'Sans?'

"yeah? what is it, kiddo?"

'Am I going to be okay?'

"wha—?"

'Am I going to be okay?'

"of course you are, frisk, why wouldn't you be? it's…it's the dream, isn't it?"

'…Yeah. Toriel said it was just a dream and Undyne laughed at me and…and…'

"it's okay, kid. i understand. it won't happen here, but if ever happens somewhere else i promise i'll stop you."

'Thank you, Sans.'

A hug.

The ruffling of hair.

A bend in time.

The swish of a knife.

The dribble of blood on tile.

A surge of power, the flick of a hand, the crunch of a fragmented body on the far wall.

A broken sigh.

"this is why i hate makin' promises."

"I see the moon, the moon sees me, God bless the moon and God bless me…"

It was one of those rare moments in the time since Frisk had started living with them that the child was being completely and utterly themselves without a single fear of retribution. The soft voice of the child in the living room, playing with their plastic dinosaurs and making a different, tiny roaring noise for each one between crooning stanzas of the lullaby was euphonious to Sans' SOUL. He couldn't help but close his eyes and bask in the noise. It had the same affect as the sound of Papyrus making spaghetti in the kitchen, humming to himself or wondering what else the recipe needed; it felt as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

A tiny roar followed by a slightly louder roar and a little giggle. Sans couldn't help but grin and try to step as quietly as possible to not disrupt the imaginary world taking place behind the couch.

"I see the stars, the stars see me, God bless the stars and God bless me…"

Maybe they wouldn't see him. He just had to make his slouching stroll into a finessed creep. Sans knew if Papyrus wasn't over at Undyne's he would happily be controlling the strongest looking dinosaur in Frisk's set and protecting the baby dinosaurs from the most fierce looking one. Instead of his cool brother, the freak-in-a-pot was moodily slumped over by Frisk's side. The flower was trying his best to ignore the dinosaur standing in his planter.

Frisk glanced up at the sound of Sans' footsteps rounding the sofa. They glanced up as their face flushed with color and they stiffened in surprise.

"whoops," Sans apologized with a chuckle. He lifted up his foot slightly in preparation for the pun he was about to make. "sorry, kiddo. thought i could slip past you."

Frisk covered their mouth and their shoulders turned inward. They appeared to be ashamed.

'Sorry,' they signed.

"for what? speaking?" Sans shook his head and his SOUL clenched slightly. What he wouldn't give to find the kiddo's biological parents, to be able to go back, to be able to do something. "don't worry 'bout it, bud, you didn't do anything wrong."

The flower scowled when Frisk turned their head.

'Sorry,' Frisk apologized again. Sans ruffled their hair in answer. He stooped down and plucked a dinosaur from Frisk's collection. He then made a galloping gesture with the toy that caused Frisk to give him a small smile.

"how long you've been at this, ya fruit loop?"

Frisk shrugged. They had lost track of time since they had donned their footie pajamas—a cute, blue thing speckled with little white dogs.

"hey. ya know what a dinosaur that can read is called? A thesaurus "

Frisk rolled their eyes but gave him a beam nonetheless. The flower shot him a disgusted look.

"do you know what the scariest type of dinosaur is called?"

Frisk thought for a moment. Unfortunately, they were unable to come up with an answer and decided to just shake their head.

"a terror-dactyl."

Frisk dissolved into laughed. The flower pretended to retch.

"mind if i sit with ya for a minute?"

The child tapped on the ground in delight. They pointed two fingers toward themselves and brought them to rest on the crook between the thumb and their pointer finger on their other hand that was cupped toward their chest. They handed Sans another dinosaur that had a long neck and stood on all fours. Frisk made a growling sound and pretended to trot the toy up Sans' shinbone. The skeleton walked his up to Frisk's stegosaurus and pushed the neck of the brachiosaurus down so it was pointing toward the ground.

Frisk's lip quivered in a pout and they gave the dinosaur a worried expression.

"oh, don't worry, they're not sad. they're just afraid of heights."

Frisk tittered and made their dinosaur give the scared brachiosaurus a kiss. The plant monster decided he had had enough and curled in his petals to sleep for the night.

Frisk gave a little roar and bounced a triceratops up and down. Sans laid the dinosaur that had a big head and little arms on the ground and said, "sorry, i can't fight you. i'm a napasaurus rest."

Without warning Sans was tackled by the small human. Sans wrapped his arms around Frisk and dragged his fingers up and down Frisk's ribcage in retaliation. The kid gave a screech of laughter and tried their best to turn his ribs into an xylobone. Sans flipped the two of them over and pinned Frisk's arms down with his knees. He then continued to tickle them relentlessly until tears of joy streamed down Frisk's face.

