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It started when you found the basement.
“Sans, come see this!” you shout, staring at the door behind the big armoire in awe.
“what’s up?” he says, stepping into the bedroom to come see.
The two of you had finally bought a house together- in Canada, like you’d always wanted. And finally, the paperwork is over, and finally, the moving truck arrived, and finally, you moved all the furniture in- but this armoire had just, sort of, been here. Sans had dubbed it “free stuff” and decided not to throw it out- however, you got total Nancy Drew vibes and decided to move it.
Behind, it seems, is a door. Not a fancy one, either. Just a closet door of some kind, some past owner probably wanted to cover it.
“oh, cool. it unlocked?”
You tug on the knob. With a click and a screech, the dusty hinges give in. It swings open to reveal a worn set of stone stairs. You feel your heart soar. Maybe this house is going to be haunted! You’d always wanted to live in a haunted house. Especially after meeting monsters and knowing ghosts can’t hurt you.
“Will you come in with me?” you ask, eyes shining, as you peer down the stairs.
“won’t we need a light or something?” Sans asks, eyeing it warily.
As if on some creepy cue, a light hanging above the stairs clicks on. You squeal happily and start down the stairs. Sans follows. It sure is a lot of stairs. And yet, as you walk down, more lightbulbs click on. Spiders and dead gnats are everywhere, but after your experience with Muffet, you know they’re harmless.
“This is so cool…!” you whisper, looking around. Sans chuckles.
“there could be “BEWARE” written on the walls in blood and you’d probably take a picture.”
“Oh, come on. You have to admit, this is insanely interesting- oh- sorry,” you whisper, edging around a spider hanging from the ceiling. “I mean, you’re seriously telling me this is a bad idea?!”
“it’s gonna need a lotta renovations before i set foot in here again.”
You shrug and keep going. Finally, though, you hit the bottom. It’s a small, perfectly square room, with four blank white walls. The floor, however, is painted a thousand different colors- primarily red, green, and yellow. You don’t think they go together very well, but, the past owners were a little odd. You wonder why they didn’t paint the walls, but they did do the floor.
“I could totally paint murals in here,” you whisper, trailing your fingers over the perfectly primed walls. “I think I want to paint YOU, actually,” you add, looking over at Sans. He perks up, confused.
“really?”
“Yep. I think if I could get a couple pictures of you with some flowers or something as a reference…”
He gets all blue in the face, so you walk over next to him and link his arm in yours.
“I think it would make this haunted-ass room perfect.”
That makes him laugh out loud- you press a kiss on his skull and turn back towards the infinite-looking staircase.
“Guess we have to climb that now,” you sigh, not moving.
“nah. think we’re both too lazy for that.”
Before you even have to ask, he tells you to hold your breath, close your eyes. And he shortcuts the both of you all the way back up into the bedroom. The door swings shut behind you, and you hear the clicking of lightbulbs turning off.
“well, THAT’S creepy as hell,” Sans deadpans, staring at the door.
“I love it. It’s perfect.”
He shoots you a sidelong glance, at your little smile. You and your (probably dangerous) attraction to the unknown. But honestly, he can’t complain. You might not have ended up with him without that strange addiction. Something about scary things made you excited- though not exactly in an adrenaline junkie way. You’ve always hated the risk of being hurt nearly more than actually being hurt. But ghosts and demons and horror movies? You’re obsessed.
“y’know what else is perfect?”
You turn to him, smirking.
“Nope.”
“my comedic timing.”
(Yeah, to be fair, you didn’t expect anything less.)
“Darn right it is.”
~~~~~
The next day, instead of doing touch-ups on the house (as planned), you drag Sans into the car and go on a hunt to find places where wildflowers grow. You need some references to paint him on the walls. There won’t be many places, with the weather, but with some luck…
“hey, what about those?” Sans asks, pointing at a hill in-between streets with a circle of trees and perfect flowers. Probably planted by the city to be decorative, but, you couldn’t honestly care less at this point.
