In an empty clearing, silent save for the lap of the river against its shore, a lone bench sits beside a single blue flower glowing faintly in the dark. Shadows fall around the lonely tin hidden beneath the wooden slats, abandoned and covered in tin foil.
A drop of water condenses on the ceiling above. It falls, shimmering like tears in the moisture-filled air. It lands on one pale petal with enough pressure to send the flower waving. Into the silence, a remembered voice echoes out.
"I just couldn't handle the responsibility."
The echoes fade into silence, broken only by the lap of waves. No one comes here...no one knows of the hidden meal. Well...maybe one.
The world...stutters. Suddenly, the empty clearing wasn't so empty anymore. The shadows danced away, chased behind two curled up figures by the flickering light of a standing flame. One of Grillby's hands rubs at a dimming slash of near-embers across his chest, the other still captured in freezing bones. He idly wonders if this wound will scar...most have not, but...well, there is always a first time. A part of him jeers that at least that way he and Sans will match - he shoos the thought away. Scars aren't a competition.
How long has it been now? Fifty years? A hundred? How long has it been since he'd been in a real fight? Long enough that he'd forgotten about this aspect of it. The exhaustion that comes when everything is safe, everything is over...although exhaustion might not be the right word. Numb...that was the feeling, or rather, the lack thereof. Back in the war he'd heard other monsters speak of times they hadn't realized they were frozen to their core, or bleeding, or impaled until hours after the battle had ended. Shock. That was the word.
The silence was broken by heaving lungs under a white labcoat filled with panic. Grillby's flames flicker in sympathy. The poor scientist...he remembered his first fight like that, two forces duking it out with every intent to kill one another, so...determined to do so...that the entire world around them ceased to exist. They'd...succeeded, dusted one another in the end...and left two children skipping school to hide out in a cave scared witless. He'd thrown up, magic curdling at the sight...so had Gaster. Who would have thought they'd end up the same way?
Words danced amidst the hiss of his flames; at the time he'd barely been able to make them out over the roar of his fury and the pain and terror surging out of Sans.
...I never made it clear to you just how much I wanted you gone...Listen to me. Stop….This….Pointless….the dust-coated scenery is wearing thin….Are you listening now, Sans? Pay close attention. I want you to Stop. Coming. Ba-
Flames surged...and quickly died back without the fuel to sustain them. He shivered. And that had been only the things he had heard Gaster say. He...he'd known Gaster wasn't the most stable of individuals. The war hadn't been kind to any of them. But...well, he could not understand how his friend from long ago had sunk so low. What he had said...what Grillby suspected...he could not imagine anyone doing something like that, let alone the boy who had cobbled together the old dimension boxes for his more pocket-challenged friends.
He...almost pitied him, now that he wasn't pumped full of Bravery and Justice. Whatever Gaster had done...wherever Gaster had been...somewhere along the way, something had broken his old friend. He only hoped Gaster could stay away from it long enough to heal...and stay away from him and his adorable skeleton long enough for Grillby to forgive him, too...and for Sans to heal, body and SOUL.
...Sans. Sans had...done...something...hadn't he? Grillby had been reeling with pain and fury and all the emotions of battle on top of everything he'd picked up through their bond...but he remembered a small hand taking his. He remembered an expression of purpose and confidence on the skeleton's skull, a smile that whispered, 'trust me, okay? i got this'. He remembered a swirl of magic unlike anything he'd ever felt before, wrapping him, calling to him...and then they were here. Alphys was against the wall, still trapped in the haze of her own thoughts. He felt a twinge of guilt that he hadn't gone over and helped her, but...where was Sans?
His gaze darted around the room, sliding across bare rock walls and the expanse of the river. He shivered - he did not look forward to finding their way out. This was clearly Waterfall, and Waterfall meant rain, and while he could survive the stuff, he didn't enjoy it.
No Sans over by Alphys. No Sans along the boardwalk. No Sans by the echo flower. No Sa- ah. Grillby took two step over to the slumped figure of his lover, scooping him into his arms. He, Sans, felt...exhausted, empty, grey...not unlike a few days ago, when Grillby had found him collapsed against the Ruins door. He sighed. Whatever progress they had made might be gone...but not forever. With a little kindness, and a great deal of patience...they would make it through.
