Plot stuff happens and bedtime stories. I couldn't imagine him reading anything else XD thanks for all the continued support guys, love you all!
Sans feels a whole lot less bad about napping through the sentry station post or using that time to do some extra work on the side on trying to fix the feedback loop after meeting the human. Actually, he doesn't feel bad about it at all anymore. He'd gone back to the castle only once since then, and that was to find the toy knife and the ribbon, which he'd taken back to the child's room. He left them on the bed with a yellow flower and a noted that simply read 'I'm sorry' before leaving again. Someone deserved some closure, and it wasn't anyone outside the ruins. He had shown Papyrus the back trail, and his brother had declared the space 'perfect' before beginning work on an all new set of puzzles and traps for the long road to the ruins. Sans had taken some time to help him set up a sentry station made from a massive cardboard box, and then wound his brother up by simply moving his existing one from the space where it was to where it stood now. Sans had laughed when his brother declared that he had, to quote, "NO IDEA HOW YOU GOT IT HERE, BUT MOVING THE WHOLE THING IS INCREDIBLY LAZY! YOU SHOULD HAVE BUILT ANOTHER, LIKE MY OWN VERY GREAT AND WELL-CRAFTED SENTRY STATION. HONESTLY, WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH YOU? GOING THROUGH LIFE PUTTING IN THE BARE MINIMUM OF EFFORT-" He'd cut off the rest of the rant with a joke about being bone idle and how it was snow joke, and everything had felt right again.
The only reason he didn't straight up quit was because he was going to try to make sure his brother never came across a human, but for a whole different set of reasons now. Other than that, this job was completely pointless.
Sans could hear the sounds of Papyrus stirring through the walls, and he sighed at the plans in front of him. The extended deadline still wasn't long enough to essentially rebuild this from the ground up. It had taken him and his team months to get this even half right in the first place and it was as annoying as hell that it could go so wrong in less than half the time it took to get it right. Work was starting again tomorrow, and a texting notification pinged through on his phone.
*I think I've got something. My place in twenty minutes - I need to tidy the place and have a shower first o( Q A Q )o
He grabs everything and is immediately knocking on the door to her apartment. The door swings open enough that he can see her peek through, and she all but whines at him.
"I s-said twenty minutes, Sa- wait. How did you g-get here so f-f-fast?"
"i know a shortcut." He shrugs and grins at her as he makes his way in and flops onto the couch. "go shower, i'll tidy."
She thinks about arguing, but than she remembers that she texted everyone, not just him. She nods and rushes out.
He doesn't move from the couch, just opens the bedroom door, removes some clean clothes which come to his hand, and shoves everything in there. Her bedroom door slams shut, the clothes are hung on the handle, and that done he closes his eyes for a fifteen minute nap.
When everyone is here, she shows them what she's been working on. Sans sees that she's simply added to what's started being built by adding in steam direction valves to redirect excess heat build up in sharp bursts. Honestly, it's genius. For all their working on the numbers and how to adjust the whole system, not one of them had thought about something so simple.
«It's a crude solution but-»
"it would buy us time."
"About twenty years to fix it, going on the numbers that she's got here from the redirection of the heat."
"I-i-i…"
"Twenty years would be long enough to let us do something else with it."
"woo, look at us getting all fired up!"
"E-engineering has always b-been a burning passion of mine!"
"You've taken to it like a house on fire!"
«I'm surrounded by idiots.» Gaster sighs fondly as he signs.
"nah, just a bunch of hotheads."
«And somehow my son turned out to be the biggest of them all.»
They all laugh, except Alphys who's sounding a little reserved.
"you two go speak to the builders and get this in place, i wanna speak to alph."
MG and Gaster both nod and congratulate Alphys on her work, And leave them be.
"So, what's wrong?"
She stares at him for a moment, and starts to fidget with her tail. "G-geeze, Sans, th-there really is no g-get get anything p-p-past you is there?"
"nope." He grins at her. She sighs.
"Wh-what if it doesn't work? A-and I didn't really solve the problem. A-all it's done is buy us t-time-"
"alphys." He sighs her name, and she looks at him. He so rarely used the whole thing. "this is more than any of us had the thought to come up with. we were so busy trying to fix the whole thing that we didn't really think about short term solutions which are just as important. we were running out of time anyway, and if it doesn't work then we haven't lost anything."
