.
Not with a Bang but with
So…. this is, almost without a shadow of doubt, the darkest chapter in this entire story. I've written some pretty heavy stuff, but I'm going to be honest that writing this chapter broke my heart—and this is me we're talking about, so please enter with caution. Like… if you read FINAGLC you should be fine, but tis really isn't a very pleasant chapter.
MAJOR warnings for this chapter, including psychological torture, minor violence, heavier-than-usual themes of PTSD and manipulation/brainwashing, plus implications/references to child abuse, depression, and alcoholism. Told you stuff got dark.
I'm also shamelessly borrowing a quote from the finale of Orphan Black here because it's too freaking perfect and that hit me when I was re-watching it this summer. I have been saving it all this time! Side note, everyone go watch Orphan Black because it is amazing.
As a final note, I've gotten a couple messages here about this story updating slowly. For that I wanted to apologise, but some clarification. I am not abandoning this fic by any means.It is simply hard at times to post regularly. The chapters take a long time to write, and from there they have to undergo edits, and I have to juggle writing this story along with my personal life and schoolwork. I am in my third year of university and unfortunately, sometimes schoolwork needs to take priority. Thank you for understanding. In the meantime, remember you can check the nwabbw tumblr for semi-regular status updates on my chapter progress.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
But Nobody Came
oOo
Sans was hurtling backwards. Greyish green tiles whipped by him in a sickly blur, intercut here and there with glitching black squares. He was falling. Time seemed to slow, then at random intervals it sped up before slowing once again.
He fell, and kept falling. Suddenly—a sharp jerking motion. The shrieking in the air dimmed down to a piercing hiss as his skull slammed into something hard.
Blackness.
oOo
When Sans came to, he found himself sitting on a cold, hard floor, propped up against a wall. A throbbing pain in the back of his skull. He groaned, reaching back to feel for any cracks, but the bone remained perfectly intact. His soul still ached terribly.
The air was pungent with the familiar scent of antiseptic and cheap floor cleaner.
Where was the kid? Was she okay? And where the hell was he?
Sans shifted before slowly sliding his eyesockets open. His vision swam for a moment before coming into focus: he was in a small, square room—clearly part of the labs, but the walls and floor were a dull and featureless grey, tiles leeched of any colour. A short passageway, which opened on the far side of the room, led to nothing.
Then he saw the furniture that occupied the room: a large computer desk tucked into one corner with a built-in storage unit. A single wooden chair. An IV stand, a tray table on wheels, and another couple of machines for which he'd never had a name. And the steel operating table placed in the exact centre of the small space, adorned with leather straps.
He surged to his feet, or rather he tried to—he staggered in his attempt and swayed on the spot once he managed to get upright.
Ding. As if on cue, his soul turned blue again.
"Hello, Sans."
Sans heard his creator before he saw him: footsteps slapping heavy on hard tile, and a steady drip-drip-drip sound, like that of a tap that had not been closed properly.
Wait. That was wrong, wasn't it?
He turned his head to the right, to the source of the sound. What he saw would have been enough to make his stomach turn, if he'd had the biology for it.
He could certainly recognise Gaster, but what he saw was all wrong.
He was solid, for the most part. But still his form remained slumped and half-melted, and in places it seemed to drip a sticky black liquid. A long crack ran down from his left eye; and another similar crack crawled up from the right. The cracks bled that same tarlike substance. He wore a long black cloak over his clothing, but the fabric seemed fused to the bone, and his whole form seemed to flicker and ripple at times. It would have been a strain on the eyes to stare at him too long, or too directly, like staring at the flickering static on a broken TV screen.
But still there was his expression, unreadable even behind that sly smile too wide for comfort.
Gaster folded his hands behind his back and leaned over him. Even in this state, he still towered a good couple of feet taller than Sans, maybe even more so.
"Well. How fitting you return to your cage. All lab rats do, in the end."
His speech was calm and measured, more monotonous than Sans remembered it being. Or maybe it was the Void's doing. Either way, Sans glared up at him, saying nothing.
"It has been. A long time." Gaster tilted his head to one side. His eyes narrowed slightly in thought as he scrutinized his old subject. "I see you have changed quite a bit. Though you still have not. Grown at all. Since we last saw each other."
Sans clenched his teeth, writhing a little under the grip on his soul that the scientist still maintained. "Yeah, and whose fault is that? And—" he summoned his courage—"I can't say you're lookin' too great yourself, Gaster."
Gaster's sagging shape flickered again. "It is difficult. To maintain physical form in the Void. I am still working toward fully emerging from it. Your comment, however. Is justified. It is due to the Determination trials you remain the height of a child."
"Want to keep drilling it in? The reminder's always appreciated; sometimes I forget to notice when I'm walking around town." Sans drew in several deep, shaking breaths. Maybe if he kept this up long enough, he'd forget that he was afraid. Whatever the hell was going on, he couldn't afford to be afraid right now. "Where's Frisk?"
"The human? Do not trouble yourself. It is a long way from here. But it will return, you'll see."
