Sans stood still and silent, waiting for the humans to answer. Wind howled in the depths beneath the frosty bridge that bordered Snowdin Town.
Shuddering, Frisk saw that a mere two or three more wooden planks stood between the twins and solid ground.
"Like I told ya, I don't care about catching humans. And I can sorta deal with timelines jumping left and right," Sans said, poised at the edge of the bridge, barring the way with his slippered feet spread apart. "But even I have to get off my tailbone when someone rips a hole to get here from somewhenwhere."
Frisk bit their lip.
"Look. Since you finally brought these kids out of hiding," Sans continued, his expression unreadable, "mind telling me the truth?"
"...It's okay, Mommy," Vivaldi said, softly, taking a step away from them and toward Sans.
"Don't worry about us," said Verdana, joining her.
Before Frisk could stop them, the twins clasped their hands together, disappeared, and then reappeared behind Sans. Sensing the sudden shift in their presence, he turned around and was greeted by their matching, pointy toothed smiles. A moment later, and they both turned into skeletons. What threw Sans off most was the scar below Verdana's left eye and above Vivaldi's right. Taking his speechless distraction as an opportunity, Frisk slipped past Sans and held the twins once more.
"They're hybrids. We're from another Mt. Ebott. Our barrier's broken," said Frisk, crossing their pointer fingers and then spreading them apart in the sign for 'different', "but there was an accident with their magic."
Vivaldi mused, "Our world's kinda the same."
"But not really," said Verdana.
"We're traveling to Hotland," Frisk said, patting the twins' scapulae. "Trying to go home."
After staring at them for what felt like an eternity, Sans said, "You hungry? I know a place."
"Grillby's!" the twins cheered, returning to human form and pumping their fists in the air. Their sharp teeth glinted like the crystalline snow.
Sans shook his skull. The kids knew Grillby's.
What a day.
Once Sans led Frisk and the twins into Grillby's, Verdana and Vivaldi marveled at how many people knew Sans. Their father was nowhere near as comfortable as this guy around crowds. The kids smiled at each other, deciding that they liked this Sans. He found them a booth, but Frisk could not keep Verdana from wriggling under the table until he popped up between Sans and the wall, eager to sit beside him. Then, when Grillby approached, Verdana jumped to his knees, pointed at the bartender's flaming head, and said, "You're orange?!"
"Say you're sorry, or no dessert," Frisk said, unsure whether this Grillby's even had dessert. With Verdana's bottomless stomach, however, the warning was always effective.
"Sorry, Uncle Grillby," Verdana mumbled, sliding back into his seat.
Sans blinked at that, but relayed their order of three burgers and one basket of fries. Then, as Grillby left with his head sparking in jollity, Sans propped his chin on his hand and peered across the table. The condiments were missing.
Without a word, Frisk got up, smiled sweetly at a fish monster by the bar, and asked for a pair of bottles. Returning to the table, they held the ketchup and slid the bottle of mustard toward Sans.
"Uh, not for nothing," Sans said, amused, "but who puts mustard on fries?"
The other three stared.
"What?"
They kept staring.
"Mind passing the ketchup?" Sans said, handing the mustard back to Frisk. Stunned, Frisk passed the ketchup to Sans as his fries arrived. Ignoring them, Sans opened the bottle's lid and let his fries drown in an ocean of red tomato.
Doubling over with giggles, Frisk laughed so hard they could not move. Tears pricked Verdana's eyes as the boy howled, and his sister started to hiccup.
"Should invite you guys to my stand-up comedy show," said Sans, taking a swig of ketchup straight from the bottle. He then lifted his shirt and used the glass bottle to play his ribcage like a xylophone. "Too easy to tickle your ribs."
After they left and walked to the eastern end of Snowdin, Sans paused at his front door. "Just remember my bro's special attack. Think of a blue stop sign."
"We'll stay determined," said Vivaldi. She and Verdana grinned up at their mother.
"Huh, right," Sans said. Then, he entered the house and closed the door.
The twins faces fell somewhat as they left Snowdin and marched into a thickening fog. All the multicolored lights, trees, and presents made it feel like a Christmas town. Verdana asked, "What's our Snowdin like?"
"This one is much nicer," Frisk said, also feeling sadness prick them while walking away from such a cheerful, welcoming place. Maybe this is what wintry towns in their world could become now that monsters were free. They gave a wistful sigh. "But only home is home."
"Don't worry, Mommy. When we get home," Vivaldi said, gripping their hand tenderly, "I'll play 'Twinkle Twinkle' on my violin for you, okay?"
"And then Daddy will make his kissy faces at you," Verdana said, sticking out his tongue like the very thought was poisonous.
Frisk laughed.
"HUMANS!"
Papyrus stood in the gap between them and Waterfall, struck a dramatic pose, and let his red scarf flutter in the cavern breeze. Raising his voice like he was about to perform a soliloquy, he began, "Allow me to tell you about some complex feelings."
Vivaldi and Verdana blinked.
"Papyrus," Frisk said, walking up to him before he could continue his speech, "would you mind if we stayed with you tonight?"
"You—you mean I can capture you?!" Papyrus grasped his rosy cheekbones, stars sparkling in his eyes. "Wowie! Now Undyne will finally let me into the Royal Guard!" He rushed toward Frisk and shook their hand with excitement. "This is the best day of my life! Until Undyne brings me into the Royal Guard, of course. Then that will be the best day of my life! Come with me, humans!"
