Their fight became lost and garbled by time until no one knew how long they had been stuck butting heads. Amusement eventually melted away into frustration. The novelty of having a challenge had been burned away by one too many encounters with crazy laser skulls. Frustration blossomed into fury as her body count climbed too high for her to bother keeping count of anymore. Yet over the numerous resets even that fury faded away into a stubborn numbness.

The days rotted away in an undefined stillness that no one could follow.

One could tell from the wearied expression on Sans’s face that even though he only seemed to retain scant memories in the form of déjà vu and gut feelings, he too was beginning to realize just how many times she must have reset by now and it disturbed him.

If time had carried on properly instead of being pulled right back to the start at the end of every rematch, then surely the clocks of the Underground would have run their full cycle more than once by now. Had there been a sun, they would have seen it set many times over in their failings.

But the day remained the same. Time remained the same. Outside the window the birds repeated the same melody over and over again without fail or falter.

They utterly destroyed the Judgment Hall a hundred times over. Pillars were broken, windows shattered and murals scraped away by the etching lines of sharpened bone. The floor was turned to jagged shambles and the entire expanse of the room painted over and over again with a fresh coat of blood that vanished along with all the other traces of the catastrophic battle every time she died and reset.

This was a story of an unstoppable force clashing with an immovable object.

Yet over time Chara still made progress. It was the little things she noticed that kept her going. She had all the time in the world to get it right but it only took one slip-up on Sans’s part to end this fight for good. Eventually he would falter. He couldn’t doge forever.

She had begun to make up a little song to hum to help her remember the rhythm of the attacks. Things didn’t change much throughout the resets as long as she didn’t do anything too out of the ordinary. It was helping quite a bit. She was lasting longer and longer with each frustrating attempt so long as she kept pace with the rhythm.

In other possibly good news, Rain was all but spent. For a while there she really had put up a good fight. It was almost endearing. Quite a valiant effort from the little coward. Her finest moment to be honest.

Too bad no one would ever know how hard she had tried. No one but the two of them would ever remember all the pain she suffered through in order to cause Chara to fumble during critical moments. No one was left to see the quiet desperation that sometime overtook her eyes when she managed to gain little threads of control and sobbed, fingers going raw against the rough stone of the entryway as she tried to hold her rebellious body back from reentering the hall once more.

It had never occurred to Chara that Rain thought there was some golden finish line she could force them to cross if she just kept fighting back like this. It wasn’t until several deaths into the encounter that in an exhausted whisper Rain had revealed her grand plan: “Just… Just give up, Chara! I’m not going to let you do this. To hell with the surface! To hell with revenge and closure! There are only so many times you can drag yourself back from the darkness before you run out of lives! If you won’t walk away, then I- I am going to make sure you use up all your resets in this hellhole!”

It took Chara several seconds to grasp what she was saying. Then she remembered her lie. The one she had told her when fighting Undyne. The one that Rain apparently still believed to be true.

Chara howled with laughter. Off in the distance, Sans gave her an odd look. “Oh my god! Rain, you are so stupid! We are not playing that kind of game. What, did you think that we had extra lives or something? Do I look like I’m wearing a little green elf hat? You idiot. We have never been in danger of running out of Resets. So long as there is Determination in our souls, I can just keep pulling us back. Again and again and again. Even if you try to stop me, I’m strong enough to go on without your help now.”

“No. No! You are lying to me. You always lie!” She howled. Yet the damage was done and her morale began to shrivel. She continued to struggle but Chara could feel that she would soon reach the point where she could no longer make herself fight.

Sans was starting to show signs of reaching that point too. As time wore on in its impossible, repetitive stillness and Chara managed to last longer and longer, Sans began to become more talkative. Perhaps he really was trying to use diplomacy but she doubted it was anything more than a cheap stalling tactic.

If she could just get Rain to finally break then she could finish him off. She had the rhythm down to the point where it was practically a song she knew by heart but Rain would always jump in and sing out of sync to mess her up whever she got close to winning.

She needed to break her.

And as time wore on, she realized exactly how she would do that: her ol buddy Sans would do it for her.

Over time Sans had started offering to spare them. He would practically beg them to just put down their weapon and forget all of this. He would give them this pained smile, sweat sliding down the grooves of his cheekbones as he held out a hand in truce from a safe distance.

Chara had absolutely no faith in Sans’s offer. If she had believed for even a second that he wasn’t lying through his teeth she would have accepted the offer and used it to stab him in the back mid hug. But that look in his eye, that grin on his face, that was the look of someone who had thrown away every feeling he had in him aside from the grim, determined hatred required to keep killing.

But Rain was stupid. She was soft and naive and desperate for someone who would acknowledge that she was just the unwilling passenger in her hijacked body. Sans’s offer drove her wild.

