Lights Like Stars (Sans x Reader)

36 - The Dark and the Quiet

In which Snowdin is less fabulous than we remember, and Sans refuses to use a binder on principle.

Sans

This is a mistake. Why am I doing this? The whole thing is so crazy and messed-up I won't even know where to start. How do you explain something like this? I know Checkers isn't gonna laugh in my face or anything. But she could freak out. She could worry that I've lost my marbles. Or the whole thing could be too much to process.

Or she'll see the real me and go running for the hills. It's the only sane response, really. I'm sorta surprised she hasn't done it yet.

I should be nervous. I should be just about out of my goddamn mind with anxiety. But now that I've committed to this, all I feel is numb. There's a muffling blanket over my emotions, trying its damnedest to protect me from whatever feelings it thinks are too big for me to handle. I should probably be worried about that, too. But apparently worry has gone AWOL along with everything else.

I put this off for almost a week, unable to face the looming dread despite the fact that I set myself up for all this. I told myself so much had happened recently that I needed time, needed space, needed to be anywhere other than where I'm planning to go. But giving myself time isn't helping, and putting space between myself and the Underground doesn't keep the memories away. I've spent enough of my life stalling to know when it's useful and when it's a cry for help.

I don't think I'm ready for this.

Checkers puts her arms around my neck and holds on tight. "Ready?"

I try to inject a little joviality into my voice when I say, "yup." I don't think it comes out right. Checkers just manages to make that face that says she knows I'm lying before I pull her into nothingness.

It's dark and cold when we emerge from the void. It takes a second for my eyes to adjust, but I know what I'll be looking at: a corridor of trees, straight trunks lining a snowy path leading away into the darkness. Checkers clings to me as she gets her bearings.

"Snow?" She steps away from me, her sneakers crunching through a days-old snowfall. The only footprints in it belong to us. Hardly anyone comes out this far, and since there are even fewer folks around than there used to be, I guess I should have expected that. Still, the surrounding silence feels eerie, with the Underground all but abandoned these days. Checkers shivers and pulls her light coat tighter around herself. I picked it out of her closet for this trip, knowing she'd need something to keep her warm on this side of the Underground, something she could also take off and tie around her waist as the weather changes. Down here, seasons are places, not times, and if she's getting the full tour, she's gotta be ready for everything from winter to the blazing fires of hell. Or summer, I guess. If you're into that kinda thing.

"they don't call it snowdin for nothin'," I say, taking her arm and leading her into a stroll. "well," I amend, "the town ahead is called snowdin. this is just the woods outside it."

Checkers looks at me curiously. "Isn't Snowdin your last name?"

I shrug. "a lotta monsters don't have last names. but to get around on the surface, you need one. gotta have last names for paperwork, bank accounts, that sorta thing. some of us made one up, others identified ourselves by wherever we're from." The trees have begun to thin, and a moment later a bend in the path spills us out into a snowy field, dotted with pine trees and lit by the dim light of the phosphorescent crystals scattered along the ceiling and walls of the great cavern. The ambient whitish glow is a lot like moonlight, though it's brighter than moonlit nights on the Surface. Sort of a pale perpetual twilight. The change from forest to field is pretty sudden, and I glance at Checkers to gauge her reaction. She's smiling, eyes wide and sparkling.