Fic: Small Favours

[daniomalley22]

Title: Small Favours
Fandom: Undertale
Word Count: 4862
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Just cracky sort-of-illness fic.
Summary: Monsters, being made of magic more than anything else, experience illness a bit differently to humans. Papyrus never gets sick, until he does.

Author’s Note: This fic was inspired by theslowesthnery’s art of tiny Sans and tiny Papyrus, particularly this post and its tags.



Papyrus tapped gently and then opened the door to Sans’ room. “Sans?” he called, sticking his head through the door. He’d already made breakfast in hopes that Sans would be up to eating it, and he wasn’t going to let his brother lie around in bed all day regardless.

Sans was curled up on his mattress, snoring heavily, his pillow folded in half under his skull. “Sans,” Papyrus repeated, raising his voice a bit. He didn’t want to actually go into Sans’ room. Last time he’d been mugged by a herd of stray paperclips. “Sans! Wake up!”

“Ngh!” Sans said, twitching. His eyelids flickered and then he pulled the sheets over his head. “Nuh.”

“Wake up, lazybones! You’re back to your old self again, and it’s a beautiful day outside. Much too nice to waste sleeping.”

“Mmmmh.”

Sans didn’t want to get up, but Papyrus was as good at nagging as he was at absolutely everything else. Soon enough, he’d made his way downstairs to eat the bacon and scrambled eggs Papyrus had made. (He’d had to substitute a few ingredients. Instead of bacon, he’d used fettuccine, and instead of eggs, he’d used Napoli sauce. Papyrus considered it an improvement.)

Sans was wearing his blue hoodie again, but he had to roll the sleeves up to use his hands. Papyrus had to smile; it was sort of cute. Sans sat on the couch and Papyrus sat next to him, shuffling forwards on the cushion so that his feet could reach the floor.

Papyrus ate a little of his breakfast and noticed Sans was looking at him. “What?”

“Do you feel like the couch is bigger than it was yesterday?”

“Sans, talk sense!”

“I’m serious! Because usually you don’t have any trouble reaching the floor.”

Papyrus shifted on the cushion and squared his shoulders, as though that would make his legs longer. “I don’t know what you’re getting at,” he lied.

“I’m just saying, I might have given you the tiny...”

“Of course you haven’t, I don’t get sick!”

Sans headed to his sentry station, sending a knowing smirk in Papyrus’ direction which he pretended not to see. Papyrus went through the day keeping busy like he always did, studiously ignoring every time his clothes felt a little too roomy or furniture seemed just a bit too big. Eventually, though, it got to the point where he couldn’t deny it any more.

When Sans got home, he was back to normal, his clothes fitting like they always did. “Hey, Papyrus,” he called as he came through the door, “I picked up some burg... Papyrus? Where are you?”

Papyrus stood up from his crouch, so that his head stuck out of the top of his breastplate. “This is all your fault!” he growled. He waited, poised on the tips of his toes with fists clenched, while Sans’ expression moved from astonishment to disbelief to amusement.

“Oh, no,” Sans said, beginning to snicker. “What happened to ‘I don’t get sick’?”

“You gave me the tiny, curse you!” Papyrus yelled. He hated the way the pitch of his voice rose now that he was only five inches tall.

Sans’ snicker turned into a cackle. “Ah, sor-sorry, bro,” he gasped, wiping at his eyesockets. “You don’t have to be so short with me.”

“Sans!”

“I was going to offer to get you a burger from Grillby’s, but I think that much food might be a bit of a tall order for you right now.”

“SANS!”

“Eh, don’t get on your high horse. It’s perfectly good food. I’ll get you a couple of fries and you can have a bite of my burger, ok?”

“Sa- No!” Papyrus managed to focus on something other than Sans’ horrible puns for a few seconds, just long enough to realise that his brother was seriously contemplating making him eat a burger from Grillby’s. “No, Sans, you can’t expect me to eat one of those awful grease-laden heart-attack-inducing atrocities.”

“You don’t even have a heart, what are you on about?”

“Not having a heart is no reason to lower my standards!” Papyrus retorted. He saw Sans’ expression turn gleeful and knew he’d mis-stepped.

