Sans, for the first time in his life, felt like he couldn't sit still. He was pacing back and forth across the floor of his room, waiting – actually waiting – for the next time reset. Never had he dreamed he'd actually be looking forward to such a thing! Of course, never would he have dreamed that he'd ever get his hands on shards of his late father's shattered soul either. It had been… Oh, who knew how long it had been… Time became irrelevant when it kept resetting all the time. It felt like ages. Ages in which he scoured the Underground looking for more tiny shards of crystalized soul.
They were getting harder and harder to find, but he was starting to figure out a pattern, at least. What the strange creature in Hotland had said seemed to ring true; W.D. Gaster's soul seemed to have been scattered across time at the moment of his death. So far he'd been able to find only one shard each time everything reset. Sometimes he found nothing. The thought made his soul clench in his chest. What if he'd missed one? Could he find it again, or was it lost forever once time shifted away?
Sans reached into his hoodie pocket, retrieving a chunk of glowing blue crystal. It was starting to take shape, the top of the heart clearly apparent, but he only had about a third of it here.
"man… this is gonna take forever…" he grumbled impatiently to himself. Not that he was ungrateful for this unbelievable opportunity that had been presented to him. No, not at all. He'd search as long as it took to get his father back, but he was selfish enough to allow himself a small sliver of impatience. After all, the sooner he got all the pieces together, the better. Of course, he still had no idea what to do once he got them all. He'd have Gaster's soul, sure, but what then? A soul needed a body, after all.
Before he could wonder any further on that subject, he found himself standing waist-deep in a cold river. Sans didn't waste any time. He climbed out of the water and started making his way down the bank, constantly glancing down at the piece of soul he held in his hand. He'd learned that the shards tended to react when they got close to one another, doing anything from glowing slightly brighter to trembling in the direction another piece was located. He took advantage of this, using it to guide him to the next piece. Gaster's soul was already starting to tremble slightly. Good, he'd lucked out. It had to be somewhere nearby already.
"SANS? WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT HERE? SHOULDN'T YOU BE PATROLLING SNOWDIN FOREST LOOKING FOR HUMANS?"
That loud, unmistakable voice caught Sans by surprise. He yelped, the crystalized soul nearly flying from his hand as he jumped almost a foot off the ground. He fumbled for a moment, locking the precious stone in a death grip before it had a chance to hit the ground. Letting out a sigh of relief at having not destroyed everything with one tiny fumble, he turned to face Papyrus with what he hoped was a nonchalant grin. Before he could think up a suitable excuse for being away from his post, the lanky skeleton arched a brow, leaning over to get a better look at what he was holding.
"WHAT IS THAT THING YOU HAVE THERE?"
Sans's hand reflexively clamped down over the small crystal as though he were trying to keep his brother from taking away a small bug he'd caught. He had no illusions of hiding it, of course. Papyrus may have been naïve, but he wasn't entirely clueless. He wouldn't take 'nothing' for an answer.
"it's, uhhh… it's a rock i found. i thought i might get my pet rock a pretty girl rock ta hang out with. gotta throw the li'l guy a bone sometime, y'know?"
There was a long stretch of silence between the two. Beads of sweat began forming on Sans's forehead as Papyrus narrowed his eyes down at the shorter skeleton. He wasn't buying it, was he? Then, a triumphant grin spread across his face.
"I SEE! SO THAT'S WHERE THEY'VE BEEN COMING FROM!"
Sans couldn't help but stare up at his younger brother, confusion plain on his face.
"uhh… where what's been coming from..?" he asked hesitantly, unsure if he wanted to know the answer. Papyrus stuffed a gloved hand down the front of his shirt a moment before retrieving a small shard of crystal, its faint glow illuminating the side of his face in a cool blue hue. If Sans had eyeballs, they'd probably be bugging out of his head right now in astonishment. He couldn't believe what he was seeing! It was a piece of Gaster's soul! The smaller skeleton fought to resist snatching it from the younger of the two the instant he saw it.
