Learn When to Quit

by Lutias'Kokopelli

"I thought I had warned you about that guy. 'Don't let him find out ANYTHING about you', sounds familiar? ... Oh, but that's right! I forgot you NEVER listen. To you it was all just a game after all, wasn't it?" [Player-Insert] Read the NEW VERSION at: archiveofourown . org/works/17471276 or at: lwtq-undertale . tumblr . com

21. Act III — Scene 1 (quater)

Learn When to Quit
Act III — We'll Be Together Forever
Scene 1⁴ — On a Light and Stormy Night

---

Sans quickly took a piece of chalk, contemplated the blackboard for a few seconds, then simply turned towards her and leaned against the wall casually. He was fidgeting again she noticed, as he was absent-mindedly playing with that little stick of white limestone.

"y'see the soul tricks?" he asked rhetorically as an introduction. "blue, green, or whatever the form, those 'attacks' actually rely on a different type of magic than the regular ones. the process's not as intuitive, so even if any monster could do it theoretically, in practice few really learned how to do it. especially after centuries of, uh, social stuff too. y'know."

Well, this came as no news that Sans and Papyrus were talented in magic, from what she'd seen in both the game and reality; and now that he was bringing back that 'aristocracy' issue, was he actually implying that they were of aristocratic background? They did have the 'Gaster' Blasters alright.
So what was this for, was he just showing off for the heck of it? Please.

"And… how does this have anything to do with our case?" she asked in confusion.
"eager as always, huh." he chuckled. "alright, i'll make this quick: from the very beginning, the theory's that the game, or whatever's controlling frisk, relies exactly on that same principle: magic entanglement."

… Huh. Now that was getting somewhere.
It didn't mean that she was following, though.

"I… don't get it."
"yeah, figured so." He laughed uneasily and looked down, and she shot him a non-threatening death glare. "heheh, alright, alright, i'm getting at it." He lowered back his skull to stare at his left hand, playing thoughtfully with the piece of chalk. "i, um. would be easier to explain with a demonstration, but… yeah, i'll just figure something."

He gave a light push against the wall in order to stand up, then faced the blackboard and began drawing two circles of approximately the same size, one next to the other. Then he stopped and contemplated his oh so extraordinarily detailed and talkative scheme with that expression of disappointment and annoyance which easily read: "yeah, and now what?"
Eventually, he just sighed and turned around once more, always with that clumsy nerdy smile of his.

"… thing is, the way it works— the trick's that you create some sort of 'connection' between two magical things. first thing is your target, the other one is what controls it. in the case that i turn you blue, it's my hand. if i move it around, your soul will do the same. more or less." He paused and studied her with his two pupils to make sure that she was not struggling to understand, before adding: "that's… the spirit of how the 'game'— or whatever controls frisk— that's– a rough idea of how it works, too. you following good so far?"
"Yeah… I think so?" She still frowned slightly and retorted after a short break: "Just let me get this straight— in the case of the game, it's like the arrows on the keyboard direct Frisk's soul somehow? And probably some other actions we can do in the game? I mean of course but, you mean we control their soul, and not their body?"
"well… guess you could say it's a good way to sum it up. do you have any other questions? i mean, i don't think there's much more to say about the theory, but if you wanted a complete lesson about how magic physically works with all the figures—"

Bo-ring. Nobody wants that, smart guy.

There was a blink.
In less than a split second, Sans had disappeared from his spot in front of the blackboard, the blanket was back on covering it, and the skeleton was now sitting back on his chair with his skull staring at his glowing hands. Dawn stiffened, and as he seemed to realize what exactly he was holding in the air, he jumped in shock too.
Very bad idea.

The same way he had been extremely cautious while first forming it, this split second of distraction was all that was needed to lose control over that little cyan amalgam of magic and accidentally have it explode in the most random direction. Direction which, of course, just oh so coincidentally happened to be towards Dawn.
The monster reacted on the spot.

"DON'T MOVE!"

The human had blanched, and this sudden loud yell only made her step on her blanket, get her legs tangled up in it, and rapidly collapse from her seat with a yelp.
But somehow she did not end her fall.

The magic ball went right through her chest. She felt like her heart missed a beat.
It was so cold.

She heard some fuming noise from behind her as the formless thing eventually shattered in tiny shreds, all of those dissolving in the air afterwards.
She was still standing. But that was probably just because her soul was showing and radiating some deep blue, and definitely not thanks to her shaking noodle legs. Her feet were bent in such an angle inside the blankets, she normally couldn't possibly avoid falling according to the usual laws of gravity.
She finally noticed she was still breathing, and did not feel pain. She realized she was fine.

That had been a blue attack. No moving meant no getting hurt.
Sans had made sure she would not move so she would not get hurt.
Still.
What.

That had been so close to… What even could have happened?

Sans's eye was still glowing, and he kept standing still in that same position, half-standing half-leaning on the now-next-to-him desk, his left arm still aiming a closed glowing fist at her. Only his slow and loud breathing could tell that he had not magically turned into a statue.
After a few more seconds, when he assessed that the danger was gone, he found himself staring fearfully at her. Then at his fist. Then at her shining soul. His pupils immediately rushed back to her and seemed to read something along the lines of some awkward "uh, i'm just… gonna put you down now?"

Dawn was staring back, her arms blindly trying to fetch her chair's wooded back so she could have something to sit on. She evaluated that trusting her legs for doing their job right now was probably not a good idea.
As soon as he felt sure she was in a stable position again, he closed his sockets heavily and lowered his arm when the blue light had fully dissipated, letting himself fall limply on his seat. Then he buried his skull in his hands and started trembling.

"oh god. sorry. just— shit. i'm sorry."

After a little while, as his tremors had calmed down, he slowly and timidly removed his hands and raised his skull back, if ever so slightly. He looked at her for a split second, but the dots immediately drifted away and he forcedly closed his sockets.

"y… y-y— a-are you alright…?"
"Y… yeah." She nodded vigorously, but too nervously. She was alive, breathing, and had just been on the verge of having a heart attack. It probably meant that she was alright. "… I-I think? W-What the heck was that?! I-I-I mean what just hap-pened?"
"reload. i think." He was still taking deep breaths, his two contracted pupils now staring at his half-opened gloved palms as if they had suddenly become deadly weapons he had entirely lost control over. "one with a very bad timing."

Or a miraculously well calculated window for Murphy's Law. Heehee.

"A Reload? Why? D-Did they die?"
"they… must be in the middle of waterfall by now." He eventually closed his hands into nervous fists and just decided to bury them in his pockets. "they probably met undyne."

Dawn gulped. She was still clutching at her chest through the blanket, eyes widening and frowning all at the same time as she was trying to fight back the tears she felt coming. She needed not to cry because she did not want to upset Sans further. But still. Cold sweat started rolling on her forehead.
That… had been intense.

Sans came back to apologizing. She tried to dismiss it lightly, but after their entire discussion on magic, it was hard to say much to reassure him. Other than the fact that, for obvious reasons, she was not mad at him for probably saving her life. All he did after that was glare at her with those "i was the one to put you in danger in the first place" exasperated sockets. She tried to tell him that he couldn't have known a Reload would happen, let alone at such impossibly improbable moment, but he simply lowered his pupil-less skull and took another deep breath.

After a few more minutes, she decided to do the same; just lower her head in silence. She realized she was still grasping her hoodie in that spot where the middle of her soul used to be when she could still feel it.
This was the first time she had made direct contact with an actual magic bullet, but even if it did no damage… The experience had been so strange, even compared to the types of magic she had faced until then. The way that thing had just phased through her chest as if it were nothing, only hitting her soul and digging its freezing path through—
She unconsciously tried to gently rub her chest, as if it could reach to her soul and warm it up. It was not very effective.

"I-In… I mean, if the game really works the way you said it does…" she eventually mumbled, still avoiding his look. "I was just wondering— You said it's a link between two magical things, right? Then… don't you think it could go the other way around?"

Just try to change the subject. You'll get over it. But only if you stop thinking about it.

And she would be giving him a chance to get over it too, after all.

Sans uneasily raised his skull back to her, but he did not seem to get her point.

"when i use magic on you, c… can you do anything about it?"
"I can still move on my own. Sort of."
"but you can't fight against it." He looked away apologetically. "you're still blue as long as i want to."
"Well… I mean, of course that's the point of the trick, that'd be stupid if you could turn things around and become the target of your own attack or something, but— that's just the part I don't get. Why isn't the 'connection' two-sided?"
"… oh. that."

Dawn was still wrapping herself inside her blanket more than ever, but she now tried to look relaxed and smiling, if only to show Sans that he could calm down as well. The way he eventually straightened his back awkwardly and showed a serious look in his sockets seemed to be evidence that it was working on some scale.

"to be honest, there could be some cases. if the target knows how to use the entanglement themselves, then they have a means to not only use the link, but even reverse the effects if they're strong enough. though that's purely theory speaking here, i never heard of that in practice. we kinda try to avoid that kind of situations, actually." There was a light, quiet and empty chuckle, which only morphed into a sigh before he continued. "anyway… that's not the problem here. 'cause in our case… what happens if the target's someone who can't use magic at all? i hate saying that, but… there's basically no chance of that ever happening. the kid's trapped. just like you can't break free on your own."

She bit her lip and lowered her head shamefacedly.