So the kid was safe, for now. Good. Sans took his word for it. It wasn't like he had any other choice. He struggled against the blue grip on his soul again, but Gaster just tightened his hold and lifted him a few inches above the ground so that his feet now dangled in the air.
"You are unsurprised to see me," Gaster hummed, thoughtful.
"Yeah, well." Sans tried to reach out to his magic, without taking his eyes off Gaster. It was weak, but still there. He focused on gathering it, slowly, and ignored the sweat that already rolled down the back of his skull. "Maybe next time you should give a little less warning if you don't wanna ruin the surprise. Can't say I'm real pleased to see ya, though, either way. No offence."
"I do not need you to be surprised. Or pleased, for that matter. Though I am surprised. You came to seek me out. Feeling bold these days, I suppose."
Sans said nothing.
"No matter." One hand still balled into a fist to maintain the grip on Sans's soul, Gaster began to circle the room, as he'd sometimes done when he was deep in thought. "Your method of arrival. Is irrelevant to our purposes here. You have spared me a good deal of effort. I appreciate it." Sans followed his gaze to the examination table, then quickly looked away.
No. No. No. Concentrate, Sans.
"And what would those purposes be?" Sans tugged on his weakened magic again, not gathering it at his fingertips, but rather letting it charge in his soul. Slowly. Slowly. "What the hell do you want, Gaster?"
No answer. Gaster stopped at the tray table, peering down at the medical instruments.
"And how'd you get out of the Void?"
Gaster looked up at him. He smiled. The same oozing black substance trailed from one corner of his mouth. "I think you know the answer to that. Don't you, Sans?"
Sans screwed his eyes shut. Just one last tug…
"At any rate. It is nigh impossible to escape the Void. I have not been able to emerge from there. Not really. And that, Sans, is how you and the human will—"
With a burst of his own magic, Sans broke free from the blue grip on his soul. He landed on his knees, hard, but scrambled to his feet and gathered his magic again, at his fingertips this time. He had neither the time nor the energy to summon a Blaster, but he managed to make a bone attack, and fired it in Gaster's direction.
Years of sparring with his brother had Sans well prepared. Papyrus's proficiency in damageless attacks made him one of the very few monsters Sans could afford to spar with, and as it happened, Papyrus was an excellent sparring partner. It afforded Sans the chance to be as decent a fighter he was physically capable of being, considering. Papyrus had always said something along those lines, though he'd been more encouraging about it. Sans could dodge, sure, but just as importantly, he knew how to put an attack together, and he had pretty good aim to top it off.
By all means his attack should have landed perfectly. Sans knew it should have.
Instead, Gaster's form seemed to shift, to twist, curling into itself like a malleable ball of clay, and Sans's attack passed right by him, hitting the wall instead and dissolving on impact.
There was that wicked smile again as Gaster lifted one hand, holding his palm open like an offering. It was only a few small bones that he summoned, but Sans stiffened immediately. He was ready when Gaster fired, and shortcut swiftly to the right as the attack came flying his way, but the act left his soul aching even more than before. The bones fizzled out of existence when they missed their apparent intended target.
Gaster's smile widened, somehow. By this point, it was starting to get a little irritating. "Your reflexes are impressive."
Sans didn't answer, just flashed his creator something between a smirk and a pained grin. His next attack was even smaller and more pathetic than the one before it, and the knobbed ends of the bones he'd summoned blurred in and out of existence even before he actually fired them. Again, Gaster neither dodged nor deflected the attack, simply reshaped himself so that the attack missed passed harmlessly by.
Sans remained silent, just readied himself to dodge Gaster's oncoming attack, a small Blaster this time.
They went on like that, ping-pong fashion, for a couple more turns. They exchanged bullets as Gaster shifted to avoid his increasingly pathetic attacks, and Sans dodged. It could have been mistaken for a sparring match, and inwardly Sans was grateful for it.
A pattern was good, made matters easier. It kept him from thinking.
Thinking was the last thing he wanted to do right now.
He fell mindlessly into the exchange, such that he could almost forget the circumstances. But he couldn't keep it up for much longer, and this time, when Gaster fired a small cluster of bones, he didn't manage to dodge at all.
The attack hit him square in the chest, and Sans went flying backwards. He slammed, hard, into the opposite wall and crumpled to the floor.
The pain in his sternum was blinding, both searing sharp and a smarting ache, and he choked and struggled for air.
Shit, did everyone's attacks hurt that much? He must have been less than nine the last time he'd been struck by even a low-damage attack. He couldn't afford to get hit by monster bullets, and now he fumbled to find a reason as to why he might still be alive.
Squish-tap. Squish-tap. Gaster's footsteps half-squelched on the cold tile as he came near. He watched Sans, and he said nothing.
Sans choked again, though the pain was finally starting to fade. "What the hell, Gaster?" he managed. "What the hell was that?"
