Working in a tea shop was quiet most days. It was a bit like boiling water, Sans thought. Brewing slow, casually gaining heat as the long hours ticked by until, somewhere around noon, little pops of bubbling activity peppered the surface in a roll of requests and tiny paper bags. He liked it. Most of the time, anyway.
"I'm thinking of ordering a new peppermint blend for the holidays. What do you think, Sans?"
"mmhm..."
Some days, though, it left his noggin' with a little too much time to think.
"Of course, I could make my own blend too. Could call it a house specialty, maybe mix some cinnamon and candy cane flavoring—"
"mmhm..."
Which normally wasn't a problem (that was where a harmless on-the-clock-nap came in handy) but his boss had to go and make things difficult.
Well. His buddy, actually.
Well. If one wanted to get technical— he believed the Latin name for their exact relationship was "nutty buddies".
Sans had never been good at Latin.
Lorona (his boss, friend, nutty buddy) began to toy with her hair. It fell over her fingers in a slow series of laps, giving and falling around it the same way water from a babbling brook slipped over stones. And still remained perpetually styled in such a way that the well-formed wave which covered her left eye never budged. It hardly ever did. She was very particular when it came to that, Sans noticed; never really stopped being conscious of it. Almost never, at least.
"...Anyway. It was just a thought. I guess it would be a lot of trial and error, but people liked the blend I made last season, so."
"mmhmm..."
There was a sharp sort of huff followed by the soft padding of footsteps walking away. He shifted his gaze over to her and quietly noted the way her shoulders had stiffened, her fingers curling inward for a time before unfurling once more. Only when he realized that Lorona had stopped talking did it occur to Sans that the sound of her voice had been providing a sort of minor distraction for his sporadic glitching of overlapping thoughts.
She was good at that, as it turned out.
Distracting him.
"You could help clean up shop you know, bone bud." Lorona turned off the numerous little displays that lit different sections of specialized tea, giving each area its nightly round of dusting. "I don't pay you to sit around and look pretty."
"oh. then i quit."
She turned just slightly, a crystal container that had been lifted for cleaning paused in mid-grip. A single look at him, however, and her attention shifted away once more. Sans continued. "gonna have to point out though— the job description was very misleading."
His grin tilted as she whipped back around to bestow her ever infamous "listen here, you little shit" glare upon his humble form. He laughed. It came out in a low rumble that filled the gaps from a quiet street outside and, without moving from his position of a comfortable counter-lean, Sans tossed a wad of crumpled paper into the garbage bin behind him.
Lorona watched it skitter along the rim, tilting precariously for all of a half-second before landing among the plethora of other junk. She sighed and turned back to the shelving. "Seriously? I don't understand how you always figure out how to contribute in the least contributing way possible."
"well, to be fair, it's a natural talent. can't be taught."
"Oh, ok." Her one exposed eye gave an exaggerated roll. "Gods. You know what? It must be, now that I think about it. You do this all the time."
Sans quirked the edge of his bony brow, grin amused and collected as ever, and Lorona continued on. She rested against the wall until the color of her artificially pink hair popped against the neutral, toffee colored paint.
"Exhibit A; your tuxedo shirt. Like shit, where did you even find one of those?"
"heh." He reclined until his feet were propped comfortably on the shops counter, "well. only the best for my date."
It was Lorona's turn to laugh. If Sans was a rumble, hers was more like a bubble that drifted too far from a sink full of dishes; all lights and colors and, gone just quickly if it came across something sharp. "Oh, our blind date that ended after, what, 20 minutes?"
"mm. seems to me the deal was just to go. didn't have a time limit."
She laughed again.
"See? Bare minimum. You're like that with everything, bone-bud." There was a pause and, maybe it was a trick of the light, but Lorona's stare seemed considerate before she mentioned, in a way Sans assumed was meant to come off casual, "But, going to the movies was nice, I guess. Didn't really expect that. Or for you to be an actual nerd, I mean— a space documentary? Really?"
There was the thought of textbooks and lab coats and a brief theory on how Lorona would react in knowing that her "actual nerd" buddy had once been an "actual scientist", with an "actual degree", that was all more or less "actually meaningless" when all was done. It was too bad there were no time and space documentaries out when he'd needed them most. Maybe something like "Timelines and Voids and Unfucking Them Up: Narrated by A-Nerd-Who-Knows-What-The-Hell-They're-Doing". It would have gotten a "Snoozer" score on Mettatons Undernet blog, and that's how he would have known it was worth a shit.
