Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dusty stacks of boxes and papers littered the room in the other world’s version of the royal labs.

The moment Sans felt whole and solid again, he teleported to the basement and summoned a blaster. As it was forming he thought to feel for the pressure of the dampeners, but it was already too late. The magic left him, creating a giant, beastly skull with a jagged crack on the right side that left the socket a jagged hole. Sans’s eyelight darted away from it and he frowned. He turned back to the room, firmly keeping his hand away from Papyrus's scarf.

There wasn't any feedback, so the dampeners weren't on, at least. Sans looked around the stack of boxes. The chains sat on the ground, grouped into two distinct piles. The smaller one up near the wall had a bunch more above it, hanging from hooks. His ribs itch, but he can’t move his phalanges.

The other pile was where Ketchup was supposed to be.

“damnit,” Sans swore. He ducked around the piles of stuff to either side, but there was no sign of Ketchup or the asshole anywhere to be seen. Sans let the blaster melt away, curling his phalanges into fists.

His entire experience with this world was contained to this room, but he knew there was more. The question was if the asshole would dare take Ketchup out into it again. The last time he had, Ketchup had freed Sans. Oh fuck, what if he intended to take revenge on Ketchup.

His skull burns.

Sans tugged at the tails of Papyrus's scarf. He didn't know anything for sure yet. He had to keep focus, keep looking. If the asshole hadn't gone up to the underground, then where could he be?

Sans spun on his calcaneus to face the machine. He had trouble punching commands into it, his phalanges missing because they were shaking. He cursed loudly as he ended up in the diagnostics menu. Backing out with a series of frustrated taps, he ended up all the way back at the start.

“fuck you,” he snarled at the machine and very deliberately and forcefully jabbed his way to the logs.

“jackpot,” Sans muttered grimly as he spotted a log entry from twenty minutes ago. The asshole had gone to a completely new world. It wasn't anywhere else in the logs, so it wasn't Ketchup’s home. Why, though?

Sans glanced up. If he went upstairs, the trail in this other world would get cold fast. The asshole had to know he would come after Ketchup. He'd probably run to another world to try and lose him. However, if he was wrong about that, Ketchup would be stuck in his clutches for that much longer, but Sans wasn't likely to lose them all together.

“hold on, wherever you are,” he muttered, missing the button to open the portal using the same coordinates. His vision wavered, and Sans had to hold onto the side of the screen.

Ketchup is crying.

With a growl, Sans slammed his fist against the screen. He managed to slow its descent at the last minute, but there was still a loud thud. At least it was enough to trigger the button, through sheer surface area if not proper aim. The generators whined, and the portal formed between them. Shaking his skull, Sans walked into his next unknown of the day.

It turned out to be yet another version of the basement. Surprise.

The space was mostly dusty, except for one well-kept area: a spot in a corner with some dried flowers laid on it, a bouquet of golden flowers and one echo flower, only barely recognizable with no fluorescent blue coursing through its petals. They looked fragile, and clear as glass as though they'd been cut a long while ago.

The flowers had been laid before a hunk of metal that could only be this world's machine. It was missing quite a few more pieces than Sans was used to seeing. In fact, it didn't look like anyone had bothered trying to finish it in the first place. It was so bare it was practically just the casing. There was no evidence of extra parts strewn about the room, either. This was it.

“shit,” Sans looked back at the portal. There was no one on the other side of that one to get him home, which meant he would need to be quick. He had no idea where to start except the house itself, which shouldn’t take long, especially if the asshole was there. Sans would end this whole nightmare very quickly as soon as he saw that bastard’s face. Bracing himself for a fight once more, he teleported to what would be the middle of the living room, where he was met with a handful of popcorn chucked at his face.  Behind the barrage was a very irate Undyne.

"Holy fucking shit, Sans, you can't just bend spacetime in here, it's not your house anymore!"

She took a moment to look him over, eye lingering on the damaged side of his skull.

"I didn't...do that with popcorn, did I...?"

“...yes,” Sans replied before it occurred to him that maybe he shouldn’t mess with this other Undyne. Her presence, the popcorn, how she knew about his shortcuts, and the proposed idea that this wasn’t his house momentarily distracted him. 

Undyne gaped for half a second, and Sans could practically see the thought process through her eye as her expression fell into a scowl.

"Don't make me beat the crap out of you."

“you wish,” Sans muttered. Undyne couldn’t land a hit, he was sure—mostly sure.

This Undyne had apparently been comfortably enjoying the TV from the couch in loosely strung up bone-pattern pajama pants and an oversized shirt.

"What the hell are you doing here, and why do you look like shit?"

“i, uh...i’m looking for someone.” Getting her to help him by pretending to be the Sans from this world would be perfect, Sans decided.

Undyne took another look at Sans for a while. When she stood up, she'd taken on a stance that didn't match the comfy pajamas.

"Someone, like who?"

“he’s, well, there’s two of ‘em,” Sans tried smiling at her. She seemed like she didn’t hate her Sans. “one looks kinda like me, the other like papyrus, but... dopier?” That was about as kind as Sans could be to the asshole, and even that burned. He dug his phalanges into Sans’s skull.

Undyne stood up straighter, raising a brow at Sans.

"You mean the other ones of you guys? Why didn't you just say that?" She put one hand on her hip. "I've kinda noticed the universe crash, Sans, I haven't been holed up that much."

“the what?” Sans stared at her. It sounded like she said ‘ universe crash ’.

Undyne stared back, suddenly bending closer.

"Shit, did you, y'know..." She swirled one finger to the side of her head in a 'cuckoo' gesture. "...get all confused again?"

“um, sure,” Sans touched the side of his skull. It was still tender, but he welcomed the biting pain. He had to focus. He let Ketchup down too many times. There was no way he was going to fail him again.

“can you help me or not?”

Instead of answering, Undyne gave Sans another once over with her eye.

“...does Papyrus know where you are?”

“yeah,” Sans had to hold back a grimace. His brother did not know where he was, and he had already forgotten about the fucking portal. “i need to go...um....”

Undyne frowned, taking out her phone from a pajama pocket.

“I’m calling him.”

"no, you don't gotta...gotta go!" Sans teleported back down to the basement. He turned just in time to see the portal close.

"fuck!" he screamed, kicking the closest wall. "fuck, fuck, fuck." Now it didn't matter what he did. If Ketchup wasn't here, then Sans wasn't going to be able to help him. Hopelessness dragged at Sans. In the dusty lab he could feel it like chains, pulling him relentlessly down to the ground. His carpels burned. Sans scratched, ripping at the red rings like he could pull them off, too. His vision cut out entirely. Tears burned their way out of his functioning socket and down his cheek bones.

"fuck..." he wailed softly, curling over his hands and pressing his skull to the floor. The filth flew up around him. A cloud of it began to settle over and inside of him. He was as useless as the dusty machine. More so. At least it could be used for scrap. He was just dust that hadn’t settled yet.  "damnit. i'm sorry." Sans cried and rocked, rubbing the top of his skull against the rough concrete and whispering to himself. "'m so sorry, ketch’. i don’ know what't do. i didn't mean't hurt you. i never woulda let him...fuck..."

Ketchup sat across from him, scared.

He wasn't sure how long he spent wallowing before rational thought returned, but eventually Sans pulled himself up to sitting. It was something. He was replaying what Undyne said. Some part of his mind insisted he pay attention to it, even though his thoughts felt like syrup on a cold day.

Other ones.

There were other ones.

Universes.

She knew something about universes .

Sans sat up so quickly he was overtaken by a wave of dizziness. Maybe this machine was abandoned because there was another one. One that worked. He awkwardly got up, pushing with his phalanges when his femurs failed to regain feeling fast enough. Who he needed to find was this world's Sans. He wasn't here, but Sans didn't have time to go looking for him. Undyne wasn't a great choice, but he bet someone around here would know where he went. He should ask Grillby, or one of the mutts.

Stuffing his hands in his coat pocket and pulling it tight, Sans teleported again, this time to right in front of Grillby's.

There was no one around outside, so Sans let himself in. As soon as he opened the door, the bar fell utterly silent, except for a lilting tune on the jukebox.

Sans couldn’t deny he was the cause, either. Everyone was staring at him.

The mutts were in their regular seats, all their poker hands folded down as they gaped at him. Suddenly, Lesser Dog spoke, shaking his head.

“Oh. Ain’t him. It’s the other one.”

As if that were a signal, the regular noise of the bar returned as most of the clientele went back to ignoring Sans, except for a few still staring openly. That included about half the dogs, Lesser Dog only looking at him sideways. He was a lot buffer and nastier looking than the one back home. Sans made his way over to the mutts, habit putting a little extra swagger in his step. He was used to a more nervous crowd, but he didn't need much from them.

"where can i find sans?" he asked, meeting Lesser Dog's eyes.

Both Dogamy and Dogaressa spat their drinks in unison, badly hiding snickering behind their paws. Lesser Dog smirked.

"You don't know? This time of day, he'd be at his real important job."

Greater Dog gave a loud bark, and Dogamy spoke up.

"Yeah, 'judging' downtown in New Home."

“judgin’?” Sans asked, “where downtown?” That didn’t really sound like him, at all, but whatever. At least they had some idea of where he could find this Sans.

"The grocer on third street'll take you to him," Lesser Dog took a swig of beer after answering. He let out a satisfied breath.

"They'll take you unless he's busy with a client," Dogaressa added, which seemed to amuse her for some reason.

"Pay extra, and they'll probably take you to meet him with a client."

The whole table laughed at that. Lesser Dog reached into his coat pocket.

"Gotta pay your way regardless. Here, little chew toy. Consider it a 'welcome to your new home' present." Sans raised a brown bone at the nickname.

Lesser Dog took a small leather pouch out and dug into it to hand Sans several gold coins.

Sans took the money and pocketed it. He hadn’t thought to bring any with him. That would have been smart.

Grocer.

Third street.

Ketchup.

Home.

“thanks, mutt,” Sans replied absently, trying to remember where Third street was. He hoped it was in the same place here.

Lesser Dog stood from his chair with a scrape. He leaned down to show Sans a face full of teeth.

"What'd you call me?"

Sans reflexively bared his teeth back, parting them to show off each wicked point. His magic flared up almost immediately, too, after a day—days?—of fraught situations. Sans was ready to win one of them.

“just thankin’ ya...mutt.”

For a second, Lesser Dog looked ready to throw Sans across the room, but then something in his face changed, and he barked a laugh right in Sans's skull. He stood up tall, putting Sans in shadow.

"The tough act's pretty good, chew toy. Keep it up and it might get you as important a job as Sans's."

Sans snorted, confused, but unwilling to tell them that. He kept his game face on as he walked out of the bar, teleporting to where he thought third street might be. The mutts were acting strange about whatever this job was, but so what. Sans didn’t really give a shit. He’d worked some crap jobs.

All he needed from the other him was a way out of this place.

—

Sans heard the portal close and whimpered. He wasn't even sure why. What importance did a portal to some other world have? They didn’t even go through it. He just hated the humming, the knowledge that a way out of this hell existed, but was so thoroughly outside of his reach. A sigh from behind him whispered through the cramped space, making him shiver..

“now we wait.”

Sans left his eyelights off. There wasn't anything to see in the closet, anyways. It was pitch black. He could feel everything he needed to know about. Knees, bent and shifting every once in a while to either side of him. His phalanges, throbbing with pain. Hard bone under his pelvis, slowly warming. The faint feeling of ribs through the fabric against his spine. Tears trickling down his skull until they met the phalanges clamped across his jaw, holding his mandible in place.

“blue…” teeth moved against his skull, and even though skeletons didn't breath, Sans imagined he could feel hot breath splash across his bones with the name. He sank down into the feeling of being there—here.

He was back.

Another portal opened. Sans told himself not to hope, but his soul sped up. Nothing happened at first, and then muffled words reached them through the vent in the floor. The phalanges on Sans’s face tightened painfully. He didn't even feel tempted to cry out. Fear coursed through him as he caught a familiar sharp tone, despite missing the words.

There was another long silence, or at least it felt long. Sans held completely still. Struggling would only get him hurt. Even worse, it could get Mustard hurt. Sans couldn't do that to him. He had already managed to hurt Lasagna. Trying to avoid his fate only caused them pain.

He belonged here.

Something loud slammed, making him jump and jerk against the hold. Sans anxiously pressed back against the ribs. He hadn't been trying to break free. He was being good. He would be good.

Yet another portal opened. Sans listened, but he couldn’t hear the soft sound of Mustard crossing the threshold and passing between worlds. There was nothing to mark him walking away from Sans and leaving him here. More tears slipped free, and Sans shook against the demon.

“sshh,” the demon whispered, his teeth just barely opening. “we have to make sure he’s gone.”

Sans nodded. They did. He did. He needed Mustard to go back home and be safe and take care of Lasagna. It didn’t matter that Sans’s soul stung like it was fracturing into a dozen pieces. Stars, Lasagna would be so disappointed in Sans. He was going to miss him. It had been nice having someone believe in him, even if Lasagna had been wrong.

They sat in silence. Sans shook occasionally as another sob failed to leave his exhausted body. The demon moved one set of phalanges down slowly, trailing it over Sans’s scapula and along his humerus. It was when the demon’s radius and ulna circled his ribs, pulling them tight together that he noticed the warmth below him had gotten much stronger.

His limbs loosened and relaxed, preparing to be twisted and turned at the demon’s whims. His magic hadn’t formed into anything yet, but it wouldn’t take long. In the meantime the demon slid Sans down so that his pelvic inlet was pointing out towards their tarsals. Sans let his femurs fall open. He heard the echo of chains.

The demon’s phalanges were familiar. He rubbed along the outside of Sans’s shorts at first, but soon let out a frustrated huff. The shorts were shoved down, forcing Sans’s femurs back together. Being undressed wasn’t so familiar. Sans trembled, fear creeping back into his soul as his shorts—the shorts Lasagna had insisted on washing before he borrowed them from Mustard—traveled down his tibiae and fell to the floor around his tarsals.

“mm,” the demon sighed, forcing Sans’s legs opened again and drawing one phalanx along the sensitive rim of Sans’s inlet. Sans’s magic formed, as though eager for the touch, though the edge of desperation that Sans had fought for so many days wasn’t there. He didn’t thrust his magic into the demon’s phalanges, like he had his own. Still, it didn’t take long for the folds of flesh to grow wet.

“oh blue, i missed you,” the demon moaned as he rubbed along them, stirring the coiled need that Sans had neglected. His phalanges ached even more. If he twisted another one off, would he stop feeling like this? The demon might kill him if he couldn’t use him. Sans’s phalanges trembled where they gripped the demon’s pants.

Phalanges slid into him, their way eased by his body’s sick reaction. A fresh round of sobs hit Sans as the bones wriggled deeper. The demon licked along the collar of Sans’s borrowed shirt, his tongue tapping along the vertebrae.

Sans’s magic squeezed and trembled while the demon treated him almost tenderly. He stretched Sans, his thumb rubbing gentle circles around the top. Sans didn't know what to do. The demon taking him was usually rough and quick. He moved Sans as he needed him.

Now Sans was left thinking about all the things he could be doing as the demon thrust his phalanges into him rapidly. He could push the demon’s phalanges away. He had loosened the radius and ulna across his ribs, so Sans could turn to face him. Mustard had made it look so easy…

But Sans didn't do any of those things.

Sans moaned into the demon’s hand.

“blue…” the demon moaned back, his voice heavy with want. The vague heat under Sans’a pelvis drew into a hard shaft that pressed against his sacrum uncomfortably.

Everything changed.

The demon returned to his namesake and all but threw Sans forward, turning him so that his spine hit the wall of the closet. His skull hit a second later, leaving him dazed. In his attempts to collect himself, Sans let his eyelights form.

The low blue of his magic and the bright orange of the demon’s combined to make a dim, muddy glow that highlighted the demon's skull from below. Sharp shadows stretched across his features, shifting as he scrabbled his way onto his knees with a groan and leaned toward Sans.

He slammed his member into Sans the moment his pants were open and their pelvises were close enough. Sans muffled his cry into a whimper, uncertain if he was still supposed to keep quiet. The demon didn't pay the noise any mind, clutching at Sans’s pelvis as he wriggled all the way in. He sighed loudly, moaning at the end.

“oh blue,” the demon repeated Sans’s nickname—name, now that Sans was back and there was no chance of going home. When did he start thinking of Mustard and Lasagna’s as home? Tears streamed down Sans’s skull as the demon grabbed his femurs and pushed them up, folding him against the wall. Then he began to move in earnest.

Sans’s body knew the drill. It went limp, letting the demon do what he wanted. His mind, however, had changed. It now registered what was happening in excruciating detail. Sans’s magic was barely throwing any light, so every time the demon entered him his skull vanished, only to reappear as he withdrew. His grip on Sans’s femurs tightened each time their pelvises met with a sharp snap. Sans’s spine rubbed against the wall, processes bouncing along it painfully.

The demon returned to licking at Sans’s neck, making the already small space suffocating. Sans couldn't suppress a short wail as the demon closed over him, reducing his world to nothing but the demon. Liquid dripped down his clavicle to his ribs.

“oh yes. oh yes, yes,” the demon muttered. His teeth rasped against Sans as he moved them to Sans’s mouth. It only took one touch of his tongue for Sans’s teeth to part. He hadn't even decided to. Sans didn't make decisions anymore. His phalanges throbbed.

The demon’s tongue was hot and slimy, as always, but Sans found it more revolting than before. He tried to turn his skull. With a huff of annoyance, the demon released one femur to grab onto Sans’s mandible. His phalanges splayed out across the bottom, holding it firmly in place. Sans stilled. Of course it was useless.

He stayed like that, body at the demon’s mercy while he mourned the loss of what might have eventually been a life. What a terrible time to feel some hope for his progress so far. It hadn't seemed like much next to Mustard’s aggressive return to his life. Here, in this place, it became clear that Sans had improved. He had put some pieces back in their place, ready to be broken all over again.

