Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Friday nights weren't meant to be like this. You carefully balanced your cup of coffee on the stack of exams in your arms, and climbed the rickety staircase to the second floor of the physics library. None of the campus cafes were open this late, but god bless those coffee-dispensing vending machines.

You'd started frequenting this library because it was considerably and consistently less crowded than the two main libraries; even though you had no real business being here, since your only physics training was an introductory course you'd taken as an undergrad. But you'd never been here at night before, and you had to admit that it was sort of… creepy. Shadows collected darkly between the tell shelves of textbooks, and the silence was occasionally interrupted by insidious creaking noises—quiet enough to blame on the building itself, but loud enough to make you feel nervous.

Unconsciously walking a little faster, you rounded the corner to the lounge area and almost shrieked when you saw a skeleton sitting in one of the plushy arm chairs. You managed to contain yourself, however, because you quickly realized that it was a person. Your hand shot out to steady the coffee cup before it toppled over, and your rocketing heart rate started to slow.

The skeleton was slouched low in the chair with a laptop resting against his bent legs. He wore a ratty blue hoodie and dirty sneakers, which he had propped up on the coffee table in front of him. Open books with miniscule print, and loose papers covered in scrawl, were scattered around the table by his feet. In each dark eye socket was a tiny glowing light, clearly serving the purpose of a pupil, and they scanned back and fourth across the screen of his computer.

He didn't look up as you stood there dithering. After a moment of reading he began to type quickly, and the blunt tips of his bony fingers made an especially pronounced and satisfying clicking sound against the keyboard. He thoughtfully tapped one of his fingers against his bared teeth, then continued typing. He would have been eerie-looking, but the points of light in his eyes made him look distinctly alive.

You realized you were staring and tore your eyes away, embarrassed, and headed toward a chair on the other side of the room. You hoped he hadn't noticed how startled you were. And even if he did, coming-across-a-stranger-in-a-dark-library-at-night was a passable excuse. …You told yourself. But it probably just looked like you got scared because he was a monster. Which… was sorta true.

Hope I didn't offend him, you thought guiltily, settling yourself into a chair. You gave a weighty sigh as you plopped the stack of exams down on the table in front of you. Your phone beeped, and you hastily pulled it out of your bag to silence it, looking up to see if the skeleton had noticed. He either hadn't heard or didn't care, gaze still riveted to his computer screen. His chair was faced away from you, so you could see that he was watching some kind of abstract 3D simulation. It was pretty much meaningless to you. This was the physics library, so you only felt as out-of-your-depth as you always felt here.

Looking back at your phone, you saw you had a message from your friend Connie.

Connie | 8:36pm
Dude were going to pats, come get sloshed

You | 8:38pm
I fucking wish, I've got like a billion papers to grade

Connie | 8:39pm
Sucks

Wow, thanks for your sympathy Connie. You set your phone down on the table and turned toward the mountain of undergrad essays. No use stalling. You picked up the first one and immediately uncapped your red pen.

Five essays later and you were already so done with this. The current student was trying to argue that a popular superhero movie was a veiled retelling of Hamlet. You'd seen the movie and you… guessed? It could be interpreted that way? You shook your head. You considered bullshitting to be an indispensible skill for anyone majoring in English, so it didn't really affect how you were going to grade this, but you were just so baffled.

The next student averaged an incredible nine run-on sentences per page. And it was a fourteen-page paper.

You wrote this the night before, didn't you? you thought, giving the paper a squinty-eyed look, and you got a vindictive sort of pleasure out of marking it up. In truth you could sympathize—you'd been an undergrad once, after all—but damn if it wasn't de-motivating from this end of things.

You were distracted by a soft rasping sound, and looked up, toward the skeleton. It was the sound of his fingertips softly scraping against his skull as he scratched the back of his head. Whoa.

Your phone buzzed on the table.

Connie | 9:45pm
Here youll need this:

The next message she sent was a link. You opened it and sucked in a breath. It was an animated gif of a deer nuzzling a dog. The dog grinned happily, tongue lolling out, while the deer pushed its face into the dog's neck.

You did need this.

You | 9:47pm
I love you, when are we getting married

You pulled your laptop out of your bag and copied the link into the browser so the gif could loop in the background while you worked. You'd read a study once that said people performed detail-oriented tasks more carefully after viewing pictures of cute animals. So this was just a strategy to improve job performance. Yep.

Connie | 10:09pm
When you have a stable income
Hows the grading going

You | 10:09pm
I hate my life and myself

God damn, it was already ten o'clock. There was no way you were going to finish all of these tonight. You gave a weighty sigh, picked up the next paper, and wondered what the skeleton was doing here this late. Whatever it was, it looked serious. He'd leaned forward and was furiously scribbling on a piece of paper. Was he an undergrad or a grad student?

Concentrate, you told yourself. But then you stared at the deer gif for a full ninety seconds.

Concentrate!

If he was an undergrad, it was a little sad that he was alone in the library on a Friday night. But at the same time, you found yourself wishing that you'd been that motivated back then. It was a dissonant feeling, like trying to be the student and the teacher at the same time. Maybe you were finally starting to grow up a little.

Ha, you thought, and turned your eyes back to the paper. The truth was that, usually, you didn't even feel qualified enough to be grading these. These kids were barely younger than you, so it was always a surreal experience when they treated you like you had some sort of authority.

You heard the skeleton snicker, and you glanced back up. He was watching… You squinted. It looked like a terribly-rendered CG animation of two men chasing a squirrel.

Definitely an undergrad, you thought wryly, though you knew it was an uncharitable thought considering what you had open on your own computer. 

You made your way slowly through the stack of essays, relaxed by the musty smell of old books and the soft clack-clack-clack of the skeleton's fingers. It was like listening to someone type on an especially clicky keyboard. Actually, you were surprised by how comfortable you felt. You would have thought that being with any complete stranger, in an isolated corner of the library, in the middle of the night, would have made you at least a little nervous. But he was so clearly absorbed in his work that it put you at ease. You weren't even sure he knew you were here, which was kind of incredible.

Here was the catch though: You needed to pee. Your laptop was out, and the exams were organized into several haphazard stacks that you really didn't want to dismantle. It seemed ludicrous to pack up all of your stuff, only to come back and reestablish yourself minutes later. On the other hand it was almost eleven o'clock now, and who knew what kinds of weirdoes and bandits were skulking around the library at night. This skeleton was no exception, you told yourself sternly, no matter how disarming (and endearing?) you found his single-minded concentration.

You decided to play the social contract card. You stood up, wincing as your knees popped, and walked over to him.

"Hi," you said, and finally he looked up at you, bright eye-lights trained on your face. "Uh, would you mind watching my stuff for a sec? I'm gonna go use the bathroom."

"sure thing," he said, in a low, pleasant voice. "you worried it's gonna run off when you're not lookin'?"

It took you a full second to realize this was a joke; just in time to laugh awkwardly as you turned into the hallway that led to the bathroom. God, could you have made it any weirder?

When you returned a few minutes later, everything was where you'd left it, skeleton included.

"Thanks," you said, as you headed back for your chair.

He waved his hand lazily in your direction. "it didn't even try to get away." 

You glanced back at him. He was smiling, but he hadn't looked up. You weren't sure if that was supposed to be another joke or not.

You wearily returned to grading, wishing you'd thought to get another coffee while you were up. After two more duds, which you annotated generously, you started to read a paper that you genuinely loved. It was clear, thoughtful, and well-structured, and most important of all, fascinating. You hadn't heard of the novelist whose work they were referencing, but you made a point to remember the name. This was the kind of writing that got you into this field in the first place. It made you want to hurry up and finish all of this grading so you could get back to your real work.

"do you know that you're talkin' to yourself?"

This time you did shriek, and jumped in your chair. The skeleton was sitting in the seat across from you; somehow he'd snuck over without your noticing. He was sitting with his elbow resting on his knee cap, and his chin in his hand, hood pulled up over his skull. It was an easy, lazy posture that seemed to emphasize just how absurd it was that you had screeched out loud in the library.

"sorry, sorry," he said, chuckling. "didn't mean to scare ya."

"Jesus christ…" you said, putting a shaking hand over your heart. "I nearly jumped outta my… skin…"

Fuck. You trailed off, realizing what you were saying and how it might sound to someone who had no skin, but he just laughed. He sounded delighted, in fact. 

"yeah, you're comin' off as real spineless," he said, grinning. Oh… skeleton jokes? You weren't sure how to react to that. So you just sorta… looked at him.

"jeez, tough crowd," he said, scratching the back of his skull.

"Was I really talking to myself?" you asked. "For how long?"

"since you got here," he said, shrugging. Then he grinned. "you called one of your students a little bastard."

"Oh god," you said, running your hand over your face, embarrassed. 

"sounded like you liked that one though," he said, pointing to the paper still in your hand. You looked down at it thoughtfully.

"Yeah…" you mumbled. "You know? TA-ing's kind of a drag but…" Uh oh. You were rambling. "Then you read something like this, and… it kinda makes it worth it."

"really?"

You sighed. "No."

He barked a laugh, smile crinkling up the corners of his eyes. Now that he was talking, you couldn't believe how expressive his face was. He clearly wasn't just a skeleton.

"yeah, i gotta teach again in the fall," he said. Aha! So he was a grad student. "gotta do our, uh, duty to the university I guess."

"Yeah, I guess… What department are you in?"

He looked surprised, then gave you a cheeky smile, and gestured vaguely at the surrounding bookshelves.

"physics."

"Fuck. Duh," you said, putting your hand back over your face. You were laughing a little though. "Physics library. That was obvious."

"i'm guessing you're… not." 

"English department," you said, waving your hand in the direction you thought your building was in. You always got turned around when you came in here.

"an interloper," he said. He tapped his finger thoughtfully against his chin, making a soft tk-tk sound as bone met bone. "pretty far from home, kid." 

Kid? you thought, bristling slightly. Condescending much? You tried to let it slide.

"Well, it's usually pretty empty in here, so it's easy to get work done." You frowned and scrubbed your hand through your hair. "I can barely concentrate tonight though. It's like too quiet almost."

"really?" he asked, eyes twinkling. "i got a ton of work done tonight." He paused, then winked at you. "a skele-ton."

This time you snorted with laughter.

"Ok," you said, "are you just trying to make up for scaring me, or do you really think those jokes are funny?" 

"what, c'mon, you started it." 

"I did not!" you said, still laughing. You both had your hands over your mouths, trying to keep from laughing too loudly. You were still in the library.

"welp," he said, once he'd regained some composure. "it's late, so i'm headin' out. good luck with your grading."

"Thanks," you said, as he stood and walked back to his stuff. You tried not to stare at his legs, which were visible from the knee down below his black basketball shorts. You failed. The off-white bones looked just how they were supposed to, fibula and tibia running down from the knobby bones at the knee and disappearing into his shoes. Only that was all there was: Just bones, stark and ghostly against his shorts and the general gloom of the library.

You hastily looked away, busying yourself with another essay, as he turned back around with his bag slung over his shoulder and shuffled toward the exit. But before turning into the hallway, he paused.

"library closes in fifteen minutes, by the way." 

"Shit, really?" you said, and you could hear him snickering as he walked off.

Chapter Text

You spent almost the entire morning in the graduate advising office, fighting with the staff over your stipend. Which they were trying to reduce. Again. Your advisor was kind, and honestly a little brilliant, but she was a coward at heart.

"Maybe we should try talking to the dean?" she hedged, and never brought it up again.

"You're supposed to advocate for me," you snarled under your breath as you entered the advising office. The graduate coordinator seemed genuinely sympathetic, but he was clearly tied up with enough red tape to strangle the whole office. You also managed to talk to the assistant dean an hour later, but he just as clearly didn't give a shit about your problem, and turned you out with a noncommittal assurance that he would bring the issue to some committee.

"Bureaucracy problems?" asked Connie over lunch.

"It's a goddamn nightmare," you said, putting your head in your hands. "We're being exploited." 

Connie scoffed. "You say, about your higher education. At a private university. Sipping your latte—"

"Alright, alright," you cut in, laughing. "Guess I'm being kind of an asshole."

"At least you're a cute asshole," she said. You locked eyes, and she looked shocked as she replayed her own words in her head. Then you both started snickering.

"But just how pink and puckered am I, Con?"

"Shut. Up," she said between giggles, "this conversation is going to spiral out of control." She paused to catch her breath, then smirked at you. "And you're right. We are being exploited."

"Oh you hypocrite," you said, and stuck your tongue out at her.

---

An area meeting took up the rest of your afternoon, and before you knew it, it was seven-thirty and you still hadn't done any more grading. You bought more cheap shitty coffee and headed back up to the physics library.

The skeleton was back, sitting in the same spot as last night. He was in the same blue hoodie as before, but this time he was wearing sweatpants and a pair of slippers. He looked like he'd just rolled out of bed.

Still looks like an undergrad, you thought, smiling to yourself. And just like last night, you were standing awkwardly in the entranceway while you decided what to do. You were in the uncomfortable position of having chatted with a stranger you didn't expect to see again, and now you didn't know how much additional interaction was required or expected. Should you sit near him? Say hi? Pretend you didn't see him? 

"welcome back, english," he said, without looking up, and saved you the trouble of deciding. 'English,' huh? New nickname?

"Hey… you." You'd been about to say 'hey bonehead' but stopped yourself, not sure if it was too familiar or if skeleton jokes were still appropriate.

"it's sans," he said, laughing.

You made your way back to your chair from the night before, and started to lay out the essays again. You liked the way his laugh sounded: low and rumbling and good-natured. You were weirdly pleased that he was here.

For a solid forty minutes, you went to work. The quiet was broken only by the soft scritch of pens and the click-clack of keyboard keys, and the rustle of fabric as one of you shifted in your seat. It made the silence comfortable, instead of oppressive. You sipped your acrid, lukewarm coffee and felt sort of content and pleased with yourself.

But after an hour your attention began to flag. You knew better than to brute-force it. Wasn't there some known limit to the amount of time a human could concentrate on any one thing? But you just wanted to get this done. Once you realized you were rereading the same sentence for the eighteenth time, you flung yourself out of the chair with a huff. You threw down your red pen—a satisfying but useless gesture—then threw yourself down onto one of the couches. You stared up at the vinyl ceiling tiles and sighed heavily.

"bored?" called the skeleton from across the room.

"Yeah," you admitted.

"wanna hear a joke?"

"… Sure."

"why did the scientist put a knocker on his door?"

"Uh…" you said. You tried to give it some thought, but you felt a little too braindead for riddles. "Why?"

"he wanted to win the no bell prize."

"Wow," you said tonelessly.

"why do writers always feel cold?"

"Why?"

"cause they're surrounded by drafts."

Ok, that one made you laugh. You crossed your arms over your stomach and smiled up at the ceiling. "Next."

"why can't you trust atoms?"

"Hmm…" You paused, puzzling over the question while you examined the porous texture of the ceiling. If the answer was too technical you weren't going to get it, but most jokes were more about wordplay anyway. You thought, maybe… "Ha! Because they make up everything?"

"hey you got it," he said, and you could practically hear him grinning. "what's a skeleton's favorite instrument?"

"What?"

"a trom-bone. why didn't the skeleton go to the party?"

"Uh… why?"

"he had no body to go with."

You snorted. "Those are just skeleton jokes!"

"yeah but they're funny," he said, chuckling.

"Ok, how about this?" You scrolled through your phone, trying to pick out a good one from the list you were looking at. "Why did the skeleton stay late at school?"

"he was bonin' up for his exams," came the immediately reply.

"What!" 

"i already know 'em all."

"Aw man," you said, sitting up to look back at him. He was still slouched down in his chair, staring at his computer, but from this angle you could see the snarky grin on his face.

You pushed off the couch and walked over to him, and sat yourself in the chair across from his. For the first time you could see all of his scratch paper up close. The pages were covered in equations and hastily-drawn graphs with crooked lines. Some of them looked like pages printed from scientific journals, with obscure, monochromatic diagrams that he'd annotated heavily. Yikes.

You also noticed that, in the corner of one page, he'd doodled a few little cartoon bones. You had to put your fist to your mouth to keep from smiling. 

"It's Sans, right?" you asked.

"that's right."

"So do you normally spend your Saturday nights in the library?"

"only when i'm on a roll," he said, looking up at you. His gaze gave you a weird thrill. The black pits of his eye sockets were softened by the strange lights in each one; he could have been frightening, but his bright pupils turned his stare into something direct and challenging and alive. You'd never seen anything like it. More than any of the other monsters you'd met so far, this one looked like he was made of magic. 

"'sides, i could ask you the same question."

You sighed. "Only when I have a lot of work to do. … Which is every weekend," you added wryly. 

"no office?"

"Well, yeah, but… My officemate is kind of a workaholic, so she's always there. And she's insufferable."

"i see," he said, and there was laughter in his voice. "can't switch to a different room?"

"Probably, but I didn't wanna be that girl. So I'm just…" You waved your hand vaguely. "Dealing with it. What about you, what's your situation?"

"eh, i get interrupted a lot if i'm in my office. easier to work where no one can find me."

"Oh!" you said, wondering if you were supposed to take the hint. "I'm sorry, should I let you get back to work?"

"nah, it's cool. i probably need a little break anyway." He pulled himself up into a more standard sitting position and set his laptop down on the table in front of him.

"Are you writing a paper?" you asked, leaning over to examine one of the pages on the table.

"yeah."

"What it's about?"

"uh, particle physics. neutrino behavior. dunno how much you know about this stuff."

"Next to nothing," you admitted quickly. "I've heard the word 'neutrino' but that's about it."

"want me to try and explain it?" he asked.

You snorted. "So I can showcase my ignorance? No thanks."

He grinned. "hey, everyone's got the things they're good at. how about you, you got a thesis planned out yet?"

"Uh, sorta…"

"what about?"

You looked down at your feet, embarrassed. You'd been hoping he wouldn't ask. "Um… mythology and folklore analysis…"

He stared at you for a second, then smirked. "right up my alley."

You laughed weakly. "I know, it's… Well it was supposed to be based on the assumption that folklore is, y'know, allegorical and reflects human psychology more than anything else. When some of it turned out to be real, though, it kinda invalidated my whole field of study…"

You trailed off, but when you realized how accusing that sounded you backpedalled quickly.

"Not that—! Not that I'm blaming you or anything, obviously, it just introduces an interesting new factor and—"

"it's ok, i get it," he said, and gave you a reassuring smile. "and it's probably a mix of both anyway, right?" 

"Yeah," you said, glad that he was being gracious about this potentially sensitive topic. "Now the interesting question is how our literature depicts monsters versus the reality." You stared at the table, frowning slightly. "Actually, I've been thinking it would be neat to do like, a comparative analysis of the way humans and monsters are represented in each others' literature. But it's been impossible to get my hands on any monster lit."

"yeah, a lot of our books are still underground," said Sans. He tapped his finger against his knee cap thoughtfully, and it made a soft, almost musical sound. "gotta be some that made it topside, though."

While he thought this over, you took the opportunity to discretely stare at his foot. The front half was covered by the toe of his slipper, but the rest of the bone was exposed all the way back to the heel. Toes were so much longer than they looked… It made you unusually conscious of the structure of your own foot. Actually, you were pretty sure this was the first skeleton you'd seen in person, dead or not, though you weren't sure how similar his body was to a real skeleton. Or— to a human skeleton.

"what?" he asked, with a teasing note to his voice. "never seen slippers before?"

You looked up guiltily—he'd caught you staring—then you looked away, blushing. "Sorry…" you mumbled.

"it's cool. i know humans are a little weird about skeletons." 

"Well, it's not— I'm just curious, I guess." 

He smiled encouragingly. "you can ask me about it if you're curious. i don't mind."

"You sure?"

"yeah. if you ask anything too personal i'll just shut you down."

"Well…" You rubbed the back of your neck. "It's not really a specific question… More like, I just, wonder how you're held together and what powers your body, and whether your parents looked like this too. And what's your relationship to human skeletons, or if that's just a coincidence."

He was laughing by the time you finished.

"those aren't specific questions?" he asked. "well the answer to most of 'em is magic. and i don't really know why we look like human skeletons, actually."

"Oh. Are there other skeletons?" you asked, noting that he'd said 'we.' You also noticed that he hadn't answered the question about his parents. You didn't know if it was a deliberate omission, or if he just forgot, but you felt guilty for having asked.

"yeah, me and my brother."

"Older or younger?" 

"younger," he said, with a note of fondness in his voice that was rather sweet.

"Heh. Ok, well," you said, standing. "I'm gonna get back to work before I can put my foot any farther in my mouth. Thanks for the distraction."

"don't mention it," he said, laughing.

He has such an easy laugh, you thought as you made your way back to your stuff. You kind of felt like a jerk; some of the stuff you said seemed pretty insensitive in retrospect. You tried not to think about it while you forced yourself back into grading, but of course you thought about it a lot, and about how interesting and nice he seemed.

