For the people who are still alive

[sansational]

The nightmares come the night after the funeral.

He escorts S-4 and Sans-Serif back to the castle. Makes a couple of attempts to apologize to his other self that don't make it past his mouth. Tucks them both in, reads them both a story, returns to his own room just next door.

Barely an hour later, Sans wakes up blind with panic and crying out in terror. It leaves him huddled in the far corner of the room, his hands over his head, nails digging into his skull, teeth chattering and tears pouring from his eyes thick and fast enough to blind and choke him. Nightmares of what was and what could have been. Dreams of melting smiles and sharp teeth reaching and clawing for him, dragging him down and under and into and come and join the fun.

He resolves not to sleep again, after that. Eating also comes to seem...less important. He's not hungry. What good does food do him, anyway? It doesn't restore his HP. He's always at his best. It's just that his best isn't nearly enough.

One murderous human is dead. Another might arrive. He has to be ready. He has to protect everyone. He can't let those nightmares of dust (or maybe they're visions of timelines yet to be) come true.

Sans immerses himself in his lab. He buries himself in his work, and when he exhausts his old avenues of search, he makes up new ones. Anything to keep moving. Anything to not think of the past, here and elsewhere. When he emerges, it's usually to be found in the library, or outside, armed with his telescope and a notebook. And a pair of boots - the echo of bloody squishes from his old ones had led to Sans tossing them under his bed in disgust, along with his hoodie Otherwise, he gathers seemingly random ingredients from the gardens with an expression of fierce concentration on his face. There's probably no way to get this doseage exactly right.

But he can get close. Perhaps he can even do better.


It's like walking in on the wreckage of his own life. It's like waking from another nightmare all over again.

His brother, exhausted (that was never supposed to be the plan). His other self, lost (and Sans was supposed to show him better). His friends, worried or in some cases so far past worried that they had hit anger (he never asked them to care but of course that's the point).

So much is a mess, he knows he's done wrong and needs to fix it, but sleep isn't coming any easier and he doesn't know where to start. The raging uncertainty and the press of problems leaves him tempted to just curl up in a ball on his bed again and just...tune it all out.

But for others' sake, if nothing else, Sans is good at carrying on. It's just a matter of...shifting focus from what it had been before.

What Sans does know is that, for the first time in days, he's hungry. His soul feels hollow for the need of some proper food. And he's opened his eyes enough to properly see that S-4 and Sans-Serif are both looking a little more spindly again. Lucas' stew had done him some good the first time around. He'd even remembered to take some hasty notes on the recipe.

Maybe he can do it justice, if only for his family's sake.

So anyone who ventures down into the kitchens a day or so after Frisk returns will find a corner of it something of a mess. A pot of hot water is simmering on the stove, Some rather messily chopped vegetables are cooking away inside, along with an admittedly pleasant array of seasonings. A mess on the table testifies to Sans' attempts to continue adding ingredients...

...but, more than likely, visitors will find him dozing right there at the table, half a carrot or potato still waiting on the cutting board.

Anyone worried about his welfare can at least take some comfort in the fact that both the slippers and the hoodie have returned to their rightful place.


((ooc: Replies are likely to be slow as other threads progress. Just consider this Sans putting down a tether to the admittedly busy timeline around here. Either way, just note if you're tagging him before Frisk's return or after.))

Comments

we'll go with before

[systematicsupport]

After what happened, S-4 wasn't about to sleep soundly. Before the funeral, his attempts at resting had often been interrupted with nightmares, flashes of deep red blood, a gleaming knife, Sans' eyesocket glowing with magic.

It's not surprising that after the funeral, he'd suffer another nightmare, but when he wakes up with a gasp, puts a hand up to his ribcage, he can feel that his own soul is stable. Instead, he can feel another soul's distress, and he didn't need to hear the scream to guess it was Sans.

He takes longer getting out of bed, Sans-Serif is still holding tight to his hand, and S-4 doesn't want to leave him behind, no matter how badly his soul is screaming out in sympathy for his brother's. He eventually untangles his fingerbones from the older experiment and pats his head before slipping out of the room, moving over to the door next door.

"Sans?"

His voice is quiet, tired, but still as firm as his hand knocking against the wood of the door.

"Are you alright? I heard a noise."

[sansational]

Sans hasn't even entirely regained lucidity yet when S-4 arrives. He normally has to keep his mind in some semblence of order just to know what timeline he's in, just to even know which Sans he is. The nightmare has left all of that flying apart and away from him.

