Chapter Text

***

A familiar smell sifted through his trace of a nose. A smell of snow, new, but due to the shut-in underground, stale and cold. And a smell of dirt and dust, wet because of the slightly melted snow. They were scents you would get tired of smelling here in Snowdin, which was filled with nothing but snow and ice. Even though you could walk from the tightly-shut doors from the Ruins to the Bridgeway to Waterfall, walk and walk as you might, the only thing visible would be snow – white ‘as snow’ and blinding to the eye. Snowdin: whoever named this ice and snow infested town, Sans thought, they had one heck of a sense of naming stuff.

Not changing regardless of how much time had passed is not all bad. Especially to lazy skeletons, this is even more true. As Sans slowly started walking after smelling the stale and humid scents, snow crept inside his loose slippers. Thankfully, bones don’t feel cold. As he walked by, trees that had been deprived of sunlight swept past. Sans felt the endlessly despairing gaze of the trees on the back of his skull.

was there a time once that those trees had green leaves? heh, maybe.

It was a road that he always walked, but the snow that endlessly piled up, untrodden, always felt different when stepped on. Soft or hard, sometimes frozen. Sans walked with his bony hands stuffed in his pockets. He doesn’t think anymore. Even thinking was so tiring. The reason he kept walking, well. It was, of course, because he was too lazy to stop.

Sans walked until he had to stop.
Far away, between the strange, gate-like structure that Papyrus had made, swayed a distinct figure. It was like pouring distinct browns and blues onto a black-and-white monochrome world. It was alive, and it was facing away from him. Sans stepped forward, stepping on the dry snow two or three more times. And what reflected off his empty eyesockets was….

Sans dragged in a deep breath. The moment he checked that it was Frisk, he realized that this was all a dream. The moment he knew that this was a dream, vivid ghosts of the past immediately crawled across his vision. Something like a groan slipped past his jaws. He was seeing what had happened in the past again.
Cold sweat rose from Sans’ forehead.

*human. turn around and shake my hand.

His jaw moved of its own accord. He couldn’t control it. This was something that had actually happened, and he cannot dare stop it. Now that the curtain had been raised, the show must go on. Sans lifted his hand. At that, the kid turned around slowly and clutched his hand. Like they did back then.

He realized only when the kid turned their body around to shake hands that this wasn’t an exact representation of the past. Sans faced the child. Their face was the same as he remembered they would be – silent and allowing no emotion to shine through. But…

A long, thin bone was stabbed through the kid’s left eye like a nail Bloody tears dripped down their face Instead of a warm greeting the hideous liquid a mixture of blood and tears trailed across their cheek and gathered on their chin and splashed onto his hand still gripping theirs…............................

The drop of blood was as scorching as the lava from Hotlands. Pain grasped roughly at his bones. Sans clenched his teeth but a shattered moan escaped through. It was hot enough to burn through everything – and his reason slowly melted away.

This is not real. This is a dream, Sans.
He told himself, but the pain did now relent – rather, it came back with a vengeance. With the bloating pain, a need to let go of the child’s hand racked his body, but Sans refused.

If he did let go, the kid would have been sad.

As the drop of blood colored the back of his hand red, the child, with their hopelessly broken face, gave an impossibly bright smile. The trickle of blood was sucked, swallowed by the tiny space between their lips. Looking at them, Sans too let a twisted smile show.

The whole world was red. Red snow fell from the ceiling and red branches rose from the dry and cracked trees. It was then that Sans understood that unlike monsters, human death was red. The two of them, smiling and shaking hands, were dying red.

And then…

The kid collapsed.
Reflexively, Sans leaned forward to catch the falling child. Hard bone fingers grasped the kid’s waist. But when his bones touched, the kid started breaking apart, like a block of ice. Each time Sans struggled to embrace the breaking child, they would break apart even more. The figure that was once the child soon became pieces of red and faded into the snow. Sans looked at his bony hands. A piece of the child was left there as a trace. Sans felt the empty insides of his ribcage shudder with a pulse. This beat that no skeleton should have was so intense that he felt as if all his bones were breaking apart at any moment. Sans let a muffled groan slip past his teeth. It was not enough. It was not enough to express the pain. Sans buries his head in the child’s remains and wept. Raw cries, as if someone had ripped apart the ends with a knife, escaped endlessly from beneath his jaw. He crouched down like a wounded animal and clenched the snow and remains together until sharp finger bones dug into his palms. It was not enough. Nothing was better. Nothing was over.

