Chapter Text
"Come on sugar," a voice said gently, prodding the skelemonster in the back with an outstretched paw for good measure. "Don't you got a job to get going to?"
"time is it?" Sans grumbled, reaching a hand out to grab where an alarm clock normally sat on the nightstand before remembering he wasn't in his own bed.
"Late enough that I'm going to get a talking to if I don't show up soon," the bunny monster replied, leaning over a makeshift vanity and pinching her cheeks a bit in an effort to perk herself up. She pulled a shirt on over lacy undergarments and tied her ears back into a ponytail. "Up and at 'em buckaroo."
Feeling like his skull was going to split in half, Sans pushed himself up into a seated position and held his head in his hands for a minute to stop it from spinning. He couldn't actually remember going home with Bun, which probably was a good thing. Grillby likely had a fat tab with his name on it for when he next saw him.
A problem for Future Sans.
Bun lit up a joint and took a hit, offering it to Sans, who waved it away. "You sure?"
"i'm good. heh, the guard captain would kill me coming in late smelling like that." He pushed himself up and looked around for his clothes that were mixed up with the jumble of old pizza boxes and dirty clothes that littered Bun’s room.
“Suit yourself, Sansy.” Bun took another hit, putting the remainder out in an overly full tin can that doubled as an ashtray way overdue for an emptying. "Shit, I lost my spare key last time you were over here. You still owe me a new one."
"your locks aren't any good," he winked, holding up the spare that he'd actually remembered to put on his own keyring this time. "all i own are skeleton keys--oof!"
"Way too early in the morning for that, doll face.” She motioned for him to pick the wadded up shirt she'd thrown at him off the ground. "Think that one's yours. Seriously, you gotta go, Maven's going to kill me if I'm late to my shift again."
"yep, outta here," he confirmed, throwing a half hearted salute for good measure. Fuck, his head hurt.
"Hey Sans?"
"yeah?"
"Last night was fun. The parts I remember anyways.”
"heh, maybe i'll catch you next month when i’m ready to face booze again,” he replied, his voice still gravelly from too much alcohol on a work night.
“That’s what you said last week,” she chuckled, swatting him out the door with her purse.
A snow flurry kicked up along the walkway in front of him as he trudged down the path leading to the main road of Snowdin, thankful for the cold air that was blowing into his eye sockets and numbing his headache. Heading up the walkway to the home he shared with his brother, he attempted to open the door and slip in as quietly as possible.
“SANS! There you are! Did you go to work today? Actually, don’t answer that,” Papyrus yelled from the kitchen, where he was fighting against a pot threatening to boil over on the stove top. The radio’s staticky music underpinning the chaos of the kitchen only added to the oncoming migraine Sans knew he’d be fighting off the rest of the morning.
“morning to you too,” Sans grumbled.
“Morning? Try again,” Papyrus scoffed.
“again,” Sans grinned, dodging a towel thrown his direction. He tried to decide whether it was worth the effort to make coffee or just attempt to kill his headache with the remainder of the jumble of expired meds piled up in the bathroom cabinet. He grabbed a piece of cold toast off the counter that looked like it’d been sitting on a plate all morning waiting for him and chewed the edge of it. “shouldn’t you be in school or something?”
“I already told you, we’re on break this week. Unlike you.”
Through the zinging pain in his skull and the white noise of Papyrus scolding him for his tardiness, something on the radio caught his attention.
“whoa whoa whoa, hold up bro,” he said, holding up a sign in Hands for silence even though the two of them rarely used it anymore.
“—originally sentenced indefinitely for circumstances still undisclosed to the public, the king says the pardon today after nearly ten years of confinement comes as a result of quote, ‘mistakes in judgment that were previously made and since reconsidered,’ unquote.”
“wait, what?” Sans said, spraying toast crumbs everywhere in his disbelief.
“Shh!”
“According to the statement issued by palace officials this morning, Dr. W.D. Gaster will be reinstated as the kingdom’s Royal Scientist, effective immediately. Details on the circumstances surrounding both his imprisonment and his release today remain shrouded in secrecy.”
“Does that mean...dad’s coming back home?” Papyrus asked, staring at the radio and momentarily forgetting the pot on the stove that was now boiling over onto the floor. He turned to see the remnants of his brother’s breakfast lying on the ground with no brother in sight. “Sans? SANS! I told you no teleporting in the house!!!”
