[Handplates chapter references: guess what guess what, What's behind door number one?]

"SANS? SANS!", Papyrus burst through the door, almost forgetting to wipe the snow off his feet as he entered the house.
He made his way up the stairs to Sans's room where he assumed his brother to be.

He was right.

Sans was laying slumped down on his mattress that was just lazily tossed into one of the corners of his room. The blanket was sprawled across the floor, his pillow leaning against the wall a little further away.

"DON'T SLEEP ON THE FLOOR!!", scolded Papyrus as he walked further into the room.

The interior was kept simple and minimalistic – if one could even call it that.
There was a cardboard box that contained a drawer but it was untouched, the box itself serving as the drawer with a few items sprawled on top of it.
A few books were stacked into another corner, one pile was knocked over but no one had made the effort to stack them onto the others again. And there was a ridiculous amount of single socks scattered around.

The whole room was a stark contrast to Papyrus's.
He had everything decorated. He was especially proud of his cool car bed frame.
And Papyrus also had a table with action figures neatly displayed, a bookshelf with many books and another cool skeleton flag hung up on his wall.
There was also a cool carpet with flames laid out on the floor.

It was safe to say that he put a lot of effort into making that room his own. It was lived in, cozy.

Sans's was also lived in.
But in a different sense and it infuriated Papyrus but he tried his best to not make too big of a fuzz about it because it was his brother's own safe space and he had the right to decorate it however he liked.

Or not.

"GET UP!!", exclaimed Papyrus.

"'s not the floor, it's a mattress.", mumbled Sans, his face still pressed into the mattress.
He was not bothered at all by the fact that he basically slept on the floor.
And he also did not seem to be bothered that Papyrus obviously had some urgent news.

He did not move, didn't even turn to his brother.

Papyrus waited a few seconds longer, hoping Sans would at least turn onto his back to look at him.

As nothing happened, he huffed quietly and approached Sans, stemming his hands on his hips: "IT'S NOT A BED! GET UP!"

Sans finally turned his head to the side in order to look at his brother, who was staring down at him with squinted eyes.

"you said don't sleep on the floor, not don't not sleep on a bed"

"UGH THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT!!", declared Papyrus with a small grumble and bent over to attempt and pick up his older, but smaller brother.

Sans did not budge, not even attempting to move his little finger or anything for that matter, making it significantly more difficult to pick him up when he laid there like a sack of potatoes.

"SANS!!!", grumbled the taller skeleton, clearly struggling to pick his brother up, but eventually he managed to secure his hands under Sans's arms, picking him up like a rag doll and making Sans face him.

Sans just hung there in the air, a casual smile on his face as he looked into Papyrus's disgruntled face: "whats up?"

"DO YOU REMEMBER THAT TALKING FLOWER I TOLD YOU ABOUT?"

"is this like that imaginary flying dog friend you had for a while?"

"THIS ONE'S REAL!!!", pouted Papyrus and sat Sans down onto his feet.
He crossed his arms in front of his chest, staring his brother down as he lazily rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

"AND DON'T MALIGN SIR WOOFWOOF, THANK YOU. BUT THE FLOWER TOLD ME SOMETHING IMPORTANT!!"

Sans finally seemed to be in an awake enough condition to hear out his brother.
He put his hands into his gray hoodie: "alright, shoot."

"HE TOLD ME THAT THERE'S A SECRET LOCKED DOOR IN HOTLAND! AND THAT NO OEN'S EVER BEEN ABLE TO OPEN IT."

Sans did not seem fazed: "huh. weird."

"SO I ASKED HIM TO SHOW IT TO ME, AND IT'S REALLY THERE! IT'S REAL! AND...I THINK IT HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH THESE."

As soon as Papyrus pointed to his hand with the plate attached to it, Sans's eyes widened.
A strange shiver went down his spine, unsure if he was relieved about that revelation or...terrified.

Sans leaned forward slightly, arching a brow: "wait what? are you serious? how do you know?"

Papyrus looked down to the ground, his voice now quieter than before: "I THINK IT'D BE EASIER IF YOU SAW IT YOURSELF."

It was obvious that this discovery also made him nervous. It was perhaps one of the puzzle pieces they were missing.

A step closer to the truth. Their past.

It was almost strange for Sans to see Papyrus being so serious. He studied his face a little longer, before averting his eyes and pondering.

Is this really what they want? What risk could this bring? What harm could be done?

There were so many uncertainties but one thought alone seemed to drown out all the others: They have to know who they are. What happened.
They need to face their past.

Sans smirked lightly, agreeing with Papyrus: "...ok, can we take a shortcut?"

~💙🧡~

It was almost terrifying how casually Papyrus walked off the edge of the path, invisible tiles manifesting beneath his feet with every step he took: "OH, THERE IT IS! LOOK, SANS! THIS IS IT!"

He did not seem to care at all about the fact that he was walking over a pool of lava.
That he was several feet up in the air, walking across the abyss.
But then again, he was probably used to it.

Sans hesitated, staring down into the lava that was bubbling beneath their feet, a knot forming in his stomach. This was definitely not his style of traveling so he just teleported.

It was much less work as well so just perfect for him.

As they stood in front of the door, Papyrus walked up to the console that was next to it in the wall while Sans tried to take in its appearance: "huh...well it's definitely a door."

"DON'T TELL ME YOU DON'T SEE IT!"

"see what?"

"THERE'S NO DOORKNOB, SANS!"

Sans's eyes trailed up and down the door a couple of times as an attempt to find a doorknob.

