thisavrou_log | [Closed] If the rocks in the box get the water right down to your socks

[Closed] If the rocks in the box get the water right down to your socks

Who: Papyrus and Sans
When: Following the daring escape from jail
Where: Mero Deck, Papyrus's room
What: Mindless brotherly cuteness
Warnings: None, will update if necessary!

It seemed impossible to settle back down after their thrilling escape from jail, but regardless, the brothers were giving it a try. Sans was even more worn down than usual after the day's exertions, and Papyrus was still a little scuffed up thanks to the police and his own clumsiness. He'd insisted on making sure Steven was okay and taken some time to wash the worst of the smudges off his skull and foot, but once all of that was taken care of, all he wanted to do was fall into their comfortable routine.

Finding themselves on a spaceship impossibly far from home had shaken things up quite a bit, but the brothers had their system. Those few things between them that would probably never change. Papyrus would always show up to carry Sans out of the bar when it was time, Sans would drive him bonkers with awful jokes before falling asleep, and no matter what else they had going on, every night, they met up in Papyrus's room for a bedtime story.

Papyrus sat on the edge of his bed, pulling off his remaining boot and sighing a little. He was going to have to find a replacement if he couldn't get the other one back; walking around here barefoot was simply too noisy.

"Really though, Sans," Papyrus lifted his bare foot and inspected it for dirt before getting into bed, "I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep! So much happened today! I still can't believe we all went to jail!"

It was embarrassing at first, but Papyrus got over it quickly enough when he learned that detaining innocent people had become something of a trend.

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To say the day was a little stressful would be an understatement. The imprisonment, that was one thing. Being cooped up with Miles and his excessive determination was another. Seeing his brother scuffed up in a prison cell? When you went through most of your life feeling as little as possible, sharp spikes of emotion were enough to nearly take him out at the kneecaps.

Even now, he wasn't quite sure what it was he felt -- what he still felt, watching him get settled in for the night. It wasn't wholly fear, anger, or guilt, but rather some unpleasant cocktail of all three. One thing was sure. It made him feel like a lousy brother.

"By my count, you've been up for about three days. You'll find a way. Probably." Sans furrowed his brow, leafing through a stack of books from the library. Elizabeth was cool. Not everyone would be so relaxed about loaning out this many books at a time. Then again, there probably wasn't huge demand for children's books.

"So what're you in the mood for tonight, Pap? I got logic puzzles, I got this old car magazine, I got this story about... a duck? I think?" Sans squinted at it. "I dunno what planet this came from."

"Nonsense! It's only been one, two, three..." He trailed off, looking at his fingers as he counted off on them. "Oh, I guess you're right this time." He got comfortable in bed, covers pulled up to his chin, and considered his options.

"It's too bad they don't have Peek-A-Boo With Fluffy Bunny here, that's inarguably the best one! It has everything: intrigue, friendship, an intricate plot, and well-thought-out characters! Truly, a masterpiece of fiction." He sighed a little, reminiscing about the many, may, many times Sans had read him that one. "Oh well, we'll just have to adapt! Does the duck one have nice pictures?"

Edited 2016-01-31 07:58 (UTC)

"Uh." Sans held the book a little further from his face, as if that might inspire some additional insight. Whoever illustrated this was very imaginative... and possibly deranged. "It's neat? Here."

He flipped the book around, letting Papyrus have full view of the book.

"What do you think? Looks kinda like something Doggo would put on a t-shirt, in my opinion."

"Oh!! Well, it's... hmm." Papyrus frowned at the illustrations, trying to make sense of them. He tilted his skull to one side, then the other, then glanced uncertainly back at Sans.

"It's certainly very... colorful? And, and, it displays a very active imagination! Either that or this person had no luck scavenging for art supplies at their local dump. That's an awful lot of red."

"Maybe it's blood." Sans commented mildly, fingers dancing along his jaw bone. "Maybe they forgot to duck and got inspired to write a kids book then and there..."

Edited 2016-01-31 08:13 (UTC)

Papyrus groaned and facepalmed, slinking even lower under the covers.

"That's one of your worst ones yet! And why would blood loss inspire a book about, um..." He leaned in a little closer, squinting at the pages. Sans hadn't been kidding; whoever had illustrated the book had been nowhere close to sober or had no idea what a duck was supposed to look like.

"About... flight? Or possibly transmogrification?"

"I think we're about to find out, 'cuz I'm kinda curious now." Taking the book back, Sans pitched forward so his elbows were braced on the bed. The crew quarters were definitely a step down, size-wise, from their house back in Snowdin. He found them sort of cramped. If he asked, Sans was sure Papyrus would describe them as cozy.

