Sans popped into place behind a tree near Papyrus and snuck up behind him. He wasn’t going to let Paps in on any of this crap - it was a lot to deal with.
He stayed silent as Papyrus eagerly went over everything, making sure it was perfect. Hardly a minute later, the kid walked down the bridge with a cheerful expression - far happier than the twisted, tormented smile they’d had since emerging from the Ruins.
Papyrus pulled out the gauntlet and the kid didn’t look in the least bit nervous, just giving Papyrus an affectionate smile, and silently waiting. Paps tried, but it turned out, he couldn’t bring himself to activate the gauntlet. He was flustered but made a whole little speech about how it’d be too easy to defeat the human that way, and since he was a skeleton with standards, he couldn’t use it. Papyrus stormed off awkwardly and the kid chuckled as they came up to Sans.
“Believe it or not, I’ve never seen him activate it,” they said, as they walked by. “Not even on that route. Then, he was upset because I hadn’t interacted with any of his puzzles and he was so disheartened, he just… gave up trying. Talked about how I’d taught him to appreciate Undyne, to appreciate the friend he already has, because she’d have loved it.”
They sounded forlorn about that, and it twisted in Sans’ non-existent gut. The idea of Papyrus feeling that disheartened, right before… but he didn't need to think about that.
“you seem to like puzzles, though,” he said.
“I do,” they agreed. “Not, er, as much as Papyrus does, but they’re fun. Extra fun when I’m in no actual danger from them. Anyway, I should head off. Got a lot to do today!”
He waved them off as they cheerfully made their way into Snowdin.
As he’d originally intended, he kept an eyesocket on them. A little more intently than originally planned, but whatever. When they came into the town, they looked around and really seemed to be taking it in, with an odd expression of focus. Their eyes increasingly shone with determination and they stretched out a hand, almost ritualistically. He had a strange feeling, like he somehow was seeing a golden glow from their hand and then, to his shock, all of the frostbite, all signs of harm, it all disappeared from their body.
“you weren’t kidding when you said it’d be wasteful,” he muttered to himself, thinking of their amusement when he’d suggested eating to heal up.
He wondered why they’d even use food items at all. Though, he supposed, it did look like it took some time and effort to manifest… whatever the hell that was. And he was curious why they hadn’t mentioned that “saving” healed them, assuming that’s what they’d done.
From there, a smile brightened their face once more and they went into the shop. They interacted with gentle, tender cheer with every person out and about in town.
He made note of certain reactions. The shopkeeper and the monster kid made their eyes dance in nearly-hidden pain, and they were extra gentle. He thought it odd when they told the monster kid they thought they were brave.
He couldn’t help but wonder what the monster kid did… and then a twisted feeling filled his gut again. A nasty hypothesis had popped into his head. The monster kid could be kind of ridiculous and oblivious - it didn’t take a lot of interactions to notice that. Or that they idolized Undyne. Did the kid stand up to the human when they were on the warpath?
His eyes lingered on the human.
The better question, maybe, was whether the human struck them down.
Well, he could always ask. But if they’d killed Papyrus…
His eye flickered with magic and a complex tangle of feelings went through him as they went through the town.
They seemed to be just interacting with everyone, going around and being friendly. They didn’t introduce themself - he realized he also didn’t know their name - but it seemed a reasonable gap between events for him to get something. He popped off to his workshop and grabbed some sensor equipment before heading back to the front of the town. He was careful to look casual as he went through the spot where they had glowed. He went back and forth several times before heading back to his workshop to see what his tools had picked up.
There was definitely some sort of weird disturbance where they were. As far as he could tell, it looked like a rigid point of spacetime - an anchor, they'd called it, and that tracked. From what they'd said, it was something they could make, rather than something they found.
Interesting.
Welp, back to spying.
No one else provoked any notable reaction from the human. They were polite, gentle, and caring towards everyone, and were generous with scritches and pets for the dogs. They warmed up as they went along and took a few minute nap in the inn. The innkeeper’s magic flooded and healed them, filling them past full with vitality. The innkeeper gave them their money back, since they hadn’t stayed all night, but he noticed that they sneakily left them the money anyway.
With that, they cheerily made their way out of Snowdin to where Papyrus awaited. He couldn’t deny a bit of nerves, but he settled in to watch.
Papyrus confessed, in his own silly way, about the complexity of emotions he was feeling towards them. His desires for friendship and duty warred with each other, and he attacked.
Despite everything, Sans couldn’t help but be admiring. They were a goddamn dancer. Their grace and precision were unreal. He was certain Papyrus wouldn’t notice, but there was a twinkle in their eye each time they “fumbled” a dodge and were battered aside. Papyrus was likely to also fail to notice how utterly uncaring they were about the injuries that began to pile up.
