The Smile Has Left Your Eyes 3/8?
Previous | Master Post
Chapter 2
Blood and Sans
“This is what you were seeing in town,” Sam repeated as Dean drove down the main street of so-called East Ebott, which was lined with log buildings of various shapes and sizes and had an old-school boardwalk along which creatures of a bewildering variety of non-human forms were walking. “This... I mean, these cabins look new. What do you bet the building started....”
“Less than six months ago,” Dean agreed, “just after the tremor. Would explain the construction noises people were hearing. And this close to the mine, hidden from the view from town... they’re probably under the fairies’ protection.”
“Yeah, and they’re building in an area people already know to avoid, close to the mine entrance and the main shaft. Lessens the chance of anyone just wandering in by accident.”
“Which is gonna make it real awkward trying to explain how we got here on purpose.”
“We’re just... Feds. Following up a lead.”
“And where the hell are we supposed to start, dude?”
Sam sighed, scanned the boardwalk, and pointed to a spot a couple of blocks up the street where there was a... tortoise wearing a pith helmet and leaning on a cane while talking with a rabbit in a dress. “We can start with an old-timer.”
For lack of a better option, Dean drove in that direction, noting some of the signs on the buildings as they passed: Muffet’s Bakery, Grillby’s Bar and Grill, and something called a Tem Shop (whatever that meant). There weren’t any other cars on the street, so Dean just parked alongside the boardwalk next to the tortoise, leaving room for Sam to open his door. Sam tucked one copy of the kid’s picture into his jacket pocket; Dean took another just in case they needed to split up. Then the brothers exchanged a look, braced themselves, and got out in tandem.
“hOI!” someone shouted from the other side of the street, and Dean looked to see a sort of... cross between a cat and a dog with human-ish black hair on its head, although the rest of it was white. (Well, the cat ears were black, but the dog ears were white.) It was grinning at him, a sort of anime grin. “i’m tEMMIE!!”
“Uh, hi,” Dean replied.
“awwAwa humans so... TALL!” Temmie made a noise that was almost the verbal equivalent of smashing one’s hands on a keyboard, then flopped over in a dead faint.
Sam and Dean exchanged a look. Well, it wasn’t the weirdest reaction they’d ever gotten.
Then Dean became aware of something at his feet. It was kind of shaped like a large turtle, except... it was a bathtub. A walking blue bathtub full of water, with a rubber duck floating in it. And the tub’s little round green head was peering up at Dean.
“Wosh u hands,” said the tub.
Dean blinked. “Little cold out here for that, isn’t it?”
“Don’t worry, sonny,” said a dry male voice that turned out to belong to the tortoise, who was watching them now with one eye open and the other shut. “It won’t freeze you. Just humor the boy.”
Sam and Dean looked at each other again and shrugged. “All right,” Dean said and held out his hands.
The tub sprayed a jet of surprisingly warm, soapy water over Dean’s hands, and over Sam’s when he came around the front of the car a moment later. They made a show of scrubbing, then held their hands out again to be rinsed. The water dried almost instantly.
The tub looked happy for a moment, then cast a skeptical eye over the Impala. “Wosh u car?”
“Knock yourself out,” Dean replied. “Only the outside, though. And don’t scratch my paint.”
The tub bobbed its head, then trundled closer to the front bumper and manifested a soapy sponge. An appendage sticking out from its back end that looked like a crank started turning, almost like the tub was wagging its tail.
The tortoise laughed. “Good of you boys to be so kind to young Woshua there. He’s harmless, you know, just anxious.”
“What about Temmie?” Sam asked.
“Ah, Temmie’s all right. You just surprised her. Bob should be along in a moment; he’ll look after her. But I take it I’m the one you want to speak to. Name’s Gerson.”
“Mr. Gerson,” Sam repeated as the brothers made their way up onto the boardwalk. “I’m Agent Plant; this is Agent Page. We’re with the FBI.”
“The what?”
“The... Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Gerson blinked his left eye several times, then laughed wryly and shook his head. “Seems there’s a lot more to learn about this place than we thought. ’Course, times have changed; that’s to be expected when you’ve been locked away as long as we were. But I don’t recall reading much about federal whozits and whatzits and all before we wound up here.”
Dean frowned a little. “Sorry, could you explain that?”
“Well, I don’t really know all the whys and wherefores. You’d have to ask Alphys about all that; she used to be the Royal Scientist. All I know is, centuries ago, we monsters fought a war against humans and lost. They forced us all underground and raised a barrier with the power of seven human souls. It took the power of seven other souls to break it. But when the Barrier fell... we weren’t in the same world anymore.”
“And you arrived here when?”
“’Bout six months ago.” Gerson looked at the boys more narrowly. “Why, what are you boys investigatin’?”
“There’s been a series of murders in Ebott,” Sam replied.
Dean suddenly got the feeling that they were being watched from behind by something very dangerous. But the watcher seemed more wary than hostile, trying to determine whether the Winchesters were a threat before acting. He made the deliberate choice not to turn around.
“So far the evidence suggests that the killer might be hiding nearby,” Sam went on. “Nobody in town was able to help us any, so we hoped someone out here would be able to give us more information. We’re just looking for witness statements.”
