Sans sighed. Today was a beautiful day. Birds were singing, flowers were blooming. On days like this, people like him...well, they stood their watch.
Fourteen RESETs. That was how many times this merry little hell had played over and over. Fourteen RESETs since he'd last seen Frisk...or Chara. Fourteen RESETs since the change.
The first three, the kid hadn't even made it out of the Ruins. He'd woken up, and was halfway out of bed-
He woke up. He made it as far as breakfast that second time, glass of ketchup halfway to his skull-
He woke up. This time, he'd gotten halfway to his sentry station when-
He woke up. Three very short RESETs had passed before the Ruins door opened, and he saw what had changed.
It was a teenager, some boy who'd clearly found it easier to type at a computer than speak to someone face to face. Face pale, but flushed with the cold of Snowdin. About as tall as Doggo, which meant taller than him. His hair was hidden under vaguely hat-shaped blob of wool, and his clothes were in the kinds of dark shades that spoke of sarcasm and cynicism. His eyes...were hard. Not with LOVE, hell no. Hard with pain, and the distrust of everything in a world where you'd finally realised hardly anyone could keep up, and hated that you were smarter than them.
He'd done the whole whoopie cushion bit, just to test the waters - and man, did that kid have an eyebrow that could knock the socks of any politician you'd care to name. He'd figured the kid was harmless enough; he'd hid in his station while Papyrus did the whole 'RESET YOUR PUZZLES' bit. He'd shrugged at the suggestion that he give Papyrus something to get excited over. Things were looking up. He'd left the kid to deal with Doggo on his own. After an hour, he went to check on the kiddo.
Doggo was shaking with fear when Sans arrived. He knew, as a sentry, his job was to detain any human long enough for a Royal Guard to get over there. He'd messed up. The kid had come out of nowhere, and Doggo had just gotten off break, and he overreacted. Sans stared down at the corpse in the snow. Sans bent to check the kid's pockets, hoping for some kind of an explanation. He heard a sob, his head snapped up...
He woke up. Halfway down the stairs, and-
He woke up. Walking past the Gyftmas tree, and-
He woke up. Sliding past his brother's drop off puzzle, and-
He woke up. The kid made it out of the Ruins this time. Sans was actually watching him come up the path when a bloody tree branch cracked and broke their head.
He woke up on number nine, and screamed into his pillow. Stupid fucking tree, stupid fucking RESETs. He sighed, and got up.
The kid made it past Doggo this time. Seemed to find Papyrus amusing, although not like a bully - more like a fond granddad out for a day at the park. Sans felt slightly miffed at that, but oh well. Better than the alternative. Progress happened, and he was standing just beyond Greater Dog's station, asleep on his feet, when he heard the scream.
He looked over and saw the FIGHT end in the distance - how had he managed to sleep through that? The kid collapsed, his SOUL...purple. That wasn't right, that wasn't the color it was supposed to be, and it looked far too small, barely bigger than a monster's. Greater Dog looked so guilty, so ashamed - but he hadn't been the one to scream.
A young human ran out of the woods, one foot dragging behind them. Their clothes were tattered, a bloody bandage tied across their left eye. He couldn't tell what gender they were, if any. Their hair was short, their skin chapped in the cold, cheekbones almost as prominent as his brothers. They ran towards the fallen child...he woke up.
He caught glimpses of the other human, the next two runs. One death when Undyne showed up for a 'surprise' inspection, another to Mad Dummy, of all people. The human's injuries just seemed to get worse, and it scared him how thin they were - he'd noticed signs of malnourishment in the boy, but nothing nearly this bad. He woke up.
Twelve RESETs in, and he hadn't even learned their names. He scolded himself - why did he care? The next RESET, and Frisk might be back - or Chara. But, sure enough, the boy in black walked out of the Ruins door. He looked...thoughtful. It was the expression of someone remembering their own death. He began to sweat.
No reaction to the whoopee cushion this time. No reaction to his brother. No one died, either, so that was a plus. The kid seemed...resigned. He barely put in the effort to walk through the snow. Made it through Snowdin, past Mad Dummy, almost to Undyne. He remembered something from a long time ago - too many RESETs to count. He grabbed the kid's shoulder, "hey, kiddo, what d'ya say to a bite at grillby's?"
