Chapter Text
Buttercups.
You were sitting in a patch of golden buttercups, a ray of warm sunlight spotlighting you in a dark room. You knew this place. It was the Ruins, where you had first fallen Underground.
You weren’t alone.
Sitting across from you on the other side of the flower patch was a tall, red-framed mirror. It seemed to be propped up on its own, facing you. Inside was your reflection, peering back at you with the same confused, inquisitive stare.
Predictably, you raised your right hand and tilted your head, testing the mirror. You watched your reflection, expecting it to do the same. It followed your actions, but inversely. It was as if they were a whole other person, raising their own right hand and tilting their head in the opposite direction. Could a mirror do that?
Then they blinked when you didn’t.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The voice coming from the image was all wrong, as if the same words had been layered over one another an infinite number of times at varying pitches. As if they were speaking to you from several different places in time at once. They reminded you of a corrupted audio file. A glitch.
Something that shouldn't exist anymore.
“Do you really think you can stay down here forever?” your broken reflection asked in that same, terrifying voice. “That isn't how it works.”
They didn’t need to tell you that. You already knew that there was nowhere in this world that you belonged, above or below. Despite that, you wanted to keep pretending and stay by the brothers’ sides. You and Sans…
“Surprise surprise,” your reflection lilted in a sing-songy tone, sounding like a broken record player, and they rolled their eyes. “This happens every time we try things your way. You just keep going back to that skeleton and lose track of what we’re trying to do.”
“Maybe this is all there is,” you say. “We’ve tried everything and nothing works. We just end up back here. Maybe it’s supposed to be this way.”
“There’s still one thing we haven’t done. You know it,” they chastised. “Don’t be so pathetic.”
“I’m not,” you said. “I’m trying to be happy. Sans makes me happy.”
“Something will happen,” they warned. “It always does.”
“I know.”
But you didn’t actually know anything. You couldn’t even think. These words were coming out of your mouth all on their own.
“But I want to try.”
“Don’t you think that this is all a little boring?” they asked. “The cooking. The cleaning. Falling in love? We’ve done this so many times before and nothing ever comes of it.”
They smiled at you.
A too-wide, wild-eyed grin.
“Maybe we should try things my way again.”
“No!” you cried. “He kills us every time. What’s the point?”
“Only because you won’t let us fight back,” they said. “The instant you see him, you just fall apart.”
“You know why,” you all but sob. “I can’t face him after Papyrus...I can’t.”
You didn’t understand. What happened to Papyrus? You had no control over the conversation. Your reflection cocked their head, curling their lip and staring at you coldly.
“They’re suffocating down here,” they said. “You're keeping them all trapped. We could free them if you just let me.”
“Not like that,” you argued. “I can’t hurt anyone else. There has to be another way!”
“Don't you see that it's the only way to save everyone? Even if we got them out of here alive, the humans would just kill them all anyways. We could end their suffering. Together.”
“I don't believe that.”
“Don’t be so naive.”
It was then that you noticed a quiet, hushed sobbing coming from the darkness outside the circle of light. You weren’t surprised at all. You knew exactly who it was. You felt pity…
...and guilt.
“You're so selfish,” your reflection hissed, glowering at you.
You knew that too.
“Things will go my way.”
Your reflection twisted into something horrible. Black sludge ran from your eyes and mouth, your features sagging, and your smile was too big for a human face. Yet the horrible reflection just started laughing. It was an abhorrent, grating sound similar to a train rushing through a tunnel and the mirror began to crack, distorting the image further.
“ Just wait. ”
Your eyes flew open and there were stars swimming above you. You blinked, clearing your vision, and you recognized the starboard hanging on the ceiling over the bed. Sans thought it was the perfect place to hang the constellations so he could see them every night. For just the smallest second, you thought that you were back on the surface.
It made you feel sick.
You sat up and slipped out of Sans’ embrace, sitting on the edge of the bed as you tried to wake up. These nightmares were becoming way too common. It was almost every other night now that you woke up feeling like you had just lived through the worst thing in the world.
“Mmm...babe?”
He had obviously noticed your absence. You felt the mattress dip as Sans shifted around behind you, yawning and sliding over to sit beside you. He wrapped an arm around your middle and pulled you closer. Immediately you leaned into his touch, resting your head on his bony shoulder.
“You okay?” he asked. “Another nightmare?”
Of course Sans knew what was bothering you. Ever since he had given you the key to his bedroom, you made use of it. Falling asleep in his arms every night was more happiness than you ever thought you deserved and you were cherishing the hell out of every precious second, but that also meant that Sans got to see the bad parts of you as well. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to mind.
“Yeah...I think it was a bad one,” you told him.
“Remember anything this time?” he asked.
“No,” you sighed. “And that makes it worse somehow. Not knowing why I feel this way.”
“What way?”
“Like something bad is about to happen.”
Sans’ grip on you tightened and he said nothing for awhile. He surprised you by suddenly pulling you back into the bed, tucking you under his arm. His embrace felt a little protective to you, but not in a bad way.
“How ‘bout we try to think about something else?” he asked, voice soft. “No need to get so worked up over a dream. It’s probably nothing.”
He was right. Nightmares didn’t mean anything. So long as they stayed in the dark corners of your mind where they belonged.
“Tell me the names of the constellations again?” he asked.
Sans obviously wanted to drop that topic faster than a hot potato.
“Sure,” you agreed.
You began to list the constellations on the starboard, pointing each of them out to him again. You did this most nights before you went to sleep, so surely he knew them all by heart by now. Still, he seemed comforted by it anyways.
It didn’t take long for your eyelids to get heavy and slowly you trailed off. Sans kept a firm hold on you, his phalanges tracing the band of skin that was revealed as your shirt hiked up slightly in the back. Normally that would have got your heart racing, but now sleep was minutes off and it was just comforting. You let your eyes close and hoped for no more dreams for the night.
“You asleep?” Sans spoke up, drawing you back to consciousness.
“Mmm...no,” you murmured.
“Heh, you sound pretty asleep.”
“Your face is asleep.”
“Good one,” he snorted. “I wanna ask you something.”
“What is it?”
“Have you thought about going back to the surface at all?”
You forced an eye open and peered at him. He was laying on his side, propping his head up with one hand as he stared at you. His eye sockets looked a little narrower than usual, like he was worried.
“No, why?” you asked.
“Just curious,” he asked, directing his pupils to the space between you.
“Don’t fib,” you told him. “Have you been thinking about the surface?”
“Not really. Haven’t in a long time,” he said, looking up at the starboard above. “Got everything I need right here. So long as you stay here with me and Pap.”
“What a coincidence,” you said, snuggling up to him and wrapping your arms around him. “That’s exactly what I have planned.”
He put his hand on the back of your head, holding you there.
“So you’re not going anywhere?” he asked.
He sounded so sad and heartbroken. You were reminded of the phone conversation you had with Sans the morning after your drunken shenanigans. When he thought that he had made you angry enough to leave Snowdin. It only made you squeeze him tighter, as if that was enough to banish whatever dark thoughts were on his mind.
“Where would I go? Everything I need is right here,” you repeated his own words back at him.
He chuckled, leaning back and holding you close.
“Guess you’re right.”
He pressed his teeth to your forehead.
“Try to get some sleep, babe.”
Sans made you feel safe. Protected. Happy. That’s all you ever wanted and finally you seemed to have found it.
Was that so terrible?