illegible scrawls

Sans knew that he was being followed. He could feel their eyes on his back as he walked down the hallway, and the pitter patter sounds of their feet were not far behind.

The skeleton simply continued on his way, a stack of card board under his left arm, and pretended not to notice his stalkers. That took quite the effort, as they weren't being very quiet about it. He could hear the whispering voices and the ones trying to shush them in return, only to get shushed themselves by another. Each shush grew steadily louder than the last, effectively defeating the purpose.

When he was about halfway down the hall, Sans came to a sudden halt and spun around, stopping his followers in their tracks with his ever present grin. For a brief moment they were finally, truly quiet as they stared back at him with wide eyes.

Then the gaggle of human children scattered in a burst of playful eeks and giggles.

Sans chuckled as they took off back down the hall and scampered around the corner. As he watched them retreat, one little girl peeked her head back out, giving him a shy smile. He waved, and she quickly waved back before ducking behind the wall to escape with her friends.

cute kids, he thought, amused by their reaction. Adult humans, though generally welcoming of the newly arrived monsters, still viewed them with an obvious sort of wariness. Children, on the other hand, tended to be more curious than anything. Sans was pretty pleased with the "Whoa, cool!" he got on more than one occasion. They were especially impressed when he made his eye glow (much to Papryus's disdain, who would chide him for using his magic to show-off instead of for something useful, like work).

Being around so many kids at once was making Sans a bit uncomfortable, though, so he was glad that the children had gotten their fill of excitement and had backed off for now. No doubt, Toriel would have adopted every single one of them if she could, but the powers that be were still working out all the rights and regulations in regards to monster-kind. They were only making a special exception for Frisk, seeing as he was the monsters' ambassador. That, and probably the fact that they had to practically pry him off Toriel's leg to bring him back here in the first place.

It came as no surprised that Frisk was an orphan. It certainly explained why he had become attached to Toriel so quickly, even going as far to call her "mom" soon after they had first met. What it didn't explain was why he had decided to leave the Ruins, if all he really wanted was a real home to call his own. Toriel had even said as much, but who knew with kids? Maybe he had just wanted an adventure. He wouldn't have been the first...

But, it had worked out in the end. That was all that mattered. Everyone was safe and sound on the surface. Somehow, the kid had done it. How and why wasn't important; Sans wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

It was hard not to wonder, though. As far as orphanages went, this place didn't seem so bad. Not nearly enough to run away from, as Sans had initially thought, given Frisk's reaction when the authorities had come to take him back. Nobody was happy about that, but the humans insisted it had to be done until Toriel had taken the proper legal procedures to gain custody of the child. Humans sure were a bureaucratic bunch, but Tori took it in stride and assured Frisk she would be back for him.

And here they were. While Toriel was finishing up some final paperwork, Sans was on his way to Frisk's room to help him pack.

Orphanages, he thought, weren't supposed to be this cheery. Not that he had ever been to one before, but just the idea of a bunch of family-less kids was a bit of a downer, and he had assumed the place would follow suit. But it was surprisingly clean and colorful, and the kids that had been following him around had all seemed pretty happy. He had yet to spot anyone being forced to do laborious chores and break into song about how hard their life was, so that was a good sign.

Yeah, probably not the place itself then. That would have been too easy of answer anyway, and in Sans' experience, nothing was ever that easy.

His friends had asked the boy eventually, especially when they learned of the rumors surrounding Mt. Ebott, but he had never given them a straight answer. There was a lot about Frisk they didn't know, now that Sans thought about it. But it wasn't his place to go butting into other people's business. He reminded himself again that it really didn't matter, not right now, and he let those thoughts sink into the back of his mind.

Today was about bringing Frisk home.

After turning another corner, Sans finally found the numbered door he was looking for. With his free arm, he reached out and knocked. After a beat, he added aloud, "knock, knock."

The door flung open almost instantly and a tiny but powerful force nearly tackled him to the ground.

"Sans!"

"you're supposed to say "who's there?" he replied, trying to steady himself as Frisk wrapped his arms around him. The kid looked up at him with a gleeful smile.

"Who's there?"

"too late," Sans teased. "you already ruined it."

"Too late you already ruined it who?"

"too late you already ruined it, you little stinker." Frisk giggled and Sans ruffled his hair. They hadn't been apart for all that long, but it still felt good to see him again. A relief even, if he was being honest with himself (though he usually wasn't). The kid finally let him go and, taking Sans' free hand in his own, eagerly led him inside the room.

Six beds were cramped inside, in two rows of three, and none of them except for one were made. The place was littered with toys, half eaten food, and dirty clothes, the kind of mess that was inevitable when you put a group of little boys together in one room. Sans supposed it couldn't be helped, and given what a disaster his own room was, he wasn't bothered by this in the slightest. In fact, it felt kind of homey.

