Since locking her out of the house, Papyrus had been behaving a little oddly towards Frisk. The snapping and cursing that characterized the last few days with him had almost disappeared completely, replaced by uncomfortable silence. That was fine with her, and her own behavior was also characterized by a quiet, sulky silence, replying in short sentences to anything Flowey or Blue Sans said.
Engrossed in whatever it was that was making him so ill, Blue Sans had stopped working on the machine entirely, which was just fine for Frisk. He took to napping, on the couch since Frisk had already taken over Sans' old room, and that was where he spent the majority of his time. Alphys seemed fairly upset by his inactivity, but only because she had to do the work herself. Frisk wondered why she even bothered.
Whenever the lizard monster complained Blue Sans would cough and murmur that it was fine. He didn't really look that sick to Frisk, though. She even found a flashlight somewhere in this austere house and shined it into one of his eye sockets and nose, looking for mucus or pus, and all she got was being transported away from the couch by the thick of her SOUL. It looked more like he was faking it to her (monsters couldn't catch human diseases, right?) But she wouldn't say anything, if only so that she wouldn't disrupt his torpor.
She was still working up her nerve, to take advantage of a moment when Alphys wasn't around.
It was a rusty action for her.
At some point on another day, Flowey found a bag of Iscreams in the freezer, and Frisk devoured ten of them greedily before Papyrus had time to stop her- the instant she finished, of course, she regretted it. She threw up on the kitchen floor- or, rather, tried to, but magic is not so easily expelled from the body. Queasy, and with Papyrus lecturing her in his deep screechy voice, she sat on the couch next to Blue Sans for awhile.
During those hours she pulled out two Iscreams she had saved and offered them to him, her skin hot and prickly while she did. "Iscream?"
"i didn't hear anything," he said.
She pulled the gift away with a sneer. More retarded jokes. "Har har har, nevermind."
"aw c'mon, i'll stop," he said, fumbling for it without moving from where he sat. Frisk squealed when his hand touched hers and tossed the packages in his face. "thanks kiddo, that's really sweet of you."
Sans makes a pun that is kind of on the nose.
She didn't have time to snatch the packages back, growling, before he swallowed them- paper and all. Instead, she growled for a second time in the back of her throat and scurried up into her old Sans' room. Blue Sans wasn't unsettled by her behavior in the least.
There wasn't anything to do there except mark tallies on the wall, tallies made by Undyne which she didn't wish to be forgotten while so far from her burrow. After making them she nearly lost her mind in this room. I stunk too much, smelling like the anxiety that Sans so often exuded. She ate a hamburger she found in his sock drawer- already hungry and way past her dinner time- and screamed into a mattress.
By the time she came back down, Blue Sans wasn't on the couch anymore. He was snoozing on the table, next to the rock covered in chocolate sprinkles. She frowned; Papyrus was sitting on the couch again, flipping through channels. Out of his room again; Frisk kept a groan from rising in her. "Did you move him over there?"
"HE DIDN'T WAKE UP. HE WON'T MIND," he snapped, waving her off. He hadn't yet settled on something to watch.
A lot of the channels were weird things, if it wasn't another Mettaton show (Papyrus often complained that they were all reruns lately;) there were old kid shows that Frisk watched when she was younger, a few science fiction series that the grown-ups had watched when they thought all the kids were asleep, movies that were in black and white and severely damaged, and more than a fair share of shaky camera home movies that the monsters had apparently made. As Sans explained it to her once, people in the underground didn't have the budget to make high-quality television shows like the humans. They just broadcasted whatever media they could get their hands on, human or monster; Mettaton was the first one to ever make a long-lasting television show.
It explained well enough why he was so popular despite how gruesome some of his stuff was. ... Not that she expected much taste from monsters. Frisk dully watched the channels change before retrieving her train of thought. Frowning at Papyrus, she stomped her foot repeatedly and waited for the creaking of floorboards that signaled her so-called friend's arrival. "Don't be a jackass, he was sleeping there."
One eye-ridge raising, Papyrus turned back in her direction. "EXCUSE ME? IT'S MY COUCH!"
