Can You Forgive?
Chapter 3: Can You Forgive?
Sans stared down at the whorls in the polished wood, wishing that he could temporarily lose himself in the hypnotic swirls. He absentmindedly traced circles in the wood grain with one finger bone, struggling to clear his mind and hoping that the effort would help. Which clearly it would not.
Unfortunately, a few bottles of ketchup would have to do instead.
The few straight shots of cinnamon whiskey that Grillby had poured for him had been downed without ceremony, and Sans almost found himself asking for a few more shots, if not to kickstart the buzz from the first couple that he had downed then at least to wash away the unpleasant memories bubbling to the surface. So long as he was here, surrounded by the sound of other bar patrons and the warmth of the pub, he could put it all behind him for a little while. He didn't just want this, he needed it. That was his excuse, anyway. So long as he focused solely on this and this alone, he could ignore the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, the guilt weighing like irons on his back. Just so long as he thought only about the drink in his heavy hands, the slightly off kilter sound of the busted old jukebox in the corner, maybe he could avoid thinking about -
- the sound of their wheezing as their fingernails scraped bloody marks on the tile, staring up at him with eyes full of pain and betrayal. The conjured bones spearing them through the chest and pinning the child to the floor, blood already pooling around them. Their begs fell on deaf ears as Sans stood over them
expressionlessly, hands in his pockets. They coughed up more blood as they cried, struggling to speak as the determination slowly left their eyes.
"Sa-Sans," it was clearly taking every bit of remaining strength that they had to breathe, let alone weep. Sans wasn't sure he had the energy to bother interrupting anyway. "So-sorry, s-so sorry…"
"… Tell you what, kiddo," Sans knelt before them calmly, slowly removing his hands from his pockets and carefully, gently lifting their lightly dusted pale face up to look him in the eye sockets, one of which still had the faintest flicker of blue. "If you're really sorry? Next time, you won't come back."
The mixed look of frail hope in their eyes as it slowly drained away to dull realization and fear grew, and he paused only for the briefest of moments to allow them to acknowledge exactly what was about to happen. They simply had no more FIGHT in them anymore, no strength to continue in this timeline, and they were both perfectly aware of the fact. It didn't make the slow turning of their head any easier, the soft, pleading cries for mercy as he twisted their head further, and further, and further, straining against their choked begging until he finally heard the bones crack-
"Sans?"
Sans jolted awake in his bar stool, sweat pouring off of him as he grasped at the counter.
"… 'Sup, Grillbz?" Sans tried to force a small smile, but it felt as if his soul was actively rebelling against him. The bartender gave him a strange look before letting out a puff, readjusting his small square spectacles. His normally tight black bow tie hanged around his neck haphazardly, one end tucked into his pristine black vest. His white dress shirt's sleeves were rolled up around his forearms, and he leaned against the opposite side of the counter with a concerned look on his flickering face. It took Sans a moment of staring blankly before he realized that Grillby looked about as loose as he usually did just before closing time, and the lack of noise from either the patrons or jukebox helped to indicate that, duh, he was trying to close up shop. Instead of ushering him outside like he expected, however, Grillby once again surprised him.
"You know you can talk to me about anything that's bothering you, right?" Grillby said lowly after a few awkward moments.
"… Heh," Sans rubbed the back of his head uneasily, glancing guiltily at the nervous scrape marks that the tips of his phalanges had left on the polished wood. "Sorry, Grillbz; you must be pretty burned out as is-"
"Sans."
Grillby leveled a silent stare at him from behind his glasses, the quivering flame casting dancing shadows on the bar around them. Grillby didn't move, Sans couldn't even tell if he was breathing (did he need to breathe?) but for a very brief moment, Sans got the sudden impression that Grillby could see through him, see all the terrible choices that had dragged him inevitably back to the bar that seemed to be one of the main anchors in his life. The next moment the feeling was gone though, and Sans tiredly rubbed a hand down his face. The positive side effects of the alcohol had already long since faded, leaving him feeling a little light headed, aching and queasy to boot.
"It's just, uh… been kind of a weird day, is all," Sans shrugged. Grillby slowly crossed his arms in front of him, lowering his head slightly. "I don't even know where to start, t'be honest."
"How about at the beginning?"
"Well, see, there was this big bang, right-?"
Grillby did not laugh.
"… R-right," Sans shifted awkwardly, unused to the searing glare that the bartender was giving him. "Uh. Damn," he rubbed the back of his head again. "Seriously, Grillbz. This whole thing is just one big mess."
"I would assume that you are referring to your new tenant?"
Sans blinked. Did word really spread that quickly in Snowdin? Or had he just been asleep for that long?
"… Yeah," he shrugged eventually, not meeting his gaze. "Guess you could say that."
