Chapter Text
Sans stood outside the little yellow house on the corner of Ashbury and Second, hands buried deep in the pockets of his hoodie, bone fingers curled into tight fists. The porch light was on. She was home. Again.
He hadn’t meant to come here tonight. Or last night. Or the one before that. But he was drawn to the house like gravity pulling on a dead planet. It was sick, maybe. He’d be the first to admit that. But it wasn’t wrong . Not when it was her.
She was the first kind thing he’d known in a long, long time. Not the sugary-sweet pity of a pacifist. Not the trembling kindness of someone afraid to die. No, she was something else. She didn’t know who he was. She didn’t know what he was.
And still, she laughed with him.
That was months ago, at a comic shop, of all places. He had wandered inside trying to avoid the sun—he still hated the brightness, even now, even after . She’d been in the horror section, comparing B-movie DVDs with someone on the phone, giggling about how stupid the practical effects were in one called Insectocalypse II: The Brood Awakens .
He remembered that moment exactly. The way her hand had traced the plastic edge of the DVD case. The sound of her laughter—dry, amused, careless. The scent of her shampoo when she passed him in the aisle. Something citrusy. He couldn’t forget it if he tried.
He tried. He really did.
But he kept showing up. First at the shop. Then at the diner she liked. The museum with the pinned insect exhibit. The bus stop. Her street. And when she finally said hi—when she offered a small wave and that uneven smile—he told himself it wasn’t stalking. It was just… paying attention.
She was lonely. He could tell. That’s what made it okay.
Inside her house, the light in the living room flickered. Dust!Sans tilted his skull. She was watching something. A movie. He could hear the muffled sounds of screaming, canned thunder, a laugh track.
She liked horror comedies. She loved them.
He crept closer to the window, crouching beside the flowerbed, careful not to crush the little metal beetle figurine she had stuck in the soil. She had a whole set of them—he’d counted. Twelve. One for each month, she once said.
Tonight, she was alone on the couch, a bowl of popcorn resting on her knees, legs curled up. The light of the TV made her face glow. She smiled when something stupid happened on screen—a severed head bouncing like a basketball. He memorized the shape of her smile again, just in case he ever forgot.
He wouldn’t.
The first time he entered her house, it wasn’t planned.
She forgot to lock the back door.
He waited until she left for groceries, and then he slipped in, silent as death. The house was small, messy in an endearing way. Half-drunk coffee mugs on bookshelves. Stacks of entomology magazines. Shoes by the door, scuffed and worn. A giant plush spider hanging from the ceiling fan.
He breathed it all in—figuratively, of course. No lungs. But something in his soul inhaled the place like incense. He touched nothing. Moved nothing.
Except the mug.
He washed one of her mugs and placed it back cleaner than it had probably ever been.
A gift.
Later, when she noticed him more—when she started waiting outside after her shifts just to say hi, or bringing up obscure insect facts because he’d told her (lied, maybe) that he found them cool—he felt something start to bloom in his ribcage. Something horrible and lovely.
It was love. He was sure of it. Not the weak, surface-level kind humans blabbed about. The real thing. Bone-deep. Apocalyptic. A love that burned like the end of timelines.
He was careful with her. Gentle. He didn’t raise his voice. He brought her little things—dropped off anonymously, of course. A movie she mentioned wanting. A preserved beetle pin in a glass dome. A paper note that said, “you looked pretty when you laughed at that decapitation scene.”
He wrote that one three times. Burned the first two for being too much .
She seemed nervous after that. Jumpier. She checked her locks more.
But she didn’t stop talking to him.
And that meant something, didn’t it?
One night, she cried. He watched her from the window again—same spot, same crouch, the grass flattened beneath his boots. She was alone, shaking, pressing a pillow to her chest like it was the last thing anchoring her to the Earth.
He hated it. Hated whoever hurt her. Hated himself for not being inside.
But he couldn’t go in. Not yet. She had to ask him in. That’s what love was. Mutual. Sacred.
So he waited. Stalked, some might say.
But in his mind, it was protection. A holy vigil.
He started dreaming of her. Dreams made from broken timelines and static, where she would hold his face in her hands and say, “I see you.” He woke up feeling drunk on it.
Her scent lingered on him for hours after they spoke. His hoodie held it like memory.
Sometimes, he’d lie on the roof of her house, staring at the stars, imagining her asleep beneath him. Safe. Warm. Breathing.
Alive.
He would kill for her. Again, if needed. Without hesitation. He already had , hadn’t he? Just to get here?
That was love.
He was certain of it.