Chapter Text
The great platinum doors slid open to reveal the distraught face of a person Alphys feared she’d never see again.
Sans stood in the doorway, his legs quivering under the weight of the much larger, lankier skeleton- Alphys dimly recognized him as his brother- slumped over his shoulders. Sweat dribbled down his skull and drenched the collar of his shirt. His pupils, shrunken to pinpricks with panic, met Alphys’ stunned gaze, and he stumbled inside before Alphys could stammer out an invitation.
“al, you gotta help me,” Sans mumbled, his voice weak with shock. “papyrus Fell Down, y-you gotta-”
The unconscious monster slid further down Sans’ right shoulder, and he staggered under the jarring shift in weight. The sudden movement snapped Alphys out of her startled trance, and she surged forward to lift the unconscious skeleton from Sans’ back.
The yellow lizard skittered to the nearest medical table and draped the wiry skeleton onto the cold metal surface as gently as she could. She peered into the monster’s face, sucking in a sympathetic breath at his ashen complexion. Unlike his brother, whose pearly bones blanched even whiter than usual under the stress of the situation, Papyrus bore a gray complexion morbidly comparable to dust.
Alphys could feel Sans’ breath on the back of her neck as he hovered anxiously behind her, still rambling.
“i would have come sooner, but i was af-afraid that if i took one of my shortcuts, he’d d-dust in my arms, so i just carried him here…” His bones rattled softly under his jacket. “did i do the right thing? i-is he gonna be okay? i wasn’t too late, was i?” Sans’ usual baritone pitched upward fearfully, his voice wavering.
Alphys could only think of one other time she’d seen the usually mellow monster this terrified...
She shut that thought down as quickly as it came.
Alphys whirled around and placed her paws firmly on Sans’ shoulders, rubbing with her thumbs in what she hoped was a soothing manner. She felt a strong urge to hug him, but it felt inappropriate here and now. In another time that felt eons away, she would have done it without a moment of hesitation.
“I-it’s gonna be okay, Sans! You did a great job of getting him here safely!” She smiled reassuringly. “I’ve been working on something that sh-should help Papyrus and all of the other Fallen monsters. I-I haven’t, um, actually tested it on anything more ma-magically complex than a Golden Flower yet… b-but it looks really promising!” She chirped, injecting as much confidence into her voice as she could.
Fake it ‘til you make it. That’s how she got this job in the first place.
Sans’ strained grin twitched upwards slightly. “thank god… do whatever you have to. please. i don’t know what i’d do if…” Sans trailed off, his eye lights dimming slightly.
Alphys gave Sans’ shoulders a final squeeze before using her tail to slide a chair behind the stout skeleton, who collapsed into it gratefully. She then scurried off to collect what she’d need to keep Papyrus stable for the time being.
She returned a few minutes later with an arm full of plastic tubing, a vial of red liquid nestled among its coils. In the claws of her other hand she held an IV pole, its wheels clattering against the laboratory tiles.
Padding towards the examination table, the scientist set the vial down on a nearby medical tray and carefully unfurled the plastic tubing. Clutching the end of the piping between her claws, she used her other paw to brush the hem of Papyrus’ shirt up towards his sternum. Drawing a deep breath through her muzzle, Alphys let her digits gently brush the opening of Papyrus’ ribcage and drew out his soul.
The pale white entity floated delicately in her palm as she examined it. Thin cracks, like crazing sprawled along the face of an old piece of pottery, littered its surface. It flickered weakly in her hold.
Alphys inserted the tube into the fragile soul in her grasp, eyeing the IV pouch carefully and nodding to herself when the healing magic began its journey through the piping. Satisfied for the moment, she allowed the soul to return to Papyrus’ chest cavity and tugged his shirt back down.
“i don’t understand…” Sans mumbled behind her, breaking the silence that had fallen over the lab. Alphys tore her gaze away from her patient’s pallid face to send the seated monster a questioning glance.
