Sans stalled in front of the door for a while, aware that the whole time he did, there was a talking flower watching him without a word. There weren't any sounds coming from beyond it. Not that he expected there to be, given his own experience with the door in his world.

He didn't know why he was taking so long. Even if he knocked, it didn't mean that Toriel was going to answer- although, something about the way the flower was watching expectantly made him think that he might get a reply after all. Sans' smile became a grimace. Standing in one spot like this was starting to make him cold in his bones, despite the fluffy jacket he was wearing. It had gotten to a point that he was even starting to shiver. Or maybe he was shivering for some other reason. Taking a deep breath, relaxing, he knocked on the door.

The response was slow, and he almost didn't think he was going to get one. But then, after a minute passed, a soft and familiar voice came to him from the other side, "Who is there?"

It didn't sound any different, and Sans relaxed further. As if slipping into old habits, he replied, "doris."

Flowey looked at him like he was crazy, but the skeleton only grinned over at the flower, as from the other side of the door he heard, "Doris who?" It was quieter than the first response had been.

He said, "doris locked, that's why i'm knocking."

Then everything took a slight turn for the worse when there was no howling laughter from the other side, and a few beads of sweat went down Sans' skull; if he listened closely, he might be able to hear a little bit of sound, a little bit of giggling, instead. Quiet, and confused, just barely reaching through the stone. He looked to Flowey, whose leaves only waved and drooped helplessly while the bewildered laughter went on.

Sans stepped closer to the door, resting the palm of his bony hand against the cold surface. "L... lady?"

The laughter cut to a stop. "Oh... it's my turn... knock knock."

"uh, who's there?"

"Fuck."

The only sound was the noisy wind harassing tree branches all around them. Sans stood still for a full minute, staring blankly at the wall and trying to picture the woman who must be sitting at the other side of it, waiting patiently for his answer. When he started to move into the second minute of this Flowey hissed, "Say something, please," from where he was crouched in the snow and Sans shook his head, clearing it of that vision.

He took in a deep breath. "uh. fuck who?"

"Fuck you," said this world's Toriel, from the other side of the door.

Sans lapsed back into the staring.

But as he did, after a few more seconds her voice came again, and it wavered over the air like her confused little laughter, "Sans? You... You are not laughing. Did you not... think that it was funny?"

"heh..." He pressed closer to the door, saying at last, "it was uh, clever. it's just... not my kind of joke."

Like in the past it was hard to tell what she was thinking when there was a door between the two of them. There was only silence instead; Sans closed his eyes and continued, desiring to fill it, "i'll level with you, okay? i'm not the person that you probably think i am. sans. i mean... my name is sans, but i'm not your sans. ...get it?"

The silence went on, until finally, "That was not a joke."

He sweat more despite the cold, smile weak, and nodded, "yeah. uh. that wasn't a joke, more like a statement of fact, if you will."

"... ...You... are not Sans," she was murmuring, just loud enough so that he could hear. Every time that he thought she was done talking, at which point he would take a breath to explain it again for her, her voice would rise back up as she puzzled it out, "You are a... different Sans. A kind of Sans... that tells different kinds of jokes...? Two monsters... named Sans... that like jokes... who knock... are they multiplying? No, no. But two... monsters named... Sans?"

He sighed, "uhhh, lady..." she kept going, her voice getting quieter and her speech getting more slurred.

Running out of ideas, he knocked. She stopped immediately; "Who is there?"

"it's the other sans."

"... The other Sans who?"

"no, this isn't a joke."

"Oh."

Flowey was cringing in the snow, covering his eyes with his leaves. Sans shot him a glare, tugging harshly on his jacket, "what do you want from me?" He mouthed. Given no reply, he turned his attention back to Toriel, "look, uh, would it help if i told you what happened to the other sans, and why i'm here instead?"

"I noticed," Toriel murmured, "that he was late the last time too. And the time before that. And before that."

Late to meet with her? Sans filed that away for later. "well, uh, if he gets his way, i don't think that he's going to be coming back."

There was a rustling sound. "Oh?"

"he made a machine," he began again, slowly, alert for any instance of the woman not understanding something. She made no noises while he talked, this time, "one that could travel to other worlds like this one, worlds that are similar but differ by choice details. in this case, a lot of details. using it... he, well, swapped places with me. he sent me back here through the machine, and then destroyed it so i couldn't go after him."

