Note: Thank you all so much for waiting so long and your continued support. Like. Shit adsgsf;gkalshd I love you guys so much. I don't want to keep you waiting.
You immediately turn and run out of the room, nearly slipping in the snow in your rush to get in the house. The front door slammed behind you as you rushed forward, not bothering to kick off your shoes or shake off snow. You could hear Sans' panicked screams clearer now, and dread filled your head as you leapt up the stairs, taking two at a time.
"Sans! What's wrong?!" You ran to his door, almost forgetting to turn the knob before slamming into it, and seeing him screaming into his knees. Blue magic flames coiled up from his left eye, lighting up the room enough to compare to daylight.
"Sans! What's going on?" You quickly sat in front of him, grabbing his hands and pulling them away from his skull, like how he once did for you. His screams cut short, eyes opening wide. His breathing was shaky, eye lights dancing around in front of him but not quite seeing anything. He looked horrified, his jaw shook like it took every ounce of self control to hold back his screams. You gave his wrists a slight squeeze, and rubbed your thumbs along the side of the bones to help draw his attention to you.
"I'm here, Sans. It's okay." You said, and he slowly looked up, looking almost afraid that you wouldn't be there. You could see wetness reflecting the light from under his eyes. "Breathe." You instructed. Sans looked like he instead held his breath, before suddenly pulling you in for a tight hug. He held on so tightly, it was almost painful for you. Slowly the blue light in the room dimmed, until the two of you were surrounded by darkness.
"O-oh thank-k God…" His breathing was shaky, and grip tightened as he pressed his face into the nape of your neck and shoulder. You gently rubbed his back, mostly trying to calm him down, but also partly to try and ease him out of his death grip he had on you. He must have thought a Reset happened… You bit your lip, feeling bad about leaving him in the middle of the night.
"I'm here now, I'm sorry I wasn't earlier." You let him calm down for a while, continuing to rub his back as he got his shakiness out of his system. You could hear him forcefully breathing slower, like the exercise he had you do during your panic attack. It sounded almost rehearsed.
After what felt like a couple of minutes, his death grip on you relaxed a moment, before he let completely go and sat up, coughing slightly. "I'm… I'm okay now. Sorry about that…" He rubbed his arm and looked away, brushing his cheekbones dry awkwardly.
"Don't be, I didn't know you'd have this reaction waking up alone…" You rubbed his shoulder, and he shook his head. "Not that I planned on you waking up alone, or anything. I really meant to be right back…"
"I should have realized it wasn't a reset… the bed was made, clue number one." He chuckled a little bit, clearly trying to lighten up the mood. "I didn't bother making it after the third reset, shame that the original Save Point was just after laundry day, huh?"
You nodded, realizing that meant that most of his time in the Underground was spent sleeping on the couch, or on the unmade bed. No wonder he seemed to love how well you made your beds... and it explained why he didn't appear to give much effort into it himself. "Do you need something to drink?" You asked, ready to get up from the bed.
"That would be nice, thank you." He nodded. You slipped your shoes off and stood up, happy that Sans was okay. Gaster had you convinced something horrible was going to happen, but it appears he can do anything as long as he is locked up, and you knew you weren't about to let him go.
A couple steps towards the door and suddenly you yelped, picking up a foot and falling back before finally registering the pain pricking up your leg. You hissed in a breath, grabbing your foot. "You okay?!" Sans quickly got off the bed to be beside you, flipping open his phone for light. A small piece of glass was stuck in your foot, and you noticed the broken lamp that was lying in front of you, just beside the door. Sans must have thrown it when he woke up.
"Sssssshit." You bit your lip, reaching for the glass shard.
"Hold on, I got it." Sans stopped you and raise a hand towards it, a blue light appeared around the glass. You held your breath, and the shard slowly pulled out, perfectly level with the cut, and didn't hurt any more than it already did. "O-oh and that's blood." Sans' voice said quickly, and he quickly scrambled back and dug through his dresser. He came back with a sock, handing it to you. "That should be clean." You nodded, pressing the clothing to the bleeding wound. It wasn't terrible, but cut on the feet were hell to deal with and took forever to heal.
"We… don't have a first aid kit around here, do we?" You asked, and Sans shook his head.
"Monsters don't bleed. But I'll check Fuku's to see if she has one out back." Sans stood up, taking a second to motion to you. "Stay there." When you blinked, he vanished. The light vanished as well, leaving you in complete darkness. You shifted your weight on your butt a bit, waiting.
"Gee. That teleport business sure seems handy." You said out loud with quite a bit of salt in your voice. Gosh. Monsters and their super awesome magic. What do humans get? Bodies full of blood and colorful personality traits. Big whoop de fucking do. You sighed, leaning back on one hand and holding your foot with the other.
