The Time Before (Undertale)

58 ~ A Bad Time

Gaster was barely able to stay conscious long enough to see the results of his work.

None of the edits he had made, the echo flower, the photo album, the words, had been huge changes in the code, but they were still all bigger than previous edits, and there were three of them, one right after another.

He didn't feel tired, really. It was impossible to become exhausted when you had no energy to exhaust in the first place.

But he definitely was having a hard time functioning.

But Gaster held on, until he saw the code marking Sans' relief. Sorrow, grief, and misery, yes, but also relief.

And then he allowed the cold numbness of the Void to crawl back into his Soul.

~o0o~

It was true that Sans was relieved.

Building the machine had been the longest-lasting source of frustration for him, and with that responsibility off his shoulders... it made things a lot easier.

Especially the fact that, even if he couldn't save his dad, he knew he was still out there, somewhere, and... and he understood. He had no grudge against Sans for giving up, he wasn't mad at Sans for his inability to keep his promise.

Without the worry of building the machine, Sans could relax, just a little.

He was still on constant guard, still watching Papyrus all the time. But now that was his sole priority. He had nothing else to worry about. Nothing tearing away his attention, his focus, nothing else wearing him down with every thought.

Papyrus was still a little annoyed that Sans followed him around everywhere, but he realized that Sans was honestly a lot happier when around Papyrus, so he allowed it.

As far as things went with Papyrus, though, Flowey seemed to have gotten bored with trying to get Sans to fight. There were no more attacks. There were still some resets, but they were much less frequent, and farther in between.

His photo album was also, evidently, time-transcendent. The resets twice brought him back to only an hour or so before going to cook with Papyrus. Each time, he brought the failed quiche to the same place in Waterfall, and waited for a little while. The echo flower never repeated the age-old conversation, though. Sans ended up saying the same thing he had last time, and leaving the quiche in the same place, before going again to shut down the machine in the basement. But the photo album was never on the counter again. It remained steadfastly in the drawer on its own. The two words, the DON'T FORGET was always still there, though. Always in the corner of that faded drawing, quietly forgiving Sans for breaking his promise to his dad, quietly asking only that Sans remember a time before, where he had his whole family.

~o0o~

There was a difference between giving up and taking a break.

Sans had given up on building the machine. He had no solid intentions of ever returning to it.

That didn't mean everyone had given up on everything, though.

It had been two days, minus the resets, since Sans had been relieved of one burden. He was walking with Papyrus to his sentry station, when his awareness of space tipped Sans off to movement. Underground movement.

Before Sans could do anything, though, thick green vines erupted from the ground in front of him, spearing through Papyrus's body, lifting the younger skeleton into the air.

Papyrus cried out in pain, jerking and twitching, but the vines had looped themselves tightly through his bones, and there was no escape.

Sans was paralyzed. Never had Flowey killed Papyrus directly in front of Sans. He had always just left Papyrus's dusty, torn scarf somewhere Sans would be sure to find it. And seeing his brother die in front of him...