Archive of Our Own ^beta

The hall was streaked with drying blood and glass. Shattered windows left odd patterns of light on the once polished floor, now scuffed and cracked. Bones jutted out from all directions, and blasters circled the air.

Sans let out a puff of breath. Yes, he was tired. And sweaty. And a creaking in his bones reminded him of how little he exercised, but that’s not where his mind was. In truth, he was mentally elsewhere. Anywhere but here. Maybe in a world where they weren’t in the underground. Where his brother was still alive. Where he didn’t have to…

Empty sockets stared blankly at the body in front of him. Large spikes jutting out of their chest, pinning them to the floor. And so much blood. So much blood. Blood that pooled onto the floor around them the longer they took to ‘Continue’. Yeah, the person down there was a monster. And not in the classic sense. Dust drifted out of their sweater with each step they took and the cold dead look in their eyes was enough to prove that of itself. But between the strange burning rattling around in his skull, and the dull but roaring ache inside his ribcage, sans felt…

Empty.

A child. He was killing a child. Over and over and over again. Just a kid. A kid with some serious issues, but still a kid. Every time he felt a drop of pity, remorse, or regret, a sharp image of a beloved red scarf sitting abandoned in the snow flashed in his mind. And every time, right before they died, he saw the kid he was once so close with. A kid he had learned to know. To trust. To love as his own family. God-

He had tried to reach out. Do things like the old days. Fix this with mercy. With a ‘Spare’. His jacket felt hot where tiny hands had gripped at him. The distant echoes of a knife hitting the floor still seemed to be tingling in the hall. The small voice that had begged for forgiveness, for help, for anything, clawed at the very depths of his soul. And what had he done? God, what had he done?

The droplets of blood on his shirt were still warm from the splatter.

The light at the entrance flickered. And there they stood again. Not a scratch in sight. Sans barely had the time to relight his eyes before they were running forward, going for the attack-

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sans inhaled as strongly as possible. His ribcage rose and fell in quick succession, and if he had had the room to think straight, he would have realized that he was hyperventilating. Instead, he was blindly looking around. It was dark in the living room of Toriel’s house, and though the pullout couch was typically so comfortable, sans needed to get out of it. Now. The borrowed blankets and pillows were already kicked to the side, and a vague voice in the back of Sans head noted that his shirt was sticking to him with sweat.

Scrambling out of bed and barely remembering that others were sleeping, sans raced out of the room and up the stairs. Despite his shorter legs, he took two steps at a time, reaching the top in seconds. His bony feet dragged uncomfortably on the carpet as he skidded to a stop outside Frisk's room. The air was so thin up here that Sans couldn’t seem to get a full breath. Forcing himself to be quiet, he leaned in close and peeked through the gap of the open door into Frisk's room.

Their little yellow nightlight illuminated their bed, and the perfect image of a sleeping Frisk lay at the center of it all. Sound asleep and not a care in the world. Not a scratch in sight. No pain and no dust. Just the kid.

Sans took a shaky breath and sighed it out as he leaned back away from the door. In and out. In and out, just like how he had been teaching the kid. His legs and arms were shaking with leftover adrenaline. And it finally registered in his brain that not only was he covered in a fine layer of sweat, but tears seemed to be not so subtly leaking from his sockets. He leaned his back against the wall and focused in on the feeling of his vertebrae sliding against the foreign texture as he slid against it. He let out a puff as his butt hit the ground. Taking deeper breaths more naturally now, he once more tried to quiet his breathing. Sans leaned his head towards the door right next to him and listened to the small breaths he could hear from inside.

The kid was safe and sound, and in this moment, to Sans, that’s all that mattered. Kicking his legs out flat and feeling rather like a child himself, sans realized just how tired he felt. At the sudden realization, his eyes began to droop on command.

“Jesus kid. What am I gonna do with us?” he whispered to himself. He knew, logically, that he should pick his lazy bones up and move back downstairs, as this was bound to look weird and give him a sore tailbone in the morning. But the carpeted floor was surprisingly soft when not giving a guy rug burn. And from this position, he could perfectly keep an ear on Frisk. His eyes drooped more. He had fallen asleep in much weirder places.

