Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

For all the twelve years he has lived, Sans has only known the Arctic as his home.

It’s not a cozy place to live. The wind is biting – though Sans can’t feel the cold, the howling wind is still inconvenient at least and merciless at most. The wind can take, and it can destroy, in its unpredictability. Additionally, snowy, white, empty landscapes for hundreds and hundreds of miles isn’t actually as novel a sight as it sounds; the sheer brightness is blinding (although his eyes are always quick to adjust), and when it’s not, the blank fields are nothing short of daunting. Isolating.

Sans has never known community, has never been to a town, has never known personally more people than he can count on his two hands. When he sometimes reads the books that Gaster has saved, there are stories of countries and villages and friends. It doesn’t warm his soul like the synopsis on the back of the book says it should.

It doesn’t matter. Sans has Papyrus. He has Gaster too, but they don’t click the same as he and his bro do. Sans has read the books, felt the feelings. He may have never gone to a school or hung out with a group of pals, but he knows what a family is. He’s got his own little world, all together, packed away on a snowy island.

Except… there’s more world out there. Obviously, Sans isn’t an idiot – he was made by Gaster, it just isn’t a possibility to be stupid – but he’s not just talking about the land beyond the Arctic; the people, the mythical humans. No. There’s another world below. A world Gaster calls their home; a place that Sans, or Papyrus, have never been. A world full of monsters like them.

It’s weird to think that his allegiance belongs to a place where he’s never been. Shouldn’t your region of origin be a place you know like the back of your hand, a place from which you can recall fond memories of? He doesn’t feel any nostalgia or homeliness at all for this so-called Ebott. He was born and raised in the Arctic. All he truly feels is bitter.

Bitter because he’s never experienced it. Bitter because Gaster never even gave them a chance in the first place. Bitter because Gaster has felt it, lived in it, and decided to leave anyway. Why would someone leave that? Why, when they had a warm bed to return to, loving arms to rest in? What was so good out here that Gaster had to leave?

Sans knows there’s an answer to these questions; an answer that he’s heard over and over again. “To liberate monsterkind, Sans.”

Sans understands that, logically, Gaster’s little expedition makes sense. Years (hundreds– thousands– long before Sans came into this world) of oppression have passed by, and while monsterkind naturally leans towards peace, their yearning for freedom and a home they had long ago far overpowers this natural stance. They don’t just sit there and take it. Sans knows, because he’s felt it deep in his bones. An unnatural urge to power through and win whatever it was that he wanted.

Still, something in his skull argues with these facts. Yes, monsterkind needs freedom, and yes, Gaster going away makes sense as he was (assumably) a notorious experimental hands-on scientist – but what about everything else? His emotions, his feelings – or the emotions of the people, their feelings? Do they feel that his presence is gone? Does he feel their absence? Why would someone ever leave that behind, even if temporarily?

There were other ways to liberate monsterkind, Sans knows. This option was by far the riskiest. Hell, Sans barely even knows how Gaster got onto the surface – at a place so far away, too. From what he’s heard and understood, him appearing on the surface in one complete piece was barely even a fraction of a one percent chance. There were an infinite amount of chances where Gaster never got out of that void, never left that machine, and never came out completely alive again.

(Sometimes, he thinks about what life would be like if that were the outcome with much shame and curiosity.)

Though, if there were one thing that Sans likes about the Arctic (other than it being his home, of course), it would be the sky.

Sans remembers Gaster telling him about his first night on the surface. He hadn’t slept a wink, apparently. He had spent all ten hours of sundown staring up at the night with wide eyes.

“The stars were like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” Gaster had told him. “The stonewalls of Waterfall could not even achieve the greatness of this sky. Why, they’re practically incomparable!”

Sans never had the plight to not have a sky to stare up at, and for that, he is eternally grateful. The stars, the constellations, all suns, moons, and planets have always fascinated him. They were the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He remembers when he was a smaller pup, staying up late just to trace the constellations from his window with his finger. It never grew old.

He’s memorized all he can see from the base by now. Ursa Minor, Draco, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Cancer, Hydra, Hercules, Lyra – Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the moon. Sometimes, when he slips out of bed and walks circles outside the base (never any further), he can spot Andromeda in the clearest of skies. It’s happened thrice.

