FSE

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Chapter 6

Dinner or Dessert

"Er, pardon me for saying this, friends," asked Papyrus, "but shouldn't we think about having some sort of dinner before eating dessert? A balanced diet is important!"

Late afternoon sunshine was slanting through the windows of Sans's and Papyrus's house by the time the two brothers, Toriel, and Frisk sat down at the dining room table with a selection of pies in front of them: a classic apple, a pumpkin pie, and the original goal of Sans's boozy baking experiment days before, a chocolate cream pie topped with meringue toasted a golden brown.

"Bro, we're made of magic," Sans replied. "I don't think recommended dietary allowances mean much for us."

"But the young human should be getting their vitamins and minerals! I should cook them a nutritious pasta dish!" Papyrus began to push his chair away from the table.

"My dear Papyrus!" said Toriel. "I assure you that my child gets a healthful diet in the regular course of their week. This is a special occasion! I think they will survive one meal of dessert without dinner."

Frisk leaned over to Sans and whispered a few words, one of which sounded like "snails". Sans's eyes twinkled and he began chuckling. "Nice one, kiddo."

"Frisk!" Toriel looked at them, slightly nettled. "I thought you enjoyed my snail cuisine!"

"I do, mom," they signed. "But a change is nice."

Toriel, mollified, handed the pie knife to Sans. "I believe, dear Sans, that you should have the honor of the first slice." She scooted her chair a little closer to Sans's and leaned over to nose his cheekbone. "You have done a wonderful job in the kitchen, my dear. You are an excellent student."

"Aw, Tori," said Sans, blushing. "We don't know that yet, we haven't tasted anything."

"I am confident in the success of your efforts," Toriel said into Sans's cheekbone.

Despite the pleasant distraction of Toriel's muzzle pressed to his face Sans succeeded in serving himself a wedge of chocolate cream pie. "And for you, Tori?" he asked.

"Apple for me, please," she answered, giving Sans's cheekbone a final nuzzle and peck before turning her attention to the food.

"Pumpkin," signed Frisk.

"And I shall have a slice of apple pie as well, brother," said Papyrus.

"Okay!" Sans served up the various pies. Papyrus topped their apple pie with Nice Cream but Toriel opted to eat hers without it. Frisk scooped an enormous mound of whipped cream onto their pumpkin pie before tucking into it. Sans waited nervously as the others began to sample their desserts.

"So...they're fine...right?" he timidly asked.

Frisk swallowed their mouthful of pie, smiled and gave an "OK" sign and a thumbs up. Papyrus nodded excitedly.

"This is superb, Sans! I believe even Muffet would be pleased."

"Indeed, Sans," Toriel said. "If this is how well you perform after one session of hands-on instruction, I cannot wait to see what skills you develop after some advanced..." She began to giggle and Sans smiled, knowing exactly what was coming. "...tu-Toriels."

Sans and Frisk both laughed but Papyrus sagged in his seat. "Your--that is--Lady Toriel," he asked, "Haven't I heard this joke from you before?"

Sans winked at his brother. "You'd better count on hearing it again, bro, and a lot of others too. I expect Tori will be dropping by a lot more often in the near future, won't you, Tori?"

Toriel smiled a broad, toothy smile and executed some unseen maneuver under the table that made Sans jump a little in his seat, his eye-sockets popping open wide. "Indeed, I should predict that you will be seeing far more of me soon. If, dear Sans, you are willing to entertain me as a suitor?"

"Oh, I'm game, Tori. The queen can come to call on me as often as it suits her."

Toriel clapped her paws together with a joyous laugh. Sans giggled. Papyrus's face bore a smile that was equal parts "that's wonderful!" happiness and "what have I gotten myself into" dismay.

"That's...lovely!" Papyrus said. "I'm glad, Lady Toriel, that you'll be gracing our house with your presence and your...your...er, overflowing wit. Nyeh heh...heh...oh dear."

"Papyrus, I must know." Toriel turned to the flustered skeleton with a compassionate smile. "You have always reacted to our little jokes with some degree of vexation. Does the wordplay in which your brother and I indulge...truly offend you? For I will gladly refrain if you wish it."

Papyrus gasped in horror. "Your Highness!" he exclaimed, swiftly bowing his head. "I wouldn't dream of telling you what you should or shouldn't do!"

"Then tell me, dear Papyrus, what troubles you about our puns?"

"I'm no good at them," he squeaked.

Toriel's eyes widened. "What are you saying?"

