.
Not with a Bang but with
CHAPTER TWELVE:
Since When Were You the One in Control?
ALERT, ALERT! This story now has fan art! Please check out the NWABBW tumblr under the tag "nwabbw art" to see the gorgeous piece of art made by unexpected-profundity.
I feel the need to give credit once again to talkingsoup on AO3 – part of this chapter drew definite inspiration from her execution of a similar scenario in her story Entropy, specifically Chapter 17.
Warnings for running mentions/implications of depression, PTSD, alcoholism, some psychological torture and broken bones. I'm wondering if I still need to tag for PTSD at this point because it's going to be in just about every chapter.
Finally, this chapter is being posted just in time for NWABBW's first anniversary! If you missed it, I'll be taking in-character asks over on the NWABBW tumblr for the anniversary, so please feel free to send something in. Wow, a whole year… Thanks for sticking with me all this time.
oOo
He received a call from Doctor Alphys six days later, one evening while he was out at Grillby's. Doggo, one of Snowdin's Royal Guard Dogs, had volunteered to buy a round of drinks for everyone, and Sans had been nursing a second beer, relaxed and entertaining the other regulars with his own generous round of jokes.
"One sec, folks, I gotta take this," he said, getting up from his seat. He teleported out back, brought his cell phone to the side of his skull. "Doctor Alphys. Heya. What can I do for you?"
"I think I found it," was all she said, in an excited rush.
Sans found himself standing a little straighter. "I'll be right there."
oOo
"Wow, y-you got here pretty quick," said Alphys, when she opened the door to him one minute later.
He just flashed her an easy grin. He'd only taken a moment to say goodbye to the other regulars and to text Papyrus to let him know he'd be home late. "Guess I'm just a fast runner," he said on a shrug, and paused before letting himself into the lab.
She was wearing her lab coat today. Sans tried to ignore it.
The lab had changed quite a lot since his last visit a week ago. The desk had been organised, for one thing. While the stack of instant noodles boxes remained – actually, it seemed to have grown – the mess of papers was gone. Only one corner of the desk was occupied by a neat stack of file folders. The boxes and equipment that had been lined up along the walls were gone, but in their place was –
"Is that really it?" he asked in a low voice, nodding over to it.
Doctor Alphys nodded, stepping forward. She gave him a sidelong glance, expression unreadable.
"That's it. A-at least, I think it is. You can, um, pull off the sheet, if you want." She wrung her hands. "A-and if it isn't, then I'm really sorry, it's just – there's so much stuff down there, b-but I, I can keep looking, and – "
But Sans was already stepping towards the machine, slowly. Before he even realised he was doing it.
His hand closed around the sheet, and for a moment he swore he saw the coded readings, zeroes and ones and zeroes and ones, flashing before his eyes. He hesitated, then he tugged.
The sheet came down in rippling crinkled cascades.
For a long moment, he stood there, staring up at it. He dared not touch it – not yet.
So it was. Thirteen years, and the machine was still here. It was a little dusty, and in places the metal had oxidised, but it was there. Gaster's machine. Its small monitor screen had been dark for a very long time, and was slightly cracked. A tangled mess of wires spilled from its side like an open wound. The only thing that might bring him any closer to solving the issue of the anomaly and its timelines. The only thing that was something like… hope.
He heard Alphys's claws tapping against the tile behind him as she approached. "S-so… is that really it? The machine you were… "
"Yeah," said Sans, finally finding his voice, though he didn't tear his eyes from the machine. "Yeah, that's it."
A pause, then he heard her take a few timid steps closer. She was approached from his right side – it was grating on him, but he wasn't in the mood for bringing it up. "Um… s-so yeah! I found it!" There was a pause, then, "You could say 'thank you,' you know."
"Oh. Right. Thank you," Sans said, distractedly. He glanced at her his shoulder. "So from here… " He turned his gaze back to the machine, then gave a dry chuckle as he contemplated it. "Guess I figure out how to lug this thing home, heh. That's all the way back in Snowdin."
Alphys made an alarmed little noise. "T-take it back to Snowdin?"
"It's where I live." He took a step back, subtly shifting in such a way that Alphys stood to his left. He was compelled suddenly to shoot her a teasing grin. "What's wrong, Doctor? Think I'm too small to carry it?" He cut her off before she could open her mouth. "Well, you ain't wrong."
He hummed to himself, thinking. He probably wouldn't be able to manage a shortcut all the way back home with the machine in tow – taking a shortcut that distance with only himself to carry was taxing enough; taking the machine with him would be nigh impossible. He supposed he could try and see if there were any strong monsters at the CORE who'd be able to haul the machine over to the ferry dock. There were definitely monsters large enough, but Sans wasn't sure he could afford to pay them for the favour, and besides, he didn't want to give rise to any questions. The fewer people who knew about the machine, the better. Undyne was almost definitely strong enough, but he and she hadn't exactly been on the best of terms for a few years now. He hummed again, wracking his mind for other possibilities. "I guess I could – " he began.
"Why don't you leave it here?" Doctor Alphys spoke up. "You don't have to get it all the way back to Snowdin at all!"
Sans stopped short, staring at her. "What."
Alphys hopped nervously from foot to foot. "W-well… if you don't mind – I mean, I don't mind – I mean, you could keep the machine a-and I could… well, now's the part where I say i-if you don't mind… I could help you. You could j-just come by whenever you're free, I don't have a schedule, and we could work on it… together…. " She trailed off.
Sans continued staring – at her shoulders, which were hunched ever so slightly, and at the way her whole frame almost quaked in anticipation. He took in the way she bit her lip and seemed to hold her breath. He took in the look in her eyes. He stared at her, and for some reason he couldn't fathom, he heard himself answering her, the word slipping past his teeth before he realised it. "Okay."
She froze, then her eyes widened. Even behind her glasses, he could see the way they shone. "Really? Y-you really want to… "
He tried for nonchalance. "Yeah, sure. I mean, unless you need me to pay you, 'cause I prob'ly couldn't afford it. But just working together? Why not? It's a lot easier for me if the machine is right here where I don't gotta move it, and besides, you know a thing or two about machines. Hell, you definitely know more than I do. I'm more of a theory guy than a tech guy."
