Long strands of brown hair stiffened, floating off the ground before Mabel's eyes. The sight, while not making up for her capture, stunned her into mystified silence. It reminded her of what happened after rubbing sock-covered feet on a fuzzy carpet, after getting shocked by a doorknob. Then the air sang with a low, building whine, a noise which rose over a deep undulating growl, and the blue light became blinding. She had to squint through the fingers she'd thrown over her eyes to see the thin silhouette of Flowey's form standing in stark relief against the ground, all shadows and bleached white.

Despite the roar, she managed to make out, "Planning on getting in my way again, Trashbag?"

"yep."

There was a long, drawn out hiss as the vines gradually uncurled from her legs, peeled away from her face, and she seized the opportunity, clawing and kicking and scratching for better purchase as she scrambled to her feet. Once standing, she didn't hesitate, instead taking off without thinking, without bothering to glance behind her beyond a quick, backward glimpse over her shoulder as she sprinted towards the path where her brother lay frozen, curled up into a tight ball and still.

And the monsters watched her go, her shrinking back never leaving their sight.


Once the girl was safely out of Flowey's range, which he knew from experience was farther than the plant's unfairly harmless appearance would suggest, Sans dispersed the Gasterblaster hovering a few feet over his head, letting its fully charged blast dissolve into the surrounding atmosphere with an almost irritated crackle of pent up magic. Upon realizing Sans had been bluffing, too caught up in his ways to risk a instigating a battle that would surely draw the attention of his brother, the flower let out a hollow cackle. "Oh, you do love to be the hero, don't you? Even though we both know you've never truly saved anyone."

"not sure you're in a good position to judge, bud." Sans shuffled forward, stopping only when the shadow he cast loomed over every visible inch of the soulless monster.

It wasn't enough to cower Flowey, however. If anything, he only grew bolder with the knowledge that Sans was in a position to literally end his life with a snap of his fingers, and yet was choosing not to. Because despite all of his pitiful whining and incessant moping, the thought of changing events to the point where they became unrecognizable, of suddenly finding himself faced with actions that led to unknown consequences and no clue as to how to combat or prevent them, it frightened him, restraining his wrath like shackles he'd made and locked himself.

Better the enemy you know and all that, right?

Heh.

How utterly pathetic.

"Of course," Flowey drawled, "that's your job, isn't it? Not that you ever actually do your job. The fact that those two are still alive is proof of that." Sans chuckled without anything resembling humor. Whatever it was that burned in his chest like ice, it was much darker than that. "You can act like you don't care all you want, but even you can't deny that little thrill of excitement fluttering in that empty chest of yours. I know because I feel it, too. That human over there's on the verge of losing his mind and neither of us have any idea why. Isn't that great?" Returning to his default form, Flowey continued, a touch of wistfulness creeping in, "It's almost like experiencing something for the first time."

"yeah, i've been meaning to ask you about that. ya sure you don't have anything to do with it?

Thinking back, Flowey wasn't. "It's possible," he started, weighing the impact each addition syllable had upon the skeleton, though the purposefully blank expression on his skull made it infuriatingly difficult to pick up more than the mildest interest, "that some of my more recent memories were altered."

Almost immediately after he finished speaking, the atmosphere changed, becoming charged, like the moment between the cocking of a gun and the firing of a bullet. "a reset?" Sans asked warily, and though he was careful not to betray too much interest lest the plant decide the information was worth a price, it was obvious that his composure was slipping. Resets were a sore spot with him, after all. And even cracks that started out small could one day bring down a mountain.

"That was what I thought, and an early one at that, except those Resets shouldn't affect me. What I'm thinking now is there might be a new player in our midst, something that either has Determination or managed to siphon some off the humans."

"or it's in them," came the quiet, nearly inaudible reply.

Well, that was an interesting theory. "You think a monster's soul slipped into the brother, somehow?"

Sans lifted his shoulders in a shrug as he shoved his hands back into his pockets, already preparing to leave as his attention began to drift elsewhere. With that said, when his right brow bent to approximate a wink, his left socket stayed focused on the soulless monster poking out of the Earth, wide and unblinking. "just entertaining possibilities. at this point, your guess is as good as mine."

A long silence followed that Sans made no effort to break. Once it became clear that he wasn't going to elaborate, and the silence began to become too strained to bear, Flowey bristled, narrowing his eyes with annoyance. "Sooo, are you going to let me go or what? Papyrus is going to catch up soon and I don't think you'd want him running into you while you're looking quite so," the flower stretched its mouth into a cruel, sharp-edged imitation of a smile, "scary."