That annoying dog came by and stole Papyrus’ special attack, and he was sulking as he poured out everything he had left into his normal attack patterns. Relatively normal, anyway. A shame, really - he’d been curious how the kid would have handled that attack.
Between Papyrus not really paying as close attention, due to his sulking, and the intensity of the attacks, the kid stepped up their game. He’d thought they were dancing before, but this was another level. Their eyes were somehow both sharp and half lidded, almost as if they hardly needed to see to bend and weave through the patterns of bones. Some missed by a hair as they used an incredibly efficient, delicate pattern of movement to ease by without harm. And scarcely any effort - they weren't even breathing hard.
How many times did I kill them…?
They’d said a “few hundred times,” but this made it feel more real. It was wild to watch this.
Another thought occurred to him.
And they’re expecting me to not get a sense of how unnaturally good at combat they are till they fight Undyne…?
Yeah, he’d grab some ‘dogs for that one. And maybe some recording equipment, because it might be worth rewatching sometime. Because damn.
After that attack, Paps was exhausted. He huffed and puffed about how he decided to spare them, since they were quivering in their boots, and Sans laughed as the kid graciously accepted his mercy. Papyrus was torn up about the situation, talking about how he’d be alone, and they asked to be his friend. As anyone could have predicted, this sent Paps to the moon with excitement and he invited them to come hang out, before happily bounding off back to the house.
The kid immediately turned around and headed back to Snowdin. They swung by the shop and touched the temporal anchor - the save point - drawing on its power to heal again. Thus restored, they walked back over to the house and met up with Papyrus.
Sans just ‘ported into his room and chilled out there, only popping out to harass Papyrus when he overheard a good opportunity. It felt rude to spy on this interaction, but he did keep an ear out - metaphorically, of course. So far as he could tell, the kid was just encouraging Papyrus to be his usual self and he was mostly losing his mind with excitement.
While idly eavesdropping, he double checked the sensor reports. Nothing new - the sensors detected absolutely no changes from the initial readings this morning. So “saving” didn’t produce anything that could be detected from the main spacetime fissure, and they hadn’t reloaded. Which is presumably what would cause the new timelines.
The hangout ended and the kid went on their way. Papyrus was hugely excited at first, but then remembered he needed to meet up with Undyne again and became anxious.
Hopefully the kid’s right about that being temporary, Sans thought to himself as he returned to his waterfall station. Papyrus was really stressing out, but the kid had said that wouldn’t be an issue once they befriended Undyne. Soon, ideally.
Barely any time passed before the kid showed up. They chatted briefly, and they said that the first time, he’d invited them to hangout at Grillby’s. They said they’d chatted about Papyrus and he’d mentioned the flower, but that obviously wasn’t a conversion they needed to have anymore.
He did think about inviting them to chat and eat at Grillbs anyways, but he was still feeling kinda shaken from everything they’d revealed. He’d chewed over his thoughts a little while spying on them, but they were keeping up a pretty brisk pace.
And besides, they’d said the two of them had chatted at the resort, too. So he could just hang out with them, then. Show no hard feelings.
Still, all this was proving hard to handle, emotionally. Mentally, it all made sense, and he’d even had a lot of forewarning, with the reports from this morning. And all the studying he’d done of the anomaly from before today, which, apparently, had been Flowey. He was very curious to meet this little flower.
But emotionally… the issue was that he felt his legs had been swept from under him. Things he’d want to talk about, like their thoughts on his brother - they’d already discussed that indirectly at the cliffside, but also, that was all tangled up in experiences that had never happened. And in conversations they’d already had with him in past timelines.
He apparently trusted them enough to tell them about his promise to his knock knock buddy, to Toriel, but he’d never experienced the actual relief, the catharsis, of telling them that. It was weird having someone already know stuff that he’d confided. Already feeling connected to him, already knowing his jokes, when they were a stranger.
What should he do about it?
He got the impression that they liked him even before the psycho timeline. But in that timeline, they lost their mind and fell in love with him in a messed up way. They weren’t being pushy about it, and in fact, were trying to both let him see how they felt about him, while also not outright confessing in a way that required anything from him.
If he just let the cards fall where they may, he’d be a twisted mess himself. An awkward tangle of emotion - they cared for his brother, but murdered him; they liked Sans honestly, but had a weird sort of obsession with him; their friendship had grown naturally, but this version of him hadn’t been there for that.
That was no good. He needed to decide where he stood, and go from there, else he’d inevitably screw things up. For him and the kid, both.
So… should he try to pull back, because of how messed up everything was? Should he try to let friendship happen for real, in his own heart? Should he pretend friendship, because it might be useful?