Alphys's smile widened. "Wow… that's… thank you. I mean!" In an instant, she was back to twiddling her claws, and this time Sans caught the way her tail gave the occasional twitch. "Y-yeah, that makes sense. I… I'm not bad with machines."
Sans turned his attention back to the machine. "So now all we gotta do is – "
"F-finish it." His gaze snapped back to her, and he realised she'd moved to stand by her desk, hands resting atop the stack of file folders.
"Right. Finish it."
It took him a moment to piece everything together. Then, it clicked.
"Oh. Oh. Shit. Wait, are you tellin' me… those are the… "
"E-everything I could find on them that was translated. I-I guess there might be more down there, but we can't do anything with it." Alphys shrugged. "These were in the Royal Archives, b-but they were for the eighties and even early nineties. The King said s-someone must have misfiled them by mistake; th-there's no way the old Royal Scientist was around that recently. O-or else people would remember him… right?" Her brow knit together as she trailed off.
"Right," was all Sans supplied. He cast the machine another glance, then went over to join her at the table, and Alphys jumped before beginning to spread the file folders out on the desk. She knocked the stack of instant noodle boxes onto the floor, but she didn't seem to mind.
"Oh, wow… " she breathed, opening one of the folders and starting to leaf through the papers. "Just look at some of this stuff, it's amazing. Whoever the old Royal Scientist was, gosh, he must have been brilliant, I-I'd have loved to have been able to meet him. Or even just see him for a second… I mean, look at all this work!"
"You're quite somethin' yourself, though," Sans said, tilting his head to one side. "I mean, a robot with a real soul. Can't say I've Mettaton o' those."
Alphys stared at him in confusion, then put her claws to her mouth, and muffled a giggle. "H-hey! That's pretty good! Um… jokes aren't really my thing, or… or being funny at all, really, but I liked that one! Oh! And, uh, thanks! I-it was just kinda… well, he's a synthetic soul! Very engineered! Definitely not from a real – I mean, thanks! He's still, like, a… y-yeah! Thanks!"
Sans raised a brow, then shrugged. "Still quite the accomplishment," he said, turning his attention back to the papers.
It wasn't, really, of course. Or at least, not as much as it was being advertised to be. Creating an artificial soul was certainly quite a feat, and she had taken her own spin on it, but Alphys hadn't pioneered such projects, even if she thought otherwise.
He and his brother were living proof of that, after all.
Not that Sans was too keen on sharing that information.
And besides, why not make her feel better?
"If he did all this, h-how come nobody's talking about him?" Alphys breathed. "I mean, all this work… it's not fair if the person who accomplished it all doesn't even get acknowledged." She pressed one hand to a piece of paper. "I-I wonder what all the other files, the ones in the weird language downstairs, say? There were some kids' drawings in the files, I looked. M-maybe his kids are still alive."
"Doubt it." Sans changed the subject, as much as he could afford to veer off-course. "So, back to this whole helping me thing… " He began to leaf through the files.
He couldn't have guessed how many years of research were sitting before him. He just knew that Gaster had been studying the Barrier and investigating the timeline long, long before he created Sans.
Sans had never been allowed to look at Gaster's files before, and seeing them in the regular alphabet rather than in Wingdings was strange, yet helpful too, he realised. As far as he knew, no-one had been hurt in Gaster's studies of the Void, and looking through them now… they were almost beautiful, in a way.
Sans knew he had a lot to thank Gaster for, in a twisted sort of way. His own curiosity. His love for science. Papyrus.
For he could appreciate these documents, truly appreciate them. And just glancing over them left him with a profound feeling of satisfaction at knowing, at learning. Here was a sheet covered in equations, here was a written observation log. Here was a folder filled with nothing but readings of magical energy levels in the Underground, probably measured over the course of over a hundred years. Here were some early sketches of the machine.
"Th-they were all logged under 'Void and t-timeline study'," Alphys spoke up. When Sans didn't answer, she frowned and rubbed her snout. "Is it r-really true you never finished the fifth grade?"
"Nope."
"Oh. Nope as in 'no, you never finished' or 'no, it's not true'?"
"Nope as in 'no, I never finished.' I dropped out." He raised a brow at her. "I take it that's surprising."
"N-no offence, but, um… kinda?" Alphys admitted. "I-I mean, you just, you seem to know so much about science, important, difficult science – "
Sans dropped into the swivel chair and shrugged. He didn't look up from the files, but he found himself answering her. "Never said I stopped trying to learn what I liked on my own time. This stuff's always gripped me, and I mean – have you been to the Capital Library? 'sides, even when I was in school, I was pretty great at math and science. Not to boast or anything. Not much, anyway, heh."
"R-right." Alphys tilted her head to one side. "Wow, that's… I mean, y-yeah, I guess that makes sense. S-so you kept on trying to learn after you – that's so admirable. And really impressive, too." She hesitated. "Um, c-can I ask why you dropped out of fifth grade? And, um, how? Because it's kind of the law to go up to at least tenth."
He just flashed her a teasing grin, and she sighed.
"And I g-guess you don't work at the CORE at all, huh?"
"Nah." Sans shook his head. "I've been working as a page at the castle since I was twelve. So… eleven years now. Shit. Makes me feel old." He chuckled dryly.
"Oh. That's really neat! B-but, um, what were you doing working when you were twelve? Because, you know, the legal working age is fifteen, b-but of course you have to know that, you live here, and I know a lot of kids work illegally, especially orphans, a-and that makes sense because you're an orphan, a-and if you were working anywhere else that would make sense, b-because everyone knows there's lots of homeless kids in the Capital who work for the Temmies, but if you work as a page for the King that really doesn't make sense, because he's the King, so I-I hope you'll excuse me for, for wondering if the page thing isn't true, and if you did just lie and you do some illegal work I won't judge you or t-tell anyone, I promise, and – "
Sans didn't answer, his gaze trailing across the files spread out immediately before him.
"Sans?"
He ignored her.
"S-sorry, I think I just started rambling back there, I do that sometimes, haha - !"
His eyes fell on one particular sheet of paper, and his breath caught. He snatched the piece of paper up, holding it closer. It was as though the universe was, in that moment, trying to make up for all the shit it had dealt him so far. When he considered the perfect timing, he was almost inclined to say he and the universe were square.
