Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Somewhere amidst the infinite swells and dips of the multiverse, what is basically a glorified toaster tumbles through time and space. It is not working well, and it’s operator has been steadily inventing new ways to say ‘work fuck dammit’ over the past six hours.

Inside of this machine — better known as “the inter dimensional portapotty” — Sans is currently face planted onto very cold, very hard, aluminum alloy. He got there through the usual parade of badly-orchestrated sins on the behalf of physics, that being; not working correctly. That or he miscalculated something, which he most certainly fucking did not. Sans knows the IDPs systems like the back of his hand — in fact he knows them so well, he could tell you with the upmost certainty that what his face is pressed to right now is a very high-tech contraption called ‘the floor.’ He could also tell you that most of the space above him is taken up by various AC systems keeping him from getting burnt, frozen, asphyxiating, or getting turned into a salamander, which did happen once. 

Unfortunately, that takes up a lot of room. So, portapotty size it is, poor sans only barely able to cram himself in the blasted thing despite being an (admittedly very compact) skeleton. This is one of the few fathomable reasons his coworkers keep volunteering him to test it, and why he keeps ending up in these situations. 

Gravity — unpredictable at the best of times — suddenly lurches again, and with a dull ‘ouf,’ sans finds himself flat on his back on what used to be the ceiling. He just shuts his eyesockets with a quiet groan, and waits patiently for the universe to stop whacking him around like a baseball. Please, can I just have a normal day for once? he wonders to himself, listening to the sounds of ten billion cuckoo-clocks flying by outside in the eldritch mess that is the raw timeline. Just once, once, can things not go batshit for me?

The universe responds to this plea by hitting him a home run. 

The machine lets out an ear-smashing groan of protest, a huge wave of energy ricocheting through its straining systems. Gravity pitches and shatters, physics breaking somewhere along with it — Sans’ undignified yelp as he’s smacked back into the floor immediately drowned out by what must be every alarm in here. Red light floods the small space, and Sans struggles to push himself up — gravity doubles down onto his spine the moment he tries, forcing him to flop down again with a dull grunt.

“well,” sans remarks to no one, the alarms blaring loud enough to make his eyes water, “that - ouf - sounds like a no. ”

After a lot of banging, crashing, and general panic, he lands with an earth-shattering crash.

And then another. 

And then a series of them, sans rattling around inside the IDP like a maraca bean as the ten-ton machine crashes through several layers of what he really, really hopes isn’t a building. Well, at least there’s no screams. Sans observes, unusually optimistic, even as his head bangs into a pipe for what must be the fortieth time. 

Then, with a final clang-g-gg , the machine screeches to a halt.

Sans groans into the uncomfortable metal floor, alarms still stubbornly screeching at him.

“yeah, yeah, I get it, no need to scream…”

He sighs, wearily pushing himself up. He pops out a few kinks in his back, then checks the monitor to his left. He cringes, hard. Alright, that came off, that’s broken, that's on fire, and…hey, I thought I fixed that! Oh c’mon, I’m going to have to re-route almost everything through the freaking ceiling light! Sans sighs, shaking his skull — I’m a quantum physicist, not a miracle worker— before tapping away the clusters of error messages, deciding to just jump the gun and figure out where he is already.  

He lifts his head, pulling himself up onto his tiptoes to look out of the little porthole on the door. Sans blinks wearily, registering the perfectly normal office outside — Piss-colored walls, gray cubicles…oh great, he’s crashed right into someone’s business. 

If he has to try and explain time travel to some variant of the US government, again , sans swears he’s going to teleport himself off a cliff. 

He shakes his skull, trying to clear it of the usual haze that accompanies being flung through time in a literal tin can. He’s gotta fix this thing and get back on track, after all… if I miss lunch the kid’ll be mad, and if I miss the check in… sans grimaces, imagining his fathers petrified face as the hours tick on with him not there. yeah, not lettin’ that happen a third time. Sans huffs about as determinedly as a monster can, and tries to straighten up without banging his head. He fails spectacularly, yelping as his skull rams against a pipe and rubbing the sore spot with an equally wounded expression. He rolls his aching shoulders, and feels his back pop satisfyingly loudly — Alright, first things first, he’s gotta fix whatever that thing was that was on fire, then hot-wire his way out of this mess.

Sans quickly crouches by one of the many sparking panels along the wall, prying it open with a well-practiced ease. His face is a mask of focus, sans rummaging through the technical bits while muttering to himself in his usual half-crazy way. He tends to be more ‘proactive’, as papyrus put it, these days — now that the resets are over, his dad is back from the brink of nonexistence, and the roughly two-thirds of his life that were erased from the records along with him are back too…well, needless to say he’s happier now. He’s got his family back, and damn if he isn’t going to at least try and be on time for once…

Sans is suddenly interrupted by a knock on his door. He lifts his head, squinting in the dim light. Nothing obscures the porthole, so he looks back down with a shrug, already fiddling with wires.

