Frisk was taking their time shopping but the whole time, they kept fretting over what Toriel was asking Sans about.

They really hadn’t told Toriel almost anything, but they had revealed some things. Had they said too much? There was no way that Toriel wouldn’t have seen something suspicious just from seeing Frisk so much as look at Sans, it wasn’t really possible to hide it completely, and they didn’t want to deceive Toriel about that sort of thing anyway. Keeping the time loops and the things they’d done secret, that was bad enough, but that was legitimately a top secret issue, and a part of the past, respectively.

But no, it was okay. Sans wouldn’t be mad at them for the little they’d said. He was understanding of that sort of thing.

But maybe they should have warned him? They hadn’t expected Toriel to grill him. But maybe it was a normal mom grilling thing. Frisk had never actually seen that in application - their original mom wasn’t exactly invested. Hell, she might not even realize that Frisk wasn’t in town anymore yet. It’d only been about four months.

Though come to think of it, Frisk had been on the news a lot. They’d taken Toriel’s maiden name as their own, but she might well have recognized them. But then, she wasn’t one to keep up with things like that anyway.

Ugh, they hadn’t thought of her in ages. They were hoping to keep that trend going.

All hand-wringing aside, what was done was done, and Frisk just had to go buy things and then go home. No other expectations, nothing else they could do, it was fine.

They checked their phone compulsively as they went through the store and finally, finally, they got a message. An eternity after they’d arrived - more like half an hour or so, but still.

Sans: so that was a conversation

Sans: the amount of times toriel killed me is 0, which means it went great, compared to any number other than 0

Sans: everythings fine

Sans: im gonna just chill for a bit.

Frisk: That doesn’t sound great? And I’m guessing that means I’m not reloading, right?

Sans: dont reload. just save. i really dont wanna do that again.

Frisk: I will, as soon as I get home. Sorry the conversation was hard.

He didn’t respond and they sighed. They would save, because he’d said to do so. And they’d talk to Toriel and hopefully… they didn’t know. Maybe find out why the conversation was hard? Toriel hadn’t seemed that upset when they’d talked to her.

Their heart sank. Maybe Toriel had hidden how she really felt from Frisk. They didn’t always catch things, after all, but they had figured that Toriel took things a little harder than she let on. Maybe they’d underestimated the problem.

They were a bit of an anxious mess as they finished shopping and rushed home. They stopped at the alley where Sans usually teleported to, and saved at the save point they’d placed there.

“Mum?” Frisk asked as soon as they went through the door.

Toriel appeared with a strained smile… and slightly damp fur around her eyes.

Fuck.

Frisk set aside the food and immediately gave her a hug.

“Silly child, worry not about this old woman,” Toriel said, embracing them back and then gently pulling away. “Here, let me help you put that away.”

Frisk sighed and silently put away groceries. They had no clue what to say.

“Is everything alright?” they asked uselessly.

“Of course it is,” Toriel said as she put the milk in the fridge.

“That was a stupid question,” Frisk said with a sigh. “That’s on me.”

Toriel laughed a little at that. Frisk quickly put away everything else.

“Is now a bad time to talk?” Frisk asked.

“Now is fine,” Toriel said, and sat down at the table. “There are some things that perhaps we ought to discuss.”

Frisk sat down, too.

“I really don’t want to hurt you,” Frisk said. “That matters a lot. If later would be better…”

“No, no, do not fret so much,” Toriel said. “Really, I am fine.”

“If you say so,” Frisk muttered, to which Toriel smiled wanly.

“Sans told me something,” Toriel said hesitantly. “He implied that you would feel open about discussing the, ah, unusual extent of your feelings towards him.”

Oh, was that all? Frisk relaxed a little.

“Absolutely,” they said. “I’m not sure what he’s comfortable with me sharing, though.”

Toriel frowned a little.

“It is your decision, is it not?” she asked.

“Er, I guess,” Frisk said. “But I mean, I don’t want to make him uncomfortable. Or, uh, you uncomfortable. So it can be a little hard to figure out what I should say.”

Toriel adjusted her glasses, giving Frisk a passing impression of a stern librarian.

“Sans told me to tell you that he said you could tell me anything,” she said.

“Anything?” Frisk repeated. “That’s… not possible. I mean, maybe there was a miscommunication somewhere, or…”

“He was speaking in regards to your… level of attachment,” Toriel said. “I would presume he meant anything in regards to that.”