Chara could use this.

She spent a few fights setting it up. She made a show of acting tired. Easy enough- she really was sick of this. Even though her body was refreshed and ready to go at the start of every round, her mind was starting to feel heavy.

She made a show of having second thoughts for the next few rounds. Hesitating here and there, dragging her feet whenever she had to go in.

Eventually they reached the point in their unending fight where the swarm of chaotic bones began to dissipate. They watched them fall apart into a curtain of dust and spent magic that twinkled in the yellow light then vanished into nothingness before it ever touched the floor. This was it. Sans had been talking for some time now- although she had not been paying attention to him. Now he would make his offer of mercy. He would call his ceasefire and extend that sweaty hand of his, hoping to lure them into…something.

“that being said, you, uh, really like swinging that thing around, huh?”

They stared at each other across the distance. He was maybe three yards away, hands in his pockets, brow somehow furrowed. He tucked his chin up against his scarf to try and mask the sound of his breathing. “listen, i know you didn’t answer me before but… somewhere in there, i can feel it. there’s still a glimmer of a good person inside of you. maybe that person is just some twisted, faded memory now but i know they once wanted to do the right thing. i don’t know what it was that changed you into this but I still remember the person you used to be. i remember you, rain. i thought you wanted to be friends… i know i did.” He laughed at this, perhaps out of a need to hide his sadness. Probably out of a need to hide his labored breathing. “so, c’mon buddy.” He held out his hand. Chara could see it shaking ever so slightly but he did a good job of keeping it steady for the most part. “do you remember me? please, if you're listening… let’s forget all of this, ok? just lay down your weapon and, well,” he closed his eyes and sighed. He really was getting tired. “my job will be a whole lot easier.”

Rain was trying to push her forward, whispering encouragement in her ear. “Chara we can’t keep doing this. How long has it been? Days? weeks? Let’s just…let’s stop. We don’t have to be like this. We need to let go.”

Chara took a hesitant step forward then backed away. “I can’t do it. I can’t. I don’t know how. I just. I can’t.” She stuttered.

Rain’s presence gently pressed up against her. She could feel her reaching out towards their hand, gentle and cautious as she tried to open up their fingers and let the fire iron go.“It’s ok. I will be right here with you. We can do this. We don’t need to be scared anymore. We don’t need to hurt. This isn’t what I wanted. It’s time to let go. You can still choose to stop this. Look at him! He wants to help us!”

“I can’t”

“It’s time to let go, Chara.”

“Can… can you do it for me?”

Rain’s relief was like a warm wave of bright red crimson against her consciousness. “I would love to.”

Chara took a deep breath and let Rain push forward so that she was in control. Chara watched things unfold over their shoulder.

Rain’s eyes opened wide. She drew in a sharp breath of air and let the fire iron clatter to the ground.

Sans looked about as surprised as she was. “…rain?”

She looked at her pale hands, caked in blood and dust. She blinked back tears as she looked up at him, his extended hand still waiting. “Sans?” She took a few cautious steps forward, looking around like she expected Chara to become a solid beast that would tackle her and drag her away at the last second. “Sans, I’m so sorry.” She stammered, taking a few more wobbly steps. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t mean for it to be like this. I made a mistake- we made a mistake. But, she’s letting me have my body back now. She’s ready to stop this.”

Sans’s shoulders sagged in relief. “lady, i have no idea what the hell you are talking about. but… but i’m glad to have you back. i’m glad i finally- i finally got through to you.” He held out his arms, open for an embrace. “c’mere pal.”

She laughed in relief. She was all but running towards him now. “Oh, Sans! Thank you! Thank you so much! This has all be so confusing. I was so scared. We promise we won’t ever-“

Just like that his expression went from tender relief right back to violent rage. His eye flashed and the ground between them split open. Long curved bones arced up out of the ground, going right through her like she was made of tissue paper.

She whimpered, falling to her knees as the curving bones burrowed deep inside her chest and pulled her down to the floor as they grew and curled back towards the ground. Her mouth hung open in an attempt to gasp but she couldn’t find a way to breathe. Tears ran down her face as another thin whimper managed to seep out as she was pinned to the ground. “S…an...s?”

He laughed. It was a loud, cruel laugh that made his shoulders shake. He loomed over her with his hands in his pockets, surveying his handy work before crouching down on her level. “sorry. hold on a minute.” He shook his head in disbelief, still chuckling. “wow. sorry, i just need to take this all in. it’s a rib cage, get it? hah!” He got up and made a show of dusting himself off before turning his back to her. “i always wanted to use that pun. but i never thought i would meet someone horrible enough to deserve it. so, thanks . i guess. get dunked on. and, uh, don’t come back.”