Gaster just drummed his fingertips together. "You are familiar with the concept of damageless attacks, Sans, are you not? It is a challenging, though not too impossible, skill to master. I believe your brother became quite proficient with them—one of his few accomplishments, I suppose. They never hurt, did they? But did you know there are different ways of creating damageless attacks? One might, for instance, design an attack that mimics the sensations a monster would experience if actually struck, all the while maintaining HP and causing no actual damage."
He smiled. Bastard.
"Well, I call rematch." Instincts long suppressed screamed at him to shut up, just shut up with the snarky comments and do as he was told. Sans ignored them, for the moment. "Pretty sure you were cheatin', Gaster."
Gaster seemed to preen. "I dodged."
"Touché," Sans muttered. He wasn't even surprised when he heard the ding, blue magic wrapping itself tight around his soul.
Gaster lifted him up and deposited him in the chair. There, he held his subject in place, and Sans didn't bother struggling even a bit. He was so damn tired. So, instead, he went back to talking. "Pretty big show you're puttin' on here, I gotta say. Crawling out from the Void, invading Frisk's dreams or something. I mean, I figure you must have some pretty exciting plans, right? Maybe a wild night out at the human nightclubs or something? What you got in mind?"
"Not just now," Gaster said dismissively. "We'll get to that in a moment. But first, Sans, I must reacquaint myself. It has been. A long time. After all."
His speech was beginning to glitch again, Sans observed numbly, obscured by short-cut sentences and blips here and there. Gaster seemed to notice, too, and he shook his head in irritation. A bit of black tar dropped from the crack under his eye and landed with a sickly sound on the floor.
"I trust you will answer these questions honestly. They are important if I am to create an accurate update on your file. We will begin with the basics for now, but I would like for us to get into more detail in the future. Twenty years is quite a while, is it not?" He pulled a file from the drawer and picked up a pen and clipboard from the computer desk.
"What?" Sans snorted. "You mean you weren't watching me from the Void every second?"
"I was unable," Gaster said simply. "Shall we?"
Sans blew air out from between his teeth. Gaster's grip was tight as ever. "Guess I don't have a choice, right?"
Gaster said nothing, just placed the tip of the pen to the paper, and it was an answer in itself.
The first few questions were fairly simple: stuff about his regular diet, medications (as if), his sleeping patterns, the frequency at which he succumbed to illness. Then—
"How would you describe your emotional state over the years?"
Sans remained silent, staring, not sure if he'd heard correctly. It sounded like a sick joke.
"Sans," Gaster pressed.
Sans clenched his teeth and suppressed a laugh, balling his hands into fists. "Well, what do you think, Gaster? I mean, go on, take a guess."
Gaster made an impatient noise. "Your lack of a clear answer gives me cause to believe that it has been mostly negative."
"Congratulations." Sans fought to keep his voice from wavering. "Always knew you were a genius. They oughta give you some kind of recognition, with deduction skills like that. Maybe even position as Royal Scientist."
Gaster slapped him, hard, across the face.
A trail of the cold, inky substance trickled down his cheekbone.
Abruptly, his creator made a nondescript sound, which spiked suddenly in volume as it gave way to the same high, screaming static Sans and the kid had heard earlier. The pen slipped through his fingers, which seemed to be melting like wax. It clattered to the floor. His mouth and eyes disappeared for a moment behind little clouds of television snow. Then the static cut off abruptly, and Gaster returned to normal.
Sans stared.
"Excuse me," Gaster muttered. "As I have said. It is. So difficult to maintain. Physicality. One of the many places. In which you will help me." His hand solid once more, he bent to retrieve the pen, wiped it off on his cloak, and returned to his little questionnaire with no further comment.
"Did you ever pursue a formal education again?"
"Nope. Never bothered."
"I see. What has been your employment status over the years?"
"I dunno, a few things, I… what does this actually matter to you?"
"Answer the question, please."
"Okay, but—" Sans shook his head. "Gaster, do you seriously know none of this stuff? You must've been watching some of the time."
Gaster tapped the pen against the paper in thought. Sans often did the same thing when he was thinking or searching for words. "I was always watching," he said at last. "Just not in the direct fashion you are thinking of."
"Right."
"Now then: your employment status. How have you been supporting yourself and that brother of yours?"
Sans glowered. "Papyrus. He has a name. And… I've done a bunch o' different stuff, I guess. We… after you…. after it happened, I worked for the Tems for a coupla years. Then I found better work and I stopped. Then after I picked up a whole bunch of jobs, kinda at the same time. A sentry for the Guard. Ran a hot dog stand. Oh, and I picked up a stand-up job at the MTT Resort – that's new. It's in Hotland."
He didn't offer any description of the robot himself, and he didn't mention his job for the King. He wanted to have at least some information to keep for himself. He didn't want it all to belong to Gaster. It was a small, pathetic kind of victory, but Sans meant to take whatever he could get.
He'd been expecting Gaster to make a comment about the Tems, but his creator just hummed, jotting everything down.
"Have you ever engaged in self-destructive habits or behaviours?"
"Like what."