The last thought running through his mind was how he would explain this to Toriel. His eyes closed fully, and Sans fell asleep.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sans woke up back in bed. Well, it was the pullout couch, but it was a bed nonetheless. He had blankets thrown over him and a pillow under his head. Frisk was shaking him, or attempting to shake him. They were still in their MTT-themed PJs, and their hair was an uncombed mess. Cool, Sans hadn’t missed breakfast yet.

“Saaaaaaaansssssss. Mom says it’s breakfast time, and you gotta get up if you wanna eat anything.” Sans had one eye directly open and making direct eye contact with them, but he proceeded to close it, and then fake snore, extra loudly. They puffed their cheeks out in exasperation. “SAAAANSSSS.” They shouted putting more force into rocking the immovable skeleton awake.

“No yelling in the mornings!” A sweet voice laughed out from the kitchen. Upon closer inspection, the air smelled like bacon. It was a Monday, so Toriel would be making pancakes. Frisk, when they turned their head to retort back, probably yelling again, just for fun, foolishly left themselves wide open. At the speed of light, sans reached a bony hand out to poke and prod at their stomach. This led to a surprised yelp, followed by an army of giggles, and a distracted hand that gently swatted him away—the perfect way to start the morning.

“I’m alive, I’m alive.” Sans declared sleepily, rising from the couch and standing next to the kid. Their head was practically at his shoulders but he still raised a hand to ruffle their mop of hair anyways. Meandering with them to the kitchen, Frisk play-bumped into him the whole way there. “Aye, dead man walking here kid. Have a little mercy.” He winked at them as they giggled once more.

“Good morning sleepy bones.” Toriel was standing in front of the oven, magical fire lighting the burners under the perfect pancakes she was cooking up. She was in her bathrobe, wrapped around her nightgown, and still in her slippers. Sans had neglected to put his own slippers on yet, but that could waite. Hot bacon was already sitting on the table. Monday mornings always went like this: Tori would make the breakfast. Frisk would wake up Sans. And San’s job? With one hand rubbing at his socket, sans plodded around, picking up three plates, three forks, and one plastic cup. He set the table and, already knowing what they would want to drink, immediately headed for the fridge to grab the milk for Frisk. Then he refilled Toriel’s mug, with what he could already tell would be her second cup of coffee and finally poured a cup of coffee for himself. After all, it was routine.

It was a miracle the kid hadn’t gotten bored yet.

Pushing that happy little thought aside, everything continued like usual. Frisk talked with their mouth full about the things that they would do in class today. What they were excited about. What they learned yesterday. This new person they had met. Anything, really. Toriel gave a short update on how all the monster and human relations laws were going, or about a certain kid in her class. Then she’d start reading the morning paper, while Sans and Frisk would make silly faces at each other while she wasn’t looking. It was a bit of an ongoing competition, to see who would break and be the first to laugh and disrupt the peace. Sans would lovingly sprinkle puns throughout all of it. At the end, Frisk popped out of their chair and raced back upstairs to get dressed.

Sans took another sip of the old bean juice and prodded his last couple bites of pancake, “So Tori, what’s on the schedule today?” She sighed and let the paper fold in on itself.

“Well, I’ve got some meetings scheduled to attend, but well… I was wondering if you’d be willing to help with them?” Sans raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s all online you see, and that’s not my area of expertise and…” Okay, now he understood.

“Ah, I getcha. No prob Tori, rest of my day’s free anyways.” Sans stood, picking up his and Frisks plate and walking over to the sink. He set them down on the side before wandering back over to pick up cups and Toriel’s plate as well, “Anything else you planned? Have a sub in place for school yet?” As she always did, Toriel did a small jump as Sans slid her plate out from under her nose, and made a move to protest, before relaxing and letting Sans take it away. After all, they had already had this discussion quite a few times, and as lazy as Sans was, and always would be, he wouldn’t move an inch on this. She piped back up,

“Yes, the school was notified quite a while ago that I would be gone today so a substitute and today’s lesson plan are already all lined up… I was also wondering if you’d be willing to talk about-” Frisk came tumbling down the stairs. Sans was beginning to wonder if he had accidentally given them coffee.