"what can i say—"
All that aside, Sans wondered just how much of that documentary would he remember once things got re-booted. He'd enjoyed it, had learned some nifty things. Supposed it wasn't as though he could go on to really apply any of that knowledge, but still; it'd be a shame to pay for the same movie ticket twice.
"they're outta this world."
But he would, eventually— double dip his wallet for something useless, that is. It was hard to avoid when everything in life was, at its core, fundamentally useless. That was fine, though. Eventually, he'd forget. That was the nice thing about memories deteriorating like the rotting middle of logs long infested with vermin. Eventually, it just forgot what it was like to be whole, so the constant decay felt normal.
How nice.
He heard an all too familiar groan that caused his grin to inch up along the edges. Lorona massaged the inner corners of her temples, then flicked a used dusting towel over her shoulder.
"I was going to invite you to stay late, but if you're going to just toss your weak-ass puns at me all night..."
"weak-ass puns?"
"Weak. Ass. Puns."
She looked at him with a spark of energy in her eye that made Sans already widened grin slip into a curled smirk, and in that second, his thoughts abandoned dwelling on movies and timeline-consistencies. They turned instead to a New Years Eve over a year ago. To too many drinks, too little entertainment, and two stolen kisses— one sloppier than the other, if Lorona was to be believed.
Sans supposed it was another prime example of "bare minimum", and his thoughts dipped right back to their previous squabbling.
"well, if i'm goin', then, guess i should let y'know— i, uh, accidentally crushed some grapes in the back." He watched as Lorona tilted her head at him, brow furrowing before he continued. "oh, nah, don't worry, they're fine. they just let out a little wine."
That got a genuine laugh, followed by something along the lines of, "Well, damn it, I guess that one was a tiny bit decent."
"are we talkin' "mouse crumb" tiny or "ironically named pitbull" tiny?"
"We're talking "my patience with you if I don't get a drink soon" tiny."
"huh. well, guess i better go grab that wine, then."
Lorona's slanted grin suggested that he'd managed to stumble on a good idea, and so the hours between them grew larger while their respective bottles of alcohol dwindled smaller. They bantered. Laughed. All the usual things, but Sans found that even after reaching a warm, even buzz, his mess of imbricated thoughts still didn't get the hint to hush. They kept flickering to old times and lives that didn't matter, stealing glances to the date on his mental calendar, reminding him in hurried whispers, 'soon, soon, it's gotta happen soon. any day, now, pal, any day.'
The thoughts weren't entirely wrong, from a technical stand-point. The life he had now could potentially be wiped clean anywhere between days and years, forced to start over in familiar snowy town under a familiar barred mountain. It wouldn't be very accurate to say that Resets in themselves had become predictable, but like an island in the path of hurricanes, he knew it would reach him eventually.
That was the problem— he knew.
'soon, soon. it's gotta happen soon.'
He already knew that.
'any day, now, pal, any day.'
So there really wasn't any point in listening when his thoughts weren't telling him anything new.
Lorona laughed as she told a story of an old customer and leaned forward in her fit of snickering, a hand laying to rest on Sans knee. His eye lights glanced at it, how her tan skin popped against the white of his bone much in the same way her hair stood out against the shops' walls. For a brief moment, he was sidetracked. Then she moved, and just as quickly took the short-lived fragment of mental peace along with her.
"So, anyway, I told the guy we didn't have anything like that, and—"
'You always do the bare minimum', she had told him.
"—but—"
It wasn't actually true. Not completely.
"—and—"
Even if it had been, it would make sense; only doing the bare minimum.
"—the thing is, though—"
He was tired.
"—because—"
It wasn't like there was much point.
"—which was shitty, but—"
That was how life was.
"—and—"
Damn if he wasn't
"—sick of it."
Sans felt the recognizable sensation of being watched and realized that while his thoughts had been trailing, he had let his gaze wander away from Lorona. He caught her staring at him with a single narrowed eye, creasing between her brows and mouth set in a thin line. When it was confirmed that she, once again, had his attention, her body leaned forward towards him, elbows resting on the base of her knee. White eye lights watched as a section of pink hair fell over Lorona's shoulder, her head cocking to the side as the line of her lips let out a quiet breath.
