Sans leaned his shoulders against the heavy door separating him from The Ruins. Cold stone bled into the fabric of his blue coat, allowing an icy chill to seep into his bones. He shivered, tugged at the hood already pulled over his skull, and let out a puff of frozen breath. The frozen cloud dissipated lazily into the frigid air.
The woods outside of Snowdin were colder than usual. It wasn't quite snowing around him. The air was dotted with icy flakes willing themselves to go against the usual downward flow of gravity. Instead, these frozen geometric wonders twirled around his face annoyingly. Pressing his skull to the cold door, Sans huffed. His breath sent several floating flakes of snow skittering away.
He had to be especially careful on days like these. If he sat too still for too long, those pretty little flecks of liquid crystal would settle in his joints and make it painful as all heck to move- when it was finally time to move..
His eye-sockets began to droop.
Behind him, on the other side of the door, he heard the rustling of paper. His pal, the ol' lady, served as steadfast company. "I believe you will like this one," she remarked - giggling over something Sans was not yet privy to. More page shuffling. "Once I find it…" the Caretaker grumbled, not quite low enough to evade her companion's hearing. Sans listened patiently to the woman as she rifled through more pages of what he could only assume was her fabled "journal of jokes".
The skeleton burrowed himself deeper into his jacket. He let his eye-sockets close completely.
"... Oh!" A delighted gasp caught the patient monster's attention. He heard the woman's laughter- sounding unsuccessfully stifled. With barely maintained composure, she recited, "W- what- hehe! What do you- hehe! -call a skeleton with- heh! no friends?"
Sans knew this one. More smothered giggles peppered through the door from his companion. He grinned.
"Hmm?" The deep tones reverberated through the door.
"BONE-ly!" The half-silenced giggles transformed themselves into raucous, unbridled laughter. Infected by the honest laughter, Sans responded in kind. Starting with low, rumbling chuckles, transforming into shoulder-shaking laughter.
"Hehe, that's a bone-a-fide classic!." He heard her snort.
He appreciated the enthusiasm she brought whenever they met. Her laughter softened, drifting away into a thoughtful silence. Sans was grateful for the simplicity of their relationship. Meet up, trade jokes, enjoy each other's company. Nothing more, nothing less. At least, that's how things worked before the kid came along.
When she spoke again, she asked about them. How was the child doing? Sans really wished she had stayed on the topic of jokes for just a bit longer. It would have given him more time to come up with creative half-truths about the kid.
Where were they? Were they safe? Had they made it back to the surface?
Sans didn't know the answer to any of those questions. At least, not in a way that would save the woman from feeling hurt or worried. He did have an answer for her questions. The same answer for each question, actually.
He didn't know.
…
It was a place without light. Without dark. There was no floor, no walls, no ceiling. It was hardly a place at all. Not in any conventional sense. It was nowhere. Nothing. That's where they were.
Neither dead nor alive. Trapped forever in nonexistence.
But things were better this way. No one else would get hurt. No one else could get hurt, not when there was no one else.
That had been the deal.
So why was she here?
Macie.
A solitary purple soul floated above the body. She was on her side, arms and legs curling loosely into her chest. Macie wasn't moving.
The smaller child watched warily from a distance, leaning against a crumbling column they'd willed into existence. The grounding support this pillar offered quickly fizzled away once the child moved towards Macie. It disintegrated into the Nothingness.
She was cradled in a bed of yellow flowers. Just like the bed they'd found themselves in the first time they fell and every time they started their journey over. Those flowers had disappeared from memory when they'd decided to quit trying. To give up looking for a way back from that deal. But the flowers were back, bringing this unexpected woman.
Why was she here?
It was a reminder. The choice was never theirs to begin with. Giving up? Only if they felt like taking a break. Continuing on? Only if they felt like moving forward.
Gleaming red wires wrapped around their arms. No one else seemed to notice the wires when they'd moved through the Underground after its first destruction. The bindings were a reminder for them alone. The glowing wires trailed away, disappearing into nothing.
