Chapter Text
The world was black. You couldn’t see anything, but you could feel so much. The pain in your chest and face were dulled, but the pressure in your throat had you starting to panic. Before you even opened your eyes you tried to take a deep breath, but something was stopping you from doing that. Your brain started to panic and you tried to move to grab at whatever was choking you.
Noise came into your ears and you heard beeps and…voices…
“b-bones!? n-nurse! help please!” a terrified voice yelled out.
You heard someone rushing towards you but you kept trying to take a breath and grab at whatever was in your throat, but you couldn’t lift your arms. Why couldn’t you lift your arms? Your whole body felt weighted down and you couldn’t move. Your eyes snapped open then and light flooded your vision. It was too bright. You closed your eyes again and felt someone touching your face.
“Sir? Can you hear me?” A woman's voice said next to you. “You have a breathing tube in your throat but you’re breathing on your own now so I’m going to take it out. Please try to relax.”
The pressure in your throat started to move. You made a pained noise as it left your mouth. You were finally able to take a breath. You gasped and coughed. The weighted feeling in your body went away and you could move again. Bringing your hands up you rubbed your eyes with the base of your palm, hard. You were finally able to focus through the light and you saw white walls, monitors and a white board.
You were, in a hospital? What had happened?
Moving your head you finally saw where the familiar voice was coming from. “Sans?” your voice was rough from the tube.
Sans was sitting next to your bed, his eye lights full of blue tears. His hands clenched the bedsheets and you could hear his bones starting to rattle. You blinked hard and coughed a bit in your hand, “What’s going on? What happened?”
“Do you know why you’re here sir?” A female voice asked, causing you to turn your head and see a nurse.
“No…” You coughed again and tried to sit up but your chest aches something terrible. You groaned in pain and stopped trying to move.
“Please be careful sir.” The nurse said and gave a soft smile, “I’ll go let the doctor know you are awake. He’ll be in here shortly.” With that she left.
You turned to Sans and lifted your hand to touch his cheek and brush some tears away, “Why the tears?”
Sans jumped slightly from your touch and brought his hands up to cover yours, “i...i thought i lost you...i’ve been so scared….”
Your eyebrows scrunched, “How long have I been out?”
“Th-three days…”
Your eyes went wide and you were about to ask for more information when the doctor came into the room, “Mr. ___. I’m glad to see you awake.” He said coming up towards your bed. He was a tall man with black hair and deep chocolate skin. “The nurse tells me you don’t remember how you got here. Can you tell me the last thing you remember?”
You looked from the doctor to Sans and tried to go into your mind for the last thing you did. You grit your teeth, “I...I remember taking Sans to the bar...I remember…” You looked back at Sans, “I remember kissing your skull and telling you I would be...be… safe in my next fight..” You took the skeletons hand and squeezed it slightly, “Guess I didn’t keep that promise…”
Sans gave a small chuckle and squeezed back, “it’s not your fault…”
The doctor took your attention back, “Well, you did make it your fight. It seems your opponent was using brass knuckles and got you to the ground. You had several lacerations to your face and chest, as well as three broken ribs. We were able to heal the small cuts without any scars thanks to one of our monster nurses, but we did not want to go any further in your healing until you woke. You’ve been in a coma for three days.”
You gave a sigh, “That explains why my chest hurts.”
The doctor nodded, “Yes, that explains it. I want to do a head CT and ask if you are open to our monster nurse to heal your ribs.”
“Yeah, I’m fine with it.” You answered.
“Good. I’ll send the nurse in soon.”
You watched the doctor leave before you turned back to Sans. The small skeleton wasn’t looking at you. It didn't feel right to you. Reaching up to cup his skull again you spoke, “What’s going on in that skull of yours?”
Sans wouldn’t look you in the eyes. You stroked your thumb under his eye socket and tilted him more towards your face. “Hey, it doesn’t help to keep things locked inside.” You gave a sigh, “It eats at you and if you don’t tell anyone it hurts everyday. Trust me, I know this.”
Sans murmured something and you arched a brow, “What?”
“i...i called diana…”
You felt your body freeze. You didn’t know what he meant by that. He had called Diana? When? How? What did he say? This was all too confusing for you. You could feel your mind starting to spiral down into a sea of possibilities that could have happened. Before you got too deep though you felt something wet on your hand. Blinking out of your mind you saw Sans looking at you with soft blue tears running down his skull.
“i’m so sorry ___. i was just so scared and you weren’t waking up...i thought you had fallen down…” He hiccuped, “but then I remembered…. you did that surgery with your daughter… and you have a small speck of green in your soul….. i thought that maybe it was her… that if she was near you you might… heal faster...i called diana from my phone and she… she just hung up on me… she wouldn’t even consider it… you were dying and she wouldn’t… she…”
“Shhh..” you put your hands under Sans arms and started to pull him onto the bed. It pulled at your ribs but you ignored the pain to comfort the small skeleton. “It’s alright. I’m not upset. I’m sorry she wouldn’t listen to you.”
You held in a sigh at the thought of what he was saying. Diana wouldn’t listen to him. Wouldn’t bring his daughter to his bedside. You would move heaven and earth to be near them in their time of need but… you… you were just a killer who didn’t deserve the same.
Sans laid his head on your shoulder and his hands held the blanket and hospital gown on your chest. With your arm around him and rubbing small circles on his back you looked up as a monster walked in. It wore what looked like wizard garb, including the pointy hat, and was floating. Two orbs floated near its head as it glided in. The monster stopped and look over at Sans arching a brow.