~
Sans stepped out into the hallway of the palace chambers, looking for clues as to where the king might be. While his brother and he had been under Asgore’s watch ever since the doctor was thrown in prison, the king had been less involved in their lives since the queen disappeared years ago. When she failed to ever return, the king had fallen into a deep depression that sunk the whole kingdom into a perpetual dark cloud.
Sans had originally assumed the doctor was in trouble over reanimating the two of them and had perhaps been blamed for the death of Chara and Asriel twelve years ago as a result. However, it seemed that something much bigger was going on that had eventually resulted in Toriel turning her back on the entire underground. Despite confinement clearly weighing on him throughout the years, the doctor refused to fill Sans in on the details of what happened, even from behind bars.
Whatever it was, apparently it was now being pardoned without any heads up whatsoever from the king.
He flagged down a guardsman he recognized stationed out in the hallway, who nodded at him. “Hey Sans, Captain was looking for you this morning.”
“slept through my alarm,” Sans lied, peering around the guard into the next room. “asgore around?”
“He’s in his usual spot...with uh...”
“yeah, i already know.”
“You going in dressed like that?”
Sans looked down and realized he was still in his rumpled t-shirt emblazoned with the name of some band that’d passed through Grillby’s months ago called “KILLER DEATH MUTANTS FROM SPACE.” He shrugged. There were bigger things on his mind right now than a dress code.
“Oh man,” the guard laughed. “You do realize the captain is going to have your skull on a platter if they see you.”
“bone appetit, heh.”
“Nice.”
“hey, do me a solid and tell her asgore gave me a special assignment or something,” he called behind him as he continued down the hall towards the throne room.
Asgore barely used the official throne anymore. Instead, he was usually out in the garden behind the main room, and only held court when it was absolutely necessary. Sans suspected he’d taken up fastidiously caring for his garden in light of no longer having a family to pour his love into, which made him sad to think about.
“Oh! Hapsta, quickly! This way! Sir! Sir! If you please,” a monster called out from ahead of him, whose diamond shaped face was so polished Sans could see himself staring back into it as they sprinted towards him with a microphone. “Hurry up dammit!” they called over their shoulder to the frustrated pink ghost monster lugging an oversized camcorder and boom mic trying to keep up.
“uh...” Sans replied. The boom mic almost knocked him over as it was plunked down on his head.
“Sorry darling,” the ghost said, trying to juggle the equipment. Sans was pretty sure he recognized them as one of the ghosts from the snail farm he used to frequent with Toriel as a kid, but didn’t say anything.
“Do you have any information about the recent pardon of the Royal Scientist you can share with our audiences at home? What of the scandal that lead to his imprisonment? And any word on where the queen has vanished to?” the reporter demanded, pushing their mic into Sans face as they continued to barrage him with questions. “You’re his son, aren’t you?”
“...er, no comment,” Sans replied gruffly, pushing past them and into the throne room.
To his surprise, he saw Asgore seated inside on the throne, his head in his hands looking to be deep in thought. As he closed the door on the reporter that was continuing to shout questions at him, he froze in his tracks when he noticed the small frame of Dr. Gaster standing near the king, his hands posed as if he was in the middle of explaining something.
“That was fast,” the doctor said, looking to Asgore.
“Ah, Sans. Thank you for coming on such short notice,” the king said in as cheerful of a tone as he seemed able to muster in recent years. “I assume Captain Feenyx was able to connect with you this morning?”
“...uh, no, actually,” Sans replied, still trying to will away his hangover and waiting to see if Asgore even noticed that he was still in the wadded up clothes he’d worn to the bar the night before. “is someone going to tell me what the hell is going on?”
“Language, Sans,” the doctor chided.
He turned to the doctor angrily, switching languages. “Are you fucking kidding me?” The doctor chuckled, which only further pissed him off.
“I realize this must come as a shock, dear Sans,” the king interjected, rising to stand. The doctor looked laughably small standing next to him in what looked to be old work clothes that were now outdated and in need of mending. “But I can assure you this was not a spur of the moment decision. There were...a number of confidential matters that needed to be dealt with leading up to today.”
“so what, everything’s back to normal now? i still don’t even know what he was in prison for to begin with--”
“Nor shall we be discussing it,” the king warned sternly. “Now, I know you both have much catching up to do. Sans, I would appreciate it if you would show Dr. Gaster back to the laboratory so he can get started on a special assignment. And perhaps you can fill Sans in along the way,” he added, throwing a knowing look at the doctor.
The doctor nodded. “Yes, sire”.
“what, you can’t remember where the lab is after all this time?” Sans muttered, folding his arms so he didn’t throw another expletive.
