Sans shifted in his chair, taking in the human’s cheerful expression. It’d been an intense conversation so far, as they’d walked him through their journey in their first timeline.
It was supposed to be about the development of their feelings for him, of their relationship with him, which he had… complicated feelings about. It was hard not to feel for them - to feel connected and drawn in. And he wasn’t trying to pull away, exactly. Even so. A whole mess of feelings on the matter - he wasn’t exactly upset about what they’d done, but it was concerning, especially since he didn’t know them that well.
He’d love to have a solid amount of time to chew on all of the revelations, but instead, the kid would be breaking the barrier shortly and he’d be living on the surface, dealing with a whole mess of things. Good things, sure, but it was going to be a busy day.
In the meantime, it was time to hear about the extra details he’d asked for - all the leadup to destroying the barrier.
“So!” the human began, their tone bright. “I tried really, really hard against Asgore. He was the nicest about it, about trying to kill me, of any monster I’d faced. He obviously didn’t want to kill me. And I didn’t want to kill him either.
“I tried everything, Sans. I really did. I just couldn’t persuade him. I got to the point of getting really good at dodging his attacks, but he still kept killing me because I just could not get him to stop. I had no idea what else to do, what else to try. I’d found things I could say that would weaken him, that would soften his strikes, but I couldn’t make him stop trying to kill me.”
They sighed.
“I had no idea what to do,” they admitted. “But then, I remembered. Toriel, Undyne… as they’d died, they had time to say some things. I learned from both of them in their last moments. And, it maybe sounds bad, but it occurred to me… maybe I could try attacking him. Maybe he’d give up when he was almost dead, or maybe he’d reveal something when he died that I could use, something. I wouldn’t keep him dead, but I had no idea what else to try.”
Sans nodded at that. He couldn’t blame them for that, either. From his perspective, Asgore made it morally acceptable to kill him permanently, even if it wasn’t ideal - temporarily killing him as a desperate tactic to find a better way was downright saintly, compared to the two alternatives.
“So I attacked him, and wore him down,” they said. “And in the end, he did collapse before his death, and said he couldn’t take it anymore. Asked me to kill him and just go home, and let this be over. And I refused, because of course I refused to kill him, I was so glad he’d stopped trying to kill me! Kinda ridiculous I had to beat him within an inch of his life to get him to stop, but whatever. He started talking about how he’d adopt me, and we could be a family and it was so sweet…”
They sighed.
“And then Flowey pops up, murders him, and mocks me as he takes all the human souls that Asgore had prepared, absorbed them all, and attacked me with a power of an effective god.”
“... that was abrupt,” Sans said.
“I agree,” they said emphatically. “I cannot begin to tell you how pissed I was at Flowey. I’d finally found an answer I could be happy with, even if it wasn’t completely ideal, and that stupid asshole…”
Anger flashed in their eyes and Sans couldn’t help but grin. It’d be less funny if he didn’t know it turned out alright.
“you mentioned he killed you an insane number of times,” Sans said. “that you expected it to happen again, in this timeline.”
“Yep,” they said. “It’s… complicated, but Flowey normally remembers resets, but um… he doesn’t remember this. I guess I’ll mention why in a bit. But anyway, yeah, he was able to take over the save and reload power, he said he destroyed my ‘save file,’ he called it - the ability to go back to a chosen point. Though I think what happened is that he gained the ability to have multiple save files, and just broke my connection to it. He blocked me from resetting the timeline.
“But, for some reason, he couldn’t stop me from existing. No matter how many times he killed me, I’d just come back. I knew - somehow, deep in my bones, that if I accepted my death, he’d take my soul and that’d be that. But, like with Undyne…”
“someone might get your soul at some point, but it wouldn’t be that asshole,” Sans finished with an amused grin.
“You got it,” they said, laughing. “By that point, I’d gotten pretty used to pain and death, and I was kinda running on anger. Murdering Asgore like that… I was so pissed, Sans, I cannot even begin to express it.”
He nodded, feeling a sense of satisfaction just from hearing this story. Again, it really helped that he knew it turned out well.
“Long story short, I was able to reach out to the other human souls, who did not like being used like that, and they turned on him,” they said.
That was very interesting. It was dangerous to use lots of human souls at once, because of the issue of souls refusing to be controlled, but a living human influencing them? He wondered what made that possible. It usually took a while before souls went wild - even without any special training, it was generally close to half an hour. He wondered if those souls also “remembered” the resets, and how the timeline power interacted with them.
