Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The time was ticking. He could feel it slipping like grains of sand in an hourglass. It was only a matter of time and he needed to get this done before the next reset. His soul pounded in his ribcage as the adrenaline of the whole situation pushed him forward, he couldn’t stop now. Not for anything.
He was currently rushing through Waterfall, he needed to know if it was here this time. He’d seen it before only once or twice out of the hundreds of ‘runs’ he was forced to endure despite not having the determination in him like it does. He had no idea the origin of it but he knew it had something to do with the key to getting out of this.
It was draining this world of everything, everything was becoming more dull and not in the metaphorical sense. He didn’t know how or why but It was affecting the levels of magic emissions from the core… his ‘short-cuts’ had stopped being so short a while ago. So recently he’d ditched the slippers for sneakers he had tucked away in his closet. He never really had a need to but he’d realized recently how difficult it was to run in slippers.

Something that has been weighing down on him is that It is aware that he knows what's going on, which is concerning by itself, but also that It is catching on to his plans…

The mysterious waterfall door. Sometimes it was there, sometimes it wasn’t, he hadn’t really looked into it before because it was always locked, wouldn’t budge. He honestly wasn’t even sure if it had hinges at the time. Despite this, while looking through the code on his computer system, in his house's basement, he’d noticed that not only was this door an actual functioning door, but if the fun value on a reset was 66 then it was unlocked, and what are the odds that it also said that reset happened to be this reset. One out of a hundred apparently, but he still wasn’t sure if it’d actually work.

He wasn’t the type to cling to hope but damn was he clinging.

So he had to keep running because it was the only way he and maybe everyone else could get out of this. He didn’t know how much more he could take but he had to persevere for the sake of his brother-

THERE!- He stopped as he was finally at his destination. Doubling over panting… this definitely wasn’t getting easier anytime soon. Wheezing, he leans up against the wall sliding his way down to the damp mosses of Waterfall’s ground. “Oh Toby please have mercy-” he whispers in between his panting breaths. ‘Suck it up, Sans. You’ve had worse.’ he thought to himself.

After collecting himself and calming down, he pushes himself back up, his bones creaking like the rusty hinges of the door he was about to attempt to open. He stands in front of the door, as if it’s a mysterious figure looming over him, cowering under it’s gaze. His skeletal hand shakily reaches for the hopefully unlocked door to his freedom- this was for his brother and him- they needed this- they all needed this-. His hand grips the doorknob and he twists, attempting to open the door.
It doesn’t budge- maybe it’s rusty- He tries to force it open, twisting harder. Nothing. But it can’t be nothing! NO! He kicks and bangs on the door, tears pricking his sockets. This couldn’t be it!

His chest constricts and there’s sharp twinge in his soul. Suddenly the doorknob feels as if it’s burning his hand, melting his bones. He pulls away, cradling his supposedly burned hand. He dares to break eye contact with the door to glance at his hand, but it’s perfectly fine. He was definitely losing it, he chuckles, his deep rumbly voice making his rib cage hurt worse. One thing was for sure, something was definitely very wrong.

The short skeleton falls to his knees. Arms no longer cradling his uninjured hand but instead his body, curling in on himself as a way of comforting. He shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up, he’d been way too in over his head anyway. He lays down on his side, still cradling his shaking body. He really did a great job at acting like he was fine didn’t he, he’d even fooled himself. He was dying. They all were. Everyone was dying, dusting, and melting. Wait melting-

His vision blurs, as he realizes he was gripping his skull like his life depended on it. He pulls his hand away as the calcium making up his skull starts to feel too soft- it doesn’t leave his hand- white strings of his magic cling to his hand. Globs of his form dripping of-

He was falling down.

His blurring sockets widen at the realization that he'd lost all hope. Do people that fall down even survive resets?!?

He would have began to panic more at the thought of leaving his brother alone in this hellhole... if it weren't for the fact that his consciousness was failing him. His thoughts slipping and tumbling out of their train, forever lost with the rest of the finer details of the player's current run.

Everything went dark.

Darker.

Yet Darker.

Chapter Text

Sans jolts awake, gasping for breath that he doesn’t seem to actually need. His pin prick eyes dart around the room looking for a non existent threat. His movements slow as he realizes he’s back in his bedroom. Right. His bedroom because he was asleep… His dreams had always been very vivid after all, it was always so hard to tell what was real or not. They were always so real, feelings that he hadn’t felt, thoughts he hadn’t thought, and places he’d never seen were very common themes. Almost like a message or a warning…

Sans shakes off his previous spiraling thoughts by wrapping himself deeper in his blankets, slouching down in his cocoon of thought. The darkened circles under his eye sockets were probably more noticeable than usual. Sleep has been rougher than it used to be and his dreams are getting worse by the day. His brother keeps telling him how he’s worried about him. Maybe he has good reason.

