Chapter Text

Prologue

     You weren’t sure how long it had been since the last reset. Time had stopped making much sense a while back, so having it actually move forward for once was disorienting.

     Not that being underground helped much. It had been long enough for the underground to truly empty out at least. Even the flower had left at some point, Frisk must have finally convinced him to get out.

     You wonder how the people you once called family are doing now, are they happy? Do they miss you? Do they even remember you at this point? It was hard to care about the past when you couldn’t even be certain the next hour would happen, but The Player hadn’t shown themselves since the last time the barrier had been broken. Time was finally advancing; the loop was over.

     It didn’t really matter now did it? At least not to you. The game was over, the puppeteer had grown bored and left, so no one needed a narrator anymore. It left you close to how you remember frustration feeling, back when you could still feel on your own. That really was all there was to it, they had grown bored. You didn’t stop them, couldn’t. Not even your little trick at the end of the world had been enough to get them to leave.

     That had been the worst of the runs. Apparently, your world had grown stale, uninteresting. So like a child throwing a fit, they tore it apart, moving along a path of carnage, destroying everything you had once held dear. And as the underground grew emptier, desolate, you could feel it, the power, the LV.

     It had been dizzying, existing for once, no longer just the narrator, but an actor on the stage. You thought that maybe that was why you were still around, to fulfill some sort of great purpose. After all, there had to be a reason why they would decimate an entire species, right?

     Even if the LOVE was muffling the experience, it was still the first time you had actually felt anything in over a century. The underground would go empty, you would get more power, and then you would move on, having fulfilled your purpose. A pretty stupid thing to believe in hindsight, but who could blame you? It’s not like you had a choice to begin with. So you walked, and killed, and kept walking, being spurred along by an entity beyond your comprehension.

     But it would only lead to disappointment, there wasn’t any great purpose, no good reason for any of the deaths. You were just entertainment, your life and those of your loved ones just toys for them to play with. And they wanted to go back. Do it all over again just because they could. So you got rid of it all, the stage, the props, everything. But they wouldn’t leave.

     They were determined.

     And so were you.

     Maybe the deaths of all those monsters wouldn’t be in vain, you could make sure of it. Make sure that this time, there would be consequences. You could make sure they never got the “happy ending” they were so obsessed with.

     …

     It didn’t work.

     It had been silly, really, to think that a number like LV20 would be enough to enact any form of justice on a being that was quite literally playing with time.

     They got rid of your influence easily enough, literally erasing the consequences of their actions and leaving you with an uncomfortable amount of knowledge you couldn’t even begin to understand. What good does it do you to know that system_information_962 is found under %LOCALAPPDATA%/UNDERTALE when you don’t even know what “localappdata” means? The more you tried to understand, the less you felt like you were even real, so you stopped, resigning yourself to your role as a narrator to something that you understood less the more you learned about it.

     The resets kind of blur together after that, they never tried to commit genocide again, so maybe you did succeed in some way?

     And then it was over, at least you think it is. The concept of a last reset somehow feeling even less real than the idea of there having been a first one.

     Time doesn’t really make sense, does it?

     And so here you are, an echo of a person long gone, knowing too much for your own good yet having no role to play. Haunting a patch of golden flowers beneath a mountain no one lives in anymore. What reason there is to your continued existence is beyond you at this point, but apparently demons don’t get to rest in peace, so you will sit and wait, for them to come back, to slap a brand-new name onto you and have you spin the tale once again. Or maybe this time you will get to disappear for good, only time will tell.

Chapter Text

Stray thoughts

            It’s been almost three years since Asriel broke the barrier and you started living with your new monster family, these few years being the busiest you’ve ever been. Humanity reacted to the monsters returning to the surface about as calmly as you’d expected, which is to say not calmly at all. Apparently, an entire race no one remembered anymore emerging out of a mountain wasn’t a scenario the local government had prepared for, so integration was a slow and tedious process. The first visit to the nearest city had been tense, but thanks to Papyrus’s endless enthusiasm, (and a decent amount of monster gold) the people of the city welcomed you and your new friends with open arms.

            You were now living with Toriel at a nice little house in the recently established monster town, it wasn’t very far from the mountain, maybe a 30-minute walk, and it was close to the coast, so aquatic monsters wouldn’t be isolated from the rest of you.  

            You were still impressed at your mom’s negotiation ability, getting the rights to this land for monsterkind had not been easy. You don’t understand politics very well, but you do know that it was not an easy job, so it made you glad that you didn’t have to serve as an ambassador.

            When you got out of the mountain for what felt like the millionth time, you didn’t really expect it to stay that way. It had never done so before, after all. So you didn’t care all that much about what they chose to say while everyone admired the sunset. But you’re glad they chose to stay with Toriel, and to decline the ambassador job, to think how it would have turned out otherwise gives you the chills.

            Toriel got a job at the new monster school that got built a couple of years ago, and she’s proven to be an excellent teacher. For the moment you are the only human kid, since no human parents are willing to send their kids to a monster only school, but there are plans for human kids and teachers to start entering the school over the span of the next few years, so hopefully more people will see that monster education isn’t any less competent that human education.

            Papyrus was easily the most famous monster after Mettaton, the people of the city loved him. He’s close to graduating, and with a degree in culinary arts you have no doubt any business he decides to open will be a huge success. He’s also very invested in designing puzzles, apparently there is an entire puzzle loving club that meets up every Friday to come up with new puzzles and ways to implement them into the architecture.

            You’re glad the city won’t let them electrify the sidewalks.

            You thought that Undyne would end up working as a cop, but to your surprise she started working as a gym teacher, and her lessons are so brutal you’re pretty sure you are one of the most athletic 11-year-olds in the nation.

            Alphys being fired from her job as royal scientist did her a lot of good, and having access to the internet meant she had decades worth of anime to consume while she worked on her next project, and as the somewhat unofficial leading figure on integrating monster technology with human technology, she was coming up with all kinds of weird contraptions and wacky gadgets almost every other week. Some sold well, some blew up, but overall, it seemed like she wouldn’t have to worry about money for the rest of her life.

            Asgore was still an important leading figure in the monster community, but he didn’t have to bear the fate of his race on his shoulders, so he spent his days far happier than he did underground. His house is still open to visitors, and now he spends his time between official political business tending to his garden and chatting with his neighbors, all and all he seemed a lot happier now.

            Sans is still Sans, in that you’re not quite sure what he’s doing half of the time. His hot dog stand was quite a hit until it got shut down for not having a license, but you’ve also seen him working at the zoo, selling t-shirts on football games, or even that one time he did standup at the local bar. He drops by your house from time to time, trading awful puns with your mom for hours on end or raiding your fridge for ketchup.

            Talking to him is always a bit stressful, you both have secrets that you’d rather never speak of. You hope one day you’ll get his trust, but that’s not something you see happening soon.  

            Getting Flowey out of the underground took you two whole years, and he is still no closer to telling the truth to anyone, but at least on the surface he’s got a lot more things to do aside from sleeping and brooding. The last time you saw him he had taken an interest in retro video games, and hunting down physical copies of old games was apparently a very hard thing to do, so it could be weeks before you saw him again.

            You were glad he had found a hobby that didn’t involve violence.

            Seeing all your friends having fun and enjoying their lives fills you with… joy.

            The first few weeks had been the worst, not just because of how hectic everything had become, but also because you had to get used to being a person again. The time you spent underground had felt so long, even though only about a day had passed. But to you, you spent what felt like months, maybe even years, feeling like a passenger in your own body. Repeating the same day over and over again, with small changes each time. Some of the days were not any different from the day that had stuck, while others had been so drastically different and bad that you still had nightmares about them from time to time.

            And the company you had didn’t really help.

            Three years have passed, and you still don’t feel any closer to understanding how the ghost of the first fallen human had attached itself to you, much less how it managed to control your every move.

            Fate had determined that the Dreemurr siblings would each get a go at resetting time as they pleased, apparently. Flowey had confused you with them and later corrected himself, but the truth is that they had been there, all along, guiding you through the underground in a slightly different path each time.

            You’re not sure how to feel about them.

            Everyone else seems to remember them fondly, even Asriel, who knew they weren’t all that great, still misses them to this day. Even though you spent what felt like an eternity with them, you didn’t really get to know them. You know what you’ve been told, plus a little more from the tapes, but even though you could feel them with you, could hear them talking, they never opened up about themselves. Not about who they were, about why they did the things they did, about why they were doing the things they were doing.

            At first you didn’t know who they were, then you learned, and got even more confused. Why was the first fallen human controlling your body? Why did they keep resetting? What was the point of it all?

            It was terrifying, being at the mercy of someone who had enough determination to commit suicide and still be around. The time you spent together definitely had an impact on you, you had seen them go from the very image of compassion and understanding, a presence that could make everyone’s day better just by being around, to the angel of death, a being capable of wiping out an entire civilization with a smile on their face.

             Using your body to go through it all.

            You should probably stop thinking about this.

            You got up from where you had been laying in the couch and went to get some water from the kitchen, mom wouldn’t be back home for at least another half hour and mindlessly scrolling through your phone hadn’t been enough to distract you this time around, so instead of letting your mind dwell on them you decided to go out for a walk around the neighborhood to clear your thoughts.

            The streets were a lot cleaner around here than your old neighborhood and seeing as how many of the monsters liked hanging around in the sun it never felt lonely. There was always someone familiar around, chatting with each other, gardening, some people even set up outdoor workstations in their yards. It was nice to see them enjoying the sun so unreservedly after waiting for so long.

            A lot of humans were taken aback whenever they came into town, not because of the people living there, but because of the technology they used. Since most of the human technology in the underground came from the waterfall dump, it tended to be outdated. A lot of monsters preferred to use “vintage” electronics, like the laptop your mom used to work or the old flatscreen sitting in your living room. You were never a tech savvy person, but you still knew that your friends preferred to use electro domestics that were decades old.  While familiarity probably had a lot to do with it, it was also cheaper, and Alphys had set up a side business to repair and even upgrade old electronics, so you even had an old N*ntendo switch in your house that still worked.

            You remember reading in some social media site that people liked to call the monster town the old Ebott, even though it’s a recently established settlement, most people agreed that it felt like it was several decades in the past. That didn’t mean that it was obsolete or anything, it just felt “nostalgic” to a lot of people. The only exception to this was Alphys and Undyne’s house, which was full of little contraptions and interesting-looking machines. While it didn’t feel “vintage”, it also didn’t really look like anything you’d find in a human city, so it was still very interesting.

            You could hear a faint, bony laughter in the distance, which probably meant that Papyrus was driving around in his car.

            Your little town was a really unique place to live, but you wouldn’t change it for anything else.

            You decided it was about time you came back home, so you turned around and walked back, wondering what mom would make for dinner today.

Chapter Text

Adventure

            The weekend was finally here, and while you would have normally been on your way to Undyne’s house for an anime marathon, today you had a mission. You’d promised Flowey that you would take care of the flowers while he was away in his hunt for a game you vaguely remember being about some Z*lda person. It had been a week since he left, so now it was time to go check on the flower bed.

            The trip would most likely take you the entire day, so you asked Papyrus to help you, and he was more than happy to come along when you told him it was a favor for Flowey. You were honestly not sure what you were supposed to “take care of”, most likely checking for pests and maybe adding some fertilizer, but what mattered most was that you went, only a couple people even knew that it was a grave, but it mattered a lot to Flowey, so it couldn’t stay unattended.

            The weather was nice and sunny outside, so you were wearing your gym shorts and a striped T-shirt, but you also had some winter clothes to change into stored in your bag, the freezing cold of Snowdin wasn’t going to catch you by surprise this time.

            With your bag ready and a vague sense of adventure in your heart, you left your room and went to the living room, where your mom was reading a book that looked older than you were.

            You walked up to her and tugged her sleeve to catch her attention.

            ‘I’m gonna be hanging out with Papyrus today, so I might come home a little late.’

            “Oh that’s quite alright dear.” she says, setting her book to the side. “Will you be around the park? Would you like me to pack some food and bring you lunch later?” She’s already getting up before you can answer.

            ‘No thank you, I’m sure Paps already has something in mind.’  You’re confident it will be some variation of spaghetti, but that’s fine.

            “Ah I see, have fun then, and do be careful out there.” She tells you, sitting back in her chair and putting her reading glasses back on.

            She gives you a kiss on the cheek and sends you on your way, and with a hasty “And remember to text me if anything happens!”, you were out the door and in your way to the skeleton brother’s house.

