Sans sighed dreamily, half asleep as the sun bore down on his exposed upper body and wings. The last four weeks had been the most fun and engaging that he'd had since he was a babybones. And the best part was? He didn't even have to try to hold himself back; this was his vacation, he decided what he did.
Sans wants to go see what swimming on Jupiter was like, which was trippy as all hell because the planet was made out of gasses that acted weird because his body was mostly made of magic, or go check out what the center of The Great Red Spot looks like? Go ahead!
Sans wants to see how long he could fly inside Saturn's belt without teleporting at top speed? You know it!
Sans wants to take a nap on the moon underneath direct sunlight in a lair of old shorts? Damn right he can!
Sure, learning to navigate space wasn't exactly all that smooth at first, he'd gotten lost and somehow ended up on Neptune for about two hours, but as long as he kept some bones on the moon to act as a sort of beacon for his shortcuts to hone in on it was all smooth going. Bones weren't meant to last though, so he had to remake them regularly which was fine for him.
"Hey, I was writing on that!"
And that other completely unimportant thing that just so happened to slip his mind.
These guys. Their voices echoed inside his head at all times as background noise now.
"Yeah?! Well maybe you should be focusing on something other than your stupid drawings!"
"They're not drawings! I was writing a story about werewolves!"
"WE'RE ON THE FLIPPING MOON!?"
"C'mon guys why do you two always have to fight?"
"Just let them wear themselves out, PATIENCE. I'll smack them back in line later."
"Mr. Sans!"
Op, that was his que.
Sans one good eye opened to take in the pretty monotone scenery around him; just a couple of craters and moon dust as far as his eye could see. But what caught his attention the most was the six gaster blasters with full bodies, each a different size, each of their eyes glowing a different color.
And hadn't that been a bitch when he first got to the moon a month ago? Finding out that the six human SOULs had not only stuck around after the barrier had broken, but had hitched a ride on Sans in order to sustain themselves outside of their containment glasses. He caught himself wondering sometimes how many other times they'd hopped aboard in those other timelines, but they were fortunate enough to not be conscious of the RESETs, or conscious period. They'd apparently been asleep since their souls had been stolen, but Asriel using them had awoken them long enough for them to latch onto him afterwards.
And now that he'd let himself 'go' and relaxed a little bit? They were up and about, for the most part.
He looked down at his chest, where six right side up hearts of different colors revolved freely around his own mangled SOUL, small strands of white connecting each of them to him. They'd tried to heal him, fix his crippled SOUL (which was a long shot in the first place, but he'd been HoPeful, heh, anyways) the same way they could heal each other apparently, but it didn't do much but take the edge off his normal bodily/soul aches for a day or so, and even that had pretty much sent them all into instant comas for the next twelve hours.
Since then, he'd figured out a way to let each of them sort of… pilot(?) a full bodied gaster blaster scaled down massively to a more manageable size.
"PERSEVERANCE. BRAVERY. ENOUGH." His thoughts rang out. He snapped his fingers and brought them both back to his arms before settling back down, his wings once more spread out on the ground, locking them in place on top of his rib cage.
""HE STARTED IT!"" They snarled at each other in his mind, their purple and orange eyes boring holes in each other, only stopping when he thumped them both on their heads.
"i'm finishing it then." Sans sighed soundlessly as he closed his eye once more.
And peace reigned once more on the abyssal plains of the moon.
"Mr. Sans?"
For about ten minutes.
His eye opened halfway to stare up at the smallest blaster, the one piloted by the youngest soul, PATIENCE. She had hopped up on his chest at some point and had her little paws on his chin to look him in the eye while the two troublemakers had decided to follow Sans into dreamland. The largest blaster, about the size of a doberman, piloted by the sixteen year old KINDNESS, was next to them and had both JUSTICE and INTEGRITY pinned beneath her.
They'd been wrestling ever since Sans had settled down to sunbathe, and apparently the eldest had managed to win, to absolutely no one's surprise.
"Rematch!" JUSTICE cried out, stubbornly trying to throw the older girl off.
"I'm faster than you, how'd you catch me?" INTEGRITY whined, pouting but staying in place.
He smiled up at the youngest SOUL, still barely a five year old toddler who'd wandered into the underground centuries ago only to be slain in the name of monsterkinds freedom, and felt his people's sins crawl all over his back. He'd always known in the back of his mind that the souls had been people before dying, but realizing that they'd all not even been eighteen before some monster had killed them and given their souls to Asgore had been… unpleasant, to say the least.
The SOULs had left behind their own names for their soul traits, apparently with all the years that had passed since they'd died, they'd chosen to leave behind any links they had to their centuries dead families. He could relate, he'd given himself and Papyrus new names after the accident too.
"Is it almost time?" Her tail was wagging softly behind her, responding unconsciously to her excitement. The other SOULs had their blasters eyes locked in on him now, filled with so much anticipation that it stirred even his busted SOUL.
Sans made a show of turning it over in his head, thinking as hard as he could before sitting up, smooshing the two other children on his chest together while setting PATIENCE onto his lap. "i suppose we could cut our little space voyage short."
"Yay!!!!" The youngest SOUL jumped up and down on his knee, trying to keep her balance but ultimately falling off, only to be caught in a bemused but patient KINDNESS' mouth.
"How about keeping your cool, little sister?" She set the cyan soul back onto Sans' lap and plopped down right on top of her, squishing her down under her weight. She looked up at him, her puppets eyes and SOUL regarding him with both wary warmth and tempered hope. "Time to see goat mom, right?"
Sans tried to stop the reflexive wince at the mention of what was most likely going to be his biggest heartache, (answering Paps questions was going to be one giant headache but he didn't owe anyone but him and Tori answers so not much has changed there) after returning, his soul spluttering in his chest, the blasters rattling a bit as their connection to him was sent thrumming like guitar chords.