Nine-thirty. You still had time. You plowed through another six essays before you encountered a paper where the opening sentence was incomprehensible. There were words missing, or there'd been some basic grammatical failure, or both, but no matter how you looked at it the sentence just did not make sense. You read through it about eight times before giving up.

"God, what the fuck," you muttered under your breath. You hadn't realized you'd said it out loud until you heard Sans speak from across the room.

"need another joke?"

"Only if it's good," you replied immediately, and you were rewarded with loud, delighted laughter.

"well i dunno, your standards seem pretty high."

"Maybe I'll lower them just this once," you said, grinning.

"ok uh… why is electricity an ideal citizen?"

After a pause, you asked, "Why?"

"cause it conducts itself so well."

You laughed. "That one wasn't bad actually."

"see the benefit of lowerin' your standards?"

"Ok, get back to work," you teased.

The night went on like that, with similar fits of banter interrupting the silence at intervals. At eleven-fifteen you decided you'd had enough of grading. You weren't even close to done, but tomorrow you'd just have to stay up until you finished.

"I'm going home," you said as you stood in the entranceway with your bag slung over your shoulder. "You gonna be here tomorrow night?"

"maybe," he said coyly.

"Ok, well, maybe I'll see you then."

Chapter Text

At 5:50pm the next day, you stormed into the physics building, threw the exams down on your table in the library, uncapped your red pen, and tried to muster up the determination necessary to grade the remaining twenty-six essays before tomorrow. Final grades were supposed to be released on Monday, so you were going to get this done no matter what. 

Suck it, summer session, you thought as you picked up the first ungraded paper. You tried not to feel disappointed that Sans wasn't there yet. The early evening sun streamed in dimly through the unwashed windows, and the unbroken silence simmered around you as you built up a kind of resigned grading momentum. Solitude was your element. You could do this.

You were muttering to yourself without realizing it, but luckily no one was around to hear you. You made your way through several papers. Eventually you became absorbed enough in your work that you failed to notice the sound of shuffling footsteps until he was standing right next to you.

"huh," said Sans, with a cheeky smile on his face. "you haven't finished these yet?"

Before you could come up with a reply, he dumped a few old books on the table in front of you. "scrounged these up for ya."

Curious, you picked one up, handling it with care—its age was obvious. The spine was stamped with a small, stylized version of the Delta Rune, the emblem that represented the kingdom of monsters.

"Is this… from the Underground?" you asked, unable to keep the wonder out of your voice. You opened it reverently, leafed through the thick, crisp yellow pages, and felt a buzzing excitement build in your chest. This one seemed to be about humans.

"While monsters are mostly made of magic, human beings are mostly made of water."

You gave a breathy, surprised laugh as you read that. The book went on to describe some of the main differences between humans and monsters—mainly the humans' lack of magical ability. And though the information was spotty, and some of the phrasing was strange, you were shocked by how accurate the author's apparent knowledge of human physiology was.

Several minutes went by before you remembered that you weren't alone, and realized that you'd been reading in silence. You looked up sheepishly. Sans was slouched in the chair across from you, watching your reaction with interest.

"Sorry, this is just fucking fascinating," you said. You looked down at the book, and failed to keep yourself from grinning like a fool. When you looked back at Sans he was grinning too. "Can I ask you a question?" 

"shoot." 

"Was this book…" You paused, trying to decide how to phrase your question. "Was this considered modern scientific knowledge?"

"we knew it was true, if that's what you're askin'."

You stared at him while that sank in, and he stared back, his eyes bright and intense in their dark sockets. Finally, you said, "You guys knew we were here. And we just… forgot about you." When you said the words you realized how sad it was. Exiled. Buried and forgotten.

He shrugged. "we knew you guys were real cause humans fell underground sometimes."

And you couldn't get out, was what went unsaid, so of course we forgot you. This conversation had taken a darker turn than you'd expected; you felt the weight of it settle in your chest. You felt tired and sad.

"I'm sorry," you said, in a small voice. You didn't know if you were trying to express your sympathy, or if you were apologizing for bringing it up. 

"don't be," he said gently. "it's interesting gettin' a human's take on things."

You looked down at your feet, mulling it over. After a pause, you asked, "Can I borrow these?" You hefted the book in your hand for emphasis.

"sure. gonna play junior anthropologist?"

You felt yourself blush a little. "Maybe."

He chuckled. "ah, i'm just ribbin' ya."

You— Oh. Another bone joke. You gave an exaggerated sigh, glad he'd lightened the mood, and he laughed at your reaction. He walked off to his side of the room and the both of you got to work.

Or, you tried to get to work. But your attention was torn between the essay in your hand, (the skeleton across the room,) and the small stack of books on the table in front of you. It was like having to wait to open your Christmas presents when they were right there. After grading another two essays, you decided you deserved a reward for your hard work, and snatched up one of the books you hadn't looked through yet. This one contained descriptions of monster customs and traditions. You read through a short passage about monster funerals, then read about a holiday that sounded suspiciously familiar. Speaking of Christmas, you thought with some wonder.

"those essays ain't gonna grade themselves, y'know," said Sans. You managed not to scream this time, and only jumped a little bit in your chair. You dragged your eyes up from the book, mustering your most withering expression. Sans was sitting in the chair across from you, with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped loosely in front of him. He was leaning forward slightly, and you caught a shadowed glimpse of his collarbone and the top of his ribcage from under the collar of his t-shirt. This view fascinated you, but it also felt very invasive and intimate, so you tore your eyes away as quickly as possible. Your scowl deepened, and his grin grew wider in response.

"Would you stop sneaking up on me?" you snapped. "And mind your own business."

"hey, if those kids don't get their grades cause i gave you those books… well i'm gonna feel responsible."

You rolled your eyes, and he snickered.

"Don't worry," you said. "If I didn't have these I'd just find something else to distract me."

"that bad, huh?"

"Well. It's not the worst part of teaching," you admitted.

"what's the worst part?" he asked.

"Feeling like an imposter," you said. You ran a hand through your hair. "I dunno what I'm doing. Like you walk into your section on the first day and it's just like, 'Hi kids! Welcome to amateur hour!'"

Sans laughed out loud, and his smile made his eyes crinkle up at the corners. You really liked making him laugh.

"Don't you ever feel that way?" you asked.

"nah," he said. "i'm real good at bullshitting, so…"

You gave a snort of laughter. "Oh I'm so sure. How many dumb physics puns do you make per class?"

"i try to mix it up. keep 'em on their toes."

Now you were both laughing, not bothering to keep the volume down.

"Ok," you said. "I know you've just been telling me the baby science jokes so far. Why don't you hit me with a real esoteric number?" 

"you think you're ready for that?"

"Sure, bring it on."

Why oh why did it feel like you were flirting with this skeleton. Well you knew why, really. It was because he was weirdly charming (and his voice was sexy). He stared down at the table, frowning slightly. You could almost see him scrolling through his mental catalogue of shitty jokes. Then he looked back up at you, eyes alight with mischief.

"why do heisenberg's position and momentum operators always work from home?"

You stared at him for a second, then threw your head back with surprised laughter. "Wow, fuck that. What's the punchline??" 

"because they don't commute."

"Oh my god…" you said, shaking your head. "Man, now I gotta think up some kinda lit. joke for you."

"you asked for it," he said. He stood up, and hooked his thumb toward his stuff. "i'm gonna get back to work"— He smirked. —"but lemme know if you think you can stump me."

"I will," you said to his retreating form. You took the opportunity to stare openly at the backs of his legs. They really were just… bones. When you realized you were wondering what they felt like you hastily looked back down at your stuff.

You graded several more essays, but around nine your attention started to wander again. You stood and stretched luxuriantly. You heard your joints crack.

"I'm gonna go get some coffee," you said aloud. "You want any?"

"no thanks," Sans replied, distractedly. He was typing quickly, eyes trained on the screen of his laptop. You wished your work was that absorbing… Seeing how immersed he was in his paper made you anxious to get back to your thesis.

You went downstairs to the vending machines and fed your crumpled dollar into the coffee machine. The night air felt good against your face and neck. We can do this, you told the coffee as you trudged back upstairs.

On the way back to your seat, you asked Sans, "So not a coffee drinker, huh?"

"not human coffee," he said, pointedly.

You froze.

"You— Can you not eat human food?" you asked, taken completely aback.

He looked over at you and winked. "don't have the stomach for it."

You ignored the joke and threw yourself into the chair across from him. "Are you serious?" you asked.

"no, i'm sans, remember?"

God. You put your face in your hands and groaned.

"sorry, sorry," he said, trying to suppress his mirth. "i'm serious. monsters gotta eat magic food. you really didn't know?"

"No, I thought—" You gestured helplessly. "I mean I've seen monster food before, I just thought it was like, y'know… there's Mexican food, and there's Indian food, and there's monster food…"

"well… that's part of it. humans can eat monster food. and some monsters can digest human food too. but otherwise…" He laughed self-consciously. "well i literally don't have a stomach."

"Yeah, I…" You shook your head slowly. "I'm sorry, I feel like a complete ignoramus."

"not your fault," he said, and gave a sort of tired chuckle. "our p.r. hasn't always been the best."

Somehow the conversation was getting heavy again. Should you try to change the subject? Or inquire further? Were you a jerk if you didn't want to discuss monster issues with a guy you barely knew? Were you a jerk if you kinda did?

"heh. guess i'm distractin' you again," he said. "sorry 'bout it."

Was he giving you an out? Maybe he didn't want to talk about it either. Guess that was your cue to leave then.

"No it's cool," you said. With some reluctance, you stood. You punched your fist into your other hand. "I'm gonna get back to my shit. Uh, the grading."

"good luck," he called after you.

Nine-thirty. Fuck. You main-lined the last fifteen essays, determined to finish before the library closed. No more friendly banter, no matter how interesting the skeleton was or how much you liked the sound of his voice, or how curious you were about the inadequacies of monster P.R. Summoning what remained of your willpower, you resisted the urge to get up and ignored the monster books on the table beside you and read essays until you finished the last one at 11:35pm. You jumped up and threw your fists over your head in a celebratory gesture.

"Fuck yes."

"finished?" called Sans. 

"Yeah, finally." You walked over to his side of the room and sat on the arm of the chair next to his. "What about you, how's the paper coming?"

"i got a ways to go still," he said. He ran his fingers up and over the back of his skull, making a soft scraping sound. "think i need to call it quits for tonight though." 

You were about to respond, but your stomach chose that moment to grumble loudly. You clapped a hand over it, embarrassed. Sans stared at you with a sort of bewildered expression, then shook his head, smiling slightly. "humans…"

"Hey whatever," you said, grinning. "Do you ever get that thing where, you stay up too late and you start getting hungry again?"

Sans laughed. "yeah, sometimes. guess i am kinda hungry."

"Wanna walk into town and grab a bite?" you asked. The words were out of your mouth before you realized you were going to say them. But now that you'd said them you were very curious about how he would respond. You liked the easy camaraderie that had sprung up between the two of you over the past few nights, and you found that you weren't quite ready to let it go.

He looked surprised, and hesitated. For a second you thought he was going to refuse. Then, with a sort of dazed smile, he said, "sure, why not."

He walked with you to the English building so you could throw the exams on your desk before heading off campus. The night was crisp and windy; Autumn was threatening. When you got to the building he stopped outside.

"i'm gonna stay out here and have a smoke," he said, pulling a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket. 

"I'll be back in a sec," you said as you unlocked the front door. The building was dark, but the hallway lights buzzed on automatically as you walked toward your office. Your officemate was blessedly absent. You carefully skirted the disaster area that constituted her desk and dropped the stack of exams on your own desk with a satisfied sigh.

Back downstairs, you found Sans sitting up on the ledge of a low wall, feet dangling, cigarette resting between his teeth. He sat in shadow, and the lights in his eyes and the tip of his cigarette made a small constellation in the dark as he swung his gaze toward you. You found the image spooky and aesthetically pleasing. 

"Ready?" you asked. 

"yup," he said. As he jumped down from the ledge the scent of his cigarette reached you. Usually you found the smell of cigarette smoke irritating and vaguely offensive… unless you were attracted to the smoker. And right now, the smell was… not unpleasant.

Whoops.

The campus was built contiguous to the surrounding city, so the walk wasn't too long. Walking anywhere with someone you'd just met always had the potential to be tedious and awkward, but Sans was very easy to chat with, and talk flowed freely between you. 

"Is that a magic cigarette?" you asked, as you stepped past the first shops.

"nope," he said.

"Oh."

He laughed at the disappointment in your voice. "just marlboro. my bones absorb the smoke," he said, before you could ask.

Even without lungs. So did that mean he absorbed the air too when he breathed? Whenever he was still, you could see his chest rising and falling, and you'd noted it with interest. It felt invasive to ask about it, and you didn't know what this guy's tolerance for invasive questions was (and you felt like you'd already asked quite a few). You thoughts ventured further. If he couldn't digest food without a stomach, but he could process air without lungs, you wondered what other things his body was capable of. Presumably he didn't have a brain (or did he?), but he could still think. He could speak with no vocal chords. You wondered if he had some kind of nervous system. How much did he feel? Did he feel temperature? Touch? You spent a short, shameless moment imagining yourself running your palm up the exposed bone of his shin and wondering how he would react.

"don't boil over on me, english," said Sans, breaking you out of your reverie. You realized you'd just been staring in silence while your thoughts took a turn for the weird. You looked up at him and grinned sheepishly, blushing a little. He was giving you a cheeky smile. "y'know you can still ask me whatever." 

You— Oh. He probably meant about the smoking thing. And not… anything else. You tried to remember what your original question was. Something about his body absorbing something…?

"Shit!" you said suddenly. "I forgot you can't eat human food! I'm sorry, I'm an idiot, I have no idea where we should actually eat."

"it's ok," he said, chuckling. "i know a couple monster places that're still open."

"Yeah!" you said, and your genuine enthusiasm seemed to amuse him.

He led you to a clean-looking fast food joint, with the words MTT and a picture of a hamburger in garish neon above the entrance.

"heya," said Sans as he swung open the door. Standing behind the counter was a kind of anthropomorphic cat, brown-furred and bushy tailed, wearing a pink apron. He was facing away, but his ear twitched as the door opened and Sans called out. It didn't matter that he was turned around—your recognized him from the back.

He turned to face the door. "Hey Sans, how's— Oh... Hi…" He trailed off awkwardly when he saw you, ducking his head and looking uncomfortable.

"Hi BP!" you called, smiling.

Sans looked surprised, then smirked. "humans call you that too?"

"I met her with Bratty and Catty," said Burgerpants. He gave you a side-long glance. "They liked you, by the way."

"Good, I liked them too," you said. He seemed irritated by your answer. You turned to Sans.

"We TA-ed a Film & Media Studies course together," you explained. Then turning back to Burgerpants, you said, "God, was that already a year ago?"

He grimaced. "I don't wanna think about it."

You smiled to yourself. Burgerpants was chronically disagreeable, but rather than make him hard to be around, it just made him fun to tease. You were actually a little happy to run into him, you realized.

You ordered a Glamburger and Sans ordered a Legendary Hero. The two of your were the only patrons, so when Burgerpants brought your food, he pulled out a chair and joined you at the table. Both monsters watched you with interest as you lifted the burger to your mouth. Their scrutiny made you self-conscious. The thought came unbidden to your mind, that in dealing with the folk of the underworld, one should not eat of their food. You laughed silently to yourself.

Down the rabbit hole, you thought, and took a bite.

It tasted… like a burger. But there was also… something. A tingling in your mouth, or a buzzing in your chest, just above the threshold of your awareness, difficult to pinpoint. 

"It's good," you declared, anti-climactically. Sans grinned. Burgerpants gave a half-hearted smile and rolled his eyes.

"so," said Sans. "what's happenin' bp?"

"God, I thought you'd never ask," said Burgerpants. He proceeded to rant at length about the state of the university, and how the academic model was collapsing, and how much of a windbag one of his professors was and how he'd turned twenty-five without accomplishing anything of note and how he hadn't been on a date in months. He voiced his complaints with a precise and unstudied sarcasm that managed to make his whining entertaining instead of intolerable. He was just how you remembered. You met Sans's eye and shared a conspiratorial glance, both hiding sly smiles.

Later Burgerpants stood at the door to wave you both off as you trudged up the street. He looked a little cheered from having the company, or at least from getting to blow off some steam.

"you gonna be ok walkin' home alone?" Sans asked, eyeing the deserted street.

"Well… My place is right around the corner. Wanna walk with me and gimme your phone number, so you can text me when you want your books back?"

"sure," said Sans. You felt both pleased that he'd agreed and guilty for taking advantage of his apparent chivalry. You exchanged phone numbers while you walked, and arrived at your building more quickly than you'd expected to.

"hey. when is a door not a door?" he asked while you fumbled with your keys.

You spun toward him and said with delight, "When it's ajar!"

He looked a little shocked by your enthusiasm, and you laughed sheepishly. "Sorry. It's my favorite riddle."

He considered you for another moment, then laughed and shrugged. "look pal, i tell jokes, alright? the word riddle's a little too aggrandizin', dontcha think?"

"Jokes are riddles," you insisted. "Just bad ones."

Your laughed together in the dark at the front door of your building, and you smelled the cigarette smoke that still clung to his jacket, and saw how the shadows cast by the harsh light of the porch lamp faintly revealed the contour of his collarbone through his plain cotton t-shirt. You wondered whether you should invite him up, or if that would be weird, but he saved you the trouble of deciding. 

"welp, bye," he said suddenly, and turned to go.

"Oh— Are you walking home?" you asked.

"nah. i can teleport."

"Bullshit," you said. He looked back at you and you crossed your arms frostily.

He snickered. "i mean it."

"How is that possible?" you asked.

"magic," he said, and grinned, and then disappeared.

Chapter Text

It was another week before you saw Sans again, and you didn't have much time to think about him in the meantime as you were swept into pre-semester panic mode. You wanted to start reading ahead for the class you were TAing, but the instructor hadn't responded to any of your emails. Sometimes faculty just disappeared during the off-season—this was behavior you had come to expect—but it still made you feel anxious and underprepared. You had to start getting ready for your stage one exam, and the Russian Literature course you were going to take had a titanic syllabus that hurt your heart to think about. Your friends were starting to notice your state of distress.

Maxine | 10:41am
Hi uhhh, where have you been???

You | 10:59am
I'm coming apart at the seams

You felt bad for responding that way. You knew she would interpret it as sarcasm and back off (that had been your intention), but you probably owed her more of an explanation than that.

You | 11:02am
No I dunno I'm just stressing out about this semester

Maxine | 11:14am
Oh man, tell me about it.
We can do this! Hang in there girl!! 8B

You also texted Sans, once. You couldn't resist when you saw a picture of van Gogh's goofy skeleton portrait.

You | 4:13pm
Sans is this you
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_of_a_Skeleton_with_Burning_Cigarette

You hit Send before you could chicken out, and then immediately felt embarrassed about it. The text was obviously flirtatious, and possibly insensitive. He seemed comfortable talking about skeleton stuff—more than comfortable, really, you thought as you remembered some of his jokes—but once again you weren't sure how much was acceptable from your end. You were in suspense for several hours.

Sans | 8:44pm
hahaha
i dunno but check out these assholes:
https://uploads5.wikiart.org/images/paul-delvaux/the-skeleton-has-the-shell-1944.jpg

You laughed out loud when you opened the link. Good, he was playing along.

You | 8:48pm
Would you consider that a tasteful nude?

Sans | 9:01pm
nope, completely tasteless
how many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb

God damn it, he told art jokes too? That was just unfair. You could feel yourself grinning stupidly as you responded.

You | 9:05pm
You know I can just google the answer, right

Sans | 9:08pm
i woulda been none the wiser

---

The following Thursday was grad student orientation. After going through the typical rounds of semi-formal speeches and awkward shmoozing, you and Maxine and a few of the other English grads took the new first-years out on the town to cut loose. Some of them were already looking a little stressed out.

It won't get any better, haha, you told them in your mind. God you felt old. You were at Pat's, the local second-favorite of the student body. It was a small, homey bar with a vaguely Irish theme, known for its cheeky bartender and its stronger-than-average cocktails.

"You guys ready for the year to start?" asked one of the grad students; a guy named Javier. He was older, about to start his dissertation year, and boy did he look haggard.

"I TA-ed summer session," you sighed. "The year never ended for me." 

"At least your advisor's a sweetheart," said Maxine. She had a hollow look in her eyes as she said, "Unlike mine."

"Hey you guys wanna go to a monster bar next?"

The three of you looked up. The speaker was one of the first-years. You couldn't remember his name, but you recognized him because he'd done an undergrad thesis with your advisor. He'd just gotten his bachelor's in the Spring, and was plowing straight ahead, it seemed. At least he looked enthusiastic about his future. 

You exchanged glances with Javier and Maxine, and saw your feelings mirrored on their faces. It was a sort of careful excitement. The local monster bars, though few, were low-key legendary, proffering strange drinks and unpredictable hook-ups to the humans brave enough to venture inside. Public opinion pinned these establishments as seedy and dangerous, but when it came down to it… monsters were really nice. A lot nicer than humans. And once you knew this, it was difficult to feel unsafe around them.