Gerson tilted his head a little. “Not suspects?”
“No, we believe the killer’s human,” said Dean. “Or at least used to be human-the evidence points to the possibility that we’re dealing with a vengeful spirit.”
“SEE, SANS!” crowed a male voice from behind the brothers. “I TOLD YOU THEY WERE PROBABLY OKAY!”
“heh,” answered another. “you think everyone’s probably okay.”
“AND I’M RIGHT! WELL, AT LEAST THIS TIME I’M RIGHT.”
Sam and Dean looked at each other yet again and turned around to see the two skeletons from the Walmart pictures walking toward them, dressed more for the cold weather but still unmistakably skeletal and with a good two feet of height difference between them. The short, stocky one-Sans?-was smiling the same cartoonish way he had been in the photos, but somehow the smile seemed forced, like he wasn’t nearly as reassured by Dean’s assertion as the tall, gangly one had been. The tall one, on the other hand, was marching forward boldly, his red scarf billowing behind him on the breeze like a cape. It looked almost like he was taller than Sam.
“YOU’RE IN LUCK, HUMANS!” the tall one proclaimed. “YOU SEE BEFORE YOU THE BEST SENTRIES IN ALL OF EAST EBOTT.”
“You mean the only sentries in East Ebott, don’t you?” Gerson interrupted, sounding amused. “Everyone else is still stationed in the Underground.”
The skeleton ignored him and stopped to pose dramatically. “IF A WITNESS STATEMENT IS WHAT YOU NEED, A WITNESS STATEMENT YOU SHALL HAVE! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, SHALL PERSONALLY SEE TO IT THAT YOU GAIN ALL THE INFORMATION YOU REQUIRE.”
“actually, it might be good for him,” Sans admitted, ambling up beside Papyrus. “we ran out of crossword books two weeks ago. he’s been dying for a new puzzle to solve.”
Sam cleared his throat. “Uh, thank you. This is one puzzle we could certainly use your help on.”
“Maybe we should talk about it over lunch,” Dean suggested. “Where’s good?”
Sans shrugged. “you like burgers? we could go to grillby’s.”
“Sure. Sounds like a good place for an interrogation.”
“oh, you planning to grill us, then?”
“Who said I’d be the one askin’ questions? Got a feeling you want to rake me over the coals.”
“what makes you think i got a bone to pick with you?”
“You kiddin’? I can see right through you.”
Sam winced, and Papyrus groaned. For all the tension in the air, though, Dean found himself kind of liking Sans already; it was nice to find someone who appreciated fine puns as much as he did.
And it seemed the feeling was mutual, as Sans chuckled. “okay, then, grillby’s it is.”
“UGH, SANS, YOU KNOW I HATE THAT PLACE!” Papyrus objected. “BESIDES, WE HAVE PLENTY OF SPAGHETTI AT HOME.”
“not cooked, we don’t,” Sans countered. “and that’s a good way to get into hot water.”
“Sounds like you don’t need me for this,” Gerson said quietly while the skeletons continued bickering. “So I’d best get on home. If you do need to chat, though, just send someone; everybody knows where I live.”
Dean nodded. “All right. Thank you.”
“What about the bakery?” Sam suggested. “Does the bakery serve lunches?”
“YES!” Papyrus replied at the same time Sans said, “eh, i dunno....”
“Okay,” Sam ventured, “how about a compromise? Papyrus and I can go to Muffet’s while you two go to Grillby’s.”
The lights in Sans’ eye sockets dimmed, and he lowered his voice. “do you really think i’m going to leave papyrus alone with sam winchester?”
Dean blinked. “What the hell are you-”
“save it, dean. the tuatha de warned us about you two. and once alphys got patched into the human internet, we found photos. it’s not common knowledge around town, but yeah, we know who you are.”
“Look,” Sam stated, “like we told Gerson, we’re here for information. We know the killer’s not one of you. And besides that, we’ll be in public.”
“like you were the last time you ate in st. louis?”
“That wasn’t us,” the Winchesters chorused.
“Those were shape-shifting monsters called Leviathans,” Dean continued. “We were a day’s drive away when the news broke. They were trying to get us back on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. We caught up with them in Iowa; they’re dead.”
Sam grimaced. “That’s twice now you’ve been impersonated in St. Louis.”
“Dude, don’t remind me. That was my favorite diner they shot up, too, and now it’s closed.”
“It’s not like we could go back there even if it weren’t closed.”
“It’s the principle of the thing, Sam. They had the best burgers in town.”
Sans still looked skeptical, but Papyrus put a gloved hand on his shoulder. “Please, brother,” he pleaded quietly. “Let me do this. I can call Undyne if it would make you feel better.”
“undyne’s got class right now, bro. and she wants to fight these guys, remember?”
“Sans. Please.”
Sans sighed. “oh, all right, fine. just... promise you’ll call someone if anything happens.”
“I’ll... I’ll call His Majesty. He can leave the school most readily.”
Sans nodded. “okay.”
Sam nodded, too, and turned to Dean. “We’ll meet back... here?”
“Makes sense,” Dean agreed. “Call if anything comes up.”