"wh-where did you find that?!" Sans almost shouted, unable to fully contain himself at the moment. Papyrus set his free hand against his hip, looking somewhat annoyed.
"I'VE BEEN FINDING THEM UNDER MY PILLOW FOR THE PAST WEEK! HONESTLY, I WAS BEGINNING TO SUSPECT THAT THE TOOTHFAIRY WAS PLAYING SOME SORT OF STRANGE PRANK ON ME, SEEING AS HOW I HAVEN'T LOST A TOOTH IN YEARS, YET NOW I SEE THE TRUTH! YOUR PET ROCK AND THAT SPARKLY LADY FRIEND OF HIS HAVE BEEN HAVING LITTERS OF… OF… OF ROCK PUPPIES! REALLY, SANS! YOU MUST THINK OF THESE THINGS BEFORE YOU TAKE IN NEW PETS! I HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF ONE OF THEM AS IT IS! I DON'T HAVE TIME TO BE CARING FOR A WHOLE HERD OF THEM!"
And Sans could do nothing but stare up at Papyrus for what felt like ages after his little rant, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. He had to scour the entire Underground looking for these tiny little shards, yet Papyrus just finds them hiding under his goddamned pillow?! Just how many did he have?! He quickly decided it didn't matter. All this did was make his job easier, and he was certainly not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"r-right. sorry, bro. i'll take care of 'em from here on out. i'll, uhh… i'll find all the 'rock puppies' a good home, okay? n-now where are the rest of them?" he asked somewhat hastily, holding out his hand to take the piece Papyrus had. The taller skeleton had no problem turning over the shard, discarding it as simply a nuisance. Sans couldn't help but notice that the shard's glow actually dimmed a little the instant it left Papyrus's grasp. He didn't have time to dwell on the significance of that, however. Papyrus didn't seem to notice at all. Or, if he did, he didn't seem to care.
"I'VE COLLECTED THEM ALL IN MY DESK DRAWER AT HOME. AS SOON AS I'VE ATTENDED MY PRIVATE LESSON WITH UNDYNE, I'LL—"
But Papyrus's words were cut short when he suddenly felt himself being yanked by the arm. Sans had grabbed a hold of him and was now rather forcefully leading him down what seemed to be an arbitrary path to nowhere.
"no time! need 'em now! taking a shortcut!"
Sure enough, the two were back in Snowdin in easily a quarter of the time it would have normally taken them to walk there. Papyrus still couldn't see how they'd made it back at all, seeing as how they'd more or less started off in the completely wrong direction, but he supposed it didn't matter. He was more concerned with the unusual amount of force his elder brother was displaying in dragging him upstairs to his room. He only managed to wrench himself free once they were standing in front of his computer desk.
"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT! JEEZ, YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE SO ROUGH ABOUT IT! I ONLY WISH YOU'D TACKLE YOUR JOB WITH THE SAME LEVEL OF ENTHUSIASM!" Papyrus grumbled, giving the front of his shirt a sharp tug to straighten it back to its earlier neat smoothness. Trying to ignore how Sans was bouncing impatiently on the balls of his feet, the taller of the two stepped forward and pulled out the drawer in question. Sans eagerly peeked over his brother's arm to get a look. There was literally a fucking pile of them! He couldn't believe how many there were in there! He wouldn't be surprised if this was the entire two-thirds of the crystal that he was missing!
In one swift movement, Sans's hand shot forward and grasped all of the shards Papyrus had collected. Before his younger brother could stop him to give him another convoluted lecture on being a more responsible pet parent, he dashed out of the room. He only glanced back over his shoulder once he was already halfway down the hall.
"thanks, bro! i owe ya one!" he shouted back at Papyrus before darting into his room and locking the door securely behind him.
