Your Perspective

After a night filled with dreams of blood-covered knives and empty-eyed monsters, you're back at the house of the skeleton brothers. You and Sans are vegging out on the beat up old couch in their living room, just like you have been for the past four or five hours. In fact, you're pretty sure that if you were to stand up, you'd find an impression in the shape of your butt.

True to his word, Sans has done absolutely nothing all day, while you've been furiously typing away on your new laptop. Even though you have no way of accessing your Quotev account, you just can't bear to abandon your old stories.

Frisk sits on the ground in front of the couch, playing on an old Nintendo 64 that Papyrus had apparently found in the garbage dump. She's been alternating between Mario Kart 64 and Majora's Mask, and she's made significant progress in both.

You take a break in your writing to watch Frisk as she plays Majora's Mask. She has Link standing in the middle of Clock Town, and she has him watching the moon as it slowly makes its descent on the final day. She waits until the last moment to play the song of time, and the moon nearly falls on her before she resets the game's timeline from the beginning.

How exactly does she reset time? you wonder. Last you checked, your sister wasn't in possession of a magical ocarina. You almost want to ask her, but you don't think Sans would be thrilled with you if you do that—he had said not to mention the resets to her.

You shrug the thought away and return to your story, trying to figure out how best to move it along without boring your (now nonexistent) readers in the process. The next major plot event is coming up, but you have no idea how to reach it without some kind of filler...

"What'cha writing?" Sans asks, leaning in as he looks over your shoulder.

You stiffen, trying to resist the urge to slam the top of your laptop down. You can handle it when people read your stories over the internet, but having someone read it in your presence, where you can actually see their reactions... well, it's downright terrifying. And embarrassing. Especially since your story has a strong romantic undercurrent.

"N-Nothing," you say, subtly shifting the screen away from him. "It's just a story."

"Oh yeah?" he asks. He completely ignores your body language and shifts just a little bit closer to you, so he can see the screen better. "What's it about?"

That question is the honest-to-god bane of all authors. How on Earth are you supposed to explain the depth of your plot to someone who hasn't read it for themselves? It's impossible—summarizing, by definition, is impossible. However, seeing how it's Sans that's asking...

"Well... it's basically about these two people with magic powers," you say slowly, trying your best to explain. "One of them has absolute control over water, and the other one's a cyborg with the ability to shapeshift. The two fall in love, and the girl tries to help the guy with his amnesia..."

You trail off when you notice that Sans' white irises have a kind of distant look to them.

"...It's complicated," you finish lamely.

"Sounds like it," Sans says, raising a nonexistent eyebrow. "Humans with magic powers, huh? That's a scary thought."

"But humans can use magic... can't they?" you ask.

"Pfft. What? Of course they can't," he says. "Not on their own, anyway—they'd need a monster soul."

"But if that's true, then how does...?" You look pointedly at Frisk, hoping Sans understands your question.

"That doesn't mean human souls aren't powerful," he says quietly, giving you a knowing look. "Her determination is what let's her... y'know..."

You look at him blankly, your confusion written all over your face.

"Souls are just theoretical, aren't they?" you ask.

"What, you mean you've never seen a soul before?" Sans asks.

"What do you mean, see a soul?" you ask, completely dumbfounded.

"Heh. Guess I'll have to—" Frisk interrupts him before he can finish his statement. She rushes over to the two of you, and fishes her whiteboard out of your backpack.

"I wanna show her my soul," she writes.

"Alright. Go ahead, kid," Sans says, going back to lounging on the sofa's armrest. "Knock yourself out."

She beams at you and puts her hands on her hips, proudly puffing her chest out. You have no idea what she's trying to accomplish. Then, as if out of nowhere, a ruby red heart appears in the air before her. It's about the size of an apple, and it glows softly in the dim light of the living room.

"What... what is that?" you ask. You're pretty sure that your eyes are the size of saucers.

"That, Buttercup," Sans says, flashing you a grin, "is Frisk."

You scowl at him. Within three days of knowing him, his jokes are already getting old.

"I can see that, Sans."

"No, I'm serious," he says, smile growing at your expression. "That's the kid's soul—the very culmination of her being. That's everything the kid is, was, or will ever be."

"Mmmhmm," Frisk confirms. She runs around the living room a few times, her soul bobbing along with her movements.