But it wasn't nothing. Those bindings? They came from a very particular soul. One that led to the destruction of all the beings trapped within the Underground. One that destroyed the Underground itself. It was a soul no longer their own. Traded away. To rebuild the world. At a cost. A soul no longer their own.
Frisk looked at the purple soul, suspended above Macie.
She shouldn't be here.
"It's your fault." The child shivered, moved towards that lifeless body. The flowers seemingly parted for every small footfall the child made. The purple soul hummed with life, casting a gentle glow on the bed of flowers, the face of the child, the body beneath.
Knees buckling, the child collapsed beside the woman. She did not breathe. There was no life in that body. They longed to see her move. To sit up, wrap her arms around them. Whisper comforting thoughts into their ears. Stare at them with those night-blue eyes, glimmering with boundless affection. Instead, the soul above that body hummed.
Why did she come here?
"She came here for you." There was a cackle. "She was looking for you." An older child crouched beside Frisk. It poked at the body, tugged at the faded orange cap around Macie's head. Her head jerked up, fell back down with a soundless thud. Red eyes turned towards the smaller child, "I showed her the way." A red grin cracked across its face, giving the impression of its head splitting in two. A lazy breeze drifted around them, rustling the flowers. "I guess she wasn't determined enough to stick around after the fall."
"No…" The quiet plea went ignored.
"Not like us." The older child cackled again, patting the younger one on the head in mock-reassurance. "Oh well." It reached a hand towards the purple soul, watching the culmination of being as it released wispy tendrils of violet. The tendrils curled around the older child's open fingers, sliding up their arm, and wrapping around the chest that encased the red soul no longer belonging to the younger child. The red wires around the smaller child's limbs trembled.
The unbreaking red lines tied the two children together. One puppeted by the other. One never in control. The smallest child cast a forlorn stare at the red wires wrapped around their own joints. The wispy purple tendrils dripped down them, toward their body.
"It's my fault. All my fault." The child mumbled, warm tears stinging their eye-line.
The purple soul crackled loudly, as if in opposition. Those wispy tendrils left behind the older child now, focusing themselves on the smaller child, draping them in a blanket of violet fog. It was warm. A hug. It felt like a hug. The smaller child shivered, tears leaking from eyes clenched tight.
She shouldn't be here.
"Don't… I don't…" the child mumbled incoherently, wrapping their arms around themselves. "Don't leave me alone." They whispered, reaching for Macie's body. A small hand settled on her shoulder. There was no response.
The other grinned with amusement, but did nothing.
The purple soul drifted downward, toward the body. The wispy fog withdrew from Frisk. It stopped above their hand. It shuddered, moved toward the smaller child. Startled, the youth jerked away from it.
The soul dove towards them, yanked by some invisible rope, sunk into their chest. It thumped inside them, slow, persistent, reassuring. The place around them began to shift. Macie, her bed of flowers, quivered, disintegrated into the shifting nothing. The elder child began to cackle.
"Found a bit of life to try again? Wonderful." The fizzled away, particle-by-particle, away from this place.
Why did she come here? Frisk shook, feeling the soul humming inside their body. To find them? To rescue them? It was their fault she came here. Now she was gone again. They would always be alone. The soul hummed wildly in his body, "No!" They felt it protest. "Not your fault. Not. Alone. Don't forget."
The nothing around them crumbled.
...
No one knew what had happened to the kid. One day, there they were. The next, there they weren't. That brat had up and vanished.
Sans clenched the fists in his coat pockets. The skeleton monster couldn't tell her that. Instead, he racked his mind for any sort of half-truth as an alternative offering. He would just have to lie.
"The kid's fine, ya know? Startled by some of the monsters. Startling others." Those words may have been true a few days ago. Today they were lies. The kid had made it all the way through Waterfall, convincing even the head of the Royal Guard that he was no threat. Everyone in the Hotland seemed eager to make friends with this little rising star of the Underground. Every monster who had encountered the little human found themselves bewitched by their charm. The little brat made friends with everyone. Then he disappeared on them.
Well, last Sans saw, the kid was unharmed.