Sans held his skull in his hands, staring blankly ahead with empty eye sockets. “he’s such a cheerful person. he seemed fine. i-i don’t…” his grip on his own face tightened, his phalanges digging into his temples. His voice sounded oddly tight. “he… h-he always notices when i’m feelin’ down, and he helps me… but wh-when it was him… god, i didn’t even notice. i’m the worst brother ever.”
The lower rims of Sans’ dark eye sockets glimmered, and Alphys’ heart clenched painfully at the sight of it. Fuck it, she decided, before wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him to her chest. A moment later, she felt a pair of hoodie-clad arms slide loosely around her, bony fingers hooking into her lab coat. She heard a muffled sniffle from somewhere below as he pushed his face into her collarbone.
“If you didn’t notice, it’s probably because he didn’t want you to.” Alphys murmured. She didn’t have to fake her authority on that particular subject.
“You’re not a bad brother, Sans. I remember the way you used to talk about him when we…” She let the sentence die on her tongue. Hopefully, or not, they’d open that can of worms another day. “...It’s obvious from the way you talk about him that you care. There’s no way he couldn’t have known that.”
Alphys pulled away slightly to smile teasingly down at Sans, who peeked shyly up at her. His pupils had returned; that was a good sign. “A-and if he doesn’t, then he’ll definitely figure it out when we tell him that the laziest monster in the Underground carried him on his back from Snowdin to Hotland!”
Sans chucked wetly and untangled his hand from her lab coat to swipe under one of his eye sockets.
Alphys pulled away completely, clasping her paws in front of her. “Y-you’ll have to tell him,” She reiterated, more seriously this time, “when he wakes up.”
Sans gazed back at her with an uncharacteristically soft expression. “thanks, al. you’re the best.” He whispered.
Alphys’ soul burst with a sense of hope she hadn’t felt in a long time, and she quickly turned back towards the examination table before she could let herself get too caught up in it.
Another quick assessment revealed that Papyrus was stable. Alphys took several long moments to draw the red liquid- the untested, mysterious substance that held the fate of several monsters in its vivid depths- from the vial into a syringe, and she tapped it repeatedly to rid it of nonexistent air bubbles until she forced herself to stop, lest she crack the plastic casing with her claw.
...Okay, she was definitely stalling.
Alphys once again summoned Papyrus’ soul and let it hover in her open hand once more. The needle glinted in the sterile light of the lab as she brought it closer to the essence of Papyrus’ being.
These people have already Fallen Down, she thought frustratedly to herself in an attempt to steady her trembling paws, it’s not like they can get any worse. Just do it already.
She then pushed all thoughts forcefully from her mind and plunged the needle into Papyrus’ soul.
The week after Alphys injected Papyrus and the other Fallen monsters with Determination dragged tensely by like a purgatory, somehow managing to feel mind-numbingly dull and immensely stressful at the same time.
The only thing that kept her sane were the regular visits from Sans. He came every day to read a story to Papyrus or to quietly sit with him and hold his hand, but he also brought Alphys warm takeout from some diner in Snowdin, insisting that she take breaks so they could share jokes and greasy french fries. His presence was a great comfort to her.
It reminded her of the way things were before.
The queasy monotony was shattered when Papyrus suddenly sat up from the examination table.
Everything that followed happened in a rush.
Alphys monitored Papyrus closely for the next two days, helping him reacclimate to walking and eating while Sans gave his support and encouragement. She then sent the skeleton brothers home, pleasantly surprised to receive hugs of gratitude from both of them before they departed. The other Fallen monsters arose soon after, walking around the lab and chattering excitedly about the prospect of seeing their families again.
A day later, the brothers found themselves back at their cabin in Snowdin. They settled back into some semblance of their old routine, though the shorter monster hovered worriedly a bit more than the taller would have appreciated.
Meanwhile, in the bowels of the laboratory in Hotland, Alphys’ life fell apart.