The sounds of footsteps pounding over and over again, like thousands of hammers striking thick sheets of steel with no rhyme or rhythm, assaulted my ears the moment I came to, accompanying the throbbing tremors in my head quite nicely. I shook off my fatigue as best I could and opened my eyes to the cold tile floor spread out below me.

"Where the hell am I?" I tried to ask, but no sound came out. Frustrated, I pushed my limp body off the floor and climbed up on wobbly legs. The last thing I remembered was passing out in the snow after my battle with Papyrus, but there was no sign of the lanky skeleton or even a patch of snow anywhere. Instead of the greens and browns of pines trees, I was surrounded by the reds and blues of...lockers, pressed against the walls? Along with...

...Unbelievable.

People. Humans. A ton of them, all rushing back and forth in every direction like chickens without heads. Most of the albeit very hazy faces I recognized, too, all boys and girls about my age. None I was particularly happy to see again.

Once I had finally gotten my head wrapped around the impossibility of the familiarity of my situation, the name of the location finally slapped me across the face.

Ebott Center High school.

A place filled to the bursting point with insufferable students & teachers alike, horrible staff, and revolting cafeteria food. A place that had time and time again attempted to smoke out and squash any creative freedom I had remarkably maintained from my childhood. A place I oddly hadn't cast a single thought since getting lost in the Underground. Maybe my brain had attempted to shut out anything I hated with a burning passion from my memory as some kind of bizarre survival strategy.

It hadn't done a very good job.

Please just get me out this nightmare, I urged, but it was no use. Regardless of the memories, I had woken up here on the grubby old floor surrounded by chattering dimwits for a reason, and wasn't about to stand around and wait for someone to pass me a note and tell me why.

I started down the hall with my hands jammed as tightly in my pockets as physically possible, until I was practically choking them to death, trying my best to block out the surroundings until they faded into the background. It didn't help that this dream was so much clearer, more real than the last. So real that everything almost felt completely ordinary for a moment, myself ignoring the world and the world happily ignoring me back, until another student passed straight through me carelessly, without so much as stopping to scream "GHOST!" It looked as though nobody could see or interact with me at all. If only the average school day were like that.

My frustration only grew and blistered as I passed by the same old classrooms on what felt like an endless loop. Why did my subconscious feel the need to have me suffer through this monotonous, tedious, aggravating bullshit in the first place?! I could be catching a refreshing eight-hour sleep right now, but instead I was being forced to wander the crowded hallways of my former torture chamber aimlessly.

Eventually, I sighed and threw in the towel, leaning my back against the wall. I wasn't about to subject myself to this shit any longer. If my brain wanted to keep my trapped here, then fine. More power to it. But I wasn't gonna be a part of it. I was gonna wait it out until I could snap myself awake. Simple as that.

However, just as I had settled in to my own little corner, watching over my little hallway like a lion, my gaze fell over something strange. On the other side of the hall, just a few rows of lockers down, stood a girl. One mirroring my "I couldn't care less" pose perfectly. One with long hair black as the starless night sky hiding her face. One I was strangely drawn too.

One I had recognized almost instantly.

I had to do a double-take at first, but I was sure of it. It was the girl from my last dream, the one who had fallen off the windowsill. Well, "fallen" was a bit of a stretch. She had stepped off at her own will, after those horrific vines had...

I shuddered, recalling the excruciating details of that nightmare all too clearly. Why had she appeared to haunt my psyche for a second time? Of everyone in this mental reconstruction of my school building, she was the only person I had no memory of prior to falling into the Underground. And yet she kept showing up wherever I went in the dreamscape, mimicking me. Maybe...if I hadn't known her beforehand, my best bet was to try and figure it out while I had the chance.

Shaking off my paranoia, I took a few steps towards the girl. When she refused to notice me inching closer, I simply started walking towards her. Even if I couldn't touch or speak to her like everyone else, I could at least get a look at her face. Try and jog my memory a little bit, if nothing else.

I froze halfway over to her. Where had everyone gone? A moment ago the hallway was literally flooding with people, but now it was silent and empty. Like a movie theater after the screening of any one of the Jaws sequels. The only person left was...her.

"Hey, what's your deal?" I called angrily, forgetting about my minor speech impediment for a moment. Ya know, the one where no sound came out of my mouth. "Why are you stalking me in my sleep?" She once again ignored me, only serving to feed my stubborn rage. "Over here! Hey! Can you hear me or n-"

I was cut off as something violently grabbed at my ankle. I whipped around in the blink of an eye, turning to face my attacker with a brave stare.

Any confidence I mustered melted when I spotted my attacker.

The vines were back.

Feeling my heart stop, but thankfully not my brain, I moved to stomp on the prickly tendril with my free leg. The moment I moved to do so, another one shot out and wrapped around it. Yelping, I was yanked to the floor, my chin crashing on the tile with a low thunk. Dazed but not yet down for the count, I thrashed my limbs in every possible direction in a vain attempt to wriggle out of their grasp.

