Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sans had walked into a maze of knowledge and purposefully gotten lost, and the goal of getting out was the essence of his dissertation. He couldn’t claim to be very knowledgeable about important cultural things or how to maneuver in social situations, but quantum mechanics?

His master thesis had been on experiments that tested whether magic was a contributing factor to that invisible bubble of space around every particle, like a deranged quantum field theory. The professors on his panel had done nothing but stare at him as he proposed the idea, as half of them were taught by humans and humans believed that magic had very little influence on the natural world. As if they didn’t have evidence of the opposition at every turn.

Sans was leaning into something related for his doctoral dissertation. That magic – because they’ve seen evidence that it doesn’t affect the particles themselves – actually manipulates this space around particles. These tiny little fields between quarks and gluon particles or even smaller.

It was leaning heavily into particle and theoretical physics, but at its root it was quantum mechanics and magical application – the core of his current degrees in higher education.

Sans was puzzling out the wording of a particular sentence – he was definitely a scientist, not a writer – when the door unlatched, causing him to startle. He whipped around to find a friendly face full of sharp teeth. “Stars, you scared me.”

“Sorry,” Red said.

“It’s okay, you can come in.” Sans waved him into his office. “The books won’t bite, I swear.”

Red laughed, entering fully and closing the door behind him. He paused for a moment, giving Sans a once-over. “You look stressed.”

Sans smirked. “I’m okay, just trying to finish this piece of my proposal.” Then he frowned. “I thought you had training until four.”

“It’s four-thirty.”

Sans stared at him. “Shit.” He stood quickly even as he tapped the screen to save his progress.

“Woah, what’s wrong?” Red asked, stepping closer.

“I was supposed to be at the Registrar’s office by now,” Sans admitted, grabbing his bag. “They close at six, but you have to wait like an hour to see someone—”

“Sans, you’ve been working all day.” Red cut him off, voice soothing. “Pap said you left around seven this morning.”

“Yeah, I had an idea,” Sans said. “But that doesn’t matter right now.”

“Can’t you just go to the Registrar’s tomorrow?” Red asked.

“No, the deadline is tomorrow, and they’re closed tomorrow, and I need to file for my defense and—”

“Sans, sweetheart, stop for a sec.” Red requested, setting his hands on Sans’s shoulders. “Just take a breath, all right?”

Reluctantly, Sans did. It all felt too slow, but he was made very aware of how his soul was racing and his magic was charging the air around him.

“You’ve been working nonstop all week,” Red said, concern in his voice. “What you should really be doing right now is taking a break.”

Sans shook his head. “I’m supposed to have this done early so Dr. Newman can look over it with enough time to make corrections.”

“Yeah, and he’s not expecting it until when?” Red asked.

“Next week, but—”

“That’s a whole week away.”

“—but I still have to piece it all together because the research I’ve done is mostly theoretical, and I can’t just present my thoughts; this isn’t the nineteenth century.” Sans insisted.

Red looked amused. “You’ve got time. Okay? At least enough time to get some water and a bite of food.”

“I have to go to the Registrar’s.” Sans reminded him.

Red thought about it. “I could go.”

Sans blinked. “What?”

“You said most of it’s just waiting, right? That’s gonna stress you out more. I’ll just go and wait for you. Give you a call when it’s your turn – or better yet, if I can set it up for you…”

Sans heard the unasked question in Red’s words. He sighed. “I don’t wanna make you do it, it’s boring.”

“I don’t mind,” Red assured him. “Especially if it’ll make you feel better.”

Sans felt fondness wash over him. “You’re the best.”

Red dropped a sweet kiss on the tip of his nasal bone. “I know. Now give me the paperwork I’ve gotta drop off.”

Sans dug out one of the many folders on his desk, just passing the whole of it to Red. “This has all the documentation they should need.”

“What if they ask me to sign something?” Red asked.

Sans hadn’t thought about that. “You know what my signature looks like, and you’re left-handed too – just pretend you’re me or something.”

Red snorted. “I look nothing like you.”

“Right, but they’ve never seen me before.” Sans joked.

Red tucked the folder into his inventory with a gentle look. “You still look stressed.”

Sans shrugged, dropping back into his chair. “Comes with the trade, I think. Never met a doctoral candidate that didn’t look like they hadn’t slept in a week.”

Red stepped closer, shrugging off his dark-colored hoodie to drape over Sans’s shoulders.

It smelled like leather and a floral soap and Sans’s whole spine melted. It was Red. Something about healing meant feeling, and feeling meant experiencing sensitivity to intent like he never had before; Sans could feel a gentle love from the fabric as it settled onto him.

Then he realized exactly what was happening. “You need your jacket, it’s supposed to snow.”

“Looks more like it’ll be rain.” Red corrected, straightening his t-shirt. “Don’t know if you noticed but it’s warmed up today.”

“Weird time for it,” Sans muttered. It was the beginning of February. “But still too cold to go out without—”

“I’ll just steal yours.” Red countered, snagging the fur-lined blue hoodie from the other chair.

Sans gave him a tired look. “Yours.” He corrected. “They’re both yours.”

Even if Sans had been wearing it nearly every day for the last few weeks.

Red grinned. “Then this is fine, right?”

Sans conceded, tucking his arms into the long sleeves of his newly acquired sweater, pressing the cuff of the sleeve to his face as his brain ran through equation and theory alike.

“Anything else before I head out?”

Sans turned his head to face Red, seeing his datemate standing in the now-open door. He looked so confident in his torn jeans and blue hoodie. Sans marveled at him, sometimes. That he could be so warm, showing up like a beacon of hope whenever Sans was going to drown in his work. Or anything else.

Stars, Sans loved him.

The words flickered behind his teeth just waiting to come out, but Sans swallowed them back. It wasn’t time yet. He was stressed, Red was doing him a favor, this wasn’t the time for declarations.

“Nope,” Sans said, resting his chin on his hand. “Careful on the landing, though – there might be ice.”

“I told you, it warmed up,” Red assured him. “Drink some water.”

Sans rolled his eyelights. “I’ll grab something from the vending machine.”

“Water.” Red insisted as he stepped out into the hall.

Sans fought down a laugh. “Okay, water.”

Red winked at him before closing the door.

Sans allowed himself a couple of seconds to stare dreamily after his boyfriend before returning to work. He was planning to only organize some of his scattered mess of thoughts before taking the break he promised he would take, but that task lasted well over an hour before he realized he’d been distracted again.

He stood with a soft groan, annoyed at the stiffness of his joints, and made his way toward the door.

The hallway was almost deserted, but Sans made sure to lock his door anyway. It was always unlocked if he were there – he wanted any of his colleagues or students to feel like they could stop in to say hello – but when he wasn’t he tried to keep it secure. Reduce liability.

The vending machine with snacks was broken.

Sans sighed, putting change in the adjacent one for a drink. He selected the water and it dropped to the bottom with a thud that felt loud in the silence.

He fished out the drink and thought about his options. Go back to work or go to the next floor down and get a snack.

Red had requested he get a bite to eat, and Papyrus had texted him three times that day to make sure he was eating something.

Snack it was.

Sans opened the beverage to sip at it as he descended the steps, opting to walk to the ground floor for the sake of magic circulation and not startling any potential people who would see him materialize out of nowhere if he teleported.

Once at the vending machine, he got a bag of trail mix that he knew would hold him over just fine until he got home for dinner that night.

As he walked back up the stairs, he realized it was dark outside.

Sans checked the time. Weird. It was a little early for the sun to—

A bright flash, followed quickly by a rumble that could be felt in his feet and his sternum.

Sans flinched in surprise, nearly tripping on the stairs. His soul was pounding in his chest, and the sudden strengthening onslaught of sleet and rain against the windowpane didn’t help his heightening anxiety.

It was just some nasty weather – lightning and thunder – but it had startled Sans badly enough he was frozen.

He took a moment to breathe, waving passively at a student who passed him, before starting up the stairs again.

Once he was safely back in his office, he wrapped the sweater tighter around himself, amused at how it almost swallowed him because of Red’s preference in clothing size. He breathed in the smell of it, picking up the distant scent now of Toriel’s laundry detergent, before another crack of thunder made him flinch. It sounded like the storm could get bad.

It was silly to worry, Sans reminded himself.

He pulled out his phone anyway, texting his family. First Papyrus, double-checking he was safe. An answer within seconds in the affirmative.

Then Alphys, Edge, and Undyne. He was halfway through typing a message to Red when Edge and Alphys responded, but there was no immediate answer from Undyne.

Sans finished his message to Red and sent it.

how’s it going?

It was several minutes later that his phone buzzed with a text alert; Undyne, confirming she was safe.

Still nothing from Red.

Sans resisted the urge to let his thoughts spiral. It was only his anxiety. This had happened several times before, where he would panic but everything ended up being okay. He wanted to stop being so dramatic. Red was fine. He’d just gone to the other side of campus, and then probably home. He might be distracted with his own work.

It wasn’t a big deal.

Red was fine.

Sans ignored the prodding in the back of his mind that claimed he was wrong. Red could be hurt or dead or worse—

No, that was ridiculous. It was a weeknight, in the beginning of the evening. If something were going to hurt Red, it wouldn’t be now—

No, nothing had hurt Red. He was fine, he was—

Damn it, Sans, you’re supposed to be thinking about quantum mechanics, not Schrödinger’s illustration of quantum superposition, like Red was both safe and not safe until observed.

Sans took a deep breath, refocusing his thoughts and his mind. Feeling his shoes on his feet, the chair beneath him, listening to the sleet like heavy rain against the roof and his window, the magic presence just outside of the door—

Wait.

Sans’s head snapped toward the door that led to the hall. Usually people walked past, Sans was used to that. Now, though, someone had stopped. Just beyond the entrance to his office. He wasn’t sure he recognized the magic, either, and he coiled in his chair, ready to spring into action at the possible threat.

Knock-knock.

It took Sans a few seconds to work up the courage to speak. “It’s open.”

The doorknob twisted open, and a familiar beak poked inside, followed by the pink feathered head it was attached to.

Sans exhaled melting back into his chair. It was Cell Ficus.

“Hey, Sans – were you expecting someone else?” Cell asked.

Sans shook his head. “Nah, you just startled me.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Don’t sweat it, I’ve been on edge all day,” Sans said. “What can I do for you?”

Cell fully entered the room. “I just wanted to check in. I’m finished for the day, you see, and I know how the months leading up to my defense were hell on my diet.” He lifted a paper bag to dangle it in front of Sans.

He took it in careful hands, ignoring how they shook from his lingering anxiety. “You got me something?”

“It’s just a bagel.” Cell said. Then he startled. “Oh! And this. I hope you don’t mind – I don’t actually know what you like.” He pulled a bottle out of his inventory full of a dark brown liquid.

“You didn’t hafta do that.” Sans took it in his hand and read the label. It read Sunshine Tea in gold letters while it boasted about being brewed naturally and how it promoted magic circulation and contained vitamins Sans didn’t bother looking at. Instead, he smiled at the label for the reminder of Red, even as worry pooled in his soul.

“So you like it?”

“I usually drink tea hot,” Sans admitted. “But I’m willing to try this; it looks good. Thanks.”

“It’s no problem at all.” Cell assured him. “Especially if it means you’ll eat more than that trail mix.” He tipped his beak toward the unopened bag sitting on Sans’s desk.

He shook his head. “Red already stopped in to remind me to head home for dinner, so I’ll be outta here within the hour.”

“Oh, good.” Cell said. “Maybe save the bagel for when you inevitably skip breakfast tomorrow to come in early.”

Sans laughed. The sound was tense and airy, though.

Cell frowned. “You look worried. Is everything okay?”

“Probably,” Sans admitted with a sad smile. “Just freaking myself out, I think.”

Cell hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe we could go get real tea sometime, if you’re so inclined.”

Sans pulled himself out of his thoughts, surprised. “What?”

“If you ever need to talk, let me know,” Cell said.

Sans was happy to have such a supportive friend. “Thanks, pal. Consider it mutual.”

Cell nodded. “I have to go, but keep your head up. You’re almost there.”

Sans gave him a small wave. When the door closed behind him, Sans was left once more alone with his thoughts. His fingers tightened around the bag in his lap.

His phone buzzed on the desk and he set the bottled tea aside to lift it, annoyed that the abrupt sound had caused him to flinch again.

Edge had texted him.

Have you heard from Red today?

Sans felt his soul drop to his feet.

yeah, he stopped by for a few minutes two hours ago. why?

Sans tapped his phalanges against his desk as he waited for an answer.

Both safe and not safe until observed.

He watched several minutes tick by, and some guilty part of him insisted he could be doing actual productive work in this time, but he knew he couldn’t. Not with his nerves getting the better of him like this.

He’d been on the verge of panic all day; this wasn’t unexpected. Sans knew he should take better care of his mental state, especially in times of high stress, but that so often got in the way of what he should be doing and he wasn’t used to prioritizing himself yet.

Edge was calling him.

Sans took a deep breath before answering. “Hiya, Edge. What’s up?”

“You said Red was there a couple of hours ago?” Edge checked.

Sans was wrestling with his fear. “Yeah, dropped in to make me drink some water.”

“Do you know where he was going?”

“I asked him to stop by EU’s Registrar office to drop off some paperwork,” Sans admitted.

“How about after that?”

There was a nervousness in Edge’s voice that strangely paralleled Sans’s fear and it stilled him. “Why are you asking?”

“Because he’s usually back by dinner,” Edge said. “And I know he’s only twenty minutes late, but with the storm outside…”

Sans couldn’t breathe.

“I just have this weird feeling,” Edge admitted.

The room was shrinking around him. “No.” The answer came out much too quiet, and Sans tried again. “No, I don’t know where he was going after that. I’m sorry.”

“Is the registrar still open?” Edge asked. “I could call them – maybe he isn’t answering because of the storm. They’ll have a landline, right?”

“Yeah,” Sans confirmed. “But they closed at six.”

“That’s almost forty minutes ago,” Edge said.

Sans knew that. It was why he found himself clinging to the hoodie wrapped around him. “What did Toriel say?”

There was a long moment of silence. Some shuffling.

“Sans, dear, are you sure you have not heard from Red since before five?”

Even Toriel sounded worried.

“No,” Sans said. “I mean yes. Yes, I’m sure I haven’t – he stopped by around four-thirty.”

For a moment, neither of them said anything.

Sans could feel his terror climbing up his spine like a ladder, but he sat perfectly still. Waiting.

“Well…” Toriel cleared her throat, clearly trying to strengthen her own voice. “I will reach out to a few other people. I would appreciate it if you would contact me should Red respond to any of your messages?”

“Absolutely,” Sans answered, breathless in his panic.

“Thank you,” Toriel said, her voice carefully measured. “Do not worry, dear, I am sure he is simply distracted, perhaps helping someone else who got caught in this storm.”

Sans nodded. That sounded like something Red might do. “Yeah.”

“Are you still at the university?” Toriel asked.

“Yeah,” Sans answered again, dazed.

“Oh, my – perhaps you should start heading home yourself. Papyrus was telling me about what he is making for dinner, and it sounds delicious.”

The idea of eating made Sans feel sick, but he couldn’t stall out. If he stopped functioning, he wouldn’t be able to help when anyone needed him. “Yeah, okay – just give me a call if you need anything?”

“I will, dear. And I will make Red call you the moment I see him if he has not already.”

“Thanks, Tori.”

A few seconds later found Sans staring off toward the opposite wall, struggling to lower his soul rate. He needed to rein in his magic. Take deep breaths.

He took his time packing everything away, ensuring it was all exactly where it needed to be. He even took the time to straighten it all, and tuck his gift from Cell into a drawer, before locking his office door once more and stepping through a shortcut.

Back at home, he settled his backpack on the floor in the hall.

Dinner was delicious, though Sans barely ate it. When Papyrus and Asgore asked what was wrong, Sans told them what had happened. That none of them had heard from Red.

When Toriel called an hour later, Sans answered – desperate and hopeful after a long silence.

“We are filing a police report.”

Sans went numb.

Chapter Text

Ebott City Police Department worked fast, if the right strings were pulled. Undyne knew Toriel had yanked on every single one, but she was still restless. Anxious. Pacing again in the living room of the Dreemurr house, trying to piece together where Red could’ve gone – was it an accident? Was he hurt in the storm or was it foul play? Did someone kill him? Take him? Why would they want Red, why would anyone care enough?

“Th-thank you for your time.” Alphys hung up the phone before placing it in her lap. Then putting her face in her hands.

Undyne looked at her. Soul full of love and terror. “Anything?”

“No.” It was a tiny whisper, full of tears.

Undyne took a step toward her to offer whatever semblance of comfort she could manage, but then someone else appeared in a teleport and – for the briefest moment – Undyne had thought it was Red and froze.

But it wasn’t.

Just Sans, with water pouring off of him like Undyne imagined it still was outside.

“Goodness!” Toriel entered the room then, sounding startled as she raced over. “Take off your jacket – you could catch your death.”

Sans unzipped his raincoat, passing it gratefully to Toriel as she offered to take it. The clothes he was wearing underneath with still just as wet, though, clinging to bones a lot narrower than Undyne could ever remember he was.

“You should change into something dry.”

Undyne looked over at Papyrus as he spoke, not having noticed the kid following Toriel out of the kitchen.

Sans sniffed a little. “Yeah, I will.”

“Did you find anything?” Undyne asked.

There was a pause. Hopeful and expectant, though they already knew the answer. Because if he had, it would’ve been the first thing out of his mouth.

Sans shook his head.

Undyne nodded. She shouldn't have gotten her hopes up.

They’ve looked everywhere already – Sans had been checking Ebott University’s campus for the third time. Just in case, he’d insisted. Just in case.

And no one had the heart to stop him.

Undyne was angry. Not with Sans – and really, Undyne wasn’t sure if anger was the correct label for what she was feeling.

Her anger had often been a cover for something else.

But she was overwhelmed and hurting and the anger felt right – it filled her like hot wind behind sails, pushing her onward and she couldn’t stop – what if stopping killed her? What if stopping killed Red?

That was wrong, but all of this was wrong anyway. And unfair. And painful.

There was a gentle knock at the door.

They all turned toward it.

Sans was the one to reach for the door and open it, halfway out of his shoes. “Pike.”

“Hey, Sans.” It was a warm, gentle greeting as he stepped inside. “You take a swim somewhere?”

“EU’s got some flash flooding,” Sans explained almost conversationally as he maneuvered out of Pike’s way to close the door.

The older monster made a sound of understanding.

Undyne watched him step into the living room. And she recognized the way his fins were drooping – like he was sad about something. This would either be bad news or no news, but she couldn’t help as the question jumped from her. “Well?”

Pike shook his head. “Nothing yet.”

Undyne felt all of her emotions twist and culminate into one singular rage, and she tried to push it down. Anger wasn’t always productive, and this was sensitive, she needed to be sensitive—

“Thank you for returning to inform us of the progress,” Toriel said cordially.

At that, Undyne bristled. Because she could see how Toriel’s politeness masked worry and sorrow and grief and it made her magic as sharp as shark teeth. “What progress?”

The room was silent.

Undyne glared at her father. “You’re a detective – you work in missing persons, even – and you’re saying you can’t find him?”

“U-Undyne?” Alphys called.

Undyne could tell she was scared. Everyone was. But Undyne felt like she was going to explode. “Where could he have gone? And why the fuck can’t you find him?”

“Undyne.” Her father’s voice was stern, even with his eyes sad.

Toriel spoke next, softly. “I do not believe he is purposefully—”

“On purpose or not, the fact there’s nothing doesn’t make any sense!” She snapped, still to her dad, squaring her shoulders. “If you’re so good at your job—”

“Outside.” Pike cut her off, this time. “Now.”

Undyne snatched her coat from the floor with an angry huff.

“It is still raining,” Toriel said. “If you need a private place to talk—”

“We’ll be fine, Toriel,” Pike said softly. So fucking kind though he didn’t have anything helpful to say. “We’re fish.”

Red would have made a joke about it. Maybe three. The silence that lingered made her anger spit fire and she walked past her father toward the back of the house. She didn’t want to stand on the front porch because it would give him the option to send her home. Make her leave. She wasn’t doing that.

The chill of the rain was a shock to her, and it was coming down in heavy sheets. She could hear it on the roof. In the trees. The air was already frigid and the weather didn’t help with the temperature, but Undyne could imagine it steaming around her, she was so fired up.

Her father closed the door behind him. “Do you want to fill me in on what the fuck that was supposed to be?” He didn’t sound angry – why wasn’t he angry? “You’re allowed to be upset, but that caused needless distress for—”

“You said you find people.” Undyne snapped, sick of being reasoned with when she knew she was right. “You’ve told me that for years – that it’s your job.”

“Because it is,” Pike said. “But this isn’t usually something that happens right away.”

“It’s Red, Dad!” Her voice was rising now that they weren’t in the house. It still didn’t feel loud enough. “Where could he have gone? He’s so fucking happy with his life and everything in it – there’s no reason for him to disappear!”

Pike didn’t say anything.

Undyne paced the porch like a caged animal, nearly growling to match. “He sticks out like a spike trap wherever he goes because of his fucking punk aesthetic – all those patches on his jeans – and that stupid-ass skeleton is so fucking careful all the time, what could have possibly happened to him? Huh? Are you saying he just left?”

“No,” Pike said. “No one’s saying that.”

“Don’t think I don’t know what shit they’re spouting at the precinct,” Undyne snarled, closing the distance between them. “I’ve taken those classes. I know the statistics. They’re looking at the fact he was a foster kid and they think he’s a fucking runaway.”

“We have evidence to the contrary,” Pike assured her. “I won’t let it get brushed aside like that.”

That was good. The one piece of good news she’d heard all day. They had enough evidence to firmly rule out the chance in legal documentation. That meant they would look until they found him or the trail ran cold.

It still didn’t feel like enough.

Her eyes burned with unshed tears. Her hair was stuck to her face and neck because of this stupid fucking rain, and she wanted to scream at the sky until it stopped making everything worse. “We have to find him.” She heard herself say.

When she glanced up at her father, he looked as devastated as everyone else had inside.

Her magic broiled. “We have to. Don’t you understand? He’s going to help people. Edge needs him – Toriel needs him. Alphys was crying on the phone with me earlier, she’s so fucking scared he’s gone.” Undyne felt her own tears press into her eyes. Into her voice. “Red hasn’t graduated the academy yet. He hasn’t gotten his own house – he and Sans haven’t moved in together and been annoying as hell about how in love they are or… whatever.”

The fire was fizzling out in her chest, replaced by a gaping hole of ash. She hadn’t considered the possibility yet that they might not find him. They might run out of leads. Evidence might dry up before the rain does.

But it could. It very well could. Just as she’d told her father before, she’d taken those classes. She knew the statistics.

He could be gone.

“Dad?” Her voice fractured at the tiny, terrified cry.

Within moments, she was taken into a set of strong arms. She was as tall as him, but Undyne hadn’t felt this small in years.

His head pressed against hers, a warm shock after the cold rain.

She couldn’t see through her blurred eyes. “Dad, he’s my best friend,” She said. “Please. Please tell me you’ll find him.”

He held her tighter.

Undyne had learned too much to have blind faith in anything, but if her father had promised in that moment to find Red, she would have believed him. If only to summon that fire back in her soul. To urge it burning again. To keep going.

But he didn’t.

“Oh.” She sniffled. Undyne knew the rule, of course. Never promise results. Really, it had been cruel of her to ask.

“I’m sorry, guppy,” He said into her hair, and suddenly she was five again. “I wish I could promise you the whole fucking world, and you’re not even asking for that much.”

The sound she emitted was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. It was short. It hurt.

“We’ll do what we can,” He said instead.

The best he could give her. Undyne tried to pretend it was enough, but she knew there was every chance that it wouldn’t be.

So, she steeled herself to accept the worst. But deep in her soul, beneath the ashes of that fire, was a tiny smoldering hope that she couldn’t let die.

She couldn’t. Because that hope didn’t belong solely to her.

Of course the police came in a very timely manner to speak with them. Toriel knew it wasn’t properly ethical to be using every resource she had to get things in motion, but this was her child. Her son.

Alphys had been making phone call after phone call, even though Toriel knew the poor girl had such terrible phone anxiety. Undyne had asked around the academy, even though they knew he’d left there long before he’d gone missing. Sans had done a sweep of the University more than once, just to be sure. Asgore was doing all of the paperwork – a real blessing, given that she could hardly focus on the technical details of a governmental system, distracted like this.

It was nearly midnight.

It was still raining.

Toriel was in her living room with four scared kids, two of whom had hardly shown a single emotion other than restrained urgency for the last several hours. She glanced at where Sans and Edge sat together. A space between them on the couch as if to leave it for the one they were missing.

Papyrus was fussing with the hem of his sleeves on Sans’s other side, glancing toward Alphys, who was on her phone, typing furiously. Still checking for leads, Toriel knew.

Undyne was out on the back porch, talking with her father.

Toriel took a steadying breath. She was scared. What if Red was cold where he was? What if they didn’t find him? What if he had been hurt, or in some sort of fatal accident that left his dust out to be hidden until the rain stops?

What if this was another child taken from her by a force out of her control?

“Edge?” Toriel hadn’t meant to say anything out loud.

The teen looked at her immediately with a desperation that made her ache. He wanted her to tell him to do something. Guide him in some way.

And she had nothing to say. Nothing that would help him.

“Would you please give me a hug, my child?” She knew she was being selfish. She knew Edge might not want the closeness of that contact. But she wanted it so desperately.

Edge stood easily and approached where she was near the door.

Toriel wrapped the child in her arms, pulling him tightly against her. Tucking him away until he was safe from the rest of the world.

Edge held her back just as fiercely, able to reach nearly all of the way around her now. So much bigger than when she’d first met him. Growing up so fast.

They would all leave eventually. It was the curse of being a boss monster. But Toriel had wished she would have more time.

She needed more time.

They would find Red, and he would be alive. He had to be. She could not dwell on the alternative.

Edge brushed his phalanges through the fur on her head in a comforting sort of gesture.

Toriel dropped a kiss on his skull. “Oh, my sweet child. I know now is perhaps not the time, but are you feeling hungry? It has been several hours since supper.”

“No, I’m okay,” Edge assured her.

She looked at the other three. “How about you? Are any of you in need of anything?”

“N-no, I’m fine,” Alphys said. Then she hesitated. “E-except maybe your spare charger?”

“I can get that,” Toriel said, relieved.

“I’m all right,” Papyrus said. “Unless you are looking for something to do and that’s why you asked – then I could maybe need a glass of milk.”

“Of course,” Toriel assured him, touched by his thoughtfulness. Then she looked to the last of them. “Sans?”

He was looking at his knees. Unmoving.

Papyrus brushed his shoulder softly. “Brother?”

Sans stood without another word, grabbing his jacket from where it had been tossed over the back of the chair. “Call me if anything comes up.”

“Where are you going?” Edge asked, pulling away from Toriel to face him.

“Looking again,” Sans said, zipping the front of the raincoat. “I’m sure I missed something.”

“Looking now will do you no favors,” Toriel told him. “It is dark and rainy—”

“And you’re going to fucking freeze.” Edge interrupted.

“I’ll be fine,” Sans told them. “It won’t even take long.”

“You’re p-probably already low on m-magic though?” Alphys mentioned. “I-if you try to teleport so much now—”

“I just…” Sans cut in before trailing off. He sighed deeply. “I can’t just sit here.”

Toriel understood the feeling, but she knew the truth of the situation. “There is nothing else to be done on our part.” She said softly.

Sans gave her a bleeding look. “Don’t tell me that.” He pleaded in a whisper.

Toriel couldn’t repeat it. She wouldn’t, with him looking at her that way, but Sans’s health was at risk. “If you get a night of proper rest, you will be better equipped to look again tomorrow.”

Sans stared at her and after a hard moment of quiet, he shook his head. “Then… I’m going home. Paps?”

“I’ll come with you.” He decided easily, standing. “I’m tired, too.”

Sans gave him a soft look that read of fondness before he held out his hand. “You’ll call me if something comes up, though?” He requested again of the room. “If you need anything?”

“We will,” Toriel promised again. “Please get some sleep.”

Sans nodded, a grim set to his face. And then he was gone, having taken Papyrus with him.

Toriel patted Edge softly on the shoulder before stepping away. “I will go get you a charger, Alphys.” There should have been one in a spare drawer that accumulated things in her kitchen.

She had the wire gently looped in her hands and she stepped out into the hall just as the back door opened. Undyne and Pike reentered, sopping wet. “Oh, my.”

“We’re okay,” Pike spoke up, as if he could sense every mothering instinct of hers kicking in at once.

“Nonsense.” She disagreed, already moving. She spoke louder to be heard even as she traveled through the house. “Do not worry about trailing water in – please enter far enough for you to be warm! I will grab some towels. Here you are, Alphys.”

“Th-thank you.” She said softly, accepting the cord.

Toriel grabbed a bundle of towels, knowing they would probably need more than one each, and returned to the hall again. “I thought perhaps that you would remain beneath the awning, but it appears as if you stood in the open.”

Undyne frowned. “Awning?”

“There is a small amount of coverage that extends above the back door,” Toriel said, surprised that they hadn’t noticed.

Undyne and Pike gave each other identical looks of confusion. Pike’s split for something fond as Undyne snorted and wrung out her long hair. “Seems the obliviousness is hereditary.”

Toriel gave them both a warm look. Then she glanced to the clock at the end of the hallway. “Feel free to remain here for as long as you need? But I will be arranging for the rest of us to sleep.”

“I’ll be headed out again in a bit, actually,” Pike told her. “I just wanted to check in with you and see if you needed anything.”

Words filled Toriel’s mouth. Pleas for the safety of her child. Desperate tears and anguished cries left over from a funeral long past, that seemed to echo through the centuries to the present.

But now was not then, and Red was not Asriel.

“No.” She smiled softly at Pike. “But you have my gratitude for the offer as well as your work.”

She held onto that thought throughout the night. As she helped Alphys get comfortable in the spare room. As she and Edge sat together, and he fell asleep on her shoulder. Toriel held onto that thought as if it would save her. The ledge of a crumbling cliff, where her claws curled in, nothing but an expanse of dark emptiness beneath her feet.

Now was not then.

Red was alive.

He had to be.

Red used to bite people a lot. Even before he’d grown into his teeth – when they were still rounded on the points due to his young age – Red would bite and bite hard. He got out of the habit when he promised Toriel that he’d stop picking fights in seventh grade, but before that angry parents would show up to meetings about altercations with names like “piranha” and “wild dog” in their mouths.

Red liked to think he’d grown a lot as a person.

But if someone tazed him, he was pretty sure he deserved to retaliate in some way.

And disoriented as he was from the moment he felt himself yanked through someone else’s teleport with a bag over his head, he decided that the closest object that was not his own arm would feel the sharpest parts of his teeth.

There was a cry of pain and a further disorienting throw to the floor, and even through the fabric of the sack, Red could taste blood that wasn’t his own and he felt sick from the combination of the iron taste and pain.

He heard something, then – a sharp word in… what language was that? No – what magic was that? Because that wasn’t spoken, it was felt, directly to the left of something audible.

Mage speak, like Sans had been teaching him.

Red reached to pull at the sack obscuring his vision, terror in his throat, needing to see—then someone grabbed his arm and yanked him to his feet.

“That’s not him.”

Everyone froze at the sharp declaration. The voice sounded annoyed, almost. Irritated, certainly. Hostile intent clung to the air.

“That’s—how did you fuck up this badly?” The voice got closer and with a hard tug, the fabric was removed from Red’s skull.

And he stared into the face of a stranger. A monkey monster, with a scar crawling across his face. Over a nose wrinkled in a snarl.

He smelled like cigarette smoke. Red tried not to gag, feeling his soul flutter with an old panic.

The monster gestured to Red, tail coiling. “This kid doesn’t even look like him – what did you do, grab the first skeleton you saw wearing a blue jacket?” He stepped forward to check Red’s pockets, and rough hands found his phone in his front pocket.

Red was still trying to recover his sense of direction. He prodded the space around him with his magic only to find wards on the room. Strong ones; he couldn’t teleport to leave.

An argument broke out, though. Sharp words, shouting, but Red’s back hurt and his matrix was dysregulated from taking an electric shock to his spine. He was thrown hard into a chair in the center of the room – hard enough to almost knock it over.

Red was terrified, breathing faster than he should be, but then—

A gun. Pointed right between his eye sockets.

Red flinched back, lifting trembling hands in defense. “W-wait—”

“Well don’t kill him here—”

“What do you want me to do then, Titano – he’s just a useless witness—”

“Getting dust out of carpet takes—”

“—the blood’ll get everywhere and—”

“Getting him to another location runs the risk of—”

Red’s skull was ringing, staring down the barrel of a pistol, feeling sweat drip down his face, his eyelights gone from his sockets.

It felt like everything was moving too slowly to be real. He was going to die. Red was in pain and afraid, somewhere he didn’t know, surrounded by strangers, and they were going to dust him.

He was leaving Edge behind. Red felt like he was going to be sick. “Please don’t kill me.” He managed the strained whisper, not too proud to try begging for his life.

The tip of the barrel pressed to his frontal bone, surprisingly cold, and he would swear that his soul stopped beating in his chest if he couldn’t feel it in his teeth.

“Stand down.”

For a moment, Red was floored by the idea that they had actually listened when he’d asked. But as the gun was lowered, something else took its place.

A phone – his phone. Screen freshly cracked. “Is that you?”

Red blinked, looking from the monkey down to the screen. It was the same photo he’d had as his lock screen for nearly a year. A picture of him and Sans.

“Hit him.”

Bright orange attack magic, sharp and fast, collided with Red while he was too frozen to move.

Most of the impact was taken in his right leg because he'd lifted it in defense, and agony radiated from this hip. He bit down the cry of pain as soon as he noticed it, but it still seemed to echo in the room. He was breathing heavily through clenched teeth, vision blurred by the tears in his sockets.

A hand on Red’s shoulder shoved him back to sitting upright, phone back in front of him. “Answer the question – is it you in the photo?”

“Yes.” Red managed tightly.

The monkey stared at him for a long moment, like he were searching Red for any sort of falsehood.

Then he stepped back, tail flicking almost irritably. “Maybe you didn’t just ruin the job, Titano.” And Red’s phone was tossed to someone standing nearby – a human.

In the haze of agony and confusion, all Red could think about was how bad the guy’s haircut was. Not the fact they clearly hadn't grabbed him on purpose, not what that implied - what was that, a reverse mullet? A tellum. That was mullet backwards, and he thought it was part of the joke.

The human stared at Red’s phone. The screen. After a moment, he spoke. “New plan. Secure him here.”

There was obvious disagreement in the sounds that followed but Red was too distracted by trying to keep himself centered. He was still alive. Everything hurt, especially his leg, but he was still alive.

Still alive.

After they’d properly restrained him to the chair, Red had been left alone. Painfully, horribly alone. Panic consumed him for several impossible minutes and Red wasn’t sure how long actually passed. But he remembered the coping techniques he’d been taught for his anxiety when he’d been young. Counting his breath. Grounding himself.

He was somewhere under construction of some kind, probably. It was cold, once his adrenaline wore off, one of the walls covered in plastic. And he was tired, and hurt, and scared. He couldn’t think.

He couldn’t think.

They’d told him to keep quiet, though. Not his current captors, but the police academy. He hadn’t been trained in hostage negotiation yet, so when it came up in class, they said that if he didn’t know what he was supposed to do, he needed to stay calm and quiet. Talking could anger them further. Put him at further risk. Among other things.

But he would take whatever opportunities he was given, because dying here wouldn't happen without him trying to escape at least once, even if the chance of success were slim to none because of whatever hit he'd taken to his leg.

His thoughts were frantic and scattered - terrified, and reasonably so; he'd just been kidnapped.

He'd just been kidnapped.

...

Red really hoped Sans ate dinner.

Chapter Text

Sans had memorized every inch of Ebott University’s campus years ago. Back when he’d been there for the first time and desperate for a reason to stay out of the house for a few extra minutes.

Mapping. He did a lot of mapping – Sans was good at it. You had to be, if you wanted to be able to teleport. Most of the calculation that came with the skill was subconscious, but Sans had gone through the effort of making it conscious. It allowed him a lot more flexibility with it, but it came at the cost of a lot of unfortunate learning curves.

For instance, he was the reason there had been a notice released to the public about teleportation out of a moving vehicle. That had never been a noted problem before because, usually, if one was in a car then they were driving to whatever destination they would’ve wanted to teleport to. Sans was able to provide evidence (on accident) to the world that momentum is conserved through teleportation, not negated.

It wasn’t the only case study rooted in his own experimentation, however accidental. A large sum of Gaster’s work was only possible due to Sans stumbling across a discovery.

But all of that effort – all of that knowledge – none of it helped now.

Sans stood before the office building containing the registrar’s office. Rainwater dripped from the lip of his hood as it poured down around him. The office was locked – closed, just as Sans had told Red it would be.

The last place Red had gone.

Sans had scoured every inch of that sidewalk. By the end, he wasn’t even looking for evidence of Red having been there at all. He was looking for traces of his dust.

And there was nothing.

Monster dust was dense; it wouldn’t have been easily washed away by the rain. It rarely transferred anywhere without something guiding it with intent. And nature held no intent.

A monster would linger where they died until someone meant to move them.

Sans knew that, too. And knowing that also didn’t matter. It didn’t matter, all of this was useless – Sans was useless.

He bowed his head softly, feeling the ribbons of water trail down his shoulders and follow his sleeves. His shoes were soaked through, now. His pantlegs equally so. Soaked to the bone, and cold, knowing too much and not enough, all of his strength amounting to nothing.

Useless.

“S-Sans?”

