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Sans hid in the shadows as the human talked with his brother on the phone.
Even from this distance, he could hear exactly what his brother was saying. The human was holding the phone at arm's length and was still wincing at the sheer volume. Sans would have snorted at it if that wouldn't have given him away.
"SOMETIMES, PRIZES ARE HIDDEN UNDER THE GRASS. TREASURES LIKE MUD, OR DIRT."
The human visibly giggled. After waiting a few seconds to make sure he had stopped talking, they pulled the phone close to their cheek and responded responded far too quietly for Sans to hear. The human was always so quiet. As soon as the human had finished speaking, they pulled the phone away from their head as quickly as they could in preparation for the tall skeleton's onslaught.
Papyrus was nearly deafening in his response. "DID YOU FIND THE TREASURE?"
The human said something more into the mouthpiece.
Sans smiled to himself. The human was always gave 100% of their conversation while they were on the phone. They probably wouldn't be doing much for a while. They didn't even walk and talk, although Sans couldn't blame them for that. Walking was so difficult after all.
He left the human alone for a bit as he took a shortcut to where they had just come from.
He passed a Moldbygg that wiggled at him in a chaste, but seemingly friendly manner. It was sometimes a bit hard to read the body language of a giant gelatinous glob, but you just need to make do. Sans waved at it before continuing on his way
A loud slurping noise let him know when it had passed around a corner. Sans wondered if he should have warned it. Would it even matter?
Sans froze when his foot landed in something with an unusual crunch. Without moving his foot an inch, Sans closed his eyes, took a deep breath in, and held it to the count of ten.1.2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. The timing between his mental counting got gradually longer as he went farther along. He wasn't exactly relaxed, but he had at least stopped tensing his muscles so hard it was physically painful. Finally, he let out a deep breath and looked down.
It was a pile of dust. Exactly as he's feared.
"This makes eight," Sans said quietly to himself. It was faint, but the echo flowers picked it up and whispered it around the cave, as if it were the world's greatest secret.
"This makes eight."
Sans still wasn't sure if the human was a good person or not. Or rather, he had recently become a lot less sure about the human. When they had left the ruins this time, all of his worst fears seemed to be confirmed and he knew exactly what sort of person they were. They weren't even human. They were something less. Something so much worse.
But they had spared Papyrus. Why had they spared Papyrus?
"This makes eight."
Snowdin was virtually empty. Sans and Papyrus were living alone in a ghost town because one was too stubborn to leave and the other couldn't bring himself to care. Sans hadn't even been able to take the kid out for a meal at his absolute favorite restaurant as thanks for taking his advice. It was boarded up and empty. Everyone was far too scared to be anywhere near the human after everything they had done.
But they had spared Papyrus.
"This makes eight."
For a shining second of hope, Sans really thought his brother had convinced them to change. To be different. To follow a new and better path.
He was wrong.
And now he was following a trail of muddy footprints and dust while unable to stop questioning himself.
But they had spared Papyrus.
"This m~k~ ~~gh~." The echo flowers were becoming garbled from repeating the phrase back and forth to each other endlessly. The words had nearly lost their meaning.
He knelt down and cupped some of the dust between his fingers, as if to pick it up, before relenting and letting it slide back between his bones and onto the pile. He honestly wasn't sure what to do with it. He didn't even know who this monster was, let alone what their favorite object was. He was in no way equipped to officiate a funeral.
He stood in silence for a few minutes as the flowers babbled around him before finally placing a single 'dog on top of the small pile. Everyone loves 'dogs.
Sans walked away. He couldn't let the human get too far ahead of him. Fine particles of dust clung to him.
- - - - - -
He found them interacting with a monster that looked a bit like an anglerfish and didn't seem all too keen on having the kid around. Sans remembered that her name was Shyren and she was having a tough time recently. They weren't that different in that way.
The human sat down a few feet away from the monster and began to hum. Close enough to be noticed, but far enough to give her space. The tune sounded strangely familiar to Sans.
