When the number on her clock turned to 12, Frisk heard something hit her window aside from rain. "Ah!"

That was quick; she hadn't moved from her spot since Red Sans left, which wasn't too long ago. She was too busy trembling and feeling cold to do anything but sit there, half finished thoughts and possibilities running through her young mind. When the smack came from her window, she almost jumped a mile and climbed quickly off the bed, which would have been the primary target of anything trying to burst into her room.

She trembled beside her bed for three seconds before she realized both the time and what it meant. She climbed back on her bed and crawled to the window, peering out at the drizzle outside that was soaking the buttercups underneath her windowsill. "Leo?" She was surprised. That was really quick.

She was also surprised because it wasn't just Leo waiting there, spitting out the other rock that he had picked up in his mouth. Frisk squinted down at the two figures standing in the rain together.

"Papyrus?" Papyrus was holding an umbrella over Leo's head, although he and his "battle body" were still getting soaked- her view was too fuzzy right now to tell if he wore any injuries. Regardless of the rain, regardless of anything Red Sans might have done before he came to visit her, they were both staring at her window. She didn't think that they could hear her, but all the same she said to them, pointing outside her bedroom, "I'll be right down."

It being so wet out she changed out of her night clothes into her normal sweater, shirt, and pants, having no desire to get Toriel even more upset by finding her in wet pajamas. After an inordinately long time of creeping downstairs and avoiding the squeaky floorboards, Frisk laced up a big pair of rain boots and pulled on a yellow raincoat, fumbling with the zipper for a bit before giving up. The loudest noise that she made, unfortunately, was the door squealing open as she stepped down to the rain. But she wasn't going to wait around to see if it woke up her adoptive mother; already, she was racing to the side of the house. "Papyrus! Leo!"

Leo jumped up and down as she approached. "Yoooo Frisk! Sorry about all this rain, it makes sneaking out a little harder." She tried to say that it was all right, he moved back and forth on his feet a little guiltily. "I was actually going to call it off for tonight, and suggest that we do it tomorrow, but..."

As he trailed off, Frisk looked over at Papyrus. His eyes looked big and somewhat watery, despite the fact that his eyes were just sockets; if he wasn't holding the umbrella up for Leo, he might've been wringing his hands instead. There were no injuries that she could see, but her heart was still in her mouth when their gazes met. Startled, Papyrus smiled at her, another sweaty skeleton. "HI FRISK! I HEARD FROM LEO THAT YOU WERE SNEAKING OUT! NORMALLY I WOULDN'T APPROVE SINCE YOU WERE GROUNDED, BUT-"

Frisk glanced back at the house, starting to stutter that maybe he shouldn't talk so loudly when Leo intervened, "Great Papyrus! One of the rules of sneaking out is that you have to wait until you're far from your house before you start talking to anybody!"

"OH! RIGHT! MY BAD!" Papyrus made a motion like zipping his teeth, and Frisk smiled back at him. Then he said, in just as loud a voice as before, "TO THE DUMP!"

After the two children were done flinching- and there was no sign of an angry Toriel bursting out of the house- the three of them moved through the rain, down a street of New New Home that was becoming filled with puddles. There was some kind of awkward tension between herself and the other two that Frisk couldn't describe, as if Leo and Papyrus were just waiting for her to speak first and give them a chance. It was never fun to be the conversation starter. Still, her conversation with Red Sans was stuck in her head, so she cleared her throat. "Um.. m... How come you decided to tag along, Papyrus?"

"WELL... I WANTED TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT-" Rarely had she seen him stutter this much. "ABOUT SANS, AND I FIGURED THIS SHOULDN'T WAIT IF YOU'RE ALREADY GOING TO TALK WITH ALPHYS."

"Do you think Alphys will even be there?" Leo mused. "I mean, she probably doesn't want to get soaked too."

"She'll be there." Frisk said. But then she looked back to Papyrus. "What about Sans?" She asked softly.

Papyrus suddenly looked frustrated, shaking his head. He came to a stop, and the two children came to a stop with him. "OH, IT'S STUPID! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON EXACTLY!" He sighed, "BUT SANS... ISN'T BEING HIMSELF AT ALL."

"... it's not stupid," Frisk said.

"NYEH, BUT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" Apparently needing full use of both of his hands, Papyrus handed off the umbrella off to Frisk to shelter Leo with, while he was trying to communicate what he meant, exactly, with helpless gestures. "AT FIRST I JUST THOUGHT IT WAS BECAUSE HE WAS SICK, AND THEN I THOUGHT THAT THIS WAS ACTUALLY A GOOD THING?.? BECAUSE HE'S BEEN DOING MORE STUFF WITH ME AND HE'S BEEN GETTING OUT MORE AND SHOWING INTEREST IN THINGS HE HASN'T LOOKED AT IN A LONG LONG TIME," Frisk and Leo exchanged looks while he talked, Leo's face confused and Frisk's grim. "EVEN IF HE'S... KIND OF WEIRD ABOUT IT. LIKE, REALLY WEIRD ABOUT IT. IT'S STILL FINE!.!.! AS LONG AS HE'S GETTING OUT AND DOING THINGS!

