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yastaghr · 7 years

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Our Skeleton: Chapter 6

Our Skeleton

Characters: Asgore, Undyne, Alphys, Toriel, Papyrus, Frisk, Sans,

Pairings: Sans/Toriel/Asgore, Sansgoriel, Toriel/Asgore, Togore, Asgore/Sans, Sansgore, Sans/Toriel, Soriel, Alphyne, Alphys/Undyne

Warnings: If you see something you want a warning for, let me know.

Story Summary: The people who love him come to realise Sans may be hiding something from them. (not the best of summaries, sorry)

<–Previous || First || Next–>

Ao3

“red one. also blue. there's a really old white one - or maybe it's tan. a green one just pulling into the lot, too.”

Asgore absently rubbed at his arm while the sound of off-key singing washed over him. He stared out the window at the cars anxiously awaiting the change of the light. The remnants of rain dried out drop by drop on the car’s windows. The mottling they left behind had an interesting effect on the muted colors coming in.

“Sans, I don’t believe that they count if they’re still at the dealership. At the very least they must have tags, if not license plates.”

“don’t remember frisk ever mentioning a rule like that.”

“I think that is because they did not expect any of us to move so close to the road of car salesmen. It is much to specialized a rule for them to remember off the top of their head.”

“you’re just jealous that i remembered the rules before you did.”

He sighed, and turned around. Sans’ grin was genuine. Clearly designed to annoy him, but genuine. At least the small skeleton was enjoying his little game enough to for his mood to have picked back up from the day before. Asgore smiled contentedly at the glint in those sockets, happily losing himself in the swirling darkness within those eyes.

The singing came to a glorious, abrupt halt. Toriel, eyes still working the road around them, didn’t see Asgore and Sans’ shared sigh. Her voice had a tint of mirth, “You could say he was green with envy, could you not?”

Sans chuckled, “yup. being outdone is absolutely driving him up the wall.”

Asgore sighed, coating over his happiness with a layer of annoyance, “Quite. I’m just a stuffy old goat who deserves to be in a museum.”

“Dreemur!” Belatedly, he remembered that their destination was supposed to be a surprised. Too late.

Sans’ sockets crinkled in mirth, “ah, so that’s it. i was beginning to wonder. we passed grillby’s like ten minutes ago, and i was sure we were heading over for the sunday special. you really threw me for a loop there.”

Toriel’s guffaw overwhelmed her annoyance as the arrow finally went green and they turned left into the Large Park’s traffic loop. Asgore smiled too, wondering how much longer his wife had expected their small skeleton to remain ignorant. After all, there were only a handful of places the three of them could go from this street, and the city zoo was closed that week while a new sewage system was put in place.

“We would not dream of keeping you uninformed for long, Sans. You were certain to learn eventually, were you not? After all, this is an institute of learning.”

“heh, yup. so, which wing is it today? not the scifi exhibit, please. going with frisk’s class two weeks ago was more than enough for me. they mixed up the names of the homeworlds of skywalker, atreides, and spock. such a crime can never be forgiven.”

The two of them chuckled, having heard this rant before. Sans had been livid that this organizers of this exhibit, which was currently traveling around the world, had not had the decency to double check their signage before sending it on its way.

“No, Sans. We would not make you suffer that again. We had thought perhaps the history wing, if you are interested, and then perhaps one of the IMAX shows later on.”

Sans’ gaze immediately went to one of the enormous banners draped across the front of the building. Galaxies, planets, and stars by the millions decorated its surface.

“really?”

“We would not tell you a fibula, Sans.”

The quiet hum of Sans’ magic brightened. It was funny. Asgore had lived over a thousand years, and in that time had met hundreds of monsters. When he had met Sans in person for the first time, he had almost not realised the skeleton was there. Sans had either the quietest or the most well-hidden magic the king had ever seen.

Over the years he had learned to tune into Sans’ power, and since they had come to the surface it had become easier and easier to do. Now, he rarely lost the thread, and hearing the subdued emotions pick up like that always made him smile.

The fact that the skeleton’s big reaction was to the idea of seeing a show about the stars, and that that reaction had just won him a little bet with Toriel, obviously did not come into it.

She and Asgore meandered their way out of their first stop of the day. As much as Asgore and Toriel had heard in their negotiations about the past 1030 odd years of human history, the picture they had received was contradictory and haphazard. The overview they had just seen, at the very least, gave them a place to start to investigate further.

