With Alphys there to do and suggest god-knew-what, Blue Sans was again in the shed working on the machine- that or, as equally likely, he was making more phone calls to the other Alphys.

She wished that the machine wasn't in there, and that Alphys wasn't in there. It was awkward with just her and Papyrus in the house, even if Flowey was there. Because, like usual, he didn't make a move to anger Papyrus and carried out almost everything in simpering subservience or secrecy. At least Frisk got to eat almost regularly, which had the bonus of giving her an excuse not to talk to anybody while her mouth was full. There wasn't nearly as much meat in Papyrus' fridge as she expected or wanted, but it was fine. Lasagna, spider cake, cheese sandwiches, anything she could get her hands on, it was fine.

Downing a glass of Suspicious Milk that Flowey poured for her, Frisk shivered. It was cold in this house, nearly all the time. Drinking something cold may not have been the best idea on her part, but no way was she going to try the tea.

She crept around the edge of the kitchen doorway and stared at where Papyrus sat, watching TV with a sour expression. Was he angry that his brother was missing, that he had a human in the house, or that he hadn't been able to defeat her yet from his own perspective? Or maybe, because he was a skeleton, his mouth was stuck like that like with Sans'. Frisk ducked back into the kitchen, picked her nose and then walked into the living room with as much bravery as she could muster. Papyrus' eyes didn't have pupils, but by the way he tapped his claws on his folded arm she could guess that he saw her.

She plopped on the couch next to him, and he scooted to the other side. She looked at the TV, seeing one of Mettaton's game shows playing quietly across from them. The child wrinkled her nose, memories of her time in front of the camera bubbling up unwillingly. "Why is the volume so low?"

Papyrus harrumphed. "ALL OF THE SCREAMING GETS ON MY NERVES."

"Yeah." She picked at a loose thread on her sweater. "It's worse on-set."

The monster didn't reply to her, so Frisk shrugged and leaned back into the couch. It wasn't comfy, but at least it was big. Gradually, to pass the time instead of watching that awful thing, she began to hum. It wasn't a conscious decision, the song just something that popped into her head, but soon she became aware of the noise coming from her own throat.

"DO YOU MIND?" Papyrus snarled at her.

Frisk shivered, but only because of a sudden draft from somewhere behind the couch. "Nope."

She continued humming.

"UGH." Papyrus turned off the TV and stood up, and Frisk stood up with him, hands behind her back and song still playing in her head. "I'M GOING TO MY ROOM."

"What's in there?" Frisk asked, matching his walk step by step.

At first he didn't reply to her, making a point to ignore her beyond his menacing noises, but as soon as he heard the child jump up on the stairs after him Papyrus gave up and whirled back around. "NOT YOU, FOR ONE THING."

At his scary face she only grinned bigger. "Cool, can I see?"

Bewildered, the skeleton squinted, trying to give the question logical thought- or so it looked to her- before roaring, "NO, YOU MAY NOT. THAT WOULD RUIN THE POINT OF THE YOU NOT BEING IN THERE."

"Okay," she said, jumping two steps up after him when he tried to continue on. "But while you're up there can you turn the heating on? Because it's cold as balls in here."

"'COLD AS BALLS' SAYS THE HUMAN," Papyrus scoffed, crossing his arms. Frisk crossed her arms too. "I'M STARTING TO SEE WHY MY SPINELESS AND CRUDE BROTHER FOUND YOU AMUSING."

Shooting up from between the floorboards Flowey crept up the banister on his prehensile tendrils, watching the two of them, but she gave him no acknowledgment save for a spare glance. Sneering at Papyrus, Frisk folded her arms. "Yeah, yeah, because when he was still here, he told me it's cold as balls in here too."

"OH HE DID NOT."

"Maybe he left to find a Papyrus who turns the heat on."

Now Papyrus twitched. "HE DID NOT. THE TEMPERATURE IN HERE IS PERFECT."

"It is not, retard."

His voice got even louder, but the child was well practiced in resisting flinching. "IT IS TOO." And then he shifted his stance, and then Frisk was not having fun anymore. "THERE IS JUST A TRICK TO IT. AS I SHOWED SANS. LET ME SHOW YOU THE TRICK TO IT."