Sometimes, Sans dreams of these astronomical items calling to him. The dreams are admittedly pretty weird. For one, he can’t fly (he’s pretty sure he can’t, although he hasn’t checked in a while), and secondly, stars can’t talk (of which he’s also pretty sure of). But in these dreams, they sing siren songs, and they twinkle enticingly bright. It always ends when he reaches his hand out to the sun after bouncing off of Mercury, and the sun reaches back. It’s a good dream, he thinks.

Most dreams are good dreams, Sans also thinks.

Sans is thirteen and a half when the void opens up and swallows someone. He doesn’t really know who, but something nagged at him to try and remember. He felt like a puzzle piece of him got tugged off, but a little notch stayed stuck in his side.

However, in exchange for that, he got a new buddy. She’s yellow, twitchy, kinda awkward, and her name is Alphys. Just as that guy disappeared and went, she arrived from the very same void. It was weird. Very weird. They shook hands like business partners after she had passed out several times.

Surprisingly, they already knew each other. Sans’ spotted her name in some notes (that he had not taken himself) as well as in some decoded numbers sent with pairs of coordinates over the last few years. In fact, he’s been aware of her existence for a while. Alphys shared with him the same sentiment.

He had always thought of this mysterious Alphys person as someone more serious, older. He wouldn’t call what he felt when he saw someone barely older than him surprise, but it was definitely something like it. When she shook his hand, her hand trembled, and when he made a fart noise between his teeth, she trembled harder. She was not remotely close to what he was expecting at all.

When Sans stood off to the side, boredly watching Papyrus and Alphys meet, he felt something mentally clasp onto him and try to give him a good rocking-shake. It was like looking for more candy in an empty jar. He was forgetting something, but what? Who? Who? It was important. It felt pretty important.

Something fell in the void. The survival of that was barely even a fraction of a one percent chance. Whoever fell into there probably got turned into shreds. Someone fell into the void? If the survival rate was so low, then how had Alphys made it out safely? What were the chances that transport through this machine was safe twice in a row – and how does Sans know it happened twice? Who fell into the void?

“SANS!!! SANS!!!”

Sans sees his brother’s face in front of his, half a foot shorter. Dang, he’s getting tall. Sans wishes he grew as fast – he still has eleven years to grow, but he grows so slow someone had sworn to him upside down that turtles could walk faster than the rate that he elongates. Papyrus bounces on his heels in front of him.

“yeah, bro?”

“THE MACHINE, SANS!!! IT’S—”

“It–it’s blinking…!!! I, uh, I think that means it’s—”

Something buzzes, hums, fizzes, and then pops. All the lights go out, leaving the three of them in darkness. Feintly, Sans smells smoke and aster.

“... huh.”

Unsurprisingly, Sans and Papyrus can see adequately in the dark. They squint at each other, one more panicked than the other. Papyrus looks away when he hears a squeak.

When Sans’ head swivels around, spotting Alphys, he remembers that not everybody is well adapted to the dark nor does everyone have night vision. Her head swishes back and forth, trying to see something with a grimace on her face. Her hands are held up, fingers twitching around nothing but air, and she looks a little distressed.

Papyrus moves towards her before he does. Seeing this, Sans stays still in place, hands now shoved in his pockets.

“Alphys, Are You Okay?” Papyrus’ attempt of a whisper becomes background noise, voices fading away as Sans approaches what he can see of the machine.

“Yeah–yes, I’m fine. Are–uhm, are you okay?”

Something crunches underneath his foot. Lifting his boot up, Sans spots what he thinks is glass. Not a good sign. He continues to walk forward.

Papyrus’ head flicks towards his direction far faster than Alphys does. His eyelights in the dark are sharp, clear, and twitchy–watching, taking in anything he can see. It gives Alphys’ a little bit of light to really see anything.

When Sans glances behind his shoulder, his eyelights equally as bright but less clear, his face is illuminated by the lights both of the brothers naturally have coming out of their eye holes. This time, Alphys really gets a good look at him. In the dark, he’s one of the only three things she can see in here.

