Fur a Good Time, Call... 14/15
Series: Undertale, Horrortale
Relationship(s): HT!Sans/Reader, HT!Papyrus & Reader, HT!Sans & HT!Papyrus
Chapter Warnings: suicidal ideation, self-harm, reference to suicide and character death, permanent injuries (all past, but described in flashback-form)
You work at an animal shelter. You love all your fuzzy buddies and can’t imagine a better job for yourself than looking after cats and dogs all day, even when the work is hard and often gross. What can you say? You’ve got a lot of love to give!
You’re just not quite sure yet how you feel about the new monster who’s been helping out these days, and this riddle wrapped up in an enigma is something you just can’t resist investigating…
AO3 Link
sans
Life goes on.
Animals come in and out of the shelter and you help them as best as you can, just like it’s always been, but there are differences to be sure.
You’ve never gone so long without straining your back on a jumbo pallet of dog food, and you’ve never gone half as long without tearing up at work over a hard case or somebody finally going off to a well-deserved home.
You attribute both of those to your big, sweet skeleton beau—Sans is always happy to help you out, whether with an easy bit of heavy lifting or a quick joke to make you smile, and you couldn’t be more grateful to have him in your life.
His brother is, naturally, just as much of a delight. Papyrus continues to be your absolute best friend and even with his busy schedule and his new popularity ever since that first night at Grillby’s, he never fails to make time for you, too.
Your dog-dates continue, just you and Buddy and Pap playing around at the park with only the occasional surprise guest. Mostly, it’s Sans popping in unexpectedly, but from time to time it’ll even be Dino’s son.
When Papyrus first tries to quietly apologize for bringing Dino Junior along, or maybe just to explain that he hadn’t wanted to disappoint the kid, you wave him off. You can tell right off that DJ really is Papyrus’ biggest fan, surprisingly earnest for a teenager and hanging on every grand and dramatic word Pap says like he takes it all to heart.
He’s a very sweet kid and you don’t think he could’ve picked a better role-model. If he wants to come chill with you guys in the park for a game of fetch every now and again, you’re hardly about to turn him away.
You get plenty of solo-time with skeletons as it is. Between hangouts with the brothers and your countless dates and snuggle sessions with Sans, you’re already spending so much time at their house that you could probably move in and hardly anything would change.
There’s really probably only one thing you would even want to change.
You haven’t quite managed to say the l-word to Sans just yet.
It’s not exactly for lack of trying, it just always seems to feel like the wrong moment to say it: like the mood is weird or the timing is off or somebody interrupts with impeccable comedic timing you’d never actually seen outside of a sitcom.
It’s far from a major concern of yours, though.
You’re happy, you love your bonefriend, and one of these days, you’re even going to tell him so.
Life is good.
-
You’re in the middle of a cuddly, giggly necking session on Sans’ bed when he pulls away from you, reluctant yet determined.
“hey, hey, c’mon,” he murmurs as you chase him, pressing a cheeky smooch to his vertebrae. “wait a minute, i want…i wanna try something…”
“Kinky,” you reply on instinct.
Sans chuckles. “not that kinda somethin’, jeez…”
Well, your curiosity is piqued. “What kind of something is it, then?”
“it, uh…it’s a monster thing. humans don’t…least i don’t think they do…” Sans is starting to look…genuinely worried, actually. It sobers you up a little and you sit back on your heels as he tries to explain. “it’s…it’s kind of a big deal? now that, uh…now that i’m thinkin’ about it… maybe you don’t wanna—”
“Sans.” He lets you cut him off, his eye-light small and nervous, but attentive. “Can I at least hear the thing before you decide I said no?”
“……eheheheheheheh…sorry. got in my own head there a lil bit.” Sans gives you a sheepish grin and you know what’s coming before he even says it. “guess i’m a numbskull that way.”
It gets a snicker out of you, anyway.
“Yeah, but you’re my numbskull,” you say, giving his nasal ridge a playful flick. “So, what’s this big deal monster thing that I probably don’t want to do?”
You watch Sans take a breath, steeling himself.
“i…i wanna share souls with you.”
Your eyebrows shoot up. That was not on the list of things you’d expected to hear…mostly because…
“I…have no idea what that is.”
“heheheh…toldja it was a monster thing.”
“I didn’t think you were lying. Can you…explain what it is? In small human words, maybe?”
Sans seems to be mulling it over, carefully cherry-picking his words.
“it’s…it’s everything,” he says slowly. “it’s knowing each other all the way, no secrets…no important ones, anyway. it’s…getting inside each other’s head, seeing what makes ‘em tick, why and how they are…who they are. all of it.”
“Like…like drifting?” When you see complete and utter confusion on Sans’ face, it occurs to you that a Pacific Rim reference is a little too modern. Only the really old or obscure human media seemed to have made it Underground before the monsters surfaced, so you try again with something a little farther back. “Vulcan mind-meld?”
That gets a spark of recognition.
“yes. that. it’s like that. just…” He frowns a little. “more intimate…? maybe? it’s not…y’wouldn’t…go around sharin’ your soul with a stranger, it’s…it’s pretty much just for…for…”
“Relationships?” you guess. “Like…ours?”
Sans grins again, relieved that you’re following along without much trouble, no doubt. “yeah. it…i don’t think humans have an equivalent. it’s a big step, i…ya’ don’t do it unless it’s…serious.”
“‘Marriage’ serious?”
“mmm…almost? kinda. not that far.” His skull flushes slate blue as he belatedly finishes processing what you said. “i…! i’m not asking…! this isn’t…!”
The panicked look on Sans’ face is too much and you have to laugh.
“Oh, stars, baby, relax, relax! I know, don’t freak out, this is just…us trying to get on the same page.” You reach up, petting at his clavicle, and he sags a little beneath your touch.
“not, uh…not that i don’t like ya’,” he adds weakly. “that’s…that’s kinda the whole point, i just…we…”
There’s no possible way for him to talk himself out of this particular hole. As endearing as it is to watch him try, you decide to have a little mercy.
“Hey,” you say, interrupting his rambling, back-tracking train of thought. “Is it permanent? Like…a bond or something?”
“uh. no, nah, it’s just a thing ya’ do. but…” Sans takes your shoulders in his hands, looking at you very seriously. “it’s intimate, i can’t say that enough, babe. it’s you, all of you, no take-backs or…or hidin’ stuff.”
“…Not even the embarrassing junk from middle school?”
You didn’t think anybody got out of adolescence without a cringe-worthy happening or two and you were no exception.
Sans shrugs a little. “not if it’s important,” he says. “not if it’s part of who you are.”
“……Yikes.”
Sans presses his teeth to your forehead, hands sliding off your shoulders to stroke reassuringly along your arms.
“hey,” he says gently. “don’t worry about it. ya’ don’t…ya’ don’t gotta be ready for it now, that’s fine.”
You know he means it.
It’s not just a platitude to comfort you, it really is completely and totally alright if this thing he’s asking for is too much, too soon. He wouldn’t be mad or frustrated at you in the slightest if you told him ‘no’ right now.
You’ve never felt more respected and cared for by anyone in your life than by Sans.
And that’s why your answer comes easily.
“I am ready. Let’s do it.”
He looks at you for a long moment, like he’s surprised, but you’re not sure why.
You can’t think of anybody you’d be more comfortable trusting your soul to, and from the sound of it, Sans feels the same way about you.
You don’t have the words for how touched that makes you feel.
“seriously? you…you’re sure…?”