"Alphys, look at this," he cut her off, turning the chair in her direction.
Alphys squinted. "Something… important?"
"Yep." Sans broke into a grin. Alphys reached for the paper, but Sans tugged his hand back, so it was just out of her reach. "You don't mind if I do the honours, do ya?"
"Be my guest."
Sans's grin widened and he got to his feet. He gave a bow and a flourish of hand worthy of Papyrus and cleared his throat. "So. We thought the machine was never totally finished, right? This thing's supposed to detect an anomaly, and we figured we'd have to, well, make it do that."
"… right?" Alphys paused and frowned. "A-are you saying he did finish it?"
"We're not quite that lucky." Sans dropped back into the swivel chair. "But we got less work ahead of us than I figured. The machine can't detect an anomaly yet, per se, but it can run a scan of significant energy levels in the Underground – like magical energy levels, which are important to monitor 'cause they're always in flux, y'know – and it scans for Determination. We might have to update the circuitry or whatever, but apart from that, we already got half the work done for us." Sans let out a whoosh of air he didn't realise he'd been holding. "This thing can already analyse Determination levels in the Underground. And Determination levels are supposed to stay fixed, unless – " he stopped to scratch his skull – "well, y'know, if they rose, then that would mean an anomaly was here. Had been… created."
His soul flickered. Sans brought a hand to his sternum, thinking of the Determination that filled his body, that had been integrated into his system so completely that it filled every bone in his body, bonded with his marrow as if it had always been a part of his biology. It hadn't gone away or even faded in all this time – he leaked the stuff with every odd cut and scrape he'd received over the years – and by now, Sans was certain it never would.
For a moment, he was afraid – if the machine could detect Determination levels, wouldn't it point to him? But no. No, Sans wasn't an anomaly. He was just a failed attempt at creating one.
There was a true anomaly out there, though. Somewhere in the Underground. And now…
"Look here." Sans pushed one of the documents across the table, covered in a collection of complex equations. "According to this, it's a report of magical energy and Determination levels in the Underground in June of 1996." About three months before Gaster fell. "And here there's a report of, uh, Void energy readings as well. Interesting. Uh, that's the nothing outside spacetime," he added at her confused look.
"E-excuse me?"
"Uh, whatever. Not important." Sans leaned closer to the document. "So, if we keep these in mind, and run a scan whenever we get the machine back up and running, we can compare the results and get a good idea of, like, how things have changed over the years. I guess. And from there… we keep working.
"See, if there was an anomaly here, right now, I'm not totally sure we'd be able to tell," Sans said warily. He coughed. "That's hypothetical, again. Uh… very hypothetical…. " He ambled on before Alphys could say anything. "We could tell if one entered the Underground, though – there'd be a spike in Determination levels and possibly some fluctuations in the other readings as well. The only thing the machine's missing is the ability to explicitly identify one."
He didn't realise he'd fallen silent until Alphys laid a hand very gently on his shoulder.
Sans flinched violently, and Alphys's hand retreated. She looked almost frightened.
"Sorry," he said, shortly. "Got kinda lost in my head, ya startled me. And, y'know – " he knocked lightly against his own skull – "it's a hollow head, so there's a lotta space to get lost in."
Alphys smiled at him weakly, and Sans turned back to the files. Fair enough; it hadn't been his best.
"That's, um, really good news!" she said, finally. "Um… "
"We can do it, right?" Sans looked up at her. "I mean, this is feasible, ain't it?"
Her tone was solemn. "Y-yeah! Yeah… I really think we can."
He stared at her a moment, taking in the sight of her smile – bright, but timid. Taking in the way she stood, the way she looked at him. He reflected on the way she spoke. He broke into a fresh grin and held out his hand.
"It'll be a pleasure workin' with ya, ma'am."
oOo
Sans was never quite sure when or how it happened. But he found himself visiting Doctor Alphys, and visiting whenever he could.
At first, the visits were short – an hour or two at most, on the weekend, or after work – and confined strictly to finishing the machine. And then they started talking more and more, and working less and less, having a good deal of back-and-forth, teasing each other and making science jokes. Alphys seemed at least a little amused by them, and even tried making a few of her own. They weren't very good, but Sans laughed anyway, and that made her happy.
They talked more and more of their personal lives – or Alphys did, at any rate. Sans tried to avoid answering too many of the questions she asked about him, but he enjoyed talking about Papyrus, and she seemed entertained by the stories he told of him.
Talking gave way to active procrastination, and at some point, Sans found himself taking her up on offers just to come over and "hang out." Alphys was passionate about some strange cartoons from the Surface called "anime" she'd found at the dump. Sans thought they were nothing short of ridiculous, but she seemed so passionate, he let her show it all to him anyway.
At some point, they started hanging out outside of her lab – going out for drinks in New Home. browsing the small science section of the Capital Library, even foraging through the dump together.
At some point, he realised he liked Alphys, very much so, and it seemed foolish that he'd ever been afraid of her.
oOo
"Hey, Al?"
"Y-yeah?"
It had been a full six months since they'd started working together.
But even then, the advances they'd made had been minimal. Work on the machine was slow going and difficult enough on its own, and when factoring in their limited schedules and their combined tendency to get distracted or sidetracked, they'd really made very few advances indeed. Alphys had managed to update the wiring, and polish the metal, and Sans had solved the nitty-gritty of the way the machine was intended to work, but that was about it.
Nor had there been a single Reset in these six months – it was a relief, to be sure, but a part of Sans felt frustrated too. If the anomaly wasn't Resetting, then it had to be doing something.
Sans spun to face her in his swivel chair. "Why are you helping me?"
Alphys peered up at him over the circuitry she was working at on the floor. "Huh?"
"Why are you helping me?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Well… uh, for one thing, because you know about a machine that can detect irregularities in spacetime, which is p-pretty interesting scientifically, and you know more about it than I do, which is really weird. And uh, second of all, because…. Because… " Alphys trailed off, looking embarrassed. "Well, uh, b-because you're my friend. My best friend," she added.
Sans froze, looking off to the side, though he could feel Alphys staring at him nervously.
Friend.
"Yeah," he said at last, grinning at her. "Yeah. You're mine too."