“SANS!!”

A shout made Sans open his eyesockets. Unconsciously, he tried to suck in a breath. But it was as if an invisible hand had gotten a hold of his neck bones and nothing was coming in. His spine ached dully, and he was stiff under his ribcage. It felt like the pain that was so sharp in his dream was pressing down on every single one of his bones. Sans shut his eyesockets against the pain. It was dark.

“OH MY GOD SANS. WAKE UP ALREADY!!”

Once more, a shout filled his empty skull. Again, Sans forced his eye sockets to open. Red wavered across his vision, as if someone had rubbed paint that wasn’t quite dry yet. The dizzyingly vivid color made him want to close his eyes again. Was this still a dream? But… this voice…

Sans regained his vision after blinking two, three times. His smudged sight became clear. Papyrus was looking down at him, concerned. A sense of loss, or even something like despair made Sans’ rigid body a bit too loose. All the strength in his body slipped away from his joints before he could even protest. It was then that Sans realized the red color that had swum across his eye was not the death from his dreams but the scarf Papyrus always wore around. He cleared his throat from inside his jaw.

Act natural, Sans. Act natural.

*oh, papyrus… good morning?

“IT’S NOT THAT, YOU LAZYBONES!! BROTHER, YOU REALLY ARE HOPELESS!!”

Papyrus stamped his feet and shouted again at Sans’ nonchalant greeting. Sans’ skull, freshly dragged out of a nightmare and sensitive, throbbed mercilessly. Sans first raised his body from nonchalantly laying on the bed and pushed off the sheets that were bunched up on the corner. Phantom pains squirmed every time he moved his bones, but he didn’t show it. He couldn’t show it in front of Papyrus.
Sans shrugged at him.

*hey, don’t be like that. at least I woke up before dinnertime

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? OH… SANS, ARE YOU NOT AWARE OF WHAT YOU DID WHILE YOU WERE ASLEEP?”

Seeing the disbelief on Papyrus’ face, Sans felt his non-existent heart sink into his stomach. He could not guess what had happened from Papyrus’ expression alone. Did he scream? Did he struggle? Maybe…

Did Papyrus 'notice'?

Sans first grasped at his quickly fading calm exterior. He then pretended to tap at his forehead to wipe his sweat away and masked his nervousness and stress with a slight wink.

*uh, I don’t think anyone could know what they do in their sleep.

“EXCUSES, EXCUSES! SANS, YOU… ALMOST BROUGHT THE HOUSE DOWN WITH YOUR MAGIC!!”

Sans’ ribcage ached once more. He almost chocked out a breath he’d been holding, but he remained silent. Like always, Papyrus continued talking with a fervor even if sans didn’t grant any reaction.

“IT WAS SO GREAT THAT I BROKE MY VOW WITH UNDYNE TO NEVER LET ANYTHING – EVEN IF THAT STUPID DOG STOLE MY BONES AWAY – INTURRUPT THE COOKING! AND… YOU WERE NOT BREATHING, BROTHER. YOU WERE LIKE SPAGGHETTI NOODLES BEFORE WE BOIL THEM!”

*heh.

He couldn’t think of anything to say after that. Sans slowly went over Papyrus’ words. For now, it didn’t seem like he found out about ‘that’. Sans gathered up and squeezed words out from where it was stuck, unwilling to get out, under his jaw. After a moment that could barely be passed for a ‘natural’ conversation, Sans smoothly replied.

*oh, well, uh… i ate some of your spaghetti in my sleep.

“REALLYYYY?! YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME SOONER! WOWIE!! I CANNOT IMAGINE HOW DELICIOUS MY SPEAGHETTI MUST HAVE BEEN. CAN I HAVE SOME TOO?” “HMMM, WAIT A MOMENT… COME TO THINK OF IT, I WAS MAKING SAID PASTA RIGHT NOW! THE GREAT PAPYRUS SHALL RETURN TO HIS COOKING! NYEHEHEHEHEH!!”