"BUT TODAY- I MEAN TONIGHT, HE..."

Frisk felt as if her heart might stop.

"I KNOW SANS WOULD NEVER HURT ME, NO MATTER WHAT! ... BUT, HE DID NOW."

She jumped forward, "D-did he hit you?"

Leo jumped forward too, eyes blazing, "Oh my gosh, is that what happened!? I thought I saw him use some magic!"

Papyrus shivered and tried to smile again, as if suddenly remembering that there were two kids here who looked up to him. "-WELL IT WAS NOT ON PURPOSE, HEH-HEH-NYEH! IT WAS NOTHING TO SOMEONE AS COOL AS ME, THE GREAT PAPYRUS! BESIDES, HIS ATTACKS ONLY DEAL ONE DAMAGE ANYWAY."

"But he hit you?!"

"WELL, YES, AND I DON'T UNDERSTAND BECAUSE SANS WOULDN'T EVER DO THAT. IT WAS LIKE I WAS... UM..." His veneer of cheer slid off again and he wasn't looking at them. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE! BUT HE..."

Between Leo's outrage and Papyrus' uncharacteristic stammering, Frisk couldn't hold it in anymore. In case he was watching her somehow through the rain, although in her opinion the secrecy ship had already sailed, her voice ended up being a loud hiss, "That's not Sans!"

Papyrus froze. "...EH?"

She took a step back, now that the two of them were staring at her, Papyrus' eyes going googly. She took a look around. There was no one on the street with them, most of the monsters taking shelter from the weather. "... That's what I needed to talk to Alphys about. He isn't the real Sans."

"NOT THE REAL SANS?" Papyrus scratched his head. "THEN... WHAT KIND OF SANS IS HE?"

That wasn't the easiest question to answer. She still had no idea where he came from or how, or even when it was that he switched places with the real Sans. "A much pointier one. I don't know where he came from, but he says that he's here to stay. He's really scary."

"WOWIE..." Papyrus let out a breath, putting his hands over his head. "HE MUST BE A MASTER OF DISGUISE, TO HAVE FOOLED ME SO COMPLETELY...!"

Frisk lowered her head. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I only found out yesterday..."

The response was immediate, not weighed down by anything that was going on around them, "IT'S ALRIGHT HUMAN! I KNOW YOU MUST HAVE BEEN SCARED, KNOWING THIS ALL ALONE..."

"Uh."

"BUT YOU KNOW, THIS DOES EXPLAIN A FEW THINGS," Papyrus mused. "I'VE ALSO FELT LIKE SANS HAS BEEN VERY FORGETFUL LATELY. BUT IF HE'S NOT THE SAME PERSON, NATURALLY HE-" His jaw dropped. "WAIT, IF HE'S HERE, WHERE'S MY BROTHER THEN?!"

"Uh." As Papyrus and Leo stared, Frisk looked around the rainy street and backed up, trying to find the junkyard in the drizzle. "I... ..." No images or locations were coming to mind. And what was worse, wherever he was, he had been there for a very long time at this point. Days, in fact. Longer than she would've expected him to be gone, if he was still...

With two friends still looking at her, she turned around and started to walk. "We shouldn't keep Alphys waiting, okay?"

"Oh!"

"AH, RIGHT!" In the rain it was harder to see how Papyrus faltered. But then in the next moment he went racing after Frisk, picking Leo up off the ground when he tripped on a crack.

Alphys was indeed already waiting for them among mounds of trash, huddled under an umbrella in her pajamas and a raincoat, rubbing her eyes. She didn't see the three of them at first, too occupied with her own yawns and shivers, but the splashing caught her attention when Frisk entered the gates of the dump. Papyrus' splashes were even louder when he came in behind her. "Oh! Y-y-you guys!" She straightened right up, "I... I didn't expect you to be coming w-with other people... Hi P-Papyrus!"

"DR. ALPHYS!" Papyrus set Leo down next to himself as he skidded to a stop in the wet gravel of the dump, splashing Frisk's shoes. "WE'RE ALL VERY WORRIED!"

"W-w-what? Worried about w-what?" She looked up at them, blinking through the rain with blanched scales.

