Chapter Text
The day that his life changes, Sans feels weird for the entire morning before anything even happens.
He just wakes up feeling weird, and the feeling follows him through his morning routine. There’s a prickle between his scapulae, like fingers along his spine, and he feels dizzy. Nauseated. It’s a trial just to get dressed so that he can make his way out the door when Papyrus calls for him.
His nerves eat him alive through his morning shift, so much so he can’t even manage to catch a nap at his station. He runs through his mental checklist a million times over the course of those sparse few hours – he’s eaten breakfast, he’s gotten the usual amount of sleep, his lab was locked up safely when he woke, he doesn’t owe anyone money except for Grillby… Nothing, so far as he can tell, is wrong.
And yet, the feeling persists.
He makes it to lunch, barely, reconvening at the house with Papyrus for a quick meal. Not spaghetti, thankfully. Some sort of rice-and-meat concoction that Sans used to whip up when money was tighter, one that he taught Papyrus to make when he was still in stripes. It’s a fallback for when Papyrus just doesn’t feel up to testing his skills.
It makes it difficult for Sans to eat, knowing that Papyrus also clearly has a bad feeling about today.
But he eats, anyway. No reason to make Papyrus think that Sans is doing worse today than he normally is. He worries enough about him already. More than enough.
Just as they’re finishing up, and Papyrus is taking their dishes to the sink to wash up, Sans realizes he still has last night’s groceries in his inventory.
Well, that might explain it.
He stands to put them away, thinking maybe it’ll help ease his nerves, and then…
His vision blurs at the edges like he’s trying to shortcut when he’s too exhausted to see straight. Nauseating to a terrifying degree, his nonexistent stomach rolling. The world seems to tilt around him. Before he’s fully conscious of it, the floor is rushing up to meet him, colors blurring out.
And then, for a moment, there is only darkness.
When the darkness clears, he’s on his hands and knees.
Well, he thinks, that’s troublesome. I must be more tired than I thought.
He’s no sooner thought it than he’s lifting his head and promptly going painfully, utterly still.
Mostly, that’s because there’s a bone construct being brandished in his face.
It’s a standard enough construct, well-formed, except for the fact that one end is sharpened into a wicked point. This isn’t the sort of attack that he and Papyrus default to in a fight, blunt on both ends and far less likely to end in a grievous injury of either party. No, this attack is the sort that’s meant to make someone fucking bleed.
He’s only ever formed attacks like this to use as a substitute for a knife, and he’s only even done that a few times. Few enough he can count them on one hand, and he doesn’t even need all of his fingers to do it. He’s never summoned one in a fight, either.
That would probably hurt like a bitch to get hit with, he thinks to himself, for want of better lines of thought.
Peripherally, he slowly becomes aware of someone else on the floor with him. Papyrus, he’d guess, considering that his instincts aren’t freaking out about someone being in his blind spot.
Very slowly, careful not to move and get any closer to the attack being pointed at his eye socket, only moving his eyelights, he looks up.
Up the tip to the length of the bone, up the length to the hand holding it. The hand is covered in a black glove that disappears into the sleeve of an equally black coat. He follows the sleeve further up, up the arm, to the face of his… Attacker?
It’s not exactly a surprise to find that is’ another skeleton threatening him. That was kind of a given, what with the bone construct and all. What’s more surprising, and still manages to take him aback, is that there’s another skeleton besides himself and Papyrus (and Gaster) at all. For all he knew, he and Paps were the last of their kind.
The skeleton that’s currently threatening his life is about his height, maybe a little bit taller – two or three inches, at most. They have a vicious-looking crack in the left side of their skull, above their eye, and an equally vicious-looking maw full of wickedly sharp teeth, one of which is gold, and they’re dressed like some kind of edgy douchebag. Black, fur-trimmed jacket, red turtleneck sweater, gold-chain necklace, black shorts, sensible black boots. The fact they already look like an asshole isn’t helped at all by the fact that they’ve got a bone construct in his face right now.
Sans blinks up at them for a moment, just processing the situation, and gives them a slightly queasy grin. Threatening him at all probably already isn’t an awesome plan, even if he isn’t a fighter, but threatening him when Papyrus is less than three feet away would probably be indicative of a death wish if Papyrus weren’t so staunchly anti-murder. With any luck, he can talk them down before Paps notices they’re doing it.
Speaking of Paps, he should really check on him. He’s being really, really quiet.