She’d thought he’d been a little yellowish earlier, but maybe it’d just been the lighting. Now, Sans looks pure white. She’s vaguely reminded of the fresh snow she’d seen in Snowdin when she visited. She wasn’t a big fan of cold weather, nor did it fit her biologically.

There’s a few small nicks in his skull, nothing too deep. They all look like mild scratches at most, something easily healable that should’ve gone away a long time ago. She can’t imagine why they seemed to be permanent. Was there something wrong with his magic? Does he need candy?

Her eyes forcibly glance down. His teeth are so sharp, that they sort of just take her attention automatically. Alphys thinks of the books she’s read of sharks and wolves and dangerous animals, all above ground. His canines seem a bit more sharper, more larger than the rest, just barely. Still, the corners of his smile are soft and rounded, and when he tilts his head a little, she can't decide if he looks goofy or intimidating.

“just some glass.” Sans says calmly. Papyrus nods while Alphys continues to squint at him, even after he turns away.

She doesn’t think she’s ever met a monster like Sans. Or Papyrus, for that matter. She glances at the younger of the two brothers.

He’s a lot lankier. Got a lot less notches on him too – so are the scratches just a Sans thing? Is their magic so different from one another, really? Was Papyrus’ heal factor stronger, his magic more sufficient, or was Sans’ magic just lacking? Thoughts go through Alphys’ mind, faster and faster and faster, thinking and thinking.

Maybe Papyrus just didn’t get scratched much. Seeing his lankiness, it’s easy to imagine that he’s more swift than his brother, more physically evasive. Still, it doesn’t explain why such small scratches are stuck permanently on Sans. Such things are so easy to get rid of.

There’s another crunch, and then another, and another. Alphys hears the scuffle of boots before Sans huffs.

“machine’s busted.”

What? Alphys feels like she had just jumped into the void again. Dread claws at her, cold and wrong. They needed that machine.

She takes a step forward. She forgets, momentarily, that she cannot see and that there are shards of glass on the floor, because it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because she needs that machine, the CORE, the void. Monsterkind needs it. Years of waiting have passed, and now, there has to be more?

Something crunches under her foot, but she doesn’t cringe or falter. She doesn’t stop until she’s at Sans’ side. His eyelights highlight the machine, smoking.

“it’s okay.” Sans says simply. His casualty is great and all, but to Alphys, it feels a little insulting.

“we’ll fix it.” He lifts a hand with sharp claws and pats her shoulder gently. He says it as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Alphys wishes it was.

Chapter Text

On his fourteenth birthday, Sans spends the day hunched over scattered papers on the floor with Alphys. Then, he spends the night huddled up between Papyrus and Alphys, eating sweets and looking up at the moon. It’s not an amazing birthday, but it didn’t suck.

He spends the whole day and night with a pit in his stomach. It’s… wrong. He should be happy. Still, he can’t help but feel that something is off. Even Papyrus and Alphys’ attempt of cooking him up something couldn’t shake the feeling away. 

The pit in his stomach isn’t just a cold discomfort. It’s an empty void, a puzzle piece tugged out of him. He’s missing something, something so important and overbearing that it’s unshakeable. He’s mourning but he doesn’t know what for. A presence that was never there? Something that never existed?

Throughout the day, he’s been having phantoms following him. Whilst he scanned over papers, crossing out and writing new numbers and words, he could almost feel somebody watching over his shoulder. The presence was a great deal comforting (for whatever reason), but when he’d look behind himself, nothing was there. Even while he ate dinner with Alphys and his bro, he couldn’t help but imagine somebody else there with them, tutting at him when he held his fork wrong. He could almost hear old music playing through the halls of the laboratory he called home. Then, he’d blink, and it would all leave him. 

(“Eat your dinner, Sans,” a voice would tell him. He couldn’t grasp how it would sound. “You can’t stay here till midnight, can you?”)

Sans doesn’t understand. He doesn’t think he’s going crazy, but what else could it be? He’s imagining things, hearing things, feeling things that aren’t real. He can’t take his mind off of it.