"It's made of determination," she says, her whiteboard once again in her hands. "Or, that's what Alphys tells me."

"It's her dominant trait," Sans explains lazily. "That's why her soul's red—it's made outta determination."

Suddenly, a ding resounds through the living room. Frisk's soul immediately disappears, and she goes to fish her phone out of her pocket.

"It's Alphys," she signs.

"What'd she say?" you ask.

She reads the text, and then seems to reread it. When her gaze finally leaves the screen, it has a kind of mischievousness about it. She looks from you to Sans and back again, a smile slowly crossing her face. You've seen that look before—it means trouble.

"What're you up to, Frisk?" you ask as she starts furiously texting with Alphys. She doesn't answer your question, and instead picks up her whiteboard.

"Hey Sans—where's Papyrus?" she asks.

"Dunno," he says. "Undyne's, maybe?"

"'Kay. Thanks."

She tucks the whiteboard under her arm and races out of the house, completely ignoring your inquiry after her intentions.

"Something's up," you note. However, in the face of realizing for the first time that souls exist, it doesn't bother you as much as it typically does.

I wonder... what does my soul look like?

"Seems like it... uh, (Y/N)? What're you doing?" Sans asks, a bemused expression somehow manifesting itself onto his face.

You freeze like a deer in the headlights, and you unintentionally hold the pose that you'd adopted moments before. You'd wanted to see what your own soul looks like, and so you'd decided to mimic Frisk in hopes that it would appear—complete with the puffed out chest and over-confident stance. Obviously, you had no such luck, and so now you just look plain ridiculous. In the stretch of silence that follows, your face has ample time to turn beet red.

"U-uh... I... I'm, uh..." you stammer. You quickly go back to your laptop, trying to hide your embarrassment behind its screen. "Nothing! Nothing at all!"

"Let me guess," Sans says, casually leaning over and gently forcing your laptop closed. "You're curious what your soul looks like."

"...Yeah," you admit, blushing profusely. "But I can't seem to get it to show up."

"Well, posing dramatically isn't gonna do anything," he says. Then he seems to rethink his previous statement, and chuckles. "Your face though—that was priceless."

You groan and shove your face into a conveniently located pillow.

"If you wanna see your soul so badly, I could help you out," Sans offers. You don't respond, as you're valiantly trying to salvage whatever's left of your pride.

"Hello?" Sans asks. "You alive in there, Buttercup?"

"No," you mutter, your voice muffled. "I died of embarrassment."

"Hmm," Sans hums thoughtfully. The room goes unnervingly silent, and then... he pokes you. You instantly extract yourself from the pillow, gasping for air as you're forced to laugh. He got you right in the ribs, almost as if he'd already known it was your weak spot.

"Heh," he says. He pokes you again, sending you into near hysterics. "Knew it."

"Sans!" you squeak, trying to protest as he does it again. "Quit it!"

After one final, defiant poke, he stops his assault and casually leans back on the sofa, closing his eyes as if nothing happened.

Oh no, you think, a smile snaking its way across your face. You're not just going to get away with it.

You examine his jacket to make sure you know where his ribs are, and take careful aim...

"So, about your soul—"

Sans makes a sound not unlike a strangled goose as you drive your finger forward, and make contact with... bone? No. No, it's definitely not bone—it's too squishy. Whatever you're touching, it has a consistency not unlike jello. It's really warm, too. The instant you made contact with it, a strange warmth spread all throughout your body, as though you're some kind of heating lamp that's just been plugged in. It's a nice feeling.

Wow. What... what is this?

You take a breath to ask Sans, but when you catch sight of his face, the words die in your throat. He's staring at you in absolute shock, his eye sockets wide and his irises as big as full moons. His cheekbones are colored such a deep blue that they're practically indigo, and his body is so tense that you're afraid that he could snap in half if he moves too suddenly. As his irises dart down to his chest and back up to you, you slowly start to realize that you're apparently touching something that you shouldn't be.

Your brow furrows in confusion, and you look back down at your own hand—you'd missed his ribs completely. In fact, whatever you're touching it apparently a good two or three inches inside his rib cage... right where a heart would be on a human.

"U-uh... Buttercup?" he ask shakily, putting a hand over his mouth and looking away. "Could you, uh... back up a little? Please?"

