"...the townspeople cheered as the brave knight rode through the streets, the dragon's severed head in tow. the princess was impressed and so was the entire kingdom, not to mention relieved; their fears had finally been put to rest, as the head was proof that dragons were NOT as invincible as they seemed and the kingdom would always have a chance to survive as long as they believed in one another. the knight married the princess and they all lived happily ever after, knowing that if there ever was another giant dragon, there would always be hope if not a hero to save the day. the end."

Sans yawned loudly and stretched out one of his arms lazily, happy to have finally finished the story. The book was longer than he thought and his joints were now stiff and sore. It would have been nice to lay back and relax in bed while he read, but he decided to avoid it; knowing that if he fell asleep (which he probably would), it would no doubt anger his younger brother.

"What about da' people who cween the roads for the horsies?" asked Papyrus. "They happy too?"

"huh?" The older skeleton looked down at him in confusion, unsure of what the baby bones was talking about. "the what?"

"The street cweeners! If dat knight be riding with a giant head, then is probly bleeding erywhere. I bets the cweening people gotted real rich-"

"there wasn't any mess baby bro," said Sans rolling his eyes. "the dragon bled out before the knight reached the town, see?" He flipped back to the page with the picture of the knight riding through town and showed it to Papyrus.

"Ooooh! Dat horse be strong as hell! How it carry dat head?"

"uh..."

"Is a Peggysus?"

"a pegasus? wh-no, no pap, it's just a regular horse. pegasus have wings."

"Yeah, but maybe it growed out of its wings, like I growed out mah bones..."

"iiii don't think so bro," chuckled Sans.

He's so cute.

"But maybe it did! Maybe the horse think 'I doesn't need these wings no more cause' I's big now and big horsies eat hay stead' of birdies..."

"pegasus don't eat birds!"

"Yeah-huh! They eats the birdies cause' there be no hay in the sky and the earth be a dangerous pace for widdle babies."

"is that right?"

"Yep. They drinks the clouds cause' they be made of water par-ti-cles, and they lives in the sky till their wings fall off. People think they regular horsies, but they super strong and stuff," explained the baby, grabbing the sides of the book. Sans laughed into his shoulder as the infant flipped through the pages with a tiny hand.

When Papyrus reached the end, he frowned upon realizing that just like all the other books, the story ended during a celebration with a "happily ever after" and nothing more, leaving the baby bones with more questions than answers.

"What happened to da' knight, big Buther? He go to therapy?"

"uh-what? i'm sorry, what?"

"Therapy. Is a pace you go when yo' brain confused and full of lies."

"i know what therapy is, but i don't know what you're talking about. the knight married the princess and lived happily ever after. what part of the story made you think he was sick?"

"The part where he dragged a giant severed head through town."

"uh..."

"And da' part where he go to the dragon's house by hisself."

"that's not crazy, it's just stupid-"

"And the part where he marry the princess."

Sans leaned forward again in order to stifle his laughter. "you think getting married's a sign of mental illness..?"

Bro's got some commitment issues!

"No, I thinks wanting to marry da' princess is. She a bitch."

"don't-don't say that word, okay pap?"

"She is dough! She say 'Nobody here be good enough for me, so I's not gonna get married.' Then the king say 'You GOTS to get married, or there won't be any royal babies!' and then she say 'If somebody kill a dragon I'll marry them, kay'?"

"okay, so?"

"So she probly think, 'Dragons be invincible! Nobody gonna survive if they try to kill one for me. They's all gonna die and then I won't has to get married!' It was da' perfect plan big Buther..."

Oh boy...

"uhh bro, don't you think you're maybe reading too much into this?"

"No! She a sneaky devil woman. She probly rub her hands like dis," The baby rubbed his hands together mischievously. "And she probly laugh like dis, 'NYEH HA HA HA HA!"

"...you laugh like that."

"..."

CA-THINK!

