A loose spider quietly scampered across the floor in a long and empty hallway, its long legs quickly adjusting to pull itself through a crack in the wall. The lighting along the hallway occasionally flickered, causing hints of darkness to flash across the broken walls and bare floors. Vines crept up around multiple pillars, engulfing the once beautiful architecture with hints of age and dust. Debris from the broken down remains of the once beautiful ruins littered the floor, thrown about mindlessly by gravity long ago, having long settled with the dust.

A black petaled flower deletequietly crept its way down the hallway, a scowl drawn onto his face with a look suited for something far more vile than a dandy flower. However, the flower found the expression suited him rather well, just as the dust did along the floor of the hallway.

Sadly, it wasn't monster dust, but it did show the diskept nature of the ruins. No matter how much that silly skeleton swept, one single man wasn't enough to keep it all under wraps. By the time he would finish cleaning one hallway, another would be messy. It was a painful cycle, one the flower was witnessing yet again.

The broom was carefully dragged across the floor, collecting new dust and debris and brushing them into the growing pile in the middle of the hallway. His cloak swished gently with each movement, pink slippers tilting to the right as he bent to gather a larger area under his thin and worn broom.

It was always like this, really. The ruins were constantly falling apart, and with no monsters skilled in building to fix the walls, everything was in a constant state of collapse. The walls were worn and broken, invading plants crept along the worn floor, and dust was constantly settling. No matter how much the single man swept and cleaned, he couldn't hide how fragile everything was, ready to collapse when it grew too old.

But this was to be expected. After all, the ruins were practically disowned by monster kind, they were degrading with the age of abandonment. With no one to tend to them, and with very few to live within the walls, it was a question of how nothing fully collapsed yet.

Maybe it was because of the skeleton.

Flowey let his gaze dance about the cloaked skeleton, memories of their old times spent together flashing in his head. Once upon a time they were a family, brother and brother, against the world. Once upon a time, though, Flowey had emotions. Once upon a time he was alive, and a skeleton, just like his dear brother.

But now, things were different. Nothing would ever be the same, not again. Not ever again.

He never did expect to find this situation when he returned from the dead. Never did he expect to find only Papyrus in the throne room, Sans' once proud throne shunned away into the corner, hidden under a tarp of regret and cloth. Newly reborn Gaster had cried out for his old brother, but only found a single King in return, which was not the King he was looking for. When he was brought back to life, Papyrus had been the one to scoop him out of the garden, comforting the flower.

In the past, they had been close. Not at first, as Gaster had always been protective of his older brother, and vise versa. When he learned of his brothers romance with another skeleton, naturally the little boy had been persistent in making sure Papyrus was the right one. Over a little bit of time, and some reassurances from Sans, he had grown to not only accept Papyrus, but grew close to him.

Yet, when he awoke, he didn't find Sans. He found Papyrus, ruling the Kingdom alone with no Sans in sight. And he quickly discovered his lack of emotions, something that drove him to leave, seeking out Sans when Papyrus had failed to prove useful.

Flowey thought that surely, when he found Sans in the ruins, the skeleton could help him. Surely his brother would bring back his emotions!

As if.

And now, all he did was sit back, watching the skeleton sweep the debris of the failing architecture into a pile. It was what he did almost everyday, sweeping new portions of the ruins each passing afternoon. When a new chunk sputtered out from the wall and clattered onto the floor behind him, Sans simply turned around, black and dark blue cloak moving eloquently as he added the new debris to his ever growing collection.

Sans was the only one who took care of the ruins. And while he was a good, effective skeleton, one man simply couldn't keep up with the entirety of the ruins itself. That's why the hallways were constantly lined with vines and dust, no matter how long he spent cutting and sweeping. Although small, the ruins still were a lot to handle for Sans alone. There were other monsters in the runes, such as Flowey, but the groups were small and numbered, not to mention fearful of the old King. No one bothered to clean, no one but Sans.

Though he didn't really have much else to do. Shunned by the ruin monsters, Sans had no one to socialize with. Flowey and him had once talked, but when his brother had proven ineffective, the two soon found themselves unaligned in goals and beliefs. Their once happy relationship quickly fell, especially as the skeleton was still grieving from the trauma that had taken place. Claiming to be his deceased brother didn't very much help.

There wasn't really much to do for his poor, pitiful brother but clean. The ruins had no connection to the rest of the underground, so Sans had no T.V. to watch or even speak of. His phone was old, he didn't have any access to the upgraded versions the rest of the underground waved around. Sans was confined within his own space, subject to the older days without technology. Thus, cleaning was one of the few options to bite back at the growing stale boredness that would make itself known.