“Right.”
“COME, THEN, MY NEW HUMAN FRIEND!” Papyrus cried and slapped Sam on the back. “TO MUFFET’S WE GO!”
“Lead on,” Sam replied, doing his best to match Papyrus’ enthusiasm.
Dean and Sans chuckled as Papyrus, who was indeed a good four inches taller than Sam, herded Sam back down the boardwalk toward the bakery. As they watched their brothers go, they drifted to stand side by side. But once Papyrus’ voice faded out with distance, the tension in the air returned.
“If your brother does anything to mine-”
Man and skeleton turned and blinked at each other. That had come out in perfect unison.
“He’s all I’ve got-”
So did that.
“look,” Sans tried again. “papyrus wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Then none of us have anything to worry about, do we?” Dean returned.
“do we? i’ve heard-”
“I don’t care what you’ve heard. Sam’s not going to attack unprovoked. He’s the one who always wants to make friends with monsters-hell, he’s had three different girlfriends who were monsters, at least.”
Sans raised one brow ridge. “oh, really?”
Dean looked down at him for a moment. “Look, you wanna go to Grillby’s or not?”
Sans huffed, but his permanent smile seemed less strained. “this way.”
The conversation paused as Dean followed Sans down the street and into Grillby’s Bar and Grill, the inside of which reminded him of a less-busy Mos Eisley Cantina (or maybe Ten Forward). What looked like the head off a giant stuffed rabbit with spirals for eyes was sitting on one table; it wasn’t until the thing visibly hiccupped that Dean could tell it was alive. The handful of other patrons, presumably all regulars, called various greetings to Sans, and he pushed back his hood and waved to them.
“usual for me, grillbz,” Sans called to the bespectacled fire elemental behind the bar as he led the way to a booth. “for you, deano?”
Dean decided to chance it. “Bacon cheeseburger, extra onions, order of fries, and a Coke,” he said as he took off his overcoat.
The fire elemental-Grillby?-nodded once and set down the glass it was cleaning. How it managed not to set the rag on fire, never mind the tux it was wearing, was beyond Dean.
“not sure if he has bacon,” Sans admitted as they sat down. “but i can vouch for the burgers. best in the underground, still just as good on the surface. way better than the glamburgers at the mtt-brand burger emporium.”
Dean blinked. “Glamburgers?”
“mettaton’s idea. made with sequins.”
Dean snorted. “David Bowie fan?” When Sans only blinked, he clarified, “Ziggy Stardust?”
“who’s that?”
“You... you’ve never heard of Ziggy Stardust?!”
“well, mettaton might have, if someone scavenged a record or something out of the dump. we never got a lot of human culture in the underground. some things, yeah, but only what got thrown out. we’re still catching up.”
“So-wait, are you saying... nobody in this town is going to recognize that our aliases are from Led Zeppelin?”
“who?”
Dean took a moment to find his voice again. “Wow. Okay. You guys have literally been living under a rock.”
“lot of us still are. we had five full towns in the underground, and we didn’t have time to build enough cabins for everyone before winter hit. and it’s been a challenge trying to find space that’s level enough to build on. in the world we left, ebott’s a good-sized city-college town. might not have been easy, but we could have found enough places to live there. now?” Sans shook his head. “at least people can visit the surface, even if they can’t move out here yet.”
“Probably safer that way, at least right now. Things are still pretty unsettled since the Apocalypse.”
“yeah, we heard about that. also heard you and your brother made sure it apocollapsed.”
“Now the hard part is keepin’ it that way. If Lucifer gets out again... well, anyway, we’re doin’ everything we can to make sure that can’t happen.”
“sounds like hell.”
Dean sighed. “Not something I can make jokes about, dude. Not anymore.”
Sans’ smile faded a bit. “that look on your face. that’s the face of a man who’s... who’s seen his brother die. more than once.”
“And that? That sounds like the voice of experience.”
Man and skeleton looked at each other for a long moment until a sudden rise in the temperature heralded Grillby’s arrival with Dean’s Coke and a... bottle of ketchup?
“thanks, grillbz,” said Sans, accepting the ketchup.
“Yeah, thanks,” said Dean, accepting his Coke, which was astonishingly still cold. “Hey, uh... Grillby, right? Would you be hiring?”
Grillby tilted his head quizzically.
“I’ve got a friend who really needs a job. War buddy. Got a lot of experience-used to work at a diner in Louisiana. And I think he’d fit in here pretty well. He’s... he’s a vampire. But he’s tryin’ to stay straight,” Dean added quickly. “He raids blood banks and stuff. He doesn’t want to kill. Maybe a place like this is just what he needs.”
Grillby and Sans looked at each other. “he’ll... think about it, right?” Sans answered.
Grillby nodded and left.
“war buddy, huh?” Sans continued, popping the cap off the ketchup bottle as if it were a beer bottle. “how’d that happen?” He took a swig.
“Hunting accident,” Dean replied. “I got sent to Purgatory, which is basically the afterlife for monsters. Benny knew where there was an escape hatch for humans, so we made a deal. He helped me get to it, and I helped him get out.”
Sans looked startled. “monsters have an afterlife here?!”
