Ace in a Hole: Collaborative Shenenigans

Chapter 2

The months pass in a blur as Sans begins to fix up the room. He doesn't necessarily throw himself into the work, and there's days when he completely skips out on progress in favor of visiting his friends or taking a break. But it's not too uncommon for Sans to find himself hunkered away in the big room, bent awkwardly underneath a desk as he prods and tugs on random wires or screws.

The first thing Sans does is dismantle the audio processing machines in the back of the room for parts or to sell online. A few pieces sell for good money, and the rest he either has to pitch or repurpose for the main desk. There's a bunch of shattered bulbs that leave broken glass in the bottom of these displays that Sans has to sweep up and toss out, and he has to completely uproot a small section of a wall to redo the wiring so there wasn't a risk of a house fire.

But then Sans' focus is entirely on the old, decrepit machine. It's nothing new for Sans to have to fix something old or busted. Heavens knew Gaster, the old Royal Scientist with a new hyperfixation every week, would always come bumbling into work with something new for them to work on. Machines tossed into the dump from the surface often came with that. Sans couldn't count how many times he'd be sitting there, minding his own business, before some metal hunk clattered onto his desk with Gaster rambling on and on about how fascinating this discovered machine was. While Sans has never had to work on something that was nearly one hundred years old at this point, he's had to work with things in way worse condition than the ones he now lives with.

It's almost nostalgic, to take a crack at this. Reminds him of his old intern days, when he figured out how to make things tick and felt a thrill at figuring things out. Reminds him of being sat down in his old Snowdin basement, surrounded by diagrams as he tried to build that one machine that would never come to fruition. Sure, equations and calculations came easily without physical excretion and made his money, but there was always that little thrill of figuring things out and making them work with his two bare hands.

His sleep schedule becomes one that less follows the light and darkness of the day and becomes one that happens when it happens. Sometimes Sans finds himself balancing a ramen bowl on his lap while watching the stars from the radio broadcast room, his feet tucked up while he slurps on overcooked noodles. Other times he'd be dead asleep at the ripe time of two PM, which wasn't ever uncommon, but it's something he noticed more of lately.

The process of fixing the ancient machinery leads to an entire disembowelment of it, where Sans has to undo over half of the interior and yank out old, rigid wires that would probably explode or shrivel up if he tried to ever use them. The metal stinks of age and there's so much dust inside of it that Sans sneezes for a few minutes straight, his eye sockets watering as he rolls out from under the desk in a desperate flee. Kind of funny, looking back at it, but at the time he got a faceful of dust and wasn't having it.

Too many bad memories, he supposes.

Sometimes Sans drives down to meet up with Paps and Grillby to have dinner parties or to go out and enjoy the upcoming summer festivities. Usually, he picks up extra parts or books during this time, since delivery to his house was a bit of a bitch because he always had to give detailed instructions. Sans had a document to copy and paste them, at this point. His house is a bit hidden away, but it's not that difficult to find the goddamn turn. Not to mention, his new town isn't a place well-known for quality quantum physics or pun books.

Summer comes with blistering heat and waves of bugs that sweep across the fields. That's when Sans starts noticing his house is a little more odd than he first anticipated. Somehow his home seems to repel the mass amounts of insects. Animals too seem to steer clear of roaming there. It's a bit weird, considering animals all but invite themselves into Marrie's field without a single hint of hesitation. Yet Sans' property remains void of them. He hadn't noticed until Marrie insisted on giving him these old fly traps to help protect himself, and he realized his remained empty while hers were ripe with them.