I'd like to mention that the original title of this chapter was something else but I felt that it gave away too much so I changed it. ;D The new title does still fit this pretty well I think. heheh. heh. O_O Don't blame me for this I wasn't the one who asked for UnderSwap!

And speaking of UnderSwap, I got a review last night that asked me to include a summary of what AUs I'm including for those who aren't "in the loop". Details of this AU can be found on Tumblr on the 'underswap AU' blog: underswapped . tumblr . c om Essentially, it's an AU where all the character's personalities are flipped. i don't want to talk much about it here because it would reveal some junk that goes on later in this chapter. ;P

This takes place instantly after Chapter 9 by the way, which is why it starts so abruptly.

So without further ado, here's a bit of Sans/Frisk bonding and a skele-ton of fluff.

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WHATEVER CAN HAPPEN WILL

CHAPTER 11- UNDERSWAP PT.1 - TRASH

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-fell straight into waist-high water.

"agh!" Sans sputtered as the sudden current pulled Frisk off her feet into him. The memories which had consumed him during their transit between universes faded into the backdrop as both of them toppled into the turgid water.

"Over -pft- there!" Frisk breached first and dragged Sans by his arm over to a nearby island made exclusively of golden flowers. He considered being less of a dead-weight for a moment but was too exhausted both emotionally and physically to move at all.

He'd failed. Papyrus was dead. They hadn't saved anyone for all their efforts in that past universe and oh. Right. Papyrus was dead. His incredible brother had transgressed the laws of space-time to rescue him and Sans hadn't even been able to meet him half way.

Sans couldn't bring himself to make even the minimal effort to climb onto the island and relied on Frisk to pull him ashore, and it was only because he was incapable of drowning that he'd let her pull him from the water at all. Frisk was breathing heavily from the exertion as she laid down in the soft flowers parallel to him.

"I think we're in the Garbage Dump?" Frisk said to the cavern ceiling, clumsily pushing her sopping wet hair out of her eyes. When Sans turned his head to look at her, her left eye was a spot of stark blue among the yellow blooms. "What universe do you think we're in now?"

Sans grunted non-commitally at her questions, putting all his effort into not feeling. It was eerie how easy it was if only he let the lethargy take him. He was so tired...

Frisk said something to him that he didn't hear.

He could still see the alternate Sans' sadistic grin as he'd told him that he was too late to save his brother. That Sans had thoroughly enjoyed causing him pain. However, the worst part about the whole nightmarish situation was how Sans knew despite everything that that Sans was still him. The circumstances of their lives had been very different, but at the core of things they were both the same monster.

When Sans had fought Frisk in the Judgement Hall what felt like a hundred lifetimes ago he'd enjoyed the feeling of smashing her into the walls and pillars. He'd reveled in his own power as he skewered her, blasted her, dunked her and watched the slowly building frustration on her normally smirking face.

Gaster had been a good father in his timeline and it seemed that having such a supportive upbringing had been his one and only tether to morality, considering how far he'd fallen to his sadistic urges even in a relatively peaceful universe.

"Sans!" Frisk broke into his thoughts by shouting at him. His eyesockets felt so dry. "Sans, I said 'it's not your fault.' Okay? You did the best you could. They couldn't have been saved." Frisk continued, wiping a few tears from her cheeks.

"it is my fault. that sans was me, frisk. the worst part of me... but still me." The heavy-set skeleton spoke slowly, trying his best to keep his emotions from his voice. Internally he decided not to tell Frisk that Papyrus was dead. She had enough to deal with already.

She frowned, rolling over to rest on her elbow and look down at him. her dark hair was like a veil over her regular eye, leaving only the magical one exposed. Sans felt naked under its gaze but hid the truth nonetheless.

"You can't hold yourself accountable for everything." She said softly, that blue eye tightening in sadness. "But I can. If anyone's responsible for all this it's me. You don't deserve anything that I've done to you. After everyone I've killed."

Frisk seemed to retreat into herself then, her childish expression of hurt incongruous with her teenaged features.

"that was chara, not you." He refuted, raising himself to his elbow as well without even realizing it.

She shook her head in a way that made her eye twinkle like a dying ember. "Eventually, sure. By the time I fought you, I was trapped in my own mind by her... it was terrifying..." Frisk shivered. "But not at first. I'd played the same series of events out over and over again. I'd gotten curious, like Flowey had. The choice to kill was mine."

Sans didn't know how to deal with what he was hearing and decided he didn't want to hear any more of it. Not now, at least.

"you're not the same as that weed." Sans spat, reaching out to hold Frisk's forearm firmly but compassionately.

"No. I'm worse than he was." Frisk was practically sobbing now and Sans felt an overpowering urge to comfort her, despite his own near-unbearable pain.

