Sans closed the door to his brother’s room, and looked around for his bro. “Papyrus?” He looked under the bed and in the sheets of the bed, under his brother’s desk and under his brother’s table. “Come on, bro, I need to talk to you.”
I think he’s in the closet. Pinkie said in the back of his mind.
Sans had long ago decided to listen to that pink pony. She was very sensitive to where monsters and ponies were. With a flick of his hand the closet doors sprang open, and true to Pinkie’s word there Papyrus was, curled into a ball on the floor. “Heya Paps.” Sans sat down next to him.
“Papyrus isn’t in right now.” A more melodic voice filtered through.
“Oh.” Sans stared at her for a while. “How is he?”
She grimaced, somehow making that work on a skeleton’s face. “Still depressed.”
“Ah.” Sans and she sat in an awkward silence. “Hey, uh, did you know there’s another pony downstairs?”
Papyrus’ head snapped towards him so quickly Sans swore he heard a crack.
“Yeah, it’s just a kid too. Pinkie keeps calling it a filly, but… ya know… kid has a better ring to it.”
“Did you capture it?” They quickly asked.
“Eh… well…” Sans began, not quite sure how to explain that he had not even tried and just took Frisk directly to their house. He felt Pinkie pushing in the back of his mind, begging him to let her handle this. Sans gladly let her take control.
“Hi, Pa-!” It was an odd feeling, to feel himself talking but not actually trying to talk. He still hadn’t gotten used to it, even after all this time and the random switches between the two.
“You didn’t answer our question.” It hurt Sans to see them like this. Depressed and focused.
“Yup! We captured him alright!” Pinkie said cheerfully. “He’s currently sitting downstairs watching the T.V. just waiting for you to finish capturing him!”
Papyrus sank back down, putting his head in his hands. “I can’t.” He croaked out. “I killed… I…”
Sans immediately took over, shoving Pinkie to the back and ignoring her protests. “Hey, hey, bro! That was an accident. You didn’t mean to. Heck, even SHE tells you it isn’t your fault! I mean, during your fight, you… you…” Sans trailed off, realizing with a start that there was a gap in his memory. A big gap with tons of little chasms all over the place. What did Pinkie Pie even look like? What was having nopony in your mind like? Why couldn’t he remember anything before he and Pinkie co-existed in the same body?
He shakily stood up, surprising both his brother and Pinkie. What are you doing?! He needs our help! Pinkie was still ignored. With stiff steps, Sans walked out of the room and onto the landing, where he had a good view of Frisk napping peacefully away on the couch.
He finally managed to make it into his room and flopped on his bed right as Pinkie managed to take control back. “What was that?! Go back, Papy and T need our help!”
“Pinkie. Do you remember what you looked like?” He asked, heedless of her urgings.
Pinkie snorted. “Of course! I was pink!”
“Do you remember what I looked like?” Sans waved his hand, throwing another sock into the self-sustaining tornado. “You know… before,” He gestured to his general body. “this.”
Pinkie grinned. “Yeah, you were… you… I… don’t know?” She stopped grinning to the best of her ability what with being stuck in a skeleton’s body. “You were… yellow. I think.” She sat up. “Something’s wrong.”
“You can say that again, P.” Sans scratched his skull and looked towards the door.
“Somethin-“
“Didn’t mean literally.” They both stood up, took a step, but then felt tired. Yawn. “You know what? A nap sounds pretty good right now. We’ll rest a little while.” Both of them preformed an about-face and fell on their bed again. Soon they were out.
“Don’t ya know how to greet new pals?”
“(Jeez lady you sure know how to pick ‘em.)”
“If you fight our bro… well, let’s just say we won’t welcome you with a party.”
“Paps! Oh come on, buddy, come on! This… This isn’t funny anymore! Come on, this was just a prank pulled by you right? You’re so good at show biz now, this is fake dust right?! It’s just a prank! Right? Right?!”
“Heh, you’ve been busy, ki-“
“Guess that’s it then, huh?”
I awoke with a shout, and by the sound coming from upstairs I wasn’t the only one. A thump came from upstairs and Pinkie Sans burst from the door on the far right. Their face was truly disturbing, the small light blue lights always in their eyes gone. One of their arms shot out towards me, and suddenly my limbs felt like lead and I was pressed into the couch very firmly. With great effort, I managed to push my head up, only just avoiding impalement by a row of bones that appeared under my chin. My eyes flitted to Pinkie Sans as I struggled to keep myself up. “Uh, guys? Help? Please?”
