Good god I'm so bad. I keep on having this urge to stay up into the wee hours of the morning just working on this.

It demands my attention, and I just can't seem to refuse it!

I wanted to provide a little insight into this chapter, and show the relationship between Sans and Alphys a little more clearly. I honestly do think that they had a strong friendship, but things got in the way and so they became slightly estranged between the two. She only has the best of intentions for him, and looks out for him when she isn't in her own way. I just adore Alphys so much as a character in general.

I wanted to thank all the support! The recent followers/story favorites, and of course the reviewers! Every one that's read this, and keeps reading it, thank you so very much! You guys fuel my determination to work on this.

Replies:

and 7h3-p4g3-0-5p4c3: HUAHUAHUAAAA~ YOU HAVE READ RIGHT THROUGH MY PLANS FOR GASTER, YOU SMART CREATURE YOU!~

MachUPB: Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying the ride.

Onto the chapter! I do not own any of the Undertale characters.

...

There was a sort of soft revelation between Frisk and the two monster friends, as there always seemed to be something in the back of her mind whispered. The mad ramblings from the front of the classroom hadn't caught their attention despite the rest of the class. There were engrossed mumblings from the other monsters - a class of thirteen in total - as they focused in on topics that were allowed and not allowed.

No death rays.

No gene splicing experiments.

Nothing aimed intentionally at the prospect of hurting, maiming, or killing people in general. Nothing to cause mass destruction to civilization as they knew it.

This caused a couple people to groan in frustration, and when the second option was noted Alphys cursed under her breath subconsciously, her eyes still trained on the wires caught in her claws.

When the machine had sputtered some form of function Frisk smiled triumphantly, and high-fived the golden reptile. Sans checked the numbers and jotted them down, scoffing as the machine had broken down once more. He stole a glance towards the owner of the contraption, with many questions that sank into him painfully. He would have to corner the human on this matter. There were no hints about its appearance that verified what it could possibly be.

For all he knew it could have really been a death machine. But..

He eyed the two rectangles with a bitter twinge of deja vu.

Maybe he could work on a bone-a-fied truth serum to test on the human. Wouldn't that be a grand science experiment for the semester?

Sans glanced up at the professor, and they exchanged a look that ended with the man up front giving a disgruntled glance to the human, and with that he dismissed the class. Had they really been at it for two and a half hours? Going over the information he recorded in his mind, and taking note that it was just as long as all the others, he let out an annoyed sigh.

Frisk looked around as she eyed the class filling out, each talking amongst themselves at their potential projects. "Huh...Time flies."

"Does it go oink? I do love time bacon." Alphys mumbled absentmindedly as she tweaked a couple of the wires. Her engineering-aimed mind working the layout of the machine, how things were supposed to link up, and her mind dug through her internal catalogue of more complex versions of 'you connect the wire to point A and point B and the light with turn on'.

Sans chuckled. Alphys the little techy. The nick-name clung to her through their schooling together, and one wouldn't have to grasp too hard to figure out why. Probably his longest running friend, Alphys was known for making little creatures that worked. She kinda went too far in highschool when the anime 'Pokemon' came out, going so far as to figure out the blueprints for a Pikachu, and actually put it to use.

The results were terrifying for anyone on the outside, and with it reaching weapon-of-mass-destruction levels only a week after its creation, poor Alphys had to put the thing out of its misery.

Frisk smiled sweetly at Alphys, resting a hand on her shoulder to bring her out of her thoughts. They exchanged a long stare, before Alphys sighed deeply and closed it up. "M-maybe for a-another time." Frisk nodded comfortingly as she put her project back into the box.

"I'm bringing it in next Tuesday, but I'm going to have to fly solo on that." Alphys sent Frisk a hurt expression as she landed a hand on her chest. Mock insult. Frisk giggled. "You need to figure out a project for yourselves!" Frisk sent a glance to Sans, which sent a chill up his spine. Her eyes were cold at him.

There was a slight sense of guilt that washed over him. He kept his hands out of the whole thing when Alphys had nearly broken one of his digits off in a sharp attempt to get to a wire that he had touched not even a second prior. She was more gentle with Frisk, pushing aside her fingers to get to wires and places she needed, and only scoffed at the human when there were complications in the layout.

Sans learned long ago to stay out of the way when Alphys was in her element, and boy was digging around in metal boxes to make lights go on her element.

