Chapter Text
Living with Sans was nothing like you’d expected.
You’d extended him the roommate offer after he’d been deemed ineligible for free monster housing (something about him being more ‘capable of immediate employment’ than other monsters, but to your ears sounded like ‘looks more human’ than other monsters). He took you up on it, to your surprise and, if you were honest, delight. You’d expected a flippant rejection or a rude retort about how your human landlord would take it if he swaggered into the office and asked for an application.
Turns out, he didn’t have to do even that.
You were the savior of monsterkind, the human that broke the Barrier and reunited the races. There were groups on both sides that hated you for it, or hated one another, or were just apprehensive about the races coming together again, but then there were those like your landlord. You’d gone to her before Sans and asked about an application, and she’d just handed you new lease papers.
“Just have them sign every page. I’ll have another key ready by tomorrow morning.” She didn’t ask any questions, and you knew it wasn’t because she wasn’t thinking about it.
Sans moved in the next afternoon.
Any possible apprehension about having Sans as a roommate didn’t set in until he’d shortcut-ed his things upstairs and dumped them in the middle of the cramped living room. You were grabbing your purse off of the coffee table, running late for your first shift at the bar (turned out that breaking an all-powerful magical barrier and being the unifier of man- and monsterkind didn’t make you a fit for politics, but at least you had your bartending skills to fall back on), when he’d appeared in a red blur beside you and dropped a heavy-looking box of machine parts on the couch.
“What’s that?” you said.
“none a’ yer business,” he replied easily. He dusted his hands off, the bones clacking together, and looked down at you. His sockets sparked brightly in surprise.
“what the fuck is this?” he demanded, indicating your short skirt and low-cut tee. It suddenly occurred to you that he had never seen you in anything but jeans and a sweater. You smiled and pulled the purse up on your shoulder.
“I’m going to work.”
“ya workin’ a street corner?” he asked gruffly.
“None a’ yer business,” you said sweetly, imitating his accent, and moved around him. Sans’ insults, teasing, and generally surly attitude had offended and intimidated you once, but you’d grown accustomed to all of it a long time ago. Mostly. You knew for a fact that he liked to press your buttons, but, to his obvious annoyance, it was getting harder for him to do.
You opened the door, then turned back to see him plop down on the couch and prop his sneakers on the coffee table. “Hey, don’t leave that stuff on the couch. I just got us cable, and I want to watch it when I get home.”
“whatever,” he said, folding his arms behind his skull and looking up at the ceiling. He was scowling more deeply than normal, like you’d pissed him off. That was easy enough to do.
You found yourself regretting your words immediately after you closed the door behind you; there was a loud thump from the other side, like Sans had thrown something at it. He was a volatile guy, to put it delicately, but he’d changed so much since you’d first met him. It wasn’t his fault that his LV was so high. He’d been through so much. You both had, and much of it together.
That’s why you’d offered to let him move in. In the Underground, he’d been your first true enemy, and certainly the most dangerous. He’d kept you determined, at first by knocking you down, and later by picking you up. He’d been your constant, your anchor of sanity through all of the mind-numbing deaths and RESETS and altered timelines, and it was impossible to imagine any sort of life without him close to you somehow, even now that you were on the Surface again. You’d never say it aloud, because you knew that he’d call you a liar and deny it himself, but you thought of Sans as your dearest friend.
That’s why, you imagined, all of his boxes were tucked neatly in his room when you got back from work.
Sans spent little time in the apartment in the three days following his move-in. So little, in fact, that you never saw him. That, as much as the carefulness with which he cleaned up after himself, shocked you. You had expected him to spend most of his time sleeping, or dirtying the place up with mustard stains, but he was like a ghost. The only evidence that he had ever been there was the cigarette smell that lingered behind him (Sans smoked like a freight train) and the closed door to his bedroom.
You and Sans had spent so much time in the Underground together that any time apart felt strange. You had to work most days, and there was nothing you could do about that, but why was he never at the apartment when you got back? He replied to your texts almost immediately, but he was always vague, and you never pressed because you didn’t want to seem needy. He was getting along without you just fine, apparently, and you needed to do the same. You tried, but an ache started up in your chest every time you thought about him.
Was he really just fine? Sans worried you on that front. It wasn’t his fault, you would never blame him for it, but his LV was so high, and sometimes he had trouble keeping it under control. And having all of those RESETS and timelines crammed in his head didn’t help. It certainly fucked with you, and you hadn’t experienced anywhere near as much as Sans had. His resilience astounded you, but you knew that, behind his tough guy demeanor and cruel words, he was heavily damaged and tired.
On the fourth day, you lost your resolve to let things be, and you called him on your work break.
Part of you didn’t expect him to answer, but the line picked up before the second ring.
“wazzup, baby?” You could tell he was happy, even with his deep and dark voice. Loud music thumped in the background.
“Are you okay?” you said bluntly. Sans was quiet for a long moment, and all you heard was the music. Then the sound started to pivot, like he was moving around, and you heard the muffled slam of a door. The music died, and there was the crackle of wind in the phone’s speaker.
“yer,” Sans said at last. His voice carried that final tone that you knew offered no room for prodding, but you couldn’t leave it there. You were about to tell him that you thought he was lying, that you wanted to know what he was out doing all time, that it wasn’t fair that he kept leaving you alone, that you missed him, when he said, “ya still in the back?”