Your finger twitches, drawing a quiet moan from Sans. He tries to bite it back, but he's largely unsuccessful—you shudder a little at the sound of it, and his deepening indigo blush is matched shade for shade by your red one. You quickly snatch your hand away, breaking the strange warm connection that had formed between the two of you.

"I... I-I didn't mean to—whatever that was—I-I'm so sorry!" you blurt.

You're passed the point of embarrassment; you're pretty sure your face could fry an egg, and your brain has pretty much shut down. You're no longer trying to make rational sense, and everything that comes out of your mouth is practically gibberish.

"I was just trying to—'cause you poked me and—I'm just gonna—bye!"

Before Sans can say anything, you get up and run out of the house, desperate to get away from the profusely blushing skeleton before you can do anything else stupid.

You're not entirely sure where you're running to, but the next thing you know, you trip on a rock in your path and fly face first into a nearby snowdrift. The biting cold of the snow feels incredibly good against your roasting face, and you're content to lay there until you can be sure every hint of red has been drained from it. You know that you'll have to go back eventually—you left all your stuff behind, and you still have Papyrus's spaghetti dinner ahead of you—but you're going to let things cool down first.

***

You carefully close the door to the house behind you, trying not to alert anyone (especially not a certain skeleton) to your return. You sneak a glance into the living room, hoping to find it empty. Luckily for you, it is. You sigh and collapse onto the couch, putting a hand up to your now-frozen forehead. That had been quite the episode.

You take a deep breath and pick up your discarded laptop, turning it into its phone state. You start texting Alphys, picking up a conversation you'd started earlier about one of the anime she'd started watching from your collection. You also check your Undernet status, and are unsurprised to see that not much has happened since Alphys had signed you up.

From the corner of your eye, you notice that a white shape is slowly making its way down the stairs. You go rigid, instantly assuming (and correctly so) that it's Sans. You pretend to ignore him, and continue scrolling through your Undernet feed as if nothing happened. You try to keep the front up for as long as possible, but it's kind of hard to ignore someone when they deliberately stand directly in front of you.

You slowly look at him from over the top of your phone, a pink tinge already making its way back into your cheeks. He doesn't say anything, but backs up a few paces and sits on the ground with a quiet 'oomph.' His gaze shifts away from yours as he notes your confused expression, and he pats the ground in front of him, apparently inviting you to join him.

You're more than a little uneasy as you do what he's silently asking of you, leaving your phone on the couch and sitting on the floor across from him. You want to apologize again, now that you're thinking straight... but there's something about this situation that says it's better to leave it alone, to let it fade into memory.

"Hold still," Sans says. He gives you no further explanation, and you're still too embarrassed to ask for one. However, when he starts reaching for your chest... well, that's a little bit too much.

"Uh..." you say uncertainly, "...what are you doing?"

"You wanna see your soul, right?" he asks.

"Yeah, but, uh..."

"Trust me."

He hesitates, watching you carefully for any signs of dissent. When you don't give any, he continues. He stops just before he would have touched you, his fingertips just inches from the flat portion of your chest. You watch in fascination as ribbons of royal blue magic roll off of his fingertips.

Sans makes a kind of grabbing gesture in the air, and then slowly starts to pull his closed fist away from you. And, simultaneously, it feels as if something deep inside of you is being gently tugged at. It doesn't hurt, per say, but it definitely feels weird—tingly, as though some major organ inside you has fallen asleep. The further he pulls, the stronger the sensation gets.

Then, finally, a glowing, sky-blue heart phases out of your chest, wrapped in ribbons of Sans' magic. Sans lets his magic fade away, leaving the heart to float placidly in the air in front of you. You stare at it, trying to comprehend what it is you're seeing.

"This is my soul," you breathe. It's not a question. You know, intrinsically, that the sky-blue soul belongs to you. Something just seems so... so right about it. It's a little bit bigger than Frisk's soul had been, and its glow is at least twice as strong—like the difference between LED and incandescent lightbulbs. It's breathtakingly beautiful, and you have a hard time tearing your eyes away from it.

When you do, however, you notice that Sans seems to be actively resisting the urge to look at your soul. His looks at the ceiling, over at the TV, over at the stairs... anywhere but at you.

"Uh... Sans?" you ask uncertainly.