"I do have a project!" Frisk nearly jumped at the rare tone of assertion that was in Alphys' voice. Frisk sent her a look, and pailed at the maniacal expression that paired with clutching hands. "I'm going to complete the first working robot that is artificially intelligent on a level of possession."

Both Frisks and Sans jaws clenched at how Alphys spoke.

"Uh, Alph, prof said no gene splicing…"

Alphys perked immediately, her experior painfully cheerful. "Oh I know!" She chirped, and then slumped slightly, unsurly. "It's not-t-t g-gene splic-cing. It's, uhm, A.I." Her lips clamped shut as she glanced sideways. Her clawed tips tapping together at the renaming.

Sans laughed at that and shrugged, walking away. "I'm hitting up Grillbz." He waved over his head as he walked away. The two girls looked at each other and shrugged, then pattered after him.

…

"And then he was thrown into a headlock! He s-struggled, at first, and w-when he encased her with b-blue magic and threw her across the field, she was so s-suprised!" Alphys spoke loudly in the intimate setting, her hands moving to mimic the arc the person in the story flew. She motioned running while still sitting in her seat, and Frisk was eating up the passionate storytelling. "She chased down Sans so fast after that, screaming out for a rematch of their duel." She shook her fist and did her best impression of a very angry and domineering expression.

Sans rolled his eyes as he leaned back, his amusement sitting in his grin. "I had to collect myself and grab my skull off the ground before she got back. Could say I was head over heals during the whole situation."

Alphys shot an ugly look at the skeleton, but Frisk only laughed at that. Alphys glanced at Frisk as she urged her to continue on. Alphys laughed and scratched her cheek. She found the table rather interesting. "W-well, I, uh, didn't r-really gather up the c-courage to talk to her until after that. She had b-been shot so far and hit the g-ground so hard that when the adrenaline wore off she looked w-worse for wa-are. S-so, after Undyne had r-ran it off, I checked her." Alphys radiated the largest golden glow off her cheeks, akin to her magic (from what Frisk understood of Monsters and their functions at least). She melted at the memory, as she seemed to glow at the thought of this Undyne. She sighed as she laid a hand to her cheek. "Undyne gave me the largest smile as she watched me work. She was so sweet and caring, y-yet she still g-gave me a noogie." Her bliss stalled at that part.

Sans grinned at Frisk, leaning to her as he gestured with his squeeze bottle towards Alphys. "Alphys ended up following Undyne outside of class like a lost puppy at that point through high school." He leaned forward and whispered into Frisks ear. "Smitten." He grinned as he touched the tip of the ketchup bottle to his mouth.

Frisk gasped with a hand to her lips as she turned to Sans in mock wonder. "Smitten?"

"Tragically." Sans stated as he took a swig of the ketchup.

Alphys grabbed for the bottle with a scowl, but he rested his free hand on her face and kept himself just out of reach. Alphys and her poor stubby arms, he always had the upper hand on her in the wingspan department. She whined. "S-sans!"

He turned back to the human, mischief thick in his gaze. She leaned towards him in anticipation. Whispers filled her mind as he spoke. "Undyne was hit pretty hard by the love bug too. She though, being friends with my brother, was equally as dense as he was. They are friends for a reason." He grinned as his mind wandered briefly. "Undyne was Captain of the football team, and Pap was, well, the best darn cheerleader a brother could ever hope for." He said, overly dramatic pride filled his voice as it warbled. He wiped away a non-existent tear.

Alphys had stopped flailing at the mention of Papyrus, and he remembered why. If he was of flesh and blood, he would be reminded by the lump in his throat that would have been there instead.

His gaze cast down as he took another swig of the ketchup - deeply and full of remorse.

He hated talking about his brother.

Especially with humans.

Maybe he forgot the human was actually a human.

Or maybe she didn't feel human at all to him.

He growled to himself as he turned away from Frisk, who snapped their gaze to Alphys immediately. She looked at the skeleton, then to the human, and then motioned for something in her purse. A boney hand caught her, causing Alphys to flinch and catch his glare.

Frisk clamped her lips tight, and she pushed away from the table. "I'm, uh, gonna go use the restroom." She gestured behind her, reading the situation as 'come back later', and she rushed over to the owner of the shop. Once she disappeared into the back room to 'relieve herself' Alphys let out a squeak of fear as she stared at Sans.

His white dots were gone and replaced by one glowing blue iris. "Alph." He stated, warning her.

Alphys' face scrunched as she looked at him, her expression bitter and full of complacency. She looked put out and guilty. "I can't keep doing this Sans."