            They lived a couple of houses down from your place, so in no time at all you were in front of the building, the two-story building stood out when compared to the rest of the houses around, which tended to have just one floor. It looked so much like their old place back at Snowdin that if you didn’t know any better, you’d think they had taken their entire house with them when they left the underground.

            After you rang the bell, you could hear the rattling of bones coming closer, until Papyrus enthusiastically opened the door.

            “FRISK! WELCOME, COME IN, FEEL FREE TO TAKE A SEAT WHILE I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, BRING YOU A CUP OF TEA AS THE GREAT HOST THAT I AM!” He said with all the confidence of a master of hospitality.

            Before you had even put a foot on the door, Papyrus was bounding towards the kitchen. Presumably to get tea, so you excused yourself and sat on the couch while you waited for him.

            ‘Thanks Paps, are you ready for today?’ you asked while setting your bag down on the floor, the wavy carpet looking cleaner than ever.

            “WHY OF COURSE! I WAS BORN READY! I ALSO HAVE PREPARED LUNCH FOR US TO ENJOY WHILE ON OUR TRAVELS!”

            ‘That’s great! What did you make?’  setting up a grand reveal was important, no meal prepared by The Great Papyrus could go unannounced.

            Papyrus was back from the kitchen in a flash, cup of tea in hand, you thanked him and took a sip. Tea had grown on you, Asgore always made brewing good tea look so easy, but you still couldn’t make anything that tasted as good as his stuff.

            “MASTER CHEF PAPYRUS ALWAYS HAS SOMETHING READY FOR ANY OCCASION, AND AFTER CAREFUL CONSIDERATION, I’VE DECIDED TO MAKE LASAGNA, A GREAT AND FULLFILING MEAL THAT IS SURE TO BLOW YOU AWAY!"

            You made an impressed face at him while he posed dramatically. Honestly lasagna didn’t sound too bad, and Papyrus was getting better at cooking, so it was sure to be a tasty lunch.

            “ey that sounds great bro, what’s the special occasion?” asked the skeleton sitting next to you on the couch, feet on the coffee table and hands in his hoodie pockets.

            You were used to Sans just appearing out of nowhere by now, but you still thought he could afford to just use the stairs like a normal person once in a while.

            “SANS?! YOU’RE AWAKE?! IT’S NOT EVEN NOON YET!”

            “what can I tell ya? just figured i’d be punctual for once.” He said smugly, and it wasn’t until you looked over at Papyrus that you realized it was supposed to be a pun.

            “SANS! THAT WAS TERRIBLE, IT DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A PROPER SETUP!”

            “hey don’t get mad at me now, they can’t all be winners”

            You finished your tea while the skeleton brothers progressed through their usual banter and went to put your cup by the sink. By the time you were back Papyrus was stomping the ground in frustration, likely after several rounds of puns you missed, and Sans seemed terribly pleased with himself.

            ‘We’re going to the underground to take care of something for a friend’ you tell him that there’s a patch of flowers that still need someone to care for them, conveniently omitting who your friend is, but Sans is clever, you’re sure he can figure it out by himself.

            No one aside from you really remembers anything from when the barrier broke, but most of your friends are still uncertain about letting you hang out with Flowey since his attitude doesn’t really make a good first impression, even though he’s getting better at being if not nice, at least not antagonistic towards everyone. The only real exception being Papyrus, which is why you asked for his help.

            “taking care of some flowers eh? sounds nice, mind if i join the party?” he asks while eyeing you lazily, you weren’t really expecting him to want to come along and evidently, you’re not the only one.

            “MY BROTHER WAKING UP EARLY AND OFFERING TO HELP OUT?! TRULY AN UNPRECEDENTED OCURRENCE! ARE YOU CERTAIN YOU HAVEN’T GONE DELUSIONAL FROM DRINKING TOO MUCH KETCHUP?” Papyrus exclaims with disbelief, you’re not sure if ketchup can have that kind of effect, but at this point anything is possible, so you look at him with suspicion in your eyes, trying to see if he’s been replaced with some other short skeleton.

            ”come on bro, have some faith in me.” He says with a shrug “besides, someone’s gonna have to do the slacking off while you two sort out your gardening” He winks at you and you laugh a little, now that sounds more like him.

            All three of you get in Papyrus’s car, and off you go towards Mt. Ebott. You usually don’t like car trips, since you have to sit on the back and people can’t look back at your hands to see what you’re saying. It’s annoying, so you tend to prefer walking places, that way you can communicate with the people around you. But funnily enough, neither Papyrus nor Sans seem to have that problem, you can sign from the backseat, and they’ll answer you, even tough you’re certain they can’t see your hands. You tried to ask them about it once, but all you got was an unhelpful “of course we can hear you talk frisk, that’s how conversation works”. You ended up just chalking it up to another oddity these two had and left it at that.

            You have fun talking about school, hearing stories about the new puzzles Papyrus is designing and laughing at Sans awful puns, and soon enough you reach the base of the mountain, the place where your friends set up camp that first night now serving as a parking lot for anyone who wants to visit the underground.

            The CORE was repurposed to provide energy to the town, so there are still monsters who have to go in for regular maintenance, but the bulk of the management buildings have been moved aboveground in order to avoid having to deal with the intense heat of Hotland.

            Climbing up the mountain this time around is much easier, there is a proper trail for you to follow, you’re not climbing alone, and you have plenty of water to stay hydrated with. All three of you make it to where the barrier used to be in less than an hour, and so you head into the underground.

            The throne room now feels less like a garden and more like a wild patch of flowers, the thrones themselves aren’t here anymore, and without someone to care for these flowers, there are fewer of them and a lot more weeds. Seeing it like this comes as a shock to you, a reminder that time is marching forward even in the underground.

            You all make it through New Home without much incident, the pale buildings in the horizon feeling emptier than before. The silence would probably be unbearable if Papyrus wasn’t around to shower you with tales of his recent adventures. He’s very excited about a new line of action figures coming out this month, some limited-edition ones celebrating like the 200^th anniversary of some superhero you vaguely remember hearing about. Superheroes were never your thing, but hearing Papyrus being so excited makes you excited as well, so you listen intently as he describes how they are based off a popular movie that came out a long time ago, and they’re trying to emulate the style of the movie in these toys.

            The elevator ride down the core almost feels nostalgic, and before you even know it you’re back into the smoldering heat of Hotland. Neither Sans nor Papyrus seem to be bothered by it, but you’re already starting to sweat.

            ‘Let’s hurry and get to Waterfall’ you tell them, more than ready to leave this place behind.

            “AH YES, I FORGOT HOW INCONVINIENT TEMPERATURE CHANGES CAN BE FOR HUMANS, BUT WORRY NOT!” He exclaimed with bravado “THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL GET US OUT OF HERE BEFORE YOU CAN SAY SPAGETTHI!” And saying this, he picked you and Sans both, tucking you under his arms like luggage, before he started sprinting at full speed, the breeze providing you with great relief.

            You were going so fast you could almost swear you were flying, and looking at your side Sans didn’t seem too concerned about it. True to his words, you were arriving at the place where Gerson’s shop used to be by the time Papyrus started to slow down.

            ‘That was so cool!’ You signed excitedly at Papyrus once your feet were back in the ground. Sans, for his part, wasn’t making any attempts to walk on his own again, and Papyrus seemed content with carrying him around.

            “NYE HEH HEH! YOU CAN ALWAYS TRUST THE GREAT PAPYRUS TO IMPRESS AND DAZZLE!”

            “yeah, my bro’s the coolest one there is.”

            Papyrus was blushing like mad, and while you still didn’t get how a skeleton could blush, it brought an even bigger smile to your face, so you and Sans both continued to shower Papyrus with praise.

Chapter Text

Action

            Sans watches with mild interest as Papyrus tries to work Toriel’s old stovetop to try and heat up lunch. The kid going back to the underground wasn’t anything new, they had tried for a long time to get that weed out of the mountain. But he had to admit that when they asked Papyrus to go along with them to take care of some flowers, he didn’t feel too comfortable just leaving them to go alone.

            It's not that he didn’t trust Frisk. They may or may not have been the anomaly, but it had been years since the last time Sans felt that sickening sense of déjà vu, so they were alright in his book.

            Even if he sometimes got a chill up his spine whenever they gave him a blank look, he could feel his magic stirring, yet he had no idea why. His notes didn’t help much, the kid had probably made a couple round trips around the underground, it couldn’t have been easy, figuring out how to break the barrier without anyone dying. But what little information he could salvage from those times doesn’t tell him anything he doesn’t know already, the kid prefers cinnamon over butterscotch, they like spiders, the highest LV he recorded was 3.

            They were just a kid, so it made Sans feel like the scum of the earth whenever he found himself watching over them, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for them to get bored and decide to do it all over again.

            But lately he was allowing himself to care, everything was moving forward. Papyrus was close to graduating, and he had managed to get his own PhD validated just last month. It felt nice.

            The stakes were higher.

            All three of them ate lunch at Toriel’s old place in the ruins. Most of the furniture had been left behind, since Toriel wanted to have a fresh start. Papyrus’s lasagna was, as it had come to be expected, incredibly delicious. It was so good that Sans didn’t even feel the need to add ketchup to it.

            It was a little past noon by the time they finally made it to the patch of flowers, and Sans was only mildly impressed by how much more exciting Frisk and Papyrus were making the whole thing sound. He’d never been a gardener, but he was certain that caring for a small patch of identical flowers wasn’t going to be the most exciting thing in the world, but hey, who was he to judge?

            He wouldn’t have minded just taking a nap by the corner while the two of them did their thing, but he felt inclined to keep an eye socket out for them. Something about this entire arrangement still didn’t sit right with him.

            Sans didn’t know why that flower would care enough about this place to ask Frisk for help in caring for it, not that he was capable of caring. Maybe he considered these flowers family? Unlikely. It was hard to get a read on Flowey, and reading people was his job. At times he saw a scared child, a victim, other times he was malevolent, a killer who didn’t have the EXP to prove it. Flowey was very similar to Frisk in that aspect, they were an enigma throughout their journey across the underground. Their LV remained firmly at 1, but he could still feel echoes of their sins, actions that could have happened but ultimately didn’t. His notes confirmed some of his suspicions, but not all of them. The observations that the other Sanses left behind didn’t explain everything.

            Though all of that changed when they started living on the surface.

            They were suddenly an entirely different person, a child, clearly confused and scared about an uncertain future. Someone he could read. The contrast was so big it threw him for a loop, he observed them for an entire year, waiting for something, another drastic change, for them to suddenly become unreadable again, for the anomaly to replace the sweet child he had grown to love.

            That day hadn’t come. Yet.

            And it scared him, terrified him in a way he hadn’t felt in forever. So maybe he kept watch over them a little too closely, noted every little change in their demeanor, got so good at reading them he could teach a course on Frisk’s mannerisms.

            And that’s why, when he looked over at their face and saw the expression they were making, he felt his SOUL skip a beat.  

            They were tense, scared, confused, and trying very hard not to show any of it. Papyrus didn’t seem to notice anything; he was too busy reading from a gardening book they had brought along. But he did notice. The way their hands suddenly stopped working the earth, how their eyes were no longer smiling, how their breathing started to pick up despite the rest of their body not moving at all.

            He watched as they made a Herculean effort to not fall apart then and there, stuck in place. He wanted to help, he should be helping, but he didn’t know what to do. He had no idea what in this place could make them lose their cool like this, there was no immediate threat, no obvious change in the environment that could explain their reaction. The flowers were still blooming, the daylight streaming through the hole in the ceiling no more intimidating than it was a minute ago. Not to mention the fact that they clearly didn’t want anyone to notice, if he carelessly said something they could crumble in an instant.

            Whatever it was that had them like this, it seemed like it was something only they could see.

            That was never a good thing.

            They were calming down, still tense but no longer on the verge of snapping. He watched as they restarted their work, but it was clear their head wasn’t in it. They were distracted, moving less for the sake of actually doing anything and more to avoid suspicion. He still couldn’t describe the expression they were making, but it was less alarming than before.

            Sans didn’t understand, why was the kid freaking out? They were looking at a specific point in the flowerbed, but he didn’t see anything weird there. All he could do was sit and watch.

            “FRISK! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO TAKE OUT THE WEEDS, NOT THE FLOWERS!” Papyrus exclaimed when he saw what Frisk was doing.

            That seemed to startle them out of whatever trance they were on. ‘Sorry, got a little distracted is all.’  They had uprooted a couple of flowers that happened to be on their path, and now they just looked embarrassed, not scared.