With a nod Frisk stepped to the side, allowing her more vocal skeleton friend to take the stage. Handing the umbrella off to her, he clenched his hands into fists and cried, "FRISK SAYS THAT SANS HAS BEEN REPLACED WITH A POINTIER SANS! AND HE DOESN'T ACT LIKE MY BROTHER AT ALL, WHICH MAKES THIS A PROBLEM. EVEN IF SOME OF IT IS ACTUALLY NOT A PROBLEM SINCE- WELL! IT IS STILL PROBLEMATIC!"

If there were any traces of sleepiness on Alphys' face, then it was startled right off of her with those words. She trembled under the umbrella. "W-what?" And then she looked over at Frisk, "Th-this explains -w-well- i-i-is this true?"

Taking another look around the junkyard the child nodded, fiddling with her index fingers. She was startled when Alphys jumped forward with large eyes, grasping her hands. The cold stick of the umbrella pressed into the space between Frisk's thumb and index finger. "P-p-please, t-tell me everything!"

Swallowing, Frisk nodded and began to speak.


Alphys sat back on a broken fridge as she processed the information given her; the next moment she squealed when her pajama bottoms became soaked in gathered rain water. Cheeks burning, she looked to Frisk and the others, who were all silent. "... W-well, I guess it's- uh. It's not yo-y-you're usual problem."

"So you mean Sans is from another world entirely?" Leo jumped in, eyes like saucers. "Like an alien?"

"No," raising her voice Frisk glared at him, and he shrunk back. "Not like an alien. He's not an alien."

Papyrus raised a gloved hand to his jawline, eyes shifting left in thought. "MAYBE ME AND SANS SECRETLY HAVE ANOTHER COUSIN, ONE WHO LOOKS LIKE HIM, AND HE CAME TO VISIT!"

"Another cousin?"

As Papyrus started to reply, Alphys spoke up loudly, "W-w-well, wherever he came from, isn't the more important question what he did with our f-f-friend?" She pushed up her glasses, which were getting slick and sliding down on her snout. "W-we can't just let him walk around pretending to be Sans!"

"Yo, we should tell Undyne about him! I bet that she'll know what to do!" Leo suggested, recovering from Frisk's dark look, "I bet that she would punch him right in the face! And this time it will be somebody who actually deserves it!"

"P-p-perhaps it would be better to have somebody take him into custody," Alphys murmured quietly. "In case he does more harm..."

Leo was enthusiastically agreeing beside her. Frisk, on the other hand, rubbed her arm and didn't say anything, thinking back to her encounters with Red Sans so far. His sharp claws and teeth, his constant wheezing, and now his attacking Papyrus with magic. As she thought about it, she subconsciously raised her hands to her face and shivered; in her chest, her heart had started beating harder. Telling Undyne about all of this was definitely going to mess up her plan. And the real Sans... She should say something.

She could say either "let's do that," or she could say "let's not," but she was already leaning the hardest towards the latter.

Yet Papyrus, who had been standing so quietly next to her, was the one to say it first, "I DON'T THINK WE SHOULD DO THAT RIGHT NOW. IT SOUNDS RISKY TO ME."

As Frisk nodded, Alphys adjusted her glasses and squeaked at the two of them, "W-what are you talking about? I-I think if anyone could handle this g-guy, it would be Undyne."

"BUT, BUT-" Papyrus sputtered, shaking his hands at her, "EVEN IF HE'S MEANER AND POINTIER THAN MY BROTHER, HE'S STILL A SANS! IF UNDYNE GETS INVOLVED, HE COULD GET SERIOUSLY HURT!"

"And then he'll never tell us where the real one is," Frisk added in a low voice.

"YES, THAT TOO!"

"Th-then," Alphys looked down at her feet, "We should tell Asgore. O-or someone like that. ... U-uh, you don't like that idea either, F-frisk?" The child was playing with the locket around her neck, frowning deeply. "W-what do you think we should do... a-about him?"

You try to think of a solution, but none come.

Frisk tried to speak, and a croak came out of her mouth.

But Papyrus picked it up for himself, "I THINK THE ANSWER IS OBVIOUS! THIS PERSON MUST BE UNHAPPY AND THAT'S WHY HE'S HERE! RATHER THAN ARRESTING HIM, WE SHOULD MAKE FRIENDS WITH HIM! IT WOULD BE A CINCH FOR ME!"

This did nothing for Frisk's hands on her face, and she pinched her own cheeks. "U-um..."

"YES! I'M CONFIDENT THAT I CAN GET HIM TO TELL ME WHERE HE PUT MY BROTHER!"

Leo blinked and then jumped, "Yeah! The Great Papyrus befriends everyone!"

Alphys was sweating, and Frisk had left light red marks on her cheeks after she pulled her hands down to her locket. "But-" Another quick glance; it was just them for now. Even the dummies minded their own business. "He'll get mad if he knows you know."

