Chapter Text
"what the fuck, frisk?" The words spat out of his mouth before he could physically filter them. He felt his bones twitching with concern, or maybe fear, or maybe guilt. It's possible that it was all three feelings at once.
Sans was an easy going guy — he'd like to think. He woke up everyday and tried, and that was all he could really do.
He had just been at Grillby's, helping unload a truckload of kitchen equipment late into the night. Grillby was on the verge of his big opening, and he was the kind of guy who woke up everyday and tried, too. Sans was discussing the proposal of the monster-human mixer event at his restaurant, to which Grillby's flames flickered nervously. After a beat of silence, he'd nodded, and Sans noticed an extra pep in his step afterwards that made him smile.
After a while, Sans waved his goodbyes and stepped out into the darkened streets, staring up at the moon for a moment. Sometimes, he thought he was dreaming when he saw the sun and moon and stars — these things that were a great myth to his people were everyday occurrences for the surface. He felt his grin grow wider, more real.
He thought of Frisk, in the group home just a few miles away, and his smile dampened.
He thought of how sunken in their face was, how hopelessness was painted so obviously behind the glint of their ruby-colored eyes, how they stared at the food Grillby gave them like they'd never had a hot meal, and how they sneered in the face of any human intolerance.
Sans would be lying if he said he didn't worry about them — often.
And imagine how that worry increased tenfold when he looked to his left to discover a bloodied, maniacal, barefoot Frisk — glass shards protruding from their leg in an uncomfortable position.
One thing about Frisk is they always kept him on his toes, for better or for worse.
Once he had won the surprisingly tough struggle Frisk put up, repeating "no" over and over again — he collected them into his arms like a fallen angel. Sans was grateful no one else was out at this hour, otherwise the headline on the news tomorrow would be 'Vicious Monster Kidnaps Innocent Human Child!'
It was funny, almost. If you ignored the blood pouring from their nose and pooling into their mouth, dripping off their chin — they actually looked the most peaceful Sans had seen them since the barrier was broken. Their inky lashes closed on their eye bags, mouth sleepily gurgling blood. They were concerningly light in his arms, strumming just another chord of guilt in his soul.
After wasting a second staring down at them in his arms, he willed his mind to focus on finding the energy for a much needed shortcut to the house.
After a blink, he was in the living room, spawning in the way of an intricately placed box that almost knocked over at the whiplash of his shortcut.
"Sans, is that you?" He heard Toriel's gentle voice, presumably from the kitchen. The house was coming together nicely, and Toriel spent most of her time these days going to and from the underground, coming back with boxes, and unpacking determinedly. Sans could tell she was anxious to make this house a home in time for Frisk's release from the group home and into their custody.
Sans lost his voice for a moment as he stared at the sleeping, bloodied teenager in his arms once more, choking on his words.
"Sans?" She called again, her voice getting closer now as he heard her soft footsteps trudging towards the living room.
He heard a gasp, and he looked to her direction, Frisk's head lolling over his arm, and all Sans could muster was a quiet "help," a pathetic contrast to his usual sureness. He hated this. He hated that he wasn't strong enough to take all of Frisk's pain away with the touch of his hands.
A serious look fell over Toriel's face, and she motioned towards the kitchen, walking quickly. Sans' feet moved before his mind processed the beckon, walking rushedly behind her.
She quickly cleared the long dining table in the space beside the kitchen of all the half-unpacked boxes, tossing them on the floor haphazardly.
Toriel came in front of Sans, softly transferring Frisk into her own arms before gently laying their back onto the table. Once the little weight and warmth of Frisk was gone from his arms, he felt completely useless and he immediately, selfishly missed them in his arms — giving him some sort of purpose.
"Grab a towel," Toriel commanded quietly, pointing to one of the boxes in the kitchen.
Sans complied instantly, digging through the box and retrieving a kitchen towel. The towel was white and had a sun embroidered on it in a bright yellow.
