Chapter Text
Sans swears he hears footsteps that are neither his or the human's. He know's he's just imagining things. If someone wanted to capture them, they would've pounced by now. He's already on edge as it is, but the thought of being followed fills him with a paranoia that is borderline unbearable. The thought of being followed by Papyrus was particularly troubling. He doesn't realizes he's shaking until his hand is grabbed.
His body stiffens and he instinctively smacks the smaller hand away from his own. He flinches at the disappointed and confused expression of the small human, but turns away quickly, shoving his hands in his pockets of his coat to avoid the same thing happening again. "I already told you, kid, no touching. No exceptions." He growls.
The human takes a few stumbling steps away from him and they stare at the ground in silence for a few minutes. For a brief second, Sans is afraid he may have hurt them when he slapped their hand away. "You're shaking." Frisk finally speaks, voice weak from not having used it much. "Can you tell me what's wrong?"
"Nothing." He grumbles out. Nothing that he's willing to share right now, that is. Nothing that he ever wants to share with anyone. Ever. Doing such a thing would humiliate him in ways worse than torture. Well. Depending on what kind of torture you were talking about. He'd talk about anything if he could chose between that and some of the shit he'd been put through. He shudders.
A hand touches the back of his arm and he whips around to grab the offender's wrist in a bruising grip, pulling them forward with a violent jolt. "What did I just fucking say? No touching you little shit! Do that one more time and I'll-" He turns his head to give them a warning glare, but stops dead in his tracks when he sees the crippling fear in their eyes. They didn't look this scared when they first met, and that was saying something. He suddenly felt like the scum of the underground. "...Kid..."
Tears well in their eyes as they try to break free of his grasp in panic. When he lets go, they fall back onto their backside, sobbing. They hold their arm close to their body defensively.
"H-Hey... I'm not that scary, am I?" He tries his best to soften his voice, giving an awkward chuckle while he's at it. Based on their reaction with the context of all the other horrid things they'd been through in the past few days, he made a not so wild guess that he triggered something that he shouldn't have. They hadn't have such a... severe reaction to anything else, even the truly gruesome looking monsters that attacked them every so often. He takes a few cautious steps in their direction, hesitantly holding his hand out. "Uh... You need help up?" He isn't sure they hear him over their own blubbering, as there isn't a response. He isn't sure how to handle this.
He rubs at his eye sockets and plops himself down in front of them. "Kid..." he sighs. "You gotta calm your shit. I'll listen if you feel like talkin' about it." He knows they can hear him now; he gets a quick shake of their head in response. "Can you at least tell me why you're cryin'? Did I hurt you? Or did I make you remember something you're trying to forget...? If you can tell me, I can keep it from happening again." He's about to give up after quite a few seconds of the human before him being unresponsive.
They finally speak - in a tone so quiet and... pained, that he can barely make out words. But he manages. "I-I... Don't like being grabbed like t-that. And I don't like when you yell at me... like that."
It takes him a second for the aggressiveness of his words to sink in. 'What did I just fucking say? No touching you little shit! Do that one more time and I'll-'. He practically feels his soul sink to where his stomach would be if he had one. The longer he concentrates on those words the more he thinks that the same thing has been said to him before. He flinches. God, he's just as bad as Papyrus. Worse.
What if he becomes like his brother? What if he already is like him? He physically cringes at the thought of causing as much damage as boss had. "I'm sorry." Frisk is obviously taken a back by this. Sans wasn't one for apologizing. A fly on the wall in the two brother's household would suggest otherwise, but Papyrus was the exception the the apology rule. With as much pain as his brother has caused him, he supposes he deserved to apologize for getting in his way constantly. And he did - a lot. Apologize and get in his way. "I get it. I do."
When the child gives him a skeptical glare at that statement, he sighs and slips his coat off of his shoulders, letting it fall onto the damp ground below him. He rolls the sleeve of his sweater up to his elbow and holds this arm out for them to see. They lean forward to examine it, brows furrowed. They clamp their hand over their mouth and stare wide eyed when they see notice thin fractures resembling spider webs across his forearm. "Why do you think I don't like being touched?" He hissed through his teeth. This was embarrassing.
They make brief eye contact with him, then looked back at his arm. "Did you... do this to yourself...?"
Okay, that was fucked up. That was the kid's initial thought? He would've thought a child wouldn't have known that it was even a thing people did. Hell, he didn't know until he had the urges himself. Then the realization hit him that maybe this kid was having a harder time than they let on. Who falls down a hole in the top of a mountain on accident, anyway? "Not tho-" He grits his teeth. "Nah. Papyrus." They give him a quizzical look and he remembers they may not have heard his name. No one calls him that, not even Sans if they were in public. "You probably heard me call him 'Boss'."
The human's mouth forms a small 'o' shape. He's relieved they don't ask him anymore questions about how it happened - or how often it's been happening. He doesn't want to answer either of those. They scoot closer to him, lifting their sleeve and holding their arm next to his. Along with the redness around their wrist that he caused, faint yellow and pastel green blotches smeared across their extended forearm. He assumed they were bruises, and if that assumption was right he guessed from there that they'd been hit pretty damn hard by something bigger than them. An adult, maybe. "Doll..." He whispers, and actually feels tears prick at his eye sockets. He can't bring himself to care about his dignity in the moment.
"Are you okay with h-hugs?" They ask softly, holding their arms out. He nods. Hell, it's not like any memories of hugging were linked to Papyrus, good or bad. Nearly as soon as his consent is given, the child leaps into his lap and wraps their arms around his neck, holding on like they'll both disappear if their grip lessens. They bury their face in the shoulder of his turtleneck and the way their body jolts with sudden breaths tells him they're crying again. He cries too, and holds them tightly. But not too tightly - he makes sure of that. They suddenly feel small and fragile in his lap, which is really something coming from a barely four foot tall monster with 1HP.
"I won't touch you without asking from now on." He hears them whimper a small apology.
"I won't either, sugar."