AN: As always, thanks again to the people who have been reviewing, following, or favoriting this story. I don't know if it's some weird wavelength thing or what, but I always seem to get a new notification of another fan right when I'm about to lose motivation. You're what keep me going with this, when by all accounts I should be doing more practical things.

How the hell do you write a fight scene that balances game mechanics with describing actions? You don't, and I'm pretty sure I had to sacrifice the former a bit in favor of the later. Ah well. Epilogue is getting its own chapter because I went long again so look forward to that.

Although Sans had made it sound like a sure thing that he would find Trip, the truth was he didn't know where to look. It wasn't exactly like he could call the guy up and say "hey, where are you right now? 'cuz i was going to beat you within an inch of your life for what you did to frisk." Not that he wasn't tempted to do that anyway. The idea of leaving a threatening message on his phone was strangely appealing for some reason. But he resisted that urge. There were still plenty of other leads for tracking him down.

Every teenager in town was out tonight it seemed. Maybe there had been a big game at the local high school or maybe there was some human holiday he didn't know about that they were celebrating, but there were small and large parties happening all over town, which the local cops were all ignoring except to calm down a few noise violations or break up some of the rowdier groups. Finding someone that knew Trip wasn't hard, just about everyone he asked knew the guy. Finding someone that knew where to find him was the hard part. The few teens sober enough to pay attention to who was or wasn't around just assumed he was off at a different party, but couldn't really guess which one. Luckily the ones who were completely smashed were more willing to talk anyway.

"It's the skellington guy!" Kelly cheered. He heard her before he saw her. She was leaning heavily on another girl, the designated driver he'd guess from her bored and somewhat put-upon expression. "Skeletum? Skelection? It's the guy that's all made of bones." (Skelection. That was a good one. He'd have to remember it for later.) "Hey. Hey hey hey. Did you go see that kid?"

"yeah. i did. they're fine. but now i need to find trip. he wasn't at home, have you seen him?"

"No and I don't want to! Him and me are through, you understand?! I'm moving on to someone new!" She turned to her friend who was propping her up. "Hey, do you know where Reggie is? I always thought he was cute. I wanna find Reggie."

"No, and I don't think it's a good idea for you to go hook up with your ex's best friend right now," the friend told her rolling her eyes over Kelly's disappointed moans. She looked Sans up and down, assessing him. "What about that place he's always hanging out at? You try there?"

"what place?"

She shrugged, using the motion to hoist her friend up a bit straighter. "There's an unused campsite in the back woods of the park. Park services closed it down ages ago after budget cuts, but it's still accessible by one of the old back entrances. He and his friends kind of made it their own private hangout."

"It's a really good make-out spot too," Kelly giggled.

"how do i get there?"

"Head West on Morrison road, first turn off after the intersection with the old highway. There's a gate right before the spot where the road turns to gravel, if it's unlocked he's probably there." She was still looking at him like she was trying to decide if she was going to regret giving him this information. "I don't know why you need to find him; chances are whatever it is he probably deserves. Just don't do something that's going to make me feel guilty for helping you out."

"why does everyone act like i'm going to do something like that?" Sans muttered without bothering to wait for a response as he turned to leave. Really, he knew why, or at least had a pretty good guess where it was coming from. The things going through his head, if anyone could know what he was thinking they'd be right to be worried about what he was going to do. He wouldn't be surprised if some of those thoughts were coming across on his face. But he'd already made his promises. What he wanted to do was different from what he actually would do. Probably.

The entrance to the national park was exactly as she'd described it. The gate was one of those ones with a single thick metal bar running across the road, good for stopping cars but easy to get around by bike or on foot. It was open, the padlock or chain that had once kept it shut long gone. Sans had to leave his moped there, the rough gravel road hadn't been maintained at all in the time since it had been closed to the public and it wasn't safe for a vehicle designed more for city streets than off-roading.

Trip's Jeep apparently didn't have the same problem, as he found it at the campgrounds which were maybe another half mile straight into the forest. The campgrounds themselves were mostly just a clearing of packed dirt and pine needles that nature hadn't fully reclaimed yet. A lean-to constructed from branches and a tarp was off to one side, housing firewood and whatever sort of things some teens who hung out in the woods would want to keep out there. There were a couple of picnic tables made of grey, not quite rotten wood, and a bonfire had been built in the center of the clearing. The fire's warm glow only extended a few feet in radius from it, but it sent strange, elongated shadows flickering across the entire camp. Trip was sitting on the bench of one of the picnic tables, a cardboard pack of bottles at his side as he stared into the fire. Something dark was slumped in a pile at his feet.

