WARNING: This chapter has a panic attack-esque scene in it. Please proceed with caution.
"Sans! Ready your shield!"
Sans nodded, making a fist with his hand and punching upwards. A few bone attacks appeared out of the ground, just tall enough to make a temporary shield. The loud clunk of Gaster flipping the lever sounded, and the same process of a bright flash, hot air, cold air, then the motor dying down into silence. Once the last spurr sounded, Sans lowered his bone attacks back into the ground. Gaster did the same with his. He opened the door, inspecting the inside of the machine. Sans followed suit, looking around for any sign of the teacup they had sent through. It was nowhere to be seen.
"Where'd you send it to, Gasty?" Sans asked as he followed Gaster back out. He had to jog to keep up with Gaster's rediculusly long strides as he made his way to the table they kept in the room.
"It should appear somewhere on that table in approximately thirty seconds." He stated, eyes fixating on the table and starting the stopwatch he had in his hand. Sans copied him, watching intently on the table.
Have you ever heard thirty seconds of silence? Let alone, "if this dosen't work years and years of work will be for nothing" thirty seconds of silence? It's tense. Really tense. As in, your whole body freezes up to the point where it's painful.
Sans flicked his eyes between Gaster and the table. He was unmoving, squinting intensely, stopwatch gripped in his hand.
There was a little bit of a wooshing sound before the teacup popped into existence. But on the floor, not the table. Sans let himself relax as Gaster stopped the stopwatch, glancing down at it.
"Thirty-two seconds." He stated, putting it in his pocket. "It seems that the spatial and time accuracy are a little bit off. Sans, please put another object in the machine and change the coordinates-"
"Woah woah woah, what? You want me to use that god-forsaken hunk of metal?" Sans objected as he pointed at it.
"Yes. You know how, correct?" Gaster asked matter-of-factly.
"Well, yeah, but-"
"Then I see no reason why you shouldn't." he said, gesturing to the machine. "You said you can take care of yourself, correct?"
Sans sighed, as he started shuffling his way over. He sifted through the bucket, eventually finding a fancy-ass fork.
"Please shift the coordinates a little to the right and the time two seconds back." Gaster called, writing down the results of their previous test.
Sans nodded. Facing towards the entrance to machine.
Now, Sans didn't scare easy, he'd been faced with way too many dangers in his life and handled them like it was nothing. He had yawned in the face of imminent death before. He only had to lift his finger and he could evaporate someone with a fucking dragon-esque head.
But he never realized how terrifying this machine was until he looked inside with the mentality that he had to turn it on. Those intense flashes that happened? He feels next to nothing in ways of pain and temperature. One time he stuck his hand in fire once to see if it would hurt. It didn't. But he felt the heat from the machine. He felt the cold from it blast through him like other monsters had described cold before. If he didn't use his shield every time, he would probably lose his eyesight for a few minutes from how bright it was. And all that was with the door closed.
It just hit him that if he fucked up while he was in there, he'd be sucked in and flung through time and space for all eternity. He wouldn't even be able to die, he'd just be tortured by expanding and contracting matter. He'd watch timestream after timestream fly by his eyes in single instances until his head couldn't take it anymore, and then he'd just get pounded with more. He would be suspended in there until time itself ended.
He felt his breath catch as he gripped the fork, suddenly finding himself having a great need to not go in there.
"Is there a problem, Sans?" Gaster asked.
"N-no." He stuttered. "Hang on."
He slowly took a single step forward. It suddenly seemed way bigger than when he first saw it. It felt like it was moaning at him, screaming that it would swallow him whole and digest him for eternity. His hands began to shake when he took one more step forward. He was beginning to understand why Gaster flipped the first time they used it.
It was probably his imagination, but he felt like there was a breeze. A breeze going into the giant hunk of metal, sucking him in. He thought he might have even felt his jacket flutter around him.
He took a deep breath and placed his first foot inside the machine. He could've sworn his footstep echoed. He put the fork in the middle of the floor, not wanting to bring his other foot in. When he actually looked at the fork, he saw that he had bent it in half from gripping it so hard. Whatever. It'll still work. He reached up to push the first set of buttons. But he couldn't. Not with only one foot in. He was too short. He was too fucking short. He had never hated being so short in his life until this moment.
