Chapter 2
Sans walked down the snowy path with the kid following him. He held his temper back but his left eye wouldn't stop glowing and a sickly energy leaked out of his eye and trailed behind him. It expanded like a fog before dissipating entirely.
"Does that happen because you're mad? Your eye, I mean."
"Yeah," Sans figured he couldn't be lazy this time around, which sucked ass because he would prefer laziness. He walked over to a tree and leaned against it, pulling his hood up and sinking to the ground. He looked up at Frisk, who started walking past him, keeping his head low. "How'd you get it kid? That second soul? It breaks rules ya know."
Frisk blinked at Sans, curiously. "I... I don't know completely. I didn't notice a difference till I arrived here." He then turned and started walking down the road. Sans figured he'd have to do the same song and dance he did before, but he couldn't remember everything he'd said verbatum, so he'd just keep things similar. He disappeared as Frisk walked away and reappeared down the path further, now leaning against a different tree. He kept his hood down and closed his eye sockets, keeping alert... for him at least. Right on cue Papyrus yelled out. "Sans! You're sleeping again!"
Sans responded by rolling over and plopping onto the snow. All this time reset stuff was giving him a headache. He wasn't sure if he'd prefer to be ignorant or not. His plopping over incited Papyrus to kick the trunk of the tree and the tree tops emptied their snow supply on top of Sans, burying him in snow. He shuffled under the snow pile and pulled out a white cloth to wave around unenthusiastically.
"Sans... get out of the snow."
"Bunnies manage to be just fine in the snow."
"You're a skeleton."
"Bunnies have skeletons."
"Sans!"
"Fine, fine, don't be so sternum with me." Sans finally sat up and started brushing himself off.
"Saaaannss,"
"Sorry, I'm on a roll." Either he was elated to be interacting with his brother again or he was just crazy now from the reset. He'd have to make up his mind after he figured other stuff out. He looked up at the thoroughly vexed Papyrus who looked as though his occipital was about to burst. He stood up and hugged Papyrus, his rib cage expanded slightly as he took a big sigh. Papyrus hugged Sans back but looked quizzical all the same. Sans released his brother and tried to contain himself, thinking he didn't need to draw so much attention to himself. He looked around, figuring the kid should show up soon enough. "So how's the human hunting going?" He asked, breaking the ice.
"Well I thought I saw a human earlier but it turned out to be a snowman." Papyrus responded with a certain amount of drama and prestige about him, as if he were a Shakespearean actor with the overacting skills of William Shatner.
"Pap, you don't even know what a human looks like." Sans white pin pricks looked up at Papyrus with his eyesockets half closed.
"Well... no... I don't. But I'm sure that I'll know it when I see it." Papyrus bellowed with confident gusto.
Sans sighed, rubbing the tips of his index and middle fingers against the side of his skull. It was both nice and overwhelming to see all this. He looked around, thinking maybe he should warn Papyrus. "Pap... you know during the wars with the humans, monsters didn't stand a chance. Lots of us were turned to dust and not a single human soul was claimed." He looked at Papyrus with pitch black eye sockets, his white pupils disappearing. "What makes you think you're going to win in a fight against one?"
"Because I'm the Great Papyrus!" He beat his hand against his chest fervently for an extra flair of drama.
It was like talking to a brick wall... a brick wall he loved very much. He was going to have to do everything he could to make sure that this Frisk kid didn't go genocidal maniac on him. If he didn't have to fight someone that strong, he'd prefer not to. He looked at the snow patted down by dozens of footprints over the days, making a path towards Snowdin. Knowing all his friends were down this path and he had this chance to make sure that they were safe, even that he could potentially end all of this, assuming that green eyed soul was telling the truth... it filled him with determination.
"Oh my god! Sans! Is that a human?!"
Sans paused and looked over at Papyrus and then to Frisk, who waved meekly. But Papyrus appeared to be pointing to the rock right behind the kid. "Um... that's a rock." He hesitated for a second before adding. "What's that in front of the rock?"
Papyrus initially was downtrodden only to brighten up when he noticed the gangly little thing in front of the rock. "Oh my god! …..Sans! Is that a human?!"
"...Yes." The thing was, he'd have sworn before that the kid wasn't a human, but when he looked at the kid now, he was sure this kid WAS. Maybe the green eyed soul was human and the red eyed one wasn't. "Guess you should try to capture him with all your traps and stuff." He said, before Papyrus could get over his shock.
