Author's Note: Greetings, all! This fic also appears on my main account, over on AO3. Over there I added a textwall of worried descriptions, explanations and basically nerves-induced covering-my-butt. Here I won't do that. Here I leave it to you.

The title comes from another fic on here, by it takes a village, called "hush." I read the line several years ago and tucked it away for a rainy day, which turned out to be this. All credit goes to them.

Finally: Frisk's fears are my own. Sans' responses are somewhat based on what I think my mom would say if she were still here. This was one of those stories that's born from experience. I'm happy to field questions, of course, and reviews are good for the, ahem, soul.

It's midnight, or close enough that the moon's past the windowpane and somewhere near its zenith: the shadow of the potted buttercup sitting on the sill is short, its petals kissed by opalescent light. Frisk opens their eyes, watches the flower's quasi-silhouette for just a moment. Again, again, Flowey's found his way into their dreams. For a moment they clutch at the pillow, reminding themself that it was a nightmare and no more: truth it might have been, and truth it might still be—but no—they refuse to allow themself to believe it. Papyrus is asleep in the racecar bed across the room, alive and well, impervious to the world; in the bedroom next to theirs are Mom and Sans. Everyone's alive. Everyone's safe. Everyone's . . . happy.

Frisk bites their lip, thick-headed from sleep and feeling that same sweet darkness begin to lap over them again.

Just a dream . . . Mom's voice, conjured from Frisk's last remaining tendrils of consciousness, is soft.

And Sans'—Sans' words are better, in that they are real, in that he's said them before, they're not just figments of Frisk's mind: they know he has nightmares, too. And both of them are privy to the chilling fact that the line where nightmare and reality meet but do not touch is a fine, fine line indeed. The line has knots. The line is tangled in itself. The line can be cut, can be tied again, at will—at Frisk's will—

go back to sleep, buddy. it'll be okay. we're not going anywhere.

Something they know he tells himself nightly, just like them.

Frisk closes their eyes, blinks slowly, forces their gaze to move from the window and the flower to the one other living being in the room: Papyrus' sleeping silhouette. Their breath becomes a sigh, a thing they hadn't realized they were holding.

"tori. everyone's asleep. you can breathe, you know."

Toriel catches little but the pinpricks of his eyes, the shadow of him in the dark, but it's far more than that—far more—

"hey, papyrus sleeps through everything. funny on the surface, huh? he finally gets what a good night's sleep is."

"Frisk—"

"is sleeping too. c'mere."

She closes her eyes, feels Sans shift, feels the myriad curves of his body pressed against her own. She supposes once she would have given this a solid moment's thought, a moment's hesitation—the differences between them—ample flesh and fur becoming shelter for naught more apparently than bones—but as his fingers—cool phalanges—begin to gently trace the tufts of just above her eyebrow . . . no, those differences are nothing. Not when what he's brought into her life is laughter. Is real love. In his own way, too, he gives her strength: Asgore's actions had wrenched too much from her, had left such things as trust and love to be little more than trinkets, forgotten relics from a slur of days and weeks she can't stand to remember and can't bear to forget.

And what she's given in return—

He rarely speaks of it, she's never outright claimed it as her own, but so it's there. She gives him hope. Papyrus, of course, loves him, too—as only a brother could—and there's nothing Sans wouldn't do for him—but—

There's something always there, just beyond her reach, some part of him he won't let her know: flashes of it sometimes snare her: deterministic nihilism dripping from his words: apathy, so-called: laziness: depression: no, it's none of those. It's fear, real fear, the kind from which he used to scream himself awake each night.

Not so now. At least not every night.

Toriel breathes deeply in the dark, SOUL alight and seeking his as surely as her hands have long since done the same. The caresses and the soft, soft words, the subtle shifting in the dark—because there's always cadence to the act, always—are but preludes.

There are no colors to a Monster's SOUL, not as there are to Humans', but sometimes she fancies that she sees his as she cradles it, flaring far more brightly than his eye's ever flashed in sudden rage. Vaguely she wonders what color hers is; if he ever sees her that way, too . . .