The twins trudged along at Frisk's side, dragging their shoes through the snow while Papyrus sang his own praises. Though they felt nervous, they trusted their mother. Besides, this Papyrus was bossy and full of himself but, unlike their uncle, would not hurt a fly. The weight of adventure crashed in on them and, as much as they fought to stay awake, they needed sleep. Drowsiness dragged their eyelids down until, before they knew it, their mother's arms had lifted them and tucked them into soft, warm blankets.
Yawning, Verdana and Vivaldi rubbed their groggy eyes and sat up. Their mussed hair was pasted to their foreheads, annoying them all the more because they could not take off their stupid barrettes. The spacious, brightly colored bed they shared was carved into a strange shape. A racecar?
"Cool!" Verdana cried, his throat raspy from sleep. "Whose room is this?"
Vivaldi looked down at herself. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt of a fluffy bunny. Verdana, on the other hand, wore a black shirt with a skull and crossbones. A similar flag decorated the wall. In the room's far corner was a desktop computer, and beside the bed stood a table of action figures. Overall, it was neat and tidy. "Maybe it's Uncle Papyrus' room."
Verdana climbed down, padded across the floor, and picked up a slender action figure with golden stripes that looked like a sexy Transformer. "Whoa."
If their uncle were here, he would dump all those 'useless' figures in the trash. Or position them on a grid to display battle strategies.
Tiptoeing downstairs, the twins found their mother was still sleeping, curled up on the sofa with a downy comforter. Papyrus snored on the floor behind the sofa under a makeshift tent, cradling a half-empty bowl of popcorn like a teddy bear. They suspected that they had missed a really fun sleepover party.
"Morning, kids," came a voice from the kitchen. The children walked into the room to spy Sans sitting on the kitchen counter and munching a large bag of popato chisps.
The twins glanced at each other and shrugged. It was tough deciding what to call this guy. Every name felt weird. Finally, they said, "Morning!"
The skeleton swallowed his chisps and asked, "You hungry?"
"Yeah," said Verdana. "You got spaghetti, right?"
"All we got left," Sans said, tossing a chisp in the air that missed his mouth and fell on the floor. A small pile of sad failures gained another chisp below Sans' dangling slippers. "Unless you want these. Don't think your ma would go for that, though."
"We love spaghetti. Right, Ver?" Vivaldi said, walking past Sans to the refrigerator.
"Paps keeps the old ones in there. Freshest batch is on top of the sink," Sans said, eyeing the twins, "but I don't think you can reach it. Even my coolest bro has to stand on tip-phalange."
"Wait, Viv, I'll help!" Verdana said, skipping to his sister's side. Thanks to Papyrus' ankle-length shirt, he looked like a tiny pirate. When Vivaldi took his hand, he pointed up at a clear, plastic container with a ridged lid that sat on the sink's countertop, just visible from where the cabinet stretched to the ceiling. "Up there."
"Uh huh," Vivaldi said, taking on a stern look.
At first, nothing happened. But then, as Sans watched, a soft, red light surrounded the container and lifted it. With care, it began to slide forward until the twins held it in midair. But then, it began to wobble.
"Uh oh!" cried Verdana. The container swung to and fro as if the children were staggering under its weight. The boy shot his free hand toward it.
Vivaldi gasped. "No, Ver!"
The barrettes flamed wildly, launching the pasta container in a wide arc up and over the twins' heads before hurtling it to the ground upside-down.
SPLAT!
Spaghetti bounced from the burst container and splattered in all directions. Noodles rocketed against the furniture and walls while chunky, red sauce pooled on the floor. But as Viv and Ver stared in dismay at the mess, they also could not get their magic to stop crumpling the container into the floor.
Blue suddenly dominated their red. Rather than blending into purple, the blue gently pried the red away, like peeling off their magical fingers one by one. Soon, the light from their barrettes faded; the spaghetti container lost all trace of magic, red or blue, and stayed on the floor, unmoving. When the twins looked back at Sans, he had already picked up his popato chisp bag and resumed eating.
Blushing, the twins eased their hands apart and cringed. "Oops."
"S'ok, you'll catch on," Sans said, tossing yet another chisp in the air and missing completely. "Who gave you those hair clips, anyway?"
"Our Dr. Alphys," Vivaldi said, pouting and struggling to remove the offending barrette from her hair. "Daddy says she wants to expect on us."
"...Experiment, huh?" Sans said.
"Yeah. She promised Mommy to be nice to us," said Verdana. He made his way to the pasta explosion, knelt, and sighed. "But she lied."
"The Alphys I know would hate herself." Sans slid off the counter and stuck his greasy hands in his pockets. "Lemme guess. You think she can help you get home?"
"Yup," Vivaldi said, climbing onto the counter beside Sans to grab a sponge and towel.
"Never mind, kid, I'll get it," Sans said, shuffling across the kitchen floor and ignoring the saucy tracks he made. He reached behind the sink and grabbed a mop. "Go get Paps, okay?"
Vivaldi's hair hid her face. She nodded, hopped off the counter, and ran from the room.
"She misses Daddy," Verdana explained, scraping pasta back into the container with his bare hands. Each scoop of spaghetti smacked the plastic with a splurt. "He calls her 'sweetpea'."
Sans stared past Verdana into the living room, where Vivaldi was shaking Papyrus awake while Frisk sat up and yawned. "Oh."