Gaster opened the door to the Nursery and looked around the room, his gaze stopping on the two boys. "I heard Papyrus laughing. What's broken?"

"Just my widdle heart Daddy," sighed Papyrus sadly. "Snas here just called baby a bitch."

"I DID NOT!"

CA-THUNK!

Gaster left the room.

"..."

"Why you gotta be mean to da' baby, Snas? I thought we was just gonna sit and read a nice story together, but I guess you'd rather make me cry..."

"whatever. don't try to flip this on me, you KNOW I wasn't calling you names-"

"Does it make you feel big? Picking on cute, tiny, babies such as myselves?"

"i'm putting the book away."

"Does I look like Astigmatism to you?"

Sans lay the book next to the pillow he was currently sitting on in a new stack beside him. He was hoping to pick up another story and distract his brother with it, but the baby bones had other ideas.

Immediately picking the book back up, Papyrus opened it and flipped to the first page.

"uh, bro we already read that one."

"I know, but it was a suck story. I's gonna do it better."

Oh no.

"nope. we are not doing that. HELL no-"

"I's gonna read it like is spose' to be read."

"why don't we read this instead?" asked Sans showing Papyrus the cover of the new book he was holding. "it's called left foot right foot-"

"I knows about feet."

"i know, but it has a cute...thing..on the cover. maybe if we read on we can find out what it is, or something."

Sans wasn't too fond of reading ANY of the Dr. Seuss books he found at the Dump to his little brother, but he had to admit they were definitely attention-grabbers. Sans had the same problem as Papyrus where he would often become distracted by the things he didn't understand in stories, and there was a LOT to be confused about where Dr. Seuss was concerned.

What a friggen' weirdo, man...he makes books for children, but he puts these weird-ass machines and animals that don't even EXIST in them.

How are his books supposed to teach my bro any life lessons if he's spending whole time trying to figure out what the hell the Grinch is supposed to be?

"Doctors don't gots any business writing books, big Buther. Go put dat back in the Dump where it belongs."

"*sigh*"

Guess he doesn't like them either.

"Once upon a time-"

"oh hey! look at this one bro, it's moby dick! there's a WHALE in this one, wooooow!"

"There's already a whale in the room. What is it with you and dicks, Shamu?"

"huh?"

What the hell...?

"Once upon a time there was a pencess who didn't need no man-"

"woah, hold up pap. did you hear someone? i swear to god i heard just someone else in here..."

This was actually the THIRD time that day that Sans had heard a voice, that wasn't familiar in the slightest, say something out of thin air. He had, in truth, been hearing it more and more frequently as the weeks went by and he was beginning to think he was going crazy, as he was the only one who ever seemed to hear it.

The voice was clear, but only Sans would jump whenever it rang out without warning...which was never when Gaster was around, he noticed. Every time the voice would speak it was as if a shotgun had gone off just inches behind the boys and it disturbed Sans greatly when Papyrus wouldn't even so much as flinch.

Despite the voice being new and coming out of nowhere, usually in the form of an insult or sarcastic remark, the baby bones would continue chewing on the teething ring he didn't need, or the blocks it was supposed to replace, without even the slightest bit of interest...or giving any indication really, that he had heard anything whatsoever.

But Papyrus is a liar. Maybe he's just pretending not to hear anything.

If that's the case though, then he should at LEAST know where it's coming from, otherwise he'd of been startled too.

The comedian had tried talking to his dad about it, but after the scientist had used the FontSearch to scan the room, he claimed that it was only Sans' over-reactive imagination; a byproduct of Comic Sans and nothing more.

"There's nothing in here Sans. Even if the FontSearch is outdated, it should still pick up any traces of a Dimensional Font and it hasn't-"

"i KNOW there's someone in here, i can HEAR them! can't you just check the security feed?"

"I'm afraid not. Thanks to your horrible brother, I've long since been forced to shut the cameras off in order to conserve the energy within the few magic crystals we have left."

"you just turn them back on at least once?!"