Papyrus turned away, happiness apparent on his face. Bundled up in confidence, it seemed he had completely forgotten about his previous goal. Papyrus strutted out of Sans’ room, swinging his spatula. Sans, who had put up a smirk right until the bedroom door was closed, let out the breath he had been pressing in. The fact that something that ridiculous had happened while he was asleep meant that he could do it again anytime. At last, Sans was not free even from his sub consciousness.
Sans felt like he had used all his strength in holding his breath. He threw his body back, not caring how he landed. His skull was ringing from its rough contact with the not-so-soft mattress but that much was nothing. Sans lifted both his arms and laid them on top of his eye sockets. Soon, it became dark. The black darkness is even cozy.

It’s alright. Papyrus doesn’t know anything yet. Everything is alright.
Everything.

*heh, that’s right. everything is fine.
*i guess the problem is there is no everything.

No one listened.

***

When Sans finished his intense battle between self-hate and sleep and came downstairs, Papyrus was holding plates of pasta on both hands. One for him, and the other for his brother. The wooden stairs creaked under a lazy skeleton and Papyrus, on hearing that noise, looked up and shoot the plate so vigorously that his arms almost dislocated themselves.

“I’M GLAD YOU MADE IT, BROTHER! YOUR MAGNIFICENT BREAKFAST PASTA IS READY. NO NEED TO BE SHY, DIG IT! NYE HEH HEH HEH!”

*heh, thanks, buddy. i appreciate it.

The strength needed to eat Papyrus’ cooking without blinking was long since been depleted, but sans got the plate and sat down on the sofa without complaint. He wanted to go to sleep right there when the soft sofa sunk under his weight and hugged his body, but the pungent smell of the pasta kept is consciousness in check. Sans limply stared at his plate. Today’s pasta was…… penne.

Ugh. Better take care of this quickly and head over to Grillby’s.

After seeing the long pasta noodles rolling around in the dark, sluggish sauce, his appetite refused even harder to eat the stuff. Sans ignored the urge to put the plate down and swallowed a bite of his pasta. When his teeth met the noodles, the awkwardly mush texture and the taste of uncooked flour viciously attacked the insides of his jaws. Chewing on a second noodle brought slimy noodles that were separated from its sauce, with sour tomato pulp that left behind an unpleasant aftertaste. He could not come to describe the strange and harmonious tastes he got after the third bite. So Sans stopped thinking about the taste of the pasta and started to eat with stiff bones as an effort to keep his face from grimacing. His efforts made Papyrus quite satisfied.
Even if Sans did not plow through eating this pasta, Papyrus – even after a bit of disappointment and criticism – would soon regain confidence and return to cooking. But still, Sans slowly worked his way across Papyrus’ pasta. Well, there were times when it was okay if he didn’t. There was someone else to eat it for him.

But those days will never come back.

Now, the only person eating Papyrus’ spaghetti would be his brother. Probably. Maybe this would change if his cooking skills improved, but that wasn’t happening anytime soon.
When Sans emptied half of his plate with lots of time and effort, Papyrus suddenly asked him a question.

“BUT SANS, WHEN IS THE HUMAN COMING BACK? IT HAS BEEN A WHILE SINCE THEY WENT ON THE ‘VACATION’! THEY SHOULD HAVE STARTED BACK EVEN TO EAT THIS PERFECT SPAGHETTI, BUT… THERE HASN’T BEEN A WORD SINCE.”

A piece of penne that he did not chew in time turned into a sharp needle and pierced the inside of Sans’ mouth. His jaws, once busy, stopped dead. Papyrus was waiting for Sans’ reply without any trace of ill will on his face. Sans swallowed the rest of the noodles in his mouth without chewing. Sharp pains lanced down his throat without mercy.
Sans gave a short answer.

*um, tomorrow.

Papyrus did not look satisfied with the answer. And the length was not the problem.

“SANS, DIDN’T YOU SAY ‘TOMORROW’ YESTERDAY TOO?”
*right.
“YOU SAID ‘TOMORROW’ THE DAY BEFORE THAT TOO.”
*right. why?

“BUT THE HUMAN DID NOT RETURN YESTERDAY NOR DID THEY COME TODAY! YOU’RE HIDING SOMETHING FROM ME, AREN’T YOU, BROTHER?”