He rushed back to the table, across from Toriel, who had already grabbed a first aid kit, tweezers in hands as she picked out pieces of glass from their leg focusedly. She looked up at him momentarily, and in her eyes, he saw a waterfall of emotions. He felt queasy at the unshed tears glazing her pupils, making them sparkle with a familiar grief.
"Stop the bleeding, and put pressure on their nose. I'll be done here in a minute," she asserted, commandingly, but not unkindly.
Sans went to Frisk's limp head as their blood now oozed from the side onto the oak table from their bruised and disfigured nose. He cradled the back of their head gently, holding their dampened curls ever so softly.
He held the bright towel over their nose, and it began absorbing copious amounts of blood almost instantly, staining the embroidered yellow sun. He gazed to his right, at Toriel, who now held her hands just inches away from their ankle, a small glow emitting from her fingers. Sans watched as Frisk's wounds seemed to start fixing themselves and turning to scars, slowly willing their cells to repair.
Once she was satisfied with that, she moved in two quick steps to their head, across from Sans.
Toriel stared down at their face, and she looked like she wanted to cry, but she didn't. Instead, she gently moved Sans' hand with the towel — getting a better look at their beaten nose, and sucking her teeth in sympathy quietly.
The towel Sans grasped was dirtied with blood now, and staring at it made him feel nauseous. While Toriel worked her magic on their face, he went to their hand, picking it up and examining it. Their knuckles were busted wounds, crusted with blood that was half dry now. Sans almost felt sorry for whoever was on the receiving end of this. He dabbed the blood gently, attempting to clean up.
He turned their hand over, looking at their limp palm. Four crescent-shaped wounds were half-healed, imprinted into their palm. Sans sighed at the sight.
Toriel sighed too, her hands now on the table as she'd presumably finished. Frisk's face still had dried blood here and there, but their nose finally looked like it was in the right place now, albeit a little bruised, and a small piece of medical tape holding the bridge of it.
Toriel stared at her own hands on the table, shaking her head. Sans had expected her to start spouting out questions now that her child wasn't in immediate danger, asking what happened, how he got to them, what to do next, but instead, she just pinched her temples and exhaled harshly.
"Let's get them in bed," her voice was dry.
Sans nodded curtly, collecting the teenager back into his arms gently, supporting their head. He felt like this wasn't real for a moment, like he hadn't just stumbled upon the horrific sight of a dazed and confused Frisk — with wounds, real wounds derived from inflicting harm on someone else. The thought made him uneasy.
Sans climbed the stairs, and he reached the bedroom that Toriel had slowly been preparing for Frisk. All it had right now was a twin bed and an ornate, wooden vanity by the windows. She had planned to decorate it, make it all 'home-y' as a surprise for Frisk upon a discharge from the group home.
With a sigh, and cracking of his back, he shifted all of Frisk's weight to one of his arms, using the other to pull the neatly-made blankets back. He gently maneuvered the teenager into bed, before pulling a blanket back up to their chest, and lightly dropping their head onto the pillow.
They shifted, making a pained noise groggily.
"shh," Sans found himself cooing, placing a hand on their freckled cheek. They murmured something, eyes still closed, before going still again.
Sans allowed himself a moment in the dark silence of the room, listening to Frisk's shallow breaths as they rested.
He stared down at them, withdrawing his hand into his pocket; the light from the hallway seeped in through the creaked doorway, illuminating their bruised face.
Sans knew — he knew somewhere in the depths of his soul where he holds memories he wishes he'd forget — what Frisk was capable of. He knew that they didn't always choose pacifism, that they were angry, that they had a screw loose.
The way Sans thought about it was that it was a small screw, somewhere deep in the intricacies of Frisk's brain, almost barely noticeable. But that little screw was overworked and exhausted, and it loosened at some point in their early life. And that loosening caused them issues. Issues that they had only given him small glimpses of. Issues that were so well concealed, you'd never notice them if you weren't looking for them. But Sans looked — he always looked. And he always found a slight twitch of the mouth, a sneering glare hidden behind narrowed eyes, a hopeless breath let out in secret, or a clenching of the fists that left bloody marks imprinted on their palms.
