Archive of Our Own

Returning to the waiting room from the hallway, you’re immediately met with the sight of Asgore Dreemurr taking up a two-human-sized bench all by himself, weeping into his huge furry hands.

You sorta freeze mid-step and put your foot down carefully. The scenery’s almost comical—human buildings, generally speaking, just do not have proportions that suit seven-foot-five-even-without-counting-the-horns Boss Monsters. How does a monster Asgore’s size even manage to squeeze through the doorways here? Very carefully, your joke brain answers, and hey, it’s not like Asgore’s looking; you make finger guns to yourself and kick a foot out, imagining the ba-dum tish you’d be getting if you were onstage at MTT’s diner or the local nightclub.

But the situation is also deeply unfunny in ways that still make you feel a little tired, even though you’ve got a lot more energy to spare these days. There’s nobody else here to see Asgore in a vulnerable state and take advantage, but that also means there’s nobody here to turn to, and—as sessions go yours was about as light as they get, yeah? But you’ve got experience with how gnarly they can be if you have something heavy you wanna get off your chest, or if your therapist manages to hit a nerve. It is patently a shitty idea to leave Asgore to his own devices right now, and—there were times in the past where you could have been that monster, but you’re not anymore, and you don’t want to be.

You have this feeling the moment before you open your mouth, immediate and powerful and familiar. You have had this foreboding sensation once before in your life that you can remember and once only, that being when you were playing hooky at your sentry job and a woman’s voice answered your knock knock joke routine on the door to the ruins. It’s as sharp and heavy and final as a bear trap closing on your foot, steel teeth digging deep into the bones of your ankle. You’re getting yourself into something that can’t be taken back.

To your credit, you only let reluctance keep your trap (heh) shut for another few seconds. “Hey, big man,” you say, taking a step toward him. You’re no goddamn good at gentle and soothing, and it’d be wrong on lots of levels to try to channel Toriel’s right now, so your flailing mind settles on Frisk instead.

Asgore doesn’t answer or really react that much, but you don’t doubt he’s heard you. Hard to put your phalanges on why exactly, but something about how he holds himself. You’re not the brand of douche who’d ask whether he’s okay, so you just sink into the sorta-stiff chair next to him and pat his elbow awkwardly.

“You, uh—y’know they’re gonna be closing soon, someone’s gonna hafta kick us out. You drive here?” Most human cars would be too small for Asgore, but maybe something like a convertible’d have room for him to sit without having to saw his horns right off. You don’t know if the King of Monsters has a license, actually. You don’t know much about how he’s spending his time, aside from what you hear from Frisk, or get from Undyne usually via your brother. You see each other mostly when the whole gang gets together, and that’s about it.

That’s—that’s weird to think about, to notice. That distance. Asgore was sort of your boss once, and you were on superficially friendly terms with him the same way you were with everyone else you knew. You’re gonna blame your own therapist for this, since she’s had you on the whole way you interact with most people in your life as a means of deflection. And now that the idea’s in your head, now you’re thinking about how little you know of Asgore’s goings-on, you kinda miss the old sense of community. Of being known and liked, even if it was mostly hollow.

Next to you Asgore shakes his huge head, and you’re left confused for a second and a half before he starts to talk and reminds you of your own question. “No, I—I do not drive. I walked from home. I usually walk. It is—it is very nice to enjoy the weather, the fresh air. To make small talk with the neighbors and any humans I meet.”

He would. That was his whole modus operandi back in the underground too, going on rambles amongst the people and letting them connect with him, see that he cared. Back when the Barrier broke most humans were intimidated by or suspicious of him and wouldn’t give him the time of day; you guess now that five years have passed he’s managed to win some chunk of the locals over.

Still. “That’s, uhh, that’s gotta be what, an hour’s walk? Two hours?” Asgore doesn’t really respond. If he’s stopping to chat everyone up it probably takes even longer than that. “Maybe you’re, uh, not gonna like the meddling from me, but. I don’t know if you’re up to that right now, big fella.”

This gets a laugh out of Asgore. It’s still muffled in his hands. “No,” he says. “I rather agree that I am not.”

You shrug, grinning. “Well, no car means less hassle. Why don’t I walk you back to your place? We can take a shortcut.”

Asgore’s big fingers relax slightly, giving you the tiniest glimpse of one honey-yellow eye.

“I would very much appreciate that,” he says.

You wait for him to stand and pick his steps around the magazine-and-picture-book-strewn low table before you get up and offer him your arm.

Going to therapy was your brother’s idea. The first time he ever brought it up to you, you’d laughed heartily and got halfway through complimenting him on the great joke before you finally noticed his frown and realized with an uncomfortable tug around your middle that oh shit, Papyrus was being serious.

“C’mon, bro,” you’d said, trying your hardest to backpedal, “therapy’s for people who actually need help. People in danger of, of falling down and all. Like Alphys. Or, I dunno, like Frisk and the prince. That’s not me, Papyrus. I’m just a lazybones who can’t take anything seriously—”

“Therapy,” Papyrus had interrupted you, the ridges of his eyebrows very stern indeed, “is for anyone who wants to try it, Sans! There is no arbitrary standard of measurement for when things have become so bad that help is required, and help is not allowed until then! Sometimes it is just easier to confide in a counselor about bad feelings that you are having, or bad things that happened, or trying to make better habits. Sometimes this can be because you don’t want to hurt the feelings of your friends, or cause trouble for them, or disillusion them when they think that you are very great.”

That was when it hit you, really hit you, that Papyrus was bringing this up to you from the position of someone who had gone to therapy, maybe was still going. And you had never had any idea. You didn’t even know why Papyrus would want to go talk to a professional now, some time after the Barrier had broken, when he had already gotten friends and a job he enjoyed and which challenged him. You thought that now your brother had everything he wanted, any of his personal insecurities had to have been fixed, surely.

And if you hadn’t even noticed, it was obvious why Papyrus had gone to a stranger instead of talking to you about his troubles. You felt like the biggest idiot in the world and the worst brother. If you really had gotten so self-absorbed that you couldn’t realize when your own bone and magic was suffering, maybe there was something wrong with you.

So at the time you promised him you’d think about it, and then you did nothing about it for a good couple months. But you did notice when Papyrus went to his sessions, and when Tori talked about the kids’ therapy, and that Alphys was taking pills for her anxiety and was a little less likely to go to pieces under stress. And you started to ask your friends questions.

Alphys told you that she had waffled for a long time over whether to go to a human or a monster therapist, not sure which would be worse in light of her guilt over the Amalgamate experiments. And she explained that she had looked up guides to choosing therapists online, and made a list of interview questions for anyone she was considering, and that Undyne had helped her rehearse, and this is how she wound up with the person she sees now.

Undyne had stunned you by volunteering that she saw someone once a month for anger management classes. Undyne, probably the most well-adjusted person you knew.

Toriel told you a little of how she went about choosing therapists for her son and the two human kids, almost as soon as monsters were established enough that this became an option. All three children badly needed it, she told you, though she spared you the grody details and you didn’t pry. Asriel in particular, she said, had shown signs of potentially developing a serious mental illness in adulthood, but with the therapy most of those symptoms have gone into complete or near-complete remission.

Papyrus was the one to tell you most about what his therapy was actually like. Sometimes he just made small talk with the therapist and checked in on good habit building. It was useful, Papyrus explained, when other people were too busy to pay attention to him. (You felt real shitty at that part, because you are almost never busy nowadays, but you must’ve been sending all kinds of Sans-is-emotionally-unavailable signals for Papyrus to start feeling dismissed without even trying.)

“My therapist also,” Papyrus went on, “tries to help me with—with remembering that I am great all the time, and do not need other people to tell me so, because that will not change even if nobody in the world knew my many virtues and talents. It is very hard sometimes! But the great Papyrus never backs down from a challenge! Nyeh!!”