Sans' foot stepped on a fallen branch, breaking it with a loud crack. "Is that you Reg? I told you I wanted to be left alone tonight," Trip called out into the darkness. He looked surprised when Sans stepped into the light, but not particularly concerned. "Oh, it's you. Want a drink?"

Sans had had speeches running through his mind since he left the house, dozens of different drafts ranging from righteous anger to disgusted frustration at his behavior. But they all kind of went out of his head in that moment, fizzling out after the words 'it's a beautiful night out.' This hadn't been the reaction he was expecting. "you just said you wanted to be left alone," he pointed out, taking a few tentative steps forward.

Trip shrugged. "That was for someone else. I can make an exception for a friend of the monster ambassador," he said dryly. He reached into the pack and pulled out a bottle, deftly uncapping it using the edge of the table for leverage. When he held out the bottle Sans could see that his arm was heavily bandaged, the kind of clumsy wrappings one might do to themselves if they had to work one-handed. "Besides, I've been wanting a chance to talk to you for the last few days."

Sans came close enough to accept the bottle. His foot brushed against the thing at Trip's feet and Sans realized it had fur. Stepping back in shock Sans' breath caught in his chest. The mangy animal was completely still, unseeing eyes staring blankly. "what the hell is that?"

Trip's expression as he gauged Sans' reaction…well he wouldn't grace it with a description. "I didn't kill it myself, if that's what you're wondering. I know a guy who works for the kill shelter in the next town over. Saved them the cost of disposing of the remains by taking it off their hands." He took a swig from his own bottle. "My collection's only been herbivores so far, you know? It had started out as a project identifying differences between members of the bovidae and cervidae families. Been meaning to branch out into other animals for a while now."

And Sans supposed it was just a coincidence that he was doing this right after what happened with that other dog. Looking at it as it was now, the differences were obvious, coarse fur, wrong color, wrong body type, and this one had folded ears rather than the ones that stood up straight. No one would mistake it for that dog. But with fur and flesh removed and all that was left was stark white bone, would a human be able to tell the difference? When Trip brought his new specimen home and showed it off to Frisk, would Frisk make the connection between when their pet disappeared and this one? Even if they knew that theirs had been a monster dog and not a normal one like he tried to let them believe when it first showed up, Sans thought they'd at least be able to see what it was Trip was trying to imply with this.

He was still watching Sans, and a small petty smile played across his face. "What? You don't like it? I thought you'd be all over this." Sans could only look at him blankly. Trip shrugged at his confusion. "Like I said, my collection's only been herbivores so far. Not a sharp tooth in the bunch. So I was pretty confused when Frisk started having nightmares about some more… predatory skulls. Until you showed up at the house. That's when I got it. Man, I don't know what you did that's got them so scared, but I've really got to thank you. Just when I was starting to get bored you made messing with the brat a lot more interesting again."

Sans' skeletal fingers gripped the bottle he'd been given tightly, bone scraping against glass. He had to remind himself a couple of times of his promise."you said you wanted to talk to me? talk."

Trip scoffed, shaking his head as he stood up. It was hard to ignore his height now, not quite as tall as Papyrus but with the solid mass that came from having actual muscles attached to the bones. "Hey, you're the one that started that conversation, man. Don't get mad at me for answering your question." He walked over to the lean-to and bent down to pick something up. Sans was expecting it to be a piece of firewood but was surprised when he saw the glint of metal instead. He gave the old aluminum baseball bat a few test swings. "I've got a question for you now," Trip said, lips curling into a sneer. "What the fuck did you say to my mom?"

This was not the way Sans had expected things to go at all. "your mom?"

"Yeah, you know, that time she dropped the twerp off for a sleepover? She came home having one of her breakdowns, took most of my night to calm her down." He drained the last few contents of his bottle and placed it on the edge of the picnic table. "But this wasn't one of her normal panic attacks, where she's worried about all her failures as a parent. This time she was looking to me, and it had her asking questions I'd already given her answers to. Questions I really don't like her looking too closely at." He swung the bat at the bottle, sending broken glass flying into the woods.

"You see, I like the way things are right now." He looked around, trying to find another empty bottle. "They aren't perfect, but they beat the alternatives so I like them. I like that I have the freedom to do whatever the hell I want, with very few chances of repercussions. But I know that it's a fine line I'm balancing on. It wouldn't take much to get her to start thinking maybe she should be keeping a closer eye on me. On the other side, it wouldn't take much to cause her to have another breakdown, a real one that will set her right back to the way things were before. I don't appreciate folks who come along and try and make either of those happen. So I'll ask again: what the fuck did you say to her?"