Flowey had gotten to know Sans' routine by now, and it was rather pathetic. Understandable, but pathetic nevertheless. The rest of the monsters underground shared in friends and delicious, exotic foods over dinners in front of a T.V. Sans ate from the rations storied in the ruins, dinners consisting of hot pockets and ketchup bottles. His old diet, sure, but it was shared with nothing but the silence of his living room, and the occasional flip of a page. While other monsters went out to jobs and school, Sans would take his time to clean or read, sometimes claiming a nap if the day grew on for too long.

Sans had no friends to speak of, no social life to even brag to. The skeleton was no longer connected with the rest of the underground, he was effectively exiled from their cultures and political stances. Sometimes he wouldn't speak for days, or weeks, having no one to speak to but himself. The other monsters all scattered when he arrived in the hallways, and his pleas for them to return and have a conversation with him fell flat. He was old royalty, none would listen.

Even so, he continued onward with determination. Flowey soon picked up that determination to be caused by a collection of small factors, but one stood out. The need to protect innocent people.

His old brother always had been about justice. Innocent people being hurt was never something he agreed with. For those old train problems, Sans never would pick one or six victims, instead opting to use his magic to stop the train. The person who asked the ethical question tended to get a scowl on their face, but Sans would never allow himself to hurt someone innocent, even in theoretical situations.

At least it explained why Sans was no longer present in the castle. Monsters had collected six human souls, by the orders of King Papyrus. If Flowey had emotions, he would have been enraged to find the man he once accepted marrying his brother to be betraying him that way. Now, all he could do was simply giggle to himself at the ironic turn of his and Chara's plans. They were originally created to help Sans and Papyrus with their stress, but instead broke apart their relationship.

No wonder Sans would run, he couldn't handle the idea of his husband declaring war with innocent humans. Not a smart move on the Kings part, either. If they went to war with humans after escaping to the surface, the rest of the monsters would be wiped out. Flowey knew this, he had seen their villages, seen the humans strength. Yet he kept this information to himself, interested in seeing how events would play out once they escaped. It would be fun to watch monsters get destroyed because of Papyrus' overreaction to his and Charas deaths.

There wasn't much Flowey could do. When he had been brought back by Alphys' experiment, everything had long taken effect. Sans had ran away so many years ago, his return was already accepted as nothing but a dream. Papyrus had long collected six souls by then, but had refused to show them to Flowey. A smart move, but annoying one. Flowey, like Sans, didn't have much to do.

Messing with that 'amazing Asgore' was fun for a bit, but it would always drag on. Especially with that goat trashbag of a sister that watched over her beloved brother like a hawk, the one who prevented him from doing resets. It was annoying with how many restrictions he had. Sans was hard to trick as it was, and Papyrus was too griefed to manipulate. He never listened to the flower, too focused on his work to do much. Yet he always insisted on being stupidly nice, a trait Flowey really didn't like. Asgore was easy to manipulate and trick around, with that giant ego, but Toriel always stepped in, resulting in her halting Flowey's progress.

That's why Flowey often found himself in the ruins these days, burned out of ideas to explore. There were a few left over in his head, and the power to reset was always helpful, but to put those ideas into effect would be practically impossible. Tricking Asgore into killing someone was intriguing, but Toriel quickly caused that idea to have road blocks the flower couldn't bypass. Selling Sans out to Papyrus was interesting to explore, but trying to do so had its own hardships. Sans wasn't one easily fooled, Flowey could never trick him into leaving the safety of the ruins. And if Flowey just ratted Sans out to Papyrus, that didn't stop the skeleton from escaping and finding a new hiding place, much less breaking the small amount of trust Flowey had managed to place between them. Perhaps it was from memories, or pity, but Flowey wasn't really sure if he could go through with that type of timeline. Sans was already in a pitiful place, and their history together wasn't really something Flowey wanted to get involved within.

Flowey resorted to this for entertainment, the once skeletal monster twisting his petals around with boredom as he watched the skeleton. At least Sans didn't outright try to attack or insult him, not like Toriel did. That little goat knew too much, he didn't like that. Sans, though he didn't trust Flowey enough, was still nice enough to not attack, but not too nice like Papyrus and Asgore. He was a good middle, one to keep Flowey's sanity.

Perhaps, one day, they would meet again. Sans would find his once lover, learn to forgive. Papyrus was still good at heart, and they both did crave one another. It was a possibility.

But, for now, Sans continued to sweep the dust, willfully turning his back on the possibility.

Golden flowers bloomed across the ruins. Just as lovely as Papyrus' own flowers.