The kid seemed to warm up at the fries on his plate. The way he dug into the salty potatoes made Sans cringe. This was a kid who'd lived a good life before something went wrong, "so, kiddo, mind if i ask you a few questions?" The eyebrow rose, then a shrug. He wondered where to begin.
"so, you got a name, kiddo?" The kid's wary expression spoke volumes, "nevermind. don't have to tell this lazybones. just thought it might be nice to know someone cares," a wince. He suddenly knew what to ask, and it filled him with DETERMINATION, "listen, kid, you ever heard of a talking flower?" Everything went black, and he opened his eyes.
Sans shook. Why? The boy had been fine, they'd been sitting in Grillby's with some gorgeous fries. He sat up...and stared at his brother, fast asleep in the corner of his room, a half-completed crossword sprawled across his desk.
"hey, bro, whatcha doing in here? thought you hated this messy old place of mine," Papyrus started awake, quickly looking around the room before his sockets settled on Sans.
"BROTHER, YOU ARE AWAKE!"
"um, yeah, bro. i'm not a total lazybones, you know."
"YOU WERE VERY ILL," The bottom dropped out of his stomach. No, no no no, "YOU WERE ASLEEP FOR THREE DAYS! I HAVE TRYING TO TAKE CARE OF YOU, BUT YOU WOULD NOT WAKE UP. UNDYNE HAS BEEN VISITING WITH SOMETHING SHE CALLS 'SOUP'."
He'd been sleeping...for three days? That wasn't possible, that - "bro, what day is it?"
"BROTHER?"
"how long has it been since dogamy and dogessa's wedding?" Three days before the start of a RESET, about a two days into a RESET the last he remembered.
"IT HAS BEEN EIGHT DAYS, SANS. WHY DO YOU WISH TO KNOW - YOU HAVE BEEN ILL, BROTHER! DO NOT TRY TO-"
When he stepped out of his shortcut, the dummy in front of Undyne's house was busy mumbling to himself. He ran up to the front door, bones pounding on the lacquered teeth as loudly as he could. The door slid open, and a groggy fishlady stood before him, "Sans, what..?"
"when was the last time you saw the human?" She blinked at him.
"Two minutes ago, Ian's on Mettaton's quiz show right now. Why?"
He went to teleport, then paused, "ian?"
She scowled at him, "Yeah, that's the kid's name. Punk dragged you over to my place when you collapsed on him in Grillby's bar," she looked down at the ground, scuffing at the threshold with her booted foot, "He's not too bad, for a human. Holed up here the past two nights after he gave me a lesson in spaghetti preparation. First passable dish I've ever eaten where the house wasn't burned down in the process. Bit bland, though, but he wasn't much for the sauce. Insisted on going off to talk to Alphys about something earlier, couldn't understand half the things he said. You should give him a call, he seemed pretty worried about you."
Sans scowled. How the hell was the fishlady better at getting this kid to talk than he was? He pulled out his cell phone...he didn't have the kid's number. He looked up at her, and she seemed to get the message. She beckoned him in, then started rummaging around the back of the house, probably looking for her cellphone. He stared idly at the tv for a minute before it registered what he was watching.
The kid was struggling with one of Mettaton's curveball questions, obviously missing Alphys' frantic signals. The timer had almost run out, and the little purple heart was beaten up pretty bad. In the background of the show, Sans heard the front door of the lab slip open, "FOUND IT!" Undyne raced into the kitchen and stopped dead.
Sans prayed to whatever gods might be listening that his brother wasn't watching this show. Never would he forget the image of that kid...Ian...frying as that other child threw themselves at Mettaton. The robot's display was bashed in on the corner of the desk, and Alphys ran over to him as the kid cradled Ian's body in their arms. He saw a single tear glint as it fell from their face, and then they looked up into the camera.
The expression on their face...it was the expression of someone who'd watched someone they loved die twelve times in a row. He woke up.
The kid seemed subdued when he met them outside the Ruins door. He was more than half tempted to give the kid a hug, offer some advice...but then what? He'd never really figured out how to deal with the memories himself. How can you deal with the certain knowledge of what it feels like to die? You don't.