More came, seeping out from between the lockers, the doorways, and every crack in the wall until the room had started to look more like a deformed jungle than anything else. Thick thorns dug into my skin, just to add injury to insult. I screamed and clawed at the hell spawns like a wild animal, but it was no use. They had me right where they wanted me.

No. No no no no no no no. Not again. I can't go through all that pain again...that torture...

...But they weren't after me.

Once I'd gotten my breathing semi-under control, I noticed the remainder of the vines curving away from my helpless form, paying me no mind. At first, I was relieved. Until I realized who they really after.

"C'mon lady, RUN!" I tried to shout. But she proved oblivious to the events unfolding around her. To the boy just meters away, trying and failing to warn her of the tendrils closing in around her.

I couldn't let it happen to her, too. Whoever she was. I couldn't leave her to the same fate as me. I couldn't.

I closed my eyes, and my fingers finally closed around something. Something I knew hadn't been there a moment ago, but I didn't have so much as a millisecond to question it. Griping the hilt of the knife with a burning intensity, I swung my whole body and hacked at the vines curling at my ankles. It sliced through them effortlessly, like chopping through air, and once I was free, the others suffered the same fate. I leapt from vine to vine, severing each one's head until they all lay in one revolting, shriveled pile. Dead.

Satisfied, disgusted, and exhausted all at once, I turned back to the girl one last time, just to make sure she had survived the massacre. I didn't have to wonder for long.

She stared straight back at me, a look of pure confusion on her face, as if noticing the horrific situation for the first time. I started to say something, but before I could even form the first syllable, she turned and sprinted away without so much as a word of thanks. The last glimpse I caught of her was her jet black hair trailing behind as she bolted around the corner.

But the image of her blood-red eyes stayed burned into my mind long after she was gone.

My eyes fluttered for awhile until I finally rejoined the world of the living. I had expected to wake up cold and buried under a foot of snow, but that couldn't have been farther from the truth. Instead I was warm, comfortable, and had absolutely no idea where the hell I was.

So two out of three wasn't too bad, right? Right!?

I shot up in my seat, now totally awake and totally trying my best not to lose my shit. I was laying on a fuzzy couch the color of day old-vomit with a warm blanket tossed over me, in what I could only guess was some kind of living room. A rather impressively huge plasma screen TV sat against the wall overlooking the rest of the room, which was otherwise pretty barren. My toy knife, tough glove, snowman piece, and any other piece of my gear that had been recovered lay beside me on a small coffee table.

I allowed myself to calm down a bit after seeing that. If all of my stuff was within spitting distance and I wasn't restricted at all, there was a damn good chance I wasn't being kidnapped, or anything of the sort. But that didn't exactly give me any sort of clue as to where I was, or whatever that...awful smell floating around was coming from. God, it smelled like someone was melting down an old rubber tire in the room next door.

Just as I was getting tired of wondering where I'd woken up, a familiar figure threw open a nearby door and stomped into the room about as noisily as physically possible. Relieved, I realized it was a friendly face. But there was some other feeling hidden there. A weird burning sensation that spread through my chest and stomach like a disease...

"At last, the Human is awake!" he cried, an almost creepily bright smile lighting up his face.

"Good to see you too, Papyrus," I muttered through clenched teeth, deciding I'd ignore the feeling for now. At least I'd been fortunate to wake up moments before Papyrus burst through the door, screaming about spaghetti or something. Would've been one hell of a wake-up call. "I don't suppose you'd like to tell me where the hell I am? Or what that damn stench is, while you're at it."

A brief look of confusion washed over his face, but he quickly shook it off. "Oh, of course you wouldn't remember!" He wasted no time throwing himself onto the couch like a sack of potatoes, nearly sending me hurtling off it. "After you laid down for a nap, The Great Papyrus figured you'd catch a cold, and carried you back to his humble abode!"

Well, at he least he had the decency to skip right to the point. So this was Papyrus' house...

...

...Gotta say, little disappointed by the lacking amount of Papyrus-shaped sculptures.

"Thanks for that. I'd probably be buried under ten feet of ice by now if you hadn't done anything," I admitted. My hand still quivered uneasily, as if it still held the blade from my dream. Yearning for any kind of distraction, I added, "So, uh, you got anything to eat? No idea how long I was out for, but I'm starving."

"Fret not, Human!" Papyrus leaped to his feet, looking about as ready to charge into the front lines as ever. "I took the courtesy of preparing you a piping hot bowl of spaghetti upon your awake! I even took into account what you said about my cooking, and used a special new sauce!"

Oh. Oh no, was that the gut-wrenching smell attacking my nostrils? "Great...thanks Papyrus," I sighed, flopping back onto the couch in defeat.

I only spent another minute or two on the couch after Papyrus went back into the kitchen to finish cooking his disaster. When my heartbeat finally decided to return to an almost normal rate, I threw off the blanket, jammed everything of mine I could find on the coffee table back into my pockets, and stomped off to try Papyrus'..."special sauce..."