He flinches when you call his name, and he slowly turns to look at you, still carefully avoiding looking at the glowing heart in front of you. You can't be sure—not in the blue light cast by your soul—but you think he may be blushing again.

"Y-yeah?"

"Is something wrong?" you ask.

"Nope. Nothing's wrong," he says quickly, looking away again.

"Uh... Is there a reason you won't look at my soul, or...?" you ask awkwardly.

"Oh, uh... that," he mutters. He laughs nervously. "Well, uh... it's not really something I should be lookin' at, tibia honest with you. Heh, heh..."

You graciously choose to ignore the badly timed pun, and instead cock your head as you look at him in confusion.

"Huh?" you ask. "But you were fine with Frisk's, so..."

"Well, uh..." he mutters, determined to stare a hole into the carpet. "She's just... y'know... a kid. And you... you're not."

"What's that got to do with anything?" you wonder aloud, now thoroughly confused. The subject is apparently a touchy one, because he doesn't really give you an answer. "Maybe I should just put it away."

You go reach for it, intending to somehow push it back inside yourself. Before you can make contact, however, Sans grabs your wrist.

"Don't!" he exclaims. You blink and look at him, a questioning look on your face. "You shouldn't touch your soul."

"What? Why?"

"It's... well, it's kinda..." he mutters incoherently. He withdraws his hand, and uses it to rub the back of his skull in embarrassment. "Your soul is literally everything you are, so when someone touches your soul, it can be... well..."

His blush deepens to a royal blue, and he nearly chokes on the last word.

"...Sensual."

Sensual? you wonder. What does he... oh. Ohhh. Then that thing I touched earlier was... oh god.

You cheeks begin to burn again, and your mind races as you finally realize the implications of what you'd done.

Nope. I'm not going to think about that. You shake your head, trying to clear it. The deed has already been done, so there's no point in dwelling on it. Something else—think about something else.

"S-so, uh..." you stammer, "how am I supposed to put it back, then?"

Sans seems relieved for the change of subject, and pounces on it.

"You should be able to move it if you think about it hard enough," he say. "It's a part of you, after all."

"Okay..."

You focus on trying to move your soul back into your body. Its light flickers a little bit, but beyond that, it doesn't do much. You try again, and it moves maybe half an inch... in the wrong direction. You sigh in frustration as you try, and fail, again. (You're apparently not very good at this.)

"Um..." you mutter, watching as your soul begins to levitate towards the ceiling. "Little help?"

"I'll get it," Sans says. He's still stubbornly looking away, but he still manages to capture your soul in his magic. "Hold still—"

Just then, the front door slams open, and Papyrus and Frisk walk into the room, their arms laden with paper grocery bags. Sans freezes, your soul still in his magical grip.

"WORRY NOT, BROTHER. I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS (AND FRISK), AM HOME, AND HAVE BOUGHT ALL THE NECESSARY FOODSTUFFS FOR OUR SPAGHETTI DINNER!" Papyrus exclaims, triumphantly raising his bags into the air. He drops them, however, when he turns and gets a good look at you and Sans.

"SANS..." he says, his voice just a little bit quieter than usual. "IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS?"

"Wh-what are you talkin' about, bro?" Sans asks, a fake smile entering his face.

"IS THAT (Y/N)'S SOUL?"

"Soul?" Sans asks. "What soul are you talkin' about, bro?"

Before you can explain the situation, your soul shoots towards you, moving so quickly that you're afraid it might actually hit you. It phases into your chest, but it doesn't stop there. It was moving with so much force that you're literally thrown across the room. Luckily for you, the couch was behind you.

"Oww..." you mutter, rubbing your now-aching temples. You glower at Sans, who still has your soul wrapped in his magical grip. He flinches at your expression and immediately extinguishes the magic on his fingertips.

"Heh heh..." he chuckles nervously. "Oops."

"OH MY GOD, SANS," Papyrus sighs, face palming. "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU SOMETIMES."

"Heh heh..." He winks and shrugs, as though that were an adequate response.

"WELL, I'M GOING TO START THE SPAGHETTI," Papyrus says, switching topics. He picks up the grocery bags and marches into the kitchen, Frisk in tow. "DO YOU WANT TO HELP, FRISK? THE GREAT PAPYRUS CAN SHOW YOU SOME COOL TECHNIQUES..."

