Cold, you were incredibly cold and wet, they had splashed you with cold fucking water to wake you up. You were tied down to a chair, a dingy and uncomfortable one too, not that you expected a throne but one who isn't about to break. Perhaps you could use that to your advantage.
"Hello there! You're quite the beautiful one aren't cha!? Oh how lovely your skin is and oh those eyes! If only I was allowed to scoop them up!" An unfamiliar voice came from the dark as the light shone only on you. That person sounded absolutely crazy but unfortunately for them, they didn't know you could literally see their teal coloured soul through the darkness, though it wasn't quite teal as it had some grey undertones which meant... lack of patience, not a very good soul trait to deal with when you're about to get tortured. You stared at them or well their soul to say 'I know where you are' and it seemed to work as they stepped inside the light with disappointment. "That's no fun! How come you knew where I was!? How peculiar!" They continued to get closer to you, uncomfortably so. "Your voice, dumbass" You snarked, probably not a good thing to do with a teal greyish coloured soul but you couldn't help yourself. Abruptly you felt a sharp cutting pain on your leg but you gave them no reaction, that fucker isn't getting what they want from you. "Why are you not shrieking in pain!? Everybody shrieks in pain when I do that!" This human was off their rocker! Ugh you had to deal with this?
"Maybe try a few more times, I'm sure you'll grow some patience out of it" Your leg did hurt quite badly and the cut was deep, it was bleeding and dripping down the floor. Oh boy they did not like your snarky attitude as the cuts kept on coming but you only gave natural body movements and no sounds of pain. "WHY ARE YOU NOT MOANING IN PAIN!? YOU LITTLE-" They were about to stab you in the heart until a hand had grabbed them and stopped them from plunging a knife into you. What caught your attention was that the hand that had grabbed the humans wasn't another human, it was a fire monster, a dark blue one. "This is why we don't let you interrogate people, get out and calm yourself down" The dark blue fire monster demanded and the human huffed at them but did as they asked.
"So sorry about that, uncontrollable that one... now I'll give you a better option than what that human gave you, tell me what you know about the rival auction house and I'll let you go" The fireman's body gave out soft crackle noises and you laughed, seriously? This was getting better and better, the monster's soul had corrupted into dishonesty hence the dark blue colour, not like you believed he would keep his promises unlike a certain skeleton monster you know. "I know nothing of auction houses" You truthfully said and then it occurred to you, what if Frisk was kept here, you had to take this opportunity and escape! "Nothing you say? Parading with a tall skeleton like that at your command? Unlikely" Fireman quipped, his reason was understandable but he was wrong, you knew nothing about rivalry when it came to auction houses.
"I got big charms?" You sarcastically joked and you could sense he was getting bored of your antics. "Alright maybe this will make you talk" he said as suddenly you felt a painful pull in your chest, so painful you gasped out in pain. Abruptly fireman stepped back a few steps, you opened your eyes to look at him but his face was in shock, what for? You curiously looked down and what you saw shocked you too, there your soul was but no colour could be seen it was translucent. It looked like a glass heart... with multiple cracks in it, that wasn't good, your soul was definitely not in a good condition, it looked so fragile. "The fuck is wrong with your soul?" Fireman asked but quickly tch'ed at you as you couldn't give him an answer to that question either. "No matter, easier to make you talk" He said as he shot a bullet on fire with his magic, it went straight through your soul causing a decent sized hole in it. Your body felt like it got cut in a million pieces, this was the worst pain you have ever felt in your life, you couldn't take the pain anymore! You wanted it to stop!
In your bleary vision, you could see Fireman readying another magic attack to fire at your soul. Your soul started to crack where the hole had formed, it was breaking wasn't it? Why now!? It can break when you've found Frisk! The soul started to vibrate furiously and Fireman shot his bullet yet again. You closed your eyes, ready to sleep for the rest of your life, I bet Sans would be so jealous... but after a while no pain came, perhaps you had already died. "What the fuck!?" The voice had woken you up from your stupor and when you opened your eyes, the bullet had been stopped and was floating in midair. You took a look down at your cracked soul and what you saw dumbfounded you yet again... it had turned upside down, like a monster soul but it was slowly but surely breaking apart.