You rounded up the few first-years who were interested—many were not, and chose to stay at Pat's—and headed down the street to a swanky-looking place called Grillby's. You'd seen it before, and you'd always been curious—admittedly, after meeting Sans you were a little more curious—but the combined effects of peer pressure, a safety-in-numbers mentality, and the vodka shots you'd taken at Pat's were enough to finally draw you in.

The lights inside were dim, and the patrons were endlessly variegated. The bartender was literally on fire. You caught Maxine staring openly at a plant monster with huge teeth and elbowed her sharply in the ribs.

"Keep it together dude," you whispered, and she gave you an apologetic grimace.

You and your crew weren't the only humans in the bar—you noticed a few others scattered around—but you still drew several curious gazes. The first-year who'd suggested this—his name was Andrew, you remembered now—strolled up to the bar like he was a regular. His obvious comfort put the others at ease, and you went up to join him.

"Connie's gonna be so jealous when she hears we did this," said Maxine. She rubbed her hands together at the prospect. That's when you saw Sans.

He was sitting at a tall round table, sneakers dangling from the bar stool he was sitting on, head titled back in an open laugh. Viewing him from afar, you were struck again by how expressive his face was. 

A very tall, (very attractive,) very intimidating fish woman was standing beside the table, leaning on one hand and grinning down at him. You wondered briefly if it was a date, and you were amused by how unhappy that thought made you feel. But then Burgerpants walked up to the table, sat in the chair beside Sans, and fell into the conversation easily. You immediately felt better. You were pretty sure BP would have thrown a hissy fit if he'd had to play the third-wheel.

Sans looked up then and caught your eye. He looked surprised, then gave you that big, crinkly-eyed smile and you were absolutely done for.

"Hey," you said to Maxine. "Believe it or not I know a couple of the guys over there. I'm gonna go say hi."

She leaned into you and hissed in your ear, "You're supposed to wingman me with Javier."

"Max you got this, don't worry," you whispered back, and clapped her on the arm.

"Dude."

"Bye Max!" you said, grinning, and headed toward the monsters.

"welcome to grillby's, english," said Sans as you approached the table. He was wearing that same ratty blue hoodie and you were happier to see him than you wanted to admit.

"What are you, the doorman?" you asked, flashing him a snarky grin. You knew it was probably a flirtatious snarky grin and you mentally kicked yourself. You turned to Burgerpants. "Hey BP."

"Hey, little buddy," he said, and pointed his finger at you like a pistol. Wow, was he already tipsy? He raised a hand toward the fish woman, in an ironic imitation of Vanna White, and said, "This is—"

"Man, your little posse looked scared shitless when they first walked in!" she said, cutting him off, and shoving her hand directly into your personal space. You gave her your own hand and she shook it with almost cartoonish violence.

"Name's Undyne," she said, and flashed you a big, toothful grin. "So how do you know these two losers?" She said this playfully, without venom. 

"School," you said, and it sounded like such a juvenile answer that you both started laughing.

"Well, take a seat, twerp," she said, gesturing toward the fourth stool.

You hopped up gamely, glancing back at the bar as you did so. Maxine was having an animated discussion with Javier and one of the first-years. She was leaning over on her crossed arms, and looking up at Javier with a big smile on her face. It was a rather more flirtatious posture than you'd thought she was capable of. 

You go girl, you thought, and turned back toward the monsters.

You liked Undyne immediately. Brazen and unapologetic, she was the kind of high-volume badass that you were helplessly prone to idolize. Her default expression was menacing, with her long teeth and her single slit-pupiled eye, but there was something genuine and infectious about her smile.

"So where's Papyrus?" asked Burgerpants.

Sans crossed his arms behind his head and pretended to lean back. "at a party. all by himself." He said this like a parent bragging about their kid's first bike ride.

"Yeah he was supposed be my drinking buddy tonight," Undyne snarled. She grabbed Burgerpants in a loose headlock and ruffled the fur on his head. "Guess you'll have to do."

BP hissed half-heartedly and Undyne turned to Sans. "Are you textin' 'im right now? Tell him he better be having a good time or else!"

Sans had his phone in his hand and was indeed texting rapidly with one thumb. You watched with interest. How the heck did that work? Didn't you need… Well, you didn't actually know how touchscreens worked, you realized. Body heat? He wasn't warm, was he? When you imagined touching him the bone was cool under your fingers He was a skeleton after all. But he was also magic.

"just ask me, i know you wanna," he said. When you didn't respond, he looked up from his phone and smirked at you.

"How do you use a touchscreen with no skin?" you asked.

"heh. i just fake the conductivity." He held up his hand and wiggled his bony fingers. Then he laughed at your uncomprehending expression.

"most touch screens use somethin' called 'capacitive sensing,'" he explained. "means there's a conductor over the glass that reacts to your skin. human skin conducts electricity cause of oils and sweat and stuff, so when you touch your phone, it distorts the electrostatic field of the screen and it registers that change in the device."

"Huh," you said. "That's really cool, actually. I thought it was just heat-sensitive or something."

"nah. coulda faked that too, though, if i needed."

"But how?" 

"magic. duh." 

You gave him a dry look and he snickered at you. "ok c'mere, gimme your hand."

You held out your hand, palm up. Sans set down his phone and carefully placed the tips of his fingers against your palm. The bones were cool and hard, like you'd imagined they would be. To your embarrassment, his touch made your heart beat a little faster. You looked at his face, but he was looking down at your hands. For a moment nothing happened. Then you felt a faint warmth coming from his fingers, persistent and tactile. There was almost a shape to the sensation, a pressure beyond that of the feeling of his blunt fingertips pressed into your skin.

"Whoa…" you said. His eyes met yours and he grinned at you.

"can't explain it much better than that," he said, pulling his hand away. Undyne laughed at the expression on your face.

"C'mon, that's baby stuff. You need to hang out with monsters more often." She leaned into you conspiratorially. "Check this out."

"Oh my god, do not do that in here," Burgerpants hissed. "Grillby got so pissed last time."

Undyne ignored him, and gestured for you to look down at her hand, hanging below the table. She narrowed her eye, glaring down at her splayed fingers, until something bright began to coalesce in the air just under her palm. It took shape rapidly, sparking and shimmering until she held a short, glowing blue spear in her webbed fist. It looked solid, but only just so. Faint, milky patterns swirled across its surface, and it seemed to crackle around the edges.

Undyne looked up at you, smirking. "That's magic."

"Holy shit," you said appreciatively.

"Ok. I'm outta here," said Burgerpants, standing. "Before Grillby comes and scorches our asses… Sans?" He held up a pack of cigarettes, and raised a questioning eyebrow.

"yep," said Sans, jumping down from his stool. "i'm all outta strikes in this joint. you two play nice," he said over his shoulder, as he and BP headed toward the rear exit.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Undyne rounded on you. 

"So ya got the hots for Sans or what?" she asked, grinning devilishly.

"What!" you barked. You felt your face grow warm. "I barely know him!"

"So?"

"Uh…" You shot a panicked glance around the room, then thought, fuck it. "Well… yeah, sorta…"

She threw her head back and laughed, which was a reaction you had no idea how to interpret.

"Damn," she said, and smacked her thigh, still laughing. "You gonna go for it or what?"

"Do… you think he's interested?" you hedged. In humans? you wanted to add, but you weren't sure of the best way to say it.

"Hmm…" She turned serious, scratching her claws against her scaly cheek. "Kinda hard to tell with that guy. He seemed pretty chummy though." She flashed you a lascivious smirk, her yellow eye practically gleaming in the dim light of the bar. "Why don't you put the moves on 'im and see where it gets you?" 

You sort of couldn't believe you were having this conversation, but it was too late to turn back now. Grimacing, you asked, "Got any tips?"

She gave a snort of laughter. "He likes shitty jokes."

"Yeah, I already figured that out."

"Well I dunno," she said, snickering. "He's a good guy, but he's kind of a lazy asshole. Don't wait for him to make the first move."

As you considered that, one of the many dogs in the bar approached the table. He was wearing a tank top and a spiked collar, and had a ragged, shifty-eyed look.

"Hey Undyne, you seen Burgerpants around?" he asked, scratching under his collar.

Undyne leered at him. "What am I, his keeper?"

"He's smoking out back," you offered, and the dog yelped and jumped back.

"God…" he said, clutching at his chest and fixing you with a wide-eyed stare. "Didn't see you there…"

Your eyes widened in response. "Sorry!" you said, mystified. You hadn't meant to startle him, but you weren't sure how you'd startled him either.

He sat on one of the empty stools and talked with Undyne for a few minutes. When he left, she turned back to you immediately.

"So what's your plan of attack?"

"My what?"

"Y'know… with Sans! Oh shh, they're coming back."

Sans and Burgerpants returned to the table, both laughing and smelling like smoke. They'd picked up beers somewhere along the way. Magic beers, you thought, and had to quell hysterical laughter. Sans tipped his bottle back and let the contents pour through his teeth, where they were apparently absorbed by his body, since they didn't fall through the bottom of his skull. He caught you watching, and gave you a sidelong grin.

"Hey," said Burgerpants, leaning closer to you. "Do the thing."

"The what?" you asked. 

"C'mon dude, I'm too drunk to be coy." He crooked a finger toward his ear, pointing.

You smirked. "In public?"

"Just do it," he said. Snickering, you reached up and started to scratch behind his ear. His reaction was immediate. He put his head down on his arms—your hand following to keep scratching him—and he gave a long, sighing groan. Undyne looked down at him with a mixture of amusement and disgust.

"You're so whipped, BP," she said.

"You can't understand how this feels," he replied, voice muffled against his arms.

"think he'll start purring?" asked Sans.

"Shh, listen," you said, putting your finger to your lips. "He already is." 

Grinning, Sans leaned over and rested the side of his head against BP's upper back to listen. He was now inches from your fingers. You indulged in a brief, vivid fantasy of running your hand over the cool, smooth surface of his skull and had to willfully resist the urge to reach over and touch him.

"you must be feline pretty good, bp."

"Shut. Your mouth," said Burgerpants weakly, and shoved Sans off of him without looking up. Moments later, a large white paw landed with a thump on BP's back, in almost the exact same spot where Sans's head had been. It was the dog in the tank top again. This time you were the one startled—you jerked your hand back in surprise.

"Hey BP," he said.

"Doggo," said Burgerpants, lifting his head and looking annoyed.

"You got my stuff?"

With an extravagant sigh, Burgerpants shoved away from the table. "Yeah, it's in my car."

As Burgerpants and the dog-man walked off, Sans and Undyne exchanged glances. Then Sans grinned. "there goes your back-up drinkin' buddy."

"Yeah I know, fuck," said Undyne. "OK! Third time's a charm then!"

She jumped up suddenly, grabbing both you and Sans by the upper arms and hauling you out of your seats. Her grip was incredibly strong. She lead you all the way up to the bar before releasing her hold on you and slamming her elbow down on the bar top.

"Ok, do your worst, Grillby!"

The bartender turned toward her, flames flickering above his wire-frame glasses. Sitting near him was exactly like sitting down next to a lit fireplace: warm and cozy. It was barely audible above the noise of the bar, but you noticed that he even emitted soft hissing and crackling sounds, just like a wood fire. It was extremely pleasant, and you felt a little of the day's tension ease off of you.

"Just surprise me with something," said Undyne. She turned toward you, "What about you, shorty?"

You held up a hand, and said wryly, "No thanks, I'm poor."

"Aw, it's on me," she said. To Grillby, she said, "Make her a fruity cocktail or something."

"Just whiskey, thanks," you said hurriedly. "Or— Y'know. The equivalent thereof."

Undyne smirked at you, and opened her mouth to say something, but then paused. "Whoops." She reached into her pants pocket and pulled out her cellphone. "Girlfriend's calling. Gotta go! Be back in a bit!"

She made very pointed eye-contact with you, then headed toward the exit.

"careful, english," said Sans. "you let undyne think you wanna play hardball and she'll drink you right under the table."

"Do I look like the kind of girl that drinks fruity cocktails?" you asked, raising an eyebrow.

"uh… what's the right answer to that question?"

You both laughed. Grillby turned toward the bar and went to set Undyne's drink down, but hesitated when he saw she'd left.

"leave it," said Sans, and winked at him. "if she doesn't come back we'll take care of it for her."

He put the drink down on the bar. It was a dark, dark liquid, fizzing and sizzling slightly, with a faint red glow showing through from the center of the glass. You and Sans stared at it, then looked at each other.

"I'll take one of those, please," you said. 

As Grillby poured your drinks, you caught Maxine's eye from across the bar. She was still sitting with the other grad students, and to your relief, they looked like they were having a good time. You felt a little less guilty about ditching them.

You lifted your eyebrows at Maxine, as if to ask, You ok over there? She gave you a wide-eyed look in response, but you didn't know if that meant "Are you ok over there?" or "No please help me."

Frowning, you discretely pointed at yourself, then at her. Need me to come over there? 

She made a little shooing gesture with her hand. No, stay, proceed.

At least that's what you thought it meant. 

Grillby set your drink down with a soft clink. You picked it up and held it close to your face, trying to find the source of the red glow through the glass and liquor. It was murky and indistinct, and rather beautiful. You looked to Sans. He was holding his own drink now: a light, innocuous amber liquid. He was looking at Grillby, but pointing at you.

"you sure that's safe for her to drink?" he asked. Grillby turned toward him and stared. Despite Grillby's lack of a proper face, it managed to be a very withering look.

"alright, alright," said Sans, holding his hands up in surrender. "bottoms up, english."

You clinked your glass against his, then took a long sip of your drink. Just like at the burger place, both monsters watched you with open curiosity, waiting to see your reaction. The liquor was delicious, but otherwise unremarkable. It had a dark, strong taste, with hints of molasses and ginger.

You swallowed and let out a loud breath, then grinned. "Hell yeah," you said, throat thick around the burn of the alcohol. Sans grinned and took a sip of his own drink. You heard Grillby make a faint crackling sound, which you chose to interpret as a sign of approval.

"Ok Sans," you said, smacking your hand against the bar top. "Got a riddle for you."

He gave you a sly look. "thought i told you i don't do riddles."

"Oh I think you'll like this one." 

"heh. alright, try me." 

"Four fingers and a thumb, yet flesh and blood I have none. What am I?"

He laughed, and the delighted look on his face gave you a warm feeling in your chest.

"you're right, i like it. uh…" He stared out across the bar, gaze unfocused, for several moments. You smugly sipped your drink as you watched him puzzle over your riddle. You saw it the minute he figured it out. His expression lit up, and he said, "a glove." 

"Damnit!" you said, laughing. You were starting to feel the effects of your drink now. The dull warmth of the alcohol was settling into you, making your movements fluid and languid, and your thoughts looser. But you also felt a giddy, overdriven feeling build in your chest, rising up from your stomach and spreading out into your limbs. You assumed this was the magic. It was like drinking something both alcoholic and caffeinated. You couldn't keep the grin off your face.

"ok," said Sans. He finished off his drink, then said, "what comes twice in a lifetime but only once in a thousand years?"

"I knew you had some of these up your sleeve," you teased. "Ok, lemme think." You didn't have to think for very long. "The letter 'e.'"

"ah, you already knew it."

"This is my field, dude, give me some credit." You put a knowing finger in the air. "You always try out the wordplay answer first. If that doesn't work, then you try to think of other stuff." You paused to sip your drink, then asked, "What word is most commonly pronounced incorrectly?"

Sans frowned, concentrating, then smirked. "'incorrectly.'" 

"Heh. Yeah, you got it."

"ok," he said. "there's a black dog sittin' on a black road. no moon, no street lights or anything. a car comes down the road, and it doesn't have headlights on, or any light comin' off it, but it still steers around the dog. how did the driver know the dog was there?"

You thought it over for several minutes, while Grillby poured Sans another drink. You didn't think this one was just a pun or a language puzzle. You knew you must be missing something obvious, but you couldn't figure out what it was. You had Sans repeat the clue twice, watching him carefully in case his expression gave anything away, but eventually you threw in the towel. 

"I give up," you said. "How?"

"it's still daytime."

You quickly replayed his words in your mind, before cackling and slapping the bar top. "God damnit! You totally got me with that one."

Undyne reappeared at that moment, throwing her arms around both of your necks and crowing, "Oh my god you nerds! This ain't appropriate barroom conversation!"

"actually," drawled Sans, "i'd argue bars were built on this kinda bullshittin'."

"Whatever," she said. She grabbed her drink off the bar—the one Grillby had left for her—and swallowed it in one gulp, setting down the glass with a thunk. "Ok. We're taking shots. You too," she said, jabbing a finger at your chest. "Still on me, and no arguing."

She cajoled you into taking a shot of sapphire-blue liquid that burned like fire going down but made the sounds around you sharper and colors stand out more brightly. You distinctly saw several golden strands of hair running through Undyne's thick auburn ponytail, and when Sans chuckled at something you said, you felt the bass notes of his rumbling laugh in your bones. Eventually Burgerpants and Doggo came back too, looking mellow and red-rimmed, and you spent the next hour actually having a really great time. You cut yourself off early when you realized that Undyne would drink you under the table, just as Sans said; and besides, you felt bad for letting her pay. So you just joked around with them and laughed and enjoyed yourself.

When Undyne caught you yawning loudly she smirked. "Uh oh. Are we keeping the human up past her bedtime?"

"Heh. Guess I better head home," you said, stifling another yawn.

"You need someone to walk you?" asked Undyne. She rounded on Sans and barked, "YOU! Walk her home!"

"alright, sheesh!" he said, laughing and jumping down from his seat. Once his back was turned, Undyne winked very unsubtly in your direction. You rolled your eyes.

"You don't really have to walk me if you don't want," you told him, although you really wanted him to.

"nah, it's cool," he said, smiling. "your place is close."

"Oh! Shit, I gotta tell my friends I'm leaving. Gimme a sec."

"i'll be out back," he said. 

You threaded your way back to the bar and found Maxine.

"Hey," you said. "I'm leaving."

"With who?" she hissed, grabbing your arm. "The cat guy??"

"No! Uh… with the… the skeleton…"

Maxine's eye widened. "Damn, girl."

"Maybe. I dunno. I can't tell if he's interested."

"Wow… I didn't know you…" She made a helpless gesture with her hands. "I'm trying to come up with a boner joke. Y'know, cause he's—"

You clapped her on the shoulder. "Don't strain yourself, honey. How's it going with Javier?"

"Horrible!" she said, bristling. "He's completely oblivious! You better just make your feelings clear with your dude, cause trying to drop hints is an exercise in futility, I swear to god."

With Maxine's blessing, sort of, you headed toward the rear exit of the bar. You didn't have a "plan of attack" beyond… well, you had no idea what you were doing, actually. All you knew was that you really wanted to put your hands on Sans, and that his friend Undyne had encouraged you to do so. You weren't very drunk anymore, but you were still drunk enough to feel a little reckless.

You emerged into the cool night air at the back of the building and found Sans waiting with his back against the brick wall. 

"Hi," you said. You walked over to him with your heart hammering in your chest.

"hey," he said. "got another one for ya: what do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?"

You threw your head back with genuine laughter. "Wow! Jeez, that's a good one. What's the punchline?"

"there isn't one," he said, grinning. He swung his bright gaze up toward yours, and you just went for it. You leaned into him and pressed your lips to his teeth. Really, it was a pretty chaste kiss. His teeth were cold and dry beneath your lips, and you pulled back after only a moment.

He looked shocked. His eyes were wide, pupils constricted down to tiny, bright points that almost hurt to look at. He just stared at you, unmoving. Oh fuck.

"Oh my god!" you said. You slapped your hands over your cheeks. "I'm so sorry! I— I thought you were flirting with me!"

That seemed to un-freeze him. "wh— well i was, but…" He looked away, bewildered. "i didn't think it would actually work…"

You huffed a laugh. "Why not?"

"because, i'm just a fuckin'… dweeby skeleton…"

"But I think you're really cute," you blurted out. His gaze snapped back to yours, and in the dim light behind the bar, you saw a faint, dark color dust his cheekbones.

"Oh my god," you said. "Are you blushing?"

"i'm a skeleton," he said, "i can't blush."

"You totally are," you accused. Without thinking, you reached up and placed your hands on either side of his face. The bone was cool as the night under your fingers, except for two patches of warmth along his cheekbones.

"You're warm," you said breathlessly. He shut his eyes. He looked extremely embarrassed. You hoped it was a good kind of embarrassment, but suddenly you had no idea and wondered if you were too tipsy to responsibly navigate this situation.

"I don't know how to interpret your reaction," you admitted slowly.