Chapter Text

New Home’s Third Street was apparently the same in this other universe, or at the very least there was a grocery in view. The smell of mildew and wilted plants hung heavily around the outside, and big produce baskets sectioned off the front like a fence. It looked like most of the produce was mushrooms.

Partially hidden behind the baskets was a fat little shrew monster, wearing a dirty brown apron and pushing tiny spectacles up his snout as his whiskers twitched over an iffy-looking radish. He gave Sans a suspicious look as he approached, clutching the moldy radish closer as if Sans planned to swipe it.

"i'm, uh, lookin' for sans." Sans kept his phalanges in his pockets and put on his best 'couldn't give a shit' look while he played with the gold nervously. How long had he been here? How much longer was this going to take?

The shrew raised a furry brow at him. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, beginning to rub the radish like he could polish the mold off.

"He's with a client right now."

“i don’t need long,” Sans commented, hoping it was true. He wasn’t sure how much of that hope was wish based, rather than founded by any real evidence. A half second later he remembered the gold and scooped it up to wave it in the direction of the shrew.

The shrew snatched the gold from Sans's phalanges and bit it. Apparently satisfied by the consistency, he motioned Sans to follow him inside. He led him to a musty corner of the shop, brushing hanging leaves from the front of a door before unlocking it and showing Sans through. The shrew watched Sans enter, staying behind at the door and closing it after Sans. Sans heard it lock from the other side.

Locks clicking into place.

With stiff legs, Sans made himself move forward. It was a short walk down a grungy hallway before Sans started hearing some strange noises, like monsters breathing very hard. Around the corner, in a tight little room, Sans found the culprits on a daybed.

The asshole’s on his knees, curled over a limp form.

One of the monsters was some sort of tall bat, and he was balls deep in the other monster: a Sans, maybe, who was wearing a puffy white dress cinched with red ribbon, and white high heels that were close to falling off as he was banged into the wall. He was gripping the bat with lacy gloves curled into claws, voice high with what sounded like ecstasy.

"Oh god, yes, just like that!"

Sans’s soul plummeted along with his mandible. The snickers and the way the dogs kept calling this Sans’s job ‘important’ made sense, now. They had been mocking him, and Sans. He looked at his hand. Lesser Dog had given him the gold expecting him to sleep with the Sans—

He took a step back out into the hallway and retched. His vision swam. The wall at his back was all that was keeping him upright. Ketchup’s touching him. That and the chains. Sans ran his phalanges down his ribs and found them free of metal. Find Ketchup. He had to find Ketchup. Except this Sans was...was...

This Sans was right next to him.

"Amoeba? That you?"

The Sans had apparently separated himself and gotten up in the time Sans had been floundering, and was now peering around the doorway at him. The bat was right behind him, handing Sans's counterpart a fancy cane with a gold handle, but staring at Sans.

"Are you alright?" The bat asked with seemingly genuine concern.

“um, yeah—who?” Sans pushed himself away from the wall and turned to face them, but then he just leaned against it sideways as his patellae threatened to give.

“i’m, uh, sans.”

His counterpart tilted his skull.

“Yeah, either way...” He twirled the cane in front of him. “Y’know, there’re those days when time travel splits you in half, and you wanna know if your doppelgänger is dead or doesn’t exist anymore...but I guess you’re not him...”

He trailed off again as he looked over Sans’s covered injury, and continued muttering, to himself, apparently.

“No, I guess you couldn’t be...” He touched his own skull in the same spot, thoughtful. “Then where did you...”

Through all this, the bat was waiting patiently, not seeming too curious. He even started rubbing the Sans’s scapulae lightly before the skeleton spoke again suddenly. “There some kinda time emergency?”

“yes, well, ‘n emergency,” Sans ground his teeth. There were too many distractions. “’m lookin’ for another one of...us. he’s been taken, an’ I don’t think he’s here, but it doesn’t matter ‘less i can get home...” he had to stop as another wave of despair hit him. He’d made the wrong call and left Ketchup with that asshole.

The other Sans looked away from Sans to stare up at the bat, who sighed and pat his scapula, running his hand briefly down his humerus.

"I'll see you another time, RC."

The Sans returned a touch to the bat's wing, then started quickly hobbling ahead of Sans down the hall, motioning for him to follow.

"How about you start with where 'home' is, and what made you not be there in the first place?"

Sans followed, watching the bat for a moment longer and wondering absently if he had interrupted his time with a lover, rather than a client, like everyone else seemed to think.

“that’s, um, a long one. th’ relevant details are that a—a pa—an asshole that looks like papyrus kidnapped a sans that was, well, he lived with us, me an’ my brother. i followed him, gonna—an’ he had come ‘ere, but i think undyne mighta spooked ‘im. why aren’t you—nevermind. but my portal home—i mean to his world— closed before i could, ya’ know, use it.”

“An asshole that looks like—“ The other Sans halted to turn to him with a disturbed expression, wobbling a little in the balance between cane and high heels. “You mean moldbygg? A shapeshifter?”

“no,” Sans stopped as well. “do you know a lot of other us...es?”

“Can’t say I do.” The other Sans’s eyelights flit to the side and back as he appeared to think of something. “I guess knowing any more than one me is technically a lot.” He waved his cane. “More importantly, and I can tell you’re upset and all, but your ‘relevant details’ fucking suck. You saying you came from another world, but not your world, and you what, lost your keys?”

He turned his spine to Sans before he could respond.

“Try an’ tell it slower on the way to the labs. They got a universe-switchy-whatever there.”

"the 'keys' are in the other world, if that's what ya mean." Sans clenched his phalanges in his coat pockets. There was a machine at the labs. Finally, something was working out. He could have collapsed relief hit him so hard, but he made himself take a few eager steps forward.

“lead on.”

The other Sans led him out the door, through the musty fungi of the grocery. The shrew did a double take back at them, the first smile Sans had seen on it making its face seem to melt with warmth as he saw the Sans in the dress.

“Leaving, dear?”

The Sans gave him a wave in brief greeting.

“Something came up. Seeya tomorrow, though.”

The shrew hurried to a box on a table, returning with a strange looking root vegetable and shoving it into the other Sans’s phalanges, the Sans thanking him in a way that suggested he was given a lot of strange root vegetables by this monster. The shrew kept smiling as the other skeleton hobbled to the exit, but Sans for some reason earned the shrew’s original suspicious scowl after him.

Sans snarled back before hurrying after the Sans out of the grocery. He waved his phalanges in front of his face, trying to remove the smell.

"it ain't worth goin' into what happened to ketchup, but i just gotta get back. from there i can figure out where that fucker took 'im." Sans couldn't stomach--ha--going through the details right now. He was getting shaky again.

The other Sans looked back at him, brows dropped.

“That’s not...what I meant by relevant details? Like, do you know the coordinates you came from.”

“oh...” Sans shook his skull. The how hadn’t stood out to him as much as the why, but it was just as important. “i, uh...shit.”

He didn’t.

The other Sans seemed to be trying on a reassuring smile, but there was a chip in the confidence behind it.

"Don't worry about it, m'sure the brains can figure out how to get you where you're going."

"oh...y--yeah..." Sans hung his skull and trudged on. Was there no end to the ways he could screw up? He could just imagine Papyrus scoffing.

The other Sans had started out ahead of Sans, but was gradually just about keeping pace with him, wobbling a little as he used the cane.

"Did you say...did you call the other guy 'Ketchup'...?"

“yeah. it was less...weird, if we had somethin’ to call each other,” Sans shrugged. “can call me mustard, if ya want.”

"Pfft," the Sans snorted. "Ketchup and Mustard. Wow."

“hey,” Sans snapped, but he sounded kind of exhausted—he was, after all—so , it probably didn’t have the effect he wanted. “what about rc? they ain’t even in your name.”

“Uh!” The Sans, ‘RC’, faltered as he walked, his amusement melting into sudden shyness. “It was...” he mumbled, “...my other brother chose it...and it stuck...” In spite of his reaction, there was a sense of fondness in the way he mentioned his ‘other brother.’ “It’s, uh, it stands for where I came from, sorta...”

RC started hobbling a little faster to lead Sans through the city. From the landmarks Sans recognized, they were still a good ways from Hotland and the labs.

“Better keep up with all three of my legs, Horseradish.”

“horseradish?” Sans growled, only needing to increase his pace a little to keep up. “i told ya, it’s mustard.”

RC didn’t turn around, waving phalanges in Sans’s direction behind him.

“I know, I know. I ain’t gonna forget something that silly that fast, Mayo.”

Sans settled for a wordless growl, since he had no good way to respond to that without losing the help of the one monster he needed. His walk turned into more of a stalk for a few strides before he stopped dead from a realization.

“why the fuck are we walkin’?”

RC stopped too, turning around to stare at Sans in bewilderment.

“Uh...because if you don’t, the ground doesn’t turn into a conveyor belt that sends you where you wanna go...?”

“but there are, uh,” Sans glanced around the street, “shortcuts we could take. don’t have time to spare.”

RC's sockets narrowed in confusion.

"Short—oh! You can still—" His cheekbones turned red, eyelights going askance. "I...um...can't do that anymore..."

He gestured over his femurs and cane as if to say: this is it.

“what—how—“ Sans was thrown off balance once again. How did you lose something like that—something that had wormed its way in and melded itself to your very being? He looked down at his own femurs. It didn’t matter.

“where in th’ labs are we headed?” Sans shoved aside his curiosity and focused.

RC fidgeted, pushing down the ruffles of the front of his dress.

"The front entrance."

“you’re as bad as papyrus,” Sans rolled his eyelights, or tried to. One moved, but the other flared up with pain. Sans grunted and clutched his skull. Right. 

RC smirked at him.

“That’s high fucking praise.”

He frowned as he took in Sans’s condition.

“Do you...need a break before you go hauling ass around the universe?”

“no,” Sans rasped. He could handle a little bit of pain. It was probably nothing compared to Ketchup...he could imagine what that fucker was doing to him. He’d seen it enough times.

“there’s no time,” Sans stepped forward and grabbed RC’s phalanges, holding them tight as he teleported them to the front door of the labs, on the inside.

“Oh fuck!”

RC’s patellae went out from under him in his surprise, and he tumbled to the floor.

“shit!” Sans stumbled forward with him, it occurring to him to let go after it was already too late. He did manage to twist so that he landed next to RC, rather than on top of him. He groaned as his skull burned with agony.

RC made his own noises of discomfort, shakily picking up his cane but remaining seated on the floor.

"Y'alright, Ranch?"

Before Sans could respond to his newest nickname change, two monsters were heading towards them. One of them, Alphys, made sense for the labs. The other was a spider woman he'd never seen before. Alphys didn't look happy.

"W-well, this explains a lot. Sans, your b-brother's been tearing New Home apart for you. Undyne said you showed up, half your head gone, looking for..." She glanced at the spider woman, who was already moving to pick RC up from the floor, some of her hands lingering on the white frills of the dress.

"—looking for the Sans from my universe, we heard. RC, dearie, why have I never seen you dress up like this before? It's so darling!"

Sans sat up, his mouth clamped shut. He probably should have expected Undyne to take things way too far, but he had completely forgotten about telling her he was Sans—this Sans. Hopefully they would still help him, or he might have to find some other way to convince them.

RC seemed to take a moment to piece together what the others were telling him, opting to go to Sans and offer him a set of phalanges instead of responding at first. As he reached them out though, something appeared to click in his skull and he hurriedly took his phone out to look at it.

"Ah shit. So that's why he was blowing up my phone. I thought it was the usual—well..." he trailed off there, turning from Sans without touching him. "Thousand Island, tell them what you need, I gotta—I'll be right back..."

With that, RC quickly hobbled away with his phone to his skull, only a few seconds later cringing like he was getting it verbally emancipated from his body. Meanwhile, Alphys and the spider woman were giving Sans expectant looks.

"um..." Sans folded his tibiae in, uncertain how his skull would handle standing anyways. He looked up at the waiting monsters, eyeing their lab coats with a nervous socket. An attack simmered just below the surface, even though Sans knew that he needed their help.

"i'm not him, uh, obviously, an' i need to get back to my world, or the world i came from, but i don't got a way to do that. as quickly as possible." he looked past them to the door that would lead down to the current location of his own machine, if he was home. Was it in the same spot?

"Well, of course we ca—"

Alphys interrupted the spider.

"How did you...g-g-get here, without a way back in the first place?" She crossed her arms. Something about her stance gave away that she wasn't accustomed to affecting intimidation. "And why did you pretend to be our Sans?"

"a cross dimensional fissure generator array," Sans sighed. He hated using the full name. Only a pompous dick would use so many words to describe something. "it's only able to keep reality from reasserting itself for 'bout seven and a half minutes, an' i missed my window."

"And he pretended to be me 'cause he was marooned and freaked," RC added, his return announced with the clack of his cane. "The Boss, uh, knows I'm not dying now, so can we get this guy back where he belongs?"

Alphys sighed, pushing at her glasses to rub at her brow. The spider monster sniffed.

"A fissure array...how very barbaric."

Sans growled at her. He had no reason to be defensive of that hunk of metal. It has caused him nothing but trouble, and he didn't have that much to do with its construction, really. He was just feeling a little done with everything in his life being shit, including himself.

"can you do it or not?"

The spider nodded, taking out a pocket-sized keyboard from her lab coat.

"What are the coordinates you came from?"

Sans bunched his shorts in his phalanges, trying not to shake. If he had stopped to think for one fucking moment, he would have written them down.

RC waved his cane.

"The thing is...he doesn't know. We were hoping you'd have some way of kinda...pinpointing it with what you've already got."

The spider glanced at Alphys.

"There is a way, but there's no telling how long it would take."

"how?" Sans looked between them, fear darkening the edges of his vision. Another set back would be more time for the asshole to hurt Ketchup. "what would make it go faster?"

The spider woman was putting away the keyboard, taking out another item that looked like dowsing rods attached to a controller.

"Without the exact coordinates, the only hope we'd have to locate your home would be to scan your magic, and match the origin of the signature to its home universe by...going down the number coordinates in order." She fiddled with the device, and when she looked up at him from it, her expression was apologetic. "I'm afraid the only way it would go faster would be by the grace of sheer luck that your number is hit sooner."

“fuck,” Sans drooped, “luck hasn’t really been my thing lately.” He went ahead and let his skull hit his patella. There was nothing he could do. No one else was coming for Ketchup. He didn’t even know that Sans was trying to get to him. What if his hope ran out? It was already so low…

Ketchup’s sockets are empty.

The spider monster quickly knelt down in front of him, the device she held beeping and whirring over Sans.

"Oh honey, there now, it may not be as bad as all that!" As the device was held over him, there was a brief pull at his soul, like a magnet, but the feeling let go almost as soon as it started. Another set of the spider's hands were typing something as she peeked at the display of the device. "There, it's already in and calculating. That was so easy! Why, it could be no more than a second or two before it hits a match."

There was quiet for a second, and then two. Then RC spoke up.

"What's the...outside estimate for how long it'd take?"

The spider looked uncomfortable. Alphys fiddled with her glasses.

"Sans...there are an unknown number of universes expanding around this one, more than we could count if we had a, a hundred of these running at all hours. The calculator could keep running missed matches long after we're all d-dead. And maybe never find it."

It was the obvious answer. Sans could have arrived at it, given the time and faculties to ponder it, but he didn’t want to know it. He could be stuck here, not just for a bit, but for forever.

Which meant he was of no use to anyone that mattered. On top of leaving Ketchup trapped in hell, he had abandoned his brother again. What would happen to Ketchup now that no one was coming to save him?

And how many times would Papyrus demand they open the portal so he could wait for Sans and Ketchup to come back through?

——

“You are being phenomenally stupid,” Undyne sighed as she fell into the chair Sans had been sitting on. It creaked threateningly. Unlike Sans, Undyne was all muscle.

you did more for ‘im than anyone

Papyrus scowled at Captain Undyne, the fiercest fighter in the Underground, who was maybe approaching becoming a friend.

“WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, NO. YOU ARE INCORRECT.” Undyne crossed her arms and glared at him. Papyrus turned and looked at the doorway to the portal room. His soul trembled, insisting that Sans was about to walk through it, Ketchup in tow. It remained distressingly empty.

“I CAN UNDERSTAND WHY YOU DON’T HAVE FAITH IN SANS…” his words slowed and faded away. Papyrus found that he couldn't express why he believed that Sans could do it. It wasn't wishful thinking, either, he was mostly sure. There was the obvious fact that Sans was strong. Papyrus hadn't checked him in a while, but he had to have gained a LOVE or two. He was also mad, and, when Sans was mad… Well that might not be a good thing to bring up.

By all appearances, Sans was a selfish, cruel, lazy asshole.

“Papyrus?” Undyne raised her eyebrows at him. “Was there more? I can't say I'm all that swayed.”

“NEVERMIND… DOCTOR ALPHYS,” he stalked away from Undyne and her skeptical looks. He didn't need any help questioning himself for not going. The portal was open. He could go help find Ketchup. The problem was…Sans was right, damn him. Undyne wouldn't hesitate to go through with her plan once he was gone. He understood why, of course, but he had promised Sans.

“Yes,” the Doctor snapped, popping up from below her console. A single monitor rested on the narrow lip above the controls.

“ARE WE ABLE TO WATCH SANS?” He asked, relief surging.

“No,” the doctor said shortly. She ducked back down.

“WHY NOT?” Papyrus pressed. “WE COULD BEFORE.”

Doctor Alphys muttered something, and a harsh cranking noise emanated from the small space before she spoke loud enough for him to understand.

“Because the generators I was using to get a video feed through are currently holding open a useless portal.”

“IT’S SO SANS CAN GET HOME,” Papyrus informed her. She snorted. There was a tense silence, and then the light from the portal faded from the doorway.

“I can either look or open it,” Doctor Alphys informed him. “Which do you want?” She seemed to take some pleasure out of the question.

