Based off of the Errortale AU comic by loverofpiggies on Tumblr. This takes place straight after my other story, Some Minor Adjustments. See all the comics at askerrorsans. tumblr. com. (no spaces)

Re-posted from AO3.

For Sans, life was normal. And that was nothing short of miraculous.

After all, it was amazing to think that he could achieve any sense of normalcy here. But the strings were no longer holding fast to his soul, and food came by at a relatively high frequency. So, for the most part, Sans was fine. He could even say his time in the anti-void (as his Error-self would call it) was a little fun. Crocheting, knitting, and watching the dramatic happenings of the Undernovela universe became routine for both Sans-es. Along with the occasional trips to that other universe, with all the stars arrayed before him like some kind of watercolor painting.

Error-Sans really wasn't all that bad.

"and that right there is the constellation, 'fish thing with beefy arms and a top hat.' came up with that myself." Error-Sans always talked a little quieter when they were here, his voice shedding away some of its irregularity, no longer so overlaid with its usual corruption. He sat on the dusty ground, leaning back on splayed out hands. The obsidian nature of his bones seemed more natural-looking here, and less like a charred version of Sans' skeleton self in a mirror.

Around his neck was a scarf, inlaid with twinkling designs of stars and planets, one that Sans had figured his friend would like. It was his way of saying thank-you for providing him with the tools for his hobbies while in the anti-void. Error-Sans didn't really wear it correctly, mostly having set it over only one shoulder, but the thought counted.

He looked to where Error-Sans pointed at a second ago. "oh! i think i see it. by that, uh… rainbow-looking thing, right?" He hunched forward as he sat, arms wrapped around his knees. A refreshing wind fluttered his bandanna, bringing him scents he had never known before, and could only acknowledge as 'space-like'.

"the aurora borealis," his friend answered helpfully. "yeah, it's my favorite part of the sky, next to the 'horrible ghost abomination' constellation to the right."

"i don't think those stars look that abominable." It was Sans' only form of protest. He could barely steer his head away from the celestial expanse above.

He heard Error-Sans give a slight chuckle. "feeling a little star-struck there, blueberry?"

Sans knew the stars were back in his eyes, and revealed that gaze to his friend as he turned, hoping that the play of light won't startle his other self into hiding. "of course! not you though?"

And there were moments like these, where he felt he was truly with a friend, and not the monster that had destroyed his world and taken him away as some sort of playmate. That information is never truly gone, always lodged inside his cranium like a stubborn piece of shrapnel. But he can distance himself from it, keep it there on the backburner, and put all his focus on the present – which was that Error-Sans was smiling genuinely at him, and that his eye sockets, dyed in crimson and shadows, didn't flare so vividly as it used to.

"nah, i am," Error-Sans answered him, turning his head back to the stars. One hand absentmindedly patted the scarf. "definitely."

It's moments like these where Sans forgets his apprehensions and believes in the impossible. That people, even those so lost, could change for the better.

That was his first mistake.

Occasionally, Error-Sans would just leave. He wouldn't say where he was going or why, and Sans learned it was best to not ask anyway. After all, his friend would always come back, usually with new snacks to munch on. Sans had once been lucky enough to see the portal his error-self had slipped in from, and the brief image of another skeleton raging at the air, gold tooth gleaming. Oh he's not dead thank goodness, he had thought, and didn't look at those puppets with as much dread anymore. Yeah, Error-Sans really wasn't that bad at all. According to his friend, he had only shocked that other Sans enough to not leave his room for like two weeks, explaining their popcorn dry spell for their Undernovela viewings.

But there were… certain times. When Sans couldn't see his error-self in the whiteness, when he couldn't hear him, but knew for sure that his friend was still around. When he left to another universe, the place would echo back the emptiness of its most loyal occupant, but for those other times, it would just simply be still, holding its breath, waiting for a voice. It was not nothing… but it wasn't anything either.

It wasn't often – at least, not when he was awake. He only noticed that change in air pressure and sound vibrations when he would rise from sleep on some days, uncurling himself from what he had long assumed was the floor. The sensation would sit just between his eye sockets, making it a little hard to breathe, and then leave just as quickly. Error-Sans would show up soon after, moonwalking across the air in his burnt slippers, saying, "heya, rise and shine, blueberry," a fresh batch of twinkies in his arms, with one already half-eaten. "important meal of the day, ya know."

Sans didn't ask about those times. He learned well enough when things were not his business. But that didn't stop his curiosity. Not in the least.

