#covers face.

dont blame me for this

"I'm really sorry to ask you to come all the way over here," Alphys's voice says over the phone. "I wanted to just send you guys a picture, but I guess the lighting down here is really bad? I-I couldn't get anything to come out..." "it's fine, doc, i think i'll probably be able to squeeze you into my schedule. i'm just, you know, wondering - why are you thinking i'd be able to translate weird mystic symbols for you, again?" "Oh! Right! I, uh, maybe I should have started with that, haha. See, um, Frisk was here when I found them, and they said they saw something similar... somewhere in your house? Or, near your house, maybe, I'm not quite sure how they put it, but - " "is that so." Sans fixes you with an inscrutable look, but all his looks are inscrutable, so you just shrug in a way you hope is charming. There's yelling in the distance. "TELL ALPHYS THAT UNDYNE IS HERE PLAYING VIDEO GAMES, AND HER FACE LOOKS EXTREMELY KISSABLE - OOF!" Papyrus is cut off by what definitely sounds like a controller to the head. "Tell Alphys that Undyne is definitely NOT here playing video games, because she's very busy defending the hopes and dreams of an entire race!" calls Undyne, even louder. "YEAH! SHE'S DOING THAT! YOU SHOULD STILL KISS HER FACE, THOUGH!" "Yeah! You should do that!" "Um... is everything okay?" Alphys doesn't sound like she heard most of that, thankfully - you're pretty sure the phone would have caught on fire from the sheer force of her embarrassment. "yeah, just trying to keep an eye socket on a couple of overgrown children and one undergrown one who's a little too observant." You smile. You hope it's more charming. "but yeah, sure, we can swing on by tomorrow if that's good with you." "O-oh, great! That sounds, totally, yeah, that's fine! Tomorrow, then!" Sans hangs up. "might have a bone to pick with you depending on how this goes, kiddo," he says, and you give him a look that hopefully communicates, 'okay, but you're the one who gave me the key.' But charmingly. *** Papyrus comes with you to see the lab because "PERHAPS I WILL BE THE ONE, TO SHED MY METAPHORICAL LIGHT, ON THIS DARK AND SPOOKY MYSTERY"; Undyne comes because she and Papyrus need to "catch up on their training time!" and also, Alphys is there; you come because you get the sense you might have to explain yourself still, and you know that all of you are close to figuring something out even if you don't know what. "I never had clearance for this part of the lab before," Alphys explains as you head down and down, deeper and deeper; you remember sinks, and mirrors, and clutch Sans's sleeve a little tighter. "And I, you know, I just assumed it was stuff the king wanted to keep private, um, from before I got here, maybe? But I, uh, I accidentally mentioned it to him a little while ago, and he said he had no idea what it was, so he did an override so I could get in." "Awesome!" says Undyne; she smacks a button on one of the doors, and laughs. "So, like - what's in there, exactly?" "W-well, a lot of it looks like it's been cleared out, and most of it isn't that interesting, though of course I'd need to analyze it, but it's mostly just old mechanical equipment and some magical instruments, but. Um. Wh-what I was hoping Sans and Papyrus could take a look at is - there's all this weird writing on the walls, in these symbols I've never seen before, a-and it looks like a language but it's definitely not one I recognize, uh, obviously." Nothing has changed since the last time you were there. The door looks like any other door down there, which is to say, impenetrable and foreboding, but Alphys just pulls an odd-looking key out of her pocket and presses it into the door to open it. Inside is dimly lit, and certainly seems like it hasn't been touched for a while; there's a handful of operating tables, surrounded by an array of confusing tools, and worn writing on the walls that certainly looks like what you saw on Sans's blueprint, as far as you could tell. That's about all you have time to take in, though, because there's a sudden clatter behind you, and it nearly gives you a heart attack before you turn to see. Papyrus is leaning hard against the edge of one of the tables, supporting himself with both hands, with instruments scattered around him and his sockets fixed unblinking on the ground. His arms are shaking. He looks, you realize, very small. "I'M SORRY," he says, "I DIDN'T MEAN TO DO THAT, UM, TO THE SCIENCE, I DON'T KNOW WHY I - I THINK THIS PLACE IS - I - " He breathes hard, in and out, like he's about to collapse. " - SANS," he finishes quietly, looking over at his brother at last. There's a note of pleading in his voice, or maybe a question. The rest of you seem to realize in unison that Sans's total silence in the face of this is more than a little unusual, and you turn back to stare at him. His hands are jammed hard into his pockets, and he's staring straight ahead. "...undyne," he says finally, not moving. "get him out of here." Undyne seems to balk at this, like clearly there must be some way they could just fight whatever's happening instead, but after a second she softens, and takes Papyrus by the elbow. "Come on, Papyrus," she says. "Let's take a walk, ok?" He takes a moment to collect himself but then he follows her without protest, only looking back to Sans once as they go. There's silence after the door closes behind the two of them. Alphys looks like she's on the brink of death. "...O-oh my god," she pipes up, near tears. "Oh my god, Sans, I'm so, so sorry, I never should have - I had no idea that whatever this is would cause that kind of - that it could - oh my god, I'm so sorry, I didn't know - " "neither did i, actually," sans says, winking. "i was hoping we might be able to, whatever he said - shed some light on that situation here. uh, metaphorically and literally." "What? N-no, I mean - I don't want to cause you any stress or anything, I feel like probably we should just forget it - " "hey, we've got the underground's top expert in emotional support with us, don't we?" Sans ruffles your hair. You consider telling him that even you might be a little out of your depth here. Alphys looks back and forth between the two of you, and doesn't seem convinced. "Well, I-I mean - I guess we could look at one of them?" She pulls her phone out of her coat pocket and shines it around the room, the various scribblings lit up only slightly by the whitish glow. After a few seconds of mumbling to herself, she motions the two of you towards an isolated section, and you inch forwards. "Okay, so this part," she says. "This part is - it looks like it's really important, because there's this one bit that looks like - a phrase, or maybe a sentence, and it shows up in a bunch of other places, I think, but it looks like it's repeated the most here? And if you had any idea what that says I feel like it would help a lot, so if you want you could just look at that and then we could leave, actually, probably, we should definitely leave, I shouldn't even be showing this to you but - " She trails off because Sans is squinting at the symbols, mouthing something to himself; you draw closer to him, again, but not because you're afraid for yourself this time. After a few moments he draws back, and tilts his head. "well," he says, "there's definitely a lot there, and most of it isn't very nice." "S-so you can actually read it?" Alphys squawks. "Sans, that - that's amazing, really, can you read that one repeated part or is that too - " "yeah, that part's, uh, pretty interesting." You like to think you've gotten pretty good at deciphering Sans's indecipherable expressions, but this is hard to read even by Sans standards - mouth tense, eyes empty. He continues, "all it says is, 'they're gone.'"