Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The whirring of machinery and the clanking of metal are sounds Sans is all too familiar with. Though he's not usually the one making the noise. That would be Papyrus, working on his most advanced puzzles out in the snow.

Sans was never a fan of loud noises. They put him on edge and hurt for some reason. He had to get tools like ear plugs and ear defenders just to tolerate the noise he's so often around.

But while he's often around noises like that, he seldom makes them himself.

Well, seldom until now. Sans was struggling to turn the gears.

"hnn..." He gave the stuck spanner a good yank.

"argh!"

Okay, too hard a yank. The spanner dislodged itself, sending Sans flying into the walls of the machine. It wobbled on impact, forcing the small skeleton to grip onto the metal floor for some sense of stability.

"oww..." Sans moaned as he felt the back of his head, for any signs of injury. Luckily, there was none. He sighed in relief at that.

He needed to be more careful. His bones are fragile, and this is made of solid metal. What kind of metal was it? If Sans had to guess, stainless steel, with traces of magic left by someone long gone.

It hurt to think about.

Groaning, he crawled out of the metal container and collapsed on the floor of his workshop. The place is a mess. Tools, papers and food packaging everywhere. He would clean it up, but... Actually no, he wouldn't. Come on, who was he kidding? He can't even clean his room, let alone this.

Pushing himself to his feet, Sans' hand bumped against a half-empty can of soda he completely forgot about. It was surely flat by now, but he could use a drink. So he leaned against the table and sipped, his mind wandering to what he found out.

Where did this knowledge come from? Sans couldn't remember when he woke up feeling this way. It felt like just this morning but at the same time, maybe a few weeks, or even months. That's a given, though. He and Papyrus figured it out pretty quickly why that felt like the case.

Sans' current theory was that a version of him from a previous timeline investigated something to do with time, and whatever happened during his experiments, it left him and Papyrus with knowledge that transcends time and space. If only the memories came with them. It would have been very helpful if they did.

But then again, would they have preferred that? If they retained memories as well as knowledge, would it be better or worse for them?

What even happened?

Wind blew directly into Sans' ossicles, drowning out all semblance of noise as all four of his limbs were pulled in various directions.

He couldn't breathe.

Air filled his skull.

Did something happen to both of them? Or just him? Did Sans drag Papyrus into this mess? He wouldn't put it past his other self. Sans always had this tendency of getting Papyrus into trouble.

"i'll tell you, but... i gotta warn ya. you're not gonna like it at all. it's... really bad."

"I DON'T CARE."

Somehow, Sans felt like there was more to this knowledge than it seems. Like maybe there's a mechanic in this world that's causing this, or some sort of magic. Gosh, he hopes it's magic. It would have been easier to deal with if it was simple magic.

But there's something else to it. Something about the structure of this world that makes it so... difficult.

Numbers. That's what the green was. Ones and zeros scattered around the void. A program. A computer.

Just thinking about it gives him a headache.

...

The soda's warm.

Sighing, Sans put down the empty can. Just standing here thinking wasn't getting him anywhere.

Because if these timelines... loops... resets? Exist, then that means that at any point, everyone could lose their memories and go back to square one, and the one in control of these resets can do whatever they want. How does one even fight a power like that?

Somehow Sans had this feeling that his past selves had already tried. And it didn't go so well.

"Don't you get it?! You broke the timeline!!! You ruined my SAVE file, your own memories!!!"

ERR0R

AN0MAL1ES D37ECTED

No. He needed a different approach. He needs to remember his first main goal.

He needed something... He needed things to be REAL. He can't let himself spiral. He's calm now, but he knows sooner or later this line of thinking is going to throw him into another panic attack, and he just can't have that!

So with urgency hidden by his grin, Sans quickly kneeled down and yanked one of the drawers open. This is where all his prized possessions are, most of all being...

"gotcha."

There it was. An old, dusty, seven-year-old photo album. His only current anchor to reality, or what he thinks should be reality.

He flipped through it, the bones in his left hand shaking as he did. Most of the book was filled with photos. Various skeletons of all shapes and sizes smiled up at him, as well as pictures of his younger self.

At twelve years old, Sans didn't look very different from how he is now. Which was once disheartening, but now it was a detail he couldn't care less about. He did care about one thing, though.

He was happy. They were happy. And real.

It was a world that was real. Not plagued by weird timelines and scripted outcomes, only for those endings to be brought back to square one. It was linear. It was safe. It was home.

All these people he and Papyrus helped as children. All the adventures they've been on together. What would Sans give to go back to that?

Oh wait. He already knew. He can go back to that, if he tried hard enough! Like Papyrus always said, anything is possible if you put your mind to it. It's what he said too-

Sans stopped flipping, his eye sockets blankly staring at the photo before him. The final one in the album. A picture of him.

What happened to him? He... couldn't remember.

A familiar heavy feeling sat in his ribs. Why can't he remember what happened? They were close, right? Surely, if anyone would know what happened, it was...

But then again, he wasn't there, was he? Neither he nor Papyrus were there when he died. Neither of them could even comprehend that he was...

Fell into his own creation. That was the 'official' reason. That's what he and Papyrus both heard back when he disappeared. That was before they moved to Snowdin.

Fell into his own creation. What a vague cause. The man made lots of brilliant creations. Which one could he have fallen into...?

Sans' eye sockets drifted over to the machine in front of him. That was... one possible cause. But...

No, he can't doubt now. When Sans set out to finish what he started, his main goal was to bring him and Papyrus home. But there was still a little inkling of hope inside the young skeleton that maybe, if this machine could be fixed, then...

Then maybe he could be brought back too.

That's... actually a more motivating reason than his initial one.

Sans carefully placed the photo album back in the drawer, only for his eyelights to catch two more things.

A badge for the old Royal Scientist, left blank.

And old paper sticking out from under the album.

Tentatively, Sans plucked it out. On it was a poorly-drawn picture of three smiling people.

The weight lifted slightly as a small chuckle easily escaped the young skeleton. Oh, Papyrus. What a wonderful spirit he is.

Even when he wasn't here, he always found a way to motivate the lazybones. That's just Papyrus' greatest power.

He carefully tucked the picture away in the photo album and closed the drawer.

"right. where's the tool box?"

He almost tripped over it. Dummy.

"whoa! found it."

Sans grinned as he headed back inside the machine. If it had the power to take three skeletons and hurl them across worlds, who's to say it can't bring him and them back?

Or it could shatter someone's SOUL, either way.

Whatever it takes, Sans is going to save him.

He will save all of them.

Chapter Text

Crunch, crunch, crunch. Each step he took felt heavier than the last.

Snowdin was very foggy today. Papyrus wasn't used to being out in the woods alone. But alas, Sans was apparently 'busy', so here he was.

Every crunch of snow echoed through the woods. An eerie sound. He didn't like it. Snowdin was usually a lot friendlier than this. Why did it seem like one wrong noise would provoke something that's just waiting to attack him? Nevertheless, Papyrus made sure his jaw was clamped shut. His voice made not a peep.

Unfortunately, the same thing wasn't the case for his feet. If anything, they just got louder.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

He didn't like it. He wanted the crunching to stop.

So he stopped.

...

Wind blew around him, but Papyrus couldn't feel it. He did, however, feel himself slowly sinking into the snow. His legs twitched in an effort to move again, but he forced them to stay put. His mind was torn between hearing the crunches and hearing the wind.

Lucky for him, the woods decided for him.

CRUNCH

Papyrus let out a strangled gasp, his head whipping towards the source of the sound. Through the fog, a shadowy figure limped around through the trees. Someone familiar.

He knows this person.

Papyrus heaved a sigh of relief. Oh, thank god!

Crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch... He ran towards the figure, only for them to vanish without a trace as soon as he got there.

His face fell. Where did they go?

groooaaan...

A shadow loomed over the lonesome skeleton. They were behind him?

Papyrus turned around.

He didn't like what he saw.

It... It was...

--------

With a gasp, Papyrus shot up from his slumber. How long was he asleep for? He didn't know! Quick, check the clock!

...Oh wait. There's no clock.

Papyrus sighed and rubbed his eye sockets. Whatever. However long he was asleep for was far too long for his liking.

"N-NYEH!" Papyrus heaved as he jumped out of his tidily unmade bed. "ALRIGHT, PAPYRUS!! THAT'S ENOUGH REST, IT'S TIME TO START THE DAY!!!"

Morning routine start!

First was the shower! Back in the Schroedinger's bathroom, how lovely! Papyrus even got this new bone wash he wanted to try out!

He placed a dollop of it on top of his skull and forgot about it as he leaned down to wash his legs. Inevitably, the soap eventually fell into his eye sockets.

"AAAAIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!!!" Tough luck, buddy! Better be more careful next time- Oh, he freaked out so much he slipped over. How wonderful.

But a rough shower wasn't enough to keep The Great Papyrus down, for he picked out the best outfit! A cropped white t-shirt with a very handsome personal addition and blue hotpants. (The personal addition was a drawing of Papyrus with muscles in permanent black marker.) And, of course, no Papyrus fit was complete without his signature scarf and gloves!

The boy posed in front of the mirror to get a sense of how handsome he looked. Even put the shades on and everything.

"PAPYRUS, YOU NEVER CEASE TO AMAZE YOU!"

He blew himself kisses. Oh, to be kissed by your own reflection...

Instead he kissed his own reflection. On the cheek. Don't ask how that happened. At least the reflection giggled happily! No, the real Papyrus didn't giggle for his reflection. He was just that cool.

The rest of the routine went on without a hitch! Teeth brushed? Check! Breakfast? Check! Hair brushed? No! He lost the comb.

The only part of it that didn't go as planned was when Papyrus burst into Sans' room to wake him up.

...

He wasn't there.

"HUH. WOWIE! HE MUST BE OUT THE DOOR ALREADY! NYEH HEH HEH!"

Sans taking initiative and starting his day without Papyrus' help? Oh, it was a dream come true! Well, there's nothing left to do but follow him!

Leaping down the stairs, Papyrus raced to the door and threw it open! He threw himself onto the snow, landing perfectly with his hands on his hips and a wide grin on his chiseled face.

"GOOD MORNING, WORLD!!! THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS HERE TO MAKE YOUR LIVES BETTER!!!"

His voice echoed through the town! The empty... town.

Papyrus' eye sockets widened. Snowdin was dark. Too dark. The lights that simulated daytime hadn't come on yet. None of the stores were open, nor the library nor Grillby's. He would think of it more like a ghost town (those are notoriously quiet), but he doubted even the ghosts were up at this hour!

"WELL, THIS WASN'T WHAT I WAS EXPECTING." Papyrus said simply, before checking his watch. A watch that had just appeared, and will disappear after this single use.

3:41 AM.

Oh.

Papyrus found himself sheepishly laughing. He can be embarrassed, no one was around to see it.

"I SEE WHY NO ONE CAME OUT TO GIVE ME A WARM WELCOME NOW."

--------

It had been a few hours of wandering around and checking on puzzles before Papyrus hopped, skipped and danced to Undyne's house. All with a song in his SOUL and a dream on his mind. And that dream shall be known to the world as Papyrus sang about it for the whole trip.

Seriously. The whole trip. With a track and everything.

About half of the skeleton population has the ability to induce song and dance numbers spontaneously, whether it's for themselves or for the people around them. It is a mystery as to why that is, but it's part of the reason why music was so imperative to skeleton culture so long ago. Recent monster studies have even found that Music Number Activation, or MNA for short, has actually been increasing in skeletons over the past 150 years, going from 36% to 49.8%. And Papyrus just so happened to be one of the lucky 49.8% who has the ability!

Turns out, he's not afraid to show it off.

Oh, the poor monsters, just trying to start their day without a singing skeleton dancing with them or using them as a microphone... Seriously, Papyrus really had to put Woshua down.

Thankfully, the song was over by the time he got to Undyne's house. He knew, like him, his fiery fish friend liked to get up bright and early!

Just one peek through the window, and...

"OH. SHE'S MISSING." Papyrus tapped on his chin, lost in thought. "HOW PECULIAR."

However, she wasn't missing.

"NGAAAHHHH!!!"

It was an ambush!!!

The world flickered into black and white as a very heroic theme filled Papyrus' ossicles. Spears came straight at the unsuspecting skeleton, so naturally, he tried to move out of the way, like his brother taught him to do!

But alas, he can't! One good look at his chest told him the reason why.

"GREEN?!"

Yes. Green.

"UGH!!!" He got hit! And there were still two spears coming at him!

676/680 HP.

Papyrus had to think fast. Stomping his foot into the ground, he summoned two large bones, crossing over each other and functioning as a shield.

The spears hit the bones and shattered on impact. Triumph!

"NYEH HEH HEH!!!" Papyrus was so proud! But it wasn't over yet.

Undyne's laughter surrounded the trainee. He knew he had to stay on guard.

He was ready.

Just then, five spears came at the skeleton from the side. Swiftly, Papyrus shifted his bones so that it would block every single one of them.

"YOUR TURN'S OVER, UNDYNE!!! SHOW YOURSELF!!!" His enthusiasm was so potent! He matched Undyne's energy to a T!

Speaking of Undyne, she burst onto the scene, finally showing her face.

"Now show ME what you got!"

"NYEH HEH HEH!!!" Papyrus reached out his hand and directed it at Undyne's chest.

DING! The fish took root in the ground. She stumbled a little in shock before regaining her bearings.

"WHAT'S THE MATTER, UNDYNE? FEELING A LITTLE BLUE?"

Three fast bones shot towards the knight. She leapt over them with relative ease, before hitting the ground with a powerful impact.

"Oh, I'm gonna beat the SASS out of you!!!"

"THAT'S NOT A PUN!"

Doesn't matter. Papyrus still had to block a barrage of spears from all directions. He enjoys the satisfying ding noise the spears make when they touch his shields and disintegrate into pure magical energy.

"NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!" Papyrus tried to jump for joy, but the green magic stopped him from doing so. So he resorted to stomping his feet instead. "TAKE THA- UGH!!!"

Aw, right in the back! Undyne sniggered at Papyrus' comically betrayed expression.

"What's the matter, Papyrus?! You didn't take me for a backstabber, did you?!"

The comical expression snapped into a more determined look. "NOW THAT'S A PUN! NYEH!!!"

Undyne's smugness was swiftly stolen from her as a field of bones approached. She had no choice! She had to leap over them or risk her HP trying!

With a battle cry suited for anime, the warrior propelled herself higher and higher into the air! About twenty rows of bones were passed before the blue magic started to take hold again, dragging her down into the twenty-first row. No matter! She positioned her foot so it could land perfectly on a bone.

-1 HP

Only ONE? Papyrus was holding back! Swiftly, she pushed herself back into the air, the extra height allowing her to cover more bones than last time.

Meanwhile, Papyrus was starting to sweat. He wasn't used to summoning this many bones AND holding Undyne up at the same time! But he can't give up and risk disappointing her, or even end this battle prematurely!

So he allowed Undyne to get over the last of the bones. The fish landed in a superhero pose. How cool is that?!

"HUFF... PUFF..."

"Whoa, Papyrus! Tired already?" Her tone was teasing, but Papyrus could tell she was actually concerned about him. But she shouldn't be! He has to prove she shouldn't be!

"JUST AN... ILLUSION, UNDYNE..." Yeah, great cover. He even waved his hands around to give a 'mystical' vibe. As if the underground wasn't already inherently mystical.

Undyne grinned. "Oh, really? Well, if you're trying to get me to go easy on you because you're 'tired', just know that that's not gonna work on me!"

With that, she leapt up once again, releasing the green magic on Papyrus' SOUL. The skeleton didn't even register his freedom at first, though. He was too busy huffing and puffing.

"HUFF... THOUGHT SO... PUFF..."

He only realised he was free when he had to dodge a barrage of spears from above!

"WHOA!!!" And he dodged them flawlessly, with backflips and all! Wow! He didn't even know he could do that!

Apparently neither did Undyne. "Whoa-ho!! That was amazing, Papyrus!"

Ah, yes, he totally meant to do that. "WHY, THANK YOU! I JUST HAVE A NATURAL TALENT FOR THESE THINGS- NYEH!!!" Another spear? Oh, how dirty! Luckily, he dodged that too.

Undyne cackled. Oh, he was going to destroy her! With kindness!

Papyrus leapt straight in. More spears flew towards him. But he wasn't afraid.

"SPECIAL ATTACKS, AT THE READY!!!"

Suddenly, a giant dragon skull was summoned behind him. It looked even bigger than Undyne's house.

FWOOM!

Undyne gaped like the fish she is. "Whaaaaat. No. Way!"

And the battle continued. Two friends darted around the battlefield, throwing their respective bullets!

Blasters! Bones! Cut through the legions and legions of spears and swords like no one's business! Flying high to get more altitude! Holding Undyne up with blue magic so that SHE could have a chance at flying too!

It was beautiful! Papyrus was in his element! Nothing can stop him now!

Except... He's pretty certain he's never tried some of these moves before. But yet, they came so naturally.

Summoning two bones, he slashed and blocked every attack that came his way. Even in the dark, it's like he knew Undyne's attacks off by heart.

Where did that... Wow, Undyne looks... so...

Thorny vines wrapped around her arms and legs, stabbing her in the back, through the chest, with nothing but healing magic to keep her SOUL stable-

Papyrus lost control.

His hands pulsed, flashes of bright blue and a not-so-noticeable orange shining through his thick, red gloves.

Oh no. No no no NO!

Undyne suddenly found herself coated in a strange orange and blue aura, tossed violently into the wall of a cavern.

-0 HP.

His magic didn't stop. Even as Undyne slid down the wall and crashed on the ground, Papyrus couldn't stop himself from summoning more attacks. Bones pierced through the rocks. Blasters fired willy-nilly. The most amount of control he managed to hold onto was the amount of damage he let these attacks do, which was, thankfully, none.

Undyne allowed herself a moment to recover before taking action. She summoned a longsword and laid it flat before stepping on it. It lifted her up to where Papyrus was. The poor guy was still struggling to get his hands under control, wondering why he was even acting like this in the first place. Nothing happened! Why did he get so scared?! It was only sparring!

He felt someone coming up behind him.

"NYAH!!!"

"Ah!" Blue magic, again?!

CRASH! Straight into her house. That's gonna leave a bruise.

It was enough to help Papyrus snap out of it, though! That's a good sign, at least!

"OH NO!!"

The orange and blue faded away as Papyrus lowered himself to the ground. With all signs of active magic ceasing, the world regained its colour. It only left the distraught skeleton to run towards the friend he had just hurt.

"UNDYNE!!! ARE YOU ALRIGHT?! I AM SO SORRY, I DON'T KNOW WHAT CAME OVER ME!! I DON'T KNOW WHY I DID THAT!!! DO YOU WANT ME TO HEAL YOU??? DO YOU HATE ME???"

"Relax, Papyrus..." Undyne groaned, pushing herself up. "I'm fine. No HP loss. You know, you're really good at controlling your magic."

"OH, I... T-THANK YOU." Papyrus giggled sheepishly. He still offered his hand anyway. Undyne took it. "ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE OKAY? I'M REALLY SORRY! PLEASE DON'T HATE ME!"

"Dude, how can I hate you? I know you didn't mean to do it."

Her voice was oddly soft. It made sense, she was trying to soothe him, but Papyrus still felt uncomfortable at the fact that she's trying to be comforting to him at all.

And she seemed to pick up on his discomfort, because her mood switched from soothing to thrilled in the fraction of a second!

"Fuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu! Seriously, though, that was AWESOME! You've got a lot of power hidden within you, don't you, Papyrus?!"

"I-I... Y-YES, I SUPPOSE I... NO, I DO!!! I REALLY DO!!!"

Papyrus puffed out his chest proudly, relieved that Undyne didn't hate him for this.

"Jeez, why don't you use that more often?! What even WAS that?!"

"I... IT'S JUST A THING MY HANDS DO. A-AND IT'S INCREDIBLE!!"

"It really is!!!"

The two friends let out all remaining tension with a laugh. Papyrus had only just noticed Undyne was holding him in a side-hug. How long was she doing that?

"You know, those powers and skills are even higher than the Royal Guards'!"

Did Papyrus hear that right? "REALLY?"

Undyne looked into Papyrus' hopeful eyes. Oh crap, what did she get herself into? "Uhh... Yeah! I mean, with those powers, I think you could reach... even higher!"

What was she saying?! Did she WANT to put this innocent SOUL in danger???

"HMM..." Papyrus thought for a bit. "NOPE! I THINK I'M HAPPY WITH MY FUTURE AS A ROYAL GUARD! NYEH HEH HEH!"

Undyne grimaced. "Great."

Oh, that sweet little beam... What had she done?

--------

There's nothing like relaxing with your best friend on the 'roof' of a dented house that's shaped like a fish. They didn't know how they even got here. Perhaps it was just the need to calm down after that battle.

Papyrus was glad Undyne took his sudden outburst in stride, although that left him to wonder: what the heck happened back there? Everything was fine, wasn't it? Nothing bad happened to even warrant that reaction, so what gives?

He's better off ignoring it. Put the memory in his little mind vault along with all of his other bad memories. But he didn't want to forget the praise Undyne gave him. Just thinking back to it made his SOUL flutter and his eye sockets shimmer.

"How'd you learn how to do that?"

Papyrus blinked. "DO WHAT?"

"How'd you get your hands to glow like that? Is that just something they can do?"

Undyne was lying on her back with her hands behind her head, a similar position to Papyrus, except his hands were on his chest. The skeleton was suddenly very conscious of their position.

"UM... YES. IT'S JUST... SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS, NYEH HEH HEH..."

Undyne's smile dropped slightly. "Is that why you always wear gloves?"

"UHH..." He couldn't look at her. "THEY..."

