TRIGGER WARNING: Drug use, death and stuff. also cussing.

Frisk didn't cry. Except when she did, which as it turns out, was a lot of the time.

"Shut up Chara." Her voice is absorbed eerily by the darkness around us. I can't say I care much about the command, we both know narration is kinda my schtick. I commend how clear it came out through her blubbering sobs though.

"Shut up Chara." This one carries more weight, but its the weight of a small, sobbing girl with fat tears rolling down her cheeks. In other words, not much.

As much as I expected a reply to that one, she just continues crying, glistening saline droplets not so much absorbed by but lost to the darkness around us. The void is pleasant, if you enjoy absolute nothingness. I'm sure its far less pleasant with no escape and no company, but considering I have both, it's a welcomed reprieve from the chaos of the world. Or, y'know, the worlds.

"You really should've stayed determined. Tried harder. That was the closest we've gotten to... well, anything. It might've worked." My voice feels wrong in my throat; it's very rare that I talk. Why should I, when my thoughts are open to the only one who could hear me anyway? But sometimes it seems prudent, important to verbalize.

And it means I'm harder to ignore.

Try me.

It's fierce, strong, determined. The thought that comes to me from the pitiful (Fuck you!) ball of sadness in front of me gives hope to my soul that we might yet leave this place within the next millenia.

We've never spent a millenia here you fuck.

I shrug, unperturbed by the insult. "Close enough." It really was, with how much she liked to mope in absolute darkness. With no way to tell time, no markings or sun or moon or stars, it was impossible to tell how long passed as we lay in the dark. It could've been multiple millenia, for all we know.

But it's not

She hisses at me, even as her mouth is occupied with sobs. Mental connections are useful like that.

"You know, you could've just not reset the world?" I provide as a counterpart to her sobs.

He didn't remember anything important! She pauses for a second, and the next sob wracks her body so hard it looks like the ugly when I try to take over. ...Or good. She finishes. I internally sigh at how emotional and impulsive Frisk can be, though internalizing does absolutely nothing to hide it from her.

He was the closest though! He remembered some things! He could've remembered more! I switch back to non-verbalizing for this argument. It's quite a bit easier, if nothing else. The magic was the same color and everything! The frickin gay-ass ice cream test proved that much.

She sniffles. I thought it was clever.

I deign to not respond to her, considering she didn't respond to ANY of the important parts of what I said. Or anything I said, however mentally.

Her sobs subside, eventually. It's a long, tedious process, made much more aggravating by the void that didn't actually exist around us. Human minds are a wee bit too fragile to understand nothingness though, so it's black because that's the closest reality comes.

It takes even longer for her heart to still, but after a long time with only the silence and the darkness, she turns to me. "I'm ready."

It's a nice, if ineffective warning. It's also the only warning I get before she's all business, focusing her strange, unnatural power. I watch as she concentrates, marvel at the red floating heart that appears from her chest. And, just like every time, I shiver as it elongates into countless points, shooting through the void to embed themselves in unseen universes. Her body convulses as her soul is stretched, but I have to wait in agonizing limbo before I can play my part. She's suspended, almost like she's hanging from the heart that's her entire essence, but that doesn't mean her arms are still. Her mouth is drawn open in a silent scream, and I thank everything that it's just that, silent. She stills, eventually, red lines protruding from her soul likes thousands of skylights. They shift fluidly, brighten and darken, hues intermingling in a kind of lovely light show. I reach out, grab one of the dimmer ones at random; eager to have this be done with. We had long ago learned bright DID NOT mean better.

Not that anything did. It was complete and utter randomness, and I'm always left with the decision.

But she's never blamed me for which one I picked, and I hope that this won't be the first time.

The one I touched widens, the other links being shoved away by its expansion. I hold my breath for absolutely no reason as it engulfs me, and then everything goes dark.

It's aggravated groaning that drags me to consciousness. While that is not my preferred sound to wake up to, it becomes so much worse once I'm conscious enough to understand what's going on.

Aches stream through the mental connection, and it's Frisk groaning so horribly; for good reason. Her entire body burns. Generally she throttles most of our connection when she's in this much pain, but I can tell she's not quite all there yet. So I'm left with secondhand pain that ignite other, more visceral pains within me. Her body twitches and shudders as she sits up from the bare mattress she'd been strewn across, old and new scars stretching over brittle bones. She thrusts her face into her hands, I can feel the sharp twinge as she bites her thumbs.