Doggo came and went. The Dogi came and went. Lesser Dog, Ice Cap, Snowy, Gyftrot - they all came and went. Snowdin came and…
His brother stood on the edge of town, a dark silhouette in the drifting snow. His spaghetti speech was the same as usual - someday, he promised, his brother would make a friend and remember it. Someday.
The FIGHT started up as usual, blue attack overcoming the purple SOUL. The kid didn't seem to be trying to dodge. Papyrus got annoyed, starting into a lecture about proper sportsmanship. Sans heard the clank of footsteps muffled by the snow. Undyne, kitted out in full armor despite the weather, faded into view.
The kid smiled. He actually smiled. He ran towards her, arms outstretched. Sans felt time slow down, and nothing in his power would let him speed it up. Undyne's growl, Papyrus' shout, the glow of a spear, the splork of impact. The chink of a breaking SOUL.
This time, he could see it closely. The SOUL...wasn't...it wasn't...it couldn't be… "WHAT. THE. HELL? HE WASN'T EVEN HUMAN?" Sans gasped. It was true. The little purple heart wasn't breaking this time, and there was NO WAY it could be human, not with that shape. It looked...like a bulbous hourglass, the kind of shape you'd get if you stuck two hearts together, one pointing up, the other down. It was about halfway in size between a monster's and a human's; he'd only ever heard of SOULs like that in stories. It was the SOUL of a mage.
Undyne insisted on taking it to Asgore, not that it'd do them any good. A few mages had chosen exile in the Underground over the millennia, and nothing they had done had affected the Barrier whatsoever. Only the SOUL of a human could touch the spell. Asgore had sobbed when he saw the thing. He'd known mages, before the war. He knew what humans could do to them, had done to them. The Barrier hadn't been something they'd desired, not in the least. To see the SOUL of one of them meant that mages still lived Aboveground...and that they still lived in fear of their human cousins.
He woke up. This was worse than anything Chara had ever done, worse than any genocide streak he'd endured. Knowing they were stuck in a fucking RESET hell, and the SOUL responsible wasn't even human? It made him want to give someone a bad time.
He'd made it to the Ruins door just in time. The kid came out, visibly shaking, but right now he didn't care. This...thing...was the reason for his torment? Well, then, time for a little therapy.
Why hadn't things RESET yet? The last few times, it hadn't been more than twenty four hours after a death before he'd been waking up back in his room. This time, it had been eight days, and nothing! He'd gone out to the Ruins door, desperate for some comfort. He'd knocked on the door...but nobody came.
He frowned. That was odd. Toriel was usually pretty good about their little chats. He knocked again...but nobody came. He stood up, brushing some white specks off his jacket. She was probably just busy. He headed back towards town, hood thrown up against the howling wind.
Doggo's station was oddly quiet. Maybe the hound had just stepped out for lunch? He walked around to the back, restless in the growing storm, and reached out for the door handle.
He damn near threw up at the heap of dust that poured out when he opened the door. Maybe it was just a prank? Yeah, that sounded about right. Doggo used to love jokes, back in the day...not that long ago, really, if you didn't count the RESETs. He was probably waiting up with the Dogi. Yeah, that was it.
He ran past the long bridge where his brother had set up the Gauntlet of Deadly Terror. He had to get to Snowdin, had to warn them - it had to be Chara, maybe they'd finally come back. They were the only ones who'd ever left that much dust behind them. He had to get to Snowdin, had to warn them, had to get to Snowdin…
Empty streets stretched out in front of him. His pounding footsteps echoed in the dusty silence. He had to get home, had to find his brother, had to - he spotted the flutter of red on the breeze, and reached out with his magic. It was his brother's scarf.
Sans sighed. Today was a beautiful day. Birds were singing, flowers were blooming. On days like this, people like him...remembered the past. Fourteen RESETs, and a dust-covered scarf.
He looked up at the shuffling sound that echoed through the corridor. Ah, there they were. They looked worse than before, if that was even possible. How they managed to walk on that leg was beyond him - he could see a bone sticking out of it, for gods sakes. Their breathing came in gasps and wheezes - broken rib or two, probably. They'd lost the bandage, somewhere, and the sight revealed...well, he wouldn't grace it with a description. You'd need a lot of yellow and red paint, if you wanted a picture. Quite a bit of black, too.