Yet one night, or what he could best assume to be night, Sans couldn't sleep at all. He tried huddling into the blanket that Error-Sans had gotten for him at a request ("skeletons can't get cold." "but blankets make me feel safe!" "fine, ya weenie.") but it didn't help much. He tried listening to his friend play a lone game of cat's cradle, answering questions asked by his imaginary friends as he did so. But it didn't help much either. Still, he closed his eyes, breathed evenly, and waited. He never dared to think that he was feigning sleep at all.

It wasn't long before Error-Sans stopped talking, stopped playing – everything. He heard the skeleton clamber to his feet.

"gotta go," he told the air. "have some matters to attend to."

That strange sense of waiting came soon after. And Sans knew his friend had left for somewhere else, to some other space in the anti-void.

He sat up, rubbed at his eye sockets, and looked around. There had been a tub of half-eaten popcorn beside him not too long ago, but it was gone now, with Error-Sans not liking to have any messes in his anti-void. (How nice to find someone who valued cleanliness just as much as he did!) Other objects were near him though, which included a yarn puppet that was clearly a work-in-progress. It was stitched in blue, with black buttons for eyes, and had a small bandanna wrapped around its tiny neck. Sans had made sure to get every magnificent detail of himself just right, thinking it would be fun to make another companion for Error's own dolls. Error-Sans seemed to like it quite a bit, having already attached his blue strings to the toy, flipping it around in the air. "now i can take this mini version of you wherever i go," he had told Sans, and seemed to really mean it.

But it was still here, lying beside Sans. Its stitching was still unfinished, it missed one of its gloves, and its smile had no teeth just yet. The blue strings were also no longer on it now. Alongside it were the tools of his work; some cut cloth, several discarded needles, and a spool of azure thread. They were arranged in a neat, uncluttered pile. His friend hadn't made any attempt to move them away.

"i hope he's okay," Sans said aloud. He did that a lot now, ever since his kidnapping into the space of nothingness. At first, he had only done that to push away the silence whenever Error-Sans left him alone. Then to organize his thoughts on what he could do next, or how to occupy his time. Now whenever he did so, he would carry it on like a natural conversation. Even though, unfortunately, he had no ghost voices of his own to converse with.

"i guess he could've gone to another universe." He instantly knew that was wrong. He had been able to tell nowadays when one of his friend's portals would open up, and right now, the anti-void was as sealed as ever. "where could he go here though?"

When Sans had first arrived, Error-Sans had hidden him away from his other 'friends.' It was hard to imagine, that this unending wasteland of white could even hide anything. There were no walls to be seen, no shadows to cast, no hiding places at all. But then, wasn't that the point of hiding places? To not be seen?

Sans found himself on his feet, walking away from his makeshift bed, carefully edging away from the mess of strings that tangled and overlapped each other from a space above him. Error-Sans would occasionally point to that spot, and give a little wave to another friend that he said he tied up there after a recent betrayal. But Sans never saw any hint of darkness, or a blitz, or the number eight; just strings that wrapped up complete nothingness.

Or maybe that friend was hidden too?

Sans' eye sockets roved over the landscape, scuffing his boots to make some sort of sound as he turned, to know that he was actually turning around instead of remaining immobile. It's what the anti-void did; it made you think you were going nowhere and could never get anywhere at all. But his friend had proved that it was, indeed, very possible to go places here. Because Error-Sans would walk in from some other empty space, asserting that distance and one's relation to it could be performed, if only someone was determined enough to do it. And he'd do so with the strings of his magic trailing from his fingertips.

The strings.

Sans had been taught a bit of the basics, forcing his magic to take on the shape of something much more malleable, more prone to manipulation then simple bone structures. And while his strings were pretty good for a multitude of uses like a substitute for his knitting, or conjuring a yo-yo, or maybe used for a quick game of jump rope (he needed to keep up his daily training somehow), he knew that his magic in this form could probably do more. Error-Sans certainly preferred this over what he apparently used to do. Half the time, he'd just swing himself from up above, latching his strings to unseen places, finding unseen hooks, and arc his way all around the anti-void.

"that's- that's a little scary," Sans admitted to himself, then frowned. He shook his head, clenched his fists. "but the magnificent sans ain't scared of anything! what kind of cool dude could i be if i was?" His magic slipped out his hands, extending from the depths of his own soul, and bundled up before him like matted fishing lines. "i mean, it's probably because he can glitch through things, and that's why he seems to be gone." Like opening up a pocket in space and sneaking inside, like a kid sneaking past their curfew. "but then when is he getting his sleep? that's so irresponsible of him! i need to make sure he's getting his eight hours."

