Well. It was official.
Sans fell asleep on guard duty.
His fault. Sure, he always felt tired, but he knew better than to catch a nap when he was supposed to be looking out for humans. Not that he cared about catching a human, because the chance he'd actually see one were slim to nil, but he definitely cared about the way it made his brother look when it came time for post inspections.
If Sans dozed off, it looked like Papyrus couldn't keep his underlings in line. And if Paps couldn't do that, then of course he just wasn't strong enough to do so. Which was bad. Because in a world of kill or be killed, being weak got you dusted.
The harder Sans worked, the less chance someone would take a potshot at Papyrus. That was just how things ended up. Papyrus might lecture too much, might be a little too obsessed with humans, but he was still Sans' brother. They looked out for each other.
"yeah, that's my boss. ain't he cool?" He'd grind out to some uppity dog, his only eye blazing red in its socket. "he'd dust you without thinkin' twice. mebbe you oughta back off, jus' sayin'."
In return, Papyrus would take the heat off of him, best he could. Sans still had to work to be intimidating, still had to try to even care, but it wasn't crushing when his bro could just stalk in and fire a precise three bones, screeching, "SANS, YOU LAZYBONES. YOUR DEATHTRAPS ARE PITIFULLY SUBSTANDARD! IF I FIND YOU'VE BEEN DELAYED BY ANOTHER MONSTER-"
It was strange to have real allies down here. Everyone operated by looking after themselves in New Home. Maybe that was why Sans and Paps actually had a house instead of a hovel or a hotel room- two boneheads were better than one.
Of course, it wasn't without its risks. Had to keep up appearances, never got to really sleep, the mustard was substandard. It was exhausting. Incredibly, ridiculously exhausting. Training on top of that was impossible. Maybe he shouldn't have actually tried, but giving up hadn't seemed like an option when Paps was going at it for hours before Sans had even started. It just made him feel... bad. Not good. It made his hands shake and his brow sweat, because Paps was under the same pressure Sans was and yet he could do this while Sans didn't even want to try. What did that make him? A quitter? What would happen if he just stopped, just quit trying?
The more Sans had thought about it, the sweatier he had got, the faster his soul had felt like it was beating out of his chest. There was something ugly and raw that he hated inside himself, and not trying made it worse. Even if some days, he wanted to give up. So every day, he tried. Even if it was tying his shoes, or not falling asleep during sentry duty, or actually pulling his weight and working his shifts at the Hot Cat stand down in Hotland instead of trying to cheat his way through the day.
But today, one of his 'don't fall asleep' days, he'd passed out. Because yesterday when Paps had offered to train with him, that tight feeling in his chest and that feeling of terror when contemplating saying no hadn't let him refuse. Souls, he was tired after grinding EXP. And it had been so quiet, snow muffling everything. No humans, no monsters, just pine trees and freshly fallen artificial precipitation.
Sans had fallen asleep.
That feeling of failure permeated the air around him as soon as he woke up. Sans knew what had happened, had to resist the urge to drag his claws down his skull. His breathing was wheezy until he snarled and got up, looking around. There wasn't any use in crying over spilt monster candy, not when someone could have seen him while he was asleep. His left hand crawled up, tracing the crack along his skull, wiping new sweat away. Souls, this again? This was bullshit. So he fucked up. That didn't mean he had to fall to pieces.
Sans' breathing didn't get any easier. There was just a sense of fear and anger that made breathing hard and sweating easy.
Sans didn't see much. It was still snowing, collecting on his parka and covering any evidence a monster had been here at all. Sans almost thought that maybe he'd been paranoid. Maybe karma had liked Sans just this once, decided to give him a break because he needed the sleep.
And then he noticed that some of the footprints on the ground he'd assumed were his own weren't.
They were the same size and shape, but while Sans' sneakers left marks in the snow from his spiked cleats, there was another line of prints with horizontal lines across the foot and heel. Like hiking boots.
Shit.
Shit, fuck, shitfuck. Damn.