Gaster made a vague gesture in the air. "I'm sure you can think of a few examples. Drug addiction—perhaps a rash assumption, but you did mention past employment with the Temmies, these things happen… Or alcoholism, perhaps… self-harm…"
Sans hunched his shoulders and shut his eyesockets, turning his head from side to side as if he had a migraine. "Yeah."
Gaster looked up sharply. "Self-harm?"
"No… no… not… no, before that…" He plucked at his sleeve. "Drinking, I guess."
His creator stood up a little straighter—no, he just… expanded. His whole form grew and stretched so that he loomed several inches taller. Or maybe it was just Sans's imagination. His gaze bore down on him in scrutiny. "You… guess," he repeated pointedly.
Sans swallowed. "Yes," he managed. "Yeah, I've… "
"Alcoholism."
Sans just nodded mutely.
A measured pause. Gaster shrunk back down to his normal size and noted it down. "Thank you. That is important for us to consider, though it shouldn't impede our present concerns."
"Oh, good," Sans muttered. "You had me worried there for a sec."
Gaster, to his surprise, didn't react, just looked at him long and hard. "We will, of course. Have to work towards treatment regardless. In the future. But. Perhaps that shall be all for now."
Sans heaved a sigh. "On that note. You ready to let me in on the big plan?" he asked at last, and his creator seemed slightly smug.
"Ah. Of course. We are going to finish what we started."
Sans nodded once, gaze straying to the examination table. He'd figured as much. Before he could say anything—ask another question, make a snarky remark, he didn't know what—Gaster carried on.
"The Determination that remains is your system behaves as an antithesis to magic. It is a property that humans have as opposed to a monster's magic, and that is what gives them power because they do not have the magic monsters have. Some humans have traces of magic, just as some monsters possess traces of Determination, but at the end of the day, a being with high amounts of both should not exist.
"Determination is also stronger than magic. When it entered your system, it came at the expense of the magic you possessed. Or perhaps more accurately. At the expense of its strength. Making you even less of a monster than before. Biologically speaking. This, as you know, stunted your growth. For monsters, and those things that resemble them. Need magic to grow. You do not have enough magic to grow. It is weak, and scarce enough that it cannot be spent on your growth. This, too. Has led to your poor magic output and low health."
"Yep. Reminder's always appreciated, like I said." Sans clenched his fists. His fists. Small, broken body with its awkward, childish proportions.
"When we first began the Determination trials," Gaster continued, as if Sans hadn't said anything, "there was an important detail regarding the nature of anomalies that I had overlooked in my research. This—I can guarantee it—is the reason for the. Incident. At the CORE. And the reason you failed to become a proper anomaly."
"For unfortunately, no matter what approach we might have taken. Making you a proper anomaly would have been impossible. For you see, Sans. An anomaly must come from outside the Underground. We cannot simply alter a pre-existing variable and expect the achieve full results. An anomaly must be an external force. Causing a disruption in spacetime within the confines of the Barrier. That is what makes an anomaly's abilities. So potent."
Sans' mind was reeling. Too much information at once, he couldn't separate old from new.
Something about Gaster's words seemed off. Inaccurate, or misinformed, maybe. Something to do with the flower, he was pretty sure, but he couldn't tell exactly what in the moment. For now, he disregarded it. It wasn't like he cared. It wasn't like it mattered.
He managed a dry chuckle. "So all that shit you put me through with the DT. Goin' through fucking hell. All for nothing, huh, Gaster? Great. And here I was thinking these past twenty years it was worth something at least."
Gaster turned his back to him, scanning the notes on his clipboard. "No, Sans. That is incorrect. Though I was initially misguided in my efforts, the Barrier is shattered now. We are no longer impeded by the Underground's closed system. An anomaly can come from anywhere."
Pause. Sans closed his eyes.
"You will initiate a true Reset."
He opened them. He thought of the CORE.
"You're kidding me."
Gaster didn't look up. "On the contrary." He seemed distracted. "That project failed before. However. We've no reason to believe it will fail us now."
"Gaster, we're on the Surface now. Don't gotta worry about Resetting to—what was it, before the war?—to make sure monsters go free. And I sure don't feel like gettin' stuck a thousand years in the past. Try and find something else to do." He tried to stand, but his soul flared and twisted. Gaster forced him back down onto the chair.
"And you believe the humans can be trusted?" Gaster didn't really look angry, not exactly. He looked more annoyed, as if Sans had interrupted him to ask what a big word meant in the book he was reading.
"Is our race. Living in peaceful co-existence with the humans? Integrated without issue into their society?" He didn't wait for Sans's answer. "I remain committed. To my title. To my people. And their well-being. Even if things are more or less peaceful now. They will not remain that way."
Something shimmered behind Sans, and he turned around in his chair.
Where there had once been a solid wall—it suddenly hit him that this room was made up of nothing but solid wall, all around, with no points of entry or exit—there was now a translucent barrier, already fading into nothing. And on the other side of that dissolving wall was a hallway, the rest of the labs. The room they were in was directly opposite the Determination Extraction Machine.
Sans's breath hitched as Gaster suddenly yanked him upwards so that he was forced to stand on his feet, though the grip on his soul was not relinquished.