Slowly the bones sunk down and disappeared and the crushing pressure was released. I sighed and turned only to come face to face with them. “We need to have a little chat.” They growled, scarily calm. I could only nod, hoping that I didn’t do anything else to inspire their ire. Jerking me up from the couch, they both stomped out towards the kitchen and rounded the corner with me in tow. A gut wrenching moment later, we were in a much warmer place. A small bench was in the middle of the room, and they forcibly sat me down on it. “Stay.” They said, then bended back under the bench and disappeared.
My mouth dangled open at the turn of events. What had happened to make them so angry with me? I looked up, trying to figure out the answer to my question. Thousands of tiny twinkling stones in the ceiling winked back. “I’m not in Snowdin anymore.” I whispered to myself. As I stared into the dark cave ‘sky’, I found myself wanting to make a wish. With all my heart and soul poured into this one sentence, I said, “I wish…” Of course, I could wish for the nightmares to go away, but that would be selfish. Wishing to get out of here was a wish that I neither wanted nor needed. I walked over to the water’s edge and splashed my face. It was cool and refreshing, giving me determination and reminding me why I left Flutoriel in the first place. Back to the bench. “I wish that I can save Equestria.”
“Really? Pretty noble, kiddo.” Pinkie Sans appeared next to me, causing me to shout and fall prone to the ground. Honestly they looked terrible. One of their eyes was flickering worryingly and various strong-smelling beverages and food decorated their figure. “We might have to throw you a party afterwards.” They sat down on the bench, pulling out a greasy bag. “From Grillby’s. Want some?” I hesitated. “Aw, come on kid. It might not be as good as cupcakes, but it’s still pretty good.” As slowly as ponily possible I sat down on the bench, looking warily at Pinkie Sans as they offered me a burger. I pulled it out and unwrapped it, looking at the compressed veggie burger framed by wilted lettuce.
Wincing, I gently put it down. “Fries?” I asked, trying to use as little words as possible. Shrugging, they gave me a box of greasy fries. Happily I grabbed them and began munching on them. We sat in an uncomfortable silence as he drank ketchup and I ate fries. I decided to break it. “Uh, why do you look like…” I gestured to all of him.
“Heh, funny story, and not in the ‘ha ha’ sort of way.” They began. “Turns out that monsters don’t particularly like it when one of the weakest monsters in the Underground steals a pony soul.”
I stared, confused. “Huh?”
“Eh, we’ll tell you about it later. It’s a gem of a story, you’d like it.”
More silence.
“So…” Sans suddenly said. “How you been sleeping?”
The question took me completely off guard and soon all the fries that were in my mouth were all over the floor of the cave. I coughed as Sans looked on impassively. “G-good.” I stuttered out.
“Come on. We both know that’s not true.” His eyes went dark, chilling me down to the bone. “You were screaming just as much as me this morning.”
“Y-yeah, bu-but it was jus-just a… uh… really… happy… dream?” I tried. I considered telling him I may or may not have killed him in this dream, but that would’ve just been creepy.
“Heh, oh how I wish that was the case.” He laughed bitterly, tucking the nearly empty ketchup bottle back into the bag. “Frisk, how often have you seen it happen?”
“Seen what?” I asked, completely nonplussed, or at least trying to convince myself that I was. Instead a black ball of dread began nesting into my stomach.
He smiled, except his smile was cold. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“No, I don’t!” I yelled, launching myself off the bench. I stood, shivering as Sans stared at me with blank eye-sockets. “I have… no possible idea. Nothing’s been… bothering me. Nothing… nothing…” I trailed off as tears filled my eyes. Inexplicable sadness, followed by guilt, shame, anger, and disappointment ran through my small frame in quick succession. I sat back down on the floor, sobbing.