“Ooooh, nooo, I am slipping off of the road,” you say, driving off the street and into the grass, “whatever shall I dooo…”
Sans laughs- “oooohh nooo, i am getting out of the car… i am being dragged away…”
“Oooohhh noooo…! Me, too!”
You both laugh and hop out, then head to the centre of the trees and take some pictures. Sitting among the hum of bees, in the violets and buttercups: a sense of peace washes over you. You feel… at home. After you’ve made some flower crowns and taken the pictures you needed, you flop back in the grass (and ignore the ant bites).
“this would be a really nice place for stargazing, huh? the streetlights around here are all broken.”
“Mm-hmm…”
He squints a little at you, all sprawled out and content, and drops down beside you, staring up at the sky.
“yeah, ok, this is nice.”
“Isn’t it? I love it.”
“… tell me something interesting.”
“Interesting… hmm.”
You sit for a minute, then snicker-
“Revenge sound interesting?”
“hell yeah.”
“Okay- so, before you guys got released from the Underground- like, literally days before- I was dating this guy, right?”
He gets slightly tense, so you nudge his shoulder-
“Trust me, he’s got literally nothing on you, just listen. So I’m dating him, and he was super romantic. Stupid romantic. And he’d get me, like, lingerie and flowers and junk nearly every day… I mean, not that I have any problem with surprise romantic gestures, but every day was a little much. And it was always strangely impersonal. He could literally turn around and give any of that stuff to anyone and they would have no reason to believe it wasn’t originally for them. Anyway. So I come home one day, right?”
Sans nods, fairly invested in the story now.
“And he,” you giggle a little, almost maniacally, “is banging some chick ON THE WALL, and they both look up and see me. And they FLIP OUT. She’s yelling, he’s all pale and trying to explain himself. Ridiculous. Of course, I was heartbroken, because I really liked him, but I couldn’t kick him out of the house because we had been splitting the rent and I couldn’t afford it by myself. So I broke up with him, resigned myself to whatever he was planning to do in our apartment with other girls, and tried to move on. Luckily, though, he paid me a few months rent and left.”
“hold up, where’s the revenge in this story?” he asks- you barely noticed how angry he’s gotten.
“Hey, calm down, I’m getting to that. There are jerks in this world, we gotta face it.”
“but those jerks shouldn’t be near YOU.”
“I know, right? I thought that, too. Anyway- so I’m digging around our house to clear out anything he’s forgotten when he moved out. And I found this STASH,” you laugh again, “of gifts! Flower coupons and underwear and makeup! And none of it was specific to me, either! I realized he had just been storing his stuff here, and seeing whoever else he wanted and giving it to them. So I took it all out, stuffed it in a cardboard box, and found his apartment, thinking I should just return it.”
“i’m gonna take a wild guess and say that you didn’t just return it.”
“Of course not. When he opened the door to take his stuff back, he had a girl behind him, so I opened the box and showed her and told her what I knew. SHE was mad. And she storms off into the house, telling me she was going to get me some vodka or something as a thank-you… and she comes out with it and some matches.”
“oh, boy.”
“And she told me to smash it in his front lawn, which I did, because she was tall and angry and terrifying, and she had a Russian accent; and then she lit it on fire, hopped in HIS car, and drove away. I left, too, because he was calling the police at that point.”
Sans laughs at the thought of you and some tall, angry lady smashing vodka and lighting the puddle on fire, some poor sap in the background watching helplessly.
“that’s one interesting story. luckily, you’re not going to have any issues with cheating with me, since you’re one of the few people interested in skeletons.”
“You kidding? I’m sure there are people tripping over their feet to date you, I just got here first.”
“that it, huh?”
“That’s it.”
He laughs a little more and stands, helping pull you to your feet. You sigh a little at the thought of going home- but, the hundred-or-so ant bites on your ankles, thighs, and arms are their own motivation.
“geez, you’re really torn up, aren’tcha?”
“Maybe a little.”
