"you feel anything like that again, or any different at all, you come right back to me, got it?"
Frisk once again nodded, crossing their arms into the shape of an x across their chest.
"yeah, yeah, you can go now."
Frisk jumped up and ran out after their friends, leaving Sans alone with Gaster—who had apparently walked out the room while he was chatting. Oh well. Cherish the moment where the entire room didn't feel sombre with Gaster's presence.

Though, with the current mood he was in, he could do that on his own.

"Entry 2. Sans woke up, however the block I reinstated has once again inexplicably disappeared. He experienced what I could only assume was a nightmare and threw me against the wall. Then the child came down with similar symptoms but with completely different readings. I can only hope that they do not suffer the same fate as Sans. I have been routinely using healing magic on his wound, but the problem will always reassert itself days later. I am at a loss for what to do."

He hesitated, but growled in frustration and tossed the recorder away.

Was there a point to doing this if he would return to be dead anyway? Or will he stay? Will Sans allow him to stay? Does he belong in another timeline?

Gaster adjusted his clothing compulsively and clenched his fingers into fists. "If only I understood why."

3 days later

Sans, Papyrus, Undyne and Frisk all coddled around the TV set in Toriel's house, watching the daily news. It was still a new prospect for monsters, and some of them, namely Papyrus, were finding it extremely entertaining. Or, something to complain about.

"Saaaaans!"

"yea"

"Why is there a TV channel! About the weather!? Why!?"

"what'd you mean, pap?"

"Well, we can just look outside! It's pointless!"

"heh, well. how 'bout you write to 'em?"

"Write…to them…? What will that do!"

"maybe if they think you're cool enough they'll take you on board."

"And be the Royal Weather Skeleton! Yes! I can see it now!"

"…no, that wasn't what i—"

"Sans! You are very smart! Almost as smart as me!"

"huh."

"NGAHHH!" Undyne suddenly shot upright, "Imagine me as a weather person! PUT ON YOUR COAT OR YOU WILL DROWN!"

"oh jeez."

"We could be weather people together! The Great Papyrus and Undyne the Undying – Weatherpersons!" Papyrus waltzed in front of the TV while Undyne paced in thoughtful circles.

Undyne's eye glowed in excitement, "That sounds PERFECT! I will march onto their stage tomorrow and we will take it over!"

Both monsters shouted in unintelligible unison of excitement while Frisk and Sans cringed, clapping their hands over their ears.

"What is going on in here?"

Everyone stopped shouting and turned around ruefully to the voice of Toriel, standing at the doorstep with a baked pie. Sans grinned from the sofa.

"Erm…" Papyrus slumped, "The weather…?"

She smiled, "The weather? My my, you are running out of topics to talk about. How about something a little more interesting?" she gestured down to her plate of food and hesitated, her eye noticing Sans staring at Frisk uneasily. "Sans? Frisk?"

Sans whipped his head around, "huh? oh, right. yeah, ok."

"Frisk?" Toriel asked again, "Are you alright, my child?"

Frisk's head popped up in attention from staring their feet, and nodded vigorously.

"Well…if you say so," she said slowly, noticing how Sans was still watching them, "Would you like some pie?"

They smiled and nodded again, reaching out for the entire plate and practically snatching it from her hands.

"What—all of it?" she cautiously stepped forward, "That's quite a lot of pie, my dear, I baked it for everyone!"

Sans took the plate off the child, "s'alright, tori, i got it," he gave it to the kid, "there ya go, kiddo."

"Sans!"

He grinned sheepishly. "what? kid's gotta eat."

Toriel stared at him for a long second before shaking her head and striding out the room, leaving Frisk to eat and entire pie for themselves.

"Wow, Frisk, that's impressive," Undyne remarked, sitting back down on the sofa, "But only impressive if you finish it! NGAAHH!"

Papyrus crossed his arms, "The human will find this task easy! Frisk has eaten numerous plates of my delicious pasta without any problems at all!"

Sans snorted, "dunno bro, that's kinda different." Frisk meanwhile seemed to be having no problems digging into the blueberry pie.