“Yeah. You just gotta promise me one thing.”
Sans’ expression is sober, nearly grave. “of course. whatever you need.”
“I need you to swear,” you say sternly, “upon pain of death…that you will absolutely never, under any circumstance……tell Papyrus about anythingembarrassing you see, I trust you to forget about it eventually, but he’ll remember forever and I just, I don’t think he’ll let me live some of that stuff down. Please, Sans, you have to promise me.”
“………”
A quiet snicker graduates into a full-blown laugh, with just the barest edge of a wheeze to it, and you grin proudly as Sans leans on you a little, pressing his forehead to yours.
“ah, shit, that’s…that’s a real tall order, i dunno… i guess i can try…”
You sigh dramatically. “What’s it gonna take? Lunch for a month? A year? The rest of our lives?”
“i’d settle for a kiss.”
“Oh. Datemate discount?”
“special offer, just for you.”
You don’t see how you can say no to a deal like that.
You reach up, wrapping your arms around his neck and angling your face just enough to plant your lips on his teeth. He presses back, turning it into a nuzzle and…
Well.
You get distracted for a little while.
Hardly anybody’s fault.
When you eventually separate, Sans tells you the basic gist of what’s going to happen: your souls come out, they touch and, by the mysterious explanation-defying powers of magic, the sharing will just sort of…happen.
You wonder briefly if he’s drawing on some old memory of a monster sex-ed class—Your Soul And You—but your amused thoughts don’t last long.
Your mind goes blank, actually, when he casually touches his fingers to his sternum and his very soul follows them, emerging from his chest.
“so…this is my soul,” he says, grimacing at it a little. “the ‘culmination of my being.’ it’s, uh…it’s kinda…”
“It’s beautiful, Sans,” you breathe.
It is.
You’ve never seen anything prettier than the upside down heart-shape in front of you, glowing like freshly fallen snow beneath a bright full moon. You want to reach out to it, to trace the intricate spider web of gray cracks splintering through it with your fingers, to press your lips to it and nuzzle it as gently and carefully as you do to Sans’ skull…
But by the stunned and shy expression he’s giving you just from telling him it was beautiful, you think that might be a little much.
“How do…how do I do mine?” you ask. “I don’t…”
Sans eagerly takes to the change in topic. “i got it,” he says, “don’t worry, i’ll just…”
His hand touches your chest, feather-light, and you still when you feel a tug deep inside, a place in you that nothing’s ever touched before.
With something you can only describe as a ‘pop,’ another glowing heart appears but this one…
This one is yours…this one is you.
Right side up and a hundred times more vibrant than the soft white of Sans’ soul, you experience a profound sense of existentialism just looking at this little heart floating before you.
You have an incredibly strong feeling, knowing without knowing that this thing is unique beyond the telling of it, the only soul in the world that’s exactly like this one.
It’s…a lot prettier than you thought it would be, and that’s got to be those pesky self-esteem issues pulling the wool over your eyes because if this colorful, shining thing really is you, then…
Then you really must be special
“that’s what a beautiful soul looks like,” Sans says decisively.
His eye-sockets are fixed on it, his red pupil in your favorite shape and his ever-present grin going soft, bathed in the light between you.
The sight of him in this moment strikes you with a heady bolt of affection and your soul shivers with it—literally shivers, and your cheeks heat at such a blatant, visible response.
You think you’re starting to understand what Sans was getting at when he said ‘intimate’: you’ve never been this exposed.
“not too late to change your mind.”
You look up. Sans’ look is knowing, understanding—he can read your nervousness with ease.
But that’s all it is, just nervousness.
You decide to take a page out of Papyrus’ book: you were going to do this and it was going to be fine.
“I’m okay,” you tell Sans. “I’m ready.”
And you are.
You can’t quite look away as your souls close the gap between them, your heart involuntarily speeding up as they get closer and closer and finally touch and then…!
Your vision goes white.
-
You don’t know where dad is.
Working, you guess, he’s always working, and you’re old enough by now to realize that you’re probably still too young to be left alone this often, but it’s not like you’re a babybones, either.
Not like Papyrus is.
Your little brother is so small. He can’t really talk so great yet, but he tries a lot, making noises that are almost words when you give him his rattle to shake or tease him with his Fluffy Bunny toy.
His favorite sorta-word lately is ‘nyeh’ and he says it all the time.
You think it’s the funniest thing. You hope he never stops saying it.
Man…your bro is so cool.
-
You’re exhausted, well and truly worked down to the bone.
(heh.)
You can’t really remember why you thought fast-tracking was a good idea. You think it was probably more dad’s idea than yours…or you would if you could think after your skull had been pummeled by exam after exam after exam.
Theoretical physics, advanced calculus, geology, mechanical engineering… You were good at it, at least, a prodigy if you believed what dad said, a ‘true successor to his genius’ but dad was always kind of a drama queen.
Pap inherited that, but to dad’s endless despair and your endless amusement, he’s also the artsy black sheep of your family.
He’s going through a goth phase right now and the spiked bracelets and the inky paint he’s slathering beneath his eye-sockets while insisting it’s ‘NOT A PHASE, YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND MY EMOTIONAL AND TORTURED SOUL’ is the most hilarious thing in the world to you.
You encourage him and his teenage rebellion whenever possible—like a good bro should, of course—and try not to laugh too obviously when dad holds his skull in his hands and prays for Papyrus to discover an interest in a science, any science, even a soft science, stars, please.
The only thing you pray for is to pass your finals. You don’t want to have to do any of this crap again, and once you’ve got your degrees maybe dad’ll finally shut up about how much help he needs at the Capital with his work.
Sometimes you think the CORE is more his baby than you or Pap ever were…
But you’re tired enough lately that you don’t think it that often.
-
You’re not there when it happens.
That’s the part that kills you the most, wondering if you could’ve done something if you’d been there, made a difference somehow…
But you weren’t, you didn’t, and in one little warble of time and space, your dad ceases to exist.
Worse than that, so does any record of him, every mention of his name, every photograph, every memory.
Pap seems to have some vague recollection, at least remembers that you’d had a dad at one point, but everyone else you talk to goes blank when you say his name out loud, like they won’t or maybe can’t even process the words you’d said.
There was no Royal Scientist, hadn’t been for years, they all agreed. The king really ought to hire somebody to do it.
It could’ve been you.
It could’ve been you easily, you had all the know-how and the (admittedly limited) experience to take on dad’s job in his…memory, or honor, or whatever the hell, but you can’t think of a single thing you’d hate more than that.
You were never passionate about The Work, but now…it’s irrevocably soured for you.
You throw all your notes and schematics into dad’s home-lab, with the stupid time-machine he never got to work and lock it all up, tossing the key somewhere in a drawer to be forgotten. You let Pap have your textbooks and without somebody breathing down his vertebrae about it, he’s not nearly as contrary about perusing them now and then.
And that’s it: the inglorious end of your scientific career.
The king ends up hiring one of the interns you used to work with to be the new Royal Scientist, some girl named Alphys. You remember her being a little shy, a little awkward, but undeniably sharp and creative.
You think she’ll do fine.
You ask Pap how he’d feel about moving someplace else, and after a twenty minute rant on how much he loathes Hotland’s vents and conveyor belts, you just up and shortcut the whole house to Snowdin.
You like the name and the flat look your brother gives you when you tell him it’s the polar opposite of Hotland makes it worth the twelve hours you have to go pass out after such a huge expenditure of magic.
You have no idea what you’re supposed to do with your life now.