Her mouth worked to try and say something but nothing came out. Chara could feel Rain’s spirit sinking. That was it. Sans had been her last hope and he had forsaken her.

This time it was Chara that got to whisper in her ear. “See Rain? He gets it. In this world it’s kill or be killed.”

The world was fading to black but Chara didn’t mind.

Rain finally understood. There was no redemption left for her to seek out. There was no one left who would believe her if she told the truth.

…There was no one left.

***

Sans watched her approach, leaning lazily against his pillar. He had long since given up on his little introductory speech. Now he just waited patiently for her to get there.

He pushed himself away from the shadow. He gave her an almost friendly look. “ready?”

She nodded.

“alright. here we go.”

***

“our reports showed a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum. timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting until suddenly, everything ends.” He flickered away, never so much as twitching a leg to dodge her attack. All at once he was just someplace else.

She deflected several bones that were flying through the air, cursing when one shot up out of the floor and struck her in the foot.

She weaved her way out of the next volley, humming some strange tune to herself, mouthing the lyrics as she went.

Sans laughed. It was a cold, hollow sound with no mirth in it. “that’s your fault isn’t it?” He said, teeth dripping with sarcasm.

She stabbed at him again, hoping against hope that one of these days she would have just enough reach to slide the poker between his ribs and snag him.

He actually bothered to physically move this time, leaning back a bit and then pulling his hand out of his pocket with the speed of a striking snake.

By now the familiar sensation of her weight being distorted took over. She went cartwheeling through the air, feeling the familiar snag of an invisible weighted hook catching her in the chest and dragging her along.

Without Rain there to throw her off balance she was able to twist herself around in midair and land on her feet, jumping forward just in time to avoid the awaiting spikes that he summoned to catch her.

Sans switched tactics and tried to reason with her. “look, lady, there are some things in this world- things like this, things like us- that you just can’t fix. sometimes you just can’t have your way. no matter how badly you wish things would change. i mean, hell, i gave up trying to go back a long time ago.”

Chara cursed under her breath. She had let herself get thrown too far by the last attack. Now he had half the hall to torment her with.

And torment her he did. Little spiny bones started marching towards her in an uneven line, their spacing odd and their angles random. Between each of these annoying lines long shimmering blue shapes broke up the monotony, daring her to move as they passed.

The pattern was demanding. Stop, hold, leap, tumble. Get up, stop, hold, leap, tumble.

One of the skewed bones snagged her shirt and cut a long gash down her back. She had discarded her cloak in hopes of avoiding this at the start of the fight but she must have stepped out of rhythm and allowed her clothes to snag.

Her skin burned and blistered when the blue attack phased through her while she was in the middle of getting up. She spat in frustration but forced herself to keep going. It was hard to get Rain to heal her anymore. She just had to push through it and hope she didn’t get too light headed. All things considered she was making good progress.

“see the thing is, when you get stuck in a loop like this, it’s hard to find things that still matter to you. getting the last of the seven souls, saving the king, getting to the surface- all that doesn’t really appeal to me anymore. cause even if we do… we’ll just end up right back down here without any memory of it, right?”

His eye was flashing. Several smaller versions of the laughing skulls burst forth from the shadows and began to harass her with a barrage of electric teal. She ducked behind the pillars to shield herself, constantly willing her body to keep moving as she heard the stone begin to crack and crumble behind her.

“i mean, who knows how many times you have done this? not just this fight, but everything. i have so many half memories of things that apparently ‘never happened.’ but i guess this is it, huh? you finally got bored and decided to go all out.”

“Hah. I think your confusing me with my hellion of a brother. He loves to half-ass the same mistakes over and over again like that. But me? I just want to get things done.” She spat, words falling on deaf ears as she ran. A barricade was gaining on her but he had managed to make the formation too tight and it had picked up some of the loose stone slabs in its charge. The first few rows cut at her shins but she soon managed to climb up onto one of the uneven moving stones and jump down on the other side of the wave; dogging the rain of shrapnel that came from above as she leapt from her platform, arms swinging high overhead as she came after him. Once again he teleported off to the side and her spear smacked up against the stone where he had once been.

She had almost hit him that time. He was getting slower.

How long had this particular attempt been going on now? She had to be getting close. He would make her run the gauntlet soon.

“to be blunt,” he panted, dogging another swipe and tossing her back into another round of double-dutch, jumping and dogging, “it makes it kind of hard to give it my all- knowing that even if i win it will just put everything back to square one. or is that just a poor excuse for being lazy?” He shrugged and teleported again, causing his scarf to dance. “hell if i know. all i know is you won’t let me mourn my friends in peace. you won’t stop. i have seen what happens next if i just let you through and i’ll tell you what- it makes being stuck at square one not sound so bad after all. at least everyone was happy before you came along.”

