Popato Chisps (Steve's POV)
Posted: January 18, 2025

🠜 Chapter One / Chapter Ten

Chapter Word Count: 2,071

A/N: Thank you for your patience while I took a short break from posting! It gave me time to get the future of this fic sorted out and outlined, so now I've got a great plot planned for this!!

As they continued east, just ahead, Steve saw a wall of packed snow taller than him with the two skeleton brothers standing in front of it. He couldn’t make out what Papyrus was saying yet – though he could definitely hear him – but it looked like he was scolding Sans.

"Seriously," Robin hissed from beside him, "how is he getting in front of us? Also, we only left him like three minutes ago. How has he gotten himself into a full conversation since then?"

"He said something about a shortcut earlier," he reminded her.

She stopped in her tracks and pulled him to a stop too. "Steve," she said seriously, holding his shoulders and looking into his eyes. "Steve. Where? I have been looking. I’ve seen one single other path since he’s started saying he’s taking shortcuts. And that path went way out of the way. That’s not a shortcut. Where. Is. The shortcut?" By the end, she was shaking him.

He didn’t have to – he could’ve stood perfectly still with how lightly she was shaking him – but he let himself flop a little back and forth as she shook him. She always loved when he played along with her drama.

 "Maybe he can teleport," he joked once she’d stopped.

"Don’t be ridiculous," she said.

He shrugged. "Like you said, there weren’t any other paths over this way." He wasn’t being serious, but he was having fun winding her up a bit.

"Okay, but just because they have magic, doesn’t mean they can do stuff like that. I haven’t seen a single monster do anything remotely similar to teleportation," she insisted.

Steve cracked a huge smile. "You’re probably right. I’m just messing with you… Who knows. Maybe he’s cutting through the woods."

She laughed a little. "True. Though, I can’t imagine that’s all that comfortable in slippers. There’s a lot of snow off the trail."

"GASP!" he heard Papyrus say loudly, followed by the crunching of snow as he ran towards them. "HUMANS!! HAVE YOU STOPPED BECAUSE YOU ARE IN AWE OF MY A-MAZE-ING PUZZLE?!?"

"Was that a pun?" Robin whispered to him.

"I think so?" he replied, whispering back.

"HUMANS! PLEASE FOCUS! YOU MUST PAY ATTENTION!! I AM ABOUT TO EXPLAIN THE RULES OF MY PUZZLE TO YOU!!!" Papyrus said to them, tapping his foot and sounding slightly impatient.

"Sorry," Steve said. "Go ahead; we’re listening."

Papyrus turned his head, looking behind him. "WE ARE MUCH TOO FAR FROM THE START OF THE PUZZLE! YOU MIGHT FORGET THE RULES BEFORE YOU GET THERE IF I EXPLAIN HERE!!" he said. He placed a large, gloved hand on each of their backs and started pushing them in the direction of the ice walls. "COME ALONG!! I WILL EXPLAIN AS WE WALK!!"

"IN ORDER TO STOP YOU… MY BROTHER AND I HAVE CREATED SOME PUZZLES! THIS MAZE IS DESIGNED TO CONFOUND YOU AND LEAVE YOU GUESSING!! IT IS FULL OF DEAD-ENDS AND LOOPS! GOOD LUCK!!" Papyrus told them with great enthusiasm, once they’d reached the entrance.

"NOW, SANS!" he continued. "LET US WAIT FOR THEM ON THE OTHER SIDE!!!" He picked up his brother, throwing him over his shoulder and jogging off into the course.

Steve watched Sans, bobbing up and down with his brother’s every step, give them a wave as the two left.

He walked over to the entrance of the maze, looking down at the ground. "Robs… He left tracks in the snow."

"Oh my god," Robin said, gaping at the footprints.

The two of them just stared at the footprints for a minute.

"It can’t be that easy, right?" Steve asked her.

"Well, there’s no way it’s a trick. He seems too honest for that," she told him, still sounding a little unsure.

Making up his mind, Steve said, "I think we should just follow the tracks. He had to exit the maze eventually, even if he did try to trick us."

Robin nodded in agreement, and the two of them stepped into the tall, packed-snow walls of the maze. After the first turn they followed, Steve realized that it really wasn’t a trick. Papyrus just really hadn’t taken it into account, it seemed.

The footsteps skipped all the promised dead-ends and loops, leaving them to exit the maze within only a few moments of entering.

"HUMANS!" Papyrus said, once he caught sight of them. "THAT WAS VERY QUICK!! PERHAPS… TOO QUICK?!?" His head swiveled back and forth a few times between Steve and Robin, staring at them intently.

"BRILLIANT!" he said after his inspection of them. "YOU ARE WORTHY OPPONENTS DESERVING OF A GREATER CHALLENGE!"

Steve could only stare as Papyrus struck a pose.

"MY BROTHER HAS DESIGNED THE NEXT PUZZLE… I AM SURE YOU WILL FIND IT TO BE QUITE PERPLEXING!! I KNOW I DID! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!"

He swore he saw a cloud, like a kid’s cartoon, appear behind Papyrus as he sprinted off. Fucking magic.

Sans was still just putzing around, so Steve walked over to him.

"You should probably tell him about leaving behind his footprints next time," Robin said as she came up alongside him.

Sans shrugged. "he’s having fun… it’s all good." 

"Any chance you’ll tell us what the next puzzle is, since you made it?" Steve asked, not getting his hopes up.

"you’ll have to see it to believe it," Sans responded casually.

He… really didn’t like the sound of that, but Sans hadn’t done anything untrustworthy so far.

"Are you really always this cryptic?" Robin criticized.

"isn’t that a skeleton’s job?" Sans said in a joking tone.