He stood up and reached for her; Frisk screeched and stumbled back down the steps, out of his grasp. "Don't touch me!" But the thought was already in his head, and he would not be dissuaded; Papyrus marched over to the child and picked her up by the back of her shirt. Held aloft in the air by someone tall once again, Frisk kicked and swung. "Lemme go! Stop! What are you doing!?"

Papyrus held her out away from him like a bag of trash and, scowling, only silently carried her to the exit. He opened the door, and before Frisk could land a hit he plopped her on the front step and slammed it shut behind her. Leaving her out in the freezing snow and winds. "BY THE TIME YOU COME BACK INSIDE," he shouted from the other side, realization dawning over the girl, "IT SHOULD FEEL TEN TIMES WARMER."

Her hands were already shaking when she curled them into fists and pounded on the door, the cold biting at her cheeks. "Are you crazy!? Let me back in! I'll freeze to death out here!"

But when she paused to breathe, she heard not even a response from Papyrus, let alone the sound of a door unlocking. Frisk's stomach clenched and she gritted her teeth, pounding harder on the door, "Papyrus! Let me in! Hey! Hey! Shitstain! Let me back in! I'm fucking cold!" Her voice rose, increasing in pitch, and she scratched at the wood with her freezing nails. "There's other monsters outside!"

Realizing that her efforts were making no damage, the girl pulled out her pan. She stood back a step, one foot testing the crack on the bottom step from the door and the other planted firmly in the door. "Hey! Hey! Let me in!" Frisk shrilled, each shrill cry punctuated by her pan swinging on the door with a great thwock!. It bent, it groaned, and it looked each time like it was going to give- but each time she swung her weapon back for another blow, that door also bounced right back into place.

Muffled by its thickness, there came a single, "NO."

"Fuck!" She shouted at him, striking the door again; with her current momentum, she couldn't help but keep going. "AGH fuck fuck fuck! Fuck!" One swing finally knocked her off balance when it rebounded, and she fell on her butt. Beside her, a little white dog that she saw often barked and growled at her. Frisk screamed something- what it was even she couldn't guess- and she kicked it on her way back to her feet. The mutt ran off yipping, and with the pan left behind the child rammed her head into the door instead.

"Ow! Shit!" Tears burned over her eyes and cheeks. Still she couldn't stop. Her voice cracked, high as it was, while she kept on screaming, throwing her whole body against the door. "Fucking let me in fucking shitstain bitch shitpig dickhead fuck fuck fuck fuck!" Her words devolved again and again, and her tears dripped into the snow.

Frisk didn't even know when she stopped, heaving for air on the front step, until she heard Papyrus say, "... ... OH. MY GOD. ARE YOU DONE?"

Her face was red, as well as covered in a layer of painful frost that was gradually healing. She gulped more air, limbs aching. Although she wanted to say "let me in," her voice had been spent in the span of a few minutes. A little whimper was all that came out.

"HELLO? DID YOU DIE SPONTANEOUSLY?"

Frisk rolled off the front step and into a sitting position, still gulping breaths while she scooted off the bottom step. Her pan she took up gingerly and put it away with a quick swipe to her even yet running eyes. She half-crawled to the other side of the house and wiped her eyes even more, waiting for her breathing to even out and her chest to stop hurting.

"UH- HUMAN?" The door whined. "...UM? THEY EVAPORATED?"

Frisk scooted farther down the other side of the house, her cheeks burning again.

"Don't- don't worry about it! I-I'll go find them!" The new voice sent her tears spilling again, hands becoming fists. She wasn't going to look at Flowey when he popped out of the dirt, quivering like he was the door or the little white dog.

Regardless, he started talking. "G-golly, that was... A-are you okay?"

"Fine," she said over her sleeves. "Why don't you go check on your new best friend instead?"

The hesitation made it worse. "...Ehehe, but you're my best friend, Frisk." Flowey's stem shivered with his own nervous laughter.

"You don't act like it." She wiped her whole face and snorted loudly, and so got a glimpse of Flowey's deeply unhappy expression. It was almost comical enough to send her into a giggle fit, if she weren't held down by the tears.

He was drooping, "Aw, Frisk, you gotta try and understand him like I do."

"That's what you said about Toriel."