Grillby ran his eyes up and down Sans' bones...there did not seem to be any outward signs of new injuries...but would there be? Whatever had happened...whatever that was...it did not seem the sort of thing that would carry over...however this 'carrying over' worked. He frowned. When Sans had...well, it had felt as if...as if he was gone, truly gone. The bond felt like it had stretched off into infinity, no anchor in sight, but...but that was not how broken bonds felt, was it? They looked more like what he had seen in the poor scientist than some endless stre-
That was it, wasn't it? The bond hadn't been broken. It had been stretched beyond anything he could feel, anything he could sense...but it had not been torn out, roots and all. Sans was still there, somehow...just beyond his reach. Well. He wasn't quite sure how to deal with that. It was...like something out of a dream. Actually...like one very particular dream. That...black space...that wasn't his dream, was it? It was Sans'...and it could very well be a memory.
Poor Sans. Just when the skeleton was finally beginning to process things, to emote and grieve in a way Grillby felt he may never have done before, this happened. Grillby leant his flames down towards the skull cradled in his arms and nuzzled. He hoped the gesture would be as comforting to Sans as it was to him, tender flames warming yielding cheeks...yielding...bones…
He opened his eyes. Something was wrong. Sans bones were never as hard as they should have been...but this...his skull almost looked like it was melting.
Alphys, slowly, ever so slowly, came down from the panic and terror filled state she had been in. Everything was just...too much. There was snow, and she really wasn't cut out for snow, why had she thought coming all the way down to Snowdin was a good idea again? She lived in Hotland...snow was not her element.
Anime, now, anime was something she was comfortable with...but living it? She wasn't quite sure she was prepared for that, and this...this whole situation felt like something out of one of her more...dystopic shows. The Underground empty...the people in charge missing or...dead. The dust…
What had that thing with the skeleton even been? She had seen him dusted...not once, but twice now! Twice! And...that second time...he'd seemed so...heroic. Like the character that sacrificed themselves so that the others could live on. He'd pushed her away. He'd been dying...he'd died...and he'd pushed her away. Not that she didn't understand...he didn't even know her, and anyway...who would want someone like her around in the first place.
But then...she'd been more than a little scared. It wasn't that she was unused to magic...no, definitely not. She worked with the stuff every day. But...combat magic like that...she'd only ever heard about it in stories. To have it whizzing around over her head like that...she should have handled it better. Any other monster would have gotten out of the way, or joined in, or...or...something. They wouldn't have just sat there shivering in fear.
Even Sans had done...whatever he'd done. He'd just...showed up again, probably annoyed that she was crying about him, and grabbed her arm. Why hadn't she done something? Looked up, or helped with the spell, or...or...done anything other than sit there and cry!
Well, she was going to do something now. Shakily, SOUL pounding in her chest, Alphys got to her feet. She flexed her claws in the dirt...hmm. Proper dirt, too. Not half frozen stuff like they got in Snowdin...not ground down lava rock like they used up near her lab. Dirt. Waterfall, then...how had she gotten to Waterfall? She looked around…
Was that...Grillby? It had to be...he was the tallest flame he knew, the only orange one that height, anyway. But...he looked...dimmer, darker, embers showing through in slashes across his back, his shoulders, his arms...wait, was that...Sans?
Her small claws scrabbled in the dirt. Those looked like...they were. Stars, but they were. She gulped. All across the skeleton's skull were the marks of DETERMINATION induced melting...some with...cracks? She scowled. That shouldn't be possible. DT had never…all the Amalgamates...they'd never stabilized. Certainly not enough for their melted shells to harden enough for cracks to form like this. And yet...and yet it couldn't be anything else...could it? No, she couldn't make a mistake about that...she'd never be able to get the images of what she had caused out of her head.
So...why was this skeleton she had never seen before today...at least, never seen in person...covered in the marks of the compound she had researched for the past decade?
