Error smirked. He was having a lot of fun. Ink, on the other hand, seemed to be a little touchy.

what's the problem, buddy?

um... um... could you... could you just let him land properly, Error? You're screwing my mind a little here. It's awful hard to parse the universe like this.

ugh... fine.

And Error ripped Sans from the timeline and sent him back to the beginning of the phase again.

it smells like gas...

You need any help there, Sans?

Sans turned to see a familiar figure holding their hands up to him.

I'll light your way...

The hands conjure up fire - the fire comes towards you - no - the fire is spreading towards you - in an instant the whole void is ablaze -

and then

Sans bolted upright in his bed, wiping the dust off his shoulders. He... he was in a cold sweat. He knew he had died, he knew he had moved again, but

the dream.

That vision of the void was new. He'd never seen anyone else there before - except for his Father, of course.

He looked at the decor of his room, hoping to find a sign, something that could help him identify where he was now. nope. just my normal room. This was the bog-standard room that stayed the same in the vast majority of the timelines, including Sans' homeverse. Same sock piles, same carpet stains, same bookshelf Sans meant to fix however many deaths ago and was still lying crooked, same desk, even the same trash tornado, everything seemed ident-

why the shit is Asriel sleeping in my room?

Well, that narrowed it down a bit at least. So Asriel is alive and all grown up. Sans looked down. He was wearing his blue hoodie, the pool sliders, the shorts - the usual combination. Except there was one difference. He had a tattoo - simply the letter X on the back of his left hand, nothing else. He struggled to remember its associations. why is it there? what does it mean? which universe is this? He'd obviously been here before - he'd gone to get the tattoo done, he must have lived through this timeline since he was a mere baby bones drawn from the earth, he must know why Asriel's here...

At this point Asriel stretched and started to wake up. He very slowly opened one eye, then the other, and only then could Sans place in any small way where he was.

He wasn't facing Asriel.

He was facing Asriel and Frisk.

In this Universe, Sans had played Doctor.

"SHILOH!?" Papyrus' voice rang through the house. right, so that was their name. i am beginning to remember.

The other monster drowsily stumbled onto their feet and heavily padded their way to the door of the bedroom, not paying Sans a single bit of attention.

"Yah?" Shiloh responded, twitching their nose. His voice was deep, deeper than Sans could remember - how long had it been since Frisk had arrived into everyone's lives in this Universe?

"DO YOU WANT SOME PANCAKES?" Papyrus excitedly proffered. so in this universe it's pancakes. alright.

Shiloh suddenly turned around and looked at Sans, who started a little at the movement. "You think I should eat them?"

Sans faltered. He wasn't quite back at home here yet, he didn't know what was the 'canon' answer. He tried something vague. "you know how well Papyrus can cook, bro."

"That's a fair point." Shiloh turned around and opened the door a crack. "Thanks Papyrus, I'll take six!" well that was not the answer i was expecting.

Shiloh turned around and plopped back down on his bed. "Say, why you wearing that stupid collar around your neck anyway? What were you getting up to last night?" Sans immediately flushed and his hands shot too his neck. fuck. Sans sheepishly undid the collar and Shiloh winked and stuck his tongue out at Sans. "Nah, don't worry, whatever you're into, I'll make a note. Besides, you indulge my little quirks too, so we'll call it even." And he stuck his tongue out again. the damned flower used to do that too. Oh wait - this was the damned flower.

"Say, you're looking kinda dazed and confused, bub. What gives?" Shiloh came and sat next to Sans, a good foot taller than the skeleton. Sans turned to face him, and looked again into those eyes - those telltale eyes that helped him start to grasp what he had to be this time around. One was mottled dark red and green - those were the eyes of a prince. The other, however, was a deep chocolate brown - and Sans could recognise that eye across any timeline. That was the eye of a hero.

