Chapter 17

"Papyrus, can we please go back to the house?!" Frisk asked desperately while Papyrus kept running to the grocery store. "Come on! I just decided I didn't want to die anymore! I don't want to freeze to death again!"

"We're almost there, Frisk!" Papyrus yelled over the freezing winds. "We can't stop now! We'll go back by the house if Undyne's not there!"

"But they won't let me in if I don't have shoes on!"

"That's fine! I'll just keep carrying you! It's a great workout anyway! Weee!"

Papyrus long-jumped over the same logs again and soon enough they were at the store. He walked through the automatic stores while still carrying Frisk, who was shivering violently, on his back. Surprisingly enough, Sans was there waiting on a bench with Frisk's clothes by the newspapers.

"Sans?" Papyrus asked. "Did you come to help, too?"

"I mostly came to help the kid," Sans said. "He looks like he's cold, but I suppose I can help. I have nothing better to do anyway."

Frisk looked at him gratefully while Papyrus said, "That's great, Sans. That saves me the trouble of taking him back to the house. Thanks! Frisk, you put more clothes on. I'll check the store for Undyne."

Papyrus allowed Frisk to slide off his back, and he took off running through the stores.

"Sans, I owe you one," Frisk said quickly pulling on the socks and shoes over his freezing feet. "Thanks!"

"No problem, kid," Sans said while searching for something in his pocket. "We've had to thaw you out two days in a row. I figured you didn't feel like going three for three."

"Definitely not," Frisk said as he finished tying his shoes and reached for his sweater. "I've had enough of being frozen."

"Hey, Frisk," Sans said. "Before you pull your sweater on, I was wondering if you wanted me to do something about those arms."

"What do you mean?" Frisk asked sitting back up.

Sans pulled out a few rolls of bandages and said, "Almost nobody else knows why those scars are there. They'll think they're there for another reason. They might start asking questions…Frisk?"

Sans followed Frisk's eyes and saw that Frisk was looking ahead at a few monsters staring in his direction looking specifically at his arms in concern mixed with horror. They whispered loudly to each other even though he was looking right at them. Frisk crossed his arms and looked down in shame and confusion.

"Why are they staring at me like that, Sans?" Frisk asked.

"Hey," Sans said to the women. "You mind doing that somewhere else? My younger brother and I can hear every word your saying. It's embarrassing."

The three women quickly filed out of the store with their grocery bags.

"Why were they whispering about me?" Frisk asked once they had gone.

Sans sighed and said, "I was afraid this would happen. Usually when monsters show up with their arms scarred up that badly, it's because they did it to themselves. People do that sometimes when they're unhappy because somehow it makes them feel better. It's a serious sign of mental illness."

Frisk looked away with an embarrassed expression on his face.

"That's not the whole reason your scars are there. But I figure that's something you don't want to have to explain to someone every time you meet them, and you don't want to wear that sweater forever, so for now, I figured that we could keep the scars covered up so that we can keep that to ourselves," Sans said. "But only if you want to."

"I'll do it," Frisk said taking a roll of bandages and starting to unroll it. "I don't want them to stare at me and think I'm crazy like Toriel did."

"Allow me, kid," Sans said. "Roll up your sleeves."

Frisk obeyed, and Sans began wrapping his right arm.

"So, that's why you left Toriel," Sans said.

"Yeah, she thought I was crazy," Frisk said. "Undyne did, too. That's why she felt sorry enough to let Papyrus keep me. I can't stand it when people look at me like that. When they look at you like that, bad things happen."

Sans taped down one end and teleported to the other arm.

"What do you mean?" Sans asked as he started wrapping up the other arm.

"It happened when I lived on the streets," Frisk said. "There would be kids who would be slightly off. You couldn't always explain it, but you could always tell. Sometimes, they'd be nice and kind but just a little slow. Other times, they'd be loud and mean and say all kinds of crazy things. That was when the police or other grown-ups would look at them funny like those ladies looked at me. Whenever that happened, those kids would disappear. I never saw it happen. I only heard the other kids talk about it. They said that men would show up in a white truck that was padded inside. They'd throw them in there or put them in strait-jackets, and you'd almost never see them again."

"Really?" Sans asked finishing up that arm, too.

Frisk moved his arms around. They were snugly wrapped but loose enough so they did not cut off his blood circulation.

"Yeah, you'd only see a few of these kids get let out or manage to escape," Frisk said. "They said they were sent to horrible places called asylums that were full of crazy people. You have to take meds that mess with your brain and be watched at all times like some sort of prisoner. You sit around while people force you to talk about your problems or you watch boring TV shows all day and eat crappy food. That's it. You have to do whatever the doctor says, and if you don't, you get thrown in a padded room with a strait-jacket for hours. Then if you're really bad, they inject tons of crazy drugs in you that make you do nothing but stare at walls all day."

Frisk's face scrunched together in disgust while he put on his sweater. Sans just sat there and listened.

"I'd rather die than be in one of those places," Frisk said. "I can't imagine being locked up somewhere because people think I'm crazy. I don't like it when they stare at me like that either. It makes me feel like I'm weak and helpless. I can't stand that."

"Neither can I, kid," Sans said.

The two sat in silence for the minute it took for Papyrus to run back.

"She's not here," Papyrus said sadly. "The store clerks asked her to leave for being loud and disturbing the peace or something like that. What do we do now?"

"Maybe she went back to Waterfell," Frisk said. "I mean she lives there, right?"

"That is a great idea," Papyrus said picking Frisk up and carrying him on his back again. "Let's go!"

"Wait," Sans said taking off his coat before Papyrus could take off running. "Put this on, Frisk, so you don't get cold when he's running."

"Are you sure?" Papyrus asked.

"Yeah, monsters don't get cold as easily as humans do," Sans said. "I'll be fine. I insist."

"Okay," Frisk replied with a smile. "Thanks."

Papyrus allowed Frisk to slide off his back so he could put on the coat. Once he did, Papyrus lifted him onto his back again.

"Thanks, Sans," Frisk said. "Thanks for the arm warmers, too."

"No problem, kiddo," Sans said. "I'll see you both in Waterfell."

"So we shall," Papyrus said with his eyes burning in determination before he took off. "Don't worry, Undyne! I'm coming!"

Sans smiled while he watched them disappear. His HP raised by another point before he short cut to Waterfell. He and Frisk had much more in common than he thought.