"Still… How could the game even develop that connection of sorts?" she came back soon after. "If it needs magic from both parties… then it'd need to be magic at some point. I just can't believe there'd be magic somewhere in there— least of all for that purpose."
"yeah, and i can confirm that. as far as i know, not only you don't 'know' of magic… it just can't exist in your world." the monster admitted tensely. "that… is the part that really bugs me too. that'd involve something non-magical that can alter something magical that'd be the one to create the connection…? that doesn't make it impossible, far from it, but— that makes it insanely difficult. that's ridiculous if that's just for the sake of a game."

She had some difficulties following his train of thoughts as quickly as he did, but she agreed with his conclusion.
However, despite everything, the saddest thing was… Even if the game was not the source of Frisk's fate? They would not be any more advanced in the case, far from it— on the contrary, having to deal with such case would only raise twice as many questions. Sans's theory had the benefit of answering practically all questions, and only ask a few that could not be answered for their lack of means to check for themselves the answer; a game-less theory would leave major gaping holes every now and then, to the point of almost contradicting some of the facts they had been faced with until now.

Still. His theory, for all it was worth, remained fundamentally what it was. A theory.

"Do you have any idea who could be behind this?"

He inhaled shortly, shrugging in that heavy gesture to show that he was just as ignorant as her.

"only clue we have is that, well. someone in your universe must've heard of ours with enough details to create a game so accurate— well, mostly accurate. if it wasn't the developer himself, then it was someone close to him who must've… inspired him, maybe?"
"Kinda hard to figure…" she pouted. "But yeah. Only logical explanation, I guess."

She lowered her head in order to seize her chin with a blanket-covered hand, then frowned thoughtfully. In any case, it meant that Toby Fox had, knowingly or not, met someone who had been in Sans's universe at some point— since it was basically the only way to ever learn about the events in a completely different universe. One big clue here— if that person had found their way in her universe without suspicion, then they needed to at least look human; and after what she heard Sans say about magic being unstable there, then they were probably not magic themselves. So the suspect they were looking for was truly, fully human.
On the other hand, similarly that same mysterious person had to be on the same place the events had occurred to begin with at some point— always without getting suspicion from anyone. Since they were human, then the only way they could have stood unnoticed among monsters was…

"Do you remember seeing anyone suspicious during your time on the surface?"

Well, if the point was that this guy had gone unnoticed all this time, then they would hardly be callable 'suspicious'; but with Sans's laser focus and lie detector, there was a chance the spy could have been caught in his radar nonetheless, if ever so slightly.
But the skeleton only chuckled slightly and shrugged once more.

"well… not really— not in the way you mean it." he mumbled. "as i said, the only humans we ever met were the dwellers – rule them out, they practically never leave their village and even if they did they'd be easily spotted with their outfit –, and the army working with the weird guys. you can rule them out too, they really had nothin—"
"Wait." She blinked in confusion, then frowned. "Weird guys? Are you kidding?!"

He slightly jolted in surprise at that little pseudo-slip up, and started again to chuckle in some sort of "ooh boy, how am i ever gonna explain that part?" It seemed like the guy really had been through a lot more than she had ever guessed. Ugh, was destiny really conspiring against him or something?
Still. If those guys weren't suspicious to him, then she had a hard time finding how Sans's criteria worked exactly. 'Weird' was basically the definition of 'suspicious' in this case.

"well, not weird in a bad way, but…" He was scratching his skull again. "they called themselves the… 'alter federation' or something? never seen them that much, they cared a lot more about the surface. they're from yet another different universe… universeS…? i dunno really. all i know is, they were pretty interested in getting our universe to join them in some kind of… giant economy trade organization or whatever, for some reason. i never really got their point."
"You mean that there are other guys out there who can just… travel through universes like what you did?!" Well wasn't that one big break in the case.
"looks like it, yeah. i never got to see how they were doing it though, since uh— ya know, stuck in the mountains and all. most of them were coming from the closest big city around. if i recall, that was a long ride, something like two hours by car or train." He realized again he had started rambling. "anyway uh— yeah. they clearly had means to travel as much as they wanted." however the heck they were doing it, he added as a frustrated mental note.

His own system needed so much energy to work, the CORE itself was hardly handling it at all— so he really struggled to accept the fact that some other people could have ever managed to either work out a less energy-consuming way of safely traveling between universes, or simply had a way to produce such energy easily. Which was not very reassuring.

"But then, they came to see you on the Surface?" Dawn cut him short, and he slightly tilted his skull in surprise.
"yep. the only way i ever heard about them was because they had been helping us up there, actually. making sure monsters would be accepted among humankind. i heard they were making it part of their charter so our universe could be accepted in their 'federation' thing? so uh, maybe they were not just capitalist freaks." he chuckled uneasily. "anyway, my point is— if they really were the culprits, as you suspect… they wouldn't really have focused on that kind of things, since they knew the timeline would be reset anyway and we'd get stuck back underground. kinda a huge waste of time on their part, even if it were just an act. they were working much closer to the army than to monsters, so that wasn't really the best way they had to learn about our history either, if anything." He sighed and shrugged again. "so uh, yeah, sure they'd have the means to pull something like that… but i'd still be very surprised if it were them. really don't see them doing it."

Hey… That was actually relieving for real this time.

So after all, there really were other universes out there. That was both frightening and, in a way— almost exciting? … Yeah, nah, mostly scary.
That did explain how Sans seemed so at ease with that topic. Well, he didn't sound like he knew as much as those people would, given that he most probably never went through such travels himself; but he did learn about such truth long before. It had left him with time to let it all sink in.

Now though, she was all the more curious; what kind of universes were those ones? They probably were magic as well, it seemed to her that the technology needed to travel between worlds entered such domain after all. And if they were actually favoring monsters over humans (at least, they were demanding some basic equality between them), that was another argument pro magic. Anyway, even if they didn't have it— then they must have at least known about it beforehand.
She could only guess, but if what Sans said was true, then they were some sort of organization traveling between universes and trying to build some links between worlds? That meant they definitely had gained a lot from their travels: knowledge, technology, goods… She could only dream of what kind of utopia that could be like. Maybe the fanworks about humans and monsters meddling technology with magic was actually already a thing somewhere else?

Still, if she really was in the right… This still raised quite a few questions, whether she was suspecting them or not.

"But where did they go? Do you think they know about the Resets?"
"well, i remember some of their agents were already investigating on those back there— so, yeah, they definitely know. but now… who knows where they're gone. never seen them since the 'game' took effect."

… Well okay, that was less relieving. She surprised herself thinking that it was somewhat suspicious, even, and once more wondered why Sans hadn't caught on such oh so screamingly obvious hints. For God's sake, it wasn't like they sounded like the ideal culprits for such thing, if only because of their exact means and knowledge. All they lacked was the motive.
So, yeah, that theory was actually even more believable than the game, since it had the same unique flaw but covered twice as more practical issues nonetheless.

She was doing her best not to jump to conclusions, but she would definitely keep that one in mind, just in case. Sans did sound like he (somewhat) trusted them, but then… How could they justify the fact that they knew of the Resets, and yet just… gave up on this universe without trying to help?
They did come to investigate, after all. It was suspicious of them to merely, apparently, drop the research just like that, especially when their help was needed the most.

"Speaking of which… Is there anything special you remember about that time when— the game first took over? I mean uh, right before that? Did you see something happening to Frisk or…?"
"not at all." he shook his skull vigorously, certain of his answer. "that's from a while back, but i'm positive they were normal all along. but for the details… 'k, let me think back a little."

He leaned back, closing his sockets and pensively burying his face inside his left palm in that intense thinking pose.
It looked like it really was reaching for some really old memory there; or he just was not that much used anymore to remember things from earlier loops. Just how long had he been trapped in those Resets exactly? It seemed like it had been forever to him…

After a dozen seconds of absolute silence, Sans raised his voice once again, albeit he still was buried in that same thinking posture.

"as i said— at first we had a plan, frisk and i. it failed, and we'd been through a few loops afterwards— those were the first resets i could actually keep track of."
"Why would they keep Resetting?" Dawn couldn't help but interrupt, albeit shyly. "Weren't you against that?"

He raised his skull back to her and chuckled uneasily.

"long story short, chara was mad at them for some old stuff i can't remember of, and they decided to take over for a while. so the resets were actually from chara's part." he quickly explained. "it's complicated, but uh— the point of the plan was to temporarily make sure we wouldn't get to the surface at the moment." He noticed his ambiguous wording and the human's weird pout, and he added awkwardly: "… it, uh, made sense in context. besides, that was only supposed to be temporary. 'f course we both planned to get everyone back on the surface as soon as the situation would be back in control."
"But… I suppose you didn't get it back in control?" she went in timidly.
"to put it lightly, chara did, uh, not appreciate the plan. heh. kinda why they forced the loops in the first place."

Ah.
Well, she really did miss a lot of stuff apparently.

"How did that end, then?"
"at some point in the loops, those federation guys showed up. they had finally found the source of the resets and, uh, kinda intervened. black suits, big guns, pretty much the stereotypical thing. later found out they were mostly doing that just to intimidate the kids and make the arrest easier, they never planned to actually use those. i mean, the agents were humans, so it was rather easy to stop them without any harm done." He sighed loudly, in a mixture between an exasperated one and a… regretful one? "by then we thought it'd be over. chara changed their mind. we were about to go back the original way and get to the surface, with the help of everyone. we were all facing the barrier and the agents were negotiating with the king. and then…"

He went silent again, for much longer this time. He buried his skull back in his pensive hand, appeared to tense— but after a little while, he simply sighed and slowly raised two apologetic pupils and a goofily ironic yet serious smirk.