            “PEHAPS IT IS TIME TO TAKE A BREAK, COME ENJOY SOME LEMONADE, PREPARED BY YOURS TRULY!” He took a couple of cups out of his bag and began pouring drinks for the kid. The expression they had just a few seconds ago nowhere to be seen.    

            Eventually the trip came to an end, they walked down the mountain without issue, and by the time they made it back to their car Frisk was looking no worse for wear. Sans had watched over them like a Loox, but whatever had bothered them didn’t come up again, not in the Ruins, not in Hotland, not at the car. They acted like nothing had happened, which might have been true, if Sans didn’t know any better. But something did happen.

            And he had to figure out what.

            Was it a bad memory? He didn’t think so, that was not the face they made when they were remembering something traumatic. (The fact they did it often enough for him to pick it up and label it was something he’d need to bring up with Toriel later)

            Asking Frisk might have been the fastest way of getting an answer, but somehow Sans didn’t think that would work that well. They had their secrets, and Sans knew better than to try and grill them for answers. He didn’t have the guts to interrogate them.

            Something had bothered them in that patch of flowers, something invisible to him, something bad enough to make them want to hide it. He needed to know what it was, and while he would have been content never going back there ever again, it seemed like the best place to look for answers.

            There was no real reason to go there at night, he could have just waited until morning, heck, he could have even waited until next week just to make sure it was this place specifically and not some other thing that had scared them out of their mind!

            But he couldn’t wait that long.

            Funny how he had grown so impatient, he usually wasn’t this hasty. He was more suited to the ‘wait and see’ approach, observing meticulously before taking direct action. But a couple years of living on the surface? Of checking his notes and not seeing anything he didn’t explicitly remember writing.

            He wasn’t willing to risk it because he was lazy.

            So here he was, back at the flowerbed and having no clue what he was supposed to be looking for. It’s not like direct observation would do him any good, so he’d brought in some old portable equipment from the lab, maybe that would be more useful.

            Something about this place felt off to him, the smell of flowers hadn’t bothered him before, he was a skeleton, he didn’t need to breathe. Yet the odor was so pungent he could have choked on it. The small mound of dirt made him uneasy, like he wasn’t welcome here.

            But that couldn’t have been what bothered them, this place hadn’t been nearly as unwelcoming under the daylight streaming through the ceiling.

            Was it something in the air? All he could smell was the overwhelming smell of golden flowers, but maybe human noses were more sensitive?

            He wasn’t fooling anyone.

            The DT reader had spiked as soon as he’d stepped foot in the room, and it showed no signs of going down anytime soon. This was one of the worst things he could have found out, high levels of DT never brought anything good to anybody, and while it did explain some things, it wasn’t enough.  It wouldn’t be surprising if Frisk was sensitive to DT, they were overflowing with the stuff, but their reaction hadn’t come as soon as they got here, so that couldn’t have been what bothered them.

            It was certainly bothering him though. Determination was inherent to sentient beings, it required a strong will to live, and last time he checked none of these flowers were sentient. The meter had maxed out as soon as he booted it up, so he couldn’t exactly try and pinpoint the center of this massive determination reading, but it wasn’t like there was much else in here. He was dead certain it was coming from that lump of dirt in the middle of the room.

            He didn’t like any of this, he had too little information to work with. Had this room always contained this much DT or did it only spike due to Frisks visit? Did someone live here? Was this some sort of ritual site? Did it have anything to do with the barrier?

            His speculation was cut short when the device in his hand stopped showing him the determination readings and started showing text.

            THE DETERMINATION SIGNATURE

            HAS BEEN VERIFIED.

            TAKE A SAMPLE?

            YES    NO

            He did not like any of this.

            Sans didn’t know exactly how this old thing worked, but as far as he was aware of, it wasn’t designed to collect anything, it measured determination levels and presented the readings in a helpful little bar graph, end of story.

            But maybe it was? Maybe it had been designed to study phenomena just like this one here? Sans knew he was grasping at straws here, but it was all he could come up with.

            One thing was for certain, he wasn’t going to figure anything out just standing there, there was only one real answer if he wanted to get anything out of this trip.

           TAKE A SAMPLE?

            YES   NO

            As soon as he pressed the button he felt his vision blur, he felt like he was underwater. It was suffocating, his magic writhed within him, it took everything he had just to remain standing.

            And then it was over. As suddenly as it had started it went away, as if he’d been run over by a ghost train. Sans felt disoriented, dizzy, but also strangely refreshed. His magic felt more potent, denser. He decided to check his stats just in case.

            Sans

            HP 2/2

            AT 2

            DF 2

            Well, that was new.

Chapter Text

Consequence

            Today had been an eventful day, to say the least (Was it still today? Did it even matter?)

            The first thing you noticed was that Frisk was back, and that filled you with so much rage you didn’t think you could have, that was the first surprise. So, they had finally decided to play again, to take everything away from monsterkind and Frisk, just to have another go at playing the hero?

            But then you noticed that Frisk wasn’t alone, those two skeletons were with them, they hadn’t forced a new name upon you, so the timeline hadn’t reset. It took the wind out of your sails so quickly you were tempted to just go back to the earth. But your curiosity got the best of you, why was Frisk back here? Flowey wasn’t here, and the presence of Sans and Papyrus meant they likely didn’t come for anything related to you.

            The second surprise came when you took a good look at Frisk, they were taller than you remembered, though not by much. They weren’t wearing the blue sweater you had accustomed yourself to seeing them in, but instead wore a red T-shirt with black stripes, some blue shorts and a pair of blue sneakers that looked well cared for.

            Papyrus was wearing a leather jacket over a black shirt and some actual pants, which had you double taking him several times. The great Papyrus, wearing pants?! Scandalous!

            Sans was still Sans.

            You still weren’t sure how long it had been since you last saw any of them, but knowing they were living on the surface gave you a vague feeling of accomplishment.

            It seemed like they had come to do some gardening, which you guessed Flowey had put them up to.

            Honestly, you didn’t come out of the ground often enough to care about the state of your grave. Looking around, you noticed that it did look messier than you remembered, but it wasn’t like you could do anything about it, so you had stopped caring.

            That was becoming a habit.

            You watched on as Frisk put on a sunhat and tied their messy brown hair into a ponytail, Papyrus put on some gardening gloves and looked more than ready to start working. Sans was leaning against a wall, ready to fall asleep as soon as no one was looking at him.

            They fell into a good rhythm, quietly working the earth, and before you knew it, the flowerbed looked much better than before.

            You might be dead, but that didn’t mean you were exempt from the rules of courtesy, so you hovered over to Frisk and slowly looked for the connection you knew was still there. You hadn’t really spoken with them since they left the underground, but the strings that connected you both were still there, they simply weren’t being pulled taut by an inconsiderate human who could not be bothered to manifest personally.

            [Greetings, Frisk. I would like to thank you, for cleaning this place up.]

            There, simple and concise, you needed to keep your message short, the last thing you wanted was for Frisk to feel like control was being taken away from them, to remind them of bad things.

             You could feel a wave of emotions coming from Frisk, and it made you feel a little bad, seeing how much your one line of gratitude had scared them. Leave it to you to screw up something as simple as a thank you. As much as you would have liked to comfort them, it was very possible that any more interaction with you would cause them a panic attack, so you just went back to the soil, running away from the mess you had created.

            It had been the first social interaction you had participated in since forever, so it was very likely that it would take a while for you to forget it and go back into the monotony of being-dead-but-not-dead-enough.

            Which is why you immediately noticed the short skeleton waltzing into the cave in the dead of night.

            Two visits, in one day? They were spoiling you rotten.

            Your impression of Sans wasn’t very positive, it was annoying to think that a living being could have less drive than whatever echo of existence you were. Having the only monster sensible enough to notice the threat a human posed also be the least likely to do anything about it was remarkedly frustrating.

            That made his presence all the more baffling, what was he doing here, all by himself?

            That question was immediately overshadowed by the device he was holding in his hand. Now that might just be an even bigger surprise than seeing Papyrus with pants. Not everything related to the good doctor had vanished alongside him, or else the underground wouldn’t have electricity, but seeing that old prototype DRA completed and functional still caught you off guard. You remember those evenings spent at the lab, pestering the old royal scientist with every question that came to mind about anything that Toriel thought was too advanced for you, all while he tried to unravel the secrets of your SOUL. He’d answer you with as few technical terms as he could, and then you would spend hours trying to understand the not-dumbed down version.

            You were fond of him, he never patronized you, always entertaining your questions far more earnestly than was necessary to placate a curious brat. While Toriel taught you all about math and history and language, Dr. Gaster would introduce you to physics and SOUL science and atemporal theories far too complex for your mind to comprehend. A few of those had even been relevant to your current situation, and you could make a lot more sense of them now, with the experiences you had under your belt.

            How nostalgic.

            Now you were even more unsure of what Sans was doing here, that device hadn’t been finished in your lifetime, but from what you knew about it, it was supposed to be a portable way to get a rudimentary scan on a SOUL and its properties.

            At present, the only SOUL in the Underground was Sans’s own.

            No matter which way you tried to look at it from, this situation didn’t make any sense. Was he trying to figure out if the mistakeSinIt’sallyourfault experiment that gave birth to Flowey was repeatable? To check and see if any of these flowers had the essence of dead royal children in them?

            Why how rude! You were beneath these flowers (Whatever was left of you at this point, you did not want to check) not infused into them!

            Entertaining these petty grievances was the most stimulating thing you had done in quite some time, and you were more than ready to take offense at every little thing this monster did (or did not do) while you had the chance. In fact, he had a lot of gall coming back here! After not having moved a single phalange to help with the gardeni-

            Everything hurts.

            You are used to pain, have been for a long time. You also had the luxury of experiencing a wide variety of fates, you knew just how to position yourself to survive getting skewered, have a pretty good notion of how much blood you’re allowed to lose. Blunt trauma and burns are as familiar to you as true death is alien. So when this pain assaults you, you are far more surprised at how new it is rather than being surprised you can feel it at all.

            It feels like you just had a tiny but important part of you cut out and stolen, the experience is as widespread as it can be for someone with no nervous system to speak of, and it feels so wrong that it nearly sends you over the edge.

            And then it’s all over. The pain stopped, but you still feel wrong, incomplete. Something has been stolen from you, something you didn’t even know you still had but know painfully well you can’t afford to lose.

            You put your focus on the only obvious suspect, and sure enough the sack of bones looks rattled. He’s panting hard, doubled over and sweating like he just ran a marathon. If you had any form of corporeality, you would have pounced on him and torn him open to retake what is yours, but that is unfortunately not an option, and perhaps that is for the best, he would be missed.

            The thing about being-dead-but-not-dead-enough^TM is that you can’t really feel much, not unlike the flower, but also completely different. Unlike him, you lack a physical form, so you truly can’t feel a thing, not anger or sadness or fear or pain or heat or cold or anything that matters, at least not on your own. But you could feel through Frisk, you felt their pain, their fears and joys and their despair. But you could also feel your own through them, process your own feelings through the connection you shared. Was it unfair to them? Yes, which is why you hadn’t done it since the barrier broke. The amusement you had been enjoying early had been more of a fun pretend game, where you would act out your emotions and remember what they felt like.

            This felt different, that pain had been yours and yours alone, and your desire to get back what had been taken from you was very much real. You can feel it, the part of you that is not where it should be, and the fact that is coming from Sans and not the device makes your nonexistent heart stop. A quick check reveals that his stats have doubled, something that with any other monster might have caused them to melt down on the spot. You would know.

            Calm down, it’s not the end of the world (what a shame), if what you are thinking (fearing) is right and he did absorb a small piece of your determination (the only thing you still have to your name), that means he might be able to hear you! And then you can ask for (demand) it back!

            Peaceful conflict resolution isn’t off the table yet. There is no easy way to do this, had it been any other monster you would have simply told them they had taken something important from you and to please give it back, they would comply and end of story.

            Sans isn’t most other monsters.

            He would start asking questions, he would make assumptions, you still didn’t know why he was here but if he thinks you might have an answer for him it isn’t out of the question for him to demand something in exchange. It was probably better to come out friendly. He looks confused, there’s a chance he doesn’t realize the implications of absorbing your DT and you are not about to volunteer that information.

            [Why hello there, are you looking for something?]

            His head whips up with a start and you can see his eye lights frantically scanning the room, like a brat who just got caught stealing from the cookie jar. Good, that means he can hear you and communication is an option. He’s glaring daggers at the DRA, which is probably where he thinks your voice came from. Fair assumption to make, but you’re also not about to sit here and wait for him to figure everything out, unlike with Frisk, you know for a fact Sans can speak.

