Chapter 4
Paper wallsSans stands at the door, looking around in desperation, seeing nothing but their bones shaking in front of the mirror above the sink.
"Frisk! You alright?! What's-?" Sans looks at them up and down, confirming the lack of injury before focusing on their face. Their hands are holding the mouth tightly unable to kill off that coarse keening sound. Frisk shakes their head and glances fearfully at his glowing hands, taking a step back. Sans notices and quickly relinquishes his magic, turning his hands up as if to surrender.
"Look it's ok, you're ok….c-can tell me what happened?" fake lightness, fake smile, he's shaking almost as much as they are. Frisk finally quiets and shakes their head again.
"Ok, I get it, ok…Do you wanna sit down?" Sans approaches slowly and moves towards the toilet, Frisk takes a step to the side, never giving their back to him as he takes the toiletry basket and places it on the floor. They don't make a move to come closer even as he steps back, so Sans sits on it and faces them instead.
"Damn, that was really stupid wasn't it?" Frisk simply stares, wide eyed. "I shouldn't have let you see that by yerself, I wasn't thinking straight… Look, do you want me to, uh, help you?" Sans scratches his cheek, self-consciously.
Frisk looks at the floor quietly for a long while trying to make sense of things and failing. They decide to trust in him just like they remember, and nod their head a tiny bit. That's enough for him.
"Okay then, uh…If you want take one of these and ah, put it around your waist, Imma take this off over here, kay?" he slowly reaches for a towel and offers it at arm's length. Then turns around and takes his shirt off before tossing it to the floor over his shoulder, ways away from the laundry basket.
Frisk stares as Sans pushes off his shoes and socks with his toes. His body is made of thick whites bones, similar but not exactly human, with a few scars here and there. They take a towel and struggle to wrap it around themselves, not just because of their lack of a stomach to hold it up, but because looking down at their body they can't help but notice the flowers living in it. They can't help but gag and the strangled sound makes Sans turn to them.
"Hey, hey, hey…you alright? You got it?" Frisk shakes their head, before turning their head up to avoid looking at themselves and hopefully keep away whatever could some out of their mouth at this point. They are surprised how genuine it feels, the to heave urge lodged in their throat. They swallow the vile taste of their own mouth and try to breathe in vain, while Sans ties the towel around their hips.
"Kay, you're all set. Uh, when you can, just walk over to the shower. I'll get the brushes and stuff…"
Frisk wonders for a moment what the brushes are for, then remember they are covered in dirt and god knows what else. They sit on the bench and turn to Sans, he starts running the water and filling a wooden bucket, adding soap from a bottle. He dips a hand brush in and approaches Frisk slowly, holding out a hand. His mouth is grinning but his eyes look desperate and their light wavers.
Frisk holds out a hand which he takes gently and begins to run the brush over it, from the wrist up to the forearm; the soft scratching noise of it fills the room. Sans appears intensely focused on his work, but keeps stealing glances at Frisk's face. Their eye is wavering and small, it's light faded and lost. Soon enough the water in the bucket becomes dark, he changes it and gets back to work. He takes their other hand and they let him, their body dangling off the stool listlessly. Unable to keep with the tension Sans starts talking idly as he works away the dirt on their bones.
"So, I guess you didn't mind the ride here?" no reply. "Papyrus says bikes are for teenagers or mid-life crises. Most folks think the bike thing is overkill but, really, it's cheaper than a car, ain't it?"
Frisk relaxes marginally as he continues to talk absentmindedly. The dirt keeps coming out from between their joints and they are starting to feel a tingling on their hands. It's comforting to know they are not completely numb; their hand twitches when the bristles rub their palm, as it begins to tickle in earnest. Sans raises a brow at them, they shake their head.
"It tickles…" Their voice sounds teary and coarse, they note, feeling unsteady. Sans has a look of utter relief and exhaustion peek out before he puts another smile on.
"Yeah, that happens. Joints are the worst but that's where all the dirt goes." He scrubs harder and Frisk twitches, he huffs in amusement, rinses their hands and continues elsewhere. "I'll get back to that. You can do it yerself if you wanna, that way it won't tickle so bad."
