Sans isn't sure what time it is when he wakes. He wakes himself in a lethargic manner, blinking drowsily as he stirs. It's so dark that Sans thinks, for a moment, that he's still asleep. Then he sleepily reaches for his phone, to turn off his damn alarm that surely woke him up, and groans as his back aches.

He's not at home. He never went home.

Sans snaps to attention, jutting up in his position to try and stand. Of course, wherever the fuck he is, he can't. Something hard and firm meets him when he moves an inch, and Sans gives a shocked little yelp as he thumps back to the ground.

Where the fuck is he?

Why the hell did he fall asleep near them? He thought the pure expresso coffee and the expresso beans he had brought during the party would tide him over, but apparently not. He fell asleep. In a room full of deadly animatronics that tried to kill him about a month ago.

And he's not... dead. They didn't... they had the chance to. But they didn't. He was helpless, and they didn't take the very easy opportunity before them to kill him. But what the fuck did they do to him instead?

He reaches to feel his face, as insurance that he's not shoved into a suit. He's not. Good. He feels still the same, wearing the same clothes he was wearing when he passed out. No suit, no change of attire. Still Sans the skeleton, the funny man down the road. Alive and thriving.

His back is killing him, though, and he's titling at some odd angle that feels extremely uncomfortable. Every bone in his body aches from the way he slept as if he was slumped over upon himself for hours on end.

Which he may very well of been. Not like Sans had much of a choice in what they did to him when he was passed out cold.

He feels above him, his hands dragging across the low ceiling in the darkness. He soon meets a corner, then the wall he was leaning against, and dragged his fingers down. What the hell was he in?

Then his fingers move down, and he feels the fabric. Something in the fabric. Some sort of... bottle? He runs his fingers over it, trying to gauge what he is sitting on. Some sort of round flappy thing, the bottle has a bunch of little pellets when he rattled it...

Sans stops and runs a hand down his face.

It's his hoodie that was stolen from him. It's the bottle of fish food he forgot to leave at home after he bought some more. Put it in his pocket for later when he was bringing out the play dough. That's his fish food, in his hoodie pocket.

God fucking damn it. He's in the stupid puppet gift box, isn't he?

When Sans firmly pushes up and finally sees light as he lifts the flaps, he internally curses. He's in the puppet box. He was fucking tucked away into the stupid-ass puppet box, the music box was off, and he has no idea where the puppet is.

As Sans brews over the recipe of disaster he perfectly crafted with his stellar decisions, he fully pushes open the box and stands, and mentally curses.

It's dark out, from what he could see through the old, murky windows. Not the type of dark that indicates it's been ten minutes. The type of dark that indicates that he slept for a full fucking day.

Sans glances at the clock on the wall and groans. 2 AM. He slept for almost twenty-four hours straight, uninterrupted.

The tables and chairs that he had moved for the previous night are set in their old positions, all items he had bought gone. As are all of the animatronics. None of them are on the stage, Pirates Cove is empty, and he can't even hear the pitter-patter of Mangle's feet on the tiled floor.

All is still. All is silent.

It feels wrong. He's sure they're up to something.

Sans climbs out of the box and peeks over at the music box, not only unplugged, but now completely removed from the spot it once sat. He doesn't see any trace of it. His phone, which he had left on the table, is completely out of sight.

Sans moves forward. There's not a soul... dead or not in sight.

He does find his phone quickly when a buzz that sounds out underneath the stage catches his attention. It's been kicked under, most likely by excited kids after it probably had slipped from his pocket and onto the floor. Sans has to lay down flat and fish it out as it continuously buzzes.

Over forty missed calls. At least fifty text messages.

Holy shit.

"Paps," Sans croaks as he answers the phone, and fucking almost drops it as he turns.

Because, standing next to the box he just woke up from, is a tall, limb thing with a white mask on it.

The Puppet. Fucking hell, that thing was creepy.

Seven feet... possibly eight fucking feet tall. Dangling limbs, sleek and thin. A white mask with an eerie smile wrapped on it. Sans nearly jumps out of his skin that doesn't even exist at realizing that thing had been watching him this entire time. Didn't say anything either. He doesn't have a chance to confront them, not when his brother is frantically replying.

