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It was a Bad Day. The kind where you couldn’t find any motivation to be the spunky human you were normally. You wished you could blame it on shitty weather or even something bad happening at work, but that just wasn’t the case. That’s the thing about depression, one week you’re fine and the next it's hard to get out of bed. You were wrapped in a giant blanket and laying on the couch with some mind-numbing reality tv show playing. You didn’t really care what was on, it was just something to drown out the empty-nothingness you currently felt inside.
You had only gotten a few episodes in, you think, before you heard the tell-tale sound of a shortcut happening as the smell of ozone and pine filled the air. You burrowed your face into the blanket. You knew it was only a matter of time before your bonefriend got home from work. You silently prayed he wouldn’t notice the blanket blob that was currently you on his couch, even as you heard slippered feet moving on the floor closer to you. You didn’t move as the footsteps walked around your blanket haven to the other side of the couch. You weren’t expecting a lap full of bones when he gently fell onto you.
“Oof!” you lightly smacked him through the blanket, poking our head out just enough to level a squinty glare at him, making your displeasure known.
“heh. sorry babe, you just looked bonely,” he said with his ever-present grin ticking up at the corners into a real smile. Normally you love puns, even the ones you’d heard a hundred times from him before, but it just didn’t tickle your funny bone today. Haha, funny bone. You’ll have to tell Sans that one when you're in a better mood.
When you didn’t react to the pun besides a level stare, you saw the corners of his mouth fall and his browbones cinch in a concerned manner.
“you okay babe?” he asked. Usually you would brush it off and distract him with a joke or two, but you just didn’t have the mental bandwidth today to even pretend you were fine. He was laying face first on your legs, so you shifted your shoulders to where he could lay across you easier. He instantly wrapped his arms around your waist and rested his chin on your sternum.
“Bad day,” you whispered as you smiled sadly at him and ran a hand over his skull. His arms tightened and he leaned into your touch. You loved this lazy bones, he was different from anyone else you’ve ever met. Able to make you cry with laughter at the silliest things one minute and drive you crazy with want the next. You hate that he sees you like this. He gets along with so many people and is incredibly charming when he wants to be. Why would he hang around someone who is so broken? Your eyes began to fill with tears even though you tried so hard to keep them from forming. You knew your face was turning red, which was even more embarrassing. His sockets widened and he quickly pulled up to his knees, hands cupping your face as they started to fall. You felt skeletal hands wiping your tears and carding through your hair.
“what happened babe?” he asked gently.
You leaned your head into his touch and let out a sad giggle as you said “Heh, depression’s a bitch.”
You hated feeling like this. It’s like you could feel all your failures weighing you down, keeping you anchored to the couch. He huffed a laugh, you could feel the warm air from his nasal aperture on your chest. You sniffled as you tried to reign in your emotions, it's not like you have a bad life. Quite the contrary, which is why it made you feel even worse that you even felt this way to begin with. He shifted against you as he reached into his pocket for his phone. You tried to smile as you said, “I’m okay, just one of those days where I can’t get my brain to turn off.”
Your half attempt at a smile quickly fell as you looked away. He still had one hand against your cheek so you rubbed your face against it, feeling the warmth of his bones against your skin. He laid back down against you.
“i have my bad days too. mind telling me what's got you in a funk?” he asked. You looked at him, his eyelights studying you as he tapped away on his phone with his other hand. You glanced at his phone curiously, but didn’t have enough in you to care. You didn’t want to tell him all the negative things your brain was telling you. That you were a failure, that you didn’t deserve someone like him, that you would never amount to what you dreamed of. You were familiar with his bad days too. Some days you just stayed curled around him and gently tracing your fingers over his bones while telling him all the ways you loved him. How he could make anyone laugh with one of his jokes, and how he could light up a room just by being in it. You know you needed to talk to him, you could see his eyelights shrinking the longer you didn’t answer. You hated seeing that look on his face, he shouldn’t be worrying about you. You know he has enough on his plate. Yet, you knew the only way to fix it was to tell him what was running through your head. You sighed and leaned your head back against the armrest so you didn’t have to see his face fall when you told him what was going on.
“I just feel numb, like no matter what I do, I will never be good enough. I have so many plans for what I want to be, but I won’t achieve them so why even try.” You felt the tears welling up in your eyes again. “I just don’t see how you could even want to be with someone like me. I have nothing to give you that you don’t already have. My life is a mess right now,” you said bitterly. You heard the vibration of his phone going off and looked up to see him reading a message with a head nod before he threw it on the table next to you. You watched the phone land with apathy. Who knows what your skelebae was up to.
You looked back at him as you felt him move to get up. You knew it, once you start opening your mouth people always pull away. You let your head fall back onto the couch as the tears began to fall. Everyone always leaves. When he stood up you quickly reached out and grasped his jacket sleeve as a last ditch effort to get him to stay near you.
