A/N:
Phew: I'm glad you liked it!
ArtofthePlate: I am familiar with zarla's work, actually. Their comics are very cute and heart wrenching, but I didn't realize until you mentioned it that that's where the 'Scolding Gasterblasters' scene probably originated from. Unfortunately, Dipper hasn't actually gotten better. He's struggling, and sometimes, he' thinks he's winning, but that's not the same. Overall, his situation is exactly the same as it was at the start.
Guest: Everyone was so worried about Papyrus! I really liked the way you summed up the burgeoning friendship between Sans and Mabel. They're definitely weary of each other, but Sans can't help being drawn to someone with such a healthy appreciation for bad puns.
Despite what he'd said, Dipper could be found relaxing on the front steps, poking idly at the ground with the stick he'd decided to hold on to, which was almost like a souvenir at this point. None of the other kids at school could say they'd played fetch with a talking skeleton.
The flaking bark was rough under his palms as he idly doodled an outline of a pair of horns he'd noticed on the first monster that'd captured his attention.
Lunch hour must have ended sometime during Papyrus' training session, because most of the monsters who'd headed indoors to eat or talk were wandering around outside once more, which meant the scene before him was nearly identical to the one he'd walked through when he'd jogged over to the library earlier that day. Or was it earlier that night? There was no way to tell without a clock or a sun hanging overhead to use as reference.
Even with the occupants of the town milling about, Snowdin gave off the impression of being unbearably small. From where he sat, he could spot the library, the restaurant, the inn, and even the welcome sign.
Now that he knew there wasn't only a cavern ceiling, but also a barrier shutting them in, Dipper couldn't help but feel a little like he was sitting in the middle of a transparent and enclosed box. Without moving, he could see every corner, could run his hands along every flawless side.
There weren't any secrets in Snowdin.
There were only monsters who'd been trapped in a gilded prison so long they'd forgotten what it was like to want to be anywhere else.
A machine gun burst of unmistakably boisterous laughter emanated from the cozy cottage at his back, and Dipper tossed an irritated glare at the sound, then forced himself to relax.
If he'd wanted to chill inside, he could have stayed. No one asked him to leave, so it wasn't fair to get irritated just because it sounded like the others were having a good time without him. He could even go back inside if he wanted to. There was literally nothing stopping him…
Except that would've defeated the whole purpose of taking a break.
What he really needed was some time to catch his breath and think without feeling a watchful gaze on his back. He'd earned that much, hadn't he?
With an exhausted groan, he dragged a palm down the front of his face. It was hard to remember sometimes that he'd wanted to be watched, appreciated it, even.
And despite a frequent need to remind himself of the fact, he still did.
But keeping Mabel on task and on track was like trying to keep a leash on the wind, and since they'd have to keep moving soon, especially now that they knew there wasn't anything in Snowdin that could help, it would ultimately benefit them both if he gave her some time to let loose and be herself. There was no telling how long it'd be before she got the chance again, and he didn't want his own problems to rear up at an inopportune time and ruin this for her.
He could survive on his own long enough for her and Papyrus to have their play date. It wasn't like he needed to have a babysitter following him around 24/7.
Or a warden.
The stick creaked, nearly snapping at the pressure of his grip. It was because he was constantly thinking negative thoughts like that, that he was sure his presence upstairs would only ruin things. There was no way could she have a good time, hang out, and simultaneously monitor the smoking fuse trailing from his back.
He'd finally done something right, hadn't he? So why did he still feel like his presence alone could kill a butterfly? Why did it feel like being happy and being with him couldn't possibly overlap?
It wasn't that he'd never felt this way before, because attending birthday parties wouldn't have made him half as miserable if he hadn't constantly been so sure that he was going to mess up and embarrass himself somehow, but it wasn't usually this strong. It wasn't a doubt or a concern or a possibility. It was an ironclad and undeniable result of what would happen if he marched back into Papyrus' house, burst into his room, and announced that, after a sudden and abrupt change of heart, he wanted to date the skeleton, too.
