Author's Note: Here we go! Hope you all enjoy, this was an interesting one to piece together all the ideas I have. Enjoy!
Chapter 10: Over and Out
Why do people dream?
Are our dreams premonitions? Memories? Our true wants and desires?
Our fears?
To Sans, it was not the nightmares that scared him… It was the paranoia. Reset after reset, Sans began to stop caring about living in the moment as he feared each day could be his last in a blink of an eye. Dreams after dreams, Sans' soul held a small seed of doubt when he really woke up.
Where did the dreams end and reality begin?
It was dark when Sans finally opened his eyes. His body stiffened as he allowed his nerves to feel the press of his weight against the mattress. He cautiously raised his hand to his eye and rubbed away the sleep. Allowing his gaze to adjust without wasting anymore magic, he fumbled his arm off the bed until he managed to hit a conveniently placed lamp.
Sans winced as the lamp turned on and revealed where he was.
'frisk's room?'
Sans sat up and swung his feet to the hardwood floors, feeling a cool draft around his ankles.
Sans took in the soft textures that were Frisk's bedroom. From the photographs arranged all over the walls to the array of books she had stacked on her nightstand. He smiled to himself, appreciating all her small touches that made Frisk, well, Frisk.
As Sans sat there thinking of the girl, he felt the corners of his mouth drop. He slowly turned his head to look behind him at the rest of the bed, seeing it was empty.
"if i'm in frisk's room then…"
Suddenly Sans stood up, remembering his dream. Sans heart dropped into his stomach, she was still there. How did she even get back in the dreams? Was she in his room?
Sans, wide-eyed, quickly gathered himself and stumbled feverously out of her room and down the hallway.
"shit!" he seethed, reaching down to his foot after stubbing his toe on a hallway table. He reminded himself to wear his soft slippers around the house while relearning where all the 'traps' were.
Sans pushed open his door and turned on the lights only to find disappointment, Frisk wasn't there. Rubbing his skull he frustratingly shoved on his slippers. Sans looked briefly around the room, remembering that he didn't actually spend much time in here while he was recovering. Toriel thought it best for him to sleep in the chair in the living room where it was easy for him to access all that he may need.
The room was similar to how his was back in Snowdin, he had his own methods of organization that contrasted most of his friends. He did notice he had a lot more drawers in his dresser and boxes on his own desk. Sans carefully opened some of the boxes on his desk and leafed through its contents.
Most of the boxes were filled with junk like small gags, cards, and even some magic tricks. He laughed to himself, remembering that Frisk and him got into an argument about his messy habits that lead to her at least organizing his desk.
Sans paused, holding his breath, allowing the memory to sink in further. "i'm remembering…?" Sans shakily picked up the next box, too eager to open it right away. He couldn't get rid of this giddiness that shown through his grin.
He took another breath and opened the next box, peering down into it he saw various small items and notes. Carefully, Sans lifted a few of the items out and placed them on the desk. A few ketchup bottle caps, a rock, a broken zipper pull, some post cards and finally, a multitude of letters in opened envelopes.
But even as he looked over these items, nothing more hit him. He could see small heart drawn on one of the envelopes and right away he knew this was a memory box dedicated to Frisk. Sans gritted his teeth while looking long and hard at the letters before deciding he wasn't ready to look at them.
As scanned the rest of the room, he felt like something was missing. "bed, desk, lamp, closet… ah yes." Sans looked at an empty corner by his door and pondered his options. He chuckled as he walked over to his dresser and pulled open his sock drawer.
"at least frisk didn't make me organize the inside of my drawers" and with that he began to scoop out socks and toss them into the corner. As he did, the socks began to form a small tornado. Satisfied, Sans turned his heels towards the door but something in the tornado caught his eye.
"what could that be?" he murmured.
Sans slowly walked toward the windswept socks and at the right timing snatched the item from between the flying articles. Sans jumped a little as he heard his door squeak open and quickly shoved the item into one of his coat pockets.
"SANS?" Papyrus asked in the best whispering voice he could manage.
"oh hey pap, wassup?" Sans asked a little too urgently.
Papyrus walked over to Sans, giving a relieved smile down to his brother.
"I DIDN'T EXPECT YOU TO BE UP… I WANTED TO WAKE YOU EARLIER BUT TORIEL SAID YOU NEEDED ALL THE REST YOU COULD GET."
"why are you up?" Sans asked, concerned. Papyrus usually was a heavy sleeper.
"I JUST REALIZED THAT YOUR—THE HUMAN HAS BEEN GONE ALL DAY AND STILL HASN'T RETURNED. SHE'S NOT ANSWERING HER PHONE AND NEITHER IS ALPHYS." Papyrus frowned and looked past Sans at the newly formed sock tornado, shaking his head in disappointment.
"alphys?" Sans asked surprised. As Papyrus explained how he saw her go into Alphy's lab earlier, Sans remembered those new found abilities Frisk possessed… but how? Sans' mind raced with possible answers before settling on his strongest gut theory. "i'll go check on her pap, don't worry, just go back to bed."
