Chapter Text
A whistling like a far away wind jolts Sans as he shakes his head and sits up with a groan. His vision swims. Where…? Holding his skull steady, Sans squeezes his sockets tight, trying to recall what happened. Papyrus wanted Sans to meet him at the park. Something about wanting privacy. But… Sans nearly whacks his head trying to remember. Papyrus also mentioned a surprise. Perhaps because they had spent over a month or two on the Surface? (Sans was still getting used to their calendar system) Maybe for a special secret event like...a birthday? Either way, Sans expected a pleasant one, like a cake, or some trinket he’d cherish (nevermind the cheapness, only the sentiment truly mattered.) Not… this.
He can’t be at the park anymore. Not with the dark shapes of his surroundings looming over him with crags rather than low branches, and the ground beneath him a damp rubble instead of grass. The faint sound of dripping water echoes in the stillness as Sans rubs at his temporal processes. It doesn’t make any sense. He’d consider this a rude, elaborate prank if his brother intended this to be the surprise he mentioned.
Knees drawn to his chest, Sans takes stock of himself. Coat, check. Boots, check. Pauldron? Sans pats at the straps buckled along his chest and back, until he solidly feels it on his shoulder. Relieved, Sans brushes dirt off the metal piece fondly. Though he doesn’t explicitly need armor anymore, Sans liked how it added to his signature look, and as it holds significant sentimental value, to lose it would have devastated him. Gloved hands brush past his neckerchief to his skull, and to his dismay, Sans realizes he lost the knit hat he received at a gift exchange. Saddened at this loss, Sans slumps forward. He loves a warm beanie, after all. Overall recovered, Sans slowly stands and scans his surroundings from his seating position. The faintest trace of moonlight shines from above, enough to illuminate how far down he had fallen. Brow ridges furrowing, Sans squints at the rocks above eye level and reaches for a promising handhold.
It breaks apart into pebbles the moment he puts weight on it.
Undeterred, Sans gives himself a running start and leaps for the next closest one. Grabbing it, Sans swings his weight forward to reach another with his free hand. Scrambling to get a foothold, Sans tests a few nearby rocks. The moment he puts half his weight on one though, it caves beneath him. Slipping, Sans’ eyelights shrink and he covers his skull as he half-rolls, half-slides back to where he started. After the initial shock of his descent, Sans huffs. Brushing pebbles off his visage, Sans reviews his findings. Too steep to safely climb up then...and he doesn’t share his brother’s gift of exploiting the small seams in reality. Rummaging in his coat pocket, Sans fishes out his phone. Low signal. But a signal nonetheless. With bated breath, Sans dials his brother’s number.
Papyrus answers after the third ring.
“bro?!” he sounds muffled, his connection laced with static.
“Papyrus?”
“what happened—where are ya?”
“I—” Frowning, he glances at the passage in front of him. Navy eyelights glowing a shade brighter to compensate for the darkness, Sans manages to make out stalactitic projections a few feet from him. “I don’t know, Papy.” Exhaling slowly to calm his nerves, Sans clutches his phone like a lifeline. “It looks like...I’m in a cave?”
“stay right there,” Papyrus orders, “ ‘m gonna try and find ya—”
“Papy, wait—!” The call cuts off, and Sans jerks it down in time to see his phone shut down. “No!” he despairs, “this can’t be happening—” Leaning against a sturdier cave wall, Sans covers his teeth with his palm. Sighing, Sans pockets his phone and scratches nervously at his coronal suture. His best course of action right now is to wait. Unfortunately for Papyrus, Sans is not the patient sort. Sans taps awkwardly at the ground with his boot, and without a means to distract him, his thoughts wander.
Why did he leave home without his glasses? The notion astounds him, especially since his vision worsened under low light. Sans expels an annoyed huff at this inconvenience, along with great many mistakes in addition to it. Mistake number one: expecting to meet Papyrus in a well-lit area. Mistake number two: thinking little of their meeting’s duration. Mistake three: not asking for directions when he clearly needed them. By the Stars, you’d think a sensible monster like Sans would put aside his pride to confirm their exact meeting point. In the middle of a park. At night. Far from home.
