Chapter Text
It didn’t used to be like this, gloomy and bleak. Desolate. Fighting constantly just to stay relevant and useful. They’d had plans once, and dreams. Seemed useless now, like dust collecting in the farthest corners.
They’d even been friends once, back before.
But Papyrus didn’t remember that.
It wasn’t really his fault, but somewhere between the lectures and the demands and the incessant complaints, he couldn’t find it within himself to differentiate anymore. He forgot, and Sans had to pay the price. Screw that. It wasn’t fair that Sans had to remember every agonizing detail…. Gaster… It wasn’t fair that Papyrus never seemed to notice the red flickers or the way they thread across his soul like thorns. Papyrus was an oblivious idiot, too nice despite all of this for his own good and too cruel to really make a difference. Just like everything else in this hell hole, more bad than good, more heart than brain.
They were brothers, once, somewhere lost before, and despite how little Sans cared, he couldn’t leave that behind. Unlike everything else.
“Sans! You complete numbskull! You’re late!” Papyrus’ voice was like sandpaper, grating in every sense of the word.
“I know, okay? Gimme a god damn second.” Sans snapped back, through the door.
He hunched into himself further, in the darkness of his room the flicker of red cast an eerie glow. “Dammit….” He whispered to himself. Lately, everything was somehow slower, somehow more tedious and frustrating. Somehow more difficult to stand. And he couldn’t get his damned powers under control.
“Undyne does not like to be kept waiting! You know what happens when you-” His brother’s screechy voice assaulted his already overworked brain and he growled, shoving himself off of his bed and into his jacket before slamming the door open.
“Fine, alright? Fucking hell…” He glared at his brother’s annoyed expression, shoving his hands deeper in his pockets to hide the flare of red already trailing behind.
“She said you’re not making any progress, Sans! None! She said you’re still far too weak! I can’t continue pulling all the weight here you kn-“
“Shut up! I’m going, okay? She can push me around and laugh and it’ll all be fucking wonderful.” Great, he thought. First thing in the goddamned morning. ‘Oh Great Papyrus, how do you stand putting up with your lazy assed grumpy brother all the time? He’s so weak and pathetic it must be such a burden!’
He almost chuckled, if only he knew.
Sans slammed through the open door, immediately shortcutting around to Undyne’s steel set house with barely a blink. A familiar strain ached at the place behind his left brow, and he sighed. “Let’s just get this over with,” he muttered to himself.
Papyrus had signed him up for ‘private tutoring’ with Undyne a few months back, during one of his rampages about Sans’ apparent lack of abilities or talents in any regard. Truth be told, Sans was stronger than anyone cared to know and could likely flatten everyone with ease, except maybe Asgore, if he really tried. But it would probably decimate everything in the surrounding area including himself in the process, so he never cared to demonstrate.
Ultimately, it had been his own stupid fault that he’d wound up getting the snot kicked out of him every morning. He let himself wallow in his own misery a little too long, remembering things he’d rather forget, and Papyrus had gotten sick of it. The fight that ensued hadn’t been pretty, Papyrus reaming him out for his every mistake and flaw and charring the remainder of his patience in the process, while Sans had basically thrown the lowest low balls he could back. He couldn’t remember everything that had been said, but distinctly recalled screaming that his brother was ‘a soft hearted weak assed idiot who never deserved his respect in the first place’ before storming out.
He hated himself a little more every time he thought about it.
It wasn’t as though Sans didn’t love his brother, it was the reason he never left or just…gave up entirely. Some part of him wanted to see a brighter future, see his brother succeed, keep him with a roof over his head and something to strengthen his bones. Sans just couldn’t get past the disappointed stares and exasperated scoffs and lectures long enough to put words to his thoughts. Every time he got the nerve to try to mend the gap a little, say something kind, it ended up swallowing itself up and crawling back out as some sort of half formed insult.
Regardless, as an apology for basically being entirely horrible, Sans had agreed to ‘train’ with Undyne.
The angry, cruel hearted villain of the underground. Papyrus’ boss and potential future adversary. The lady who scared young monsters into hiding at the mere mention of her name. That one.
And he voluntarily allowed himself to meet with her every morning. God, he really did love his brother didn’t he? It was kind of disgusting?
He knocked on the door grumpily, already dreading the entire rest of the day as a whole, wondering how quickly he’d be allowed to escape back to sentry duty and by extension, his undisturbed real training time. Sentry duty didn’t usually entail much of anything these days, except terrifying smaller creatures and flexing the thin barriers to his powers. It was his favorite part of the day, besides the few hours of sleep he actually did grab.
He remembered, briefly, a time when he’d gone out in the evenings, to a town bar full of laughter and warmth. It was a faint memory, but it stung, even as the echoed laughter faded away. Fuckin’ joke, all of it. Friends and shit, as if anyone would allow that many monsters in one area these days without suspecting an uprising. As if monsters didn’t mainly attack each other on sight anymore.
