It's human time... sorry, guys, you know what that means. That's not the point of this story so it's non-graphic and short, but just giving a heads up anywho for safety's sake. Thanks so much for all the reviews and faves/follows. Love you all xx

"So… your dork brother keeps asking me if you can be a sentry."
"yup. he keeps telling me to come talk to you and now look at this, you called me here. i figured it was probably about this."
He could see Undyne hesitate. "Are you… sure…"
He knows where this is going already. He puts his feet on the table and tips his chair back, tucking his hands behind his head. "Look, sentry is just lookout, right? i'll sit in the station, keep an eye socket open, and call you if anything goes wrong." He grins. "i can nap with one eye open."
"Sans-"
"and it'll stop my brother from standing outside your house all hours of the morning." He dealt the finishing blow.
She sighs. "But, if anything goes wrong… he would never forgive me. I don't know." He sighs, and tips the chair forward, then stands in one smooth motion.
"okay, tell you what. you grab as many non-lethal implements as possible and meet me outside." He was already in the garden before she could question him. She looked at the door and grabbed the sofa cushions and the cutlery drawer. Where the hell was this going? He tucks his hands in his hoodie pockets. "i'll make you a bet. you hit me with any of that stuff, and i go home and tell him you said no." Pause. "you might need more stuff actually, if you wanna make this a challenge." He laced the end word with teasing needles.
"YOU'RE ON PUNK!" he chuckled. She's too easy. She came out with the stripped couch frame, the table, the freaking piano (he was now starting to think he might have made a mistake), the fridge (yep, made a mistake, oh well, can't back out now). "HOW'S THAT FOR A CHALLENGE?!" she cried jubilantly.

"now you just gotta hit me with something." He winked at her.

The contents of the house flew at him thick and fast, and not one thing made contact. Undyne stood there huffing, a little in awe because he hadn't even taken his hands out his pockets. There's a fine sweat on his skull that makes her feel a little better though. "hey undyne, how long has it been since we hung out anyway? because it seems like-"
"Don't you dare.
"you-"
"Sans"
"-missed me" he chuckles as he dodges a thrown spear. "so, tomorrow good for me to start then?"
She growled at the joke, then sighed. "Yeah, tomorrow's good. Just sentry duty, any trouble you come get me, okay?" She pauses, a thought occurring to her. "Hey, I assume you use blue magic like your brother, right?"
"yup."
"Do you need any, like, training or anything? Like I do with papyrus? I've never seen you actually-"
"noooope. 4 o's for emphasis."
"Okay." She stretches a bit, then looks around at the mess. "Well, guess we'd better clean this mess up." She looks back to him. He's already gone. How does he do that?

It's a nice peaceful job, for what it's worth. He gets plenty of time for naps, a break, and optimal time to sell hot dogs on the side and make a little extra money. He settles into the routine nicely and it's actually perfect, except for the nagging thoughts that drag him back to Alphys and the lab when it was too quiet.

And his father.

He supposes this means his is due a talk with Gaster. He cannot think of anything he would rather do less, but he does miss working in the lab...and answers would be nice. As much as he hates to admit it, he misses the guy that took him in. He's hoping the fact that he's heard nothing from Gaster bodes well for him. He arrives in the room silently through a shortcut, and seeing his dad focused means he too looks at what he's absorbed in. He ends up staring past Gaster's silhouette at the numbers on the board without announcing his presence, more because he's entirely unsure what to say. He recognises the basis of this as the secondary cooling system to work with the thermal energy feedback system, but the numbers he'd been working on before he'd left had been massacred. He didn't see Alphys' chicken scratch anywhere, so he surmised she'd not been moved out of the soul project since he left. That or she'd been overridden. If they were building it based on this… panic flares in his chest besides Gaster's unmoving form as he stares at it in complete focus.