"Okay." They turn and let him slowly scrub their shoulder blades and collar bone, too caught in their own feelings to notice the shake of his hands as he gently washes them.
"You can go faster if you want." they say, wanting to end this quickly.
"Sure….just don't blame me if you turn into a giggling mess."
"I make no promises." They say goodnaturedly, trying to relax.
Now that Frisk can't see him, Sans' face slips into a miserable expression, they talk idly about the town, a pun here and there as he pours away small clumps of hair and dead skin down the drain. He tries not to pull at the flowers much, afraid to hurt them, but he is disgusted at how bright the plants look as they cling to them. Mockingly they spring this way and that as he washes all the filth away hoping he could do the same with this weight in his ribcage. Sans turns away to refill the bucket, when he turns back his tense smile replaced by a smaller, albeit more sincere one.
"Now the legs."
He kneels on the shower floor in front of them, holding one of their legs on his lap and scrubbing at their feet. Not surprisingly it tickles like crazy, they can't help it and kick, hard, only to fall on their back with a clatter.
"You alright?!" he sounds worried.
Frisk looks up, sprawled on the floor with a leg hanging off the stool and when they blush and nod, he sputters into a genuine laugh. It echoes over the walls and despite their embarrassment, Frisk finds themselves smiling. It ends too quickly but it makes them feel lighter either way; in the end laughter was always a good enough remedy for the both of them.
They sit back down as Sans instructs them on how to get the brush between the joints. When they reach their calves Sans keeps rubbing at their knees in circles never going any farther and Frisk moves the towel away impatiently and keeps cleaning. They are startled by a strangled splutter and look up to catch a pair of wide eyes on them. Sans' face reddens and he goes back to refill the bucket, letting them have some space to clean their lower body in peace.
As they finish up with their back to him, he stares at them. The graceful spine and sharp angles of their shoulder blades are beautiful, delicate. The feeling of nostalgia resurfaces and he wrestles it quietly, he can't afford to let his mask waver. He keeps searching for traces of old gestures, the curve of their cheekbone, the way they turn their head, how they wave their hands to speak. Familiar and strange, to see these signs on another body and another face. Still the flowers mark a tangled trail of both truthful evidence and poisonous threat. He can't hope this will last, those golden tethers will make sure he won't.
When he is almost done he hands Frisk his spare toothbrush, watching them amusedly as they make a mess of themselves. He laughs when they stare curiously at their own tongue, translucent with magic, colored a greenish yellow; then hands them some floss and mouthwash. They thank him with a smile and he returns it absentmindedly. When they are done, Sans brushes himself over quickly with peroxide, dries up and reaches out for a towel for Frisk. When he looks back Frisk is staring at them with that quiet serenity they used to have sometimes. It freezes him in place, the shock and wonder still fresh in him.
"Sans, could you…help me get these off?"
Frisk looks down at their body, hand placed over their sternum, making his eyes wander over the tendrils that cling to their spine and fill their rib cage with yellow. They seem calmer than should be possible; a calm not born out of serenity but out of resignation. Something tells him they remember how much this hurts and so does he. His lip curls in apprehension which he quickly turns into a sneering grin.
"Heh, I don't really think…that's a good joke."
"I already tried it…it doesn't hurt. I just want to see if I could take all of them off…"
Sans turns away, they had this conversation years before; he hated it then and it frightens him now. He squeezes the water from his shorts, wringing the fabric brusquely, avoiding them all the while.
"Nevermind, it's fine...Could you lend me some clothes, please?" they say simply, staring at his back.
"Ok. I'll get em in a bit." Stiffly he hands them a towel, avoiding their eyes, and steps out.
Frisk takes that moment alone to look down at their body, trying to get used to its appearance. The blooms are scarce compared to before and are neither painful nor numbing, simply there, like an afterthought. They tentatively reach for their right eye, exploring it. They are unable to feel the bloom growing inside their socket, but instead feel the flower's center pressing against their fingers. They push a little harder and their clawed fingertips poke their socket, giving them a sharp stinging pang. They cry out in surprise just as Sans returns. He stands in the doorway in a sleeveless shirt and a pair of striped boxers, Frisk avoids looking at him but can clearly hear his irritation.
"Here…so what was that?"