You guess you’ll figure it out sooner or later, and you hope the fresh start will make it easier.
-
Some things you can’t get away from.
You may be done working with the real thing, but science-fiction is fun; just the right balance of real concepts and hand-wave-y ‘shh, don’t worry about it’ that you can take pleasure in it.
It seems to be a popular genre with humans and enough of their junk falls down that you have plenty of books and movies to choose from.
Some of it’s good, some of it’s so bad it’s good, and some of it’s so bad that you immediately pass it off to your brother telling him it’s the best thing you’ve ever seen and wait for him kick down your door in the middle of the night yelling at you about the hours he’s never going to get back, ‘STOP GIVING ME GARBAGE, SANS, I’M SERIOUS!’
Pap should really know by now that just makes you want to find something even worse to waste his time on.
You’re digging around the dump for just that sort of garbage when you find the telescope.
You know why nobody’d bothered to take it yet in spite of it being in near-perfect condition—no stars to see down here in your collective prison—but it makes you think of the Wishing Room and you set it up over there on a whim to get a look at your pseudo-stars embedded in the ceiling.
The pranking potential is enormous, and you do get several hapless passersby, but you also take a look yourself from time to time.
Through the telescope, you can see an incredible amount of detail in the crystalline ‘stars’ everyone wishes on—facets and cleavages and around them, striations in the stone of the ceiling itself.
And thus begins your slow descent into casual geology.
At first, it’s just the telescope, but eventually you catch yourself prying a crystal out of the wall or pocketing a neat-looking rock you found on the ground. It turns into a full-blown collection before long and you want to hate it more on principle of not being able to let go of the past but…
Picking up rocks here and there, it…it doesn’t hurt the way calculating the internal energy of a system does, the way even thinking about string theory sends a bitter pang through your soul.
Just collecting these minerals and crystals and whatever else you can find, it’s so informal and so far removed from anything you’d done in a lab, working on the CORE that you can still actually enjoy it.
So, you let it be your hobby.
It’s harmless enough.
-
You’re surprised it takes you as long as it does to stumble onto comedy.
You’ve always been a joker, always loved puns and cheesy one-liners that inevitably won you a chuckle or a groan from everybody around you, but you never really had the right audience for it. Dad always just rolled his eyes and wouldn’t acknowledge you, and Pap…
Well, Pap supported you. He just thought you took the easy road too often, should put more work behind your humor.
That, you didn’t get—a joke’s a joke, does it matter how hard you worked on it if it makes somebody laugh?
Getting up on stage the first time is at least eighty percent unintentional.
It’s some dumb open mic night at some lousy bar in the Capital and after three straight rounds of terrible karaoke, the people you’re hanging with are drunk and bored enough that they start pushing at your shoulders, telling you to go on up and tell that story, the really funny one about the time you found that rubber chicken, anything’s better than hearing Aaron singing another love song while flexing his abs at everybody.
You’re also just drunk and bored enough to give in to the peer pressure and up you go for your very first show, with no preparation and just your lifelong arsenal of bad jokes at your disposal.
You knock ‘em dead, full-on wheezing, banging on the table, crying laughter and the thrill it makes you feel is indescribable.
You’re already planning out your next set when you get a call from Mettaton himself, saying he wants you to perform exclusively at his resort every other week.
It’s an offer you could easily refuse, but you don’t.
The feeling of being up there on the stage, seeing a whole crowd of people so happy, laughing at a joke you told…
It’s probably the first time you’ve ever been really, truly passionate about something for yourself.
Every time you do a show, it’s the happiest you think you’ve ever been: this is your calling.
-
Something else is calling you, too.
It yanks you right out of a midday nap and there’s a crushing, overwhelming pressure on your soul that makes you get up.
You are Needed, you have no choice.
It’s terrifying that first time, finding your feet and your magic responding to shortcut you somewhere you weren’t even consciously aware of. You feel like you’re possessed, unable to shake the urge to Go, because you Must, and you have no control over it.
It’s only a slight relief when you find yourself in the castle, in a room you’ve at least seen before.
The king himself, standing in front of you, is a little less of a relief.
He looks surprised to see you and you want to ask him what’s going on, what the hell is happening to you, because it seems like he knows something but your fear and confusion holds your metaphorical tongue too long.
And Asgore speaks.
“I come seeking Judgment.”
Your magic flares in your chest, burning brighter than it ever has before and suddenly…suddenly you can See.
His LOVE, his EXP, the truth of his soul is laid out before you like an open book, things meant to be secret outside of an encounter, yet…
There they are.
A strange sense of calm washes over you, a feeling of duty. You hear the chime of a bell, the singing of birds, the wafting scent of flowers…
You open your mouth and a voice only half-yours passes your first Judgment.
Asgore is unsurprised.
He’s a patient audience as you list off his sins and the weight of them, offering no argument or emotion in response. When you finish and the strange power that had consumed you vanishes, he’s at your side, quelling the rattling of your bones with a paternal hand to your shoulder.
He invites you in for tea, of all things.
You take him up on it. You need answers.
Asgore doesn’t have as many as you’d like.
It happens once in a generation, some monster with the requisite skills—perceptive, impartial, patient—is chosen to become The Judge. Anyone trying to pass through the judgment hall, to reach the throne room and the king, must first have their sins seen, weighed, judged.
And you’re the unlucky bastard who got picked to do it this time around.
It’s too much responsibility, you don’t want it, but not even Asgore himself can take this from you. He tries to comfort you, saying you’ll hardly ever be needed, but even ‘hardly ever’ is still more than you wanted.
You’re called to Judge four more times after that.
They’re all easy, good people who get what amounts to a pep-talk before their audience with Asgore, a ‘good job’ for going through life without hurting anyone. It gets you used to your unwanted career, at least, even if you think it’s pretty unnecessary to have.
Monsters are made of love and compassion: they’re good people, and good people aren’t violent, they don’t kill.
There’s no point being a Judge among monsters and this ‘chosen’ schtick feels pretty damn arbitrary to you.
(You try not to think about the possibility of a human falling down. The odds of it happening in your lifetime are…)
(You try not to think about it.)
-
You’ve been having the worst sense of déjà vu lately.
You don’t know what it is, or why it’s happening, but it feels like more and more often that you’re having the sensation of having heard something before, said something before, lived through something before.
You ask a couple people about it and a lot of them agree with you, passing it off as such a weird and funny coincidence…but the longer the feeling sticks with you, the less you’re believing in coincidence.
You don’t know why you go back to dad’s lab and take a look at the unfinished machine inside. Maybe you’re following a hunch—it’s a time machine, after all, even if he never got it working. Maybe…maybe it’s broken, malfunctioning, causing some sort of…something around here.
It’s not the machine.
But it’s not just déjà vu, either.
You use the equipment, calling on knowledge you hadn’t thought about in years, and the data in the reports you pull is…
Just a little bit harrowing.
There’s some sort of anomaly in the data, literally screwing around with the space-time continuum itself. Entire timelines starting, stopping, diverging, looping back, it’s insane when you realize how long this must’ve been going on and even worse when you think about how much longer it could go on, unchecked.
The fact that some of the lines are literal dead-ends just makes it worse. What the hell has the power to play with time like this?
You don’t know…but you think maybe a couple times, you must’ve found out.
Your memories are weird lately, you try to take notes and keep them in the lab, it seems mostly unaffected by time-shenanigans, but whatever’s doing this really doesn’t want you knowing about it.