“Aw, Papyrus, if you set your expectations that high, how will you ever meet them?” Sans asked, laughing. Papyrus groaned, but Sans added, “Since you’re obviously feeling a little short-tempered, I suppose I can do you a small favour and make something.”

“Thank you, Sans,” said Papyrus. “I think that is only fair, I cooked for you when you had the tiny, after all.”

“You did. The dinner I requested would have been a lot easier for you to make.”

“Sans, I will not pour you a bowl of ketchup so that you can go swimming. That is disgusting, and the fact that the idea even occurred to you makes me wonder about you.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Sans began to stroll towards the kitchen. “You coming, or what? I need you to talk me through this, cooking isn’t really my thing.”

Papyrus sniffed. “I’m quite aware of that. I wouldn’t dream of leaving you to your own devices if I’m expected to eat the result. But. Uh.” He looked down, embarrassed. “Sans, I don’t have any clothes that fit.”

“Oh.” Sans sounded surprised, which Papyrus considered kind of silly. Sans had nearly as many tiny clothes as he did full-size, but he came down with the tiny all the time. Papyrus hadn’t been sick in years, he’d never bothered to put clothing aside just in case. “Well, I’ll go get something you can wear. Something with short sleeves, I suppose.”

“Oh, Sans, I don’t want to borrow your clothes. Are they even clean?”

“Of course! But hey, if my clothes don’t suit you, you could always just go without. It’s not like you’ve got anything I haven’t seen before.”

“Ugh.” Papyrus banged his head against his breastplate. “Fine. I’m sorry. Thank you. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I’m just rather bonetrousled.”

So San collected some clothes which, true to his word, were mostly clean, and Papyrus quickly donned them and joined Sans in the kitchen. “Where do I start?” Sans asked.

“In the fridge, there should be some tomatoes. And there’s an onion in the cupboard.”

Sans retrieved the vegetables and put them on the counter. He looked down at them, and although Papyrus couldn’t see his expression from the floor, Sans didn’t seem to know what to do next.

“Now, pound the tomatoes to mush with your fists, just as you would your greatest enemy!” Papyrus said eagerly, climbing up on top of Sans’ left foot as though that would help him see better.

“You want me to what?” Sans asked, his tone one of disbelief. “Is this how Undyne makes her spaghetti?”

“Of course!”

“Hmm. Pap, I don’t... I don’t think that method is really me.”

“Nonsense, Sans, everyone can be a great cook with the right attitude!”

“Right.” Sans’ hand swept down towards Papyrus; he tried to dodge out of the way but wasn’t fast enough. Sans grabbed him around his middle and lifted him into the air, putting him down on top of the counter. “There. Now you can see what I’m doing and tell me what I’m getting wrong.”

“Sans, this is really high! What if I fall?”

“You won’t fall. Come on, you’re the Great Papyrus, are you scared of falling off a kitchen counter? Just stay away from the edge! You put me on high stuff all the time when I’ve got the tiny.”

“I assumed if it bothered you, you’d just use a shortcut to get down.”

Sans took a knife from the knife block. “I suppose that’s true.” He held a tomato in place and sliced it in half.

“Do you really want me to tell you if you’re doing it wrong?” Papyrus asked.

“Are you going to tell me to punch the tomatoes to bits?” Sans asked, chopping the tomato into large, irregular chunks.

“Well...”

“Because I don’t want to stir you up, but scalding me isn’t going to make that happen.”

“Oh, Sans.”

Sans finished with the vegetables and took a saucepan out of the cupboard. “Where do you keep the spaghetti?”

“There’s a box on the shelf above the tomatoes,” Papyrus said, pointing. Sans found the noodles and dropped a handful into the pot. He caught one between his fingers and stood it on end next to Papyrus.

“This noodle is taller than you are right now,” he said, laughing.

“Ugh, Sans! That’s not funny!”

“Sure it is! Here, take it. You can use it as a staff. Might come in handy if you encounter a spider or a cockroach.”

“There are no cockroaches in here!” Papyrus cried, horrified. He couldn’t keep himself from glancing at the dark corners of the kitchen, then caught Sans’ eyes and scowled. “If, indeed, there are, they will not be here for very long,” he said.

“What now?” Sans asked.

“Turn the heat up and stir the spaghetti, of course!”

“Does this saucepan need some water in it?”

“What? Well, I suppose you could...”

