Chapter Text
The first thing Sans noticed when he got home was the silence. The entire house was still. Not even his pet rock made a sound. Sans’ thoughts turned to his brother Papyrus. There was no way the house was stone silent if he was home, and he normally was this time of day. Shrugging it off, Sans took off his slippers and tucked them by the door.
The second thing Sans noticed was the television. It was facedown, shattered on the floor, and a single, solitary bone sticking out the back of the casing. The large flatscreen was a mess of glass and plastic, glittering LED bulbs dotting the carpet. Sans re-slippered his feet. Despite the fact he had no skin, he didn’t really want translucent glass shards stuck in his bones. [Pulling them out would clearly hurt].
[*Ba dum tish*]
Making a mental note to use that one on his brother when he got home, Sans made for the kitchen. It wasn’t his best work, but that just made it more likely that he’d get a big reaction.
Sans lived for Pap’s big reactions.
Sliding into the kitchen, Sans made for the fridge, pulled out a bottle of ketchup, and started draining it dry. Turning around, he saw it. Spaghetti. Just sitting there. Cold. On the counter. Surrounded by scraps of [colorful, expensive] paper. No Papyrus to hype up it’s inevitably gag-inducing taste.
Sans lived for Pap’s spaghetti.
Pap lived for Pap’s spaghetti.
Something was wrong.
Leaving the kitchen, Sans saw it. Papyrus’ door was cracked open. The light was spilling into the upstairs hallway. Sans put the ketchup on the counter and carefully made his way up the stairs. He peeked into Papyrus’ room. His brother was curled up on his bed, back to the door. Sans had completely missed him. Which was shocking. Sans hadn’t expected to have to look for Papyrus, Sans never had before. Papyrus was a walking foghorn, shouting his current location to all of the Underground. Sans stuck his hands in his pockets, and sauntered over to the bed as casually as he could.
“hey pap, sup?” Sans said, keeping the worry out of his voice. Immediately, Papyrus spun his head around. Upon seeing his brother, Papyrus sat up and forward as fast as his battle body would let him [Sans thought he saw Papyrus swipe at his eyes during the transition].
“‘SUP BROTHER! WELCOME HOME! I WAS JUST NAPPING!” Pap didn’t really yell at Sans, but talked really, really loud. Papyrus smiled, the kind of smile that was really, really, wide but not quite wide enough to reach his eye sockets. Sans was very familiar with that type of smile, but it was normally on his own face. Not Pap’s.
Never Pap’s.
“oh. sorry if i woke you. my bed.” Sans himself winced at that one. But he was desperate.
“IT’S NO PROBLEM SANS!!!!!!!!! I WANTED TO WAKE UP ANYWAYS!” Despite Papyrus’ smile, Sans felt his heart sink a bit further.
“well, that’s good. so, uh, do you have any idea what happened to the tv?” Sans asked his brother, not even bothering to glance back at the wreckage. Papyrus looked around Sans.
“WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TV?” Papyrus muttered to himself [much too loudly to actually be a mutter]. When Papyrus looked back up at Sans, Sans could see the lie painted on his brother’s face. “I DO NOT KNOW BROTHER! I WAS ASLEEP ALL DAY! AS SUCH, I CANNOT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TV!!!!!! NYEH HEH Heh…” Pap trailed off.
“well, can’t argue with that logic.” Sans plopped himself down on the bed next to Papyrus. Watching his brother out of the corner of his eye, Sans tried to look as disinterested as possible. “there’s spaghetti in the kitchen.”
“THERE IS ALWAYS SPAGHETTI IN THE KITCHEN OF MASTER CHEF PAPYRUS!”
“‘course. it’s gone cold, though. did you want to add it to the food museum?”
Papyrus hesitated for a second. “NO. I DO NOT THINK SO.”
“do you want me to heat it up for dinner?”
“NO.”
[a one word answer? not good.] “well, whatdya want to do with it?” Sans saw Papyrus’ gears spinning in his head.
“WELL. I WAS THINKING....I COULD USE IT AS A TRAP! FOR HUMANS! PUT IT OUTSIDE TO ENTICE THEM! NO ONE CAN RESIST PAPYRUS’ SPAGHETTI! NYEH HEH HEH!!!”