“I’m gonna quickly check with him,” Frisk said, and pulled out their phone.

Frisk: Hey Sans, I have an important question.

Frisk: Toriel says that you said that I could tell her anything.

Sans: ha. tell her i said nice try but no.

Frisk giggled and read the text out to Toriel.

Frisk: About my devotion to you, I mean.

Frisk: I wasn’t sure what you’d prefer me not to share. In regards to anything, really. I have guesses, but I’m not sure.

Sans: im pretty sure u can trust ur judgment about things

Sans: if you wanna tell her what we did, id be surprised, so lemme know if u do

Sans: but other than stuff about my past or issues, totes up 2 u

Frisk: Really? Anything other than the things I’ve learned or guessed about your past and special things about you, you’re fine with all of it?

Sans: some stuff id rather u didnt, like itd be awkward if tori knows some of ur kinks and that i went along with it. but if u wanna say that, i wont stop u. just lemme know so i can hide for a while

Sans: on another continent.

Frisk giggled at that.

Frisk: Haha, that was amazing. Okay, I’ll try to play it careful. Thank you.

Sans: uh maybe dont thank me

Sans: i did accidentally mention that u saw my soul

Sans: not a lotta ways for that to happen. so she probably knows we not only had sex, but it was xtra intimate

Frisk: Ah. Thanks for the heads up. I don’t mind her knowing that.

Sans: good. id rather she didnt know but thats my fault

Frisk: She’s good at pulling things from people! Hopefully she doesn’t get too much out of me. I’ll try to be careful.

Sans: just lemme know if i need to flee the country

Frisk: Haha. Will do.

Frisk giggled again as they put away their phone.

“Okay, so he’s actually pretty cool with me sharing things,” Frisk said. “More than I expected. I won’t share things he’s told me in confidence, of course, but other than that, it’s up to me.”

“That is good,” Toriel said. “And you are comfortable speaking about that topic?”

“My devotion to him?” Frisk said. “I am.”

“Your… devotion,” Toriel said. “Perhaps you can simply fill me in on what is going on?”

“I guess you’ve seen me be a little weird with him,” Frisk said and Toriel nodded. “Look, I really don’t want to make you uncomfortable. That’s my biggest hesitation.”

“You may not be my child by blood, nor by age, but you are still my child,” Toriel said, her expression both stern and loving. “I love you, Frisk. I would understand you better, to whatever extent that you feel comfortable sharing with me.”

Frisk looked down and sighed.

“I love you, too, mum,” they said quietly. “I’m worried that it’ll upset you. Worry you unnecessarily. Maybe disturb you.”

“Please do not fear my reaction,” Toriel said. “I am here for you.”

Frisk looked up at Toriel’s eyes… and didn’t believe her. A twisting pain filled their chest at the thought. They were sure Toriel meant it, but, well.

Some things were unforgivable. And while Sans and Flowey were dark enough that Frisk’s tainted soul was welcome, Toriel was too pure and gentle for that.

Still. Frisk could at least share some things.

“I love him,” they said. “But it’s more than that. A lot more. I, uh. I realize it won’t really make sense. It’s not how people’s minds usually work.”

They hesitated a little.

“My soul belongs to him,” they said after a moment. “All that I am is his to do with as he wishes.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” Toriel asked, frowning.

“Just what it sounds like,” Frisk said. “Anything he desires of me is his.”

“You will obey any command he gives you?” Toriel asked. “Fulfill any request?”

“Yes,” Frisk said.

“To what extent?” Toriel asked.

“Anything,” Frisk said.

“What of things you truly do not wish to do, or things that you morally object to?” Toriel asked.

Frisk shook their head.

“Anything,” they repeated.

“Frisk, please be reasonable,” Toriel said. “I know that saying ‘anything’ suits your preference for the melodramatic, but I am attempting to understand what is going on. I would know your limits.”

Frisk looked back up at her. After what had happened yesterday, how much more tightly they were bound… they honestly thought even their last vestiges of limits were gone. Even the example they’d given before, of refusing to kill Papyrus…

Well, if Sans honestly wanted him dead for some reason, which was impossible to imagine, Frisk was pretty sure they would. It’d hurt like hell, it’d tear them apart, but they would.

“I know it isn’t what you want to hear,” Frisk said, their gaze dropping again.

