Chapter Text

Learn When to Quit

Act II — That's Your Fault

Scene 5² — Something to Dust off

“… At least now you’re in your element. Ha!”

The Mole: little insectivorous mammal, usually living underground. Keeps digging despite her ridiculously rudimentary view over her surroundings.

“ugh… why did she come here? that’s not like her…”

That’s all she’s always been doing all her life. Digging.
She digs until she reaches the bottom and keeps digging until she can reach even deeper and yet still keeps digging.

“Hey! What do you two think you’re doing?”

At that time, they had stopped and turned towards this new, high pitched, yet so serious voice, and then they had started to pout. Well, if they were about to be scolded, there was no more fun in this little game. They were just joking, it was not their fault if that little wimp was such a crybaby unable to stand the truth.

“i mean, she can’t’ve just been worried about paps, right? she never did that before. well, usually it was the kid’s fault so she’d see them later in the afternoon and get the scheme, but still…”

At that time, she had turned around to see her too. Her vision was blurry because she had some tears— what? No, she wasn’t crying! Gregory was just being mean and saying things that weren’t true, and he would call her a liar if she tried to defend herself!
But then she saw her. That had been… The very first time she had met her, too.

There was this kind of mysterious majesty in her confidence… She was keeping such dignity in her stern face, struggling not to show those little sparks of worry in the corner of her eyes… She had already seen that look before and yet she had never seen that look before. This was the look the Adults are scolding the bad kids with, the way they spread justice and save the weak from the foe…

Such brilliance and bravery despite her age… She was beautiful.

“And who d’ya think you are?”

Greg was not amused, and his friend Tony had perfectly well worded their shared frustrated thoughts.
She was just a girl they had never seen before. Probably from the other class. Anyways, she had nothing to do here and she didn’t have the right to annoy them. That was mean and only the Adults have the right to do that.

“what do you think, kid?”

She could understand but they were still very mean to her and that was not very nice.
The mysterious girl hummed in contempt and put her hands on her hips.
Just like the Adults.
She readjusted her glasses with her nose as she started to frown.

“I’m Amaryllis Rose Wynn, third grade, student number twenty-eight from class 1-A. And I think you’re bothering your little comrade.”

It was amazing that she was looking, acting, and speaking just like the Adults.
She had heard of children like that, sometimes. Most of the time it’s because they have very strict parents, or because they are very smart and like books and studies. Most of the time they prefer that to playing with toys or making friends.
Those kids are weird and until then she had never wanted to believe they actually existed.

And yet there was something in her eyes— this radiant glaze… There was this spark of deep and genuine honesty in her. Such sense of justice.

Maybe that ‘Amaryllis’ sounded very pretentious, but she would save her.
Just like in the movies.
That was so cool.

“kid?”

Gregory laughed in some bewildered mocking scoff.

“Oh yeah, and now she’s the poor victim and we’re the bad kids, huh? We just wanted to go see if we could wake up those stupid bats but she told the Teachers and now thanks to her we’re grounded when we come back!” He cried before such injustice. “It’s always her fault. She always tells the Teachers everything, she’s just a mean tat… tattle…” He growled as apparently some difficult word was struggling to make it through his teeth. “It’s just always the Mole! We’re not the only ones, it’s always her fault!”

The Mole: also widely known in the spy novels as the very embodiment of Betrayal.

“kid. c’mon, what’s going on? you still in there?”

That was what she was. What she had always been. A traitor.
A traitor, and a cheater. Not a liar— no, she was always saying the truth. But not always the whole truth, because sometimes she just had not dug deep enough before seeing some grave emergency and telling everyone everything.
Lies are for bad people. But she was not lying if she didn’t know, right? It wasn’t her fault…

“Well if she told the Teachers, then maybe it means that scaring those bats was not a good idea, right?” Amaryllis shrugged in some mocking way, as she seemed to be stating the Obviousness in person.
“We didn’t wanted to scare’em, we just wanna see’em move!” Tony protested.
“You’ll see how she is.” Gregory retorted bitterly, almost sniggering slyly. “She’ll get you too, someday. She gets everyone. One day you’re her friend and the other she tells the Teacher something bad about you and you get punished.”

She was new, so of course she wouldn’t know the Mole.
But if she wasn’t careful enough, she’d fall into her trap. Just like the others.
The Mole was dangerous and mean. The Mole just digs and doesn’t care for the consequences. The Mole just cares about her Holes, and nothing else matters.

“Now at least we’re in the right place for moles like her.” Gregory continued angrily. “You know where moles go, right? Holes. And it happens ours already knows how to dig’em, so that shouldn’t be any different.” And then he had turned towards her and had a sudden outburst of full rage. “You feel familiar here, Molly?!”

He had paced in some fuming fury towards her as he had been uttering this— until she felt a push.

And then she lost her balance.

I should run down the Hole
Just let me hide there like a Mole
‘Cause that’s what they think of me

“dammit, kid, now’s really the moment…”

Amaryllis gasped and even Tony suddenly looked scared.

“Hey Greg, wait! There’s a—”

The ground under her feet was no more. Gregory widened his eyes in shock.

She saw the girl trying to run towards her, she saw her stretching her hand in panic and she was scared too so she also tried to reach it—
And then everything was pitch black, and then the pain came.

She vainly heard Gregory scream in horror…

“W-Wait, no! I-I didn’t mean to, come back!”

But of course Gravity does not work that way.