...Well, not date date him, but date in the same sense Mabel was hopefully dating him and hang out.
Closing his eyes, he pressed the back of his head against the solid wood door behind him, listening for any other sounds of revelry coming from the inside. The wreath tickled the back of his neck. The air was saturated with the pungent smell of pine, and a sneeze escaped him.
It was relatively quiet now. No shouts or giggles or rustles or stomping booted steps.
What exactly were they doing in there?
After scratching agitatedly at a bit of exposed hair peeking out from under his cap, he tucked the stick under his arm, then pushed off his knees to stand, thinking that maybe a distraction would do him some good. There was a path not too far from the library that seemed to open up to more houses, but that didn't mean it wasn't worth checking out.
There was something else, too. Something that'd been nagging at him ever since he'd first spotted Mabel in the library...
Why wasn't she wearing the scarf Toriel had made for her? She'd been ecstatic to wear it, and still held on to the old cellphone they'd received like it was a protective talisman – there was no way she'd purposefully abandon it.
Had she forgotten it?
He'd left a note at the inn before leaving to keep her from worrying, but maybe she'd rushed out, anyway. In which case, it was probably still there.
And since he was supposed to be exploring, anyway, there wasn't any reason not to pass by the inn at some point to ask the Innkeeper whether she'd noticed any stray articles of clothing lying around.
Brushing off his shorts, he muttered, "Not like I'm busy, right?"
After entering Papyrus' bedroom, and pointedly ignoring the 'NO GIRLS ALLOWED!' label penned over a stretch of yellow caution tape, which the nervous skeleton had valiantly attempted to obscure with his body, Papyrus had regaled her, his captive audience, with the backstory of each and every one of his action figures, including his favorite: a plastic but apparently realistic likeness of a robot named Mettaton.
While clutching the figure to his chest, Papyrus had confessed to being a huge fan, and while Mabel struggled to understand the appeal of a checkerboard on wheels, it was easy enough to get caught up in his enthusiasm.
Once the initial tour had ended, the date finally commenced, and Papyrus had slid into his closet to change out of his battle body and into a pair of sneakers with knee-high socks, a t-shirt that read Cool Dude across the front, two shoulder pads that may or may not have been basketballs in a previous life, a pair of long sports shorts, and a lime green baseball cap, which he wore backwards.
It was like he was desperately trying to emulate the style of a skater or a street baller, but without the benefit of having ever actually seen either of those in person. The result was an outfit constructed out of a foundation consisting of 16% hearsay and 110% imagination.
In other words, it was absolute perfection.
Not one to be outdone, Mabel ripped off her green sweater with a shriek of unrestrained delight, revealing the crimson heart sewn over her chest with gusto.
Papyrus clapped his hands over his cheekbones in shock. "THIS… HUMAN, ALL THIS TIME… YOU'VE WANTED TO DATE ME, HAVEN'T YOU?"
Brows shaped into a coquettish arch, she leaned in close, "Yes. And now that we're alone…" Beads of sweat appeared on the crown of Papyrus' skull. He was not ready for this sort of commitment! "I can confidently say that there's only one thing on my mind…"
So, the brief trek around Snowdin turned out to be a bust.
The Innkeeper didn't remember seeing Mabel leave the house with a second scarf sitting on her shoulders, and the room itself was cleared out, the beds already washed and made in preparation for whoever rented the room next.
At least the Innkeeper's child seemed pleased to see him. They trailed after him as he climbed up and down the stairs and even ducked under the bed while he was bending down to check to see if maybe the scarf had been kicked or nudged underneath somehow.
Between the two of them, they found 3G, a leaf, and a candy wrapper.
As thanks for their help, Dipper plopped the 3G into their paw, refusing to take it back despite the child's squeaks of protest. "I'm telling you it's okay, little. Keep it. That's enough to buy a candy wrapper that comes with the candy, right?" He tried for a reassuring smile.
It didn't work. If anything, the little lapine monster only looked more miserable.