She saw the last row in the double-dutch coming up. The thing about magical attacks was that summoning them was like breathing. You couldn’t take a second breath while you were still taking your first. Sure, monsters could learn to multitask and create more complicated patterns but there would always be gaps and breathers. Sans’s next gap was coming up.

She took advantage of the clear court. He was sweating bullets and gasping between words. She was getting to him.

“it may sound strange to say it now, but before all this, i was secretly hoping we could be friends.” His eye sparked yellow. The whole room flashed and for a brief moment the air felt cold.

Flicker

She blinked and when she opened her eyes again she was several yards away from where she had been a second ago and the tail end of the double-dutch pattern was barreling towards her again.

“Shit.” She took a good hit to the chest. A rib or two may have cracked. It hurt to breathe but she refused to go down.

“y’know, i always thought the anomaly was doing this ‘cause they were unhappy. and i figured that when they got what they wanted, they would finally stop.” He was marching around the perimeter of his attack with his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched. His eye was flashing yellow again.

Flicker.

She was on an unstable piece of stone, dodging shrapnel from above. She jumped off and-

Flicker.

She was running towards him down the empty hall. In her moment of disorientation two opposing attacks grazed her and sent her careening off to the side.

The rhythm. She had to remember the rhythm! There was a song…

“i mean, you seemed harmless when i met you. what a load of bullshit, right?” He ran a hand over his skull and hid part of his face in his scarf. “god, i felt bad for you! i thought: wow, humans really don’t seem that bad once you get to know em. you just looked so scared and cold back then. so i thought maybe all you needed was, i dunno, some good food, bad laughs, couple of nice friends… and then everything would be ok.”

He laughed, painful and labored. He tossed her around the room again, causing her to screech in frustration when she got her timing wrong and was stabbed for her mistake.

“but that’s ridiculous, right? yeah!” He snarled, teeth appearing long and sharp in the light of his eye. He threw her to the ground with more force than usual before picking her back up again. “you’re the type of person who won’t ever be happy!” He was tossing her around like a rag doll now. “you will just keep consuming timelines over and over again! until…well, hey, take it from me lady, someday you gotta learn when to quit. And That! Day! Is! Today!”

A single skull melted out of the darkness, maw already open. A massive blast of energy shattered the floor and sent her flying. She barely managed to get far enough away from it to keep herself alive.

The room felt oddly still after that. She panted, wiping blood from her lip and staggering back to her feet. She looked at Sans from across the room. He was breathing heavily too. His eyelids- eye sockets? Did it matter?- were drooping. His voice echoed through the shattered hall. “cause… y’see… all this fighting is really tiring me out.” He laughed nervously, eyes shifting.

Chara began her march.

A lance shot out of the floor at shoulder level.

She sidestep it.

A dagger made of shinbone fell from the ceiling.

She twisted out of the way.

A club swung low at her feet from behind a pillar.

She hopped over it.

She had done this all before.

“-and if you keep pushing me then i will be forced to use my special attack. sound familiar? my brother had one too you know. The brother you killed. i won’t be as fair as he was though. i’m warning you- it won’t be pleasant. so, uh, if you don’t want to see it,” he caught her by surprise when he picked her up again, soul shining blue as he tossed her up against a pillar. “now would be a good time to die.”

She kicked off of the pillar, refusing the yield.

He sighed. The light in his eye growing brighter and brighter until it was an ethereal flame of blue rage curling several inches above the crown of his head. The glow was echoed by a light in his chest and hands. “alright, well, here it goes. are you ready? survive this and i’ll show you my special attack!”

She could feel an odd tugging sensation in her soul. This was it. She could do this. He was at the end of his rope. He couldn’t keep this up forever. Up next: the gauntlet.

Her feet began to slide out from under her. The room’s gravity began to tilt. All at once the uneven floor felt like it was at a slant and she was sliding downwards, legs sustaining road burn as she began to slide faster and faster down towards Sans at the end of the hall- his maniacal grin fake and labored.

Bones shot out sideways on either side of her, cropping up like the strangling, uneven branches of a bleached forest.

She dug her boots into the ground and took her spear in both hands, jamming it into a passing crack and using its brief moment of purchase to push herself onto a corrected course just in time to avoid the closing rows of boney teeth. She continued to use this method to steer, gritting her teeth against the cuts and scrapes she sustained as she continued to slide across the floor.

The room flickered with every move she made.

Flicker.

He was manipulating time skips again. Sans was standing just off to the side, encouraging the bones to grow longer. She steered herself off to one side.

Flicker.

He was in front of her now. She was several yards back from her original location. She had over corrected and was pushed through the serrated edges of his attack on her right side. She scrambled to heal herself, attempting to stop the constant bleeding while the room continued to flicker and Sans continued to jump around.

