Undertale Tickle Stories

Brother Monster (Underfell Fluff)

This story belongs to SpireJekkie on DeviantArt.

Description: Papyrus has been too busy with training, leaving Sans bored out of his mind. He just wanted to spend a little bonding time with his brother. He just didn't think his attempt would backfire so horribly...

Warnings: Angsty undertones, brief mentions of blood and drinking(I guess?), and minor use of language all throughout. Also tickling near the end. Can't be SpireJekkie™ without some of that.

~~~~~

Sans made his way through Snowdin with a practical skip in his step. Ditching his post at Snowdin's entrance was the best thing he could chosen to do, and he was gonna take full advantage of his freedom with the particular purpose that made him glad to leave today.

Oh, he tried to do his job. Nobody could accuse him for not. It was easy, since all he ever did was watch that giant slab of rock for any humans to come out of it. Not to say any humans ever did, so his work was simply sitting there and reading his magazines or slurping up the contents of his secret cache.

But two hours in, and Sans gave up on drowning himself in gearhead articles and Grillby's spiked mustard. Neither of those were making the time fly by, and he was too fidgety to sleep away the last eight hours of his shift.

Needless to say, he was bored.

So, hopping from his stool, he went off to go find Papyrus.

Under most circumstances, purposely looking for Papyrus yielded to insanity. "Kill or be killed" - the Underground's one, universal law - was a thing muttered under the breaths of Snowdin's monsters as they would watch Sans pass by, and with the abysmal thinking that he was deaf as well as weak. It just happened to be Papyrus who would quote this law the most, claiming to be the most ruthless in the kingdom, next to Undyne and King Asgore.

But Sans knew better. Deep, deep on the inside, Papyrus was a cuddly softie who just wanted a brother. Sans knew because he'd tested that theory once, when Papyrus had put his guard down and chose to be playful rather than vicious. Granted, the playfulness was more to teach Sans a lesson and keep him "in line", but would he have done it in the first place if he didn't have a soft spot for him?

So when Sans did this little experiment of his, and found out that this was indeed the case, it was safe to say that there was a reconciliation between the two. Papyrus still gave him orders, demanded his compliance, and occasionally yelled at him, but since three months ago things had been pretty good. Sans could sleep most nights without sudden wake-ups wondering if Papyrus was standing over him, or if he was going to go to work with bruises and scrapes. He felt...safe.

See, brothers were supposed to look out for each other. They were supposed to butt heads, get on each other's nerves, have friendly shouting matches over their dumb rivalries, and make such terrible puns until one would crack and resort to roughhousing to get the other to shut the hell up. Brothers...were the closest to real family that one could get in this kingdom of split relations and torn friendships.

And it was what Sans finally had in Papyrus. He felt closer with him today than he'd ever with every other monster combined.

"Let's see..." Sans said aloud, coming the the Ball puzzle and whacking the snowball to the rim of the field with his foot, "Right now, Papyrus would be riggin' the traps right outside the town, and after that, comin' straight to me to make sure I'm actually working." Key words being would be. It would have been the case had Undyne not promoted him into the royal guard, and made him her right hand monster, so that meant he was off training with her instead.

Sans scoffed. "I know he gets a high from workin' hard, but this is just too much."

He couldn't even remember the last night that Papyrus came home without stab holes in his outfit or bruises speckling his bones. Or even when he'd last had time to be with Sans, whether for a much-tamer form of training, or their bi-daily goofing around. That was part of the reason he was going - so he could goad Papyrus into engaging in some of that goofing around that Sans always loved being on the receiving end for.

What he was planning had a huge risk to it, sure - he was going to launch this attack out in the open in which the rest of Snowdin could see, delighted to have yet another piece of gossip to use, that weak little Sans with his one HP and attack stat resorted to fighting with feathers and fingers - but he'd already planned things out way ahead of himself and these risks.

For one, he was going to find Papyrus early, at least an hour before he was supposed to meet with Undyne for their training session, and for two, Papyrus always waited to meet with her by empty space with the few trees and the first switch, where nobody'd be able to hear them without first alerting their own presence.