"I was trying to see if I could-I mean, I was trying to touch it and I...poked myself." They say pointing at their eye socket, painfully embarrassed.
"…Eye see that you're getting acquainted with all yer new...parts but I think you oughta get some shut eye; one that doesn't involve fingers."
"Heh, thank you." he frowns disapprovingly before shrugging off their thanks with a shy mumble. He turns to brush his own teeth and give them some space.
Frisk dresses quickly, pulling the strings on the pants tight over their hipbones and fiddling with the shirt that is comically stretched over them.
"Is it too much if I ask for some underwear?" they ask.
"Uh, not really, I just don't have any."
"Oh...ok, but why?"
"Don't really need it." he shrugs.
Frisk shakes their head and Sans beckons them to follow upstairs, they give up trying to be quiet and try to ignore how their feet clatter on the floor instead. His room is long and rather narrow, at the far end is a desk with a window over it, faint light comes through from the street below. There is a plain bed and another desk, this one strewn with papers and assorted knickknacks. Atop it is a keyboard and another screen, smaller than the television but made of the same glass-like material. There are posters on the wall from bands and movies, which Frisk can't identify.
San's bed is unmade and he walks over, bundles the sheets, throwing them in a corner before changing them. He sets up the bed and shakes the sheet before piling it at the foot of the bed.
"Here, all yours."
"Thank you."
They stand around in awkward silence, until Frisk walks over and sits at the edge of the bed meekly.
"It's pretty late so I'll leave ya to it. Let me know if you need anything...I'll be next door."
He points in the general direction with his thumb before shuffling his feet awkwardly. He's wearing a pair of red slippers and Frisk stares openly until they are interrupted by him.
"G'nite."
"Good night, Sans…thank you, for everything I mean."
He stares at them for a few seconds, the light in his eyes wavers before he blinks it away too fast for them to identify the emotion behind them.
"Yer welcome."
With that he walks out, they turn off the light and shuffle into the bed, the blue and orange hues passing through the window make the room seem surreal. They, stare at the ceiling tossing and turning, trying not to think about the grave and entertain their thoughts with something lighter and more cheerful. But when they look back at their day all they recall is the strained twitching at the corners of the other skeleton's mouth.
Frisk tries to remember more, of the Underground, of Sans and of themselves. They come upon the ugly realization that they don't understand much of what little they remember. They remember they travelled with Sans, he cares for them, they can tell that much; but mixed in are these horrible memories where they suffer…no they die repeatedly. They cover their head with their hands and try to recall everything they can.
Everything's a blur, images and stories that can't exist together try to correlate in their head. A warm hand on their head, a embrace, the smell of baked goods and fire…and the feeling of being burned. They shudder and move on to another line of thought, cold water and echoes, a harsh female voice, darkness and cold; followed by heat and grinding gears, a metallic clanging ringing in their ears. They remember fighting, dodging, holding onto a hard hand and running, always running. They remember the creeping numbness that slowly ate at their body, the smell of dying flowers, nostalgic and rich. It is there where it ends, after that there is nothing else. These last memories are the closest thing they have to a sense of reality, while the other images fray at the edges, tainting the truth with blood and a faded joy bathed in the sunlight.
They are distracted from their thoughts by a red light that shifts in the dark. An orb, an after image burned into their right eye. Perhaps from their fingers earlier, they recall warily, maybe their eye was damaged, then again they couldn't see out of it. But suddenly the orb shifts and moves slowly, back and forth, pulsing rhythmically. Frisk strains to follow it, then starts softly rubbing their smooth palms against their eye sockets but it makes no difference. They still see it and their right eye won't even close. Too exhausted to cry over it, they leave it be and turn to face the ceiling and the red after-image fades. Despite their exhaustion they are unable to sleep, so they snuggle deeper into the blankets and stand still, hoping that perhaps sleep will catch them.
In the next room Sans paces back and forth, and berates himself for being so self-doubting. He decides, to hell with it, and presses the call button then quickly hangs up. Maybe it would've been better to just wait until tomorrow, he thinks with mild shame, when the phone begins to ring.
"Hello Sans, how are you?"