“OPEN A NEW PORTAL,” Papyrus responded firmly. “WE CAN’T LEAVE SANS WITHOUT AN EXIT.”

“What a waste of power,” She grumbled, But her hands moved over the controls in a now familiar pattern. A few moments later there was a flash of light.

“I THOUGHT THE CORE’S POWER WAS LIMITLESS,” Papyrus commented, even though he was relieved.

“There's no such thing,” Doctor Alphys said as she ducked behind the console again. “We have a very, very vast store of power available to us. But someday, long in the future, it will run out. And every time we open this stupid portal there's less for future monsters.”

“DOES THIS REALLY TAKE SO MUCH? COMPARED TO, SAY, WATCHING ANIME?” Papyrus spat back, though her words made him feel a little guilt. Not about the power, but he was claiming something even more valuable, Doctor Alphys and Captain Undyne’s time. They hadn't complained once about that, however.

“Oh fuck off,” Doctor Alphys grumbled. Papyrus considered saying something to her about how he appreciated her help, but he couldn't make the words come. It was the same when he looked over at Undyne, who despite her sharp words was still here, waiting with him.

It was somewhat comforting to have them around. He had lost Ketchup, and now Sans was off looking for him. He had to believe they were going to come back. There was so much that could go wrong, but it wouldn't. Sans would succeed. Ketchup would be okay. Sans would be okay. Papyrus faced the doorway and lifted his skull.

He needed them to be.

Chapter Text

“where’s sans?”

Blue jumped. He looked confused for a moment before realization brightened his eyelights slightly. Papyrus rubbed at his sockets and shook the sleep from his skull as Blue looked around the house. Papyrus frowned at him. It wasn't a guessing game.

“my brother! where is he?” Papyrus demanded with an antsy step forward. The need to find his brother had hit him as soon as he woke in the closet. Blue flinched, cringing away from him. Good, he should be scared. No matter how fond Papyrus was of Blue, there were lines. Hurting Sans was over that line by a mile.

“i don't know,” Blue whimpered softly. He had his phalanges up as though to cover his sockets. Papyrus snatched them and pulled them out of the way, squeezing Blue’s carpals until he cried out.

“bullshit. he went missing when you two disappeared. you took him.”

Blue gazed up at him with feigned shock. Tears trickled slowly down his skull. Papyrus wouldn't fall for his tricks again.

“where is he?” Papyrus shook Blue so hard that his teeth clacked together audibly. Blue tugged at his arms once, then went limp. Growing frustrated, Papyrus tossed him to the ground against the wall. Blue huddled there, arms and legs tucked in to his body protectively. Papyrus's leg ached and his spine screamed at the strain, but that was nothing new at this point.

“we didn't,” Blue sobbed. “i don't know where he went…” his tapered off as trembling distorted his words.

“you have to!” Papyrus cried, voice pitched up with panic and desperation. Blue had been his chance to find his brother, since looking had only earned him a chance to kill Red. That had been satisfying, even if it hadn't quite done the job, but now he needed to find Sans.

“sans doesn't know how to use the machine,” Papyrus grabbed the collar of Blue’s stupid shirt and dragged him up the wall until he might have been upright, if he straightened his legs to take the weight. “he didn't even know about it!”

“he—he did,” Blue was sobbing heavily, his words breaking up as each gasp wracked his small frame. Papyrus held completely still, listening.

“he found us—and we—i told him we—were from—other worlds…” Blue’s worlds were replaced entirely by sobs. Papyrus felt every one, still holding him against the wall. He couldn't let him go. Disbelief, panic, and fear stiffened all of his joints. Sans knew about the machine. He knew about Blue and Red.

“no,” Papyrus gasped, the vice on his soul loosening. “no, there was a load. sans died, and then…” Blue took on a stricken look, focusing on some point near Papyrus's shoes. Sans had been there that morning, and Papyrus had… they had… and then Sans disappeared. Shaking his skull, Papyrus scowled at Blue. He shook him again. “then you took him!”

“we—we didn't!” Blue sounded truly terrified as he grabbed Papyrus’s carpals with one hand. “they hadn't loaded yet when we…when i…”

“when you freed red and left,” Papyrus spat. Blue cringed.

“i…i didn't want to,” Blue whimpered with a miserable slouch. Papyrus laughed, giving Blue an incredulous shake of his skull.

“i just didn't want to see mu—red hurt anymore.” Blue squeezed Papyrus's carpals lightly. “and he's…gone, so it can be just…us,” Blue whispered the last word, staring around Papyrus's sternum with empty sockets.

“no, i need to go find sans.” Papyrus set Blue down. He collapsed back to the floor. “if you didn't take him—if,” Papyrus emphasized. He still felt like it was the simplest explanation for Sans’s disappearance. “and he knew about the machine, then it's possible…”

“he went to another world,” Blue whispered, as though thinking along with Papyrus. He frowned down at the sans. He wasn't sure he liked that, but if Blue helped him find Sans, that would be worth it.

Blue wasn't paying any attention to him. He was still lost in thought. Papyrus did the same. How could he figure out where Sans went? There were literally infinite possibilities, or maybe even more.Papyrus couldn't just search.

He could have slapped himself, he was being so stupid. He hadn't looked closely at the logs because he assumed that Sans had been dragged off to Red’s world. Assuming Sans went to another world and that a load didn't remove Sans’s use of the machine—which was assuming a lot, admittedly—then it would be in the logs.

“come on,” he grabbed Blue’s carpals and teleported them down to the lab. Papyrus dragged Blue over to the machine, holding him between his arms as he pulled up the right screen. He sneered at the crack that had appeared on one side since Red came through. Violent little fuck. His leg throbbed again.

The logs appeared, and Papyrus did indulge in one quick smile. Red had followed his false trail and gone to the random coordinates he'd entered. Blue whimpered and turned his skull into Papyrus’s arm.

Papyrus scrolled down through the logs. Before that was the portal he opened to lay said trail, then his trip to Red’s horrible world. He scowled, his spine burning, as he scanned past the portal he was abducted through. With a start, he stopped, phalanx drifting over the next log entry. It wasn't to Red’s world, which would have made the most sense. Blue gasped a moment later. He had turned just enough to peek at the screen at some point.

“n—no,” he whispered so softly Papyrus almost missed it.

“yes,” Papyrus responded, selecting the log and setting the machine to go there again. “that has to be sans.”

He glanced over at the empty chains. He could lock Blue up, but he was loath to let him out of his sight. All sorts of things could go wrong, leaving him without Sans, without Blue, and trapped.

He wasn't entirely sure that this was the right world. It still felt too absurd to think Sans had gone and traveled there alone, but Papyrus needed something, some hope to cling to. He needed to believe he was going to find his brother.

“come on,” Papyrus pressed the button and pulled Blue over to the portal. They didn't have any time to waste, which made it all the more annoying that Blue resisted him. Blue hadn't resisted him in a long time. It was weak, nothing more than dragging his feet, but Papyrus’s temper was too close to surface. He had been through enough, hadn't he. All he wanted was Sans back. With an angry sigh, he changed course and stalked over to the chains, Blue stumbling behind him.

“ah! n—ple—” Blue cried, but Papyrus was done. He unlocked Blue’s chain from the wall and wrapped it around his phalanges a few times. Blue broke out of his hold, falling to the ground. Papyrus furiously went after him, kneeling on top of him to hold him in place.

Blue’s struggling almost immediately ceased. He just laid there and cried as Papyrus got the collar in place and locked it there. He spent a moment wrestling his temper back down. Blue’s time with Red had clearly done some harm, but Papyrus could get him back under control.

Warmth seeped through his pants and into his pelvis while he was thinking. He lifted up off of Blue to check, and sure enough there was his magic, peeking out from under his shirt. Papyrus glanced at the portal. Blue had already wasted precious minutes. It was going to close soon, forcing him to reopen it. It's not like it would take long, and it had already been days, at least. Another few hours wouldn't hurt. Shit, working off some of this frustration before seeing Sans would probably be good.

“since you're offering,” Papyrus muttered, pulling open his pants with the phalanges that weren't wrapped in chains. Blue made a strangled noise and looked up at him with dull eyelights. It was short work forming his cock. One time with Blue hadn't even begun to sate the need that had built up in him while he was held captive.

Blue’s femurs yielded easily so Papyrus could kneel between them. He cupped Blue’s patellae and slowly drew his hands down the delicate, smooth bones. Blue gasped when Papyrus's phalanges reached his pelvis. He arched up, giving Papyrus the perfect opportunity to slide them underneath it.

“I have missed you,” Papyrus murmured, taken all over again with the delight lancing through his soul at having Blue under him. He wasn't even angry anymore. This was what he had needed, craved for that painful eternity. Sans would be fine.

With a grunt, he buried himself in Blue. The smaller skeleton arched and whined. His sockets went black. Papyrus paused and stroked his skull. Blue’s mouth parted, but he didn't say anything.

Papyrus was eager, so he started out fast. He knew that Blue could take it. The first few thrusts made Blue whine, but after that his magic slicked up. Papyrus moaned, eyelights rolling up in his sockets. Blue felt a little tighter than he remembered. It was very nice.

“i’m never going to let you go again,” Papyrus groaned, pulling Blue’s pelvis to him as he thrust sharply into him. Blue cried out. His jaw didn't close, continuing to release low whines. His mandible rocked with the motion of their fucking.

“you're mine. you're all mine,” Papyrus moaned. No one else could ever have Blue. He would never let them. This was his, and his alone.

Blue’s trembling phalanges reached up and grasped the collar. Papyrus stopped, seated all the way inside him as color caught his sockets. Deep red, dried marrow at the base of where one phalange should have been. Papyrus pulled them closer to look at the stump. The marrow had clot and dried completely, so it wasn't all that new.

“that's what you get for going to the world that produced red,” he commented with a sneer. Blue flinched and looked away. That's right, he hadn't wanted to go.

“it's okay now. you're back, and i won't hurt you.” Papyrus pulled the uninjured phalanges into his mouth and licked them. Blue gasped. Papyrus smiled around the digits at his tears of relief. He slowly pulled the phalanges back out.

“i’m going to take such good care of you.”

——

Sans stared blankly at the wall. It was strangely solid for the way it felt like the world was falling down around him.

RC's voice was suddenly right by Sans, soft but certain.

"Come with me. We're getting you patched up while fate's in the waitin' room."

“why?” Sans’s voice came out thick and husky. He looked down and saw a drop fall from the lower edge of his socket and join a group of wet spots on his shorts. “what does it matter?”

Ketchup’s limp.

"It matters." RC held his phalanges out, sticking it right in Sans's view between his lap and his skull so he couldn't miss it. "You remember where you found me? We're going there. Alphys's got my cell number."

“huh?” Sans lifted his skull. It felt like it weighed a metric ton. “if you wanna go back to your, um, to that, uh, you can just leave me here. i’ll just...sleep.” Sans wasn’t sure he could sleep, but he could pretend.

The asshole’s harsh breathing makes him want to hurl.

RC's expression contorted, jaw curling downward.

"Jeez, I'm not gonna invite a parade in with you there, I ain't that shitty." He tapped a phalanx to his own face, looking up and to the side, at nothing in particular. "But okay, if that's no good, we got..." His eyelights swept the ceiling, like he was picturing something there. "...the Ruins. Take us to the Ruins."

“oh...okay,” Sans wasn’t entirely sure why RC was so insistent on taking him somewhere, but he didn’t have the energy to argue. He reached out and set his phalanges in RC’s.

“i’m gonna...” he said, waiting for confirmation from RC before taking them to the door to the Ruins.

RC nodded at him. Sans thought he caught Alphys and the other monster saying goodbye before they were there, at the edge of Snowdin's forest. RC gave the door a few solid knocks and waited.

"She's the only other monster with healing magic I know of, I mean, who might take a charity case."

RC shivered, wrapping his radii and ulnae around himself.

Sans stared at the door. When was the last time he had visited his? A lifetime ago, at least. He wavered, almost falling back so he was laying rather than sitting. Here was as good as anywhere.

The collar cuts into his vertebrae when he tries to relax his skull.

“you’ve met ‘er?” He croaked, clutching his patellae to stay upright.

Sans could see some blush creeping up RC’s cervical vertebrae.

“Yeah, we’ve...we’ve met.”

The sound of large footsteps came from the other side of the door, capturing RC’s attention. A second later the door swept open, the huge form of the queen of monsters standing there. She noticed RC first, and her face puckered like she’d tasted something sour, though there seemed to be a hint of pink blush under her fur, too.

“We trust there is an official court reason that you visit us, Sans.”

RC seemed to cringe into himself a bit, giving an awkward curtsy in the dress.

“Your, your majesty. Um, I’ve got a, just an eensy kinda...favor...”

He turned his skull to look at Sans, and the queen took notice of him at last. She did a small double take, but quickly smoothed over her surprise with a more dignified expression.

“Well...that does change things. Come in...” She continued staring at Sans, eyes lingering on the side of his skull. “Or, do you need to be carried...?”

“n—no,” Sans shakily got up. There wasn’t much he bothered fearing, especially when it came to his own life, but she was pretty intimidating. He was not at all interested in having her carry him.

The queen motioned them through the door, and they made their way down a long hall in which the temperature warmed dramatically from the freezing forest outside. Up a flight of stairs, they were suddenly in a cozy home, the smell of baking drifting from the kitchen. The queen knelt to help RC up the last several stairs, asking after his legs, to which she got a stumbling reply that he was fine. Her touch lingered on him for what seemed a little too long, making RC's whole skull turn pink, before she bent towards Sans.

"You may sit right there."

She pointed him to a large, comfy-looking couch, the seat of which almost reached the height of Sans's lower ribs.

"We will need to remove the dressings from your skull."

"oh..." Sans played with the tails of the scarf. Papyrus probably didn't even want it back, but Sans wasn't about to part with it. The scarf had been a very important part of the whole ensemble. He had heard the importance of a dramatic trailing scarf many times. He had rolled his eyelightss then, but now he was inclined to agree. Pulling himself up onto the couch, Sans took a moment to let the room stop spinning before working at the knot. It was being held together with mostly dry marrow, but it slowly gave.

The queen looked down at him in surprise.

"Oh. We did not mean to make you...we will take care of it from here. You're injured, you may rest now."

"don't touch it," Sans clutched at the knot. "i got it, justa... justa minute..." Damnit. Sans felt his whole socket burn, and his voice was far from a nice threatening growl. Once was enough. He just had to avoid thinking about how he might never get to give Papyrus the damn thing back. His teeth clacked together as he held back the tears. He wasn't a monster who cried. He wasn't. He wasn't.

Something in RC’s expression changed as he looked over the scarf, and he held his phalanges up in a peacekeeping gesture.

“Easy. Take it easy. No one’s gonna take it.”

Sans knew that. Who else would even want the fucking thing. Mad at himself for getting worked up over a bloody strip of fabric he pulled at it, yanking it off his skull with a sharp hiss of pain. The rag fell away, exposing his socket to air for the first time in a while, and exposing them to his socket. He glanced over at RC, whose jaw was hanging open in shock or awe, and then stared down at his lap, fidgeting with the scarf. He'd never even bothered looking at it.

Whatever the queen’s internal reaction to the sight, outwardly she was unaffected, voice calm as she came closer to kneel in front of him at the foot of the couch. She held a hand up, turning it clearly in front of his good eye like she was proving she wasn’t holding a weapon.

“We are going to heal what we can of you now, is that alright?”

Sans nodded and turned his eyelight down. Everything looked weird. Distances didn’t quite make sense, and there was an odd quality where his mind was trying to fill in the room at the edge of his vision. It was kinda tilted and fuzzy. Without the excuse of the wrapping, he had to face a truly horrifying fact. Alphys had been right.

The queen's hand came closer, almost enveloping the side of Sans's skull, though he didn't feel it touch. He could vaguely see a green light twinkling in front of him. Little sparks of it felt like warm rain as they trickled over his face, dancing over the broken socket. Pain was quickly disappearing, leaving only an odd, numb, incomplete feeling in the fuzzy areas. The queen lowered her hand.

"We're afraid that the missing parts of your skull cannot be recovered with our magic...we apologize that this may be the best we can do."

“missing...” Sans brought his phalanges up and trailed them along the socket. It was a lot less painful, but his sight hadn’t returned. He drew a phalange towards the top, where the crack was.

He stopped when the smooth edge of the socket was interrupted by a dip in the bone. It wasn’t too deep, but after that he found a sharp point, then a deeper gap, followed by another jagged peak. It went on like that, dried marrow falling away from the healed bone, until one of the valleys went too deep. Sans shivered as his phalanx slipped down the crack in his skull a good few inches. That was awfully wide. He drew it back out and dropped his phalanges to his lap.

It’s like the asshole expected him to dodge.

Sans looked over at RC again as he rolled the fabric of the scarf absently.

RC was gaping at him, eyelights big as dinner plates. When he noticed Sans’s attention he put both his thumbs up, expression still awed.

The queen huffed through her nose.

“We will prepare you some tea.”

With that, she got up, going to the kitchen.

“no, i don’t need... tea...” Sans looked after her, trailing off when he realized it was too late. He turned back to RC.

“no one seems all that surprised to see another you walkin’ around. undyne even mentioned ‘nother one...?”

RC appeared to snap out of his fascination with Sans's skull.

"Oh. Yeah. We had, uh, a bit of an incident. There were these time travel adventures that compromised the stability of our universe, so we had a little crash...and now we're twice as overcrowded down here. Undyne reminds me, though..."

He reached into the collar of his dress, and as he pulled his phalanges back out, some unusual lumpiness that Sans hadn't noticed on RC's ribs before smoothed into flatness. Out of his collar popped an eye patch and strap.

"Y'don't want shit flying in your open socket, I figure, so you might need this."

Sans was distracted from what the fuck a universe crash might entail by the mystery of where that had been this whole time. Then he was distracted from that because he was holding an eye patch, and not for a joke. His socket was toast.

“uh, thanks,” Sans turned it over a few times. “there a mirror around?”

