The Time Before (Undertale)

30 ~ Sickness

Sans was lying awake in bed.

It was about seven in the morning, and soon, Papyrus would be in to get Sans up to help him get ready for school. Sans had, somehow, gotten into the habit of waking up five to ten minutes before Papyrus came to get him.

Sure enough, he heard the knock on the door, and, when Sans didn't respond, Papyrus came into the room, calling his name, turning on the lights.

The smaller skeleton climbed up onto Sans' bed and shook his shoulder. "Saaaaans! Wake up!"

"nooooooooo, pap, five more minutes!" Sans complained.

"Sans! Get up! I don't want to be late to school!" Papyrus grabbed the blankets of Sans' bed and pulled them off.

Sans grumbled, and tried to burrow back under the blankets, but Papyrus didn't let him.

Eventually, Sans gave in, sitting up. "... welp, i guess you win. mornin', papyrus."

Papyrus grinned. "Good morning, Sans! I'm going to go start getting ready."

"you do that, bro."

Papyrus scrambled away with a "Nyeh heh heh!"-- something he had never grown out of since before he could speak, which Sans, quite frankly, loved.

Sans stretched, his back cracking a bit, and yawned. He really didn't mind the early mornings, it was more that he just preferred a slower start. A gradual acceleration. Papyrus's immediately-up-and-running start was a bit sudden for him.

But, he loved his brother, so up he got.

After tugging on his usual pair of gym shorts and a tee shirt, Sans stumbled into the small kitchen of the hotel room, still yawning. Papyrus was still getting dressed.

Sans found a paper bag, pulled out some bread and peanut butter and jelly, and started making a PB&J sandwich for Papyrus's lunch. From there, he moved on to making Papyrus's customary breakfast: a bowl of oatmeal, using one of the instant-mix packets with the sugar dinosaur eggs in it. Papyrus loved those.

Just as Sans finished mixing the hot water and the  contents of the oatmeal packet together in a bowl, Papyrus came into the kitchen. He sat down at the small table as Sans set the bowl in front of him.

For a moment, Papyrus just stared at the bowl, blinking. Then he slowly picked up his spoon, and started eating.

But he was doing it more slowly than usual.

"hey, pap," Sans began slowly, "are you alright?"

Papyrus took a moment to respond. But he looked up at Sans and smiled. "Yeah. I'm fine."

But, now that Sans thought about it, Papyrus was going a bit slower than usual, and his voice was a little hoarse sounding. So Sans stepped around the table, stopping next to Papyrus. Gently, he pressed a hand to Papyrus's forehead.

All monsters generate body heat through the constant burn of Magic for energy. Even skeletons have body heat, albeit quite a bit less than most monsters, and they don't really depend on it, as they are largely unaffected by temperature.

But when Sans pressed his hand to Papyrus's forehead, Papyrus felt cold to him. Especially for a skeleton. On top of that, with his hand against Papyrus's skull, he could feel the minute  tremors that ran through Papyrus's frame.

"... yeeeeaaaah, no. you're not going to school today."

Papyrus looked up at Sans, and Sans couldn't decide if the blank look was shock, or slow comprehension brought on by whatever sickness this was. But, slowly, Papyrus's expression shifted to horror. "Wh- what?! Sans, no! I can't miss school!"