:):

Thank you for all of the wonderful reviews!

...

Just a forewarning, I'm about to turn the Ruins into a literal nightmare.

xxx

When the Bough Breaks

xxx

"tibia honest," Sans chuckled as he flipped to another image of Fearia doodling. "i've never seen anyone so happy to get a box of crayons before. she really got a kick out of trying all of the different colors. pretty sure red's her favorite."

Even though he had run out of videos awhile ago, there were still more than enough pictures to share. Unconsciously leaning a little of his weight against the silent human, Sans had brought his phone between them so that she could see it better. This was actually kind of comfortable. Not that he was really aware of it, his bones were secretly enjoying the warm body heat seeping into them.

After staring fondly at her little sister for a moment, Frisk reached down and actually swiped to the next one all by herself. She still didn't know what this mysterious object was, but she had gotten the hang of how it worked. Fascinatingly, the smooth surface was touch activated.

Seeing the next image, a humored noise slipped out before Frisk had time to cover her mouth. It was a picture of Sans' younger brother, Papyrus. He was holding a forkful of some kind of stringy food and looked to be in the process of feeding Fearia as if she were an infant. Her little sister looked appalled as she tried to push the offered food away.

Chuckling in humor, Sans felt his smile brighten a little as he stared down at the scene. "this was the first time she tasted my bro's cooking. man, she hated it. i don't know why, but paps got it into his skull that maybe if he she ate more, she'd somehow spontaneously grow to like his spaghetti. heh, the kid wasn't having any of that."

Hearing the mute girl's distinctive breathy laughter, the skeleton's eye lights were drawn to her face. Frisk looked much calmer now as she gazed down at the picture. During his little slideshow, Sans was personally amazed by how quickly she had learned to use his phone. It hadn't taken her long at all to figure out how to swipe pictures back and forth, and she had even picked up on how to enlarge them. For someone from such a primitive time period, this girl was actually pretty damn smart. He was impressed, really.

Swiping the picture himself this time, an image of the little girl snuggling into his favorite jacket came up. "i think this was the very first picture i took." Sans said as he stared thoughtfully down at his phone. "it was on the same day that she came to stay with us. since she wasn't feeling too good, paps had wanted her to be as comfortable as possible. he even tried to give her his bed to sleep in for the night. heh." he grinned as he recalled what had happened afterwards. "she ended up sleeping on the couch instead. kid's difficult, y'know?"

Nodding, Frisk gave a small knowing smile.

"welp, that's the last picture i have." Sans admitted as he pressed a button on the side of his phone.

Seeing the device's surface go dark, Frisk sighed a little in disappointment as she sat back up. Truthfully, she had been so focused on the pictures that she had started to forget where she was. Even so, she had to admit, she felt much better now.

With the source of body heat now gone, Sans felt a chill creep into his bones. Had he always been this cold? Or... maybe he'd just never been truly warm. Whatever the answer was, it didn't feel pleasant. Despite how he felt, though, he knew that this wasn't the time nor place to dwell on creature comforts. They had something far more important to do.

Flipping his phone shut, Sans stashed it back into his pocket. After a short stretch, he pushed his protestant bones up from the patch of bare ground he had been sitting on and stood. From how tired his body felt, he'd wager that they had probably spent close to twenty minutes in this room. It was an odd start to their little adventure, but the time hadn't been wasted.

"how ya feelin'?" Sans asked as he waited for the mute girl to get back to her feet as well.

Brushing the dirt and dust from off of her silky tunic, Frisk gave the skeleton a small smile as she nodded. *I'm feeling better.* As she silently said this, she tapped her chin with her fingertips and made the now familiar gesture of gratitude.

"that's good." Sans replied as he easily returned the smile. He then held his hand out towards her in offering. "let's try something a bit different this time." he suggested. "take my hand. if you start to feel scared, even just a little, i want you to give it a tiny squeeze to let me know. we can take a break whenever you need to, alright?"