“Mom, I’m ready to go!” They stood all too proudly. They still had a couple of hair lumps on the back of their head, and their shoes were put on opposite feet, but aside from that, it looked like they did a pretty good job. They held their backpack tightly with both hands and flashed a bright smile, showing off the small gap in their teeth. Sans remembered the day it had fallen out. How Frisk and Toriel had seemed so excited, while Sans and Papyrus had stood in the corner, horrified. God, Pap must have had nightmares for at least a week afterward about everyone losing all of their teeth. And Sans would be lying if he didn’t admit to how freaked out he was too. Speaking of nightmares-

The previous night flashed bright and vividly through his head. It had been in the background of his mind all morning, but he had been successfully ignoring it so far. He watched from behind the kitchen island, as Toriel shooed Frisk out of the kitchen to sit on the couch, so she could help them fix their shoes and hair. Mindlessly, Sans went about doing the dishes. Funny how five years ago he wouldn’t have been caught dead doing any sort of chore, but here, at Tori’s place, it came so much more easily. He went about his steps, scraping any large bits into the trashcan, unclogging the drain of white fur, rinsing, soap, scrubbing, rinsing, and setting on the drying rack.

He was forced to pause when the kid was heading out, as they barreled into the kitchen to give him a quick hug goodbye. Despite the farawayness of his mind, he wiped his bony hands dry and did his best to give them a hard hug back. He waved to Toriel standing in the doorway, waiting so she could give Frisk a ride to school. When the door shut, Sans's mind seemed to shut as well. In what felt like the blink of a socket, the dishes were all set on the drying rack, clean and sparkling. Sans took a deep breath. He turned the hot water to cold and kept his hands under there until his mind cleared.

The fog, ever so slowly drifting away. He swallowed, hard.

As nice as it had felt to drift for a while, he had things to do today, and he knew that if he let himself stay like that, he would feel all weird by the end of the day. It was safe, but it wasn’t good, he reminded himself as the water made his hands colder and colder. He thought about maybe going home after helping Tori out with all of her things. God, when was the last time he had been home? When was the last time he had seen Papyrus? They texted and called quite often, especially if Pap had some sort of question or special story of sorts, but Sans hadn’t seen his brother in person, for at least a couple weeks. It occurred to Sans that this might have been the longest they had ever been apart. In truth, Sans had been meaning leave for awhile now, but there always seemed to be a reason to stay. Tori needed someone to watch Frisk. Frisk needed help getting to sleep. Chores would pile up with Toriel so being so busy, and someone needed to do them. And every time, he said he should probably head out, one of the two found an excuse for him to stay. ‘It’s a bit late to be travelling, don’t you think?’ ‘You can go back tomorrow. Please, just one more night?’ And Sans let himself fall for it every time. Suddenly, the door opened back up.

“Heya,” Sans said from the kitchen. Instead of the typical greeting back, all he heard was a stifled giggle, followed by two knocks on the solid wood door. Oh hell yeah.

“Who’s there?” Sans called out.

“Juno!” He could already hear her snickering.

“Juno who?”

“Juno the capital of Alaska?” And then she laughed like it was the funniest thing she had said in years. And it was such a bad joke. And Sans had no control over the laughter that bubbled up out of his chest. It was in such stark contrast to what he had just been doing, that he found himself doubling over, but he pulled himself together and stifled his giggles as his knuckles rapped twice against a wooden cupboard. He heard a soft ‘oh!’ amongst the giggles, jingling keys, and slippers being taken off in the room next door.

“Who’s there?” The familiarity behind it made something in San’s chest feel fluttery.

“Hatch.” Her footsteps grew louder as she neared the kitchen.

“Hatch who?” She peered her head around the corner.

“Bless you! And next time, over your mouth.” Tori fell into an absolute fit of howling, and Sans laughed with her, decidedly ignoring the weird wiggling happening inside his ribs. Shortly afterward, they fell into a comfortable silence. Toriel wiped the table down, and sat with her laptop, clicking away at the keys. Sans could hear her frustratingly tap on the backspace bar several times, as the keys were a bit too small for her paws. Sans grabbed a rag and began wiping dry the dishes on the rack.