He could feel who it was from her magic signature, but he looked over to confirm anyway.

Alphys, in her purple rain boots. Holding up her bright yellow umbrella.

Staring.

Sans stared back. He didn’t know what else to do, he didn’t know what expression he wore, all he was aware of was the building pain in his chest.

Alphys stepped closer, holding her umbrella over his head to block some of the downpour. “H-how long have you been out here?”

Sans had a hard time finding his voice. “What time is it?”

“Nearly noon.”

“A few hours.”

Alphys frowned softly.

Sans looked at her eyes. He liked them. Warm and brown; they suited her. Seeing them brought him a sense of peace – he shouldn’t be finding peace in anything when Red was missing. Either missing or dead.

“M-maybe you should take a break?” Alphys said.

“I haven’t found him yet.” Sans countered.

“I-I know.” Her voice softened. “I know that – but y-you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep doing this.”

“I can’t not do this.” He lifted his hand in a gentle shrug, and felt the water drip from the cuff of his jacket down to his elbow. It was uncomfortable but bearable, given the stakes. “I know it’s not making a difference but I can’t…”

He sighed, looking back at the door before him. The last one Red could’ve walked through. “I can’t do nothing, Al.”

There was a long pause, and Sans was waiting for her to feed him the same narrative everyone else had over the last twenty or so hours. It wasn’t his job, there was nothing he could do, all this was doing was causing him more pain and risking illness, et cetera.

Instead, Alphys stared at him again for a long time. And then she reached forward and softly took his hand. Her fingers were so much warmer than his. “L-let’s go to the Physical Science building.”

Sans blinked. That was the building his office was in. “Why?”

“Because.” Alphys offered him a hesitant smile. “I-I’m going to track Red’s phone.”

Sans’s sockets widened, and in the next blink he’d pulled them both through a shortcut into the science building.

It was courteous to use a door instead – in fact, it was rude to teleport directly inside of public buildings – but Sans didn’t care. “You can do that?”

“W-well, technically the police are already,” Alphys admitted, letting go of his hand to close her umbrella. “So yes! But I-I wanted to. F-for myself.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t do nothing,” Alphys said quietly, a determined glint in her eyes that Sans rarely saw.

Sans nodded softly. “Okay. How do you do that, then?”

“I-I need a different computer than I have?” She started to walk down the hall. “B-because this isn’t really legal. And I r-really don’t want to get caught.”

“Can’t you change your VPN or something?” Sans asked.

Alphys just looked at him.

“What?” Sans didn’t understand the look. “It can’t be that illegal.”

Alphy’s look turned more pointed, this time with disbelief and exasperation. “Y-you do realize that anything illegal is illegal enough, right? And Yeniev’s privacy laws are s-s-so strict, especially around technology.”

Sans blinked. “We can make laws like that?”

“W-what?”

“Yeniev isn’t an independent state – we’re under the United States’s jurisdiction, right? A province or something?”

Alphys stared at him again. “H-how do you know that and n-not understand – nevermind. I-I also just need to not use m-my personal computer.”

“Why?”

“Because it makes me n-nervous,” She confessed.

“Oh.” Sans nodded. “That makes sense.”

Alphys gave him a look again, then, but it was different. Something closer to fond, he’d guess, though he didn’t understand why.

She led them upstairs until they were walking past the offices for faculty – Sans recognized the space. His office was on the floor below, and he knew people on this one.

Sure enough, he glanced at the placards he recognized as they passed and got closer to the Chemistry department; Dr. Marilla Mewt, Dr. Cell Ficus—

That was where Alphys stopped.

Sans blinked. “You’re gonna use his computer?”

“N-no, of course not.” She knocked softly on his office door.

A friendly answer drifted out from inside. “It’s open!”

Alphys opened the door, poking her nose in. “H-hello, do you h-have a moment?”

“Ah, Ms. Alphys – lovely to see you, as always.” Sans could hear the smile in his voice. “I do, in fact! Please come in.”

Alphys stepped inside. And Sans after her.

Cell’s eyes lingered on Sans. “Good to see you went outside! Though you could’ve picked a day with better weather for it.”

Sans tried at a good-natured smile, but it didn’t stick.

“W-we’re actually here to ask a favor,” Alphys said, hooking her umbrella softly over her wrist.

“Well, I’m here to help!” Cell smiled, and it was easy to notice with his beak pointed down and to the side, for them to see. “In whatever way I can.”

Alphys glanced at Sans, as if just seeing him helped her gather courage. “Could you let us into the computer labs?”

Cell blinked, beak lifting softly. “I could, yes.” He stood from his chair. “You don’t have access?”

“N-not the kind I need, no.” She confessed. “Th-they don’t give out passes to u-undergraduate students.”

“Ah, I forgot you haven’t graduated yet.” He smiled again. “At the end of this semester, yes?”

“Y-yep!”

“So quick, both of you.” It bordered on fond as he stepped around toward them, grabbing his jacket. “Let’s go, then! Did you want the lab here or in the engineering building?”

“Here is f-fine,” Alphys assured him.

Cell nodded. “On our way down, then – I know you both know where it is.” He smiled kindly, waving them onward.

The walk was quiet, down the stairs. To the computer lab. Sans didn’t bother filling the silence, though he was surprised that Cell didn’t attempt to; the guy was usually pretty chatty. Eventually, Cell was using his keycard to swipe them into the proper space, opening the door with his hip.

When he held it open for them, Sans and Alphys stepped inside with polite words of gratitude. There were several stations, the desk tables long and clean, wires neatly arranged wherever they were visible.

Sans knew that the computer lab in the engineering building was under a lot more security – they had materials for people to build computers there. Piece by piece. It was very cool, but Sans wondered if that was why Alphys wanted this one.

She shuffled toward the back of the room, moving closer to one of the desks there.

Sans followed, antsy. He wanted to go back outside and do another round of the campus, even though he knew it would lead to nothing. As Alphys sat down, he stepped up to her left shoulder – between her and the door – before checking his phone for a notification.

A text from Papyrus. With a gentle reminder to take a break.

“What happened?”

Alphys and Sans both turned their heads toward Cell as he spoke, voice dipped in something serious.

He was looking at them, expression sad. “Something happened, didn’t it?”

Alphys looked to Sans, bringing her claws up toward her chest to pick at them nervously.

Sans hesitated, glancing at her. But then he could tell he should be the one to answer.

His instinct was to do damage control. Hide what he could, how he could – prevent anyone on the outside from knowing.

But this was different. This wasn’t classified, his partner was missing. He’d probably been taken.

Taken from a public space. What if Cell knew something? What if he’d seen or heard something? What if he could keep an eye out?

“Red is missing.”

Cell blinked, turning to look at him a little more directly. “Missing?”

“Last we heard, he was headed toward the registrar’s office to drop off some paperwork for me.” Sans shrugged softly. “Hasn’t been seen since.”

“I’m so sorry.” Cell said. “That must be so distressing – is there anything I can do?”

“Y-you did.” Alphys pulls out her phone, setting it next to the keyboard.

Cell blinked, surprised. “But all I did was…” He trailed off, looking between Sans and Alphys.

Sans nodded, to confirm Cell’s suspicion.

“Oh.” He stepped closer, up to Sans’s left to put the computer screen in his view. “What are we doing, then?”

“Y-you don’t have to be here!” Alphys assured him and continued under her breath. “You m-might not want to be, actually.”

Cell tipped his head. “Might not want to be?”

“We’re doing something illegal, I guess.”

“Sans!”

“What?”

Cell chuckled a little. “Oh, I see – what sort of illegal?” He freezes, a little like someone might if they suddenly perceived a danger. “You’re not… you’re not hurting anyone, are you? With this?”

“N-no!” Alphys quickly filled in. “No, no, n-not at all! We’re just t-tracking Red’s phone, to see what we can f-find.”

“Surely Ebott City Police are doing that.” Cell mentioned.

“Yeah, sure,” Sans confirmed. “But they’re not us.”

There was a pause where Cell looked between them with uncertainty.

Alphys sighed. “I-if they found anything, th-they wouldn’t tell us.”

“Probably for good reason.” Cell told her.

“B-but he’s our friend. And this isn’t…” She sighed. “Th-this doesn’t f-f-feel like a normal case.”

Sans rested a hand softly on her shoulder, hearing the stuttering pick up in her words. “It’s mostly busywork.” Deflecting the attention. Minimizing their action to minimize repercussion. “Something to ease our minds about it, more than anything.”

Cell frowned a fraction. “What if something comes up?”

“Then we know the police already know,” Sans said calmly.

“What if nothing does?”

“Then nothing does, and we’re looking in every way we can.”

Cell nodded slowly, taking that in.

Alphys watched him nervously. “A-are you going to r-report us?”

“Stars, no – of course not.” The reassurance was immediate. “What would the point of that be?”

Alphys melted into her chair, leaning against Sans’s hand.

Sans gave Cell a grateful look. “Thanks.”

The bird monster waved a hand dismissively. “No need.” He looked between them again. “I do think I might do a snack run. I’m not sure how long tracking a phone takes, but I know the two of you probably haven’t eaten this morning, so even consuming them after would be good.”

“H-how did you guess?” Alphys sounded surprised.

“What?”

“Th-that we hadn’t eaten?”

“I had a lot of information in my favor.” He winked. “Are either of you craving anything in particular?”

They both shook their heads.

“Then I’ll be back shortly!” He started for the door.

Sans watched Cell’s signature as he left range, quiet. Trying not to think.

Alphys took a deep breath and opened a program Sans didn’t recognize – though that was hardly a surprise. The only technology he was familiar with surrounded the work he did with particle simulations, especially involving his developing quantum theory. And also that involved magic suppressing tech, but altogether the same level of unhelpful.

The same level of useless.

Cell returned only a short while later, with two bottles and a couple of snacks in hand. He set them all on the desk next to Alphys, in front of Sans.

“Th-thank you.”

“Of course!” Cell gestured to the lot. “I remember that you like that sports drink – I hope the peach flavor is alright; electrolytes are important! And, Sans, I grabbed more of that tea if you want it...”

Sans had already noticed that, looking at the label as Cell continued to speak.

Sunshine tea.

Everything about the room tunneled, voice melding and droning into something like an inconsistent hum in the back of his mind.

His thoughts began to sink with his soul into something dark and sensitive, like bruising. Until it submerged him entirely, and all he could think about was how scared he had been the first time someone tried to kidnap him.

And Undyne’s text, early that morning. The conversation that followed, full of uncertainty and deliberation.

Do you think it’s connected to Daisy?

“Sans?”

He blinked, pulled back into the present by a hand on his arm that he was already pulling away from. He followed it up the connecting arm to the beak in front of it. The face there.

Cell looked concerned. “Should you sit down, maybe?”

Sans stared at him for a moment. “No. I’m fine.”

He looked toward Alphys. “Any luck?”

“No. U-unfortunately.” It’s quiet. Sad. “I-I think his phone might be off? O-or something like it.”

Or it was broken. Sans nodded. “Is there a way to set it up to let us know if it comes back online?”

“Y-yeah, theoretically.” She began to pick at her claws again. “But I w-would need to leave the program open. S-so the computer would have to stay on, a-and I don’t know if that’s possible.”

“It is.” Cell sounded confident in it.

Sans wasn’t so sure. “Without anyone else messing with it?”

“Sure.” He smirked like he knew something Sans didn’t, moving to one of the cabinets against the wall. There was a lock on it, but Cell didn’t even need a key to open it. And a moment later, he returned to them with a laminated piece of paper that stuck to the monitor with sticky tack. It read ‘OUT OF ORDER’ in bold letters.

Alphys blinked. Then she giggled a little, nervously. “Oh – th-that could work!”

Cell nodded. “And I’ll come back on my breaks to make sure it’s still on.” He brushed his feathered hands together as if dusting them off. “Not a problem.”

Alphys softened. “Th-thank you.”

Sans nodded his agreement. “Genuinely.”

Because any little thing mattered, now. Any little thing could be what saved Red.

Anything.

A few minutes more had Alphys working her magic – she was so smart, Sans was so fucking proud of her, situation aside entirely – and then she was turning off the monitor and reattaching the sign.

She seemed nervous. Sans didn’t blame her. He gently offered his hand for her to take instead of picking at her claws.

Alphys took it gratefully. And also scooped the snacks and drinks into her inventory.

They thanked Cell one more time, and the chemist was kind enough to try some reassurance. The words felt shallow, and Sans knew it was because Cell didn’t truly know the depth of the situation. The danger it could hold.

No one did. Not even the police. Not if it did involve Sans in some way.

Alphys was letting go of his hand to open her umbrella. Sans didn’t remember even making it to the door.

“Do you need me to drop you off anywhere?” He didn’t want to leave her alone. Not when Red had vanished from campus.

“N-no – my car is right there!” She pointed toward the nearby lot.

Then she looked at him, adjusting her glasses, face full of worry. “M-maybe you should consider going home? R-resting for a bit.”

Sans considered that. “Maybe. Can I make sure you get to your car?”

Alphys nodded.

Once she was safely on the road, Sans tucked himself into the covered bus stop nearby.

And he pulled out his phone, bringing up a contact he hadn’t used in a while.

After calling, there was a series of beeps. An automated voice. “Please enter your authorization code.”

Sans lowered his phone to dial in the number. He hoped it was still in the system, and felt reassured when it started to ring through. And for a few long seconds, the only noise was the rain on the pavement and the ringing of the phone.

Then the call connected. “Hello?”

Sans pushed his free hand into the pocket of his jacket. “Hey, Cap – you busy?”

Gerson was silent for a couple of seconds, and Sans didn’t mind waiting. “Are you dying?”

Sans smirked. “Nope.”

“Is someone else dying?”

“Nu-uh.”

“Then what are you calling me for?” He sounded deeply worried.

Sans opened his mouth to respond. And hesitated.

But now isn’t the time for hesitance. Now can’t be the time. Hesitating was bad; how often had that been drilled into him – carved into his bones?

“Red Dreemurr went missing sometime between sixteen-thirty and eighteen-hundred last night.” His voice was quiet, but he tried to keep it steady. Clear. “Last known location was Ebott University.”

When Gerson did respond, his tone had softened. “Fuck, Serif, are you okay?”

Sans’s soul gave a painful squeeze, and he ignored it – and the words that caused it – to continue. “I need to know if you’ve gotten any word about anybody looking for me.”

“…You think it’s connected.”

“I think it could be.”

Sans could hear papers shuffling around on the other end as Gerson spoke. “They’ve never tried to kidnap anybody except you directly before, have they?”

He gave it some thought. “They tried to grab Papyrus once, but he was with me at the time.”

“So, if this is connected to you, then it’s abnormal.” Some clicking, like a keyboard. “They usually stay away from civilians.”

Sans nodded, even though Gerson couldn’t see him. “ECPD is already on the case. Do you think you could reach out to them? Pike Midae is leading – I’m not supposed to be involved in the investigation.”

“Yeah,” Gerson said. “Because you’re a civilian now, too.”

Sans shook his head, looking out at the rain.

“I’ll touch base with him, don’t worry. You said Midae? Ain’t that your friend Undyne’s surname?”

“It’s her father.”

There was a pause. “Don’t that count as a personal connection?”

“Do I look like a police detective to you?” Sans snarked. He wouldn’t know.

“Alright, okay – stars,” Gerson muttered. “I’ll talk to Detective Pike – you sit the fuck down or something, I know you haven’t. Probably slept standing up and with your eyes open.”

Sans softened at the words, however brash. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Gerson said. “Just be careful out there, alright?”

The words were familiar. The Royal Guard Captain used to say that to him often. Sans almost missed the days when it was common.

Or maybe he just missed the people that came along with it.

When Sans hung up, he didn’t go home. He couldn’t, with everything that was happening. It felt like giving up, even though there was nothing to do.

So he picked the next best thing and went to Toriel’s.

It was too early in the morning to be doing anything, let alone making bread.

But Edge had already been up before sunrise, making the dough. Leaving it to rise. And now it was time to pull it out again and kneed it.

So he’d prepared the counter space, trying not to think about why he was keeping himself busy. What he was avoiding. How he was feeling.

Because that was the hardest part of all of this, wasn’t it? Facing it all. Looking the truth of the situation directly and recognizing the hopelessness of it.

He’d just turned seventeen this month. His current boyfriend had gotten him a really shitty cake nearly a week late, and they’d eaten it on the rooftop of the high school. Red had tracked him down just after sunset because he hadn’t been answering his phone.

And Edge had thought, for just a moment, that when Red hadn’t responded to his text the night before, it was out of spite.

Stupid. Red was too nice, these days. Red was terrifyingly kind and compassionate and understanding, and every ounce of spite in him was aimed at targets much larger than Edge. Corruption and bias in corporations and systems and governments. For being in the police academy, Red held a lot of aggravation for authority.

But never for his little brother.

It was infuriating, sometimes. But only because that meant when the risk was in front of him that Red might not come back, Edge missed him.

Edge was scared. For him, and of a world without him.

And Edge missed him. Because he loved him.

He punches his hand into the bowl a little harder than necessary, making an indent in his dough.

Toriel stepped in, then. Slippers scuffing on the linoleum. “How are you?” The question was softer than her fur. Almost too quiet to hear over the rain on the windowpane.

“I’m fine,” Edge answered simply, not looking up from the bowl as he peeled the dough out to plop it onto the flour-dusted counter.

Because he had to be fine. Red was missing, and no one knew what happened to him, and all they knew was that he was gone.

And here he was again, with the avoiding. If Edge thought about it for too long, he felt that fear creep back in.

Like he was a babybones hiding in the darkest corner of his closet, wedged there by Red on a bad day with things crashing around in the other room like—

The thunder rolled into Edge’s consciousness, pulling him back to the present.

He needed to attempt a level of optimism if regular avoidance wasn’t working. So he took a moment to collect himself.

It would be fine. Red would come back. He couldn’t think about the alternative.

Stars, he’d spent so long thinking about the alternative.

Wasting time – time he wanted back.

“Edge?”

He curled his fingers into the countertop, trying to keep his breathing even. This was important, he couldn’t let this topple him – not here, not when Toriel was around, he knew she was hurting so much already. Not when this wasn’t supposed to matter. Not when he was trying so hard to remain unhurt by it.

Soft fur brushed his cheek and Edge flinched away, wiping at his face on his own and surprised to feel tears. “I’m fine.” He insisted, glaring at the older monster.

Toriel looked sad. “Oh, my child…”

Edge bristled. “What?” He didn’t understand – why was he snapping at Toriel? She hadn’t done anything. Not one thing to earn Edge’s ire. So much of the rest of the world had, and he’d never done more than spit at it. Toriel didn’t deserve it.

Edge was making everything worse.

He stepped back from the counter, flicking the flour from his hands. “I… I think I changed my mind about the bread today.”

Before he could step out of the room – run away – he was blocked from leaving.

Toriel’s expression was full of compassion. “What if I helped you?”

Edge clenched his teeth together tightly. “You’d be better off doing it without me.”

Her shoulders drooped slowly. “Why would you think such a thing?”

“Because I…” Edge lifted his hands like he could physically display every mistake he’d ever made that had led to that moment. “If you don’t let me walk away right now, I’m going to say something I regret, and I can’t…”

Edge couldn’t lose her, too.

Because if he stayed, he would either push her away or hold on too tightly, just like he had Red, and something would happen to her and it would destroy him, and either way it’s the same pain—

He swallowed down the sob clawing at his throat and desperately wished Toriel would just take the hint and step out of his way.

She didn’t move. “I want you to feel safe to talk with me,” Toriel spoke so gently it ached. “Please do not regret sharing with me.”

Edge scowled at the pleats in her skirt near the waistline. He could see the signs of it having fallen apart and Toriel stitched it back together. She was always fixing things – always mending, with hands gentler than flower petals, as she sat in her rocking chair or her soft yellow couch.

“You do not have to,” Toriel said, her voice something hollow in sadness. “But… if you wish to… you know I am here, do you not?”

Toriel was here.

“And here I will remain until you need me.”

Edge shook his head, taking a physical step away. She couldn’t make promises like that – she couldn’t – Edge didn’t know what he would do if he heard those words and dared to believe them just for it to go so wrong all over again.

“My dear, are you—”

“Stop!” Edge pleaded, pressing his palms into his head. “Just stop. Please.”

There was a moment when the only sound was once again the rain against the glass of the window.

“I wish to help you.” Toriel reminded him, and it hurt to hear. “Can you tell me what is wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” Edge echoed in disbelief, dropping his hands to stare at his adoptive mother. And the accumulation of his pain suddenly felt too heavy to carry. “What’s wrong is that my brother’s missing – what’s wrong is that he could be dead, and none of you will even consider that as a possibility!”

Toriel flinched.

Edge felt it like a deep wound across his chest. “What’s wrong is the fact that it doesn’t matter who it is I want to care about, they never stay. They leave, or they’re taken, and it doesn’t matter if they come back because clearly I’m going to be forced to live without them again – and it’s wrong!” He shouted. “It’s wrong that I’ve been scared of shit like this my entire fucking life, and Red proceeded to tell me that it would never happen to us – well guess what? It did!”

He kicked one of the cabinets below the sink with his toe. Not hard enough to do any damage, but enough to let out some of his anger. “What’s wrong is that I’m trying to pretend like I expected it because I should have, but instead I was naïve—”

“Edge—”

“—and now I’m making bread like that even matters right now!” Edge cut her off, whipping around to face her with tears gathering in his sockets. “What’s wrong is that, on top of fucking everything else, it’s raining outside! Sprinkles on the cake!” He growled. “And I hate it. I hate everything about it, and I hate the world, and all of its pieces, and I just want to keep one thing – fuck, Tori, can’t I just be allowed to keep one thing?”

Warm arms wrapped around him tightly as he crumbled, voice dropping to something below his normal volume. “Just one thing.” He sobbed. “Please.” That was all he wanted.

Toriel squeezed him tighter, as if she could mend him just as easily as everything else. Piecing things together with care and presence as it all fell apart around them.

The bread stayed on the counter unbaked. Toriel held Edge until Sans got there over an hour later.

Falling asleep hadn’t been in the plan.

Sans had teleported into the Dreemurrs’ living room that day and then crossed into the kitchen to check in when he’d felt them in there.

Edge had looked in a rough state. Sans was so worried about that kid, but he was glad Toriel was there for him. Someone should be.

And it was Toriel who had urged Sans to go upstairs and find something dry to wear, encouraging him to pick from Red’s closet, as if this were just another visit.

They all knew Red wouldn’t mind. Sans tried not to think about it too much.

But then he’d been warm and dry, smelling like Toriel’s laundry detergent and Red’s room. After he shrugged Red’s hoodie on – still smelling like the leather he usually wore over it these days, with just a hint of his floral shampoo – and laid back on his bed to try and center himself, Sans was a goner.

Sleep was rarely kind to him, though. It greeted him with encroaching danger and crawling terror, held at bay by warm arms and gentle words. Soft humming of songs, like Red started to do when Sans would have panic attacks.

And it was almost crueler, Sans was sure. To wake up with the feeling of Red having been right there, and now gone again. He would almost prefer the fear he used to taste in the back of his mouth.

Almost.

Not enough to wish it away – for all he knew, this was all he would ever experience of Red again. The fragments of memories invading his nightmares, providing him with a devastating layer of comfort.

Instead, his fingers curled into the sleeves of Red’s jacket, and he pulled his knees up to his chest as he tried to catch his breath. Trying not to hate how the air felt suddenly very cold and very empty.

Sans pressed a trembling hand to his chest as if to urge his soul beat to slow by the pressure. The sound of rain against the roof of the house was a grounding source of white noise as he tried to remind himself of where he was.

Red’s room. Alone.

The pain in his chest made it difficult to breathe. A familiar feeling Sans associated strongly with his childhood as the painful ache crept up his throat; the terrible sensation of tears that would never escape, like his soul were trying to hold all of his sorrow at once.

Stuck in a terrible limbo; all of the feelings piling into his ribcage with nowhere to go, enough pressure he felt numb.

Sans didn’t know how long it was before he moved again, and he didn’t care. He sat up slowly, limbs dragging. After a moment longer of doing nothing but sitting there, looking at the room and how it appeared lived in by someone absent, he managed to stand.

He’d stopped by to check on Toriel and Edge, not to mope in Red’s room. If they needed someone, Sans wanted to help how he could. Resting wasn’t an excuse, it was a distraction.

When he walked out of Red’s room, it was to the smell of fresh bread. Toriel had mentioned she would be baking what she and Edge had made earlier in the day, and while Sans wasn’t that enthused about the idea of eating something, Toriel’s food was always nice.

He descended the stairs to find Toriel sitting in her chair, rocking slowly as she knitted what Sans had assumed just that afternoon was a new project. Now, it looked to be rather far along. She lifted her gaze at his entrance and offered him a sympathetic smile. “Hello, dear.”

It was difficult, but Sans managed to smile back. “I think I fell asleep. Sorry about that.”

“It is no trouble at all,” Toriel said softly. “It is important to find rest wherever we can.”

Sans shuffled to a stop near the coffee table, looking around the living room. The purple walls. The yellow couch.

The awful pain in his chest was back and stronger than before.

He rubbed his knuckles against his sternum. “You started on the bread?”

“Yes, the second loaf is in the oven.” She answered easily.

“It smells great,” Sans told her.

After a pause, he wrapped his arms around himself, feeling the jacket hug him. “D’you need help with anything?”

Toriel gave him a soft look. “Why do you ask?”

Sans shrugged, caught off guard by the question. “I just… if there’s anything I can do to make all of this easier on you, I want to.”

Toriel’s eyes glistened with unshed tears, but she gave him a surprisingly stable look. “That is very kind of you, Sans, but I do not wish for you to push yourself too hard.”

Sans didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. He didn’t know how to explain it to her without making it about him – it wasn’t. None of this was about him.

It didn’t matter that he was the one to ask Red to do something that he didn’t come back from. It didn’t matter that Sans missed Red more than he’d ever missed anything else that had been taken from him – sleep, peace, affection – what mattered was that there were others affected by this. Others that had more of a right to worry than he ever would.

There was a sharp beep that startled Sans, and his attention snapped to the direction it came from in an aborted flinch.

“Oh, that is the oven – just a moment, dear.” Toriel stood abruptly, tossing her work onto the chair behind her before racing out toward the kitchen.

Sans watched the chair rock in her absence, noticing that the ball of yarn was going to roll off and take Toriel’s project with it. He stepped forward just as it started to tip toward the ground, catching the warm yarn in his hands—

Terror.

The intent clotheslined him. Gut-wrenching fear tangled with grief and loss, sorrow and outrage. Painfully raw emotions bleeding out of every careful stitch, flooding Sans with a perfect picture of a parent’s pain.

He couldn’t breathe. In his trembling hands he held evidence of everything hiding beneath Toriel’s peaceful exterior. She was hurting. Toriel was in more agony than Sans could have possibly imagined and he was drowning.

He slowly sank to his knees, carefully returning the knitting to the cushion of the chair, holding it to stop it from rocking.

“It was a success!” Toriel’s voice was very gently pleased. “I will cut us both a piece after it cools a bit more, how does that sound?”

Sans carefully lifted his hands, shaking, from the chair. Then he turned over his left shoulder to look at Toriel.

Her smile, however small and sad, slipped from her face. “Sans?”

Not a single trace of the terrible pain she held in her soul, all of it pushed to the side. Only concern.

And Sans felt himself break. “I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t much louder than a whisper. It was all he could manage.

Toriel moved closer, observing her project on the rocking chair. “I did not lose any progress, you have nothing to…”

Sans stared at her as she trailed off, realization pooling in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Sans repeated, nearly choking on the words. The pain was almost too much, even without contact, like the intent carried over into his own chest, and Sans didn’t know how to breathe around the knot that formed there.

Toriel lowered herself to the ground and quickly pulled Sans into the tightest hug he’d ever received.

Sans was unable to move. His fingers felt numb. He knew his eyelights were out and he couldn’t bring them back. “I shouldn’t have asked him to go.”

Toriel squeezed him impossibly tighter.

“I-I…” There was no air in the room anymore, Sans was sure. And he had so many more things to say – things to apologize for. And top of the list after asking a favor of Red the day before was knowing him at all.

“I do not blame you, Sans.” Toriel’s voice was just as soft as Sans’s. Just as pained.

“I do,” Sans confessed, and it felt like ripping himself to pieces. Shredding every thin mask of calm he had left.

“You should not.” Toriel’s words were shaking but certain. “None of this was your fault, Sans. And Red will tell you that himself when he returns.”

The hopeful words felt hollow. Sans knew she was already preparing herself for never seeing Red again.

“I need you to know that it was never my intention for anyone to feel what I was putting into that scarf,” Toriel whispered, and there were tears in her voice then. “They are the feelings I did not wish to speak on. As well as feelings I did not wish to dwell on. I forgot that you were sensitive to intent, I should have been more careful.”

Sans was already shaking his head, still not speaking. Struggling to.

“You need to breathe.” Toriel prompted softly, rubbing his back.

If Sans did breathe, he felt like he would burst. Another something filling his chest and it burned—

“Please, Sans.”

And he couldn’t deny her. Not something as simple as that, even if it hurt him. Still trembling, he tried to inhale.

The breath was more like a pained gasp, and tears quickly followed it. The next was closer to a sob.

Even though the scarf Toriel was working on had been moved out of Sans’s hands, so many of the emotions remained. Sorrow, fear, outrage – it remained, tangled and matted in his soul. It was only after trying, and failing, to calm down for several minutes that Sans understood why.

It was his. Just as intense and painful, if an entirely different flavor.

And what got to him the most was the fear. How it crept up through his bones like darkness and shadow through fading light. Sans was terrible at feeling and identifying his emotions, but he recognized fear.

More than that, he recognized the dread that came with it.

Chapter Text

One night had passed. Then two. Then three.

Sans had gone from desperate to restless to aggravated to accepting.

This was a waiting game, and he was not playing it well. For all of the Patience in him, Sans didn’t wait. He wasn’t allowed to. It could be mistaken for hesitation, and that was typically to the detriment of success.

He didn’t have much of a choice now.

He’d already promised himself he wouldn’t be reaching out to anyone actively involved in the investigation. If they got news, they would tell Toriel, and she would tell him. He didn’t want to needlessly distract them.

He had, however, texted Alphys only five minutes ago, double-checking that she hadn’t received an alert about Red’s phone popping up somewhere. That Cell was still keeping an eye on the computer today – or that she’d gone over to check on it.

There had been nothing. And that made sense. Whatever they’d done to the phone had it offline and untraceable. And no result from Alphys meant no result for the police department, either.

He hoped they had other leads.

“Sitting like that isn’t good for your spine.”

Sans looked over toward Papyrus at his comment, quiet and uncertain. Then he sat up, changing how he was slouching in his chair, going back to pretending to read instead of staring through the ceiling.

The silence stretched between them.

Then Papyrus spoke again. “How does your soul feel today?”

“Why?” His response was a little too quick to sound any way other than defensive.

“Because you were showing signs of discomfort yesterday,” Papyrus answered simply. “And… you mentioned pain.”

Sans didn’t look up from his book. “Dr. Melady mentioned my soul would be more prone to it.”

“No, he said the pain is normal when you’re more prone to cracking.” Papyrus corrected gently. “Because of the damage already there.”

Sans shrugged softly. That wasn’t a concern of his, right then. “It hasn’t cracked yet.”

Papyrus’s silence was thick with words Sans wondered if he would ever hear.

Then Sans felt Asgore’s magic approach as he walked down the hallway. Working from home, this week. Sans signed a quick notice to Papyrus in Hands before there was a gentle knock on the door.

“Come on in!” Sans called. This was his room, after all.

The door opened and Asgore stepped into the room, ducking a little to get beneath the doorframe already built so much larger. “Howdy.”

“Hello, Asgore!” Papyrus greeted politely.

“This was left for you.” Asgore held up a small package, looking toward Sans. “I know your mind is on other matters, but I thought perhaps…”

“Thanks,” Sans said, offering him a small smile. He knew Asgore was trying to keep things as normal as possible without forcing anything. It was actually rather kind of him. Sans held out his hand for the package.

Asgore passed it to him. It was light. “I am not sure what it is this time. It seems the postage gets vaguer every time you order something.” He joked gently.

Sans tried to widen his smile in appreciation for the joke, but it didn’t stick.

With a soft look of sympathy that made Sans ache, Asgore turned to leave. “Do let me know if you need anything else.”

“We will!” Papyrus called after him.

Then they sat in silence once more.

“Well, what’s in it?”

“Hm?” Sans looked toward his brother.

“The package,” Papyrus insisted. “What did you order?”

Sans paused at the question, looking back at the parcel with curiosity.

He hadn’t ordered anything.

And there was no proper postage. No shipping or return label – only Asgore’s office address, where Sans had things shipped for safety reasons, scrawled below his name.

Not inherently suspicious, or Asgore’s security would’ve flagged the package. He’s just extra on edge with everything that was happening.

Sans reached over to his desk, snagging the scissors before carefully cutting the package open. Sliding the contents onto his desk.

A small box.

With his browbones furrowed, Sans pried at the lid. There was a phone inside. A familiar phone. Sunshine sticker on the case that Sans had put there as a joke months ago.

Red’s cellphone. With a new crack splitting the screen.

Sans froze, eyelights blinking out.

“Is that…?” Papyrus’s voice sounded strained as he stood and moved closer.

Sans held up a hand in a request for his stillness. They didn’t know what this was. What it would do. And some part of his mind had alarm bells ringing, putting this from unusual to dangerous.

Papyrus did stop, still a few feet away.

They both stared at the phone.

Then Sans powered it on, glancing around the room as if he was anticipating being under additional observation. His soul was in his mouth, practically, terror and worry replacing the space it usually took up in his chest.

When the phone finished booting up, the screen displayed nothing but a generic background. As if it were factory reset. There wasn’t even any personalized app organization on the home screen.

This was weird. Sans looked toward his brother. “We should call—”

The phone’s default ringtone was loud, as it interrupted. Sharp. He and Papyrus both flinched at the sound.

Sans looked back at the screen. The contact was listed as ANSWER.

After a pause of consideration, Sans did. He answered. Because he had no idea who this was or what they wanted, but they might know something about Red.

Sans placed the device to his head. Silent. Listening instead of speaking first.

The line was quiet.

“Hello?” The voice was gruff. A little hesitant – probably because Sans didn’t lead.

Sans arched a browbone and was careful to keep his voice even, tone empty. “Who is this?”

“Can I speak to Sans Serif?” More confidence in the words.

This felt bad. He spoke into the phone, “You are.” And at the same time, he signed silently to Papyrus, “Write down what I tell you.”

Because if Papyrus called anyone, he would have to speak to be heard, and that would give them away.

The teen quickly grabbed a piece of paper and snagged a pen from Sans’s desk, using that surface to write.

“Good.” The voice said. “Are you alone?”

“Weird question; usually telemarketers don’t care about that.” He knew they weren’t a telemarketer. “Does it matter?”

“Depends,” they said. “Do you want to see your boyfriend again?”

Sans froze.

For all of two seconds. Then he’s signing to Papyrus, “Involved with Red’s kidnapping,” before responding to them with a lie that was as easy as any truth. “Yes. I’m alone.”

“Good start,” they said.

“What do you want?” Sans asked.

“Your cooperation. Otherwise, he dies. Got it?”

Sans was moving toward his closet, pulling out his boots. He didn’t usually wear them anymore, unless he needed to feel safe or he was riding with Red on his motorcycle – reinforced, lace up, good tread.

The boots he used to wear on missions with the Royal Guard.

“Is he alive now?” Sans asked, sliding his feet into the shoes.

A pause. “What?”

“Is he still alive?” Sans rephrased, keeping his voice empty. Tucking the phone between his cheek and shoulder to free his hands.

“Of course he is.”

“And unhurt?” Sans asked.

“You’re in no place to be demanding information,” they growled.

Not unhurt. “Oh really? Because it sounds like I have something you want. Why else would you be calling me?”

There was silence over the line long enough to let Sans finish tying his shoes completely, tucking in the laces. He was trying to stay calm, and the part of him that would reasonably panic was tucked away. Sans Serif stepping aside to make space for the other piece of him. That other half of the coin.

And even with the uncertainty, it was getting easier to breathe with that shift.

Testing them like that was a risk, but making them aware of how Sans was useful would give him information.

And keep Red alive.

Because he was alive. He was alive.

“He’s still in one piece,” The voice said, only confirming what Sans had already gathered.

Sans signed to Papyrus, “Red is alive but most likely wounded.”

And then the voice continued. “And he’ll stay that way if you cooperate.”

They were going to use Red to manipulate Sans into following their orders. Sans inwardly cringed at the painfully familiar sensation of powerlessness that provided. And he did not look toward Papyrus.

He would do whatever this person told him to do, and he knew it. But Sans needed to know that he wasn’t doing it in vain. That Red would be alive when he got there. That he was in a condition to save.

“I need proof,” Sans said. “Undeniable proof of life.”

There was a pause. “What do you suggest?” They asked, annoyed.

Sans wondered if asking for a video was too risky, it could take too long – he needed to know Red was responsive sooner than later. “Put him on.”

There was another pause. Longer. Some background noise. Then… “Say hello.”

After a moment of nothing, Sans spoke softly. Trying to prompt a response from him. “Red?”

There was a soft hiss of breath.

Sans’s soul squeezed in his chest. “Say something. Please.” He requested gently.

Red needed to be okay – please be okay, Sans didn’t know what he would do if Red wasn’t okay—

“He’s got the stupidest fucking haircut I’ve ever seen.”

Red’s voice was rough, like it was almost gone, and there was evidence of pain or fear in the tightness and tremor of his tone, but Sans felt a sharp stab of relief.