Dizzily he thought back to the labs of his childhood. Yes, that was right, there'd once been a room across the hall from the Extractor, hadn't there? There'd been a room there when he was little. He remembered it. The room hadn't been there when he and Frisk had gone on their tour of the labs, but apparently, it was back in its place, and it was where he and Gaster were right now.
Gaster strode over to the Extractor, and pulled a lever on the wall. With a low, bone-chilling groan that made the floor tremble, the machine was powered to life. He flipped a switch on the Extractor's side then, and the machine opened, its front swinging back and revealing an assortment of wires and tubes and miniature mechanical contraptions. The wires and tubes fed into the top half of the machine, which was occupied by some kind of storage unit. It was lined with enormous jars, held by metal clasps, that Sans recognised as the units that had been once used to house the human souls. There were seven in all. Only the middle container was empty.
The other containers, however, did not hold souls, but something else. The ones to the right were filled with what Sans recognised as Determination, and those to the left were filled with a thin, cloudy substance coloured a light cyan, which swirled around in the glass containers as if in a dance.
"Raw, undiluted magic," Gaster supplied, apparently sensing Sans' confusion. "Less common than one might think. You have seen it before, but you were very small. I doubt you remember it."
Sans just shook his head. "So you're just gonna… what? Stick more needles in me, fill me up with more DT until you think you can take a stab at making me Reset again?"
"More or less," was the offhanded reply.
Sans stared at the Extractor a moment longer, then tore his gaze away. He realised his sleeve had made its way to his mouth, and he quickly dropped his arm. "No, you're not gonna… " A delayed realisation hit him then. His soul dropped. "What about Frisk? You were tryin' to get her here, too, you—"
"The human will come in due time. Remove your sweater."
"I—what?" A pair of Gaster's magic hands manifested, one on either side of him. They grabbed at his sweater and yanked—at the hood, at the collar. Sans wrestled against them, but soon his sweater had been stripped from him. The hands draped it over the back of the chair before dissolving.
"I believe you can keep your T-shirt on this time. It is very cold here. No need to cause you unnecessary discomfort."
Sans ignored him. "What the hell do you plan on doing to the kid?"
Gaster didn't even flinch. He tapped his knuckles against the side of the Extractor. "When the human arrives, its soul will be taken and stored here, so that I may study it sufficiently."
Sans didn't know why he was surprised. A cold dread filled him anyway. "No."
"After that," Gaster continued as if he hadn't heard, "and if I can eliminate the possibility of any serious risk, we can then proceed to the next stage in the experiment, and you will absorb the soul before preparing to initiate a Reset."
He must have stopped shaking at some point, because he became all too aware of the fact that he was trembling now, his bones rattling loudly as he stared at his creator.
"Gaster, please," he gasped out. "Please, just… fine, whatever you do with me, I don't care, but please, please, don't hurt Frisk, leave her alone, she don't know anything about you, just please leave the kid alone, let her go, please… " He was rambling in his desperation, and he knew it.
Gaster frowned. "Are you suggesting you trust the human, then, Sans?"
"I… what? What the hell are you talking about, I—"
"That human is one of the most powerful forces imaginable. It has the ability to return each and every one of you back to the Underground and undo all that has been accomplished. To play with time, to play you. As it pleases. It could slaughter every monster alive if it so chose, and all for a lark. To the human, we monsters are nothing but disposable playthings. This is for your own good. And for the good of monsterkind."
Sans gasped, trying to ease his breathing. "Frisk ain't gonna do that. I don't know what the hell you're on about, but she's a good kid. Ain't known a soul that damn good since Papyrus, and I'm not... I'm not gonna let you hurt her," he finished, lamely.
Gaster stared at him, expression a blank canvas as always. He raised a hand and curled it into a fist. The blue grip around Sans's soul tightened further, so tight he couldn't breathe—
"You do not have a choice," Gaster replied calmly.
Sans clenched his teeth, tears gathering at the corners of his eyesockets, until finally Gaster dropped his hand, and the hold was lessened. Sans was aware of his eyelights fading to black.
"So what," he said in a low voice. "You gonna yank her over here again once you're ready, like when you did whatever the hell you were doing in her dreams?"
"No. My control is not that complete, I'm afraid. We are already in the Void, or very close to it. I have the ability to bring a being into the Void, but once that being is here, it has the will to explore as it pleases. I can assure you, however. That the human will come here eventually of its own free will."
Sans refused to say anything more, soaking it all in. Frisk had gotten away. She didn't have to come back here. Maybe she'd find her way back home. Maybe she still had a chance.
Just so long as she was smart enough not to try and come back for him. Of that, Sans couldn't be so sure.
"Now, then. If you're quite through with your little tantrum." Gaster seemed to be satisfied, for he stepped back and laid his palms flat against the tray table. "I am eager for us to begin. Can I expect you to be compliant from here?"
Sans' eyes flicked to the operating table again. Something in him withered then, and he nodded slightly, looking down at his toes. Come on, kid…
"Yes, Gaster."