They stopped at the end of the room, in front of the only tidy space with the made up bed. Various things were sorted into neat piles on top of it, mostly clothing and necessities but also a few worn out looking toys and what appeared to be a small rock collection. Frisk wasn't kidding when he said that he didn't have much to pack. Sans had jokingly claimed that he wouldn't have helped otherwise, but now he was wondering if maybe that had been in bad taste. Even the rocks were hardly more than pebbles.

Ah, but the kid wasn't going to want for anything after this. Sans would personally make sure of it, on the off chance that Toriel or the others didn't beat him to the punch. He was going to be spoiled rotten, and deservedly so.

"so you all ready?" he asked, and Frisk nodded. Sans set down the stack of flattened cardboard boxes and they began putting them together, but they didn't get far as Sans realized that he had forgotten something.

"uh, was I supposed to bring the packing tape?" he asked sheepishly, knowing full well that he was, but Frisk only giggled again.

"I'll go find some!" he replied enthusiastically, and bounded out of the room before Sans even had a chance to say anything else. This was probably the most energetic he had ever seen the kid. To say he was "eager" would be putting it lightly. He was going full on Eager McBeaver.

It was a nice change from the tired expression the kid usually had, back in the Underground. Sans hoped this new found energy wasn't temporary.

For a lack of anything better to do while he waited, Sans decided to examine Frisk's possessions more closely. Meager as it was, he appreciated the rock collection: kid had good tastes. The toys had definitely seen better days, but more likely as a result of being hand-me-downs than anything Frisk had done. In fact, as Sans picked up an action figure (some kind of superhero?) he noticed that it was carefully patched together with glue and scotch tape. He gently placed the figure back down before he broke it further, knowing his luck, and eyed the piled of clothes next.

Every single shirt was striped.

go figure, Sans mused. He lazily poked through the clothes, just in case the stripes were some kind of optical illusion, but as he neared the front of the bed, something to the right of it caught his eye. Glancing down, he found an impressive stack of notebooks tucked in between the bedside and the wall. He was surprised that he hadn't noticed them sooner, given that they nearly reached the top of the bed itself in height.

yeesh, I hope that's not schoolwork, he thought, plucking the top book off the pile. It may have been an invasion of privacy, but Sans couldn't hold back his curiosity on this one. No way a kid Frisk's age would need that many notebooks. Not unless human schools were far more brutal than monster schools, and Sans felt that his education had been tough enough as it was. (Then again, his tolerance for work of any kind was relatively low...)

huh?

He met the first page with confusion, and flipped through a few more pages to check, but they were all the same: every inch of space filled with tiny, cramped writing, top to bottom. Words, or what he assumed were words, even flowed sideways into the margins. The white of the papers were mere specks among a sea of black ink.

And it was all completely unreadable. He brought the page closer to his eyes, but no matter what way he looked at it, he couldn't make head or tails of the handwriting. There was a vague semblance of letters, but they all seemed to run together; Sans imagined this is what a dyslexic would feel like trying to decipher a foreign language. And he thought reading hands was hard...

Whelp, it definitely wasn't a little kid's handwriting. It was messy, sure, but also weirdly precise at the same time. There was a method to the madness. Words were packed in tightly, line after line, a wall of unreadable but purposely written text.

Sans quickly flipped through a few more notebooks from the pile, but as he expected, they were just as filled to the brim as the first one. Some of the entries were dated and occasionally he spotted a seemingly random doodle squeezed in somewhere, but nothing hinted at the meaning of the notebooks' contents or who wrote them. If the author had written their name down anywhere, he had no way of telling it apart from the rest of the jumble.

What was the kid doing with all of these? They couldn't be his. Maybe someone had been using his little corner of the room as extra storage space while he had been gone and-

Suddenly, as if on cue, something slipped out from between the pages of the notebook Sans was holding and fell to the floor with a plop. Looking down, he found a white square laying in front of his slippered feet. He plucked it off the ground, noting that it was thicker than a piece of paper and, unlike everything else he had seen in the notebooks, completely blank. That is, until he turned it over.

It was photograph.

A Polaroid, his mind supplied. And at that instant, he realized who the notebooks belonged to a second before he even fully took in the picture. It hit him like a ton of bricks, quick but heavy.

"The written word is reliable in a way that memories aren't."

He stared at the image with something like disbelief, but not quite, because he could believe it. He just didn't want to. But it made sense. Too much sense. He was holding the answer to his questions and suddenly everything was clicking into place, just in the worst possible way.

nope, nope, nope...