            [You did hear me, yes? It’s rude to ignore someone who is talking to you.]

            This time you tried to speak with him through the connection you now know you have, it’s not the same thing you had with Frisk, but it’s remarkably similar. You can even feel his confusion seeping through. You wonder if he can feel your annoyance.

            “uh, hi there? sorry pal, i wasn’t expecting to find anyone here tibia-honest. i’m sans, sans the skeleton. you are?”

            Ah, what a reasonable thing to ask, but that’s not a question with an easy answer. It seems he’s no longer freaking out; you can feel him calming down a little. Should you lie? No, it’s better if he can trust you. But there is no way you are telling him your true name…

            [A difficult question to answer, I’m afraid.] It really was, with all the made-up names you’ve been called over timelines. [But you get the privilege of calling me nobody.] You winked and prayed your joke didn’t fall flat on its face. Not that anyone could see you.

            “nobody? yeah i can see that.” Nice, he did get it. “nice to meetcha” You can almost hear the gears turning inside his head, his eye sockets narrowing. That’s not good, you know that look. That’s the look of a skeleton who just found a new ‘problem’ to solve.  

            “so… you come here often?” The confusion has been replaced with distrust and you can only wonder what he thinks he will gleam through your answer.

            [This is a good resting place, I’m quite fond of it] Not that you ever leave, what would be the point of wandering through an empty underground or a human-infested surface? You are as comfortable as you can be here, alone and very much still dead.

            Not that you can feel comfortable.

            “yeah it looks nice, the afternoon sun can make it very cozy.”  Now he’s fiddling with the DRA, which you still don’t know what or how it did anything to you, but you would very much prefer it if that never happened again.

            Without a physical body there is nothing you can do to directly interact with the world around you, but you have not been around this long without picking up a few tricks.

            It’s easier than it should be, probably because this thing once belonged to someone who does not exist anymore. Its makeup is unstable, like hope and science fiction are the only things holding it together, and with a small tug in the right place, a simple 0 where there used to be a 1, it starts to fall apart before you. First the screen loses power, then the buttons no longer click, then the back panel falls off, and finally it just sort of crumbles into mechanical pieces while Sans desperately tries to keep anything from falling to the ground.

            “oh crap, crap oh sh*t damn it!” [Language.] “not now!” You want to feel bad about it, there aren’t that many revenants of Gaster and his work left and you just made that number smaller, but that experience is not something you are eager to repeat, much less if it involves taking you apart.

            Which brings your attention back to the main issue, the piece of you that is missing. He’s already suspicious of you, and for all your stalling you couldn’t come up with a way to take it back without ripping the skeleton apart in the process, maybe if it had been Papyrus he would have been able to walk it off, but Sans wouldn’t survive if you took matters into your own hands. So you will just have to take your chances and confront Sans directly.

            [Excuse me Sans, but you happen to ha-] “not now buddy, i need to get this thing fixed, if i come back and you’re still here? maybe then we can talk more.” [Now, it is very rude of you to interrupt some-] The world around you blinks and you are somewhere else now. You don’t have time to get mad at Sans for interrupting you twice before the realization hits you like a truck.

            You are out of the underground.

            It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise really, Sans said he was leaving, and the fact that you were dragged along was to be expected. It was also making it very difficult to justify your earlier decision not to use force. You were fine. So what if you are outside the Underground? It’s no big deal. It is not a big deal. You’ll just have to rip your DT out of this lazy sack of bones and then you could be on your merry way! Back to the only place you still belonged at, your resting place.

            Sans is laying in the ground, mechanical pieces scattered about all around him. He looks disturbed for some reason, which is enough to give you pause. The smile on his face looks so pasted on it’s almost comical. You’d be inclined to laugh if you couldn’t feel the panic and desperation that is apparently consuming him. While some insight into the usually stoic skeletons state of mind was nice at first, now it’s just getting on your nerves. Whatever is plaguing him is none of your business, and you have things to do, nicer places to be in, like pretending you don’t exist under a mountain.

            Taking a look around you gives you no more useful information, you are in the middle of an… alley? You can see some stars above in the sky, not too many, since you are likely in the middle of a settlement, but enough to tell you that this isn’t some sleepless city where the night sky is blurred out by LED displays and streetlamps.

            If you focus hard enough, you can just barely feel the magic of the CORE in the distance, so you take it as your guiding star and start moving in that direction. You will have to think about a way to surgically remove your DT form Sans without turning him to dust, but you have quite literally all the time in the world to come up with something once you are back.

            You make it some 20 steps away from Sans before an all too familiar pull stops you dead in your tracks. Great. Wonderful. The very last thing you needed! So not only are you out of the Underground, you are also shackled to perhaps the single most aggravating monster you have known since Jerry’s great-grandfather.

            Stars above and anyone else who may listen, may you be granted the strength to deal with this, because your patience is running thin.

Chapter Text

Peculiarity

            The morning light shining through the window told Papyrus that a new day was starting. He’d been working on some digital puzzles for a while, the ability to design entire mechanisms without having to worry about space or materials still left him in awe sometimes. It was probably better to stop now lest it consume his entire Sunday. Yesterday had been a lot of fun, even if something had seriously bothered Frisk in the middle, they had recovered fast enough. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t worried, but he was used to not being told everything. And even if he didn’t know what the problem was, just being around the Great Papyrus was enough to alleviate most worries!

            Not that he felt Frisk would need him, by the time they made it back to their house it looked like they had all but forgotten about it. No, he was far more worried about Sans. He’d been unusually tense the entire evening, and he’d gone off somewhere in the middle of the night.

            That by itself wasn’t all that unusual, Sans did have a tendency to come and go wherever he felt like at night, usually to that greasy place, and then complain he was tired. Though he’d been doing that less this past year. When he came back, Sans normally used on of his so-called ‘shortcuts’ to flop directly onto his bed, and then Papyrus would pretend he didn’t notice him going out, wake him up, and force him to eat breakfast.

            What worried him was the fact that he’d come back a few hours ago and walked in through the door. Papyrus was caught so off guard that he didn’t think to call out to him, and even more worrying is the fact that Sans didn’t acknowledge his presence, simply walking by him and up the stairs into his room where he, presumably, was sleeping right now.

            He didn’t look injured, not even tired. Far from it, he walked up the stairs at a speed he hadn’t seen his brother reach in years! But he did look distracted, worried, and perhaps just the tiniest bit annoyed. Today was Sunday, and he had no plans for the day, he originally planned to go out and buy groceries, but perhaps it would be best if he stayed home kept an eye socket out for Sans.

            Just as he was mulling over potential ways to spend his day, Papyrus noticed Sans leaving his room and making his way downstairs.

            “GOOD MORNING SANS! THAT’S TWO MORNINGS IN A ROW WHERE YOU WAKE UP BEFORE NOON, I’M ASTONISHED AND VERY PROUD, I KNEW YOU HAD IT IN YOU!” Sans looks at him like he just noticed he was there, which admittedly hurts a little, before brightening up and giving a dry chuckle.

            “good morning bro, what can i tell ya? it was an eye-opening experience.”

            “IT IS TOO EARLY FOR PUNS SANS! I HAVEN’T EVEN MADE BREAKFAST!”

            “really? i thought you’d have it bready by now.”

            “TOO MUCH BREAD IS NOT GOOD FOR YOU BROTHER, HOW ABOUT SOME EGGS?” It would be nice to have breakfast with Sans for once, and a nice fresh breakfast was never a bad thing.

            “sure thing, that’s an eggselent idea” said Sans with a wink. It was definitely too early for puns, so Papyrus retreated to the kitchen in order to get breakfast started. Sans, for his part, walked to the couch and flopped down on it, taking out his cellphone.

            That was very much not normal.

            Now that he took a good look at him, Papyrus noticed that something was different about his brother. He looked more… solid? It felt like he had a much stronger presence than he used to, which was only exaggerated by the fact that he was walking places instead of just blinking in and out of view like he normally did.

            Granted, it hadn’t always been like that. But it had been years since Papyrus had last seen Sans move around instead of using his magic. There was something off about him, even if Papyrus couldn’t pinpoint it. It felt like Sans had suddenly grown taller, though he doubted that was it, he didn’t look taller, just… more vibrant? It was driving him crazy, but Sans didn’t seem too bothered, so it probably was just his imagination.

            “…dn’t ask” “SANS? DID YOU SAY SOMETHING?” he thought he heard Sans talking to him, but it wasn’t loud enough for him to pick it up.

            “don’t worry about it bro, i was talking to nobody.”

            “I … SEE.” Said Papyrus, narrowing his eye sockets. The way he phrased that was weird, and the tone he used told Papyrus there was a joke there that he wasn’t in on. It was probably some internet meme, and his brother’s taste in memes tended to be difficult to understand, so Papyrus decided to ignore it.

            He continued making breakfast, nothing too fancy. Just a couple of scrambled eggs and some ham. Oh, how far he had come in his road towards culinary mastery! Papyrus could have sworn he heard Sans talking to him multiple times, but every time he looked over Sans was just looking at his phone. Maybe he was texting someone?

            They had run out of apple juice, another thing to add to the shopping list, but they would have to make do with just water for breakfast, it had less sugar, so it was probably for the best. Papyrus brought a couple of plates over to the table and started serving.

            “SANS! COME OVER HERE, BREAKFAST IS READY!”

            “smells nice, i’ll be there in a sec.” Sans got out of the couch and went over to the fridge, where he grabbed a bottle of ketchup, walked back and sat down at the table. All the while Papyrus watched with mild disbelief, there was definitely something going on here.

            Breakfast went by without issue, Sans poured a frankly offensive amount of ketchup on his eggs, but Papyrus knew better than to expect otherwise. Papyrus also knew that Sans usually didn’t eat this fast, and he seemed distracted throughout the whole meal, giving noncommittal answers whenever he tried to start a conversation. His mind was elsewhere.

            “SANS, DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR TODAY? I WAS PLANNING ON GOING TO THE STORE AND I WOULD LOVE IT IF YOU COULD JOIN ME.”

            He’s looking very intently at the empty space beside him, like he’s trying very hard to catch a mosquito that has offended his honor, but he glances back at Papyrus and just looks at him for a moment before answering.

            “yeah i can come along.” His smile seems a little softer. “we have a lot of ketchup to do with our pantry.” With that he gets up and goes to put the dishes in the sink, and much to Papyrus’s shock, starts cleaning them. That’s two days in a row that he’s woken up early and agreed to help. This would normally be cause for celebration, he should be making a racket, calling all their friends and telling them of this miracle!

            But something doesn’t feel right.  

            It doesn’t look like he’s forcing himself to come along, and he doesn’t look sick either, but Papyrus just can’t shake this feeling of wrongness that strikes him when looking at Sans. Papyrus knows his brother, and nothing of significance has happened in recent memory, so what could be the cause of this sudden change in behavior?  

            His only real option is to wait and see.

            The drive to the store is a short one, just some 15 minutes, and they make it into the human city, but it takes them a solid 20 minutes to find a parking space. Papyrus would much rather shop back at his hometown, but the bigger stores hadn’t opened any branches there and some of his more exotic ingredients were running out. Sans listens quietly while he complains about the traffic and talks about his plans for the week, which is a pleasant surprise. Usually he just falls asleep in the car, but today he’s perfectly awake, alert even.

            The first stop is the general store, where they buy most of the groceries and daily necessities. Papyrus clears each item off his list methodically and quickly, while Sans wanders the aisles and comes back with at least three different brands of ketchup.

            “ARE YOU TRYING OUT NEW FLAVORS BROTHER? WHY DO YOU NEED SO MANY BOTTLES?”

            “i dunno papyrus, just felt like trying out something new, ya feel me?”

            “HMMM, VERY WELL. BUT KEEP THEM IN THE BACK OF THE FRIDGE, THEY WOULD MAKE TOO MUCH CLUTTER OTHERWISE.”

            “you won’t even notice them bro, don’t worry about it.” Papyrus had a feeling that was true, they would most likely not stay in the fridge very long, if his brother’s usual eating habits were anything to go by.

            After the general store it’s time to go to some more specialized establishments. The city is a coastal one, so the seafood at the market tends to be fresh and of better quality. Some other craftsmen also live closer to the coast, like the cheese seller and the place where Asgore gets most of his foreign tea leaves.

            It’s almost noon and Papyrus has gone through most of his shopping list. It’s a shame that they didn’t have any sailfish, but he’ll just have to make do without it. He was hoping to make some for when Undyne and Alphys came by later in the week, but he’ll just have to make do with something else. He’s walking back to his car when Sans stops abruptly in front of him.

