Birds of a Fellther CHP 1 {UNDERFELL FANFICTION}

J.M.J

It’s a weird feeling. To wake up in your bed, in a house that you’ve lived in for years, and then look outside and see something completely different than you expected. It had been six months, and Papyrus still hadn’t gotten used to it.

It was quieter here. In the Underground, sound echoed in a way that it just didn’t on the Surface. Even with the snow to muffle it, Papyrus hadn’t known just how loud living Underground had been until he wasn’t there anymore.

He sipped his coffee slowly as he stared out the window, looking out at the rows and rows of semi-identical houses that had been carefully transplanted to the Junction, each of them with different arrays of Christmas lights, flags, and wreaths. They were all undeniably his house. They also weren’t. Or, they were?

Papyrus was still somewhat confused about this whole ‘multiverse’ thing. If he couldn’t get used to waking up in a new place, he didn’t know how he was expected to suddenly be ‘okay’ with his neighbors consisting entirely of versions of himself and his brother.

He didn’t think that his neighbors had quite adapted to it either. No one was outside. Not on their street. Not on their block. None of them had forgotten the reason there were several empty houses scattered around. A neighborhood guard had been established since then, but he didn’t trust them. They hadn’t invited him, so clearly they had poor judgement.

Sans thumped down the stairs. Papyrus set his coffee on the counter and turned to face his brother. The short skeleton mumbled a sleepy greeting. Papyrus grunted in response. Sans opened the fridge, groped around for a few seconds, and grabbed the bottle of mustard.

“That isn’t a breakfast food,” Papyrus said lightly.

Sans hissed at him. Business as usual.

The tall skeleton stood up and took the egg carton from the fridge. It was annoyingly light. There were two eggs remaining. Which made sense, mathematically, because they had been eating two eggs for breakfast for the past five days. That did not make it less annoying.

With a sigh, Papyrus set the two eggs on the counter and tossed the carton in the trash. He rummaged around in the lower cabinets until he found the specific pan he was looking for. The breakfast-egg pan.

The other pans were too nice to be subjected to the pan-destroying terror that was eggs.

Perhaps Papyrus was just bad at cooking eggs.

No matter! Eggs, unlike mustard, were a breakfast food, and he could cook them with little to no issue. Even if he did have to scrub the pan more vigorously than he’d like afterward.

As Papyrus poked at the eggs in the pan, Sans slowly pulled himself together.

“Hey big bro,” Sans said.

“Oh my goodness, Sans, not now,” Papyrus said, refusing to look away from his cooking.

“Whaattt,” Sans began. “Can’t tall-erate your little brother poking a little fun at you in the morning?”

One of the yolks popped, and Papyrus forlornly began to scramble the half-cooked mixture before it solidified too much.

“Can’t you pick something else to torment me about for once?” Papyrus snapped.

“I dunno, bro, that's a… tall order,” Sans said.

Papyrus threw the spatula at his head. Sans smoothly dodged out of the way. This was also business as usual.

Apparently, they were both tall when compared to their counterparts. Sanses came in more of a variety of heights than Papyri (who had decided on that name?) (he would kill them).

He wasn’t sure when Sans had picked up on the fact that his height bothered him. But from experience Papyrus knew he wasn’t going to let up any time soon.

Part of him wondered if his counterparts had this issue with their brothers. He flipped the eggs. A disgusting amount of them stuck to the pan… as usual.

He had gotten more used to living here than he had thought.

After a few minutes of silence, Papyrus scraped the eggs onto a pair of plates, burnt pan crisps and all. He slid one to Sans, quickly following it up with a fork.

Sans poured mustard onto his eggs as part of his ongoing quest to convince Papyrus that mustard was, in fact, a breakfast food. Papyrus ignored him and ate his own eggs.

They were silent like that for a long while, even after they were done eating. At some point, Sans stood up, picked the spatula off the floor, took both of their plates, washed them, and set them back in the cupboard.

He wouldn’t have done that six months ago. It didn’t matter.

“Something on your mind, Paps?” Sans asked.

He wouldn’t have done that six months ago either.

“We’re going to need to go shopping soon,” Papyrus said. That was a safe answer.

Sans noticed, he always noticed, but he didn’t say anything. “Today or tomorrow?”

Papyrus paused. “What day of the week is it?”

Sans checked his watch. “Thursday. I think. Time is weird.”

“Thursday is a better shopping day than Friday,” Papyrus said.

Sans nodded, even though he did not care about things like which day of the week was better for certain tasks or what food was a breakfast food. He still listened.

“The markets are probably open by now, but if we wait a bit, we could probably go for lunch at Grillbys’,” Sans said.

Papyrus frowned internally. They didn’t exactly have an income, and money was getting tight.

Still. It would be nice to be outside… or inside and somewhere else even.

“That sounds fine,” Papyrus said.

Six months ago, he wouldn’t have considered going to Grillby’s a pleasant idea for an outing. Well. Grillbys’ was a bit nicer than the old place. Maybe it would be alright.

Maybe everything would be alright.