It was more than enough justification for him to let his strings shoot out from his palms, to wriggle through the air and find their way to those hidden places. The magic grew taut, and Sans was suddenly, almost violently pulled away from his spot. With a surprised shout, he was lifted through the air, moving through space – and knowing that he was, without any doubts at all.

The strings brought him to a kid.

It was not what he was at all expecting. Despite the speed he was traveling, the uncertainty of just where his magic was holding onto, he was able to stick the landing. It was a shaky landing, truth to be told, but his boots landed squarely on what he was able to determine was the floor. Easier to tell here, because the floor was somehow marked.

Static shifted, lines of binary peeked out from behind peeling white tiles, and a hint of other colors would blink, then quickly revert back to its original form. Sans stood up on slightly sore femurs, wondering how the anti-void could suddenly change, and then wonder if it was even changed at all. He blinked, and the glitched tearing he would see would be gone, even though the echo of faulty coding was still present, still wriggling inside his joints like a spreading inflammation.

He blinked again, and the kid was there, standing, arms hung behind them, head bowed. A soul that showed the real hint of constant color, as red as fruit, floated before their chest. That soul was completely bounded by strings, squeezing it tight, dimming any light that soul must have emitted once before.

It wasn't just surprising that they were a kid. They were also a human. And it wasn't just surprising that they were also a human. They were a human that was so terribly, frighteningly familiar.

The child raised their head, brown hair parting from their eyes. They flinched at the sight of Sans, then shuddered. Sans felt that movement rattle his very bones, and looked to his hands. The strings that had guided him had latched onto the human's soul, engulfing all the spaces where red was still trying to peek through.

"oh no! i'm sorry!" he quickly made the strings fall slack, watching them pile around the child's feet. The soul pulsed a bit in response, but other strings kept its hold tight. Those ones extended from behind the child, extending into white, their origin hidden.

"i'm so sorry," Sans apologized again. He took a careful step forward, hands held before him. "did i hurt you? are you…did you just come here?"

The child had an expression he couldn't read. Short, messy hair stuck out from their head like a bird's nest, and they wore a blue shirt, striped with lines of purple. These were features he remembered seeing before, like… for some reason, it was so difficult to recall exactly. But he knew he had seen this child before, or at least someone that looked very much like them.

"hey, look, it's okay. i won't hurt you." He smiled for them, daring another step. The kid wasn't shaking as much anymore. "my name's sans. of the royal guard! well, not really, and probably never will be, but… anyway, what about you?" He couldn't ignore those strings, couldn't help but be reminded of a similar sensation, and the helplessness that came with it.

The child looked at him with such a mixture of confusion, of trepidation- but a smile lifted their lips. There was something akin to relief in their eyes. And they spoke, they asked him, if it was really him? Was he really Sans? Why did he dress so differently now?

Sans answered them carefully. "of course i am. the one and only… oh, well, i guess that's not true actually. but i am a sans." He widely grinned, eye sockets lighting up with blue stars. "professional friend-maker extraordinaire! are you a willing friend candidate? don't worry. there's always room for more!"

The child was smiling more. It made him feel easy. At least his time here hadn't dulled his amazing friendship skills. They asked him if it meant that he was a good Sans.

He blinked. "of course! with sans, there are only good times to be had! if, you know, that's okay with you…" he trailed off, waiting for a name.

The kid told him their name was Frisk. They also told him that he must not be the Sans they knew then.

"hmm, if that's true, we just have to find him! what can be better than having more than one sans as your friend?" And truly, Sans could think of nothing better.

The kid was smiling even more, though that was all they could do really. The strings held their soul so tight, keeping them from twitching even a finger.

Sans couldn't really ignore this any longer, despite how much he kept the thought of goodness tight in his chest. He held fast to that image of the stars, accompanied by his friend's voice, which had once pitched itself to normalcy for him.

"um, frisk, can i ask… have you… met another sans here then?"

The kid stopped smiling. They turned away, gritted their teeth in remembered pain.

"hey, uh, if you don't want to answer, that's okay!" Sans outstretched one hand, meaning to comfort them. "i mean, it doesn't really matter. how about we try getting rid of these strings first-"

Frisk told them they had met another Sans, their voice rushed, words running out of them like hot coals. They told him that this Sans had been angry with them and exiled them to another place here, in this whiteness where reality constantly de-stabilized itself. It was punishment for what they did. A kid like them didn't deserve to be with the others.

