Author's Note: Holy crap, sorry for being gone for over a month. I just got back home from college and had to move all my stuff from Texas to Ohio! Then went back to working 6 days a week so I've had a hard time keeping up on writing. Enough excuses now, I'm officially back at it! Thank you to everyone for your patience, I hope this is worth the wait :)
Chapter 15: Overjoyed
Sans hung up the phone after letting Alphys know that she should come over to help Frisk practice her newfound abilities. The skeleton clicked his jaw a few times, mulling over unusual feelings he felt deep in his bones.
He stood, being mindful of his surroundings in the living room. He took in the always dust-free environment Toriel took pride in, from the hearth to the chair he had to sleep in for a week, the whole room felt just as cozy as always. Sans' ears perked up at the sound of Frisk putting away dishes in the kitchen.
Mindlessly, he played with the miniature box still in his coat pocket.
"that girl is going to be the death of me," he thought "she has no idea what she's been doing to this bag of bones lately."
With his back facing the doorway, he allowed himself to cringe at his own thoughts and a blush color his cheekbones. His thoughts wandered from discovering the new cord connecting his soul to Frisk's but also catching muffled sounds of her pleasure behind her bedroom door.
Sans groaned internally, "that wasn't even the bad part…"
"Hey Sans?" Frisk called out from the kitchen.
"coming," Sans teleported to the kitchen, shortly startling the girl. "wassup?"
Frisk held a casserole dish in her hands, giving Sans a small smile. "I can't reach the top shelf where this belongs, can you help me?"
"really now? you're taller than me pal." Sans shook his head but grinned, directing his magic to levitate the casserole dish up a few feet into the shelf.
"Thanks, I may be taller than you but I'll never be taller than Mom and Dad." Frisk laughed, shutting the empty dishwasher.
The two shared a few chuckles before Sans decided to take a seat at the counter while Frisk stood opposite of him. After a brief moment of silence, Frisk asked:
"So, when will Alphys be over?"
Sans shrugged. "soon prob. knowing her though she might be gathering supplies to record you."
Frisk hummed a response, choosing to lean against the counter top with her hips. Sans' gaze traced the girls face, she was obviously nervous about something. He couldn't blame her, she's got a lot on her plate recently. Sans wondered if she knew about the cord, like what it is exactly. Sans knows science and physics, but dealings of the soul were a little bit out of his league.
Sans searched his brain for a scrap on information he remembered reading in the Underground about souls. Unfortunately, anything past monster intimacy between souls he was clueless. Was the cord a side effect? Had either of them even notice it before he lost his memories?
"Hey I—" "can i—" the two spoke at the same time, laughing and gesturing for the other to go first.
So, Frisk cleared her throat. "I just wanted to say sorry, if I upset you earlier… I know I need to control my magick but if I did something, I need you to tell me so I don't repeat it."
Sans raised his eyebrows slightly, "oh kid, i didn't mean anything when i said you needed to learn to control it… it's just that, ah… i'm not sure how to put this."
It was Frisk's turn to be surprised, "What do you mean then?"
Sans blushed once again at his thoughts, not wanting to go down this path right now.
"well, i guess i wanted to ask you first—"
"H-hey guys!" Alphys called out from the front door. "I-I hope it's all right I let m-myself in, I'm just really excited."
The scientist clambered into the kitchen, holding various notebooks, instruments, and a video recorder. Once she dropped the items onto the kitchen counter she straightened herself out and allowed herself to breathe. "I ho-hope I didn't interrupt anything."
She bit her lip, looking back and fourth at a flustered Frisk and dark socket Sans. Alphys laughed awkwardly, attempting to break the tension by taking Frisk's hand and guiding her to sit down at the table.
"P-please tell me you d-didn't start practicing without me now." Alphys chuckled as she set up the camcorder on a tripod facing directly at Frisk. "Sans said you st-started displaying magick unknowingly."
Alphys grabbed a notebook and sat down at the table with Frisk, and began to interview the girl. Sans moved to lean on a wall behind the camera, looking at the small digital image of Frisk on the camera instead of directly at her.