Just when Dipper was about to relent and offer to take the money back, the child rose onto their toes to cup a paw over his ear and whisper, "It's only enough for one, though."
Smiling for real this time, Dipper clasped both of their plushy paws in his hands. "Next time, they'll be enough for all three of us."
The child brightened, then darted off to visit their aunt, who always kept some monster candy hidden under the counter.
Since the rabbit child had left and Mabel's scarf was nowhere to be found, Dipper decided it was time for him to head out, but not before glancing back one last time at the healthy green leaf lying tangled in the carpet's fibers.
Where had it come from? It could've been dragged in off of someone's boot or blown in through an open window but, with the exception of the rows of coniferous pines framing the traveled roads and clearings, most of the surrounding flora in Snowdin was deciduous, bearing either dry, dead leaves or none at all. There had to be something he was missing, something right under his nose, but there were more important things to worry about, so he filed away the observation to be examined further at another time. Unless he wound up forgetting about it, in which case, it probably wasn't that important, anyway.
Once he'd waved finished waving goodbye to the Innkeeper and her child on the way out, he headed in the direction of the path that followed the river, and soon found himself staring at a large lupine monster. Its arms were thick as logs as it plucked huge blocks of ice off a conveyor belt and chucked it off a nearby ledge, resulting in the ice blocks landing with a splash into the already frigid water below.
"Hey!" Dipper called out to him, hands cupped around his mouth to be heard over the machine. "Why are you tossing ice into the water?" The wolf glanced in his direction, but said nothing. Throwing ice was taking up most of his concentration.
"It's already pretty cold, so I doubt you're trying to cool down the river here." The wolf gave a dismissive huff. Dipper shrugged. "Okay. Maybe that's kind of obvious, but then what are you trying to cool down? Can you at least tell me that?"
Other than another cursory glance in his direction, Dipper received no response. After all that walking around, he was still no closer to learning anything significant about the Underground or his own problem. Biting down on a frustrated scream, he left the wolf to continue wasting his time throwing ice into a freezing river, and stomped back in the direction of the skeleton brothers' home.
Immediately after reaching the side of the house, a white pellet the size of a fingernail smacked him upside the head. He instinctively slapped a hand over the stinging patch of skin, one of his eyelids pressing shut in a wince of pain, though annoyance overshadowed that particular sensation quickly.
He had not decided to finally come back after a long and unproductive walk just to be the victim of an unprovoked attack.
"Who's there?" There was no movement in the bushes, no rustle to suggest that he was doing anything other than talking to himself. "You wanted my attention, right? Well, you've got it." He gritted his teeth as the silence continued, unbroken.
Then he noticed a series of deep scores carved into the ground.
At first glance, they bore a marked resemblance to snake trails, but a coldblooded reptile wouldn't survive long in Snowdin, and the pattern suggested that whatever made the tracks had moved forward, then slithered back the same way it'd come.
They wrapped around to the back of the house, practically beckoning him to follow, but hesitation stalled his feet. The situation felt entirely too suspicious. Here he was, searching for something to occupy his time, and a few mysterious tracks pop up out of nowhere? Life was never that convenient.
The smart thing to do would have been to wait for back up, and he nearly did, but then he realized that this was his chance to discover something new, to finally solve a mystery.
It'd be nice to gain some significant insight about their environment first for a change...
Smoothing out his features into something neutral and unassuming, not that anyone was likely to pay him much attention, considering how engrossed they seemed to be with their own daily routines, Dipper followed the trail around the corner, only to find that they came to an abrupt stop in front of a door with a polished and gleaming metallic surface.
Beyond being difficult to spot from the main path, there didn't appear to be any sort of extraordinary effort to conceal the door, which could have meant that the goal was to keep it out of sight and out of mind, not hidden. People were naturally attracted to places they weren't supposed to be, but very few would find their curiosity peaked by a featureless and ordinary back door.
Still, Dipper was confident that the strange tracks led to this door for a reason, so he hooked his hand around the handle and yanked, then winced at the resistance that ran up and jarred his arm. Grunting, he tried yanking with two hands, but still didn't feel any give.
