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Sleep was still a problem these days.
Actually, it might have been fair to say that sleep was more of a problem now than it ever had been before.
Sans had always had some trouble sleeping at night, ever since he had been an even shorter stack of bones. The only reason for why it had been a problem back then that he could remember was this nagging worry that he would miss something important. What that could have been when he was so young he had no idea. Possibly being allowed as much junk food as he wanted. Then there had been baby Papyrus, who had a habit of fussing and crying all through the night. Young as he still was, Sans had made it his personal mission to keep a smile on his brother’s face at all times. That was a mission that had held over all the way to the present day.
Throughout the years there had always been one thing or another that made sleep at night a difficult thing to accomplish.
These days it was a nightmares.
Which wasn’t to say that nightmares had never been a problem for him before. They had cropped up in patches - a week or two of disturbed nights and then everything back to normal again. Nor was the current trend to be woken with fear every single night.
It wasn’t constant, but the content of those nightmares was enough to keep him awake for days. Staying awake night after night was a better alternative than to being caught in dreams where he was uncertain if what he saw, heard and experienced were reality, fantasy, or one breaking into the other.
The dreams that disturbed Sans’ sleep, he worried that they would find some way to cross over from dream and become a new reality. Inescapable, unwakeable reality which no second dream could break. It didn’t help that they all held that peculiar feel of a memory which was mostly forgotten and become distorted through the effort of remembering. Like a photo seen through the bottom of a glass cup, the shapes were familiar but the details were warped and out of place.
Thankfully the shape of his house was still familiar, and he could navigate it without fail to the kitchen even with all of the lights out. Soon that would no longer be the case - as soon as Papyrus could settle on the kind of place he wanted to live on the surface, but for now he could make his way fine without so much as stubbing a toe. Thanks to Papyrus and his near obsessive cleanliness, even the pots and pans were all in familiar places, and Sans could put a confident hand on everything he wanted with his sockets closed.
Tonight he worked on automatic and grabbed at the darkness where he knew there would be the least healthy of junk foods. Chips, soda, a warm hotdog out of the fridge, and a half full bottle of ketchup just because. He took his armful of food to the sofa and sat down, not seeing much point in taking it all upstairs to his room when he had no intention of sleeping.
Eating was set on automatic as well. In a half-sleep state, the only thoughts making it through his mind were the ones vaguely related to what he was doing. He wondered if the food on the surface would taste close to the same as what they had in the Underground - and then wondered just how much good it would do to eat food that had no magical component to it and just sort of.. fell through you. …How did human food even work, anyway? What was the point of eating if it all just came right back out again? There had to be some sort of benefit, or he couldn’t imagine humans keeping it up for long. Too much hassle and inconvenience. Unless humans were, as a species, just really hooked on how food tasted and completely unwilling to give it up.
It probably didn’t taste much the same, he thought. Humans and monsters had been cut off from each other for how long? They would have developed away from each other in a lot of ways, despite the halfway contact they’d had through the garbage that managed to find its way down to them. And even with those things which were similar, the resources of the two peoples were so different that any results were likely to be very different from each other.
Sans paused in the act of shoveling a fistful of chips between his teeth. For a moment he was overwhelmed with a wave of anxious apathy. Did he really want things to change? Of course it was good that they were all free now, no longer trapped in the dark below the earth, but… The comfortable familiarity of their home, their favorite foods, their old jobs… all of it would be going away, and Sans wasn’t certain he was ready to lose all of that.
A lot of the anxiety was coming from the nightmares, he knew. Nightmares that were memories, memories of events that hadn’t actually happened, but which still left their patterns on reality.
Shifting timelines, with reality bouncing between them like a rubber ball. It had a tendency to make a guy a little dizzy, not to mention suspicious of change, even when that change was undeniably good. There was always the uncertainty that came with the change, the uncertainty that any change would remain, that it wouldn’t all be ripped away again…
Of course, he couldn’t even fully remember all of the timelines he had been a part of. The only one who could was the one who had triggered RESET, who had the twin powers of SAVE and LOAD, and that hadn’t been him.
That was the kid.
As bad as his nightmares were, he could only imagine what they would be like for Frisk.
On the other hand he couldn’t help but think that anything the kid was experiencing was probably what they deserved. After all, there would be no nightmares if there was nothing to fuel them, right?
Somehow that didn’t make him feel any better.
Sans shook his skull, trying to dislodge the circling thoughts, and reached for the remote. Sitting by himself in silence was obviously doing him no good, a distraction of some kind was called for, and he was too lazy to go out and find anyone who might be awake.
