FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 4

An Unexpected Courtship

"What?" Sans looked at Toriel with a frozen smile. "What have you got to be sorry about, Tori?" He seated himself on the couch about a foot from Toriel and was disheartened to see that, as he sat down, the queen leaned ever so slightly away from him. Her gaze flicked nervously back and forth between Sans's face and her paws folded on her lap.

"I...ah. This is difficult for me. Forgive me." She drew a deep breath and started over. "Because of physiological compulsions that are...unavoidable for me, I fear that I heedlessly have been taking certain...inadvertent liberties with you, conducting myself in an unseemly manner that I fear has given you offense--"

"Tori." Sans held up a hand to stop her. "Tori, this isn't a diplomatic negotiation. It's not a human city councillor or state senator you're jawing with here. It's me, Sans, your friend. You can put away the four-syllable words and just talk. What makes you think you've offended me?"

Toriel flashed Sans a look of dejection with her soft brown eyes then dropped her gaze again. "You did not answer my texts," she said in a voice Sans had never heard from her before, a quiet, almost girlish voice like that of a bashful child.

"I didn't get any texts!" Sans's smile faded as he patted the pockets of his hoodie and his shorts, finally locating his phone. "Oh," he said, pushing its buttons fruitlessly. "Looks, uh, looks like I should've plugged it in when I got here this morning."

At this news Toriel lifted her head, eyes lit up. "You mean...you were not ignoring me?"

"Jeez, Tori, I wouldn't ever ignore anything you said. What's gotten into you? Ten minutes ago you were in a lot...well, better mood than this."

The queen's deep, shining eyes dimmed again. "I was," she said. "But as I waited here and you still did not come back even after I told you I was awaiting you, I began to wonder if I had not made a dreadful mistake. Therefore I..." Her words faltered and she held out her phone for Sans to see. It was open to a chat window entitled "Sans" and it held four short messages.

12:37 [Sans, I have frightened you off, have I not]

12:39 [Please come back Sans]

12:40 [I]

12:40 [I love you]

Sans's eye-sockets goggled wide and the light within them glowed brightly. "Tori, I don't know what to--"

But Toriel was talking breathlessly now, her voice unnaturally high and shaky, threatening any moment to dissolve into frantic laughter. Her paws clutched at her violet dress, twisting the fabric into knots. "I do not know what came over me, sending that! Behaving in this manner, as though I were a girl of twenty years again with nothing more important to do than moon over young Prince Asgore as we walked together in his father's garden. But I am an old woman now, an old woman with heavy responsibilities, to whom all monsterkind is looking for guidance during this great transition, I ought never--"

"Tori. Tori." Sans caught up her paws in his hands, bony fingers lightly stroking them. "C'mon, Tori, calm down. Paws and take five, okay?"

Toriel blinked for a few moments and then laughed, a long, genuine, relieved laugh. "Oh dear, Sans..." she said at last, recovering her breath but still giggling. "I have been blithering, haven't I?"

"A little. But it's okay. Tori, It's going to be all right." His own thoughts were far less calm than his manner but still, as he caressed Toriel's paws, they and she relaxed. "That's better."

Toriel's calm, even breathing restored her to a measure of tranquility. Her paws loosened and she permitted Sans to interlace the digits of his hands with hers. "Thank you, Sans. You always know just what to say to put me at my ease and lighten my heart. I suppose that is one reason I began to...well..." She bowed her head but her eyes still looked up shyly at Sans's face. "Sans...I have not felt this giddy in hundreds of years."

Sans flushed a pale blue. "I...uh...I'm flattered, Tori. But, gee, going from a seven-foot-tall warrior king to, well, me? It's a bit of a stretch."

"I do not want a warrior in my life!" Toriel exclaimed. "Heavens...after all that has happened, Sans, do you think I want anyone close to me who reminds me of war and violence? No. I want kindness and compassion and gentle humor. I want your admirable qualities, Sans_._"

"But I'm not an aristocrat or anything. I'm not classy like you. I sleep half the day. I leave dirty socks lying around the house for my brother to clean up. I--"

"Sans. Sans." She glared at him with mild reproach. "Do you really think that I give the least shred of consideration to any of this trivia? I was no 'aristocrat' either, when I married the prince. I was a callow and wayward girl with a little schooling who fell in love with a manly chest and a strong pair of arms."