Another knock, more insistent this time.

Sans blinks, sets down the wires, and listens. A long, long pause….

knock…knock knock

Sans grins to himself, cracking his knuckles and straightening up. Alright then, first things first, joke contest. He straightens his lab coat, puns and knock-knocks alike already rummaging in his brain. Guess it’s gonna be one of those days! Hopefully a good, easy one of those days.

“aaand a who’s there?”

Sans replies jovially, pressing a small button to activate the intercom. He’s had a lot of random people, usually very vehement about something or other, knock/pound/try to kick down/sic a grenade on that door, sometimes in that order, and he finds telling a joke tends to break the ice. Or lava. In some universes those are very similar things!

“ HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET IN MY STORY!? ”

A very pretentious southern-Briton shrieks, and sans jumps out of his nonexistent skin — banging his head on the AC above him with a loud clang and landing with a louder thud. He groans as he rubs his skull, shooting the door a wounded look. That’s never happened before…well, apart from with that Wheatly guy, but he was more nervous than yelly. Sans, seeing an unusual lack of a face glaring in at him from the port hole, glances up at the ceiling in confusion, trying to figure out where that came from. It wasn’t even muffled, so how - ?

“ Stanley, knock harder, there must be somebody in there — I heard them! And you know my ears don’t lie, Stanley.”

The voice cries, and sans still can’t figure out which direction it’s coming from. It sounds like it’s in both of his — admittedly nonexistent — ears at once, unsettlingly all-encompassing. He absentmindedly scratches his skull as he thinks about this, humming in that way which is as close as he can get to frowning. Well, he knows he has no idea how this voice — possibly omnipresent? Yeesh, I hope not, i hate dealing with ‘deities’ — works, or why their words are appearing as text boxes in his head, but he gets a sinking feeling this is gonna take longer than it usually does.

Meanwhile, Stanley obediently knocks again.

The narrator continues shrieking in his ear as he raps his knuckles against the cool metal, the strange metal thing hulking before him. This feels weird. Stanley observes to himself, running his eyes over every inch of it with understandable curiosity, I’ve never seen this before. I thought I’d seen everything. 

The machine looms over him, lopsided as a one-eared bunny, having sunk partially into the floor. Its weight cracks the concrete now showing through the once-gray carpet, and Stanley is suddenly very, very glad he was still in his office when it landed, otherwise he might’ve been hit by the various chunks of rubble now lying around them — most of which blasted out the ceiling, now sporting a gaping new hole. Stanley gazes curiously up at the singular dot of blue sky far above, distracted even as the little intercom on the machine buzzes to life again.

“heya, uh, don’t think ya got the joke. who's there? …or are you mxrs.howthehelldidyougetinmystory?”

Stanley jumps at the new voice, and whips his head around to stare at the little crackling speaker, immediately fascinated. Oooh, now that’s interesting. He leans closer despite the narrators angry ranting, peering at the small speaker. Could this be like the little tape machine in that one ending that scared him half to death? Or something else? There’s a little button by it, with some words next to it Stanley doesn’t bother to read — he just pushes the button on instinct, as he naturally assumes he’s always supposed to do. He’s still puzzled by that voice though. it certainly wasn’t the narrators, It sounded much different, almost lazy, but not…unfriendly. Kind of the exact opposite of the narrator, apart from the pitch. That thought puts Stanley on edge a bit — the narrator is, quite literally, everything he’s ever known, and when even he has a reason to be panicked, Stanley usually does too…

“ Stanley! Don’t you dare reply! Hold on, I’ll try and find the asset for this blasted contraption and -“

“uh, your pal there — he knows I can hear him, right?”

The new voice interrupts, and Stanley blinks. That’s to be expected, isn’t it? He can hear the narrator — whoever this new voice is, shouldn’t they be able to as well? 

“ Oh, damn it — You’re not meant to! I am the voice of the Narrative, which you are certainly not a part of, you — you whoever-you-are!”

The narrator, however, seems to disagree with this. Stanley stares at the little speaker expectantly, awaiting the response. Perhaps this is a second narrator, a second voice to tell his story! Or maybe even a new story. Stanley grins at the thought — he would adore something new.

“well, I mean…I kinda do anyway. you’re, eh, pre -tty loud.” 