...you’d think.
Either way, he still has to adjust to seeing in the dark again without his glasses. Sans isn’t getting anywhere by just complaining.
...If monsters could create a type of magical means to correct vision, how would it stick to his eyelights? They gave no physical anchor to place normal contacts, and either glasses or goggles made less aesthetically pleasing but practical enhancers.
Sans begins pacing, grumbling of how monster tech could grow rapidly if the Humans allowed them to establish better monster-centric schooling. They have so much potential, all of them, but it would take time to truly make a dent in that particular field. Especially since Humans lost touch with their magic. Sans notes the echo of droplets from the ceiling, and continues pacing until he wanders away from his moonlit spot. Squinting, Sans feels his surroundings until he finds a texture different from the otherwise stone surface. Tapping it lightly, Sans raps it with a knuckle. Wood.
Further down, he discovers makeshift support beams and reinforcements; iron perhaps, smelling of rust. Has he stumbled across a mine? An underground bunker? Funny though, it didn’t seem like it saw much use for a few decades. Feeling his way down the tunnel, Sans follows the sound of water, now wondering how large this expanse of tunnels has become. The small town near the monster settlement hadn’t advertised any local caves for casual spelunking, nor do they claim to boast any historic mines. Hell, to reach the nearest park means catching a bus to the other side of town. This particular park holds a special place in Sans’ soul, because he and his friends first settled there before relocating to the homes they lived in now.
More likely than not, Papyrus may have found this secluded place during his numerous escapades and dropped him here as some sick joke. He did something similar, though to a less drastic degree before, when they still lived Underground. But back then, Papyrus tried to protect him in an embarrassingly childish way. Still, he wouldn’t have sounded so worried over the phone if he planned this. If anything, Papyrus would try to scramble to his rescue. Sans chuckles at the thought. Papyrus has his endearing moments, but he also needs to understand Sans can take care of himself.
The wood support beams soon give way to cave walls, and now far from where he fell, Sans peers down the tunnel.
“Hello?” he calls out nervously. His only answer is the faintest sound of dripping water. Sans likes to think he knows his way around unexpected circumstances such as this. The water should eventually lead him to its source, right? (Had he read that in a book or from a forum on the Undernet?) Oh! It could maybe lead to a way out. Listening to the echo of his voice, Sans grits his teeth as he attempts to decipher how deep the cavern would take him. The layout of the Underground he grew up in differed greatly from this place, but if anything, his general knowledge of caves should suffice!
Kneeling, Sans notices the wear on the ground, how smooth it felt in some places. An area of heavy traffic, perhaps? The beams of wood supporting the human, or perhaps monster-made tunnel smell older than he thought, ancient perchance. How preserved though, still remained a mystery. Nervously, Sans carefully hurries down the tunnel. If he knows his caves, he’ll find his way out sooner or later. When his boots splash into a puddle of water, Sans follows it, relieved. Only a matter of time before he finds his way out. But instead of a clearing, he discovers a flooded chamber.
The water laps at his calves, and stops short of spilling into his boots as he peers into the room. Pillars seemingly carved into the rock wall jut from the far wall. In the middle of the pillars facing him stands a statue on a pedestal. An angel of sorts, or a demon. The wings seem a little off; looking at it from one angle produced feathery tips, while another showed the leather of bat wings. (But, Sans can also blame his blurry vision for that odd observation.) A lengthy shroud conceals their face, and long robes hide their body. One arm reaches for the doorway, while the other pulls back, as if creating leverage to put their whole body into an attack. Their exposed hands flux with a pained expression, as if caught midway through a confrontation, or a struggle. Sans wouldn’t be surprised if under the shroud he uncovers a snarl, frozen in the midst of a terrible betrayal. Their body language clearly shows their displeasure at the moment of the depicted event.
Scrutinizing the statue, Sans cautiously walks into the room. It seems to be the only interesting thing present.