The TV blipped to life, and immediately began to blare, the volume left where it had been the last time it had been turned on. Sans hurriedly turned it down. He didn’t want to wake up Papyrus. Dude didn’t get enough sleep in Sans’ opinion, and if he saw Sans up like this - again - he would only worry.
He listened for any movement from Papyrus’ room. When a minute went by and there was no sound of bony feet hitting the floor or a concerned - and loud - brother busting out of his door to see what the matter was, Sans relaxed.
The TV was showing one of Mettaton’s many shows. It looked like one of his older re-runs, back when he was doing a lot of his serials. If he remembered right, this one was called The Long Arm, and had Mettaton playing a policeman who always caught the criminal. About halfway through the series there was a rather dramatic reveal where it was discovered that Mettaton’s character, whose name was Duke McDougall for some reason, had a secret twin brother who had become a criminal mastermind and was really the one working against Duke this whole time. The one playing the twin, Sly Briggs, was also Mettaton, so the bot was getting twice the screen time on a single show. Of course.
It was easy to tell that this show was one of Mett’s earliest, but it wasn’t bad, and as Sans turned the volume up to where he could hear it again, it had the advantage of being familiar and somewhat nostalgic.
Sans put down the remote and munched his chips slower than before, watching the old show and remembering the time he had first seen this particular episode.
It was close to the end of the second season, only an episode or two away from the revelation of Sly Briggs, and the tension was mounting in expectedly overdramatic fashion. The Long Arm had been one of Papyrus’ favorite shows for a while - the whole time it had been playing - and he had been particularly affected by the escalating odds, with every cliffhanger leaving him a jittery bundle of speculating nerves until the next episode came out. When Sly Briggs’ identity had been brought to light, (“HE LOOKS JUST LIKE DUKE, SANS! DO YOU THINK… THIS IS DUKE’S FATHER?”), Papyrus had quite literally fallen off of the couch.
Sans smiled a little wider at the memory. Evenings before Mettaton had been ‘created’ had always been relatively quiet, and far too prone to slip into melancholy. Even Sans’ amazingly funny puns weren’t always enough to keep Pap from looking a little long in the face. With the addition of the self-absorbed robot on their airwaves, that all changed. Papyrus watched every series Metts put out, each one of them his most favorite. The Long Arm had been especially good, what with its heroic depictions of those in authority, perfect for a guy determined to get in the Royal Guard, and entertaining enough to keep Sans from falling asleep at least half of the time.
Even when others made the mistake of talking about the show within earshot of Papyrus - and had the audacity to suggest that perhaps the addition of twin Sly Briggs was a poor narrative choice - Pap staunchly defended the show with as much energy and passion as he did everything else. Others might say that the introduction of Sly was where the series began to lose its original spark, that it threw off the feel of the show and changed too much of what it was at its core, but Papyrus would never allow for any of that. Or if he did, the worst he would allow was that those things existed, but not that they were necessarily bad.
Sans didn’t really care much one way or another. The shows were all entertaining in one way or another, and the most important thing about them wasn’t even anything to do with the shows themselves.
They made Papyrus smile.
That was what he remembered more than anything about Mettaton’s shows: they made his brother happy.
Sans watched the rest of The Long Arm episode, the discomfort he’d woken with and which had chased him downstairs in the middle of the night slowly dissipating as the familiar banter rolled over him, shaking loose warm memories as it went. By the time the episode had reached its thrilling conclusion and overblown cliffhanger, he was feeling relaxed enough to at least consider sleep again. Certainly too relaxed to try and lever himself out from where he’d sunk into the sofa cushions. Even attempting to reach for the remote seemed like a bit too much effort. The TV was doing fine on its own, why disturb its flow?
After the throwback episode of The Long Arm, the programming switched to something much more recent. Something filmed within the last week or two if the adult human he was sitting next to was any indication.
It was something that took Sans aback a little whenever he thought about it - how well the negotiations between humans and monsters was going. He’d expected much more resistance and friction than they were actually getting. It was almost like the world was just waiting for an opportunity to bring the two peoples back together.
Tempting as it was to think that, there was a lot of work going into the project. Plenty came from Asgore, Toriel and Frisk, of course, but a surprising amount of goodwill building came from completely non-political corners. Mettaton was probably the greatest example of this. He was true to his word in that he was still, first and foremost, a celebrity dedicated to monsterkind, but the humans were becoming surprisingly enamored of him as well.
It was good to know that it was a universal trend.
Humans, much like monsters, seemed to find robots fascinating, and clamored for the one that strutted out of the Underground full to the brim with personality and sentience. The fact that Mettaton’s design had been a very deliberate attempt to make him appear as human as possible had probably helped as well. It was easier to trust someone who looked a lot like yourself than, say, a moldsmal. Or a walking, talking skeleton, for that matter.