"DON'T WORRY ABOUT THAT, FRISK! I'LL BE SURE TO DEFUSE THE SITUATION!"

"Will you?" Frisk looked up at him with dark eyes, almost hidden in her wet mop of hair.

Almost immediately she regretted it; for the barest of seconds, Papyrus hesitated and his confident grin wavered. "WELL..." His eyes shifted to the right, and he seemed to go somewhere far away. It only lasted for a short time. Just enough that she wouldn't have noticed if she wasn't looking right at him. Papyrus' usual cheery expression bounced right back. "... YES!"

"Could you wait..? For a while?"

"EH? WHY?"

"Because..." As she tried to speak again, Frisk's voice trailed, and she tried to communicate instead with her face.

Papyrus, unlike his brother, wasn't so quick to pick up on it. He just looked at her in confusion before petting the child on the head. "WELL! I DON'T KNOW WHY, BUT IF IT'S IMPORTANT TO YOU I'LL HUMOR YOUR STRANGE REQUEST! IN THE MEANTIME, I'LL TRY NOT TO TIP HIM OFF. HMMM..." Papyrus shook his head, again rubbing his jawline. "IT WILL BE HARD TO LIE SO BRAZENLY, BUT I KNOW I THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL MANAGE IT!"

"Aww, so we aren't telling anybody?" Leo whined.

Before Frisk could worry about trying to explain the sick feeling in her gut, Alphys mercifully cut in. "F-frisk is right," she stammered, and Frisk sighed in relief. "The situation is t-too d-delicate right now. We, uh, we need to- to find out where this person came from a-and why, an-and... st-stuff like that?" Leo, Papyrus, and Frisk were all nodding at each other with their own levels of reluctance, while in the meantime Alphys muttered in a lower and lower voice, hands clutching her own snout, "OhmygodthisisjustlikethatepisodeofOtsukisamaDimensionalHallwhereAkira'smirrorcametolifeandturnedhimintoanevildoubleandhetriedtostealthecrownrightfromAdelaide's-"

"Alphys?"

Frisk had approached her slowly while she muttered. Opening her eyes wider as if she had just realized that the child was right in front of her, Alphys let out a loud squeak. "Wah!"

Unbothered by the sound, Frisk just blinked at her. She cleared her throat and dug a hand into her pocket as she quietly spoke, "I... think that maybe this may be involved, too." Her hands clenched into a fist, she held it out for the pajama-clad scientist.

Alphys held out a hand to accept the object, which turned out to be the small silver key. "Y-you want me to take it? What's t-this?"

"It's they key to Sans' secret room in the shed," Frisk said, and tried to ignore Papyrus exclaiming "SANS HAS A SECRET ROOM IN THE SHED?" behind her. She rubbed her nose instead and continued, "There's a lot in there I don't understand. Maybe it will help?"

With a decisive nod, Alphys pocketed the key in her pajamas. "I-I-I'll check it out."

"What do I get to do?!" Leo asked, hopping up and down in the water beside them.

Frisk turned her head to him and stammered, "Uuh. Well I'm still grounded." She hesitated, putting her hands in her pockets, and grimaced. "I also don't have a phone, so..."

"Yooo! I can help you pass messages without a phone!"

For the first time that night, Frisk smiled at him. "Are you sure? Toriel might get mad at you."

"I'm not scared! It'll be like we're all secret agents!"

"Secret agents?" Without meaning to, Frisk grinned yet again, even larger. "We need secret code names then."

Papyrus' eyes filled with a sparkle unseen in eye sockets. "I CALL 'AWESOME SKELETON' FOR MY SECRET CODE NAME!"

"Then I want to be 'Awesome Monster'!" Leo yelped, bouncing up and down. "Can I be?"

"OF COURSE YOU CAN!"

Frisk didn't know if she could take "Awesome Kid" without looking like she was copying...

"G-g-guys," Alphys cut in. "Can we maybe discuss this when it isn't raining on us? Not th-that I have any problem staying up late, but..." She shivered, as if to illustrate her point without finishing. "Papyrus- err... Awesome Skeleton, er, um, please keep an eye on this new Sans."

"OF COURSE!"

"I-I'll look into where he might have come from. Frisk, s-since he's talking to you, keep us all updated on the n-new Sans too. Leo can help you out there?... ?" Frisk nodded, and Alphys exhaled slowly. "L-let's all go get some r-rest for now. IhaveafeelingIwon'tbesleepingtonight, butokay."

It's alright Alphys, Frisk thought as she scratched her nose, exiting the dump with three friends she was very grateful for. I probably won't sleep either.


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