Sans felt the stars in his eyes fade away. "others? What do you mean?" He paused. "did you really… do something or…?" or did he just destroy your home like he did mine, thought you less than nothing, and took you away from your friends because he just felt like it?

Frisk shook their head. No, they deserved this. They didn't deny that fact at all.

Sans found this much more unsettling. "why?"

When Frisk looked at Sans, their eyes were wide. Scared, tired, and completely regretful.

They deserved this because they came back.

Sudden static filled the area, cutting both monster and human from each other. When Sans looked again, the kid was gone, leaving him with the same white wasteland that he had grown to know so well.

The smartest thing he could've done was go back to sleep. But Sans had never been the smarter of the two skeletons of Snowdin. That role belonged to Papyrus – chill, lazybones brother Papyrus. Though Sans may have blamed him again and again for letting his puzzles go to waste, or slacking off in his sentry duties, Sans knew that his little bro, Papy, was miles above him in intelligence, and that was hard to admit for someone who knew for certain that they were great at virtually everything.

If Papyrus was here, he would've told Sans to forget what he had seen, to get far away from Error-Sans. He'd never say that Sans had been wrong from the start though, that not everyone had good in them, even if they tried to. Some people were just stuck the way they were, and the best thing to do with such people was to avoid them. No, Papyrus would never say something like that outright – but he'd imply it heavily enough.

Sans had instead let the strings seep out of his ribcage, melting away from his soul like wholly new lines of thread. They moved around his ligaments, lined his arms like veins, and then extended far into the depths of the anti-void. He didn't try to stop it, and though his heart, along with his soul, lurched inside his chest as he was pulled away, he made no sounds this time. He kept fast hold on his voice, ground it down until it was nothing more but a pounding, incredibly insistent headache.

The anti-void did have some kind of distance, some sort of landscape that was hard to picture or even comprehend – but it was there. There were no visible landmarks, nothing of the sort to ever correctly cartogram the area if one was ever desperate enough to try. But there were miles he passed over, there was progress he was making. He tightened the strings around his metacarpals, ordering the blue magic to keep him steady, to slow down so that he could detect the differences here, in this strange section of the anti-void, a deep web of shady dealings where the environment flickered and shifted, sometimes in ways that were so wrong that it added layers to Sans' headache.

He felt he was going down levels, finding subtle new differences in the environment until they all suddenly crept all around him. Quick lines of stark color would crash against a white space, static would fizz and break in irrational patterns, and sections of the anti-void would just… be missing. Instead of white emptiness, it'd be even more barebones then that. Illegible coding and rows of numbers, all nonsensical, stripping away the textures that even the anti-void was once capable of having, leaving such places so hauntingly unfinished. Or just… torn down?

It was as if someone's own error-bound nature, riddled with incorrect commands, registries that lead to nowhere, and stacks of files that were too corrupted to even be erased, had infected this area of the anti-void. His perception of distance was skewed; he'd move too slow, then too fast, and he'd find himself suddenly on his knees, assaulted by the keening static that just wouldn't go away. A glitch, shaped so irregularly, its movement like a mass of worms, had once draped over his hand, making him think for one moment that his own sense of self was unraveling into a mess of contours, or to vague concepts of what he once was. He had flinched, and the glitch went away, leaving him safe and whole.

All the signs were there for Sans to leave, to go and never come back. But, he was so very curious, and the child's biting guilt wouldn't leave his head. With more determination then he thought he had, Sans shoved his apprehension away, and kept traveling, kept going for miles until, all of a sudden, he stopped.

His strings had latched again onto a human soul, but this human barely seemed to register it. They barely seemed to register anything, even as Sans slowly unwound the strings to let loose. They kept their head bowed, their eyes averted, looking more doll-like then the other child. But that messy hair, that striped shirt… an alternate version of that same human? Another Frisk?

His breathing stopped altogether as he took in the rest of where he was.

There were multitudes of them, all with the same face, the same hair, the same sense of rather bland fashion. There were differences here and there; one human child had a thicker coat on, with fur trim on the lining, another had much messier hair with one eye swollen shut, another had even stranger attire, strapped with a thick cloak and looking more like someone that had walked straight out of a Medieval fair. But they were all undeniably the same child, Frisk, hailing from different planes of dimensions. They were strung up on neon blue strings, arms held back, legs hanging limp, and their souls hovering before their chests, red drowned out by the suffocating magic.

