Sans planted his feet firmly on the welcome mat and rummaged through his pockets for his house key. The kid was draped over him in an unconscious piggyback ride, and rested his head on Sans' shoulder. He murmured little half-words in his sleep and flexed his fingers.
Sans felt something hard bang against his ribs and looked down to the quarter-empty bottle of gin the kid still clutched. He shifted the kid's weight and tried to pry the bottle out of his hand, but it was impossible. The kid's grip was like a bear trap.
Sans managed to unlock the door and open it with a push of his snow-caked slipper. He kicked the doorframe to dislodge some powder and stepped inside. The wind immediately caught the door and closed it with a thump. The kid made a disquieted noise, but didn't wake.
For the fiftieth time, Sans questioned his own sanity at bringing the kid home. It just hadn't seemed right to leave him at the bar, though. Nothing more complex than that ran through his head, and that worried him. He believed himself to be a rational guy, but the last few hours he'd spent with the kid made it difficult.
It felt like the kind of bad sitcom Mettaton would have cooked up.
'my best friend, the serial killer.'
Sans fumbled for the light and accidentally banged the kid's foot against the wall.
He found the switch and flipped it. For a microsecond, he entertained the possibility that it was all an elaborate joke, that he was being punked and all his dead friends would leap out from behind the couch to share a laugh at his expense.
The room brightened and Sans waited for his inane fantasy to come true.
It didn't.
Sans staggered through the living room and thought about where to deposit the kid. His own bed was a tangled mess; He hadn't even slept in it in days. He looked up the stairs towards Pap's bedroom door. An image of the kid sleeping in Pap's bed flashed through his mind.
He dropped the kid on the couch.
The absurdity of it all was wearing on Sans. He collapsed into an armchair and tried to rub the ache out of his shoulder blades. The child rested on the couch in a half-fetal position and continued to mumble. Sans tried to assemble the words into something coherent, but gave up after a minute.
does everyone look so innocent in their sleep?
Sans swiped a joke book off the coffee table and leafed through it to give his hands something to do. It was a science joke book, filled with obscure quantum physics puns and taxonomy wordplay. He had been through it a dozen times already, and scanned the tired jokes just to eat the passing minutes.
He reached the back page and felt a barb through his soul. Pap's chicken scratch handwriting covered the whole thing. A note at the top read: "Sans, I've decided to improve this book with my amazing comedic knowledge! You can use any of my jokes, but just make sure to say that the great Papyrus came up with it first!"
A numbered list of science jokes and puns cramped the page. Sans rested his finger on one. "A neutron gets onto a bus and asks the driver how much the fare costs. The driver replies, 'For you, no charge.'"
Sans chuckled and the joke gained momentum. He began to laugh, louder and longer than he had in years. In that moment, it was the funniest joke he had ever read. He saw a tear on his cheekbone and the whole thing inverted.
He wept.
Crystal tears tumbled from his eye sockets and speckled the carpet like dew on morning grass. He held the book tightly to his chest as his whole body trembled.
"Sans?"
A thick sob choked him, and he struggled to swallow it. The kid was propped up on his elbows and had Sans pinned with a red-eyed look of worry.
"Are you ok?"
"yeah, kid. i'm fine. i was just thinking about something." He dug a few tears out of his sockets with his fingers. "you hungry? i think i need something to eat."
The kid looked at the carpet. "Yeah, that sounds good."
Sans hid himself in the kitchen and took small, controlled breaths. He thought back to the last time he had seen his own tears. It had been when Gaster died, a lifetime ago.
He grabbed a couple plastic containers of spaghetti and nuked them in the microwave. He tried harder than he had in his entire life to not think about where they came from. He grabbed two forks from the silverware drawer and waited in silence for ninety seconds.
Sans rounded the corner with the food. The kid held the joke book and was staring at the back cover. He slammed it shut and returned it to the table once he heard Sans' feet on the carpet. Sans tried to get a look at the kid's expression, but his face was averted.
"here." Sans handed the kid one of the containers. As soon as it entered his hand, the kid gasped through his teeth and dropped it onto the coffee table. He stuffed his burned fingers into his mouth.
"sorry. i can't feel how hot it is."
The kid sucked on his fingers and shook his head.
The meal was a quiet one. The kid used his off-hand to twirl the spaghetti.
As always, eating it was a task. The noodles were rubbery and undercooked, while the sauce was watery and sour. Sans kept an eye on the kid's face, and felt an empathetic twinge when the kid took his first bite.
The child swallowed hard. "Did he make this? I remember he had an affection for spaghetti."
Sans tried to keep a neutral tone. "you've got good memory. you hung onto that for three hundred years?"
"Something about the loops makes everything seem like it happened yesterday; hundreds of years' worth of yesterdays. I could draw out every line of your time machine schematics if you gave me a pen and paper."
Sans jolted in his chair and searched his pocket for his lab key. It was still there.
"how do you—"
"Don't worry. I gave up on fixing it a long time ago."
The kid looked away and continued eating.