“I must say, humans seem to have come quite a long way since the war. A winding, faltering way, yes, but the progress they’ve made is very impressive. No wonder they produced a child like Frisk.”

Sans ambled out of the doorway behind them with an expression of mild shock, “i know frisk told me there were parts of human history where they weren’t even nice to each other, but some of that stuff is down-right unbelievable. did they really use to prevent non-male people from even getting a degree?”

Toriel sighed, “Unfortunately, yes. It was rather a surprise to hear that had changed. At the time of the war, female humans had hardly any official rights at all. In addition, the very concept that other genders even existed was utter blasphemy.”

“which god?”

Another sigh, because as simple of a question as that would be to any monster, the politics of the answer were rather depressing, “Most of them, I fear.”

Sans drooped. Asgore eyes moved between his face and her own, then drifted off in a desperate search of the museum’s signs. His gaze lit on something. He shifted his weight from his right foot to his left, nudging Sans gently in the direction of the stairs.

“Look over there! Toriel, it seems they have an exhibit on the plants of the Mt. Ebott subregion. what do you say to a bit of nostalgia?”

She and her longtime partner shared a look. Eventually, she gave in, “Very well, Dreemur. We shall go look at the plants.”

The way his cheeks pulled back into a delighted grin almost made up for the unending stream of plant facts she knew was about to endure. After Asgore had turned, she saw Sans’ right hand move in a blur that any monster alive would recognize as coming from Frisk.

-patella the truth, i haven’t had a chance to root through some of my plant puns in more years than the snowdin trees have rings. what’d’ya say to a pun off? i won’t tell gori if you don’t.-

,Her face broke into a grin, and she responded in kind.

-Stem-thing tells me you have quite the garden to pull from.-

At a tug from Asgore, Sans moved on, but tossed the next set of signs at her from behind his back.

-plant puns are where i got my seed, tori. it’ll be nice to get back to my roots.- Cheeky boy. He had no idea what he had gotten himself into.

“Oh my, Sans. I am sorry. I assure you, I had no idea they had such things here.”

Toriel tried politely to avert her eyes. Fluffybuns appeared to be somewhat hypnotized by the things, his eyes practically bulging.

Sans, despite the posted signs, had once again pulled his phone out of his pocket. He had yet look up at the exhibit in this particular room.

“what, did we run into yet another mislabeled sign? they should put up a warning label at this rate: ‘accurate signage not guarenteed.”

The short skeleton finally looked up from his phone. His expression didn’t flicker, “oh, is that it? they’re just skeletons tori. nothing new here, unless someone lost count and rounded up.”

Gori’s mouth, working in much the same manner as a fish, managed to find words before she herself had recovered from the shock. Perhaps not the most helpful, but still.

“Aren’t you...Sans, I...isn’t this...they don’t have any clothes.”

He ended with a note in his voice she remembered from quite a long time ago.

It had been the first time they had taken young Asriel to meet his kingdom. Of course, the first thing the toddler had done was spill sea tea all over his new robes. Then, for some reason unfathomable to his parents, he had decided to strip bare and run around flailing the soggy cloth like a flag.

Gerson had been amused, and, after Asriel had been rounded up, proceeded to educate Asgore as to the ways of toddlers by sharing an almost identical story about the first time he had babysat for Asgore himself. The then-queen had reacted in much the same manner as Asgore did, and had it not been for his father, he might have had an earlier introduction to her famous sense of justice than he in fact did.

Sans, in the present, blinked, “well yeah. makes it easier to see the vertebrae.”

Finally, Toriel found her voice, “Still, Sans. This is rather...lewd, is it not?”

He tilted his skull at her, “um, no? they’re not alive, tori. anyway, they’re human. if some dead human wants to spend their time going bare bones in a dusty display case, i ain’t gonna judge.”

The two royal goatnesses wallowed in mutual confusion, “But…”

Sans sighed, tucking his phone back into his pocket. His right hand found the edge of the bandage on his left and fiddled with it as he spoke.

“look, guys. it’s...weird, yeah, but not gross or anything. you saw those paintings a few rooms back, right? if humans can put up with seeing pictures of their own, flesh-wrapped species like that in here, i can put up with a few naked pelvic regions. and, again, it’s not like they’re monster skeletons. there’s enough of a difference that it ain’t too bad.”

