“what keeps you going?”

You blinked at the Milky Way, surprised. It took a minute of thought, but eventually you said, “Spite.” He barked a laugh and you snickered along with him. “No, but really. Hope, probably. It’s just… got to get better. I don’t want to live like this forever. It has to end. Or… change, I guess. Not end. Gotta beat grandma’s record. I want… friends. TIME. Room to breathe. I want to take a fencing class. I want to learn another language. I want to paint again. I want to go dancing with friends and bake them cookies and have dumb inside jokes. I don’t want to be lonely until I die. There’s so much out there to see and do and learn and experience and I’m stuck with my nose to the grindstone and it’s got to mean something. I’m just holding onto that with a white-knuckled grip until my fingers bleed. The hope that it gets better. And if it won’t get better on its own then damn it, I’m going to make it get better.”

Sans shook his head. “perseverance.”

“Heh. Yeah. Funny how that works out. But that does leave me with some questions, though.”

“oh?”

He turned more fully to you, propping himself up on his elbow, and you matched his pose with a mischievous sparkle in your eye. “Absolutely. I mean, you use blue magic, right? Like a bright, sky-blue?”

“cyan.”

“Right, right,” you nodded. “I can’t quite remember what that one is though. Cyan stands for ‘cute,’ right?”

The glowing blush that erupted over his zygomatic arches was, indeed, cyan. And you waggled your eyebrows at his sputtering. “Yep. Definitely stands for cute.”

Sans laughed and rolled onto his back, ducking into the hood of his jacket to hide his embarrassment. “patience, actually.”

“Oh?” You chased after him, leaning over him and bracing an arm on the other side of his ribcage so you could grin down at his furious blush. “You know Pap would tell you patience is just a fancy word for laziness.”

Sans snickered, the blush fading a little now that you’d had the good grace to turn the conversation to safer topics. “probably. even if...”

“...if nothing could be further from the truth,” you answered along with him, matching his cadence, your eyebrows pinching together in confusion as the words sprang unbidden from your throat. A flash of a frown passed over Sans’ face, his eye lights constricting, but he shrugged it off after a moment of tension.

“guess we know I’ve said that before.”

“Or I have,” you offered, but he shook his head.

“nah. i've said it a few times. thought it a few times. that's a ‘me’ thing.”

You tilted your head to the side and tucked a few fingers into the mitten still holding onto the edge of his hood. You wanted to make sure he could feel your sincerity. “I believe it, too. You work really hard. I don’t know why you let Pap call you lazy all the time.”

Sans’ smile grew soft and fond, and his eye lights fuzzed at the edges. He held your eye for a moment longer before turning to the grand display overhead. “he’s not wrong. usually. he knows when i need a good pick-me-up. not that i'm very heavy. he's the best. i can see why you like him.”

You caught something unsaid in his comment. Well, a few things. Sans never had been very forthcoming with any kind of details about his mental or emotional health, so the pick-me-up comment and the deflecting joke about his weight was probably the closest you'd ever get to him admitting that he struggled with either of those things. But there’s some additional deflection and redirection in there too that makes you want to pin him down and hold his face in your hands and press your feelings for him directly into his soul so he knew, unequivocally, that he was important too. That it isn’t and never will be a competition. That you loved him, that you trusted him, that...

“I like you both,” you clarified instead, and the soft blush across his zygomatic arches returned. “I think you both are great, in your own ways. You’re... a pair. A matched set.”

Sans’ eye lights drifted back to meet your eyes, his expression shifting in the dark. There was something searching and vulnerable in it, so you continued. “You don’t have one without the other. Unless you want to be. But you’re both better when you’re together. You... complete each other. Even if you do drive each other crazy. Humans have a phrase... two sides to the same coin. You’re kindof like that.”

Sans huffed a little laugh and his head rolled into your joined hands. Acting on a whim, you slipped your fingers out of his grip and traced your fingers over his blush until you were cupping his cheek in your palm. Your thumb brushed over the pearlescent pseudo-bone, or whatever bone-like structure his magic was made out of, and he nuzzled into your hand with a sigh.

“Tell me about Patience magic? I want to know more about you.” Sans’ expression was impossibly soft already, but somehow he melted even more into the blanket nest at your prompt.

“heh. uh. alright." He wiggled a little to get comfortable, hands pillowing behind his head. “well. uh. you've probably figured this out, but the soul traits don’t totally match with the modern use of the word. meanings change over time. so patience magic is mostly about opportunity, really. waiting for just the right moment. knowing what the right moment even is.”

You grinned down at him. “Oooooh, so that’s why your comedic timing is so good.”

His lazy wink was so genuine and dazzling, you almost leaned in to kiss the humored crinkle at the corners of his mouth. But you didn’t. “it helps, yeah.”

You rested your head on your shoulder and your smile turned coy. “Is there anything else it helps with?”

His eye lights constricted a fraction, and he traded some of the humor in his smile for intensity. “a few things. opportunities are all over the place, you know. you just gotta know what you’re looking for.”

One of his hands came to rest on the forearm you were using to brace yourself over him. “And what is it that you’re looking for?”

He didn’t answer right away, his eye lights drifting through the endless sea of stars above you with a faraway pensiveness that silently stretched out between you like the blanket of nightfall. “it changes,” he finally murmured. “but i think these days it’s just, uh... the simple life. good friends. bad food. terrible jokes. home. belonging.”

You allowed your hand slide from his cheek down to rest on his ribcage instead, noticing not for the first time just how quiet and still he was without breath or heartbeat. It’s different. But different didn’t have to be negative. Different could be a positive thing too. “Does that mean you don’t feel like you’ve found it yet?”

His eye lights shifted to meet yours, and he winked again after a second of thought. “you don’t ever stop looking for terrible jokes. or bad food. or good friends.”

More unspoken words hiding between the lines. More half-truths and deflection. You’d be a little annoyed with it if you didn’t get the sense that there was something aching terribly in his soul that he was trying desperately to bury. You’d caught little flashes of that cavern in his chest here and there over the past few months of working together about the timeline problem, and you couldn’t help but feel profoundly sad that he’d carried that for so long. It had been years since monsters had come up to the surface. And he was still dealing with it.

So, he could have a little deflection. As a treat.

“I dunno, I think maybe you’ve already learned a lifetime’s worth of terrible jokes,” you teased. And Sans was all too eager to latch onto the ‘out’ you’d offered with both hands.

“no way. a guy can never have too many terrible jokes.”

“Nope. You have too many. How’s anybody supposed to surprise you with a new joke if you already know them all?”

“its not about whether it’s new or not. you can still get a guy with a classic. its about timing, remember? patience?”

Your grin stretched with promises of mischief as your eyes playfully half-lidded. You leaned into his space a little and shifted to cage him in with your arms on either side of him. “You always did like the classics.”

His smile faltered a little as he took in your new position over him and his eye lights constricted a little. “the, uh, kids are calling ‘em ‘vintage’ now.”

You nodded, leaning in a little more. “Vintage, Retro, Nostalgic is another one I’ve heard. I think I like ‘classic’ the best though.”

“yeah?”

“Mm-hmm.” You cupped his cheek again, and a quiet thrill rolled through your core at the way his eye lights were starting to dilate and fuzz at the edges. “Can I show you one of my favorite ‘classics’?”

He nodded, sockets wide with anticipation, and shifted to prop himself up on his elbows. His chin tilted up as you closed the distance between you and... redirected at the last second. The hand on his cheek held him still while you blew an impressively loud and wet raspberry on his smooth forehead and then dissolved into a fit of giggles, which only intensified as you caught the shocked, light-less void of his empty sockets staring back at you. It only took a second or two for his eye lights to blink back into existence, and he sat up as you collapsed on his lap laughing.

“what was that?” You tried to wheeze out an apology, but now Sans was shifting to cage you in with a mischeivous glint to his grin. “that’s it? that’s all you’ve got? oh boy. nobody challenges the legendary fart master like that and gets away with it.”

He sucked in a huge breath and smooshed his face into your neck, making you squeal even before anything had happened. But rather than the wet reverberation of a challenging raspberry, the perfect recreation of a squeaky-toy duck quack sounded. Two of them, actually. It was so startling and unexpected that you collapsed into his lap again, a new peal of laughter ringing out into the night.