"Jeez, Tori...it's really hard to think of you as 'callow and wayward'. You're, well, smart and imposing and amazing. Everyone thinks so."

Toriel chuckled. "Such traits can be learned, even by the callow. I suppose I had to grow into the job of queen, when the old king 'fell down' and Asgore took his place. One of us had to be a leader and Fluffybuns, poor dear Fluffybuns...I really did love him, you know, Sans. He had his own admirable qualities, truly he did, but making difficult decisions of state was not one of them."

"I'm pretty sure it's not one of mine either, Tori."

"Sans! I'm not asking you to be my king, I'm asking you to be my lover_._That is a very different thing." She sighed. "Do you know...after we were freed and I learned that Asgore wanted only to abdicate and hide forever from public view, I was glad. Then I learned it was hoped I would resume leadership of the monsters as queen again...at first, I wished not to do it. I had wanted only to retire myself, devote myself to raising my dear child, perhaps teach. But everyone was looking to me--and to Frisk, the two of us together. Together we had become the symbols of monsterkind's hopes and dreams."

Sans nodded. "Yeah, you were. Even I felt it, and I didn't even know you--well, I didn't know that you used to be King Asgore's queen. But then when we got to the surface and Asgore announced he was quitting and wanted to be left alone, there you were, saying all the right words and looking so regal and impressive, hand in hand with the kid who saved all of us...if you weren't gonna be the best leader we could possibly hope for, who was?"

Toriel nodded a little sadly. "I knew it was necessary. Indeed...I confess to learning that I enjoyed assuming the queenly role again after so long away from it. But after the tension of those first weeks on the Surface had eased and I settled into my new routine, even with my new duties and my child to keep me preoccupied, I found myself growing increasingly..." She looked at Sans in silent appeal. "...lonely."

"Oh." Sans giggled nervously. "That kind of lonely."

Toriel averted her eyes, suddenly diffident again. "I had so forgotten what it was like, to have that...close companionship and intimacy in my life. Once I had told myself that I no longer merited them ever again, that loneliness and laborious austerity for the rest of my days was the fitting punishment for my cowardice. But then I would see you again..." She gazed at him, eyes aglow. "...and for a while I would forget that I did not deserve happiness, and remember again what it was like to be happy."

"Aw, Tori..." Sans flushed deeper blue. "Gosh. I dunno what to say. I'm...honored. I'm glad my hanging out with you made such a big difference in your life. But you really want to settle for a four-foot-tall skeleton with a goofy face who tells bad jokes? I mean, if you're into manly chests and strong arms, you might wanna look somewhere else."

Toriel smiled. "I am no longer twenty, Sans. And even then there were many other tastes that I enjoyed. Besides..." She began gently stroking the bones of one of Sans's hands, running her paw-pads lightly over their complicated surfaces. Sans flushed even deeper blue. "I wonder if you fully appreciate the unique charms you have, Sans. You are not without a certain..." She leaned a little closer and Sans could feel the passion in her gaze and in the warm breath from her nostrils playing over his cheekbone. "...unconventional magnetism." But then she straightened up again and disengaged one of her paws from Sans's grasp so she could rub her long face with it. "Dear me! Here I go again, carrying on like a lovesick adolescent. I suppose you must find all of this attention unwarranted and perhaps unwelcome--"

"I love you too, Tori."

Sans's statement hung in the air between them, casting about itself a cloak of silence and stillness that enfolded them both. Toriel froze in the middle of stroking her muzzle and for several long moments she sat motionless with her paw held to her face. Sans heard no sounds from Papyrus's room, no sounds from outside, not even the gentle rise and fall of Toriel's breathing. Then she dropped her paw to her lap, reaching once again for Sans's hand, and the spell was broken.

"You...you do?" Toriel's fascinating eyes gleamed brightly and her lips parted in a small grin that just showed her fangs.

"Um...yeah. Yeah, I do." The ardor in her gaze was temporarily too much for Sans to handle and he dipped his head, studying the shape of Toriel's paws and feeling her slender digits against his bones. "Guess I have for a while, but, well, it sort of needed Frisk and Papyrus to make it obvious to me. It's, uh, kinda new to me, actually..." He wondered exactly what shade of blue his cheekbones had attained by now.