"S-so, Frisk, I already took notes on your ex-experience in your dreams… Can you tell me about the m-magick you displayed earlier?" Alphys asked, clicking her pen as if preparing for battle with the paper.
Sans watched Frisk's eyes dart up at Sans before settling on looking off camera to Alphys. She girl flipped her hand over and showed it off on the table.
"Well… earlier my fingers started glowing with magick and I didn't even notice it at first." She traced the area for Alphys who quickly jotted it down.
"W-what were you doing when it started?"
Frisk visibly tensed in the recording. She seemed to be at a loss for words, her blood creeping up in her cheeks. Sans tensed as well, feeling embarrassed for the girl. He wasn't sure if he could prevent this, so he said:
"c'mon alph, does it really matter what she was doing? i thought the point of this was to record her practicing—"
"Sans!" Alphys raised her voice, "Th-this is just as important, you of all p-people should know how important it is to d-document everything."
Sans locked his jaw. Alphys, still unaware of how antsy Frisk had become in her seat, shuffled her papers a couple times before returning a smile back to the girl, gesturing her to continue.
Sans looked away, wondering if it was better for him to pretend like he didn't know what she had been doing or not. He could see Frisk purposely focusing all her attention at something in the distance, allowing him and the camera to only see her nervous profile.
After a few seconds, the girl reached out towards Alphy's clipboard and snatched the pen right out of the scientist's claws. Hesitating for only a moment more, Frisk quickly scratched down something, holding her breath, and slid the clipboard back to her friend. As Alphys read what she wrote, Frisk held her head down, allowing her hair to fall into her face in order to hide her embarrassment.
Sans watched as Alphy's eyes widened a little as she cleared her throat.
"W-well, hrm…" The scientist pulled on her collar with her claw, glancing a few times back and fourth from Frisk to direct eye-contact with the camera lens. "I think Sans is r-right, we should document actual m-magick after all."
Frisk looked up, immediately relieved by the turn of events. When she looked over at Sans, the skeleton raised a questioning brow. He decided that pretending, if only for now, that he didn't know what Frisk had been doing was safer. However, as soon as she realized Sans' "curiosity" her head snapped back towards Alphys and was determined to stay engaged in her friend's training instead.
"All right," Alphys clapped her hands together, "lets all g-go outside in the back yard, S-Sans, you grab the tripod."
"i'll try not to tripod on my way." Sans chuckled, using his magick to carry the camera out the back door behind the other two. He didn't have to see their faces to know they had rolled their eyes at him.
Once outside, Alphys adjusted all her equipment to her liking before standing behind the camera this time.
"O-okay, Sans will you please begin to show Frisk some b-basic techniques."
Sans awkwardly walked up beside the girl, baring his typical skeletal grin at her. Frisk scratched the back of her head, looking around at the scenery.
"you ok kid?" Sans asked quietly.
Frisk finally turned to him and nodded. "Yeah, I'm ok. Just a little anxious about this I guess."
Sans smiled gently. "don't think too much about it, if i could teach papyrus i can teach you."
"You taught Papyrus?" Frisk blinked.
"just the bare bones 'course. once you know the basics, you can build the rest up from your own training."
"H-hey, if you're going to talk, speak a little louder so the camera can p-pick it up please!" Alphys called out.
Sans gave a thumbs up towards the camera before turning back to the girl.
"so we already talked about magick being generated from your emotions, specifically happiness or what have ya. what we didn't go over is how you add your intention to what you want to do with that generated magick."
Sans eye lit blue and he began to shape his blue magick in his hands, in the form of small blue flames.
"try this: hold your hands together and think of something that makes you really happy and then visualize that energy being guided from your soul to your hands."
Sans observed the girl's facial expression change from biting her lip to being filled with determination to succeed in this small task. After a few seconds, Sans could see her begin to perspire and goose bumps prickle her arms. However, after a minute the Frisk dropped her hands, breathing a little heavier than normal.
"Errghh. I can't get it now." Frisk exasperated.
Sans looked over to Alphys for help and for the next hour the two tried various methods of visuals and physical stances to help the process but all had failed.