"oh no," Sans groaned. "not again."

Frisk gave him a look of worry.

"gravity is increasing on me…"

Frisk began to squirm underneath Sans in a futile effort to escape.

"gravity…growing…i can't…"

Frisk's thrashing grew until Sans was completely on top of them. The little human, now crushed, dissolved into muffled laughter. They pushed up with a hand against his spine and kicked their legs.

"huh. weird couch," Sans commented.

Frisk shoved and giggled harder.

"hope it doesn't mind if i take a nap."

Gathering up their determination, Frisk managed to pop their head and both of their arms out from underneath Sans. They curled one of their hands and rapped it against their other palm.

'Knock knock.'

Sans scooted off of Frisk and crossed his legs on the carpet. He knew it was probably going to be a good one. Frisk sat up at well and smiled.

"who's there?"

'O-l-i-v-e.'

"heh. olive who?"

To his great surprise, Frisk opened their mouth and spoke in the quiet, gentle voice that only the most soft-spoken of children like themselves could possess.

"Olive you."

He felt like he was going to 99999. Against his will, magic radiated off of his cheekbones from the warm pulse that had left his SOUL. Frisk was beaming at him like he had hung the moon and the stars himself. Dear Christ Almighty he was going to 99999 for sure.

"ah…"

He tried to speak, to string some sort of coherent message together but he was rapidly failing with each second that passed. He could let his guard down for just a minute, couldn't he? What would it hurt? So he did the only thing a flustered skeleton could do: wrap his arms around the ball of sunshine sitting before him and hang on tight.

"heh. i love you too, kiddo."

The day had gone by pretty smoothly after Frisk, Undyne, Papyrus, and Sans had returned home from the park. Undyne had stayed over for a few more hours in order to spend more time with Frisk. Her, Frisk, and Papyrus had had a group cooking lesson and the resulting sauce splattered over the cupboards had taken almost an hour to scrub off. Eventually, Undyne and Papyrus left for Undyne's house to have a training session and some late night anime, leaving Sans to finish off the day home alone with Frisk. With Toriel not back from her meeting with the Ebott council and a few congress delegates, it was up to Sans to feed Frisk and get them ready for bed when the time came. He had opted out of Grillby's that night. Even though they were home, Frisk was still tense and even quieter than usual. They had spent most of the afternoon and evening entertaining themselves, hands tugging on their hair and fidgeting when they thought Sans wasn't looking and humming quietly to themselves when their back would stiffen and their eyes would close.

Normally, Sans would comfort them and help cheer them up with a joke. But Frisk had wanted to be alone. They only came to someone if they were too overwhelmed. He had known them long enough to be able to read their body language. Sans could only watch from a seat in the kitchen or from the hall, feeling helpless as usual. He had been trying to avoid interrupting them playing because they had finally seemed at peace. At first he had been worried that the kid would be too upset to continue playing but now…

Sans ran a hand through Frisk's hair. The little child had yet to pull out of the hug.

Now he was happy he had.

"hey, kid. it's gettin' pretty late."

Frisk made a noise in the back of their throat and crossed their two fingers, pulling them apart and then brought their thumb up to their chin with the rest of their hand sticking upward.

"yeah yeah, i know your mom isn't home yet, kiddo, but she'll have my tailbone if you're not to bed before she gets home."

Frisk stuck their tongue out at him and crossed their arms.

"how 'bout i'll send her over to ya when she gets home?"

Frisk's nose crinkled but their eyes twinkled in spite of the expression on their face.

"ok."

Sans lifted Frisk up underneath one of his arms and headed toward Papyrus's room. Before they had gone too far, Frisk scooped up the sleeping plant so they could be carried as well.

"you're really puttin' me to work here, kid."

Frisk signed something about how magic would have been easier.

"nah, then i woulda had fun. can't have that now, can we?"

Frisk barrel rolled over in his arm so they were looking up at them. They blew raspberries at the skeleton.

Sans chuckled. "c'mon, let's get you off to bed."

Sans was awoken by a faint click of a door sliding open. A shaft of pale light snuck through the darkness of the room, illuminating a slot across the skeleton's face.

Huh. So he had fallen asleep reading to the kiddo.

Toriel peeked her head in the door and gave Sans a gentle smile at the sight of Frisk curled up against his chest, their body tucked in and zipped up in his hoodie like a joey in a pouch. Sans still wasn't sure how snug the human could be squished up against his bones (he figured the heat from the SOUL stowed up in his ribs probably made it pretty cozy) but they seemed to enjoy it as if the comfort level didn't matter. Besides, it was way to hard to argue with the kid. One puppy dog look was all it took to make him a goner.

