Damn, banana. Back at it again with the chapter posting. Here we are, chapter 9. The last of Sans' POV for a bit.
Ugh... It wasn't supposed to be day yet.
Sans groaned, closing his sockets almost immediately at the sight of his light-filled bedroom, throwing his arm across his face for extra measure.
The wrapper of the astronaut bar he had eaten as he had fallen asleep crinkled against his humerus as he did, the silver foil stuck to his cheekbone by a strand of honey, but he made no move to remove it, only scratching sleepily at his pubis through his boxers and yawning widely.
Damnit. He'd slept in.
He had meant to wake early, after his eventful night, to check on Frisk before she woke and while Papyrus was still occupied with his "evening meditation" (he didn't sleep, something Sans had never understood, since he had slept so well as a child, and instead sat in bed "collecting his thoughts"); she had been very hurt, the night before… he had not been gentle with her, and wasn't sure he had given her enough food to heal all her wounds.
He didn't want to risk having left her with more damage than… than she could live with.
Sans winced, regret again tearing at him (stars, he had been so rough with her…), but he shook it away, firmly shutting the remembrance of her pain and anguish from his mind; he had more than his planned reparations to think on this morning.
If he'd woken as he'd planned, he would have had plenty of time to look in on Frisk, make preparations for the trip to Hotland (the house there was still in extreme disrepair, so they'd have to stay at the resort until he had at least fixed the windows), and clean up the bathroom from the night before…
Now, judging from how many of his socks he had been able to see on littered around his floor, he was not only going to be unable to do any of that, he was going to be late for work as well.
Perfect.
His bad temper reared its head, frustration seeping into his mind to poison his already sour mood; he was going to have to put up with an extra lecture from Papyrus over this, if not an outright fight… he hadn't wanted to take any more damage before his lunch break, before he would have a chance to heal from being beaten nearly senseless last night.
Growling petulantly and reluctantly removing his arm from his sockets (the last thing he needed was Papyrus getting on his case today, damn it), Sans glared up at the ripples of light leaking through his sliding door and over his bed, blindingly white from the deep, newly fallen snow outside; it didn't make sense to him, that he had slept so long.
He'd always been able to wake up when his alarm went off, practiced in the art of urgency (he liked his sleep, but had learned, the hard way, not to sleep too deeply); he hadn't even heard it that morning, though, much less woken to shut it off.
He let out a long sigh, groggily registering the sounds of dogs barking outside (Lesser Dog trying to catch one of the rabbit monsters again, no doubt…), before rolling himself from his rumpled red sheets, setting his feet on the floor.
He rubbed at his sockets with one hand sleepily (at the same time knocking the nutrition bar wrapper to the floor at his feet), grasping over the top of his bedside table with the other and bumping a car magazine out of the way as he felt for his cell phone.
He furrowed his brows, though, lowering his hand and glancing over at the short table, when he didn't find it in its usual spot, plugged in for the night and at hand to rouse him from his slumber.
Sans stared at the scratched, dented tabletop for a moment, trying to remember what he'd done with it, before looking down at his floor, the pile of clothes he'd shed the night before lying strewn haphazardly among older, equally jumbled articles of clothing, balled up pieces of paper, and other miscellaneous scraps of garbage.
He hadn't taken his phone out of his shorts last night… he'd forgotten about it, too stressed and tired and injured to even think about it.
As if on cue, his chest throbbed plaintively, choking him of his breath and reminding him, none too gently, of another task he had set himself for that morning that he no longer had time for, one hand grasping at his bare sternum and his pained gaze rising to his computer desk, on which sat the stack of books he had… acquired from the Royal Library.
The large, dusty compendium of forbidden human/monster knowledge, sitting beneath the shiny copy of monster mating rituals he had spent two hundred years avoiding reading, held the key to finding out what Frisk had done to him when she had rejected him (supposedly, at least… would his other self have intentionally deceived him?), and he had been intending to read it over breakfast.
