Entry # 4 of "Cheer Up The Skeleton" week on Tumblr. The prompt was "Family."

Sunday afternoons tended to be much slower for Sans, even with Papyrus hovering around the house trying to clean.

The skeleton's eyes flickered open, his head never leaving his pillow as he groaned. He thought about pulling the covers over his head, but feeling the new fabric reminded him that, yet again, time had not been reset. He was always ready for it to come, and every morning was more of a surprise than a natural occurrence.

It smelled like socks and somber memories.

Finally accepting fate, Sans slowly began to crawl out of his messy bed. He stretched, scratched, and rotated his neck to loosen it a bit before finally standing. He barely made it into his slippers, and walked to the far end of his bedroom to where...wait. Where is it? Where was his calendar? The one that he wrote the numbers on?

In its place was one small sticky note, resting all alone on the empty space.

"'CHECK YOUR PHONE, LAZYBONES!' -THE GREAT PAPYRUS"

Sans tilted his head in confusion before turning around, grabbing his phone off the dresser. He swiped away the lock-screen, noticing that had four missed voice messages to listen to. He'd forgotten that he turned his phone silent when he slept, a habit he was used to with a brother like Papyrus. He turned the speakerphone on and dialed the number.

"Four. New messages. First new message:"

"O-oh, hi Sans, it's Alphys. Papyrus s-said you weren't feeling all that great, so I decided to call and ask if there was anything you n-needed? If not, that's okay, just wanted to make sure...y'know..."

"Alphys!" Undyne's voice bellowed, "tell Sans to cheer up or I'll turn his frowns upside down! With body slams!"

"...h-hope you heard that, heh heh. Bye Sans."

Beep.

"Next message."

"Hi Sans, it's Frisk. Just wondering, um, if you were okay? Papyrus was saying that you were sleeping in a lot, and that you only did that when you were sick, so I hope you feel better, okay? Bye."

Beep.

"I'm not sick," Sans muttered to himself, "am I really that out of it?"

"Next message."

"Oh! Hello Sans! This is your friend, Toriel. Frisk and Papyrus said you might be ailing from something, and I thought that as a friend it was my duty to help you recover! Do let me know if I can do anything to assist, even if it's just more of these corny jokes, will you not? Take care."

Beep.

"Next message."

"SANS! IT IS I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS!"

Already Sans was beginning to smile.

"I CAME INTO YOUR ROOM TODAY TO CLEAN, EVEN THOUGH YOU WERE SLEEPING AND NOTICED YOU HAD A CALENDAR ON THE WALL WITH NUMBERS. YOU'VE BEEN COUNTING THE DAYS SINCE WE LEFT THE UNDERGROUND, RIGHT? ARE YOU STILL WAITING FOR A RESET? DIDN'T FRISK TELL YOU THEY COULDN'T DO THAT ANYMORE?"

Well, sure, they said that, but it doesn't necessarily mean...

"YOU SHOULD TRUST YOUR FRIENDS, SANS! I BELIEVE FRISK, AND I BELIEVE IN THEM AS WELL, AND I KNOW YOU DO, TOO! SO, AND I AM VERY SORRY FOR THIS, I TOOK YOUR CALENDAR, AND IF YOU WANT IT BACK, THEN I WANT TO TALK. BROTHER TO BROTHER, OKAY? I WANT TO HELP YOU, AND I KNOW, I KNOW, YOU 'DON'T NEED ANY HELP,' BUT I KNOW YOU'RE LYING, BECAUSE YOU ARE A POOR LIAR! EVERYBODY NEEDS HELP SOMETIMES. IF IT HELPS, I'LL BE WAITING AT GRILLBY'S NEW PLACE, SINCE I KNOW YOU LIKE EATING THERE...FOR WHATEVER REASON. FAREWELL, BROTHER!"

"To replay, press 4. To erase, press..."

Beep. Sans hung up.

Despite the smile, there was a sense of dread hanging in the air now. Sans was used to Papyrus' lectures, but he certainly wasn't prepared for...preparing for a lecture. They were usually off-the-cuff, but the fact that Papyrus was waiting for him meant that this was something he'd been planning for awhile. And Sans could always tell when Papyrus was planning.

But Grillby's? Sure, it was nicer on the surface, since it was possible to actually...order supplies, but it was still a bit of a dive. Sans loved the atmosphere, and the food, but Papyrus didn't really care for it. Would he really be there? What, if anything, was he going to do?

Sans had no answers as he picked up his blue coat off the floor.

One shortcut later, and Sans found himself at the front door of Grillby's new establishment. Nestled away in a district known for its many taverns, it was perhaps the only place that served no alcohol at all, and it was actually a fairly popular destination. Apparently, humans had cravings for excellently greasy food just like he did.

He pushed the door open as it caught on the signaling bell above. Strangely, the entire place was empty, although it was 3 o'clock in the afternoon, on Sunday no less. Sans looked at the familiar atmosphere, musing again on just how many fire extinguishers there were. Each wall had one placed, at most, ten feet away from the next one. Each support column had one attached to each side. All in all, there were about forty in total just in the seating areas alone.

Being a fire elemental certainly brought some...challenges to a city's fire code.

At the bar, sat a rather lanky skeleton, resting his head on his hand. Sans took a deep breath before walking forward and sitting down next to his brother, who finally stopped looking so bored.

"SANS."

"'sup, bro?"