You looked at the stunned and scared Fireman... no... no more...pain. You willed the bullet to fire against Fireman and it worked, could you use magic!? You quickly willed your soul's magic to pick up the knife the human had dropped and cut yourself free from the dingy chair. You knew your soul was about to expire but that made you more determined to find Frisk before it could shatter. You coldy walked towards Fireman with a neutral facial expression, that must have scared him quite a bit. "I'll let you go... if you tell me where the kidnapped human child is, if not... I'll show you no mercy and dust you where you stand" You wielded the knife in front of Fireman and he shook in fright, it seems he's not as scary when the victim is untied heh. Fireman quickly tried to run but with your newfound abilities, you levitated him into the air and crashed him uncomfortably hard into the concrete floor. Your magic kind of copied Sans's but he was the only monster you've seen using his magic, so maybe your ability was that of a copycat?
"Wrong answer, tell me or turn into dust" You seethed and Fireman could only resign in defeat, he told you where Frisk was located and that's all you needed. Your time was beginning to wear thin as multiple cracks had formed in your soul, you had to be quick. You found your way through multiple hallways while your soul and body screamed in pain, finally finding the room that supposedly held Frisk, it was a miracle nobody saw you running around, spotty guards you assumed or they were becoming lax in their security, thinking that nobody would be brave enough to try to escape. You opened the door and you saw multiple cages filled with monsters and humans alike, your soul flared in anger causing more cracks but you didn't care, it was time to free everyone from this hell!
You attacked the locks with your knife but it broke, ugh flimsy tools! "Y/N is that you?" Frisk's voice could be heard, it was soft and sounded weak, Frisk stumbled through the crowd of monsters, thank goodness they looked alright.. Frisk looked at your upside down heart in wonder "Can you use magic?" They simply asked you and you nodded, glad that they didn't notice the plethora of cuts on your body and the dark bruise on your neck. "It's uh something I have discovered recently" You didn't bother to explain that your soul would shatter soon and this was just how your soul looked. "I can't use mine... so please here take some of my magic" You gaped as you saw Frisk's red soul float towards yours, it bumped into your soul and left red glowing smoke inside your heart.
You felt... amazing, the dull aching pain in your body had stopped and you felt like you could do anything, though your wounds on your physical body didn't heal nor your soul cracks. You didn't think and just did what you felt was natural, a long but sharp piece of glass took shape in your hand, its outline was dusted in red colour, probably from Frisk's magic you were now using. You attacked the locks with your newly formed weapon and the lock gave away with only one hit, you quickly went to unlock all the other cages. All of the monsters and humans were now free from their cages and they thanked you profusely, after this you'll be sure to rest well in heaven or were you going to hell? Eh didn't matter. You put Frisk on your back and you told them to hold as tightly they could onto you. You were determined to find an exit and if people stood in your way well then they're going down with you.
Amidst the total chaos, Sans and Papyrus had finally infiltrated inside the building, some monsters had managed to escape. Mumblings about a human being able to wield magic had caught Sans's ears, that couldn't be you could it? They searched everywhere and destroyed every cage lock they came across, some were even already unlocked. Sans had examined the broken locks and it had been destroyed by what looked like quite the force of magic, too much power to just break a few locks anyhow. Suddenly Papyrus saw a running human and quickly after that of a glass looking object flying towards the human, Papyrus hurriedly alerted Sans. "I told you to get the fuck outta my way!" Papyrus's mood lifted, that was your voice! He could excuse the use of language in this situation. The glass shard had only grazed the human and they were now cowering as you walked past them. Papyrus quickly ran towards you, catching you off guard as you saw a blur of orange picking you up along with Frisk. You were lucky that he somehow didn't notice your protruding soul or the injuries you had gotten on your body.