"please, please tell me you're not building based on this. it's literally a disaster waiting to happen."
"I am trying to fix it before they get that far in but- Sans?!" the frustration quickly melted into surprise and confusion. Pleased confusion, but confusion nonetheless.
"uhh… hey." Gaster moves towards him like he's going to either hug him or strangle him, but Sans steps back with his movement, keeping the same amount of space between them. "i'm just here to talk."
"Yes… of course." Gaster waves chairs to them, and they sit facing each other. An uneasy silence fills the space between them. It's strange because they had both known what they wanted to say if they ever saw the other, but now they had the words seemed to shrivel up and sit in their mouths unwilling to be said.
Sans decides that short, sweet, and straight down to the point is the best way to go. "why?"
Gaster chuckles humourlessly. "You were never one to ask the easy questions."
"nah, i just wanna get to the bones of the situation."
"Ha, that's easier said than done."
"bullshit."
Gaster levels him with a look. "There's more than you know to all of this."
"then tell me."

Gaster sighs, then stands and goes to his desk. He uses the key to open the large bottom drawer and pulls out three thick folders. He hands them off to Sans. "This is every piece of information about everything, though admittedly the first folder is mostly from memory due to a loss of data." Sans goes to open the folder, but Gaster gently places his hand on the top. "Be sure you want to know before you read it."
"i wouldn't have come if i didn't."
"I know. Any questions you have after, I will answer as truthfully as I can to the best of my knowledge."
Sans goes to flip it open again, but hesitates. Now's not the time or place, something tells him. He's waited this long for answers he can wait a little while longer. He stands, and goes back over to the whiteboard Gaster was looking at.
"who took over the feedback system?"
"Everyone started looking to Farler."
"...really?"
"He was the one who was here longest after you on that team."
"he never had a clue what he was doing and completely lost his head at the first hint of a problem."
"Which was how we ended up with this. Asgore wanted to push the CORE forward as the shell was mostly up and naturally this meant it was nearly finished." Gaster rolls his eyes. "He turned these in to the builders without running them past me first. I let him have a week off to try and get his head screwed on straight away from the pressure… and to try and fix this mess."
"why are you still keeping him on? wait. you've got a week? i don't think even you can fix this that fast."
Gaster ignored the first question. "Yes. All the base and foundations are up and the shell is completeled almost. They're working on this after they finish the first heat induction processing area which, they tell me, should be a week."
Sans runs a hand over the back of his skull and it's out of his mouth before he thinks about it. "get alph and dan, and i'm gonna need all the coffee in hotlands. we're going to need people who are going to work well with us rather than trying to be too helpful and muddling the numbers further. it helps they're both smart as hell."

Gaster stares at him in surprise, blinks, then nods. He leaves the room swiftly, half scared that Sans will change his mind.

Reunion with Alphys particularly was enough almost enough to bring him to tears. It actually was enough to bring her to tears. She dove at him equal parts ecstatic and confused, and wrapped him in such a tight hug he thought she was going to break him in half at one point. Sans has more than a strong suspicion that Gaster had fetched her first on purpose so they could have this time.

"I-I'm so g-g-glad you're safe."
"geeze, al, thanks for the vote of confidence." he teases, and she sobs a laugh but lets go of the embrace, wiping at her face.
"W-where did you go?"
"snowdin."
"This whole t-time? Y-y-you could have called."
"sorry."
"N-no…" she offers him a smile, just happy to see him. "I-I get it. I was the f-f-first person he asked. Apart f-from maybe your brother." He has no answer to that, and she takes a minute to look him over. She turns a little embarrassed as she says "Y-you look happy. That's g-good."
"yeah… i guess i am. it wasn't easy, and it took a while, but i think i'm there." He grins at her. Everything actually was great. "how are things in alpha centauri?"
She chuckles. "Y-you're still a n-nerd, t-though. But things are good."
"stellar, even?"
"Pfft hahaha, c-could you astro-not?" They both laugh happily for a moment.
"yeah, i missed you too."