“oh. uh. geez. wrong one. hang on. let me try again.”

Another huge breath of air, and this time he mashed his face against your cheek. An old-timey car horn AWOOGA’d and you could feel tears pricking at the corners of your eyes with how hard you were laughing. “well that’s just embarrassing. hold on, i got it this time.”

On and on he went, cycling through an entire soundboard’s worth of cartoon gag noises as he “tried” against a dozen different parts of your body until you had to cry ‘uncle’ for the stitch in your side and the way your ribcage was starting to ache. He watched you catch your breath, sweaty and tear-streaked mess that you were, with such fond adoration that it didn’t take long for you to be the one blushing furiously and wiggling deeper into the blanket nest to try to hide your face once your breathing had returned to normal again.

“hey.” You peeked up at him, face aching from the strain of laughing for 10 minutes straight but helpless against the magnetic pull of his easy smile.

“Hey.”

“i think i got one more in me.” He brushed a few strands of hair off of your forehead with a conspiratorial wink. “i’m pretty sure i’m gonna get it right this time.”

Backlit by a billion blazing stars, none of which could ever compare to the way his warm and bright eye lights glittered in the void of his crinkled eye sockets, how could you ever even think to say no? At your murmured assent, he leaned in one more time. A thin, malleable approximation of lips touched yours. You rose up on your elbows to meet him.

And the softest sound slipped between you. You tilted your head to the side to help guide him further in to the moment, and he met your movement with the tentative touch of his mittened hand against the base of your skull. Just as the ribcage your palm slipped across was new in its cool stillness, the lack of breath cascading over your cheeks worried the back of your mind right at about the juncture where his grip was tugging gently at your hair. You had to peek to make sure everything was alright, which was a bit of a feat to accomplish with how close your faces were pressed together. But his sockets were closed and loose, so far as you could tell, and your eyes slipped closed again at the soft sound of satisfaction that bubbled up from his chest.

You weren’t the only one to have the thought to check, though, and after a moment he pulled away to search your face, his eye lights bright and fuzzy. “your breathing tickles.”

You snickered, leaning in to nuzzle him tenderly. “Distracted much?”

“kinda!” He snickered in return and teasingly pinched your nose. You batted his hand away and pressed a kiss to his teeth.

“You like it.”

He leaned in, chasing after you with a low noise of disappointment when you pulled away. “dunno. might need to try it again.”

You hummed thoughtfully, pressing your forehead to his with a teasing smile. “Need more data before you can determine correlation or causation?”

“a good scientist… something something, c’mere~” It was maybe a little bit hard to kiss you while you were laughing, even with both of his hands cradling your face and pulling you back in to him, but Sans was grinning without complaint too. And you decided, then, that quite possibly your very favorite feeling in the world was the sensation of your smile dancing with his. And you two danced.

And danced.

As do all things, the silent song under the stars eventually faded and you peppered his face with little freckles of kisses before pestering him to set up the telescope. He told you the story of how he used to prank people underground with it while he pulled it out of its box and set it up, and he told you about the wishing stones he used to point it towards while finding something to point it towards in the new expanse of endless sky.

He actually whooped with excitement when he found Saturn, and the two of you spent nearly an hour taking turns looking at it through his telescope and talking about what you could see. What you couldn’t see. The icy moons and the satellites that had visited it. You had terrible cell reception but you managed to grab some articles from the internet, and you took turns reading them out loud to each other while looking at the planet. Sharing pictures and ideas and theories.

Sans had a blast pointing his telescope in every direction he could for another hour after that, but nothing had been quite as cool or exciting as being able to see Saturn and it’s rings. Flashes of light were beginning to streak across the sky more quickly than they had been in the hours prior. One every 10 minutes or so. And Sans, having satisfied his need for adventure for one night, finally put away the telescope and joined you in the nest again so you could watch for meteors.

You snuggled up to his side and he looped an arm around you, both of you feeling a lot more snuggly in the increasing cool of the midnight hour. His magic was back, now. Inexplicable softness to his form filling out his sleeves and his shirt again, making him extra snuggly to cuddle.

And if, between the flashes of light streaking across the sky, your lips wanted to cuddle too, then who were you to fight the siren song of his cheek and jaw?

Sans giggled as you tickled your way, with feather-light kisses, over his jawline until you met his teeth. He answered your bid for affection with one of his own, gently nuzzling you and pulling you closer so he could do so properly. A contented sigh ghosted over his face and he snorted, shaking his head at the tickling dance of breath rolling over his bones. It was adorable, and endearing, and you took his cheeks in your hands so you could kiss his forehead.

“Sans?”

“mmm?”

You kissed his forehead again, and then pulled away to search his hazy eye lights. “Is this ok?”

“mm?” The crests over his eye sockets knit together in confusion. “uh… yeah? why? ‘s something wrong?”

You nuzzled him again, but resisted the urge to follow it up with a kiss. “You we’re just… weirded out by the whole past-relationship-in-another-time thing. And you freaked out a little when I accidentally did the soul connection thing. I dunno. I just want to make sure this is something you want and not something I’m like… pressuring you into?”

He shook his head and buried his face into your hands further. “nah. it was weird at first. just… uh, nerves, i guess. cold feet. happened kinda fast. but i get it now.”

You tipped your head to the side and waited for him to continue. It took him a moment to think about things, and eventually he added, “it just, uh, was hard to wrap my head around. one day we were on equal footing, then the next it was like a switch flipped. i couldn’t get how you could just suddenly trust somebody so much. much less a guy like me. but the timelines, you know. it makes logical sense, but that still didn’t make it feel right. just, uh, took me a little time. to get it. get how it happened. and why. get how real it was for you. that it wasn’t just a fluke you’d forget too. since you didn’t forget, and since it was… is real for you. i dunno. guess… it started to grow on me. it’s nice. you’re nice. and being with you is nice. and it just keeps being nice. i want to be with you more, no matter if we spend five minutes or five hours together, and i think that means it might be worth giving all this a try. once i got that, then… everything else was just… easy. natural. it’s easy being with you, and i like how it makes me feel.”

You blushed as he spoke and ducked your head a little, but you still kept your hands on his face with a shy smile. When he was finished you touched your lips to his teeth, and sat up.

Touched your fingertips to your sternum.

And then… you pulled.

Sans’ eye lights vanished from his sockets as the intensity of color from your purple soul sucked the color right out of everything else around you. It floated between you, and your hand hovered underneath it instinctively even though it was perfectly happy to float there all by itself.

“You don’t have to. I don’t ever want you to feel pressured to do anything, ever, for any reason. But I trust you with my soul. I have for a while, now.”

Sans’ eye lights dropped to your soul, wide and fuzzy, and he wheezed a little. Coughed. Wheezed again. Then laughed, a boyish smile shyly playing across his face.

“really?”

You nodded, and he carefully slipped his mittens off. His bare phalanges cupped under your soul, and he looked at it with just as much reverence as he’d regarded the stars. His eyes flicked up to meet yours, and you nodded towards your soul to make sure he knew he had your express permission to touch, if he wanted to. His eye lights dropped back down to your soul and his hands inched a little closer, surrounding your soul so closely all it would take is the faintest movement for him to brush the surface.

But after a long moment, he relaxed his grip and his hands fell away. Sans sighed, leaning in but not touching.

“i want to. your soul is breathtaking. i want this. but… i… can’t do the same. it wouldn’t be fair to you. i want this, and i want to try this. us. being an ‘us’ instead of just a ‘you and i.’ but i can’t offer you this. my soul. yet. maybe… maybe ever. it’s… it’s complicated.”

His face scrunched with regret and disappointment, and his expression so vulnerably begged for understanding in the glow of your soul. You really wanted to leap across the space between you and crush him to your chest and pour into him every assurance that you didn’t care if he couldn’t do the same. Yet, or ever. That you still cared about him and loved him and wanted to share yourself with him. All of yourself. And that it was ok if he wasn’t there yet. Maybe… maybe in another time he could be ready. And maybe this was the only time you’d ever get, and that was ok too.