~~~~~
Once you have your photo references and a few buckets of paint, you head down to the basement and get started. Sitting in a haunted room with only spiders to watch you, painting, you feel fairly happy. It’s nice. Some days, Sans will come down with a chair and a pillow, kick back, and talk to you while you paint, offering ridiculous criticism.
“you kidding me? i’m not THAT skinny.”
“i could have sworn the flowers were orange, couldn’t you?”
“isn’t my jacket, like, spiky?”
“Sans, how could your jacket possibly be spiky?”
He snorts- “you’re the artist, you gotta figure it out.”
You roll your eyes and keep going. First, the blue on his jacket and on the sky, then a different shade on the violets. White for bone. Green and yellow for the buttercups and grass. Black and grey and indigo for shading things. You like, privately, that his eyelights aren’t on the camera- they’re aimed somewhere different. Somewhere beyond here. You might be the only one who ever knows they were looking at you.
You sincerely hope you never light any lawns on fire because of him.
A few hours go by- and, you can’t explain it, but you start feeling like you shouldn’t be down here. Just an instinct. Slowly, you pack up your paintbrushes and back up from the wall, wondering why the *danger* alarms are going off in your head.
“Sans?”
“yep.”
“Do you feel that… not-okay feeling?”
“was just waiting for you to ask. upstairs we go.”
And you do, with a shortcut and shaky hands- luckily, though, the painting part is nearly done, you just need to add some finishing touches and things. You hope you can finish before you start feeling scared again. Whatever. When did anything ever scare you, anyway?
~~~~~
Now.
Nothing has ever scared you until NOW.
You had headed down the stairs early this morning to do the last touch-ups before Sans woke up, and surprise him with the results. Paint and brushes in hand, creeping down the stairs…
and stopping cold when you noticed the pattern on the floor had changed.
It now resembles a little girl, maybe five, with pale skin and bright red eyes, wearing a green and yellow shirt. She isn’t creepy, by any terms. With the exception of those creepy eyes, she actually seems fairly normal. Sweet-looking, almost. What’s scary is, you have no idea how it got there. Is Sans pranking you again? No, he wouldn’t do this, would he?
You finally edge the rest of the way down the stairs and gingerly step into the room, eyes locked on the floor. Whoever painted this must have had to be incredibly skilled to get the level of detail they did, on top of not accidentally stepping on wet paint. Honestly, you’re impressed. How are you going to explain it to Sans when he comes down to see the finished product, though? Speaking of, you look up to make sure your mural wasn’t messed up by this mysterious artist.
~~~~~
Sans wakes up with a start when a sudden current of fear rips through his soul. He looks around to make sure he isn’t in any immediate danger, then checks for you. You aren’t asleep next to him. Oh, god… He sits up, soul beating frantically in his chest- it’s definitely shared fear, since your souls are bonded. He can feel what you feel, so he can feel your fear. He hopes you aren’t hurt, he hopes you aren’t about to be hurt… but where ARE you?
“basement,” he mutters to himself, shortcutting out of bed and to the bottom of those endless stairs.
The first thing he sees is you, seemingly unhurt and not in any fights. That, at least, brings relief. However, you’re pale as a sheet of paper, backed up against the far wall, both hands over your mouth. When you see him, it seems to get even worse.
“I di- didn’t- I WOULDN’T-“ you choke, turning your eyes back to the wall.
“wh- wouldn’t what?” he asks, looking where your eyes seem to be pointed. “oh SHIT.”
It’s his mural, the one you’ve been working on for several days now, but… altered. He has a huge bleeding slash on his chest, an eyesocket smoldering blue, pain written in every one of his features. But the flowers remain pristine and perfect- blowing in a breeze that surely can’t be there, not in the midst of this agony. His immediate thought, is, of course, did you do this? But, by all accounts it doesn’t make sense. You’re clearly horrified, you can’t fake that amount of pure shock and horror in your soul. Even if you could, you wouldn’t ruin such a sweet gesture for a prank. And, besides all of this, he knows for sure it couldn’t be you because this isn’t your art style. You wouldn’t draw any liquid like this- of course, this is far more realistic, which doesn’t help things- but whoever did it has clearly seen this wound before. You can’t have. This is from a reset you haven’t had the pleasure of living through.