But if the words had any effect on the skeleton, he didn't show it. He did, however, look as though there was something he wanted to say. Out of sight, his fingers curled into fists as a single drop of sweat dripped down the side of his skull, then he shook himself, muttering, "yeah, fine. get out of here before i change my mind." At this point, Flowey was more than happy to. "and for future reference, i'd suggest you stay away from the humans. 'til i know what's going on, i'm playing things safe, so if i see you near either one of those kids again or if pap so much as mentions a friendly talking flower to me..." An unnaturally deep reverberation entered his voice as any semblance of affability vanished so completely it was hard to believe it'd ever existed in the first place, "then it doesn't matter who you were before alphys grounded you, you're gonna have a very bad time."

Alphys? Somebody's been sticking their noseless face into places where it doesn't belong.

"I'm disappointed in you, Sans." It dripped from the jagged tear stretching across his face like droplets of nectar mixed with venom. "I believed even you would be curious. Now, tell me the truth: You haven't once wondered what Asgore will do when faced with this little dilemma?" Back by the cleared path, the sound of surprised laughter hit the air. It was quickly joined by another, the two drifting through the trees like a song. Flowey canted his head towards the source, an unpleasant glint in his dark eyes. "The barrier requires seven souls. Only one more is required to break it, and yet if my eyes don't deceive me, two children walked out of the Ruins. What do you think your dear king will do? Leave one child alive to hate us all? Or snatch their soul just to spare them the utter torment of living on without their sibling?" Sans twitched, the movement barely perceivable in the dim grey light filtering through the fog. Still, Flowey noticed, and his grin widened to an unsettling length, like a wound cut into a corpse. "Oh, I can guess what he'd do next. But not knowing for sure… It excites you, doesn't it?"

Instead of answering the question, Sans replied, "if it's a kindred spirit you're after, i'm afraid you're out of luck. you and me? we're not the same, and i'm not going to change my mind on that so you can stop trying to convince me otherwise."

"Sure. It's not like you've ever taken sick pleasure in repeatedly and ruthlessly murdering a child or anything, right? Face it, Trashbag, we're both unfeeling freaks trapped in a prison made of glass. The only difference between me and you is you still have your SOUL." Smirking, the flower gave voice to an observation he could only hope would drive the knife in deeper, past the calluses grown over his guarded heart and into the vulnerable parts, the parts that ached, the parts that stubbornly continued to bleed. "And yet even with your precious SOUL, you're just as empty as I am." Then he burrowed into the snowdrift, satisfied that he'd gotten the last word this round.

And after a moment of standing alone in the woods, Sans gave his head a rueful, deliberate shake of his head. "jeez, couldn't leave without sticking it to me one last time, huh? what a kid."


Branches creaked and snapped as someone or something approached with all the easy grace of a stampeding rhino, prompting Dipper to lift his head up just enough to see what was going on. Almost immediately after he raised his head, Mabel came bursting from the trees, kicking up white clouds as she skidded to an abrupt halt. Her gaze darted around and behind her, nervous, scared, but then it came to rest solely to him, becoming so focused he feel the pressure on his forehead. He opened his mouth, torn between asking what happened and fumbling to come up with a reason for why he was such a mess. His brain blanked. "Mabel?" Her name came out muffled, thick, barely comprehensible. And then he couldn't speak. Her arms were too tight, her sweater warm as it pressed against him, and he leaned into the embrace, too tired to fight it, too tired to care about how humiliating it would be if someone happened to see them like this. His breathing hitched, catching in his throat, but he refused to cry. Not again. He wasn't going to give it the satisfaction of making him shed one more tear. "Jeez, Dippingsauce," Mabel huffed, mindful to smooth out the strained edge threatening to cut into her voice, "did you decide to go ahead and play in the snow without me? You could have just waited."

Blinking snowflakes off of his lashes, Dipper wiped some of the half-melted slush from his cheeks and chin as he began to adamantly insist that he hadn't been playing around. "What? No, I-"

Mabel waited paitently for him to continue, slightly disappointed when it became clear that Dipper had no such plans. He rested his head on her shoulder. It was obvious to him that Mabel was too tense, coiled like a spring, overwound and exhausted, but it didn't stop her from curving her lips into a small, honest smile when she apologized for running off without him.

"It's fine," Dipper muttered, "I shouldn't be freaking out like this every time you leave for two seconds." But that wasn't all there was to it, right? There was something he didn't want to talk about, and Mabel was sure that all the weird stuff she'd been noticing, like the strange way he'd started speaking when he'd tried to tell her what was going on with him, and the creepy way he'd pocketed the knife before, were both connected to it.

