ShelterTale

ShelterTale Part 15

-Le Magnificent Time Skip of a few days-

"tori, you and asgore are having a kid?" Sans managed not to spill any of his coffee upon hearing the good news. It was good Papyrus didn't drink the stuff, or he would have spit it right in the goat couple's faces.

"Yes, we've thought about it long and hard, and having Chara in our house has made us want a child of our own. Seeing the two grow up and play together would make us so happy."

"That and we figured it was about time," the royal guard captain smiled and said brightly.

"THIS IS THE BEST NEWS I HAVE HEARD ALL DAY!" Papyrus shouted at a skull-splitting volume. Everybody winced and Sans gave him a soft pat on the arm.

"inside voice, papy."

"SORRY! I AM JUST SO EXCITED! I AM VERY BUSY WITH MY GUARD DUTY, BUT I WILL MAKE SURE TO COME OVER TO PLAY WITH THEM EVERY DAY!"

Sans smiled and nodded, "i'm really happy for you two. can't wait to meet the kid."

"Oh, Sans," Toriel chuckled. "What about either of you? You're not children anymore. Should I expect to get out my babybones checkup equipment anytime soon?"

Sans actually did spit out his coffee then. He started coughing and tried to brush off his purple jacket in a hurry.

"BROTHER! ARE YOU ALRIGHT? WAS IT TOO HOT?"

Asgore gave the first prince a sympathetic look while his wife had a good laugh. "Oh my, is that a yes?"

"sorry, tori," Sans chuckled bashfully, "but, uh, no. honestly, you're asking way too soon. dad was nearly three-hundred when he had me. pap doesn't even know what this stuff means yet."

Toriel chuckled, reminding herself that she and Asgore were almost a hundred fifty years old. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to rush you. You feel free to find love in your own time. Both of you."

***

-Le one day timeskip-

"So I hear you had an interesting run-in with Toriel and Asgore yesterday," Gaster said, passing a test tube over to his eldest son.

"sure did," Sans replied, taking the sample without looking away from the data on his screen. "those two are finally having a kid together. pretty wild, right?"

"Not really, goats are frequently domesticated animals," the king joked smoothly. Sans's shoulders shook up and down as he laughed, and his father smiled. "But, actually, what I meant was that she brought up your romantic future, did she not?"

Sans frowned with his eyes, since his smile was rather fixed, and slowly turned to look at the king. "why?" he simply said.

"I hear you spat out your drink. It's rare for you to get flustered, so I got curious. What do you honestly think about making me some grandchildren?"

Sans looked away and told the computer to scan the new test tube he inserted, answering flatly, "i'll tell you the same thing i told her: too soon. you were five times my age when you had me, so why should i rush? we're safe in the underground, and it's not like i have any reason to hurry."

"Which is a totally reasonable response," Gaster nodded. "But I can't help but feel that you aren't telling me everything. I mean, I could be wrong, but," Gaster winked, "I never am."

Sans put both hands on the lab table and sighed, turning around to face Gaster again. "dad... i've already accepted that i'll be king after you, but can we please leave the succession to pap and his kids? i... i don't want to have any children."

The king raised his bony brow. "I... Hmm..." he had seen through Sans's lie, and Sans knew it. Gaster knew that he knew it, so he was merciful and played along. "I suppose there's no real problem with that."

Sans sighed, but there wasn't as much relief in it as Gaster thought there could have been. "thanks, dad."

***

-Le timeskip. Now it is nighttime-

Sans hid himself in his lab. Nobody else was around, the lights were off, and it was the dead of night. The sole light shining in the room came from his computer screen. Sans stared intently at what was written there and clutched his chest, his plain white shirt bunching up in his fist. His breathing was uneven, he was sweating through his skull, and his soul and left eye were starting to pulse with an intense blue glow.

ugh. dumping the duty of leaving a royal heir on papyrus, i'm terrible, Sans dragged a hand down his face and groaned. His browser window was split down the middle. On the left were sinful images of human women, and on the right were anatomical studies on them. What did they look like? How did their bodies work? What made them feel good? How did they conceive children?

Many hours of utterly wasted research, basically.

There would never be any living humans in the underground, and Sans wasn't stupid enough to go to the surface. He despised humanity along with the rest of monster kind; humans were cruel savages who didn't deserve to stand on even ground with noble monsters!

But why?! Why did he find them so—!

Sans felt his soul throbbing and hated himself. What was he expecting, anyway? Humans and monsters couldn't have children together. He didn't have any of the necessary parts to even lie together the way a human would want to. Not to mention, skeletons were near the top of the list for monsters humans found unpleasant; they reminded them of death and mortality, basically the last things a human wanted to be thinking about when they were looking to have a good time.

He didn't have a chance in the world, and he had nothing to gain from even a hypothetical relationship.

why couldn't i just be attracted to a nice skeleton lady? or a goat, or a spider, or any other kind of monster!

Sans sighed and forced himself to stand up from his desk, strolling over to his work bench. He took up a screw driver and tightened some screws on an odd machine. The shell was done so he plugged some cables from his computer into it and quickly typed up some code. Three hours later, the machine was up and running, hovering in the air, and a few more empty coffee cups were littering his desk.

Sans pressed a button on a small controller and blue magic built up around the machine. In a moment, it teleported to the surface. Sans checked his computer and watched the live video feed. He couldn't resist knowing what was going on up there these days. He knew it was stupid to indulge this part of him, but he really couldn't resist.