#usundyne

So I got this prompt and planned to get it done quickly because I planned on things being icy between these two, and staying that way. Then the characters surprised me and I ended up fleshing both of them out much more than I’d set out to.

My justification for the length is that I got a prompt while I was writing this for US!Pap trying to be cool and that’s already a running theme here.

Anyway, thank you very much for this prompt! It helped me figure out both of these pals a lot more. And I’m pretty sure SwapPap has 100% of my own major flaws so thats fun.

Warnings for social awkwardness, depression, self-destructive optimism, some swearing, and dorks. I can’t think of any other warnings but it’s a weird little ficlet.

Words: 1341

“oh. uh, heyyy undyne. long time, no see…”

“Oh. Yeah. Hey Paps–Papyrus. Yeah, it’s… it’s been a while hasn’t it?”

Papyrus attempted a casual nod, but it turned out stiff and short. He cursed himself for being awkward. No wonder Undyne never called anymore. Stupid. “yuuup,” he added, not intending to answer verbally but seeing no other way to soften the tension in his neck and in the air. Verbalizing had not helped. Undyne seemed to shy away even more than she had been. He was coming off as dismissive. She probably thought he didn’t want to talk to her. He did. Just… maybe not right now? He was kind of… busy?

Yeah.

He was just busy. Very busy.

Busy drinking his coffee. It’d gone cold long before Undyne arrived.

He’d been quiet for too long, and she took it as a cue to talk. “Heard your brother is trying to join the guard. Good for him.”

“yeah, he is,” he replied, glancing around the room for a hint or an out. There was none to be found. “he’s pretty excited about it. didn’t think it was his thing, you know?”

Undyne nodded even though she didn’t know. She knew of Sans, but she didn’t know him.  “Sooo… you… look…” the water monster paused, looking for something on the skeleton’s features. He blinked back at her, wearily, and wondered if she found it. At last she sighed, and with a quirk of her brows, said with an old confidence, “You look like shit.”

“NYEhehe–” Papyrus covered up his mouth with the sleeve of his hoodie, trying to muffle out the sound. Giggling would ruin his image but that comment had been so unexpected! And true, probably. Very, very true. He’d always appreciated that bluntness. “I LOOK LIKE SHIT!?” he said with fake offense and a genuine smile, getting a bit too loud in his sudden excitement. He cleared the throat he didn’t have and quieted down. His enthusiasm remained. “have you looked in a mirror??”

Undyne grinned; it was great to see. “Look at us, man. We’re a freaking mess. Both of us.”

Papyrus nodded, not trying to seem cool and casual but managing to pull it off this time. He kicked the chair across from him out from the table. This gesture was meant to be cool and casual, a way to say ‘come sit with me, friend! i’m so excited that you are talking to me again and you don’t hate me!’ The chair squealed loudly against the linoleum floor and earned him glares from all around the crowded cafe. He ducked his neck into his hood as much as he was able, and asked with a squeak of badly concealed embarrassment, “so, what’s up?”

Undyne hesitated, sighed, but she couldn’t resist the question. Too much was up, and she was too used to confiding in him. She took a seat and leaned in close enough to drop her volume down, but not enough to make it clear to every patron in the bakery that she was spilling a dark secret. “I… uh… I made a mistake, Papyrus.” She gave Papyrus a long, groom and serious, so he would understand. “A couple of mistakes, actually. Dozens of mistakes. Technically.” She’d wanted to clarify. She’d rambled instead.

“that’s… a  startlingly large number of mistakes…”

“Yeah. Yeah, it hasn’t been a great month, honestly.”

Papyrus didn’t miss the air to her voice when she said that. It hadn’t been a great month for him, either. He couldn’t remember the last great month he’d had. He hummed in acknowledgement. “is it something we can fix?”

‘We.’ Always ‘we.’ Undyne frowned. “It’s my responsibility, Pap. Seriously, you don’t need to get involved in this. It’s my mistakes, my headaches, my problems. I need to deal with them.”

“but now you’ve gotten me curious! and i can help you! i… i think it would be very nice to have the team together again.”

“The team? Pap, no.”

“Pap, YES!” he shouted with enthusiasm and a decidedly uncasual (yet still cool) table slam, before feeling at his neck as if that would bring him back to his target levels of volume and demeanor. Surprisingly, it did. “i mean you and i. we worked well together, always, and i’ve missed it terribly! all of it! hard work, late nights… i don’t sleep anyway!” His hand sank down to chest level, his slouch vanishing and an unplanned pose forming as his hopes rose again. It was a pattern that those who knew him well knew far too well. His spirits would soar with each new plan, always high, always racing higher, and always crashing down in the end. Maybe Papyrus was naive, but he did not think it would happen again. Not this time. And the pattern repeated as he struck a pose over cold coffee in an unwashed hoodie. “i believe that whatever the problem, i - no - we, can find a solution!”

Undyne did not want to drag anyone else into her messes and her mistakes. She’d considered it. Oh stars, of course she’d considered it, but Papyrus was the only one she would ever trust with this, and she knew the pattern better than anyone, because she was usually the one along for the ride. She’d kept quiet for this long, working alone. Undyne was passionate about helping people, protecting people, and asking Papyrus to jump back aboard the roller coaster again was the opposite of helping or protecting. It was harmful. She knew this. When things turned sour he could not cope. Each fall was that much harder than the last.

…but Undyne lived on passion and enthusiasm and there was no greater source of it in the Underground than a Papyrus determined. She fed off of his optimism and he from her energy and together, combined, their capabilities could rival the CORE’s. And so Undyne said “Okay,” and just that, knowing she’d just doomed them both should this new goal not be met. But this time, it had to. This time, they would win. Because she was determined and never gave up, and he was brilliant, creative and persistent, and against their combined forces, science didn’t stand a chance! “Let’s do it.”

Papyrus grinned widely, whatever fog he had wrapped himself in when Undyne entered having lifted entirely now. He floated up from his seat at the table to a few feet from the door, bouncing slightly in place. So much for being cool, calm and casual.

“What, you can’t even get up and push in a chair like a normal person? Geez, you’re getting so lazy!”

“i prefer the term energy efficient!” Papyrus grinned and winked stuffing his hands in his pockets after a momentary finger gun to accompany. Undyne smirked, and Papyrus continued. “because i am an expert in the field of both energy and efficiency! because that was my previous occupation before our boss imploded,” he explained the joke, killing it swiftly and without mercy.

“Yeah, I, uh. I got that.”

“right.” Papyrus blinked, self consciousness edging into his features before being quashed a moment later. He remembered something. “oohh right. hey! can you put it–”

“On your tab. Okay, Papyrus,” the spider  replied, rolling four eyes, the fifth focused directly on Papyrus’s soul. She had, of course, already put it on the tab. He would pay up someday. She would be sure.

Papyrus smiled, unintimidated, and gave her a little curtsey as he ran out the door. “TO THE LABORATORY!!!”

Undyne chased after, shouting with a volume to match her best friend’s. “TO THE LAB!!!”

“by the way, undyne, umm… why did you come all the way here? you didn’t order anything.”

“You know, I just came for a little… pick me up!!”

“NYEH!!!” Papyrus jumped out of the way just in the knick of time, bringing his hood over his head to protect his precious scalp. He landed face down in the snow, but he had won the battle of the wits on this day. 

@usundyne