He wonders for a moment if there was another reset… not like he would know, but he won’t know for sure until he gets his boney ass out of bed and checks the codes on his computer. However, that can wait.

He lays back down in bed, still a bit shaken up by the rather rude panicked awakening that was just forced on him, but noOooooOOoooo he’s not allowed to have a good night’s rest without random bullshit happening, he grumbles to himself in annoyance. Sans goes to rub his sockets but flinches back before his fingers manage to even touch his skull as his soul is struck with panic at the mere thought of the action.-

He stops to stare thoughtfully at his hand to try and figure out what exactly he’s missing here. Nothing really seems to come to mind. Suddenly there’s a spike of anger and he flips himself back over, wrapped up in his blanket, so he can go back to sleep.
“SANS! YOU’RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR WORK!” his brother calls out for him. Sans doesn’t have to listen carefully to hear pots and pans clanking around in the kitchen. Maybe if he hadn’t woken up this way he could muster up the energy to be curious as to what Paps is doing… but that’s not the case is it?

He knows better though. He knows if he doesn’t respond his brothers will come up to his room, pretend he’s not worried about him, and press him for answers like always. Sans has no idea where his brother got the idea that it’s not ‘cool’ to care but whatever (damn humans). Sans groans silently to himself and grips the side of his bed, ready to hoist himself up-

“SANS! YOU LAZY BONES, WHAT’S TAKING YOU SO LONG?!?! IT’S NOT LIKE YOU HAVE TO GET DRESSED? YOU WEAR THE SAME CLOTHES EVERYDAY!!!” Papyrus gently cracks the door open and scrunches his skele-nose (???) at the thought. Soon though when his brother sees him all of the hurry melts away from his face.

“SANS? ARE YOU ALRIGHT BROTHER?” his brother tries his best to shuffle in quietly. Sans usually does a pretty good job at hiding things like this from people but Paps knows him better than most and he caught Sans at a particularly bad moment. Sans doesn’t have a mirror in his room but he doesn’t think he’d want to see himself even if he did.

“YOU LOOK...INTERESTING…” He trails off, looking as if he dropped a bowl of spaghetti. “NOT BAD! CERTAINLY NOT BAD! I DIDN’T MEAN INTERESTING AS IN BAD, BUT INTERESTING AS IN LESS OF YOUR BEST THAN USUAL! ARE YOU FEELING OKAY?” He stutters on how to phrase what his thought process was properly, he only wants the best for Sans. ‘My bros the best’ he monologues to himself as if he’s talking to someone.

“yeah, i’m fine paps. just one of those days i guess. tired like usual heh.” Sans tries to laugh off the poor attempt at an interrogation but he’s no match for his brother. The master puzzle solver, he braces himself to be taken to work.

“WELL THAT’S OK YOU CAN GO BACK TO SLEEP BROTHER.” There's a dazed look in Pap’s sockets, he hesitates, “SLEEP WELL SANS.” He turns around carefully as he wordlessly shuts the door and walks back down stairs.

‘what the hell? he didn’t even stay long enough for me to make a pun…’ There’s a twinge of guilt for how his brother just caved into his poor sleeping habits this time and it’s enough to motivate him to get up.

Sans forces himself out of his worn down mattress, in the process tossing his blanket on the floor. He stretches his aching bones and turns to put on his hoodie, which was hanging on the back of his desk chair. The familiar, almost ever present feeling of the zip-up hoodie is comforting. He welcomes it after the stress of this morning.

He slips his feet into his slippers and isn’t very enthusiastic about taking the stairs. So he lazily chickens out at the thought of that, in favor of one of his more convenient short cuts. He mentally prepares himself for his brief interaction with the place between places, which he calls the void. At this point this whole process is natural to him, he’s been able to do this as long as he can remember. Short cuts were almost like how ghosts would “walk” through walls in movies, but instead of walking through a solid wall Sans would walk through the void in order to phase from one point in reality to another.

His magic builds up, the image of his computer room in mind. Sans takes a few steps, with each step he becomes less solid, a blue outline on a black canvas. Sans can see his basement fading in through the void as he keeps walking. He can feel his magic solidifying itself where he now intended it to be.

Sans plops himself down into his desk chair and does a little spin with the wheels, giggling at himself internally. His computer was basic, it didn’t look very impressive. Just a chunky 80s style pc… but with a few modifications. It functioned a lot better than your average computer and was fast too. It could do things human scientists probably only dreamed of. His phalanges brush over the keyboard of his masterpiece as he starts to boot the thing up.

His computer wasn’t just a beauty of the scientific world but also the magic one too. Just like a monster can check someone's stats in battle or how he could ‘read’ people like a book, his computer could too. However unlike monsters his computer could check the stats of the entire Underground.