They don’t wanna let me fall
They believe my dreams belong
They don’t see I’ve had it all

It was so dark in there and cold and scary

And then she started to hear some creepy giggles all around her

Until she realized those are not giggles

Just let me run…
Down the Hole

“hey kid, are you listening? dawn?”

Dawn the Mole

“ugh, you gonna snap out of it eventually?!”

She finally jerked up, and yet her tired sleepy eyes suddenly widened.
There is a skull staring at her and he is grabbing her shoulders.

She screamed.

“whoa, calm down…!”

Taken by surprise, the skeleton shuddered and let her go immediately as he stared in bewilderment at her horrified face distorted with fear and… abhorrence.

… Ookay. No touching. No more touching. Never again.

Damn it, just one hour ago she was alright with holding his hand on her own will and going through shortcuts. What the hell is going on, now?
Ugh. Well, phobias are irrational from the start, so how could he expect its ‘recovery’ to work in rational ways…

Dawn, still screaming, felt tears starting to roll on her cheeks as she hurriedly stepped back and fell backwards in the—

…

Wait. There is no snow in that Hole. Why is she lying in the snow?

“shh. it’s alright. it’s just me. remember?”

Her eyes were raised once again towards the skeleton—
He was alive, and afraid, and sorry. He was from afar but still looking at her and trying to gently and warily come closer and he was whispering to her to calm down—
And then she finally remembered him and where she was and what had just been going on and she understood that he had to be pretty confused and lost and worried right now and that it was her fault for being so stupid.

She realized she was hyperventilating.

She closed her eyes, and she heard some footsteps as the monster was apparently carefully getting closer. He was warning her beforehand that they could not stay here so he would eventually have to make her move if she couldn’t follow on her own, but she raised a shaking hand to stop him, her eyes still closed.
She was trying to speak but her heart and her lungs just wouldn’t let her take a breath long enough.

dammit, what the hell is wrong with you…?

The skeleton simply sighed tensely, clueless as to what he was supposed to do to help… But maybe –probably– the only thing that would work would be waiting.

“S-Sans…”

She immediately started to cough, still trying to catch her breath; and yet that was some good improvement already. Still pretty far from being enough, though.
She had opened her eyes and was giving him a sorry look, and he could perfectly predict the incoming ‘I’m sorry’ her lips would not utter.
Well… apologizing was not the problem. Apologies don’t make you walk.

All this mess was making them waste some precious time and right now they could not afford to do that. Undyne would be probably startled and far enough to feel lost and they hopefully still had some time before she started to look in the right direction— but she would come by eventually, and judging by her determination to find them, that could not take that long.

The human stayed a little longer sitting awkwardly in the snow, staring at him with a gaping mouth. And then when she finally got back to some regular and calmer breathing, she closed her eyes back and frowned, rubbing them as she was face-palming.

“… ugh. S-S-Sorry. I-I think I kinda spaced out a b-bit.”
“no kidding.” he rolled his white pupils annoyingly.

He offered her a gloved hand to help her get back up, but he immediately saw her shivers and hesitation and he froze— though after a few seconds she stretched a trembling half-closed palm and he had to gently grab it himself as she struggled to keep her balance.
He then realized that she would probably suffer from the freezing air around them right now and he offered his jacket in the meantime, as he ordered her to follow him.

She would not question him, still feeling way too cold and startled to find the words to utter anything— and yet she still was wondering about an awful lot of things.
The main problem resonating in her mind being simply: why here?

They were in the middle of the Snowdin Forest, probably— it was her first time visiting it fully on foot on her own so she had no idea how big it really was, but they probably were pretty far from the city. And now, where were they heading to? Back to town? That would make no sense and that would just be a huge waste of time, so… what did he have in mind? Had he just panicked and sent them through the first shortcut he could think of and they had just ended up in some random place and now they could even be lost in the middle of nowhere?
Why wasn’t he just taking them through another shortcut, now that he apparently was able to think properly and find them some more relevant location to hide or something?

“What are… W-Why here…?” she eventually stuttered in some kind of sleepy and absent-minded tone. “Why didn’t you just get us home?”
“no way.” Sans shook his skull gravely. “first place she’ll check— including the basement.”

And he apparently cringed at the mere thought of the fish lady breaking the reinforced door, shattering some random things in her rage or damaging the computer, and potentially messing with his notes and works— well, what remained of them.
The next Reset would just fix the physical damage anyway, but… Considering the current state of some of them, he still had some doubts and he really hoped nothing would happen.

Back in the very first timeline he could (now very blurrily) remember of, he had managed to Save a few things along with his memory— all of which were now standing in the basement. If there really was something he was deeply afraid to lose forever besides his new protégé, it was exactly that.

“How about Alphys’?”
“wouldn’t be a good idea either.” He had been a little startled by her interrupting his train of thoughts, but his answer had been quick and firm. “and i’m not sure we could get alphys to lie to her— i mean, she probably wouldn’t want to betray us, it’s just that, y’know, she sucks at that sort of lying. especially with, well, undyne. she’d never be convincing enough, undyne’d come right away and we’d get her into trouble too.”
“But Undyne hates Hotland.” she retorted. “In the game she’d just faint because of the heat and her armor’s being too hot and heavy or something—”
“Yeah but right now she’s not wearing her armor, alright?”

She bit her lips and almost tripped in the snow because of the shock, and the monster gave her an annoyed and confused look— before noticing that it had been because of his very tone and that right now his glare was just making it worse, so he face-palmed again and turned around, mumbling some awkward and nervous apology.
Ugh. Alright, now he was tensed too and that was getting over his head and adding that to her current necrophobia would just be extremely helpful.
He had to keep his cool. Calm down. Breathe.