“You’re late,” A brusque voice pulled him from his reverie, and he was abruptly blinking up at Undyne herself.
“I’m always late,” he grumbled in reply.
Undyne didn’t grace that with a response, merely turning a lip up at him in disgust. She never really looked at him, merely around him. As if his existence annoyed her. He trailed after her into the dim light of her kitchen in silence.
“Papyrus still aiming for Royal Guard?” She began, almost casually, but her tone belied something more sinister. He grimaced.
“You know him, big dreams.”
She snorted derisively.
“He’s never going to get it, you know,” She turned her back to him, fiddling with something on the counter.
Sans let out a breath, shoving his balled up fists into his pockets once more.
“Yeah.”
“Not just because he’s a soft hearted fool,” She paused, shooting one glittering eye over her shoulder at him. “But because of you.”
He looked away, concentrating on reigning in the red tinge around his vision.
“Yeah,” he said after a moment.
Undyne resumed her tinkering, leaving the two in silence. Sans mentally tracked the tick of the clock, and tried not to think of the weighty spaces left by her words.
“It’s funny,” She began, turning to him once more, a mug of tea in her hands. “Well, almost. The only reason he’s still alive is because of you. But you’re the reason he’ll probably die anyways.”
Sans shuffled towards the empty hallway with a resigned slouch, not to escape her words but to hide the way he shook at her insinuations.
“He’d have to prove to me he is capable to make it onto the guard. And if I know you, you’ll do anything to get him there- lie, cheat, steal, kill. But then, once he’s there and you can’t help him…”
“I know.”
“What confuses me, is why you even bother. He doesn’t care about you, not really. And yet you work so hard to keep him from finding out the truth, to keep him…happy. Pathetic really.”
“Yeah, it’s a fucking riot.” He grit his jagged tooth, feeling the cold golden edge clack against his jaw. The red was back, he shut his eyes before it could spread. Don’t think about it, don’t think. Don’t.
“You know, maybe I’ve had it wrong all this time. Maybe you’re the weak one.”
His eyes shot open, “Weak?” Red trailed dangerously into the darkness. He slowly turned towards her, grin stretched menacingly. “I’ll show you fuckin’ weak.”
Undyne laughed, her expression wide and glittering with pleasure. “Show me.”
Sans faltered, red flickering once, twice, and then out. “I told you, I’m not-“
“It’s up to you. If you want your useless brother to keep his job, you hold up your end of the bargain. If you’d rather give this whole thing up I’d-“
“No! No…. I’ll…. Fine.”
“Good.”
He really fucking hated Undyne. Another mark on his weighty soul, another abysmal task, why the hell not. It’s not like anything was going to change any time soon, no human had trailed through in years. It just frustrated him endlessly that he was both signing his brothers death warrant and allowing them both to live another day by sitting on the edge of a maybe.
One human soul, that was all Undyne needed. Enough to defeat Asgore, take the other six, wage war and destruction and all the other fun things. Also enough to get rid of any uselessly annoying dead ends, aka him and Papyrus. So he was to bring her any human he came across, rather than allowing Papyrus to absorb it and be strong enough to no longer live in fear of her.
Fuckin catch 22. So far it hadn’t been too horrible, seeing as no humans had been dumb enough to stumble through, but every extension of this arrangement, every moment he spent lying through his teeth and wishing for one more day was just another step forward on the plank.
There was nothing he could do either, which made the whole situation that much more aggravating. Undyne had him at a stand still- he was strong enough to take her out, and he knew she suspected as much, due to the lack of fear he carried in general around her unlike everyone else, but the power required to destroy her would be…taxing to say the least.
It wouldn’t leave him the ability to do much else, let alone deal with the inevitable shit storm that would follow.
Of course, just because Undyne was a conniving self-centered asshole, it didn’t mean people respected her any less, or feared her less. In a twisted way, Undyne’s power over the remnants of Snowdin kept the strange semblance of harmony that had settled haphazardly continue. She kept the peace in her own messed up way by simply existing. And damn if that didn’t piss Sans off.
“Now that business is dealt with for the morning, what say you buzz off here for work, eh?”
He grumbled in response, hatred unbending and ceaseless. Morning training typically ended in her exercising her safe position over him quite exuberantly. Meaning he allowed himself to be used as practice simply because there wasn’t anything else he could do.
Work was a better alternative.
Technically, Sans worked three jobs- one as human hunter extraordinaire, one as Undyne’s personalized bodyguard/punching bag, and another directly under the king himself. He used to have another, long ago, in an electric lit basement with tables and smiling, exuberant faces, and hopeful eyes. Another thing he shouldn’t be thinking about. Human hunting was by far his favorite.
Often he ended up daydreaming near his post, barely putting any effort into his brother’s favorite ‘puzzles’, because in all honestly, if a human did manage to find themselves down here, puzzles would be the least of their problems. He wasn’t planning on letting them get that far anyways.