“Of course I remember,” the doctor replied, his gestures indicating annoyance. “That’s not the point.”
“Sans, please,” Asgore asked, looking like he had something more to say to him than he was allowing himself to. Ever since the king’s children had died, a wall had risen up between the two of them that still hurt Sans to think about. He’d found himself taking on more and more of Asgore’s requests as he got older -- joining the royal guard, keeping tabs on conversations between disgruntled subjects, listening to him reminisce about the queen -- as if helping him keep the kingdom afloat was somehow penance for the sins he still felt so guilty about. Sans looked down at his feet and kicked an untied shoelace out of the way, still feeling like his head was spinning from the night prior.
“fine. but we’re taking the back exit so we don’t get swarmed by reporters on the way out.”
~
“Okay, warn me next time before you go jumping us around like that, yeah?” the doctor griped, taking a step forward to stabilize himself after an unexpected jump to Hotland. Sans let go of the back of his coat where he’d grabbed onto him for the jump and continued walking towards the direction of the lab in front of them.
“oops.”
“Oops?! You reek like booze right now, by the way. How old are you now, 23? 24? Way too young to be smelling that foul this early in the morning.”
“You’re one to talk,” Sans countered, spinning around angrily so the doctor could see his gestures loud and clear.
“Ha! I haven’t had a drink in...gods, 10 years now?” he asked, looking very tired for a moment. Sans turned back and headed towards the lab, irritated. “I think Firenze said he’d moved out to New Home City finally. Wonder if his place is open right now...”
“are you going to tell me why you went to prison or not?”
“I’m not at liberty to divulge that,” the doctor replied, shrugging. “King’s orders. By the way, is this normal royal guard dress code now or did you just gussy up for me?”
“did it for you. obviously.”
“I’m honored. I still don’t understand why you joined the royal guard of all things. Your HP is still shit after that whole barrier incident, this is like the worst career choice for you unless you get your hands on some more DT.”
“yes. please keep giving me career advice.”
“I don’t think there’s even been any humans down here since Toriel locked me up, has there? Just curious why there’s so many guards on patrol for such a low return on investment. But what do I know,” he remarked, continuing to follow at what Sans suspected was an intentionally slow pace. “I take it you never actually finished your PhD program like you said you were going to since you’re flouncing around with the guard dogs now.”
“nope!” Sans replied cheerfully without turning around, knowing it would get on the doctor’s nerves.
“Mm hmm. So I guess I shouldn’t ask you about quantum circuit formalism then.”
Sans froze in his tracks. “...did you read my dissertation?"
“Come on Sans, I’m acquainted with...probably most of the faculty in the science and engineering department at NHU,” the doctor replied flatly. “They’ve all interned at the lab at some point or another. Your professor sent me a copy when you dropped out and asked if I could help persuade you to come back and defend it.”
Sans felt his face turn cold, trying to figure out where this conversion was going. “it wasn’t anything.”
“Are you kidding me? That was brilliant stuff.”
“it was just a bunch of theory,” Sans grumbled, continuing to walk. “it doesn’t actually solve anything.”
“But what if it could?” the doctor asked, excitedly. “Your paper got me thinking...what if we were to build something that allowed for a causality violation to actually occur? The problem is that so many of these other theories have always thought in way too linear of a way about this issue, but with a loop like you proposed --”
“you’d have to be moving faster than light for it to work, how the hell would you even build something like that down here?” Sans stopped and mentally kicked himself at falling into the doctor’s trap. “by the way, you haven’t even asked about papyrus, but he’s doing fine. if you care.”
“See, you’re doing this all backwards. Papyrus should be the one training for the royal guard, not you. He’s built for that stuff.”
“no.”
“No? Why not?” the doctor laughed. “Too nice? You know, he sent me cards every week while I was in the slammer --”
“i said no,” Sans repeated angrily, approaching the lab door and holding it open for him. “alright, you’ve been escorted.”
“I have something to show you while you’re here. I think you should see it.”
“i’m already late to my post,” Sans grumbled.
“You’re not even in your uniform!” the doctor retorted, ignoring the stares of a few of the lab staff who’d stopped in their tracks in disbelief. “Come on, it’ll take ten minutes and then you can go march around and throw bullets at things or whatever else it is guards do all day.” He watched Sans hesitate. “Also, Asgore gave me orders to get you on board with this, so make it easy on me, huh?”
“what?! why?”