But taking his eyes off of ol’ Stabby here seems like a suicidal risk, if he’s honest, and despite all evidence to the contrary, he’s really not all that het up to die.
He keeps his eyes on theirs no matter how badly he wants to look and see how Papyrus is doing. The bright side is that Papyrus hasn’t started dry-heaving yet, but the less-bright side is that he hasn’t made a fucking sound at all, let alone moved.
“Heya,” He manages to say to Stabby, finally.
He somehow manages to sound casual, like he does this every day. Like this isn’t seriously starting to freak him out, even without the introduction of a very clear death threat into the equation. There’s barely so much as a tremor in his voice to give him away, but he’ll happily blame any and all unsteadiness on the fact that he just processed that Stabby is LV 8.
Unfortunately, the tremor isn’t so slight that Papyrus doesn’t notice it.
He hears him shift next to him, finally, and if Sans had to guess about the delay in movement, he’d assume that the shortcut-like bullshit that landed them wherever the hell they are right now probably left him a little preoccupied. You know, because if it was nausea-inducing for Sans, then it must have been fucking awful for Papyrus, who doesn’t handle a real shortcut very well to begin with. He was probably busy making a concerted effort not to puke on the musty-smelling carpet under them.
Nevertheless, Papyrus shifts in his periphery, just barely in his line of sight.
Stabby’s eyelights (red like marrow, red like a warning) flick to him, then right back to Sans.
And before Stabby can respond to Sans’ greeting one way or another, Papyrus speaks.
His voice is carefully clear and crisp, cheery but utterly no-nonsense, when he says, “Oh. Well, that’s not very nice. I would put that away if I were you.”
Despite the cheery tone, that final sentence is clearly a warning, not a suggestion. The whole thing sounds a little off, because he’s lowered his voice the way he always does when he wants Sans to know he’s being serious and there are no shenanigans at all afoot, but the last bit is honestly the closest to threatening he’s ever heard Papyrus get.
It’s just another scoop of freaky on this whole weird-shit sundae that’s happening right now.
Stabby jolts a little in response to the words, looking to Papyrus again. Their eyelights shrink, posture shifting, and Sans thinks he reads something like wariness in their expression before their eyelights promptly dilate again and their sockets narrow. Their hand starts to tighten around the construct, brows drawing together. They seem like they might be about to say something, or possibly try to attack Papyrus instead, but, once again, they don’t get a chance to respond to the words being thrown at them before someone else is speaking.
In a tone that brokers absolutely no arguments, a new voice crisply says from somewhere off to Sans’ right, well-out of his line of sight unless he turns his head, “Drop the bone, brother.”
More concerning than the words and simultaneous introduction of yet another unknown variable into this bullshit fucking equation is the fact that the voice almost sounds like Papyrus. It’s deeper, rougher like its owner has been gargling gravel in their downtime for several decades, but it’s still uncomfortably close. It sounds like if Papyrus were one of the Human-Monster war veterans.
It’s enough to finally get his gaze to slip away from Stabby, head slowly turning to assess the newcomer to their little shindig. Somehow even more concerning than the fact they sound like Papyrus?
They even fucking look like Papyrus.
A little taller, maybe, and broader. The skeletal equivalent of well-muscled, really. The skull shape is the same, the basic body structure is, too. If not for the fact that Sans raised Papyrus for literally his entire life, from when he was still in swaddling clothes up until the moment he turned 18, he’d almost think the two were twins.
And, fuck, sure, there are differences. Stark ones. But the initial resemblance is so uncanny it throws him off for a second, while he’s still too busy reeling to catalog the differences properly. But then he does start to catalog them; the scarring over their left socket, the black-and-red ensemble, the teeth and eyelights they share with their brother. They look so, so much more severe than Papyrus ever has, than Papyrus ever could.
His head tips back in Stabby’s direction, since they really seem to be the bigger threat, and they also aren’t anywhere near as existential crisis-inducing as this Papyrus-doppelganger is.
Stabby is scowling outright, eyes apparently not having moved from Sans this whole time. They twitch, like they’re thinking about just going ahead and hitting him anyway, but then they snarl and release the bone from their grasp. It crumbles before it hits the carpet.
Their eyes stay trained on Sans. The weight of their gaze is nearly suffocating.