"M-maybe we should just call it a day. Frisk, I-I'll come back tomorrow and bring Undyne, I'm s-sure she'll have some better ideas." Alphys begun packing up her equipment.
After Alphys had left the home, Toriel, Asgore, and Papyrus came back from their day jobs. Sans played it by ear whether or not Frisk would decide to tell her family about her newfound abilities or the current situation regarding Chara. As Sans suspected, Frisk acted as if nothing had changed during the past couple days.
As Frisk and her immediate family finished up their dinner, Sans took the opportunity to excuse himself and teleport from the table to his bedroom. The comedian flopped onto his bed, tired from all the events that had occurred over the past 48 hours. Flipping to his side, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring box once again.
He hummed as his looked over the blue velvet, seeing how it was worn in certain spots from what he could only guess was from weeks of fiddling it around in his pocket. Or could it have even been months?
Clasping the box tightly in his fist his let out a long sigh. Not having so many of his memories was beginning to really piss him off. He needed them, he needed to know how he felt about Frisk and for things to just return to normal. On the thought of Frisk, his mind began to wander and consider what she was going through. He tried to imagine how it would feel to one day be so in love and then suddenly for that other person to see you as a stranger the next day.
"you're stronger than me kid…" He murmured.
Sans sat up in an instant as he heard a light knock on his door. "who's there?"
"I am."
Sans smirked. "i am who?"
With that, Frisk slowly opened the door. She peeked in and spoke "You forget who you are now?"
The two smiled and laughed, the skeleton waved the girl into his room, motioning her to sit next to him on the bed.
"wassup bud?"
Frisk gave a small shrug. "I guess I just wanted to say sorry about earlier."
"sorry for what?" Sans raised an eyebrow.
"I just…" Frisk took a deep breath. "I feel like I'm failing you."
Sans' jaw slacked. "frisk, don't say that…"
"Sans why can't I do this? Why isn't my magick working? How am I supposed to get your memories back like this?" Frisk babbled, Sans could see on her face her anxiety increasing as she ran one of her hands through her hair shakily.
"frisk, stop this." Sans grabbed the girl by the shoulders, forcing her to look directly into his eyes.
Frisk opened and closed her mouth, stunned for a moment. Then, in a barely audible whisper she said, "How am I supposed to get you back…?"
Sans slumped his shoulders and let go of the girl. "frisk… do you believe in soulmates?"
Frisk wiped the corner of her eye with her sleeve. "W-what do you mean?"
"did you know—did we know about… this?" Sans eye lit up as he motioned for both their souls to appear. The glow of red and blue washed over their faces. With a cautious lift of his phalange, Sans hooked a the thin line that connected the two souls to show the young girl, whose face shined in curiosity.
"What is that?" Frisk whispered. She slowly reached to touch the string, as soon as the ridges in her finger's skin made contact with the fiber, a surge of electricity jolted through both the girl's and skeleton's bodies.
"Oh my God." Frisk breathed. "Did you feel that?"
Sans nodded, too shocked for words. This joy building in his chest confirmed his earlier suspicions.
"kid, look around us."
Around the two formed a red and golden shimmering bubble of magick, which as soon as Frisk realized what had happened, it was released with an audible pop.
"I did that?" Frisk gasped. "But why now, why couldn't I do anything earlier?"
Sans stared at the girl, his non-existent heart racing in his chest. In that very moment he could feel the girl's amazement, her pride and her joy. It was true, he could see it now, he could even feel it; he could feel everything Frisk felt, and he was sure she had to be subconsciously aware of feeling his emotions as well.
"we're connected kid." Sans breathed, only inches away from Frisk's face. "i know you can do this frisk, i have no doubts now that you can save asriel."
Together their souls hummed with excitement.
Without warning, Frisk laced her fingers with Sans'. "Sans, you know what we should do?"
"what?" without realizing, Sans squeezed the girls hands tighter to his own.
"We should leave tonight. Lets return to the Underground together."
Author's Note: Sorry to end on a cliffhanger, it was really hard to decide where to end this chapter. Looking forward to writing the next for you guys!