"Ah hello there Paps, nice of you to drop in" You joked but you didn't have time to frolic, you would rather avoid anyone seeing your soul shatter in front of them, especially Frisk. "We've been looking everywhere for you!" Papyrus exclaimed in frustration, they had finally found you and little Frisk to boot! He couldn't be happier!
"Sorry about that Paps why uh don't you take Frisk home, I still got some unfinished business to take care of" You couldn't just say 'hey let me go so I can die without traumatizing anybody' so you had some unfinished business to attend to. Papyrus however didn't let go of you and Sans was slowly making his way to you both. Letting them see your soul would complicate things, the soul was damaged beyond repair, hell only half of it was left. "You can do that later! It's time to go home and rest up!" It sounded like he wouldn't let you go no matter what... and if he saw your soul? He probably wouldn't let you go out of his grasp ever, you knew Papyrus and Sans cared for you, even though Sans didn't quite show it as much as his brother but he showed it in other ways, that's why you couldn't let them see your soul break apart like this.
You did a risky move, you had seen Sans do it quite frequently so how hard could it be for you? You focused the magic you had left only on you so you didn't take Frisk nor Papyrus with you. Suddenly you blipped out of Papyrus's warm embrace and you appeared quite a ways away from them but they could still see you in the distance. Papyrus patted the empty space that you had previously been in as he looked at you dumbfounded, did you just... teleport? Sans stopped walking when he saw you suddenly disappear from his brother's hold, so the magic wielding human was you, that's an interesting development.
Papyrus and you were looking at each other for far too long, you just teleported! You were allowed to be starstruck too ok!? You didn't actually think you would pull it off. You quickly shook off your starstruck feeling and booked it to where you had come from, your mission was technically already done so you didn't need to exit the building anymore.
Papyrus stared at where you had been, how did you do that!? And why were you running away from them? Was that your soul he had seen? "Well it seems like somebody didn't appreciate your hug and stole my favourite party trick" Sans came up to Papyrus trying to cheer him up but that didn't work, Sans wondered why you would even exert yourself just to get out of Papyrus's hug, didn't seem like something you would do if you could. "They don't want you to see their soul" Frisk spoke up, surprising them both but what they had said surprised them more. "Why so kiddo? They looked quite healthy to me" Papyrus scoffed at that, he had taken notice of how your body had cuts and your neck were quite bruised when he ran to pick you up in his embrace. "Their soul Sans not their body..." Frisk tried again but they were being too slow! I guess they had to see it to believe it, your soul was very unusual. Frisk had given you some of their magic in hopes of healing some of the cracks but it did nothing but boost your magical ability.
"I'm sure their soul is fine, nothing healing magic can't fix" Sans said reassuringly but he didn't know if it was to reassure himself or Frisk and Papyrus. Abruptly Papyrus handed Frisk to Sans and he gently took them into his embrace as he looked up confused to his brother "Take Frisk home and me and Y/N will be back in no time" Papyrus said in quite a serious tone, it seemed Sans's words didn't help to reassure his brother. Had he seen something Sans didn't? He was the closest to you when you slipped away after all, Sans sighed. How bad could your soul be when you could walk and talk with no problems? He quietly nodded and blipped Frisk back to the mansion, he only had magic left for that one trip.
Soon enough he would see how much damage your soul had taken.
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Papyrus saw his brother teleport away with Frisk in tow, he finally let his soul pulsate in worry and fear. He had seen how damaged your body truly was, those cuts were still bleeding as it had left some blood spots on his orange dress shirt. Papyrus had gotten a tiny glance at your soul when you blipped away from his embrace, even advanced healing magic would have trouble fixing your fractured heart back together again. Papyrus didn't tell his brother how bad it was, it would only throw Sans into a panic and that wouldn't be good.
Papyrus quickly ran towards the direction you had appeared to, hopefully his long legs would allow him to catch up to you before your soul completely shattered. Papyrus saw you in the distance quite far away, you spotted him and you quickly stumbled away, he summoned his orange magic and threw a bone in your direction. It whizzed past you and stuck to the wall, making you come to a stop as it spooked you, turning your head to look at Papyrus as some tears fell from your face. "Y/N stop running please! We will find a way to restore your soul!" Papyrus pleaded with you but it didn't look like you were listening to him, he summoned a wall of bones to cut off your escape route. A bunch of orange bones erupted from the floor, making you step away from the magic attack slightly.