Sans had to find whoever saw him slacking off. If they hadn't dusted him while he was sleeping (another reason not to sleep during duty) they'd definitely go after his brother, Papyrus.
Shaking the snow off, Sans followed the prints. His ever-active magic eye could tell whoever had seen him had had low LV, but pretty decent magic. Probably Sans' size and weight, too. Judging by the lack of disturbance in the tracks, no fur. No fire, either. What kind of monster was this? Could've been Alphys, but she didn't leave her lab anymore. Too dangerous, lotta risk of getting dusted.
Sans kept following the tracks, occasionally taking a shortcut when there was a stretch of snow or a gap he couldn't pass because nobody had repaired the outer Snowdin bridges. Pretty soon he was near his brother's human traps, or what other members of the guard called 'Deathtrap Mountain'.
It was literally a mountain of traps. Spiked balls, mousetraps, flamethrowers, dogs tied to beartraps that said 'FREE DOG' on them. All stuff that Paps assumed would both entice a human and dust them so that Papyrus could collect the soul and finally become captain of the guard.
Only DTMN wasn't looking so death-trap anymore. Someone had thoughtfully capped all of the flamethrowers, tied up the bear traps, freed the dogs, and put little corks on all the spikes of the spiked balls. The mousetraps were simply in a little stack on the ground.
And the tracks ended here.
"what," Sans asked aloud, with a sizable pause in the middle, "the fuck."
Was someone actually pulling a prank on Papyrus? Had they seen Sans sleeping and decided that Papyrus wouldn't come after them if they pulled a joke because he hadn't come after his brother for not doing his job?
...not doing his job.
Shitfuck!
Sans felt a bead of sweat gathering. Nope. Shit, he just abandoned his post. Didn't even know what time it was. He had other shifts to think about. Couldn't exactly abandon his job in a world where people dusted you for not trying-
Sans spun on one heel. Nope. Ha, ha. Can't deal with this. Sans had to get back to his post and his job. It was all he could handle before something in him gave out. No extracurriculars for this skeleton. It wasn't school to ditch your seat.
...man, did Sans say that one out loud?
"THAT WAS TERRIBLE!"
OH, SOULS!
Immediately, bones erupted from the ground, Sans' eye blazing like fire as he instinctively grabbed for a soul with blue magic and tried to forcibly combine the two.
"EXCUSE YOU!" The same voice reprimanded him, suddenly gone from where it had been. Sans looked around, turning his head so he could see everything with his one eye-
...someone had to be messing with him.
"DID I STARTLE YOU? I DIDN'T MEAN TO, OF COURSE, BUT THE AMAZING AND BOLD SANS SOMETIMES FRIGHTENS MONSTERS WITH HIS MERE PRESENCE," A skeleton rattled at him, dressed in some kind of... sentai suit? With blue boots and a blue bandana tied around the skeleton's neck. "I WANTED TO APPROACH YOU SOONER, BUT YOU WERE SLEEPING HARD. AND MOST SANS DON'T APPRECIATE BEING WOKEN UP."
It was a clone. There was a pudgy, smiling, friendly clone standing right there in front of him, holding out a gloved hand for Sans to shake.
"SO I DECIDED TO WAIT. DID MY USUAL FIVE MILE MORNING JOG, AND THEN I SAW THIS MESS AND THOUGHT I COULD HELP CLEAN IT UP. HELLO! I'M SANS, SANS THE SKELETON," the clone said, his grin ever-present. Unlike Sans' (the original, not the happy blue faker) teeth, this guy's were straight. It made him look even more harmless. "AND I THINK I TOOK A WRONG TURN AT THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM. DO YOU KNOW THIS UNIVERSE'S IDENTIFICATION NUMBER?"
Sans replied in the sanest way any monster could when confronted with a happy, active version of themselves that seemed to shout instead of talking. In his mind, it was very reasonable to do what he did. Sans had to find Paps and let him know about new monsters appearing out of nowhere.
"...fuck this shit, i'm out."
He took a shortcut and left the little blue freak in the woods for someone else to dust.
AN: Possibly a oneshot? It depends if I figure out how this plot bunny would even work out.