"Sans? Are you okay?" Papyrus practically shouts out, shuffling coming from his end. "You didn't show up for the dinner we had planned and you weren't answering your phone, and when we went to your apartment you weren't there and we asked your neighbors since they've been keeping an eye on you since we've been worried and they said you never came home and so we went to swing by your workplace but the receptionist said that you weren't there and so we were in the police station with Undyne and were about to file a missing person report and oh my god Sans I was so worried -"

"Paps, breath," Sans says, trying to unpack literally everything he word vomited out of his mouth.

Well, this is a lot to process. Sans wipes at his eye sockets as he watches the puppet animatronic warily. It's not... attacking him. It's just watching. Hasn't moved an inch. If he couldn't see the slight tilting of the head or the occasional twitches of fingers, he would have thought the thing was disabled or powered off.

Papyrus said... his neighbors have been keeping an eye on him because his family has been worried. They talked to Liz - fucking hell, Sans is trying to divert his attention between watching the animatronic that almost hurt a kid yesterday and trying to listen to his rambling, overly worried brother.

"Paps, Paps, ya don't have to do that, I'm sorry," Sans says, "I had to pull an all-nighter for work and ended up passing out on my last shift."

He can't lie and say he's at home when he's clearly not, and he's still reeling from... well, everything to even try. His back aches, that creepy animatronic is still watching him, and Papyrus is on the verge of tears as he practically sobs into the phone.

Fucking hell, Sans needs a break.

"What do you mean - you're coworker couldn't find you, she even checked the back and your office and she got all worried and said we might want to make the report -"

"It's... a long story," Sans sighs. "God, Paps, I'm so sorry I did not mean to make you panic. I swear it won't happen again. I swear I'll explain everything when I head back... I'll head back right now. Call off sick and be back as soon as I can."

Sans wraps his hoodie over his arm and continues to watch the puppet, who's lingering in the corner, refusing to talk or move. Sans gives it a little experimental wave, unsure exactly what that thing is or what it's thinking.

The puppet moves to wave back slowly, and drops its hand.

Okay. Sans blinks, staring awkwardly before nodding to acknowledge its movement. It seems... friendly. Either the other animatronics warned it of their truce, or maybe it was less dangerous than the others. Nevertheless, Sans had safely slept within the Puppet's box for almost a full day, and he couldn't ignore that act of kindness. Whatever it had been done for. He'll figure it out later. Sans isn't going to stay here, not when his brother is having a meltdown over Sans' safety. He's sure the establishment would rather him miss a night than have that report made.

"No, no, I'm coming down there!" Papyrus quickly says. "I can be down there in six minutes! Stay there! We'll pick you up! I don't want you alone at all."

"What?"

Sans doesn't have a chance to reply. He can already hear the roar of engines in the background of a car starting up, leaving Sans standing there, reeling from everything in life itself as he tries to frantically connect the pieces.

He spent six hours playing with ghost-possessed animatronics. He fell asleep in the middle of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria and was hidden away in a box, all throughout the opening shift, and his brother sent himself spiraling with worry when Sans wasn't accessible for hours on end.

And Sans has a total of six minutes to come up with a grand excuse to somehow balance the wildfire that has become his life.

"... fuck," Sans groans, because what else can he do but curse?

Why did everything have to happen at once?

Sans eyes the Puppet gently as he scoots to the side towards the door. The Puppet watches.

"I'm... going to go," Sans tells it, moving the phone away from his skull so it doesn't pick up his voice. "Uh... if it was you who kept me safe while I slept, uh... thanks. I dunno, we'll have to figure it out tomorrow night. I can't stay tonight."

The Puppet doesn't move to respond or even nod. Sans slowly backs out of the room, keeping an eye on him as he moves to go wait by the front doors as he thinks up a game plan to deal with Papyrus and his (rightfully) placed paranoia.

Papyrus shows up exactly in six minutes, with a roaring car engine as he takes up three parking spots. Sans already is out of the front doors when he sees his brother's car, and Papyrus doesn't even stop the engine as he climbs out and hurls himself toward Sans at lightning speed.