What you actually did was take his hands in yours and cup them around your soul again, but with your grip steady and firm under his phalanges and metacarpals keeping his hands from escaping. His eyes grew wide again as you brought his hands closer to the Purple Heart floating between you, stopping just before touching once again.

“I respect your decision,” you quietly responded. “But I need you to understand that I don’t ask for anything from you because I need it paid back. You don’t owe me anything. You never have, and you never will. You don’t have to do anything you aren’t ready for, but I’m not offering this with my fingers crossed that it’ll somehow change the power balance here. I’m offering because I love you. I’m offering because I want you to know me and know how much I trust you. No other reason. And if that changes your mind, I want you to know that tonight, or any other night, the offer is still open.”

Sans pulled in a shaky breath and let it slowly slide out from between his teeth. His eye lights were so impossibly huge in his sockets, so warm and fuzzy, you were half expecting to see a little moisture collecting in the corners. They slid down to look at your soul again, almost painfully vibrant in the inky night, and he sighed.

“not… not tonight. it hurts, how much i want to. but i wouldn’t feel right about it. maybe… soon, though. i just need to feel less, uh, like it’s going to change things if you can’t hold mine too. that’s just going to take some think time. it’s not you, it’s me. you know?”

You nodded again and gently released your hold on his hands, the pair of them falling away from your soul as it returned to your chest. You tugged him to you as you nestled back into the blankets again, your eyes adjusting to the dark over the next few minutes of comfortable silence. He settled under your arm, and the two of you fell asleep under the flashing streaks of falling stars.

#the nebular theory fic #fic update #chapter 23 #chapter update

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theundertalenebulartheory · 2 years ago

Text

Deleted Post Ch.17 Scene (Kindof NSFW but not really)

So, uh, if you read Chapter 17 then you know that uh... things did not exactly end on a happy note. And you can probably guess that Frisk is going to take us further back in time now to see if they can fix the disaster that happened there. BUT while I was struggling to write Chapter 17 and couldn't quite figure out where I was going with it I started a Post-17-But-Still-In-The-Same-Timeline thing.

Got halfway through it.

Got inspiration for Ch. 17

Wrote Ch. 17 and realized that uhhh.... now the stuff I'd written was kindof... not going to work anymore largely due to the fact that there is no more Timeline #144 so...

Now it's a Deleted Scene that maybe possibly I will reuse later??? Idk though. We'll see how the scene changes play out and timeline changes work out. For now, I finished writing the Schmutz for funzies. BUT if you have any commentary to add that you feel might be helpful in allowing me to navigate the Aro/Ace experience this might be a good space for me to workshop some stuff before it goes in the fic.

Thank and Enjoy~

You were already looking up at the top of the stairs from the kitchen table when Papyrus appeared, chopstick in your hand shoved down into the cast covering your forearm. “Doc said it was allowed,” you started, a bit defensive, but Papyrus just shook his head at you and padded quickly down the stairs.

“I Know.” You blinked at the soft tone, surprised, but to be fair it was pretty late at night. “Can You Not Sleep?”

“No. Painkillers wore off a while ago and the thing has been itching like crazy. I know it’s still pretty fresh, but I’m being careful.”

“Your Battle Wound Is Very Impressive. A Monster With A Similar Injury Would Have Turned To Dust. But In Only A Few Weeks, You Will Be As Good As You Were Before Monday. Humans Are Truly Impressive Warriors.” He nodded and sat across from you, twiddling his fingers. Your lips quirked into a wry smile at how he was already fidgeting after only just sitting down. Usually he could sit still for a few minutes at least before getting twitchy, but he seemed a little extra agitated tonight.

Not that you blamed him.

“I’m not sure I’d call that impressive so much as ‘batshit insane.’ But to be fair, it did work.”

He gasped, a little more loudly than was maybe appropriate for 11:30 at night, but seemed cowed at your wince and returned his voice to a reasonable volume. “You Were Amazing! Such Power! Such Passion! And When You Called For Me To Throw You A Bone And Then You Actually Caught It! You Were On Fire! Almost Literally, But Also Metaphorically!”

You groaned and rubbed your forehead, leaving the chopstick stuck in your cast. “Sans is never going to let me live down the fact that I actually said ‘bone me’ in public. I am so, so glad you knew what I meant.”

“I Assumed In The Middle Of A Riot Would Be A Terribly Inappropriate Time For The Kind Of Boning That Sans Usually Means When He Is Teasing, And I Too Am Glad That My Assumption Proved To Be Correct.” He nodded, squirming in his chair, but covered it up with a flourish of his hands. “Actually, You Have Been Dazzling Me A Lot Recently With Your Incredible Spirit And Enthusiasm! Like When We Were Training The Other Day And You Pinned Me Against The Tree. I… It Was… You were…”

“You can say “cringe,” homie. I won’t be offended.” You grinned and winked at him, a soft blush staining your cheeks. Papyrus, on the other hand, gasped again and jumped to his feet.

“Never! I Haven’t Been Able To Sleep A Wink Since That Moment! It Keeps Replaying In My Mind, Over And Over Again.”

You winced, finally pulling the chopstick out of your cast, and slumped in your seat with an apologetic frown. “Pup, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. You felt my… intent, right? I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I swear. You just kept leaving openings in your attack patterns. I just wanted to make sure you knew that this was serious. That you could really get hurt if you let someone get through your pattern. I know it seems unfair and unsportsmanlike but you SAW what it was like on Monday. Right? You saw how close we were to losing Undyne.”

You rubbed your sternum, feeling the thread of connection pulling straight out of your chest towards Papyrus and the two threads pulling up towards the second floor. Confirmation that you had done something initially. But the moment with Undyne had been so scary, so intense. Nothing like that had happened with Papyrus or Sans. You were happy to have walked away from that (uhh… metaphorically speaking. You definitely had not actually walked away under your own power that day after everything that had happened) event with just a broken arm and a soul that was slow regaining color and opacity but now you had even more questions than answers about the entire… well… everything.

Papyrus firmly shook his head. “No. No, No. On The Contrary, I Find Myself Inspired! I Did Feel Your Intent. Your Passion. I Felt Your Soul Blaze Within You. The Energy In Your Eyes As You Pressed My Own Magic Against My Throat. Your Hips Immobilizing Me.” Your cheeks burned and you had to use your remaining good hand to cover your embarrassed groan. “I Felt Your Intent. I… Want To Feel That Intent Again.”

You peeked up at him through your fingers and squeaked in surprise when you found he’d moved himself right next to your chair, his face almost touching yours as he bent over to try to catch your eyes. “Wagh! Bro.” You pushed him back a little and fanned your face to try to get some of the furious blush to calm down. “Uh… listen. I’m flattered. Honestly. But the last time I tried to, like… be sweet about our weird soul-connection thing, you literally ran away. I’m not gonna lie, that sends some mixed signals. I’m going to need you to tell me in no uncertain terms how you see this working out. And, honestly, I kindof feel like Sans should be here for some of that because he’s kindof involved with this whole thing. And I don’t really know how you want, ideally, our whole… thing… to pan out. In a perfect world, how do you see our situation going forward?”

“Oh! Well That Is Very Easy. You See, Sans Is A Romantic. And I Am Aromantic! But That Is Okay Because You Are Also A Romantic. So You Can Be Sweet And Romantic With Him And You Can Be Passionate With Me! Sans Is Much Too Lazy For Such Feats Of Passion And Would Not Be Interested In Them Anyways,” he shrugged, “So We Can All Be One Big Happy Family Together Because We Can Share With Each Other The Things We Like The Most! Everyone Wins! It Is A Win-Win-Win Situation! Which Is Even Better Than The Win-Win Situations Most People Aim For! The Great Papyrus Excels At All Things! Even Relationships!”

You kneaded your forehead. “Right. Figures. So… just to make sure I’m understanding you correctly. P L E A S E correct me if I am wrong. You are aromantic, and Sans is asexual? So you don’t want anything romantic ever? And he doesn’t want anything sexual ever? And you would be ok with sharing because you want opposite things?”