It’s around then you start having nightmares.
Bad ones.
Fighting for your life, watching people die, the overwhelming feeling of needing to do something, anything to stop this and being completely, utterly useless.
They’re only nightmares, you try to tell yourself that…but you can’t be sure. Who knows what form an erased memory from a doomed timeline might take in a new loop and some of the things you see in your dreams are just way too real for your liking.
When Papyrus tells you in passing about a flower he’s made friends with, you feel a lightning bolt of NO strike clean through your soul. You want to investigate, or tell Pap to stay away from that thing, and you don’t know why, but…
There’s an undercurrent of dread beneath those thoughts, a feeling of helpless despair.
You think you must’ve tried those things already. You wonder how badly they must’ve ended, and how many times it had to have happened for you to feel such an ingrained Pavlovian fear-response.
It’s been a long time since you’ve felt this tired.
You’re not proud of it, but…
You give up.
The déjà vu doesn’t stop, but it doesn’t get worse, either.
You guess maybe that’s the anomaly’s way of rewarding your compliance.
If you weren’t so exhausted—mentally, emotionally, physically—you think you might be a little indignant about it.
-
One highlight these days is your door-pal.
Sentry-duty is boring and even you can only take so many outdoor, mid-morning depression naps, so finding a fellow knock-knock-joke-enthusiast so close by is a nice little surprise.
She’s a terrific audience and pretty damn funny herself. You thought you’d already heard every pun in existence, but you learn a couple new ones from her and use them whenever possible.
You don’t know what she’s got in her past that keeps her locked up inside the old ruins, but in spite of your other-other-other job, you’re not about to judge. After all, you’re the one who decided to move clear across the Underground when your dad died…ceased existing, whatever.
Everybody’s running from something.
When she asks you to look out for any humans that come through the door, though…
Stars, you want to say no.
You almost do, but…she sounds so sad when she asks. You don’t know her name or what she looks like, but you’ve always thought terrible jokes were a great basis for a friendship and you’ve been swapping them with her for months, now.
She’s your friend and this is quite literally the only thing she’s ever asked of you.
You promise.
There’s only one human left to go, anyway. It won’t be hard to watch them until they get to the castle, and once they go through the judgment hall, anything that happens after that is out of your hands.
How bad can one little human possibly be?
-
Famous last words, you guess.
Number Seven is worse than anything you could’ve imagined.
They’re covered in dust when they walk out of the ruins, and when your door-pal stops answering your knocks, it’s not hard to guess what must’ve happened to her.
The déjà vu comes back and so do the nightmares, more terrible and heart-wrenching than they’ve ever been before. It occurs to you that you might’ve found the anomaly, but you’re too damn scared to do anything about it.
You keep your promise, though: you watch the kid every step of the way, silently tailing their journey.
There’s no rhyme or reason to their little dusting spree, at least none that you can see. They slaughter an Ice Cap without a second thought, but breeze by most of the Canine Unit with just a pet and a cheery little laugh that sends shivers up your spine.
When your brother is one of the monsters to be spared, you actually collapse into a snow poff for a moment from the relief. You know the timeline is bouncing around again the same way you know how much worse that encounter could’ve gone.
(Papyrus’ decapitated head in the snow, still encouraging the human to do better with his last words as his skull breaks apart into dust…)
Your bro blusters a little bit when you hug him after, probably too tightly, but he doesn’t try to shoo you off, either.
He’d never admit it, but you can feel him rattling just as hard as you are. You know he was scared facing down that human and as they traipse through the Underground, swinging that knife of theirs, you know it was completely justified.
They slip right under Undyne’s radar and dismantle Mettaton on live TV. Pap cries a little and as much as you try to be aloof, it really is one hell of a spirit-breaker having to watch the only celebrity you have down here just up and die in front of you.
It isn’t long before you feel the calling and soon you’re standing there, face-to-face with the very person shattering the hopes and dreams of all monsterkind.
But you’re not a monster in this room.
Here, you’re a Judge, and it’s time for their sentencing.
Their sins are heavy and almost too many to count. They’ve killed dozens, without remorse…but they’ve also spared others. Their soul is strange, burning with more Determination than you’ve ever seen, but to what purpose, you can’t tell.
In the end, it’s not your place to figure it out.
You Judge them and let them through, hoping Asgore is strong enough to see justice done.
…But your hope is running pretty thin, lately.
Soon, your king is dust, the six human souls you’d had are gone, and the Underground is once more plunged into despair.
Of all the timelines to stick…
-
Undyne takes over.
It’s…not great.
She’s trying, though, and she gives Pap a cute little title which makes him happy, so it could be worse.
But not by much.
It feels like everything’s falling apart these days. Even food’s getting hard to come by and you’re trying really hard not to think about what’s gonna happen when it runs out.
Sustainable solutions would normally be something in the Royal Scientist’s wheelhouse but Alphys…
Alphys just sort of disappeared one day.
After Asgore, after Mettaton…you think you know where she went.
And there’s no coming back from that.
It certainly doesn’t help the food situation, or Undyne’s combative mood and lately, you swear you can hear her and Pap shouting at each other in the Capital all the way from Snowdin.
Your bro is just too cool to accept the idea of warring with an entire species for the crimes of just a few—the Judge in you agrees with him, but the tired slob of a skeleton in you just wants whatever will make all the yelling stop.
-
You’re there when it happens.
That’s the part that kills you the most, knowing how totally, hilariously useless you are even when you’re actually around to protect your family.
You’re there to see Undyne slam her fist into your brother’s face with a wild look in her eye, hearing bone crack beneath her knuckles as she does it again and again and again.
You don’t think about your HP, or the consequences of defying the queen, or anything at all.
You just shortcut yourself right in between her and Papyrus and…
You don’t remember anything after that.
-
You wake up with a brutal headache and a weird foggy feeling in your skull that makes it hard to think.
It takes you an embarrassingly long time to realize you’re at home, in Pap’s bed, and by then Pap is walking in with a meager bowl of soup.
He looks surprised to see you awake, but the first thing he says to you is, “Don’t Be Mad,” and well, that plus the painful-looking state of his teeth doesn’t really make you feel better.
He pussyfoots around something for awhile, clearly trying keep you calm before dropping a bombshell and normally you’d see right through it, but now…it’s working.
Your head hurts and you can’t think straight and he’s saying you got hit, but that can’t be right. You’d be dust if you got hit, especially by Undyne, how the hell are you alive?
Papyrus sets a syringe on the table beside his bed, looking starkly out of place next to all his action figures.
You have to stare at it for a long, long moment before you can even place what it is.
DT—raw and red, pure Determination, extracted from a human soul.
“I Was Careful,” Papyrus promises you. “I Know Too Much Is… I Read The Notes, In The Lab, I Barely Used Any, You Shouldn’t…You Should Be Alright! I…I Think…”
He keeps talking, but you’re not really listening.
Stars above, DT… That was only ever…in the labs, the royal ones, how the hell had Pap even…
Well…no, Pap was…he’d always had a way of getting places he had to be, like…like your shortcuts, except…
He’d tried to explain it to you once, you think, how he…god, there was a word he’d used…
……
…What the hell was it?
Why can’t you remember that?!
You raise a hand to your skull, trying to rub at the place this stupidly distracting headache seems to be coming from.
Nausea hits you dead in your non-existent gut when you feel nothing beneath your fingers but an empty cavity.
On instinct, you shortcut to the bathroom. Your aim is off, you bang your ribs unpleasantly on the edge of the sink below the mirror, but you don’t think about it.