Alphys gave him a weak little smile, but she seemed strangely relieved at this news as she turned back to her work.
Friend. Sans's smile stayed fixed in place as he turned his attention back to the calculations.
Yes. He liked that. He liked that a lot.
oOo
Sans was walking through Waterfall when it happened.
His head had been upturned as he gazed up at the cave ceiling, so at first he was startled when his ankle caught on something – a root, perhaps – and he tripped, falling into the mud.
"What – shit – "
He'd scraped a little of the bone on his kneecaps and palms, but no serious damage had been done; not enough to make a dent in his HP. Sans felt a little foolish, and now his clothes were spattered in mud. Great. Papyrus was going to give him a lot of grief over this. He shrugged it off, and moved to push himself back up, only to feel a pressure around his legs, holding him down.
"The hell – "
Sans tried again, twisting around.
There were vines. Vines wrapped around his legs. And they were working their way up, twisting themselves between the tibia and fibula of each leg, coiling all the way up past his knees.
So, he struggled.
It didn't help.
The vines kept going, curling up his legs until they'd reached the base of his pelvis.
If he hadn't been so shocked, and so confused, he might have been reminded of the examination table, of the straps that held him down, that kept him from moving even as he struggled and screamed and sobbed. As it were, he was far from the reach of reason or thought. One single, primal instinct had kicked in: Get away.
Get away, get away, get away, determined to get away.
He did not try to teleport. He knew it would be useless.
He struggled, and the vines squeezed tighter and tighter, until he felt his HP slip down a full tenth of a point, and he hissed in pain. When he tried tugging at the vines with his fingers, it only got worse. His bones seemed to groan under the pressure. He let out a choked noise of pain, clapping a hand over his mouth. Sans stilled, and tried to regain his breath.
Just in front of him, at his toes, a small yellow flower popped up from the earth, shaking specks of mud from its petals.
It had a face on its disk, and it wore a wide, bland smile as it blinked at him innocuously.
Sans wasn't sure why. But the sight of that flower was enough to make his soul, which had been pulsating so frantically not a moment ago, go absolutely still, weighed down by a cold dread. From somewhere deep within the recesses of his memory, an image came to surface, pertaining to a timeline from long, long ago.
"Howdy!" it chirped.
Sans just stared. After a moment of nothing happening, his eyes slid down to the vines, still tangled round his legs.
"Hello-o-o-o?" The flower swayed back and forth, waving a leaf. It squeezed again, holding back just enough to keep his HP from slipping any further, and Sans's gaze snapped back over to it.
"Good! Got your attention!" It blinked at him again, the smile never leaving its face. The flower wiggled, and burrowed itself under the earth. Then, before Sans got the chance to even try struggling again, it popped back up, this time right next to him.
Sans's body jolted in response, but his mind was somewhere else entirely, lost to some hollow place. "H-heya," he managed. "Yeah, you got my attention, all right. Congratulations. Uh… howzabout letting me go now, yeah?" The flower didn't respond, and Sans gave an experimental squirm.
Immediately, the vines tightened their grip, and Sans's HP dropped another tenth of a point – 0.8. He hissed again, a sweat breaking out on his brow, but decided it best to go still for now.
Just play it cool, Sans. Try and work out what's going on. Be careful.
"Or not, I guess, huh?" he said, looking down at his legs. Yep, definitely no teleporting. "Okay. What's up? You wanna chat?"
Another vine tore up from the earth, sending flecks of earth flying everywhere. Some of it got into Sans's eye socket, and he suppressed a shudder at the uncomfortable feeling.
The flower waved its vine back and forth in the air – a reminder. "Oh, Sans! Don't you remember me? You don't, do you? Aww, that really hurts my feelings!" The vine smacked him lightly upside the head. Not enough to hurt, but Sans flinched anyway. "Golly! And here I thought you're supposed to be the guy with a really good memory!"
Something clicked. "You're the anomaly," Sans said.
The flower's smile widened into a wicked grin. Its eyes narrowed. "Ooh, very good – you bet I am!" Its tone that could only be described as gleeful.
"… you're the one who's been playing around with the timeline these past years."
"Yep!" The flower giggled, and resumed waving its vine in the air. "Isn't it neat? I'm super strong now. I guess we share that in common, don't we? Weeeell, not quite, I guess. After all, I'm super strong and powerful! The whole entire timeline is under my command! I can do whatever I want with it! It's neat-o! But you… " It sighed, almost mournfully. "You're not an anomaly, are you, Sans? No, you're just an attempt at creating one. All that Determination in you, all that trouble, and what's it even for? You can just remember, but you can never do anything at all! What a waste, am I right? A failure – that's what he always called you, isn't it?"
As I anticipated – a regular failure.
No. No. Not this. Not those memories. Not today.
Sans felt his breath return, in short, rattling gasps. He just stared at the flower.
"So you really don't remember me?" The flower's petals drooped, the picture of dejection. Sans didn't buy it for a second. "Gosh, I guess I didn't leave much of an impression, then. I'll just have to do better next time! I sure hope this'll do!" It disappeared under the ground.
Then it popped up again, this time just behind him.
Sans tried to twist around as best he could. At once, the vines squeezed tighter – 0.7 HP now, shit shit shit – and snaked further up his body. One intertwined itself between several of his ribs, effectively pulling him face-first into the ground.
Sans groaned, lifting his head and spitting out dirt. The flower studied him a moment, then the vine that had entangled itself between his ribs retreated somewhat – just enough for Sans to prop himself up on his elbows.
"Oops!" The flower giggled. "Wouldn't want you running away, now, would we? That would be awfully, nasty rude of you. No, I want you to stay right here and talk to me for a little!"
"Thanks for reminding me of my manners," he shot back. He opened and closed one hand, trying to gather enough blue magic. He had it in a moment, and thrust his hand out, ready to close his attack round the flower monster's –
With nothing to wrap itself around, the magic faded.
He froze.
There was no soul there. Nothing.
The flower narrowed its eyes. "Aww, Sans. Did you just try to attack me using blue magic? Did you just try to turn my soul blue? It's a dirty old skeleton trick, isn't it?" It giggled. "Aww. That's really cute."
Sans's fist opened and closed. One part of his mind told him to summon his bullets, use a real attack, anything. But he couldn't remember how. He felt numb in his shock.