Sans gave Toriel a wink and gingerly unzipped his hoodie, careful not to bump Frisk. He shifted slightly, freezing when Frisk made a small noise and readjusted.

"ah, tori," Sans whispered. "little help?"

Toriel laughed softly. She walked over to the side of the bed and—with all the expertise a seasoned mother could possess—swept Frisk up into her arms so Sans could slide off the bed. She then set Frisk back down in the bed, pulling the covers up to their next and gave a loving caress with the side of her hand to Frisk's face.

"Goodnight, my child."

Together, Sans and Toriel headed back to the kitchen to let Frisk rest.

"heya, tori," Sans greeted once it was safe to speak at a normal volume. "how'd it go?"

Toriel gave a tired sigh.

"not good, huh?"

"That is what I have to talk to you about. Perhaps you should sit down."

Sans climbed up onto his favorite stool in the kitchen as Toriel waved her hand and the kettle on the stove began to boil. She poured herself a mug and plucked a tea bag from one of the boxes up in the cupboard. Immediately, the aroma of hibiscus began to waft from her drink and around the kitchen. She pulled a bottle of ketchup from the refrigerator and set it down with a mug for himself in front of Sans.

The skeleton monster tugged on the back of his collar. Late night ketchup drinking never meant something good had occurred.

"There is…a faction," Toriel began as she sat down across from Sans. "…they are against the anti-discrimination law that was recently put into affect. "They do not currently have a known name, but they have a few members of high power. As of today, they were able to get the committee to repeal the anti-discrimination law."

By stopping himself from nearly spitting out all of the ketchup in his mouth that he had been slurping from his mug, Sans choked on the swig he had just took. He coughed and swallowed before blurting out an incredulous, "what?"

Toriel's head hung in shame. "It is true."

"they don't even need that kind of law in place, tori, we're people just like them. that's some serious bullshit."

"I know." Toriel's look of dejection slowly began to morph into one of frustration. "Now store owners do not have to sell monsters their goods if they do not want to, services do not have to be provided to monster consumers, hate crimes take more legal time to process if they even get processed at all—"

"tori."

Sans placed a hand over her's. The tips of her claws had began to spark with fire magic.

"we're…we're gonna get though this, alright? you and asgore are our best chance at getting that law back into place. you think all this b.s. would have been solved by now."

"That is why I have to speak with you about it." Toriel took a sip from her tea and cleared her throat. "In order to sort this mess out, an emergency meeting has been called with congress in Washington D.C. I have to fly out with Asgore and several monster representatives tomorrow morning."

"well, i'll miss ya, but you gotta do what you gotta do. pap and i will look after the kiddo and—"

"Papyrus is coming with us."

"…what?"

Toriel wrapped both paws around her mug in order to steady herself. "The delegates decided that they need other monster representatives to speak for the monster community besides the former rulers in attempt to avoid bias. Asgore called to speak with Undyne to make a request of her to come with us since she was the head of the former Royal Guard and knows the people best. Of course, she agreed happily. But we have a representative quota we have to meet and Papyrus overheard and happily volunteered for the job along with Alphys. We have one more slot we need to fill."

"i'll come then," Sans agreed, anger flaring in his bones. "knowing the anti-monster delegates? heh. they'd rip pap up into little smiling shreds. i'm not gonna let that happen."

Toriel nodded decisively and reached for her phone. "I can arrange for Frisk to stay with Mettaton if he has not left already for his tour. I'm sure he would be more than happy to watch Frisk for the next few days while they are not at school."

Sans was in the middle of formulating a response when he heard it: a long shriek drawn out by some unseen torturer that scared him so badly that he fell off from where he was sitting on his favorite stool at the counter. He could hear Toriel's stool clattering to the ground as she shot up but he was whisked away from the kitchen as he turned in the middle of his fall into a shortcut.

In a flash he was in Frisk's and Papyrus's room and there was a writhing mass buried beneath layers of blankets and sheets that he knew was Frisk. The kid let out another shout at the top of their lungs, one that caused the magic in Sans bones to stop dead cold.

"D-Don't kill me!"

Holy shit.

The only thing that he could think about was that someone was going to be dead over what was happening. All he could think about was how he was going to kill someone, no matter how long it took, no matter how far he had to travel, someone was going to pay for the way the kid was shrieking and he never ever wanted to hear Frisk let out a blood curdling scream like that ever again.

Behind him Toriel's feet were pounding across the kitchen and through the living space. He could feel a throb of magic pooling from Toriel's essence and into her paws meant for the unseen intruder that was threatening her child's life.