You’re surprised you can think of anything with the jagged, void-black cavern that’s apparently half your skull now. One of your eye-lights is gone and you can’t make it come back, and the other…
Stars, the other is the brightest, most terrifying shade of crimson you’ve ever seen—monster-white forever stained DT-red.
You’re hit with several urges at once and none of them seem productive.
Crying, puking, laughing until you do both, but you don’t actually do any of those things.
You hear Papyrus calling for you, no doubt concerned by your disappearance, and you really should go back to him but…
This is too much.
You’re tired.
You go straight to bed instead.
Maybe…maybe when you wake up the fog will be gone and you’ll be able to…process this, the right way.
-
The fog never really leaves you.
You’re in and out for awhile and your head…mostly stops hurting, but using it is a lot harder than it ever used to be.
It takes you forever to notice that Pap’s been talking to you in proper case all of a sudden.
At first you think it’s because of his teeth, that his usual high volume is just too much for the cracked and crooked bones of his jaw, but even when they’ve healed a bit he’s still just…quieter than he used to be, more muted than the bombastic baby brother you’re used to and it’s…
You don’t like it.
You never get around to saying anything about it, though, because you’re a little busy dealing with your own shit.
It seems like you’re passing out all the time now.
You love napping, you’d never even attempt to imply otherwise, but usually you’re doing it on purpose. Now, it just sort of…happens, whether you mean it to or not.
Your memory is pretty much garbage, too.
You’re stuck in the house for a few days while you’re healing and make the mistake of trying to read to pass the time. It takes you all day to get through one chapter, you keep having to backtrack and remind yourself of something you just read, but it didn’t…stick right, or something.
It’s worse when you try looking back at some of your old lab notes. Wingdings is as good as gibberish to your crappy skull now, apparently, and even in standard your own shorthand is too convoluted to follow for more than a couple of lines.
Losing entire conversations is a special kind of humiliating.
You quickly lose count of the times you ask Pap a question and by the look on his face you can tell it’s something you already asked him before at least once; who knows how many times more than that.
He’s patient with you. Your brother would never make you feel stupid on purpose, but you feel it anyway.
You’re frustrated with yourself beyond words and you know, deep down, that this is just the way your head works now—badly—and you’ve gotta get used to being half as quick as you were before.
You pick up a nasty habit of tugging at your empty eye-socket when you’re trying to remember something.
Pap hates it and you really probably shouldn’t be doing it, but the pain of it is…grounding, in a way. It helps you focus a little and stars, if there’s anything you need these days, it’s focus.
(The pain in your eye-socket is a pretty good distraction from your hunger pangs, too. Things are starting to get…)
(………)
(It’s not good.)
-
A human falls.
You take them to Undyne.
………
At least you’re not as hungry anymore.
-
It happens again.
You can’t afford these kinds of mistakes, none of you can.
Monsters are already…
You can’t be wasting souls like this.
Undyne has to…she’s really gotta…
………
-
You can’t…afford not to care anymore.
You had so many chances to fix this before it happened, to make it…be less bad now.
You let them all pass by.
If Undyne can’t do this…
…Stars, forgive you.
-
The first time you take a life is the last time you use your Judgment.
You hope that…knowing this human’s sins before you……will make it…easier.
It doesn’t, not really.
But at least it’s quick.
You feel sick after, hiding the soul away and bringing the…the meat to Papyrus.
Your only saving grace is that there’s nothing for you to throw up, and by the time there’s something to eat going around, you’ve managed to go numb.
It doesn’t last.
-
You carry on, you and Pap—the Queen’s Butchers.
You hear that word and want to die a little every time, but that’s the last thing you can do now. You started this, you’re taking this horrible, nightmarish responsibility and you…you have to see it through.
You can’t let this be somebody else’s problem.
(Papyrus’ station is the next nearest to the ruins. You can’t let this be Papyrus’ problem, he’s already too involved and that’s hard enough for you to live with.)
You try to Judge the other humans—it didn’t help before, but maybe…
You can’t, though.
It doesn’t work, not anymore.
Trying to call on whatever magic used to let you see LOVE and EXP at a glance is like trying to catch water in your fist, slipping through your fingers no matter how hard you grip.
It takes you awhile to understand, but you get it eventually.
Judges are supposed to be impartial and fair.
But you have blood on your hands, now.
You’re not The Judge, not anymore, just the executioner.
You hate the ugly, scary face you see in the mirror.
You understand now more than ever why Alphys did what she did. You think she probably had the right idea and you wish you could join her.
You can’t.
You have to live with this.
Just a little bit longer.
Maybe you’ll get lucky and just dust on your own.
…You wish.
-
You start to space out a lot.
You don’t know if it’s your head-wound or just your soul itself recoiling from the idea of inhabiting a body that does the horrible, unforgivable things you’re doing with it.
You like it, though.
It’s inconvenient sometimes, feeling so separate from yourself that you can’t…process…anything going on around you except simple commands and ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions, but mostly, it’s a relief.
It’s a brief period of time where you can just…barely exist.
You don’t really know where it is you go, mentally, when you dissociate like that, but it’s so close to what you really want and with that off the table…
Hell, you’ll take what you can get.
-
It’s an accident the first time you do it.
You’re just holding onto a hunk of pyrite in your pocket when you space out, and when you come back from…wherever, you feel a stinging pain in your closed fist.
There’s a scrape along your metacarpals where you’d been clutching the rock just a little too tightly, some tiny lines dug right into the surface of the bone.
There’s no chance of finding anything to heal it with down here, not in this barren hellscape that the Underground’s become, so you just sort of…leave it.
It hurts a little, but no worse than every other painful thing you have to do these days.
You don’t think about it for awhile, but then…
The next human to fall is a little girl. She can’t be older than ten and you come across her shivering through the outskirts of Snowdin, calling out to no one.
She lost her mom, she hurt her ankle, the vines, she couldn’t…please, wasn’t there anybody down here?
There’s tears streaking down your skull when you break her neck—quick, but horrible, and that night you leave more scrapes along your hand because you hate yourself more than anything and the pain helps you remember that.
It turns into a habit because of how easy it is. You have a whole collection of rough, sharp, and jagged things to choose from and all you have to do is keep one in your pocket so you have it when you need it.
It’s less noticeable than curling your fingers into your eye-socket, and Pap hates that.
At least your hands, you can hide.
They’re always in your pockets anyway, your bro won’t question it or look at you all sad and disappointed…
…Maybe if you put enough gouges in the bone, you’ll even scrape off the bloodstains that haunt you when you close your eye-sockets.
Hasn’t worked so far but you don’t see the harm in trying.
-
You make it out.
There’s no war.
Pap gets his teeth fixed, a therapist for his anxiety issues, a job to be productive at, and he even starts taking classes. He wants to be a nurse and you can’t guess if dad would be more proud or horrified by that.
You…
You don’t really…do anything.
You never thought this far ahead. You don’t know what to do, now that you’re here.
You think you always just sort of expected…some kind of justice, after everything you’d done, but…
Undyne was the one in jail, not you. You’re free and you’re…
Floundering.
You still feel like justice is coming for you, it has to be, you were a Judge, you know, but the other shoe just isn’t dropping and it’s driving you crazy.
Well…crazier.
-
At least the sky is beautiful.
You probably don’t deserve to look at it, but you do anyway.
You never thought you’d see this, not in a million years.
-
Pap waits a lot longer than you thought he would before he starts pushing you to get out of the house.