But without an attack in their hand, he finds it easier to flick glances over at their brothers on the other side of the… Living room? There’s just something fucking off about this whole situation, and he still can’t tell what it is, aside from the obvious ‘there are other living skeletons’ and ‘this isn’t my house’ issues he’s having.
His eyes stop on Papyrus, finally, because now there’s another obvious issue: Papyrus doesn’t look angry anymore. He looks awed.
And Sans has all of one second to wonder what the fuck he looks so goddamned delightedly surprised about before he sees it for himself.
Around one of the newcomer’s pinkie fingers is a string, thin and vivid scarlet and tied into an expert little knot around the digit, whole and solid and real, pulsing with living magic. He doesn’t need to follow the string down, across the floor, and back up to its other end before he understands what’s happening. He doesn’t even need a second of instinctual horror about the fact their soulstring is just out in the open like that, because he’s seen that fucking thread before.
Scarlet is Papyrus’ favorite color.
It’s his favorite color because his soulstring is scarlet.
And the other end of the string is wrapped around Papyrus’ left pinkie.
Despite the immediate recognition, it takes a second for the realization to truly sink in for Sans. When it does, it’s like a fucking smack in the mouth.
His soul drops through the floorboards to bury itself somewhere a few hundred feet under the house.
Very, very slowly, Papyrus raises his left hand to his mouth. His sockets are wide and shiny with unshed tears. The soulstring is stark against the bone of his face.
Suddenly, the newcomer looks very much like they’ve slammed full-speed, face-first, into a brick wall. Total fucking vapor-lock.
Just as slowly as Papyrus had moved, they lift their own hand just high enough to glance down at it, palm down.
Their own expression slowly dawns with something fragile and hopeful.
Right about that second, Stabby seems to tune into what’s happening on the other side of the room.
Equal parts furious and disbelieving, they spit, “Oh, for fuck’s sake, boss, you’ve gotta be fuckin’ shittin’ me right now.”
Somewhat numbly, Sans’ only coherent thought kind of just falls out of his mouth in the wake of Stabby’s statement, “Holy fucking shit.”
At the exact same time, and in the exact same exasperated tone, both Papyrus and his soulmate say, “Language, brother.”
Normally, Sans might have had some sort of snappy, comedic comeback for that. As it stands, all he can do is slowly look over to Stabby again, meeting their eyes. The two of them share a brief, but powerful, moment of pure simpatico over how much more fucking ridiculous this situation just got. It was already bad enough, what with he and his brother landing in what’s probably these guys’ house without so much as a ‘how do you do?’, but now there’s soulmate bullshit involved.
Stabby was just threatening their soulmate-in-law with a bone construct, clearly intent on dusting him if he so much as moved wrong. And Sans was quietly (so quietly, so instinctively that he didn’t even notice he was doing it at first) considering just how bad an idea it may or may not be to pull a blaster on them in turn.
The moment is finished as quickly as it begun. Stabby grins down at him, a grin full of malice that promises him, no words needed, that he’ll still be dusted if he makes a wrong move.
Bully for him that he’s so good at sitting still.
He’s great at doing nothing.
He does a better job faking a grin in response, this time, still queasy but hiding it better, before he looks back over to Papyrus and his soulmate.
Tall, dark, and edgy has moved closer to Papyrus. Sans sees the LV written in their bones and has to fight himself not to shortcut between them and his brother, or else just drag Papyrus bodily away from them. Haltingly, they offer Papyrus their hand, and Papyrus doesn’t even hesitate to accept the offered help to his feet. Although, admittedly, he does look distinctly like he’s about to burst into joyful tears at the slightest prodding. For a very long moment, Papyrus and his soulmate just stand there and stare at each other.
And Sans, for just a second, just in the safety of his own head, finds himself wondering if maybe he’s been wrong all this time. Maybe all that shit about soulmates just mooning helplessly over each other when they meet isn’t total bullshit, just made up for romance novels.
When that second is over, he dismisses the thoughts without a moment’s pause to consider them further.
Of course it was all bullshit. But Papyrus believes in that soppy romance novelesque bullshit wholeheartedly, so of course he’s been instantly wooed by his soulmate. He’s clearly too stunned by the fact he found them to be righteously furious over the fact that they’re LV 10.
There’s no way in hell that Papyrus ‘Murder Is Always Wrong Always In All Situations’ the skeleton would ever be so chill about his soulmate having that much EXP to their name if he wasn’t so distracted by the fact they even exist at all. Sans is almost completely sure of that. 99% Or, well.. Maybe closer to 95%.