The breath catches in her throat, becomes a cry: the subtle play of his hands is nothing to the soft trails of light between them, the phosphorescent magic spun to bind their coupled selves—not in body but in SOUL—and Toriel, who's known both ways of making love, realizes suddenly that this, ah, this is—

"Sans—"

A low chuckle, nothing more.

Toriel slips one great paw with the greatest delicacy to stroke his spine and the chuckle promptly dissolves into love-notes, a duet that neither can stand to silence now, not even with the niggling memory of the child and the brother in the room next door. Sans buries his head against her soft, soft shoulder and loses himself in the deep brightness of her, the dazzling-deep blue.

"I'll kill everyone you love."

But it isn't Flowey this time.

It's—

Frisk jerks awake—again—again—twice in one night . . . hasn't been that bad in a long time . . . Their head pounds and their throat's dry; the word they once heard Sans use (much to Toriel's chagrin) is dancing at their tongue. Their eyes immediately find the potted buttercup. Never have they wanted so much to smash the thing, to tear the petals off, to rip at roots and stem and—

No no no no—that's not—I'm not—I'm not them, not them—I—

They can't, they couldn't ever, not this time. Besides, the flower's innocent: the one living thing Papyrus can finally take care of, unlike the sprinkle-laden rock he insisted on bringing from the Underground—which still sits on the windowsill, just next to the plant—and which can survive quite well without the skeleton's ministrations, though no one's had the heart to tell him so.

Frisk sighs.

It wasn't Flowey, anyway.

A dream.

A dream of a reality (which was to say nothing of an entity) that might well—what? Torture them into insanity? Until a RESET is the only thing—?

Just . . . a hard day. Forget it. Forget it. Forget—

"But I couldn't live in a world without love. I couldn't live in a world without you."

Because the thing is, Frisk knows why Chara hated Humanity. Why they'd climbed the mountain, too. Why they wanted nothing more than to kill. Humans. Monsters. Everyone. And what it meant for Flowey—Asriel—to admit to love.

Not the kind as worried Frisk.

But love.

And yet—

Silence is thick, save their breathing. They listen intently for a moment, missing the sounds of the Underground: the whispers of the Echo Flowers, the play of water, the wind in the pine trees—even the hiss of steam in Hotland. Somehow, now, the world's too big. But so it always seemed.

Frisk traces the map they always keep tucked carefully away within their mind: once again they tread the well-worn path through Snowdin Forest: they smile as they envision what another life might be: they can almost feel the sting of snow in their hands while they pack it into a snowball, tossed for Greater Dog—

Silence, thick. Not the silence of the forest. The silence of the sleeping world, the Upper World, the Humans' world. Frisk tastes the words and isn't sure they like them all that much. The old, small, cheap (and much-loved) house around them creaks. The trees of Snowdin Forest. And—

Something else?

Frisk tilts their head, frowning, still huddled in the blankets, still clutching at the pillow.

Far too rhythmic to be the house.

Frisk mouths soundlessly a moment, blushing hard and glad Papyrus won't wake up for anything because those would be hard questions thrown at Mom and Sans if he heard, too. Frisk, of Humans—and Monsters by implication—at least knows enough, has seen such love between Alphys and Undyne . . . and, of course, the two Monsters in the room next door. What they're doing is a part of that, a mystery Frisk knows nothing of save moments such as this (and teachers' well-intentioned lectures which leave them with more questions). Still, it's not the first time they've woken up like this—to this—but if anyone knew—

Frisk pulls at the blanket for a moment, struck suddenly with an idea.

At school today, the other children—other Human children, Frisk amends through gritted teeth—had thrown taunts at them, sharp-things worse than any of Undyne's spears. The annual lecture on reproduction and adolescence this year had been . . . well, a challenge, and Frisk certainly wasn't envious of the teachers, who had a few Monster kids in class and so had to adapt the usual spiel accordingly. No easy task, given the plethora of sexes, genders, pronouns, as Humans so quantified them all—which was to say nothing of biology, let alone magical conceptions, let alone . . .

Frisk hadn't been able to help but beam: at last, at last they weren't the only one who didn't fit into such tidy little boxes.

But slowly Frisk exhales, realizing that today isn't going to just go away. Tomorrow won't end it, either. No. It never, ever ends, and no amount of RESETs can fix such things, can rid the Human heart of beasts far, far worse than any Monster—or the monsters of their mind.