In this vast semi-circle of Frisks, which may very well number past much more than three dozens, was his friend. Error-Sans was scuffing his slippers against the floor, hands in his pockets, his movements as jerky and unreliable as the skipping playback of a video.

"you think you can judge me, can't ya?"

His voice was laced with static, with sparks, with irredeemable venom. Yet his smile still retained a naturalness to it, as if he was simply having a cup of tea with an old companion. His back was to Sans, oblivious to his existence.

"now, mind you, i'm not a fan of that kind of stuff. a judge needs to be free of bias, be completely objective. and little buddies, you've never shown that at all."

One Frisk raised their head. They had on an eye patch, with one hand ending in a tiny hook. It would've seemed ludicrous at any other time, but Sans could only listen as they spoke to Error about how right he was. They had always been selfish in what they wanted.

This didn't seem to please Error-Sans. Flickering clouds of failed error messages hovered over his shoulders. "no one likes a suck-up, kid." He snapped his fingers, and the child's eyes widened. Their mouth opened in a soundless scream as their body seemed to phase in and out of existence. And just like that, they were gone, with not even a hint of light from their soul left.

"honestly. how many of you are just begging for another detention? do kids love those, now? am i out of the times?"

Another Frisk dared to speak – this one wore suspenders, and an unassuming flat-cap. There were fragments of metal cogs attached to their arms, which seemed to run smoothly, occasionally emitting a bit of steam. They told Error-Sans that each of them had time to think about what they did. That was why they agreed with him, and that was why they were sorry.

Error-Sans viciously turned towards the child, clenching his right hand where each fingertip was tied by a glowing thread. The air around Sans' head seemed to tighten itself, in response to the strings that held the kid's soul. He could hear muscle contract, could feel tendons tear, ready to be ripped and burned. The child shuddered, weathering the abuse their soul endured, and nearly convulsed as the seconds stretched.

The error-riddled skeleton turned away, letting his strings go slack. His chuckle kept repeating, overlapping itself, following along that same note until it almost grew unbearable to hear. "that's funny. good job, buddo. but save the pity act for someone who gives a damn."

This didn't dissuade the Frisks. One asked why he still came by if he hated them so much.

"to check up on you! just because you're all dirty little abominations doesn't mean i can't be responsible. can't let kids run loose without some adult supervision."

One Frisk pointed out how, given as they were all bound, they couldn't exactly run off.

Error-Sans jerked back his arm, and the soul suddenly left the vicinity of the child. That Frisk could barely utter a sound before they collapsed, their body limp, lifeless. Error-Sans juggled the heart-shaped soul in his hand, strings wrapped around it like a veil.

"man, do i hate people that give me attitude. now you've earned yourself a permanent time-out! no biggie, i'll keep an eye on your things for ya."

Sans remained silent, watching it all like some suspenseful TV show. It almost felt like he was seated before that portal that opened into the Undernovela universe, snacks at the ready, body tense as another plot twist emerged. Except this was here and now, and he was steps away from being in it.

Most of the Frisks barely reacted to the supposed death of their own, with only one or two visibly shuddering. Even then, they still kept their sad gaze on Error-Sans, strapped to the unseen walls of the anti-void, forced to listen to corrupted ramblings that entered the realm of incomprehensibility.

"now, see, we can all agree on one thing, right? we don't like being messed around with. i mean, nobody does, especially me. it's just not how it works. ya get me? it's not. how. it. works. and your little realms of existence are only there to mess with the order of things. so, clean-ups are necessary. heck, they're vital. you really gonna deny such a service?"

One Frisk questioned if he ever asked for this job.

"pfft, of course not! but, sometimes you just gotta take some responsibility. even if you're not ready for it. because eventually, you'll have to be." He swung his acquired soul around as if it were the end chain of a pocket watch. "what a dumb question."

Another Frisk asked if all of their universes were destroyed.

"getting there! couple of ya still have a home, but don't get your hopes up. i need a break every now and then. and certain matters have come up."

A Frisk to the left had swerved their gaze to Sans, frightening him enough to make him flinch. They stared at him for a moment, (and seemed much more familiar then the rest) then turned back to the flickering mess in the center that was cutting swaths of darkness with each step, unearthing values and failed commands beneath the anti-void's floor. They asked him if it was because they had a new friend.