"i said you're a psychotic bastard that isn't safe to be around children or animals."

Trip let out a hollow laugh. "Funny. That's real funny." He gave up trying to find another empty bottle. Instead he walked back over to Sans, slowly tapping his palm with the bat. "Is that why you're here tonight? Because of some dog? That mutt attacked me." He held up his bandaged arm for emphasis. "Messed my arm up pretty bad. Hell, I should probably be worried about rabies. There are laws about animals that attack minors you know, they would have insisted on it being put down anyway. As far as anyone's concerned I was in the right there."

"it was protecting frisk from you." He could barely get the words out around the hot, nauseous feeling in the back of his throat.

For a moment, Sans thought he saw a hint of shame on his face. "I'm not proud of that, you know," he says quietly. "I know I messed up big time. Especially since I didn't stick around to do damage control. It's going to take weeks –months, probably- to regain her trust, get things back to the way they were. But what do you want me to say? I was angry and I lost control. These things happen. Sometimes a guy just needs to let off a little STEAM!"

The only warning Trip gave was the subtle motion of changing his hold on the bat into a proper batter's grip. It was enough, and Sans easily dodged the swing. Survival instincts kicked in and he grabbed at Trip with blue magic. With a flick of his wrist the teenager was sent flying. He slammed into a tree, hard enough to knock the wind out of him but not hard enough that he didn't remain standing when Sans let go again. He staggered a few steps, catching his breath. He was wary of Sans now, looking at the skeleton the way one might look at an animal that they weren't sure if it was going to bite them.

"i'm actually a little glad you made the first move there, buddy," Sans said, cracking his neck as he took another step forward. Bones started moving around the campground, their flickering shadows in the firelight making their movements seem chaotic. "it'll make things easier to explain myself if the cops get involved. then again, fighting with a monster on mt. ebott, sounds like the sort of thing that falls under our jurisdiction. that is to say, the king's judgement. you remember him right? big guy with the horns? i wonder what he'd say about the guy that thinks it's fun to torment his favorite human." That was a bluff really, there was no legal precedent for a human and monster conflict yet, and without the mountain actually being gifted to the monsters it wasn't a sure thing that they'd decide that monster laws should prevail here. Trip took the bait though, eyes wide and darting wildly as it sunk in just how badly he'd miss-stepped. With a disgruntled snort he charged towards Sans again. Swing and a miss, and this time he let Trip's own momentum work against him as he crashed into a wall of bones. "it's not just him you have to worry about though. toriel, undyne, my brother. pretty much every monster out there is going to be pretty unhappy with you for messing with their savior. lucky for you you're getting off easy. tonight you only have to deal with me."

Sans had to give credit to the guy, he was fast. Faster than Frisk had been, the times he watched them fight. Frisk was more agile, able to stop and turn quickly to get out of the way of something, but when Trip just needed to get from A to B fast he got it done. He had high dynamic visual acuity too, able to track the movements of anything Sans threw at him and account for it, finding the one spot in a hailstorm of bones that while wasn't exactly safe, gave him the footing he needed to be able to wind up and swing again. Pretty much the only way Sans was able to get a hit in was when he threw in something he couldn't compensate for because he was already moving one way and didn't have time to change course. If only getting a few hits in were enough that would be it, but he shook off every blow and took them as incentive to come back swinging harder.

Sans knew he was holding himself back, still not using every trick he had at his disposal. But needing to fight out of desperation was different from wanting to fight out of anger, and he didn't want to do something he was going to regret. Not when he'd still have to look the kid in the eye afterward. That look on their face when they begged him not to kill their brother still haunted him. So there'd be no special attacks here, real or otherwise. No blasters either, not after what Trip said. He wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of giving credit to his theories about Frisk's nightmares. Even if it were true, he wouldn't let him know it. That limited him to bones and blue magic. That really put him at a disadvantage, but he could work with it.

In Trip's favor was his weapon of choice. A baseball bat had a longer reach than a knife, and it was a lot easier to do blunt force damage to bones than to slice them open. (Why was he thinking about knives? Stop thinking about knives!) It was clear he knew how to use it too, each swing controlled and with the full force that came with years of practice. That was also his weakness though. He was used to using a bat for sport, not as a weapon, and it showed each time he lined himself up as if he were standing in the batter's box ready to hit one into centerfield. It was easy to avoid getting hit when he was like that. His form was breaking down though; his arm must have hurt terribly from the way he would wince after each miss and the pain and frustration were getting to him. His swings were becoming wilder, harder to predict, and Sans didn't think he'd be able to dodge them forever.