"Ok Sans, is something up? Like are you ok?"
"mm?" His grin settled into familiar corners. "oh. guess i got a lil' distracted, m'bad."
"Yeah, I've noticed," Lorona mumbled, a brief flicker of displeasure showing in a frown before she shrugged, "You don't have to stay if you'd rather go home, you know. It's cool. I'm not gonna be all offended or whatever if you don't want to do anything tonight."
In truth, he considered the offer. Then Lorona shifted in her seat, and Sans found his eye lights inevitably drawn to the motion. The comforting haze of a much more pleasant distraction began to pull at his puppetry of mental strings. They twisted around images of bare stomachs soft to the touch, bare backs that arched in a slow building curve, bare breasts that pushed and gave beneath his grip.
Always the bare minimum.
Sans tilted the remaining bits of liquid and melted ice in his drink until it clinked against the sides. He finished it off, set the glass down with a soft thud, and snapped his stare back up towards Lorona.
"nah." He pushed the low table between them aside with what was, at best, an apathetic level of effort, "think i'll stay. com're."
Lorona's grimace turned to an open expression, lips parting briefly as if to say something. Whatever retort she had apparently died on the curl of her tongue, and a flicker of amusement sparked along the rise of Sans brow. His fingers gestured a half-hearted curl.
"come on."
"What do you mean?"
"whaddya think i mean?"
His words dipped into a low tone with entertained edges, resulting in something between a laugh and a breath escaping from Lorona's chest. She smiled at him, a tilt still pulling at the corners of her eyes. "I don't think you've ever started us out before, bone bud."
"hm. that's a real fun fact, lorona."
The moment paused under the weight of names rarely used and the quiet expectation of Sans stare. An out-dated clock ticked nearby as jokes waited to fill up the room as they had done so many times before, behind their closed doors of hushed tones and loud laughter. None came. There was only the faint glow of eye lights that had, perhaps, lost a bit of their shine since the start of the night, but if Lorona noticed, she made no mention of it.
She met his gaze with a level of intelligence he usually appreciated about her (even if he'd never told her in those precise words). The bullshit meter on her particular radar always had seemed fairly well tuned to him; possibly why she didn't typically have qualms about calling him out. It was a nice change. The sort he could always see coming in the slight glint of her eye.
For now, however, Sans wanted it to glaze over. Wanted it half-lidded and empty, devoid of wit and thoughts and questions. Until his world turned black. Until existence was reduced to sensations and sounds that would drown out the white noise that lingered behind him and allow the whispers in his skull to kindly choke.
He couldn't say if Lorona somehow understood this or not. It could have just as easily been curiosity which drove her to rise from her chair with a trivial tilt of the head, carefully maintaining their eye contact before settled herself between the open width of his knees. Her advantage of height towered over him, but when he wrapped lazy fingers around her wrist, it doesn't take much work to bring her to his level.
In fact, he thought, it was very, very easy.
As clothes slipped from Lorona's body bit by bit, piling in a tiny heap along the floor, it seemed to Sans that it was about time something was a bit fucking easy in life. He stretched onto the sofa and rested his skull against its armrest. There were a few selfish hours owed to him, at least. A mandatory break from pretending that consequences still existed in a world that couldn't even manage the concept of permanence.
It was hardly any of Lorona's doing, and he did know that; but if she was willing to let Sans shove everything he didn't want down her throat until her quips gagged on blocked airways, he saw no reason not to take the offer.
Her hand had slipped under the elastic band of his shorts, but for the moment he wasn't particularly interested in being jerked off. Instead, he sank further into the plush cushions of Lorona's couch while he yanked up, pushing her body with the same amount of enthusiasm he'd shown the table. Once he got her headed in the right direction, she seemed to get the gist of his idea and propped herself up on his face until all he had to do was open his mouth a bit to take her in. His tongue slipped behind warm folds of skin until it pressed against a little fleshy nub. Almost like a button, there was faint exhale above him, and he felt the tiny tug of a smile.
