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The ominously low rumble of distant thunder accompanied Sans's thoughts as he stared out the window. The clouds above were a gloomy shade of grey and pregnant with the potential of oncoming rain, and although it looked dreary a small part of Sans was happy to see it. The grass would smell fresher afterwards, the cold little fog gathering at the windowsill reminded him of the Underground and long nights in Snowdin, and even the air felt cleaner after the rain. It was rare to see anything of the sort beneath the surface, unless one was a frequenter of the falls, and even then it wasn't quite the same. The rain had a peaceful, calming sort of quality to it, one that Sans sincerely wished spread to the rest of the room's inhabitants. There was no real need for him to even be at the meetings aside from keeping his promise to Toriel, and he was even beginning to regret that. At this rate he'd never be finished...

Maybe the little flower had a point...

Sans was swift to punt the idea far from his train of thought, forcing himself to focus on the chatter instead. The little prince didn't know nearly as much as he liked to imply, and if he let his incessant pestering get to him he'd never see the device finalized.

And one way or another, it needed to be completed.

"-ause there is just no point to it, Janet, they have to be gluten free because some of us take care of our children. And some of us, -" the redheaded woman tilted her glasses down to stare Sans directly in the face as he absentmindedly munched on another cookie. "- actually care about what we put in our bodies."

"Helen has a point," Sans agreed with her through a mouthful of cookies. "We should cut back on all the sweets-"

"There, you see?"

"-Unless we wanna wind up looking like her," he finished, dusting his fingerbones off on his tee shirt, which had Number One Mom! printed in an odd font on the front.

Sans had never actually seen a woman explode, but if anyone were likely to do so it would be the woman glaring at him from across the table. Helen's stare would have made Medusa flinch, but Sans only looked unblinkingly back at her and tried to ignore the mysteriously giggle-esque coughing fit that was being stifled by a handful of napkins by the woman to his left.

"Should I even bother asking why you're still allowed at our PTA meetings?" Helen's eye twitched hard.

"Maybe because nobody else would vote to kick me off...?" Sans shrugged. It wasn't bright to incite her anger every weekend, but Sans simply couldn't help himself. It brought a smile to his face every time he managed to irritate his overly haughty neighbor.

"That has nothing to do with the issue at hand," Helen brushed a lock of red hair from her face before regaining her composure. "What's important is our children, and what the school board needs to change about the diets and are you quite finished Martha?"

The blonde woman sitting beside Helen was nearly half her size, and was still 'coughing' quite a bit.

"... Is she choking...?" asked Jeanne, the woman beside Sans.

"I warned her not to try the lemon squares," Sans shook his head sadly. "I hope you've got a good alibi, Helen." Oddly enough, this only served to make her coughing fit even worse, and the woman was quick to head out the door with her purse tucked neatly under her arm, wheezing all the way between fits of stifled giggles.

The room was deathly silent after she left. Helen's lips were pursed tighter than a miser's coin pouch, and though her face wasn't flushed her ears were a vibrant shade of pink.

"... Right," she crossed her arms. "Back to business. Sans."

"What?" he held a palm to his chest indignantly. "What did I do? I'm totally innocent this time."

"Bull-shit," Helen seethed. "Like you had nothing to do with last week's punch."

"Somebody else must have spiked it," he shrugged.

"And like you had nothing to do with shoving the school children's lunch with Halloween decorations."

"Hey, I'm not the one hanging up decorations of naked skeletons," Sans shook his head, his grin getting harder to hide.

"And like you're not the one who tipped a tree onto my car!"

"Oh, come on, you lived," he replied flippantly. "Plus you had insurance."

"You see?!" Helen threw a hand at him in desperation. "He's not even denying it!"

"I have nothing to deny."

"People like you are why it's hard to raise children in this town!"

"Bitch I literally had to murder my kid more times than I can count!"

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"So..." Toriel greeted him at the door, both of them pretending not to see Helen pull into her driveway beside them. "How'd the meeting go?"