The sound of approaching footsteps derailed the train of "nopes" before it could truly leave the station and Sans quickly shut the photo back into the notebook. He gathered up the others and stacked them back onto the pile with the rest, probably in the wrong order, but had there even been an order to begin with? Whatever, the kid wouldn't notice, right? He stuck his hands back into his pockets of his hoodie, as if they had been there the whole time, not touching anything, and turned around right as Frisk reappeared at the door.

"Catch!" the boy shouted, and a roll of packing tape came flying across the room. Sans caught it in a deft motion.

"nice toss," he commented, falling back into his carefree attitude with practiced ease. It was like flipping a switch to him at this point. Frisk rejoined him and they began taping the boxes together. If the kid noticed that anything was amiss, he didn't show it.

"I can't wait to see everyone again," he chatted happily, filling one of the finished boxes with his clothes. Once it was full, he slid it over to Sans so the skeleton could tape it shut.

"they can't wait either," Sans replied, pointedly ignoring the image that was now seared into his mind. "like literally. my bro and undyne were actually planning a rescue. tori had to talk them out of it. didn't think it was a good idea for a couple of monsters to go breaking into a human orphanage and making off with one of the kiddos. might give the wrong impression, you know?"

Frisk laughed and said something in reply, but Sans didn't hear it. Try as he might, he could no longer focus on anything but the picture he had seen.

The picture of Frisk. Accompanied by an older girl, hugging him from behind. A girl wearing glasses. A girl that Sans recognized.

A girl he had let die.

Seeing them together, the resemblance seemed suddenly obvious. But that shouldn't have been his only clue. Maybe he would have figured it out sooner if he had given it any thought, if he had let himself even think about it at all. But it had always been easier on him not to. Thinking about any of them...well, it never did any good. He couldn't change the past.

But now it felt like the past had come back and suckered punch him, right when he least expected it. As if to say, "You thought it was over? That this was some sort of happy ending?"

"Hey Sans?"

As if to say, "What makes you think you deserve it?"

"Is this spelled right?"

He blinked back into reality and saw Frisk (just Frisk) tapping the front of the box, where in big, uneven letters, he had written "CLOSES".

"close enough," Sans replied with a wink, never missing a beat, his smile never faltering. In the meantime, new worries flooded his mind. Did the kid know? He had to know. Why hadn't he ever said anything?

Frisk rolled his eyes, realizing that Sans had made a joke but wasn't going to correct him, and simply moved onto the next box. They fell into a brief silence, Frisk packing and Sans taping, but it wasn't long before only one empty box remained. And as Frisk began stacking the notebooks inside it, Sans knew that he had to say something. It would be strange if he didn't.

"what's all these, your diaries?" he joked. Like always. Though he didn't expect any laughs this time.

And yet, Frisk still giggled.

"Noooo," he groaned, in mock offense, "These are my sister's!"

Sister. Right. Sans knew as much. He felt his metaphysical stomach churn as he asked his next question.

"you have a sister?"

The kid's face finally fell and he paused for a moment, staring down at the notebook he was currently holding above the open box. The expression on his face was one Sans had just been hoping not to see again, especially not so soon.

"Uh, yeah. But she's, um...she died."

He put the notebook down and finished packing the last of them.

"oh, geez, I'm...I'm sorry, Frisk."

Sorry didn't even begin to cover it, but Sans wasn't sure what else to say, or how to say it. He hadn't been expecting this, he wasn't prepared. He still wasn't sure how much Frisk knew, or why he had never said anything until now. Now, of all days.

"It's okay," the boy said, perking back up again, far too quickly. It made Sans wonder if he had practice too. "It was a long time ago."

Liar. It wasn't that long at all...was it? Admittedly, Sans had a bit of trouble keeping track of time, thanks to a certain anomaly, but he felt sure that it couldn't have been more than a year ago. A year and a half, at most. A long time ago, my tailbone.

Then again, maybe it really had been a long time ago: for Frisk. A year could feel like forever to a kid, after all. Especially a kid like him. Though Frisk had never mentioned it (a pattern, Sans was beginning to suspect), Sans was aware of his...ability. The time anomaly had existed before he had come to the Underground, but somehow the kid had wrested control over it and used it to his advantage, Sans was sure. There had been too many instances where Frisk knew things he shouldn't, or made the right move at just the right moment. Instances where he seemed older than he was and wiser than he should be. The data checked out too. There was always a certain point in time that he could go back to. Sans just didn't know how many times he had. Maybe only a couple. Maybe a thousand.

This was a first, though, Sans had assured himself of that. He wasn't getting anymore deja vu and Frisk's reactions were always genuine now. He seemed happy with this point in time. But it had possibly taken a long while to get here. Long enough to make him feel as though his sister's death had been in the distant past.

But for Sans, it suddenly felt like it had just been yesterday.