Dawn tried to keep following his fast pacing, but this little sudden jump-scare was not really nice and it was all the more reassuring to see Sans lose his patience this fast.
Well, alright, he was pissed off and apparently her questions were just bothering him for nothing. Alright, she knew when to stop.

An open “ shut up ” would have worked too, you know.

And yet after a few other minutes of walking in the middle of nowhere, she simply couldn’t take it anymore.

“So what? How is staying here in the middle of the snow gonna help in any way?” she asked. “Didn’t you have any other places like— uh…”
“nope.” he simply cut her short. “any place i could be, she’ll know about it too and she’ll think about it eventually. we could try to keep hiding here and there all night, but i’d still prefer to get to the safest solution. if we’re lucky enough.” he mumbled eventually in a mutter, more for himself than for her.
“And that’s the safest solution? The middle of the forest? Seriously?” She threw up her arms in the air in exasperation. “We’re not even hiding behind the trees! What are you even expecting from this place?”

He didn’t answer, instead simply raising a bored and tired finger to point what was lying just a little farther behind a few more saplings: and then the next thing she immediately noticed was the giant door.

They were back at the entrance of the Ruins.
He started to pace anxiously towards it, and she followed in his steps, mentally cursing her impatience.
Even though— wait, wasn’t this door supposed to be a one-way opening? How would they even get in anyway?

They were getting closer, and Sans noticed that despite the remaining prints in the snow, Frisk’s body was not there anymore.
Well, some members of the Royal Guard had definitely come across it at some point and taken it away for obvious reasons. Which was some good news, because he was really not feeling up to all this mess right now.

Some melody started to resonate in the soundproof snowy forest, and Sans immediately took his own phone away from one of his short’s pockets.
That was Undyne, of course.

He ignored the call, obviously.
He simply put the phone back in its place and sighed.

“… ugh. that’s why i never take shortcuts in public.” he grumbled, still walking towards the giant door.

Fortunately, just as he had hoped, the kid had left it open and no one had closed it afterwards. And hopefully the one-way system would automatically reactivate as soon as they would get in and close it behind their track.
Even if Undyne knew where they would be (and he was sure it would not take her too long to find out), she would not be able to follow them. That was the most effective way – and also the laziest, maybe?
Well, right now it was not really like they had any other choice.

“What do you mean?” Dawn still asked thoughtfully with a confused frown. “I thought everyone knew about your shortcuts anyway.”
“well, sorry to debunk another myth but that’s not the case. only alphys knows.”

He simply rolled his white dots, trying to use all his remaining strength to further open the door. The human watched with bewilderment as he was struggling to do so and when she tried to give him a hand and he stopped to lean against the wall nearby, she saw that he was actually panting.
Did… skeletons need to breathe? It looked like they could be out of breath, at least, and that did not look pretty.
She put all her might into trying to further open the door, but it was really slow going.

Damn, it was heavy. How could that kid do it every time on his own?
Well, maybe that was just because the Player and the game were behind it or something. Who knows. That kid was really supposed to be anything but normal, after all. Could they even still be considered human, at that point? She wondered whether or not they even had their own personality, or if they were just some empty mindless puppet the Players would control.
… That last thought was kind of terrifying.

“But… Mettaton knows too… right?” she asked between two huffs.
“he learned by accident one day i wasn’t careful enough, but yeah, he knows too. but really that’s all.”

What did that mean, then? That his shortcuts were not a natural ability of his? How and why did he get that power, then? Could it be related either to the Resets or to Gaster’s accident? Maybe both? Was it somehow completely irrelevant?

He had seemed about to keep talking, but his breath was immediately cut short and he had to stop for a few seconds.
He was still panting. It was really taking him a while to recover, this time… Recover from what, now? The shortcut? The walk? He looked like he had raced through a full marathon. If she could be sure of one thing, it was that this was not normal. To be a little more precise and all the more obvious: that this was neither normal, nor a good sign.

Sans painfully struggled to bring one trembling hand over his forehead, as some giant headache started to settle.
Note to self: never take a shortcut longer than what you can afford. Not only you won’t make it entirely, but you end up twice as worn out afterwards, and it only gets worse as time passes.

After a few more seconds though, he already had forced himself to come back to help her and even if she didn’t like it, they still could join their forces to finally make the door budge enough so that they could pass.
He now entered into the Ruins and was signing her to follow him and get in. Hopefully it would be warmer inside.

As soon as she was beside him and already relieved that indeed it was somewhat warmer in there, the monster quickly perked an eye-socket outside before closing the gigantic wooden door as fast as he could— that was to say, rather slowly and painfully.
And then he sighed in deep relief, leaning against it and letting a gloved hand rub strongly his forehead.

“okay. undyne can’t follow us now, so we’re just gonna stay here and wait for the reset.” he dictated sternly. “when it happens i’ll probably be back in my room, but i’ll just get a shortcut here immediately and knock on the door and you’ll open so that i can get you home and start over. how does that sound?”

The human did not answer.
He waited for a few more seconds, but eventually, his eyes still closed, his patience started to run out:

“hey kid. you heard the plan? you still in there?” Still no answer. Another surge of pain ran through his skull and he had to stop for another couple of seconds, but during that time the teenager would still stay completely silent. “dawn, are you alright?” he murmured as soon as he could.