"Helen got mad at me for being confused," he slipped his jacket off and hung it carefully on the coat rack beside the door, dusting his slippers off as he did so.

"Why was she mad at you for being confused?"

"I asked why she was inside when the other cows were out grazing."

"Sans!" Papyrus's head popped out of the kitchen doorway, chef's hat dangling precariously from his head. "That isn't a very nice thing to say about the nice neighbor lady."

Toriel might have agreed with him if she wasn't busy trying to fit her knuckles into her mouth to keep from giggling.

She was failing.

Sans was nearly bowled over by the excited Frisk bounding up and hugging him, but he didn't mind. The scent of fresh spaghetti that was probably not mostly burnt this time filled him as he took a long breath. Even Flowey seemed mercifully quiet.

And, for a short time, Sans was content.

The familiar chirrup of crickets outside seemed louder than ever, joined as they were by a multitude of cicadas burrowing away for the early fall weather. Sans stood with both hands clenched tightly in his pockets, his gaze drilling a hole in the floor.

You can do this-

This is stupid-

Not that big a deal-

Come on bro it's just one-

Easy peasy lemon squeezy-

You don't deserve her-

Just get it over with-

San's thoughts bounced around his head like a kicked hornet's nest, and his raised fist stood bare inches away from Toriel's closed bedroom door. He stood like that for several long, heavy moments, before he finally took a deep breath...

And stuck his fists back into his pockets, shaking.

He stalked away downstairs, a small headache bothering him.

"Back to the basement again, are we?"

Sans didn't even bother looking at him as he pried the door open, silently slipping through the dark crevice and closing the door behind him.

"H-hey! Wait a second!" Flowey called after him. The flower stared through the shadows from his place on the mantle, and it was a few seconds before he realized that he was holding his breath, something he didn't even need to do.

"... What," Sans's head poked back out from the basement doorway, one hand firmly on the door. It wasn't even a question.

"... Take me with you?"

"Why would I do that?" Sans deadpanned. His usual smile seemed to have vanished, replaced with a rarely seen heavy, sleepless exhaustion.

"I'm... sorry."

That made Sans pause.

"... No you're not," he said after a moment.

"Alright, I'm not," the flower replied instantly. "But the only person to even take me off this stupid fireplace is Frisk and that's once a day, if I'm lucky. Just... let me help with something."

That alone set off several alarms in his head.

"You," Sans blinked, although without eyes it was a mystery as to exactly how. "You want to... help."

"Yes," Flowey nodded promptly. "Take me with you."

"If you want to help so badly," Sans deadpanned, heading back downstairs. "Then stay out of my hair."

"You don't have any hair."

The door swung shut.

"Wait!" Flowey wailed. "Come on, it's just-just a little joke, throw me a bone here!"

There was no answer.

"... That pun wasn't intentional," he called out, but to no avail. Flowey's head hung as he let out a quiet sigh.

He couldn't really fault the skeleton for disliking his company, after all he'd put him through.

Maybe a second chance was too much to ask for.

"You know... you're not the only one with weird experiments. Alphys was here today."

Like a magic password had been spoken, the basement door slowly swung back open, and this time Sans left the stairs completely in order to stare right through the little flower, arms tightly crossed.

"... You have my complete attention."

Flowey had to fight to keep from showing expression.

Sans had crossed the distance between them before he could even blink.

"Finally, I didn't think you'd ever why are we going outside?" Flowey's tone changed promptly as the skeleton carried him through the front door.

"You said you wanted to come with me," Sans said firmly, a mad little grin growing on his face as he stealthily grabbed his jacket on the way out before locking up. "So you're coming with me. Buckle up."

And with a snap of his fingers, they were gone.

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A/N

I'm always looking to improve my writing, and I'm always open to constructive criticism (or just regular old comments, etc.)

I'm working on the next chapter, should be up within the next few days!