It was locked.
The lock wasn't ancient, it still retained some of its shine despite the elements, but there were scuff and scratch marks around the edges of the keyhole that suggested it'd been used often, though not always by the steadiest hand.
Staring at the door thoughtfully, Dipper grabbed his hat by the brim and pulled it off to the side.
There was a Boy Scout lock picking tool in his possession, but since he'd never planned on bringing it to school – unless he forgot the combination on his locker again - it was tucked safely away in the back of his sock drawer, where no potential lock picking tool thief would think to look.
Without it, though, there wasn't much he could do to gain access. Maybe if he had a wax mold of the key, or a paper clip, or a hairpin…
Oh.
"I MUST ADMIT THAT I HAD NO IDEA YOU FELT THIS DEEPLY FOR ME!" Shifting his knobby knees on the twin sized bed, Papyrus made a show of twisting to avert his gaze from what he imagined to be a hopelessly lovelorn human. "BUT I AM AFRAID I CANNOT RETURN YOUR ARDENT FEELINGS.
"I understand." Mabel replied, her tone sincere and earnest despite the hands clutching at her stomach to suppress any wayward giggles that might want to eek out and ruin the heavy atmosphere. "But perhaps we could part ways with a goodbye kiss?"
Though thoroughly aggrieved at the notion of saying goodbye, Papyrus nonetheless leaned forward and, "OM NOM NOM. KISSING SOUNDS," passionately mashed his sock puppet's mouth against Mabel's hand.
It was the breaking point.
Scooting backwards, Mabel collapsed onto the comforter, kicking and flailing as every suppressed giggle rushed to escape, leaving her breathless. "That's not how it works!" She gasped. "You're not supposed say the sounds out loud."
With the sock puppet they'd decorated with some of the leftover red fabric from his costume mirroring the expression, Papyrus manipulated his jawbone into a pout.
Shortly before, they'd drawn on black sockets and a nasal cavity with black markers, then added lines around the mouth to represent teeth. It wasn't much, but it was the best Mabel could do while pressed for time, and Papyrus seemed happy enough to have a sock twin.
As for her own puppet, there was a crimson heart colored over the puppet's 'torso' to represent her sweater, and a scarlet headband made from the same cloth as Papyrus' scarf glued to the sock's crown. After a few strokes of color from a brown marker, Sock!Mabel had a passable head of hair. Passible. Not perfect.
Passible.
Even if Papyrus seemed to love them, the perfectionist in her couldn't help but stare at the rushed crafts and cry a little.
Once ready to speak again, Mabel reached out, gripping Papyrus' skeletal hand with a reassuring squeeze. "I know what I said about parting ways and all, but that was just added drama for the scene. If you really don't want to date anymore, that's okay. I'd be so happy - and really, really lucky – to keep being your super cool friend."
Clasping a gloved hand to his chest, Papyrus let out a shocked gasp, then sniffled, wiping away a glistening tear that threatened to trail down his cheekbone. "THERE IS NOTHING I WOULD LIKE BETTER, TINY HUMAN."
And Mabel gave a relaxed smile, having never felt this relieved to be dumped before, though she also wondered if maybe she should stub her toe or something, get a little wetness going so it didn't seem like she was completely unaffected by the rejection, however gentle it'd turned out to be.
But Papyrus was already plugging away at her phone, humming quietly to himself some bouncy tune. Either he'd already forgotten the date or was willing to pretend it'd never happened, which was a shame, because she wasn't going to forget. Not ever. It'd been a while since she'd found someone willing to play sock puppets with her, and she couldn't wait to tell her parents all about the insanely fun date she'd had with a skeleton once they got back to the surface.
And even if the romance had been briefer than an ice cube in the desert, Papyrus had technically been her boyfriend for at least fifteen minutes, which meant she could add him to the scrapbook she was keeping of all her other successfully failed relationships.