I shuddered just thinking about it, but that didn't change the fact my stomach was so desperate for food it'd started to digest itself. Besides, resisting the urge to throw up was just what I needed to force the memories of that stupid dream out of my head. I didn't have the patience to second-guess myself, constantly trying and failing to piece together pieces of an incomplete puzzle. All I wanted was to forget about my life on the surface, the tentacles, and the creepy girl with the blood-red eyes. At least for the time being.

Moments later, I found myself eating with the mighty lord of skeletons himself at his awkwardly tiny dinner table in his somehow even more awkwardly tiny kitchen. My back was practically pushed up against the wall, and the only things occupying any space were a stove, counter, fridge, and an absurdly tall sink that stretched all the way to the ceiling. Certainly wasn't one of the weirdest Papyrus-related things I'd ever seen, but I still had to ask.

"I increased the size of my sink in order to fit more bones under it!" he proudly explained. "Take a looksy!"

"I'm good, trust me," I told him, taking a shaky bite out of the pasta platter in front of me. Incredibly, it didn't taste too terrible. Or rather, it at least wasn't bad enough for me to hurl the plate across the room and rush to the bathroom to puke. The noodles were cooked fine, the only problem was Papyrus' gross "special sauce," which still smelled like burnt rubber, by the way. I would've rather just scarfed down the boring old spaghetti plain.

Plus, no meatballs is an automatic failure for any bowl of pasta.

"Are the flavors exploding against your taste buds yet?" Papyrus asked, leaning his entire right arm along the table as if he were trying to push it over.

I gave him an honest answer. "Oh, they're exploding alright," I sighed. "Honestly Paps, friend to friend, you really need to work on that sauce. Actually, start again from square one. And more meatballs would be appreciated." Noticing his crushed expression, I scrambled to say something good about his dish. Anything good, really. "But the noodles were fine though!"

Papyrus shook off his end of the world stare, offering me a slightly less shocked expression. Slightly. "Truly? But I spent so long working on the perfect sauce recipe..."

I shrugged, not sure what else I could add. "Well, what the hell's in it?"

"Lets see..." Papyrus began counting the ingredients off on his fingers. "Crushed red peppers, sliced tomatoes, freshly chopped garlic..."

"That all sounds pretty fine to m-"

"-And spider legs!"

After getting over the initial shock of hearing that, I quietly pushed away the plate of spaghetti, feeling quite empty inside. "Not hungry anymore."

"But-"

"-I said I'm not hungry anymore!"

A long, uncomfortable silence hung in the air for awhile, long past the point where I got tired of leaning against the table with half my face in my hand. It was in that absence of any and all sound that I realized what that burning in my abdomen was.

Regret. Seeing the happy-go-lucky skeleton back in action, spouting over the top phrases and preparing horrible spaghetti dishes, made me remember all the awful things I'd berated him with before our fight. It was so unfamiliar, like just about everything else down here. I'd said a lot of awful things to a lot of awful people, but never once had I ever regretted letting them know exactly what I thought of them. With Papyrus...something felt different.

"Hey Papyrus?"

"Yes, Human?" Papyrus looked up from doing absolutely nothing, pushing his scarf-cape thing out of his face.

God, where do I start? "You uh...you sure you wanted to bring me back here? Instead of leaving me in the snow?"

I flinched slightly away. He was staring at me the same way as when I had insulted him, a look of total disbelief. "Of course! Why would I have done anything differently?"

Of course he wouldn't make this any easier. "Because I was a jerk to you," I said simply, as if I were reading off a list of tax returns. "I dunno, seems like it would make more sense to leave me out there. I don't deserve this-"

"-Stop right there, Human." Papyrus cut me off, rising out of his chair with a certain authority he didn't show very often.

"No way! You know I'm right!" I challenged, leaping out of my seat as well. "You might as well be sheltering a wanted criminal!"

"I'm sheltering a FRIEND!"

Papyrus' confidence shut me up instantly. But why would he try so hard to defend me? I should've been like an object to him, a present to give to the Royal Guardsman for a shot at the greatness he desired. Instead, he thought of me as a friend, and I...I didn't know what to think about that.

"Some friend I am," I huffed, dropping back into my seat.

Papyrus sat back down as well, sighing to himself. "I think we may have more in common than you think, Human."

Do we? Do we really? Maybe Papyrus saw something in me that I was too blind to see for myself. Even though in an entirely different context sharing traits with Papyrus could be taken as an insult, I whispered, "Thanks," back to the skeleton.

"You're very welcome, Human." Then, in a wise tone I didn't think Papyrus had in him, he added, "And thank you for helping me to realize no one person is perfect."

I didn't know what to think of that at first, until I eventually smiled. "You're very welcome, skeleton," I mimicked, and Papyrus returned an even goofier smile.

Now that the pack of elephants in the room had been addressed, and Papyrus and I were operating on more or less the same terms, we were back to sitting around with the putrid smell of rancid spaghetti sauce hanging in the air, attempting to make small talk. Problem was, I still wasn't very good at small talk.