No, they couldn’t look away for this. They had to own it - they didn’t want Toriel to think they were ashamed of this, or had any interest in changing. They met her gaze again.

“I will do anything for Sans,” they said. “I truly mean that, to a depth and extent that most anyone would not call sane. I know what I’m saying.”

“Frisk…” Toriel began and sighed. “You cannot be serious. You would not kill someone, for example.”

Frisk looked away.

“You are saying that you would kill, if he asked you to?” Toriel asked incredulously.

They swallowed and then nodded.

“Death is not a trivial matter,” Toriel said. “This is a poor choice of topic to be frivolous about.”

“I’m not being frivolous,” Frisk said. “I would kill someone if Sans truly wanted me to.”

Toriel stared at them.

“It is difficult to take this seriously,” Toriel said slowly. “You have shown yourself to be an incredibly gentle person, even by the standards of monsters.”

“I’m not saying that I want to,” Frisk said. “Or that it wouldn’t rip me apart. I’m just saying that… this is who I am. I will obey Sans in all things, and I trust in his judgment. If he decides that I should kill someone, I will.”

Toriel looked like she was dealing with some complex emotions, of which confusion was still fairly dominant.

“You do not know of what you speak,” she said, heat in her voice. “You have never killed someone, so-”

She cut off as Frisk flinched and looked away. She blinked slowly.

“Have you killed anyone?” she asked, her tone controlled.

“Y… you… really hate me that much?” Toriel asked, horror and shock on her face transforming to pained realization. “Now I see who I was protecting by keeping you here. Not you… But them!”

Toriel fell to one knee and laughed bitterly before her dust scattered, staining Frisk’s hands and clothes, and scarring their soul.

“N-no,” Frisk said.

Technically, in this timeline, they’d never killed anyone. So it was kind of true.

“Why do you sound uncertain?” Toriel asked.

“It’s complicated,” Frisk said, staring at the table.

“You and Sans both say that things are complicated which really should not be,” Toriel said sharply. “He either loves you, or he does not. You either killed someone, or you have not.”

And the truth is, Sans loves me, but can’t face it. And I’ve killed people, but no one has died, Frisk thought to themself.

“Not a single person in all the world, either monster or human, is dead because of me,” Frisk said. “So yeah, it’s straightforward that way. But my head is kinda messed up sometimes.”

“You feel like you’ve killed people that you haven’t?” Toriel asked.

“Uh, sorta, I guess,” Frisk said hesitantly.

Trying to be honest while dancing around this topic was not working well.

“Perhaps we should arrange to have you work with a therapist,” Toriel said.

Frisk coughed.

“I don’t think I could tell a therapist things,” Frisk said awkwardly.

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“Does Sans know?” Toriel asked.

“He knows everything,” Frisk said.

“And if he told you to go to a therapist, you would,” Toriel said.

“Uh,” Frisk said. “We’ve kinda discussed that already and concluded it wouldn’t be a good idea.”

Toriel blinked again.

“Why in the world would that not be a good idea?” Toriel asked.

Frisk had absolutely no idea what to say.

“There’s… things I can’t tell them,” Frisk said, leaning on honesty as their default. “Things that are not just uncomfortable to share, but dangerous. Or confidential. Or top secret things. I can’t tell you those things, either.”

“Unless Sans tells you to, I suppose,” Toriel said coolly.

“Well, yeah,” Frisk said.

“Hmm,” Toriel said, adjusting her glasses. “I suppose I cannot press you on points that you are not allowed to share.”

Frisk nodded.

“Then I will ask as to your devotion, of which you are permitted to speak,” Toriel said. “I would know what has happened to make you like this.”

“Sans… saved me in a certain, critical way,” Frisk said.

Toriel’s face twisted in a strange wave of emotions.

“He saved you?” she asked softly.

Right, his promise. He’d promised Toriel that he’d watch over and protect any humans that came through.

“Yeah,” they said.

“From Asgore?” Toriel asked.

“Uh. It’s complicated,” Frisk mumbled.

“How is that possibly complicated?” Toriel asked, sounding frustrated. “Did he or did he not save you from Asgore harming you?”

“Well… no,” Frisk said.

“From someone else?” Toriel asked.

“It’s… complicated?” Frisk said weakly and Toriel glared at them.

“Who or what did he save you from?” Toriel asked.

