Sans stood thoughtfully at the window of his bedroom. His eye lights speared far past the backyard fence of trees to the cold river's edge, where massive ice blocks floated downstream on a trek to Hotland. Something about the way those frozen cubes drifted away must have meant something to him, you thought, by the way he watched them disappear into the snowy mist.

"Please, say something," you sighed.

He looked at you over his shoulder and frowned.

"it's a huge risk, kid," he obliged. "going forward, it won't be the same, y'know? hell, it already isn't the same. look at us." The corner of his mouth twitched up bittersweetly as he gestured to you both. His somberness returned just as quickly as it had fled. "if you die, it'll stick."

Since your heart-to-heart, his eyelights hadn't fully reignited, and his already quiet voice hardly crested above a whisper. If he were anything but a baritone, you doubted it would have reached where you stood, only feet away at his bedside.

"I know," you said. You twisted your hands together tightly. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. But the only way to break the barrier …"

"fuck the barrier."

"Sans."

"all your friends are already here. we've got good food, bad jokes … is a little sunlight really worth your neck? if you stay here, you'll be safe. i'll look after ya, like before, like up there. you can be happy."

"Idunno, Toriel, maybe after some pie I'd reconsider."

He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, unamused.

"Did you forget Asgore?" you asked. "His rule about humans?"

"what part of 'i'll look after ya' ain't computing? i said it, i mean it."

"Mr. One-HP can take on the king of all monsters?"

Something dark crossed Sans' face. "with one hand in my pocket, kid."

You stepped close enough to touch him, but he didn't budge. His stare was as firm as his stance. The last time you had argued, you stood a solid six inches over him. You had forgotten how much more intimidating he could be when looking down at you, even if just a bit.

"It's my fault we're underground again," you said. "If we only have one chance, I want to make sure we at least end up where we left off."

"where we left off, huh?" He grinned ruefully. "your butts pie is way high in the sky if ya think we're going back to the way things were."

The words were ice under your skin; you could feel your sins crawling on your back. When he looked at you again, regret flashed across his face.

"hey, look, i didn't mean …"

"No," you said. "You're right. I'm sorry."

Uncomfortable silence filled the room and suffocated you like a whale in a ten-gallon tank. The glass only shattered a few moments later, when Sans touched a phalange to the tip of your nose. Your eyes crossed involuntarily. When they refocused, you saw that he wore a genuine grin, despite the sadness lurking in his eye shadows.

"listen," he said in that caring, filial way you had missed sorely since returning to the underground. He placed his hands on your shoulders, ran his thumbs reassuringly across the knit fabric of your striped sweater. "i'm with you a hundred percent, whatever you decide to do. 'kay?"

It took a moment, but you smiled. "'Kay."

"just wanna make sure we put some brain sauce into it." He let go of you hesitantly and pocketed his right hand. "we don't know how things will change, and you have a few conflicting goals."

You narrowed your eyes.

"you want to break the barrier," he elaborated. "but you still wanna save asriel, right?"

You plopped to sit on his bed, bracing for the lecture around the corner.

"as much backbone as you've put into it, you've never been able to find him again after bursting the bubble. hence the resets." Sans started pacing. His left hand buzzed around him as it did only when problem-solving or rambling about theoretical physics. "which means you have to get him back to normal before freeing the underground but, if you do that, we're left without crazy-goat-flower-boy to make the sunset possible. as this half-plant, half-monster thing, he's the only one who can absorb the souls to pull it off."

"Unless Asgore uses the seven human souls to—"

"not an option." Sans' left eye briefly flashed blue and yellow. As it dimmed back to near darkness, he ran his hand down his face. "any way i look at it, there's only one tiny peephole of a window to both save him and break the barrier, and that's …"

"The final fight. I know."

He turned to you, surprised. You pointedly watched your feet kick together.

"I've tried a hundred times, remember?" you said. "I've talked him down over and over, trying to find some loophole or condition I didn't see before. But he's so unreasonable then, and violent, and when he finally calms down he's too caught up in making amends to feel like he deserves saving."

Sans frowned thoughtfully. "you said he remembered the resets?"