***

"BON APPÉTIT!" Papyrus exclaims, setting four steaming plates of spaghetti onto the dining table.

"Don't 'cha mean bone appétit?" Sans asks, his familiar mischievous smile making its way onto his face. You roll your eyes, but you're smiling all the same. Everything is more or less back to normal, and you're glad for it.

"THAT'S WHAT I SAID, SANS," Papyrus says, raising an eyebrow as he sits down in the seat to your right.

"Heh, silly me," Sans says, winking at you.

"WELL, GO ON, (Y/N). YOU MUST TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK OF MASTER CHEF PAPYRUS'S FAMOUS SPAGHETTI!" Papyrus exclaims.

You nod and look down at your plate. It looks like regular spaghetti, but you can't help but remember Sans' warning that it may not always be edible. You glance over at Frisk as you raise your fork. She gives you a subtle thumps up from under the table, where Papyrus can't see.

Frisk helped make it, you remind yourself, and she wouldn't make something inedible.

You take a bite. It's a little bit dry, and the spaghetti sauce tastes a little funky, but it doesn't kill you. You repress the furrowing in your brow, and manage a smile.

"Not bad," you say.

Not good either, you added to yourself.

"NOT BAD..." Papyrus says. You think he sounds a little bit disappointed, so you feel that you should exaggerate a little. However, it's amazing how oblivious Papyrus can be. "THAT MUST MEAN IT'S GREAT, LIKE ME! BECAUSE I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AM VERY, VERY NOT BAD!"

"Yeah," you agree, smiling. "You're a really cool guy, Papyrus."

"OF COURSE I AM!" he exclaims. "AND YOU ARE VERY COOL TOO, (Y/N). FOURTH COOLEST!"

"Fourth coolest?" you ask. You're not sure whether you should be flattered or insulted.

"YES INDEEDY!" he exclaims.

Then he enthusiastically digs into his spaghetti, leaving you in suspense as to who the three coolest are. Frisk follows Papyrus's example, wolfing down her spaghetti with her normal level of enthusiasm. You and Sans are a little more reluctant. You're not entirely sure you'll be able to finish all of it—Papyrus portions are significantly larger than what you'd deem normal.

So, instead, you watch the others, specifically Sans and Papyrus. You're somewhat baffled as to where the food is going. It goes in, and then... it just disappears, you guess. Papyrus's stomach area is in full view, and there's absolutely nothing there but his spine, no matter how much spaghetti he shovels down.

"Where does it all go...?" you wonder.

"It's a secret," Sans says, his permanent grin somehow exuding amusement.

"Oh, geez. Did I say that out loud?"

"Mmmhmm," Frisk affirms.

"WHY IS IT A SECRET?" Papyrus asks. "I KEEP MINE IN MY CLOSET."

"...What?"

"MY STOMACH. I KEEP IT IN MY CLOSET," Papyrus clarifies.

"Oh come on, Paps, you can't just tell 'em—it's no fun that way," Sans says.

"You keep your stomach in your closet," you echo, your head spinning.

"THAT'S RIGHT. IT'S A VERY CONVENIENT PLACE TO STORE IT."

You look at Sans and raise an eyebrow, asking for an explanation. His grin grows ever wider.

"Magic," he says simply. He smirks at your expression of disbelief, and goes back to slowly twirling his spaghetti. You shrug, and let the matter drop. It's not long before something else catches your eye, though.

"You have a tongue?!" you exclaim, staring at Sans. He stops mid-bite to smirk at you. He slowly puts his fork down, and then... with a light dusting of blue on his cheekbones, he sticks his tongue out at you. It's royal blue and glowing—obviously made out of magic. You're not sure why, but that tongue, that expression... it's cute. Really cute.

"SANS!" Papyrus exclaims. "DON'T STICK YOUR TONGUE—(Y/N), NOT YOU TOO!"

You'd stuck your tongue out in retaliation, which had earned you a smile from Sans. You retract it at Papyrus's urging, and you can't help but giggle at his indignant expression.

Frisk pokes Papyrus, and then furiously writes something down on her whiteboard. When she turns it towards him to read, she's careful to do it in such a way that you and Sans can't read it.

"HMM..." Papyrus hums thoughtfully.