That last option felt dishonest in a way that really did not work for him. So he either pushed the human away, because of all the mess, or he pushed away his own issues and tried to let feelings of friendship happen. There was a real benefit to being friends with the kid, and on a practical level, that really appealed.
Especially if they could figure out how to let him remember the resets…
They obviously had some serious conscious control, and could do more than they’d initially mentioned. They’d figured out a few things - how to create the temporal anchors and also how to use them to heal. Who knew what else they might figure out?
It wasn’t like he disliked them, either. They clearly were someone who cared about others, who enjoyed his company, who seemed to love his jokes honestly, who wasn’t pushy. He could easily see himself caring about them as a friend. The only things holding him back from that were his awareness of the fact that they’d been a murderous psycho in a different timeline, and the weirdness of the uneven, mismatched memories between them, and the insanity around the whole thing with them falling for him.
He grumbled to himself. He didn’t want to force anything either way, but he had to at least decide where he stood.
Well. Between practicality and the fact that they honestly seemed really nice, to every measure he could see, Operation Friendship seemed like the way to go. He wouldn’t try to force any positive feelings, but he’d honestly try to get over the knowledge of what happened in the psycho timeline, to not hold it against them. And to honestly try to navigate the weirdness of this trans-timeline friendship. He figured they’d be patient with him, regardless.
They’d gotten through a chunk of Waterfall while he’d been musing. He showed up at the telescope he’d rigged up, curious how things would play out. He decided to pretend that he had no idea they might know about the telescope and see what they did.
He fed them a line about the telescope usually being 50,000G, but since they were a friend, they could use it for free. They had a knowing smirk on their face, but cheerfully agreed and tried looking around with the telescope, getting the red dye all around their eye.
“Can’t seem to see anything,” they remarked after a moment, giving him a little grin, their eye completely covered in pink.
“huh? you aren’t satisfied?” he asked with mock surprise. “don’t worry. i’ll give you a full refund.”
They giggled at that, which wasn’t as good of a response as a groan or an exasperated, yet smiling eyeroll, but it still made him grin. There was also gratitude shining in their eyes. A guess popped up in his head that maybe they were really glad that he was still joking around with them.
Which was kinda ridiculous. Why in the world would he stop? Even in their psycho timeline, they said he’d been making dark jokes at their expense, all the way till the end. He’d have been disappointed in himself if it were otherwise.
They left and got some nice cream, then hesitated and came back over to him.
“By the way,” they said, their voice low so that it wouldn’t carry to the onion monster a little ways away. “Uh, there’s pretty much no way Undyne will kill me before the battle, but I am intending to poke the bear pretty hard. On the off chance she does kill me, I’ll let you know as soon as I see you, alright? That way you don’t need to worry about whether there’s been any timeline loops. Haven’t reloaded since our conversation, either.”
“you could always… not do that,” he pointed out dryly.
“Really, she shouldn’t kill me, even if she gives me everything she’s got,” they said. “Without the epic transformation she did in that timeline, even without the shield of LOVE, honestly, there should be no way. At most, she might make me go through a few items. But I just wanted to let you know, just in case I’m wrong about that. And I’ll save right before fighting her, so even if it’s a reload, it’ll be only a few minutes, tops. And also - we both love a good fight! She’ll really enjoy it, too.”
“you love fighting, then?” he asked.
They flinched.
“I, er, kinda developed an appreciation for it,” they said. “And I got good at it.”
“i saw that with papyrus. you were something else, kid.”
They smiled.
“Yeah, that did end up pretty smooth,” they said with a grin. “Might not be quite as smooth against Undyne - she didn’t kill me nearly as much as you did.”
“makes sense,” he said. “welp. good luck.”
“Thanks,” they said cheerfully. “See you soon!”
With that, they merrily made their way forward.
Sans resumed spying on them contemplatively. Sometimes, he hung out with Alphys as he did so, but he mostly preferred the solo act.
It was a good sign that they didn’t immediately change their plan when he questioned it. He got the impression they would go easy on Undyne if he asked, but when he lightly challenged their plan, they hadn’t leapt to obey. That meant that their weird obsession with him was either not that intense, or maybe just that they were sensible enough about it that he didn’t have to worry about a casual comment sending them on some crazy quest or whatever. It made him feel more comfortable talking to them. He wasn’t sure how deep the obsession went. Maybe it was okay.
They faced monsters as they went. They kept the stick, mostly seeming to swing it around for fun, but still didn’t so much as touch it if a monster was nearby. No matter how creepy Aaron was, or awkward Woshua was, or kinda gross Moldsmal or Moldsbygg were, they never so much as showed a flicker of impatience. Even though most of them were being a bit pushy with their magic, too - other than Moldsbygg, anyway.
He also thought it was interesting that they listened to each and every echo flower they passed, listening to a conversation of wishes. They got teary eyed as they listened, an impossibly tender smile on their face.