She finally slammed into the wall at the end of the hall and pushed away, the awaiting spines nipping at her toes just before gravity began to revert back to normal.

She barely had time to get up before a barrage of awaiting skulls were firing at her heels, all the while her soul pulled along by an impossible, ever-changing gravity that caused her to lose track of which way was up and which way was down. She hardly realized she was bouncing around on the ceiling until a particularly nasty energy strike dislodged a chunk of the floor underneath her and it fell away into the chaos down below.

She fell with it.

Sans was just below her, jaw unhinged in labored panting as he continued to toss her around, no longer aiming to make her clash with anything in particular. He just wanted to keep her from advancing.

After several long seconds of chaos, the fluctuating weight on her chest began to dissipate. His reckless swings became slower and slower, the impacts going from brutal to manageable to downright lazy.

At last she hovered upright just a foot or so off the ground, directly facing him. He was just a few feet away.

He dropped her. She landed gently on her feet.

For a minute they just stood there. Face to face across the distance, mouths hanging open as they both tried to catch their breath.

“Damn…Sans…you’re a tough motherfucker to beat.”

“heh…and your just a motherfucker. “

“Heh.” She recovered first. Her hand twitched with the muscle memory of a spear strike.

She blinked in surprise when she realized she wasn’t holding anything. She looked off to her left. Her weapon was just a few feet away. She had dropped it. “Oh fuck, come on!”

“ok… alright. time for my…special attack. ready? here goes nothing.”

She pulled the knife from her back pocket and took her chance.

She slammed face first up against an invisible barrier. She felt her nose crunch. She staggered back, already feeling the warm blood running down her face. “Shit! What the hell?”

He laughed sheepishly. “yeah, that’s right. my special attack is literally nothing. and it’s not going to be anything either, get it? no violence. no combat. no movement. i know i can’t beat you. sooner or later you’re just gonna kill me. it’s sort of your thing, isn’t it? killing people for the fun of it.

“so, uh, i’ve decided you’re not gonna get to fight anymore. ever.” He taped on the barrier. The area around his finger buzzed like static.

Chara hissed in frustration. A magic one way barrier. She was boxed in.

“see now, usually these things can be worn down. but i will just keep supplying it with magic.” He tapped the left side of his skull where the blue and yellow light of his eye had begun to fade back to some semblance of normalcy. “so you can swing away for as long as you like. i won’t leave and it won’t break. i won’t let you step through it. even if that means i have to stand here and watch you until the end of time, capiche?”

Chara let her legs fall out from under her. She sat down with a weary thud and sighed, propping her arms up against her knees. Everything hurt. “Shit.”

“yeah.”

She flicked at the barrier. Her fingers bounced back, feeling numb and fuzzy. “Well then, I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens next, huh? Even mountains erode with time. So which one of us is the mountain and which one is the wind?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “you’ll get bored here. if you haven’t gotten bored already. technically you have been doing this a lot longer than i have. sooner or later you will just have to, you know, do your weird thing and put everything back the way it was.”

She scoffed. “Nah.” Her expression turned sly. “Hey, you have me trapped in here. Why don’t you just steal my soul and take matters into your own hands?”

“you uh, you really didn’t leave much left of this place for me to save if i did that. besides, i’m sure i already tried taking your soul in some other timeline. but you’re still here so… i’d probably just fail and you would reset if i tried. you can’t be overpowered i guess.”

His eye sockets were drooping. His grin had faded into something neutral and tired. His head was beginning to slump. Now that he was finally getting a chance to catch his breath it came out in long slow sighs against his scarf.

Chara picked up a pebble and tossed it. It bounced away, rolling out of reach. It had passed through the barrier. Interesting.

She gave him a wary glance then took her knife and gently prodded at the barrier. The tip of the blade seemed to pass through. She tried again with a little more force and met resistance.

Also interesting.

He yawned. He started to lean on a large chunk of marble that had been upturned in the fight. “so, i know you want to kill me. and i know you like to take trophies from all of your favorite kills. the cloak,” he nodded at the black heap of fabric that had been discarded somewhere behind her, “the eyepatch… my brothers boots. not sure where the poker came from. but anyway, to be honest, i’ve been wondering: what did you plan to take from me? what significant item could you possibly want? my coat? that can’t be it. i gave it to you when i thought we were friends and you threw it away.”

Chara smirked, leaning forward a little. “Oh but Sans, I don’t need a trophy form you. I already took the most precious thing you had.”

He watched her through slit eyes. For a brief moment his hands clenched into fists and his eye spat flames, but it was gone as fast as it had come. “heh. you remind me of a filthy pizza.”

“…what?”

“a filthy pizza shit.” He yawned.

She grimaced, rolling her eyes.

