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A sparse few trickles of sunlight slipped in through the heavy clouds, muffled as it was by the steady downpour. Sans drove with one hand on the wheel, watching as the windshield wipers swished away seemingly endless rain. Chara sat with their arms crossed in the passenger seat, staring absentmindedly out of the window at the passing cars. He heard them let out a quiet sigh through their nostrils, and Sans glanced back over at them.
"... Somethin' the matter, kiddo?"
"Nothing," they replied flatly.
"I can tell something's bothering you, you know," Sans said as they turned a corner, whipping up rain behind them. Chara gave him an odd look, and he chuckled. "What? Don't tell me you actually wanted to stick around for cleanup duty."
"Oh, no," Chara said without looking up. "Nobody holds it against you that you're incredibly lazy and duck out of situations which require assistance. From friends."
As much as he tried not to, Sans cringed.
"And besides," Chara continued as if they hadn't seen the clearly uncomfortable expression on Sans's face. "I wanted to wait until Undyne came back."
"Undyne teaches gym at the school, remember?" Sans said conversationally as a couple of cars passed them, throwing water up on the windshield.
"Well, then I want to be enrolled in school!" Chara frowned, pulling at the sleeves of their sweater.
"What, just to see Undyne?"
"Shut up," they rolled their eyes. "Undyne is super cool. You just wouldn't get it."
"Uh huh," Sans said in an unconvinced tone. "I have no idea just what Undyne's 'coolness' level would be, but I'm pretty sure it's, like, over nine thousand."
Chara slowly turned to stare at him.
"... What?" he blinked.
"Can we just go home now?" Chara asked sourly, looking away. "I can't stand all this rain."
"It's not so bad," Sans shrugged. "Kinda reminds me of waterfall, but with less moss. The sunlight is a pleasant touch though. It's... nice."
"It's cold and wet," they responded without missing a beat. "There's nothing 'pleasant' about it. Let's just go home already."
"Do you really not want to be out and about that badly today?" Sans turned his head slightly to look at them. They had their legs pulled up beneath their sweatshirt, giving them the odd resemblance of a humanoid turtle with hair.
"I just want to check on Sans."
"I'm right here."
"I meant-"
"Yeesh, bud, I was kidding," he forced a small laugh. "Man, your sense of humor really needs bandaging. Why do you need to check up on lazybones, anyway?"
"He's... he's not..." Chara began awkwardly, looking away from him again and instead opting to stare out at the multitude of puddles and miniature ponds that had sprouted up from the immense rains.
Sans waited for nearly a minute, driving in complete silence for a little while longer before pressing them. Chara only stared out the window and watched the rain pouring down the glass.
"Not what?"
Chara jumped slightly at the sound of his voice, almost as if they had forgotten that he was even there in the first place.
"He's... he's just-just not, you know..." Chara shrugged, trying to avoid his gaze. "He's not good by himself."
"I'm sure that he can handle being alone for a little while," Sans attempted to reassure them. "He's a big skeleton, he's plenty capable of taking care of himself."
"Really?" Chara finally looked up at him, and he noticed that their eyes seemed almost... mournful.
"I mean... Yeah, of course," Sans nodded firmly. "He's another version of me, right? I'm pretty sure he's got a mostly level head."
"... Well," Chara finally turned away and rubbed their eyes. "You've both got that in common at least."
"What's that?"
"That's the problem with you Sanses. You're both utterly overconfident. And you're both excessively weird," they counted off on their fingers. "And you both just run away when people need you the most."
The car jerked suddenly, but Sans realigned the wheels.
"What makes you say something like that?" Sans frowned.
"Have you heard yourself talk?" Chara scoffed. "I mean, seriously, you two have the biggest egos-"
"No, no, not that," Sans shook his head. "Why would you say that we run away from our problems? We don't do that. I totally deny that I do that. Void Sans might, but I don't."
"Oh, please," they rolled their eyes. "If you're anything at all like my Sans, which you are, and you're as predictable as he is, which you also are, then you're just as likely to run off just like he tends to. Which you will."
"Look, if it makes you feel any better, we can turn around and go help out Al at the lab-"
"Like that'll make much of a difference!" Chara snorted. "You can treat the symptom but you'll never cure the disease."
"I really, really don't like it when you get cryptic on me, kid."
"Do I seriously have to spell it out for you?" Chara deadpanned.
"Christ on a pogo stick," Sans pinched the spot between his eyes with his free hand. "Just what did Void do to make you so angry at Sanses? What could he have possibly-"
"He ran," Chara said quietly, and it was then that Sans realized that it was probably the first time that he had seen actual, genuine regret on their face. Frisk's face. That just made it all the more surreal.
"From...?" Sans pressed the issue, although there was a small part of his brain screaming that it was an awful idea. Unfortunately, Sans had never listened much to that section of his mind.
"He ran from us," Chara crossed their arms again, staring down at the floorboard. "From-from me. Before I-I gained control. He ran when I hurt Papyrus."
Sans hadn't realized just how deathly quiet it had grown in the car. The drumming of the rain seemed far too loud, and Sans noticed that he hadn't been breathing properly for several minutes.
"He ran when I hurt so many monsters," Chara continued, red eyes wide. "He ran when I hurt Undyne. He could have stopped us right at the beginning, and he didn't. He just... ran. Like it would all go away if he could just run forever."
Sans let out a noiseless, shaky breath, uncertain of how to respond to the serial murderer from literally another world. The small quiet voice in the back of his head had gone utterly silent as he processed the information with as calm a demeanor as he possibly could. When he stole a glance back at the child, the usual plastic smile that they wore was gone, replaced with what he could only assume was that of pure, unfiltered misery.