A thoughtful frown, so like him Mabel could have cheered, tugged at the corners of his mouth. Straightening, he reminded her, "But this is a new place and we still don't know where we're going so you definitely shouldn't be wandering off. I told you this before, and-" Moving quickly, Mabel plucked Dipper's cap off his head and ruffled his hair. "Hey, Mabel, stop! Don't mess up my-" The cap was plopped firmly back onto his head, smooshing the hair underneath it.

While Dipper tried to return his hair to its former glory, grumbling all the while, Mabel tried to decide whether or not bringing up what she'd seen, the really strange way he was acting, was worth the risk of filling his head back up with all the awful thoughts that had made him hunch over on the ground in the first place. Then again, if she just left it like this, nothing was going to change, and whatever was happening was only going to get worse.

Right now, there was still something she could do, so didn't that mean she had to try?

After sucking down a deep, calming breath, she called his name to get his attention. And he looked up, confused at her sudden change in tone, at the somber expression on her face, and she tried to smile again, wanted to more than anything, but the confusion turned to concern as she tried. Now that it seemed like Dipper was pulling himself back together, it was getting harder for her not to fall apart. The sensation of thorns pressing against her skin lingered, black and blue dots sometimes burst like fireworks in her vision, slowly fading, and even though Sans had saved her, even though she was safe now and probably owed the pun-loving skeleton the biggest apology ever, she were still so scared.

But Dipper was, too. Probably even more than she was.

Which why she needed to be brave.

Reaching out for his hand, Mabel swallowed, and then tentatively broached the subject neither of them truly wanted to talk about. "Why don't you let me get rid of the knife?"

The answer came even faster than she'd expected. "No."

"Why not?" Mabel challenged. "You don't even like carrying it around, right?" He quickly shook his head, the fear of a cornered animal already returning. "I may not know exactly what's going on, but I'm going to help, okay?" Seeing Dipper getting ready to bolt, she sighed, feeling her resolve harden. "Whether you like it or not." The reaction was immediate. Dipper tried to pull away, horrified by the thought of what might happen to her if she tried to take the weapon from him, and Mabel lunged forward, intending to dispose of the knife by force if she had to, when an open palm slammed into her, shoving her with enough force to lay her out flat on her back. Ice seeped into the back of her sweater, and as she sat up, her teeth began to chatter.

The gamble had backfired spectacularly. It was easy that to see as Dipper had scrabbled away without bothering to stand or even turn his back on her. And even now that he'd increased the distance between them by a few feet, his limbs were still taunt, ready to move if she made another grab for the knife.

"Sorry, Dipper." She felt heavy. Cold. Sad. Dipper helped her all the time, but now that he needed her to do something for him, she'd failed in every way imaginable. And now he might not trust her again. "I thought-"

"It's not the knife that's the problem." Her head shot up. Dipper hadn't moved any closer, and he was still staring at her, but he seemed a little calmer, not as prepped to run. "Actually, I've kind of been expected something like this to happen ever since you found out about it. To be honest, I'm really more surprised that you waited this long."

"I thought that if I just gave you some time, you'd tell me what was going on with you on your own. That was what you wanted, right?" He'd been so upset outside the Ruins, she hadn't wanted to push him, not when he was already stretched thin. Nothing good would come from pressing too hard against a sheet of tissue paper. And it'd been a while since she'd seen him flinch like someone was driving a nail into his brain.

"No! Well, yes. I wanted to talk to you! I tried to tell you what was going on right before we fought Toriel, but it - something happened and you couldn't understand what I was saying… and I guess I'm just afraid of what'll happen if I try again. I think the first time was supposed to be a warning." And the next time – warm red liquid dripped over his hands, running over the skin between his fingers – the next time could be so much worse. He looked down at his hands, seeing nothing but skin glowing pink with cold, and then two chilled palms slid over them, and all he could see was a pair of hands around the same size as his, the same color, the same shape. They were steady, firm and strong, and more than willing to share some of that strength with him.

"You have a plan, right?" He raised his head, a silent question expressed through the quirking of an eyebrow. "Don't play dumb with me, mister," Mabel added sternly, semi-seriously wagging a finger, "you always have a plan."

Guilty as charged. "Well, I guess you could say I've got part of a plan." Mabel nodded eagerly, urging him to continue. "Sans said there's a town not far from here. Well, towns usually have libraries, right? So I'm going to go through every book until I find one that tells me exactly what's going on and how to stop it."

Which meant they'd have to stay underground longer. Maybe even days. And who knew if they would even find anything helpful? For all he knew, he could be stuck like this, constantly losing control, constantly worrying about hurting someone. It was better if she went home. "Okay. So we check the library, and then what? We ask around?"