“nice try lady, but you’re not going to provoke me into attacking again. i’m keeping you trapped in this box. you’ve finally reached the end. there is nothing left for you now. so, uh, in my personal option, the most ‘determined’ thing you can do here is completely give up and,” he yawned again, “go do literally anything else.”

Chara crossed her arms and in mock worry said, “Wow you look tired Sans. Downright bone-weary.”

“heh. i am. it’s been a really long day. longer than it ever should have been if you catch my drift. how long have we really been at it anyway? days? weeks?”

She looked up at the cracked ceiling and shrugged. “Lost track. Won’t matter in the end.”

He snorted, eyes half closed. “if you say so.”

Chara made herself comfortable and began to concentrate on healing her wounds. She remained quiet and refused to comment on anything Sans said after that. If she didn’t give him a reason to stay awake then eventually he would fall asleep.

She prodded at Rain, demanding she wake from her self-induced angst-coma and come help her mend things. When she stirred from the blackness and blinked bleary-eyed at the situation she only sent out feelings on confusion.

“What’s going on?” Her attention turned to Sans. “Did… did you finally truce? Why aren’t you two fighting?”

“He got tired and stopped playing fair. He trapped us in a box. See?” She rapped her knuckles against the shimmering wall.

Sans’s eye pulsed for a moment and his sockets opened a little wider but when he saw that she wasn’t doing anything overly devious he relaxed again.

“Well you haven’t been playing fair either.”

“Don’t be a smartass. Bottom line is I can’t pass through this and he’s sustaining it from the other side. If anything from our side with too much force or mass behind it tries to get through it will just rebound.”

Rain felt smug. It was an annoying warmth in their chest. “Guess he finally figured out how to beat you. Just like Mettaton said, the only way to win is to not play at all.”

Chara watched Sans’s sockets close more and more. He was really starting to lean up against that chunk of stone now. “I’m not throwing in the towel just yet. I still got a plan.”

Rain tensed, doing a double take. “Plan? What plan? What are you talking about?”

Chara brushed her off. “Like I would be stupid enough to tell you so you could ruin it.” Chara made herself comfortable. It was a waiting game now.

As the time ticked by and they waited under the unmoving shadow of a synthetic day, Chara watched Sans fall asleep. His breathing became calm and smooth; his head resting up against the stone, buried in his coat sleeve as he dreamed. He looked peaceful.

Chara slowly got up and began to pace. Her fire iron was not that far away. Just barely outside of her little prison. But maybe, just maybe…

She got down on her belly and slowly pushed her knife out towards the spear. She came up a little short and cursed under her breath.

Then another idea occurred to her. These types of barriers were usually grounded to something. The counter in the MTT resort, the poles that held up the chain in her father’s house; things that kept the field from drifting over time.

Sans couldn’t have cemented things down properly among all of this rubble.

Her heart began to race, little bursts of excitement cheered on by adrenaline. If she could just get the barrier to drift an inch or two to the left...

Ever so gently she pressed her hands up against the field. It made soft crackling noises and the static made her hands feel funny but so long as she was gentle it began to inch along.

She held her breath and bit her tongue to keep Rain from making any sudden noises.

“Chara. Chara, don’t. Stop it! Dammit!”

“It’s too late.” She whispered, dropping back down to her belly and using her knife to help tap the handle of her spear into her little box. “It’s time to finish playing the game.”

“Sans! Sans wake up! Dammit! Fuck!” She was too weak to assume any kind of control. Chara had forced her into healing too much. She was spent. Trapped behind her own eyes.

“Shhh. Can’s you see he’s sleeping?” She cooed, taking up her reclaimed weapon and inching towards him until she was right up against the barrier. She began to lowly slide the poker through the barrier, angling the little backwards hooks just right so that she would be able to snag him. “Hey, Rain, would you like to hear a song?”

“No!”

She snickered. “But it’s about you and Sans! Wouldn’t you like to hear that? I’m sure it will help him ‘sleep.’”

Rain was a feeble flame of rage pummeling the back of her mind. Chara could feel her nose starting to bleed again. It didn’t matter. She began to sing, soft and devious.

“It’s Raining..."

“Sans! Please wake up!”

"It’s pouring…”

Her mouth worked against her but Rain’s warning failed.

“Ol’ Sans is snoring…”

"No! No! Stop it! Please!"

“He went to bed; soon he’ll be dead…”

Her hand trembled as Rain tried to push the weapon away but Chara's grip remained firm.

“And no ones left to mourn him!”

***

He didn’t really like snow that much. You would think that as a skeleton the cold wouldn’t be a big deal. Well, it wasn’t. Not really. But it wasn’t always pleasant either. It was an entertaining novelty though.

He had had to leave the city behind. He had needed someplace a little quieter to help him come to terms with everything that he had lost. And in the crowded Underground you didn’t get much quieter than Snowdin. Most monsters didn’t like the cold and it was too far out of the way to ever see heavy traffic so it made for a decent escape.