Sans didn't know what worried him more: the depth of Frisk's issues, or how well they had learned to hide it from everybody.
He heard Toriel padding up the stairs, and Sans sighed — willing his train wreck of thoughts to cease.
Sans walked out of the door, watching as she approached. She looked like she'd just been crying, but she didn't say anything about it. Neither did Sans.
"I'm going to spend some time with them," she said, her voice raw. Sans nodded wordlessly, looking at his slippers — littered with droplets of blood. The sight made him nauseous, so he averted his gaze back to Toriel.
"Thank you," she breathed. "Thank you for all your help, I..." she trailed off, but placed a hand on his shoulder.
"We'll talk later about...all of this, but for now, I think we all need to take a beat," she decided quietly, a firm voice. Sans nodded again, a quiet agreement. She leaned down, and Sans embraced her easily. He couldn't tell if the hug was for him or her. But either way, it was a comforting warmth.
Toriel lingered for a silent moment before pulling back, patting him once more gently, and entering Frisk's room, gently closing the door behind her.
Sans was left out in the hallway, staring at the door. He sighed and shook his head — willing himself to snap out of his own brain again.
Sans trudged two doors over, and stopped in front of Papyrus' room. His hand lingered in the air above his door knob unsurely for a moment before his body willed him to gently crack it open, ever so slowly.
He was tucked away in bed, blanket up to his chin as he snored — permanent smile unwavering.
That brought a warmth to Sans' chest that he couldn't describe. At least one of his loved ones was sleeping peacefully tonight, and that would have to be enough. Sans closed the door quietly, sighing.
He looked towards his own room — imagining laying in bed and staring at the ceiling until the sun came up. He felt restless, blood staining his shirt and shoes in a disturbing way.
Sans fidgeted with his hands in his pocket nervously before muttering a "fuck this," to himself, rushing into a shortcut that he didn't even know he wanted to take.
He found himself on the doorstep of the group home. The only thing that lit up the darkened streets was the ambulance parked on the curb, red lights illuminating the worn down building. The EMTs seemed pretty done here, loading up some equipment before giving the signal that they were good to go.
The truck pulled off slowly, and Sans watched the lights turn off.
a fucking ambulance. jesus christ, frisk
He sighed uneasily, entering the building.
The downstairs was, surprisingly for this late hour, alive and full of kids running around and yelling loudly over one another, as well as a few stray social workers rushing about in a disgruntled haze, shouting chastises at some of the kids.
"Sans!" he heard a familiar voice over his shoulder. He turned to see Frisk's social worker approaching him. Lola, he was pretty sure her name was. He had seen her every now and again when he would come get and return Frisk for visits. She always seemed to want to talk with the two of them, sweet and excited, but Frisk would roll their eyes and drag Sans out of the door rudely, most of the time.
If she was scared or off put by the fact that he was a monster, she never showed it — which Sans weirdly appreciated. She always talked to him and Toriel as they were — worried loved ones. She didn't treat them like monster worried loved ones, if that made sense.
"lola, hey," he breathed. She seemed to be the only one to notice his presence in the chaos of what was unfolding downstairs, which Sans was eternally grateful for. She looked down to his side, seemingly searching for a shorter human presence, and then looked up at him with desperate eyes when she didn't see them. Uneasiness was a bad look on Lola, who's smile usually never faltered.
"they're okay," Sans coughed. "at toriel's, now," and God, he hoped that would be enough. That they weren't about to get arrested for kidnapping.
Lola seemed relieved at that, but still looked troubled, nodding and swallowing harshly.
"Um, yeah. That's good, good," she muttered, mostly to herself — looking at one of the kids jumping on the couch as an older social worker was yelling in her laughing face. She whipped her worried head back to Sans, hands fidgeting restlessly.
"It's good, Sans, but it's not...legal," she whispered the last part, as if anyone could hear them over the yelling.
Sans felt anger spike in his bones, but willed it away, grating his teeth.