"I'm no good at them!" Papyrus clutched his hands together in front of himself. "Even after studying Sans's joke books! As long as I've lived with my brother I've wanted to be able to keep up with him and his puns but when I'm in the middle of a conversation I can't think of a single one!"

Frisk pushed their now-empty plate away from them and dug out their notebook, quickly scribbing a few words down and holding them up for Papyrus and then everyone else to see: "Fangs for visiting our website."

"Frisk! You remember that? Nyeh! My one successful pun!" Papyrus's face brightened for a second, then fell again. "But by the time I thought of it Sans had already left the room..."

"Papyrus, bro..." Sans reached over and laid a friendly hand over his brother's. "Just 'cause you're not fluent with dad jokes doesn't mean anything. It's just a silly thing Tori and me do. Doesn't mean you're not the coolest brother ever. 'Cause you are."

"Thanks, Sans, but it makes me a little sad that I can't share this with you," said Papyrus. "It feels like one more thing you're great at that I can't do. Like math."

"Hey, bro, listen." Sans looked his brother in the face. "Do you want me to list all the things I'm terrible with but you're great at? Like keeping this place afloat, for one." He gestured to indicate the household around them. "And if you really want to get good at puns, Papyrus, I can always put you through training."

"Sans, you've never made this offer before!" said Papyrus.

"You never told me you were interested, bro."

"You'd train me, really?"

"Me?" Sans grinned, lazily pushing some crumbs of pie crust around his plate with his fork. "Nah, I'd just get Undyne to do it. You actually listen to her. She'd be better at it anyway. I'd go too easy on you but she'd put you through a_pun_-ishing workout."

"...Argh!"

---

With "dinner" over, the dining table cleared, and the leftover pies wrapped with Saran and stowed in the refrigerator, Toriel hugged Frisk and gave them permission, joyfully accepted, to accompany Papyrus back to his room, ostensibly to solve puzzles again. "Besides," she had told Frisk out of Papyrus's earshot, "Sans and I may wish to exchange a few words on personal affairs_._ I am sure you understand, my child." So with a nod, a knowing smile and a flurry of signs Frisk had run off, tugging Papyrus with them by the hand, and Sans had followed Toriel into the kitchen where she set herself immediately to the tidying-up.

"Gee, Tori, you don't have to do the dishes too," said an embarrassed Sans as he leaned a shoulder against the refrigerator, watching Toriel stride about the kitchen, gathering up utensils and rinsing dirty plates. "I may be lazy but I do keep the kitchen cleaned up. When I get round to it."

"It's no trouble, Sans," said Toriel over her shoulder as she stacked dishes in the brothers' dishwasher. "I suppose it has become something of a reflex with me, having had nothing to do for so long but maintain a household, but--"

"Tori. Tori." Sans pushed himself away from the refrigerator and went to Toriel, slipping his arms about her waist and resting his cheekbone against her back. At the first touch of Sans's hands Toriel grew quiet, stilling her restless limbs and closing her eyes, letting her paws relax and drop to her sides.

"That...feels very nice, Sans," she murmured.

Sans rubbed his cheekbone gently against Toriel's back. "For hundreds of years you've been trying to be everyone's mom, Tori," he said. "Looking after all your children, your students, your people...even looking after me. But you don't need to be mom now. Not tonight."

"Is that what I do?" Toriel said, abashed. "It has been so long since I was anything else but a caretaker, forever laboring under a heavy weight of responsibility...but is that not why I was drawn to you? When you visited me, I could forget for a little while that I was trying to...well..."

"Trying to save the whole damn world all by yourself?" Sans offered, his voice soothing, his hands gentle as they petted Toriel's stomach. "You've saved it. For a while anyway. I think it'll survive you being irresponsible for a few hours. I'll take care of the kitchen mess in the morning."

Toriel exhaled a deep, relaxing sigh. "I suppose you are right, Sans. After all..." She turned herself around in the skeleton's embrace to face him, gazing down at Sans's glad countenance, leaning her long muzzle down to kiss the top of his head. "That is_why I am here, when all is said and done." She kissed Sans again, keeping her nose pressed gently to his skull as she purred her next words. "To give myself, at long last, permission to be..._irresponsible."

"Oh, jeez, Tori..." Sans blushed. "You're taking my suggestion and really running with it, heh. Guess I gotta ask then...uh...were you counting on--um, that is, what were your evening plans?"