"Absolutely not! Alphys needs the power for her experiment. She's figured out a way to extract something she calls 'Determination' from the green soul Papyrus acquired...and the soul of that strange human that broke into the lab long ago. The amount however, is more than we bargained for and one of the souls was even destroyed. Hmph! I'd say it serves me right for allowing a child to preform such a dangerous experiment, but it was the king who was foolish enough to hire her as my assistant in the first place. Can you believe he actually bought her ridiculous story about artificially creating souls?"

"...i don't care."

"Even the vessel she chose to inject the Determination into was a poor decision. The fool chose a plant of all things! A LIVING CREATURE. She plans to use it as a container to hold the souls of the monsters who've turned to dust early, but she's given NO consideration to the possible mutations this could cause-"

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR STUPID EXPERIMENT!"

"It's not my experiment, it's Alphys', and you should be more supportive of your friends Sans, despite how incompetent they are."

"..."

"It would be nice if you'd take some time during one of Papyrus's naps to instruct her on proper lab etiquette, to be honest. You're lazy, but even YOU know it's dangerous to ignore proper lab procedures. A plant given a stronger will to live is going to receive a boost in its intelligence and adapt to its environment in a new way, but apparently this didn't concern Alphys because the clumsy child failed to decontaminate it first before experimentation; can you believe it? She couldn't even be bothered to wipe the dust from the leaves, which is completely unacceptable! She injected the thing with Determination without my supervision OR CONSENT just to 'see what it does' and I'm betting she expects ME to clean up whatever mess she makes-"

"WAKE DA' FUK UP!"

"GI!" Sans jolted upon hearing his brother's voice. "s-sorry pap...what di-did you say?"

"I SAYS I doesn't HEAR anything. Why you ask baby questions if you doesn't want no answers?"

"uh-um-"

"He hears me," said the voice loud and clear. "Brat's just ignoring me."

"huh?"

Is he really?

I don't want to scare Pappy if he isn't, but he's the only one who cares about me and this is getting serious.

"pap, for real, do you seriously not hear anything?"

"Nyeh? Course not, baby don't lie! Is probly the air filter making spook noises."

"LIAR!"

"I understand if you don't like it. Is very annoying-"

"YOU'RE ANNOYING!"

"If you want I can BREAK IT for you..."

"..."

"no thanks. why don't we do something else till' nap time?"

Something less destructive.

"You wants to read another book, big Buther? I still gots the sutra'..."

"preetty sure i said no to that one already bro."

"Is not dirty no more, I put-ted it in da' washer!"

"You're an idiot."

"how bout' we read this one instead?" asked Sans holding out the Dr. Seuss book again. He knew it would upset his brother, but he was feeling a lot more cheerful now that he knew he wasn't the only person hearing the voice. It felt as if a large weight had been removed from his shoulders, even though he had no idea who the voice belonged to. Clearly Papyrus was trying to avoid acknowledging its existence, but if he was willing to subtly threaten the owner, then the intruder couldn't be THAT dangerous.

Does this person not know about my hp? Maybe that's why Papyrus doesn't want to talk about it.

The first thing I'd do if some jerk was in here is remind him of my condition and Papyrus doesn't want me to give anything away.

"you're so smart and cool, i bet you could read this whole thing by yourself in two minutes, huh baby bro?"

"NO! Why you like feets so much?! Ge-GET DAT STINK BOOK OUT MAH FACE! NYEHAHH!" Papyrus flailed his little arms around as his brother pressed the cover of the book to his face.

"kiss the feet pap! kiss the feet!"

"NOOOOOOO!"

PAP PAP PAP!

Sans smacked the book against the baby bone's face playfully, laughing as the infant turned around in his lap and began kicking his chest with his tiny padded feet.

PAFF PAFF PAFF PAFF PAFF PAFF!

"eat em' bro! eat the feet!"

"NYEHAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!"

PAFF PAFF PAFF PAFF PAFF PAFF PAFF PAFF!