One of the many ways his brother was the coolest.

"Alright." Sans made a show of smoothing out the pages, squaring off his shoulders. Once he got the groan he was looking for, Sans continued. "The sun is up and so am I, I've woken brother too. I just can't wait to start the day, we've much to see and do.

"... Heh. Sounds like somebody I know."

"Phbbbt! Like I would ever wait around for the sun to finally make an appearance!" Not that Papyrus had quite gotten over the novelty of seeing a sun at all yet, but he would never spend that much time in bed. He was far too busy, especially with his unexpectedly challenging job raising the morale on the ship.

"Keep going! If he has a lazy brother, this one could become a new tradition! Nyeh-heh-heh!"

"Good point."

Flipping ahead, Sans glimpsed the usual progression of things. The duckling had a big brother who was cooler than the little duckling in every way. Pretty standard. Definitely not too difficult to improve upon.

"We waddle to the riverbank, I swim through like no other. And though he's got a lot to learn, I stop to help my brother."

"I run into the meadow next, to see what I can see. Hello whizzy dragonfly, hello buzzy bee. I go down to the pond to swim and chase some butterflies. When suddenly, a frog jumps out and gives me a surprise."

Sans held up the illustration -- which looked very much like a duck creature locked in endless battle with a hideous amphibious abomination -- and made a series of accompanying gagging sounds. Once his idiocy was rewarded with a snort from of Papyrus, Sans continued.

"At lunchtime when the sun is hot, a shady spot's the best. My big bro tells me stories while we cuddle close and rest."

Sans stopped again, fiddling with the pages. It went on like this, about the little duckling playing with their friends, enjoying the rest of their day, until finally curling up to sleep again. His eye wandered back to the scuff marks on Papyrus's skull, staring for a little longer than he realized or meant to.

"Man, talking about lunchtime is making me hungry. Wanna grab a bite?"

The story was nice, mostly because it was entirely new. Papyrus had no idea how it would end, and new adventures during storytime were always a little exciting. Even so, the comfortable drone of Sans's voice rising and falling with the cadence of the verse had him dozing off, only to open his eyes again when he stopped for awhile.

The question made him tsk loudly before sitting back up. "Lazybones! Only you would need nourishment halfway through a bedtime story! And I know you, you're just going to eat pure grease as usual!"

But even as he complained, he was getting back up. He wasn't that sleepy, and after the events of the day he wouldn't say no to spending a little extra time with his brother.

"I suppose I could accompany you and have a glass of warm milk, or something."

"That's cool of you, bro. Thanks." Setting the book aside, Sans stood. Standing turned to a stretch, which turned to a yawn, until he was leaning hard against the door waiting for Papyrus to get up out of bed. He was in his pajamas, but whatever. Sans wasn't in uniform, either.

Unlike Papyrus, he was tired. The last few days were heavy on magic and very light on sleep. It was a wonder he managed to stay awake as long as he did through the enthralling tale of the duckling's adventures.

"So, uh." For a second, it seemed like Sans wouldn't finish that thought. They were both out of Papyrus's room before he started it up again. "How's your face doing?"

Edited 2016-01-31 09:01 (UTC)

Papyrus could tell Sans was dragging. It was easy to read in every heavy gesture, the droop of his skull as if it were too heavy to hold up. He walked a bit slower out of consideration without thinking too much about it.

"Oh, this? It's nothing!" At Sans's question he reached up, fingertips brushing against the worst of his wounds. He'd managed to scrub the grime off, but he was still a bit sore. Nothing that wouldn't heal up soon, of course. He'd sustained worse injuries than this in the past just by going off-recipe during cooking lessons with Undyne.

A part of him worried about how Sans was holding up, but he could take some cold comfort in knowing for a fact he wasn't injured.

He couldn't afford to be, after all.

"Heh, yeah, I know. Just thought I'd ask. Don't want to deprive the Starflight of your slick mug, am I right?"

With a quick nudge to the ribs, Sans waggled his brow bones. It was a good enough cover. After all, Papyrus was right. It was just a scratch, something that didn't even warrant busting out the green magic. Besides, with how drained he felt, Sans wasn't sure he could heal so much as a stubbed toe.

It was the way it happened more than anything. The humans on the Moira were kind for the most part. At the very least, Sans couldn't imagine any of them actively trying to bring harm to either him or Papyrus. But despite all the safety of the Moira, someone sure did put those scuff marks on Papyrus's face. They might've done a lot more, if Sans and Miles didn't just happen to drop in. The thought of it made his marrow boil.