"But he's a guest, and you're supposed-"
But the skeleton was already raising his hand, waving her protest off while his sharp voice cut in, "HE IS NOT A GUEST, HE'S SANS. EVEN IF HE'S A SQUISHIER... MORE ASSERTIVE VERSION OF HIM. I WANT TO WATCH TV, I DON'T SEE THE PROBLEM."
A guest, or just a parallel version of his brother? It suddenly stopped making sense, and the child's head hurt. So her voice broke against the curve of her throat and she hissed. Papyrus sneered, satisfied, and turned back to the TV. Frisk heard the floorboards crack and squeak, and so took a step closer. "Well, what if I want to watch something on TV? I'm a guest, aren't I?"
"AND THIS AFFECTS... SANS... HOW?" Papyrus was staring rigidly over at her, his fingers still clicking through channels.
It didn't, but it would hopefully mean that he would leave. He didn't seem to even like sitting next to her. "I dunno," she could only say, "But I want to watch TV. And you should also put Blue Sans back."
He snorted at her, "NO WAY!" And as if that finished the discussion, he sat back on his couch and looked ahead.
Frisk gritted her teeth, sensing a boiling feeling in her stomach. She sat down next to Papyrus, sticking her tongue out at him; she was going to watch whether he liked it or not. This time, he would leave her in peace and she would let him. She started to hum the tune that played, like last time.
Only this time, he didn't leave.
Instead he snapped, "WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING THAT?"
Flushing, Frisk buried herself deeper into both the couch and her sweater. "Doing what, fucktard?"
"DON'T CALL ME NAMES," Papyrus shouted, stomping his foot. She could see Flowey popping up out of the corner of her eye, face as terrified as always. "I MEAN THAT THING YOU KEEP DOING!"
"What thing?" Frisk said, and preceded to hum.
"THAT!" Papyrus stomped his foot again, sitting rigidly upright. "YOU KEEP MAKING THAT NOISE, WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING THAT? IT IS EXTREMELY DISTRACTING?!"
The child folded her arms. "You mean me humming?"
"... YES. THAT IS WHAT I MEAN." Papyrus shut off the TV, and Frisk voiced her protest over his continued shouting, "I AM NOT GOING TO LISTEN THAT TUNE COMPETING WITH METTATON OR ANYONE ELSE ANNOUNCING THINGS ON MY PROGRAMS!"
"Why not?" Frisk sniffed bitterly. "I have to."
First he started to reply, taking a big breath without any lungs, but then it cut off short. Twice, and both times more rapidly, he tried and cut off, squinting his eyesockets hard in confusion. "...UH. WHAT?"
Feeling hot and prickly again, she stood. "Th-the song- it's like when you have something in your head- and it won't go away- ever- and it's like- when it's always- but it's not like actually hearing it, it's just there-"
Papyrus stood too, eyes wide and voice rising in pitch. "-WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"
"Stuck in your head!" Frisk shouted, louder than she meant to. Blue Sans was still snoring through it all, unbelievably- yes unbelievably. And with Flowey there, that made an audience of three. Her face flushed. "Like! When you hear a song and it's constantly playing and- except, except this time, it's because you're here. It's always there when you're here!"
Now he wasn't saying anything, just staring with wide eyes and raised brows. "UH?"
"It's like-" Her gestures became more animated, more frantic, as she tried to explain. "It's like, Papyrus walks in, and then- and then- then there's that fucking- music- again- and- it was nice- at first- but it keeps- fucking going- and-and um- it- um- like this-" Face beet red now, Frisk hummed the first several lines of that tune, which was a constant, and watched Papyrus' shocked expression get even worse. "-Except not like that, it's got more- um-"
"WHERE DID YOU EVEN HEAR THAT?!"
"I didn't!" She yelled. "It's just there! Like- like- the moment I met you, I-"
He squinted again, the crack in his skull flaring. "WHEN WE MET? BUT-"
"-Like it's your theme song or something-"
"MY THEME SONG? OH MY GOD." Papyrus took a moment, digging into his pocket, until whipping out the phone that kept causing all the trouble. "IT'S MY FUCKING RINGTONE!"
The cellphone in his hands, as if on cue, began to ring- the tune, indeed, the same as the one that had been playing in her own head. Somehow she never noticed their similarities before, the music always cutting off too soon.