            “sorry bro, i just remembered that i need to pick up some things from the hardware store. you can go ahead and grab the car, i’ll message you and you can come pick me up.”

            “VERY WELL SANS, BUT DO HURRY, THE TRAFFIC IS ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE.”

            “i’ll keep that in mind, just pay attention to your cellbone”  And with that he turned left and started walking towards the hardware store, instead of the complete opposite direction. The whole arrangement was quite new to Papyrus, usually Sans would have just vanished at some point in the day and come back with a bag from whatever store he’d been to. Well, he did trust Sans to be quick with his errand. Papyrus got on his car and decided to browse the internet while he waited.

            It seems like Mettaton is going to be doing a show a couple cities over in a few weeks, he needed to remember that. Alphys is very excitedly posting about some anime he hasn’t heard about, so that’s probably what he’ll be doing when she and Undyne come over later in the week. The weather forecast says that a hurricane is forming somewhere in the Atlantic, but it’s expected to lose most of its strength by the time it reaches continental mass. There’s also some ‘reports’ of ghost sightings in the highway that connects his hometown with the human city, but as far as he is aware, Napstablook is currently on tour with Mettaton and not in the area. Perhaps they saw some other monster walking by and assumed it was a ghost? Humans that were unfamiliar with monsters and came to visit tended to rant about fairy tales and the paranormal whenever they encountered a monster for the first time.

            ‘got my stuff bro, you can pick me up’

            The message pops up at the top of his screen and he’s ready to go in a matter of seconds, the hardware store is only a couple blocks away form where he parked, but the sooner they can get back home and start working on lunch, the better. When Papyrus rolls by in his red car, it still strikes him as bizarre to see Sans just standing there, bag in hand, waiting in front of the store. He would have expected his brother to already be at the passenger seat and then they would be on their way, but he has to stop in front of the store and watch as Sans walks up to the car and gets in the normal way.

            Very much abnormal.

            “DID YOU GET EVERYTHING YOU NEEDED?”

            “yup.”

            “VERY WELL! OFF WE GO!”

            The drive home is a little quieter, mainly because Papyrus is still processing the day’s events, but he does remember to inform Sans of both the incoming storm and the prospect of going to one of Mettaton’s shows. He’s been doing more international performances lately, so it’s a rare opportunity to see him while he’s close to home.

            He still has no idea what he will make for lunch today.

            Truly a bizarre day.

Chapter Text

Agreement

            Sans has been through his fair share of strange experiences, he wouldn’t claim to have seen it all, but he reckons he’s pretty up there. So when he says that it feels weird, he really means it. The headache building behind his eye sockets is familiar, it’s an early sign of magical exhaustion, what he is not familiar with, is the drive, the absolute necessity to move that is filling his bones.

            The amount of magic he unwittingly spent should have sent him straight to unconsciousness, under normal circumstances he would barely be able to open his eyes, and true enough, his magic does feel tapped out, but he doesn’t feel like he’s about to fall over with exhaustion, he feels awake, alert, energized. The urge to lay down and not move for a month and the urge to get up and do something are stretching his focus thin, but he’s pretty sure that he was trying to shortcut into his workshop back home.

            Which is why the night sky above him is mildly concerning.

            With both too much effort and not enough, he gets to his feet and looks around in an attempt to get his bearings. He’s in some back alley that he doesn’t recognize, but the architecture does tell him he’s not near any monster-built structures. There’s not enough magic in these bricks.

            Did he shortcut into the human city? No wonder he spent so much magic.

            [Back on your feet, are you? You looked like the world was ending just a few moments ago.] Hearing that voice makes his eye flare up in a way that almost sends him to his knees, he’s too tired for this, how did they follow him? They’re still speaking in that same know-it-all tone from before, but he can also hear a mild amount of thinly veiled resentment coming from them.

            Great, so he’s far away from home and now the invisible anomaly is pissed off.

            “you don’t have to worry about me pal, i’m on my way home anyways. catch ya later.”

            He figures he’s got enough magic to at least get onto the main road and hopefully away from Nobody, so he starts walking awa-

            He’s crashing into a dumpster and his headache is strong enough to almost feel like his skull is going to split open, his magic didn’t misfire, as evidenced by the fact that he’s not dead, but something definitely went wrong.

            [I would stop doing that if I were you. Unless you fancy passing out in a dark alley at these tender hours of the night?]

            So they’re still following him, and now he truly feels like he’s running on fumes. What do they even want? He’s got a few guesses as to their identity, and none of them are good for him. At least when the anomaly had a physical form he could watch them from afar, now he’s the one being followed and his magic is acting up.

            He really should have just stayed in bed today.

            “listen, buddy, i don’t want any trouble, so why don’t you just go back to wherever you’ve been hiding and leave me alone yeah? sorry if i bothered you, i was just doing some digging around.”

            The change is instant, even if he cannot see them, he feels cold, cold yet colder. The stench of flowers is piercing his nostrils, he can vaguely feel them now, just over his shoulder, they’re smiling down on him, not a hint of humor in their voice. Sans thinks he might understand what those animes Alphys is always going on about mean when they speak about “pressure” and “bloodlust”.

            [Funny you should say that Sans. Since you are the very reason I cannot do that.]

            And just like that the tension is gone, he can breathe freely again, he’s sweating bullets and there’s a feeling of wrongness somewhere deep in his bones, but he’s still alive.

            [You would know this already had you not interrupted me so rudely. This is why manners are important you know?]

            Their tone is back to normal, singsong and mildly infuriating, there is no trace of anger, not even the resentment from before. Sans is adding “emotionally unstable” to the list of things wrong with the anomaly, it looks nice on the shelf with “megalomanic” and “manipulative”.

            “all right all right buddy you got me. i’m real sorry about that, i was in a hurry ‘s all. now, i’m all ears, so if you’d be kind enough to explain what you mean?”

            He’s still reeling from earlier, but it seems like Nobody has a bone to pick with him, and the sooner he can solve this, the sooner he can go back to his bed and fall unconscious for the next 6 months.  

            [That device you had, it stole a piece of me. And since you did not think to bring a proper container along, it’s now stored inside of you. Where exactly eludes me but let us hope for your sake as well as mine that it’s not anywhere near your SOUL.]

            The DT reader did what now? Now Sans was really gonna have to give those blueprints another once-over. Not that it would do him any good, with the device in pieces. It was also not comforting at all knowing that a piece of this freak was inside of him, even if it would have been an incredibly useful piece of research material.

            Hold that thought.

            A piece of them?

            Sans was pretty sure that Nobody didn’t have a body, and there’s no way in hell that there’s a piece of a SOUL inside him that he could be unaware of, so what, exactly, is this piece they’re talking about?

            The answer is so simple it makes him want to laugh.

            The reader said it straight up, didn’t it? It took a determination sample. Does that mean that they can’t reset? How big of a sample did he take, and how exactly did it do it? If he can secure a method to take more of it, all his problems would be solved at once!

            Now that’s a thought.

            He really did have a piece of determination stuck inside of him, being so proactive is out of character for him, getting it out should probably be a priority.

            [Are you quite done losing your mind yet? As I’m sure you have noticed, it could have unpredictable effects on you, it has already affected your magic. And as long as you have it, I cannot leave your side.] Another tidbit of trivia to save for later. [So, I’m going to need you to hand it over.]

            “so, nobody, pal.” He’s regained a bit of his confidence, it feels nice, having the upper hand for once. He’s back on his feet, hands in his pockets. “why should i give it to you? i could just keep it and save us all the trouble.”

            [Ah so you are done acting coy? Well for starters, I could just take it by force. The only reason I haven’t done so is because you would most likely not survive the process.] They say it with so much cheer that it sends a chill down his spine, and he’s suddenly feeling stupid for thinking anything good would ever come his way. They don’t want him dead? Sans can’t be sure if it’s a good or a bad thing, but it at least buys him some time.

            “sounds like you’re in a bit of a pickle then, cause i can’t give you something i didn’t even knew i had.”

            [Yes, I did fear that would be the case. But don’t worry, survival is not the only incentive you get.] Can this day get any worse? [I mentioned your magic earlier, remember? Did you not think it strange that so much of it was spent, even when you did not intend to?]

            He did, but he also had more important matters to attend to, like getting the hell away from an incorporeal megalomaniac.

            [My determination is boosting your magic, it makes it more potent, but also more difficult to control. It’s not unlike dropping a brick unto the gas pedal, your spells will always be at full power, and they will be stronger than usual, so your reserves will deplete much faster.]

            Ah, so that’s how he ended up kilometers away from his house. That could be problematic.

            [You should also consider the fact that my determination is a piece of my very being, there is no telling what effects it could have on you. It could distort your personality, it could erase your ego, it could do absolutely nothing, it is far too unpredictable to leave alone.]

            They were getting really convincing now, he didn’t like doing what this person was saying, but he liked the idea of living without magic and potentially without an ego even less.

            “all right buddy, i hear you. but forgive a pal for asking, what do you want? if what you said is true and you could’ve solved this with force, why didn’t you? what is your goal?”

            [True, violence would be the most efficient solution, but that does not make it the best option. Should I not show mercy, if given the chance?]

            They couldn’t be more shameless if they tried.

            He really needs to calm down, his headache is only getting worse the more he listens to them.

            [And you asked what I want?] Their voice sounds different this time. They sound tired, far older than before. He really can’t get a good read on them, not that their lack of body is doing his judgment any favors.

            [All I want is to fall asleep and never wake up, but I’ll content myself with just going back to the Underground.]

            The amount of cheer and joy they can inject into their sentences is going to give him nightmares, especially when they sound so sincere while saying it. He really has no idea what to think of this anomaly, they’re full of contradictions.

            “all right, well i don’t think i can help you with that first one, but i’ll see what i can do about getting you back down there.”

            [It’s nice to see you understand, but I’m afraid that I have no real idea on how to get my DT back without harming you. So you’ll have to do some work.]

            “i’ll figure something out, don’t worry too much about it.”

            [Very well, I’ll entrust this to you. May I suggest going back to your house first? I don’t imagine you’re going to get much work done in some back alley.]   

            True enough, he had no idea what time it was, but it would probably be for the better if he came back home before sunrise. Though with his magic acting up it would probably be a better idea to just take a bus back. He decides to start walking towards the main street to see if he can get his bearings.

            [Where exactly do you live? I may not be familiar with the layout of this town, but this doesn’t look like a residential area.]

            “hm? oh nah, i don’t live here, this is the human city.” Sans muses that of course they wouldn’t know if they’ve never left the underground. “we monsters are living in a nice little town a few kilometers east from here, ‘s called Surface Home.”

            [I see that his majesty is just as good at naming places as he’s ever been.] There’s amusement and affection in their voice, despite the exasperated tone. Not really all that surprising, everyone loves king fluffybuns, though Sans does take note of the way they called him, most people just call the big guy Asgore when speaking to him and king when speaking about him.

            By the time Sans has made it to the bus stop he realizes he didn’t bring his phone with him, and humans don’t really accept physical currency these days. He’ll have to hope the bus driver is someone he knows, maybe he can open a tab.

            It’s been 30 minutes (or what feels like 30 minutes, he can never be sure) and Sans has yet to see a single bus go by the street. Aren’t there at least two buses going out of town every hour? Is the service down?

            [I did not want to say anything, since you seemed so sure of what you were doing, but I’m fairly certain that public transportation in most places doesn’t run after midnight.]

            Was it midnight already? He did remember reading that the last bus to Surface Home departed at 11:00PM, time had slipped away from him while he was busy. If he didn’t have the money to pay the bus fare, he sure as hell didn’t have enough to get a taxi. And without his phone he couldn’t even call someone to come pick him up.

            [You said that Surface Home was ‘a few kilometers east’ yes? Perhaps you should consider walking back. Unless you prefer waiting here until sunrise, though I cannot say that is a good idea. Being out and about at this hour is only going to bring you trouble.]

            He’d known them for less than a day and Sans could already tell having Nobody around was going to be a challenge. Of course they’d suggest walking several kilometers to the one monster who straight up didn’t, and the worst part about it was that they were right. He didn’t have any other options, and he already felt like he was being watched by some of the more unsavory residents in town. That wouldn’t normally be an issue, he always made sure to assume a mildly threatening demeanor when those types were around, and they knew better than to try something funny.

            But if one of them decided to try their luck today Sans wasn’t confident in his ability to handle it without anyone kicking the bucket.

