Royal Blue

Honesty (Chapter Twenty Nine)

"Sans?" Alphys asked again, ever so gently. "What happened?"

"I..." Sans paused. There was a physical weight to their stares; their judgement. It wasn't hard to tell what they were thinking. All the Why's and How's to all that'd happened yesterday

"It's kind of hard to explain," Sans dodged gently, shuffling backward to sit on the bed, his brother following his lead —if only to stick close by— and their semi-circle closing in around him.

Sans spared a glance toward Gaster, and several darted a glance backward to follow his gaze. Of course, they saw nothing.

 "A-Anything you can tell me," Alphys implored, a small notepad and pen already in her grasp, "a-anything at all, w-would b-be helpful."

Sans spared another helpless glance at Gaster, who just raised an eyebrow.

"What," Gaster's voice crackled within Sans' head, "don't look at ME. This is YOUR mess." Gaster said with a certain snideness to his smile, a cross of his arms and a roll of his eyes; something that was kind of hard to catch due to the lopsided nature of his expression. With a strong stiffness of his features, Gaster sighed.
"You're going to have to make up something plausible, the truth is obviously nonviable; at least not now."

Sans sighed slightly.
He hated when Gaster was right. He was always so cocky about it.

"...BROTHER?" Papyrus asked, gently placing a hand on his brother's shoulder.

Sans blinked sharply. Coming further into his senses, he realized that he'd been fully zoned out for nearly a minute; the others sending him terribly worried looks.

"Sorry, sorry, zoned out a little," Sans said, rubbing his eyes and smiling evenly, doing his best to assuage their fears.
It only slightly worked.

 "DO YOU REMEMBER ANYTHING?" Papyrus asked, repeating Alphys's question. "I MEAN.... YOU DID SORT OF JUST... APEAR, BROTHER. IT'S UNDERSTANDABLE THAT YOUR MEMORY MIGHT BE FOGGY," Papyrus allowed, gently giving him an out from the intense questioning; something Sans was intensely grateful for.

 "Yeah, it's kinda tough to recall," Sans said, scratching the back of his neck. "Sorry Al."

 "I-It's fine...." She said, not doing much to hide her disappointment.
"H-How about... b-before you went m-missing then? What led y-you to go to t-the core? And h-how..."

 "How did I get up there in the first place?" Sans completed her question. Alphys nodded succinctly.

Sans swallowed.
"I... Well, as I told you earlier, I was worried. So... I went to check on it." He shrugged.

 "What exactly were you worried about?" Toriel prodded gently.

 "Kinda... precisely what happened today." He shrugged again. At her stare, he said it explicitly.
"The core going 'boom'," he said with a gesture.

Alphys flinched, shoulders hunching slightly; but before anyone could say anything more on it. Undyne's voice cut in. Her argument with Asgore only growing with force.

 "Who is Zero then?! Huh?!" Undyne asked, her features contorted in anger and her words bladed. Sharp enough to cut everyone's focus back to Undyne and the Asgore, who stood across from her; the room silent and tense.

 "What?" Asgore asked. His posture obviously startled and defensive. Not expecting the question.

Toriel looked up; something infinite totally unreadable in her expression.

Undyne looked over at Alphys. Then at Sans and Papyrus. There was something flickering between the brothers; a language of small expressions only they could read as they leaned close to each-other.