He swallowed as he placed his other foot into the machine. The darkness inside it felt like an actual physical weight surrounding him. He slowly pushed the first button. It lit up for a half a second. He clenched his jaw as he steadily went through the button process. He never realized how many buttons he had to push until just then. What was it, like, fifty buttons? Jesus. Once he finally pushed the last one, he rested his hand on the first lever.
He stood there and eyes squeezed shut, mentally yelling at himself to pull the goddamn switch. Gaster had done it before, so he could do it, right? But the only thing going through his head but the image of his screams of agony being instantly muted by the dimension that should never have been reached. His legs shook. He felt his soul pounding in his chest. Would it be silent? Or would it be so loud that his skull would crack? What would he hear? White noise? Screams of horror? His stomach dropped with each passing moment until he was having trouble breathing. He felt the terror rise higher and higher, sweeping over him as he started to sweat. Would he see everything? Would he see nothing? Would he be wiped from existence? Would he ever somehow make it back?
Would he ever see Papyrus again?
"Sans-"
Gaster's voice made him jump and he immediately pulled the lever.
The motor revved, making Sans cry out. He ran out of the machine, bringing his hand up and flinging it down, flipping the next switch with his telekinesis. He did the same for all the other switches, spastically slamming his hand up and down. Once he flipped the last switch, he slammed the door shut so hard that the clang vibrated in his head. He punched upwards, summoning a bone attack. He dropped to the floor, curling up into a ball and covering his head. The flash of light, heat, and cold went past, and the motor died down. Sans stayed his his panicked position, Panting heavily as his eye spouted out frantic wafts of blue smoke.
"Sans."
He didn't move.
"Sans." Gaster repeated. Sans felt a hand on his shoulder.
He didn't respond, his breath and entire body shaking, sweat and tears running down his face.
They both waited, the only sound between them was Sans gasping and the occasional sob.
After who knows how long, definitely too long, Sans calmed down to the point where he could sort-of talk. He sat up slowly and wiped his face off.
"Sorry." He mumbled, his voice scratchy.
"There's nothing to feel sorry for." Gaster reassured.
"It's just…" Sans said, putting a hand to his head. "I'd never been so scared before in my life."
"It's over now." Gaster said calmly. "You can put your shield away."
Sans glanced behind him, before suddenly turning around at the sight before him.
He had summoned a bone attack so huge that it had crashed through the ceiling.
His jaw dropped. Did… Did he do that?
He slowly brought his hand up to bring it down. It didn't budge. His face furrowed in frustration as he brought up a second hand. Still didn't move. He stood up, grunting with the effort. When it still stayed put, he growled angrily before summoning a blaster, making the bone disintegrate. He fell to the ground again, hunched over in exhaustion.
"I won't make you operate it anymore." Gaster said, placing a hand on his shoulder again.
"... Thanks, boss." Sans sniffed.
"You can go home." Gaster said. "Can you make it there by yourself?"
"... Yeah." Sans said, standing up.
Sans opened the door slowly, trying not to make a lot of noise.
"SANS! YOU'RE HOME EARLY!"
"Goddamnit." Sans muttered quietly. It's not that he didn't want to talk to Papyrus, it's that he didn't want to talk to anyone. He was even more tired than before. He had to walk all the way home because he had been too exhausted to use his teleportation, and he wasn't all that great at talking when he was tired, let alone after the episode he just had.
"DID SOMETHING HAPPEN? ARE YOU ALRIGHT?" He called, appearing out of the kitchen.
Sans tried to respond, but all that came out was his voice cracking.
Papyrus's expression dropped as he rushed over to Sans. He kneeled down, grabbing his shoulders.
"Sans, what happened?! You look terrible!"
Sans winced at the quietness in his voice. He could count how many times Papyrus had talked seriously on one hand, and they seemed to be becoming more and more frequent lately. He took a shaky breath.
"I'm… I'm havin' a b-bad day." He mumbled.
Papyrus squinted at him, knowing that he wasn't telling the truth.
"Sans, as your brother and protector, I want to know what happened so that I can help you."
"I… I just…" Sans trailed off.
Papyrus suddenly wrapped him in a big hug, surprising him. What was with everyone giving him hugs lately?
"Dude… I'm fine." Sans said, his voice wavering. "You don't need to hug me. I'm not feeling bonely. Ha ha. Get it? B-bonely…"
His face scrunched up, not being able to stop himself. He buried his face in Papyrus's shoulder, wrapping his arms around him and gripping his clothes, quietly sobbing. Papyrus gripped him tighter.