I do not own Undertale! Undertale and all of its characters and settings belong to Toby Fox, as well as the True Pacifist plot line, the Genocide plot line, and all of the Neutral plot lines.
A young human child sat on an old blue blanket on a patch of grass over looking the sparkling city beneath the mountain they were on, watching in barely contained amusement as their monster friends Papyrus, an ambitious and good-hearted skeleton, and Undyne, a fierce but well-meaning aquatic monster, attempted to put up a tent, something they had clearly never done before. After all, camping was a rare hobby back in the Underground, the prison underneath the mountain that the monsters had been trapped under until a week or so ago.
Sans, Papyrus's older skeletal brother, was supposed to be helping them, but he was currently sitting beside the human, Frisk, drinking ketchup from a plastic bottle.
Frisk held a hand painted mug filled to the brim with their favourite golden-flower tea in their hands, sipping from the well-loved mug as they observed their excitable friends's progress. The duo weren't particularly successful, but at least they were having fun. For the most part, anyways.
"UNDYNE! IT IS COLLAPSING AGAIN!" cried Papyrus in dismay as the dilapidated dark green tent sagged depressingly. He frantically propped it up with his long, bony arms, and his red scarf fluttered in the small gust caused by the tent's crumpling.
Sans snickered.
Frisk shot him a pointed look, along with their elbow in his ribcage, and asked why he didn't get off his boney butt and help the two like their adoptive mother and the queen of monsters, Toriel, had told him to. They'd already be done if he lent his 'magic telekinetic' abilities!
"Kinda hypocritical, kiddo. I don't see you out there. And, 'sides, would you really want me to? You see, if I helped them, we wouldn't be able to watch this beautiful chaos anymore." He paused. "And, uh, not only that, but I'd have to get up. No, it's better this way," he explained, his voice painfully imitating the dramatic resignation of a soap opera. The impromptu performance was topped off with a deep sigh and an exaggerated flop backwards onto the blanket.
Frisk poked him and gave a stern look. Seriously, he could at least tell them what to do. Papyrus and Undyne were cool and two of Frisk's best friends, but tent building was not their strong suit. In the least.
Sans nodded with a wide smirk. "Reasonable." He proceeded to push himself upright with a groan, then summoned one of his magic skull cannons, a Gaster-blaster, and sent it drifting towards Papyrus. "I will give them the instruction manual." Sans conducted the floating skull with a lazily waving finger, watching the little blaster as it picked up the long forgotten instruction manual from a patch of dirt over to his brother and Undyne.
Undyne took one look at the floppy book and threw it away over her shoulder, where it tumbled down the mountain's slopes to its demise. "I don't need a stupid book to show me how to put a tent up! We're making great progress, right, Papy?"
"OF COURSE, UNDYNE! WE HAVE NO NEED OF A BOOK!" Papyrus nodded enthusiastically, all the while trying to jam a long pole into the window mesh.
Sans shrugged, the white eye lights in his shadowed eye sockets brightening slightly, accompanied with the expression of someone who'd just thought of a really bad pun. "Absolutely, bro. You two're really gettin' into the spear-it of this whole tent building thing," he said, waving his hand towards the four glowing blue spears that Undyne had conjured with her magic to prop the sagging roof up.
"WHY, OF COURSE, SANS! TENT BUILDING COMES NATURALLY TO... OH NO," Papyrus said, a horrified expression forming on his face as the pun sunk in. "SAAANS! WHY MUST YOU MAKE SO MANY PUNS?"
"Sorry, bro, can't help it. Puns are just..."
"NO!"
"...in my bones!"
Frisk smothered their giggle with a bizarre amalgamation of a choke and a cough, not wanting to set Papyrus off on one of his "NO, DON'T ENCOURAGE HIM, HUMAN" rants that Frisk was able to pretty much quote after two weeks of knowing the brothers.
"UGH! YOU ARE UNBELIEVABLE," Papyrus groaned, sliding one of his red-gloved hands down the middle of his skull in something probably between disappointment and annoyance at the puns, though Frisk knew he didn't dislike them as much as he claimed.
"No, I'm Sans."
"AUGHHHHH!"