"N-no, I'll just have to l-live with the f-f-failure of Gaster's hopes and d-dreams on my shoulders. And the explosion of a t-ticking timebomb."
"no, it's not going to be your fault. maybe farler's for screwing up years of work." definitely mine for leaving before we'd finished. "having more time is what we were all asking for, and we just might have it."
She sighs, but stops fidgeting with her tail.
"'sides, you know what time is like. it was biting us on the ass, because all it does is devour. and when it's done, it just goes back four seconds."
"Oh. My. God." But she laughs until she's bent double.
Man, life would be so good if he could just fix everything with laughter.
Building the exhausts into the design didn't actually take up any extra time, so a week later the whole lab is gathered for the switch on. The air is filled with an anxious excitement and everyone is buzzing with it. Gaster himself is the most fidgety Sans thinks he's ever seen him. It says a lot, but he gets it. This was literally his life's work in front of them. He reaches out to press the button to kick the machine to life, and Sans sees him hesitate briefly. He just steps closer to his father, and lets his presence calm him as much as he can. Gaster presses the button, and the sound of machinery fills the air around them. The underground, which to this point had had the previous generators which were dotted around turned off, stayed silent for a moment before the whole thing burst back into life with the most vibrancy anyone had ever seen in it. Cheers erupt through the whole cavern. Gaster's smile could probably be harnessed as it's own source of energy, Sans thinks to himself with his own proud grin. Yep, he'd missed this a lot.
"...so, what're we working on next?" Gaster looks down at the top of the skeleton's skull, who was looking out at their work still.
This time, Sans allows the tight hug, even as his feet leave the ground.
Even the nagging thought of "things are too good to last" can't bring Sans down. Papyrus picks up on his improved mood too, which in turn makes the youngest skeleton more rambunctious than usual. Their house is filled with genuine laughter, even in response to the bad jokes and worse pranks. Naps are limited and Sans finds himself sleeping easily through the night with no work to do. Even Undyne on one of her nights on the couch notes that the house is much happier and that she wasn't woken by the constant stream of midnight snacks. Sans looks over at the stack of folders. Now. Now was the time. He felt like he could take anything that was thrown at him right now, and he just knows that this is gonna be the test of that. And to his credit, while it does hit his mood somewhat, it doesn't drag him under like it might have once. Mostly he felt relief that he finally knew everything that his father did. It let him really think about things with a clearer head, too, and while he couldn't totally forgive him for it yet, it started him on the road to at least thinking over it.
Yep. All in all, things were good.
He's started up another side project with the help of Alphys and Monster Guy, mostly as far as the engineering side of it went. The math side of it was all him, especially as far as quantum physics was concerned. He took his work to his father as soon as he had a solid framework to work with, and some data from the prototype. There's something about it that's bothering him, though.
"hey, gaster, can you look this over?" he asks, handing off the sheets. "alph and dan helped me trick out my laptop, but either we calibrated wrong - multiple times - or there's something… off going on."
"Let me see." He holds out a hand for the papers, and gives them a quick glance. Then goes back and reads them again, slower. Multiple times. Sans just stays silent the whole time, letting him take it in. "How… did you find this?"
"me, alph 'n' dan were in grillby's the other night, and we had one of those beer epiphanies and realized that if we could see how the barrier was erected, we could possibly discover a way to reverse engineer the spell harnessing the power of the human souls. and after the hangover, what we had written down seemed solid enough that it was worth looking into a bit further. we built a prototype to gather data, mostly to see if it was possible. if it was, we were gonna come to you to see if you had any ideas on how to build something to turn that data into something... watchable."
"Huh. Seems that interest in time might finally pay off. But… this?"
"gettin' to it. we hooked up a reader that we could throw through a curve. except i didn't fully extend the curve so it couldn't fully breach to an end point. it scanned the nearest layers of the nearest times and spaces. that's… that's the data for our own."
"That's… concerning."
"yep. i thought it was me, but it didn't matter how i recalibrated or how many times i adjusted… so it's not just me."