Filthy little leech already worming their way in gonna have to kill it all over again-
Sans jerked violently, and he shifted and popped his back hoping to mask the action before sticking his trembling hands back into his jacket pockets.
"A'ight, so," Sans let out a long breath after a moment. "So, Paps n' me found this kid outside of Snowdin."
Grillby nodded once, the look on his face portraying that he (obviously) already knew this much.
"They're not exactly, uh, in a good way. Y'know?" Sans continued without looking up, as if hoping to lose himself in the wood grain once again. "I don't think that they're alright in the head."
"And why do you think that?" Grillby asked quietly, not moving from his position but casually leaning forward to hear Sans's softened tone.
"Somebody, uh…" Sans suddenly found it difficult to speak, and the blistering stare that he could feel from Grillby almost broke him. "We found out that somebody hurt this kid. Pretty bad. Might-might have somethin' to do with why they're not, y'know. All there."
"I can hardly imagine what kind of wretched, blackened soul would harm a child…" Grillby said quietly, and Sans felt something inside of him die a little.
"… So," Sans let out a shuddering breath that he didn't know he had been holding, still unable to meet Grillby's gaze. "So me and Paps are kind of at an impasse. I mean, we could just drop 'em off at Undyne's-"
"And you know exactly what happens to humans who cross
Undyne's path," Grillby said quietly, simultaneously crushing the feeble thought that Grillby might be behind him on that one and wiping away any doubt that Grillby somehow, once again, knew more than he was letting on.
"Right, right," Sans ran a hand over his head, trying to pretend that the look Grillby gave him wasn't making him sweat uncomfortably. "That's out the window, obviously. I mean, we can't just - just, I dunno. This kid is bad news," Sans rubbed his temples.
"How so?"
How exactly was Sans supposed to answer that? That the child had single handedly dusted everyone in the Underground in a previous timeline? That they had killed his brother and walked through his dust like it was nothing? That in another time that Sans could still very vividly remember, Grillby's bar tended to be much, much more empty?
"… They're human," Sans eventually said, so quietly that he almost didn't hear himself.
"A human child," Grillby added with a small crackle. "Children are small, fickle flames, Sans. They must be treated with tenderness and care lest they fizzle and burn out completely."
The overwhelming guilt came crashing back down upon him as he was struggling to come up with a decent reason to drag the child to Asgore's throne himself, crushing the thought almost immediately.
Just a kid.
How could he keep managing to forget that lovely little detail? Sans let out a silent, hollow sigh through his teeth, closing his eye sockets for just a moment to recollect himself. Just the thought of what he'd have to go through looking at that… thing again made his stomach roil.
"… What am I supposed to do, Grillbz," Sans finally looked up at him, but found nothing noteworthy or out of the ordinary with the bartender. "How am I supposed to fix this?"
Does it even matter?
"Implying that you intend to do it alone."
Sans blinked.
"Because you are not," Grillby continued, rolling his neck casually and eliciting a few sparks to rise into the air from the action. "Sans. Have you ever heard of the phrase 'it takes a village to raise a child'?"
Sans didn't seem to have an answer to that.
"After… after my wife fell down," Grillby carried on softly, and Sans blinked. He had never even heard mention of Grillby's spouse, let alone her passing. "Raising Fuku was… difficult. I didn't know what I was doing without her. I hardly knew what to do to begin with. There were many, many times when I doubted myself, wondering whether or not I was doing the right thing," he rolled down his sleeves as he spoke, leaving them unbuttoned and leveling a strange look at the skeleton across from him. "I lived in constant fear that something else would go wrong, that I would do something wrong, afraid of countless possibilities that rarely or never came to pass. I suppose we were lucky, in a way, but more than that. It took reliance on my friends and loved ones to finally begin to overcome the grief, the worry, the doubt. It is not a weakness to rely on others, my friend. Bearing the world on your shoulders for so long only results in a bad back."
Sans sat, stunned, staring at the elemental before him. It occurred to him that out of all of the resets, all of the different timelines, Grillby had never once been the one opening up to him, that it had always been the other way around. He had never heard the bartender speak so emotionally, so assuredly, or so firmly. He wasn't quite certain how to respond.
"… Thanks, Grillbz," Sans rubbed his forearms after a moment, giving him a small grin. "I mean, just… thanks. For always bein' there."
"I am always here," Grillby nodded, if a little sadly. "Although I believe I must inform you we're well past closing hours."
Sans's marrow froze.
Shit shit shit how long was I out oh shit shit I left him alone with the kid!
"Oh balls sorry Grillbz gotta go," Sans said breathlessly, bolting off of the bar stool. He hardly wasted time in making it to the door before plunging into his shortcut, feeling the void warp and twist around him. His left eye burned with blue magic, coursing through his bones as time and space bent at his will. The crushing, whirling darkness tore at his every atom as he fell, faster and faster through the emptiness…
And just like that it was over as it started, leaving him standing breathless in his living room, the lights in his eyes narrowed to pinpricks and wildly whirling about the room. The blue glow from the fire in his left eye illuminated the darkness perfectly, mingling with the light from the television showing some Mettaton special or another.
