The Time Before (Undertale)

54 ~ Royal Cooking Guard

Sans woke slowly, painfully.

His head hurt. And he felt nauseous.

He moaned, rolling onto his side, curling up and pressing his hands against his forehead.

"Sans?" He heard Papyrus ask softly. "Are you awake?" Papyrus's hand settled on his shoulder.

Sans mumbled a vaguely affirmative response.

"Well, here, can you sit up?"

"mmmnnnnnghhh..."

"... Grillby said you would have a headache."

With Papyrus's help, Sans managed to sit up. As Sans rubbed at his eyesockets, blinking against the pounding in his head and slight nausea, he saw Papyrus reaching for a glass of water on the endtable next to the couch.

He made a sort of questioning noise as Papyrus handed him the glass.

"Grillby told me to have some aspirin ready for when you woke up." Papyrus answered. "I already dissolved it into the water."

Sans accepted the glass and lifted it to his jaw, drinking it all. When he had finished it, Papyrus took the empty glass and set it back on the endtable. Then he looked back at Sans.

Sans had his brow furrowed against the pain in his skull, and looked overall just very miserable and tired.

Papyrus let out a small sigh. "Come here, Sans."

When Sans scooted closer on the couch, Papyrus gently grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to lie back down, head and shoulders in Papyrus's lap. Sans put up no resistance, just settling down in Papyrus's lap with a quiet grunt. Papyrus started to rub Sans' shoulders, soft flickers of green healing Magic jumping between his fingers. It wouldn't do a whole lot for Sans' headache, since he wasn't technically wounded or injured in any way, but Papyrus knew that Sans was, for whatever reason, especially susceptible to the calming effects of healing Magic.

As for the headache, well, that was what the aspirin was for.

As Sans started taking slightly deeper breaths, his shoulders relaxing a bit, Papyrus decided now would be a good time to talk to Sans.

"Hey, Sans? Can I ask you something... maybe a little... difficult to answer?"

Sans grunted, and Papyrus decided to take that as an affirmative answer.

"... Why did you drink so much?"

Papyrus felt Sans stiffen a little in his lap.

"It's-- it's okay if you don't want to answer..."

Sans sighed, shifting a little to look up at Papyrus. "n-no... 's alright..." He sighed. "i just... i got tired. and things weren't goin' too well, and i just... i just couldn't... but-... but i'm okay, now."

Papyrus fixed his brother with a stern look. "I'm not so sure about that."

Sans let out a small, pained chuckle. "well, yeah. i've got a pretty bad hangover, but that'll go away."

"And what about your problem?"

"... huh?"

"Something had to have upset you enough to do this, and--... and drinking isn't going to solve your problems."