Small scars dot the lines of her arms, little fairy trails leading all the way under a huge shirt that is all she has covering her. Her body is wracked with a tremor, and the scene is only made worse by the blood that has started dribbling down her arms; she'd bitten her thumb far too hard.

When she looks at me, her gaze is desperate. "Water." Is all she croaks, and I wish, I wish I wishIwish I had a corporeal body.

I don't.

Luckily, there's water in the room we woke up in, sitting in plastic water bottles. I do my best to guide her to one, the closest one; just a few feet from the bed.

She makes it, but when her thin (So, so thin I've nevereverever seen her so thin) body reaches the bottle, it collapses on the ground. She growls, obviously aggravated at this Frisk.

Our counterparts were almost never in a good place when we took them over, but this was definitely in the bottom ten.

I start sifting through the memories in the head, grimacing when I find the vast majority of them hazed with drugs. The worst part is clear after a moment; memories of Sans are few, ancient, and hazy.

I'm just about to tell Frisk the bad news when she spit-takes, the liquid spraying right through me.

"Vodka." Is all she rasps, before grasping at another water bottle. She unscrews this one with a frantic kind of intensity, sniffs it, and in apparent anger at what is contains, chucks it at the wall. The arc of liquid that splatters on the filthy floor most likely does more to clean it than anything else, and the empty plastic bottle hits the wall with an extremely unsatisfying crk. I turn my attention back to where it seems she's finally found water.

She wipes her mouth with her hand when she's done chugging it all, leaving us both feeling marginally better. "Musty" She describes with a sneer, but water is water.

I'm almost tempted to suggest resetting, but I had been the one to demand we never give up on a universe, not until we're sure it won't help us.

So instead, I contemplate our goals.

Number one was always to find Sans. He came first, had always come first. Not even just because we loved him; he was the only other one there when it all went to shit. The only one who has any hope of helping us fix this.

Number two was less fixed. Gather information. Search for anomalies. Try to complete the puzzle, try to figure out a way to take it all back.

And number three was to stay alive. While that may seem a bit redundant, as it is generally every organism's goal to stay alive, Frisk always seemed to have a harder time of it than most. The crazed Chara-possessed Frisk's who also roam the multiverse certainly don't help, but quite a lot of it can be blamed on the horrendously unlucky life she leads.

It wasn't a problem, at one point. But now, every death means a new universe, the old one lost forever. Every death is more stress upon the already cracking framework of the realities, and while I'm impressed it has held out this long, I have doubts we'll continue to be so lucky.

And the ever present question of what comes after?

There was no more DETERMINATION, no way to SAVE. No one left to SAVE. Just a science experiment with the right intentions and the wrong execution, and when it causes the entire multiverse to fail and crumble into so much dust, where will we be left?

An eternity in the void?

The sweet release of a death too long lost?

Or are there more consequences of her ambitions, more prices to pay?

Frisk is dressed by the time I'm done with my depressing thoughts. Every move makes her wince, and I know that withdrawals will come soon if she refuses to carry on the path this Frisk had chosen.

She will refuse, of course. A clear head is important, the fuzzy, useless memories shoved in our skulls prove as much.

I steel myself for a bumpy ride.

It was dark. That was about all the information Sans pseudo-brain gave him. There wasn't an up or down, no left or right. No ground on to which he could place his feet, which didn't really matter as he was entirely sure he no longer had feet. There wasn't anywhere to walk anyway, so it was all a moot point.

So with nothing to do but contemplate with his questionably existent brain, he did just that. A lot of it was focused on Frisk, because when a girl falls into your life, shows interest in you in a way no one ever had before, Murders her doppelganger, makes you remember things that DIDN'T HAPPEN and then brings on the apocalypse?

Yeah, you tend to have nothing else on your mind for a while.

Sadly, the contemplation of this strange turn of events got him absolutely nowhere, for the sole reason that NOTHING MADE SENSE.

He had tried to connect things, but well... At one point he had lived in a cave underground connects to crazed twins of his (ex?) girlfriend how?

There was a lot he was missing.

And now there was no one and nothing to fill in the gaps, just darkness and the vague notion he didn't actually exist.

So he did the only thing his non-corporeal existence could. He thought. And he thought hard.

First, it was a pun. 'What's a skeleton's favorite instrument?' The answer, however, was not provided for him and the xylobone wasn't bringing on any revelations, so he thought. Saxobone? Also nada, but really, why would answering a pun his mind spat at him do any good?