This time he could not prevent his growing anxiousness from rising in his urged question.

“No, I’m not.” she eventually sharply replied, and Sans jerked his skull up towards her in confusion and alarm.

He so didn’t like this tone.

“Oh my God no Sans I’m so freaking not alright.” she repeated almost immediately, still in that same tone.

He could not find the time to ask what was going on, that she had already jerked her crimson head towards him and continued in a tone full of some burning nervous anger:

“Bloody hell, Sans, everyone here is freaking dead. How can you not see that?”

…

For the first time he actually turned his gaze towards the inside of the Ruins.

And for the first time he saw Toriel as a pile of dust.

H… How could he have forgotten about all this…?!

“oh shit.” was all he managed to murmur after a while, his voice hoarse with shock.

All this dust everywhere. This heavy stuffy dusty smell that was making them sick.
Dawn felt like she could throw up any instant.

She couldn’t help but cover her mouth with a shaking hand and feel some tears form up in the corners of her eyes, her back sliding against the closed door as she was slowly crawling into a dizzy ball of flesh. Even though monsters did not know such thing as illness, Sans easily recognized the incoming malaise and did his best to kneel beside her and gently ask if there was anything he could do.

“W-W-Why c-c-can’t we j-just go h-h-home? Why-y h-here? I-I-I can’t s-stay here. S-S-Sans I-I just c-can’t.”

Well, to be honest, here the good news were: he couldn’t either.

“i’ll… uh, j-just t-try to h-hang on, alright?” Oh, of course. How easy would that be for her if it was already so hard for him to just keep his own composure and not show her how badly he was handling it already. “o-okay, let’s c-calm down and…”
“No! J-J-Just g-get us the heck out of h-here…!” she cried, burying her head between her shaking knees.

He cringed.
Yeah, that had to be expected. Ugh, how could he just forget about the kid, of all things?!

“uh, l-look, i’d really like to be anywhere else right now too, but… i’m afraid we really don’t have the choice right now. i just can’t get us anywhere safe. n-not anymore.”
“W-What does that even mean?” Man, even in her state, she had still managed to sound snappish, and even somewhat intimidating. “What are you talking about? W-Why don’t you just teleport us somewhere else— anywhere else—?!”
“I can’t, alright?”

There was a huge and uneasy desperate silence.
Dawn’s breath was cut short as her head raised back to meet his face and her melting brown eyes widened—
Had he just really said that…?

Sans took a long and heavy sigh, as he lowered his skull and ran a tense gloved hand on his forehead.

“i can’t.” he repeated in a lower tone.

She shuddered as he sounded so desperate.
The last time she had heard his voice hold such dark echoes…

She had learned some terrible and horribly threatening revelations.
What was it this time that he had regrettably ‘forgotten’ to tell her about?

“listen kid, shortcuts aren’t that easy.” the skeleton continued after an even longer pause. “it’s fine when i’m taking them on my own, but each time i bring someone along— it becomes much more draining and it always takes a while for me to recover.” He coughed and she shuddered again. He did look pretty worn out, to the point that he was actually struggling just to speak— This could go oh so well. “it depends on the length and my health and state of mind or whatever, but this time— usually i need almost two hours to recover after taking a passenger all the way from snowdin to hotland. we’ve hardly had fifty minutes this time, and the fact that we travelled everywhere all day doesn’t help. The reason we ended up in the middle of the forest that last time— It’s because I actually had to interrupt it midway.”

Interrupt… Wait, what?
She had never heard of that before— and Sans had never seemed to ever show any limit to his powers… What happened? W-What was going on?

“so yeah, now you know that my shortcuts are actually limited. satisfied?”

Alright, and now she had just hit a nerve. As if things could still keep getting worse by now.
So she had really not noticed that he had been actually withholding and brilliantly calculating his shortcuts until now, and that apparently he hadn’t done it enough this time— because most probably it had been the only shortcut he had never expected to take. And who could blame him? Who could have predicted that Undyne would come— while they were both genuinely thinking that all trouble was over until the next Reset?

Maybe they had just been stupid enough to forget that Frisk was far from being the only threat they should be worrying about.

“S-So what you’re saying is…”
“That the real reason I didn’t take us back to the lab is because I couldn’t, alright?” Sans immediately added, his tone now tense and angry.

This still managed to startle her, and she somehow succeeded to bring herself to mutter some random apology, hardly glancing at him—
Until she noticed some strange sparkles of dim light reflecting on the top of his skull, from the flickering remaining spot of light hardly hanging above them on the ceiling.
Sweat.

Sans was sweating and panting and he looked like his headache was pure agony by now.
That surely was new. Her phobia would have remembered this for sure if she had ever seen that face before.