Flowey's whole visage trembled and his voice grew faint. "W-w-well it's also true with-"

"Forget it!" She leveled a dull glare at him, each word she'd said already leaving scorch marks in her mind by way of her intrusive thoughts. "Just shut up and stop being so annoying."

"Okay."

So he stood there silently, watching her shiver- shivering himself for reasons other than cold- and Frisk sat silently too. Gradually the snow was piling on her shoes and soaking the seat of her pants, her nose turning red from the wind. It was harsh enough weather that there weren't a lot of monsters out, and she noticed over hours of looking out the window that few monsters liked to walk too close to Papyrus' house anyway.

Still, that dog was yipping somewhere else in town, annoying thing. It reminded her that she and Flowey weren't the only ones sitting out there to witness all the yelling and screaming she'd done. Flowey piped up first, "Do you think we could go in with Blue Sans for a while? Maybe he won't mind if we say Papyrus kicked us out."

"Blue Sans..." Frisk straightened up, the cold house pressing into her back. It was probably a good idea, but she chewed on the tip of her thumb while looking to the shed where he was working.

Flowey bobbed back into her sight range. "Frisk?"

"Oh," she mumbled once she'd glanced at him. "I was just thinking something. Like," she pulled on her pants as she mumbled even softer, "if his machine gets broken again, do you think that he'll have to stay here?"

Humming in thought Flowey reeled back, then shaking his head. "Maybe, but I'm sure nothing will break it this... time..."

She wished he wouldn't look at her like that, so suddenly and suspiciously. It wasn't any of his business. Frisk curled up. "I wish he'd stay here. I like him a lot."

Frowning, her coward flower friend looked off to where the shed was and his leaves shook. "But if he stays, then that means your own Sans will never come back, doesn't it?" And then quickly, he added, "N-not that that's such a bad thing to me, of course... b-but I thought-"

"You really think that he's going to come back, just because Blue Sans leaves?" Flowey paused, eyes widening. Frisk shook her head, rubbing her hands together in the cold air. She said more quietly, "I don't... I don't think so. Why would he? I know that if I had a way to get out of this hellhole, I would take it without a second thought."

"Exactly." Flowey's expression was different now, eyes creased with his wavering little fanged smile, a face that almost turned skull-like in shape. It made her feel sick to her stomach.

It really was unbearably bitter out there anyway; the wind even made it harder to hear, both Flowey and her own voice. "... Let's go. I bet he's got food too."

The door inside wasn't locked, like she'd expected. She came in eagerly from the cold- Papyrus was right, after the wind disappeared from her back she began to feel much warmer, even though the shed didn't have the best heating either.

She'd never been in the shed before. It wasn't messy in the same way as Sans' room, but it looked pretty worn down; cracks spider-webbed over the tiles, on the light fixtures, even one or two running up the walls. There were cobwebs too, occasionally lurking in the corners. A big twisted hunk of metal and wiring stood in one corner, roughly hammered out into the shape of a booth with junk beside it, which Frisk guessed to be the machine that Blue Sans and Alphys kept talking about. Schematics and blueprints from Alphys' lab were in loose piles around it, next to tools which she didn't care to name.

There was no need to worry about being yelled at for intruding. Blue Sans was sleeping, resting against a counter sunken into one wall with his jacket draped over his body, and Alphys was nowhere in sight. Frisk shut the door slowly, putting a finger to her lips while Flowey crawled up to her shoulders. She tiptoed across the tiles and to Blue Sans, picking up the piece of paper next to his slumbering form.

It's nothing of interest.

Screwing up her face, Frisk put it back down. She looked instead to the jacket that Blue Sans wore; there was a flaw in Papyrus' trick, which she slowly realized while standing there- eventually, it was going to feel too cold in the room after the relief of being inside was over. Again putting a finger to her lips, she pulled the jacket off of Sans and wrapped it around her own shoulders.

You scum.

The furry hood of Sans' jacket tickled her nose and she rubbed it, smirking for a moment. Looking at her, Flowey giggled quietly and she shushed him, tiptoeing over to the machine. Behind her, Blue Sans' snores were a gentle sound compared to all the screaming and hitting.

The machine's engine was what made it run, right? It looked utterly decimated, by her estimates. Its insides were a mess and outside, plugs and wires and maybe something like electrodes- those were as many words as she knew, though.