Several things happened at once.
Firstly, Papyrus and Frisk looked up in surprise from their spot on the sofa, the latter perched on Papyrus's leg with a mostly empty bowl of popcorn in their tiny hands. Their little legs kicked a bit now and then as they sat contentedly with him, until they noticed the newcomer. Immediately afterwards came the most bloodcurdling scream of terror that Sans had ever heard from the human, who instantly fell to the floor and almost seemed to curl in on themselves, shaking violently and crying with their hands over their head. Papyrus was over them in a moment, worried and clearly unsure of what to do. Sans quickly extinguished the magical fire in his eye, taking a moment to process the information.
"It's alright, tiny human… !" Papyrus tried to shush them over the sound of their wracking sobs, holding them gently with his fingertips as if afraid he might break them. "I understand that my brother might have scared you, but it's perfectly alright! It's just a trick of his, there there, nothing to be afraid of…"
If anything this only made Frisk shake harder, quivering and trembling and desperately trying to make themselves as small as possible.
"I'm sorry," they choked, tears streaming down their face as they tried to hide behind themselves. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry -"
"It's okay, it's alright," Sans said in a shaking voice after a moment, kneeling down beside them. If anything, this only caused them to tremble more furiously. "Everything's alright, buddy. Just take it
easy…"
"I'm sorry, I'm so s-sorry," Frisk squeezed their eyes shut in attempt to stem the flood of tears. "Please, I'm sorry, p-please, I w-won't fight b-back, I'll do wh-whatever you want, just please don't hurt m-me anymore… !"
Sans and Papyrus shared a very brief, very uncertain look that neither of them were happy with, before Papyrus let out a slow, uneven breath and lay an unsteady hand on their back and one on their head, making the softest noise that he could.
"It's okay, Frisk," he said quietly, running a hand down the back of their head in what he hoped was a calming manner. "It's okay. It's going to be alright. You're safe. Okay? You're safe. You are safe here. Nobody is going to hurt you. Especially with the Great Papyrus on the watch. Nyeh."
Frisk (goddammit why was it getting so difficult to think of them as the anomaly) clung weakly to the front of his shirt, sobbing silently. They sat like that for what felt like hours. The movie that they had been watching shifted from feature length to commercials many times over before finally ending, but nobody noticed. Papyrus only continued murmuring soothing words to the child, occasionally glancing up to see that Sans was still beside him, sitting absolutely stock still with his plastered grin, his eye sockets completely devoid of light almost the entire time.
Sans collected himself as best as he could, straining to keep his tone low and his thoughts in check. It wouldn't do to go freaking out in front of an already panicking child, so he once again found himself resorting to one of his favorite personas in favor of hopefully calming them down a little, or at the very least doing damage control. After all, who didn't love Comic Sans?
"… Hey, buddy," he started off softly, though Frisk still didn't look at him. "I was at Grillby's earlier. Met a duck monster. I asked him about buying drinks, but he just said to put it on his bill."
Papyrus cocked a skeletal eyebrow at him in blatant disbelief, but seemed to understand what he was attempting to do.
"So apparently there's these seagulls that fly over the bay. And that's where bagels come from."
Despite their sniffling, Frisk managed a weak little laugh.
"Man, I know a bunch of chemistry jokes I could share, but I don't know if they'd get a reaction."
"Sans, that was bad," Papyrus said out of the corner of his mouth, but couldn't help a small grin.
"I was never good at emotional stuff," Sans shrugged and continued, shifting so that he was sitting on his legs. "I tell ya, the last wedding I was at was super emotional. Even the cake was in tiers."
"Sans oh my god," his brother let out a weary sigh, but Frisk simply wiped their eyes and shook their head before finally meeting his gaze for a moment.
"I'm s-sorry," they started, but Sans held up a finger.
"Man, you apologize a lot," he ran a hand over the back of his head, letting out a small chuckle. "Like, uh… some kind of, eh… apology… machine."
"Apology machine," Papyrus repeated with a deadpan.
"Sorry," Sans shrugged. "My joke bank went bone dry for a second there."
"Stars deliver me from short skeletons with bad puns," Papyrus rolled his eye lights, earning a snort from Sans.
"Hey," Sans slowly stood, offering a hand to his brother. "Paps. You mind givin' me and the kid a minute to talk?"
Frisk looked nothing short of absolutely horrified at this notion, but slowly nodded and rose, carefully setting Frisk on their feet.