A pause. She sighed, her smile growing a little wider. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I just thought they were cool. You didn't even tell me you can do something like that! So... Yeah, I was just curious."

"N-NO!! IT'S FINE!! IT'S JUST... SOMETHING I DON'T REALLY LIKE TO TALK ABOUT."

Her smile was replaced with a frown. "Are they associated with something bad?"

"SORT OF..." What can Papyrus do with his hands? He can't hide them, Undyne will just get suspicious! He resorted to keeping them on his chest. "IT'S JUST... I DON'T LIKE TO TALK ABOUT THEM. I CAN'T REMEMBER A LOT OF STUFF INVOLVING THEM."

"Did you always have them?"

Papyrus shook his head. "I CAN'T REMEMBER HOW I GOT THEM. I'M SORRY."

"Hey, don't apologise..." Undyne gave the skeleton a little kick in the shin. Papyrus' eyes widened. That hurt. "You can keep your hands close to your chest if you want. Uhh, so to speak."

Papyrus' mouth twitched upwards as a little amused sound escaped him. He'd like that.

"Can I get something off my chest, though?"

Papyrus nodded. He watched as Undyne let out a breath and relax herself.

"So... There's this... person I really care about."

"ARE YOU CLOSE?"

"Yeah. They're a huge softie, sorta clumsy... and really fun to be around."

A warmth filled the atmosphere around them, although it was dampened when Undyne's soft smile faded.

"But they're also not well. They have these issues and they keep bottling themselves up. Not asking for help from anyone. And I WANT to help, I really do, but... It seems like every time I try, they just kinda push me away."

Papyrus' features softened. This is the most vulnerable Undyne's ever been to him. He dared shuffle a little closer to her.

"It's not fair!!!"

Papyrus flinched as Undyne suddenly pounded the tiles with her boot.

"I keep telling them that I can help them carry whatever they need me to, but every time I try, they just... ARGH!!!"

And then she was kicking and flipping around like the fish she is. Papyrus would have teased her about it in any other circumstance, but now, it was just worrying. He knows she more often than not uses violence as a way to sort out her emotions. But how about a different approach?

He sat up and put a hand on her shoulder. Almost instantly, the flailing stopped, and the skeleton was able to offer her a kind smile.

"KEEP GOING, UNDYNE."

The atmosphere felt warm again. The two friends sat up as Undyne spoke, picking at the tiles that simulated fish scales beneath her.

"So, I'm the Captain of the Royal Guard. You know that."

Papyrus nodded. "AND YOU'RE A VERY GREAT CAPTAIN! I CANNOT THINK OF ANYONE BETTER SUITED FOR THE ROLE THAN YOU!"

"Fuhu, thanks." She gave him a light (pretty hard) punch on the shoulder before continuing. "Being the Captain of the Royal Guard... means taking on a lot of responsibility. I'm responsible for the safety of all monsterkind. Their hopes, their dreams! Ngah, just thinking about all those monsters waiting for salvation to come, I just-"

Whoops. Got too passionate there. But it didn't matter. Papyrus was looking at her in awe, even.

So she didn't hold back. In fact, she got even MORE animated while talking.

"I love my job, you know?! Being able to give monsters HOPE, to serve and protect them, to think about the day the barrier breaks and all those softies get to see the sun for the first time! The smiles on their faces!!! Can you imagine it???"

"I CAN IMAGINE IT VERY CLEARLY!!"

"See?! I knew you'd get it!!" After another light (again, pretty hard) punch, her energy shifted into something more serious. Melancholic, even. She brought her knees to her chest and stared down at the roof as her thoughts came back to this person.

"I know I'm fully capable of protecting monsters, but... Sometimes I worry that I might not be able to protect everyone."

Papyrus tilted his head slightly. "WELL, NO ONE'S EXPECTING ONE PERSON TO PROTECT EVERYONE."

"That's the thing, though. It's not just 'everyone', it's the people I care about most!"

"BUT YOU'RE GREAT AT PROTECTING THE PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT! YOU-"

"Not from themselves, Papyrus!"

Silence. Undyne really got into Papyrus' face, glaring at him with everything she had.

Papyrus didn't know whether to be terrified or not. But he didn't let it show.

"THEMSELVES, UNDYNE?"

She stopped glaring and turned her head back to the roof. "Ugh, it's... fine. I can do this, I know I can do this. I just need to... keep pushing forward."

"WELL, YEAH, BUT..." Papyrus stared at his lap. His hands stared back at him. He tried to ignore them. "I THINK YOU'RE PUTTING A LOT OF PRESSURE ON YOURSELF TO PROTECT EVERYONE, BUT THE TRUTH IS, THAT'S NOT A BURDEN FOR JUST ONE PERSON TO CARRY. IT'S A GROUP EFFORT. THAT'S WHY THERE'S MORE THAN ONE ROYAL GUARD. IT CAN'T BE JUST YOU PROTECTING EVERYONE. AND FURTHERMORE, WITH YOU PROTECTING EVERYONE, WHO'S, YOU KNOW... GOING TO PROTECT YOU?"

A beat.

A snort. She smiled a little.

"Yeah, you're right. I guess I was just caught up in..."

The bullets were moving too fast, the monsters around her quickly turned to dust.

"...I don't know. I've been having these weird premonitions lately."

Papyrus laughed, oddly cynical. "YEAH, HAVEN'T WE ALL?"

He knew why, but was it really worth it to burden Undyne with that knowledge? Maybe he should talk to Sans about it later.

After another moment of awkward silence, Papyrus turned back to her. "SO ABOUT THIS PERSON YOU CARE ABOUT... ARE YOU SCARED YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO PROTECT THEM? FROM THEMSELVES?"

Undyne let out a deep sigh, unfolding herself and staring at the ceiling. The glowing stones look nice.

"Let's just say they're not in the best mental state. Like, I'm worried one day I'm gonna walk in and instead of them, I'm gonna find a pile of dust."

Papyrus blanched.

"...Too much?"

"N-NO. KEEP GOING."

"Right. It's just that I'm sick of seeing them j- deteriorating, you know?! I WANT to help, but I'm no mental health professional! I can't even do much in that regard! I can only be there for them! And you might think that's enough, but it's not! It's not helping them get BETTER! They're keeping these SECRETS! They keep everything to themselves, and they're gonna KEEP keeping it to themselves until it DESTROYS them. THOSE are the kinds of people I'm dealing with, Papyrus! And I love them, I really do! I just wish they'd stop and let me HELP THEM!!!"

Papyrus quietly watched as Undyne struggled to control her breathing. How could breathing be heavy and shallow at the same time?

After a while, she finally let out a small growl under her breath. "I know I'm already doing my best. It's just soul-shattering that even my best efforts aren't enough to stop them from falling, you know?"

Yet another pause.

"I UNDERSTAND."

A snort. "Of course you do."

"YEAH! I MEAN, I FEEL THE SAME WAY ABOUT SOMEONE I CARE ABOUT."

Undyne turned to Papyrus, attentive. He acknowledged it.

"THIS, UM, PERSON AND I... WE'RE LIKE... YOU KNOW THOSE BIRDS THAT CLEAN HIPPOS' TEETH?"

Undyne gave him a strange look before nodding.

"SOMETIMES HE- THEY DON'T WANT TO HAVE THEIR TEETH CLEANED. BUT HI- THEIR BREATH REALLY STINKS AND THEY HAVE PLAQUE AND-"

"You're talking about Sans, aren't you?"

Papyrus made a comically shocked expression.

"Come on, it's very obvious!"

"OKAY! OKAY, OKAY... I DIDN'T WANT TO SAY BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T WANT TO SAY WHO- NEVER MIND. BUT YES! I UNDERSTAND THE FEELING. BUT EVEN THOUGH SOMETIMES HE DOESN'T WANT HIS TEETH CLEANED... THERE ARE TIMES HE DOES! AND YOU KNOW, THAT DOESN'T MEAN OUR RELATIONSHIP ISN'T GOOD, LIKE HOW YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR PERSON IS GREAT, BUT MAYBE THEY DON'T WANT TO HAVE THEIR TEETH CLEANED EITHER! MAYBE THEY DON'T NEED TO HAVE THEIR TEETH CLEANED! MAYBE THEY JUST WANT... COMPANIONSHIP."

"Hm."

"UM... DID I GO TOO FAR WITH THE METAPHOR?"

"Pfft, nah. You are a big sap, though."

She punched him again.

"NYEH!!! OKAY!!! THAT'S... ACTUALLY STARTING TO HURT."

And then she had the gall to laugh! Poor Papyrus, having to rub his shoulder after being punched three times in the same spot! It was only after the third time that it started to bruise. And yet, Undyne was still laughing.

"A sap AND a softie! But seriously, thanks."

"NO PROBLEM... OW."

"Hey, so, we still have some training to do. Wanna get back into it?"

And just like that, the conversation and bruising was forgotten. What replaced it was nothing but joy and excitement.

"DO I?!"

Before Undyne could start, a bone flew past her head. That's what got her to laugh once again.

"Okay, then! You're on!"

Chapter Text

It was another beautiful day in Snowdin. Sure, it was snowing hard outside, but that constitutes as beautiful in a lot of denizens' eyes. To them, it's almost like the underground had actual weather. If only they had the sun to go along with it.

But that didn't matter much for a certain cool dude. Speaking of whom, where is he?

Ah! There he is! Neatly unmaking his bed and getting ready for the day!

"AH, MORNING ALREADY!!! TIME TO START ANOTHER GLORIOUS DAY!!! NYEH HEH HEH!!!"

And thus, The Great Papyrus' morning routine has begun! First was the shower, courtesy of the Schroedinger's bathroom the brothers seem to both own and not own... Wait, that's just what Schroedinger's means, right? Talk about redundancy!

Wait a minute... Have we been here before? No matter, for Papyrus had gotten dressed in a brightly-coloured sunny cropped t-shirt and light blue shorts. The blue was a perfect compliment for his usual scarf and gloves.

Next, of course, was enacting his brilliant skincare routine - complete with MTT products and mayonnaise! Excellent!

Huh. Deja vu again. How strange. Papyrus hoped it wasn't another reset. It would make this routine pretty...

No! No, nothing is pointless! Not even a stagnant existence! Come on! Papyrus knows better than that!

So he shoved the thought of the resets away and marched to his mirror. He stood there admiring his 'muscles' for an ungodly amount of time.

"WOWIE, PAPYRUS! YOU HAVE BEEN WORKING OUT! LOOK AT HOW STRONG YOU LOOK! HOWEVER... HMM..." He can't quite grasp it, but something's missing. He tapped his chin as he tried to figure out what it was.

...

He got it.

"NYEE HA!!!" Papyrus cheered as he whipped out two pairs of tiny sunglasses, and balanced them on his 'biceps'. He flexed once again in the mirror.

"WOWIE!!! DARE I SAY, YOU'VE GOTTEN EVEN STRONGER, PAPYRUS! AND MORE HANDSOME TOO! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!"

His reflection blushed. "AWW, STOP IT, YOU!"

"COME ON, PAPYRUS! YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE!!!"

...And he's talking to himself. No matter! It's time for breakfast!

Barrelling down the stairs (he tripped), Papyrus rolled across the living room and straight into the kitchen.

Bump! Straight into the counter!

"OW." He said, with a smile on his face. He quickly threw himself to his feet, his expression unchanging. "OATMEAL, HERE I COME!!!"

He rummaged through the cupboards until he finally found the box. Wait! Make sure to shake the box to make sure it's 1000% mixed!! And to see how much is left!!

Shake shake shake... Half-full. Perfect!

"INTO THE BOWL YOU GO!!"

As Papyrus lovingly prepared his oatmeal, he caught a glimpse of the calendar nearby. There didn't seem to be enough dates crossed off. Did he forget? What even was the date anyway?

April 10th.

...

"WHAT? IT'S ONLY THE TENTH? NO, THAT CAN'T BE RIGHT." Papyrus squinted, tapping his foot in thought. He didn't realise he was leaning so close to the calendar until his nasal cavity was pressed up against it. "THIS HAS TO BE A MISTAKE, SURELY. I SWEAR IT SHOULD BE MAY BY NOW. OR HECK, EVEN JUNE!"

He pulled himself back and stood up straight, a look of worry etching its way onto his face. "WHAT GIVES...?"

It was so strange. The month's been longer than this, right? But if so, why didn't he recall... Oh.

"ARGH, DEJA VU. PAPYRUS, YOU KNOW YOU CANNOT THINK ABOUT THAT! STOP IT! STOP IT!! STOP IT!!!"

Stop pounding your head first.

"STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!!!"

Stop hitting yourself stop hitting yourself stop hitting yourself-

"ARGH!!!"

Hey, he stopped hitting himself!

"WHATEVER!!!" Papyrus huffed at the disembodied voice he can inexplicably hear. If he could, he would throw the toaster at said voice. Or the microwave. Or anything else the brothers had broken before and had to replace. What's one more replacement, huh?

"SHUT UP!!! UGH, I'M TRYING TO THINK ABOUT THIS DEJA VU! I HAVE THIS STRANGE FEELING SANS AND I WERE SUPPOSED TO BE INVESTIGATING THIS!"

Yeah, well... Yeah.

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND, WHAT'S STOPPING US?"

Perhaps it's because the young skeleton had too much on his mind to think about that and would rather push the very notion of a time loop with no memory retention included away.

"THAT'S... OKAY, THAT'S ACTUALLY A GOOD POINT. OH, WELL!!! I SUPPOSE IT'S NOT WORTH THINKING ABOUT RIGHT NOW!! COME ALONG, DISEMBODIED VOICE!!! IT'S TIME TO RECALIBRATE THE PUZZLES!!!"

This disembodied voice has a name, but it didn't matter. Papyrus marched out the door anyway.

Bonehead.

--------

The day was as close as the underground was ever going to get to sunny. The lights were brighter than usual, and the denizens were up and about, buzzing like bees in a hive.

And Papyrus was proud to be one of those bees. In fact, he set out to be the most diligent bee the hive has ever seen! So his proud march quickly escalated to a jog, then a sprint, straight into the woods where the sacred puzzles were kept.

He spread his arms out as he ran. "NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!"

Little did he know, someone was cautiously watching him from a distance.

About half an hour later...

That's one puzzle complete! Calibration was simple! All he had to do was readjust a little snow. Couldn't let it get into the wiring!

He wiped his forehead despite the lack of sweat. "PHEW!!! ONE DOWN, FOUR MORE TO GO!"

"Hey, nice puzzle, Papyrus!"

"OH, THANK YOU!" Who was that? Papyrus had to look. Silly eyeballs popped out of his head when he saw who it was. "DOGAMY!!! I THOUGHT YOU WERE ON BEREAVEMENT LEAVE!!"

"Oh, uh, yeah. I still am."

"THEN HOW COME YOU'RE WEARING YOUR ROYAL GUARD OUTFIT?"

"Everything else is in the wash. Figured I'd come out here for a change of scenery."

"WELL, THAT'S UNDERSTANDABLE! WOULD YOU LIKE TO TRY ONE OF MY PUZZLES?"

"Haha... Yeah, why not?"

Time flew by as Papyrus and Dogamy played around with the skeletal puzzler's greatest puzzles. Besides that one instance where Dogamy somehow bit his own tail in an effort to complete a simple snowball-pushing puzzle, it went pretty well!

"These are actually pretty clever."

"I KNOW, RIGHT! I TRULY AM A MASTER OF THE CRAFT!"

"And so modest, too." Dogamy teased as Papyrus pulled his signature pose. "Well, I best get going. My wife asked me to pick up a few dog treats."

"OH! O-OF COURSE!" Papyrus' pleased stance faltered and his chest deflated. Of course Dogamy had to leave. "WAIT, YOU'RE NOT SMOKING THEM, ARE YOU?"

Dogamy suddenly burst into barks of laughter as Papyrus watched on in slight worry. It came to an abrupt stop awfully quickly.

"..."

"..."

Well, goodbye, Dogamy! Yup, he just walked away without giving Papyrus a proper answer. Great.

"HM. WELL, I FEEL AS IF I NEED AN EXPERT TESTING THEM ANYWAY. COME ALONG, SA-"

Papyrus began to march to the next puzzle, only to stop dead in his tracks. Where even is Sans? Has he seriously forgotten that his brother wasn't with him? When did that happen?

Now staring at these puzzles felt pointless.

...

"OH, WELL. I SUPPOSE THESE PUZZLES WERE FUN WHILE THEY LASTED." He checked his Schroedinger's watch. "LE GASP!!! I'M GOING TO BE LATE FOR MY TRAINING WITH UNDYNE!!!"

Actually, he's forty minutes early- And he dashed in the completely wrong direction. Great.

--------

The fish mouth opened to reveal...

"UNDYNE!!!"

A skeleton wearing a muscle suit and shaking handmade maracas!!!

"I AM READY FOR OUR DAILY TRAINING SESSION!!!" Shake shake!

Undyne stared at him for a couple seconds before bursting into laughter.

"Alright, you goofball! Come on in!"

Papyrus deflated a little when he saw the spaghetti pot. Suppose there was no battle training today. But then he remembered the alternative, and just like that, he reinflated.

"OOH! ARE WE EXPERIMENTING WITH SPICES LIKE YOU SAID WE WOULD?"

"Fuhuhu, yup! C'mon!!"

The next part was something Papyrus is used to. Undyne grabbed Papyrus by the head and leapt onto the kitchen countertops, kicking everything off. Meanwhile, Papyrus was being held upright, defying the laws of physics like any good trainee would. Once everything was cleared (and on the floor), Undyne carefully placed Papyrus on his feet, then threw herself off the countertops like she was in a wrestling match. She landed like a professional wrestler too, if said professional wrestler was a dinosaur.

"NGAAAAHHHH!!!"

Papyrus' eyes sparkled as he watched the master at work. "WOWIE! YOU ARE REALLY COOL, UNDYNE!"

"Aw, thanks!" And now she was standing like some sort of superhero. Wow, this girl moves fast!

And she didn't stop! In a flash, all the assorted vegetables were on the countertop. Let's skip to the part after they were completely smashed and scraped in a bowl, and where the duo changed into yoga outfits and pretending they were in a yoga class, to provide a calm atmosphere.

"Okay! So, adding spice is a very delicate process. We need to really think about how we're going to go about this."

Papyrus nodded. "YES."

Six bottles of spice were carefully aligned on the counter. "So how do you want to go about this?"

"HMM... DUNK THEM ALL IN AT ONCE?"

"That's the right choice!!!"

Well, so much for the calm atmosphere.

What happened next was chaos. Two friends dunking and tossing as much spice into the sauce as possible, six very contrasting spices! One of which was cinnamon! And another, crushed jalapeños. How did the monsters manage to even get these spices?

It didn't matter, for the sauce was a mess anyway. Undyne even smashed a bottle of tumeric, so the sauce had that beautiful, extra-glassy crunch. Which is the perfect texture for something that's meant to be soft, like spaghetti! Right?!

Speaking of the spaghetti, the pot tipped over and a bunch of overcooked noodles slithered their way out onto the floor and out the door.

Yes, they came to life.

Don't ask how.

Unfortunately, that was the last of the spaghetti, so Undyne and Papyrus had to substitute it for linguine! But even then, they didn't get any far with it, for when Undyne snapped the linguine noodles in half, Papyrus fainted. So they ended up using fusilli instead.

By the end of it, the two hyperactive weirdos have successfully made a mess of broken linguine and fusilli with spicy, glassy sauce slathered all over it. And grated mozzarella on top.

Undyne was so proud of Papyrus! So much so that she didn't even want to TASTE it herself! She just gave him a container to take it home and put it in his museum!!! Oh, Papyrus was so grateful! This will be his pride and joy forever!!!

...Until the next cooking session inevitably tops it.

The proud skeleton paraded through Waterfall with the green translucent container Undyne had given him.

"TAKE A LOOK AT THIS MASTERPIECE, SANS!" Papyrus held it up for the world to see. Truly, the world didn't deserve it. "I LIKE TO CALL IT THE SIX SPICE SURPRISE!! WHAT DO YOU THINK?"

He looked to his side to gauge Sans' reaction. What he got instead was a rock.

Sans didn't pick him up this time.

"OH."

That... That's okay. Papyrus was fine with walking home alone. Really.

It's fine.

--------

"Isn't my Cinnamon Bun just the- Wait. What are you doing?!"

Cinnamon Bun has escaped his leash and is running wild! Although, if one was a tiny baby bunny and a large skeleton suddenly tried to pounce on them, they would squirm out of their leash and run away too.

It wasn't Papyrus' fault! Well, okay, mostly it is. But in his defence, cuteness aggression is one heck of a drug! Especially when combined with the force of a group of little critters, who decided to take this opportunity to bean the two of them with snowballs. And then there was poor Fluffy, helplessly holding the empty leash and forced to watch the whole thing in horror, frozen in shock.

"YOU'RE SUCH A CUTIE PIE!!!" Papyrus continued to bolt after little Cinnamon, who ducked behind one of the children's shelters just in time for the wacky skeleton to pounce, his arms open wide. Where he expected a face full of fluff, he got a face full of snow!

"OOF!!"

The sound of children's laughter was just the cherry on top. With Papyrus out of commission, Cinnamon Bun hopped straight back into Fluffy's arms. The rabbit girl held her little brother close and huffed at Papyrus with indigestion, before sticking her nose up and storming off. And the kids kept laughing.

"Mr. Papyrus, you're so funny!" The mouse kid giggled as his rabbit friend poured a bucket of snow on the aggressor's big, bald head.

Splat. "EEK!!! WET!!!"

The laughter increased as Papyrus suddenly sprung to his feet and shook like a dog. The sound of rattling filled the street. Oh, these kids are going to GET IT.