“good idea pap. but, uh, won’t the spaghetti be cold outside?” [What in the good name of ASGORE is wrong].
“WELL, THE HUMAN CAN… USE OUR MICROWAVE TO HEAT IT UP!”
“won’t that mean they have to get to our house to eat the spaghetti?”
“WE CAN PUT THE MICROWAVE OUTSIDE BY THE SPAGHETTI!”
“genius pap.”
“AREN’T I?”
Sans looked at his brother, racking his mind for something that could ruin even spaghetti for Papyrus. Had Undyne kicked him out of training? Had a human came through and Pap had missed them? Had their pet rock died? The TV, broken on the floor stuck out in his mind as somehow important. Cold spaghetti. A silent Papyrus. Broken TV, cold spaghetti, silent Papyrus. Broken TV, cold spaghetti, silent Papyrus. Broken TV, cold spaghetti-
Cold spaghetti with [wrapping] paper around it. The Tv had been [magically] destroyed, not just broken. Papyrus was sitting alone, silent [crying], in his house. What day was it? Sans glanced at his phone. August 12th. It finally clicked in Sans’ mind.
[the anniversary…]
[that goddamn robot.]
[what did that piece of shit do?]
“did he forget?” Sans asked aloud. and Papyrus jumped.
“DID WHO FORGET WHAT?”
“mettaton. did he forget about today?”
“NO! HE WOULD NEVER FORGET ABOUT OUR DAY!” Papyrus said, and Sans thought it was the truth. “HE-” Papyrus hesitated
“he what, papyrus?”
“HE- HE-” Papyrus finally broke. Tears started welling up in his eyes as he spoke. “HE TOLD ME THAT I WAS UPSTAGING HIM.”
“what?”
“HE SAID THAT I WAS GETTING TOO POPULAR AND PEOPLE LIKED ME MORE THAN HIM AND HE COULDN’T HAVE THAT BECAUSE HE WAS THE STAR AND I WAS JUST THE PLUCKY ROMANTIC INTEREST AND-”
Sans wasn’t really listening anymore. The sight of his brother rambling through tears over such a selfish, shallow asshole was sending him over the edge. He felt anger building up inside him, the kind of anger he hadn’t felt since Mettaton had lied to him about that dinner date or when Mettaton stood Pap up that one time or when Mettaton first asked Pap out or-
Papyrus was balling now, words dissolving into sobs. Sans snapped out of his self-righteous anger. Reaching over, he enveloped Pap in a hug, or as much as he could with his short arms. Papyrus threw his arms around Sans and cried into Sans’ shoulder. The two of them stayed like that for who knows how long, Sans listening to his brother crying from where he was pressed against Papyrus’ ribcage.
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The last time Mettaton had pissed him off this anywhere near this bad, Sans had waited until Papyrus fell asleep, then took a shortcut to Mettaton’s front door. Sans had gathered all 1 dmg he could do and Gaster Blasted in the door. It had exploded inward with such force it knocked over the golden Mettaton statue that had stood in the foyer and left a mark on the front of the mansion.
Sans had found the sack of shit hiding behind a couch, trying to call the Royal Guard and the closest camera crew simultaneously. Looking back, this was probably before Alphys had installed all those weapons. This was probably the incident that incited the decision to add that equipment. Despite lacking any self-defense, Mettaton had taken one look at his intruder and immediately relaxed.
“Oh. It’s just you.” Turning back to his phone [that was built inside his head, so he didn’t even have to look away from Sans, but whatever], Mettaton had said “Nevermind. I don’t need anything. It won’t even be interesting.”
Sans had immediately lifted the robot off his ass and flung him against the nearest wall, right eye blazing blue and yellow. Mettaton slammed, back first, into a painting of himself.
“Hey, watch the titanium Darling~.” Mettaton had said. “You so much as scratch me, you’ll have a legion of angry monsters on you.”
“well, you’ve got the equivalent on you right now.” Sans had then spent the better part of two hours wrecking Mettaton’s house with Mettaton himself as a sledgehammer. Once Sans’ felt his magic start to run empty, he lowered the battered metal shell to the floor, quite forcefully, leaned over and put his perpetual grin right in Mettaton’s face.
“I swear to ASGORE HIMSELF, if you so much as think about breaking a promise to Papyrus again, I will stop holding back.”