He fantasized about taking the human soul himself, often. A trump card he knew worried Undyne a little, because if he were to absorb the soul, maybe it would give him control over his unbridled power. Maybe it would allow him to exercise them without concern. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt anymore.
Or maybe it would cause him to entirely lose himself and destroy everything in the process. Honestly, sometimes that was a more pleasant idea.
Damn Papyrus.
If it wasn’t for him, Sans could be ruling this dump by now. But he… cared. Too much. He couldn’t leave him behind, or destroy everything around him. So he was trapped working as Undyne’s pet instead.
It was better than being Undyne’s obsession though, poor Alphys. Well, not anymore. The Alphys he used to know, the royal scientist who wanted to find a way for them all to be free, the one who wanted peace and friendships, that one he pitied. The current one, who’d destroyed families and nearly tore apart time space itself…
That Alphys he admired.
Sans prided himself in being cold, and unforgiving most of the time. It was better, in this life, to fight before they worked up the nerve to bite first. Couldn’t get hurt this way, not again. He stepped on the people he had to, lied and deceived to get what he wanted, and no one ever suspected a thing. Except for Undyne anyway, fuck her. He enjoyed terrifying others, having a semblance of control, feeling powerful. In this life it was kill or be killed, and he thrived in it.
He could forget about Alphys, her inventions, the people she’d hurt and ghosts she’d disassembled and reassembled. He could daydream about defeating Undyne once and for all, the satisfying look of surprise she’d have when he changed up her plans dramatically in front of her. But he cared too damn much about his brother, it ruined everything.
It made him angry, and turned into lashing out at the only person he cared about. And the only person who frustrated him more than anything.
Papyrus didn’t fool anyone with his angry aesthetic, really. Sure, he wanted to see the destruction of humans as much as anyone, but he didn’t have much of a knack for deadly traps or cruel intentions. He trusted people at face value, the damned idiot. Another aspect that would have gotten him killed years ago if it weren’t for his asshole big brother, Sans.
Sans didn’t trust anyone, including himself. It was the secret to success, honestly. It allowed him to work directly underneath Asgore and Undyne, the two warring factions of the strained political system, and live. Undyne feared him to an extent, and Asgore trusted him.
A perfect balance of half-truths and white lies. All for his moronic little brother.
He must have spaced out for too long while sitting at his sentry post, when he blinked back to himself, the morning dew had faded into afternoon’s icy mist. He stretched, a wicked smirk curling his expression, and headed down towards the deep woods to begin his daily ‘avoiding Papyrus’ lectures and passive aggressive comments’ and general sentry requirements. Despite his soft and squishy heart, Papyrus was an asshole just like the rest of them. He pushed him endlessly, always complaining that Sans wasn’t ‘good enough’, that he ‘couldn’t watch out for him forever’, that he was ‘lazy and useless’. Not that he’d ever show it, but it was hard to handle some days.
Papyrus didn’t remember the incident, he’d remind himself. He didn’t wake up in the middle of the night dreaming about explosions and fires and electricity scorching across filaments and bones. Papyrus wasn’t the one who’d been part of it all, the experiment itself.
Sans absently touched underneath his eye, feeling the strange scratch marks that crisscrossed against his skull, and shuddered.
Papyrus’ comments and angry looks and nearly threatening comments would never compare to the thoughts that kept him awake all night. But they were annoying as hell, anyways. He worked his ass off every day to keep Papyrus alive, all for the ever present notion that Papyrus couldn’t stand him, that he’d rather live alone, be a single child. Irony was an ass.
Granted, it wasn’t as if Sans had ever been able to say a nice word in response, he resented too much that Papyrus was still mostly unburdened. That he had yet to see the reality of everything, that he didn’t recognize the futility of his own actions. He’d become a part of the Royal Guard one day, and then Undyne would probably kill them both.
Sans grunted, trudging along the frozen paths.
It was all fucking great.
He was about to give up for the day, face the music and return to his both just in time for a lecture and potential beat down from his brother- Papyrus thought of it as encouraging practice, but it was hardly ever motivating at all- when he heard a branch snap farther down the path.
Eyes widening, he sidestepped into the shadows, shortcutting to behind the noise with hardly a breath. Nobody came down this way anymore, not since Undyne had made it clear it was for sentry business only. He felt his eye light up with magic, a thrum of it pulling beneath his coat, and he peered out into the half-light.
And as if a combination of his wildest dreams and nightmares in one, he saw a single shape standing in a halo of light. He raised a hand in anticipation, red flare twisting almost playfully around his fingers.
A human. A real human, alone and weak in front of him. He could take them out right now, take the soul for himself and end this hell once and for all, or he could give it to Papyrus, go completely against Undyne and…
The human turned, wide eyes taking in the surrounding area nearly in fear, and Sans noticed some kind of plant twisted carefully around their back. A flower….
Sans’ grin widened, as the gears shifted in his mind, and his palm pushed downwards ever so slowly. He had a new plan, one to get rid of everything and shake the ground up by the roots, and he’d hardly have to lift a finger. This was going to be fun.