You blinked and suddenly there was light again. Sans stood beside you, struggling to get a tiny bandage open. After a couple seconds, he tore the paper off and knelt down beside you. You pulled away the sock, and he carefully put the small Band-Aid over the cut. It was just big enough to cover it, thankfully, but it didn't stop it from hurting. If you raised your toes even the slightest bit the bandage threatened to pull off, leaving you rather limited with your feet activity.
"It's amazing you didn't step on this when you first got in here…" Sans motioned at the ground, and lots of small blue lights appeared around other broken bits of the lamp, moving them all to the corner of the room. Easy cleanup.
"I had my shoes on." You shrugged, slowly flexing your foot to see the limits, before simply resting it beside you. "I suppose I should have kept them on until I went downstairs."
Sans was quiet a moment, looking at the floor with his phone to make sure he got all of the pieces. After a moment it seemed your sentence finally processed. "… Why'd you have your shoes on?"
"Oh, I tried waking you up earlier. I, uh, trapped Gaster." You laughed a little at your wording, awkwardly scratching the back of your head before leaning back on your hands.
"You what?"
You looked up and saw Sans looking at you with wide eyes. "I had a weird dream and woke up to someone saying numbers, so I tried waking you up but you called me Paps and fell back to sleep." You motioned vaguely with a hand, half shrugging." I felt like the numbers were important, soooo I went downstairs to go to the lab out back for paper, but then I ended up putting the numbers in the machine… and now Gaster is in the glass room." You summed up.
Sans blinked looking confused. "And… He's staying in there?"
"Yeah. He tried rushing at me, but he just got all pixel-y before smacking into the wall. Oh, and we were right 'bout him with my Determination. He looks like he has some red glowing from inside him." You double tapped to your chest to better explain.
"Oh." You could tell that Sans wasn't quite sure what to say to express himself. He seemed surprised at everything, but still quite confused.
"Yep." You exaggerated the "p" in the simple word, making a slight popping sound. For everything that just happened… you sure did seem light hearted at the moment. Sans however, seemed to be rather exhausted, for obvious reasons. He sighed deeply, bringing a hand to his face.
"Right." He shook his head and offered you a hand to help you up. "Lets… lets just deal with that tomorrow, yeah? Like proper adults, putting off possibly important turning of events?"
"Of course, like proper adults." You smiled and accepted his hand.
.
It was a feat to get Sans calmed down enough to fall asleep again. He was tired, yes, but you could practically feel the panicking thoughts scrambling in his hollow head of his, tormenting him on the verge of sleep. Thankfully with the forced closeness of the newly chosen sleep area, it was easy to wrap around the skeleton and keep him aware of your presence. The two of you opted to stick with the couch, despite having a perfectly fine bed at your disposal, and to be honest you were perfectly content that way.
That is, until you woke up with a pain in your neck. Lots of fun, that was.
"So, you guys didn't speak much before you heard my scream, right?" Sans asked, handing you a warm wet kitchen towel. You placed it on your neck, trying your best to relax the muscles.
"Not much. He, er… well he might be angry with me. I did get a bit cocky since he was locked up and not going anywhere. It's not like I mocked him or anything…" You shrug, rubbing at your neck. You had half the mind to ask for a massage, but you knew that would most likely take up the whole day with how Sans gave massages. Unfortunately, you had to actually do things today.
"Well, I could check the room as you wait here-" Sans started, but you shook your head and stood up.
"Not a chance in hell. I'm not leaving him alone with you. He stole my Determination, what could he do to you?" Your mind leapt at classic horror scenes of broken glass and darkness around. Who knows what Gaster might do? Not you. Sans seemed like he considered a moment, pausing and you waited for him to say anything along the lines of 'He's my brother' like you thought he would.
"Fair enough." He shrugged, and pulled on his coat. You dropped the towel onto the counter, and slipped on yours to follow him.
The back door wasn't locked, startling Sans but not you. You remembered you were in too much of a rush last night to bother messing with the lock. The door was partially open as well, but thankfully it seemed like it was the only one. Gaster sat in the middle of the glass room, blinking casually when the two of you walked in.
"Ah, about time you came to visit." Gaster smiled, mouth nearly dripping off in the process.
"Huh, so he really is stuck in there." Sans looked over the screen that was next to the glass room, not bothering to look at Gaster much. "Well, I just wanted to see if he was actually trapped or just playing you. We can go hang out now."
"What?" You and Gaster asked at the same time.
"See you later Gaster, today is basically our last day to relax in the open so we are going to use it." Sans wrapped a hand around your side, waving the other at Gaster. "We'll drop off some food later, if you need that sort of thing."
"Sans! What do you think-"
The world dashed around you, turning your stomach upside down as blue formed in your vision. A moment later, you found the ground of Waterfall under your feet, and you swallowed hard to keep back your nausea. Sans was chuckling like a child, holding his non-existent gut.
"Heheheheh! Did you see the look on his face? That was great!" He laughed some more, catching you off guard.