"Alphys." His voice grew, insisting.

"I can't Sans! She needs to know something!"

"Alphys." he stood.

She slammed her hand to the table as she stood, meeting him. "Sans!" She yelled, terror pushed aside by certainty. "You can't keep pushing people away!" Her eyes glowed a faint gold, her words shooting into him as they had a stand-off of sorts.

He considered her words, then took his seat and sucked on the ketchup bottle.

Alphys looked at him, shaking as her nerves frayed at the ends. She felt eyes on them, and she laughed nervously, matching her smile as she waved at people assuringly. Taking note that Grillbz set down a rather hefty looking bottle of booze he had from behind his counter, which was most likely aimed at the skeleton whom didn't have the best track record of keeping his emotions in check, and had turned back to his previous cleaning of a glass. His sight was on them still, but at least he was not aiming to knock Sans out.

She sighed and took her seat, leaning on her arms as she looked at Sans tensely. Her hand patted his arm, gently yet awkwardly, since she was still so unsure of herself given they were in the same boat. Pushing as much compassion forward as she could, she started again.

"Sans, I know they are so far out. That Papyrus isn't here, and I know that scares you, c-cus I'm s-scared too…" Her voice faltered, and she jumped as Sans patted her arm lamely. She cleared her throat. "B-but Undyne..s-she s-sends me notes, f-from their s-station." She fidgeted as she coughed, unsure of how to go about this still. Jealousy burned two pin-hole holes in her skull. She sighed. "He's f-fine, Sans." She looked at him, and the silence weighed down on them. "He's b-busy, giving people h-hope." She patted his arm, and her cheeks puffed when he looked away from her.

"Yeah...I guess." He muttered, his shoulders hunched.

Alphys groaned internally, and she almost slid out of her seat. This was truly exhausting. No wonder they kinda stopped hanging out since graduation. He sure gave her a run for her title of 'most negative nelly' these days.

A thought popped into her head, as she jumped for her purse and dug through it, catching Sans attention. She pulled out a folded up paper, lined in blue and looking like it was torn from a notebook. She handed it to him, and insisted once confusion showed.

Setting the bottle down, he unfolded the paper. Holes dotted the paper where the pen had been pressed too hard. It was written in a weird mix of print and chicken scratch. He grinned at the familiarity of it.

Hey dork!

Been lonely without me? Figures! I knew you would fall apart without me after our last visit! Fwuhuhuhu! But you know what dork? You're super strong! That's why I like you so much!

Me?! I'm doing great! Asgore got back from his meeting, and he said that if things go according to plan, we'll all be home in a month! So expect me home in a month! We have many things to catch up on! Fwuhuhu~

Tell that bone head that Pap's doing good too! He's the best chef ever! His food puts everyone in a great mood! I did teach him after all. I hear that dork up so early, he's the best alarm clock! Bone head needs to get his head on straight, Papyrus was worried for a month after our last visit! That guy pisses me off.

So yeah, we'll be home soon! Get ready for the best homecoming visit you'll ever have dork.

Hugs and kisses and all that sissy junk,

Undyne

Sans looked up from the letter, which was promptly snatched back and stuffed into Alphys' purse. She leaned forward and stared straight at him. "He's okay S-sans. S-see? Undyne would make sure nothing bad happened." She insisted, and he sighed, breaking under that logic.

Undyne nearly threw herself off the side of a cliff the time Papyrus had been knocked around a little too roughly by her. He was minorly concussed that day, but that didn't stop her from swearing that she would give her life to make sure her best friend was safe. Sans knew at his core that his little brother was fine. It just sucked without him around.

Another touch of a clawed hand drew him out of his thoughts, and at that she nodded, deciding on something. "So you need to g-get out of y-your own head for once and l-let someone in for a c-change!" She tried to demand, but it came out as more of a strong suggestion.

A call from behind them caught his attention, as Frisk stood from the other side of the room and eyed them to see if everything was clear. Alphys noticed the slight glimmer in his eyes at the sight of her, and she smiled. It was going to be a long and hard process for him, but he was on his way. "J-just think it over, for y-yourself. You d-deserve happiness t-too."

She then waved Frisk to joined them, and the rest of the night lead with the two girls chattering away until they had to depart for their respective homes. Sans smile wasn't as strained as it had been before.

...

Oh gosh, I hope I wrote Undyne the right way, even if it's over a letter. Maybe I could have pushed her enthusiasm better? I dunno, critiques are welcomed.

In any case, please RnR! Thank you!