Once that’s out of the picture, he turns back to you to make sure you aren’t too shaken up. It’s slightly late for that, though.
“hey, ’s ok,” he says, coming to you and pulling you into a hug. “i know you didn’t do it.”
You aren’t exactly used to hugs from him as much as cuddles and kisses and other things, so this is… different. Comforting. You let yourself sink into it, closing your eyes so you don’t have to look at the wall anymore.
“We have to move,” you whisper.
“what?” he pulls away slightly, sitting back on his heels.
“If there’s someone trying to kill you, then we’re moving. This isn’t safe.”
“but you love it here. and we literally just got here.”
“I know.”
“. . .could we just, y’know, give it some time? just to see if things get any worse?”
You look so hurt. So scared. He hates that. He doesn’t want you to feel scared here, you should be safe. He should be able to keep this place safe for you. You shouldn’t have to move out your dream home for HIS safety.
To be fair, you’re probably still a little shaken from the talk he gave you explaining his “condition” a week or two ago. 1 HP. You could kill him with one touch if you had enough malicious intent behind it. You were shocked, just like everyone else who learned of it. You’d held him really close that night, worried anything could take him away from you if you didn’t keep him safe. He’d let you, liking the comfort he’d felt in your arms.
“I’m sorry,” you mumble, bringing him back to the present.
“for what?”
“I don’t know, maybe you’d be better off…”
“better off?”
You look at the floor, shake your head, then hug him again, tightly. He lets you, then shortcuts both of you onto the bed so he can settle in beside you.
~~~~~
Once you’d gotten over the shock of the thing, you packed up your paintbrushes, went downstairs, and decided to run a test. On one wall, you do a painting of you. Something small, not too much detail. On the opposite wall, you do a rough painting of the girl on the floor. Maybe she’s important. Under that sketch, you write in pencil: “Do you want to hurt us?” Sans seems concerned that the painting of you (which actually turned out really well) is going to get marred in the same way his was, which you fully expect. But you can handle that, honestly. So you paint, you head upstairs, you kick back, and you wait.
“are you sure that this is a good idea?”
“Nope. But it’s figure out what this thing wants or get out of the house.”
“welp.”
“Yeah.”
For some reason, though, you feel oddly at peace with this thing now that your life might be on the line as well. When you and Sans made your soul bond together, he’d said that he’d protect you with whatever he had. Including his life. You’d, of course, said the same, and you still feel that way now.
“If she kills one of us, what’s the other going to do?”
“she?”
“Oh-“ you hadn’t realized you’d said that out loud. “I kinda associate this thing with the girl on the floor. She.”
“oh. she won’t kill us.”
“Well, I’m either going to be a crazy cat lady or a ghost story.”
Once he realizes you’re only joking, he softens slightly and laughs. “oh- c’mon, ghost story is perfect for me, not you. i’m literally the walking dead.”
“Fine, you handle ghost story, I’ll handle the cats.”
“deal.”
You crash beside him on the couch and laugh a little bit. “We’re going to be the stuff of legend, you know. We’re gonna conquer the frickin’ world.”
“nah. too lazy. not in the mood.”
“We’re going to conquer… something.”
“something sounds easier.”
“Something sounds smaller.”
“bingo.”
~~~~~
Sans decided to go downstairs and check on your painting first. While you’re still asleep, he takes the liberty of slipping down the creepy stairs. Still wary. Still nervous. He doesn’t like this room. The mural of the girl on the floor- he hates it, for some reason. it reminds him of the story you told him once, “The Picture Of Dorian Grey”. Some guy wanted his picture done, and he hung it up on his wall. Slowly, with every messed up thought he had, or awful thing he did, the picture got uglier and scarier. Sans doesn’t remember the ending. Seeing the creepy chick on the floor, now holding a knife that was decidedly not there yesterday, he hopes the ending he forgot didn’t end in suicide.
