But summer has to come to an end sometime

[sansational]

Ever since S-4 talked Sans into sharing a room with him and Sans-Serif, sleep really has come a little easier. Not much - he still has bad dreams, they all do. But every little bit helps, especially when help is within arm's reach instead of on the other side of a door. Ever since hearing from Tauriel that the two babybones are also still suffering from bad dreams, Sans has been trying to find ways to help. But it's a problem that's stymied him for years to the point of giving up, so privately, he doesn't hold out too much hope.

It's been a relatively ordinary night - he read them both their story, tucked them in, and then curled up on the other side of S-4 from where Sans-Serif lay. Sleep came as quickly as it ever did. But whatever dreams Sans had, they were chased immediately from his head by the agony that awoke him, accompanied by the sharp crack of bone.

The pain jolts him upright, his hands scrabbling all over himself, searching for signs of damage. They finally come to rest on his own skull, and realize that it hasn't broken. It's just...shifted.

"no..."

More cracks like breaking twigs and shattered branches echo throughout the room. His fingers start to sharpen, he can feel his ribs expanding, each one accompanied by a gasp and a cry of pain from the skeleton. His marrow is on fire and burning him up from the inside out and no no no he has to get out of here...

Eventually, Sans makes it into the woods. But all that really does is ensure that he has enough room to finish transforming. By rights, it probably only takes a few hours, just like last time. But it's painful enough to feel as though it takes a lifetime. All he can do is lay on the ground and whimper and twitch, or else drag himself along in a futile attempt to escape the pain. All he can do is wait for it to finish happening.

Useless regrets and pointless despair chase themselves around his increasingly malformed skull. it's not fair, everything was supposed to be okay now, i was trying to be better, i promise i was...

Until even that level of thought is beyond him and he's reduced to begging senselessly. make it stop, please make it stop, i don't want to do this anymore, i made a mistake, please, Gaster...

At one point, he hears a voice in his head - a delusion, or a memory. it sounds like Frisk's voice, except not like their voice at all. Too late. Too late.


The forest has a new inhabitant, the next morning. The giant monster is something like a bear and something like a horse with a skull that more closely resembles that of a wolf. It's too big to go that deep into the trees, but it creeps around the edges of things. It keeps its distance from the castle, it treads carefully around any flowerbeds, but it's big enough to be easily noticed from a distance. Mostly, it can be found curled up in an apparent attempt to sleep, wherever the ground is clear enough for it to find room. Though whenever anyone approaches, one eyesocket opens to reveal a glowing blue orb of light within, and the creature lets out a wary growl. 

Otherwise, it can mostly be found trying to eat. The fruit trees in particular will find themselves frequently raided, with some of them picked entirely clean. Hopefully no one was in the mood for lemons this week. The creature barely has to stretch its neck to gobble fruit whole off the branches. 

This puts it somewhat at odds with the local birds, but even the most ornery peacock will beat a retreat whenever the beast parts its jaws just enough to let blue light bloom between its fangs. 

Comments

[dustless]

They turn to glance at her again, looking blank, but they eventually do nod.

"'F you want." Hopefully nothing will happen to Sans in the meantime. They don't know if that's a possibility or not.

[lightofthestars]

"Thank you."

...Now she must consider what to do next. Ai, but she did not think this through.

"Shall we visit Grune's garden? It would be pleasing to sit among the flowers."

[dustless]

Well, it's outside. Which is going to be closer to where they want to be, so they nod, and move to follow.

But they'll be distracted the entire time. She might need to talk more than once for Frisk to even hear her.

[sansational]

The universe has a strange sense of humor, sometimes. It will probably become quite apparent when they're still a fair distance away that Tauriel isn't the only one who finds it pleasant to be in Grune's garden. Though in Sans' case, he tends to nap along the edges of the flowerbeds nowadays, so as not to damage or crush any of Grune's hard work.

He's stretched out fully, his eyesockets closed and his tail flicking idly at whatever phantoms are chasing themselves through his dreams. The snoring that rumbles in his ribcage is keeping birds from bothering the blossoms, at least.

[lightofthestars]

Tauriel hears his snores even before she sees him. Her steps check; then, she walks on. There is no way to act as if she had changed her mind without Frisk suspecting her, for they are a very bright child.

Blast Sans! She had wanted to give Frisk a moment of peace, and now he must take even that from them.

Her attempts to speak fall to nothing. She will let Frisk find Sans on their own time.

not BLAST sans, BLASTER sans!

[dustless]

Frisk doesn't mind all that much once they spot him. Which in and of itself takes a while, so lost in their own feelings they are.

Tauriel will definitely be able to tell when they do, since their footsteps in the grass and flowers go silent as they stop dead.

And then they turn and head directly towards him, not stopping until they're standing barely a foot in front of his nose.

...

...

...

...

"Sans."

And his nap spots are currently limited

[sansational]

Sans keeps snoring away even as Frisk marches up to him. He doesn't so much as twitch until he hears...

