Hello dear readers. I have a gift for you this fine, fine Thursday. Because Chapter 38 is more of an epilogue, I don't want you to have to wait for it. Plus, you must be wondering how Bonding works.

So today I am posting both of the remaining chapters.

Thank you so much for reading. It's been a crazy ride, and now here we are, at its end. I hope you enjoyed.

Without further ado: The conclusion to Riley's Rantings.

It was impossible to understand what a reset felt like until you had been through one yourself. I had been so sure that it couldn't be that bad to do things over again, but now that I was living it, I felt a small fraction of what Sans kept telling me about. That feeling in the back of my mind that none of the choices I made actually mattered. That fear that maybe Frisk would reset and I would forget everything that had happened—or that I would someday be stupid enough to go down there and make a save point myself. I mean, for all I knew I'd already lived through another dozen resets, and the thought of not knowing drove me crazy some days.

I knew how conversations went before they happened. I forced myself to go to classes I'd already been to, to go to events I'd already had fun at once and felt wrong repeating. I knew what I was getting for Christmas and had to rewrite blog posts I'd already written and get the same reviews I'd already read. And this time, it was all without the budding romance I'd previously had with Sans.

He was honest when he said we could be friends. Most of the time, things weren't even tense. But we didn't hang out alone anymore. I went over to their house when Papyrus invited me and sometimes Sans would join us. I'd always see him at group outings. But he acted different now, a little short with me. Usually when I looked at him he refused to meet my eyes, but every once in a while we'd look at each other and I'd see the sadness in his expression that he wanted so badly to hide and I would be so angry at myself that he was feeling this all over again.

But we really were friends. We joked and laughed and I still loved being around him, even with the walls all back with extra fortification.

It never crossed my mind that things between us could be the same again. I was sure that I'd done something that meant I didn't deserve it anymore—and even if I hadn't, Sans would never be able to look at me the same again.

The only thing that made this time better than the last was that Alex was around now. She didn't ditch us for Halloween—she told Marco that he better come up and see us if he wanted to hang with her—and she was around for movie night, the night that we were "surprised" by Papyrus having invited Frisk over without consulting anyone.

I had spent the day cleaning up their place so that I didn't have to get a new phone this time. Then again either way I probably wouldn't have anyway because I ended up throwing out the pocketless jeans within a week of the reset. I didn't want to risk a repeat of that incident.

When I met Frisk for the first time (for the second time), it was the first time I felt really weird acting like everything was normal. I couldn't pinpoint why until we ended up alone—I was getting water and they followed me into the kitchen while the others continued to watch their movie.

"You reset, didn't you?" Frisk asked me. I almost asked them how they knew, but they had an answer ready before I even asked. "You already know me, I can tell, but I don't know you. Which means we've met before."

Damn. Smart for a little kid.

I nodded.

"Is Sans mad at you?"

"He's not mad anymore," I said. "He understands why I did it, and I went far enough back that I can't ever reset again. But I think when he looks at me all he sees is what I did. He doesn't really trust me anymore."

I wasn't sure if it was too much to say to a kid, but they nodded like they understood.

And then they smiled. "Don't worry. He'll come around."

I tilted my head. "Why do you think that?"

"Because he stares at you whenever you're not looking."

I wasn't sure if they were only saying that to make me feel better, but I liked to believe it was true.

I didn't realize until graduation finally happened that I wasn't even close to ready for adulthood. I liked the simple life I had now, living with Alex and spending as much time with friends as I wanted. I liked going to the Leather Lounge whenever I felt like it and dying my hair stupid colors and chilling at Grillby's for hours at a time. It felt like I was no longer allowed to do anything like that anymore.

But adulthood was here whether I liked it or not and I decided that I needed a new start. Away from Ebott. Away from my friends. I was still pining over Sans and I just couldn't do that anymore. I was sad to leave, but it felt like the only way.

Especially since I knew how miserable it made Sans to look at me. It was selfish to stay when he didn't want me around.

I didn't know exactly where I was going yet, since I didn't know what job I was going to have, but when my lease ended in a couple weeks, I was moving in with my parents until I figured it out.