Frisk swallowed. The two possible answers were “myself” or “Chara,” and neither of those seemed like a good idea to say.

But they didn’t want to lie.

“Myself,” they said softly.

Toriel stared at them for a moment. The silence stretched. Frisk didn’t want to lie, and the truth would make no sense. But they didn’t want to share the full truth. So they just awkwardly said nothing.

“I do not understand,” she said. “Is this a matter that you have been forbidden to speak of?”

Technically, the timeloops were top secret, but also, their little conspiracy wasn’t exactly restrictive about it. They’d brought Undyne in just to help Frisk train, and to give Alphys someone to talk to about things. Frisk could tell Toriel, if they wanted.

And if they were honest with themself, Sans had tried to encourage them to speak to a therapist. They’d convinced him that it was a bad idea in the end, but it was begrudging.

Beyond that, the only ones who had any claim of authority over Frisk in binding the knowledge of the timeloops were Asgore and Sans. Asgore would permit Toriel to be brought in, obviously, and Sans would, too.

“No,” Frisk said. “I’m sure there’d be opinions about it, but no. This is mine to share or not.”

“Then please, my child,” Toriel said. “Tell me what has happened.”

“I… I can’t,” Frisk said, fiddling with their thumbs.

“Why would that be?” Toriel asked.

Frisk swallowed uneasily. The silence stretched.

“Please,” Toriel said. “If you cannot speak of what happened, please tell me why.”

Frisk’s eyes squeezed closed, their face twisted with pain and uncertainty. They had no idea what to say. Silence stretched again.

“You do understand that I love you and that I will support you, do you not?” Toriel asked, sounding like her heart was breaking.

“I do believe that you believe that,” Frisk whispered.

A few seconds passed and Frisk glanced at Toriel’s face. It was stricken.

“You are afraid,” Toriel said, each syllable spoken slowly and painfully. “You fear that if I knew the truth, that you could not trust me to stand by you. That I would turn away from you.”

Frisk’s throat was too tight, they couldn’t speak.

“Please,” Toriel said, her voice pleading as she closed her eyes. “Please, Frisk. Tell me that much. Do you trust me?”

“In so many ways, I do trust you,” Frisk said. “I love you and I know you’re there for me.”

“But you are afraid I would turn my back to you,” Toriel said.

Frisk couldn’t say a word.

“Sans admitted that to me, as well,” Toriel said softly.

Another glance showed tears soaking the fur below Toriel’s eyes.

“Both of the people closest to my heart in all the world believe I would turn on them, were I to know certain truths,” Toriel said. “Have I truly shown myself to be so untrustworthy?”

“No, mum, no, you aren’t untrustworthy,” Frisk said, reaching out to take Toriel’s hand.

“Then why…?” she asked.

Frisk was silent for a moment, but Toriel kept looking at them with pleading eyes.

“I’m trying to be a good person,” Frisk said. “I’ve tried for a long time. Sometimes I’ve made missteps. The same is true of Sans.”

“And you feel I would judge you for those missteps,” Toriel said. “To the point that I would turn on you completely.”

Frisk exhaled slowly.

“That’s what I’m afraid of, yeah,” they admitted.

“You are young, yet,” Toriel said. “I do not begrudge mistakes made in learning, in growth. I will support you. You do not need to be afraid.”

Frisk’s hand clenched.

“But you do not believe me,” Toriel said. Frisk opened their mouth to speak and Toriel added, sadly, “Rather, you believe that I believe it, but you feel I am mistaken.”

Frisk managed to nod.

There was silence for another long moment.

“It is because of Asgore, is it not?” Toriel said, halfway sounding like a statement.

Frisk’s mouth moved but nothing came out. What could they say? It was true, and Toriel simply figured it out. The reason they believed she would reject them was because she’d rejected Asgore for a crime that was, in certain ways, lesser than their own.

“I understand,” Toriel said hollowly, and got to her feet. “I need to take a little time to myself. Do not fret about me, my child.”

“I…” Frisk said, reaching their hand out uselessly as Toriel started moving towards her room.

They continued to stare in that direction, equally uselessly, until they heard the soft thump of Toriel’s door closing.

They didn’t hear anything after, but their imagination filled in the sound of Toriel’s broken sobs from knowing that the two people she loved most in the world didn’t trust her.

They continued to stare in that direction, their mind whirring and accomplishing nothing for a long moment. Then they grabbed their phone.