Sans could barely feel anything. There were some vague aches in what he remembered as his ribs, and what was probably his skull felt...odd. Yes, odd. That was the only word he could think of to describe the feeling that his right temple was concave where it should be convex. Odd.
If he had to put a number on it, this was maybe a two, but he wasn't entirely sure all of his bones were reporting for duty, so think of that as the bottom line. Let's see...feet? Not really, kinda fading out somewhere near his knees. Hands?...maybe. At least one, or maybe one complete set of sensations between the two of them. His left elbow distinctly felt like it had gotten banged repeatedly on the wall. Make that a three.
Something warm brushed against his cervical vertebrae, half-felt sensations of flame tips trickling through to his SOUL. The warmth was...nice. It was a real warmth, a soft warmth, not the burning, sharp, red thing that even now was fading from his bones. He leaned into it.
"...Sans?"
Ah, Grillby. That...made sense. He remembered Grillby taking care of him...and being afraid of...someone...and wanting Grillby near. Then...flames, and shadows, and...sparks? Oh, right. There was...someone there, someone...crying? And...a threat. He had to do something...oh, right. He'd pulled two other monsters through a shortcut halfway across the Underground because they were in danger and he could only think of one place he was certain wouldn't have changed. Guess coming all the way here was a bit of a stretch, even for him. Heh.
"S-sans, are you...are you awak-k-ke?"
He rotated his skull towards the half-familiar voice...he'd heard it somewhere, but...oh. The yellow sparks. Right. He tried to muster up the magic needed to speak - wasn't that a joke, he needed magic to breathe, to eat, to speak, yet everyone else seemed to manage just fine. If that wasn't a sign he was a waste of space, he didn't know what-
He was absolutely bone dry. Heh. Whelp, guess that made this a bit more difficult. Slowly, he nodded his head. It felt...weird, fluffy and goopy and hollow all at once. Didn't really hurt...well, now it did, his temporal lobe feeling over-heated and distended. Maybe a four?
Above him, flames crackled, the warmth at his neck increasing nicely. Green embers sparked...behind him? They didn't last long, whatever they were, dying into the dark depths in a matter of seconds.
"...Sans…..are you…..how much pain…..are you in…..right now?"
Well, shit. How was he supposed to answer that? Maybe...he focused on his phalanges. One, two...yeah, he had enough on that hand. He wiggled four boney digits with as much energy as he could muster. Wait...would Grillby be able to see that?
"F-f-four? Four what? Is that a measurements? A sc-c-cale? A quantity?"
He felt the overwhelming and pointless urge to roll his eye lights.
"...Sans…..what would…..a fresh break in your…..femur…..be?"
He smiled. Thank you, Grillby. He shakily shook his hand, all fingers extended.
"Five?"
He nodded.
"...where does it hurt?"
Sans scowled, then winced. How was he…? He tried to lift his hand...then gave up halfway through. He just didn't have the energy.
"W-w-well, that's...Um...I, um...is this, um...the room near the b-b-bridge seed puzzles?"
He nodded, not really sure where the stranger was going with this. Grillby did not seem sure either.
"...Alphys, what…..ah. Yes…..I think I can make it…..back home from here…..if you…..can get us…..as far as…..Snowdin."
Alphys. That was...that was the name of the Royal Scientist, right? Undyne's crush? She'd mentioned something once about her...she stuttered a lot, wasn't it? And she studied human history a lot. Not that the textbooks he'd seen down here were very helpful. Half the time, they seemed to contradict one another, but...eh. Someone had to...at least it wasn't him.
In the distance, he heard the slosh of water against scales. Huh. Guess that made sense...the whole reason he used to come to this place was how hard it was to get to for most other monsters. He tried to block out the memories of the times he hadn't intended to come back. They'd just RESET, anyway. S'not like it mattered.
Something bumped against the wood of the dock, a hollow thunk that quickly faded into nothing. The hand at his neck tightened, then loosened again. Another thunk, then another, then another. A rustling chirp filled the silence, expanding...bridge seeds? Yeah, sure, why not. The deck wasn't that far away from the shore after all.