“Yeah. Not a good one; it’s pretty much 24/7 combat. But it exists.”
“huh. wow. i wonder... i mean, back... in our universe, or at least in the underground, monster souls... just disintegrated, and so did the body. just poof, dust. if there’s an afterlife, if we can get to it....”
“Don’t be in too much of a hurry to find out, dude. Like I said, it ain’t pretty.”
Sans ran a hand over his face. “yeah, yeah, i hear you. what i mean is... it could give monsters hope, knowing they’d see each other again, knowing they didn’t have to fight so hard to stay in this world. hell of a lot better than some of the things we’ve tried to bring back monsters who ‘fell down.’”
Dean sighed. “You want hope, you’re talkin’ to the wrong guy.”
“and i hear that, too.” Sans paused. “dean, when did you get back from purgatory?”
“’Bout six months ago.”
“and how long were you there?”
“A year and change. Mid-May to late July.”*
“so if you returned in july of 2012 and were sent there in may of 2011, how was it that you were fighting leviathans in iowa in september of 2011?”
Dean hesitated. “Look, man, my sense of time is shot to hell. I mean, it was bad enough spending forty years Downstairs and coming back to find out I’d been gone four months. Then while Sam was... was gone, I spent a year with my last girlfriend, but somehow I went to sleep on New Year’s Eve of 2010 and woke up New Year’s Day to find it was still 2010. Or something. I go to Purgatory in 2012, spend a year, and come back to find it’s still 2012? I roll with it.”
Sans sat back. “i knew it. i knew there was something wrong with space-time in this world.”
“What? How?”
“ever been caught in a time loop before?”
“And remembered it, no. Sam does. Trickster with a mistaken understanding of how to help put us in one, killed me over a hundred times and made Sam watch. Then Sam spent six months trying to find him again and make him undo it all.”
Sans took a long pull on his ketchup bottle. “never-not in my wildest dreams or worst nightmares-did i ever think i’d find someone who could understand, who’d been there. and to find that person’s a human... a hunter!” He laughed bitterly and took another drink.
“Somethin’ single you out, make sure you remembered?”
Sans shook his head. “nah. think it may be a side effect of my powers-i can teleport, for one thing.” He paused, then ran a hand over his face again. “dunno why i just admitted that.”
“I wondered, though. Waitress at the diner never saw you arrive or leave. Another friend of mine pulls the same trick.”
“what’s he?”
“Angel.”
“wow.” Sans took a deep breath. “diner. right. so you know i’ve been in town since halloween.”
“Yup. Glad you decided not to procrustinate on addressing that.”
“heh, well, it’d be pretty crumby of me not to come clean.”
“Good taste, though. Pie?”
“pie. tori’s favorite thing to bake. i gotta return the favor somehow.”
“Yeah, good plan. Tori’s your girlfriend?”
“yup. toriel, that’s her full name. she’s a boss monster. she, uh... she used to be queen. then-well, it’s a long story, but when she and asgore split up, she moved out to the ruins, and... see, there’s this door between the ruins and snowdin forest, where paps and i used to patrol. i’d go there to practice my knock-knock jokes. and one day she answered.”
Dean nodded. “I get you.”
“tibia-nest, i was pretty bonely out there myself. but i never thought... never really let myself hope... anyway, i-it was kind of a shock to find out who she was, and it was a huge shock to find out she felt the same way about me. we’re still trying to figure things out, but... yeah. pie. but that’s the only reason i’ve gone into ebott since halloween, i swear!”
“I believe you.”
Sans blinked. “you... you do?”
“Like we said, we know the killer’s not one of you. One of the vics had a security system with video monitoring. We got a still from it. Only trouble is, no one in town can identify the perp.” Dean reached into his jacket, pulled out the picture, and slid it across the table. “Ever seen this kid?”
The lights in Sans’ eye sockets went out entirely, and he stared silently at the image for a long moment.
“C’mon, man, throw me a bone here.”
Sans was apparently too shocked to take the bait. Instead, he heaved a sigh that rattled his ribcage, closed his eye sockets, and pinched the bone between them like a human would pinch the bridge of his nose. “that’s frisk.”
“Frisk?”
Sans nodded. “frisk was the last human to fall into the underground. still lives with tori. i... i was so sure after this last loop that... that i’d been wrong, i’d misremembered, that the kid wasn’t a killer....”
“Frisk’s not the one doing the killing.”
Sans’ eye sockets popped open, lights back in place and widened in shock, and he sat up straighter. “what?!”
“Look.” Dean pointed to the spot on Frisk’s neck that he’d noticed on the video. “That’s not hair or a shadow. That’s ectoplasm. Classic sign of ghost possession.”
“possession....” Sans looked up and away, like he was thinking.
“Like I said, we’re after a vengeful spirit, a human’s ghost. So who’s riding Frisk?”
Sans drummed his phalanges on the table top for a moment. Then his eye lights went out again for a split second before his left eye blazed cyan and he snarled, “chara.”
Next
* This really is only a slight fudge-to make it work with “We Need to Talk about Kevin,” assume that Channing is taking summer classes, since the demon has to keep up appearances despite attending Channing’s safety school (which could in fact be Notre Dame!).