Frisk: Um. Not to put any pressure on you or anything. Because I don’t want to pressure you. You don’t have to do anything, say anything, decide anything at all. You can just ignore all this.

Frisk: But the conversation ended up not going well.

Sans: how bad was it

Frisk: I’m pretty sure I accidentally convinced her that both of us think she’s untrustworthy and that we’re afraid she’ll turn on us if we tell her things.

Sans: …

Sans: that might not be totally ur fault

Frisk: She did mention you’d said something like that.

Sans: ya. i didnt mean it like that tho

Frisk: Me, neither. Just… I mean, you know. If she couldn’t forgive Asgore, then why would she forgive me? Or you? Though I don’t know your circumstances as well.

Sans: i hav no clue how shed react to my past

Sans: urs is weird 2. i dont know that either

Frisk: Um.

Frisk: Flowey might have a good guess.

Sans: from his experience screwing around with her head

Frisk: Yeah.

Sans: whats ur plan exactly

Frisk: I don’t have one. I’m just… I don’t want her to be hurt and it’s killing me.

Frisk: I don’t know for sure but my guess is that she’s in her room sobbing.

Sans: damn it

Frisk: Yeah. I’m sorry I screwed it up so badly. I just started by being honest, and then when I stopped being willing to answer, I refused to throw you under the bus, which meant I was refusing to answer because I didn’t trust her, and then it just sort of snowballed.

Sans: i get it. ur thinking we should reload

Frisk: I promised you to take the power seriously. Tiny reloads that don’t affect people are fine; manipulating people we care about isn’t. That’s what you’ve held me to. But we also use it with the alert app to undo disasters that hurt people.

Frisk: I mean, it’s like accidents and stuff normally, so I don’t know if this counts.

Frisk: But

Frisk: But I want to undo it.

Frisk: I don’t want her to be hurt.

Sans: me neither. look lets not text about this. go to ur room

They instantly got to their feet and rushed to their room. Sans was sitting in their desk chair, looking rather haggard himself as they closed the door behind them.

“I’m sorry I screwed up,” Frisk said, on the edge of tears.

“don’t blame yourself,” Sans said with a sigh, rubbing at his head. “like i said, i told her the same thing.”

“You’re not looking so lively yourself,” Frisk said, covering their face. “I shouldn’t have tried talking to her yet.”

“what’s done is done,” Sans said. “what we gotta do is figure out what to do about it.”

He sighed and leaned back.

“i’m feeling a little mentally toast,” he admitted. “you up to trying to just lay out all our options?”

“Sure,” Frisk said. “The big one is whether or not I reload. If I don’t reload, we have some time pressure, and we’re doing a salvage thing. Trying to undo the results of this conversation in a normal way. The problem is that this isn’t just a miscommunication. She’s correct - neither of us trusts her not to turn away from us if she knows certain things.”

Sans nodded at that.

“Best I can see is maybe trying to reassure her, but I’m not sure how to do that without either confirming that she’s right, or outright lying to her,” Frisk said. “I’d… like to avoid getting caught in a spiral of lies.”

“yeah,” Sans said. “one’s bad enough…”

Frisk exhaled and rubbed at their face.

“So yeah,” they said. “And trying to salvage things might make them worse. Could easily make things worse. It’s kind of delicate.”

They looked down.

“It’s not a threat to the world, though,” they said quietly. “It’s not a threat to anyone’s life. If resetting is like killing people… then I don’t know that killing a version of Toriel to spare her pain is right. Reloading to fix this feels right to me, but I know it feels different on the outside of the loop.”

They were both silent for a moment.

“let’s look at our options before we start digging into them,” he said.

“Okay,” Frisk said. “The other broad option is we do use a reset, or a bunch of resets, to solve this. There’s a few categorical approaches I can see. One, drawing on Flowey’s expertise. He could probably help us trim things to solving it with only resetting once, but it’d, uh, involve letting him know things kinda right away. He’s already texted me about how many resets we’ve done lately and I’ve been telling him we’d talk to him about it soon.”

Sans grumbled a little under his breath, but Frisk couldn’t quite make it out.

“If we don’t care about using multiple resets, we have more options,” Frisk said. “One… I know you’ve spoken out against this before, I’m just listing it for thoroughness, but we could find out for sure if she can handle knowing things.”

After a moment of silence, Sans said, “keep listing options.”