Through the wall they catch a cry.

Frisk, too, cries out: Frisk feels the hilt of the Real Knife, thick in their small hands: Frisk feels the blade catch, oh, catch against cloth and bone in the one death-blow and this time there's blood and they know he doesn't know he made such a sound—

This—this cry is different—

But reality—?

They aren't enough to reconstruct reality alone, not now.

Sans. Sans! Sans—

There's still the common sense to wait a moment, to be sure the silence is definitive, before they clamber from bed and tear across the room and then—

The knock is soft.

Sans vaguely wonders how his hearing is better than Toriel's, what with those ears, but there it is.

Or how the slightest noise this side of the barrier jolts him awake. Before, before he slept through everything—

Again the knock.

Shorts and a shirt and the old, old slippers which have decidedly lost their salmon tint, which is to say nothing of their fluffiness. Glancing once more back at a sleeping Toriel, reassuring himself that she's there, refusing to think about the time when—when she isn't—wasn't—won't be—Sans taps gently back, whispers through the doorframe:

". . . who's there?"

"kid? what're you doing up?"

Frisk stands in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot: a stocky, stubborn, tousle-haired silhouette. Sans tilts his head, needs say no more: without a word he ushers them into the hall, down the narrow passage to the kitchen; the living room, scant room that it is, looms to the left—no, no, not there: the door to the outside world is there and sometimes doors are too much for the both of them.

The kitchen, then: the bright light over the stove that Toriel keeps spotless, tirelessly enlisting Sans' and Frisk's aid after each time Papyrus attempts spaghetti—or Undyne whips up a new recipe she's learned. Without a word Frisk sits at the table, taking Toriel's spot; Sans fishes in the cupboards, finds two packets, finds a pan; his fingers seem so delicate against the bulk of a milk carton that they can't help but smile.

They gesture to the microwave.

"nah. don't trust it."

Frisk nods, slowly. The radiation—? "Gaster?"

". . . not tonight, kid."

"'Kay."

They swing their legs—still too short to reach the ground—and wait until the milk's warm, until the packets are stirred into two mugs, until they and Sans are settled at the table with hot chocolate. The skeleton fixes Frisk with that steady gaze, the smile that never seems to falter.

"Why do you always do this? Make cocoa when I—when I'm up?"

"read it somewhere in a book. kid can't sleep, so their mom makes hot chocolate. then a time-traveler shows up."

"Then what?"

A shrug of strong-boned shoulders. "no idea. can't say i ever finished it. maybe, once. don't remember it."

"Read it to me sometime, me and P'yrus, 'kay?"

"sure thing, kid.

"Now."

Frisk shakes their head, looks up from the steaming cocoa. The inflection in Sans' voice—there's always a little fear of him, mixed in with the love—and whenever he adopts that tone, they know to listen.

"What's wrong, Frisk?"

They shake their head again; the light's back in Sans' eyes and he sighs, softly, a breath he doesn't need to bother with, a charade not worth keeping up. His hand reaches out, tousling their hair, strands stuck between the metacarpals. "okay then. i'll pretend this isn't serious. what's up, kid?"

"Nightmare. Flowey, first. Then . . . I don't know. Me. Them? The . . . the one who . . . makes me do things in the . . . when I . . ." Frisk can't bear to say the word, not to him. "Woke up . . . angry . . . and. I don't."

"something happened today?"

At Frisk's cautious glance: "something's got you angry, and not just the dreams. buddy, you forget how well i know you, huh?"

"Mom didn't . . ."

"tori loves you, but she doesn't know you. not like i do. we've, uh, spent a lot of time together, haven't we? she doesn't know that—don't forget that, kid."

"Wasn't all bad," Frisk whispers, throat suddenly a painful mess. The mug, the table, all blur into a mess of brown. They refuse to cry.

"'course it wasn't."

"Kids at school today . . . We were studying growing up and where . . . Human . . . babies come from. And. The kids. They." Frisk shakes their head, ducks out from underneath Sans' hand so they can cling to it instead. "For once I'm not a weirdo. I'm not the only one, 'cause there are Monster kids in class. But I'm not . . . like you."