The new voice comments nonchalantly, and the narrator makes any string of frustrated vowel sounds Stanley internally refers to as his ‘sputter of indignation.’ He starts rustling papers, and Stanley frowns reflexively. He almost never starts rustling, at least not when they’re doing an ending like this. Usually he only rustles when he’s trying to fix something, Stanley notes, and realizes the narrator does sound very upset by this, which is very abnormal, since Stanley had absolutely nothing to do with it. Stanley shoots a concerned look at the ceiling, focusing his thoughts on the machine — Didn’t you write this ending? Or is this already off script? He tries to ask, hoping the narrator will hear him. If so, that would be a first, but Stanley keeps trying anyhow.

“ Who are you!? I didn’t make you! And I certainly don’t recognize your voice from any of the staff, I was sure I — why can’t I find your asset!?”

The new voice just laughs over the intercom, and Stanley hears a little tapping sound. He looks up at the glass porthole at the top of the machine's hulking door, and sees a bony finger — no, a finger that’s just bones — tapping on the glass, before unfurling into a full skeleton hand, which waves at him. 

Stanley waves back, unperturbed for the moment. 

That sure is unusual, a little voice in the back of his head observes, the penny absolutely down-right refusing to drop.

“yeah, uh, I’m pretty sure you didn’t ‘make’ me. but there’s two o’you, right? Stanley, wasn’t it?”

Stanley blinks in surprise — huh. So new voice knows his name? He quickly nods, watching the porthole as the narrator begins muttering to himself like a conspiracy theorist on crack, presumably rustling through the parables many, many assets. Usually whenever he does that, things start turning magenta, but as far as Stanley can see everything looks normal right now. Which is, in and of itself, very odd. Stanley feels a prickle of concern, the hairs on the back of his neck standing pole-straight. If the narrator doesn’t know what’s going on, is the parable going to force-reset? Stanley may love the adventure line, but he hates the reset at the end, the wall, the buzzer, the narrator's panic…he doesn’t want that to happen again.

“quiet, arentcha? hopefully I ain’t talking to a wall. anyway, if y’are there, the door control broke in the crash, so if you could just pull the red cable that I’m sure is hangin’ out again…”

Stanley spots the red cable immediately, and before the narrator can stop him, obediently pulls it. 

“Stanley, the one time you actually follow instructions and it has to be now!?”

The narrator shrieks as the door latch releases with a loud K-Chunk, a hiss of steam curling out from the edges. Stanley automatically steps back, and gets the sudden, floor-dropping-out-from-under-you sensation in his gut that he’s just made a mistake. He watches wide-eyed as the machine rumbles, the narrator practically whimpering in his ear as Stanley backs away, step by step. There’s a whir, a weird click-click-click noise, several chiptune boops, and then the lock poos and door finally begins to —

The edge of the door catches on something on its way, and stops with a pitiful scrape. 

“stupid freakin’ budget iron, didn’t set properly - “

Comes the muffled voice, followed by a curse from inside, and after a couple of dull thuds, the door flies open with a clang. 

Stanley leaps back in alarm as the door suddenly swings wide open as if it had never caught at all, a large cloud of smoke pluming from within. It billows through the office in stinging plumes, smelling of heat and asbestos, Stanley coughing silently, waving a hand in front of his face as he squints through the ashy haze. The new voice grumbles more incomprehensible profanity through occasional coughs, now accompanied by a dim blur of…a person? A person. Oh. FUCK. Stanley’s eyes widen, and he stumbles back, fear now the definite presence in his mind as the narrator begins rambling louder. He sounds like he’s slamming drawers open and shut and rustling through the contents, Stanley’s eyes flicking up to the ceiling in a silent plea for help, which goes unseen. A red light glows from inside the machine, shadows of wires shaking over the floor, the smoke pluming out as a shape emerges.

“oh, hey.”

Sans says, coughing one last time. A puff of smoke trickles out of his soot-stained button up, some stray wisps still leaving his sockets. This is, notably, very anticlimactic.

Sans blinks mildly up at the disgruntled-looking office worker before him, all wrinkled shirt and ruffled brown hair. He’s about double sans’s height, but that’s pretty standard, considering sans is…well, sans. He’s shaking, and slowly backing away, his eyes wide as dinnerplates, but that’s standard too, considering sans is, again, sans. Sans looks around briefly for whoever the other voice was, but, seeing nobody, shrugs and dismisses it in favor of saying his usual opener.

“so, uh, don’t scream, please.“

Sans asks, very nicely. Surprisingly, the office worker doesn’t scream — but the British voice from before certainly does. Sans jumps about a foot in the air at the sudden shrieking pressing into his ear canals, accompanied by the sound of somebody falling off their chair with a crash. Sans winces, hunching his bony shoulders and glancing around furtively for the source, but seeing absolutely nobody . Weird, he notes internally, what’s a lone human doing in an empty building? Don’t they work in units mostly? 

Still, sans is used to people continually screaming around him by now, and quickly settles his nerves. He turns back to the office worker, not missing a beat even as the confused screeching continues in the background — yeesh, that guy is loud.