"How… ?"
"How come I don't have a soul?" The flower hummed. "Gosh, I don't know! Why? Do I seem like the sort of thing that would? I'm almost flattered!"
"You're an anomaly," Sans said. "You… you're supposed to be Determined. You need a soul to, to… "
"Well, aren't you something else!" The flower sighed, seeming almost annoyed with Sans. "Thinking you know all there is to know about anomalies and the timeline. And you're so curious about it, too, aren'tcha?"
"What are you?" Sans demanded, voice low. Attack! his mind screamed at him, and this time, he remembered, summoning several bone bullets on instinct. He kept one hand lifted, aiming them at the flower, but kept them poised in the air.
The flower turned its disk up to the bone bullets and squinted at them. "Is that supposed to be intimidating?"
Sans didn't answer, keeping his gaze fixed on the flower. Idly, he wondered where everyone was: Waterfall was quiet, and the least populated area of the Underground, but normally a commotion such as this would surely draw people's attention.
Then he recalled the events of some previous timelines, and it occurred to him that he really didn't want to know the answer to that.
"I guess it would help you look a little more cool if you weren't tied down like that, huh?" the flower crooned. "I mean, just look at you! So pathetic! My bad! Here… " The vines around Sans's legs began to uncoil, pull back. Sans scrambled to his feet, though as soon as he was standing, one of the vines caught around his ankle. He chose to ignore it for now.
"There!" the flower was saying. "That's better, isn't it? Now you look really cool! Like a superhero!"
"Yeah, cut it with the crap, all right, pal?" Sans allowed his bone bullets to flare with blue magic. "I'm not gonna ask again: what are you?"
The flower – what was its name, Sans was sure he had told him his name the one time they'd met, or did it even matter – just giggled. "You're not really gonna fire those things, are you, Sans? You're too curious. You want to know the answer."
"Oh, yeah?" Sans was barely aware of the way his voice was shaking. "Try me."
"What do you think I'm doing?" the flower fired back. "But curiosity's a noble trait! My mom and dad always told me that! They loved it when I asked them questions about the world, no matter how dumb! It's okay – I'm not mad at you. Do you want answers? Do I want to give them to you?" It titled its "head" to one side. "Well, I don't know about that – what if I gave you a hint?"
Sans said nothing.
"No hint? Okay, if you say so… "
"Really not up to games right now," he burst out.
"No, no, I get it! Of course I do! You're a grown-up now, right? Not some sniffling little kid. Of course you don't want to play games. But I do want, so if I just disappear down here… " The flower began to sink back down below the ground again.
Sans glared. His bullets dissolved. "Okay, fine. I'll bite. If you wanna play, I'll play. Howzabout you answer me this: what are you? Where are you from?"
The flower popped right back up, beaming. "You do want to play? Hooray!" It tipped its head from side to side as if in time with some gratingly cheerful ditty. "Well, you know I'm an anomaly, right? I've been playing with the timeline for ages now, and it's so much fun! It sure does stink you never got to be one – you're really missing out!"
Sans cleared his throat, trying not to focus on the vine still wrapped around his ankle. "And where did you come from?" he asked. It took him a moment to find his voice to continue. "Did… he make you?"
"Him?" The flower paused, blinking seemingly in confusion. "Oh! Oh, him!" A pause, then it broke out into a fresh fit of laughter. "Him! Did you… do you really… do you really think he made me? That's hilarious! Oh, Sans." The flower stopped laughing suddenly, and its gaze turned mean and hard. "Do you think if he managed to make an anomaly out of something else, he would really have kept you?"
The flower paused, seemingly waiting for a reaction. Sans didn't offer it the honour, and while seemingly disappointed by this, it continued: "No. Oh, gosh, no. I go back. I go way, waaaay back."
"From where?" Sans shut his eyes. He would not ask the flower how it knew about Gaster. He would not. If the flower was an anomaly, a creature existing outside the timeline, it made sense that it remembered Gaster. It did not explain how it knew about Sans, of course, but Sans didn't want to know. When he opened his eyes again, it was to the sight of the flower still bouncing merrily in place. "Where the hell do you come from?"
Blink, blink.
"Fine. Don't answer."
"Weeeell… " The flower dragged the syllable out, tilting its "head" to the side. "I guess I could give you one more itty-bitty hint. Would you like that?"
"I said I don't care."
"Oh, no, of course you don't!" The flower nodded enthusiastically. "You don't care about anything! Why would you, right? I mean, you can't really do anything with this information! Who are you going to tell? Your brother?" It laughed. "I bet that's why you aren't attacking me, right? You know if you do, even if you kill me, I'll just Reset! You really can't do anything at all!" The flower laughed again. "But I want to give you more hints! This is fun! It'll be so refreshing to see you finally react to something, you know?"
"Gimme a hint, then." Sans tried to keep his bones from rattling.
"Of course! I'd love to! And your hint of the day is… dang, if only we had a drumroll – Doctor Alphys!" The flower cut itself off abruptly, grin turning victorious.
And for good reason – Sans felt his soul go colder still, if that were possible. "… what the hell do you mean, Doctor Alphys? What the hell has she got to do with anything?"
The flower giggled. "Right! She's your best friend, isn't she? I've been watching you two for ages. Working on that stupid machine like a couple of nerds. It's like you two really think you have any power at all – it's adorable! You really care about each other, don'tcha?" The flower dropped its voice.
"What?" Sans managed. "You gonna tell me that she made you or some shit?"
And now the wicked grin was back. The flower's eyes shone. "Oh, she wishes. She thinks she does! Or, she will do! See, she hasn't even tried yet. But she will. Ooh, will she ever!"
"Bullshit." The word flew from his mouth automatically. It was all that Sans had. "You're an anomaly. You can play around with time, but you can't actually travel through it. You can't see the future. You don't know what people will do unless you already saw it happen in a previous timeline. And if you had, then I'd know about it by now, wouldn't I? So yeah. I call bull."
"You see, Sans… that's where you're wrong." A fresh vine tore from the earth, reaching up toward Sans. It reached into his ribcage, toward his soul, and Sans recoiled. The flower seemed especially pleased by this, but pulled the vine back just so. "You're so very, very wrong. I am so much more than you think I am. Just like I am so much more than anything that stupid reptilian scientist could ever make. All she can do, all she ever has done or ever will, is make mistakes." It giggled ominously. "So many, many mistakes."