He'd had plenty of time allotted to deciphering the complex, ancient language of the time before civilization, a time when monsters hunted humans for the power of their souls (he supposed he had one part of his education at his father's hand to be grateful for… he knew Wing Dings well enough to read the book), but now would have to read it on the fly during his work day, during the odd times that Papyrus wasn't looking over his shoulder.
Well, he was already late… he may as well grab some coffee from downstairs before he resigned himself to his brother's bitching.
Glowering darkly and snarling under his breath, Sans pushed himself from the edge of his bed with a creak of the mattress springs and a pop of his back, bending to snatch his shorts from the floor to retrieve his cell.
He searched them impatiently, at last finding the phone in one of the back pockets (along with several packets of mustard and his lighter), then tapped a button on its side to check the time.
He was answered only by a blank screen, his glower and narrowed sockets reflected back at him from the dark, scratched surface.
Dead. Just his fucking luck.
Sans considered throwing the useless contraption at the wall across from him, already dented and dusted with holes from his fists, or even just crushing the damn thing in his hand, but thought better of it and turned to plug it in instead; he would just have to return to the house after work to pick it up before he took Frisk to Hotland.
His access to his savings was through his phone… he would need it.
Disgruntled, annoyed, and already at the end of his rope (maybe he could sneak in a drink at lunch… calm himself down a little…), Sans kicked through the trash and clothes on his floor, draped his filthy shorts over the bar of his unused, dusty treadmill, and snatched the old, flaking book from his desk, ignoring the copy on top as it fell to the ground.
He tucked the tome under his arm, rubbed again at his aching chest, then flashed himself into the kitchen, flipping the switch on the wall to turn the light on; he trudged further into the organized, well cared for cooking space, grabbing a coffee mug from a hook hanging over the sink and shuffling over to the coffee maker.
He shot a glance at the clock on the wall over the refrigerator as he walked, registering the time with a dismissive grunt (half past eight… yeah, he was definitely late), then stopped at the counter that supported the source of the only breakfast he was going to get that morning.
Flopping the old book onto the counter in front of the machine, Sans flipped the rotted cover open and dragged his finger down the list of chapters on the first parchment page as he distractedly scooped grounds into the filter, looking for something pertinent to what he was currently suffering among the faded runes.
He'd always sucked at deciphering Dings… was that an "o" or an "r"?
He finally settled on a section that seemed promising, titled an encouraging "Beware", and dug his claws into the pages to nearly the end of the book, flipping them over in a small cloud of dust.
He filled the machine with water before beginning to read, leaning over the pages with his elbows on the edge of the counter and listening to the chugging of the water through the pumps as it heated, his attention riveted to the symbols before him.
He was three pages into it, surrounded by the smell of fresh coffee, drowning in boredom, and beginning to think the other Sans had been bullshitting him (why would he tell him the truth, anyway? They were obviously enemies), before he was arrested by a paragraph at the bottom of the next page, his soul shuddering in his chest as he read.
"…in time, we came to find that not all humans are drawn to the bond. The nature of their souls is divergent, given to nuance and change; only when fully bound will a human's soul be constant and true. In the event of rejection, a human will suffer none, disconnected from their souls as they be, and take lovers as they may. If a monster is spurned by the mate of their soul, however, the soul will be rent in twain. Their death is slow and painful, and is unaffected by healing magic, as far as has been tested. There is only one name for this grievous and mortal wound.
The Soul Rend."
Sans could only stare blankly at the strangely worded but ominous passage, dread and trepidation trickling down his spine.
He read it over several times in quick succession, to be sure he was translating correctly; the words remained the same, beginning to swim across the page in his growing horror.
Did he… had she… was he…?
Shaking and reluctant, Sans raised one hand to his chest, fear of what he would find within shaking him to his marrow, and slowly drew his soul from his chest, manifesting it in front of his rib cage to check it for damage.
And nearly choked on his breath, his hand rising to cover his mouth in shock.
Through the center of the upside-down white heart ran a crack so deep and long it nearly split the thing in half, smaller cracks radiating from the tear; a trickle of dust fell from it to the floor, the manifestation of his being twitching in pain instead of beating steadily, as it usually did.
