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

[dustless]

Frisk's breath catches in their throat. They shove their face into his shoulder.

Sans is so much more of a mess than they realize. Every time something happens, there's more and more uncovered that hurts.

Their voice is the slightest bit shaky, but they're certain of their words. "Yeah. Gonna be always."

[sansational]

Oh god did he just make Frisk even more sad why is Frisk even more sad he didn't mean to make Frisk even more sad.

A touch fretfully, Sans ruffles a hand through their hair. He is a mess, and he knows it. As long as he has to live with the knowledge that Chara is here, he's probably not going to stop being a mess. Things fall apart whenever Chara is here, and he'd just started getting comfortable with life again. He's already had to helplessly watch all his friends die too many times, and he's tired of it down to the marrow.

...but maybe he doesn't have to worry about any of that right this second. He just has to make amends to people.

"yeah," Sans echoes, and tries to hold onto the hope that it's true. "gonna be always."

But...he'll try to be better. For the brothers he's found here. For the new friends he's made. And for Frisk.

"i'm...i'm really glad i got to meet you, y'know?" And then he winces because past tense. They've both had enough of past tense. "i mean...i know you've got places to be, but if we both have to be stuck in a weird castle in the sky, i'm glad we get to be stuck together, y'know?" That probably isn't any better.

And then he just...sort of dissolves into a fit of helpless laughter for a moment. "god. words are hard. do you, uh...do you want me to just let you know when the soup's done? probably gonna be another couple of hours. i'm, uh, probably just gonna nap through it." He probably still needs a little more sleep.

[dustless]

Implying they thought Sans wasn't their friend just because he did one (very) stupid thing? That does not sound good in any way.

Frisk sniffs a little. His next few sentences are still a little badly-worded, but not nearly as bad as that last one. "Yeah. I'm still glad we met too, still glad you're here...really, really glad you're here instead of..." dead back where he's from.

They look at the pot and remember exactly why they'd wandered into the kitchen in the first place. Feels like hours ago by now. "...You're. Um. You're sure nothing'll get set on fire 'f you do? I can still watch it. Don't mind."

[sansational]

Sans lets out a soft huff of a laugh, and his smile is a little more genuinely amused. He nods back towards the pot. "papyrus and undyne sometimes had cooking lessons over at our house, y'know. trust me - i can smell an oncoming fire at fifty paces. or in the middle of a really good nap." Not to mention that the castle's stove looks a lot sturdier than the one they'd had at home. So he should get a few more seconds of warning before things go potentially disastrous, especially when he's as close by as he is. "really, just...having undyne around at all makes you really good at waking up in a hurry."

[dustless]

Another sniff, definitely closer to amusement on their end, too. "Really? Makes sense. 'Cause you had a house and stuff still."

Frisk steps back and gives him an embarrassed grin. "...hers--hers burned down when I was there," they admit in an even quieter voice than usual.

[sansational]

Sans steps back, and widens an eyesocket to hear this news. "oh my god." He claps his hands together. "did she actually rope you into a cooking lesson with her, too?" That is wonderful. That is an absolutely beautiful though, and Sans grins broadly to have it. "wow, frisk, i don't care what else happened to you back home - that is probably the most dangerous thing you could ever have done."

He carries on eagerly. "lemme guess - did she try and teach you how to make water boil by glaring at it hard enough? or maybe punching sauce into existence?" He mimes the most enthusiastic punch Sans is capable of, which isn't terribly enthusiastic.

[dustless]

And now they're genuinely giggling. "Not--not--not that first one. The house probably would've been okay if she did. We did try punching the sauce. She didn't like how my punch was wimpy and just did it herself." Frisk mimes a massive splash with their hands. "Tomato went everywhere. Like on the wall, 'nd my face."

[sansational]

"pffft." And now Sans is laughing hard enough to wrap his arms around his middle. "ah, she'd probably just say that'll teach you to put your heart into it, next time." Undyne was never one to half-effort anything. Not fighting, and not making spaghetti. For her, the two could sometimes be indistinguishable. "'specially since you've actually got one. no excuse for going easy on the tomatoes." He thinks back to the almighty messes he'd walked in on sometimes, and keeps on laughing.

"...i used to try and hide out at grillby's, while they were going at it. then she'd show up, and, uh...'politely suggest' that i come back to see the results of their hard work." Even though Sans and hard work generally didn't get along. "so i started hiding out at the old mtt resort, instead."

[dustless]

"I'm so sorry," they say in the least sorry voice anyone could ever possibly speak with. "That's pretty far you'd gotta go to escape from it. Did you know--did you--her stove doesn't go left? The--the settings, it only goes hotter." Their sudden shift in subject goes along with their voice pitching up in disbelief and rising amusement. "Tried to turn it down, but no, she just yelled at me to turn it up, and then everything was on fire. Grillby coulda visited the whole time after and we never would've known. Never got to try our spaghetti."

[sansational]

Judging by the way Sans' jaw drops, this is entirely new information to him. He's rendered speechless for a moment, and then he dissolves into a fit of fresh laughter. "oh man. i just realized - was that her excuse for always calling alphys over to fix up her kitchen? that her stove just didn't go down? because i'm pretty sure it used to go down! papyrus used to have cooking lessons over there, and the place didn't burn down. but after she got alphys to install the hot fridge, maybe she needed another reason."

[dustless]

They're absolutely losing it, now.

"She's--she's--she's not good at flirting at all, is she? Or s-sending, you know, date signals." 'Date signals' is accompanied by a wiggling hand motion.

[sansational]

Sans is right there with them - he actually has to lean on the counter to keep himself upright. "have you met undyne? sure you have. she's so bad at 'date signals'..." He mirrors their hand wiggle. "...that she wraps right back around to being awesome at them! and, and i don't think she meant to, but she kinda taught papyrus everything he..." He almost falters, teetering on that edge between whether to say "knows" or "knew". But the laughter feels good, and Sans still feels light with it. Light enough to dodge as surely as he always does, and change the subject just a bit. Just enough to keep things safely in the past, where he can relay to Frisk a story involving Undyne, Papyrus, Onion-san, and a pogo stick. Or at least, do his best to relay it when he's not dissolving into a fit of laughter at the memory.