He’d start with Snowdin, scrolling down to the Snowdin file for a status update. Everything seemed fine. Next the monster capital of New Home, nothing noticeable. Working his way back, he decided to check the activity of Hotland, still hot. Now Waterfall.
He double clicks the file of Waterfall as a digital map, along with a graph of the more specific minor details of the Monsters residing there, pop up. Text generates to the left side of the images for a brief update. He scans over it like he did for the others and is ready to brush it all off as paranoia but then he decides to look closer at the map.

Sans flinches noticing the door. Despite not remembering the details of his dream he could just tell this was important. His mouse darts over to the door on the map with slight hesitation. He hovers over the door and double clicks just like he would to open a file. The computer makes some very sickly sounding processing noises before it shudders, smoke puffs out the back, and the whole thing goes dark.

“damn it!” Sans shouts before spinning away from the computer. He slouches hard with his head in his hands, trying to collect himself.

He can hear stomping from outside and wonders who it is. That is before Papyrus bursts through the door.

“SANS IS EVERYTHING ALRIGHT!?!?!” he says looking better than he did earlier.

“Yeah paps everything’s fine,” Sans looks up straining a smile for the sake of his bro.

Paps tilts his head thoughtfully before replying, “IT’S GOOD TO SEE YOU OUT OF THE HOUSE AGAIN, AT LEAST IN ANOTHER ROOM!” he smiles then starts again with a new topic, “WOULD YOU LIKE SOME BREAKFAST SPAGHETTI???”

“sure paps, anything you make is good.” Sans says as his face softens with gratefulness.

Chapter Text

Sans sits at their small two chair kitchen table, his head flat against the cold surface. Papyrus is standing in front of the kitchen counter to his left. His younger brother enthusiastically hums some sort of tune while he prepares both their meals. “SANS SIT UP STRAIGHT! IT’S NOT PROPER TO BE FLOPPED ACROSS THE TABLE WHEN SOMEONE’S MADE YOU A DELICIOUS MEAL.”

Papyrus struts over to the table with two bowls in hand. He crouches down at the comically small table, considering his great height, when he sits down his knees are tucked up and touching the outer sides of the table in an attempt to sit comfortably. Papy places one of the bowls in front of Sans and nudges his drooping skull. While somehow during all of this keeping his graceful composure in their rather small home.-

Sans’s thought process after his computer basically doing the technological equivalent of dying, was essentially just white noise. He didn’t know exactly what to do now but he could feel the imbalance of things. He wasn’t oblivious, despite how he pretended to be, things were very wrong. His dreams never felt much like prophecies and especially never so certain… and that door. It sent chills down his spine.

His spiraling thoughts were interrupted by a gloved hand nudging his skull, Sans slowly rises up as he slowly blinks one socket at a time. “BROTHER EAT SOME SPAGHETTI IT WILL MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER!” Papyrus suggests, Sans nods and twirls the fork in the pasta before him.

Papyrus turns his skull to look at the shelves on top of shelves of cook books, papers of good food pairings, and cards of spices that worked well together. Their kitchen sure was loved and lived in.

Sans’s eyes followed the trail of Pap’s eyes to see where he was staring. He sure was burning a hole into that cook book. Sans squinted his sockets at the book- it was one of the oldest of all of the books, Sans had found it in the dump some years ago, and after finding it he gifted it to his brother who was still in stripes.

Papyrus continues to stare thoughtfully at the book on the shelf for a while, as Sans eats more of his spaghetti. Meanwhile Pap’s goes untouched.

“SANS. I’M NOT STUPID OR WEIRD. I AM JUST ME AND ME IS THE MOST ME THING I CAN BE. I CAN TRY TO IGNORE THE FACT THAT I’M NOT THE BEST AT… COMMUNICATION, BUT IT’S TRUE AND NEITHER ARE YOU.”

“pap’s what are you talking about? you’re fine-”

“LET ME FINISH.” There’s a fire burning in his eyes. “I’M SORRY (NOT SORRY) FOR BEING BLUNT- BUT I DO NOT WISH TO “BEAT AROUND THE BUSH”. YOU ARE HIDING SOMETHING, BUT THAT’S OKAY! WE ALL HAVE THINGS TO HIDE, BUT IT’S NOT OKAY WHEN IT STARTS HURTING YOU. SANS I KNOW YOU ARE STRONG, BUT… YOU ARE FRAGILE AND IT CONCERNS ME HOW STUBBORN YOU ARE TO TAKE HELP FROM OTHERS.”