The creature half-opens its eyesockets and...then they fly open wide as it realizes just what it's looking at. There is a tiny human standing in front of its face. Close enough that it almost has to cross its eyelights to keep them properly in sight. How did they sneak up on it?

The monster half-rises into a crouch, its claws digging into the ground, moving far more quickly than something that size really has a right to. If it had ears, they would be plastered flat against its head. As it is, it just lets out a soft growl that's equal parts surprised and warning, before it takes a step back. Only then does it feel safe enough to bother trying to understand what had been said, only then does it take a second look and realize that this isn't just a human, this is...

"...Frisk?"

Did Frisk just...call him by name?

Then Sans looks up further, and sees Tauriel standing there. Half-asleep and half-lucid, it still doesn't take a quantum physicist to start putting pieces together. At the least, it's certainly easy enough to see that she does not look pleased. He seems to wilt a little from his previously wary stance, trying to look as nonthreatening and non-bestial as possible.

Blast Blaster Sans, because dude, you are in So Much Trouble right now.

[lightofthestars]

Tauriel's knives are in her hands the moment Sans acts as a dangerous animal startled awake, not a member of her family. Only when he calms and his eye-lights rest upon her does she sheathe her weapons.

Her movements are very deliberate. She says nothing.

[dustless]

Frisk is fearlessly still during that little display. (They can't see Tauriel, too busy looking at Sans, but she'd be getting a disapproving look if they'd seen those knives.)

They cross their arms in front of them and lean forward, until they're quite literally leaning on his face. Rude, maybe, but they're not feeling particularly polite right now.

"Yeah. 'M still just Frisk. And you're a science dragon now. And you didn't tell me."

[sansational]

Rude and uncomfortable and dangerous, and Sans shakes his head to try and get them to stop doing that. Then he takes another few steps back for good measure, trying to hold his head out of Frisk's reach, even if that puts him more firmly in Tauriel's line of sight.

Tauriel is mad, and Frisk is mad, and Sans feels about three inches tall and he doesn't know why, at first, until it sinks in that Frisk hasn't just guessed that he's a Sans, they've figured out that he's their Sans. And it only takes another look at Tauriel's face to figure out how.

Fear he could understand, confusion, questions, but...why are they angry?

"Sorry," he says, and he sounds it, but he also sounds confused, lost. He lifts a shoulder in a close approximation to a shrug. "Hard to explain." Barely possible to explain when he can string a full sentence together, let alone now.

[lightofthestars]

"You could have tried."

She keeps her temper leashed only for the sake of Frisk. She does not wish to scare them.

Later, when she and Sans are alone, she will scare Sans just as much as he deserves.

[dustless]

Frisk stays where they are, sharply pulling their arms against their chest and holding themselves angrily.

"Didn't need to make me think you were a stranger. That there was another lab baby. Didn't need to lie right when i talked to you. Didn't need to disappear. Didn't need to make me think you left."

Ah. And there's the crux of the matter.

There's very little they can think of that would be worse than Sans disappearing.

[sansational]

Ah. And there's the crux of the matter. Even Sans can see it now. Because that's right, isn't it? He is one of the Sanses that's dead back home.

He can't help but let out a faint whine at the use of the word "left". That's not the right word, it can't be the right word. Because he doesn't want to leave, the only way he could ever be gone from this place was if he was sent away. If people can leave, that means Gaster left, that Gaster abandoned S-4 and Sans again and he can't believe that.

"Didn't mean to." Mostly, he didn't mean to disappear. He didn't mean for this to happen, not even back when he'd been half out of his mind with grief. He supposes he had meant to make them think he'd left, if only because that might have been a safer alternative. "Not all lies." He wasn't all that different from Sans-Serif, after all. The big differences were that Sans had volunteered, and Sans had been a failure.

He's even more sensitive to human souls now than he normally is, enough that Frisk's distress is plain enough even without their voice rising. "Sorry," Sans whimpers, and means it rather more this time.

[lightofthestars]

He should not have lied at all.

She wants to yell this to him, to make him understand--úlunn úsel ogol! --but she keeps quiet. It is Frisk who has been wronged, not her.

[dustless]

No, left wasn't the right word--Frisk can't imagine he would, to leave his brothers and them locked up with Chara--but it was the first that leapt to mind.

They duck their head, hiding their eyes with their fringe. "It was 'nough. You knew I didn't know it was you."

Their SOUL pulses with fury and hurt and fear and--there is a hint of relief there, because Sans is here, Sans is not dead, even if he's looking different and had something bad something happen and was a dumb liar.

Frisk's legs feel like lead. They stay where they are.

[sansational]

...unlike Frisk, Tauriel almost seems as though she's growing more angry. The hostility is enough that he's starting to feel a bit cold with it. He can, perhaps, even guess at the basic shape of the words she's trying not to say while Frisk is around. It wouldn't be the first time she's called him something similar, after all, though the last time was when he was standing over Chara's body.