But, that’s not important right now- he looks up at your painting. Just as expected: you have a slit throat, blood spilling down your front, a pained grimace where yesterday’s sweet smile was. Sans isn’t going to lie: it chokes him up a little bit. It’s so realistic, he can honestly imagine you like that. He doesn’t want to, but it’s hard when it’s right in front of him. Geez, if you had been there in the Underground… For the resets. He would have died a million extra deaths trying to save you from his fate. His face hardens slightly. The kid on the floor does look a bit like Frisk. Same red eyes, same knife- different body, though. He wonders vaguely if that same presence followed him all the way up here. But, what’s she going to do? Paint him to death?
…
(‘yeah, actually,’ he thinks, sarcastically- ‘that seems to be the plan.’)
Scary to think that someone followed him here, though. Creepy. He feels oddly more secure knowing what happened to the killing instinct, though: if Frisk and this girl are two separate presences, then Frisk might honestly 100% mean it when they say they’ll never reset. However, it doesn’t keep him safe. Maybe he should do some kind of DIY exorcism or something. Who knows.
And, finally, the portrait of the girl on the opposite wall. Surprisingly, she’s dying, too. But not of a cut or some other bloody wound, but seemingly of sickness. She’s paler than you originally painted her, more tired and haggard-looking. He can’t help but feel bad. Oh, and would you look at that- where you wrote, “do you want to hurt us?” there’s a new message.
“no.”
Huh. That’s a bit surprising. He gets the danger feeling again, and shortcuts back to the top of the stairs. The door shuts, the lights click off. He shoves the armoire back in front of the door with blue magic, then turns and heads back into the other room. You’re fidgeting in your sleep, bundling blankets to your chest to make up for the empty space where Sans ought to be this early in the morning. He sits by you, gently rubbing your shoulder until you turn around to look at him. You silently hold out your arms until he relents and lays back down into them, cuddling you to him.
“We gonna die, or what?” you whisper.
“dunno.”
A long, companionable silence ensues- you tuck your head over his, bringing your legs up under his body to spoon around him as much as possible.
“y’know i’m gonna keep ya safe, right? i’m sure as hell gonna die trying.”
“Hey, don’t think like that. We’ll be fine,” you murmur, sleepily.
“i’m keepin’ ya safe,” he repeats, mostly to himself. “swear i am, sweetheart.”
“I know.”
~~~~~~
“you… do know that could kill you, right?”
He’s staring at the unholy amalgam you’ve created on the counter, in a huge smoothie cup. A cup of pure black coffee, two Monster energy drinks, three Five-Hour-Energy pills, a Bang energy, and a DayQuil. He’d asked why you put that in there- you’d only shrugged. “Opposite of NyQuil, NyQuil makes you sleep, more energy for me, that’s my logic.”
“Well, I guess you’d better get ready to haunt our house then. Because I am one hundred percent staying up to catch this thing.”
Your plan goes a little something like this. PAINT. ONLY paint. As many buckets as you have, brushes, ladders, floor, walls ceiling- for as long as you can. No sleeping, no eating, a cup for peeing, and a cup of water. (You’ve put them in distinctly different containers for no confusion.) Your plan to stay awake? This smoothie of poison in front of you. Your logic is, if the girl, or demon, or whatever it is, comes out and ruins your art at night, it will have to come put while you’re painting EVERYTHING at night, right? You’ll see it, and know who they are, and catch them. You may not exactly know what’s going on, as this drink might put you on a different plane of existence, but Sans can feel your soul feelings and come if he feels fear caused by the thing haunting the basement.
You just want to see some paranormal activity: is that so wrong?
“seriously. what if you get seriously injured by this thing?”
“Demons have nothin’ on me.”
“i mean the drink.”