"…'m happy 'bout it," he mumbled. Ok. That was good. Now what, genius? You were just standing there holding his face. You leaned in and, very carefully, rested your forehead against his. The cold bone felt good against your flushed face. He let out a breath, then reached up and curled his fingers loosely around your wrists. The sensation was at once arousing and jarring. His hands were as cold as the rest of him, hard and jointed and distinctly inhuman; they felt inanimate. But at the same time the movement was so fluid and natural, with so much clear intention behind it that they were obviously the hands of something alive. It gave you an uncanny feeling, even as your heartbeat sped up and your breathing grew shallower.

You thought he was going to pull your hands away, kept waiting for him to do so, but he just held on.

"I want… to make out," you said.

"ha! yeah, ok, i know." Finally he opened his eyes, and there was a glint of mischief in them. "how drunk are you?" 

"Not that drunk."

"do you, uh… wanna go back to my place?"

"Yeah… How far is it?"

"lincoln and third."

"That's far."

He winked at you. "yeah, but i know a shortcut."

"What… Oh! You mean… teleporting? Can you bring me too?" The prospect was both frightening and exciting.

"yep."

"What do I do?"

"just try to hold still," he said. His fingers tightened around your wrists.

Chapter Text

You experienced an intense and horrible falling sensation. It felt like the universe was being jerked out from under you, like you were pitching forward and falling backward at the same time and you couldn't feel your body anymore or see or hear and everything was just gone.

It was over in a second. And then you were back on solid ground in a dark room, overwhelmingly nauseous, with Sans's cold hands still around your wrists. You stumbled into him, then grabbed him by the collar of his t-shirt.

"Where's the bathroom," you cut out.

"uh… there…" You turned and bolted in the direction he was pointing, through a doorway into a small tiled room which you desperately hoped was actually the bathroom. You fell to your knees, yanked the toilet lid out of your way and threw up.

Sometimes when you were drunk and vomiting, it took a few false starts before you really got going. Not this time. Everything came up immediately and violently. The only advantage was that, for the moment, you felt too sick to feel humiliated.

"you ok?" Sans asked from behind you. He must have been standing in the doorway. He sounded like he was trying not to laugh.

"Fuck… teleportation…" you wheezed, and then he really did laugh. Smug asshole.

"sorry. you said you weren't that—" But you couldn't hear the rest of his words over the sound of yourself throwing up again. When it was over you just hung your head blearily over the toilet, catching your breath, tears and snot running down your face in rivulets. Your head was still swimming, but you felt slightly better, maybe. The light flickered on, and you made a low, angry sound. The bathroom smelled like everything you'd drank that evening. This probably wasn't the worst way things could have gone down, but it sure fucking felt like it.

Sans lowered himself next to you and the toilet, fingers clicking against the floor tiles, and sat with his back against the wall. You resisted the urge to beg him to go away—it was his bathroom, after all.

"I'm dying," you rasped.

"you're fine," he said. "it's just the alcohol."

You tried to glare at him, but it wasn't much different from the expression you were already making. "You're just used to it."

"heh. maybe. want some water?"

You nodded weakly, and he got back up and left the bathroom. You got to suffer in solitude for a few minutes. You laid your head against the toilet seat, too ill to care how gross that was, and sighed raggedly. At least you could flush the toilet while you were suffering. You reached up with a trembling hand and pulled the lever, rolling your head to the side so you weren't directly in the splash zone. Your fingers came away from the lever with a thin coating of dust. There was dust around the rim of the toilet seat too, and now that you were paying attention, you saw that the whole fixture looked rather cleaner than you would have expected, ignoring the fresh mess you'd made.

Sans returned, set a glass of water next to you, and sank back into his position on the floor.

"Magic water?" you asked, voice rough.

He snickered. "just tap water."

"You don't use this toilet, do you?" you accused.

"nah."

"You don't need to use it."

"nope." He was grinning broadly at you, amused by your questioning, or maybe the whole situation.

You processed this new information slowly. Then, with a weak chuckle, you asked, "Does it gross you out that humans have to shit?"

"no," he said, laughing. "and actually… the fact that humans are so grossed out by it is, uh, kinda hilarious."

"Heh. Ok. I'm just gonna… sit here for a sec. And recover. If that's ok."

"what, you're not ready to make out yet?" he teased.

"Shut up," you whined, laughing despite yourself, and he snickered along with you. Your laughter turned into a groan as another wave of nausea rolled through you. "Just… fuck this…" you muttered.

You were surprised when he reached out a hand and began to run his fingers gently up and down your back. It didn't have the same warm comfort as a human hand—a little more like a back scratch than a back rub—but it was soothing nonetheless. You let your eyes fall closed.

"that ok?" he asked.

"Yeah…" you mumbled. For a few seconds, you just sat there and let him rub your back while you rested.

"I'm sorry," you said, finally. "Whatever this was gonna be… I guess I ruined it…"

"i'm still having fun," he said playfully.

"Asshole," you said, and he laughed. Even as sick as you felt, you were warmed by the sound of his laughter.

"it's not your fault," he said. "i shoulda… warned you or somethin'."

"Yeah, and I woulda said, 'Sounds great! I never get motion sick!'"

He chuckled. "how ya feelin' now?"

You raised your head experimentally. "Well… Humiliated, but otherwise ok… Guess I should go home."

"i'll call you a cab," he said.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and shuffled out of the bathroom, and you washed your face and tentatively drank your glass of water. Then you stepped out into the dark living room. Sans was standing by the door, talking on the phone in a low voice. You couldn't see much, but the place looked like it was a mess. You grinned to yourself. From the little you knew of Sans, the state of his apartment didn't surprise you. It was bigger than you would have expected, though. A lot bigger than your own apartment… You could see two bedroom doors down a dark hallway.

"Do you have roommates?" you asked Sans when he hung up the phone.

"oh, uh, i was living with my brother up until a couple months ago. before he moved into the dorms." He laughed distractedly. "yeah, sorry about the mess. the place was a lot cleaner when he was still around."

You eyed the stack of books toppling over in the corner, and the laundry piled on the couch, indistinct in the dark. It was too bad; if the night had gone differently you might have been lying on that couch right now, back cushioned against the laundry, with your hand under Sans's shirt, touching his ribs—

Stop, you told yourself. Stop having that thought right now before you can embarrass yourself even further.

Sans led you down the stairs to the front of the building. Once you were outside you saw that it was kind of a nice neighborhood; not what a typical grad student could afford. Was it the rumored "monster gold" at work?

Fucking rich kids, you thought sourly.

"welp," he said. "hate to do this to ya, but i'm gonna go back inside."

"Too chilly for you?" you teased, trying to keep the disappointment out of your voice.

"nah. it's just that, uh… sometimes cabbies get a little nervous when they see it's a monster, y'know?"

"Oh," you said in a small voice. "I'm sorry. That sucks."

"ah, it's cool," he said, smiling ruefully.

--- 

The cab ride home was an exercise in mortification. Sans had been really nice about everything, but holy shit did you fuck that up. Where was the reset button so you could go back and undo the whole fiasco?

You stared into the back of the cab driver's head, wondering if he would have seen Sans and just kept on driving. The thought made you sad.

Chapter Text

Sans | 7:43pm
knock knock

You glanced down at your phone to see who'd texted you and froze in the middle of folding a t-shirt. You threw yourself on your bed, laundry forgotten, and stared at your phone. It had been three days since you'd thrown up in Sans's bathroom, and you'd assumed the unwritten agreement was to pretend the whole thing hadn't happened and never speak again. You were nervous when you responded, but you knew what to say.

You | 7:50pm
Who's there

Sans | 7:53pm
nausea

Oh my fucking god.

You| 8:12pm
This Had Better Be Good 

Sans | 8:22pm
i nausea probably still rattled about tuesday nite but will u let me take u out to dinner

"Nausea"? "Noz - ya"? "Knows ya"? You spent enough time trying to decipher the wordplay, and wondering if "rattled" was supposed to be a bone reference, that several seconds went by before you fully processed the question. You jumped out of bed with a little yelp, and began to pace around the room. Was he asking you out? What the fuck. You wanted to see him again, but you were also still really embarrassed. And you didn't know if you were outraged or relieved that he was making a joke out of it.

You | 8:38pm
A for effort 

Sans | 8:44pm
is that a no

You | 8:52pm
It's not a no

---

You agreed to meet Sans at his apartment at 5pm, but you got there 20 minutes early taking the bus. Since you were trying to Play It Cool™, you didn't want to let on that you were early, so you didn't text him until five minutes till.

You | 4:55pm
Hey I'm here

Five minutes went by. Ten minutes. Was it too soon to push the buzzer next to the door? Before you could start to psyche yourself out, Sans was suddenly there on the sidewalk in front of you. You sucked in a sharp breath, startled enough that your heart stuttered in your chest.

"sorry!" he said, stumbling a little as he appeared. "am i late?"

You sat heavily on the edge of the planter by the door, twigs and leaves poking into your back, and tried to calm your racing heart.

"It was only five minutes…" you said weakly.

"oh. huh." He glanced down at his phone to check the time, then grinned. "nevermind then, not that sorry."

"Can you at least be sorry for scaring the shit out of me?"

"aw, show a little backbone, english," he said, winking at you. "teleportation's just somethin' you're gonna have to get used to."

"Never."

He chuckled. "don't worry. you'll probably only puke the first couple times."

You glared at him. "Did you ask me out just so you could make fun of me?"

"heh, no. sorry." He tried to look contrite, but his amusement was obvious. He sat down beside you and gave you a gentle pat on the back. "just think some things are easier to deal with if you make a joke out of 'em."

"As long as you can take what you dish out," you snapped.

He laughed loudly at that. You were pleased that he seemed to find you entertaining, though you weren't sure if he was laughing with you or at you at this point.

And of course, you secretly were happy that he was joking about the other night. At least he thought it was funny, instead of revolting. You felt a little more at ease as you walked with him down the street. You mused that this was your first time seeing him in daylight, and it gave you a kind of surreal feeling. It was as if you hadn't quite believed in him until now, but seeing him in the sun made him finally and undeniably real: a walking, talking skeleton, slouching and wearing basketball shorts. The sunlight dulled the bright lights peering out from his eye sockets, and his lazy grin gave you a warm, fluttery feeling in your stomach.

He took you to a restaurant at an upscale monster hotel, the letters MTT emblazoned over the front door. They were familiar initials, but you couldn't remember where you'd seen them before.

The maître d' was a hulking, anthropomorphic fish, wearing a tiny green beret.

"Good evening, welcome to— Sans, my man!"

"sup, bro?" said Sans, grinning. They clapped each other on the back, the monster's fin leaving a damp patch on Sans's hoodie. You eyed the monster with some trepidation, and they gave you a big, sharp-toothed smile in return.

"Hey man, when are you gonna perform again?" they asked, as they showed you and Sans to a booth at the back. "Feels like forever since I've seen you here."

"aw hey, i been busy y'know?" said Sans. "besides, mettaton was pretty pissed after the last time." This made them both snicker. Mystified, you slid into your seat and picked up the menu, then pretended to read it while Sans chatted with the fish.

This place was way too fancy for you. Even from your seat in the back, mercifully hidden from the rest of the patrons, you could see the glossy chandeliers and the red-curtained stage where a jazz band played soft music. You were definitely under-dressed, but you were nowhere near as under-dressed as Sans, and he looked perfectly at ease.

"So what, you 'perform' here?" you asked, cutting pronounced air quotes that made Sans grin. "Please tell me you do standup."

"well… i'm usually sittin' down, but—"

"Oh christ," you said, rolling your eyes, and Sans laughed.

It turned out that hanging out with Sans in a fancy restaurant was just as fun as hanging out with him in the library or at the bar. He was cheerfully irreverent about the smarmy atmosphere of the place, which you appreciated, though he seemed more interested in the music than you would have expected.

Near the end of the evening, you checked your phone while you were in the bathroom, and saw you had a text message from your friend.

Connie | 5:31pm
Got plans tonight?

You | 6:01pm
I'm on a date

Connie | 6:03pm
WHAT
Why didnt you tell me?????

You | 6:03pm
Sorry!! It happened kinda fast

While you were washing your hands, you looked at yourself in the mirror and tried to seriously ask yourself what your intentions were. Were you really trying to hook up with a skeleton? Yes, you thought guiltily. When you'd kissed him behind the bar the other night, it had been strange, but not unpleasant. You remembered the way his fingers felt around your wrists and your heart thumped in your chest.

Connie | 6:04pm
Is he cute

You | 6:07pm
Yes

You grinned, knowing that whatever she imagined, it would probably be wrong. When you got back to the table, Sans was smearing ketchup on his last bite of steak.

"That's vile, dude," you said.

With a cheeky smile, he said, "this is how they do it in fancy joints, right?"

"You're disrespecting the steak, is what you're doing."

You grinned at each other. His pupils was bright in the dim, atmospheric lighting of the restaurant, in a way that continued to be just below the threshold of eerie. Something about his eyes made you feel more looked at than human eyes did. You felt a chill run up your back. Your phone buzzed in your pocket.

Connie | 6:09pm
Pics??

You looked down at your phone and snorted, and Sans gave you an inquiring look.

"I told my friend I was on a date," you explained. "She wants to see a picture of you."

Sans looked thoughtful for a second, then smirked. Briefly, he scrolled around on his phone, then said, "send her that."

Your phone chimed with a message from Sans: It was a picture of a plastic skeleton, obviously taken in a Halloween store.

"She's gonna think I'm full of shit!" you protested, but you were laughing, and of course you sent it to her. The joke was too good to pass up.

Connie | 6:14pm
Wtf
Well hey there handsome ;P

Grinning, you told Sans, "She says 'Hey there, handsome.'"

"ha! tell her i say thanks."

Connie | 6:14pm
Tell him i said that

You | 6:15pm
One step ahead of you
He says thanks ;)

"You've got ketchup on your face," you said to Sans, shoving your phone back into your pocket, then gesturing to the left corner of your mouth.

"where? here?" He scrubbed at the opposite corner of his own mouth with his napkin.

"No, here." You tapped the corner of your mouth more precisely.

"here?" he asked, rubbing at a spot near his eye socket, trying not to smile and failing. Ok he was doing it on purpose.

"Give me that," you said, and snatched the napkin out of his hand. You leaned across the table and wiped at the corner of his mouth, and when the napkin didn't get it all, you licked your thumb and rubbed the rest of it off.

"gross," he said.

Mock serious, you said, "Look Sans, this is a fancy establishment."

"lucky you've got such good table manners," he said, laughing.

When you left the restaurant, you both casually agreed that it was too early to call it a night, and when you got back to his building you went upstairs with him. Now that you were in better condition, you could really appreciate just how messy his apartment was. It was like someone had upended a junk shop in the living room.

He asked if you wanted a drink, and you said yes. The monster wine you'd had at dinner left you feeling, not tipsy, but frayed and strange. It gave a sense of unreality to the situation—on top of what you already felt, given the fact that you were planning to make out with a skeleton.

While he rooted around in the kitchen, you pawed through some of the junk scattered around the living room, trying to distract yourself from your growing nervousness. This was the worst part of trying to hook up with someone: getting to the point. You'd already established that you were interested in each other at the bar, but enough time had passed that somehow the barrier had come back up between you.

If he wasn't interested anymore, why would he take you to dinner? you asked yourself, but you couldn't help remembering what a mess you'd been the other night. The last thing you wanted to do was embarrass yourself further, or worse, make him uncomfortable.

Not to mention the fact that he was presumably a different species from yourself, or something, and his erogenous zones and pretty much everything else about his body was a complete mystery to you. The thought scared you as much as it thrilled you.

Without thinking, you'd picked a long object out of a cardboard box on the coffee table, and turned it over and over in your hands as you thought. You realized that the object was a bone. A long one, like a leg bone.

Of fucking course, you thought, frowning at it.

"it's just on the rocks," said Sans from behind you. "hope that's ok."

You turned toward him, held up the bone, and raised your eyebrows.

"heh." He grinned. "it's my brother's stuff. from underground."

"Why do you have these?" You paused, then asked, hesitantly, "Are they, uh… replacement parts?"

That made him laugh out loud, head thrown back, eye sockets crinkled up at the corners in a way that you already found hopelessly cute. He handed you one of the glasses.

"they're for fightin'. take this before i spill it."

You took the glass. "Did you fight a lot in the Underground?"

"in general? yeah. personally? not if i could avoid it."

"And your brother?"

"eeevery opportunity he could get," said Sans, chuckling. You grinned, because Sans was grinning, lost in some memory of a place you could barely imagine.

"You miss him," you said, and it wasn't a question, because it was obvious from the look on his face that he did.

"yeah," Sans admitted. "i mean… he still comes over once a week to nag me." He said this with obvious fondness. "and i see 'im on campus, but… still."

So he had a brother complex. That… was adorable.

"Is your bedroom as messy as the living room?" you asked. Casually, you hoped.

"worse, probably," he said, laughing and scratching the back of his skull in a rueful way. "c'mon."

You followed him to his room. It was, indeed, worse than the living room. But you found the mess forgivable because the tottering stacks of books outnumbered the heaps of unwashed laundry. Most of them looked like physics textbooks. But some, you saw, were science fiction paperbacks. And a few, placed carefully on his desk, had the unmistakable age and stamp of the Underground. You eyed these greedily, but you tried to shelve your interest for now. You were on a mission here.

You almost tripped over a long, shiny object resting haphazardly between a desk chair and the unmade bed.

"No fucking way," you said, bending to pick it up. "You do not actually play the trombone."

Sans just smiled, watching the clumsy way you held the instrument. You put your hand on the slide and the mouthpiece to your lips, ready to try it out, but he quickly put a hand out to stop you.

"no, no no, c'mon," he said, laughing. "you're gonna piss of my neighbors."

You smiled sheepishly. "Oh, right."

He took the trombone out of your hands and sat heavily on the edge of his bed. You'd wondered if he only owned the thing as a joke, but the familiar way he handled it made you think that he must actually know how to play. You remembered the maître d' at the restaurant asking when he was going to perform again. At the time you'd guessed stand-up, but it couldn't be this, could it? You tried to imagine him on stage, but both ideas seemed equally ludicrous.

You sat down next to him on the mattress.

"just a quick one, alright?" he said, in a serious voice. He set the mouthpiece against his teeth, adjusted the slide, and played a single short note, low and abrupt. It sounded so silly that you burst out laughing.

He grinned at you. "now, i know you're probably wondering: how do i play this thing when i don't have any lips?"

"Same way you kiss without lips, probably."

He let out a single, surprised laugh, and visibly tensed. You gave him a sly smile, but your heart was pounding. You hadn't known you were going to say that until it was halfway out of your mouth, but, well, there it was.

"'s no magic in that…" he mumbled.

"Do you wanna kiss me again?" you blurted out.

He glanced away from you, but he said, in a long, drawn-out syllable: "yyyep."

A grin tugged up the corners of your mouth, as you put your hand on his shoulder and gently turned him toward you. He didn't resist your touch, but he made no other move, so you figured that meant you were taking the lead. Ok.

Ok.

Feeling unsteady and entirely too sober, you kissed him on the mouth. He let out a breath as you brushed your lips over his teeth, and his cheekbone, and along his jaw. There really was no magic in kissing him: just the cold, hard bone under your lips, and his thin hand sliding up your arm to grip your shoulder and draw you a little closer. You met resistance, and snickered when you realized the trombone was still in his lap, clutched in one hand.

"Put the trombone down, Sans," you murmured against his skull.

"what if we need it?" he asked, voice uneven.

What did—you pulled back to look at him, but he was grinning, eyes trained on your face. You gave him a sour look, and laughing, he let the instrument fall to the side of the bed. As soon as it was out of the way you gripped the bottom hem of his t-shirt, but before you could pull it off of him he grabbed your wrists, holding them in place.

"wait," he said. You obediently released the material of his shirt, but he kept his fingers around your wrists. His bright eyes searched your face. Then he let out a long breath. "look. i, uh… i really am just a skeleton."

Was he self-conscious about it? You almost said 'That's ok,' but stopped yourself, worried it would sound vaguely insulting. Then you almost said 'I like that you're a skeleton,' but you didn't want him to think this was just some kind of fetish thing. Honestly, you were still trying to figure that out for yourself…

Finally, you just said, "I know."

He snorted with laughter. "well ok, glad we got that established."

"Worried you're gonna freak me out?" you asked. You kept your tone playful but it was a serious question.

"well… humans seem to have complicated feelings about skeletons."

You leaned a little closer to him. His hands were still on your wrists. "You're not that scary."

He gave you a wry look. "you almost dropped all your shit the first time you saw me in the library."

Oh damn. So he had noticed.

"Ok fine," you huffed, "you're a little scary but I'm over it, can I take your shirt off now?"

He laughed. "lemme do it, you're just gonna snag it on something." He pulled his t-shirt off over his head, then sat back to watch your reaction, with an almost defiant smirk on his face. The first thing you noticed was that his rib cage was closed at the front, which was notable because the front of the human ribcage was mostly cartilage; which was something you knew because you'd spent an hour last night looking at skeleton diagrams on the internet; which was a fact you were absolutely determined not to admit.

So what, did he have cartilage too? Or was his body less similar to a human skeleton than you'd expected?