"Buttercup let us go home and get you fixed up alright?" Papyrus calmly said, trying to coerce you to go into his direction, you shook your head as the tears kept rolling off your cheeks slowly. "No..." you stammered out as you staggered backwards, hitting the wall the orange bone had pierced. "Papyrus it's too late just let me uh..." You didn't finish your sentence but Papyrus knew what you wanted to say, let you leave him again when he finally found his happiness when he was with you? No he will heal your soul, no matter what it takes.
You carefully watched Papyrus with a blurry vision, one of his eye sockets was lit up in a bright orange, you could also see his soul was glowing so intensely that the color had almost coloured his usual white soul entirely orange. Papyrus wasn't letting you go, you looked down at your broken soul and you wondered how Papyrus thought this was fixable, Frisk's magic had depleted from your soul and the pain had been coming in waves, getting worse and worse with each pulse. Attacking someone's soul wasn't to be taken lightly, you had never understood why as much as you do now, even with that small bullet Fireman had shot at your soul, it hurt like no other.
You quickly looked up again and saw that Papyrus had taken the opportunity to get closer while you were distracted, he was now a few meters away. His soul's colored magic had now reached you and you panicked as Papyrus's magic wrapped around your upside down soul. You tried to shake the magic off of your soul but as more magic twisted around your soul the heavier you felt, he was using his gravity magic on you. Your legs began to stumble, leaning on the wall to support you upright, there was no way to escape since he was blocking your only paths, the one in front of you where Papyrus stood and the one to your side which was blocked with orange bones glowing menacingly. Papyrus had closed the distance between you and him, you couldn't move away from him. He picked you up and sat down with you in his lap, he kept you upright with one arm as the other had gently grabbed your soul.
You could feel him trying to heal all of your cracks with his orange magic but they were too deep for him to heal and your soul was full of holes. You could see his soul being wrecked by grief at how his magic wasn't healing you, his own monster soul started to crack, this wasn't good. "I'm sorry..." Papyrus whispered, his tone full of regret, you gave him a sad smile, if you were dying in his lap then you might as well try to make it as good of a memory as you can. "It's fine Paps, it's not your fault" You reassured him as you kept smiling at him while your hand grabbed his cheek bone. "I'm so sorry" he repeated and pressed you close to his rib cage as he rested his skull on your head. your hand leaving his cheek as you felt something very... strange but it felt good.
Your vision suddenly turned white, had you died? But suddenly you saw two small skeletons hugging each other for warmth in the snow, was that Papyrus and Sans? They looked so small and Sans was the tallest of them while Papyrus was such a tiny little guy. "Don't worry paps, I'll protect ya" Sans said to his brother and somehow you could feel Papyrus's feeling of love and being loved. It was such a foreign feeling to you that you almost couldn't recognize it.
Abruptly the scene changed and they had grown a bit more but Sans was still taller than Papyrus, they were playing with other monster children... well Papyrus was while Sans just stood on the sidelines watching the kids play. It looked like they were playing tag and suddenly a monster pushed Papyrus harshly on the back making him fall down in the snow as the other monsters laughed at him. The monster kids all ran away from him as they left him in the snow, you felt rejected. Sans walked towards the fallen Papyrus that still laid face first in the snow, Sans gently picked him up by the scruff as some tears could be seen coming from the tiny Papyrus. "Why do they hate us?" Papyrus sobbed out, you wanted to do something but you were locked in place as if you were paralyzed. All you could do was watch and let the feelings wash over you.
Sans gently put Papyrus back on the ground, the snow giving out a small crunch as his small boots hit the snow. "They're intimidated by how great you are Papyrus, someday they'll see just how great you are" Sans smiled lazily at his brother while rubbing the snow off of him. "Really!? How would you know?" Papyrus retorted skeptically but his brother just kept smiling down at him gently and carefully wiped away his tears. "I just know" You could feel an unfamiliar warmth spreading through your soul? Was this feeling admiration? You had a hard time trying to navigate all these positive emotions you had felt.