"I uh, I'm fine Lady boss…I just-"
"You wouldn't call at this hour…if you were anywhere near fine. Talk to me, you know I'm here to listen." A shuffling noise comes through, she must be getting up from the bed. She waits until she hears a defeated sigh.
"I went to the grave today…"
"It's been a few weeks since the last time, hasn't it? That's really good. How did it go?-
"Dunno how to explain this to ya but...They were there, doc." he says, then her voice starts again, gentle as always.
"Aren't they always, Sans? It's fine to spend time with them every now and then."
"No, I mean literally there, they...they crawled o-out of their fucking grave…" he stumbles, choking on his words.
"Please explain. What do you mean, exactly?" her voice remains controlled, even in the strangeness of the implication.
"It's them. They're in my house right now…they're alive somehow…..They're a-a monster."
"Wait, slow down, a monster?"
"Yeah, they're a skeleton now!" his voice cracks and he forcefully gulps down the knot in his throat.
"Sans…"
"I'm not crazy, doc, I'm telling ya; I just walked them back through the whole damn Underground. Other people saw them, talked to us, they're there! They're here! I mean like right...here..." he extends his arm to point at the wall, tears finally pouring out as he begins to sob, a hand shoved into his mouth to muffle the sound.
"Please, try to calm down, Sans. Sit down and calm your soul, regulate your wavelength and calm your magic down...Now, think. How can that be possible? We both know that they passed away."
"I know that, I saw them die…I helped bury them there for fuck's sake…" his voice shakes as he forces it into a whisper.
"Is it possible perhaps that they are another monster that reminds you-"
"No,because they remember me...only things I would know, that they would know…I know how this sounds but I swear to you I...I know it's Frisk."
He sounds worked up again, speaking halted by his shortened breath; she gives him a moment to compose himself, taking notes in her computer all the while.
"I'm not sure I understand, but I'd like to speak with you, Sans, tomorrow. Come by my office in the morning, before opening hours."
"…I can't just leave them alone, doc."
"Then bring them along with you, you know it's no problem; but I want to speak to you in person as soon as possible."
"…I know what you're thinking, but it's not like that."
"Sans…" she takes off her glasses, staring at the phone screen and Sans' picture in it. She presses the request for video call and though he won't let her see him, she knows he can see her and stares intensely into the camera.
"I'm going to speak frankly… Ever since I met you, you've been struggling with this; and you've worked so hard these past years to get where you are now. We both know you've gone through hell but we've established that you don't have to stay there...So please, don't do this to yourself, don't try to go back...because you know it's impossible and you have much more you can do for your future than spending it…trying to change the past. "
It is a while before he replies.
"Move it up to noon? I gotta do some stuff in the mornin." he mutters.
"Of course, call the office when you can. Don't be late this time." she says unfazed.
"No guarantees." a small smile tugs at his cheekbone.
"No refunds."
This time he actually laughs softly.
"…Thanks, Lady boss. Good night."
"Good night, Sans... And don't call me that! You make it sound like I'm a drug lord."
He breathes in deep and puts away the phone, finally settling on his desk. He moves the mess of books and notes idly before giving up altogether, put off by the sight of his shaking hands. He pours into the pile of books and cries in quietly until he is too tired to even do that and simply stares out the window, at the winking lights that slowly disappear until his exhaustion wins out.
In the next room Frisk lays face up, hands clasped tightly over their chest, shaking. They hear muffled sounds and Sans' gravelly voice, whispering harshly. They don't catch what he says but the sound of him crying is more than enough to bring them to tears as well; and as they dot the pillow, Frisk decides to try their best to remember from today onwards. They recognize that even with the taint of fear in their mind another blessed part seems to soar every time he is here. So they choose to believe in what rings true about that feeling instead. But in that confounding sweetness they become more upset, for they can't understand the root of either feeling and in the end it's this uncertainty that drains them until they stumble into unconsciousness.
They don't know where they are, everything is black and when they look up there is something glowing in the air, a gold ring. A crown of flowers upon their head, their hair a coppery sheet. Black flowing robes that billow seamlessly as if made from the surrounding dark. Their face is the only light here, their eyes a bloody red and their lips are curled softly in a smile as they extend an equally pale hand.
You found me.
They sound so glad, hearing them makes Frisk feel glad too.