A Little Hope

    Papyrus was getting tired. It was a thing that happened sometimes. His boundless energy tapered a bit, his ever present grin was a bit too slow to light up his features. His personality became a bit less overbearing, his movements a little slower. Most monsters would just assume he was having an off day, or perhaps wouldn’t notice anything at all out of the ordinary. After all, he was still Papyrus - just a little less Papyrus than he normally was. Surely he was still normal, in his slightly-less-than-normal-Papyrus way. If Papyrus really wondered about it, he knew there was really only one person in this world that could catch his slips.

    And if he voiced it aloud, to most monsters’ surprise, he would say it wasn’t Sans.

    If allowed to explain, he would smile a smile just a tad too small than it should be and say in a voice just a tad too soft than it should be that, though his brother tried his best, Sans was a little too self absorbed to notice changes in other people. Small changes, anyway, like the slips Papyrus himself showed. Sans was just a little too wrapped up in himself - a little too attentive to how happy he was trying to look, a little too ponderous on jokes to set the people around him at ease. He was a little too bitter about his own bitterness. A little too tired of his own tiredness. Sans, after all, was a good thinker. His mind could shake down problems and puzzles and maths and sciences and see the simplicity inside them. But when it came to things of the heart and soul, well, Sans was a little too dark on the inside to understand the darkness that sometimes tiptoed into others. Sans was just a little too… Sans… to see too far past himself.

    And Papyrus would never fault his brother for any of this - it wasn’t the Papyrus way after all! Papyrus was a little too Papyrus to care whether his brother caught his slips, his quieter voice and his smileless smile. He preferred it this way in fact. Because if Papyrus were completely honest he would say it was Sans’ fault he slipped sometimes. Sans made Papyrus tired. It wasn’t a weary tired - not the coarse, avoiding tired that one feels when forced into a room with someone they disagree with. After all, Papyrus loved his brother very much, disliking anyone was very un-Papyrus of the Great Papyrus, and most of all his brother who - if Papyrus were completely honest - he would give his life and more to protect if asked to.

    Sans was exhausting simply because Papyrus was a very happy monster and his brother was not. In fact, Sans was miserable in his own aloof, distressing and very Sans-ish sort of way. Sans was tired of life. Sans was tired of living. And in a very quiet and slightly shuddering corner of Papyrus’ heart, if he were very honest with himself, he would say he was very nearly the only reason his brother was living at all. After all, he was the one who cleaned and cooked. He was the one who encouraged and coaxed. He was the one who chased nightmares away, who stood guard against bad thoughts and swam against rivers of tears. Tears that eventually Sans was just too tired to bother with crying. Papyrus was the one who spewed boundless optimism, who preached greatness and love. And when Papyrus was really paying attention, he could see the dark creep away from his brother for a moment, a genuine smile curl across that constantly grinning face, a spark of light leap into those very tired eyes.

    But even with such boundless optimism and faith, even knowing how important such things were to his brother, Papyrus in spite of himself would sometimes get very, very tired. He regretted that it happened. Frowned when the weariness crept into his bones. Sighed a bit too much when he should’ve been laughing. And Sans didn’t notice and Papyrus was glad for it.

    No, the one who always noticed was not his brother whom he loved very much.

    The one who always noticed was one who felt much the same way in her very own, very un-Papyrus and un-Sans way.

    The one who always noticed was Undyne.

    And when she noticed, she would sigh. The overconfidence and overbearingness inside her would slip much like Papyrus’ did. And they wouldn’t practice that day. All talk of the Royal Guard and of protecting the innocent and of heroism and justice would pause. Because Undyne knew how it felt to feel just a little bit too tired. Because in her own loud and happily-angry Undyne way, she dealt with the same thing. But not with a little skeleton brother whose smile was a little too bitter to be real. No, definitely not. Undyne felt herself slip around a small little love in her life whose smile was a bit too nervous to be comfortable. Whose claws shook a bit too much to be busy. Whose mistakes were a bit too big to be hidden or forgotten. And try as Undyne might to always be there just when she was needed, to always be a hero for sleepless nights and tearful mornings, through panic attacks and damning thoughts, she had to admit in spite of her pride that she also slipped. She hated herself for it but she inevitably accepted it. And she knew she wasn't alone.

    So they sat together, ignoring work in favor of each other's’ presence, staring into the hole that opened up in their world from their perch on the boardwalk. Water echoed around them, pinging off the walls and echo flowers alike. It smelled dank and a bit like trash - the dump was nearby after all. But sitting under the crystal light as they were, feet dangling off the platform into the nothingness that gaped below, with nothing but the water and their own voices, they could feel a little smaller for a little while. They could feel a little less than a little too much.

    “How’s Alphys been doing this week?” Papyrus asked, kicking his feet lazily and watching the crystals as they twinkled and winked above him, “You were worried last week, I remember.”