“Well, No, You See… Because It Is About Intent!” Papyrus nodded again and sat down once more at his seat. “Sans Is Not So Much Interested In Passionate Intent. And I Am Not So Much Interested In Romantic Intent! One Can Participate In A Large Variety Of Activities With Passionate Intent! And One Can Participate In A Large Variety Of Activities With Romantic Intent! It Is Very Simple.”

You blinked at him and shifted your hand down to press over your mouth. You really needed to keep it shut for a moment or two. You’d suspected, when Sans had explained why Papyrus had run off all those weeks ago, the aromantic/asexual dichotomy between the two of them. There were just too many things they were complete opposites about. Too many things they were identical about. You were starting to suspect that somehow… somehow the two of them were connected in some way. Literally. Like your soul connection. They were two sides of the same coin in the most literal way you’d ever witnessed. And when you’d considered the possibility of one having been given the appetite for one thing and the other having the appetite for the other, that maybe there was a chance they’d want to share in a way that would allow a partner to be able to keep the two activities separate. Having two people with opposite needs set up a bit of a balance that you’d wondered if you could maintain.

This, though… kindof threw a monkey-wrench into the works. Those needs were less cut-and-dry than you’d been thinking they were and that added an element of complexity you weren’t sure you could juggle without breaking things.

“Uhhhhh… … what.”

“Oh, Did You Not Hear Me? I Said-”

“I heard…” You rubbed your forehead again. “I’m just… processing. So… Ok. Uh. Hm. That’s… uh… great? It’s great. I’m happy to hear that. Thank you for telling me.”

You were starting to regret not having taken your pain meds on time. They might have helped with the headache you were going to give yourself trying to figure out what this was going to mean for your house full of monsters. “Are You Sure? Because You Do Not Look Like You Are Very Happy To Hear That.”

You put your hand down on the table and sighed, then smiled more genuinely. “Sorry. I am. I really am. I’m grateful that you trust me enough to tell me that. It takes a lot of courage and bravery to be honest about who you are and what your boundaries are. I promise I intend to respect them. I’m just thinking. I told you guys that I could be cool about the soul-connections because I didn’t want to ruin anything happening between us. I love you both. I don’t… I need to be able to hear from Sans too.”

“OH! Well That Is Also Very Easy! I Will Fetch Him Immediately!”

“Papyrus don’t you dare! If he’s asleep…”

It was a little too late, now that Papyrus had made it up the stairs in two great bounds and disappeared into the dark of the house. You groaned miserably and grabbed your bottle of pain meds by the sink, taking the dose you should have taken four hours ago with a quick gulp from the cup you’d been nursing at the table. As you pulled your cup away from your face you felt the tension on your connection grow slack and all at once Papyrus was setting a bleary-eyed Sans on his feet in front of you. “mmwherezafire?”

“Oh, geez, sorry. I didn’t mean for him to go get you right now. Sorry. Come here…” You scooped him up and started carrying him down the stairs to the couch you’d been sleeping on with a jerk of your head aimed at Papyrus. Sans started to protest a little, but gave up as soon as you had him snugly tucked against you and you dropped a little kiss on the side of his head.

“mm. you know just when i need a good pick-me-up. heh.”

“You too, Pap. We don’t need to wake up the whole house.”

You lead Pap down the stairs and plopped on the couch, shifting Sans around a little so you could snuggle him more easily while sitting. Papyrus was more than happy to sprawl out on the floor at your feet, posture much more relaxed now that he didn’t have to keep himself contained to a chair. You had half a mind to pull the blanket up over Sans since Pap pulled him out of bed but after reaching for it with your broken arm and wincing at the stinging throb of your still-barely-touching bones protesting, you decided the snuggle was fine how it was.

“So… Pap and I were just talking about… uh… things.”

“We were discussing our sexual preferences!” Papyrus offered helpfully, a matching set of blushes erupting over your face and Sans’ face at the same moment.

“Yep. Thanks bud.”

“uh… can i go back upstairs, please?”

“No.” You kissed the top of his head again. “You said you wanted us all to get to know each other better and that means uncomfortable conversations. I can use one of my 14 questions if you want.”

Sans groaned miserably in your lap and tossed an arm over his eyes so he didn’t have to face what was coming. “do i have to?”

“Yep. No Take-Backs. If you were going to regret this you had two weeks to change your mind! How’s being snuggled and smooched all the time going for you, by the way?”

“heh…” He shifted his arm just enough to peek up at you with a shy dusting of light blue over his cheekbones and the corners of his eye sockets crinkling. “it’s fine.”

“Good. Now. Uh… there’s not really any delicate way to say this without it being at least a little awkward so I’ll just be blunt. I love both of you guys, and now that we’re being more honest about ourselves it’s probably about time I tell you both that I’ll do literally anything for you. Including NOT talking about my more-than-just-friends feelings I have for you. I want both of you to be happy. I want both of you to have everything you could ever want. And that includes any amount of physical affection you might want or need. But I don’t want any amount of relationship furthering to make anyone else upset. You were weirdly onboard with me having a soul connection to both you and Papyrus, which is a whole other thing I want to ask you about. But for now I need to know how you feel about sharing more than just platonic affection between the two of you. What are you comfortable with? What are you uncomfortable with? What about me and my relationship are you ok with sharing with Papyrus and what are you not ok with me sharing with Papyrus?”

“hoo boy. uh. ok. let’s see… that’s… one, two, three, four…”

You snorted and flicked his chin, making him snicker. “Alright, wise guy. I’ll summarize all that in one question like I did with Pap just a minute ago. In a perfect world, how would you like to see our relationship threesome progress and develop?” Sans wheezed at the phrasing and you rolled your eyes at him with red cheeks. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said ‘threesome.’ Would you prefer the word ‘throuple?’”

He wheezed even harder, blushing a nearly neon blue and rolling out of your grip. “can’t sit on your lap while you say that,” he giggled, sprawling out on the floor at your feet.

“I PREFER THE TERM ‘TRIO’ MYSELF! THOUGH I HAVE RECENTLY BEEN INTRODUCED TO SOME VIDEO GAMES AND THE TERM TRIFORCE MIGHT BE APPROPRIATE TOO!”

“Oh, I’m about to ‘triforce’ something, alright.”

Sans snorted before bursting out laughing harder, making you grab your blanket with your good arm and toss it at his head with an emphatic shush. The blanket helped to muffle his giggling, and you couldn’t help but snicker at just how contagious his laugh was. When they finally settled down you yoinked the blanket off of him and nudged him with your foot. “Alright, come on. Perfect world. Relationship including yourself, myself, and Pap’s self. How does that go down in a perfect world for you?”

“Uh, woah, hey. Uh… Pap… got to answer first, right? Uh. Bro. Pal. You wanna… share with the, uh, class? What’d I miss?”

Papyrus nodded and sat up stick-straight, one hand on his chest as he repeated himself for Sans. “I SIMPLY SAID THAT YOU ARE A ROMANTIC. AND I AM AROMANTIC! SO YOU CAN BE SWEET AND ROMANTIC WITH OUR HUMAN, WHICH IS TO SAY THAT THE TWO OF YOU CAN SHARE A WHOLE HOST OF ACTIVITIES THAT HAVE ROMANTIC INTENT BEHIND THEM, AND I CAN BE PASSIONATE WITH OUR HUMAN, WHICH IS TO SAY THAT I WOULD LIKE VERY MUCH TO SHARE IN A HOST OF ACTIVITIES THAT HAVE PASSIONATE INTENTIONS! WE CAN ALL BE ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY TOGETHER BECAUSE WE CAN SHARE WITH EACH OTHER THE THINGS WE LIKE THE MOST!”

Sans blinked at him and rolled his head to the side to grin at you with a wink. “well, there you go. couldn’t have said it better myself.”

You rubbed your face. “Ok. But like… making out. Sex. Like I get the whole ‘intent’ thing but I need you people to be painfully explicit with me here. If I kiss one or both of you, will either of you be upset about it? If I jump Papyrus will you be hurt or upset?”

Sans shrugged, though with the blush creeping up his neck and the squint to his eye sockets it might have been more of a cringe. “uh… i mean… no? i don’t think so. if you start to pick favorites it might suck. but as far as jealousy? that stuff? nah.”