“I promise it’ll be worth your time,” the doctor said, heading inside and beckoning him into a service elevator as the doors opened up. He shot a bullet pattern into the keypad to allow him access to the lower levels and motioned for Sans to join him. Reluctantly, Sans followed.
The two rode down a series of floors in silence, broken only by soft sounds of floors chiming off as the elevator zoomed down to the lower levels. Eventually, the doors opened into a sparsely lit room, where Sans saw a familiar figure hunched over a table, in the middle of soldering something.
“Good morning Dr. Alphys!” the doctor called cheerfully, startling the monster in front of them who dropped her entire tray of tools on the floor.
“OH MY GOD! Oh! Oh, s-s-s-sorry! I -- what time is it? I th-th-thought you w-w-weren’t coming until later. Not that it’s a bad thing!” she stammered, picking instruments off the floor. “Oh! S-s-sans! Long t-time no see!”
“hey...” Sans started cautiously, looking around. The wad of circuitry Alphys had been working on along with multiple blueprints spread out around the room caught his attention. “so what am I looking at, exactly?”
“You don’t recognize it? You basically came up with the concept, I just drew out the blueprints and had Dr. Alphys here helping with constructing some of the prototypes to go along with it while I was uh, preoccupied.”
“...you built a...time machine?”
“Well, n-not yet,” Alphys replied, reddening a bit. “Still have a lot of k-k-kinks to work out. I’ve m-mostly just been t-testing some photon acceleration p-prototypes at this point.” She set the tools back down on the workbench and approached the doctor nervously. “It’s so nice to see you in person!”
“Likewise,” the doctor replied. Sans pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t still asleep in Bun’s bed. Since when were the doctor and Alphys working together? The doctor’s exuberant voice brought him out of his haze. “What do you say, Sans? Up for a little science project?”
“...i need to think about it,” he replied.
“Take your time,” the doctor said nonchalantly, picking up a schematic and looking over it carefully. "But don’t take too long or the king will be coming after me about it." When he looked back up, Sans was already gone.
“Wait, wh-where’d he go?” Alphys asked, looking around.
“He’ll be back,” the doctor promised, sitting down to more closely assess their progress.
~
Sans appeared back in his room and plunked down on the pile of clothes on his bed, needing a minute to process everything. His hangover only seemed to have gotten worse that morning and he glanced around to see how close to the bed his trash can was in case he ended up losing his dinner from the night prior. Rolling over, he fished under his bed until his fingers landed on a small box that had been shoved back behind bits of random junk that’d piled up around it over the years. Pulling the box out, he dusted the top of the lid off, which still had “KEEP OUT” scrawled on the top in 13-year-old handwriting.
Carefully, he opened the lid and pulled out the folded drawing among the contents inside, flattening out the crumpled edges. Spots on the paper where he'd sobbed onto it countless nights following the deaths of his two friends were still visible overlaying crayon. Three badly drawn figures stared back from him on the yellowed paper -- two in stripes, and one oddly happy looking human fused with a skelemonster. Chara’s name was still signed in the corner, teasing him.
“Don’t forget,” the drawing warned.
Was time travel possible? He’d been so frustrated with how infeasible it seemed when he had buried himself in it before dropping out of NHU. And yet the doctor, who in all his shortcomings as a father was still the smartest monster in the underground, not only seemed to think it was possible, but was already working on building something to make it happen.
Sans sighed, folding the drawing back up and setting it on his bedside table. Hearing Papyrus in the room next door singing loudly to himself as he worked on something, he snuck past his room and downstairs to make a phone call.
“uh, hi...can someone put me through to dr. gaster?” he asked the lab assistant that’d picked up. The pleasant bubblegum pop of the hold music on the other end of the line while he waited for the doctor to pick up combined with his hangover threatened to shatter his skull.
“Sans?” the doctor finally answered.
“fine,” he conceded. “i’m in.”
“Excellent,” the doctor replied, a hint of relief in his voice. “Rest up and for godssake take a shower and then get back over here. We’ve got a lot of work to do. Oh, and whatever you do, don’t tell Papyrus. Or anyone else for that matter. This is top secret, capiche? The king wants you on this full time, we already spoke to the guard captain about it.”
“why do i feel like i didn’t actually have a choice in this?” Sans grumbled.
“SANS IS THAT YOU DOWN THERE?! WHY AREN’T YOU AT WORK?” he heard Papyrus yell from upstairs.
“Because you didn’t,” the doctor responded, ignoring Papyrus yelling in the background. “But don’t worry. I can assure you, this project will be very, very interesting.”
THE END(?)