One thing was certain: There'd have to be an entire page drawn out and dedicated to the Great Papyrus. It would have sparkles and glitter and neon signs that blinked, glow-in-the-dark stickers, and tomato scented scratch and sniffs. By the time she was through, the page would be seen far and wide as a magnificent work of art!
Papyrus looked up to catch Mabel chuckling creepily to herself, and subtly scooted away.
It was while they contemplating the next heart-wrenching scene to enact with their puppet actors that Dipper barged into the room, wild eyed and flushed. "Hey, Mabel, you got a minute? I could really use your help with something." Considering he'd left his sister alone with Papyrus for more than five minutes and nothing was on fire or bedazzled, he was calling sitting cross-legged on a racecar bed with mini sock versions of themselves to be a 6 out of a possible 10 on the Weird Things To Walk In On scale.
"Sure thing!" Mabel chirped, peeling off her puppet before leaping off the bed. She glanced back at Papyrus, who was already pulling the tube sock onto his other hand. "I'm gonna go help Dipper with a thing for a sec, okay?"
Since Papyrus assured her that he didn't mind, and even used the puppets to wave her off, Mabel added quickly before Dipper could get too impatient and drag her out, "If – When the barrier falls, come over to our house and hang out, okay? I'll even convince our parents to let you come over and babysit sometimes."
The time where she'd imagined him as a little kid in an adult's body had long passed. After he'd gone out of his way to protect her and her brother, to keep them safe and warm and teach them how to fight, there was no mistaking him for anything less than someone who was already well on their way to becoming the best babysitter ever.
"WOWIE! I'VE NEVER SAT ON BABIES BEFORE!"
On the other hand, there was always room for improvement.
Before either of the twins had recovered enough from the initial shock of the statement to correct him, he winked, chortling merrily to let them know that they'd each been successfully bamboozled by the unmatched wits of the Great Papyrus.
"Aren't you cold?"
They were outside the house and turning the corner when Mabel realized that, as curious she was about whatever it was Dipper wanted to show her, it bothered her that he'd been walking around with any sort of extra layers to keep him warm. Even all bundled up as she was, some of the chill still managed to seep through, yet Dipper barely seemed to register that the temperature outside the house was any different from the temperature inside. "I think I forgot my other sweater upstairs, but I can run up and get it real quick."
Dipper shook his head, distracted as he searched the ground for the trail he'd seen earlier. "Thanks but no thanks. I'm not wearing a girl's sweater. I'd much rather freeze."
"It's unisex." She pouted. "What are you looking for, anyway?"
He stopped scanning the ground, giving up on finding any trace of the trail. Whatever had gone through the trouble of erasing it had done a very thorough job of it. "Nothing important." Gesturing for her to follow, he curved around the back of the house to stand in front of the steel door he'd discovered earlier. "The reason I brought you down here is because I need to borrow one of your pins to open this door."
"Oh." Frowning, she asked why he didn't just ask to borrow a pin while they were still upstairs. Why drag her all the way outside if a pin was all he needed?
"I…" He paused, pondering that. "Huh."
Rolling her eyes, she untangled a slender hairpin from her bangs, then promptly passed it to Dipper, who eagerly snatched it up and jammed it into the lock, tinkering away experimentally as Mabel continued to watch, suddenly weary of where this new endeavor was heading. "Now, I'm just throwing this out there, so correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't breaking into a house we've already been invited to kind of bad juju?"
"There's answers in here, Mabel. There has to be. I'm sure of it." He was driven, focused, and desperate, with an almost feverish gleam in his eyes.
It scared her.
"You don't have to know everything, bro bro," she said slowly. Not every locked door needed to be opened, not every mystery needed to be solved.
He scoffed, redoubling his efforts. It was easy for her to say that, he thought furiously. There was nothing wrong with her. No voices in her head. "That sounds a lot like something Sans would say, but, hey, you two are buddies now, right?"
Frustration boiling over, she stamped her foot and shouted, "Why are you acting like this?!"