The FIGHT was...odd. The kid never seemed to dodge, but they never seemed to take much damage, either. They didn't seem to care how much they were hurt...but they didn't seem to be able to die. He snuck a look at their stats. His eye skimmed over the LV, AT, DF...and stopped on HP.
HP: 0/0.
How was that even possible? Math didn't work like that, and neither did...oh. HoPe. That's what they'd always been told it stood for, right? The amount of HoPe someone had left. The kid had literally given up all hope.
He pulled out his special attack, the one that always made Chara scream. As they sat, still as the grave, he spoke, "so, kiddo, mind if i ask you a few questions?" Silence. One dull silver eye stared back at him. He took that as an invitation to continue, "you got a name, kiddo?" Birdsong drifted down the corridor from beyond the Barrier. He suddenly wondered what Asgore had been doing all those times he'd fought Chara in this very room, "nevermind. don't have to tell this old lazybones. just thought it might be nice to know someone cares."
The kid looked up, and he saw a spark of...something in their eye. A memory stirred from a time he hadn't been sure where Frisk ended and Chara began, "i know it's an odd question, but do you think, if someone had some kind of special power, they'd have some kind of responsibility to do the right thing?"
They sprang at him, hands curled into claws...funny, they weren't carrying a weapon. He dodged the swipe. When his slippers settled back onto the tiled ground, he turned to face the kid. Their eye was a storm of glowing silver lights...that explained the lack of a weapon. The kid was a mage. He saw their mouth move, and their voice came out in a croak.
They coughed, long and hard. He let them catch their breath, inching his way towards them. Talking was progress, after all, but he wasn't about to let down his guard. Finally, they hissed, barely above a whisper, "what do you think, you dirty brother killer?"
He stopped dead. What...oh. Gods, no. They- "fourteen loops. that's how many times this bloody damned hell has played over and over. fourteen loops since i've talked to my brother...since i've found him alive. fourteen loops since we fell down."
If he had a stomach, it would have been revolting, "every time i tracked him down, some bloody monster killed him right before my eyes. i had failed him as a sister. every. damned. time," their...her eyes fell to her hands, which were rubbing the scars that coated her wrists, "do you know what it feels like to watch your little brother die, over and over and over, while you're helpless to stop it?" He felt his sins crawling up his back, "do you know what it feels like, when you realise how pointless it is to try?"
She looked up into his empty sockets, and he saw endless depths of ragged pain. This was the expression of a child whose only reason for living had been torn from her grasp so many times that she'd given up trying. He dropped to his knees, the weight of his sins hanging from his neck. He heard a cracked and broken sound, and after a moment, he recognised it as a chuckle, "that expression you're wearing...that's the expression of someone who knows exactly what i'm talking about. so tell me," her voice dropped low, "why shouldn't i let you live, you dirty brother killer?"
He recoiled, the blow deeper than any slash from Chara's knife. He...wait a second. If she was the one causing the RESETs...maybe...he looked up into her tear-streaked face, the thought of his plan filling him with DETERMINATION.
"what if i could bring him back?" Incredulity, "what i did...i don't deserve to be forgiven for that," he knew it in his SOUL, "but...if i can keep him alive long enough for you to find him? would you give me my brother back, if i do everything i can to keep him alive?"
She seemed terrified to give in to hope, even for a moment. Her hand twitched in oddly musical gestures as she seemed to search his words for the trick, "and what about the tree? what about that fucking flower?" He winced. That explained all those Ruins RESETs. Flowey was so dead right now.
"i promise that if he makes it out of the ruins i will keep him safe and alive until you can find him, and lady, i hate making promises," she seemed to hesitate, and I added the words I knew would convince her, even as they would tear me apart, "every time i fail, you can even the score. a brother for a brother," he slowly reached up and unwrapped the dusty red scarf from around his neck, "you recognise this?" she nodded, "it's my brothers. he never goes anywhere without it."
She looked up into his eye sockets, and he saw that she knew just how much it cost him to let her know, to make that offer, "i accept."
He woke up. Today was a beautiful day. Birds were singing, flowers were blooming. On days like this, people like him...well, they had a promise to keep.