"what happened here?" he whispered back, changing the subject. Lola didn't comment on the subject change, thankfully, and instead bit her lip in thought.
"I don't know. One second we were getting everyone ready for lights out, and the next..." her mouth seemed to search for words that didn't come momentarily, like a fish out of water. She swallowed harshly.
"And the next, we were pulling Frisk off of Ian to stop them from bashing his head in," her voice was grim and she spoke plainly, and a comment so solemn and disturbing felt wrong coming from her mouth. Sans felt sick. She averted her eyes nervously.
"The fight got all the kids all riled up, and now it's just...it's a mess here," she breathed hopelessly, looking around and throwing her arms up in stress.
"who's ian?" He asked, voice dry, trying to find the logical part of his mind to surface over the emotional one.
"Um, just one of the other teenagers here. He's been in a few spats before, but nothing like this," Lola laughed, but it was humorless. The two stood in silence for a minute as Lola looked like she was contemplating something. Whatever it was, she nodded to herself surely.
"Follow me," she muttered, quickly weaving her way through the pile of screaming kids. Sans obliged, attempting to move through the crowd as seamlessly as she did, but he ended up bumping into a few chaos-ridden children.
The sound of screaming children seemed to get further away as he walked down a hallway, following Lola's lead.
She stopped outside a room, and there was an older gentleman police officer jotting something down on his notepad right outside of the door, chewing on a toothpick. He looked up, gazing over Sans from head to toe before averting his eyes back to the notepad, his lips pursed together tightly.
Lola motioned to the room, and Sans stepped in. Selfishly, he immediately wished he didn't.
There were blood droplets on the stiff blanket laid out haphazardly on the floor. The window was broken, and there was even more blood surrounding the cracked glass. A bloodied footprint was smeared helplessly on the floor directly under the shattered window.
He was speechless. His soul hurt, his head hurt, and his hands were curled into fists. He knew whose footprint that was. He knew whose blood that was. He knew where the glass in their leg and foot came from now.
"This is where Frisk was to...calm down while we separated them and Ian. When we came to check on them, they were gone, and..." Lola's voice trailed off, and although Sans couldn't see her behind him, he had no doubt that she was nervously twiddling her thumbs again.
Sans didn't acknowledge her for a moment, rolling his jaw angrily at the sight. He stared out of the window and up at the moon and stars, which didn't seem as comforting now as they did earlier.
"you put them in a locked room. alone. after a fight. while they were hurt?" Sans' voice was even, steady. Spikes of anger stabbed his soul, but he willed them away to speak clearly.
Lola didn't respond, and Sans turned around to glare at her. The police officer was watching shamelessly from the door now as the scene unfolded.
"I...I wasn't the one who put them in here, Sans, I would never," she swore quietly. She had the decency to look shameful, smoothing out the ends of her green sweater.
"it doesn't really matter to me who did what, lola," he spat carefully.
"this," he motioned wildly to the broken glass and bloodied scene, voice raising. "reflects badly on all of you," he hissed, pointing a firm finger at Lola.
Lola looked guilty, eyes watering, and expression crumping in despair, but she didn't say anything in response. Sans felt bad, somewhere in his soul, but he didn't really care about hurting Lola's feelings right now.
The police officer stepped in the room now, arms out in a deescalating manner.
"Hey, hey," his voice was rough and deep. "There's no need to yell at this young lady," he had a southern drawl caressing every disarming word he proclaimed.
"Whatever happened here is...bad. For everyone involved. Got the damn teenage ambassador on the run, and the whole stowaway house in a flurry right now," He coughed with a sigh, his wrinkled eyes were sunken in tiredly.
"But at the end of the day, this...Frisk...punched the other kid first and ran from the place they are legally bound to as a ward of the state," he chewed his toothpick, almost mockingly, as he attempted to size Sans up with his own eyes. Instead, all he got out of Sans was a humorless laugh in his face.
"legally? you want to discuss legality?" Sans snarled, feeling his chest tighten.