"… yeah. nah. i can't recall what happened past that point. all i know is— i woke up afterwards, and there had been a reset. was back in my bed on always that same july 21st. the routine." The white dots shifted to the side, looking down in regret. "… well. except for frisk."

So… That was it, huh? It was Dawn's turn to sigh.
Welp, this had been a long ride there. Lots of catching up to do.

"It's weird, though. I mean, they found out that Frisk was the source of the Resets, and then when they leave, the game just oh so coincidentally happens to start taking over at the same time?" Even her goofy rainbow-like hand waves smelt sarcasm for miles around. "Call me crazy, but I'm betting on them being the culprits behind this. The… thing. Like, connecting the game or whatever. They'd have the means to do that, right? Hey, could Toby even be part of their organization and stuff? Or any of the guys behind Steam, for that matter."

Sans chuckled clumsily, scratching yet again the back of his skull. If anything, he did not look convinced.

"well… maybe. but to be honest— kinda really don't see them pulling something like that. they were really negotiating economic stuff with asgore after all, during that last loop i heard they were even offering to break the barrier on their own without using the souls— no idea how they intended to do that, but uh, apparently they knew even more than we did about how exactly it works. so why not." His chuckle seemed almost genuinely amused this time. "so uh. maybe it was all an act, but… aside from the lack of motive, i'm really certain they had nothing to do with it. still good to leave room for doubt, but… yeah. not convinced."
"But why did they give up on you, then? They already know it's Frisk behind the Resets, so it's not like they'd need any more investigating." She paused for an instant, seemingly frowning at her own speech. "I mean, uh… Frisk is the one doing the Resets, or… is that the game now?"
"well, kinda both. tricky one." He leaned back against his chair, putting his hands in his pockets lazily yet in some kind of serious attitude. Yes, he did that. "you remember the 42kms i mentioned yesterday morning? they're frisk and chara's score— from what i understood they kinda combine their determination, somehow. something like that. anyway; the game isn't 'stronger' than them— it's directly taking over frisk's soul. so uh, it's the game that is resetting because it makes them." He seemed to think back a little further and frowned his metaphorical eyebrows, though: "well i mean, there must be something more to just that since the resets can happen hours after frisk's soul shattered— but i checked the figures, the score remained the same. and as far back as i can remember, i can assure you that their soul never shattered during their death before the game took over. so uh, current theory's that it kinda drains the determination from the soul when they die, so that the reload can still happen after a break? only explanation i found so far."

He quickly further clarified that determination was the only way magic could avoid falling apart in the first place; monsters were not nearly as determined as humans, but they still had a natural amount of determination, only so that they wouldn't fall to dust as soon as their birth. Dawn soon realized that 'determination' was also behind the phenomenon commonly known as "killing intent": the more confident and 'determined to hurt' a monster was, the sharper and tougher their attacks became— thus the more they hurt; and similarly, the more afraid or unwilling to fight they were, the less 'determined' they were at the moment— thus the easier it was to dust them on the spot. As far as it didn't apparently work that much on physical attacks, since they were not technically related to magic, humans' killing intent wasn't nearly as impactful as monsters' fear; besides, physical attacks had naturally always been far stronger in the first place— any monster knowing that would naturally start weakened just by the sight of a human with a deadly weapon… or by that of an insensitive human manipulated so that they would hardly look like anything but a walking killing machine.
Though on that part, Sans added, there could always be a chance that the game did add a little more 'magic' to all that. Granted, Frisk was a human; but they were still a child, more often than not armed by nothing more than mere plastic knives or other harmless toys. If they were able to still hurt with those… The monster was willing to speculate that the game could have some bigger part in it somewhere.

The teenager hummed thoughtfully. She was not really trying to prove him wrong by now, but she just, well… wanted to clear out every single hole she could think of. Because there were still quite a few, and they were not coming in those mysterious agents' favor.

"What if they had just… I don't know, taken Frisk away with them? I mean, if I was supposed to be able to Reset here but not back in my universe, then they just had to—"
"couldn't warp them, remember?"

…
Ah.

"… Dang it."
"yep. i dunno how their interdimensional stuff works, but if it works anything like my shortcuts— many chances they didn't get any luckier than me at that one."
"Ack." she groaned. "But then… Wasn't there just some way to, I don't know— track down the source of the problem? I mean, they must have crazy technology and stuff. They probably could do something like that. Like how you use someone's phone to find their localization or something."

Yet once again, the skeleton shook his skull slowly, closing his sockets in regret.

"you know what makes the specificity of entanglement?" he asked immediately. It was obvious that it was meant to be rhetoric since she couldn't possibly know the answer, so he simply answered without a pause: "you can't trace it back. just like the resets. you can estimate how powerful the source is, but you have no means to guess its exact location or who is doing it unless it's right under your nose."

… Well damn.
Would've been way too easy that way, huh?

"Look, I'm trying to find solutions here." she retorted pseudo-angrily.
"yeah, i know." he laughed awkwardly. "thanks. good to, uh… not be alone with that mess anymore."

The monster gave her a shy yet genuine smile, and all traces of annoyance melted off her face.

"anyway…" he carried on after a few more seconds. "it's good to keep them in sight of course, but i'd rather try looking for other suspects around."
"Any ideas?" she asked with some shy hope.
"not really." he groaned. "but one thing that's had me worried for a while now— it's that entire month without resets. i don't know how the heck that happened, but it never did before. that was just… way too lucky all at once. and that's not even mentioning the files i found on my computer's desktop."

Oh, yeah… Right. That. It's true that, if Sans's theory was true, then it was hard to imagine that a whole month could occur without having a single person on Earth opening the game on Steam, especially given its current popularity. For a few days in a row, maybe, she could figure. But how could all of the internet stay away from the server during a whole month…?

That was when she was suddenly hit with realization.

"… The hacker!" she blurted out.

Sans gave her two wide confused sockets, silently pleading her to develop— which she immediately did.

"I had completely forgotten, but— there's been a case going on back in my home. Someone hacked Steam! And apparently it was a very skilled one, because the whole platform was entirely paralyzed and had to shut down." She slowly raised two anxious maroon pupils towards him: "… for one month."

If anything, after a few seconds of still staring at her with that shocked look, all the monster did was crack open a giant smile of victory. That did mark a point for his hypothesis, after all. And maybe more than this…

"heh… who would've known? maybe they didn't completely give up on us, after a—"

Another blink.

Dawn yelped. Sans seemed quicker to adjust and hardly lost his nerve this time, as he jumped off his seat and threw the magic glowing ball in the first direction he could think of that would be anywhere but close to the human's position.

Both were still gaping and staring at the same wall the cyan pellet had disassembled into, though. After a few seconds, he simply closed his trembling fists and took a deep breath.

"… ok. you know what. i'll just. help them through this one. or just. i dunno. prevent them from doing that again." He turned his skull to face her and sprouted a clumsy smile. "i'll, uh. be right back."

And then he was gone, just like that.

She waited a little, still glued to her chair. After a little while she started randomly humming silly songs. Then her legs started fidgeting a bit with some of the melodies. But as her eyes were lost in the surroundings, they suddenly stopped on the skeleton's desk. She had never really paid attention to that detail before, but it had drawers. And if there was one thing she remembered from the game about Sans's basement and drawers…

Maybe she shouldn't do that. Snooping around was rude, and the guy could come back anytime.
But right now she wanted answers. She could just ask him, but it seemed like he had reached his limit for the time being. And she felt bad about asking when he looked like he was hurting so much. But what was that life lesson about having people talk their issues out of their chest about, again? Well, out of his ribs maybe. Maybe if she had him talk on the long run she would be helping him. And she would get to know what sort of hell he really had been through. And that would help them investigate if she knew as much as he did, right? Yeah, she was doing him a favor there. And what would he even do to her if he found her out red-handed, huh? He wouldn't hurt her or anything anyway. He couldn't.

… Yeah, that was kinda sadistic to think like that. But hey, on the bright side of things, he did owe her answers anyway. That was some stuff any Player was supposed to check on in the game, and all she could do here was just, well, make sure that there weren't any more inconsistencies about it. Right? Besides, even if she had almost forgotten about Flowey's speech until that very moment when it occurred to her, she rationalized that he could not be fully trusted for now. If there was one thing to check so that she could know for sure whether he was hiding something from her or not, it had to be there.
Yeah. Don't you go feel guilty about that and just get snooping while he's not around. That's the only way you make investigations progress after all. There's always some part when you have to bend the rules.
Besides, hey, who talked about bending the rules? Those were just drawers. Not like she was about to force open a safe or anything. It was his fault for not hiding his secrets in safer places.

Sans, if you want to stop me, you better come back around, like, right now.
Oh, but who was she kidding? There's always been that cliché going, demanding that as soon as she would just get up from her chair and open one of the drawers, he would oh so coincidentally pop up in the basement right at the worst time and be like "and what do you think you're doing?"

She stood up and looked around. Nothing.
She walked to the desk and looked around. Still nothing.
She put her hand on one of the handles at random and looked around— wait, what was that? Ha, just kidding, there was nothing.

So. What do we have here? Mostly photo albums, a quantum physics book, more photos, two badges— one of which looked badly damaged and hardly recognizable… Yeah, so far the game was pretty accurate actually. Good to hear.