You looked him up and down, processing the view, and his smile slowly slipped from smug to self-conscious. Whoops. Didn't want him to get nervous again. But you felt like you still needed a minute to think.

Impulsively, you pulled your own shirt off, and after a moment's hesitation, you unclasped your bra and peeled that off too, letting it fall to the floor. Now it was your turn to look smug, as his eyes roved over your chest and stomach. That ought to level the playing field.

"gotta admit," said Sans, slowly. "your body's pretty interestin'…"

You grinned, then put your hands against his shoulders, and gently pushed him onto his back. He stared up at you; mostly at your face, but you noticed his eyes kept straying to your breasts.

"Ok," you said, looking down at him. "How do we do this?"

"dunno," he said. "never done this with a human before."

Oh. In retrospect, that probably should have been obvious. So you were both in the dark, then.

"and," he continued, "probably depends on what exactly you wanna do."

"I want to make you feel good," you said, almost immediately.

He looked flustered by this, glancing away and making a small "tch" sound. He was blushing again, you noted with delight. When he looked back at you his expression was serious. "just touch me however you want. we'll figure it out."

"Ok, same," you said. You were grinning, but you were suddenly nervous again, and self-conscious. Come on, you told yourself, how many times had you fantasized about this? Hesitantly, you placed your hand just above his eyes, wanting to pet his skull like you'd imagined doing at Grillby's. You must have hesitated a moment too long, with your hand resting stupidly against his forehead.

"alright, off to a great start," he said drily, and you burst into breathy laughter.

"Sans, you're ruining the moment."

"oh c'mon, what moment."

You snickered. "Sorry, I'm nervous and I don't know what I'm doing," you admitted.

"yeah yeah, join the club." He pulled your hand off his forehead and placed it against his cold cheek, then covered it with his own fingers, holding your hand to his face. Slowly, you ran your thumb along the bone just under his eye socket, and he sighed and shut his eyes.

"How much can you feel?" you asked.

"a lot," he said, and the husky quality of his voice made your breath catch.

You cupped his other cheek with your other hand, then leaned in and planted a kiss between his eyes, languid and unhurried. Somehow this situation lacked the urgency of your previous sexual encounters. You weren't just sprinting for the goal line like normal because, frankly, you didn't know where it was or what it looked like. And Sans seemed content to lie back and be explored, so you were planning to take your time about it.

You ran the palm of your hand over the top of his skull, then ran the backs of your fingers along the bottom of his jaw. You really wanted to hook a finger under the edge but kept yourself in check. That was probably a little much at this point. The surface of the bone was cool and smooth, with patches of rougher texture in certain spots. Slipping your hand behind his neck, you felt around the vertebrae, examining the weird ridges and protrusions. He made a low, contented noise, and threaded his fingers through yours against his cheek.

You pulled your hands closer to your face to examine them, re-entwining them so they were palm-to-bone, fingers laced. You could press your fingers all the way down to the bones of his wrist, spreading his fingers father than they could go on a human hand.

"Does that hurt?" you asked.

"no."

"Hmmm…" You peered closer.

"hey," he teased, "is this foreplay or a medical exam?"

"The dissection comes next," you replied.

"yeah right, good luck. you're gonna need a bone saw."

You both laughed, and you were surprised by how satisfied you felt just sitting here, petting this half-naked skeleton and laughing at his jokes.

Mostly satisfied, anyway.

"I've got some more questions," you said.

"of course you do."

Embarrassment made you hesitate, but frankness had worked out so far. Running your thumb distractedly over his exposed knuckles, you asked, "Is monster sex the same as human sex?"

"depends on the monsters."

You digested that for a moment. "And do monsters… Uh……"

"do we what?" he prompted. His grin grew wider as you struggled for words.

You tried again. "Look I guess what I'm asking is where do you like to be touched?"

"you're doin' fine so far," he said.

You leaned closer, and let your voice drop into a more seductive register. "Ok but, where do you really like to be touched?"

"…i've got my sensitive spots," he hedged.

"Obvious or non-obvious?"

"both," he said cryptically.

You snorted. "Ok wise guy, challenge accepted."

Planting another kiss to his cheekbone, you ran your fingers down from his neck and along the length of his sternum, at the same time that he reached up to slide his hands along your sides. The feeling of his cold fingertips scraping across your bare skin made you shiver, and you pushed yourself closer to him. His hands felt alien against your flesh, the sensation as uncanny as it was arousing. He cupped your breasts gently, carefully. You whimpered when he ran his thumb over your nipple. Your breasts weren't particularly sensitive, but it felt good to be touched by him in an intimate place, with his fingers rasping gently against your skin and his low voice murmuring in your ear.

"what's the story with these things anyway?" he teased.

"Don't pretend you don't like them," you said breathlessly. You slid your hand experimentally along the slatted surface of his ribcage. When you fingered the gap between two of his ribs he yelped and jerked underneath you.

"Sorry, did I hurt you??" you hissed, but he was giggling.

"just tickles," he said, with such a cute, genuine smile that you felt like you were going to melt.

You pressed kisses to the side of his neck as you hooked your fingers under the bottom edge of his ribcage, and you felt him tense beneath you.

"Is that ok?" you asked.

"yeah," he said, voice uneven.

"Tell me if it's weird."

"it's fine."

You reached into the cavity of his chest, brushing your fingers along several of his ribs, watching him shiver at the contact. Then you dragged your fingers down over the inside surface of his ribcage in a long, quick movement. The bumps and ridges left a pleasant tingling sensation in your fingers. Sans, for his part, wrapped his arms around you and buried his face against your neck, moaning in a low, rough voice. Jackpot.

"Feel good?" you whispered against his jaw.

"god yeah," he said raggedly. He shuddered and clung to you as you stroked him from the inside, worrying at his ribs, careful not to push your fingers too far between any two of them. When you brushed your knuckles along the inside curve of his spine he arched into your touch, his blunt fingertips digging into your shoulders. Even though all of his bones were technically exposed, it still felt like you were reaching inside of him, touching intimate, vulnerable places. You allowed your hands to drift down to his pelvis. For all you knew his ribs were a better bet, but seeing his hipbones riding up just over the waistband of his shorts was driving you nuts, and he had said some of his sensitive spots were obvious.

You gripped the hard curve of one of his hips, and reached your other hand into his shorts, pressing your fingers to his sacral vertebrae.

"Uh... is this ok?" you asked, before continuing.

"heh…" He lifted his gaze from your hands to your face. "i told ya you could touch wherever you wanted…" His eyes were half-lidded, pupils dilated and soft, mouth open slightly. The dark bones of his neck were just barely visible through the gap in his teeth. You couldn't look away from his mouth. All at once he was, in fact, just a skeleton, and a stranger, and for the first time that night you almost lost your nerve.

Sans must have seen it in your face, because he said, gently, "and… told ya you'd freak out…"

The careful way he spoke snapped you out of it. You frowned, mouth set, and lied.

"Am not."

"can't kid a kidder, english," he said, sounding amused and tired.

"Oh yeah, well, you can't…"

C'mon, snappy quick wit.

Nothing.

"Fuck, nevermind," you said, laughing. You put your head down against him, resting your forehead against his breastbone. "I couldn't think of a comeback, just bear with me alright, you're fun and I'm having a good time."

"whatever," he said, but his voice was playful again. You felt him very carefully place his fingers against your hair, and immediately you pressed your hand over his, wanting to encourage him. He stroked your scalp with his fingertips. The sensation seemed to travel all the way through you, and you felt a weird mixture of contentment and arousal. You felt around for his thigh bone and wrapped your fingers all the way around it, just above his knee. His breath hitched as you slid your palm slowly up his thigh, up to the knobby tip at the joint. The bone was smooth under your hand, with the occasional ridge or divot marring the surface—scars, maybe?

Your hand was inside his shorts at this point, so you had to go by feel. You ran your thumb around the head of his femur, where it connected with the socket in his hip. In a human there was cartilage there, but on Sans there was just a narrow, charged space. When you slid your thumb through the gap, a tingling pressure shot through your thumb and into your palm, and Sans's leg jerked reflexively. You both gasped, and met each other's eyes.

"Magic," you said, a slow grin spreading across your face.

He grinned back, but it was a little unsteady. "didn't hurt you, did it?"

"Me?" you said, surprised. "No, it was just weird. Did it hurt you?"

"no no," he said, chuckling. "y'know no one's ever touched me there before, I wasn't sure how it would… h-how…"

He trailed off as you felt your way around his pelvis. You slid your hand along the curve of the ischium, then up to the pubic arch, and fingered the small gap just at the center. He made a strangled noise, and you felt him tense under you. Smirking, you stroked the spot with your thumb, fumbling around with your other hand until you found and gripped his sacrum, gently fingering the small holes there, until he finally relaxed and let his head fall back with a long, low groan.

"How's that?" you asked.

"really good…" he mumbled.

"I'm taking your pants off," you said, and he just laughed weakly as you pulled off his shorts and tossed them carelessly to the floor. You bent your head and pressed your mouth to his pubic symphysis, running your tongue over the gap in long, rough strokes that turned his breathing ragged.

"holy fuck…" he said, in a kind of hoarse whisper, sliding his hand over his face. As you worked him over his rough breathing turned to outright panting. He curled his fingers in the hair at the base of your neck, and rolled his hips to meet your tongue. You didn't know if monsters had orgasms—it was the question you'd been too embarrassed to ask—so you didn't know if this was really going anywhere, but you kept at it because he was clearly enjoying it and because you couldn't get enough of the noises he was making, whimpering and gasping your name in a low, broken voice. You reached into his pelvis and gripped his sacrum with both hands and caressed the surface of it in tight, persistent circles, tightened your lips against the bone to suckle on him, mouth wet and hot against him, swirling your tongue over the hard, uneven surface and making him moan out loud, "oh my god yeah, oh fuck, yes, please please please" until he went rigid beneath you, crying out, fingers trembling in your hair, panting and gasping. You eased off as his moans subsided into broken whimpers, sliding your hands down his legs in a gentle caress, until finally he slumped back against the bed.

You were both breathing heavily. He raised one hand and made a circle with his thumb and index finger. "ya did good…" he said breathlessly.

You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. "Did you come?" you asked. You thought the answer was yes but you wanted to be sure.

"yyyep."

"I didn't know if you would."

He laughed. "well you got me."

"You sounded fucking hot," you said, and you could hear the hunger in your own voice.

"aw c'mon, jeez," he complained, embarrassed. He put his hands over his face, but it was only a symbolic gesture—he still watched you easily through the gaps in his thin fingers.

You sat back on your heels, grinning and pleased with yourself. Your underwear felt uncomfortably damp, but you ignored it. Sans pushed himself up on his elbows.

"i want to return the favor," he said, "but i'm gonna need a hand."

"You might need two hands," you said. You bit your lip to keep from smiling. Sans looked shocked, then broke into quiet, husky laughter.

"look, only one of us can make those kinds of jokes, alright? it's just too much otherwise."

You smirked. "Afraid of a little healthy competition?"

"just take your pants off, english."

You were all too eager to oblige—you shucked the rest of your clothes as quickly as possible, throwing them carelessly to the floor, then sat back down. Then you stared at each other for a long moment.

"I think we're sensitive in the same spots," you said, voice quiet.

"ticklish in the same spots?"

"Don't you dare," you said, and wrapped your arms around yourself protectively.

"i won't, i won't," he said, laughing. He sat up and gently pulled your arms away from your chest. He ran his hands up the length of your arms, settling them on your shoulders, then rested his head against your neck, his smile pressed to your skin.

"can't kiss you like you kissed me," he murmured.

"Don't care," you said. It was the truth.

He hummed thoughtfully in response, and you felt the low vibration of it against your shoulder. Having him pressed against you like that was intoxicating. Slowly, you tilted your head so that your cheek rested on his skull. His grin grew wider against your neck.

You took his hand and pressed it between your legs.

---

When you woke up in the middle of the night, you were in an unfamiliar room, and there was a muted hissing and tapping coming from somewhere. It took you a moment to think back, and to realize that you were still in Sans's bed. Oops. You hadn't meant to stay the night. After another moment you realized what the sound was: rain against the bedroom window.

The skeleton himself was asleep next to you, eyes shut, chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm. At some point he'd slipped on a dark pull-over sweatshirt. Had he gotten cold? Somehow that idea was so cute you had to bite your lip to stop from giggling. You were glad he closed his eyes when he slept. He would have looked a lot more… dead, if they were open but empty like you'd half-imagined.

You stared out the window for what felt like a long time. The dim light from the streetlamp shone warmly through the rain, turning it into a soft haze, and the sound of the rain was quiet and pleasant. You felt cozy, and happy.

You knew the moment Sans woke up, because when he opened his eyes, his pupils cast a dim, diffuse light over the bed sheets. When you turned to look at him he was staring out the window. There was something unusually serious—almost sad—about his expression.

After a minute, he said, "i hate this weather."

You kept waiting for the punch line, but it never came, and you realized he must have said it in earnest. Seeing that expression on his face pulled something tight in your chest. Impulsively, you slipped your arms around his neck and settled your head against his shoulder. It wasn't exactly comfortable, hard and sharp-edged as he was, but his sweatshirt blunted the worst of it.

For a moment Sans did nothing. Then, hesitantly, he put his arms around you. You gave a happy sigh, and shifted a little closer so your warm legs rested against his. His hand moved over your shoulder in a slow caress. You were already half asleep. You made a tiny, contented sound, and his arms tightened around you.

Chapter Text

It was still raining when you woke up the next morning. A pretty grey light filtered in through the window, and raindrops tapped steadily against the glass. Sans was lying on his stomach next to you, with his head turned away. Touching gently, trying not to wake him, you ran your hand over the back of his skull. You could feel the faint, ridged lines where the different bones were fused together. If you looked hard enough you could see them too, long zigzags that ran down the center and up the sides of his skull. They looked like scars, but you knew your own skull would look the same if you could see it.

Sans made a sleepy grumbling sound and shifted closer to you, pressing his head against your chest. Grinning like a fool, you wrapped your arms around his neck, and continued to stroke the back of his skull. You couldn't tell if he was awake or not. The soft hiss of the rain matched the quiet sound of your palm sliding over the smooth, dry bone. His skull was cold against your breasts, cold, thin legs pressed against your warm, soft ones, but eventually your body heat leeched into his bones and the temperature evened out.

"you're warm," he said, in a sleepy, muffled voice.

"I thought you were asleep."

"what time is it." 

You reached over and fished around on the cluttered bedside table, and came up with his phone.

"It's seven fourteen."

He grumbled unintelligibly and snuggled closer. This was fine by you, since you considered this perfect snuggling weather. You slid your hand down from his head to his neck, then to his back, feeling his shoulder blades through the material of his sweatshirt. His spine stood out in a series of ridges and blunt spikes; you traced them with your fingers, and he made a soft, contented noise.

You were comfortable enough that you didn't want to get up yet, but eventually you started to feel antsy. As you pet Sans, your eyes wandered around the room, and you tried to make sense of some of the mess. You saw that a tall stack of books had toppled over in the corner, in turn knocking over a trashcan, and the trashcan had spilled its content unchecked across the carpet. Mostly it was crumpled-up notebook paper and empty junk food wrappers. An old radio or some comparable piece of electronics sat half-dismantled on the desk. An inflatable shark, like a kid's pool toy, hung limp and deflated over the back of the desk chair. Several googly eyes were stuck to the side of its head.

Sans grunted an objection as you shifted around to grab a book off the floor. When you settled back in bed, you slid one of your legs under one of his, and he sleepily draped an arm across your stomach.

The book was called "1001 Rib-Tickling Jokes!" and you immediately hated it. The cheesy artwork littering every page was about the caliber of Microsoft clipart, if that.

'Why did the cookie go to the hospital?'
'Because it felt crummy!'

God. You bit back a snicker. Okay, these were a little funny, ironically. And the shitty artwork was starting to grow on you.

"Hey Sans."

"mmph."

"What do you call a fake noodle?"

"an impasta," he mumbled.

You glared at him. "Do you have this book memorized or what?"

"the answer was obvious," he said. "why are we awake."

You laughed. "Sorry. I guess I'm a morning person."

"i see that…"

Your gaze drifted to the small stack of books laid carefully on his desk—the ones you thought were from the Underground. They made you think with excitement about your plans for your thesis. But thinking about your thesis made you think about all the reading you should have been doing for the class you were going to TA, and about how your advisor still hadn't emailed back about your stage one exam, and about how your own classes were going to start in less than two weeks. Your good mood spoiled into something anxious and rotten.

You let the joke book fall back to the floor, then sighed heavily and ran your hands over your face.

"Ok," you said, voice muffled by your hands. "I should go. I have a ton of work to do."

Sans propped himself up on an elbow and yawned hugely. In the grey daylight you could see how sharp some of his teeth were. Did they only look longer than human teeth because he had no gums?

"deadlines?" he asked.

"Well, not exactly," you explained. "I just feel super unprepared for this class I'm teaching, so I wanted to read ahead a little. Or, y'know. A lot." God, even talking about it made you feel tired. But you didn't think you had a choice. It was too easy to imagine yourself heading your discussion section like a complete fraud, being asked a question for which you had no answer, fumbling your way through the explanation and sounding like a fucking idiot.

"hey."

You looked back at Sans. He was staring at your face with a thoughtful expression.

"i've got some advice for you."

You raised your eyebrows in a wordless query.

"don't do anything today."

"…What?"

"it's saturday. relax. don't do anything."

You were speechless for several moments.

"…I have to," you insisted.

"do you?"

You just stared at him, feeling sort of outraged, but unable to find the words to express how hopeless your situation was. …God, had you just thought the word "hopeless"? That was depressing…

"look," he said, then paused, seemingly searching for his own words. "i know what it's like… to feel like you aren't doin' enough. but you probably are." He scratched the back of his skull, then put his hand up in a sort of shrug. "i know they work you guys like dogs already, so, uh, you don't need to put any extra pressure on yourself. it's not worth it."

You considered his words for a long time. Then you snorted, and said, "Is it any better in the physics department?"

"heh. not really." When you didn't respond, he said, "just for today, alright? doesn't work out, you can just blame me and go back to stressin' out."

You gave him a sour look, but you were already sold. Heaving a great sigh, you fell back onto the bed. Maybe he was right. Maybe you were just stressing yourself out for no reason. You had to admit it was a great relief to abandon your plans and just lay back down. This is how procrastination starts, said a voice in the back of your mind. You told the voice to mind its own business.

"So what do I do instead?" you asked.

"hang out with me."

"Ha!" you said loudly. "So that was your angle all along."

He shrugged, grinning. "well y'know… i'm really good at doin' nothin'." You rolled your eyes. "and you don't really wanna go out in this weather, do ya?"

You grinned out the window. No, you really didn't. This was staying-in weather. Without warning and you turned toward him and wrapped your arms around his neck. He made an "oomph" sound as he fell back against the bed, and you settled yourself against him. He carefully touched your hair with his fingers.

"does this mean we can go back to sleep?"

"You can. I'm bad at sleeping in."

"we'll see about that," he teased. He scratched your scalp with his hard fingertips in a slow, regular rhythm. You lay like that for a long time, feeling his fingers in your hair and his chest rising and falling under your head. You could hear the quiet whoosh of air entering and leaving his chest, but other than that, his body made no sound. No heartbeat; just the sound of his breath and the soft steady hiss of the rain. You actually did start to feel a little sleepy. The touch of his fingers in your hair was incredibly soothing. It was also arousing, but your drowsiness overcame your desire to touch back.

His fingers drifted down to your bare shoulder, and went still, lingering there. You turned your head to look. He was touching a series of small, round bruises dotting your shoulder and upper arm. You sat up to crane your neck and get a better look at them. There were a few on your other shoulder too. Clearly they'd been made by his fingertips the night before.

"sorry..." he said.

"Don't be. I kinda like them." You grinned. "Since you can't give me a hickey."

"what's a hickey?"

Laughing, you used his phone to look up pictures, and explained what a hickey was and how one was acquired.

"that's so weird, dude," he said, shaking his head as he scrolled through Google image search. Your eyes drifted down to the column of his neck. You couldn't give him a hickey either, but nonetheless there was something inviting about the pale vertebrae, standing out starkly against the dark collar of his sweatshirt. He was so rough-edged in some ways, but the intricacies of the exposed bone made him look a little delicate and doll-like. You leaned in to press a kiss to his neck, and your stomach chose that moment to growl loudly.

You gave a heavy sigh, lips halfway to his neck. Sans put his fist to his mouth to keep from laughing.

"that's weird too."

"Got any food?"

"uh…" He stared into space, as if trying to visualize the contents of his kitchen. "i think so." He smiled sheepishly. "i usually eat out."

This didn't surprise you. While he padded off to the kitchen, you pulled on your t-shirt (and the extra pair of underwear you'd shamefully snuck into your purse before leaving your apartment last night) and went to use the bathroom. You were kind of dreading this, but mercifully, it looked as if someone had cleaned the toilet since the last time you were here, and there was no evidence of the mess you'd made. You refused to acknowledge that it was probably Sans who had cleaned it—too embarrassing.