Sans looked up at the sink whose height Papyrus had ingeniously increased. “Hmm. I think I’ve noticed a problem.”

Papyrus looked from Sans to the sink. “We can do this!” he said. “It’s just like solving a puzzle.”

“Puzzle, okay. Can you hang onto the saucepan if I lift it up?”

“Of course!”

Papyrus hooked his arms over the side of the saucepan and clung to it as Sans lifted the pot up, over his head and into the sink.

“Now you’ve gotta turn the faucet on,” said Sans. Papyrus was hanging off the side of the saucepan, with the cold tap on his other side. He reached one arm out and was able to wrap it around the tap, then drag himself up out of the basin. Actually turning the faucet on was a lot more difficult. The tap was stiff and the sink was slippery, not giving him much purchase for his feet. After several minutes of pushing at the tap, it finally began to turn and Papyrus let out a triumphant hoot.

“Yes! Take that, sink! Bested by the Great Papyrus!”

“Is everything ok up there?” Sans asked.

“Never better!” Papyrus waited until the pot was full and, with some effort, shut the faucet off again. He grabbed onto the side of the saucepan once more. “Bring me down, brother!”

It was relatively simple after that to get the pasta boiling, even though Sans wouldn’t stir it as vigorously as Papyrus encouraged him to. It wasn’t very long before Sans was serving up a large plate for himself. He put out a saucer with a small amount of spaghetti on it, cut into small bites, but Papyrus was too impatient. He grabbed Sans’ fork and twirled it in the pasta on Sans’ plate, using both hands to turn the handle of the fork. He tried to lift it, but he’d overloaded the fork and it was a bit too heavy; most of the spaghetti slid off but he triumphantly hoisted the remainder into the air.

“Sans!” he yelled, “holy fuck! Look!”

Sans tried to appear stern, but he wasn’t much good at it and couldn’t hide his laughter. “You’re going to trip and drop that fork and be crushed to death by spaghetti. What will I say at your funeral, bro?”

“I want my dust spread on my favourite puzzle in the woods. You know the one, it sort of looks like my face if you squint a bit...”

“And tilt your head, at night, while facing the other way...”

“Hey!” Becoming distracted, Papyrus lowered the fork and the spaghetti slid off, making a messy pile on the table. “I’m sure I could improve it.”

“Anything’s pastible.”

“Ugh.”

“Now eat your dinner while it’s hot,” Sans said, placing a teaspoon by Papyrus’ saucer.

The spaghetti was actually fairly good, considering it was Sans’ first attempt. It was probably thanks to Papyrus’ expert guidance.

“Thank you for cooking, Sans.”

“No problem.”

“Can you put me down on the floor now?” Papyrus looked across the room. “And open the front door for me?” he added.

“Open the what? Why?”

“I’m supposed to train with Undyne!”

“Papyrus...” Sans looked down at him. “You’re not seriously going to go out to train with Undyne like this, are you?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Papyrus asked. “A true warrior is always prepared for battle, regardless of their condition! And I cannot assume that my enemies will only attack when I’m at my strongest. This is an opportunity to find out how I perform under pressure!”

“Whatever you say. How are you going to get there?”

“Well!” Papyrus huffed. “I would normally run the whole way, but I am sure Undyne will understand if I accept a ride from the riverperson this once.”

“Uh-huh. And how are you going to get to the riverperson?”

“Well, I’ll walk there, of course! Because I am not a lazybones! Come on, Sans, please open the door!”

Sans sighed and walked across to the front door. “I think this is a bad idea,” he said, but he didn’t actually try to stop Papyrus.

Annoyed, Papyrus strode through the doorway and climbed down the steps. At the bottom, he sank to his knees in the snow and grumbled under his breath. It was fine, though. If he could just make it to the path, the snow would be packed down well enough that he could walk on top of it. Papyrus lifted his right foot and then his left, but with each step he sank a little deeper into the snow until he was buried up to his waist.

Papyrus looked around, starting to feel perturbed. He could probably make it back into the house, but he’d miss out on training with Undyne and Sans would make fun of him. He could see the path ahead. If he’d been his normal size, he could have covered the distance in one step. As small as he was, it was going to be a bit harder. Papyrus shoved his hands into the snow in front of him and tried to push it aside.

