The Time Before (Undertale)

23 ~ Continuing On

Having discovered his voice, Sans' brother "spoke" quite a bit-- not actual words yet, just babbling nonsense, but it was a nearly constant thing. And he had one of those voices-- where Sans' voice was low, his was high, where Sans' voice was soft, his was sharp, and where Sans' voice curved and dipped, his voice stood out tall and straight. It was one of those voices that demanded attention, regardless of the actual words. It was a proud voice.

Since hearing his brother's voice, Sans had been running through all the fonts he could remember from his own name-hunting days.

It had to be the right name. It had to be perfect.

But none of the fonts seemed to fit. They all fell short of the-- ... Of the greatness that was his brother.

So he asked Jeff for help.

"all the tall fonts," he told Jeff, "all of 'em that are tall and straight and... and proud. the ones that are different because they're unusual and amazing and..."

Jeff had nodded, and told Sans he would see what he could find.

From then on, every few days, he would bring Sans a paper or two on which he had printed off a bunch of fonts.

Still, none seemed to fit.

Gaster found some of the papers.

"Sans, S643 is a test subject. Not your brother, and certainly not getting a name."

"you let me have a name."

"And I will not make that mistake twice."

Jeff always took the papers with him when he left, after that.

And still the hunt continued. Jeff started looking farther and farther, hunting through old archives, looking through obscure old typography books, until, finally...

"papyrus." Sans paused, one finger on the printed word. He looked at his sleeping brother, then gently poked him.

The small form uncurled, peering through sleepy eyesockets up at Sans. "Nyeh...?" He questioned.

"papyrus? pap?"

The small skeleton grinned. He didn't know the significance of those words, but he liked the way they sounded.

"Is that it?" Jeff asked, smiling. "Papyrus?"

They both looked at the small skeleton. At Papyrus. "Paah-... Pa'yw-... Pa'ywuh...?"

The edges of Sans' grin lifted. "yeah. papyrus."

And so, he was Papyrus.

Of course, Gaster wasn't happy to learn they had named S643, but in the end, he realized, there was nothing he could really do to stop them.

Not like it mattered in the end. It was still S643. Still his test subject.

~o0o~

Gaster had told Sans that he was increasing the dosages again.

This was the biggest size increase yet.

Sans hadn't gotten used to the previous increase yet. It still hurt immensely, still had him screaming and writhing against the restraints, begging but hardly able to understand his own words...

A bigger dosage would hurt even more.

Perhaps he would ask Gaster again about just knocking him out right off the bat. Sometimes the Royal Scientist would actually do it. Maybe Sans would get lucky.