"uh . . . what?"

"I'm not a Monster."

"and . . .? trust me, kid, you really don't want to be . . ." wait. "i know you climbed the mountain, kid. I know something pushed you to it. i know chara . . . look. what . . ."

"You all understand! I didn't have to say anything to you and you understand!" Frisk bites at their lips, draws blood, hurries on before Sans can speak again. "They don't. They don't. I'm just a girl to them. But I won't ever be. And sometimes I." They gesture helplessly a moment. "The teachers tell us about where Human babies come from. And how when people love each other, they . . . their bodies fit together. Right?"

"well." Sans rubs at the back of his skull a moment. "look, you're young, too young to even really know about that . . ."

A fierce, fierce stare: the skeleton never drops his gaze but damn, that kid can still unnerve him. Too close to the surface are the memories of when—

Another futile gesture. "How am I supposed to do that?"

And there it is—it's not the usual pre-adolescent curiosity—there's a deep anguish scrawled across Frisk's face that Sans knows he isn't qualified to read. But they've come to him, to him—not Toriel, not even Undyne or Alphys—

"when you're older," he answers slowly, "if you . . . if it bothers you . . ."

but it's bothering them now and . . . i don't know. what's too much to say? what's not enough at all?

"look, you can always talk to me. i just don't . . . i can't answer everything."

"I know."

A pause. And then: "You and Mom don't . . . fit. But you . . ."

kid . . .

Why, suddenly, was the thought of talking them through a nightmare more appealing? And a messed up fact that was.

"Heard you."

and . . . that.

"I woke up from the dream and heard you and thought about why I was so angry and I just." Frisk clenches their hands into fists, hard enough that Sans knows he's digging into their skin. "Ithoughtyou'dunderstand."

They catch their breath, swallowing, and their voice cracks when they try again.

"I'm like you, but I'm not like you. I don't have magic. I can't . . . who would love me? How am I supposed to—"

"whoa, okay. slow down." Sans holds up his free hand, drops it down to nudge their mug closer to them. "it's getting cold."

Frisk dips a pinky into the liquid, lets it drip, doesn't know what to say.

"but, kid, it's still beautiful."

". . . Oh. 'Cause it's hot chocolate." Their lips twitch. "Not your best. But." Another pause. "I bet it likes being called beautiful more anyway."

"Heh. listen. kid.

"i can't tell you everything you want to know, not yet. i'm glad you came to me, but this is stuff that tori needs to have a say in, too. but i'll tell you this, though."

Sans blinks a moment, studies them, tries to figure out what to say. "sure, humans and monsters are different. but we all have this, kid."

He reaches out, fingertips aglow, just faintly: it's a serious thing: both struggle for a moment with hard, harsh memories—the Judgment Hall—bone-splinter and blood-splatter—before Frisk feels the familiar warmth that is Sans' cradling their SOUL. Mom's done it, too—but—

"we all have a SOUL. and what happens when two people are in love . . . really in love, you understand? . . . that's what matters. like the pianists who got married—they were always in a chord."

A grin this time from Frisk.

"or why the proton's positively attracted to the electron."

Rolled eyes—does that count as progress? At least they don't seem quite so upset.

"let me tell you a secret. i think tori knows but, uh, we never talked about it."

Frisk leans forward so Sans can whisper, if he wants, which he doesn't: tact isn't quite his strong suit. And maybe, in some way, he wants Toriel to hear.

"i was afraid of what you're afraid of, too. why you came to me to begin with, huh? because, yeah, you're right: we're different, she and i, at least in that way, and i worried about it. a lot. more than i should have. but. we realized—i realized—very quickly that it didn't matter. because our SOULs . . ."

"That's how you're made for each other."

"yep. and how you're made for someone, too."

Frisk ponders this a moment, knows it's a leap of faith—the fear that no one will love them—well—that's universal, isn't it? "You didn't think you were."

"no. c'mon, kid. you've heard me: giving up is what i've done for so, so long. played my part, said my lines, went through the empty motions just because—well—what else was the point? and even now, with you, with papyrus, with tori . . . there are days when i don't believe it. days when i dare question what it's worth, because it could end. well, bucko, that's how any relationship works, isn't it? monster, human . . . you saw what happened with tori and asgore . . .