"you were saying a lot about not wanting to upset your mom back there," Sans thought aloud as he watched Trip navigate the field of bones. Just because he'd limited himself on what he'd use didn't mean he wouldn't be creative in using them. Right then Trip was moving through an invisible bone maze, walls of light blue bones shooting up inches from his face every time he got too close. The idea was courtesy of his brother, but using them this way was all him. It was something he wouldn't have been able to do in a narrow space like the hall before the king's throne room, for instance, and it forced Trip to move slowly to avoid charging head on into a wall. "those are some good intentions, though i can't really say to what end, oh pal." Huh, so the guy could recognize a pun when he heard it, judging by the particularly vehement look he gave Sans at the end of that sentence. "what i didn't hear was any sort of regret over everything you've done to frisk. so tell me, do you even care about the kid, at all?"

Trip grimaced as he took a particularly bad hit in the shoulder but shook it off. "Of course I care. They're my family." The way he said it was automatic and possessory, less like he had actually thought about it and more like he just wanted to establish ownership. He swung at a bone wall, causing them to disappear from the field without taking any damage himself. That's another thing the bat had an advantage in over a knife- it was possible for him to clear obstacles that way. A knife would take too long individually cutting each bone, and you'd have to get close enough to even reach them, risking getting hit. (Stop thinking about knives already!)

"They're the ones that don't care about us. Breaking Mom's heart every time they talk about that monster they're calling 'Mom,' and how excited they are for the next time they'll go see everyone. Did they tell you about that?" Trip scoffs at his own question. "Of course they didn't. They probably don't even know about it. There's no way Mom would let them see how much she's hurting over something that makes them happy. But she never has a problem showing that side around me, because I'm older and I'm supposed to be able to handle that kind of stuff."

"don't you dare try and turn this around on the kid," Sans shot back. "they're going through the exact same things you are, except they also have to deal with you on top of it. if things with your mom are half as bad as you claim they are, you should be trying to protect them from it, not taking it out on them. because newsflash: you are the older brother here, and older brothers are supposed to take care of their siblings."

"I shouldn't have to!" Trip howled, and for an instant, Sans could see the child this lanky teenager had once been. The one that had lost one parent and watched the other one disappear inside herself because of it, there but not there. The one that had been old enough to recognize the wrongness of his own situation, but wasn't old enough to know how to fix it, or to see that fixing it wasn't something he could do on his own. That child had been the one to first lash out at Frisk, probably not for anything the kid had actually done, but because they were there and an easy target. And maybe hurting them didn't do anything to actually make him feel better, but at least it let him feel like he had some power when he was feeling powerless, so he kept doing it. It got easier and easier to hurt them over time, and eventually he stopped remembering that hurting them had never been his actual goal, that it had just been a makeshift solution to an impossible problem. That was the person standing before him now, there in an instant and gone again with the swing of a bat. And a second, and a third, half berserker rage half childish tantrum as he kept trying to hit Sans and missing.

Sans needed him to get back, to get some space between them again. He grabbed Trip with blue magic and slammed him into the trees again. And again. The third time he heard something crack. He immediately let go, worried that he'd broken his promise and done more than he'd intended to hurt him. Trip fell to the ground, clutching his already injured arm. Sans could see that it was broken, a kink to it that made the arm look wrong. The shoulder looked off too, and from his shuddered breathing Sans thought he probably had a few cracked ribs as well. Despite this, Trip still hadn't let go of the bat, gripping it tightly in the injured hand through the pain. Trip was still glaring at him, and Sans readied himself for his opponent to get up and come at him again, but it never came.

"It's all coming undone, isn't it?" Trip asked bitterly. Although there was still anger in his eyes, they were unfocused and distant. "Everything I've done to patch up this mess Dad left behind? I just needed her to hold it together a little longer, a few more months at least. Then I'd be eighteen. I'm ahead in school so I could graduate early if I wanted to. I'd be able to get out of here and never look back. Let it be the twerp's turn for once to put the pieces back together when she inevitably falls apart again. Except that's not what's going to happen, is it? Now that they've got you monsters to turn to when things get bad, they're going to run to you first chance they get. Never mind that the brat's just making the problem worse by preferring the company of things that aren't even human to their own flesh and blood."

Panting, Sans dropped to the ground himself. He needed a rest after that. "maybe you're right, maybe not," he told him. "it does sound like your mom needs more help in taking care of you guys than she's been getting, and like you said, that responsibility shouldn't fall on you." Well, him specifically, but he wouldn't go into that distinction. "but from what i've seen she's a lot stronger than you give her credit for, and the thing that really drives frisk away, makes them go to us instead of her, is you."

