Chapter Text
When the deep, swallowing silence of the forest is broken for the first time in ages, Sans listens to the sound roll from the Ruins like the rumble of an earthquake. He wonders, dimly, if King Asgore hears it, too.
If his brother had been with him, the other skeleton would have nearly exploded with excitement and anticipation and...probably spaghetti. “THE DOORS ARE OPENING AGAIN, SANS,” he would say—well, shriek, more like—“AND THAT MEANS ANOTHER HUMAN HAS FALLEN! WE MUST GET READY! WE MUST PREPARE! WE…MUST…FORMULATE!”
At which point Papyrus would alternately hype himself up and panic himself out of doing anything at all, and it would be Sans’s job to take care of the situation. And while Sans has always appreciated Papyrus’s enthusiasm, he doesn’t exactly share it. So he breathes out slowly, prepares himself, and waits for the intruder to appear.
At first he can barely hear them coming. The sound of snow crunching under footsteps is a whisper in the air. If he concentrates hard enough, he can imagine that he hears the soft, fluttering beat of their heart.
When he catches his first sight of the human through the black, bare trees, the first thing he notices is that she has dust on her hands.
Sans watches her silently, taking in her age, her shape, her size. In his eyes is the look of a hunter who has finally found the animal he’s been tracking. She has light hair and dark eyes, and her face is young beneath the shadow of her hat. Her steps are hesitant, her eyes craned on the pitch darkness yawning above her. Her teeth are set so they won’t chatter. She thinks she’s being cautious. She doesn’t know it’s already far too late for that.
Her manner has none of the scared confusion that the other humans demonstrated; rather, she looks on her guard. That, and the fact that she has already dusted someone, has Sans readying his destructive magic before he even bothers to step away from his post.
He is under orders, after all.
So he plants himself directly in her way and waits for her to notice him. No sense in wasting energy chasing her down. If Papyrus would here, it would be a different story. Perhaps he would have already run her off. Perhaps he wouldn't have even recognized her as a human. After all, it's not as if he's ever seen one. Sans will never let something as potentially dangerous as a human anywhere near his brother.
She has crossed half the distance between them before he notices the gun at her hip.
He has never seen a gun in real life, but he has watched enough of Alphys’s anime shows to recognize a ranged weapon. His hand comes up.
Even though the human hasn’t yet passed through the gate Papyrus built, she sees the motion of his arm and freezes. Their eyes lock as he crooks his finger at her, but before she can react, her soul bursts through her sweater. It illuminates the snow around her with a pale yellow glow.
“hiya,” Sans calls, conversationally. “that’s a nice color soul you’ve got there.”
The human’s bright eyes widen. His turn black.
“see ya.”
“Wait--!”
He disregards her voice—low, pleading, a little raw from the cold—and locks his magic around her. Her choked-off shriek echoes off the trees as he flings her into the air. She flounders for a moment, arms pinwheeling, and then she reaches for her gun.
The sound of a rack of bones materializing in front of Sans is punctuated by the click of the hammer being pulled back, and Sans--she’s taking aim, her finger’s on the trigger—sends a bone straight for the yellow glow pulsing the middle of her chest.
Bang.
The bullet--with alarming aim--shatters the bone lancing towards her, and Sans himself has to duck out of its way. It buries itself in the wood of his guard kiosk with a muffled crunch. He glances over his shoulder at the damage to his station, then glares up at the human and releases her.
Another shriek, as the human falls from the height to which Sans lifted her. Her body throws up a puffy cloud of snow when she lands.
Sans waits. He briefly recalls the other humans who have come through the Ruins--some fearful, some bold. One of them had even managed to tell him their name.
All of their fights had been short.
When the snow finally settles, the human is again on her feet. Her nose is bleeding, and she wipes it with the sleeve of her free hand. The other is clenched, trembling, around her gun.
“Step aside,” she says. Her voice is stronger now—no longer pleading, but firm. She has a dead aim on his skull. “I’m not here to cause you any trouble.”
“of course you’re not,” he says. His eye flashes blue again.
Her mouth twists, and something that looks like—but cannot possibly be—sorrow, fills her eyes, and then her expression hardens.
“My fight is not with you,” she hisses, and pulls the trigger once more.