Lights Like Stars (Sans x Reader)

24 - In This Together

In which Papyrus springs a clever trap.

Sans

It's February before I know it. With everything that's happened recently, the changing of the months kinda snuck up on me. In preparation for some romance-related holiday, the humans have taken to putting little red and pink souls on things, which is a little embarrassing to me, along with most other monsters. Putting that most private of things casually on display just seems so wrong. But since humans don't soulbond, giving your partner something with a soul on it is probably just a gesture of love and devotion without all the more, ahem, intimate connotations.

I still gotta look away when I pass the more wildly-decorated storefronts, though. Understanding cultural differences is all well and good, but you can't expect a guy to look at a bunch of souls all touching each other and not feel either embarrassed or turned on, or even a little of both, which is really confusing and one of the most effective set-ups for long-term humiliation I've ever experienced.

Hopefully I can get past this soul holiday without making an ass of myself. In one way or another.

Speaking of asses, the trial's next month. Movin' right along, there. The arraignment went pretty well, I guess. GaRobage is being charged with three counts of sexual harassment and one of sexual assault, another of aggravated assault, and Checkers's boss has added a final charge of breaking and entering. I'm helping Rob remember his part of our deal by occasionally letting him spot me outside his little jail window late at night. I swear he pisses himself again every time he sees me. He may end up being the first criminal in history to fight against a lighter sentence. Heh. As if prison could protect him from me. He'll prob'ly never know that what actually protects him from me is Checkers, and my pathetic need to be one of the good guys for her.

God, Checkers. She saw me at my absolute worst that night, and she just accepted it. I know she didn't like it, could see the fear in her face at the time, but she knows that part of me now, and she's still my friend. She still smiles at me whenever I come into the room, still sits beside me and leans against me. She acts like nothing's changed. She just took that new information and integrated it into the whole, and she's still here with me.

She's the only non-enemy in the whole world who's seen me like that. Feels pretty good, like I've gotten something heavy off my chest. I wish I could tell her what her acceptance means to me. But I'd probably end up saying more than I meant to, and I'm not opening up that can of worms. Nope. No way. Nuh-uh.

That's a no.

Her therapist told her yesterday that she's doing great. She says she gave me and Paps the credit for that. That's a bunch of bull, if you ask me. It was all Checkers. She's amazing. She took the kinda blow that knocks other folks clear off their feet, and she just rocked a little and kept on fighting.

God damn.

Who wouldn't fall for her?

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? She could have anyone she wants. And I'll be first in line to tell ya I'm a bottom-of-the-barrel kinda guy. Between my outcast race and my fucked-up psyche, and, uh, and my violent tendencies and, and messy lazy life, and cringe-worthy sense of humor (though that's what makes it funny) and total lack of ambition and weird compulsions about clocks and calendars and my recent obsession with Checkers's pulse to the point where yesterday I was so lost in the memory of it that I walked into a wall and...