“Okay, that’s enough. I can’t stand it anymore.” Papyrus hadn’t realised Sans was watching him from the doorway, but that was his voice, and a second later his hand came sweeping down to pluck Papyrus out of the snow.

“Sans, put me down! I don’t need your help, I can handle this!”

“I’m not letting you go off on your own. You’ll get lost or freeze to death. What are you even trying to prove?”

“I’m not going to get lost, Sans! Just let me - ugh, you’re so annoying!”

“Okay, fine,” said Sans, and for a second Papyrus thought he’d won, but then Sans lifted him and dropped him into the soft grey hood that hung behind his head. “I’ll be annoying, that’s fine with me.”

“Sans!” Papyrus shouted, grabbing a fistful of Sans’ hoodie to keep his balance. “Sans, this isn’t funny!”

“You keep saying that, bro, and you keep being wrong.”

“Ugh.” Papyrus let himself sink down into the hood and sulked until they passed the librarby. “Sans, you’re not taking a shortcut?”

“You don’t like taking shortcuts with me,” said Sans.

“Oh.” That was true, Papyrus didn’t like Sans’ shortcuts. They left him feeling seedy and disoriented. But Sans was doing him a favour, and as grumpy as Papyrus was, he could still recognise that he was being kind of insufferable. “Thank you, brother.”

“No sweat, bro.”

They reached the riverperson and Sans placed him on the boat. “I’ll be back in two hours to bring you home, okay?” said Sans, and Papyrus agreed gratefully.

Training with Undyne was nice, even if she did make fun of Papyrus’ tininess even more than Sans had. It was a relief to be able to focus on strategy and magic and fighting, and put everything else out of his mind. They figured out that, while tiny, Papyrus didn’t have enough magical power to turn someone’s soul blue, nor could he wield one of Undyne’s spears to block her bullets. But his control over his own bullets was much finer, even though they were less powerful. He got many attacks past Undyne’s guard, far more than usual, before they finally called it a night.

He returned to the riverperson and found Sans waiting for him in Snowdin. He lifted Papyrus up and sat him on his shoulder rather than in his hood.

“How was training?” Sans asked.

“Great!” said Papyrus. “We have discovered that I am a very difficult target to hit when I am this small, provided my soul has not been turned green.”

Sans’ grip tightened on him for an instant. “I hope Undyne was careful with you,” he said.

“Of course she was! We are the greatest of friends, after all. Now.” Papyrus pulled himself to his feet, bracing one hand against Sans’ cheekbone to steady himself. “Onward, noble steed!”

“Heh. Ok. Hold on tight, bro.”

Papyrus wasn’t about to admit it to anyone else, but the training session had been more tiring than usual. He usually wouldn’t go to bed so early, but right now sleep sounded very appealing. He asked Sans to take him to his room, and Sans, being the smartass that he was, placed Papyrus in the middle of the action figures arranged on his dresser.

“Ugh, Sans. You’re not as funny as you think you are, you know,” Papyrus grumbled.

“Aw, bro, don’t be like that. I thought you’d like some company that was on your level.”

Papyrus didn’t bother to respond to that, restricting himself to a heavy sigh to make sure that Sans knew how patient he was being. He walked through the action figures and stopped in front of one wearing a black rectangular mask. It was easier when he was his normal size, but Papyrus was pretty sure he could still take the mask off... yes. He lifted the mask up and put it over his own head.

“Nyeh heh heh! Now it is I who am Lord Blackmask Glowysword!” Papyrus cackled, taking the sword from the action figure’s hand.

“Lord what? Come on, Papyrus, don’t tell me you haven’t given all these things actual names.”

“Of course not!” Papyrus lied, executing a blow with the sword which would have beheaded a blonde action figure in a long dress, if only it wasn’t blunt and made of plastic. “These are battle scenario visualisation tools, nothing more!”

“Whatever you say, bro,” said Sans, clearly not believing a word. To distract himself, Papyrus got a good run up and launched himself from the edge of the table, landing in the middle of his neatly-made bed and bouncing a few times.

“Wowie!” he yelled. “That was amazing. Sans! Pick me up so I can do that again!”

“For someone who was so worried about falling off the kitchen counter...”

“That was different, there was nothing soft to land on.”