"No. This is solid. We're going to need to look into this more."
"thought you might say that." He produces a roll of blue paper. "i'm good, but i have no idea how to start. alph and dan are drawing blanks too, but i think this is pushing their limits more because quantum ain't their field."
"It's not exactly mine either, Sans."
"no, but you know more about it than most. definitely more than all of the engineering majors we have here."
"You do have a point." He conceded, taking the roll and offered pencil and starts sketching out a basic design. "Have you spoken to the others about what this means?"
"no point in inciting panic before we know more. just asked them to see if they could help me create something to get more data. they drew blanks and i came here. i know you're working on a lot, but-"
"No, this was something I definitely needed to see."
"the fracture appears pretty far down the timeline, but they seem to affect the others too."
"...Nothing like a head start."
"that's what i thought."
Gaster notes that there's been a decided lack of puns, and wonders how much this is actually bothering the younger of them. It seems… important. Words from long ago that have never been truer by what's in front of them.
"Of course I'll help."
They get the plans for the original reader from Alphys and set to work. Sans still has his sentry position and side moneymaker, and Gaster insists that they don't cut into this time - especially as he knows that he works with Papyrus and he doesn't want to take from that. He'd already taken enough of it. Which means they're both having a lot of sleepless nights. Sans just tries to catch up as much as he can on duty without getting fired, which means a lot of complaints from Papyrus. And then Papyrus getting concerned that his brother might be getting ill. Sans jokes about it and brushes it off enough that Papyrus drops the subject, but he can still feel his brother's eyes on him when he thinks that Sans isn't watching. Thankfully the machine is simple enough that it doesn't take long to build, but programming it is something else. Gaster's watching Sans work for the third day in a row, dark shadows under his eye sockets as he's typing away. Lines of data on the screen scroll past at a speed Gaster can barely keep up with, the font and words familiar but the things they are saying so beyond the realm of anything he ever thought he would be looking at that they barely make sense.
"Sans, you need to take a break. Sleep. Eat somewhere that's not in front of the screen." Home, preferably.
"'m okay."
"You said that yesterday. You need to sleep. I know you worked through the night again."
"i'm okay."
"Papyrus has been calling me because you're ignoring your phone."
"just tell him I'm fine and i'm working. he'll understand." He doesn't even look away. Gaster growls in frustration.
"No. You tell him."
"fine. call him and stick him on speaker. pretty sure my phone is dead. i forgot to put it on charge."
It's not what he expected, but he takes the opportunity to do as he's asked and just hoping Papyrus can talk some form of sense into him. The phone's picked up on the first ring, and Gaster has a feeling that the younger brother hadn't put his phone down all day.
"DAD? IS EVERYTHING OKAY?"
"Not really. I'm putting you on speaker so you can talk some sense into your brother." He puts the phone on speaker and holds it out to Sans. He ends up holding it through the call, Sans only sparing it enough attention to be able to engage in the conversation.
"no sense needed talking into me, bro, i'm fine. 'least i'm not slacking off?"
"I WOULD BE PROUD OF YOU, BUT I AM WORRIED RIGHT NOW. YOU HAVEN'T BEEN HOME IN THREE DAYS! YOU NEVER MISS BEDTIME!"
"sorry, pap, i'll make it up to ya. i'll read ya a story for every night i've missed. how's that sound?"
"IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU'RE STILL TYPING." Sans chuckles a little, able to imagine the look on his face by the tone. "BUT OKAY. AS LONG AS IT'S NOT TOO MUCH LONGER."
"shouldn't be. i have a feeling that dad might get in the royal guard to punish me for resisting a rest soon."
"THAT WAS… WORSE THAN NORMAL. PLEASE GET SOME SLEEP."
"never thought I'd hear you tell me that. now i'll never sleep again because you just made all my dreams come true."
"NYEH! WHY DO YOU INSIST ON BEHAVING LIKE THIS?"
"i can hear you smiling."
"...I AM AND I HATE IT."
"hehe. ok pap, i gotta get back to this, i'll see ya soon. convince dad to stop riding my tailbone when he says bye." He narrows his focus back in, and Gaster just sighs as he puts the phone back on handset mode and lifts it to his ear.