His creator gave a firm nod in return. "Very good. Thank you, Sans."
"Don't mention it," he muttered.
There was an awkward pause. Gaster cleared his throat. "You know… I am explaining these things to you. Because you have. The right to understand. The nature of these experiments. And what is being done to you. I would not deny you that right."
Sans just stared at him, and at last Gaster sighed, almost in disappointment, and got to work.
He remained quiet through the procedure. Gaster scanned him quickly, re-confirming his HP, his Attack and Defence stats. He weighed Sans—eleven pounds when clothed, apparently—and measured his height, the circumference of his skull and ribcage, the span of his arms. He tested Sans's reflexes and shone a penlight into both his eyesockets.
All the while he took down notes and muttered to himself, his words too low to hear, and obscured by so much static that he would have been indiscernible anyway. Here and there his speech was accentuated by small blipping noises, cheery little trills amongst the din. Sans didn't pay very much attention either way, just subjected himself to the procedure of preparing for the experiment.
There was a joke in there somewhere, he thought distantly. He'd have to try and remember it for later.
A little secret: the worst part of it was that Sans couldn't even bring himself to fight back anymore. Not because he was tired, this time, or even because he was afraid.
The worst part was that he found himself at ease, comforted as things fell back into familiar routine. So many details of his memories of the labs had faded over the years, but now everything was starting to come back, and it felt like all was right with the world.
"Very well, then." Gaster cleared his throat. "We are nearly ready to begin. Up on the table."
A few sets of magic hands materialised next to him again. Gaster made to lift him up onto the table with blue magic, but Sans climbed up by himself. The table was higher than he remembered, and so the magic hands gave him a boost, hoisting him up. They eased him down so that he lay flat on his back. One set of hand constructs removed his socks and shoes.
The hands began to fasten the restraints, strapping him securely down.
Ankles. Waist. Wrists. Forehead.
The leather bit into him, the material rubbing uncomfortably against his bones. Sans began to struggle, but he could barely move, and struggling only made the restraints dig deeper into his bones. The table underneath him was cold and unyielding, especially against his tailbone. He'd forgotten how horrible it felt to have his movements completely inhibited. With his forehead strapped down, Sans couldn't even turn his head, so that he was forced to stare up at the ceiling. He could only see a portion of what was to his left side if he moved his eyes, and the world to his right remained totally dark.
Something cool swiped against his arm and he flinched before realising what it was. A cotton ball soaked in antiseptic.
"Just a last few minor preparations before we start."
"You… what—" Sans hissed, sucking air in between his teeth as something sharp bit into his right humerus. Scalpel. The sound of metal chiselling away at bone was unpleasant and grating, and he could feel it all the way up in his skull. The feeling was somehow reminiscent to that of a hangover. At least it didn't hurt as much as he remembered.
A few more seconds passed, and it was over. Clicketty-slap, clicketty-slap, went Gaster's footsteps as he circled round Sans's head. He was using a dropper to add a cloudy fluid into the test tube he'd just filled with tiny slivers of bone. Sensing that Sans was looking at him (as best he could, anyway), Gaster straightened his shoulders and sealed the tube with a stopper.
"A simple magic solution. To keep the bone from turning to dust."
Sans said nothing. He sort of remembered that, though.
"I will need to study it more closely. I am curious to see if your physiology has been affected by the Resets and Reloads you lived through. The alcoholism as well," he added, as an afterthought.
Huh. So he knew about the flower.
Of course he knew about the flower, another voice in his head countered. There was no way in hell he was just referring to the kid's Reloads. Gaster knew.
Sans said nothing. He stared up at the colourless ceiling and counted the ceiling tiles.
Clickety-slap, clickety slap. Gaster had stored his bone sample somewhere; now Sans caught a glimpse of his creator as he passed the examination table again in the direction of the Determination Extractor. That made sense, right.
Counting the ceiling tiles didn't take very long. Sans tried to find something else to distract himself with.
"Alright. We're very nearly ready." Gaster appeared at his side again, fixing
something to the IV stand—it was an IV bag filled with the cloudy blue magic solution.
Sans peered up at it. "What's… "
"I want to fix you to a magic solution drip for the procedure," Gaster was using that toneless but inexplicably patient voice he'd sometimes use when Sans was very small and had trouble understanding how an experiment was supposed to go. "A rather standard procedure in the medical practise, actually. In your case, it has been a long time since you've received any Determination, and you have never received such a large, concentrated amount before. I do believe you will be fine, but it pays to be cautious. A constant flow of magic solution into your system will help to balance out the Determination." He waved his hand, then pulled Sans's soul into visibility.
Sans choked, staring in horror. His soul pulsated weakly, hovering just millimetres above his sternum. He struggled as Gaster, impassive as ever, brought the needle closer and closer.
There was a slight sting as the needle pierced the fragile membrane of his soul. Sans shuddered as it was followed by a rush of coolness. He braced himself for the pain, but there was nothing. It wasn't even uncomfortable, in the strictest sense of the word. It just felt wrong, foreign, and he couldn't tell if it was the magic solution or the catheter that delivered it or both.