You dragged your heels a little longer, and the prodding from your friends and your brother got a little more insistent, and then you gave up and made an appointment both because you were ready to concede it might be helpful and also because it was easier than deflecting the concerns of just about everyone you knew.

The first person you saw, a mild-natured human man, you went to for about half a year. Eventually you came to the realization that he wasn’t pushing you hard enough, when there were some bad habits and old pains you’d never approach unless someone nudged you into it. So you switched to another therapist, an earnest manticore, who you only saw for two months. They pushed you too hard, got under your skin in a bad way, bossed you in ways that made you want to dig your heels in even if they were talking common sense. So you stopped seeing them, too.

This third therapist, though, you’ve been talking to her for a little over a year now, and she’s working a lot better for you. She’s an old human woman, wizened, with dark brown skin and long flyaway salt-and-pepper hair. She has round glasses and the eyes behind them bore into you like Alphys’ lasers. Her name’s Jay Pareksh, and she told you in your first session to call her by her given name. In Jay you’ve found the magical balance of someone who won’t put up with your bullshit, but still knows when to step back if you’re not ready.

There’s still some things you can’t fully explain to Jay, because how do you talk to someone who doesn’t understand about DT and resets, and your old man erasing himself from the goddamn time-space continuum so that even you and Papyrus can barely remember anything about him. But you do your best to change the stories so that they’ll make sense to a human. She knows you lost your only parent young and you have few memories of him, few people you can talk to about him. You know you gotta explain the source of your paranoia somehow too, so she’ll treat it like the trauma reaction it is instead of recommending you go on antipsychotics you don’t need.

Jay works in a group with a few other therapists and psychiatrists, out of an old rickety building that used to be a human mansion and now has been divided out and rented to small businesses. There’s an antique shop in the basement. You’re not sure what’s on the highest level—you’ve never found reason to climb the stairs.

This also—very coincidentally—just so happens to be the same place Asgore goes for his therapy sessions, something neither of you knew until you bumped into each other in the waiting room. You have no idea who he even sees aside from the fact that it’s not Jay; sometimes you come out of sessions at the same time, so it can’t be her.

You’ve never even said much to each other when you meet in the waiting room, just greetings, jokes, the occasional promise to say hey at some group gathering coming up.

Today, you’re pretty sure, has put paid to that for good.

Asgore’s got a tall, broad two-story house with a long porch, complete with swing. It’s nestled up to the fields of long wild grasses and flowers that lead up to the wide skirts of Mt. Ebott, and has a massive garden fenced off from the native plant life. It’s airy, and the sort of building that comes to the mind when someone talks about golden summer nostalgia, you guess. You’ve been here a couple times for dinner (dragged by your brother, who’s generally invited by Undyne) and sometimes to pick the kids up for Tori when both she and Asgore are too busy to ferry them around.

He’s got the kids this week—Tori needed them out of her claws for a while, she’s got a small hill of paperwork to do and a slightly larger hill of papers to grade; Asgore volunteered. Five years has turned them into polite arm’s-length acquaintances, Tori still a little frosty now and then, Asgore still a doormat. This is probably miraculous given a hundred years and six dead kids between ‘em, but still feels hollow even to lazy folks who just wanna stay out of the crossfire.

You don’t see ‘em in the yard, anyway, so you bring Asgore over to the porch swing and let him sit there. It creaks just a bit under his bulk, but doesn’t give way. Sturdy workmanship.

For your part, you stand around like an asshole for a couple minutes, indecisive as to whether you oughtta sit someplace or keep standing or even just invite yourself back out.

Presently Asgore realizes that you’re hovering, and gives you one of his extremely flexible array of woeful smiles. “Please, Sans, you do not need my permission to take a seat. And if you have business to attend to, do not worry about me. I will be fine.”

You have to hop a little to sit on the unoccupied end of the swing. Your feet only half touch the porch. “Nah, I ain’t got any obligations.” You almost want to say you don’t have anything better to do, but that’s Chara and Asriel’s inside joke, and you’d never hear the end of it from either of them if they heard it from your mouth. Chara would be insufferable—Asriel even more so, with his sulking. “More importantly, I don’t wanna just ditch you here if you want company.”

Asgore is silent just long enough for you to get a little uncomfortable, to worry you’re overstepping. Then he takes a deep breath and turns his head to look sidelong-down at you in a gesture weirdly similar to the way Tori does it. His eyes are rimmed red and his nostrils are pink and irritated from sniffles and probably nose-blowing, but he smiles at you, and it’s—it’s a lot less woeful and apologetic than you’ve seen him look in quite a while.

“I would appreciate the company very much,” he says. “Thank you, Sans.”

You shrug. These are words you’re not used to hearing from anyone but a small handful of folks, and this is the first time in recent memory Asgore has said them to you over something personal. You can’t quite dismiss them, the sounds sliding through the chinks between your ribs and trailing through the magic that gives you the mass of flesh you haven’t got, like dye in a glass of water. But you don’t know how to acknowledge them either.

“You see, I was—I was talking with my therapist about a few things,” Asgore begins, and then pauses.

“As one does,” you supply.

“As one does,” Asgore agrees. He goes back to staring out over the horizon, the grass and the edges of the monsters’ town and the human city it’s sidling up to. “We were discussing… well, she was trying to convince me to be more accepting of good things that happen, rather than shying away or spurning them out of a sense they’re better than I deserve.”

Ouch. The hit’s unsubtle and rattles your bones, seems to set off a gong in your skull.

“It is difficult to accept help when one feels that one has done too much wrong, and is simply beyond redemption,” Asgore says. His voice is real mild, and he keeps staring out into the distance without facing you.

“Yeah.” Or if you’re a lazy good-for-nothing who barely contributes to anything anymore. You turn to face the same direction as him, watch a butterfly emerge from the clouds of long gold grass and then vanish back into them a few feet away. Jay’s been on you about this too, about how you give up and decide you’re not capable of better because you don’t want to put the effort into caring if you might fail, if you don’t feel secure. And then how that feeds into you pushing everyone else away, even Papyrus, because you’re too cowardly and not good enough to deserve their care or love. Like the shittiest and most pathetic ouroboros in existence. Just a pointless, self-pitying snake donut.

“I’m glad that you offered,” Asgore says, and it takes you a second to get back on track, understand what he’s talking about. “I’m glad that I was able to accept.”

You sorta turn and look at him, and he’s turned to look down at you, and he’s giving you a smile that’s warm. Not Papyrus-warm, an ants-in-the-pants feeling that makes you want to bounce on your heels and grab the nearest passerby and tell them how cool and great your brother is. Not Alphys-warm, which tends to only last a few seconds before the two of you go back to shooting the science shit or ragging on bad movies and anime, embarrassed. Not Frisk-warm, which is really just about wanting to hug the kid, and not even Tori-warm, which makes you feel proud and capable, like you could help her hold up the world.

Nah, this brand of warm’s somewhere between sunshine and cookies fresh out of the oven. Both obvious metaphors because this guy’s hobbies are gardening and cooking. You want a little to freeze-frame this moment and take it with you, and… that’s just Asgore’s other pastime, scrapbooking. God.

You think you may be having a moment with the king of monsters. What worries you most is that you are unsure as to whether this is cause for alarm. You reach out, like a total dumbass, and put your hand on his arm. It’s the easiest thing you’ve ever done. This may be cause for alarm after all.

“Would you like to join us for dinner, if you do not have any other plans?” Asgore asks. “I’m sure the children would enjoy having a guest. As would I.”

You get the distinct feeling that Asgore’s only right on one, maybe two out of three, but what the hell. Papyrus is out, Tori’s busy, Alphys is off on a date with Undyne; if you went home you’d probably just eat cold hot dogs and drink a bottle of ketchup and fall asleep on the sofa with the TV on. Asgore and Frisk are both good cooks and will feed you what Tori would call a “real dinner”—and if Chara’s up to interpersonal interaction, it’ll be fun to trade jokes with them.