She started with one of the photo albums, because it was lying on top of the pile and because it seemed like it was not the one she had seen on the day she arrived. Also because it seemed much older— and indeed, it became obvious pretty soon that this thing had been filled an awfully long time ago. Merely opening the book spread in the whole room the smell of non-monster dust and metaphorical spider webs.

But then she looked down at the pics.
Skeletons. Skeletons everywhere. Big bones, little bones, every flavor available.
… Well. Obviously. She should've seen that one coming. Duh.

She did not recognize them immediately. There was a tall one, but he did not look like Papyrus; and there was another one, slightly shorter, and more… feminine maybe? 'She' was wearing a summer dress in that one, at least. There were a few other types of monsters surrounding them and they were all holding diplomas and such. Was that some sort of graduation ceremony? It looked pretty much like it.
And hey didn't the two skeletons look like a pair of adorkable clichéd lovebirds hahaha. If they didn't end up as the Skelebros' parents, then she had no idea what the heck they were doing in here seriously. It was practically written all over their skulls that they were meant to get married and have kids and 'live happily ever after' or whatever.

So… It probably meant that the tall shy one was Gaster? It was weird to see his actual face for a change, he was pretty different than the depictions the fans used to give him— even if he was obviously much younger than the doctor from the fandom to begin with. Well, he still was a regular skeleton, but without the glasses (would skeletons even need glasses anyway?). And if you were to compare with the 'Mystery Man' sprite from the game, well, the man was completely unrecognizable.
It was strange as well to see him like that. Happy and shy. Smiling a little because he was happy that the others around him were happy but still kind of uneasy because he was the reclusive kind of guy and crowds made him uncomfortable. This was not the kind of personality she was used to see about him. Most of the fans' depictions would have shown him completely impassive and bored or something. Right?
Anyway. Sans did tell her that he was supposedly a good father, and he seemed like he idolized him for a reason. It's kinda hard to idolize an insensitive robot… Well, so she thought at least.

Now, about the potential mother… Well, it was obvious that since Papyrus and Sans were regular monsters with a regular father, they were bound to have another parent as well. Still, what happened to her anyway? So she really died by the hands of the sixth human, apparently? She didn't even know her name… Would it turn out to be a font as well? Heh.
In any ways, the lady sure didn't deserve that fate.

But then a thought hit her.
If Gaster had been allegedly 'erased from this timeline' like the game mentioned, then how could he still stand in those pictures? Judging from Sans's reaction at Grillby's, he most probably was among the only ones able to remember he ever existed for some reason, and he had been genuinely surprised that she could put two and two together this fast.
Then again, Sans had been able to save his memories, so why not saving those photos as well…? But still. If she was getting it right, he had saved his memories during Frisk's runs. Gaster had been erased three years before that. So uh, yeah, nah, that was unlikely.
That wasn't making sense. If the Skelebros' father had never even existed in this timeline, then how could they have possibly been born to begin with? She was missing something huge here. She was not familiar with the time paradox junk, let alone when it was about reality, but she still had at least some common sense. Monsters had to come from somewhere, if they had parents like any other lifeforms she knew about had.
If the father was entirely gone, so too should be his children, logically. So what exactly was going on in there?

Dang it. There was nothing else to take from that photo, it would definitely not help answer those kinds of questions. She would just assume the two were the parents, time paradox or not.
The following pics became a confirmation that indeed, the two were at the very least a couple. Soon after came the predictable wedding. And when she turned another page, the expectable expectedly occurred: at the center of the page stood one little sack of bones, lying on white sheets on its nonexistent stomach and staring at the camera with its two wide open eye-sockets beaming with two giant white pupils bright of curiosity and naiveté.

…

Wait. Wait-wait-wait was that Sans?
Oh bloody hell it was Sans. Like, wow.
Mind. Blown.

She painfully muffled an uncontrollable giggle upon seeing the toddler making that adorable face of a fascinated awed baby when you jingle a set of keys in front of them. Just… oh God. That was hilarious.
She wouldn't go as far as calling the baby cute (that was still a skeleton, her spine soon reminded her), but yeah. After coping with dozens of adult sized ones, actually seeing a baby skeleton was quite different. Just look at those tiny bones there, they are even still fused together at this point haha—
… Well alright, he was kinda cute. Sort of. But aren't all babies anyway? Naaah, she was just curious to see how the skeleton biology works. Yeah. Just funny how they don't have all of their bones set up since birth and some of them fuse or split with age. She could see real palms here instead of metacarpals. And his bones and skull looked much cuddlier somehow, almost like flesh. Almost.

The date lying under that photo read "August 12th, 1993 — Welcome home, Sans!" How old did Sans say he was again? Twenty-four? That meant that the year they were in right now was… 2017? Adding that to his remark from earlier, it would mean that today (that was to say the first day of every time loop) was on July 21st, 2017.
Huh. It was set in her future, but still not that far in her future. That was sort of weird.
Anyway, it wasn't like this universe were to be her future anyway. But still, that just… felt strange. What was the point in being in some sort of 'future' if it was hardly one year away from her own present?
Oh, who cares. At least now she knew 'when' she was exactly. That was a start.

She still pulled her phone out and took a photo of the page. Just because.
Heeheehee. Blackmail~
If she ever found a way to send this to Lys, she was ready to pay anything just to see her reaction. Death by cuteness overdose.

The photos following this one were mostly those of the parents posing with Baby Sans doing baby stuff. There were a few pics with Sans and… an egg? The egg was almost half as big as the toddler was, and practically half of the pics consisted of Baby Sans hugging the bare egg or some sort of transparent container with the egg inside. Like, what, were monsters born out of eggs now?! She would definitely have to ask him. It didn't matter if he was asking her afterwards how she came to wonder about that EXISTENTIAL CRISIS. She just had to make sure. Because what in the actual fudge.

After that, the next photos did not show much. Papyrus was born on March 5th, 1995 (strangely she did not see any later occurrence of the giant ostrich egg afterwards, and strangely she tried her best not to question it); Alphys was at least around ten or twelve at that time, and quite a few photos showed her taking care of the pair. That was strange to see them connected to that point, but Dawn had somehow got used to that weirdness— and Sans had mentioned something like that earlier, now that she was thinking about it. So it meant that Alphys would be in her thirties by now…? That was plausible.
Still, Alphys being Sans's babysitter? Mind blown². Why didn't she ever tell her about that?! If she ever had the chance, she would so ask her to reveal some of those embarrassing stories of early childhood. That would be hilarious.

Up until then, all photos seemed to be taken in Hotland for some reason. Sans did mention that he studied there, and it was the place where the laboratory was located— so actually, it made sense if that was the place where they used to live.
What made them settle in Snowdin, then? They all looked pretty happy back there. Young and oblivious…

1997. And then there was nothing.

The album just stopped there, with that last snapshot depicting a nice picnic the family was having with Alphys and some other reptile monsters looking like variations of the lizard she knew— probably her own family. Four skeletons, four dinosaurs. They looked happy.

She could only guess what had happened at the time. Sans and Papyrus still looked pretty young by the time — Papyrus was constantly being held in someone's arms during the photo times. And given that the apparent mother was still there…

Sans had said he was around four when it had happened. The sixth human.
It was so unfair.

It was painful to look at them like this when she had been told about what had occurred afterwards. He had lost both parents during two different, probably traumatizing events. Papyrus was all he had left… No wonder he was so easily depressed about his past. But knowing the guy and his stubbornness, had he ever had the chance to talk about this to anyone? She was pretty sure the answer was a definite no.

She was about to put the book back in place when she noticed what used to lie underneath—
A torn up, childish drawing.

The game did mention that one. But looking at it… It was so accurate, and yet so different than what she had been expecting.
And the figures looked so sickly happy, that only broke her heart further. Just look at the tall one in the middle, he looked like he had a cape and was protecting the two smaller ones like a superhero. Talk about idolizing.

Surprisingly though, as much as the tall one was most probably Gaster and one of the little monsters definitely looked like Sans, the third one was not Papyrus. On the contrary, it looked like… Monster Kid? Where did that one even come from? She had never seen them appear in any of the photos from the album— and, then again, they simply were way too young, they weren't even born at that time! So what was that little armless dragon doing in there, smiling like they had been part of the gang all along…?

So many questions, so little clues. So many feels instead to fill in the gaps and deter you from investigating… But she had to continue. She couldn't just stop there, at that point.
She had just made that decision. She would make him talk.
That would hurt. Probably. But that meant it would do him some good. Yeah.

When she put the album back in place and perked a larger glance at the rest of the drawer's contents, she opted for the badges. At least, well, the only one which remained readable and in enough good state that it could be picked without fear of having it dissolve into ashes inside your hand; the other one was completely carbonized and unreadable, though she had no problem raising a wild guess as to who it could possibly have belonged to.

The other one, though…
It was one of those laminated carton ID-card-like rectangles that you could pin to your clothes (preferably lab coat, she supposed) during work. Simple, but efficient. It displayed no picture of its owner, but the name was pretty obviously exposed in big letters:

Sans D. Londen

…

Wait… What?

She blinked, rubbed her eyes, but she really had read that well.
Sans's last name was Londen.
What the hell did that name even come from!?

Well that kinda did explain Sans's surprise as to how she pieced together how Gaster was his father, if they didn't even share the same surname. But still, just… What? Shouldn't his family name be, just saying, 'Gaster'? Maybe it was his mother's family name? But still. That sounded… just, wrong.