Sans tries to hug Papyrus. Papyrus full on sweeps him onto his feet and cradles him into a bear hug he refuses to let go. Sans pats his back to the best of his ability, letting himself dangle from his brother's embrace.

Flashes of Bonnie holding him echo throughout his mind, and Sans tries not to panic. He's fine. Papyrus is the only person he'll trust to pick him up like this, he's fine.

"Sans, you can't ever do that again!" Papyrus choked out, "I was so worried!"

"I know, bro, trust me, neither of us necessarily liked that," Sans agrees. "I say I never do that again either."

Papyrus finally, finally, lets Sans down. Papyrus looks at Sans like he is the sun itself.

It's dark out. The sky, littered with stars, hangs above them with an occasional flickering light of a plane flying above them. The parking lot is empty, with only a few pieces of litter to keep the two brothers company.

"What even happened, Sans?" Papyrus asks. He looks disheveled as if he's been running around for hours on end without a break, and he very well may have done just that.

Sans feels awful. He feels like garbage. He made Papyrus worry so much that he almost made a missing report. He can't imagine what his brother must have been feeling, going from place to place in a frantic search for his brother who has been acting odd lately. Continuously finding dead ends, until he's trembling in the police station at the ripe time of 2 AM.

Sans knows that's what will happen if he fails to survive this damn pizzeria. He knows that's what would have happened if the animatronics hadn't decided to spare his life when he fucking fell asleep in front of them. Like an idiot. He wants to punch himself for doing something so risky, intentional or not.

He doesn't want to worry Papyrus like that ever again. But he knows he's not going to be able to, not with the path he's chosen. But that's fine. Sans will figure it out. He's faced terrible odds before, he can do it again.

He doesn't have a choice.

"Ya know how I pulled the straight day and night shift, right?" Sans asks Papyrus. "Yeah, well, uh, I ended up falling asleep right before my night shift ended. And one of the animatronics - the Puppet one, that one is marketed as like a security bot of sorts, ya know? Well, it's coded to detect lost children and keep them safe until the guard - me - shows up and helps the kid find its parents. The thing fucking mistook me for a kid and took me to a safe location because of my height. Apparently, I'm fun-sized. I had left my phone on the table so it wasn't brought with me, and the animatronic didn't wake me up since it's not part of protocol."

Papyrus blinks. "You were asleep in the pickup zone for almost a full day - Sans, how the heck didn't you wake up from the noise?"

Sans doesn't tell him he was actually trapped in a box for twenty hours. Or that he's talking out of his ass.

"There's no pickup zone, bro, I was put into the security office down the end of the hall with all of the doors shut. It's to keep kids safe so random adults can't run off with 'em," Sans bullshits, because there is no security procedure for things like that. "So I wasn't woken up. I promise it's nothing serious, bro, just a misunderstanding. I wasn't by my phone and the animatronic didn't let anyone enter since I'm the only guard, and since I wasn't hurt it didn't call for the other staff. That's why no one knew I was back there. I promise, Paps, just a misunderstanding."

Because, honestly, that's mostly what it was. At least, Sans thinks that's what it was. The animatronics didn't shove him into a suit. It's not like they saved him throughout the day to do it later, either, since he woke up at 2 AM. By all accounts, he didn't mean to sleep through the day, and they didn't necessarily hold him captive or anything. The Puppet was... weird, but it didn't try to shove him back into the box or try to attack him.

He'll have to ask tomorrow night, about why they did that and where all of the animatronics had disappeared to.

"Are you sure?" Papyrus asks. His expression softens, and he looks like he may cry, which sucks because Sans hates crying, and if his little brother cries so will Sans.

"What do ya mean?" Sans asks, like an idiot. As if he doesn't already know how fucking hard Papyrus and the others are onto him.

Papyrus' fingers slightly tighten onto Sans' shoulders. There's a sharp wind in the parking lot that picks up.

"You... I think you know, Sans. You've been weird, ever since you took this job. You avoid talking about it, but you refuse to leave. You randomly get injured, you always look tired, and one day you come back with blood on your shoes -"

Sans quickly glances down. His sneakers, which he's been wearing for weeks now (since slippers just don't work on the tiled floors, and Sans isn't going to risk his life over a fall while running) have a slight smear of blood on the white side.