"listen to me frisk. that's. not. true. time travel does crazy things to a person. look at gaster, he used to be an incredible dad but now he's an abomination. and that's without having a psychotic parasite living in his head." Sans realized too late that he'd just compared her to the power-crazed-creature-from-the-void that had made their lives a living hell and made them watch as their friends realized they were dead.

At least he was able to hold her as Frisk broke down in his arms.

"hey. hey. i didn't mean it like that." He sighed, as she pressed her face into the nape of his neck. She was so soft. Sans couldn't bring himself to say that she really wasn't anything like his dad, because in a lot of ways their journeys into madness and/or murder had been very similar. Like he'd said: Time travel does crazy things to a person. He would probably be Exhibit C in that particular case.

"frisk, for crying out loud, won'tcha tear me out?" Sans chose the tried-and-true method and to his relief she seemed to calm down a little at his awful puns. "everybody makes mistakes, but you learned from yours. gaster didn't."

"Was he really -sniffle- your dad?" Frisk asked blearily, her voice still muffled by the wet fluff of Sans' hood.

Sans nodded, feeling an old grief stirring in his chest. He'd had a long time to process what had happened to his dad, even if he couldn't consciously remember it.

"I'm sorry that all this happened. I'm sorry you had to get caught up in it, too." Frisk pulled away from him just enough to look up into his eyes with her mismatched ones. Sans had to agree with her there and just rubbed her back as they both kneeled embracing each other on the little island of golden flowers.

"This reminds me of my favorite timeline. Us, together like this." Frisk said quietly and looked away, suddenly blushing.

Sans lifted one of his boney brows. Though the two of them were nearly the same height, Sans was by far the broader of the two and his arms seemed to completely encompass her small frame. If he wanted to, he could activate his magic and end her life in an instant.

For the first time, the thought of killing Frisk disgusted him.

"tell me about that timeline." He rumbled, pulling her closer toward him. He desperately needed a distraction from his overactive mind.

Frisk tilted her head up slightly under Sans' chin and he felt her arms find their way between the inside of his unzipped hoodie and the T-shirt underneath. Light fingers traced the bottom edge of his lowest rib through the fabric and the soft layer of jelly-like magic. The sensation was almost ticklish, but in a pleasant sort of way.

"We made it to the surface," she whispered, "and everyone was so happy. The humans didn't like us at first, but we convinced them that monsters weren't a threat. God, it must've been at least a decade we spent up there." Frisk's voice had taken on a faraway quality and the lazy circles of her fingers on his ribs slowed. "I lived with Toriel but would visit you and Papyrus every day. Or Alphys and Undyne, and sometimes even Asgore or Mettaton."

Sans stiffened at the mention of his brother but tried to keep his breathing even.

"I enjoyed my life with everyone, but there were always the nightmares. Except they weren't nightmares..." Frisk's fingers grasped at Sans' rib, dragging him out of his depression and rooting him in the moment. "I had... have... so much guilt. And only one person who could possibly understand."

She looked up to meet his eyes again with an expression so earnest and heartbroken that Sans felt his grin falter.

"You were my best friend, Sans." Frisk smiled at the memory, her face becoming truly beautiful in that moment between remembered joy and despair. "And as I got older..."

Sans was suddenly very aware of Frisk's hands against his back as her fingertips brushed against his vertebrae. Lightly, maybe even teasingly? It sent a shiver up his back that felt way too good for comfort.

"stop that." Sans ordered, his voice completely flat as he grabbed Frisk's elbows and pulled her to arm's length. His neutral grin was back and his eyes were half-lidded in deadly seriousness. "whatever sans that was, i'm not him. you've hurt my friends and family too many times for there to be anything between us. ever."

Frisk tugged away from his grip, but he wouldn't let her go.

"we're going to find gaster, get the souls back and break the barrier in our own universe. that's all, capiche?" His eyes had dwindled into the barest glimmers of light, like the distant ends of tunnels. Still, he couldn't help but remember the feeling of her fingers on his spine.

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The silence between them was heavy as they slogged through the waters of the Garbage Dump. Sans was still dangerously low on magic and resented every mundane step he took against the deceptively powerful current. Sweat beaded on his skull at the unaccustomed exercise but Frisk seemed to be having no trouble at all.

how they hell did she do this as a little kid? He thought, feeling a bit of begrudging respect for the determined human.

He gave the horn of a trashed bicycle a sad little honk as they passed it and briefly considered joking about Frisk acting horny earlier... but decided that it would be in awful taste. (even worse than his usual taste in jokes)

Eventually, as the cavern widened out the echoes of voices sounded from up ahead and made them pause in alarm. Sans realized they still had no idea what sort of universe they were in. For all they knew, the monsters here could be even more vicious than the last bunch! Sans and Frisk quickly hid behind a pile of human trash and watched intently as two monsters entered via the room's Northern tunnel.