"... ... Oh my," Toriel said at last. "And he seemed like such a nice young man. Told the best jokes... no offense, other Sans."

Sans laughed, weakly. "no, it's... fine." He wasn't really offended when he knew what kind of jokes this Toriel apparently liked. Other Sans must have had a dark, or at least rude, sense of humor. "but, listen, it's because of all that i wanted to ask you, since i was told he talks to you the most, if you knew about any of this beforehand? if you think back, did your sans say anything at all about this? about building the machine? the slightest theory that he might have run by you? anyone he was getting help from?"

"Mmmm..." Sans stood outside, shivering in a nonsensical attempt to get warm, listening to the sound of her hemming and hawing. Toriel hummed a tune, like a broken record, as she thought. It was almost to the point that he suspected she had forgotten the question. But then she replied quietly, "I'm sorry. He only told jokes. And sometimes we discussed small things... ... children... recipes... promises... he told me a riddle, once."

He perked up. "riddle?"

"I thought it was strange." As if reacting to his interest, as she spoke Toriel's voice became a little clearer. "He came to the door and asked me, 'How can you remember something that didn't happen?'"

The interest died. "uh, what was the answer?"

Toriel lapsed into silence, and there was a rustling sound for a minute before she answered, "He said, 'you can't.'"

"... ... anything else?"

More silence. A long silence. And softly, she said, "That's all I can think of."

He had guessed it was a long shot. "that's okay. i'll find some way to get home. i don't want to go without being sure, but maybe he was contac-"

"Oh!" Her words rose in breathless volume and Sans was again cut off; he jumped back on the path, startled. "You...?" Something changed about her voice; it became shaky, waving haphazardly through the air. "You... wish to go... home?"

He shivered again. "y-yeah. i-"

Just as violently as it rose, Toriel's voice became sharply softer, but Sans didn't dare move closer to the door to hear her better. "I will help you... get home..."

"ah, uh, that's okay, i'll figure it out for myself. if i can just get to this world's hotl-"

"What..." Sans stiffened. "...what is your favorite... flavor?"

"... what?"

The voice came again, a little louder, almost impatient despite how slowly it choked out each word, "For the pie... what is your... favorite flavor?"

Sans' smile waned. He looked back to Flowey, but the flower had fled at some point during the conversation. So much for his help. With some consternation and anxiety, he turned back to the door, and the woman behind it who was still waiting for his answer. Pie? What did she mean? Was this some kind of codeword? After a few moments' thought, he said, "you- you don't have to- uh. uh just- pick whatever flavor you want."

Toriel took another few moments to respond. "Whatever flavor...? Cinnamon pumpkin... I do believe that that... that is the human's favorite flavor."

Sans perked up. Cinnamon pumpkin pie; at least it sounded good. Even if he didn't know where she would get pumpkin filling in the Ruins. But something that he heard recently made that statement sound off, nonetheless. "really?"

"Yes..." Toriel took a deep breath. Her voice was getting softer and softer all the time. "The human also wants... to go home, did you know? I'll make- a pie for both of you. You can share it... with them... eat all of it up... and then you'll both be able to... ..."

Sans had never actually felt his heartbeat moving in his chest before. "...t-toriel?" Her voice was a gentle murmur that he couldn't understand now. But he also thought he heard something else, like heavy breathing, through the door. "... ...toriel? lady, are you okay?"

The murmuring and heavy breathing went on, and then even that got fainter suddenly; like she was moving away from the door. "...It'll be ready soon..." She whispered, a little louder.

Then, Toriel was gone.

"uh." Sans stood in place for a little while longer. When he started to shiver again he slowly turned around and walked away from the door, pupils directed straight forward and small in his sockets. The trees rattled above and he stopped, letting out a cold sigh.

There was a muffled crunching from in front of his feet, and the skeleton looked down. Flowey had sprouted up from the ground again, face grim and petals curled inwards. "Howdy."

Not the same flower as he was familiar with; he again reminded himself of that. Sans slumped. "she sounded so... out of it," he said finally.

Flowey bobbed up and down in a sympathetic nod. "She's not well."

"the toriel in my world isn't like this," he said.

"...Well," the flower cleared his... throat? "I don't know what happened in your world, but in mine... ours... some very sad things happened to her." Flowey said, his voice sounding strange, as if begging for pity.

"... like kids dying sad?"

Surprised, the flower nodded. "Uh, actually, yeah. Years ago, her children... um, killed themselves in front of her."