"The kid's fiiine." Sans repeated, a little forcefully. He heard a relieved sigh through the door.
It wasn't a total lie. Probably. They had disappeared before. Gone to wherever little human kids went when they wanted to vanish in the Underground. Came back. Sans didn't bother to wonder where it was they went. Maybe he should have- for times like now, when the kid didn't come back. But the kid was probably okay. Probably. They were fairly sturdy. According to most history-lessons, humans were a good deal more sturdy than monsterkind.
"Do you-" The gentle voice of The Ruins' caretaker pulled Sans from his inner musings. "-think he is lonely?"
"Naahhh." The skeleton re-assured. "Kid'sa celebrity down here." The kid was a little aloof, but everyone in the Underground seemed to flock to them, eager to make friends with the human. They couldn't be lonely. No way.
Sans had felt that strange draw too, when they first met the kid. Like they'd been old friends, meeting for the first time. It was easy for them to make friends. They were definitely not lonely. But there was something about the kid, though, Sans could never place it. Not loneliness. But… sometimes it was like the kid was just going through the motions- so maybe they were bored. Not lonely. Nothing worth taking a second look into.
"Oh! That is very good." Sans could feel the smile in the woman's voice, but she spoke again with hesitation, "Do you think the child… misses his kind?"
"Naahh." Sans stretched the word out for all it was worth, hoping to alleviate any more of his companions worries.
"I think the child would… be happy to have a companion like them." The woman mused.
What was she getting at?
"Another human, if they were to walk through… Well, I suppose, do you think... would that make them happy?" Sans was quiet this time. If another human came... That was certainly a thought.
The Underground really only needed one more soul. But nobody in the Underground wanted to take it from the kid. Monster-folk liked that kid too much. But, if a new human came, the kid would be safe. The new soul could be used. Happy endings for everyone. Well- except the new human. But they didn't exist. This was a thought experiment. Thought experiments didn't need happy endings for every thought in the experiment.
"Oh…" The caretaker hummed, "If another human did come through, perhaps she could help the other feel a little less lonely." Sans clicked his teeth - perhaps she could help. That phrasing was weird, but, then again, maybe the woman was just projecting her desire to comfort the human child. She was too kind. It would be the death of her if she ever left The Ruins. "Everyone deserves to feel a little less lonely, wouldn't you agree?" Yep. Projecting. He felt a little bad for her. But that confinement within the ruins was self-imposed.
"Heh, sure." He finally agreed.
"If another human came through- should another human come through- would you... help them find each other?" The Caretaker asked. Sans hummed, shrugged his shoulder-blades and realized non-verbal communication wasn't a thing when a door blocked his actions from view. "Would you?" She repeated, firmer.
He hesitated. This definitely sounded like another promise. Well, "help" was a broad term. He acquiesced: "... O' course." If he just pointed a wayward, new human towards any direction opposite himself, that'd be helpful enough.
Toriel let out a sigh, seemingly reassured by her friend's words.
"E-excuse me...? Um-"
An unrecognized voice filtered through the stone door.
"O- oh!" His companion let out a surprised gasp. He heard shuffling from the other side. Sans heard the woman whisper him a quiet goodbye before he was left alone. Muffled dialogue between the unfamiliar voice and his companions' filtered through the door. Unfortunately, the words came through as garbled noises. And eavesdropping would probably be rude.
He stood, brushed the snow caking his shorts, and rustled the errant ice attempting to settle in his joints. Eye-sockets still drooped closed, he debated short-cutting back to his post or shooting straight over to Grillby's. It was almost time for one of his "legally-required" breaks.
It was unusual that the Caretaker had other company to attend to. He hoped that company would stick around. After all, it must get pretty lonely in The Ruins, self-imposed exile or not. Maybe this company could take her mind off the kid. He hoped the unrecognized voice belonged to someone that could alleviate the ol' lady's lonesome living situation. After all, just like she said, everyone deserves to feel a little less lonely.
Thought of dispelling loneliness in mind, Sans cut straight to Grillby's.