You checked your text messages while you took care of business.

Connie | 6:31am
Did you get BONED

Maxine | 7:04am
So did you... rattle anyone's BONES last night? >;3c
Connie told me the hot gossip.

You, Maxine, Connie | 7:57am
You guys are fucking losers
Also yES????
I'm still at his place ;0

Maxine, You, Connie | 7:57am
Aaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!

Connie, Maxine, You | 7:58am
Max how are you up already

Maxine, Connie, You | 7:58am
TA meeting :'D
Starting now :'''D
Keep texting me though, I gotta hear this.

Connie, Maxine, You | 7:58am
Rip Maxine
Soooo she told me the guy's ACTUALLY a skeleton
W o w
How the hell was it

You, Connie, Maxine | 7:59am
Weirdly cool and fun...?
Like, a lot
I'm still processing it tbh

Connie, You, Maxine | 7:59am
Wow
Well shit, color me curious

The kitchen was also surprisingly tidy, you noticed. Sans was fishing around in one of the cupboards near the sink. He'd pulled on a pair of black sweatpants to match his sweatshirt. It was such a simple outfit, really, but it was rendered exotic and attractive by the mere fact of his being a skeleton. His sleeves were rolled loosely above his wrists, and you could just see the empty spaces between the bones of his forearms. Some of his clavicle was visible under the dark collar. Black looked really good on him...

"No offense," you said, "but this kitchen looks too clean for you."

Sans barked a laugh. "yeah, it's… whenever my brother comes over, first he yells at me, then he starts cleaning."

"He sounds perfect," you said. You said a silent prayer of thanks that the brother had probably been the one to clean the toilet too. "What's his name?"

Sans beamed at you. "papyrus." He'd retrieved a box of kid's oatmeal from the cupboard; the kind with little marshmallow shapes mixed into it. You took the box out of his hand, laughing.

"Wow, breakfast of champions," you quipped.

"yeah sorry, it's all i got." He took the box back and peered at the instructions. "never actually made this before..."

"Want me to do it?"

"nah, i gotta." He pulled a saucepan out of the cupboard and filled it with tap water. "can't eat it if you make it."

"Wh— Yeah wait, how can you eat this at all? Is it magic?"

"it's in the preparation. uncooked, it's just regular food, but if a magic person prepares it, it becomes magical."

"What. You mean that's really all it takes?" He smirked at the surprise in your voice, and you gave him a dubious look. "You know this whole 'it's magic' thing is starting to seem pretty hand-wavy. Are you just avoiding the real explanation?"

He laughed. "magic's a little harder to explain than you're thinkin'. there's, uh, this kinda nuance to it, and sometimes it just works and you can't really describe how you're doin' it."

"Doesn't that bother you?" you asked. "Like, as a scientist?"

"well... lemme ask ya this: does it bother you that there's no formula for the perfect novel?"

After a moment, you said, "But there could be."

"there could," agreed Sans, turning to you with a grin. He looked delighted, like he'd called on you in class and you'd given him the right answer. You knew the feeling: Once you started teaching, it was hard to turn it off sometimes.

"but it would be one hell of an undertaking," he went on. "maybe everything's quantifiable, sure, but not in our lifetime. people can't process fast enough and computers ain't good enough yet."

"So you're saying magic is like art?"

"heh, yeah i guess." He stirred the oatmeal thoughtfully. "or more like... it's what you are. you can't always explain your own behavior, psychology's a pretty rough science. magic's like that, y'know?"

You considered this while you ate. There was indeed a sort of zesty, uncharacteristic energy to the oatmeal. Was it like some kind of magical pre-digestion? He'd done something to it that made it possible for him to absorb despite having no discernible digestive system. You guessed that made sense. Magic food had to come from somewhere, unless they had magic vegetables too. Which wasn't impossible, you supposed...

Magic was strange enough encountered in small doses like this. You couldn't imagine what the Underground must have been like. So you asked him. He told you about Snowdin, the place he'd lived with his brother and worked as a sentry; and the geothermal energy plant that powered the Underground; and the bioluminescent objects that lit Waterfall like lanterns; and the garbage dump where they would scrounge for human artifacts. You were embarrassed to imagine what kind of trash must have floated down there.

Most monsters had suffered from some degree of agoraphobia during the first few months.

"it was a lot of space to get used to," Sans explained. "and, y'know... there were a ton of humans. and they weren't always nice."

You knew that was putting it gently. "Sorry," you said.

"not your fault."

"Did anyone go back underground?"

"a few of us," he said thoughtfully. "most of us stuck it out though. the sky's worth it."

"Even today?" you asked, raising an eyebrow. You remembered what he'd said about the rain last night.

He gave an exaggerated sigh, making you laugh. "yes english, even today."

Sans went on to admit that it wasn't just the natural beauty of the surface that had drawn the monsters above ground. There had been mounting problems with pollution and overcrowding that were almost impossible to alleviate without relocation. And there was a certain ancestral, mythical appeal to the surface; a low-level but insistent homesickness for the world where they really belonged; a literal homesickness for some of the oldest monsters.

"so y'know, we just..." He waved his hand in a vague gesture. "assimilated. took jobs doin' what we were good at. when we could get 'em."

"Were you a scientist in the Underground?" you asked.

"actually i was a hot dog vendor."

"You're fucking kidding me," you said, glaring at him. He just grinned back, enjoying your reaction. You honestly couldn't tell if he was joking or not.

"my buddy alphys, though—she's undyne's girl—she used to be the royal scientist, and she's got a job at the university now too. she's in engineering."

"Oh, is she another grad student?"

For some reason, Sans gave you a sharp look before replying. "uh. she's faculty."

"Oh." What was that about? "Undyne seemed cool."

"yeah, she's somethin' alright," he said, laughing. He seemed eager to change the subject, so you didn't ask. "she wants me to bring you back to grillby's."

"Oh god. I gave up halfway that night and I was still hung over the next morning. How the hell can she drink that much..."

"well she's a fish y'know, she's good at drinking."

You snorted. "Ok, come on..."

You talked all morning, and somehow you were back in bed together before noon, with his arms around you and his ribs pressed into your back.

I'm being spooned by a skeleton, you thought, trying to stifle a giggle. Apparently you were unsuccessful, because Sans asked, low and soft next to your ear, "what's so funny?"

"I can't believe you talked me back into bed."

"ever heard of a nap before?"

"It's not even noon yet, this seems excessive."

He laughed quietly behind you, and you could feel the vibration of it through his ribcage. He left one arm wrapped around your stomach, and his hand once again found its way into your hair, and once again his slow, careful touch lulled you into that strange realm between drowsy and horny. Even now you already felt a warm ache building between your legs.

"this made you sleepy before, right?" he asked.

"It's mostly just turning me on," you admitted. 

His fingers slowed. "...is that so."

"Am I interrupting our nap?" 

"nope. don't mind me." His voice sounded a little husky. His fingers stayed in your hair, gently scratching patterns into your scalp, but his other hand trailed down from your stomach to your thighs, and he pressed his hand against your flesh. The bone was cold against your bare skin, and you flinched at the contact. He tried to pull away but you pressed your hand over his to keep it where it was.

"stubborn."

"Be grateful."

"ok," he said, which was such an unexpectedly compliant response that it made you giggle.

He trailed his fingertips along the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, and you spread your legs a little wider to give him easier access. He was slow, probing, watching for your reaction. His other hand had abandoned your hair and migrated down to your breasts, cupping one gently through the fabric of your t-shirt. He grazed his thumb lightly over your beaded nipple, making your breath hitch, while his other hand inched higher up your thigh. It all felt a lot better than you thought it had a right too... Clearly he'd picked up a thing or two the night before.

"You're a fast learner," you murmured.

"i'm an academic, it's my job."

You snorted with laughter. "Oh man, that's gotta be the nerdiest thing you've said so far."

He laughed along with you. "there's no way that's true."

"Well, maybe not," you agreed, thinking back to some of the jokes he'd made when you were getting to know each other. Your chuckling broke off in a whimper as he ran his finger along the lips of your cunt, through the material of your underwear; hard enough to feel it but not enough to offer any relief.

"looks like ya left the faucet on," he teased. He could feel how wet you were already through your underwear.

"Ha ha." You tried to sound sarcastic but it was hard when your breathing was so uneven. He stroked you through your underwear, fingertips tracing up and down over your slit, touch light, every time stopping just shy of your clit until you were squirming in his arms. When he grazed your clit by accident you moaned out loud, and he sucked in a breath.

"Sans..." you whined, rolling your hips, desperate.

"yeah?" he asked; still teasing, but his voice was now rough with desire. He pulled his hand away, avoiding your efforts to increase the contact between you. Oh, this little bastard.

You shoved your underwear out of the way, grabbed his hand, and pressed it against yourself, the heel of his hand against your clit and his fingers pressed into your folds. You both groaned at the feeling of each other. He ran the tip of one finger in slow circles around your entrance, but you weren't sure now whether he was teasing you on purpose or just exploring. God you wanted him inside of you. It didn't really matter that the equipment was non-standard. His fingers were enough. You used one of your own fingers to guide his through your entrance, and you sighed happily at the feeling, and at the feeling of his legs resting against yours, and the contours of his ribs through his sweatshirt, pressed against your back, and his cool, dry breath on the skin of your neck. He slid another finger inside, and when you clenched your walls around them he made a low, needy sound.

"you feel cool," he said, breathless, half-laughing. You kept your hands pressed over his, helping him remember where and how to touch. He figured it out one his own well enough, feeling around and listening for your reaction, experimenting, finding a pace that made your uneven breathing turn to panting and whimpering. He curled his fingers inside you as he rubbed your clit with his other hand, and as your moans increased in volume he let out his own low whine against your shoulder, pressing closer and grinding the bones of his pelvis against your ass. You reached back into his sweatpants, stretching a little awkwardly to grip the sides of his sacrum and massage rough circles into the bone with your thumbs. He moaned gutturally, fingers stuttering in their work, then picking up the pace again, faster and more insistent than before. Your shoulders objected to this new position but it was worth it to hear him panting in your ear, to hear him whimper when you ran your thumb over the small perforations in the bone. You weren't going to last much longer like this.

"How close are you?" you breathed.

He laughed weakly, voice strained. "ohh you're gettin' me there..."

You redoubled your efforts, reaching back farther to get a better grip on him, trying to ignore for the moment the movement of his fingers against you, inside of you, bringing you closer, of his mouth open against your shoulder and his teeth scraping lightly against your skin, and when he whimpered your name in a rough, broken voice it pushed you over the edge. It was something that built slowly inside of you, in slow waves that grew higher and higher until you were crying out, back arched, acutely aware of his fingers buried in your cunt as your walls pulsated around them. You felt him go rigid behind you, trembling, thrown over the edge with you. When you could think again, your first thought was that you were damn glad he'd talked you into staying.

It was still raining outside. While you caught your breath, you pushed up the sleeve of his sweatshirt so you could touch his bare forearm. You ran your hand carefully over the smooth bones, trying to communicate all of the tenderness and affection you felt bubbling inside of you. He hummed into your neck, wrapping his arms around your stomach and pulling you closer. Taking his hand, you put his fingers in your mouth to suck your juices off of them.

"your mouth feels so good..." he groaned. You smirked around his fingers.

"You know where else I can put my mouth..."

"heh. well i'm ready when you are."

"Don't you need a break?"

"don't really have a refractory period."

You rolled over to look him in the eye. The lights in his eye sockets were dilated and soft, his expression drowsy.

You frowned at him. "If you don't have one, how do you know what it is?" 

"the internet," he said, tone caught somewhere between sassy and serious. So he'd done his research, just like you had. Well, you were academics. It was your job.

You stared at each other for a long moment. Then he gave you a sort of crooked, tremulous smile that made your heart ache. You hungrily pressed your lips to his teeth.

--- 

When you got home that night, you worked on your thesis for four hours straight. You couldn't remember the last time you'd felt so focused. By the time you finally looked at the clock it was well after midnight.

Chapter Text

About a week later, you went on another date with Sans. The local observatory sat atop one of the peaks of the little mountain range just outside the city. Neither of you owned a car, you flat-out refused to be teleported, and Sans flat-out refused to do any hiking, but luckily there was a bus that went up the winding mountain road a few times a day.

You couldn't remember the last time you'd been to an observatory, or any museum, really. You resolved to change that as you rediscovered, with childlike delight, how cool space was. As you examined a diorama showing the unbelievable size of Antares compared to the sun, you acknowledged that there was a certain brain-numbing pleasure in considering the scope of the universe. On an academic level, you didn't know much about it. But Sans did. He gave you a sort of low-key tour, commentating on the various exhibits demonstrating the mechanics of space flight and how tides worked and what stars were made of. He had a casual, disarming way of explaining things that made you feel like anyone could learn this if they really wanted to.

He must be a good TA, you thought, pleased.

You held his hand in the museum. You had to talk yourself into it—you know he likes you, you've had sex, just do it you dork—and, heart beating a little faster, you casually slipped your hand into his. He hesitated for one second, then slowly closed his fingers around yours, a little smile on his face. Then he went on talking like nothing had happened, like you'd done this a hundred times. Some of the other patrons stared—humans and monsters—but you both pretended not to notice. You didn't let go for a long time. His fingers were cold as always, and knowing how warm your hand must feel to him made you unreasonably happy. You ran your thumb affectionately over the exposed bone of his knuckles, and he squeezed your hand a little tighter.

---

It was the Monday before classes started, and you and several of your friends were having a start-of-the-year picnic out on campus. Connie's boyfriend was in engineering, so it was a mixed bag of people, including several incoming first years. It created a chaotic mood, wavering between anticipation and dread.

You were telling Connie about the books Sans had lent you. She was halfway through a suggestive eye-brow wiggle when she fully processed what you were saying, and her mischievousness gave way to genuine interest.

"No shit," she said, wide-eyed. "They're really from the Underground? What are they like, it's gotta be a weird dialect."

"Some of it reads pretty weird. But they learned English from looking at human trash, so they still picked up a lot of modern jargon. And pop culture references."

Connie snickered. "You pretentious asshole. You gotta let me borrow one."

"Maybe," you said. "I have to ask if it's ok first."

"Yeah, your bae's gonna have to start handing out library cards," said Connie.

"Hey look, it's the skeleton brothers." 

You and Connie both looked up, surprised. The speaker was one of the engineering students, and he was looking out across the quad, to where two skeletons were making their way across the grass. One of them was Sans, and the other one had to be Papyrus. He was extremely tall, gesticulating dramatically, and Sans was looking up at him with an indulgent grin. You smiled to yourself. Apparently they were a recognizable pair. They definitely stood out...

Connie's boyfriend, Franklin, gave a little huff of laughter. "I had the shorter one for 210B."

"Me too," said his friend. "He's a jackass."

"What!" said Franklin. "You didn't like him? He was so funny though."

"Yeah sure, but... He fell asleep during class like four different times."

"I've seen you fall asleep during class like four different times."

"C'mon, that's different."

One of the older students chimed in. "Aw y'know. He's probably got tenure and just doesn't give a shit."

You listened to this exchange with interest, smile growing wider. The stuff they were saying pretty much matched your own impression of Sans. You would have to remember to tease him about falling asleep in class. But your mind kept snagging on something: "He's probably got tenure."

He's probably got tenure.

Almost without thinking, you grabbed Franklin by the shoulder, and not quite gently.

"You said he was your TA, right?" you asked.

"No," said Franklin, "my professor."

Oh my god.

"WHAT," you said, practically yelling. Franklin looked a little alarmed. You heard Connie gasp behind you, before starting to laugh wildly.

"What, do you know him?" asked Franklin.

"Oh, she knows him alright," said Connie.

"Oh!" said Franklin, comprehension dawning on his face. He grinned at you. "Is he the skeleton?"

You buried your face in your hands, and Connie's laughter increased in volume. You were going to kill her.

"I thought he was a grad student..." you said, voice muffled by your hands.

"Dude!" said Connie, clapping you on the shoulder, but she was laughing too hard to get anything else out. You glared up at her. She looked like the cat that had caught the canary. You were never going to hear the end of this.

"How did you not know??" she demanded. 

Franklin was starting to laugh too. "You know my buddy Steven is in his lab, he's right over there."

"Don't—" you started to say, but it was too late.

"Hey Chang, get over here!" Franklin called. You groaned, and Connie patted you on the back. The gesture was spoiled by how hard she was trying to suppress her laughter.

Steven Chang dropped down next to Franklin, looking curious. "Sup?"

"That skeleton guy's your advisor, right?" asked Franklin.

"What, Sans?" asked Steven. He grinned. "Oh yeah, he's great. He's super laid back. Like... possibly too laid back, but it's cool. I even got stoned with him once or twice."

"How was that?" asked Connie, for your benefit.

Steven laughed. "Well mostly his jokes got a lot more high-level... He's an interesting guy, wicked smart, really low key. Like... he's the kinda guy not everyone could work with, probably, cause he doesn't provide a whole lot of structure. Works fine for me though." He waved a hand. "And, y'know, the obvious: He can do magic. That's always a trip. Doesn't do it a lot in class, though."

"I heard some people complaining about him, though," said Connie. You threw her a look, but she just winked at you.

Steven practically started giggling. He began to explain with obvious relish. "Ok, there's kind of a whole story behind that. You know Mariana Giordano? Me and her TA'd 240A together, Sans was teaching, and on the first day of class we come in and sit down in front— It's like, it's the classroom in the northwest corner on the fourth floor, so there's those couple chairs in front that the TAs always sit in, y'know?" You did not know, but Franklin apparently did, and nodded. "Anyway Mariana sits down, and there's just this fat, wet fart sound, and she jumps up looking completely horrified. And she turns around and there's a fucking whoopee cushion in her chair. I look over at Sans and he's just, obviously losing his shit, head down on the desk—" Here Steven broke off laughing, clearly enjoying the memory. "Mariana was so pissed she stormed out of the room. Sans felt really bad; he said he thought I was gonna sit there. Course he was laughing while he said this."

The worst part was, none of this sounded out-of-character for Sans. Even the whoopee cushion thing was... more or less what you would have expected from him in the classroom. Except he was the fucking professor.

"Cool story, Steven," said Connie, but she was looking at you, with an insufferable smirk.

"Okay, what's going on?" asked Steven, catching on. He leaned closer to you. "Do you know him?"

"Connie..." you warned, when she opened her mouth to reply.

"She's got the hots for him," she said, elbowing you in the side.

Steven looked shocked, then threw his head back laughing. "Shit dude, are you serious? You should totally go for it!"

"Should she really?" asked Connie.

"Well, I dunno," said Steven, still laughing, but more thoughtful now. "He's kind of a weird guy. Doesn't really like to talk about himself. Sometimes he just doesn't show up to class, no explanation." He shrugged. "He's a nice guy, though. He's probably just dealing with some shit, just like anyone." Then he frowned. "Also he's like, a skeleton, I dunno if he can... y'know."

Your face was back in your hands, and Connie was lying on her side in the grass, howling with laughter.

---

You were supposed to meet Sans that evening in the physics library to work together, but you had no idea what you were going to say to him. You thought back through every conversation you'd had, trying to remember when he'd lied to you and told you he was a grad student. But he never had. He hadn't needed to. You'd just assumed, because what kind of university professor worked in sweatpants at 10pm in the goddamn library?

You pulled up the physics department website on your phone, and looked him up in the faculty listing. There he was. For his faculty photo, he'd stuck a fake mustache to his top row of teeth, partially obscuring his broad, shit-eating grin. God. Well at least he was as immature around everyone else as he was around you. In fact if anything, it seemed like he'd been holding back. An actual whoopee cushion...

You insisted to yourself that this didn't change anything. He was still the same guy, just, probably a lot older than you'd assumed. And with a significantly longer resume. And you'd slept with him. Wasn't this illegal or something?? No, no goddamnit, you weren't an undergrad anymore, this wasn't that weird. You could sleep with a faculty member if you wanted to. Right??

Really, the fact that you were dating a fucking skeleton had to be weirder than the fact that the skeleton probably served on review committees and received million-dollar federal grants... you kept telling yourself.

When you entered the library you still had no idea what you were going to say, but the words came out anyway when you rounded the corner to the lounge area and found him sitting on one of the couches, his eyes growing brighter when he saw you.

"You're faculty?" you demanded, and it wasn't until you heard your own voice that you realized you were angry.

Sans had the good grace to look immediately guilty. His smile faltered, and he glanced away, ducking his head slightly.

"uh... yeah."

Well at least he was being honest about it now. That made you feel a little better. You paced around the room in agitation, trying to figure out what to say next. His eyes followed you as you went, pupils constricted down to tiny points of light. Finally you turned back toward him.

"How old are you?" you asked, frowning at him.

"in human years or monster years?" He had the nerve to sound a little amused as he said this.

"Nevermind," you said, almost flippantly. "I don't wanna know, do I?"