But that was not all of it. The badge was stating that this Sans's job in the Hotland laboratory was that of a "technical assistant — computer scientist." What did that even mean?! Sans had clearly told her that he had never been a scientist. And even if by that he meant that he had never been a physicist or whatever like his father had been— no. This was just not it.

Maybe this was the thing he was hiding. But why? Why would he want to hide from her the fact that he was a trustworthy capable scientist with an actual degree? That made no sense.
But he had to have his reasons for it. Reasons she was now dreading to discover.

He had given up on this job, after all. 'Three years ago.'
And now he was actually hiding that badge…
Was he feeling guilty over this accident? She could understand that, way too many fanworks depicted him as the accidental cause of the tragedy in itself. If something similar had happened, it was probably enough to put him off his job.
But now he was trying to cover it up, to the extent of freaking hiding his identity? That was fishy. And very not Sans-like. Unless, uh, maybe not that much actually? The more she was thinking about it, the more it made sense that he actually was faking his identity. Flowey had said it so himself after all. What a mind-screw.

… aaaaauuuUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH! THIS IS CRAZY!

There was only one thing left she was sure of, by now.
This was one lie too many.

"so you really couldn't help it, huh?"

Dawn jumped three feet in the air. Or at least, that was the impression she had.
But what had she been expecting, anyway. Of course that was bound to happen.

She gulped. Turned around. She was not so sure she wanted to face him anymore.

Sans was leaning against the wall right behind her. She had to admit, his laid-back act was pretty convincing; both hands in his jacket's pockets, his legs casually crisscrossed and merely there to make sure he wouldn't glide against the wall… And if she didn't know any better, she would actually have seen nothing but sparks of light pleasantry in his eyes and smirk, as if he was merely laughing it off as a childish prank.
But she did know better. That face was not that of carefreeness. It was that of disbelief. Maybe, even… betrayal?

After a few seconds of silence, the monster closed his sockets and slightly lowered his skull, letting go a deep sigh. She found it hard to know whether he was doing it just for the patient-parent-about-to-lecture-a-disobedient-kid act or if he really needed it to keep his cool. The second option wasn't nearly as reassuring.

"… heh. it's alright." He shrugged. "should've seen that one coming anyway. i should never have left you here without surveillance. not your fault if you ended up sneaking o— oh, wait. Yes it was."

That was official, sarcasm really didn't suit him. That still was terribly intimidating, though.
But now that she had got past the point of no return, she had only one way out left.

Forward.

"Sans. The badge says your surname is 'Londen.' But that's not right. 'Gaster' should be. Right? Why would you need to change that?"

The skeleton froze. She would have almost thought of qualifying that action as shutting down under other circumstances, given that it was the impression his suddenly pitch black eye holes were giving her. Like, there was that switch to turn the lights on and off, and she had just pressed it.
But in this specific case, she soon realized that this switch apparently had another name.

The Berserk Button.

… Maybe she had been a little too straightforward too soon actually.

"I- S-s-Oh-s-sorry…! I-it's just that the game mentions— a-a-and then I g-got curious— a-and he said—"
"the game, huh." he interrupted. "game this, game that. it's always been about the game with you. even when it has nothing to do with it."

If you didn't know him, you could hardly have guessed that he was actually mad. He still had that low and laid-back tone. Talking slowly. As if he was just… surprised by her behavior. Nothing more than just, pure, surprise.
But she knew better. This cold wrath emanating from him was way too familiar, after all. He was still leaning against the wall, with his hands in his pockets and this hypocrite yet disbelieving forced smirk, and he proved to hold an amazing self-control over the tremors in his voice. Only his dark sockets betrayed him.

"heh… true that you knew about that place already. i never granted access to that thing in here, but i guess that if they can just break in anyway…" He chuckled. This time he was truly starting to lose his temper, because she had no doubt that no more traces of potential 'faked sincerity' were hidden in his short laugh. All of it had been vaporized by that point. "so, tell me, what did you expect to see here anyway? what does the game tell about this place?" He didn't even let her the time to answer, instead standing up in a jolt and shaking his skull while making an exasperated hand move. "no, actually, you know what? Never mind. I don't even want to know."

He briskly paced towards her, glaring with two frowning pupil-less sockets, then presented his left awaiting open gloved palm before her. She shakily gave him the badge before nervously stepping out of his way, and he carelessly shoved it back in the drawer before closing it in a slam. It'd be a miracle if the little paper hadn't been heartlessly torn in the process. Even if it was laminated, she still had doubts.
Now that she was thinking about it, it almost looked like the monster had been restraining himself from tearing the little thing into shreds; so maybe it ended up luckier than it seemed.

For a little while that seemed to expand into eternity, she saw him there, at his desk. Looming above the drawer, both trembling half-closed fists pressed down on the board and seemingly preventing him from falling face first on it.
If she didn't know any better, she would almost expect him to cry.

But she knew better.
He was not trying to contain tears. Not him. Sans does not cry.

And yet, after a moment, she heard him take a long, loud breath— hold it for a few seconds— release it gently. He slowly straightened his back, inhaling and exhaling a few more times, then turned around towards her. Still leaning on the desk, his gloved bony fingers nervously fidgeted with the board's corner. He was trying to force his smile back on his face, but this time no one could have been fooled.
It felt eerie that, for once— it was so easy to read him.
Something very wrong was going on. You can't read Sans's expressions so easily. You can never read his face so easily. He never lets this happen. He never loses his composure. Nu-uh. Not him.

"sorry about… that. didn't wanna scare you. l-let's not go back to… where we were yesterday. a'right? we can be cool. let's relax. take a seat, we'll be back to it – in a moment."

She did not move. She was still standing up. Staring at him from afar.

He took yet another long breath, closing his sockets tightly. She swore she could see his chest rise and fall, and couldn't help but find this all the more disturbing. Did he really need to breathe, or was he just faking it— how was he even doing that?
When he turned his eyes back at her again, she saw an odd look in his unsure pupils and squinted sockets. Some kind of distress, maybe? It felt like he was practically begging her to drop the case.
For what reason though, she could not be sure. He could— there could be a chance that he was just faking it. He still was a comedian master after all. He was the one to outwit her, not the opposite. If he was in such position right now, if anything— she almost felt like it would make more sense if he was just pulling the face in order to play with her feelings. He could never be read so easily after all, remember?
She felt sorry if he really was genuine here— but after all she had seen, she could not just 'drop the case' anymore. This had gone too far.

"seriously though. that's… just don't ask about them." he added in a shy mumble, slightly gesturing the drawer with the tip of his skull. "that's kinda the pile of all the stuff i… don't wanna be reminded of, y'see. so uh. would be best if you could. y'know. not mention that. ever." The apologetic look and goofy grin he was giving her showed that he was positive he had not convinced her at all, but still somewhat dared to hope that she would listen. "so. let's get back to the game. 'k?"

To her ears, that only screamed "i am suspicious and i don't wanna be found out so let's please change the topic before i get any more pissed –slash– anxious than i already am, i'm doing that for your own sake so please don't push me any further thank you." That was way too obvious. Did he ever get so obvious?
In any ways, Sans was suspicious, and she knew that he was hiding something from her anyway. Something big.
Now was the time to push him. Scared of him or not— s-she had to try. What could he do to her anyway, huh? Nothing. Right. He couldn't afford to do anything against her.
It was about time to take advantage of that major weakness. She needed to know.

"The drawing says 'Don't forget.', though." she insisted.
"yeah, and i definitely wasn't the one to write that. or draw, for that matter. seriously, i know i'm not an artist, but even I draw better than that."

He saw that this statement made her actually surprised, but all the more curious.
He groaned.

"look, i don't even know what the deal with that thing is. it just appeared on my desk one day and i never got to know what it was all about. even if i wanted to tell you— sorry, can't help ya this time."
"… So you already forgot all about… whatever it was asking you not to forget." Her tone was calm, but she crossed her arms on her chest and narrowed her eyes in order to secure her confidence. She would still need that in case he tried to use her phobia to make her stop.
"apparently. kinda wish i could forget all about the rest too. just like everyone else."

He really was putting all his acting into toying with her feelings, wasn't he. Unless it was the absolute opposite and he was trying not to lose his strong impassible attitude because he definitely did not want any of her sympathy right now. Unless he was just acting to trick her into thinking that of him. Damn the guy was smart.

She had to find a way to make him talk.
She had to actually outsmart him this time.
Good freaking luck on that.

"Sans. I heard…" She gulped, but immediately frowned to shoot at him the most confident glare she could make. Here goes nothing… "I heard you were 'not from this world.'"

…

Okay, actually she was wrong before.
THIS was his Berserk Button.

His breath was cut short. For entire seconds he looked like he had just entirely frozen on the spot. If she had looked better though, she could have seen his fingertips shaking.
Not fidgeting. Shaking.

"Who— the hell – told you that?"

Astoundingly, he did not sound like he was only fighting back anger, this time. Fear, too. As if discovering this secret and risking having it leak to just one person would actually dust him forever.

She couldn't help but genuinely feel regret for a moment, this time.
She wanted the truth. She did not want to hurt him, especially if he was as innocent as in the fanon stories (or semi-innocent, as in being guilty but only by unfortunate accident; she still wanted to consider this as innocent enough to be trustworthy). But she simply could not let this one slide. Not anymore.

She still did not want to just crush him for the sake of digging. She wanted to be above that. If only for this one time. She had to.
After another silent gulp, she eventually straightened her back and gave him a slightly unsure but determined look.