Chapter 2
Blood and Sans
“This is what you were seeing in town,” Sam repeated as Dean drove down the main street of so-called East Ebott, which was lined with log buildings of various shapes and sizes and had an old-school boardwalk along which creatures of a bewildering variety of non-human forms were walking. “This... I mean, these cabins look new. What do you bet the building started....”
“Less than six months ago,” Dean agreed, “just after the tremor. Would explain the construction noises people were hearing. And this close to the mine, hidden from the view from town... they’re probably under the fairies’ protection.”
“Yeah, and they’re building in an area people already know to avoid, close to the mine entrance and the main shaft. Lessens the chance of anyone just wandering in by accident.”
“Which is gonna make it real awkward trying to explain how we got here on purpose.”
“We’re just... Feds. Following up a lead.”
“And where the hell are we supposed to start, dude?”
Sam sighed, scanned the boardwalk, and pointed to a spot a couple of blocks up the street where there was a... tortoise wearing a pith helmet and leaning on a cane while talking with a rabbit in a dress. “We can start with an old-timer.”
For lack of a better option, Dean drove in that direction, noting some of the signs on the buildings as they passed: Muffet’s Bakery, Grillby’s Bar and Grill, and something called a Tem Shop (whatever that meant). There weren’t any other cars on the street, so Dean just parked alongside the boardwalk next to the tortoise, leaving room for Sam to open his door. Sam tucked one copy of the kid’s picture into his jacket pocket; Dean took another just in case they needed to split up. Then the brothers exchanged a look, braced themselves, and got out in tandem.
“hOI!” someone shouted from the other side of the street, and Dean looked to see a sort of... cross between a cat and a dog with human-ish black hair on its head, although the rest of it was white. (Well, the cat ears were black, but the dog ears were white.) It was grinning at him, a sort of anime grin. “i’m tEMMIE!!”
“Uh, hi,” Dean replied.
“awwAwa humans so... TALL!” Temmie made a noise that was almost the verbal equivalent of smashing one’s hands on a keyboard, then flopped over in a dead faint.
Sam and Dean exchanged a look. Well, it wasn’t the weirdest reaction they’d ever gotten.
Then Dean became aware of something at his feet. It was kind of shaped like a large turtle, except... it was a bathtub. A walking blue bathtub full of water, with a rubber duck floating in it. And the tub’s little round green head was peering up at Dean.
“Wosh u hands,” said the tub.
Dean blinked. “Little cold out here for that, isn’t it?”
“Don’t worry, sonny,” said a dry male voice that turned out to belong to the tortoise, who was watching them now with one eye open and the other shut. “It won’t freeze you. Just humor the boy.”
Sam and Dean looked at each other again and shrugged. “All right,” Dean said and held out his hands.
The tub sprayed a jet of surprisingly warm, soapy water over Dean’s hands, and over Sam’s when he came around the front of the car a moment later. They made a show of scrubbing, then held their hands out again to be rinsed. The water dried almost instantly.
The tub looked happy for a moment, then cast a skeptical eye over the Impala. “Wosh u car?”
“Knock yourself out,” Dean replied. “Only the outside, though. And don’t scratch my paint.”
The tub bobbed its head, then trundled closer to the front bumper and manifested a soapy sponge. An appendage sticking out from its back end that looked like a crank started turning, almost like the tub was wagging its tail.
The tortoise laughed. “Good of you boys to be so kind to young Woshua there. He’s harmless, you know, just anxious.”
“What about Temmie?” Sam asked.
“Ah, Temmie’s all right. You just surprised her. Bob should be along in a moment; he’ll look after her. But I take it I’m the one you want to speak to. Name’s Gerson.”
“Mr. Gerson,” Sam repeated as the brothers made their way up onto the boardwalk. “I’m Agent Plant; this is Agent Page. We’re with the FBI.”
“The what?”
“The... Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Gerson blinked his left eye several times, then laughed wryly and shook his head. “Seems there’s a lot more to learn about this place than we thought. ’Course, times have changed; that’s to be expected when you’ve been locked away as long as we were. But I don’t recall reading much about federal whozits and whatzits and all before we wound up here.”
Dean frowned a little. “Sorry, could you explain that?”
“Well, I don’t really know all the whys and wherefores. You’d have to ask Alphys about all that; she used to be the Royal Scientist. All I know is, centuries ago, we monsters fought a war against humans and lost. They forced us all underground and raised a barrier with the power of seven human souls. It took the power of seven other souls to break it. But when the Barrier fell... we weren’t in the same world anymore.”
“And you arrived here when?”
“’Bout six months ago.” Gerson looked at the boys more narrowly. “Why, what are you boys investigatin’?”
“There’s been a series of murders in Ebott,” Sam replied.
Dean suddenly got the feeling that they were being watched from behind by something very dangerous. But the watcher seemed more wary than hostile, trying to determine whether the Winchesters were a threat before acting. He made the deliberate choice not to turn around.
“So far the evidence suggests that the killer might be hiding nearby,” Sam went on. “Nobody in town was able to help us any, so we hoped someone out here would be able to give us more information. We’re just looking for witness statements.”
