Chapter Text
After a week had past since you had acquired your new flag silk, you were only just now deciding to take it out and test it out. You waited until Phire and Toriel were both settled into their chairs intently reading books to make your epic getaway.. Which just consisted of you saying “Bye!” and walking out of the house. Yeah, epic. You walked quite a ways through the Ruins, walking for almost an hour before finally making it to your room of choice: a big room where a few Froggits usually reside, though it didn’t seem like they were here today. In a way this made you glad; no audience made you much more comfortable to do whatever you wanted.
A few times as you walked here you swung the flag around, though you were very cautious in doing so so as to not hurt any of the smaller residents that may be trying to pass without you realizing. You almost hit a passing Vegetoid at the beginning, and you apologized profusely to them as they just huffed and reminded you to eat your greens before moving along. You wondered darkly for a minute if that was a joke on your weight, but then you shook your head. These weren’t humans, you doubt they gave two flying craps about your looks.
You scrolled through your surface phone, feeling very picky on your choice of music today before finally giving up and hitting shuffle before setting it down on the ground away from where you would be standing. You backed up and left your flag on the ground for the moment, opting to try and get used to moving your feet again before daring to do anything with a six foot steel pole.
They say I'm living in my own reality
Throwing everything that bites me, even money
I wanna sit back, and set myself free
Set myself free, set myself free
Your steps and movements were shy and felt very forced, and you could feel your muscles stiffen and cramp as you moved. It made you realize just how long it had really been since you last danced; your body could hardly take even the simplest of ballet movements. You could feel it start to get used to the movement though as you danced on, your movements becoming much more fluid and actually staying on beat with the movement. It was strange, you thought; on the surface, you never would have been able to just make up your dancing on the spot without some guidance. You know you’ve had this realization before, and again you chalked it up to the magical properties of this land.
Losing their ego, in all that they see
Engineered acts, no clothes on T.V.
Leaving everything that hits me
Do you see what I see, oh
After a few more measures of the song, you finally decided to stop and pick up your flag. Your muscles were aching, almost on fire, but you felt determined to keep moving. You let the glowing silk unfold in your hand and you took but a moment to revel in its’ beauty before you grabbed the butt end of the pole and swung it outward, beginning your new dance.
And it's a bit cold
We live in a sick world
And it's a bit bold
But we burn on our own coals
Your movements were fluid yet sharp with the beat of the music, going back and forth between gentle twirls and spins to sharp snaps to angles, ignoring the screaming pain in your arms and legs and instead using it as motivation. Occasionally you tossed your flag in the air and caught it in time with some of the claps in the song, surprising even yourself with how on-point you were. You felt so great! The longer you danced the stronger you began to feel, which made your movements much more bold and big, doing a lot more moves which consisted of you throwing the flag around by the butt end at arm’s length which took much more strength than most realized. If you would have been paying attention, you would have noticed you were gaining an audience; Families of Froggits, Whimsums, and more were gathering around the room, watching you very closely. Some were even joining in by dancing together amongst themselves with the music.
Set myself free
Set myself free
And it's a bit cold
We live in a sick world
And it's a bit bold
But we burn on our own coals
Leaving everything that hits…
It was now that you finally noticed your gathering audience, but instead of feeling shy and backing off, you merely grinned and continued dancing, suddenly feeling you had purpose. The monsters cheered you on and some clapped/stomped with the beat, making you laugh as you danced. You happened to look up to see that the glow left a trail behind the flag wherever it went, leaving a rainbow streak which added even more to the magic.
After another minute the song finally came to a close, with one final toss and catch to end it all. You made a graceful bow to your audience, and everyone cheered excitedly and surrounded you, bombarding you with questions you could hardly understand. You laughed and kneeled down to their heights, chatting with a couple before you looked up towards the back of the crowd and froze.
Sans slowly stepped out of the shadows, clapping loudly at your performance. His permanent grin was even bigger than usual, and if you looked hard enough you could swear his eye lights were in the shape of stars. You felt heat flare into your cheeks and you shyly looked away, gently tugging on the silk of your flag in embarrassment.