Sans glared at the kid for a whole minute before realizing his magic eye was blazing. He tried to relax and returned to his food.
should have expected that.
The room felt heavy. The bright lights and warm color scheme of the house did little to disperse the pressure. Sans bounced his leg on the ball of his foot and listened. The underground's inexplicable wind howled and beat at the windowpanes like an intruder.
The child sent a timid glance towards Sans.
"you got something to say, kid?"
"I want t—" The child relaxed his body. "I want to know about him. What kind of person was he, was Papyrus." He closed his eyes and seemed to wait.
A little flame of violence kindled in Sans. It had been dormant up to this point, but the kid's words sparked it.
"you want to know… what kind of person he was?"
The kid squeezed his eyelids tighter. "Yes."
"well, i don't know if i could do him justice, you know?" Sans could feel the heat rising, and his voice rose with it. "he was a pretty great guy, one of the best. if he was around, then i'm sure he'd love to tell you all about himself."
The kid gripped his knees and bowed his head.
"but he's not here anymore, for some reason. i remember just a couple days ago he was making the very food you're eating." Sans rose and let out a mirthless chuckle. "oh yeah, you killed him."
Sans' magic surged out and flipped the coffee table through the air. It spun like a pinwheel and crashed into the banister. He strode forward and manifested a few Gaster blasters.
"seems like you're a little late to be asking questions about your victims."
The kid's body went slack, like a rabbit in a wolf's jaws.
Sans froze, finally realizing.
He took a step back and banished his blasters. They unraveled into threads of magic and faded out of existence.
"you're waiting for me to kill you. aren't you, kid?"
The child looked up and offered a half-hearted grin. He was just short of hyperventilation, and sweat dotted his face. "Is it that obvious?"
"why?"
"I usually end our chats with that question. You kill me every time I ask it."
"then why ask?"
The kid took a minute to normalize his breathing. Sans crossed the room and mulled over the damage he had caused.
"Pap told me a long time ago that I could do better, that I could be better, even if I didn't think so." The child wiped his forehead. "He believed in me, even as I cut him down."
Sans pulled the joke book out from under the broken glass and wood fragments. Cuts and dents marred the cover.
"It didn't mean anything to me at the time. But every reset brought it back, like all the other memories. I guess it just got under my skin after a few thousands loops. That's why I need to know about him. Why did he think I could change? Why did he let me just…"
Sans returned to his chair and tried to dust off the book. "that's the thing about pap. he was just like that, from day one: the bright-eyed idealist."
A memory peeked out before Sans. "when we were baby bones, one of our playmates lost her favorite doll. she cried about it for hours. eventually, pap decided to go hunting for it. he went all out, like he always does. he made flyers, went door-to-door, searched for days. he never found it. so, he sold half his action figure collection to buy her a new doll." Sans smirked. "she found her old one under her bed a week later."
He opened the book and reread Pap's note.
"the world's a lesser place now."
Crystal tears started bouncing off the paper. Sans cursed and tried to hold them in, but they just kept falling.
A roar echoed in the distance. It vibrated with anguish and played a sad duet with Sans' soul.
The kid stood. "It's time." He slipped a pair of knives out of his sleeves.
Sans wiped his cheekbones. "it's asgore, right? you going for another loop?"
The kid drew close to the door. "Do you think Pap was right? About me?"
Sans rose out of his chair and approached the kid. He tried to conjure something sentimental, but it died in his thoughts. "honestly? it doesn't matter what i think… pap believed in you, but it's up to you if he was right or not. so you tell me… was he?"
The kid dropped his knives. "I'm scared, Sans. I don't want to become nothing. Nobody will even remember me if I go back, I'll just be snuffed out."
"what are you saying?"
The child threw himself at Sans' chest, burying his face into Sans' jacket. It grew wet as the kid began to sob. "You were the only one I could ever talk to; my only friend. I'll miss you more than you'll ever know, Sans."
Sans said nothing. Despite himself, he reached up and returned the hug.
The roar grew closer and Sans could feel the kid quivering.
The child's words became hurried and desperate. "I'm sorry, Sans. I'm so sorry. Everything. The time I've stolen, the lives I've ended. I'll never make it up. All the suffering I've caused you. I want you to know I'm sorry."
Sans grasped for words. "i—i'll miss you too, chara."
The kid shook his head and wiped his eyes on his sweater sleeve. After a few slow breaths, he looked up and smiled. "No you won't. It's better that way."
The child crushed Sans in a final, trebling embrace, then dashed out the door.
He skidded to a halt on the snow and looked back. "Be happy, Sans. For both of us."
Sans fished his pocket watch out of his coat and looked it over. It was an ugly, gunmetal thing, with screws and rivets protruding from it at odd angles. It wasn't digital, and had no hands or face numbers. A numerical value, like a car's odometer, was displayed on the front. 2804.
see you soon, pap, he thought.
Author's Note: This moment in the story could be considered an "end" if you'd rather not peer beyond the glass. If you're content with a conclusion based on wishful thinking, then you could conceivably stop here. But if you'd rather see things to the end...