"Sometimes. Whenever I came back to life, he knew … but if I reset after breaking the barrier, he seemed to forget."

When you looked up, Sans was rummaging around in his chest of drawers, tossing pairs upon pairs of mismatched socks aside. After a few moments, he finally surfaced with a small silver key, the one you knew would open the cellar below. He looked at it with something like unease, doubt, and hesitation, until at long last he shrugged those emotions aside.

The basement was as dusty and frigid as you remembered. Every time you visited this place, you could tell it hadn't been explored in decades. Especially considering the centuries, even millennia monsters could live, you wondered how long it had been for Sans. Did he know you had been here? By the way he hid those papers littering the counter space, you guessed not.

"Should we be down here right now?" you asked. "Papyrus would lose his head if he came home and found us missing."

"eh, we got about an hour or so," he waived.

He took a deep breath in, let it slowly out. His eyelights dimmed as they traced the corners of the room end to end, catching in the cobwebs and structural fractures along the walls. They landed like a weight on a faded pink curtain, draped over what you already knew to be some strange, broken machine. He took hold of the cloth with one hand. His shoulders squared. He hesitated.

"This'd better not be a prank, old man, or I'll have a bone to pick with you." You crossed your small arms fussily.

He laughed a little, enough to take the tension off his shoulders. Then, he pulled back the drapery and stepped aside.

The twisted, towering metal looked as if Sans had dragged it through seven layers of hell before dropping it like a stone into its final resting place. What chunks of the casing hadn't been misplaced were littered with scrapes, gauges, and burn scars. It remained unplugged; by the scorch marks and missing wallpaper near the outlet, you guessed there was a good reason for that.

You waited patiently for him to say something, and he for you, but in a matter of seconds his browbone fell with scrutiny.

"been back here before, huh, snoop?"

You shrugged. "Gets boring outside the caution tape."

"fair enough."

He tapped his fingers in time to a melody looping his head, a nervous habit, and leaned against the hunk of broken metal. He looked anywhere but at you.

"a couple calendars ago," he said, "i was wrapped up in some serious science shenanigans. 'm sure i told ya at some point i dabbled in physics of the quantum variety."

You nodded.

"well, might've downplayed that a teensy bit." His forefinger and thumb hovered millimeters apart. "truth is … science was my world. worked with the best of the best on some of the biggest shit the underground's ever seen!"

His gaze, for a second brighter than you had ever witnessed, clouded with the mist of one too many ghosts.

"the last project i worked on, though," he said quietly, "didn't really wanna do it, y'know? thought it was a bad idea. but dings was gonna try it with or without me, so i …"

He trailed off. You didn't know whether it would help or hinder to stand closer to him, but he snapped out of it before you could decide.

"time manipulation," he said. "genius thought we could undo the barrier if we reset its clock back before it existed. key was to isolate the big bubble's timeline and wipe it clean while leaving everything else intact. i had a skeleton to say about the danger of time shifts and paradoxes, but … he made it work, somehow." He placed a hand on the machine. "accident sure as hell proved me wrong."

"Accident … ?"

Sans shook his head dismissively. "point is, this hunk of scrap"—he kicked the casing—"punched a hole in time, then gave out before it could undo the damage like it's s'posed to. the crack's still there. so is the mess. i tried my best to fix the thing, but … heh … if you couldn't already tell." He wiped an inch of dust off the surface.

"You think this hole in time made it possible to reset?"

"maybe. you couldn't do it before ya got here, right?"

You shook your head.

"what's strange," Sans continued pensively, "is that you were about as far away from the rift as ya could be when you fell down here. if i hadn't been up against it when the hammer nailed the coffin, we wouldn't be having this conversation. the fact i remember, the way i can fold time and space to cut corners, is all thanks to that one contingent." His face darkened slightly. "remind you of anyone?"

You considered this a moment, but not long before your eyes spread wide. If there were one thing you had learned from living with the Gaster brothers, it was to assemble your puzzle pieces. "Flowey …"

"the way you describe him, time distortion prob'ly jumbled him too. by all natural laws, he shouldn't be here without a soul, even as a plant, even with all the d.t. alphys pumped into him. if we can figure out how the broken minute hand fits into his side of the story, we might be able to fix this."