The scene changed again but this time Papyrus was as tall as he was now, Papyrus felt very frustrated which somehow made you feel the same, was your emotions syncing together? "SANS! PICK UP YOUR DIRTY SOCKS!" Papyrus bellowed at his brother but got no answer since Sans was inside his room, he sighed in frustration and picked up Sans's socks to put them in the laundry. Time quickly forwarded like a movie and abruptly it stopped, you saw Papyrus watch his brother sleeping on the couch, that wasn't an unusual sight. Papyrus sighed at his napping brother but you felt... a certain warm emotion towards Sans, you watched Papyrus grab a blanket and wrap it around his brother. "You lazy bones... but the great Papyrus still loves you" You heard him whisper, was this Sans and papyrus's past you were seeing? This looked like the old house from Snowdin they described to you.
Another scene appeared but this time, they were on the surface and a smaller you was meekly standing in front of Papyrus, younger you didn't look at him and averted their gaze. You remember this, you didn't want to offend him by staring at him but it seemed like it had the opposite effect, your refusal to look at him made him feel rejected, if you ever came back to reality maybe you could explain it to him? You still don't know if you were dying or already dead. It fast forwarded again and Papyrus had accidentally stumbled, making him crash down but the younger you had quickly reacted and caught him with a hug, allowing him to balance himself on you. Papyrus quickly reacted and rebalanced himself "s-sorry about t-that" Younger you stuttered out, still avoiding eye contact with the tall skeleton. Well that moment was very embarrassing for you but it seemed like Papyrus felt quite elated that you had caught him from falling, you hadn't caught on to that seeing as you didn't look at him.
This new scene was when you had been in the Mafia for years and you no longer avoided the brothers' eyes on you. Papyrus felt saddened as he watched his failed attempt at making spaghetti, you had accidentally walked in on the sad moment. Papyrus waited for you to make fun of him but... younger you just looked at the spaghetti in confusion. To Papyrus's puzzlement, the younger you picked up a forkful of the spaghetti and ate it, you can still remember the weird taste and texture of it. Younger you had swallowed it and you remember it probably took off some HP from your soul but you managed to chuckle, for a moment you could feel Papyrus think you were laughing at him. "Welp that's better than whatever Undyne makes, if you keep practicing you'll become even better at cooking than Mettaton" You smiled at him, a genuine smile... you didn't give out those too many times. "Better?" Papyrus said dumbfounded that you had just eaten his utterly failed spaghetti and not even spitting it out.
"Yeah! Maybe you'll even become the greatest of them all" Younger you patted Papyrus's back to cheer him up and quickly got the things you came in the kitchen for and Papyrus watched you leave the kitchen. You felt him feel a small floaty feeling towards the younger you, it was too foreign for you to put a finger on. You didn't have time to figure it out as more of Papyrus's memories got shown to you and that small floaty feeling only got bigger every memory that you watched play out.
But when you left the Mafia, you could feel Papyrus's soul crack deeply, his soul could heal but the pain didn't go away, for 3 years he had thought about you occasionally but not knowing how to find you, it made you feel incredibly sorrowful, he felt like that for the time you were away from the Mafia? When they had found you in Grillby's bar, Papyrus had to contain himself from embracing you in a hug and when Sans had returned with you in tow? He couldn't contain it anymore and that's why he bursted through the doors to the tea room to finally hug you... to finally feel your soft skin against him. That.... was Papyrus's thoughts right!? You felt like you were prying on his private moments! The floating feeling he had felt towards you came back tenfold, it couldn't be? Was... he in love with you? Was this the feeling of romantic love!?
You couldn't stay ignorant anymore, Papyrus loved you or was this just a dream? It had to be right?... It all turned to white as you could finally take a rest.
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Reader finally gets to see their soul!
Also Reader got to see baby bones Papyrus.
It was just a dream right? right!?
Chapter 4 out of 12