“Judge?” The monster asked.
Sans jerked a bit and glanced towards the monster, “madjick. sidn’t know you were working in the hospital.”
Madjick’s orbs went up and down in what you could only assume would be a shrug. “I’ve always been good with healing magic so it just seemed natural.”
“I thought you only talked in magic words?” Sans asked, his tone was a bit amused.
“That gets a bit tiring once you talk to so many people. I mostly did it underground to annoy monsters to leave me alone.” They said moving closer, “I’m going have to ask you to get down while I heal your human.”
Sans blushed and started to climb off, “he’s not…i…shut up…”
You chuckled, “Awwww, I’m not your human?” You gave Sans a cheeky grin making him blush more, “You’re my number one monster though.”
Sans surprised you by vanishing from the room. Madjick gave a small laugh and his orbs moved to hover over your body, “Thank you human.”
You looked at the monster, “For what?”
“For making our Judge happy again.” Their orbs started to glow and your body started to heat, “Everyone underground saw the dramatic change in emotion in him, but none of us could think of what to do. If his energetic brother couldn’t make him smile…there was no hope for the rest of us…” They looked up into your face, “So thank you. I’m sure a lot of monsters want to say that to you.”
You smiled, “Nothing to thank me for.” You took a deep breath and thanked the stars you didn’t feel any pressure in your chest.
Madjick’s orbs moved away and they nodded, “All done. You’ll be released after the head CT to make sure the coma didn’t do any damage, but you’ll want to take a few days to rest to let the excess magic in your system settle.”
You nodded and Madjick floated out of the room leaving you to your thoughts. The first thing you did was push yourself up so you could sit in the bed instead of lay there. Once up you stretched your arms above your head and groaned as you felt your muscles stretch and your back pop a bit. A squeak from the corner made you glance around.
Sans was standing in the far corner by the tv with his skull blue. You chuckled and held out your hand, “Creepin’ on me?”
The skeleton vanished and you arched a brow until you felt weight next to you. Wrapping your arm around Sans you glanced down and used your other hand to tilt’s Sans head up to look at you, “Do you know where my phone is?”
Sans blinked and nodded his head to the table next to you. “should be in that drawer, but why do you want your phone?”
You turned and reached for the drawer. Opening it up you saw your phone and wallet. Your clothes weren’t there and you could only assume they weren’t salvageable with all the blood. Taking your phone you leaned back against the pillows and unlocked it. “I want to watch my fight.”
Sans took ahold of your hospital gown tightly, “W-why?”
You looked down at the skeleton and noticed he looked scared. “I don’t remember anything from the fight. Losing time like that doesn’t sit well with me. I need to know what happened.”
Sans shook his head, “no…it was terrible…just let the memory go..”
“I can’t just let it go.”
“why not?”
“Because forgetting doesn’t help anything.”
“I would give everything to forget sometimes!”
You froze and placed your phone down on your lap to cup Sans skull again. There were small pools of blue tears on his eye sockets that clenched at your heart. “I know that…I…I’m sorry Sans.” You wiped your thumb to take away the forming tears, “I know how hard this is but if I don’t remember then…it just leaves you to have the memory alone. I don’t want to do that to you. I would rather share the pain then have you hold it all by yourself again.”
Sans seemed to shake slightly but it wasn’t enough to rattle his bones. Finally he looked down at your chest and nodded. “Ok….can you… do you need the sound on though?”
You gave a soft smile, “No. I don’t need the sound.” You ran your fingers over his skull lightly to relax him, even just a little bit. When you felt him lean into your side you picked your phone back up.
Opening your web browser you went to your favorites and clicked on the website Cory had made for the fights. Finding your fight was more of a challenge. You have never needed to get on the site to find past broadcasts that you didn’t know where to go. After a few minutes you found the video. The thumbnail showed you grinning inside the cage holding up your fists. A strange picture when you knew where that grin ended up. Shaking your head you clicked the video and turned your volume down all the way.
You watched as Cory walked around in the middle of ring talking into his mic. You pressed a few buttons and smiled when subtitles came up on the bottom of the screen.
‘-on for another fight! The Bone Doctor is coming back with a 16:1 ratio!’ He waited a moment and text came up that said ‘(audience screams)’.
Cory started to speak again, ‘His opponent is coming in with a 5:0 ratio! He’s called The Killer! Ominous I know but let’s see how he fares at his Doctor’s Appointment! Now! Lets LOWER THAT CAGE!’ Cory left the stage and you watched the cage lower.
Your grin as the thumbnail image came up and you watched yourself and Killer circle each other. It started easy enough. Once you were punched in the face you saw the shift in your expression. You brought the screen closer as you tried to speak to Cory but Killer grabbed you and started to beat you down. Your eyes widened watching it go downhill and the fact that you could see this now said…they had let this stay live. It took longer than you thought for the cage to raise and Killer wasn’t stopping. You weren’t moving…you were sitting here with Sans but you wondered if you had actually died. You couldn’t comprehend that you were the same person that was motionless in the cage.
You replayed the video a few times to see if there was something you could have done or to get any flicker in your memories. It was on your third run through that you saw something new. Over Killers shoulder in the audience. The face made you freeze and your blood run cold. He was there….he was watching the fight….
His smirk told you everything.
You had to talk to Sans.