Frisk nodded.

“I have only three ideas on how to redo the conversation with her,” Frisk said. “Either I tell her the whole truth. Or, I close off and refuse to tell her things more generally, keeping her more distant, but playing it off as maybe shyness, or not being comfortable, or touching on things that are private, that sort of thing. So she doesn’t think I don’t trust her, I just can’t tell her for more normal reasons. Or I go straight up manipulative - lying, twisting things, whatever, so she thinks I’m being real with her, even as I twist her around.”

“that’s all you’ve got, huh?” Sans asked and Frisk nodded. “keep things as they stand and try to fix things the normal way. use the loops to try to fix things. use flowey to reduce the number of loops but also deal with his bullshit. tell her the truth and see if she can take it. pull away from her like how i normally would do things. manipulate her in a kinda gross way. that’s the list.”

“I can’t think of any other basic approach,” Frisk said. “Avoidance, maybe, dodging the whole issue entirely.”

“might not be bad,” Sans speculated. “could buy her time to recover from the conversation with me.”

“So I guess the first question is - is this situation worth using loops to fix?” Frisk asked uneasily.

Sans closed his eyes and leaned back again.

“gonna be honest with ya,” he said. “i’m pretty frayed myself. between all the stuff from yesterday and my talk with her today, i’m wrung dry.”

“I understand,” Frisk said, looking down. “So you want me to be the one to decide, to think of things?”

“it’d make my life easier,” he said.

“Maybe… why don’t you just tell me what you want, not what you think we should do, and I’ll use that to try to figure it out?” Frisk tried.

He sighed.

“i want to look back on today and not regret it,” he said firmly. “that’s the big thing. making a wrong choice - whatever, it happens. sometimes jokes fall flat, and ya should’ve chosen a different one, but who cares, right? i won’t be upset at us for making a ‘wrong’ choice today, under the circumstances. i just want to not regret it.”

Frisk nodded.

“right now?” he continued. “i’m not thinking abstractly. caring about timeline morality stuff is abstract. wanting tori to be okay is near and dear.”

Frisk smiled a little at that.

“Maybe…” they said hesitantly and Sans opened his eyes, watching them. “It’s something you normally wouldn’t like at all, but…”

“spit it out,” Sans said.

“Sounds like we’re going to use the loops to try to fix this,” Frisk said carefully. “Which means we’re in a dead-end timeline.”

“go on,” Sans said.

Frisk wrung their hands together.

“I know you tend to view things a little differently,” Frisk said, still being cautious. “But… well, in a dead-end timeline, the only things that are really real are you, me, and Flowey. Everything else is a ghost, going to be undone.”

Sans’ face was tight but he nodded slightly.

“And it doesn’t really matter how long the timeline branch is,” Frisk said. “I mean, it matters a little, like six months is too much, but whether it’s a few hours or a few days or whatever… it’s not that big of a difference, right?”

Sans didn’t say anything, and they fidgeted anxiously.

“You could use some time to just chew on things,” Frisk said. “No disasters, no unwanted conversations, no time pressure, no obligations, no guilt, no regret. We’re in a gap in time - we might as well return to the true timeline when we’re ready, instead of rushing it, if we have to end it anyway.”

Sans continued to say nothing, just watching them impassively. They swallowed.

“You could just go off, anywhere you wanted to go, and just not deal with this at all,” Frisk said. “I’ll stay here, and talk to Flowey, and explain what’s going on. I’ll talk to Toriel and just lay it on her, learning what I can, in one miserable timeline. Using Flowey’s advice to try to mitigate how much this Toriel suffers from it all. We just tell you nothing, don’t worry you, let you take your time. And when you’re ready, I’ll brief you and then reload.”

Sans’ gaze was nearly black as he watched them in the silence.

“There’s… uh… also…” Frisk said and swallowed. “I kept never managing to actually bring it up in the real timeline, but there’s a set of rules we’d agreed on for dead-end timelines, and you might want to know those, but you could also just not worry about anything for a while and it’d be fine.”

Sans continued to stare at them for a long moment before he sighed and closed his eyes again.

“really damned tempting idea,” he muttered. “you’re trying to solve as many problems as possible, packed into as few resets as possible, at the cost of blowing all moral constraints for a single branch in time.”

“That’s… actually a really good summary, yeah,” Frisk said, and Sans met their gaze again consideringly.