“hey, so, I know you’re freaked, n’ this is gonna sound stupid, but where is —” he waves to the ceiling, “y’know, him. I don’t see him anywhere.”

The small skeleton asks, cocking his head, still flawlessly ignoring the shrieking of the narrator. Stanley just stares, open mouthed, because even though he has no actual reason to be unnerved by the sight of a walking, talking, skeleton in crocs , he’s unnerved anyway. The skeletons' bony hands are shoved deep into the pockets of a beaten-looking lab coat, large eye sockets aglow with small white ovals that seem to be his eyes. Stanley, being Stanley, does not verbally respond to him — not quite knowing how — and just shakily gestures to the ceiling, still staring at the three-foot-five monsters general everything. He can’t remember anything before the parable, or the narrator, or any time he’d have learned what a skeleton is — but somehow he knows that they should not talk. Or wear shorts .

“yeah, you’re as lost as I am, arentcha…” The skeleton murmurs with a sigh, more a statement than a question. “…you’re the Stanley he was talkin to, right? i didn’t get that mixed up?”

The skeleton prompts gently, and Stanley just nods, fiddling nervously with his hands. Even though he’s double this skeletons size, he’s still incredibly unused to talking to anything or anyone face-to-face, and so is suffering from a mixture of social anxiety, general anxiety, understandable fear, and a chronic case of the heeby-jeebies. He is, again understandably, not in a great frame of mind.

“a’ight, cool. now, i get you're probably pretty confused, so I’ll just cut to the chase and explain right now, m’kay?”

The small skeleton asks, without moving his mouth at all, holding up two hands in a ‘calm’ gesture. Stanley just nods again, still twisting his hands nervously, leaning as far away from him as possible. The skeleton is seemingly not bothered by this, and continues anyway.

“y’know about time travel? like, the concept of goin’ from one time to another time?”

Sans prompts, and the office worker — Stanley — nods again. Alright, going good so far, even if the poor guy looks like he’s about to keel over. Well at least he’s reasonable, even if his omniscient buddy is…loud. Sans pauses, running his eyes over ‘Stanley’, assessing him. He's tall, but stands in that hunched sort of way where it’s obvious he doesn’t quite know what to do with all that height yet, hands close to his chest and constantly moving. It reminds him of how papyrus acts whenever he’s been freaked out by something, and Sans automatically feels ten times more sympathetic towards Stanley for this. Makes sense, sans thinks to himself, papyrus is the greatest guy there is.

“…well, that’s a real thing. I’m doing that, but I’m traveling from one time where I’m from, to a time in another place — not here. I didn’t mean to come here. still followin’ along?”

Again a nod. Despite constantly looking like he wants the earth to swallow him whole, this guy is probably the most reasonable he’s met yet! Sans rewards him with a slightly larger grin, and Stanley’s posture relaxes slightly. Alright, that’s one win, now to get him talking…or, well, communicating in some shape or form, at least. 

“so, what I think happened, is I got knocked off course by…uh -“ 

Sans seems to lose track of his words, and shuts his eyesockets for a moment. 

“look, mate, can you stop that? i’m tryina’ explain to your buddy Stanley here, n’ it’s pretty hard with your screeching in the background.”

Sans interrupts himself with an exasperated huff, shooting an pleading look at the ceiling. The pretentious voice from everywhere has been screaming — continuously — the entire time he’s been talking, and though sans is a pretty patient guy, it’s beginning to get annoying. Really annoying.

“ Wh - i - y-yuh-you- you’re DEAD! ”

The voice blubbers helplessly, and Sans just sighs, in a world-weary sort of way that tells you he’s had this conversation hundreds of times.

“yeah, like i haven’t heard that one bout’a billion times…”

Sans sighs to himself, rubbing the bridge of his nose in a halfhearted attempt to banish the headache now playing maracas inside his skull. He hates this topic with a passion, and there’s few things in this world sans really, actually hates. Humans seem to have this idea that being dead, or looking like something dead, and still being alive anyway is somehow unnatural. It gets on your nerves, being treated like a mistake, and sans doesn’t even have nerves to begin with!

“I’m sans, sans the skeleton, n’im very alive. i’d shake your hand, but you…uh, don’t seem to have any. care to explain that?”

Sans adds, trying to derail the conversation from that particular topic. Especially since, on top of all that, whether or not he actually does count as dead by human standards is a…controversial topic, scientifically. 

“ Oh? Oh so I’M the one who needs to explain here!? HAH! I want an explanation out of you this INSTANT, young — s-skeleton-man!”

Sans blinks wearily at the ceiling for a moment, then glances to Stanley in a silent ‘ is he serious? ’ Sort of look.

“You know what? Nevermind, that’s it! I’m not putting up with this any longer, it’s bloody bizzare! Stanley, hold on, I’m resetting!”