"I'll tell you if you tell me what this means."

She was still feeling bad about this, and especially how he would interpret her intent there. She did not want this to be blackmail. But under such conditions? Yes, she could be one hundred percent sure that he would perceive it as just that.
However, he still didn't know about Flowey, apparently. So this really was a fair trade, right? She would not 'just' throw at him a name. She would give him new, juicy information about his universe and backstory. She would expand his perspectives and knowledge. This was exactly what she was asking from him in return, right? She just wanted to learn. And now she was offering to teach him something back afterwards.
Yes. This was fair trade. Not just plain digging. She was not just a bully. She was not just the Mole. They both needed this. Sans had promised he would talk, right? This was his time to talk, and she would talk back. Share information. This was what he wanted, wasn't it? Yes. She was helping. Someone needed to do something about all this mess. She would be the someone.

It was unsure whether he had been able to read all of that on the expression she was wearing, though. Or maybe he just wasn't in the mood of reading faces right now. Which would be understandable.

Eventually, he just squinted his empty sockets so much they actually entirely lost their round shape.

"I 'arrived here' 'three years ago.' I think you're smart enough to figure out the rest on your own by now. Because I'm not gonna expand on that topic."

Yeah, she had pretty much guessed that part already. But no, that was not nearly enough.
It was one thing to know this chain of events was related to Gaster's incident. It was another to fully understand the logical order and exact connections between all of these elements, besides mere knowledge of their single common origin.

What did he mean by 'arriving here'? What kind of place was he in beforehand? Another universe, like she had wildly guessed earlier? Now that the multiverse truly was a thing, after all, this was possible.
But where did he come from, and how could he have 'arrived' in some sort of parallel universe to his own? Also, why? Why would he be apparently taking the place of 'the' Sans originally meant to— oh, wait. Maybe that was it, after all.

The 'fake' identity. This badge must have belonged to the 'former' Sans. Not to the one she was facing right now! This would at least justify the backstory he had given her without contradicting the evidence.

But yeah, still. What happened to the 'real' Sans supposed to be in this place? What was the other one doing here? It would have required of him to pretend he was his doppelgänger all along, after all. Was this really what he had been doing during those three years? Actually, truly, faking his identity in regards to everyone— even to his family? Why would he ever do that?

Maybe she had been right.
She really didn't know this man.

"… Sans. I don't trust at all the guy who told me, but if there's one thing I agree on with him— it's that you're hiding something huge from me. Also from everyone else." She gulped again, but frowned harder. Maybe she just needed to push him a little further. With moderation. "You're not gonna get away from it this time. You promised you'd tell me. Unless you wanna break that promise too?"
"I promised I'd explain you about the game. This—" he gave a little exasperated tap on the closed drawer "— has absolutely nothing to do with our case. You're being nosy just for the sake of being nosy."
"And how can you be so sure about it, huh?" she retorted. "How can I be sure that this really is irrelevant? I don't know, maybe whatever Gaster's been doing with his experiments, that's what created the connection between your universe and the game!"

She took a short silent breath. Maybe he wouldn't respond to threat, of course that was expected of him and she never wanted to go that path (again) — but he would surely respond to pure logic? They were here to investigate after all. He wanted the truth just as much as she did, she had to focus on that.
The truth.

"I know nothing about what happened, just that something really bad happened to him. Who's to say there might be a link with the Resets?"
"The accident is from three bloody years before Frisk fell. The game hadn't taken effect yet, and Frisk was fine long after that. Isn't that proof enough that both things are completely unrelated?"

It… actually was.
So much for logic.

"Kid." he immediately continued. "If there's one thing we're agreeing on— it's that this timeline is messed up. And I'm not talking about the Resets or the game. This timeline just doesn't make sense, period. but. it's just…"

She couldn't help but notice the sudden change in the end of his speech. His voice was back to some slightly more normal pitch. As if he simply didn't even have the strength to be mad anymore.
His shoulders went limp. She saw them fall, both at the same time, as if some huge weight had just been dropped on his back all over again and the puppet strings holding them up until now had just broke.

"… look. i just… i gave up trying to go back a long time ago." He slowly raised a limp skull at her. "can you understand that?"

His pupils were back. But the way they were shining… You could hardly say they were glowing at all, with their light looking so dim and lifeless.
And the way he had raised this tired face… It had felt as if he had never intended to make such gesture, and yet some puppeteer would have pulled on some invisible string to force him to raise his head, even if it was still barely standing. It danced on his spine, weightless by its hollowness and yet so heavy by the burdens all at the same time.

There it is, Dawn. You broke the skeleton. I hope you're happy.

She then… She did what?
She opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She closed it.
Yes. That's it, Dawn. You did nothing.

Sans just stared at her. His look had never been so present and yet so empty before. Eventually, his head fell back against his ribs. As if the string had been cut out.

"… Why?"

Her voice was shaking.
His skull hardly moved, yet she distinguished two little faint lights piercing her coldly.

"why what? why am i here? why did i stay here? why did i 'replace' the other guy?"

His grip on the desk tensed back again. It was faint, but his tone and the tremors in his voice were slowly rising.

"why am i hiding these things? why was my name changed?"

There was a short silence. Soon enough, he started a heavy chuckle; but somehow his voice immediately cracked. By this point it was hard to tell if he was being hypocritical or just terribly desperate.

"tell me, Molly. what am i to you?"

This time, his skull was back up, fully facing her. His nonexistent eyebrows were frowning in that judgmental expression.

She realized this was one question she had really wanted not to think about. Ever.
Her chest was rising and sinking silently. Her heartbeats were now the only sounds filling the atmosphere, as the skeleton kept pushing her.

"an actual monster?"

Beat.
His hands clenched their grip on the desk. His arms shook slightly, as if a sudden electric shock had just rushed through them.

"a criminal?"

Beat.
His shoulders were trembling too, now. In the same way a sane man on the edge of a breakdown kept holding back his emotions despite the amount of pressure. His skull barely hanged from his spine, since his shoulders could hardly support his head anymore.
A little crackling sound resonated in the air. Sans's bones seemed slightly brighter than usual.

"a murderer?"

Beat.
Another chuckle. Another crack, coming even sooner than the previous time. The light in his pupils wasn't nearly as blue as when he was willingly using his magic, but the change in color was now nearly impossible to miss.

"i mean. i am a criminal, after all. you knew that since the beginning. you've always been the victim. must be why you're suspecting me so easily. can't blame you for that, can i?"

Very slowly, he gave a light push on the desk and straightened his back. Crackling sounds followed around him as he calmly made a few steps forward.
She felt shivers running down her spine and placated her back against the nearby wall.
He noticed. Chuckled. Cracked.

"tell me, 'Dawn.' am i scary?"

No response. The human was fighting back wet lights in her eyes.

"do you really think i did all of this on purpose?" he pushed. "do you think i ever had a choice?"

She shook her head. Or maybe it was just her trembling.
He had started doing exasperated hand gestures during his sentences. It had no more noticeable effect than just making the crackling sounds louder and sometimes she would even see some little sparks— unless those were just reflections because of her tears. Yes, it had to be that. The only lights were actually coming from his skull. Yeah. His skull was a literal lightbulb at the moment. Save for his sockets and the slightly cyan neon lights flickering inside.

No, he was not scary. Especially not right now.
He was ghastly.

"did it ever occur to you that maybe. just maybe. i never, ever, wanted any of this to happen. that the only reason i'm doing this. is because this is the only life i have left."

A repressed sob.
It sounded like a plaint. Maybe it was supposed to be both.

"all i did was arrive here. the 'other guy' gone. no way to ever go back. stuck. Forever."

He closed his fists, and yet he still chuckled. And cracked.

"What would you have done in my place? Tell everyone you come from an alternate timeline that doesn't exist anymore because the one you're in was just a screw up of the original one that we created entirely by accident? That it was never supposed to exist? That the previous Sans they used to know might just as well have never existed in the first place?!"

She did not answer.
The look in her eyes seemed to betray some confusing mix of desperate compassion, guilty curiosity, and traces of shivering necrophobia suffocating her here and there.
It seemed like Sans took that as an invite to continue. Unless he was just blatantly ignoring her by now and intended to go on anyway.
She could not understand his behavior. For so long he had been so willing to keep this a secret, this had been made even more obvious with his surreal reaction when he surprised her red-handed, and yet now he was blabbering his whole story with a flood of hurried raging words… What was he even thinking? Where did that change of mind come from? This just felt so random…

"… heh. heheheheheh. you know what? maybe you were right, actually. this world's never been the real one. it was never supposed to exist. You heard that, Molly? You were right!"

Tears were now pouring down her frozen face.
She was just scared. She wanted this to stop. She wanted him to stop. Why wouldn't he stop? He just sounded beyond rationality.
Sans. Beyond reason. Impossible. Not him.

Needless to say, it is always a hypocritically unpleasant experience to get such a nasty taste of your own medicine.

"And now you want me to talk, uh?" he carried on. "Do you want me to tell them that we're trapped in a loop of Resets, and that we didn't even know what was causing them? "Oh, of course we couldn't remember them more than you do, sir, but look at these sheets and you'll see we're not crazy!" "Oh but don't tell anyone, it'd be nasty if the anomaly found out that we knew!" "Don't worry, you can trust us, we're building that time machine after all, as long as we take the anomaly by surprise it should be fine!" Oh but then, oh no, everything goes wrong and we don't even know what caused it, only thing that's for sure is that the machine itself travelled in the past and killed him SEVENTEEN YEARS before we built it! No WONDER madness ensues after that!"