"SORRY."
"No, I didn't think it was going to work." Gaster sighs. "You tried your best. Goodnight Papyrus, you should try getting some sleep yourself."
"NYEHEHEHEHE I AM TOO BUSY FOR SLEEP MYSELF! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, HAVE TO DO THINGS LIKE STRATEGISE FOR BEING IN THE ROYAL GUARD." Gaster resists the urge to tell him to put the toys away and get some damned sleep. He only has the energy to argue with one son at a time.
"Okay, Papyrus. Try to get at least some, I might need you to come drag your brother away."
"OKAY! I HOPE HE FINISHES BEFORE IT REACHES THAT POINT, BUT I AM VERY GOOD AT DRAGGING HIM AWAY FROM THE GREASE PIT HE CALLS A BAR SO I AM VERY WELL PRACTISED! IF YOU NEED ME, JUST CALL THE GREAT PAPYRUS! GOODNIGHT!" The call ends, and Gaster tucks the phone away. Sans spares enough energy and focus for a chuckle.
"What?"
"i'm gonna ask santa to get you some for gyftmas. maybe strategising would have made that go better."
"Sans. This is not a laughing matter."
"was pretty funny from my end." Gaster throws his hands up for lack of any other response, having reached the end of his tether. "when you storm out, i'm out of coffee again. something to eat wouldn't go amiss either."
"Mmmmm... fine." Gaster stalks off, completely unimpressed about how that just turned out. He contemplates getting Papyrus in to remove him from the chair, but he knows the minute he's left unattended he will just come straight back here anyway.
The data stops making sense halfway through day four. The food had pretty much stopped topping up his energy, and his eye sockets were bleary and refused to stay open long enough to make the code and commands he was trying to type in make sense. And if they don't make sense, that means they weren't going to work. He needed to finish this. He needed to see-
He feels himself list sideways, and then hands holding him up. He takes his heavy body out of the supporting hands, trying to focus back on the screen, but the chair he's sat on rolls away from the screen with a sharp jerk.
"no, i… 'm... fine. i'm… so close…"
"Stop. Just… stop. I'm putting an end to this foolishness now, before you start doing yourself some real harm."
"...'s…" he doesn't finish before he lists again, tipping forward this time. Gaster catches him, and scoops him into his arms. He feels his son push away, or try to, sleep making his body clumsy and weak. "fine… 'mtakenap." He mumbles and his body relaxes finally. Gaster sighs, and texts papyrus that his brother's finally sleeping but not to worry about coming as he shouldn't be disturbed to let him sleep as long as possible.
So, naturally, Papyrus turns up at the lab anyway. Gaster expected as much, really, meeting him out in the hall having gone to grab a blanket.
"I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, HAVE COME TO KEEP WATCH WHILE YOU GET SOME REST TOO. NAGGING MY BROTHER TO TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF CAN GET VERY… TIRING."
Gaster laughs quietly. "You are not wrong. Very well, I shall return tomorrow. I trust you can ensure he gets at least eight hours - this is not a crash, merely exhaustion so I doubt it will be more than fifteen if his body needs to catch up - and ensure he eats something before continuing?"
"BUT OF COURSE! I SHALL NOT FAIL!"
"Good. You really are the best brother he could have."
"NYEHEHEHEHE! AGAIN I SAY OF COURSE! GO REST, I HAVE THINGS ABSOLUTELY AND POSITIVELY IN HAND!"
Gaster has no doubts about that, and goes to get something more than a snatched nap to the sound of keyboard strokes. Eight hours actually sounds pretty darn good right now.
Sans bolts upright around hour six, panic flooding his soul. "oh shit, i fell asl-" hands are on his chest trying to lay him back down. He lays back down, more because he wasn't expecting that to happen.
"THAT'S NOT NEARLY ENOUGH SLEEP, BROTHER. YOUR LAZY BONES NEED MORE THAN THAT."
"papyrus." He complains, trying to sit up again. With no success.
"THE MACHINE IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE. AND YOU'RE NOT EITHER. GO BACK TO SLEEP BEFORE I AM FORCED TO TAKE DRASTIC MEASURES!"