Papyrus smiled and hugged Sans, who returned his offer immediately. As Papyrus patted his brother's back, Sans felt Pap's movements become awkward. Before Sans could lean back to see Papyrus' face, Sans heard his brother speak in a tone he rarely heard: "Sans… I know something has been going with you and Frisk… I may not understand it all, but I want you to know you can always trust me too…"
When the two dropped their embrace, Sans tried to look at his brother but it was too late, Papyrus simply waved a goodnight as he walked back out the door and down the hallway. Sans felt his fingers twisting on the hem of his jacket, beginning to feel guilt for causing his own brother to feel so left out. Sans spent his whole life protecting him, he forgot that sometimes 'protecting' him from himself only would hurt him in return.
Sans allowed himself to exhale as he walked down the nearby stairs and out the front door. He contemplated taking one of his short cuts but decided it was too risky with his magic so low. He did chuckle however as he instead took an actual 'shortcut' through the alley-ways of the small town.
Sans checked his phone seeing as it was a little past midnight, his mind drifted back to Frisk and her whereabouts. As he walked, Sans pinched his brow trying to remember the dreams in more detail. The tough part about receiving 'new' memories is that they soon become just like old memories. You can remember them as if they were yesterday, but can't trust yourself with all the minor details.
One part of the newest memory stuck out to him however, the detail that didn't fit in the memory entirely. Current Frisk standing next to him, watching the scene with him… The whole time Sans could feel each emotion his memory-self felt. When Sans felt himself at the peak of his grief, he remembered seeing Frisk's soul briefly escape her chest.
Sans placed an open palm over his own chest, a blue blush spread lightly over his face. "that means she…"
Sans abruptly discovered he reached the laboratory and quickly dug through his shorts pockets for his security card. As he entered the fluorescent lit hallways, he also remembered why he didn't like coming to work more than when he had to.
Quickly striding down the maze of hallways, he finally reached Alphy's office and used his card again to get in.
The scene before him almost caused him to back right into the door.
Alphys awoke from the sound of the automated door motioning open and scrambled to sit up off of her desk. "S-Sans?! You're awake!?"
Sans felt his pupils leave his sockets as he marched over to where Frisk was 'laying' on the metal platform. His eyes traced over her body covered by cords and he starred at how the restraints had formed light bruises around her wrists. He felt his irritation grow as he saw her forearm had melted ice packs around it, obviously swelled from some bad reaction. None of this was what fueled his anger however.
"the fuck is this alf?" He pointed at Frisk's chest. Alphys cowered slightly and winced at his choice of words, but didn't answer right away. Sans looked back at Frisk, anger fading and dismay washing over him as he viewed Frisk's soul out of her chest once again.
This soul was different. When Sans saw her small soul before, it was light and fluttered like a butterfly. Now though… Now Frisk's soul was a dark ruby red and much larger than any soul he had ever seen. He watched in horror as veiny cracks appeared and seemed to be healed over by a new layer.
"Sans I-I can explain—"
Sans spun around towards Alphys and grabbed her forearm warningly. "what did you do to her." He seethed out of his teeth.
Alphys quivered before him, unable to speak. Sans felt his face drop and released the scientist. He turned away from her and back to Frisk, lowering his voice to say "alphy, i'm sorry. i know you'd never do anything on purpose to hurt frisk…"
He didn't turn around as Alphys quietly spoke "It w-was partially f-frisk's idea." She cleared her throat and shuffled over to the monitors. "She remembered my… experiments… and I thought that maybe if she had more Determination than any other human that—"
"…that, that makes sense alphys." Sans interrupted, beginning to follow the logic. "at least, it explains a lot…"
Alphys slowly turned around to meet the skeleton's gaze. "S-Sans, how did you wake up?"
As Sans explained how Frisk somehow used her soul to create a shield between him and Chara, Alphy's eyes widened as she held onto every word. He wrapped up with how on her own, Frisk managed to send him out of that place and he woke up.
Alphys began smiling and shaking her hands around excitedly. Sans gave her a questioning look as she ran towards one of her many bookshelves filled with human and monster biology records. As she searched, she rambled "So when we arrived on the Surface one of the first things I did was do more research on the magic powers girls had in the anime I watched… I believed that humans were too smart to just make up an entire genre without it holding some truth… So through limited articles, I scrapped up information about human magic… Especially about the magic used by the human's greatest magicians that sealed the barrier…"
Sans could barely keep up with the fast spoken monster before she finally pulled out a large tome and dropped it on one of the lab's tables between them. Sans suspiciously leafed through its contents, seeing as most of it was a mix of human history and biology, neither were that exciting to him but as he read he picked up on what Alphys was getting at.
"oh my god" he whispered and looked up at Alphys before looking over at Frisk.
This "human magic" that the book illustrated sounded eerily similar to the type of powers Frisk displayed and the way it described how it was formed in humans…
"S-Sans, I think human magic and the isolated Determination I cultivated are the same things…"
Sans looked down at the book some more, searching for any clues that could help Frisk, but he got stuck reading one passage over and over:
Human magic has long since died out as it is only passed down through bloodline. To aid in various cultures personal agendas, many families regulated the bloodline in attempt to remain 'pure.' This practice lead to deformations and infertility, thus ending any and all known persons with the potential to hold human magic in their souls.
Then… What was Frisk?
Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading! Feedback is welcomed and appreciated!