            “you know what pal? you’re right, but it’ll be your fault if i catch a femur”

            Sans made it home without much issue, save for a few drivers who got scared witless when they saw a skeleton walking down the side of the road at night. It took him a few hours to walk all the way back from the human city, but he didn’t feel nearly as tired as he thought he should. It felt like his bones were overflowing with energy.

            But his headache gave him a clear reminder that his magic was still very much exhausted, so he walked up the stairs and into his room with such clear purpose that Nobody didn’t even get a chance to comment on the living room décor.

            “i’ll start working on your little issue tomorrow mkay?  i’m bone tired”

            [Very well, you definitely need rest, good night.]

Chapter Text

Catching up

            Seeing Sans sleep in his actual bed is a far more surreal sight than it has any right to be, and the fact that you can recognize the woodwork on his bedframe tells you it was likely a gift from Asgore. You move your gaze away from him and start inspecting his room, vaguely recalling how scandalized you’d been the first time “Frisk” started going through everything in Toriel’s house, decorum and respect be damned. But you’re past the point of caring about stuff like that, it’s not like you can actually touch anything, and as much as you don’t dislike staying still and waiting for hours on end, you know there are better uses of your time up here.

            His room, much like the rest of the house, is eerily similar to the cabin they had in Snowdin, yet noticeably different. It’s bigger, there are shelves with books and picture frames and trinkets you don’t recognize. There is an analog clock hanging near the door. The carpet is a little dirty but there is a distinct lack of clutter on the floor. And perhaps the most relevant discovery so far, there is a desk with a computer.

            You can count the number of times you’ve used a computer with just one hand, and those were human computers. You have no way of knowing if monster computers work the same way, but the bulky monitor and beige case are familiar to you. It looks much like the computers they had at the library, the old and crappy machines that nonetheless seemed to contain the answers to any question you could think of. If they were old back then, they’re probably considered relics by this point. Heck, this thing might be older than you.

            And yet the little green light next to the power button tells you it still works, so you just stay there, staring in disbelief at a screen that refuses to reflect your image (what did you even look like anyways?).

            It takes some time, and a lot of effort, but you manage to trick the computer into thinking you are real, another fun technique you hadn’t had much chance to make use of, and you are now staring at a bone-patterned wallpaper. The lack of a password tells you that there’s probably not going to be anything juicy stored in here, which is a little disappointing, but you move on and decide to look for an internet browser. You don’t recognize any of the icons in the desktop, and minimalism be damned they don’t provide you with much information on what they even do. It takes effort to move the mouse, if you tried to open every single one of them it could take you until noon.

            Your only hope is that Sans considers a browser important enough to keep it on the bar at the bottom of the screen, which has considerably less icons. You glare at the pixels on the screen, trying to decipher them like they’re runes in an ancient scroll, if you had to guess, it’s probably not the one with a cat silhouette in it, probably not the shield looking one either. The one that looks like a folder you do recognize, but it doesn’t really help you. That leaves a multicolored circle and a differently multicolored circle. Could they get any more abstract?

            Luck had been on your side, and the second circle ended up being a browser that looked and worked pretty much exactly how you remembered they did, just a million times faster. You read pretty much every single news article you find about the day monsterkind went free (aptly named surface day, unsurprisingly being a holiday). Knowing that only three years have passed makes you feel dizzy, in the same way that knowing it’s already been three years makes you want to jump with joy you can’t feel.

            There are a couple of concerningly titled articles that catch your eye, but you decide you’d rather ask Sans about it instead of reading what some moronic human has to say about that issue. The opening of a monster school is another event that got a lot of press coverage, and you’re not surprised to see Toriel’s name in the article. There’s even a picture of her and a bunch of other monsters in front of what looks like a gate, and she looks so happy it makes you want to print the photo and take it with you.  

            You also learn that monsterkind owns Mt. Ebott and its surrounding land, something that you never thought would happen without bloodshed. The article mentions an agreement about the CORE and other political shenanigans you don’t really care about, but it’s nice to see that Asgore has done a very good job at establishing rights for his people, with the apparent help of Toriel on occasion.

            You aren’t surprised by the overwhelming number of Mettaton-related advertisements, he’s been doing even better than you imagined, and while you don’t particularly like his shows, his success fills you with something you can vaguely associate with pride. From what you can tell, Papyrus is also fairly famous. He’s something like a local celebrity around these parts.

            Another name that comes up unexpectedly frequently in the news is Alphys, she has a lot of research papers with her name on them, and her signature seems to have a lot of weight around engineering circles. She also has a business that deals with old electronics, and now you have an answer as to how this machine is still running.

            Using the keyboard takes less hardship than the mouse, that coupled with the surprisingly fast internet means you quickly run out of things to read. You could try and make sense of how much the world has changed since you last saw it, but you find yourself apathetic to the idea. Who cares what humans have been up to in the last century? Certainly not you.

            There’s still time until sunrise, so you decide to just spend some time reading about whatever catches your fancy. There are some book series you’d love to see the end of, but their titles and authors are not something you ever bothered to memorize. A lot of the things you want to look at are locked behind subscription payments, so you end up just searching for public domain books and hope that’s still a thing.

            Morning comes before you know it, so you power off the computer and move over to Sans’s bed. He’s still wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday, stained with dirt, trash, and ketchup. You can’t really afford to watch him sleep the morning away. There are a number of ways you could go about this, but seeing as it’s his first day being haunted, you decide to let him off easy. You get as close to his face as you can, and then you plunge your nonexistent hands into his chest. This always helped put the pep back in Frisks step, and while they didn’t exactly say anything about it, you could tell it didn’t feel unpleasant.

            His eye sockets snap open and he practically bounces out of the bed, shoulders tense and confusion on his face. He pats himself down before looking back at his bed and scanning the room for threats, this is probably where you should explain yourself.

            [Good morning Sans, the sun is already out and we have a busy day ahead of us, so I took it upon myself to wake you up.]

            Your voice seems to startle him for a second before it dawns on him. If you had to venture a guess, you’d say he was hoping that yesterday’s events were nothing but a dream. Now that you’ve thrown that fantasy out the window, he looks more annoyed than anything else.

            “yeah yeah, good morning or whatever, say, what the heck did you do?”

            [I just told you, didn’t I? I woke you up. You’re already alert and out of bed, so I think I did a pretty good job. Also, you should get changed, your clothes are filthy.]

            You already know that isn’t sufficient explanation, but seeing the bafflement on his face is far more amusing than it has any right to be. It only gets better once he looks at the clock on the wall.

            “six am” His eye lights are so tiny they might as well not exist, and his porcelain grin looks strained. “buddy you know that a healthy skeleton needs at least 10 hours of sleep, right?”

            [I know of at least one skeleton who would disagree with you. Besides, you don’t really feel tired anymore, do you?]

            “that’s the thing, i don’t. and that’s very wrong, so i’ll ask again, what did ya do?”

            [Oh don’t give me that, I just gave you a bone-us. As long as I’m around, you’ll be able to get by on very little sleep.]

            Personally, you consider that a pretty good deal. You don’t even remember what sleep feels like anymore, and this means you’re wasting less hours each day. Sans, for his part, is rude enough to look horrified at your statement.

            “any chance you could stop?”

            [That is mostly up to you, I did say it would be the case for as long as I was around, didn’t I?]

            You leave the room after that, telling him to get changed out of his garbage-stained clothes, and look around at their house. Papyrus is sitting at the table doing something on his laptop, and you can’t help but notice how much cleaner the carpet looks everywhere else in the house. There are more windows than you remember, and the bone picture on the wall looks slightly different, but it is still a very familiar place to you.

            Sans is already sitting on the couch by the time you’re done checking out the place, so you approach him and try to get a look at what he’s doing. He’s looking at a video of some guy going down a mountain on a bicycle that’s going too fast to be anything but lethal.

            [Don’t these people have any survival instincts? One wrong move and he’s dead.]

            He briefly glances away from the screen before remembering he can’t actually see you.

            “oh this? don’t worry about it, ‘s not even real.”

            [What do you mean it’s not real? Is it a movie?]

            “nah, it’s a video game. came out last year, undyne really likes it.”

            [I took Undyne to be the type of person who’d rather go down a mountain herself, rather than playing a simulation. Also, a game? Are you certain? It looks like a video to me.]

            “ya bet she’d love to, but she’s not allowed to do any extreme sports after what happened a couple years ago. games like these are the best next thing. i was also surprised when i saw them the first time, they look so much like the real deal that it’s kinda scary.”

            [On that we can agree.]

            The biker makes it to the bottom of the mountain without shattering every bone in his body, which is impressive enough even if it’s a game. It was definitely going too fast for you to really see anything. Sans exits the video and starts scrolling, you can recognize the interface even if it has changed a little, and the UnderNet seems a lot more active these days.

            [You know, social media isn’t a very productive use of your time.]

            “maybe you think so, but i didn’t ask”

            “ SANS? DID YOU SAY SOMETHING?”

            “don’t worry about it bro, i was talking to nobody.”

            “I … SEE.”

            You can’t really smell anything, but you’d bet good money that Papyrus is making spaghetti for breakfast. You may not have known him for long, but that was one of the constants you could rely on, much like his battle armor, which he was back to wearing.

            So when you hover over to the kitchen and see him cooking eggs (scrambled! And the shells aren’t in the pan!) you feel betrayed and incredibly skeptical. Breakfast goes by quickly, and next thing you know all three of you are going grocery shopping. You take the chance to look around town, though you don’t see much since Papyrus apparently shops in the human city. Saying that you got a culture shock is an understatement, Surface Home looked pretty much exactly like you expected it would, its districts were even color coded around the different areas of the Underground their residents used to live in. But the human city looks absolutely nothing like what you expected. You didn’t pay much attention to it last night, but there is an astonishing amount of greenery everywhere, on the walls of buildings, rooftops, on the light poles, there are so many plants there isn’t a single spot of your vision without some green on it.

            The people also surprise you, there are a few monsters working at storefronts here and there, but the majority are humans who wear strange clothes you’ve never seen before, walking around with accessories you don’t recognize. A surprising number of people walk around with sunglasses despite the cloudy sky, and there are a lot of hair colors you don’t think are natural but look too good to be just hair dye.

            Time passes you by while you try to process your surroundings and Papyrus is done with his shopping before you can get your bearings. It seems like acclimating yourself to the surface is going to be harder than you thought.

Chapter Text

Panic

            You wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but you’d let pessimism win you over the weekend, which mostly meant you stayed in your room bracing for the unavoidable reset you knew was coming, so when it didn’t it just felt like the world was laughing at you for overreacting.

            Going to school on a Monday morning is something you can’t escape, but it doesn't feel real. Hours pass, the teacher is trying to explain something you can’t hear over the rain outside and for a moment you are back underground, your legs are going as fast as they can and you’re not even sure how far away Undyne is because you can’t even turn your head on your own and you just have to hope they know where they are going because spears are popping out of the ground and you almost got hit back there and-

            The bell rings and you’re back in class, everyone else is getting ready to have lunch and you’re sweating bullets, but at least the rain died down. Your mom made lunch for you but you can’t seem to find your appetite, and the line to use the microwave is too long anyways so you just wander the halls flexing your fingers one by one just to prove to yourself that you still can, it helps a little, but lunchtime is over before you know it.

            Math has never been your best subject, you try your best, but some days you just can’t seem to wrap your head around the numbers in front of you. Today isn’t one of those days, because you aren’t even looking at the questions the teacher gave you.

            You have bigger problems to deal with.

            You had thought that maybe they had managed to move on, that they had used the infinite amount of time they’d been given to solve whatever unfinished business they had and they were gone forever, a traumatizing ghost story with a happy ending. You sincerely believed the resets were over and you wouldn’t have to deal with them ever again.

            That was, admittedly, a pretty dumb assumption for you to make. But who could blame you? You had spent three years of your life without seeing any trace of them, you felt comfortable in your own skin again, and you still had full control of your own body.

            You’d like someone to praise you for not screaming the second you heard their voice, but the relief you felt when you finally climbed down the mountain walking on your own two feet didn’t last very long. Even if they hadn’t decided to take over that day, the fact that they were still around was problematic on its own.

            You thought the reason time hadn’t reset was because they were no longer around, and the ability had returned to Flowey, who hadn’t used it because he (hopefully) knew better. True, you’d never bothered to ask, but that was how it went with pretty much anything related to resets. You simply didn’t talk about that stuff, that was the silent agreement you and Flowey had reached at some point.

            But if they were still around, that meant that they could reset at any time, for any reason, and you had absolutely no idea what was holding them back.