Papyrus let out a shriek, almost dropping and then fumbling clumsily for the object, and Frisk began to laugh. He glared at her, quickly answering the thing without another word to the child. "YES? WHO THE HELL IS THIS?"
In her opinion, the question wasn't necessary. Only one person was calling him for the last few days- well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say only one world. ... No, that wasn't right either. But in any case she knew it was going to be that other Alphys, or the other Papyrus, or that other Frisk, all of them calling for the same purpose. The sneer on her face faded and she twisted the end of her sweater while her Papyrus listened to the other end of the line.
His response was just as she expected. "OH, GREAT. NOW THERE ARE TWO OF YOU TALKING TO ME. WHAT DO YOU WANT?"
Frisk might have suggested something, but before she had a chance to talk Blue Sans was standing next to her, very much awake. "they probably want you to give me the phone, anti-paps."
"DON'T THEY KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?" Papyrus snarled, and something came from the phone. He frowned deeply, snapping, "NO, NINE! YOUR CLOCK IS INFERIOR TO MINE!"
"give me the phone."
One more look at Blue Sans was enough to convince him, and he reluctantly handed his cellphone over. The volume was loud- like everything Papyrus- loud enough that, standing next to him, Frisk could hear almost everything that the other Frisk was saying to the other Sans. Talking in a voice that didn't sound all that much like hers. "U-uhh... Hi? Red Papyrus?"
And Blue Sans, although always smiling, was more noticeably doing so now. "it's me, kid. what's up?"
Frisk was as cheerful as they always were- at least, so it sounded to Sans. It was nice that someone could keep up their spirits in this situation. Although, as he pointed out to himself mentally, this kid wasn't the one trapped in this worse world.
"Oh! Well Alphys was wondering what you guys were using for a power source, since your machine doesn't seem to have one anymore?"
Power source? Before, he was using different kinds of magical batteries that ... had designed. It didn't look like the same was true for this thing. "you might, uh, wanna ask this world's alphys about that when she gets here tomorrow."
"Okay." And Frisk cleared their throat. "So how are you doing, Sans?"
That wasn't an easy question to answer. "i'm doing fine. not hacking up as much, so, that's a good sign right?"
There was a little laughter. "There are some kids who are getting better too. It makes sense to me; whenever I get a cold, it doesn't last very long."
"to be honest, i'm not sure how monsters could catch a human disease," Sans mused, ignoring the three other occupants of the room all staring him. It was like that every time he accepted a call from the his world, which is why he wished he could just steal the phone away from this world's Papyrus and conduct the call in privacy, but it didn't work out very well the first time he tried that. "i'm gonna want to look into that later. ...uh, but anyway, how's paps? is he there?"
"No," Frisk said, "I just came from his place, though. He looks fine to me."
"no cracks or anything, right?"
Around him he could hear the peanut gallery talking. The Frisk from this world was saying, "Sans wouldn't make a crack."
And in as low a voice as he was probably capable of making, this world's Papyrus retorted, "THE HELL HE WOULDN'T. THIS PAPYRUS IS OBVIOUSLY NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO CURB HIM."
"watch your mouth," he growled, and they both shut up. On the other end of the phone line Frisk made a confused squeak, and he had quickly "not you, kiddo. but that's good. i wish I could talk to him right now, you say hi to him for me."
"I will!" Aside from just their voice, he could also hear crunching, like on leaves and other carpetings of nature. They must be walking through the woods again. "I'm sure he'll be a lot happier once the machine is fixed, from you on your side or Alphys working on mine. I know I will be."
Sans felt an inexplicable weariness wash over him. "i'm sure you guys'll get it figured out soon."
"Or you will," the kid insisted. "You're really smart."
He could say something like, "you're a literal god," but that was harder to say to them then it was to say to this kid standing near him. "smart? heheheh, have you not been payi-" Something changed on the other end of the phone line, and Sans cut off in the middle of a modest protest. Crunching noises, a sharp gasp. Something else. Sans' heartbeat quickened. "frisk?"
There was no reply.
"uhhh, kid?" For a second he thought he had lost them when gentle static took over the phone, but then it faded.
He had lost Frisk, though, because there was a new voice on the other end of the line. "hiya." It was very familiar. "so, uh, you know that kind of bad mood you get in when you realize that literally everyone is conspiring against you?"