Sans freezes, eyelights contracting to pricks, an instant before the world goes dark.

(Ah…Reset is a word the narrator probably should not have used…)

Chapter Text

Sans would’ve groaned if he had the strength, and yet finds he doesn’t. Or, more like, doesn’t have anything to groan with. He feels like he’s gotten stuck in a teleport, sensations, sounds, and textures all rushing by him — the buzz of fluorescent lights, the clicking of keys, the smell of coffee, the feel of cardboard — until they all…drain away. They pass by him in clattering rackets of broken sound he feels on fast-fading bones, zipping away into the black. The dark is all that’s left, a black screen — and he only knows it’s a screen due to the hum of pixels — filling his vision top-to-bottom, like he’s had putty stuffed in his eye-sockets. Not that he can feel them.

White words, black screen. How minimalistic. They type out naturally, not like automatic text being displayed, but like a person typing in real time, occasionally backspacing to correct itself. Sans doesn’t have the energy to reply — this is exactly like being stuck in a teleport, including the power drain. He feels like his bones are made of lead, his skull stuffed full of sticky cotton wads. Or it would be, if he still had his skull. 

Sans’s mind reflexively turns into a mental wall of spikes, his brain curling up like a porcupine as the black screen glitches. F’off, is the clear message, the mental equivalent of smacking someone’s hand away with an entire Iron Maiden on a ball and chain. The white text shudders, and sans feels a pang of satisfaction through the discomfort. That blocked it out. Hopefully. He still doesn’t have the energy to really care. 

It is, notably, not a question.

Sans ignores the Y/N presented to him, and checks his soul is still there — yup, still good — before attempting to actually Check this thing. This, predictably, has no results. With an internal sigh of resignation, sans swivels a mental spotlight onto the white text, extending his focus toward it. He’s pretty experienced with telepathy in general — it’s the only way some monsters can communicate — and his attention soon focuses into a singular point, a single thought slipping from his mental wall of spikes.  

*i never know what’s going on.

His words echo out soundlessly, and sans is relieved to find it has little drain on him. The text shudders again, and there’s silence for a long minute, a literal ellipsis typing out in the silence. Whatever is talking to him, that surprised it. It better be, because sans was certainly surprised to wake up without a body, and he’s the slightest bit bitter about that. 

Sans’s mind shifts, the spikes roiling. He’s never been just ‘his mind’ — but he has, unfortunately , had his soul absorbed before, and this is a bit like that. He’s grateful theres no maniacal flower in the background this time, but sans can’t help but feel unnerved at the emptiness in its place. He tries to flex his hand; it isn’t there. The signals shoot sparingly off into the emptiness, sans shuddering with discomfort as he wonders where his bones even went . Can he just not feel them? No, he knows what that’s like — This is emptier. This is like being trapped inside his own head and forced out of it at the same time, and sans, understandably, hates it with every facet of his being. Is this what his father felt like? In the void? Because if so, that’s just a whole new layer of horrible…ugh.

*I’ve never had somebody probe my brain, so congratulations, we’re all confused together.

Sans bristles, and the spikes get slightly sharper. He’s really trying to make his discomfort as apparent as possible here, considering he feels like a spectator to each and every moment his atoms are ripped apart and smashed back together again. It’s not painful, just overwhelmingly, horribly uncomfortable. Like his soul wants to retch it’s guts out into the darkness.

*yeah, well, i ain’t havin’ fun, so as long as you’re here, you’d better be useful. 

*what was that voice talking about, saying he was gonna ‘reset’?

Sans is in far too much discomfort to be polite. He’s in too much discomfort to think properly. Literally, most of his thoughts are dedicated to keeping that barrier up, an internal chant of “go screw yourself”  on repeat, vibrating out into the darkness. Everything else is squished up in the space behind, like cows in a clown car. Still, he manages well enough — Believe it or not, this kind of thing happens a lot, and by this point he’s got it down to a formula: Ask simple, leading questions, then grab anyone who seems to be willing to help and get to work not dying. It’s worked so far, and he’s not about to deviate from It now.

The text pauses, as if hesitating, and the cursor blinks idly in the void for a long moment. 

Several words start typing, then delete themselves. ‘Benefa’ ‘creat’ and even ‘god’ appear, but each delete, until whatever entity sans is talking to finally settles on a term. 

Sans can’t exactly laugh in his own head, but the message gets across anyway — a starburst of “ bruh you thought—?” Bubbling out from behind his mental barriers. So even this weirdo doesn’t know everything! Sans is slightly comforted by this, the mental spikes dulling for a moment before resharpening themselves.

*nah, i came here myself. crashed actually. but you still haven’t answered my question.