Gaster manages to buy them a week's break on construction from Asgore. Sans wishes he could have been there to hear the magical words 'i made a mistake' come out of his mouth, but he was too busy trying to fix whatever the hell had gone wrong on the feedback system. Damn Farler, his basis had been sound why change it? If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And hotlands. It's hot as hell here. Heh. So that's how Sans ended up napping as much as possible during sentry duty and spending all evening looking over math, schematics and blueprints. Or, would be napping through it if not for-
"WAKE UP LAZYBONES!" there it is. But there's a note of urgency that's in Papyrus' voice that snaps him to. He slept light enough that he should have been alert at the first sign of anything odd or trouble, but that's not what this sounded like.
"what happened?"
"APPARENTLY THERE IS A HUMAN IN THE UNDERGROUND!"
what?! "what?"
"IT'S TRUE! UNDYNE HEARD FROM MUFFET WHO HEARD FROM THE RUINS SPIDERS. THEIR TELEGRAMS ARE NORMALLY PRETTY SLOW THOUGH, SO THEY COULD BE OUT BY NOW. UNDYNE HAS PUT THE WHOLE GUARD ON ALERT!" excitement lights up his brother. "THIS COULD BE MY CHANCE, SANS! I COULD FINALLY CAPTURE A HUMAN!"
"of course you could, bro." He actually managed to keep the creeping anxiety out of his voice. He wants Papyrus nowhere near that thing if it's as bad as everyone makes out. "but... I forgot to do my puzzles. throw me a bone? you'll be quicker than doing it than me." He gives a lazy grin, and receives the sound of his brother having a very small but very frustrated wordless aneurysm.
"YOU- YOU-"
"hey, i've been working myself down to the bone." He winks for added effect. If Papyrus had ears, steam would be whistling out of them right now. He stamps his foot and storms off, muttering about lazy brothers and how he can manage to do everything because he's so great. Sans watches him to make sure he's gone, then makes his way into the trees. He steps into the trunk of one, and out by where rabbit and dragon are posted. Normally, messing with these two are hilarious, but not today.

"undyne?"
"Like, there was totally a royal guard meeting in waterfall, bro."
"Yeah, she told us to stay here and, like, totally redirect the stragglers."
"But it was for RG members only, little dude."
"Yeah, sorry 'bout it."
"ok, thanks guys."

In waterfall would mean…

He sits on her house, listening to her command the troops just far enough back that he was out of sight from the ground. Listening to her in business mode made it easy to see why the underground had started to idolise her and turn her into their hero. He waits for the last person to move out, and steps forward, swinging his legs over the edge so he's sat with his feet dangling down. "hey, before you go."
"Wha-" she looks around puzzled. "Where the hell are you, Sans?"
"up."
She looks up and growls. "Now isn't the time!"
"So I've heard." The serious tone in the voice is so far removed from normal, and so reminiscent of the momentary flash of serious she'd seen in the hall, and she doesn't even need to know what he's going to say.
"No. Your job as a sentry is to keep watch and alert the guard if they leave the ruins."
"they haven't left yet?"
"Sans, I SAID NO! I appreciate your willingness to help but the human will kill you. You can dodge but i doubt you can dodge forever, and it's not like you can take a hit, damn it."
"i was more going to go and hide by wherever the entrance is and i'll call you if they leave."
"..." She can't deny it makes sense. But. "I can't. I gave you the sentry job on the condition you stay out of trouble."
"think of it as a game of hide and go seek then."
Papyrus' words come to her from a long time ago. "...you won't engage the human?"
"i'll call you if there's any sign of trouble."
"Promise?"
"...i really hate making promises, undyne."
"I also know you hate breaking them more. And the fact that I ADMIRE THAT IS THE ONLY REASON I AM EVEN THINKING ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW!" She takes a breath, calming herself back down. The prospect of battle and helping Asgore has got her all fired up. "Promise me you'll call me, or I say NOTHING!"
"fine. i promise you i will call if there's any sign of trouble or if i think i can't handle the situation. now pretty please with fucking sugar on top, where. is. the. entrance?"

She narrows her eyes at him, fuming. She'll deal with the sarcasm later. "Snowdin forest. If you follow the back trail far enough, you come to a large purple door. Now get down from there and go do your FUCKING JOB!"
"i'm going, i'm going. do I salute or somethin', captain?" He smirks, before standing. He doesn't hear her finish even starting to yell at him before he steps back back out of sight and shortcuts to his sentry post in Snowdin.