"i'm just thinking. everything seems up in the air at the moment. i feel... lost, listless. i don't know where my life is taking me." well, i'm not lying. Sans was trying to keep the whole thing as vague as possible. He still couldn't remember the history of this place - whether they were overground, whether Undyne and Alphys were together, whether any humans had arrived between Gaster's schesis problem and Frisk falling into the Underground - he couldn't even remember whether Frisk had killed.

But piece by piece, he was starting to remember how Shiloh was created.

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"Shiloh means 'place of peace'. It also is similar to the word for 'combination'." That was Toriel, scanning through a Hebrew dictionary to find a new name for her child.

"Why do we have to come up with a new name, Tori?" That was Asgore, anxious to ensure that he had a say in the name of his own offspring.

"Asriel is dead, Asgore. His memories are there, but - our son is dead. We cannot fight that. There is no more Asriel." Toriel sighed, and looked over to the hospital bed, on which an emaciated Frisk was lying next to a golden flower with a face.

Flowey was silent, staring intently at Frisk with bemusement and awe. Frisk, for his part, wasn't really looking at all that much - he was gently staring out into the middle distance. When he first suggested transferring his soul to Flowey so that he could regain his original form, the idea was received with doubt. Even Toriel and Asgore, who were both delighted and horrified to find out about the reincarnation of their son, didn't think it right. But Frisk insisted, and gradually everyone was won over.

Then, they realised it meant that Frisk had to die.

Alphys, keen to redeem herself from the amalgamation experiments, promised to help find a way to achieve the whole end result humanely and, for the most part, everyone was willing to help. Except Sans. Sans wanted no part in any more determination work. It had ruined him.

And so, as Frisk sighed out his final few hours worth of breath, Sans was nowhere to be seen.

The room had fallen silent. It must have been half an hour before Frisk muttered, "I like Shiloh." Flowey silently nodded.

Asgore hadn't the heart to refuse.

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This world. It needed getting used to. A world with both Asriel and Frisk - but without either of them at the same time. screws me up in the head a little. He wasn't sent here very often, and so when he was he had a lot of work to do, trying to fill in the gaps. But at the moment that wasn't what was on Sans' mind.

why did i still have the collar on?#

That one he had no idea about. It had never happened before - never had he carried an object from one Universe to another, and more to the point, he couldn't envisage how it would work or why it would have started.

Shiloh, on his part, could sense Sans' worry, and cornered him over lunch as they made their way to the library (Sans had fast relearnt that this was a standing ritual between the two of them).

"Hey, fren, what's up? You seem - you seem really down about something. Not even down - like - I know what that's about - but - like - a different - goddammit, I don't know how to put this, I -"

"can i talk to the flowery bit of you for a second?" Sans spat that word out like it was venom from a bite wound - he could not hide the hatred he held for that flower and all he had done.

"Whoa, Sans, are you - are you sure you - you want to do that? You don't seem to get on too -" Shiloh suddenly stopped - Sans' right eye light had gone, and his left had turned from a bright white to a sparkling blue. This wasn't anger - this was pain. Torment. Sorrow.

"you have to wake that bit of you up again, shiloh - just for a little while. you have to keep hold of him, but i have to ask him one thing."

"You can just ask me, Sans, he and I are literally the same..." Shiloh stopped. Sans' eyes had switched. He was really tearing himself up about something.

Sans sighed. It hurt him to say this, and he knew it would hurt Shiloh too, although he didn't know why, but

"i need a "you" i recognise..."

Shiloh didn't seem surprised. He didn't react, he didn't look taken aback, or hurt, or upset, or confused - nothing. He just blinked, solemnly nodded as his eyes slowly faded from their bright mottled variety of colours to a plain black iris in each.

Sans shuddered. Pointedly, he enunciated: "how do you cope with not knowing where you are every time you wake up?"

Shiloh just stared with a smirk. After about a minute, his eyes faded back to their original colours - the left Asriel's, the right Frisk's - eyes now full of worry and pity.

"You can't remember this world can you, Sans?"

But Sans had already disappeared from his sight. Deep inside, he'd known. The flowery part definitely did.

"You can't remember who we are."