He looks at you, then at Sans. He's about to say something, but then Frisk pokes him again, and hands him the whiteboard instead. The two of them start what seems like a heated discussion, passing the whiteboard back and forth so quickly that you're near certain that the both of their hand writing has to have been demoted to squiggles.

They seem to reach a consensus, and they both turn to you and Sans, Frisk with a mischievous look in her eye, and Papyrus with a certain glint to his eyesockets that you can't identify.

"...What?" you ask.

"Nothing ^_^," Frisk writes.

"NYEH HEH HEH!" Papyrus exclaims.

You and Sans exchange glances, before shrugging and returning to your spaghetti. It's not long before everyone's cleared their plates (no matter how hard it was to ignore the weird taste of the spaghetti sauce), and Papyrus whisks them away into the kitchen.

"Hey... kid," Sans says, looking over at Frisk. There's an unusual serious to his voice, and you notice that his permanent smile has almost managed to fall flat. (Almost, but not quite.) "I never got around to askin' you—are you really okay with living down here?"

Frisk blinks, and shoots him a strange look. You bite your lip, butterflies of apprehension starting to fly in your stomach.

"I mean... you don't wanna go back anymore?" he asks. Frisk's confusion clears, and she smiles.

"No," she writes. "I've got everything I want right here!"

"Oh yeah?" Sans asks. He still seems skeptical. You don't blame him—according to what he's told you, she's kind of fickle about making these kind of big decisions.

"Yeah!" she writes. "I have lots of friends now... no, I have a family now. And now that my sis is here, well... who cares about a dusty old house?"

Sans seems a little bit taken aback.

"Don't you... don't you have anyone else?" he asks, a look of pity entering his irises.

The butterflies in your stomach die, to be replaced with a sinking feeling. Your gaze slowly falls away from Sans, and you start to trace the lines of the table with a lightly shaking finger. You don't like where this is going, but you have no way of stopping the conversation without arousing suspicion.

"Nope. It's just me and my sis," she writes. She's still smiling. She's always smiling.

"What? No... no parents?" Sans ask quietly, sneaking a glance over in your direction.

You grit your teeth, you finger shaking so hard that you can't stay on the lines. You'd been hoping that this never came up. You try to catch Frisk's eye, to beg her not to say anything else. However, she's already writing on her whiteboard, and doesn't even notice you.

"Nope. They're dead," she says frankly. She seems a little bit more sober, but she doesn't seem sad. It's not surprising. She was so young when it happened... she doesn't even remember them. Sans' smile has almost completely fallen away.

Frisk quickly turns the whiteboard around, and continues to scribble. When she turns the whiteboard around again, you go rigid. You'd forgotten that you'd told her that.

"Monsters killed them," Frisk writes. "Or, at least that's what the police said. Right, sis?"

Sans turns to look at you, his eyesockets as dark and empty as the lie that'd you'd told your sister.

"Monsters killed them, huh?" he asks you, his voice dangerously low. A feeling of dread encompasses you as his smile artificially hikes up at the corners, transforming the once-friendly expression into a skin-crawling leer.

"WHAT? MONSTERS WOULD NEVER DO SUCH A THING," Papyrus says, returning to the table.

"Yeah, I know," Frisk writes. "They probably just saw something that looked like a monster. Like a bear! There are lots of bears on mount Ebott."

"YES. IT MUST'VE BEEN A BEAR. ...WHAT'S A BEAR?"

You hardly pay attention to the conversation that ensues. You hate the way that Sans is looking at you. You were getting along so well just a few minutes ago. If you're being honest with yourself, you might've even... but now, with this? The way he's looking at you... it's killing you.

"(Y/N)," he hisses, "we need to talk. Now."

 Author's Note

Okay... where to start. This chapter just exudes randomness. And I'm sorry about that--I had a lot to cover, and it was really hard to transition things neatly into each other. It probably wasn't my best chapter, though it does have a good amount of fluff in it. :-)

If anyone's confused about anything (there's a lot to be confused about with this one, I know) just let me know, and I'll try to straighten it out. As always, I'm always open to feedback. 

And, finally... the next chapter's gonna be really backstory heavy, so be prepared. Also, I figure it's about time we move back to Sans' perspective. I almost feel like I've been neglecting him. -_-
--Zana