Feeling her cheeks heat up, Frisk didn't know whether she felt embarrassed or immensely grateful for the unexpectedly kind offer. Maybe a little of both. This skeleton was probably one of the nicest monsters she had ever met, but at the same time, she couldn't help but feel that he was treating her like a little kid in a way. Still... she wasn't about to turn down his generous offer. With a wobbly smile, Frisk nodded as she reached out and took hold of his boney hand.

Grinning probably more than he should have, Sans was just relieved that she had accepted his invitation.

...

Hand in hand, the two made their way deeper into the crumbling ruins. Guarding them from both ends, the blasters helped light the way as they kept careful watch for potential danger. The heavy stone door that had previously been wedged open by a thick vine was now laying flat on the cobbled floor and a large chunk of the ceiling had fallen down on top of it. With hairline fractures and pieces completely missing, the doorway now looked suspiciously unstable. Trying hard not to touch any part of the cracked archway, they carefully made their way through the rubble and to the other side.

Entering into the severely damaged hallway, Sans felt a small squeeze to his hand as Frisk inched a little closer to him. "something wrong, darlin'?" he asked as he surveyed the area for vines. There were a few, but none of them seemed too interested in sticking around to get burned by the artificial sunlight. When he noticed that she was slowing down beside him, he took the hint and did the same.

With her other hand, Frisk lifted the Sunstone to illuminate the cracked and crumbling walls that riddled the unstable hallway.

No further explanation was needed as Sans instantly understood her worry. This must have been what he heard a few resets ago. This location was insanely precarious and there was a very real danger for a potential cave in. He hadn't noticed the extent of the damage the first time he had come through here, but now, with better lighting, he could clearly see how bad it was.

"alright..." Sans started as he gripped her hand a little more securely. "let's stay away from the walls and watch where we put our feet." he said quietly as he led them closer to the center of the hallway. Thankfully, the heaviest among them didn't even need to touch the ground. Lucky blasters.

So far, there had only been a few instances where the stone slabs that made up the crumbling walls had shifted unexpectedly. Each time, they had had to stop and wait for a minute or two for things to resettle. Their luck seemed to take a dive, however, when they came near the end of the long twisting hallway.

Blocking their passage to the larger area up ahead that used to be a staircase, a couple of thick vines had buried themselves deep into the fractured walls from one side to the other, while a few smaller vines had burrowed upwards into the cracks in the ceiling. This... was bad. There was no way that they could get past them safely, and if they tried to force them to move via the Sunstone, it was a near certainty that this section of the hallway would collapse in on itself.

Bringing them to a stop a safe distance away from the nasty magic sapping plants, Sans took a moment to consider his options. He couldn't be hasty about this. Any wrong move and he could get them both killed. Beside him, Frisk patiently waited as she stared at the ominous looking vines with undisguised apprehension.

Squinting his eye sockets slightly, Sans attempted to peer through the tangle of weeds to see what lay beyond them. Though his view wasn't that great, it appeared that the larger area up ahead was actually relatively free of the vines. They seemed to like sticking to the walls and ceilings, so maybe an open area like that wasn't as appealing to them. He could only hope.

"frisk." Sans started as he gained the mute girl's attention. "i have a plan, but it's gonna be a little risky. i need you to charge up your stone and make it as bright as you possibly can." Seeing her alarmed expression, the skeleton simply shook his skull. "i know this sounds crazy, but you gotta trust me, okay?"

With a weak nod, Frisk released his hand and shakily held the Sunstone up to her chest. Even though this seemed like a horrible idea, she was willing to believe that he knew what he was doing. It was strange, but she truly did trust him. Closing her eyes, she began to concentrate.

As the light grew brighter and brighter, Sans kept a careful eye light on the vine's activity. The smaller ones had already begun to extract themselves from the ceiling, but the pair of thicker vines were a bit slower to react. When they finally did, though, the walls around them began to break apart as their foundations crumbled.