"What mistakes?" Sans demanded, voice low. "I'll take it you ain't referring to that time she forgot to carry a four."
"Oh, you know." The flower winked and stuck its tongue out. A small, round bullet appeared in the air just above it, then floated down to the ground where it disintegrated. "The super-big kind. The kind that all those scumbag scientist types make. I'm surprised you still trust her, Sans. The kind of monster she is… and what she's gonna do… gosh, I can't believe you still want to have anything to do with her at all!"
If Sans had felt like he was standing before a black void before, now he felt like he was standing with one foot over the ledge, seconds from falling in. His eyelights had dimmed to pinpricks. "Listen. Whatever you are, you can go to hell."
The vine was still coiled tight around his ankle, its tip reaching up his leg and stroking it almost gently, in some horrible parody of an embrace.
Then, with no warning, it suddenly tightened its grip even further. The bone groaned, and bent, and, finally, cracked under the pressure.
Sans bit back a scream and collapsed to the ground. He cradled his broken ankle, body curling around it as though to shield it, struggling to recover his breath.
The vine retreated.
"You know, Sans," the flower crooned, "you're such a piece of work. Able to retain memories across my Resets and everything. I really thought you'd be interesting! I loved watching you, at first. You were like my special friend."
Sans screwed his eyes shut. He tried to focus on something other than the flower's words. Tried to focus on anything, even the pain, but it didn't work.
"But," the flower continued, "you never did anything! It doesn't matter what I do. All you ever do is sit and brood and get drunk like some loser. That's why I came out here looking for you; I wanted to talk to you! I just wanted to give something new a go. But even now, after all the work I've done just to have an itty-bitty bit of fun, the payoff is way less than I expected. I'd almost say it wasn't even worth it if I wasn't so bored. I mean, do I really want to waste my time with you in the next run?"
"Shut – gghhhk – shut up," Sans bit out. "Jus'.. shut… " He trailed off, sensing how his speech was giving way to thin whimpers. He curled up tighter. He didn't want to know what his HP was right now.
"I bet you want to know why I'm doing this, too, don't you?" He was barely aware that the flower had grown, that it now loomed over his broken form. "I get that! I must seem really mean and nasty from your eyes. I've killed so many people, you do not want to look at my LV, trust me, haha! But there's a good reason for all this – promise!"
Sans tried to turn his head away, moaning.
He didn't care. He didn't care what the flower was anymore, he didn't care why it did what it did. He just wanted out of here – any way would do.
He wanted his brother.
"I play with the timeline because I'm curious, Sans," the flower was saying. "It's so boring, and so tiresome. So I decide to have some fun. Because I'm curious! Just. Like. You."
"Hnngh… shut up."
"It's okay, though – none of it really matters in the end, right? If it can just be undone like that, nothing counts for anything! You know that too, don't you? See! Told you we're more alike than you thought!"
"Shuddup," he mumbled.
The flower sighed to itself. "Though not as much as I'd like. Like I said, you're just boring. I mean, look at you now – just lying there! Ugh!"
Sans slid his eyes open. The flower was sneering at him cruelly. On some instinct he couldn't explain, Sans began, slowly, to unfurl.
"Your brother, on the other hand… " The flower shuddered. "Ooh-hoo! He's awfully interesting."
Sans froze.
And slowly, he lifted himself up into an upright position, injured leg crumpled uncomfortably beneath him. It had stopped hurting. Gone numb.
"Ooh, now we're getting something!" The flower looked pleased. "Oh, did my mentioning your baby brother get to you? Did I touch a nerve?" It shrank back into the ground, until it was just the size of an ordinary little yellow flower. Its smile was simpering sweet. "It's really cute, you know. The way you love your brother so much. Anyway, I bet there's a ton of stuff, I could try out with him. It'd be all brand-new."
Sans lifted an arm. A blaster appeared in the air.
For a moment, something like alarm seemed to flash in the flower's eyes. But then its look turned malicious again. "Are you really going to attack me this time, or is that just to make you look tough or something? Because you really don't look all that scary, sitting there like that – "
Sans fired.
For a moment, the air held the lingering scent of smoke, of burnt vegetation.
Then the world reset.
oOo
Sans wasn't sure how far back this Reset had taken him. Maybe a couple weeks, maybe a little more. He'd forgotten about the calendar in the living room. He was beyond caring anyway.
All he had known, all he had been able to think, was the flower.
The flower was the anomaly.
He'd found it.
He'd found the anomaly, and absolutely nothing had changed.
He'd found the anomaly, and it didn't matter, it didn't change or fix anything, it didn't make anything better. He couldn't stop it. He could only sit back and watch as it dialled back time, again and again and again, forever.
In the exact same position he'd always been.
Pathetic.
He did not feel more empowered. If anything, he felt as helpless as ever.
And everything was so very, very pointless.
Now it was morning, and Sans was dragging himself from the ferry stop in Hotland to Alphys's lab, nursing a skull-splitting headache. He'd gotten home from Grillby's late last night, long after Papyrus had gone to bed, and when he'd finally woken up, head aching and mind hazy, it was ten in the morning, and his brother had left for school. A note had been left on the fridge, complaining about Sans's laziness.
He found Alphys sitting at her desk and typing something on the computer. She jumped a foot in the air when she saw him come in, then turned brilliantly red and hastened to close the document. "S-Sans! Wow, you're here early - hi!" Then she frowned, squinting at him. "Um, are you okay?"
Sans leaned against the edge of her desk and bit back a groan, rubbing his skull again. "Oh, just dandy. How you farin' yourself?"
Alphys waved the question off, getting to her feet. "A-are you sick or something?"
Sans shook his head, wincing. "Nah. Just, uh, went to the bar last night and had a few too many."
He almost missed the dark look that passed over her face and she sighed, stepping back. "Have you, um, had anything for it yet?"
"Uh, a coupla glasses of water."