"So...you live here all by yourself, Paps?" I asked.

He seemed delighted that I'd worked up the courage to talk to him again. "Just me and my lazy brother," he nodded. "Although, sometimes it does feel like I'm the only soul inhabiting this household. I swear, my brother wastes more time down at Grillby's than he ever spends around here-"

"-Sup." As if he'd literally been waiting just outside the room dying for someone to page him, Sans barged through the door and meandered over to take the chair besides me.

"Look who finally decided to show up," Papyrus puffed, clearly peeved at his brothers late arrival. "We have a guest you know, Sans. The least you could've done is put a clean shirt on!" He pointed to a massive red stain on the front of Sans' hoodie, no doubt the result of another ketchup incident.

"Sorry, I was a little busy. Had a bone to pick with this one guy down at Grillby's." He turned towards me with that same stupid grin on his face and asked, "So, how's my brother's spaghetti? Edible?"

I smirked at him. "Barely."

"So he's improving."

That was enough to get me to chuckle, and to send a look of disgust washing over Papyrus' face. "That'll be the last time I ever waste my energy feeding you, brother," Papyrus spat, darting over to the stove to further hone his cooking skills and prepare another bowl of spaghetti.

With the Great Papyrus preoccupied, Sans leaned back in his chair and turned to me. "Thanks for bringing my hoodie back, kid. I see you got yourself some new digs."

My fingers went straight to the jacket I'd bought at the Snowdin shop, and only just then did I realize how frigging disgusting I was. It'd been well over two days since I last showered, and frankly, I smelled about as bad as Papyrus' spaghetti sauce. My hair was greasier than some backwater diner out in the middle of nowhere, my clothes were practically laced with dried sweat by this point, and that spider cider I was still carrying around in my back pocket had probably started to mold by now. I'm sure if I found a mirror, I'd see a complete and utter train wreck standing on the other side of it.

"Uh...yeah. I guess you could call it that." Somehow already out of conversation topics, I skipped straight to the point. "So, do you guys have, like, a shower, or...?"

Smooth transition there, me.

"A 'shower?'" Papyrus asked inquisitively, which wasn't exactly the best sign.

"Ya know...like a bath?" I pressed. Surely these two didn't seem so disgusting that they never bathed...actually, never mind, that sounded far more likely than the alternative. "For when you start to smell like death, or get a little spaghetti sauce on your bones, or...something?"

"Oh! You mean a wash house!" Paps exclaimed, realization hitting him like a frying pan. "Yes, we have one right outside."

"You have an outdoor shower?"

"If a shower is a wash house, than indeed we do."

"In a town that's almost always below freezing and covered in snow?"

"Most assuredly!"

"WHY?!"

"BECAUSE THE GREAT PAPYRUS KEEPS THE REST OF HIS BONE SUPPLY IN THE INDOOR WASH HOUSE!"

"HAVEN'T YOU PEOPLE EVER HEARD OF A 'CLOSET!?'"

Sans waved his hand, dismissing our argument as if he were swatting a fly. "Relax, kid. You don't smell THAT bad."

"Easy for you to say!" I snapped at him. "Can't recall the last time I saw you without a giant ketchup stain dead-center on your hoodie!"

Clearly my insult was null and void, because Sans didn't seem the least bit phased. Unsurprising by this point, as nothing seemed to work on the insult-resistant wall Sans built around himself, but still equally if not more frustrating than before. "I'm only saying you don't stink half as bad as most of the monsters in town," he grumbled. "I think you'll survive, kid."

I resisted the urge to scream something back at him and decided to drop the argument altogether. "Fair enough. That's the most I can damn well hope for down here."

That little comment shut the two of them up for awhile. Tired of listening to the strangely aggravating sound of water boiling on a hot stove, I stood up from my chair. I'd spent a long enough time at the skeleton household, and god knows how much time I spent asleep on their couch. Now that I had officially made amends with Papyrus, I didn't have much left on my agenda to do around here. "Thanks again for letting me sleep here, guys, but I think it's about time I get back on the road," I announced, and without waiting for a response, headed out towards what I presumed was the exit.

"W-wait, Human!" Papyrus called after me, sputtering like a madman. "Weren't you going to at least stay long enough to try my next batch of spaghetti?!"

I sent a half-smile and a lazy wave over my shoulder. "Maybe some other time, Paps."

"Then at least give us some way to contact you!" he suggested, ignoring the bubbling water overflowing the pot and pouring onto the stove.

With what, I asked myself, but the answer came to me almost immediately. "I have a cellphone," I offered, pulling out the ancient piece of technology Tori had given me so, so long ago in the Ruins. I had almost completely forgotten about it up until that moment, and was glad to see it finally coming in handy. I had basically been carrying it around as added baggage until now.

