Sans' eye flashed blue for a moment.
"How do you know that name? You shouldn't… Only three people alive should know who Chara was." Frisk sighed and scratched their cheek, staring at the faint outline of the wrought-iron fence that marked the boundary of the park.
"Just let me explain," Frisk sighed. "Chara is at the center of all of this. I am going to be very blunt here, so try not to get upset about anything I say. To start off, I want you to know that up to the first genocide run, everything I did was by choice. After that point, the ability to decide was taken away from me and I was kept a prisoner in my own body. It's true that I decided to… kill monsters, but I didn't like it. Nothing else had worked, so I figured if I tried something new, maybe I would learn something." Without warning, Sans rocketed to his feet and shoved a hand forward, and Frisk's soul materialized and turned blue with a ping. Sans forced them to their feet, grabbed them by the collar and looked them dead in the eye.
"That's why you did this? Why you tore everything to the ground?" Sans' voice dripped with venom. "Just so you could learn something and see what's different? This isn't a game, kid. You hurt so many monsters so many times, and you're telling me you did that just so you could see what would happen?"
The conversation ground to a halt for an uncomfortable stretch. Gradually, the snowfall lightened and eventually stopped, leaving the ground covered with an even layer of snow. The snow looked yellow where the street lamp's light reflected off of it, and a cold, dark grey in the uninviting world beyond.
Frisk gently took hold of Sans' sleeve.
"Yes, Sans. I know it was wrong and I shouldn't have done it. I was young back then."
Sans eyed Frisk and slowly set them down, letting his magic dissipate.
"And you're not young now?"
Frisk squinted at him.
"You of all people should understand how a person can age on the inside and not on the outside, especially when resets are involved. Especially when you're forced to watch from the backseat as someone tears down the world you've come to love over and over again."
"What do you even mean by that, kiddo? First it was you were a prisoner in your own body, now you're saying you were in the backseat. What does that mean?"
Frisk sighed. It was a hollow, familiar sound. Sans knew all too well what complete surrender to the world sounded like, and that sigh was it.
"That's where Chara comes in," Frisk said. Then they paused. Without a word, they pulled out their phone, retreated under a snow-laden oak a few yards away, and made a call. Sans could only stare at them. The kid didn't seem menacing or evil so much as they seemed uncaring. Their comment about aging had really gotten to Sans. Frisk hadn't been the first human to fall to the Underground, and they certainly hadn't been the only one with the determination to reset. There had been others, and each one of them had reset hundreds of times before their determination faltered and they died permanently. Sans must have lived ten lifetimes by now, and a monster just wasn't supposed to exist for that long. His gaze softened somewhat, realizing just how much pressure Frisk had been under. Sans was an adult when he first encountered reset shenanigans, but Frisk? They had to be what, nine? Ten? Way too young to handle it.
Unable to keep a small grin from splitting his features, Sans extended a hand and used his blue magic to shake some snow loose from the oak tree onto Frisk's head. They shot him a curious look. It had been a long time since Sans had joked around with Frisk.
"Sorry," Sans chuckled. "You know I've got snow control over these powers of mine." A complete falsehood, but a punny one nonetheless.
Frisk crunched back to Sans from the shadows of tree, leaving a set of footprints in the otherwise pristine blanket of snow, a very faint grin on their face.
"That wasn't very ice of you," they deadpanned.
Sans laughed out loud at that, a bit harder than he meant to. His smile faded.
"Kiddo, I missed this so much. I miss the adventure, the fun, the excitement, back when you were new to the Underground. You made me believe that the things I did might have actually mattered in the end, despite the resets. What happened to you?"
Frisk almost looked guilty, their smile fading and their eyes sliding away from Sans'.
"I'll tell you once Asgore gets here."