Gerson tilted his head a little. “Not suspects?”
“No, we believe the killer’s human,” said Dean. “Or at least used to be human-the evidence points to the possibility that we’re dealing with a vengeful spirit.”
“SEE, SANS!” crowed a male voice from behind the brothers. “I TOLD YOU THEY WERE PROBABLY OKAY!”
“heh,” answered another. “you think everyone’s probably okay.”
“AND I’M RIGHT! WELL, AT LEAST THIS TIME I’M RIGHT.”
Sam and Dean looked at each other yet again and turned around to see the two skeletons from the Walmart pictures walking toward them, dressed more for the cold weather but still unmistakably skeletal and with a good two feet of height difference between them. The short, stocky one-Sans?-was smiling the same cartoonish way he had been in the photos, but somehow the smile seemed forced, like he wasn’t nearly as reassured by Dean’s assertion as the tall, gangly one had been. The tall one, on the other hand, was marching forward boldly, his red scarf billowing behind him on the breeze like a cape. It looked almost like he was taller than Sam.
“YOU’RE IN LUCK, HUMANS!” the tall one proclaimed. “YOU SEE BEFORE YOU THE BEST SENTRIES IN ALL OF EAST EBOTT.”
“You mean the only sentries in East Ebott, don’t you?” Gerson interrupted, sounding amused. “Everyone else is still stationed in the Underground.”
The skeleton ignored him and stopped to pose dramatically. “IF A WITNESS STATEMENT IS WHAT YOU NEED, A WITNESS STATEMENT YOU SHALL HAVE! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, SHALL PERSONALLY SEE TO IT THAT YOU GAIN ALL THE INFORMATION YOU REQUIRE.”
“actually, it might be good for him,” Sans admitted, ambling up beside Papyrus. “we ran out of crossword books two weeks ago. he’s been dying for a new puzzle to solve.”
Sam cleared his throat. “Uh, thank you. This is one puzzle we could certainly use your help on.”
“Maybe we should talk about it over lunch,” Dean suggested. “Where’s good?”
Sans shrugged. “you like burgers? we could go to grillby’s.”
“Sure. Sounds like a good place for an interrogation.”
“oh, you planning to grill us, then?”
“Who said I’d be the one askin’ questions? Got a feeling you want to rake me over the coals.”
“what makes you think i got a bone to pick with you?”
“You kiddin’? I can see right through you.”
Sam winced, and Papyrus groaned. For all the tension in the air, though, Dean found himself kind of liking Sans already; it was nice to find someone who appreciated fine puns as much as he did.
And it seemed the feeling was mutual, as Sans chuckled. “okay, then, grillby’s it is.”
“UGH, SANS, YOU KNOW I HATE THAT PLACE!” Papyrus objected. “BESIDES, WE HAVE PLENTY OF SPAGHETTI AT HOME.”
“not cooked, we don’t,” Sans countered. “and that’s a good way to get into hot water.”
“Sounds like you don’t need me for this,” Gerson said quietly while the skeletons continued bickering. “So I’d best get on home. If you do need to chat, though, just send someone; everybody knows where I live.”
Dean nodded. “All right. Thank you.”
“What about the bakery?” Sam suggested. “Does the bakery serve lunches?”
“YES!” Papyrus replied at the same time Sans said, “eh, i dunno....”
“Okay,” Sam ventured, “how about a compromise? Papyrus and I can go to Muffet’s while you two go to Grillby’s.”
The lights in Sans’ eye sockets dimmed, and he lowered his voice. “do you really think i’m going to leave papyrus alone with sam winchester?”
Dean blinked. “What the hell are you-”
“save it, dean. the tuatha de warned us about you two. and once alphys got patched into the human internet, we found photos. it’s not common knowledge around town, but yeah, we know who you are.”
“Look,” Sam stated, “like we told Gerson, we’re here for information. We know the killer’s not one of you. And besides that, we’ll be in public.”
“like you were the last time you ate in st. louis?”
“That wasn’t us,” the Winchesters chorused.
“Those were shape-shifting monsters called Leviathans,” Dean continued. “We were a day’s drive away when the news broke. They were trying to get us back on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. We caught up with them in Iowa; they’re dead.”
Sam grimaced. “That’s twice now you’ve been impersonated in St. Louis.”
“Dude, don’t remind me. That was my favorite diner they shot up, too, and now it’s closed.”
“It’s not like we could go back there even if it weren’t closed.”
“It’s the principle of the thing, Sam. They had the best burgers in town.”
Sans still looked skeptical, but Papyrus put a gloved hand on his shoulder. “Please, brother,” he pleaded quietly. “Let me do this. I can call Undyne if it would make you feel better.”
“undyne’s got class right now, bro. and she wants to fight these guys, remember?”
“Sans. Please.”
Sans sighed. “oh, all right, fine. just... promise you’ll call someone if anything happens.”
“I’ll... I’ll call His Majesty. He can leave the school most readily.”
Sans nodded. “okay.”
Sam nodded, too, and turned to Dean. “We’ll meet back... here?”
“Makes sense,” Dean agreed. “Call if anything comes up.”
“Right.”