“Sure,” you say. Asgore lights up like a Gyftrot tree, and you feel—tentatively—like you made a good choice after all.

All three of the kids are at the kitchen table, doing homework. Frisk beams when they see you, Chara smiles a little, and Asriel frowns.

They’re growing like weeds, all three of ‘em; the humans’re three inches taller than you apiece, and the prince is a whole head taller, with room to grow if either of his parents are any indication. That’s not all that’s changed in the looks department: Frisk has steadily put on fat now they’ve got people feeding them. Chara wears short sleeves sometimes, less self-conscious of the thick webbing of scars on their arms and hands. Asriel has small horns instead of nubs, and the fur around his face and the back of his head is tipped gold.

Chara and Asriel both have math worksheets spread out with calculators and pencils, and seem to have been collaborating. Frisk has a book of political theory out next to their notebook, and from the positioning of the objects on the table you get the feeling this is what’s been commanding their attention. They haven’t fully taken over from your brother as lead ambassador, not yet. At fifteen they’re still not quite ready for the whole workload. But to wring out an old rag, they’re determined, and they’re shouldering new duties every year.

Tori homeschools the three of them, now. Her eventual grand plan is to have the monster school go kindergarten through twelfth grade, the full gamut of compulsory education here in the US, but so far all she’s got up and running are the elementary and middle schools. Chara still has palpitations when they run into a non-Frisk human without warning, so their going to high school in Ebott City was obviously a non-starter. Asriel had reservations about going, and Tori was either worried enough about how he’d fare among mostly humans or how the humans would fare around him, and let him opt out too.

Frisk tried, for a while. They got bullied, they were pushed to the limits of their ability to communicate verbally, they got overstimmed and had some meltdowns at home, but they set their jaw and did their best for a couple months. Not like they had trouble keeping up with the coursework. Then one night the school counselor came to Tori’s place asking after a ‘Mun Hana’. You happened to be there for dinner, so you had front row seats to all the color draining from Frisk’s face. You’d’ve been able to add two and two even if you didn’t remember that name from way back when you and Tori got hold of Frisk’s medical records.

Long story short, that put paid to Frisk’s public high school career. They’re happier this way, and Tori knows what she’s doing teaching them; it’s not so terrible a loss.

Asgore excuses himself to the kitchen almost immediately, and Frisk tidies up their place at the table to go after him. This leaves their chair free for the taking, so obviously you steal it.

Asriel is still frowning at you. “What are you doing here?” he asks, sounding scandalized, but he keeps his voice low.

“Your dad invited me,” you say, grinning as wide as you possibly can just to rile him up more.

“If you two get in a fight I’m telling Toriel on you,” says Chara, who’s apparently having none of this. You hold your hands up a little in a gesture of peace, and Asriel only keeps one eye on you while he strokes their arm as if to settle them. He leaves his hand atop their right one, fingertips drumming lightly at their wrist, and Chara lets him stay that way without comment.

This is another pretty recent development. Okay, the googly eyes Asriel’s always given Chara and sometimes Frisk too have been going on since the Barrier broke, there’s nothing new about that. And the three kids have always been cuddly and fond of each other. But the puppy love bits have been sloughing off to make way for more… gestures of affection you don’t know whether to term mature or adult. There’s a lot about them that’s still not very mature, and adult implies a sexual undertone that’s not exactly all there yet either, though even you can see it brewing. Anyway, the budding romance is getting more serious.

It’s not the shock it might’ve been if Tori hadn’t sat you down a good three years ago or so to use you as a sounding board for her own feelings on the matter. I do not think Asriel’s crush on Chara will be going away after all, she had said, staring over your head. You still can’t really grasp what she was feeling at the time, never having had a kid yourself. You’d asked her if she thought it was weird, what with Frisk and Chara and Asriel being foster siblings, and she said a little, but not so much, because they didn’t think of one another as family like that. She said that it was more an issue of her letting go.

In her mind, she explained, Asriel and Chara had been ten-year-old children for the past century. It was difficult to reconcile that with the way they were growing and changing now.

You said you could sorta get that, but didn’t elaborate.

As it is, you lean back in your stolen chair and cross your legs. “Want I should check over your homework?” you ask, grinning wider.

“No,” Asriel and Chara say in perfect unison.

Frisk comes back out to check with you if there’s anything on tonight’s menu (chili pie, black beans with vegetables and rice, grilled shrimp and—for some reason—pan-fried potstickers, some sort of deep-fried dessert with a name you don’t recognize and can’t pronounce whether Frisk finger-spells it at you or says it to you out loud) you can’t eat. You tell them no and lament your unusual lack of foresight in not bringing any whoopee cushions with you, what with all the beans. That woulda been comedy gold.

Do I get to ask for my chair back? they ask, smiling a little.

“Maybe later,” you say, resting your weight even more thoroughly on the seat. “But hey, I can check your homework for ya while you cook.”

Okay, Frisk says, and you lean back to let them shuffle around with their stuff ‘til their algebra homework is on top. They open to the problems in the textbook Toriel has them reading too, though with as much as they’ve copied onto the lined paper you could probably still glean enough to proofread.

The only person who’s gonna be looking this over is Tori, and she’s not gonna care that you’re helping her kids study—her whole goal is making sure they get the material. So you borrow a blue felt-tip pen off Chara and go over Frisk’s work problem by problem. Most of their work’s pristine as usual, but they’ve got a coupla places where they’re using the wrong formula or don’t seem to grasp the right way to use the right one. You make notes in their margins as to what they did wrong where, and redo one of the problems from the ground up in a blank spot to give ‘em an example.

“I will never understand why you don’t actually write in comic sans,” Chara says, and you find that they’re watching you with their chin in their hands, now half sitting in Asriel’s lap. “You basically talk in it, did you know?”

“Kid, your stereotypical assumptions wound me,” you reply, and cap your pen. Just in time, too, because Frisk comes back to warn you all that dinner is coming in a minute or so.

Chara clears the table with you while Asriel grudgingly fetches you a chair. “You’re exiled to the corner if you’re just going to pile your dinner with cheese, you disgusting little man,” they tell you amiably, looking down at you from their new and lofty five foot five.

“If I take the exile gracefully, do I get to monopolize the cheese,” you propose.

“The contract is fulfilled,” they say.

We don’t get any? Frisk interjects, pouting comically.

“I’m not forbidding you and Ree from cheese access, mind, but I do want you to reflect on the fact that if you are eating it I will not kiss you until you have both thoroughly brushed your teeth and then also gargled probably.”

Somehow you’ve stopped being included in the conversation, so you ignore the smell of teen romance in the air and seat yourself in your new allotted space, waiting for dinner.

Asgore and Tori are the only people in your whole circle of friends who actually serve large amounts of food at huge tables like this, the kinds of meals where you have to ask people to pass things to you. It’s like some kinda family film or a TV show. Asgore shares Tori’s habit of making way more food than anyone should possibly be able to eat ever, and just like at Tori’s house, most of the food manages to vanish anyway. You think you have a good idea as to why all three of the Dreemurrs are tall and fat, and as to how Frisk has gotten fat too. Chara, the only thin person at the table, looks a little out of place, like they’re gaunter than they actually are and should hope to put on another ten or twenty pounds too just to even things out.

The chili pie is really the centerpiece of tonight’s dinner. Asgore prefers cooking to baking and never bakes any kind of sweets—tonight’s dessert, too, is Frisk’s handiwork—but nobody does savory pies like him, and you think briefly that you shoulda tried to make friends with him earlier just to get to eat like this more often. (Talk about shallow.)

But anyway, the pie’s perfect—mildly spicy, thick with beans and corn and tomatoes and peppers and also real meat, which is still a novelty even five years later. Your ability to cook it’s pretty hit or miss still, and Papyrus isn’t fond of the texture. There’s grains and seeds baked into the pie crust as well as spices, a touch that Tori doesn’t add to her pies often, and it’s probably the best savory pie you’ve had, ever? You volunteer this last bit out loud; Frisk glows and Asgore ducks his chin in a gesture you’re pretty sure is shy but gratified.