"… And I thought I was cocky." You smile rather concerned, having a bad feeling in your gut about everything. Maybe it was just the teleportation sickness. You kept most of your weight on your good foot as you looked around the unfamiliar area. You could recognize the signs of Waterfall from the neon blue stones and flowers, along with running water nearby, but the two of you haven't been this way. That struck you as odd, since it seemed that the two of you wandered everywhere the Underground offered. "Where are we?"
"Below the lower region of Waterfall, the part that connects to another section of the Underground. A lot less people will be around these parts since it isn't where any humans crossed." He flashed a smile over his shoulder to you. "Well, at least until now. Congrats on being the first human in these parts of the Underground."
You let the words sink in and started walking around, keeping careful attention to keeping your foot flat as possible. Thankfully the cut from last night wasn't as bad as it looked in the dark, but you still didn't want to risk opening the wound.
The two of you walked through some puddles until the blue-lighted cave opened up, slowly revealing what looked to be a dark forest. You looked up to see towering trees, large enough around for at least six people to hold hands around a single one, and tall enough that a sort of fog covered the tops.
"Welcome to Tallwood. Creative name, I know." Sans snorted. "Our version of a jungle, I suppose." He smiled as you looked awed at the massiveness of the trees. You were careful to step over the huge roots that tangled throughout the ground, and made your way to what looked like the only source of light in this area; the mushrooms. They looked like those cheap nightlights you could buy online, but about thirty percent more magical. You turned back to Sans to exclaim your awe of the place, only to notice that the moss that covered the ground had slight glowing circles of where you last stepped.
"This…. This is amazing!" You couldn't help your smile as you looked around the truly magical forest that was tucked underground. "How on earth are people not freaking out over this?!" You quickly made your way to another tree, looking high as you can and just barely making out the outline of a house.
"Like I said, the tours are only interested in where the other humans have been." He shrugged. You felt yourself slip on the moss, but thankfully Sans seemed to be keeping an eye out for you, and caught you with his blue magic.
"That doesn't make sense though! There is so much to the Underground—"
Sans chuckled and cut you off. "And I'm sure all you humans visit every inch of the other countries you visit as well, not keeping to the most famous cities and such." The sarcasm was clear in his voice, and you were going to try and correct him, but he was right. Unless a local told a tourist to go someplace else, they kept to where everyone else was. All of the locals of the Underground were either out, or sticking to their home area. No one would have any reason to be exploring out of the actual tour.
You silently thought a moment, before bringing your attention back to the wonderful place so many humans were missing out on. As tall as the trees were… the overall feeling that you were in a cave didn't leave. You could still easily make out the sides of the cave wall on either side of you, it was perhaps a football field's length at most from one side to the other, but the path ahead seemed like it carried much further. You strained your eyes back to the tree tops, and started noticing more house like structures, along with bridges from one to another.
"Yep. Monsters lived up there instead on solid ground. You'd think they would have a reason, but it turns out they just really like the aesthetic." Sans commented, noticing you looking up. You laughed, figuring that they had the right idea. You take a few steps, before finally feeling a slight ping of pain creeping up your foot. Taking that as a sign to calm down, you sat on a bundle of roots and relaxed your feet out in front of you.
"Foot hurting?" Sans asked.
"Just a little. Small break and I should be fine." You gave him a smile and he nodded.
"Well, I suppose it's getting close to a time we should eat… You want to wait here while I grab us something?" Sans offered, and your perfectly timed stomach growled. "Heheh, I'll take that as a yeah." He chuckled, and you nodded with a side smile. "I'll be right back. Don't get lost without me."
"Ha, I wont be moving from this spot. Maybe get some bubble tea?"
"Sure thing." He nodded, and in the next second he was gone.
You inhale the strange wood scent and stretch, before settling against the roots and looking around. The trees felt… almost off-putting now. They looked like trees, and—you gripped the roots under you—felt like trees, but at the same time there was a strange sense that they weren't normal trees. Probably magical in some way or another, but still.
As you sat in the silence, you noticed the area get gradually dimmer. You turned towards the closest tree and reach towards the mushrooms to see what was going on, and at your movement they sprung back to life and were glowing again. Huh. Motion sensitive bioluminescence. How weird. You smiled and relaxed again, letting the area slowly get darker, yet darker… until it was solid blackness around you.
It was short lived, and a few yards away some mushrooms lit up. "Sans?" You asked, trying to keep from moving as much as possible, and the mushrooms gave only the faintest glow. "That was quick, usually Fuku takes longer to make the drinks."
The forest was silent, only the slightest rustle of leaves hinted at any life around you. You squinted your eyes at the direction of the lights, before another area to the left of you burst to life, a clear gap of darkness between the areas. You felt your stomach tighten, and your fight or flight instincts were kicking in. Nonononono today should have been another safe day, you guys should have been clear, there is no way- The mushrooms surrounding you sprung to life, lighting up the area and revealing a golden flower smiling up at you.
"Howdy friend! I thought I'd never find you here!"