Save Point (Sans x Reader)

Chapter Thirty-Four, Part Two

The elderly turtle you had seen with Sans on the day of the trail is standing in front of you, the wooden cane in his hand propping his body up. Dark lines are present under his eyes and his hunched stance shakes regardless of the support the cane gave him. He leans back against the wall next to you, prompting you to do the same.

“I’m fine,” you speak up, facing him. “I just have a lot on my mind right now.”

A smile stretches on his mouth when you reply, the way it forms making it known he had trouble believing your first statement. “I doubt I’ll be here for much longer, so I’ll ask you this now that I’ve got the chance,” he begins, working eye staring up at the sky. “Has Sans told ya ‘bout his job as a sentry? I’ve seen 'im grow up from a kid to the short stack he is now, and if there’s one thing I know well about 'im, it’s that he closes off when you least need 'im to.” He takes a pause to catch his breath, eye facing back to your side. “You’re (miss/mister) (Y/N), ain’t ya? I was surprised to hear the boy found another friend up here -- let alone a (girlfriend/boyfriend). He’s told me a lotta ‘bout you.”

“Good things, I hope.” You smile back at the monster, reach a hand out, and complete a handshake with him, searching through your mind for his relations with Sans to make memory of his name. “You must be Gerson, then. What’s that about him being a sentry?”

“He’ll have to tell you that himself,” the monster replies, grimness falling upon his face. “That aside, don't you remember seeing a gardener around 'ere before?"

The oddity of his question makes you keep quiet for some time. You try to think back on when in the entire semester had you seen one around the school. You think way, way back on your time spent here, until your mind comes across the first day of school: it was the goat monster you had seen clipping the hedges of the school gates. He had been the one talking with Faust after he slipped away from your hold.

“The goat monster?” you question, raising an eyebrow. “What about him?”

“Doesn't that description ring a bell? A big, fluffy goat monster?"

Further puzzled by the elder's words, you try to follow up, but are met with more questions than answers. "You mean he's the former king of monsters? Why. . . Why are you telling me all this?” you ask, head hurting when you try to process everything at once. You feel dizzy and your breathing grows scarce when you remember the harm Asgore did to other humans -- some of them supposedly young based on the dusty toys and kids shoes police found when investigating Toriel and Asgore’s respective homes.

“Whyddya think you've never seen 'im again?" the turtle monster remarks, tone growing sharp as he straightens his back. "He's meant to stay behind bars for his deeds, but he's also meant to serve the community by doing what he does best: clippin' leaves and makin' flowers bloom again. "Sans’s past job wasn’t all that pretty either. I’m not sayin' he hurt anybody, but he ain’t naive. Figured it’d be good for ya to know ‘bout that before your relationship gets any more serious -- ‘Cuz from the looks of it, he’s really waitin’ for the day he gets to be close to you again.”

You slip your hands in your front pockets and face the floor. Processing all those words was making your mind foggy, not only for how much Gerson had shared with you in so short of a moment, but for the reminder that Sans sought after your kind at a certain point. The idea of him hating your guts had you fallen instead of Frisk makes your chest tight, and you have to take a breath to avoid letting your emotions soar too high.

“I’m not askin’ you to confront him immediately, but don’t wait too long and ask him when your soul tells you to.”

★

With Faust sleeping on the twin bed and the door to your hotel room locked shut, you slip on your night clothes, take the locket in your hands, and let your head rest against the pillows. You start to think about what the turtle monster meant to say with his advice -- Of course, you knew about the harm monsters had cast over Frisk in the process of defending their home, but the reminder that the King of Monsters had taken actual lives paralyzed you in your thoughts. You wonder how far would have Sans gone to fulfill his job as a sentry and over the reasons why he had chosen not to harm Frisk during their journey through the Underground. The thought of Faust being put in the same situation troubles you further, until you put the locket down on the night table and choose to stand up in search for a drink of water. You think about confronting Sans right here and now, though Gerson‘s advice stops you -- Your mind and sight were a little more than clouded with the recent discovery and you felt far from ready to call him about it.

Arriving at the kitchen, you open the refrigerator, stare aimlessly for a while, and take out a serving of water in a paper cup, bringing it with you to the balcony, all while including with you a compact kitchen knife as a weapon when Jessie crosses your mind. It was late in the night, and you weren’t taking that risk.

The hotel’s garden appears to your view when you exit, displaying a wide variety of flowers and fruit trees, quite like Toriel’s garden, but more fitting to Mettaton’s vivid personality. Red and orange roses bloom on the left, while yellow and orange celosias sprout on the right, casting the illusion of fire dancing in accordance to the wind blowing past. A round patch of yellow flowers stand in the center, their bright colour capable of challenging the sun if it were still out. Your interest piques when the wind lessens in strength and you see faint, rustling movement in that same patch of flowers. Entranced, you wait for an animal to come running out of the flower bed, but it stops moving about, and you never get to see it.

Tired of waiting, you focus your eyes elsewhere, spotting the type of monster you were now skeptical of approaching: a seemingly harmless gardener clipping the trees and hedges around. Though he's a bear instead of the goat you were reminded of, you can't help comparing him with Asgore. He doesn’t notice you from the balcony, too concentrated on gardening to look up from tending to the flowers. It strikes you when you remember such a gentle-looking monster had once made the order of hunting humans for their souls if they fell underground.

Asgore had been one of the few monsters you weren’t assigned to for background check. Even so, you were aware of his notoriety, though not of his appearance. All you knew about him were the words -- mostly adjectives -- people often whispered, yelled, and spat about him: from heartless monster to beastly goat. It was now that it fully dawned on you he was the same gardener Faust had been talking with on his first day of school.

A violent shudder takes over when you delve too deep on that subject, the now lukewarm cup of water in your hands almost ending on the floor. You catch it just in time, however, half of its contents spilling on your bare feet. Your breath hitches, both anger and sorrow rising in the form of shaky hands and dewy eyes.

With all the change you had gone through since moving to the city, you had forgotten you were befriending what many of your kind saw as an enemy, no matter how clean or spotted their background was.

You don't dare to think too much on what light Sans saw you in since the first day of your meeting. His frequent avoidance when being too close to you and the long time it took for him to see you as a friend makes more sense to you, but in a different way. What you thought was him feeling the same way you did around him crumbles with your doubts, until you start to doubt over the sincerity of the note he left on your towel.

Signals mix when you reminiscence over the warmth of his tone during your voice calls, the pain in his look when talking about the ankle monitor, and the concern in both when finding out about what Jessie did to you. Conflicted, you feel your cheeks burn and the water in your eyes slide down your face when you think back on him and Faust during tutoring, and of how his skull brightened when you told him about the prospect of dating. In adds the fact that you were now standing at a hotel booked by him, all those thoughts faltering back into nothing when you begin to doubt over what he truly thought about you.

If Jessie changed as much as they did with you, you had almost no trouble believing the same could happen with him, too.

Safely said, you're not sure what to think anymore.