Still clear. He takes the lesser travelled path that leads away from the river, and follows it through the trees. There's a small bridge which he crosses, thinking about the fact he should get pap out here. Plenty of room for traps and japes out here. He steps over a branch, keeping his footfalls light and silent in the snow. He really is the best at hide and go seek. Although, admittedly, it's not so often he gets to go seek as his brother was worse at hiding than seeking. His brother wasn't going to hide, so he's going to go seek; and playtime was officially over. The door isn't hidden, but it is slightly grown over, obviously not having been used in a long time. He debates the pros and cons of using blue magic to shift the doors versus shortcutting through them. Shortcutting was risky when he didn't know the end point, but he was just extending the doors' own curve to simulate it being open in time and space to make a path, rather than actually blindly teleporting himself. It far outweighed the risks of possibly alerting the human to his presence by opening the door by force.

This was second nature to him now, and the nap had almost completely topped him up. He was good to go on energy for now.

He steps through the stone door, and is greeted by a long passageway. The slippers give him the softness he needs against the stone to prevent echoing footsteps. The fact he had nowhere to hide made every sense he had go on high alert, making him hypervigilant to the direction he was going. As he drew in close, he could smell pastry and hear quiet but content humming. Female, older. He thought that the ruins had been all but abandoned, save for a few froggits who hadn't really understood moving out at all and whimsuns who'd been too scared to. According to Gaster, anyway, when he'd asked when he'd heard some of the older folk talking about a place called 'home' when he was younger.

He was now wishing he had asked more about it, but Gaster had made it sound real boring.

He took a few minutes to listen hard, but the sounds never drifted any closer. He crept up the stairs, glad they were carpeted stone as opposed to- shit. Wood floors. He resists the urge to sigh, and just hopes to everything that nothing creaks. He's lucky until he reaches the hallway, and the floor gives a quiet creak.

"My child? Are you back from picking flowers already?" He hears footsteps come towards his direction, heavy but muffled. Fur or some sort of material. He doesn't have time to think about it. He moves faster than he ever has, diving for the first door and opening and closing it as softly as he physically can and making a snap decision. It's perfect. He carefully squeezes himself under the bed, and holding his breath so as not to move a… hehe, muscle. Put that in the save pile, along with being a monster under the bed. That's hilarious. He lets his pupils dim and go out, keeping his eyes open to watch carefully. The door opens softly, he can see big white fluffy paws step into the room.

"My child? No, not in here. Hmm, maybe these old ears are playing tricks on me. That could become… ear-ritating!" She laughs to herself, and Sans can feel a laugh within himself threatening to break his silence. He manages to hold it.

...Just.

Once she leaves the room, he slowly and quietly exhales and pushes the laugh out with it. He slides out from under the bed and takes stock of the room. The bed size and furniture is designed towards a child, there are many toys and three pairs of shoes in varied sizes. That flags with him as weird. He takes a closer look at the toys, lifting them out and suspending them in the air with blue as he examines them so as not to make noise removing them from the toybox by hand and one by one. Toys for varying ages, for both boys and girls. But one bed. The room gets weirder. He settles them back down quietly, and the tip of his finger makes its way to his teeth and tap idly as he tries putting the pieces together. They only fit in three ways.

One - there was more than one child and the family saw a lot of misfortune. Two - the owner of the house is prepared for children to visit. Three - the owner is preparing for as their child grows. Two seems the least likely, but something tells him not to discount it. Wait until he's got all the facts. He moves to the back of the room. There's dusty, empty photo frames on the chest of drawers and a crude drawing of a flower. None of this answers his questions, except the photo frames hinting more towards option one. He ignores the wardrobe as he has a feeling that's not going to open quietly. He listens through the door and quietly makes his way through to the second room. This is immediately obvious as the lady's room. The bed is large, made for an obviously bigger monster, and a bookshelf at the back. He skims the titles briefly, and she has a fair few educational books, some light comedies, one or two romance novels that have very obviously not been touched in a while and one joke book next to them. The drawer opens with a whisper, and there's a bunch of socks. His brow furrows as he thinks back to the feet he saw. Maybe she only wore them when she went out? There's so many variations here, maybe she… nah, that's just ridiculous. Who on earth would collect socks? He resists the urge to chuckle. Over to the desk, and a diary sits open.