You raised an eyebrow at Papyrus and gestured with a twirl of your hand for him to continue the conversation. “Pap? Hurt? Angry if I make out with Sans or spend the night with him? Jealous?”

“ABSO-POSITIVELY-LUTELY NOT! SO LONG AS WE ARE BEING VERY HONEST ABOUT OUR FEELINGS AND TALKING ABOUT OUR NEEDS! IF I AM FEELING LIKE SANS IS GETTING A LOT OF KISSES AND CUDDLES AND I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE A TURN BEING SHOWERED IN KISSES TOO, WILL YOU BE UPSET IF I TELL YOU?”

You shook your head, feeling maybe a little overwhelmed by the idea of trying to keep up with both of their needs. But to be fair, neither of them had been exactly what you would call ‘needy’ individuals to begin with. So maybe… maybe something like this could work out? “Of course not. You’re my boys. As long as you’re ok with sharing and nobody’s feeling betrayed or anything.”

“so… perfect world for you?” Sans grinned and winked. “can’t ask if you can’t answer.”

You sighed and leaned your elbows on your knees. Where to even start with that kind of question? WAS there really such a thing as a perfect world scenario? Could you really even hope for such a thing in a way that didn’t sound totally selfish? “Honestly, it’s honesty. Cheesy as that might sound. In a perfect world, we’d trust each other enough to say what we feel and when our feelings change, we can be honest with each other about it. I’m not stupid enough to try to paint some pretty picture of us all holding hands skipping through a field of flowers together as the ideal ‘perfect’ image I have in my head. You guys mean everything to me. In a perfect world, I… will never have to say goodbye forever to you guys. You’ll be in my life in some way for as long as I’m still around. And after this,” you held your broken arm up and wiggled it a little with a smirk, “I’m not sure how long that will be. But that includes the possibility that maybe we try this ‘trio’ thing and figure out that it doesn’t work. Maybe we find out that it does. But either way, I just would ask that even if it feels dumb or trivial, please be honest about how you’re feeling.”

“A NOBLE AND PRACTICAL REQUEST!” Papyrus nodded, shifting to his knees so he could stretch over and hug you around the middle. “I DO!”

You choked and wheezed, hugging him back with barely restrained tears of laughter stinging the corners of your eyes and your tone pitched a little higher than usual. “Thanks buddy.”

Sans snickered a little too, rolling over to join the hug with a wink that sparkled with humor. He murmured softly in your ear, his own voice pitched a little lower than usual in contrast to your own, “i do, too.”

A strangled noise of embarrassment squeezed out of your throat and your face erupted into a bright red blush. You were positive that steam was pouring out of your ears as you squeezed your boys with a soft squeal. Sans chuckled, nuzzling into your neck at the feeling of your pulse hammering against his teeth. Not quite content with this level of embarrassment, he went for the kill shot.

“who knows. maybe you’ll get your threesome after all.”

You stood straight up, jostling your boys, now a permanent cherry red. “AAAAAAAND now I need to go for a six mile run loveyouthanksbye!”

Sans cackled from behind you on the couch while Papyrus jumped to his feet as well. “OH, I SHALL JOIN YOU! THERE IS NOTHING LIKE AN INVIGORATING RUN THROUGH A QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!”

“you guys have fun. im going back to bed. i heard sleep is great for your complexion.”

You glared at him from over your shoulder, still painfully beet red as he winked and rolled off the couch, vanishing through a shortcut. Your line of connection almost clicked in your chest with how immediate the jump from behind to above went, and it ached just a little this time. If you had to guess, it probably had something to do with your still-recovering soul and the small amount of magic energy it had. Maintaining three threads of connection wasn’t the most draining thing in the world, but it did require energy. And when one of those thread sources kept slipping through cracks in spacetime, that HAD to require some additional energy to keep up with.

Probably.

This was all still pretty new so you were just spitballing, but that seemed reasonable enough to use as an explanation for some of the unusually weird things you had been experiencing since Monday.

“WELL? SHALL WE?”

You blinked at Papyrus, some of your blush cooling down now that the source of it was upstairs. “Oh, uh, if you want to go for a run, you can. I’m not sure my arm would like it very much, though. Weird thing about being a bag of meat and blood is that when one part of the bag gets damaged, when you do something like running and pressurize the system then it will pressurize the WHOLE system. You can’t just have extra blood pumping faster in only your legs. My arm would get it too. Much as I would actually really like something to do with all this nervous energy, I think I’ll have to pass on the run tonight. Sorry.”

“WELL… MAYBE THERE COULD BE OTHER THINGS YOU COULD DO WITH YOUR ENERGY. WINK.” Papyrus winked at the same time he announced it, shifting a little closer to you and taking your hand in his. The blush returned in full force, and you were pretty sure your face was going to be stuck this color until the day you died. Which might be a lot sooner rather than later at this rate. “Perhaps I Have Some Energy That Needs An Outlet As Well.”

Well, so much for the whole ‘needing to pass on activities that would make your heart race’ thing. And truth be told your arm was starting to ache a bit because your heart WAS racing. But there was no way in hell a little thing like that was going to derail you now. Not when Papyrus was looking at you through half-lidded eyes and stepping right into your personal space like that.

Your fingertips found the crests of his hip bones sticking out over his waistband and he shivered when you kneaded the pads of your thumbs over the thin black fabric covering them. Remembering what he’d said about intent, you thought about how handsome he’d look squirming with pleasure beneath you and you kneaded there again. He gasped, eye sockets lipping closed, and caught your shoulders for support. Again, and he hunched forward.

Oh, how dearly you wanted to walk him backwards to the partition wall and press him up against it. Your heart and hands burned with it as they slipped up to his ribcage to trace over the bottom ribs sticking out of his cropped white Battle Body top. He trembled in a full-body shudder and pressed his teeth to your forehead. But then you splayed your hands flat against his sides (or as much as you could with the cast covering part of your one palm) and pulled in a calming breath. “Hey… you ok?”

“Ye- Yes I’m… I Can Feel Your Passionate Feelings For Me. Please Don’t Stop. I Need Them. I NEED MORE.”

You chuckled. “Hey. Take a breath. Look at me.”

Papyrus huffed, kissed your forehead, and then pulled back an unsteady half-step to meet your eye. You cradled his jaw in your good palm and touched with your fingertips on the other side, framing his face as well as you could. “I understand the ‘passionate intent’ part. But I need to know what you’re comfortable with. Do you want me to just touch you for a little while tonight? Do you want me to kiss you? This is kindof our first… anything. And I want to treat you right because I love you. Typically this would kindof be the time when two humans, which is the thing I have more experience with, would make out for a while. Because we can’t really feel intent the way you can. It’s all just nerve endings. But we still have… not exactly rules but … customs? Uh… norms for how physical actions like these take place. We don’t have to follow those norms, but I’ll admit that I’d be a bit of a nervous wreck that I was taking advantage of you if I started undressing you this early in the relationship. Unless that’s what you want from me. What do you want tonight and what don’t you want tonight?”

He gulped down a few deep breaths and nodded into your palm. “You’re Right. Any Encounter Will Have Rules. I Haven’t Exactly Read Any Rule Books About This Kind Of Encounter Before. But I Am Not Opposed To Us Making Our Own.”

“And those rules can change too,” you added softly, letting his face slide out of your hands as you stepped backwards to the couch and sat down. “You’re always allowed to decide that you want to try something, and then realize that you don’t like it. And if you don’t like something, we can make new rules or change old rules.”

Papyrus nodded and followed you, but chose to sit on the floor at your feet instead of joining you on the couch. “I Understand. What Rules Do You Suggest?”

