'Til When Will We Part? (Reaper!Sans X Geno!Sans)

TW3P Part 15

"You ready, Geno?" 

They stood outside, in front of their newly built house, the mortal fiddling nervously with his scarf and Reaper holding out his elbow. Geno nodded and linked arms with the skelegod, excitement swirling in his nonexistent stomach. Merely one shortcut later, he felt his slippers connect with soft dead leaves. He held an arm over his head so his sleeve could block the bright orange afternoon light and squinted at the trees around them. 

Geno released Reaper's arm and turned in a quick circle, seeing nothing but peaceful forest on all sides. The leaves were bright colors, unlike the deep green tree needles in Snowdin, and the air held a much gentler nip to it.

As his eyes adjusted to the light, Geno turned his head up and saw the bright blue expanse of sky. He... couldn't tell how high it really was by looking, but he knew in his head that it stretched on forever.

"You haven't seen seasons before, right?" Geno asked, breaking his reverie. "Right now, it's autum. In a few months, it will be winter; the leaves will fall off the trees and it will start to snow. After that is spring, where the snow melts and the plants start to grow again; followed by summer, where everything is hot and green and alive. There aren't four seasons like this everywhere in the world, but there are in this region."

"Yeah," Geno said dumbly, "I've heard of that." He stooped down and picked up a browning leaf by the stem, turning it around to examine it's fan-like structure. Reaper smiled at the sight.

"There's a hill over this way. The thing I wanted to show you is on the other side."

Geno looked at the hand Reaper offered and smiled, dropping the leaf to take it as he was guided between the trees. The ground started to slope up slightly, but not by much. However, there was a large drop off on the other side of the hill, where the forest gave way to a field of green grass. At the bottom, many white chairs and a podium were set up, as well as several tables off to the side. Every single seat was occupied by a human, and there were three more standing up on the podium.

"We can't get too close, since we don't want you to be spotted, but you can see enough from here, right?"

"Yeah, I can see them," Geno answered unsurely. "What are they doing? Why did you want to show me this?"

Reaper examined his face for a moment and then laughed out loud. "Heh, I guess it's not a tradition in your underground." He grinned and looked back down at the scene. "That's a wedding; a mortal tradition. It's an attempt to mimic the soulbonding gods here sometimes do. Did the monsters in your world have that concept?"

Geno flushed red and hid behind his scarf. "Yeah, I've heard of soulbonding: two monsters connecting their souls so they can be together forever. I've heard of human marriage before, which is supposed to be similar, but it doesn't involve the soul, so it's less binding."

"So you do know. The ceremony is called a wedding, but it leads to the same marriage you've probably heard about." Reaper pointed down to explain the scene, "The people seated are the friends and family there to watch. The man behind the podium is a priest who leads the ceremony and asks the gods to bless the new couple. The two in front of the podium are the ones getting married." The death god leaned back in the grass and propped himself up with his hands. "At the end of the ceremony, they'll make promises to each other: to stay together when things are good and when they're bad; to love each other in sickness and in health; and "'til death do they part". Then they'll exchange rings with each other, kiss, and everyone will start to eat and dance and all that. The guests should have all brought gifts to help the new couple start their life together."

Geno stared at Reaper's unreadable face and then back down at the wedding scene. He watched the couple exchange their rings and kiss, watched everybody in the audience applaud. The humans started to party and have a good time, and Geno decided to just get right to the point.

"So why did you want to show me this, Reaper?"

The god's smile tightened fractionally at the edges, and he shrugged. "I wanted to know what you thought about it, I guess."

Geno sighed, knowing he was deflecting. Honestly, he thought it was amazing that an alternate version of himself could be as open as Reaper usually was with him. "It was nice, I guess? It takes a whole lot longer than just soulbonding, but at least they're having fun with it. All the fancy speeches and standing around kind of seem like a hassle, but they look happy."

Reaper watched him and then turned his head away. "S'not what I meant," he murmured.

Geno looked hard at his lover while he kept avoiding his gaze. Finally, Geno's eyesockets went wide, "Is this a proposal?"

"W-Well," Reaper flinched and rubbed the back of his hood, "Not really a "proposal," per say. More like a, uh, a declaration of intent." He laughed tensely. "Honestly, when I brought you here, I thought you would be familiar with marriage, being a mortal and all. Didn't expect you guys to soulbond."

"Why?"

"Well," Reaper shrugged, "I dunno. Maybe it's because I grew up here, but the idea of creatures that can die binding themselves to each other "forever" is, heh, it's strange."

"So monsters here really don't die? Ever?"

"The "monsters" here are gods. Under normal circumstances, they're eternal." He grinned darkly, "Unless I say otherwise."

"That's probably why the other gods avoid you, you know?"

Reaper glanced at Geno and flopped onto his back, folding his arms behind his skull. "I know. It's not like I would actually try to kill any of them. Not without a very good reason."

There was a stretch of awkward silence, and Reaper fidgeted, sitting up, "Maybe we should just go back."

"No!" Geno cut in almost immediately. "I mean... can we at least stay until it gets dark?"

Reaper searched his expression for something, apparently didn't find it, and shrugged, laying back down, "Yeah, sure, if you like seeing them dance that much."

Geno smiled and didn't say anything. He looked out onto the valley, but he wasn't watching the humans. He was watching the sunset, and as soon as it went down, he turned his head up to watch the stars flicker into being.

The mortal gave a contented sigh and lay next to Reaper, the edges of his eyelight becoming fuzzy.

"The stars are beautiful," he said softly.

Reaper glanced at him and looked up, his grin tightening slightly in a wince, but he suppressed it. "The gods were born from stars," he said quietly. "The brightest stars made the strongest gods, like Asgore and Undyne."

Geno blinked in surprise and turned his head. "Is that really true? They didn't do that in my world... at least I don't think they did."

"It's true," Reaper smiled lazily.

They watched the sky in amiable silence for another stretch.

"So," Geno started tenderly, "which one is yours? Can you show me?"

Reaper's eyelights vanished from his sockets. "Papyrus and I don't have stars of our own. Like I've said before, we're creatures of darkness. I guess... we were born from the space between stars." He sighed and his eyelights returned, if dimmer than before. "Some of the other gods have always looked down on us because of that."

Geno carefully laced his fingers with Reaper's. He watched as Reaper's smile loosened and became more relaxed, sighing through his nasal hole. "Let me look at them for a few more minutes. Then we can go home."

"... Okay."