Sans sends out the feeling of a noncommittal shrug, his simmering mind settling back again. He still occasionally snorts, sending out a few spare spark-like flashes of amusement, and the black screen glitches — flickers of the mind beyond bubbling through. It’s too dark and muffled to feel much of anything, which Sans takes note of — it seems to glitch every time he sends out something non-text. Interesting, and possibly useful…

*bucko, I just miss having arms. suck it up.

Sans’s mind shudders as it settles back into the void, the bristles and glass-shards of his defenses twitching and rotating absently as his thoughts churn beneath their surface. He hasn’t gotten the best impression of this entity so far, what with the whole ‘abducting him and forcing him to exist as a bodiless presence’ thing…but at least they do seem reasonable.

Sans’s mind spits laugher once again, the image of an amused snort rippling out into the darkness, and prompting another flicker.

*i think I like him then. better than you, to be specific.

Oh, wait, yeah, he actually does want that.

*right, yep, shuttin’ up.

Sans is quiet for a long time. Dread coils in thick plumes between his ribs — or the echoes of them — the trauma of years upon years of resets weighing on his neck. It feels like numbness, cold and instant, and — were he capable of it — it would’ve wiped the smile right off his face. So it’s like that then. The dread darkens to spite, snarling like thorns — it’s just so great to know that special little phenomenon stretches to other planes as well, where it can ruin other people’s lives, and cause more problems, and be generally frustrating. What makes it worse is that in this stars-damned place, it’s not even tied to a singular person…which is problematic, because his machine runs on a jury-rigged SAVE file on crack, and he can’t load that properly (“properly” - nothing about the machine is “proper”) if he’s constantly being overruled. 

To put it simply, sans is utterly fucked , and he knows it.

*i have exactly three questions.

Sans extends his own mind forward, probing around for another soul to lock onto — no more games. This is much more serious than he thought it was, and he wants to talk properly — but the white text shifts, drawing back. He’s not sure it’s intentional, but Sans is suddenly aware of the cavernous gulf between them. Whoever this is, it’s far away. Very, very far. 

Not that it’s ever stopped him before.

Sans only barely resists the urge to reply with haha funny cus I definitely don’t, gritting his metaphorical teeth and forcing himself to think it through. They haven’t exactly been hostile, not yet… like paps always says, sans tells himself, keep an open mind.

*alright then. one: where are you.

Sans twitches uncomfortably, his mind flickering to darker concepts. Dark, numb, and very cold definitely sounds like the void — or at least a void. Something deep in sans’s mind flinches at that thought, that the person he’s talking to could be a Goner, just like his father had been. Like his aunt had been. Like Oben had been… That sounds depressing, he very nearly replies, but again bites back on it. 

* two: I don’t actually know what a ‘proctor’ is, so, you’ll have to elaborate. for example, can I punch him.

* hypothetically.

Sans is very much not talking in hypotheticals. If he can punch something, he can usually blast something, and that’s usually a pretty effective way to solve problems.

* nope. better get used to it, new pal!

Are they a pal? Sans has no clue. He…hopes so? They haven’t exactly gotten off to a great start…not that he really helped make it one to begin with. Sans has never really been the trusting type like his father, and definitely not like paps. It frustrates him sometimes, how it comes so easy to them. But hey, he leaves it well alone, and usually paps is there to reign him in anyway…

If sans has ears, they’d prick up.

*wonderful. just great. mr.zesty eldrich thespian is shy?

Sans considers this for a moment. It’s not exactly unusual for people to wanna question him about his general everything, and he supposes it can’t hurt…

*one question.

Please be an easy question please be an easy question please —

As eloquently as possible: shite.

* ouf, can I come back to that one? It’s gonna take a while, n’ I don’t have a while on my hands right now.

*alright back to me then — third question: who even are you, anyway? got a name?

The pause is long, then longer, then concerningly long. 

* you, uh, good there?

Sans asks eventually, beginning to worry he’s actually offended them so much they bailed entirely. He needs to get back before his dad has a heart attack, or papyrus for that matter — sans promised him he’d be on time. He ( now this certainly isn’t a sentence you’ve read before… ) hates breaking promises, not to mention his father will probably A: punch a hole in space, or B: convince someone else to punch a hole in space for him, in response. If Lawrence catches him breaking human laws of space time again, his brain is probably going to explode. 

Well, that’s not concerning at all. 

How long is a while? How was he brought here? Sans is rapidly realizing he definitely has more than three questions, and that this is definitely going to be a longer visit. Why? Why must it always end up being a longer visit? First the weird mini-asriel in the green hat, then the eyeball fish, the place with all the bugs with swords, prunsel…

Sans’s attention is suddenly and wholly back on the screen in front of him, the text shuddering as his focus shines on it like a floodlight. He has got to stop doing that.