His stats, flashing above the slowly spinning heart, testified to his injury, his HP cut by nearly a fourth (enough to withstand most attacks, but still… he hadn't been this wounded in two centuries), and in his mind, the reality of his condition slowly sank in.
Frisk had rejected him, flat out, for another monster. She had cast him aside, and literally shattered his soul.
He was dying.
Sans, trembling and weak (no… no, this wasn't happening…), reached out to cup his soul between his hands, faced with his own mortality, again, in the space of only a few hours; he could hardly comprehend the sight in front of him, even as another fine stream of his own dust fell into his palms.
All that filled his thoughts was fear, the approach of the end of his days too much to bear; lost in his thoughts as he was, he didn't hear the front door of the house open and close with a bang, or register the approaching clomp of heavy boots on the floor of the living room.
He didn't even hear the hiss of disapproval exude from the tall skeleton that halted in the doorway of the kitchen, only snapping from his distraction when the intimidating, scowling monster said his name.
"SANS."
Sans froze, hands clenching reflexively around his cracked soul, then hurriedly dismissed it, turning on his heel to face the monster that had just entered the kitchen, hiding the book on the counter by leaning on it and attempting to look casual.
He failed abysmally, only making the tall skeleton staring him down from the wide doorway lower his bony brows further.
Papyrus, ragged cape still swinging from his former motion, slowly folded his arms across his wide chest, made denser by his heavy, meticulously shined chest plate; his expression, scarred by a wide crack across one narrowed eye socket (the result of a lethal battle against a dragon monster, one that the skeleton had won unquestionably), sank further into dislike and suspicion.
He said nothing, though, tapping a booted foot against the kitchen tile; he was waiting for a response, never one to repeat himself.
Sans, swallowing at the nervousness building in his chest (had he seen what he was doing?), hiked his black boxers higher on his hips and turned to pour himself a cup of coffee to try to settle his nerves (his hands were shaking like leaves) as he leaned further over the open book next to him, drinking the black coffee straight in an attempt at nonchalance.
Again, he failed.
"oh, uh… heya, paps. thought you'd left already… want a cup of coffee?" he offered hopefully, holding his mug up for emphasis (his voice was shaking too, betraying his mortal terror over the state of his soul), but Papyrus shook his head stiffly, sending the machine Sans stood next to a hard look, as though it had personally offended him, before resuming glaring at his brother.
He was pissed as hell. Shit.
"NO, YOU ALWAYS MAKE IT TOO STRONG. I HAD LEFT ALREADY, AT SEVEN, AS ALWAYS, BUT RETURNED TO SEE IF YOU WERE EVER GOING TO GET YOUR LAZY ASS OUT OF BED. YOU ARE LATE FOR YOUR SHIFT," he reprimanded, walking slowly into the room at an antagonizing, intimidating stroll; Sans scooted the book further behind him with his elbow, giving his companion a strained, placating smile.
If he could get Papyrus to calm down, at all, it would be good for both his plans and his hide; the situation, though already starting to spiral out of control, given his grievous injury (he still had no idea what he was going to do to fix it… maybe the book said more about it, further on…), his lateness in waking, and his hurriedly accelerated schedule, was still redeemable, and if he could avoid a physical confrontation with his brother, things might actually start looking up.
Might. But probably not.
"…forgot to charge my phone last night. was gonna get up early today, get some stuff done…" he excused in a mutter, averting his eyes to the hand he had clutched around his coffee cup (it was still shaking, the porcelain of the mug starting to crack in his firm grip), and Papyrus smirked, snorting through his nasal cavity in sarcastic amusement.
"HA! THAT WOULD BE A FIRST… THOUGH NOT THE REASON I HAD THOUGHT. I THOUGHT IT MIGHT HAVE HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH HOW LATE YOU WERE OUT LAST NIGHT. IT WAS NEARLY THREE WHEN YOU RETURNED, WHAT WERE YOU DOING?" he demanded, tapping a gloved finger against his humerus, and Sans, blinking, could only stare at his brother, surprise and confusion overcoming him.