“Human, ‘bout five-ten, stocky – named Titano – snake tattoo on his—” Red’s rapid-fire description cut off abruptly by a cry of pain.

Sans closed his sockets tightly at the sound, aching. Recognizing it was Red.

Clearly, he’d been describing the one on the phone. One of his kidnappers. That made sense – Red was listing identifiable pieces of their appearance, and that would be the key to finding who it was that took him, in case this didn’t end with Sans finding him.

Which is why Sans signed it all to Papyrus in Hands, so the kid would have it written down.

“That was a mean trick.” The mystery voice – Titano – said. The one Red had been describing. “Try that again and I’ll kill you.”

Not talking to Sans. Talking to Red.

Something burned in Sans’s soul at the threat, hot enough it seared the edges of his mind. “If you kill him, there’s nothing stopping you from dying next.”

Papyrus lifted his eyelights from his paper, at that. Looking at Sans.

Sans didn’t look back, glancing out the window when he’d noticed.

“If you’re after me, then you know what I am,” Sans said. “And if you do, then you know what I’m capable of.” Sans himself tried not to think about it, his thoughts were fragmenting in his fear. He pushed the feeling into a box and locked it tightly.

“You’re not in a place to be making threats, Serif.” Titano sounded angry, but Sans could hear the nervousness beneath it.

“It’s not a threat,” Sans said darkly. “It’s a promise.”

Silence followed his words.

“But if you’re not killing him, there’s nothing to worry about.” It was a calm continuation. “Red lives, I cooperate, you get what you’re after. So tell me what to do.” He was trying to move the conversation along to something productive. Red probably needed medical care, and he couldn’t get that until he was safe. Sans wanted him to be safe.

“Follow my instructions without hesitation or deviation,” Titano said. “Simple as that. We’ll stay on the line and monitor your actions.”

Sans signed to Papyrus as he theorized. “Big name with resources; might have access to cameras.” Because how else would they confirm what he was doing, or where he was?

“Go to the gas station on Hilltop Road – the one across from the park. Take the package the phone came in with you.”

Interesting, or unnerving, that they knew Sans would know where that is. As if they were already aware of how he’d stopped by with Red to grab snacks more than once.

Sans calculated the distance to walk in his mind. He’d been in the area before. “I can be there in twenty minutes.”

“No, you’ll teleport.” Titano corrected.

Sans paused. This guy knew what he was doing. Sans couldn’t leave an effective trail if he were teleporting. The police might be able to spot him on cameras, though, and that could work. And so would having his own phone to track, so he tucked it into his back pocket. “Okay. I need—”

“You will go straight there, and you will not talk to anyone.” He said. “If you do, your boyfriend pays for it.”

“If I teleport to somewhere without signal, the call will drop,” Sans warned. Maybe he could sneak in a text to someone to let them know what was happening. Or maybe the fact Sans was calling someone at all – on Red’s phone – would let the police know where to go.

Would it be tracked if it were factory reset? Or did it have a new SIM card altogether? Stars, Sans wished he knew more about technology.

“If the call drops for any reason, if you contact anyone in any way, consider it a deviation of terms and the consequences will apply.”

Damn it.

It was unreasonable, but it was strict with a purpose. Sans would be careful now, they ensured. He signed to Papyrus. “Remain on Standby.”

Papyrus’s sockets widened, his eyelights shrinking.

Standby was a type of command or codeword – they had a lot of them – and not one of their design. It was to make Papyrus aware of Sans being in a dangerous situation that could see him injured, so he could be adequately prepared for whatever state he would be in when he got back.

Sans defaulted to it. Because Papyrus would understand immediately what was at risk and what Sans needed from him to see everything successful.

Patience and preparedness.

“Gas station on Hilltop Road, across from the park,” Titano repeated. “Bring the packaging.”

Sans grabbed the opened package and the box from his desk, putting both in his inventory, before stepping through the Void and onto the grass nearby the gas station. The road was busy this time of day, and the rain and loud traffic tugged at his attention. With his thumb, he made sure the volume of the call was loud enough to be heard over the din.

“We can now see you on the station’s security feed,” Titano said. “Drop your phone into the trashcan to your left.”

Sans glanced at the metal bin, hesitating. If he did that, it would be harder to find him. “I don’t have it on me.”

In response, there was another cry of pain that made Sans flinch minutely and his soul ache – he’s never going to forget the sound – followed by words through heavy breathing, voice thick with what might be rage or tears, “You son of a bitch—"

“Lie to me again, and I’ll do more,” Titano warned, cutting off Red.

“Okay.” Sans lifted his free hand in peace. He didn’t know where the camera was, but he knew they could see him. He’d been right in what he’d told Papyrus. “Alright, I’m sorry.”

“Drop your phone into the trashcan on your left.”

Sans pulled the device carefully from his pocket as he moved to the requested bin. Then he tossed it inside, hearing it clang as it hit the interior wall.

“Good. Next, go to the green between Ebott University’s mathematics building and the parking garage.”

Sans knew exactly where that was; the garage was currently under construction. He took another shortcut, appearing to a different sort of cacophony. The beeping of construction vehicles and the pounding of what must have been a jackhammer on concrete. They were working inside of the garage, so the rain wasn’t interrupting anything for them.

“Walk around the back to the walkway near the parking garage.” The voice directed monotonously.

Sans followed instructions, glancing toward buildings' walls and corners as he passed, spotting the cameras. Did they have access to these?

Probably – how else would they have taken Red from campus? How else would they have known Sans worked there unless it was only by word of mouth? It rarely was; when someone knew where he lived, they kept it to themselves to use for their own gain. It was always how it worked, apparently.

They never wanted someone else to take the opportunity before them.

“Stop.”

Sans stopped where he stood, standing on the cement sidewalk with no one around, a dead end made by a safety barrier across from him.

“Put the packaging the phone came in on the ground there. And destroy it.”

Getting rid of evidence. Okay. He pulled the box and envelope from his inventory and set it on the ground. “Destroy it how?”

“You can use blasters, right? Conjure three of them. Don’t draw too much attention – use the construction noise as cover.”

Three? That was overkill – one was overkill. Sans’s magic was strong, and this was paper and cardboard.

But a theory began to build in his mind, then. Were they trying to drop his MP?

He followed instructions, conjuring the proper attack magic – large skulls that were almost animal-like in nature. He kept them close to him, so there wasn’t a significant or noticeable shift in magic to outside observation. There was a soft whirr as magic gathered in their mouths, and he waited for a moment.

When he heard the jackhammer from the construction crew again, he fired the blasters – bright white magic tearing through the air and decimating the flimsy packaging.

Overkill.

He dropped the attack magic as soon as it was done, hearing the jackhammer still going. Hoping that meant no one noticed. There was a mark on the ground from the magic itself; soul damage exclusivity was specific to beings with souls. If there was no soul, tangible damage was default.

Sans kicked his toe softly through the ash left behind, confirming for whatever camera was on him that there was nothing left of the packaging.

“There’s a botanical garden on the north side of the city. Teleport there.”

Sans stepped back from the destroyed evidence and through the Void, to the garden in question. It was raining harder there. The sky was darker.

“Now to the geology building at Ebott University.”

Sans had just been near there, but he teleported to the building in question, easily in sight of the cameras.

A show of good faith, but also in the hope that there would be some sort of tangible trail for law enforcement to follow, should the worst outcome of all of this happen.

“You see the pedestrian bridge, over the highway?”

Sans looked toward it immediately, recognizing it. “Yes.”

“Run across it.”

Sans resisted the urge to roll his eyelights, but he listened. Running. It was a long bridge – it was crossing a six-lane road with a divider – but he made it to the other side, not yet winded. He used to do a lot of intense exercise, and he doesn’t have muscles that would forget easily.

And he still trained a lot more than someone should who wasn’t in active duty. Undyne just called it working out and offered to do it with him. Sans rolled with it.

“Teleport back to the garden.”

Sans frowned a little, but complied.

“Now back to the geology building.”

Another hop through a shortcut.

“Run across the bridge.”

Oh, that was the game they were playing – they were trying to exhaust him.

Why?

So he was easier to contain.

Sans didn’t linger on those thoughts, though, running across the pedestrian bridge again.

Just in time for Titano’s voice to come across the line again. “Back to the garden.”

He teleported to follow instructions, and they do that a few more times.

Most people who have the capacity for teleportation have a certain distance they can collectively travel with their MP. And, unless they have practiced significantly, that distance is not particularly large. Short bursts make it easier – Sans knew that at some point it started accounting for the curvature of the earth’s surface – but ultimately it varied from person to person, dependent on their total MP and compatibility with the magic.

Sans had high MP – the highest recorded. Comparable to boss monsters. And blue used to be his primary magic type, before all of the experiments.

He could teleport a lot.

And everything Titano was asking for had been carefully mapped out. Sans could tell. Not calculated for the average monster who could use this magic, but tailored to Sans specifically.

He did not like that.

But he cooperated. Geology, running across the bridge, garden, geology, bridge, garden, geology, bridge—

“The gas station on Hilltop Road.”

Sans teleported there, next, starting to breath a little heavier. It was hard to tell if he were sweating, as soaked through with rain as he was.

“Teleport to Posto Vegano, downtown. The alleyway next to it.”

Sans tried to remember if he’d been to that restaurant and – yes, Undyne liked to eat there, their menu was primarily vegetarian.

He had never been in the alley, though, so he teleported near the front door before finding out which side had the alley.

“Why didn’t you teleport into the alley?” Titano asked, something untrusting in his tone.

“I’ve never been in the alley,” Sans said it like it was obvious.

“What?”

“I’ve never – you can’t teleport to somewhere you’ve never been,” Sans told him.

There was a pause. A muffled voice Sans didn’t recognize. It sounded like confirmation, though.

Did Titano not know that? Did he just assume Sans could teleport wherever they wanted? If so, this could get very complicated.

Because that meant the information they were operating on was based on what they assumed Sans was capable of, not what he actually was.

“I know Ebott City well enough to get anywhere, you’d just need to give me travel time,” He said. Because they need to know he was cooperating. He didn’t want Red to be in further pain again.

And people like this were tricky when things deviated from plan – especially if it had been so carefully crafted before. He can only assume that whatever big corporation funded this hired a group of mercenaries, and that was who he was dealing with.

Sans knew what mercenaries were like. And high LV on a gun for hire made them more than ready to pull triggers.

“Okay.” Titano sounded resigned. Annoyed. Some tiny, distant part of Sans was amused and terrified of that. “When given a location you don’t know, you will tell me. I will give you the information you need to find it. Got it?”

“Received.” Sans internally cringed at the response as it slipped out of his teeth. Painful and familiar and entirely automatic.

Titano had no concept of the conflict of Sans’s mind, though. He just gave a new location.

And Sans was off. Titano dragged him all over Ebott City – not only the massive sprawl of businesses and restaurants but in toward the skyscrapers. Out toward the boroughs. He went into a few buildings; the first time, Sans thought he’d reached the final destination. That they had led him to Red.

They didn’t. Instead, Titano made Sans climb twenty flights of stairs to the roof access and then made him teleport again. It happened more than once; a couple of the buildings were abandoned and without wards, so Sans could teleport in and out freely. He always spotted cameras, though – brand new. This path was preplanned. Laid out.

Another sign that every bit of this was calculated.

When there were locations Sans inevitably could not fulfill, Titano gave him a time limit to reach them. Usually five minutes or less. Even when Sans couldn’t teleport directly, he did a lot of it anyway, getting as close as possible and then teleporting as far as he could see in the correct direction.

Visibility dropped as the rain only got worse. Sans was unbelievably grateful that Red took Alphys’s advice and got a protective case for his phone that resisted water damage. And extreme heat. And pressure. Pretty much any condition that could accidentally be induced by all of the varying monster types in existence.

He could tell that the sticker on the back was disintegrating, though. It felt sticky and textured unpleasantly whenever he needed to shift how he was holding the phone.

Sans tried desperately not to take it as an omen.

As all of the running around continued for long enough, Sans could tell Titano was getting irritated by Sans’s apparently bottomless pool of magic. He hadn’t slept well, but he didn’t need to for his MP to stay high. He was built for this. Trained to handle strain. He could literally do this all day.

So he was not surprised when things started to shift. Not happy about it, but not surprised. The locations were getting farther and farther apart. Titano was having Sans climb more stairs. Run. It felt like the stress tests he used to be subjected to. Sans would pretend it was working if only to lure Titano into a false sense of security, primed to underestimate him, but Sans was incapable of appearing affected at all. That was drilled into him, too.

He hated it.

So did, apparently, Titano.

“Get on the bus.”

Sans watched it crawl to a still outside of the bus stop, trying to catch his breath in the only real pause he had been given so far.

Both sets of the bus doors opened and people of all shapes and sizes climbed on and off of the vehicle. He dug in his inventory for his student ID and flashed it at the driver as he mounted the steps. Because of Ebott University being in the area, if you presented an ID from the school then you could ride the public transportation for free. The driver gave him a disgruntled glance, probably because he was trailing water and would inevitably leave a puddle on the floor.

There were more people on the bus than Sans was comfortable with, even if there were still empty seats. Sans didn’t bother sitting, holding onto the rail above his head as the bus started to move again. He glanced around him, phone still pressed to his head. No one was paying him any attention.

“After one block, teleport to the gas station on the corner of Mechorro and Esquilo.”

Sans knew where that was, but he frowned, looking up at the indicator that told him where the next stop would be. “There isn’t a bus stop in a block.”

“Did I say wait for a stop?” Titano asked rhetorically. “No. I said teleport to the location.”

Incomprehension bled into him. “Out of a moving vehicle?” That didn’t make sense.

“Are you arguing with me again?” Titano’s voice was dark with warning.

“You’re all fucking idiots.” Red’s voice snapped suddenly.

Sans felt his magic run cold. “Red—”

“Teleportation doesn’t negate energy, asshole.”

“Red, stop talking,” Sans said firmly. If Red provoked them for no reason, he would only end up more hurt.

One of the passengers next to him gave him a curious look.

Sans lowered his voice. “You said after the first block?” The next intersection was steadily growing closer. Maybe he could find a time when the bus slowed, even if it didn’t stop. Reduce the chance of breaking any bones on his landing.

“Yes.”

Sans tapped his phalanges against the metal rail above his head, paying attention to how his weight shifted with the varying speed of the bus due to traffic. There would be no complete stops without a miracle – the light just turned green ahead of them – so it was a matter of reducing the risk.

The first intersection passed, and Sans was vigil for his opportunity.

There. A car cut into their lane, causing the bus driver to slam on the breaks for just a moment. Sans felt the momentum drag him forward and he opted to rush toward the back of the bus to take away more of that momentum, startling a passenger or two, before stepping through a shortcut to land at the gas station as directed.

He made sure to appear a few inches above the ground hoping to get a bit of a quick stride in to reduce his speed.

Even with the precaution, Sans landed exactly how he expected to; thrown across the wet pavement and dropping Red’s phone. The cement and loose gravel scraped up his arm, leaving a muddy streak on the side of his pantleg where he dragged before rolling.

Ouch.

He shakily moved back to his feet, looking around for Red’s phone, hoping it hadn’t broken.

“Dust?”

The confused call – threat? – surprised him, and Sans whipped around to face the speaker, magic arming in the air like he was about to use it.

A man stood there. Darker complexion with a head of long, thick curls tied back out of his face. A human or a human-monster hybrid – definitely hybrid, with an orange magic type.

The man lifted his hands in peace or defense, looking startled at Sans’s attention. “Sorry. My bad.” And his eyes dropped to Sans’s arm. “You’re bleeding.”

Sans glanced at the blood beginning to soak his sleeve before waving the man off. Calming as he registered that it was a civilian. He looked a little like Rufio. “I’m fine.”

Where did he drop Red’s cell phone? This was important, he was losing precious time – what if they hurt him because Sans wasn’t responding—

“Uh… here.” The hybrid lifted something from the ground and held it toward Sans.

The phone.

Sans took it back, genuinely grateful. “Thanks.”

He glanced at the screen to make sure the call was still active before placing the device to his head. “Okay.”

“Do you need help or something?”

Sans glanced toward the one who helped him. “No, thanks.”

“Stop talking to them,” Titano demanded.

“I am,” Sans assured him, walking away and ignoring the person standing with him for the sake of their safety. And also ignoring the pain in his body from the rough landing. “Just tell me where to go next.”

“The parking lot outside of Froggit Library – the branch down by the southern residential district.”

Sans shook his head to clear it. “I’ve never been there.”

“You have four minutes.”

Sans closed his sockets tightly, pulling up a map of Ebott in his mind and desperately trying to remember where that particular library was. Titano said a southern residential district – the only library he knew that was near housing was on the other side of town from the University, close to the elementary school Toriel worked at.

He’d been there to visit her once. Red was bringing her lunch.

Sans stepped through a shortcut, no longer in the parking lot but instead across the street from the school, where Red had parked his car.

And he began to teleport – small hops, as far as he could see down the street, toward the library.

After that location, there was more. And more. And more. At one point, Sans had to cross Echo River. He hadn’t been back there in years, and only on the wrong side of it. He couldn’t just teleport as far as he could see – that would put him in the murky water, as the rain made it impossible to see the opposite bank – and he wasn’t close enough to a bridge to waste the time crossing it even with the help of a shortcut or more.

Because out of every magic type Sans had trained, teleportation was still his weakest. It was rooted in blue magic, and Gaster never gave him a dose of Integrity. He could only stretch it so far, and he needed to hold onto something. Some scrap of energy for when he made it to Red so he could get them out.

The chance of that was feeling slimmer and slimmer, but Sans also knew he could be incredibly resourceful when he needed to be. Trusting himself was difficult on a good day, but trusting his ability to adapt was like trusting lungs to breathe. Trusting a heart to beat.

Second nature. Subconscious.

He crossed the river using his attack magic. Because Sans’s magic mutation had one perk, which was that it couldn’t hurt its wielder. Sans had made ladders and platforms out of it before. What was a bridge if not just a bunch of platforms?

Alphys would laugh and cringe at that, as an engineer, Sans was certain.

It used less magic than teleportation would and he reached the other side within the allotted timeframe. Ready for the next location.

He felt like he was doing it for hours – and maybe he was. There was no way for him to tell other than risking a glance at the clock on Red’s phone. An estimate based on the amount of sunlight turning the dreary storm clouds a bit less dark. Traffic.

He was getting tired. He could feel it in how his joints burned from magic fatigue. How his head swam. He hadn’t properly stretched his magic like this since before Gaster got arrested.

And the sharp pain in his soul with every beat was a very clear indication as to why.

Even nearly two years after his injury, Sans was still healing. Still hurting. He hated how it put such a stark limit on him. A clear-cut line of what he could and could not give without dying.

But to get Red home, Sans would give anything.

“There’s a local coffee shop toward the center of the city called the Living Bean, you know of it?”

Sans dragged his sleeve over his sockets to try and clear them of rainwater. The bones of his arm stung from where he’d landed hard in that parking lot, but it was tucked away with every other complaint his body was screaming to him.

Unimportant. All of it, unimportant.

“Yes – on Summit Street?”

“You got it,” Titano confirmed.

Sans stepped through the correct shortcut, feeling his soul give a sharp twinge. It wasn’t raining so hard here.

He glanced toward the coffee shop. It was small, in the lower level of a building that was primarily an office. For taxes or insurance, or something – Sans wasn’t sure. He just knew the coffee shop was the only one that sold affogato on this side of town, and Papyrus had wanted to try it.

“Across the street, there’s another building. Tall, mostly windows.” Titano described. “Out front is a large bronze-colored sphere, like an art installation. You see it?”

Sans did. And he looked both ways before beginning to cross the street, just managing to catch the lull of traffic. “Yes.”

“Go inside.”

The interior of his skull felt thick. He was tired. He wondered if he looked it. He might have to tell Titano he was at his limit, soon, or he would never make it to the final destination. Though maybe the point was never to take him to where Red is. Maybe the point was to get him to pass out so someone could pick him up.

It was smart, as reluctant as Sans was to admit it. Probably the best way of dealing with him at all.

He wondered if Red was even in Ebott City anymore. In this country at all.

He wondered if this would inevitably be longer than he ever imagined. If they would be the first to succeed in actually catching him because they dared to go after the people he loved.

Maybe Sans should stop loving people after this. Give them a break. Angel knows they’ll need it – and so would he. He was exhausted.

Sans stepped through the glass doors at the entrance and into a posh-looking lobby hearing his boots squeak on the floor as he crossed onto the dry linoleum.

He took a moment to breathe as he looked around. It was some sort of office building, maybe – Carval Institute and Research Center, the sign read above a desk with a monster seated at it, who was giving Sans a confused look.

Sans hesitated.

“Tell her you’re with the renovation company,” Titano instructed.

“I’m with the renovation company,” Sans repeated.

The monster nodded, looking suddenly bored. “You know where you’re going?”

“Yes.” Sans assumed he’d get instructions.

She pointed with a pen further into the building.

“Walk down the hall and to your right,” Titano said. “Look for signs pointing to the elevator.”

That was easy enough. Sans wondered why he was being led further into the building if they were just going to make him leave it again to go somewhere across town.

“Head to the ninth floor.”

Sans spotted the elevator just as Titano spoke, and started walking toward it just in case he’d be lucky enough—

“Take the stairs.”

Sans stopped. It took every year of grueling training and conditioning to keep his mouth shut. They were going to make him climb the stairs again?

Sans knew that it all had a reason; they were purposefully trying to exhaust him physically instead of only his MP. But it was fucking annoying.

Red was probably a lot worse off. Sans wondered if he could even climb stairs in whatever state he was in.

That was a sobering enough thought Sans pushed on. He found the stairwell by a convenient number of signs and started climbing. By floor four, he wondered if it would have been more efficient to just teleport. On floor five, he was getting complaints from all of his joints. He tried to stop for a break. They told him to keep moving.

Floor seven saw his chest aching from how fast his soul was pounding – the activity on top of the already-existing pain wasn’t doing him any favors. He was uncomfortable and he really just wanted to lie down and damn the consequences, after running all over town.

But Red was waiting for him at the other end of this wild goose chase, and Sans would see him safe.

He almost passed the ninth floor.

It was with a curious glance at the wall that he managed to spot the painted number, and he stopped. He wasn’t sure how much of his being wet was from the rain or sweat anymore, and he wasn’t sure if it made a difference.

“Walk through the door.”

Sans was heaving for breath. “Gimme a sec.”

“Serif, walk through the door now or—”

“D’you want me to pass out?” Sans asked, barely managing to speak through his magic desperately trying to circulate. “Just… just one minute. Then I’ll keep going.” He promised.

Maybe they were debating on letting him take a break, or maybe they were deciding how to hurt Red for Sans’s lack of stamina, but there was silence on the line. Sans didn’t risk needing to be reminded again; the moment he got his breath back, he pulled the door open to enter the floor.

And was met by a pistol pointed at his face.

Sans stilled abruptly, adrenaline rushing through him with renewed force. “Oh. Hi.”

The human on the other end of the firearm looked focused, like any move Sans made could be deadly.

“Step all of the way into the hall,” Titano said from the other end of the phone still pressed to Sans’s head.

He walked carefully, each step as slow as he could risk for the sake of keeping his good eye on the drawn weapon and glancing around at the others. There were four people total, of varying sizes, but they were all humanoid.

“These your friends?” Sans asked into the phone.

“Yes,” Titano confirmed. “Walk down the hallway. They’ll follow.”

Sans didn’t want to, but he complied. As he passed them, though, he gave the small group a once-over. They all had guns. Combat boots. Clothes made for ease of movement. Some wore vests.

Organized. That made sense – how else would they have secured a place within a branch of a research facility?

Sans couldn’t help but wonder if any of them still had a gun in hand, aimed for his head. It didn’t matter – he could move faster if he wanted to. Not faster than a bullet, but faster than a trigger finger. The only reason he cooperated was because Red would be nearby.

He had to be.

Sans couldn’t feel anyone else’s magic signatures, what with his own MP so low, but it didn’t stop him from trying.

It looked like the floor was actually under renovation, with plastic covering the carpet and hanging in curtains, and a chill like nothing was insulated. Probably necessary for whatever cover they held with the building – why Sans was able to tell the receptionist what he did to get in without qualm.

But because he was trying to feel for Red – to see him with his magic and not his eyes – he could feel someone approaching from behind the plastic.

Another human. Taller than Sans, though that wasn’t exactly difficult to accomplish. His hair looked a bit like he’d had an unfortunate encounter with safety scissors. Sans figured it was probably supposed to be modern, or something, but Red’s words came to mind.

And the tattoo of a snake wrapped around his forearm confirmed it. This was Titano.

He stared down at Sans, tapping the screen of the phone in his hand.

There was a beep from Red’s phone, indicating an ended call, so Sans lowered the device. His eyelights scraped over the human, taking in his wardrobe and where he had his weapons holstered, and he recognized the type. Definitely private militia – organized crime or some rich guy with enough money hired a band of mercenaries. Though this guy might be ex-military, it was a lot harder to tell than the movies would say.

Either way, definitely not Sans’s favorite people.

“Serif One,” Titano smirked a little. “Good to see you.”

Sans stared blandly at him at the pleasantry. Was he supposed to be impressed by the politeness or was that supposed to be underhanded in some way and he missed it?

Titano turned to walk farther down the hallway. Not the way he’d come from. “Follow me.”

Sans glanced toward the plastic curtain the man had entered through. Was Red that way? He had to be, right? Because Titano was speaking to him directly.

“Move it, Serif!” Titano called back, projecting his voice instead of shouting.

That told him Titano was either ex-military or he just liked the vibe. Sans always thought that was weird to see. Because it was one thing to go through war or combat training and another entirely to idolize it.

But he did as directed, falling into stride behind the taller human.

They didn’t go far, only a little ways down the hall into what probably would be an office space after renovations were finished. There were half a dozen additional militants inside and what looked like foldable tables set up and also covered in plastic, the room looking like it had been halfway through being painted days ago.

Sans worried about the real renovation team.

Titano held out his hand. “Give me the phone.”

Sans gave him a cold look before passing him Red’s cell phone.

“Put your hands up and don’t move.”

Oh, this was the part where they checked him for weapons.

He lifted his hands, aware that his reflexive annoyance was a desperate coping mechanism. Someone else approached and Sans remained still. Obedient as they patted him down – even if every point of contact made his bones crawl.

Something else got pointed at him – not a gun, he was mostly sure. It looked more like a barcode scanner. A laser grid appeared over his chest, then the device beeped. “Empty your inventory.”

Sans tipped his head curiously. Inventory scanners hadn’t been portable like that when he last encountered them.

Technology was advancing. Sans didn’t like it.

“Empty your inventory.” The words were sharper, as the one patting him down stepped away and Sans had done nothing.

He clenched his teeth and began to pull things out, setting them on the table. His wallet. A notebook and a pen, full of his research notes and ideas. A little stuffed giraffe that was missing an eye – a gift from Alphys. There were a few cruel chuckles at that and Sans ignored them.

Then a knife. Narrow and sleek – aerodynamic, for throwing.

There were seven, in total, and he pulled them out one right after the other. He never liked parting with them, and each blade dropping onto the table felt like hammering nails into a coffin. But as Sans lifted his eyelights to look at the people around him, he hoped they knew the grave being sealed wasn’t his own.

“Hold out your wrists.”

Sans knew why they were asking, so he held them out obediently.

Magic suppressors. High-grade, too – able to contain boss monsters. He would be intimidated except he’d learned how to pick the magic locks before he was out of stripes.

They secured on his wrists with a sound so sharp that it was barely sound, indicator light blinking and solidifying as a sign of being online.

And he could feel it as they put up walls in Sans’s magic, like wards. Sans was only able to use magic on himself, while in these. Anything else was impossible.

“You’re all clear, Mx. Fowler,” Titano said.

Sans glanced in the direction of his attention in time to watch a semi-aquatic, maybe amphibious monster step into the room from a conjoining one. They wore business professional attire. The person in charge, maybe? Sans wondered if he would get to hear a villain speech – it was enough to almost make him nostalgic.

Almost.

They grinned at Sans with startlingly perfect teeth. “So you are Serif One.”

Sans glanced around at everyone else. Was he supposed to respond? Conversations were still rocky under normal, comfortable circumstances.

“Do you know who I am?” The amphibious monster asked.

Sans kept his expression blank, opting for silence as his answer.

They cleared their throat at that. Sans wondered if they felt awkward. “I heard that you were awfully chatty on the phone. Nothing to say now?”

“You could get to the point,” Sans suggested blandly.

Their smile dropped from their face. “My name is Cane Fowler. I’m the current acting CEO of Carval Institute and Research Center.”

So the maybe-mercenaries had managed to secure a floor in this building because they were hired by the one who owned it. That made sense.

Sans didn’t really recognize the name, though. Of Fowler or the Research Center they claimed to run. In fact, he didn’t really recognize what was going on at all. And he didn’t usually get to know.

Sans was a well of valuable research information just as much as he was crafted to be a weapon. There was a reason Gaster had ushered in a Golden Age of Discovery for monsterkind – Sans wasn’t only the root of experiments with human traits.

What this person wanted would never be known by Sans unless someone told him. Otherwise, he was wading through the situation with no context other than the simple, black-and-white circumstances he was aware of.

They hurt his family to get to him, and he needed to get Red out.

“—grabbing him had been a mistake, but it worked out in the end.”

Fuck, Sans hadn’t been listening, oops. He tuned back in, trying to catch up. Were conversations normal for nearly successful kidnappings? He tried to find something to ask that would give him what they were talking about. “Mistake?”

“He’s no one,” Fowler spoke as if it were obvious. “Completely unimportant. You’re who I was after, of course. Titano tells me you wore the same sweater for a week straight and suddenly another skeleton monster had it. Honest mistake, I’m sure.”

Sans could feel the heightened hostility in the room at the jab toward Titano, but he was too lost in his own thoughts to care. They were talking about Red. Red wasn’t no one, not to him. And the same sweater? What did they mean?

Red’s blue hoodie. The one he’d pulled on to stay warm on his way to the Registrar’s.

Sans’s soul dropped to his feet, guilt filling the hole left in its place.

“You’re a valuable resource, Serif,” Fowler said. “It’ll be a pleasure to reverse engineer your magical makeup.”

So they wanted him for Gaster’s research results. That was reasonable. Sans knew he was a well of untapped knowledge about magical adaptation and the growth of MP in monster souls. But if they were scientists – if they were logical – then they wouldn’t hold on to useless things.

“If… if I’m all you’re after, you could let Red go.” He spoke carefully. “Right?”

Fowler stared at him. And then they laughed. “No – you see, he means nothing to me.” They looked Sans over. “But he seems to mean a lot to you.”

It was like Gaster with Papyrus all over again.

Sans hated this. He hated everything about it – every parallel it drew and every disgusting manipulation tactic out to show its face.

“That makes him convenient. So I will not be letting him go.” Fowler said. “But I will also be keeping him alive, so long as you follow my orders to the letter.”

The annoyance tried to creep back in and Sans pushed it down. Now wasn’t the time.

“Get him secured.” Fowler’s voice shifted to something sterner, with authority, no longer speaking to Sans. He could tell for certain, then, that they were the one signing checks; why would anyone listen to them otherwise? “Then report back to me.”

At Titano’s signal, two of the other hired guns stepped closer to grab one arm of Sans’s each to drag him off. Their hands were tight and it made his bones itch again – he had perfectly functioning legs and he wanted to see where they would take him, this was unnecessary.

But he let them drag him off, leaving his stuff on the table. Back through the plastic-covered halls with Titano leading the way.

They were followed by more, of course. Sans would say it was overkill, but he knew it wasn’t. They weren’t underestimating him.

Which was weirdly smart. Specific, just like so much of this had been. Reinforcing that they knew more about him than most.

He wanted to ask. Titano was right there, and clearly in a position of power. Sans could try to figure it out. Get to the bottom of it all.

But he didn’t want to. He was exhausted, and he just wanted to know that Red was still okay.

Eventually, Titano stopped to open a door, holding it open.

Sans got shoved inside much harder than necessary, making him stumble. He didn’t have a single thought about turning to express his annoyance at the rough handling, though, because what was in front of him mattered way more.

Another skeleton monster tied to a chair. Bruised, with blood on his face and in familiar sharp teeth, staring at Sans with wide sockets.

Red.

Chapter Text

Sans.

It was Sans.

When Red had heard the door opening, he’d been terrified. Some part of him had been certain that they were coming to properly kill him, now that they had succeeded in either capturing or killing Sans. It would have been just his luck.

But instead, through that door stumbled in the exact person Red had been so hopeful to see again and also desperately wishing would stay away.

Sans. Sopping wet, bones looking a little grey under the light – he had the look about him that he usually got when he didn’t get enough sleep for a few days. Tense, with his eyelights too small, and absolutely nothing on his face except the typical smile of a skeleton.

Except it wasn’t a smile. Not really – other people thought it was, just because there were always teeth, but other skeletons could tell.

Sans rarely smiled.

He slowly straightened in front of Red, as if worried about spooking him.

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

Red looked past Sans to one of his captors – Titano. He was wearing a grimacing snarl on his face as if he were severely annoyed by something, but his voice stayed weirdly professional as he tapped the arms of the two people with him. “Keep watch.”

As Titano left, one stepped out behind him. The third of them lingered in the room, standing near the door as it closed. They leaned against the wall, giving Sans a look that was hostile enough to make Red’s bones crawl.

Sans didn’t seem to notice, though, looking back toward Red as if he were the only thing in the room. The most important thing. And even as completely, horribly exhausted as Red was, being the subject of the full force of Sans’s intense focus made him shudder softly.

For a beat, neither of them did more than breathe.

Red was the one to break the spell. “Sans, what—”

And with that, Sans stepped closer. He lifted his hands, even restrained, in a gesture of calm and peace. Placating Red as if he were panicking.

He probably was. Somewhere. His soulrate was too high, and he felt ill. His eyelights were probably small enough to convince anyone he was afraid – because he was. Deeply afraid.

Sans’s own eyelights flicked around the room as if he were looking for something. Red couldn’t even begin to imagine what; there was nothing useful there, he’d been looking, too.

But Sans didn’t stop moving forward. He crouched near Red’s left knee, and Red was relieved. He'd had to look up at everyone for days, the position was uncomfortably stressful on his shoulders and neck. Now he could look at Sans and not have to worry about that.

He wondered how Sans knew.

“Hey, Sunshine,” Sans spoke softly. “How’re you doing?”

Red was caught by the sudden, inexplicable urge to cry. But he didn’t. He swallowed back the tears prompted by gentleness and pushed forward. “I’m…” He tried to smile, hoping it would be reassuring where his shaking voice wasn’t. “I’d offer hanging out at my place, but I’m a bit tied up right now.”

Sans blinked, looking downright surprised. It was a rare expression, and Red loved it. Then he snorted, that beautiful, crooked smile lifting onto his teeth. “Wanna sit out this one, huh?”

Red laughed. Maybe a little more than the joke really warranted, but adrenaline fucking sucked and Red had been stuck in a fight-or-flight response for days, probably. He stopped laughing when he caught it switching closer to a sob, but he tried to keep the smile on his face. “I can’t believe you’re actually here – you shouldn’t be, they were looking for you.”

“Red—”

“I shouldn’t – I need – they were ready for you.” That felt so important to say, enough that his mind was moving too fast for the words to properly align themselves. Sans was in danger, here, these people had been after him.

But they’d gotten Red. And he couldn’t imagine how cruel they would’ve been if Sans had been the one to show up. “They were ready for you, but instead it was me and they got mad and I—”

“Red.” The call was gentle. Sans leaned back into his line of sight. “Look at me.”

Because Red was panicking. He could feel it in his chest, how his soul was in his mouth, how everything felt too small and too close and too much.

But then there was Sans. The calm set of his brow. The determined line of his mouth.

His eyelights. Bright and sharp, cutting through the haze of panic to find him. Steady and focused, like the stars in the sky. Containing multitudes and infinities. Something observable and unobtainable, like the line where the sky meets the sea.

Horizon.

Sans’s voice wasn’t exactly in focus, at first, just flowing through Red. He might have heard an apology in there. Or two – it was Sans, he always apologized for the things he shouldn’t. But that reassurance was in his soft tone. The gentle assurance that everything would be okay.

And Red was willing to believe that, right now. Looking at Sans would get him to believe in anything.

“You still with me, Sunshine?”

His smile twitched back into place for a moment. Softer. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Sans seemed eased by the response. “Tell me what hurts?”

Oh, Red must not have been doing a good job of hiding the pain he’d been so deliberately careful to ignore. He grimaced. “Mostly my leg.”

Sans just looked at him for a moment. “Your leg?”

“Yeah.” Red wondered if that wasn’t enough information. “Can’t really move it.”

“At all?”

Wow, Red really didn’t like how nervous the questions made him because the answer was definitely no, not at all. He shook his head.

Sans nodded a little. “Which one?”

“The right.”

Sans stood and moved to that side, looking him over. Red was silently pleading with him to not touch it just let it go, he’d be fine actually Sans didn’t have to worry about it.

“When did it start hurting?”

“The first day,” Red said. “I dunno how long ago that was.”

He felt a Check on him immediately. A standard one – nothing invasive; only a sliding scale, like a percentage, for his HP and his basic stats – but it still startled him a bit. It was courteous to ask permission first, unless it was an emergency.

Then again, maybe being held hostage counted as an emergency. And Sans’s understanding of social norms was always hit or miss. Red thought it was endearing more than frustrating.

Regardless, Red knew his HP was around half. It made him feel miserable, but he would be fine.

“Where in your leg does it hurt the most?” Sans asked, tone still achingly even. As if they were just having a conversation.