But— now that she was thinking about it, he did show some actual signs of fatigue before.
Until now, it would never be anything worth noticing— it always took a few minutes before the symptoms would show up, as she could deduce from that last one. And as she mentally studied back the list of shortcuts they had gone through during the day…

He had first taken them from his workshop to Alphys’. At that point he was probably too angry to even notice the side-effect, and he was just getting up from what had probably been a full lazy night— at that point he probably was at full health and way too occupied with much more important struggles to just think about it. Besides, even if he had shown any signs of tiredness at that point, that surely would have been the last thing she would have noticed by that time, anyway.
He had only taken them back to his house after at least two hours and a half, from what she could remember; and once his despair had taken over… Maybe he had actually recovered during that time. They had spent at least one full hour around Alphys’ desk with a cup of tea (not enough as a breakfast, but apparently it had still somewhat helped), and whenever he was not talking, he had just been loosely pretending to sleep in his seat. Unless he wasn’t pretending.
He had maybe taken them to the Ruins’ door only ten minutes at most after the whole journey back from Hotland, and this time she wondered for a while why she hadn’t noticed anything— until she remembered that the first thing he had done upon arriving was pacing rather rapidly towards his usual spot and just lie down lazily against a tree, and that he had never moved from that spot until she left— and probably not even until the Player actually arrived.
He had taken them hastily from his garage to the Gate, but that one probably didn’t count since there had been the first Reload just a few minutes afterwards. So, uh, he most likely didn’t suffer from that one’s side-effects for long since it had actually ‘never happened’ in the current timeline… That one was messed up.
She had no idea whether or not he had taken any shortcuts during the time she had been out, but since Papyrus was most probably around, she assumed that Sans had just, at best, followed his brother and walked through the Forest on foot. Which made the next shortcut another trip to Alphys’, a couple of hours later— she did not remember how late exactly it was, but it certainly was already late enough in the afternoon…

And that had been the beginning of his restless accumulation of shortcuts.

Assuming that the most effective way to recover was to nap (?) — that was what made the most sense to her, at least, and that would give another justification to the monster’s legendary ‘laziness’ —, maybe the only times he ever had the chance to actively recover from that point were their discussion in Hotland, and their rather enthusiastic chat with Grillby.
Maybe, in total, hardly one hour and a half of trying-to-rest-but-being-nudged-at-every-so-often-so-he-actually-could-not-rest-at-all, to recover from a big Snowdin–Hotland round trip, one shorter shortcut in-between, and the last — apparently failed one.

On second thought… Yeah. That actually kind of made sense.
Did it mean that it was partially her fault for teasing him and preventing him from taking it easy as much as he needed? … That sounded weird.

And yet in a way, one part of her mind was still bugged over something.

In the game he could teleport every few seconds during his boss fight, so… What was that coming from? Maybe it had something to do with the distance? Or was it because he had been taking a passenger all along? … It still was true that in the game, never the both of those conditions were reunited at the same time— and Sans’ actually shown shortcuts weren’t half as numerous as the ones they had been through in only one day.
And maybe that was the one real reason of Sans’ sweaty fatigue at the end of his boss fight, now that she was thinking about it.

“so, uh, yeah. it was maybe around the seventh or eighth shortcut of the day with you along, and i didn’t take a single nap in between.” Sans indeed confirmed in a long and heavy sigh. “i’m dead tired, dawn.” It took him a few seconds before he realized, but when he did, the face-palm was all the more embarrassed and genuinely annoyed as he continued in an awkward grunt: “… pun absolutely not intended, i swear.”

As the unintended wordplay was welcomed with a humorless cackle, the skeleton understood that this had been her last straw.

“So what? We’ve been jumping through space and time or whatever all day for nothing, and now that we’d actually need your shortcuts, you’re out of batteries? Is this a joke?!”
“t-trust me kid, i’d love to get us out of here and i’d have done that a long time ago if there was any other option.”
“Well, so now we’re stuck here for the night? I’d rather run for my life than root here. For Pete’s sake, even a child could do it!”
“we don’t even know if that kid is— we don’t even know what that kid is, dawn!” Though his voice was immediately back to a lower and calmer tone, she could still hear its tense echoes as he continued: “and even besides that— at least, they have more than one life.”

That cut her short, and yet she still pouted uneasily, sniffling and burying back her head in her knees. He hesitated for a few seconds, raising one hand above her shoulders— but quickly retracted it back into his pocket before he even got to touch her.
That could not have helped.

He perked a quick glance at his watch— fourteen past ten. Ugh.
All day it had been a race against time, and now he was willing for the next Reset to just happen as fast as possible and make this stop. How messed up was that?

“d-don’t worry. that’ll soon be over.” he uttered uneasily, as to try to convince himself of this oh so obvious lie.
“You really think we couldn’t just get out before Undyne arrives and hide in the forest? Y-You know that field, don’t you?”

He cringed.
He had not really thought about this option sooner— maybe because of his laziness, or because of his ever growing headache and fatigue…
Anyway, if she really had wanted this to happen, she should have talked about it sooner. Undyne could just find them out any minute by now. That was definitely the worst moment to possibly get out, sadly.

He sighed. Even if she could effectively go play hide-and-seek in the forest for a while, he couldn’t possibly keep up. Not in this state.

“… no. by now we’re probably too late for that.”

And yet she gritted her teeth.

“I don’t care if Undyne comes by here any minute, I’d prefer confront her face to face rather than stay here!”
“don’t be stupid, dawn.” he moaned tiredly and desperately. “i know you don’t mean it.”

She wanted to argue, and yet she remembered how that last encounter had happened, and what her reaction had been—

That was to say, nothing.
Absolutely nothing.

She had been so paralyzed with terror and whatever kind of memory trance she had been put into, and if it weren’t for Sans’ unexpected shortcut…

She saw again that spear that had almost impaled her chest and her eyes widened.
Oh God she had almost died.

Oh God she had — freaking — almost — died.

The realization was even more striking than the mere sight of the dust— the feeling was— she could almost feel that pain and her heart pounded and her breath cut short as her lungs seemed to be sliced—

Hadn’t it been for Sans’ excellent reflexes, this could have been the end. The real end.
And now, reflexes or not, he could not help anymore.
The thought was terrifying.