Nope. He's not stooping that low. Not a chance.

He quietly makes his way through the house, and her humming gets slowly louder. The hall has no cover and if he had a heart it would be jackhammering. He steps to the middle of the hall and slowly leans forward so he can see what he can of the room it leads into. She's not in sightline so he makes his way to the entrance, which stands open and doorless. Obviously she wasn't too worried about security out here. Sans starts to slowly make his way through the ruins, trying to take in everything there is to see. The switch puzzle is not so much of a puzzle as a seeking game, but perhaps that's because he's going from back to front maybe? The cavern has been fairly linear with few branching paths. He finds a hall that the floor is cracked and the place looked like it was crumbling, but after a few moments, it becomes clear the sheer amount of holes are just really, really old school puzzles. These are from before all the new tech, and he can't help but grin as he thinks about how much Pap would be delighted by all this. You know, after the place was free of humans. He simply blinks to the other side and-

"Hey, mister, that's cheating! You're supposed to fall so you can see the leaves!" A small voice which sounds somewhat indignant at the little stunt he just pulled pulls his attention. She smiles at him with the air of a patient parent to a misbehaving child "Do you want me to show you how? I've never seen you here before!"

Wha-?

"uhh… sure. but weren't you told never to speak to strangers, kid?"
She's so little.
"Uhm, well, human mommy always told me never to speak to strangers but coat momma was a stranger and she's only been real nice."
She's babybones. Four or five maybe? That's about the height of her if she was a skeleton, but he wasn't sure if humans aged the same.
"coat momma?"
"Yeah! Miss Toriel! She looks like a cow and goat haded a baby and grewed up real tall so that's what I called her. She thought it was funny."
He laughs. "that is pretty funny. hey, i guess that means you like jokes huh?"
Was the whole underground hitting panic stations over a child? That's the funniest joke he's heard in years.
"Yes! Miss Toriel tells the bestest jokes."
"is that so? did you hear the one about the skeleton who missed the party?"
He was so conflicted right now. She doesn't seem dangerous at all.
"No…?"
"they stayed home because they had no body to go with."
She peels with laughter, laughing so hard she drops a few flowers. Laughter that was light and carefree in way only a child's can be.
"Wow! You are real good at jokes too!"
"yeah, i like to think so."

He's running out of time to make a choice here. He stares through her. No exp, no love, she seems completely harmless right now. She has a cyan soul. She doesn't seem like she'd want to hurt anyone at all. But… capturing her is his job.

"Mister… are you okay? You look kinda sad."

"never mind." He grins at her, dropping the stare. "that's a cool knife, what's it for?"

"Oh! It's just a toy!" She takes it out and holds it out for him to look at, holding it by the plastic blade. The blade is covered in mud. "Miss Toriel said I could keep it as long as I didn't try to play with the monsters with it because someone might acc- ass- asicdentally get hurt. So I uses it to help dig up the big flowers that are hard to pull up."

She's pretty fucking cute. He holds it back out to her. Capturing her is his job. But… killing her is not. Actually, Undyne had been pretty clear on that fact. He wasn't harming a hair on this kid's head.