By the time Papyrus is snoring and Alphys is on her fifth cup of some sort of tea, hiding somewhere, Sans finds himself standing before the machine. He doesn’t recall his feet taking him there, but when he looks behind himself, the door is ajar. 

There’s no more glass on the floor, obviously. Papyrus and Alphys had cleaned it up the day after she arrived. He rubs his boot against the tile. It’s dark, but he can still spot some scratches on the ground. It’s probably from when the machine started going all crazy. 

Now, the machine sits, calm and unbreathing. The broken glass of the lights are all repaired, and nothing is visibly broken anymore, but Sans knows that ‘fixed and good’ is far from the truth. If he were to unscrew the panel on the side, he’d see hundreds of torn and burnt wires and circuits. The damn thing doesn’t even turn on anymore – although he and Alphys are making some quick progress on that, he’ll admit – and even if it did, he’d then have to figure out thousands of lines of code. 

Sans reaches out a hand to give the thing a good knock. He bangs a fist on the top of the machine, knocks echoing across the walls of the room. Nothing happens, just as expected. He huffs. He doesn’t know why he came here in the first place. 

He turns around, his head down in disappointment, and takes a step towards the door. Then another. And another. Then, he trips on air, and his hands reach out forwards, searching for something to grab on. 

Sans grabs onto his coat, tugging him down slightly as his feet drag the ground. Strong arms heft him back up, grabbing him from his elbows. He huffs above Sans, the sound half a chuckle and half a sigh. He taps his foot on the ground.

“Be careful now, Sans.” he had said to him. “Especially around the machine.”

Sans had nodded, glancing at the ground to see what it was he tripped on. He was smaller, back then. His height wasn’t even up to his waist. A hand meets his shoulder, giving it a strong pat. It felt nice. 

“yeah.”

“Good. Now go rest with Papyrus. I’ll handle the work.”

Sans blinks and he’s laid face down on the ground. The middle of his temple hurts. He sits up with a groan, lifting himself up with his hands, and rubs his forehead.

He sits there for a long time. The only source of light in the room, aside from his dim eyelights, is the light escaping from the hallway through the adjacent door. He doesn’t know for how long he sits there. When he eventually gets back up, his bones feel creaky and stiff.

He walks towards the door, shuts it, and turns on the light. Then, opening the drawer of a nearby desk, he pulls out a stack of papers and gently places them on the top of the desk. He pulls out the old chair, an even older pen, and gets to writing.

He doesn’t sleep that night, nor for the next two.

A few weeks before Sans’ fifteenth birthday, he gets the machine to turn on. The wires and circuits are all fixed up, connected and unburnt and untorn. It didn’t work completely (or at all, really), but it still turned on.

Alphys congratulated him when the lights lit up, blinked for a few seconds, and then promptly shut off. Her glasses almost fell off of her nose as she hopped around the laboratory in her excitement. Then, almost timidly, she turned around and shook his hand. Also very excitedly.

He didn’t know someone so unassuming could grip a hand so hard (though he knows better than to call her ‘unassuming’). He thinks he almost broke a bone. 

He didn’t feel nearly as excited as her, but when she smiled at him, all buck-teeth and squinted, teary eyes, he felt his smile reflect hers. There was still more work to be done, but this was progress. A checkpoint. 

As soon as their whole mini friendship celebration cooled down, Sans excused himself and left the room immediately. He walked quickly with purpose, strong strides and unhidden footsteps. He found Papyrus in the kitchen area, trying to cook up some sort of potion-esque stew(?). It smelt… undescribable. 

“bro,” Sans called out. Papyrus whipped around before he could even finish the word, a big bowl cradled in his arms and a homemade whisk held in his gloved hand. 

“YES, SANS?”

Sans stopped walking, now standing before his brother. Papyrus was now almost the same height as him, only missing him by a few inches. Maybe if Papyrus wore bigger boots, he’d be taller than him.

“watcha cooking, big guy?” Sans asked, glancing down.

“I’M IN THE PROCESS OF MAKING PANCAKES, BROTHER.”

“man. i can’t believe it’s pancake day.”