"WELL, I'M GLAD YOU'RE HERE. I APOLOGIZE FOR TAKING YOUR STUFF, BUT I FIGURED..."

"it's okay. have i...been worrying everybody?"

"YEAH. YOU'VE SEEMED A BIT SAD LATELY. EVEN MORE THAN USUAL, I SUPPOSE."

"oh."

Papyrus reached behind him to the adjacent stool, picking up a delicately wrapped present and handed it over.

"I GOT YOU SOMETHING, TO HELP."

"pap...you didn't have to..."

"I KNOW I DIDN'T HAVE TO. I WANTED TO! ...SO I HAD TO!"

Sans tore through the wrapping quickly enough, holding his prize out in front of him with a puzzled look.

"it's...my calendar?"

"NOPE! TRY AGAIN!"

"bro...this is my calendar. it's the exact same one i had in my room last night."

"NOPE! OPEN IT!" Papyrus snickered.

Sans flipped through the months and confirmed Papyrus' statements. It wasn't his calendar, because there was nothing written. No numbers were marked down for any of the days at all.

"Oh..." he said, sounding a bit deflated.

"SANS. FLIP TO TODAY'S DATE."

He did so, and noticed that in the box, one single number was written down, in much cleaner handwriting.

"WHAT DOES IT SAY?"

"heh, it says..."

Papyrus struggled to hide his glee.

"three-hundred, sixty five...?"

"SURPRISE!"

From behind the bar, Toriel, Frisk, Undyne, Alphys, Asgore, and even Mettaton leaped up, some of them blowing noisemakers, others throwing confetti. All of it directed toward Sans. All of it.

"you guys...what's all this for?"

"IT'S BEEN EXACTLY ONE YEAR SINCE WE LEFT THE UNDERGROUND! YOU'VE BEEN COUNTING THE DAYS, BUT NOT FOR THE RIGHT REASONS! NYEH-HEH-HEH!"

"i...don't know what to say!"

Asgore gave a low guffaw. "You don't have to say anything. Your smile is speaking volumes!"

"Yeah!" Undyne chimed in, "You might even be smiling wider than I am! And I'm the best smiler here!"

"I DON'T THINK SO! I'M CLEARLY THE BEST!"

"No way, bone-head!"

"Actually," Toriel interrupted, placing her hand on Frisk's head. "I believe you are both in the wrong."

Frisk beamed a smile right into the skeleton's heart, as they handed a folded piece of cardboard to Sans.

"what's this, kiddo?"

"Oh, Frisk had an art assignment at school today. They had to make pictures of their family. I believe you may find this pleasing!"

He unfolded the paper, and all the usual suspects were there. All the drawings were about the best one could expect of a child, each one sectioned off from each other around the outside edge, touching the inside picture, which was of Frisk, appropriately.

Mom – Toriel

Dad – Asgore

Cool Aunt – Undyne

Best Aunt – Alphys

Cool and Best Uncle – Mettaton

Coolest Bro – Papyrus

Best Bro – Sans

"heh heh...you think i'm the best brother?"

Frisk nodded happily.

"BUT DON'T FORGET! I AM THE COOLEST!"

"yeah, pap. you are."

The door leading to the kitchen swung open, and the mysteriously absent Grillby finally arrived, pushing a large cart with an even larger cake on top. There were so many candles that everybody had no reason to think there weren't at least three-hundred sixty five of them.

Fire elementals. Go figure.

Everybody inhaled at the same time, and they all began to blow out the candles from their respective positions around the cake. Frisk's section needed a bit of, help, which of course The Great Papyrus was happy to assist. When all of them were nothing more than smoking wicks, everybody applauded.

"All right, Beauties and Gentle-beauties! This fabulous party's just getting started!"

Seemed like Mettaton was ready for quite the night.

Sans slid off the stool, and turned away. "i'll be right back."

"SANS! YOU'RE NOT LEAVING, ARE YOU?"

"nah, i just wanna get some fresh air for a bit. i'll be back in a bit. i promise."

Those two words caused both Papyrus and Toriel to light up. Sans hated making promises, but he'd always kept them. No matter what.

The skeleton exited Grillby's and stepped to the side of the door, leaning up against the wall. He still had Frisk's assignment in his hand, and looked at it again, feeling a strange rush above his nose and behind his eyes. Had it really been a year? A whole year on the surface?

Something dripped onto the cardboard as Sans sniffled a bit.

The bell jingled again, the door opening up for Papyrus, who turned to his brother with a confused face.

"SANS...ARE YOU...SAD?"

"i..."

More drips. He was starting to leak.

"i was. but...now i'm..."

Papyrus didn't need to hear any more. He knelt down and embraced his brother just like Sans had always done when Papyrus was a child. Instead of just...standing there, Sans decided to hug back this time, burying his face in Papyrus' cape. He justified it as using it to wipe the tears off, but both of them knew. This was something he'd wanted to do. Something he'd always wanted to do.

"you...really are the coolest, pap."

"NOPE! NOT TODAY! TODAY THAT'S YOU! ...EVEN IF FRISK THINKS OTHERWISE."

"heh...fair enough. thanks."

The sniffles came to a stop, slowly. Sans released his brother, but Papyrus scooped up his sibling and carried him in one arm, something he hadn't really done since lugging him around the Underground to get him to work.

"SHALL WE RETURN TO THE PARTY?"

Sans' face returned to its cheshire-like grin. "yeah."

It smelled like smiles and incredible siblings.