You ask for seconds of everything, since there’s more than enough for everyone to have them. Sometimes you ask for thirds.

“Thanks for the grub,” you say after the table has been thoroughly cleared. Asriel and Chara have gathered the plates to go wash them, you guess since they didn’t help with cooking; the rules of kitchen roles seem to be universal like that. “Wish I could hang out longer, but I should probably be getting back.”

“Of course,” Asgore says warmly. He doesn’t seem put out that you’ve just invited yourself back out of his place or anything, and this sticks out to you, but you’re not sure why. Are you hoping he’d ask you to stay longer? (You doubt this would happen—Asgore tries too hard to be hospitable.) Are you looking for an excuse to hang around? (Papyrus isn’t a baby, you could text him and he’d probably be happy that you’re getting out and being social, but you’re the big brother and you still feel torn about any infinitesimal desire to linger.)

You can come back whenever, Frisk butts in, never mind that this is Asgore’s house and they and the other two live with Tori more often than they do their foster dad. It’s nice having company here.

“It was nice being company,” you reply, winking at them both. “If I stick around here long enough, maybe I’ll finally get some meat on my bones.”

Asgore chuckles at this. He’s got a nice laugh, it occurs to you; he’s already got that deep ponderous voice like he’s chewing over every word as he says it, but the laugh’s a quick and gentle sound from low in the chest. Are you waxing poetic again? Fuck, you are. Fuck your life. “And I would enjoy assisting you in that quest, my skeletal friend. Please pass my regards on to your brother.”

“No prob,” you tell him, and heft yourself up out of your chair, heading for the front door. “I’ll be seeing you around.”

Shortcutting back to the townhouse you share with Papyrus takes all of two seconds, the way it usually does, but as soon as you set foot in the little foyer you slump against the doorframe, all of a sudden drained. The lights are on, and loud voices from deeper into the house let you know that your bro has Undyne over.

You could probably just go upstairs—or heck, find the nearest chair and nap on it—but you haven’t seen Papyrus since he went to work in the morning, so. You shuffle down the hall to the living room and poke your head in.

Papyrus swivels around and homes in on you immediately. “SANS!!!!! It is very good to see you back!”

“You’re home late,” Undyne says, slouching backwards over the sofa. This one’s new, a housewarming present from Tori, and is significantly less lumpy than the old one that lives in the basement now. “Ya find something to do outside for once?”

“Yeah, sorta.” She knows today was your session with Jay, and also probably knows you ought to’ve been back a long time ago. “Ran into Asgore on the way back and he invited me over for dinner, so don’t worry about feeding me.”

“Did he, now,” Undyne says, eyebrows distinctly raised. You never thought of her as that sharp a person when it comes to these things, considering how long it took her and Alphys to finally get together, but there’s this tone to her voice like she knows and it’d be giving you goosebumps if you had skin. Your heebies are thoroughly jeebied. Your jimmies are good and rustled.

“Well, that is very generous of His Majesty!” trumpets your brother. “I shall have to thank him for his hospitality when next I see him!”

“Sure,” you say, and grin. “Imma head off to bed to food coma for a while. Thanks for comin’ over and keeping my bro from gettin’ too bonely, Undyne.”

“SAAAAAAAAAAAANS,” your brother yells. Undyne gives you a flippant little salute; you salute her back and trudge up the stairs. Tonight you don’t want to deal with anything more complicated than crawling into bed.

You don’t see much of Asgore for the next week.

You say hello to each other between therapy sessions—this time he’s leaving when you get there, so there’s not much time to chat—and sometimes when he brings the kids over to Tori’s for lessons. Once when Undyne comes over to hang out with your brother, trailing along like he’s her dad too, escorting her to some ostentatious function. You talk then for a couple minutes, but you struggle to come up with any topic of conversation that’ll last, your thoughts all tangled up in a self-interrogation of how much you do want to talk to Asgore, and why. He says goodbye and slips off while you’re still confused.

Whatever blinders your brain had on before, you sorta want them back. It’s too late, though; you’re thoroughly aware of Asgore in a way you’ve never been before. That his voice is deep and gentle and sounds like sunshine and butter and wouldn’t be out of place on one of humans’ inexplicable sexy commercials for stuff that’s not sex-related at all. That his hands are big but gentle, and how he’s got a little winestain on the heel of one of them, over the pad in the middle of his palm and spilling into his fur. That all told he’s got to be about three times your size, and the broadness of his shoulders pulls against the fabric of his silly pink button-down shirts.

Shit. If this is a slippery slope, you’ve sure as hell missed your chance to step back from it. You’re doing somersaults down it by now. Shit.

The back of your mind informs you in a voice that sounds like Jay that it’s best this happen now, years after your sorta-kinda boss-and-subordinate relationship ended. If you’d tripped over this (ugh) attraction back then, it could never’ve ended healthily.

You are so boned.

Not at all sure how to proceed aside from dully contemplating your bonedness, you instead charm your way into helping Tori grade homework. The workload of homeschooling her own kids, teaching several classes at her school, and arguing with the government to get the high school rolling hasn’t stopped being a thing or anything. And, to steal a phrase from Chara and Asriel, it’s not like you have anything better to do, so you like to take some of the weight off her shoulders because what are friends for.

It’s kinda weird this time, though, and you hope Tori doesn’t realize that. You keep glancing at her from the corner of your eyesockets as she writes fluidly. Mostly you’ve been aware of her as your best friend for whom the sun shines, no more and no less, but now you’re paying attention to Asgore in a new and potentially sexy way, Tori’s reframed as a member of the same species as him. You notice how she’s got a similar body type to him but more compact, more delicate, her eyes much darker and her stare much more direct, her fur pure white—lack of mane aside, she hasn’t got the little spots and birthmarks Asgore does.

It’s also kinda weird because you’re now hells of aware that your BFF is your new crush’s ex. They used to be married. For ages. They would still, you know with utter certainty, be married right now if Asgore hadn’t beefed it so bad in the wake of their kids’ deaths.

Well. That’s a whole lotta things to worry about, and Jay’s been working with you enough that you’re not just gonna lie facedown and pretend they don’t exist, but it still sounds like a pain in the tailbone to stress over ‘em forever. So.

“Tori, I’ve got a real boneheaded question to ask,” you say, setting your pen down.

She doesn’t set hers aside, just keeps writing. “Sans, dear, you know I think the concept of foolish questions to be positively a-bone-minable. I promise to only laugh at your jokes, not at whatever you would like to know.”

“Right. Here goes.” You take a deep breath. “Would it make things weird between you and me if I maybe wanted to take your ex on a date?”

Tori pauses, frowns, pen still in mid-air. Then she puts the cap back on and twists her neck to face you, and does that Thing she does where she furrows her brow and pushes her glasses up on her snout.

“’Cause like,” you go on, just a fraction more nervous than you were before, “if that’d be a dealbreaker, I can just… not go there. You’re what’s most important to me here, you get me?”

Tori pushes her glasses up again. She lets out a breath. “I do not think,” she says at length, “that it would be what you would call a ‘deal breaker’. If you were coming to me for help as to how to pursue him, it would be a different matter, but you are sensitive enough not to do that.” She smiles a little here. “Even this silly old lady has grown enough that there is next to zero chance that this will turn into another game of tug of war. Asgore and I can get by in casual proximity nowadays. I doubt that I would be involved in any possible romance except as your friend. And any jealousy on my part should not have to get in the way of you following your heart, Sans.”

The speech feels calculated—the use of Asgore’s given name is definitely deliberate, since there was a good two-year period that she only ever addressed him by his surname. And generally Tori doesn’t mention the tempestuous couple-month-long attempt at a custody battle between her and Asgore that got so nasty the kids had to stay at Alphys and Undyne’s, and that only ended because she and Asgore realized how badly it was affecting the kids and found ways to compromise for their sakes.