“Please, don’t leave,” you begged quietly. You couldn’t even look at him as you asked. You know you didn’t deserve him staying with you. But you couldn’t stand being left alone with your thoughts again, you don’t know if you would have the energy to even move from the couch. You gasped when you felt his arms burrowing under your blanket haven, behind your back and under your knees.
“don’t worry starlight, i’m not going anywhere without you.” he said, as he lifted you in his arms. You wrapped your arms around his neck and tucked your face into his cervical vertebrae. You hiccoughed into his neck, a few tears falling down to dampen his shirt. You knew he was strong from previous moments behind locked doors, but they were few and far between and Sans was never one to use his strength often. You clutched him close as he started moving to the stairs, up to his bedroom.
‘Figures,’ you thought, ‘he wouldn’t want Papyrus to come home and see me like this.’ You clung a little tighter as you got closer to his bedroom, you couldn’t help the thoughts racing through your head saying he was only taking you there to break up with you. You hated that your mind worked like this. Like every good thing in your life was only temporary. You looked up as the door was kicked shut and he walked across the room to deposit your blanket blob on his bed.
“figured this was bed-der for cuddling than the couch,” he said as he climbed into the bed behind you. You rolled over and fumbled your way to an opening in your blanket, trying to drag him in with you. He scooted closer and tangled his legs with yours as you both got comfy. He pulled you to his chest and carded his hand carefully through your hair.
"papyrus is having a sleepover with 'dyne and alphys tonight. its just you and me starlight," he murmured against your head. You felt a large part of you relax, it was one thing for Sans to see you like this. Someone who understood how it felt and never made a big deal of your weak days, but to upset the energetic ball of love that was his brother would have crushed you. You know he would have done everything in his power to try to cheer you up, which would have made you feel worse when his usual methods failed to make you better. This was better. No reason to try and put on a fake smile, just spending time with Sans, who was always happy to take a nap with you.
After you both laid there for a while you felt his hands begin to wander across your arms, drawing patterns and scratching lightly. It felt nice. They moved to your back and it sent a shiver down your spine, and he laughed as he felt it.
“ya know you have a lot more spine than you give yourself credit for,” he mumbled into your hair. You gave a sad laugh.
“That's rich, coming from a skeleton,” you said as your hand drifted across his shirt-covered rib cage. You felt an echoing shudder from him at your touch. You lifted your head to look at him, to see a gentle smile and fuzzy eyelights staring at you. You don’t know what you did to deserve such a look from him, but the thought was quickly swept from your mind as he nuzzled in for a kiss. Kissing a skeleton was interesting, the smooth bone of his face working to meld your lips to his. It was sweet, a gentle touch of the lips that led to more nuzzles and kisses. You sighed under his attention, reveling in the peace it gave you. You rested your forehead against his, your breaths mingling in the space between you. His eyelights were half moons in his sockets as he gazed at you.
“can i show you?” he asked, breaking the peaceful silence.
“My spine?” you asked, incredulously, pulling back from him a bit. He blinked, and let out a small laugh as a blue tint rose to his cheeks.
“heh, nah i'm pretty sure that's supposed to stay inside of a human,” he said awkwardly. “Can i show you how amazing you are?” he asked as he looked back to your eyes. It was your turn to blink, not expecting the question. You didn’t feel amazing, if anything you felt the opposite, but you saw the admiration and love gleaming from those gentle half moons and found you couldn’t say no.
“Okay,” you breathed, unsure of what he meant by that. He smiled, bringing you in closer for another kiss. You melted into his touch, taking as much comfort from him as you could. You felt his cool tongue prodding at your lips, tempting yours to come out and play. You sighed, and allowed him to enter your mouth, tongues gently moving together in a slow dance. Your hand came up to rest on his clavicle, curling gently around it as you moved together. He pulled back gently, gazing at you with - what?
His eyelights had formed into white hearts, gently floating in his sockets. You had never seen them change before, you didn’t even know they could! It was adorable. You smiled back at him, enamored with the literal hearts in his eyes, and pulled him into another kiss. He willingly fell back into you, slowly moving to lay on top of you between your legs as he distracted you with his tongue. His tongue was tantalizing as it moved with yours, slick and cool, curling around yours as you tried to keep up. He pulled back and peppered your face with kisses, causing you to giggle and swat at him playfully. He laughed and dodged your hands as they came at him, finally resting on his back as he halted his kiss attack.
“seriously y/n, you are so much more than what your brain is telling you, and i intend to show you just. how. wrong. it. is.” he finished his sentence between kisses trailing down your neck. You gasped as you felt his tongue run along your collarbone, before he gently nipped at the skin there. You ran your hand along the spinous processes along his back, taking time to push between each one over his shirt.
“Then show me,” you said breathlessly as he smiled and began removing your shirt.
“Gladly,” he growled.