"You'll run away, too..." Chara said after a long, long time of quiet. "It's the smart thing to do."
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"Alright, punks!" Undyne shouted over the sound of chattering children and squeaking sneakers, easily making herself heard despite the noise. She wore a pair of light blue shorts and a white tank top with 20 percent cooler than rainbows in bold letters on the back. She whipped a hand through her flowing red hair, grinning at the children."Pick your favorite body part to lose and line up, 'cause today I'm gonna teach you about something awesome!"
One of the children to Frisk's left raised his hand as they lined up facing Undyne.
"Yeah, what is it?" Undyne stared with an almost animalistic (and frankly terrifying) glower at the human.
"Um... shouldn't we have fifteen minutes to change into gym clothes?"
"Gym clothes?" Undyne scoffed. "Why would you need fifteen minutes to change clothes? Attackers won't give you fifteen seconds if you're caught off guard!"
"But-but-"
"But, but," Undyne flapped her hand mockingly. "Bleh. Step up your game, kids."
"Uh, Un- I mean, Miss Undyne?" Asriel slowly raised his hand.
"Yeah?" Undyne put her hands on her hips.
"Aren't we supposed to be playing dodge ball today?"
"Glad you brought it up..." Undyne grinned with a sharkish demeanor, clapping her hands together.
"So..." Asriel looked around to see if perhaps one of the other human or monster children had taken the equipment. "Where are the dodge balls at?"
"Excellent question!" her grin only grew wider. "The answer is screw the dodge balls."
"But-but-" Asriel started.
"But, but," Undyne flapped her hand mockingly. Again. "There were some, uh... cutbacks in the school's budget. So now we have no dodge balls."
The entire gymnasium was filled with the groans of dissatisfied children.
"Aw, don't go whinging on me now!" Undyne scoffed. "I have a plan B."
"So..." Frisk looked around curiously, a creeping sensation of dread lingering on the back of her neck as Undyne's grin slowly returned. "What exactly is plan B...?"
"You're all pretty good at dodge ball, right...?" Undyne smirked, crossing her arms. "Well, if you can dodge a dodge ball..."
Frisk followed her instincts and ducked a split second before a glowing blue spear comprised entirely out of energy parted her hair as it slammed into the wall behind them, splintering the stone.
"You can dodge a spear."
The entire gym broke out in screams of panic as multiple spears began roaring overhead, the sounds of chaos only further cluttered by Undyne's maniacal laughter. Only Frisk stood in place, with Asriel cowering slightly behind her. A terrible wind was whipping up from the storm outside, blowing throughout the gymnasium as children both human and monster scattered for their lives.
"... You, uh, gonna run now?" Undyne stared at Frisk.
"Meh," Frisk tilted her hand back and forth. "After the first dozen times somebody throws spears at you it gets a little tame."
"Oh ho!" Undyne laughed loudly, brushing the hair from her face and materializing a spear out of blue magic in one hand simultaneously. "Big talk coming from a little kid."
"Little talk coming from a big fish," Frisk snorted.
"Frisk!" Asriel pulled back at her shirt. "Don't antagonize her, we'll get skewered!"
"You wanna go right now, punk?" Undyne's shark like grin returned. She pulled another magical spear from thin air and tossed it to Frisk, who caught it deftly in both hands, gauging the weight.
"No she doesn't!" Asriel called out from his position behind Frisk.
"Yeah, alright," Frisk shrugged unenthusiastically.
Undyne prepared to strike, her spear raised high over her head. The wind was howling throughout the area, school children's papers flying about in the air. Undyne swung downward mightily, spear striking true... and pausing just an inch from Frisk's head.
"... Are you serious?" Undyne slowly lowered her spear, noting Frisk's odd expression.
"What?" Frisk stared up at her.
"That's it?" she balked. "I could have killed you, like, three times over already!"
"Sorry," Frisk shuffled her feet awkwardly, looking downward.
"I mean, you didn't even put up a fight this time..." Undyne frowned, staring back at her and eventually eyeing Asriel, who shifted uncomfortably from behind Frisk.
"I guess I'm just not feeling very well today," she rubbed one of her forearms.
"Alright, plan B."
"I thought we were already on plan B?" Asriel quipped.
"Fine, plan three! Or, plan C... whatever we're on now," Undyne pinched the bridge of her nose. "Asriel, get Frisk to the nurse's office and make sure that whatever she has isn't some super contagious deadly disease or something."
"Aye aye, captain!" Asriel gave a two fingered salute before promptly pulling Frisk away.
"Ex capta- ah, forget it," she called after them. She looked around at the destruction of the now empty gymnasium, her frown returning.
"Great," she said to nobody in particular. "Nobody got speared this time. Little punks are learning fast," Undyne sniffed. "I'm... kinda proud."
Undyne paused in confusion, reaching for the buzzing phone in her pocket. Surprisingly, it was none other than Papyrus sending a message, and she swiped the screen a couple of times to see it.
Greetings, Undyne!
Sorry to bother you while you're busy, but we've sort of got a problem.
Undyne was quick to reply.
Is there ever a day without a problem?
Very observant of you! However, I believe that this particular issue may be something that you may want to resolve yourself. Alphys is hurt and seems to be having some difficulty with Sans-
She didn't even bother to read the rest of the message before she was already out the door and into the pounding rain, spouting a number of expletives about Sans that most certainly should not have been repeated in front of several children.
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