Red made a thoughtful noise. He wished it didn’t hold the same tremor as his voice. “It kinda started in my hip, but I can’t really feel my toes anymore.”

Sans crouched down again, reaching toward him. “This might hurt.”

Well, shit. He tried to keep his voice light and absent of his fear. “Yeah, I figured.”

Sans’s fingers pressed gently against Red’s femur. And he could see how light it was but it was agony, cranking up the burning to searing and he winced. Then Sans trailed his hand up toward Red’s hip, and under any other context Red wouldn’t have voiced a single complaint but the searing turned to something beyond it that brought tears to his eyes.

“Fuck—” Red hissed harshly through his teeth, curling inward on reflex. His vision had whited out from the pain, so he closed his eyes tightly. He could feel the sweat dripping down his face which was gross but honestly so far from his concern right then.

Sans’s hand was probably off of him. Red only knew that because the pain started to settle again.

“Your hip is dislocated,” Sans said calmly.

Red peeled his sockets open to give Sans a strained look. “’Kay.”

Sans looked a little at a loss. “Just out of place. Nothing… nothing irreparable, probably.”

Red felt so convinced by that. Totally. Definitely. Not at all skeptical. Sans was great at reassuring him that an injury that was usually destructive was actually not that bad and Red absolutely for sure believed him. “I thought hip dislocation was a life-changing injury.”

“If you’re a fleshy monster or a human, yeah. You could tear ligaments and stuff. Ruin tendons. We don’t got any of that.”

“Oh.” Red’s voice felt uneven. He wasn’t sure how loud he was actually speaking. “Cool.”

Sans looked thoughtful. In that cute way he usually did when debating what to have for lunch. It felt jarringly out of place in the haze of Red’s pain. “Kinda crazy it happened at all. Takes a lotta force to dislocate a hip joint – what happened?”

Red stared at him. “They used a lotta force.”

Sans clenched his jaw, looking somehow grimmer than before. That was much closer to an expression Red had been anticipating from him in this circumstance, actually. “Okay. Got it.”

Red wondered if he should’ve actually explained. If maybe Sans was frustrated with him about it. But this wasn’t something he wanted to dedicate his time to, at the moment. It seemed inconsequential.

Sans didn’t look frustrated. He looked over Red with something sad. Then he nodded as if to himself. “Right.”

Then he stood.

Red’s soul beat faster at the concept – as if Sans could leave him. They were being held hostage, and there was an angry human guarding the door; Sans wasn’t going anywhere.

Red asked the question on his mind anyway. “What’re you doing?”

Sans stopped behind him. The guard in question shifted like they weren’t a fan of that and Red barely stopped himself from flinching.

He couldn’t understand how Sans wasn’t intimidated. How he showed no real sign of being afraid.

Because that was true, wasn’t it? Red had seen concern in him. Worry, in his actions, but not fear. He could not tell that Sans was afraid.

Was he?

Why wouldn’t he be?

“Hang on, pal.” Sans’s voice was soft, and Red could hear how he crouched behind him.

Their keeper shifted again, actually taking a step, and Red’s soul dropped to the floor before Sans spoke. His voice was dry. Empty. “Relax – I’m just adjusting the cuffs so they stop fucking with his circulation.”

“He’s a skeleton,” was the annoyed reply.

“We still have blood and magic,” Sans countered.

This was a strange place for his comfort to be advocated for, but Red certainly wasn’t complaining. Especially as Sans shifted the restraints and it eased the pressure. Red sighed in relief, able to relax his arms without feeling the suppressors bite into his wrists. “Thank you.”

Sans stood again and leaned his hips against the chair back, avoiding for the most part adding additional stress onto Red’s arms. Sans must have sensed Red’s confusion because he spoke next as if to explain. “So you can lay your head back.”

Red stared for a moment at nothing, his fogged mind attempting to put it together.

Then he did. And he carefully leaned his head back to rest against Sans.

And it wasn’t something he would’ve complained about, given the danger they were in, but the ease of tension was overwhelmingly pleasant. After a few seconds, he convinced himself to relax further. It felt like his spine was melting, and he could feel a deep tremor start from the release.

Just as he was fighting tears, Sans shifted a little. Red opened his eyes to watch Sans’s own secured wrists pass in front of his face. Resting on Red’s chest. With Sans’s arms gently blocking him in, Red felt the safest he had in days. He hoped Sans wouldn’t mind as he let his head rest against his partner’s arm.

Sans’s sleeve was wet. Cold. Red hoped he wouldn’t get sick. But it wasn’t uncomfortable enough to prevent him from leaning there anyway. His face ended up in the crook of Sans’s elbow. “Why are you so wet?”

There was a pause where Sans didn’t answer. Red wondered if his question had been too quiet.

“I was outside, and it’s raining.” It somehow sounded like it was only half of the truth.

“Oh.”

For a moment, there was complete silence.

And that silence stretched. And stretched. And the guard shifted. Red flinched and looked over. They seemed uncomfortable about something. Red wondered if it was them – something about him or Sans clearly having a life and relationships making it harder for them to commit a crime against them. But Red knew that was too hopeful to believe, with people like this.

There was a strange amount of irony in the fact that as Red seemed to finally feel more comfortable, the criminal who was watching them seemed to be less so.

After a little while longer, they huffed in irritation and strode toward the door, opening it sharply.

Red lifted his head to look, feeling an ache return in his neck.

“Is something wrong?” Somebody asked outside.

“He’s just fucking staring – is that a normal…” Their voice trailed off as the door closed.

What?

Who was staring – Sans? Was that why their captor seemed more and more unnerved? Red wondered how Sans knew it would work. Why he tried. What expression he wore to elicit that reaction.

Sans lowered his head toward Red’s. And, very carefully, very slowly, he spoke in Mage Speak – that language-adjacent communication.

Red didn’t understand it. Which was unfortunate. Red wanted to understand, but he was so tired. Full of unimaginable stress. Every bit of adrenaline his body could create saturating him like a rinse-cycle.

But there it was again. Slow. Words that were not words. Just to the left of vocal. Magic with the intention of communication.

“…out.” It was like a whisper. It felt like a promise. The word clearly meant Not Here.

Sans repeated it again, with all of the patience he’d always held. All of the love Red knew must be within him. It felt like a whispered oath in candlelight. “I am going to get you out.”

Red felt the tears return full force. He couldn’t blink them back this time so they trailed down his cheeks instead. “When?” It was a whisper in English – Red couldn’t speak a language he barely understood.

“As soon as I can.” Still soft and slow, so Red could keep up. “Before they move us.”

Something beautiful about Mage Speak was how clear a form of communication it was, once it was legible. As soon as I can meant so directly at the very first opportunity but also not to your detriment. And Red also knew from that second part that Sans was anticipating them both being transported and he would try to act before then.

It was fascinating, how the knowledge fell into his lap. As if the magic of Sans’s words knew how to speak directly to Red’s soul.

Red nodded slowly, so Sans knew he understood. It was terrifying – all of this was – but he had to trust that they would get out. That Sans somehow, among all of the knowledge he had, knew how to keep them alive long enough to leave. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Sans echoed the word, no longer in Mage Speak but still a whisper. “I’m sorry this happened.”

Red loved him so much, but Sans was such an idiot sometimes – if it were anyone else, Red would assume it was an expression of sympathy or condolences. But it was Sans. And Red knew he probably felt like an apology was warranted.

“You don’t gotta – we can talk about it later.” That was probably the best solution to that trail of thought.

Sans seemed to agree, because he let it lie. After a pause, he gently rubbed a circle on Red’s sternum. A calming gesture. “I’ve got you now. You can rest.”

There was no hostility in the room. Sans was there. Red could only assume they weren’t acting immediately because Sans could see something he couldn’t.

And Red wished he could say that he decided to sleep then because it was the most logical decision, but he definitely wasn’t that aware of the situation. He was terrified and exhausted and distressed, and finally not alone.

He trusted Sans. So he rested his head against the bend of Sans’s elbow again. Feeling the chill and the pressure, ready to take whatever break he could get, regardless of how small or limited.

When Red spoke again, his voice was slurred softly like it did when he was nearly asleep. “Don’t go anywhere?”

Sans was still for a moment. Then he lowered his head to meet Red’s again, pressing gently. “I won’t.” He whispered. “I’ll be right here. I promise.”

Papyrus didn’t know what to do.

Standby was so individualized to a situation; sometimes it was await further orders but go about your day, sometimes it was the situation could be dangerous so prepare for severe injury, sometimes it was sit down and do not move until specified otherwise because I need to know exactly where to find you – and the secret was that Papyrus always knew. He could always tell, given the context of the order for standby.

He didn’t, today. He didn’t know. He always did – always used to – but not today. Not today. So after Sans left via teleport, Papyrus stared at his notes – written sloppily in wingdings – for several minutes.

And he counted them. The minutes. Every second, actually. For a while, trying to figure out what Sans could’ve meant.

Was he supposed to simply be ready for Sans to show back up injured? Was he supposed to pretend nothing happened? Was he supposed to stay exactly there, in the room? Was he supposed to go tell Asgore that the people who kidnapped Red must have really been after Sans because Papyrus heard the scream through the phone receiver?

Fifty-eight, fifty-nine – fourteen minutes – two, three, four, five, six—

He should tell Asgore, right? He should say something. He should tell someone. Because this wasn’t only Sans, this was Red – this was Edge’s brother – this was Toriel’s son – this was Sans’s first love and isn’t that adorable that they’re all romantic—

—fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine – twenty-two minutes – two, three—

A knock on the door.

Papyrus flinched hard, blinking when he realized how dry his sockets felt, looking toward the entrance to the room.

Asgore stood there, looking in with a delicate frown. Well-concealed concern. “Where is Sans?”

Papyrus stared. Stuck. Because he didn’t know how he was supposed to answer that. How did Sans need him to answer that? Would something happen if he got it wrong?

“Did he go back to campus?” Asgore sounded more worried at the idea – Papyrus couldn’t help but agree. The searching of Ebott University had begun to border on obsessive even by Papyrus’s standards, and he was literally counting seconds as they passed.

“No.” Papyrus didn’t want to lie, so he told the truth.

“Oh.” That only seemed to worry Asgore further. Darn. “Did he say where he went?”

Papyrus looked back at his notes to check. And he shook his head. “No.”

There was a pause. “Papyrus, are you alright?”

He blinked, returning his attention to Asgore.

The boss monster seemed impossibly and unequivocally more worried. How did that happen?

“… Yes!” Papyrus said suddenly, voice perhaps too positive to match the situation or his expression. He started to pick at the ends of his sleeves, already regretting the lie. Already feeling a gnarling pit in his soul over it. So he amended his answer. “No.”

Asgore watched him for a moment before stepping farther into the room. “What has happened?”

“Nothing!” Papyrus was quick to answer. “Or you could, hypothetically, say a lot of things – and I don’t know how to deal with them in a way that is useful exactly now. Does that make sense?”

“It does,” Asgore assured him.

“Thank goodness!” Papyrus tried to smile but it felt unsteady. “I don’t know what I would do, in this hypothetical situation of a lot of things happening, if it didn’t make sense. Perhaps feel very silly.”

Asgore sat in the chair Sans had occupied before leaving thirty-four minutes and fifteen-seven seconds ago. “If you wish to tell me what sort of hypothetical situation we are dealing with, I would love to help you sort it out.”

Papyrus hesitated.

And the silence stretched.

And Papyrus looked down at his paper. “If… if I told you about this hypothetical situation but it was with the belief that I’m probably handling it wrong, what would you say?”

“That I am here for you regardless.” The answer was so gentle. “And the purpose of my being here is to help in situations like that.”

Papyrus nodded. “And would you be angry?”

“Not at you, no.”

“At Sans?”

Asgore looked less worried and more sad as the conversation continued. Papyrus couldn’t understand why. “Not at Sans either.”

Papyrus nodded again. And he hoped it was all the truth. Reliable across the board. He picked at the seam in his sleeve near the cuff. “… Sans left.”

Asgore nodded then, apparently unsurprised by that.

“Because that package had Red’s phone in it,” Papyrus admitted. “And someone called it, so he answered. And it was one of the people who took Red.”

Asgore stared at him. Papyrus gave him time to process that.

Then Asgore glanced at the paper near Papyrus. The note in wingdings. “And he did not say where he was going?”

“I got a description of who was on the phone and information,” Papyrus told him, glancing at the writing as if he didn’t already know what was there. “Red is alive, but probably hurt, and he said—”

“Papyrus, did Sans go after him?” Asgore gently interrupted, sitting up like he was going to stand again. As if he had somewhere urgent to be.

Papyrus nodded. “He didn’t have a choice. It sounded like they were threatening him.”

“Threatening Sans?”

“Threatening Red.” Papyrus clarified.

Asgore did stand then, pulling out his own cell phone. Papyrus was usually amused by the size of it – adjusted for his large hands – but not today. “Would you be alright explaining what happened to Captain Gerson?”

Papyrus hesitated. But it made logical sense; Sans might need the backup, and Gerson knew already how he operated. So he nodded, aware of his soul racing. “Yes.”

“Alright,” Asgore called someone – presumably the Royal Guard in question – as he stepped toward Papyrus. “May I sit closer?”

Papyrus nodded.

Asgore knelt by the bed, near where Papyrus was perched on its edge, and put his phone on speaker.

It had been over an hour, probably. Sans had never been good at keeping track of time. But he could guess.

Red was still asleep. Sans was not surprised. He would’ve been, but he could tell Red probably hadn’t slept the entire time he’d been held captive. Or, at the very least, not slept well. The stress alone would’ve been enough to cause that, but Sans had put together through Red’s reactions to adjusting his position that they’d probably left him there the whole time.

Taken advantage of the fact Red was a skeleton monster and lacked a digestive tract. Sans wondered if he got food. Water. He wondered how long it would take him to recover.

Papyrus would know. Papyrus would look at all of the bruises that Sans had spent the last maybe-hour looking at so carefully and he would’ve put together both the cause and an estimated healing time.

Instead, it was Sans. Noticing Red’s hip was dislocated – the pain must be nauseating – and that he’d had so little rest.

Which was why Sans was so careful not to disturb him now, letting Red escape in unconsciousness while they waited for the chance to do so in reality. He only wished it was peaceful, and not the tense sleep he was clearly getting.

Just as much as Sans’s eyelights tracked bruises and abrasions, they traced over a pinched face of discomfort Red couldn’t hide while he was asleep either. He wondered, with no small amount of concern, how much of it was stress and how much was pain.

He remembered walking around to Red’s back. Seeing his wrists raw and bloody from how tight they’d made the magic suppressors. Gently adjusting them to where he knew it would reduce the pain, feeling a grief so complete and immeasurable that he hadn’t even thought about how it would look to the person watching them or the camera at his back.

Because there was a camera, behind them even now, tucked against the ceiling corner. Sans had purposefully angled himself to block its view of Red, but otherwise ignored it entirely. He was used to being observed. Used to being recorded. Before he was Red’s boyfriend, before he was a student, he was a lab experiment. Thorough documentation was necessary.

Sans didn’t want Red to deal with that. Sans didn’t want anyone to deal with that.

His eyelights drift over what wounds he can see yet again, as if expecting another to miraculously appear after he’d already taken stock of them. There wasn’t any, of course.

Of course.

He felt he could’ve been bleeding somewhere, what for all of the pain he felt at the circumstances of this. The ache in his chest somehow both old and familiar while being new and sharp.

Red’s frantic words replayed in his mind, a ramble in fear and desperate need. They were ready for you, but it was me instead and they got mad—

They got mad.

Sans didn’t want to read into that, but he would anyway. The bruising didn’t come from nowhere. The dislocation of his hip happened on the first day, Red said. So many clear signs that alluded to something Sans never thought he would see again.

And he wondered when Red would realize that this was more than a hostage situation. When he would learn the full scale of what happened to him.

He could’ve died. They might have opted to get to Sans in a different way – if no one had proposed the amendment for Red to be used as a lure, then Red would’ve died and it would’ve been Sans’s fault, right?

Right. Because they’d been after him. And Red got caught in the crossfire.

The sort of danger he’d feared so greatly with Red and Undyne getting into law enforcement or the Royal Guard hadn’t needed the invitation. It found them anyway, and Sans was the conduit. A perfect isolator. A container for misery, just as he had been for Human Traits.

Something in Sans’s mind felt hazy at the trail of thought. Blurred and humming like static.

His attention was pulled back to the present by Red, who shifted in his sleep.

He’d nuzzled Sans’s arm like he would’ve buried his face there. And Sans wished it was a better hiding place. That he could be a safe place. A refuge.

He remembers cuddling with Red for the first time. The word he pulled from his memory to describe it. Ensconce, a verb, meaning to settle securely or snuggly, or to cover or shelter. Sans felt safe with Red. Safer than he’d ever felt with anyone. Sans wished he could return it with something real. Something genuine.

All he could do now was get him out of this. Get him home safely.

Sans brushed his fingers against where they were on Red’s sternum. The same circles he’d used before that seemed to help.

And maybe it was the circumstances of all of this, but he wondered if Red even had a thought about the vulnerability of it. Restrained as he was, Red couldn’t move to defend himself, but he let Sans loop his arms around him. Sans could so easily kill him from here – his mind put together three ways even when he specifically tried not to think about it – and Red wasn’t just letting it happen but melting into it. Falling asleep with a noose around his throat.

Sans wouldn’t kill him. Sans would do anything to keep him alive. But the potential was always there; he was dangerous, and Red was just keeping him around like his favorite pastime was literally flirting with death.

What a terrifying concept, that Red might even continue to care for him after all of this.

…

This would probably be their best chance.

Sans hated knowing that, but it was true. There was no one in the room with them. There had been enough time now for their captors to settle into the idea that the scariest thing Sans would do with Red around was stare down someone put on watch unblinking. No one was there to collect them, so they wouldn’t be anticipating movement.

Red got some rest.

Now would be their best chance.

Sans took a deep breath, trying to ready himself. It was always a temptation in his mind to wait for something better. To linger in a moment in the hope of the world waiting for him to be comfortable moving on. But time had never been so merciful, and neither had most of the people in his life.

So was now the best opportunity overall? No, probably not. But it was the best he’d seen yet.

He was going to get them out. Priority directive. He could do it. These people wouldn’t win.

They wouldn’t take his Sunshine again.

Chapter Text

A gentle pressure on his sternum. A circular motion – calming and steady. Just like the voice that paired with it.

“Come on, Sunshine. Time to rise.”

Red squinted his sockets open, annoyed at how they wanted to stay closed. He ached everywhere, but Sans was talking to him. Sans was calling him. He shifted to try and get more comfortable and was instead met with more agony and he winced, lifting his head to curl himself tighter as if to escape it.

“I know, pal.” Sans’s voice was so soft. “It’s okay – we’re gonna be okay. Breathe through it for me.”

Breathe. Red could do that, right? Breathe.

Breathe.

He gave it his best shot and managed to open his eyes again. Still in that room. Still tied to that fucking chair. That was annoying, he hated it almost as much as he hated how his bones felt like the tactile equivalent of dragging a fork over a dinner plate.

Eventually, though, he catches his breath. His face was damp – either from sweat, tears, or leaning against Sans’s wet sleeve, and he genuinely couldn’t tell.

Sans was supporting him from behind. Keeping him from putting too much pressure on his arms, which was something Red was grateful for. “You with me?”

It took Red a couple of seconds longer to find his voice. The response was strained, matching Sans’s quiet tone. “Yep.”

“Okay. Lean back again, when you can.”

Oh. Red tried and shifting on his hip was brutal but he survived. Soon he was leaning against Sans again, panting for air. “That fuckin’ sucked.”

“Yeah, I bet.” It was genuinely sympathetic. “You’re doing great though.”

Red quirked a tiny grin that wouldn’t stick.

“We’re leaving now.”

The Mage Speak was almost not even something Red heard, but he still understood it well enough to catch what Sans intended to say. And he was surprised. “Now?”

Nothing seemed different between that moment and when Red had drifted off. Nothing had appeared to change.

“Now.” A whisper.

Red didn’t know what to say. His soulrate quickened behind his ribs and he tried to keep himself calm. It wasn’t working, but he wasn’t panicking. Only deeply afraid. “Okay.”

Sans shifted his weight, leaning forward just a little. Red wondered if he was consciously careful of Red’s shoulders or if it was a coincidence, but he was quickly distracted from the thought at the sight of Sans’s wrists.

Magic suppressors. Red had recognized them earlier. But they began to glow as he watched, something about them humming.

There was a sparkle of magic that was felt more than seen. Then with a crackling and a pop, the light that indicated them as active went dark. And the cuffs opened around Sans’s wrists.

Red stared, gaping openly. “How the fuck—”

Sans hushed him softly – right, because they were escaping. “I picked ‘em – just stay still.”

Red couldn’t believe it. Sans didn’t have a tool to pick locks with, nor did he even touch the lock. What could he have possibly meant?

He slid them from his wrists, carefully setting them in Red’s lap. There was already dark bruising forming on his bones and Red felt an ache and outrage so deep that he couldn’t see anything else for a moment.

“We’re gonna need to move quickly.” Mage Speak again. Clearer, now, but it was always easier to hear after he’d heard Sans speak it for a little while.

Red nodded to show he heard. Quickly. Move quickly.

Why had the tone implied Sans was apologizing for that?

There was another noise, this time a sparking sound from behind them. Red flinched.

And then Sans was off of him. Magic flooded into Red’s bones from his elbows down, holding the chill of a winter wind. As he shivered, the pressure was gone. On his wrists and his arms and his shoulders – he made a sound in the sharp relief that followed.

Sans rubbed his shoulders firmly to get the magic circulating properly again, walking around to stand in front of him. “Don’t stand yet.”

Red blinked, surprised at the command. He did not stand, but he did glance over his shoulder to see if he could find the source of that sparking noise. Sure enough, there was a burnt patch in the ceiling near the wall, where the splintered remains of a camera hung.

Red shuddered, unnerved at having been under digital surveillance at all.

He looked back toward Sans just in time to watch him open the door and step out into the hall. There was a startled shout, then a lot of noise, like something heavy getting thrown around – and the door was opening again.

Sans was there, dragging a tall monster into the room from beneath their arms.

Red was staring. Trying to figure out what happened.

But then Sans stepped out into the hall and dragged in a second person, just tossing them onto the floor half on top of the first. “That won’t last long.”

He walked up to Red, sweating. “Ready?”

“Does it matter?” Red asked, mostly joking.

“Not really,” Sans admitted, moving the suppressors from Red’s lap and tossing them to the floor. “But I’m gonna grab you now, okay?”

Red tried to help Sans get him on his feet, but the moment his right foot touched the ground his vision blanched to nothing and he felt unbelievably ill.

Sans was practically carrying him, his left side to Red’s injured right. The pressure burned, but not as badly as trying to stand on it had.

Sans pulled Red’s right arm across his shoulders, his left hand reaching around to hold Red at his left hip. “You still with me?”

Red was probably crying, because his voice shook like he was. “Yeah.”

“Good job.” It sounded so genuine, like Sans was trying to encourage him but didn’t know what words to say.

And then he was moving and bringing Red along with him, who was trying to help by walking with his uninjured side but not being very successful at it. They were out of the door and into a hallway that was long and empty before Red could properly get a breath, but Sans navigated it like he might know where he was going.

They didn’t go as slowly as Red had anticipated, because Sans was practically carrying him, but it still didn’t feel like fast enough. Red was waiting for them to run into someone. Anyone.

Sans’s head was on a swivel, looking for something Red couldn’t see. But after turning a corner, he pulled them to a stop, tucking against a wall.

“What?” Red asked. “What is it?”

“This is gonna be scary, okay?” Sans whispered. “I’m sorry – just lean here, and I’ll—”

“Sans, what are you—”

“HEY!” A shout from down the hallway, and a few people ran forward, conjuring magic and reaching for weapons, continuing to shout commands.

Sans pulled away, a look on his face that Red recognized. A casual confidence that clocked in Red’s mind as familiar.

He remembered going to get Nice Cream. A flurry of magic, more than he’d ever seen in one place from one source, as Sans dropped nearly a dozen people to one HP without lifting a finger.

As Sans stepped forward this time, though, there wasn’t magic. He moved between Red and the approaching danger with nothing in his hands and no power at his shoulders, and Red was scared for him and of them, but everything happened too fast for a single word to pass through his mouth.

Red didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone move like that.

Sans wove between those people the same way he did crowds – like he could predict them – quicker than lightning, movements sharp. Red could hardly tell what he was doing, but there was the snapping of bone and limbs contorting in ways they shouldn’t and someone thrown against the wall before suddenly Sans was the one holding the weapon.

A gun.

Red’s soul dropped to the floor, unable to look away even as he was anticipating carnage.

But instead of firing it, he held it backward and the grip cracked against someone’s head, and they dropped to the ground.

Red flinched at the sound, his own head aching in sympathy. Or maybe just aching.

As Sans strode back toward Red, he pulled the gun apart. Partially disassembling it before tossing the pieces to the ground with something so practiced that it left Red floundering a bit.

“Shouldn’t we take that?” His voice was thin from pain and terror.

“Were you gonna use it?” Sans asked softly, gently lifting Red from where he was against the wall.

Red didn’t want to use it. But he’d gotten familiar with pistols at the academy, and he knew this was life or death. “Should I?”

“Probably not. There’s a reason I didn’t.”

Red looked at him with wide sockets. “That way you wouldn’t kill them?”

Sans didn’t look at Red. “No.”

And there was something new in Sans’s face, then. Something Red didn’t recognize, his mind too muddled from the pain. But it was dark. Cold. “Why not, then?”

“Bullets ricochet.” His voice was soft as he peeked around another corner. “I don’t fire a gun unless I know I won’t miss.”

Red blinked, trying to figure out what action movie Sans snagged that line of dialogue from before it hit him like a truck that Sans meant it.

He found himself in a strangely numb state of shock at the realization, watching what was happening around him with an abnormal distance.

They approached an elevator. Sans pressed the call button for it. Something about that sequence of events was so domestic that it felt both grounding and jarring at once.

While they waited, Sans kept looking around. He wiped at his face with his sleeve. Checked on Red. Did a doubletake that made Red wonder what expression he was wearing, but never commented on it.

When the elevator arrived on their floor, Sans guided him inside.

Red couldn’t imagine that it would be this easy. But maybe it would be. He watched as Sans pressed a button for the… top floor.

“Don’t we want the ground floor?” Red was asking before he knew what words he needed.

“We’re closer to the top, from here,” Sans said. “And per city regulation, they can’t ward the roof of the building.”

Red blinked, trying to think through the pain. “You don’t think they’d set up those temporary ones?”

“What?”

“Like Daisy had before,” Red clarified.

Sans glanced at Red. And then again, as if he’d had a sudden thought. “How did they get you here?”

“What?”

“Did they take you in a car or did they teleport you?”

Red stared at Sans. And he felt the fear trickle down his spine. “Someone can teleport here.”

Sans nodded, looking back at the door. “The building isn’t tall enough for a helipad, which is the only reason they’d ward the roof – they’d probably been planning to take us by a van so they’re using all of their temp wards on—”

The elevator halted abruptly.

Red winced at the jostle of the movement, but his soul was pounding, practically in his mouth.

Sans was looking around them again. At the walls. The ceiling. As if he could look through them and see the problem. Then he casually reached to press the button for the floor he wanted again. Then, just as nonchalant, the open doors button.

Nothing happened.

Sans looked unbothered. Red was fucking panicking.

“Hang on, it’s okay.” Sans carefully moved Red to lean against the wall of the elevator.

When he started to move away, Red only felt his panic increase. “What are you doing?” It didn’t sound as casual as he wished it would.

“Just opening the door,” Sans assured him calmly. As if they weren’t literally trying to escape people that were out to hurt them. As if the elevator doors had just gotten stuck and they hadn’t been stopped.

“Okay.” Red was terrified about what would come afterward.

Sans approached the door looking around the frame of it. He tried pushing on them at first, attempting to get the tips of his fingers between them, but it was clearly difficult with nothing to get a good grip on.

Then, Sans summoned a single bone of attack magic, as long as a femur but a lot thinner. Sharp on the end.

Red wasn’t sure he’d ever seen bone attacks that were sharp on the end, and he was thankful for that. Something sharp would have probably killed him as a kid – either accidentally from his own magic or from someone else’s.

With a quick movement, Sans launched it into the space between the doors. It made the metal groan, and Red was in awe of Sans’s precision. Then Sans stepped closer and pressed his hands against the attack, using it like a crowbar to pry open the doors.

“Careful.” The concerned warning was out of Red’s mouth before he could stop it.

Sans froze. “What?”

“Your hands.” Red didn’t know why Sans needed him to explain – Sans’s fingers were on attack magic. It had to be actively taking off his HP.

Sans glanced over at Red. “Oh – no, my magic only does soul damage.” He started to push on it again. “It doesn’t hurt me.”

Right. Red had forgotten that. Sans’s HP would be fine.

He pressed a hand against his chest to try and steady the drumroll within it.

Eventually, the doors opened enough that Sans could dismiss the magic and force them the rest of the way on his own.

There was a wall blocking the lower half of the door, and it took Red’s pain-fogged mind a moment to realize it was the space between floors in the building.

Sans completed the same actions as before, but higher, to wedge open the doors that belonged to the floor they were half on. It seemed to be more difficult with the angle, but eventually they opened.

Sans brushed his hands off on his shirt before reaching again for Red, attention mostly locked onto the now-open space. “Okay.”

Red didn’t want to say it, but someone needed to. “I can’t climb that.”

The next floor was nearly at chest level. If Red weren’t injured, he would be able to without a problem, but he was. He was injured and maybe that would kill them.

He knew that Sans wouldn’t leave him behind, but Red wondered if he should ask anyway. If only to let Sans know that Red believed he was worth that much.

Sans tucked himself beneath Red’s arm, leading him closer to the door. “I know you can’t, it’s fine.”

“It’s really not.” Red disagreed.

“I’ve got a plan.”

How the fuck did Sans keep coming up with plans? Red could barely think.

“I’m gonna use blue magic on you, okay?”

Red ignored the thrill of fresh fear that stabbed through him sharper than the pain. It was fine. He trusted Sans. He’d just been around a lot of hostile magic lately.

“Okay.”

Maybe his voice wasn’t as steady as it should have been to instill confidence. Because when Sans held him carefully and looked into his eyes, there was something almost knowing in his expression. “Take a deep breath.”

Red tried his hardest. On the exhale, there was a gentle tugging sensation in his soul.

Ping!

All of the weight lifted off of his feet, but he didn’t leave Sans’s arms. He was lifting slowly, with a level of precise skill Red had never experienced before, the magic holding a gentleness he was surprised by – most soul magic was instinctual and therefore intense by nature.

Sans shifted how he was holding Red so he made contact with the ceiling gradually, pulling at his shoulders so his back would touch it first. Holding his hands. Red closed his eyes, nauseated by the shift of perspective in a way he usually wasn’t.

Being a victim of reversed gravity was weird, but not the strangest sensation Red had ever felt. It was, however, up on the list with taking a shortcut into a dark room.

“How’s the weather up there?”

Red still had his eyes closed to keep himself as calm as he could, but he heard the humor in Sans’s voice. “Atmosphere’s a little thin.”

Sans gave a tiny, airy laugh. It almost didn’t sound like him at all. “Just stay right there, okay?”

And he let go.

Red hesitantly opened his eyes, worried, and watched as Sans pulled himself up onto the ledge that was their available floor. Once there, he turned around – still kneeling on the ground – and reached into the elevator for Red. “Take my hand?”

But Red was lost momentarily in Sans’s face.

When skeleton monsters used soul magic - green, blue, purple - their eyelights would shift to glow the shade of their own. It was a result of magic flow and signaling or something, Red couldn’t remember.

Sans’s right socket was empty. And he knew that it made sense, logically; Sans couldn’t see out of that eye. Magic wouldn’t flow to it properly.

The left, however, was lit up a striking blue. The color of sunlight reflected off the ocean. The sky on a cloudless day. Just the surface layer of something deep and powerful and unknown – cerulean and mighty and endless and enchanting. In that moment, looking into Sans’s sockets, Red was sure he’d never seen anything as beautiful as him.

Because that was what this was. At the deepest level, Sans was his magic. His magic was him. And it was beautiful.

“Red?”

Right, they were in the middle of trying to escape after getting kidnapped – priorities, Red, by the Angel.

He reached up and grabbed Sans’s offered hand.

Sans pulled him out from the elevator, and Red could feel the blue magic gently redirected to assist. He’d felt colored magic on his soul numerous times, but he couldn’t recall anyone being this good at it. Or maybe they just hadn’t bothered being as careful.

Soon, they were on the floor and gravity had righted itself. Red realized then that meant he’d need to go through the painful process of standing again.

“You’re doing great,” Sans said as he helped Red to his feet, which was excruciating.

“I haven’t done anything.” Red wasn’t sure if his words were properly legible through the tightness of his voice.

“You’re still trying,” Sans disagreed softly. “We can do this, okay?”

Red felt himself drenched in sweat from fear and exertion. He was tired and in pain. But Sans meant what he said. They could do this.

They had to.

Red wanted Sans to be safe. To make it back to Papyrus. But he wouldn’t do it without Red, so there was only one thing he could do.

He swallowed every hint of a disagreement and nodded his head. “Okay.”

Sans pulled Red’s right arm over his shoulder again, trying to support Red’s injured hip once more as they walked. They rounded a nearby corner that had a sign indicating a stairway and Red took a pained breath. That was reasonable. They still needed to go up.

The door to the stairwell flew open while they were still away from it, and there were people there full of hostile intent, weapons in hand, and Red panicked. He lifted his free arm in defense, terrified and unsure of what he would even do to keep them away, only knowing he had to—

Something rolled over – through – him. Sparking intensity and a roar of Determination. Cooling, deadly Patience flushed out every nervous thought in Red’s mind, and he guided magic that wasn’t his own.

Not his.

Sans.

He could feel it, recognizing it as easily as he would Sans’s voice. Gentle, not because it was incapable of harshness but because it wanted to be. Softer and sweeter than spun sugar with the force to level buildings, the contradictory nature of wind and rain – a storm to be reckoned with. A gentle ebbing of the tide and the waves that would make herculean ships vanish without a trace.

Deep and powerful and unknown.

It must have only been a second. Maybe two. But it felt like everything. All of it.

The magic that was not his formed attack constructs that slammed into their attackers, launching them backward into the stairwell. There was the sound of a few of them falling.

“Shit, Red – are you okay?” Sans asked, the first sign of panic in his voice. “I don’t know how that – what it even…”

Red still felt distant. Like the sensation had left his mind somewhere in orbit, trying to comprehend the void of space. The power there had felt tingly and electric, and it left behind a staticky prickling. The same numb feeling he would get in his hands from riding on his motorcycle over gravel for too long. But he didn’t mind it. He’d been right.

It was beautiful.

“Red?” Sans insisted.

“Do it again.” The plea slipped through Red’s teeth, breathless words laced with awe.

“Absolutely not,” Sans said immediately, already moving toward the entry to the stairs again. “I have no idea how that happened – it could have hurt you.”

“It wouldn’t have.” Red was sure.

It was Sans.

The new plan was to not use magic while in contact with Red unless absolutely necessary – that had been terrifying.

Sans had felt it, his magic surging through Red like he was a lightning rod and in the direction Red had directed it to. A force of magic at a scale Red probably hadn’t been anticipating, given his MP was low enough Sans could see it in how grey he was.

Not that Sans really looked that much better. He was running on dregs, but that wouldn’t stop him from pushing onward. Only limit his reasonable plans of action.

“You’re soaked through,” Red observed, his voice echoing a little in the stairwell. Sans could practically feel it reverberate off of the walls.

Sans picked around the bodies of the hostiles that they passed, doing Standard Checks to figure out where their HP was and gauging if they were going to be able to follow anytime soon.

Some of them would, if their injuries wouldn’t down them first. One definitely would not, but he didn’t pause as he stepped over them, relieved they were human. Maybe Red wouldn’t notice when they died.

“Are you cold?”

“What?” Sans started up the steps, practically carrying Red again. They just need to get through the ward on that floor and Sans could teleport them up to the next landing. Rinse and repeat – they could make it up these stairs in about five minutes.

That would be taking too long, though. He didn’t have the energy to do that and take care of who-knew-how-many of these dollar store mercenaries there were; he needed a different plan.

“You’re wet,” Red repeated. “Are you cold?”

“I’m fine,” Sans assured him, his own voice sounding a little foreign in how soft it was.

“You could take my jacket,” Red offered.

Sans blinked and looked toward him.

Red, who was wearing the blue jacket that had been enough to cause strangers to confuse them. The jacket that had gotten them into this trouble in the first place—

No, it wasn’t the jacket’s fault. Of course it wasn’t – it was inanimate.

But it was a jacket. And Sans was cold. The air conditioning on the wet fabric of his clothes was nearly enough to make him shiver. It was a shame that they didn’t have the time to stop.

“Thank you,” Sans said. “I’ll be okay for now.”

“Okay.” Red didn’t sound particularly convinced, but he also didn’t sound like he would argue.

They were past the ward. Sans adjusted his grip on Red and teleported up to the next landing.

Red looked startled. “Wait – why’d you do that?”

“They warded each individual floor so I can only teleport to the top of the warding.” He starts walking up the stairs again. “Then we have to physically cross it.”

Red was grimacing like he were in a lot of pain. Sans knew that was accurate. “Isn’t that exhausting?”

Yes. It was. Sans knew, intuitively, that it would take less MP to just walk up the stairs, and he needed to be careful with it. He needed to use magic sparingly or he would reach the end of his rope at the wrong time and they wouldn’t make it out.