"hey kid, do you wanna see a magic trick?" He bends his knees so he's at her height. Her eyes sparkle with excitement.
"YES! I mean, yes please!"
"can i have your flowers? i need them."
She holds them out to him without hesitation. He takes them, and they disappear from his hands. Her eyes grow large.
"Wowie…" she's in quiet awe. He pulls a mirror through a small shortcut, and holds it up to her so she can see the yellow flowers now wound into her braid, via small shortcut exit points he weaves them through swiftly, that's held in place by a faded pink ribbon. They grow larger, and she has a massive grin on her face. She starts clapping. "That's so amazing! You are so… amazing! I can't wait to show Miss Toriel!"
"do you want to see another one first?"
"You can do more?!"
He hates himself for what he's about to do. He hates his job.
"of course." He stands up and holds his hand out, big relying on the frozen grin to not translate any of his emotions to the little one. "but every good magician needs an assistant for the best tricks."
He doesn't let it tremble. He pushes his feelings aside, steeling himself.
"Oh wow… I wanna help!"
She hesitates before grabbing his hand, though. He thinks he knows what the problem is.
"i'm sans. sans the skeleton. nice to meet'cha." He tips her a little wink for effect, feeling his soul sink lower. He knows this gonna come up on his day to be judged. "i'm not a stranger now, right?"
"Nope! That means I can help now, right?" Her grin could light a room.

"...of course you can."

He opens the shortcut around them, and they blink into the throne room. He holds a finger to her lips in a quiet gesture as he sees her with about five thousand questions and comment just waiting to bubble out of her. She's a good girl, and she covers her mouth so she stays quiet and waits patiently. He wraps her soul in blue and lifts her to his shoulders. Her hands silence her giggles of delight at the wonderful magic show she was a party to.

Sans steps out from behind the throne room, munchkin on his shoulders. Now that the kid can't see his face, he lets his tumultuous dark emotions dim his pupils out of view as they'd been threatening to do for a long time.
"Asgore!" He snaps coldly, and the giant coat monster stands and turns. The girl bounces on his shoulders in amazement.

"HEY MISTER! YOU TURNED MISS TORIEL INTO A MAN-COAT! HOW DID YOU DO THAT?! YOU'RE THE BESTEST MAGICIAN EVER!"

He sees Asgore's face fall, and can see the many reasons why behind it. The child, the age, the mention of his wife, everything was written on it plain to see. Not that the kid seems to notice. He sets her down with blue magic again, gently, but holds her hand for a moment. He bends down to her. It takes effort for him to blink his pupils back in before he does. "i need to speak with mr. coat for a minute, okay? i'll bring him right back. you should pick some more flowers and i'll see if i can magic them anywhere else, okay?" He winks at her, and she nods vigorously and sets about finding the best flowers to pick for more magic tricks. He edges the room around her in rows of blue bone that go from floor to ceiling, and ruffles her hair before standing. "good girl. don't touch the blue. they're like… blue stop signs, ok?"
She laughs. "You're silly. Stop signs are red!"
"not these ones. red stop signs are for danger... they're blue because blue means stop when it's keeping you safe. so don't touch them, 'k?"
"Okay!"

"Come… we should talk about this… over a cup of tea." Asgore sighs, leading the way to somewhere the child could not overhear them, as the edging of blue parts to make a path for them and closing in their wake.