They didn't even get the chance to calm down before a array of snowballs suddenly flew at them.

"Whoa!"

"Hey!"

"NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!! TAKE THAT!!" Squelch. "NYEH???"

What did he step in?!

Oh, it was a bucket of snow the rock girl carefully placed.

"ARGH!!! HOW COULD YOU?!" Despite his apparent anger, Papyrus was smiling.

The rock girl smiled back, albeit a lot more smug. "It was a trap for the enemy, but you took it for them."

"ENEMY? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ENEMY? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?"

"We're at war!" The mouse kid declared, throwing his arms in the air like he just didn't care.

The rabbit pointed past Papyrus. "With them!"

Papyrus followed the direction of the finger. Four other kids occupied a makeshift snow shelter, almost identical to the one the other kids were in. Seems like this Royal Guard wannabe just got caught in the crossfire.

"SILLY CHILDREN!" Papyrus stood up straight and put his hands on his hips, acting stern. That smile, however, never came off. "DON'T YOU KNOW THAT WAR ISN'T THE WAY TO GO ABOUT THINGS? THAT'S NO WAY TO SETTLE A CONFLICT!"

"Well, what do you suppose we do?" Monster Kid asked, peeking out of the opposing snow shelter.

"YOU NEED TO LEARN HOW TO WORK TOGETHER!" Papyrus declared. "AND TO DO THAT..."

The kids leaned forward in anticipation. What's Papyrus going to say?

Both sides then immediately got destroyed by rapid-fire snowballs. That's what they get for letting their guard down!

This monstrous machine gun cackled in delight as he continued to wreck the poor children. "YOU NEED A COMMON ENEMY!!!"

A snowball hit his teeth. "HEY!!! MY TEETH ARE SENSITIVE!!!"

Now who did that? The kid who was cackling, perhaps?

Ah, the rock girl.

"YOU!!" Papyrus pointed before getting beaned on the back of the head. The kids from the other side! He was surrounded!

"Common enemy!!!" One of the kids roared, rallying the others to roar with him. War has quickly turned to revolution.

The fight lasted through the afternoon, all the children VS Papyrus! And despite being targeted every which way, the trainee held his ground very well!

Until he ran into a giant snowman that the kids set up and pushed over him, burying him under.

"SANS!!!" Papyrus cried. "HELP ME OUT!!! GET THE KIDS!!!"

No response. Does he have to do everything?!

"SAAAAANS!!!" Nothing. "GOSH DARN IT, SANS!!!"

With a punch and some desperate crawling, Papyrus forced his way through the snow. The children were gone, running away in (thrilling) fear of his next move. But he just wasn't ready to destroy those kids again yet. He needed someone on his side. Someone who would always be on his side.

"BROTHER! WHERE ARE YOU?! COME HELP ME WITH THESE CHILDREN!!"

The realisation slowly dawned on him.

"OH, WAIT. YOU WERE NEVER HERE."

It wasn't like Sans to not meet up with Papyrus at least once. Where would he be? At home?

Come on, Sans. It was getting lonely now.

--------

In general, Papyrus understood why his fellow monsters want to see the surface. The surface is amazing. He doesn't remember much, if he had ever seen it. Maybe from books. Or even the visions he has in his head, of tall trees, large jungle leaves and lush, green grass.

He wished he remembered more of his childhood. Why would he have ever blocked it out? All of his childhood memories involved it just being him and Sans. Him and Sans against the world. That's how it's always been, as far as he could remember.

Was the surface ever even involved in his story?

He was getting off-track. The point is, Papyrus understood why monsters want to escape the underground. But here, staring up at these pretty rocks... lying in the blue grass... surrounded by echo flowers... Have they ever taken the time to just appreciate what they have?

He briefly remembered Sans and him exploring it for the first time. How big this place felt. All the smallest details, compounding into this big picture of beauty. A community of love, compassion, and this overall sense of togetherness. Nothing like how it was back there.

As a child, Papyrus had always felt this sense of loneliness. He was always pushed aside and forgotten about. Naturally, he tried all he could to ensure that he was worth paying attention to. Because he is worth attention. He deserves all the love and attention he could possibly get! Sans even told him that, point blank!

It's just... hardly anyone else agreed with them.

At least he's making progress here. He wondered if child Papyrus would be proud of him for getting so close to his goals. It helped that no one really dismissed him here.

Wait... Does that rock formation look like his face?

So it does.

That settles it. Papyrus loves it here. He would even call this place the best thing that ever happened to him, even if getting here was a little hazy... and might have resulted in a few burns.

His hands raised themselves to his chest. His SOULbeat, calm and steady.

Even if he did get burned along the way... At least something good also came out of it, right? He wouldn't be the way he is without his scars. Shouldn't he be grateful for that too?

Perhaps he should ask Sans.

"HEY, SANS, DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT-"

He turned to his side, only to find himself talking to nothing.

Something caught in his font. His teeth clenched, biting back tears.

He needed to sit up for a second. Hug his knees... and think about-

"Yip!"

The oncoming tears disappeared as his bones tensed. He knows the sound of that bark.

He turned to his other side to find the bane of his existence staring at him innocently.

"Bork!"

"DON'T YOU DARE..."

Oh, it dared. It dared hard.

"HEY!!!" His scarf! "GET BACK HERE WITH THAT!!! THAT'S NOT YOURS!!!"

It was no use! The meddling mutt didn't listen! It just scampered away without a care in the world. Well, guess what, CANINE? Papyrus can scamper too!!

And he did!! He looked like a fool, but he did!!

Oddly, the two were just as fast as each other. The dog couldn't get away, but Papyrus couldn't catch up, either. That was until the dog found a neat little hole in the middle of an echo flower field and dived in.

Papyrus flinched. He hates the echo flower field. All those voices as once permeating his mind, overwhelming him with white noise...

But then again, he hates being without his scarf more. So, being resourceful as ever, Papyrus shoved two summoned distal phalanges into his nonexistent ears (it's less creepy than it sounds) and dived in the hole!

...Only to get stuck because no way was he small enough to fit through that! Alas, poor Papyrus! Doomed to flail his legs around for all eternity because his upper body was stuck in the hole! Oh, what a tragedy!

The dog didn't think of it as a tragedy, though. Instead, the happy little pup strutted behind the helpless skeleton, wearing his scarf with pride... and proceeded to try and sniff his butt. Except skeletons don't have butts, so he couldn't get anything besides bones and the distinct smell of mayonnaise and lavender soap. An odd combination.

Papyrus, who could feel that adorable little dog nose sniffing around his legs, froze. His legs hung high in the air. Oh heck no. He has to do something about this immediately!

That's it. If he was going to get pursued by a dog, then he might as well take on a dog's skills.

Using nothing but his hands and the power of cartoon physics, Papyrus drilled through the dirt and made a wide enough space for him to tunnel. He dug and dug until he managed to burst out behind the little white canine's back! This is it!! His moment!!!

"AHA!!" Papyrus reached his arms outwards, ready to grab this pestilent punk of a pup!

Only for it to play his own game and dig beneath him. The dog did the exact same thing, digging under where Papyrus was and popping out behind him.

Papyrus was fuming. Fine. If that's how the dog wants to play, then he'll play!

He did the exact same thing again. Then the dog did it. Then Papyrus did it. Then the dog did it. A reverse game of leapfrog, or, rather, digdog.

This game could have lasted forever, except- Wait, there's a cliff. Papyrus. There's a cliff. Papyrus. Don't dig. There's a CLIFF-

He dug and burst out the cliff. Did he even know he wasn't on solid ground anymore? He glared at the dog's back like it committed the worst crime ever, all while sat on his coccyx in mid-air.

One glance below him and it would be all over.

The dog turned around and barked again.

"DON'T GIVE ME THAT LIP!" Papyrus stood up, again, in mid-air. "I'LL TEACH YOU FOR STEALING MY-"

Wait. Oh, he finally noticed. Don't look down!

And he looked down. Great.

He needs to kick his legs, hE NEEDS TO- And he fell. Rest in bones, Papyrus. He was quite the skeleton.

Oh, never mind.

"STUPID RASSIN FRASSIN SHAFFLE BAFFLE DOG." He stormed to the top of the cliff on an invisible spiral staircase. Each step would have created a loud thud if the staircase was real. He continued to grumble his way to the top, only to find that he has to climb over an invisible fence to get to solid ground.

An invisible fence that he put.

Didn't matter. He kicked down the fence and made it to solid ground anyway. And there was the dog, patiently waiting for him, still wearing his scarf.

"HEY!!!"

And the chase was back on! The rivals chased each other through Waterfall, from the echo flower fields to riding the waves of the river. The River Person approved of their inexplicable surfing skills.

Eventually, the duo found themselves face to face with a wall of little rabbit holes. The gateway to an old village long forgotten, way before New Home was even established.

The site of Waterfall's first cave-in.

This is a piece of history! Could they really defile it for a stupid scarf chase?

The answer is yes. Yes, they could. But did they want to?

Papyrus surely didn't. But the pup? It was already ducking and diving through the holes!

"HEY! NO!!! DON'T!!" That poor skeleton. He wasn't even angry anymore, just terrified. That dog could run this monument of history!

He needed to act fast.

"OOH!" Eureka! "SANS, GRAB ONTO MY HA-" Oh. Oh, wait. He needed another idea.

The dog leaped out while Papyrus was thinking.

"OOF!!!" And landed on the goober's head! "OWW..."

What is he doing, rubbing his head and neck like that? The dog is right there! GRAB IT!

"AHA!!!" Yes yes yes!!! All he needed to do was reach out his arms and-

WHIIRRRRRRRRRR.

Papyrus couldn't comprehend what just happened. One second, he was about to grab the pooch, and the next, he was tied up in his own scarf! And the dog got away.

He collapsed to the floor in a mix of victory and defeat.

"SAAAAANS!!!" Papyrus whined into the dirt. "I KNOW YOU'RE NOT HERE, BUT I KNOW YOU CAN FEEL ME!! A DOG TIED ME UP IN MY OWN SCARF!!!"

Was his SOUL sending signals to Sans'? He needed to double check.

...

Yup, it was. Was he getting signals back?

...

Was... Was Sans' SOUL laughing at him?!

"OH HA HA HA HA HA. VERY FUNNY."

And with that, Papyrus proceeded to sulk for the next 14 minutes. On the ground. Alone.

Still all alone.

--------

Pyjamas? Check.

Light at the perfect setting? Check.

Adorable skeleton waiting politely in bed for his brother to come? Checkaleckadingdong.

Papyrus wanted to make a real effort to smile for if Sans came up. If. But, Sans will come up, right? Sure, he hasn't seen a trace of him all day, and Papyrus was a little jittery from whatever that could mean, but he's certain it's for a good reason. Sans never not had a reason to not see Papyrus. And he knew Sans loves seeing him about as much as Papyrus loves seeing Sans, if not more so. He wouldn't skip an opportunity to be with his brother, right?

Right. That's what Papyrus told himself. Sans never forgot to tell him a bedtime story. Never.

Ever.

Sans will show up.

Sans will show up.

He will.

He'll show.

He always does.

Sans has to show up.

Papyrus had no idea he was gripping the blanket so tightly until the door clicked open. The relief was palpable.

There he is... Covered in gunk and muck, with dark shadows under his sockets and...

Papyrus squinted. Was that his lab coat?

Doesn't matter. The taller twin was furious. Was he?

"SANS!!! WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?!?! I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU ALL DAY!!!"

Sans yawned as he stumbled over to the bookshelf. His eye sockets were only half-open. "sorry, bro. guess i've gotten so caught up in working myself to the bone-"

"WORK? WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON?"

Sans lost his flow. "uh, stuff?"

Papyrus squinted. "WHAT KIND OF STUFF?"

"science stuff."

"WHAT KIND OF SCIENCE STUFF?"

"physics."

"WHAT KIND OF PHYSICS?"

"just physics." Sans quickly snatched a random book from the shelf, trying to act natural.

The skeptical brother kept his eye sockets on the suspect as the latter tentatively edged his way to the bedside.

"WHY ARE YOU WEARING HIS COAT? DOESN'T IT GET IN THE WAY?"

"uh, it's... it's more of a memorial thing."

It could have been the words that made Papyrus' face soften, or the way his body curled up on itself, or how he was hiding his face behind the book, or the way his voice softened with a sincere sadness. But it was enough for Papyrus to let it go.

"VERY WELL!"

Sans heard a slight shuffling. Papyrus was making room for him?

"JUST MAKE SURE YOU TAKE IT OFF BEFORE YOU GET IN HERE, PLEASE! IT'S COMPLETELY STAINED!"

The smaller brother nodded. "yeah, ok."

And just like that, the coat was on the floor, neatly half-folded. Sans shuffled into bed in his old grey sweater and sweatpants. A matching set. The book came along with him.

"SERIOUSLY, SANS. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Sans tensed again. "just, y'know, science stuff."

"...RIGHT."

After an awkward silence, the story had begun. A story of two children trying to make their way in the world after their only true parental figure disappeared. A tale of tricks, trials and troubles, but somehow, despite of all that, it didn't feel tragic. Because those two kids always have each other. And when they're by each other's side, they can do anything.

Papyrus loves this story. Not as much as Fluffy Bunny or his puzzle manuals, but it was definitely in the top 10, maybe even top 5. He could listen to Sans reading it all night if it was possible.

However, it wasn't possible tonight. Sans was clearly tired. He struggled to make it halfway through before his eye sockets slipped shut. He guessed that was good. After all, what else were these storytime sessions for?

Sans managed to get two thirds of the way through before he fell asleep for good. It helped that Papyrus pretended to sleep too. But as soon as he heard that snore, Papyrus reached over and plucked the book from Sans' hands, and set it gently at the end of the bed.

It felt really peaceful tonight. Perhaps watching Sans sleep contributed to that peace.

It would be even better if Papyrus held him close. He had time, right?

Yeah, he did. So he held him close. One arm slipped gently under his ribcage and spine, the other rested across his sternum.

Papyrus pulled him closer. Sans tilted to the side slightly as he was brought up to the taller's chest.

Yeah. That's better.

That's better.

Chapter Text

Darkness. Papyrus found himself in unforgiving darkness.

But it wasn't just any darkness.

This was the deepest, blackest darkness Papyrus could ever conceive. So dark, one would think he found himself in another world entirely, with creatures so similar and yet so different to him.

But he knows those stories. Stories that didn't exist anywhere but the world he came from. And even then, they were just that. Stories. Fiction. Fairy tales. They weren't real.

Were they?

Papyrus heard a loud click from behind him. Blinding light attacked his back, so bright it could burn his eye sockets if he dared to look at it.

Nonetheless, he felt compelled to turn around to see the source.

The source was a simple spotlight. But it wasn't shining on him, as much as he'd like it to.

No. It was shining on his brother, still clad in that stained lab coat. It was so big on him, the ends reached out far beyond his feet. It looked more like a gown or a cape than a lab coat. Sans swam in the thing. Speaking of Sans, he had his back turned to his brother. He looked strange, somewhat... determined.

If Papyrus examined himself and Sans even closer, he would've noticed that the two of them were in their teenage bodies.

"SANS..." Papyrus squinted and shielded his eye sockets at first, but they quickly adjusted to the bright light as he stepped closer. "WHAT'S GOING ON? WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?"

He waited a few seconds to answer. "go back."

Papyrus scowled. "NO."

"we have to-"

"WE CANNOT GO BACK, SANS! COME ON! I THOUGHT WE WERE OVER THIS!"

"this isn't where we're supposed to be. we're supposed to-"

"YOU'RE NOT EVEN TRYING TO LISTEN TO ME!! WE'RE NOT GOING BACK, WE CAN'T!!!"

With so much room around them, one would think Papyrus' shouting had an echo. But for some reason, it didn't.

"w-w-w-we go-o-ott-a go-"

"NO!!" Clenching his fists tightly, Papyrus stormed towards his brother and reached out for the lab coat. "YOU KNOW TRYING TO GO BACK ONLY DESTROYED HIM! I AM NOT LETTING THE SAME THING HAPPEN TO YOU!!!"

He successfully reached it. With a stubborn emphasis on that final word, Papyrus yanked the lab coat off of Sans. It came off surprisingly easily. As he let it go, it flew away into the distant void.

Sans, now in his grey hoodie and black basketball shorts, kept his back to his brother. The spotlight remained.

Papyrus had to regain his bearings. He didn't know why snatching that took a lot out of him. He didn't know why he was trying to catch his breath. But he did know why he was still glaring at the back of his brother's head.

"HUFF... THAT IS NOT OUR HOME ANYMORE."

Static. That was it, the sound of static. Sans' only response.

"CAN YOU AT LEAST LOOK AT ME?"

Frustrated, Papyrus grabbed Sans' shoulder and swiveled him around.

He wished he didn't.

Static. Sans' face was literal static. The static one would find on a television screen. No other features, just static.

All signs of anger were quickly replaced with fear. "HUH?"

Sans' voice came out wrong. "not safe here. must go back."

"N-NO!! WE CAN'T!! WE HAVE TO-"

Sans melted. Melted into a thick, black blob. His body, his clothes were washed away and fused into the gunk. Only his head and 'face' remained.

What was that behind him?

Ah. Seems like someone else wanted to join.

Papyrus stared up at this thick black blob. It grew taller and taller, thicker and thicker. The spotlight flickered and dimmed.

"W-WAIT!! NO, DON'T GO!!!"

With a desperate leap, Papyrus grabbed onto whatever's left of his brother and held on tight, even as the black blob grew larger and thicker.

"P-PLEASE!!! I'M SORRY! I-I-I UNDERSTAND WHY YOU WANT TO GO BACK!! I'LL HELP YOU HOWEVER I CAN, JUST PLEASE!!! DON'T LEAVE ME!!!"

He tried to pull Sans out of the mess but it was no use. The void began to surround the terrified teenager, eventually crawling up his legs and dragging him in. The teen didn't pay attention to any of it, however. He was too focused on getting his melted brother out. Sadly, Sans was too far gone.

His pleas became desperate shrieks. "PLEASE!!! YOU'RE ALL I HAVE LEFT, YOU'RE ALL I HAVE FROM THAT WORLD!!! WE'RE SUPPOSED TO STICK T0GETH3R, PLEA53!!!"

The void fully consumed them all.

"D0N'T G0!!!"

--------

Papyrus launched out of bed with a terrified squeal. Literally. He bounced off every wall like a ping-pong ball and ended up on the opposite side of the room, face planted in the carpet.

He looked like a dead fish, laying there like that. It's a good thing he groaned, otherwise if someone walked in, they wouldn't be able to tell if he was alive or not.

After a minute or so of groaning and rubbing his poor, sore body, the energetic skeleton sat up and snapped his bones into place.

"THAT WAS A BAD ONE." He rubbed his eye sockets, the memory of the dream already fading away. That's good, at least.

Creak creak creak

Papyrus rolled his shoulders and scowled to himself. "THIS IS RIDICULOUS. NINETEEN YEARS OLD AND ALREADY GETTING CREAKY SHOULDERS. HOW DO ADULTS DO IT?"

Zip zap zoople

"OH, AND WHAT? MY BODY'S ON FIRE TOO?! THE LACK OF NERVES!!!"

Very obvious construction noises

"WAIT... THAT'S NOT MY BODY." No kidding! The sound was coming from outside. It was best for Papyrus to investigate.

...

It's best for Papyrus to-

"OH MY, WHAT IS HAPPENING?"

Who knows? Perhaps it would be best for the wonderful skeleton to GO LOOK.

"SOUNDS LIKE CONSTRUCTION!!!"

No. Kidding. GO. LOOK.

"I SHOULD PROBABLY INVESTIGATE!!!"

YES.

"AFTER MY MORNING RITUAL!"

Ritual? Is he...

Papyrus left like nothing's wrong.

...

So, anyway, if Papyrus finds "how to strangle a skeleton" in his search history, rest assured, Sans did it. There are no other parties that could have done it. It was Sans. in all lowercase and everything. is that clear?

it was sans.

--------

After a billion, trillion years, Papyrus FINALLY investigated the grating and disturbing construction sounds. Naturally, they were coming from the workshop.

Treading down the stairs, the young skeleton almost flinched at a particularly loud clang. It elicited an urgency that he somehow didn't have before. It's about time!

He jiggled the doorknob.

Click. It was unlocked.

For once, Sans didn't lock it. Great!

Papyrus stepped inside and...

"OH... MY GOD."

The place was a mess. Blueprints, papers, tools and other junk were scattered everywhere. It was difficult to tell what's what, which parts Sans was using, which ones he had to throw away... And not to mention the coloured stains! Papyrus found himself freezing at the sight of them, the blue and orange ones in particular.

His mind tried to remember something, but he pushed it down by shaking his head vigorously. Focus. Sans was working inside the machine. It was covered with this purple sheet, but Papyrus could just about see Sans' slipper sticking out.

He put on a brave scowl. "SANS!!"

"!" Sans disappeared! What th- Oh, never mind, he's on the table. Poised like a scared cat, with mania in his eyes.

"papyrus!" His voice rasped.

Papyrus' scowl softened slightly. Sans looked terrible. His bones were greyed out, as were his fuzzy eyelights. Deep, dark bags lined under his widened sockets, and his grin was too strained for comfort.

And that sound, that oh-so-familiar sound! It made Papyrus' hands tightened into fists. Sans was rattling.

"B-BROTHER..." He glanced at the machine, fear beginning to grip his soul. But he refused to let it show. "WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?"

"what-are-you-up-to."

That was too fast. So deadpan, yet so fast. Papyrus' face tightened.

"I HEARD NOISE, SO I HAD TO CHECK. WHAT IS THIS?!"