He was about to turn his attentions to more prudent endeavors when it came to him. Trombone. No doctoring required, just trombone. Along with this revelation came vague memories of how to play the trombone, and also the realization that yes, he chose to play a certain instrument entirely for the comedic value.

Well then.

He wasn't quite sure how to progress from there, as there wasn't exactly a questionably existent trombone for his questionably existent self to play.

But thinking about trombones for too long couldn't be good, as his highly childish side decided it was time to come out and play. Trombone... Trombone... TROMBONER.

And well, perhaps that was exactly what he needed because tromboner ensued an onslaught of... less than appropriate memories. Mostly of a half naked Frisk shoving his face away as he repeatedly said it, which was a very odd memory that promoted horribly conflicting feelings.

One of which was a horrible feeling of loss. Because yeah, she kinda destroyed his world and that sucked like fuck, but in other ways she was just the most perfect and... well...

He was almost entirely sure he didn't really exist anymore. And even if he did, he was entirely sure he didn't exist in the same realm as Frisk. Which meant the love of his multiple lives was out of his reach, just as he was remembering some of their shared life.

Which led him to another realization, this one sitting unpleasantly in his doubly non-existent gut. He wasn't exactly anything here, just a... consciousness. There was, as far as he could tell, nothing else here. There was, also as far as he could tell, no reason or way for him to die.

Which meant, there was a likely probability he would float here for eternity, with nothing to use as any sort of a distraction.

It was... horrifying. Incomprehensible. Uncomfortable and incessant and upsetting in a way that was overwhelmingly despondent.

But the realization was once of resignation, of untold sadness that was quickly stored somewhere to lay in wait for the moment he was weak enough. It was something to scream and cry about later, for the simple fact that later was not now and he was not obligated to deal with anything in this void.

Despite my protests, Frisk had gone ahead and quit cold turkey. Really, we were old enough by now to understand quitting hardcore drugs cold turkey never ended well but... Frisk was determined to a fault.

But all that determination couldn't keep her alive.

I don't watch as she dies this time, convulsing in fits on a dirty carpet. I look out the dirty window onto the decrepit street below and I wish for Sans.

It was through an odd train of thought that he came upon the realization. It wasn't anything even relevant to his situation, just a flight of fancy his brain had taken involving taste and the apparent lack of it here.

Or more specifically, the realization he would never eat chocolate again. Right then, he should've known something was wrong. While chocolate wasn't bad per say, it certainly wasn't in his top ten favorite foods, and it most definitely wasn't the one he would miss most. That honorable title went to ketchup... so it really was a red flag he was thinking so idly about chocolate.

But he hadn't noticed, not until he was reminiscing on tastes of the sweet throughout his life, trying to relive the taste for reasons that when he looked back on, were utterly unclear.

It came easily, as though it had always been in his brain, just waiting for him to display a passing interest.

Frisk, her eyes red; chocolate smudged on her face. In real life, his non-existent heart attempted mutiny. In the memory, he made his way over to her. He tilted her head up, smiled. Warm feelings coursed through him as her defiant stare met his.

"So, were you even aiming for your mouth?" He joked, and the warm tone in his voice twisted the perceptions in Sans's mind.

"Frisk was fighting me." Feelings of endearment at her pout coursed through him secondhand, and it was too hard to deceive himself into thinking they were only for Frisk. "You know how she feels about chocolate."

The memory Sans chuckled like yes, he definitely knew how Frisk felt about chocolate, and Sans felt the strangest pang of jealousy at his own ignorance of how Frisk felt about chocolate.

"Well, seeing as you actually got chocolate this time... I think we should celebrate the cococcasion."

"That was horrible. Absolutely fucking terrible, get out of my life." She said, but she was giggling as he started licking the chocolate from her face, revealing teeth far sharper than Frisk had. As he loomed farther and farther over her, Sans had to admit to an uncomfortable truth.

At one point, he had loved the demon.

And of course, because the universe was constantly, unceasingly trying to make his life shit, everything went wrong before he could even attempt to reconcile with that strange revelation.

A/N: Well, I hope this answers some questions... and raises even more. To tell you guys the truth, the responses I've gotten on this story have been absolutely wonderful. I really appreciate all your reviews, but I have some difficulties replying to them all because I'm constantly anxious/lazy/depressed/stressed and also a sack of shit. But really, I appreciate all of you so much and I hope you like this story and my updates are enough thanks 3 Reviews really motivate me like nothing else. Constructive criticism is also loved and held close to the heart. Thank you all!