He didn't even... know that was there. Fuck.

"- Sans, we notice these things, even if you don't. I notice. I know I've been busy on tours and the show, and that I haven't been around as often as I'd like, but... Sans, I care about you so much. You need to tell me these things, I can help - we - we all can. Please, Sans, are you okay? Do you need help?"

He's so tempted to say yes. He's so tempted to throw aside any care for jail or the consequences, to dive into his brother's arms and sob until he can't anymore. To confess what he's seen, what terrifies him to the point where he has nightmares almost every other night. How he can't even be held by his brother without getting flashbacks to the stench of death and the bulging eyeballs of a rotting corpse.

But he knows he can't. That he's walking down a path of independence, one of stress and worries and death at every corner. And he's accepted that at this point. Sans is a guy who can handle these things. He's fine.

He's also very good at lying to himself.

"It's... complicated," Sans admits. "There's this girl I work with... she means well, she just needs someone there for her. That's what I'm doing. But I'm safe. And work is getting better, now that I'm getting into the swing of things. I promise, bro, I'm perfectly safe."

Papyrus stares. "Are you sure? You can talk to me. I'm here for you, I promise. Does she need help, because I can help her as well. I just... it'd make me feel better if you worked somewhere else."

It'd make Sans feel better, too.

"Yeah, bro, I can handle it," Sans says, offering a bright and somewhat sincere smile. "I'm probably in it for the long haul here, but I'm not in any danger. Tonight was just a miscommunication because of protocol."

Papyrus nods, moving to look up at the building behind Sans, and practically jumps out of his bones before grappling onto Sans and tugging him closer.

"What is that?" Papyrus says, his voice uneven from the sudden shock. "Oh dear, that... scared me. I didn't realize it was watching us."

Sans glances over, for a moment dreading that an animatronic possibly broke out and was outside with his sweet little brother. Instead, though, he finds the Puppet standing in a window right next to the doors, watching from the inside of the horrible pizzeria Sans despises working at.

Papyrus' grip is tight and protective, and he seems genuinely off-put by the thing. Not that Sans can object to it - the thing is creepy as fuck. They all are. Even if Papyrus, literally the only man in the world dating a robot right now cannot find pleasure in looking at it, you know you have a fucked up design. Papyrus, the sweetest person in the world, was freaked out by it.

But the Puppet hadn't really done anything to Sans, as far as Sans was aware. It would've been nice if the thing woke him up, yeah, but it didn't... it did nothing. Didn't hurt him when he was in arms reach, didn't force him back into the box, didn't try to attack him. Funny, how the creepiest one by far was so far one of the kindest, especially since the thing was openly marketed as a safeguard for children.

"Oh, that's the... the Puppet," Sans says. "He was the one who brought me to the room - uh, he's programmed to help kids find their parents and keep them safe if they get lost, it's his whole marketing thing. He just mistook me for a kid since I'm short. He's... he's cool."

To prove it, despite Sans being iffy himself about the fucking thing, Sans raises a hand and gives a little wave. The Puppet, just like earlier, moves to return it. Papyrus watches it like the animatronic is about to break through the window and crab crawl at them at full speed.

It is true, that the Puppet is supposedly programmed to be a helper when human staff isn't available. It's supposed to be able to detect crying kids and come help them, like kids who are lost, overwhelmed, or possibly injured. That was what was sent in the email brief he got with it, anyway. Sans had a feeling it had been mostly bullshit, but maybe bringing people it thought were abandoned to the box to safe keep was it's programming? Maybe?

He'd have to check. Sans had a whole list of things he needed to do tomorrow night, apparently.

"That's... nice," Papyrus says, all awkward and stiff. "Can... can we go home, Sans? Just have a brother's night in. I feel like... it's been a while. We need to do that."

"Yeah, bro. Of course."

So Sans leaves. He's quick to hop into the car, let his brother fuss over his seatbelt, and eye the animatronic in the window as Papyrus quickly pulls out of the parking lot. The Puppet continues to watch him, even until the Puppet becomes nothing more than a little spec in the distance.