You do, mostly to humor him, because it’s not like you’d be any good at a day-job. Your short-term memory is shit and you’re not reliable to show up every day because you never really know when you’re going to have an episode or miss an alarm or just be too exhausted and broken to drag your coccyx out of bed in the morning.
You do a lot of aimless wandering around the city.
Humans have been kind about monsters, for sure, but you know damn well how scary you look. You try not to let it hurt your feelings too much when you see people turning around when they see you coming, averting their eyes from you with fear on their faces.
(It does hurt your feelings. It hurts your feelings a lot. You never wanted to scare people and now it seems like it’s all you do.)
(The likely thought of never getting a laugh again sends a splinter through your soul, just one of the many ugly cracks littering it now.)
When you see the poster for the local animal shelter, asking for volunteers, you figure you don’t have much to lose there.
What are they gonna do, fire you? From working for free?
You meet with the lady who runs the place. You try to be upfront, let her know you’ve got some…issues, but you want to work; you want to help,anything to get out of the house and stay occupied because Pap is right, staying in all day and obsessing over your sins is killing you, you really dowant to be busy, maybe for the first time in your life.
You luck out: the manager’s in a tight spot, her best worker is on vacation and she really does need an extra pair of hands around to help pick up the slack.
You get the ‘job’ and it’s…good.
Really good.
There’s nothing too hard or complicated for you to learn and the humans are a little edgy around you like they always are, but the animals…
They’re soft and small and they’re here because they need help, and even a big scary skeleton is fine by them as long as you can pass them a bowl of kibble or clean out a litterbox from time to time.
They don’t know what you’ve done and if they did, they wouldn’t care.
You want to have that for a little while, at least until your karma comes back to bite you.
Here feels like as good a place as any to wait for whatever justice is coming for a sinner like you.
-
You don’t expect the human.
Manager-lady introduces you, this is that ‘best worker’ she brought you in to cover for.
They’re a lot nicer than most about looking a little spooked when they see you for the first time. They cover it pretty quick to keep from hurting your feelings and are perfectly polite afterwards.
The fact that they’re aware you have feelings to be hurt puts them a step above most of the other humans you’ve met up here.
Maybe that’s why you remember their face so quickly.
The name takes longer to stick, but you recognize them when you see them the next day and actually remember who they are, and that’s a pretty big deal for you.
They talk to you a lot and you don’t really get it, but it’s…nice.
You try to help them out with easy stuff, high shelves and heavy bags to let them know you appreciate the kindness.
Back in the glory days of your unbroken skull and your unbloodied hands, you’d tell them a joke and offer to take them to Grillby’s sometime for being a pal, but Grillby’s is gone and you have no business trying to make friends with a human after how many you’d killed.
You hope the little bit you can do is enough.
Like when a scruffy dog in bad shape comes in one day and slips his leash and you see them about to just go right up to it, like that was a totally safe thing for a squishy little human to do.
You do it for them.
You get bit, but the only real casualty is your hoodie pocket and you can sew that up later, no harm, no foul.
The little guy’s still on edge and you’ve seen the human in the dog room, chatting up the pups and handling them all with care and affection.
If anybody can help your new buddy here chill out, you think it’s probably them.
They do, and when the vet comes to take him away, the human does the weirdest thing.
They ask you if you’re okay. Like it matters, like it’s important, like they care…
And they’re not even afraid to touch you while they ask.
You don’t get it.
You really don’t get it.
……But it’s nice.
-
They actually name the dog Buddy.
It’s hilarious and so are they the next time you have a run-in with them. You shortcut into the laundry room trying to find the apatite that fell out of your pocket and end up spooking them a little, but it doesn’t last.
They scowl at you and tell you that you oughta wear a bell and before you even realize you’re doing it, you’re shooting back with a pun, faster than you have in years.
They laugh.
It takes a second but they laugh, at a joke you told, and it’s a sound you thought you’d never hear again.
It’s beautiful. You want to make them laugh even more.
You get them giggling about the absurdity of your ketchup collection and your pocket-rock, and when you offhandedly mention your background in geology to explain the latter, they look impressed but don’t push very hard for details.
You don’t know why they ask you to lunch with them, but they call you ‘funny’ and offer to pay and well…
You don’t really know how to say no to that.
They order for you and their guess is so spot-on it’s crazy. The food is great too, greasy and delicious like you haven’t had since the last time you went to Grillby’s before it shut down and you couldn’t bear to go anymore, the man himself looking smaller and thinner by the day like he could just disappear in a strong breeze.
They ask about you and you tell them, the good stuff at least, plus some of the not-so-horrible stuff—cards on the table, and all that.
They get you talking about Pap for awhile, too, and maybe you gush a little, but it’s been too long since you’ve had anybody to talk to about how cool your brother is.
“It seems like it runs in the family,” they say to you, and…
Oh, stars, your skull gets hot and you laugh a little, not knowing what else to do.
You try to turn the subject around to them, but they seem a little shy, too, like they feel their story isn’t important or exciting enough to share.
You kinda doubt that. You get the feeling there’s a pretty cool person sitting across from you and they just don’t believe it yet.
You break the tension with a pun and they pun right back and when they get the courage to ask for your number, hoping to have lunch together some other time, you give it to them.
It could be nice to have a friend again, even if just for a little while.
-
They start texting you in the middle of the night with some gold-tier jokes and memes.
At first, you’re a little concerned they might not sleep well or something—one of the upsides of your severe cranial damage is that you don’t dream anymore, no dreams, no nightmares—but apparently their sleep schedule is just a little wonky.
You’re fine with it, it gives you something else to focus on in those weird midnight hours when you’re usually just trapped alone with your thoughts and regrets.
You send them pictures of your rock collection and get to see their interest in your hobby start to flourish. They send you geology-specific memes now and pictures of cool rocks they think you’ll like, and it’s so cute and thoughtful that you almost can’t even handle it.
They’re a good friend and when you see the look on their face when they talk about Buddy, how they can’t adopt him, how he just has to go to somebody else’s home to be somebody else’s dog…
It doesn’t feel right.
You want to do something for them.
You drop a hint to Pap and even though you’re pretty sure he knows what you’re trying to get him to do, he does it anyway.
Buddy’s your dog now, yours and Pap’s and the human’s, and they can come over and see him whenever they want to, problem solved.
Papyrus tells you later that ‘Your Human’ was really nice and even wanted to be his friend, too.
It makes you happy that they were kind to your brother.
And your cheekbones feel a little warm again at the phrase, ‘Your Human.’
You try not to think about it too hard.
-
Pap invites them over for dinner one night and they bring gifts.
Your bro gets the cutest little plant you’ve ever seen and you…
You get the funniest rock you’ve ever seen, engraved with an ironic pun that probably wasn’t the manufacturer’s intention but is all the more hilarious for it.
It’s perfect, you love it, they’re the most thoughtful human you’ve ever met and when they start ignoring you in favor of the dog, you’re…
Maybe a little jealous.
When they offer to pet you, too, as a joke, you actually take them up on it.
Their fingers are warm where they touch the whole side of your skull, blunted nails scritching along the bone.
It’s…a lot nicer than you thought it’d be.
You make a dumb joke to change the subject and try to squeeze in another nap on the couch when they go off to help Pap with dinner. You’ve faceplanted into spaghetti before and it’s really not something you want to do tonight, with them here to see you do it.