He threw his hands in the air as he was now pacing. The crackling sounds were louder than ever. The human whimpered.

"And then when I try to get some help to save him you just all tell me that he's been dead since I was four and you all send me to psychologists 'cause OF COURSE I've gone bonkers and it must be 'cause I couldn't stand the RUMORS that dad actually committed SUICIDE at the time just 'cause he couldn't stand his wife's death! OF COURSE that explains it all, I just made up that story of time travels! After all, WHY ELSE would THE OTHER GUY have changed his name, if it weren't 'cause he HATED his father and decided to take the name of his REAL family, huh? But now OF COURSE I'm still SUPPOSED to be the same guy, after all I'M WEARING HIS BODY RIGHT NOW! So it just has to be, I dunno, some mood swing because the job is giving him too much pressure, he's so YOUNG after all, he can't handle things! Tell me, Molly! Can't I handle things?! Should I tell them, even now that it DOESN'T MATTER ANYMORE? Oh but wait, there it is, I spilled it all out, RIGHT? Not only did I KILL MY FATHER AND APPARENTLY ALSO MYSELF, I also confessed that I TOOK OVER MY OWN LIFE. What a MURDERER, ain't I?! Well, Molly, ARE YOU HAPPY NOW!?"

Bright splinters crashed into the walls and furniture. They were hardly one inch large for the biggest of them, but the human was already standing in a corner, burying her head inside her hands and knees into a shaking whimpering ball of flesh.
A little spark had scorched her left arm.
It burned. Yet at the same time it felt so cold. So cold and desperately lonely.

The crackling thunder eventually calmed down, if ever so slowly. When she timidly decided to stick her head out, Sans had crashed down on his desk chair, his still slightly shining skull barely standing on top of his trembling hands. He was shaking.

This time she was truly wondering if he could be crying for real.
Do skeletons cry?
She was not sure she wanted to find out.

His shaking gradually diminished as he started to relax, if ever so slightly. His bones had stopped glowing.
She gulped. Then murmured:

"Have you… really been keeping all this to yourself all this time…?"

He slowly raised his skull. He let his arms drop on his lap; silently; one after the other. He wasn't looking at her.
He seemed so tired.

"al was the one to cover for me. looking after my health. telling me about what the other guy was like. letting me know about the changes."

He gave her a quick glance from the corner of his socket, without moving. Suddenly he pulled his pupils back towards the ground and cracked a faraway ironical smile.

"you know… during the first six months after the accident. i'd spend white night after white night working on the plans. get half-crazy trying to figure out what the hell had happened and how to possibly fix it. kinda similar to how i was when i worked on the machine that brought you here. i was just pulling that "i have nothing to lose so i gotta keep trying 'till it works" stupid face." He chuckled emptily. "when al found me out, she basically made me stop. made me realize it was getting ridiculous. that i'd never come back. she tried her best to have me… move on. live 'my' new life. didn't really feel like mine at first but, guess it's still better than not having a life at all."

She fidgeted nervously.

"But… w-what hap-pened with this timeline? W-What is wrong with it? Is it because they forgot about him?"

She felt bad about asking. But she was completely in the dark here, and it sounded like Sans was just assuming she knew.
He was talking about 'killing' someone. Not only Gaster, but himself. And then having to take over "the other Sans"'s life, probably because he would not let know that the other was dead in the first place, but also because… "this was the only life he had left"? Because his old timeline was dead too?
She felt bad about being curious. But she just couldn't let him alone in this anymore. This was just way too heavy a burden for one single sane man.

The skeleton finally seemed to realize that maybe she didn't know nearly as much as he expected her to. So he just sighed deeply.

"you're not the only one who's got stuck against your will in a world that ain't yours, kid. only difference between you and me— theoretically, you can still go back."

She lowered her eyes in shame. He stared at her for a few seconds, then turned his skull away and buried his hands in his pockets.

"to be honest. even after working on it for this long, we still have pretty much no idea what exactly happened. all we know for sure: dad and i screwed up our timeline. really badly. the time machine supposed to stop i-don't-even-know-whose-resets-these-were-at-the-time went seventeen years something back in time and exploded, and dad just happened to be in his lab at that time in the past. so yeah, we just created a time paradox. the time machine killed my dad decades before he even built it in the first place."
"S-So… H-he got erased…?"
"… well, uh. depends on what you mean by that. but the timeline changed, yeah. current theory is, there's always been one single timeline, but the time paradox split it, then… the two halves 'synchronized', probably, leaving only this one. which is just the continuation of what happened since his death. and as far as i know, for a reason i'm not even sure of myself…" He sighed. "i'm the only one who ended up with the wrong set of memories."

She rubbed her left arm nervously. Sans noticed a little burn mark and shivered slightly, but his wide eye-sockets assessed that she looked better than it could have been. No blood, at least.
Besides, she definitely wouldn't let him take a closer look at it. Let alone try to heal it.

"… so yeah. the accident killed my dad, my entire timeline, and now…" He looked down at his hands as if those were alien to him. "… 'the other guy', we've been calling him. it was his badge, not mine. nothing survived my timeline. well, except for the machine, and…" He leisurely gave a little tap on his skull. "… this lil' soul in there."

She gave him two maroon eyes melting on her cheeks. He was not looking back anymore, instead stuck in his chair and staring at the void. Speaking to her as if she was pressing him to continue his tale, but really just soliloquizing. Even if she was still listening intently.

"i did my best to, kinda, 'forget' my old life. made it easier to… play the character? i don't even know. maybe we weren't that different in the end. maybe i just grew up to being 'him.' maybe i grew up to being me and had the others adjust. i don't even know. t'was probably both."

This time however, he did turn his head towards her. His white dots seemed friendly. Ironically yet gloomily giving her that teasing look. As if this were funny. As if to say, "hey, wanna hear a joke? 'cause my life can get even crappier than just that."

"y'know why i'm that fragile?" She shook her head absent-mindedly. She didn't even know why she was encouraging him. Was it helping? "monsters' bodies are attuned to their souls, right? … well. mine isn't completely. it's still in there, in good shape and everything—" (he knocked his skull again) "— but. something's preventing it from doing its job at full speed. 'cause that ain't my body."

Heavy silence.

"… heheh. yeah, al and i were doing that face too when we found out. that's… pretty terrifying. to know that you didn't even notice the changes 'cause that still looks an awful lot like you— and then bam. you find out that's really not you. that you didn't just take someone else's place. your soul replaced theirs. you took over their corpse."

Two tears flooded out of her eyes symmetrically, entirely in sync.

"so yeah. i killed him. or maybe he just never even existed and everyone's memories of him were made up by who-knows-who. sounds crazy with all that evidence around, i know, but to me that's basically what happened. there's always been one single universe at a time. so it must mean that if this new universe was born three years ago, everything in it has to be fake, right? i was the real sans, and the one al pretended she had in her memories was dead before he ever got to exist. right? i must be the real one, and all the rest is fake. because i'm real, right…?"

His voice cracked.

"i don't even know if that ghost ever lived. i don't even know if i 'killed' him. i won't ever know. only thing i do know—" He was staring at his open gloved trembling palms again. "this ain't my body anymore." He chuckled in disbelief. "i really am scary, uh? maybe those brats were right after all. maybe i'm the zombie."

Dawn stood up in a jolt. The dizziness immediately took over and made her lean shakily against the wall, but she stayed up. Stared at him as much as she could.

Sans looked up in confusion. She made a few steps towards him, then stopped. She raised two trembling arms.
His pupils went from the tip of her fingers to her face, then back to her hands, then back to her eyes. She bit her lips to repress a sob and insisted on her gesture, as if to say "Are you really gonna make me say it out loud?!"
He looked down at her would-be embrace.

"you're shaking." he stated.
"I-I-I d-DON'T CARE!" she cried. "J-Just c-c-c-come on, you… Y-y-You b-big DOOFUS!"

He repressed a quiet snort. He sighed. Then he stood up and walked.
The human practically collapsed in his arms. He didn't seem to mind.
She sobbed. He cracked a sad smile. He started to pat her in the back gently.

"there, there…"
"D-d-Don't you 'there, there' me, i-idiot!" she shouted. "I-I'm supposed to do the pat-pat thing!" The monster chuckled.
"heh. ok. you do it, then."

She slowly raised a hand, but it just stayed there in the air trembling.
After a few seconds she just ended up squeezing him further as she sobbed harder. He sighed quietly as his smile seemed more genuine.

"it's alright, dawn. i'm not mad at ya for asking. t'was bound to happen sooner or later."
"W-Won't you just STOP consoling ME?!" She tried eluding his grasp, but only ended up even more tangled up in the hug as she was literally clutching at him as if her life depended on it. "I-I-I can't believe it— you… I-I m-m-m-mean I'M supposed to be the one t-to… t-t-t-to d… D-d-DARN I-i-IT! S-so why don't you… w-w-why w-won't you… c…"
"nah, never been much for crying. after that y'get soaked to the bone and you're just skullking around lookin' for a hair dryer, that's really tearible. anyway, nothing ever gets under my skin."

She roared with rage. He chuckled silently, then slowly came back to patting her back gently. She was shaking and yet somehow could still find the strength to hold him so tight— Just a little tighter and she swore she would actually feel his ribs against her chest. Maybe even break one or two of them.

