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mrfunnybonearchives · 7 years

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ᴼᶰᵉ ᴸᵃˢᵗ ᴶᵒᵇ

||Starter -- @wdvoided || Closed ||

“Tickets, please.”

In movies, Sans distinctly remembered that particular question always being asked after passengers had boarded a train. That was what allowed for some rascal to fake a pair of tickets, only to find out he got the color of the ink wrong and had to go make up some wild excuse as to where his supposed legitimate ticket had disappeared to.

Apparently, humans had wised up since those days—lil’ bit, at least.

“here ya go, pal.”

Luckily for him and his traveling companion, they had fairly purchased and correctly inked tickets from the get-go, and wouldn’t have to worry about jumping off the curved edge of a railroad in order to avoid certain jail time. Though, admittedly, that would have been an interesting sight to see. Maybe more so than sitting across from the monster who had once been his boss. Lab partner. Fellow nerd-enthusiast.

Looking back, it was hard to say if they had actually been friends.

The thought was more somber than he cared to admit.

Regardless of whatever they had once been or not-been, though, it didn’t change the here and now, and maybe wouldn’t have even mattered. Either way, so many years had passed since those far away days of long white coats and scribbled in log books—felt like years, anyhow—maybe it genuinely had been, hard to say. Depended on what definition of time was being used, how it was being measured.

The humans had some song that talked about that, actually. Sans recalled that it was from a musical. Which, really, he wasn’t much a fan of in general, more Paps thing, but sometimes they weren’t so bad. This one made a good point if nothing else. Could define the passage of time in a lot of different ways. In daylights. In sunsets. In midnights, in cups of—

“Coffee?”

Sans looked up, having barely settled into his plush seat before a skinny apron-clad human came to offer a fanciful pot of what looked like freshly brewed joe. He kept his grin friendly. “yeah, sure. why not. thanks buddy.”

The little ceramic mug that had been pre-placed before him just so, with all the elegant set up of some fine-dining establishment, was slowly filled until a sliver of steam rose above its lip. It had that dark roast smell, the sort he had come to associate with expensive shops and imported grinds. Which was nice and all, but the coffee still just tasted like coffee. He added the provided packet of mojo and a very small amount of milk, but nothing else.

White eye lights glanced up to Gaster as Sans stirred his drink into a light brown hue. Now was about when he was supposed to make small talk, probably. Ask how he’d been doing, what sort of things he was up to these days, and oh, by the way, just how was being trapped in that void for so long?

yeah, about that, i know it took forever for me to get you out, see, uh, i kinda gave up on everything in my life after awhile and consequently sorta left you to a potential eternity of doom. my bad. hard to find good help these days amiright?

Sure they’d both have a good chuckle over that one. Maybe Gaster would tell him that he was actually grateful for his time trapped in a scattered dimension with no life or death, that it actually allowed him to pursue a previously suppressed fondness for knitting. Or, creating haiku’s, since in retrospect he wouldn’t have even had access to materials for, uh, knitting...probably.

Something told him that chances of that happening were pretty slim to—well no, even that expression gave too much credit.

Sans took a sip of his drink and turned to look out the window as the train began to move, slowly rolling away from its quiet little station. Toriel had been right; traveling by train (really nice ones at least) definitely seemed to be the less human-populated option these days. A plane would have been quicker, though. He wouldn’t have minded that, was pretty sure he’d gone on one before in one timeline or another, but Gaster was still—adjusting, to put it delicately.

Besides, Tori had asked that Sans go with him by train. So that was what he did.

Actually, when he thought about it, Tori orchestrated the entire venture in itself. Had been having some sort of politcal meeting with humans when a chance for a bit of comradity popped on up; as it turned out, the humans didn’t exactly do a bang-up job of taking care of the surface in monster-kinds absence. Shocker. Sans remembered reading bits and articles about it in the early days. Seemed like their main issue was relying on inefficient methods of energy. There was too many of them, they bred and consumed and damaged the Earth far faster than it could repair itself, and not too many of them wanted to give up their cushiony lifestyles.

He always had wondered if he’d be around when that eventually turned to bite them on their collective rear end. Turned out, he would be, just not in the way he thought. Instead of a somewhat ambiguous observer, he, along with Gaster, would be working with them to figure out how to undo the tangled mess that they’d made over centuries of bad choices. Their work together on The Core, which by comparison to human power was vastly kinder on the environment, had apparently made them the obvious monsters for the job. How Sans involvement came into light, he didn’t yet know. Didn’t ask. He could only kick something under the rug for so long, he supposed.

Still, it wasn’t like The Core had ever really been perfect. Stabilizing Gaster’s creation had been a never-ending battle, and they hadn’t even been covering that large of an area in comparison. It had taken losing the royal scientist to reality in order to even make the stupid machine consistently function. Why the humans thought they’d be able to come up with something that worked now, Sans didn’t know. Again, he didn’t ask.

He was going because it made life a little easier for Toriel if he did.

He was going because Gaster had agreed to go, and Sans owed him.

He was going because—

ah, hell.

He wasn’t even sure, really.

“y’know,” Sans said, his attention still set on the sight of trees cycling passed them as they began to exit city parameters, “betcha the first human to think up a train had a real crazy reason for it. y’know. a loco motive.”

A small, mildly self-amused huff escaped Sans nose hole. His hand stayed wrapped around the warmth of his mug, occasionally giving it a little tap as thoughts swirled and muddled until they were indistinguishable murmurs. He breathed in, slow, easy, and tore himself away from the window long enough to take another hit of his drink.

It still just tasted like coffee.

#wdvoided #ᴼᶰᵉ ᴸᵃˢᵗ ᴶᵒᵇ (Sans and Gaster thread)#ᵉᶰʲᵒʸ ʷʰᶦᶫᵉ ᶦᵗ ᶫᵃˢᵗˢ (Surface Verse)#ᶜᵒᵘᶫᵈ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵇᵉᵉᶰ ʷᵒʳˢᵉ (post-neutral ending)#longpost cw

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