“Clothes on.” You held up one finger with a teasing smirk. “That’s a pretty easy one to start with in a new relationship. Not every relationship has to start with that one, but in your case, I am going to suggest it. At least for tonight while we’re figuring out what you like. Another one humans have that some people think is silly but CAN be a good thing to establish early for ANY kind of relationship is a Safe Word. Or a few safe words. Things you don’t normally say in conversation but can be used to communicate that you’re being serious and everything needs to stop. For example, if I’m feeling shy about something I might say “no” or “don’t” but I don’t mean that you need to get up and leave. But if something happens and I want everything to stop, then having a safe word can be really useful. It might seem silly to a monster that could feel that change in intent, but since humans can’t feel that, it’s good to be prepared. If I’m doing something you want me to stop, I can’t just feel that from you. Some people use like… traffic lights. Red Light, Yellow Light, Green Light. Some people use fruits or silly words like Pumpernickel.”

“OH! I SEE! BECAUSE HUMANS CAN’T… YES, THAT MAKES SENSE. WELL! WHAT ABOUT BLUE? LIKE A BLUE STOP SIGN?”

A soft chuckle passed through your lips and you grinned. “Ok. Blue means everything stops. We can use that. I’ve had enough practice with your blue special attacks that I’ll be able to remember that one. Clothes on, Blue means everything stops. Past that just… talk to me. Ok? Tell me if what I’m doing is something you like or don’t like. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to, as long as I know that you don’t like it. I promise.”

“WHAT ABOUT YOU?” He reached over and placed his hand on your knee, his eyes flicking up to meet yours and then dropping down to his hand with an offended squint. “YOU CANNOT FEEL MY PASSIONATE FEELINGS FOR YOU. HOW WILL YOU KNOW WHAT I AM INTENDING FOR YOU TO FEEL?”

You snickered, leaning back against the couch with a smirk. “Human biology lesson can wait for another day. It’s like… so late at night. How about we take care of you tonight and another night I’ll teach you how to make a human squirm. Sound fair?”

“NOT ESPECIALLY BECAUSE I WILL GO TO SLEEP AFTER WE ARE DONE CANOODLING KNOWING THAT I WAS UNABLE TO MAKE YOU FEEL THE PASSIONATE FEELINGS THAT YOU ARE SO EASILY ABLE TO CONVEY WITH YOUR INTENT. BUT I SHALL NOT BE BESTED BY BIOLOGY! I WILL USE MY FRUSTRATION TO MY ADVANTAGE AND CHANNEL MY WEAKNESS INTO EVEN MORE PASSIONATE INTENT AND A WILLINGNESS TO LEARN ALL ABOUT YOUR MEAT AND SKIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM AND BONES!”

Papyrus nodded triumphantly and you cackled, reaching out to him. “Alright. C’mere, bone boy. You want a quick Human Fact? Human mouths are extremely sensitive. Humans like to kiss because all those nerves in our lips and tongues do a very good job of communicating intent.” He perked up and shifted to his knees, placing himself between yours as you sat up more fully. “Just like the fact that we have to use words to communicate intent, gestures also communicate intent. It’s a little bit like a dance. The right steps, done at the right time, send one message. Different steps done at a different time send a different message. Figuring out what steps to do when is part of the learning process. But if you want to communicate passionate intent without just grabbing someone’s dick, kissing is probably the best way to do that.”

“Will You Teach Me The Steps To This Dance?” He touched his forehead to yours and you leaned into him. “I May Not Have Lips, But I Might Have Something That Will Work In Their Place.”

You nuzzled his face and grabbed his hand, pressing a kiss to the palm of his bright red glove. “I can. Maybe a demonstration will help. Would you mind if I removed your glove?”

He swallowed and pulled his hand back, fiddling with it nervously. “I don’t mind, but my hands…” He shrank into himself a little and chanced a momentary meeting of your eyes before turning his attention to his gloves again. “They Are… Perfectly Normal In Every Way But Maybe Please Don’t Be Too Shocked At How Normal They Are If The Type Of Normal Is Different From Your Type Of Normal?”

You held out your hands to him with a soft smile. “I’m sure they’re lovely. Honestly the most surprising thing about your hands is that they feel so thick and solid inside your gloves. They don’t feel like bones in there. They feel like… well… hands. Like mine.”

He nodded and hesitantly placed one in yours, palm up. You used your one good hand to knead the palm of it, feeling what you would presume to be flesh under the fabric. It wasn’t even leather either. Just the same kind of fabric the rest of his battle body was made of. You gripped the tip of the fabric at his middle finger and looked up at him, waiting for permission. He nodded after a moment and you pulled, revealing the thin and delicate bones that had been hiding underneath. You blinked twice, noticing that the center of his palms seemed to have a perfect circle missing from them, but honestly at this point you’d been half expecting them to be lizard hands with the way monsters seemed to be built. You’d seen Sans drink with a straw and you’d held a monster in your hands that was literally an entire nose. The only thing remarkable about them (and maybe this was just a skeleton-monster quirk) was that the holes in the palms perfectly matched Sans’.

You looked up at him with an exasperated smile. “Papyrus, have you ever thought about playing the piano? You have, like, the world’s best piano fingers. Any pianist in a 100 mile radius would commit crimes to have fingers like yours. They look perfect.”

His cheeks glowed a pretty orange but the tiny pinpricks of moisture in the corners of his crinkled eye sockets told you that he was more than a little relieved that you had said as much. He placed his other hand in your lap and you pulled that glove off too. Picking the first up, you kissed each of his knuckles before turning his hand over and kissing around the edges of his palm. Then, pulling his hand closer, you kissed his wrist at the edge of the spandex sleeve normally hidden by his glove. This one lingered, delicately, and then you traced a tiny heart with your tongue, your mind wondering what it would be like to lick your way all the way up his arm. He whimpered, leaning closer as you kissed back up towards the tip of his index finger and then pulled it into your mouth so you could catch it between your teeth.

“O-oh.”

You waggled your eyebrows at him, which pulled a soft snort and a smile out of his slack-jawed stare. You kissed the tip of his finger again before leaning in and pressing a searing kiss to his teeth, your good hand skating over the apex of his hip bone and following the curve backwards towards his spine. Papyrus shivered, breath fanning over your face, and you chased that tremor with your fingertips up his spine and into the cavity of his ribcage. He gasped and surged forward, curling around you and caging you in with his arms all in one motion, and you stopped to let him pant into your shoulder.

“Too much?”

He didn’t answer immediately, so you pulled your hands back and placed them gently on his arms. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head adamantly and wrapped his arms around you, hugging you tightly. You hugged him back and gently scratched your nails over the back of his head. After he’d caught his breath some of the tension drained out of his posture and he kissed your neck. “I Didn’t Say Blue.”

“You didn’t have to. Like I said, humans read each other’s feelings by paying attention to their gestures and body language. Yours said ‘overstimulated,’ and I don’t want that for you. I want this to be something nice that you’ll enjoy. Not something you have to endure. Even something nice, when it’s too much all at once, can be bad. Some people like it, and that’s ok. But that’s the kind of thing you should learn about yourself slowly.”

Papyrus nodded and released his hold on you, returning to caging you in with the couch taking the bulk of his bodyweight. All six pounds of it. “Thank You. For Being Careful With Me. Taking Care Of Me. I Think… I Like It. It’s Not Often That I’m Overpowered. You Make Me Feel Weak, But I Know I’m Safe. Can You Do That Again?”

You kissed his cheek and carded your fingers over his ribs. “A little, but I meant what I said. I don’t want to overstimulate you tonight. I can touch your spine again, but how about we try it with gentle and curious intent this time? I think too much intent plus it being a sensitive spot for you might have been too much last time.”

Papyrus huffed a laugh and shook his head, leaning back to catch your eye with fond exasperation. “Is The Whole Night Going To Be Like This?”

You grinned and winked. “Maybe. Is that a dealbreaker? Do you want to stop?”

He growled playfully, making you squeal and giggle, and scooped you up just enough to crawl overtop of you and shift your position so you were laying on the couch beneath him. “Please, Not Until I Say Blue.”

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EYYYYY thanks for reading my For Funzies and Not Yet Canon To The Storyline Fic! If you could take a Post-Fade-To-Black Survey, That Would Be Great!

Thanks!

