Save Point (Sans x Reader)

Chapter Forty-Three, Part Two

“Somethin’ like that, yeah. The technique’s mostly used at the Underground, though.” Just as awkwardly as before, he pushes your soul forward, pressing it against your chest until it fades away into your body. “It’s, uh. . . usually not as weird-lookin’ or soundin’ at the Underground. This was considered normal down there.”

With your soul now back in its rightful place, you take one step back while he does the same, leaving some space between you. The book he had given you shows up in your memories, and you remind yourself you had to read it as soon as you had the opportunity to, the differences between you becoming stranger the more you deepened your relationship with the monster. “So. . . my soul’s not in danger or anything?”

“It’s fine -- It’s just tryna find its trait. The default’s always determination, since almost every human has that, but it shapes up depending on how you act and what you believe in. Determination’s red, so your soul still has its default trait.”

You bite back your sudden want of asking another question related to that topic, remembering the reason why you had been searching for him. Without a word, you follow him back to the edge of the balcony, holding onto the rails and staring down at the houses and buildings laid out. A similar colour scheme composed of beiges, browns and light yellows cover most of the houses, these looking the same in architecture and only differentiating themselves by the gardens and ornaments people placed by their front yards. Some already have Christmas decorations on, while some have flowers of varied types and colours sprouting in plastic pots.

“Sans, are you. . . feeling okay?”

“Whaddya mean?”

He makes eye contact with you when you stop looking at the houses. The white glow in his sockets is soft, a hint of surprise glinting on them. 

“Just, if you’re feeling okay. These changes have been a lot recently, so I was wondering if you were maybe feeling overwhelmed or anything like that.”

You hear him laugh under his breath, posture slumping to a more relaxed state when he does so. He places a hand on top of yours, giving it a squeeze. “I gotta be honest with ya and say I do. All of this is kinda new to me -- I was used to monotony, predictability. . . I felt some sense of safety knowing that. Out here though, everything’s real different. You know how humans, so long as they had determination, could tamper with the Underground? It doesn’t work up here. Or at least, I haven’t heard of that happening. I guess I’m happy things’ll be stable from here on, but. . . The Surface doesn’t give second chances.”

Sans’s voice grows strained the further he keeps talking, forehead creasing as a drop of sweat trails down to his collarbones. He squeezes your hand tighter, an act that would hurt hadn’t you grown more tolerant to pain. 

“For a moment there, I really thought I was gonna lose ya. When I woke up to an empty bed and saw Faust cryin’, I felt lost -- And I hadn't felt like that in a long time ago.”

Pressure marks from holding onto you too tightly show up when he moves his hand away from yours. You can see fluster flicker in his irises when he sees that, though you brush it off and encourage him to keep talking instead. 

“Having you still here’s kind of a drive for me to keep tryin’ -- that it’s worth a try, at least. I like what we have, (Y/N), so I hope you understood me back there -- Hell, maybe it’s true that it’s my first time doing something like this, but I don’t regret it, and I think my soul agrees with that, too. Either that, or I’m gonna have to get it check to see why it speeds up whenever you’re near me.”

You let out a single, unrestrained laugh with his final comment, bumping shoulders with him as a smile stretches your lips. Smiling, you place a hand over his chest -- similar to how he had done with you -- and close the space left between you. He wasn’t lying about his soul: you could feel it drumming underneath your palm, a feeling that made you wonder over just how he could maintain a neutral expression even while his soul went a mile a minute.

“(Y/N)?” he asks, taking a step back.

“Yeah?” you reply, smile growing fonder.

He looks down at his shorts and reaches out for his front pocket, retrieving a tiny, black box like the previous two that carried the locket inside them. His hand trembles subtly when he stretches it out to you, his fingers brushing with yours as you reach out for it.

“You, uh, don’t have to say yes if ya don’t want to.”

It’s now your turn for your heart to race, hands shedding a cold sweat as you try to gather wit for seeing what was inside the now familiar, if not signature black box. Determined, you breathe in, then out, and gather courage to open the box, eyes becoming cloudy when you peer down at its contents.