“NO, IT’S NOT, SANS. I JUST WANTED TO MAKE PANCAKES.”

“you serious, bro? you batter believe me. everyday can be pancake day.”

“NYEH! THAT WAS HORRIBLE!!!” Papyrus stomps a foot on the ground, embarrassed. His pancake mixture sloshes around but carefully does not spill.

“you’re smiling.” Sans chuckles.

“I KNOW, AND I HATE IT!! THAT PUN HAD NO FLOW, NO EFFORT!! IT WAS LAZY!!”

Papyrus adjusts his footing before turning around and placing the seriously large bowl on the counter (which was more like a table) behind himself. Turning back around, he points at Sans with the whisk. 

“WHY DIDN’T THE PANCAKE GO HUNTING?” Papyrus asks, suddenly much more happy. Sans raises a brow and crosses his arms.

“why?”

“HE THOUGHT IT WAS TOO WHISK-Y!” He emphasizes this by waving around his whisk and shaking it aggressively in Sans face. He smiles a big, great smug smile before laughing triumphantly. Sans shakes his head while chuckling.

“that was too great, papyrus.”

“NYEH HEH! JUST AS I THOUGHT!”

“ah, i also came here to tell you that the machine’s good now. i mostly just came here to check out the pancakes, though.”

“NYEH? THE MACHINE.. WORKS NOW?” Papyrus’ hand, holding up the whisk, immediately falls by his side. His stance changes, as if startled. Then, the corners of his smile lift a little.

“... THAT’S AMAZING (EVEN THOUGH I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS)!!!” He lifts up his arms, grabbing Sans’ by his shoulders and shaking him. Sans’ smile turns into a grin, his hands shoved into his pockets. He doesn’t move to stop him.

“thanks, bro.” He’s then pulled into a hug.

It’s a pretty good day. A great day, even. Sans still feels pretty light by the time the sun is down and dinner is ready. He sits down at the table and sees some odd looking pancakes. Well, okay. He’s not sure if they’re supposed to be that color.

Alphys seems.. kinda off, actually, but a smile is still on her face and she’s pretty happy. Her hands shake when she picks up her fork, but she just comes off as so happy that her energy is bouncing off the walls. She even talks more during dinner. He finds that once her shell’s been broken, she's actually pretty talkative. Still, Sans makes sure to keep a more watchful eye. 

Not even Papyrus’ pancakes throw her off. She takes it like a real soldier, eating bite after hesitant bite with a pinch of butter (made up of seal lard). Meanwhile, Sans drowns his pancakes in seal oil and smears crushed up algae on it like jam. Papyrus scolds him, but it’s lighthearted. Papyrus eats his pancake's bland.

“I–I’m so full, haha. Thank you fuh–for the meal, Papyrus.” Alphys smiles at him, her buck teeth sticking out like a bunny. Papyrus smiles back, half a pancake still on his plate. He chews thoughtfully, savoring the flavor, before responding. 

“YOU’RE WELCOME, ALPHYS! THANK YOU FOR ENJOYING IT.” He responds happily. Alphys looks at him for a moment before pushing her chair back and standing up.

“... I’ll go and work on that machine. It–there’s still more work to be done.” Her smile calms down, settling into a polite one. She pushes her chair in, awkwardly glances away, and then walks off. 

“you’re not going to bed soon?” Sans asks before she’s too far away. She pauses, clearly hesitates on taking another step, before she turns around fully. 

“No, I’m–I just feel so focused, you know? Can’t, er, let that energy go to waste.” She fiddles with her fingers; her gaze flickers from the ground, to Sans, to Papyrus, and then towards the direction of the room in which the machine is held. Sans isn’t stupid, he can tell she wants to go.

“ok. maybe i’ll join you later.”

“Yeah, oh–okay.” 

Pivoting around on her heel like a robot, she storms off to the machine. Sans takes note of this and stuffs it into the back of his head for further examination at a different time. That machine really seems to be affecting her. Sans isn’t any different.

He looks back down at his plate, seeing the last half of his pancake. He picks up the whole thing with his fork, unhinges his jaw, and shoves it into his mouth. He gives it a few chews before swallowing. Looking back up, he sees his brother look at him with amazement and disgust.