Nearly… it may have been around three when he had come out of the bathroom after his extra-dimensional beating, sure, but he had come back from the forest only a little after one (he was sure, he remembered catching a glimpse of the clock in the bathroom when he had turned the light on).
Had… had he heard nothing?
Wary and confused (Papyrus had to have heard something, he had nearly been smashed through the wall that connected to his bedroom), Sans glanced quickly over his brother's expression, looking for anything that might tell him what he was thinking.
Was he hiding his knowledge of the event? Unlikely… Papyrus didn't beat around the bush, he'd have confronted him last night, if he had heard him.
Was he trying to trap him, somehow? Probably not that either. As fond as Paps was of his puzzles (his traps had the highest rankings in both kills and difficulty in the papers), he just had no subtlety.
So… so he really hadn't heard anything… the question now was how.
He had no answer to that, his closest guess being that, while the other Sans had been present, he had somehow managed to take them out of the time stream, to bar any outside access to their camaraderie (and also keep him from escaping… brilliant bastard), negating any noise that came from the space and also distorting time within his own universe.
It certainly had seemed like he had been in the bathroom for a lot less time than he had been…
Again impressed against his will by his rival (this guy was fucking him up left and right… he needed to get a move on with circumventing his plans to get this universe, and fast… if he even survived that long), Sans shook his contemplations away, taking another sip of his coffee to give himself a reason to be pausing.
Papyrus wasn't known to be a patient monster in the best of times… he supposed that ran in the family.
"i'm a grown ass monster, paps. i don't hafta tell you what i get up to," he said once he had drunk his fill (ugh… the filter must have a hole in it, he was drinking grounds now…), dismissive and final, and Papyrus, tilting his head and raising both brows, hummed to himself, walking over to lean against the table set against the wall.
He stared down his nasal ridge at him, something that looked a lot like superiority coming over his narrow face.
Sans didn't like that, not at all.
"OF COURSE, BROTHER… I MERELY ASK BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT MAY HAVE HAD TO DO WITH SOMETHING I FOUND ON MY MORNING ROUNDS. THE MOST CURIOUS THING CAUGHT MY ATTENTION… IN THE SHED. I NOTICED THAT THE DOOR WAS AJAR, AND DECIDED TO INVESTIGATE. CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT I FOUND?" he asked with false curiosity, keen and cunning knowledge in his gaze and his nasty sneer, and Sans's soul seized in his chest, anxiety and outright panic washing over him like a tidal wave.
Frisk…
His mind blanked in fear again, frantically trying to think of what to do, how to handle this situation, how to save his mate from the fate she had surely suffered by now (Papyrus had been up for hours, and went the Waterfall route first on his patrols… she must be long dead, or at the very least greatly wounded and in Undyne's hands, on the way to the city), and found he could do no more than breathe, and barely at that.
How was this possible? He was sure he'd closed the outside door, he always closed the door, there should have been no reason for Papyrus to stumble onto her…
Was that what he had felt he had forgotten last night?
Uncertainty and dread whirled around him, confusing his thoughts and scrambling any efforts he made to try to make sense of them…
Until he breathed in, deep but faltering in his upheaval of anxiety, and smelled nothing but himself, the coffee, and Papyrus.
His panic settled immediately, his clamoring, rattled soul calming significantly (it had felt like it was beating out of his chest, agitated even further than before by worry for its other half); his hand unclenched itself, where it had nearly shattered the mug in his grasp.
She was safe. He had not found her… she was safe.
Well, perhaps not safe, but not in his brother's hands, and that was akin to safety.
He was sure, at the very least, that the taller skeleton had not seen Frisk; if Papyrus had found her, he would have touched her, at least a little, and if he had touched her, Frisk was sure to have struggled.
Her scent (stars, her scent… a mix of the freshness of rain and the sharp pungency of flowers that he could never seem to get out of his head…) would have been all over him.
Which would have been reason enough to tear him limb from limb, but that wasn't what mattered right now.
As it was, Sans could smell nothing of her on his brother, could only smell pine from the woods and wood smoke from a fire and the wetness of the snow from the storm last night… there was no way he could've been close to Frisk (her scent clung to everything she was near, saccharine and thick and delicious).