San said the first thing that popped into his head. "oh, it's me. hey."
Meanwhile Papyrus and Frisk, as well as Flowey, straightened and watched in shock. Flowey with a little extra queasiness, as he was the only one the spoke out, "H-h-he's on the phone?"
"i got a question," said the other version of himself. Talking to a voice that sounded identical to his- even if that was mitigated by the static of the phone- made Sans' skin crawl. "how long have you guys been talking? i just want to know so i can figure out... how pissed i should be." Something sounded near him, and he had a good hunch that it was Frisk saying something, judging by how the next thing his other self said was "zip it, you little shit." And then he added, "i wouldn't do that if i were you. you reset, and you're just adding to the time that your 1 HP friend has to stay in my crummy world."
So much of his speech, Sans was coming to realize, was punctuated by sharp gasps. It wasn't Frisk making them.
Slowly they were tapering off, though. "you've been causing me a lot of trouble, bud," he mused. "you don't have to cause any more."
"looks like i do," hissed his other self. "if you've been working to get back all this time. not to mention the jokers in this world."
"I wanna talk to him," the other Frisk whispered, tugging on Sans' sleeve.
He ignored them for the moment. His chest was still pounding; somewhere on the other side, right now, in a place he couldn't reach, his Frisk was in danger. Well, not in danger, danger- unless they really were. But the kid getting hurt or killed yet again in their short lifetime wasn't appealing to him either. It was easy for someone like him to keep his cool even under that threat, however, so his chest didn't reflect his cool words, "as you might say, the jig's clearly up. you can come back now. or at least let me come back, y'know? it's kind of my life you took."
"oh no," said the other Sans. "i'm sorry, can't do either of those things. the only thing i can do is make sure you stay put. for that, i guess i'll have to do a little breaking and entering once i'm done dealin' with this brat," and so saying, he finished with a rattling breath.
Sans' eyes narrowed. "can't?"
"nope."
"I TOLD YOU!" Papyrus roared, "WHEN I GET OVER THERE I'LL SHOW HIM FOR RUNNING OUT ON-"
He kept on shouting, but Sans could hear the voice over the phone clearer, "holy shit, is that papyrus in there with you?" Then laughter, harsh and breathless. "fuck, tell him to shut up. i'm sick of hearing him go on. nobody fucking cares, you're not ever seeing me again anyway."
Just from those words, Papyrus had almost frozen completely with rage, unable to make another sound. His gloved hands were in shaking fists. So, wary for another outburst, Sans murmured, "come over here and tell him yourself."
"I wanna talk to him," said Frisk again, tugging on his arm harder. Sans nudged them away. "Please? Please?"
"don't want to." Something thumped on the other end and there was a shriek. "-a-ha oops."
An image of Frisk breaking their head open popped into his skull. How badly he wanted to say "oops what?" But Sans couldn't utter another word before the child on his end stole the phone from him by force. They took several steps back and glared at everyone else, daring them to come take it with their pan in one hand. Flowey climbed up their legs, back, and settled onto their shoulder with his vinelike tendrils, and the kid shuddered.
But then, and still periodically glaring at everybody else, they spoke into the phone. "Sans, it's me."
Since could only just barely hear his other self talking, faint from where he stood; what a pain in the ass. He hated having to keep is not-ears at attention. At least the voice that he heard also sounded rattled, "... oh, uh. y-you're here too. hiya pipsqueak, it's been a while."
"If you'd given me your phone number I could have called you earlier, asshole," Frisk said in a quiet mumble, face as red as it often was.
A little of that darkness in his voice was gone. "oh. i coulda done that. uh, i-i wasn't answering anyway."
"Um." They looked to Papyrus, who stared in disbelief, and then at Flowey, who was shivering hard on their shoulder. They scratched their head and continued the little mumble. "Look, stop being a jackass. Whatever it is that scared you away, come back here and face it like-like a man!"
And he laughed at them, doing an awful lot of laughing over this conversation. "i'm a monster, not a man, i don't gotta do shit."
"Sans," they tried again, and this time their voice cracked- if just a little.
Sans, himself, was starting to approach the kid, his eyesocket twitching and smile turned an obvious grimace. He heard the voice that sounded like his say, "besides, your new sans is doing fine, isn't he? seems to me like he already got my old brother under his heel, which is a lot more than i could do in his place. and you don't sound as weak and scratchy as you normally are, so i assume he's doing what i told him to do."