Since being on the surface and mingling with the humans, it opened up a literal whole new world of opportunities for the monsters. Toriel and Papyrus still stuck to pasta and pie—different variations nonetheless, but it's the thought that counts.

By the time Frisk had finished eating the entire thing on their own, Toriel came back out and sat in her rocking chair.

"Oh my, you were hungry," she proclaimed while sitting, "Do you want more?" Frisk, luckily, shook their head.

Toriel smiled, relieved, "Good."

After a few moments, Frisk continued to stare at their feet, before pointing to the garden.

"You want to go outside?"

They nodded.

Undyne spoke up, "Let's all go outside!" but Sans immediately butted in.

"let's just leave the kid to have some peace and quiet for a while, y'know?"

Toriel, Undyne and Papyrus all turned their heads at him. He shrugged in dismissal. Strangely, the kid simply stood up and walked out into the garden unprompted, closing the door behind them and walking out of sight from the glass.

Everyone watched the window, apprehensive and worried for their human friend.

Silently, Sans followed suit, standing up and apprehensively heading towards the door. Papyrus was about to question him, but Undyne pulled on his shoulder before he could speak and shook her head.

Outside, Sans found the kid around the side of the house, sitting cross-legged on the grass against the brick walls. It was cloudy and grey, seemingly like it was going to rain soon. He sighed, and approached the kid.

Frisk looked up as Sans knelt down to them.

"heya kiddo, what's up?"

Frisk simply watched him for a moment as if wanting to say something, but shrugged, gaze dropping to their feet.

"I…"

Sans peered up to meet Frisk's eyes at their first spoken word to him. Frisk tensed up, beginning to rock in place slightly.

"hey, take it easy, it's alright," he said, not wanting to scare them back into silence.

Slowly, Frisk pulled back one of their blue sleeves, wincing as the red blistered skin brushed against their clothes, eyes darting around the area in angst.

Sans groused silent curses under his breath, so the kid isn't immune to the effects of the timeline.

"It…" Frisk cleared their throat and adverted their gaze, "it hurts like hell. Every second of every day. It's all I feel. I tried to ignore it, but…"

Gritting his teeth, Sans called upon his healing magic and put a hand over their arm, blue wisps floating in circular motions from his eye, "so, when did it come back?"

"The day after Alphys brought me in…"

"what?" Sans frowned at them in near anger, "the day after? you've had this for 2 days?"

Frisk shook their head and agitatedly started crawling backwards, "Sorry, I didn't want to annoy anyone. You've got the same thing too and it wouldn't be fair if I complained about mine if—"

"i told you to come straight to me if this reoccurred."

"I know but—" Frisk's heart was racing in their throat.

"you don't know what could have happened if you let this continue."

Frisk swallowed hard and stumbled back, tripping over as they tried to get to their feet. They yanked their arm out of Sans' hand and tried to make a hasty escape, breathing rapidly and hoarsely. The room was spinning.

Sans immediately dropped his demeanour, and stood up to meet them, "hey, hey, hey, sit down. i'm not angry." His blue eye dimmed, and he forced a half smile. Putting a hand gently on their shoulder, Frisk jolted and started edging away, eyes wide and stumbling everywhere.

for the love of…

"Frisk, sit down, now." he said more sternly, only for the kid to nearly fall into the wall while hyperventilating. Their eyes darted around the garden, making pitiful whimpering sounds as if a wounded animal. They shielded their body from him, as if afraid of being hurt.

"Tori!" he yelled, hoping the old lady in the house would overhear. Frisk's breaths were sawing in and out as they slid down the wall.

Mere seconds later, the door opened to reveal Toriel peeking out, then immediately gasping and running over. "My child! What's wrong? Are they hurt? Did they fall over?"

"nah, think it's more a panic attack," he reaffirmed, locking eyes with the child who was still going, stepping slowly closer, "you been having nightmares too?"

Frisk's eyes widened in surprise, which only confirmed his beliefs.

so, I have nightmares about gaster, Frisk has nightmares about me. great.

"Oh dear, my poor child! You must breathe slower. Whatever are you panicking about?"

Sans and Frisk met eyes, one concerned and one filled with pure unbridled terror.

