Chapter Text
Sans sat next to the heaping hunk of metal, twirling a wrench in the air with the power of his soul. It arched blue sparks as it spun suspended, whirling around faster and faster until it was a solid teal disk and sweat was starting to bead on his skull from the exertion it required to keep it in place.
Something snapped and his soul, no longer able to keep the pace, simply let go . The wrench flew with vengeance, embedding itself (rather spitefully, he thought) into his masterpiece, his coup d’oeil. Or what could have been, if he hadn’t been playing around with his toys.
He made a mental note to apologize to Gaster, then scribbled it out just as fast before the memories could grab hold.
The bleached white of Gaster’s skull dropping into the abyss -- Sans flailing as he gripped onto the sides of the Core -- blue light flickering in the air helplessly as it tried to hold, to sustain…
It took a herculean effort to regain control, but eventually Sans found himself standing over the weakly blinking machine. It gave one last sad beep before going dark. Mustering up his rapidly disappearing motivation, Sans sent out a small blue flicker to gingerly extract the erring wrench. Drifting over from the wreckage, the wrench floated wimpily over to his hand.
*sans examines the wrench.
*The wrench is unrepentant.
With a push of his soul, Sans obliterated the wrench into dust and let its remains flow onto his blueprints.
The dust trickled down the dog-eared paper and he followed with one phalange, sliding from one note (large, messy, scribbled: tk/s * 3 ) to the next (microscopic, machine-neat, technical shorthand: doesn’t account for negative timelines. Delete) . The play of formulas alternated between two voices, one playfully suggestive, the other sharply corrective, until it all ended abruptly halfway through a discussion on the paradox of irreversibility.
They’d been working on time containment procedures. They’d been so close.
With a sigh, Sans turned back to the machine, feeling out the edges of the jagged hole and the broken wires that the wrench had cut. A picture of the damage flickered in his mind: if he just reconnected the red wire to the yellow, the battery might actually work at approximately 113% efficiency...as for the hole, he’d be able to solder some nice titanium plating with his soul to cover the damage. He could buy it off some Temmies, help pay for their endless quest for colleg…
He could. But he really, really didn’t want to. The excitement he’d always felt when he was on the edge of something new, armed only with a multitude of formulas and the laws of physics was gone. Kaput. Scraped clean -- or more likely fallen down an endless chasm and scattered into space and time.
Or perhaps it had never been there in the first place?
Either way, starting from square one was really taking the fun out of the whole adventure.
The hole in the machine glared at him accusingly. It set his incisors on edge -- he’d never been one for pressure. Plus the thought having to deal with those Temmies --
*Hoi, I’m Tem!
*Heya. I’m --
*Hoi, I’m Tem!
*Heya --
*Hoi, I’m Tem!
*sans feels a nonexistent vein throb in his skull.
*Hi, I’m Bob.
In the end, Sans had ended up begging Bob for directions to the shop and exchanging what he needed by scraping the dog residue off the heel of his shoe before shortcutting the hell out of there.
So, there was that. Effort. It would be a lot of effort to fix the hole, and then he’d have to look over some formulas that Gaster hadn’t been able to get to before, well --
Expertly, Sans avoided the memory that tugged incessantly at the corner of his mind by simply not thinking about it.
Afterwards, there would be that whole nasty business of translating the 4D concept of time into a solid 3D conception that could be accurately coded into command lines. Which meant he’d have to call up Alphys, who was undoubtedly knee-deep in the crazy project Asgore had slammed her with the second he’d officially named her the Royal Scientist (Alphys had always been a sucker for titles. Sans, not so much).
Sans’ skull started pounding as he stared out at an endless sea of work, technicality after problem after obstacle threatening to upend the perilous grasp he had on time and space. It used to be like swimming, buoyed by the liveliness of debate and a simple love of progress that felt alien on his skin now, a life jacket that used to fit comfortably and was now a size too small.
God, he was drowning.
He took a moment to press his metacarpals into the hollows of his eye sockets, trying his best to fend off the growing feeling of helplessness that settled in around his shoulders. Useless. The gaping hole burned in his mind, defiantly reminding him of his duties. His phalanges shook, clicking and rattling nervously in the conspicuously dead room.
A break, he thought desperately. I just need a break and I’ll be good as new. I’m useless like this anyway.
“I’ll be right back,” he notified the empty room, and he could swear the air seemed to warm with familiar skepticism. After a beat, Sans threw a sheet over the judgmental hole in the machine, obscuring both the ruined heap and the damage from view. He felt better almost immediately (out of sight, out of mind).
“I’m going to Grillby’s.”