You paused. “In the back?”
“yer. come outside.”
You frowned, but got up from the stained, rickety table and pushed the breakroom door open. Your eyes scanned the loud bar for a tall, broad-shouldered figure in a fur-trimmed jacket, but there were too many people and it was too filled with smoke to see well.
“ner,” Sans said, and you realized that he hadn’t hung up. “outside, baby.”
You moved through the dim hallway, sidling past a couple groping one another against the wall, and pushed the back door open.
Sans was standing in the parking-lot.
You didn’t think it through, but how could you? Your shoes slapped across the pavement as you ran to him and threw your arms around his middle, burying yourself in his shirt despite the way he tensed. The magic giving his body form beyond his bones was warm, and felt like flesh beneath his clothes. After a moment of silence between you both, filled with dread from you that he would push you away, he laughed. The rumbling, baritone sound was the most comforting thing you’d ever heard in your life, and you relished the way it reverberated through you. The ache in your chest throbbed and throbbed.
“heh heh. wow. i didn’t realize ya’d been so bonely without me.” He said it with a chuckle, but there was an uneasy edge to his voice. “uh… where the hell’s yer jacket?”
A sob escaped your lips. You felt Sans tense hard, like he’d been struck, and then rough phalanges were gripping your chin and making you look upward. The red light of his pupils cast a glow around his skull that sharpened his edges and made him look savage.
“what the fuck?” he demanded. You looked up at him through wet lashes, the tears streaking down your face now. Until that moment, you’d had no idea how much stress, how much anxiety had been bottling itself up since Sans had seemingly begun avoiding you.
And looking up at him now, seeing the familiar glow of red, inhaling the dark and spicy smell of his cologne and cigarettes, hearing his deep voice, feeling his magic’s heat and the sheer power of his presence… This was right.
This was your constant.
Relief turned your knees to water, and Sans swore. He caught you before you hit the pavement, grabbing you hard by the waist. His phalanges were sharp, and you’d certainly have bruises, but you didn’t care. You pulled yourself into him, breathing him in and crying against his shirt. He let you, at least for a moment, and you were so grateful. So grateful. The ache faded, and so did the near-hysteria that had gripped you. Sans finally pulled you back to look at you again. One of his sockets was black, and a threatening discharge of magic bled from the other in wild sparks. He was breathing hard.
“what the fuck, baby?” he said again, and even though the magic gave his agitation away and the way he phrased it was harsh, his tone was so gentle. You couldn’t remember when he’d ever talked to you like that, even when you were dying and waiting for a terrible and inevitable RESET. The ache throbbed to life in your chest again, and you pressed back into his shirt. It stopped almost immediately.
“Don’t leave me,” you said, and it came out choked and desperate. Sans was quiet again (god damn his silences), and you winced to imagine what he was thinking of you. This was weak. This was everything he’d told you he hated. This was disgusting.
Cold wind bit at your arms and legs.
“i won’t.”
You shivered.
“i didn’t.”
You heard the defensive note in his voice, though to anyone else it might have just sounded cold.
“ya wanna know what i’ve been doin’?” Sans took hold of your face roughly and made you look up at him again. Both of his pupils had returned. “i’ve been lookin’ all over for this fuckin’ shithole,” he said. “took me four fuckin’ days. d’ya have any idea how many bars this city’s got?” You shook your head, your chin still in his grip, and he continued. “i didn’t either. and i can’t shortcut anywhere in public, ‘cuz of the stupid-ass laws, so findin’ this place took me a while.”
You didn’t say, ‘Why didn’t you just ask me where I worked?’ Sans’ pride wouldn’t let him answer that, and that was answer enough. So, instead, you said, “Why’d you want to find it?”
Sans shifted a little, and you realized that you were still pressed to him and his hands were resting on your waist. He continued the conversation as though he didn’t notice any of this.
“’cuz i need work,” he said. His gold-plated tooth glinted down at you with his grin. “and tibia honest, i knew ya couldn’t stand bein’ without me.” You weren’t sure if that last part was a pun since he was still supporting your weight, but you didn’t get a chance to dwell on it.
“Fuck you, freak!”
Sans stiffened, and you turned to see a man across the parking-lot. He was standing with his legs splayed apart, like he was drunk and couldn’t keep his balance otherwise. He seemed to see you huddled meekly in Sans’ grip, and he pointed accusingly at you.
“Freak-fucker!” he shouted.
Sans let go of you to take a step toward the man, and you felt a warning wave of heat roll off of him. “beat it, shithead,” he roared back, “before i come over there an’ break yer fuckin’ neck!” The man screamed something, an unintelligible jumble of threats and curses, but your attention was on Sans as he started to take another step. You grabbed at his jacket sleeve and pulled.
"Don't,” you pleaded. “Please, don't. You'll get in trouble.” Sans stopped to glare at you, his socket blazing with furious energy. You watched his expression twist from anger to frustration to anger again. He knew as well as you did that the law wouldn’t lean in his favor if he hurt (or, god forbid, killed) a human in a fight. “Please,” you said again.
The man jeered at you both as Sans turned his back on him and took hold of your arm to lead you back into the building. You could feel him shaking with rage, and your chest throbbed sharply. You pressed a hand to the spot and held it.
Sans followed behind you into the smoke and music of the bar, and so you didn’t see the troubled way he stared at you as you held your chest, or the anxious energy that was bleeding out of his socket.