“Hey! Calm down!” Pinkie had taken control and had quickly gotten down to my level. She comforted me, and the smile on her face was now genuine, the lights in her eyes returning. “Frisk, I know Sans might have scared you a little bit. But… well… he’s scared too.” She lifted my head, and gently rubbed her hand through my mane. “He’s really scared. We’ve been having nightmares too, and they’ve been pretty scary. We have a feeling you’re having these nightmares, maybe even the same ones! After we solve this nightmare problem, we can be dreaming buddies!” She paused for just a second. “That sounds so familiar… Anyway! Sans really does care about you, and so do I! We’re doing this for everyone’s benefit.” She gave one last comforting smile before Sans stood up suddenly.
He rubbed the back of skull. “Heh, sorry kiddo. I, uh, didn’t mean to freak you out so much.” He picked me up insanely easily, dried my tears on his jacket, then plopped me back down on the bench. “Tibia good friend, will you forgive me?”
I answered him with a hug, ignoring the various condiments he was dressed in.
“Best forgiveness there is.” The grin this time was completely genuine, different from all the others I’d seen from him. “But still, would you mind telling me about these dreams?”
I stared at my hooves for a while, before finally speaking up. “You’re right. They’re not dreams. They’re nightmares.” I fell silent. “It’s… like deja-vu, I guess. I feel like I’ve met you and Flutoriel before, just under… less happy circumstance-“
“Wait, stop for a second.” Pinkie Sans interrupted. “Flutoriel?”
“Um, Fluttershy and Toriel.”
They blinked, and turned to stare at the water. “Those names…” They muttered something else, then motioned for me to continue.
“The nightmares started when I fell down here. First it was with Flutoriel. The feeling of… dust.” I felt Sans stiffen.
“W-what, kiddo? Did I hear you say dust?”
I nodded, and he stood up suddenly, staring me right in the eyes. “Have you ever killed a monster, kid?” I shook my head vehemently. “When a monster dies, they turn into dust.”
“Why?”
“Pony souls are strong, Frisk. Really strong. Strong enough to persist even after death. Monster souls though…” He shook his head. “You’re planning on moving forward right?”
“Most definitely.” I said, putting on my most serious face.
He waved his hand. “You’ll figure it out later then.” He pulled back his wrist, showing a very battered watch. “Wow. Time sure has flown, huh? Pinkie’s getting antsy, so I better let her take control for a bit.” He winked at me. “Oh yeah, and a tip about fighting my bro.” He leaned over me. “Don’t.”
His mood seemed to flip, turning from serious to happy. “Wow! That was some talk huh? Hey, what ever happened to that Butterscotch-Cinnamon Pie you had, Frisky?”
“It’s still in the bags back at your house.” I said, suddenly feeling hungry despite the fries I had earlier.
She gasped loudly, then grabbed my hoof and then we were at her house. I’m not sure how else to describe it. She just grabbed my hoof and we were there. She dashed over to my saddle-bags and started rooting through them. “H-hey! That’s my pie!” I yelled.
She looked up, with the desperate look of someone who loves sweets. In other words, I was powerless to resist the puppy eyes. Still not sure how she pulled that off with a skeleton. I sighed. “…Fine, you can have it.” Pinkie cheered loudly, and dug in with all the ferocity that I did when I first tried Flutoriel’s pie.
A slam echoed from the top floor, and a loud voice carried through the house. “Sans? Pinkie? Who are you talking t-“
Both our heads snapped towards the sound, mine with curiosity, and Pinkie Sans with slight horror and happiness. “Oh, uh, heya Paps. Now I know how this must look, but-“
Another skeleton, who must’ve been Pinkie Sans’ brother, was watching us from the top of the staircase. He was watching us from the top of the stairs clad in a plain light blue t-shirt and sweat shorts. Being about a head taller than Pinkie Sans definitely made him seem a bit more intimidating, but not too much so. With jerky movements, he turned around and headed back into his room.
Pinkie Sans put down the empty plate sadly. “Kiddo, can I ask you a favor?”
“Of course! I’d be telling a fib-ula if I said you weren’t my friend.” I punned, trying to make them smile a bit more than what they were doing.
It worked. Sort of. “Good.” They stood up, and shuffled off towards the upstairs. “Can you please go inside and talk to them? I think that they would like that. Besides,” They pointed to the multiple stains still on them. “I need to take a shower.”
“Uh, sure.” I walked inside until exactly what Pinkie Sans said clicked with me. “Wait, they?” But they were already gone.