"When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it."
Caitlyn Siehl, "Start Here"
With your arms around him like this, with your head tucked against the rigid bone of his shoulder and the softness of your thighs encircling his hips, Sans realizes more than ever how hopelessly entwined he is with your every iteration. Covered in dust, baptized with golden pollen, it doesn't matter - you're still his human, his barely restrained beast with the mark of his teeth on your bare shoulder.
Have you always looked this exhausted? Have you always clung to him so fervently? Or are these things just the result of that gradual wear on your soul - the product of those fifty-two deaths stacked up in your heart?
You close your eyes when he feels for the outline of your body through the thick blue cloth, his hands running from your hips to the ridge of your back. Vertebra by vertebra, he traces the framework upon which all flesh is built: muscles, blood, skin, all wrapped around a scaffolding of bone.
The shaky breath you let out when he touches you sparks a shameful swell of arousal within him, and he's painfully hard again, cock straining visibly against the fabric of his shorts. Sans thinks about unzipping that jacket and lying with you, forcing himself inside of you and fucking you slowly - and hates himself for it. But the press of your mouth against his neck, the brief flicker of tongue in that kiss - god, this is how you draw him in (how you've always drawn him in), with that unexpectedly tender lilt in your voice when you say his name and the pass of your hands over his bones.
Outside, the wind kicks up dust like curls of pale smoke over the evacuated city. The grey road that leads into the castle is crusted with a mixture of dirt and ash. Beyond the gates of New Home, the Underground's silent pathways are lined with the shattered remains of monsters. The rivers and pools of Waterfall are clouded with muddied water, and beside the mouth of that humid cavern, a bright red scarf lies twisted in the mud.
But those things are temporary, aren't they? This distorted world has no real sense of permanence or continuity. Only memory persists here. And in memory you are soft and clean still, in memory he has never hurt you, no, never -
He's handling you so delicately that you feel as though you've somehow shifted timelines, but the chill of your nakedness beneath the jacket and the salt tang of blood in your mouth remind you otherwise. Yet he holds you like you're made of glass, his grip firm but cautious.
The zipper is pulled up to your throat. You raise your hand to it and drag it down until the metal clinks open at your hips, then touch the edge of his jaw with your fingertips. Coaxingly, you lay your mouth against bone, against clenched teeth.
Sans slides his fingers haltingly along the iliac flare of your hip, then looks to you as if for permission.
"Like this," you say, and guide his hand upwards, towards the shadowed skin beneath the curve of your breasts.
The corner of his mouth twitches upwards in a momentary smile. His white pupil catches your eye and your heart twists in your chest - you loosen your fist around the jagged piece of tile concealed in the jacket's left pocket and bite your lip.
He palms the soft flesh, circling a nipple with his thumb before he kisses the hot hollow of your throat, then the darkening bruise on your shoulder. You feel the wetness of his tongue on your skin again, like cool water against the inflamed imprint of teeth, and slip a hand into his shorts to wrap your fingers around his cock.
"You're sure?" he asks, and you nod.
With his arms supporting your back, Sans shifts you into his lap, sliding the tip of his cock between your labia as he slicks it with his own come. Then he eases himself inside of you, pushing deeper with slow and shallow strokes, and watching you closely with the dim light of his pupils.
It hurts much less than you'd thought it would. Yet still there's a lingering soreness between your thighs, and before long a familiar pain pierces through your core that makes you wince and tense up around him.
"No, it's alright," you murmur when he pauses, "Just give me a sec. I'll be ok."
You curl your fingers around his broad shoulder blades to steady yourself, then smoothly roll your hips into his pelvis, each slow gyration sinking him further inside. Warmth, the slightest edge of pleasure, swells with every inch of him that your body swallows. You're faintly aware of Sans pulling you against his chest, tightening his grasp as he chokes out a strained, "Oh my god."
By the time he's fully sheathed in you, you're a trembling mess. Hooking your fingers around the backs of his ribs, burying your face in his shirt to muffle an embarrassing whimper - you nearly go limp in his arms when he finally starts thrusting against you.
A steady, unhurried rhythm. His hands on your hips, his face imbued with such a wistfully tender expression that it hurts to think this will be over soon. Even in the heat of this palpitating moment, this dissolving drop of gold in a timeline streaked with red and grey, the iciness of the unfired bullet in your chest remains as a cold reminder of the end.
But right now all that matters is the honeyed throb of arousal flooding through your blood, thick and sweet in your veins, building up to a feverish rush of ecstasy.
"Sans," you cry out, "Sans, Sans, Sans -"
You shakily reach for his hand, lacing your fingers together as you come undone in his arms, his voice soothing you through your orgasm before he presses his teeth to your open mouth. And then he's saying something to you, chanting it under his breath before it's lost in his desperate moan of release as he comes - his hips bucking hard, cock twitching inside of you as it pumps you full of his seed, and then after the initial forceful spurts of come, the weak, jerky aftershocks as he milks himself dry.
For a few seconds, the two of you stay locked together and collapsed in each others' loose embrace, neither wanting this brief peace to end. But eventually Sans pulls out, and you feel his warmth spilling out from your entrance. Still, he dips towards you for one last kiss, and when your lips brush against bone you close your hands over the sharp tile in your pocket, then carve it deeply into his ribcage, into the space opposite your own heart.