The snow had been really nice at first. Like most monsters, he had been born too late to ever see real weather. Snowdin was the only place where the mix of cold, magic and moisture could create something close to real weather conditions like fog, snow and sometimes sleet, to dazzle them with.

It had been really nice to see Papyrus’s reaction to snow for the first time. His younger brother loved it here. He didn’t seem to mind the cold or the slick ice. Even now, several years after novelty had become routine; his brother still often sat by the window to watch the snow fall.

But as for Sans, something about the snow had become unsettling. Repetitive. The snow fell in familiar patterns that made him feel like he was reliving an important memory he had forgotten.

Sans twitched awake, surprised when he heard a door swing open in the main room down below. Something in the back of his mind told him that noise should not be there.

“Brother, I’m back! Ah, and it’s snowing again!” A familiar voice called in a chipper tune.

Sans peeked out from under the covers; messy sheets falling away as he looked out his window and saw the fake storm outside. Without knowing why, Sans was soon beaming. He felt lighter than air. Perhaps one would go so far as to say he felt relieved.

Why did he suddenly feel that way?

He rolled out of bed, casting a glance over his shoulder and looking out the window. This time the snow did not seem so bad. He was glad to see it- although he did not know why. He paused to admire the familiar dancing patterns passing by his window for a moment longer before leaving. He shuffled downstairs at a brisk pace. He wanted to see his brother. He was really happy to hear that he was home. He had been gone for far too long.

Down below Papyrus was still tapping the slush from his boots. He looked up when he heard Sans coming down the stairs. “Wowie! You’re actually awake? Excellent!”

Sans shadowed Papyrus as he wandered around the house and got settled in. “hey bro. how’d it go?” He greeted, voice unusually cheery yet strained. He felt kind of strange, like he had forgotten to do something important back up in his room. But he was too relieved to care about it now.

Papyrus smiled, eye sockets closing half way as he put his boots away before wandering into the kitchen. He began to pull stuff out of the cupboards. He tossed some noodles into a pot and turned on the stove. “Wonderful! Undyne said I made a lot of progress today! She was really proud of m-” He stopped mid-sentence when Sans suddenly broke down and hugged him as tightly as he could, burying his face against his damp clothes.

At first Papyrus hugged him back without question. But as the seconds ticked by his embrace faltered and he pulled away a bit. “Um, brother, is everything alright?”

“yeah! yeah everything’s great. just missed you s’ all.” He assured, pulling himself away and looking up at him.

Papyrus tilted his head. “I wasn’t gone that long.”

Sans pulled up a nearby chair to keep himself busy. He propped his chin up against its back and watched as Papyrus turned his attention back to the kitchen, pulling out other ingredients and turning on the stove. No doubt he planned to make another spaghetti attempt tonight. Sans didn’t mind.

“yeah i know... just felt longer this time, i guess.”

“Well it was time well spent! Prepare to be amazed! For not only did Undyne teach me new fighting techniques but she also at long last revealed her secret to making the perfect spaghetti sauce!”

Sans chuckled. “can’t wait.” His eyes started to wander back up the stairs and up towards the half open door to his room. He was forgetting something important.

A strange gold light was pouring out his room.

Ah. He must have just forgotten to turn his light off. He could fix that later.

“She says the trick,“ Papyrus set some tomatoes down on a cutting board, “is to channel your combat training into everything. Especially cooking! She admits that this means I shall have farther to go before I reach her cooking caliber but I’m still doing really well! See? You just have to crush the tomatoes- like so!”

Papyrus took off one glove and carefully set it aside. His knuckles were already stained red from having recently attempted this. The color tickled something in the back of Sans’s mind.

He really should get back to his room. That light was really distracting.

But he didn’t want to leave Papyrus. Not yet. The thought filled his chest with some sort of whimpering dread he did not understand. He gripped the back of the chair a little harder and focused on his brother.

With a wet squelch Papyrus smashed the tomatoes. He made a displeased squawk when seeds and juice went shooting every which way. Red juice soon coated the pot, the cutting board, the wall and Papyrus himself. “Oh darn it! I forgot the bowl!” He grumbled, messy hand set against his hips while the other came up to bop himself in the head. He glared at his mistake. “We forgot the bowl during our lessons too.”

Sans looked at the red liquid dripping down the counter. It tickled a memory.

“oh god. there is just so much red!… good. good. as it should be. just means i managed to get something right for once.”

His brow ridge crunched up at that odd thought.

The smell of smoke and char began to fill the air. Both brother’s heads whipped around just in time to see the pot of noodles catch fire.