His face must’ve shown how little he understood the joke, because Sans said, "because you humans put skeletons in crypts? ah, forget about it… it was a bit of a reach anyway."

Next to him, Robin snorted. "That was pretty bad," she said.

"they can’t all be winners… my brother’s better at puns than me anyway. i’m more of a practical jokes kind of guy," Sans said.

"I’d gathered that from the whoopee cushion," he responded in a deadpan tone.

"just wait until you see the treadmill," Sans said with a wink. 

"I don’t want to know," Robin said, sounding exactly like she did when dealing with the kids’ shenanigans.

"it’s all in good fun. promise," Sans told them. "now you should keep moving. it’s still a bit of a walk to town… and seriously, thanks for playing along with my bro. he’s loving every minute of this."

Steve didn’t really think they had much of a choice, since the two of them kept popping up every twenty feet, without a way to go around them, but he wasn’t about to say that to Sans.

After a brief goodbye, the two of them left with Sans staying behind. He’d probably end up in front of them again… Steve really wasn’t going to question it too much; he was reaching his limit with how long he’d been up so far. Plus, he was starving.

"Look," he said, "I know you’re freaked about the food down here, but I need to eat, so I think we need to just risk it."

"Sure, but what are we supposed to eat before town?" she asked. "The only thing we’ve got is that pie, and I’m not sure I trust something Toriel cooked us, even if I agree that eventually we have to eat monster food."

"True…" he said.

Then he spotted something ahead. "Is that a food cart?" he asked. "See! Our luck’s looking up!" He clapped her on the back and headed toward the cart and the blue-tinted bunny running it, Robin following close behind.

The snow crunched under foot as they approached, and the bunny looked up from where he’d been staring at the ground, kicking the snow around.

"Oh!! Hel-lo!" the bunny said enthusiastically, voice cracking halfway through his greeting. His ears drooped, pinned back against his head. "Aww."

"Hey," Steve greeted, brushing past the bunny’s embarrassment. Years of watching after the kids taught him where the sensitive spots were regarding puberty. "We were hoping you had food for sale."

"Sure!" the bunny said, perking back up. "I’ve got hot dogs! 30 G each. And I have bags of Popato Chisp brand chips if you want a side! I’m out of regular, but I’ve got bacon dog-treat or sour cream and snail for 25 G."

"Uh…" he said, feeling a little grossed out. Honestly, he wouldn’t outright turn down the snail ones; he was always open to try most new things, and he’d had escargot before, only once, but still. He just couldn’t bring himself to eat dog treat flavored chips, though.

"I’m good on chips," Robin said with a wince, starting to pull coins out of the side pouch of her backpack.

"I guess, two hot dogs and a bag of sour cream and snail," he told the kid.

"Sounds good! 85 G is your total. Any toppings for your hot dogs?" the bunny asked.

Among the ketchup, mustard, and relish were a couple condiments Steve couldn’t begin to start to recognize. "I think we’re good."

The bunny passed him two paper-wrapped hot dogs and a bag of chips then took the money offered out by Robin. "Thank you for your purchase! Have a super-duper day!"

They walked away from the stand and paused.

"There’s nowhere to sit unless we want wet butts once the snow melts," Robin said with a frown.

"We could… sit on the bridge?" he offered, gesturing to the small plank bridge they’d just crossed, already knowing the answer.

"And worry that I’m going to fall to my death? You know how coordinated I am!" she said, voice going high-pitched and frantic.

"It took me six months longer to walk than the other babies!" she continued; him saying it at the same time as her, in nearly the same tone.

"I know, Robs. If we really are soulmates, I must’ve gotten that from you, you know," he said. "I mean, I did well at sports in school, so why did I have so much trouble crawling normally?"

"Ohhh, yeah," she said, nodding her head. "The crawling backwards thing? That makes so much more sense now."

"Yeah, I’m pretty sure my mom thought something was seriously wrong with me for a while there. She says she took me to the doctor, like, three times about it," he said. Then he finally passed her over her hot dog. "Anyway, let’s just eat standing up, I guess."

Once they’d both downed their dogs and shoved the wrappers in the side pouch on his bag, he slowly tore open the bag of chips, feeling a bit apprehensive over the flavor.

"You sure you don’t want to try one?" he asked, offering her the bag.

"Seriously, I’m good," she said, scrunching up her nose and pushing the chips back toward him.

He popped one of the chips in his mouth and hummed. "Not bad," he told her, still chewing. "They’re just kind of… earthy? Grassy?"

"Ew. Steven Marie, I do not need to see your food as you eat it," she said, flicking him on the tip of his nose. "Especially those nasty chips."

"Wow," he said back sarcastically. "Full middle-naming me? Let’s see how you feel, Robin James."

When she opened her mouth, looking fully ready to go off on him, he took his opportunity.

"Ew!" she screeched, after he quickly shoved one of the chips in her mouth. It came out garbled and wet sounding around the food. So nasty, but man, did he love her.

"Oh, wait," she said, crunching down on the chip. "You’re right. That’s actually not bad."

He held out the bag offering her some more. "Who’s talking with their mouth full now?" he said in a mocking tone, shoving another chip in his mouth.

"Shut up," she said, grabbing a few chips out of the bag.

After they finished off the chips, the bag joined the hot dog wrappers in his bag, and Steve turned around.

"He definitely wasn’t there just a minute ago, right?" he asked her, spotting Sans across the way.

"Uh… no," she agreed and looked around. "There is literally nowhere he could have come from to get there that quickly in the time we both weren’t looking."

"Maybe I was right about the teleportation," he said slowly.

"Ugh!" she groaned, tugging on the ends of her hair. "This whole place is ridiculous!"

Chapter Twelve Coming 01/25!

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