"yep." And for that one moment, miniscule and insignificant, his voice had shed away its distorted layers, becoming smooth, continuous, and rather well-adjusted. "blueberry's something else. i mean, the game i have with his bro is gonna be fun once we get to the good part, but it's pretty nice right now. buddy even knit me a new scarf for when i get cold. not that i do, but hey, i ain't complaining."

He yo-yo'ed his strings up and down, 'walking' the human soul across the floor, along with some other neat tricks. "how'd you guess anyway? i never told you about him. or… did i?"

Another Frisk to the right asked if his new friend's world was destroyed.

"not yet."

Would he destroy it?

"well, duh."

Wouldn't his friend be unhappy about that?

A tiny flicker. Error-Sans's position shifted, making him appear from one place to another, though still in the same pose of juggling the soul. "he'll be fine."

They asked that he would have to kill his friend eventually though, wouldn't he?

Sans, still watching from behind, so plainly visible to all the Frisks, couldn't make himself move. Error-Sans was not at all far from him, not with the erratic way he moved, always somehow shifting closer to him. Sans could've reached out and grabbed his coat if he wanted to. But he didn't. How could he know for sure that his hand would remain the same if he did?

"heh heh heh, wow." Error-Sans' laughter kept skipping, garbled into itself, crackled with increasing intensity. "you must really wanna piss me off."

No Frisk dared to speak this time. Each had their head lowered, eyes directed to their hostage souls. Some of their bodies wavered, pulling away to some other spot in the anti-void, to the point where a few souls hovered there with no host to link to it.

"i came here to give you all some nice company, and this is what i get?" Sans grasped the soul he had been playing with in both hands, holding it tight within a neon-bright spiderweb. Strings laced around it, lashed through its surface, cutting through it with frightening precision. "you kids were always such heartbreakers, weren't ya?"

When the human soul's finally shattered, leaving nothing but shards of red in the air, Sans couldn't hold back a scream.

Hundreds of eyes turned to him – including a pair that was missing such eyes, their sockets overflowing with red.

Silence. But only at first.

The subtle hum of static that coursed through the air now became a visceral wail, breaking and repeating, full of distorted modulations, with nowhere else to go. Sans brought his hands to his skull, wondering dimly how such a sound could burrow through his skull despite having no ears, how it could invade his sense of self like nothing else.

Error-Sans was looking at him, smiling wide, so wide that it took over the lower half of his face. Rows of teeth separated from the other as he started to open his mouth.

Sans took a step back. "no," he whispered, sweat dripping down his cheeks. "no, i didn't…"

An animal head, skeletal with overgrown fangs, materialized behind Sans. Cloaked in shadows like its error master, it would shift and tear through reality, static blurring its features before going back to crystal clear detail. It would only vanish for a moment before it came back, slowly immersing itself in this dimension, to stay long enough to unhinge its jaw. Sans felt the familiar heat roll out of its mouth and scrambled away. It didn't shoot out anything; merely kept its position, the threat of light and fire always there, waiting in the depths of its throat.

Sans could only turn back to Error-Sans, and between him and the corrupted Gaster Blaster, there wasn't much difference. Error-Sans' eyes were vacant, the pupils so wide that blue and yellow seemed to leak out like an infected wound. Half-finished commands of code buzzed around his shoulders, growing louder, angrier, a swarm that only looked for one place to go. The blocky letters sometimes made no discernible sense, moving beyond the generic 'ERROR' message, until they transformed into other fragments entirely; CONFLICT, EXPECTATION FAILED, UNSUPPORTED, NOT ACCEPTABLE, NOT ACCEPTABLE, GONEGONEGONE, BAD REQUEST, FORBIDDEN FORBIDDEN, LOST ARE YOU LOST

With his mouth half-open, Error-Sans reached up both hands to his face, pressing the heels of his palms into his sockets – then fiercely pulled them back, strings of blue magic separating from his cheek bones, fingers pulling at those tear-streaks until there was nothing left, until they hung from the sockets like fine hair. And through it all, that same static that thrummed and then banged around the air with the force of a truck.

Oh, he was mad.

Sans couldn't move back for fear of the Gaster Blaster behind him, couldn't move to the sides for the Frisks that surrounded him, staring and all silent, all helpless in their cages. And he couldn't move forward. He couldn't do that at all.

This is a dream. I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming and soon I'll wake up in my bed with the snow at my window, with Papyrus lazing on the couch, with Alphys calling up to train, with my puzzles still needing recalibration-

This is a nightmare.