"this place is falling apart at the seams. there's a new leak, a new floorboard ripped up, a new kid throwing up from the sorry excuse of food you all serve them, every single time i come here," his voice was raising again, but he didn't care. Lola watched his anger surface helplessly, biting her lip guiltily.
"and now," he laughed sarcastically, "now, you all shoved an injured child under your legal care into a locked room that doesn't even have a fucking pillow in it," he motioned harshly downwards at the ratty, blood-stained blanket on the hard floor. He was getting increasingly frustrated. Human society was confusing, and what was warranted as acceptable up here was even more confusing.
"frisk was bleeding from every hole in their face when i found them," Sans was shouting loudly now, his arms stuck out angrily on every word for emphasis as he spat in the officer and Lola's face. The officer's eyebrows were raised surprisedly, but the old guy stood his ground, arms crossed firmly.
"so, no," he laughed mockingly, "no, neither of you get to have a monopoly on legality or blame here. frisk did the right thing. they came and found someone who would actually fucking help them, and that is exactly where they will stay," Sans declared — not even registering what he was saying before it was spat out honestly, speaking from his soul. His chest felt ablaze with a prick of rage he'd never felt before, a protectiveness and anger he'd feel for the rest of his life.
"and if anyone has a problem with that, they can answer to me," he finished, breathing heavily.
The three of them stood in silence for a moment, all staring at one another with wide eyes. Sans hadn't meant to lose his cool, but he didn't regret it either. Some battles were worth fighting. And for whatever reason, Frisk struck that same chord of a need to defend, a need to watch over, a need worth fighting for, that Papyrus did in his soul. And he would defend them, and watch over them, and fight for them to the ends of the earth, he was sure now.
He turned towards Lola.
"show me their bed, please," his voice was firm, but quiet and controlled compared to his shouting spat earlier. She nodded, tucking a blonde flyway from her braids behind her ear, slowly dragging her feet to the door.
Sans followed her, brushing past the useless police officer.
"I see where the kid gets that bark from," he chuckled under his breath, sneeringly.
Sans whipped his head around, and he felt his eye sockets go completely dark at his own will.
"wanna find out where they get their bite from, too?" he stretched his grin out silently, not missing a beat, and he relished in the way the officer cleared his throat nervously, eyes wide as he backed further into the room.
Sans stared at him for a moment longer before scoffing and walking off to catch up with Lola, who was now climbing the stairs slowly. He trudged behind her, ignoring the children gawking at him as he walked. Lola entered a door that creaked heavily upon opening to the mostly empty dormitory, motioning silently to one of the bunk beds.
Sans stomped over to the bed she pointed at, but stopped in his tracks at Lola's voice.
"I'm sorry, Sans...for letting your kid down," her voice was glum, and when he turned, she looked like a deflated balloon.
Your kid. Sans barely flinched at it, but it was then that he realized that somewhere between Frisk falling into a bed of flowers and him standing beside their bunk, that they had become his kid.
Sans sighed. "this is bigger than just you, lola," was all he could really muster at the moment. Because it wasn't okay, and Sans refused to pretend it was or say it was.
She nodded knowingly and grimly, lingering just a moment longer in the door frame before slowly slipping away.
Sans huffed a breath out before reaching the bunk, looking around for any of Frisk's belongings. The dormitory was just another shitty slice of the shit cake that this place was — peeling walls and nails sticking out of the wooden floors.
He noticed a towel sticking out from under the bottom bunk, and bent down, his bones creaking in protest as he grunted. His hands searched, patting around the floor, and at last he'd collected what little belongings Frisk owned.
Their classic blue and purple striped sweater looked like it'd seen better days as he folded it on top of the towel, a golden heart locket that was losing its color was put into Sans' pocket, and a small vial of body wash that was running out was put in his other pocket.
Once he'd collected it all, he stood back onto his feet, holding the sweater and towel to his chest, just about to shortcut his way home and away from this mess for the last time when-
"They getting out of here?" The voice was slightly distant, and cracked. Tired.