"Oh, Sans!" Without thinking Toriel threw herself forward, flinging her arms around the small body of the skeleton in a tight hug. Sans stiffened at first, then coaxed himself into returning the hug. But he only got to enjoy the feeling of her soft-furred and aromatic body pressing against his for a second, for she released him from the embrace and stared at him, her brown eyes filled with anxiety.

"Sans, I felt you tense up. Did I do something wrong?"

"No! It's not you, Tori. It's just...whenever someone hugs me, it always makes me think just for a moment there's something I should remember."

--blinding light, a ruined face, the feeling of his arms clutching a body one moment and air the next--

Sans shuddered and Toriel enclosed one of his hands in both her paws. The warmth and gentle pressure soothed him, the image faded as quickly as it had come, and he essayed a smile.

"Nothing to worry about, Tori. Just a memory. Maybe something I dreamed even."

"Are you sure?" Her eyes remained worried. "That did not look or feel like nothing."

Sans gave vent to an exaggerated sigh. "Y'know, Tori, it's really hard to say 'no' when you're looking at me that way."

A gleam of something other than concern flashed into Toriel's eyes and she twitched an eye in a half-wink. "Indeed? I shall have to keep that in mind." The moment passed and she was solemn again.

"It's just...you recall, Tori, how you asked me if I had a mom or a dad? And I told you I don't remember anyone? Thing is, I feel like maybe I did have a dad. Or someone, anyway."

"Do you mean...do you think he is dead now?"

"No...it's weirder than that." Sans drew an uncertain breath. "I get...flashes. Like dreams that I forget even as I'm trying to remember them. But I feel like there used to be someone else other than just Papyrus and me. It all melts away when I try to grab hold of any of it, though." He closed his eyes. "D'ya know, I don't remember how I wound up living in Snowdin? Papyrus doesn't remember. Nobody I met there remembered. Early on I tried to find out more and I wandered near and far, trying to find some clue, maybe someone who could tell me something, but nobody could. Everyone I asked just looked puzzled. 'Haven't you always lived here?' they might say." Sans reopened his eyes and gazed into Toriel's. "But I guess all that wandering around wasn't a total waste. I found you, didn't I?"

Toriel's face shone for a moment with joy. "Yes. But..." Then the joy faded. "But what does this have to do with hugs?"

"Well," said Sans, looking away, "there's one dream or vision or whatever I get where my dad, or whoever it is...I think they're in a lab and there's some accident going on and I'm trying to save them. I'm trying to hold onto them, pull them away, but then...there's no lab, there's no accident, there's nobody in my arms. It's like nothing was ever wrong." He forced a chuckle. "Maybe nothing ever was."

"Sans," asked Toriel, "I feel that I should hug you again. May I?"

"Sure, Tori."

Tentatively she approached Sans, sliding her arms gradually around him, pulling him slowly into a tight embrace, resting her long muzzle on top of his skull. Sans tried to prevent his momentary flinch; he failed, but in the next moment he wrapped his arms as far as he could around Toriel's Junoesque waist and settled himself against her chest, one cheekbone resting against the gentle contour of her breast.

"Is that what you have feared, Sans?" Toriel whispered. "Is that why you never told me how you felt? Because you thought that the moment I drew close, I would disappear?"

Sans wanted to open his mouth and say, That isn't the half of it, Tori! He wished he could tell her all the things his fleeting visions had shown him, all the moments illuminated as if by flashes of lightning in which she was dead, in which his brother was dead, in which he confronted a diabolical apparition clad in a blue and purple striped shirt covered with dust, advancing on him with a cruel smile and a knife at the ready--an apparition that was a mere child, _her_child.

But Sans felt her reassuring weight against his small frame, felt her paws stroking up and down the back of his hoodie, heard her murmuring his name, breathed in the earthy smell of her body pressed so close to his, and he could not bring himself to spoil the moment. Sans pushed his nightmares back into the recesses of his mind, closed his eyes and gave in to the sensations of Toriel's body enveloping his own.