His friend took a step, leaving afterimages in his wake, until it seemed the whole area was just all Error-Sans, all locked into place as another would separate from him to start anew. And then he was standing before the shivering Sans, his breath reeking of charred metal and melted plastic.

"geez, bu͞d̷d͡y̢."

The strings moved and hissed through the air, latching onto Sans' soul with invisible hooks, with fangs that pumped their venom through him relentlessly. They spread from there, wrapping across Sans' limbs, burrowing straight through the marrow of his bones, through his arms and legs, invading his rib cage, a cancerous growth. Sans would've screamed again, but the strings controlled his jaw, and wrapped over his voice until it was nothing but deafening silence.

Through all that, Error-Sans glitched terribly, eyes still wide, mouth still open. A waterfall of blue magic dripped out of his mouth, looking like fat worms, sentient and hungry and desperate. Through all that, Error-Sans kept talking, his voice sickly sweet, sickly cruel.

"can't a guy g̴et̴ ͝a͞ lítt̵lè ṕ̛r̴i͠͡v̀a͟c̨y̛ ̶́a̧r̷̡̨o̶ù̸n̕d̢ ͝h͏͡e̸͢r̷͘͜e͏̵̵͢?̧̨͢"̨̕

.

.

And then someone told him,

you're

dreaming

.

.

Sans woke up.

He gasped, and the fabric of his blanket lodged into his mouth, making him choke. Limbs flailed, pushing the blanket aside. The memory of a scream echoed inside his chest, ready to burst when he sat up, eye sockets wide. His skull drenched with perspiration.

Seated beside him was Error-Sans. He was cross-legged on the floor, a tub of fresh popcorn and an extra-large soda drink in his arms. With a fistful of the snack goodies in one hand, he looked to Sans, puzzled.

"what's your problem there?"

In front of Error-Sans was another portal, its light drenched in gentle orange shades, its sounds a familiar staccato of foreign speech.

"¡Toriel! ¡No puede ser!"

"¡Pero, Asgoro! ¡Es final!"

Error-Sans gestured to the portal. "when you're done sleeping in, can you watch this with me for once? you're seriously missing the best part. both asgoro and tori are at each other's throats now for something and- oh! look! here we come!"

Sans looked through the window, and saw another version of himself. This Sans had a smug grin on his face, wore a popped collar, and slid his way into the room with easy grace. He pointed at both Asgoro and Toriel in greeting, and sealed the deal with a wink. "oye."

The monster that Sans only knew distantly as a king was growling, muttering something about, "Esqueletos," while the queen gave a smile and shouted, "Sin!"

"oh boy, here comes the love triangle plot. which is okay i guess, because it usually gets pretty violent." Error-Sans munched noisily on his popcorn. "and that's always a plus."

Sans couldn't really pay attention. He looked down to his lap, holding both hands together, marveling at how much they were shaking.

"h… hey…" he called out.

"man, poor asgoro. did you hear what sin just said? i'm pretty sure cabron is a bad word-"

"p- please! can't we just-!" Sans cut himself off, still looking down. His entire body now shivered.

The faint hint of static fizzed around him. "oh, you're still doing this?"

"i don't… i can't…" He couldn't look at him, couldn't bear it. The faint accents floating through the portal were now just background noise, losing substance.

There was a pause before his friend spoke again. "you need to calm down."

The words themselves were blunt, but not the tone, and that was what made Sans pick his head up, not understanding, never understanding how the static could sometimes just stop completely, how sometimes he thought he heard his very own voice back at him; lower, more subdued, but still his.

Error-Sans was staring curiously at him, sipping noisily through a straw. There was some annoyance there in his expression; though was it at Sans, or at the fact that his drink was running low? It was hard to tell which.

"relax already, blueberry." He shrugged. "must've had one knockout of a nightmare to get you acting lame. you just need to-"

"it wasn't a dream."

Sans' hands were on his knees, doing all he could to stop himself from trembling, and failing, always, always failing.

"it wasn't… a dream. i… i saw you.." His rattling bones gave too much away. "i saw you… and them-"

"buddy."

He stopped.

"are you positive about that?" Error-Sans tilted his head, static ringing high and low, high and low. "are you really?"

And there was that image, an overlay of distortions and skewed conceptions over his friend's face. It was his reflection, exposed to fire and poison, his inner workings desecrated into a mockery of who he once was. His jaw unhinged as magic seeped out, no longer able to be contained. Blue strings trailed out from eye sockets that were much, much too wide.

The memory left him quickly, but it was there, waiting. And his friend was still smiling. He couldn't answer. And if he couldn't answer, that was it for him, wasn't it?