But Red was in so much pain, with an injury that could worsen with aggravation. Sans needed to find the balance between risk and effectiveness. It was difficult. Because Red was someone Sans cared so much about, but for the sake of their survival he almost had to pretend that Red’s condition didn’t matter.

It made his soul burn extra. And he had to remind himself that in the end getting out would be for the better. Even if it rippled out into the rest of their lives.

Red was here. Not safe, not unharmed, but alive.

Sans would work on the rest.

And that would involve doing things that would be exhausting, yes. Doing things for the sake of living.

But this… wasn’t that. Maybe he would be brave enough and the next decision he made would actually benefit their survival, instead of sparing Red pain.

“It’s fine.”

They stepped through the ward. Sans teleported them up to the next flight.

Red made a sound near a wince. Sans looked over to check on him and he could tell this might not work either, even with how much of the physical labor that Sans was doing for him. They still had a few floors to go before they reached roof access. It was a miracle they hadn’t been interrupted yet, even though it had only been a couple of minutes.

As if the Angel itself were listening, an alarm triggered. They were plunged into darkness.

Red let out a startled gasp, holding Sans tighter.

Then the emergency lights came on, along with some that were red and blinking.

Fire alarm.

Red couldn’t understand what swear Sans muttered – it was in Mage Speak – but he definitely recognized it as a swear anyway.

He didn’t understand. “What? Is there a fire?”

“Probably not.”

“Then why are you upset.” Because Sans was definitely concerned about the not-fire and Red didn’t feel him startle like he had at the alarm and the lights.

“I’m not—” Sans stopped. Spoke again, voice careful and measured. “Because this is going to evacuate every civilian.”

Sans moved to the door, a bold L15 painted next to it, and opened it to get them through it.

“There were civilians in this building?” Red was horrified.

“There won’t be in a couple of minutes,” Sans said. “And that’s a problem because it means there’s no reason for these guys to stay quiet anymore.”

Oh. Red understood then. “Shouldn’t we keep going up the stairs, then? Or down them, since people are evacuating?”

Maybe they could end up in the crowd. Convince these people the risk of harm to others was too great or something.

“That’s half of the problem.”

“Sans, I don’t understand.” It was almost pleading, even though he hadn’t wanted it to be.

Red ended up gently pressed against the wall. Somewhere to lean that wasn’t Sans. He looked directly at his partner, then.

There was a sheen of sweat on his face. A hunch to his shoulders even without Red’s weight on them. “Everywhere we are, there stands to be a fight. And sharing a space with other people puts them at risk. People like this don’t care if there’s death or injury to bystanders – it’s not a mercenary’s job to deal with it.”

Red stared at him.

Sans wasn’t even looking back. “And I need to think.”

He wasn’t given a lot of time for that. The door to the stairwell started to open.

Sans kicked it shut again. Throwing enough force behind it that Red felt the sound of that slam in his sternum.

Then he was being scooped back into Sans’s arms and carried further down the hall. And he wanted to help somehow. Desperately. But he didn’t know how – what was he, in this, except another risk factor? Probably nothing. He wasn’t in a condition to do much.

He looked over Sans’s shoulder to watch the stairwell open again. “Sans—”

As if that was all of the warning Sans needed, he was ducking behind a row of desks split up by thin privacy walls.

The attack magic came so close that Red could feel the excited hum of it. And he could see the color.

“Orange.”

Sans set Red down again, head near his, whispering quickly. “Do not move, I need to know exactly where you are.”

And then there was a person behind him. Red’s sockets widened as, for half a second, they made direct eye contact.

Then Sans was there, moving once more with a speed and familiarity that awed and terrified Red. Hitting them in the arm from two angles in a way that bent it wrong. They cried out in pain and dropped what was in their hand.

A baton of some kind. It landed next to Red’s foot.

Sans shoved them out of the space with the same kick that slammed the door shut. Red was certain he took the air with him as he ducked around the corner, too.

Red listened, at first. To the sound of what could only be a fight. But then he peeked around to watch himself, terrified that something would happen to Sans and he wouldn’t even know.

Instead, the sight that greeted him was so jarring that his mind needed a moment to catch up. What the fuck was happening?

Sans ducked under a swing of attack magic, feeling it brush the air just above his head, and that was when he felt it.

Primary magic compatibility of blue, secondary orange, tertiary purple – a flicker of spacetime.

Here was the teleporter.

Sans kneed his current adversary in their stomach, grabbing their hair and pulling their head down into his knee next. Blood gushed from their face and as they fell to the ground, Sans was dodging a new attack. From behind, this time, sensing as it intruded on the magic he held around him. There was the sound of sparking that clicked violently and Sans felt his soul in his mouth as he turned to respond.

Electroshock weapon – he was wondering why most of them drew guns; were they trying to scare him into stopping or did they not get paid enough to make sure he lived for whatever CIRC wanted him for? A stun baton made a lot more sense.

The teleporter wasn’t a skeleton monster, which was pretty rare.

Sans dodged another prod of the electric baton and they vanished from in front of him to be next to him before attempting another strike. And all teleportation was instantaneous, but their response times weren’t.

It was cute.

On the next dodge, Sans grabbed their arm and pulled them forward hard enough that they stumbled over the person already on the ground. Then he teleported and shoved them at their shoulders to knock them further off balance. Teleported again and threw a magic attack. Teleported again, halfway through a kick so he would finish it on the landing.

Compared to theirs, he was flickering through reality, constantly in motion, using teleportation as a tool of strength instead of merely disorientation.

On the last jump, he teleported halfway into the air, landing a hard hit to the side of their head. As his feet found the ground again, he pivoted and threw a kick that connected his reinforced boots with the next person’s skull.

Then someone else was there – primary compatibility of purple – but Sans was tired enough to stumble over those already fallen, barely managing to dodge their swing. It put him in a perpetual dodge and move and dodge and move and no progress—

“Sans!”

He startled at the sound of the name, looking over his shoulder.

Red, tossing something to him.

Sans caught it, turning it on his opponent and stabbing for center mass.

They convulsed from the electric shock, dropping to the ground.

Then Sans was with Red through a shortcut, grabbing him and teleporting down the hall to gain ground as they were being chased.

Red nearly fell without having what he’d been leaning on before, but with Sans’s help, he corrected his balance. “What do we do? Stairs are in the opposite direction.”

Sans knew that. He also knew that Red wasn’t climbing the stairs fast enough and he was running out of MP. Maybe he could outlast however many mercenaries were actually hired onto this job, but they felt never-ending at this point – and he could start taking purposefully lethal moves but he didn’t want to do that to Red; he’d managed to keep the actual gore to a minimum, and maybe that was costing him, he didn’t know.

But he didn’t have time to think about it. Or catch his breath. Or really come up with a plan – he only had time to move.

He had to move.

Why wasn’t he moving?

“Sans?”

“I don’t know.”

Red looked worried. Sans wondered if he was fearing for his life. His intent felt wrong for that, though.

Twang!

Sans felt the purple magic, and it was close enough that, for a moment, he thought it had latched onto his soul.

In a way, it had.

Red was yanked out of his arms, making a pained sound when the shift caused him to put weight on his injured side.

Sans reached to pull him back, but he was already gone – in someone else’s hold, back in the hands of the people who hurt him—

And a gun leveled at Sans’s face. Again.

Sans paused, his eyelights flicking to the source of the weapon.

Titano, looking stressed as hell. He held his gun in a way that told Sans he knew how to use it.

“They were all right.” Titano sounded more annoyed than anything else. “You’re slippery.”

Sans stared at him.

Before either of them could do anything else, Sans felt the intent shift and he glanced toward where Red was. Just in time to watch him bite down on someone’s arm. Hard. They cried out and threw him to the ground.

“What the fuck—”

“I told you he’s got sharp teeth—”

Titano looked over his shoulder, aggravated enough that Sans could feel the hostility in his intent rise. “Just pick him back up—”

Someone wasn’t listening and there was orange magic in the air, aimed for Red.

Red, who couldn’t move to dodge or negate the attack.

Red, who was already low on HP.

Red, who could die.

Sans was there in the blink of teleportation, standing solidly in the way of the orange magic.

It hit him hard enough to bruise his lifted arm and shoulder, but that didn’t matter – the magic shattered on impact instead of making it to Red.

And Sans started throwing attacks of his own. Bones connected in a flashing pattern of blue and white, waves that weaved between the gathered crowd of hostiles. They dodged, diving for desperate cover, some cowering behind their own magic.

Sans took advantage of the distraction and lifted Red from the floor, adrenaline probably the only reason he managed. His soul was racing, the familiar eerie calm evading every sense as his solitary goal solidified again in his mind. His main objective.

Get Red to safety.

He pulled them through a door and closed it. Fired attack magic at the ceiling to cause a chunk of it to fall in the way of the door and block it.

Red muttered a startled swear next to him.

Blue magic helped him drag the long meeting table across the room to impede the door’s opening even further. They didn’t have many options left. No elevator and there was no way he could get to the stairs again either, even if Red had been capable of climbing more of them – which he was not.  Sans couldn’t teleport somewhere he’d never been and couldn’t see – and he couldn’t teleport out of the building.

Boom!

Sans pulled Red farther from the door as it warped under the impact. An idea started piecing itself together.

Shouting outside. Boom!

They needed to get out of the anti-teleport field, but they couldn’t go up. Couldn’t go down.

He looked to the outside wall, noting it was mostly glass. Windows.

Boom! The door rattled like it would break at any second.

“Sans?”

He barely heard, lifting an arm to cover Red’s head and face. Then he summoned a blaster.

He hoped no one was on the street below, at the moment, but given the fire alarm had been pulled, he knew the chance of that was slim. With a sharp whine of magic, the window exploded outward, glass shards blowing back into the room and falling in a sparkling mass to the lower levels, like spent magic. Or dust.

He started toward it, carrying Red along with him.

“What are we doing?”

“We’re jumping out of the window.”

“What?” Red sounded very reasonably distressed. “We’re at least twelve stories up!”

Fifteen, actually, but Sans wasn’t going to say that – he was right, technically, that was at least twelve. “I know.”

“That fall will dust us.”

“No, I’m not gonna—”

The door split, still held closed by the meeting table.

“Hang onto me.” His voice was urgent, then.

Red’s arms wrapped around Sans’s shoulders with a force that bordered on startling, but Sans didn’t mind, carrying them both closer to the window. Red was hyperventilating, the wind tugged at their clothes.

“Wait—” Red pulled his head back to look at Sans. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” The answer was completely reflexive. As natural as breathing. “But right now’s not a great time, okay?”

Red was staring as if he were surprised, and Sans used that opportunity to reach around Red’s back beneath his arms and grab his belt to hold him as securely as possible. Then he pressed his free hand to Red’s face. “We’re gonna land in water, so hold your breath.”

Red tensed.

Sans tucked Red against him and put his back to the open air. He hesitated momentarily, feeling Red's breath panicky against his head. This could go wrong – Red could die – Sans needed to be sure—

The door broke open. Sans made eye contact with Titano, and he couldn’t read his expression very well through the blood on his face, but he knew getting caught again would be the last time.

No more time, then.

Sans used blue magic on his soul to throw them both out of the window.

Chapter Text

Red gasped in terror, clinging to Sans impossibly harder, tight enough to hurt.

But they were out of the warded walls.

For just a millisecond, they were weightless. Then freefalling. Then Sans’s hand, already on Red’s face, shifted to press over his mouth and nasal cavity before tearing them through a shortcut.

The water pressed in all around them, dark and murky. Cold. Sans had forgotten what it was like.

Red was still clinging tightly, and that was what kept Sans aware. Awake. Conscious.

Sans waited a count to ensure they’d lost all potential energy from the fall before pulling them through the Void once more.

They landed on the rocky riverbank, carrying water with them.

Red choked on his inhale. Still breathing.

Good.

Sans passed out.

“Sans?”

…

“Come on, Sweetheart, talk to me.”

…

“Sans, please—”

—don’t leave me, please—

Sans fought his way to consciousness like trying to push his hand through a nonnewtonian fluid. But then his eyes were open, vision cloudy and a whining white on the edges.

Red was there. Teeth sharp and set in a worried frown, eyelights narrowed in fear. Tears gathered but not falling. Sunlight bright from behind him.

Sans could taste iron in the back of his throat. And something like the acrid scent of a battery. His soul fluttered painfully like a bird in a cage, wings a painful and rapid beat against his ribs.

Was he dying?

No.

Red was talking to him.

“—hear me?”

Sans blinked. “… Yeah.”

Red’s eyes softly shut, relief bleeding into his intent in such a vivid way that Sans felt lighter at the rush. Red set his head softly on the ground next to Sans’s, breathing in deep, ragged puffs that sounded echoing against the gravel.

Sans tried to remember where he was. What had happened to get him here. He looked around at where they were, everything feeling too out of focus.

The river. They were by Echo River – Sans teleported here. Because it was the closest body of water he remembered that was deep enough to negate the energy of their fall. Because they’d been falling. To escape—

It all flooded back to him; the kidnapping, running around town, getting to the building, finding Red, the fight to leave. Sans’s hands lift to hold Red steady, who was lying on top of him as if they’d landed that way and yes, they had, Sans hadn’t wanted Red to land on something so hard and unforgiving. He could feel the shivering from Red and decided to Check him.

Red’s HP hadn’t dropped significantly over their frantic escape, but it had dropped. Sans grimaced silently.

Red needed help. And he needed it sooner than later. But they were far enough away from danger now that Sans didn’t mind waiting for Red to catch his breath.

Except… Red wasn’t catching his breath. He kept breathing quickly and heavily, and it didn’t feel like panic usually did.

Sans shifted his hand to press against the back of Red’s vertebrae, where his skull met his neck, feeling his magic there. Weak, with his low MP, but his soul beat was still detectable. It was quick, like his own.

“I’m okay,” Red murmured, his voice soft. “Just…”

Sans waited for him to finish. He didn’t. Sans felt his worry increase. He snaked one hand in between them so he could set it on Red’s face. The moment he made contact, Red leaned into it like he couldn’t keep his head up. “Red?”

No answer.

Sans managed to keep himself calm. Red was still conscious, he just wasn’t answering. “Hey, sunshine, you still with me?”

“We jumped out of a fucking window.”

“We did,” Sans confirmed.

“We coulda died,” Red observed.

“Yeah.” Sans wanted him to feel validated, but if Red kept thinking about that, he’d spiral. “But we didn’t.”

Red blinked a few times, his eyelights slowly returning. “We didn’t.”

“We didn’t die,” Sans reiterated.

“We didn’t die,” Red echoed in a breathless whisper.

Sans rubbed his thumb against Red’s cheekbone. “I need you to take a deep breath, okay?”

Red certainly tried. His inhale was accompanied by a breeze that felt sharp in its chill, making them both shiver and Red’s exhale stutter.

“How’s your leg?” Sans asked. Landing gently hadn’t exactly been a priority.

“It hurts,” Red admitted.

Sans’s soul ached for him. “Yeah, I’m sure.” He didn’t want to ask, but he needed to know. “Do you think you can move at all?”

There was a moment of nothing, and Sans’s ache deepened, but then Red shifted on his own, rolling to his left off of Sans.

Sans helped him how he could, easing him onto his side. He sat up then. Looked around. He remembered being in this same spot years ago, equally drenched by the river. It had been warmer that night.

Much warmer.

Sans shivered again, squinting a little as he tried to get his vision to clear so he could see better. So he could see farther. Maybe there was something to help him carry Red now that they didn’t need to be moving quite as fast.

But he couldn’t see anything. Not a discarded tarp or wooden plank – not even a box left out that he could deconstruct. For being a public dock that rarely saw professional foot traffic, it was clean. Ebott City was just like that, though, and Sans had never been ungrateful for it until now.

“What do your elf eyes see?”

Sans glanced down at Red, confused. “What?”

Red blinked at him. And he smirked. “It’s a line from the Lord of the Rings – do you remember watching those?”

No, Sans didn’t. But he must have, if Red was talking about it. “Yeah.”

Red looked sympathetic, for some reason. “So I’m asking what you’re seeing. Just in a silly way. ‘Cause we both need some grounding, I think.”

Grounding. Right. Coping with stress by making oneself aware of their environment in a way that reminds them that the danger had passed.

Only it hadn’t. Red was wet and injured and it was frigid outside. And Sans needed them to be somewhere else before they were fighting off hypothermia.

He needed shelter. And a phone.

Shelter and a phone.

“Thank you,” Sans said, unsure of how else to respond. Then he shifted to move closer gently putting his arm beneath Red’s neck and shoulders.

Red closed his sockets tightly, shifting to try and help but probably encountering a lot of pain that way. “Where’re we headed?”

“The nearest unlocked building.”

“Cool.”

Sans paused to look into Red’s face, trying to make sure his mind would be clear of the worst of the pain long enough to hear him. “We’re almost done.”

Red opened his eyes to look at Sans. And there was something so painfully vulnerable in the look. Something that cut Sans deeper than any blade could. Here was Red, hanging onto every word of encouragement like it was sustaining him.

And maybe it was. Sans wouldn’t know.

He stared at Red and felt something deep within him, past every mask, soften. And he repeated his words with the gentle insistence of a promise. “We’re almost done.”

Red closed his eyes tightly. Sans could see how close he was to crying, but then he nodded. “Almost done.”

“Almost done.” Sans began to carefully pull Red to his feet.

It was a monumental effort, but they succeeded. Red was upright enough for Sans to get a proper hold of him so they could start walking away from the riverbank.

Sans ignored the tremor of his limbs from exhaustion, breathing carefully through the raw agony in his chest. Each inhale felt like a striking match, each exhale a long burn.

Red was shaking, too. Though Sans was beginning to suspect it was very reasonable shivering. It was cold out.

Shelter and a phone.

About halfway to the nearest building, Sans ended up holding all of Red’s weight. He paused.

“S-sorry.” Red’s voice was a breathy whisper through chattering teeth.

Sans shook his head. “Don’t be.”

“You c’n leave me.” It’s soft. “Get help.”

Sans shook his head again. There was no guarantee that he would find help nearby. And Red needed to be out of the wind. “No.” He finished his adjustments to get Red fully off the ground with minimal aggravation to his injury. “Sorry, Sunshine, but I’m not going anywhere without you.”

Red’s pained wince turned into an unsteady smile. Some part of Sans still read it as charming. “You promise?”

The words shanked through Sans like a needle through his soul. And he was relieved that Red wasn’t waiting for an answer, only lowering his head against Sans and closing his eyes.

Sans kept walking. It was faster than Red helping, but Sans could feel every joint complaining, his head light and swimming, and he knew the work of this would be to the detriment of him.

But Red needed to be safe. He would get Red to safety. That was his job.

He stepped onto the sidewalk that lined the road parallel to the river, looking at the strip of small businesses nearby. Some were boarded up, but others looked occupied.

Sans spotted someone outside of one. An old man – he looked human. Hunched at his shoulders, trying to drag something out of the bed of a small, beat-up pickup truck. Sans wished he could feel for hostile magic, but his own was so weak that his intuition would have to do.

This was just a civilian. Someone as safe as any other stranger. Or at least only capable of the harm a typical human could do – which was a lot. But at least he was less mobile due to natural aging.

Sans looked both ways and crossed the street, Red still in his arms. He managed to get his voice a little louder than normal, hoping to be heard across the distance. “Hey, excuse me?”

The old man was still dragging at a box. Sans tried again, still getting closer. “Excuse me – sir? Can you help us?”

The man looked over at Sans and Red, his bushy white eyebrows lifting at the sight of them. The eyebrows reminded Sans of Gerson. “Are you alright?”

“No.” Sans elected to be honest.

“What happened?”

“We fell in the river.” Sans elected to be less honest.

“From where, the bridge?” He sounded startled, moving closer. “Is your friend hurt?”

“Yeah – dislocated his hip.”

“Well let me help ya.” The old man shambled forward, looking grouchy about it, offering to take some of Red’s weight. “Have you called an ambulance?”

“No, I don’t have a phone, could I—”

“You can borrow mine.” He interrupted with the exact answer Sans needed. “Let’s head in there – this is my shop.”

Sans looked at the windows. The sign. Pete’s Tackle, it read.

Their best option. He rolled with it. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Getting Red anywhere was so much easier with help, and soon they were out of the wind. Sans helped the old man – Pete, maybe – set Red down on a bench.

Sans sat next to him, to prop him up as he leaned onto his uninjured hip. “Should you be laying down, or—”

“Don’t move me, I’m fine.” Red’s voice still shook, the tone full of pain and fear.

Sans nodded softly. “Okay.”

“You should get him out of that sweater, though,” Pete said to Sans. “You’re both wet enough I’d worry about hypothermia.”

Sans would worry, too.

“I’ll get you a blanket.”

“Can—” Sans started to say, but then Pete was hobbling behind the counter and into the back. He’d wanted that phone.

But navigating hypothermia prevention might be more important. He didn’t know. His mind felt hazy and he could feel his soul beat in his vertebrae. He just opted to do what the old man suggested and gently helped Red out of the sweater.

The faux fur looked muddy grey from the river water. The fabric stuck uncomfortably and Sans muttered a soft apology when Red winced at it tugging at the raw wounds at his wrists, but it came off. Sans dropped it to the ground, the article significantly less important to him than the person who had worn it.

Red’s head found Sans’s shoulder like a homing missile, crashing against his scapula.

Sans’s hand gently cupped his face to hold him up. He couldn’t tell if Red was feverish or is his own fingers were too cold. He wanted to apologize again. And again and again. If apologizing could make it right, he would apologize every minute of every hour, but it wouldn’t. And he knew that.

“Red?”

He grunted in a sound of acknowledgement.

Sans settled a little at the reminder that he was still awake. Still alive. He tapped his head gently against Red’s.

Pete reappeared then, phone to his head. Speaking into it. “One of ‘em has a dislocated hip, they said.”

Sans helped him unfold the blanket as he got close enough, wrapping it around Red.

“I figured they’d know; they’re skeletons – no, no, you too.” Pete’s attention was on Sans for the last part. “You go under the blanket, too. More warmth.”

Sans stared at him for a moment, surprised, but Pete was speaking on the phone again – no doubt to the emergency hotline operator. And he didn’t know how to explain that he probably wouldn’t help. He was also shivering, which wouldn’t help Red relax, and he ran colder than most monsters as a side effect of the amount of Patience within him.

But he was probably warmer than the air. And any help is better than none at all.

After only a second longer of consideration, Sans was pulling himself closer to Red, tucking the blanket around both of them. When Red shuddered and buried his face back against Sans’s neck, Sans noticed he was still breathing too quickly. And stars above, Sans worried about him harder than he had worried about nearly anything else.

The strong smell of citrus invaded his senses, then. He glanced toward Pete.

The old man was holding out half of a peeled orange, the other segments still tucked in his other hand as he held the phone.

Sans accepted the offer tentatively. “Thank you.”

“Sure.”

Sans pulled the fruit apart a bit more to tear a piece off. He reached around and held it under Red’s nasal cavity. “Here.”

Red scrunched his face at first.

Sans tapped the fruit to his teeth. “Eat it.” That sounded rather demanding. “Please,” Sans amended.

Red smirked, looking amused, but he took the fruit in his teeth. The moment it turned to magic in Red’s system was a nearly visible difference, his eyelights focusing right before he closed his eyes and seemed to relax.

Sans gave him another piece.

“You should eat some, too.”

Sans turned at the sound of Pete’s voice. Then he shook his head. “I’m fine.” He’d eaten the day before. Who knew when the last time was that Red had eaten?

But Red wouldn’t take the next slice. “Dude,” Sans objected.

Red opened his sockets to give Sans a mild glare. “How far did you teleport?” He asked rhetorically. “Eat the damn orange.”

Sans rolled his eyelights but ate the next slice himself. It was sweet enough to almost make him sick, but it eased the strain of his magic enough for him to acknowledge it was a good idea.

“We jumped out of a window.” Red’s slurred whisper sounded awed and terrified at once.

Sans pushed down his amusement because this was not funny. “Technically, I threw us.”

“Out a window.” Red still sounded like he didn’t quite believe it.

“Defenestration.” Sans concurred.

“Gesundheit.”

Sans smirked. “Defenestrate is a word that means to throw something out of a window.”

Red’s intent flickered with something mystified. Sans could feel it even in his exhaustion because it was directed his way. “How do you just know that?”

Sans tried to feed him another slice of orange. “I used to read the dictionary for fun.”

Red was silent and still for a long moment, chewing. Then he snorted. “I’m dating a nerd.”

“I’m literally working on a PhD,” Sans mentioned. “Thought it woulda been obvious.”

He felt Red’s intent drift toward amusement.

Pete was there again. Holding out the other half of the orange.

Sans took it, grateful. “How long until the ambulance gets here?”

“They said they’re still a few minutes out,” Pete said. He looked Sans over again. His attention lingered on Red.

He lowered the phone to be against his shoulder, and Sans was halfway through scrounging up the magic for a panicked teleport. “You found him?”

Sans blinked. “What?”

“Paper said he was missing, right?” Pete nods his head toward Red. “You find him? Or are you in some kinda trouble?”

Sans stared at the old man in front of him. And something deep in his chest that had still been anticipating trouble – something untrusting and growling, ready to bite every hand that reached to help him – finally began to settle.

Pete was asking if Red had been missing because he was running from something. And Sans wondered what the old man would’ve said if Sans had said yes. He wondered if he would’ve even believed them.

“Found him,” Sans said, eventually.

Pete nodded. Sans couldn’t tell if he trusted that, but the man probably assumed that either way they would end up at the hospital with law enforcement enroute.

The chase was over, intentional or not.

“My name was in the fuckin’ paper?” Red murmured, his words slurring a little.

“Apparently.” Sans wouldn’t know.

“… Oh.”

“Red?”

The voice was unfamiliar. Steady, calm. Unhurried. A stranger.

“Red, open your eyes if you can hear me.”

A stranger.

Red tensed on reflex, fear shanking through him. The agony that accompanied it made his breathing hitch with his magic, dysregulating it all in one jolt. He coughed to try and even it, ignoring the pounding in his skull. Everything felt distant except for that pounding.

But there was a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Red?”

It was Sans.

“M’okay.” It was the first thing he said when he could speak again, not wanting Sans to worry about him. Not if they were still in danger.

Were they still in danger?

Red peeled his eyes open slowly, squinting at the light in the room. There was a human in front of him – warm-toned skin and slicked-back hair – sporting a uniform Red vaguely recognized as something EMTs wore. And she wasn’t the only one; he saw at least one more nearby behind her.

“When’d we get a party?” He asked weakly.

The human in front of him put her hand on his forehead – it was blazing with heat, maybe she was part monster and was using fire magic – then moved it down to his cervical vertebrae. “Low body temp and slow pulse – Katie…”

There were more words. Shuffling behind her. Red didn’t understand. He wasn’t cold anymore. He couldn’t really feel anything, but that wasn’t bad right now. He knew how much pain he’d been in before and this was comparatively nice.

After a moment of more voices swimming in and out of Red’s awareness, he felt himself shifted. Something moving away from him – wasn’t that important? Hadn’t that been— “Sans?”

“I’m still here.” Sans’s voice came out soft. A little hoarse, like he’d been speaking a lot. Sometimes he would sound like that when he was tired, Red knew. “Not going anywhere.”

But Red felt his sudden proximity like phantom pain; as if a limb had been severed. He didn’t have the strength to object or shiver but the discomfort was vivid.

There was a lot more movement that outshone the discomfort for pain instead. People still spoke to him, and every time he opened his eyes he could see them. People. He didn’t know who they were.

Wasn’t there supposed to be— “Sans?”

“I’m still here.” Sans’s voice was still soft but also still there.

“We’re going to get you some help, okay?” Another voice, vaguely familiar – Red knew that one. The EMT, right? Was he going to go to a hospital? Hopefully – he felt like he needed it.

Red was being carried somewhere again, then set down on something. He opened his eyes.

They were outside, he realized. The clouds were thick and grey above him, but cut by sunbeams, and there were still sounds and voices and he wanted to know where Sans was. Or his mom. But he was too tired to ask. Too tired to keep his eyes open.

There was the slamming sound of doors latching shut on a vehicle. Red was drifting off slowly, everything becoming distant again.

One of the last sensations he felt was a cold hand tucking into his.

Sans was exhausted, and too numb to think properly, and this EMT had asked him so many questions – questions Sans had been trying to dodge the entire time. How Red had gotten hurt, why they had ended up in the river, if someone had attacked them – because there was no disguising the bruises on Red any more than the ones clearly all over Sans.

Questions were harder to dodge than magic attacks, Sans was learning once again. But he stayed resolutely silent about as much as he could. He didn’t know how much he could trust these people, let alone what they said. He only said what he knew would help Red.

Red had been kidnapped and injured. The police were already involved. They needed the hospital – please let him ride in the ambulance.

The red flashing lights outside had been met with blue and Sans wasn’t surprised when a police officer was the next person he saw upon exiting the building. He was surprised, however, to realize it was Pike. He traded some words with the EMTs as he approached that Sans hardly heard, strangely numb to it all.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take it from here,” Pike said.

The EMT that had been pressing Sans for answers nodded and swiftly shifted to help load the stretcher into the back of the ambulance. And that was good. Red needed the help more than Sans did.

Pike looked down at Sans, who was much shorter than him.

Sans spoke before he could. “Found him.”

Pike glanced in Red’s direction. “How?”

Sans clenched his jaw.

“Sans?” Red’s voice.

Sans looked over at him immediately. “I’m still here.”

“This is important,” Pike said, drawing Sans’s attention again. “Fill me in.”

Sans stared at the older monster for a while, the last twelve hours flashing in front of his eyes like a timelapse.

“Officer, we need to go.”

Sans looked toward the ambulance and stumbled a little at the speed of his turn. Pike caught him, but his hands were hot – too hot – and Sans flinched.

“Easy, Sans, tell me what’s wrong.”

“I need to follow him.” Sans insisted, trying to pull away to do so.

Pike let him go, but there was something in his voice. “Sans—”

“I just need to go with him,” Sans pleaded. “He’s hurt, and it’s my fault, and I just—”

“You can,” Pike assured him. “You can – but how did you find Red?”

“They called me.” Sans managed, all of his attention on the back doors to the ambulance as they closed.

“Who called you?”

“Titano,” Sans said without thinking. “And they hurt Red until I found him.”

“Was this nearby?” Pike asked.

Sans glanced at him desperately. “Pike, they’re leaving.”

“You should probably be in the ambulance anyway – you’re looking rough.”

“I’m fine.” Sans insisted.

“But your eyelight—”

Sans brushed him off. He knew the right one was probably out - it did that when his MP was low enough. “Just tired.”

“Was Red being held nearby?” Pike asked.

“It was a building under renovation.” Sans managed, hardly aware of his words. “A CIRC office.”

An EMT opened a door on the side of the ambulance with stairs, and the wave of relief nearly capsized all of Sans’s composure.

“A what?” Pike sounded confused.

Sans turned to him, shaking and more scared than he’d been all week. All at the possibility of being denied. “I swear I’ll tell you everything, okay? All of it – just let me go with Red for now.”

Pike stopped short. His fins were low. Undyne looked like that when she was sad.

Sans could hardly think. “Please.”

Pike’s expression hardened, and Sans was already thinking of ways he could fight without magic, but then he looked toward the ambulance. “You got room for one more in there?”

This EMT had spoken to Red to try and keep him awake; dark hair slicked back, a considering expression on her face. “He should come to the hospital, but if he’s more comfortable riding with you—”

“He isn’t,” Pike said easily, stepping closer. He gently nudged Sans in their direction, guiding him by his shoulder. “Hop on in.”

Sans’s knees went weak. It was a good thing someone helped him into the vehicle because otherwise he might have fallen over.

He sat on the bench at the wall. As the door closed, and before anyone could tell him not to, Sans took Red’s hand.

Chapter Text

The paramedics kept asking Sans questions.

Was he feeling pain anywhere? No. Was the blood on him his? Some of it. What was his name? He answered that one eventually, but it took him a moment.

He asked them questions, too.

Was he in the way? No. Could he keep holding Red’s hand? Yes. Were they sure he wasn’t in the way? Yes. Would Red be okay? They didn’t give an answer he was satisfied with – all very neutral. Though that made sense, EMTs weren’t supposed to diagnose anything, it bothered Sans a lot.

They noticed on their way that Red was bleeding from somewhere, though. His HP was dropping – just at a slow enough rate to go unnoticed by Sans. The problem was his hip, Sans realized as the medics worked. Something about the joint being misaligned and then all of that movement caused cracking and tearing in the periosteum around it – the closest thing skeleton monsters have to skin.

It was more like a shell. Not dissimilar to an exoskeleton. In that way, skeleton monsters almost had two skeletons. A core layer of bone and an external one – with blood and magic between.

Sans thought about it while watching the paramedics cut through Red’s pant leg to get to his hip joint. They tried waking him up first and they couldn’t. Sans could tell they were worried, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if Red was just… tired.

Sans couldn’t have guessed either way. Everything felt too distant. His mind was only a slideshow lecture on skeleton monsters, with every other slide including another thing Red had to do with a dislocated hip in the hope of getting home again.

The magic in every living thing runs within a matrix, but for most monsters it was kept in the same place as their soul – which is to say no one knows. For skeletons and elementals, there was a physical space for it.

Sans asked Red to walk around with a major load-bearing joint out of place.

Grillby’s fire was orange because his matrix was orange. Red blushed magenta because his matrix was magenta.

Red was thrown to the ground, which put him in enough pain that he cried.

When exposed, a magical matrix in a skeleton would look like a layer of mesh netting, and it rested beneath veins and more layers of what could be called a dermis.

Red was made to sit upright in a chair with a dislocated hip for days. Days.

When skeleton monsters have broken bones, it rarely goes deeper than the matrix, and even then the matrix layer is why breaking a bone doesn’t mean removal of a limb for a skeleton monster; the magic would hold bones together like a lattice framework. Usually internally, but in severe cases it could be externally observed.

Red bleeding implied an open wound – and an open wound implied that he was risking an infection since Sans had dropped Red into Echo River. Sans himself had gotten an infection the last time he’d fallen in.

Just as he was wondering if that was knowledge he should be telling someone, the back doors to the ambulance opened.

The gurney Red was on was getting removed quickly and sound bled back in for Sans. But it was as if everyone were speaking a language he couldn’t understand.

He climbed out of the ambulance as well, trying to follow them all inside. Trying to stay with Red.

Trying. But failing – they were taking him back through the double doors beyond the front desk and when Sans moved to follow, someone stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

Speaking to him. Taking Red.

He shook his head, shrugging out of their grip, but then someone else was standing in the way again. Trying to talk to him.

No, he needed to stay with Red or someone would hurt him again, and Sans couldn’t let someone hurt him again, please let him through, please let him through—

He tried to get around them again but he couldn’t control his limbs quick enough and they blocked the path once more. Someone then Checked him, and he couldn’t even guess what his stats would look like. He was focused on Red disappearing down the hall.

So he dragged himself through a teleport, just to the other side of the people between them. His soul ached like it was bleeding at the use of magic and he dropped briefly to one knee before forcing himself to stand again.

Then the pain was winched tight. Sharp and intense, like a tourniquet, and cutting something off with the same effectiveness. And just like that, he couldn’t move at all.

Green magic was locking him in place. Pinning him by the exact point of his soul – and he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe – and it hurt – and he needed to get to Red, this wasn’t fair, what if something happened again?

He couldn’t breathe, and he thought the green magic was cutting off his ability to, locking up his ribs – but he could feel his ribcage moving. Expanding and contracting quickly as he watched the door which Red vanished through. So he must be breathing – or he thought he was breathing – or his body had been tricked into thinking it was breathing – but the air was gone.

And suddenly he was too little. And too afraid. And there were people in scrubs trying to talk to him with voices that were insistent and urgent and he couldn’t think and everything was painful but he couldn’t voice it.

And what was pain, if he couldn’t voice it?

Someone was asking him something. He shook his head. He shook his head no matter what they said, firstly to express disagreement. Then to try to clear the spots out of his vision.

It wasn’t working. Breathing wasn’t helping. Everything became even more distant than before, voices losing the fight to hold his senses as a ringing replaced them. His vision began to bleed white.

And then there was nothing.

Dr. Junip Melady rarely worked shifts in the Emergency Department anymore. He was a specialist, so sometimes he was on call, but he rarely operated in the Emergency Room as much as he used to.

Today was a day, coincidentally, that he hadn’t been there to work. He’d been there to speak with a coworker. An anesthesiologist named Honey; they were old friends.

And there had been chaos. Less like the chaos that existed when an urgent case came in and more like the chaos that occurred from a disruption that would normally get security called in. And Melady was worried, so he stepped out of the hall with Honey and toward the lobby to make sure everyone was okay.

Just in time to watch Sans’s eyelights fizzle out as he sagged, unconscious, caught in place by green soul magic.

Melady rushed forward, pushing nurses out of the way to scoop Sans up. “Whoever is holding that magic, cut it! ”

Suddenly, Sans dropped heavily into his arms. Melady lowered his head toward Sans’s to see if he could feel the kid’s breath on his whiskers and – there it was, thank the stars.

“Dr. Melady?”

“Green magic on someone in an ER – are you mad? ” He’s outraged, walking down the hallway, looking for an empty bed. Sans was breathing, but only barely. Shallow breath in a monster mostly magic meant low MP – or inhibited magic – or soul damage – or—

Everyone was speaking.

“It’s standard procedure, doctor—”

“He wasn’t cooperating with staff and was trying to get deeper into the—”

“Green magic is dangerous ,” Melady interrupted them all to say, voice sharp in his professionalism. “You never know if a patient or their family has soul damage – what do you mean, it was standard procedure ?”