So he flinches violently at the sound of the knock on the door, staring at it in fear. After a moment, he raises up a half-circle of blue bones around himself. Just in case. They can ooze under the door.

It's instinct, more than anything, that has him calling out: "i'm fine! i'm f-fine!" Even as the chattering of his teeth and the sobs in his voice almost make the words incoherent. But this isn't the first time he's woken up his brother with bad dreams in so many timelines, when at least one of them should by rights be getting some rest. "i-it's okay!"

[systematicsupport]

He can see the glowing in the crack between the door and doorframe, and sense the strong, desperate quality of Sans' magic, which only makes him panic more. He takes a step back, only so he can summon a bone to hold in front of him.

He doesn't want to have to be armed in front of his brother. He doesn't want to believe for a second any version of Sans would hurt him. But... he knows how bad nightmares can get. Sans might not even be lucid enough to see his own brother right now.

"Sans! I can see your magic! You're not fine! I'm... I'm coming in!"

He grabs the doorknob and pushes the door open, immediately moving forward to Sans' side, his earlier nerves forgotten once he sees his brother in the throes of a panic attack.

[sansational]

Sans tries to push himself even further back into the wall as the door opens, his shoulderblades digging painfully into the stone. "no no no s-stay back go away..." They're going to eat him they're going to tear him to pieces they're going to cut him open and let him bleed...

But his soul can still recognize S-4's soul even if the rest of him is a mess. The wall of bone flickers and fades even before Sans has properly realized why. Then he looks up with dark eyesockets and a tearstained face and sees why.

Or thinks he does.

"papyrus...?"

It's far from the first time his brother has come to save him. And, with the room as dark as it is, his sleep-addled mind doesn't immediately seize on the differences.

Also before!

[dr_awesome]

Being a pretty secretive guy himself, Watts tries not to get too involved in other people's business, but this is something it's really hard to avoid. Just as the skeleton could read 'sleep-deprived scientist' all over Watts' face when he first arrived, Watts can tell Sans is getting himself involved into some pretty heavy scientific mumbo-jumbo. The books in the library, the telescope, and the missing flowers in the gardens only confirms it.

He tries not to get close to people as friends. But as a coworker, it's fine. Besides, the coffee he's found has made him jittery. He needs something to work on or he'll explode. And if Sans is doing what he thinks he's doing, he definitely wants to help. Maybe he can make it home before his time runs out.

There will be a rapping on the doorframe of Sans' lab before Watts strolls in, coffee mug in one hand and bottle of ketchup in the other.

"Hey, buddy," he calls out. "Need a taste-tester for my first ketchup batch, and I was thinking you might be interested."

[sansational]

Sans doesn't look up, at first - he's hunched over what looks to be an attempt at a makeshift bunsen burner, watching a rather pungent concoction boil in another glass bottle. But because there's not much even Sans can do to hasten along basic chemistry, he tips his chair back on two legs to regard the doctor instead.

"you are a man after my own nonexistent heart, watts." He smiles in weary welcome. Watts seems to know what he's doing, and so Sans doesn't pitch a fit about finding him here the way he might for others. "hope you didn't go out of your way."

[dr_awesome]

Neil doesn't mind waiting for Sans to finish what he's doing. He knows how annoying it can be to experience interruptions in the middle of work, and as much as he loves pestering Eva and Robert with pointless questions when he's in the office, he knows to lay off when they're actually going to do something besides wading through the mountains of client files they've accumulated over the years. He just waits, and lifts a sleeve up to cover his nose from the disturbing smell.

The comment gets a snort from the scientist, who just slides the ketchup bottle onto the counter and offers a shrug.

"Nah. I mean, I do prefer cooking in groups, and there wasn't the usual supply of half-squished tomatoes I had back home, but I needed something to keep me preoccupied, so I managed."

[sansational]

"boy, does that sound familiar."

He reaches out to grab the bottle, and lifts it to his skull to sniff. It actually smells much closer to ketchup than Sans' first attempt, and his grin becomes a little more genuine to realize as much. He lifts the bottle to Watts in a mock-toast. "cheers." And then he'll actually outright take a few swigs of the substance.

Mmm. Better than coffee. He lets out a pleased sigh upon finally lowering the bottle.