"really though. don't feel like i need to cry anymore. it's way too late for that."

He sounded so detached from that. As if it were normal. And yet he sounded so comforting all at the same time and he was hugging her back and petting teasingly the back of her head now why was he—

"besides, you're crying enough for the both of us, ain't you?"

…

"… thanks."

She hiccupped. Maybe she had wanted to gasp in surprise and disbelief, but an audible sob had burst out of her throat at the same time.

"thanks, dawn. i… call me crazy, but… i'm starting to think i actually needed that."
"N… N-n-Needed what?" she snorted ironically. "Me h-h-harassing you like that?"
"just talking. opening up every once in a while. somehow i feel a lot better now." He started laughing quietly again. He did sound like a weight had really been lifted. "confessing's a real magic, y'know. t's just that… it's hard to confess when there's nobody to hear you out."

That was so unfair, she kept repeating in her mind.

"you might be surprised," he continued, "but i haven't always been so secretive before that. actually, believe me or not— it was completely the opposite. i love talking to people. telling jokes. rambling. having them pull all those silly faces. words are fun. i should do that more often. just, talking like that, and saying nothing. it's cool to, just, know that someone listens for once. even if i'm saying nothing. it's nice that even if it's nothing there's still someone who listens and won't forget."

He was laughing. Speaking with that crazy carefree voice of his, as if none of the scene before had ever happened.
But she could feel he was genuine.

"that's gonna sound very egotist, but i… i'm glad that you're here. ever told you that?"

She widened her eyes in shock, as if she was not sure she had heard him right.

But Sans was happy.
She was making Sans happy.

"it's just… nice to not be alone anymore. too bad we had to meet under… these conditions." he continued shyly, yet still somehow always in that same joyful tone.

She couldn't care less about whatever had happened either now, she was just way too stunned for that. How could Sans be happy after what he had told her?
Oh but who cares. Sans said he was happy and he was meaning it. That was all that mattered. Sans was happy.

She tried to hug him harder to remind him that he was not alone.
She would never leave him alone. Not after this. She would promise that.

He snorted a little at her gesture, hardly muting a teasing "whoa hey, are you trying to squeeze me to death now?" and immediately back to patting her back playfully. And yet this time his laugh quietened and he ended up uttering a short sigh.

"i'm sorry i brought you here." he muttered remorsefully. "shouldn't've dragged you down along with me. you had an actual life back there. i had nothing to lose, but that's how you lost everything in my stead…"

For the first time, Dawn retreated enough from the embrace so that she could face him and give him the most serious death glare she could pull off.
Well, she had stopped crying minutes ago given the dry salty traces on her rosy cheeks, but nah, it wasn't making it nearly as credible. But he appreciated the thought.

"D-don't feel bad for that." she scolded. Or at least, tried to. "I-If anything, it was my fault if I wasn't strong enough and we ended up like this. So I'm sorry for getting us both stuck."
"kid. that's your nature. don't apologize for it."
"Well don't apologize for things you're not responsible for, either."
"heh." Sans chuckled. "fair enough."

They kept staring at each other for a few more seconds. He kept chuckling. She stared to laugh along, absurdly, in that nervous contagious laugh that you don't think much about at first and definitely don't feel genuine, and that yet keeps going until you mean it and start tearing up again for cheerier reasons.
When they finally calmed down, Dawn eventually let go of him, and he immediately did the same.

"hey, i've just been thinking about it just now—" he admitted shyly, "— but i, um. wanted to try out something yesterday evening. sorry for keeping you out of it, i just didn't want to disappoint if it was to fail, but the fact is…" He slowly raised his pupils to stare at her seriously, and yet somehow with some sparks of excitement. "it worked."

She stared back in surprise and curiosity, immediately asking him to elaborate:

"the machine may be gone, but my computer still has your room's coordinates. i won't ever have enough time to rebuild entirely the original machine as safe as it was supposed to be at first, but… the little test i ran during the last timeline seemed to work. i sent an actual, physical message to your family."

Her eyes were as wide as teacups by now.

"so uh, it'll take me quite a few hours to rebuild the entire thing, and you're gonna need to do exactly what i tell you— but if everything goes the way it went yesterday… you could actually be back home tonight."

Her gasping silent face couldn't hold any longer, and she squealed. Gently yet excitedly tackle-hugged him. Hassled him with repeated thank yous.
But suddenly stopped and frowned at him in sudden worry.

"Wait. What about you? I'm not leaving you here alone!"

He shrugged casually, not anxious at all.

"well, i've been thinking. whatever happens, you'll be safer there, everything'll be easier that way…" He seemed to hesitate a little, but soon looked straight at her with those teasing yet serious white dots. "… and, well. you were supposed to start a game before all this, right?"

She blinked in shock.

"You want me to… run the game?" Nah. She must have misunderstood. Seriously.
"i'd prefer having you as the player rather than any of those who don't know what they'll be doing. 'specially if i can actually find a way to contact you afterwards." he explained. "if you're really confident that your gaming skills'll get catastrophic, then i dunno, you could still have a friend help ya through it— at least make it to snowdin first, i'll figure something out from there."
"I-I think I c-could try to convince Lys. But that'll take one hell of an explanation." she muttered uneasily. "And that's even assuming that my parents won't just take me away from my room as soon as you send me back. They'd never let me play a videogame right after that."

The skeleton seemed to calculate a few more schemes in his skull, before adding:

"all you need is to get the first reset." he said thoughtfully. "as long as you start the game and make sure you won't log off afterwards… that should be enough for the time being. 'sides, it'll just let me more time to rebuild the thing and try to contact you directly." He raised two hopeful pupils at her: "assuming nobody's in your room at that moment. you think you'll have enough time for that?"

She hesitated a little, pouting and humming.

"There's a huge chance it won't let me much. Whatever happens, I'll be really short on time." she lamented. "If you don't get a Reset in the next five minutes… you can pretty much assume it didn't work."

She was biting her lip, but tried to offer:

"If it really goes wrong. I… I'm sure Lys'll be determined enough. As long as you two keep contacting us and she really stops the game, i-it should be fine. Right?" Sans looked very uneasy about that proposal, and Dawn felt just as bad about actually selling her friend around, but if it was their only possible Plan B… "I'm sure she'll love it here. I'm more worried about you actually." she giggled. "She's a huge fan of you. She'll probably idolize you a lot. And scream. And ask you to talk about physics. And probably ask you to wear a lab coat and say nerdy things for fun."

Awkward cough. weeeeeell…
If Lys really was the one he had accidentally met during the last time, then this strangely wasn't really the first impression she had given him. But why not.

"heh." he chuckled. "that's still just plan b for now. 'm not really feeling up to kidnapping anyone else right now."
"Yeah, of course. I just wanted to make sure you wouldn't feel bad about it if needed." She suddenly looked up at him and smiled mischievously. "I'm still totally telling her eeeeeverything, though. I mean, if anyone's gonna help me play, she'll be the one. We're basically neighbors. In the, uh, 'Surface' meaning of the word. We're just living in the same district, so that's probably not actual neighbors to you."

The monster nodded sharply, laughing awkwardly at her jokes in that adorkable way and yet still trying to make some sense out of the situation in order to build a new, secure plan.

"in any ways, whatever you two do on your part, remember that you probably won't see anything special. also, your goal won't be to actually 'win' the game. even if you did a "true pacifist", got us on the surface and then quit… we'd just be saved 'till the next player comes."
"… Ah. Right." Dang it. She would've been way more excited than she should if she could actually show to Lys a little Sans sprite going off-script and talking to them directly.
"so, yeah. if we want a permanent ending, we'll need to cooperate from both sides of the thing. i uh… hope your wi-fi is stable enough."
"I'm living in a big city." she reassured. "If I keep the laptop plugged so it doesn't turn off because of flat batteries, nothing should go wrong. Only problem we could get is if there's a blackout. I don't think the Wi-Fi survives those."

She still raised at him a goofily confident grin:

"But, eh, what'd be the odds of that happening, uh?"
"you're basically daring fate to do it, kid."
"I know." She stuck her tongue at him childishly. "But those things never work. We've had enough bad luck so far."

He rolled his white dots in a careless shrug, but soon gave her a parody of a solemn look.

"so. that settled?"
"Let's get to work." she nodded positively.

Her smile still faded a bit as she looked down for a few moments.

"… Oh, and, Sans."
"yeah?"

She gave him a light harmless bump in the shoulder. He had slightly stiffened upon seeing the hit coming, but he had seen her goofy grin in advance and immediately relaxed.

"You're the worst, spookiest and stupidest dork I've ever met."

He raised his eyebrows in that fake disbelief meant to hide and yet just as much insist on the teasing intent really guiding his expression.

"i'm gonna take that as a compliment." he answered with the largest trollesque grin she had ever seen on his face.

And she laughed.

---

~ Reviews & Feedback ~

#AngelPines : Thanks! You saw the world-building intensifying here I guess hahaha
I think you noticed by now, but I really love working on the background and making sure that everything will always make the most sense possible. It's a personal hobby :D
Also, sorry if the updates will keep being slow from now on... But I still have a life besides this, and right now it's really tough with all those oral exams coming. Sorry for the late updates... I just hope every time that every new issue is worth the wait ^^'

#OfLifeAndDeathAndAllBetween : Well, as we discussed, this dust doesn't technically exist anymore because of the Reset. But welp xD