His body twitched in the restraints and shuddered again.
A flash of a frown. "How do you feel?" Gaster asked him.
Sans squinted. "… kinda weird. But okay, I guess."
"Very good." With no further comment, Gaster disappeared from his line of vision once more.
Sans allowed his eyes to slide shut again, and tried to relax, and not worry about the kid. Which was a laughable concept, but pretending was always nice. And about all he could do right now, anyway. Maybe he could pretend like the magic solution was some fancy spa treatment like Mettaton used to offer at the MTT Resort.
He didn't have to pretend for very long; Gaster returned just moments later.
Another cool swipe as his forearm was cleaned with antiseptic. The wheels of the IV stand squeaked.
That was when he saw the IV sac, loaded with deep red Determination.
That was when all his fears came bursting to the surface. Sheer, undulated terror.
It didn't matter that it was attached to an IV tube this time, and not a syringe like he was used to. It was Determination, it was memories of the flower's Resets and his brother's dust, it was blinding, searing pain that made him scream and scream no matter how badly he tried to suppress the sound. It was Gaster, back from the Void when he thought he'd finally been free of him. Again Sans struggled vainly in the restraints, thin whimpers escaping him.
"No… nonono… this can't – Gaster, you're dead. You died."
Gaster paused, fingering the needle. He tilted his head, studying the instrument closer. "No," he said at last. "No. I was not granted that much."
Sans just bucked hard against the restraints, teeth clenched tight. "I'm gonna get out of here. Can't keep me strapped down to a table forever. You can't… I don't care where you were these last years, I'm not a little kid anymore, Gaster, I'm not your subject, I—"
"You are only making this more difficult for yourself," Gaster cut him off.
He paused, then stepped back and drummed his fingers together in thought.
Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack, like knitting needles.
"You know, Sans. I fail to see. How fighting this benefits you."
So his speech was breaking up again. Was that a good sign? Sans couldn't waste his energy by hinging his hopes on it. So instead he unleashed a barking laugh.
"Gee, I dunno. Maybe 'cause I'm not a real big fan of getting tortured and goin' through agony. Just a thought, if you wanted to write it down on your little file you got on my behavioural patterns or whatever."
"That isn't what I mean." Each word carried such weight. "Fighting this will be of no real value to you. What did you ever hope to accomplish outside of these experiments? What worth could you possibly carry outside of these labs?"
"What?"
"What have you managed to achieve since the incident at the CORE?" He went on before Sans got a chance to answer—not in a forceful way, but as if he sensed that Sans had no response to give. "Uneducated, a fifth grade dropout. No outlet for the scientific knowledge you so desperately seek out. Sloughing through life from one ill-paying job to another. Spending half your earnings to indulge your alcohol addiction. Failing the brother you assumed responsibility for.
"You were grown from in a tube from small extracts of bone and soul, an artificial life form. You were created for the sole purpose of serving the Underground as an experiment. A vessel to free monsterkind from the constant cruelty of humans. That is your only function. Fulfilling your purpose."
Gaster's words washed over him, each one ringing with what he knew to be the truth.
A well opened up in his mind. He fell in.
It was quiet, but it was not peaceful. He fell down a bottomless abyss of swirling primary colours—blue, yellow, red—that twisted and turned and raged. And all round, like stars in that warped watercolour landscape, were glitching black squares.
One square yawned open, expanding, as Sans tumbled in its direction. He fell in.
The scene changed as he landed on his feet, constructing itself around him before his very eyes.
Sans saw himself aged five. He watched his child self, and yet at the same time he was his child self, was both observer and participant.
The five-year-old Sans walked across the playground at recess time, dressed in a school uniform that was just slightly too big for him, eyes on the ground. Hot, angry tears streamed silently down his cheekbones and his hands were clenched into fists. The other kids had excluded him from their game, and Sans could hear their taunts bouncing around in his skull. The children's words had faded into obscurity, the sound muffled, but their sting was fresh, and the child Sans was burning with anger and shame and envy.
He sat down on a bench and pulled a book out from his backpack. He began to read it, or rather pretend to. Sniffling, his gaze flicked up every so often to watch his schoolmates at their ball-bouncing game, and each time, he was overcome with fresh waves of emotion. He would hastily look back down at his book, and yet, only a minute or two later, he would peer up again. And the cycle repeated.
"Pathetic."
The voice in his head was Gaster's, but somehow the thought belonged to Sans.
The scene changed.
Darkness.
He was still very small. Perhaps still five, definitely no older than six, sitting huddled in a corner of the dark, dark closet with his knees hugged tight to his chest. His hands smarted from having banged them repeatedly against the closet door. Sans shared his child self's burning anger, and he shared his desperate fear, the darkness surrounding him, all-encompassing, pressing in on the edges of his mind.
"Pathetic."
The scene changed.