"No" Dipper said, keeping his voice steady, "not we. Me. I'm going to stay behind and look for a cure or a spell or an exorcism. You're going home."

At first, Mabel was positive she'd heard him wrong. There was no way he could honestly think that she would ever leave him behind, but then he didn't say anything else, didn't take it back or offer to explain things better, and it stung. For some reason, he didn't want her around.

But why not?

Was it because she wasn't smart enough? Did he think she'd only get in the way? Was it because she kept messing up and getting hurt and he didn't want to have to look after her anymore?

"Mabel?"

Her vision went blurry. She batted at her eyes, trying to clear it. This wasn't – She needed to think of something to say. Anything. She needed to convince him not to ask her to go, but her mind was buzzing with too many thoughts all crashing into each other, coalescing into confused nonsense that wailed like static. And she tried to speak anyway, and she wasn't sure what came out but it must have been the static in her head, because Dipper was suddenly much closer to her, his arms wound around her back. A giggle fluttered in her chest as she remembered just how recently she'd been the one hugging him.

"Hey, don't- I won't make you go, okay? You can stay with me and we'll figure this out together, so please stop crying." He hadn't expected her to burst into tears. Maybe she'd thought he was asking her to find a way home by herself? Not a chance. He would have walked with her every step of the way, but if this was her reaction, then he just couldn't ask her to leave again. Really, twelve years of growing up with her should have rendered him immune to this, and he mostly was whenever she was only pretending, but this was real and frightened, and maybe she wasn't bleeding but this was just hurting her in a different way, something sending her home was supposed to prevent.

Things would've been easier if she'd just agreed, but maybe, secretly, he'd been counting on her to stay. And he wasn't sure how to feel about that.

Mabel sniffed, rubbing the tears away with a fuzzy green sleeve. "You mean it?"

Relieved to see she was calming down, Dipper worked hard to muster up a sure grin. The result turned out a little too grim for his liking, but he was learning to make due with what he had, and Mabel didn't seem to mind. "There's not a single person in the whole universe I'd rather be surrounded by monsters with."

A hesitant yet grateful smile tugged at the corners of her lips, shining in her eyes, and Dipper felt his own spirits lift at the sight. Then he received a solid punch to the shoulder. Protesting, Dipper rubbed the smarting skin with a scowl. "Don't scare me like that again. I really thought you wanted me to leave." He had. "Because I'm not smart like you. Because I'm too silly." Never. Regardless of what anyone - adults, other kids - said, he'd never once believed that his sister wasn't smart, and there was nothing wrong with being a little silly, 'd all see how wrong they were after she grew up to become the world's first sticker obsessed president.

"I just want you to be safe, Mabel." At least one of them had to make it home.

"I am safe. And as long as we stick together, I'll always be safe." When Dipper still looked unconvinced, Mabel decided she'd had enough seriousness to last her an entire month, puffed up her cheeks, and clapped her hands over them, forcing the air past her lips with a wet noise that bore uncanny resemblance to Sans' whoopee cushion.

Once the sound petered out, Dipper gawked at her with blatant disbelief. "Did you just-" She did it again. "Okay, that's e-" And again. "I mean it, Mabel-" And again.

Finally, Dipper couldn't take it anymore. An arm wrapped around his stomach as he snickered, "You're ridiculous." And Mabel was only too glad to accept the comment as the praise it was, noting with no small amount of satisfaction as some of the harsh worry lines finally began to melt from her brother's forehead.

A pair of footsteps approached the clearing, one stomping and aggravated, the other light and unobtrusive. Without the first, the twins may not have even noticed the second.

"I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU LEFT ME BEHIND BACK THERE." Mabel shared an amused glance with her brother as a fire engine red boot swung into view.

"oh, come on, pap," came the reply as pink slippers shuffled to keep pace with the boots, "i told ya i had something i needed to take care of." And then there were two skeletons standing on the path, each seemingly oblivious to their surroundings, as neither appeared to notice the twins grinning widely a few feet ahead.

"OH, OF COURSE." Papyrus replied with heavy sarcasm, arms folded over his battle body. "HOW COULD I FORGET THAT YOU HAD TO WEED YOUR GARDEN?"

"…why am i getting the impression you don't be-leaf me?"

"BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE A GARDEN, SANS!"

An amused snort from further on distracted them both.

While Papyrus moved to greet the humans and apologize for the wait, which was entirely the fault of his brother, Sans chortled under his breath. Then he noticed the little girl staring at him, her mouth pressed in a quizzically tilted line. Reading the question mark written all over her face, he firmly shook his head, laying one skeletal finger over his mouth. If it was absolutely, one-hundred percent necessary, they'd hash things out later.