He looked back at his brother, obviously clueless what he was trying to get at: "...ok?"

Papyrus was slightly agitated, raising his finger and scolding his older brother once again: "SANS! I KNOW YOU'RE BETTER AT PUZZLES THAN THAT.
THERE'S NO DOORKNOB!
DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN WE WERE WITH ASGORE? HE HAD TO TEACH US ABOUT DOORKNOBS! AND THAT MEANS"

Sans's eyes widened in surprise, finishing Papyrus's sentence for him: "that we didn't know about em before..."

Papyrus's face softened up as Sans finally understood his implications.

He continued to explain, now a little calmer: "EXACTLY! BUT THAT'S NOT ALL, SANS. LOOK, WATCH THIS."

He turned to the console and put his hand on it.
A small beep came from the hand reader and one of the three small lights lit up in response.

Sans looked at the small light in disbelief before a sudden feeling of dread rushed over him.

"IT WOULDN'T TURN ON FOR HIM, ONLY FOR ME.", Papyrus continued to explain casually.

Sans felt this strange urge to run.
To turn around and forget about it.

Unconsciously, he took a few steps back and put his hands up, almost in a slightly defensive way: "...nah, nah, somethin's not right."

His hands began trembling and he tried to maintain his composure, his eyes narrowed: "why would this flower guy even know about this? why would he bring you here? what did you tell him?"

Every alarm rang in Sans's mind.

It was just too convenient.

He did not expect anything really when his brother told him about the door but now things were becoming increasingly more terrifying.

"we should tell undyne about this..."

Papyrus seemed to not be happy about Sans's response.
He frowned slightly, turning to stare at his hand that was still resting on the hand reader.

This small flicker of the light, it was not only a light. It was a flicker of hope.

To find out what happened to them. Where their parents went.
Where they belong.

"I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO UNDYNE ABOUT...THIS STUFF.", declared Papyrus quietly.

"AND EVERYTHING ELSE HE'S TOLD ME HAS COME TRUE. I THINK HE WAS RIGHT. I THINK THIS IS WHERE WE CAME FROM."

Sans still felt suspicious, his careful nature screaming at him to leave.
But he wanted to hear out his brother. He wanted answers just as badly as him, even if it scared him.

"what do you mean, everything else? how would this flower even know? who IS this guy?"

Papyrus was growing impatient, brushing off his brother's questions.

"SANS, COME HERE AND TRY IT. I CAN ONLY GET ONE LIGHT TO GO ON, BUT MAYBE YOU CAN DO MORE."

Another shiver went down Sans's spine at that request.

This whole situation was strange.

"i don't know about this. i got a real bad feeling about this.", he stammered, his body tense and on alert.
Usually when he had a bad feeling, he was right. His inner voice had never betrayed him and he did not want to stop listening to it now.

"what if...i dunno, what if we're better off not knowing, you know? this isn't normal..."

Sans tried to tell himself that he was trying to protect Papyrus from whatever they would face behind that door.

He did not want him to know that this door, this place, chilled him down to the bone.

It was impossible for them to feel heat or cold, and it was also impossible to even get cold in Hotland but in this very moment, Sans had never felt colder before.

It was probably the closest sensation to being cold that he could get and he did not like it.

"NOTHING ABOUT US IS NORMAL, SANS!", Papyrus suddenly cried out.

"AND I'M SICK OF WONDERING WHY. I WANT TO KNOW. I WANT ANSWERS."

His voice was filled with fire, and almost a hint of desperation. It was true, being looked at weirdly always had nagged Papyrus.
He did not want to be the 'weirdo', the strange monster.

He just needed to know what happened to them and he felt, no he just knew, that he would find answers behind that door.

He was frustrated that Sans did not feel the same way about this discovery.

"COME HERE AND PUT YOUR HAND ON THE THINGY.", Papyrus demanded, looking at Sans with fiery determination.

Sans's heart ached slightly as he saw how worked up his brother was about this, his gaze softening lightly.

He still did not trust this one bit but he understood why Papyrus wanted him to do it so badly.

He hesitated a little longer, subconsciously rubbing his hand against the back of his neck before he finally folded.

His brother always comes first, that's the one rule he followed.
He knew that meant protecting him but it also meant doing things he did not want to do...to make him feel better.

Sans sighed, trying to suppress these bad feelings and took a few small steps towards the console.

He had to stretch his arm pretty far up to reach it, but as soon as his palm made contact with the cold black surface, the single light lit up again in response.

Papyrus looked at it for a moment, Sans also narrowing his eyes: "ONLY ONE LIGHT..."

A strange rush of déjà vu rushed through Sans and he tilted his head as he kept staring down his own hand that was on the hand reader.

"bro, put your hand on it too."

Papyrus followed his order, putting his hand onto Sans's.

For a moment, both of them held their breath, staring anxiously at the three lights.

Blink, the second light lit up.

Blip, the third light also turned on and a small hiss erupted from the door next to them as it slid open.

Both Sans and Papyrus peeked around the corner, but the room or hallway was entirely dark, not revealing anything to the skeleton brothers.

The weird feeling in Sans's chest started to stir again and he looked up at his brother: "...are you sure about this?"

A small part of him hoped that this was enough to make Papyrus decide to turn back but Papyrus remained determined.

"WE CAN DO IT, SANS WE CAN FINALLY SOLVE OUR PUZZLE.", he said sternly and reached for Sans's hand, holding it firmly in his for both support and reassurance.

Sans sighed in response, squeezing Papyrus's hand slightly: "alright, let's go."