#deleted scene #the nebular theory fic #undertale fic #chapter 17 deleted scene #papyrus ut

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theundertalenebulartheory · 2 years ago

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Fan art for Chapter 16

#the nebular theory fic #fic fanart #The Nebular Theory Fanart

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theundertalenebulartheory · 2 years ago

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Brain: hey

Brain: HeY

Me: what

Brain: you kno that smut u been writing b/c you had no inspo for the action scene leading up to it

Me: ye

Brain: so you just like sprinkled in some references to the scenes you couldn’t tie together to give the ppl some idea of what happened in the scene you couldn’t figure out how to write

Me: ye

Brain: **DUMPS BUCKETS OF INSPIRATION FOR THE ACTION SEQUENCES I WAS TRYING TO WRITE FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER, GAVE UP ON, AND STARTED WRITING SMUT FOR INSTEAD ON THE MORNING OF THE VERY DAY I AM SUPPOSED TO BE POSTING THE NEWEST CHAPTER**

Me:

#fic update #the nebular theory fic #like #thanks #but also #could you have done that literally ANY sooner???#these action sequences are gonna be SO COOL #but it totally negates a bunch of the conversation I had for the smut chapter #bah #oh well #I think y’all will like the action chapter too

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theundertalenebulartheory · 2 years ago

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The Nebular Theory (AO3) Plot Semi-But-Not-Really Spoilers Below the Cut - Clarifying Points for the First Two Chapters

I have been having a blast reading some of the super neat comments people have been leaving on the fic I’ve been writing over on AO3

But I have seen some people commenting about their confusion and I’m worried that in my attempt not to give away too much, I may have said too little. Ideally more about this should be given in small snippets at the beginning of the upcoming chapters (like in the Chapter Summary section that I am definitely using incorrectly) but in the meantime… here’s a couple of semi-spoilerish clarifying points pertinent to the first two chapters:

The Star is a separate entity from “Gaster”

Both The Star and “Gaster” were in the Void together

The Connecting Thread that Sans and Papyrus used to summon The Star WAS actually and legitimately connected to The Star

The moment where it talks about something tugging (I think the word I used in Ch2 was “twang” like a guitar string being plucked and buzzing on the frets) right after The Star was summoned from the Void is the moment where The Star transfers their line of connection to “Gaster,” which sacrifices their own ability to be easily pulled out of The Void. Like having one of those Coast Guard Floaty Save-Yo-Dumbass Donuts tossed to you and then you giving it to someone else instead, which forces you to let go of whatever it was you were holding onto originally.

Part of the reason I really liked the idea of teasing the reader with this information up front was twofold:

A major plot point is The Star getting Yote into The Void, which makes everyone forget them. I could have waited until we’d spent some time in the story, building up the character development, and Then dropped that Veil of Forgetfulness over the characters left behind so only the readers remember and can see the gaping hole left behind in their wake. But why not have the reader discover alongside the story character who it was that they forgot? Discover, as they realize Exactly who was lost and Exactly what it means to have them metaphorically sink below the waves, what it means for them to have given their only Line of Connection away to “Gaster” so that the soggy lump could finally escape the Void where he’d been trapped.

While I mostly want to tell a fun story… like… Memento Mori and all that. Right? I … hate getting the rug pulled out from under me. I hate “and then they died” shock value. But showing the funeral pyre up front let’s the reader know that, when this Moment arrives, that it was planned from the start. That all the sweet and beautiful moments that happened to them happened with death on the horizon. (I say death very loosely and mostly poetically but not very literally. I DID promise a happy ending. There IS a reason MC spent so long working with Pap to help inspire him to build The Machine. Consider it Chekhov’s Blueprint if you will lol) And I hope that, in some ways, it makes all the sweet moments sweeter and the hard moments less bitter. Less bitter because… they made it, right? Death still waits on the horizon, but wait he must. And while he waits, we triumph. We feast. We laugh and we love and those moments matter. Death (again, used very loosely) will Sit, damnit, and he will WAIT and we will Have our moments while he does.

Author has shown you Chekhov’s Gun, but author has also shown you Chekhov’s Defibrillator. Shit’s going to go down. But we have the med kit on standby. Death can reap, but we never gave him permission to harvest. And while we’re at it, we’re taking this sad, soggy old man with us. That’s right. We’re taking him right out of your basket and putting him in ours. Just because we can.

Neener Neener.

#fic update #the nebular theory fic #fic spoilers

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theundertalenebulartheory · 2 years ago

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Alternate Chapter 8 ending

I wrote this with a lot of excitement about my first official Papyrus POV snippet. But then... meh... I was editing later and decided that I kindof wanted to take the chapter in a slightly different direction. So why not put the junk chapter ending over here?

You reached out your hand and tried to touch the surface with a fingertip but passed right through. You tried again, using your whole hand this time, and again nothing happened.

Perfect.

“Oops. Looks like I can’t touch my own magic glowing blue heart-soul. Oh darn. So, who’s next? Hm? Eenie-meenie-miney-Pap. Bro. I’m calling on you. You’re running this magic game, my guy. How about you?”

He swallowed and looked down at you with possibly the most intense expression he’d ever given you. If you thought Blue Magic felt like looking down at Cthulu, hiding at the bottom of the abyss, Papyrus was looking at you as if your skin had suddenly become perfectly transparent. As if he was trying to calculate how many atoms there were in your body and exactly how much force would be needed to convert each one of them into magical energy. He was looking through you. And after a moment of the most intense scrutiny you’d ever experienced in your life, Papyrus flicked his wrist with a flourish and produced a magic bone.

A gift bone, that had three-dimensional substance. This one was long and thin, though, like a conductor’s baton. Like a medical instrument. Papyrus placed one hand on your shoulder, steadying and firm and immensely strong but careful and delicate all the same. With blue magic painted over your soul, you could feel his weight. How powerful he was. How massive his magical presence was. Both of the skeletons, actually. It was like standing almost too close to a black hole. Just how MUCH was contained in their bones. So much more so with Papyrus’ hand on your shoulder, using exactly the correct amount of pressure to make sure you were firmly in place but mindful of just how small… just how delicate and breakable and bruisable you were. An elephant balancing a peach in its trunk.

A titan with a fawn in the palm of its hand.

Using the nubbed end like a delicate spatula, he brought it up to the pointed tip of the heart shape and touched it delicately, gradually putting the smallest amount of pressure on the base of it.

Your eyes grew increasingly wide along with the pressure.

Where your own hand had passed right through, just like the heart had initially passed right through your coat without any issue when it first appeared, without any kind of reaction from it… you could feel this. It WAS a part of you, like your bones and your cardiovascular system and your blood was part of you. A part of a whole, but whole on its own as well. Like being able to feel your heartbeat in your wrists at the same time you could feel it in your chest and your neck.

“… Oh…”

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Papyrus pulled in a sharp breath, the lingering residual magic from their encounter just as crisp as the winter air. You didn’t know what you’d asked, and that wasn’t your fault. He didn’t hold it against you. He wouldn’t have, even if you’d realized you mistake and everyone had decided to go back indoors to finish their original activities.

He couldn’t hold it against you once he’d indirectly connected with your soul.

It wasn’t as intense as he knew it could have been. He’d forgotten just how powerful human souls were. It was still a bit of a kick in the teeth, though. Even with the distance he’d made sure to keep between himself and your soul, careful not to be drawn in too close. It was a delicate balance between far enough to ensure no negative repercussions but not so obtusely distant to make it seem as though he was disgusted by the request.

It truly was magnificent. Magnetic.

He just hadn’t calculated for the additional connection that could be generated by his own blue magic wrapped delicately around their purple soul. Well, he never did claim to be good at math. That was Sans’ area.

His blue magic reached out to him, a monster’s magic was really just an extension of their own self after all, and tethered him indirectly to the soul it was wrapped around. He might as well have used his own hands with a cloth draped over them, for all the good this indirect extension had done him. Perhaps that was an exaggeration. It wasn’t quite so intense as direct contact could have been. The picture of a place was never so much as visiting in person. But this livewire he’d grabbed onto was still your essence. Bright and powerful and strong. Resilient.

He should pull away.

After everything you’d been through today, you were holding up remarkably well. For now. You were overwhelmed and frazzled and feeling like you were adrift at sea but still swimming. Everything was just so new. So remarkable. So wonderful. He could feel your wide-eyed wonder so loudly it almost drowned out everything else. Everything was amazing, and you were amazed. Astounded. Single, powerful, clear notes capable of bridging that gap between his own soul and yours. But…

He should pull away.