Alphys heaved another weary sigh. "Great. Well, o-okay. Just… just wait here. I'll, um, go get you some more water, and um… um… I-I don't really know any hangover cures, but… oh, gee." She began to wring the hem of her lab coat. "I could, I could go out into town and get something, or I could look something up on the Undernet, b-but I don't want to mess anything up, and um…"
"Just water's good." Sans groaned and dropped into the now-unoccupied chair. "Maybe a coffee."
"You know coffee d-doesn't really help, right? A-and, um – "
"Well, it can't hurt. Do you mind?" It came out harder than he'd intended, and Alphys jumped and quickly looked down, shoulders hunching even more than usual, before mumbling something about a coffee machine being somewhere downstairs and disappearing into the elevator. Sans was too tired to apologise.
He closed his eyes, leaning back in the chair. He almost drifted off again, but then he felt Alphys's hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently. He pulled back, and forced his eyes open.
Alphys held out a glass of water and a mug of coffee. "D-did you really walk all the way here from Snowdin like that?" she frowned.
"Took the ferry." He certainly hadn't tried teleporting. Sans drained the water in one go, then took a sip of the coffee. He pulled a face, squinting up at her. "Your coffee's shit."
Alphys flinched, looking hurt, and this time, he felt a stab of guilt, despite everything.
"Sorry," he muttered. "It should still help. Uh, thanks."
Actually, it already was, somehow – the edges of the headache were quickly starting to wear off into something more akin to discomfort. He wondered if Alphys had put something in the water, or the coffee, then decided not to think about it. The headache, he could ignore, no trouble.
She just nodded, leaning against the wall. "Um…are you sure you're okay? We, we d-don't have to work on the machine today, you know, e-especially since you're definitely not in the, uh, best of shape to really get anything done... and actually, aren't you supposed to be at work right now?"
Work. Right. He'd forgotten about that. Shit. Well, it was too late now. He'd apologise to the King tomorrow.
He got to his feet and crossed the room, suddenly antsy. "Came to talk to you, actually," he said. "About the project."
He wasn't sure what he wanted, or why he'd come. Not entirely. He wasn't sure what he thought, how he felt. He wasn't sure of why he still cared.
He wasn't sure of anything.
And wasn't that the story of his life.
Alphys seemed suddenly nervous – more than usual at any rate. "Oh. O-okay. Um… what about the project?"
Sans rubbed at the bridge of his nasal bone, letting his gaze wander the lab. It fell on the machine, covered by the sheet. He wondered how much progress they had made on it at this point in time.
Not that it mattered.
"I want to finish work on it alone," he said. The words came out short, clipped, all hard edges – the way he might have said it, Sans realised. He didn't bother trying to soften them now; any damage had already been done. "That is… I don't wanna work on it together anymore."
Too late, Sans realised that he was looking right at her when he said this. He quickly looked down at the ground, but it didn't matter. He'd already caught the look on her face: that disappointment, and that hurt, so devastatingly quiet.
And the slightest hint of quiet acceptance, that she'd been expecting something like this to happen all along and was surprised it had taken so long in the first place.
Sans didn't bother trying to fill the silence. Instead, he waited for her to answer, his gaze fixed resolutely on the ground. And, eventually, she did, her voice so small he barely caught it at all.
"Did I do something?"
She didn't even stutter when she said it. Sans wasn't sure what to make of that.
"No. No, God, no, Al. Not… not because of you." Not entirely. "Jus'… you're busy, you're the Royal Scientist, and – "
"I-it's okay if it's because of me," she said quietly. "That is – I-I'd get it, I mean, not that I think you're that nasty sort of person who'd ever do that b-because I could sort of tell that you were – I mean, not that I'd m-make those kinds of judgements about the character of someone who – "
"Al," he cut her off. "I just need to work alone. From now on. You wouldn't understand. But I promise, it ain't… " He trailed off.
"Sans?" Alphys frowned at him.
Right. Doctor Alphys. Alphys. Al. His friend. His best friend.
"You've done everything you can," he said, quickly. "Seriously. And I appreciate it, yeah? I just can't… I'll hire one o' the guys from the CORE to carry the machine for me, we got this cellar in our house we don't use. It'd make a decent workshop. I just… don't figure there's much you can contribute to the project anymore. You prob'ly wanna get to all your scientific advances – "
"I-I kind of haven't really done any work at all since we started… I mean, when you're not here, I just kind of sit in my pyjamas and eat ice cream while watching anime… "
"There, exactly." He shoved off from the table, and realised his head had stopped hurting. "I'm holdin' you back."
"I d-didn't mean like that… " he heard her mumble, and ignored it.
The headache was almost entirely gone by now.
He turned his gaze back to the machine.
It was a waste of time. A total waste of time for him, and especially for Alphys. Someone who had the potential and the privilege to actually do something and care about it.
And…
Flowey had said that Alphys would make mistakes. Well, maybe if Sans wasn't around, it would keep her from making them.
"Right. I'll be off then, yeah?" Sans made his way for the door. He was almost to the threshold when Alphys stopped him.
He heard her feet tapping hurriedly on the tile and turned just as she reached him. One hand was in the air, and he supposed she'd meant to tap him on the shoulder. Now the hand fluttered awkwardly by her chest before she finally lowered it, then, after another hesitant moment, travelled up again as she crossed her arms. "Um," she said.
Sans raised his brow. "Um?"
Alphys paused, then stood up a little straighter. "Oh! Oh, r-right!" She bit her lip. "S-so, um, you know how the machine was, um, t-technically ready to do the whole scan thing but then the wiring was sort of outdated s-so it didn't work quite right and how we were working to get it t-to do that for a start?"
Sans's brow rode up further. "… yeah. For the past, like, several months?"
"Well, y-yes!" Alphys paused. "Um, so, since you were busy yesterday, I, um, may have decided to work on the machine b-by myself without you and um, last night I k-kinda got it to work and did a whole scan?"
Sans froze. He took another step into the lab and found his gaze wandering over her head toward the machine.
He really wasn't sure how to process this new information, truth be told. A scan of the Underground, already completed? Some of the information he'd so desperately craved? It seemed a little too good to be true, given the most recent Reset.
And even then… what Alphys had just done should have been impossible. Or at least unfathomable. The anomaly's Resets undid time, yes, to whatever point it chose to unravel the timeline. But it couldn't change anything that had happened before the Save point.