"pap, no. i gotta-"
"DRASTIC MEASURES IT IS! PREPARE YOURSELF FOR MY SPECIAL ATTACK! NYEH HEH HEH!"
wha-?
He feels his brother jump on the couch next to him, and curl his feet up so Sans is wrapped in a Papyrus coccoon, curled up with his face in his chest. He hears a page turn.
"THE CATS NESTLE CLOSE TO THEIR KITTENS. THE LAMBS HAVE LAID DOWN WITH THE SHEEP."
The rhythm of Papyrus' breathing as he reads from the book with gusto starts pulling him back towards drowsiness. What was this one? He'd not certainly not read it for Papyrus before…
"YOU'RE COZY AND WARM IN YOUR BED MY DEAR. OH, HANG ON- YOU'RE COZY AND WARM ON THE COUCH MY DEAR. PLEASE GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP."
Sans bursts out laughing, hard enough to rattle both of their bones.
"UNDYNE SAID YOU WOULD LIKE THIS ONE!" He can hear Papyrus grinning.
"i'm gonna have to talk to her about what she's teaching you. it's so wrong hearing you say that word."
"ONCE YOU SLEEP, YOU CAN SAY WHATEVER TO WHOEVER. BUT FOR NOW… THE WINDOWS ARE DARK IN THE TOWN CHILD-" the story continues. Hearing Papyrus reading the curse words is equal parts weird and hilarious, and he says them so innocently that Sans has a hard time imagining that he actually knows what they mean. But through the rhythmic reading of the pages and the way his brother's chest moves… and the fact he literally can't disentangle himself from Papyrus even if he wanted to right now (and he kind of doesn't), he finds his tired mind and body relaxing back towards sleep. heh, okay pap, i'm going the fuck to sleep.
Papyrus feels Sans slip back into sleep, breathing slow and even, and dares not move himself from around his brother. He has little inclination to, either, if he was being entirely honest. He's a good brother, and while Sans sleeps he sits and imagines battle scenarios for when the next human comes and other such things to keep boredom away, but he doesn't fall asleep himself. He had a job to do and he was going to do it.
Gaster comes back before Sans wakes again, the days of endless work having caught up to him. Gaster was only out about seven and a half hours himself, meaning he's back at the lab in eight and a half, but Papyrus had a feeling that he's also been getting more sleep than the bundle he's guarding right now. It's just under an hour more after Gaster arrives back before Sans stirs and wakes again - more gently this time, though. He stretches out with a yawn, feeling groggy but refreshed, then spots the expression Gaster is wearing as he looks at the two of them.
"not a word. it's pap's special attack."
"OH BROTHER, YOU ARE AWAKE NOW!"
"How are you feeling?"
"better." He tries to get up and finds he's allowed this time. "two against one is unfair, you know."
"Well, He came to help so I let him."
"AND WHEN YOU ARE STUBBORN ENOUGH FOR TWO PEOPLE, IT'S NOT UNFAIR!" Gaster laughs from the chair he's sat in. "...WHY HAS WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING GOT YOU SO SPOOKED, SANS?"
Sans freezes, and Gaster raises an eyebrow. Huh. Seems that Sans is not the only observant one, he just wears it clearer on his sleeve. At least as far as themselves are concerned.
"i'm not…" he trails off as he stares into Papyrus' concerned face and eye sockets. "i don't know."
He hears both of them sigh in frustration, and he rolls his pupils at the response.
"HMM...I'M GOING TO GET YOU SOME FOOD AND WHILE I DO, YOU THINK ABOUT THAT ANSWER FOR WHEN I ASK YOU AGAIN."
That reminds Sans that his brother is on three days of missed bedtime stories. Three days worth of grumpy now Sans' feeling better. ...hooray. Now Papyrus is gone, Sans crosses to where Gaster is, looking over his shoulder at what's on screen. Gaster simply tilts his head, blocking his view.
"could you not."
"Once you've eaten, you can continue."
"goddamn it, gaster, pap's getting food right now. time is literally the one thing you can't get back."