Sans turned to see — wild guess — Ian, laying on the bottom bunk of his bed, face looking like it's seen much better days. The skeleton looked around; there was a pair of kids in the corner playing some game involving clapping and songs, giggling between themselves. Another younger kid was sleeping on their top bunk, looking like he was about to roll over. Save for those three kids in the room, Ian was alone — no one surrounding his bunk as he lay defeatedly, head elevated slightly by an extra pillow under his neck.
Sans trudged over to his bunk, getting a better look at him.
His pale skin was painted with a plethora of bruises, his eye swollen shut in a sea of purple and green skin. He did not have the benefits of healing magic at Toriel's fingertips, so his broken nose was still very much disfigured, two pieces of paper sticking out of his nostrils, encrusted with dry blood — a piece of medical tape over the twisted figuration of his nose's bridge. His lip was busted in a painful way, gauze peeling off of the open wound.
Sans winced. If he thought Frisk looked rough, he had another thing coming looking down at this kid.
Ian smiled lazily, his eye barely open. Human determination really was something he'd never wrap his head around fully, Sans had decided right then. Frisk physically broke a window to escape the group home, and Ian smiled in the face of a beatdown.
"yeah," Sans replied dryly in response of his question — unsure of how to approach the teenager.
Ian laughed scathingly. "Of course. I get my face beaten in, and they get the reward of leaving this fuckin' place," he muttered to himself cuttingly.
"well," Sans started slowly, sitting on the empty bottom bunk across from him, placing Frisk's belongings on the bed. "did you deserve it?" He asked genuinely, head cocked.
Ian laughed again, wryness dripping in his vocal chords. He reached under his pillow for something before throwing it at the ground aggressively, looking like he was using all of what little energy he had left to do so. Sans watched as it bounced off the creaking floorboards and towards his face. His hand flew up, reflexively, and he caught it.
Sans opened his palm to see...a bouncy ball. It was reminiscent of the kind he used to get Papyrus from the old coin machines at MTT Hotel. This one was red, its color fading slowly. He stared at it in his glove, rolling it around, before looking back to Ian's gaze, and his face scrunched inquisitively. He didn't understand.
"That," Ian spat sardonically. "That is what they were so pissed about," he breathed out — staring at it in Sans' hands.
Sans cocked his head again. "i'm...not sure i follow," he remarked emotionlessly, carefully.
Ian propped himself up shakily on his elbow, running a hand through his shaggy, blonde hair to stop it from being matted to his forehead before collapsing onto bed again with a groan.
"I stole it from them. They saw me with it. They broke my nose," he explained succinctly, his hand hovering over his bruised face, like he wanted to touch it, but knew it would be too painful.
Sans stared at the ball in his hands again, feeling an indescribable emotion. It's not like he would take Ian's side of the story at complete face value, but, what did the beaten down kid even gain from lying? The skeleton stared at him again. He looked weak, but his face was scrunched toughly, trying to retain his last shreds of dignity. What else did he have to lose right now?
That doesn't sound like Frisk, Sans' inner monologue told himself convincingly. But that voice and feeling from the innermost depths of his soul told him that it sounded exactly like Frisk.
Sans coughed uncomfortably.
"well," he commented blankly with a sigh, pulling himself to his feet. "i'll be sure to give it back to them," was all he could muster. No anger in his chest, no rant, no quick-witted remark. Sans simply felt torn. Disturbed, yet protective. He pocketed the bouncy ball with the locket and body wash, gathering their sweater and towel back into his arms.
He stood in silence for a moment, staring down at the lanky teenager. Ian stared back. There was no trace of alarm or curiosity on his face at the skeleton, just defeated eyes.
"uh, feel better," Sans offered, motioning to his face. Ian didn't respond, and instead, turned away from the skeleton.
Frisk left an ugly mess here, but somehow, Sans still felt willing to clean it up best he could. It wasn't a rational thing, it was a feeling, a duty he felt that needed to be fulfilled. A duty, he suspected, that no one had ever fulfilled for Frisk.
He sighed once more before focusing his dwindling energy on a shortcut.