“you wanna come watch us later, papyrus?”

“NO. I MUST GO TO BED BEFORE EIGHT, AND IT’S CURRENTLY SIX THIRTY!! I MUST ACT WITH POSTHASTE.” 

“ah, you’re right. gotta get your sleep so your bones can stay big and strong.”

Sans hums, thinking. His fingers tap against the table in a random rhythm – 1, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 – before he continues talking. Papyrus cuts up his last half into more halves and pokes a piece fancily with his fork. 

“i’ll tell you a bedtime story before i head off to the machinery stuff.”

Papyrus hums, nods, and slowly chews up his half of half a pancake. Sans would call it fourths, but what he cut up was technically both a half and a whole, so both would be correct. Probably.

Grabbing up the jar of mushed up algae by him on the table, he screws it open and dumps a good handful onto his plate. He’s not actually hungry anymore, but Papyrus isn’t done eating, and Sans really loves algae. And seal oil.

To really top it off, he does also grab the seal oil after putting down the jar of algae. He gives a very liberal dash of oil on his clump of algae before setting down the bottle and digging in. Papyrus gives Sans a look of genuine concern and disgust. 

“keep up this cooking, papyrus,” Sans says between bites, “and i think it’ll be perfect in no time.” 

“REALLY?” Papyrus perks up, speaking after swallowing his bite of pancake. His fork clangs against his plate when he sets his hand down to really look at his brother. Sans can practically see him glow.

“no bones about it. practice makes perfect.” 

“NYEH! ANOTHER SKILL TO ADD ON TO THE LIST!”

Sans feels his smile lift.

The frenzied scratching of pen against paper is all that can be heard at twelve in the morning in the laboratory. Alphys’ hand moves with desperation. Her back aches from how long she’s spent hunched over this desk, and she bets that if she stood up, her posture would be like a big question mark. Still, the work doesn’t do itself, and she knows what must be done.

Work. So much work, necessary to achieve a lifelong goal. She’s so close, Alphys can feel it – practically taste it. Sometimes, she thinks she’s gone crazy. The machine is all she can think about at times. 

Almost all her life, she’s been chasing this machine, this ideology that with this one item, monsterkind can be free. Almost all her life she’s spent underground, surrounded by metal and lava and thinking ‘there has to be more than this’. Almost all her life she has spent it paper after paper, researching for something that seemed impossible.

Now, this freedom is dangling in front of her face. Sometimes, it feels like torture. The domesticity with the brothers is a nice distraction, but at the end of the day she finds herself facing the machine again. Its presence never leaves her, even when she’s away. It haunts her.

Now that she knows that the liberation of her people really is possible and closer than she thinks, she is more driven than ever. With each scratch of pen, with each new right and wrong input, she takes one miniscule baby step forward. One step out of a hundred is still more than zero.

Sans is a big help with all this progress. Two sets of hands is far better than just one; still, something itches at her, scratches, telling her that three would be far more. It makes no sense. Papyrus knows little about science other than stars and planets. 

She’s missing something. The machine should’ve been done far faster, should’ve activated properly, should’ve been at least moderately functioning by now. Practically two years have passed, and she’s baffled at how much she still doesn’t understand or grasp. 

She doesn’t let these thoughts distract her, even when they cloud her head. Instead, she downs another glass of tea, refills it to another, downs that one too, and gets back to work. She can’t afford to let distractions keep her away from what really matters. 

The machine hums before her. It’s not lifeless, exactly, but dormant. Its pulse still courses, it breathes and occasionally flickers, but it does not function. As if it were in a coma. 

When Sans’ pokes his head in, Alphys startles. Had she really let her mind escape herself like that? She hasn’t reviewed or deciphered anything in the past minute. Her hand is still.

He settles down on the ground, having his own papers askew there. Alphys flicks the pen in her hand before getting back to work. These numbers and weird symbols won’t figure themselves out.

Chapter Text

By the time Sans’ is a few months away from turning fifteen, about three quarters through being fourteen, the lab starts to rumble underneath his feet. It isn’t a subtle, small, rumbling either. Initially, he’d thought of it as an earthquake. 