“I just wanted to—I dunno, warn you, run it past you,” is what you offer in return, shrugging. “Because make no bones about it, you’re more important to me, and I’m pretty sure I could nip this in the bud if it was gonna be a problem. I’d choose you if I had to choose. Our friendship is sacred and runs bone-deep. Brones before boners.”

“Sans,” Tori says, starting to chuckle, “please do believe me when I say that you do not have to choose. You and Asgore are both grown adults with the right to pursue whomever you would like to romantically. We are all, in fact, grown adults; we can keep these relationships separate if we need to. If you choose to woo my ex-husband, it is only my business inasmuch as either of you would like it to be, and it will not—to use your words—‘make it weird’ between us. It would take more than this,” and her eyes are twinkling now, and you grin in anticipation, “to get my goat.”

You snort and slap your knee, and she smoothly goes back to grading papers like it’s no big thing, and you reflect for a hot minute on just how lucky you are to have Tori in your life. You really owe Past Sans one for making a habit of slacking off sentry duty with joke practice at the door to the Ruins.

Next week, you say goodbye to Jay and step into the little waiting room to find Asgore sitting there waiting for you again. But this time he isn’t crying. Far from it: As soon as he sets eyes on you he just—lights right up, beaming brightly at you.

“Good afternoon, Sans,” he says, rising to his feet.

“’Sup,” you reply, grinning back. “Fancy meeting you in a place like this.”

By your standards that was absolutely dead on arrival, but Asgore chuckles anyway. “Do forgive me for being so presumptuous as to wait,” he says. “It is just that… golly, today’s weather is so very nice, and I thought… I have been entertaining for a while the idea of paying you back for walking me home, before. If you do not already have plans, and if you are comfortable with it—would you like to do that, today?”

“We might, uh, wind up havin’ to take some breaks,” you say, pretty eloquently considering how your brain’s currently screaming !!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!! holy shit he’s asking you out on a date holy shit this is not a drill holy shit holy shit!!!!! !! ! ! ! ! ! in a cartoonishly tinny and high pitched voice that sounds nothing like your own. “Seein’ as I’m not exactly in shape. But, uh, if YOU’RE fine with that, then yeah, sure. Who’m I to say no to a big handsome fella like yourself offerin’ to show me a good time?”

You wink, even though inside your soul is curdling because that was a terrible line, this is definitely karmic payback for all those times you laughed at Alphys for freaking out and liveblogging her dates with Undyne to you.

But Asgore just claps his big paws a little and laughs. “I’m sure you hear this from all your friends, but you are a very charming man. Shall we be on our way, then?”

He offers you his hand, and you make sure your scream stays completely in your own skull as you grin and put yours in it.

You usually just shortcut your way here, unless Papyrus drives you, so you have ZERO idea of how to get back to your place on foot. Thankfully Asgore walks everywhere and has an extremely good idea of where everything is, in Ebott City and in Monster Town (you have caught yourself thinking more than once about how cute Asgore’s terrible names are, which means you’re screwed) and everything in between. You let him take the lead.

It is a nice day. You hadn’t really noticed that, but then it’s not that you’ve really been out in it so that you COULD notice. It took you ‘til almost noon to get out of bed, and then you shuffled around in your pajamas and ate cold pizza for brunch and watched the discovery channel for a couple hours and texted Alphys about the show until it was time to get dressed and shortcut off to therapy.

Before you started going to therapy, you doubt you’d have gotten up at all, just stayed in bed napping on and off, oozing slime and annoying Papyrus. But evidently there’s still some work that could use doing, here.

Asgore walks very slowly, making sure that you don’t have to trot after him. You want to attribute his ease in doing so to his years working with his various subjects and caring for the kids, but the point still remains that he’s doing it deliberately and doing it for your benefit, and that gives you tickly butterflies behind the bones of your ribcage. Boneterflies. You silently tell them to settle down or go away, and they listen to you about as well as Reaper Bird’s bullets do to them.

The silhouette of the waterfront city with its gleaming skyscrapers and lofted roads retreats as Asgore leads you down sidewalk after sidewalk. Just as you warned him, you have to sit and take a break on a bench about half an hour in, slouched back and panting and staring balefully at the bus stop across the street.

Asgore produces a water battle from his phone for you, and while you drink it he sits down beside you. The bench creaks under his weight, and his elbow presses against your arm, and you narrowly avoid choking on the water from that brief contact.

“There is a hot dog stand another block away,” Asgore tells you, pointing. “When we get there I will treat you.”

“Sounds great to me,” you say, and heave yourself back up.

’Dogs with real meat in ‘em are still a novelty, but a tasty novelty, especially with salsa and fresh pickles and extra ketchup. Asgore declines to buy anything for himself when you ask, and the human running the stand laughs a little.

“Don’t want to walk home with a ketchup mustache again?” they tease.

“Certainly not,” Asgore replies. “I do believe I will be able to safely ‘live it down’, as the kids say, but it is not very fun at all to wash dried ketchup out of one’s fur later.”

You snicker at this. “Next time you should just get all mustard. Dunno if that’s any easier to wash out, but nobody’ll notice the stains at least.”

This gets a laugh out of both of them while the human hands over Asgore’s change. “Just don’t forget to wash it out at all.”

“That was friendly,” you say after you’ve left. And: “This is one good ’dog.”

“I have made it a habit to say hello on the way back home,” Asgore says. “There are a great many excellent snack stops on this walk. We can ‘hit up’ as many of them as you would like.”

If it weren’t for all the walking, this would maybe be the best date ever.

You get stared at a lot on the way back. Sometimes humans cross the street to avoid you, but that’s preferable to people trying to start shit. And other times when Asgore says hello to human pedestrians, they say hello back. Sometimes they seem to recognize each other. Once someone even recognizes you from that one comedy night at Grillby’s, which was a long time ago too.

Asgore doesn’t push you to make small talk when you’re puffing for breath, and he always seems to be keeping an eye out for benches or drinking fountains or even, once, an ice cream stand next to a park where he gets you both fudge sundaes. You sit on adjacent benches and chow down.

The park in specific is almost entirely populated by humans, mostly kids with their parents. (Some of them wave at you, and Asgore raises a hand to return the greeting, but if it ain’t just you imagining things, he seems a little subdued in comparison to how he interacted with other pedestrians.) But there are monsters here too: The rabbit girl and her brother from Snowdin, the one Papyrus used to chase around. It takes you a second to recognize him now that he’s too old for a child leash. The slime and his kids. And the humans don’t seem bothered by their presence, or even to think that them being there is out of the ordinary at all.

Looking at it like this, it really feels like you’ve all come a long way in the past five years.

You turn to Asgore to remark on this only to double-take when you find him holding the waxy paper boat his ice cream came in up to his face, spoon pinched between his index finger and thumb but still dwarfed between them, the utensil mostly paddling fruit and ice cream towards his very long and very pink tongue and big white eyeteeth.

Tori has silverware that’s the proper size for her, and she’s a careful eater anyway. You don’t scrutinize Asriel when he eats. Scrabbling for a comparison, your brain jumps to footage you’ve seen of lions and jaguars and wolves on the discovery channel. Something hot and half-forgotten jolts in the vicinity of your middle. You find it’s impossible to look away.

Asgore notices you staring, because after all you’re being obvious about it. “Goodness! I do not have hot fudge in my beard, do I?”

He licks his chops, like just in case, and that hot jolt returns with a vengeance. It’s not an unpleasant sensation, actually sorta the contrary, so naturally you are deeply and immediately suspicious of it.

“Nah, you’re—you’re good, you got it,” you say, and Asgore beams at you and you are probably about to Expire.

You get up and so does he, and you put your used ice cream containers and spoons in the proper recycling bins and continue on your way.