Which left only one possibility in his mind: if Papyrus had been out in the shed that morning, and had not found Frisk… she had escaped.
Stars damn him to the fucking Void, nothing was going right.
Anger and vitriol were quickly filling the abyss that the absence of his fright had left behind in his chest, simmering to a boil and agitating his already unstable magic; wasn't he already in enough pain, suffering enough remorse, without having to also worry about his human wandering around the Underground alone?
Hadn't he explicitly told her what would happen if she ran from him?
He had, he knew he had, and her disobedience, in the face of his growing unease and the craze of his ire (he was no longer thinking straight, all but lost to his building temper), left him with nothing but vehemence, his coffee mug creaking in protest of his ever stronger grip on it.
While Sans was infinitely grateful that she had not been captured by his brother, still lived and breathed and existed in his pitiful life (would he have felt it, if she had been killed? He wanted to think so, but humans were so different than monsters… how was he going to protect her without knowing if she was in danger?), he was not going to give her a pass for trying to escape him.
He had warned her, had made it perfectly clear that he owned her, that she was his, and as soon as he caught her (he had no doubt that he would; there was nowhere in their world she could hide from him, not now that he knew her scent, her body, her soul), he'd make damn sure she never thought about running from him again.
She would regret this.
He had more than her penance to think about right now, though (his bones throbbed, forcing consideration of all the things he could do to punish her into his mind, but he shook them away immediately); Papyrus was hinting at something, obviously upset and derisive.
He'd better find out what, before he blew up and started attacking; Sans didn't think the kitchen would survive another all-out war.
There were still holes and cracks in the ceiling from the last one.
"no idea, bro. what did ya find?" he remarked as coolly as he could, his still burgeoning fury turning his tone more hostile than he had intended for it to be, and Papyrus, picking up on his anger, scowled menacingly, reaching behind himself and into the back pocket of his tight fitting pants.
He threw what was within into Sans's face, forcing him to drop his coffee cup to catch whatever it was (it rattled to a halt on the counter top, next to the book hidden behind his back); the object jingled against his bare ribs when he managed to grab hold of it, shining dully in the glow of the overhead light.
It was Frisk's chain.
Sans's fingers clenched around the cooled metal reflexively, just another reminder of his human's defiance (she was going to wish she'd never set foot outside that shed when he got done with her… break his fucking soul, would she? He'd break her), and across the room, long arms again crossing his chest, Papyrus sneered, looking at the chain in his brother's hands with revulsion.
"WHY DON'T YOU TELL ME?" he snapped spitefully, glaring scornfully, and Sans, looking from Papyrus's accusing stare to the chain in his grasp, scrambled for a response that would dismiss the other skeleton's savage curiosity.
He hadn't found Frisk, but surely there had been enough evidence in the cage to make it obvious that he had been keeping someone in there, for quite some time at that.
He had to tread lightly… but that was going to be difficult, given his still rising irritation.
He wasn't in his right mind, wanting immediately to warn his brother against questioning his activities (he didn't have to answer to Papyrus, he made his own living and could do what he liked with it), but bit back a quick response, at least attempting to be civil.
It wasn't worth the fight… he was still injured, he had to avoid a confrontation if possible…
"it's not what ya think…" he began tentatively, careful to keep his tone even and his annoyance buried (it was getting more and more difficult to ignore the raging fire of his wrath, he was definitely going to need to blow off some steam in the forest as soon as Paps left him alone), but Papyrus cut him off with an acerbic, contemptuous scoff, pushing himself away from the table to tower the foot of height he stood over his older brother.
"TCH. YOU DISGUST ME. LEAVING CHAINS AND TORN CLOTHES AND PUDDLES OF ONLY THE STARS KNOW WHAT ALL OVER THE PLACE. I'VE TOLD YOU BEFORE, SANS, I DON'T WANT YOU LEAVING THE LEFTOVERS OF YOUR SELF-INDULGENT ORGIES AROUND THE HOUSE, AND YES, THAT INCLUDES THE SHED. KEEP YOUR WHORES IN YOUR ROOM, OR THE BACK ALLEYS YOU USUALLY TAKE THEM," he disparaged, imperious and sardonic, and Sans, try as he might, felt his tolerance snap, pushed too far and too hard this morning to take this kind of abuse.