There was something relaxing about leaning back and dragging his tongue across Lorona's pink stretch of skin. He curled it in lazy strokes until her area grew slick with remnants of saliva and sex, uneven breaths filling an otherwise quiet room. It was typically around Lorona's first impatient bout of bucking that Sans would notice the scent of heat mixed with salt, but he found himself paying less attention than usual when the little motions began. His hands reached up and applied firm compression to the bony outline of her hips, forcing them still as he slowed every movement to a crawl.
"Sans—"
The sound of his name was caught somewhere between a huff and a groan. He pressed his fingers against Lorona's skin just a tad deeper, until the initial layers of fat and muscle began to encircle each indentation.
"Sans, come on, stop— fucking teasing, jus—"
"s'red, right?"
"What?"
A sudden hiss disrupted Lorona's steady streaming of breaths. Sans felt his thumb slip from the crescent edge of Lorona's hip and jut up against bone, a small pool of heat gathering as he forced her skin to stretch and thin beneath his pressure. He dug them deeper to see how far it could go, resulting in another disjointed gasp as Lorona stopped her bucking.
"your lil' word," He mumbled between strokes of his tongue that had grown so passive it was almost as though it had lost interest, "red's the biggie, yeah?"
"Uh—" Lorona's voice hitched in hesitation, but a long, hard drag against her clit seemed to be enough to stir her thoughts back into action. "Yeah. Yeah, it's, um— like the stop lights. Think stop lights."
"ok."
There was a certain combination, Sans found, that came in handy when they were involved in this specific type of foreplay. He liked to use it when his mouth started getting tired as a way to speed up the process (so to speak).
Currently, that wasn't the case. Regardless though, he released the vice grip on Lorona's hips to begin sliding a finger across the tiny swell of nerves inside her, muscles clasping around his intrusion with every calculated curl. His tongue kept to the same drolling pace that had been aggravating her moments before, yet somehow seemed less bothersome now that he's picked up momentum in another area instead. The contradictory of fast and slow teamed together to turn soft pink nerves into a heated cherry red that slid against every press.
It would have been nice to say that the effort was entirely for Lorona's benefit. Untrue, no doubt, but still; nice. She began dripping moans and slurred variations of his name, which was always an enjoyable sound, but Sans still stopped at the familiar cue of tensed nerves that arched against his touch. Her hips moved in a silent urge to continue. He ignored them
Couldn't have her cumin' just yet, after all.
"Fuck—" Lorona seethed between clenched teeth, her fingers tightening around their settled spot on the sofa as her tone pitched into something of a whine, "Sans, I was getting so close, Gods, please. Please, come on, just let me cum."
"that ain't what i wanna hear this time."
"What do you want to hear then, I—" Whatever barter she'd been prepared make was interrupted by a forceful push against her waist. Bony hands grabbed what they could and Sans continued to push and pull until he'd managed to switch their positions, grinding Lorona's cheek the outline of springs within her couch.
In some ways, it was like setting up a little toy doll.
Shoving out of his shorts was easy. Cramming a portion of himself into Lorona, saturated and stimulated to the point of eagerness from moments before, was easy. And pulling her arm across her back until it grew taunt under his pull, until she gave a muffled yelp into the fabric that smashed against her face, was all just so damn easy.
He tightened his pull with every thrust, pushing the limit of skin and muscle by fractions at a time. The little back break room filled with pops that littered each stretching crack and mixed with Lorona's high-pitched moans. They broke off in ragged parts, only to start again with sharp gasps and unstable cries. It was difficult to differentiate the sounds between pleasure and pain, and Sans suspected that for the time being, the sensations were intertwined in much the same way he had become with Lorona. He grunted as her body clenched around him, buried his skull into a nook of her shoulder, watched as droplets of sweat began to form along the curve of her back and slide over little hills of muscle and protruding bone.
And there were reasons, he knew, of why he enjoyed the way she screamed when he took a mouthful of her flesh into his mouth and allowed it grind between his teeth. There were reasons he angled himself in a way he remembered she always liked before thrusting inside of her, simultaneously snapping at the hold on her arm. There were reasons he thought of the low, hushed way she laughed out at bars but would let her voice run itself raw when it was just the two of them.
"Sa—"
There were reasons.
"Yel—"
He just didn't care what they happened to be. For the moment, anyway.
"Yellow."