He was very quickly proven wrong when he stepped outside, walked for a few miles, and found no shaking there. The snow he stood on sat as still as land composed of ice floating along water could be. He looked behind him and saw the walls of his home shaking instead, as if there were a hundred buzzing bugs inside. 

He teleported back as soon as the movement registered in his mind. Something was happening; immediately, his mind went to the machine. It’s been functional for a few weeks now, but not once has it properly run. Still, he’s no idiot, as he secretly liked to pride himself on. 

He’s seen how Alphys has been faring ever since she shook his hand back down in that laboratory. There’s been this certain look in her eye, a shake more prominent in her stature. He’s seen her spend more hours in that laboratory than he has, going weeks without sleep. Cups began to build up, bags under both of their eyes growing. It felt like hers were growing at double the rate of his. 

His suspicion is proven correct when he teleports from the living area to the laboratory and sees her standing in front of the machine. The mechanism’s lights are flashing and it emanates a loud whirring noise, a noise so loud the walls shake. Even so, he has a feeling that even without the noise (There’s so much noise; there’s a beeping sound coming from a screen, but Sans doesn’t know which one), the machine would still be trembling just as hard. Dust comes down from the ceiling and the lights from it flicker until it shuts off completely.

Alphys glances over her shoulder, eyes watery and her eyebrows furrowed. The lights flashing from the machine mold her face, making her look a century older than she really was. 

“what’re you doing?” Sans is surprised by his own voice when he speaks first. Still, his feet are glued to the ground; watching, waiting. 

“Ss–Sans, I–” she sniffles. Her eyes flick to one of the monitors. A warning message flashes red before disappearing, red dots scattered across the chart flickering. She looks away from it.

“It’s working, Sans.”

He glances at the machine behind her. It’s starting to glow from the crevices. 

“it’s not ready.” His hand flexes beside him, and he clenches it to hide the shake. “why did you do this?”

“Sans, you don’t understand–” Alphys pauses. Her eyes look behind him. Instinctively, Sans looks back, too.

There, Papyrus stands in the doorway, expression pinched tight in fear and worry. He quickly makes his way to the pair, stumbling a little and correcting his feet when the shaking of the ground deters him. He stands adjacent to Sans and watches the machine before looking to Alphys. 

“Papyrus, go ba–” “alphys, turn off the machi–” 

They both pause when they interrupt each other. Sans has half a mind to rub his face in his hands and sigh, and another half to just walk over and destroy the machine. He doesn’t know what could happen if it stays on and that’s dangerous. 

“WHAT’S HAPPENING…?” Papyrus asks, his voice small. Sans still hears him over the loud sounds of the machine. 

Protectively, Sans puts out his arm in front of Papyrus, guarding him off from any potential danger. Papyrus inches back a little when his arm accidentally bumps against his chin. 

“go back out, i’ll tell you later.” 

The crevices in the machine grow larger, expanding, and the glowing it emanates become reminiscent of sunrays. If the situation were different, Sans might’ve admired the sight. 

Papyrus’ brow arches furrow, a frown beginning to curl on his jaw. “NO, TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON–”

“We’re saving them, Papyrus. Monsterkind– they’ll– they’ll be free!” Alphys finally turns around, her lab coat billowing around her. Her hands clutch her front tightly, as if hugging herself. She, too, shakes. The light behind her causes her silhouette to put the brothers in her shadow, entrapping them. 

The machine begins to make creaking noises; then, tearing. The crevices become cracks, and metal bends, as if about to burst. Sans takes a step back and hesitates before grabbing Alphys’ wrist, tugging her forward.

“we need to go. now.” 

As Sans begins to step back, Alphys, at first, is pliant. But when she sees the bone he summons over his shoulder, aimed at the machine, she pulls back, stepping towards the machine. He lets go of her wrist.

“Whu-What are you doing?!” Alphys asks him, her voice raised. It’s the first time he’s heard her so upset. 

“what’re you doing?” He asks back. Papyrus tries to sidestep him to grab Alphys back, but Alphys surprisingly dodges. “the machine is dangerous. you’re putting us in danger.”

