Autistic Skele-Bros

14: Comfort Item: Papyrus

(1412 words)

(This chapter takes place on the surface)

~~~

Papyrus walks slowly through a hallway, the floor boards creaking under his boots.

"Just a silly haunted house, I am a monster so there should be nothing to be afraid of." Papyrus talks to himself, trying to calm his increasingly rising nerves. He reaches up to his neck to feel for his scarf but there was nothing there.

"Right. It was messy and it had to be cleaned." He says, rubbing his hands together instead.

He continues down the oddly long hallway, pictures of people from the eighteen hundreds staring at him from either side. He hears a loud clank from one of the pictures. Being the completely logical skeleton that he was, Papyrus goes to the picture to investigate.

It was of a man holding a big metal hammer and looking very serious.

"What a happy looking man." Papyrus says, looking him straight in the eyes.

Straight into the eyes....

They blinked.

Papyrus shouts and stumbles backwards to the opposite wall. The wall in front of him opens up and the man steps out with the hammer, stumbling a bit and roaring with rage.

Papyrus resists his urge to start attacking and instead bolts down the hall where the paintings all reach out their arms, moaning and grasping at him.

"Stay away!" He shouts as he runs, the sound of the grasping pictures growing louder and louder until it consumed him whole.

Papyrus, disinterested from all the noise, trips and falls, flipping over as fast as he could so he could see the man coming up behind him.

He raises the hammer and shouts, adding to the noise. Papyrus shuffles back as fast as he could while still on the ground. "Uh- Um- Uh-" Papyrus stutters, putting on a wavering smile. "Y-Y-You w-want t-t-o be-e m-my f-friend?" He backs up, his smile faltering a moment as the man keeps walking toward him.

"Oh- Okay th-then." He says, standing up on shaky legs. "I-I'll just be g-going then." Papyrus backs up as far as he can until his back hits a wall. He looks around, seeing that it was the end of the hallway.

He reaches up once again for his scarf that wasn't there. He feels his bare neck and stops, dropping to the floor and covering his head. "HELP!" He screams, only adding to the overwhelming amount of noise. "HELP ME!" He screams, hoping for anyone to hear him.

"SANS!" Papyrus screeches, covering his ears and closing his eyes tightly.

He normally didn't get this overwhelmed but it was just all too much with the screeches, and the moans, and the fear, and the man.

His eyes start to water and he pulls his knees in tightly to his chest. The man stops moving toward him but everything was still there.

Except his scarf.

That just topped it off. He had been upset about missing his scarf for almost two days now and he had been holding it all in.

The man bends down by him and Papyrus instinctively lashes out and backhands the man, making him real backwards.

"Hey kid, It's alright, calm down." The man pulls off the mask and waves towards the arms and hands reaching out of the picture frames. As soon as one had gotten the idea it tapped the one next to it, passing the message down and soon enough everything had quieted and the arms had retreated, a couple faces coming in some of their places and looking down the hall at the man and Papyrus.

Papyrus keeps his eyes closed and his knees up to his chest, his arms still covering his skull.

"It's alright, breathe." The man slides the hammer across the floor behind him, getting it as far away as he could.

Papyrus reaches up to his neck, almost clawing for his scarf. He was breathing hard and not opening his eyes, shaking his head and scratching his neck up through his gloves at the same time.

The man grabs his hands and holds them away from his neck. "It's okay, please. Hey, look at me, it's okay."

Papyrus slowly opens his eyes, looking at the man. He had black stubble all around his chin and black hair that laid across his head.

"You're okay." He says calmly.

Papyrus tries to pull his hands back to his neck but his eyes stay locked on the man's.

"Did you come here with someone?" He asks, keeping his hands down. Papyrus nods. "I-Uh, S-Sans. My- My brother..." He stutters out.

The man smiles and goes to help Papyrus up. "Alright, let's go out and find him." They start walking and the man looks up at a small camera on the ceiling. "Lights please." The lights turn on and they continue down the hallway to a door. They both go out and they're met with the view of a small parking lot where a few people stood, including a short skeleton wearing a big, fluffy coat.

Papyrus lets go of the man's hand and rushes over to Sans who he hugs tightly. "Sans!" Sans is shocked for a moment but quickly regains his composure. "Hey bro, scary enough for you?" Sans says smiling.

Papyrus nuzzles his skull into Sans' coat. "'Kay..." Sans says. The man comes up to the pair. "Hey, just wanted to check up on him, make sure everything's okay."

Sans gives the man a thumbs up. "Yeah, it's all good, I'm sure we can go home and everything'll be fine. Thanks."

The man smiles. "It's no problem. We pride ourselves on being one of the only haunted houses that recognizes and stops to help panic attacks and the like." He starts walking away. "I hope you two are going to be okay."

Sans smiles and starts walking towards the sidewalk with his brother. "Papyrus, this hasn't got to do with your scarf now does it?" Papyrus nods slowly. "Maybe..."

Sans rubs his brother's arm. "Bro, it's alright, I bet when we get back It'll already be clean." Papyrus and Sans walk all the way back to their house, Papyrus rushing inside and into the laundry room.

"It's done! It's clean! Finally!" Papyrus flings the dryer closed and pushes the warm, clean scarf up to his face. He sighs contently and walks out of the room into the living-room where Sans had planted himself on the couch. "And there, everything's fine." Sans says, closing his eyes.

"yeah, I guess" Papyrus says, rubbing the scarf on his face and sitting down next to his brother.

Sans sighs and sits up. "What's wrong?"

"It was so scary... And then when they kept screaming. It was so much sound. It felt horrible." Papyrus finishes with his legs pulled up onto the couch with him.

Sans smiles understandingly. "Yeah, I get that. It's a lot sometimes."

Papyrus leans on Sans awkwardly. "I'm glad it's over though."

~~~

Hello! This chapter was suggested by Wolf-M! They suggested a chapter on Papyrus' comfort item. They said so many nice things and suggested one other thing as well that I want to do eventually.

For Papyrus' comfort item I tried to really show how much he depended on it to feel safe. I'm sure there were other ways this chapter could go but I felt like this was a good way to end it with a decently happy ending where nobody got hurt. well, that guy got hurt but he kinda had it coming.

As I said in the one with Sans' comfort item I don't really have one except for this old stuffed animal. I mean, I guess you could count my phone as a sort of comfort item. I always have it to listen to music so maybe...?

Anyways guess what time it is?!~~

~Guest time!~

Guest: Thank you! I like to be creative!

nat.f: Really? Cool! P.s Thank you!, so are you! P.p.s super cool (I'ma female aka iron man)

Guest: (same guest as before?!) Oo! what's your fursona!? I totally love singing lyrics of songs! I like the song ghost from mystery skulls! I saw a super cool animation and i just fell in love.