Happy they’re going to make those wishes come true is my guess.
They got a call from Papyrus, and it was hard for him to get close enough to eavesdrop without being seen, but Paps was always great about being easy to hear. Apparently, Sans had missed a previous discussion - it seemed Papyrus had asked them about what they were wearing, to tell Undyne, and he was really struggling with balancing their friendships, trying to betray neither, and effectively betraying both.
Yeah, they really do need to resolve things with Undyne. Papyrus is not having a good time.
They continued on their way. They were cheerful with Onion-san, and had an impromptu concert with Shyren. Sans couldn’t let that opportunity pass him by - he had a hilarious idea. He knew where some toilet paper was, and this seemed like a perfect chance to use it. No one would even know what it was, except for the kid, which made it perfect.
He quickly started selling tickets from the paper and saw the kid’s eyes light up in recognition, but they managed to keep humming for Shyren. He could still hear the struggle not to laugh in their voice, and his grin broadened.
They had their fun, and despite being the direct focus of Shyren and her song, they had no trouble with the compressed packets of magic.
Sans disappeared before the end, happy to resume watching. He was feeling a bit peckish… well, he was planning on having hot dogs while watching the fight with Undyne anyway.
From there, they went to the northern side room and played the piano. With their first try, the door opened up, revealing the path to the artifact. Undyne had been so proud of that one - Papyrus had told him all about it, since Undyne didn't generally go for making puzzles. He was curious what they’d do with the artifact, and what the artifact actually did. They smiled at the door, shook their head as though at a joke, and played the melody again.
From there, they just left, without even looking at the artifact. He chuckled to himself, figuring he’d ask them why later. They got an umbrella and put it over the statue, sitting and listening to the music box with a content expression for a few minutes, before resuming on their way.
He was learning a lot about them through these observations. They liked to embrace the experiences of life, to immerse themself. They clearly had an appreciation for music. They seemed honestly, actually patient and kind, never flickering with even a hint of real ire. They did have a little bit of annoyance on their face from time to time - with Aaron, and earlier, with Jerry - but they never even hesitated when showing grace and care. It really seemed like it was who they were, and not just a mask.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He still struggled to reconcile what he observed with their decision to kill everyone, but… well, the more you hurt others, the more you distance yourself, and the easier it becomes to kill. Apparently it built some sort of actual shield around their soul, rather than part of its surface as he'd thought. A shield that didn’t travel with them when they reset the timeline. He already knew about how it would cut them off from both the intensity of their feelings, as well as the capacity to self-express. And how that could be overcome with training, to some extent, though they'd obviously not had that opportunity.
It seems like they’re soaking in the experience, he thought to himself as the human met up with Monster Kid, cheerfully listening to their blathering on about Undyne. They wore that perpetual, soft smile, looking serene as they patiently listened. Not just the music, but also the companionship. Like they’re appreciating something they’d lost.
They accepted Monster Kid’s help to get to the next part of the path - really, that path up the cliff had collapsed again? And from there, they ran into Undyne. She stayed back and launched spears at them, magically manifesting them in the kid’s path. They had a brilliant, almost wicked gleam in their eyes - first time he’d seen something like that from them - as they dodged, wove, and sprinted around the spears. It got close a few times - closer than with Papyrus, aside from the dodges they deliberately flubbed - but they managed to squeeze through without a single hit.
It was honestly kinda impressive. He could have gotten away from it all, but mostly by just being somewhere else. Not by actual dodging, like they did.
By the end, Undyne had forced them to the end of the scaffolding, and cut it off, making them fall to the ground. They seemed to pass out briefly on landing before they got up, a gentle smile back on their face, and proceeding onwards.
They had an interesting time for the next while - a mad dummy, a ghost friend, the hamlet of Waterfall, and a remarkably loud turtle shopkeeper. They continued to follow their path of peace and patience as they avoided harm and chatted briefly with everyone they met. After that, they went and visited Temmie Village, though that was the briefest visit so far - they didn’t seem to enjoy it very much.
Which was another hint for his mental construct of their character. They were feeling obligated to visit everyone for some reason. In most cases, there was an honest appreciation and joy in the exchange, but not all cases, and pretty much not at all with the Temmies.
Maybe a sense of guilt, a desire to spread as much positivity as possible?
After the Temmie village, they found themself facing Undyne. He thought it odd that they didn’t manifest a save point or even have a look of battle readiness about them - they hadn’t forgotten that they’d agreed to save before their fight, had they? Not like he could do anything about that.
Undyne said that their death would be their redemption, which made them flinch. But then the monster kid popped out of the bushes, eagerly asking about who Undyne was fighting. She took the monster kid away and the human chuckled before continuing. He smiled at the human’s lack of surprise - he supposed that explained why they hadn’t saved.
