Fin
Pain shot throughout your stomach, but it wasn’t as bad as you could imagine. It was enough to keep you from falling back asleep though. Hesitantly, you cracked open your eyes, blinded temporarily by the brightness of the waking world.
“Oh! They’re awake!” a soft and motherly voice called out in the room. Followed were some murmurs that grew excited soon after.
Once your vision cleared, you surveyed the room. It was pretty crowded with most of your friends, Alphys, Frisk, Toriel, Undyne, Papyrus as well, but he was excitedly running out the door to apparently go get a nurse. The only two who weren’t there were Blake and Sans. The small group crowded over the bed you were laying on.
“Man, you took quite the hit!” Undyne shouted first, making you wince from both the volume and groggy memory. Trying to pull up anything besides the pain you felt just resulted in nothing. Maybe it would come back later, even though you might not want it to come back.
“Sh-she’s just s-saying th-that we were very w-worried about y-you,” Alphys intercepted, giving you a sheepish grin. You returned a small smile of your own.
Frisk patted your knee reassuringly just as Papyrus re-entered the room with the nurse almost being dragged behind him. She went over the details of your injury, and it did not sound very pretty. If the bone was an inch in any other direction it would have been possible that you wouldn’t have made it. The thought was terrifying to you. Once the nurse had made sure that you were alright, she left you to go and chat with your visitors. After a while you asked to call up Blake to tell them what happened. They came running through the door in an amazing amount of time, taking a minute to catch their breath before freaking out over you.
“Holy crap are you okay?!” their volume was getting close to Papyrus’ levels of loudness. Toriel noticed your discomfort and shushed them quickly. They apologized in a quieter voice, scratching the back of their neck.
You laughed softly, regretting soon after when pain shot through you, “I’m as ‘okay’ as I can be in this situation.”
They looked about ready to grab your shoulders and shake you, “Who did this? It couldn’t have been something you did on yourself, could it?”
“I-it was an accident,” you winced, “he- he didn’t mean to d-do it,” I hope…
“Accident or not someone’s getting an ass-kicking!” gosh they were starting to sound like Undyne.
“It’s alright Blake, seriously.”
“I don’t think you being in the hospital right now counts as ‘alright,’ _____,” they crossed their arms, raising an eyebrow at you.
“Honestly, we don’t need a second person in the hospital,” you deadpanned, causing Undyne to bark out in laughter.
You and Blake continued bickering for a bit, and you managed to convince them to not go out and hunt down Sans, and the conversation turned to the rest of the group. It was a nice way to forget about everything that had happened, a nice escape for the moment. But the distraction had to come to an end at some point, and you wished that none of them had to leave when visiting hours were over.
Now it was just you, alone. You stared at Sans’ contact on your phone for a few minutes, contemplating if you should call him or not. He had hurt you, hurt you enough to send you to the hospital. He was hurting too, you were aware of that. Both of you were to blame for these events. You decided to hit the call button.
The phone rang for far too long than you would have liked. It felt like time had slowed down to a minuscule speed to spite you, it felt like an eternity had passed when Sans actually answered the call.
“_____?” he sounded so tired, his voice shaky as well.
“Hi,” you breathed, glad that he answered, “Visiting hours are over for now, but I think it would be nice to see you sometime.”
“...you, you really want to see me?”
“Of course, I know whatever you did, you didn’t mean to actually hurt me, right?”
“i- but i,” he sighed. There was some shuffling on the other side, “it’d be better if we talk about this in person. where are you?”
“What?”
“what hospital are you at?”
You gaped at your phone, “Sans, you can’t be serious. I said visiting times are over.”
“trust me, just tell me where you are.”
Quietly groaning, you told him where you were, and within seconds he was standing in front of your bed, phone still at his non-existent ear. He looked horrible.
“You look horrible.”
“you don’t look all that great either,” he chuckled, taking a seat in one of the available chairs.
“So why did you need to talk to me at this instant?”
“i have some explainin’ to do.”
Sans explained to you what he meant by ‘reset’ during the whole ordeal. About how he relived the same days over and over again whilst underground, and how fearfully enough, it was Frisk who had caused a lot of it. He talked about how sometimes they would be nice and befriend everyone, resetting the whole thing the moment he got a taste of the fresh air outside. Other times Frisk would not be so kind, they would kill, sometimes just a few monsters, sometimes just Papyrus, sometimes everyone. Sans had lost count of how many times he relived those days, something slightly different depending on how merciful the kid was feeling. He talked about how he would fight them, how strong they were. The first few times he was convinced that he had won after he easily obliterated them, except they came back, again, and again. They sapped his energy away from him, and he admitted to having died multiple times.
The room was eerily quiet after, with you soaking in the details, and Sans recovering from the fully resurfaced memories.
“Wh-what about this..?”
“kid promised to not reset. don’t know how much i can trust ‘em though,” he chuckled, bringing a hand up to rub his face.
You wrung your hands, “I’m sorry…”
“not your fault.”
The room fell silent once again, neither of you were really sure on how to continue. You just stared at the wall in front of you, lost in thought.
“h-hey, _____,” Sans coughed, startling you.
“Yeah?”
“i... i think it’s best if we,” he cleared his throat, “if we, y’know, just sort of, uh, take a break?”
“I think that might be the best choice…” you nodded solemnly.
“s-so uh, before i go,” clearing his throat once again, a blue blush spread lightly on his cheeks, “c-can i just, see your soul? i uh, never really got the chance to.”
You blinked at him, processing the question for a few seconds, “Oh, uh, sure?”
“really?” he gazed at you with hopeful eye-lights. When you nodded again, he eagerly scooted the chair closer to you. With a large amount of hesitation, he brought his hand up to your chest, concentrating and slowly pulling away soon after. What followed was a brilliantly blue heart. It had cracks from the wear and tear of life, but it still shone brightly. Sans cupped your soul gently in his hands, as if the simplest thing would cause it to shatter. He gazed into the surface for what felt like forever, inspecting all he could, for this could be the only time he’d ever get to see it ever. His smile grew more genuine as he stared at it.
It really was a beautiful soul.