Papyrus stomped his feet, unsatisfied. Sans blankly looked at him with pitch black eye sockets. He felt sympathy and guilt mix together and vaguely crawl up his spine. Feeling the pain of the writhing emotions, Sans had a thought. Perhaps it might be better for Papyrus to tell him the truth. If he did that, Sans would not have to suffer from this twisted guilt anymore. At least Papyrus would not have to live every day deluded by made-up lies.
That seemed like…... a pretty good idea.

Sans gripped his hand hard together, hard enough to shatter bone.

*hey, doncha believe me? they’ll come back ‘tomorrow’. really.

“…REALLY?”

Papyrus looked at Sans with eyes filled with doubt, but there was also that infinite trust between brothers that they couldn’t really help themselves but put. Sans felt as if Papyrus’ gaze was stabbing him and shrugged.

*of course. you won’t find a skeleton anywhere as ‘bone’st as me.

“NYEHECKK!”

Papryrus reacted to Sans’ bad joke with a strange sound. Seeing him stuck and confused between humor and frustration, Sans smirked. Papyrus chewed on pasta for a while after that with a look of distress. It was as if a plinking question mark would suddenly appear on top of his skull any moment.

“IT’S STRANGE… THIS UNCOMFORTABLE FEELING… I FEEL LIKE I’M GETTING PLAYED….”

Sans could not do anything but smile. It felt like his self-loathing would come spilling out if he opened his jaw even a little. While Papyrus became engaged in deep contemplation, Sans slipped his plate with a bit of leftover pasta onto the floor. He pushed it with his slippered feet into a corner of the sofa, where it wouldn’t be as easily seen. He then stuck his two hands into his hood pockets.

*welp, i’m going to grillby’s.

***

The Underground never changes. Not changing doesn’t always bring bad consequences. For example, Grillby’s bar is unchangingly cozy and filled with the same people regardless of time. Sans loved that.
Sans sidled into the bar.

*Hi, Sans.
*Greetings, Sans
*Owoowowowo!! Snasn!!! HoI!!!!!!!!!!
*Hiya, Sansy~

The people who was settled in the bar before him greeted him all at once. As always, Sans replied with a friendly hello and a wink or a bad joke. Sans threw the Dogamy and Dogaressa couple a story about a bone, and they were thoroughly excted. Then he handed the drunk bunny some encouraging words and after he shared a couple of serious moments about a college degree with a god-knows-how-she-got-here Temmie was he able to take a seat at his usual place. It was cozy enough here to call it his second home.

A flaming fire approached him. Grillby was still wiping the inside of a cup with a dry cloth. How on Earth Grillby managed to wipe the cup without burning the cloth was the hottest topic of the bar.
Sans gave him a small wink.

*hey, it’s been a while. i haven’t been here recently.

The reserved flames nodded silently. As he had said, Sans couldn’t come to Grillby’s in a long time. Of course, it was hard to think of what a ‘long time’ was to Sans, who had sat in Grillby’s almost every hour.

*Grillby’z asking what you’re gonna have.

The talkative bird burst in and urged Sans.

*oh, right. orders. i’ll have the usual.

Immediately after Sans was done ordering, Grillby immediately put down the cup and turned around. Grillby was silent, but he worked fast. Sans shot a glance at the back of Grillby’s flaming head, then rested his jaw crookedly on one hand whil drumming the bar with his other. The sound of sharp bone tap-tapping the wooden bar rang throughout the bar just enough not to get drowned out by the other noises.

Suddenly, Sans had a strange feeling.
Well, to explain it… Even though Grillby was far away, it felt like the burning warmth still remained. The warmth was very real and vivid. A heat, too hot to be called warmth was caressing Sans’ left cheekbone. Yes, it was just like something was burning right next to him. Sans unconsciously looked to his left. It should have been an empty seat.

The kid was sitting next to Sans.

Sans’ fingers, which had been rythemically tapping the bar, stopped as if it was stuck through the wood.

The kid was, as usual, wearing a worn striped sweater. But today was a bit, no, a lot different than usual. The source of the difference was so very much obvious.
The kid was engulfed in flames. Flickering fire was constantly swallowing, then spitting them back out, over and over. Strangely enough, the kid was wreathed in fire but it burned only the ends of the sweater, tips of their hair and a bit of their skin, then stopped burning the child. Even while surrounded by the crazy flames, the child’s face remained clam. They just sat there, on fire.
Looking at Sans.