They lingered for a moment at the plaque that spoke of the prophecy.
The Angel…
The One Who Has Seen The Surface…
They will return.
And the underground will go empty.
They touched it and whispered something to it, tears in their eyes, before they pulled themself away and continued.
Yeah, he had a solid guess as to how that plaque made them feel.
They crossed a bridge and ran into the monster kid again, who’d been told about what they were. The kid tried to get the human’s help in being enemies - for the human to say something mean so the kid could hate them. But the human gently refused. The kid tried to speak hate at them anyway, and it didn’t so much as make a flicker of irritation in the human’s eyes, their smile impossibly gentle and affectionate.
The kid got upset at themself and turned around to run away. They weren't paying attention and slipped, starting to fall off the side, just as Undyne rushed up. Without hesitation, the human ran forwards and grabbed the kid, pulling them up to the bridge and dusting them off.
With that, the kid actually stood up to Undyne, telling her that if she wanted to get to the human, she’d have to go through them, first.
As interesting as that was - and it was honestly cool to see the kid stand up to their idol like that - the human’s face told a hell of a story. Pride, guilt, regret, hope, joy - there were a million feelings fighting for control of those eyes. The guilt and pain were rather sharp.
He was pretty sure he knew how this went. The kid had stood up to the human, hadn’t they? And they’d killed them. Maybe right in front of Undyne.
Yeah, that’d provoke a “transformation” from her, alright. Even he shuddered a little at the thought of how enraged she’d be.
Undyne backed off at the kid's defiant choice. Then the kid cheerfully turned to the human, declared friendship, and strode off proudly.
The human initially held it together, but they were struggling with composure. Most people weren't that good at reading faces - at most, he figured Undyne or the kid would have called them “conflicted looking.”
The human seemed to be really struggling, actually. Like they had at the cliffside. It was getting worse, not better. After a minute, they collapsed to their knees, weeping. He wasn’t close enough to completely make out what they were saying, not as softly as they spoke, but he was pretty sure he heard the word “sorry” dozens of times.
He thought about going to them and comforting them, but he wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do. He hesitated, doing his default of doing nothing, and eventually, the moment passed. They wiped their eyes and on unsteady feet, moved forward.
They ran into Undyne moments later, who was clearly gearing up for a fight. Weird that they hadn’t manifested a save point, still. Maybe they’d gotten distracted. He felt a surge of annoyance - if they died, all these thoughts would be erased.
He also got to see what they meant by Undyne being “a bitch.” She was being rather unrelentingly hostile and unfair, as she mocked them for their gentleness and kindness. Honestly, he was even annoyed on their behalf.
Interestingly, this all seemed to improve the kid’s mood. They went from melancholy grief, to an increasingly sharp and amused grin on their face as they listened to Undyne declare that they were going to die, and deserved it, etc etc.
Finally, Undyne declared that they could have a moment to prepare themself before their death. And that was when they manifested the save point. Which, he had to admit, made sense. If they knew that they’d be given time, why risk having to hear all that again?
As with the other times, they had a look of intense concentration, taking in the environment, especially Undyne, and their eyes gleamed with determination as the golden, invisible light shone from their hand. They shook themself out, their grin broadened, and they moved forward.
Sans almost forgot to get the hot dog in time for the start, but he managed it.
Undyne released a surge of binding magic onto the kid that would prevent them from moving away or dodging. But having the magic anchored to the kid gave them partial control over it - they were able to shift its power, using their very chains as a shield of sorts.
Undyne started to attack, but he could see a hint of hesitation in her movements. The kid clearly could, too, as they started taunting Undyne.
“Good thing you bound me, Undyne, because these spears are so slow I could out-walk them,” the kid said with a grin.
Eh, he'd give their taunting effort a six out of ten. Clearly not their speciality.
That said, the taunting was seriously aided by the kid’s other skills. With casual ease, never breaking eye contact with Undyne, they spun the magic around, catching and breaking apart every spear without even looking rushed. Or even like they were fully paying attention.
That boosted their taunting to a solid eight out of ten, easy.
Undyne did try harder, and they clearly pushed her as hard as she was willing to go, barring something like killing a child in front of her. And the whole thing just looked like a game to the human.
With Papyrus, it had been a gentle, sweet dance, their eyes shining with affection as they softly weaved around the attacks. With Undyne, it was a taunting, playful affair, and he found it interesting how incredibly “bouncy” they were, how fast they were to dodge if ever they noticed a spear a little late. In a sense, they were doing their half of a much, much harder version of this fight against Undyne, and as they predicted, this version had not even the slightest chance.
Sweat and battle-mad focus dominated Undyne’s face as she threw absolutely everything at the human… which only made them grin more sharply as they masterfully blocked her strikes.