Sans hesitates for a moment, his mind turning over on itself like kneading dough. 

Yeah, this is definitely starting to sound familiar. 

He’s been discreetly stretching his magic further and further into the emptiness, reaching to see if he can even find this thing. Now, he finally snags something — some dim flicker of a…consciousness. The farther back a timeline branches from, the less likely it is physics, or magic, will work as they should, and sans has found these “dim impressions” to be pretty common as a stand-in for souls. However, this one is…Sans can’t figure out what he’s looking at. Were he to equate it to a sensation, most souls feel like warm plastic; this is more like cold glass. A lot of cold glass, shifting and ephemeral. Much like, for lack of a word, a barrier between him and whatever it is that holds him here. Technically impossible— the amount of mental energy required to uphold something this solid is frankly ridiculous to think about— But, still kinda cool. And weird. And possibly filling his limited mental space with more theories than he can manage at the moment.

* hey. I know I said it was only three questions—

Sans grimaces, briefly wondering how he’d explain the concept of “another universe” to a being that’s been stuck in sensory nothing for Angel knows how long. They definitely would’ve missed Bill and Ted, and that’s kinda sans’s go-to for explaining this stuff.

*look. fine. imm’a be straight with you — where I came from is damn hard to explain, and I’ll tell you right now, i definitely ain’t human.

*you were right when you said I wasn’t from around here.

The soul-adjacent-barrier-magic- thingamajig twitches, sans’s magic still hovering just within sensing distance, but not close enough to be sensed. He’s been analyzing it in the back of his mind during the past few minutes, and he’s concluded — yup, that glass is definitely thin enough to break through. He’s wagering they don’t even know they have the defenses up in the first place, but if sans could only get a Check on them, he could probably make this a whole lot more bareable for the both of them.

it asks, in equal parts suspicion and intrigue. Sans is beginning to sense its tone now, dim impulses reverberating through the soul-adjacent-barrier-magic-thingamajig he really needs to come up with a better name for.

*well, im a skeleton, for one. also magic is real where I’m from.

Sans receives the usual incredulous silence, and busies himself with finding a nice, unobtrusive weak point. Man this thing is huge…Sans spreads his magic out flat, the action apparently completely unnoticed — he stretches it out as far as he can, feeling for the edges, and finding none. Oh well, doesn’t matter anyway, he can still slice riiiight through it…

*haha, don’t worry, I’m not pullin’ rabbits out of hats.

Sans definitely got something this time — a hoarse scoff, very faint. But there is something behind there. He stifles a grin — this is going to be very interesting.

*well, teleportation is a thing. doesn’t seem to work here, buuuuut…

Sans does not bother to stifle his grin this time, his barriers dropping as the full scale of his magic unfolds into the silence. 

 …I can do this.

‘432’ doesn’t even get a chance to react, before sans has sliced a neat hole out of the blackness. The shriek of indignation they produce is nearly audible as text races over the screen, but sans holds them at metaphorical arms length much the same way one might a rabid child, his magic flowing through a familiar sea of zero one — so this is a binary universe, interesting — a more familiar narrator speaking to him: that of his own world. Poor guy has been dragged a lot of places by sans, and the emphemeral voice is understandably quite weary.

Timekeeper/432/SettingsUI

[Data Abstracted]

[Data Abstracted] 

Hp: 0

*Genderless entity currently lacking their body. Smells like wood shavings and apple shampoo.

Sans is honestly surprised that even worked. He politely holds 432’s rambling threads of internal screaming together, drawing his magic back out from the Check and cataloging the information for later. He neatly ties a few reasonably productive trains of thought together, all the while holding the now thousand-character long “ AAAAAAAAAA” of confusion currently trying to ram its way into his mind juuust out of “owie” range. He wearily corrals the screaming back into its respective place in 432’s psyche — man, they really just collapsed in a heap once he activated the check — and forms a proper telepathic connection, before seeing himself out. 

Sans breathes a sigh of relief as his mental space expands, filling up the emptiness with his usual inner rambling and neatly matching 432’s chaotic, unguarded thought paths. He politely stays out of the unprotected mental cogs and wheels (it’s common courtesy, after all) and waits for 432 to pull themselves together. It’s all very businesslike, if a bit more manual than he’s used to, but sans doesn’t mind. 432, however, certainly seems to. 

Speaking of 432, they’d probably be yelling at him, but the ephemeral representation of themselves is currently writhing on the floor of the headspace sans made for them both, and also doesn’t seem to have a mouth. Interesting design choices.

“well,” 

sans comments, now inhabiting a much more comfortable mental representation of himself, currently floating cross legged in the blackness. This mental representation just so happens to be swigging Kool Aid from a hip flask, and in pajamas. His brother had said to “try some variety!” Though…this probably isn’t what he meant.