“Sorry, bro. Not gonna help you break your neck.” Sans turned down the covers and smoothed the pillow. “Are you sure you’ll be comfortable sleeping here? You could get lost in this bed.”

Papyrus sighed mournfully. “You might be right. As tiny as I am, I can’t even drive down the highway in my dreams.” The bed cover, normally soft and warm, now felt coarse under his hands. He could tease the threads apart with his fingers if he tried; they were nearly as thick as rope.

“I’ll see what I can come up with,” said Sans, going to Papyrus’ closet. In a few minutes he’d put together a comfortable bed made from a pair of clean socks and a flannel shirt. He put it in the middle of Papyrus’ actual bed, so that he couldn’t roll off onto the floor, and patted Papyrus’ shoulder with a fingertip. “Don’t worry, bro, you’ll be well again in no time.”

Sans sounded confident when he said that, but Papyrus’ bout of tiny seemed to be interminable. Unlike Sans, who could just take a shortcut to his sentry post whenever he needed to, Papyrus had to ask someone to carry him there and back.

Undyne made him swear on a jar of spaghetti sauce that he would not, under any circumstances, attempt to confront any human he happened to see, and would instead merely call her on his cell phone. The cell phone was another issue - it wasn’t so large that he couldn’t carry it, but it was very heavy, and he had to lean over to press the buttons which made his back hurt. After a while he had the idea of standing on the phone and pressing the buttons with his feet, which made things a lot more tolerable.

Food was a nuisance. He didn’t need to eat much, so the leftovers from Sans’ spaghetti weren’t going to run out any time soon, but he needed Sans to dish it up for him. He didn’t mind doing this sort of thing when Sans had the tiny - in fact, he liked having a good excuse to check up on Sans and make sure that he ate a decent meal for a change. But being on the receiving end of it was a lot less fun than he’d imagined.

He needed Sans to do nearly everything. Couldn’t get around the house by himself, never mind doing anything outside. Couldn’t make his own food. When he spilled spaghetti sauce on his shirt, he couldn’t just change into another shirt and wash the dirty one, he had to borrow another shirt from Sans and get him to wash it. The night Sans was working late, he couldn’t climb up onto his bed and wound up sleeping on one of Sans’ slippers.

(A clean one, that had been through the wash recently. He wasn’t an animal.)

Sans was surprisingly helpful. Papyrus knew he really shouldn’t complain; Sans did most of the work of carrying him around and making sure he had what he needed. But Sans was also clearly enjoying this chance to be the bigger of the two of them, and Papyrus’ life had been plagued with jokes and puns and pranks ever since he’d caught the tiny. He kept putting things just slightly too high for Papyrus to reach. Every sentence contained some sort of height-related pun. Papyrus had eventually snapped and embarked on a lengthy rant about Sans’ terrible jokes, which his brother had cut short by trapping him under a bucket.

“Time out, bro. I’ll let you out once you’ve cooled off.”

The indignity of it! And of course Sans had removed the bucket after ten minutes, and had watched Mettaton’s newest show with him by way of apology, but still. There were no advantages to being tiny.

Sans was working late one night, and Papyrus had spent most of the day downstairs, passing the time in increasingly unsatisfying ways. He looked up the staircase which seemed as tall and imposing as a mountain. If he went up to his room, he could go through his attacks and think about designing new ones. But climbing up there would probably take at least an hour. Sans would be home by then.

Oh, well. Was he the Great Papyrus, or wasn’t he? Papyrus made his way to the bottom step and levered himself up onto it. That wasn’t so bad, and the next step was easy enough, but he was going to tire long before he reached the top. Papyrus realised he could use the railings to boost himself, and that helped. He was tired by the time he got halfway up, but he kept going, on the principle that it would be just as much work to go back down as to continue. By the time he was three quarters of the way to the top, he’d realised how wrong he was, but it was much too late to turn back. Once he reached the top, he collapsed on the carpet, gasping for breath.

He might almost have gone to sleep right there on the filthy carpet if he hadn’t heard a rustling sound coming from his room. With a groan, Papyrus hauled himself to his feet and went to investigate. The sound led him towards the box in the corner which contained his attacks. His eyes narrowed.

“Who’s there?” Papyrus called , preparing a bone attack just in case.

A furry snout poked over the top of the box, grasping a bone in its jaws.