Hopefully quickly because I couldn't last much longer than a month with them without wanting to pull my hair out.

I hadn't told anyone but Alex so far. She kept telling me that I could crash on her couch when I changed my mind about leaving—if I didn't feel like crashing on Sans', of course, because she was convinced Sans was still head over heels for me even though I knew it wasn't true.

But I finally had to tell everyone. I decided to do it at Grillby's after graduation—which was definitely pooping on the party, but I couldn't wait any longer.

They started to ask why I was going and they were all sad, but supportive. They understood my theory that leaving was the best way to launch into a world of responsibility. Undyne called me boring, but she didn't push it.

Sans had gone quiet. I had a feeling he didn't want to admit that he was happy I was leaving.

We went over to Sans and Papyrus' house afterwards and turned it into a looking-at-it-positively going away party for me as well as a graduation party.

But I just felt like I needed a cigarette.

This time around, I smoked a lot more than last time. If I had ended up going through more resets, maybe I would've ended up a chain smoker like Sans. But considering I could get lung cancer and he couldn't, it was probably good I'd gone through just the one reset.

I went outside to smoke and stared down the street. God, I'd miss this place so much. Not just my friends, but the Slums in general. It wouldn't be the same anywhere else. This was where Monster culture was and part of me knew that if I wanted to go deeper into Monster Anthropology, I had to be in Ebott.

Maybe I'd come back when things had cooled down a bit.

The door opened and I was surprised that Sans came out, considering that he avoided alone time with me like the plague. We hadn't been alone together in seven months.

Not that I was counting.

I figured he probably really needed a smoke, so I held out my pack to him, but he just stared at me.

"You alright, man?" I asked tentatively.

He continued to watch me for a long moment, something unhappy in his smile.

"Why are you leaving?" he finally asked.

I looked at him with a brow up. "I told you guys. I need a change in scenery."

He stepped closer. "You mean you need to get away from me."

I chuckled, feeling suddenly just a little bitter. "You're the one that's been avoiding me. Don't act like it's the other way around."

"I'm not avoiding you."

"Whatever, dude." I took a long hit, so long my lungs protested and I had to force myself not to cough.

"I'm not," he insisted. "I just… Admit it," he said, going back to his original point. "You don't actually want to leave Ebott. You're just leaving because I'm here."

I let go of the avoidance subject, knowing it would just go around in circles, and thought about what he was actually asking. I wanted to tell him he was wrong, but I couldn't. So I didn't say anything at all, and that was enough.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away from me. "Don't leave on my account," he said quietly.

I shook my head, frustration boiling in my skin that I couldn't hold down. "I'm trying to do you a damn favor, so don't be so self-righteous about it. I know you want me to—"

"That's not true," he said. "I told you we could be friends. I wouldn't be doing a good job of that if I secretly wanted you to leave all this time. I'm not even sure where you got that from, to be honest."

"Don't play dumb with me. I see how sad it makes you to look at me."

"I—"

I didn't let him speak. I didn't want to hear his lame excuses. If one of us had to make the hard decisions, it might as well be me. I sighed out my frustration so I sounded much calmer when I said, "You don't have to feel bad. This is just how it has to be. If I leave, you'll heal better, and I might magically get over you. It's good for both of us."

He was quiet for a short moment. "Get over me?"

"Uh… yeah, remember when we were secretly dating?" I asked dryly. "I had a thing for you, in case that escaped your notice."

He looked at me with his eyes just a little narrowed. I didn't understand what had him so puzzled. "I thought you were over me. I thought that's why you were leaving. Because being here with me was too…"

He couldn't seem to think of a word and I was surprised at where this conversation was going. He figured I was leaving because it hurt me to be around him, but I was actually leaving because it hurt him to be around me.

A selfish part of me was glad he cared about me enough to be bothered by me leaving to get away from him.

"I wish," I said, taking another puff from my cig. "Guess I'm into assholes." I didn't really think he was an asshole at all, but I knew it would get a laugh out of him, and I liked to make him laugh whenever I could manage it. As if I could make up for hurting him by also making him happy on occasion.