"and anyway, i take that same leap of faith with you, even if it's different. You could end this any second, kid."

The dark, dark eye-sockets almost swallow them. Frisk stares back. Is terrified, but so is he.

"days like today, i worry about you. worry that . . . forget them . . . worry that something'll push you to RESET. there's no mt. ebott this time. the only way back . . ."

"I won't! Sans—"

". . . which is why i'll try my best to help you, buddy. always have."

Frisk ducks their head, begins to tremble: Sans scoots his chair closer, offers a bony shoulder upon which they can rest their cheek. Tears seep quickly through the fabric of his shirt; he thinks a moment longer.

"There are no easy answers, Frisk. I've wanted them. For so long, I've wanted them. And then when I stopped expecting them, there you were, and here this is. So. You hang in there, do you hear me? No RESETs, not this time. You hang in there and we'll get through this. And. Uh. I've still got your back, kid, you understand? That promise Tori had me make . . . that's still in effect. There are far worse monsters out here than there ever were back there."

Wordlessly they nod.

"stay DETERMINED, kiddo. i can't promise that it'll be okay, but we're still all behind you. hm. you feel us?"

Frisk waxes for a moment in the glow of Sans' embrace—of their body, of their SOUL—before feeling the echoes of the others', too: Mom, P'yrus, Undyne and Alphys, even Metta. With all their heart—no—all their SOUL they want to promise him that they'll never RESET, never, not again. But there are no easy answers, and never's a promise one can't afford to lie.

Sans holds them, saying nothing now. Deep down he knows that's a thing they can't ever outright promise: despite everything, it's not the same as Tori's desperate plea. It nearly destroyed him, keeping that oath when again, again, the timeline was RESET, when it wasn't his sweet Frisk who came through that door but—

"Sans? It's okay. I'll be okay."

Ever-smiling, they feel him smile more. But it's bittersweet, the whole of it: "being okay" doesn't solve a thing, doesn't ease the pain, the fear, the doubt, the loneliness. Still, it's the best they've got, the two of them. "i know, buddy. i know."

Toriel jerks awake, the bed too cold—Sans is a surprisingly warm bedmate—the room too empty, vast—the sky outside just beginning to flush with dawn and somehow still possessing the ability to swallow them all. The sky, though she'll never admit it, frightens her a bit. The stars are gorgeous, but . . . there was a certain safety in the Underground: no open maw of sky, no boundless cosmos beyond (which Sans, upon occasion, delights in expounding on)—

Hastily she wraps herself in a dressing gown, glances into Papyrus and Frisk's room. The child's gone? Then—

Down the short hallway, floor swaddled up in threadbare carpet creaking beneath her feet. Her elbows brush the walls; if she isn't careful, her horns always catch against the doorframe.

In the kitchen she finds two mugs next to the sink, crusted-over with the remnants of hot chocolate. This is familiar enough now; the old queen—now queen no more—just mother, lover, friend—smiles briefly to herself.

It's in the living room she finds them, curled up on the meager couch. Strange, that they always come out here, when well enough she knows the front door and the world beyond are sometimes terrors to them both. But here they are, Frisk curled so tightly against Sans that they don't need a blanket, warmed by his own magic, his own radiated heat. Toriel looks down at them fondly, the both of them her dearest loves, her second chance, her hope, her dream. She kisses the sweet child on their cheek, tastes the remnants of their tears, feels for a moment as if her heart will break—and then shakes her head—because here's Sans, of course: Sans with his arms wrapped protectively about them: Sans with the sharp-blue eye which flares and flashes fit to kill if Frisk so much as hints that they're upset, in pain, that they've been wronged in any number of trivial ways. Because, yes, Humans are much worse than the Monsters they so feared . . .

She brushes her lips against his cheekbone as well, hoping he might stir and wake and see her and be reassured that all is well, that another day is here, that she is safe. Why he fears so much, she doesn't know . . . what drove Frisk to him last night, she doesn't know . . . But standing there, she feels their SOULs, the quiet harmony spun between the three of them more profound than any, and somehow still has the utmost faith that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.