Error-Sans turned away, seemingly looking for something, going by the way the static grumbled, and how he shifted through a pile of objects that had just suddenly appeared. After a moment, he turned back to Sans, and handed him an object with his strings.

"here, i did this while you were sleeping. you like it?"

A puppet was gently deposited on his lap. Designed like both the Classic and Abomination Sans puppets, this one had the same grin, the same round head with large buttons for eyes. Except the buttons were of a yellowish color, to stand out well against the black felt material that the puppet was made out of.

Sans lifted the puppet with both hands, noting the blue threads that trailed down the eyes, on the way the cloth was cut so to mimic the jagged lines that trailed the real Error-Sans to mark his glitchy existence – all the small attention to those details. He held the hand of the puppet between a thumb and forefinger, his own blue glove so very bright against the darkness.

"saw you were making your own, so i thought i'd try at it again. oh yeah, and uh-" Error-Sans summoned forth his strings again, retrieving the puppet that Sans had been working on, latching onto the arms and head to make it move around. "i decided to finish yours. don't worry, i didn't toy around with your things too much." He laughed gently, normally. "now we can be… puppet pals."

It was then that Sans started to cry.

Error-Sans blinked. "uh… was it that bad? i know my jokes aren't the most stellar…"

The tears trailed down his face, just a torrent that left him dry and exhausted. He held the Error-Sans puppet more up, more away from him so that it wouldn't get wet.

"i don't…" he hiccuped. His vision blurred. "i don't get it. i don't… understand why you did this."

Error-Sans sipped again at his straw, basically only sucking in air by now. "because we're friends, right?"

Sans swallowed heavily, clutching at the doll. He faced Error-Sans, and saw his friend hold the doll of himself in the palm of his hand, strings moving it around.

Real friends warn each other, before they made a terrible mistake.

He knew that now.

Sans wiped away his tears. He cleared his throat, taking in steady breaths, one beat at a time. "sorry. i guess… i thought i was still dreaming." He felt a grin overtake his face, poking the Error-Sans puppet in the chest. It was rather adorable. That couldn't be denied. "must've had too much chocolate the other night!"

Error-Sans pointed at him playfully. "see, there ya go." He nudged his popcorn nearer Sans, then gestured to the portal. "let me catch ya up. so like asgoro has been paying the maid to spy on tori and sin, but now the maid's on their side!"

"oh! you mean alphys?"

"yeah, yeah! oh, shh, tori's gonna say something good, I can tell."

Both of them looked to the portal, rapt in attention as they watched the queen of the Underground in other universes dab away a tear, her dress tight around her features. She was facing the suave-looking Sans, a trembling smile on her muzzle. "Sin, tengo… noticias importante."

"eeyyyy, oye." Sin said, giving her a thumbs up. Asgoro just fumed at the side, his burly mane bristling.

"Sin…" she placed a hand on her belly. "Estoy… embarazada. Y es su hijo."

Asgoro was choking on the air, and Sans, or Sin, was visibly sweating. "¿uhh? ¿oye?"

Sans looked to his friend. "what just happened? i don't think i caught that."

Error-Sans nodded knowingly. "oh, she just says she's embarrassed about something… probably her dress. it's looking a little big around the waist for her."

Asgoro shook furry fists to the heavens and shouted with great passion, "¿¡Pooorqueeee?!"

"wow! i guess they all are pretty embarrassed for her!" Sans reflexively grabbed some popcorn to chew on. "oh no! did asgoro just pull out a gun?"

"oh, nice." And Error-Sans laughed, carelessly throwing away his now-for-sure empty drink into a convenient portal. Both stayed seated, watching the events of Undernovela unfold, both openly wondering that really, even for a Sans, Sin was sweating way too much.

The memory would not ever leave – Sans would still see that shadow of a face, eyes leaking out cutting, burning lines, a voice folding into itself, chaotically breaking to hack away at his-.

There was no tremble in his voice when he asked, "hey, after this, can we go back to the outertale universe? just for a little bit. i mean, the magnificent sans can wait a bit if you'd rather not go yet."

"nah, it's no problem. just after this part. i think undyne's about to come in and wreck somebody."

Sans nodded to that, instantly relieved, instantly remembering the promise he had made to himself. Friends needed to be there for each other, and going by the puppet he now held in his hands, Error-Sans hadn't forgotten that.

At least out there with the stars, they'd both be further away from that place where only lost and hopeless dreams thrived.