"Perfect!" cheered Papyrus, and moments later, we exchanged numbers. While the idea of giving Papyrus the option to call me whenever he wanted was more than a little worrying, it was easily much better than the alternative, never being able to get in contact with him for the rest of my life.

Once Papyrus had called twice just to make sure the number worked properly, I was able to leave without any more hassle. I stepped out of the door and onto the front steps, recognizing the house for the first time on my way out. It was the last one on the very edge of town, right next to the stretch of land where I'd fought Papyrus in that blizzard. It would have seemed small if I hadn't already known only two people were living there.

I stood still for a moment, not enthralled at the idea of being back outside in the cold, until I heard the door creak open behind me.

"Hey, kid. Wait up."

I turned back to the doorway to see my second favorite skeleton leaning against the frame. "What's up, Sans? If your brother sent you to try and convince me to stay, don't worry about it."

Sans shook his skull. "Nah, I was just gonna ask if you wanted to head down to Grillby's for a bite to eat."

My immediate reaction was to violently shoot back with, Why the hell would I ever want to suffer through the misfortune of eating at that disgusting, rundown piece of shit "diner," if you could even call it that? But I bit my tongue and said, "Didn't you like...just come back from eating there?" Of course, logic never applied to any situation with Sans in it anyways, but I couldn't help but try.

"I'm always hungry," he mumbled with a shrug. "And I know for a fact you are too. Don't lie, you had, like, two bites of my brother's spaghetti at most."

Couldn't exactly deny that. But that didn't mean I couldn't deny the rumbling in my stomach. "Nah, I'm seriously not hungry. Besides, I don't think I'd wanna eat at Grillby's anyway..."

I swear a literal spark of light crackled in Sans' eye. "Well, in that case, now we have to go," he urged, closing the door behind him and walking closer to me.

Dammit. "I told you I'm not hungry!"

"And I told you we have to go to Grillby's." Seeing the snarl carve its way across my face, he added, "Trust me, you'll love the burgers there. By the way, you can cut it out with the 'I'm not hungry' crap, I can hear your stomach rumbling from over here."

Double dammit. Although I had to admit, a real, juicy burger with a side of fries sounded like heaven right about now. It wasn't like it was out of my way, either, just a few places down the street even. Maybe I could order one to go...

"...Alright. You win. I'll come."

" You mean I finally grilled you into coming?"

"...Shut up."

Sans snickered to himself, then reached out and grabbed me by the wrist, dragging me around to the other side of his house.

"The hell are you going? Grillby's is down that way!"

"Trust me, I know a good shortcut," he promised, with a little extra wink serving only to further confuse me. Before I even had time to question his incredibly vague and...honestly pretty shitty logic, he pulled me into the thick wall of evergreen trees that lay bordering the town.

For a split second, everything went pitch black. I almost cried out, fearing Sans had somehow dragged me straight off a cliff, but the feeling was so brief it was like waking up from an especially vivid dream.

Right in front of Grillby's.

I stood on the front steps of the shady restaurant, looking just as shabby and uninviting as before, staring as Sans as he casually pulled open the front door. Noticing my bewildered expression, his smile deepened. In an almost insultingly casual tone, he said, "Fast shortcut, huh?"

I didn't buy it. Not for a second. "Sans, how in the hell did you-"

"-HEY SANS!"

"-Hiya, Sansy~"

"Weren't you just here for breakfast a few minutes ago?"

My question floated away uselessly in the bombardment of greetings Sans received the moment he entered the "establishment." I would have pressed further, if Sans hadn't reached behind him and dragged my mind-fucked self inside, slamming the door shut behind me.

"Nah, I haven't had breakfast in at least half an hour," Sans continued, blissfully ignoring my death-glare. "You must be thinking of brunch."

The entire room erupted in laughter, slaughtering any chances of me actually managing to get my bearings. Luckily it was followed by total silence, which gave me just enough time to become acquainted with my surroundings...

...Uh-oh.

Grillby's appeared equally as decayed and shabby on the inside as it did on the outside, featuring countless cracks in the hardwood floor and brick walls, chipped paint on the tables and counter, holes in the would-be cushiony seats, playing cards scattered across the floor almost as commonly as the multiple drink stains, and pretty much anything else to ward off unsuspecting teenage males from entering and staying long enough for a bite to eat. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't very crowded, but why anyone would want to eat here at all, yes, even Sans of all people, alluded me.

But that wasn't why I was uh-oh-ing. Every face in the dimly-lit diner was trained on me, and none of them looked too happy to see me. Strike that, they looked ready to leap any second and start tearing me limb from limb, especially that terrifying one in the booth whose entire face was pretty much one gaping mouth, big enough to swallow me whole. It was possible every single monster in here had immediately recognized me for a human, or they just didn't weren't interested in any new faces taking up space in their favorite hangout.

Either way, uh-oh.