RC pointed at the room with the stairway they'd come out of.

"Past there, in the hall outside the bedrooms." He straightened, brushing the front of his dress at the ribs to smooth it. "Mind me to putting it on you?"

"naw," Sans shook his skull. It was almost strange that he didn't get dizzy. "i just wanna go look, first." He hopped off the couch and slowly walked towards the hallway.

RC took one step, but ended up staying in the queen's living room, rocking by the couch and peeking at Sans as he exited.

Sans kind of wished he would come with, but he couldn't bring himself to ask. He caught sight of the mirror almost immediately. It was big, not that mirrors could be intimidating. They just reflected things. Showed it as it was. Sans's shoes stuck to the floor as the 'healthy' side of his skull began to appear in the glass. He didn't much like how things were. They were kinda shit. He didn't need to see. Seeing wouldn't change anything.

"ya kn--" Sans half turned to return to RC and just have him put the fucking thing on. His soul sank, startling him. What did it matter? It didn't.

Except that it did. If he didn't know how bad it was, he couldn't account for it if—when—he found them and had to fight the asshole again. Sans just kept fucking running. He ran away from Ketchup. He had tried to ignore his skull crack, and that had gone well. He'd even fucking tried to pretend like he wasn't just as scared as Ketchup was. Sans lifted his carpals, pulling back his coat just enough to expose the red ring. He had tried to pretend like the him now could just step into his old life, but it was a lie. He was too different, too changed, too marked. He always ran away from what really was. He couldn't protect anyone if he was trapped in some kind of fucking fantasy.

Squeezing the scarf in one set of phalanges and the eyepatch in the other, Sans walked forward until he was in front of the mirror. His eyelight darted towards the reflected movement, instinct winning the day. Once he caught sight of the hints of jagged bone, he couldn't look away. Slowly, he turned to face himself, as he was.

He was a fucking mess.

There was a gaping black hole where his socket had been. It wasn't even that much bigger than before, really, but the shattered edges and lack of an eyelight made it seem huge. The top was pretty much non-existent. The crack had widened, swallowing that edge into nothingness.

"well...shit," Sans hissed. It was even worse than he had thought, but that was the reality of the situation. He would just have to deal with it.

Holding his skull up and straight, Sans walked back to RC and held out the eyepatch.

RC's eyes raked over Sans's face as he came back. He took the eyepatch, but suddenly something changed in his face that made him stop moving. He just stood there, looking from the eyepatch, to his own cane, to Sans's face, and back. His jaw fell, almost like he was going to say something, but he was silent.

“y’ okay?” Sans asked. Had he fucked something else up already? Leaving RC to wait, standing, had been kinda shitty. “we can, uh, go back to the couch,” he waved at it.

"Yeah," RC croaked, then cleared his throat. "We can...we can, uh..." He hobbled towards the couch, staring down at the eye patch the whole way. He leaned against the cushion, not getting himself up on it. With how tall it was, and RC’s cane, it occurred to Sans that maybe RC couldn't get on the queen's huge couch by himself. That didn't seem to be on RC's mind, though, as he looked up from the patch to Sans again.

"I think I've seen you before..."

"huh?"  Sans laughed. It was weak, but it was real. "we do have a few similarities."

"Heh," RC laughed in return, but he turned a little pink in the face, looking away and fiddling with the eye patch. "I've met me. You ain't me."

He pat the couch behind him, signaling for Sans to sit.

Sans climbed up, his brow bones lowered. What in the world did that mean? It didn't make any sense. Either the other versions of him were him or not. He absently offered RC some phalanges while he mulled over it.

RC looked at Sans's digits for a moment before taking them, climbing up very awkwardly and dropping his cane on the floor in favor of using both of his arms unencumbered. Sans pulled with everything he had, but he felt a little bad for making RC feel like he needed to get up after he saw just how difficult it was for him. RC scooted himself back on the cushion, getting himself partly behind Sans. He held the eye patch up.

"Alright?"

“yeah,” Sans nodded once before holding his skull still for RC.

The patch was set gently on Sans’s socket, the strap fixed on from behind. RC seemed to take a moment more than necessary arranging it neatly, which didn’t come across as a very Sans-like thing to do.

“Stole this from Undyne. Not ‘cause of you, but before that, since her stuff was all over the old house, and it looked cool.” He showed Sans a crooked grin. “It’s almost disappointing that it turned out useful, huh?”

“ha,” Sans laughed again, a little stronger this time. “messing with undyne is the best.” The explanation of the patch’s origin left out why RC had it with him, but Sans didn’t feel like asking. He didn’t feel like doing much of anything. Now that there wasn’t a way forward, his body was ready to rest. He listed a little towards RC before sitting up straight again.

RC blinked, staring for a second at the spot Sans had almost occupied against him. Then he held his hands up, inviting.

“Take a fucking nap. I promise I’ll let you know anything soon’s I know it.”

“uh,” Sans stared at RC. He hadn’t meant to make RC think...whatever he thought. Nonetheless, it was a very tempting idea. Sans didn’t want to be alone right now, with his newfound acknowledgment of reality. He leaned back towards RC a little.

“ya sure?”

The billowing skirt of the dress made RC feel a bit like a puffy pillow.

"Yeah, s'fine." RC's eyes glanced at the kitchen and back, and he added in a whisper. "Gives you an excuse to miss the 'protein pastries' she brings with tea." His voice went lower. "The protein is snails."

Tea with the queen, more than once. Inviting random strangers to put their skull on his lap. Having sex, and enjoying it. This version of him had led a very different life.

Sans went for it, sinking down onto his good side. RC’s dress enveloped his skull, turning his whole world white. He had no sense of how deep the fabric went, so the feel of hard bone startled him.

RC shifted so that his femur was supporting Sans’s vertebrae, settling into position.

“Need a bedtime story?”

“hah, no, no...” Sans tried to relax, shifting a few times to adjust how his was laying on the couch, but no matter what he did, his body stayed stiff and his mind raced.

RC's phalanges landed on Sans's shoulder, tips tapping lightly.

"Y'want, uh, a massage...?"

Sans went more rigid at that, and his soul sped up. What was he doing? Touching wasn’t okay. Any moment he was going to be ripped away from Ketchup. Why? It wasn’t Ketchup, it was RC. Did it matter? Sans was destined to hurt everyone. He hurt Ketchup. He hurt Papyrus.

He didn’t deserve to relax. How could he relax when he had no idea when the asshole would come back next. All leaving had done was widen the gap between visits. It was always Ketchup, too.

The phalanges were removed from Sans.

"Whoa, are you...oka—well, you're not...okay..." The femur under him shifted again. "Need me to move away...?"

“no,” Sans rasped. “no, i...” Sans didn’t even know how to describe himself and what was wrong with him right now, or in general. He did notice that he was already a little calmer. RC’s voice, so different from Papyrus’s, the asshole’s, even Ketchup’s...it had nothing to do with his life and everything that was wrong. It grounded him and let sleep pull at him.

“ya know, maybe i will...” Sans flushed. He could hardly believe, in the middle of all this shit, he was asking for this. “take that story.”

“Alright,” RC answered rather quickly, though he was silent for a bit after that. Briefly, his phalanges brushed Sans again, just the tips, but RC just as soon pulled them away. His jaw opened, like there was something else he wanted to say, but the next thing that came out was the start of a story.

“Once, there was a little prince, who lived on a planet no bigger than a house, and he needed a sheep.” RC’s spine leaned into the couch’s back, his hands resting at either side of him. It seemed like he’d had a story memorized, because his eyes looked far away. “He needed the sheep, because little planets have trouble with huge trees called baobabs...”

Sans stared at the white dress wondering how a planet could possibly sustain life at that size and what a sheep would do to its ecosystem. He dozed off before he could get past the stray thought that maybe the prince was actually a microorganism.

Chapter Text

Everything was white.

Something was tickling Sans’s nasal aperture. Sans bat it away, but it bounced back. It was kind of silky. He twitched and became aware of an unfamiliar weight on half his skull. Eyepatch. Ruined socket. Papyrus. Ketchup.

Sans shoved his upper body up, his soul pounding.

He was partly in RC's lap in the midst of a sea of dress skirts, and RC was fast asleep. The queen wasn't around, but there were empty cups and plates on the coffee table that suggested she'd come and gone while Sans was out. The house was quiet.

"u--" Sans opened his jaw to wake RC up and demand to know if there was news. Before he could disturb the other, his mind raced ahead to the obvious answer. If RC didn't wake him up, they hadn't found him a way home yet. Slowly, Sans scooted off RC and sat back, making sure to pull the hem of the dress free. His hand did the task, but Sans didn't feel like he had done it. It could have been someone else's hand.

He stared blankly at the empty dishes. He must have been tired to sleep through that. Deep sleep was dangerous. Not here, though, apparently. He wasn't sure if it was the world or the Queen's house, but RC had also fallen asleep. Sans looked at the slightly crushed skirt. Sans had kind of trapped him there. This Sans had been helpful, nice even. If Sans was going to be trapped in another world, he'd rather that, right?

"what the fuck am i thinking?" Sans whispered to himself. The thought of spending the rest of his life here was crushing him. He bowed over, snagging Papyrus's scarf as his ribs radiated with pain. He was never going to see his brother again. Sans began to rock slightly while he fought not to cry again.

Somewhere in the midst of Sans's misery, RC must have woken, because the cushion dipped and suddenly RC's voice was close to him. Next to him, RC had gotten up in a crouch, skull leaning forward so his wide-brimmed hat nudged Sans's forehead.

"Hey. Easy."

Sans jerked backed, looking up at RC. Shame washed through him that he had been caught wallowing again. He looked to the side and scratched at the edge of his eye patch.

"'m fine... didn't mean to wake you."

“It’d take noise and chaos beyond what you can do to wake me up. My nap was just over,” RC corrected him, leaning back into the couch more comfortably. His eyes briefly flit to the scarf. “How’s your head feel?”

"'s fine," Sans pulled his phalanges away from the ruined socket. "not hurtin' anymore. where did, uh, her majesty go?"

RC's eyes went to the hall.

"Think she's in her room. I've probably about overstayed my welcome..." He scratched awkwardly at his chin. "If you're pretty well rested, we should go to my place and get outta her hair."

“your place...” Sans absently followed RC’s gaze. “not the house.” His skull snapped back to look at RC. “oh yeah. why the hell is ‘dyne livin’ in the house.” Sans asked as he climbed off the couch.

RC looked over the edge of the couch, down at his cane still lying on the floor. He swung his legs over the edge of the cushion, but hesitated there, looking a bit wary about the drop.

"She accidentally burned her house down, and since we weren't livin' there anymore..."

"huh," Sans grunted. That answer raised a lot of questions. Giving up the house couldn't have been easy, right? At the same time, the idea of Undyne's house burning down was hilarious. He swooped down and grabbed RC's cane and offered it to him.

"so where to?"

RC looked grateful, touching the floor with the cane to steady himself before sliding off the couch. After that, he seemed to take a deliberate moment in not answering.

“If you live in the house, then this’ll probably sound real weird, but the whole alternate universe refugee thing changed a lot of stuff, so anyway...” He mumbled the last bit. “The uh, the palace...”

"the palace," Sans repeated. What was going on in this world? Nothing he learned about RC made it make any more sense. "i, uh, i've never been. i can only get us so close."

"That's okay," RC assured him. He continued a little quieter. "I barely know why I've been there..."

He held out a hand for Sans to take, but was startled by footsteps down the hall. The queen was making her way to them, looking tired. RC stared down at the floor as she approached. She glanced between them.

"Ah, you're awake. Would you like a serving as well?"

“um, no thanks," Sans shook his skull. He was not ready to try snails after the day...days he was having. "i'm good." He fell silent for an awkward moment. "oh! um, thanks for this," he pointed at the broken side of his skull.

When he looked back up, he noticed the queen's face had twisted in displeasure. Beside him, RC's mouth was hanging open, pupils small and afraid.

Sans couldn't help the little flinch that caused.

The queen gave them both another look over, huffing with narrowed eyes.

"We suppose you're leaving? Then, you'll take a serving for the road?"

"sure..." Sans glanced at RC. They could dispose of it once they were gone. "thanks...."

"Thank you your highness!" RC piped in, not sounding like there was a single breath in the sentence. The queen nodded curtly, moving back into the kitchen and making ruffling noises. RC stared at Sans with wide eyes, making big, jerking gestures with his hands like he wanted to signal Sans how to land his plane. His voice was a sharp whisper.

"That's not. How you speak. To fucking royalty."

Before Sans could respond to that, the queen had returned to the room with a small bag bursting with fat, paper-wrapped pastries. The bottom of the bag was already wet with grease, or maybe it was snail mucus. She handed the bag to Sans with an icy air.

"Take care, Sans. And Sans."

Sans took the bag and nodded. If he--the other him-- was scared of her, maybe she was worth being scared of.

"thank you," he murmured and shoved his hand in RC's general direction. He was ready to get out of here.

Sans felt RC's hand touch his, but in the same moment, the queen touched a finger to RC's chin.

"And Sans," she murmured, her finger trailing down to the collar of RC's dress. "Wear this next time you visit us, and we shall see if we have forgiven you for last time."

Sans thought he caught RC gulping.

"Yes your majesty."

The queen stood, regal and tall as if she hadn't said a word, and walked out the room without a glance backward.

Sans grabbed RC’s hand and pulled them through a shortcut. The queen’s house had gotten a whole lot less comfortable real fast. She had been about as subtle as a two by four. Just how many lovers did RC have?

They showed up in an alley of New Home, a few blocks over from where he had found RC originally. They were going in circles and getting nowhere. Sans reached under the patch and itched at the edges of his socket.

RC seemed frozen for a moment. He stood in place, shaking his head once like he was collecting himself.

“Okay...okay...”

Then he was looking around, to get his bearings apparently, because the next moment he was off in what Sans assumed was the direction of the palace. He looked sideways at Sans, staring at him for a bit as they went.

Sans looked back at him as he followed, running a phalanx along his skull crack. It caught in the wide end, pulling at the freshly knitted bone. RC might be expecting him to ask, but he wouldn’t. He didn’t care what RC did.

Grillby leaning towards him.

Sans was fine.

RC's head tilted.

"It really is you."

“what do ya mean? i think i’d know if we met before.” Sans shook his skull. There was no way he would forget a Sans like RC. It’s not like he had met a ton of himself.

"We didn't meet before. I mean, it was me before, but it was your future, probably. And I guess it was my future. But I'm future me now, 'cause I'm not past me anymore."

In order to say this, RC's finger gestured in about five different directions, as if that would help illustrate the point.

Sans stopped for a moment to accentuate his stare because that made no fucking sense, but he continued almost immediately because there was no time to lose. Getting to the palace. He needed to hurry up and wait, he supposed.

"you sayin' you saw the future? like...like a psychic?" Sans asked incredulously, ignoring all that other stuff in favor of this new strangeness.

RC waved a hand.

"No, not like...remember that unstable time thing I told you about? This was during that. There were all these holes opening up, and I saw myself in one of them. I saw you and me," he touched a hand to his right socket like he had a sympathetic itch along a non-existent crack. He started to ramble. "The one that was me called me an idiot, and that made him definitely me, to be honest. The other one was looking at me pretty much how you're looking at me now. But it couldn't have been me, because that injury...and I know it can't have happened yet, 'cause it was--"

RC cut off there, suddenly looking thoughtful and putting a fist to his chin.

"it was...?" Sans wasn't sure if RC was trying to pull one on him, or what. He scanned around them for a hole in time and RC's skull peering through it, but all he saw was New Home. If he was telling the truth, then there was a later where they were together, and that meant Sans was trapped here after all. His steps slowed slightly. He didn't really want to hear the answer anymore. He shoved a phalanx under the strap of the eyepatch and scratched at the side of his socket vicariously. New bone was always so itchy.

RC peered at him.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to get all...it might be nothing. With the way things can go upside down with time travel, even with me just telling you about it..." RC pushed his fist harder into his face, looking concerned about something. "...no way to know if it'll be like that at all."

"right..." Sans wasn't sure that really checked out, but it could.  The mutability of the future was the last thing on his mind. He picked at a valley in the bottom right side of his socket.

"how much further?" he asked, because he needed to say something. He needed to do something. The urge crawled along his bones and made his magic spark.

"Maybe five minutes, if we speed walk. We're about a block away." RC eyed Sans's patch. "Shouldn't scratch it like that."

"it's fine, just itches," Sans muttered, jerking his phalanges away and picking up the pace.

It seemed like only a few minutes before Sans was hearing uneven hobbling behind him. Sans had gotten a good deal ahead of RC already, and RC was panting, almost tripping over his dress to keep up.

Sans slowed to a stop with an unwelcome guilty pang. RC was helping him, but he was just another Sans in the infinity of the universe. Sans had his phalanges full with Ketchup and Papyrus. When Sans... when he... if he found Ketchup, he had so much to apologize for.

Leaning against the nearest wall, Sans twisted Papyrus’s scarf and waited.

RC made it to his side, only to stop too, catching his breath. When he got going again, he was still panting, but he seemed intent on keeping up with Sans's stride.

It was about five minutes, as RC said, before the palace entrance was in sight. A couple of gigantic guards in armor waved for RC to go in, and Sans caught their helmets doing a sort of double take at him next to RC.

The hall inside was a dim gold, even the motes of dust in the air seeming to glitter. Tall pillars lined the hallway, along with long windows looking out on the grounds. Their footsteps echoed off the walls. RC pointed down a corner.

"My room's that way. You can rest up in there for as long's you need to. Still lookin' a little peaked." He showed Sans a half-grin. "Maybe you should consider those snail pastries after all."

“huh?” Sans lifted the greasy bag. He had forgotten about it. The pastries didn’t look any more appetizing now. Grimacing, he let his arm fall straight again and subtly looked for a trash can. “i dunno if i can. rest. i wish that there was somethin’ i can do...” He looked back at RC.

RC frowned.