"Don't you get it by now?" Dipper shouted back at her, feeling vindicated when she flinched. "I. Don't. Know!"
Click.
Uttering a soft sound of disbelief, Dipper turned around to give the door a hard shove. It swung open, revealing a sterile room with tiles that didn't contain a speck of grime in their molding. Once inside, the twin's wrinkled their noses at the strong scent of antiseptic saturating the air.
A hastily scrawled out note taped to a white board drew their attention. It was propped against a lumpy, indistinct shape, its features concealed by the sheet thrown over it. Dipper ripped the note off, reading it aloud while Mabel crowded in for a closer look.
not cool
"He knows we're here." Mabel pointed out, certain that Dipper had already leapt to the same conclusion. "Shouldn't we abort mission?"
"Maybe he doesn't. Maybe that note's just there to freak out whoever breaks in." It sounded about as convincing as he did. "In any case, we're here, so we might as well look around." He grabbed a set of blueprints sitting on the shelf, stretching them out over his knee so as to better examine the symbols. The handwriting was sloppy, haphazard, and though some of the symbols overlapped with what he knew of the wingding font, the little that could be deciphered made no sense.
With a contemptuous click of his tongue, Dipper tossed them aside, forgetting them as soon as they'd left his hands.
It was only after he'd thrown the blueprints back onto the shelf that he noticed Mabel was still staring at the board.
Leaning forward and squinting, she asked, "What do you think it means?"
Gears churning, Dipper strode over to examine the lines and labels, confused as to why a lab would contain a board covered with rough postulations about what appeared to be parallel dimensions. It was basically the stuff of science fiction, but since he'd spend an entire weekend combing the web for verified reports of lycanthropy and vampirism, that particular thought went unspoken.
"It looks like it's about alternate universes." He followed the lines with an extended index finger. "The Tangent Universe branches off from the main one at point A, but loops back at point C." Scratching his chin, he added, "The abbreviation at the top probably stands for Divergence Point, so that's where the split is."
"And this," Mabel gestured to the diagonal arrow, "is where the two universes join back up, right?"
"Yeah, but the question mark probably means that's just a theory. Actually," he admitted, "this concept may be pretty advanced, but none of it's proven. Whatever it is he's working on in here, I don't think it has anything to do with us."
He turned away, heading towards the row of drawers under the shelf. Most of them were empty, but some contained notebooks and journals with calculations that were too advanced to make any sense of.
It was after he'd finished riffling through his third drawer that Mabel decided to check one herself. Though she hadn't actually expected to find anything, what lay at the bottom of the drawer forced her to stifle a gasp. "Dipper! Come look at this." He dropped what he was doing to see what she'd found.
It was a picture of Sans and Papyrus and even Toriel, along with a few other monsters they didn't recognize, and standing in front, wearing the exact same sweater they'd spotted them in before, was the little kid from the mountain.
They looked happy.
But how did the picture even exist? Had the kid fallen in before? The only other possibility was that the picture was taken on the surface, except the barrier trapping the monsters hadn't come down once in all the centuries it'd been active.
Mabel thought back to how attentive Sans had been when she'd mentioned the kid they'd stopped from falling, how relieved he'd seemed when she'd said they were okay. Somehow, even though it should have been impossible, Sans must have known them, and cared about them still, even though no one else seemed to remember ever meeting a human before.
Had they... made a mistake? Should they have let the kid fall?
But they couldn't have let a little kid fall down on their own! What if they'd gotten hurt? What if someone had tried to hurt them? Her and Dipper were older, wiser, and they had each other, so they'd be okay, eventually. Probably.
And if they hadn't interfered, the quiet, mousy kid with their sleepy eyes and their mop of straight brown hair, they would have been all alone.
"It could be a trick." Dipper muttered. "Something to trip us up."
"or it could just be none of your business." It came from the doorway, and the twins spun sharply to see Sans standing behind them, back in his hoodie but looking less like his usual self, and more like the weary, somewhat threatening sentry they'd run into outside the Ruins. Except the disappointment brimming underneath the surface, the harsh shadows settling into the edges of an empty grin, they were all personal now.