I tried to say something witty and clever in the vague hope of convincing them I wasn't worth their time, but my heart felt like it was trying to clog my throat. Instead, my whole body tensed up, and I was left standing there uselessly, choked up for one of the first times I could remember, waiting in vain for Sans to at least attempt to convince them not to kill me. But, of course, he was still oblivious to the silent death-threats being thrown at me, and moseyed on over to take his seat at the counter without giving me a second thought.

"H-Hey creeps-I mean, guys!..." I finally coughed up, ready to bolt out the door at the first sign of hostility. Turns out, calling an audience ready to kill you "creeps" didn't make them any more affectionate.

"Bark Bark!"

I spun around to face the familiar earth-shattering bark, like music to my ears. Without even needing to see him, I knew the sound came from the huge lug of a dog I had "befriended" before I had reached Snowdin. Sure enough, sitting behind a poker table, wagging his massive tail like a propeller, was the over-excited mutt, who came bounding over to me the instant his gaze meant mine, knocking the table out of his way to do so.

"Whoa! Easy, boy!" I pleaded with the minuscule amount of air I had left after he rammed into my gut with the force of a dump truck. It didn't help that he was still dressed in full body armor, for whatever reason. After a mixture of scratching behind his ears and wrestling him off like a bull, I finally forced him away long enough to get a glimpse of the rest of the room. Every monster had returned to their own buisness, gorging themselves on the food, drinking themselves under the table, or literally flopping face-down on the table, freshly given up on life. A couple more dogs I knew were working to replace the poker table, both Doggo and that weird doggy couple, whatever their names were, only to have it knocked over again by the enormous dog's stampede to return to its seat.

"See, you fit in perfectly here!" Sans goaded from across the room. He'd taken a counter seat, and was eagerly patting the seat next to him for me to sit down.

Any sense of nervousness or confusion had eroded, and my suspicion of Sans flooded back in. No way had he gotten us here that quickly, shortcut or no. As I'd always thought in the back of my mind, he was hiding someone behind that cocky grin of his. You could even see it the tiny white pupils ducking in his eye sockets. Whatever "it" was.

"Don't push it," I warned, moving to take the seat beside him. Right at the last conceivable moment, I noticed the small, inconspicuous whoopee cushion taken up my spot. "Dude, it's never going to work on me!" I plucked the Baby's First Pranking Device off the chair and waved it around in his face.

Instead of flinching away, or giving me any sort of satisfying reaction, Sans calmly grabbed the whoopee cushion out of my hand and stuffed in it his back pocket. "One of these days, kid." He patted the seat beside him again. "Now get comfy."

I scoffed at him, hopping up onto the (admittedly pretty comfy) stool without any more delay. After a lot of consideration, I bit down the mind-numbing urge to press Sans for answers I knew he wouldn't have for me. Nothing could penetrate the impervious wall he'd built around himself to deflect any and all questions thrown at him. Somehow, not asking at all was less frustrating than being dealt hollow answers.

"So when do we order?" I asked, inching away from a passed out drunkard laying just a few seats down.

Sans pointed over the counter, seeming pretty excited out of nowhere. At first, I thought he was gesturing to the rows and rows of bottles stacked on the shelves. Until I noticed a figure moving towards us, and my "ready to bolt if you look at me funny" mentality returned, twice as convincing as before.

Needless to say, the bartender was on fire.

"Need a lighter, Grillby?" Sans jested as the figure loomed over us, almost forcing me to avert my eyes. I would have, too, if they weren't torn wide open in shock. "Grillby's" head was nothing more than a tall, intimidating orange ball of flame with a set of glasses thrown over the place where the eyes should have been. He strode up with an indescribable amount of confidence and, well, heat radiating off him, draped in a collared shirt & tie and bright orange gloves to match the fire on his head. His hands were working absentmindedly to polish a glass cup with a cloth. I only noticed because I had to wonder how his hands actually appeared under the gloves.

"Kid?" Sans snapped me back to reality. "You gonna order sometime today?"

I pulled my eyes away from Grillby, which was easier said than done. I could've sworn from the position of his glasses he was staring right through me, burning me to a crisp from the inside out. If not for the fact he was on fire, I would've called him stone-faced.

"Uh...y-yeah," I finally squeaked. Stopping to clear my throat, I said with a little more confidence, "You guys have burgers?"

For one gut-wrenching second, Grillby said absolutely nothing, or made any move to suggest he heard me. I gulped, fearing I'd somehow already managed to piss him off, until he slowly nodded.

"C-cool! Can I...get one? With cheese? Oh, and no spiders!" Another nod. Maybe Grillby couldn't speak without fire squirting from his mouth like vomit. Or my dashing good looks had left him utterly speechless.

"That sounds good," Sans agreed. How he managed to speak calmly around someone as terrifying as Grillby boggled my mind. "We'll have a double order of burg, Grillby. Don't worry about the ketchup."

Just like that, Grillby disappeared behind a door in the back of the restaurant, probably to go grill us some grub with his face.

"Well he seems nice," I complained bitterly to Sans, extra careful to make sure Grillby didn't overhear from the other room. "Dude could use a hairnet..."