That'd be an interesting thing to study, but wasn't even slightly practical to try to set up.
“Long, ludicrously violent story short, by the way. It was a whole thing. I legitimately have no idea how many times I died. Especially since he knew I, like him, could remember the resets, so after a while, he just started loading right as I started to die so he could kill me again faster.”
“... that’s torture,” Sans said. “even if you’d given up…”
“Pretty confident if I said I gave up, he’d have let me die,” they said, shrugging. “Didn’t matter, because fuck that guy.”
Sans had to agree. No wonder they’d warned him about Flowey. He suddenly frowned.
“it’d be a really bad thing if he overheard any of this, wouldn’t it?” Sans said uneasily. He didn’t notice anything, but…
They laughed.
“That’s probably true,” they said. “But I don’t think that’s an issue. He revealed, at one point, that he has issues with you. Insulted you, said you’d caused him more than his fair share of resets, and that he doesn’t like to be anywhere near you.”
Sans grinned darkly at that, and they matched him.
“So, after he was betrayed by the souls he was controlling, he lost all the power and was a flower again. But weak, broken, and helpless before me. And I realized I could easily kill him.”
“did you?” Sans asked, honestly unsure.
“I seriously thought about it,” they said, their eyes hard. “And I realized I had basically two options before me. I could just accept things the way they were, and not reload. If I was going to do that, then yeah, killing him made sense. And frankly, as much as I wanted to kill him, that’s what I’d do, if I accepted that path.
“On the other hand, if I was going to reload… then killing him didn’t make sense. It wouldn't mean anything. He’d come back, and more importantly, he’d remember. And if he was going to remember, then I’d want him to remember mercy. Because I needed to try to find some sort of peace - between the power he had, even as just a flower, and the ability to remember across resets? That’s dangerous. And it’s not like I had any idea of how to solve things myself. He might be able to help, and mercy was the only path forward that I could see.”
They smiled.
“I chose hope,” they said. “Hope for a brighter future. Flowey was nasty as hell as I spared him, but it mostly turned out that he was struggling with the concept of me being nice and eventually ran away in his confusion.”
“maybe he was kinda like you, not taking death seriously?” he asked.
“That makes a lot of sense,” they said, looking amused. “I was too riled up to think of it that way - he was probably confident I was going to reload, and just wanted to force me to agree with his stupid-ass motto, of ‘kill or be killed.’ Without any real risk of a true death.”
Sans nodded.
“Especially since he was trying to provoke me into killing him…” they mused thoughtfully. “Yeah, Sans, you nailed that one.”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
He chuckled at that.
“Anyway, after that, it got weird. I don’t know where I was. My best guess is I was caught in some sort of void, something to do with the backlash of the situation with Flowey. I could have reloaded, but I wanted to figure out what was going on, first.
“Then I got a call from you. A voicemail. My best guess is that I was dead, but my soul was bound to Flowey in some weird way, and he could communicate with me, and had decided to share this message. And for some reason, I was still aware and stuff - probably relating to the metric ton of magic that had been flying around - so I didn’t just automatically reload, since my consciousness was still kicking around. But I could feel it, I still had the power, so even though I was confused, I wasn’t afraid.”
Sans had no idea what to make of that. But then, it sounded like the kid didn’t, either.
“Anyway,” they said. “You told me about how things were in my absence. About a Snowman that was happy with me, because I’d brought the Snowpiece so far. About all sorts of things. Like, Toriel reclaimed her place as queen, and all of the human souls had disappeared. Papyrus noticed you were leaving a message and joined in, too. And Undyne joined in, and just hearing about everything… It was a whole thing, and was so sweet. I felt like I was missed, and loved, and that you hoped I was okay, wherever I was.”
He nodded again.
“Not just you, but everyone,” they said. “I felt… really sad about how things went. And still had no idea where I was. And then Flowey appeared within the void, as soon as your voicemail was over, talking to me. He seemed much more mellow and real with me than he’d ever been. He said he had an idea of how to get a better ending. I was suspicious, of course, but I listened. He said he thought that getting to know Alphys better might be the key to my happiness.