"uh..." He took a breath. "look—"

"You knew I thought you were a grad student," you challenged, cutting him off.

You stared each other down for several seconds. Then he looked away.

"...i did," he admitted. "but by the time i figured out that you... uh... it was weird."

"Hhhh, I can't believe this," you complained, with an aggravated sigh. You went back to pacing.

"look," he started again. "what are you, 24? you're a grown-ass adult. is it really that big a deal?"

"But I don't feel like an adult," you said, turning back toward him, and hating how whiny you sounded.

"look at me," Sans said wryly, gesturing at himself. "d'you think i feel like one?"

You took in his ratty hoodie and his beat-up old sneakers and acknowledged that he might have a point. Maybe. Then you narrowed your eyes suspiciously.

"How did you know I was 24?"

"educated guess." You kept up your dirty look, and he sank a little lower in his seat, looking away again. "your cv's on the department website."

"You googled me," you accused, but without much heat. Your anger was starting to dissipate.

You didn't think he'd hid it from you on purpose. You remembered Steven saying that he didn't like to talk about himself, and you figured this whole thing was just a comical sort of miscommunication. But that wasn't really the problem, was it? You knew why you were really angry: you were embarrassed. All this time you'd thought his opinion of you was something like "cool human," or maybe, "smart, attractive lady friend." Now you wondered it if was closer to "dumb kid" or "whippersnapper." In your mind, you ran back through all of the conversations you'd had with him since you met, trying to figure out how stupid you'd sounded.

"...sorry," he said, surprising you out of your reverie. You didn't look at him at first, but somehow that small, quiet apology was enough to dispel the rest of your ire. You heaved a huge sigh, then wandered over and sank down onto the couch beside him.

"I am possibly overreacting," you said, making him laugh a little.

"i know i'm pretty intimidatin'..."

"Oh shut up, you bonehead," you said, and he laughed harder.

You shook your head slowly, staring down at your feet. "When we first met, and you called me 'kid'... I thought you were being so condescending."

"well i was," he admitted. "and you called one of your students a little bastard."

Ouch. Ok, you saw his angle. Now who was the condescending one.

"but ya don't really feel that way about 'em, do you."

Oh. Different angle. No, the undergrads didn't really feel that much younger than you, most of the time. So you probably didn't feel that much younger than him? Was that what he meant?

"Would you stop sounding so wise," you complained, "you're making it worse."

That made him snort with laughter, and it broke the worst of the tension between you. It was a relief to hear him sound happy after the stress of the conversation. The sound of his laugh—familiar to you by now—helped normalize things.

"i didn't know how to tell ya," he admitted, still chuckling. "i knew it was kinda weird. i just... i think you're really smart and funny, and i—"

"You do?"

The disbelief in your voice made him laugh out loud.

"and you're really cute," he said, looking away and grinning like a fool.

You huffed with embarrassment, looking away yourself, but you leaned closer until your shoulder was pressed against his. He made a tiny sound in response, and it made you feel unexpectedly warm. You pressed a little closer, tilting your head until it rested against his neck, and suppressing a little shiver when you felt him let out a long, unsteady breath. Being this close to him was having a measurable effect on you.

"Fine, ok, you're right," you said. "I'm a grown-ass adult, I can date whoever I want."

He laughed quietly. Then he snaked his arm around your waist and leaned fully into you, teeth close to your ear.

"but i can start callin' you 'kid' now, right?" he teased, voice quiet and unintentionally seductive. It made you want to say yes.

"Absolutely not," you said flatly, making him laugh. You felt the vibration of it where his ribs where pressed against your side, felt the thin bones of his arm pressed against your back, and all at once you were pretty sure you weren't going to get any work done tonight.

You glanced up at his face. He was staring away into the distance, the backs of his fingers pressed against his teeth, his smile crinkling up the corners of his eye sockets. It was a pretty cute expression.

You reached out and placed the palm of your hand on his knee cap. From the corner of your eye you saw his gaze cut back to your face. You ran your hand slowly up his thigh, palm running across the smooth, even surface of his femur, pushing up the leg of his shorts. He pulled in a shuddering breath as you wrapped your fingers around his femur, close to where it connected with his pelvis.

"you ready to try teleportin' again?" he asked, with an unsteady laugh.

"Yes," you said quietly. Your answer made him pause, like he'd been expecting you to say no. Then his arm tightened around your waist.

"i won't laugh if ya get sick this time."

"Yeah right," you muttered, and he snickered beside you.

"ok, no promises."

And in a blink you were in darkness, and you were falling, falling, falling.

Chapter Text

You did not get sick. But you did have to sit down on the floor for several minutes while the room spun. Sans squatted down beside you, and placed his hand gently on top of your head.

"you gonna live?" You didn't have to look up to tell he was grinning.

"Probably," you said, in a wobbly voice.

He started to reply, but then his phone went off in his pocket.

"whoops, hang on." He stood (you immediately missed the feeling of his fingers against your hair) and walked over to the window, answering the phone as he went.

"hey bro."

"SANS, DID YOU LEAVE YOUR PHONE AT HOME AGAIN?"

"nah, just couldn't answer. i was at the library."

"THE LIBRARY!" You heard a scoff from the other end of the line. "MY BROTHER? DOING ACTUAL WORK??"

"believe it or not," said Sans, chuckling.

Papyrus—because who else could it be—was loud. You didn't want to eavesdrop, but you could clearly hear every word he was saying. You tried to tune it out instead, looking around the dark room for a distraction. You were in the living room, you realized. It looked just as wild and disorganized as the last two times you'd been here. The lights were still off. Probably because the light switch was located by the door, where normal people entered a room.

Why didn't he just take us straight to the bed? you wondered, snickering to yourself. You eyed Sans lecherously as he stood in silhouette at the window, posture slumped and uneven. He had a soft, indulgent smile on his face, comically at odds with the loud, manic chatter coming from the phone. The dim light from the street lamp gleamed at odd angles off his skull and his shins, and off the hand that wasn't shoved in his jacket pocket. You ached to touch him. Being back in his apartment was riling you up. The thought of undressing him again, of having him breathless and wanting beneath you made you giddy with anticipation.

Actually you really did wonder why he hadn't taken you straight to the bed. Maybe it was easier to teleport into the living room, you thought with interest. Or maybe he just thought it would be more polite? Or maybe it hadn't even occurred to him. For some reason that thought struck you as adorable, and you had to put your hand over your mouth to stop from giggling. Sans...

Professor Sans. Jeez. You hadn't quite recovered from that revelation yet. It did explain a few things, like how he had this plush apartment in this nice neighborhood. But it didn't explain everything, like the fact that he'd been living with his brother up until a few months ago. The words "legal guardian" flashed in your mind, but you quickly shoved them away. You weren't quite ready to tackle that question yet. And besides...

He's kind of a weird guy. Doesn't really like to talk about himself.

You mulled over Steven's words from earlier. God, was this still the same day? It felt like so much had happened. The picnic had certainly given you a lot to think about. Now that you weren't reeling with shock and embarrassment, you could actually laugh about his faculty headshot and the whoopee cushion thing.

"hey paps," Sans was saying, "can i call you back later? kinda got company."

"OH, ARE YOU WITH YOUR NEW HUMAN FRIEND? I WANT TO MEET THEM!"

Sans laughed. "i know you do. i think you'll like her. she loves bad jokes." He grinned pointedly at you as he said this. You rolled your eyes, and an angry groan came from the other end of the line, mirroring your reaction.

All of your dizziness had passed by now. You pulled yourself up off the floor and made your way over to where Sans was standing.

"WELL," said Papyrus, "I'LL LET YOU GO THEN. HAVE 'FUN.' WINK! NYEH HEH HEH!"

Sans grinned and shook his head as he hung up the phone. He jumped a little when you pressed yourself against his back and slipped your hands under his shirt. If he'd been human you would have been touching his stomach, but he wasn't. Instead your hands were on his spine, touch light and teasing.

"Now where were we?" you breathed.

"arguin'?"

You both shook with quiet laughter.

"After that," you insisted, pressing closer. Your hip bones rested against the backs of his, the contact palpable even through the layers of cloth and skin. He tentatively slid his fingers onto your arm, letting them rest curled around your elbow.

"well i guess you were startin' to feel me up," he said, in a quiet voice.

He shuddered as you fingered the rough edge between two vertebrae. Your fingers drew long lines along the inside of his spine, reaching slowly lower and closer to his sacrum, and he went a little limp in your arms, leaning back into you and groaning low under his breath.

"Like this?" you asked, voice teasing, letting your hands drift lower.

He gave a shaky laugh. "if you'd done this to me in the library i woul... nnhhh....."

His words dissolved into a quiet whimper as you slid your fingers onto his sacrum, and his own fingers dug into your arm.

"Would've what?" you asked, whispering against the side of his skull.

He pulled away from you a little bit, but it was only to turn around and wrap his arms around you. Everything vanished. And then it felt like you were thrown sideways, until half a second later you landed on something soft and springy with his arms still around you. It was his bed.

"Jesus," you said, taking in a long breath. You felt winded, but it was more from shock than discomfort.

"dizzy?" asked Sans.

"It's not as bad this time..."

"aw, see, you're gettin' the hang of it," he said, grinning.

His face was inches from yours. You were staring directly into the black pits of his eye sockets. The small blue-white lights that stared back seemed to be suspended a little way into his head, but they did nothing to illuminate the inside of his skull. The blackness was impenetrable. It was a little creepy, but it was also a little beautiful.

You snuggled closer and kissed him on the mouth. He made a low sound, teeth parting against your lips, and slowly slid his hands under your shirt. The feeling of his cold fingertips against the skin of your lower back made you tremble, and you pressed your body closer to his. You liked having his arms around you, even though his humerus dug uncomfortably into your upper arm.

He tugged up the hem of your shirt; it was a slow, questioning gesture, but the intention was clear. Pleased that he was taking some initiative, you helped him pull your shirt off over your head, and your bra followed soon after. Then his hands were back on you, sliding up your sides, thumbs curiously tracing the undersides of your breasts. He could probably feel the faint outline of your ribcage through your skin, and you wondered what that must feel like to him.

"He said 'wink' out loud," you said, suddenly remembering his brother on the phone.

"what...? oh. papyrus?" Sans laughed, rolling his eyes a little. "yeah, he's great isn't he."

"I saw him on campus," you said.

"you did?" His hands came to a stop against you, distracted by the conversation.

"Both of you. You were walking across the quad together."

"you coulda said hi, if you wanted."

"Well..." you said, with an uncomfortable laugh.

You explained about the conversation at lunch, and how you'd found out what his real job was. Reliving the experience actually made you feel a little annoyed again. Sans seemed delighted by his controversial reputation, but he tried to suppress his mirth given the circumstances, while you did your best to temper your rekindled ire. You were sure you would look back and laugh about this, eventually...

Over the course of the conversation you'd shifted positions so that you were lying on your back, with Sans resting his head against your chest, and your arms around his shoulders. Your annoyance didn't keep you from greedily clutching him to you.

"so you met chang, huh?" he asked against your breasts. There was a kind of avuncular fondness in his voice that you were beginning to recognize. "he's a good kid. uh. guy," he amended, before you could object. You let it slide.

"He told me the whoopee cushion story."

"which one?" asked Sans, snickering.

"Oh my god." You laughed. "I'm surprised you haven't tried pulling that shit on me."

"well i was waitin' for the next date."

Dork, you thought, smiling to yourself. You pressed your lips softly to the crown of his skull. Then again, in a different spot. Then again.

"no fair," he complained, but he sounded pleased. You could see that he was blushing, just a little.

"As the only one of us with lips, I think I'm in charge of the kissing in this relationship."

"Oh yeah?" he asked, with a mischievous lilt to his voice. He leaned into you and pressed his smile against your neck. Then, to your surprise, he opened his mouth wide, dragging the tips of his teeth across your skin before pressing them gently into your throat. The touch was light, playful and unthreatening, except for where the sharp points of his canines dug into your flesh.

You were not prepared for how much this was going to arouse you. Something about the care with which he'd closed his teeth around your neck, and the reassuring touch of his fingers on your arm, made your heart throb almost painfully.

"Sans..." you whispered, voice uneven.

He pulled away quickly. "sor— i wouldn't've—"

"No, no no," you reassured him, cutting him off. "I wasn't..." You pressed his head back down against your shoulder, holding him to you, so you wouldn't have to look him in the eye when you muttered, "I wasn't trying to stop you..."

After a second of silence, he laughed against your neck. "oh man, you liked it."

"Judge me kindly, Sans," you said, tone sarcastic.

"want me to do it again?"

"Yeah..."

His fingers snaked down to grasp your sides, and as he opened his mouth, his cool breath tickled your throat. Now that you knew what was coming, you almost felt a little nervous.

"Do we need, like, a safe word or something?"

He snorted. "uh, yeah, how about 'stop'?"

"Ok, fine," you said, laughing. "Sorry, am I making this weird?"

"...'m not gonna hurt ya, english."

"Well, I mean..." You felt yourself flush. "You can hurt me a little..."

He snickered. "let's just save the real kinky shit for later, ok?"

You were laughing when he bit you again, closer to your shoulder. It was still slow, and controlled, but a little more forceful this time. The pressure of his teeth against your skin hovered somewhere between neutral and painful; just hard enough to almost hurt. Slowly, slowly, he bit down a little harder, pushing the feeling past the threshold of pain, and you couldn't prevent the needy whimper that escaped you. His fingers twitched against your sides.

You nudged his legs apart with your knee and pressed your thigh against his pubic arch. He made a sound like a short laugh, but muffled against your skin, before you started to rub your thigh against him through his shorts. He groaned into your neck, then released you—you felt the sharp sting of relief at the places his canines had been—and pressed his cool forehead against your shoulder.

You put your hands on the back of his skull and held him close while you rubbed your leg in short strokes against the bone. He rolled his hips to increase the friction, grinding his pelvis against your thigh. His breathing turned labored and uneven. He slipped his hand into the crotch of your jeans, fingers brushing against your clit as he reached down to trace the outline of your lips through your underwear.

Your heart was racing. You pulled his hand out of your pants so you could unzip them and slip them off, and he shrugged out of his jacket. Then you pushed him gently onto his back, pulled off his shorts, and straddled his hips... then paused, deciding how to proceed.

"hey i got somethin' for ya," he said, while you hesitated.

"What is it?"

He scooted out from underneath you, sitting up against the headboard. You stared at each other for a moment, your expression quizzical, before he looked down.

"uh, ok. gimme a sec."

Wondering where this was going, you followed his gaze down to his bare pelvis. It was just naked bone as usual, ghostly pale in the moonlight and strangely tempting to your eager fingers. Until the space around it began to shimmer faintly like a heat haze. The air grew brighter, thicker, pulling itself into a shape that hung erect from the space just under his pubic arch. It was… a fat, blue cock.

You had the worst possible reaction: You laughed.

"wow, rude."

You'd thrown your arms around his neck, face pressed against his bony shoulder, giggling uncontrollably. You felt awful for laughing but you couldn't help it.

"I'm sorry," you said. "I promise— hehe— I'm laughing— because I love it—" And you meant it. You really hadn't minded that all he'd had to put inside you were his fingers, but you had to admit that after this new development, you were excited by the prospect of getting to fuck him properly. But it was just so ridiculous. A skeleton… with a boner… This thought brought on a fresh wave of laughter, and you could practically feel Sans rolling his eyes.

"yeah whatever…" He placed his hand on your back, but made no other move. You glanced down at his pelvis and saw that the improbable appendage had disappeared. It was like instead of going soft, his dick had just vanished… You put your fist to your mouth. You had to pull yourself together before you actually hurt his feelings.

"Please bring it back," you said, barely stifling more giggles.

He said, with mock thoughtfulness, "i think… you're gonna have to beg for it."

That seemed fair. You pressed your cheek against his, whispering against the side of his skull. "Please… Professor?"

"ok— wait—"

"I've been such a good student," you teased, hand slipping down to his pelvis.

"alright alright, enough," he said. He was laughing, but he sounded kind of uncomfortable too. You were a little relieved that he seemed unwilling to indulge this particular fantasy, even in jest.

You started to respond but he placed his hand over your mouth, grinning. "what'd i say about the kinky shit?"

"I'm done, I promise," you said, laughing and pulling his hand away.

Your other hand was now resting against his erection, which had rematerialized itself right under the palm of your hand. The sensation had been strange, but not unpleasant, fizzing and crackling against your skin before settling into a kind of solidity. You stared down at it. It was actually pretty convincing…except for the fact that it was blue. And glowing. You were reminded vividly of Undyne clutching her magic spear under the table at Grillby's. You kept that thought to yourself. You didn't want to embarrass Sans any further, or worse, have him turn it into some stupid joke.

Smirking, you asked, "You much porn did you have to watch to get this thing right?"

"not like it was hard to find references." He smirked back. "humans are kind of obsessed with dicks."

You rolled your eyes, amused and exasperated. "You can say that again." Then, backpedalling, "I mean— Not that I don't want—" You wrapped your fingers around his shaft, as if you could keep it from disappearing. You saw him tense up, and you realized he must be able to feel through this thing. How did that work? You remembered what you'd read in the book he lent you, that monsters' bodies were made mostly of magic. Maybe this was an extension of his body, then. You stroked him experimentally. It felt real, and warm, and his foreskin slid convincingly against your fingers.

"feels like it's workin'," he said unevenly.

You pumped your hand up and down a few more times, teasing your thumb over the head, making his breath catch and his fingers dig into your arm. He was sensitive. You could feel yourself grinning. You were going to ride this skeleton into the dirt.

You flopped down on your back to finally slip out of your underwear. It occurred to you that you were, in a sense of the word, about to take his virginity. Counter-intuitively, this made you feel a little nervous. Maybe you were making too big a deal out of this, but you wanted it to be a good experience for him.

"So what… position do you wanna do this in?" you asked.

"p… uh…." He seemed taken aback by the question. His eyes, bright and penetrating in the dark, roamed over your naked body. "guess this is ok…"

Grinning, you patted the inside of your thigh in a beckoning gesture. He hesitated for one moment, still looking you over, then positioned himself between your legs. He gripped your knees and hitched them up over his hips, so that your thighs rested in the empty space between his rib cage and his pelvis, and the head of his penis pressed teasingly against your entrance.

"Smooth."

"probably just gonna bruise you again…" he said, sounding rueful.

Privately you agreed, feeling the edges of his hips against the backs of your knees, and the processes along his spine brushing against your inner thighs. You squeezed your legs a little closer together, and the pointed vertebrae bit gently into your flesh.

You hadn't really done this in a while, and apparently you'd tightened back up in the interim. Because despite how wet you were, when he pushed himself inside of you the tight fit made you hiss in a breath.

"hurts?" he asked, voice quiet.

"It's just been a while, gimme a sec." How embarrassing. He held obligingly still as you adjusted to the feel of him. You stared at each other for a second, until he smiled wryly.

"hey wanna hear a joke?"

"No??" you said, with a half-offended laugh, and then you were both snickering.

"What, like a sex joke?" you asked.

"nah y'know, just… a knock knock joke or somethin'."

"Perfect, straight to the dirty talk."

The movement of your laughter made your cunt tighten up involuntarily, and he groaned at the feeling of your walls squeezing around him.

"you feel… good," he breathed.

"Was that the joke?"

He stared at you, open-mouthed, before dissolving into loud, husky laughter, ribs shaking and face pressed into your shoulder. You really liked when he laughed like that. You wrapped your arms around his neck, chuckling along with him. Fuck, why did this feel so romantic?

"You can move now," you told him. And then, as an afterthought, "And no more joking around! We're never gonna get started at this rate!"

"hey, no promises." 

To punctuate your point you rolled your hips, pressing your calves into the backs of his hips for leverage, and thrusting against him in short strokes.

"ok," he laughed, voice tight and breathless, "point taken."

You smirked up at him, and kept up the motion, and he began to move with you, both slow at first. But he was quick to pick up the pace. He wasn't laughing anymore. His eye sockets were shut tight, face screwed up in concentration, and his fingers trembled against your sides as he gripped your waist and fucked you in earnest. Yep. You were definitely gonna bruise. You could feel his pelvis hitting your ass every time he thrust into you, his spine rough against the sensitive skin of your inner thighs. But it felt so good to be filled by him, to feel his cock dragging against the warm walls of your cunt with each thrust, and this angle was really doing it for you and you didn't care how unsustainable this position was. You could see how good you felt to him from the needy expression on his face and the way his breathing turned rough and uneven, each breath almost a whimper, meaningless whispered curse words and bones digging into your flesh and when you moaned for him he whined your name in a low, hoarse voice.

Just when you thought this was actually starting to get you somewhere, he slowed down, and after a few more uneven thrusts he stopped altogether.

"fuck," he whispered, half a laugh in his voice, and he leaned into you to rest his forehead against your shoulder. He was trembling slightly, breathing ragged and loud. You put your hand against the back of his skull and it slipped a little against the slick surface. Holy shit. Was that sweat? You guessed you shouldn't have been surprised. But how did a skeleton get fatigued with no muscles or lungs? And what was the sweat for?