It was now or never, Sans thought as the hallway started to collapse around them. Stepping closer to the frightened human, he wrapped a boney arm around her shoulder and pulled her to him in order to make them as small of a target as he could. Not wasting a moment more, he ripped them from existence only to reappear a second later in the center of the nearby room.

Just as he had suspected, the reaction was instantaneous. Sensing the burst of his magic, a number of dark vines that had been hidden just out of sight, quickly shot towards them. Fortunately, Sans had learned his lesson the hard way a few resets ago and had had the foresight to prepare for this exact scenario.

Driven solely by their thirst for magic, the Bane infected tendrils were simply too slow to evade the full light of the Sunstone. Catching fire, quite a few of them burst into smoldering particles of dust, while the lucky ones escaped with only nasty burns. Sensing the dangerous disturbance, the remaining vines hastily withdrew from the room as quickly as they could.

Feeling the skeleton's grip loosen slightly, Frisk finally opened her eyes to see what was happening. Tiny glittering specks of dust were slowly raining down over them from above. In a way, it was kind of pretty. Tilting her head, she glanced up at her friend only to find that his eye lights had gone out completely. Worried, the mute girl reached up and placed her hand to the boney one gripping her shoulder. The gentle touch, it seemed, was all that was needed to bring the monster's senses back.

Eye lights reappearing, Sans released a slow unexplainable breath as he looked around. Damn, that had been close. Sure, the light had done its job, but some of those vines had gotten within inches of them before they dusted. Still... his plan had worked and they were still alive. That's all that really mattered.

Removing his arm from around the human's shoulder, Sans smiled down at her as he stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. "thanks for trusting me, buddy. you really saved our bones just now."

Dimming the runestone back to a light glow, Frisk subtly returned the smile. In truth, she wasn't quite sure what had just happened, but she was sincerely grateful that everything had worked out. That had been positively nerve-wracking.

Tilting his skull up towards the large hole in the ceiling, the skeleton's grin lessened slightly. Hanging down from overhead, dozens more of those darkened vines were creeping out from the bottom of the house. As much as he hated to admit it, what had happened a moment ago might have actually just been the warm up. The real challenge was going to be getting up there, and he knew they had to, there wasn't anyway around it.

Teleporting them directly into the house was completely out of the question, because, from what he could see, the entire floor was now covered with The Bane. The only real option that he could think of, was going up the same way he had done before; using his blasters. But... he had done that solo last time. Now he had to get Frisk up there too. How the hell was he going to do that?

Even if he could somehow get her to agree to ride one of his blasters, she'd be taking the light of the Sunstone with her and that would be bad for him. The same would be true if he went up first. The only way this was going to work, would be if they both went up together. It was the only viable option he could think of.

This was going to be very dangerous not to mention really freakin' awkward...

Re-summoning his blasters, Sans placed a boney hand to one of their skulls as he relayed his god-awful plan. Staring down at its master for a moment as it processed its orders, the large skull's eye lights eventually moved to refocus in on the human girl standing next to him. Hovering a bit closer, the blaster then obediently lowered itself to the cobbled floor.

Confused and slightly worried, Frisk knelt down beside the guardian and placed a hand to the smooth bone of its frontal lobe. Had it gotten hurt in the cave-in? She couldn't see any damage, but she was still concerned. It simply stared at her curiously.

"this... might sound kind of crazy, but uh..." Hesitating slightly, the skeleton's eye lights wandered off to the side for a moment. "i'm gonna need you to get on." Returning his gaze to the human's face, Sans wasn't at all surprised by the expression that she was giving him. It was like a neutral look of disbelief that only she could pull off.

"it won't be that bad, i swear." He tried to reason as he lifted his hands in an attempt to placate her growing skepticism. "my blasters are gonna help us get back up into the house." he explained as he pointed to the large gaping hole in the ceiling. "i know this sounds dangerous, but my buddies are really steady, so it should be safe if you stay still."