Sans is increasingly aware, in a way that he's nevertheless unable to articulate even without his difficulty talking, that he does not want to be left alone with her. Entirely unaware that he's doing so, Sans shuffles just a few paces to the right, putting Frisk more firmly between him and Tauriel. The elf gets an anxious glance over the top of Frisk's head, before he returns his attention to his friend.

"Not always me." He gives his head a little shake, and forces himself to carry on: "Forget, sometimes."

[lightofthestars]

He seeks to hide from her, and well he should. How could he have made Frisk suffer so? How could he have thought only of himself at the expense of a child?

[dustless]

"So what." Their arms wrap around themselves tighter. "Knew who you were. When I said who I was. Right?" They're a sharp kid. That weird reaction makes a lot more sense now.

Maybe they should be a little more aware of Tauriel right now, but they're not. They can barely see Sans' huge figure in front of them.

Frisk is starting to notice a trend. There's always a risk of tears when they need to talk with Sans. It's weird.

...

...

"'M glad you're not dead."

[sansational]

"...yeah." More because they'd said his name than their own, but he had remembered, and after not...too long of a gap. If Frisk can piece that much together, they'll doubtless be able to pick up that much. "Might not later." He hadn't even been able to manage this much, before. And when everything is a minor miracle, it's hard to predict what will last.

...Sans is starting to notice that trend, too. Frisk, more than anyone, should have gotten a warning that this could happen. But he'd just been so tired of upsetting them, and...and Frisk, more than anyone, made it easy to hope. So he'd just let himself hope that maybe things would be okay.

He should have known better.

Idiot coward useless worthless waste of...

Very, very carefully and very slowly, Sans leans his head down towards them. And then, as gently as he can possibly manage, he lightly nudges his skull against their head.

"Me, too. Sorry."

[lightofthestars]

Without speaking, making almost no sound at all, Tauriel turns to leave. It feels...right to let Frisk and Sans have time together now. Sans seems to understand what he has done.

She will return later to have her own words with him.

[dustless]

Frisk lets go of themselves and wraps their arms around Sans instead. What they can manage, anyway, which is mostly just his face. Hopefully their grip--and a few hot tears splashing down--doesn't feel too uncomfortable.

"...I'll help you remember. 'F you forget. And I'm--I'll be careful, too," they add. They still remember how they expected their meeting with Sans-Serif to go, and science-dragon-Sans looks a lot tougher.

After a long, shuddering breath, they ask: "You're...can you, can you tell me why you're...really big now?"

[sansational]

This time, it's less uncomfortable and more overwhelming. Frisk feels so small, at least on the surface. But their soul seems bigger and brighter than ever. Whereas Sans has grown too big to do much of anything but sleep and pace and kill, but inside he just feels lost within his own body. Like being left in a house that you used to live in but moved away from years ago.

Sans closes his eyes and stays still. He's still basically a skeleton, and nothing can stand still like a skeleton. "...good," he rumbles in reply. More at the promise to be careful than anything else. Frisk is already doing more than Sans had even thought possible to help keep him from forgetting, too.

At the expected question, he sighs just a little, though the exhale still disturbs the grass at their feet. The reasons are rather technical, the explanation is long and depressing, but Frisk probably isn't actually asking about any of that. At heart, it boils down to one thing.

"Accident. With Gaster."

[dustless]

Accident with Gaster. Their brow furrows.

(The machine is talking, the machine is moving. There are lines and wires tangling around him, around them, water's rushing, everything sounds wrong--that was a long time ago--)

Fingers press hard against bone. "But you're...he's...he isn't here now?"

[sansational]

"No." Sans lets out another huff that's edged with a bitter laugh. This could all have been fixed by now, if Gaster was still here.

(For just a few days, everything had been fine, everything had been great. He'd finally been strong, he'd finally had a path to take in life that wasn't just trailing uselessly behind his brothers, and then one day he just hadn't woken up. Something else had.

And when Sans had next opened his eyesockets, the first thing he'd seen had been the bandage over one of Gaster's.

But that was a long time ago.)

It hurts to talk. But it might hurt worse if he explains this wrong. Sans lets out a faint growl, dreding up what energy he'd regained from the nap. But when he speaks again, there's the echo of his own voice in the words, just barely audible over the grinding of protesting bone. "tried to fix things. didn't. broke the same things. you were gone." And he hadn't thought they'd ever be coming back.

It was stupid of him. He can see that now, and enough people have told him that, now, in their own variously well-meaning ways. But those are the facts of the matter, as well as he can tell them.

[dustless]

"...oh."

A nauseatingly powerful wave of guilt rolls through them, enough to make them dizzy, and they squeeze him tighter. You were gone. He'd be okay if they hadn't messed up so bad, if they were faster, if they'd ran first.

One more time, they miss when everyone forgot the bad things.

"...how you got back last time...wasn't...do you remember. How that happened." Even if the castle doesn't seem to have whatever he needs to fix it, they can still have hope.