"And yet that's what you seem to be doing anyway." Sans narrows his eye sockets at him. "Did you think I can't read code? You might have been programming fast, but I caught enough."
"i have no idea what you are talk-"
"Bullshit."
Sans meets his eyes, pupils flaring with frustration. "i have no idea what you are talking about! getting time back? just reading the lines is close to insanity, and trying to see them more so. what you're talking about is well over that line!"
"Why won't you just tell me what you're actually trying to do?"
"i told you!" his pupils drop out without him even thinking about it, he reaches that peak of frustration, and the look makes Gaster pause. He makes a decision, stands, and moves out of the way of the screen.
"If you're being honest… you need to look back over your code from yesterday."
Sans blinks at him in confusion, then takes his seat. He scrolls up through reams of code and-
"I THOUGHT HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE EATING FIRST?!" papyrus exclaims sounding extremely frustrated. He hands the meal to Sans forcefully, thrusts one at Gaster, then throws himself onto the couch with a sulking air. Sans sighs and starts eating as he reads back. The fork pauses halfway to his mouth on the second bite and he puts it down and starts skipping up through blocks of code until he finds what he's looking for.
This is not his code. Not all of it.
His finger taps on his teeth as he takes in the code interweaved with his own, meal forgotten about until Papyrus starts nagging. He eats distractedly, until he ends up bringing an empty fork to his mouth. He hands the plate off to Gaster without looking away.
"i need my laptop. it's at home in my roo-"
"I'LL GET IT. I MAY AS WELL, YOU'RE NOT TELLING ME ANYTHING ANYWAY!" He flounces out, having reached his limit, and Sans turns to look helplessly at Gaster.
"I'll go calm him down." Gaster sighs wearily, running a hand over his face before following his younger son. Sans turns back to the screen.
A new line of text has appeared. Then another and another, flickering into life through static until finally the screen reads:
*CONTINUE STARING INTO THE ABYSS AND IT WILL STARE BACK
*YOU WILL FIND MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS
*THEY WILL NOT BE THOSE YOU SEEK
*IT GROWS DARKER YET DARKER
*YOU MUST CONTINUE
*BUT SOMETIMES TO GO FORWARD YOU MUST GO BACK
*THINGS ARE ABOUT TO GET VERY VERY INTERESTING
*I CAN HELP
*WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK
*SANS
An ache starts in his skull as he reads, and by the end it's like a migraine, reading his own name is like a knife blade through the skull. He uses the palms of his hands to try amdassage the pain out of his skull, and before he knows it he has two pairs of hands upon him.
"Sans!"
"BROTHER!"
"i hate riddles." He sighs, pain finally abating somewhat.
"What happened?"
"see for yourself." He gestures at the screen.
"THERE'S… ONLY YOUR CODE. I THINK. THIS IS TOO MUCH SCIENCE FOR EVEN THE GREAT PAPYRUS TO HANDLE. COOL GUYS DON'T DO SCIENCE."
yeah, that's totally the reason pap. Wait- "nothing there?"
"...No. I'm really starting to think that we need to put a stop to this project "
"no, we can't. we need to do this. i need to do this."
"DAD EXPLAINED SOMEWHAT. I KNOW YOU THINK THIS TIME STUFF IS IMPORTANT, AND I AM PROUD OF YOU FINALLY FINDING MOTIVATION TO DO MORE THAN NAP, BUT … THIS IS NOT HEALTHY."
"i'll be fine, bro. headache's gone."
"THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT." He narrows his eye sockets at Sans as if trying to see if he was going to fall apart at any moment. Heck, he probably was checking him for exactly that. "YOU WERE… BETTER. AND I… I AM… WORRIED THAT YOU'RE GOING TO… UNDO THAT."
"i still feel that way, pap. things are good, ok? and dad'll stop me if i slide. so… don't worry. i just… i have to do this. i can't ignore this. ok?"
"DO YOU PROMISE?"
"pap…"
"I KNOW YOU HATE THEM BUT IF YOU DON'T WANT ME TO WORRY THEN YOU'VE GOT TO PROMISE."
He sighs in defeat. He's made too many recently. He needs to stop that. "...fine."