Now he was eight, sitting at a desk in the labs with a cup sitting before him and his wrists tied to the armrests of his chair. Electrodes fastened to his skull. He was staring with fixed concentration at the cup. Sans felt a tightness in his chest as he gathered his blue magic, such that it hummed with energy. He tried with all his might to transfer that energy over to the cup, but try as he might he couldn't get a grip on it.
"I can't, I - I… I'm sorry, okay?" he heard himself say, in a high, young voice slightly accented by a lisp from a missing front tooth.
And God, he was crying, just sitting there and crying, crying because he couldn't get the damn cup to move. Christ, kid, don't you know by now you're just wasting your energy, don't you know by now there's no point, don't you know crying isn't going to help anything, crying just irritates him and it's never going to make him stop and it's all so –
"Pathetic."
White.
Everything was white.
Snowdin. Outside their shed.
But no, that was… Gaster hadn't been there, he wasn't supposed to know about this, how could he—
Sans was eleven, pacing back and forth. His hands were stuffed in his pockets and he glared down at the ground he stomped on, kicking up clouds of snow. Angry and annoyed.
The planks of wood that functioned as their door had been slid shut as far as possible. Papyrus could be heard kicking and screaming inside. He was throwing a tantrum.
He was hungry.
He was hungry and throwing a tantrum because this was the start of their second day without any food and they were out of money and Sans hadn't been able to steal anything because he wasn't very good at it yet. And he could feel the hunger pains seizing at him, too. He didn't know how much longer they could go without eating, and he already knew trying to eat the snow didn't do anything. Sans was tired and hungry and so was his brother. He didn't know how Papyrus even had the energy to throw such a tantrum.
But the fact was that he did have the energy and he was throwing a fit. Didn't he understand that they didn't have any food or money and Sans couldn't do a thing about it? Didn't he understand that Sans was tired, he didn't have the energy to deal with this, and…
Sans watched, thinking he might be sick.
Jesus Christ, of course Papyrus didn't understand. He'd only passed his fourth birthday two weeks ago. And instead of comforting him, he'd left him alone in the shed.
The young Sans slumped down against the side of the shed, and buried his face in his hands. He didn't cry, he didn't make any move to comfort his brother even as he went on howling. He just sat there, useless.
"Pathetic."
He came back up, gasping and coughing as though emerging from underwater.
His chest heaved as he grounded himself back in reality. The labs, right.
"What the hell, Gaster?" he managed. "What the hell was that?" He clenched his teeth, swallowing a sob. "How the fuck did you… what are you… ?"
"May we begin, Sans?"
"Go to hell."
This time, he felt it: a force reaching into his mind, or maybe it had always been there, and only now was it beginning to stir. He tried to hold it back, but he didn't have anything to hold it back with. So then he tried to run, but there wasn't anywhere to run to, and the force found him.
Back under again. One last image, a final teasing touch.
Snowdin again, years later. Nighttime. The ground tipped and teetered beneath his feet, uneven and unstill, and at the same time it spun. His whole body felt warm and fuzzy. Heh. Funny. Probably.
Him, staggering through the door to their house. Standing in the threshold, swaying on the spot before lurching forward and faceplanting into the middle of the living room floor. The cold breeze coming through the open door. He remained there, not sure how he'd ended up on the carpet but too tired to bother moving.
And Papyrus, all of fourteen, patiently removing the key from where it had been left in the keyhole, gently closing the door behind him. Papyrus gathering his limp form in his arms and carrying him upstairs as Sans remained useless, eyes closed and mumbling incoherently.
Calm and collected. This had happened before. It was already part of a well-established routine.
"Pathetic."
This time, when he came back up, he was crying.
"As I said. This is the best use you'll be to anyone. Yourself included."
"Get out of my head," he whispered hoarsely.
He didn't know if Gaster heard him or not, just that he sounded pleased. "It seems we're about ready to begin, then."
This was really happening. God, it was really… something was wrong, something had changed, a crack splitting open in his bedroom wall, no, he was… there was something he was forgetting, something about his brother, or maybe Frisk, or maybe both, he couldn't remember, maybe it didn't matter… he was drunk, coming home from Grillby's drunk and he'd keeled over in the snow… Papyrus was disappointed in him, no, Toriel was disappointed in him, no, he was… he was here, on the examination table with an IV full of magic dripping into his soul, unable to move, and Gaster was standing over him and God oh God this was really happening.
He said: "Please."
Then again. And again. And again – "please, please, pleasepleaseplease – " like a mantra.
He said it even as he knew it would do nothing, just as it had done nothing in the past.
"That's enough, now, Sans," was Gaster's only response.
Sans didn't answer; he barely even registered what Gaster had said. He struggled and whimpered, like a stupid, snivelling, pathetic little kid.
Instead of pain, there was a pause. Gaster was leaning over him at such an angle that he could see his face, and what he saw was something akin to a smile, awkward and faltering. "It will be alright. And it will be worth it. In the end. For all of us. You will see."
He took a moment to correct himself, shaking his head and clearing his throat. "Resuming Determination Trials, 201X, subject age: twenty-nine years. Let us begin."
And then the needle went in.