The sky’s colors are vivid all around you, and the leaves on the trees starting to turn are just as bright. Even downtown the air was fresher than it used to be in the underground, or in your windows-closed laundry-on-the-floor bedroom. Here, closer to Monster Town, it’s even sweeter-smelling and more invigorating.

In retrospect you ought to have worn sneakers today instead of flip flops, that would have made this hike a lot less tiring, but you didn’t and you can live with that you guess. It doesn’t put that much of a damper on the sense of freedom that is the outdoors.

“This is kinda nice,” you say out loud. “Guess there’s somethin’ to be said for exercise after all.”

Asgore chuckles. “I always find that the outdoors is at least twice as enjoyable in the company of good friends.”

Your heart skips a little in your chest. Oh, no. “As long as you give me a chance to get in shape a little more before you drag me off mountain climbing with Undyne and Alph.”

Asgore laughs again. It’s a shitty coping mechanism half the time but you really do love to make people laugh, like in general, and every time you get a laugh out of Asgore especially you feel like you just won the lottery or something. “Of course, of course. But long walks are best reserved for one special friend, I think.”

You suck in a deep breath and just about float up off the ground.

There’s not much time to dwell on it, though, because very abruptly you start to actually recognize your surroundings. Your and Papyrus’ place is just a couple turns away.

You’re seized with the utterly babybones urge to drag your feet for the last block and draw out your time with Asgore as long as possible. But you’re a grown-ass adult and that trick is way too old to work on Asgore anyway, so you elect to not do that. Instead you follow along obediently as he leads you right up to your front door like a gentleman and beams down at you.

“I thank you for spending the afternoon with me, Sans,” he says. “I know that it was a bit out of your comfort zone.”

“Eh, nah,” you tell him. “I had fun. Thanks for walkin’ me home.”

There’s this pause right here and you have this overwhelming urge to just invite him in, but you don’t know what you’d do after that, like—your room has a trash tornado in it, you haven’t showered in three days—you cast around for something to say to stall for time, but Asgore is already backing up off your front stoop, raising a hand.

“I shall see you again later, Sans,” he says.

You raise a hand too, halfheartedly. “Yeah, seeya ‘round.”

And he beams at you one last time, and off he goes.

You text Alphys about it later, half dangling off your bed, and recount the date in as much detail as you can remember.

The one you really want to talk to about all this is Jay, but uh, you don’t wanna cause trouble for anybody expecting her to see you again before next week’s appointment when it’s not really that big a deal.

And Alphys is pretty good about this stuff. For all that she’s a super rambly texter, she stays quiet except for one- or two-word responses designed to encourage you to keep talking.

the real weird part was how i felt watching him eat the ice cream, you finish. it was sure some kinda reaction. almost enough to wonder if i was comin down with something if i hadn’t known it was cause of asgore?

The three little dots that indicate she’s typing on the other end pop up, wiggle for a while, then disappear. This happens over and over. You’re just starting to get concerned, when:

sans look i am

Pretty Sure

that thats just called having a boner

(or like, whatever skeletons do)

You get the distinct sensation of being thumped gently in the forehead by the obvious. This is very like that time that Papyrus bonked you softly upside the head with a broom because he was trying to clean and you wouldn’t get out of his way.

oh right, sex, you type back. forgot about that

lol real funny, Alphys replies.

i wasn’t joking alph, you tell her, a little pained.

Oh My Actual God, Sans, she says.

look, in my defense, i haven’t done A Sex in uhhhhh. probably a decade or so. too busy being a depressed slime mold; didn’t care about it that much anyway.

Alphys’ silence is a little longer than you’d like it to be, but she just answers you with OK WELL i guess thats fair lmao. not everybodys a big crush-prone horny loser nerd like me!!! tho i gotta say, im not surprised that tongue (she surrounds “tongue” with yellow emoji faces with their tongues hanging out) is what woke up your long-dormant sex drive. lets face it: asgore has a sexy mouth lmao

If your nonexistent eyebrows raise any higher they are going to fly off your skull and clip through the ceiling. wow alphys

LOOK DONT GET ALL JUDGEY ON ME MR JUDGEY MC JUDGE FACE!!!!!!!!! just because im actually dating undyne now doesnt mean that i suddenly have amnesia or that my hotpersonometer has ceased to fucntion, OKAY???

guess i can’t argue with that, you answer. but uhhhhhh the new problem is: what the Fuck do i do

well, says Alphys, you can languish in a puddle of your own lust and/or guilt until asgore writes you with a love letter that doesn’t have his name on it, and sends frisk to bring it to you so you assume that frisk wrote it, and you can go on a pretend date with them to spare their feelings, and then run into asgore and have a dramatic confession scene??? thats what worked for me lmao

You actually say ennnnhhhhhhhh out loud as you type, i highly doubt that’s gonna work on a repeat performance, but uh, thanks anyway.

LMFAO YEAH honestly im shocked that that worked for me too, Alphys says, and you snicker.

well, you say, i’m gonna sit on this for a hot minute or two before i break down the big guy’s door at 1 am yelling “fuck my dick”. not least because i dunno if either of us is ready for that level of intimacy when we’re not even officially dating yet?

lmao yeah maybe dont do that, Alphys says, and then after a pause: so skeletons do actually have dicks???

we do not have dicks, you tell her, and i’m not going to explain the skeleton birds and bees just so that you can write accurate rpf about us.

damn, she replies, and you cannot help but feel that you’ve just dodged a very large bullet.

Alphys gave you the words to put to everything, but you still save it until next week and seeing Jay.

“I feel like the biggest bonehead there ever was, like I’m overreacting to everything,” you admit under the bright green x-ray stare that seems to quietly bore through you. “Like—overthinking it all. Asgore smiles at me and I’m making plans to climb out the window and escape. It feels like—like what we were talkin’ about before, me rejecting good things just ‘cause they’re good and I’ve already decided I don’t deserve ‘em. And I can’t even tell if like—like if me liking him is at a stage where I gotta take action or make big decisions at all. Even if I force myself not to stick my head in the sand, I could be jumping the gun.”

“And that’s scary too,” Jay finishes for you while you fumble.

“Yeah. Make no bones about it, everything just seems to circle back around to ‘time to panic’, and it’s, uh, using up more energy than I wanna waste on treading the same ol’ ruts in my cranium.”

“It sounds like you’ve been very preoccupied with the big picture and possible far-reaching consequences,” Jay says. She sits up in her chair and adjusts her glasses, sparing you for a moment from the intensity of her stare. “This is something that you can back out of if you don’t feel ready for it, Sans. Before, you described your feelings and the potential for a relationship as a trap closing on you, but it isn’t. You can still, can always, say no at any time.

“And while I think that delaying making any sort of decision is not good for you, neither is making a decision just to get it out of the way and then committing to whatever the results are, even if you don’t like them. It’s okay—it’s healthy—to start slow, try things day by day.”

“Baby steps for baby bones,” you supply.

She raises her eyes and smiles. “Exactly. Dip your foot in the water for a while before you cannonball straight into the deep end. You hardly have to propose to Asgore or leap into bed with him, and he won’t expect you to either, if he’s at all a reasonable person. You don’t have to take out a restraining order on him, either. You’ve been on two informal dates, that’s all. ‘See what happens from here and make an informed decision then’ is still a choice.”

This is how you wind up asking Asgore out to dinner.

“You paid me back for walking you home,” you say as winningly as you can, grin huge as you can make it, “but I never paid you back for feeding me. Lemme show you a good time, Mr. Dreemurr.”

“Well, gosh,” Asgore replies. “Just let me know the dress code beforehand. I do not want to embarrass you by wearing anything out-of-place.”

“Fancy,” you tell him on the spot, because you didn’t come here without a plan: Namely the high-class restaurant in Ebott City where Mettaton hosted the afterparty to comedy night. You’ve only been there the once, but you remember its extravagant gardens, and you also know for sure it’s monster-friendly.