"this?" Sans jumped off the table. Literally. He leapt off and landed in a pile of paper, looking through everything at lightning speed. Papyrus knows Sans can slow down time and speed himself up, but he couldn't tell if he was using this ability now, or if he really was moving that fast. He was a blur around the room. And his speech wasn't any slower.

"i-found-some-old-blueprints-and-revised-them-though-i-gotta-admit-i-did-procrastinate-a-bit-you-know-me-anyway-so-i-found-that-metal-you-know-the-type-of-metal-that's-infused-with-these-weird-essences-that's-why-they're-here-they-were-turned-into-batteries-but-turns-out-we-can't-replace-'em-cuz"

"WHOA WHOA, SLOW DOWN!!!" Papyrus held his hands up to no avail. Sans was too busy going over every little detail.

"there's-no-equivalent-the-closest-we-got-are-the-human-souls-but-remember-those-essence-batteries-went-into-us-so-maybe"

"SANS, I SWEAR TO THE DELTA RUNE, SLOW DOWN!!!"

"if-we-could-find-traces-of-his-magic-somewhere-maybe-in-the-CORE-or-in-its-secret-room-"

"SANS!!!!!"

Papyrus' scream sent Sans into sensory shock. He looked so much smaller, covering his nonexistent ears. The taller skeleton immediately felt awful.

"OH, WHOOPS. I'M SORRY! I DIDN'T MEAN TO-" Focus. "HOW LONG WERE YOU TRYING TO FIX THIS THING?"

Sans slowly uncovered his ears, his speech slow and quiet. "since... since we moved."

"EXCUSE ME?"

And back to being a motormouth. "i've-been-working-on-this-since-we-moved-to-snowdin-mainly-on-the-theory-bit-and-remember-i-procrastinated-i-only-started-rebuilding-this-machine-recently."

"BREATHE!"

Sans caught his breath. "i-dunno-how-long-it's-been-though-what-day-is-it?"

Papyrus answered slowly. "MONDAY. YOU'VE REALLY BEEN WORKING ON THIS FOR ALL THAT TIME?"

Sans nodded, a little too happy with himself.

Papyrus, on the other hand, was not so happy. In fact, his entire being was in a state of pure horror. "WHY?! DON'T YOU REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM?! HE TRIED TO FIX THE MACHINE, AND THEN HE DIED."

"we don't know how he died." Sans grumbled, sitting still with his arms crossed. What is he, a pouty toddler? "besides, in a way, isn't this his legacy? finishing what he started?"

The taller brother couldn't believe his nonexistent ears. Is Sans really being serious, or was he just...

Oh, was he joking? He's got to be joking. There's no way Sans could ever actually go through with something like this! Of course! Well, if Sans was going to go this far for a joke, Papyrus can play along!

Sarcasm seeped into his tone. "NYEH HEH HEH, WOW!! HIS LEGACY, THAT'S A GOOD ONE!! YES, I'M SURE HE WOULD LOVE TO PUT YOU IN DANGER!!! OH, AND WHILE YOU'RE AT IT, YOU COULD TAKE US BACK TO OUR ORIGINAL WORLD, BECAUSE SURELY THERE'S STILL A PLACE FOR US THERE!!"

"oh, that's exactly what i'm doing!" Sans beamed brightly.

Papyrus' sarcastic smile plummeted. "WHAT."

That look... He couldn't quite read it, but there were stars in Sans' eyes. Oh god. He wasn't joking, was he?

He has to rectify this. NOW.

He waved his hands around. "W-WAIT, I WAS ONLY JOKING!!!"

"oh, really? i'm not." Sans winked.

"Y-YOU... NO, YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS. YOU CAN'T, YOU MUSTN'T-"

"must, papyrus." And he's back on the rambling and pacing and fidgeting with random objects with the most manic expression Papyrus had ever seen. "you know what's going on, don't you? this world ain't real, it never was. it's not even safe. there's gonna be a point where all of this is gonna reset, and who knows what's gonna happen in the next timeline? whoever's in control of this... they can do whatever they want to us, and who's gonna stop 'em? so i figured, the best way of avoiding any worst case scenarios is to go back to a place that's real. somewhere that can't harm us with timelines or potential worst endings."

As Sans rambled, Papyrus grew more and more unsteady, shaking his head in disbelief. "W-WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE HERE? ARE THEY NOT REAL TO YOU?!"

"beats me. but if it makes you happy, we can take 'em with us, no biggie."

"BUT THEN YOU'LL BE TAKING THEM AWAY FROM THEIR HOME!!"

"a home that's bound by the rules of a stupid video game. trust me, ours is much better."

"BUT WHAT IF IT ISN'T? WHAT IF-"

Sans laughed bitterly. "jeez, we switched roles or somethin'? at least i'm TRYIN' to do something about it. what are you doing?"

Papyrus flinched. He needs his resolve. "SANS, I KNOW YOU'RE TRYING TO DO WHAT'S BEST FOR US, BUT THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO GO ABOUT IT!! WEREN'T YOU HAPPY HERE BEFORE ALL OF THIS?!"

Something shifted in the air. Sans' eye twitched as he failed to keep his temper in check.

"oh my god! and how do you suppose i go about it, then, huh?! just let this anomaly thing do whatever it wants and live in denial?!"

Papyrus softened a little at Sans' change in mood. His SOUL must have detected something... wrong with Sans' SOUL. Something about this wasn't right. Sans exploding and going off the rails wasn't right!

"all i'm trying to do is get him back and get outta here, is that so wrong?! and sure, i was happy! for a bit! i thought this could be my home. i thought this could be OUR home, but let's face it! it's all just a lie!"

Unexpected bones shot out of the wall opposite to the table. Papyrus flinched at the sight of them. They weren't properly aligned, or even perfectly straight.

He heard heavy breathing. His eyes darted from the bones to Sans himself, who was clutching his chest and panting heavily. He sported a look of rage and... pain...

What is a brother to do? He's not getting anywhere like this. He needs help. Desperately.

Sans growled. "what are you looking at?"

"I-"

"never mind. i'm gonna keep doing this. no matter how ungrateful you are about it."

And like that, he was back to work, like nothing ever happened. Well, then.

Sighing, Papyrus backed away. "FINE. BUT I'M NOT AGREEING WITH THIS."

He left.

"AND I WON'T FORGET EITHER."

Chapter Text

What time is it?

Ah. 1 PM. Yeah, that makes sense. Only the biggest of failures wake up at that time. And Alphys was the biggest failure of them all.

Still, she has to drag her butt out of bed sometime, right? She can't lie around like a clump of dirt, even if that was the equivalent to her overall worth.

It didn't stop her from letting out a loud groan as she forced herself out of bed. Her body creaked from the effort.

She hated this. She only just got up to brush her teeth, and already she felt like collapsing.

Wow. How pathetic is she? She can't even get out of bed without complaining like a normal person. She was never a normal person. She didn't even have the right to call herself a person after what she done.

She looked in the mirror. God, she looks awful. It's probably the dark rings under her eyes, and the fact that she hasn't been keeping up with her skincare since... Well, since forever, really.

She's completely unlovable like this. Whatever. After she brushed her teeth, she made do with splashing her face with water. It's the best she can do.

Her best isn't good enough.

Getting dressed. It's getting increasingly difficult to find clothes she actually looks good in. It doesn't matter, anyway. It's not like she was planning on going out.

When was the last time she did laundry? Ah, whatever. She just grabbed the cleanest clothes she could find and threw them on.

She stared at the mountain of dirty clothes before her. Maybe she could get Mettaton to help her with the laundry?

...

No, don't be stupid, Alphys. Mettaton's far too busy to help someone so insignificant. He doesn't even want to be near her. He's embarrassed by her.

She needed breakfast.

Before she got to the escalator, she caught herself in the mirror once more.

"...Haha." She laughed mirthlessly, taking in every ugly feature. "You look terrible. Why are you even alive?"

Her smile dropped. That's a good question. Why is she alive?

...

Reading Alphys' thoughts is getting depressing.

The escalator took her down as slowly as her life is going. She then grabbed a science textbook from her desk, wandered into the living space just off the main room, and sank into the sofa with said textbook on her lap.

If she was going to be a bum all day, she might as well feel like she's getting some work done, right?

She stared at the textbook for a few seconds.

"..."

Before the TV turned on. Whatever. Science can wait, she supposed. Her comfort show is on.

Look at those cute little characters, learning about friendship.

Yeah. That brings a smile to her face. For a moment, nothing else mattered. She could just sit here, surrounded by fluffy blankets, and dive into the antics of her favourite cat girl and her friends-

Ring ring...

Alphys' eyes widened and her heart started to pound. No. Not now.

She looked over at the coffee table, where she left her phone to charge last night.

Ring ring...

She's panicking, why is she panicking? No one panics when their phone rings, come on! Unless...

Ring ring...

Unless the person ringing her is an angry family member wanting to know what happened to one of her kin! Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god! What is she gonna do?! What is she gonna say?! How is she-

It went to voicemail.

Alphys deflated. "Phew..."

Ring ring...

And reinflated. "Eek!"

They must be really angry! Oh jeez! Oh dear! What is she gonna tell them?! Should she write a script?! She needs more time! She should have done that ages ago! What is she gonna do?! Just say she's sorry?! They're not gonna forgive her!!!

It stopped.

...

Ring ring...

Screw it! If they want to yell at her, they can! She deserved it, anyway!

Shaking violently, Alphys crawled across the sofa and plucked her phone off the charging cable.

That's when she looked at the Caller ID.

Sans.

...

OH THANK GOD.

Heaving out a sigh of relief, Alphys suddenly felt more comfortable picking up. "Hello?"

"I'm coming over."

Alphys almost dropped the phone. "W-What? N-Now? B-But I haven't cleaned up y-yet! I don't know if-"

"I'm not asking."

Click!

Alphys stared at her phone like it betrayed her. What was that about?

Was that really Sans? He didn't sound like he usually does. Did he...

She had no choice but to wait and see.

--------

Ten minutes of trying to ignore anxiety later, a hard, determined knock could be heard. Alphys' hands shook as she answered it, trying not to swim in her thoughts.

There he was.

...

Wow, he's even more of a mess than usual. Alphys immediately clocked his greyed bones, deep eyebags and uneven eyelights. One glowed brighter than the other. His smile was incredibly strained, like it was struggling to keep itself upright. And not to mention his stained, ruffled clothes and... Did his body change shape too? Alphys swore he was pudgier than this. The magic aura that gave him that pudgy look, particularly around his lower spine, was gone. He really did just look like a dead guy walking, as opposed to the cute and cuddly vibe he had before.

Alphys made an effort to laugh. "Wow, Sans... Y-You don't look like you've been taking care of yourself. You should probably change that, ha. You don't wanna, um, look like me."

Was that supposed to be an attempt at banter? Either way, Sans didn't notice it. Instead, he shoved Alphys to the side, letting himself in.

"alphys-i-need-your-help. now."

Did a switch flip in his brain?! What's going on? "Uhh, w-what did you say?"

The little lizard gawked at the undead monster pacing back and forth through her messy lab. He blended right into the surroundings. Almost.

"so-remember-when-we-first-met-i-was-actually-getting-scraps-for-this-project-i-was-working-on-but-then-i-procrastinated-and-maybe-stopped-for-a-bit-cuz-i-thought-i-could-be-happy-here-but-i-can't-be-happy-here-cuz-somethin's-goin'-on-that-i-can't-tell-you-about-but-anyway-it-sucks-and-i-want-out-and-i-wanna-get-papyrus-out-and-there's-someone-else-i-wanna-get-back-and-there's-this-"

"Sans, please! Slow down!"

"machine-i-wanna-fix-but-i-can't-do-it-on-my-own-so-i-figured-that-y'know-since-you're-good-with-mechanics-and-stuff-maybe-you-could-help-me-i-mean-you-are-really-good-so-"

"Sans!"

"i'm-sure-you-can-help-right?"

Alphys managed to grip onto Sans' shoulders. "SANS!"

Silence. Sans blinked as he read Alphys' terrified expression.

His smile grew past his eyes as his voice softened. Though the tone was... Well, it was a little off.

"hey, don't be scared, pal... i'll take you with me."

"What."

"i'll take asgore too..." He wriggled his bonebrows. "if you really want me to."

Alphys blushed furiously. "Sans, what are you talking about?!"

Just then, the duo heard the unmistakable sound of a door opening. In came... Huh. For once, Mettaton didn't make a grand entrance. He just walked in like a normal person.

...

That's the most messed up part about this.

"OH, ALPHYS! IT'S TIME FOR MY OIL CHANGE!" The robot paused to read the room for once in his life. Once he saw what's going on, he gasped.

"LE GASP!" Not like that. "DO MY EYES DECEIVE ME?!" He doesn't have eyes. "DRAMA IN MY LAB?" It's not his lab, either.

Mettaton wished he brought popcorn to this. But oh nooooo, looks like he has to go without! What a shame!

Instead, he posed dramatically, putting his hand to his forehead and imitating a fainting diva. Or just a faint. He's already a diva.

"A DRAMATIC FIGHT BETWEEN FRIENDS! HOWEVER WILL THIS END? WILL IT BREAK YOUR BOND FOREVER?"

Sans practically pounced at the metal robot. "metal!"

"WHOA, DARLING! THIS IS NOT A MEET-AND-GREET." He easily pushed Sans off. "IF YOU WANTED AN AUTOGRAPH, YOU COULD HAVE JUST ASKED. ALTHOUGH I AM SURPRISED SOMEONE LIKE YOU HAS TASTE, DESPITE..." He gestured to Sans'... everything. "THAT."

"i'm not a fan. i just need metal. and maybe some gears, and a substitute for- hey, al, have you ever heard of a marrow gem?"

"A-A... what?"

"DARLING. DARLING, PLEASE." Mettaton easily picked the manic skeleton up by the scruff. "THIS IS ME IN DIRECTOR MODE, OKAY? LET'S TAKE IT FROM THE TOP, BUT THIS TIME, SLOW DOWN WHEN YOU'RE SAYING YOUR LINES. ALRIGHT?"

Being picked up by the scruff seemed to have a positive effect on Sans' sanity meter. He blinked like he just rediscovered the world.

"wh- yeah. heh. sorry. i dunno what's happenin' to me."

"It's... fine."

No, it wasn't. Sans wasn't fine. He was staring at the ground, folding his arms over his chest.

"THIS IS GETTING BORING, DARLINGS." Mettaton sighed, checking his 'nails'. "SANS, YOU BETTER HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL."

"oh, uh, right." He chuckled sheepishly, before turning to Alphys. His demeanour was a lot more like him now. "long story short, i got this machine i wanna get fixed. good news is, i got the foundations done, but i still have some little tidbits i gotta fix for it to work. so i was wondering if you had any spare supplies or whatever."

"Um... Yeah, I think I have what you need..." Alphys fidgeted with her shirt. "What do you need, exactly?"

"oh, uh, some gears, a power source or two... need a substitute for 'em, actually. i don't think i can get the ones that were used before."

Alphys nodded. "Do you need help with, um... b-building?"

Sans shifted awkwardly. "after that entrance? you don't have to."

"Sans, I can tell it's stressing you out." She tentatively placed a claw on his shoulder. "I want to help."

His smile grew a little. Wow, Alphys is cool. He's lucky to have a friend like her, real or not.

"thanks."

"YAWN! WELL, I CAN SEE THERE'S NO DRAMA HAPPENING HERE ANYMORE, SO I'M GONE! TOODLES!"

Oh, right, Mettaton's here. Or at least, he was. He only managed to wheel out the door before falling flat on his front and spilling oil everywhere.

"OH, RIGHT. MY OIL CHANGE."

Sans and Alphys watched this from afar.

"...I should probably-"

"do that first."

--------

The workshop is a lot brighter than Alphys expected. She almost blinded herself walking in.

"watch out for the spanner."

Good call, Alphys almost stepped on that. She was too busy rubbing her eyes. Sans gave her time to adjust to the light, only so she could get a good look at the machine.

The machine was a steel box, at least on the outside. Chunks of steel were discoloured compared to the tint of brown it had, with the new bits of shiny, silver steel sticking out like a sore thumb. Inside was an elevator-sized room with various computers and dials, with an open panel of which its area was surrounded by stains of six colours. Six colours she was all too familiar with.

She peered down the panel at the wiring. It was pretty much busted, although most of the gears looked new.

Alphys knows Sans is no engineer, at least, not at heart. He always bragged about how Papyrus was the fix-it guy out of the two of them. Though she also knows Sans has a tendency to underestimate his own abilities. He really didn't do as bad a job as she was expecting. Still pretty amateurish, but overall, fairly functional.

Not bad.

"what was that?"

And Alphys' face exploded. "S-Sorry, I was just talking to myself. So, um... W-What's this... here?"

"oh, that?" He wandered over and peered at the battery holder. Surrounded by wires, sitting comfortably in the middle. Once full of broken glass, now cleared out, the only evidence of anything wrong with them remained as stains of colour.

"that's the main power source. they were batteries that allowed the machine to do, uh... what it did. provided it with the magic necessary."

"So, you want to replace them?"

"sorta. the thing is, whatever they were can't be replaced. they were one of a kind. that's why we need to get a sub."

"R-Right." Alphys watched Sans pace around. "Well, um... do you have anything left of it? If I can get a sample, I can do some research a-and, um, f-find a suitable power supply."

"uhh... i guess i could try. maybe in the stains?"

Alphys frowned. It was hard seeing Sans so... serious. "Where did it go?"

The pacing stopped.

His eyelights disappeared as the young skeleton fell into some sort of trance. Two hands subconsciously raised themselves. The right, clutching onto his shirt, just over his sternum. The left, tugging on his left eye socket.

All Alphys had to do was get one good look at Sans to realise what her question had done. What is she going to do?! Was Sans even conscious?! Why is he pulling on his eye socket?

Speaking of his eye socket, it started to flicker with some sort of light. Like it was trying to ignite, but Sans' tiny fingers wouldn't allow it to. If she could get a closer look...

Sans snapped out of it as soon as Alphys took a step. Turning his back to her, he gave a nonchalant shrug.

"who knows? all i know is they're gone."

Alphys can't believe that. She gave the evasive monster a suspicious squint.

"Right... Well, um... If I can't get a sample, then I don't know what to do. How about we, um, go back to my lab for some hypothesising? I know you're good at that."

Sans' response was more enthusiastic than she expected. "hey, sounds great!"

"...Ok."

--------

Montage montage montage SCIENCE montage montage montage SCIENCE montage montage montage montage montage montage montage montage montage hey guess what SCIENCE

Montage montage gotta see Papyrus montage montage montage he doesn't look happy montage montage montage montage montage montage montage MORE SCIENCE

Montage montage montage Mettaton montage METTATON GET OUT montage montage montage m
0n
T4G
e

Montage!

Montage montage m0nt4g3

IT'5 BE3N D4YS.

Montage montage montage montage montage montage

1T'S ONLY G37TING W0R5E.

Montage montage awkward brother cuddles montage montage montage wow Sans no need to get so mad bruh montage montage montage montage montage

IT'S 4LL WR0NG.

Montage montage montage chest pains montage montage love some more chest pains montage montage montage-

5HE JU5T AVO1D3D TH3 B0NE5.

Montage montage montage

A WEEK N0W.

Montage montage who is he why is he what is this world what's his life who is he what's his name montage montage montage montage montage

METTATON GET OUT

--------

How long has it been since Alphys came on this project? Three days? A week? A month? Surely it hasn't been a month, right? How many resets have occurred? One? Three? Twenty-four? Were there even any resets at all?

How is he supposed to work in these conditions?!

He, he... Who is he...? What is he? He is... a being made of bones... Or code? Coded bones? Bone code? That sounds stupid. Is he bones or is he code?

Magic. That's what monsters are supposed to be made of. But is that really true? Was ANYTHING true? When's the last time he slept? Ate? Did he even NEED to do those things or can he just...

He. Who is he? What's his name? What is his life?

He's... Dammit. What is his NAME?! Who is he?! What is he supposed to be?! WHO IS HE?!

"Sans?"

Sans, Sans, right, that's his name. Sans. Don't forget again, bonehead. Stupid, stupid skele... thing. What is he? Who is he?

Sans. Right.

"what is it, alphys." He growled.

"I-It's just... you've been banging your head on that wall for a few minutes now. And you won't let me pull you away... D-Don't you want to come back?"

Back? Oh, right. She's at her desk. He's in the lab. Right. They're supposed to be working on more theories. Right. Stupid.

"Sans, please stop banging your head!"

Sans snapped. "can you stop telling me what to d0-o-o-0-O0!"

Alphys' pupils shrank into pinpricks. Time had frozen.

...What the heck was that? Did Sans just... glitch out? His face disappeared for a split second there. She swore she saw static replacing it.

Sans rubbed his head in pain. "oww..."

"U-Um..." Alphys' hands twitched. She's probably just imagining things, right?

Yeah... People can't glitch. Sans is just rubbing his skull because of the headbanging, nothing else.

Still, she wanted to reach out. "I... I won't tell you what to do. But... I would prefer it if you came over here. Y-You don't have to, though. Your choice."

Way to go, Alphys. That wasn't awkward at all.

Speaking of awkward, in came someone who is the opposite of that!

"OHH YES!!!"

Welp, RIP wall.

"Mettaton!" Alphys whined. "I just got that fixed."

"THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FIXED? I THOUGHT IT WAS HOLLOW ON PURPOSE."

Sans groaned. "what do you want?"

"OOH, SOMEONE'S GRUMPY TODAY!" Mettaton put a hand to his... uhh, mouth??? Where his mouth should be... and wheeled over to Sans. His hand gripped onto the unsuspecting skeleton's cheekbone, which was surprisingly squishy given his nature!

"WHO'S A GWUMPY WUMPY SMALL THING?"