"definitely better than my first attempt. did you find a different kind of pepper? thought there was just the one. though, uh, did you just cook it for the extra hour? might want to let it go for two. you probably had a proper stove to work with, back home. instead of something that needs, y'know. wood and charcoal."

Before for this one oh boy oh boy.

[lightofthestars]

Sans is not well. Even in the midst of her own grief, that is plain.

She did not know that skeletons could grow thin or look so weary, and yet the proof is before her eyes. Sans is wasting to nothing before her, and she will not allow it. One dear friend has died already. She will not let a second go.

Though she walks through the castle unendingly now in search of danger, she has not found where Sans hides. She will change this now. When next she sees him, she does not greet him nor try to sway him to eat or sleep. Instead, she hides, and follows him as silently as only an Elf may.

[sansational]

Sans gives no sign of awareness that Tauriel is following him. Mostly because he genuinely has no idea. He senses no hostile intentions from her, and that's about as far as his awareness of his surroundings extends, at this point. Unless someone is actively trying to get his attention, and sometimes not even then.

Tauriel's main difficulty in following might be simply that doing so seems oppressively slow. He can keep up with her when he wants to. For now, suspecting no one and nothing, Sans' steps are slow and meandering.

His path takes him up one floor and onto the third, through a seemingly random door that opens out onto a spiral tower staircase, and up that into a dimly lit circular room - at this time of day, there's little enough light shining on this part of the castle that even the curtains are unnecessary. He closes the door behind himself, but doesn't bother to lock it.

The room inside is a mess of ordered chaos, who's order is only possibly discernible to Sans. One long trestle table is piled high with jury-rigged lab equipment. A telescope rests near one of the windows. The books that had previously occupied a bookshelf have been piled beside it, and papers crowd it now instead where they aren't scattered all over the floor.

There's writing on the walls, in a series of strange symbols that Tauriel will likely find impossible to read.

[lightofthestars]

Sans moves like one asleep...or one greatly wounded. She tries not to think of this, but it is long before Sans reaches where he means to go. That is a long time not to think of something.

When she at last finds where he goes, she lets him shut the door and waits until she hears him move away. When she does, she waits a moment longer, then creeps forward and slowly, nigh silently, opens the door a sliver to peer inside.

She does not know what to think of this room. She does not understand much of what is within it. Maybe, if she watches Sans for a time, she will learn what it is he does inside.

[sansational]

Sans sets something to boiling over in a homemade bunsen burner - really just some kindling smoking on a flat stone over a carefully suspended flask. He checks something outside the telescope, makes some notes in a nearby notebook.

One item that seems to have been set deliberately apart from the rest of the chaos is what looks like a sculpture of glass, depicting a jagged whirlwind. It's set in a nook by the door. Sans goes to retrieve it, entirely failing to realize that Tauriel is there, and chips off the tiniest possible fragment from it, though he's had to take a few already. This he takes back to his workbench, where he sets to work taking measurements, even if some of those measurements will be taken with his own powers.

After a while, he extinguishes the flame cooking the concoction, sniffs at it, and then makes a face before going to dump it out the window.

And he'll be at various tasks like that for hours, or until Tauriel stops him.

Before for now. (You are going to have so many comments from me by the end of this.)

[lostinmyway]

Grune has laid fresh flowers on both Frisk and the other child's graves. Now it's time to look after the living flowers in her garden.

She almost doesn't notice that there's someone else nearby, digging in the ground. Everything seems...a little hazy now. But then she blinks a few times and recognises what and who she's seeing.

"Hello, Sans."

This is all to the good!

[sansational]

He'd specifically chosen this spot to work in order to wait for her. Grune might lose her train of thought so often that it might as well be invisible. But even Sans has realized that, in some ways, she can be consistent as a mountain.

"hey," he says, looking up at her just long enough to nod, before returning to his digging. "you know flowers." It's not a question.

[lostinmyway]

"Yes, that's right," she says.

She sits down beside him to watch. "I didn't know that you like looking after the flowers, too, Sans."

[sansational]

"'take care of'...?"

Sans lets out a bitter huff of a laugh. Yes, he supposes that does look like what he's doing. Now he almost feels embarrassed, to be caught out at such clinical work by someone like Grune.

"actually, uh...between you, me, and the lamp-post, i'm actually not a huge fan." He has the decency to smile up at her apologetically. "sometimes they remind me of someone i'd, uh, rather not think about."

Though even he and Flowey had found their middle ground, in the end.