Mettaton had never stood Papyrus up again. He had never even been late once. Papyrus had even told him once that Mettaton had canceled an event to make it to a dinner date one time.
This time though, Papyrus had tired himself long before nighttime. So, when Sans left the house, it was still afternoon. That meant Mettaton was likely still filming or doing something live. Thanks to a very convenient shortcut, Sans took one step outside then the next step in a live-studio airing of As the World Turns Around Mettaton. The lead [and at this point, only actor on the show] was played out by Mettaton. Currently, Mettaton was confronting Mettatonette about the triplet goat babies [all named Mettatonitos, all three were also played by him] she had had with Mettatony. Or some shit. Sans didn’t care.
Instead, he reached into his pocket, opened the tupperware container he held, reached in, wound up, and threw the cold spaghetti as hard as he could at Mettaton.
It flew in a glorious arch across the stage, sailing through the air like perfectly made spaghetti is bound to do. A few cameramen and members of the stage audience saw it coming from offstage right, but it was traveling much too fast for anyone to do anything about it. Mettaton, however, did not notice the flying pasta coming at him with the speed of Snowdrake flying away from Jerry. In a wonderful moment of fate, Mettaton turned his head at just the last second, and caught the most fleeting glimpse of his tomato destiny before being blinded by seven different herbs and spices.
It landed, bullseye into Mettaton’s face. The spaghetti made the most satisfying squish when it made contact, cutting off Mettaton’s monologue mid-sentence, causing static noises as marinara sauce found its way into Mettaton’s voice processor. He sputtered and coughed as he tried to clear out the speaker in his throat. He pulled the spaghetti off his face and looked in the direction it had come from.
Sans simply stood there, grin plastered on his face like always, and stared at the flabbergasted robot. Sans watched in glee as Mettaton’s face turned from one of confusion to one of fear. Sans just winked at him, feeling his pupils shrink into his skull.
Despite his newfound terror, Mettaton managed to turn to the camera and announce [in the narrator’s voice, which he also did for the show] that the mystery of the spaghetti attack would be answered in next week’s episode. The outro song began to play [thanks to some poor tech worker in some booth somewhere], and the crew began rushing the stage. A Woshua stumbled up to Mettaton and offered to clean off the spaghetti for him, but Mettaton was already shaking his head and heading for the backdoor.
Sans waited until he left the building before taking a shortcut to the door. He let Mettaton hear him open the door and follow outside. Mettaton glanced behind him and apparently immediately regretted that decision, if the look on his face was any clue. The robot began picking up the pace and Sans let him get some distance away before shortcutting right up behind him again. Mettaton heard the crunch of snow behind him and began running as fast as his legs would allow. Sans’ shortcuts always brought him right behind the fleeing coward.
“HOW THE HELL ARE YOU SO FAST?” Mettaton yelled back at him. Sans didn’t reply. Mettaton lead Sans around Hotland, desperately trying to lose the vengeful skeleton. Sans was always right there, no matter what Mettaton tried. The steam vent puzzle didn’t even slow him down. Mettaton called Alphys and yelled until she brought up the all the security lasers around the place. Sans took another shortcut. Sans even heard him call Undyne, begging for help.
Sans heard Undyne laugh so loud in is face that he heard it despite the phone being buried in Mettaton. Sans had called her before leaving his house in Snowdin. It hadn't been hard to convince her to let him beat the snot out of the scumbag. It had been difficult to convince her to stay at home and let Sans deal with it.
Out of allies that could even theoretically help him, Mettaton ran in a circle around his own resort, trying to think of something to do. Sans just kept appearing behind him. Then, Mettaton got an idea, judging by the way he swerved out of his fourth circle and made the hardest right turn Sans had ever seen anyone make. When Sans got to where Mettaton had turned off his circular path, he saw where the robot intended to go.
The Core.
Sans watched Mettaton sprint into across the bridge and into the entryway of The Core. Blue light reflecting off the walls onto his face, Mettaton turned his head and stuck out his tongue. He probably figured he was safe. Everyone knew The Core was a veritable labyrinth.
To bad for Mettaton. Guess he didn’t know Sans had helped design the thing in younger days.
Sans smiled [swallowing the latent fear about the place in his gut] as he followed the robot, counting the steps until the bastard’s demise.