Shyren poked her head out from behind her hair and gave a nervous smile at the noise. As the human kept going, Shyren couldn't help but join in. It was like when Papyrus heard his favorite song come on the radio. (His favorite song, by the way, is all of them)
Sans felt his soul ache deep within his chest as he remembered that the human had done exactly this same thing in an earlier timeline. Back when he had still believed in them. He was about to turn away and leave the two of them to whatever happened.
But then the human began to sing.
Oh my god, Sans practically screamed inside his own head. Are they singing All Star by Smash Mouth?! Is that what they were humming before?!
They were.
"Some body once told me the world was gonna roll me. I ain't the sharpest tool in the sheeeeed~" Their had a nice voice and they actually managed to make the song sound almost alarmingly good considering that it was All Star by Smash Mouth. As they sang, Shyren hummed backup and the human danced around the stage in their cute pink tutu and ballet shoes. The human was... significantly less good at that. To put it nicely. "She was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape. Of an L. On her fore-head~"
A few monsters were starting to peek into the room to see what was going on as the two continued to perform. Sans though he saw the Moldbygg from earlier wiggle its way into the room.
Sans decided. He couldn’t just stand idly by any longer. He had to get in on this.
He took a quick shortcut to the dump nearby and snagged a slightly soggy roll of toilet paper and a black marker. Treasure in hand, he went back to the performance area where a small crowd was starting to form.
The toilet paper was damp enough that when he wrote on it, it was fairly likely to tear and the marker only left an illegible smear of black. Monsters bought them anyway. They were that excited to see what all the commotion was about, and Sans wasn’t one to miss an opportunity. Maybe this time, he could pay off his tab to Grillby… Nah, probably not.
As soon as they spotted him, the human ran up with a giant grin. Shyren took up whistling the melody for them. They looked so pleased to see him and he wondered again yet again if they could really be all that bad.
"Sans! I was hoping you'd come!" They yelled, the loudest Sans had ever heard them by far (Although they did need to fight a bit to be heard over the music). Then they quirked their eyebrows at him. "It's a really good song, isn't it?" They asked teasingly.
Sans laughed, "You caught me, kid. Smash Mouth is my true weakness."
"I'll keep that in mind," the human giggled lightly. They gave a small wave as they twirled around and trotted back to the performance area and continued their song.
Sans was just about to sit down and relax when the human gave an especially big twirl and kicked Shyren's small body off the pillar they were sitting on.
Sans tensed but tried to talk himself out of it. Relax, he told himself, they just screwed up their choreography. They haven't exactly been doing a great job of it thus far
Sans dimly realized that the human was still singing. "Didn't make sense not to live for fun." They placed a single ballet clad shoe directly on Shyren's face. The monster was whimpering quietly on the floor. "Your head gets smart, but your brain gets dumb."
Before continuing, the human turned and looked directly into Sans' eyes. On their face was plastered one of the largest smiles he had ever seen and there was something derp and dark in their eyes.
"So much to do, so much to see. So what's wrong with ta-kin' the back streets?" The human lifted their foot in their air and then brought it down hard onto the small monster with a sickening crunch. She let out a squeal of fear and pain
"You'll never know if you don't go." The human stomped again and again, timing their movement with the beat of the song. Shyren's cries quickly turned to whimpers.
"You'll never shine if you don't glow!" The human flung their arms out in a grand gesture at they ground their foot down onto the other's face.
The gathered spectators were quickly fleeing in every direction for fear they would be next. Sans couldn't help himself; he took a shortcut out of there as fast as he could. It didn't matter if the human could see him vanish into thin air, he had to get out of there before the battle properly ended.
Sans stood behind a wall and hyperventilated against it for several minutes. He could just barely see what the kid was doing and he was fairly certain they couldn't see him. He didn't dare to get any closer and yet he didn't want to leave them alone. Not after what they'd just done.
The human child knelt down and caressed an echo flower with one hand. They quickly glanced around, and Sans pulled back further to avoid detection. Satisfied that everyone had fled, they whispered into the flower and then calmly walked away.
When Sans had finally caught his breath, he walked over to the flower. He was fairly certain that he did not want to know what they had said, but still he felt like he needed to know. He gently poked the flower with a finger to encourage it to release its secrets.
"This make nine," the echo flower told him, "Eleven left."
Why had they spared Papyrus?