Getting back to her feet, Frisk frowned slightly as she looked up to the broken floor from overhead. He was right. As much as she hated to admit it, there were no other options. In truth, she could only ever remember coming down from there. It was usually a painful experience. But she never thought she'd actually have to go back up before.

Lowering her gaze, she silently stared at the jagged pile of wooden rubble that had probably once been a staircase. Phantom pains scattered across her body reemerged in the form of dulls throbs to remind her of just how horrible it would feel if things went wrong. Privately dreading the idea of resetting again if she were to fall, the mute girl brought a hand to her chest in an unconscious effort to calm herself.

Not good, Sans thought as he noticed the mute girl's growing anxiety. It seemed that words alone might not be enough to convince her this time around. Looks like he was going to have to put his money where his mouth was, or so to speak, if he was going get her to do this.

Moving beside the large canine skull, Sans pulled himself up with as much grace as he could muster. "see?" he said as the blaster began to hover a few inches off the ground. "this guy can handle the weight and he's really steady. look, i know you don't wanna do this, but we gotta get up there somehow."

"frisk," Sans started as he held out a boney hand to the nervous girl. "it's gonna be okay, you can trust me."

Giving the offered appendage a look of hard consideration, Frisk finally relented, and against her better judgment reached out and took his hand.

As gently as he could, the skeleton pulled the smaller human up onto the cranial bone of the large skull. Not having anything else to hold on to, she ultimately latched onto his jacket as she knelt awkwardly between his legs. "uh..." Okay... this was going to be more of a challenge than he had anticipated, Sans belated realized as he hovered a hand over her shoulder indecisively.

Silently calling his other blaster over, the skeleton reached up and took hold of a portion of its jawbone once it was above them. "here, you can hang on to this guy." he offered. "he'll help keep you stable if you start to feel a bit dizzy."

Spying the second guardian floating overhead, Frisk gave a small nod and shakily released her death grip. Joining her hand next to his, she carefully gripped the jawbone of the large canine skull. It didn't really seem to mind as it waited patiently for its next orders.

"alright," Sans started, privately conceding to the fact that this situation wasn't likely to become any less awkward. "those vines are really thick up there, so i'm gonna need you to make that stone bright again."

With a small nod, Frisk obliged as she brought the stone close to her chest.

As the light between them grew in intensity, Sans finally brought his other hand up and placed it to her shoulder. "here we go." With that said, he slowly started their ascent.

Everything was going well, right until they were a little over halfway there. As they neared the broken floorboards, an awful groan shattered the otherwise quiet atmosphere. Coming to a stop for safety's sake, they waited for a second or two until another groan was heard. This one, however, was followed by a series of ear splitting cracks before the ceiling, a few feet away from them, suddenly gave out. Furniture and toys rained down from the new cavity, and were quickly followed by a glut of black vines.

As the guardians swerved to the side to evade the sudden danger, Frisk gasped in fright and released her hold. Throwing her arms around the skeleton's cervical spine, she held on for dear life. In her alarm, the stone that she held tightly in her hand became blinding, scorching any and all vines that were unfortune enough to be within her radius.

Wrapping an arm securely around the mute girl's waist, Sans forced himself to stay calm as he steadied his blasters. This was really freakin' bad. The whole house was about to collapse. If they didn't make it through fast, they might end up buried beneath it. Pulling Frisk a bit closer, he braced himself. "hold on tight, sweetheart, and don't look."

Shooting through the hole in the ceiling, the small home erupted into smoldering plumes of dust particles as countless vines were instantly incinerated by the Sunstone's blinding light. Recoiling and retreating, the remaining inky tendrils ripped themselves from the walls and floors, causing even more damage to the unstable structure.

As the floorboards beneath them gave way to the dark chasm below, Sans made an impulsive split-second decision. Charging up the overhead blaster, he ordered it to fire as they sped towards the narrow doorway. Flying through the smoking gap in the wall, they made it out of the house just in the nick of time. Not even a second later, and the entire building sunk into the ground below.