As soon as they are in the room alone, every lock in the room activates with a quiet click. Sans lets every ounce of his fury onto his face now, it takes every ounce of patience he owned not to tear the giant fluffy asshole in front of him a new one.
"there. there's your fucking killer, fluffybuns." He spits the name that most of the citizens use in affectionate humour. "i've done my job, now you do yours. she's waiting."
Asgore sits heavily in a chair, burying his face in his hands. "Why? Why did you bring her here? Why didn't you leave her with my wife?"
"you're pulling my femur, right?" Despite being at least twice his height, Asgore shys away from the skeleton's anger. "ok, lets list the reasons shall we? is that what you want?"
"No." Asgore hangs his head. Good. Sans feels his soul stir within him, which pushes him to continue.
"tough shit. reason number 1. we need seven of those to break the barrier and get us out of this forsaken pit, or are you countin' on my father to do that for you? reason number 2." He counts them off on his fingers as speaks, the digits flicking up with force. "humans are all bad. They trapped us down here but more importantly I heard a story once, that because a couple of them killed your son they're all bad and all deserve death. That was the trigger to starting your war against humanity, correct? anyway. reason number 3. they're dangerous beasts. they're not made of kindness or compassion or mercy like monsters are. they're evil. reason number 4."
"You DARE bring up Asriel? You weren't even there!" He takes a breath to regain his composure and temper himself. Him getting angry as well would not help calm the situation. Sans struck to hurt, and he had. He remembered how upset Gaster would be after an argument, as rare as they were over the years considering the amount of times he had tried to convince the scientist to take the boy home to recouperate. "I understand how you feel, but-"
"Reason. Number. 4. they're killers, aren't they? they're dangerous. isn't that correct?" Sans continues like he hadn't even spoken. Asgore goes to say something, and stops. Sans throws one of the empty chairs against the wall with blue, hand jerking out with the force of the anger flowing through him. He shoves his hands back in his pockets before he loses his cool further. 'i went out there because I was told that the kid out there was a killer! that the thing out there picking flowers in your throne room was going to kill me, and going to kill my brother."
"They're not all good like this one-"
"and they are not all bad, either, and if anyone else had found her she would have been dead by now. you can go to hell if you think I am touching one hair on that kid's head."
"I won't ask you to."
"you've asked exactly that of the entire underground! how many souls have you blackened on you own account, asgore?"
"I… I am the only one to actually kill the humans so far."
"that doesn't make it better."
"I KNOW!" Asgore thumps a hand down on the table, every word had been cutting him deep and he wanted them to stop. It was like being flayed and having every single hidden hurt inside him put on for show. "I am your king, Sans, and you have no right to-" he stops, seeing the eye sockets fixated on him right now and feeling his skin under his fur crawl. He'd heard about the weight of the skeleton's stare as he read your soul. It was another thing to feel it.
"i have every right. you remember papyrus, right? child you held and played with when you visited? the coolest and kindest monster in this pit? well. let me tell you something that you may or may not know... he's out there right now-"
Asgore's face drops. The crawling intensifies - he suddenly realises why this has got Sans so wound up - and it's not intensified by Sans himself. "Sans, I-"
"-setting up to capture this human. now, the likelihood of this is pretty much nothing. but. do you know why he's out there right now?"
Asgore sees yellow for a split second. It makes his breath catch. "He's a sentry."
"50g to fluffybuns for the correct answer. and he's hoping to be a part of your royal 'guard', he's hoping this will be his big break. i will not let you break his soul and turn him into a killer of innocent children."
"I would never… and undyne… she's already told me she isn't..."
"so what do you tell him then? what am i supposed to tell him after his heart is broken because he's either told he's not good enough and that he's too nice to be in the guard -which he is good enough, more than good enough- or because the people he idolises are actually worse people than the ones that they're being told to capture and kill."
"I… I am truly sorry…"
"i know." He lifts the locks, bulk of his anger having run its course. "it's a good thing i'm not your judge, because you'd be burning in hell for your sins."

Asgore says nothing. He agrees and his face shows it.

"just go and kill the kid. show everyone how much king asgore cares about them and their freedom. i'm done with this. i've gotta go sort my brother out."

He exits the room, and by the time Asgore goes out there's no sign that Sans was even there.

With a heavier heart than normal, he goes back to the throne room. He sees the child's smile greet him before red stains yellow in his nightmares with the rest. she doesn't have time to scream.

"c'mon pap, there's always the next time." Sans nudges him with a shoulder as they sit dangling their feet over the edge of waterfall's void. His face and voice don't betray any of the secrets he's holding inside. He keeps it light and encouraging.
"OF COURSE! THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL NOT BE OUTFOXED BY A HUMAN AGAIN! ...I JUST... DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW THE HUMAN MANAGED TO GET ALL THE WAY TO THE CASTLE WITHOUT ANYONE SEEING THEM."
"eh, you know. tiny humans have light feet-"
"SANS, NO."
"-and they'll keep you on your toes." Sans yes.
"AAAAAHHH! THIS DAY CAN'T GET ANY WORSE!"
"you know that i know my jokes are humerus..."
"I DISAGREE"
"because you're smiling."
"IT'S A PITY SMILE." Sans starts chuckling, which makes Papyrus smile more, which makes Sans laugh harder and soon they're both doubled over laughing away the bad feelings.

This. This is my job.

"hey, paps, i got somethin' to show you that might cheer you up."