“Something you can do...” He glanced at the greasy bag in Sans’s hand, eyes brightening. “We could make some—“

The rest of his thought was lost, because with a sudden pop, the asshole was standing behind RC.

“You missed our lunch date.”

Sans jumped, stumbling back. His soul pounded and he reached for his magic.

Except it wasn’t the asshole. The asshole didn’t have a scar over his mouth, and he wasn’t that short. Also RC apparently knew this monster, because after clutching his chest in initial alarm, the monster’s whining voice made him grin from one end of his skull to the other. He whipped around to greet him.

“Hey Boss. Sorry, some surprises came up.”

Though the monster was shorter than the asshole, he still loomed over RC as he ruffled his hat, hand lingering on his skull for a while.

“I’ll forgive you if you keep calling me that.”

Sans waved away the attack simmering below the surface. He didn’t relax, though.

“didn’t know i messed up your plans,” Sans commented, with a harshness that surprised him.

RC looked awkward as he glanced back at Sans.

"O-oh...no, you didn't--uh, Mustard, this is my other brother, the one I told you about."

A grin grew on the monster's face.

"You tell people about me?" His hand went from RC's head, where it had still been planted, to his shoulder, where he pulled lightly at ruffled fabric. "And you got all dressed up for it."

RC's face turned dark red, his eyes darting off to the side.

"Ah, no, this is--um..."

RC didn't get further on an explanation, but the other monster tugged more insistently at him.

"You can come now, right?"

At that, RC brightened, looking back at Sans.

"Yeah, we can do lunch, get you something less slimy, huh?" 

"sure..." Sans agreed. He didn't have anything else to occupy his time. Besides...there was something... His gaze skimmed over where the new skeleton was touching RC on the shoulder. The knot in his soul got tighter as he did so. Sans mentally berated himself. If RC was okay with it, whatever. It shouldn't make Sans this uncomfortable. Shrugging off the unease, he set the bag down against a column for some other monster to find. Who knows, maybe they'd like them.

For his part, the other monster didn't seem pleased that Sans was incidentally invited. The frown he aimed in his direction had a sneering quality to it, and it looked like his grip on RC tightened a bit as he caught Sans's eye.

He didn't say anything, however, as they began to walk. RC pointed his cane at a diverging hall.

"We could snag something extra from the kitchen, if you've only got for two. You could use more than you're getting, anyway." RC was talking to the other skeleton, but he waved over his whole form as he looked over at Sans, grinning big. "Lookit him! He's like a teeny-tiny pocket sized Papyrus!"

Behind him, the other monster made a face at RC's remark.

"There's enough."

RC's excitement didn't dampen a bit, the run in to this other monster lighting something up in him. As he looked back at him, the monster had smoothed his expression. RC poked his side.

"This guy thinks he's my big brother."

The monster smiled at that.

"I am your big brother. So you've gotta be nice to me."

They stopped in front of a door they both appeared to know, the other monster opening it for them. RC began to step in first.

"I ain't all that nice. Dunno why you want me to keep coming back anyway; I fall asleep on the couch half the time."

The monster responded by laying the length of his arm along RC's backside, scooting him into the room in one motion and getting a small yip of surprise out of RC.

"It's cute."

Sans found himself glaring as he followed them. The older brother, huh? Sans thought about Weepy with a pang of guilt he really didn’t need right now. There was nothing he could do about that, either. He frowned at this monster’s man-handling of RC.

“so...if you’re the other brother, where’s your...other brother?” Sans asked so he didn’t lash out in other ways. Going into a smaller space with the monster was making his soul twist.

The monster just made a ‘tch’ noise to that. It was RC who answered.

“My brother’s probably with their highness right now. Or at a guard post.” He waited for a moment, looking expectantly at the other monster, but he didn’t speak. RC nodded at him. “The other Sans is somewhere around here. Hardly ever leaves the castle ‘cause he says he’s gonna be the king.”

The other skeleton scoffed, pouring water from a pot into cups with leaves in them.

“Off demanding things from people who aren't me, thank god.”

RC gave an amused snort at that. A lazy susan covered in sloppily made sandwiches sat atop the table, and as RC sat down he gave it a small spin.

At least this monster’s brother was around, and hopefully unharmed. Still, that was no way for him to talk about him. Sans’s temper, feeding off his anxiety, grew, and he plastered a cocky grin on his skull.

“I thought older brothers were supposed to take care of their younger brother’s demands,” he commented, edging past the monster to sit down heavily in the only other chair.

The monster made another 'tch.' He was full of them, apparently.

"Yeah, like a slave, if he got his wa--"

He turned with the tray of cups, spotting Sans and frowning. His expression was almost the opposite of RC's, who was grinning up at the monster with seemingly oblivious joy. Without saying anything, the monster set down the tray with a clank and stared at Sans for a hard moment. But then, instead of commenting, he hefted up RC's entire body, sat in RC's chair, and let RC down on his lap.

The move had RC turning red from the neck up, at a complete loss for words. He didn't look unhappy, exactly, but he was definitely shocked. The monster gave him a fond squeeze on the shoulder, and RC responded with a nervous smile.

Sans scowled. That was even worse. Looking to the side so he didn't have to see them, he snatched up a sandwich and took a huge bite of it. 

Another sandwich disappeared into the other monster’s grip. RC wasn’t reaching for anything, but he sounded like he was shifting and fidgeting a lot.

“I’m, um, I’m not really...used to...”

“You’re fine,” the monster assured him.

Sans smooshed the rest of the sandwich between his phalanges. 

"if he doesn't wanna, let him up," he ground out, giving in and glancing over at them.

RC looked supremely embarrassed, his face still entirely red. The other monster offered RC the sandwich he held, as if expecting RC to eat right out of his hand, and that made RC look about ready to die.

The asshole moves Ketchup around like a doll.

The monster waved his other hand dismissively.

“There’s only this chair left.” He showed RC a sad smile. “Besides, I never get the chance to treat my own brother nice.”

At that, RC’s expression softened, like he was sorry for the monster.

"he's not--" Sans hissed, voice low. RC's affection for this creep was obvious. Sans was just intruding in a world that wasn't his, and never would be. Slamming his ruined sandwich onto the table Sans stood and stormed out of the room. His socket itched fiercely, so he scratched at it with everything he had while he rushed off to nowhere in particular. He didn't even know where he was.

It was maybe half a minute before there were uneven footsteps from behind him. There was something like worry in the tone of RC’s voice.

“Hey! Wait up!”

“go on back,” Sans snapped and walked faster. He didn’t need RC to fucking pity him. Everything had gone wrong because Sans had let it go—no, made it go wrong. He had fucked up again and again, and this was his punishment. Sans found a piece of bone that hadn’t quite knit fully with the others. It wiggled when he picked at it.

Another creep and another... but RC wasn’t another Ketchup, was he? Sans stopped dead. Thank fuck, because Sans couldn’t do anything to help anyone.

RC hobbled a few more steps before Sans heard him stop too.

RC’s voice was small.

“Sorry...I didn’t think it would be that...weird.”

Sans fiddled with the piece of bone, even though each small movement scraped it against the rest of his socket painfully. RC was over here apologizing, which was even more aggravating when it was that... that... asshole. Sans gave the bone a sharp tug, which sent a nice, distracting spike of pain shooting down his skull.

"don't worry about it," he croaked before he could sink into thoughts about how Ketchup might be faring with The asshole.

RC could be heard moving again, stepping closer until he was almost at Sans’s side.

“He’s kind of a stray, I mean...his real brother talks to him like he’s garbage.” RC’s feet shifted. “I think a room with two Sanses at once got him a little...overwhelmed.”

Sans grunted, so RC could take it however he wanted. He didn’t really care how his brother talked to him. He didn’t care about how he treated RC. It wasn’t necessarily a problem, and it sure as shit wasn’t his problem. He had to get out of here and rescue Ketchup, if he had to rebuild the machine from the ground up—

The shard of bone he had been playing with broke off with a small crack. Sans hissed and pulled it out from under his eyepatch. It  had a bit of marrow on the tip, which explained the tickling feeling of liquid running down his cheekbone.

"What the--"

RC stomped around to view Sans from the front, his cane clacking on the shiny floor. His eyes landed on the dripping shard of bone.

"You idiot! You just got that fucking healed!"

“sorry...” Sans kept staring at the bone. It was nothing, nothing at all. It barely hurt. Compared to a lifetime with the asshole...

"It's no good saying sorry to me. It doesn't do shit to me if you have a hole in your head. You're gonna have to save your sorries for Ketchup."

“what?” Sans asked, startled out of his thoughts. “what would ketchup care about this?” Sans waved his hand around before throwing the shard to the ground. “he’s the one...” Sans swiped at the trail of blood, painting his phalanges red.

RC shook his cane at Sans.

"Use what's left of your skull, you moron! You're gonna wear yourself out again. What exactly were you gonna do to help him when you came here, falling down on your feet? Snore him free?"

“no!” Sans retorted, stepping back and crossing his arms. “i would have been fine!”

RC seemed to be accepting that, hanging back, right until Sans felt a snag at his right ankle, making him tumble to the floor on his behind. It took him about that long to realize RC had swung his cane at him from his new blind side. RC knelt in front of him, poking his chin with the tip of his cane and glaring into his good socket. It was the first bit of venom Sans had seen in this 'him's' face since they met.

"If you're responsible for someone, if they're counting on you, you owe it to them not to fucking lie to yourself."

“i...i,” Sans was too startled by the move to think or react, or even get angry. RC wasn’t wrong. He did lie to himself. It was how Sans had managed for years.

“i didn’t have time,” he snarled weakly.

RC gave a derisive snort.

“What are you, a baby?”

He stood up, looking down at Sans.

“What matters more, your feelings, or succeeding?”

“my feelings don’t matter for shit!” Sans yelled up at him. “you have no clue what that fucker is doing to ketchup right now! i can’t waste anymore time!”

RC’s expression softened, and he sighed, shoulders dropping a bit.

“No, I don’t know. But listen to me. Do I sound like I’m not taking you seriously?”

He offered the end of his cane to help Sans up.

“Unless I missed something, you don’t have any choice how much time you lose. But you get to choose whether you waste the time, saving your feelings with excuses, or use it, getting yourself in a shape to actually do something when you’re called.”

Sans choked on an angry retort. RC was right, no matter how much Sans hated to admit it. He was useless right now, but that didn’t mean he had to be useless later. He reached out and set his hand on the cane, but shame and fear rooted him to the spot.

“what if i can’t save him? no matter what i do.” He asked, hunching down over the cane. It was stupid to ask RC—anyone, but he still waited for an answer.

RC shifted his weight, his face solemn.

“That might happen.” His eyes glanced to the side. “I think, maybe...it’s best to believe that it won’t...and then deal with it then if it does.” A sideways smile perked his face suddenly, and he pointed to his own skull with the hand not offering the cane. “I mean, how’re you supposed to save him anyway if you’ve already written him off in your mind?”

“i haven’t,” Sans insisted. “i just...” Sans couldn’t say it. He couldn’t admit that it was his fault. He couldn’t express the fear that even if he did make it, Ketchup would be dead, or worse. RC wouldn’t understand anyways. He lived in the palace and had friends and lovers. Maybe that was why.

“even with the infinity of universes, never thought i’d find a hopeful me,” he laughed.

“Hopeful, huh?” RC grinned. “Haven’t you heard that hope springs eternal?”

His eyes lingered on the marrow leaking from under Sans’s eye patch.

“Speaking of hope...I can’t heal you, but I can make you some food. Come on.”

He wiggled his cane, motioning for Sans to stand and follow.

Sans heaved himself up off the ground after deciding that getting standing assistance from the guy with the cane was a bad idea.

“food sounds good. He wiped away the marrow again. The one bite of sandwich had just whet his appetite, and now that he was done being a dumbass he was famished.

Ketchup’s fate was out of his hands, for now. When he did have the chance to go get him, Sans would be letting him down further if he didn’t give himself every advantage to save him. Hopefully he knew Sans wouldn’t abandon him like that.

Because he would have to hold on until then.

—-

Sans fell to his patellae as the demon pulled him through the portal. Dirt flew up around him, irritating his nasal aperture and his sockets. His pinky throbbed under the simple band aid the demon had put over the broken end.

“don't have long. just a look around, and then back through.” The demon was muttering to himself. Sans sniffled and looked around the basement he had converted into a lab. It was empty. All of his stuff was gone.

“come on,” the demon pulled him up to his feet and then into his arms. Sans looked over his shoulder and saw the back of the lab was missing the machine, as well. Did that mean Papyrus had found it? He shook his skull slightly to clear his vision as the demon took a few steps. The basement remained doubled.

Tears welled up in his sockets. Sans hadn't felt ready to face his brother before. He felt like dusting at even being back like this. He was broken and ashamed.

The world blacked out, and they reappeared in the familiar cold of Snowdin. The demon peered in the kitchen window while Sans clung to him, despair threatening to tear him apart.

He hadn't even noticed that Mustard’s Snowdin smelled weird, but there was something different, something nostalgic about the very air now that he was home .

Chapter Text

Papyrus ducked away from the window as his soul jumped into his throat. Blue yelped softly and clung to him. Papyrus held him as he turned and sat in the snow with his back against the wall of the house, trembling.

That was Sans.

He was dressed differently, but it was definitely him. While the sweat pants and dingy shirt were odd, Papyrus couldn't mistake his bright eyes and warm smile. Papyrus frowned. Sans was smiling, even though he was in this strange world without his brother.

It was muted, though. He must be smiling to appease his captor. Hell, Sans was probably trying to convince them to be good by actually being nice and cheerful. Papyrus’s soul warmed. Sans was amazing.

“stay still,” he whispered to Blue as he got up and set him on the ground. Blue shivered and curled into himself. Good enough. Gripping the chain, Papyrus peeked back through the window and watched as Sans cleaned the counter tops and pulled out an odd selection of ingredients: pasta, a bunch of tomatoes, onions, garlic, basil, peaches, and cheese.

So they had him cooking for them. Papyrus clutched the window frame as Sans picked up a tomato and his smile fell. He set it down and bowed over the counter for a moment. Papyrus’s body jerked as he resisted the urge—the need to go to his brother. Sans needed to know that he would be rescued, that Papyrus hadn’t abandoned him.

Papyrus needed to be smart about it, however. If he wasn’t, Sans might be hurt. Papyrus kept watching, unable to draw himself away from the window and make a plan. It felt like it had been years, even though it had hardly been weeks.

“i’ll never leave you again, sans,” he whispered. No matter what it took, he would keep Sans safe. Sans recovered and started smashing the vegetables into a sauce. Papyrus had seen him use the technique to make salsa before, but then he pulled out a pan.He was scraping the mess into it when another papyrus walked into the kitchen.

He was wearing an outfit similar to Sans’s battle body, but it was white, with only enough fabric to cover his ribs and pelvis. Under it, he wore a black body suit, but it was still indecent. He walked right up behind Sans and put a hand on his shoulder.

Papyrus wanted to kill him.

“no you don’t,” Papyrus muttered. “don’t you dare touch sans, you imposter.”

Blue let out a choked cry that made Papyrus duck down into the bushes and look over at the path by the house. It was empty.

“be quiet,” he hissed and went back to look. The papyrus had taken over cooking, boiling water and punching the cheese into small pieces. Sans was gone.

“no, no, no,” Papyrus moaned softly, his soul pounding. Where had Sans gone?

“come on,” he jerked Blue’s chain, prompting another cry as Blue fell over, splayed out over the snow. He quickly got to his hands and knees, but his face was streaked with tears. Papyrus eyed the corner of the house. It’s not like Sans could leave, but he still needed to find him as soon as possible. This could be his chance.

Shaking, he checked his pockets. Lighter, cigarettes, phone, keys to the locks—there, the padlock he’d removed to get the chain. Even if he didn’t have the key on him, he could just cut it off with an attack. He wrapped the end of the chain around a nearby pine tree and locked the links together to hold the loop. With the branches, there was no way Blue could slip it free.

“stay hidden, or else,” he said, crouching down by Blue. He got a nod, though Blue took hold of the chain and gave it a few weak tugs. Papyrus hurried on along the side of the house, confident that Blue wouldn’t try anything more.

At the corner of the house, Papyrus paused to let his leg and spine rest. Moving while crouched was hell on his wounds. Gritting his teeth, he crept along the back of the house, peeking in windows as he went. He reached the back door in time to see Sans head up the stairs.

Just because Blue was with him didn’t mean there wasn’t someone else in there. He couldn’t risk teleporting in front of them, so he only used a shortcut to slip past the door, where he knew he was safe. His soul fluttered, excitement electrifying him. This was so similar to getting Blue and red, but now he was rescuing Sans.

Always protect Sans.

There wasn’t anyone in the living room, so he paused for a moment to catch his breath and let the pain in his spine recede. His skull was spinning. If another captor waited upstairs, he wouldn’t be much good like this. Slowly, painfully slowly, his bones relaxed, and he was able to focus on his next move.

Sans was upstairs, somewhere, there weren’t that many rooms, so finding him shouldn’t take too long. Once Papyrus got to him, he could teleport them out. He was confident he could handle Sans’s questions afterwards. He was going to need to explain away the inter-dimensional travel, too. A lifetime of keeping things just true enough would serve him well.

As he went to sneak up the stairs, Papyrus found himself a little nervous. What would he say to Sans? So much had happened, and Sans was scared and confused. Papyrus looked like a mess, too. There was a wet spot on the back of his shirt: it kept rubbing up against his process. The only thing it could be was marrow.

He cracked open the first bedroom door and found a room much like Sans’s in tone if not theme; the bed was a race-car, and all the Nabstablook figures looked wrong. This must have been that villain’s room. Papyrus sneered and shut the door.

The next one was more like his room, except clean. A mattress on the floor, with a sheet, served as a bed, and a treadmill in the corner had several shirts and some pants hanging off the front. Otherwise, it was empty and missing character. Sans had to be miserable.