Sans forced himself to keep quiet. As fun as it would be to distract Tori and crack jokes for the rest of the morning, it was clear she was doing work. And besides, Sans was trying to become more comfortable in quietness. He could be quiet all on his own, sure, but the second he was with someone, words, or more often, terrible puns as his brother would put it, began to sprout out of his mouth. When Sans had finished drying and putting away the dishes, and had just begun to make headway out of the kitchen, Toriel said,

“Sans, would you wait for a moment?” Assuming she needed that tech help, Sans turned around innocently,

“Sure, what’s up?” He was not prepared for the strong motherly look staring back at him. Not that Toriel seemed to realize it, but more often than sometimes, when she needed to be serious about something, Tori adopted this strict mother-like tone. The kind that seemed to trap you where you stood until you were free to go. This is exactly how Sans immediately felt, standing there under her all too watchful gaze.

“Um, well, I-I wanted to talk to you about something.” Oh. Oh geez. Okay. So. That’s what she was planning. Knowing Sans to be ever the escape artist when it came to anything serious, she had trapped him in the kitchen with nowhere to run, especially considering she knew he had nothing else to do today. “You might want to take a seat.” Well, that’s an even bigger trap. If Sans sat down there would be no getting up until this was over. Suddenly hating every bone in his body, Sans plopped himself down in a chair, as if on her command. He did his best to act casual; setting an arm up on the table, and relaxing his posture.

“Well,” She took a small but deep breath, “I found you this morning in a rather precarious place.” Ah, shit. “And I know that it’s not truly my business, but I know that you had said your dreams were getting better recently. Was last night… bad?” Well, that’s a couple of loaded statements and questions.

See, Tori and Sans both struggled with nightmares; she would have dreams of children past, and Sans had dreams about death. Needless to say, Sans had never liked to go into detail, but Toriel had easily pierced together over time that they often involved Frisk. This was not the first time Sans had passed out outside of their room. But, to be fair, he had found her sitting there a large amount of times as well. Unfortunately, this woman had roped him into making another promise. If either of them has a night that’s ‘bad’, they need to talk to each other about it. And while Sans was all the happier to listen to her and try to help, it was doing it back that he didn’t like. He had gotten so good at hiding these kinds of things, he had forgotten the promise was a two way street. So here they sat. Sans was all too happy to ignore what happened, and Toriel wanted to get to the bottom of things- to help, and be amazing like she always was.

He only had so many options here. If he told the truth, then she’d want to know what it was about, and Sans would have to lie, and then he’d feel like a piece of shit. Or he’d deny it, which would be not the truth and would make Toriel sad. His leg began to bounce. He could be truthful about all of it and then she’d think he was insane. But no, that’d be stupid. And Sans knew that if he messed this up, he wouldn’t get to try again. Not anymore. Not after Frisk had promised, in the middle of the night, covered in tears and snot, that they would never do it ever again.

Fuck. Okay. What does he say? And why does she have to be making so much eye contact at the moment? It was as if she was looking into his very soul, which he did not need right now. Sans swallowed.
“Uh, okay, well, so funny story-”

“Sans.” She cut him off, her brows furrowed, not even letting him attempt to bs his way through this, “What happened last night?” He sighed.

“...Yeah, some things happened.” That was the best she was getting, and they both knew it. Toriel leaned closer, her features softening.

“How are you feeling.” ‘Kinda like I’m suffocating and I want to run, but also kinda like I need you to hug me and never let go.’ Sans settled for,

“I’ve been better.” How eloquent.

“Do you want to talk about it?” That was code for ‘talk about it’. He didn’t want to talk about it, but they both knew, no matter how much one of them didn’t want to admit it, it would help him feel better.
Sans swallowed again and pulled his eyes away from hers. She was far too distracting, and with too much of that kind of eye contact, Sans was going to start crying. His leg wouldn’t stop bouncing.

“I was back in the underground. I couldn’t get out.”

“Nope, try again.” Fuck okay, she wasn’t gonna buy that. Sans toes were so cold they had gone numb.

“Kay fine.” He relented. “I thought I saw Pap die, right outside of Snowdin, and all that was left of him was his red scarf.” Okay technically that had been part of it so that had to count, right? This time she took a moment, but she still said,

“That’s not it either.” Sans felt something knawing in his stomach.

“I dreamt about falling into the core in HotLand.” Fuck that one was bad.

He just can’t lie to her.