He could do whatever the fuck he wanted with his time and the house he had paid for… and no one, no onecalled Frisk that but him.
She was his whore, no one else's.
"where the hell do you get off, tellin' me what to do with my… with who i wanna sleep with? i never say a damn word when you're fuckin' mettaton wherever the fuck you want," he snarled, abandoning his post by the counter to step towards his brother threateningly; his magic skittered across his bones in agitation, sparking red lights across the refrigerator and the walls beyond it.
Papyrus seemed unimpressed, though, baring his fangs and growling back at him, his own magic flaring ominously.
"AND I WOULDN'T EITHER, IF YOU CLEANED UP AFTER YOURSELF OR AT THE VERY LEAST DID ANYTHING MORE THAN USE THEM. IT'S USELESS TO TRY TO TALK REASON TO YOU, THOUGH. ALL YOU CAN THINK ABOUT IS WHERE TO GET YOUR NEXT LAY," he barked, his sneer poisonous and hard, and Sans barely resisted punching the bastard across the face, his fists clenching at his sides and making his joints creak in protest.
He pointed a clawed, menacing finger into his brother's face instead, glaring hatefully.
"shut your fuckin' mouth. you don't know a damn thing about me, you don't get to judge how i deal with my problems," he warned, now nearly chest to chest with the taller monster (well, chest to chin, more like), and Papyrus rolled his gaze in his sockets, bending to stare mockingly straight into Sans's darkened pair.
The space between them crackled with magic and violence, the air thick and charged.
"OH, I KNOW ABOUT YOU, SANS. I KNOW YOU ARE LAZY, ARROGANT, CRUDE, AND SELFISH. MAYBE IF YOU DID SOMETHING WITH YOUR LIFE BESIDES COMPLAIN ABOUT HOW HARD IT'S BEEN, YOU COULD FIND SOMETHING BETTER TO DO THAN DRINKING YOUR MONEY AWAY OR STICKING YOUR COCK IN EVERYTHING THAT MOVES," he criticized in a pointed, inciting mutter, grinning in triumph and malice, and Sans did his best not to flinch at the truth of the poignant comment, his soul clenching painfully in his chest.
Papyrus was far from wrong in his assessment of the way he had spent his free time over the last century, drowning his sorrows and loneliness in bitches and booze… but it was a truth he didn't want to be reminded of, on a morning already plagued by his own wrongdoing.
He wasn't in the mood for this, and had far better things to wrestle with than his snide, petulant brother.
As such, Sans lowered his hand, itching to rip Papyrus's lower jaw from his face, and clenched it in the material of his boxers instead.
"why don't you get out of my fuckin' face and go play guard? it's all ya know how to do, besides give shitty advice," he retorted, disdainful and backing away to collect his book and transfer his mug of now cold coffee to the sink (he'd wash it later, he didn't have the patience right now), and Papyrus, smelling victory, barked out an unkind laugh, standing back up to his full height and not bothering to mask his smugness.
"AS MUCH AS I WOULD LOVE TO, I CANNOT. I HAVE TO DRAG MY WASTREL, DRUNKEN LOSER OF A BROTHER OFF TO DO HIS JOB," he jabbed, always happy to get the last word in, and Sans glowered even more deeply, shooting his younger brother a venomous, sharp glare from the corners of his sockets.
"fuck off, papyrus," he snapped, tucking the thick book under his arm and preparing to teleport upstairs to get dressed, but Papyrus was quicker with his retort than he was with his magic, smirking and haughty.
"AFTER YOU, SANS," he sniped rapidly, just as Sans was turning on his heel to slip between the fabric of the world, and when he reemerged in his room, the irate, temperamental monster immediately threw the book and chain he held onto his bed, stalked to his battered wall, and punched a new hole in it, snarling and vicious in his temper.