“He started to leave then, but I got him to stay a little longer. I tried to get him talking. He talked a little about Papyrus - joking that my interest in him was about me wanting to make a Flowey Fan Club, but Papyrus had already done that. Then, about how much fun Papyrus is to mess with. That’s when he mentioned you. Called you ‘Smiley Trashbag,’ and said I needed to keep away from you, that you were dangerous, because you’d caused him so many resets.”
They grinned again, wicked delight flashing in their eyes. Sans couldn’t help but match them.
“It entertained the hell out of me, him warning me about the one person I trusted more than anyone else in the world. But it didn’t matter, really, if he was telling the truth or not. I mean, I figured he was telling the truth about you, but I mean about the happy ending. Even with the six souls, he couldn’t stop me from existing, so my confidence was rock solid. I was willing to try, and it didn’t matter if he betrayed me, because I still wouldn’t give up.”
Sans nodded at that. The fearless immortal had arrived in full.
“Long story short,” they said. “He got Papyrus to get Undyne to give Alphys a letter, dragging me in as the one to send it, and this was a series of dominos that got Alphys to admit to what she’d done, inviting us in to see the true lab. I can only imagine how many resets were involved in learning about that chain, and in such a way that he thought it’d still work even with my being involved… but that’s beside the point. I went down, learned a shit ton. About determination, about the amalgamates, about Flowey’s origin-”
“wait, his origin?” Sans asked, not wanting to skip their insights on this point.
“Yeah, he was the flower vessel that Alphys was doing experiments on, and he gained - or regained - awareness when he rejoined with the dust of the fallen prince, Asriel, from Asgore’s garden, when she returned him there,” they said casually.
“... right then,” Sans said, reeling a little.
He was glad that he'd stopped them. He knew about the flower, but not about the connection with Asriel. What the hell was that all about?
“You should really ask about Asriel’s history,” they encouraged. “I bet Alphys knows it. I can take a nap in the hotel while you guys chat, if you want.”
“uh, actually, i talked to alphys about it while we were waiting for you to get to muffet.”
“Oh, cool. So she watched the fight, too? Hopefully it was fun to watch,” they said with a grin.
“you definitely know how to handle being dangled in a web,” he said.
“Ha! Yeah I do,” they agreed, looking smug. “So yeah, I learned a lot. Chara poked out, too, during that time. I bet they also did when I killed Undyne and when I considered killing Flowey, but I was… kinda in tune with them, if you will, so I didn’t notice. That’s my guess, anyway. But this time, I was face to face with horror and wasn’t feeling it, so I really noticed Chara then.”
He was still curious about the whole Asriel thing, but he was also curious about this… whatever, he could ask questions later.
“Anyway, long story. Went back to Asgore, Flowey blocked me from leaving New Home so I had nowhere else to go, and it turned out, Flowey had managed to lure everyone I cared about there. You, Papyrus, Toriel, Alphys, Undyne. A few others, too, like Mettaton. Flowey grabbed the six human souls that Asgore had prepared while we were distracted, and instead of using that power to focus on me, captured all of you. He tormented me a little bit, but you guys were breaking free, trying to protect me, and it was so sweet.”
They grinned warmly at him, but he was reeling again.
“Then he absorbed all of the monster souls in the entire underground, and kinda became an even more ridiculously powerful god-like being. Since, you know, he had the equivalent of seven human souls, so waaaay more than the first version of him. Killed me again, but it was a strange place - hopes shielded me, dreams healed me, and my soul refused to die. More absolutely than usual. I didn’t come back - I just wouldn’t die. He bound me increasingly aggressively, but I just… didn’t care. As long as I refused to give up…”
They shrugged.
“He said that every time I died, you guys forgot me a little more. Eventually, I would die alone and unloved. Which would suck. But also, fuck him, you know?”
Sans nodded in full agreement to that.
“Didn’t matter if you all forgot me. If I forgot everyone. I wasn’t going to fucking quit. Eventually I pushed him to use his power more, and he bound me hard. I couldn’t fight, couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t reach my powers, my save file. I was helpless. But I realized, there was still one thing I was connected to… something else I could save.”
Their smile turned softer.
“I could reach out to your souls inside of him,” they said. “None of you remembered me, but you spoke… and revealed some of your deeper truths. From you, you said things like, ‘just give up. I did.’ And how you could never go back home, and everything was pointless.”
They paused for a moment and Sans nodded. He tried not to ever say stuff like that out loud, but… well, it wasn’t exactly unlike him.
