Lights Like Stars (Sans x Reader)

9 - Like Having a Family

In which the couch plays a larger-than-usual role.

You

You call in to work. You know it's only a few days 'till Christmas and you could use the money, but you're too hung-over to do anyone any good. Sans greets you with a Prairie Oyster, a couple Ibuprofen, and a huge glass of water when you get up, bless him. He's not wearing a shirt, and now that you're close to sober you notice a couple things you hadn't last night. Sans has a long, pale, slightly raised mark that streaks across his ribcage at an angle, crossing ribs on either side, cutting across his sternum. Jagged streaks radiating from it make it look almost like a keloid scar. More mysteriously, inside his ribcage you can discern a faint bluish glow, a ghostly light partially obscured by his ribs and sternum. You'd like to ask him about it, and possibly try to poke it, but more imperative needs make themselves known. One thing at a time, you remind yourself.

You try to drink without opening your mouth, ashamed of the way you must smell. It tastes like you swallowed a dead skunk.

And then vomited it back up.

Oh, god... why is Sans in your sweatpants? Where are his clothes? Oh, god, you threw up on him last night.

You threw up. On Sans.

You groan and draw your knees up, hiding your face in them. Your knees are bare.

You're wearing your underwear, bra, and Sans's hoodie.

You were sleeping on the floor with him.

This looks bad. You wouldn't have...

No, no, you remember crawling out of bed with the blanket and draping yourself around him. He kept waking you up, having what sounded like nightmares, whimpering and thrashing. He didn't even have a blanket. He didn't even have a shirt. He looked miserable and cold and then he started crying in his sleep and you couldn't stand it anymore so you slid out of bed, head spinning, pulling the comforter with you, and wrapped yourself and the blanket both around him. A couple more twitches and whimpers, encouraging you to tighten your hold on him, one more deep sigh after that, and finally he slept peacefully.

You slept better than you'd have expected, yourself. Turns out Sans is so naturally warm that he's sort of like a space heater, and that weird pseudo-flesh of his rises up to pad his bones and bridge the spaces between them, cradling the parts of you that are pressed to him, making him comfortably cuddly rather than all bony angles as you might have expected. Aside from the hard floor and scratchy carpet, you were pretty cozy. You'd expect yourself to be embarrassed by the fact you were spooning a half-naked man (monster? One of those) while half-naked yourself, but the man in question was... well... ill-equipped to take advantage of the situation. (At least, you're pretty sure that's the case.) Still, in your drunken near-stupor, you'd put a lot of trust in Sans. And he'd come through for you. He'd been more respectful of you than you'd been of him, and you can't remember a single point where he even flirted, or tried to kiss you. He didn't even cop an "accidental" feel. He'd been a perfect gentleman.

Then the thought occurs that maybe he's just not interested. Who knows what skeletons find attractive? You suppose that, to a skeleton monster, humans might look like, well, like squishy flesh bags. For some reason, the thought that Sans may not think you're pretty makes you feel irritated and unhappy. You grumble to yourself. At least you were comfortable last night.

But now...

You throw on some comfy clothes and re-don the cozy blue hoodie. Then you lurch to the bathroom, hover anxiously over the toilet for a few seconds, decide you're not going to throw up, and brush your teeth instead. You brush your teeth a second time for good measure, and then discover floss and mouthwash are your new best friends.