Now I only had one more thing to do to try to make it up to him. "I know you've tried being friends, and I appreciate the effort. But I don't want to do this to you anymore. And maybe somewhere down the line, when the hurt isn't so close, I can come back and we can try to be friends again." Maybe that last part was more for my benefit than his, but I couldn't help but add it.

There was a pause before he said, "You're seriously only leaving because you think it'll make me happy?"

Somehow the question embarrassed me. I cleared my throat and looked across the street at that punk teenager Snowdrake that made worse jokes than Sans.

"I care about you," I said, my voice gruff. "Of course I don't want to hurt you anymore."

"But you'd rather stay."

I rolled my eyes. "Don't feel bad, Sansy-boy. It's not a big deal. I can live wherever. Like I care. And like I said, maybe I can come back. Eventually."

He huffed out a humorless laugh, one that made me look at him. "Rye Bread. There's one big hole in your logic."

I raised a brow. "Okay…"

"In what world does being away from you make me happy?"

I stared at him, confused. He'd spent all this time trying to keep space between us, making sure we didn't have alone time, being short with me…

Staring at me when I wasn't looking, if Frisk was to be believed.

So long ago, back on the day of the reset, his words of rejection returned to me.

Ri, you could do better than a bonehead like me anyway.

He didn't say that he didn't want me anymore. He said that I could do better. And at the time I thought he was letting me down easy, but now…

"Sans… I don't get it. I thought… I thought looking at me…" I didn't know what to say, and after a second, my words were stolen from me anyway because Sans stepped forward, putting a hand on my cheek. His eyes had gone soft.

He finished my sentence for me, but not the way I would have done it. "Looking at you reminds me how badly I fucked up. After saying such horrible things to you that day, you didn't just forgive me—you acted like there was nothing to forgive in the first place. You kept apologizing, like you were in the wrong because you had hurt me, when really all you did was make the choice I wasn't strong enough to make myself. You're so good, and I'm just…" He sighed. "I thought I was doing you a favor by keeping my distance."

His words didn't make sense, so they weren't really computing. I was just staring, feeling like I was dreaming. What he was saying went against what I knew to be true for the better part of a year now and my brain didn't really know how to take it.

He kept talking while I kept trying to understand what was going on. "Even now, you're doing this for me, not for yourself." He shook his head. "You're something else, Ri."

Slowly, so slowly, the cogs started to click into place in my mind and I realized that maybe both of us had been wrong when we assumed that the reset had ended us forever. We were both moping around, assuming we didn't deserve the other, but it occurred to me then that the self-loathing was useless and misplaced. I didn't blame Sans for anything. And I never realized it, but Sans didn't blame me for anything either. He was never sad because I had hurt him beyond reconciliation, but because he thought he had lost his chance to be with me. In this new light, the things he had said and done since the reset made a lot more sense. He was really only mad at me for no more than twenty minutes. Every moment after that, even the day it happened, was him being certain he didn't deserve me anymore, exactly the same thing I'd been doing to myself.

I hadn't once considered that prospect and doing so now made me smile, and it unintentionally became a laugh. I couldn't believe that after all this time, he was touching me again. I never thought I would feel his bones against my flesh again.

"I like your laugh," he told me quietly.

My stomach knotted up with nerves, the hope in my chest nearly painful in its intensity. "Is that your idea of a pickup line?" I asked breathlessly.

I waited. This was it. This was the moment.

And then he grinned. "I don't know. Is it working?"

I couldn't help it. I launched myself at him, wrapped my arms around his neck, and kissed him. His arms wound around me too, squeezing me hard, and he kissed me back. Our tongues intertwined between us and god, it felt like home. He was purring again, he was warm again, and I could cry, I was so relieved.

Then I pulled away, stabbing a finger into his chest. "Seriously, you couldn't have told me this back in October?" I accused. "We've been torturing ourselves over nothing."

"You asked if we could still be friends. I took that as you not wanting me anymore."

I backed up more, staring at him incredulously. "Coming from the guy that said I deserve better? That's, like, classic break up shit."

