Chapter Text
Determination is the key, he thinks. His footsteps echo hollowly down the halls of the True Laboratory. (It’s oddly nostalgic.) The candy-red soul is still tethered to him by a thread of magic, bobbing sedately as he presses onwards. It pulses like a human heart, raw and visceral.
They pass by dusty screens, vintage-green LED’s brightening as they walk by. The air smells of must and buttercups and old ramen noodles.
The kid’s not doing so well. Sans peers at them for a moment, taking note of their hunched posture, their bangs hiding any trace of expression. Sans emotion, like a door without an answerer in the bitter cold. Observing the murderer doesn’t provide any information either. His smile grows more strained. welp, he thinks. the hard way it is. (Knock knock.)
’that expression,’ he says, widening his grin, ‘looks like the face of someone who is sorely regretting their life choices.’ He watches for a reaction. wait for it- The kid twitches, the knuckles of their hands whitening as small fingers curl into fists. 'amirite’? Sans winks, slow and easy-going. They step into another corridor, tracing through a familiar path. An indescribable expression shutters over their face. The mask has cracked.
They are shaking a little. Rage, or fear? He’s not sure. ’Aren’t you,’ they say hoarsely, ‘the expert in regrets here?’ A flash of white teeth, bared in a mockery of a smile. ’You’re a hypocrite, Sans.’ They pass a hand over their face, brushing the bangs from their glinting maroon-brown eyes, and angle their head towards him, questioningly. He turns away. A sodden scrap of fabric burns a hole in his pocket.
He steps into the next room. His breath hitches. Even after all this time, the D.T. extractor is impressive. Metal tubing twines into ram’s horns, and Sans can almost imagine the maw of the machine flickering with white-blue light. The kid stiffens. ‘scared?’ he asks, lightly. They offer no response. ‘giving me the cold shoulder here? sheesh, kiddo. i thought we had a thing going on.’ Sans shrugs, a fluid motion. ‘no turning back now.’
He scuffles behind the machine, fiddling with some switches. It’s mindlessly calming. Sans whistles a discordant tune as he works, and the sound bounces off the walls of the room. The kid winces. good. He takes his time.
‘Hurry up!’ hisses the little brat.
Sans slows down. Their gaze bores a hole into his back. ‘what?’
‘You’re doing this on purpose. Just hurry up already!’
He makes a show of checking his bare wrist. ‘why rush, when we have all the time in the world?’
‘Just. Finish. It.’ they grind out.
Sans raises his hands placatingly. ‘yeesh,’ he mutters, and guides the red soul into its place in the D.T. machine. The air is charged with ozone. Before he can flick on the final switch, the kid hurries towards the extractor, pressing a hand against the glass encasing the soul. ‘I just want to say good bye,’ they mutter, as if the words are being squeezed out of them. Sans waits. Their back is towards him, and their shoulders drawn together. They say something that Sans can’t quite catch, and the soul pulses in response. The kid bows their head.
‘kid?’ he asks.
‘I’m finished,’ they say, and float back to him. The child mirrors his smile, plastic and brittle. They wave a hand at the glass case surrounding the soul. ‘Do it.’
He turns on the D.T. machine. A wave of sound washes over him, and the room becomes blindingly bright, smelling inexplicably of burnt almonds. Sans shields his eyes. It ends abruptly, almost anticlimactic. He blinks away spots.
A glassy soul rests in the glass case, drained of color. It shudders once, then crumbles into nothingness. He reaches in the machine near the base, and opens a slot, pulling out a vial. It is filled with a viscous red liquid.
The kid’s staring at him, all creepy-like. Sans swallows his discomfort, and pockets the vial. ‘ready?’ he asks. He doesn’t wait for a response, and calls upon his magic.
The world stutters. For a second, there is nothing but the dark, bitter cold. He steps out, into the room.
The room looks only slightly neater than his bedroom. Tiled floor, dusty shelves, and an enormous, cloth covered thing in the corner of the darkened room. There it is. His machine- the fruit of wasted, sleepless nights. A failure. He pads towards the covered object, sweeping off the cloth with a spark of magic. It flutters to the ground. Sans pulls out the vial from his jacket pocket, and opens a compartment. He pops off the cork off the vial with his teeth, spitting it out to the side, and starts pouring. The fluid oozes like syrup. When it is empty, Sans tosses the vial over his shoulder. It shatters in a spray of red-coated shards.
‘here goes nothin’,’ he mutters, and pulls on a handle to the side of the machine. A door opens. Sans climbs inside, shutting the door behind him. It clangs shut. Sans reaches for the switch on the control panel to his left, and pauses. ‘any last words?’ he asks, eye sockets dark. ‘i mean, i’m 50% sure this thing works.’ Sans waves a hand to indicate the interior of the machine. The brat stares at him through their bangs, somber. Or sullen. He can’t tell. ’whaddya say,’ he says, grinning, ‘i like to live on the edge.’
Sans waits. When they offer no response, he flips the switch.
There is a quiet pop of displaced air, and both machine and its occupants blink out of existence, as they had never existed at all.