Sans had spent the rest of the day locked away in his room, pouring over the jigsaw puzzle that was the remains of his father's soul. Finally, after hours of frustration, he held up the result. It was a solid heart-shaped crystal, a powerful blue glow pulsing evenly from within. There were only two shards missing, two gaps it its pristine surface; a long, thin crevice running across the upper left, and a shorter, slightly wider one to the bottom right. Sans wasn't worried by these two missing pieces. They were supposed to be there. After all, he and Papyrus had to have come from somewhere, didn't they?
Sans gingerly laid the completed soul down on his bed, not trusting himself to hold it for too long. He couldn't bear to imagine how distraught he'd be if he'd dropped it now, if it just shattered into a million pieces again, or worse, if it disintegrated into dust.
Now, he had another problem to tackle; he still didn't know what to do with the soul. What could he possibly put it in? One did not simply snap their fingers and, voila! New monster body! He could always build a robot body like Mettaton had. No… No, that didn't seem right. Too undignified. Was cloning an option? Samples from both himself and Papyrus would do for that, but he didn't have nearly the equipment he needed for that, and turning to Dr. Alphys was absolutely out of the question. No one could know what he was really up to, what he could really do, what he really knew. He had to keep this under the radar, no matter what. Unfortunately, that meant this burden was his alone to bear.
"dammit… what the hell am i supposed to do now?" he grumbled helplessly to himself, slipping his hands into his pockets. Suddenly, his brows furrowed, and he pulled one of his hands out. Between his fingers he held an old, faded coupon for Grillby's. When the hell did he get this? It looked ancient, and was most assuredly expired. Then, he turned a suspicious gaze over to his father's soul once more. Well, Gaster and Grillby had been very good friends before the 'incident', but what did that matter? Even the old fire elemental couldn't remember that Gaster had ever existed. Eventually, with his mind too exhausted to dwell on it any longer, he let out a sigh of defeat. Maybe he just needed a break? He'd been at this for what felt like forever, after all. Maybe a couple of drinks at Grillby's would help clear his mind for some fresh ideas.
Sans was greeted by the usual chorus of 'hello's as he stepped into Grillby's, to which he replied mostly with wordless sounds of acknowledgement and lazy waves of his hand. He wasn't in the mood to get into any lengthy conversations with anyone. He was too mentally exhausted for that. Instead, he merely made his way up to his usual seat at the bar. Grillby glanced over, saw the look on the skeleton's face, and immediately set to preparing a drink for him. Within half a minute, a glass was set in front of Sans containing his preferred drink; a Bloody Mary made with ketchup instead of tomato juice. He arched a suspicious brow up at the fiery bartender.
"jeez, i must really look like hell if i'm getting automatic service like this." He commented sardonically. Grillby had already returned to his earlier task of idly wiping down the surface of the bar with a fire-resistant cloth, though he stayed within comfortable speaking distance of his guest.
"You've looked better. Anything you want to talk about?"
"i dunno… it's complicated…" Sans replied in little more than a mumble, taking the celery stalk from his drink and chewing lightly at the end of it. It had been sitting in his drink just long enough to soak up the flavor of ketchup and vodka. "just tryin' ta figure out one hell of a puzzle."
"A puzzle? Sounds like you should be going to your brother for help with that one. That's his shtick, isn't it?"
"nah, it ain't his kinda puzzle." He mumbled before downing half of the creamy red contents of his glass in one gulp. Well, this wasn't getting him anywhere so far. How could he ask someone for ideas when he couldn't describe the problem? Then again… What if he presented it as a joke? Yeah, that just might work.
"so here's a question for ya… what do ya do when ya gotta make a new monster body, and pronto?" Sans asked suddenly, flashing Grillby a grin that almost seemed to expect a punchline in return. The elemental abruptly stopped wiping the counter, resting both of his hands against the edge as he gave the skeleton a long, hard stare.
"I've never had to explain 'the birds and the bees' to a monster in his thirties before. Why don't we keep it that way?"