It still takes Papyrus yelling at you that it would be going against the clearly phrased rules in the Dating Handbook for you to decide against wearing the t-shirt printed to look like a button-down and vest with a tie. In your defense, it would’ve been really funny, and you did mean to keep a change of clothes in your phone so you could swap out once you got a good laugh from everyone. But you wouldn’t want Asgore to wind up in trouble on your account, so pinstriped button-down with a novelty Halloween tie and gray slacks it is.

When the night arrives, you shortcut your way over to Asgore’s all ready with an opening line and your best suave smile, but instead of your date, it’s his son sitting out on the porch swing.

“Dad will be out in a minute or two,” says Asriel, who’s staring straight at you and has his arms crossed. “First I think you and me need to talk.”

Your grin falls a little into a grimace. Out of the three kids, Asriel’s the one you get on with the least. Frisk you decided you could trust at the end of their little adventure underground, and about a year or so after the Barrier broke you finally got a handle on Chara and managed to connect with them over your mutual love of completely shitty jokes. But Asriel’s always been the same sort of wary-almost-hostile towards you as you’ve been towards him, and the fact that he knows what you’re capable of tells you that he’s done some shit in dead timelines that means your mutual dislike is deserved.

You’ve got a vague unspoken truce to the effect that you won’t go out of your way to breathe down his neck from undue paranoia and he won’t tell Tori on you for threatening her precious kids. But that cessation of hostilities doesn’t mean you go out of your way to seek each other’s company, usually. You don’t think you’ve done anything to pick a fight with Asriel, at least not lately, so you’re kinda drawing a blank as to why he’s apparently got a gauntlet to throw.

“I think you should talk to my father about what your intentions for him are,” says Asriel, and you choke on air a little.

“Kid,” you wheeze, “you are way too young to play at being overprotective of your own old man.”

Asriel bristles visibly at this. He’s getting the height, but the fur around his face is only barely starting to grow out and tip yellow, so it’s not as impressive as you bet he wants it to be. His claws tighten on his arms, but he doesn’t uncross his feet or get up to tower over you from the porch.

“I mean it,” he says. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me, all right, I know whatever’s going on with you and Dad isn’t something I have a right to stick my nose in just yet. But if you decide to go full-on Smiley Trashbag on him—if you hurt him—I swear I will do everything in my power to make you sorry.”

“Whoa, now,” you say, holding your hands up. “I ain’t just toyin’ around with your old man for a fun time. You’re gettin’ your undies in a twist real prematurely.”

Asriel takes a deep breath. “You don’t understand how messed up Dad still is about—about Mom and lots of other things. You don’t understand just how hard it is for him to do things like, like telling people no and standing up for himself properly. Just—just be careful with him, or I will bring the hurt.”

You consider him. All his fur is standing on end like a big white puffball, and this is maybe the most earnest you’ve ever seen him, so you don’t retort with an immediate as if you’ve never taken advantage of your dad for being such a pushover yourself.

“I’m not here to hurt Asgore,” is what you say instead. “We’re grownups, and we’re gonna figure out where to take our relationship like grownups. Even I know how to be gentle with people who deserve it.”

Asriel snorts, apparently disagreeing, but he doesn’t snip at you. Maybe he’s managing to actually mature after all.

The front door opens. You straighten up.

Asgore is wearing a tuxedo, complete with sweeping coattails and a white bow tie. You’re pretty sure this is the outfit he wore to the single father-child dance held at Frisk’s high school before they stopped going, actually, but that knowledge does nothing to lessen the impact: He is handsome.

You whistle. “Dang, now I just feel shabby.”

“Do not worry,” Asgore says, gliding down the steps. His paws are still bare. You watch his toes flex and grip the smooth wood and gulp a little. “You are very dapper.”

At this you breathe in so fast that the extra air whistles through your ribs, puffing out the sides of your shirt like a sad balloon.

On the porch, Asriel sighs like he’s giving up. You grin at him because that’s easier than facing Asgore right now. “Don’t worry, I’ll have your dear old dad home by midnight.”

“Screw you,” Asriel mutters.

“Now, now,” says Asgore, and Asriel sniffs in distaste.

“Try not to wreck the house before we get back,” you say, grinning wider. “Oh, and if you’re gonna fool around with Frisk and Chara while nobody’s supervising ya, be safe n’ use protection.”

“How about fuck off because that’s none of your nevermind!” Asriel squalls.

“Now, now, let’s be friendly,” Asgore says, only marginally more firmly than before, though this time he accompanies the weak scolding with shushing hand motions. “Sans, I do not think you have to worry about the children in that regard. They all treat my house very well and have never wrecked it even a little. And I am quite certain that their mother will have spoken with them about human safety, if it ever comes to that.”

“WILL YOU BOTH GO AWAY NOW,” Asriel howls. You cackle and slap your knee.

“Er, Sans, perhaps you could give teasing my son a rest for the time being so that we may go to dinner?” Asgore suggests, steepling his fingers as he looks between you with worry.

“Yeah,” you say. “I was done anyway, I think any more’n this would just be mean.”

Deliberately you turn away from Asriel’s outraged expression and reach out a hand to Asgore, who smiles down at you and folds it up in one of his. He could snap the delicate bones of your fingers easy as matchsticks if he applied enough pressure, you know he knows how, but he just lets your fingers sit there on his palm, supporting ‘em gentle and easy as a velvet cushion for precious jewelry. You have no doubt in your mind that Asgore would willingly lay down in the middle of traffic if his only other choice was to hurt you.

It’s the most fucked-up thing in the world that this guy convinced himself to kill six kids for your sakes. It’s the second most fucked-up thing in the world that you, all of you, the whole population of the underground, decided it was fine to just let him do it. Shame drips off him in gobbets, constant the same way you used to exude helpless apathy. Duty was probably the only thing keeping him going back in the underground, same as it was for you.

This is a really flowery way to phrase that he’s holding on to you so carefully that it makes you feel as though he’s the one who’s really delicate, and that’s all kinds of killing you. It’s hard to figure out how to say this and anyway you don’t want to stumble over the words in front of Asriel, so you worm your thumb back around the side of Asgore’s hand and grip the squishy pad of his palm. Your magic flares, and your third step down the sidewalk whisks you both away.

“Oh!” says Asgore happily, stopping in his tracks at the top of the stairs even as the server continues, gesturing sweepingly towards a lavish window booth.

You’re grinning hugely. Especially hugely, you mean, since skeletal grin (ba-dum tish) is pretty much your basic state. You were banking on the view being a hit, but there’s still nothin’ quite like the jackpot feeling of seeing Asgore stand up a little straighter while his yellow eyes just light up.

The window overlooks the flowers and hedges that surround the restaurant’s summertime patio, and past them there’s the waterfront. Handfuls of stars and a mostly-full moon peek through the scattered cloud cover, making little dapples of light on the distant waves like spills of silver paint.

Your server grins. They’re a human kid probably around Frisk’s age, but a lot bigger and heavier, with a curly ponytail and a mole under one eye. “Looks like we’re a hit,” they say. “Should I just get you two your menus and the wine list and leave you to it for a while?”

“Sounds great to me,” you tell them, and wink. They lead you over to a booth right up against the window. The seats are broad enough for Asgore to sit comfortably, and the server helps you adjust the table so that Asgore’s stomach won’t get pinched and you won’t have to sit on the edge of your own seat to plop your elbows on it.

You both get handed menus, and while you politely decline alcohol—it’ll put you straight to sleep—Asgore peruses the list for a while and orders a blush, whatever that means. The server tells you they’ll be back with your drinks in few minutes and bustles off.

The two of you have the second floor of the restaurant almost to yourselves. There’s a human couple off at the other end of the vast hall and what appears to be a small business dinner on the opposite wall from you, neither group paying you any mind. There’s smooth jazz playing faint and lo-fi through the speakers, mood lighting, and paintings hanging up on the walls.