Sans released Lorona's arm, and let her skin graze past his teeth as it fell in slow drags. He peppered little presses of his closed mouth along the white and reddish notches left behind, earning something of a pleased hum from the back of Lorona's throat. The momentum of their hips was the only consistent as he slid out just enough to expose his tip to a brief flash of cold air before burying back into a possessive, wet warmth.
"too much?" He mumbled between a comparatively gentle nibble of skin bunched between Lorona's shoulder blades. Her leg twitched slightly as she let out a long gust of air.
"Just, my arm," The words tumbled out along another breath as she rolled her hips up towards him, "Felt like— unh— like you were gonna pull it out."
"maybe i was."
Lorona's skin filled his mouth again with hints of salt and somewhat reminiscent of peppermint tea. She groaned under the scrape of his teeth, her back arching as though to press itself closer.
"betcha you woulda let me, too." Sans low, even tone settled into rust, slowing along a particular thrust as he shifted to shove himself deeper. Chipped flakes corroded from each word that rolled across Lorona's skin, and he listened to every little shift in her breath. "make y'cum hard enough, and you'll let me do just 'bout fuckin' anything, huh?"
There was another twitch of her leg. It shifted, pulling up only to span out again. When she spoke, it stretched in much the same way her body stretched to accommodate Sans, as though welcoming him back. "That's— debatable."
"is it?"
Sans pulling and tugging of that occurred this time was, by contrast, gentle in every sense of the word. He adjusted Lorona's back into comfortable cushions, spreading her soft, tans legs with bony, white hands until they eased open. Light touches stroked against smooth, soaked flesh, and idly noted the amount of heat that warmed him with every pass.
"known you a while now," Sans said in a familiar, casual way that almost hid the gravel from his voice, "been fuckin' you for a while now. s'easy, gettin' ya to whore it up. y'like it."
The tip of a finger dipped past swollen folds, just enough to drag to a wet trail back to the surface.
"an' y'like when i point it out, for some reason. really gets your gears goin'. hell, i ain't even plowin' ya right now and you're still on edge."
Strokes lifted until they feathered.
"probably could finish y'up just like this."
And he waited.
"barely even touchin'."
And he watched.
"s'lil' pathetic, don't ya think?"
The pattern of Lorona's breath became unsteady, but her eyes still met his with more awareness than he cared to see.
"cummin' just by listenin' to me ramble on?"
Sans dropped near Lorona's ear, his tone sinking into a low, guttural hush that she once swore only lived at the bottom of his rib-cage. "but y'would. an' i could tell you anything. i could be chokin' you right now, turnin' ya blue, an' say, "you're barely worth the load m'gonna dump in ya", and you'd just nod an' take me deeper. heh. an' that's the only time you let me get ya, huh 'rona?"
A pause in the motion of his hand, and there it was.
"when i got some hole o'yours stuffed an' your lil' cunt screamin' to get a break, a lil' relief. i getcha."
There was the glazed stare, half-lidded and empty.
"nice to get out of reality, now and then."
Devoid of wit and thoughts and questions.
"so, y'see, it ain't a really a debate."
Sans wrapped a free hand around Lorona's wrist, let his fingers press against her gently, thumb moving in idle circles along the bump of her bone.
"if i wanted to rip your arm out this fucking second, i could do it and have you thank me in the same breath— so long as i let you cum."
One circle. Two.
"well?"
Three circles. Four.
"we got a deal, lorona?"
Five circles.
"—Yeah."
Sans pulled with every scrap of frustration that had festered inside his marrow and in the same breath, plunged himself inside Lorona until the mental fabrication of his world was composed of only an indiscernible black and the stretched, silent motion of her scream.
He kept his end of the bargain, but did not, despite his words, rip Lorona's arm from her socket. Though there was a slightly concerning, resounding pop that caused him stumble out between strangled huffs of air against her neck, "—green?"
"Yes!" Lorona had ensnared her legs around him but kept her arm noticeably still as it rested on the side, "— Fucking — green— don't you— don't you dare st— Sans! Shit, Sans!"
Her voice slipped from a commanding groan to a whine-hitched beg that nearly drowned in Sans cotton shirt. It dawned on him, in a disassociative kind of way, that their hips had never had to work so hard before to keep pace. There was the sensation of Lorona's hand along the backside of his skull, gripping him, pulling him closer as though the sound of his grunts weren't easy enough to hear of their own.
