A Three Way SWAP

Chapter 7

Undertale:

US PAPYRUS:

"can you keep a secret?"

"of course i can bro" Sans replied. He was getting and more concerned about his brother now. "Well, I'm obviously not from here, buddy. i was doing my own thing, waiting for the human to appear when suddenly everything went black. i woke up here next to the machine that's in the room behind our house. i am assuming that in this universe everyone's personalities are swapped, so i am assuming you know about the machine, right" Sans was starting to put the pieces together. "he touched the machine." Sans said. Papyrus replied, "what?" "he touched the machine. i had always told him that there was nothing to see in that room, but for some reason this time around he decided to check it out. he must have messed with the machine and cause this." "who?" Papyrus asked. Sans replied, "my papyrus."

"well, how are we gonna fix this? we need to try to get the machine running again, right? it runs on determination, so i'm assuming we need to get some of that to make it work again, correct?" Papyrus asked. He felt oddly excited talking to someone who knew just as much as he did. "yeah, but my papyrus seemed to use the last of what was left to turn on the machine. i think we will need a large amount of determination to fuel the machine so we can switch you guys back," Sans replied. 

Sans continued, "maybe we could get some from the human. they are currently on a genocide run, so maybe..." the thought of genocide made both the brothers want to vomit. Papyrus started, "if we can get the human, we could attempt to extract some of their determination during judgement. the problem is, one of us would have to be able to extract the determination and get it to the machine while the other distracts the human by, well, you know." Papyrus didn't want to think about fighting the human. He hated it. He hated that feeling he had when he struck them down countless times, knowing that they were friends once. 

Sans continued, "well, who gets to do what?" Papyrus saw flashbacks of Blue dying. Even though this wasn't Blue, Papyrus would not stand by and watch his brother die again, not when there was finally a way to prevent it. "i-i'll fight the human. you will extract determination from the human by taking a sample of it's blood while i distract them by fighting." "you sure bro" Sans asked. He could tell that Papyrus didn't want to fight, but to be honest, neither did he. "i'm sure." 

Sans began to tinker with the machine while Papyrus took a walk around the now empty Snowdin. He felt so alone out here, he never liked feeling alone, but being the only one in his own universe who remembered the resets, he had that feeling a lot. It was nice to talk to someone who had dealt the same pain he had. As he was pacing out in front of his house a Flowey popped up.

"Why hello, Papyrus. You seem to be having an...interesting day" "a flowey? what are you doing....ohh. he must have swapped with temmie back home." Flowey continued, "I'm sure excited to see what you and that smiley trash bag do. It seems Papyrus has gotten you into a real pickle, doesn't it?" Papyrus responded, "it's not all his fault. he was probably just curious. i don't need you placing blame." "But aren't you mad at him.... I mean, his mistakes ended up causing all this trouble for you, and now you gotta fix it, isn't that right?" Papyrus thought about this, then replied, "well, if blue kept secrets from me, i'd probably be curious. i can't really blame the guy. if he's anything like blue, he probably didn't mean any harm." "hmmm, alright then! Have fun cleaning up his mess, Papyrus!" The Flowey disappeared. He had gotten into his head. That's all he wanted.

Papyrus thought to himself. He guessed a small part of him was a little mad, as this had thrown off both his own universe and this one, but he also felt somewhat responsible. He never really told Blue anything back home, and he was guessing this Sans never told this Papyrus anything either, so it seemed natural for them to be curious, right?

As Sans was working hard to fix the machine, he saw the photo lying on his desk. "don't forget." He'll never forget. He wasn't sure if that was a blessing, or a curse. Being able to remember kept his father alive in his own memories, but it also has prevented him from moving on completely. He often looks at how happy Papyrus is, not knowing that he had ever lost anyone. He envies that. He often wishes he could just live in ignorance and not know anything. Wouldn't that be nice. 

He saw that the picture was out, so Papyrus clearly looked at it. "paps, i'm sorry i kept this all from you. you must think that i don't trust you, but i do. i just don't want to weigh you down with all this. i'm sorry bro. don't worry, we'll fix all of this. i won't be mad at you, bro."