His sockets had swiveled slowly over and now faced the glass-encased display directly. His tone grew more thoughtful.

“they’re not that ugly, either. not like me, anyway. they’re tall. got proper, straight spinal columns. the ribs are nicely spread. good ratios of leg to torso, too. i can get admiring skeletons like these.”

As the speech tapered off, Toriel heard the note of envy and dismay enter his voice. Her mind instantly derailed from its ‘This is insensitive, I must fix this’ train of thought and switched over to another. Her eyes gleamed red, and she could not help but feel a certain amount of pride at the speed with which Asgore pulled himself up.

“That is a blatant lie, Sans.”

Their skeleton gave her a look of weary dissent, so she pressed on, “While I admit that your analysis of their place in this museum is kinder, and less biased, than mine might be, I must disagree with you about the aesthetics. Their heights are almost strained, are they not? One feels that there is not nearly enough bone to justify that amount of verticality.”

Sans’ eye lights had shrunk. Asgore, contemplating the exhibit with a more critical eye, pondered aloud, “The spines are too straight to be healthy. They would not give an inch, I think. The poor soul would be stuck at permanent attention. The ribs are too gapy, too. I would worry about something poking through, like a door handle or a spear. That spine wouldn’t let them dodge at all. They would have no option but to stand there and wait until help could arrive.”

Sans turned to the inanimate skeletons with an air of great distrust. His focus shifted around, stopping at every joint and section of cartilage.

Toriel hummed thoughtfully, “In truth, the shapes of their skulls are rather lackluster, wouldn’t you agree, Gori?”

“Why, yes. They haven’t much emotion or animation, do they? Even if they could move. And those sockets are so small, too. I wonder how they would be able to see?” Sans’ hand had moved to rub at the rounded curves of his own skull. She padded over, Asgore mirroring her movements. She pulled Sans into a hug.

Asgore knelt down and whispered against Sans’ skull, “We could very well go on for days, you adorable monster. None of those skeletons hold so much as a spark to the supernova that is you.”

She felt their skeleton start shaking in her arms and went to move away. A tight grip on her dress held her back, and she surrendered. The three of them stayed there with her and Gori forming an almost perfect shield around the trembling skeleton until the tremors abated and Sans spoke.

“i, um...guess i was being a bit of a bonehead there, huh?”

She hummed and held him tighter, “No, my dearest skeleton. You were merely being you.”

She nuzzled down on the top of his head and did not let him go until Gori pointed out to her that if they did not leave soon, they would miss their show.

“-and did you see that third shot of ngc 1952? that had to have been a hydrogen-alpha filter, but the detail on it - i can’t believe it! getting a shot like that they had to have used an observatory. no way a backyard telescope would have picked up the shading on the lower right dust clouds, least ways not that well. wonder who shot it? d’ya think they might have someone who would know?”

Asgore planted a kiss atop the skeleton’s skull as they made their way up the stairs.

“It would not hurt to ask.”

Sans stopped so suddenly asgore nearly knocked him over, “heh. you’re right. why- i can - i-”

The lack of motion ended without any warning. Sans went from worryingly still to bounding up the stairs two at a time. He hollered back at them, “i’ll be right back. meet you by the m-k-raptor skeleton, kay? bye!”

The two Boss Monsters watched his retreating form vanish around the curve of the stairs with glowing cheeks.

“Do you think he is aware that his eye lights are currently shaped into glowing blue stars?”

Asgore chuckled, “No, I don’t believe he is. I’ve never seen him this excited before in his life.”

Toriel’s smile slowly faded into a frown. His mind caught up with his mouth, and the implication of that sentence hit him like a train.

“Asgore-”

“Tori-”

Their nostrils flared, then softened. Their intentions synced beautifully, the separate fields of their magics intersecting and merging, every wave amplifying the next.

“Do you think it would be too much of a bother for you to pamper our newest partner for the next few days? I believe I have a bit of research to do.”

He saw her lips pull back in something closely resembling a smile, but without any of the warmth.

“Of course, my dear. Only as long as you promise to let me have a turn, supposing what we suspect to be true is indeed so.”

He knew his expression matched her own.

“I would not dream of doing it any other way.”

#sansgoriel #our skeleton fanfic #sans the skeleton #toriel #asgore #museum #undertale fanfiction #naked skeletons #display ones though #bad signage #astronomy #plant puns #chapter 6 #yastaghr

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