And Mettaton was just a charmer.
The human sitting across from Mettaton certainly seemed charmed. It was a fairly informal set, with the two of them seated around a table rather than on opposite sides of a desk. Metts was in his EX body, as he usually was for interviews with humans, partially to put them at ease and partially to make it possible to sit.
After the initial few minutes of trying to play up his own charms, the human whose name he totally forgot to remember seemed to have given up on that plan and was completely absorbed in his guest, managing to stick to the scripted questions but little else. He was leaning forward, eyes bright and never leaving Metts as he asked his questions.
“It has been a long time since the war that caused the initial rift between our people,” he was saying. “So long, in fact, that humans had almost forgotten all about it. What was once thought widely to be myth is now being revealed to be history. Tell me, Mettaton, did monsterkind have a similar phenomena?”
“Oh, not at all, darling,” the bot said with a literally flashing smile. “Our history was so much a part of our present that we had no opportunity to forget. Besides, how could we possibly forget a people brimming with such potential? My own chassis design is proof enough that monsters never forgot their human friends, though some details might have become fuzzy over the years.” Metts’ smile managed to look a little self-conscious.
“Well, everything looks perfectly in place to me.”
“Thank you, darling.”
The interviewer seemed to realize what he just said and actually blushed a little, his grin going lopsided. If anyone had harbored any doubts as to whether Mettaton could hold his own in the aboveground celebrity circles, all they had to do was watch as he took the reins out of a human’s hand on a human show. The bot was a pro.
Recovering himself a little bit, the human returned to his script. “So, ah, as I’m sure everyone at home is aware, we’ve only just begun the process of reintegrating monsterkind into life on the surface. There’s plenty going into that; negotiations, discussions on magic control, trade agreements, housing for monsters with special needs, etcetera. My question for you, Mettaton, is do you foresee any real issues arising that would impede our progress?”
“None whatsoever.”
The interviewer blinked, caught flatfooted by such a concise statement. Even Sans, more used to Metts and his boldness, raised his brows in mild surprise.
“Really? None at all?”
“That’s right, dear. None. No doubt there will be some small friction here or there, but nothing big enough to be considered an ‘issue’ or ‘impede our progress.’ Monsters have been banished for too long, have wanted and waited and dreamed of this day too much to be ‘impeded’ now. And I believe that humans have been without monsters and magic for too long to allow anything to take us away again now that we’re back.” He flashed another brilliant smile. “If our first human friend has taught us anything, it is that with determination we might achieve anything. With determination we shall all live side by side once again, humans and monsters.”
“That’s a very positive outlook to have.” The interviewer sounded somewhere between impressed and condescending.
If MTT noticed the tone, he didn’t acknowledge it. “And why not, my dear?” He turned to face the camera directly, facing every one of however many thousands of viewers this show had head on. “We have already achieved so much, my darlings, having done what many would say is impossible. We have survived our banishment, resisted the despair which might have brought us all down. We have come through, my beauties, not only alive and well, but fabulous. We are capable of besting any obstacle set before us.”
For a moment he paused, and Sans, despite himself, felt himself be drawn in further.
“Dreams are not realized every day, my dears. Hopes don’t come to fruition at the drop of a hat. And yet here we are, with our greatest of both presented to us, ready to be taken. I understand the fear of reaching out and taking it for yourselves, the worry that it will all dissolve away. But we cannot let that fear keep us from our dreams any longer! You are not alone, darlings. We are all together here, and together we will conquer any obstacle with grace, beauty and style. Just remember: you always have Mettaton.”
Silence reigned for a minute as the cameras remained trained close on Mettaton’s face, which stared out of the television with a narrow intensity, as though he meant to have every monster - and human - remember his words through sheer force of will.
When the interviewer finally spoke, it was like he was shaking himself back awake. “Uh… yes. Very well spoken, Mettaton. I, uh… yes… So do you have any thoughts on…”
Sans stopped listening to the interviewer, never very interested and now even less so. He stayed focused on Metts and wondered why it was that such a broad, blanket statement of positivity and ‘the power of determination’ should make him feel so much better. For that matter, he wondered when it was that Metts had upgraded from a narcissistic hambone to a motivational speaker… who was also a narcissistic hambone.
A mystery for another time, maybe. For now, since he was feeling better, he set aside his chips and flopped down across the sofa. It wouldn’t be a full night’s sleep - in fact Papyrus woke so early that it would be little more than a nap. But naps were better than sleep, anyway. Naps ran less of a risk for dreams.
He left the TV on as he drifted off. It was nice to have a familiar voice with him, reminding him, sometimes directly, that he wasn’t alone.