Asgore, though, just has his paws folded as he gazes outside, smiling. “Golly, but these gardens sure are great.”

“They actually let ya eat out there when the weather’s warm enough,” you tell him, fiddling with the cuff of your sleeve. “We can take a look when we’re done here too, if you want. Not as colorful as the middle of the day but still not bad. View of the sky’s pretty nice too, this close to the water. Shame about the light pollution, but.”

“Sometime if I am ever able to persuade you to come hiking with me,” Asgore says, “I would love to show you the night sky from the mountains. The view of the stars is very clear. If you were to bring your telescope along, I wager that we would be able to get quite the ‘epic’ view of the Milky Way.”

“That,” you say, “sounds like it’d be pretty cool. If, y’know, I can manage to not be a lazybones enough to actually go.”

“We do not have to do this if you are not ready or do not feel up to it,” Asgore says. “The stars will not be running away, and neither will I.”

Fuck, that’s actually really romantic, and so is the soft smile on Asgore’s face as he says it to you. Fuck. You resist the urge to slide down under the table and shortcut right back home to lay on your face and kick your feet on your mattress like a wiggly four-year-old.

You’re saved by having to come up with this by the server, who has returned with a bottle of wine for Asgore, a shirley temple for you, and a change of utensils for Asgore—an upgrade to stuff that’s actually his size so he won’t look like a grownup playing house with baby toys. This’ll be easier on him and also, you won’t die in your seat watching him tongue things.

“My name is Astis and I’ll be taking care of you tonight,” says the server, pointing to a name tag that says ASTIS in block letters and HE/HIM in parentheses underneath it. “May I take your order or would you like more time to look at the menu?”

“I know what I want, but how ‘bout you, big guy?” you ask.

“Go ahead and order,” Asgore says. “I will decide while you do.”

“I want the fajita platter with the whole works, shrimp and lobster and steak and chicken,” you tell Astis, tapping the menu. He nods and writes that down, then turns to Asgore.

“I believe I would like the grilled steak platter, if you please,” Asgore says.

“Got it,” Astis replies. He points to the light-up panel on the window side of the table. “You can use this to page me if you need anything. We’ll be out with your food as soon as it’s ready.”

“Just a moment, if you please,” says Asgore. You turn to him, confused, to see that he’s frowning at Astis with his brow furrowed, as if deep in thought. “Excuse me, but—have you and I met somewhere before?”

Astis raises his eyebrows for just a moment and then smiles. “No, Your Majesty, but I know who you are. I’ve been to some of the ambassadors’ local speeches before—maybe you recognize me from the crowd.”

“Perhaps,” says Asgore. “I apologize for asking something so strange.”

Astis shakes his head. “No, please, don’t worry about it.” Then he smiles at you both and leaves, with Asgore frowning after his back all the while.

“Hey,” you say after Asgore’s been staring for long enough to make you restless. “Is something up?”

“What?” He turns to you with round eyes. “Oh—it is nothing.”

That doesn’t sound like nothing to you, but you kinda super don’t wanna pry and make tonight weird and awkward, so you don’t push it.

Unfortunately, you’ve been sufficiently shaken out of your groove that you can’t think of anything to actually talk about. Shit. Some smooth charming funny guy you are.

“How have you been doing lately, Sans?” Asgore says, and oh thank fuck that at least one of you is capable of prompting small talk.

“Ehh. So-so. I mean, it ain’t all bad—nothin’ can be all bad when you keep gettin’ quality hangout time with your very handsome pal, you know?” Asgore smiles, and you smile back. “I oughtta be grateful to you for gettin’ me out of the house, honestly. I uh, haven’t been doing much of that lately, aside from therapy and helping Tori with paperwork.”

Shit. It’s gotta be one of the worst social gaffes in the world to just casually start babbling about your date’s ex, but unfortunately for your brain your mouth has built up momentum and you just gotta try to ride it through. “She’s, uh. I dunno if she’s said as much to you but she’s grateful you’ve been lettin’ the kids stay at your place for so long. Y’know she’s really oh, do not worry about me, I am fine, but I think the stress’s been getting to her a little.”

“Oh, I see,” says Asgore, in a very pleasant and neutral tone with a very pleasant and neutral expression. He doesn’t look woeful or anything the way he did when you and Tori first got to see each other face to face, but you can’t help but think of Asriel saying You don’t understand how messed up Dad still is about—about Mom and lots of other things and your insides curdle a bit.

“I kinda think she oughtta like—try to find a therapist too, if she doesn’t wanna talk to any of us. ‘Specially once she trades all this red tape for a whole high school to worry about running too. Not, uh, that she’d listen if I tried to make her. ‘S not really my place to decide that anyway.

“But—uhhh,” you say, scrabbling now for a way to turn this into a safer subject, “speakin’ of Tori’s school. Come to think of it, I still haven’t been. You, uh, you take care of the grounds, and Papyrus is still over the moon about that hedge in the shape of his face, and it’s a shame I haven’t gotten around to taking a look. Maybe you could show me sometime.”

“Indeed,” says Asgore, and maybe it’s just your imagination but he seems to have relaxed so you breathe a private sigh of relief.

“So uh—how’ve you been doing, big guy?” you ask.

“Well enough, like you,” he says, and folds his hands, dropping his gaze to them instead of looking straight at you. “In a way, it helps to have the children around. It’s better, to have the house be so lively, so that I do not have to actually leave in order to see other people. Sometimes it is difficult to work up the energy, or to convince myself that I truly deserve to interact with others. But… the children can be overwhelming in some senses, as well.”

He doesn’t volunteer anything beyond that, and you’re super not gonna ask because hell if you’re gonna take this conversation in an awkward direction again.

“There is also the work. I do owe Toriel a great debt for the times that she assists us on the political side of things. Your own brother’s help is invaluable, too. Frisk will not be ready to fully step into their role as our main ambassador for years yet—not in terms of their training, and not mentally and emotionally, either. Determined as they are, they are still young.”

“Must be tough bein’ raised for such a big job,” you supply. “I can only imagine. You’d know what it’s like better than anyone.”

Asgore blinks for a moment. “Oh. You are right—I suppose that I would.”

There’s another awkward beat here where you wonder if you’re supposed to say something, but then Asgore smiles and folds his fingers around the stem of his wineglass.

“It has certainly helped to keep busy in my private life. To be outdoors in my garden and with the landscaping at the school, as well as taking care of the children, and… meeting with Undyne and Alphys, with the neighbors, for community projects.

“Seeing you, in particular, has been—a very bright spot, Sans. I’m very grateful for your company and friendship. It has helped me feel a lot less… bonely, as you would probably put it.”

Okay, that’s it, you’re super dead. You just have no defense against people who use skeleton puns for the sole purpose of being cute at you.

“I feel the same way,” you say, and it comes out embarrassingly creaky. “I kinda… I think… look, d’you wanna maybe, uhhh. Go out like this more often, like as a regular thing?”

“I would very much enjoy that,” Asgore says, smiling. Fuck. Fuck.

“Like… not just more often, but… officially.” You cover your face with your hands, then let them slide off to clatter on the tabletop pathetically.

Across from you, Asgore is still smiling. He reaches out across the table with his free hand and covers yours.

“If you are asking me on further dates—” holy shit he said the d-word holy fuck— “then, ah,” and here he glances to the side, and you do too: Astis has returned, and is pushing a cart with your entrees on it; “that would be shrimply wonderful, no mis-steak.”

Your entire body feels as fizzy and light as your drink. “Holy shit. I really, really like you.”

Asgore chuckles. “I really like you as well, Sans.”

You have to stop holding hands to let Astis set the food out, but that exchange was worth it, you think.

You fall asleep that night thinking about stargazing with your new boyfriend one day when the weather’s milder and you’re in shape enough to actually follow him hiking, and it’s been a long time since you’ve looked forward to something this much, or felt this good about a promise.