"Plans?" Toriel raised her head, eyes staring blankly for a second, momentarily nonplussed. Then she laughed. "I confess that I had not been thinking that far ahead. I knew that I wanted to come her to help you, but also that I wanted...well..." She hugged her arms tightly around Sans's shoulders. "I knew that I wanted you. But I did not exactly plan on, ah...current developments."

Sans chuckled. "I guess I can say the same thing. But I gotta tell you, before you get too many hopes up...I, um..." He hid his bright blue face in the valley of Toriel's chest. "I, uh, ain't never been in this position before," he went on, his words muffled and scarcely audible. "Never, um, been with anyone. Like this."

"Oh!" said Toriel. "I am slightly surprised. You are so well liked that I had assumed that at some point you, ah, had perhaps attracted the attention of an admirer..."

Sans chuckled. "Heh, if I'd ever been the object of _that_sort of attention from anyone--well, anyone but you--I never knew about it."

"Did you never harbor a crush toward anyone?" Toriel asked, stroking her paws over the back of Sans's head.

"Other than you?" Sans looked up at Toriel, a warm light glowing in his eye-sockets. "Nah, never even occurred to me. Never thought of anyone I met that way, ever." His brow contracted and his manner grew hesitant. "Maybe it's always been in the back of my mind that...me and my brother, maybe we were meant to be alone."

"Nonsense." Toriel caressed Sans's forehead with her paw-pads. "In my years of darkness I once came to believe much the same, but I do not believe it any more. You however..." Her face grew sad. "You have a harder burden to live with, perhaps, than mine ever was. You have been robbed even of the memories of your parents."

"Well, yeah. And more. I must've been a little kid at some point, right? Not that I can remember. I don't remember Papyrus as a kid either. I know all this math and science stuff, but I don't recall any lessons. Hell, Tori, I can't even tell you for sure how many years I've been alive." Sans chuckled. "Jeez, you're probably like ten times as old as I am."

"Mmm," Toriel replied, gazing into Sans's eye-sockets as if she could see through them into his soul. "If so, there is an air of maturity about you that belies your tender years."

"Heh. Heh." Sans looked down, bashful. "You sure know how to make a guy feel special."

"You deserve it." Toriel gently took both of Sans's hands in her paws. "Now, Sans. To return to your earlier question. What I do with the rest of my evening, I leave entirely up to you. I do not wish to make you feel uncomfortable or exert any undue pressure on you. If you want me to leave, I will retrieve Frisk and leave here with a smile on my face and a light heart. I mean that. However..." She leaned down, bringing her long, wise face closer to Sans's, and once again Sans felt the change in atmosphere around Toriel, the subtle but irresistible musk pervading the air with the warmth from her body. "...if you should like me to stay longer, I would be...honored, Sans, to accept your invitation."

Sans tried to control his breathing. "What about Frisk? And Papyrus? I mean, uh, not sure you'd want them...er, what you're okay with them overhearing, I mean."

Toriel smiled thoughtfully. "I suspect that Frisk already has some idea of what might happen, and may in fact already be messaging all their friends about us." Her smile twitched into a lopsided grin. "They can be such an...interesting child. However, if you are feeling shy, I can entrust Frisk to Papyrus's care for a few hours and ask them to give us some privacy."

Sans felt a knot in his nonexistent bowels and he stared at his slippers. Some part of him, even now, was urging him to take the exit that Toriel was graciously leaving open for him. This is too much for you all at once, said this part. Say a polite goodbye, maybe a hug and a quick kiss, then go back to your room and _ relax. _There's always later, if "later" ever comes. But suddenly the thought of the evening hours stretching in front of him without Toriel there to fill them was too much to bear.

Sans met Toriel's gaze again. "Tori," he murmured, "Would you like to spend the rest of the evening with me?"

Toriel's eyes blazed with a sudden fire. "Sans," she said almost in a growl, "I accept your invitation." She dropped to one knee to bring her face level to Sans's, cradled his head in both her paws and brought her lips to his face. One lip pressed against his maxilla, her other lip against his mandible, and her tongue pushed out between them; he felt her tongue-tip brushing against his teeth, and a pleasant shiver passed through him. He parted his jaws a little and Toriel's tongue slipped inside. He shuddered again, his body vibrating with the power, such as he had never felt before, in the commingling of one monster's magical will with another's. Even in his most personal moments with his brother had Sans never been so aware of the proximity of another soul, luminous and vital, throbbing so close to his own--

Click!