“Anyone compatible with green magic is trained to use it, Doctor,” A nurse assured him – Sinclair, he remembered. “And if someone holds the chance of becoming a danger to themselves or others, green soul magic is the course of action we’ve been instructed to take to avoid that danger.”

“Well, that’s a great policy that will see more complications than resolutions; using soul magic on someone with soul damage could kill them.” Melady found a bed, so he deposited Sans onto it. “Any soul magic – get him on oxygen, please – I’ll be discussing green magic as the standard procedure with the director at my earliest convenience.”

“Doctor—”

“In the meantime , I want someone putting in an IV—” He cut himself off as he heard Sans’s magic change. Melady dropped all of his attention to Sans.

Sans was staring back, his right eyelight so dim in its socket that it seemed more like a reflection of light than a light itself. A consequence of low magic circulation, Melady knew.

“Hello, lad,” Melady greeted, voice shifting immediately to something gentler. He kept the tone clear. “Got here in quite a hurry, didn’t you?”

Sans blinked slowly. He looked more tired than Melady had ever seen. “… I’m fine.”

Melady nodded, reaching to rest his hand on Sans’s shoulder. Now that Sans was conscious and responsive, he was willing to risk a Check.

And he wasn’t doing a Standard Check, which only displayed Sans’s general stats, but a Diagnostic Check. It filtered information back to him about errors in Sans’s magic – namely injuries to his body and soul.

He frowned a little at the data as he translated it, lifting one of Sans’s arms to note that his wet sleeve was coated with blood. “Is this yours?”

“Mostly.”

Melady hummed.

“Do you still want oxygen administered, Doctor?” One of the nurses spoke up hesitantly.

“That would be grand, thank you.” Melady shifted away to wash his hands and grab a set of gloves.

“Dr. Melady, we’re fully capable of treating any injury you worry—”

“Sinclair, I trust the members of this hospital’s Emergency Department, but due to my history with this patient, I believe it will be best if I take over his case. Thank you.”

The nurse looked on the verge of defensive. And that was reasonable – this was a breach in hospital code and procedure.

But Sans was, firstly, a complicated case – and secondly, out of her clearance.

“Take it up with your supervisor,” He told her with deliberate calm, putting on the gloves. “Tell them it was at my insistence, and they can contact me or my supervisor with any concerns.”

Sinclair seemed to settle, even with that irate set to her brow.

Melady nodded, because that would have to do. “I have it handled. As soon as everyone is done with whatever task I’ve assigned them, they can leave. Thank you.”

Within the next few minutes, only Melady and Sans were left in the small alcove.

There was a pause. Heavy and quiet. Sans lifted the arm that now held an IV. “They didn’t hook me up to anything.” His already quiet voice seemed even quieter with an oxygen mask on.

“I know, friend – it’s there so I don’t have to poke you myself.” Melady tried to keep his tone lighter as he began to grab what he would need to treat the deep scratches in Sans’s arm. “I’m afraid I haven’t administered an IV in well over a decade.”

Sans blinked, glancing at the IV port before quickly looking away from it again. “You can’t exactly miss. I don’t have veins.”

Melady smiled in a good-natured way, moving his materials and a stool closer so he could sit with Sans. “A very convenient part of skeleton monster biology, certainly. Do you want to try to move your sleeve up over your elbow or can I cut it?”

“You c’n cut it, I don’t care.”

And Melady did, moving the fabric and then cleaning away blood and dirt to see what he could of the injury itself. It truly wasn’t that deep. Melady would’ve been more concerned if there were layers of the periosteum missing, but there wasn’t. Sans was wholly there. It wasn’t something that would typically require an Emergency Room visit.

But Melady hadn’t only seen one injury in Sans’s Check.

As he began to properly clean and bandage the wounds, he spoke. “It looks like you took a rough tumble.”

“Teleported out of a bus.”

Melady’s whiskers twitched. “What?”

“I was on a bus,” Sans said. “Teleported off of it. Landed on some gravel.”

“That explains the grit I’m finding,” Melady said dryly.

“I was saving it for later.”

“The grit?”

“Yeah, grits can be a snack.”

There were so many things that were illogical and wrong with the exchange, but Melady didn’t mind continuing the conversation for the sake of easing Sans. He knew the kid was terrified of hospitals, and he imagined this experience wouldn’t help that. “Your bones aren’t pockets.”

“Not with that attitude.”

Melady let out a startled laugh, looking up at Sans’s face.

Sans was watching him. “You don’t do this very often, do you?”

Melady blinked, surprised yet again, though for a different reason entirely. “No. I don’t. I’m a surgeon and a soul specialist – this isn’t in my typical routine.”

“But you’re doing it now.”

“This isn’t the sort of thing you need a medical degree for,” His voice was warm. “But if you’d prefer someone else—”

“No.” Sans’s interruption was quiet and pained. “No, I just…”

Melady waited patiently for him to continue as he finished wrapping the bandages around Sans’s arm and securing them.

Sans didn’t speak, though. So, when he was done, Melady spoke instead. “Why did you come in today? Is it your soul?” That would’ve been reason enough. There was so much dysregulation in his magic circulation that Melady couldn’t tell if there were any other issues.

“No – Red is somewhere.”

“What?”

“Red is somewhere – he’s been missing, but I found him – he needed medical attention, so an ambulance brought him.” Sans’s voice had lowered to a whisper. If Melady didn’t have good ears, he wouldn’t have heard him. “I didn’t want them to take him anywhere without me.”

Melady was beginning to put together the origin of the scene he’d stumbled into. The cause and effect of it all. So he nodded his understanding.

“Do you need me to call someone for you, Sans? Asgore or Papyrus?”

Sans shook his head, face downturned as if he were being scolded but eyelights lifted to be on Melady’s face. Apparently attentive, even as Melady saw his gaze unfocus.

And really, that was all the urging Melady needed. Sans was clearly exhausted. “Go ahead and lay back.”

“But Red—”

“I will go and check on him. If he’s in a room already, we can go together – I’ll make sure you get to him,” Melady promised.

Sans stared for a moment. Then he nodded, the movement unsteady.

“Lay back, Sans.”

And Sans laid back.

Melady made sure he was comfortable with a blanket before stepping out of the space.

He would need to pull up Sans’s records to do the math required to get nutrients and magic in him again. He would need to check on Red’s condition and see if the police were aware of his arrival or not. And tomorrow, he would be reaching out to upper levels of the hospital’s management.

What a busy break this had turned out to be.

Papyrus was still counting the time.

He’d lost track more than once – such a thing had been inevitable, but then he simply started over. When he’d been in Gaster’s mansion, waiting for Sans to get back from whatever dangerous thing he’d had to do, bored and terrified, Papyrus hadn’t had a single distraction available to him. So he’d begun practicing counting seconds accurately until it was simply reflexive to do.

It changed nothing. The numbers didn’t matter. But it was better to count than to worry.

The last mission Sans went on with the Royal Guard, Papyrus could’ve told someone down to the second how long Sans had been gone, from the moment Papyrus began to panic to the moment he appeared with Gaster in the foyer.

But entering the hospital with Asgore, Papyrus realized he’d had to start over on his counting no less than nine times.

He didn’t mind the number nine. But it was quickly about to become ten as entering the hospital became navigating the hallways toward where Red was supposed to be.

And Sans.

Sure enough, there was his brother. Seated with only his head poking out, a bundle of blankets on a chair. An IV line led into the folds of fabric swathed around him, and Papyrus could tell by the gentle glow of the liquid in the bag that it was magic nutrition.

He wondered if Sans was supposed to be in one of the other three empty beds in the room.

But Papyrus understood why he wasn’t when his gaze shifted to Red.

Asleep. Definitely not only unconscious or in some sort of coma. Asleep. He looked like he would be snoring, if his head was positioned just a little differently.

Skeleton monsters tended to sleep when they hit the lower limits of their MP. It wasn’t as worrying as other monster types would assume it to be.

Asgore moved to speak to Toriel. No doubt offer support or to ask for an update. Papyrus noticed that Toriel greeted him with a soft, aching smile. Unsteady. Asgore’s hand settled hesitantly on hers. The most friendly contact Papyrus had ever seen them trade.

“Papyrus?”

He turned at the sound of his name, toward Edge.

The other kid stood in front of him. Still and subdued. “Would you like to sit in the chair next to Sans?”

Papyrus smiled at him. “Yes, thank you!”

He marched toward the chair in question, pulling himself into it. All the furniture he’d been around lately was large enough to seat boss monsters, so he had an easier time getting into the large chair than he used to.

And also he was taller. That was very cool.

He kicked his feet to scuff the ground. Looking at Red. Trying not to look at anything around him, lest he notice something devastating and unhelpful to his peace of mind.

“Hello, brother,” Papyrus greeted in wingdings. Mage Speak. It helped Sans to know Papyrus was speaking specifically to him, since it was a language that centered around intent in communication.

“Hey.” Sans offered his hand then, from the confines of the blanket, for Papyrus to hold.

And he took it, startled enough to look over. “You’re frigid!”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Hypothermia.”

Papyrus blinked, startled. “You’re joking.”

“That would be cool, huh?”

“…Must you ruin my day further with your poor excuse for wordplay?”

Sans smirked. It eased something in Papyrus’s soul, to see it. “They say it’s hypothermia, but I don’t think Melady ever noted that my average temperature runs colder than most monsters.”

“And you’re a skeleton – we hold onto cold differently,” Papyrus added.

“Right.”

“So you’re not hypothermic?”

“Not really. Just sort of.”

Papyrus gave him a bland sort of look. “How did you manage that? Is it because you left without a jacket?”

Sans hesitated.

There was a gentle knock on the door before it opened. Papyrus was relieved to see a very familiar face.

“Howdy, Dr. Melady,” Asgore greeted politely.

“Hello, Your Majesty – Miss Toriel, pardon my intrusion.” Dr. Melady stepped all of the way into the room, a pile of fabric in his hands. “I’m returning their clothes – they’re still a little damp, but I didn’t want to lose track of them.”

“Thank you,” Toriel said, reaching to take them.

Dr. Melady moved then, to be closer to Sans. “Hello, Papyrus – excuse me.”

“You’re excused, Doctor!” Papyrus said, pulling his feet up out of the way.

Melady smiled kindly and rested his fingers against Sans’s head. “How are you feeling?”

“The same,” Sans said.

“Are you still breathing okay without the supplemental oxygen?”

Oh, that sounded bad. Papyrus looked at Sans with worry.

Sans squeezed Papyrus’s hand in reassurance. “Yeah, it all settled.”

“Your magic has?”

“Yep.”

Melady nodded. “Okay. Call a nurse if you start feeling worse again. Or weird at all. And you should also be lying down.”

“I will,” Sans told him.

“Right now?” Melady pressed, much gentler than he could’ve been.

Sans stared at him. And then sighed, releasing Papyrus so he could slowly stand.

Papyrus watched how every movement seemed to be a struggle for him. He was familiar with the strain he was witnessing, though that wasn’t the only piece of evidence to direct him toward what was happening.

Low MP. Into magic depletion, because Sans’s soul struggled with recognizing where the lower threshold for magic use should be.

Papyrus worried about his soul. But Melady was letting Sans move around, so it must not be too severe.

It took everything within him not to do a Check himself, but Papyrus folded his hands in his lap, picking at the bottom hem of his coat while he watched Dr. Melady move both Sans and the IV stand toward one of the other beds in the space.

He could see, in flashes through openings of the blanket, that Sans was in scrubs. And he frowned a little deeper.

Sans hated scrubs. Papyrus didn’t like seeing him wearing them. But it was probably the only dry thing they had for him to wear.

“I’ll get you another warm blanket,” Melady said eventually.

“And Red, too?” Sans asked.

“Absolutely.”

They watched the doctor leave.

There was a silence that lingered between them all that was broken as Asgore moved to speak to Sans. To check in on him, as far as Papyrus could tell. But he was distracted by Edge dropping into the chair Sans had just vacated.

“They said he’s sleeping.” Edge gestured to his brother. “Somehow even through us all talking – something about magical exhaustion. But he’s okay.”

Papyrus nodded, relieved to have that much confirmed.

“We already spoke to Pike, so he’s going to let Undyne and Alphys know, but technically this is all of the people that can be back here to visit at one time,” Edge said, gesturing between the four of them not in hospital beds.

Papyrus nodded again. And he picked up some of the conversation behind him, from Asgore and Sans.

“—able to talk with them?”

“Yeah.” Sans sounded exhausted, matching Asgore’s softened tone with a whisper. But his words were clear, which was what Papyrus had been listening for. “You can let Pike know I’ll give a statement – actually, c’n you pull up a map of Ebott on your phone? I could—”

Edge’s voice broke through Papyrus’s awareness. “Are you hungry?”

Papyrus looked back toward his friend. How he seemed stressed. Then toward Toriel, who was watching them all with more nervousness than Papyrus had ever seen her wear.

Food was good. It kept them going, and – if delicious enough – was very good for the soul.

So Papyrus nodded. “Famished.”

Edge snorted. He always seemed to when Papyrus pulled out words he didn’t use often. “Let’s fix that then.”

“My only request is that we avoid the macaroni and cheese in the cafeteria here,” Papyrus added on, trying to feed into that amusement and distraction. “I’ll bet even two years later it still tastes like plastic.”

“Because the cheese they use practically is,” Edge agreed.

“We could make it better,” Papyrus decided. “We could make anything better.”

Edge looked at Papyrus for a long moment, then glanced toward his brother, and then focused back on Papyrus. “Yes, I think you’re right.”

“Of course I am! I’m Papyrus!”

Chapter Text

The voices were quiet, Red had to appreciate that much.

What he appreciated less was that he was hearing them clearer as the minutes passed. Something hurt in his face when he frowned in discomfort about it.

The voices stopped. He considered going back to sleep – which really meant he wasn’t considering anything – but he squinted his eyes open anyway.

Everything was blurry, with his eyes barely open like that, and he shifted to be more comfortable—

Ow. Ouch. Okay, not moving. Who’s moving? Not him.

A hand pressed gently on his chest. “You’re okay.”

Sans.

“You’re okay – you’re safe.”

Red eased immediately at the sound of his voice, and it took a moment to remember why that might be.

They were in danger a moment ago.

His sockets open.

Sans was standing next to him. Red was lying down on something, looking up at him, and Red was relieved to see how he smiled a little. “Morning, Sunshine.”

Red’s browbones furrowed. “Is it morning?” Stars, his voice sounded rough. Who put gravel in his mouth?

“No,” Sans said, sounding almost fond.

“Didn’t mean to oversleep,” Red told him, trying to piece together where they were, not brave enough to look around.

“You didn’t,” Sans assured him.

“You could still sleep, if you wanted.”

Red looked toward the new voice.

Toriel, smiling at him softly, looking a little like a dream with how her white fur was picking up the light.

Red blinked, trying to figure out why Toriel being there was filling him with so many exhausting emotions. “Oh.” He closed his eyes. “I might do that, then.”

“Sleep more?” Sans checked.

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” He sounded amused. His thumb gently brushed over Red’s sternum, and he wondered why he could feel it so clearly. “Goodnight, Red.”

“Is it night?” He asked, words slurring together.

“No.”

Red slept anyway.

Dr. Melady said Sans could go home yesterday.

Asgore had assured the doctor that the proper paperwork would be submitted for Sans’s discharge from the hospital and thanked him for his time. Papyrus had waved farewell as Dr. Melady had left.

Sans had remained. Unmoving.

Leave? No. He wasn’t leaving. He could unhook the soul monitor and change back into his own clothes – ones Papyrus had grabbed – but Sans would not be leaving.

He’d put on his sweatpants – they had a plasticky print down the leg that read Ebott University Alumni and Sans had never thought much of them – and a long-sleeved shirt he’d stolen from Red’s wardrobe months ago that sported a black and grey checker pattern. Both soft. Both familiar.

Also the furthest things from Sans’s thoughts as he sat curled in a rock-solid hospital chair, laptop balanced on his knees. He picked at the peeling lettering on the side of his pant leg and chewed on the tip of his thumb, reading over what existed of his dissertation for the sixteenth time that night.

Or was it morning?

It was missing pieces – particularly things Sans had sitting in folders on the desk in his office. Sans didn’t care. He was barely reading the words anymore as it was. He had them memorized. Really his thoughts were floating through an abyss of nothing, waiting for something to latch onto.

There was a shift in the room. Someone took a deep breath.

Sans copied them quietly, eyelights still focused on looking through his computer screen. What line had he even been reading? Was that equation unbalanced or had he been staring at it for too long?

Sans was supposed to be alone in the room.

The thought yanked all of his other straying ideas to a screeching and abrupt halt. No one else was supposed to be there. It was only Sans.

“Sweetheart?”

And Red.

Sans’s eyelights snapped up at the still-gravelly sound of Red’s voice. Slurred from the pain medication and sleep, it was less of a word and more the impression of one. But Sans recognized it anyway.

He gently set his laptop on the floor to the side. “Well, good morning, Sunshine.”

Red blinked blearily at him, his eyelights large and hazy around the edges like a diffused light. Just like they had been the day before.

Sans sat on the very edge of his seat to be as close as he could to the mattress. “How’re you feeling?”

Red blinked again. It seemed to take him a moment to understand. “Tired.”

Sans nodded. “That makes sense.”

“Where are we?” Red asked, looking around.

“The hospital.” Sans opted to keep it simple, so he wouldn’t be confused.

“Why?”

“You needed it.”

“Oh.”

Sans reached over and pressed the call button for the nurse. “Toriel should be here in a little while with Edge.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Two days.”

There was a pause. “Did I fuckin’ die?”

Sans snorted and quickly tried to shove it down. “What are you asking?”

“Two days ?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“You were sleeping.”

Red stared at him. “The whole time?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my god.”

It probably wasn’t supposed to be funny, but Sans laughed a little as he pulled out his phone to text Toriel that Red was awake again.

The nurse stepped in, then. Chipper, for the early morning – the clock said just after five – and friendly. They walked Red through a couple of tests to make sure his cognition was okay and that he could feel all of his extremities. Sans mostly ignored it, an uncomfortable feeling coiling in his chest when he did try to listen.

Eventually, they stepped out of the room again with a promise of a visit from a doctor later in the day to check in.

“You said Tori and Edge’ll be here?”

Sans looked over at Red. “Soon, yeah.” As quickly as the speed limit would allow, going by Toriel’s texts.

“Are they bringing food?”

“Are you hungry?” Sans asked.

“No,” Red said, sockets drooping shut. Then he forced them back open to speak again. “Yes. No.”

Sans fought down a laugh. “Okay.” He texted Edge to ask about breakfast options. “I’ll ask ‘em to bring you something, anyway.”

“What about you?”

“Hm?” When he looked up again, Red was staring at him and seemed to struggle with that act alone.

“What about your food?” Red asked. “If you’re here, how will you get some?”

Sans softened. “I’ll ask them to bring me something, too.”

“Oh, good.” Red looked visibly relieved. Then he frowned again. “This’s a hospital.”

“Yeah,” Sans confirmed. “Do you remember getting here?”

“Nope,” Red admitted. “Too tired.”

Sans nodded. “Maybe you should sleep some more.”

Red hummed in a very neutral way, like he wasn’t sure he should agree. “Maybe you should hold my hand.”

Sans froze for a second in his surprise before he chuckled softly and tucked his hand into Red’s, where it rested on the mattress. “Better?”

Another hum – this one much more certain of itself. There was a gentle squeeze of Sans’s fingers.

He squeezed back, just as soft.

They sat there like that for long enough that Red’s sockets drifted shut and stayed that way. Sans assumed he was asleep again, and leaned his elbow onto the hospital bed mattress, setting his chin in his hand. Red was still here and alive and speaking and Sans could tuck his fingers into Red’s palm like this to prove it.

Something unwound in Sans’s chest.

“Sweetheart?” Red’s voice was so soft that the syllables mushed together and the t s were almost too soft to even notice.

“Yeah?” Sans answered anyway.

Red didn’t say anything after that. As if the only reason he’d called for Sans’s attention was to hear him respond.

Sans brushed his thumb against the back of Red’s fingers, smiling gently even as he shook his head.

The next time, Red woke up because of the smell. Deep, rich smells like eggs and bacon grease and maybe he was hallucinating.

He peeled his sockets open just to see a breakfast sandwich near his face. It looked delicious .

“Told you.” It was Edge’s voice, deeply amused.

There was Toriel’s laugh. Warm and soft in the way it was when she was trying to be quiet. “Oh, dear.”

Red blinked heavily, but the food was being pulled away. He made a face about it, and he hoped it was of unjust outrage, but going by how Toriel cooed it was probably more pathetic than that.

“If you can keep your eyes open and take it, I’ll let you eat it.”

Red fought to open his eyes again, looking at it. Then he lifted his hands to take it and noticed an IV in his arm. He looked at it. “Should I be eating anything?”

“Wow, very conscious of you, to check.” Edge sounded like he was teasing him. “Yes – in fact, when we checked earlier, they said they want you to eat as much as you can without being sick.”

“Your MP was pretty low.”

Red’s head turned quickly at the sound of Sans’s voice with the explanation.

There he was, seated in a chair next to the hospital bed, exactly where Red had seen him last. Eyelights warm and gentle, looking tired but alive.

Red smiled at him.

Sans looked puzzled and smiled back. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“Are you too gay to eat your food?” Edge asked, waving the sandwich at him.

Red had forgotten all about the food, but at the reminder he was more than happy to take it. “Thanks.”

Edge nodded, spreading the wrapper out on Red’s chest to catch crumbs, and then he dropped into a seat.

Red looked between the three of them, breakfast in hand. He watched Edge almost angrily consume his sandwich. Toriel ate hers slowly, but looked up at him intermittently as if to check that he was still there. Sans wasn’t really eating at all, his own food still wrapped in his lap.

“Undyne and Alphys wanna see you later, if you’re feeling up to it,” Sans said. “But if the hospital discharges you first, it might be at home.”

“That’s fine,” Red said.

Sans nodded.

Everything that happened was filling his head while being absolutely absent. A little as if he were seated in the middle of a desert with a bucket of water between his knees. Everything around was scorching and dry and maybe if he looked at the water long enough he might convince it to multiply.

But he needed to drink the water. That way he would have the strength to find his way to a better source of it.

He took a bite of his sandwich. It dissolved immediately in his mouth, magic breaking it down so quickly that he barely tasted it. He must really be hungry.

So he took another bite. And another bite. And another. He enjoyed every bit of it – there wasn’t a sandwich he’d ever tasted that could compare (except maybe Grillby’s) but then it was gone. And Red felt much more awake. It was fascinating.

Edge passed him a napkin.

Red used it, movements slow as he tried to think. “I should talk to the police, shouldn’t I?”

The room stilled.

“Yes.” Sans was the one to say it. “I already did, a little. But they wanted your statement.”

“Cool.” Red had never really liked the police – which was ironic for several reasons. Firstly, Undyne’s dad was hilarious and Red loved him and he was a detective. Secondly, Red was literally in school to follow that career path. Thirdly, his best friend was going to be a Royal Guard – and Sans technically used to be one.

Though the Royal Guard was separate from the police entirely; none of their operation was determined by the standards of the United States. Yeniev’s police departments, on the other hand, had multiple regulations they had to follow.

And some would argue that Yeniev’s police was better than the United States, but Red knew that anything regulated by a corrupt system would remain broken. So, for every good and positive change Yeniev implemented, there was always pushback from elsewhere to get it to fall through.

“Red?”

He looked up, meeting Toriel’s eyes.

She seemed worried. “Are you alright?”

That was a good question. Here he was, seated in a hospital bed, eating the first food he’d had in days, having slept for so long he felt a little like he might have awoken in a different universe entirely.

But so much felt different than it had the last time he’d been out of danger. He had experienced a sort of perspective shift that he was beginning to assume could only happen after having a gun held to your head. Exposure to a near-death experience.

He wanted everything. And nothing. And everything.

And something.

What did he want?

“Red?” Toriel’s voice was soft. A gentle urge. Red had already forgotten what she’d asked him, but he could see Edge out of the corner of his socket, looking terrified and worried just like their mom.

Red looked down at the wrapper in his lap, beginning to bunch it up and move it away from him. “C’n I have a hug, or is that—”

“Oh, my child.” It was as if she’d teleported across the room, because in the next moment, she was there, practically pulling him out of bed and into her arms.

Red was swallowed by warm fur and floral scents, the soft presence of Toriel filling every space around him and soothing every sore nook in his bones. He held onto her in return, squeezing tightly as if worried she would be separated from him before he was ready.

She tightened her hold on him just as well, the embrace snug enough to stabilize Red’s whole being to the exact present. It was so steadying that Red could’ve believed all of time stopped.

“I missed you, Red.” Her voice was thick with tears and it made his soul ache.

He tried to hold her tighter. “I missed you too, Mom.”

She shifted to give him a gentle kiss on his head, the gesture so loving and careful that he didn’t need to be sensitive to intent to feel how deeply that love went within it. He nuzzled into her, uncaring of anything else. Unworried. He didn’t need to be stressed about anything – Toriel was there.

She would take care of it.

Toriel didn’t rock him, like she usually did, though. And there was a gentle feeling of her magic around him. Green healing magic. “I’m okay,” He told her. “You don’t gotta use magic.”

“I know, dear.” Toriel’s long, soft ear brushed his head. “It is only pain relief; I imagine your hip might not be very comfortable at this angle.”

“I didn’t even get to notice,” Red admitted.

“Then the magic is doing its job.”

“Along with all the pain medication,” Edge added, tone nearly dry.

Red snorted in amusement.

He let Toriel hold him, feeling deeply soothed by her presence. Her arms. It felt like home, in a lot of ways. He loved that.

“Thanks for bringing me food.” He didn’t know what else to say, and he figured he should say something to fill the silence.

“Any time,” Toriel told him. “Though, if I were to be honest, I would prefer not to bring it to the hospital again.”

“Yeah.”

“I did not mind.”

“I know, Tore.”

“I would bring you every meal, even if it had to be here.”

“I know, Tore.”

“But I want you to be safe and not afraid or hurt – and this place is—”

“I know, Tore.” It was the same intonation he’d used every other time he’d said it. He was far from impatient. He knew what this must have stirred for her.

She’d told him about Asriel before, at least what little she’d been comfortable sharing. He wondered if she would’ve blamed herself if he’d never made it home.

Probably. Everyone would’ve blamed themselves somehow, at least at first.

Except for Edge. Red knew who Edge would’ve blamed.

Red sighed softly. “I’ll want another one of these, eventually.”

“Well, then it is a good thing I am willing to provide it,” Toriel said.

“It sure is.” Red softened his hold on her, brushing down the fur he might have messed up by gripping so tightly. “But I wanna talk to my brother for a sec.”

Toriel lingered for just a moment longer before beginning to pull away. The tears making her fur glisten around her eyes felt like a stab right through Red’s soul, but she looked better than she had before. As she backed away, a handkerchief was in her hand and she dabbed it around her eyes to dry them.

Red looked to Edge.

Edge looked back at him.

They stared at each other.

Edge’s sharp teeth were not only for show; there was a phrase about someone’s bark being worse than their bite, and that never applied to them. Red bit hard. He could practically taste the remnants of blood in his teeth when he thought about it.

And Edge was, without a shadow of a doubt, his brother. But while Edge’s bite was still caused by his teeth and always drew blood, it was never physical.

So, Red braced himself as he prompted what he was very certain was a hurting, angry dog. “Are you gonna say what’s on your mind or just look at me?”

Edge’s jaw tightened.

Red nodded, looking down at his lap. He lifted his balled-up sandwich wrapper and threw it gently at his brother.

Edge swiped it out of the air with a startling amount of anger. “I’m trying to be well-behaved because we’re in a fucking hospital.”

“And I’m trying to get this over with so it doesn’t keep boiling over.”

“Boys—”

“Tori, thank you for your concern, but I want him to tell me how he feels.” Red kept his voice as gentle as he could.

“How I feel?” Edge ground out the words, a little like he was shredding Red’s words by putting them through his own teeth. “Really? You just woke up from some fucking coma and you want to know how I feel?”

“Pretty sure that’s what I said, yeah.”

“Oh! I see.” Edge nodded, his enthusiasm a solid cover for outrage, and the outrage a solid cover for fear. Red wondered if he learned that from Undyne or from him.

It felt a little like he was finding the limit to how many marshmallows he could stuff into a box before the corners ripped.

“I shouldn’t be mad at you,” Edge said, voice holding a tremor of unknown origin.

“But you are,” Red pointed out.

“Yes, I am. I’m so aggravatingly angry with you. In fact, I don’t think there’s another occasion in which I have ever been so mad at you before.”

Red tried not to be intimidated by that. “Oh, a new record.”

“Do not make this a joke – nothing about this was funny.” Edge looked almost hurt.

Red tried to figure out what to say instead. Nothing came to mind. But given they’re still talking at reasonable volume levels for a public interaction, Red was okay with letting Edge continue whenever he felt he had gathered himself enough.

“Sans told us what happened.”

Red blinked, surprised. “He did?”

“Enough,” Edge confirmed. “At least to confirm they were never really after you – what sort of dumb fucking luck is that supposed to be?”

Red thought of another joke. Then he reminded himself it was best not to say that joke.

“You could’ve been gone, you know.”

When Red looked back at Edge, it was to find tears in his eyes. “If it wasn’t for Sans and fucking chance , you would have been. Gone. Dead . Dust scattered in a fucking ditch – am I being clear enough that you scared the hell out of me?”

Edge wiped angrily at his face. “You left me again , asshole.”

Red stared at his brother. And he thought about being young. Being separated after getting pulled from their home when they thought they would see each other again in a couple of hours. But a couple of hours turned into a couple of days. And a couple of days turned into a couple of weeks. Then months.

Then Red had snuck out. Tried to hitchhike to a neighboring district. The police picked him up. More than once, he tried.

And when he finally got to Edge – got to the door of his foster home – they turned him away.

Red didn’t understand what was happening. Not for years. Not until a very angry Edge showed up at Toriel’s. And Red was an angry kid, but Edge reflected that with the focus of concentrating sunlight through a lens.

Someone had told Edge that Red didn’t want to see him. Someone had told Edge that Red was just too troubled and violent and maybe Edge didn’t want to see him either.

Someone had convinced his little brother that Red had left on purpose. And Red knew it had to have been so easy to do, because the wounds from their earlier childhood had never been properly tended to. Edge expected Red to abandon him. Edge expected everyone to.

Eventually.

And that was exactly why Red knew Edge wouldn’t blame himself if Red had gone missing and never came back.

Edge would’ve blamed Red.

“Come here.” Red held out his arm.

Edge glared at him. “I don’t—”

“C’mere, Edge – I’m not fooling around.”

Edge stared at him for a moment longer, browbone gentling as he recognized that Red wasn’t even offended by the outburst. Then he stood and moved closer.

He let Red pull him down into a hug. And, after a moment, Edge hugged him back.

That sat like that, a little awkwardly. Quiet, but together. Red wanted to solidify that he was still here, and maybe ground Edge in that, but he knew the words would feel shallow, if he said them.

So Red went for the next best thing.

“I’m sorry.” It was soft, practically a whisper.

Edge’s hold on him tightened, and it made him sore but Red didn’t care. “You fucking better be.” It was a grumble. Red could tell his anger was subsiding. “If you pull that shit again, I’ll kill you.”

“Missed you too, boss.”

Edge pressed his face into Red’s shoulder. Red could feel in how he breathed that he was probably crying still, so he kept holding him. Probably long past when he should – wow, his hip fucking hurt, didn’t it? – but he wasn’t willing to move first.

Not on this.

Edge’s grip loosened eventually and Red felt like he could take a proper breath. “Better?”

“Yes,” Edge admitted, sounding irritated by the fact.

Red patted him on the back. “Then let go before I start cryin’ too.”

Edge must have picked up on the tightness of his voice, at least, because he moved away immediately. “Why didn’t you say something, dumbass?”

Red laid back on the bed, looking over at his brother. “Because I needed that hug.”

Edge looked relieved. And of course he would be – Edge struggled with things being one-sided. He didn’t like being the only one getting something out of an exchange.

Red decided to figure out where they were at. “Coulda done without the grumbling, though.”

Edge rolled his eyelights. Eased enough to allow teasing but not at peace enough to tease back right now – that was okay. Red didn’t mind.

A hand extended into his space quietly.

Red looked toward Sans, half expecting to receive another hug with how Sans’s arm reached across him. But then Sans straightened his shirt. Or his hospital scrub gown thing. “Where are my real clothes?”

Sans snorted. “They were wet. And you had hypothermia.”

“They were able to preserve your sweater and your shirt, but had to cut you out of your pants,” Edge told him.

Red grimaced, feeling distantly embarrassed about that. “Gotcha.”

“Actually – I never did ask.” Edge sat up a little in his seat with curiosity. “Why were you so fucking wet?”

“We jumped out a window.” The answer was completely reflexive – and the best one Red’s foggy mind could give.

Edge looked baffled. “What?”

Red nodded to himself, remembering that. It was a tall window. Absolutely terrifying.

Sans cut in with surprising poise. “We ended up in Echo River for a bit – I think the story might make more sense if it waited for him to be out of the hospital.”

“Or you could tell it,” Red suggested.

Sans just looked at him for a moment. Then a fond smile formed on his face. “Nah, that’s fine.”

“I’ll wait to hear an explanation,” Edge assured the both of them.

That was good. Red would probably have to talk to the police first, anyway.

Chapter Text

Red was cleared to leave before law enforcement arrived. All of the paperwork was done, and he was given a set of simple instructions from Dr. Melady; rest as much as possible, eat well, put as little weight on his hip as possible for a week to make sure the aggravation of his magic matrix settles with the healed injury, and go to an urgent care if his fever gets worse or doesn’t go away after two days.

Simple. Red absolutely forgot them the moment Dr. Melady left. Toriel didn’t, though, because Red was about to stand out of his bed when she stepped in to make sure he would wait for a wheelchair.

It was in that time, after changing into his clothes and waiting for a mobility aid, that Pike got there.

With Undyne and Alphys just behind him.

The seriousness of Undyne was only paralleled by when they’d first met Sans – she was quiet and hesitant, like she was worried about distressing him. Red called her Fishsticks. Undyne sputtered before calling him stupid. It was hilarious.

Alphys hugged him tightly and told him she was glad he was okay. And that she hoped to never be arrested because the back seats of police cars were not comfortable seating with a tail. Red couldn’t help but laugh, and he was certain that had been her goal from the beginning.

That, paired with Pike’s very gentle check-in and Toriel’s doting, made Red feel very loved and reassured.

He made it home.

“Do you get to have your interview soon?” Undyne leaned casually against the wheelchair – when did that get there? – and nearly fell over because the brakes weren’t on. Red was glad he wasn’t sitting in it yet.

“Interview?” Red asked.

“They ask you who you’re wearing, and what your favorite part of the project was, and the celebrity gossip—”

“W-we’ve been watching interview panels all day,” Alphys cut in to explain Undyne’s joke.

“You’re supposed to talk to the police, right?” Undyne’s tone was gentler with that, nodding her head toward her father. It made a thick strand of her red hair slip past her head fin. “So they can catch the people responsible.”

“We’ve already apprehended most of the suspects,” Pike assured them. “At least all who we could find – Sans gave a pretty detailed statement.”

Red looked to his partner, who had been all but silent the entire time.

Sans shrugged.

“We’d just like to have Red’s perspective to confirm what happened and see if we can put together who else was involved.”

“Are you gonna talk to him today, then?” Undyne asked him.

“No.” Pike looked uncertain, combing his fingers through his mustache. “No – a couple of Royal Guards are on their way.”

“R-Royal Guard?” Alphys asked, worried.

“It’s not in your jurisdiction, is it?” Red realized with sudden, startling clarity. “They pulled the case.”

Pike nodded. “They said it was above my clearance level – but that makes sense. This turned high-profile pretty quickly.”

Red watched Undyne, Alphys, and Edge all glance toward Sans. Red specifically didn’t. “High profile?”

“You were being held at a customer service location for a massive health research corporation,” Pike said, his voice careful as if worried about bringing up a bad memory. “And the CEO was in the area.”

Red had no idea what he was talking about. “Oh.”

“Do you think it would be possible for us to move to a more comfortable location?” Toriel asked. “Before they speak, I mean.”

Pike nodded. “Of course – there are meeting rooms to handle cases like this. If Red’s ready to get out of here, we could head that way.”

“ROAD TRIP!” Undyne pushed the wheelchair closer to the bed. “All aboard!”

Red would’ve been worried about her helping him, but her hands were gentle, and her movements were kind and slow – and that shouldn’t have surprised him. Undyne had always been kind to people, and she was a lot more patient than her personality would suggest. Red didn’t have a difficult time transferring to the chair, especially with Undyne helping.

A couple of minutes later and they were down the hall. The coolness of the air moving around Red did wonders for his headache. He leaned his skull back.

“Are you falling asleep on me?” Undyne asked from where she was pushing him.

“This is nice,” He said, mostly as a joke. “I could get used to you taxiing me everywhere.”

“Don’t get used to it.” Her voice was dry, but Red could hear the fondness in it.

Red did find it relaxing. But he heard Toriel and Pike speaking softly, Alphys and Edge chatting – about lunch, maybe - Undyne was behind him.

Where was Sans?

He lifted his head and looked around until he spotted him.

Sans was walking next to him and Undyne, eyelights flicking around the hallway. Silent. Red couldn’t blame him; remembering the last time Sans had been in this wing of the hospital was never pleasant for anyone, he was sure.

Eventually, the walls changed color and held more art. The floor was carpeted, the rooms lining the halls full of tables and chairs. Pike stepped away, moving to ask one of the receptionists something – Red didn’t really care.