He stared at the machine a moment longer until an unpleasant thought crossed his mind. He slowly closed the curtain. He clung to it a moment in silence, lost somewhere you could not go.

"when you say you want to save him … kid … what does that mean to you?"

His voice was so quiet it speared straight through you.

You pondered this carefully. It was true Asriel never technically died after your final encounter, but that wasn't the point. He was lost, alone, caught in an emotionless limbo of a flower form. What you wanted for him wasn't as cut and dry as life or death. It was intangible.

"I guess … I just want him to be happy," you answered.

"and how far would you go to give him that?"

You weren't sure how to answer.

Sans nodded, still staring into that empty lilac canvas draped before him. His toothy smile spread wide again, nothing more than a mask to you now.

"you're a good kid, frisk," he said.

As he passed on his way to the door, he looked at you askance.

"don't forget that."

That night, you slept at the skeleton brothers' house in Snowdin, something you had never actually done before. You had always been so quick to make your way to the journey's end, but this time you couldn't bring yourself to leave.

Poor Papyrus was on edge after the horrors of that morning. If that weren't clear enough by the way he hovered around his brother, he had immediately vowed to skip that evening's training with Undyne—something you had never known him to do—in lieu of an evening at home. If the two of you left Snowdin that same day, you worried it would give him a heart attack, especially when darkness still tunneled into Sans' eye sockets.

For a moment, things were just like your old life on the surface. You ate spaghetti dinner, watched MTT TV, chased the annoying dog out of surprising places like the kitchen cabinets and Papyrus' boot, yet an unfamiliar heaviness lingered throughout the house. While Sans was short on puns and jokes, Papyrus was also uncharacteristically quiet. The brothers seemed closer, something you hadn't thought possible: exchanging hugs more often, muttering to each other out of earshot, uttering kinder words within earshot. It was different, just as Sans said it would be.

Sans refused to sleep in his own room. He offered you his bed in exchange for the couch, to which you agreed. Papyrus elected to stay downstairs with him, despite Sans' highly informed dissertation on cushion-to-skeleton ratios and comfort relativity. His racecar bed was much cleaner and tidier than Sans' bare, unmade mattress, he said, so he asked you to sleep there instead.

Awakened halfway through the night to the sound of their voices below, a sneaking glance over the banister would leave you with the image of Papyrus' long arms, locked tightly around a shaken bundle of blue.

His thesis on comfort relativity needed some work, you thought.

"You said the nightmares had gone away," Papyrus muttered under his breath.

Sans exhaled shakily, face buried in his palms. "e'rybody gets nightmares," he answered as quietly.

"Not like this." The taller skeleton hesitated. "I don't understand. Yesterday, you were … happy."

Sans wished he could explain how long ago yesterday actually was.

"Did something happen?" Papyrus asked. "Have I … been too much?"

"'no," Sans answered quickly. "you're the best, pupster … a bone -a-fide superstar."

Papyrus sighed and rested his head on the back of the couch. "You're right, I suppose. An Adonis like myself couldn't possibly be behind this. I'm too inspirational."

Sans smiled faintly.

"Then what happened?" Papyrus insisted. When Sans failed to respond, he pressed again. "Please. I want to help you."

"nothin' happened," Sans lied. "it's just hard … to be, sometimes."

Silence nestled over them like a falcon on its roost. Outside the window, the Underground's perpetual dark had hardly changed save for the loss of artificial lights. Their snowglobe swirled with a flurry as though shaken, while the TV flashed a commercial for MTT Brand pet rock food. It looked suspiciously like confectionary sprinkles.

"It's lonely," said Papyrus, "being a skeleton."

Sans' left eye snapped up to his brother's. Papyrus' smile was just a few curves shy of a wince.

He remembered, then, a day many years ago, not long after they had moved to Snowdin and left their New Home apartment behind. He had been napping on this very couch, still recovering from what remained the worst few weeks of his life. The nightmares had been rampant then, filled with dust and dragons. They ran through his head on repeat, sparking blue at the corner of his eye, twitching his bones.