“YOU!” Papyrus shouted, stamping his foot. “You devious dog! You malevolent mutt! Leave my bones alone!”

The dog barked, although it was a bit muffled by the bone in its mouth. It jumped out of the box and wagged its tail.

“Give that back! It’s mine!” Papyrus yelled. “Go find bones somewhere else!”

The dog whined, its tail becoming still. Its gaze didn’t waver from Papyrus, who realised that, from the dog’s point of view, he was really just a collection of bite sized, noisy bones.

“Get out of here!” he said nervously. The dog dropped the bone in its mouth and sniffed. Papyrus suspected that if he just stayed still, the dog would lose interest, but it was so close...

He couldn’t take it! He shot his bone attack towards the dog, who merely ducked aside and snapped at it like it was a fly. He started to run and heard the dog’s paws skittering behind him, getting closer.

“AAAaaaaah!” he yelled.

“Yap, yap!” barked the dog.

Papyrus flew out of his room and made his way for the stairs. What had taken him an hour to climb, he descended in a matter of seconds, grunting in pain as he tripped halfway down and falling to the next step in a heap. He could hear the dog yapping behind him, feel the vibration of its feet hitting the stairs, smell its stinky dog breath...

And then the front door opened.

“SAAAAANS!” Papyrus bellowed in a deep and authoritative, not at all terrified manner.

“Oh, hey.” Papyrus ran towards Sans who picked him up in one hand. “Whoops, buddy,” he said to the dog. “I know you want to play, but maybe you should find someone else to play with, huh? Out you go.”

He shooed the dog out the door and closed it. Papyrus clung to Sans’ arm, wheezing for breath.

“You okay, bro?”

“No!” said Papyrus. “No, I’m not okay! I can’t do anything, I can’t go anywhere, I’ve been tiny for days and I’m not getting any better and everything is awful! Sans, I don’t want to be tiny anymore. Nyoo hoo hoo.”

“Aw, bro.” Sans sat on the couch and put Papyrus on his knee. Papyrus wiped his face and sniffled. “Really? You’ve had enough?”

“I’d had enough days ago, Sans! This is terrible! I can’t take it anymore.”

“Aw, really? Not even for this?”

Sans reached for the bag he’d been carrying. In all the excitement, Papyrus hadn’t noticed it earlier, but he must have brought it home with him, and now he was opening it up and pulling out...

“Sans, is that...”

“Yeah, bro. I know being tiny is making you miserable, but I thought you might get some fun out of this before you get better. Since, you know...”

“Sans,” Papyrus whispered, touching the hood of the remote controlled car, “it’s beautiful.”

There was a tense moment where it looked like they didn’t have the right kind of batteries, but Sans found some in his room and after that there was nothing holding them back.

“WEEEHEEHEEHEE!” Papyrus yelled. “Faster, Sans! FASTER!”

“I don’t think it goes any faster, bro,” said Sans, sending the car in a figure eight around the legs of the table.

“NYEH HEH HEEEE!”

After that, even sleeping in Sans’ slipper didn’t seem so bad.

The next morning, Papyrus tried to put on his borrowed clothes only to find that they were too small.

“Sans! Sans! I’m getting better!” Papyrus stumbled to the door, tying the shirt around his waist. He hammered at Sans’ door, noticing that now he could reach halfway to the doorknob.

“Ugh. Papyrus, it’s still early,” Sans said, his voice still thick with sleep.

“Sans, I’m getting better!” Papyrus shouted, still thumping on the door. “Also, um... those clothes you loaned me don’t fit anymore. Do you have bigger ones?”

“Mh.” The door opened a crack and Sans stood on the other side of it, leaning hard against the doorframe. Papyrus was as tall as his knee, now. “I’ll see what I can find.” Sans stood for a couple of minutes rubbing the sleep from his eyesockets, and then seemed to notice Papyrus looking at him. “What?”

“Was that shirt that big on you last night?”

Sans looked down at the t-shirt he’d slept in, which now hung down to his knees. “Oh, no.”

Hopefully, Papyrus thought, he’d be fully recovered before Sans became too tiny. He’d have to go to the shop and buy ingredients to make thankyou spaghetti. And maybe, while he was there, he’d buy a king-size bottle of ketchup.