“I’m–I’m giving them a chance, Sans. This.. This is how we will save our people!” Her eyes flicker between his face and the bone floating above him. “If you destroy the machine… You’re.. You–You’re selfishly trapping monsterkind yourself! Do you know how–how long we’ve waited for this?! This has to work–it–it can’t not work! We’ve spent so much time on this–I’ve slaved–I’ve sacrificed so much for this! For us! Our people!”

His own eyes flicker from Alphys to the machine. It looks about ready to explode, cracks growing until the majority of the room is covered in light. The walls shake more intensely, more dust falling from the ceiling from what Sans realizes are more cracks. He makes up his mind and the bone trembles before disappearing.

“fine. but we’re leaving.” He says with finality before grabbing her wrist. He glances behind himself and envelopes Papyrus in a protective hold with his free arm before teleporting the three of them outside of the base, in the snowy land about a good fifty feet away. 

His eyes remained focused on the building. As soon as his hands leave both Papyrus and Alphys, he teleports back there. Warily, he approaches the machine. His hands shake as he begins tweaking with the buttons and screens. Nothing changes.

He opens the side panel and stares at the wires. He has to squint as smoke and bright lights start to fill his vision. He feels the wires with his hand, but doesn’t think he actually does much there. Nothing changes. 

He frantically walks over to the dozens of monitors and papers and equipment. Most of it has fallen to the floor, strewn about. He almost trips over it in his haste. 

Each monitor has turned off. He turns to the papers and gathers them up in his hands before looking through each one. It’s hard to read the substance of each page because of how much he’s trembling. The words and numbers start to blur together. He doesn’t know how to fix this.

A loud screeching sound begins to emanate from the machine. Sans doesn’t think he needs to breathe, and yet his breaths pick up anyway. His shoulders feel so tight. He should just get out of here and let the machine destroy itself.

Movement in the corner of his eye catches his attention. It’s Papyrus in the doorway, tracks of snow left behind him and some stuck on his boots. Immediately, Papyrus runs to his brother while Sans walks towards him like a fawn. Papyrus’ hands find his shoulders, holding him in a tight grip.

“WHY DID YOU COME BACK HERE, SANS?! COME, QUICK!” Papyrus shouts over the noise. 

Sans very quickly finds himself being pushed towards the door.

Something behind them pops and tears, and suddenly, he’s blinded. Light swallows everything. It’s so unnatural that he can’t help but freeze. Sans thought he had seen whiteness, abyss, when the sun was out in a clear sky; yes, the snow would blind him, but he’d always adjust. This brightness.. It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen before. In that moment, Sans learns that one thing is not always comparable to another. 

Everything shakes, and he feels Papyrus’s arms wrap tightly around him. He rushes to return the motion, twice as tough. It’s very clunky and his jaw hits his brother's nosebridge. All he can think about is covering his brother, shielding his head, making sure nothing happens to his own family. 

He can feel Papyrus’s leg try to scramble, knocking against his own fruitlessly. Instinctively, Sans tries to teleport them away; instead, all he is met with floating. Then, falling. 

Chapter Text

I'm... here to inform... you... few people reading this...

I've uploaded the official fanfic for this! Yahoo. I've put this in a series with the work, called 'quiet, the winter harbor'. Yes, another song, haha... I love music. This entire prologue work is basically the first chapter, but I've edited it so that there's a little more character depth for Alphys and Papyrus. If you've read this, reading the first chapter/prologue in there is optional, but reading it would give some more info on ArcticTale's Alph. :)

I've also uploaded a little prelude which takes place while Sans and Papyrus are being transported, and it's basically a little flashback that gives the readers a view into the brother's everyday life while living in the arctic with Gaster. I wrote it while I was feeling homely and warm-hearted, so hopefully you feel that when reading it...

Anyway, if you've liked this so far and are excited to see my Sans and Pap experience some wacky found family-ness with their alternate selves, then please please go give it a read.. and kudos.. and comments.. especially comments, lol. cannot emphasize ts enough, but everytime i get a comment i write some more