The room had been scattered with half-unpacked boxes, but aside from these, the house was mostly empty. Daytime lights flickered through the windows onto a zig zag pattern carpet in sore need of cleaning and burgundy walls they would never repaint. Take-out containers spilled from a fallen-over trash bag by the kitchen wall. A small white dog chewed on a bone somewhere out of sight.

In the thick of every slumber ghost haunting him, Sans dreamed that someone prodded him, over and over, but only briefly before he snapped awake to find it real. Papyrus stood beside him, young and small, with cheeks flushed blue under uneasy eyes. He wore warm weather clothing, though he didn't need it. He had seen other children wearing similar outfits and begged to match.

Sans forced his heavy eyes open and struggled to sit upright. Stupid arm. He propped himself up on his left instead. Even that was exhausting.

His usual smile slipped into place and he cleared his dry throat with some difficulty. "hey, puppy-dog … havin' a ruff day?"

Papyrus looked around the room somewhat sheepishly before asking, "What's a skeleton?"

Sans' grin lost a little luster. He pushed himself to sit all the way, despite the pins and needles that burst through his right side. He rubbed the back of his neck a little pensively, sorely unprepared.

"uh … well," he eased out, "that's what we are."

Papyrus did not seem satisfied with that answer.

"like how bonny is a bunny, or heats flamesman is a fire elemental. king asgore is a boss monster. we all got types." The way Papyrus continued to frown creased Sans' forehead. "thought ya already knew this stuff, champ."

"But they said it like it was a bad thing."

Oh. Sans sighed. He had hoped this conversation wouldn't happen for a long time. He patted the couch cushion beside him invitingly. Papyrus hoisted himself onto the seat, where his bony legs dangled off the edge.

"sometimes, people don't like what they don't understand," he said gently. "there weren't a lot of skeletons before the barrier and now … you and i …" His tongue struggled with the last few words. "we're the only ones left."

"Oh," said little Papyrus. He tapped his shoes together and watched his untied laces swing. "But … what's so hard to understand about that? Can't I just explain it to them?"

"uh …"

"Maybe then they'll let me play, and stop throwing rocky snowballs at me."

"who's throwin' rocky snowballs at ya?" Sans snipped, ready to fight. His eyelights had gone out, and the room had darkened.

Papyrus shrank unwillingly.

Sans exhaled. Light returned through the windows. Learning who had bullied his brother wasn't important right now, though he'd sure as hell find out later. Kid or parent, someone was getting slapped.

"we're a little … different," Sans elaborated reluctantly. "special. heck, i wish it was something we could just explain away and be done with. but it's not like that. they just gotta learn to accept it or move on."

"But." This only seemed to puzzle Papyrus more. "I don't feel different."

"it's … complicated." Sans sank back into those green cushions. He didn't have the energy for this, not today. Besides, whether Papyrus had matured enough to understand the subject was unclear. "i'll explain it to ya when you're older."

Papyrus pouted as if he'd heard that answer a lot lately.

"hey." Sans nudged him, and his smile became truer. "have ya checked the freezer? i have it on good authority there's somethin' nice and creamy in there."

At this, Papyrus lit up. He dashed into the kitchen, dragged a chair to the refrigerator, and climbed it to reach the frozen compartment.

Sans could scarcely believe how many years had passed since that day. Here they sat together almost exactly the same as before, though in the time between, this house had become a home. Leaving it had been bittersweet once the barrier had broken. So many memories had been crafted here.

"can't be lonely," Sans replied. "i've got you."

Papyrus sat a moment in touched silence before regaining his gusto. "That's right," he said. "And I'll always be here! Until my inevitable rise to fame, of course. But I'll still be your brother!"

"wow," said Sans. "my bro, the great papyrus. so cool."

"Nyeh-heh-heh!"

Sans dropped his head to Papyrus' padded shoulder and let his eyes fog over on the television. He breathed deeply, shakily. A full commercial break passed with no words exchanged.

"i'm sorry i gave up," Sans whispered finally.

Papyrus stared at the screen but didn't watch. His hands fidgeted inside their gloves. "I'm sorry I didn't notice," he said.