As Papyrus closed the door he caught sight of some familiar blue fabric. He threw open the door, scrambling into the room to the line of hangers. At the very end Sans’s battle body hung, clean and pressed. Tears sprung to Papyrus’s sockets. This was Sans’s room. He had to get him out of here.

“PAPY?” Sans asked from behind him, voice soft and tentative.

“sans!” Papyrus spun and threw his arms open, preparing himself for the flying hug. “i’m here to take you home!”

Sans stared at him, his phalanges clutched at his sternum, balling the fabric of a plain white t-shirt. His eyelights were barely pinpricks. Papyrus waited for the shock to fade and joy to fill his brother’s features.

There was a slam downstairs, jerking Papyrus’s attention to the side. At that moment, Sans bolted, skidding on the floor for a moment before he took off for the stairs.

Sans was running from him.

——

“Do you really think he’s going to come back?”

Papyrus turned to face Captain Undyne, shocked that she would say such a thing. She had her arms crossed, staring him in the sockets. She was serious, actually serious.

“OF COURSE HE WILL!”

Undyne made a noise at that. Her foot was tapping impatiently.  Sure, it had been a few hours, but not an unreasonable amount of time. Rescuing Ketchup wasn’t going to be easy, and Sans cared about him. That uncomfortable feeling tightened in Papyrus’s soul. He frowned at himself.

“WHY WOULDN’T HE?”

“Because, even if things didn’t go...wrong—“ Papyrus shot her a glare with such venom that she flinched. She unfolded her arms, crossed her legs, and rested her head on her arm propped on her knee. The gleam in her eye was thoughtful.

“He’s probably given up. You’re the one who constantly bitches that he’s lazy and a quitter. He’s not exactly the kind of monster to—“

“STOP IT! WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE ME GIVE UP ON SANS? YOU ALWAYS TELL ME TO STAND MY GROUND!”

“When you’re fighting for justice, yeah!”

“AND HOW IS THIS NOT? THE CRETIN THAT KIDNAPPED SANS AND KETCHUP IS COMING TO JUSTICE!”

Undyne made a frustrated noise and glanced at his bandages. She switched back to crossed arms and slouched in the folding chair. Her legs were still crossed, and her foot now wiggled in the air.

“YOU’RE TRYING TO GET ME TO STOP SO YOU CAN GO FORWARD WITH YOUR PLAN,” he said slowly as the realization came together. Undyne looked away from him, so he knew he was right. She didn’t keep her gaze averted, however. Undyne didn’t avoid confrontation, which made it especially weird that she had tried to obscure what she was doing.

“Freedom!” She cried, leaping to her feet. “I’m going to get freedom for all of us. Surely that’s worth anything!”

“IT CAN WAIT!” Papyrus snapped.

“How long? How much longer should we suffer this imprisonment for a monster who may never even return?”

“SO HIS FREEDOM ISN’T IMPORTANT?” Papyrus asked, knowing it was a childish answer. He was being unreasonable, and he knew it. Somehow, it still hit the mark. Undyne glanced away guiltily. Papyrus had tried so hard to foster an image of cool detachment with her. It couldn’t stand up to the thought of abandoning Sans in another world, probably with the bastard that kidnapped and tormented him.

“It is, but when weighed against everyone, every single monster in this hell hole...”

Now Papyrus had to look away. All he wanted was to be the hero of monsterkind. He wanted praise, statues, friends fawning over him, and maybe even a parade. He’d dreamed it many times.

The parade seemed awfully empty when he imagined it without Sans.

——

“sans, wait, it’s me!” Papyrus thundered down the stairs behind him, calling his name. He sounded worried. He sounded scared. Sans almost stopped to turn to him. Instead, he slid into the kitchen, where Ketchup’s brother was standing, looking confused.

“IT’S—“ he didn’t have time to explain before Papyrus appeared in the kitchen doorway, panting, his face scrunched up in pain. Sans took an involuntary step forward.

“sans, it’s—“ Papyrus was interrupted by his phone ringing. He slapped a hand to his pocket, muffling but not silencing it.

“shit!”

Sans started at the swear word. A playful admonishment floated into his mind as Papyrus turned and limped away.

“W—WAIT, PAPY...” Sans ran after him, unwilling to leave his brother injured and alone, no matter what he had done. However, when he turned the corner, Papyrus was gone.

“PAPY...?” He called, as worried to receive a response as not. Papyrus didn’t reply.

Ketchup’s brother came up behind him, starling him once more. Sans clutched his sternum and turned.

“WAS THAT YOUR BROTHER?” He asked, voice kind. For some reason that was the tipping point. Large tears welled, broke free, and slid down his skull. He nodded, shaking more free to fall to the tile floor.

That was Papyrus. He was alive. He was here.

“WHAT DO I DO?” Sans wailed. He was relieved at the same moment he was trembling with fear. He was so happy to see Papyrus was okay.

“WELL—“

“WHAT WAS ALL THAT RUNNING?” The purple sans appeared from the other side of the room and anxiously scanned the living room.

“MY BROTHER,” Sans gasped, the tears so thick he began to lose sight of the room.

“WHAT?” Purple Sans shouted, forming a bone attack. “FUCK! WHERE IS PAPYRUS?”

“I’M RIGHT HERE!” Ketchup’s brother replied, looking frustrated. The purple Sans put his phalanges to his skull and sighed.

“NOT YOU. MY BROTHER,” he snapped. Even Sans flinched at the harshness of it. He didn’t notice their discomfort, however, because he was walking around them, skull twisted in deep thought.

“AND WHERE IS YOUR,” he pointed at Sans. It felt like an accusation. “BROTHER?”

“I...I DON’T KNOW... HE WAS THERE AND THEN HE SUDDENLY WASN’T...”

“SHIT. IT ONLY TAKES ABOUT FOUR MINUTES TO RESTART THE PORTAL, BUT I SENT PAP—MY BROTHER ON AN ERRAND SINCE IT HAD BEEN SO QUIET.”

“AN ERRAND? NOW?” Ketchup’s brother asked, his usual polite tone strained. “WE HAVE TO ASK TACO’S BROTHER WHERE SANS IS—“

“WE HAVE TO KILL HIM.” Purple Sans said the words like they were a mere matter of fact. Sans’s marrow ran cold.

“NO! GIVE ME A CHANCE TO TALK TO HIM!” Sans cried, stepping towards Purple Sans.

“YOU ARE THE LAST ONE WHO SHOULD TALK TO HIM,” was the incredulous response he got.

“BUT I CAN—“

“sans!” Papyrus suddenly said from behind him. Yelling with surprise, and, he had to admit, fear, Sans jerked around.

Papyrus stood by the door to the kitchen. His expression was harsh, but he wasn’t looking at Sans.

“you...” he almost growled at Purple Sans. It was another shock that Papyrus could even sound that mean. He was such an easy going monster. Papyrus put his hand over the space below his ribs and summoned a swarm of bones.

“PAPY!” Sans gasped. Papyrus wasn’t a violent monster.

“sans, get away from them. come here. i’ll protect you.” Purple Sans snorted, but it was Ketchup’s brother who stepped between Sans and Papyrus.

“I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AND YOU ARE A BAD PAPYRUS. TACO DOESN’T WANT TO GO WITH YOU.”

“taco...are you kidding me?”

“YOU’LL NEVER TOUCH HIM AGAIN, FREAK.”

Sans started to cry harder. Ketchup’s brother, and even Purple Sans, meant well. Papyrus did hurt Sans, and Sans was scared of him. Still, he did want to go with Papyrus. He wanted to give his brother a hug and go home to cook him dinner. He wanted to yell at him to get up and go to work tomorrow morning. He wanted the soothing, even tones of Papyrus reading to him to lull him to sleep.

That wasn’t the Papyrus standing in front of him, however.

“sans, sans,” Papyrus pleaded, leaning around Ketchup’s brother to catch his sockets.

“these are not monsters you want to be with. this one,” he pointed at Purple Sans, “hurt me really badly. look.”

He lifted his hoodie, revealing his lower spine.

Sans gasped and trembled. He heard Ketchup’s brother gasp as well, but Purple Sans just tsked. Papyrus’s spine was covered in scabs and dried marrow. Even so, Sans could pick out darkened circles stacked neatly up the middle of his spine.

Sans hiccuped, not able to keep up with how hard he wanted to cry. Agony wracked him. He curled forward, radii and ulnae wrapped around his middle.

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Papyrus wasn’t supposed to be like this. Sans wasn’t supposed to be here. There wasn’t supposed to be so much marrow. There wasn’t supposed to be so much yelling. They were yelling and yelling. Someone was going to get hurt. Papyrus was going to get hurt. Did Sans care...?

He did.

Sans shook his skull and dragged himself free of the whirlpool of dark thoughts. That wasn’t him. He always cared, and he cared about Papyrus most of all.

As he straightened and took in what was happening in the room, he found a full blown fight in progress.

=

Papyrus and Purple Sans were tossing barrages of bones at each other, but neither seemed to be getting any hits. Ketchup’s brother stood in front of Sans, a large bone club in his hand.

“s--stop,” Sans croaked, wiping the tears off his face. “stop! I don’t want anyone to get hurt!”

—

Papyrus was going to get hurt.

Sans clawed at the snow outside of what used to be his house and cried.

He had been sitting here listening to the demon’s voice get louder and louder for what seemed like forever. He had heard Papyrus declare something in his much louder normal volume. There were other voices, but he didn’t know them.

The words were all muffled by the closed windows, however. He had no idea what they were actually saying. He collapsed into a shivering heap of useless bones as worry began to eat him.

What was going on? What would happen to Sans? What would happen to Papyrus? The demon was dangerous. Why was the demon’s brother here? Of all places.

Then the sound of bullets hitting the wall joined in with the yelling. Sans threaded his fingers through the links of his chain. His pinky screamed with pain as he tugged.

It was bleeding again.

The links snapped together and didn’t budge.

Papyrus was going to get hurt.

Sans had failed him.

His grip slipped, but he scrambled to hold on.

Papyrus was going to die.

Sans had failed.

Every ounce of Sans’s being mourned. Sobbing, he pulled again. Metal clinked and held form.

Papyrus was dying!

Sans failed.

He froze, and something snapped.

Chapter Text

Sans fell backwards, the metal chain giving unexpectedly with a deep thump. He could hardly believe his sockets. A bone stuck out of the ground for a moment before dissolving back into magic. The split ends of his chain lay to either side of the divot left behind in the snow.

Magic.

His magic.

“Papyrus,” he gasped, turning towards the house. The sounds of fighting were only getting louder. Someone was yelling.

For a brief, frantic moment, Sans thought he had lost the ability to teleport. He didn’t remember how to do it. His shaking femurs were going to have to carry him inside, somehow.

The magic came sluggishly, but it came.

“Papyrus.” Sans scrunched his brow bones down and focused on his brother. He held him in his mind, not the one Sans used to torture himself, but the real one, who was kind and always wanted to help. His precious brother.

With a pop, Sans left the cold and reappeared in the middle of a battle.

“blue!” The demon drew his attention first. He was in a defensive position, a few bullets circling his skull.

“SO YOU DID GO AFTER THEM,” someone else spoke, a Sans, but so different from Sans he wondered if the similarities were just a coincidence. He had a thin, jagged bone gripped in his phalanges, and was pointing it at the demon.

“IT’S—IT’S YOUR BROTHER!” a watery voice added. Sans turned to look and found Papyrus, standing tall with a bone club. Yet another Sans, his eyelights bright blue, if smaller than Sans remembered, peeked out from behind him.

“SANS?” Papyrus gasped, his sockets finding Sans’s.

Papyrus.

He couldn’t help it. It didn’t matter what else was going on. His soul couldn’t take hearing his name said in that voice. It broke. His soul broke, it was so overloaded with joy and sorrow, hope and fear.

“p—pa—p—pap—papyrus,” he gasped softly, reaching for him with his bloody phalanges.

“SANS!” Papyrus took two loud, bounding steps to him and crouched to meet them with his free set of phalanges. “YOU’RE HO—HEY!”

Papyrus fell back onto his coccyx as several bullets embedded themselves in the carpet. Sans turned slowly, shivering, to see the furious face of the demon.

“FOOLISH,” the scarred Sans in purple and black scoffed and darted forward. The demon vanished before the Sans could get there.

He appeared towering above Sans. Whimpering, Sans cowered.

“LEAVE SANS ALONE, YOU VILLAIN!” Papyrus climbed to his feet and swung his club at the demon. It missed. Of course it missed.

The demon threw more bullets at Papyrus. A few grazed him, drawing marrow.

Papyrus was going to die.

Sans grabbed at his magic. It was like trying to grab pudding. Sans knew he had some in his control, but when he went to do anything with it, it had slipped out of his grasp.

“PAPY, STOP!” the demon’s brother wailed. He had a bone in his hand, as well, but it was ashy and covered in cracks. It looked like it would break if he actually tried to use it.

The demon grunted and danced backwards from Papyrus’s attacks. This was fighting unlike anything he had seen Papyrus do before. He wasn’t launching into any monologues or explaining his special attacks. He was just launching them. He was grimly serious.

“sans,” The demon dodged again. “i just want,” He ducked. “to take you,” He teleported away from Papyrus to the spot just in front of his brother.

“home.”

The demon stares at Sans as though he loves him, adores him. His hand slides up his femur towards his pelvis. It’s clear what he really wants.

Sans tried again to reach his magic. He couldn’t let him. He couldn’t let him do that to anyone else, let alone the poor Sans. Where had his magic gone?

“P—PAPY...” the demon’s brother whimpered. “I DON—I DO WANT TO GO HOME,” he wailed, tears trailing down his cheekbones. The demon straightened. Sans could just see the edge of a smile from his spot as a pathetic heap.

“then let’s—“

“BUT I CAN’T. I CAN’T GO HOME WITH YOU.”

“sans...” the demon drooped. Sans felt an unwelcome stab of sympathy. Being rejected by Papyrus was what had plagued his nightmares for... he had no idea how long he had been with the demon.

“I’M SORRY, PAPY,” his brother’s voice was soft. “GO HOME AND LEAVE US ALONE.”

“sans,” the demon said, desperation bleeding into his voice. Sans tensed out of habit.

“i can’t leave you here. not with these violent monsters.”

His brother shook his skull and opened his jaw.

“i won’t.”

The demon grabbed his brother’s humerus. The Sans cried out, dropping his club, and it shattered. With a sharp jerk, the demon dragged him towards Sans.

Sans had been so caught up in their conversation, he hadn’t even noticed that Papyrus and the Purple Sans had stopped attacking. Now, they rushed forward.

The demon slid to a stop. He pulled his brother behind him, sweeping his radius and ulna out as bones appeared. They launched forward with an audible woosh. Papyrus blocked, the bones smashing into a wall of more bones. The purple Sans dodged. Most missed him, but he gained a couple of scratches.

Sans’s mind was moving too slow for the fight that was happening. By the time he noticed the marrow, the demon had already sent more bones after the Sans. He rolled to the side, but his movement ended abruptly with him on his back. A blue glow shined through his shirt.

“YOU FUCKER!” He screamed. Papyrus jerked back into motion. He rushed the demon, but the demon dodged again, the Sans still held by his magic. A bone lanced up through the trapped skeleton. Sans winced as the Sans’s scream turned ragged.

Sans had to help. He would never say Papyrus was outmatched—he was the best there was—but he didn’t know what kind of tricks the demon had up his sleeve. Sans did. He had to help.

“PA—PAPY—!” The demon’s brother got louder, appearing right above Sans with the demon.
Sans reached for him, as if he was going to break him out of the demon’s grasp. His phalanges were trapped by the demon’s before he even got close.

The triumphant grin on his face made Sans feel sick.

He wasn’t taking his brother back alone. He hadn’t fled yet because he wanted Sans, too.

The demon fell to the side with a yelp right before the world lurched and vanished. Sans was suddenly cold, and the demon was falling into the snow next to him, yanking his phalanges in the process.

“fuck!”

He let go of Sans and surged to his feet.

“how did i lose sans?” he growled. “they can’t have him. i’ll kill them first.”

Sans hadn’t managed to do anything, even without his chain. He sniffled, huddling into the snow.

Papyrus was still going to die, and Sans couldn’t stop it.
—-
RC had offered to make Sans food, and, now that Sans was done being a dumbass, he realized he was famished. The one bite of sandwich he'd gotten earlier had only whet his appetite.
 
RC led him to a kitchen, a small closet-like space that didn’t quite match the grandeur of the rest of the palace. It was currently occupied by yet another Sans.

This Sans was dressed in a sad, very fake looking uniform, with a small fluffy blanket draped over his shoulders as he appeared to be in the process of stacking every food he could in his arms. When he caught sight of them looking in, he froze with an expression like a child found under a broken window, with a ball in their hand. RC huffed.

“Are you for real?"

The Sans coughed into his phalanges, dropping several items from the motion. He kicked them behind him, as if that hid them from sight. RC looked down at them.

"I thought you said you don't cook."

The Sans answered in a surprisingly screechy voice.

"Me, cook! For myself? Pah!" He lifted his mandible. "The riffraff in this castle have continuously failed to provide for tea time and snack time, so the task remains to me to keep a store in my quarters." He puffed up, dropping more packages and cans. "When I am the king, my subjects watching and starving as I partake of tea and cookies will be a mandatory daily event."

"Sounds delightful," RC commented.

Sans didn’t much like the way this other Sans talked. At least when Papyrus spoke of his dreams for power it wasn’t petty shit like that. Well, the statues were petty, but not like this.

“this is the other one, then?” He asked. It might explain some stuff if this was the weird Papyrus’s brother.

"This is him," RC sighed, gesturing at him with his cane. The other Sans followed the cane with his eyelights. He stepped forward, pushing the stack of snacks that hadn't fallen from his radii and ulnae into RC's. In a bid not to let the food drop, RC used both arms, and the other Sans snatched the cane away.

"You may deliver this to my room."

RC's patellae wobbled dangerously.