"???????????"

Alphys facepalmed. "Mettaton, that's a grown adult."

"THEN WHY DID I WALK IN ON HIM THROWING TANTRUMS?"

"wait, how old am i again?"

Mettaton backed up, if only to allow Sans to stare at his hands alone. They are tiny hands... How old is he? Who is he? Sans is his name, right?

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Alphys.

"S-Sans? What was that question?"

Okay, so his name's definitely Sans, got it.

"uhh... goo goo ga ga."

"Oh my god!"

Mettaton cackled raucously as Alphys buried her face in her hands. Oh, the sheer frustration on the lizard's face, it was unmatched!

Almost unmatched. Sans had a feeling there was someone else he also enjoyed frustrating on a regular basis. Someone super cool, and important to his life. He couldn't quite remember his name, but... He's a part of him. He knows that much.

He put his frustrations aside. For now, he can laugh and poke fun at... um... lizard girl friend. Wait. Girl and friend are separate. Lizard friend girl?

"aww, what's the matter, pal? you're not going cold-blooded, are you?"

Alphys wanted to punch Sans in the face. This is the best she's felt in ages.

Though she still can't get that question off her mind. Did Sans really ask how old he was? She might as well answer it.

"...Nineteen."

Sans tilted his head. "huh?"

"You're nineteen. At least, um, I think so? Unless your birthday's come and gone."

"uhh... i don't think so." How did she know that? Did he tell her? Or did she just guess?

Nineteen. Guess he should keep that in his back pocket for later. Maybe.

Wait, when is his birthday?

--------

Montage... Montage montage... Nothing was getting anywhere. No substitutes were found. Sans wasn't getting better. Actually, he started brushing Alphys off more and more. Ignoring her suggestions, pushing her away... Forgetting important details about his life... A bad temper, personality changes... It seems there is no end to this insanity.

Still. Alphys tried to help where she could. Even though Sans wasn't having any of it.

She had to be there for him no matter what. It was a big distraction from her everyday life. And surely, he would do the same thing if their positions were swapped. Sans was always loyal like that.

So she stayed. And she continued to help. Even though they made little progress.

--------

Alphys is an incredibly sensitive monster, physically and emotionally. She always regarded herself as quite weak, actually. Not just because she has trouble summoning more than one bullet at a time.

A lot of sensory-related things bothered her. Certain soaps, certain smells, certain textures of clothing... Not so much sounds or lights, but everything else, she had trouble with.

And that included temperature.

Ergo, here in Snowdin, she's wrapped up in twenty layers of various sweaters, jackets and scarves. The apparel blocked her vision more than the snow did. And her own breath steaming up her glasses.

Still, she had to stay on course. She has a bunch of supplies in her giant backpack. It was almost her height, and much heavier than her too, but she still somehow managed to drag it around without breaking her spine.

Guess that means she's a lot stronger than she thinks. Someone should tell her that. She's not going to figure that out herself.

Anyway, she made it to the Skeleton household despite everything. Huh, what is Sans and Papyrus' last name, she wondered. She never thought to ask. But then again, she never liked to tell anyone her last name either. Nor do monsters in general, unless it's really important. Never mind. She had to keep going.

It's been a full day since she last saw Sans. Business came up, but now she had time to actually help him in the workshop! She just had to go around the back.

...There's a lot of noise coming from the workshop.

Crash break scream crash

What is going on in there? Oh jeez! Does Sans need an intervention?!

Fuelled with an urgency one can describe as panic, Alphys raced down the stairs and threw the door open.

Time came to a standstill. Oh god.

It's gotten worse.

The machine was completely uncovered, intact but making this horrible rumbling sound that she cringed at. She wasn't as sensitive to loud noises as other people like her, but if she stepped any closer, she would have to cover her ears.

The rest of the room wasn't any better. Besides the abundance of paper and tools all over the floor, it's also littered with half-eaten food, wrappers and plastic bottles. Some of the food even looked days old, with flies buzzing around them, eating as much of the mouldy sandwiches and mashed fries as possible. It made sense. No one else was going to eat them, let alone Sans.

Speaking of Sans, somehow, he was the biggest mess this room had to offer. He looked even worse than last time. His normally smooth skull now had a fuzziness to it. She forgot skeletons have a layer of velvet that reminded her of fur. Velvet is soft and fuzzy, sure, but it wasn't supposed to stick up like that. Some of it even manifested as a cowlick on top of Sans' head.

Speaking of which, the fuzz wasn't the only thing wrong with Sans' head. There was something even more worrying: the scratches. Sans' head was covered in scratches. Areas where his fingers had dug through the velvet and shredded parts of his outer layer of bone. Alphys read about various monster species. She knew skeletons can make their phalanges really sharp if they wanted to. Even the bluntest of skeleton hands can cut through tempered glass; she'd hate to think how much his scratching would hurt him.

But the most alarming part of it all was-

"aaaaaaaAAAAAAARGH!"

Sans wasn't acting like himself.

bang bang bang bang

Alphys' eyes widened as she realised what he was actually doing.

"Sans, don't bang your head on the wall!"

That done it. The banging stopped. Sans slowly turned his head towards the small lizard. She should probably run...

"what are you doing here."

She swallowed. Something told her this conversation will get messy.

"I- Y-You... We're working t-together... remember? You... a-asked for help."

Sans' glare hardened. Oh... There's a third option now. But no matter how hard she tried, her legs remained planted in the floor. Darn freeze reflex!

"You're not. Supposed. To b-b-b-e-e-e"

It came out of nowhere. Sans' body was taken over by overwhelmingly painful glitches. She couldn't deny what was happening now.

She reached out feebly. "Sans, calm down!"

The glitches stopped, leaving an exhausted, angry skeleton clutching his chest and almost heaved over. He took a few seconds to catch his breath before glaring at Alphys again.

"You're not supposed to be here. Get out!"

"Wh- But you ASKED me for help! I thought we were working on this together! Isn't that why you came to me?"

"yeah! but, news flash, p-person! you didn't help at all! we're not getting any closer to ge-e-et-ting it fixed! nothing's working! why isn't it W0-oR-K1NG?!"

Alphys' jaw dropped as she began to curl into herself. Those glitches... Where did they come from? They look so painful...

"Wait, Sans... Your body..."

She reached out to touch him, but pulled back. It might be contagious.

"i don't c4-a-ar-3e! clearly nothing we're doing is good enough!"

She helplessly watched the young skeleton pace around the workshop, and eventually start slamming his head on the desk. Several times.

"stupid, stupid, stupid! i can't do anything right, can i?! i just wanna fix something, for once! is that too mUch t-0 ask?!" He clawed at his skull. "i'm not good enough, i'm not good enough, i'm not good enough..."

Her SOUL sank as she watched this poor display. She knows these feelings all too well. But she can't dwell on her own feelings right now, her friend was hurting himself so badly over this! He's not even acting like himself anymore! She had to do something! Anything!

She approached him and spoke as calmly as possible. "Sans, please stop hurting yourself. T-This is really taking a toll on you..."

Sans didn't respond. An idea came to mind. Alphys isn't a fan of hugs, or any physical touch, usually, but she knows Sans can be a sucker for them when it comes from the right people. She hoped they were close enough to be included in that group. There were still the glitches... But even if they were contagious, she could handle them if it means comforting him... right? She deserved the glitching more than he did, anyway.

So, shakily, she reached her arms out. "How about we take a break and r-relax? I know you enjoy doing that. Y-You know, have some good food... some bad laughs... surrounded by friends? Y-You can get a lot out of-"

Sans' eyelights disappeared. Was Alphys about to touch him? While he's like THIS? No. No, he can't let her do that!

On instinct, he swiped at her. "get 4w4y from me!"

Alphys flinched and jumped back, feeling a sudden stinging sensation on her cheek. Her hand flew there to assess the damage.

...

Phalanges are sharp.

Her fingers were covered in black ooze. Monsters don't bleed in the same way humans do. At least, not usually. There were some exceptions, but most corporeal monsters bled a thick black ooze when injured. A mixture of raw magic and monster dust. And it was all over her fingers, and dripping down her cheek.

Three scratches. Not deep ones, but large enough to cause some damage. Although, Alphys could tell Sans didn't mean any real harm. If she couldn't understand that from his horrified face, then she could by the fact her HP didn't go down one bit.

She wasn't mad. How can she be mad at Sans when the person she's looking at isn't him? She only knew something had to be done about this.

She backed off. Her voice and expression hardened with a determination she didn't even know she had. "Okay. But stop hurting yourself, please."

Sans' eye twitched. How can she... Wait, no, this... This didn't matter, did it? Does it? This place isn't real, right? So that means she...

He couldn't look at her anymore. The sight of her was making his chest hurt even more than it already was.

"Sans." Alphys tried, sterner this time.

His answer was quiet. "is that my name?"

Okay, something was seriously wrong. It did confirm one thing for her. This isn't the Sans she knows.

She needs to change gears quickly. Something about this project is putting a bad taste in her mouth.

She needed to leave.

Before she walked out the door, however, she had the nerve to turn back one last time. Sans was quiet now, staring at the notes and blueprints with his back turned to her. His body flickered in and out with static.

Seeing her friend suffer to the point of lashing out like this filled her with determination.

And she was gone.

As for Sans... Or whoever he is...

He wasn't staring at the blueprints at all. Instead, he was staring at his hands. How could he do that to... whoever that was? His friend? She was acting like his friend, so... surely she must be... right?

What is WRONG with him?! Why did he tell her to leave?! Oh, because he was deeply unstable and he knew it and also didn't want any more interference.

"stupid, stupid..."

What had he done? He hurt her. He hurt his friend.

"why can't i do anything right, why do i have to make so many-"

He didn't notice he even moved until he was banging his head against the wall.

"get it toG3ther! y0u're supposed to be be-3-etter than this! why are you b31ng suCh an 1d10t?!" He has a headache. "ugh..."

What is going on? He's losing more and more of his memory. His sense of self, his... everything. His chest somehow hurts more than his head, despite it being his own punching bag.

Heh. Guess he always was the punching bag of life, huh?

What is he saying? There's no time for jokes. Did he even like jokes? He can't remember his own sense of humour.

Whatever. What's done is done. It wasn't real, anyway, right? This world isn't real.

...

At least now he can fix the machine on his own. It will make up for everything, he's sure of it!

If it means proving he can actually fix something... Reversing everything like the anomaly does...

He just needed to keep going...

But how long would he be able to? Deep cracks ran through his SOUL already.

Chapter Text

Waterfall was feeling especially wet today. Probably because Papyrus got water in his boots while he was running.

Yeah, running. Running with Undyne! He caught her on her jog and they decided to run together. And then it turned into a race. And then another one. And then another one... Before he knew it, Papyrus had completely forgotten why he came to her in the first place, but he didn't forget what happened back in Snowdin. He didn't know if he should go home.

No. He can't go home. Not until he talks to Undyne. He's been putting this off for long enough.

The two of them arrived at the coolest fish house ever created, and collapsed.

Yup. Just two friends, gasping for air on the floor. They resembled inflatables that were being pumped up. Though where they would get pumped up is a mystery.

Anyway, Undyne eventually got up and stretched with a groan. "Ah, fuhuhuhu! Wow, I gotta hand it to you, Papyrus. You sure do know how to keep up with me!"

Papyrus was flopping like a fish while staring up at one. "R-REALLY? HA..."

The captain took the initiative and helped Papyrus up. The poor skeleton stumbled on his feet before he could stay upright.

"WHEW... THANKS... I-"

"Hey, you look exhausted. How about I take you somewhere we can relax? My treat."

Papyrus scoffed a little. "THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS NEVER EX- WHOA!"

Are you sure about that? He just stumbled again. Luckily, Undyne caught him.

"Do you wanna finish that sentence?"

Yeah... No. He made the right decision and shut up. If Undyne wanted to take him somewhere...

Wait. Undyne wants to take him somewhere! Wowie, this is incredible!! Wait, no, stay focused! Something bad was going on!

...But she was taking him somewhere!!!

Where was she taking him?

"Come on!"

He recognised this place. A hidden part of Waterfall full of large obsidian spikes. Didn't he and Sans climb up one once?

Oh, right. He wondered if any of Sans'... never mind. It was gross to think about.

"Hey, what are you doing down there?"

What was Undyne doing? Oh, she's climbing one of the spikes! That's very Undyne of her! Well, can't delay! He needed to show off his incredible climbing skills!

"OOF!"

One slip at a time!

To be fair, it was raining not too long ago. Well, it was raining on the surface, and that rain affected the waterfalls and water dripping through the dirt on the cavern's ceiling and... yeah, it's a complicated picture.

Either way, it made this pillar especially slippery. "NYEH!!!"

For a moment, he considered taking off his gloves to get a better grip. But Undyne was around, and the last thing he wanted was for her to see his burns. He didn't like thinking about them. That just made him think about the machine and...

Oh god.

"Are you having trouble with climbing or something?!" Oh, she's up high. Whoops. "Come ON!"

Right. Papyrus cannot keep her waiting any longer! With a running leap, he hugged the pillar tightly with his limbs and shimmied up. If he weren't a skeleton, he'd probably get some sort of burn.

Eventually he got to the top. Ah, finally. A flat surface he can rest on.

Oh yeah. While most of the obsidian are spikes, there are several pillars around too. Monsters who can climb or fly like to rest on the top to get a good view of the underground, Undyne included.

Speaking of Undyne, she was perched right at the edge of the circular pillar, gazing in a certain direction, and letting her legs dangle over the edge. If it were anyone else, Papyrus would've been terrified for their safety. But he knows how tough and cool Undyne is, so all he did was perch beside her.

"I..." He panted. "MADE IT."

"It's about time!" Of course, she greeted him with a punch to the shoulder. Papyrus was barely fazed; he was used to them by now. Instead, the trainee let out a small giggle.

Undyne grinned widely at her dopey friend, before waving her hand to get his attention.

"Hey! Look at this!"

What was she gesturing to? Papyrus had to take a look now.

Oh.

Oh, it's beautiful.

The King's Castle.

The view was one out of a picture book. The castle sat far away in front of a black backdrop, and in front was a view of glowing stones resembling stars in the night sky.

Sans would love this place, Papyrus thought.

...Oh, wait. No, he wouldn't. He has acrophobia.

But if they were on lower ground, Sans would love it! Just like Papyrus is loving it. His eye sockets shined like the stones above him.

"WOW..."

He really wanted Sans to see this. Oh, if only... if only... Oh, right, he's the reason he needs to talk to Undyne. But how can he bring it up? She was watching the view!

She looked so happy too...

Does she really need more on her plate? She's already got her fins and hands full with this friend of hers. Does she really need one more?

But on the other hand, who else can Papyrus turn to? Undyne's the strongest friend he has! If anyone could teach him how to be just as strong in this mess, it's her! How to come across as subtle... Hmm...

He fidgeted, chewing on his scarf before he started.

"SO! THIS IS VERY PRETTY! I'M SURE YOU WANT TO TAKE SOMEONE HERE, DON'T YOU?" Ah yes, very subtle. Undyne's looking at him, but she doesn't suspect a thing. He can keep going. "SOMEONE VERY IMPORTANT TO YOU. SOMEONE WITH A LOT OF TROUBLES THEY DESPERATELY NEED A BREAK FROM. YOU KNOW?"

He's amazing at this! Good job, Papyrus! That blank stare surely means she understood what you're trying to convey!

She turned back to the view. "Yeah, I guess. I wanna take someone here."

Wait, is this conversation meant to go this way? Papyrus tilted his head curiously. "OH?"

"Yeah!"

"OH?"

"Yeah!"

"OHH???"

Undyne was about to come out with another "yeah!" But Papyrus' overeager expression told her he was about to embarrass her.

And he did. He wriggled his eyebrows.

"Hey!!!" She promptly pushed him away.

"WHAT?" Papyrus fluttered his spontaneously appearing eyelashes, acting innocent.

Undyne's cheeks were red hot. "Don't look at me like that!!!"

"LOOK AT YOU LIKE WHAT, UNDYNE? DON'T YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS LUCKY INDIVIDUAL?"

"I..."

"YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE!!!"

Undyne deadpanned. "I don't think you know what that actually means. I literally have so much."

"WELL, TELL ME ANYWAY!!!" And then he laid down like a pretty princess.

Undyne heaved a heavy sigh. "Fine!!! She's..."

Papyrus wriggled his eyebrows.

"Don't make me push you off!"

"I WILL LAND ON THE GROUND AND LEAVE A PAPYRUS-SHAPED CRATER!!!"

"I KNOW!!!" Undyne bit her lip to keep herself from laughing, but she was able to continue. "She's... amazing. She's really smart and funny and nice... Super nice. She's gotten me to appreciate things I would otherwise turn a blind eye to."

"IS THAT BECAUSE YOU ONLY HAVE ONE EYE?"

"Do you want to make a Papyrus-shaped crater?!"

"NOT PARTICULARLY!"

Undyne gave him a warning glare, although the blush lessened its impact. Papyrus just continued to listen while kicking his legs like a pretty princess.

"Right. She's just... ugh, she's just so... so PASSIONATE! She's ANALYTICAL! I can't stop thinking about that conversation we had! When we first met, she..."

Her smile and blush faded as she trailed off. Papyrus' smile followed suit. Undyne can't even look at the pretty princess next to her.

"She... talked to me like an intellectual. It was nice. N-Nothing else happened, the circumstances were... normal."

Papyrus sat up from his pretty princess position to inspect Undyne's grimace. She refused to look at him, her hands tightened into fists, and he swore he could hear her teeth grinding. Her foot was twitching erratically too. If they were on solid ground and not hanging over an obsidian pillar, he figured her knee would be bouncing.

"But you know, she did give me some clues. There was this... project, I think. We briefly spoke about it after our first meeting... She didn't say much, just that it really took a toll on her mental health."

"IS THIS THE SAME FRIEND YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT LAST TIME WE HAD A SERIOUS CHAT?"

Undyne shrugged. Did she even know? Maybe there was more than one.

"This project... I don't know. I think it destroyed her. It's already finished, but sometimes... I wish I could go back in time and stop her from doing it. Maybe then all her problems will be solved. Or, uh, most of them."

It's Papyrus' turn to look away. His hands sat neatly in his lap, one thumb brushing over the other.

"I UNDERSTAND THE FEELING."

Undyne looked up. "Yeah?"

"MY B- FRIEND... HE'S DOING A PROJECT THAT'S DESTROYING HIM TOO. AND IT'S STILL GOING ON, AND I DON'T KNOW HOW TO GET HIM TO STOP."

Her expression hardened.

"THAT'S WHY I CAME TO YOU, ACTUALLY. WE HAD A FIGHT. I DON'T WANT HIM TO DO IT. IT'S NOT A GOOD PROJECT, IT'S NOT GOING TO DO ANY GOOD FOR EITHER FOR US. BUT HE'S TOO STUBBORN TO LISTEN TO REASON."

She gave a firm nod. "Mmm."

"I... I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO."

The warrior looked down at the vulnerable skeleton. Without thinking, she let her arm wrap around his shoulders.

"Papyrus."

The skeleton looked up at the hero above him.

"I'm going to give you my straightforward advice. You need to do an intervention."

His eyes widened. "AN INTERVENTION?"

"Yes. It's too late for A- her, but it's NOT too late for your brother!"

"I... DIDN'T TELL YOU HE WAS-"

"Papyrus, COME ON. Even a clam can tell you're talking about your brother. You love him to bits! How long has this been going on?!"

"UM... A FEW WEEKS?"

"And how long ago was the fight?"

"UM..."

Undyne's eyebrows furrowed. "Dude. What have you been doing all this time?"

"UM... PRETENDING EVERYTHING'S OKAY?" He laughed nervously.

Wow. Yeah, that warranted more than a facepalm.

"Dude. Seriously?"

"I DIDN'T WANT TO PROVOKE HIM AGAIN!!!"

"Papyrus, the fact that your brother is getting easily provoked is a sign something's wrong! You can't just put it off! You said it yourself, this project is destroying him! So you need to do an intervention and you need to do it FAST, before it's too late!!!"

Oh god, she's RIGHT! How could Papyrus have left Sans to do that?! He was hoping that things would get better, but they haven't!

"Come on, Papyrus! You're proactive about everything else, why not be proactive about this? This is your BROTHER'S life on the line here!"

"R-RIGHT, OF COURSE... OH, UM, UNDYNE?"

"What?!"

Okay, getting too passionate there. That's Undyne for you.

"YOU'RE DOING A GREAT JOB WITH... THIS PERSON."

Undyne blinked. "What?"

"WELL, YOU'RE THERE FOR HER NO MATTER WHAT, AREN'T YOU?"

"Yeah?"

"SOMETIMES THAT'S ALL SOMEONE CAN DO."

"...Huh. Wait, are you just saying this to deflect again?!"

"UM, NO! I WAS BEING GENUINE!!!"

"Good!!! Because if you are, I'm gonna suplex you to the surface and back!!!"

"CAN'T YOU JUST SUPLEX EVERYONE TO THE SURFACE IF YOU CAN DO THAT?"

"Alright, that's it!!! NGAAAAHHHHHH!!!"

"W-WAIT!!!"

She didn't wait. She didn't stop. She suplexed her friend over the top!

Papyrus struggled a bit, and in their brief thrashing, she didn't realise what direction she was suplexing her friend in!

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

Whoops. Right over the edge of the pillar.

A loud thud told her Papyrus had just made a him-shaped crater in the ground below.

"Oh."

Whoopsie. Undyne did a poopsie.

--------

Alphys wished she wore boots. The mud was getting between her toes. Not that she was really focused on that right now.

She had to find a way to get Sans to stop. She had to stage an intervention, she needed to get help, something, anything, someone, anyone!