"But-" they began to say, but he cut them off again.
"by that same token, i'm having a great time here." Now Sans could feel his magic flaring underneath bone. "well, i was, but i think it's still ten times better than being there. everyone here is an idiot like usual, but they're fun idiots. especially his papyrus," his other self laughed. He laughed, and suddenly Sans wasn't aware of himself anymore. "he's hilarious, and i even found out he doesn't hit back."
"You wanna go, buddy?"
He didn't even know that he'd stolen the phone back from Frisk until he was snarling into it. The monster on the other side of the room and the kid backing away, Frisk and Papyrus had gone utterly silent, just watching him. He didn't care. There was a roaring in his ears that he seldom heard, and it surprised even him.
But it didn't matter what he said or how he said it, evidently. His other self on the phone wheezed and laughed, "hahahahahahahaha! I didn't see that coming, ahahahahahaha! you must really care about him- god, what's that like? but if you think that's going to do anything, you must've forgotten who i am- i can make that voice too. you don't scare me, sans."
Sans' own breathing, as well, was different from how it normally was. "for being another version of me, you are one dumb sunovabitch," he growled into the receiver.
But again, the voice that came out just chuckled harshly. "no, i'm a genius. wanna know how I figure?" Without waiting for an answer, he said, "because the way i see it, between the two of us i'm the evil one, right? i get the feeling... and mind you, this is just my impression from your friends... i get the feeling that you're a nice guy. that you wouldn't hurt somebody to get to somebody else. but i, on the other hand, am not a nice guy."
Sans felt cold in his rib-cage.
"Oh he's bluffing." Frisk sneered, not that it eased the feeling. "He wouldn't do anything."
"the better brat should really keep their mouth shut," his other self grumbled. "but anyway, it's up to you if you wanna believe me or not. i have other stuff i gotta do. as you pointed out, i might not be able to pass for you for much longer... so i'll have to improvise from now on. starting with this lying little piece of shit over here.
"and later our lying little brother, just because i'm really pissed now."
Sans' heart jumped again, more roaring and buzzing in his ears. "Don't!"
"see ya, shortstack."
Click!
He hung up. Sans closed his eyes. Around him, Papyrus was speaking in a hoarse voice, "... HE NEVER SHOWS THIS MUCH SPINE AT HOME."
"...He's bluffing..."
"Shh!" Said Flowey.
When Sans' eye-sockets opened again, his pupils were sharp and clearly defined, one of them in an outline of ice-cold blue. His body was still and straight, his smile set by rage. "don't bother me, i'm going back to the shed."
Papyrus had nothing, looking startled and ill at ease. But Frisk's hands were clasped into fists, their own expression set with narrowed, unreadable eyes; Flowey was the one watching them, instead, with the same ill at ease face. It confused him, or it would have, if he wasn't so caught up in his own whirl of energy, energy to which he was unaccustomed.
"and you." He glared directly at the child and they blanched. "if i see you anywhere near the engine, you're gonna have a bad time. got it?"
Eyes wide, Frisk nodded. Whether or not they actually got it was something he'd just have to worry about later.
This had all gone on for long enough.
After a perilous journey over snow, water, lava, and filthy city streets- a journey that had taken days-
A white and yappy little dog stood barking at the gate of Asgore's castle.
It had a human's shoe-print on its hindquarters.
Author Note: Hoo boy.
We've reached the critical part of the story. Using the next four chapters I want to cover some important stuff, so they will probably be much (or at least a little) longer than the usual updates.
Furthermore, I've run out of buffer for this fanfic. As a result, I am warning you guys now that the next update may not be out at the usual time. I'll try not to keep you guys waiting too long, though, and it will be a lot more per chapter. So I hope everyone is looking forward to that!
That stuff aside, someone in a review asked about Frisk's dreams and since I don't think I'll be covering them too much in this fic I'll clarify that they're just run of the mill PTSD symptoms for their many, many deaths, not necessarily anything Genocide Route related. Albeit they developed way earlier than I think PTSD symptoms are supposed to.
Next Chapter: No One Wants to Play Underfell