Still, though he was fairly confident his bro was far too convinced of his laziness (and his honesty) to ever believe that Sans could be hiding something from him, the fact that she hadn't blurted out a thanks or a question about his magic was appreciated.

As for the boy, it seemed like he was in control of himself, for the moment. Even more so than he'd been the last time the skeleton had taken a really good look at him, back when they'd first met.

Guess there was no need for him to interfere, then.

"SANS," Papyrus whispered as best as someone with the natural volume of an air horn could, which was to say everyone in Hotland could hear him, "DON'T THESE HUMANS REMIND YOU A LITTLE OF US?"

With a mental frown, Sans took a closer look at the kids, this time searching for more than the answers to a few specific questions. And without those questions in mind, he was better able to see what Papyrus saw, the way their postures curved towards each other, as though seeking reassurance of the other's continued existence. There were recently frozen tracks running down the girl's cheeks. Something had happened, and whatever it was, Sans would have bet ten bottles of ketchup that it was responsible for the boy's presence not giving him the creeps, anymore.

And, yeah, the scene did remind him a little of when Papyrus was younger, back when he still needed his big brother to hug the bad dreams away, but that wasn't what Papyrus was thinking of, was it?

"nope."

Disappointed, Papyrus waved him off, then marched ahead to ask the humans if they'd still like to solve his puzzles. If they decided they'd rather go straight to the town and rest, he'd understand. Undyne reacted similarly to cold weather, what with her sneezing and shivering, though unlike the humans, who seemed to be gradually turning blue as time went on and the winds picked up, the young captain of the Royal Guard was born that way.

The twins shared a glance, silently wondering if the other was still up for puzzle solving, then simultaneously nodded, having decided they wanted to continue. It would have been hard to have fun if they were lost and alone, but they weren't alone, were they?

"It's not like we have anything else to do, right?"

"And we really want to see the puzzle you worked so hard on!"

Letting out a whoop, Papyrus exclaimed, "NYEH HEH HEH! THANK YOU, HUMANS! I PROMISE YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED!" Beaming, he quickly marched off to set up his puzzles, then stopped, spun around on his heel, and marched right back. Before Mabel could ask why, he wrapped his scarf around her, winding it around the first scarf until the ends no longer dragged on the ground and the skin all the way up to her nose was shielded from the cold, then he lifted Sans up by his sleeves, tugged the coat off his arms while he dangled, and handed it to Dipper. It smelled strongly of old ketchup.

Then he twirled away like a spinning top.

Hanging back, Sans waited until the twins were ready to move forward, all decked out in their borrowed winter gear, before saying, "listen, thanks for doing this. it's been a while since i've seen him this excited."

"Yeah, no problem, man," Dipper replied, feeling warm and light under the heavy coat. "Sorry about taking your clothes like this."

"nah, don't mention it. only one of us needs to stay warm to survive." And before Dipper had a chance to ask how he knew that, Sans spun down the path to follow Papyrus and avoid responsibilities.


While the twins didn't encounter any other monsters on their way to Papyrus' first puzzle, they did encounter a patch of ice that had them tripping over themselves for a few minutes as they each tried to catch a glimpse of the sign sticking out of the small ice-free zone in the middle. The sign's chosen placement, difficult to see and even harder to reach, gave Dipper the impression that whoever had set the sign up had cared more about making strangers fall on their rears than about giving directions.

Once he finally nailed the trajectory, Dipper read the directions, "It says ' North: Ice. South: Ice. West: Ice. East: Snowdin Town."

"and ice!" Mabel chimed in, having read the last line over his shoulder.

Palming his forehead, Dipper let out an exasperated groan, "I cannot believe we wasted time for this." His shorts were already soaked from all the time he'd spent kneeling in the snow, but now, thanks to the sign, it's terrible placement, and whoever was lazy enough to think writing something as obvious as 'Ice' was acceptable for just about every direction, he ached all over, too.

"Snowdin," Mabel repeated, looking thoughtful. "Doesn't that kind of sound like snowed in? What do you think are the chances that Sans named the town?"

Dipper opened his mouth, closed it, raised a finger, lowered it, then finally settled for a noncommittal shrug. While he wasn't convinced that Sans was responsible for every pun they came across - maybe the founder was just really bad with names, so he thought up ones that were simple and easy to remember – he'd seen a lot of strange things lately, and he wasn't going to completely count out the possibility, either.

Actually, didn't Toriel really like puns, too?

Dipper frowned as some aspect of that particular thought continued to nag at him.

Toriel. Too.

Too. Toriel.

Tutorial.

"Oh, come on!"