“i feel like if i agree to this, i might as well get a new jacket labelled ‘hypocrite’ and swap to it as my usual,” he groused.

“But it’s not your idea,” Frisk said. “You gave me the choice, so that means the consequences aren’t your fault.”

“except you’re not doing it unless i okay it,” Sans said.

“Or unless you say the choice is mine, and absolve yourself of responsibility for the mess I created,” Frisk said. “I’ll take that burden from you.”

His expression shifted to a more thoughtful one as he gazed at them.

“that’s a piece i was missing, wasn’t it?” Sans said speculatively. “one of the reasons you’re like this. you dumped all moral responsibility for your existence on my head. don’t blame the tool, blame the person holding the tool, sort of thinking. so by making yourself a tool, that’s it. you can’t blame yourself for anything ever again.”

Frisk looked down.

“I do blame myself for what just happened,” they said.

“i don’t feel like dancing around,” he said. “what i said - is that a part of your whole thing?”

“... yes,” Frisk admitted quietly.

He gave them a considering look. They were both silent for what felt like an extremely long time to Frisk.

“odds are good one of us will screw things up in the real timeline if we try to avoid abusing your power,” he said finally. “maybe that’s the better risk, but i just can’t bring myself to think about the tangled moral problems of resets right now.”

Frisk nodded and stayed silent.

“it’s pretty fucked up that i’m looking at completely abandoning an entire timeline to an extended length of interaction before destroying it. that i’m looking at letting you off the leash i’ve kept you on, letting you abuse your powers to manipulate someone close to me. that i’m letting you take the lead on… well, everything that’s resulted from yesterday, with only flowey as your aide.”

Frisk looked down. When they heard him sigh heavily, they looked up at him and he looked even more haggard.

“i can’t deal with this crap right now,” he said in a defeated tone. “i just can’t. you seem like you’re doing alright.”

Frisk nodded.

“so i’m going to admit defeat and trust you,” he said grimly. “you know how i feel about things. you know what i care about. i’m going to just trust you to take that into account and try to do the best you can, as though i were here advising you and holding you back. i’m going to trust you to not let flowey lead you down dangerous paths. i’m going to trust you to treat this timeline’s toriel with as much care and respect as you possibly can, to hurt her as little as possible.”

He closed his eyes and swallowed.

“i may change my mind,” he said, his tone quieter. “but right now, i don’t wanna know what you end up doing. i just want to believe that you thought things through carefully and you chose what you thought i would believe is the best option, morally speaking.”

“I will do my utmost,” Frisk said in an equally quiet tone.

He started to stand and then hesitated.

“i want to know the truth,” he murmured. “do you respect me less for this?”

“No,” Frisk said.

“no dissembling, no misdirection, none of that nonsense,” he said. “expand on that.”

Frisk swallowed.

“I don’t want to say anything hurtful,” they muttered.

“i made it pretty clear what i expect,” he said.

“I don’t know what’s going on in your head, but I have a number of guesses,” Frisk said with a small smile, copying what Sans had said two days ago as best as they could remember. “Seems to me that you’re broken inside in a number of ways, and sometimes those cracks and scars in your soul look like flaws. What I see of this choice isn’t your strength, your wit, your insight, your will to overcome problems. So, some might think I’m saying I’m looking at you being weak. But…”

They smiled at him more gently.

“I see you trying to do as I’d suggested, about Papyrus,” they said softly. “Trying to heal, instead of pretending you aren’t injured. Trusting someone, instead of either taking everything on your own head, or blowing it off and pretending you don’t care. I think this is a wiser option than trying to force a solution when you’re too frazzled to think things through, but also…”

Their smile turned wry, and they felt more relaxed as some of the tension in his shoulders eased.

“I’m not entirely sure if I can really respect you less, the way my head is wired right now,” they said. “I can love you more, respect you more, but I’m not sure if it can go the other way. Maybe it can, but I haven’t seen anything pushing that way at all.”

“you really do wonders for making my life simpler,” he said with a rough grin. “and also complicating it, but i suppose there’s no escaping that. alright. keep your phone on you. don’t give me details unless i ask. pass along whatever the hell excuse you want to whomever - i’m just leaving, i’m not dealing with anything.”

“Understood,” Frisk said.

He closed his eyes.

“here’s hoping i don’t regret this,” he muttered. “good luck, frisk.”

With that, he disappeared.