"Make them shut up!" the flower screeched with its leaves over where Sans supposed its ears were supposed to be. It looked terrified. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

He decided he would deal with that problem later.

"D-Don't h-hurt me! Sans, I'm s-sorry! I'm sorry!"

Holy. Shit.

Miraculously, somehow Sans made it to Frisk's side and had yanked the suffocating covers off of them. He had felt petrified and rooted to the spot, not exactly sure how to advance or if he even could. The only thing he could feel in his suddenly desensitized body were his sins crawling down the length of his vertebra.

"kid!"

"Please!" Frisk begged. "Don't kill me, d-don't kill me!"

The door flew open and nearly flung off its hinges as Toriel burst into the room. Sans shook Frisk, exclaiming, "frisk!" and Frisk sat up, eyes wide but still glazed from the nightmare they were trapped in. The child took one look at Sans and screamed even louder than before. They recoiled until they had shoved themselves up against the wall with their arms thrown up protectively and knees crammed against their chest.

Catching the look in Toriel's fear stricken eyes, Sans snapped his fingers and made a jabbing motion toward the kitchen to signal Toriel to leave because fuck she did not need to hear her kid begging for someone not to kill them, she did not need to hear her child plead for their life and to be spared by…him.

Thankfully, Toriel listened and released her death grip on the doorway. With her head in her hands, she fled back to the living space.

"I-I don't w-want to die," Frisk cried. "I-I'm s-sorry, d-do-don't h-hur-hur—"

"hey, hey." Sans swiveled back toward the the bawling child. "frisk, it's me! frisk!"

Frisk sucked in a gulp of air and collapsed into tears. Their shoulders quaked as their little body was racked with loud, convulsive gasps and they fought to keep breathing as they bawled.

"kid, i…"

Sans reached out to touch the side of their face. They felt much hotter than usual under his touch as they shook feverishly. The human didn't jump back at the contact so he took it as a sign to advance.

"i…"

He wrapped Frisk up in his arms and drew the child as close as possible. Frisk allowed themselves to be engulfed in the embrace and twisted their hands up as tight in the front of his shirt as they could. They became a ball in his lap, body molding to his and face smooshed into his ribs.

Sans allowed himself to look up to make sure Toriel hadn't returned.

"D-D-Don't h-hurt m-me I'm s-sorry," Frisk sobbed.

"you're safe frisk," he mumbled into their hair. "i'm not gonna hurt you."

He turned himself away from Toriel as he too almost began to cry. Everything inside of him hurt and ached at the thought of the nightmare being about the timelines they hadn't been friends, about the timelines that the other being that wasn't his kid inhabited their body, timelines where it was knock knock. Who's there? Not Frisk.

"Puh-Puh-Please don't hurt me, d-don't l-let them h-hurt me, I-I'm s-sorry, I do-don't want t-to die."

"i'm sorry," he uttered. His eye sockets were becoming a puddle as he fought to remain calm. He threaded his hand through one of Frisk's shaking ones and rocked back and forth. "i'm so sorry."

"I don't want to die."

"you're not going to, kid, n-not on my watch."

Frisk began to cry louder and harder. Their head lashed back and forth and Sans took his free hand out of Frisk's and held the human's head to his sternum.

His insides were waging a ferocious war that caused guilt to tighten around his ribs and a sense of duty to asphyxiate him.

"I don't want to die."

"shh, shh…" Sans hushed. He swallowed hard and his tears finally splattered into Frisk's hair. "you're safe, frisk. i'm not gonna let anyone hurt you. i'm…i'm not gonna let anyone hurt you."

Eventually, astoundingly, Frisk finally managed to calm down and the screaming plant had shut up and gone back to sleep. Somehow he had turned a wailing, shaking nightmare-turned-into-a-panic-attack catastrophe into a hiccuping, mostly quiet mess (truth be told, until he had calmed down some himself, he had been rubbing on their back like it was a lamp and he needed to make a wish like there was no fucking tomorrow). Once their body had unlocked, their breathing had calmed down, their heart rate had decelerated, it no longer felt like they were going to die in every pore of their body, and the kid had stopped shaking like a leaf caught in a windstorm.

He felt completely and utterly drained. He thought that time healed but it seemed like Frisk's nightmares were getting progressively worse. Besides wanting to crawl under a rock and sleep for a good ten years, now he felt like he didn't mind if he died somewhere in that timespan. Maybe even immediately because, damn it all, he had been the reason for their nightmare, he had been the one Frisk had been pleading with to not die at his hand. He was never going be able to forgive himself for that.

The world was a really fucked up place and he was caught smack dab in the middle of not okay and really not fucking okay (although now he was leaning toward the latter).