The binding magic didn’t last forever, and when it faded, the kid would go back to full dodges, dancing around the swarms of attacks. Undyne kept re-casting the binding magic, obviously worried about the kid getting away, but it didn’t look like they had any interest in going. This was fun… for all parties. The kid, Sans, and Undyne - assuming she wasn’t too annoyed at her failure, anyway. She did love a good fight.
While Sans didn’t want anything truly awful to happen, obviously, he couldn’t help but feel a little wistful, wondering what the fight with Undyne had looked like in that other timeline. How intense would that have had to be, for the kid to have to get this good just to get past her at all? The kid was right that this was nothing - they’d barely taken a few glancing blows.
Undyne was a lot of things, but a quitter she was not. The fight dragged on and the kid was clearly starting to get fatigued. He saw the moment they came to some decision. With a wistful expression of goodbye… they started to run away. Towards Hotlands.
Sans suppressed a snicker as he thought of a place he could go that would 1. Get a good view and 2. Let him mess with Undyne a little. He teleported to his station at the entrance to Hotland and pretended to sleep, snoring loudly. As expected, the kid giggled as they ran by and Undyne stopped to try to wake and scold him before continuing the chase. He grinned, looking up as soon as they passed.
Undyne passed out from heat exhaustion as she staggered past the bridge. The kid went and got some water from the water cooler there, and poured it on Undyne’s face. She woke with a gasp and just stared at the kid for a moment before turning away. Saving her life was apparently something she couldn’t ignore, and so she just left.
Smiling again, another wistful smile of farewell, the kid moved forward. They manifested another save point in front of the lab, restoring their strength, and then went inside. It was harder to hide in there and spy on them, but almost no one looked up at the ceiling, so he managed.
He watched them undergo a rather ridiculous, but very Mettaton quiz show with Alphys… and with what they’d said before, he immediately saw what they were talking about.
It really was a setup, between Alphys and Mettaton. He might not have noticed it, if he hadn't been told - between focusing on the kid, and Mettaton pretty much always being ridiculously overdramatic, he honestly could have missed it. But now that he was looking, it was blatantly obvious.
And yet, they had a soft, amused smile the whole time. They followed Alphys’ secret hand gesture instructions and got through the quiz without any real fuss or any injury.
Afterwards, they chatted with Alphys, got an upgrade to their phone, and looked around at the lab a little. Their eyes got a little misty when they saw the unopened pile of letters from the Amalgamates’ families, and they glanced at the door that led to the true lab.
Yeah, they knew, alright.
From there, they backtracked, actually. They called Papyrus, and all he could make out was that Papyrus sounded happy about something. They took the riverboat back to Waterfall and ran into Papyrus, at Undyne’s house. He got close enough and, courtesy Papyrus’s endless help with volume, was able to gather that Papyrus had a plan for how to make the human and Undyne become friends.
Well, he had some foreknowledge that it would work. He smiled and decided not to spy on them for this. It’d be hard, anyway. Besides, he knew they’d be running into Muffet soon, and that’d also be hard to spy on. However, unlike with the hangout with Undyne, it wasn’t a private get-together, but a battle. One in which Muffet apparently fed the human to her pet. And, more importantly, it was a battle against the one monster that the kid seemed to legitimately have a problem with.
That alone - he had to see if there was anything different. He worked on getting things ready for Muffet and kept checking back. After a while, he realized Undyne’s house was on fire and they looked like they were fighting outside. He groaned, wondering what he’d missed and what had gone wrong.
From the kid’s reaction, though… nothing had gone wrong? Was this actually what they considered success? They had a little mock fight with Undyne, a tender expression of appreciation on their face as they struck with their stick. They did wind up and pretend it was a real hit, but they weren't the best actor. It was so devoid of ill intent that it had no more impact than a stick falling from a tree.
Undyne went serious, in a notably different way than usual, with every trace of her hostility melting away. She acknowledged the kid as being a “wimpy loser with a big heart.” Sans couldn’t help but grin darkly at that, thinking about how the kid had dominated in their fight against her.
The kid was also grinning, but it was much more appreciative and gentle. Still, he thought he saw a glint of wicked amusement in their eyes.
Undyne said that she’d be staying over with Papyrus, on their couch. Sans sighed a little, thinking the kid could have warned him about that, but whatever, it was fine. After that, they parted ways, and the kid took the riverboat back to Hotland.
From there, they headed towards the Core. Not directly, since the elevators were partially disabled, and the traps were functioning. They got a lot of calls from Alphys and ran into Mettaton a bunch. A few times, he just popped into Grillby’s to watch things play out on screen, rather than trying to find a place on scene to spy from. It really was uncool of Mettaton and Alphys to do this to the human. Assuming they didn’t know it was a setup, or if they didn’t have the reset power, they’d be afraid for their life, possibly traumatized for life.