Sans lifted an eye socket (still not sure how that worked.) "Who? Grillby? Guy's a total sweetheart."

"Why do I get the feeling I can't trust anything that comes out of your mouth?"

"'Cause you'd be right."

Great, thanks for making that crystal clear.

I rapped my fingers against the table for the next two and a half minutes, waiting as patiently as possible for my burger to come out. Sans didn't bother saying anything either, just shifted back and forth in his seat, as if he were waiting for something. Using my astute deductive reasoning skills, I came to the conclusion he was also waiting for his food. Incredible, I know.

"So..." the randomly somber skeleton spoke up.

"You ready to explain that whole 'shortcut' incident?" I offered.

Sans rolled his eyes. "Already did, kid," he countered.

Damn, he's good.

"What do you think of my brother?"

Well that came out of left field. "Whaddya mean?" I swear, if he's trying to set us up on a blind date...

"Like...you think he's 'cool,' right?"

Alright Sans, what the hell are you up to? "I mean...no?" I sat up in my seat, worrying Sans might misinterpret my answer. "Uh, not like that! He's a 'cool' guy, I guess, but he's not, like, 'suave' or whatever. He's definitely one of, like, five people I've ever met that I don't feel like strangling."

"Yeah, I see what you're saying," he said after contemplating my answer. "So, am I one of those five people?"

I smirked at him. "Sometimes."

"That's what I thought."

A moment later and Grillby strode up to us carrying plates barely big enough to hold the burgers set atop them in each hand. My eyes lit up (pun very intended) when he set them down in front of us, nodded, and left us to our food.

"Hope ya didn't under-cook these Grillby," Sans teased, pulling out a...full bottle of ketchup from his jacket and setting it on the counter. I'd say I was surprised, but...what else would I have expected? "It feels like we just ordered."

"Speak for yourself!" I couldn't remember the last time I was this hungry. Finally, real food! I'd pretty much been stuffing myself with exclusively junk or other sugar-bombs for the past two days (even Tori's pie wasn't excluded.) Not to mention the food in question was mankind's - and apparently monster-kind's - finest creation, a grilled, juicy patty charred to perfection topped with streaks of melted cheese flowing like rivers of gold, slapped between a pair of buns to hold the masterpiece together. And sesame seeds were kinda cool, too. "Lets frigging eat!"

Before I could snatch up and devour my burger whole, Sans felt the need to shove his precious bottle of ketchup in my face, causing my stomach to howl in anger. "Sure you don't want any ketchup-"

I shoved his hand away. "Keep your crappy tomato paste to yourself, Sansy, I'm busy!" Sinking my teeth into the burger, I knew then and there I wouldn't be disappointed.

"More for me," Sans muttered, slurping down the entire ketchup bottle in one breath.

I probably would've commented on how disgusting that was if I hadn't been so absorbed in enjoying my burger. Whether or not it was the best hamburger I'd ever had was up for grabs, but saying it was "satisfying" was a huge understatement. If I ever made it back - no, when I made it back to the surface, I'd have to try grilling more burgers with my face, 'cause Grillby cooked it more evenly than the number two thousand, two hundred and twenty-two. "So good..." I moaned in between bites.

"Tasty, right?" Sans inquired. I hardly heard him, and a moment later had already forgotten to answer. The worst thing I could possibly say about the ball of condensed happiness is that it was gone far too quickly. For such a huge burger, it went down pretty easy. It left me fulfilled, but somehow still wanting more.

"Biggest understatement in the history of everything," I said at last, resisting the urge to lick my fingers for any remnants of cheese scattered on them. "Thanks for dragging me here, Sans." Even though I'm still not exactly sure how you did it...

"No problem, kid. I love talking time off of work."

The two of us sat there for a little while longer, until Grillby came to take our plates away. Mine was practically licked clean, aside from a couple crumbs stuck in globs of cheese, but Sans' still had well over half a burger sitting on top of it. I guessed downing a whole bottle of ketchup filled you up pretty fast.

"Anyway, cool or not, you have to agree Papyrus tries real hard," Sans spoke up, wiping ketchup stains around his mouth on his sleeve.

I sighed. Why did Sans suddenly feel the need to drill it into my skull how awesome Papyrus was? Did he still not believe that we were all buddy-buddy now?

"Like how he keeps trying to be part of the Royal Guard." I allowed him to keep chewing my ear off, as a thank-you for taking me out to eat, if nothing else. "One day, he went to the house of the head of the Royal Guard and begged her to let him be in it."

"Certainly sounds like Papyrus," I chimed in.

"Of course, she shut the door on him because it was midnight."

"Also sounds like Papyrus..."

Sans shot me a glare. "BUT, the next day, she woke up and saw him still waiting there."

Whoa. I raised an eyebrow. "She shot him down, and he still sat there all night waiting for her?" I inquired.

"Yep, that's exactly what I just said."

Right.

"Seeing his dedication, she decided to give him warrior training." He hesitated for a second. "It's, uh, still a work in progress."