Trip rolled his eyes at this, still holding on to a vestige his aloof teenager attitude despite the pain and the fear and the exhaustion. Even after what could almost be called a breakthrough, this guy was still refusing to acknowledge that the things he'd done to Frisk were wrong. It made Sans want to dunk the guy even harder, if he wasn't certain that it would break Trip for real. He was barely hanging on as it was. Instead he kept talking. "you know, there's something i had never been able to understand about frisk, about their ability to make different choices. this isn't just about the timeline stuff, as best i can tell that's just pure determination." Trip just stared blankly, not really understanding what he was talking about. Good. He didn't want to think about what a guy like this would do if they knew about determination. "what i'm talking about is how when facing the same situation they've already been through before, they somehow still had the option to choose to do something different. most folks if they were given the chance wouldn't be able to say the same. even if they knew it's going to have the same result, they will always react to the world around them the same way over and over again. toriel will always care for a lost child; even if it means them leaving will break her heart. papyrus will get mad whenever i make a hilarious joke; even though he knows his reactions are a joke in themselves. you'll always blame others for your problems and take it out on the kid. and me? well, whenever i meet a monster, a real monster, not like what you humans had decided to call us just for being different from you…

"i make sure they can never hurt anyone i care about again." Sans had to admit he probably enjoyed the fear on Trip's face at that point a little too much. He thought Trip might have tried to run away if he could, but all he could manage was to scrape along the ground a little to push himself further away from Sans' empty staring eyes. He laughed inwardly at that.

"i'm not saying people can't change, but that's a process that takes time, and even if it does happen, changing something that's at the core of their soul, they aren't the same person they were when they started out. but frisk isn't like that. there was never one clear choice for them, they always had the option to change how they reacted to things, to go from being merciful to cutting down anything that got in their way, and then go back to merciful on a whim. so where did that ability to choose to do something different come from? well, funny enough, after seeing the way you treat them, i think it came from you.

Sans got up again, finding one last reserve of energy to make his speech. He was definitely going to sleep for as long as he wanted after this. He didn't care how much Papyrus complained about him being lazy, he'd earned it. "see, siblings can be many things for each other. they can be playmates, companions, caretakers, and most importantly they are each other's biggest influence. they can strive to be someone the other admires and aspires to be like, or they can be an example of exactly what not to do if they wish to be something better. problem is, frisk still doesn't know which they want you to be for them. because even though as far as i can see you're a god-awful person, they grew up watching you, and know your good points just as well as your bad. they probably went through a couple different phases trying to figure out what kind of influence you'd have on them -very painful phases, for them and the rest of us- to get us to where we are now. but being back around you, it's starting to look like they're going to end up right back where they started. we've all come too far to let that happen, so i'm going to be the one to make the call on what your influence will be for them."

"Yeah? And what's that?" Sans could tell that he was trying to sound like he didn't care, but the crack in his voice gave him away. Time for one last judgment, here in these woods whose trees stood like pillars, golden light from the campfire flickering dimly. He thought on everything he'd come to understand about Trip. Like Frisk had warned, the person before him was tough, physically speaking anyway. His LV was twisted and wrong, a level of violence raised through sadism and disassociation rather than straightforward killing. But it still wasn't as high as it could be, and there was always only one choice he could make in situations like this.

"nothing," Sans said with a smile. "that's what your influence on frisk is going to be from now on. literally nothing. you are not going to be a part of their life anymore. they are not going to see you, not going to live under the same roof as you. they might hear things about you, whatever news your mother chooses to share when she visits them if she doesn't have the sense to cut ties with you as well, but you will never speak with them again unless it's of their own choice and i'm there to watch out for them. because you may have lost all right to call yourself their brother, but frisk still deserves a brother that actually cares about them."

"and if you don't listen to what i'm telling you now, i'll make sure you don't even get to live long enough to regret it." Sans' eyes flashed a brilliant blue in emphasis before he turned to walk away. Trip was still lying on the ground, hunched over in pain, and he probably wouldn't be able to muster up enough energy to try standing until long after Sans had left. There was so much more he wanted to say, about what a sick person he was, about how he needed to actually reflect on all the hurt he's caused, about how he should give that damn dog a proper burial and not turn it some specimen. But he didn't think anything he would say was going to cause some sort of revelation tonight, and what he wanted most of all was to go home, make sure Toriel had handled the situation there alright, and get some rest. A nice, dreamless sleep where when he woke up the next day everything will be looking brighter. He thought he deserved that much.