You manage to avoid it and dinner is a perfectly pleasant affair, and when the topic somehow turns around to vacations, they get your bro to actually agree to a trip somewhere and that kind of craftiness is impressive.
They grab your hand after dinner, trying to convince you that the size difference between you is ridiculous and stars above, color you convinced.
They’re so small and their little hands are so soft and cute in yours that you don’t even think to be bashful about the scratched-up state of your metacarpals.
They get all flustered and annoyed with the way you’re laughing at them, so you offer an apology hug and they take the bait.
They get even more cute and flustered when you put your chin on their head because you can and even though they’re a little mad (heh), the night ends with laughter and smiles.
You can’t quite shake the way they’d felt in your arms, though, how nice it’d been to have their warm body tucked right up against your sternum and their arms trying in vain to wrap around your ribs.
Yet another thing to not think about.
-
You harass them a little bit trying to figure out where they want to take you and Pap on vacation.
You know you’re being annoying, but it’s playful and friendly and honestly, more fun than you’ve had in longer than you care to think about.
They’re a little exasperated with you, but you can tell by the way they smile and roll their eyes at your efforts that they’re not really mad at you.
You’re…glad.
Lately, you feel…so much more yourself, cracking jokes and playing pranks and just generally teasing the hell out of your human. You’re comfortable around them, in a way that you haven’t been comfortable with…
…
Jeez, have you ever been this comfortable with somebody?
You don’t really know. You don’t think so…but you like it.
Pap seems pretty convinced they want to take you to the beach and your bro is a whiz at pattern-recognition, so if that’s the thing he’s put together from whatever itinerary they gave him, that’s probably what it is.
He picks up some matching shirts for you to wear on the trip, but late one night you go online and do a little shopping of your own.
You’ve been eyeing that heart-shaped rose quartz for your collection for awhile now, and if you just so happen to tack on a punderful shirt in your human’s size and click the one-day shipping…
Well, that’s just coincidence, ain’t it?
-
You take awhile dragging yourself out of bed the morning of.
At first, it’s just because you’re feeling a little slow, but when Pap starts laying on the horn, impatiently yelling threats at you, you decide to take a quick break on purpose.
Even from inside, you can hear that he’s yelling at you in caps, and it’s been so long since you heard him talking in the right case that you…maybe milk it a little.
You just miss the much easier confidence Papyrus used to have before the whole Underground went to hell and before his closest friend tried to rearrange his face with her fists.
It’s nice to know that that part of him is still there, even if you have to get him pissed off beyond all reason to actually hear it.
By the time you know you’re really toeing the line of tardiness levels at which Pap will be ready and willing to try kicking your ass, you kinda have to rush to get ready and almost forget to snag the dog, but you make it and it’s fine, no big deal.
You end up at the beach, just as predicted, and your human is a little disappointed that they hadn’t kept it as good of a secret as they’d thought, but they cheer right up when Pap passes them the shirt you bought.
You’re a little embarrassed by how earnestly they thank you for it, but they don’t press it and when you all go change into swimwear…
Wow.
Wow, they look nice in a bathing suit, real cute, and when you say something about it and make them embarrassed for a change, they only look cuter.
You hang back with them while they put on their sun lotion, just…looking at them.
You never pictured yourself being friends with a human, not after…
Everything.
But this human…you really think you’d like them to be the exception. They’re curious and respectful and just so…genuine.
You’re happy around them, comfortable, even when they seem to take way too much pleasure in making your skull glow and you think this is a friendship you’d really like to keep.
-
You’re…maybe a little too comfortable with them, though.
You pick them up once in the water, for a piggyback ride, and you don’t think anything of it at the time, but after you realize maybe that was crossing the line a little. You shouldn’t be doing that kind of thing, touching people, especially not without asking, and you really…feel the need to at least apologize for it.
They wave you off and apparently…you’ve been touching them a lot, way more than you realized and that’s…
When they tell you it’s fine because you’re not scary, because they trust you, it’s the worst kind of reality check you can imagine.
You’re a murderer. You’ve killed seven humans, just like this one, and they have no idea. They think you’re safe because they don’t know you, not really.
And there’s you, lulling them into a false sense of security for what? Because you like them? Because you feel like less of a monster, in the most awful sense of the word, when they smile at you and laugh at your jokes?
You’re the worst sort of liar and you can’t believe you were selfish enough to do this to somebody as nice as them.
Your fingers slip into your pocket on instinct, reaching for something that you…don’t find.
There’s no sharp edges to meet your hand, only smooth and polished stone and when you pull it out, you find the paperweight they gave you with the inspirational message etched into it.
‘NOTHING IS WRITTEN IN STONE’
It wasn’t what you wanted but your—…the human doesn’t know why, and what they say has you laughing and forgetting about your darker thoughts for awhile.
You appreciate it. Really, you do, but…
You have to talk to them.
You have to be honest, they deserve that much.
And then maybe, once you’ve said your piece, they’ll just…stop talking to you.
They’re a good person, probably too nice for their own good, you don’t think they’ll spread your secrets and if they do, well…
You’ve been ducking justice long enough.
Might as well face the music now.
-
You tell them.
Everything.
Every awful, sickening detail you can think of, you spill it for them and when you’re done…
They hug you.
Of all the ridiculous things to do.
They make excuses for you, they tell you they think you did the right thing, and the more they talk, the more the things they’re saying almost sound…
Believable.
It’s the Kindness in them. It has to be. No other kind of soul could make it seem like the things you’d done could’ve ever been okay, acceptable, ‘what you had to do to survive.’
If only you were still a Judge, you could see it for yourself and know the platitudes for what they are.
You’re so desperate that you actually try, calling on that half-forgotten power to try and prove what you know—that their soft green soul is just taking pity on you, telling you the words you want to hear more than anything in the world.
It’s like wading through concrete, like straining against a giant rubber band and you can’t hold it, it’s not your gift to use anymore, but for just one second…
For one tiny little moment, you See.
And the glimpse of color you See isn’t green at all.
It’s yellow—blazing bright and strong with Justice.
Stars, you’d known…you’d known for so long that this was coming, no one escaped their justice, not forever, not even a fallen Judge…
But you never thought for a single second that when it finally came, it would forgive you.
You cry.
You can’t help it, and when your human holds you, you hold them back.
They tell you they know you and everything they say…it sounds like you, the you that you were before everything went wrong. They kiss you on the cheek and make a goofy joke and you…
Stars, this human is important to you.
You can’t believe you’re lucky enough to get to keep them.
-
You can’t believe you fell asleep on top of them, also. That’s another thing.
You tuck them in a little before you leave and then just sort of…sit around the house all day, processing.
They text to check on you and you really don’t know how you missed your guess on their soul trait.
They’re so…kind…
But maybe they’re kind because they feel that’s the right thing to do. It’s fair to treat people nicely, to do whatever they can for whoever needs it.
You remember, eventually, what they said about Buddy and why they couldn’t adopt him themselves: it wouldn’t be fair to him.
They’ve said and done a lot of things like that, you guess, now that you’re thinking about it, and…
Maybe they’re not…entirely wrong. About you.
You end up thinking about that for a long time.
Whatever they see when they look at you…it’s not unforgivable. They think you can do better.
And when you’re with them…you feel like it could even be true.
Eventually, you settle on a promise, one you make to yourself.
You want to try.
The way they so gently said, “I really care about you,” before kissing you on the cheek is the most motivating thing you’ve felt in a long time.
And if you think about the kiss itself a little longer than is strictly ‘friendly,’ well, that’s something you’re perfectly happy to keep to yourself.