“that was melodramatic. you feelin’ okay there, foursie?”

Sans asks, nicknaming 432 on the spot. He takes a dignified sip of this-doesn’t-have-a-singe-natural-ingredient slurry, and waves around him at the nice, confined darkness now letting them chat on equal footing.

“I mean, c’mon, this is so much better than what you had goin’ on. n’i thought you weren’t new to the whole telepathy thing.”

 All he gets in response is a disgruntled mismash of consonants that very well could be a verbalized keysmash, and sans laughs, prompting a shudder from the blob of void on the floor.

“Youu ba—“ the blob growls, “—b- bastard .”

Sans nods in agreement, taking another swig.

“fair. I’m guessin’ you’ve got no idea on how to manifest a couch in here, eh?”

432 just bubbles up an undignified screech, and sans winces. He was expecting them to pull themselves together by now, but it’s only just occurring to him they might not actually…know how. He frowns (he can actually do that here) and shrugs, stepping right out of the metaphorical air and walking over to “Foursie.”

“…or yourself, i take it…” 

He mumbles, nudging 432 with one foot. They just gargle up something resembling an insult, which flops spectacularly considering it’s an…ahem, biological insult, and sans has no biology. Literally. Nothing down there.

“D-doon’t…” 432 struggles for a moment, shifting, “ rrmenmber. ”

Sans’s metaphorical eyebrows raise — they don’t remember what they looked like? Huh…sans shrugs, remembering the computer screen from beforehand. He focuses, 3D-modeling it in his head (that is to say right in front of him) and dropping it off right on top of 432. An old analog television — on other words, a big block of a machine that may or may not produce radiation when overcharged and probably might electrocute you, if it feels like it. Perfect for 432’s stunning charisma and outrageous charm.

“use that. all you gotta do is accept the thought, rethink it, and bam! body for you.”

Sans explains, polishing off his kool aid and flopping back onto a couch he just thought up.  Foursie vibrates as an angry ball of hatred for a few more moments, before begrudgingly compressing themselves into the angry-looking gray plastic monstrosity sans thought up for them. The screen flickers, a low hum filling the shared mind space as static crawls over the pixels. The very dim shape of a pair of low-polygon eyes squint out from inside, the irises flicking around until they lock on sans. The eyes widen. Sans grins.

“I can… See you.”

The eyes squint.

“ Stars you're ugly.”

432 remarks, with a proper voice this time. Its androgynous enough to actually be impressive — humans tend to struggle with that, don’t they? — and Sans shoots them a lone fingergun from the couch, now sipping from a juice box, pear-flavored. When humans talk about “drinking habits” they tend to mean alcohol, but sans? Nah, he prefers stuff that actually tastes good. 

“right back at’cha,” 

sans replies, smile curling upwards. He twirls the juice box round and round, his thoughts humming quietly behind the walls of this cozy little construct. It’s a warm sort of darkness, like staring up into the sky on a humid summer night. 

“You were the one who made me go into…this . So, you’re responsible.”

432 growls, the eyes flicking back and forth around the warmer dark that makes up this space. Sans just shrugs, taking another sip. He sinks back into the plush of the couch (much better than the one at home — he should do telepathy more) and keeps his eyes on 432 as they experiment, spreading their consciousness around the space. He wonders if they know he can sense every second of it — they probably think they’re being sneaky or something, but for sans, it’s much like being repeatedly poked. It’s almost funny how amateurish they are, clumsily fumbling their way around, prodding his consciousness and just being very loud with their suspicions about him. He can practically feel it dripping off them, the chant of can’t trust other foreign off not trust don’t trust, rattling behind their hidden thought paths. Though, that’s not unusual. He’s probably radiating the exact same thing.

“…How did you even do any of that?”

432 asks after a while, their low-poly eyes squinting at him suspiciously from inside the television.

“What are you?”

Sans sighs, then takes a deep breath, flipping himself over on the couch so he’s staring at 432 upside-down. Despite his undignified position, he keeps a perfectly level expression, his grin receding slightly. 

“what i am s’a skeleton monster. fusejaw type —“ sans taps his closed mouth, and the row of fused teeth. “—and the names sans . sans MS, if y’wanna be formal, but…don’t actually be formal, m’kay?”

432, somehow, nods their eyes. The suspicion tempers slightly as they squint at him, obviously expecting him to continue. Sans resists the urge to sigh. Ugh.

“…my universe of origin is…well we call it 0.1, cus it’s ours, but, y’know.”

Sans waves a hand around vaguely, and the eyes narrow even further.

“…so now you’re from another universe.” 432 grumbles, as if under their breath. “…I suppose that makes sense — this hellscape can’t possibly exist in the real world.”

Sans just nods.

He gets the feeling this is going to be a long conversation.