"Shocker." As much as I made fun of him, Papyrus' determination was something to marvel at, even if he had absolutely no competence to back it up. Who knew, maybe he'd find his calling someday. Sans surely seemed to think so. "You're right though, there's more to that goofball than meets the eye."

The next few words that fell out of Sans' pun-loving mouth held a lot more weight than either of us realized at first. "I think that's true of anybody, really. If you dig deep enough."

"Maybe so."

I spent the next few minutes watching the group of dogs play poker, betting on bones instead of cash or gold. It was mildly entertaining, in all likelihood because every time some puppy won the rest would bark angrily, and I got to imagine all the swears I couldn't understand flying out of their mouths. For some reason, the huge dog, the only one not smart enough to speak, won way more pots than any of the others. Not all of us could be poker wizards, I suppose. For his massive size, and his godlike poker skills, I officially dubbed him "Greater Dog."

"Hey kid," Sans tapped me on the shoulder.

I spun back around to look at him. "What's up?"

Apparently, something really important. Sans had shifted closer to me, and was even going so far as to lean down closer to the counter. In a hushed voice, he asked, "If you're not sick of listening to me run my mouth, I wanna ask you something."

I brought my head lower. "Go ahead. Shoot," I whispered. God, why did it feel like the spotlight was beaming down on us all of a sudden?

Sans paused a moment before speaking again, checking around us to make sure nobody else was in earshot. "Have you ever heard of a talking flower?"

My heart nearly stopped, and I hated myself for that. There was no way...was he referring to Flowey? I hadn't ever run into any other talking flower since the Ruins, but then again, Snowdin was a snowy wasteland. I suppose anything was possible in the Underground, but...

...I couldn't help but get my hopes up. If Sans knew something, anything about that scum, that abomination, that waste of life, I had to know about it. I had to.

"Yeah. I have."

"So you know about it," Sans murmured.

Finally, some answers...

"The echo flower."

...Dammit! I felt my heart sink back into its original spot. I was so close! I thought for sure Sans had a lead on Flowey...

...Then why the need for all the secrecy?

"They're all over the marsh," Sans continued. "Say something to them, and they'll repeat it over and over..."

I frowned. After having my hopes slashed in two, the rest of Sans' story didn't interest me much. "Okay, so what about it?"

Sans perked up a little bit. "Well, Papyrus told me something interesting the other day."

"I'm listening."

"Sometimes, when no one else is around..." God, Sans, spit it out already! Unless, something about this story was actually troubling him. "A flower appears and whispers things to him."

Welp. There goes my heart again, from zero to sixty just like that. I felt my eyes widen, too. Maybe I'd jumped to conclusions a little bit too quickly. Whatever, lets hear the rest of the story.

"Flattery...advice...encouragement..."

"...Predictions." Then, as if nothing about what he just said bothered him, as if he could just take something so huge with a grain of salt, he added, "Weird, huh?"

Get yourself under control. But I couldn't. Flowey had nearly killed me. Flowey had left me to die. Just the possibility he might be stalking Papyrus was gut-wrenching. I swore right then and there, if he ever laid one single "friendliness pellet" on that skeleton...

"Someone using an echo flower to play a trick on him," Sans interrupted my thoughts. Appropriate, seeing as how he hadn't technically stopped talking to me, but annoying all the same. He stared me dead in the eye. "Keep an eye out, okay?"

Part of me was dying to tell him it was no echo flower manipulating Papyrus. Until I realized I could be dead-wrong. Why would a bastard like Flowey waste his time talking up Papyrus? It almost seemed more likely the alternative was true, and Sans was right about someone using an echo flower. After all, Paps didn't have the best reputation around Snowdin. Or at least, so I'd heard.

Yeah...yeah, there's no way it was Flowey. It just didn't add up. He was probably off somewhere torturing dandelions rather than annoying a harmless skeleton. No point in torturing Sans by lying to him and saying there was a psycho murderer after his brother.

Either that, or it was some messed up sense of pride that forced me to withhold the possible truth from Sans. If Flowey was somehow involved, I had to be the one to settle the score with him. I had to. "Don't worry. I'll make sure Paps doesn't get himself into any trouble," I promised. At least I could offer that.

Sans seemed like a massive weight was taken off of his shoulder. "Thanks."

Just like that, Sans heaved a sigh and hopped out of his chair, seemingly forgetting about the conversation we just held. "Welp, I think I've let you keep me away from work long enough."

"But you're the one who brought me here-"

"-Grillby! Put me and my buddy's burgers on my tab!" He turned to me one last time before he walked out the door. "By the way, I was going to say something, but I forgot." And with that inspiring tidbit, Sans left the restaurant, leaving me to wonder if I made the right choice not to tell him about Flowey.

Of course you didn't, I told myself. When do you ever make the 'right choice?'

I thought about that for a second. Oh come on, even jack-offs like me wind up choosing right occasionally. Even by accident.

...

...Especially by accident.