Especially when he noticed a couple of familiar figures down the hallway. Guard uniforms. He could hear Undyne’s shoes scuffing the ground.

Undyne was so excited to become a Royal Guard. Red really hoped it worked out for her.

“Greetings, Captain Gerson.” Toriel sounded warmly surprised.

“Hello, Ms. Toriel.” Gerson smiled up at her. “Glad to see you under better circumstances. You remember Lieutenant Jacks?” He gestured over his shoulder.

The fox monster in question flicked her tail, large ears pointed toward Gerson and Toriel as they spoke. She was tall, Red remembered – taller than him by at least a couple of inches – but Gerson was taller than her by even more. Monsters were pretty tall, on average, but Red always forgot. Maybe sitting in a wheelchair made him extra aware of it.

Jacks inclined her head in a polite greeting. “Hello, Ms. Toriel.”

“Hello, Lieutenant,” Toriel returned. “Are you both here on business?”

“To speak to your son, if that’s alright with him.” Gerson looked down toward Red. Then he smirked. “Hey, kid. Heard you’ve had an exciting week.”

“You could say that,” Red said.

Pike returned then, approaching one of the doors and holding it open. “They said this one was good.”

“Cool – watch your hands, Red.” Undyne guided him through the door and into the meeting room. And she ducked her head down to talk to him quietly. Red’s attention latched onto the bright shock of red hair that draped down onto his shoulder. “Are you going to be okay, or do you want somebody in here with you?”

“I’ll be okay.” He wasn’t comfortable with the concept of his family listening to every detail he would probably have to give for this case.

“Okay.” She settled him by the table. “Is this good?”

“Sure.”

“Cool.”

“Red?”

He looked toward the door at the new voice.

Toriel looked back. “Do you need anything else? Is this alright?”

“I’ll be fine, Tore, thank you.”

“You are certain?” She checked. “I could sit with you, if you need.”

Red was wondering if he really should ask for that, what with all of the people offering. “Nah, I’ll be alright – thanks.”

Undyne patted him on the shoulder before stepping toward the door. “We’ll be just out here – and when you’re done, we can get Grillby’s.”

“I’d fuck up some Grillby’s,” Red confirmed.

When Toriel and Undyne stepped out, someone else filled the doorframe.

Jacks.

“Hey, Red.” She was smiling a little. “Mind if I step in?”

“That’s what doors are for, I think,” Red smirked. “Stepping in through.”

Jacks gave a polite laugh as she entered. Her fur was the color of ginger root, her hands covered in charcoal black fur. He noticed as she reached to pull out a chair and sit down. “How’s life treating you?”

“You mean other than the kidnapping thing?” He was still smirking.

Jacks’s smile seemed to solidify in her sympathetic amusement. “Heard you were finishing up at the academy soon.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you get your assignment yet?”

“Nope.” He shrugged. “I have to pass the last qualifying assessment first.”

She nodded. “Do you have anything you’re hoping for?”

“What if I said missing persons?” He joked.

Jacks’s laugh was in her voice. “I would ask you if you had that thought before or after you became a missing person.”

Red chuckled.

“We don’t have to keep talking about this, if you’d prefer not to,” Jacks told him.

“I appreciate the distraction, genuinely,” He assured her.

She softened. “If they offer you detective work, though, are you going to take it?”

“I’d be surprised if they do.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t exactly express an appreciation for the system,” Red admitted carefully.

Jacks’s ear flicked. And she looked amused. “You’d be surprised how many monsters enter law enforcement because they hate how it’s run without them.”

“Seriously?”

Jacks nodded. “Being so close to the United States, with their strong anti-monster laws, makes a lot of people in Yeniev very… spiteful. In a good way; they want our positions of power to be filled as much as possible by those who represent our majority.”

“Monsters,” Red surmised.

“Right,” Jacks confirmed. “So your distaste for injustice doesn’t discount you from the job. Sometimes I think they hire people who have complaints to fulfill a diversity-of-opinion requirement or something.”

Red snorted, amused. And he found himself strangely comforted. It wasn’t that he disliked Jacks, but she had been so closely connected to memories and situations that were clearly upsetting to Sans, and Red hadn’t known if she was a contributing factor or not.

Probably not, he was learning.

Another person stepped into the room, lingering by the door. Sans, in his soft, baggy clothes, hands stuffed in his pockets. “Am I interrupting anything?”

“Not at all,” Red assured him.

“Are you sitting in on this?” Jacks asked.

“I don’t have to,” Sans said. “Not if Red would prefer I didn’t.”

“You can stay.” It was an easy answer.

Undyne and Toriel didn’t know what happened, and Red didn’t think he was ready for them to find out. But Sans already knew. And Red didn’t want to be alone.

Sans nodded softly, something so empathetic in his gaze that Red was half convinced he could read the true meaning behind such few words.

He moved one of the chairs near Red so it could be directly next to him, then Sans sat down, folding his hands on his lap. Red wasn’t able to tell if his posture was due to discomfort or some sort of anxiety, but he watched Sans glance over Jacks. “Where’s Hammel?”

Jacks sat back in her chair, crossing her arms. “His discharge paperwork finally went through last month.”

Sans stared at her for a moment, seemingly processing that. “I didn’t realize he was trying for that.”

Jacks nodded. “He wanted to make sure everything wrapped up okay for you, then he was out.”

“… Congrats on your promotion.”

Jacks snorted.

Red frowned a little. “Promotion? Are you a Captain now?” He thought Gerson called her a Lieutenant, still.

“No.” Jacks gave Red a tight-lipped smile. “Just the highest-ranking Lieutenant under Gerson.”

“It puts her as his second – his right-hand man, essentially,” Sans explained. “Except… not a man.”

“Hammel’s old job,” Jacks filled Red in.

Which was why Sans was congratulating her. “You don’t seem happy about it,” Red noted.

Jacks shrugged. “Not a career change I’d been aiming for.”

“Don’t you wanna be a Captain?” Sans asked, confused.

“No.” The answer was surprisingly gentle, for as serious as it was. She looked at Sans as if he were holding every reason and every excuse in his hands already. “No, I don’t.”

Sans stared at her again. Then he nodded softly, looking away.

There was a silence that stretched between them. Not unpleasant or awkward, necessarily, but Red could only compare it to the silence that would exist between Alphys and her parents when she tried to explain some piece of magical engineering she created. As if there was interest in a connection, but a distance created by the uncertainty of how to branch the gap.

One of Jacks’s ears lowered. “I, um… I heard you were working on your dissertation.”

Sans nodded.

Jacks nodded, too. Red was struck by how similar the rhythm between the two was. “Are you—”

“Sorry about the wait, folks.” Gerson stepped into the room next, with Pike just behind him. “I was catching up.”

“It’s fine,” Red assured him.

“Sans, are you staying?” Pike asked.

Sans blinked. Looked between Red and the door. “Yeah, I’ll… if that’s allowed.”

“Absolutely,” Gerson confirmed, waving at Pike so he knew he could close the door.

Pike did, and then they were all sitting down around the table. Settling in. Red felt as if he were back in a principal’s office, about to get into trouble for another fight he got into. He tasted blood in his teeth.

“Just to confirm – you’re feeling up to giving us your statement today?” Gerson checked, bushy eyebrows lifted in question.

“It feels like you’ve already waited a while,” Red mentioned, looking between them all. “Isn’t postponing witness statements not recommended?”

“You were in the hospital and unconscious,” Pike reminded him. “For days.”

Red blinked. “Oh. Right.”

They could’ve woken him up, though – Dr. Melady said that Red had just been asleep. His body and magic catching up with itself after so much consistent stress.

He’d never had that happen before. Not at any point in his terrible childhood did Red remember there being a point where his body needed to shut down like that.

Maybe that was part of getting older. Maybe there were other factors at play. Red didn’t know.

“Now is fine. Are we recording it?” Red asked.

“If that’s okay,” Pike said.

Red glanced at Sans to make sure he was comfortable with it.

Sans looked back, apparently surprised. “I’m fine with it.”

“Okay.” Red looked back toward Pike, in front of him. The two Royal Guards.

Jacks was the one to set out the digital recorder. No camera, only a microphone – Red minded less than he expected to, but it still made him uneasy.

Pike looked at Jacks and Gerson as if he were only there to observe, not lead the interview. Maybe that made sense – Pike was in missing persons, not the violent crime division. Maybe this was outside of his jurisdiction, somehow.

Weird that the Guard was there instead.

“Can you tell us what happened the day you were taken?” Gerson asked.

Right. Red took a steadying breath. “I visited Sans at Ebott University, because he forgets to take care of himself when he’s working, sometimes. He was stressed out of his mind – lots of work, I guess – but he had paperwork he needed dropped off at the registrars, so I offered to do it for him before they closed.”

He looked at the recorder. Just so he had somewhere to look. “Went outside and teleported to the right office. Dropped off the paperwork and teleported back – but you know how there’s, like… teleportation courtesy? Magic manners?”

Gerson shook his head. “No, can you elaborate?”

Red nodded. “You’re not supposed to teleport directly into buildings, unless you’ve been given permission – like your friend said it’s fine, or there’s a designated place, like at hospitals and clinics. It’s for safety, mostly? So you don’t clip through something on the landing. But it’s polite to the security, too. Sometimes if a place isn’t warded, like if they don’t have a license for that, they’ll still have an alarm that goes off.”

Gerson nodded. “So you didn’t teleport directly inside?”

“Nope – I landed under the awning by one of the entrances,” He explained. “Tried to keep out of the rain. But then I got jumped.”

He looked around the room, trying not to think too hard about it. He could feel his soul racing in his chest. “A buncha people – one of ‘em behind me had some kind of taser? Got me in the back of my neck, since I had my hood up. Next thing I knew, I was getting teleported somewhere else. I fought back as much as I could, but there were too many of them, and I couldn’t see.”

“Why couldn’t you see?” Gerson asked.

“They put something over my head – it all went so fast I don’t even know when that happened, sorry.”

“It’s alright, just whatever you remember.”

Red nodded. “Well… at some point in the fight, I remember everything stopping because somebody said ‘that’s not him’. They stood me up and got really annoyed because apparently they messed up – took the cover off my head to check who I was.”

Red remembered the smell of cigarettes and he reached up to scratch his shoulder. “Looked me straight in the face and said I didn’t even ‘look like him’ – like they just grabbed the first skeleton they saw in a blue jacket.” He smirked a little. “It’s kinda funny, if you ignore that it was pretty fucked up.”

He glanced at the recorder, cringing a little. “Sorry.” He didn’t know if this was supposed to be strictly professional or where swearing was permitted in that regard.

“It’s fine,” Pike assured him.

“Do you remember what they looked like?” Gerson asked. “The one who figured out who you weren’t?”

Red nodded. “A little. Monkey monster with lighter fur – he had a big scar across his face.” Red lifted a hand to demonstrate the spread of it. “It was really jagged, like a lightning strike.”

Jacks’s ears flicked to Red’s right with a movement quick enough to draw attention. “Serif?”

Red looked toward his partner, worried.

Sans was staring at nothing, his sockets an empty black.

Red reached over and brushed Sans’s arm with his fingers. “Sans, are you—”

“I’m fine.” He blinked a couple of times, and his eyelights came back. Still too small for his sockets, but certainly there.

Red softened with an aching sort of sympathy.

“You know who he’s describing?” Gerson asked.

Sans looked away. “Maybe.”

“You didn’t know he was there,” Jacks noted.

“Nope,” Sans confirmed, looking back at them. “Because he wasn’t, by the time I got there.”

Red frowned softly. “You didn’t see him?”

Sans shook his head.

Red was surprised. “He seemed to be running the whole thing.”

“Really?” Sans sounded shocked.

“He was doing a lot of ordering around.”

“Yeah, but he just does that.”

“Who does?” Gerson asked.

Sans shook his head again, not elaborating.

Red stared at him. “Sans, there’s…” He glanced toward the Guard and back. “There’s this thing called ‘obstruction of justice’—”

“It probably wasn’t him,” Sans insisted, but he wasn’t looking at anyone. Just down at his knees. “If we need to, later, we can circle back around to this, but I don’t think it’s relevant.”

Red hadn’t heard Sans sound so defensive since they were first becoming friends years ago. It hurt to hear. More than he’d expected it to – but Sans’s terse response could be backed by plenty of terrible things that Red might not want to know.

“Okay.” Gerson was being gentler than Red expected him to be. Then he looked back at Red. “What happened after they figured out who you were? Or weren’t.”

Red glanced at Sans one more time, to make sure there was nothing he could do to help. Then he tried to continue. “They got mad. Threatened to, um…” He clicked his teeth together softly. “They threatened to kill me. Not like… with words, though. Pointed a gun at me with the intention of pulling the trigger.”

He tried to keep his voice steady. It didn’t work, but it was the best he could do. “They argued about if they should kill me. How, where – that sort of thing. Then… um…”

He flinched a little as something brushed his hand. But soon he felt someone’s fingers in his palm.

Sans.

Red held his hand back, perhaps a little tighter than he should, eased by the contact. “Somebody had my phone. I’m not even sure when they grabbed it from my pocket, honestly, but they had it. Pointed the screen at me and asked if it was me, in the picture.”

“Can you tell us what the picture was?” Gerson asked, voice blessedly soft.

“A selfie.” Red smirked a bit at himself. It was cheesy and he knew it. “Of me and Sans, from like a year ago, or something. And… I mean, hindsight’s telling me they probably just wanted confirmation that I knew Sans personally? Because after I confirmed it, there was something about how maybe it hadn’t all been fucked up.”

“… note.” It was Mage Speak. Red was surprised to hear it in a voice – magic? – that definitely wasn’t Sans’s. It was Gerson, and he wasn’t speaking to Red, so it was difficult to pick up. “… change…”

Jacks, who must’ve heard it all, began to write something on her pad of paper, nodding as she listened to what sounded to Red like magic gibberish.

Red looked at Sans again, to try and see if he’d heard, but there was nothing on his face to give away anything of what he was feeling.

“What happened next?” Gerson asked, in English, clear as day.

Red startled a little. Sans brushed his thumb against Red’s knuckles in a comforting way. “Uh... a whole lotta nothing, I think. They tied me to a chair and swung by to give me some water every once in a while. A lot of time passed, and I got really bored. Then Titano stopped by again.”

“Can you tell us who Titano is?” Gerson asked.

“Oh – he’s the guy who seemed to be organizing a lot of what was happening.”

“The monkey monster?”

“No, this guy was actually giving directions and stuff. Delegating tasks, not just being bossy,” Red said. “Human, probably – maybe a hybrid. I guess you can never tell for sure, huh? He had a snake tattoo. And a bad haircut.”

Jacks snorted, but quickly sobered after a pointed look from Gerson. Red could still see her tail flick with something that might be amusement. “Sorry, sir.”

Gerson watched her a moment longer before returning his attention to Red. “You said he stopped by again, eventually?”

Red nodded. “Came around with a phone. Stood by me real quiet, and left the door open. I saw a bunch of other people in the hallway, and we all just sort of sat there while Titano made a call. And I’m gonna be honest, things are a little blurry after that? I don’t know why – but I do remember he was calling Sans.”

“How did you know?”

“Said his name,” Red told him. “Basically immediately, on the phone, asked to speak to Sans Serif. And he said something about how if Sans didn’t listen then they’d kill me – which honestly is so unoriginal. What kind of cookie-cutter villain strategy is that?”

Pike put a hand over his face in that way that Red knew was him trying not to laugh or smile because he felt he shouldn’t – Undyne could get him to do that in the worst places, it was always funny. And on top of that, Jacks scratched beneath her ear with her pen, pointedly looking across the room, tail doing more flicking in amusement.

Red was proud of that, really. And the ability to joke about it eased him – not because it was a situation that should be made light of, but because taking it too seriously right now would get him lost in the distress he’d felt at the time.

Call it grounding, call it avoidance – as long as it got him through this, it would be enough.

Almost enough. He glanced at Sans.

Not even a twitch of a smile there.

“Do remember any of the rest of the conversation?” Gerson asked, also managing to remain serious.

“Only that it went on for forever,” Red told him. “They mentioned places and there seemed to be a lot of back-and-forth – oh, I did get to talk to Sans for a second, though. Not that long, but enough to confirm it was him. Or, I guess, for him to confirm I was there?”

Gerson nodded. “And then what?”

“I dunno – it felt like hours passed, and then Sans was there. And I was really fucking tired, so I took a nap. And then—” Red cut himself off. Thinking.

Because the day was foggier, with distance. But he remembered Sans fighting. Over and over. So many people falling to the ground, too limp and definitely hurt.

And of course it was in self-defense, but Red was worried that the wrong person might catch wind of just the right amount of information to look bad.

And Red loved Pike, and he knew to trust the Royal Guard. But trusting the system to handle troubled kids wasn’t on his radar yet.

“And then…?” Gerson prompted politely.

Sans’s hand tightened minutely on Red’s.

Red brushed his thumb across Sans’s fingers. “And then we got out.”

Gerson nodded. “Do you remember many details on that?”

“Not many,” Red said. “They didn’t want us to leave, obviously. It was scary. Sans managed to get us away by…” He trailed off as he remembered.

Standing in that room. The wind tearing at his clothes. Being so certain he was about to die and looking Sans in the eye and saying—

“Red?” A gentle call. He wasn’t sure who said it.

Red blinked his focus back to the present, glancing between them all, rubbing his face as he felt it warm further with the flush of his magic. He hoped it wasn’t obvious, since he was already feverish. “Sorry – he broke a window and we escaped that way.”

“Do you remember when you sustained your injuries?”

“What?”

“Your hip, Red,” Pike gently reminded him.

“Oh.” Red’s free hand moved to gently rest on the joint. “That was back on the first day, actually. I didn’t… when they asked about the picture on my phone, I didn’t answer at first. Then attack magic got involved – it’s a lot to think about.” He had to open his eyes, unaware of having closed them.

Even with all of the fog enshrouding the time around Sans’s arrival, that first day was the hardest to think about. Red couldn’t at length without his soul feeling like it was beating too hard and too fast.

Gerson nodded thoughtfully. “Do you have anything else to add? Any more comments about what happened?”

Red thought for a while before answering. “Yeah – Sans saved me.”

The trio stared at him.

Red nodded, settling into what he wanted to say. “I would’ve died without him. You wouldn’t have found me – nobody would’ve. And whatever it took to get out of there, Sans saved me – the record should reflect that in some capacity.”

“Red—”

“That’s important,” He insisted, looking at his partner. At where their hands were linked together. “It is. Because that’s not something that should’ve ever been on you; nobody would’ve blamed you for not trying, and letting everything happen how it would with your neutrality. Nobody could’ve blamed you. But you didn’t do that, and we both lived, which is better than the alternative that had been way more likely.”

When Red lifted his eyelights, Sans was meeting his eyes. Red held his gaze, however startlingly intense, because it felt important. “Let the record show that you saved me.”

Sans stared at him for a while, and it looked like he might argue. Why, Red wasn’t sure. But then he simply nodded, looking away again.

Red knew he had won nothing, in that moment. Not when it came to Sans. He was beginning to notice that Sans rarely gave ground. Anything that looked like a retreat was typically a very clever ruse.

Sans didn’t back down from anything. He just let it crash over and around him, like a wave breaking, unmoving himself.

Red imagined that, in many circumstances, it could be impressive. And in just as many, frustrating.

There was a click as Jacks stopped the recording.

And another, as she started one again – Red looked over at the sound to notice, that time. And he frowned, confused. Why would they need a separate recording?

Gerson was looking at Sans. “Who’s the monkey monster?”

Sans shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“If he knows you—”

“It doesn’t matter, because you won’t catch him,” Sans insisted, something in his voice darker than before. In the same way, he sounded drained. Exhausted.

Gerson crossed his arms. “Pretty confident in that, aren’t you?”

“He’s probably crossed at least two borders by now,” Sans elaborated. “If it’s who I thought it might be, he might’ve only been in Yeniev the day Red was taken, gone the next. He’s got too much of a head start and more connections than you.”

“What’s his name, Serif?”

Sans stared at him, entirely silent.

Red’s browbones lifted in shock. Why wasn’t Sans saying anything?

Jacks reached forward. Clicked the recorder off again and left it that way.

Silence ran between all of them like a string pulling tight. Red was sure one snip of it would send them all crashing into a heap.

Gerson rubbed his eyes. “If you don’t tell us—”

“He’s gone,” Sans insisted. “It doesn’t matter.”

“But he was here,” Gerson said. “Here to help somebody kidnap you – here to help kidnap Red —”

“ Don’t .” Sans’s tone was almost a threat, entirely foreign to Red.

“I just wanna know if you know him,” Gerson pleaded. “Give me that much. So I can try to do my job and bring justice to this. Please.”

Another long pause. Jacks’s tail was low and still. Red wished there was a joke to tell here, but there was nothing. Only tense surprise and worried confusion.

“Yes,” Sans said the word with a deliberation one might on a stand in court. “There is every chance that I knew who Red’s talking about.”

“But he wasn’t at the CIRC building when you got there?” Gerson checked again.

“There was no trace of him.” Sans’s tone remained quiet. Terse, almost.

Gerson stared for a moment, as if to give Sans the space to say more. When he didn’t, Gerson spoke again. “Okay.”

Red was still curious. Oh, he was so completely, unbelievably curious.

But he wouldn’t ask. Not in front of everyone else. Maybe Sans would tell him if they were alone. Maybe Red would be granted another tiny fraction of truth with this.

Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe this would be another mystery for him to scope out later when it became relevant again.

“We’ll be in contact with you and Ms. Toriel about support after an event like this,” Gerson said, his tone kind. “Detective Pike has already said he’s willing to work as a liaison between you and victim advocacy. I’m assuming you have his contact information?”

“I do,” Red confirmed.

“Then that’s that.” Gerson put his hands on the table and pushed himself to stand with a bit of a groan. Red wondered how old he was, realizing he had no idea if that was funny because he was old or because he wasn’t. “Thank you for your cooperation – if you remember any other details or feel like you need to correct anything in your statement, reach out and we’ll see what we can do.”

“Thanks.” Red wasn’t sure what else to say.

“Sure.” Gerson looked down at Red and smiled. “I’m glad you made it out safely.”

The tortoise monster started for the door, leaning a little around the table so his shell didn’t clip anything. “I’ll let you get home so you can take a nap in your own bed, or whatever. Jacks?”

She stood, grabbing the recorder, tucking it and her notepad into her inventory. “Bye, Red. Serif.”

Sans tipped his head in acknowledgement.

And the two Royal Guards left through the door.

Pike, Red, and Sans all sat in silence for a stretch. The time warped a little when Red wasn’t paying attention to how it passed, and he couldn’t be certain how much of it passed before Pike spoke.

“I think it’s in your best interest just to head home, bud.” He was giving Red a look of sympathy he was quickly getting used to seeing. “I’ll stop by and visit sometime soon so we can handle all the legal stuff, but it doesn’t have to be right away.”

“Thank you, Pike,” Red said, achingly genuine.

“If you sit tight, I’ll go grab Undyne so she can wheel you out – she seemed pretty excited to help before.” Pike stood and left.

Red looked at Sans.

Sans looked at his lap.

Red opened his mouth to speak.

Sans beat him to it. “I care about catching the people who did this to you.” The words were precise, like a promise. “I really do.”

“I know,” Red assured him, catching up with what they were talking about.

“I don’t want to obstruct anything.”

“I know that,” Red reiterated. “I’m not hurt that you didn’t tell them everything you know – I trust you’ve got a reason – I’m just… confused.”

Sans looked sad, almost. Maybe. Red was having a hard time reading his expression, as if it were a dry-erase board being wiped clean as soon as a letter was drawn.

“WHO’S READY FOR GRILLBY’S?” Undyne sounded like a fight ring announcer hyping up a crowd, striding through the door.

The contrast of energy made Red snort a brief laugh. Then he squeezed Sans’s hand. “You want to split a fry basket? I’ll even let you put ketchup on ‘em.”

Sans looked at him, then. There was a clear interest in his expression. Red knew it was probably about the offer of ketchup, but he liked to imagine that Sans was just that interested in getting food.

Chapter Text

Sleep wasn’t sticking. Red could blame any number of things for that; the pain in his hip, the congested feeling of his magic, the lack of hospital-grade pain medication – maybe even the fact he’d already apparently slept for several days in the hospital.

But he would rather blame the nightmare he’d just had, full of falling and falling from nowhere.

Or maybe that he was hungry.

He didn’t know what time it was – he hadn’t been given his phone back and the clock on his bedroom wall was all but pointless in the dark. He liked the soft ticking emitted from it, so he didn’t mind that it served no other purpose at night.

And they’d agreed that, if Red needed anything, he could call for Toriel or Edge – the latter had dug out from his closet a set of radios they would play with when they had been younger. Red didn’t even know Edge still had them, but they were functional after the batteries were replaced, and the second was in Toriel’s room. Red likened it to a baby monitor. Toriel hadn’t known what that was.

Red didn’t really want to give her a live demonstration. It was late, going by the time he’d gone to bed and the complete darkness beyond his curtained window.

And he was lying in his bed. As if he had done the same every night in the last week. As if nothing had been out of place. It wasn’t hard to accidentally forget that something horrific happened to him.

He carefully stood, wincing at the pressure of weight on his right leg. They had told him the joint had been properly aligned again and the damage healed, so it was difficult to comprehend why his magic would still be telling him there was pain there, but they assured him that the pain would persist until the day he was allowed to go about activities as normal. He should trust his body to decide that.

Red barely trusted anything, at the moment, except that Toriel mentioned snacks in the fridge and a snack sounded positively divine .

So he hobbled toward his door, mostly hopping on one foot out of it. Down the hall.

Top of the stairs.

Yikes. Okay, well – the snack would not be fetching itself and he’d already started the trek, so he carefully began his descent.

It involved a lot of leaning on the railing and limping onto his good side as often as he could, and by halfway down the stairs he was sweating, but he was already headed down them and turning back around sounded too much like giving up and not getting a snack, since he left the radio on his mattress.

He paused to rest, breathing labored, and he couldn’t help but laugh quietly at the ridiculousness of it all. Just a week ago he raced Undyne on the obstacle course they had for Royal Guard training.

She won, of course. She had longer legs and, you know, muscles . But Red held his own through all of the running, jumping, climbing, and crawling just to appease her. And now the stairs were a major adversary in his plot to secure a midnight snack.

A devastating blow to his self-confidence, but a reasonable result of injury, he had to assume.

He was just considering pushing onward when someone whispered from the bottom of the stairs.

“Can I help you?”

Red startled, scrambling for a better grip on the rail until he was half hanging from it, eye sockets wide as he looked down the stairwell and caught sight of two white eyelights. Familiar stars in the dark. “Holy fuck , Sans – you scared the shit outta me.”

“Sorry.” It sounded genuine, a bit of a cringe to the voice. “You really shouldn’t be walking around.”

“Yeah, I know – I just didn’t know what time it is.”

There was a pause, Sans’s eyelights shifting away from Red. A small beam of light flicked on, pointed at Sans’s wrist. His watch. “Four-sixteen.”

Red squinted into the minimal light. “Huh.”

“Can I help you?” Sans asked again.

“Yeah, I’d appreciate that.”

Sans turned the flashlight off and started climbing the stairs.

Maybe it was the darkness, or the tension of the last week, or that Red was so irredeemably in love with Sans, but something about the other monster standing suddenly so near him made his soul flutter and his breath catch. His hearing felt heightened – he listened to Sans breathe, too. It was soft, but so clear in the silence that Red likened it to the ticking of his clock upstairs.

“Can I lift you?” Sans asked.

“I dunno, can you?” Red responded, his own whisper joking.

“May I lift you?” Sans corrected quickly and effortlessly.

Red felt sad, looking over his shoulder at his partner. “I was kidding, Sweetheart – I understood just fine, and that’s the important part – you can do whatever you want to me, I’d let you.”

Now that they were closer to each other, Red could see Sans’s browbones lift in surprise. But maybe the soft glow of magenta from his blush helped with that, highlighting Sans’s face. He hadn’t thought about the implications of his words until after they had left his mouth.

“They must’ve put me on the good stuff,” Red defended weakly.

“What are you talking about?”

“Pain medications can make you a bit loopy, sometimes.”

Sans gently stepped closer, looping his arms beneath Red’s shoulders and knees and lifting him. As if Red wasn’t four inches taller. As if Red’s bones weren’t thicker. Sans was practically made of toothpicks; how was he lifting Red into his arms as if he weighed nothing at all – and without adrenaline, this time?

“And they put you on the good stuff.” Sans started walking down the stairs. “Is that the kind that doesn’t make you loopy?”

“It’s the kind that does – usually the stronger it is, the less sense you make when you talk.”

“Why?”

Red paused, thinking. “I don’t know, actually.”

Sans hummed in that way that made Red wonder if Sans would be researching it later. Maybe when it wasn’t the middle of the night.

Actually, that was a thought. “Why are you here?”

“What?” Sans was lowering Red onto the yellow couch, though it was coated in a pale wash from the moonlight coming in through the window.

“It’s after four in the morning – why are you awake?” Red rephrased.

“Why are you awake?” Sans countered, grabbing a blanket and unfolding it.

“I’m hungry,” Red explained.

“I can get you something,” Sans told him, tucking the blanket around him. “What would you like?”

Red thought about it, feeling indecisive. “I dunno – you pick and we can share it?”

Sans nodded and walked off.

Red watched him go, swaddled in a blanket and on the couch, trying to figure out how he’d let it all happen when he’d been so set on getting his own snack.

The dark and the silence were full and suffocating. Red used to find a lot of peace in being alone – and maybe he would again, eventually. But right now, he wrapped his arms around himself just to make sure he could move them, sinking into the plushness of the couch to confirm it was as soft as it appeared. No hard chairs, no restraints, only home.

The smell of oranges made him open his eyes again.

There was Sans, moving around to stand in front of him, silent in how he moved. Peeling an orange.

Red looked at him, bathed in moonlight. He was wearing the same clothes he had been the day before – the same sweatpants, the same t-shirt beneath a sweater.

Red tried to equate this man, full of peace and quiet hesitance, to the one he’d seen during their escape. The one that moved like something possessed, that destroyed obstacles and people alike.

He couldn’t. They felt like different people entirely, in his mind. He wondered how Sans could cope with existing as them both at once.

Sans pulled a slice of the orange free and held it toward Red.

Red didn’t even glance at it, looking up at his face instead.

Sans faltered. “What?”

Red didn’t know how to express what he was thinking. “Would you sit with me?”

Sans looked at the couch. Back to him. “Is right next to you okay?”

“You could sit on my lap.”

“Your hip was dislocated, Red.” It sounded like a gentle reminder.

“How ‘bout the other way, then?” Red offered, mostly as a joke.

Sans stared at him. Then he nodded, setting the piece of orange back in its peel and tucking it into his inventory.

Red shifted to stand, recognizing what was about to happen, and Sans helped him. Then Sans wrapped the blanket around Red’s shoulders again before sitting on the couch and guiding him into his lap.

Red paused, settling into the spot. Leaning into Sans relieved pressure on his hip, but that was far from the only positive of the arrangement.

Sans tucked Red against him and the arm of the couch. Red could do more than hear Sans breathe, from here – he felt it. Just as easily as anything else.

He looked down into Sans’s face, feet settled on the couch next to them, blanket tucked around his shoulders. Red didn’t get this close to Sans very often. He always wanted to, of course, but he never minded the distance. Not when he knew it kept Sans comfortable.

And he knew there was always a chance, even if not a guarantee, that Sans might be this close to him again. Cuddling on someone’s couch.

The smell of citrus.

Red’s eyelights dropped to the orange in Sans’s hands, tucked between them like a secret. He pulled the piece of fruit out from before and held it out toward Red.

Red took it softly in hand and put it in his mouth. The juice was just as sweet as the moment, holding a tang of something distantly bitter.

“Were you not sleeping well?” Sans asked.

“No, I wasn’t. Have a piece of the orange?” Red suggested.

Sans seemed to think about it. Then he ate the next piece. “Was it the pain? Did they not actually put you on the good stuff?”

Red huffed a quiet laugh. “Nah, I just… had a bad dream. You know how it is.”

Sans nodded, just like Red knew he would, and offered him another piece of the orange.

Red ate it. “Were you sleeping okay?” He had to assume the answer was no, given Sans’s presence at his house this early hour.

Sans predictably confirmed as much. “Nope. Not at all, actually.”

“You haven’t slept at all?” Red asked, worried.

“Couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

Sans hesitated. “I didn’t know if you were still here.”

Red stared at him.

Sans’s mouth pinched. “It’s ridiculous, I know – but sometimes I just get this… these thoughts in my head and I can’t get rid of ‘em without… I dunno.”

“I don’t think it’s ridiculous,” Red said. “I was… you know, I was gone. I’m not now, but maybe your mind hasn’t caught up with that yet.”

“Has yours?” Sans asked. “Caught up with the fact you’re back here?”

“No,” Red confessed softly.

Sans offered him another orange slice.

Red took it, placing it between his teeth. He ate two more before he spoke again. “So you stopped by to check on me?”

“Yeah.”

“But you didn’t come upstairs.”

“I didn’t wanna wake you,” Sans said. “So I was just gonna stand down here and feel your magic for a bit before going home again.”

Red paused. And then he laughed a little. “That’s totally fine, honest – but I think you should know that technically that’s… not polite.”

“Not polite?” Sans didn’t understand.

Red was always surprised when he stumbled across something so common to most people but entirely lost on him. Sans, who was working on writing a dissertation, didn’t understand that it was inappropriate to enter someone’s home without asking while they were asleep and linger for long enough to know they were home before leaving again.

“We’re all asleep and didn’t know you’d be over. And you stopped by just to feel I was home, planning on leaving without telling me.”

Sans seemed to think about it. Then he silently winced. “So I was trying not to bother you but did something creepy instead.”

“I think it’s sweet,” Red defended.

“But somebody else would think it’s creepy,” Sans checked.

Red conceded. “Yeah, probably.”

Sans nodded. “Adding that to the list of things I’ll never do again.”

Red snorted in amusement and took the next piece of orange as Sans passed it to him. “You should have another one of these.”

Sans complied, eating one on his own. He passed the final slice to Red before tossing the orange peel onto the coffee table and leaning back. He looked at Red. “Are you comfortable?”

Red nodded, swallowing his last piece. “Yep.”

Sans nodded, too. Then, after a moment, he wrapped his arms carefully around Red, supporting him. Holding him closer. “Is this okay?”

Red nodded again, able to see the light of his eyelights reflecting off of Sans’s face. He struggled to find his voice, only managing a whisper. “Yeah.”

“Okay.”

Red settled in, pulling the blanket a little more snugly around his shoulders, leaning against his Sans.

The weight of his arms around Red’s waist was comfortable and secure, and he thought he might understand why Sans had described cuddling with him in the past with a word like ensconce .

He could feel Sans’s head, gentle where he rested it against Red’s shoulder. It was such a beautiful, peaceful silence.

Sometimes, when they sat near enough, Red would think about leaning over and kissing him. He thinks distantly about how it had felt racing to escape and feeling Sans’s magic rush through him. Vast and powerful and electric. It had been like nothing he’d ever experienced before, but he’d known it was Sans. How Sans sounded. How he felt. Red wondered how it would taste, with what was left of orange juice on his teeth.

He didn’t feel particularly warm, tucked against him, but Red felt safe. Content, even in his yearning and curiosity. Sans was the type of person that Red wouldn’t mind yearning after forever. Curious every day, with no discernable answer; Sans being near was answer enough to every question of the universe, some days.

Sans brushed his face against Red’s shoulder like a nuzzle, resting his cheek there. It pulled Red contentedly back to the present, even with all of the discomfort of his body.

He noticed the pinch in Sans’s brow, though. And he recognized it. “What is it?”

Sans looked up at him without moving much of his head. “Hm?”

“You’re making that face you make when you’re thinking really hard about something.”

Sans looked away, then. And the silence that engulfed them made Red wonder if that would be the end of the conversation. But then Sans spoke.

“You don’t have to think about this right now, since you’re still trying to settle into being okay again. But I just…” Sans’s voice was quiet, but perfectly clear in the silence of the room. “If you feel like this isn’t something you wanna keep risking, that’s okay.”

Red frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“They would’ve killed you.”

Red didn’t miss the surety in the warning. How certain Sans was of it – there wasn’t any chance, they would have killed him if it had been better for their plans.

“I know,” Red said eventually. “I noticed.”

Sans didn’t look convinced, for some reason. Red wondered if he could tell how distant the idea was in Red’s mind. “It shouldn’t have involved you,” He said instead, as if taking it from a new angle.

“I know,” Red assured him. “I did pick up on that – they hadn’t been after me.”

Sans shook his head, lifting it to look Red in the eye. “I need you to understand that this doesn’t just go away. Even with intervention and security – even if we were so careful all of the time, this doesn’t end. For the foreseeable future, until I can figure out a way to prevent it, something like this could happen at any time.”

“Are you talking about the kidnapping?” Red asked, trying to keep up.

“Yes.” Sans looked serious. “The kidnapping, the almost-dying, me being…”

Red watched him drop his gaze. And he thought about a couple of years ago, standing in Toriel’s kitchen with Sans, hearing him call himself an experiment and how he wouldn’t be anything beyond that. And Red worried, now, that this was simply a confirmation of that to him. A continuation of a curse he thought he escaped.

Red cupped Sans’s face in his hands.

Sans looked up at him, startled.

“I could die in a car crash tomorrow,” Red said softly. “Or at my job, after I’m assigned. I could get struck by lightning – honestly, a human could decide they don’t like the look of me and I wouldn’t stand a chance. Part of living is dying, Sweetheart.”