Sans had the impression this last Reset hadn't taken him back very far – somewhere in the span of one to two weeks, three at the very most – but if Alphys had been able to finish the machine, she would have told him.
Wouldn't she?
"When yesterday?" he heard himself say.
Alphys seemed notably puzzled by this. "Like… oh, I-I don't know, last night? A-around six or seven? I-I didn't pay that much attention… " She looked down at her feet a moment. "I'm s-sorry, I did call, but your phone was out of battery, and then I w-wanted to tell you when you got here but we kind of got, um, sidetracked… "
Behind him, the lab doors slid shut, and Sans jumped, turning to stare at them a moment.
Then his gaze turned back to the machine.
No. It doesn't matter. Don't bother. Don't. Don't.
"And you really ran a scan, huh?" He stepped past her, striding over to the machine.
"O-of the whole Underground!" The quick patter of her feet following him over. "Including the Ruins, actually, b-because even though we can't get there, um, it's still p-part of the Underground and gives us detectable magical energy signatures, and um… " She grabbed a bunch of papers off of her desk, bound by a paper clip, and thrust them out at him. "Here you go!"
Sans grabbed them and walked back over to the desk, removing the paper clip and leafing through them.
The readings had been separated into sections: Determination, Concentrated Magical Energy, Residual Magic, and one final section that read simply, "Void."
Alphys bit her lip, leaning over his shoulder, and tapped the Void header. "Um, still not t-totally sure what this is, you only mentioned it once, b-but I compared everything to the last scan from, um, 1996 th-that we already looked at together and… " She riffled through the papers on her desk and pulled out a second bundle of documents, handing them over to him.
Sans dropped into the chair. He laid the results out in front of him.
He'd had ample time, over the past several months, to familiarize himself with the complex way in which the machine presented the results of its scans, and what they meant. Just as he'd had ample time to study the results of all the scans Gaster had done. It turned out that while the machine had been a relatively recent creation, Gaster had been analysing and studying Determination and magical energy levels in Underground for years, with simpler, more primitive technology. The earliest scans Sans had been able to find went back to the late twenties, about half a decade before the deaths of the royal children.
"So… if we compare today's scans from the ones in 1996… " Sans leaned closer over the readings.
"I-I already looked at them," Alphys interrupted. "I, um, I-if you look here, magical energy has had some minor fluctuations, which is t-to be expected, that's normal, a-and D-determination levels have actually remained t-totally stable since – "
"Wait, what?"
Alphys pointed, and Sans leaned closer only to realise that she was right. The DT levels in the Underground had not even fluctuated the slightest bit in thirteen years – in fact, they hadn't fluctuated since the last human fell, a few years before Sans had been born.
Forget Alphys advancing on the machine in this new timeline, that was impossible.
Gaster had fallen thirteen years ago, yes, but it had taken several more years for the Resets to begin. How old had he been, sixteen? It was hard to remember. If the flower had been created, or come into the Underground, before then, then why had it waited so long to Reset? That was almost thirty years. It simply didn't make sense for a creature that malicious to bother waiting. Why hadn't it grown "bored" before then?
It doesn't matter, he reminded himself.
And it didn't.
He was about to hand the reports back to Alphys when she reached out for them herself, flipping through several pages.
"I-I know you said it wasn't important, b-but, um, it looks like the Void energy levels, o-or whatever you want to call them… well, they've spiked. A lot. S-since, um, the last scan was d-done."
Sans stared.
Well.
So they had.
Significantly.
Alphys pinched the bridge of her snout. "B-by the way, I'm, uh, still not sure h-how the Royal Scientist could have been working thirteen years ago, but I g-guess you don't have the answer to that either, huh?"
He shook his head, frowning. "No, but look. This Void energy's been growing in the Underground for ages over the course o' the past few decades, right? We saw that in the older reports. But this… is a lot for just thirteen years."
"I-is it bad?"
"I don't know," he lied. "Probably."
"It d-does sound bad," Alphys agreed. "Wh-what was it you called it? The um, never… "
"The nothing outside spacetime," Sans supplied automatically. "The total lack of time and space."
Alphys seemed confused, then sighed. "I-I'll leave that up to the physics guy in the room. B-but do you… you do know what it means?"
"Some," he said, simply. "Anyway. Thank you." Sans grabbed the report and slipped the paper clip back on. "I'll be off, then." He stood up.
"Oh. R-right." She seemed to be holding her breath, and Sans swore she was standing on tiptoe as she suddenly burst out: "S-so you still, um… you still r-really want to work on it alone? You don't wanna… "
"No," he said simply. "I'll take it from here." He held up the new reports. "Take these too, if ya don't mind." After a moment's consideration, he stuffed them into his ribcage.
"Oh. Y-yeah. Of course. Of course, th-that makes… I mean… W-well… o-okay, I can arrange… I mean, I understand if you don't, but – w-well, you'll still come by sometime, right? What you said, we're st-still… friends… r-right?"
Beat.
I'm surprised you still trust her, Sans.
No, he thought. No. No. Wrong. Wrong. Don't. Danger. Don't.
… wrong?
Sans turned around and forced himself to look at her. He deflated. "Yeah," he said softly. "Yeah, 'course we are." And he realised he meant it.
The kind of monster she is… and what she's gonna do… gosh, I can't believe you still want to have anything to do with her at all!
No. Wrong.
He couldn't trust a word of what that flower said.
He trusted Alphys. He had to. As much as he possibly could. She wasn't him, nor could she ever be. The flower was an anomaly, and it couldn't know the future. It had been lying. Alphys wasn't going to do anything. She had no way of knowing Sans was Determined. She wasn't going to…
Wrong.
He trusted Alphys, but… it couldn't hurt to keep his distance. Just a little bit. Just in case.
Sans faltered. "No," he said, turning away. "No. They don't mean anything. Forget it. I wouldn't waste my time on 'em." He stuffed his hands into his pockets and turned for the door. "Forget I said anything. See ya, Al."
He left, without looking back.
Maybe there was nothing he could do about the timeline, one way or the other.
And yes, it was all hideously pointless.
But it couldn't very well hurt to, at the very least, try to keep tabs on the Void and DT levels. Run a few scans on his own. Just in case.