His shoulders drooped, and for the first time in a long time, he let his smile drop. Not to a frown but just its natural state. Without the magical bone pulling his face the certain way it always did, Sans knew how it made him look tired. How it pulled so much attention to the dark rings around his sockets. How tired he would look. It was one thing to feel it on the inside. It was another thing to let it show. Sans sighed. Okay. Lying that much was hopeless.

“Sans.”

That broke the waterworks. He opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out. Nothing but the horrifying realization that his cheeks were wet, and sliding tears had begun to splatter onto his plain white shirt. Sans let out a miniscule yelp and quickly began to wipe them away. Fucking knock it off already. He heard Toriel move. He saw her kneeling on the ground in front of him, and his guilt increased tenfold.

“Sans please.” She had tears brimming in her eyes. “You can talk to me.” Sans let out a small, wet, humorless laugh. Tori had always had a problem with crying when she saw others cry. Sans was sure that helooked rather stupid right now. Here he was, acting like a blubbering small child, needing to be mothered over by an amazing woman he found very pretty. Yeah, real smooth buddy.

Almost all of him was shaking at this point. For fucks sake just tell her already. Sans opened his mouth and let the dams break.

“Fine, it was the kid. It was the kid, alright? They were dying. They were dying, a-and then they died. And I couldn’t do anything to save them. I-I just stood there. I just stood there and I watched like some kind of sick fuck. I was so scared. I was so scared cause I knew I couldn’t save them. That they would be all alone. That they’d be gone forever. And then I woke up and I panicked and I went to check on them and then-”

The world was suddenly a big blanket of softness. Warm, white fur covered his eyes as loving paws cradled his back and his head. He could feel large wet droplets fall onto the back of his tee. And for this first time in a very, very long while, Sans let himself be held. His arms relaxed against her back. And they both just sat there, letting it out, as embarrassing as it was. Sans attempted a deep breath.

“...I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry.” She sniffled loudly. “I shouldn’t have forced this on you, you should have talked when you were ready-”

“If we waited till I was ready, we never would have talked-”

“I just get so nervous over you because you seem so sad when you think no one looking and-”

“It’s not your job to watch over me, Tori. You only have one kid, not two-”

“But you’re important to me Sans.” They both paused. “You are so, so important to me. And I wanna make sure you're okay.”

“I am okay Tori.” She gave a small chuckle.

“...Liar.” Sans found himself giggling back.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.” Another pause. More breathing. “How bout this: I’ll be okay, eventually.”

“...I think we both can work with that.” Sans let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Signally that it was okay for her to let go, Sans gave Toriel one last good squeeze. She squeezed back, much harder, and then leaned back. Released from the hug, they stared at each other for a second. Then another. And another. It was Sans who broke it with a bark of laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Toriel said.

“We both look like shit.” Sans laughed. A laugh of shock popped from Toriel’s mouth, and she scolded him as he helped them both fully stand up.

“You watch your language, young man.”

“Okay, mom.”

“Why you little-” After all the angst and drama and crying, the giggles between them felt so good. Like a sudden and cool breeze when you’ve been in the sweltering sun. After a moment of that, Toriel leaned down and hugged him once more. It was softer than before but still sweet.

She smelled like cinnamon.

They both let out another sigh. This was not how this morning was supposed to go. It was Sans who pipped up,

“Hey. I know I suck at these, but I do promise to come to you next time I have one of those, aight? Maybe we can skip all the dramatics.”

“Please, I think we’ve both learned that promising on these kinds of things might not be the best idea-”

“No really.” He cut her off. “I mean it.” Things might be a little weird for a while. How do they move past this? Do they let the kid know? Is it for the best that they're kept in the dark on this one?

“Y’know what” Fully releasing Sans, Toriel turned to her open laptop. The screen had long since fallen asleep. “I think work can wait for a while.” Sans gasped audibly, putting his hand against his chest in overacted surprise.

“Never thought I’d see the day where the queen of all monsters slack off on her duty.” Tori let out a short sharp laugh, then puffed her chest in false bravado.

“Well, my duty is to the people, and right now, my people need me.” She closed the laptop with a flourish and began to walk away formally, even though she was still in her pajamas. She was about to turn the corner into the living room when she stopped and turned her head back towards Sans curiously. “Want to get caught up on what Metatton is up to these days?” her hand gestured towards the TV. Sans felt his smile reach his eyes again and he began to catch up with her.

“Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”