Somehow, without Toriel's help, he had wormed out of Frisk's death grip that had lasted even after they had fallen back asleep. Somehow, without anyone's help, he had worked up the courage to get out of Papyrus's bed and face Toriel back in the kitchen.

Toriel seemed as if she had gained ten years. She was hunched over her cold tea, eyes glassy and red-rimmed. She took a mechanical sip of her drink and a muscle in her jaw twitched slightly.

"i got frisk to go back to sleep."

Toriel didn't answer. His SOUL gave an uneasy thrum.

"they're…they're gonna be okay, tori. it was just a bad dream."

"'Do not kill me,'" Toriel quoted in a flat voice. "'Please, do not hurt me.'"

Instead of taking his seat back across from the ex-queen, Sans placed a hand on her arm.

"Oh God," Toriel gasped before breaking down. She crossed her arms on the countertop and buried her head in her arms.

"tori…?"

"What did they do to them?" she cried. "What did they do to my child?"

For the second time that night, instead of giving up, he plowed on. He stood as tall as he could and wrapped his arms around Toriel. She turned to meet his embrace, crying into the shoulder of his jacket and snuffling into his clavicle.

"I w-wish they had b-been born as tr-truly my own, Sans," Toriel breathed between sobs. "B-B-Because n-no matter what I do, I-I w-will never be able to reverse t-the d-damage t-they h-have done. I c-can l-love them w-with all my heart, b-b-but…oh, Sans…"

Sans' hand tightened around the back of her sweater. With each word, he felt his eye sockets grow darker and darker until they were completely snuffed out.

"I-I c-can't leave tomorrow," Toriel sniffled. She pulled herself out of Sans' embrace and straightened her back. "Someone has to—"

"tori?" Sans interrupted in an utter. "i-i'll stay with frisk. maybe grillby or muffet can fill that empty spot."

"Sans…"

"even though it, heh, rattles my bones, you got a duty to do. i know you and undyne will look out for papyrus for me."

A swell of magic flooded up though his cheekbones as Toriel planted a kiss on his forehead and cupped the side of his jawbone.

"Thank you, Sans. I will feel so much better knowing that you are here to take care of Frisk while I am gone. Not that I do not trust someone else, but…I made a few calls while you were taking care of Frisk to see who could watch them while we were gone. Mettaton and Napstablook have already left on tour and I would rather not have to rely on Bratty and Catty to have the responsibility of watching over Frisk for a few days."

"nah, c'mon tori, frisk would have lots of fun eating garbage at the dump. maybe they'll even get frisk hyped for the destruction of humanity."

Toriel gave him a watery smile.

"they'll probably be at mettaton's tour anyway. last i knew, according to bratty, the three of them were practically married."

"I…I cannot thank you enough, Sans. Are you sure you will be alright by yourself?"

"yeah, course i'll be fine. i don't have that evening job anymore so i'll only be workin' when frisk is in class."

"Frisk will not have school tomorrow because of the district school board meeting. What will you do then?"

"ah, i know someone who can watch them while i'm finishing up my shift," Sans said with a wink. "he owes me a favor or two."

Toriel kissed his forehead again and gave him an adoring gaze.

"ah, geeze tori, it's nothing, really."

"We should get to bed. I have to be up early tomorrow to fly out and you have work in the morning." Toriel got up from her seat and smoothed out the front of her sweater. She held out her hand for Sans and he took his with a small chuckle.

"heh, you're never gonna believe the joke frisk told me today," Sans said as they headed toward their room.

"Oh?"

"yeah, it was a knock knock joke and…"

The door shut behind them with a soft click.

Frisk blinked and cracked open their eyes a fraction of an inch when something touched their foot.

"hey, kiddo, i'm heading off to work," Sans' voice muttered. "'cuz you're mom's gotta work again, it will just be you an me today, alright? whenever you're ready to get up, your babysitter is downstairs."

Frisk fought to focus on the skeleton. They heard something about going to work and a babysitter but the rest had smeared together. There was a hand on their forehead. A whispered promise. The feeling that someone wasn't ready to let go.

They decided it would be best to roll back over and go to sleep.

OKAY SO! This was supposed to be a longer chapter but I got about halfway through writing it and I realized that this chapter and the next one don't really mesh well together as one chapter? I thought it sounded really weird to have several moments like this thrown into a PTA Parent off (hell yeah the next chapter is another encounter with the pta grab your popcorn and get ready to slam like it's space jam). I'm really really super excited to write the character that I have planned to babysit frisk while sans is working I hope I can write them to their full potential because they're such a great character and I have an opportunity here I am not going to waste.

Till next time, little buddies,

-Sav