“Long story short - I’m trying, not saying I’m doing a great job - I was able to reach through his soul, connect with all of you, get you to remember, and then was able to connect with his soul, too.”
“flowey’s?” Sans asked.
They hesitated.
“Sort of…” they said uncertainly, but then their expression firmed. “No. He’d started to regain himself. He was Asriel Dreemur again. I’ll explain more, later. That’s really a whole thing. But the point is, when I helped him remember himself, it all came back - his emotions, everything. Then he was great. With his help, everyone was restored, the barrier was broken, and things went great. Except for him - he had to give up his ability to love, to care, to feel, and go back to being Flowey again, with full knowledge of what he’d lost.
“But… but outside of that, Sans, it was wonderful. Toriel made a school, Papyrus got his car, you messed with him… everything was great.”
They sighed.
“And I spoke to you, and to Alphys. About my concerns, about my worries. Alphys was sure there wasn’t a problem and I should just be happy with what we had.
“You weren’t sure. We talked at length about all sorts of things. And when I came up with… with that idea… you thought the idea of murdering everyone was really not a good one. You were really concerned that it would destroy me. You also didn’t really like the idea of Chara messing with my mind, or everything resetting when I died of old age, either, so you were more torn.”
So they had decided to talk to him and Alphys first. They had tried to do things the right way. He suppressed a sigh. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to enjoy where this was going, even beyond what he already knew.
“You decided I should just give it time, see how I felt about things as time went on. You were so sure that trying to draw out Chara, whether or not it worked, would destroy me, that I’d lose myself. I really didn’t think so.
“You said I was risking everyone, risking destroying everything, if I did it. I said, only if I went too far, only if I lost myself. And that I was also risking everyone, risking destroying everything, by refusing to find out more.
“You said that that was a reasonable conclusion, but if both paths risked destroying everything, then maybe not taking the one that might destroy me makes the most sense. That it’s better to take the path with the least sacrifice and loss.”
Sans was really in agreement with his other self, here, even if privately he knew he would do the same if he felt there was a good reason.
“We talked about odds, but you didn’t tell me about your reports, about the nature of the timeline, even that you had an idea of what my power really was. You were really tight lipped about that sort of thing - about anything about your past, really. You said it was risky, but refused to clarify how or why, or how great the risk was. Or that you had an idea of what was at risk.
“And… I was afraid. Of the spirit in my mind, of what might happen. Of getting further from the time I fell into the underground, because that meant a larger chunk of time that’d be lost if I reset. I tried to give it time, but my fears and anxieties grew worse and worse.
“In the end, I told you what I’d decided. You didn’t agree, but… you gave me a hug. You said you knew you couldn’t stop me, that no one could, that you wanted me to choose otherwise, but that you believed in me. You told me not to go too far. Not to lose myself. Not to forget what mattered. Not to forget you. To stop as soon as I’d found out anything. You looked so resigned, so sad, so… lost. I felt like I’d betrayed you, but I swore to you that I’d fix everything. That it’d be okay, that it will have never happened.”
Their face fell.
The other Sans had really tried to stop them. Violence wouldn’t have helped. If reasons, and entreaties, and friendship weren’t enough… he could see how he’d have felt hurt and lost enough to maybe not try as hard as he could. To just give up and accept the inevitable. Especially since their reasoning wasn't completely bunk - he'd have been uncertain what was best.
“You tried to wish me good luck, but your voice broke, and you looked like… almost like you were trying not to cry,” they said, their voice tight. “I couldn’t stand the look on your face, I couldn’t handle it. I ran away. Not in body, but in spirit. I pushed and I found myself back where I fell. Or, I tried, rather.”
They took a shaky breath.
“Flowey greeted me, in a void between times. He was resisting my attempt to reset, and so met me within the domain of the power - at least, that’s what I think happened. He tried to ask me not to reset, too,” they said hoarsely. “That he couldn’t handle losing everything. I could have let things go back, could have returned to my last save point, right before that last conversation with you. Or, if I chose to reset… he asked me to erase his memories, too. He couldn’t handle remembering regaining emotions, regaining love, and being the hero who broke the barrier, only to have it all torn away.
“I was… kind of emotionally overwhelmed, and I pushed, I just couldn’t handle… and he was so sad, too, and I felt his power touch mine, and… that was it. It was absolute. I had gone back to the beginning.”