You had trouble sleeping after that.

As morning neared, you finally deserted your bed to find Sans still sitting awake, staring at the flashing lights of the display through sunken eye sockets. He sat in the crook of Papyrus' legs, femurs draped over his brother's knees. The long one slept soundly beneath him. Despite your silence, Sans saw you at once, as if he could feel the air displaced by your presence.

His dim eye lights followed you as you crept down the remaining stairs like a ghost. Silently, you glided across the room until you found purchase in the space between his side and the armrest. You couldn't see his face, but you felt the warmth of his soul when he tucked you under his arm.

You woke alone.

The smell of Papyrus' cooking wafted over to you from the kitchen. Spaghetti again. After leaving the Underground, you had never been more grateful than the day Papyrus broke his pasta phase and no longer had to sneak alternatives from Toriel's pantry or Muffet's bakery. It hit you all at once that, if this succeeded, you had to tolerate another year of bad spaghetti all over again.

"GOOD MORNING!" called Papyrus, when he saw you sit up straight. He wore a long apron with the words "kiss the cook" printed on the front. The word "cook" had been crossed out and replaced with "Great Papyrus" in red marker.

"Morning," you grumbled. You tried to stretch the kinks out of your body, but that lumpy couch had left lasting knots. "Sans?"

"GETTING READY," answered Papyrus calmly. His eyes lifted uneasily to the second story. "WANTS YOU TO DO THE SAME."

You stood slowly, stiffly, and obediently wandered toward the stairs.

"A-ACTUALLY," Papyrus called, just as you passed the kitchen. He rushed over but paused by the steps, wringing his oven mitts. "SINCE … since I have you alone."

His tone woke you faster than five shots of espresso.

"There's something I'd like to discuss with you …"

"'bout what?"

Both you and Papyrus looked up to see Sans, clean though tired, skirting the banister along the overlook. As he shuffled down the stairs, he slipped on a different jacket. Its felt-like fabric had been dyed an indigo so deep it was almost black, and an oversized hood of heavy off-white fur hung off his shoulders. Underneath he wore a t-shirt you'd seen him sport a few times on the surface, one with a watercolor graphic of a rib cage over a dripping, bright blue heart.

"SANS!" Papyrus barked. "THAT SHIRT IS HIGHLY INAPPROPRIATE!"

"think the word you're looking for is 'hawt.'"

"TAKE IT OFF IMMEDIATELY!"

"why? 's the same underneath."

"GAH!" Papyrus threw his arms above his head and retreated to the kitchen.

You basked in a blissful, fleeting sensation of normalcy. Sans beamed at you playfully and nudged you with an elbow.

"heh. rattled his bones good, huh? next time, you should wear it, see if his face implodes."

"I CAN HEAR YOU."

You exchanged shit-eating grins.

"BUT THE GREAT PAPYRUS HAS MADE YOU BREAKFAST ANYWAY." He held up a rather unappealing slop of spaghetti to you both.

"nah," Sans said. "on a diet, rather not break my fast …"

Sans' eyes darkened as soon as these habitual words left his mouth. His hand jumped to his chest, and his balance gave way. Thankfully, you were near enough to grab him before he could sink too far. You steadied him to his feet, where he latched onto your shoulder and stiffened like a board.

Papyrus hurried over to you both. "SANS, ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?"

"'m fine," he muttered.

"ARE YOU SURE? YOUR SOU …"

" i ' . "

The room went black for a split second, just long enough to make his point.

No one moved. No one spoke. The clock on the wall spun its second hand once before you felt his grip above your clavicle relax. He stood on his own, and though his left eye light had resurrected, it fixated on the ground.

"c'mon, frisk," he hummed, and walked toward the front door. "we should head out."

You didn't budge. Instead, you and Papyrus threw each other concerned glances. Papyrus stepped forward cautiously. Something about his worry seemed more informed than yours.

"S-SANS, IF YOU DON'T MIND …"

Sans paused, phalanges wrapped around the tarnished silver doorknob.

"I WANTED TO HAVE A WORD WITH THE HUMAN. FRISK. ALONE. BEFORE YOU LEAVE."