Stars know that Sans, who could at least be convinced to make an exception to his general ‘don’t kill people’ sentiments under the right circumstances, isn’t feeling particularly chill about it. But Papyrus doesn’t budge, not on his morals. Not like Sans will. He has to just be too shell-shocked for it to matter right now, or he’d be much, much more upset.
And, honestly? If it weren’t for that soulstring, he can’t say for sure that he wouldn’t whip a bone construct at tall, dark, and edgy’s face just to get them the fuck away from his little brother. As is, he has plenty of good reasons not to do that. Between how mad at him Papyrus would be even if it wasn’t his soulmate Sans was attacking, how much madder he’d be about Sans attacking his soulmate, the fact that Stabby is definitely still within stabbing range, and the fact that both Stabby and their sibling are well-above LV 5, it’d be suicidally stupid of him to even try, and, as he said before, he’s really not interested in dying.
With another glance at Stabby to measure how likely it is that getting up will get him shanked, he starts to slowly lever himself to his feet. Stabby doesn’t try to stab him, but they don’t look particularly enthused that Sans is now standing on two feet instead of kneeling on the floor in front of them.
(It’s not like Sans isn’t used to being on his knees. He could have stayed there for a while longer, if the circumstances had been different.)
(Hell, if Stabby wasn’t LV 8, and Papyrus wasn’t in the room, he honestly can’t say that he wouldn’t have offered to blow them as a way to break the ice. He can’t say he wouldn’t have followed through if they’d accepted.)
“Okay,” He says, slow and carefully mild, “as, uh, touching as this whole ‘you guys are soulmates’ thing is, Paps, we’ve kind of got bigger problems right now, don’t you think? Like, ‘how did we get here’, and ‘where is here, exactly, anyway’?”
“Oh!” Papyrus blinks, looking over to him. Sans doesn’t miss the way his soulmate stiffens and follows his gaze, looking slightly wounded and immensely distrustful. “Yes, of course, brother. That is an excellent point! Goodness, what was I thinking? We can’t have you being the responsible one, the universe might implode.”
Papyrus is so fucking quick. Of course he’d picked up on the fact that Sans is uncomfortable as fuck right now. Of course he’d make a joke to unknot some of the tension winding his nonexistent guts.
His little brother really is the greatest.
“Exactly.” He says, instead of any of that, “and I’m sure you don’t want to be responsible for the universe imploding. Glad we’re on the same page.”
Papyrus snorts.
He’s still holding onto his soulmate’s hand. Sans isn’t sure what to say to get him to stop that.
“Right,” Papyrus says, “well, I am not entirely sure how we got here. It sort of felt like one of your nonsense shortcuts? Only much, much worse. And, as for where here is…”
He trails off, looking around the room. His soulmate’s eyes keep flicking between him and Sans. Sans’ eyes keep flicking between Papyrus and his soulmate.
“Hm,” Says Papyrus, after a short pause, looking to Sans again. He seems troubled, suddenly, “it, ah… Looks like our living room? Except very much not our living room. There’s no floor sock.”
Very, very slowly, Sans turns his head to look around the room. He has a half-formed thought about hoping Paps is fucking with him, but it dies before it ever takes root. Of course Papyrus isn’t fucking with him. Of course, when he looks, it really does look a lot like their living room.
Same basic setup, same furniture positioning.
There are, however, a few key differences. The missing floor sock is one of them, of course, but the dusty grey color of the carpet, the boarded and warded windows, the scorch marks and holes decorating the walls, the state of the furniture, and the presence of the ugliest fucking cat that Sans has ever seen are some of the other, decidedly more obvious, differences.
The cat, at least, is almost a pleasant surprise. It’s curled up on the stained, moth-eaten couch, one big, green eye squinting in the general direction of Papyrus. Its long grey fur is wildly askew, where it’s present, and it’s missing most of one of its ears and a lot of its fur. It’s… Kind of cute, actually.
Like, it’s ugly as sin, don’t get him wrong. It also looks like it could kill Papyrus if the mood struck it. But it’s still sort of cute.
Just as he gets his eyes back on Papyrus, he feels a check ping off of him, rough like someone grabbing him by the jacket and shaking him down. He bristles on instinct, barely keeping his grin from turning into a snarl – he’s good at that. He looks first to Papyrus’ soulmate, but their expression hasn’t changed at all.