"Don't worry, tiny one," Papyrus said with a kind smile. "My brother really isn't scary. Even if he tries to be, sometimes. If you need me I'll be picking out a good book," and with that he patted them on the head, slowly traversing the stairs to his room. Sans waited until his brother was completely out of earshot, listening intently for the click of his bedroom door. He took a weary look at the mess of popcorn all over the floor, the upturned bowl, and the still sniffling child.
Sans eventually sighed and flopped onto the couch, patting the seat beside him twice. Frisk didn't move for a moment, but eventually shuffled over and clambered up onto the couch beside him, sitting at the opposite end and almost pushing themselves into the cracks between the cushions.
"… Y'alright?"
Frisk didn't answer.
"Okay, stupid question," Sans rubbed his eyes tiredly. He stared at the infomercial displayed on the television for a moment before turning his gaze back to the child currently trying to blend in with the furniture. How was he supposed to get his point across to someone who was too afraid to even look him in the eye sockets? Was there even a point that he had in the first place? Papyrus had reacted pretty well to the child's panic, considering that Sans had had quite a few 'incidents' in the past. When had Papyrus gotten so good at being the comforting brother? Wasn't there a time when that was Sans's job? What was he even supposed to say at this point? 'Sorry for making you afraid of the color blue for the rest of your short life?'
"… Listen," Sans said after a long bout of silence. "I… damn. I don't really know what to say. Guess I just want to tell ya that… I'm sorry too. Sorry for the way things… turned out before. Sorry that I had to be the way that I was. I'm sorry it messed with you so badly. I'm sorry I messed you up. I'm… I am truly, honestly, sorry, kid. I am."
"'s not your fault."
Sans gave a slight grunt and blinked. It was the first time they had spoken in a while, and it wasn't what he had been expecting. Their voice was soft and cracked, still hoarse from crying.
"Uh."
Eloquent.
"It's not your fault," Frisk had their legs pulled up beneath their sweater, arms wrapped tightly around their knees as they stared down.
"Can't help but feel like I've contributed," Sans said dryly. Frisk didn't respond immediately, but when they did their voice was so quiet that he almost didn't hear it.
"I'm… I was 'messed up'," they said with a disdainful frown. "For a long time. Way before I jumped."
"… How long is a long time?" Sans asked, folding his hands in his lap to keep them from shaking.
"Can we talk about something else please?" Frisk asked tonelessly, their expression pained.
"Alright," Sans nodded once, his mind abuzz with questions and theories. "Have you had those marks on you for 'a long time' too?"
Frisk froze, their eyes widening in horror. Their lips tightened and pursed white, and if possible, they seemed to sink even further back into the couch away from him. They silently mouthed something that he couldn't quite make out, their face flushed with shame and fear.
"I get it if you don't wanna talk about it," Sans shrugged noncommittally. "Hell, after what I did to you, I wouldn't wanna talk to me, either."
Way to go, Sans. You have all the grace and tact of a pissed off cactus.
"… I forgive you."
Of all the things Sans had been expecting as a reply, that most certainly hadn't been one of them. Frisk was staring up at him, arms still wrapped around their legs, eyes full of uncertainty and fear. It was almost as if the words didn't quite register.
"… Come again?"
"I forgive you," Frisk said again in that same uneven, soft tone, not looking away.
Sans was left speechless. After the things they had done, all of the monsters that they had killed, the families and dreams they had destroyed, they had the outright gall to forgive him ?
Then again, considering exactly what he had done to them to ensure that they would never come back, inventing new and more painful ways to kill, to maim and injure, to leave them broken and bleeding and begging to die-
Sans forced the thought from his mind, slowly shaking his head. He felt his smile freeze to his face in a familiar manner doing anything, everything he could not to give away just how badly it had rattled him.
"Do you… do you remember what you said to me?" Frisk asked nervously, tugging at their shirt sleeves.
"Which time?" Sans asked numbly, unable to quite look away.
"Do you really think that-that everyone can be a good person? If-if they just try?" they looked up at him fully, openly. There was determination in those eyes certainly, but the odd little glint was back. That gentle look that he saw on Papyrus so often.
They were showing him MERCY.
"I-I want to try," Frisk said after a while, looking back down at their knees. "I want to be good. I want to be a person, too."
That certainly set off a large number of red flags in his head, but being the responsible sort he promptly ignored them as best he could.
"… Heh," Sans shrugged after a moment, his mind still feeling a little numb. "I guess I can forgive you too, kid. Just, uh, next time, try not ta - oof!"
Sans felt his magic instinctively flare defensively at the human missile, the glow from his left eye momentarily lighting the room before he forced it to flicker out when he realized that Frisk was hugging him around the middle, shaking tremendously.
They were going from calmly watching movies to screaming at the top of their lungs to hugging their killer like they were old friends. Sans gave a deep internal sigh, ever so gradually hugging them back, pretending that the fresh tears staining his shirt didn't bother him.
This kid was a frickin' rollercoaster.