"they what?" That wasn't the story that he heard. Yes, there seemed to be major differences in this world compared to his. "why would they do that?"

The flower realized he'd said too much and his face twitched. Then his petals drooped. "Who knows why anyone does anything here?" While Sans waited, he drooped more and more until it seemed his stalk wasn't even enough to support his little head. Tired eyes glancing right, he murmured, "She also couldn't understand why. She's still trying to understand why."

Releasing his clenched hands, Sans looked up at the cold ceiling far above and exhaled. "no offense to you, sprout, but i'm already sick of this place." How long has he been here? Less than a day, surely.

"It's okay," Flowey said.

He tried to think of a joke and then "tulips" came to mind again; Sans smiled a bit more, in spite of himself. That was a classic.

Then he shook his head. "welp.. come on, might as well check on that kid. got no leads from this lady."

"Thanks for not yelling," Flowey said, giving a quick nod as he disappeared below the ground.

"eh?" Sans glanced back at the door. He couldn't even imagine the reaction he would get if he had yelled. Did his other him yell? Yell at who? But the flower wasn't there for him to ask, anymore. "nah... no prob'."


You feel sick from eating all the Iscream.

Frisk sat curled up by Sans' sentry outpost, back against a tree, fighting the urge to vomit all over the grass. Her lips and tongue were still a bright red from the dye of the treat, and every few minutes she spit out saliva that was gathering in her mouth. It disappeared in the snow each time.

Her butt was getting cold. She wrapped her arms around her knees and rested her head, enfolding her face in the warm sleeves of her striped sweater. It got even warmer as she huffed hot breaths into the fabric.

But however warm her face was, it didn't stop the fact that her butt was cold.

In her burrow across the river it was probably cold, too; it iced over whenever she wasn't inside it for a couple of days. Frisk wanted, not for the first time, a toasty house to sleep in instead. There were probably one or two abandoned houses in Snowdin right now, but it would take forever for her to get there from Sans' sentry outpost. When it got too dark, the way was starting to get now, she could just grit her teeth and bear an hour of scraping ice off of the dirt and wood planks in the burrow.

Those were the only thoughts she had. It was unpleasant to think about anything else, and she was too nauseous anyway. So Frisk ended up just staring at the trees in front of her with no thoughts, intrusive or otherwise, waiting for the magic nausea to die down.

It was finally starting to dissipate when she heard footsteps. Her heart raced, until she glanced right and saw the small shape of the other Sans shuffling through the trees. She tensed, and then looked back at her feet. The fake Sans. The imposter. The replacement Sans. He was getting close enough that she could make out the little white orbs within his sockets.

During that brief times when he had disappeared right in front of her, Frisk had caught a change in those eyes. One socket blacked out completely, while the other turned vibrant, a flashing blue and yellow iris with a tiny pinprick pupil in the center. It was awfully close to how her Sans' eye looked normally, if only that blue were replaced with red.

Perhaps in recognition of this, in her head it was almost like she felt "Imposter Sans" be crossed out and replaced with a slightly easier label, "Blue Sans."

Now Blue Sans was standing in front of her and Frisk didn't dare look at him again. Her stomach was a knotted, burning ball that churned with magic her body only barely knew what to do with. And he was just smiling at her.

"apparently i'm getting pie," he said.

Frisk glared up at him from over the sleeves of her sweater. "You fucking idiot," was all she said back.

Still regarding all her abuse with a cool expression, Blue Sans merely replied, "don't worry kid, 'm not a total idiot. i also got a list from jerk-me warning me about her already."

The girl straightened. "What?" Ignoring all of the physical complaints that she still had, she stood up, "He gave you a list? Let me see!"

Obediently, Blue Sans dug a hand into his pocket and brought out a crumbled piece of notepaper, his expression sharpening just a little. "now you want to read this stuff? eh sure, here. he didn't say an awful lot, though."

Her hands were shaking just a little bit as she pulled the note open, but hopefully it was not to any amount that the Blue Sans would notice. Her eyes scanned over the scrawled handwriting in front of her, unmistakably his. As she did it a thought intruded, unhelpfully,

You read over the note Sans left... himself.

Predictably, you're hardly mentioned. What were you expecting. . . ?