Papyrus squawked, throwing his hands up in the air before carrying the pot over to the sink. “Oh no! I forgot to add the water!” He stood on his tiptoes and strained to throw the flaming pot into the ridiculously high sink but he couldn’t quite reach.

Sans doubled over with laughter, watching his brother swing the flaming pot around as he tried to reach the spray nozzle on their too-high sink.

“Sans! Sans this is not funny! Help!”

“i got it bro.” He leapt from his chair and hurried over to the kitchen window. He forced it open with a loud creak of complaint. “over here. over here, hurry. just toss it bro!” He was still laughing.

With a battle cry Undyne would have been proud of, Papyrus ran to the window. “Nnnyeh!” He shouted, throwing the flaming noodles through the window and out into the snow mound outside. The flames melted away some of the freshly fallen snow to reveal the already existing pile of burnt food underneath.

Papyrus’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “Oh.” He sighed. “I had a really good feeling about this batch.”

Sans clapped him on the shoulder before he turned around and left. “s’ok. kind of late to start dinner anyway.”

“It’s only five.” Papyrus grumbled.

Only five? It felt later than that... longer than that? Sans shook his head, still smiling. Damn, he really needed to fix that light in his room. It was too bright.

Eh, maybe later. After he got them some grub. He would just run down to Grillby’s and grab something.

He took his coat from the rack and contemplated throwing on something other than his slippers but decided against it. He looked over his shoulder to tell Papyrus where we was going, but he was gone. The room was dark and empty.

A woman’s voice echoed through the void. Its familiarity filled him with a mix of emotions so intense they hurt.

“…And no one's left to mourn him!”

His eye ignited in realization. The world around him ended abruptly.

***

His eyes snapped open.

She was right there in front of him. Bloodshot eyes boring into his skull, her figure framed by the golden light that poured into the hall like gilded fire. He felt something sharp dig into his sweater, twisting so that its barbed sides scraped up against his ribs in an attempt to snag him.

Without thinking he knocked the attack away and stepped to one side. The fire poker fell to the floor.

A deep hatred pulled his grin all the wider. “Did you really think-”

She rounded on him, something metallic flashing in her hand. He only had enough time to recall some vague memory of her having a knife before he felt it. In one vicious slash she cut into him, tearing his coat, cutting through his sweater- pushing the blade ever deeper until it chewed into his ribs and beyond.

His mouth fell open. His vision blurred with the spike of pain. The fire in his eyes guttered out.

“Ahah!” She cried in victory, breathing heavily as if that one vicious movement had been the equivalent of a running a marathon. “Tag! You’re it!”

His hand went up to his chest. When he looked down it was covered in red. He could feel something warm leaking out of his mouth and nose.

He fell to his knees, still looking at his red stained hand. He felt very strange. Fuzzy. Tired. More tired than usual. It hurt but his mind was telling him not to care.

“well,” He chuckled a little then stopped when it only made his outline feel all the more blurry. “i guess that’s it then, huh?”

The human threw back her head, laughing at the ceiling, knife falling to the floor. She was unhinged in every sense of the word.

“you…. sick freak. you would laugh at this wouldn’t you? go on then. go do what you do best. and when you get to hell, i will be waiting.” He rasped, trying to push himself back up onto his feet. He had to lean heavily against the dislodged marble slab to do it.

He could see now where he had gone wrong. She had managed to push the barrier out of its original location. She had anticipated where he would doge and had lined herself up so that when he did he had stepped halfway inside her cage.

She crouched down next to him, shaking hands obscuring but not bothering to wipe away the tears that ran down her face.

Was she crying? What was wrong with her?

Her whole body trembled as she giggled. “She’s sorry. She’s so, so sorry you know. She is screaming inside of me: ‘No, no, no!’ Your bleeding scares her. She loved you guys, you know. She loved the monsters she hardly knew! She tried so hard... but it’s too late.” She gripped at her chest, dusty hands bunching up the torn fabric above were her heart was meant to be. “Because this is mine now.”

Her words slowly became distant garbled echoes to him. He stared down at her boots- His boots…Papyrus…

The world was going dark and blurry. He was starting to forget where he was.

The king’s court.

No… no that wasn’t it. Papyrus wouldn’t be there. He had just taken off his boots before he went in the kitchen… They were back home, burning spaghetti.

…So why was he...here?

Maybe he had come here to get…his…coat?

He looked down at himself. Oh. He already had his coat on. Haha…

He pushed himself away from the marble. He felt fuzzy, like his body was being smeared away by a bad eraser. He must be really hungry.

“welp, I’m going to grillby’s.” He proclaimed with a cough, dragging himself along. His dying eyes looked around the room. His room. His house. Yeah, that’s where he was. Papyrus was just over there, in the kitchen, right? “Papyrus…do you want anything?”

Sans closed his eyes and let himself fall.