*heh.

It wasn’t even alarming. Because it wasn’t the first time this happened.
Sans lowered his head a little and gave a short bark of laughter. It wasn’t that he dared laugh at the state of the child. He just wanted to laugh, for no reason at all. Even in he did have a reason, he did not want to think about it.
Sans stopped Grillby as he was about to open the kitchen door.

*oh, grillby?

The blazing fire’s head looked this way. It felt like adding even more heat to this scorching place. Sans put up a bone finger and said,

*make that two.

Grillby nodded.
Grillby then disappeared completely into his kitchen. Sans folded the finger he had put up and clasped his hands together. Sans then buried his head and stared at his clasped hands. White bones clenched around each other.

The heat does not disappear.

*So, you’re here today too, huh?

Sans muttered. With no one to listen, the words naturally turned into a monologue.
Sans had given up on talking to the kid long ago. There never was an answer anyway. He had long since concluded this was some kind of – ghost. Instead, Sans had chosen to be silent. As his silence wore on longer, the tranquil song of the bar and the conversations of monsters slowly fell away from his ears.
Just when Sans and the afterimage of the kids fell into a completely different world, Sans moved his jaw again.

*do you resent me?

Sans chucked out the question he had stuffed away deep inside his skull somewhere for a long time. Not much time had passed since he had decided that it was no use talking to a distraction and gave up. But Sans was not a diligent skeleton. He could never keep any promises he mad. Nor did he have determination as strong as a human’s.

Sans was just a monster that was too weak, too easily scared.
Sans asked once more.

*so are you maybe punishing me for leaving you alone? in this… very special… way.

Silence.

*if that’s it, tell me that it’s true. they do say it hurts less if you don’t see it coming, but hey. this is a bit too much. do ya know how many weeks it’s been?

The more he spoke, the more his disgust crawled up every single one of his ribs. Sans wanted to throw something up, but nothing trickled out of his jaws when he opened them. This monster has nothing but self-loathing to spit out.
No matter how long Sans’ words got, the kid surrounded by flames did nothing but look at him with serene eyes. They did not cry or scream or struggle because of the intense heat. The kid was always like that. They showed less response to any type of stimuli and never showed their inner feelings.

You always were that type of kid.

*….heh.

Sans ended his speech with a bland laugh. It was time to stop talking anyways, for Grillby had put two hamburgers in front of him. Grillby firmly placed the plates in front of Sans and focused back on washing his cup again.

Sans reached out and held the ketchup bottle. Then he sprayed ketchup on the freshly-made, delicious-looking-enough hamburger. By the time he was done, it wasn’t “burger with ketchup”, but more like “burger in ketchup.” Sans put the burger heaped with ketchup in front of himself.
Then he used his fingertips to slide the burger without anything on it over to the seat on his side.

*’bone’-appetit, kid.

***

 

 

Every time I dream of you, I get the chills
Inside of me there is nowhere to run from you.
- Kim Hyesoon, A glass of red mirror

The first time Sans felt something was different was when the kid was surprised by an attack from a Snow Drake. The Snow Drake picked a fight with the kid because it wanted to get an audience. The kid had just fallen down and wasn’t accustomed to this kinds of situations, and when the Snow Drake threw bad puns and ice at them, their movements were too sloppy to escape its fierce attacks.
The Snow Drake’s ice, sharp without ill will, flew towards the child. Their worn sweater was ripped here and there, and they spilled hot blood on the snow. The kid tried to talk to the Snow Drake and appease it somehow, but they were too tired to invest enough time to figure out the correct way. A moment of vertigo made the kid stagger and the Snow Drake’s shard of ice viciously swept by. The moment Sans felt the danger and raised his hand to make the kid’s soul blue, their chest was pierced by ice.

Sans carelessly forgot he was hiding and ran towards the child. The Snow Drake did nothing but stare at Sans, confused. Rather, it started jumping up and down, flapping its wings and telling bad jokes, maybe thinking it had a new audience. Sans treated the as non-existent and held up the child sprawled on the snow. Their skin was as pale as snow. Their pierced chest sprouted crimson blood. Sans urgently placed his ear cavity on their chest, but he could only hear the quiet wind. It was terrifying. Sans slowly lifted his head. He could not think of anything. A promise he made with a lady across the door swept past inside his empty skull.