“_____, that was great!” Sans praised, making you bury your face into your hands to hide your intense blush.
“H-How much of that did you see?” You asked, peeking up from behind your hands to look at him. He had a light dusting of blue on his face, but you chalked it up to a trick of the light.
“all of it. i was comin’ to visit you, but i saw you leaving tori’s walking with a purpose so.. i followed you. please don’t think i’m creepy or anything,” Sans replied, looking away and shrinking down some. You blinked in surprise and began to laugh, which only furthered Sans’s embarrassment.
“You weirdo!” You giggled, your own embarrassment subsiding as you walked toward Sans. “Nah, I don’t care. If you did come out any earlier I probably would’ve been too scared to dance, so I guess that’s a good thing.”
“too scared? what do you mean by that?”
“Just.. I’m so rusty on dancing. I would have been scared that I would embarrass myself in front of you by like, falling or something,” You admitted.
Sans chuckled quietly at your response and shook his head. You blushed a little again and tried not to think about how cute his laugh was.
“you danced really well for someone who hasn’t danced in a few months. it was extremely.. nice,” Sans hesitated on the last word, almost slipping up and saying ‘beautiful’ instead. That would have been embarrassing. You picked up on the little hesitation, but decided not to comment.
“You think? It was fun but.. I’m kind of in a lot of pain now. My muscles really hurt from doing so much activity after I’ve been practically lazing around for so long,” You admitted, rubbing on one of your now sore shoulders. “Will you walk with me back to Toriel’s? I wanna see if she’s got anything for the pain.”
“yeah, sure. let’s go,” Sans nodded, and the two of you began the long trek back to Toriel’s house. You continued to mess with the silk of your flag.
“I don’t think I can thank you guys enough for this silk. It’s so beautiful, and it even glows! I can’t believe it! It looks so magical!” You practically squealed, hugging the silk close to you again. Sans could feel his cheekbones turning a dark shade of blue and he quickly tugged his hood down over his face the best he could, trying his best to hide his blush from you.
“it was the least we could do for you. you’ve changed this place and almost everyone in it a lot more than you think, and we hated seeing you in so much pain. we just hoped that it would help you begin to feel better, and thankfully we were right,” Sans smiled, giving you a soft look from underneath his hood. You looked back at Sans and smiled right back at him, tears dotting your eyes.
The two continued to walk and talk about little things before you reached the dead tree that sat in front of Toriel’s home, and you came to a stop. You rested your flag against the tree and spun around to face Sans, who was giving you a confused look.
“wha-?” Sans started, but didn’t get to finish before you pulled him into a bone-crushing hug, burying your face into his bony shoulder. He stood there shock for only a moment before he hugged you tightly back, resting his chin down on top of your head. He was glad you couldn’t see his face right now, because he probably looked like a big blueberry.
The two of you stood there in silence for a moment, just holding each other tight before Sans spoke.
“hey.”
“Yeah?”
“...if you’re willing to, i want you to meet me somewhere in a couple of days.”
“Where?”
“waterfall. the wishing room.”
The thought of the place was bringing back some pretty bad memories and you shuddered a little, slowly releasing Sans and meeting him eye-to-eye. He had an extremely nervous look on his face and he quickly looked down away from your piercing gaze. You gave his statement a hard thinking-over, before you brought your hand up and placed your fingers on his chin, forcing him to look up at you. Lord, his whole face was cobalt blue. It was adorable.
“Okay, I’ll meet you there. In a couple days?”
Sans looked shocked that you agreed, and he quickly nodded.
“yeah. a couple. two. mmhmm,” Sans could hardly think right now, and his response to your question made you laugh. The two of you hesitantly pulled away from each other now, feeling like the moment was beginning to grow awkward. You both stood there quietly for about thirty more seconds before you finally spoke up.
“Okay, so.. I’ll see you there then. Around what time?”
“anytime. i’m supposed to be on duty near there so i’ll pretty much be there the entire day. i’ll uh.. see you there,” He quickly responded before suddenly teleporting away right in front of you. You blinked in surprise, wondering what exactly his problem was. You shook your head and decided it was best to let it go for now, and you picked your flag back up and headed home.