Frisk couldn't help a peal of laughter from escaping as Papyrus stomped away in exasperation, and was set off again as Sans winked exaggeratedly at them just as they stopped. In between giggles, they informed him that he had a real funny bone.
"NYEH!" yelped Papyrus from down the mountain.
Now both Frisk and Sans were cracking up, though from the puns or Papyrus's reaction, the human child wasn't sure. They hollered an apology down to Papyrus.
"I FORGIVE YOU, HUMAN, I KNOW IT'S ALL SANS'S INFLUENCE ANYWAYS!"
"Do ya forgive me, bro?" Sans asked, chuckling.
"NO!"
A pause.
"WELL, YES, OF COURSE I FORGIVE YOU, SANS."
"Thanks, bro. Love ya," smirked the shorter skeleton.
"NYEH! I LOVE YOU TOO, BROTHER."
"Enough chit-chat, nerds! Papyrus, we gotta get this tent up before Lady Toriel gets back from helping that Astigmatism family," said Undyne urgently, waving a hammer above her head as she caught the others's attention.
Frisk grinned as the tent-building antics recommenced with a cheer from Papyrus, and looked back towards Sans. Their smile drooped as they saw Sans's far of expression, like he was in a different world. Of, perhaps, a different time. They said his name quietly.
"'Sup, kiddo?" Sans answered belatedly. His eye lights refocussed as Frisk frowned.
The child cocked their head, trying to read Sans's expression. For a moment, they thought they could see some trace of... well, something, anyways, but the second Sans noticed their prying eyes, his features closed off like a slammed door. They weren't going to see anything except for a set of phalanges that tightened a bit more around the ketchup bottle and shoulders that tensed slightly under Frisk's gaze.
"Kiddo?"
Re-summoning the Magic Textbox of Non Verbal Communication (TM), Frisk asked if Sans was ok on the Surface. They didn't want him to feel, well, like he had in the Underground. Like things weren't going to get better.
"Hmm? Yeah, 'course I'm ok. I mean, we're free, right? And Paps is happy," he said, taking another sip of condiment.
Was he sure? Frisk told him that he didn't have anything to worry about. They'd get the monsters settled, and... Sans knew that they weren't going to Reset the timeline back to when they'd first fallen into the Underground, right? Was he worried about that? Oh, no, Sans, they'd promised, they weren't ever going to put him through that again!
The skeleton sighed heavily, running a bony hand over his skull as he closed his sockets. "Am I that easy to read, kiddo?"
Haha, uh, no. Most of time, his pokerface was a good as theirs! Frisk had just been noticing that he seemed a lot more tense now that the monsters were on the Surface, especially that the humans were taking so long to make up their minds on whether or not the monsters could move into the city.
"You're pretty observant, kid. But, oh, y'know. Sometimes..." he started. "Eh. I dunno. Doesn't matter."
No, what? They wanted to know what he thought! Frisk poked him as encouragement.
"C'mon, Frisk, let's just, y'know, enjoy this spectacle," he said, waving towards Undyne suplexing the tent. It was a grand sight indeed, but Frisk couldn't let themself enjoy it. If one of their friends weren't happy on the Surface, it was their job to fix that.
And Sans... Well, Frisk knew all of this hadn't been easy for him. After all, it had been three full Resets and who knows how many Saves before they had even realized that Sans was aware of their actions, and by then they were too focussed on their little game to care. Frisk still felt bad- really, really bad- about the timeline before this one. They were just... curious. Curious to see what would change if they started killing their friends.
If it weren't for Sans's battle, they never would've given up and Reset to make the happy ending they had now. It had taken... 12. 12 loops of the timeline before Frisk had finally got it right.
A whoop of success came from Papyrus as Undyne managed to (finally) get the tent upright. Frisk smiled, leaning against Sans as Papyrus hastily nailed down the tent and stood back to admire the rumpled fabric pyramid. Everything was ok. Even if Sans was still wary of them, they would show him that no matter what, they weren't going to Reset anymore. The other humans may be taking longer than Frisk would've liked to decide if the monsters could move into the city or not, but all would turn out in the end. It had to.
Frisk had a real family now, and they were Determined to keep it.