Then, he looks at Stabby.
Stabby, suddenly, looks like they need a drink.
“Boss.” They say, almost warily, “You might outghta check the runt.”
Sans bites back the urge to snark at them – maybe a snap about their height by comparison to his, maybe just a dig at their casual trampling of boundaries –, but it isn’t easy. He doesn’t try to resist the urge to check them in return for their unauthorized fucking invasion of his privacy. The anger dies in his chest when the check comes back. Suddenly, he thinks he might also need a drink.
Sans 5AT 5DF
* Don’t turn your back on him.
“Paps.” He says, more sharply than he means to.
A warning: bullshit afoot, tread carefully.
He feels another check hit him, more like a too-hard pat on the back. Papyrus’ soulmate takes a startled breath. Sans doesn’t have it in him to bristle again, because he has a sinking feeling that if he checks Paps’ soulmate, they’re going to be named Papyrus.
The look that they gave him when he called Papyrus by his name suddenly makes a lot of truly unfortunate sense.
“… I see.” They say, slowly, into the silence following their check.
Papyrus gives both of the now familiar strangers a sort of searching look that Sans is very, very familiar with. He’s gauging their reactions the way that Sans inadvertently taught him to. He won’t see anywhere near as much in their faces as Sans does, but he’s still pretty damn good at it.
“Well,” Edgy continues, still just as slow, but growing more confident, “be that as it may, I suppose that we had all better get comfortable with each other. I’m hardly going to toss my soulmate or their brother out into the snow.”
Stabby makes a noise of pure, incoherent anger. “Boss, you cannot be fucking serious. Just because the tall one is your soulmate—“
Edgy cuts them a Look.
It is a very eloquent look.
Stabby stops talking, but their silence and the look on their face are both very, very loud.
Sans tries to ignore it.
He gets it, though, is the thing – he and Stabby are definitely on the same page re: soulmate bullshit exempting anyone from potential murder. Unfortunately, they both seem to suspect the other as the most likely perpetrators of said murder. It’d rankle more if Sans didn’t know good and goddamned well that it’s entirely possible to off somebody without getting EXP for it.
You just have to arrange for them to have a little ‘accident’, that’s all.
The fact that he has no EXP to his name probably isn’t exactly reassuring to anyone who knows that. And if Stabby has the same problems he does with Knowing things, with Seeing things, then it’s no surprise that he’s the first person on the suspect list. A Judge rocking up in your house with no EXP doesn’t mean they haven’t killed anybody. It just means they didn’t do the deed themself.
Not that, you know, there are a lot of Judges. As far as he knows, there’s only one – but, then, as far as he knew this morning, there was only one of him, too.
Gaster would be fucking stoked. They may have finally found evidence of his diverging timelines theory, and all it took was Sans accidentally sidestepping through a tear in the fabric of reality. He usually does make his biggest breakthroughs by accident.
Kind of like how he learned that you can kill someone without laying a finger on them, if you’re really fucking careful.
“Oh, I like that idea.” Papyrus says, breaking the tense silence. He soldiers on as if Stabby hadn’t spoken at all, bulldozing over his incredibly loud silence. “I dearly appreciate you being so willing to take us in! But, yes, yes, introductions will most certainly be in order. Perhaps affectionate nicknames of some sort!”
Very delicately, he extracts his hand from Edgy’s grasp with a kind, squinty-eyed smile. He only moves far enough away from them to stand at Sans’ side, but Sans is just relieved that Papyrus seems willing to tolerate Sans’ probably very obvious discomfort with this idea.
Papyrus’ hand lands on the back of his neck.
Sans’ hand knots into the fabric of the back of Papyrus’ sweater, near the base of his spine.
He’s actually wearing a shirt today.
The battle body was in the wash.
Well, that’s going to hurt his feelings later. He loved that stupid costume to bits.
Sans mentally prepares for the potential clothing-related meltdown when Papyrus realizes that his favorite outfit got left behind in their original timeline. Maybe he can come up with enough scraps to recreate it…
More pressing than that is figuring out how to move forward. It seems that where they’ll be staying has already been decided. Sans can’t imagine he’s going to be getting much sleep around here. He’ll probably get relegated to the couch, and he’s not stupid enough to be able to sleep in the open in a house occupied by two LV 5+ individuals.
“Alright!” Papyrus says, “I am the Great Papyrus, and…”