Man, he really needed a drink.

The Moira never really slept, but Sans wasn't surprised to find the bar briefly unmanned. Looping around the back, he gestured to one of the stools. "Take a seat, bro. You wanted milk, right?"

Edited 2016-01-31 09:21 (UTC)

And if Sans had brought any of it up, Papyrus, predictably, would have just argued that it was all a misunderstanding and the police were on high alert following the disappearance of the Link'd human. At least half his injuries were his own fault anyway.

"Yes, of course!" Papyrus hesitated before taking a seat and jabbed the barstool's cushion with a finger. Sure enough, the telltale brrrrpt caused him to smirk at Sans and choose another stool.

"Nyeh-heh! Thought you could jape the great Papyrus, did you? Well, as you see, it takes a lot more than one simple device to--"

He cut off in dismay as sitting down in the other stool set off yet another whoopie cushion.

Thankfully, Sans was faced away from Papyrus when the musical sound of victory echoed through the empty bar. The glee in his grin was nearly blinding and it took concentrated effort to school his expression to something low key when he turned around.

"Oh man, bro, looks like some weirdo's been hitting the barstools again. I'll let Miles know." Sans very nearly lost his battle for a straight face, clunking down a tall glass of milk. "Drink up."

"Saaaans!" Even though he was sitting on a stool, he still dropped his foot down for one petulant stomp. It seemed like the right response, even though without his cool boots on his feet only made an unimpressive clack on the tile. "Your sense of humor gets worse and worse by the day!!"

Still glaring, and fighting back a grin of his own, he snatched up the milk and took a swig.

"You love it, don't lie, man." Rounding back towards the front with some ketchup and a sad bowl of beer nuts, Sans settled back around to sit beside Papyrus. Sure enough, yet another whoopie cushion sounded when he sat down.

"Hey, next time I go to the library we should pick out a few books together. The stacks aren't arranged by color, but it's pretty cool."

"I'm smiling a little because I feel sorry for you, that's all!!"

Despite his words, he struggled to keep looking mad when Sans sat down, too. It was the dumbest prank in the world, made even lamer by the fact that his big brother was clearly into it. He didn't know why it still struck him as funny.

"I don't understand their system at all! They arranged everything by genre, with no regard for the most basic of aesthetics. Who does that?" Another sip of milk, this one more reserved than the last.

"I'm surprised you want to go! I thought you'd be fast asleep by now."

Hearing his brother ramble about the proper order of things was as good as a lullaby on his tired bones, but Sans forced himself to stay awake. His thoughts were too scattered. It was a recipe for bad dreams. The last thing he needed was another blaster incident.

Papyrus stayed up for days on end. Why couldn't he?

"Well, maybe not now, but y'know. I'm not 100% lazy. I like things and the process of doing them, sometimes."

He couldn't shake the feeling that Sans was keeping something from him, but what else was new? At least this time the dodge came across like motivation, an urge to do something productive, and Papyrus was more than happy to foster it. Maybe the change in scenery was helping. Maybe not being prisoners anymore was pushing Sans find that curiosity and ingenuity he'd somehow lost.

"I've seen many books on science and nerd garbage in my perusals, so I'm sure you'd find something interesting! We should go tomorrow."

"Psh, nah, I was thinking more for you," Sans deflected, looking a little embarrassed. Truth be told, he was already well versed with the science and nerd garbage present there. The blueprints that arrived from the Ingress were practically burning a hole in the hull under his bed, taunting him with [redacted] plans for a machine he would never complete. If Papyrus knew that, he might start nagging him to try again, and as much as that could be really nice...

Sans just didn't really want to talk about it.

"Or us, I mean. I saw some cool stuff in there. I know you like car schematics, but I bet starship schematics are pretty interesting too."

As much as Papyrus had been enjoying their first ever voyage through space, he somehow hadn't thought of that. Seeing how such a large, wonderful vehicle was put together... it suddenly made all of their awesome literature on car engines back home seem like baby bone stuff.

"Sans, do you think..." Papyrus's eyesockets were shining with excitement as he gripped Sans's sleeve. "Do you think they really have something like that available? For anyone to just walk up and peruse??"

Man, Papyrus's enthusiasm was infectious. Grinning, Sans made a show of shooting a wink his brother's way.

"Don't see why not. Heck, better to familiarize yourself with it now. Who knows, maybe you'll get the chance to drive one someday."

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[Closed] If the rocks in the box get the water right down to your socks

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