Trust is a hard thing to give.
Trust is an Undertale AU fanfic written by Keetah Spacecat.
"There has been strange reports in Snowdin. Reports of small skeleton children. Reports of strange small skeletal creatures. All Grillby knows is that someone...or something...has been raiding his trashcans at night. He intends to find out who they are, and perhaps if they allow it, to help them..."
The first fic written for the BabyBlaster AU, it follows the life of young Sans and Papyrus, as they run from their dark past. It's considered a hopeful Dark Fic, and features heavy themes like child and medical abuse. However, there is healing and a happy ending.
The fic can be read both on Fanfiction as well as Archive of our Own.
A comic adaptation has been started and can be found at [1]
The sequel fic, The Best Revenge has started.
This Fic provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Dr. Gaster and the other Royal Scientists.
- In the Comic version the newly added character Elci was heavily abused by their father and it is heavily implied her father may have killed her mother as well
- Berdly is stated to have the emotionally abusive type of parents
- Adaptation Expansion: The comic version expands some scenes and even adds new characters from Deltarune such as Berdly and Noelle, along with brand new OCs such as Elci, the adopted child of Dogamy and Dogressa, and Nora Geep, an archivist working in New Home.
- Adaptation Distillation: the comic version condenses or skips over scenes, with the artist explaining it's to create a better flowing comic
- Adorably Precocious Child: Papyrus, particularly in the comic version.
- Big Brother Instinct: Sans is fiercely protective of Papyrus. To the point that he hid Papyrus and allowed Gaster to recapture him instead, just to give Papyrus a chance to stay safe.
- Brainwashing for the Greater Good: From Gaster's point of view regarding Sans.
- Cute Mute: Original Character Elci in the Comic is stated to be mute.
- Dark Fic: The fic is tagged for a whole host of terrible forms of abuse and several chapters feature heavy trigger warnings.
- Despair Event Horizon: What happened to Sans in a sidefic. Thankfully, he was pulled out of it by being introduced to an infant Papyrus.
- Escaped from the Lab: Sans and Papyrus, with the help of child Alphys.
- Family of Choice: Grillby, Sans, Papyrus, and all their friends along the way.
- Four-Star Badass: Grillby was a Major General during the monster/human war. These days, he lives a quiet life as a bartender and cook, but god forbid it if you happen to piss him off.
- Friend to All Children: In the comic Grillby is all but stated to be this. In comic he keeps spare clothes and toys for kids and the creator reveals it was his Open Door policy to kids that directly lead to Elci being found.
- Funny Background Event: the Comic version seems to be fond with this. In many pages within Grillbyz you can usually see something being destroyed by a child or something in general going on.
- Happily Adopted: Sans and Papyrus to Grillby.
- Elci is happily adopted by Dogamy and Dogressa in the comic version, and it's implied Berdly was adopted by Nora prior to the story's start.
- Happily Married: Gnash and Frank certainly are, as is Dogamy and Dogressa. The comic version implies, and the creator has stated, that Grillby was at some point as well
- It Gets Easier: There had been many, many prototypes made before Sans and Papyrus. None have survived. And judging by Captain Gnash's descriptions of the tapes he found, all of them died in very brutal ways at the hands of Gaster.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Grillby vs Gaster in chapter 11. Gaster barely escaped with his life.
- Old Soldier: Grillby, shown in Chapters 10 and 11. Also Gerson in Chapter 7.
- One-Word Title
- Papa Wolf: Grillby. Especially in chapter 11.
- People Jars: There's a whole room of them in the secret lab. They contained failed 'siblings' of Sans and Papyrus and are implied to still be alive. Just how aware they are or if they are suffering is a conundrum on the Royal Guard's part.
- Promotion to Parent: While on the run, a six-year-old Sans had to somehow feed, clothe, and shelter his two-year-old brother, with great personal sacrifice to himself.
- Playing with Syringes: W.D Gaster and his secret lab. Also with his experiments with DETERMINATION and Sans.
- Sadistic Choice: Captain Gnash has to choose what to do about the experiments/children in tubes. Either he keeps them in there alive and possibly suffering, or Mercy Kill them.
- Scannable Man: Sans and Papyrus both have a barcode and serial number etched into their radius bone.
- Self-Harm: Sans, due to his trauma and frequent flashbacks, resorts to chewing and scratching himself to attempt to escape it. He's not even aware that he's doing it most of the time, just wanting his pain to stop. Papyrus has a chewing habit as well, but not as bad as Sans.
- Trigger Phrase: { FOR KING AND MONSTERKIND! }
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Sans and Papyrus are able to change shape into a more beastly form at will. They tend to shapeshift often and whenever they feel like it.