Caught in the violent updraft, Sans finally lost his grip on his blaster. Tumbling to the ground, he held a skeletal hand protectively to the human's head while tightening his grip around her waist as they skidded across the cobbled path. Feeling a sharp snap, Sans winced in pain as they slid into a pile of red leaves. Aw, crap, he thought as he mentally assessed himself. What just broke?

When they finally came to a complete stop, Sans cautiously lifted his skull. His eye sockets widened slightly as a brightly glowing object caught his immediate attention. Cartwheeling away from them, the Sunstone sped off, rolling on its flat edge. Cursing, the skeleton quickly lifted a hand and telekinetically grabbed the decorative rock before it could disappear forever.

Bringing the runestone to his outstretched hand, the skeleton seemed to slump as he released an improbable breath. Nothing just now had gone the way he had planned for it to go. This had been a true testament to how fast things could go wrong, and it was nothing short of a miracle that they had actually made it out of there alive and in one piece.

Well, mostly...

Not just one, but a few of his bones had gotten damaged in that fall. He could feel it. The worst fracture, however, had occurred in his left clavicle. The delicate bone now had a clean break through its center. great... he thought sarcastically. Things couldn't get much worse than this.

That, of course, was never true.

Forcing himself to sit up, Sans finally noticed how very still the mute girl had become. "frisk..?" Supporting her weight with his good arm, he winced a little as he gently maneuvered her so that she was resting partially in his lap. Brushing some strands of chestnut brown hair away from her face, he placed a boney hand to her cheek. "frisk." he tried again. But, just like the last reset, she was completely unresponsive.

Checking her over as best he could, Sans concluded that she wasn't actually injured in any way, save for a few minor bumps and scrapes. She must have just gotten overwhelmed by the whole experience. Considering how difficult it was for her to even be back in these ruins, this type of reaction to what had just happened was entirely understandable.

Leaning his back against the blackened tree, Sans pulled the unconscious girl against his sternum as he scanned the area for the deadly Bane infected vines. So far he didn't see very many as it seemed that most of them had gone down with the house. That was good. Hopefully it stayed this way for as long as possible.

Returning to their master, one of the blasters moved beside the injured skeleton, its eye lights focusing on him in concern, while the other released a soft indescribable noise as it hovered near the sleeping human.

"good job, you two." Sans praised as he placed a hand to the nearest skull's maxilla. In appreciation, it leaned into the touch ever so slightly as it evaluated its master's condition.

Turning his attention to his other blaster, Sans silently watched it for a moment as it sunk down to be closer to the mute girl. Honestly, he found it a little odd, but somehow Frisk had managed to endear herself to this particular bonehead. How? He wasn't sure. Though, it probably wouldn't be satisfied until it knew that she was okay, too.

In an attempt to mollify the worried skull, Sans reached down and gently lifted one of the girl's delicate hands and placed it to the smooth bone of the blaster's divided maxilla. Eye lights dimming slightly, it assessed the human for injury. A few seconds ticked by before the lights finally returned to their normal brightness. Appeased after finding nothing substantial, a soft improbable noise escaped the floating canine skull.

"try not to get too attached to her, buddy." The hypocritical skeleton warned. "chances are, it'll probably end in heartbreak."

The blaster simply made another noise as it turned away. After giving its master a side glance, the floating skull joined the other as it circled the tree, keeping watch for potential danger.

Releasing a heavy sigh, Sans took this time to rest his weary aching bones. With Frisk in this condition, he couldn't really go anywhere, so he might as well relax for a little while. In truth, his body didn't really feel like moving at all right now anyway, so this was definitely a welcomed reprieve. Despite his utter exhaustion, however, he knew he couldn't allow himself to fall asleep; it was just too dangerous.

Lowering his eye lights, the skeleton stared at the mute girl's face for a moment before grinning in dark humor. "and i thought the kid was trouble, but you really take the cake, sweetheart."

xxx

Oh, Sans, you have no idea. lol

...

In the next chapter, Sans learns that trust has to go both ways.

xxx

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Sheii Bae~