"OKAY THEN!" Papyrus smiles, satisfied. He hands over the laptop with no further hesitation. "HERE YOU ARE! NOW I HAVE TO GO TO SENTRY DUTY, UNDYNE SAID I HAD A BAJILLION DAYS OFF TO TAKE SO NOT TO WORRY BUT I CAN ONLY NEGLECT MY DUTIES FOR SO LONG. I WILL LET HER KNOW YOU ARE FEELING BETTER TOO, BUT SHE TOLD ME NOT TO TELL YOU SHE WAS ASKING SO DON'T LET HER KNOW THAT YOU KNOW, OKAY?"
Sans and Gaster both chuckle at that.
"Good job on that, Papyrus."
"SHE LIKES SANS A LOT MORE THAN SHE LETS ON, BUT THAT'S JUST UNDYNE. BEING FRIENDS WITH HER IS LIKE TRYING TO PET A HEDGEHOG."
Sans goes from chuckles to belly laughs. "i always said she had a spiky personality."
"NYEEEEEEEEH! WHY DO YOU HAVE TO RUIN THE MOMENT?! I NEED TO GO. ANSWER YOUR PHONE THIS TIME."
"ok."
"DON'T JUST SAY OKAY AND NOT DO IT."
"ok."
"SANS! THIS IS WHY THE SOCK IS STILL ON THE LOUNGE FLOOR! AND WHILE I THINK ABOUT IT, PICK IT UP NEXT TIME YOU GO HOME!"
"ok."
That's the sound he was aiming for, Papyrus' angry aneurysm being music to his ears. Wait. angeurysm. How the hell had he missed that one for so long?
With a final chuckle at the thought, he grabs a desk and sets up his laptop next to the machine so he can flit between the two as needed. He first sets up a scan from the probe in the void between timelines then turns back to the screen.
The fracture is still there, having crept closer.
Taunting him.
He turns back to the screen.
*ok
There's a burst of static, and his words disappear into it. Then… nothing. The screen remains unchanged, text cursor blinking at him lazily.
"What happened there?"
"dunno. it seems like something or someone is in contact with the machine and they want to help. i think that the code that's been added is theirs. they say they want to help."
"They?"
"no clue. they speak in riddles so far. i just hope they know what they're doing."
"Wait, you're not-"
"i am." He sets about to typing again, continuing on his end of the code. And now that he knows what he is looking for, he can see how there are minor changes to his inputs that he's entering and how the extra code is being weaved in as he types. He flicks his pupils towards the laptop every now and again, and notices the small bubble of data that briefly touched on their timeline. Data that wasn't their before. It doesn't give any information, a bubble of crap. An anomoly flickering into data as it's making contact to their space and time. Somehow, Sans just knows what that is. "hey, buddy."
He refocuses, and they get to work.
Gaster pulls up a seat and sits himself to observe the stream of data from the probe on the laptop while Sans is finishing up the programming, and he finds himself looking back as well as forwards. He finds a branch that comes from many years ago, a fracture in the original line it came from and his brow furrows.
*A FORK IN THE PATH
*BROKEN
Gaster's breath catches as the words stand out among the numbers and letters that make up what he's looking at.
*ANOMOLOUS
*BROKEN
*NOT YET BEYOND REPAIR
*YOU SHARE A FATE WITH THE REST
*YOU MUST ACCEPT
*REPAIR
"What the hell?" Gaster asks aloud, causing Sans to look over his shoulder. He just manages to catch the words as they dissapear out of the data.
"repair what?"
"I found a branching in the past. That's what I was looking at when the words appeared."
Sans brow furrowed. He hadn't thought to look backwards. Mind you, from the moment he'd seen the fracture coming, everything had screamed at him to push forward and find a way to stop it. "can you figure out when it happened?"
"It might be possible with some time."
"do it. and see, i told you they spoke in riddles."
"Why… are you trusting this? We know nothing about it."
"let's just say … i feel it in my gut." He grins before continuing, "it's trying to help, i think. i'm sure. see if it can help you as well. we seem to be almost finished."
The 'we' turns something in Gaster's soul unpleasantly. He doesn't know why.
In time, he finds Sans is not wrong.
He just has to let it help.