He remembered breathing her name as she clutched and surged around him for the second time. Remembered how at some point their skulls had shifted until their foreheads crammed against one another, how his world dipped back into black as everything he had emptied into her, and the white static behind him stayed quiet.
And he could have sworn he remembered hearing her whisper through soft, tender sort of smile, "There's my bone bud."
What that meant, or if it had even said at all, Sans wasn't sure. He fell asleep in the crook of her shoulder without knowing the answer and forgot it just as easily.
She was still lying beneath him when he woke up some odd moments later, fingers trailing up and down the clothed outline of his spine. Sans took a deep, even breath. Wallowed in the sensation for a few conscious moments. Then he shifted, causing the rhythmic fingers to still, and propped himself up enough to some standard surveying. Multiple finger-sized bruises had already begun to deepen the color of Lorona's hips, and her arm hadn't moved from its resting position, though it's connecting shoulder looked a good deal larger than it had before.
"It'll be fine," Lorona said, causing Sans to trail his eye lights back up to her. "no worries. You fell asleep again, by the way."
"yeah. that sorta cums with the package, heh heh."
"I take it all back. I'm in horrible, agonizing pain and I'm suing you for everything you've got."
"jokes on you," Sans grinned through his grunt as he forced tired, old bones to stand, "i don't got squat. y'can have m'bills, though, if you're hankerin' for somethin'."
A groan that dragged out slightly different than the ones from before heaved past Lorona's lips, her head tilted back as much as the sofa's armrest would allow. "Argh, of course. When am I gonna find a nice Sugar Daddy, or at least someone who isn't strapped for cash all the time?"
"beats me. probably not anytime soon, but eh, what do i know."
Sans bony hand reached out and without sparing it half a glanced, Lorona gripped it, using the support to pull herself from the sofa's tempting allure. For all of her insistence that she was fine, the two of them still ended up in her upstairs bathroom, sharing a tub of hot water that was by no means luxurious but got the job done. A skeletal bathing partner wasn't the most comfortable option, but admittedly, bony hands could whip up one hell of a massage when they wanted to.
"stop squirmin'."
"Well! It hurts!"
An amused huff sounded from behind Sans grin, "though y'said it was fine."
"That was before you started messing with it. I'm going back to suing you, bone bud."
"still not gonna get nothin', fry friend." Calm, shining eye lights skittered between one shoulder to the next, pausing his routine motions along her back. "seems like somethin' got dislocated in that arm. it ain't lookin' pretty."
"Oh, Gods. Probably best we fix it, then."
"mm. count of three?"
"Sure. One, two— you fucking bitch, holy shit!"
"fixed it."
"We said three! Three!"
"yup. an' it's now over." Sans put the flat of his palm back to work rubbing slow, broad circles into an expanse of muscles. "maybe put some ice on it or somethin', i'unno. humans use ice to cure a lot of stuff, right?"
"I hate you." Lorona, in her hate, leaned back further into Sans touch. "You're demoted another friendship-level."
"huh. thought that couldn't happen after reachin' level four. weird."
"You're at two now."
"double-demotion; harsh."
"I'd take you down to level one if your massages weren't so damn nice."
"ah, well, always good to have an ace up the ol' sleeve. that's the sayin', anyhow."
Lorona didn't say anything say to that, and their space was filled with the soft movement of water and occasional trickle whenever Sans would pour a handful over her shoulder. Eventually, the swelling began to go down. The tension in Lorona's back relaxed, and her breathing would have fooled a less experienced napper into believing she had dozed off. Her bath water shifted from hot to luke-warm by the time Lorona sighed and leaned into the hard row of ribs behind her.
"You know what," She said, her eye closed and hair pushed back just enough to see half of an old, scarred line along her right socket, "I think your kissing's starting to improve."
The movement of hands against her back paused. Something tugged at the edge of Sans memory, a brief moment, a recent moment. Lorona opened her eye to at up look at him, and he saw a soft, tender sort of smile.
"Just kidding, bone bud."
Sans slipped his arms around her waist, tucked his chin into the soft cradle of Lorona's shoulder, and yanked them both under water until the room was filled with a mixture shrieking and laughter.