"I can't—I can't—"

Toriel looks equally as surprised as Sans was earlier to hear Frisk's voice, perhaps it was on accident? But she quickly reclaimed control and took hold of the child's wrists.

"Frisk, my dear, breathe with me, match my breathing, slow and steady, do you understand?"

Sans could only watch as Frisk's eyes stared intensely at Toriel, nodding quickly to her request and trying to obey. He felt some sympathy. He had had panic attacks over Gaster before, since having the nightmares. But being a child, what they must be seeing of him must be mentally so much worse.

Frisk's hands were shaking and fluttering in Toriel's grasp, but eventually the rapid gasping begun to slow down. Sans drew in a long sigh of relief. He was never that good at these sorts of things, he was lucky Toriel was here.

"There you are, you poor thing. Goodness, what could have caused such a fright?"

Frisk remained silent, but quickly side-glanced Sans, who just stared solemnly at the floor.

"Sans? Do you have an explanation?" Toriel tried again to get an answer.

"like I said Tori, think it was a panic attack."

"What about?"

"now, that's between me and the kid."

Toriel narrowed her eyes at him, but he just shrugged and slumped down the wall, exhausted. Damn, and he wasn't the one expelling all that energy.

"Well, if it's a private matter I won't intervene, but Frisk is going straight to bed now. They must be fatigued and in need of sleep."

Frisk groaned, muttering "I don't want to!"

"Well, you are, come along!" Toriel stated sternly, taking Frisk's hand and pulling them towards the door. Sans sniggered as he walked along behind them.

Ah, parents.

Another week had passed.

There was a routine going now. Gaster would heal Sans, Sans would heal Frisk, Frisk would try to make excuses, rinse and repeat.

They met again in the large garden, while Toriel tended to the flowers.

"Sans," Frisk mumbled, gaze averting to the floor, "I can't do this anymore."

The small skeleton narrowed his eye sockets, "can't do what, pal?"

"….This," they gestured to their own body, "I can't deal with this, I can't deal with that," and then pointed to Sans' wound, "It's not right."

Sans could feel himself getting worked up over the prospect of what this could be, "sorry, kid, i don't know what you're talking about."

"It's all gone wrong…this isn't what I wanted," Frisk took a deep breath as they noticed Sans' face fall blank, "The injuries, the nightmares, I…everything isn't right."

"it's fine."

"It's not fine! Are you really trying to—!" Frisk stopped when they saw Toriel looking over, their voice so loud she could hear and was probably curious. They tried again in a quieter tone, "…Are you really trying to tell me your ideal world is pain and nightmares?"

Sans shrugged, "nah, it's hopes and dreams."

Frisk clenched their jaw in frustration, balling their fists. Sans grew unusually quiet, a fixed look of concentration on his face.

"This is supposed to be a true pacifist timeline…everything should be perfect," Frisk gazed into the eyes of Sans that was slowly going from blue to black as he began to realise what they intended to do, "I want to try and fix it…"

Eyes empty, he demanded, "don't you dare."

They insisted, "But if I could just—"

"i said don't you dare."

"I'm not gonna reset—"

"i said no."

Frisk pursed their lips together, grinding their teeth in aggravation. They had a plan and wanted to stick to it.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this…"

Slowly, Sans' eyes returned back in their sockets and he sighed. Frightening Frisk clearly wasn't the way to go anymore. He gave them a comforting hug. "look, kid, this is just the way it is. there's no set-in-stone way to do this anymore. ever since you left the underground you should've known that not everything is going to be perfect."

Frisk stared at the ground, not releasing the hug, as if it was the last time they would be able to do it.

"and if either of us die due to this, that's just the way it is. the world will go on."

Frisk blinked harshly, trying to keep back the onslaught of emotion threatening to pour out. "That's why I have to do this."

Sans didn't even have time to turn his eyes black again before he quickly said, "don't you dare. DON'T YOU DARE—!"

But they had already disappeared.

To be continued…

A/N: hi! thank you for reading this and for any kudos! also I want to say to everyone reading right now, i know our situation with whats going on lately can seem pretty grim but we'll get through this, with a bit of binge reading and probably a lot of unnecessary takeouts, we'll get through it. be strong and stay determined! x