You don’t want to let yourself get too greedy.
-
You start a journal. You clean your room. You try meditating.
That last one makes just makes you fall asleep but the other two things are good.
You need to figure out a new shorthand, and you have to watch yourself so you don’t slip back into Wingdings that you can’t decipher later, but writing stuff down is…a lot more therapeutic than you thought it would be.
It’s like…a way to organize your jumbled thoughts, get things out and put them together in a way that makes sense.
It’s probably nothing at all like talking it out with some trained professional, but since that’s not an option, you think this way is working out pretty well. It’s not all just…festering in your soul like some acidic secret, you’re dealing with it and it feels good.
So does a mattress with clean sheets on it, and a lamp that actually works, and a room that smells like air freshener instead of dirty laundry.
You consider apologizing to Pap for all the times you made fun of him for being a neat-freak but…
Nah.
The hardest thing to do is your rock collection.
You still have some…bad days…and when those happen…
………
You’re lazy, though, and you know it.
You probably won’t…hurt yourself as much if it’s not so easy.
You pack up about half of your collection, anything rough or jagged or sharp dumped into a shoebox and replaced with tumbled, polished counterparts that couldn’t make a dent in bone, no matter how tightly you squeezed them.
You leave your human’s rock in your pocket. It’s already stopped you from punishing yourself once, so maybe…
It can be your good luck charm.
You try to keep it with you all the time, careful not to lose it through your weakened pocket.
It helps you. A lot.
-
You’re floored when they start confessing to you, saying things you’d been thinking, but hadn’t dared to give a voice to.
“I like you.”
“You make me laugh.”
“I feel comfortable with you.”
And when they say they don’t know what you might see in them, you’re indignant.
You tell them what you see, what you like about them the most, and it’s only…slightly awkward trying to figure out how kissing works without lips.
You don’t think there’s an actual skeleton equivalent of the gesture. You haven’t known very many skeletons, you imagine there’s probably a whole rich tapestry of cultural context you’d grown up missing, but really…
You couldn’t care less.
Your human is in your lap and you’re laughing and nuzzling each other and it’s…
Stars, it’s the happiest you’ve been in a long time.
Of course you’re going to date them.
-
It takes you a little bit to get into the right sort of groove for dating.
You let Pap and his dating manual psych you out a little too much at first, but your human winds you back down and you knew they were the right person to do this with: after that first, mostly successful attempt, your dates just go better and better.
You’re spending time with them, not trying too hard, but that’s exactly what they seem to want from you and it’s perfect.
Even when an unexpected run-in with Burr crashes the tail-end of a date, hitting you with two bombshells at once—Grillby’s alive and you’re actually missed—they stand by you and support you and offer to be there with you to go and see everybody again.
They really do care about you, and you…
You care about them, too.
A whole hell of a lot.
You hope they know that.
-
They take care of you through an episode.
They talk to you and bring you food and don’t seem to mind when you can’t really respond to them the way you want to and you can’t for the life of you figure out how they don’t see how special they are, how wonderful and amazing and so far from ‘just anybody.’
Your soul throbs when you look at them and you have no idea how you got lucky enough for them to like you the same way.
When you find out Napstablook is gonna be on TV and you had no idea, you, the former Mister Phalange On The Pulse, knowing everything about everybody, that’s what seals the deal.
You have to get back out there.
It’s time.
And you’ve got an incredible little human you’ve been dying to show off.
-
Going back to Grillby’s is like going back in time.
There’s some old faces, some new ones, and even if you get a dressing down and your tab is revoked (that one hurt), it’s still one of the best nights you’ve had since the old days, but even better.
You’ve got your human with you and everybody loves them, just like everybody loves your brother; a little overdue, but the sparkle in Pap’s eye-sockets when Dino asks him for an autograph is incredible.
That night is everything you could’ve asked for and you want to have a lot more like it.
-
You only hit one real hurdle.
On your six-monthiversary, which Pap assures you is a very real and very serious thing, your human finds a little something you’d missed.
Its sharp, curved edges are…even now, when things are so good, they’re a lot more tempting than you want to admit.
There your human is, offering it up to you, easy as can be. You know you could take it, squirrel it away somewhere, just to have it and maybe…the next time you have a bad day, or feel like you need it…
They would never know.
Your hands are already covered in scrapes and scratches, far too many for them to keep track of. One more would just be…
A huge step backward.
You reach out, closing their hand around the obsidian. You can tell that they like it, that they think it looks cool, and that kind of simple, uncomplicated passion for a neat-looking rock is beautiful.
It’s too beautiful to ruin by falling back into old, shitty habits that never really helped you anyway.
You give it to them for safekeeping. You know you’re making the right choice.
You go outside and look at the stars with your human, holding them close and telling them how happy you are, finally, after working so stupidly hard to get here.
They say they want to learn constellations with you, they want to do it as a couple, and they’re gonna make flashcards and in that moment, you can’t deny the thought even one second longer.
This is your human. They’ve helped you be so much better and you want to keep being better, by their side for as long as they’ll have you.
You’re in love.
-
Your vision fades back in and you’re you again, Sans kneeling in front of you on the bed. Your souls fade out, too, going back where they belong but there’s still at least one heart-shape you can see, red and beautiful in the middle of Sans’ eye-socket.
When you speak, it feels like you haven’t done it in a long time. “What…what did you see?”
Sans smiles at you, soft and affectionate. “everything,” he says. “i love you.”
You think you know why he can say that to you so boldly, so easily, without fear of rejection.
If he’s seen as much of you as you’ve seen of him…if he’s seen himself through your eyes, then he already knows you feel the same.
You say it, anyway. “I love you, too.”
He reaches out to you, cupping your cheek in one hand. You nuzzle tenderly against his scars—scars you hadn’t recognized as scars before—and you look up at him with a cheeky little grin.
“You saw all my super-embarrassing stuff, I guess? And you love me anyway?”
“heheheh…you kiddin’? makes me love ya’ more.”
“Ditto.” You snicker as one of his memories floats back to you. “Please tell me you have pictures somewhere of Papyrus’ goth thing.”
Sans laughs out loud. “oh man, so many. a whole album, i’ll show ya’ sometime.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that!”
He leans in for a quick little nuzzle, something you’d call a peck if lips were involved.
“ya’ got any questions for me?” he wonders quietly. “anything ya’ want me to…?”
You think about it, but… “No. I’m good.” You think you’ve seen everything, everything important about your skeleton that you could ever really need to know. “How about you? Any questions? Concerns? Criticisms?”
Sans chuckles. “just one. why…why’d you want to get to know me so bad in the first place?”
Of all the questions for him to ask, that’s probably the one that makes the most sense.
Why had you wanted to know him so much, way back when you’d first met? When he was just a vaguely scary-looking stranger you saw at work sometimes and nothing else? Before you’d had even the slightest idea that there was a sweet, funny, wonderful man lurking just beneath the surface?
“Honestly,” you say slowly, really thinking about it, “I was just…curious about you.”
Sans’ grin broadens, a teasing note entering his voice. “curiosity killed the cat, y’know.”
“Hmm. Really?” You give him a smirk. “Guess it’s a good thing I’m a dog-person, then.”
“heheheheheheheh…”
His eye-sockets are doing that feline, crinkly thing again that you love so much.
“But…” you add after a second, “I guess cats are pretty cute, too.”
You stretch a little, reaching up for a kiss.
Sans holds you close and in that moment, you know you were right.
Life is good.
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