Cheeks burning, Mabel impulsively tried shoving the photo back into the drawer. The frame shifted, catching on the ceiling so it was jutting out when the drawer slammed shut, rattling the glass. "woah, hey, careful with that." Sans nudged her aside, pushing her gently out of the way with the pack of his hand, then carefully retrieved the frame to set it back in its proper place. "some monsters like to have their things treated with respect."
It came out a little flat, considering they'd seen his socks lying abandoned on the living room carpet, but Sans didn't seem to be in the mood to have that pointed out.
As it was, the twins flinched at the not-so-subtle reprimand, almost wishing he'd skip to the part where he yelled at them so they could get that over with, apologize, and then move on. Instead, they were carrying the weight of a shame that thrived in the quiet.
Turning to Dipper, he continued, "so, I guess breaking into my lab was your idea?" There was a pause, neither of the twins could think of what to say. But they didn't have to respond, because Sans had already decided their answers for them. "you're just chock full of good ideas today, aren't you?"
Even knowing the skeleton had every right to be upset – they'd essentially broken into his home after having already been invited in as guests - Dipper reacted instinctively to the accusatory tone, interpreting it as a verbal attack. The intensity of the scrutiny he was under made him feel small and exposed, like a snake wriggling under a magnifying glass as its outer skin was forcibly peeled away. He tensed, scared and defensive and too stubborn to admit it. "The door was already open when we walked in."
Unimpressed, Sans replied, "nice try, pal. the only way to unlock that door is with a key I keep in my room, which also happens to be locked. i suppose i should probably thank you for not breaking into there, too."
A rumbling emanated from the twin's stomachs, breaking the tension, and they flushed, heat rushing to their faces. Sans shifted on his feet, looking contemplative, before finally lifting his hands, palms out, and sighing, "alright, guess that's enough lecturing for now. not really my style, anyway." He headed towards the exit, gesturing for them to follow. "come on, we're heading to grillby's. your treat."
"We're really sorry, Sans," Mabel ducked her head on the way out of the lab, feeling miserable as the door was shut and locked behind her. Outside of the glaring light, it was easier to see the discoloration and scuff marks under Sans' sockets, supporting Papyrus' earlier assertion that he hadn't been sleeping, and it was doubtful that catching two kids snooping around his things had helped at all on the relaxation front. But she'd been counting on him to save the day if things got too out of control, because he seemed strong and calm and had done it once already, but it was harder to believe in that when he and Dipper were sporting matching raccoon masks. "We didn't mean to upset you. We were just looking for something that could help..." She looked to Dipper, pleading, but he shook his head, so she finished, "We thought there might be something in there that would help us get home."
"like what? a car? no, you didn't mean to upset me. you also didn't mean to be caught."
"You're wasting your time with him, Mabel." Scowling, Dipper quickened his strides in order to outpace them, hunching as he shoved his hands into his pockets. They were all heading towards the same place, and Snowdin was a straight line, so closing himself off through body language was the best way for him to convey that he didn't want to be talked to or talked down or cheered up or reasoned with, which was fine, because Mabel was getting tired of trying. But that didn't mean her eyes didn't follow him, her stomach twisting into knots until the first whiff of grease and fries in the air stoked her appetite. Besides Nice Cream and a slice of pie, there hadn't been many opportunities as of late to devour a quick and satisfying meal.
Once sure Dipper was well out of earshot, she tried again, "Listen, I know we messed up, and I know my brother hasn't exactly been the most pleasant person to be around lately, but that doesn't mean the both of us aren't really extremely sorry. Just tell me what I have to do to make this better and I will."
Keeping his gaze similarly pinned to the boy's back as they strode past the library and the remnants of the snowman Dipper had constructed, which Sans couldn't help but raise a bemused brow at, he scratched his skull, saying, "you don't have to keep apologizing to me, kid. i know you're only human."
It didn't sound like forgiveness.