“Pfft. They were all made to be eaten.”
“but maybe not together?”
“Coming from the ketchup-drinker.”
He sighs, shrugs, and kicks back in his seat. “i’ll keep 911 on speed dial.”
“All your contacts are speed dial, you have a smartphone.”
“hush, i know what i’m talking about.”
“Welp-“ you raise the glass- “cheers.”
He watches you tip it back, swallowing every drop. Behind his masked concern is a boiling panic. You could SERIOUSLY hurt yourself. But you just take it in a long swig, a screwed up, disgusted expression on your face. When you finally set your glass back on the counter, you look like you just sucked a lemon.
“Ew.”
“you… feelin’ ok… ?”
After a second, you shudder.
“Everything is a little blurry on the edges, but that’s fine. I’m gonna go start painting.”
“sweetheart…?”
“Mm-hmm?”
“don’t get hurt.”
You nod, smiling, and pick up your things. This will be fine.
~~~~~~
Sans can’t sleep. It feels like he’s the one who took a shot of that drink: energized and shaky and spooked. He wonders privately if it’s the side effect of feeling your soul. He draws it out, looking carefully. It’s vibrating just the tiniest bit. When he tries to still it with his hands, a little shock- not big, more like something out of a joke buzzer- zaps his hand, and he pulls back. Weird.
“hey… it’s ok…” he whispers- before flushing with embarrassment. You aren’t here. It just feels like you are. He hopes you’re alright. Okay, one more time. “it’s all good. ‘m right upstairs ‘f ya need me, sweetheart. breathe. keep goin’.”
A little shock runs though his entire body: he wonders if it’s good or bad. This drink must have really jacked up your emotions. However, the sharp yank on the soul towards the basement door is enough to get him on his feet.
Bad shock. Bad shock. Bad shock.
He guides his soul quickly back into his chest, then shortcuts to the bottom step. Everything is silent and dark in the little room- nothing off at all. But for whatever reason, the lightbulbs haven’t turned on for him yet. They always did. They should, shouldn’t they…? At the very thought, a single light flicks on, only in the center of the room. Truly like something out of a horror movie.
You’re on the floor in the very center, breaths labored and harsh, face screwed up in pain. You’re clutching at your side like someone stabbed you there.
“sweetheart-!” he chokes, stumbling to you and checking your side, checking your vitals. Something must have been really wrong with that drink. “no, no, no, no…”
“Sans… you have to run.”
“what? no, i’m calling you an ambulance.”
“Run, PLEASE. Something isn’t right, I’m- ugh-“ your face falls, eyes screwed up again.
“no- hey, stay with me, it’s fine.”
You stagger to your feet, looking oddly detached. Empty. You stretch out one arm, then the other arm. Leg after leg. Crack your back in a way that sounds excruciatingly painful.
“I’m tall.”
“uh… sweetheart?”
Your eyes fall on him- your beautiful eyes have red irises now, and they scan Sans up and down with indifference: then a sort of recognition.
“SANS?”
“yyyyeah?”
“Wow… it has been so long, hasn’t it. Didn’t fancy I’d find you here: people always try to do something with this space, fight me off after a few weeks, leave… fortunately for you, though, comedian, I got myself- oh! is this your soulmate? i can see your soul in hers. Gee, THAT’S unfortunate. Sorry-not-sorry about this.”
“what’s wrong with you?”
“With me? Oh.” She- you?- slaps your forehead, waltzes across the room and taps on the mural of him dying. “Yeah, I’m in her- yeah. This is my work, right here. Whaddya think? I call it “papyrus, you want anything?””
Sans feels his soul drop into his gut. It can’t be. You wouldn’t know that. You couldn’t know that.
“sweetheart? are you in there?”
“Oh, she is, she’s angry as angry gets. Not too scared, though. You two really do deserve each other.”
“let her go, kid.”