“Whoa...” The pillar bears no name of the subject, yet Sans admires the work. Close enough now to see it properly, Sans observes its beauty. The statue stands well preserved, and breathtakingly detailed, as if carved like those realistic statues he has seen pictures of. Intrigued, Sans reaches a hand out to brush at the veil, as if it would flutter away and reveal the face underneath. He expects it to feel worn smooth at the carved ripples of their robe. Or at least feel of marble like his initial guess. But when his fingers rub almost through it like cloth, Sans blinks in surprise. When he sees the shroud move as if the statue breathed through a hidden mouth, Sans recoils. “What the—” His shrunken eyelights stare directly at where their eyes would be, and Sans catches a glow of purple in the middle of their forehead. Patterned in the shape of an intricate circle, it spins slowly.
Backing away, Sans summons a bone. For protection. For himself. Staring suspiciously at it, Sans dares to blink. The symbol spins until the shapes inside it push slightly outward—like petals on a blooming flower. When that thought registers, the symbol disappears. Uneased, Sans inches closer, and taps the shroud with the blunt end of his summoned construct. The veil lay still, like a rock should. Brow ridge furrowed, Sans touches the shroud again.
This time he feels the texture of stone.
Cold, unbreathing stone.
Soul beating almost through his chest, Sans positions his weapon between them. Warily, he keeps the statue within visual range as he steadily backs up and runs from the room.
—
In a corner of the chamber, hidden by the water and shadows, a figure gasps as they scramble from their watery prison. Robes weighed by water, they jerk with wildly bright eyelights to face the statue.
“m’lord...” they rasp, stumbling to aid their master. The figure on the pedestal visibly quivers, outstretched hands frozen in half-clenched agony as their entire being shakes in an effort to maintain their form. Reaching for the hem of their robes, the cloaked monster drags their shaking body forward to hush their lord’s haggard, muffled cries. “m’lord!” they croak. With a violent jerk, the winged figure slips from their perch. Claw-like hands clutch the servant’s cloak as the servant catches them mid-fall. At the contact, the draping robes of the winged monster contract between cloth and stone.
“Servant,” they falter, speech half present and ethereal as they rip at the cloth covering their neck, “hurry—” Fingers sharp as razors scrape the half-stone robes as the servant plunges their gold fangs into their master’s exposed cervical vertebrae. Purple magic dribbles from their partially stone neck as the servant drinks. A sharp hiss resounds as their lord’s magic cuts off midway through feeding, forcing the servant to withdraw. Despite the short duration, the small amount of magic renews a stable coherency to the servant, and their now alert eyelights train on their master’s visage.
“m’lord—” they breathe, “how?”
“Another—” their lord hacks, still fighting the magic binding them in stone, “—is here.” The taller monster holds onto them protectively as their master abruptly spasms between stone and flesh in the servant’s arms.
“m’lord!!” Protecting their lord’s head, the servant waits until they safely manage to retain their physical form long enough to speak.
“He needs—” their master gasps between breaths, “—to break the seal—” Here the servant sees the seal binding their lord in stone flash momentarily. One of the knots of the spell has broken. Like a flower, frozen mid-bloom. Amazed, the servant grips with growing hope at the flowing, half-frozen robes of their master.
“m’lord,” they nearly weep with joy, “what do you require of me?”
“Acquire him—” the half-statue of a presence urges, “quickly…”
Though the servant knows they haven’t asked permission, they check on the distressed soul of their master. Purple still, but only just. At each passing second, it’s rapidly losing its luster and strength as the residual blue motes of their visitor falls away, leaving behind patches of increasingly growing chasms of black. Reluctant to leave their lord in such a state, the servant bows as they release them. Their master begins stiffening not long after they make their request.
“as you wish, m’lord,” the servant whispers. Their brow furrows from under their hood as they worriedly back away from their master.
Fully stone again, their lord waits imploringly as the calf-deep water lick at their robes. The servant turns away, knowing it will take more than a closer proximity to revive them again.
It will require more than he would willing give.
Lifting their head, gold fangs glisten under an amber light as the cloaked monster sweeps their cape upward and dissolves into bats.