"Do you mind?"

"No," the Sans answered, rubbing the golden handle of the cane on the blanket over his scapulae.

“hey,” Sans stepped past RC and pointed a finger in the newest Sans’s face. “give that back an’ carry your own shit.” RC had done nothing but help him all day, and Sans didn’t like this brat treating him like that. Plus, Sans wanted to eat.

"It suits me much better."

The new Sans admired the goat skull shape of the handle for a moment before shooting an accusatory glance at RC, who was still struggling to stand.

"He's obviously faking it for sympathy, anyways. Something this nice doesn't belong in the hands of a freeloading whore."

“versus a freeloading, pissy fucking little punk?” Sans sneered. He would be very surprised if the other Sans did anything of value.

The other Sans swelled with indignation. As he opened his mouth to retort, a crash came from behind them. RC's patellae had given out, and he was looking defeated in a pile of assorted foodstuffs. The other Sans took that distraction as an opportunity to dash out the door, with the cane, calling out over his scapula as he went.

"I told you he's faking it for sympathy!"

Sans threw a bone at him, which embedded itself in the wall next to the doorway. The other Sans yelped in alarm before speeding up down the hall.

For a moment, Sans thought about chasing after him. A good fight sounded wonderful right now, but RC had been right. Sans was not in top shape. Sighing, Sans turned to offer RC a hand up.

RC looked embarrassed as he gripped Sans’s phalanges to get steady on his feet. He eyed the pile scattered around him and grimaced.

“well, he’s a real joy,” Sans commented, with a healthy dose of sarcasm, as he picked up a box of crackers. So that answered the question of if that ‘Papyrus’ was the actual Papyrus from his world. Sans didn’t like that he was more like the asshole, but his brother was as bad as he was, if not worse. It also clarified what RC had been doing before.

RC didn’t reply, looking highly concentrated. He was slowly kneeling, just as slowly getting back up with a bag of dried roots while one set of phalanges pushed into his femur like he needed to puppet it to move. He set the bag back on a nearby shelf, a deep blush spreading over his skull as he gave the rest of the mess a daunted look.

“I’ll, um, I’ll get started on...I’ll get that all later,” he mumbled, hands fidgeting nervously. He seemed to be purposefully avoiding eye contact.

Sans set the box on a nearby shelf, only slightly crushed. He hadn’t met many people across the infinity of universes that had been decent, let alone kind. He sure wasn’t one, since he was imagining grinding the brat’s dust in his phalanges instead.

His skull would pop right off.

“you said somethin’ about food?” He asked RC, reaching down for the next item. “i can get this.” He needed to eat something and not piss off this world’s monsters. He might be... stuck here for a while.

"Y-yeah!" RC hobbled over to the ice box, keeping his skull down. His face was still a dark red. "Thanks..."

RC took out some milk, a large bowl, and a box of mix from the shelf. He spent a little time reading the box before pouring the powdery insides into the bowl, still looking at the side of the box while he poured milk in.

"You like pancakes? You like pancakes."

RC didn't wait for Sans to reply, instead getting busy at the stove.

“sure,” Sans shrugged. He couldn’t remember the last time he had had pancakes. As long as it was food. He kept picking up random stuff, putting it back wherever there was room.

RC was drizzling a spoonful of the now liquid mix into a heated pan, pops and crackles sounding immediately.

A ringing started up from somewhere in RC's dress.

RC fumbled the spoon, splashing mix on the floor as he took a phone out of a hidden pocket. He read the screen, then turned large sockets to Sans.

"You're going."

“going?” Sans asked, his brain offering him possibilities like going on a trip, going to dinner, and going to a circus, because he had finally reached some kind of vague calm about his circumstances.

RC turned the stove off with a click, leaving the spoon on the floor and the pancake uncooked. He reached phalanges out to Sans for him to take.

"You're going home."

Papyrus rolling his eyelights. Ketchup on the couch. Snow splattered with marrow.

“oh fuck,” Sans took the phalanges, possibly squeezing them too hard. He wasn’t ready. RC had just showed him he wasn’t ready for this. Not that it mattered. Ketchup needed him, and he was going to get him away from that fucker, no matter what. With a fresh wave of purpose, Sans teleported them to the labs.

As soon as they were there, the spider woman was coming over to them, her hands all flourishing excitedly.

"One in a million--much, much less than that!"

RC had extracted himself from Sans's grasp, getting paper and pen from a disorganized table and scribbling something quickly. He limped back to Sans just as fast, pressing the paper into his phalanges.

"Just...consider coming back someday?" He glanced over at where Alphys was approaching them, too, gesturing to a wide doorway. "The thing I saw, the 'future'...I... I really hope that it--anyway, you gotta get..."

“if i survive, sure,” Sans said, giving voice to his thoughts without meaning to. He snatched the paper and stuffed it into his jacket pocket.

RC frowned.

"Don't die, jerkwad."

People kept telling him that.

The room Alphys guided Sans to didn't quite have the machine as he knew it. It had a wall that seemed entirely dedicated to tubing and panels powering an over-sized door, and that door was 'on,' flashing a brilliant light that Sans couldn't see past to where it led. Alphys took up a spot at a controlling station, looking over the panel there.

"It's set. You can go through."

Sans considered the fact that he had no idea where that portal led. With Alphys and a strange spider lady at the helm, it could be anywhere. He didn’t trust them any more than his own Alphys. It’s not like he had a choice, though. He glanced back at the entrance to the room. RC was leaning on the doorway, an odd expression on his skull as he watched Sans. It was something Sans couldn't parse. He raised his phalanges in a goodbye gesture.

Setting his scapulae, Sans reflected on how sick he was of walking through these damn portals and then went through anyways.

He came out in much drabber labs. That was promising, but there was only one way to know for sure. With Papyrus’s scarf clutched tightly in his phalanges, Sans teleported to the IDT labs, right behind Undyne. She was sitting in the creaky metal chair, her legs crossed and her foot bouncing with what he hoped was irritation. Alphys was messing around with the control station.

Papyrus was standing by the portal room, his arms crossed and his back straight. He stared at the glowing doorway intently, focused. Relief almost brought Sans to his knees at the sight of his brother, sans scarf.

Sans raised his hand, about to call a greeting and, hopefully, scare the shit out of Undyne. A thought occurred to him before he could make a sound. A vision, maybe, of saying goodbye to Papyrus again, of maybe not being able to.

His soul burned just thinking about never seeing his brother again before jumping back into the chase. Shouldn’t he take this chance to exchange a few more words, just in case? He could try and voice the words he had avoided before, about how much he appreciated Papyrus and how much he meant to him. No one could ever hope to have a brother as cool as him.

Even thinking it was too much for Sans. He rubbed a phalanges along the strap of his eyepatch and reminded himself that he had somewhere to be. He had shit to do, and, for once, that wasn’t complete bullshit.

There were some candy bars on a table nearby. Sans grabbed them and took a big bite out of one. He hadn’t gotten to eat even a single bite of those pancakes. Feeling at the piece of paper, he wondered if he should go back. It seemed as though RC’s world was a huge pain in the ass. Still, it might be nice to know a him that wasn’t awful or broken.

Sans pulled Papyrus’s scarf out of the other pocket and looked at it. The red fabric was marred with ugly brown splotches. There was no way Papyrus wanted it back, but Sans set it on a nearby table anyways. His phalanges lingered on it a moment before he turned and eyed the doorway to the portal room.

He just had to teleport into the corner. Papyrus wouldn’t see him, and since they kept opening the portal to exactly where he wanted to go he could just step through. It was that easy. His phalanges balled up in his pockets as he prepared to make his move. Alphys had just opened a new portal.

“shit,” Sans huffed under his breath. He grabbed the paper with RC’s coordinates on it and shrugged out of his coat. It made a not so soft womph as it hit the table. Sans teleported in time to hear Undyne’s voice echo to him in the portal room.

“What was that? Wait, is that—“

Sans stepped through before he could hear any more.
—
“WHERE DID HE GO?” Sans sat up and almost passed out. His spine and the ribs around his sternum were alight with excruciating pain. The freak’s intent had been downright murderous. Thank the Queen Sans had a lot of Hope. He had plenty of intent, too.

“SANS!” the native Papyrus called.

The freak’s brother had collapsed to the floor after pulling free. He still sat there, his skull bowed.

“HE WOULD HAVE FLED DOWNSTAIRS. IF WE ARE VERY LUCKY, PAPYRUS INTERCEPTED HIM.” Ignoring the pain, Sans carefully got to his feet. With a spine injury like that, he could lose mobility. That’s what he should have done to the freak. A few well placed bones would cut off the flow of magic to his legs, paralyzing him, without severing the nerves Sans needed to make sure he suffered.

There was still time, after they caught him.

“THE BASEMENT?” The native Papyrus tilted his skull in confusion, but also adjusted his grip on his bone club to be more secure.

“IT’S WHERE HIS PORTAL HOME IS,” Sans felt around the spot he’d been stabbed and winced. “WE NEED TO GET DOWN THERE.”

“I DON’T THINK YOU SHOULD BE GOING ANYWHERE,” Sans got a thoughtful look from the native monster. “WE—“ he glanced over at the freak’s brother, “THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL HANDLE IT. I’LL SAVE SANS THIS TIME.”

“I’M FINE,” Sans snarled. “HIS JUDGEMENT IS MY RESPONSIBILITY.”

“THE ONLY THING THAT’S IMPORTANT IS GETTING SANS BACK.”

“WHICH WE WILL DO WHEN WE REMOVE THE FREAK FROM EXISTENCE.” Sans rolled his eyelights. He had thought that was obvious.

“YOU—YOU’RE GOING TO K—KILL HIM?” That got the freak’s brother to lift his skull. His voice was soft, but clear.

“NO!” the native Papyrus answered before Sans could stop him. “WE’RE JUST GOING TO STOP HIM.”

Sans could have attacked him, he was being so dense. However, Sans had to focus to stagger after him as he threw open the door and stormed outside. Sans limped as fast as he could.

“YOU VILLAIN!” the Papyrus roared the moment he was fully outside. “GIVE SANS BACK!”
He ran forward as Sans reached the doorway, where he had to stop and rest. At least from here he could see what the fuck was going on.

The freak was standing in front of the house, the captive Sans on the ground next to him. Sans wondered for a half second why he hadn’t gone further.

“PAPY...” the freak’s brother came up behind Sans. “OH NO! ARE YOU OKAY?” He carefully touched Sans’s shoulder.

“I’M FINE,” Sans grit out. It was a stupid question. His brother had all the intent to kill Sans, just not the time. There was no way he was going to admit how badly he was hurt, however.

Where the fuck was Papyrus?

Chapter Text

Papyrus slid to a stop in front of the monster who had taken Sans. Snow sprayed up around him impressively. He bent his elbow over his scapula so he could swing his bone down and point it in the villain’s face.

“RETURN MY BROTHER, AND THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL SHOW MERCY.”

“the great papyrus?” was the snorted reply. He didn’t look all that worried or abashed. Papyrus set his teeth and lunged forward. He missed, just like so many of his attacks in the house had missed. It didn’t make any sense, because the monster didn’t seem to actually be trying to dodge.

The villain did scramble back, dragging Sans with him by the humerus. Sans cried out. Papyrus reached for him, but couldn’t make it without going completely off balance. He pulled back with a sharp pang of regret, just in time to avoid a row of bullets where he would have fallen.

“papyrus...” Sans sobbed as he was pulled into the misguided Papyrus’s arms. “just leave—“ he was cut off as the villain scooped him up and ran away. Papyrus’s jaw hung open. He watched him run straight towards the house.

The purple Sans still stood in the doorway, clutching it. Taco stood behind him.

“YOU LEAVE TACO ALONE!” Papyrus shouted. Some of the purple Sans’s thin, sharp bones formed, pointed at the Papyrus... and Sans. The other Papyrus slowed to a stop at the base of the stairs.

“BE CAREFUL!” Papyrus yelled as he walked slowly towards the standoff. The bones didn’t fire. Sans clutched onto the other Papyrus’s ribs, face buried into them.

“I’M NOT LETTING YOU NEAR YOUR BROTHER, AND I’M NOT LETTING YOU LEAVE WITH HIM.” The purple Sans straightened. Papyrus could tell it strained him.

“i won’t complain if i get to dust you,” the Papyrus said with too much glee in his voice. He’d said the purple Sans hurt him, but to dust him...

“WHY DON’T WE CALM DOWN AND TALK ABOUT THINGS,” Papyrus interjected. No one was going to die on his watch. “THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF HURTING, BUT ANYONE CAN CHANGE.” His soul trembled with unfamiliar uncertainty, but he ignored it and struck one of his encouraging poses, directing a thumbs up at the Papyrus. “I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, CAN GUIDE YOU ON THE PATH TO BECOME A BETTER MONSTER. SIMPLY PUT AWAY YOUR BULLETS AND RELEASE SANS—“

“oh, no. he’s mine!” the Papyrus snapped.

“PAPY!” Taco cried, trying to come out of the house past the purple Sans. He was blocked by a humerus, but the other Sans advanced, as well. The moment he separated from the door frame, he slouched.

Papyrus deflated slightly. His speech hadn't worked, at all. He set his scapulae and watched what was happening. If that was the case, he would just need to capture the other Papyrus. He wasn't sure if he could run over without startling the other Papyrus away, so he stayed put, for now. If he needed to, he would be able to get to the purple Sans quickly.

"sans!" the Papyrus replied, reaching for his brother. "it's going to be okay. we can go home and everything will be fine. i promise." Taco hunched over and shook his skull.

"I TOLD YOU, I DON'T WANT TO GO WITH YOU! LET HIM GO!" Papyrus's soul soared. If anyone could convince him, it was his brother, right?

The other Papyrus stepped back, turning from the two at the door back to Papyrus. He stretched out his phalanges and let loose a bullet at Papyrus, who dove to the ground to avoid it.

"papyrus-!" Sans's voice was soft, but unmistakable. Papyrus scrambled up, only to find him still in the other Papyrus's radii and ulnae, skull turned, watching him with pinprick eyelights.

"my lord!" The Papyrus that came with the purple Sans called out suddenly, startling them all. The bad Papyrus whipped around to look, taking Sans with him. His back was to Papyrus, now. His chance was here.

"took you long enough," the Sans snapped as his brother appeared next to him. The Papyrus was stricken, falling to his knees to look at the marrow spreading across the Sans’s shirt. Papyrus was glad he was there to protect him and Taco. That meant Papyrus could focus on sneaking up behind the bad Papyrus.

He crept forward, careful to keep from making too much noise in the snow. His boots didn't help. He should consider a stealth battle body. Sans could help him, once he got him back. That would be wonderful. Everything could go back to how it was. Sans would be able to smile again. He'd tell his bad jokes, and Papyrus would stoically avoid laughing at them. He just needed to actually get to Sans. He was close, so close...

——

Papyrus's soul stopped. He could only see the deep, gleaming spread of marrow on San's armor. He could only see the ragged edges where his bones were pierced, peeking out through the hole in the fabric. He could only see his own failure. Why hadn't he been faster? Why hadn't he ignored his brother's order to go talk to Undyne? Who cared if their stupid portal stayed open. If Papyrus lost Sans, home held no meaning. Papyrus couldn't even heal him.

Of course, there was one thing he could do.

Black, seething rage crawled out of his soul and moved through his magic. His eyelights vanished, quickly replaced with one that blazed with burnt orange fury. He turned it on the creep, the disgusting piece of filth that he, Papyrus, had let loose. He had felt so sure that he could end things then. Failure.

But he could end them now.

"fuck," the freak swore and backed up quickly. With a surprised grunt, he ran right into the captive Sans's brother. They began to struggle against each other. It didn't matter. All that mattered was he was distracted. Papyrus teleported over to them, a cluster of thick, fractured femurs appearing above the freak the moment he got there. The fear in his sockets was nice, though it did nothing to undo the injury Sans has suffered. Because of Papyrus.

In the blink of an eye, the freak, the Sans, and the other Papyrus vanished.

Papyrus looked around wildly, his bones swooping down to surround him. A counter attack wasn't out of the question. The freak had been willing to kill him. He almost killed Sans.

"aaah!" the freak screamed, a few dozen feet from them, as the three monsters blinked back into existence, the Sans on top, the freak in the middle, and the native Papyrus laying on the ground. With a pained grunt, the freak got off of him and dragged the Sans away from him, hunched and panting. The native Papyrus didn’t move.

"PAPYRUS!" Sans came up next to him and slapped him on the arm. Taco held Sans up from the other side. "STOP BEING SO IMPULSIVE. WE HAVE TO BE CAREFUL OF THE OTHERS. AND IF WE SPOOK HIM OFF, WE'LL NEVER GET OUR CHANCE." Taco gave him a worried glance at that, but didn't speak. Papyrus wrestled with the order he didn't want to listen to. He didn't care about the others. He only cared about Sans.

"my lord..." he whispered, begging, pleading with Sans to let him do it. Magic welled up in him, ready to burst out and kill anyone in his way. Taco's eyelights slid up, looking behind him with shock and fear. Sans simply scowled.

"NO."

Papyrus sagged, his magic fading at the finality of the answer. He gave Sans control for a reason. With a good deal of difficulty, he bowed, acknowledging that control. Sans sighed and reached out to grab onto his arm. His hand trembled. Papyrus pulled him away from Taco, scooping him up and holding his weight easily. Sans didn't look all that amused at laying across his arms, but didn't say anything about it.

"don't you dare come a step closer!"

---

The moment he was through the portal, Sans teleported straight from the labs to the woods right next to the house. He wasn't sure what he had expected to find, but this was not it.

The asshole was standing with Ketchup in front of him, holding him by the clavicle. Ketchup barely looked able to stand. Across from them, a Papyrus in a goofy white top, blue shorts, and red scarf, boots, and gloves shakily got to his feet, summoned a bone club, and pointed it at them.

"I DON'T WANT TO HURT YOU," he shouted, voice ragged and frustrated, "BUT YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME MY BROTHER BACK."