Papyrus. She needed to get Papyrus!

Wow. This place is a lot darker than she remembered. She could barely see through the marsh. It's a good thing she knows the route by heart, otherwise this trip would take a lot longer than...

Oh, the path cleared. Now it was almost too clear.

This wasn't a place Alphys was used to. Somehow, the path she usually took had an extension. When did that happen?

Something bright caught the corner of her eye.

She turned. There it was, staring back at her.

A mysterious grey door.

It... It wouldn't hurt to check out what's inside, right? Or at least check if the door was unlocked? It'll only take a split second.

She tugged at the doorknob.

Click. It's unlocked.

Suddenly, she had second thoughts. What if someone's inside? What if they didn't want her to invade? What if this is someone's private property?

But then again, why would someone's private property just be a cryptic grey door? An unlocked one, no less.

So, swallowing her doubts and anxiety, she pushed it open a crack and took a sneak peek. For science. This is for science. Yeah.

The room was blank. About as grey as the door itself. But there was something in the middle. What is that? A blob? A slime?

Wait, is it a someone? They look funny.

...

...

...

Oh god, they looked at her. Nope nope nope nope nope, she's out! Goodbye, mysterious grey room!

As soon as the door slammed shut, Alphys ran away from it as fast as her little legs could carry her.

What was that room? Why was there a person inside? What happened to them???

And... why did she feel like she's gonna need to see that room again later?

She didn't know. She just kept going. Further, further, yet further. Okay, even that type of phrasing's starting to creep her out! It's like she could almost hear glitching when she thinks about it.

Further, further yet further. Faster, faster, yet faster. Darker, darker yet-

"Oof!"

The train of thought screeched to a halt as two monsters flew to the ground. Who bumped into her?! Or did she bump into them?

She probably bumped into them. Oh, jeez, she's such a mess, how could she...

She had to apologise to this monster! She had to, it was clearly her fault.

But it seemed like the other monster had the same idea.

"Sorry!" "SORRY!"

Oh. They can get a good look at each other now.

He was just the monster she was looking for. And he beamed and pointed at her.

"GASP! UNDYNE'S GIRLFRIEND?"

"aaaaaaAAAAAAA!!!"

Aww, poor Alphys. Her hands were too small to cover her bright pink face.

"OH, SORRY! I JUST FIGURED, BECAUSE UNDYNE WAS TALKING ABOUT A FRIEND WHO HAD DONE A PROJECT AND YOU'VE DONE A PROJECT, RIGHT??? SO THAT MEANS YOU MUST BE THE FRIEND SHE HAS A HUGE CRUSH ON!!!"

Alphys wanted to die. She could barely even process the words Papyrus was saying! She completely missed half of that explanation! To be fair, Papyrus was talking at the speed of sound. He could've broken the sound barrier with that speech.

"uNdYnE wAs TaLkInG aBoUt Me?!?!?!"

Papyrus hummed thoughtfully, now that his own initial awkwardness wore off. "OH, SORRY AGAIN! I THOUGHT YOU WERE ALPHYS, BUT SHE'S YELLOW. NO OFFENCE, BUT YOU LOOK LIKE A CHERRY TOMATO!! NYEH HEH HEH!!!"

She screamed at a frequency only dogs can hear. It rattled Papyrus' bones a bit.

"SO, WHAT'S YOUR NAME, CHERRY TOMATO LIZARD?"

The social blunder took time neither had to resolve, so that can be skipped. To summarise, Alphys eventually went back to normal and Papyrus finally recognised her. It's hard to remember people's faces. Papyrus should probably get that checked.

"P-Papyrus, I really need your help. Sans isn't doing well."

Papyrus' chest filled with anxiety. "I KNOW. I WAS GOING TO DO AN INTERVENTION. HOW BAD HAS IT GOTTEN?"

"U-Um... P-Pretty bad. I'm sorry." Alphys swallowed her own anxiety to continue. "Something really strange is happening to him. He's h-having these mood swings, he's forgetting his own name, he's-"

"LASHING OUT?"

"Y-Yeah! Did he..."

"THERE'S SCRATCHES ON YOUR FACE."

Her hand flew to her cheek. Her fingers traced across three long cuts. Thankfully, none of them were deep, but they were obviously visible.

"U-Um... Y-Yeah, he... I d-don't think he meant to do it. It's okay."

"BUT HE STILL HURT YOU. AND SANS NEVER..."

A cold feeling settled in his chest. If kind, non-violent Sans had done an act of violence towards his closest friend... He didn't want to think about the implications of that, but he knew he had to.

"He's been glitching out too."

Papyrus was nonplussed. "GLITCHING? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, GLITCHING?"

"I don't know. His body keeps blipping in and out of existence. Sometimes he looks like static, sometimes he..."

Static. Like that recurring dream he's been having since a few weeks ago. Back when he had that fight with...

"I want to find out what's happening. I-I-I think I have something in the lab that could h-help? But I'm not so sure."

"ALPHYS." They locked eyes. "WHATEVER IT TAKES TO SAVE MY BROTHER FROM THIS, I WILL HELP YOU."

Alphys nodded. "Good. I... I knew you would."

Thus, an alliance was formed between two unlikely friends. Did they have a game plan? No, not exactly. But they could get one if they work together. There's nothing stopping them from doing so except time.

Although, one should wonder if either of them felt a sense of being watched. One of the flowers in the marsh are not like the others.

If anything, that flower seemed particularly interested in them.

Chapter Text

Ring ring...

Ring ring...

The line dropped.

He shouldn't be so surprised. After that burst of anger, it's only natural that the lizard wants to stay away from him. What the heck did he go and do that for-

"ggrrrHHHK!"

The glitches are getting worse. He didn't know if the chronic chest pain is coming from the glitching or the guilt. He didn't know the lizard's name. He didn't even know his own name! He just knew that this hurts.

But he can't give up, can he? Not when he's so close, not when this is his last chance to get out of here and do something right. He can't mess up, he can't screw up, he can't be a good-for-nothing! He can't let them down, he can't let himself down, he can't, he can't, hE CAN'T-

"argh, scr3W 1t!"

He threw his phone against the wall, but his throw was so pathetic it just bumped off it and landed on the floor with a sad thud. Still, he glared at it like it just cursed out his ancestors.

What is he even doing? He needs to go back to work.

Speaking of work, someone who frequently worked it strutted in, as if this was some sort of catwalk! He was carrying this large bag too.

"OHH DARLING!!"

Sans snapped and glared at the unsuspecting robot. "why are you here."

What was he wearing? Is that a pink, sparkly dress? He... He looks fabulous in it. Huh. Sans forgot what jealousy felt like until now. When was the last time HE wore a dress?

A memory involving being pampered almost crawled to the surface, but something was blocking it.

Mettaton tsked. "TEMPER, TEMPER. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU? I'M ONLY HERE TO DROP OFF SUPPLIES ON ALPHYS' BEHALF!"

Sans tilted his head, confused. "who?"

The robot's arms fell to his sides as he let the bag slide to the floor. He didn't need a face to show his dumbfoundedness.

"ALPHYS? THE ROYAL SCIENTIST? THE LIZARD LADY YOU ARE WORKING WITH?"

Ah, recognition was coming back now.

"YOUR FRIEND?"

Yup. Recognition was definitely coming back now.

Mettaton's tone was a mix of concerned and annoyed. A weird look on someone like him. "DEAR, DID YOU CLIMB OUT OF THE GRAVE YESTERDAY OR SOMETHING? YOU LOOK LIKE YOU HAVE ONE FOOT STILL IN IT."

Sans sighed heavily at the joke and grabbed the bag. Unable to pick it up due to it being heavier than him by a large margin, the disgruntled skeleton dragged it along the floor instead. Mettaton made no move to help him - if he did, he'd probably get swiped at.

"SANS, I AM SAYING THIS FROM THE GREATEST CARE CIRCULATING AROUND IN MY CIRCUITS. BUT YOU LOOK LIKE A PILE OF SH-"

"shut your mouth."

"I DON'T HAVE ONE, AND I MUST SCREAM ABOUT YOUR CONDITION!" He pretended to clear the throat he doesn't have. "YOU LOOK LIKE SHEEEEEEEE-"

"sheet of paper." Sans pressed a sheet of paper against the lowest strip of the box's flashing lights, as if that'll get him to stop belting out swears. It did not. But he huffed afterwards once he saw how displeased his audience was.

"HMPH! TOUGH CROWD, I SEE. WELL, IF YOU DON'T WANT HELP FROM ME, THAT'S FINE. BUT YOU NEED HELP DESPERATELY, AND I'M NOT WAITING AROUND FOR YOU TO ASK FOR IT YOURSELF."

Sans covered his ossicles and danced around the workshop. "lalalalalalalalala, d0n't c4r3!"

Wow, that glitch was particularly terrible. Can't believe Mettaton had to witness it in 4K.

"WOW. WELL, YOU'RE GONNA DIE. GOODBYE."

And with that bold statement, Mettaton wheeled out the workshop with his hands on his 'hips'. Once a diva, always a diva.

He was such a diva that people couldn't help but stop and look at him, even the flowers! Well, one flower.

--------

Papyrus hates Hotland. He never wanted to step foot in this place again. But this is where the lab is, and heck if he let his own grievances get in the way of their mission. It helped that Alphys served as a distraction as they reached the lab itself.

"So, um... Have you seen the machine before?"

"WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, YES. AND I'VE SEEN IT ONCE OR TWICE WHEN WE MOVED IN."

"So, it was always in that house? You guys didn't bring it in or anything?"

"NO, WE JUST FOUND IT IN THERE. I DON'T KNOW WHY SANS DECIDED TO FIX IT. IT NEVER DID US ANY GOOD."

The duo went inside. Alphys rushed towards the papers on her desk, hoping to find anything that could help. Papyrus followed suit, looking around shelves and cabinets.

"Uhh... Never did any good?"

"NO. I CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED, BUT I KNOW IT CAUSED US A LOT OF PAIN. I DON'T WANT TO TOUCH THAT THING IF I CAN HELP IT."

Nope, nope, nothing here, nada, nope. "Do you know anything about its power source?"

Papyrus wrung his hands tightly. "THEY WERE VERY POWERFUL AND DANGEROUS. THAT'S ALL I REMEMBER."

Nothing, nothing, NOTHING! Argh, why didn't she record anything?! Someone must have-

Wait. "Papyrus... Did the previous Royal Scientist have anything to do with it?"

Papyrus froze, the same idea popping into his skull. "YES, ACTUALLY! HE TRIED TO FIX IT TOO! MAYBE HE LEFT SOME NOTES ON IT!"

So that means... "A-Alright. W-Wait here-"

Suddenly, the door burst open, and a superstar wheeled in with his arms spread out. Another unnecessarily grand entrance.

"HEEELLOOOOOOO, BEAUTY AND-" Mettaton, look! It's a Papyrus! "OH! HELLO, THERE! I WASN'T EXPECTING A GENTLEBEAUTY TO BE HERE!"

Papyrus' jaw dropped. Did Mettaton seriously walk into the room? DID HE SERIOUSLY- Oh god oh god oh god oh god he's even cooler up close!!! He can't believe he's actually meeting him! And he called him a GENTLEBEAUTY?! Say something SAY SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING!!!

"XHDHEHFJA!!" Good job!

Mettaton's arms flopped. "...UH HUH. SO I DROPPED OFF THE SUPPLIES LIKE YOU ASKED ME TO, ALPHYS."

Alphys' eyes widened. Oh, she forgot she asked him to do that! Why did she do that?! She's such an idiot!

Unfortunately for her, Mettaton either ignored the horrified look on her face or just didn't notice. "WELL, DON'T THANK ME ALL AT ONCE! OH, AND BY THE WAY, HE'S DYING, SO THAT MIGHT BE AN ISSUE."

Papyrus snapped out of his starstruck daze. "WHAT?!?!"

"OHH, YES. YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN HIM, HE LOOKED AWFUL. WEIRD STATIC GLITCHES AND THE LIKE. HE DIDN'T EVEN RESPOND TO MY AMAZING PUN!!!"

Alphys and Papyrus glanced at each other in disbelief. If Sans wasn't reacting to puns, then they know it's really bad. It's a lot more dire than they thought.

"WELL, ANYWAY, I HOPE YOU FIND A WAY TO STOP HIM. HE'S BEEN VERY TEMPERAMENTAL, SO I'D WATCH WHERE I TREAD WITH HIM IF I WERE YOU! ANYWAY!!! I BETTER SKEDADDLE! BIG SHOW AT THE CORE RIGHT NOW! TOODLES!"

And with that, Mettaton burst through the opposite wall. Right next to the door.

Alphys and Papyrus kept gawking at each other, despite that wasting time.

How rude, honestly. Busting down a wall like that. Who does he think he is?

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

What are they screaming about? Oh yeah, Sans is dying.

Alphys bolted for the elevator. "I'm gonna check if he left anything downstairs!"

Papyrus sprinted after her. "I'LL COME WITH YOU!"

"No, don't come!!!"

He ran straight into her tiny lizard hands, held up in an attempt to stop him.

The poor skeleton, he looked so confused. Why was she so scared? What could possibly be down there? Maybe she's just not a fan of people seeing her work? Or maybe something dangerous is down there? Either way, Papyrus trusted her and backed off.

"ALRIGHT! THEN I'LL SEARCH UP HERE!" He puffed out his chest and put his hands on his hip as a display of reassuring confidence. Seems like Alphys took the bait. Her shoulders slumped as her face turned from a terrified gape into a relieved smile.

"Thanks." That's all she said before disappearing downstairs.

Well. Guess Papyrus should keep looking too, lest he gets caught up in his worst fears. Delta knows that's not gonna help Sans in the slightest.

Alphys emerged twelve minutes later, thankfully with a pile of old papers in her hands.

"I found something!"

Papyrus emerged too, but from the cube bed. How the heck did he get in there? It was folded!

"WHAT DID YOU FIND?!" He pulled himself out of the cube. Now he is a cube. The cube assimilation has begun.

"Paper!"

A sarcastic gasp. "WHOA!"

"There's more..."

Just as sarcastic. "NO!"

The skeleton-shaped cube hopped towards the little scientist. A millisecond of holding his breath later, he's back to his original shape. Apart from one boot, which insisted on being a cube. But that didn't matter more than the old papers in the reptilian's hands.

She shuffled through them all in a flash. "I found these old notes buried in a file I haven't touched before. I never read it because they're all in this strange font."

Papyrus shook his boot back to normal. "A STRANGE FONT, YOU SAY? MAY I TAKE A LOOK?"

"O-Oh, um, yeah! Y-You're good with fonts, huh?"

"OH, NO! MY NAME IS PAPYRUS BECAUSE MY PARENTS WERE REALLY INTO PAPER. IT'S NOT LIKE I SPEAK IN IT OR ANYTHING."

Alphys almost giggled at the blatant sarcasm. Meanwhile, Papyrus straightened the pile and began to read.

Wingdings. Yes, he knows this font like the back of his... glove. Symbols in place of letters. This shouldn't be...

Oh. Oh no. Oh, wait, he keeps mixing up the symbols. That's not good.

"UHH... E..." He squinted. "E... IS THAT AN M... WAIT, NO, IT'S A SKULL, SO THAT'S AN N, RIGHT? ENTRY..."

Alphys cocked an eyebrow. "You can't read?"

"N-NO, I CAN!! IT'S JUST VERY HARD!! IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I'VE SEEN WINGDINGS! IS THAT A K OR AN M...?"

A realisation struck her mind, albeit a curious one. "Y-You know, if it helps, we can translate it to the computer?"

"ACTUALLY, THAT SOUNDS VERY GOOD. THANK YOU."

As Alphys booted up her computer, they had enough time for a brief chat.

"I didn't know skeletons can forget fonts."

"I DON'T THINK I DID. MY BRAIN KEEPS MIXING THE SYMBOLS UP. WHEN HE SPOKE, I MANAGED IT BETTER, BUT NOW ON PAPER..."

"T-To be fair, it's all worn and smudged. Hopefully, you can read better digitally."

"ME TOO."

Loading...

"I'M NOT GREAT AT READING ON MY OWN. I USUALLY GET MY BROTHER TO READ OUT LOUD FOR ME. HIS FONT WAS ALWAYS EASY TO READ. THAT WAY, I CAN PRACTICE MY READING WHILE HE READS. IT'S NICE."

"So words do appear for you when you talk?"

"YES!"

She gasped. "No fair! You get subtitles in real time?! I need to become a skeleton."

"OH, PLEASE DO! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!!!"

The file loaded.

"Oh!!!" Alphys startled at the amount of words on the page. "Okay, okay, okay!!! There's gotta be something in here that can help us!"

Papyrus changed it to a font that's easy to read for both of them. Perfect.

ENTRY NUMBER 46

THE INTERDIMENSIONAL TRANSPORTER IS STILL UNDERGOING REPAIRS. SO FAR, NOTHING I DO FOR IT HOLDS ANY PROMISE. ITS POWER SOURCE IS BROKEN, AND SUBSTITUTES DO NOT SEEM TO BE WORKING. I WILL HAVE TO CONSULT WITH SALT AND PEPPER, TO SEE WHAT WE NEED TO DO NEXT.

That was all the relevant information they could gather. The rest described a pickle jar that could shoot pickles, and a rainbow projector that can project rainbows across the underground. Nothing of note there, except...

"Wow... He was a dork."

"HE WAS AN EGGHEAD."

"B-But he keeps mentioning these Salt and Pepper guys... Do you know anything about that?"

"UHH..."

Alphys found it highly suspicious seeing Papyrus sweat so intensely all of a sudden. Waterfalls of sweat ran down his skull. He looked like a shaking, rattling fountain.

"Papyrus? W-What's wrong?"

"HOTLAND IS HOT!!!"

Okay, yeah, he may have said that too fast and shook too much and also that was super obvious. Try again.

"I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT SALT AND PEPPER!!! WHAT'S SALT AND PEPPER?!"

Okay, now he looks like an idiot. Quick, deflect!

"UM, WHAT'S THAT?!" He pointed to a random page on the document. At the very bottom was an address. Huh. Convenient.

Thankfully, it got Alphys off his backbone. "O-Oh! He left an address on here? Why would he do that?"

The waterfalls stopped as relief flooded the skeleton's voice. "I HAVE NO IDEA... BUT! IT COULD BE USEFUL! I THINK I KNOW WHERE THAT IS, ACTUALLY!"

"Really? That's great! Maybe there c-could be some more clues there!"

"NO KIDDING!!!"

--------

So the unlikely duo set off, taking the elevator because screw those puzzles. Sure, Alphys turned them off, but Papyrus was too stubborn to even look at them. Besides, every second they would spend traversing through the different levels is another second closer to Sans' demise, so they really had to hurry.

However, the elevator ride, while more efficient, was a bit awkward. Just like all elevator rides.

"So, um... How did you know the last Royal Scientist?"

"UM... I THINK I WORKED WITH HIM? I CAN'T REMEMBER MUCH, BUT WE WERE PRETTY CLOSE."

"You were close?"

"YEAH... KIND OF LIKE FAMILY."

Alphys caught a glint of melancholic nostalgia in Papyrus' eye. "Oh, I'm so sorry. What was he like? I-In person, I mean."

"WELL..." Papyrus stared into space as he recalled. "HE WAS A HUGE DORK. CLUMSY, EASILY-DISTRACTED... HE WOULD OFTEN START PROJECTS, PUT HIS ALL INTO THEM, BUT EVENTUALLY GET BORED AND PROCRASTINATE. IT MADE HIM A SLOW WORKER."

A small laugh bubbled out of Alphys. "I felt that on a spiritual level."

"BUT WHEN IT CAME TO THE THINGS HE TRULY CARED ABOUT? HE WOULD PUT HIS ALL INTO IT! HE WAS PERSISTENT!! HE WAS PERSEVERANT!!! I ALWAYS ADMIRED HIM FOR THAT. THAT, AND HIS ALTRUISM."

"Altruism?"

"THE PROJECTS HE CARED MOST ABOUT WERE ALWAYS THE ONES THAT HELPED OTHERS. THE CORE, THE LIGHTS, EVERYTHING!"

"The day-night lights? Wow... They're more recent than I thought."

Ding! The elevator door opened. Here we are.

"OH, IT WAS MORE THAN THAT! MUCH MORE! HE EVEN TRIED TO FIND A WAY TO BREAK THE BARRIER, DESPITE..." The reminiscing boy's smile faded as memories eluded him. "DESPITE... WAIT, I CAN'T EXACTLY..."

"Go on."

"I-I CAN'T! I CAN'T QUITE REMEMBER, I JUST KNOW... SIGH..."

Alphys' face fell. "He sounds like he was a good guy."

Papyrus nodded. "HE WAS. NO WONDER SANS ADMIRED HIM."

Alphys' eyes widened at that last sentence. But before she could ask him any follow-up questions, guess who came rolling through?

"METTATON?" Yes. "I THOUGHT YOU HAD A SHOW!!!"

"OH, I DID! BUT OH ME, OH MY! IT WAS A DISASTER, DARLINGS! A DISASTER!"

Ah, Mettaton. Always with the dramatics. He pretended to faint but didn't fully commit to it.

"W-What happened?"

"THERE WAS AN ACCIDENT. A PART OF THE CORE SHUT DOWN, SO MANY OF MY BELOVED FANS COULDN'T ATTEND. SO I HAD TO ARRANGE IT FOR ANOTHER DAY. OH, WHAT A TRAVESTY! ALL THOSE ADORING FANS, DENIED FROM BASKING IN MY ELEGANCE IN PERSON!"

Papyrus teared up, his hands over his mouth. "THAT SOUNDS TERRIBLE!!!"