At least this way, they seemed fine with everything.
They had a funny encounter with the top two Royal Guards, too. He was initially wondering how they’d get past - unlike the dogs, RGs 1 and 2 were pretty committed to their work. Apparently, the trick was to get RG 02’s chestplate off and to get RG 01 to confess his love. He wondered how long it took for them to figure that out, grinning at the thought.
He wondered how many times they’d died, trying to spare these two. His grin faded.
It wasn’t really an intuitive solution. How committed had they been to peace, in that first timeline, to have no idea if any of this would even be possible to get through peacefully, and to still try that hard, despite being killed so much?
That first timeline, in which they started off so bad at combat that the incidental interactions of the monsters’ magic accidentally killed them?
He really sucked as a guardian. This encounter with the guards was after they’d met in Snowdin, but before the resort. And they’d have had to have learned this in their peaceful route. So the other Sans should have seen this… well, if he were paying attention. Either way, based on what they said about his comments at the resort, he’d apparently missed that they’d died at all, let alone the massive amount they'd endured.
Though, he supposed, the other Sans might have been more uncertain. Maybe he'd guessed they had died, and just been probing. A few months back, he had started to suspect that death wasn't going to help with the anomaly problem. Either way, he hadn’t done a good job at the “protect” part of his promise.
At least he was good at the “watching over them” part of his promise.
In this timeline, anyway…
When they went by his hotdog stand, he had to go and pretend to be working. They played along, a perfect audience. They bought some hotdogs and tried to buy more than they could carry. There was a twinkle in their eye that he pretended not to notice, as he started stacking hotdogs on their head. They kept asking for more hotdogs until he put nearly thirty on their head, having to use spatial powers to keep it going.
It was great. They could barely keep in their laughter enough for the hotdogs not to fall, even with his magic stabilizing the effort, but they made a valiant effort. As they stepped away, all the hotdogs went flying, and they were both laughing hard. Took them a minute to recover, say farewell, and continue on their way.
Eventually, they made their way to Muffet. It was really hard to get a good view. At least he knew they were going there in advance, so he could make sure things were ready ahead of time. He was pretty sure he’d have given up on it in the original timeline.
During the kid's hangout with Undyne he'd bugged Alphys to help out, and they had snuck in some cameras and mics. They had to be incredibly small and well camouflaged to escape the spiders’ notice, but they managed. Did make for some grainy feed, but whatever.
Alphys was wondering why he was so sure there’d be something interesting with the spiders, and he managed to successfully deflect her. She might’ve still been suspicious, though. He distracted her by asking her about the story of the King’s son.
The kid was right. The story of Asriel Dreemur and the first human child was a sad one. He wondered what the “dark undercurrents” were - the human had mentioned Asriel’s story got dark and that Alphys knew some of those parts, but Alphys didn’t volunteer them. He could tell she was holding back uncomfortably as she told the tale. Must be pretty messed up - the story was dark enough as is, and Alphys didn’t tend to withhold details about interesting stories. Even so, it did put things into context for him, regarding Asgore’s motives.
After that, they settled in to watch. With more ‘dogs and ketchup.
The human went in with a significantly different expression on their face than usual. The gentle, tender peace and patience had been replaced with a resolute expression with an undercurrent of annoyance. He squinted at the TV and complained about the quality of the image. Was that… hate in their eyes, maybe? He couldn’t quite tell, between hate, bitterness, exasperation, annoyance… there was definitely hostility of some kind, though.
They had said they weren’t impressed by Muffet during their murdery timeline, so that added up. It made him feel a little better, too, actually. Every piece of the story that added up was evidence of their honesty. And the fact that their face was revealing everything, even the “bad” stuff, helped him trust them more.
They walked into the middle of the web and Muffet emerged from the shadows, immediately giggling about the idea of eating them. The fight began, and she bound them in purple magic and webbing both, constraining their motion.
A wicked gleam flashed in their eyes and his heart clenched a little with nervousness as they actually drew their little stick. Were they going to attack, after all? They’d passed up everything usable as a weapon - the stick was almost harmless, all told.
They spun and danced within the spiders’ web as they positioned themselves, but then they did strike… sort of. Lunging with a look on their face that twisted Sans’ gut, they lashed out with a sharp-edged intent that he could almost feel through the camera feed. Alphys looked nervous, too.
But, right at the last instant, they shifted their grip on the stick so that it lay flat against their arm, and were thus just out of range for a strike to land. It was a beautiful, perfect strike that looked like it would have been dangerous, had they not pulled the stick back at the last moment.
“You’re not the only one who can play in dangerous ways,” they taunted with a wicked grin.