She clutched her chest as if that spear had just hit her, and this time Sans started himself to panic, trying desperately to calm her down by any means.
Ugh. And here he thought that necrophobia and thanatophobia were two different, completely unrelated things… Now, if she oh so coincidentally happened to suffer from both of them, that would really take the cake.
He couldn’t help but mentally face-palm at this horrifying idea, all while trying to mutter calmly some random ineffective supposedly comforting yet meaningless words.

“alright, now that’s enough freaking out for the day.” he eventually uttered determinedly, his patience running out even faster every time.

She indeed tried to follow his advice (or order?) and calm down, and yet she could still feel tears warm up her rosy cheeks and shivers rolling down her spine. Sans tried to carefully sit a little closer, but he stopped as soon as only ten centimeters at least were separating them— since she had started to look uneasy.
They stayed in that state for a few more minutes, trying to slowly calm down and come back to some slower and deeper breath. The pile of dust was still facing them though, and Dawn was still having a hard time trying to desperately ignore its overwhelming presence.

And then a silly idea came through Sans’ mind all of a sudden.

“uh, h-here’s an idea. you close your eyes, you forget about all this and i’m gonna tell you jokes till the reset happens.”

He chuckled emptily, as to vainly try to convince himself that he was okay with it.

“Y-Y-You’re crazy.” She hardly managed to mumble between two sobs.
“probably… but that’s all we have left.” he sighed. “so, uh, i dunno. we could also stay here and keep staring, or…”
“Y-Yeah alright.” she mumbled, burying her head even deeper into her knees. “Anything but that.”

Sans gave her a sad yet tentatively comforting smile, as she simply put her head on top of her knees and closed her eyes, trying to relax as much as she could.
After a little while, she heard his voice sound a little lighter:

“y’know, i’ve always asked paps if we could replace the stairs with a lift.”
“‘Cause you’re so lazy?” she retorted immediately, mentally rolling her closed eyes.
“well, that too. but it’s just that i don’t trust stairs. they’re always up to something.”
“Unless they’re feeling down, of course.” she nervously mumbled, face-palming but slightly smirking cynically in the corner of her lips. “Classic.”
“oh, tough crowd, i see.” Sans chuckled mischievously.

The human rolled her eyes and shrugged.
Apparently, though, his strategy had worked since she was already forgetting about their surroundings. Which surely could only be a good thing by now.

“Yep.” she giggled slyly. “Okay, my turn. I’ll show you how it’s done.”
“oh, a challenge, then.” His stuck-smirk enlarged itself in some dangerous teasing grin. “careful, kid. i’m not the kind to like competition, and no one’s ever bested me yet.”
“Ha. We’ll see about that.” Dawn retorted defiantly.

And then she took a large breath, before starting to speak in her most mysterious and low tone, as to tell some ancient legend. It was obvious that she was only doing it for the sake of being dramatically theatrically parodic, but Sans guessed that it probably was just part of the joke. Or part of her willing to overdo things as much as she could just for the sake of sounding silly, it depends on the perspective.

“It all starts in an old, traditional, green mountain in summer. An old and poor shepherd, stuck to his old traditions from his old ancestors, guides his one hundred sheep alongside his loyal sheepdog throughout his cherished antic transhumance. As he was quietly resting underneath a tree, watching patiently his flock graze peacefully, down the nearby country road all of a sudden, a limousine came to pass, then stopped; and a mysterious man wearing a very strict and clean suit came out of it.
The rich man seemed curious, watching eagerly the sheep freely grazing under the overwhelming heat, then went to meet the shepherd. Still driven by his greedy curiosity, the rich man started to ask numerous questions about the shepherd’s old-fashioned profession, his strange companions, his antique view over life and time passing. He eventually came to think that this peculiar way this old man could take it easy and remain in his poor condition without worrying about it was… fascinating.”

Sans’ left eye-socket twitched nervously. Was he supposed to feel targeted by this?
Well, not like he wasn’t admitting it himself. He had given up a long time ago, and… Well. He was the one to think that the best way not to feel too desperate and sad over something was to just try to be contented with what was already given to him. He should have remembered that instead of just… going back to his old antics.
He still was surprised to realize that after more than three years — and even more than that, if he had to count the Resets in between —, he still had it in him, after all. Was this a good or a bad thing? He wondered.

“After some longer chatting, the two men started to stray away from the initial subject, and talk about some… more casual topics.

“I have an idea,” the rich man eventually offered. “Here is some little game. I bet that, in less than one minute, I can calculate the number of sheep you possess in this very field.”
“Well,” the shepherd shrugged, “why not. Go ahead, sir.”
“But we should make it a real bet.” the rich man continued. “If I succeed, I will take one of those sheep as a reward.”

The shepherd looked at his living, swarming messy flock that surrounded them from all sides, and figured that such task would be impossible; thus he accepted. And yet the rich man would then go back to the limousine that was still waiting for him down the road, and took out of it numerous computers, calculators and other technological wonders; and using them, making numerous calculations in all possible ways, he indeed managed to go back to the shepherd and announce with a smile of victory that the old man owned exactly one hundred sheep. Which was the exact truth.”