"heh heh e-eeeeasy pappy, you don't wanna hurt me do you? hahahaha!"

"Wowie, is this how you treat your little brother? You smack him in the face with your weird fetish books?"

PAP!

PAP PAP PAP!

"why don't you come out here and stop me if you love papyrus so much?"

"YOU'S GONNA REGRET YO' LIFE CHOICES!!!"

"I don't 'love' anyone, but if I did, it'd be similar to my love for fire. He's only funny when he's making someone ELSE miserable."

"IIIII HATE CHUUUUUUUU!!!"

PAP PAP!

PAP PAP, PAP!

CA-THINK!

Sans froze as the door to the Nursery opened and Alphys peeked her head in.

"E-excuse me, Sans? Could you please stop whatever you're doing to make your brother scream like that? It's really hard to concentrate..." She turned her head and looked around the room nervously. "Al-also..I heard you were hearing voices..."

"just one."

"Just o-one?" The small dinosaur's face turned white as a sheet. "Are-are you sure? Are you sure it was just o-o-o-"

"alphys?"

Alphys dropped to the floor breathing heavily, having spied something familiar on the carpet.

No...

"hey, hey alphys are you okay? ALPHYS!"

"No...NO NO NO NO NO NO!"

Rushing over to his friend, Sans attempted to pull her arms down from her head, but to no avail.

This was happening a lot as of late.

He had known Alphys for a while now, but although she was shy, she never had any panic attacks around him until she started working for Gaster; not that HE knew of at least.

"DAAAAAD! DAD, ALPHYS IS HAVING ANOTHER PANIC ATTACK!"

"NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!"

Alphy's family was just like any other in the Underground; poor and uncertain about their future. The young girl didn't talk about them much, but from what he gathered, her parents were depending on HER for survival. She would invent various things using materials found at the Dump and auction them off for money at least twice a week. Then she'd take the money and go to the store by herself for food, using her shy and frail disposition to earn discounts.

It was smart, but the poor economy of the Underground meant she could never sell her inventions for what they were really worth and the tight schedule meant she had to brainstorm for new ideas 24/7, which was stressful and nerve-wracking. When she DID speak of her parents she'd often complain about how they would lecture her on selling her inventions for cheap or how they would brag about her shamelessly, as if having their child support them was the greatest thing in the world. Her genius was their saving grace, a light at the end of a dark tunnel...

But two weeks ago she had gotten to the point where she was officially out of ideas.

"What's going on in her-oh. This again."

"IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE AND IT'S AFTER ME!!"

"NOTHING is after you child. There's no one in this room but Sans and Papy-"

"IT'S HERE AND IT HATES ME! IT WANTS TO KILL ME!!"

Don't let it kill me...

Alphys had desperately pleaded for Gaster to give her a job as one of his assistants, seeing as the lab was the only place with job openings in general, but she was denied due to her young age. She had to go over his head and talk to Asgore for that, and even then she was only able to get the job through lying.

He didn't feel comfortable sending a child to work at a place where so many monsters had previously died or disappeared.

"I DON'T WANNA DIE! PLEASE DON'T LET IT GET ME-HEEEEE!!" The little dinosaur hugged Gaster around the waist fearfully, her face streaked with tears. She didn't seem to care that her glasses were fogged up and almost falling from her face, or that she was getting snot all over the scientist's lab coat. She simply clung to the fabric and continued to sob uncontrollably until he gave in and finally carried the young girl out of the doorway and towards the medical wing, leaving Sans to look on in pity.

"*sigh* poor alphys, she's been having these episodes ever since she became his assistant. the stress must really be getting to her."

"Mah-mmph...yep. aybe we should gets er mommy an daddy some monies so she don't gots to irk here so much," said the baby bones slobbering all over his onesie.

"huh? papyrus whatever you got in your mouth, spit it out. i can barely understand you."

"Kay'."

PBTH!

Papyrus spat out a seed.