"How do you think this thing works, anyway?" Flowey asked Frisk, his voice just under a whisper.

Frisk didn't know, but she bet these pieces on the ground were important for it. She picked it up gingerly, feeling a thrill for how its sharp edges rested on the skin of her fingertips, just threatening to slice them open. She put it back down, and picked up another that was even bigger, surely even more important. It all looked so complicated. Frisk sat back with her piece and pressed the palm of her free hand into her eye. "Mmm..."

Break | Do Not

"what's up?"

In unison with Flowey's squeak Frisk inhaled sharply, tossing the piece back to the pile in which it belonged. "Oh!" Blue Sans was awake, and standing right next to them with the usual grin on his skull.

White eyes going to the engine and then back to Frisk, he only said, "careful. alphys'd get mad if we have to replace some of these things."

"I was-" The child tore the jacket off her shoulders, holding it in front of her instead. "-Just looking. Where- um, where is Alphys?"

"stepped out. we're gonna need a welder," he said, and chuckled at the way her eyes lit up at the word "welder." Frisk continued to knead the jacket through her fingers, and his eyes widened slightly- hand going to his shoulder- as if just now realizing he wasn't wearing it. "huh. you in the habit of taking things that aren't yours?"

She stood up, wrapping her arms around the coat like it was a stuffed toy. "Yes. My Sans says you snooze you lose."

"what a cold-hearted kid you are," he said, shutting a tired eye at her. "i'm kinda chilly in here. you already got a sweater, so i think you can give that back?"

Aside from being chilly, he sounded like his sinuses- not that he had any- were clogged. Frisk stuck her tongue out at Blue Sans, though, for just a little longer. Then he said, "unless that jacket happens to be, uhh, important to you..."

So she tossed it in his face. He didn't mind. "hehe."

His sockets were covered.

Frisk eyed the pieces of the engine once more.

Break | Do Not

"How are you feeling, Blue Sans?" Spoke Flowey at last, as the skeleton pulled the coat on.

Frisk stepped away from the machine; suddenly Blue Sans' eyes were visible again, a little narrower than she remembered. "good. how about you, sprout?"

"Good! Frisk is good too." He bobbed and made a sound like wetting his lips, "W-we wanted to come check on you."

"that so? hmm..." he glanced over at the engine, and Frisk felt her heart sink. "i got a question for you, kiddo."

Another step away from the engine, looking down at the broken tiles. "What?"

"if you're a god, how come you can't fix this thing for me?"

Frisk's eyes shot back up immediately; Blue Sans had thrust his hands into his pockets, gave a bigger grin, and he sniggered at her shocked expression. The child plucked her sleeve and scowled, "I'm not a god."

He shrugged, "being able to move each individual point of the universe kind of does make you a god. so the way i see it, if you can do all this reset business, you can fix this machine."

"That's retarded," she snapped, although the thought did almost make her smile. "You just don't want to do any work like usual."

"true as that may be," Blue Sans admitted with a shrug, and she did smile then. "i don't think the theory is wrong."

Of course he didn't. Her Sans must have believed the same thing. Frisk wondered if he would be wheezing right now, or if he was wheezing then, and her expression fell. "Well I'm telling you I'm not a god. And if I was," she added, folding her arms. "Then everyone should start being nicer to me, don't you think?"

"maybe." His pupils disappeared. Frisk almost stopped breathing. "if you can control it."

"I can't," she said quickly. Maybe too quickly, but she didn't care, it was the truth. "I mean, I can SAVE and that's it." And he wasn't even supposed to know that much. She squinted at him, and Blue Sans squinted back.

He took a moment to pause, and finally yawned, "well, that's a shame. i was hoping to get out of working on this today. i'm so tired already i can hardly see straight."

Flowey bent around into Frisk's view, and the two shared a look before turning back to the monster. "Well if you're tired you can take a break or something, make Papyrus stop being an asshole instead." Frisk uttered. "...Until Alphys gets back. Or just make Alphys do the work."

"take a break?" Sans looked sideways. "what a novel concept."


Author's Note: More like "Fellhole" amirite? ...Although that sounds weird.

I also wanted to say thanks again for the reviews, I do love reading them!

Next Chapter: Wheezing