His eyes almost seem to gloss over like they had before, “I CAN FEEL IT EATING AWAY AT YOU, AT YOUR VERY SOUL. PLEASE COME TO ME WHEN YOU NEED ME. FAMILY AND FRIENDS ARE THE PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT YOU. THE PEOPLE WHO WILL BE HERE FOR YOU WHEN NO ONE ELSE WILL. YOU CAN DEPEND ON FAMILY AND RELY ON THEM WHEN YOU CAN NO ONE ELSE.” Papyrus takes a deep finalizing breath. “OKAY NOW I’M FINISHED.”

“Paps… did something happen again?” Sans continues with worry shaking his voice. Pap’s food was getting cold.

“NO. NOTHING HAPPENED… JUST LIKE YOU HAVE INSECURITIES AND PROBLEMS, SO DOES THE GREAT PAPYRUS! HOWEVER, NOTHING SOMEONE AS GREAT AS ME COULDN’T HANDLE!” He rushes through the first part to ease his brother’s worries.

“well if that’s how it’s gonna be then why should i follow advice from someone who doesn’t follow it themselves?” Sans quirks a skele-brow as he eats more of his spaghetti.

Paps looks like a deer in the headlights,”... I SEE! I HAVE BEEN BESTED!” He looks off to the side annoyed. “WELL THEN, HOW ABOUT WE DO A TRADE? I ELABORATE ON WHAT I MEANT AND YOU TELL ME WHAT’S EATING AT YOU? HMMM? SOUND FAIR?” Papyrus pushily offers.

“sounds fair i guess…” Sans narrows his eyes at his brother uncomfortably, he’ll do what he has to do to help Paps, even if that means getting vulnerable.

“YOU FIRST.” ‘wow right it in the trust issues.’

“Okay.” Sans grits out through clamped teeth. “My nightmares have been getting more… nightmarish? I don’t know.”

“CONTINUE.”

“I really don’t know what you want from me here. I just have this gut feeling of paranoia that i don’t know what to do with or how to feel about.” He really hoped his brother wouldn’t press him on this more because that’s all the information he could really give without shattering Pap’s world view.

“OKAY, I SUPPOSE THAT IS SATISFACTORY IN THE SHARING DEPARTMENT.” The immense sigh of relief Sans let out was just something else. “IN TURN I SUGGEST YOU CONFRONT THIS PROBLEM HEAD ON!... AND ALSO MAYBE TAKE MY OTHER ADVICE ABOUT GOING TO FRIENDS BECAUSE I REALLY DON’T KNOW WHAT ELSE I CAN DO ABOUT THIS BESIDES GIVE YOU A HUG.” Papyrus finishes sheepishly… maybe he’s right.

“Wow.. thanks paps… that actually helped a lot.” The gears most certainly were turning in his skull, but that would have to wait. “What about you? What’s going on?”

“OH… WELL THIS IS HARD TO EXPLAIN. I THINK ABOUT WHEN I WAS IN STRIPES A LOT. THE GREAT PAPYRUS… SOMETIMES HAS DOUBTS ABOUT HIS GREATNESS I SUPPOSE. SOMEONE WHO IS SO VERY GREAT SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH BY HIS PEERS…SHOULDN’T HE?” Paps seems to really be struggling to find the right words, and he almost always knows what to say. “I DON’T REALLY KNOW HOW ELSE TO PUT IT… I FEEL LIKE I’M LACKING IN NOTICABLE GREATNESS? YES THAT’S PROBABLY IT.” Papy looks satisfied enough with his conclusion. Pap’s jaw stiffens and he looks off to the side almost ashamed…

For as long as Sans could remember his brother had always been a little different then other monsters, not in a bad way at all, but enough that the other monsters in stripes found him odd. They would treat him differently, they would avoid him, and all together just take advantage of his kindness. When he finally became aware of this in a way he could understand it reflected poorly on his self-image. So Sans figured he’d encourage him to just be himself by making sure he knew exactly how amazing Sans thought he was. Paps getting his tiny gloved hands on that cook book certainly gave him something to focus on and be proud of himself for. Despite being the older of the two, Sans always admired Papyrus’s ability to be himself- to be his true self. How he could just push aside judgment from others. How he could always find the best in everyone and everything. How he could constantly believe in good.
Sans wishes he could be just half as good as Paps…

Sans looks up at his brother, tears welling in his sockets. He pushes back his chair and rushes to hug the most important person in the world to him. The added weight of the second skeleton almost tipping the chair over. His brother wrapping his long arms tightly around him in response.

“you are enough. you will always be enough!” Sans croaks into Papyrus’s scarf, his voice dry. “You are amazing. paps. please don’t ever forget that. I don’t know what i would do with myself if you lost that spark in you.”

“you are the beacon of hope the underground needs, i need, even if the other monsters don’t quite know it yet.” He spoke from the soul, the truest he could.

That’s the only way he knew how.