And Muffet did something that Sans regularly found annoying. On being presented with significant and dangerous information about something she was doing… Muffet didn’t seem to notice. She was so caught up in her own arrogant, self-centered grandiose thinking that she seemed utterly oblivious to what had just happened. To the danger that had flashed bare inches from her flesh.
Sans was pretty sure that, without the wall of LOVE that they’d developed in the murdery timeline, as well as not having a decent weapon, there was basically no chance the kid would have actually killed Muffet in a single strike, even if it did land. Plus, he was pretty sure they didn’t actually want to kill her this time, which would have also kept the strike from being all that bad.
But they sure as hell remembered what it felt like, to actually want to kill her, to have that LOVE around their soul, to strike with murderous intent.
It was the first time he got any real sense at all at what that alternate Sans would have seen. A shudder ran along his spine as he imagined watching this kid… and every fight was like that. Not just the elegant dancing away from attacks that he’d seen all this time, but paired with a murderous edge so sharp it felt like it could cut him through the screen. One that refined and grew worse as the day progressed, as they learned and grew.
He glanced at Alphys. She wasn’t nearly so observant - really, though, who was? - and while the attack had initially scared her, it looked like she’d taken it as the kid had stated; like it was just playing around.
Yeah, that was not playing.
It wasn’t like he’d been doubting the kid, but he definitely… uh… was more absolutely convinced. Really deep down. He didn’t just believe them. In seeing this… he knew it was absolutely true. The two images that he couldn’t reconcile before? No longer a problem. He felt like he’d gotten a real, actual glimpse at the abomination they’d become, even if they remained utterly and absolutely committed to peace.
The fight continued, and the kid was clearly very familiar with the attacks, though less so than they were with Undyne. They seemed so prescient he would have sworn that no one else could have missed that they had foreknowledge, if it weren’t for the fact that no one else just ever came to that conclusion, no matter the evidence.
“The human is really good at this, aren’t they?” Alphys said. “I wonder if all humans are that good at fighting. It’s almost kinda scary, isn’t it?”
“nah, i’m pretty sure the kid’s just got a knack for it,” he said with feigned casualness. “maybe they were a dancer or something.”
They’d be bringing Alphys into the conspiracy eventually, but best not to risk derailing the timeline. He wouldn’t have told Alphys anything in the first timeline, so he wouldn’t now.
Though… he wouldn’t have had Alphys watch this, either, come to think of it. Well, hopefully it didn’t mess anything up. If they had to do a reset and it was his fault, he’d be really annoyed.
Still, he was glad he’d managed to see this. That glimpse told him so much.
Including that the kid was still, could still be, dangerous.
But, just as importantly, that even when they wanted to kill, they chose peace.
Because the look on their face as they were dangled again over Muffet’s pet’s mouth, they clearly wanted to kill her.
During this cruel game of attempted murder by Muffet, she monologued and revealed that she’d been paid off to kill them, and been paid off well. She was mostly talking about how much the money mattered to her. In the end, she got a telegram from the spiders in the Ruins, saying that the kid had purchased a donut and hadn’t attacked any spiders. With that, Muffet apologized for the mixup and let them go.
And apparently would have let them go for that, even if they’d killed every other monster on the way here. And she also would have talked about murdering and eating Alphys for trying to evacuate everyone.
Yeah, he could understand why the kid was resentful about that.
Normally, the kid was nice and friendly with everyone, but after Muffet let them go, they just left. As they did, Alphys stammered about how she abruptly had to do something, and he let her go. Looked like a special broadcast was going on with Mettaton, so he figured he knew what was up. Back to Grillby’s!
He watched a silly little opera scene, and the kid actually danced along, matching Mettaton’s movements as he sang. They sang the song, too, echoing it back to him, but switching up the pronouns to themself. Like, he sang to them about how the monster king forbids their stay, so they sang, “Monster King forbids my stay.”
Not the best singing voice, but still a charming little production. Also could barely hear them, since they weren’t given a mic. But it was still cute.
They were sent to the “dungeon” afterwards and had to complete the tile puzzle that Papyrus had tried to set up. Interestingly, this was the only puzzle they seemed to honestly have no idea what to do. They clearly knew what the tiles did, but didn’t seem to remember the layout at all.
He figured that was because they were on a time limit, and also, it never once killed them. They’d probably only been here once before, in that first timeline.
Their completely relaxed attitude about it, even as a wall of fire closed in on them, added to that conclusion.
Doctor Alphys saved the day, and he had to admit, it looked especially contrived this time. She’d apparently added a function to their phone that let them draw on the power of their soul to make flashy little attacks. It was a bright, yellow magic that encased them, and that enabled them to “win” against Mettaton.
After that… well, that was it, wasn’t it? They were basically at the resort now.