She would not notice, but for some reason the monster by her side looked all but amused by such tale, for now. She was blissfully unaware of the way he was to interpret this story’s current development… And even though he would definitely not tell her, that would not prevent him from feeling rather uneasy.
She would keep talking, though:

“After a few other words, the rich man grabbed his reward and was heading towards his rich car, about to leave. But he was immediately stopped:

“Wait!” the shepherd hurriedly begged. “I have another bet: if I succeed to guess your profession, then I can get back what you took from me.”
“Well,” the rich man said with an amused smile, “go on.”

And the shepherd to retort:

“I bet you’re a consultant.”

The rich man, genuinely amazed, remained speechless for a few seconds; but that was indeed true.

“Well, you win.” he admitted. “May I just ask you what gave it away?”
“That sure was easy, sir.” the shepherd said with a large mocking grin. “First, you come and bother me while I never asked for your help. Second, you only tell me things I already know. And third… Could I get my dog back, now?””

There was a sudden overwhelming silence.
Sans remained speechless, staring at the void with his eye-sockets wide.
And then he snorted, slowly face-palming.

“… good one. good and overly ridiculously long one considering what it’s really about, but… not bad.” the monster sniggered. “i’ll give it a C. for the effort.” and the unintended accuracy on the self-deprecation, he didn’t add.
“Hey! I learned it from my uncle. Don’t be rude.” But her tone made it obvious that she was far from being offended, and that she was just humoring him. Probably the choice of the joke itself had been just because of that.
“and what’s his job?”
“Consultant, of course.” she laughed. “Anyway. Your turn.”
“yeah, yeah.” Sans chuckled. “still, i’ve been wondering… what’s a sheep anyway?”

She stared at him in genuine bewilderment.

“… Are you serious?”
“nah, of course i know.” he eye-rolled. “they cross oceans and alphys loves building them.”

And he winked. And shrugged. And she imagined the rim-shot. Of course.
That was his turn to make a joke, after all.
Ugh. Why did she always have to fall for his punny traps?

“i can’t believe you actually walked for it.” Oh, and now he was genuinely mocking her. Smug moron.
“Ugh, I just didn’t know! I mean, maybe you… could not know what they are— t-there aren’t any sheep underground, right? And, uh…” She paused for an instant, now hesitating as to whether or not she… should really ask this question. But eventually her curiosity won: “Now that I’m thinking about it… for how long have you been stuck down here?”

The skeleton sighed, smirking lazily and chuckling in a nostalgic way at the same time.
And the way he shrugged… Was it some way to mean that he… didn’t know himself?

“for an awful lot of time, that’s for sure.” he answered, snorting uneasily at the obviousness of his extraordinarily precise statement. “i was born underground, and i’m pretty sure that’s the case for almost everyone by now. there might not even be anyone left that has ever seen the surface for real. even the king and toriel… i’m not even sure when exactly they were born, but it could’ve been even after the war. he wasn’t even the king yet at that time.”

… Woah.
So that was an awful lot of time ago. Even Asgore and Toriel themselves could have…
But something was wrong, here.

“Wait. How about Gerson? They say he’s been fighting in the war… You can’t mean he’d be older than Asgore, are you?”
“gerson? he’s a lot into that kind of antics and he used to be the captain of the royal guard before he retired and undyne took over… though, i wouldn’t be surprised if he’d survived the war, if he had taken part in it. from what i heard, he surely was a terror. even more popular and strong than undyne when he was younger.” He shrugged, and she stared in shock. “but, uh, for details, she’s the one you should ask, i guess. since he kinda participated in mentoring her training along with asgore or something.”

Alright, this time it was a real bombshell that was launched and just landed and exploded in her mind.

“That’s… weird.” That was all she could say. She could figure a lot more emotions in her mind, but all that had just left her speechless. “It’s— it’s just really completely different from what I remember.”
“well, you never played, right? and i don’t know how much you were into learning about all the details, but…”
“I wasn’t much into it, you’re right.” she admitted shamefacedly, awkwardly running a hand through her messy hair. “But still, that just… doesn’t sound right. There’s still something that bugs me…”

He stared at her eagerly, as if he was genuinely waiting anxiously for some proof that any of them would be somehow wrong or… maybe even worse.
And suddenly her face lit up in realization.

“Your telescope! Why do you even have a telescope to begin with?”

Wait. Of all the things she could have thought about, it had to be… this?

“… uh. garbage dump?” he simply retorted in an embarrassed nervous mutter. “i found it here once. it was old and broken, but it really was a chance i could fix it. and since i’ve heard a lot about the stars and all…” He paused for an instant, sighing deeply and closing his eyes as he leaned back against the door, his skull staring at the ceiling. And then as he opened them back and chuckled sadly… “heh. been a long time i didn’t use it for real. and, uh, technically, that never even happened. not in that timeline, i mean.”

Alright. She had been suspicious of that for a long time, but now she had some actual tangible evidence of her hypothesis.
Screw that ‘True Reset’ junk. Apparently, even those had no effect on Sans.

Ugh. Poor guy.

“So you… really do remember the Surface, huh.”
“yeah. been an awfully long time, though. kinda blurry by now.” he shrugged.

She bit her lips guiltily. Right now she still had not fully realized how precious the Surface felt like, still deeply and genuinely amazed by her current surroundings… But yes. She could only guess that it was only because she had been here for hardly three days, and that it wouldn’t take her long before she would get bored and eventually… wish she could get out. And get them out. In a real and permanent way.

Homesickness is all the more horrible when the place that makes you feel that way is supposed to be yours and you were born there and lived there all your life.

And now… How was he handling that homesickness now that he knew that this ‘Underground’ was just supposed to be an amalgam of binary code and pixels, along with even his friends and family, and…
… himself.