His hand started to shake with the effort it took to keep from letting go of your shoulder and reaching in with his other hand. He’d been a little hurt at first when he’d heard that you weren’t sure how close of friends Papyrus considered you to be. That there wasn’t such a thing as ‘yes we are friends’ and ‘no we are not friends’ for humans. That it was a gradient. That there were details he was missing.

Again.

That had been the problem for so long, hadn’t it? He WAS missing them. He could see the big picture, the broad strokes and the overall patterns, but so many fine details eluded him. Literally and figuratively. He was no longer capable of focusing on a single tree when there was a whole forest. One sentence on a page when there was a whole novel. It was one thing to know, logically, that all paintings consisted of individual brushstrokes that worked in synchronized harmony but he couldn’t pick out a single violin from an orchestra if his soul depended on it.

Even this indirect touch connected him only to the broad brushstrokes of your person, your perseverance and your selflessness and your insecurity and your love and wonder and care. But the fine details? Impossible. It was like looking at you through fogged glass. Frustrating. Puzzling.

And oh, how Papyrus did like a good puzzle.

He needed to pull away.

It hadn’t even been three seconds of time and already this brilliant mind attached to this brilliant purple-soul had grabbed on to the other end of the sensation of magic being applied directly to your soul, and Papyrus was treated to a front row seat of your analysis of it.

Instantly you started testing. Pushing and pulling and concentrating on its responses. He could see with his eyes that your face pinched, eyes narrowed at the little thing seemingly balancing on the end of his magic. But so much was happening on the unseen world within that he himself closed his own to better experience it.

It was just out of your grasp, though. You weren’t magic, and so the control or even the feel of magic was so unfamiliar that you didn’t even know what you were looking for. Just mashing buttons, as far as you were concerned. Trying to pull from your heart, from the inside of your ribs, from your chest. (How was it possible to feel so much of another person’s anatomy? How was it possible to feel so much of your own reflected?) Trying to push with your mind and your forehead. (He couldn’t see, he couldn’t feel, but he could hear the gears and the electric buzz of activity. It was a beehive in there.) Reaching even with imagination, trying to mentally picture grabbing and holding and lifting and pressing, but nothing was happening. Each time something didn’t work, the results were noted in detail and catalogued and tagged and filed away. He could hear you doing it, through that foggy window. He just couldn’t quite see it. Feel it.

And it had been so long since he’d felt something like that.

“Agh, it’s not working.” Then you started pulling out pairs of trials and trying them together. Reaching with the imagination and pulling with the heart. Pushing with your mind and grabbing with their chest.

Nothing was creating any change in your soul.

Papyrus’ on the other hand…

He gently squeezed your shoulder and softly asked, “Would you like some help?”

Shock. That was new, and funny. You didn’t know he was capable of speaking softly. You didn’t know it was possible to anticipate a question before it was asked. Curiosity. The indirect connection was so new (and admittedly faint) you hadn’t seen Papyrus’s soul on their radar. But now he could feel your awareness.

Keen. Sharp. Analytic. Precise. A laser sight pointed directly at his chest. A bloodhound having caught a scent. An eagle having spotted a mouse.

His right eye glowed softly orange behind his lid and he gently pushed the finest tendril of magic from his soul out to theirs. Carefully. Carefully. Carefully he used that gossamer strand to lift. Not too much magic, now. He couldn’t, he shouldn’t connect himself to your soul any more than he already had.

It just felt so nice to be so trusted. To feel. To know. It was soothing. It was exciting. A new adventure. A new favorite song to fall asleep to.

You were right. Levels of Friendship. It made sense now, those grey areas in between Stranger and Trusted Confidant. He hadn’t really known you. He still didn’t, much to his intense frustration, even with this much, this close of contact with your soul. A puzzle that he was incapable of solving. Not without help. Not without permission. But he did know your better, now. And that was enough. It had to be.

Your feet released from the snow, barely, as he carefully lifted and he nearly choked on the intensity of the awe that shot its way directly up that indirect connection and bored into his core.

He yelped out loud when your concentration and attention chased the feeling through that indirect connection, running straight for his soul and poising to dive in.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Papyrus leapt away from you like he’d been burnt, and with a shout to match. He stumbled backwards and fell into the snow, eyes wide and chest heaving. Your soul jumped back into your chest. You and Sans both swore under your breath and jumped after him.

“Oooooh gosh, I’m so sorry! Are you alright? Ah hell.”

“what happened!?”

“I don’t know! He was using magic to pick me up to show me what the magic felt like and I tried to … I dunno… Tried to grab it, I guess? Figure out what was happening? I’m trying to feel magic in my soul, right? So I could do the gravity thing? Wasn’t that what I was supposed to do? Figure out what magic feels like? There was magic, I tried to feel it!”

You and Sans pulled Papyrus to his feet together, both of you noticing that he looked a bit like he’d seen a ghost, but he grinned widely and put his hands on his hips to recreate his heroic pose. “WOWIE! I HAVE NEVER MET SUCH A PASSIONATE SOUL BEFORE! THAT WAS TRULY IMPRESSIVE!”

“Papyrus The Great, you gave me a damn heart attack. Are you ok? Sidenote, you really need a surname because I can’t use your full name to communicate my seriousness if you only have one.”

“THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS ALWAYS MORE THAN OKAY! AND ONE NAME IS MORE THAN ENOUGH FOR SOMEONE AS GREAT AND MEMORABLE AND UNMISTAKEABLE AS I!”

“bro, can we talk?” Sans looked at you sideways, his eye lights bright pinpricks in his sockets and his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets.

“YES, WE CAN! AND WE WILL! BUT MAYBE PERHAPS NOT RIGHT NOW BECAUSE THERE ARE VERY IMPORTANT THINGS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW!”

“uh… no. right now.”

Papyrus squinted down at Sans and Sans raised his brow ridges up at Papyrus, both of their permanent smiles turned down at the edges. It was a long moment before Sans finally sighed and turned away, shuffling back towards the house. “fine. maybe later.”

You looked back and forth between them, noticing that Papyrus didn’t exactly look happy about this development, but he didn’t look surprised either. You kindof had the sneaking suspicion that maybe you were the cause of it, and you shuffled your feet in the snow. “Pap, we can go in. I’m sorry.”

“NONSENSE! I THINK YOU ALMOST HAD IT! BESIDES, I FEEL LIKE MAYBE YOU DON’T REALLY WANT TO GO INSIDE AND THAT IS A GOOD ENOUGH REASON TO STAY OUTSIDE! SANS IS JUST BEING LAZY AND IMPATIENT.”

“Pap, he looks really upset. I think he’s worried about you. You should go talk to him. Frisk and I can stay out here and keep practicing, right?”

Frisk grimaced and wiggled their hand back and forth. “I can’t turn anyone’s soul blue and once Papyrus leaves the encounter, your soul goes back to normal. But we could practice with feeling magic maybe?”

“IT IS ALRIGHT! I AM VERY EXCITED TO SHOW YOU MY BLUE ATTACK! IT IS VERY GREAT AND DAZZLING AND I THINK YOU WILL LIKE IT VERY MUCH!”

“Pap.” You put your own hands on your hips and raised your eyebrows at him. “Sans is upset. I can see your blue attack later or maybe another day. I AM really excited about it, but Sans is worried and upset and you staying out here is telling him that his worries aren’t very important to you. We should go inside.”

Papyrus whined and danced on the balls of his feet uncertainly. “Will we really get the chance to be able to see my special attacks in action later?”

“I promise I will see your special attacks sometime soon. Ok? I really want to see it. I’m very excited about how cool it’ll be. But right now, let’s get you inside so you can talk to your brother and Frisk and I will work on cookies. Ok?”

“…OKAY.”

You blinked in surprise again. That was twice in one day that Papyrus had used a soft voice with you. And if that wasn’t exactly on par with the other earth-shaking and mind-boggling revelations that had been shared with you today, you didn’t know what else could be.

#the nebular theory fic #undertale fic #deleted scene

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