And all that aside she could still hear Blue Sans talking, though it didn't take her long to take in everything her Sans had left behind in this note. Her eyes itched, "as you can see it doesn't give me a lot of room to go on. if i want to go back home i need to know more about what this guy has been up to, who he's been talking to... and toriel didn't give me as many leads as I hoped."

Frisk resisted the urge to tear the note into pieces. At that, she could smile. Sans had really made things difficult for this guy right off the bat. What an asshole. "... So what's your next move?"

"in my world, the only other scientist i could talk to about these things lived all the way in hotland. but i don't know the relationship that this 'me' has with her," the way he talked, it almost sounded like he was just musing aloud. "it'll be a long trip. after all, it would be risky to just pop in without knowing what about the landscape has changed. even something as small as a ledge being in a different spot..."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

He smirked at her. "you have a serious language problem. i'm just saying i need more information. but i'm a little stuck."

"If you're stuck, we can help you."

Frisk wasn't the one who said that.

Blue Sans and the child both looked down to see the flower that popped up between them both, weak friendliness all over his face. Frisk had never been more pissed off at Flowey than she was today; first it was urging her to cooperate with him for the Iscream, and now once again he was offering her help to him without the actual child giving any input. He was never this helpful to all the other monsters that had tried to kill them.

And, true, Blue Sans hadn't tried yet, but every monster had at least one tally mark. It was only a matter of time for this one to gain his.

The skeleton monster chuckled, "that's nice of you to say. how about you, kiddo?" he winked lazily, "something tells me that you and the buttercup don't always see eye to eye."

Now Flowey twisted around in the ground, and he was staring up at Frisk. "Who's it going to hurt? He just wants to go home." He said quietly, and the girl felt her muscles tense up.

"Since when do you care about the monsters here?" She hissed back, all the time aware that Blue Sans was watching them both.

"But he's not from here," Flowey hissed back.

"So?"

Now the expression on her friend's face hardened, the tiny little fangs in his mouth growing more prominent and eyes a little darker. It was an impatient face Frisk had only seen on occasion. "Just trust me, okay?"

"..." She didn't know what to do. It wasn't as though Flowey was the one calling the shots in their relationship – instead, it was usually the opposite. But if it's something that he insisted on... That meant it meant a lot to him. And Blue Sans added, hesitantly, "you know, usually i would be against trusting talking flowers, but since it's helpful to me-"

"Shut up!" The girl snapped.

And Blue Sans chuckled, "you can't tell me what to do, buddy."

Sometimes she would get a gut feeling, or intrusive thoughts, which directed her toward something. But her head was quiet, and so was her gut. "... ..." She sighed. "I guess if you promise to help me too, you can stick with me for a while."

"thanks, kiddo." Blue Sans said, and the sleepy expression on his face made him even look earnest about it. "i'll owe you one."

"BUT," she snapped, and Flowey at her feet groaned loudly. She ignored him. "You give me any reason at all to think that you're gonna betray me, and I'll dust you."

Blue Sans shrugged, and Frisk felt a flare of irritation. "uh. well. okay then."

There was nothing for it. He was just going to keep acting this way; the other Sans, as wheezy and clammy as he was, also never seemed fazed by anything she did. So the girl sighed again, "Like I said, you're probably not gonna last long here. You don't know anything about this world. Whereas I have been here for weeks now. So... so if you want to survive to get back home, I'll tell you everything I know and you're just gonna listen, capisce?"

"... sounds reasonable," Blue Sans uttered slowly, one eye opening a little wider than the other.

What the hell was his problem? Frisk was about to retort, only to stiffen right up. "... But, we probably shouldn't do that here," she murmured. There was a crackling sound from far away, as well as what she thought was a low howling. The Canine Unit was on the lookout again as it approached nighttime. A shiver ran down her back. "We'll get caught if we stay here all night."

It gave her a little bit of satisfaction to see Blue Sans also listening warily. "well like you said, i don't know anything about this place, kid. where can we stay instead?"

Frisk pointed through the trees, across the freezing river. "That way. They're too stupid to follow us over the water. I have a little place that I made on the other side." She looked the short skeleton over, and then with a sneer she added, "You'll probably fit."

She wasn't really worried about it, but Frisk felt a momentary surprise when she didn't feel sharp hands tweaking her nose at the veiled insult. Blue Sans just sighed, only offering a shrug of defeat. "lead the way, then."


Author's Note: Asriel and Chara's backstories are a little different in this Underfell verse. 0 0

Next Chapter: Protagonists Do Stupid Things Don't They?