"What?! I... Of course! Human!" Papyrus pointed at Frisk with an unnatural enthusiasm that only he seemed to attain so naturally. "You are hereby going to be captured by the Great Papyrus! Which will garner me all the respect and notoriety that I so justly deserve! I will have more friends then anyone and bathe in the love and admiration of an army of admirers! Especially after I capture your soul."
"Which one?" Sans muttered under his breath.
"What was that?"
"Nothin'"
"Very well! The Great and Magnificent Papyrus will retreat and prepare the traps for your japing, human! Nyeh heh heh! Heh!" He bounded off through the snow with enthusiasm only he could muster only to let off one last resounding "Nyeh!" Before he disappeared.
Sans glared at Frisk with his sockets going black again. "Here we go again."
"Again..." Frisk added, shifting uncomfortably where he stood. "So... how... do you remember?"
Sans turned around and marched away in the snow, the soft mushing of snow under his slippers sounded his departure from the human only for his footsteps to disappear entirely as he vanished.
He observed quietly and passively as this human acted with kindness, genuine kindness. He was sure now, this human was definitely innocent, or at least had a certain tenderness in his heart. He wondered to himself about the moment before. If the kid had acted like this from the beginning, none of this would have happened. Maybe they could extract this Chara soul and use it to get out of here. That would be a tad rough though. As Frisk interacted with a giant dog in armor he'd seen at Grillby's a lot, petting it and playing with it. He chuckled from his hiding spot. "Maybe... maybe the kid's not dangerous this time." He mused. He thought on that moment when he was looking down the pathway and he felt more determined and he sighed. He kind of wished he could go back to that moment.
Without warning a jarring shift occurred and existence around him faded to white, Frisk, the Guard, the trees all vanished and the last thing he saw was his own body fading in the reminiscent sea of white.
He felt winded from that and closed his eye sockets as he felt grounded again only to hear his brother. "Oh my god! Sans! Is that a human?!" He opened up his eye sockets and looked blearily around and saw Papyrus pointing and he saw where he was. He was just here less than an hour ago. He looked and saw a very confused looking Frisk. He saw Papyrus was pointing at the rock again. He was completely floored. "Sans? Come on! Is that a human?!" Sans stumbled sideways a bit, still winded from the shift. "I... uhh... rock?"
"Oh... I think you're right, that is a rock." Papyrus mused, disheartened.
"Um... what's that in front of the rock?" Sans said slowly, not sure what he was seeing unfold before him. He watched with utter bewilderment as Papyrus realized Frisk was human, declared his intentions and bounded off like an excited puppy. "I... what happened?" He said slowly.
"I don't know! It's like loaded up my save, but I didn't do it." Frisk said defensively. "But... you still remember it?"
"Save? Load?!" Sans's mind was blown, but this certainly explained the anomalies he'd been hearing about earlier. "That's... what you call the temporal anomalies?"
"It's just what I do." Frisk said, shrugging. "I just sort of feel determination and then that's how I make my save! But I haven't felt like I've been able to save." He said seriously. "Especially not now."
Sans blinked, thinking to what he'd just thought about and how he felt at this moment. He trudged off again, vanishing once more. Was I the cause of that? He watched everything unfold again... which was weird. Even then he watched the boy play with the guard from before, watched him get past the traps, watched him spare everyone he met. He watched till he felt like his eye sockets were going to start bleeding. He finally left the kid. He was almost to Snowdin and Sans looked at the town, wondering if he could do that again. "Determination." Sans repeated in his head. What filled him with determination? He was lazy. He tried to think about all this and make himself feel determination but it wasn't really coming to him. So he walked up to a bench and sat down, watching everyone pass by. He just felt like sleeping now. "Damn..." He thought he'd try again and took the actual shortcut from one end of the town to the other to arrive at his house, disappearing and reappearing in his brother's room. He looked around and thought to himself. Maybe this could help him. He looked at Papyrus's figurines and around the room. He felt he was filled with determination. He would do this, for his brother... now if only he knew if he'd actually saved or not. He felt like he could have. He disappeared and reappeared in his own room. He focused carefully on how he felt in Papyrus's room and took slow, deep breaths to try to recreate what had happened earlier and all of reality around him faded to white with him disappearing last. He closed his eye sockets again and reappared in Papyrus's room and looked around. "Oh shit, I stole that kids powers." He hesitated. "Guess the kid really DID get dunked on."