“COME, THEN, MY NEW HUMAN FRIEND!” Papyrus cried and slapped Sam on the back. “TO MUFFET’S WE GO!”
“Lead on,” Sam replied, doing his best to match Papyrus’ enthusiasm.
Dean and Sans chuckled as Papyrus, who was indeed a good four inches taller than Sam, herded Sam back down the boardwalk toward the bakery. As they watched their brothers go, they drifted to stand side by side. But once Papyrus’ voice faded out with distance, the tension in the air returned.
“If your brother does anything to mine-”
Man and skeleton turned and blinked at each other. That had come out in perfect unison.
“He’s all I’ve got-”
So did that.
“look,” Sans tried again. “papyrus wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Then none of us have anything to worry about, do we?” Dean returned.
“do we? i’ve heard-”
“I don’t care what you’ve heard. Sam’s not going to attack unprovoked. He’s the one who always wants to make friends with monsters-hell, he’s had three different girlfriends who were monsters, at least.”
Sans raised one brow ridge. “oh, really?”
Dean looked down at him for a moment. “Look, you wanna go to Grillby’s or not?”
Sans huffed, but his permanent smile seemed less strained. “this way.”
The conversation paused as Dean followed Sans down the street and into Grillby’s Bar and Grill, the inside of which reminded him of a less-busy Mos Eisley Cantina (or maybe Ten Forward). What looked like the head off a giant stuffed rabbit with spirals for eyes was sitting on one table; it wasn’t until the thing visibly hiccupped that Dean could tell it was alive. The handful of other patrons, presumably all regulars, called various greetings to Sans, and he pushed back his hood and waved to them.
“usual for me, grillbz,” Sans called to the bespectacled fire elemental behind the bar as he led the way to a booth. “for you, deano?”
Dean decided to chance it. “Bacon cheeseburger, extra onions, order of fries, and a Coke,” he said as he took off his overcoat.
The fire elemental-Grillby?-nodded once and set down the glass it was cleaning. How it managed not to set the rag on fire, never mind the tux it was wearing, was beyond Dean.
“not sure if he has bacon,” Sans admitted as they sat down. “but i can vouch for the burgers. best in the underground, still just as good on the surface. way better than the glamburgers at the mtt-brand burger emporium.”
Dean blinked. “Glamburgers?”
“mettaton’s idea. made with sequins.”
Dean snorted. “David Bowie fan?” When Sans only blinked, he clarified, “Ziggy Stardust?”
“who’s that?”
“You... you’ve never heard of Ziggy Stardust?!”
“well, mettaton might have, if someone scavenged a record or something out of the dump. we never got a lot of human culture in the underground. some things, yeah, but only what got thrown out. we’re still catching up.”
“So-wait, are you saying... nobody in this town is going to recognize that our aliases are from Led Zeppelin?”
“who?”
Dean took a moment to find his voice again. “Wow. Okay. You guys have literally been living under a rock.”
“lot of us still are. we had five full towns in the underground, and we didn’t have time to build enough cabins for everyone before winter hit. and it’s been a challenge trying to find space that’s level enough to build on. in the world we left, ebott’s a good-sized city-college town. might not have been easy, but we could have found enough places to live there. now?” Sans shook his head. “at least people can visit the surface, even if they can’t move out here yet.”
“Probably safer that way, at least right now. Things are still pretty unsettled since the Apocalypse.”
“yeah, we heard about that. also heard you and your brother made sure it apocollapsed.”
“Now the hard part is keepin’ it that way. If Lucifer gets out again... well, anyway, we’re doin’ everything we can to make sure that can’t happen.”
“sounds like hell.”
Dean sighed. “Not something I can make jokes about, dude. Not anymore.”
Sans’ smile faded a bit. “that look on your face. that’s the face of a man who’s... who’s seen his brother die. more than once.”
“And that? That sounds like the voice of experience.”
Man and skeleton looked at each other for a long moment until a sudden rise in the temperature heralded Grillby’s arrival with Dean’s Coke and a... bottle of ketchup?
“thanks, grillbz,” said Sans, accepting the ketchup.
“Yeah, thanks,” said Dean, accepting his Coke, which was astonishingly still cold. “Hey, uh... Grillby, right? Would you be hiring?”
Grillby tilted his head quizzically.
“I’ve got a friend who really needs a job. War buddy. Got a lot of experience-used to work at a diner in Louisiana. And I think he’d fit in here pretty well. He’s... he’s a vampire. But he’s tryin’ to stay straight,” Dean added quickly. “He raids blood banks and stuff. He doesn’t want to kill. Maybe a place like this is just what he needs.”
Grillby and Sans looked at each other. “he’ll... think about it, right?” Sans answered.
Grillby nodded and left.
“war buddy, huh?” Sans continued, popping the cap off the ketchup bottle as if it were a beer bottle. “how’d that happen?” He took a swig.
“Hunting accident,” Dean replied. “I got sent to Purgatory, which is basically the afterlife for monsters. Benny knew where there was an escape hatch for humans, so we made a deal. He helped me get to it, and I helped him get out.”
Sans looked startled. “monsters have an afterlife here?!”