So that must have been Ketchup's brother. Sans crept forward, watching for a way to attack the asshole without risking hitting Ketchup.

"i don't mind hurting you..." the asshole hissed back, dragging Ketchup away from his brother by the delicate bone. Ketchup went, meek and crying. Sans watched him. He looked terrible, worse off than when they had escaped, and so much worse than he had been at Sans's.

It was terrifyingly easy to see him dusting in that state.

"WE'RE GOING TO GET HIM BACK," another voice yelled. Yet another Papyrus, carrying a scarred and bleeding Sans walked into view. Weepy followed behind them, watching the asshole and Ketchup intently. Sans hadn't expected to see him here. Now walking in, killing the asshole, and taking Ketchup home was a lot more complicated. Who were these new skeletons? Weepy seemed to like them, and they said they were going to get Ketchup back.

The last Sans he had met turned out to be helpful.

They kept inching forward while the asshole took awkward steps back with Ketchup. It was a full blown standoff. Sans felt reinvigorated after his pep talk from RC, and their success getting him here. He felt the paper in his pocket.

He needed to find a way to break this up.

“stop!” the asshole screamed, stopping himself. “if you come any closer I’ll kill him!”

—

Papyrus glared at the skeletons opposite him. Blue was crying, sobbing as he made little noises that might have been attempts at words.

The horrible papyrus trying to take him away was frozen. He had to know that Papyrus would do it.

If he couldn’t have blue, no one could.

“sans, just come with me,” he pleaded. “they’ve turned you against me, but i can prove i can be better...”

Sans didn’t answer him. His sockets were unfocused, as if he wasn’t even really watching what was going on.

“you could save him! you could be a hero!”

Sans shook out of it and looked him in the sockets. There was something resembling his normal determination in his features. The awful Papyrus spoke first, however.

“YOU JUST THREATENED TO KILL MY BROTHER! TACO, GO BACK TO THE HOUSE. YOU CAN’T TRUST HIM. NOT AFTER EVERYTHING HE’S DONE.”

At least Sans didn’t listen to him, either.

Everything had fallen apart so quickly. Papyrus just wanted his brother back. He could explain everything, make it right. Sans had to know how hard Papyrus had tried. Nothing mattered to him like Sans did. Nothing. It had all been for him.

Papyrus just wanted to protect him.

These fakes didn’t care about Sans, and they wouldn’t take care of him. He was so sweet, innocent, and trusting, and they were taking advantage of him. Manipulating him.

Papyrus wouldn’t let them. He would protect Sans, and he would protect blue. He was helpless. Leaving him with them would be cruel. Papyrus only wanted to help.

He would help blue. He would save Sans.

He was the righteous one here.

“PAPY!” Sans cried, tears streaming down his skull once again. Papyrus would wipe those tears away and make sure Sans never had to cry again. Blue trembled against his legs as Sans walked past the awful Papyrus, coming towards them. Papyrus grinned, happy beyond words.

“nuh-uh.”

Papyrus barely dodged a thick, jagged bone aimed right at his skull from his left. His grip on blue tightened as he tensed. Blue screamed. Letting go of the clavicle, Papyrus grabbed blue around the middle and ran towards the house. Another bone whizzed in front of his skull.

“who the fuck is that?” he hissed. His magic was still too overtaxed to teleport after the papyrus tagged along earlier. He crouched down behind blue, and the attacks stopped.

“what a fucking coward!” a frustratingly familiar voice called. Papyrus’s marrow ran cold.

“remember me, asshole?”

Red walked slowly out from the trees, his phalanges balled by his sides. His cervical vertebrae were an angry red, as were his carpals. Blue gasped as he approached them.

“don’t you— you—!” Papyrus quickly summoned a bone and held it against Blue’s spine.

Red didn’t stop.

“i won’t let him take you again.”

Blue began to shake and sob, but Papyrus saw his skull bob in affirmation.

Fine. If Blue would rather die, Papyrus could accommodate him. His soul ached at the thought of seeing blue turn to dust, but he was mad, too. Mad that nothing had gone his way. Mad that he couldn’t have this one simple thing.

Blue cried out as the bone cracked a process, and red showed his bluff. He stopped dead, agony twisting his features. Cries and demand for him to stop rang out from his right. He pressed a little further, Red’s pain even better than his submission.

“PAPY!” Sans screamed at the top of his lungs, silencing the assembled skeletons. Papyrus drew the bone back, feeling, absurdly, like he was in trouble. Like he hadn’t been before.

“sans,” he wailed. Sans pushed past the sadist and his freak brother. He dodged the awful papyrus, who reached out an arm to stop him. Red didn’t even try, just watched as he crossed the distance to stand in front of Papyrus.

“PAPY, YOU HAVE TO STOP.”

“i just wanted to protect you,” Papyrus said softly. “i wanted to protect you. it’s all that ever mattered.”

Sans’s expression was anguished. He reached out and pulled the bone away from Papyrus. It faded into magic. Next, he pulled Papyrus’s phalanges off blue. Blue fell to the ground with a weak cry. Out of the corner of his socket, Papyrus could see red twitch, but he still didn’t come closer.

Sans pulled Papyrus up to standing, staring him in the sockets.

“I wanted to keep you safe.” Papyrus pleaded. He couldn’t stand that look in his brother’s eyelights. He looked... heartbroken.

“I LOVE YOU TOO. I’VE ALWAYS LOVED YOU. I LOVE YOU IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE.”

Papyrus couldn’t believe that. He was reading into it. His sweet, innocent brother couldn’t—couldn’t.... Papyrus’s soul burst with pain. He wasn’t sure if it was the fact that Sans had those kinds of gross feelings, because Papyrus could have had something real, or because… because…

…of the large, bulbous end of a femur that had burst through his rib cage. He knew that attack. He practically knew it better than his own. 

“I’M SORRY, PAPY,” Sans wailed. 

“huh?” Papyrus asked. Sans broke down, falling to his knees as Papyrus’s world went black.

Chapter Text

"TACO..." Papyrus looked into the room and found a familiar sight. Taco was laying on Sans's mattress--his mattress--staring at the wall. It was a pose so similar to Sans that Papyrus had to hold onto the door frame as a wave of nostalgia struck him. Sans was safe, now. He may not be home, but he was safe. That's what really mattered.

"YEAH?" Taco pushed himself up onto one elbow and turned to look at Papyrus. The transformation was as absurd as it was quick. Taco's smile fell into place as he picked himself up and brushed off his clothes.

"OH..." Papyrus wished he wouldn't do that. There was something unnerving about him acting as if everything--anything was fine. It had only been a week since.... Papyrus could hardly stand to think of it. As mad as he had been at Taco's brother, watching his dust slowly sprinkle over Sans and Taco had given him chills. Taco had to feel so much worse.

"...DINNER."

"OH, YUM. THANKS!" Taco beamed at him. "I'LL BE DOWN IN JUST A MINUTE."

"SURE." Papyrus nodded and walked over to the door. He felt like he should say something, like that Taco shouldn't need to feel like he had to pretend around Papyrus. He should be able to mourn his brother, no matter what he had done. Papyrus had mourned Sans for weeks, and he hadn't even known if he was dead or not.

"YOU KNOW... IF YOU EVER WANT TO TALK--"

"I DON'T," Taco interrupted him. "OR... I CAN'T." He abruptly walked over to the window. Papyrus leaned against the door frame, pointedly looking at the floor. Heroes didn't cry, right? They were strong, no matter what happened... He wasn't sure he believed that anymore. There was a lot he had reevaluated over the past week.

"I APPRECIATE YOU TAKING ME IN... COOKING FOR ME... AND ALL OF THAT." Taco tapped his phalanges against the windowsill in a pattern Papyrus didn't recognize. The purple Sans and his brother had gone and gotten Taco's stuff, including a box of cds and dvds of someone called Nabstablook. It was still just a pile of taped up boxes and tied trash bags in the corner.

"I JUST WANT TO PRETEND LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED. LIKE I NEVER EVEN HAD A... A..."

Papyrus crossed his arms and clutched at his humuri.

"i CAN'T. I CAN'T DO THAT," he replied. He had lost Sans, and, even if he was safe, Papyrus still didn't know when he was going to get him back. Even if he got him back, he wasn't going to be the Sans he remembered. The small, shivering skeleton that could hardly speak barely reminded Papyrus of his brother. He shuddered.

"I KNOW. SO IT'S FOR THE BEST IF I DON'T TALK TO YOU ABOUT IT." Taco's skull tapped against the glass. "THAT OTHER SANS WOULD CALL IT JUDGEMENT, I GUESS, FOR WHAT I'VE DONE."

"YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG!" Papyrus insisted, once again. Taco didn't reply to him this time, either. Another thing they wouldn't see socket to socket on.

It was strange for Papyrus to lack for words, especially encouraging words. Nothing he said ever seemed to make it through to Taco, however. He was convinced he could have done something different. He could have saved his brother and Sans. Papyrus's soul wavered. That's what heroes were supposed to do, right?

"DINNER IS GOING TO GET COLD, SO COME DOWN SOON," he sighed, pushing away from the doorway and turning towards the stairs. Taco made a noise that might have been assent, or might have been a sniffle.

The house was dark and quiet as Papyrus made his way back to the kitchen. He could turn on the lights, but he didn't feel like it. Once he had plated up the spaghetti, he sat down and prepared to wait. It would be rude to eat before Taco joined him.

Opening his phone up, he quickly tapped Doctor Alphys's name in his text message list, just below Undyne's. He scrolled up until he got to two days after everything had happened.

These plans are amazing! Tell your friends that. I'll get to work right away.

The next day.

I'm having trouble sourcing some of the parts, but I should be able to make something work. No promises, but maybe in a couple of weeks we can do a trial.

Earlier today.

It's definitely going to work, but it's going slower than I expected. Probably a month, and then you can go visit Sans!

He could do a month. He could wait a year. Papyrus shot a guilty look upstairs as he let slip a few tears of his own.

His brother was alive.

Chapter Text

Ketchup was crying.

"I KNOW IT HURTS," Papyrus said to him, kneeling next to the couch. "JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE TO GO." Ketchup nodded, or that was just him shaking with the sobs. Sans wasn't convinced that it was Papyrus's attempts to bandage his pinky that were causing them.

Ketchup was curled up on the couch, a ratty old blanket Sans had scrounged up from his room draped over him. Not the blanket from his bed. He'd burn that one. Ketchup didn't need any reminders of what Sans had done, and Sans couldn't forget. He was crouched against the wall near the door. His room hovered above him like a beacon, a warning of what a bastard he was. He was no hero, and he shouldn't have ever started deluding himself that he was. Nothing he had done, from the moment he dragged Ketchup to this world until now had helped anything.

He didn't understand in the least why Ketchup had begged to come home with him.

Sure, he got along with Papyrus, but that wasn't enough to come live with someone who had... who had...

Sans buried his face in his hands. He should go back to hiding in Waterfall. No, that's what had led to this mess.

"THERE YOU GO. BE GENTLE WITH IT." Papyrus stood up, rolling up the leftover gauze. He shot Sans a look, an unreadable look. His scarf, washed but still sporting darker brown splotches, hung around his cervical vertebrae.

--

"SANS, WE NEED TO TALK."

"bro..." Sans froze with his foot outstretched to start up the stairs. He looked over at Papyrus with a silent plea to let him continue. Papyrus folded his arms and continued to ignore the oddly nice eyepatch.

"NOW."

Sans sighed, and his foot came down short of the first stair. He shuffled his way to the couch, his hands in the pockets of his jacket. He sat down heavily, and finally withdrew a hand to brush at the fuzz around the collar of his jacket. Papyrus had noticed the habit, and had pinpointed it to the stray strands bothering the red ring of still healing bone.

Even so, Sans hadn't taken the jacket off since Papyrus furiously thrust it at him back in the lab.

He had been scared, actually scared, when Undyne had shown it to him. The wait for Sans to return had turned torturous after that. There were a few stitches around the lining of the left arm that he still needed to patch up from tugging at it anxiously.

"what is it, bro?"

"I NEED ANSWERS." Papyrus shook his skull and gathered the variety of odd things that he still did not have explanations for. What had that machine been doing in their basement? Where had Sans gotten that fucking eyepatch? It almost looked like something Undyne would wear. How had Sans known his way around the labs? How had he known how to make the machine work? Why had he come back and dropped the coat there, like some kind of token?

Sans looked down at his lap, his hands back in his pockets. The right one was fiddling with something, Papyrus could see his phalanges moving under the leather. His shoulders were slumped, giving him the look of a structure about to collapse. The crack that climbed up his skull had flecks of marrow along one side, again.

"what answers?" Sans asked quietly.

"HOW... HOW DID YOU... HOW DO YOU INTEND TO GO BACK TO WORK?"

"work?" Sans looked up at him quickly, his single eyelight shrunken. "oh... um... i guess i gotta talk to 'dyne. if i still got a job. if she ain't gonna kill me... " He grimaced. Papyrus barely didn't mirror him. Undyne was still furious at Sans for sneaking into the lab the night they returned and putting a password on the controls for the portal. She claimed Alphys was close to breaking it, and had been for a week.

"...an' i suppose the hot link stand will just open up again, really."

"HOT LINK STAND?" Papyrus snapped to attention. Sans's teeth made an audible click as they closed.

---

Ketchup was curled up on the couch, like usual. He was more relaxed, though, than he was before everything went to shit again. Sans smiled at him, and he might have almost smiled back.

“going out?”

“yeah,” Sans jumped at the question. “just g—getting some air. clear my head.”

“okay,” Ketchup glanced at the TV before looking back at Sans. “be safe.”

“i will,” Sans nodded. They had all become a little overly cautious. “see ya.”

Ketchup waved. Sans rubbed his phalanges over the piece of paper in his pocket as he slipped out the door.

He would be just fine.

Chapter Text

"my lord." Sans woke to find Papyrus staring down at him, his sockets wet. "sans."

"MUST WE DO THIS EVERY MORNING?" Sans asked, even though it warmed his soul to see how much Papyrus cared. He could never say that, of course.

"my lord," Papyrus whimpered, and proceeded to get down on the floor next to the bed and prostrate himself. "i'm so sorry i let you get hurt."

The moment Sans started to sit up so that he could talk to his idiotic brother, Papyrus lept up and put one hand behind his back to help him. He was very careful to place it below the healing vertebrae, but it still hurt. Sans grit his teeth and stayed silent until he was fully upright.

"STOP FUSSING," he growled, batting Papyrus's hand away. Papyrus pulled back, holding the hand against his sternum. His eyelights darted over Sans, looking for other signs of distress.

"PAPYRUS, STOP IT. I'M SERIOUS."

"my l--"

"NO!" Sans snapped. The room fell silent, his voice seeming to echo around them. Sighing, he pat the bed next to him. "PAPYRUS."

Papyrus shuffled over to the bed and sat down.

"sans."

Sans relaxed. He didn't want to be in charge for now. This was something they needed to discuss as equals.

"WHY DID YOU LET HIM GO?"

Papyrus sat silently and fiddled with his phalanges.

"i didn't mean to. i was trying to kill him. and i-- i fucked it up--"

"STOP." Sans held up a hand. He also needed Papyrus to keep it together long enough to have this conversation. Fuck, Sans needed to keep it together, too. He clutched at the comforter.

"WHY DID YOU DO THIS WITHOUT ME? WE'RE PARTNERS."

Papyrus flinched.

"you weren't listening to me."

Sans flushed and turned to stare across their room. He had been cocky. He saw that now. The freak had been so much more dangerous than he had thought. Something in him had broken, and he had lost track of reality, of right and wrong.

"YOU COULD NEVER--"

"i could!" Papyrus cried. "if i didn't have you." The tears slid down his cheekbones and curled along his jaw.

"I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE," Sans said, leaning against Papyrus. His brother's arm gently came around his shoulders. They sat like that for a while, Papyrus occasionally wiping at his face with his other sleeve. Sans was going to have to wash his jacket again. It had been hell getting the marrow stains out of it.

"AND I'LL LISTEN TO YOU," he said, finally getting the words just right in his skull. "I WAS THE ONE NOT TREATING US LIKE PARTNERS. I'M SOR--"

"no, no, no," Papyrus moaned softly, squeezing Sans. "you didn't. you didn't do anything wrong. i'm the one who--"

"OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE! SHUT UP!" Sans rolled his eyelights. "SHUT UP AND ACCEPT MY APOLOGY, YOU MONGREL."

Papyrus withdrew from him with a sharp gasp and quickly fell to his knees by the bed.

"y--yes, my lord."

"GOOD. AND IF I EVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT AGAIN: IGNORE YOU, OR PUT YOU IN DANGER, OR MYSELF, YOU MAY-- NO, I DEMAND THAT YOU BREAK CHARACTER AND MAKE ME LISTEN. UNDERSTOOD?"

"yes..."

"GOOD! NOW COME BACK TO BED WITH ME. I'M EXHAUSTED." Sans slowly laid back down, inching over carefully to make room for Papyrus. For a moment it seemed like he might disobey Sans already. He waited, clamping down on the urge to yell at his brother. He was already demanding a lot of him.

Eventually, he began to drift off. He snapped back awake as the bed rocked slightly and Papyrus's form laid next to him. He had taken the jacket off, but nothing else, and he was laying on top of the covers. Sans quickly extinguished his eyelights and feigned sleep as Papyrus carefully turned onto his side and curled up facing him. Long phalanges smoothed over Sans's humerus over the blankets.

"you're my everything," Papyrus whispered. "i can't do it without you. i've tried."

Sans hardly contained the urge to yell at him more. It wouldn't be fair of him to do it, anyways. He thought back to Taco, sobbing in the snow. More than once, Sans had imagined what it would be like to lose Papyrus. The horror he faced in those dark daydreams. Would he have been strong enough to do that, if it had been Papyrus? That's why he needed to believe that Papyrus could never reach those depths.

He didn't think so.