Undertale fanfic : Stories From the Surface (28)

Chapter 28 : Movie Night & Shopping




Sans and Papyrus hadn’t been able to hold movie nights ever since the latter had started covering the night shift of the Ebott patrol. This night however, one of Star’s siblings had volunteered to patrol with her, allowing Papyrus some more free time.
They first took a short trip to the store to grab some snacks, then Papyrus checked his mailbox on the way home, surprised to find a letter in there. He was also surprised when his attempt to make his bother finally empty his own mailbox was successful.
They set the snacks and mail on the low table between the couch and TV. Most of Sans’ mail turned out to be bills and junk. Both brothers had received an invitation to one of their old neighbours’ wedding.
“I DID NOT KNOW THEY WERE GETTING MARRIED”, Papyrus said.
“they’ve been telling everyone at Grillby’s about it”, Sans explained.
“OH.”
The taller brother grabbed the remote and browsed through the list of movies the other had illegally downloaded ; they ended up picking Nightmare Before Christmas (or rather, Papyrus did ; Sans didn’t care much as he was likely to fall asleep halfway through no matter what his brother picked). They had already watched it before but seeing a skeleton protagonist on screen was nice. Well, the movie wasn’t necessarily accurate, but human media rarely were.
“WHY DO HUMANS ALWAYS ASSUME WE ARE DEAD?”
“’cause they end up looking like us after they die, i guess.”
“…OH RIGHT. I AM… STILL NOT SURE HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS.”
“me neither, bro. hey, can ya pass me the chips?”
Papyrus handed his brother the bowl of chips.
Unsurprisingly, Sans fell asleep halfway through the movie ; however his brother woke him up so he wouldn’t miss out on their first movie night in months.

The following day, Papyrus headed to the mall the next town over. Soon enough, Sans took a break from selling hot dogs to come join him. Then, as they were checking the map next to the escalator, Hisha happened to be passing by. Also, she now had short hair and a black and white headband.
“DID YOU CUT YOUR HAIR?” Papyrus asked her.
“Nah I painted, like, ninety percent of it in invisible paint…”
“OH?”
“That was a joke, of course I cut it!”
“hey, sarcasm ain’t funny, pal”, the shorter brother pointed out.
“…Excuse you” Hisha replied, her hand on her hip.
“anyway, watcha doin’ here?”
She explained she was on her day off and taking this opportunity to go get some clothes and supplies (she already had a big plastic bag in hand, though it looked like there wasn’t actually much in it) ; they explained they were looking for fancy outfits to go to a wedding.
“It’s that bunny’s wedding, right?” she guessed. “They’ve been showing off their ring to everyone at work for…hum… a week? Two weeks? Whatever. Time’s not real anyway.”
“yup, that’s them”, Sans confirmed.
“THEY’VE INVITED A LOT OF FORMER SNOWDIN RESIDENTS!” his brother added.
“Cool”, the human said.
The three of them took the escalator up. As they kept walking, Sans couldn’t help but notice how easy it was to tell which humans were just passing through the city. Those who either lived in the area or frequently visited it were used to seeing monsters ; those who came from farther away still stopped and stared. They tried not to be obvious about it, but they weren’t nearly as discreet as they seemed to think they were.
He pretended not to notice. Whether his brother was doing the same or genuinely not noticing was anyone’s guess.
“YOU COULD COME WITH US, HISHA!” Papyrus suggested.
“I-I wasn’t invited…”
“I BELIEVE GUESTS CAN BRING ANOTHER PERSON WITH THEM?”
Hisha hesitated, stated she might not have the time, then said she might think about it.
“Oh, by the way, is it true they’re marrying a human?” she asked, successfully taking the focus of the conversation off herself.
“yup.”
They entered a shoe store and the brothers started looking through the shelves of expensive shoes.
“Is it gonna be the first inter-species wedding since the Barrier fell then?”
“I’M PRETTY SURE THERE HAVE BEEN A FEW SINCE THEN ALREADY”, Papyrus said while looking for his size, “BUT THEY WERE BETWEEN DIFFERENT MONSTER TYPES.”
“so that would make it the first inter-species marriage with a human in it in the post-barrier world”, his brother added. “dunno if there were any before the war.”
“Oh, ok. You can bet your non-existent asses human media are gonna present it as The First Ever In History just to sell the story more, though. Well, if it’s, like… legally recognised at all.”
“WHY WOULDN’T IT BE?”
“Because humans are assholes”, Hisha replied. “Legalising same-sex marriage or interracial marriage within our own species was already difficult…”
“why do you humans have to make everything difficult?” Sans asked.
The human shrugged.
Once the skeletons found what they were looking for, they moved to another store, then another, followed by their friend.
“Well”, the latter said while looking around the store, “that’s gonna be a nice change of pace from wearing the same thing everyday for you guys, huh?”
“hey, papyrus’ the one who wears the same clothes for weeks at a time. i just own a lot of identical shirts and shorts.”
“…Are you guys cartoon characters?”
“I CANNOT FIND YOUR SIZE, BROTHER”, Papyrus called from further into the store.
“hey. ‘knew this would happen. i could feel it in my b-”
“WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO KEEP RECYCLING THE SAME AWFUL PUNS OVER AND OVER?!”
“i think it’s still pretty humerus.”
The taller skeleton facepalmed hard.
“WHY DID I EVEN ASK???” he somehow managed to mutter without his volume getting any lower than usual.
During this whole exchange, Hisha went from smiling to snorting loudly.
“DO NOT ENCOURAGE HIM”, Papyrus told her, which only made her laugh more.
An employee appeared to ask them to either stop making such a ruckus or leave. They decided to do the latter, as they couldn’t find what they needed in there anyway, and went on with their search.