Sans let go of the child.
They were placed there, just like that. Blood that bubbled up endlessly like the falls in Waterfall was melting their surroundings into red. Sans looked down at his hands. Every single on of his joints were filled with sticky blood, and the cold weather of Snowdin hardened blood quickly. It was hard to bend his fingers. It is terrible. Sans covered his face with two hands stained with sanguine despair.

And then time warped.

When Sans opened his eyes from the darkness and checked the world once more, he almost yelled out something like a scream. He was back to the morning, to his post before he met the kid. He checked his two hands but every single one of his joints were completely clean. There was no sign of anything like human blood anywhere. Memories from the last timeline confused him, and Sans wasn’t used to feeling like this. He had placed a hand on his temples, feeling a headache coming up, when something popped up into his skull. The “massive anomaly in the spacetime continuum” that they kept observing.

Determination.

With shaking hands, Sans checked the time. In three minutes, the kid will come out of the Ruins, and he will offer them a hand. He flipped his hood on and left towards the Ruins earlier than before. At the exact time, the child stepped out of the Ruins. Watching this, the underside of Sans’ ribs ached. The memories were too vivid to be some kind of deja-vu.
Sans, as he had just under an hour ago, called out to stop the child.

*human.

And the kid turned around and grasped his hand even before he was done talking.

The anomaly of the space-time continuum continued afterwards. Every time the child experienced death, time would go back with a set cycle. It was as if the world was refusing to allow the kid to die. The kid came back to their place even if Sans didn’t do anything. They were very Determined, and they accomplished tings no matter how many lives it took to try. Even when the child was pierced by spikes, ripped by blades, stabbed by spears, or burned with fire, Sans watched no matter how many times.

He just watched.
Sans had believed that the kid’s time would always continue on.

*….
*how disgusting, huh?

***

Sans was standing watch at his post near Waterfall. By ‘standing watch’, he meant he always dutifully let time flow into his laziness, like one of the falls in Waterfall, but still, he was ‘standing watch’. The echo flower near his post was constantly shouting back only the sounds of muffled wind. This was because there was no passerbys between Waterfall and Snowdin for a while, and Sans did not say anything to the flower either. Sans just sat there with his hands pushed in his hood pockets. He was too tired to spend time with miscellaneous thoughts. The fact that he would come to the same result the deeper he fell into thought did not help.

It was a few hours into Sans’ laziness that the echo flower finally gained a working voice. He had started rolling the relish and mustard bottles stashed underneath his post for a while when a long shadow – as long as Papyrus – covered Sans’ eye sockets. It was impossible for this sort of dark shadow to occur naturally in a place with a weak light source like Waterfall. Sans lifted his head and checked who had made the shadow.

*Uh… well, Sans. Um… H-hello? It’s been a while?

Sweat, sticky as sap, dripped from Undyne’s smooth scales. Like her awkward words, she gave Sans a stiff smile. She had tried as hard as she could to seem friendly. Her awkward arm muscles were as stiff as a rock, and occasionally twitched as if it would burst. Undyne’s lip muscled curled as she clasped her fingers together, then released them. Then clasped them again. Repeat.
Sans, too, did not have much to say. So he went for ‘as friendly as possible’.

*yeah, hi.

And so for a long while, only the sound of the waterfall filled the dry silence between them. The long silence twisted itself silly with awkwardness; if it could, it would have jumped ship long ago.
After some time, Undyne opened her lips and drew in a breath to speak, but swallowed it back again with a small huff. She chewed for a while, as if to tear the words she wanted to say with her sharp teeth.
Just as the topic was worn and torn in her mouth, she started talking.

*Uh, well, it’s just… Uh, it’s about Papyrus, you know?
*yep.

Sans, of course, knew Papyrus.
Well, it didn’t seem like that was what Undyne had meant. Undyne nodded and gave a grin at Sans’ short answer, revealing a row of sharp teeth. The corner of her mouth was trembling because of being forced into a smile.

*I met Papyrus today and the kid was really worried about you… He thinks you… you’re having some problems.
*heh.