And let's have an after to get some fluff up in here.

[lightofthestars]

It has become habit to cook for the other people in the castle. Though Frisk is now alive once more (the Belain be praised), everyone is weary from feeling so much in so little time. Ensuring her friends are well-fed is another way to keep them well, in addition to keeping them safe from those who wish them harm.

She hears the sound of a pot beneath the boil before she reaches the kitchen. It brings a smile to her face. Maybe she will be able to cook with Lucas again. That is always much better than cooking alone.

Yet at first, the kitchen seems empty. It looks as if the one who had begun to cook had abandoned their task. When she looks closer, that is when her smile returns, softly, with fondness rising from her heart. A, Sans.

Upon silent feet, she steps to the cutting board, takes up the knife, and begins chopping the root he has left.

[sansational]

Her feet are silent, but the sounds of carrots being chopped is not. Even then, it takes Sans a couple of minutes before he even stirs, mumbling sleepily. Thoughtlessly, blindly, one hand moves to grope over the immediate vicinity in search of a knife. All he finds is his pile of potato pieces.

Yet the chopping sound continues, and the soup really is starting to smell nice. At last, muffling a skull-creaking yawn, Sans opens one eyesocket and then the other. He lifts his head just a little, and the first sight that greets his eyes is that of Tauriel, tidying up.

For a moment, Sans can only stare at her, bleary and visibly trying to string a sentence together. He looks at her as though he's not entirely sure she's real.

Finally, he manages: "...haven't even told ya what i'm doing."

[lightofthestars]

She smiles. "It does not take a great mind to guess that you are making vegetable soup."

He is making food and he is sleeping, and that, added to Frisk's return to life, has her feeling lighter than she has in days.

Let's mess up the order of things a bit and go for an after first. :Db

[mediadarling]

The first time he, Grune, and Sophie had tried to bake Frisk a welcome-back cake, they'd gotten a little...interrupted. Rather than take the chance of a similar "interruption" (even if it turns out he has much less to worry about when it comes to Grune than he'd once thought), Mettaton had volunteered to check on the kitchen first.

When he arrives and spots its slumbering occupant, he stops in the doorway and puts a hand on his hip. Well, well. It looks as though he's not the only one feeling better.

Unless Sans wakes up and notices him, Mettaton will leave to go pick up Grune and Sophie. There's space to bake their cake at last, as long as they're quiet about it.

[sansational]

Perhaps unfortunately for Mettaton, his is one soul that Sans has been making himself remain hyperaware of. He starts to stir after just a few seconds of the robot being in the kitchen with him, and by the time Mettaton has turned away to go retrieve Grune and Sophie, he's lifted his head and is blinking owlishly at the world around him like he doesn't even remember how it got there.

"whassat? wha's going on?" In looking around, he spots a glint off Mettaton's arms in the relatively dim stairwell light, and Sans actually smiles quite happily. "oh, hey."

[mediadarling]

Hearing Sans' sleepy voice, he turns back--and has to smile, too. "Well, good morning, sunshine. What's cooking today?"

tags just so i remember i was gonna

[dustless]

They'd expected to find Lucas once they'd caught the scent--they'd quite enjoyed his stew, even though it was fairly simple. Thoughts of snatching a few bites again disappear at the sight of Sans--and of the stove left unattended.

Careful, Frisk steals in. They'd normally wake him up, but he needs that sleep, they're sure.

So instead they start poking around the stove. How can they turn it down? They've never even touched such an old-fashioned one before.

[sansational]

Sans very much needs the sleep. Unfortunately, he's deliberately keeping himself too hyperaware for the presence of a certain human to miss the presence of a similar human in the kitchen, even if said human passes him right by for the sake of going to attend to the pot.

It's a struggle for Sans to wake up. Frisk will realize that he's trying when he lifts his head, rests it down on his folded arms, and then manages to lift his head again, half opening his eyesockets. He stares blearily at Frisk for a second before he realizes what they're doing. Then, shaking his head dazedly, Sans gets up from his seat to amble over.

"no...no, don't do that." He waves a hand to shoo them away. "not done yet."

[dustless]

"...don't want to set the kitchen and stuff on fire, do you?" Frisk gives the place he was sleeping at a meaningful look before stepping aside.

He'll feel their eyes on him and his hands, watching carefully to make sure he doesn't accidentally dip his fingers into the pot, or something.