“Yeah. Not a good one; it’s pretty much 24/7 combat. But it exists.”
“huh. wow. i wonder... i mean, back... in our universe, or at least in the underground, monster souls... just disintegrated, and so did the body. just poof, dust. if there’s an afterlife, if we can get to it....”
“Don’t be in too much of a hurry to find out, dude. Like I said, it ain’t pretty.”
Sans ran a hand over his face. “yeah, yeah, i hear you. what i mean is... it could give monsters hope, knowing they’d see each other again, knowing they didn’t have to fight so hard to stay in this world. hell of a lot better than some of the things we’ve tried to bring back monsters who ‘fell down.’”
Dean sighed. “You want hope, you’re talkin’ to the wrong guy.”
“and i hear that, too.” Sans paused. “dean, when did you get back from purgatory?”
“’Bout six months ago.”
“and how long were you there?”
“A year and change. Mid-May to late July.”*
“so if you returned in july of 2012 and were sent there in may of 2011, how was it that you were fighting leviathans in iowa in september of 2011?”
Dean hesitated. “Look, man, my sense of time is shot to hell. I mean, it was bad enough spending forty years Downstairs and coming back to find out I’d been gone four months. Then while Sam was... was gone, I spent a year with my last girlfriend, but somehow I went to sleep on New Year’s Eve of 2010 and woke up New Year’s Day to find it was still 2010. Or something. I go to Purgatory in 2012, spend a year, and come back to find it’s still 2012? I roll with it.”
Sans sat back. “i knew it. i knew there was something wrong with space-time in this world.”
“What? How?”
“ever been caught in a time loop before?”
“And remembered it, no. Sam does. Trickster with a mistaken understanding of how to help put us in one, killed me over a hundred times and made Sam watch. Then Sam spent six months trying to find him again and make him undo it all.”
Sans took a long pull on his ketchup bottle. “never-not in my wildest dreams or worst nightmares-did i ever think i’d find someone who could understand, who’d been there. and to find that person’s a human... a hunter!” He laughed bitterly and took another drink.
“Somethin’ single you out, make sure you remembered?”
Sans shook his head. “nah. think it may be a side effect of my powers-i can teleport, for one thing.” He paused, then ran a hand over his face again. “dunno why i just admitted that.”
“I wondered, though. Waitress at the diner never saw you arrive or leave. Another friend of mine pulls the same trick.”
“what’s he?”
“Angel.”
“wow.” Sans took a deep breath. “diner. right. so you know i’ve been in town since halloween.”
“Yup. Glad you decided not to procrustinate on addressing that.”
“heh, well, it’d be pretty crumby of me not to come clean.”
“Good taste, though. Pie?”
“pie. tori’s favorite thing to bake. i gotta return the favor somehow.”
“Yeah, good plan. Tori’s your girlfriend?”
“yup. toriel, that’s her full name. she’s a boss monster. she, uh... she used to be queen. then-well, it’s a long story, but when she and asgore split up, she moved out to the ruins, and... see, there’s this door between the ruins and snowdin forest, where paps and i used to patrol. i’d go there to practice my knock-knock jokes. and one day she answered.”
Dean nodded. “I get you.”
“tibia-nest, i was pretty bonely out there myself. but i never thought... never really let myself hope... anyway, i-it was kind of a shock to find out who she was, and it was a huge shock to find out she felt the same way about me. we’re still trying to figure things out, but... yeah. pie. but that’s the only reason i’ve gone into ebott since halloween, i swear!”
“I believe you.”
Sans blinked. “you... you do?”
“Like we said, we know the killer’s not one of you. One of the vics had a security system with video monitoring. We got a still from it. Only trouble is, no one in town can identify the perp.” Dean reached into his jacket, pulled out the picture, and slid it across the table. “Ever seen this kid?”
The lights in Sans’ eye sockets went out entirely, and he stared silently at the image for a long moment.
“C’mon, man, throw me a bone here.”
Sans was apparently too shocked to take the bait. Instead, he heaved a sigh that rattled his ribcage, closed his eye sockets, and pinched the bone between them like a human would pinch the bridge of his nose. “that’s frisk.”
“Frisk?”
Sans nodded. “frisk was the last human to fall into the underground. still lives with tori. i... i was so sure after this last loop that... that i’d been wrong, i’d misremembered, that the kid wasn’t a killer....”
“Frisk’s not the one doing the killing.”
Sans’ eye sockets popped open, lights back in place and widened in shock, and he sat up straighter. “what?!”
“Look.” Dean pointed to the spot on Frisk’s neck that he’d noticed on the video. “That’s not hair or a shadow. That’s ectoplasm. Classic sign of ghost possession.”
“possession....” Sans looked up and away, like he was thinking.
“Like I said, we’re after a vengeful spirit, a human’s ghost. So who’s riding Frisk?”
Sans drummed his phalanges on the table top for a moment. Then his eye lights went out again for a split second before his left eye blazed cyan and he snarled, “chara.”
Next
* This really is only a slight fudge-to make it work with “We Need to Talk about Kevin,” assume that Channing is taking summer classes, since the demon has to keep up appearances despite attending Channing’s safety school (which could in fact be Notre Dame!).