    His voice was a calm sort of soft, octaves below the normal enthusiastic yell he preferred to be. So soft not even the echo flowers could return his words to him. It was the kind of soft that betrayed his hidden slipping, a kind of soft that wavered and cracked and hitched and dived when his emotions got a little too strong.

    “Better,” came the harsh reply, Undyne’s voice gruff from  years of yelling a little too loudly a little too much. She held her face in her palms, letting the darkness of her closed eyes ease the fatigue in the back of her thoughts. Her palms were uncomfortably dry against the scales of her face, the normal constant moisture gone in her nervousness. It was unsettling, a subtle reminder that everything was a little bit south of ‘okay’.

    “She was closing herself away from me last week,” Undyne went on, “I think sometimes she get’s scared again,  ya know? That I’ll suddenly stop loving her or something stupid like that.”

    “But you would never do that,” Papyrus mused absently, his thoughts only halfway to Alphys as they wandered towards his brother, “Sans is the same way sometimes. He thinks he doesn’t deserve me.”

    “So much same! It’s like she should be punished for something. And it’s just so hard to understand why she’d ever think that way,” Undyne hummed, agreeing.

    “I know the feeling,” Papyrus picked up with a nod, “I’ve never done anything to make him feel that way. Or at least, not that I can recall. Have I done something wrong? Neglected him at some point to make him think it was possible at all?”

    “Of course not,” Undyne’s voice snagged in her throat and she rubbed at an eye, looking up at her friend, “You’re the greatest friend he’s ever had.”

    “And you’re the hero she’s always been looking for,” Papyrus sighed.

    “But we’ve never been through what they’re going through now,” Undyne huffed, “And I hope we never do.”

    “Who would keep them living if we did?” Papyrus asked, voicing a question they’d both thought before, “If something happened to us… they wouldn’t make it would they?”

    “Damn,” Undyne’s voice dropped into a growl, hiding the emotion that wavered just under the tone, “I’d never forgive myself if…”

    Her hands shook as they gripped each other in her lap. Her sharp teeth bit into her lip. Papyrus’ nonexistent stomach gave a hard twist, the throat he didn’t have grew tight and his eyes dim.

    “How are we supposed to do this?” he asked, his voice grating. He must have spoken louder, the sigh in his breath carrying his words farther, because they echoed back to him distorted and hopeless.

    “I don’t know how much more I can worry,” Undyne swallowed the hiccup building in her ribs, knowing it might turn into a sob if she wasn’t careful, “She just… doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I’m scared to leave her alone for too long… but I can’t be with her all the time. I’m a guard.”

    A pitiful laugh escaped her teeth and Papyrus glanced over at her, “How can I protect her when I’m out protecting her, right?”

    Papyrus flashed her a world-weary smile, “It is very hard trying to make someone give up on giving up… isn’t it?”

    They both paused at this, letting the words sink in and find their own meanings in their heads. Letting themselves feel a little hopeless for a few moments. And Undyne, as bitter as she could be, would probably stay like that if it weren’t for Papyrus. After a pause that seemed to be just the perfect length, just long enough for the words to find a mark in their souls, Papyrus spoke again.

    “That’s where I lucked out a bit more than Sans I think,” his voice grew a bit louder, his spine a little straighter and he grinned, “After all, it’s quite easy to give up. And I can’t stand being lazy. I suppose if my brother had the need to stay busy like I do, he’d find it a little harder to give up so easily.”

    Undyne gave a snort of laughter, “Not sure it works that way nerd.”

    “You’re right,” Papyrus shrugged, though his grin was still present, “There’s a lot more at work here than I can understand. But at least I know as long as I’m here… I can help him. There’s a way of getting him through this I’m sure of it. Maybe he and Alphys will never be completely better, but we can get them somewhere a little less dark… I’m sure of it! We just have to stay strong for them. Show them this world isn’t all that bad a place to stay in.”

    Undyne wrapped an arm around the skeleton’s shoulders and pulled him into an uncomfortable - but not altogether unpleasant - embrace, “Yeah, we’ll get ‘em. Give them a reason to hope again.”

    Undyne released her hug - giving Papyrus one last goodnatured squeeze before she did so. She kicked her feet over the edge of the platform, looking up at the glimmering crystals above instead of the dizzying depths below. She sighed, mouth barred in a shark-tooth grin.

    “Just wait ‘till we bust outta here,” she laughed, “They’ll see the real sky - the real world - and they’ll be okay again. Well… better anyway. We just gotta hold on a little longer.”

    “Well of course!” Papyrus said with confident enthusiasm, “And I, the Great Papyrus, will hold on for as long as ‘a little longer’ needs to be! Someday Sans will want to look through his telescope again and actually see real stars.”

    “And Alphys will get to actually geek out over real humans instead of the ones in her historical documents and movies,” Undyne punched a fist into the air enthusiastically, “We can do this Paps. We got this. Right? We got this.”

    Papyrus chucked, “Yes, indeed we do.”

    “They’ll feel better again someday.”

    “We can wait that long.”