Toriel, The Undisputed Queen of all Monsters. His nearest and dearest friend in the whole world. His first love, and his first heartbreak, all in one.
This was gonna be fun.
"Yeah, time to see goat mom guys."
His wings shuddered and dulled a bit, the thought of what was fixing to happen, the screaming match that was most likely soon to follow for what he'd done to her 'innocent children' when they'd proposed, almost scared him.
Almost.
Teleporting was less stressful on his fragile joints than standing up the normal way and didn't send more shudders through his soul, so he blinked himself upright and floating in Home's general direction, the blasters following behind him on skeletal wings Sans was forced to guide because children, especially bodiless soul's of said children, had absolutely no idea how to fly.
Sans didn't hold that against them, flying was hard, learning how to fly off of what others tell you when you weren't supposed to even have wings in the first place was even harder, his father really was a sociopath to graft magic fucking wing on a four year old beacuse the child said, as all children do one way or another, that he wanted to fly like a bird does.
It was a work in progress, he admitted. Getting used to not being alone with his own thoughts, essentially working with seven bodies all at once, six of which were of entirely new species than his own with different senses and bone structure. Thank Faust for his blue magic, it was the only way to get anything done within a reasonable time frame, but this was a learning experience and a good distraction so Sans would take what he could get.
As Ebboy city came into view, he pulled his phone from his inventory and dialed up his brother. The talk with Tori would probably take a good while so he'd let the taller skeleton know he was back early, just so he knew that Sans wasn't going back on his word; he'd answer any question Papyrus had to the best of his ability.
Just… he hoped the younger skeleton was patient enough for Sans to figure out how to give him all of the answers he needed without sounding like a mental patient.
Seriously, time travel? Dimensional displacement? Who'd believe any of that nonsense?
Fishing out his phone from his INVENTORY was a quick seconds work, the fact that he procrastinated the next five minutes while watching Patience bounce up and down from her perch on kindness' back was completely necessary, thank you very much.
He did end up shooting his best buddy Alphys a quick text, just to get a feel for his friend groups vibe. The 'hot nerdy blonde short stack with cow udders' as Undyne referred to her loving girlfriend chose to call him instead, which he only picked up at the second ring after shrugging off his surprise.
"yallo-…"
"SANS! ASTERISK!"
He jumped midair, his wings going wide in panic at the sudden sound, the phone being sent flying while the kids entered free fall. He scrambled to catch the damn thing once, twice, only just managing to snag the damn thing before it fell into a cloud of water vapor. His eye glowed a deep blue, quickly pulling the kids' puppet bodies back to him. His wings drooped in relief as he floated in place, casually screwing with the laws of physics as intelligible threats came through the speaker for the next two solid minutes.
"I SWEAR TO FAUST IF YOU AREN'T ON MY TABLE IN THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES, I'M GONNA SHOVE MY FIS-…"
"jesus christ, Alphy." Sans interrupted her, finally acting as a responsible adult while the children watched curiously, not understanding the words but enjoying how uncomfortable they made him. He did the responsible thing in this situation, quickly teleporting them all down to the ground at the plateau leading to the peak of Mt. Ebott and threw them towards the nearby pond where they almost instantly discovered they could in fact swim but no longer needed to breathe.
Fun times were ahead, he was absolutely sure of it.
"i think my skulls ringing. what's got your Mew Mew panties in a bunch now?"
"I SHOWED YOU THAT IN CONFIDENCE!"
"like you showed me that face you make when i put my tongue-…"
"SANS!"
"alright, alright. seriously what's wrong now?" Sans rolled his eyes and dodged the small waves of water Justice and Bravery sent his way while Patience, Integrity, and Persistence tried to drag Kindness under the surface.
"Sans." The yellow shortstack ground out, her normal stutter not showing at all.
What the hell was going on?
"I remember now, Sans."
Sans raised the bit of skull that mimicked an eyebrow for a skeleton and asked her, "and what exactly did you forget? your password? it should still be the day we fixed the Core, right?"
"We all remember, Sans."
His brows furrowed and his ever present smile shrunk just a bit at the random sentences. "what the hell is going on with you, Al? do you need me to get you to a hospital or Tori?"
She made that cute snarl that she always did when she was frustrated that ended in a squeak before screaming through the phone, "GET HERE NOW!", and hanging up.
Sans jerked the phone away from his head and rubbed at his neck, confusion still plaguing him despite the shrieks of joy in the background.
What the hell was going on?
"sorry kids." He muttered, gently forcing the souls to slumber and dismissing their false bodies with one last lingering look on little Patience, her wide trusting eyes meeting his own empty sockets that tugged at the jagged edges of his mutilated soul. "looks like that reunion gonna have to wait a minute."
With those half hearted words, he pulled his wings tight against his spine and tore the space between him and Alphys' new lab apart.
Sans stepped through the tear in reality with a mumbled prayer that this timeline wouldn't take too long to fall apart, he wasn't used to this new script so his rusty improv skills were being pushed to the limit here.
XXXXXXXX
Author's Note: Yes this is a rewrite, no I'm not gonna put the old chapter back up for a few reasons.
I absolutely would not be able to do six unique characters worth of dialogue and personality quirks straight no matter how many notes I keep.
I have no idea how it feels to raise children, and no idea how to write a father, which is what Sans would have become first and foremost if I hadn't changed the story.
I had no idea where the story should have gone afterwards.
I know most people liked the previous version of the story and I'm sorry, but this one feels like my muse isn't going to get lost on the way towards this story's future, most of which I'm still mapping out.
Once more, I'm sorry my personal skills couldn't do such an amazing story idea justice.