That one pulled a bout of genuine laughter out of Sans. Oh man, he just loved Grillby's dry humor sometimes! He'd have to remember that one, even if it didn't help him with his little problem… Or did it? Slowly, his grin faded, his brows knitting together in thought. Could that really be the answer? He suddenly gulped down the rest of his drink before leaping from the barstool and dashing for the door with renewed vigor.
"thanks, grillby! you're a genius!"
Sans was back at the house in an instant, popping into his room just long enough to grab his father's crystalized soul before heading down to his lab in the basement. He couldn't afford to be interrupted right now, not even by Papyrus. Luckily his younger brother was too creeped out by basements to even attempt to come down and see what he was doing down there.
Once he was in the solitude of his lab, the weight of what he was about to do suddenly weighed heavily on his shoulders. He stared down at the crystalline heart resting in his hand, its blue magical glow pulsing warmly. He suddenly felt more apprehensive than he ever had before in his life. Okay, just what exactly had Grillby put in his drink to make him think that this was a good idea? Maybe the robot body option wasn't so bad after all… Sans shook the thought from his mind. No, this was the only way he could give Gaster a real, dignified body. Besides that, it was actually the easiest – and, by extension, the laziest – way to do it. It was just going to seriously suck for him a little later on down the road.
He then let out a wry chuckle. What would his father say if he knew what he was planning to do? He could almost hear it now; the echo of his father's strange voice, the sounds that were not language, but somehow imprinted ideas and concepts onto your very mind when he spoke.
/Sans, I want you to promise me something. Promise me you'll never conduct experiments on your own body./
Sans had been going over his father's notes in the royal lab when the seemingly arbitrary request was made of him. He'd looked up, his eyes meeting the gaze of a tall, slender skeleton in a long black lab coat. The cracks in his skull, the way his right eye drooped into the shape of a crescent moon… Most people found these deformities to be mildly disturbing to look at. To Sans, however, this was the most comforting face in the Underground. He'd given Dr. Gaster a cheeky grin.
"so this is another lesson from the biggest hypocrite in the world, huh? y'know, dad, if you practiced what you preach, you'd have never had me in the first place."
Dr. Gaster had let out what, for him, equated to a light chuckle.
/This is true, but such experiments don't often turn out as well as you did. I gambled a lot on you. I could have seriously injured myself doing what I did, or worse, you could have been born sickly or defective. Life for you could have been torturous. I was lucky that everything was a success. I don't think I'd gamble on an experiment like that again, not with so much at stake./
"okay, now you're just lying to my face. what do ya call that then?"
Sans had pointed to the far corner of the lab at that point, where a small crib had been set up. Inside, an infant Papyrus was snoozing peacefully away. Dr. Gaster smiled warmly.
/Simple. A technique that has been perfected is no longer considered an experiment. Which brings me to another lesson I'm sure you'll learn in time; always exploit loopholes./
Sans's grip on the crystal heart tightened slightly as the memory faded away. In reality, he knew good and well that that last bit of 'advice' had been given jokingly, but he decided he was going to ignore that tiny tidbit of conditional information. After all, it was a technique that was perfected, wasn't it? That meant it wouldn't technically be experimenting on himself, right? Somehow, that didn't exactly overwhelm him with confidence.
Hesitantly, he reached down and lifted up his shirt. He stared for a long moment at the empty void in his abdomen between his pelvis and his ribcage. He then cast an uneasy glance at the crystal soul on his hand. Okay, he could do this. It was perfectly straightforward. All he had to do was stick it in, put up a barrier around his abdomen, and his body's magic would take care of the rest. Easy, right? He could probably even keep it hidden through the entire term thanks to how 'big boned' he was. He let out a small whine of dread.
"o-oh, man… this has gotta be the single weirdest situation I've ever gotten myself into…" he stammered out to himself, hesitating one long moment more, mildly hoping an alternative solution would suddenly strike him at the last moment. No such thing happened. He took a deep breath, snapping his eyes shut as though not watching would make the reality of this supremely dumb idea disappear.
"w-well, here goes nothin'…"