Alphys just rolled her eyes. "Oh, wow. That's sad. Wait, did you say a p-part of the CORE shut down?? It just... stopped working?"

"I KNOW, IT'S TERRIBLE! JUST TERRIBLE! MY POOR FANS, DEPRIVED OF MY BEAUTY!"

"Y-Yeah, I get it..."

"A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT!!"

"Uh huh..."

"AND THIS WEIRD STAIRCASE CAME OUT OF NOWHERE TOO. I THINK IT WAS HIDDEN AWAY ON PURPOSE OR SOMETHING..."

As Papyrus watched the conversation unfold, he felt the voices slowly getting further and further away, despite nobody actually moving. Reality zoomed out, leaving the cool dude to get lost in his thoughts.

"Psst."

Or not. Who was that?

"Psssssst!"

It sounded like it came from behind him. Turning around, Papyrus came face-to-face with a dead bush. He swore it wasn't there before. Peculiar.

"Psssssst!"

There's a face in that bush. He briefly glanced at his idol and his friend briefly before ducking down and sneaking towards the bush, sat in a frog-like position.

"Howdy."

That plump, little face... Papyrus swore he'd seen it before. What a cute flower!

He tried to make his voice as quiet as possible. "HELLO."

The flower smiled. "It's nice to see you again, my friend."

Friend? "WE'RE FRIENDS?"

"Of course we are! You didn't forget about your old pal Flowey, did you?" He winked.

He couldn't let him know he did. Jeez, his memory problem's been getting worse lately.

"OH, UM, OF COURSE NOT! I REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE, FLOWERY." He fidgeted nervously, resisting the urge to chew on his scarf. Oh boy, the flower looks concerned about him now, albeit slightly relieved, for some reason. And perhaps a tad annoyed. A soup of emotions, there.

"That's great, because I can never forget about you, Papyrus! But you seem a little sad." He pouted, VERY sincerely. "What's on your mind, friend?"

"OH, UM..." Should he really tell him? Well, he could use as much help as he can get. "SO, UM, DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN I TALKED ABOUT SANS?"

He's throwing spaghetti at the wall here. Please stick, please stick, please stick...

Flowey nodded. "Of course!"

Thank god!

"W-WELL..." Papyrus continued, glancing at Alphys and Mettaton to see if they were still distracted. They were. "HE'S NOT DOING WELL LATELY. HE'S WORKING ON THIS PROJECT AT THE BACK OF OUR HOUSE AND I'M AFRAID IT'S GOING TO KILL HIM!"

Flowey gasped. "Oh, no! How can I help?"

"WELL..." He looked around again, before leaning in. "WITH ALL OF THIS RESEARCHING AND STUFF, THERE'S NO ONE TO KEEP AN EYE ON HIM OR STALL BEFORE HE GETS ANY WORSE! SO, I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IT IF-"

"Say no more, Papyrus! Your good friend Flowey is always happy to help! You just need me to talk to him, right?"

"UM... YEAH? JUST DISTRACT HIM, OKAY? AND MAKE SURE YOU CAN DEFEND YOURSELF! SANS ISN'T IN THE MOOD TO LISTEN TO REASON, NOT EVEN FROM ME!"

"Oh, don't worry about me, Papyrus! I'll do whatever I can to stop him. You can always trust me!"

Another wink. That's how you KNOW someone's trustworthy.

"THANK YOU, FLOWER-" Oh, he's gone. "OH."

"P-Papyrus?" Oh crap, it's Alphys! Stand up, stand up! "What are you doing there?"

He's not standing up! Quick, think of an excuse? "UM... I'M DOING THIS COOL EXERCISE YOUR GIRLFRIEND TAUGHT ME! S-SEE?"

He then proceeded to... bounce his backside up and down. He still had his back towards her, which meant Alphys' very vivid imagination was able to take hold... aaaand she's blushing madly.

"U-UnDyNe TaUgHt YoU tHaT?"

"YEAH!" Papyrus bounced up, innocent to the thoughts swimming around in the little lizard's brain. "OH, HELLO AGAIN, PINK LIZARD! HAVE YOU SEEN ALPHYS?"

Alphys wanted to scream. Instead, she forced herself to get back to the mission at hand.

"S-S-So, err..." Despite her everlasting embarrassment. "M-Mettaton said there's a s-staircase that leads to some secret room in the C-C-CORE... if you want to take a look?"

A coldness seized the young skeleton. She wasn't talking about... THAT room, was she? His SOUL shook just at the thought of going in there?

He didn't want to go. He's scared.

"LET'S GO."

He can't let that fear show.

--------

Why did he even come here?

The skeleton glared at the bottle of ketchup before him, his left hand gripping it tightly, like he was in the middle of an interrogation.

Why did he convince himself to come here? For a drink? For some sense of normalcy?

Or just because he was hungry? That was the original reason. Or at least, this world gave him the sensation of hunger. Glad that's carried over from home.

Why does he need to eat anyway? What harm is there if he doesn't? He's not real. Nothing he's ever done is real! Except for this one thing that can make everything feel real again. Why is he distracting himself?! He should go back to work, dammit!

Another wave of static pain ran through his being. It's happening more and more frequently. Just another bit of evidence of his nonexistence.

His arms shook as he squeezed the ketchup bottle. Ketchup ran down onto his hand. It felt warm.

Too warm. He hated it. Skeletons shouldn't be able to feel temperature. Ugh, here comes the headache.

"Sans?"

Huh. Someone's calling for Sans, huh? Wonder who Sans is.

Wait, why is this fish looking at him?

"Hey, you okay? You look rough."

A brief glance. "i'm fine."

"Are you sure? You've been staring at that ketchup for a while now. And you haven't made even one joke since you came in. Are you sure-"

"am i nothing but jokes to you?"

The fish was taken back. Why did he look like that? It's a simple question!

Did he pick the wrong tone? He really was just asking. Was making jokes his role in this story? What story is it, exactly? He needed to clarify.

"i meant-"

Suddenly, another burst of static pain shot through his core, making the unknown skeleton glitch out like crazy! If the fish didn't flinch before, he certainly did now.

But the fish couldn't even say anything, because as soon as it's over, the monster just started... cackling. Like his pain was the funniest thing in the world. And he didn't stop, it just kept going and going... and going...

By the time he was done, the whole restaurant was staring at him. They all had the same face: jaws on the ground, eyes popping out. Not literally. There was at least some variation. Lesser's neck was so long it burst through the ceiling just to get away from this insanity.

The skeleton only had one thing to say when his laughter finally stopped. "what?"

"That looked painful, dude."

"i don't feel p 4 i n, berdly." He pointed at Bun, sitting at her usual spot.

"Um..." The still relatively sober (for once) rabbit looked around awkwardly. "I didn't say anything."

Two monsters were whispering behind him. Oh, no. Oh, they do NOT get to talk about him that way! Nobody talks about... whatever his name is that way!!!

Whatever his name is, he can make an acronym out of that. WHNI... Whin... Whinny! Yes! That's his name now! Whinny!

Now, Whinny needed to stop these people from talking. He swivelled in his seat (a little too far), and pointed accusingly at who he suspected were the gossipers.

"shut up, you..." You what? "meanie gossipers."

...Is that seriously the best he can come up with?

Dogamy and Dogaressa stared at Whinny's accusing finger questioningly. Meanwhile, the true gossipers, the fish and the bird literally right next to him, shut their mouths and tried to look inconspicuous.

"that's right." Okay, Whinny sounds drunk now. He didn't even drink anything besides half a ketchup bottle. "youuuu keep your muzzles shuttles."

Nice.

Ah, Grillby just came out the kitchen and placed a new ketchup bottle. One Whinny definitely didn't order and didn't intend on downing at all.

"whassis, dave?" Whinny grinned at the flame, who stood there in confusion.

"Sans?"

Someone tapped his shoulder. No!

He slapped them away. "who's sans? you ar3 m15tak3n. i am whinny."

"Whinny?" The fish snorted. "Like a horse?"

"neigh!" Whinny slammed his fists on the table, making the two ketchup bottles jump. He giggled at the motion. God, these guys are stupid.

Or maybe it was him. Maybe he's the stupid one. He certainly looked stupid, giggling into the wood like that. Grillby was close by, watching over him like he had just came down with an illness. He probably has, but who cares? Once everything resets, it's just gonna go away. It's not important. He's not important. No one is.

Somehow that made Whinny laugh even more. He managed to lift his head, at least. Full of mirth, he took a look at the fire monster before him.

"aww, dave. you always got me."

If Whinny looked around the room in his right mind, he could have guessed what everyone was thinking in that moment: 'Who gave Sans ghost juice?'

That's what this is, right? Sans just got access to ghost juice, that's why he's acting like this. And the glitching... Uhh, that's probably some sort of weird skeleton brother antic they're not in on. The skeleton brothers do a lot of weird things, so they wouldn't put it past Sans to find a way to start glitching. He'd probably be okay by next week. That's what always happened, right?

Yeah. The best thing they can do is mind their own business.

So, Whinny started mentally cuddling up to 'Dave', and the subject changed.

"Hey, Grillbz." The bird, Zeeds, started. "I heard a rumor you and your family are gonna move to Snowdin full-time. That true?"

Dave simply nodded, though he seemed a little off at the mention of his name.

"Aww, that's great news! Can't wait to meet the wife and kiddos! Are they going to move schools?"

Why even pay attention to this conversation? It's not like Dave will ever get to do it. Not with the way things are going, or not going.

...

Hey, there's yellow petals outside. That's interesting. Golden flowers don't usually show up in Snowdin, do they? Or maybe that's just his glitched-out imagination.

Either way, the skeleton went to investigate.

The fish was the first to notice. "Hey, S- Whinny, where are you going?"

It's too late. Whinny already left.

He knows he should mind his own business, but... he couldn't help turning to Dave anyway. "Hey, Grillby, does Sans seem a little off to you?"

The flame just lifted a finger. "no. ................................................................... it's dave."

Dave. Cool.

--------

Papyrus hadn't gone down these stairs in a long while.

Alphys noticed him hesitating just as they were getting to the bottom steps. "Hey... Are you okay?"

He nodded vigorously. "I'M GREAT! WHY DO YOU ASK?"

She opened her mouth, but something in Papyrus' expression stopped her. Instead, the two reluctantly continued.

As soon as they hit the last step, the duo was greeted with a long, clean hallway. The light was turned off, but both of them knew it's meant to be bright. The walls were split between tiles and solid stone. The tiles were this light turquoise colour, and the stone had a solid white coat of paint. Along the hall were rows of doors, each leading to rooms Papyrus could just about remember. If he closed his eyes and tried hard enough, he could recall each and every room the doors led to.

Walking down the hidden hall, they took the opportunity to peek through every door along the way. In one room was an office. In another, nothing but a carpet, a bookshelf, a desk and a short, round table with kiddy chairs. Strange.

Papyrus peeked into a room with an examination table. He got out of there quickly.

The end of the corridor gave way to the main room. A giant, empty chamber with an observation point far above the tiled floor. Papyrus knew that room all too well.

"ALPHYS."

The little monster looked up. A skeletal finger pointed towards the observation point's window.

"THAT'S WHERE HE MADE HIS NOTES. THERE SHOULD BE EXTRA FILES IN THERE."

Alphys quickly nodded. "R-Right!"

The two rushed towards the door in the corner of the room. Thank goodness it was unlocked. It made everything a lot easier.

Through the door was a carpeted staircase, not unlike the one in Sans and Papyrus' house. The shades of purple and blue were exact, with the only difference being that the stripes were straight instead of wavy. But neither of them had time to dwell on that.

The carpet continued all throughout the observation point. It was a pretty dark room, even with the light on. The window took up an entire wall. One could easily see the floor below. Just adjacent to the window was yet another desk, with a case full of files beside it. Files that spanned back at least five years.

Alphys gaped at the amount of research that took place here. There were even more of his old files here than there were in the True Lab! Oh, where to start?

Papyrus already found a start. He passed her a file with nothing but a date on the cover. January 2010.

ENTRY [REDACTED]

THERE HAS BEEN VERY LITTLE PROGRESS MADE. I'M STARTING TO THINK THIS WHOLE OPERATION IS A BUST.

SALT AND PEPPER STILL REFUSE TO GET ALONG. THIS IS CONCERNING. THEIR BOND IS CRUCIAL TO THIS EXPERIMENT WORKING, AND IF THEIR BOND CONTINUES TO WAVER, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO.

AS I ALREADY STATED IN PREVIOUS ENTRIES, MONSTERS CAN USE TEMPORARY SOUL BONDS TO COMBINE ATTACKS AND MAKE THEMSELVES MORE POWERFUL. IN SOME CASES, THEY CAN EVEN BOOST EACH OTHER'S STATS.

BUT MONSTERS WITH A PERMANENT SOUL BOND, ESPECIALLY THOSE THAT WERE BORN WITH IT, CAN GO EVEN FURTHER THAN THAT. THEY CAN PUSH EACH OTHER WAY PAST THEIR USUAL LIMITS, CREATING NEW AND WONDERFUL SPELLS AND POWERS FOR THEMSELVES.

AND WITH THE POWER SOURCE OF THE TRANSPORTER EMBEDDED IN THEIR SOULS, I BELIEVE IF PUSHED HARD ENOUGH, SALT AND PEPPER COULD EVEN PUSH PAST THE BOUNDARIES OF THIS WORLD, AND SHAPE IT TO THEIR WHIMS. THEY COULD EVEN HELP TO BREAK THE BARRIER BEFORE WE GO HOME. ALL THREE OF US HAVE ALREADY HAD OUR MAGIC ALTERED THANKS TO THESE ESSENCES. COMBINED WITH A POWERFUL SOUL BOND LIKE THEIRS, I'M SURE I CAN MAKE A BREAKTHROUGH! IF ONLY THEY WOULD GET ALONG...

Alphys stared at the entry with slight recognition. "He mentioned Salt and Pepper again..."

Another file just got tossed to her. Papyrus was busy looking through all the old files, organising them in a way. She assumed every file he passed her had some mention of the machine, or rather, the transporter.

She glanced at the file before her.

October 2009.

Welp. What does it have to say, then?

ENTRY [REDACTED]

IT HAS BEEN OVER A YEAR SINCE WE LANDED HERE. SINCE THEN, A LOT OF STRANGE THINGS ARE HAPPENING.

THE BOYS AND I HAVE OBTAINED SOME MYSTERIOUS POWERS. I AM NO CLOSER TO FIXING THE TRANSPORTER. I THINK THE ESSENCES FROM THE BATTERIES HAVE LODGED THEMSELVES INTO OUR SOULS SOMEHOW. THAT WOULD EXPLAIN A LOT.

ONE OF THE BOYS, THE SMALLER ONE, HAS HAD TROUBLE CONTROLLING HIS TELEPORTATION. THIS MORNING, HE SNEEZED AND ENDED UP ON THE ROOF. HE CRIED UNTIL I WENT UP TO GET HIM DOWN (I CAN PHASE THROUGH SOLID OBJECTS, APPARENTLY. LIKE A GHOST. OOOOOOOOOOOOO), BUT THEN I GOT STUCK IN THE ROOF, SO. WHOOPSY DOOPSY.

THE TALLER BOY ISN'T ANY BETTER. HE HAS THE ABILITY TO FLY WITHOUT THE USE OF BLUE MAGIC. WHILE HE IS VERY ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT USING IT, MORE OFTEN THAN NOT I HAD TO HEAL HIS WOUNDS. HOWEVER, I HAVE NOTICED THAT HIS BONES ARE A LOT TOUGHER THAN ANY NORMAL SKELETON. I WILL HAVE TO INVESTIGATE IF THIS IS SOME KIND OF SIDE EFFECT OF

Wait, where's the rest? It's all redacted?! Come on!!!

Though these powers he described... Teleporting, flying, phasing through objects... Wait, was the second one even flying? Or was it some other kind of time and space manipulation. She was starting to notice a pattern here. But in order to confirm it, she will have to ask the monster that can 'fly'.

She turned to Papyrus, who was still searching through old entries. "Papyrus?"

He startled. "NYEH?"

Alphys exhaled, her tone cautious and deliberate. "You said you and he were close?"

"UHH..." He nodded.

"Close how? Are you..." She looked back at one of the entries, before continuing. "Are you and Sans... Salt and Pepper?"

She caught Papyrus deflating. Well... There's no point trying to brush it all aside now. Not when Alphys was getting more worried.

"Did he experiment on you?"

Papyrus sat up straight. "NOT... IN THE WAY YOU MIGHT BE THINKING. IT WAS NEVER LIKE THOSE FILMS WHERE THERE'S A LAB RAT WITH A SAD BACKSTORY ABOUT BEING TORTURED IN A LAB. HE HAD HIS HYPOTHESES, AND HE WENT OUT OF HIS WAY TO TEST THEM... AND SANS AND I WERE DIRECTLY INVOLVED. BUT IT NEVER INVOLVED PAIN. THE LAST THING HE WANTED TO DO WAS CAUSE US PAIN."

Alphys blinked as Papyrus gave her a more recent entry. She skimmed through it quickly.

ENTRY [REDACTED]

I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SO SORRY I HAD TO DO IT IT WAS THE ONLY WAY OH GOD I'M SORRY

RELAX. IT'S OVER. THEY ARE RECOVERING REALLY WELL. THEY FORGIVE YOU. THEY SHOULDN'T, BUT THEY DO.

THEY KNEW IT WAS NECESSARY. THEY WERE EVEN WILLING, BUT... I WISH IT WASN'T. IT WAS JUST ONE SAMPLE, THAT'S ALL I NEEDED. BUT WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE DONE WITHOUT ANAESTHETICS? OH, RIGHT, BECAUSE IT WOULD HAVE AFFECTED THE RESULTS OF THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT.

I CANNOT BELIEVE I HAD TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT. LUCKILY THE BOYS ARE RECOVERING, BUT THEY ARE IN A LOT OF PAIN. I SWEAR, NEXT TIME I DO A DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT INCLUDING SOULS, I AM JUST GOING TO DO IT ON MYSELF. I WILL NOT HURT THEM AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN.

She gaped at the entry.

"THAT WAS THE ONE TIME HE ACTUALLY HURT US. HE NEVER DID IT AGAIN AFTER THAT. EVEN DESPITE HIS OWN PAIN."

Alphys' eyes welled up, before blinking them away. She turned back to Papyrus, who looked... oddly melancholy. The sight of a sad and serious Papyrus sent chills down her spine.

"WE DIDN'T WANT HIM TO HURT HIMSELF, BUT HE ALWAYS DID IT WHEN WE WEREN'T LOOKING. ONLY WHEN HE FELT IT WAS NECESSARY, OF COURSE! BUT... SOMETIMES I WONDER IF IT EVER WAS NECESSARY. IF THINGS HAD BEEN DIFFERENT..."

Alphys' tail curled around herself, thinking about what could have been.

Her eyes drifted to the most recent entry, right next to Papyrus' feet.

"May I?"

Papyrus nodded and slid it towards her.

ENTRY [REDACTED]

I CANNOT SEE.

I CANNOT FEEL.

I CANNOT THINK.

THIS MACHINE... IT IS A LOT MORE DANGEROUS THAN I EXPECTED.

THIS THING EMITS A POWERFUL RADIATION THAT AFFECTS THE SOULS OF WHOEVER DARES TO TRY AND FIX IT.

HERE IS WHAT I OBSERVED IN MYSELF WHILE TRYING TO FIX IT.

CHEST PAINS. MEMORY LOSS. IDENTITY LOSS. RAPID MOOD SWINGS. DRASTIC CHANGES IN PERSONALITY.

HORRIBLE, AWFUL GLITCHES THAT ONLY GET WORSE AND WORSE THE CLOSER YOU ARE TO

THIS. MIGHT BE THE END FOR ME. OH WELL. WE HAD A GOOD RUN, AT LEAST.

SANS. PAPYRUS. IF YOU EVER FIND THIS, PLEASE. DO NOT TRY TO FIX THE MACHINE. I WOULD HATE TO KNOW I LED YOU TWO TO YOUR OWN DEMISE JUST AS I LED MYSELF TO MINE.

BE GOOD. LIKE I KNOW YOU ARE.

The room turned to ice.

How long had Alphys been staring at this entry? Far too long for her own comfort. What is she doing?! Why is she wasting time like this?! These are...

"HE WASN'T HIMSELF DURING HIS LAST DAYS."

The room blurred. "W-Was he temperamental too?"

"YEAH. THE LAST TIME I SAW HIM... THE LAST TIME I SAW GASTER... HE WAS EXACTLY LIKE HOW SANS IS NOW. ERRATIC AND ANGRY. IT WASN'T LIKE HIM! I FEEL LIKE... MAYBE WE SHOULD HAVE-"

"No no no, don't blame yourself!" Alphys reached a shaky hand out. "It wasn't your fault, I know it wasn't."

Papyrus nodded. "I KNOW. I JUST WISH HE TOLD US WHAT HE WAS DOING. HE NEVER TOLD US ABOUT THE MACHINE, OR THAT HE WAS TRYING TO FIX IT."

Her eyes widened a little. "Gaster?"

"WHAT?"

"You said his name was Gaster."

Papyrus stared at the carpet in disbelief. He did, didn't he? It's been a while since that name left his teeth.

A wave of catharsis flowed through him. "YES! HIS NAME WAS GASTER! W.D. GASTER! AND HE WAS AN INCREDIBLE MONSTER! BUT ONLY A FEW PEOPLE REMEMBER HIM FULLY. THERE'S PROOF OF HIS EXISTENCE, BUT IT'S FAR AND FEW BETWEEN. A-AND THE BIGGER CLUES RARELY POP UP."

"Would a mysterious grey door be one of those clues?"