It was all coming together.

He passed the microwave and the table with the frosted lasagna, field mice scattering with fright of the skeleton, when he spotted Papyrus, right where he'd predicted he would be.

A flurry began to kick up and make it harder to see, but Sans could still make his brother out amongst the paper-white dots. His shoulders hunched, eye sockets dark at the rims, he was nodding his head as he stood facing one of the three trees. There was a crimson bone that he was clutching very tightly, as though it was keeping from dropping off into sleep. As Sans got closer, he stiffened so suddenly that Sans thought he'd been seen. But he remained in his place, nodding again and muttering something to himself.

Sans was disheartened by this. "He looks even worse than before. There's no way he's gonna make it through Undyne's training unless he relaxes a little." Good thing he was here, then. A little bit of tickling would do just the thing; both to give and receive.

He stooped and gathered a whole bunch of snow in his palms until his wrists ached from the sheer weight of his creation. Now he had the reason and the weapon of choice...all that was left was to initiate the fight.

Flaring his good eye, he teleported, and instantly reappeared across the field and above Papyrus, starting to shout as he dunked -

"Papyrus, look out!"

Sans felt himself drop, everything he registered slowing to a halt. That wasn't supposed to...

Undyne summoned a spear from where she stood, next to the tree that Papyrus was supposedly staring at. And Papyrus whirled around in the same second that Undyne had cried, and flung his arm up. Bones shot out of the ground, sending snow up into Sans' face as a stripe was torn across his shirt.

Sans gasped, feeling something else tear before he hit the snow. He coughed, red swimming behind his eyes. His hand weakly dipped at the hole in his shirt, and suddenly felt faint.

That wasn't melted snow...but he couldn't be...

But his HP showed an empty bar. Nobody could survive an attack like that.

By the time all this registered, Papyrus' surprise shifted to pure rage. "YOU IDIOT! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, SANS!" He snarled, kneeling into the snow. He gathered a maroon magic at his palms, pressing them to Sans' ribs. "HOLD STILL!" he said when Sans squirmed back. The two shades gathering there mixed so flawlessly that Sans couldn't make out where the magic ended and the blood began.

But Undyne suddenly demanded, "Why are you healing him?"

Sans halfway drew a breath in through his teeth. They were dissolving at the tips.

"I'M NOT GOING TO LET HIM DIE BECAUSE OF ME," Papyrus explained, to the point. His aura was cut off when Undyne suddenly grabbed his hands.

"He was clearly attacking you. He'd forgotten his place under your command, if this is any indication. I thought you had him in line!"

It scared Sans that she was already speaking of him like he wasn't right there, and in the past tense.

"P-pap...?"

The fish monster's widened, and she spat, "And now he thinks you're going to save him after that." There was no sympathy in her voice. Just the anticipation to see him burst into dust. "Let him die. It's what he deserves for defying you, and what you deserve for going easy on him."

Papyrus' sight flew between his better and his brother, both trembling in waiting for his answer. The more time that passed, Sans lost more feeling in his hands, his shape becoming crude.

Eventually, Papyrus shook Undyne's hands off his, which he pressed to Sans and his wound again.

Sans couldn't breathe right as his deterioration stopped, and then reversed. "Papyrus, thank -"

"WHAT I DO OR DON'T DO," Papyrus interrupted, leering at Undyne, "WITH MY UNDERLING IS NONE OF YOUR CONCERN. EVEN WEAK MONSTERS HAVE SOME USE LEFT IN THEM."

What was he saying? "Papyrus, what -"

"BE QUIET." Papyrus spoke in a hiss. "YOU'VE BROUGHT ME ENOUGH TROUBLE AS IT IS."

Sans couldn't remember if he'd lost the snowball before getting sliced, or after, or just now. He closed his hand uselessly, just air getting caught in the finger bones. He was trapped in that moment of disbelief that started when he saw Undyne, not on her way over, but here already. He could only watch Papyrus stand and return to her side.

He...

He...

Sans scrambled up, looking between the monsters. Undyne just scowled, obviously thinking of a hundred ways she would have let him die, or made his death come faster. And Papyrus refused to meet his eyes. Just kept looking at the ground and clenching his fists. The taller skeleton sighed, and opened his mouth to say something.

But Sans blinked out of existence with only a stream of red dust proving he was ever there.