            That kind of thing would keep anyone up at night.

            This time around, you weren’t fretting over nothing, spinning an imaginary danger in your head and freaking out over it. This was real, and no amount of chamomile tea was going to calm you down, but you had to calm down, mom may not have said anything about it, but she’s not blind, she knows there’s something wrong. You could feel her gaze on you over class, and she’s already walked by the hallway three times in the last hour. It’s enough to ease your nerves a little bit, knowing that someone cares about you, but it also makes the possibility of losing it all even more terrifying.

            You manage to hold it together long enough to get back home, and seeing Toriel’s concerned face makes your stomach turn with guilt. This isn’t something you can involve her with, putting aside whether she’d believe you, the fact that it involves one of her dead children means that she can never hear anything about it.

            Let her remember them fondly, you can’t ruin that for her.   

            Dinner is awkward, but you try to eat everything on your plate. Having your hands full gives you an excuse to keep quiet. You can tell that mom isn’t sure on how to breach the subject, she knows she’s not going to get anything out of half-hearted questions, so instead she tells you about her day while you nod along and try to sell her on your best image of someone who isn’t screaming on the inside.

            No one buys it.

            You’re pacing back and forth in your room, trying very hard to keep your breathing under control, stopping in front of the mirror from time to time and sighing in relief when you don’t see a blue striped sweater and don’t hear a voice over your shoulder. You’ve been running on high alert mode all day, and the exhaustion is starting to get you, so you kiss your mom goodnight and tuck yourself in.

            A couple days go by, and every time you wake up on your own bed instead of a flower patch you feel like bawling your eyes out. You can barely stay awake in class, sleep hasn’t come easily, but that also means you’ve had plenty of time to think in the quiet of the night. Your body is still yours, and you haven’t heard their voice again since you came back from Mt. Ebott. That means it’s safe to think they stayed there.

            Is that where they’ve been all this time? On their grave? Are they stuck down there? Were they angry? They didn’t sound mad, but when has that mattered? Were they sleeping? Did you disturb them from their eternal slumber?

            Are they going to stay down there?

            Once you start going down that path it never leads anywhere, but those are important questions. And the only way you are going to get answers is if you ask them directly.

            Easier said than done.

            This wouldn’t be like last time, you couldn’t tell anyone about it, and it was potentially dangerous. It was risky now that you knew they were there, they could be as unpredictable as a storm and just as deadly. There was also a chance that they’d gone back to rest and you would be poking a sleeping bear, which was enough to make you hesitate. There just wasn’t an easy answer, the safest choice would be to ignore them and live on like normal, but you couldn’t do that. This could threaten everyone’s future, their hopes and dreams, and you were the only one who could even do anything about it.

            You had no idea what to do though.

            You’ve never really, talked to them before.

            It’s not like you didn’t try! It’s just that speaking to someone you can’t see when you have limited control over your own body is kind of difficult. But that also means that you know very little about them. They like puns, chocolate, and golden flowers. That’s about everything you know for certain, but you can’t really define their character when they’ve been so inconsistent about everything else. Are they violent? Friendly? Did they love their family? Do they hate everyone? Are they apathetic? Do they like helping others? You have memories that tell you the answer to every one of those questions is yes, but that doesn’t help you very much. Messing with time will do that to you, it seems.

            They probably resemble Flowey quite a lot then, which is both easy to picture and problematic to consider.

            Flowey’s reaction is another problem you don’t quite know how to handle, you have no idea what he would do if you told him that they are still around, especially since he wouldn’t be able to see them, hear them, or interact with them directly. Maybe if you got Napstablook’s help…

            That’s probably not a good idea.

            Tomorrow is Friday, and that means that a bunch of your friends are coming over for dinner and boardgames. That also means that mom will be busy all evening and she’ll want your help, so the earliest you could go back up the mountain is Sunday, unless you cancel anime Saturday again. You don’t want to do that though, Alphys was very excited to show you a new series she found.

            Can you afford to wait that long though?

            It’s at times like these that you can’t help but be extremely jealous of Sans and his shortcuts, everything would be so much easier if you could teleport at will.

            Asking for his help isn’t completely off the table, he’s probably the only person who could understand your problem outside of Flowey, but asking for his help also means having to explain a lot of things he’d be much happier not knowing.

            There’s also no guarantee he’d believe you, and you can’t exactly blame him for it.

            Saying that a human ghost was actually responsible for all the resets and you had nothing to do with it sounds an awful lot like a made up excuse, even to you. All things considered, it’s probably best if you keep quiet about it, even if it means that you’ll have to go through The Underground alone. Again.

            And you still haven’t finished your homework…

            Can’t school relax? Just a little? The fate of the world rests on your shoulders and you still have to write that essay?

            You spend the rest of the day catching up with schoolwork, now with a clear plan of action and a calmer mind, you start to think that maybe everything will be alright.

Chapter Text

Reunion

            Getting to observe Sans throughout the week has been one of the most interesting experiences you’ve had in a long time. Anywhere he goes, there’s always someone who greets him like an old friend. He’s got connections at the cinema, at the zoo, at the bank, the police station, the grocery store. He always knows someone, be it human or monster, everyone seems willing to stop whatever they are doing to have a chat with the short skeleton. He’s invited to at least three parties and two dates (gross) over the course of a couple of days, and yet he manages to avoid compromising on anything.

            Another interesting thing is how he manages to dig information out of anyone while saying nothing about himself, whatever questions are thrown his way can be deflected with a joke, a fun story about Papyrus or an unrelated question. You’ve learned a lot about the people in this town and the human city just from watching him, yet he shares little to nothing about himself.

            It’s very educational.

            You aren’t quite sure what his job is supposed to be, sometimes he sells junk you didn’t know he had, sometimes he helps out at random stores, sometimes he just stands around doing nothing. You don’t care enough to ask him about it, and he doesn't strike you as someone who is hurting for cash, so it’s not like it matters.

            He’s made very little progress towards solving your little issue, but at least you can make sure he’s really working on it instead of lazing about. He’s been surprisingly cooperative, and right now he’s reading some old documents in his workshop which, rather unsurprisingly, looks exactly the same as his old one back at the mountain. The main problem seems to be that he doesn’t know where exactly your DT is stored, and he lacks the equipment to figure it out himself. Which means he’ll have to get help.

            From Alphys.

            Your feelings towards her are complicated, to say the least, but if there is one thing you know for certain is that you will not become one of her experiments.

            That is final.

            [Do we really need her? Can’t we just break into her lab and use her equipment?]

            He doesn’t bother to look away from the paper he’s reading, and he doesn’t answer you immediately. He’s been doing this lately, ignoring you for longer and longer periods of time.

            It doesn’t bother you nearly as much as you thought it would, and if he’s trying to get a rise out of you then you have bad news for him. Maybe he’s testing your patience? Trying to will you out of existence? You get the sudden urge to cheer him on.

            You are no fool, and you’ve seen him do this enough times to know what his plan is. It turns out that the average person hates dead air far more than they like their secrets, and keeping quiet is one of the most efficient ways to get someone to talk. He tried to be subtle at first, but now it seems like he’s taken your own silence as a challenge.

            The easiest way out of this would be to play along, volunteer some information about yourself and force the conversation forward.

            That would mean losing though.

            You aren’t sure how much time has passed, (the ceiling is tremendously interesting after all), but eventually you hear him sigh and put his papers away.

            Ah, sweet victory.

            “it’s not like it would do us any good, i have no idea how to use any of those machines, and i very much doubt that you do either.”

            That doesn't mean you have to like it.

            “ ’sides, we’d be able to make a lot more progress with her help. she was the royal scientist y’know?”

            [Royal scientist or not, the less people are aware of me, the better.]

            “you know, nobody pal, i didn’t take ya for the shy type. what’s the big deal with getting alphys involved? ‘s not like you’ve got anything to hide, right?” There’s a smirk in his voice as he says it, and your mood has plummeted.

            You sigh and admit defeat. [Very well then, it’s not like I can stop you anyways.]

            His smile stiffens a little, but you pretend not to notice.

            “i’ll ask her tonight after dinner then, though i’ll probably not mention you anyways, it would be too much work to explain.”

            [She’s coming over tonight? She was here just a couple days ago.]

            “what? oh nah, we’re all hanging out at toriels house tonight, it’s a weekly thing we do.”

            [And by “we” you mean who, exactly?]

            “well there’s papyrus, undyne, alphys, toriel, asgore, frisk and good ol me.”

            [And how long is this event of yours going to last?]

            “gee bud, you’re not my warden. i’ve been using all my breaks to try and find a solution to our problem, i deserve a little rest, dontcha think?”

            [You will get no sympathy from me; this is all your own fault to begin with. But never mind that, you can go have fun with your friends, I’ll just have to find a way to keep busy.]

            You’d probably just spend the hours quietly watching in a corner, Alphys and Undyne seemed to be doing well last you saw them, but you haven’t been able to check up on Asgore or Toriel since you came up here. Frisk was presumably doing all right, but you thought it best to avoid them as much as possible.

            They didn’t seem all that happy to hear from you and you can’t exactly fault them for it.

            Theres probably a few hours left until Sans sets out for Toriels house, but there isn’t much for you to do in here. Sans looks like he wants to fall asleep at his desk, and for today you decide to let him, there’s no point in forcing him awake just to have him reread the same old papers you already know can’t help you. You have been alert and aware nonstop for almost a week now, and while you don’t exactly need rest it also won’t hurt you to just drift in and out of consciousness for a few hours.

            Sleep isn’t something you can partake in, you don’t even have eyes you can close. That doesn't stop you from sinking into the ground, past the concrete floor and the sewage pipes, back into the comforting soil the house sits on top of. Here everything is calmer, there are no bright lights or ambient sounds, only yourself and the occasional earthworm. You can pretend like you are back at your bedroom, tired out after a good day of helping Asgore with his garden. Asriel didn’t like those days very much, usually opting to sit by the door and complain loudly every so often, but those evenings were some of your favorites. The feeling of your hands in the cold soil, seeing something grow and live because of your efforts.

            It felt nice.

            You haven’t allowed yourself to reminisce in quite some time, you’d thought it best to leave those memories behind, they would only serve to hurt you every time the world rolled back. But now that you’re inbound to see them again, you can’t exactly keep it out of your mind.

            It’s not like they would be able to see you. You aren’t sure if you are happy or upset about that, not that Sans is the healthiest conduit for your emotions.

            You are brought back into awareness when you feel that unmistakable pull that tells you Sans is moving away from where you are, so you go back up just in time to see the brothers leaving the house. It takes less than a minute for them to arrive at Toriels house, and as Papyrus walks up to the door you decide to go ahead and inspect the house while you’re at it. Unlike the skeletons house, it’s only got one floor, the front yard has neatly trimmed grass and a blue mailbox. You can’t help but notice the abundance of windows, that seems to be a common theme amongst monster dwellings if what you’ve seen the past couple of days is anything to go by.

            The walls are painted yellow.

            It’s not going to get any easier no matter how much you stall, so you get inside the house just in time to watch Sans practically melt into the couch while Toriel and Papyrus discuss dinner plans. Something about pasta and some pie, you’re not really paying attention to their conversation. She’s no longer wearing those old robes you’re used to seeing her in, opting instead to wear the kind of dresses you remember seeing old ladies wear to the supermarket, light purple and soft looking.

            She looks happy.

             You move your gaze over to the kitchen where Frisk is looking intently at a bowl of unspecified contents, their hair is tied up behind them and they’re wearing a small Mettaton Kitchen Darlings™ apron over a red t-shirt. It looks like no one else has arrived yet. You can guess from Papyrus’s enthusiasm that you probably arrived way earlier than needed, so you resume your exploration of the house without much worry.

            The living room looks spacious and well kept, the only piece of furniture you recognize is Toriels old reading chair with all its scratches and stains, though you do notice a couple of new ones since you last saw it. The couch Sans is currently fusing with looks relatively new with its blue cushions and noticeable lack of stains. There’s a TV mounted to the wall, and you can’t help but feel overwhelmed by its size, how much did that cost?

            There’s a bookshelf to the side filled with familiar titles and books you’ve never seen before, as well as a couple of boardgames tucked away neatly at the bottom. Picture frames hang from the walls all around, you avoid looking at them and instead stare at the clock.

            It’s almost six pm, almost dinnertime.

            As if on cue, a loud knocking on the door informs you of Undyne’s arrival, you only get to worry about the door’s integrity for a second before Toriel is at the door greeting her guests.

            Undyne and Alphys make it inside without much issue, but Asgore has to make an effort just to squeeze in through the door. The smirk on Toriels face tells you this is no accident.