Papyrus perked up. "WHAT?"

"E-Earlier, I saw a weird, um, room? It wasn't there before. I don't know where it came from, but... if what you said is true, then... Maybe it could be linked to him?"

Papyrus' eyes sparkled as he leaned forward. Alphys' tail flicked. She had to make sure it wasn't going to fall off again. It's happened far too many times before.

"I think I saw a man in there. I'm not quite sure, but maybe he's a f-follower or something. Gaster had followers, right?"

Papyrus slowly nodded. "HE CALLED THEM THAT, YEAH. HOW DID YOU-"

"I don't know! I just... It popped into my head. C-Come on!"

Tiny scaly hands dragged Papyrus towards the stairs.

"WHOA WHOA, OKAY, OKAY!!!"

He didn't protest. After all, something told him they were running out of time. They had to find that man, and fast!

--------

New name aside, Sans stepped out and looked around for those yellow petals. They've completely disappeared... Odd.

"huh. must've been my im4g1nation."

He's gotten used to the pain. All alone, the tiny skeleton looked around. The streets suddenly seemed so big... and hard to see through. It's gotten really foggy and snowy all of a sudden. Kind of reminds him of...

Socks...

He sighed in frustration. "dang it. why am i wasting my time on a hallucination? i need to g0 b4ck to w0rk, dangit."

What a waste of time.

Why isn't anything working?! That's the thought that runs through his head over and over again. Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why?!?!

He's got the substitute! The structure is fixed, the wires have been replaced! What is he doing wrong?!

Everything. He's doing everything wrong. He's pushing friends away, he's messing up everything, he's forgetting himself and his home! Why is he even trying?! He's gotta-

No. No, he can't give up! He's come too far! He's sacrificed so much of himself so he can escape the loop! They can be happy again! His brother can be happy again! Sure, he's not being very grateful, but in time, he'll see...

What's his brother's name? Ugh, stupid! Of all things, why did he have to forget his BROTHER'S name?! His brother's the most important person in this or any other world, how could he...

Fine. Guess he had to come up with a substitute name until he could remember. Most Important Person. MIP. Close enough.

A slight giggle bubbled out of his ever-tightening chest. Hehe. MIP. Cute.

Seriously, though, what has he done wrong? Why can't he do anything right? Why does he keep messing up over and over again?

It was his fault they were even in this world in the first place! He gave him one of the power sources! He messed up when he gave him instructions! And then, when all is said and done, he failed to save him when he was spiralling into an early grave.

Well, not this time! This time, he can make up for all of it!! He'll take them home, find all of the pieces and bring him back too!

Fix the machine, get him back, go home. Fix the machine, get him back, go home. Fix the machine, get him back, go home.

His thoughts are in a loop. An endless loop that turned into a narrow tunnel...

Petals again?

Where did that high window come from? And those yellow petals are back. Is that another hallucination?

Hallucination or not, the skeleton found himself leaving the workshop anyway.

And... back to an empty street. A foggy, snowy, empty area.

This wasn't Snowdin at all... was it?

Creepy...

And the petals were gone.

He growled and scratched his skull. Why is he letting himself get distracted like this?!?! What is wrong with him?!?!

A surge of painful glitching brought the young amateur to the ground. Snow clouded his vision as he attempted to regain control of himself. But he was warm, too warm, and the chest pains won't stop, and his senses were slowly fading along with his memories...

He just wanted the pain to stop.

It was then when he heard a shrill cackle. It echoed around him, but the source was nowhere to be seen.

He found the strength to sit on his knees. "who's there?"

A shadow of something popped up. He couldn't quite tell what it is. It was both plantlike and snake-like at the same time, with a face that looked deceiving.

"Golly!" The voice echoed all around him. "You don't look so well, haha! Poor thing. What could you possibly be doing to put you in such a state?"

The skeleton rose to his feet with a quiet rage. "none of your business."

"Aw, come on! I'm not gonna tell anyone! You can trust me!"

"i don't think i can, actually." Tiny hands balled into tight fists as he watched the shadow slither and slink around.

"Aww, you're no fun. What happened to who you used to be? You were tons of fun! Or should I say..."

The voice came from behind him.

"A skele-ton?"

The shadow was met with feeble punches. It giggled at the attempt.

"Wow! You're so out-of-character! It's intriguing!"

"shut up!"

The shadow giggled again. Aww, poor little guy... puffing out his chest like he's the bigger man. But both of them know that he's not. Not right now.

Right now, he's weak. Right now, he's vulnerable. In a poor, pitiful state that this creature would never be able to exploit again. Before, the skeleton was almost untouchable mentally, but now he's susceptible to him and his manipulation. Better make every minute count.

The creature slithered around the vulnerable skeleton, giggling as it did.

"All this time spent on your precious project, and you've barely gotten anywhere. You want to play the hero so badly, it's stupid! You don't even realise that you're turning into the villain!"

The skeleton was taken back. "i'm not..."

"But you are! You're the one hurting your brother, right? He reached out to you and you pushed him away! Same with that little lizard lady. If I recall, she reached out to you... and you scratched her!"

A loud, overlapping laugh overwhelmed the little skeleton's senses. At least they're back.

"i didn't mean to, i just-"

"But it doesn't matter anyway, cuz it's not real, RIGHT? NONE of these people are real! You don't ACTUALLY care about them! You're not real either, just a bunch of ones and zeroes translated into a big bag of nothing, RIGHT?"

The skeleton felt himself shrink. Is that really what he had been thinking this whole time?

"Hey, actually, if you do fix this machine, what are you going to do then? Are you going to bring everyone with you, or are you only concerned with saving you and your brother? Pretty selfish, isn't it?"

He didn't think about that either. A cold terror shot through his being just thinking about it. Is that really...

No, don't give in. "i-i just..." Steady... "i just wanna fix my mistakes..."

"Oh, THAT'S what you wanna do? Well, I take it back! How heroic of you! ...Except you're never going to be able to do it."

"wh- yes, i will."

"No, you won't! Don't lie to yourself! Because when one mistake is fixed, you're just going to do it with another STUPID mistake! And then you'll have to fix that one, and then whoops! Another mistake."

"shut up."

"What's wrong? Can't handle the truth? You gotta admit it, SANS! You're just a bundle of mistakes and failures! I mean, what's the point of even trying, really?"

So his name really is Sans... He can't handle this. He pressed his hands to his head as this SNAKE slithered around.

"All your progress will be wasted in the end anyway, haha! What's going to ruin it? You, or the resets? Either way, you'll never be able to see your old loved ones again! You'll never get what you want, so why try anything at all?"

Another surge of glitches racked his SOUL, as well as this ice hot fury he hadn't felt in a long time. It only took over as the creature came up to his ossicle again.

"You should just quit, you useless piece of filth."

"eN0UGH!!1!1!"

That's when it happened. A barrage of glitchy bones and blasters followed the plant snake wherever it went. An onslaught of violence that wasn't like Sans at all. When a bone hit, it gave the flower temporary glitches, but they didn't last long.

"aAACK- FINE! If you want to kill yourself, go ahead!! Just don't say I didn't try to get you to stop!"

And like that, the shadow was gone, leaving the skeleton all alone.

Well, then. What was the point of that? Why did Flowey even try in the first place? Was it all just projection?

No. No, it wasn't. Flowey just didn't want to lose another plaything. He had already seen all the timelines without Sans. They weren't very exciting. And a permanent change that was outside of his control wasn't ideal for the flower, to say the least.

But it seemed like he's gonna lose a plaything anyway. Go figure.

Fine. If that's how these timelines are gonna go from now on, he might as well see how it plays out.

Idiot.

As for Sans, he dashed back to the workshop the first chance he got. Somehow, that conversation left him more desperate to fix the machine than ever. The words a heavy weight on his mind, he threw himself back into his work.

So much for that.

--------

It's still here. The grey door... It hadn't left!

Alphys didn't know why she was expecting it to have gone by now. It's not like rooms just grow legs and walk away, right? But not only is that a funny visual, it could also explain how it showed up in the first place. After all, random grey rooms don't just appear out of nowhere, either.

She turned to Papyrus to see what he thought. A look of recognition. Amazement? She didn't know if this was a good sign, but she hoped it was.

"W-Wanna go in?"

Papyrus nodded. And so they did.

The same goopy man from before sat in the middle of the room, staring at the two of them. Papyrus flinched at his presence.

"IS THAT... NO, IT CAN'T BE."

"What?"

"IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE HIM AT ALL! WELL... THERE IS SOME RESEMBLANCE. THOSE CRACKS, FOR ONE..."

"Are you saying this is Gaster?"

Papyrus shook his head. "GASTER DIDN'T LOOK LIKE THAT. THEN AGAIN, I CAN'T REMEMBER HIS FACE."

The two walked around the goop man for a bit. Giant goopy eyes locked onto Papyrus and followed him around. Alphys watched them in fascination.

"Wow. Do you think he recognises you?"

Papyrus tapped his chin. "AM I SO FAMOUS THAT EVEN VOID MEN HAVE HEARD OF ME?"

The yellow scientist giggled before trying something. Carefully creeping up towards the guy, she reached out to give him a small touch.

His figure began to fade.

Papyrus let out a gasp. "ALPHYS!"

She snatched her hand away. "S-Sorry! I just wanted to..."

The man's form returned. That's... interesting.

Another idea popped into her head. "Papyrus, y-you touch him."

"ME?"

"I think he recognises you. Maybe you could... I don't know... I-I'm just spitting balls here!"

Papyrus squinted skeptically. "YOU'RE NOT A CAT."

"Please just do it."

With a sigh, Papyrus stepped towards the pile of goop. He continued to stare at the brave soul before him. He didn't even fade as Papyrus reached out to him.

And then... a gloved hand succeeded at making contact.

"...He didn't fade."

"WOWIE..." Alphys caught Papyrus' eye sockets sparkling again. "I REALLY AM SUPER FAMOUS! WOULD YOU LIKE MY AUTOGRAPH, VOID MAN? I DON'T HAVE A PEN, SO I GUESS I'LL JUST WRITE IT ON YOUR GOOP."

He attempted to write his signature, but the goop just wiggled and jiggled all attempts away.

"HEY, WHAT GIVES!!!"

"Maybe he doesn't like to be traced." Alphys giggled, watching the guy very closely. She swore she saw that face before... outside of today, of course.

"WHO WOULDN'T WANT TO BE TRACED BY THE GREAT PAPYRUS? I KNOW SANS LIKES IT WHEN I TRACE HIM!"

Alphys gave him a blank stare. "What."

A pause.

"OH RIGHT SANS!!!" Did he seriously just remember his mission now? "UM, HELLO, GASTER? IF THAT'S YOU IN THERE, OR A PART OF YOU, OR WHATEVER, DO YOU REMEMBER SANS?"

The goop gooped a nod.

"AMAZING! WELL, UM... HE'S TRYING TO FIX THE TRANSPORTER THING, AND-"

A bubbly screech interrupted Papyrus' speech. The goop started to wiggle and flail as the piece of Gaster warped into a jelly-like state and finally melted into the floor. Papyrus and Alphys could only helplessly watch.

"W-Where did he go?!"

"I DON'T KNOW!"

Great! Just great! How were they going to get help now?!

But then the walls started to shift. Shadows appeared, circling them like vultures.

Papyrus was the first to spot them. "ALPHYS, LOOK!"

Alphys followed his finger to the back wall. The shadows gathered there to present something. A puppet show.

The shadows created two young skeletons that they recognised instantly.

"Are they..."

"THEY ARE."

Shadow children running and playing... One short and stubby, one tall and thin. They look happy.

Around them, more shadows created more skeletons, buildings, and market stalls. It's a place Alphys only recognised in history books. A land long forgotten.

Staring at the wall with a far-out look, Papyrus began to narrate the story the shadows were portraying.

"A LONG TIME AGO, TWO YOUNG SKELETONS LIVED IN A BEAUTIFUL WORLD, WITH OTHER SKELETONS. THEY WEREN'T CLOSE TO THE OTHER SKELETONS, ONLY EACH OTHER. BUT THEY STILL WENT OUT OF THEIR WAY TO HELP THEM."

Alphys felt like a child on the storytime carpet. How nostalgic. Though that place...

The shadows shifted. A lab. A machine. Three skeletons now instead of two. Two of them were the little skeletons, but the third... The third must have been him.

"ON THEIR THIRTEENTH BIRTHDAY, THEY HAD AN OPPORTUNITY TO MEET ONE OF THE LITTLE SKELETON'S BIGGEST IDOLS: A SCIENTIST."

The tallest skeleton gave the two little ones a warm welcome, and showed them the machine.

"THE SCIENTIST WAS A KIND SOUL. HE EVEN LET THEM HELP WITH HIS LATEST PROJECT."

The smallest skeleton presented a jewel to the scientist, who smiled brightly and gladly took it. He used it as a power source for the machine, before instructing the two little skeletons on what to do. The two little skeletons danced around and went inside the machine. The scientist followed after them.

"BUT THEN SOMETHING WENT WRONG."

Suddenly, the shadows flickered wildly. The three skeletons dashed out, terrified and looking around. The scenery the other shadows provided flickered in and out too.

"I... I DON'T REMEMBER THIS PART. BUT I'M SURE..."

Three colourful explosions occurred. The smallest skeleton got hit in the eye. The taller child skeleton got hit on the hands. And the tallest got scars on his face. Three different areas, six different colours.

Over on another wall, three SOULs were shown. Colour leaked into all three of them. Three souls with two colours each. It embedded themselves into their SOULs and left it at that.

The world around them flickered.

"I... I REALLY DON'T REMEMBER THIS PART!"

Papyrus sounded distressed. The scientist ushered the skeletons in the machine. The flickering got faster and faster and faster until...

Poof. The scenery was gone.

Just the machine was left, floating around the grey wall.

And then a new scenery showed itself. One Alphys was very familiar with.

A castle, some tall grass, some flowers... Waterfall.

Three skeletons stumbled out, injured, lost and afraid.

"I SUPPOSE... THAT'S HOW WE ENDED UP HERE. ONE MINUTE WE WERE THERE, NEXT MINUTE WE WERE HERE."

Papyrus was quiet. Alphys glanced at him. Still with that blank stare.

"WE STAYED IN THE UNDERGROUND EVER SINCE, NEVER ABLE TO GET BACK."

Alphys' tail curled around herself as Papyrus looked down.

"TO OSTEONIA."

A spark of recognition flickered in her mind. "Did you just say..."

Papyrus nodded solemnly.

"...I think I read about it. In the history books? It was a skeleton kingdom, right? But it was destroyed in the war, and... so were a lot of skeleton families."

"THE WAR NEVER HAPPENED IN THE WORLD I CAME FROM."

"I-I can see that. I..." She turned at the wall again. "I guess that would explain why you don't have a counterpart here. When Osteonia was attacked by humans, they didn't leave a lot of skeletons alive. So that would mean your ancestors..."

Papyrus nodded.

"...You're... not supposed to exist here."

"...I THINK SANS THOUGHT THE SAME WAY."

The story continued. The shadowed displayed events that Alphys had already learned about, and things Papyrus can already remember.

Gaster becoming the Royal Scientist. Creating the CORE, the lights, and many other things that improved life in the underground, all while trying to break the Barrier and finding a way to fix the machine.

Turning Sans and Papyrus into Salt and Pepper, discovering their new abilities... and testing them in various ways. Sans and Papyrus argued a lot, but they eventually made some sort of breakthrough when they grew up. Alphys smiled at their reconciliation. Meanwhile, Gaster was still trying to fix the machine behind their backs.

Outside of the experiments, the three looked happy as a family. Alphys didn't know if this was an act, though. She reached out to Papyrus for confirmation, and Papyrus agreed that they were like a family for a while.

On an adjacent wall, another shadow portrayed the scientist working hard to fix the machine. Above him was a depiction of a monster SOUL. Every time the scientist worked on it, the SOUL cracked, chipped, or got damaged in some other way. Alphys and Papyrus locked eyes on that SOUL, their own SOULs sinking in their chests.

The scientist facilitated between that wall and the main one. Experiments, family, machine. Experiments, family, machine, experiments, family, machine, experiments, family, machine.

The symptoms became more apparent the longer the scientist worked. The more cracks there were in his SOUL.

And then eventually...

SMASH

He was gone. Shattered across time and space.

Alphys and Papyrus sat and stared in horror. So. That's what happened.

...And the twins were just about to turn 18.

The show ended. The shadows disappeared. They left one skeleton and one lizard alone to process in a cold, empty room.

A room that could become someone else's home if they failed to stop him.

They turned to each other.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

Well, that was certainly a reaction.

Papyrus couldn't breathe. He couldn't- He couldn't breathe- He couldn't speak!

Alphys stuttered a lot as she tried to wrap her head around what she just witnessed, what she could have allowed to happen.

"T-T-T-Tha-ank you! H-Have a good afterlife!"

They ran out the room.

Afterlife. Damn.

--------

Papyrus' eye sockets were swimming in themselves as he ran. He tried to catch his breath with every step, but they only came out as sobs and whimpers. Alphys struggled to catch up. She wasn't used to running, though she was no less panicked.

I CAN'T LOSE MY BROTHER I CAN'T I CANT...

They hope they can make it to Sans in time before he suffered the same fate as him.

Chapter Text

Just give up, you piece of filth.

Since what Sans was sure was a hallucination, he'd been spiralling more than ever. Frantically pulling all the wires out, rearranging them to see if it'll help, switching the substitute batteries around. Nothing works. Nothing will ever work.

i'm a failure.

He just has to keep trying. He just has to keep- There's gotta be some way! If not to get back home, at least to bring...

"hey, bro, you seen g around at all today?"

"NO... BUT MAYBE HE'S JUST PLANNING A SURPRISE FOR US! HE SAID HE WAS GONNA PLAN SOMETHING HUGE FOR OUR EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY!"

"do you think he ever had the time to?"

He failed to notice when he went away. He must've caused him to go, or pushed him to that breaking point, or something!

i was a burden on him.

He doesn't deserve the care. He doesn't deserve love, not after everything he's done. He's lucky he still has people despite the pain he inflicted on them.

Liquid magic slid down Alphys' cheek.

Why are all these memories coming back to him now? Before he had no identity, but now he remembers exactly who he is.

someone who ruins lives.

Doesn't matter. Keep going.

Doesn't matter...

It's all gonna be reset.

Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

It's not REAL! NONE of these people are real! You don't ACTUALLY care about them!

Nothing's working, nothing's working, what is he doing wrong?! Is he just not...

i'm not good enough.

Maybe he missed something? Check on the blueprints!

...

No, everything's lining up perfectly. What is he doing wrong?

everything. everything's wrong.

You're inadequate, but it's okay. We can change you.

Why is he even trying still? What's the point of all of this? He just wanted to save himself and Papyrus, right?

selfish.

If it's just for the two of them, then what's the point?

"W-WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE HERE? ARE THEY NOT REAL TO YOU?!"

"beats me. but if it makes you happy, we can take 'em with us, no biggie."

He really is selfish.

Papyrus wasn't happy with this. He was never happy with this!

He doesn't want this.

But he can't stop. He... He can't bring himself to stop. He can't make himself stop! He has to... He can't stop!

Keep going keep going keep going change everything change what can't be changed. Why is he still going?! He can't stop! He's gonna ruin everything again!

Can't stop can't stop

Papyrus doesn't want this...

He knows! But what can he do? His body isn't listening to him!

This is all his fault. If only he hadn't started this.

You're just a bundle of mistakes and failures! I mean, what's the point of even trying, really?

It's exactly like that Muffet incident. And the resets! (They're probably his fault somehow, right? He failed to stop them, at least.)

And the...

"I NEED A POWER SOURCE..."

"hey, is this good enough?

"GOOD? SANS, THAT'S PERFECT! WHAT A BRILLIANT YOUNG BOY YOU ARE!"

It's Sans' fault they were even here. How to make this stop?

That's when he screamed. It's like a lightning bolt zapped his SOUL.

His SOUL... What's happening to it? He has to check!

It's cracked...

Almost shattered, really.

A pathetic laugh escaped him. Wow. This is what he allowed to happen. No wonder why everyone was trying to get him away.

No wonder Papyrus was...

i'm such a stubborn idiot.

I wish you were born different.

selfish and a failure? pick a struggle.

Nothing's real, right?

i'm not good enough.

WHY ARE YOU LASHING OUT AT ME LIKE THIS? WHAT DID I DO WRONG?

i'm not good enough.

Sans finally managed to stop himself from working, but it was too little too late. His SOUL was about to snap in half. Doubling over himself, he couldn't figure out if he was still laughing or if he was crying. Regardless, his broken SOUL tried to cry for help that he was certain will never come.

He thought he can be happy here.

"W-WHAT DO YOU MEAN...?"

"don't tell me gaster's..."

Why couldn't you have been someone else?!

i'm not good at all!

...

The thoughts finally went silent. But the laughter remained.

It wasn't genuine. Sans had a feeling that even on the slim chance he comes out of this alive, his laughter will never be genuine again.

why even try?

"i give up i give up i give up i give up i give up i give up i give up i give up i give up i give up i give up-"

He thought about all those people in the photo album. Faces he will never be able to see again.

you'll never see 'em again.

"I GIVE UP!!!"

With a final burst of energy, Sans slammed his fists down on the electric panel.

And everything started breaking again. The world glitched out around him as a darkness creeped in the corners of his vision.

His SOUL is practically gone.

Wow. This is familiar. Except the first time, Sans had two other people to do this song and dance with. The whole world crashing out around him as unbearable pain racked through his SOUL. Yes. He's seen this before.

And it will be the last thing he'll ever see.

He didn't mind that.

At least he can shut his eyes now. It's time.

Time to let the darkness take him.