DARK.
DARKER.
YET DARKER.
Sans had heard these words lifetimes over, each time followed by that same unbearable pain, the same flashing lights, the same broken empty howling filling his skull. Every time, he was taken back to his genesis, momentarily, for an instant, even, but it was an instant impossible to endure. The only reason he could get through it was because he was already dead.
This sequence was never new, never surprising, never any less terrifying. Sans never asked his brother about it. He didn't even know if his brother went through the same process he did. But then, his brother didn't seem to get himself into as many mortal situations either...
And again, as always, he saw his Father, imminent, transcending the universes, in his eternal suffering, being torn to pieces and thrown far and wide through the void.
and then
Sans woke up where he had been cut down. It was night, and he was the only being he could see around. He sat up, and brushed his dust off from his jacket, and sighed, and made his weary way back home.
It was a short peace, Sans mused, and Frisk had been a good ambassador. But then Frisk got sick, and died, and the monsters were accused of killing them. And so they fled the mounting persecution back to their old homes. The barrier was resealed exactly three years after it had been broken. The uncanny resemblance to the first imprisonment of the monsters did not go unnoticed by most. Only now, it was impassable.
Not that Sans felt particularly trapped. The whole getting to the surface thing seemed like a nice dream, but he never really yearned for it. Or rather, he stopped yearning for it very quickly. The whole thing seemed... surplus to requirement. And Sans hated doing more than was required. Hell, Sans was born out of doing more than was required, and he sometimes wondered whether that was even a good thing. If there was a choice between the sweet nothingness of the void and a relentless mortal cycle of pain and effort - Sans couldn't see any competition between the two.
Having said that, the void he visited so frequently was hardly a sweet nothingness.
Sans put his hand up to his face. dammit, my eyesocket's got a fracture, It would heal soon enough, but it just meant that there would be questions when he got back home.
He came back into Snowdin and walked up to the river. It wasn't for the view - it was the easiest way to check whether everything was alright or if he was stuck in a different
fuck it's this one.
Sans' eyes were red. One of his teeth was gold. He took off his jacket and for the first time since he'd woken up realised it was black.
In this Universe, Sans had to play evil.
As Sans neared his house, the bell tower struck midnight.
oh f-f-fuck, Sans muttered to himself, i'm late for c-curfew. The anxiety was beginning to set in.
As if on call, Papyrus flung open the door and wheeled around to face his brother running up the street.
"AND WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, YOU TARDY WASTE OF A MARROWSACK," Papyrus yelled, his eyes growing brighter and brighter with every word.
"i-i-i-i'm sorry pap-p-pap-pyrrrus, i-i-i-"
"HOW DARE YOU!" Papyrus screamed. His eyes spewed forth a bright red vapor trail, as he swung his arm around and hit Sans in the face with something Sans noticed for the first time he was holding a leash with a leather dog collar. Sans felt his face again and noticed the fracture had turned into a small chip missing from the corner of his left eyesocket, which found itself lying in the snow in front of him. He lunged to pick it up, and avoided a second blow with the leash.
"YOU REFER TO ME AS BOSS!" Papyrus hollered. "BOSS! NOT BROTHER, NOT BRO, OR BROSKY, OR BROTHERINO, OR MATE OR PAL OR FRIEND OR BUDDY AND CERTAINLY DO NOT DARE TO USE MY NAME!" fuck he's worse than normal."WHILE YOU WERE ASLEEP A HUMAN MADE THEIR WAY THROUGH SNOWDIN. YOU MUST FIND THEM BEFORE THEY REACH THE CORE!
"but b-b-boss, it's midnight a-and i-i-i-"
"NO EXCUSES! YOU WERE ASLEEP ON THE JOB, SO YOU WILL BE WELL RESTED!" Papyrus slowly made his way up to Sans, who found himself reversing again until his back ended up against the present tree. "AND ONE MORE THING!" his brother hissed, pulling out the now-formidable pet collar from his pocket and placing it around Sans' neck. "DON'T EVER TALK BACK TO ME AGAIN!" he spat out, yanking the collar so tightly around Sans' neck it made him wheeze. "NOW GO! AND YOU BETTER BRING THAT HUMAN BACK, OR YOUR CHIPPED EYE SOCKET WILL BE THE LEAST OF YOUR WORRIES."
Sans was just over the bridge into Waterfall and safely out of sight of Papyrus when he had a thought.
what if it's Frisk?
Just because Frisk had died in Sans' home timeline didn't mean that he had in any other - in fact it was rather unlikely considering in many of the other timelines he encountered, resets were happening almost daily. He hadn't been back to this Universe since before Frisk died (several years for him, probably no more than a few hours for the demonic reimagining of his brother), but had seen them (or at least a version of them) regularly in that world before.
The walls and floor of Waterfall's elaborate cave networks gleamed and glistened, and Sans took the opportunity to find a reflection and stare into his own ember-like eyes. He much preferred white. Red scared him to the very core. It was the colour Frisk's eyes turned when Chara took control of them. All Sans could do was sit and watch and fight and die.
Sans had never killed Frisk outright. He didn't even think he had it in him. He had seen Frisk turn into an irredeemable monster and still couldn't muster enough courage. He had turned into a soul-powered seraph in this world - a maniacal tormentor in his own. But Frisk's soul was a human soul, and had the power to persist after death, and Sans could never find it in himself to destroy it completely or take it for himself. And so Frisk came back again and again, to so many of the different universes. Sometimes other humans came too - but they never stayed. They left and never returned.
Frisk never appeared in the same timeline twice. Some of these timelines were very similar, granted, but they never had gone back through the same one the 'wrong way'. They never righted his wrongs in any of the timelines he corrupted, and they never undid the good they did in the timelines they redeemed.
i even saw them grow old and have a family.
But Sans knew the story of this timeline by now; he knew the rules and they cut him to the core like a rusty dagger. The monsters in this Universe hated humans without fail. They wanted to destroy them, and Frisk could either show them mercy or slaughter their way through. There was no middle ground.
KILL or be killed.
It wasn't Frisk who came walking through this timeline.
Sans didn't really care. All he knew was that it was getting DARK
DARKER
YET DARKER