One day, Papyrus was going to push him too far… he'd see how funny it was to mock him when he ripped his head off with his bare hands…
Murmuring obscenities beneath his breath and shaking plaster dust from his hand, Sans turned back to pick his way through the clothes on his floor, kicking dirtier articles out of the way and snatching up things that didn't look (or smell) too awful.
Too late to do laundry now… he'd have to get some new clothes while they were staying at the resort.
He ended up putting on a pair of ripped black jeans and a red t-shirt (emblazoned with the word "Vagitarian" across the chest), topped with his furred jacket and a black beanie, before stepping into his already loose sneakers, grabbing the flaking book back up from his bed.
He looked at the chain lying on his sheets placidly, for a moment, vacillating between leaving it and taking it with him, then picked it up and clipped the length to two of his belt loops, turning sideways to admire the look.
Didn't look nearly as good on him as it did around Frisk's neck, but beggers can't be choosers.
He snorted at his own thoughts, annoyance at her disappearance surging again in his chest (little bitch was gonna fucking get it…), and stomped out of his room and down the stairs, flicking a hand at the bathroom as he passed it to lock the door from the inside.
A nice surprise for you, asshole…
As he clomped down onto the landing in the living room, though, tucking the book inside his jacket for safekeeping (he'd have more time to read once he was at his station), he was hit abruptly in the face with a metal bucket, reaching out to catch it just before it hit the floor.
Papyrus leered at him from in front of the couch once he had recovered from the shock of being suddenly attacked by an inanimate object, gloved hands on his exposed hip bones.
Sans barely kept himself from throwing the bucket right back at the smug bastard, clutching his claws around the handle and glaring at the taller monster.
"what the fuck was that for?" he demanded, shaking the container at him (it rattled, full of, on closer inspection, cleaning supplies), and Papyrus pointed out towards the east, indicating the hidden presence of the shack outside the house.
"GO CLEAN UP YOUR MESS. YOU'RE ALREADY LATE, YOU MAY AS WELL DO IT NOW. I WILL BE WAITING FOR YOU TO FINISH, TO MAKE SURE YOU GET TO WHERE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE," he commanded, punitive and clearly still riding on the waves of his verbal victory (it didn't happen all that often, considering Sans would usually have punched him in the teeth for insulting him so much), and Sans, bristling but knowing the last thing he needed now was to instigate another argument, merely clenched the handle on the bucket, its side clanking against the chain dangling from his pants.
"whatever," he snarled under his breath, stalking past his brother (not before bumping him out of the way with his shoulder) and out the front door, slamming it behind himself.
The frigid wind hit him as soon as he stepped outside, ruffling the fur on his coat's collar and sending a smattering of snowflakes dusting across his cheekbones, but the cold mattered little to him (sometimes, having no skin was a relief, especially when it came to the climes of the Underground), and he turned on his heel to slog his way through the deep snow that had fallen the night before, dragging himself over to the entrance of the shed.
Uncommonly, most likely due to Papyrus's pique, the door was unbolted, and swung open at the touch of his hand, washing slightly warmer but stale air over his face as he stepped inside, kicking the door shut behind himself as he did.
The cage within the enclosure remained much as he had left it last night when he had run from the evil that he had done, besides the marked absence of his prisoner (ahh… he must have left the cage unlocked, as well as forgetting to bolt her chain to the wall… damn it); the heap of blankets in the corner remained undisturbed, though the duvet he had brought her the night before was missing, the clothes he had ripped from her body lay where he had left them, scraps of lace and cloth that he had a hard time looking at for too long…
And in the center of the cage, glistening wetly in the muted light coming through the dusty, frosted windows, was the evidence of his crime, his magic and her blood staining the wooden floorboards a grisly red.
Sans felt immediately ill, the coffee he had drunk not nearly as bitter as the taste of his own sins (stars, what had he done…), and looked away as he set the bucket down in the entrance of the cage, uncapping a bottle of cleaner and dumping the entirety of its contents over the stain; his dying soul pulsed behind his ribs, punishing him again for hurting his mate so badly.
He wanted to just burn the entire thing down and have done with it, cleanse the landscape of the proof of the wrong he had done, but Papyrus would have his head if he did that, and he needed to ensure that he found Frisk before she got into too much trouble (more than she was already in with him, at least).