            You’ve never really understood his fascination with Hawaiian shirts, but the king of all monsters looks much happier than the last time you saw him. Gone are the bags under his eyes and the slouch in his posture, his beard looks much better kept and the smile on his face seems genuine. You have no concept of how cold the weather outside is, but everyone else’s attire tells you that he probably shouldn’t be wearing shorts. It probably doesn't bother him anyways, fire magic can be terribly convenient like that.

            The atmosphere feels jovial as Frisk leaves the kitchen to greet their friends, and you can’t help but notice their use of sign language. You recognize a couple of the signs they use, but it doesn't look like the monster sign language you learned all those years ago. Probably a human version then, or maybe the language simply changed over time? It doesn’t really matter all that much to you, if you wanted to know what they were saying you could just take a peek at their mind, but you’re not desperate enough to try that. It’s all probably just standard greetings anyways.

            You can’t help but notice the dark circles under their eyes, and it bothers you in a way you can’t explain. You focus on them a little more intensely, and what you find isn’t exactly reassuring. You get the expected feelings, happiness from seeing their friends, a slight embarrassment at being seen with flour all over their face, the tiniest bit of pride when Asgore comments on their increased height. But there’s also a worrying undercurrent to it all, buried deep enough to be unnoticeable to anyone but you. A mild sense of dread, the type of exhaustion that comes with being on edge for too long, a viscous fear that feels awfully familiar and a burning determination to deal with something later. It suddenly occurs to you that you haven’t bothered to consider how your newfound connection with Sans could possibly be affecting Frisk. You’ve made a conscious effort to leave your connection with them as closed off as you could, but perhaps you haven’t been doing a good enough job. You decide to keep a closer eye on them tonight. The last thing you need right now is for them to suddenly gain the ability to see dead people.

            That would be a very grave matter.  

Chapter Text

Dinner chatter

            Sans was having a pretty good time, all things considered. He’d managed to sleep all afternoon without being bothered, and now he was in the middle of a very intense game of monopoly. He’d managed to get his hands on at least one property of every color and was receiving a very enthusiastic sales pitch from Frisk on why he should trade his red for their pink, it was going to pay off in the long run, he just needed to believe. All very inspiring stuff, having Undyne glaring at him from across the board was only adding to the hilarity of it all. Nobody was getting a monopoly if he had any say on it.

            Asgore had gotten three railroads, and Alphys had managed to get the last one along with both utilities, but that alone wasn’t much of a threat. The real troublemakers were Frisk and Undyne, who were ready to swallow up the entire board the second Sans let them, but that wouldn’t be much fun, so he holds his cards close to his chest and watches with amusement as Undyne tries her best to convince him that yes, two yellows in exchange for a blue is a good trade, you could put so many houses in there, and Frisk was bound to land in them.

            He rolls the dice and lands on chance. The smell of homemade food is slowly drifting in from the other room.

            “DINNER IS READY!” Papyrus yells out from the kitchen.

            “Heck yeah!” Undyne is already on her feet, her properties and money all over the floor in a forgotten mess. Alphys is doing her best to pick them all up.

            “I um, I guess we’ll have to play another day.”

            He hears Asgore stifle a chuckle. “You are probably right.”

            The big guy starts putting away the board, with some help from Frisk whenever he struggles to pick up the tiny houses.

            He hadn’t realized how much he missed this, this sense of normalcy, of tranquility. Not having a voice in his head narrating his every move was something he’d taken for granted just a week earlier.

            Once he gets to the table, he doesn’t even register the food in front of him. Sans just sits there basking in the atmosphere, enjoying the presence of his friends and their silly banter while shoving the contents of his plate into his mouth. Everyone seems really excited at the prospect of seeing Mettaton again, he’s been overseas for a while now.

            “THE SHOW IS JUST A COUPLE OF WEEKS AWAY! I’M SO EXCITED!”

            “Heh, yeah it’s been a while since we’ve seen that punk in person.”

            “W-we chat over text sometimes, he’s been very busy trying to establish his brand overseas. I think he misses us too.”

            “Yes, he is rather hardworking is he not? It will be nice, having him around once more.” Toriel’s voice has a slight strain to it, enough to make Sans smirk to himself. The Undergrounds #1 star has a tendency to break walls and shatter dishware, and while he never fails to pay it all back, there’s only so many dramatic entrances Toriel can deal with before she bans him from her house entirely.

            It seems like Sans will have to play host this time around, not that he’ll have to worry about that for a couple of weeks.

            Papyrus was going to take care of everything anyways.

            “He never ceases to amaze me, why just a few months back he announced he was going to build an amusement park right in the middle of the highway connecting Surface Home with the coastal city.” Asgore says with a grin. “That will do wonders for our economy!”

            “We have to be there on opening day!” Frisk has sparkles in their eyes, and Toriel has to cover her face with her hands to hide her smile.

            “I am afraid that will have to wait a year or two Frisk, they have not begun construction yet, and human inspectors can be very slow with their work.”

            “i bet it’ll go real fast, that guy ‘s always been good at hurrying things along.” And Sans really means that, Mettaton has never been one to sit quietly and wait for things to be done. His crew is used to that, but Sans has a little pity for whichever human contractor has to deal with him.

            “What’s the show gonna be about anyways?” Undyne wonders, if he’s being honest, Sans doesn’t really care. Everyone at this table is going regardless of the show’s contents, so he hasn’t bothered to worry about it.

            “He ke-keeps saying it’s going to be ‘the performance of the century’.”

            “Won’t this be his third ‘performance of the century’?”

            “IT SURE WILL! I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT HE’S GOT PREPARED THIS TIME.”

            Sans lets the chatter pass over him as he relaxes in his chair, occasionally throwing out a pun or two that leaves both boss monsters laughing for way too long. Once dinner is over Toriel goes to the kitchen and brings out a pie for dessert, along with a very smug-looking Frisk.

            “I made the crust all by myself!”

            “You sure did my child, and I am very proud of you.”

            “It looks delightful!”

            “THE GREAT PAPYRUS COMMENDS YOUR SKILLS!”

            The kids face goes redder than their SOUL, but the goofy smile on their face makes it clear they appreciate the praise. As Toriel and Frisk start handing out portions, Sans takes a moment to look at their face a bit closer. They look relaxed, still blushing a bit and grinning like there’s no tomorrow. Toriel had mentioned earlier in the week that Frisk seemed to be worried about something, but right here at this moment, they couldn’t look more at ease if they tried.

            Yeah, he missed this.

            Asgore and Papyrus are washing the dishes off by the sink, and Toriel is speaking with Undyne about something work related. This is the point in the night where Sans would typically fall asleep on the couch while Alphys and Frisk played something in the TV, but tonight Sans has other plans.

            Frisk is already putting some cartoons on the living room, but they’ll probably have to watch them alone tonight.

            ‘yo Alphys, mind if we meet outside?’

            ‘wanna talk to you abt something important’

            He can see Alphys reading his text on the other side of the room, so Sans makes his way towards the entrance and walks out into the night. He’ll never get tired of the view, the fact that he can look up and see the stars fills him with warmth despite the cool breeze. That’s another little thing he’s not willing to let go of, but Sans trusts Alphys, and even if she can’t really understand the dilemma he’s in, she’ll at least try to help.

            Speaking of.

            “H-hey there Sans.” Alphys makes her way out of the house like a teenager sneaking out past curfew, all quiet feet and furtive glances. Personally, Sans doesn’t think he was that ominous with his message, but the lack of emojis probably set her on edge.

            “You s-said you wanted to talk about something important?”

            “sure do.” He closes his eyes and leans against the wall, there are many ways he can go about this, and while being open would probably yield the best results Sans doesn’t feel like shattering her worldview on a Friday night. “i’ve got a little problem i could really use yer help with.”

            He cracks open an eye socket to watch her reaction, Sans isn’t the type of monster to ask for help unless he has no other choice, and Alphys knows this, which is why she keeps quiet and looks straight at him, urging him to continue.

            “i was being nosy, as usual.” Sans hopes the self-deprecating joke will ease the mood, but he’s not going to check. “was messing around with one of those old machines over by the place where the humans fell into the underground, when something strange happened.”

            “Strange how, exactly?” He can see there are several more questions she’s burning to ask, like why? or what machine? But she knows better than to try and interrogate him, if he’s not volunteering the information, it’s probably never coming out.

            “well the little gizmo said something about ‘determination signatures’ and ‘samples’” And Sans can see the way her eyes widen but that’s not really the crux of the issue so he keeps going. “and i said, ‘sure, why not?’ thinking maybe i did find something useful while snooping around…” He opens his eye sockets and looks at the sky once more, the next part is the most worrisome.

            “And...?”

            “and it took a sample, but the problem lies in its choice for storage.” Sans turns his head to look at her in the eyes, hoping his friend doesn’t notice the worry he’s been repressing for almost a week now, before making his plea. “so now there’s a ‘determination sample’ stored somewhere in my body and i could really use some help getting it out.”

            He can see many expressions crossing her face in that moment, worry, horror, surprise, confusion and exasperation, just to name a few. He hopes that his un-melted bones and general lucidity is enough to keep her from fainting on the spot.

            “A-and this was how long ago?” The urgency in her voice is entirely expected, so Sans walks over to his friend and attempts to project as much calm and confidence as he can muster. This is his there’s nothing to worry about face, and even if there is something to worry about, she doesn’t need to know that.

            “it was about a week ago, don’t worry though, i won’t be turning into goo anytime soon. the actual sample was miniscule.” He puts an arm on her shoulder and shows her his stats, the change is so small that most monsters wouldn’t notice it. Unfortunately, he does notice, and he wants it out asap.

            “I see, that’s good to hear. You s-shouldn’t overexert yourself tough, The more strain you put on your body, the more likely it is that something could go wrong.”

            “me? overexerting myself? alphys do you know who you’re talking to?” The smile on his face is fond and relaxed, that’s the voice of an Alphys with a plan.

            “Har Har, very funny Sans. This is serious. Come by my house on Monday, It’ll take me awhile to get my equipment ready but hopefully it won’t take much effort to solve this.”

            “yer a lifesaver alphys, i’ll be there.”

            “You better be, there are still many things I’d like to question you about, but that can wait until later. Right now you and I have some cartoons to watch, come on, before Frisk gets worried.”

            As Alphys goes back inside the house Sans can’t help but let out a sigh of relief. It’s a good thing that she’s so understanding, she knows there is more that he isn’t telling her, but she also knows that she won’t get anything out of him if he really doesn’t want to. Like the fact that the sample is attached to a sentient time anomaly or that it could potentially erase his personality.

            Speaking of the anomaly, Nobody has been unusually quiet this entire time. He could understand that they wanted to give him a break earlier while he had dinner with his friends, but Sans expected them to be a part of the conversation when they were talking about them.

            “you heard that pal? our little issue could be solved by monday if we’re lucky.”

            The lack of a response has him frowning. It’s only just now, with the silence in Toriel’s porch that Sans realizes how much he relied on their incessant chatter in order to perceive them. They’re invisible, intangible, and aside from speech they make absolutely no sound. He’d been grateful for the piece and quiet, but now that he realizes it means he has no idea where they are or what they’re doing, he’s starting to get worried. Nobody said they would ‘find a way to keep busy’, but what exactly did that mean?

            He left the time anomaly with absolutely no supervision for several hours! Who knows where they are! What they’re up to! Sans wants to kick himself for being so stupid, but it’s not like he can go looking for them.

            A bored anomaly is perhaps one of the most dangerous things Sans can think of, but his magic is still unstable and Sans can’t really afford to be careless with it around his friends and family. He really needs to get the DT reader fixed up. Would it be too weird if he started sprinting towards his house?

            “Sans? Are y-you coming in?”

            Alphys going back to check on him is the only thing that keeps him from spiraling, and he quickly makes his way back inside, closing the door behind himself.

            “sorry about that, just wanted to get a handle on my thoughts.” He gives the doorhandle another jiggle for emphasis and is pleasantly surprised when he sees Frisk snickering from around the corner. Now that he’s back into the warm lighting of Tori’s home, he feels a little calmer about it all. Nobody did say they could not leave his side while he had that piece of them inside him. Maybe they were just sleeping or something, not that he knew if they could sleep or not, but it was the best explanation he had anyways.

            If they were still unresponsive tomorrow, then he’d really have reason to get alarmed, but for now he was content to enjoy the rest of his night.

            And if he finds the silence of his own mind a little distracting? Well, that’s for him to know and no one else.