"Running out of steam?" you asked.

"this is a lot of work," he complained.

You snickered. You couldn't help it, it felt like you'd barely started.

"You're out of shape, Sans," you teased.

"why do you think i learned to teleport?"

That made you laugh out loud. He hummed against your shoulder, pleased by your reaction.

"cute when you laugh," he mumbled.

"Hey!" you complained, embarrassed and pleased and unable to think of a better reply. He held still against you, catching his breath, and you could see the empty spaces between his ribs grow and shrink as his ribcage expanded and contracted.

"Do you want to stop?" you asked.

"hell no," he laughed. "feels too good."

"Then I'm gonna take over, ok?"

"uh, ok."

You rolled him onto his back and straddled his pelvis, hands splayed out against his rib cage. You both whimpered with pleasure as you sank back down onto his erection.

"fuck yeah," he breathed. His hands found your hips, and his eye sockets were half-lidded as he stared up at you.

Watching him react, your curiosity finally got the better of you, and you asked, "How does it feel good? I mean you just, made this thing out of magic right? How can you feel this?"

"your answer's in your question," he said. "it's just magic. most of me is." As he spoke, his thumbs rubbed absent-minded circles into the skin over your hips. You resisted the urge to push into his touch; it would only distract both of you from his answer. "magic's about emotions, mindset, that kinda thing. feels good if you want it to."

"I want it to," you murmured.

"yeah i can tell," he said, voice husky.

You were sure the answer to this next question was 'no,' but you asked it anyway to be funny. "You're not gonna knock me up, are you?"

It worked; he chuckled quietly, grinning up at you. You felt his laughter through the way it made his ribs move beneath your hands.

"can't slip you any genetic material, if that's what you're askin'."

"Do you have genetic material?" you asked, then wished you hadn't. This was a conversation that could go on all night, and you had unfinished business to attend to you. You could feel the unfinished business twitch inside of you as you shifted your weight.

"well… 'genetic' 's probably the wrong word," he said. "we've got heritable traits but they're stored differently than with humans. how much do you know about—"

"Ok Professor," you said, cutting him off, "can we save the lecture for the pillow talk?"

To your surprise, he gave you a wry, almost exasperated look. "you gonna be thinkin' about that all night?"

Oops. You'd only called him "professor" to tease him, you weren't trying to make a thing out of it. Well, not really.

Frowning, you said, "You were the one who said things were easier to deal with if you joked about them."

He barked a laugh. "did i say that?"

"Yes," you said, sternly, but he was still snickering.

"guess it sounds like me, i'm full of bad advice and shitty defense mechanisms."

"Ok look, wise guy," you said, frowning down at him, "yeah I'm still thinking about it, gimme a break, I only found out like five hours ago."

"is it really weirder than the fact that i'm a monster?"

"Yeah, kinda," you snapped back, without thinking, although you weren't sure if that was entirely true. But it seemed to be the right answer. Sans examined your expression for a moment, then shook his head, smiling.

"weirdo," he said, but there was something tender and possessive in the way he said it.

You put your hands on either side of his face, and leaned into him to plant a slow kiss to the side of his mouth. Your breasts were pressed against the slatted surface of his ribcage, and one of his hands slid slowly onto your back, resting between your shoulder blades, drawing you closer. You could feel how cold his whole body was, with his hands on you and your chest against his, and your thighs pressed against his pelvis; everywhere except the patches of faint warmth under your fingers, were they rested against his flushed cheekbones. You kept kissing him while you thrust your hips, sliding up and down on his cock in long, slow strokes, and you let your mouth trail down the side of his face and onto the bones of his neck. He took loud, gasping breaths that punctuated each thrust, and while you road his hips his hands roved over you, stroking and grasping, fingers digging into your flesh. One cold hand finally tangled tightly in your hair, pulling hard enough to hurt just a little, and you moaned into his neck.

You pressed yourself closer to him, wanting as much of your body to touch his as possible, wanting him to feel how warm you were. With every thrust your clit brushed lightly against his pubic arch, sending a jolt of pleasure through you that made you whimper and clench tighter around him. It felt so good to be close to him like this. You kept thinking about what he'd said about magic and intention, and you concentrated on his low voice and the memory of his laughter and how good you wanted to make him feel. You couldn't tell if it was working or if you were just still good at doing this but he was clearly enjoying it. He was panting raggedly now, hips bucking weakly to meet yours, and whispering against your ear in his husky voice about how good you felt and how good you were doing. With one hand braced against the mattress, you slid the other inside his chest to stroke the inside surface of his spine. He groaned, loud, pressing his face into your shoulder and pulling you closer against him, and your thrusts became short and quick, spurred on by the noises he was making. You were both getting closer now. He was moaning openly, undone by your touch, mouth open and teeth scraping against your skin, and when you hooked your fingers between some of his ribs and squeezed he sank his teeth into your shoulder. This was not the careful touch from before. It hurt, and you hissed in a breath, shocked by the mixed sensations. You felt him stiffen beneath you, alarmed, but when he tried to pull away you put your hand on the back of his skull to keep him in place. 

"Please, please, please," you whispered, and he only hesitated for a second before biting back down, harder than before, and when you cried out he moaned weakly against your skin. His fingers were no longer in your hair, but cupped around the back of your neck, touch hesitant and gentle, as if trying to compensate for the pain of his teeth buried in your flesh. Sights and sounds were dulled now; you only felt; and you could clearly distinguish between the sharp, insistent sting of his canines and the blunt ache caused by the rest of his teeth, and with every one of your erratic thrusts the pain grew sharper as he bit down harder, and you felt his quiet moaning increase in volume through the low vibration of his voice against your shoulder and through his ribs, your own throat raw and dry, limbs trembling, the pressure of your orgasm building inside of you, and when his canines finally broke through the surface of your skin you came hard around his cock, crying his name, trembling and clutching at him. Both his arms went around you, and he thrust up into you a few more times before going rigid beneath you. You could feel his cock twitching inside of you as he came, and you willfully kept your cunt clenched tight around him, whispering encouragement to him as you came down from your own orgasm.

Eventually his arms around you slackened. He carefully released his hold on your shoulder and let out a long, ragged breath. You raised yourself into a sitting position, arms trembling, ears buzzing faintly, grinning down at him. He smiled back—a weak, blissed-out, half-lidded expression. His pupils were wide and soft, and a little fuzzy around the edges, and there was blood smeared across his teeth. You stared at each other for a long time while you both caught your breath. He was still smiling but his eyes kept darting to your shoulder.

"ok," he finally said, and leaned an arm over the side of the bed to fish his tshirt off the floor. "you're bleeding a lot."

"I am?" you asked, surprised, turning your head to try and survey the damage.

"yep."

Sure enough, a few long trickles of blood were flowing freely down your chest from the bite mark. The wound looked a little gorier than you were expecting, actually. Sans heaved himself into a sitting position in front of you, and carefully pressed the material against your shoulder. His hand was too thin to apply pressure evenly like you were supposed to. He seemed to realize this right after you did, because he took the hand of your uninjured arm and pressed it down on the cloth, then put his own hand on top of it.

"Your shirt," you objected.

"it's old," he said simply.

After a moment, you said, "This can't be very sanitary."

He opened his mouth to respond, then closed it, then stared off into space, frowning. You liked when he got that faraway expression on his face—like he was thinking very rapidly, or visualizing something complex. It was weirdly sexy.

After a moment he laughed, and said, "ok, we were not prepared for this." He slid off the bed, stumbling a little, then snatched his shorts up off the floor and shoved them on haphazardly.

"Where're you going?" you asked.

"drug store." He turned back toward you. "'s there blood on my face?"

"Yeah."

"wipe it off? no, keep that there," he said, when you started to remove his tshirt from your shoulder. He picked some other article of clothing off the floor and shoved it into your hand. "use this."

"Not your hoodie!" you complained.

"you wanna bleed out or what?" he asked, but he was laughing. "i'll wash it later."

He'd been wearing this thing pretty much every time you'd seen him since you met, but he also didn't seem to give much of a shit about clothes, so you weren't sure whether to be touched or not that he was sacrificing it in this situation. Stubbornly, you made sure to use the inside lining to wipe the blood off his teeth.

"ok, back in five," he said, pulling on a grubby sweatshirt that he'd found on the floor. Then he vanished. You blinked into the dark. You knew he could do it, obviously, but until now you hadn't actually seen him disappear, and for a moment your mind stubbornly refused to acknowledge what your eyes were telling you. But he was just gone, and you were abruptly alone.

You were also still caught in the afterglow of your orgasm, a little fuzzy and sleepy as you stared into the dark room. It helped dull the slow ache that was settling into your shoulder. Sans's hoodie was still clutched in your hand. Feeling like a pervert, you raised it to you nose and gave it a sniff. Smelled like cigarettes. Suddenly you were giggling to yourself, feeling giddy and pleased. You replayed the events of the evening in your mind as you waited for him to return, anxious to put your arms back around him.

You still jumped a little when he reappeared, though, startled as always as he stumbled into existence next to the bed. He had a paper grocery bag clutched in one hand.

"alright," he said, as he hopped back onto the mattress, "here's your goody bag." He sounded as giddy as you felt, grinning as he seated himself cross-legged in front of you and unceremoniously dumped the contents of the bag onto the bed between you. It looked like a bunch of first aid stuff.

"How'd you know what to get?" you asked.

"told the cashier i bit my girlfriend," he said, straight-faced but clearly joking. "asked her what i needed."

Girlfriend! you thought, surprised by his casual use of the word, and by how warm and pleased it made you feel.

"Bet that went over well," you said, with as dry a tone as you could manage.

"yeah she didn't believe me." He couldn't keep from grinning this time. "shoulda kept the blood on."

You wanted to look through the stuff he'd bought but you kept thinking how cute he looked in a pullover sweatshirt, with his collarbones peeking out through the neck. Your shoulder could wait one more minute. You leaned forward and pressed your lips softly to his teeth. He seemed startled, pausing with his hands outstretched between you, then took in a breath as he leaned into you. He couldn't kiss you back but his hands came up to cup your face, his cold, careful fingers sliding against your cheeks and into your hair.

"you…" he said against your mouth, eyes closed. "you wanna do that again with me sometime?"

The hesitation in his voice made your heart melt. Of course you did. You wanted to do it again now, but you wanted to do it without getting blood everywhere.

"Yes," you whispered.

He gave a low huff of laughter, then asked, "wanna fix your shoulder first?"

"I guess," you replied, and he snickered at the mock-sarcasm in your voice.

The tshirt wasn't soaked through or anything, but looking at the blood made you feel a little lightheaded. You stared at it while Sans poked around over your shoulder.

"How does it look?" you asked. He could see the wound better than you could because of the weird angle. He had his phone open over it, using the flashlight to get a better look.

"not really bleeding much now. didn't mean to bite you so hard…" he said ruefully. Then he mumbled, "not really sorry though."

You smirked. "Me neither," you said, and he grinned as he poured hydrogen peroxide onto a spare piece of gauze.

"uh, brace yourself." He wasn't kidding. When he pressed the wet gauze to your shoulder it stung like a motherfucker. You hissed in a breath, pressing your face against shoulder, and he put a comforting hand on your arm.

"i babysit my friend's kid sometimes," he said, seemingly out of nowhere. "they're kind of a delinquent. get scraped up and stuff. 's how i know what do to."

You realized he was answering your question from earlier, about how he knew what to buy.

"Human friend?" you asked.

"monster friend. human kid."

Oh. That was interesting. Interspecies adoptions were extremely rare, as far as you knew.

"y'know you can whiten teeth with this stuff?" he said, grinning, and hefting the bottle of hydrogen peroxide. "bones too."

"God, that wouldn't work on you, would it?" you asked, laughing. "Is this even really bone?" You stroked his collarbone with your fingers, feeling the smooth, rigid texture. It felt real, but so had his dick, and that had just dissolved inside of you after he came. You let your fingers trail onto the bones of his neck. It thrilled you to touch him in this casual, familiar manner, and you realized that at some point you'd stopped thinking about the pain in your shoulder. He was already tearing strips of tape off a roll behind your back.

"if it looks like bone, and it smells like bone…" he asked absently, taping a fresh piece of gauze onto your shoulder. You were really glad he was doing this—with how much your shoulder hurt in just this neutral position, you didn't want to think about bending it too much.

"ok, good as new," he said, sounding satisfied, and flopped down on the bed. "sort of."

You craned your neck to see the bandage. Not quite as sloppy as you'd expected; the gauze was taped neatly in place, but there was still dried blood flecked along your shoulder.

"Should I… clean off the blood?"

"nah, leave it. we'll get it tomorrow."

"Ok… It's your sheets…" But you could feel yourself getting sleepier, and it was a relief to just flop down next to him without worrying about it. Flopping down turned out to be a bad idea though. You winced as the movement jostled your shoulder.

"Ow," you said loudly, for effect, and Sans chuckled beside you. He reached over and fished around on the messy bedside table, coming back with a hard candy wrapped in plastic between his fingers. He carefully unwrapped it—you were momentarily fascinated by the naked joints of his fingers—and held it out to you.

"eat this."

You narrowed your eyes. "How long has that been sitting there."

That made him snicker. "trust me," he said, and you did, so you put the candy in your mouth. It felt slippery against your tongue, dissolving faster than you expected, and tasted vaguely like licorice. You snuggled closer to him and put your head against his shoulder, and by the time he slid his fingers into your hair, the candy was fully dissolved. The effect was immediate: The throbbing pain in your shoulder dulled until it was just a fuzzy, indistinct feeling.

"Holy shit," you said.

"workin'?"

"Yeah… Is this like drugs for monsters?"

"no," he laughed. "don't really have drugs, i guess. if we're sick we just eat. or we use healing magic. but i'm shit at that kinda magic, so…"

"Is using magic fun?"

"i guess. just feels normal." Then with a snarky grin, he asked, "is pissing fun?"

"Not really," you said, laughing. "It's just inconvenient, I'd give it up if I could. Sleeping too."

"what? sleep's great."

"Only because you need it." Now that your shoulder had stopped hurting, you shifted your weight against him so you could put your arm across his chest and slide your hand onto his cheek. He leaned into your hand as you stroked the bone under his eye socket with your thumb.

"You close your eyes when you sleep," you said, "but you don't blink, do you? I've never seen you do it."

"nah. humans blink to keep their eyes moist, but there's no analog for me."

"Can I put my finger in your eye socket?" you said, hoping it was okay to ask that. He just laughed loudly.

"yeah sure, knock yourself out."

Oh. You'd kind of expected him to say no.

"Will it hurt?"

"can't be any worse than putting your finger through my joint," he said. That had hurt a little, for both of you, so that wasn't much comfort. He could feel you hesitating and slid his hand onto yours in a gesture of encouragement. Moving slowly, you hooked your thumb around the edge of his eye socket, pushing it just inside the dark cavity of his skull. It was cold inside, colder than you thought it should have been. His gaze was turned toward your face, away from your thumb. You wondered if that was because he was watching your reaction or because he was keeping the light away from your finger. You carefully slid your thumb over the inside surface of his skull, just inside the socket. Despite the cold and the unnatural dark, it felt pretty normal; just hard bone like the rest of him.

"Does it feel weird?" you asked.

"kinda," he said. "probably like having someone touch inside your mouth."

After a minute you withdrew your thumb, and held it up to stare at it. You saw him looking at it too. It didn't look any different, though you don't think he would have let you do that if it was going to hurt you.

"can i touch your eye next?" he teased.

"Only if you want to blind me. Actually," you said earnestly, "if you're careful you can touch my cornea."

"oh jeez. maybe in the morning." Whether he was hesitating because he didn't want to hurt you, or because he found the idea repulsive, you weren't sure, but you laughed at his reaction, and he chuckled along with you. You talked for a long time, and the last thing you remembered before falling asleep was the feeling of his smile pressed to your forehead.

Chapter Text

Your shoulder was sore when you woke up, and purple bruises were already forming on the insides of your thighs. Sans was still fast asleep, lying on his side and facing away from you. You craned your neck to get a look at the bandages on your shoulder. The tape had held through the night, keeping the bite mark covered, but there were spots of red on the gauze where a little blood had seeped through.

Whatever, you'd deal with it later. You didn't want to get up yet. Boldly, you threw one arm over Sans and slipped the other one beneath him, in the space below his ribcage, and snuggled up to him. You couldn't press yourself right up against his back—his spine was too pokey—but you got close enough. He crossed his arms over yours and mumbled unintelligibly.

For a long time you just dozed, lulled by the sound of his slow breathing. Clearly this was going to be the pattern, if this thing went on: You would wake up and Sans would sleep in. That was doable. You thought about getting up to make some breakfast, but you remembered that his kitchen was under-stocked and that he couldn't have eaten it anyway unless he cooked it himself.

It was weird to think that you would never be able to cook anything for him. And that he never had to use the bathroom. That must be convenient. At least you both still needed sleep.

But you didn't need that much sleep, and eventually you got up to find your phone. Sans grumbled an objection as you crawled out of bed, so you pressed a kiss to his temple before you left the room to find your bag.

Connie | 8:08pm
Howd it go
Did you tear him a new one

Connie | 11:40pm
I can only assume from your silence that youre having lots of unbelievable makeup sex

You | 7:41am
Ding ding ding

Connie | 7:50am
Oh my GOD

You | 7:50am
Is it weirder that I'm fucking a skeleton or that I'm fucking a faculty member

Connie | 7:51am
Dude i dunno…
The weirdest part is that he doesnt shit, so… skeleton

You snorted with laughter. You forgot that you'd told her about that… Now that you thought about it, you weren't sure if that was a trait of skeletons or monsters in general. Had you ever once seen Burgerpants use the bathroom while you were teaching together?

In the bathroom, you winced as you pulled the bandage off your shoulder, tape and dried blood clinging to your skin. You used one of the spare pieces of gauze to wipe off the blood, then leaned in to examine the wound in the mirror. There was a rather horrific ring of bruised skin, showing the exact spot where all of his teeth had been. Except… you couldn't find the actual puncture wounds, the spots where his canines had pierced your skin. And they had pierced your skin, or else where the hell had all that blood come from. But they were just gone.

No, there they were. But they were already closed up. No scabs or anything, just little dimpled marks, like they were a week old already.

You quickly dismissed the outlandish thought that the monster candy had put you to sleep for a week. Though real monsters clearly has some things in common with mythological creatures, you were pretty sure any Rip van Winkle shit was out of the question. So what, then. The bite had just… healed really fast?

Sans was sitting up in bed, rubbing one half-closed eye socket with the heel of his hand, when you stomped up to him and pointed at the bruise on your shoulder.

"How," you demanded.

"uh. i bit you. remember?"

"No, I mean— Look." You pressed your shoulder closer to his face. "Look at the actual puncture wounds. They look like they're a week old."

"oh," he said, then yawned expansively. "it was just the candy. healed em up."

"That fast??"

"yup," he said, laughing at your disbelief. He put out a hand and wrapped his fingers loosely around your upper arm, under your injured shoulder, and leaned in closer to examine the bite mark.

"But why just the holes? Why not the bruises too?"

"well, it's just a piece of candy," he said. He released your arm and let himself fall back down onto the bed. "only has so much juice. magic, i mean. the bloodier stuff was the priority, so that's where the energy got spent." When you didn't follow him onto the bed, he patted the empty space next to him.

"God, it's not… it wasn't sentient, was it?" You sat down on the bed next to him, but didn't lie down. You weren't going to let him cajole you back to sleep that easily.

"heh. nah. your body told it what to do. there used to be human mages, y'know, when magic was more common on the surface. your body remembers what to do with it."

Mages, huh? You hadn't thought about that. If one piece of candy had done a week's worth of repair work, then…

"Why isn’t this stuff in every hospital in the country?" you asked.

"you kiddin'?" he said, and there was an actual note of disbelief in his voice. "not many humans are willing to even try monster food, let alone, y'know… medical stuff."

"But there were humans at Grillby's."

"yeah, some. in this liberal college town. things aren't like this everywhere, y'know. even here they're not always great."

"Yeah…" You knew that was true. You'd been living in this city since before Monsterkind emerged from the Underground. Prejudice against monsters was a lot stronger in other parts of the country, but it was hard to really believe that when you didn't see it up close. "It's just hard to believe people would pass up an opportunity like this. Just because they're… afraid, or whatever."

"yeah, well." He gently placed his hand on your bare back. "everyone does shitty stuff sometimes when they're scared. monsters included."

With a sigh, you finally relented and laid down next to him, resigned to falling back asleep. And if you were being honest… resigned to spending the whole day lying around with him, if he wanted.

"At least we have that in common," you said wryly.

He grinned, and snaked his fingers through yours. "and we both love naps."

"Oh my god," you groaned, closing your fingers around his. "This is not a nap. It's eight in the morning. This is just going back to sleep."

"whatever you wanna call it."

"You know what, you're full of shit, Sans," you said, but he was laughing, and you were trying not to smile.