His sense of equilibrium shifted radically. What...oh. Pressure on his knees, warmth slipping lower on his spine. Okay. Grillby was carrying him. That made sense. He couldn't even lift one hand right now, let alone walk. He was a boneless heap of bones. Heh. Might as well enjoy the ride.
Pressure against his right femur, then the humerus on the same side, then back to the femur. Walking, then, with his legs cradled in Grillby's right arm. Step. Step. This was actually kind of nice...he could count on one hand the number of times he remembered being carried someplace, and two of them had involved broken bones. Multiple broken bones. That had hurt. A lot. So, those times hadn't been that pleasant.
He could vaguely remember being carried by Grillby a few days ago...or was it yesterday? Linear time was...harder to keep track of without a clock. So, that was three. This made four. It was...really nice. Relaxing, kind of...he didn't have to think about anything, didn't have to move...he could rest. Grillby would take care of him...didn't seem to be anything he could do to stop that. He let himself drift into slumber.
Alphys scurried down the long, damp hallway just ahead of the plodding flame. Her claws laced nervously together, rubbing up and down, up and down. Which tools had she brought in her bag again? It felt like ages ago that she had gotten Grillby's email, sitting in the small room that had become her office in the midst of the evacuation. Had she brought the portable scanner?...she thought she might have. She hoped she had, she really, really hoped so.
Finally, she reached the corner. Stars, why were these caves so long? Of course, most monsters were taller than she was, but...there were short people too! Shouldn't there be some kind of bench in here?...then again, most monsters got out more often than she did. She didn't really blame them for forgetting about monsters like her.
White, icy fury barred the gap before her. She knew this stretch of the Underground was famous for its semi-permanent blizzard...but this felt...extreme. She stood there, staring at the literal wall of snow before her. It...scared her. A lot. She knew how weather worked in the Underground, a combination of radial discharge from the CORE, consensus in monster-aura overlap, and external leakage from outside the Barrier. Still...this?
Behind her, the slight heat grew until it was a quiet blaze.
"...oh."
The footsteps stopped. She felt a little bit better knowing the longtime Snowdin native was just as wary of the storm as she was. Still, it wouldn't hurt to check. She reached out a claw to the whipping white wind. The moment it dipped through, her claw lurched sideways. She shook the arm stiffly.
"I d-d-don't think we're g-g-getting through there."
The moan of the wind was her only reply.
"H-h-how much would it-"
"Quite a bit….." She slumped, "...were I in…..better condition…..but…..I am not."
They stared at the snow some more. She tried to remember how the caves in this part of Waterfall fitted together. Maybe there was a more...sheltered exit? She didn't think so. Hadn't she heard Un- Un- her bragging about that? 'Only one way through, a perfect bottleneck for the humans'...something like that. Guess...it wasn't...good enough.
"...Do you…..perhaps….." She turned her head towards the flame at her side. A flicker of a smile passed over her snout at the figure in his arms. Poor skeleton...she wished she could fall asleep so easily, "...do you know…..of anyone…..who might still be here…..?"
She winced. No one had really wanted to return here...besides the worry that the human was still out there, there was the...dust. Waterfall...had been hit pretty bad. That other skeleton...Papyrus?...had done his best...but too many monsters had called this part of the Underground home.
Wait...who had volunteered to search through here? There were so many caves...someone had pointed out the blue-garbed skeleton might be hiding out in one of them. Who...they were taller than her, not that that meant much, she was freakishly short. They...had glasses? No, a monocle...no, that wasn't right either. A...magnifying glass. Who did she…
"Um...I think G-g-gerson might b-b-be around here somewhere…?"
All of the motion in the room was sucked away.
"...Gerson."
She eyed the flame. Against the light of the storm his flames almost seemed to vanish. His grip on the sleeping skeleton tightened.
"Um, I'm sure we can-"
"Gerson is…..fine, we…..we can go to Gerson's…..fine. That's…..fine."
The flame spun on his heel, wobbling slightly from the unaccustomed weight as he came to a stop. He looked down at the skeleton, flames flickering with gold, then back at the wall of ice. He sighed, and set out into the depths of Waterfall, Alphys scurrying along after.