Pulling an old, ratty washcloth and a brand new sponge out of the bucket, Sans set about throwing the various scraps of trash and clothing that were scattered around the cage into it while waiting for the puddle in the middle of the room to soak through, setting the contents on fire afterwards and trying to formulate a plan of action as he watched the smoke curl against the ceiling of the shack.
First and foremost, even before he tried to find out more about what had happened to his soul, he needed to find Frisk.
Even punishing her for fleeing him would need to be secondhand to assuring her safety, though the ire still festering, blistering and ardent, in his bones demanded he wrack vengeance for his disquiet and unease (she would pay, in time).
He knew she had had plenty of reason to run; he'd done much the same thing the second he could, after the deaths of his mother and father… but she was human, trapped in a labyrinth full of cruel and conscienceless monsters that craved the power and acclaim her soul could give them.
Her Sans (no… not her Sans, just the other one… she was his now, damn it) was right… she'd die here, on her own.
Which meant that he needed to know where she'd gone, to begin his search.
She'd have had to wait until the storm had stopped before she left, especially in her state of undress (all she had had to cover herself had been that sweater dress, once sexy but now far too shredded and dilapidated to be fit for the cold, her shoes, and the comforter from his bed), and left before Paps had gone on his patrol… so she'd been gone for three hours, at most, and would have left prints in the fresh snow, to indicate which direction she had gone.
Smirking and gathering the bundle of material Frisk had used as a bed under his arm, Sans scrubbed the sponge over the puddle with his foot, deposited the dirtied object in the crackling, smoking bucket, and exited the shack, setting the pail of ash beside the outside wall to cool and carefully avoiding stepping in the doorway so he could inspect the disturbed snow in front of it.
His instincts, sharp and honed to hunting (he wasn't a sentry for the Royal Guard for nothing; he was a proficient tracker, and had pursued far more meticulous and wary prey than his human), pressed him to believe that she had gone straight off on her journey, that he should be looking to Waterfall for his quarry, but he refused to make assumptions, carefully looking over the flattened powder.
Papyrus's large boots had muddied the snow directly in front of the doorway, caution in his approaching steps and anger in his departing ones, but further out, staggering and small, the shape of Frisk's shoes appeared, leading to the road… and curving out into town.
Sans, surprised and confused by his discovery (why had she gone into town? It would have made far more sense for her to begin her journey immediately; it was all she had been able to talk about since she had gotten here), looked further down the road into the bustling town, scowling and tracing her footsteps as far as he could, until they disappeared into the quagmire of the townsfolks' many varied paths.
He didn't see any footsteps matching her size or weight coming back from town on the road (and if she thought he wasn't aware of her escape, she wouldn't have cut through the forest, though he could double check that later), so he could only guess she was still there, disguised well enough to keep the populous from guessing at her identity.
She had been through the Underground before… she would know how to keep herself safe from being identified.
Why she had made her escape into town was a mystery to him, but one that did not matter, in the long run.
He knew where she was now, would be able to pick her out from the crowd with ease (even in the circulating air, her passage long disguised by the wind and the stench of the Dog Guard, he could smell her in the air, her scent old and weak but persistent still), and once he had her in his sights…
She'd never escape him again.
Sans grinned rabidly, his unforgiving fury overshadowing his pain tenfold and his free hand lowering to trace lovingly along the length of chain clipped to his belt loops; Frisk had a lot to learn, when it came to him, first and foremost being that he never, never let what belonged to him go, and he did not appreciate her game of hide and seek.
No matter what the other Sans said, she was his, the mark he had carved into her flesh and the magic now running through her veins testified to that, and she was going to learn, very quickly, that he had no patience for games.
He'd have this chain back around her neck before lunch, and then… well.
Then he'd teach her what it meant to play with him.
Gratified and ruthless, Sans walked back from the road to enter his house, to deposit the blankets in the laundry room and allow his brother to "drag him to work", his smirk both cruel and anticipatory.
Ready or not, little girl… here I come.
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