Sans looked like Red was making him bleed somewhere. “I don’t want you to suffer, Red. Is that so hard to understand?”

Red brushed his thumbs against Sans’s face. “If it ever gets too much for me, I’ll leave you.”

Sans seemed to steel beneath Red’s hands. The way some would straighten their postures as they feel purpose. “You would?”

“I promise,” Red said. “If I decide I can’t take it, I’ll go when I can.”

He couldn’t imagine that being a point he would reach, but he knew convincing Sans that bad things wouldn’t continue to happen would feel impossible, right now. So the most important part was for him to know he wasn’t alone.

“You have to trust me to do that,” Red insisted. “You have to believe that I’ll hold to my word.”

Sans nodded. “Okay.”

Red wrapped his hands to be behind Sans’s head. Behind his neck. “Okay.”

Sans stared at him, looking into his face. “Do you still have a fever?”

“Yeah – Tori checked before she went to bed.”

“Sounds miserable.”

“It kinda sucks, yeah – but I keep forgetting I’m sick at all. Honestly my hip is the worst part,” He admitted.

Sans nodded. “That makes sense.”

“Does it?” Red wasn’t sure. “They healed it already.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have ligaments and muscles – the only reasons our bones stay attached is because of our joints being in alignment and magic,” He explained patiently. “And your magic had to hold your leg attached to you on its own for days. It’s tired.”

Red hadn’t thought of it that way. “Gotcha.”

Sans gently squeezed him. “I’m sorry that it sucks, though.”

“Yeah…” Red sighed. Then he glanced down at Sans’s teeth. Back up to his sockets. Back down to his teeth.

“Do I have something on my face?” Sans asked.

“No,” Red assured him quickly. “I just… I was just thinking.”

Sans hummed quietly.

Red wrestled with himself. The confidence to speak. Eventually, he found it. “Do you remember, um… do you remember what happened all that clearly?”

Sans’s answer was soft. Laced with something delicate and aching that Red couldn’t fathom. “Yes.”

Red nodded, losing motivation to continue at the tone.

Sans noticed, though. “Do you?”

“Remember?” Red checked. “Yeah.”

“You told the Guard you didn’t,” Sans said.

“I didn’t want you to get into any trouble.” Red brushed his fingers against the back of Sans’s skull. “I wasn’t sure what you’d already told them about all that and I didn’t wanna contradict you, so…”

Sans stared at him for a long moment. “Thank you.”

“Sure.”

“But you do remember?”

“Yeah,” Red confessed. “Not clearly – and definitely not at first – but it’s coming back to me.”

Sans nodded, serious.

Red hesitated. “I remember… I remember telling you that I…” He lifted his eyelights to meet Sans’s.

And there they were—those stars. Red wondered if it was called falling in love because he felt so clumsy doing it.

“Red?” Sans called softly, concerned.

And Red lost all of his nerve. Every ounce of bravery the deep night hour could conjure was weak compared to the risk of Sans’s discomfort on a night he’d already struggled to sleep.

Because I love you was complicated, Red knew. It meant things it shouldn’t mean, to Sans – layers of devastating meaning tangled into survival. Sans didn’t have a good day, when someone told him they loved him. Red remembered that, clearer than anything.

But Sans had said it back, when Red had risked it in what he thought could’ve been their last moments alive. So what did that mean?

Red gently kissed the tip of Sans’s nasal bone before leaning against his shoulder again. “Thank you for coming to check on me.”

After a moment of stillness, Sans shifted to hold Red more securely. “Thank you for not thinking I was being creepy.”

Red laughed quietly.

Toriel would find them there, in the early hours of the morning. Red in Sans’s lap, swaddled in a blanket, both of them deeply asleep on the couch. The peel of an orange leftover on the coffee table.

Sans was over all day.

His laptop on his knees, sometimes squinting at the screen in a way that made Red wonder if he could see alright through the eye that still worked. Mostly quiet and present.

Red would lean on him, listening to the sound of his phalanges against the mouse pad or keyboard.

It was an interesting change, from Sans practically sleeping at the university, but Red didn’t mind it in the slightest. In fact, he was discovering that at least for now he preferred it.

Things felt safer when Sans was nearby. As if nothing that happened could reach him. Red knew the sentiment was probably ridiculous, but he couldn’t help his subscription to nonsense.

Toriel was gone, having an errand to run – Red didn’t ask. Especially when it was clearly so difficult for her to leave at all. She took Edge with her, and Red hoped that would help her feel more secure in their safety. He’d almost asked her to stay. Delay responsibility, just for the day, but he knew putting things off wouldn’t be reasonable in the long run and he didn’t want to start the trend of that.

And he had Sans. So it was fine.

There were words on the screen that Red recognized as concepts of physics and whole graphs he couldn’t even begin to read. “How’d you do all that so fast?”

Sans seemed to drag himself out of his work. “What?”

“You’ve been working on your dissertation for how long – a couple months?”

“Years,” Sans corrected softly.

“Years?” Red wasn’t following.

“It’s a continuation of my master’s thesis.” Sans smirked a little. “It was gonna be my master’s thesis, but they told me it was too big. That I needed other support for it. So I did part of the supporting research for my thesis, and now I’m working on the rest.”

“So it’s a big deal, then?” Red can’t imagine doing a homework assignment and having a teacher tell him his topic was too big. Too broad, yes, but not too big.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“And it’s about magic.” Red remembered that.

Sans nodded. “About how magic works.”

“But we don’t know how magic works.”

Sans smirked. “Exactly.”

Oh. Red rested his cheekbone on the point of Sans’s shoulder. “You’re really smart, you know that?”

Sans was quiet. For longer than Red anticipated. He almost sat up again to check on him, but then he spoke. “Thanks.”

Silence settled over them. Sans went back to his work.

Red knew what it was, though. The work. A passion of Sans’s, yes, but also a distraction. Red watched how quickly he threw himself back into classes after he got out of the hospital when Gaster nearly killed him. He noticed how, in the last few days, every time Red saw Sans there was a fifty-fifty chance he’d have a laptop or a notebook in his lap.

He knew coping was complicated for people with trauma. That productivity could be a mask for avoidance. And sometimes that mask was necessary to keep going, but other times it was a hinderance to facing what actually happened.

And Red wanted to face what happened, but he didn’t want to make Sans when he wasn’t ready.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Hm?” Red looked at the side of Sans’s head without moving his own.

“You’re stewing over something.”

Red smirked, even though he was confused. “How could you tell?” They’ve been sitting in silence for the majority of the last few hours, but Red had been paying attention to Sans’s computer until now.

Sans hesitated. “Your intent, pal.” It’s careful, like he were worried about Red’s reaction.

Red sat up immediately, off of Sans, wincing at the twinge in his hip. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s…” Sans was looking at him. “Sometimes it’s fine. Is it Toriel?”

“What?”

“Were you thinking about Toriel?” Sans clarified. “She said you could call her if you wanted to check in.”

“No, it’s not about – I was actually thinking about you.” Red decided honesty could probably be better for both of them. “And about… about what happened.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Red wondered if Sans felt just as uncertain as he did. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Red gestured at the laptop. “Not if you need to—”

Sans closed it with a gentle movement. Without an ounce of hesitation.

Red stared, surprised.

Sans shrugged, moving it off of his legs and onto the coffee table. “It can wait.”

“Okay.” Red wondered what had happened to the man who would accidentally skip meals to work on this dissertation. Maybe the events of the week, rearranging his priorities? But no, Sans always stopped what he was doing for Red.

And that stuck out to him. How Sans’s list of Important Things was organized. And Red had evidence to show that he was higher than most items, both from the last week and from the last couple of years. At this point, he was pretty sure that the only thing higher on it than him was Papyrus.

It was daunting. Worrying. Because where on that list was Sans himself?

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Sans offered again.

Red continued to stare at him as he thought. Then he nodded. “Yeah, maybe.”

Sans nodded, too. Then he sat in silence. Waiting.

Red tried to figure out what to start with. “You said there’s a chance this could happen again.” He was talking about the kidnapping.

Sans seemed to understand. “Yeah. Or something like it. I’m kinda surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”

“Why?”

“Gaster was pulling a lot of strings to hide me and Papyrus. He didn’t used to, I guess, but after a couple of close calls it started being important.”

“And he’s in prison now, so he can’t.” Red was putting it together.

Sans nodded. “If stuff like this doesn’t pick up, it’s not because there’s nobody after me but because I’m very lucky.”

Red grimaced at the amount of discomfort he felt about that. “And there’s nothing the Guard could do or anything?”

Sans pulled his feet up to tuck them into the couch. “I’m gonna chat with ‘em to see, but I doubt it. One of the biggest preventatives we’ve got right now is that there isn’t a whole lot of Underground connections in Yeniev anymore.”

Underground. The intricate network of organized criminal activity that spanned the entire globe. Red was more and more familiar with it these days. He and Undyne talked recently about how they used to think it was just something Hollywood made up or dramatized for cinema. All of Undyne and Edge’s favorite action films delved into it.

And he wondered now if Sans had watched them and thought the depictions were ignorant or naïve.

“They usually avoid it, right?” Red didn’t know why Sans would know that. “Operating here?”

“Yeah – there are three boss monsters in Ebott City, the capital, and one of them is the King of Monsterkind.” Sans smirked a little like he thought it was funny. “The only people brave enough to try shit are other boss monsters or someone with a lot of money who thinks they’re clever enough to outwit centuries of experience.”

“Like Gaster,” Red noted.

Sans nodded.

Red chewed on that, thinking. The pause got longer. It felt like bumblebees were building a hive in his skull.

Sans gently took his hand.

“That was fucking terrifying,” Red said to no one in particular.

Sans nodded.

“Terrifying – and Pike said they already took care of most of it?”

Sans nodded again.

“But there were so many people.”

“Not as many as you think,” Sans corrected gently. “A couple dozen.”

“To kidnap one person?”

“No.”

“They were only trying to catch you,” Red reminded him.

“Right,” Sans confirmed.

Red stared at him. “You’re sounding contradictory.”

“They were under the belief that it would take that many people to keep me anywhere,” Sans said carefully, like he were delivering news that could be bad.

“A couple dozen?” Red asked in disbelief.

Sans only looked at him. And Red realized why.

It couldn’t have been overkill. Because even with that many people against him, low MP, and an injured companion, Sans still got out.

It was really fucking cool if Red ignored the part where it really fucking wasn’t.

“Right.” Red looked down at their hands.

And there was a pause again, one where Red circled back around into hoping to find the courage. The silence lasted a while. Sans didn’t even shift in that time, and Red was reminded of how patient he could be.

“Who was that monkey monster?”

Sans still didn’t move.

Red lifted his eyes to look at him and noticed the emptiness of his face. “I wouldn’t tell anyone, I’m just… trying to understand, I think.”

“Understand what?”

“You didn’t seem afraid,” Red said. “When there were guns pointed at you. When you were walking into a hostage situation – you didn’t seem afraid. But this scared you on description alone.”

“They should make you a detective,” He deflected.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” Red reminded him.

Sans’s face was unreadable. Even when tiny things changed about it as Red watched. Micro expressions that translated in his mind as afraid and stressed, among other things, but nothing solid.

“Thomas.”

“What?” Red was so surprised to hear him speak, that he felt like he missed it.

Sans’s jaw tightened for a moment. Like he was steeling himself. “It sounded like Thomas.”

Red stared at Sans, trying to remember why that was important. Who that was – was he supposed to know him?

“He, uh…” Sans looked away, then. Toward the door. The windows. Up at the ceiling. “Gaster can’t fight. Or he can, but only magic stuff. Really good at that but not… he wouldn’t have been able to fight without magic.”

Red nodded. “Okay?”

“So when I needed to learn how, Gaster hired someone else. To teach me.”

Red was starting to understand. “That was… this guy. Thomas.”

Sans nodded.

“And he was there to try and kidnap you?”

“Probably,” Sans’s words were quieter now. “I don’t know another monkey monster with a face scar like that, but there could be. Statistically.”

Red’s face scrunched up as he tried to remember some other important detail that could be identifying. “Does he know, uh… Mage Speak?” Because Red remembered – those words that were almost not at all as he arrived.

Sans nodded.

“Does he smoke?” Red asked.

Sans looked a little uncomfortable. A little sad. “When I knew him.”

“Then yeah, this could’ve been him,” Red confirmed. “But why wouldn’t he have stayed? Why did he leave?”

And why wouldn’t Sans tell the Royal Guard about him?

“I don’t know,” Sans admitted. “I’ve got theories, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen him that any guess I could have might not be valid.”

Red nodded. That was reasonable; people changed. “What’s your best theory?”

“He saw it was going wrong and backed out.”

“Because they grabbed me instead?”

Sans smirked. It didn’t stick. “Imagine you send somebody to the store for spaghetti noodles and they bring back penne. What would you think?”

“That they don’t know what spaghetti is,” Red answered with amusement.

Sans gave him a look of significance.

Red felt like he was understanding. “He figured that meant nobody knew who they were actually after.”

“He could’ve,” Sans said. “Hypothetically.”

“Given the way it turned out, leaving when it started going south was probably a smart move,” Red admitted begrudgingly.

“I dunno if I’d give him a qualifier like smart.”

Red snorted, his amusement mostly rooted in surprise. “You wouldn’t?”

Sans wasn’t amused. He was looking somewhere around Red’s waist. Or his lap. “Conniving, maybe. Ruthless.” He looked away. “But not smart.”

Red was confused at the near-contradiction. But he nodded instead of arguing, wondering if it was something that only made sense with experience.

“Why wouldn’t you tell the Royal Guard about him?” He asked finally. “Even just his name – don’t you trust the Guard?”

“I do,” Sans said carefully.

“Then why shut it down?”

Sans’s right hand moved to rest on his left forearm. His thumb rubbed the bone there gently, almost in a soothing motion. Red wondered if his arm hurt. “He’s dangerous.”

“They’re the Royal Guard, Sans.” Red was trying to be gentle, but he didn’t understand.

“And he’s killed people for less than that,” Sans said. “He’s done worse to people for less.”

Red stared at him, trying to equate what he knew with what Sans was telling him, and he could almost see it. Almost understand it.

Something about the monster he’d seen had been… distorted. As if he were looking at someone through a rippled piece of glass. And all Red could notice was the danger. The hostility. It took Red a little while to remember what sort of monster this Thomas had been at all. It had felt like his mouth was too wide. His eyes, lightless. His hair, not quite right.

“His LV was twenty, when I saw him last,” Sans said.

Red’s browbones lifted, shock echoing through his ribs. “Twenty?”

Sans nodded.

“People don’t get LV like that, Sans.”

“People like Thomas do.”

“Monsters break under the magic and psychological pressure,” Red insisted.

Sans shook his head. “Not if you want it.”

Red stared at him. “If you… if you want LV?”

“Yes.”

“And he…?” Red was struggling to wrap his mind around it. Committing acts of violence so grand – either through gruesome nature or frequency – that it presses your magic into a stress that extreme. And then wanting to do it? The whole concept was unbelievable. Horrific. “You should think about telling the Guard.”

Sans said nothing.

Red looked toward him again. “People like that shouldn’t walk around free, someone could get hurt.”

Sans only stared at him.

Red’s chest felt tight. “Someone could get really hurt, Sans – he’s dangerous.”

Staring.

Red couldn’t breathe. “He could hurt someone. He could’ve hurt – he could’ve killed someone, he could’ve killed…” He trailed off, looking back at Sans. Looking through him.

And there was a gun to Red’s head. A casual and annoyed debate.

“They could’ve killed me,” Red whispered. “They could’ve…” It felt like it was sinking in. It felt like Red was finally registering what had happened to him. “They…”

Sans shifted. Red hardly felt his arms as they wrapped around him.

He didn’t know how long had passed before he found the mental fortitude to speak. “I want a shower, I think.”

Sans nodded, his head brushing against Red’s shoulder. “Now?”

“I’d need help.” Red thought it was an answer. A definitive, unfortunate no. He probably smelled like river and hospital and fear and he’d rather… not.

“Okay.”

“What?” Red tuned back in, feeling like he’d missed something.

“Okay,” Sans repeated. “I’ll help you, if you want.”

Red turned his head to look toward Sans over his shoulder. “… You’ll help me shower?”

“Yeah.”

“As in. You’re gonna help me take a shower.”

Sans looked confused. “Yes. Is that okay?”

Red couldn’t tell if this was the best day of his life or the funniest. “Yeah.” The answer is breathless. “Yeah, sure. You could – I would appreciate that.”

“Or you could wait for Tori and Edge to be home, if you’d—”

“No, no, this is fine. As long as you’re… I mean, as long as you’re comfortable with that.”

Sans blinked. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Red wondered if Sans had any clue what the connotations were. Them, partners – Sans called them boyfriends – and Red needing help in the shower. Red needing help getting dressed and undressed. He had a reasonable suspicion that Sans would not be interested in the multiple directions that could go, if Red weren’t sporting an injury, and that suspicion was something soft.

Sans had lost so much of his naivety too early. They both had – enough trauma tended to do that to someone. Seeing such a gentle peek of innocence in someone Red knew now could pick his way through a couple dozen people with a startling poise was something contradictory and beautiful.

Red smiled softly at him. “Yeah. Okay.”

Chapter Text

Vulnerabilty. Noun. Openness or susceptibility to attack or harm.

The fabric of the towel was well-worn, but not threadbare. Sans wondered how long Toriel had owned that particular towel. Certainly for as long as he’d known her. It was yellow. A lot of things in her house were.

“Towel?” Red checked.

“I’ve got it,” Sans confirmed.

“Clean pjs.” Red pointed at where they were, draped over his own shoulder. “My crutch?” Red jokingly lifted his arm.

Sans slid comfortably into the space there beneath it. It was warm, and Red didn’t squeeze or pull him. Red’s arm settled over Sans’s shoulders and he was reminded of what softness was.

“At your service,” Sans joked, supporting some of Red’s weight as they walked. One of the things Toriel was supposed to be getting while she was out was a mobility aid. A cane or something, Sans wasn’t too sure. "I could carry you again, if you need."

"But then who would carry my towel?"

Sans snorted - a shortform laugh.

The trip to the bathroom was entirely uneventful. Significantly less work than the stairs had been. Sans wasn’t really supposed to be teleporting. It was recommended by his doctor that he rest, and once Red heard Toriel mention it that morning he’d been stubborn enough to enforce it, even to his detriment. Sans would’ve teleported him, if he’d asked. Sans wanted to spare him any discomfort that he could.

When Red was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet – towel in his lap, pajamas on the sink – Sans moved to the shower, pulling the bee and honeycomb-patterned curtain out of the way to reach for the knobs. “How warm do you like your showers?”

“I dunno, shower temperature?”

Sans’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it out to look at it. Toriel again. Checking in.

He sent her a confirmation that they were both doing okay before pocketing his phone again and responding to Red. “How hot is that, though?”

Red shrugged, looking amused. “Your guess is as good as mine – I don’t usually keep a thermometer on me.”

Sans shook his head, reaching for the knobs again.

“Just put it to whatever you prefer,” Red suggested.

Sans hesitated, listening to the soft squeak of the metal as he turned the cold water on. The flow hit the back end of the tub all at once, and then there was a steady drone. Sans was certain that Red wouldn’t like to shower in the same temperature as what he preferred; Sans usually made the water hot enough to sting. And Red had seen enough pain, lately.

Openness or susceptibility to attack or harm.

He settled on something comfortably warm, like what Papyrus set for washing his hands. Then he turned toward Red, shrugging out of his sweater.

“Woah, woah – what are you doing?” Red asked quickly.

Sans froze, startled, before looking at Red. “… Taking off my jacket.”

Red nodded, like Sans had confirmed something for him. “Why?”

“Because it might get warm in here,” Sans told him patiently. “And it’ll get wet if I need to help you in and out of the shower. Which I might, because the tub wall is kinda high.”

“Toriel wanted one tall enough for her to bathe in,” Red said, like it was a fun fact to share. “That makes sense to me, though.”

Sans nodded, feeling in Red’s magic a nervousness he couldn’t even begin to find the origin of. He slid his arms out of his sweater and pulled it off over his head, tucking it into his inventory. In his t-shirt, he could feel on his arms the quietest sensation of the beginning of steam from the shower.

Until he stepped away from it, toward Red. “What do you need my help with?”

Red seemed to think about it, and he seemed uncomfortable. Bashful. Sans wouldn’t hold that against him. Asking for help was a difficult thing, and being vulnerable was complicated and messy on good days. At least it was for him.

When Sans had been recovering after Gaster, he didn’t have a choice except to let people help him. But trusting them to have his best interests in their intentions was more difficult than it ought to have been.

He would never fault anyone for their hesitancy. Not about the boundaries of safety.

“If you could just stand there,” Red began carefully. “I can, uh… I can get undressed sitting here, and I’ll just need help to the shower?”

“Sure,” Sans agreed.

Red nodded. And there was a pause. “Can you, um… can you turn away?”

Sans tipped his head, confused, but he didn’t hesitate to do so.

Turn away. Why? Maybe Red was tired of being observed. That was something Sans could relate to. There was something that felt safe in not being watched after having a camera on you for a few days.

Sans stared at the bee curtain on the shower. Red’s pajamas, settled on the counter next to the sink. He looked at the plush green bathmat. The colored glass of the decorative hive art on the wall. Sans had asked Toriel if she liked bees, as this was the only themed room in her entire house. Toriel had said that she did. Sans noticed that they weren’t her favorite creature, though – that was snails. It wasn’t like Alphys’s anime stash or Papyrus’s growing collection of action figures on one of his shelves. It was a fondness.

Sans thought about all of the bees in Asgore’s garden.

“Okay,” Red called his attention. Sans could feel his magic move as he stood, and shortly after, his hand settled softly on Sans’s shoulder. The nervousness he felt was much clearer.

“Can I turn around to make sure you don’t fall over?” Sans asked, worried.

“… Yeah, sure.”

Sans turned slowly to find Red standing in front of him, all of his weight on his good leg. His clothes were in a pile on the floor. If Sans opted to look, he would see every inch of bone the lack of clothes would expose, but he didn’t. It wasn’t as important as looking up into Red’s eyelights to make sure they were steady.

They were, and settled over a mouthful of sharp teeth and a sharp jaw to match. So much of Red was so contradictorily pointy. Sans liked that about him. Sans liked a lot of things about him.

He reached to settle his arms beneath Red’s, to support him, and he noticed one of Red’s hands was holding something – the ends of his towel, which was wrapped around his hips.

Sans’s head tilt was back. “You should switch hands, so I can support your injured side better.”

“Right.” Red switched hands. “What are you making that face for?”

“I’m makin’ a face?”

“Like you’re confused, yeah.”

Sans worked up the bravery to ask as he made sure to hold onto Red properly, walking him toward the shower. “What’s the towel for?”

“What?”

“The towel – you’re not wet yet.”

“Decency, mostly?”

Sans squinted at him. “What?”

Red stared back, looking like he does sometimes when Sans said something that surprised him. Like his mind needed to reboot. “Decency – y’know, because usually I’m wearing clothes.” There was a soft lilt of humor to his tone, like it was a joke.

Sans didn’t get it. “Yeah?”

And Red must’ve felt warm already from the steam, going by the flush of magic in his face being deeper than before. Sans worried about his fever. “Sans, without the towel I would be naked, in case you didn’t know that,” Red mentioned, his voice halfway into a laugh.

Sans thought about that. The definition filtered through his mind again.

Vulnerability. Noun. Openness or susceptibility to attack or harm .

“Is that what’s making you nervous?” Sans checked.

“Are you making a joke?” Red asked.

“No,” Sans admitted.

They were standing in front of the shower. Red was looking at him closer than he had been before. “Do you care that I’m not wearing anything right now?”

Sans didn’t understand. “Why would it matter?”

“There’s this thing about privacy, you know. And like… exposure and—that’s what I meant by decency,” Red explained.

“But you’re just bones,” Sans said. “And I’m also bones. So it’s…” He trailed off as something connected in his mind. “Oh – privacy. Is that why you asked me to look away?” Privacy was a lot more general a rule than a trauma response, even if they often went hand-in-hand. And it was a rule Sans recognized.

“I’m honestly really fucking concerned about you, dude.” Red sounded serious.

Sans just looked at him for a moment. It felt like he was missing a piece somewhere. “For the record, it’s totally fine if you don’t want me seeing literally any part of you. For any reason.” Sans had plenty of reasons not to strip bare in front of Red, too.

“That’s good,” Red said. “You’re not uncomfortable with this at all?”

“No,” Sans told him. “I want to help you. And I recognize that vulnerability is hard, so I’m trying not to put too much pressure on that.”

Red stared at him for a moment, and there was that softness again. For a moment, Sans felt like Red was seeing something deeper than Sans’s soul, into who he was. And suddenly Red wasn’t the only one vulnerable.

But then Red smiled, the expression mostly in how his brow lightened. And he pushed the shower curtain out of his way. “Cool. Help me in?”

Sans did, after making sure that Red thought the water was a good temperature. It was an almost funny amount of maneuvering with a lot of averted attention to make sure Red’s towel didn’t get wet, but Sans didn’t end up seeing anything he wouldn’t have seen when they went swimming at the lake. And then there was the shower curtain between him and Red.

He could’ve moved away to sit down, but Sans worried that if he did, Red would need something urgently and he would be too far away to help.

“Can I stand right here still, or will that bother you?”

There was a pause before Red answered. “That’s fine by me.”

Sans nodded, folding his hands behind his back. “Cool.”

He looked around from the new angle. He wasn’t in Toriel’s bathroom very often, given he was a monster type that didn’t have a digestive system with waste, and Asgore had a bathroom at his house (obviously) so Sans could shower there whenever he wanted.

He was counting the bees in the wallpaper when he heard Red take a deep breath, the exhale like a sigh. Sans glanced back toward the shower curtain. “You okay?”

“Hm? Oh – yeah, it’s just nice to be in a shower, I think.”

Sans nodded. The heat probably felt nice on his joints. “Don’t forget to move slow.”

“I’m not really moving at all, I’m just kinda standing here.”

Sans felt a small smirk on his mouth. “That’s fine.”

There was another pause. A lengthy one. Sans got to nineteen bees before Red spoke again.

“Can I ask you more questions?”

Sans blinked, attention on the shower curtain once more. If it weren’t in the way, Sans knew he would be looking right at Red. “Sure. What about?”

“Stuff that happened.”

Sans considered. “If you really wanna start that while you’re busy.”

“I think it’ll be easier.”

Sans hadn’t considered that. “Okay.”

Some part of him was anxious to know what else Red could ask about. There was a lot he could bring up – the way Sans definitely hurt people to get them out safely, how he made Red walk with a dislocated hip for an extended period, the fact that they had wanted to kidnap Sans at all for scientific research, but the number of people was set for someone who seemed scarier than Sans himself.

And if he did, Sans would talk about how the narrow hallways gave him an advantage. How low MP didn’t mean anything if he had his hands free. Sans would talk about how Red was important to him and hope that it was enough of an argument to be spared a reasonable skepticism of his morals.

Sans didn’t really subscribe to standard ethics. His morals were complicated and uniquely his own.

“They had us in magic suppressors,” Red mentioned, pulling Sans from his ruminating.

“Yeah,” Sans confirmed.

“They were standard issue, the type of stuff law enforcement uses,” Red said. “They stop people from using attack magic or their colored compatibilities – like teleporting.”

Sans nodded. “It isolates the magic to your system, so you can’t reach outside of it, yeah. Like a ward, kind of – it’s designed after the same concept.”

“How’d you get out of ‘em?”

Sans blinked at the shower curtain, surprised. “Oh, uh… well. The standard ones aren’t adaptable.”

“What’s that mean?”

Sans had never needed to explain it before. “When they turn on, they sync with your matrix. There’s something in them that reads your unique magic signature and blocks it – that’s why you can’t use any external magic. It’s a net personally designed to catch you and only you, and standard suppressors aren’t able to keep up with quick changes to your magic system.”

“You can’t change your magic like that, can you?” Red asked.

Sans shrugged. “You can with a lot of practice – at least enough to trick it. And then if you do a kind of… magic surge, it can overwhelm the lock and it disengages.”

There was a pause. “So you’ve practiced that, then?”

“Breaking out of magic suppressors?”

“Yeah.”

Sans shifted his weight onto his opposite foot. “Not often. Once I figured it out, I kinda just remembered how to do it. But it took a while to figure out.”

“How long ago was that?”

“That I figured it out? I dunno – I was younger.” Sans didn’t really like to think about it, and it was hard to remember anyway.

Red seemed to notice, because he opted to change the subject. “Y’know, I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that we jumped out of a window.”

Sans smirked and opted not to correct him. He definitely threw them. “Was that your first time?”

“Jumping out of a window?” Red sounded incredulous. “On a floor that high? Yeah – was it yours?”

“No, but I was making a joke.”

“Hold on, you’ve jumped from – wait a sec.” Red pulled the curtain enough to peek his skull around it, his bones glistened in the light of the bathroom, wet now. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He looked somewhere between amazed and horrified.

Sans shrugged. “I’ve done a lot of shit.”

Red stared at him. That look didn’t fade, but something sad filtered into it. “You really have, huh?”

Sans found himself in awe for a second time that Red could be the one without clothes on, but Sans was the one feeling stripped bare.

Red vanished behind the curtain again. “Anyway. How well do you remember that? The whole… jumping out of the window and teleporting to the river?”

Sans thought he could relay to Red every detail of that entire day, if he ever needed it. If Sans remembered that something happened, he could usually recall it all down to the minutia. The real question was always whether Sans remembered it at all.

“Pretty well,” Sans admitted. “Why?”

“Do you, uh…” Red seemed to hesitate. Sans watched the curtain in his concern. “Do you remember what I said?”

Oh. “Yeah.”

There was a lengthy pause. It felt heavy, like the steam in the air.

Sans picked at the seam of his pocket. “I’m not holding you to it.”

“What?”

Sans folded his arms in front of him. “When there’s adrenaline involved, people can say stuff they don’t necessarily mean. So if you—”

There was the quick sound of something slipping on the bathtub and Sans felt Red’s magic shift suddenly.

Without thinking, Sans reached around the curtain and caught the first thing he could grab, nearly falling in himself. He caught his balance at the same moment one of Red’s hands gripped Sans’s forearm tight enough to smart. “Red?”

“I’m okay.” Red’s voice was light and airy. He was startled, probably. “I’m alright – just reached too far. I’m good.”

Sans loosened the hold he had on Red – the way the bones felt in his hand told Sans it was probably his ulna and radius – waiting to make sure Red had his balance before releasing him entirely. He kept his arm in the shower, though, because Red was still holding it.

Sans’s soul was racing. “What were you reaching for?”

“My soap,” Red said.

“Do you want me to grab it for you?”

“Sure.”

Sans reached with his other hand, looking just far enough around the curtain to find the correct bottle. “Which one is it?”

“The green one.”

Sans grabbed it, glancing at the label. Rose and ivy. No wonder Red usually smelled like flowers. He opened the lid with a hollow snap , then he held the bottle toward Red.

“Thank you.” Red’s hand was unsteady as he took it from Sans’s hand.

He released Sans’s arm a second later.

Sans felt strangely unmoored. “Do you want me to leave my arm here so you have something to hold onto if you need to catch your balance?”

“Wouldn’t it get tired?”

“Eventually,” Sans admitted. “I don’t care.”

“… Okay.”

Sans left his arm there, in the shower. “What was I saying?”

“That you didn’t mean what you said,” Red supplied.

Sans was confused, trying to trace back to what Red meant. “Oh – no, I meant what I said. But what I was trying to get across was that if you didn’t, that’s okay.”

“You said you love me,” Red mentioned.

Sans, who was standing in the bathroom, bare arm half in the shower, soul still too quick after Red slipped on the tub, aching in every way he didn’t know he was capable of, the smell of roses on the air, responded in the only logical way he could. With the truth.

“Because I do.”

Vulnerability. Noun. Willingness to show emotion or to allow one’s weaknesses to be seen or known.

With Sans’s arm in the shower, he was closer in proximity to Red. It meant Sans could glean a bit more of his intent in his magic. And it wasn’t the same as being able to know someone’s emotions – it was like a secondary body language. Magic spoke as much as a person’s posture did. You had to know how to read it.

And Sans didn’t know how to read what he felt from Red. All he knew was that it was pleasant and warm, like the temperature of the shower.

“Oh.” The sound was soft, from Red. Like Sans had just told him an interesting piece of trivia. “Y’know, this isn’t exactly how I pictured us having this conversation.”

Sans was baffled. “But you’re the one who started it.”

“Right, but I forgot that meant we’d be talking about it – I love you, too. By the way.” There was the sound of Red closing the bottle. “C’n you put this back for me?”

When Sans reached around to grab the bottle and place it back on its shelf, he noticed Red’s hands. How every joint was colored a little with his magic. Sans hoped the water wasn’t too warm after all.

Soon, Red was done in the shower. Sans turned off the water and passed Red his towel so he could dry off. They didn’t say much beyond communicating how was best for Red to move. More didn’t feel necessary.

As much as the events of that week reminded Sans of the temporary nature of living, he didn’t mind taking the time for the silence of simply existing with each other.

In the end, Sans did end up helping Red get redressed, though he was very careful to keep Red as comfortable as possible about it, since they had that ability. Red was already in a lot of discomfort for a plethora of other reasons, pain being among them. Sans offered to put some of the salve they had on the bruises on Red’s arms to try and mitigate some of that. Red agreed.

Eventually, Red was fully dressed with his arms coated in magic-imbued healing balm. He leaned his head against Sans's hip as he sat, the exhaustion another thick layer on his bones, a tight wire of stress keeping his shoulders squared like a hanger framing a shirt as it hung. The spot was warmed, even through his clothes, by Red's head. Definitely still feverish, then.

And Sans, supporting him, felt a longing. A desperate urge to fix something. Reparations for the misery he opened the door for, maybe, but there was something deeper in that.

He wanted Red to feel cared for. He wanted Red to feel safe and secure. There was so little that he could offer in the wake of what just happened, except for his help. So that was what he focused on giving.

Sans brushed his hand over Red’s shoulder. “We’re almost done.”

“I want a nap,” Red murmured against Sans’s side.

“We can head to your room, then?” Sans suggested. It was closer than the couch.

“Sounds great.”

When Sans helped Red stand, there was a brief moment where they stood pressed against each other, Red out of breath and leaning into him, and Sans felt it. A fluttering feeling in his soul, like a flag in the wind. He could nearly hear the wave of it, and it wasn’t how so many people framed desire, so he didn’t recognize it.

It was a longing, to him. A yearning, deep in his chest, to be laying with Red somewhere. Curled together like two old trees that knew no better than to join their roots after so long existing next to each other.

He softly nuzzled Red’s spine with his face.

Red dropped his head backward, and it ended up leaning against Sans’s. “I’m so excited for this nap.”

Sans smirked. “Yeah?”

“Are you gonna lay down with me?”

“Sure.”

Red made a quiet sound of success, and after a few more seconds, he seemed to find the motivation to sit up again. Sans helped him to the door.

Opening it caused the air to trade – the warm moistness of the bathroom pulled outward while the cool thinness of the hallway pushed in. A shuffling of molecules and temperatures that made it somehow kinder to breathe.

And Sans was so focused on Red’s balance that, as they stepped out into the hallway, he didn’t notice they weren’t alone until Red suddenly halted, rooted to the spot.

Sans looked up and made eye contact with Edge, who was standing in front of his own bedroom door as if he’d been just about to enter it.

For a moment, they all did nothing but stare.

Then Edge, sly as any fox Sans had ever known, smiled. The expression was wickedly sharp with a knowing entirely lost on Sans.

“Don’t you dare say fucking anything,” Red said, a desperate insistence turning his tone harsher than normal.

Edge didn’t seem offended. In fact, he looked a little like Red had made a good joke, fighting down a laugh. His hands lifted in defense. “I didn’t.”

Sans looked over at Red and saw, to his amazement, something he never had before.

Red was blushing in his typical magenta hue, but also deeper. And in the midst of the bright magic in his face and his joints, Sans noticed his namesake. Red was red.

Edge was still grinning as he opened his door and stepped into his room, saying nothing else.

Red huffed. Sans could feel something almost flustered in his intent.

Sans wasn’t sure what had just happened. “I guess that means Tori’s home, too.” He started walking with Red toward his room again. “Do you want me to ask her to come up and say hi before you nap?”

Red covered his face with his free hand, which did nothing to hide the intensity of his magic. “Sure, yeah.”

Sans fell asleep quicker than Red did. It was impressive, since Red hadn’t even noticed Sans being tired.

They were beneath the blankets in Red’s bed, the sunlight bright enough to light up the whole room, even though there was only one beam of it from between Red’s haphazardly shut curtains. Golden in hue, mimicking the feeling in his soul.

Red was on his left side. Sans was in front of him, somehow the perfect size to fill every space in the bubble of Red’s body. His fingers fit between Red’s phalanges like they were made to be there, and he nestled exactly into the most comfortable spot against Red’s chest.

If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve assumed Sans was made to be someone loving. Designed to hold and be held. Crafted from a blueprint of compassion and then warped into whatever purpose they seemed to decide was important.

Lab experiment. A danger. Red couldn’t equate those things to Sans. It was difficult, sometimes, to remember those pieces of him at all. As if they were somehow out of reach, whenever he was nearby.

Maybe that was better. Maybe it was neglectful, not acknowledging the parts of Sans that had been so hurt. Red didn’t know.

All he did know was that Sans was there. And Red wanted to love him, even if it was complicated. He wanted to make Sans feel as safe as he felt. And Red hoped that he would protect Sans, too. If it ever came to that.

He hoped that it wouldn’t.