Did he… really consider himself as some kind of ‘artificial intelligence’ or something, then? As a fictional character? How was she supposed to consider him…?
Well, for all the stares she was giving him, he surely looked pretty real for something supposedly virtual. So… maybe it was just easier to forget about the pixels and take this as real. Fully real.

And since this person next to her was fully real, he had a fully real life of his own.
A life she was now genuinely curious about, and eager to learn just as much as she could.

“How old are you, Sans?” She was not sure she really wanted to know, but she really was curious about it and, well…
“five thousand years?”

She stared at him with two goggle widened eyes, and he burst into some loud “you should see your face” typical laugh.

Seriously I have to stop falling into his traps. And they’re just so obvious, ugh!

“just kidding. i’ll turn twenty-five in august.” he shrugged.

Wow. He was so young!
She had imagined him a little older than that. Like, in his thirties. Maybe his early forties at most. But then she remembered what he had said about having never been a scientist, and the fact that he apparently had started his job as a sentry around three years ago, according to Grillby… Yeah. If three years ago he was still studying, then that made sense.
Well, it surely was hard to guess a monster’s age by their appearance anyway – the most obvious reason why they had adopted that stripped shirt system, she could imagine –, and she couldn’t even know for sure if they were even supposed to have the same life-span as humans, so…
Anyway, it appeared that it was the case. Which kind of made things easier.

And yet suddenly he had looked away uneasily.

“well… i mean, i was supposed to be.” he eventually added.
“… Ouch.” she couldn’t help but respond. Of course. “And, uh, then… F-For how long have you been… stuck like this?”

For how long had he stayed eternally at the age of twenty-four…? Ugh, she felt bad just by asking that. What if mentally he really had lived the equivalent of thousands of years of just the same days rolling in circles over and over and over again…?
Sans merely closed his eye-sockets and chuckled.

“… heh. no idea. kinda hard to, y’know, keep track of it. but who cares. i’m not even sure i wanna know myself. doesn’t matter. not like i really, y’know, aged during that time.”

And he winked.
And she found that wink just so sad.

“anyway. my turn, right? for real this time.”

She still wanted to give him a sad look, but figured that would not help. So she just looked away and closed her eyes, waiting for his next stupid pun or whatever.

But instead of the next joke, there was a knock on the door. Dawn couldn’t help but giggle as she was thinking back about the way this very door and those innocent knock-knock jokes had indirectly directed this world’s evolution on a scale she could hardly imagine…
And now she, herself, would have the chance to be a part of this tradition? What a honor.

“Who’s there?” she jokingly played along, still giggling.
“undyne.”

She snorted. What kind of stupid pun could he make up with that?!
Well, he was the pun master, wasn’t he? She hoped he wouldn’t disappoint her.

“Undyne who?”
“uh, no. that was undyne. for real. the one to knock, i mean.”

…

Whoops.

Well, uh, she couldn’t get in anyway, right? They were safe here. That was the very reason Sans had chosen this place. Undyne could not be a real threat right now. Not under such conditions. All they had to do was stay here and everything would be fine.

Some familiar tune resonated from one of Sans’ short’s pockets. This time she gave him a curious glance as he kept staring at the little screen, as if he was genuinely considering the option of answering to her.
And as he glanced back at her, she could see his smirk enlarge itself into its hugest dorkiest stupidest grin before he pressed a button and put the phone against his nonexistent ear, starting to talk in his most innocently jerky trollesque voice.

“hey undyne, what’s up? enjoying the weather?”

Oh come on. For real?
The human couldn’t help but face-palm.

Needless to say, Fish Lady was not amused.

“You’re behind that door.” she simply stated in a monotone, low and bored voice.
“yep.”

She oh so hated that one-worded answer. Just some pure concentrate of slyness melted into the most annoyingly guilty-and-proud-of-it attitude into just one single word.
That human sure was good. The skeleton was sounding just like he always did, and she just oh so hated that. How dared she, to use her friends against her to just hide and taunt her as mischievously as morally possible and beyond, and then… just… Ngah!

It was some surprising miracle that she still found the bravery to keep her cool and let that anger remain inside.

“The human is with you.” she added, just in the same tone as before.
“yep.” he repeated exactly the same way.
“You reactivated the one-way system.”
“yep.” She could literally feel some taunting eye-roll as he continued after some short pause: “well, it did that on its own. but yep.”
“You’re both gonna stay in here for God-Knows-How-Long.”
“that’ll be faster than you imagine, trust me.” She could oh so figure his oh so annoying careless shrug. “but yeah, that was my idea and i’m fully responsible for that one. i plead gillty.”

A fish pun. Seriously. Under such circumstances. With such oh so annoyingly shrugging mocking careless tone.
… That was the real Sans alright.

She grinded her teeth and painfully held back a scowling hiss. That would encourage him.
In the end, she managed to just sigh (rather noisily), banging once more against that damned door that still wouldn’t budge.

“hey undyne, what’s the matter? you’re silent all of a sudden. carp got your tongue?”
“Any more fish puns, Sans, and I SWEAR that you WILL regret it. SOMEHOW.”

He sighed, and this time for one moment she thought that he was back to a graver attitude. And eventually he asked:

“alright, seriously. what do you want?”

She gritted her sharp teeth, letting resonate some harmonious hiss through the phone’s mikes as she answered in the most forced tone she had ever uttered:

“First off: you’re fired.”