Somehow he managed to look both exasperated and amused when he said, "Classic break up shit, huh? Maybe that's number two on the list, but you know what number one is? Can we still be friends?" He said it in a little mocking voice that almost made me laugh. "Come on, Ri, what the hell was I supposed to think?"

I grunted in annoyance. "I only said that because you were avoiding touching me like I was a leper! That was a pretty clear sign you weren't into me anymore."

"I didn't think you'd even want to touch me after what I'd done."

"I tried to hug you and you didn't let me."

"That's because—" He shook his head and sighed. "Riley, this is pointless," he said, a little irritated. "We could sit here and play the blame game for the next hour or we could make out. Which would you rather do?"

I considered for half a moment doing the blame game, but then I ended up forcibly grabbing his face and kissing him again, more aggressive than last time with my frustration.

"Damn," he said when we came up for air. "I really need to piss you off more often."

"Shut the fuck up."

I kissed him one more time before backing up with an exhale that released my stray irritation. For a moment, we just stared at each other.

"I missed you," he said. "All the time. I wanted to text you and tell you I was sorry, beg you to forgive me. But I didn't think you wanted to hear it."

"Me too," I admitted.

He snorted out a laugh. "Paps would be ashamed of how poor your taste in skeletons is." I grinned, but after a moment, his face got serious. "But about the lights—" he began.

"I never touched them this time around. You know that."

"I know," he said quickly, clearly not wanting to start another fight. "I just mean that it might be tempting to go down there someday, but—"

I didn't let him finish. "Hey, you could die at my feet and I'd let you rot."

He grinned wider than I'd seen in months. "That's all I ask." He leaned in and kissed me, sliding his hand around my neck and pulling me in close. God, I could do this forever. I really could. And what was even stopping me? He and I could just stand on the porch with our tongues down each other's throats for—

"Brother, you must come inside and—"

Sans and I flashed apart and looked up at Papyrus, who was standing in the doorway and gaping at us, his eyes bugging out of his head.

I glanced over at Sans, who was meeting my gaze nervously.

The only warning that Papyrus was about to yell something at the top of his lungs was the way he drew in a quick breath and I braced myself for a barrage of questions I felt awkward about answering.

But what he actually did was yell: "FUCK!"

My mouth popped open. Did Papyrus just… curse? Clearly Undyne was a bad influence on him.

Speak of the devil… "Papy, what the hell is going on out there?" Undyne called from inside.

"I HAVE LOST THE BET!" Papyrus wailed.

"Wait, no way!" yelled Undyne, sounding upset. "Are they fucking on the porch or something?"

"HA! I knew it!" cried Alex.

"It was kind of obvious," Alphys said, barely loud enough for me to hear. "Both the attraction and his latent exhibitionism kink."

I was only just starting to catch up. "Wait. Are you telling me there was a bet going on whether Sans and I were going to get together?"

Papyrus didn't even seem to hear me. Instead he stomped inside, saying, "I WAS SURE RILEY HAD BETTER TASTE THAN THAT! CURSE SANS AND HIS INEXPLICABLE CHARM!"

"Shut up and pay up, Skeletor," Alex taunted. "That's fifty for me and fifty for Alphy. In cash, if you don't mind."

"NYEH!"

And then he slammed the door on us.

Sans and I were staring at each other again.

"Did Papyrus just say—"

"Yup."

We kept staring for a long moment before we both started busting up laughing.

"Well, they had to figure out somehow," Sans said.

"Yeah, I guess so. We'll need to get our story straight. Have we been secretly dating, or was this our first kiss?"

"Oh well actually, I came to your apartment with a boom box and I—"

"Shut up." I was about to open the door, but then I turned. "If anything, I wooed you, you emotionally constipated shit head."

He was grinning at me and I could hear them all yelling at each other inside and Sans was just radiating happiness that I hadn't seen in him for so long and I was lighter than I even thought possible and I felt so stupid for wasting so much time.

"Come on," I said, my voice gentler. "Let's get inside."

"Into the fray?"

"Into the fray."