By Any Other Name (Flowerfell Sans x Frisk)

Chapter 1 - Nice To Meet You, Sans

"There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."

- William Shakespeare

I'm the boy with the killer smile and an unhealthy love for puns. Heart of gold? Ha! I don't even have a heart of bronze, and the only ounce of gold I've got is this gold tooth. With a stature as short as mine, you've gotta have a bite that matches your bark, and boy, do I know how to howl, but it's nothing in comparison to my brother. I'm the quiet one with a deadly glare and a vice grip, not usually one to attack immediately. Unless I'm bored that is. He's the loud one, hostile to a fault but still somehow young for his age, maturity and mentally wise, I mean. It's what this place did to him. We had been here in this orphanage for far too long. I had just turned seventeen, and he was fourteen, but we had been here since I was ten, and he was just seven...such a young age to be thrown into a place like this...

The Underfell Orphanage House for Delinquents.

That's what they called this place, but personally, I think a better name for it would be UnderHell since every kid that entered through those doors left this hellhole nastier than they came. I mean, look at me and my brother Papyrus. I can't remember what exactly got us placed here, but I know it was child's play in comparison to the things we've done recently...literally. There was no beauty, innocence, or kindness that could survive here. It would be smothered and snuffed out well before it got the chance to thrive which is why I no longer tried to do anything. I mean, I didn't do that much before, but I would at least try to protect Papyrus. He was so small back then, so afraid, frightened by the littlest of shadows and the bumps in the night. I tried to protect him, but he learned from the others, and he learned from me, that resorting to hostility and violence was the only way to solve problems. He didn't even know how to read at a higher level than a first grader...

I had failed the one person who mattered to me, so nothing really mattered to me anymore. I chose to stand by and watch as monster children turned fierce, and the human children either matched them or ended up bloody and scarred. Most humans had to be taken somewhere else for "their own safety;" all had actually, except for one, but she was the adopted child of Asgore and Toriel Dreemurr, the ones who owned and ran this place so naturally she and her brother Asriel, the Dreemurr's biological child, were a tough pair, not one's to be pushed around.

So it had been a while since the last human kid was brought in. The last one had made the mistake of thinking Alphys was an easy target. She wasn't, especially not with her best friend Undyne being one of the meanest and toughest here. The kid had left in an ambulance, rendered to a bloody pulp by Undyne's hands, and they never came back.

So imagine my surprise when the playroom doors opened, and Toriel walked in, her hand on the shoulder of short human girl who was shorter than I was. I smiled at that, snarky and satisfied at finally not being the shortest one there. Despite my smile, I was still shocked at the sight of her, and I could tell the others were too as everyone stopped what they were doing to look at her, the room became quiet except for the gentle buzzing sound from the television. She was so small, and her frame looked so fragile. I knew her size wasn't that far outside the usual for a human girl, but in comparison to Toriel, who easily towered over her and most of us monsters, she was just so...tiny.

She looked around the room at us with a nervous smile playing across her pink lips as she twirled the ends of her soft brunette hair that framed her face. It was fairly obvious that she didn't belong here. Hell, she didn't look like she belonged in an orphanage to begin with. She looked like the type you could love in an instant and hold for an eternity. Too bad my heart was already nonexistent, having faded to dust after being here for so long and losing the brotherly connection I once had with Papyrus. I might have actually been interested in her in any capacity once, but that curiosity died off a long time ago. I simply scoffed and turned away to watch the TV again.