"NGAAAAH! Undyne! Y-you sure look cute today!" The louder voice shouted nervously. The strange thing was that that voice definitely belonged to Undyne. Frisk's anxious gulp did not escape Sans' notice.

"Yo... your one hot hotbaby." The second voice bleated in what Sans imagined was supposed to be an alluring tone. Frisk turned an interesting shade of red which confirmed his earlier suspicions that she definitely knew what was going on here.

"What? U-Undyne! W-what's gotten into you?" Undyne sounded aghast but amused.

Sans decided he'd had enough of being held in suspense and risked a peek at the two monsters which had stopped in the middle of the cavern.

He nearly had to fish his jaw out of the now knee-high water as he saw the chubbier-than-usual Undyne wearing a knee-length polkadotted dress of all things... standing with a young Prince Asriel.

"H-hotbaby? How dare you call me that?!" Undyne had raised a hand to cover her mouth as if she were offended yet Sans could clearly see that she was smiling underneath it.

welp, it's settled then. this universe is going to be a nightmare. Sans thought to himself as this strangely reserved version of Undyne rambled on about 'Baby Knights' and suplexing boulders.

"Alphys gives u a kiss!" Asriel narrated and Frisk turned a shade of red Sans didn't even think was possible for a human. His earlier frustration with her was giving way to amusement despite his better judgement.

It was only when Undyne started swooning and explaining how Alphys would at first resist their kiss but then be unable to deny Undyne's well-practiced fish-lips that Sans recalled a memory from shortly before his life had gone to hell: Papyrus had roped him into joining a role-playing game with Aplhys and Undyne and it had descended into madness similar to what he was now witnessing.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?" Came a new, much stronger voice. Sans felt his temples ache as he saw Alphys appear in the cavern entrance in a swanky leather jacket and jeans that accented her muscular legs. She had her hips cocked to one side as she confronted Undyne and the Prince.

Sans decided he'd deal with the fact that Asriel fucking Dreemur was roleplaying with chubby Undyne later.

Alphys sauntered up to the other two and asked what they were doing. Alphys tried explaining but kept stumbling over her words in a completely un-Undyne way until she was practically screeching.

"I mean, uh, Alphys... I'VE BEEN LYING TO YOU!" Undyne blurted out and then covered her mouth in shock. Sans couldn't help but be amused at the outrageous turn of events as Undyne started gushing about all the times she'd been dishonest with Alphys. The whole time, Frisk was staring at the drama with an expression of rapt attention. Sans could practically hear the puzzle pieces falling into place between her ears.

"hey kid, you know what's going on here?" Sans whispered so the others wouldn't overhear but Frisk jumped at the sound of his voice nonetheless. Luckily Undyne was still shouting at the top of her lungs so nobody heard.

"Uh. Maybe?" Frisk replied in a tiny voice. Her blue eye seemed to be glowing with a frantic energy. "I've seen this before. Whenever I did everything right and didn't hurt anyone... I'd go on a date with Alphys but it would turn into her confessing her love for Undyne. This is the same, but backwards?" Frisk's eyebrows were drawn so closely together in confusion they could have held hands.

"the same, but backwards." Sans repeated, feeling the truth of it in his bones. This revelation brought no small amount of relief, knowing that in this universe the Frisk-analog (who could only be the Prince) wouldn't be in the middle of a murder-rampage. Hopefully.

Sans and Frisk both jumped in surprise as Alphys dunked Undyne into a trashcan.

"You're PASSIONATE! You're ANALYTICAL! It doesn't matter what it is! YOU CARE ABOUT IT! 100 PERCENT! AT MAXIMUM POWER!" Alphys had a crazed expression on her face that didn't suit her at all in Sans' opinion.

"Undyne... I want to help you become happy with who you are! And I know just the training you need to do that!"

"Alphys... you... You're gonna train me?" Undyne swooned in her trashcan.

"Oh no." Frisk hissed, covering her mouth with both hands.

oh?

"PFFT. What? Me?" Alphys scoffed.

oh no.

Sans watched in dumbfounded horror as an alternate version of himself emerged from a pile of trash like a slow-motion Jack-in-the-box.

"get those bones shakin'!" The alternate Sans shouted at the top of his lungs, wearing a too-tight tank top that read 'JOG BOY'.

oh no no no nononononono.

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Let the fluff begin!

And thanks again everyone who voted in the poll! I'm sorry if your favourite wasn't chosen but rest assured I'll make my way through them eventually. It was also mentioned to me that the GasterBlaster!AU was not included in the poll. Well, let's just say there's a reason for that... ;D