Sans grinned just like Undyne. There wasn’t anything else to do. Today morning was a bit…heavy… but Papyrus had noticed. Was it that blatant? Enough for the dude to notice?

*So, I… thought I could help you instead of Papyrus. As you know too, Papyrus… uh, doesn’t know ‘that’ yet, does he?

Sans wanted to die. He couldn’t, so he just nodded.
Now, Undyne had a puddle beneath her feet because of all the goo flowing out of her body. She clenched her fists, still now losing her stiff smile and said slowly,

*Oh, Well… Uh. Um….
*…….
*…….
*…….

And then the silence crawled in aga…………………..

*NGAAHHHHHHHHH!!! SCREW THIS!!!!

Undyne let out a scream and lifted Sans’ post whole and tossed it backwards. The wooden plates that were patched together was spectacularly destroyed by the rocks. The wood chips that once were his post floated up with the river waters. Not satisfied with her work, she expressed her pent-up strength by grabbing Sans by the collar and lifting him up. Huge fish eyes were almost stuck together to Sans’ eye sockets.

*I’M NOT YOUR MOM!!!!!!!!! IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM, SOLVE IT YOURSELVES!!!
*oops.
*YOU!! If even Papyrus noticed, how much were you just going about, asking people to notice? EH????
*sorry. skeletons don’t have skin. anyone can see right through us.

*NGAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH--!!!!!!!!

Undyne gave an ear-splitting battle cry and started to chuck Sans behind her just like his post, but her hands stopped while holding him airborne. A moment later, she slowly put Sans back down on the ground. Then, still brimming with rage, she started taking it out on inanimate objects like innocent rocks and dirt.
After she vented for a while, and albeit with a voice still tinged with anger, Undyne asked Sans clearly. It was an unexpected moment.

*Why are you hiding it from Papyrus?

Sans barely held back a laugh. Instead of answering immediately, he stuffed his hands into his hood pockets.

*heh, would you have told him? he gave up the royal guard to be friends with a human. why would i tell him something like this? he’ll never get to know this.
*You can’t like to Papyrus forever. He has to know the truth eventually. And don’t you understand that the longer it takes for him to know, the more hurt that he will be?

Undyne was right. It was an answer so practical, so wise, and so unlike Undyne who usually swung around her spear instead of answering anything. Sans had to listen to her. He had to tell Papyrus the truth, right now.

Soon, Sans came to a decision.

*just keep your mouth shut.
*YOU!

Undyne grabbed Sans by the collar once more. Any moment, Undyne’s hard fists twitched like it would strike Sans’ jawbone. Her yellow eyes, flaming with rage, looked ready to devour Sans any moment. Sans stayed silent, far away from the ground. He was ready to be blamed, mentally and physically.
Undyne’s fists trembled. She sucked in a breath, sucked again, and breathed in once more as if she had forgotten how to breathe out. Then she put Sans down.
Undyne gave a low growl and opened her mouth.

*Listen. I know that after that day… you’re having a really bad time, but…
*But… dammit!

Undyne’s mouth worked. Her thoughts could not seem to form words. Instead, she kicked a boulder next to her with all her might. It shattered with a resounding crash. Wow. Sans was impressed.
Undyne sat down on the half-destroyed remains of the boulder. She covered her face with her hands like a person in distress. A long times passed before Undyne muttered somewhat moodily,

*Dammit. I don’t know. Just…. Oh sweet Asgore, I still miss the kid…. I can’t…. believe……

Sans did not tell the grieving Undyne, your magic spears pierced through the child you are missing so much exactly 36 times. That was… too cruel.
While Sans was a cowardly pile of bones that watched the kid die without a word, he was not vicious. If Undyne knew that fact, she wouldn’t have dared be friends with the kid. She wouldn’t have dared to even miss them.
The kid knew everything but still chose to be friends with Undyne. They offered a hand and hugged the monster that had killed out of hate countless times.

Sans glanced over Undyne’s bowed shoulders. To put it into big groups, the right shoulder and left chest, the left thigh and right shin, behind the neck. A child with so many magic spears tuck inside them, too many to tell them apart anymore, was standing there in the shadows reflected off the water. The child was still looking towards Sans with a composed expression. Sans smirked towards the kid again.

You always were a kind kid.