Hearing him refer to you as "the human" shook you to your brown boots. You looked dumbstruck up into his anxious but resolute face, now completely uncertain where the conversation would take you.

"'kay," said Sans quietly. "i'll be right out here, snow-gazin'."

The door clicked quietly shut behind him. Through the window, you watched him sidle over to lean against the sill, ensuring he remained in sight.

At the kitchen table, you sat unnerved across Papyrus. Your legs dangled off the creaky chair, feet just inches shy of flattening to the floor. Despite a mind years older than your body, after a hundred resets you had reacclimated to your dimensions—not as though you had ever set any height records. By contrast, Papyrus' knees locked tight against the wooden underside, too tall to be contained.

"Human," said Papyrus calmly.

The unusual quiet of his voice chilled you to the core.

"The Great Papyrus thanks you again for your valiance. Even with all my cunning and character, I failed to foresee what happened, while you, merely friend and not sibling, knew the precise moment to call. Tell me, is it a human thing? Do humans have mind magic? Do ALL HUMANS HAVE MIND MAGIC? BECAUSE UNDYNE TOLD ME ABOUT A HUMAN WHO COULD MIND CONTROL PEOPLE BY KISSING THEM BUT IF SHE MISSES THE KISS THEN SHE—" He glanced down at his "Kiss the Great Papyrus" apron and awkwardly concealed the writing under crossed arms. "Never mind. The point is … Sans explained to me that you are a human, and because you are a human … you probably don't know."

Confusion crossed your face.

"Certainly you've noticed that monsters are, more than anything, NICE."

You smiled. It was the first thing you noticed.

"THERE'S A VERY GOOD REASON FOR THAT! You see, monster souls are a little … flimsy. We're made of magic and, well, magic is … it's … hmm …" Unease sprinkled across his face. "The Great Papyrus is great at explaining things but this thing happens to be particularly difficult." You could see the gears turning behind his eye sockets before reigniting with their familiar passion. "I KNOW!" He lifted a finger triumphantly. "I'LL JUST SKIP THAT PART."

You stifled a smile.

"When it comes to monsters … the way we think, the way we feel , can affect the health of our souls. Monsters can fall down if they're put through enough stress, or if they give up."

Suddenly you understood where he was going.

"I saw Sans' soul, yesterday morning," he said timidly, uneasily. He played with the edges of his left mitt with incredible focus. "It's … broken. Very broken. I don't know how he's even holding it together. He can get better if he tries but I'm so afraid, one more horrible thing and he'll just …"

You took his fidgeting hands in yours. At that moment, you realized his busy fingers had only been a mechanism to withhold sadness. You should have known; Papyrus had always been one to keep active, in no small part to sustain his font of positivity.

"Be careful with him," he said finally. "Please. I know what you have to do is very important and dangerous and Sans wants to be there to help you, but … promise me you won't let him … fall."

You looked out the window. Sans still leaned against the glass, though with his hood flipped up as if to disappear inside. Your hands squeezed Papyrus' with determination.

"I promise," you said.

A/N: I live! Here, have some notes. *flips them into your face like a deck of cards.*

Outline complete! I finally finished outlining the rest of this story arc so, yes, it's happening. We're looking at probably around 20-25 chapters total, give or take. Right now it's sitting at 23, but if I know anything about the way I write, concepts have a tendency to expand and retract and scenes end up being longer or shorter than I thought. Perfect example right here. That final scene with Papyrus was intended to ease in the next chapter, but I decided it'd be best to go ahead and put a cap on the skelebros house.

Title change! Originally this was called "No More," back when it was just a one-shot concept. Doesn't really fit as much with where I'm going, so I kept "No More" as a subtitle to avoid confusion (for now) but changed the main title to "Rift."

Tone! Things are still going to be pretty deep and meaningful and feel-good, but in the spirit of the game I want to be sure to keep the character personalities light and fun, without straying too far from the emotion of the first two parts.

Next chapter! Sans and Frisk return to the Ruins. Will Toriel open the door?

Hope you enjoyed! If you have thoughts or feelings, please feel free to share. :)