“Kid- oh, you still remember me. Oh-ho-ho, this is gonna be a blast. Let’s see if I can still- oh, hold on-“
She promptly falls on your face- you shakily try to push up, sweat pouring down your face, but it’s like your body weighs a hundred times more.
“Sans, get out of here, please-“
“sweetheart, i’m not leavin’ ya here, just hold on, i’ll figure something out.”
“Please do,” you scoff, another stab making you cry out, before she raises you to your feet again.
“Your little mate is annoying as all hell, Sans.”
“let. her. GO.”
“Oh, you want a fight? For old time’s sake? Make her fight you- oh, boy, she’s gonna get quite the kick out of this. Oh, oh, and you’re gonna have to fight her! I win either way, I guess.”
“what do you want?”
“What do I- who cares.”
“what do you want with her? you just comin’ around to kick me in the face or what. just kill me, get it over with, there’s nothing worse you could do. reset. take it all away again. see if i care.”
“I want her to be my body. It’s much less torturous to live this way.”
“why don’t you find a dying person or something? find someone who wants to be possessed, you’ll find someone out there.”
“Because this house SPEAKS to me. It’s just so much fun!” Your face contorts, and your own voice breaks through loudly. “That’s not true! We can help y-“ “Shut it. Stay down before I make this a hell of a lot worse for the both of us.” “We can HELP-“ “STOP.”
It’s you, but you’re yelling at her. One person, one voice, two people. It’s… scary. Sans takes a single step back. He never thought he’d see the day when he feared you, but here it is. Finally, your body stumbles to him again, and he manages to catch you this time, supporting your body and lowering you to the ground.
“what do i do?”
“She wants someone, anyone. She just needs a… host, and she can talk through it, but she’s tearing me apart.” You look at him with that lopsided smile of yours, the one that he thinks is going to tear his soul out right now. “Lucky thing I drank what I did, or I wouldn’t have so much energy to fight b-back.”
Lucky thing, indeed. You flinch and stand again, looking significantly more angry than before.
“You want to see me KILL him? I’ll do it.”
“what do you want.”
“I’ll- I’ll do it.”
“no, you won’t. not now. you could have killed me forever ago if that’s what you wanted. what do you want.”
She stares at him- at first he thought you were back to yourself, since your face looked so, well, lost- but she just opens your mouth, closes it. Nothing to say, for once.
“we can- much as i hate to say it to ya- help. she’ll do better than me, kid. she’s a forgiver-and-forgetter.”
“Not you.”
“not me.”
“Right.”
“right… now let her out. she didn’t do anything wrong.”
Another long minute of staring, and then you fall to the floor. Sans scrambles forward, hesitating to make sure it’s actually you, before pulling you to himself as best he can and checking on you. From all the falling, you have some light scrapes on your face and palms, but other than that he assumes most of the damage is internal.
“sweetheart? that you? can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear,” you cough, smiling a little, tiredly.
You look around when you hear crying. Sans holds your hand, holding you back, refusing to let anything happen. Not again. Not after that.
“Let me help her.”
Your eyes hold just as much determination and drive as they always have. You would never give up against any odds. May be stupid: but hell if it isn’t effective. Sans releases you, murmuring to you to be careful.
He can’t see the person you talk to. He can’t hear them, either. Maybe for the best. But you all sit there in the basement for a long while while you talk to that dead child.
She was lost. And alone. And scared.
She liked to draw, but only what she’d seen.
Her name was Chara Dreemurr.
And then you said she was gone.
~~~~~~
You wake up wrapped in a blanket, laying in Sans’ arms. In the basement. Even if he’s much shorter than you, you’re all curled up to him, holding him as tightly as he’s holding you. When your grip slackens as you realize you’re awake, Sans wakes up. He looks at you, quietly re-affirms it’s you, then kisses you. Tender, and brief, and tired looking.
“What happened last night?” you ask, once he’s broken away.
“so much. don’t wanna get into all of it right now. let’s go upstairs.”
Just this once, you don’t think that his idea is a bad one.
The house is no longer haunted.